– Transcript 171
R: Om shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace. Good evening. It is a pleasure to be with you once again. All is well. Everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes. Everyone is in their right place.
The question arises, who were you prior to consciousness? Who were you prior to relative consciousness?
If you search deeply within yourself you will see that you were pure awareness.
Pure awareness without a body, without any form whatsoever. And yet like the screen and the images on the screen an image appears on pure awareness which is relative existence.
Where does the image come from? It comes from your karma, from your mind that doesn’t exist. Yet somehow you’ve been mesmerized into believing you’re an image rather than the screen or pure awareness. You therefore forget about the screen or pure awareness you appear to take on body after body after body after body. In this realm of relativity everything is preordained. Everything is predetermined.
You therefore appear on earth as a new born babe. You may last one day, a week, a month, a year, ten years, twenty years, fifty years, eighty years, ninety years. You don’t know. In other words you don’t know when it will be the last day on this earth plane.
Therefore the question is, what are you doing with your life while you seem to be breathing? As long as you believe that you are human, that you are the body, the mind, you call this your life. What are you doing with it? What do you do with yourself everyday? If you understood that what you call the material life does not really exist. It’s phenomena, superimposition, on the Self, on pure awareness.
If you were able to comprehend this you would immediately drop the body as it appears and become your true Self which is consciousness pure awareness. Yet when I say, “Drop the body,” you would drop it. But to others you would appear to others the same as you were before. By dropping the body, in this instance I mean you would realize and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you never were a body to begin with. You are not the body nor the mind. Yet simultaneously you appear to be a body to others. They refer to a person like this as a Sage or a Jnani. One who has transcended the world, transcended the bodily form, yet still appears in a bodily form. But the average person does not know about these things. The average person only identifies with the bodily form and that is where the trouble begins.For if you identify with a bodily form you have to go through the sufferings, the longings, the trials and tribulations of the world in which you think you live. Which is the earth plane as far as this is concerned. You have forgotten, you do not realize that what you call the earth plane is only an extension of yourself. If you did not exist as the body there would be no earth plane, no universe. There would be no God, no one longing for realization, no one illusioned, no ignorance, no enlightenment. You would be pure awareness, effortless, choice-less, pure awareness. This is what you really are.
You are not where you appear to be. You never were and you never will be. But I must tell you again that as long as you identify with the body and you identify with the body by reacting to things. You identify with the body when you feel fears. When you feel frustrated. When you feel disillusioned. When you feel there’s anything wrong anywhere or anything right anywhere. Then what you feel you create. And they call this a creation of the mind.
You have created a mind for yourself that you believe is real. And this mind appears to be very very powerful. That is why things appear real to you. This is the reason why you feel things and you see things and you react to things. For the mind appears to be very powerful. But all you’ve got to do is to remember that the mind is creative but you are not the mind. Therefore nothing is creative and creation doesn’t exist. If you begin to see this for yourself even just a little bit things begin to happen within yourself. Changes begin to take place. You notice the things that used to disturb you no longer have the power to do this. You begin to see that people, places and things that you reacted to have stopped you begin to slow down. You find that you’re becoming happier within yourself for no reason whatsoever.
You find that you’re at peace. At peace with the mineral kingdom. With the vegetable kingdom. With the animal kingdom. And with the higher kingdoms. You have no problems with anything. But everything still exists to you. Therefore you go deeper. You turn within. Dive deep within yourself. And the deeper you dive the greater the freedom that ensues. The point I’m trying to make is use your time allotted to you in this body wisely. Use the time that you have here very wisely. You should act like this is the last hour that you have on this earth. What would you do with your time if you knew you only an hour left on this earth?
All of you here have spiritual training of some kind. So you’d make peace with your maker. You would sit down in meditation and spend the last hour going within.
Those of you who are in this room. We’re not talking about the average person in the street who would buy one more lottery ticket. Because you never know in an hour they can win the lottery even though they are not going to be here anymore. Or one more bottle of beer.
But I’m sure most of you, or all of you would sit in meditation for that hour, the last hour on this earth.
What I’m saying to you is this. You must begin to do these things anyway. As if it is the last hour for you on this earth. You must become intensely joyous, happy, passionately god conscious, by turning within with passion, with love. For you realize if you do not have a semblance of God realization karmically you will be drawn again and again and again to bodies. Perhaps in different planets, different dimensions you will take on a body of some kind and you will go through experience after experience after experience.
You have to vehemently make up your mind to remove all the doubts and suspicions and aggravations and nonsensical thinking, trying to understand your divinity. Trying to realize the truth about yourself. Of who you really are, what you really are. In reality none of these things exist. In reality none of these things are really happening. In reality everything that I’ve been explaining to you doesn’t even exist. Yet it exists to you. You believe it strongly. Therefore you’ve got to do something about it. This is the most important thing you can do with your body on this earth. As long as you believe you are a body and you have a mind that thinks you have to use your mind that thinks to go deeper, deeper within yourself. Where there is no mind. You can use any method that you like to do this.
You can use pranayama if you so desire. There are two types of pranayama. One is controlling the breath and the other is watching the breath. You can do this. You can practice witness consciousness, being the witness to all the happenings and not reacting to it.
And if you’re so inclined you can practice self-inquiry. You can practice a mantra. You can practice japa, repeating God’s name over and over again. What I’m trying to say is it doesn’t really matter what you do. What matters is that you do something to get you out of this mess you’re in. Believing that you are human and that you have a body and a mind and that you exist. Of course my favorite method is self-inquiry. Self-inquiry goes right to the heart of the matter and frees you totally from the belief that you are a body. It is inquiring, “Who am I? How did I get this body? How did I get this mind? Where do my thoughts really come from? What is my real nature?” As you inquire this way you go deeper and deeper and deeper within yourself. What appears to be a material self begins to dissolve slowly but surely, until only consciousness is left, absolute reality.
As problems arise as questions arise as thoughts arise you simply inquire, “To whom do these come? Who is thinking these thoughts? To whom do they come? Who is going through this experience? Who feels frustrated, unhappy? Angry? To whom does this come?” And of course you say, “It comes to me. I feel this.” Then you inquire, “Who am I?
What is the source of this I? Where does this I come from? Who gave birth to this I?” What you are really trying to do is find the source of the I-thought. The I-thought is only a thought. As you follow the I-thought to the center of the heart one day the I-thought will burn up completely in the center of the heart and you will be totally free. But by all means you should practice some form of sadhana. Sadhana is like going to school. You have to start in kindergarten, go to the first grade, the fifth grade, junior high school, senior high school, college to university. This is true of sadhana. You practice one form of sadhana for years perhaps and then you may grow out of it to other forms, to higher forms. Until you come to the realization that there is no sadhana. All these years I’ve been spending standing on one foot with my arm in the air, chanting mantras, doing pranayamas has been unnecessary. Now you can only say this when you’ve arrived a certain place in life. The stronger you’re attached to this earth the more sadhanas you have to do. But as you begin to lose attachment to this earth your form of sadhana changes. Your spiritual practices change. They become less and less. Since you’re beginning to realize that you are the pure awareness. Does the pure awareness have to do sadhana? Or does God have to do spiritual practices?
You begin to feel your reality. The more you feel the reality of who you are the more the body keeps dropping away. Until again that day comes when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have no body. Yet the body appears. This part becomes a paradox when you try to use words to explain it. You have no body and at the same time you have a body. You appear to be demonstrating a body. Others see you as a body but you realize that this is a cosmic joke. For there is no body, there is no world, there is no universe there is only consciousness, effortless, choice-less, pure awareness, boundless space.
Prior to total enlightenment you feel this about yourself. That you are consciousness that you are not the body, you’re absolute reality. As you go deeper into that you become like boundless space. You no longer are confined to a place. There is no longer confinement. Now the body appears like a jail for you. You appear confined to your body.
It’s like you’re in prison. There is no freedom. As you come closer to enlightenment you begin to realize you are not the body but you still feel confined without a body. Then the final stage you become the Self of everything.
You realize that you are in the trees, the ocean, the planets, the stars you are everything. You have become all pervading, omnipresence. Yet when people look at you, you seem to be a body. So you keep silent. You do not try to explain yourself or prove anything. There is no longer anything you have to do. You are completely out of it. Now why would you want to become like this? What is the purpose of being this way? If you’ve heard about bliss. The peace beyond understanding you have become that, total happiness. The substratum behind all existence is total joy, total happiness, total peace, bliss consciousness. This is your real nature this is what you are. Just by hearing these words something begins to stir within you to make you understand that you never were a body.
Do not think about your body too much. It will take care of itself.
Remember as I mentioned in the beginning, when you came into this plane of existence everything was preordained, everything. Everything is predetermined. Therefore every move you make, everything you do is supposed to happen. If you will just realize this you will stop worrying. This is what I meant when I said in the beginning you are in your right place right now. Going through those experiences that are necessary for you. The worst thing you can do is to condemn yourself and your lot. This just pulls you deeper into Maya. Be happy where you are. Never compare yourself with anyone. Be yourself just the way you are. Be thankful for what you are and where you are. It is only
by being thankful, by acceptance that you begin to let go of your humanity. Every time you resist you’re accruing greater karma to you. Every time you try to stick up for your rights you are accruing greater karma to you. And you will always have rights to stick up for. Only the nature of them will change. But you will be sticking up for your rights all of your life. And then you will take up another body and continue doing the same thing it’ll never end.
Finally, try to remember that the powers that be loves you just the way you are. It doesn’t love you when you do certain things. It loves you just the way you are, unconditionally. And you are unfolding in your own inimitable way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anything. Collectively the earth is going through its karma and is doing what it’s supposed to do. Your job is to become realized and totally free. You do this by accepting yourself with the way you are, accepting everybody else. Accepting the world the way it is. Accepting conditions the way they are. Realizing that none of these things exist they’re only temporary. And what is temporary cannot be reality. Understanding that the true reality is yourself. There is no true reality outside of yourself. There is nothing going on outside of yourself. You are the creator of the world and of the universe. And that all is well.
(short silence)
Glen (SG): I met you two weeks ago for the first time. And the past two weeks it seems like my consciousness is just expanding very rapidly. And my sense is that it isn’t just the words that you speak it’s the life that you live, the expanse that you live is the most powerful transformer.
R: What do you want me to say? You’re doing well. It is true the best teaching is the silence. The space between the words is where all the real power is. If your heart is pure it has to affect you positively and things do happen. See the important thing about this is what do you put first in your life? What comes first? This is where the problem arises. If you put your work first, your family first, your house first, your car first, then you will progress accordingly. I’m not saying you have to give up these things. I’m just saying put first things first. If you’re truly looking for a spiritual life and you want to become with the Self that you really are, you want to awaken, you want to experience moksha liberation then you have to live this twenty-four hours a day. This is not a part time job. If you make this a part time job then what ever you make a full time job will be your god. If you only remember that you can never take anything with you when it comes time to leave your body so-to-speak. Therefore what do you put first in your life? Those of you who have put spirituality first in their lives know what I’m talking about.
(long silence, then tape starts abruptly) …om shanti om.
Mary would you like to read the Jnani? (SM: Yes Robert I would.) (Mary reads the Jnani 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.