– Transcript 148
R: It is wonderful to be with you once again. On this humid hot night in Henry’s house.
I received a call from a lady this morning who inquired, “Robert what is the significance of the Phalanx symbol of Shiva? Why do thousands of Hindu’s worship this phalanx symbol? After all isn’t the symbol a penis?” So I sort of laughed and I said, “May I answer this question at the class?” And she said, “Yes.” So I will answer this question with a story.
Thousands of years ago in the dense forests of India there lived a group of sadhu’s or should I say pseudo-sadhus. They were really hypocrites. They would imagine they were going into samadhi, to see who could stay longer in samadhi. They would debate scripture for hours and argue over it and have fights over it. They would imagine they had kriyas and shake all over and dance all over. They were putting on all these acts.
The sadhus were all married to beautiful women. The women were all virgins. For they wouldn’t touch them they think it was unpure. So the women remained virgins.
They were very passionate women and they wanted to have love. But the sadhus wanted to show how pure they were.
Now Shiva heard of this. And he said, “I must punish these people.” He therefore took the form of a young boy with a beautiful body and handsome features and he appeared naked in the sadhus camp. When all of the wives saw this good looking guy, naked, they became real passionate. They wanted him. And so he made love to all of these wives at one time. Which is a hard thing to do. (laughter) SV: Shiva?
R: But Shiva can do anything. (laughter)
The sadhus heard about this and they became angry. They didn’t know this was Shiva. And they said to each other we must get revenge. And he took out a book of curses.
They found a real good curse and they put the curse on Shiva. Shiva was just about to make love again to all the wives when his penis dropped off. A heck of a position to be in.
At the same time the sun stopped shining and the moon stopped shining. Everything was pitch-black.
The sadhus then understood that this young man was Shiva. And they said we must ask forgiveness. He came to teach us a lesson and we did this to him. We must beg his forgiveness or we may never see daylight again. They started to search for Shiva every where but they couldn’t find him. All they found was the penis. They therefore picked it up put it on a pedestal and started to worship it. Shiva saw all this and felt sorry for them and made the sun come back again and the moon to shine once more. And unto this day millions of Hindus worship the phalanx symbol of Shiva.
What is the moral of this story? When some of you guys are making love to someone else’s wife, watch out! (students laugh) You never know what is going to happen.
(laughter) You can give it any moral you want. What does this story have to do with Advaita Vedanta? Together, absolutely nothing! (students laugh) So here we are.
The truth is of course, that there are no sadhus. There is no Shiva. There is no penis. There is no universe. There is no ignorance. There is no enlightenment. There is no thing that exists. Absolutely nothing exists. And the nothing doesn’t even exist. There is nothing more to say. Everything is zero.
Yet, it appears to us that everything does exist. Look how involved we become in the world. Just look at your life this very day and see the things you are involved in. The thoughts that came to you. The actions you took. As long as you believe the world is real you must suffer accordingly. As long as you feel the body is real then the world is real to you. And we talk about karma and reincarnation and all these other things we talk about.
They do not mean a thing. They have no significance whatsoever.
We’re talking about the ineffable. Something beyond words and thoughts. Something beyond, something beyond. Yet it’s so beautiful that there is nothing to say. There is something there when you go beyond consciousness, beyond beingness, beyond pure awareness but yet it’s not something at all. For when you think of something you’re thinking of a thing. A thing that you can think about. Something that you can feel perhaps.
Something that you can identify with. It is beyond all that. There can be absolutely nothing that can be said about it. You can’t even experience it. For to experience it there must not be a you. The you has to be transcended, transmuted. Therefore you can never experience this ineffable. And when the you is gone and no longer is there, there is no longer an experience. For again there has to be a you to experience something. When the you is gone who is to experience anything? The experiencer has been totally transcended and the experience has been totally transcended. You are that!
This is why the sayings like; “Tat-tvam-asi, Thou Art That, Sat-Chit-Ananda,” are words that have no definition, no explanation. When we say, “You Are That!” Do not try to evaluate “That.” For if you begin to evaluate it you’re using your mind of course and you’ll come up with all sorts of answers. You will say, “Well that is pure awareness. That is nirvana.” But that is not what it is at all. It has no name. It has no shape. It has no dimension.
It is nothing that the human mind can ever comprehend. It is beyond the human mind. It is beyond nirvana. It is beyond pure awareness. It is not a thing. It is not a thought. It is not a feeling. It is not an emotion. It is simply That.
When we talk about Advaita Vedanta we talk about the five elements, the three gunas, the food body. All this talk is nonsense. It is exactly what it is, spiritual talk. Spiritual talk gets you nowhere. Spiritual talk is for novices. People who are still debating trying to win points. Trying to come up with answers. Asking all sorts of questions. Debating spiritual points. All this is nonsense. So the wise person keeps silent.
In the silence there will come a time when you become “That.” We’re not talking about absolute reality. Those are just words. Pure awareness, more words. We’re talking about “That.” That may happen during the story I told you about Shiva, the phalanx symbol. There really is a reason for telling you this story. It is one of the awakening stories. If you think about this story you can awaken through it.
This is why I tell you once in a while that everything we do here is for awakening.
Do not take the words literally. Try to read between the lines. Everything is for awakening.
But yet if you come in here all filled up with so-called knowledge, ideas, concepts from all of your spiritual training you’re never going to get it. The way to come in here is with an open heart. Where there is no question whether you know something or you don’t know something. They’re both impostors and keep you tied into Maya. If you think you know something you’re tied into Maya and if you think you’re empty and you don’t know something you’re still tied into Maya. We want to get beyond this. Even when you say to yourself, “I want to experience nothing,” that too is Maya.
People continue to ask me, “Robert why don’t you give interviews? Why don’t you advertise? Why don’t you let people know you’re here? You can have hundreds of people coming.” Well, as I explain to some of you, ninety-nine percent of all of the people in Los Angeles have been on spiritual paths and are all burnt out. When they go to a meeting they come to the meetings with sarcasm. With “Lets see what this guy knows,” attitude.
“Let’s see how much knowledge he has.” And they ask the same questions over and over again that countless hundreds have asked before. So we’re not looking for numbers. We’re not looking for anything.
As I told you on Sunday most of you are making excellent progress. I talk to you on the phone I see you at lunch you’re doing very well. To continue we have to shut up.
We have to learn to control the emotions. We have to look at this world without reacting.
We have to let go of all desires. By desires I mean we have to let go of the idea that we want to better our life, improve our lot. All of these ideas and thoughts keep you back. Do not wonder if you’re making progress. Do not analyze yourself. If you’re coming to see me I will take care of all of that for you. There is absolutely nothing you have to do.
It is humility, compassion, love, peace that you begin to develop. As many of you have told me, “I’m feeling more peace and love than I’ve ever felt in my life,” this is not an accident, you deserve it! Some of you have let go of all of your fears that you’ve carried for years. Some of you have gotten rid of the chip on your shoulder that you’ve carried for years believing everybody is out to get you. You’re beginning to understand that there is no you to get. In other words you’re no longer hurtable. Some of you feel nothing at all is happening to you. You’re the same way you always were. Not to worry. As long as you come to satsang you will be taken care of. All is well. The universe is not what you think it is. No thing is what you think it is. You are not what you think you are. Do not concern yourself about your life. Do not concern yourself about your body, about your affairs. You can only live like this when you live spontaneously. When you live in the very second of existence. In this very second there is only ‘That’. Which always was and will always be.
You have to catch yourself in that split second. That split second of eternity. You are that eternity. Do not bother to look for eternity. Do not even look for that split second.
Just be it. For when you look for it you’re using your mind and your mind is a product of time and space. Therefore if you try to find that split second with your mind you’ll never find it. When you just are in that very beingness you are in that split second of eternity.
It’s really so simple I tell you this all the time, just be! Do not be this or that. Just be! Just say to yourself, “I-am.” When you say to yourself, “I-am,” you’re just being. You feel just wonderful when you just are as some of you are feeling right now.
It’s wonderful to drop everything. To let go of everything. And begin to understand there is nothing to fear and there is nothing to fight. That feeling comes to you without the words. You just become that. If you have to say it, “There is nothing to fear, there is nothing to fight,” then you are lying to yourself because you feel fear and you feel there is something to fight. You cannot voice these things. You cannot voice these things I’m telling you. For remember to voice it there has to be someone left to voice it. There has to be an experiencer and an experience. When the experience and the experiencer are gone then you are at home in the ineffable.
Some of you still believe that realization is when you resolve your problems. You believe that when you become liberated then things will be the way that you want them to be. I tell you this is a bunch of hogwash. (What’s hogwash?) (laughter) SV: Wash the hog?
R: Well, it’s hogwash.
When you experience the Self there are no longer any problems to remove, to resolve. When you become ‘That,’ ‘That’ no longer feels that there ever was a problem or mistake or a negative condition or a positive condition. Don’t you see, “That” knows nothing about these things.
Say you’re dying of cancer. And you tell everybody, “I’m going to Robert’s class because when I realize my Self I won’t have cancer any longer.” You do not understand the teaching. When you awaken there is no such thing as cancer. There is no such thing as health. For there is no such thing as a body that has these things. These things will never be in your mind again for you will not have a mind to think them with.
Therefore again let me remind you this teaching is not to change negative conditions into positive conditions. We’re not here to improve our lives we’re here to get rid of our lives in their entirety. Only if you believe you are a body will you want to improve your life and become healthy, wealthy and wise. When you understand what I’m talking
about you will realize that there is no one left to be healthy, wealthy and wise. Of course others may look at you, they will simply see themselves.
That is why I say again when there are too many people who come here to this class, I get telephone calls from people, newcomers all the time, ask me the same question, “Robert do you go to the bathroom? (laughter) Do you eat? Do you sleep like us? Do you do this, do you do that? How come you can’t do magic? Walk through the walls? Become invisible?” This is important to these people. They believe this is what it’s all about. Can you imagine what would happen if I sat here and materialized some gold coins? What do you think would happen?
Nate (SC): Put you on offer. (laughter)
SH: The American Sai Baba. (laughter)
(Robert continues) Can’t imagine what would happen. For people give credence to occult, to siddhas. This is important to them. They still believe that when you become enlightened that you develop magical powers. You can read thoughts. Remember again only when there is an ego and a mind do these things take place. When there is no ego, there is no mind, there is nowhere for these things to take place. When there is just the infinite there is nowhere else for anything to happen. The infinite, ‘That’ is self-contained reality. And there is no place for anything to go on.
Yet again becoming ‘That’ puts you in a category that is completely and totally indescribable. There is nothing I can say about it. There is nothing I can do to make you see what I see, to experience. Be yourself. Do not try to prove anything. Do not try to find anything.
I know that Fred can say, “In the Bible it says seek and ye shall find.” But to whom was this written for. It wasn’t written for people who wanted to be enlightened or people who wanted to resolve their life and become totally transcended. It was written for the masses. Sure if you seek you will find. But if you go into the higher truths nothing was ever hidden. So there is absolutely nothing to find. And there is no seeker. Can’t you see now when you have these quotations and these sayings and all these questions, there has to be a seeker? There has to be something to find? Something to discover? Something to become? When you realize that there is nothing to discover, there is nothing to become, there is nothing to find what else is there to do?
(silence)
Feel free to ask questions.
S: (tape starts abruptly) …what I’m doing will bring about what’s called enlightenment or awakening or any of the other words but I do feel that there are things an individual can do that may bring about an intellectual understanding of some of these spiritual matters. Scripture for instance. In AA (alcoholics anonymous) we have what amounts to a confession step. (R: Umm.) Where we admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrong and we have one that takes care of making amends for the things that we’ve done that is really called for in a man. (R: Umm.) And the reason I say that, that can bring about a difference in the individual. It’s really my experience in that not long after I did what is called the confession, the fifth step. Not long after I did the fifth step I read in a book that all Masters are one, they never contradict one another. (R: Umm.) And that rang a bell in me and it awakened an interest in Eastern philosophy.
And I also did some ninth step stuff which is making amends. And things became a lot clearer. They’re still very much on the relative level but they do seem clearer. And of course lots of admonition. Spent lots of time in prayer and try to help the other guys karma and all that stuff. (R: Sure.) So I’ve said in AA talks that I have a very strong feeling that all of the Masters, if we asked them what they thought of the twelve steps, they’d say, “Right on.” (R: Sure.) You agree with that?
(R: Of course.) Thank you. I’m done.
R: But remember that is on a certain level. (SF: Yeah that’s right, it’s relativity of course but it makes me feel good.) It’s just like if a person is in kindergarten. Are you going to tell that person not to go to kindergarten? To go to college? (SF: No.) The person has to be where he is. (SF: Each of us.) Exactly, so in kindergarten we learn step by step to go to junior high school, to go to high school and unfold in that way. So it is with these steps and everything else. Everything is good at that level. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. (SF: Yes.) But what we’re talking about here is transcendence.
Fred (SF): I dig that but it’s nothing I can do. I just hope whatever it is…but then that would involve an individual being in that state and enjoying it. When the individual reaches that state there is no more individual. So there is nobody to enjoy it. (R: Exactly.) That’s what you’ve been talking about tonight?
R: Yes. So there is nothing wrong with what you’re doing with the steps. It’s great!
But it’s at a certain level. (SF: Yeah.)
Jorge (SR): Robert? (R: Jorge?) I’ve been experiencing something maybe for the first time, probably responding to what…maybe this is presumptuous to me but I kind of think I got a little taste of what you experienced. This constant letting go-ness of this body awareness. And in this state I can see that anything that would come to me would bounce off. It would just slop off there would be no emotional reaction. Because there is this constant remembrance of nothingness… (R: Umm.) …of my nothingness. And so it is a beautiful feeling but…there is a “but.” The but is, damn it I can’t, I’m practically positive, practically 100% positive that I can’t retain this feeling once I go out the door. But if I could, wow.
R: Do not concern yourself with this. Just let it happen and do not think about it too much. Remember the you that everything bounces off doesn’t exist. There is nothing to bounce. There are no bouncers. And there is no one for it to bounce off to. What you’re talking about is a good step in the right direction.
Jorge (SR): I can see the emotion wouldn’t even materialize. (R: Exactly.) A feeling wouldn’t even materialize because I guess if there is no identification with the body there is no need for the feeling to materialize. (R: Exactly.) That’s what I’m longing for. Is that unnecessariness to come up with an emotional reaction.
R: Umm, well you’re getting there. (SR: Yeah but it’s like er…) No, as I said don’t qualify it. Just… (SR: No but I like to be honest with myself. I don’t like to play games with my mind and think this is going to last.) If you were honest with yourself you would wake up.
(SR: Can you pass that one by me again?) If you were honest with yourself you would wake up. You would be awakened. Because the honesty means that you are awake. This is the truth. The truth about you is that you are already enlightened. (SR: I can’t see the truth and yet you’re equating seeing the truth as honesty but seeing the truth is a big step.) When you see yourself as a human being you are lying to yourself. (SR: Yeah I guess I never thought of that.) When you see yourself as having problems or something being wrong that is when you’re lying to yourself. That is why I say do not go one way or the other way with it. Do not try to say, “I can’t lie to myself,” or “I’m lying to myself,” or “I’m this,” or “I’m that.”
Forget about “I’m.”
Jorge (SR): But once I’m out of this room I would feel like I’m lying to myself if I said, “You don’t have a body, I don’t have a body.”
R: Well don’t say that then, don’t say it. Just be. (SR: I would be feeling my body so much I wouldn’t be able to feel my body listeners. Just like now I can feel my body listeners so much that I can’t feel my body.) Just observe yourself. Observe the condition you’re in. Observe what’s happening to you. But do not react. Do not come to any conclusions. Do not think this is right, this is wrong, this is good or this is bad. Just be and let whatever happens, happen. (SR: I just get disgusted with my inability to maintain this awareness.) Well who gets disgusted? The ego. Try to remember that you can’t expect to come to a class and all of a sudden you’re going to become totally enlightened. That’s possible but do not look for anything like that. Just be here now.
It’s like the story I tell you once in a while of Ramana Maharshi and his devotees.
They were with him for forty, fifty years and nothing has happened to some of them. They just kept on going. They never think whether they’re enlightened or they want to become enlightened or they don’t want to become enlightened. They don’t think about these things. They’re just there. They’re just being. They’re not being this and they’re not being that. They’re not being good and they’re not being bad. They’re not being right and they’re not being wrong. They’re not being enlightened, they’re not being unenlightened. They’re just being. So expect nothing. Do not look for anything. Just be.
If you can live in that split second that we were talking about then there will be no past and there will be no future. But you’re making good progress just the way you are.
Jorge (SR): The split second seems to be being aware of bodyless-ness of this?
R: In that split second there is really no one to be aware of it because it never existed. That split second is no thing, no thought, no idea, no conflict, no body. Nothing.
You’re always trying to use your mind to understand what these things are and you cannot use the mind. You’ve got to go way beyond the mind. Where there is no judgment.
There is no comparison. There is just ‘That’.SF: Sri Ramana told his people to think of him and leave the rest up to him. (R: Umm, yes.) Pretty much what you said earlier. (R: Yes.) He asked one fellow, “What brought you here,”
and the fellow said, “Thinking of you,” and he told this man, “That is your sadhana this time.” (R: Umm.) Always the right time? (R: Yes.)
Fred (SF): I might mention why I brought up the matter of karma and punishment or reward.
Not long ago I met a girl who had terrible emotional pain and she had the idea that she was being punished for something that she had done. And I told her that it would be small comfort but she needn’t fear whether she’s being punished and that was the reason I wanted to check that point with you. Because we have this thing “as ye sow, so shall ye reap” and people take it personally.
Whereas it might be better said, “As it is sown so shall it be reaped.” Is that more or less…
R: Umm. That’s also on that particular level. (SF: On relativity level?) We want to go beyond all this. (SF: Yeah.) Forget about karma, reincarnation, punishment, judgment.
(SF: They’re all in the mind.) They’re all in the mind. And there is no mind. So where are they? They never existed. See we’re not really trying to get rid of the mind, there is no mind to get rid of. We’re really trying to awaken to that fact. There never was a mind. The mind is another word for creation. There is no creation.
There are many teachers which go into the ramifications of that as I mentioned before. They talk about the three gunas and the five coverings and the food particles that you’re made out of and the seminal fluid, and all that garbage. What good is it knowing these things? It’s all mesmerism. Make it simple for yourself.
Just feel that you’ve been hypnotized and now you’re becoming dehypnotized.
Don’t go into too many details. Do not become too technical or too intelligent. It keeps you back. When you awaken none of this will exist at all.
(long silence)
Do we have announcements? We’re having the bhandara this Sunday. It starts at 1
o clock. Good food, song, happiness, joy. Bring your favorite dish.
We have some delicious prashad, macaroons.
(Prashad handed out as 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.