– Transcript 170
R: Good afternoon. It is good to be with you once again, this lovely rainy afternoon. Isn’t it wonderful to live in LA? Earthquakes, rain in July, where else can you get this? It’s all free. I welcome you with all my heart.
There is no real purpose for you being alive. Ponder this. There’s no special or real purpose for you being alive. What are you here for anyway? What has man actually done for this earth, or for the universe, or for anybody? Who do we think we are? We’re nothing. We have no reason to exist. And, as a matter of fact, you do not exist. You have never really existed. But when you take a look at history you will see, what has mankind really achieved, with all its Saints and Sages and everybody else? Nothing has happened. Civilizations have come, civilizations have gone, and where are we now? No where.
We think we’re so important. We’re born, it seems, we go through experiences, we have a profession, make a lot of money perhaps, then we get old and we die. But go deeper than that. What is the real purpose? There is no purpose. It’s all a cosmic joke.
There’s no reason for you to be alive, to be here. This may sound strange, it may sound like an insult. It is, it is the truth and the truth hurts. Really, you think you’re so important, that you’ve come to earth to do certain things. You ask somebody, “Why are you here?” and they say, “Well I’ve come here to accomplish great deeds. I’ve come here to get enlightened, to find myself.” That’s not true. The enlightenment is already here. It doesn’t need you. You are not wanted by anything or by anybody. You’re a complete failure. There’s no valid reason for being.
If you think this through you’ll see I’m right. In truth you do not really exist anyway. But the illusion of your existence makes you think that you’re important, that you’re somebody. This is why we talk about being nobody so much, for there is no body. Yet, no matter how I may state this, you appear to be real. You appear to have a body. You appear to go to work. You appear to get up in the morning, you appear to go to sleep, you appear to eat, and you’re going through all these rituals and all this nonsense, and this is going to last, and continue. But as you know, soon you’ll be six feet under, or you’ll be burnt, or whatever you do with yourself.
So what good are you? What do you want? This is why it’s important to wake up, because you are never asleep. So who wakes up? Therefore nothing is important, but you think it’s important. As long as you think it’s important, you give it power, and it increases the intensity of humanhood, making you feel more and more, so called, alive. Making believe that you are living in this world, accomplishing great deeds, doing things.Therefore, the beginning of wisdom is the understanding that there’s no wisdom.
There’s no body to have any wisdom. Can’t you see, the more you try to analyze things, the more you use your brain to function on this plane of existence, the more you put into what we call Maya, into nothing, into illusion, all of your dreams, all of your hopes, all of your ambitions, are down in the toilet? There’s nothing left for you. There is nothing that you have to become or be. Think of all the people running around looking for liberation, looking for realization. Who wants to be liberated? The ego. There is no ego. There is no one to be liberated, but you continue doing it. You continue carrying on your deeds, you continue believing that you exist.
Remember, never put lion’s milk in a clay pot.
So why are you here? You want a teaching. You want a lesson. You want a mantra.
You’re looking for a way out. All this keeps you back. Your searching, your seeking keeps you back. It doesn’t make you fulfilled. It doesn’t do anything for you. Awakening is a joke. Liberation is a joke. My sitting here talking to you is a joke, for you think you have to find something, you think you have to achieve something, you think you have to become something. This is what the scriptures mean by attachment. You’re attached to your mind, and its false beliefs. The so-called mind tells you that something is this way and something is that way, this is good and this is bad, this is right and this is wrong, and you react to it, bringing more problems into your so called existence.
But, wouldn’t it be beautiful if you could just awaken one morning and realize you don’t exist, that you never existed, and no one exists, there’s no existence whatsoever?
Then where would you be? Who knows? But as long as you believe that you exist, you’re going to stick up for your rights, you’re going to fight for survival, you’re going to seek wisdom. It is all very funny to me. Even when I tell you to wake up, there’s really no one to wake up, for no one’s ever gone to sleep. To wake up you have to be asleep. Who sleeps? You may say, “The body, the mind sleeps,” but there is no body, there is no mind.
There never was. All the teachings you’ve been through are a waste of time, the struggling, running all over the world looking for Masters and teachers, reading all these scriptures in detail, to what avail? Why do you think you need these things?
All you really have to do is understand what I am talking about. Ponder what I say. And then forget it. Do not hold on to thoughts, to words, to messages. The reason the bird sings beautifully, and exists so beautifully, is because it doesn’t know it’s a bird. It doesn’t know it’s anything. It has no idea what it is. We give it a name, bird. We could have given it the name cow. We call a bird a bird and we call a cow a cow. We give names to all these things, but these things just are. They aren’t here, they aren’t there. They aren’t good, they aren’t bad. They just are, and the same with you. You are not this and you are not that, you just are. There is nothing you have to do, absolutely nothing you have to do.
Think of all the years you’ve spent studying. Where’s it all going to lead? What will become of it? You may have altruistic attitudes, believe that you’re doing good for the world, for the future of this world, but this world has no future. It never did, it never will.
As I mentioned in the beginning, we have had millions of civilizations on this earth, they’ve come and they’ve gone. Civilizations that surpassed where we are now. It’s all gone.
What I’m trying to say is you can’t do any good for anybody. Everything is right just the way it is. Nothing in this world needs improvement. The improvement idea comes into your own mind. You believe you are a person, you believe you think, then the ideas come to you, what you can do to improve the world, and you try, and you try, and you try, to no avail. You must know yourself as no thing. Do not look at yourself as something.
Always bear in mind, there is absolutely nothing you have to do. This is how you become happy, peaceful, joyous, for when there is nothing in the mind, happiness itself becomes prevalent. Awaken from this mortal dream. When I say this ask yourself, “Who has to awaken? Who is there who has to awaken?” The way you make progress, if there’s any progress to be made, is by contradicting everything I say.
Again, when I say, “Wake up,” ask yourself, “who is there to wake up?” When I say, “Drop everything,” inquire, “who’s to drop everything?” In other words, what you’re doing is you’re saying there never was anybody or anything that has to wake up or to drop.
Nothing like that exists. There’s no one who exists like that.
Can’t you see now why there is nothing to say, really? Can you see all the words are redundant, superfluous? We can play all sorts of games if we want to, do all sorts of mantras, tantric techniques. We can do all of these things, but for what, to what avail? You just have to know that you are nobody, there’s absolutely nothing to do, and no one exists.
This relieves you of everything, doesn’t it? It relieves you of all responsibility to yourself and to the world.
Again, what I’m telling you will not turn you into a vegetable, where you just sit on a log and contemplate your navel. If you’re listening to me correctly, you will do whatever you’re doing now but you’ll be happier than you’ve ever been in your life, because you’ll realize that it doesn’t matter. You’ll know there’s nobody really doing anything. Yet you will be doing the work that you usually do, if you want to do that. You will appear to be living a human existence, but you will know there’s nobody left to do anything. The doer is gone. There’s no doer. The doer has been completely wiped out.
Some of you still believe that if you become this way you’ll become so sarcastic and belligerent, you will not care, you will not be loving and kind, but this is not true. On the contrary, as you drop everything, as you let go of all your preconceived ideas, your dogmas, as you forget all of your rituals and all the things you’ve been doing all your life, what we call love begins to function as you. What we call compassion begins to function as you. Loving kindness, peace, these attributes will automatically take over, for you have lost all fear. When you have lost all fear for existence, love automatically takes over. But as long as you fear existence and you think something’s wrong somewhere, then the mind blows up all kinds of pictures, and you have to go out and defend yourself and do things, for your own self-aggrandizement. (pause) Never put goat’s milk in a wooden pot.(silence)
It’s time to play stump the guru. We have many stumpers today.
SD: We’re stumped people.
(Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: You have said that we are creating the dream both sleeping and waking. In the past 24
hours I have started to live that. Not just know it intellectually. And really see that everyone in my life is really me. It is totally freeing, thank you. Love Howard.
R: You’re welcome. That’s not a stumper. (SM: It’s a statement.) Next case.
Q: Alright. When you refer to the entire universe as disappearing when one is asleep don’t you mean for him or her only? Another person could walk in and see you sleeping or whatever. The same universe that the one who is sleeping witnessed are created, any comments?
A: Yes, how do you know this is happening when you are asleep? When you’re asleep you’re not aware of anything. There is no universe. You say maybe a cat may come in or someone may observe you sleeping or life is going on while you’re sleeping. You don’t know this. For there is no one to say when you’re sleeping this is happening. When you are in sound asleep, as far as you’re concerned you are dead. There is no universe, you’re out of it completely.
The cat that may walk in or the person that walks in does not exist as far as you’re concerned. You are not alive to this universe, to this world when you are sleeping in deep sleep. This is the way death appears to be. When you decide to leave your body, people are still doing things but it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
(someone makes a sound)
Thank you. (Students laugh) For everything is your dream. And when you’re in deep sleep you’re in between dreams. So there is nothing happening for you. You see what I mean? When you’re dreaming you create a new world. With all kinds of people and all kinds of conditions. And you wake up, you wake up to this world and this world appears real to you. But when you go to sleep again you do not dream you usually wake up to this world. So they’re both gone, they don’t exist, they never existed.
The difference between the Sage and the average person is the Sage is living the waking dream. The Sage appears to be dreaming just like you do only the Sage is in the sleeping state, so-to-speak. Where there is no dream going on in either world. There is no dreamworld, there is no this world. This is also a dreamworld. The Sage is able to see this clearly. That there is only the one and there is nothing else. There is no dream world and there is no waking world, which is also a dream world. You have that experience too every night when you go into deep sleep. Only you’re not awake to deep sleep. Whereas the Sage is awake to the deep sleep state and the fourth state of existence. After waking, sleeping and deep sleep.
Q: Beloved Robert, could you talk about the necessity of the teacher for full self-realization and how the relationship between the teacher and the student works.
A: The teacher is really yourself. You have created the teacher to wake you up. The teacher would not be here if you were not dreaming about the teacher. You have created a teacher out of your mind in order to awaken you to yourself to see that there is no teacher, there is no world, there is no universe, there is no God, there is nothing. You’ve done this all by yourself, congratulations. So this is your dream. This is what you’re dreaming right now. There is a teacher sitting in front of you, explaining all these things to you. That you have to awaken sooner or later. But if you go further than that you’ll see that in truth you are already awake. Then all of the rest will disappear. But while this is going on there is a relationship, a sacred relationship between the student and the teacher.
For the game that you’re playing, that you’ve created yourself is again; You have created this teacher to be your teacher to teach you to wake up, but you’re already awake but you don’t know it. So you have to have a teacher to wake you up. The teacher gives you teachings and gives you grace and lets you understand that you’re already awake, that you’re at peace and you take care of the teacher, physically, financially and otherwise.
It’s all a reciprocal game. But it’s your game, it’s your dream, it’s what you’re doing. Therefore awaken now and be free. Next case.
Mary (SM): That’s it Robert. (R: That’s it?) Umm-hmm.
R: Nobody has stumped the guru yet. Does anybody have anything they’d like to say or add? (SF: Yeah I’ve got something to say.) Good, you’re a lot of fun Fred. (SF: For a long time after I got myself sober I had dreams where I was drinking. And they’re really, they’re bad dreams. They can be nightmares. But when I woke up, I’d say, “Thank God this is just a dream.”
And I wonder when we really wake up it’d be a similar feeling about the waking state? (R: Exactly.) Oh thank God. (students laugh) Last time I had one I was shaking like this. It took ten minutes to realize that it had been a dream. But I had a feeling it would be a semblance…
R: That is a similar experience you awaken to this. But while you are here do not think the world is good or bad. It’s okay to be in this world dreaming like you are, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Enjoy it. Take the good out of it. (SF: It’s like differentiating between good and bad, it’s judging?) But what I mean by “take the good out of it,” I mean take the Sat-Chit-Ananda out of it. (SF: Oh yeah.) Discernment, but do not hate the world. All is well.
Mary would you like to read the Jnani.
Mary (SM): Sure thing Robert, I’ll have this memorized one of these days.
R: Then we’ll change it.
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to beginning of this book for text.)) R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.) We have some delicious prashad.
Prepared by our own chef.
(general prashad 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.