– Transcript 172
R: Good afternoon. Welcome. I welcome you with all my heart. It is good to be with you again. There are a few new people here. Let me remind you, I am not a preacher, I do not give lectures, I am not a philosopher, I’m a nobody, a nothing. Yet some people call me Robert, the ego killer. You’ve heard of Jack, the giant killer? I have come to kill your ego. What do you think of that? You never needed it anyway. It’s nothing but a bunch of trouble.
All of these years you’ve been motivated by your ego. You’ve had all sorts of problems, confusions, living a haphazard life, for you have looked to your ego as God. You have allowed your ego to lead you astray, to make you believe that you came to this earth to become prosperous and rich and happy.
Who wants to be happy? What is happiness? Happiness is when you achieve something that you want. This makes you happy. Yet when it wears out, when it’s taken away from you, when you get used to it, it makes you miserable. Therefore the same quality that made you happy made you miserable. And this is how you’ve gone on since the beginning of your existence, sometimes happy because you get what you want, sometimes miserable because the happiness never turns into what you desire, what you thought it would be. In other words, you’re like a yo-yo. You go up and down looking for happiness, searching for happiness. You think you find it, then it betrays you, and you become miserable.
So the question is, is there a way to have real happiness that is unchanging? Is there a way to have unalloyed happiness, uninterrupted happiness, that has absolutely nothing to do with person, place or thing? The answer is yes. As a matter of fact, the happiness that I’m referring to is your real nature. This is what you really are, happiness, true happiness, that has absolutely nothing to do with the world, or your body, or other planets, or anything else. That happiness may be called bliss, total joy. All you have to do to achieve this happiness is to kill your ego. It sounds like a hard job, but it’s not. You destroy your ego by beginning to live in the now. By letting go of the past, not concerning yourself with the future, and living in the eternal now.
Prove this to yourself. Look at the second you’re living in. Is there anything happening in that second? Is there something annoying you, something bothering you? There is no time for this to happen, because you’re living in the second. In the second in which you live right now, there is absolutely nothing happening to make you miserable, to make you happy, according to human standards. You’re living in the immediate second. Now what if you were able to take that second and expand it, expand it, into eternity, into infinity. This would mean that you would be forever happy, forever at peace.
But most of you begin to think about the past. You begin to worry about the future. You think about your past experiences, you bring it into your present, and spoil that second.
Why do you do this? Because you’ve been brainwashed. You’ve been hypnotized.
You’ve been led to believe that you are a body, living in a world, having to make things happen for survival, going through the life, working in a job, coming home, watching TV, can’t wait for the weekend to come so you can get drunk, or you can go see a movie. This is your life. This is the kind of life most of us live.
What if I told you there was another life? A life of such peace, a life of such bliss, that will always be yours. Yet what do you have to do to achieve this? Again, you have to kill the ego. You kill the ego by stopping the thoughts. You have to stop thinking, stop thinking forever. If you investigate yourself, you will see that your true Self does not have to think. Your real Self, which is consciousness, just is. It is not this or that. It is pure being.
There’s no interpretation for this. It has nothing to do with you, and your affairs and your life. It is the substratum of all existence. It is the background of all of your ideas, your feelings, your emotions, your beliefs.
It is like a chalkboard. You draw pictures of images on the chalkboard, and you get involved in the images. The images always change. When you get tired of them you erase them from the chalkboard.
You draw new images. Yet the chalkboard never changes. The chalkboard remains the same. And so it is, there is something within you that never changes, that is always the same. This is your true nature, your svarupa. It is called the ultimate reality. It is called pure awareness. It is called by many names. You may also call this God. This is the substratum of your existence. When you let go, when you begin to forget about your image as a human being, when you stop thinking about your
affairs in the world, and its affairs, the true Self, which is the substratum I’m talking about, comes into existence, comes into play. It begins to make itself known, and you begin to disappear. What you believed was important, your meager existence, begins to take a backseat, and the true you, the true Self, prevails. This is what ensues when you begin to drop your thoughts, your belief system, your preconceived ideas, your concepts.
All of these things must go if you want to be your Self, the happy Self, the uninterrupted, happy, blissful Self.
What are you willing to do about it? You cannot go on the way you’ve been going on if you wish to experience this beauty, this unparalleled joy. You cannot continue the life you’ve been living. There has to be a total and complete change. Everything that you have picked up since you were born has to become transcended and transmuted. You must begin to understand that it is your mind which has created the universe, the world and
your body. What you call your mind is only a conglomeration of thoughts, ideas, beliefs.
This is what we call the mind. It is this mind that makes us forget our real nature. The mind and the ego are synonymous.
Yet you ask me can you exist without a mind? Can you function without a mind?
Where were you before you were born? You had no mind then, and you functioned very well. Now you’ve picked up the body you have, and you have forgotten that you are not the mind, nor the body, and you live a bodily existence, wanting things, having unnatural desires, thinking you have to become a certain way, in order to be totally happy.
Really there’s nothing to do, nothing to become, in order for you to find total happiness. It’s not finding something new to add on to yourself. It’s letting go of everything you’ve been holding onto, becoming virtually empty, total emptiness, total emptiness, becoming a no one, a nobody, a nothing. Allowing all of your preconceived ideas, your conceptual thinking, to dissolve. Letting go of everything that you’ve been holding onto, your desires, your emotions. Becoming a simple person. Not worrying about the future.
Being your Self, absolute reality, the Self which is God, allowing that to take place. Forgetting about time and space. Not trying to change the world or anyone else, not even trying to change yourself, but rather going deep within yourself, diving deep within yourself, deeper than you’ve ever gone before. The deeper you dive, the more the ego disappears.
Remember, the ego, the body, the mind are one. They never existed really. This is the amusing thing of this whole teaching, for when you get to that place, when you get to that space, where the mind seems to be destroyed, you start to laugh at yourself, realizing you never had a mind to begin with. There never was an ego or a mind, yet you’ve been spending hour after hour, day after day, week after week, trying to quiet the mind that doesn’t exist. Why do you do this? Who knows? Why do you do anything that you do?
It is your business to do the right things in order for you to become self-realized.
You begin this when you get up in the morning, when you first get out of bed, you first open your eyes. You can ask yourself the question, “Who am I?” What you’re really saying is where did the I come from? Where did the I come from? When you’re referring to this I, you’re referring to the I that says, “I got out of bed, I slept well. Now I’m going to get dressed.” That is the I I’m referring to.
Inquire within, “Where did this I come from? Who am I? Am I my body? If I were my body, really my body, it would never change. But yet when I was a little baby, I changed into a little person, then to a big person, here I am now, and I keep changing every day. Therefore how can I be real? For when I look up the word real in the dictionary, it means something that is unchanging, something that never changes, something that stays the same. So I cannot be my body. Am I the mind that thinks? Again I cannot be the mind that thinks. For the mind keeps changing itself every second, bringing me different thoughts, good thoughts, bad thoughts, fear thoughts, happy thoughts. Again this is not real. So I cannot be my mind. Am I part of this world? Well the world is the same way. Keeps changing, changing, changing constantly, constantly changing, so I cannot be the world. Therefore who am I?”
Do not answer that question, just ask it. As you keep on asking this question, things take care of themselves. As you go through your day, remember to ask the question over and over again. Keep inquiring over and over again, “Who am I?” And when the answer comes to you, say, “No, not this. I am not this.” All kinds of answers will come to you. Your mind will tell you, you are a man, you are a woman, you are a working person, you are retired, you are going to school. And always catch yourself and say, “No, I am not this, for it is not permanent. How can I be something which is not permanent?”
As you keep inquiring this way, something profound begins to happen to you. As you keep doing this day, after day, after day, you start to feel joy for no reason at all. You start to feel happiness for no reason whatsoever. You start to feel peace. Where there is conflict in the world, man’s inhumanity to man, there may be conflict in your life, but you begin to feel peace, for the inquiry that you are doing is putting an end to the mind, to the ego, little, by little, by little.
You have to keep this up. You have to keep doing this without ever stopping. As the thoughts come to you, as your mind is filled with thoughts, you ask yourself, “To whom do these thoughts come?” You inquire, “Who is thinking these thoughts? I am. Then who am I?” Do not try to analyze this, for you’re using your mind to analyze it, and it is your mind we are trying to destroy. Therefore you cannot use your mind to become free.
Otherwise it’s like a thief becoming a policeman to catch the thief. He will never really catch the thief, because he is the thief himself. So even though he appears as the policeman, he will never catch the thief.
And so your mind, that has been giving you all these problems and making all this trouble for you throughout your existence, should not be used in order to destroy itself. For the mind does not wish to be destroyed. Therefore it will bring up everything to keep itself from being destroyed. It will tell you all sorts of things. Do not react to them.
Do not be frightened of them. Merely observe them, smile, ask yourself the question, “To whom do these thoughts come? I am thinking these thoughts, they come to me. Then who am I? Where did the I come from, for the I is responsible for everything?”
This I is only a thought. This I is an idea. It really does not exist. If it really existed, it would not be able to be destroyed. But because it doesn’t exist, by inquiring where it came from, it will go away, it will disappear, and only the Self will remain. Do not worry or be concerned how long this takes, whether it happens immediately or it takes time. Just do it. Remember it’s taken you many years to be where you are now. Therefore do not question time. Live in the moment. Forget about everything else.
It’s like the story I tell once in a while. There was a monk who was meditating beside the road, and he apparently had been there for many, many years, for his hair had grown out into the ground, birds had made nests in his hair. He was sitting there meditating. All of a sudden he felt the presence of a great Sage coming by. He knew immediately
this was a great Sage. He opened one eye, and looked, and he said to this Sage, “Holy Father, where are you going?” The Sage said, “I’m going to see God.” The monk replied, “Holy Father, when you see God would you please ask him for me how much longer I have to sit here in meditation before I become absolutely free, before I become liberated?”
The Sage said, “Yes my son, I will.”
He walked down the road and there was another monk about a mile away, also sitting in meditation. He apparently had also been sitting year after year. His hair had grown into the street. He was in total silence. He felt the presence of the Sage also. He opened his eyes and he said, “Holy Father, where are you going?” The Sage said, “I’m going to see God.” “Will you please intervene for me and ask God how much longer I have to sit like this before I become liberated?” The Sage replied, “Yes my son, I will.”
Six months pass. The first monk was sitting in meditation as usual. He again felt the presence of the Sage. He opened his eyes and he smiled, and he said, “Have you seen God?” “Yes, my son.” “Did you ask him for me how much longer I have to meditate this way before I become free and liberated?” “Yes, I did.” The monk became excited. “What did he say? How long do I have to sit here?” The Sage pointed to a tree. He said, “You see the leaves on that tree. God told me that you have to reincarnate as many times as there are leaves on this tree, before you become totally liberated.” The monk became upset. He became hysterical. He said, “What? I’ve been meditating like this all these years and now you tell me this? To heck with this. I’m going to town to get drunk.” And he brushed himself off and left for town.
The Sage came to the second monk. Again the second monk felt his presence, opened his eyes and asked him, “Holy Sir, did you ask God how much longer I have to sit here?” The Sage told him the same thing. “Yes,” he said, “Do you see these leaves on this tree. You have to reincarnate as many times as there are leaves on this tree. But this monk reacted quite differently. He started to dance and to sing. He said, “Thank you God. It’s only one tree.” And the Sage said to him, “My son, you are already free.”
The meaning of this story is, do not look at time. Do not look at space. Do not look at other people. Do not wonder about how many times you will have to come back to this earth, whether you’re going to be reborn as a frog, or a tree, or go to a different planet.
Forget about all these things. Your job is to dive deeply into yourself, forget about the world. Why do you forget about the world in this teaching? For when you discover your Self, you’ll see that you are the world. You are the world. You, your Self, are this world, this universe. The Self is all pervading, omnipresence, and you are that.
Therefore when you become a peaceful person, a happy person, a real person, a true being, the Self, what will you see? You will see the Self. You will see a mirror. You will become a mirror, and the world is a reflection of you. Consequently wherever you look, you will see your Self. And what is your Self? The happy being I was referring to. The peaceful person I’m talking about. You are that. So wherever you look, you see your Self.
And this makes this world a beautiful world in which to live. We are creating a world of peace and harmony, such as your Self. This is why in Advaita Vedanta we do not look at the world, for we realize we are only seeing ourselves, where we are. If you see problems in this world, if you call this a mean world, something wrong with this world, you’re just seeing your image. This is you. So change yourself, not other people, not the world, but yourself. Do what is necessary to become totally free and liberated. For I fool you not when I say, “You are the absolute reality. You are Sat-Chit-Ananda. You are ultimate oneness, nirvana. You are the Buddha. You are God. You are free. You are that.”
We now play our usual game of “Stump The Guru.”
Do you have a stumper Fred? (SF: Sir?) A stumper question? I forgot to ask to you, do you have a question here?
SD: It’s not too late. If anyone who writes a question down or has a verbal question you can ask Robert.
R: Do we have any questions? (SM: No, there is not a single one in here. Nobody has any.) (laughs) We have to remind you to do this. So feel free to ask any questions you like.
If you stump the guru you get to go to heaven immediately. You pass go. (students laugh) SD: You don’t even have to drive home. (more laughter)
SY: I’d like to know what question I have to ask you in order to stump you? (laughter) (R: Say that again?) (laughter)
SH: You didn’t hear, right? He wanted you to give him a question that would stump you.
R: Oh. (laughter) Okay, here is the question.
(silence)
R: Fred is there anything interesting happening in the bible?
Fred (SF): How do I know? You accuse me of being a bible student. (SH: Oh come on.) The only Christian scripture I know I got from Swami Paravananda who was head of the southern California Vedanta society, other than that I don’t know anything about that, I know some of the things Christ said. But I don’t quote them because you don’t like me to quote them. I won’t say you don’t but most of them don’t.
R: They don’t like you to quote them?
Fred (SF): Alright, “Be ye perfect even as thy father in heaven is perfect, ” which was just what you were talking about. Is it not? (R: If you say so.) Thank you.
R: I love you Fred.
Fred (SF): Thank you. When I was a Unitarian we had a wonderful minister. I remember some of the things he said. One of which was, “To the extent that an individual feels apparently superior to another he reveals his own insecurity.” (R: Of course.) And another thing he said that I always remember, he said, “Blame is the most cursive word in the English language.” (R: True.) Thank you. I’ve been thinking about myself a little bit. I’ve always been inclined to maybe feel a little different than people, say who belong to the Jehovah’s witnesses or the Southern Baptists or the Disciples of Christ. And that would put me in a position of feeling superior which is no place for me to be.
R: Well why would you feel superior. You used the right words, you feel different.
You feel different not superior. (SF: In other words to feel different is in-apprehensible.) Sure to feel different is good. (SF: Thank you for that.) It has nothing to do with being superior. You want to feel different. You have a right to feel different. You are different. (SF: Thanks again.)
SH: You made his day. (laughter)
SL: Robert when you have the two periods of meditation which you encourage us to do with you. Can you talk to us about that?
R: That is a good question. When I sit at those hours, the grace, the harmony, the joy which exists travels to those people who are sitting with me. There is only one Self.
When the Jnani is that Self and sits in those periods of time anywhere in this world or this universe, whoever sits at that time and thinks of the Jnani becomes the Jnani themselves.
All the power flows at that time and people call it grace. It flows throughout the universe wherever you are. It’s just like a radio set. When you turn on the radio, you tune into the station and you get the station you tune into. You do not get a bunch of static, you do not get other stations, you get the station that you tune into. So the power of that particular transmitter comes forth and you pick up that station on your receiver. The same thing happens when you sit with me.
You may look at me as a transformer. Do I look like a transformer? (laughter) I transform souls. And as you tune into me, you pick up I-am. I am That I am. Absolute reality. There is only one. So the people who sit together at that time make a lot of progress on the path when they tune into the divine being, into the Jnani, into reality, which is themselves. The one Self. Does that make any sense?
S: Does it accelerate the evolutionary process? (R: Does it what?) Does it accelerate the spiritual evolution of the soul?
R: Yes it does. When you’re tuning into it. A power. Again, another example is like going into the sun. If you sit under the sun you get all of the power of the sun. If you sit in the shade, the sun is still shining but you’re not picking up all of the power of the sun, the same thing.
We have a beautiful reading today. We’re going to try to have a reading every Sunday, from some form of truth book. So you can get another idea how things are. What Mary is going to read is from the Ashtravakra Gita.
(Mary reads)
R: Any announcements? Announcements?
Mary (SM): Oh yes I have. I have some transcripts to hand out…
R: Explain what you want them to do. (SM: Yes.)
(student explains to the newcomers what needs to be done with the transcripts) SF: I know one thing about the Bible. Sri Ramana says the same thing. (R: Says what?) The Bible is the same as the Gita. (R: Oh, yes.) Somebody asked him, “Should we read the Gita,“and he said, “Always.” and they said, “How about the Bible?” and he said, “The Bible is the same as the Gita.” And the guy said, “Well the Bible teaches that man is born in sin?” And the Master said, “The man sense is sin.”
R: The I-thought, the ego. (SF: Separation.) Thank you Fred. (SF: Thank you.) R: We have no prashad today, so we can’t eat.
(someone brings in prashad, it is blessed as students partake in it.) SU: How can there be a Master or a fool?
R: The appearance to others, others see the person as a Master or a fool. It’s what people see. To the one involved there is no such thing. (SU: There is no Master nor fool?) In reality there is no Master, no fool. There is nothing like that. But to most people they see a fool they see a Master. But the truth is that there is no Master, no fool. There is only the Self and you are that. (SU: It seems to me that there is not even a Self?) Then there is nothing. (SU: Is that good Robert?) Whatever it seems to you that is the way it is.
R: Well this is it. The end. Repent.
Thank you for coming I enjoyed being with you. Remember to worship yourself, to pray to yourself, to bow to yourself, to love yourself. For God dwells in you as you.
Om shanti, peace.
(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.