– Transcript 155
R: It’s good to be with you again. It is wonderful to be with you again. I always enjoy coming here, for I feel there’s only one, and we are all that one. There’s only the one Brahman, the one Self, the one reality, and we are all that. Therefore I will make our confession. The I am confesses to you. Not my confession, or Henry’s confession, or Dana’s confession, or anybody’s confession. Our confession. The confession is not coming from a person, it’s coming from the one Self, it is the one Self.
Close your eyes. I am boundless space, infinite like the sky. I am. Not a person, place or thing, but I am. I am choice-less, effortless pure awareness. I am Parabrahman. I am Sat-Chit-Ananda. I am ultimate oneness. I am absolute reality. I am nirvana. I am infinite like the sky. I am absolute consciousness. I am that I am. I am. I am. I am.
There are some of us who want to awaken with all their heart and with all their soul. Yet they always forget that they have to get rid of the stuff that’s keeping them from awakening. The concepts, the preconceived ideas, the dogmas, the belief system that we’ve had for so many years, this has to be given up. We must develop loving kindness, compassion. If you are I am, then you must practice ahimsa, non-violence to any living thing, for if you admit and confess, I am absolute pure awareness, I am Parabrahman, this is all pervading, this is omnipresence. Therefore the trees, the animals, the mountains, the universe, everything, is I am.
When I use the word I-am, do not believe or think it applies to the human body.
There is no human body. The human body does not exist. I am consciousness exists, and that I am consciousness is everything. Everything is holy. Everything is sacred. Do not believe that some things are sacred and some things are not. Everything is sacred, even man’s inhumanity to man, the dastardly situations that appear in the world. It is hard for the human mind to understand these things, but everything is very sacred, everything is God.
God is all there is, there’s nothing else. So how can there be an evil situation someplace and also be God. This is duality, and we know and understand that duality does not exist. There is only the one, and the one is everything that exists. You consequently have to start feeling this in your heart, that your heart center is omnipresence, all pervading, it includes the whole universe.
There is nothing to be angry about, nothing to be upset about, nothing to be depressed about, for the whole universe is God and nothing else. You are not your body or your mind. We still make the mistake in believing that when you say, I am Brahman, you’re referring to your body. Your body can never be Brahman. The body is an illusion, a mirage. There is only Brahman, only God, nothing else.
We have to be in our own Dharma. Dharma means the right path. You are in your Dharma now, whatever it may be, for there are no mistakes. The Dharma that appears that you’re in, is the result of karma. This is why I always say you are in your right place, right now. This is your Dharma. Do not fight it. Do not feel sorry for yourself. You have the freedom in this Dharma to totally transcend and transmute everything and become free.
Where there is no karma, there’s no Dharma, there’s nothing. But while you are searching, you have to be thankful for the Dharma that you’re in. Do not feel something is wrong, or you’re out of place, or you should be something else. I know people tell me many times, Robert, I feel so spiritual I really don’t belong here on this earth. If you didn’t belong here on this earth, what are you doing here? Why are you here? As long as you are here and you feel that you’re here, then you belong where you belong. This is your Dharma.
There is an interesting story that illustrates this. There was once a holy man sitting under a tree meditating. He had his hands open and a female mouse fell into his hands. A bird had apparently dropped the mouse. He felt sorry for the little mouse and because he was a great siddhi, a being of great powers from his years of meditation, he turned the mouse into a lovely young girl, and took the girl home to his house. His wife was enthralled with this. She was unable to have children, and she was so happy to have this little girl. They both loved her very much, and brought her up to be a fine young lady.
One day the wife said to the husband, “Husband it’s time for our daughter to get married. Where can we find a suitable husband for her?” And the holy man said, I know, I’ll ask the sun. So he went outside and he called the sun and he said, “Mr. Sun, our daughter is of the marrying age and we’re looking for a suitable husband. Can you help us?” The sun said, “Certainly, I will marry her myself.” How would you like to get married to the sun? The husband was thrilled and he said, Oh great joy has come over me that the sun would pick my daughter to be married to. And he ran in and he told his wife and he told his daughter. And the daughter said, “No Dad, I don’t want to marry the sun. There’s too much light, I’ll be burned. Find me a different husband.”
So the holy man went outside, he spoke to the sun again, he said, “Mr. Sun, our daughter does not wish to marry you because she will be burned with your light. Can you think of anyone else more powerful than you, that can marry her?” So the sun thought about it, and then he said, “Ask Mr. Cloud. The cloud will give you an answer. The cloud is mightier than I am because many times the clouds hide me, and I do not appear, and I can do nothing about it. So the cloud is mightier than I am. Ask the cloud.” The holy man beseeched the cloud and said, “Mr. Cloud, I have a daughter that is of the marrying age and I’m looking for a suitable husband for her. Can you help out? Do you know of anyone who should marry her?” And Mr. cloud said, “I will. I’ll marry your daughter.” And again the holy man became overjoyed with this. Imagine a cloud marrying my daughter. This was a good thing. He ran in the house, told his wife and then told his daughter. The wife
and the husband were so happy, but the daughter said, “Chill out, Dad. I don’t want to marry that cloud. For when it rains, I’ll get soaked. Get me a better husband.”
So again the holy man went out to the cloud and told him the story, what the daughter said. “Can you think of anyone else?” And the cloud said, “Well, how about Mr.
Mountain? This is a great mountain here that is mightier than I am, because when I flow around the mountain, I can’t go through it. I have to flow around it. And there’s nothing I can do about it. So the mountain is very powerful.” The holy man beseeched the mountain, “Mr. Mountain, can you think of someone that can marry my daughter?” And the mountain also said, “I will.” So again the holy man was very happy about this. A mountain marrying his daughter, what could be better? He ran into the house, told the wife, she was overjoyed. And he told the daughter. Again she didn’t want to marry the mountain. She said, “Come on, Dad, I can’t marry this mountain. The mountain has cactus growing all over it. When we embrace, I’ll be pinched with cactus. Think of someone else.”
So the holy man went back to the mountain and told him the story, and said, Can you think of anybody else for my daughter? The mountain said, “Well, the only one I can think of that is more powerful than me is this little mouse that lives in the bottom of me, because he bores holes and has a nest inside of me, and I can do nothing about it. And since he bores holes in me, he must be more powerful than I am. Ask the mouse.”
So the holy man went to the mouse and said, Mr. Mouse, I have a daughter of the marrying age, I’m looking for a suitable husband, can you help me?” And the mouse said, “Yes, I will marry her myself.” He was overjoyed. Imagine, a mouse marrying his daughter. He ran and told his wife, and they both went and told the daughter. The daughter thought about this and she said, “Yes, I will marry the mouse. The mouse is very cute. I will marry the mouse. But father can you do something for me? Can you please turn me into a little mouse also?
So the holy man turned her into a little mouse. And they both got married and they lived happily ever after, in the mountain. Now what is the moral of this story? I’ll give you three choices.
A: Everyone’s daughter should marry a mouse.
B: This was her Dharma originally, for she was a mouse, and she had to live out her Dharma and become free and liberated.
C: If you marry a mountain, a cloud and a mouse, you will have children that will become freaks and you’ll be able to put them in the circus and make $1,000,000.
So which one is the right answer?
B of course. This story tries to bring home the fact that your Dharma is what you have to live out. If you try to change it, years will pass, and you will make all kinds of mistakes, and go through all kinds of problems. Whatever your Dharma is, has been presented to you by karma. Therefore do not fight it. Bless it.
This is sort of difficult to understand sometimes, for you have the impression that if you live in a condition that is horrible, terrible, you have to stay there and not change the condition. This is the ultimate truth. This is exactly what you must do. And you know why. For you have within you the conditionings that are at the level of your experience.
This means if you change your environment, or if you change the condition, the samskaras and the conditioning that you have inside of you will just put you back in that kind of a position with different people, different environment, but you have not risen from that condition. Therefore you have to experience the same things over, and over, and over, and over again.
We find this happening in people who get divorced, get married, get divorced, and get married. They always think they’re going to get something better. But they always seem to have the same problem. Just new faces, new people, same problems. So if you have a horrible marriage, or if you’re not living with the person you love, do not try to change this, for you have not changed yourself. Merely know the truth. Work on yourself and never react to the condition. This is the freedom you’ve got from Dharma and karma.
When you begin to see the truth in yourself, but automatically, you will be picked up by the power which knows the way, and you’ll be placed in a position or in a place where you’re supposed to be at this time. This is why I tell you so often there are no mistakes. It appears sort of complicated to the finite mind, but you are in your right place, going through those experiences that are right for you at this time. Only if you are thankful and you bless the position you’re in, do you become a higher being, do you lift yourself up, and finally you find liberation. But it begins and ends with you.
Never pray to God for release of your problems. Never pray to God to change your life, and to give you something better. This is wrong prayer. If you have to pray to God, pray to God to give you the strength and the wisdom and the courage that you need to be able to handle the situation that you’re in. This is correct prayer.
Do not try to change anything. Be yourself. Work on yourself. Begin to see things in a new light. See your situation differently. There are no bad things, there are no good things, but thinking makes it so.
Stop thinking of the extremes, good and bad, right and wrong. Rather look at yourself in the moment. Stay centered. See yourself as a divine being, an infinite being, totally free and liberated. Do not feel sorry for yourself because you are in a position, in a situation, you don’t like. This just holds you there more.
And again, as we mentioned before, even if you run away from a situation, you will attract some of the circumstances elsewhere. Running away is never the answer.
Changing yourself is the answer. Take a look at your own life and see if it is not true, what I’m saying. The changes you’ve gone through in your life. I know so many people who have left their homes and family and have gone to India to meditate, to find gurus, teachers. They have come back very depressed, even suicidal, for they’ve given up everything.
Remember there’s nothing you have to give up. Only mentally do you give up attachment.
Always look at the world as a reflection of you. You are the world. The world can be nothing without your approval. It sounds strange, but true. You have to stop identifying conditions apart from yourself. I know it seems hard to do. When you see the riots we’ve just had, the murders, the looting, it’s really difficult to realize you are one with this.
But think about this. Why should you only think that you are one with the good things? If you are one, you are one with everything. Never the good things that you enjoy, and you like, and you like to bring into your life.
You are all pervading, omnipresent, and you are one with all there is. The correct way to observe this is to look at everything in this world intelligently, without any comments, without any reactions. Do not be for or against anything. Train yourself to observe, to watch, to look, without any reaction. You may start training yourself with the small things. Work on the small things first.
As an example, if you go outside and you see you have a ticket on your car for over-parking, catch yourself reacting to this, by not reacting at all. Simply see the situation, look at the situation. Have no comment, no reaction. Pay the ticket and forget it. Do not think this is good, this is bad, this is outrageous, this is wrong, I don’t deserve it. If you didn’t deserve it, it wouldn’t happen. Say you stub your toe. Instead of cursing the chair, getting upset, feel the pain, observe it, watch it, and let it go. Everything that takes place in your life, this is the way you should react.
Someone cheats you, and you’re thinking of taking them to court, to sue them.
Think about this carefully. Is this what I really want to do? And then your ego will tell you, “Of course you do. You were cheated.” Your business partner cheated you out of $50,000.
So you want to take this person to court to sue them. Say you did go to court and you won the case. You think this is good. But something will happen to even it out again. You’ll have to go to court again, and again, and again. Sometimes you will win, sometimes you will lose. There are people like that you know. I’m thinking of a particular woman right now who makes a habit of going to court at least once a month. She is always suing somebody for something. Sometimes she wins and sometimes she loses, and she’s a nervous wreck. She’s not a happy woman.
If you begin to understand that everything is in its right place, how can somebody do something to you. No one can hurt you. What is rightfully yours, no one can ever take away. So why worry? Why be upset? It makes life so much easier. You start to worry and you become upset because in your finite mind, in your ego mind, you’re thinking, Well, I’ve been cheated out of $50,000. This is all the money I have. I’m going to go to the poorhouse. I’ll become a homeless person, and your mind keeps playing tricks with you, telling you all the bad things that are going to happen to you. If you can only laugh at yourself, and stop thinking of those things, you will find that you have risen higher in consciousness, and you’re in control of the situation, and all is well.
Never allow your mind to play tricks on you, to play games with you, and tell you about all the things that might happen, and then fear comes in and you start running around, crying, trying to correct things, trying to make things good, while you keep thinking about all the bad things that are going to happen to you. These things we are talking about are very important, for it keeps you back from thinking of truth and reality, it keeps you back from moksha, from liberation, for you’re spending all the time involved in the material world. I’m not saying to give up thinking about your business, or thinking about your family, or thinking about things in your life, but make them short and sweet. Think a couple of minutes about these things, and leave it alone, and go back to your spiritual Self, thinking about who am I? What is my real nature? Who was I before I was born? Where did I come from? We’re talking about I, not you.
See I caught some of you didn’t I, for when I was saying, “Where did I come from?
Who am I?” you are going back to your humanhood, to your personal self. Learn whenever you say the word I, you’re not thinking about your personal self. When you forget it, you are thinking about your personal self, but when you remember, I is God. I is pure awareness, absolute reality. Even when you forget this and you are involved in conversation, when you use the word I, you are thinking about your personal self.
Remember to catch yourself. Keep catching yourself all the time. This is how you grow. This is how you mature. Never allow a day to go by when you do not work on yourself in this manner. A situation is presented to you, good or bad, do not get excited.
Observe the situation. Keep your cool. Realize the situation comes to me. I am experiencing this. The personal I is experiencing this predicament, not me. The real I is not going through this, but the personal I is going through this. To the extent that you do not feel the condition or situation that you are in, to that extent is the personal I not working any longer, and the real I comes along. You begin to feel higher, spiritual, sacred. Comes by itself. All you’ve got to do is to let go of the personal I by not reacting to the condition, and automatically the real I comes along, for you are really the real I. This is your real nature.
This is your svarupa, God, Brahman, consciousness.
Can you imagine what would happen if you thought about this all day long, without forgetting. Why, you’d be enlightened in no time. Now perhaps you can see the reason, what is keeping you back. Yourself! You are keeping yourself back. Why? Because you are involved in the material world, in your mind. Remember I’m not saying you have to give up your job, or not do things in this world. You’ve got a body and the body is going to do things. But mentally, you have to not be attached to what you’re doing. Your body will know what to do and will do everything that is necessary for it to do. Be your Self!
Again, what I am saying is this. Every position that you find yourself in, every situation that you find yourself in, with whomever you find yourself with, the positions that you have or don’t have, wherever you may be in this world, is your right place at this moment. Bless this. Love it.
I know it sounds hard when you think of a horrible condition, and you say, “I must love it.” Let me explain again. The reason you love it is because God is all there is.
Try to remember this. There is nothing but God. Therefore, if you hate something, you’re
hating God, which is your self. It’s all coming out of you. You are that. You must learn to trust and love your Self, your precious Self.
When you become despondent, depressed, hateful, feeling sorry for yourself, this is what blasphemy really means, for you’re feeling this way about your Self. Can’t you see? There’s only your self. If you think something is horrible, you’re speaking about your self. You look at a situation, you watch it, you observe it, you never react, you leave it alone. And then you’ll be given the power that you need, to handle it, to go through it, without thinking, without thoughts, without any commotion, without any noise. These are the things you must work on. Be that Self.
Never be frightened again by anything. If I can make this perfectly clear to you.
Never allow anything in this world to ever frighten you. Allow things to unfold as they may. Remember you just watch and observe, hold on to the truth. Happiness will come of its own accord. When you hold on to the truth, when you do not react to life’s conditions, person, place or thing, when you leave things alone and you stop fighting life, you’re not giving up.
In the Western psychology, we’re told that you never give up. We are taught to keep on fighting. But I’m telling you there is nothing to fight, and the only thing you’re giving up is your ego. Western psychology has never gone beyond this. Therefore they do not know of life beyond this. Western psychology works in the presumption that you are a body and a mind, so naturally they tell you never give up, fight to the end. Stick up for your rights.
But in the highest teachings of the truth we learn that you have no rights. You’re giving up your body, your ego, your mind, and when this happens, you go beyond psychology. Something happens that psychiatry, psychology are not aware of whatsoever.
And that is you rise to a higher dimension, where there is happiness, and peace, and compassion, and love, joy, that is naturally yours. You begin to feel these things instead of the things you felt before. Prior to this, when you were fighting life, when you were sticking up for your rights, when you were trying to get even, when you were working as an ego, you were never able to feel happiness or joy or peace. Only sometimes, when you won, when you got your point across, when you won an argument, when you won a fight, when you sued someone and won, you felt happy for a while, but it didn’t last long, and you have to go through it again and again. But this is as far as the world goes. It doesn’t know anything else but this.
What I’m saying to you, let go of everything. Do not hold on. Stand naked before God, without any crutches, without anything to hold on to. When you can do this, from this moment on you will begin to rise. And you will become aware that you are not the body, or the mind, or the world, or the universe, but you are effortless choice-less pure awareness. You are boundless space, infinite like the sky. You have become everything, and everything has become you. Work on yourself. Let’s do this again and we will practice “Who am I.” You will say, “Who am I?” to yourself when you inhale. Before you exhale you will say, “I am Brahman.” And when you exhale you will say, “I am not the body.” With your respiration you inhale and you say, “Who am I?” Before you exhale you say, “I am Brahman.” As you exhale you say, “I am not the body.” Close your eyes. Relax yourself. Focus your attention on your breath. Listen to your breath. Breath naturally like you always do. As you inhale you say to yourself, “Who am I?” Before you exhale say, “I am Brahman.” Exhale and say, “I am not the body.” Let’s do this.
(silence)
Feel free to ask some questions.
SL: Robert how is this one different from what you had us do before that you said. Things that seem the same thing and then before exhaling, saying, “I am that,” then exhaling and saying, “I am not the body,” or “I am not the mind,” (R: It’s the same. There is no difference.) Also Robert once before you said that instead of saying, “I am God.” You said that our minds cannot accept that. So do you think that is the same thing as “I am Brahman?”
R: Sometimes your mind cannot accept this, sometimes it can. But it’s training for the mind. What you’re really doing when you say, “I am Brahman,” you are convincing the mind that you are not the body and the mind becomes a little weaker and begins to give up. As you keep it up. You grow and you feel better about yourself. Then things begin to happen.
Do not take every word I say literally. That it has to be exactly this way. I always put it a little differently to make you do it in different ways so the mind can get used to things being different and not the same. In other words it’s not that we’re trying to be brain surgeons and everything has to be exact. In truth there is no exactness. Things are changeable, they’re words. The whole idea is to transcend the mind and become totally free.
SV: Robert I’m not clear about, when you said catch yourself when you’re going to say, “I.” By the time you catch yourself you’ve already thought of I and you’ve thought of I in a personal sense. What do you do then at that moment? You just simply recognize, I wants and needs in one personal I?
R: Yes, you’ve caught yourself doing that. (SV:Um-hm) So you go higher then because you wake up and realize the I is God. Whereas before you would go on without catching yourself. As long as you keep catching yourself all the time then you’re growing.
(silence)
(Satsang is wrapped up with the reading of the Jnani by Mary) (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.