– Transcript 166
R: Good afternoon. Happy earthquake day. I am glad you can join us today on this auspicious occasion. [There were two earthquakes that day.] It shows you how fragile human beings are. You can be here today and gone tomorrow. From Arnold Schwarzenegger to Woody Allen, when the earthquake comes, whoever you are, it doesn’t matter, whatever you’ve built, doesn’t matter, whatever you’ve saved, does not matter. It makes you humble, doesn’t it? It makes you realize you can be here now and gone in a couple of seconds. Something to think about.
Of course if you realize the truth about yourself, that you were never born, you never die, you are consciousness, you are pure awareness, then you don’t even think about these things. You just watch, observe, and enjoy.
There was once a great king who heard of a Sage who was traveling through the kingdom, a famous Sage. This Sage was known for his great compassion, his great love, and his great humility. He didn’t speak much. The king called his wise man to him and said, “Quick, go and find the Sage and bring him here, so that he can give us a talk on spirituality.” The wise man obeyed.
He inquired as to the whereabouts of the Sage and finally located him. He related to the Sage what the king had said. The Sage said, “I’m not interested.” He beseeched the Sage again and again to come to the kingdom. The king would give him bags of gold, fine meals, beautiful women. The Sage said, “Sorry, not interested.” Finally the wise man left the Sage and returned to the king and reported the story, what happened. The king became furious. He said, “I want you to go back and use whatever means you can to bring the Sage here. Otherwise I’ll cut off your head and use it as a hockey puck.” The wise man said, “Yes, OK,” and again left.
He searched for the Sage. He found him, fell at his feet admonished, “Master, please come and give a talk on spirituality for the king, or he will cut off my head and use it as a hockey puck.” The Sage, having a great compassion, a great love, a great humility, said, “OK, I will come. Make all the arrangements. I will give a discourse on silence.”
The wise man was so happy, he returned to the king and told what had happened.
The king became ecstatic, joyful. He ran to the royal ballroom, had his servants put out 300
chairs in preparation for the Sage, invited the entire council, all of the ministers, their families. Hundreds of people attended.
The Sage appeared at the promised time. He sat down on a chair, turned his head slowly to the right, slowly to the left, looked at everyone, got up, and he left, and left the palace and the kingdom. The king became furious. “This is an insult,” he shouted. The wise man came over, and he said, “How can he do this to me? He has insulted me in front of all of my friends. Why was he so disrespectful?” The wise man said, “Sire, don’t you get the point? He said he was going to come and give us a discourse on silence. What better way to give a discourse on silence than to be silent?”
This story is the truth about us also. It shows us that in silence there is power, in silence there is the highest truth, in silence there is pure awareness. When we talk too much, when we get involved in too much discourse with people, when we talk too much about philosophical teachings, spirituality, it loses the essence of the teaching. When you hear about your self, you hear me telling you, you are pure awareness, boundless space, Sat-Chit-Ananda, you are the Self, when you’ve practiced observation, observing, being the witness, when you’ve practiced vichara, self-inquiry, and you’ve done this for many years, it is then time to be silent. It is then time to keep quiet, not to allow your thoughts to go any further.
When I say to keep silence, I do not mean just keeping quiet, when your mind keeps thinking, thinking, thinking, I am referring to quieting the mind. When there is no longer any noise in your mind, when the mind becomes quiescent, the reality appears by itself.
Why do you want to experience the reality? Because you have read in books, teachers have told you, the reality is infinite peace and wisdom, the reality is pure knowledge, the reality is immortality, and everyone wants this. So we practice all forms of sadhana, we go and see various teachers, we read many books. Now what all these things should lead to is the silence. After a few years it should not lead to further books, it should not lead to further running around the world, looking for Masters who can give you the secret potion, so that you can become self-realized. It means to be quiet, to cause the mind to become totally still, not to get involved in talking, talking, talking, about nonsense, to talk very little.
Notice as you keep still this way, how thoughts enter your mind, how they begin to tell you things about yourself, about the speaker, about the room. The thoughts tell you everything that keeps you back from achieving your realization. Thoughts can do you no good, no matter what kind of thoughts they are. They can only take you so far, confuse you.
You have to see this about yourself. You have to be totally honest with yourself, see where you are coming from, examine your feelings, your emotions.
Again, what is going through your mind. Most people cannot sit in the silence even for a second. The mind waves begin to move.
As long as your mind keeps feeding you information, you can never really awaken, for what you call the mind is merely a bundle of thoughts about the past, and about the future and about the present. That’s all the mind is. The mind keeps you earthbound. That is its job, to make you part of this earth, to attach you to person, place and thing.
Therefore the wise person, from the very beginning, begins to do things to keep the mind still, to quiet the mind. What is the highest thing you can possibly do to quiet the mind? And the answer is nothing. As long as you’re doing something you’re using the mind. Therefore the highest teaching is, do nothing. When you learn to do nothing, the mind will stop thinking all by itself, but when you do something, the mind will accumulate more knowledge, of things that you are doing, and become ever stronger, and stronger and stronger.
Remember you are not trying to acquire more knowledge, and add on to the knowledge you already have. You want to empty yourself totally, absolutely and completely, of all so called knowledge. You’re afraid to do this, for you think you will become a vegetable. It’s hard to imagine a person with no mind. But, when you begin to realize your mind is only an accumulation of thoughts, thoughts from past lives, thoughts from this life, only thoughts, then you begin to see that the mind has to be totally transcended and transmuted. And those of you who have been practicing sadhana for many years, have come to the point where now you can do nothing. You no longer have to meditate. You no longer have to practice atma-vichara. You no longer have to practice being the witness, Vipassana meditation. Those things are no longer necessary. They have taken you to a certain point, and here you are. You now have absolutely nothing to do. You are free.
If you think about this aright, you will see that your body, what you call your body, will still function very well without your thoughts. This is sort of a hard one to grasp, for you have been taught you have to use your mind to function. You’ve been taught that your mind uses the body to function on this earth plane. That’s how it appears.
But in truth there never was a body, there never was a mind and there was never anyone to function.
When this is understood properly, you become the epitome of compassion, of loving kindness, of peace, of humility, simply by understanding what I just said. You do not have to earn these virtues. Some of these virtues are actually yours already, they’ve always been yours, compassion, loving kindness, peace, happiness. Since they are already yours and you have them already, you simply have to sit still, quiet the mind, and they’ll come up to express themselves.
It’s similar to the sun covered by clouds. When the sun is covered by clouds, you think there is no sun, the sun has disappeared. Yet once the clouds dissipate, the sun shines once more with all its glory and splendor. And so it is with the mind. You have believed that the mind causes you to function, to shine, and this is not necessarily true.
The mind is here to keep you earthbound. When you stop thinking, the mind becomes the infinite, becomes God, becomes boundless space, nirvana, pure awareness. It doesn’t really become that. You’ve always been that. The mind merely disappears, as a mind, and your true nature is expressed.Many people try to develop virtues before they try to remove the mind. This is impossible to do. If you have anger, fear, and many of these negative conditions, it is very difficult to make them disappear. It is very difficult to get rid of them, to transcend them.
No matter what you do to try to transcend them, to try to give them up, they just become stronger. It is only when you work on the removal of the mind, by quieting the mind, then all of these things we discussed, the fears, the frustrations, the anger, disappears of its own volition.
It’s so easy and yet so hard. The reason it appears hard is because you have become attached to your way of thinking, you have been attached to person, place and thing for so many years. You’re attached to your memories, to your body. This is the reason it appears difficult. But when you begin to understand and realize there is no body, there is no attachment, there is only total freedom, the mind becomes totally annihilated.
This is something you have to work with yourself. This is something you have to talk to yourself about, something you have to see for yourself. Seeing is being. As you begin to see the great truth, that you are the imperishable Self, the mind will automatically run away and become dissolved.
Why wait any longer? Why not simply awaken now? Why continue to play all these religious games, going through eons of so called incarnations, trying to become free and liberated? Why not smile at yourself and say, “I am that, I have always been that. All is well. There are no mistakes. I am in my right place.” Why not accept this?
Do not try to change the world or change other people. Do not even try to change yourself, for it is most difficult to do. All you have to do is to realize you are not the mind.
You’re becoming a little more peaceful now. All the thoughts are leaving you. You are no longer bound by your mind. You have become absolute freedom. Your mind and your body are melting away. The true Self alone remains. You’re experiencing this, emptiness, no mind. There is nothing that can disturb you any longer. You are free from all outside influences.
(silence)
(Q - Mary reads the question and A - Robert answers)
Q: Please tell me more about the love that you experience and feel.
A: There is human love and there is spiritual love. Human love is possessive love most of the time. In human love you want something for yourself. So you give out love to somebody else. You want a gift, you want a person, you want something. So you learn to love so you will get it. There are a very few people who just love for love sake.
Spiritual love is your Self. It is consciousness and is what you really are. It is a love that just is. Not something that comes only at a certain time when you see something you want. True love, spiritual love is your very essence. It is all pervading. It is consciousness.
When you awaken to your true reality, who you are is love. When you love the Self you love everybody else and everything else. The Self is your true nature, it’s all pervading, omnipresent. This love again comes by itself as you awaken. It is not something you have to develop. It is something that has always been with you. And as you keep awakening more and more you feel it for no reason whatsoever. You can be in hell and you will see heaven and you will love it. You can be going through every agonizing experience on this earth yet if you are an instrument of love, you will feel joy and peace.
For love, joy, pace, reality, consciousness, are all synonymous. They are one and the same.
Therefore awaken and love will come by itself.
Q: What is beauty?
A: What is beauty, it’s the same thing. Beauty is what you behold as your Self. It’s not something you see and you want it for a time. It is God or consciousness or the Self.
Just like love there is no difference. As you see love you see beauty. All of these words are for human beings to differentiate and make separate. Because you think you’re separate.
So you have words like beauty and love and truth and joy and happiness but it’s only one. Not duality, not three, not four but one and you are that one. To the realized person those words have no meaning any longer. But if you become an embodiment of this there is no one left to do it. For the reality takes up all space. This is what is meant by all pervading. It takes up all time and all space. There is no room for anything else. It is only when you are asleep and you think you are mortal man that you have to love something or see beauty in something or see joy or happiness in yourself.
But again when you wake up you have become those things, therefore there are no words that you use to describe them. There is nothing you have to say, it just is.
Q: Please give me examples of lying that is okay?
A: An example when lying is okay? Lying is okay when you think you’re human.
When you’re human being you naturally lie. When you want things for yourself. When you want yourself to be better than other people, you compete with others. You want to make yourself look great. If you’re not you exaggerate the position you’re in. If anybody asks you a question about yourself you do not want to tell them something is wrong with you. You exaggerate yourself so the person can think you’re a wonderful person.
When you fall in love you see all the qualities and everything in the present in the other person and you try to make yourself loving. You put on airs, you lie about yourself.
To make yourself look important, look good, look big. So every human being is really a liar. So when you are in yourself, your true Self those words do not exist. Words like truth or lie they no longer exist. For there is no one left to experience them. Only in your human self do you experience all these words. Self-realization, liberation, moksha, delusion, ignorance, lying, those are a part of the ego, the mind. This is why it’s so important to work on the mind to remove it, to get rid of it. Then you will be your true Self and there will be nobody to do anything. (pause) Anyone like to ask a question or say something?
SV: Robert, this came about…this came back into my memory when you were saying that we should say, “I am that.” And there is a time factor involved in it. Something similar, maybe six months ago I was sitting up in bed, I was meditating or something and all of a sudden I knew I’m free and have always been free with total certainty. It lasted maybe twenty-seconds. And I got a feeling if it lasted twenty minutes it really would have been coming. And another thing was on three times the “I” has totally ceased and the first time maybe twenty-two years ago. Now there was no time involved then and there was nobody there who knew at the time. But if it’s longer I think would it be strong enough to stay permanently? I don’t know where the questioner is…
R: Well you are apparently having certain experiences and you had experiences…
(SV: No nobody was there to experience this, there was nobody to remember, there was no memory, there was no witness. There was nobody there. Nobody to experience anything.) How did you come back? (SV: I don’t know, at one time, in time so-to-speak I recognized there was nothing.) But you came back. (SV: Yes.)
R: One who realizes the truth that there is absolutely nothing can never come back again. One who has a glimpse of the reality you’re referring to can come back. It’s like nirvikalpa samadhi. In nirvikalpa samadhi while you’re meditating, you lose the body consciousness and you experience the reality. But you experience the reality up to a point.
If you experience the entire reality you would never come back again you would have sahaja samadhi. Which means you will be conscious but be realized 24 hours a day.
But when you have to sit in nirvikalpa samadhi, it’s temporary but you have a feeling of what is going on. It’s sort of like taking LSD. When somebody takes LSD or some other psychedelic they experience some reality perhaps. They’re able to go deep inside and see the reality. But not the entire reality they have a glimpse of how it is. Then they come back again.
SH: I thought that was savikalpa samadhi and nirvikalpa was the real thing.
R: Nirvikalpa is close to the real thing but it’s not the real thing. (SH: Savikalpa is when they are still doing.) Savikalpa is less. When you are in the dualistic state. But nirvikalpa is when you are one with the infinite but not all together there. (SH: You’re one but not all together one.) Yes. There is a piece missing. For if you’re all together there you would never come back again. You would be that forever.
See this is something most people do not understand. When you touch the reality, the reality totally you have destroyed the ego and the mind. There is nothing to come back to. But when you come again, doing meditation or whatever you think you’re in and you’re a human being again, you have not touched the reality 100%. There is something there to come back to.
SH: When you touch 100 percent the ego is burnt out?
R: You are all cooked. Kaput.
SN: Robert isn’t nirvikalpa samadhi just an experience of the mind?
R: Everything that is not reality is an experience of the mind. (SN: So if you say it’s a glimpse it’s almost a kind of a contradiction. Then isn’t nirvikalpa samadhi just another facet of the illusion?) Nirvikalpa samadhi takes you closer to reality than anything else. But the mind of course is experiencing nirvikalpa samadhi. (SN: That’s what I’m saying so how can it be reality?) But it’s close to reality but it’s not the whole reality, that is what I am saying.
SH: But in sahaja samadhi the mind is burnt up?
R: Totally gone. You never come back.)
SN: I mean it seems as though many people experience something, if you want to call it nirvikalpa samadhi. They themselves become teachers thinking that they’ve awakened. But it seems obvious that the experience that they’ve had is just an experience of the mind. It’s like everything else, in a sense the mind will always find another way to fool you. Do you hear what I’m saying?
(R: True.) And it seems…I mean I understand what you’re saying, it’s the closest thing but it seems like a contradiction to even say that because the Self is the Self, the mind is the mind.
R: In order to explain it… (SN: Right.) …you have to use words. You have to make people understand what you’re talking about. (SN: But actually the Self is not any experience at all?) The Self is nothing. (SN: Exactly.) So you experience the self. You know you are the self. (SN: Kind of like what you were getting at. As long as we experience it that is not it.) True.
(SN: In a higher sense.) If there is somebody left over to experience it then that is not it at all.
SN: But as I said it seems to be somewhat pervasive that a lot of people have had what they call spiritual experiences, of course that too is just the mind.
R: It is the mind. But we’re not really here to judge people, talk about different teachers, who knows… (SN: Well I’m not naming any names.) …who knows what people are doing or what they are not doing. We have to be interested in ourselves first. And we’re interested in our self first when we become free. Then we will know what to do to make this world a better place in which to live. But until then we have to work on ourselves.
And become sort of simple and quiet and peaceful. And not judge others and leave everybody alone, leave everything alone. Become happy within yourself.
SD: Robert could these glimpses be a sign of progress or is there such a thing as progress toward enlightenment?
R: If we’re speaking about these things there is certainly a sign of progress. Because it shows you that you’ve gone further than you’ve gone before. If you are able to experience this feeling and have total joy for a while, total peace, total happiness and you begin to know there is such a place that you can go and stay forever.
Fred (SF): What part does the body play in this scenario?
R: The body doesn’t really play any part. (SF: Sir?) The body doesn’t play any part at all. The body just appears to exist. As long as you believe that you are a human you are a person, place or thing. But once you get beyond that there is no longer a body to experience. The body is only here when you are here as a person. But once you transcend the personality for whom is there a body?
SN: But really we’re not after any experience at all though? I think that is the point?
R: True. There is no one to experience stages of development. We want to be the Self that we’ve always been. This is the meaning of the biblical statement, “Be still and know that I am God.” Be still! That is all you have to do. All the teachings in the world are simply to tell you to be still. All the books you’ve read, the voluminous texts, the bibles of the world, the Vedanta, everything. Just be still is all that means. All those writings. Just to become still. To become quiet.
ST: Robert I read a statement in the transcript the other night and I didn’t quite understand it and was wondering if you could say something about it? You said that we come into this world to find out who we are and what we should be doing. And I understand that to find out who we are, is to become free from the illusion, from the dream. But what does that imply to find out what we should be doing?
R: What I mean by that is we should become quiet. We should become still. We should be doing our spiritual quietness. We should be doing what has to be done to realize the Self. They’re both the same thing. We come into this world to find ourselves and to be still. That is what we should be doing. To become quiet. Not to get too involved in things.
SZ: Robert please tell us some of the tests which some realizer imposed upon themselves on the way to God realization. (R: Say that again.) Please tell us the tests which some enlightened beings imposed upon themselves on the way to God realization. I heard about that.
R: I don’t really understand your question.
SV: I think that the gentleman said that the people who are on the way to enlightenment impose a test on themselves. (R: Oh.)
SH: It shows that you’re on the way.
R: What you call a test is an illusion. For whom is there a test? Why look for tests.
Today right this moment you are free. You are bright and shiny, you are reality, right now!
So why do you want to have tests in your life? There are many people in this world who believe that they have to go through tests. And they go through tests after test after test, suffering after suffering after suffering. All this is unnecessary. You do not have to have any tests whatsoever. If you believe in tests you will be given tests. Because your mind is believing that you have to go through tests. It’s all in the mind the mind makes all of these things up. It plays games with you, it fools you. Do not think about this at all. Do not say when something happens I’m going through a test, God is testing me. There is no God to test you whatsoever. You are the God and your mind is creating whatever you feel is true.
Therefore be here now. Awaken this moment. Understand your true nature now.
You are the Buddha. You have the Buddha nature now! Not next week or when you go through tests, when you go away to a monastery. Now is the only time there is. And right now you are free.
SZ: But I can see that I am free but sometimes some event or some crisis happens then I feel unhappy. (R: Yes, of course.) Then I should not deceive myself. (R: True.) Because I can practice this in spiritual…and I can think that is alright but when some crisis happens then my mind will not be in balance. (R: That’s a good question.) I must know that I do not deceive myself now.
Not in the future but now.
R: That’s a good question. What you do as you practice spiritual disciplines, self inquiry. And you begin to realize the truth that we’re talking about here. Your reactions to things will change. You will find that the things that used to bother or annoy you no
longer bother you. What you call a test will no longer disturb you whatsoever. You have become higher than you have ever been before. By practicing your spiritual disciplines, by what you’ve been doing. And the things that used to hurt you before no longer have the power to hurt you again. You will look at something that used to make you mad, angry and you will laugh.
Therefore what you believe was a test will no longer be anything. Will have no power over you. You have overcome. By not reacting, by not giving it power. Whatever you react to, you give power to. You say, “You have something powerful that can make me feel mad? That can make me angry, that can make me upset?”
But as you work on yourself, as you understand what we’re talking about in this class, the time will come when you look at this whole world, this whole universe and there will be nothing in this universe that can upset you or worry you, or bother you. You will be totally free. Then you will not think of tests any longer. That role will not come into your mind. It’ll be finished. Thinking of tests, of deluding yourself, of fooling yourself.
Now if I’m talking to the average person on the street, I cannot tell that person this. But when they know nothing about spiritual practices they haven’t done anything for themselves therefore they will be deluded and they would have to take right action. I’m not telling you to imagine that something doesn’t exist. I’m not telling you to fool yourself and say, “This doesn’t exist.”
For instance if your house is on fire. You do not say, “It’s not really on fire.” Or if you break your arm, you don’t say, “I didn’t break my arm.” When you’re felling tremendous pain, when you realize that your belongings are burnt in the fire.
But as you grow spiritually, your house is on fire, you may see your house burning. You will not deny it’s burning but you will not be affected by it. You’ve transcended, you’ve come above that. You’ve risen above that. When you break your arm you will feel some pain and you will realize your arm is broken but you will not respond to it, you will not give it any power. You will be above that. You become a new person completely.
So there are no tests. It is the mind that gives you tests. Work on the mind and there will be no tests for you to go through. Get away from me and then you will wake up.
It’s gone, it never happened, it never existed.
And so it is when you awaken to the truth of your being you will understand that this is a dream also. In this dream all kinds of things happen, it will always happen. People will always be tortured, it will never stop. There will always be wars. There will always be man’s inhumanity to man on this planet. That is how it appears. There is duality on this planet. You cannot have perfection for the whole world, it will never happen. There is duality, only duality on this planet. For every good there is a bad, for every up there is a down, for every amount of pressure pushing forward there is an equal amount of pressure pushing backward. This is the way of this world. The pendulum has to swing both directions. The pendulum swings in this direction and all kinds of good things are happening to you then it swings backwards again and you’re suffering, going through all kinds of negative experiences. Therefore I say to you, “Wake up! Awaken now!” When you awaken these things will not exist for you.
SZ: I had a test but I deceive myself.
R: Work on yourself. Practice sadhana. Inquire “Who am I?” Ask, “Who deceives myself? Who is the one that deceives themselves?” And realize that it’s the ego. The ego or the mind is saying all of these things. That you’re deceiving yourself that you’re doing all kinds of things. If you are not deceiving yourself according to your thinking, then what you see in the world will be reality. Then you’re not deceiving yourself, true?
Everything will be real. The whole world will be real to you. Yet a simple test will show you that it’s not. Everything must change. The person who is being tortured today can become the President tomorrow. Can become the head of the country tomorrow. Everything changes.
So when you see something that you’re trying to change, it will change automatically by itself, sooner or later. If you go through this world you will see there have been times that countries possessed other countries and then the countries that were possessed became the possessors and they became tyrants. And then the country that they possessed after hundreds of years they became the possessors.
The whole world is a joke, a cosmic joke. You can’t take anything in this world as being real. So when you deceive yourself as you say, realize, “Who is deceiving myself?
Who is doing this?” And you will see it’s the ego who thinks this way. Remove the ego, remove the mind and there will be no one to be deceived.
SZ: Did you say that if I do not relate to this world then I will be in myself? Will be the Self?
R: You cannot just not relate to the world even if you say I’m not going to. If you try your best not to relate to the world you’re going to relate to the world. What I want you to do is to forget about the world. And go deep within yourself. Dive within yourself.
Find out who you are. Discover your true Self. Then see if that question arises.
Would you like to read the Jnani Mary?
Mary (SM): Yes Robert.
(tape ends abruptly)
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.