– Transcript 160
R: Good afternoon. It is good being with you once again. I welcome you with all my heart. All is well. Everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes, and you’re in good hands.
Many people ask me, “Robert, what is really the fastest way to quiet the mind?” for many of you realize now that when the mind is quiet, liberation comes by itself. There is really nothing else you have to do to become liberated. When the thoughts stop, everything takes care of itself. Then you are in your natural state.
Therefore what should you do to quiet the mind? Should you practice self-inquiry? Should you become the witness, the observer? Should you do pranayama, breathing exercises? Should you practice the I-am meditation? All of these things are good, but yet ours is the easy path, the direct path.
Here’s the easiest way to do this. If you would realize in your heart, that everything is nothing, your mind would become still. You would become perfectly still. Ponder what I just said. If you would only realize in your heart that everything is nothing, there would be no thoughts. This is very profound. This is really all you have to do. Realize in your heart, not in your mind, but in your heart, that everything you behold, everything you see, is actually nothing. There will be no thoughts. You will become free.
Let me explain. When you see a tree, what is the source of the tree? The seed.
What is the source of the seed? What came first, the tree or the seed? Where did the first seed come from? Where did the first tree come from? When you look at a mountain, what is the source of the mountain? When you look at the world, what is the source of the world, the universe, the planets? You may say, “Well, God is the source.” What is the source of God? Is God something? You have to ask yourself, you have to inquire within yourself, “What is the source of all these things?” And you will realize nothing is the source of everything. Everything comes out of nothing.
A little story I tell many times will illustrate this. There was once a class with a teacher teaching the students, that everything comes from nothing. But one student couldn’t grasp this and kept asking, “Teacher, how can everything come from nothing?
That’s impossible, nothing produces nothing. Yet you say everything comes from nothing.
Please explain this.” No matter how the teacher tried to explain, the student couldn’t grasp it. The teacher finally said to the student, “You see the fig tree outside of the window? Go out and bring me a fig.” The student obeyed. “Now open the fig and tell me what you see.”
The student opened the fig and saw these tiny little seeds. “I see tiny seeds, Master.” “Bring me a seed.” The student obeyed and brought a seed. “Now here’s a razor blade. Cut open the seed.” This was sort of difficult, yet the student tried his best, and finally he cut open the seed. In the fig tree seed there was a hollow, so the Master asked, “What do you see?”
And the student said, “Nothing, Master.” “Well the same nothing that you see there produced the seed and produced the fig tree. The same way the world was produced, the universe was produced, and all the things you see on this earth were produced, out of absolute zero, nothing.”
When you come to this conclusion in your heart, something happens. Immediately all of your karma, all of your samskaras, all of your delusions are totally eradicated and you become free. See how easy it is? All these years you’ve been looking for methods, teachers, things to hold onto, things to rely on, where in truth, all you have to do is to realize, in your heart, that all existence comes out of nothing. If you take a flower and begin to dissolve the flower, you will get molecules, you will get atoms, you will get energy, and then you will get nothing. Whatever you dissolve to the nth degree, everything, turns into no thing, into nothing. Therefore God is nothing. You are nothing. There is only nothing. Why won’t you accept this, and become free?
SH: Isn’t nothing just another concept?
R: Nothing is certainly another concept. (SH: Just the opposite of everything.) Of course. (SH: So where do you get by saying everything is nothing?) When you begin to accept that everything is nothing, everything inside begins to dissolve. All of the things you’ve been holding on to for all of these years, all of the teachings, all of the dogmas, the concepts, they begin to dissolve, dissolve, dissolve into nothing. This is why I say, do not think about this in your mind. For the mind will fool you and it will be another concept, as you so rightly said. But if you think about this in your heart, and of course in your heart you do not think, you just have a realization of this truth in your heart, that everything is nothing, all of a sudden something will happen. The heart will open up. The heart is the I-am, the absolute reality, the pure awareness, and you will find that you have become nothing. By becoming nothing, you’ve become everything. You’re essence is in everything, when you are nothing. You will laugh. You will be happy. Nothing will disturb you. You will have infinite peace. It’s so simple, so simple.
Yet many of you want to analyze this. You want to think too much about it. You want to try to understand it. This is what keeps you back from experiencing liberation.
When you try to understand what I say, you are simply using your concepts, your dogmas, your training over these years, and from previous years, and from previous incarnations. All this stuff is inside of you. And you try to use this intelligence, so called, to try to understand nothing, and you cannot do this. It will never happen. You, the finite, have no faculty to understand nothing. So can’t you understand now how foolish this is, to try to use your human intelligence, your human understanding, to understand nothing? This is what holds you back from realization, this very thing itself. Ponder this.
Your human intelligence has to be gotten out of the way. Your human concepts have to be dissolved. Everything you feel, believe and experience, up to this point, has to be totally transcended. Nothing will never appear to you until you have become nobody.
When you are nobody, you’ll be nothing. But you want to be somebody. Somebody can never be nothing. You have to be nobody to be a nothing. (laughter) Nothing is hard to come by. (more laughter) Look at some of you, you think you’re somebody. You have the pride inside of you that makes you think you’re somebody.
Remember the joke I once told you about this. It was the high Jewish holy days and the Rabbi was preparing for Yom Kippur. He was looking at the Torah, the sacred Torah in the synagogue. He became totally inspired. He started to beat his chest saying, “I am nothing, oh I am nothing, I am nothing.”
The Cantor was there also, he is the one who reads the scrolls in the synagogue, and he saw the Rabbi doing this. So he walked over to the scrolls, and he also started to beat his chest. “I am nothing, I am nothing, oh I am nothing.”
Then there was the janitor sweeping the floor. He looked at these two people doing this. He walked over also to the scrolls and he started beating his chest saying, “I am nothing, I am nothing.” The Rabbi looked at him, and he looked at the Cantor, and he said, “Look who thinks he’s nothing.” (laughter) This is like us.
SH: Exclusively nothing.
R: (laughs) We believe we’re something. Even when we say we’re nothing, we think we’re something. Understand yourself. See where you’re really coming from. Think of all the books you have to read, the teachers you have to visit, the talking you have to do to explain things. I’ll remind you again, and again, and again. As long as you are involved in intelligence, and things that come out of human intelligence, you can never be nothing.
And if you can never be nothing, you can never be self-realized. Even though self-realization is your nature, and you are already that, the clouds of ignorance have covered you up, making you believe you’re something.
The years spent in studying scriptures, memorizing passages, where has it gotten you? It’s only more stuff that you’ve got to get rid of. I tell you again and again, this teaching is an emptying process, not an adding on process. Do not think you have to know something profound to become liberated. It’s actually what you do not know, that makes you liberated. The knowing keeps you human. Knowingness makes you a talking encyclopedia. It’s only when you begin to empty yourself, that you find yourself, and you’re welcome to use the simple method we’re sharing. Just realize right now that everything is nothing. In your heart realize this. Can’t you see what’s happening? It’s so simple. As you realize everything is nothing, there is nothing to think about.
SV: But then there’s neither everything nor nothing.
R: Sure, but forget about that. Just follow what I’m saying. Everything is nothing.
There’s nothing to think about. There’s nothing to say. If everything is really nothing in your heart, can you say something? (SV: No.) Of course not. What can you possibly say?There are no answers to this. There are no questions. There are no remarks you can make, if you’re doing this correctly.
If you’re doing it in your mind, the mind will come up with all kinds of questions, and all kinds of remarks, all kinds of teachings. The mind is filled with teaching, filled with remarks, filled with questions. But if you become simple, like a small child, and just ponder. Everything is nothing. Everything I behold, all the thoughts I believe, the feelings I’ve had, everything I see, everything I touch, everything I taste, everything I smell, everything I hear, is nothing. All of a sudden, your mind will become still. I know it’s happening to some of you right now. There is nothing to think about any longer. There is no one to know whether you’re doing it right or wrong, because everything is nothing. There’s no past, there’s no future. There’s no good, there’s no bad. Everything is absolutely nothing.
Again, do not try to think in your intelligent mind what nothing is, because this spoils it. We are so used to using our mind, that everything you hear is analyzed, judged, and then your mind tells you an answer, what you’re supposed to do, what you’re not supposed to do. This is why the important point is, when you realize this in your heart, your heart is absolute reality, your heart is nirvana, consciousness, Sat-Chit-Ananda. This is your heart! That’s where you have to realize this. You will become quiescent, total quietness, total peace. You’ll experience a peace which passes all understanding.
Feel it now. Ponder everything with nothing in your heart. It’s impossible to have any thoughts when you’re doing this correctly. And where there are no thoughts, there’s reality. You have one or the other. You’re either thinking constantly all day long, about this, about that, about people, about places, about things, your mind keeps babbling all day long, or you do not think at all. And of course if you do not think at all, you are liberated.
Say to yourself, “I realize that everything, everything, excluding nothing, is nothing. I realize this in my heart.”
(silence)
Now perhaps can some of you see why I do not give workshops or seminars?
What is there to say? Everything is nothing, that’s it! What could I possibly do in a three or four day seminar? There’s so much that you have in your head, from all the seminars you’ve attended, all the books you’ve read, all the classes you’ve gone to, that it’s difficult for you to know that everything is nothing in your heart. You hear these things from many teachers, I suppose. But they keep teaching, and teaching, and teaching, and teaching, and teaching, all kinds of good knowledge, spiritual words, yet they clog up your brain. Simple. Always remember this, everything is absolutely nothing, and you are free.
Are there any questions pertaining to this before we play stump the guru?
SK: Robert, I have a question. That phrase you use, “Everything is nothing.” Is it essentially different from there are no objects?
R: You can say whatever you like. There are no objects, if it does anything for you that is good. Does it help you to see that everything is nothing? (SG: I can’t say anything about, “Everything is nothing,” at least, “there are no objects,” has some kind of great meaning.)
For you? (SG: Me.) Then by all means use that. (SG: But are they in the same ball park?) Yes.
But don’t get entangled in too many words. (SG: How many words are in that, “There are no objects?”(laughter) Can I use four?) You can use four. (SG: I’ll let you keep the others.) Thanks.
SK: So Robert this would be the same as saying in the beginning, “Not a single thing is.”
That is the…
R: You can say that, “Not a single thing is,” if it means the same thing to you. Remember we want to make this thing very simple. Don’t get into complicated debates or reasoning. The simpler you make this the better it is for you. Just saying, “Everything is nothing is perfect.” (SH: Or “all is Maya,” same thing. Illusion.) You can say that. (SH: I just did.) Say it again. (SH: All is illusion, it’s Maya.) Good. But actually somehow I feel when you say, “Everything is nothing,” that is right in the ball park. (SH: It’s another way of saying Maya?) It is. If that does you any good use it, do it! (SH: You do it, you have it?) I gave it to you.
Fred (SF): You can say it the other way round, “Nothing is everything.”
R: You can say, “Nothing is everything,” but when you say that, you start thinking about everything.
SH: (laughs) Back in the soup.
R: The word nothing in itself (students laugh at private joke) If you think of the word nothing it’s just a simple word. No thing exists nothing, why do you want to change the words for? (SF: Everything is unreal.) Everybody’s got their own. Sure what you are saying is true also, everything is unreal, everything is Maya. But the word “nothing” in itself has an amazing quality. For when you think about nothing we leave out everything.
There is nothing to add on.
SH: It swallows everything. (R: Yes, totally) And then we’re naked?
Nate (SC): But the mind tries to make it something out of it?
R: if that is what you have to do, stop the mind from doing that. Don’t fight the mind leave it alone. But work on that. (pause) Pass the magic box. (question box.) Q: (Robert reads) Can you describe effective prayer? To whom does one pray? Is the concept in practice of Ishtam involved here? Who is Rama Krishna Paramahansa?
A: Rama Krishna Paramahansa is your Self. You are that. Rama Krishna Paramahansa is the Self of the whole universe. If you’re speaking of Rama Krishna the man, Rama Krishna the man never existed. Rama Krishna the universe, the absolute reality, the pure awareness exists now and forever. So Rama Krishna Paramahansa is your Self.
(repeats question) Can you describe effective prayer? Effective prayer is when you realize there is nothing else except the Self. Effective prayer is when you realize the I-thought is the cause of everything I see, hear, taste, touch and feel. So if I inquire, “Who am I?” that is effective prayer. By self-inquiry.
Whom does one pray too? You pray to your Self, who else? To whom can you pray? Rama Krishna Paramahansa is the Self. So when you pray to Ramana Maharshi or when you pray to Rama Krishna Paramahansa or you pray to Jesus, if you feel that is the Self then that is correct prayer. In other words do not pray to an im… (break in tape) …deity as yourself, that is the prayer. Actually how it works when you start praying to your Self you start to laugh. Because your Self is already illumined. The Self is already awake.
So to whom are you praying? Is the concept in practice of Ishtam involved here? I don’t know what Ishtam is. Whatever it is, drop it. (laughter)
Q: (Robert reads) If there were ten other Jnanis, would they not have what seems to be personalities and to some extent they would emphasize different teachings. Or approaches to the common free thinker? (Robert repeats question) If there were ten who were not ajnanis. Would they not have what seems to be personalities?
Of course if you’re an ajnani you’re a personality. Ajnani means ignorance, the opposite of wisdom. So if there were ten who were ajnanis there would be ignorance but if they were not ajnanis they would not have what seems to be personalities. If they were not ajnanis where is there a personality? A personality is only for the ajnani. The personality the I-thought is the same thing. There is no personality in a Jnani. I don’t why you chose a figure of ten?
To the same extent do they emphasize different teachings and encroach us to become free?
A Jnani has no personality. Therefore a Jnani teaches non-duality. Even if the Jnanis have different personalities they’re going to teach non-duality. Of one type or another. And non-duality is always the same, “That nothing exists but the Self.” They may teach in slightly different ways but the teaching will always be the same. That there is no existence, there is only the self, pure awareness, absolute reality. So if there were a thousand Jnanis, they would all teach non-duality. For the word Jnani itself means absolute wisdom. Non-duality. They have no personality. If you were a Jnani the personality is gone, transcended.
That’s all? (SM: That’s it Robert.) That’s everything. What do we do now?
Fred (SF): It could be said that the ajnani ascribes personality to the Jnani?
R: Yes of course. (SF: But it’s not his?) The ajnani always sees himself wherever he looks. So naturally if they’re looking at a Jnani they’re going to see their own personalities.
That is why you’re told not to think. Because everything you say is from your viewpoint.
Nate (SC): How can one dwell in the consciousness with a large “C” rather than a little “c.”
Because most of the time I read a book or hear you talk it is the little consciousness. When you say ajnani and a Jnani, the ajnani has a personality the Jnani doesn’t. And my mind takes up and makes something out of it. When you say nothing exists or the consciousness, I know we’re not supposed to make a concept out of it, do you know what I’m trying to say? (R: Umm.) There is no answer? (laughs) How can one dwell in consciousness without the mind?
R: The mind is your enemy not your friend. (SC: I understand that, I understand that.) Therefore when the mind is gone the Self takes over. (SC: The minds there all the time even as you’re talking now it’s answering you.) How do you know? (SC: Because I’m answering from the mind. See that is what I’m saying, maybe what you just said is going beyond the mind but
I’m not even aware of it.) As long as you’re thinking about it it’s wrong. This is why I say do not think about what I say. But open your heart.
Nate (SC): What is the heart, how can you use words to explain the heart?
R: The heart is all pervading. There is nothing else but the Self or God. (SC: That is what I’m talking about, that is what I meant, you just answered it. But the… (laughs) It’s hard to say it but whenever I think of course, it’s the mind. Is it possibly in the all pervading heart rather than in the mind?) It is the all pervading Self that is the reality, your reality.
Nate (SC): I understand what you’re saying but I have a feeling that my heart…that my mind is taking over and try to making something out of it and at the same time it wants to go beyond itself by being in the consciousness.
R: True. So it’s up to you to become still and quiet and not to argue with yourself but simply observe and watch. (SC: The minute something enters my mind, that’s not where it’s at?) Exactly. So you become the witness to that. (SC: But witnessing is still the mind isn’t it?) You’re using the higher mind to witness. (SC: What’s the higher mind?) The higher mind is the Self. (SC: How can I dwell in the Self without the mind coming in?) The mind will come in as long as you allow it to come in. (SC: How can I stop it?) By observing it, by watching it. By looking at it, by witnessing it.
Nate (SC): I’m watching it now. And it’s arguing with you. It’s trying to… (students laugh) …on the one hand it wants to be defeated and on the other hand it wants to still…
R: Try to become still. Try to give up the argument. Leave it alone. (SC: Meditation is not where it’s at? Just sitting quietly and meditating, isn’t the mind still there? With all it’s thoughts?) Meditation is good for some people, but in the ultimate reality you don’t need meditation. But it’s a good thing for some people because it makes their mind quiet. That is the object of meditation to quiet the mind. When you use a mantra it quiets the mind.
(SC: As long as you’re using it, it’s quiet, the minute you stop, mind comes in.) Of course. You’ve got to let go of this world and stop holding on so strongly. You can do it! (SC: I know, I know. I can sense it. It’s like it’s two people almost.) Of course. Kill one. (students laugh) (SC: Make sure you kill the right one.) (students laugh)
SV: You can only kill the right one. (SC: Thank you, very good.) SH: The other on is indestructible.
S: Thank you, that’s very good. What Henry just said is what I want to dwell in, the indestructible part, but who is dwelling in the indestructible part? The mind or all pervading consciousness.
R: Who do you think? (SC: The mind when I’m thinking. And when I’m quiet…) Of course you’re right. All these answers are within you. (SC: See I’m aware of this for the first time in my life. As I sense this it gets scary at times you know?) It gets scary because you’re giving up all the known. You’re giving all the things you’ve been hanging on to all of these years. SC: Well something happened to me last night, the night before last. I don’t know what it was, I woke up I had some kind of a nightmare and I…unclear…people can’t see it but I must’ve been hitting my head, you see all the marks on my head? (R: Umm.) My room was also in a mess I don’t know what, I couldn’t believe it, like someone had come in there and tore the place up. I’ve heard of nightmares but I never had…(laughs)… it was something, geez.
R: You must have been walking in your sleep again. (SC: No, that was the first time.
It’s the first I ever experienced something like this. It’s interesting, it’s a whole new way of living you know. I sort of sense that, for the first time. Even if nothing has happened there is a sense of peace that I haven’t had before.) Hold on to that. (SC: And boy all the time thoughts come in, doubts come in. Someone wrote a book called, “Wake up and roar,” has anybody heard of it…?) SH: It’s a good title. (laughs)
Nate (SC): …it says there is no separation we live in such a way that, it was beautiful, (laughs) but I still feel separate. (pause) You know when you sense that separation then you know there is no separation. Do you know what I’m saying? As long as you can sense it, yet there is no separation yet you sense the separation that means there is no separation. Do you know what I’m saying?
R: If you can feel that, that’s good. (SC: I see me and I see all these people as individuals. Do you see us as all connected, all one?) I see all individuals. (SC: So where does the connection come in?) If I saw you all connected I’d be in a weird place. (SC: So where is the sense of separation then?) I wouldn’t be able to function in the world. (SC: So where is the sense of separation come in? Do you have a sense of separation from us?) No. (SC: That’s what I meant.) But I don’t feel that you’re all connected. (SC: So where does the separation come in then, books talk about separation when there is no separation in the world.) The separation comes in your own mind. (SC: It’s almost automatic isn’t it?) Sure. (SC: The more you see it, wow! It’s like I said, two…goodness sakes I better shut up here, I’m going into a deep morass here. My gosh.) You’re doing well Nate. (SC: Thanks. I don’t argue as much as I used to.) You’re doing okay.
SV: Robert when you were talking before I was thinking it made no sense because you were talking a canter it really made no sense at all. (R: Sure.) So it’s really stopping to try to make sense out of it. (R: It is the sense that keeps us bound.) Because we say everything is nothing, well that is senseless because if everything is nothing there cannot be an everything, there cannot be anything. There is not even nothing because there is nothing to compare it to. (R: Exactly.) It’s all senseless. (R: That’s why the mind slows down and stops thinking.) Yeah.
Nate (SC): But you create something to think about. You know what I’m saying? There is nothing there but you create something there to go back and forth.
SV: Yeah that is why I was saying it was senseless.
Nate (SC): Can I tell a story to Ben for everybody? (R: Okay tell a story.) Can you hear me or shall I use a microphone? (laughter) A king (this is in India) says to the minister, tomorrow morning go out and the first person you see bring him back and I’ll give him the kingdom. And the next morning the minister goes out and the first person he sees is a beggar. So he brings the beggar in and they wash and they give new clothes and they feed him like a prince. No need for anything.
Comes forth like the beggar say to the king he says, “Where is my begging clothes it’s time for me to go on begging?” (students laugh)
SV: Yeah but the minister wasn’t smart because the first thing he should’ve looked at in the mirror. (SC: Did you get the point of the… (laughter) That answer to me was inappropriate.) It’s okay, it’s right you told it that way, it’s alright.
R: Do we have any announcements?
Mary (SM): No Robert, not yet.
SK: There is an address sheet and phone number sheet on the table. And if any of you don’t have your name and address on there and would like to add it, please do.
R: Do we have any prashad today. No food to eat.
SK: Yeah if you hadn’t made Mary use up her reserve we would have had some today.
S: Yeah that’s right.
ST: That’s what your lecture was about, nothing wrong so that is what we got right?
R: Nothing. (laughter)
Mary (SM): We should mention about the transcripts in the folder there. When you take a transcript out please make a couple so that we’re not without because the transcripts are going and nothing’s been put back in the file. If you make even one or two, take yours and just put them back in the folder. Keep it filled for us.
R: So, remember to love yourself, to pray to yourself, to worship yourself, to bow to yourself, why? Because why?
SH: You’re it. (SV: God dwells in you as you.) No that gets too simple, more direct.
R: Just because. (laughter)
SH: Can’t get it any simpler than that can you. (laughter) R: Do it! Peace. We’re all done.
S: Well cooked. (laughter)
(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.