– Transcript 147
R: Good afternoon. (Good afternoon Robert.)
Glen (SG): Robert there is a white Plymouth duster out there with not the engine but something kind of motor running I don’t know if it’s alright or not? Anyone have a white Plymouth duster by Henry’s entrance?
SD: Ah I do but it just runs for a while and has a fan which blows the engine.
(Robert continues) It’s good to see you again. To be with you. How bad do you really want to awaken and become free?
I tell you that as long as you celebrate holidays, as long as you get involved in Maya in any way or form this is what keeps you back. As long as you are superstitious, as long as you believe something can hurt you, there is a power outside of yourself, that there is something wrong in this world or there is something right in this world and you get totally involved in it, this is what holds you back.
Now there is nothing wrong with celebrations. I’m all for them. But do not take them seriously. Do not get so involved that you believe the superstitions of the celebration.
That you get so involved that you have to do certain things or you will be punished by some God up in the sky. You’ve got to become loose and free of all these superstitions of person, place and thing and be your Self. We all want to become free, liberated so-to-speak.
Free from what? We think we’re attached to something. We believe something has a hold on us. We have fears. We have wants and desires, needs. These are the things that hold you back.
Think about your own life. What is it that is holding you back personally from liberation? Of course you’re already liberated you know that. But if you knew that you wouldn’t be here. You believe that you’re still human going through experiences, having friends and enemies, having good things and bad things in your life.
In other words you believe in powers outside of yourself. You still believe that the world can do something to you if you’re not careful. To hurt you. You still believe that there is a disease out there that you can catch. You still believe that there is a person with more power than you who can do something to you. This is all false and foolish. You are the only power. There is no power apart from you. It is your mind that plays these tricks on you. It is your mind that makes you believe that this is like this and that is like that.
And you have to fix things and rectify things and straighten things out.What is this mind? Where did it come from? Who gave it birth? To whom does it belong?
We all should know by now that the mind is just a bundle of thoughts. That is all the mind is. A bundle of thoughts. It is not a separate entity. The mind is Maya, the world, the universe and your perceptions of it. It’s what causes things to happen to you in your life, good or bad. But when you start to see and feel that mind does not exist then how can you be hurt. How can things bother you or annoy you? For it is only the mind that becomes annoyed. It doesn’t really become annoyed. It has these perceptions from karma. If you didn’t know about something it could never hurt you. The samskaras that are with you, these attitudes, you have known sometime before or you wouldn’t be able to feel them or have them. You have to let go. You have to let go of everything.
Remember that this doesn’t mean that you will do absolutely nothing. The paradox is: you will be doing something but you will be doing nothing. There is no one who does a thing. Yet you appear to be doing things but nobody is home.
As you begin to empty yourself of all thoughts, emotions, preconceived ideas by observing them, looking them straight in the face seeing their non-validity involved, the mind begins to weaken. The mind begins to lose it’s so-called power and pretty soon there is no mind to deal with at all. When there is no mind at that time you are free. So it is only the mind that holds you back. Your belief system. This is what you have to work with everyday. You have to first realize that it’s your belief system, your mind that causes the conflicts, the problems, the beliefs. Then you begin to look at your mind for what it really is. Examine it thoroughly. Realizing it’s a nonentity. It was never born, it never came from any place, never existed.
If your mind never existed then who are you? If there is no mind there is no body.
If there is no body there are no others. If there are no others, there is no world, there is no universe. There is only that which always was. That which always was is nothing. No thing. No thing that this world consists of. All things are an emanation of the mind. Everything. Therefore if the mind goes there is no one to think. There is no one to feel the pressure of this world or this universe as being real. This is the reason in all the high teachings of this world we are told to eliminate the mind. Think of all the thoughts that came to you just today since you woke up, got out of bed. The different thoughts, feelings, emotions, that came to you and you accepted these things. You felt these things as if they were real.
Many of you here are doing very well, annihilating the mind, seeing the only reality the Self, as no thing. Yet some of you are still caught up in this world of Maya, of illusion, and it hurts. When you dream. You may dream you got killed or wounded or put in prison for the rest of your life. It hurts. Yet when you awaken these things never existed.
This life is like that. You appear to be going through experiences. Good experiences, bad experiences, all kind of experiences, yet you take it seriously. Forgetting it’s just a dream. As you take it seriously it expands in your life. And your whole life evolves around the thing that you fear, the thing that you love. The things that appear real in this
world. Then when the changes come you become upset. For you want to hold on to the good things of this world. And get rid of the bad things. Yet what you really want to do is awaken completely. Forgetting about good things and bad things. You cannot afford to hold on to anything. If you want to be free.
You must ask yourself this question, “Do I really want to be free? If I do why am I doing these other things? Why do I believe in this and believe in that? Why is this so important to me? Why is that so important to me?” Remember mentally as long as something is important to you it becomes part of your experience and pulls you further into Maya, into illusion. Only you can make yourself free. Simply by letting go. Letting go of everything mentally. Remember I’m not saying you have to leave your family or leave your job or leave your house or leave anything. I am saying that you mentally have to become dis-attached to these things.
You may say, “How can I love my family if I become dis-attached?” What becomes dis-attached is your ego, the mind. When the ego and mind become weaker, love becomes stronger. Therefore you can love your enemies. Love everything in this world, in this universe and yet not be attached to anything. This love comes by itself. You do not have to develop it. It only comes when you let go of the other. As you let go of everything else.
Things like love, bliss, joy, peace come by themselves. You have to become totally honest with yourself.
You cannot have a secret life and on top of this want freedom and liberation. There are no secrets in the Self. It’s an open book. As long as you’re leading two lives then this teaching becomes entertainment for you. You come here when there is nothing to do, when you’re not doing anything important.
As an example: Most people here today — not everyone but most people — do not have a family life. You’re either single or you do not live with family. So you come here because you have nothing to do on the holiday. But if you met someone, let’s say you fall in love with or your family invited you to dinner from far away some place — your parents, your children — would you really be here today? This is something to think about. If things were going your way, so-to-speak, the way you want them to be, would you be here today? There are very few people who can say yes to this. This is what I’m referring to when I say, “Most of us have a secret life,” or we have two lives.
One life says, “I want to become enlightened. I want to become free. I want to become evolved. I want to be self realized.” But the other life does everything that is against the principle of self-realization. You become totally involved in Maya and you think you’re having fun. When the so-called fun wears down, wears out you have to have more fun and you’re always looking to have fun. And whatever else you may do when you’re by yourself. Be honest with yourself. See what you’re really all about.
Let me make this perfectly clear. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying yourself. Experiencing the good things of this world so-to-speak. There is nothing wrong with this at all.The problem arises when you believe these things are real. When you take these things seriously. And you believe this is what brings me happiness. To go to dinner. To go to a movie. To go to a play. To go to an opera. To have friends over for dinner. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this until you believe it brings you happiness. As you know by now the truth is that nothing in this world can bring you happiness. Happiness is within your Self. You are happiness.
What you’re really doing is allowing the mind to rest in the heart. When the mind is satisfied that you have something that you love in your life, the mind rests in the heart.
When the mind rests in the heart, happiness ensues all by itself. For happiness is the very nature of yourself. Whenever the mind goes out searching for something to make them happy, make you happy then you are not happy until you accomplish whatever you want to do. Once you’re accomplishing it, once it’s done the mind rests in the heart and you have happiness.
All the time you believe that it is the thing outside of you that brings you the happiness. It’s the object that has brought you great happiness. The object has absolutely nothing to do with it. It is when you are satisfied that the mind rests in the heart and you become happy. So we learn to make the mind rest in the heart all of the time and we will always be happy. We can be happy under all circumstances. It makes no difference if we’re in prison or if we’re in a concentration camp. If we’re in hell. As long as you do not allow the mind to come out of your heart you have to be happy.
It is like the person who sits in the hot sun and burns then goes under a shade tree and feels comfortable. As soon as the person is comfortable he goes back into the sun again and again the sun burns him. So he runs back under the shade tree. Only a fool would keep running back into the sun then go back under the shade tree. But that is exactly what we do. We go out searching for things to make us happy. And then when the things wear off we become miserable. Whereas we can sit by ourselves and have tremendous peace and happiness. We can go to a movie, we can go anywhere we want and the happiness never changes. The happiness is your Self. You are that.
You have to always be aware of this. You have to realize that I don’t have to run here or run there or go here or go there. If I’m going here or going there it’s because I want to but it has absolutely nothing to do with my happiness. It will not make me a better person if I go anywhere or do anything else. All the knowledge that you need is within yourself. All the peace that you need is within yourself. All the joy that you need is within yourself. All the love that you need is within yourself. And since your Self is all pervading, omnipresence, therefore anywhere you look, anywhere you go you are in yourself. There is only one Self.
When you know that Self others become that Self, the world becomes the Self, the tree becomes the Self, the sky becomes the Self, the planets becomes the Self, the whole universe is the Self. Therefore wherever you go whatever you do you are seeing the Self.
And the Self is always love and compassion and peace and bliss. That is why nothing can
make you unhappy. For you’re not seeing something apart from you. You’re seeing yourself.
As you know when you see something apart from you, you have all kinds of problems that go with it. You have to fix it, you have to change it, you have to love it, you have to hate it, you have to do all kinds of things with it. Whereas if you are your Self you do absolutely nothing. You just remain your Self. And you appear to be going here and going there and doing this and doing that but you are always the Self. You are always that.
(short silence)
Feel the power within you. (short silence) Feel the love within you. (short silence) Feel the peace within you. (short silence) Feel the freedom within you. (short silence) Can’t you see by now that you are that? (short silence) You have no needs or desires or wants. (short silence) Everything is fulfilled.
(short silence)
Can’t you see by now that you are not the body? That you are a spirit, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient. You are not limited to a body that seems to get old, get sick, that dies. That is not you. Only what has been born dies. Do you really think you were born? You have lived forever and you will continue to live forever.
The body-mind is a superimposition on the Self. You have identified with the body-mind and that is the only problem you’ve got. So you now have to identify with the Self. To the extent that you identify with the Self, to that extent does your body and mind become weaker so-to-speak, until they disappear altogether. And you are the Self. Perfect.
The whole universe, everything is a superimposition on the Self. They appear to be real but nothing is real. Stop identifying with the body. You identify with the body when you feel hurt, when you feel good. When you feel this is happening and that is happening to you, you are identifying with the body.
You can tell when this happens. When you just feel good all of the time. For no reason at all. Then you know you’re making progress. When you start feeling happiness, joy for no reason whatsoever. You’re no longer looking at your affairs or your life in the past or the future of your life. You are spontaneously looking at the Self. Just the way it appears. And that is unalloyed happiness. Un-perturbable peace. Just the way you are.
Right now. Right this second. You are that.
As soon as you start thinking you spoil it. In this split second you are pure and bright and shiny. In this split second you are all pervading, omniscient, omnipotent. Pure awareness is your real nature this second, this moment. Feel it. There is nothing that can disturb you any longer. You have overcome the world and you are free.
(long silence)
R: Let’s see if we have any stumps. There are no stumps.
SV: I have a question. Robert when you talk about the mind you talk about the mind like having a group of thoughts. Like thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future. But there can only be one thought at a time not thoughts plural. There can’t be thoughts and one thought in the mind. Whatever thought you got to get a beginning a duration an ending and then it’s finished.
(R: Umm.) There can’t be thoughts plural. There is only one thought, whatever it is.
R: There is only one thought at a time. But the mind is composed of endless thoughts since you were born so-to-speak. From many lives. And worries about the future that you learnt in this world. But they come to you one at a time. They don’t all hit you at once. If they hit you at once you wouldn’t be able to take it, you would drop dead. (SV: But one thought at a time isn’t mind, mind has to have more than one thought and it doesn’t have…it just has one thought and at the end of it there is no mind, when the thought finishes there is no mind.) Look at the mind as a reservoir. Full of all kinds of foolishness and nonsense and thoughts and everything else. But there is one outlet. So the thoughts come out one at a time. And you get rid of this one and another one comes and you get rid of this one and another one comes. (SV: That’s an assumption, all I notice is when I have a thought, I have a thought and that is all there is.) So then why when you get rid of it another one comes? (SV: There isn’t another one because the other one is only a thought that I had a thought before but it’s a present thought. It isn’t another one it’s just a present thought.) Say you’re thinking about how hot it is here. (SV: Yes.) Then the air conditioner comes on and you think how cool it is.
Then we’re talking here too much and you’re thinking about going home. That you’re hungry and you want to eat supper. And then when you eat supper then you think about you want to watch television. So thoughts keep coming. They never stop. They’re endless.
But they come one at a time. Do you see what I mean?
SV: I’m not sure it is because I only see one thought at a time. (R: Yes.) At the moment there is a thought that is all there is. There is no other thought. There is no past thought. There is no future thought. This is a thought. A thought may talk about the past or it may talk about the future but it’s a present thought. And when this thought finishes then there is no one, no mind, there is nothing.
R: In truth that’s right. But as we are mortal beings the thoughts never stop coming. (SV: That’s how it seems.) Sure that’s how it seems. There is no mind to begin with. Of course and there is no mind to begin with. There is nobody asking that question. (SV: Yes but the concept mind assumes that there can be more than one thought otherwise you have no mind.
A single thought isn’t a mind.) Sure. (SV: It’s an assumption.) It’s an assumption of course it’s an assumption. (SV: Yeah. That’s what I was talking about.) Everything we’re talking about is an assumption. (SV: Yeah.) You’re an assumption. But you have to get rid of the whole thing and become free.
Fred (SF): On Thursday you covered pretty thoroughly if you’re a disciple, you’re a…unclear… if this is so, if that’s so in reality everything that we think is outside of us really isn’t?
R: True there is no outside, there is no inside. (SF: No opposites either?) There is no thing. Nothing exists. No thing ever existed. But because you believe you’re a body these things appear real.
Fred (SF): How do you know? I do but… The bible says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard the bliss that is prepared for the righteous,” the righteous are people who are right? Ones who have gone into the state of pure consciousness, pure awareness which is our real nature. (R: Umm.) Is that right?
R: That is what the Bible says. (SF: The Bibles right.) Sure why not. (SF: Take it or leave it.) But what do you say? (SF: The best thing to do is to be still.) Of course. (SF: Otherwise I’m thinking again.) Always remember when everything is said and done it is you that counts. (SF: Thank you.) You’re welcome. (SF: And you, we’re all one.) SH: Don’t take it personally. (laughter)
Mary (SM): Robert when we spoke before I was telling you, the Self attracts the Self, so does that apply when people are ready? Like the Jnani will come to help them?
R: On one plane that is true. But remember that there is not two selves or three selves. (SM: No.) There is only one Self therefore the one Self is omnipresent and all pervading. But on that plane that you’re talking about the Self attracts the Self. When there is something within you that is ripe and ready, like an orange that is ready to fall off the tree you will attract yourself to that experience whether it’s a Jnani or a Sage or something else or a book. Can be anything. But you will attract yourself to that thing that you need to do next for your unfoldment and fulfillment.
This is why I always say that you’re in your right place at the right time going through those experiences that are necessary for you at this time. There are no mistakes.
Everything is in it’s right place. Never believe that there is something wrong in your life.
You are where you’re supposed to be. Going through those experiences that are necessary for you right now.
When you become angry at yourself because you don’t like the experiences that you’re going through you are hindering your growth. Rather be grateful, thankful, for every experience that you’re going through. Even though it may appear to be terrible in your life. Be thankful for this experience. For the experience is not what you think it is in your finite mind. There is a greater purpose to it. All is well.
SD: Robert when you refer to spiritual growth are you talking about the approach to enlightenment?
R: The approach to enlightenment, yes. Every experience that you have in your life whatever it looks like, is only to take you up further toward freedom and liberation. This is the reason we are told never to judge by appearances. For finitely we can’t understand the experiences. We’re looking at life from one viewpoint only. (SD: But haven’t you said that life has no purpose?) It has no purpose but as long as you believe you are a human being and you’re working on yourself then you have to appear to be doing certain things to become free. But ultimately life has no purpose whatsoever.
SB: What about realization because it seems that the purpose is self transcending, self sacrificing purpose. To see it as all nothing, useless…?
R: Who sees? (SB: The Self.) The Self doesn’t even exist. (SB: Well it appears to. From that point of view, from the relative point of view.) As long as it appears to exist then you have to do things to get there. (SB: From that point of view it seems to be a self-realizing process of self transcending the ego.) Then you have to work on yourself and do spiritual work, sadhana to get there. But when you begin to feel there is no purpose and there is no realization, there is no confusion, there is no delusion, then you don’t have to anything just keep still.
SD: Does a baby have awareness of the Self?
R: A new born baby is pure. It doesn’t have awareness of Self. It has awareness like we have when we’re sleeping. When we’re sound asleep there is no ego. The mind rests in the heart. Only when we’re sound asleep. So we do not function. But when you are awake and the mind rests in the heart that is called sahaja samadhi. And then you are aware of the Self. So a new born baby is like the sleep state. It is pure but is unconscious. (SD: And not self-realized.) Not self-realized.
Jay (SJ): Unless it’s a self-realized baby of course.) (students laugh) (R: True.) SF: At what point do the vasanas and the samskaras come into the individual?
R: As soon as it’s born. (SF: He’s pure.) Slowly but surely it comes. (SF: But you said he was pure.) He’s pure to an extent but he’s like us asleep. (SF: Oh I see what you mean.) But as it continues in this life sojourn, all the samskaras come out. Things start to happen. He’s being brainwashed everyday by the parents, by society and here we are today, bunch of idiots. (laughter)
SL: Robert if the illusion is as pictures on the screen of consciousness and the pictures are created by our finite minds. How is it that the finite mind could create something with such ineffable beauty as images?
R: The finite mind is simply the illusion of being. We are beings and we’re being.
This being is creation of symmetry, of beauty, of ugliness, of death, of life, all this appears in Maya. (SL: But if it comes from the mind then doesn’t that presuppose that the mind can be creative to create a butterfly or a humming bird?) The mind appears to create all these things of course. But who is creating? Where does it all come from? (SL: Well it comes from consciousness.) Consciousness is self contained. The truth is it doesn’t even come from any place, it doesn’t even appear. It doesn’t exist. It is like the mirage in the water. Like the snake in the rope. Like the sky is blue. Everything appears to be but upon investigation it doesn’t exist at all. (SL: I can imagine that we can visualize cardboard boxes but ??? that’s too much.) (laughs) For whom is it too much? For the ego mind. When the ego mind gets out of the way everything will shine by itself. This thing called Maya. (SL: I’m confused about this.) (laughter)
SB: That’s why it’s Maya. Otherwise it wouldn’t be Maya we’d be able to cut through it.
R: The thing called Maya is a very intricate game. It makes everything appear so real. So alive. (SL: And the reality of it, the complexity of it is so demanding.) Sure, this is to pull you in further. To get you further involved. Because you fall in love with all this beauty and all this joy and happiness that appears. And you get involved in it and then you have to go through all the ramifications of it… (SL: I’ll be happy to take it or leave it.) And then of course everything has to change sooner or later.
SL: But even the change and decays seem so symmetrically perfect.
R: Of course it does. The whole universe appears so symmetrically perfect. But for whom does it exist? (SL: Can anybody help me go at this. Just that the idea that if we could say that consciousness created it then it would seem…) Your mind wants a creator. According to the mind something has to have a cause. We cannot think of a thing without a cause because it’s mind boggling. Yet in truth there is no cause. There is no justification for existence.
SD: And are you saying there is no perfect symmetry?
R: That perfect symmetry appears to be so. In the beauty of things, in the joy of life, there appears to be perfect symmetry. That perfect symmetry is only Maya. It has no life of its own. It has no existence of its own. It appears. And the appearance comes form nowhere like the water in the mirage.
Fred (SF): The same as imperfect symmetry. (laughter) (R: Imperfect symmetry. Perfect symmetry, imperfect symmetry.) More unreal opposites.
Jay (SJ): It’s like the perfect insecurity. (R: Sure.)
SB: Why can’t we say it’s all consciousness? It’s really consciousness, it’s…
R: You can say whatever you like. But consciousness is consciousness. It doesn’t even exist. It only exists because we’re talking about it. We make it exist because we have to give it a name. (SB: But everything is that so then the world is really that. So the reality of the world is really consciousness. So it is a cause.) The reality of the world appears to be consciousness sometimes when we talk about it that way. But why talk about it that way at all? (SB: Because it’s easier to make sense really.) (laughs) As long as it makes sense it is not real. (laughter) That is the problem, you hit it right on the head.
Jay (SJ): It’s a false sense of security.
R: Right everything that makes sense is a lie.
SB: But it’s a good way to teach. I mean it’s a way that people can follow it otherwise it’s just totally irrational and nobody can really follow anything.
R: That’s good. That’s the way I want it. Because when you’re shocked out of your life of following and being on the straight line everything being like you can imagine and think about you can never awaken. You have to be shocked into awakening by realizing nothing exists the way you think. Nothing at all is like what you believe.
SD: So to say the reality of the world is self-contradictory right, in other words there is no world.
R: There is no world, there is no self-contradictory.
SH: There is no reality. (R: There is no reality.) What is that? (R: Silence.) Nothing?
R: Silence. There is not even nothing. (laughter) Because in our minds when we think of nothing it’s something. (SH: Well then there is not even silence.) There is not even silence. (SH: Why don’t you shut up?) I don’t know. (laughter) (SH: There is nothing more to be said.) Of course not.
SL: Lets do a giant slide down at the lake. (R: Good idea.)(short silence)
Fred (SF): If we go back to karma a minute. If something real bad happens to me tomorrow, you know I break a leg or lost my income am I to feel that I Fred, are to be punished or is it just an effect, has a cause?
R: Do not feel that you’re being punished. (SF: Okay that is all I wanted to know, that is a good thing. Or the opposite thing if something wonderful happens…) Umm. (SF: …I’m not being rewarded, okay that’s what I want to know, thank you.
(short silence)
R: Next week we’re having a bhandara. There will be plenty of food because you’re going to bring plenty of food right? (laughter) There’ll be music, entertainment.
SD: And didn’t you say we start at 1:00 instead of 2:00 next week? (R: We start at 1:00.) Do we have any announcements?
(General announcements about transcripts completed and handed out) SD: Robert I want to go back to the baby again. (laughter) Knowing on a certain level that a baby is never really born but on a relative level why would it appear to be born unrealized? Would that be a result of karma and samskaras?
R: It is like a tree that is born from a seed. Anything that is born isn’t real. Anything that appears to be born is false. The real is never born. So whatever appears to be born like a baby is part of creation. It’s all part of Maya. (SD: Including the non-realization?) Including the non-realization, yes. Whatever is born, whatever you see in this world is all Maya. A baby is part of it, not separate.
SH: It doesn’t have to be born it just has to appear.
R: The appearance is Maya. (SH: It doesn’t have to be born.) But appears to be born.
(SH: Does a mountain appear to be born?) A mountain has appeared to be born centuries ago.
(SH: It wasn’t born it just occurred.) It came into being. It appeared to be, same thing. (SH: There is no birth.) Well it’s semantics. (SH: Yeah.) SC: If you’re watching a volcano it does. (laughter)
R: Anything in this world that appears that is born whatever you want to call it is Maya. Well, think of it as a dream. When you are dreaming you may dream that you have birth, that you have death, that you have disillusion. Yet when you wake up the dream is gone. So it is with this life.
I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to grasp. Because when you are dreaming everything that occurs in the dream is occurring now, there is no difference. Yet where did the dream come from? The dream came out of your mind. And in that dream you have all kinds of experiences. The same with this life. Only just like in the dream you refuse to call this a dream. You want to get involved and do this and do that. Yet when you are in your dream you are the same way you will never call it a dream. If I come into your dream and tell you you’re dreaming you will not believe me. You will be the same way you are now.
You will say, “What do you mean Robert this is real.” And then you pinch me to show me
it’s fake, “Don’t you feel the pinch?” “Of course I do, it’s a dream pinch.” So I feel the pinch.
The same thing is true here.
SK: So Robert in that dream there is an implicit reality that you wake up to, it has similar forms to the dream, so if you’re saying an analogy pointing to reality we wake up to, and similar forms to what is being experienced now?
R: You do wake up to reality. (SK: In a similar form?) In a similar form. When you wake up you will be totally free of who you are, of what you are.
Fred (SF): Is this a correlation between the dream state and the waking state? I had dream where I was waving - I thought the UPS truck was going by and he and I were waving but I thought he didn’t see me - So I looked in his mirror as he went by and he was looking at me so I waved at him in my dream. And just then I woke up, I stood up - I sat up in bed and I was waving at him. (laughter) So there is a connection of some kind.
R: Well you probably had a dream just before you were waking up in the morning.
It was probably the last dream you had. (SF: Oh I woke up waving.) Yes the dream was just about happening before you awakened. And then when you woke up it continued. (SF: Oh I see what you mean, I see yeah.) See we usually have 7 to 8 dreams a night. And the ones we remember are the last ones that we have in the morning. We forget about the rest. So you were dreaming your last dream about the UPS truck and all of a sudden you woke up and you were waving at that time. (SF: Of course he wasn’t there in the dream or in the waking state.) He was there in the dream. (SF: In both cases.) He wasn’t there in the waking state because you woke up. Was the UPS truck there in the waking state? (SF: No.) SH: That would have been a surprise. (students laugh) (R: A UPS truck in his bed.) SV: But you know Robert the reality of the dream takes off all because in the dream I fly and when I wake up it takes me about a minute or a minute and a half or maybe two minutes before I realize that I’m this kind of reality, it doesn’t work. (R: Umm.) You know it takes me that long to start believing it doesn’t work. I’m sure it works until I find out, no. It doesn’t work. (R: Why don’t you go into the mountain, just try.) I will I was just thinking about it. That is as far as I’m going to leave it. (laughter) If it’s not going to work in my thought it’s not going to work there. But I sure think I can until I find out that I can’t.
S: I’m going to get you toe shoes for your birthday. (laughter) SM: What about if you wake up from a dream that was so intense, that you’re just perspiring, that it’s been a horrifying experience. I had a horrifying experience in a dream just recently. I was being attacked and I screamed, I screamed so loud but the word I screamed was, “Oh God.”
And it went way off and I could see it going way, the sound or the vibration of the word God went way out into infinity and it came back into a big light and it came back into me as a power. And I grabbed the guy and he went down into dust. He disintegrated. And I woke up all just wringing wet. (laughs) It was just scary. And that is when I said to you, is there was any significance to dreams and spiritual experiences. But I know it’s only a mind thing but it was…oh my God. I think about it now and I perspire from it. (SH: You turned him into dust.) I just did it because the power went through you and I was just shaking with it and it went just right down to ashes. Like, Oh my God I killed him. (laughter) (SH: You annihilated him, did more than kill him.) (laughs) The worst dream I’ve ever had.
Fred (SF): It’s a good feeling when you realize it was just a dream.
Mary (SM): It was a dream yes, yeah. (laughter)
SB: Robert is it true that the body is really only mind stuff also? Only the concretization of the tendencies from the past?
R: The body is an idea of the mind. (SB: So everything is mind really.) The mind is everything and the mind doesn’t exist. (laughter) (SB: Then when you die you’re in the world of the mind because the body and the brain is not there to filter out and stop you from the world of the mind so you’re in the world of just your own mind. That is your own hell right?) When you die come and tell me. (SB: So I’ve been told.) Why talk about things like when you die you’re going to be this and you’re going to be that. Why not become free now? Totally free then you don’t have to worry about dying. There will be nobody to die.
Jay (SJ): Or just get drunk before you die. (R: Get drunk before you die and come back as an alcoholic.) (SE: Maybe worse?) (R: Umm.)
SB: Why is it that many people rest in the silence and they still don’t awaken?
R: Ask them, people do all kinds of things. (SB: Well you said that if you rest in the silence then you’re guaranteed to awaken?) Sure if you’re resting in the silence. But how do you know that you’re resting in the silence? Are you resting in the silence free from thought? (SB: It has to be permanently…) You have to be free from thought. Otherwise where is the silence if there is thought. (SB: Is that a universal law, when you’re absolutely silent how long you have to…) It all depends on the person.
(silence)
(Prashad is blessed and handed out.)
(General talk during prashad continues)
SB: Did you hear the story of the pussycat that sat on the easter eggs and they hatched?
(R: The who?) This kid found some goose eggs or duck eggs and he gave them to his cat and the cat sat on the eggs and kept them warm and they hatched. And when they hatched the cat thought it was the mother of these baby ducks. The cat took care of the ducks. (students in disbelief) (General talk continues )
R: So until we meet again be at peace with yourself. Do not worry about the world or your life. Do not concern yourself with God or the Maya of this universe. Go deep within. Realize the truth be free. Blessings, peace, joy. Go forth and multiply. (laughter) S: Woops, take it easy…
(tape ends)
Absätze ohne Sprecherpräfix gehören dem zuletzt genannten Sprecher — so steht es im Buch, wo der Präfix nur den Anfang einer Rede markiert. Die Zuordnung ist eine Folgerung dieser Ausgabe. Namen in Klammern sind aus dem Text erschlossen: sicher belegt sind SM = Mary, SF = Fred, SJ = Jay, SC = Nate, wahrscheinlich SG = Glen, SR = Jorge. Alle anderen Kürzel bleiben stehen, weil der Beleg nicht trägt.