– Transcript 181
R: Good evening. Welcome. It is wonderful to be with you again. I welcome you with all my heart.
Some of you do not like to sit in the silence. You want to hear me talk right away.
But I say to you to sit in the silence is a thousand times more powerful than words. The silence at satsang is pregnant with love and grace. All you really have to do is to tune in like a radio. You tune in finally to the channel to the station you receive clear reception. So it is with satsang.
When we are quiet and the mind is still we’re tuning into the grace and the love.
And what happens? You feel a presence within you. You feel a power. You feel a joy well up within you, a happiness that you’ve never experienced before. Words are alright but there is nothing like the silence.
There are many of us who have been practicing Advaita Vedanta, non-duality for many years. And yet we seem to be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Devil and deep blue sea. I know there is a deep blue sea but is there a devil? Is there really a deep blue sea? What I mean by this is simply that…this.
We learn all the wise spiritual sayings. We learn in books, satsang I am effortless, choice-less, pure awareness, I am the ultimate reality, I am Brahman and then on the other hand we feel the opposite. We say to ourselves, “I feel lonely, I feel depressed, I feel there is something wrong someplace. I feel this, I feel that.” So we’re caught in the middle. What to do?
If we really tune into satsang and to our inner powers we will find something very interesting happening. There is one word common to both feelings, the high spiritual feelings in the relative world. And that word is I.
When we say, “I feel like Brahman,” or “I feel like I am choice-less awareness,” or “I am absolute reality,” or “I am wonderful,” we’re making a mistake because we’re saying, “I”
and we’re identifying with the human body. The human body can never be choice-less awareness. The I which is the human body as far as your concerned can never be absolute reality. So when you say I am Brahman or I am choice-less awareness nothing will ever happen because you’re referring to yourself being that. It cannot be that way.
Again when you refer to being depressed you say, “I am depressed. I feel terrible. I feel this and I feel that.” You’re using the same I. To understand this is the beginning of wisdom. You’re using the same I for both sides of the same coin. Therefore you’ll never get anywhere. So what to do?
You begin by realizing that the I is only a thought and it is the I that feels all of these things and not you. It is the I that expresses all of these things. It is the I that exclaims, “I feel sick. I feel sorry for myself. I feel like I’m God. I feel like I’m Brahman,” and yet you don’t feel anything really. Life goes on, nothing happens because you’re using your I to identify everything. But when you come to the conclusion that I is experiencing all of this. Not you but I.
When you begin to realize that I thinks it’s Brahman, I thinks it’s absolute reality. I also thinks something is wrong with my life. I also believe I was born and I die. I’ve got problems. I believe that all is well. I believe everything is going to be beautiful in my life forever. We’re always using the I. This is the important part.
We want to separate the I from reality.
And you do this by understanding that you are not I. You have absolutely nothing to do with I. I’m not referring to I as God. I’m referring to the way you use I in everyday life.
Again let me reiterate.
The reason some of us do not make much progress is because we use the I-am like an affirmation. You’re saying, “I am choice-less awareness.” When you say, “I,” you’re referring to the material self. To the body and the body is an illusion it can never be anything else but an illusion. Therefore when you say, “I-am Brahman. I-am choice-less awareness.”
Realize that I-am has the same meaning as Brahman or choice-less awareness. I-am is consciousness, it is God. When you say it this way you have an all new perspective on this thing. Don’t you?
You’re looking at I-am as reality not as your body or as your experiences. And if you can understand this and hold onto this when you say, “I am sick, I feel terrible.” You will catch yourself because you will realize that I-am is God and I-am can never feel sick or terrible. I-am can never be anything else but itself, absolute reality, pure consciousness.
But first you have to see I as the I-thought, as the mind before you can do the other. You have to realize that everything is attached to the I-thought, all of your emotions, all of your feelings, your body, your mind, the world, the universe everything you believe is the I. If there were no I available there would be nobody to believe anything. You’d have hardly anything to say. And it is true it is only when you say, “I,” that you can say everything else that comes after it. I am poor, I am healthy, I am sick, I am rich. Everything is attached to the first pronoun I.
All you have to do is catch yourself. Try to understand this completely then you’ll become free. And you’ll become totally free just by doing this alone. By realizing the I is a thought, the I-thought and is not you and by realizing the I-am is God itself. The I-am is total liberation, total consciousness. Think about this, it’s very important. This alone will take care of everything for you. If you can only awaken to this fact. Whenever you say, “I,”
catch yourself. Do not go any further. Remember to remember to catch yourself. You may also inquire, “To whom does this I come? Who is thinking of this I?” By following through on these things you make tremendous progress.
If you only knew and if you only understood the tremendous power that is within you. You think you are a frail human being going through many experiences, going through karmic experiences yet if you were able to identify with the power within you, the fantastic power within you, you will become completely free.
What is this power within you?
It is the same power that maintains and sustains the whole universe. You have to admit something is taking care of this world. No matter how things look. There is a reason for everything. Something is taking care of this world. I call it the power that knows the way.
Yet you may say to me, “If something is taking care of this world how can we have these terrible cataclysms. Hurricanes in Miami, earthquakes in Los Angeles, catastrophes all over the world, man’s inhumanity to man?” Yet if I told you, “All is well,” you wouldn’t believe me.
There is a reason for everything and it’s all wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. As horrible as it seems, as horrible as it looks the earth is being purged. The power that knows the way knows what it’s doing. I know this sounds kind of terrible but when there is an over population on this earth cataclysms will come, wars, to lower the population.
Let us say that so many souls have been allocated to this planet. Let’s say four billion souls. As the earth becomes over populated people have to be wiped out, removed. I tell you this sounds terrible when you hear it. But it’s not. For in reality nobody ever dies.
How could it be terrible? Nothing really happens to anyone. This is what I’m referring to when I tell you, “Everything is a cosmic joke.”
When things seems so horrible when you look in the paper, watch the TV, see what’s going on in this world. Yet I say to you in the highest teaching, “All is well. There are no mistakes.”
When there is a certain amount of evil on the planet the planet becomes purged.
When there is an over population on this planet there are earthquakes, hurricanes everything is happening the way it’s supposed to.
Another way to awaken is to trust the power that knows the way. In other words you have to have faith in the goodness of life. You have to have faith in supremacy of goodness. When you have faith in supremacy of goodness you move upward. In other words what I’m saying, when you look at the dastardly things happening in this world and you can look through it and see glory and joy and happiness and peace then you’ve made tremendous progress.
This is why I can only speak of my own experiences and it’s hard for people to understand this. When I give you the illustration of a mirror cannot see itself therefore when I look at the world I’m seeing myself.Now since the Self is consciousness and pure awareness and absolute reality this is the only Self I can see. I cannot see any other Self. This is the reason why I can say these things and tell you that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. This is the truth. This is what I see, honestly, truly. I see such joy, such love, such harmony, such peace and I see yourself as myself. In other words I do not see anything else that separates yourself from me. The love that I see is you. The absolute reality I see is yourself.
Now I’m a mirror and I cannot see myself so I see myself as the world. You are a mirror also and you cannot see yourself. But what do you see when you see the world.
Your mirror is covered with dust. You see man’s inhumanity to man. You see terrible cataclysms, wars and you become upset, you become worried, you become frustrated. Not realizing that when you become like this it clouds your mirror even more.
You see when you are living in the relative world and when you believe you are the body, the mind is a very powerful instrument. The mind appears to be a very powerful instrument. It becomes very creative to you. You can do very many wonderful things on this earth with your mind. They will not last but you can accomplish great things with your mind. So in the same instance when you feel terrible because of the things you see in this world all you are really doing is propagating the situation, the condition. What you’re really saying is I want to see more of this. Why? Because your mind is creative. Your mind will create anything that you believe. Anything that you feel, anything that you see with feeling. The mind only knows to return to you in proportion what you feel, what you see and what you believe.
This is what happens to the average human being. That is why there is so much change in your life. Why nothing is really steady all the time because the mind so-called, works on your belief system and creates for you what you think is true. Therefore even though you are a human being you have to be very careful what you think, what you see, what you believe. For you will get whatever you see and believe.
Consequently when you feel hurt because of the world situation you are one of the millions of people who feel hurt and you’re causing the situation to be completely worse. You’re causing the situation to be totally worse than it’s ever been before by thinking this way. First the mind has to think and then the mind becomes creative and makes things happen.
This is what I meant last week when I said, “Maya isn’t that bad.” For you can take the good things out of Maya and use them while you’re working on yourself. Of course you have to realize that you’re playing around with illusions. None of it is real. It appears to be real. It appears to be happening for a while and like all things of this world it must change sooner or later.
So if you’re wise you will not play around with the mind to create things for you.
What you will do is try to annihilate the mind, to transcend the mind, to destroy the mind by becoming the witness behind the mind. By going further and further deep within yourself until you become Brahman, the absolute reality.
But again as long as you believe you are a human being you do have a mind so-it-appears to work with. So why not use your mind for the supremacy of good. Start to feel and believe that everything happens in this world for a reason. You can say to yourself, “I do not understand right now. I do not appear to understand it. I do not appear to understand what is going on. But yet I know there is a reason for everything and the reason can only be good because the substratum of all existence is God or reality. The cause beyond every phenomena is excellence, peace, wisdom.” And start identifying with the peace and wisdom and excellence and the joy and the love.
I know it’s hard to do when you go home and you watch TV and you see all the things happening in this world. You want to kill the bad guys and love the good guys. Yet you have to see within yourself that what we call God cannot make any mistakes. There are no mistakes. If you feel something is wrong with this world then you’re believing that God makes mistakes and if God made mistakes there would never be the real harmony there is in this world. By real harmony I am referring to the way you do things.
When you plant a carrot seed it’s going to turn into a carrot and not an apple or a pear. When you plant a cabbage seed you do not have to think about it you know that it has to become a cabbage and not a strawberry or a tangerine. Everything is in its right place. Everything is unfolding the way it’s supposed to.
I admit it’s hard to see this sometimes. But the beginning of wisdom again, is having faith in the supremacy of goodness. Even if you do not understand it. You cannot make any further progress unless you do this.
If you try to practice self-inquiry you will find as many of you tell me, “It’s so hard because there are many things happening in this world.” So many people are getting killed. So much man’s inhumanity to man and you cannot hold onto “Who am I?” So go the other way. Begin to reason this out for yourself. Begin to see that there is a power within me that knows the way. I surrender to this power. I surrender my feelings, my thoughts, my emotions, my frustrations. I surrender everything to this power that knows the way.
In other words get yourself out of the way. To the extent you can get yourself out of the way to that extent will you start feeling something else. You will start to feel your divinity. It will just come by itself. You will feel that you were never born. That you’ve always existed. You can never die, nobody dies. You will feel that this world is an illusion.
Yet it appears very real. You will begin to see within yourself all of creation and you will know that it is you who have created this situation that you see.
How have you created it?
We go back to the mirror illustration. Just as a mirror cannot see itself but sees itself as a reflection as the world. So you as a creation as the creator see yourself. This is why two different people can look at the world and see two different things.
As an example, two of us can look out the window over here and if I ask, “What do you see?” I get different answers. One will see the beautiful lake, the reservoir and one will see the pollution in the lake. One will see the birds singing and chirping and singing beautiful songs. Someone else will see the birds as a nuisance making too much noise and so forth and so on.
What we see is ourselves! Nothing else. Try to remember this, you are seeing your own reflection. That is all you can see you can’t see anything else. Try to remember this and you’ll think twice before you make an opinion or judge anybody or anything. For you’re only judging yourself. The opinion you have about this world is about yourself.
What you believe about this universe you believe about yourself. You are the self! And the whole universe is not away from yourself you are creating the whole universe everyday by the way you look at things, by the way you see things. You are that! You are the self!
And the whole universe is your emanation. But! When you become the true Self, the absolute Self, how can you see anything else but love, joy, peace, nirvana, bliss.
It’s not that you will not see the world. You will see the world as a superimposed image on yourself. It has no power, no reality, no substance, no value. You will be able to see right through this to the Self. This becomes a little complicated to some of you I know.
This is why we use these illustrations again over and over.
When you look at the screen in the movie theater. The screen has the opinion of itself as the screen. It only knows of itself as a screen. That is all it knows, it’s a screen. It knows nothing else. Then they show the movie on the screen and the screen is colored by various images. All kinds of things are happening on the screen. Yet the screen is still aware of itself. Even while the images are being shown on the screen, the screen doesn’t know the images, it only knows itself. The images keep changing and changing and changing, the screen only knows itself. Yet the images are appearing. And so it is with you.
When you get to the place when you become the Self, the whole world, people places and things become a superimposition on yourself. And because you are the Self and you are omnipresence, you are all pervading there is really no room for anything else. If you are all pervading how can there be room for something else. There cannot be the images and you for you are all pervading. Therefore you are the Self, omnipresent and nothing else can exist even though the images appear to be there.
Now you exist as total bliss, total harmony and peace and love, this is your real nature, this is you.
In conclusion, do not use your mind to improve your life or subconsciously to make things happen because you’re feeling deep inside certain things about this world and your life. And it will happen by themselves you don’t even have to think about it. If you’ve been brainwashed if you’ve been thinking for many eons certain things about this world you become subjective. Therefore you don’t even have to think about it. Things will happen in your life and ask, “Why do these things happen to me?” because your subjective mind has created these things for yourself since you feel these things deep inside even though you’re not feeling them right now. They’re subjective, they’re deep inside of yourself.
And even the good things in your life come from your subjective mind. All the wonderful relative things in your life all come from your subjective mind, where else would they come from? And since your subjective mind is
not real, it is only a phenomena, it will all change continuously. It will keep on changing, changing, changing continuously.
This is why for one year you may have good things happening in your life. The next year you may have terrible things happening in your life. For you’re not in control.
You are allowing the subjective mind to be in control of you and create its own destiny for you by the way you feel about things.
Number one: Realize that you are not that mind at all and you’re sick and tired of making things happen in your life. Playing the game of good and bad, off and on, up and down.
Number two: Realize your real nature is not your mind. You’re not really your mind at all. You are the I-am, Brahman, bliss, consciousness and you are all pervading.
Consequently nothing can ever touch you but love, pure love, absolute love, unqualifying love.
Number three: Understand that you have created this whole universe out of yourself like a moving picture and to free yourself from this you must not be attached to the images. In other words you must not have any feeling for the images. For if you have feelings for the images you get pulled into the game, into the cosmic joke. And you believe you are also an image and you have to go through different experiences.
Number four: Learn to trust the power which knows the way. Which will take care of everything for you.
And Number Five: Which is the most important one. Realize that everything that I’m telling you is a lie.
Nothing exists. You are beyond everything that you can imagine. You are beyond any words you can say or utter. You are beyond any thought that you can ever think exists. You are that and all is well.
Feel free to ask questions.
Glen (SG): Robert, like this big lie that you told us about the screen and the images comes where we identify where it seems like… (R: Seems like what?) …pick one little bitty image on the whole big screen and sort of identify with that one. From the point of view of reality does it make any difference whether you manage to identify with more images than that one little bitty one?
R: There is something in the subjective called the mind which will pick the images for you. You think you’re doing it yourself but you’re not. This is all directed by your karma. What you are going to pick, where you’re going to be, what’s going to happen to you, it is all karmic. Therefore you think that you’re the picker. (SG: I mean the picker of the image usually there is only one body that gets picked.) It has nothing to do with you in both ways. It has nothing to do with you as a person and it has nothing to do with you as a God. For everything has been preordained. So whatever you pick whatever you’re doing is preordained anyway. Therefore surrender completely and do not make things worse by thinking you have to pick something or somebody is picking. You are not doing anything by yourself. There is no personal self that does anything. You are not the doer. Everything, everything is preordained.
SH: So then choice is sheer illusion?
R: Choice is sheer illusion. The only choice you have of course is to not react to what’s going on and when you do not react to what is going on you begin to drop everything. Then you find your way back home. But it’s a hard thing to say when you say, “Choice is an illusion.” It is an illusion and it’s not an illusion. It’s an illusion when you think of it as yourself as being the doer and you have a choice to make. It is not an illusion when you realize there is no one to realize anything and everything is already That. Everything has already been done. (SH: Then the question of choice just doesn’t come up at all?) No, you’re right. All these words we’re dealing with are totally irrelevant. We have so many words in our vocabulary. Do you see how the world moves us, since we were kids we try to build up a big vocabulary and want to know many words and every word has a meaning to us. It is the words that have pulled us down. It is all the phraseologies, the sentences, the beliefs, they’re all in words. And we try to be eloquent and make big speeches and talk so people can appreciate us. We’re total fools.
This is why all of your higher Sages never say anything. Hardly ever say anything.
When they do say something they sound foolish, for they know! Yet if you’re working with people you have to use some words. But always try to realize that the words are meaningless, the thoughts are meaningless, your life is meaningless, everything you do is meaningless, yet you are God. What a contradiction. But it’s the truth. You are beyond anything you can ever imagine yet when you think about it you are a nothing. If you have to think about it you’re a nincompoop. (laughter) Try to stop thinking and just be yourself.
SV: Robert, …so-called mind and all the things which were before called good or bad - good or bad because I call them that way - and from tomorrow I’m going to consider is good everything I consider is bad before, from tomorrow I’m going to consider everything that is bad everything I considered as good before. There is nothing good or bad because I call it that you know. No thing to choose, nothing desirable, nothing undesirable.
R: But why do that just get rid of both of them. Don’t even think about them. Why call everything good, bad and everything bad, good? You’re just continuing playing the game. Rather get rid of both of those impostors. Drop them both. Don’t even think about them. Don’t play with them. Leave them alone. Go beyond good and bad, where there are no words and no thoughts. (SV: There is nothing good and bad it’s only that way because that’s the way I think about it.) Yes but don’t change good for bad or bad for good like you were going to do, just drop it completely. Do not even consider it. If you consider something that does not exist it grows and becomes bigger and bigger. If you have to consider anything, consider, “Who am I?”
SS: Robert when I observe the silence I try and sometimes a thoughtless mind comes into deep sleep, how can we go to the fourth state?
R: As you continue to practice you do fall asleep sometimes, but that is okay.
While you’re sleeping the Self is awake. The I is awake while you sleep, while you dream and during this waking state right now. The I is awake. The real I never sleeps. Therefore while you’re asleep the work will continue.
If you’re practicing spiritual disciplines and you’re questioning, “Who am I?” or you’re questioning, “To whom do these thoughts come?” and you fall asleep it will continue to go while you’re sleeping. The work will be done. And when you wake up again it will continue where you left off.
In other words when you practice Jnana Marga there is no difference between sleeping, dreaming and the waking state. The difference is only in your mind. Therefore do not concern yourself about falling asleep. If you’re really sincere about doing the work it will continue while you’re asleep, while you’re awake or while you dream.
SS: Another far off question. You know I observe the breath at that time I have practiced “Who so-hum?”
R: You observe the what? (SS: So-Hum practice I have.) What do you observe? (SH: The breath.) The breath. (SS: As I observe the breath.) Yes. (SS: But you teach me to observe I-am.
What I have to do? I have to observe I-am or so hum is alright? Meaning is the same?) The meaning is the same. For most Westerners I-am is more powerful. So hum is also very good being a Hindu yourself this is very meaningful to you. So you can practice so-hum. That’s good, whichever is more meaningful for you.
(silence)
Mary do you have the Jnani handy? (SM: Yes Robert.)
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to beginning of this book for text.) R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.)
R: And now it’s time for the real reason that you come here, prashad.
We have some wonderful prashad today.
(prashad given out 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.