– Transcript 150
R: Hello! (Hello Robert.) Greetings! (Greetings!) And salutations. (Salutations.) It’s good to see you.
SH: Ditto! (R: I love you.) We love you too Robert. We’re going to be with you all the way along. (laughter)
Robert continues: Most of us are aware intellectually perhaps that we are not the body, the mind nor the doer. We are aware intellectually that we are absolute reality, the Self! Expressing as pure awareness. Yet as we unfold on this path we come across many words that have special meaning to us. Some of these words are negatives that have to be transcended.
As we meditate. As we go deep within trying to understand the Self and awaken the word fear comes along. Some of us become very fearful. For we are letting go of everything. The world used to be a crutch for us to lean on. People, places and things were very important to us at one time. Now we’re beginning to see and realize we can only depend on the Self. Our inner reality. This brings up fear also. For in the relative world goodness, happiness, fear, sadness are two sides of the same coin.
If you look at your life you will see that fear is really the motivating factor in everything you’ve done and do, subconsciously or consciously. For instance when people get married, why do they get married? Perhaps it’s fear of being alone. Or fear if you’ve made a good catch you want to hold onto that person before somebody else gets them. So you get married. Fear of growing old by yourself.
Take your jobs for instance. You have a certain profession and you do certain work. If you look deep inside you’ll see it’s fear that motivates you. Fear of losing the job, not having any money. Perhaps you’re becoming a homeless person. It is always fear in the relative world that motivates you to do anything. Even the happiest person on earth has fears. They may be subjective. The fear of losing that happiness. That something may happen to take away that goodness that you’re going through.
You’ve all heard the expression, “It’s too good to be true,” most human beings live this kind of a life. Everything is beautiful in their lives. They have everything they need and want and more. Yet there is an underlying fear that this is too good to be true. Something bad has to happen. Can you think of something personally that does not have a motivating factor of fear behind it. Even though you’re not aware of it at the time. You may not be aware of it at the time because you’re going through a certain condition of your life that’s happiness and joy and peace, but you do have that fear in the background.
You can’t get rid of it. It’s part of the relative world.
This is a world of duality. We all live in this world of duality. For every fear there is a joy. For every bad there is a good. For every up there is a down. This is the world in which we live. We live in a world of fear. We live in a world of joy. We live in world of goodness. We live in a world of badness. It’s all the same thing. This is the reason why I tell you so often do not think you want to get rid of the fears and the bad things of your life only. You also want to get rid of the good things of your life. The happy things of your life. This may sound strange for some of you. But it’s the truth. Why? Because again they are two sides of the same coin.
No matter who you are if you’re going to experience supreme goodness, happiness and joy in the relative sense you have to experience sadness, hate and something that upsets you. The pendulum has to go both directions. This is why I laugh when people come to me and say, “Robert, I don’t need a spiritual teaching I’m happy already. I’ve got all kinds of happiness in my life.” For how long? Try to understand that you cannot have total happiness only in this relative universe in which we live it’s impossible. Nobody does. You can’t!
Now perhaps you can understand a little bit why a Sage, a saint also seems to have trouble sometimes. Illness, something going on in their lives. Because their body appears to be going through the same thing that everybody else goes through. But notice I say the word “appears.” To the Sage this is not going on. The relatives have been totally transcended. There is only bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda. There is only absolute reality, pure awareness to the Sage. But the body of the Sage appears to some people to be going through other things. Having other experiences.
This appears to be a paradox and a mystery. But it’s very clear. When I explain to you that in the relative world you have to go through duality. Everybody goes through duality no matter who you are. Only by transcending the relative world totally and completely through the process of awakening do you become absolutely free of these things.
You become absolutely free of goodness and absolutely free of badness. It’s an entirely new ball game.
This is why some of us become argumentative so often, we debate these things and talk about these things and get nowhere. We say, “I see what you’re going through. I see what’s going on. You can’t fool me any more. This is like this and this is like that.” Always remember — this is like this and this is like that — in your eyes, in your mind, in your life that is how you see things.
When you understand what I’m saying intellectually you will begin to leave people alone and shut up. You will not have anything to say because you will begin to see it’s fruitless to debate. It’s fruitless to argue. It’s fruitless to come to any conclusions about anybody or anything. For everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is in it’s right
place no matter how it looks. As we unfold on this path our job is to watch, to look, to see, never to react. Only to be the witness. Having no opinions for or against.
One word, “fear,” that everyone seems to have no matter who you are unless you have transcended and awakened is fear of death.
Most of us perhaps are able to overcome certain fears but when it comes to leaving your body nearly everyone, no matter how enlightened you think you are, starts to worry about this. Even though you say you’re not. It is interesting to note from my experiences with people. The younger people between their twenties and thirties claim not to be afraid of death. When you’re healthy, totally. When you’re able to run around the world and do what you want you never think of death. You never think of dying. You don’t want to talk about these things. You say, “When I get older I’ll be ready to discuss it.” Yet if you don’t work it out now when you’re ready to go you will have total fear in every iota of your being.
It is written in the great spiritual scriptures of the world that when you die, when you’re dying, if you can think of God at that time you will go straight to God. Which means you will awaken totally. So people tell me, “Well if this is the case Robert, I’ll just go out and have fun and get drunk and do anything I like and when I’m dying I’ll think of God.” Try it! (students laugh) You’ll never do it no matter what you say.
I’ve had experiences with dying people who used to be so happy and sure of themselves who used to laugh at death. But all of a sudden when the cancer or the AIDS
or whatever became very bad there was total fear. Fear to let go. This is also true of pain.
Many of us want to go painlessly but unfortunately not too many of us do. To whom does the pain come from…or come to I should say. If you work on yourself during your living years. During your healthy years you will be able to transcend pain like you transcend death. You will be able to step back and look at it, observe it.
But it will not disturb you or bother you. This is the reason why I say, “You have to be totally honest with yourself.” There has to come a time in your life when you stop fooling yourself. You have to develop humility and loving kindness while you’re working on this path to self-realization.
Go through your life and see what you’re doing with your days. See what you’re doing with your spiritual life. What are you really after? Unfortunately most people are in spiritual life to change bad for good. And no matter how many times I tell you this you still are trying to do this. You’re simply into spiritual life, you’re into meditation. You go through certain things in pranayama, breathing, yoga exercises, zen meditation. You do all of these things not really to awaken but to become a saint. To become better than most people. To overcome your problems. These are all the wrong reasons.
What is the reason why you should work on yourself? There is no reason. It’s just something that you do. Something within yourself and this again is a great mystery will touch some people a certain way. Where they just feel that this world has absolutely nothing to offer them. No matter how wealthy they are. No matter how much fun they’re having. No matter what they’re doing with their lives. Something touches them within and they begin to leave everybody alone. They become quiet.
I used to know a boisterous guy. Really boisterous. Had a chip on his shoulder.
Always was ready for a fight. Nobody liked him everybody, shied away from him. He lived in an ashram, been going there for years. He always believed he knew more than somebody else. He would always debate with people, argue with people. Try to pin them down. Try to show them that they know more than he does and he would argue with them to show that he knows more than they do. And he went through this for about three or four years. Then something happened, nobody knows what. Overnight he changed totally and completely. Where there used to be a frown on his face or look at people in despise, he had a smile on his face. He no longer had anything to say to anyone. Except good morning, good night, hello, goodbye. He let go of everything. And he left the ashram. Nobody knows what happened to him.
You see when something like this happens to you it makes no difference where you are. Whether you’re in prison. Whether you’re in an ashram or a hospital. Whether you’re homeless. Whether you’re a multimillionaire. Whether you’re sick or whether you’re well. Realization plays no favorites.
Do not think because you say you’re good and you meditate everyday at certain amount of time, that you expect to be liberated. Liberation can come to the worst murderer. Who knows nothing about meditation or spiritual life.
This is the reason I tell you all of the time, “Do not try to judge these things. Do not try to figure these things out. Do not try to come to any conclusions about who deserves this and who does not,” you don’t know. Rather work on yourself. When you become the ineffable Self, pure awareness you will become the Self of all. The all pervading Self, omnipresent. All of the trees, the flowers, the sky, the plants, the universe will be inside of you. You have become the creator of everything.
Therefore you have reverence for all of life. Everything becomes very important to you. By important I mean you have reverence, love, compassion, loving kindness. Not because you want to be that way, you can’t help it. You’re not trying to be a good person.
The term good is not in your mind any longer. You don’t know what good is. You don’t know what bad is. For remember if you understood what good is, you have to understand what bad is. Because it’s part of the duality. So when you get to the stage of the Self there is no one left to experience good or bad, right or wrong, sickness or health, up or down and whatever.
It is said that if you emulate a spiritual Master you will become a spiritual Master yourself. This doesn’t mean that you go around making out that you’re enlightened. But when you’re by yourself without telling everyone or anyone you act as if you’re enlightened. Without telling a soul. By acting as if you’re enlightened means you show everyone loving kindness, compassion. You have humility. You’re always joyous and happy. You only have kind words for everyone. Yet you do not feign these things. You do not want
people to see that you’ve changed or you’re different or you’re kind. You’re doing this to yourself. You’re acting like a spiritual Master. The act will become the thing.
As you keep convincing your subconscious, that you are the Self, you are Brahman, you are nothing, you are the I. As you keep convincing yourself of this you will become this. When is the best time to do this? After you practice self-inquiry. When you’ve practiced self-inquiry for a while and you’ve gotten down to the stage where you’re saying, “Who am I?” and you’re experiencing a semblance of the silence. It is in the silence when you voice to yourself, “I am Brahman, I am absolute reality, I-I.” At that time you will be able to do this. It will come by itself.
But for the person who is still experiencing this world as a reality and who has not practiced self-inquiry or any kind of spiritual discipline, when you voice this, it will build up your ego instead. Your ego will be built up. When you say, “I am Brahman. I am pure awareness. I am Sat-Chit-Ananda.” It will be your ego that you will be inflating. This is why I never emphasize to you to practice these affirmations. For again you are inflating your ego.
It is only when you’re in deep humility, humbleness, that you can voice, “I am Brahman.” For is not Brahman the servant of all? Is not the Buddha the friend of everyone?
Is not the Christ the forgiver of sins? Is not Moses the I-am-that-I-am? What is one quality that all these Sages have had?
Total humility. Total humility, not pride, not an inflated ego. But total humility.
Most of them looked like fools, in the eyes of intelligent people. Most of them are considered dumb, ignorant as far as the world is concerned. For they never gave the right answers. They never wanted to debate truth with anyone. They hardly ever had anything to say. Yet these are the people we all remember.
Another thing that is funny to me is we like to make God in our image. So if we have a chip on our shoulder, we’re egotistical, arrogant, we imagine that Christ was that way. We imagine that Buddha was that way. We imagine that Ramana Maharshi was that way. We imagine that Rama Krishna was that way and so forth and so on. If we could only remember these things. It is we who give reality to the world. We see the whole world in our image. When you look at the world you’re only seeing yourself. If you’re arrogant you will see arrogance wherever you look. If you’re suspicious you will see suspicion wherever you look. Wherever you are that is what you’re going to see.
Therefore begin today to let go. To let go of all the stuff, the fears. Especially the fears. Remember it’s the fears that hold you back. Inquire deeply, “To whom does the fear come? Who feels this fear? I do. Well where did this I come from? Who am I? What is the source of the I?” Always remember that the I you’re talking about is the ego. The I-thought.
The ego I. It is not the same I that you voice when you’re in deep meditation in the silence.
And you say, “I am Brahman.” That I-am is God. Effortless pure awareness. But as you’re practicing self-inquiry the I is the ego. And as you keep practicing, “I-I, I-I,” it turns into the real I. The reality is the I. The God I. Try to understand these things. Think of these things.
Many of you go home and you begin to think of the world. We fear the riots downtown, the rebellion. We never seem to understand that these things have been happening since time immemorial. There has always been man’s inhumanity to man. There have always been riots, confusion, chaos. But my question to you is, “What does this have to do with you?” You profess to be a spiritual person. A spiritual person understands where the world is coming from. They neither hate it nor love it. They just watch and observe and look. They cannot have feelings for being good or bad because their feelings are steeped in Godliness. Their feelings are always on the reality. The feelings do not go out and say, “This is terrible. This is wonderful. This is bad. This is good. This is how it should be. This is how it shouldn’t be.” These things are the images on the screen. Begin to see it this way.
Your body and your mind and the things going on in the world are the images on the screen that are changeable, never being the same. This is the way of the world. We build things, structures, edifices, monasteries, big buildings, big cities and then they’re all destroyed in due time. And we build them again and they’re all destroyed again. It’s all a cosmic joke but you’re taking it seriously. As long as you’re taking it seriously you become part of it. You experience it you go through it. This is why it is written, “Whom shall you follow this day, God or mammon?” Fred likes that. Whom shall you follow? The world and it’s peculiarities this is mammon or the Self, the absolute reality. The choice is yours.
Do the right thing.
(short silence)
It is time to play “Stump the Guru.”
SV: I hope somebody gets that.
SH: Go get it Tom. You have the final one, eliminate him.
R: It’s funny that no matter what your question is there is only one answer. All is well. (students laugh)
Q: (Robert reads) Robert you said we could get rid of such compulsions as anger and I presume also greed and lust. By identifying with those emotions that appear. Not sure how that can work or I’m missing in understanding that. What should be done after they have been identified to loosen the hold of those compulsions. Thou is truly butterscotch or marsh-mellow, take your pick.
We have somebody ready for the funny farm here. (students laugh) (SV: A long time ago.) R: When you have a certain emotion, let’s say fear. I said one day if you identify with the emotion it will disappear. What I mean is this. When there is a hurricane and you go to the center of the hurricane what do you find? (S: Silence?) Peace and silence. At the center of the hurricane there’s total peace, total silence. When you see the ocean and the turmoil. Giant waves hurricane size hitting the shore, destroying property but when you go deep into the center of the ocean what do you find? Total peace, total quietness.
This is true of every emotion you have. If you can only become quiet enough and identify with the center by going deep within the Self, deep deep within. The deeper you go the quieter you become. And if you go to the center of the emotion, the emotion will disappear in its entirety and you will never have it again. I can assure you of this.
I’ll explain it to you again. If you have anger or greed or any kind of emotion. If you sit still and you observe the emotion, you look at the emotion, you go through the emotion deeper and deeper to it’s center. When you reach the center there will no longer be an emotion left. You’ve destroyed it and it will never bother you again.
You get the same result with self-inquiry. By inquiring, “Who has this emotion?”
You will come to the conclusion that I have it. Where does this I reside? What is the home of the I? The heart. When you follow the I to the heart it’ll be dissolved in absolute reality.
This is the way to work on yourself. If you try to get rid of the emotion by any other method you will fail. Do no try to change the emotion or change it to something positive.
All the emotion is doing is abeyance. Waiting to sprout once more at a certain time.
So again, you either follow the emotion to the center by identifying with it deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and when you get to the center it will be gone forever. Or in self-inquiry you inquire, “To whom does it come? It comes to me I am experiencing this emotion. What is the source of the I?” The heart. You follow the I to the heart where it will be totally dissolved and obliterated.
SD: Robert I remember once you telling me to do the same with pain. That if you become one with the pain it will go away. (R: Yes.) I found this very helpful and it might help people understand how to do it.
R: It’s the same principle. You have a pain that hurts a headache, a migraine, cancer whatever you’ve got rather than feel the pain and identify with the pain begin to become very still, very quiet and begin to go deep within the pain. Dive deep, deep, deep within the pain. Deep, real deep, feel yourself diving deep to the center of the pain. At the center there is no pain and you’ll be at peace.
Or again you can inquire, “To whom does the pain come? The pain comes to me, to the I. I am not the I. I have nothing to do with that I. The I has the pain not me.” Follow the I to the heart center and it will all be dissolved, assimilated and eliminated. The more you work on yourself spiritually the easier these things will be for you to do.
Q: (Robert reads) Which of the fears are the most damaging fears?
A: (Robert answers) All fear comes from the same place. Nothingness. It makes no difference what kind of a fear it is they’re all the same. You can be afraid of never becoming self-realized. You can be afraid of the rioters if they are going to get you. You can be afraid of your husband or your wife. You can be afraid of wars or man’s inhumanity to man. They’re all the same thing. There is no difference. And you treat them all the same way. Either dive…dive deep into the fear to it’s center where it doesn’t exist, or inquire, “To whom does this fear come? Who is experiencing this fear? I am. Well what is the source of this I am?” Follow the I-thought to the heart, where it will be totally liberated…obliterated.SM: That’s it Robert. (R: That’s it?) Um-hm. (R: That’s it.) (laughter) SR: I had an experience with the I-thought and the riots that are going on. A couple of weeks ago you said something about… (tape break) …and I think it tickled my brain before but somehow it hit me hard when you said it a week ago. It went inside and I was able to digest it for the first time or feel it going in and grappled it, moving on to it.
This week when the riots started some kind of a …unclear… because I know the ghetto boy personality much better than the average person and I know the Korean personality much better than the average person. And so with all that so-called expertise I was… The Koreans were running up and down Korea town yelling, “We want peace,” they’re having marches, “we don’t want to be stabbed today.” And they were having speakers.
And I said I wonder if I have a responsibility to go to the place where they are having their speeches and go and tell them what they need to do about the changes they need to make in their personalities or they will have no peace, since they affect a lot of people negatively. And as I was going in that direction all of a sudden the words from your speech about a week ago hit me. Something about, “Jorge the best way you can bring peace into this world is to let go of your I-thought and your sense of separative-ness.”
And immediately the responsibility or obligation I felt to go and tell them — with the risk of being stoned to death - What they were doing to bring on all this enmity from the Hispanics and Blacks. By telling them many of the irritating things that they do that irritate people. All of a sudden the desire and the feeling of obligation left me and I realized that my obligation was to let go of the I-thought. And my own separatist feelings that come with that I-thought. And it was like a tremendous breath of fresh air. And the whole desire left me to…or the feeling of I must do it as a good citizen or something and it kind of maybe saved my life. (laughs) Maybe I gained another life but it saved me. It saved some life and it gained another life.
R: That’s a good awakening you had Jorge?
Jorge (SR): Yeah it was nice. It was nice to have that feeling of power this insight has hit me hard.
You know you can really feel it when it’s a visceral insight mixed with an intellectual understanding but the visceral was so deep. So I want to thank you for - whether those words are true or not it looks like I’ve grabbed on to them when I first heard them… Not first, when I heard them a week ago. You probably have said them ten times before the time that I grabbed it and then it saved my life a few days ago when I was in Korea town. So, thank you.
R: You’re doing well Jorge. (SR: But I should ask you, did I understand it correctly?) You certainly did. Try to remember also that to the extent that we bring peace to our self to that extent do we bring peace to the world. This is why even today there are many Sages, many Jnanis, many Saints that you never even heard about who are today sitting in caves, on top of mountain tops, in forests simply being themselves. And that Self becomes the world. If it weren’t for these beings we would be back in the dark ages.
So to the extent that you see peace within yourself. To that extent will there be peace in this world. By just trying to change the world will not do it. You cannot force
things on people. It’s an individual proposition. And each so-called being on this planet must come to their own conclusions.
Fred (SF): I was wondering the other day if the fear I experienced during the riots might not have come from a desire and any fear comes from a desire that things not change. In other words I desired that there not be riots or fires? If I did not have that desire in fact the fear would not have arisen. It damn sure did.
R: Well you should concentrate on yourself more so than where the desire comes from or who has the desire or what may have happened because of the desire. Rather know the truth yourself that all is well. That is all you’ve got to know. It’s so simple. All is well. (SF: Thank you.) No matter how it looks. No matter what appears to be going on. All is well. As strange as it sounds this is the truth. (SF: I know Bhagvan Sri Ramana told somebody these things aren’t for the things that you think are good but you don’t think of the things that are bad that’s where you go wrong.) Yes. True. (SF: It’s Hard for me anyway.) It’s not too hard Jorge, it’s easier than you think, Fred not Jorge. (SF: I’ll try.) Anyone else like to share something or questions?
SV: Yeah I’d just like to ask if you could speak a little louder because sometimes I can’t hear or it can’t be recorded. Please speak a little louder when you say something. (R: (Robert yells out) Fred wants me to speak a little louder.) (students laugh) What did you say? (laughter) R: Anyone else like to express themselves?
Fred (SF): Yeah one thing, I said this before that if I spent time thinking a person, a place or a thing should be different than it is I’m just spinning my wheels? (R: Yes.) And that person can include me, right? I spend a lot of time thinking I should be different than I am. So what it really boils down to is acceptance? Accept me not quite the way I am. To accept it then possibly some change might come about like my attitude to the homeless. They don’t bug me like they did. Beggars on the street and the change in that area.
R: But if you accept something you will never get to the goal. Because acceptance is the opposite of rejection. Again they are two sides of the same coin. So you don’t want to accept nor reject. Just be. (SF: Just be, okay. (laughs) I see now that it’s the coin. One of the opposites.) SH: Dual opposites simply have to be transcended period. (R: Exactly.) One way or another. (R: Right.) Through God’s grace. God means different things to different people.
R: Do we have any announcements? Mary do you have any announcements?
Mary (SM): No Robert nothing. (Other students make announcements) R: What we’ll do now is we will practice self-inquiry. For many of you tell me that when you practice together you get more out of it. So we’ll do it.
Make yourself comfortable in a chair, on the floor, wherever you’re sitting. Close your eyes. As a thought comes to you do not try to change it or stop it. Merely inquire, “To whom does this thought come?” It makes no difference what kind of thought it is. Whether it’s a thought of God. A vision of God. A vision of the devil. A vision of chaos and confusion. A vision of heaven. It’s all the same.
Whatever thought comes to you inquire, “To whom does this thought come?” Then it will come to you automatically that this thought comes to me. “I am thinking this thought.” Then you further inquire, “Then where did the I come from? Where is the source of this I? That is the root cause of all thought. Where is the source of the I?” And you become perfectly silent. You do not answer that question.
As you sit in the silence this way more thoughts will come. Remember it makes no difference what they’re about, good or bad. You do the same thing all over again. You inquire, “To whom does this thought come? Why it comes to me. Again I am thinking it.”
You come to the conclusion that the I is the root thought. Because all the thought that you think goes back to the I.
Consequently if you get rid of the I there will be no more thoughts. So in order to get rid of this I-thought you inquire further, “What is the source of this I?” or “Who am I?
Where did this I come from? Who gave it birth?” And you keep silent.
The thoughts come again. You do the same thing again and again and again and you will discover as you keep practicing the space between the silence and the new thoughts will be larger and larger. Do it!
(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.