– Transcript 158
R: Good afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. I love every one of you, no matter what you’ve done in the past, no matter what you’re doing now. The love is unconditional. I can only love you, that’s all I can do, for I love my self, and my self is all pervading. Therefore to the extent that I really love myself, to that extent I love you. So I can say with all my heart that I love you, and all is well, everything is unfolding as it should, there are no mistakes, everything is in its right place, and so it is.
I was walking in the park this morning, as I usually do with my dog, when I met a lady I’ve never spoken to before. We started to speak of spiritual things, and she asked me, “Robert, do you admit that God created the universe?” And I answered and I said, “Yes, I do admit that God created the universe, but I am that who created God.” When she heard this, her mouth dropped. (laughter)
SH: I can imagine. (laughs)
R: She got up and left. (laughter)
SV: She was scared.
SH: She thought you were an ego-maniac. (laughter)
I was only voicing the truth. Did I tell her that Robert created God? Did I tell her that I, the ego, created God? I told her I am that, who created God. In other words, I am that, tat-tvam-asi, omnipresence, absolute reality, pure awareness. God comes out of that.
I know for most of you it’s very difficult to feel that God comes out of us, for we have been brought up in a western tradition where this is called blasphemy. We are to believe that there’s an anthropomorphic deity called God, sitting on a big white cloud somewhere up in heaven, throwing thunderbolts on people he doesn’t like, and blessing people that he does like. In other words, we have created God in our own image.
But what is God? God is a word that in the western condition, means the absolute reality, Brahman, Shiva, Vishnu, all of the gods, all of the wisdom of the earth, built into one lump word, and it’s called God. Yet most of us are so afraid to use that word, because we think the word is blasphemous when we use it, we’ll be punished. Who will punish us? God. Then you must believe God is a human being, since he or she has the power to punish, and the power to bless. There is no such God.
There is the Christ consciousness, if you want to believe in Christianity. There’s the Buddha nature, if you’re interested in Buddhism. There’s the Tao, there’s Allah, and all the numerous names for God. Yet in Advaita Vedanta we learn, if we have not had the experience ourselves, that God is a creation of the mind. It is we who create this God. But not we as Steve, or Dana, or Robert, or Henry. That’s a human name. Those are human concepts. It is the Self, that imperishable Self, which is all pervading, omnipresence, that creates God.
If you only knew what was inside of you, what you really were, you would laugh hysterically. You would be full of bliss, full of joy, full of happiness, full of harmony. There is that within you which is unspeakable, which cannot be explained. It’s such beauty, such joy. When you know who you are, and you call upon that, you’ll have everlasting happiness. This is the reason I always say to you at the end of the lesson, “Worship your self, bow to your self, pray to your self.” After all, to whom shall you pray? To the sky? To the moon? To the stars? Yet they also come out of you. You are the one.
You have to turn within yourself. And I know how many times I say this to you, some of you still go home, and you worry, and you pray to God for help, for assistance.
You pray to some anthropomorphic type deity up in the sky, to have mercy on your soul, and so forth. This is okay if you’re in kindergarten. But once you get past kindergarten you have to somehow understand who you really are. You are not a body as you appear. This is not you. The appearance is a lie. It’s a false appearance. It is Maya, the grand illusion. Yet we appear to live in Maya. So why not use the best of Maya to make yourself happy? Call upon the power within you, the light within you, to relieve you of your distress, to relieve you of your unhappiness, and all the things that seem to trouble you, and annoy you, and bother you. Call upon the God of your own being.
Better still, do not call upon God at all, but rather sit in the truth, sit in the silence, in your own svarupa, your own reality, your own nature. Sit in that silence, where you are the one, and there are no others. One day you’ll have to do this, so why not do it now?
Why keep on playing these games you’re playing with yourself, hide and seek, believing God came out, and created you, and I have to see God again. You don’t want to play hide and seek any longer. You want to realize that God never went anywhere. God never created anything. God is none other than your self, the absolute reality. You are that, beauty, everlasting joy, happiness, peace, bliss. This is your nature. This is the only existence.
There is nothing else.
If you understood what I’m talking about, would you have any fear of anything?
Would there be anything in this world, or any place else, that could frighten you, or do anything to you, or hurt you in any way? What would you fear? You are the one. There is no thing that can come from outside of you, to hurt you, unless you allow it. You allow it by believing you are a human being, with thoughts, and fears, and frustrations, a human being that was born, goes through experiences, and then seems to die.
When you stop to think about these things, it doesn’t make any sense. You’re born.
No one knows why. You seem to have experiences, and when you get it all together, it’s time to leave. Where do you go? What happens to you? You go nowhere. There’s nowhere to go, for you have never come from anywhere. You remain as you are, pure and still. This is wonderful news, yet you have to experience this for yourself.
How do you experience this by yourself? By letting go of the other. By dropping the frustrations, the self pity, the belief that somebody is trying to do something to you, so you have to protect yourself, you have to set up guards, so no one can hurt you. Who wants to hurt you? Who can possibly do anything to you. If you do accept the fact that everything is unfolding as it should, and everything is in its right place, how can you be hurt? What power is there to come and hurt you? Where would it come from?
Can’t you see, if the truth is omnipresent, if the reality is all pervading, is there any space for anything else? The all pervading goodness takes up all space and all form, so there is nowhere where the other can come from. There is only the one, and you are that. Why don’t you believe me? It’s the truth.
You spoil it when you begin to think, of course, when you allow the mind, which doesn’t exist, to think. How can you allow a mind, that doesn’t exist, to think? Don’t you see you’re making a fool of yourself? You’re listening to all these thoughts that come into the mind. This is wrong. This is right. This is good. This is bad. This I hate. This I love. I want things to be like this. Now I want things to be like that, and if not, I’m going to cry.
I’m going to get very upset. Whom have you been fooling all these years, by doing this?
Only yourself, your little self. You’ve been playing the game of hide and seek by believing you are a little self, a personal self, that has to work out their life.
You cannot understand yet that when you let go completely, another power comes along. This power is called the self, and it takes the place of your mind, so that you seem to function correctly. And you find yourself in your right place. You find right actions coursing through your veins. You find you’re doing those things you’re supposed to be doing, and all is well. You have to stop thinking and stop believing in a power apart from you.
As long as you believe this will happen, you’re creating this power, for a while.
There’s really no power to create. But for you, you appear to be creating a power called the devil. Then you have to kill the devil, by perhaps 10,000 prostrations, saying Hail Mary 25,000 times, and the other methods that these religions devise to keep you humble. Wake up. Become free. There is no one for you to attach yourself to. There’s no one for you to worship. There’s no one for you to be afraid of outside of yourself, for you have created all these things yourself, out of your mind.
This is why I emphasize so often, stop thinking, for it is the thoughts that are creative, and create your world for you. Everything you see, all of existence, only is here because you’re here, because you exist. Where do these things go when you are in deep sleep? They disappear. They no longer exist. But as soon as you wake up, your world becomes real to you, your world, the way you see it, the way you think of it.
When I am with you many times, when I go to lunch with you, or see you otherwise, I always like to hear you talk, for it tells me what you see, what you’re coming from.
I see how serious you are about this, and how serious you are about that, and what’s bugging you, what’s hurting you, what you feel frustrated about. And I cannot tell you, forget this. Laugh.
Be happy. Do not think about these things. This is all foolishness, for if I tell some of you this, you’ll be sort of insulted. You will feel funny and you’ll think I don’t care about you. You’ll feel I don’t care about your problems. But I’m trying to tell you, you do not have any problems. There are no problems. Read my lips. (laughter) No problems.
But you may say, “Well this is happening in my life, and I’m going through this and I’m going through that.” That’s not a problem. That’s your belief system. You have been brought up to believe certain things are terrible and certain things are wonderful.
Consequently you’re living in this kind of a world, duality, good and bad, right and wrong, up and down, backwards and forwards. You therefore feel all these things.
Why not let go? Do it. Do not think anymore of these things. Simply stop thinking, by catching yourself every time you think, catching yourself and becoming aware of the thinker. That stops your thoughts.
For instance, there’s a thought in your mind regarding sickness, death, lack, limitation. Before the thought becomes stronger, remember to catch yourself, and just look at the thought. That’s how you catch yourself, by observing the observer of the thought. This all happens by itself. As you catch yourself more and more, you begin to realize that you are the observer, watching yourself observe the thought, and you begin to laugh.
Life will bother you and annoy you as long as you believe you are a body, a mind, then you’ll have to go through all kinds of experiences. This is the reason I tell you so often, become yourself. Understand who you are. Understand that it is the personal I that has been giving you all this trouble.
By changing conditions, they will surely turn into new conditions. If you have a problem, you do not solve the problem by solving the problem. You solve the problem by getting to the source of the problem, for if you only work on the effect of the problem, a new effect will come along. When you work on that effect, a new effect will come along. It will never end. But go to the source, and the source is I, the personal I. Kill the I. Annihilate the I. When the I is destroyed you will be free.
A fast way of destroying the I, is by just staring at it, looking at it, watching it, observing it. When you observe the I, it goes away. Nothing likes to be stared down. True?
If you go to your friend, and all of a sudden you start staring at your friend, your friend will go away from you. He’ll think you’re a nut. He’ll be right. But your friend will leave.
This is true of the personal I. When the personal I attacks you, by frightening you, by making you believe something is real, stare it down, by just looking at it, watching it, observing it, and I can promise you it will go away. It will not hang around. You do not even have to go through self-inquiry, for some of you think it’s a lengthy process. Therefore stare the I down.
Of course you can only realize this, and do this, when you understand who you are, that you’ve got the power to do this. There is only one power, and you’ve got it. Omnipotence is the only power. You are the power.
So from now on, you’re not going to allow yourself to be betrayed by your mind again. You will not allow the mind to tell you anything to make you unhappy, or to make you believe something is wrong someplace. You will understand that there is nothing wrong anyplace. Things are just different. But everything happens for the ultimate good.
Begin to love your Self. I know that’s really hard for some of you to do. To really love your Self, to love the Self which is really you. Try standing in front of the mirror and making love to yourself. Some of you will not be able to do this. I’ll bet there are people here who look in the mirror and they don’t even want to look at themselves. They can’t look at themselves for a whole minute in the mirror. Try it and you’ll see what I mean. For when you look in the mirror, see God, not the physical appearance. See light shining from you, see bliss, see pure awareness, see total emptiness, see your Self.
Begin to practice this exercise. Looking in the mirror, begin for maybe a minute, then you go on to two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes. Look at yourself. Admit the truth to yourself. “I am Brahman. I am the ultimate reality. I am boundless space. I am the atman, the perfect intelligence, the one without the other, all pervading, perfect self.”
What if you told yourself this everyday? What do you think would happen? If you looked in the mirror and did this every day, you would turn into the God that you are.
And you will find peace, total peace, total love.
Begin today, knowing this truth about yourself. Hold on deeply to this truth, that you are the power, that God is an invention of your mind. There is no external God outside of yourself. You are the one. Know this, be this, and become forever free.
It’s time to play stump the guru. (laughter) So do we have any stumpers?
(Student opens the first question)
Mary (SM): Both sides Robert it looks like.
Q: (Robert reads) Can an avatar help in the spiritual journey toward Moksha? What is the cause of transmigration?
A: (Robert answers) Question number 1: Can an avatar help in the spiritual journey toward moksha? An avatar means an incarnated bliss of God incarnating of a human being. An Avatar like a Sage is a catalyst for your unfoldment and your spirituality. An avatar can tell you the truth. Share with you your reality and by your total surrender to the Self can make you the same as the Avatar.
In other words, if you go to a Sage and you let go of everything you’ve had before in your mind. In your thoughts and in your possessions and everything else, the grace of the Sage which is everywhere present but you’ve never been able to feel these things before, due to the fact that you were covered with all kinds of delusions, samskaras, you’ve 1669been lost in samsara, when you go to the Avatar and you surrender at the feet of the Avatar, you are giving the Avatar all of your junk. All the stuff that you’ve been carrying for so many years. You’re emptying yourself out. And the Sage takes this from you and exchanges it for grace. There has to be a lot of sincerity in this. The Sage has to be a person who has experienced the entire truth. With a living embodiment of this truth of the Self.
Otherwise he cannot give you anything but where he is himself or herself. So if you find an Avatar or a Sage be sure that that Sage is really the Self.
How can you be sure? By being truthful to your Self.
If you are a fraud or a phony or something inside of you, that is making up all kinds of nonsense and doing all kinds of things. You will be attracted to a Sage of the same caliber. But even that is good to an extent, for it shows that you’re searching. And you can straighten yourself out and become a real person of compassion, of love and you will be attracted to a higher Sage. So it always begins with you, as usual. You are the one. You are where you’re supposed to be right now. Wherever you think it is. Know yourself, love yourself, pray to yourself, be yourself and you will always be in your right place. You will go higher and higher until you finally awaken totally, completely and you will be free.
The second part of the question; What is the cause of transmigration? The belief that you are a body. What else? As long as you believe you are a body, a mind, a human being, you’re going to seem to die and then you’ll come back as something else. Whatever you can be. Cockroach.
SH: A mouse. (R: A mouse.)
SV: Fred. (R: Even Fred.) (laughter)
R: You can come back as anything. But that doesn’t even exist. Yet if you believe you are the body it’ll happen. Because you’re making it happen, you believe in these things. So that you have to believe that you are the self and start to work on your self until you become the self. And then forget about transmigration there is no such thing.
Q: (Robert reads) Is it important to put the teaching first in order to become self-realized?
What other reason would the mind have to do this. I’ll read it again. If it is necessary to put the teaching first but not in order to become self-realized what other reason would the mind have to do this?
A: (Robert answers) I’m always telling you not to think of self-realization but to do the work and everything will take care of itself. When you are working on yourself the mind will become subservient to you. You will find that you are controlling your mind you are telling it what to do, instead of it telling you what to do. Eventually it will disappear altogether.
So the mind doesn’t need a reason. You are taking your mind and you’re beginning to control your mind, you are taking complete charge of your mind. In other words before the mind tells you something like, “Ah what is the use of this? I’m going to go to a movie. I’m going to go bowling. I don’t have time to think of myself or reality.” The mind is controlling you. But now you get to the point from practicing where you are in charge.
The mind tries to tell you let’s go have a drink in a bar and you laugh. That is all you do is laugh at your mind and the thought disappears, the thought dissipates, it goes away. You are controlling the mind. Then the day comes when the mind disappears completely, totally, absolutely and you become free.
Q: (Robert reads) Robert on the very highest level do Jnanis exist? If reality were a pie what percentage of it would you be? (students laugh)
SH: Don’t look at me? (laughs)
A: (Robert answers) The word Jnani, moksha, self-realization are words at a human level. To try to make you realize that there is a place, which is your real home and this place is the silence. Where there are no words, only total silence. This silence is the freedom you’re looking for. The names we give it moksha, liberation, self-realization are only to make you understand there is something else. This is why I always say to you do not to go after the self-realization for you are already self realized, you are already that. There is nothing to go after, there is nothing to search for. You are that already, be that!
Now if reality were a pie what percentage of it would you be? To whom are you asking the question? To the Jnani or to the ajnani? If the ajnani answers a question like this there will not be a Jnani. There is no pie. There never was a pie. There will never be a pie.
There are no percentages. These things are for the ajnani to discuss, to argue about, to debate. There has to be a mind to accept things like this. Do you see what you are doing?
You’re getting involved in percentages. (students laugh) Be your Self. Be the whole pie.
Q: (Robert reads) Robert when you say everything is preordained where does free will come in?
A: (Robert answers) For whom is preordination? Again preordination is for the person who believes they are the body. As far as I’m concerned you are totally free of that.
You have total freedom. Stop thinking that everything is preordained. It’s only preordained when you think you are human, that you are a body. That you exist as a person, as a place or a thing. But if you do not feel this, if you do not do this, where does preordination come in?
There is no preordination. I tell you this sometimes to make you understand why you feel that you exist as a body. Because it was preordained that you come back here. But you do this all yourself. The freedom you have is to realize that nothing is preordained and you do not react to anything. When there is no longer reaction from you then preordination does not work any longer. As long as you walk around as a human being everything appears to be preordained, everything! But when you ask yourself, “To whom does this come? For whom is preordination?” You will become totally free and the word would not exist for you at all. Therefore think who you are.
Clyde do you want to say something?
SL: Is it because we are the one that we are preordained? (R: Of course. There is only one, that one is you.) And then when we get our ego out of the way, if we’re not operating from 1671the ego and we’re operating from the one (R: Umm) And then we don’t have to worry about what we do because we’re always doing the right thing? (R: Exactly.) (break in tape)
R: Will is the same as preordination. (SG: Well I mean either no will or free will, there is no will?) Unless you leave me in your will. (laughter) SL: There is nothing else to call it though? That which happens?
R: Yes, Jonas is correct. There is no free will. There is no realization. There is no moksha. There is no delusion. (SL: What I meant is we as egos we always want to imagine that we are free to do what we want.) Yes. (SL: So say that when we get our ego out of the way we accept what is happening. That is … we’re doing what we want because we always want to do the right thing.) We have to be real careful when we get into these areas. Because when a new person coming in here who has never heard this before, they will believe they’ve got the free will to hurt other people. Do all sorts of things to others. You’ve got to be very careful when you think about these things. The reality is, there is no freewill and there is no preordination. There is only the Self, the one. But when you think about being bound then you also think of freewill. You see they both go together. The bound one thinks of freewill to release him. But the person who is not bound has no freewill.
Glen (SG): But Christ said, “Thy will be done.” That is all he really ah… Become true to the soul because there really is no God will?
R: Well he was referring to the reality. To be the reality. “Thy will be done.” (SG: But there is no “Thy will,” there is no such thing?) There is no “Thy will” but he was referring to not thy will, He was referring to reality. Let reality be reality. (SG: Right) The reality is the reality. But to make it known he said, “Thy will be done.” (SG: But it is only a partial truth?) Don’t take the words literally. (SG: Right.) “Thy will be done” means things are the way they are. Perfect, pure, the Self.
Q: (Robert reads) Robert the personal self looks for liberation. If the small I is a concept how does it start all this process of seeking?
A: The small I does not exist. In reality it never existed. It does not exist now. Everything begins when you wake up in the morning. That is the time to grab a hold of yourself. Do not allow the small I to take over your life, by waking up in the morning and start worrying and thinking about your job and thinking about your family and thinking about your clothes and your breakfast and everything else like that. That is the time to catch yourself. That is the time to realize, “I am Brahman. I am the imperishable self.” There is no personal I. There never was and there never will be. There is only the pure awareness and I am that! Admit this confession to yourself in the morning when you get out of bed. Then there will be no concepts and there will be nothing to start. But if you don’t do this, then the personal I will begin the day for you. With all its problems, with all its concepts and with all its junk. It’s all up to you. (SM: That’s it Robert.) Awaken and be free.
SK: Robert in regard to your talk today. When I reflect on it, I believe I am God. But what I don’t understand is, seeing I’m God how do I allow myself to get caught up in this trap thinking that I am a limited identity with all these problems, etc.
R: This all comes from samskaras. From all kinds of illusions that you were brought up to believe as a baby. Your training in school, in church and in your environment. All this has molded you into what you are now. As you keep admitting the truth to yourself the other begins to dissolve until it’s totally gone and only your Self remains. (SK: Thank you.) (pause) Any comments, questions?
SK: I have a comment about your suggestion about what you said you told me before when I asked that question. And I think the essence of it is that we have to change our belief system? And to do that we’ve got to operate from where we are? And I think that the only effective technique that has been found for changing a belief system, operating on yourself with no other people involved is to use subliminal perception. So if anybody is interested I suggest we could make a script, and the script would be “I am pure awareness, I am bliss consciousness,” and so on. And then we would record that with maybe ocean music just so it’s below that so you can’t hear it. And then we would play these and see what happens?
R: By all means if that helps you, do it. (SK: Like the level that I’m at I think it would.) Then do it. (SK: Okay. Does anybody have a mixer?)
Glen (SG): Robert I’ve heard the term preceptor used before, what does that mean?
R: What did you hear? (SG: I’ve heard that term used…) What term? (SG: Preceptor?) The preceptor? Who uses that term? (SG: Just in the reading there the term preceptor was used.
I’ve heard some other teachers say that they… Some teachers operate out of preceptor consciousness and wondering what really means?) Who knows? Who cares? (students laugh) SE: Who wants to know? (laughter)
R: You see this is the mistake we make we get involved in these words. Why do we look for words? Look for silence. Be still, be quiet, that is your preceptor, quietness. We can look at statements, paragraphs and books and sentences and interpretations of scripture. We can work on these things until we turn blue. And we’ll never get anywhere.
SE: Is that what happened to you? (students laugh)
R: I turned blue? (laughter) The whole idea of spiritual life is to just get rid of all of these concepts and ideas and words and dogmas. All these things that you’ve carried around for years. When we free ourselves from these things and become totally light. Un-burden ourselves of all this. Never look for new words and new sentences and new meanings. All you’re doing is adding on to the garbage. Empty yourself out totally and completely and you’ll be free.
Fred (SF): Sir, (R: Fred.) I have an observation that you can comment on. (R: Sure.) You often tell me that in reality there is nothing. There is no thing. And the other day I woke up having had a dream and I was thinking about the dream. And it seemed to me that that dream came out of nothing was witnessed and returned to nothing. And it also occurred to me that whether hallucination, either a real one or drug induced, it arises out of nothing, is witnessed and returns to nothing. I 1673was reminded of the night that I was telling about having witnessed the riots or being in a position where I could see the explosions and the great clouds of smoke and the sirens and the helicopters flying over head and telling you about how frightening it was. And I asked you and you gave me the opportunity to say, had you been there what would your reaction have been and you said, “It is all within me.” And my idea is that when you said that it wasn’t Robert who was sitting in the chair in whom everything appeared. It was you as the universal consciousness or pure awareness.
Can you comment on that idea?
R: You are correct. Only it’s not only my pure awareness it’s your pure awareness also. (SF: It’s all one.) So whatever is happening to me is happening to you. The only difference maybe is that I’m aware of it and you’re not. (SF: I’m identified with the body…) …with the body and the things of the body. Whereas when I see something I realize it’s all happening within me as an image. It’s all an image going on. A superimposition on the Self. (SF: On the Self with a capital “S.”) Yes. Whereas you see it as being identified with the problem yourself. As being a part of the problem. As something external from you. That is the difference. (SF: Thank you.) So be your Self. (SF: I’ll try, hope for the best.) R: Would you like to read the Jnani Mary? (SM: Of course yes, Robert I would like to.) (Mary reads the Jnani. Refer to the beginning of this book for text.) R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.)
R: Remember to love yourself. To worship yourself, to bow to yourself, to pray to yourself. For God dwells where? (Students: Within you) (laughter) In you as you. Peace.
We’ve got no prashad to eat today?
SH: We’ve got flowers. (laughs)
R: We’ve got flowers?
Until we meet again. Oh, we’ve got some prashad there. Well we can stay a while longer. (students laugh) Some grapefruit.
(general talk 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.