– Transcript 188
R: (tape starts abruptly) …shanti, shanti, om, peace.
Good afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. It’s good to be with you again. I love you all. All is well.
Happy Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to our Jewish friends. Most of them are not here. They’re probably in the synagogue worshiping. I heard it’s expensive to go to the synagogue on Yom Kippur these days. You have to pay, buy a seat for a hundred and twenty-five dollars.
SB: Even God couldn’t afford and he’s here.
R: For a hundred and twenty-five dollars you should be able to take the seat home.
(laughter) For a hundred and twenty-five dollars you can go see a Madonna concert.
(laughter) But all is well. It’s time for the annual Yom Kippur joke… (laughter) …about the Rabbi who was preparing the synagogue for the high Holy days and he takes out the Torah, the ancient scriptures, and gets in front of it and starts chanting. He starts beating his chest with his hands saying, “I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing.” The canter who sings these chants happens to see the Rabbi doing this and he wonders what he’s doing but he says it must be something good. So he looks over at the Torah and starts doing the same thing. He starts beating his chest with his hand saying, “I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing.”
The janitor happened to be there watching the whole procedure and he wanted to get into the act too. So he went over and started beating his chest saying, “I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing.” The Rabbi looked at the Canter and says, “Look who thinks he’s nothing.” (laughter) You won’t hear that again until next Yom Kippur.
I receive interesting phone calls from people all over the world. I got one this morning from Minneapolis, that’s all over the world. A lady asked me an interesting question. She asked me, “Robert what happens to a person who is in the presence of a Jnani or a Sage for many many years they do not become enlightened and then they die. What happens to them?” That is a fair question. So we will talk about this because I think many of you wonder the same thing. Where you keep telling me, “I’m not enlightened yet, what will happen?”
Of course in truth you’re already enlightened nothing has to happen. Nothing ever happens. It’s up to you to see this. To remove the obstacles that make you think you’re not enlightened. But in any event one of three things will happen to such a person. They will either become liberated when they drop the body and never have to return again in a body.
Second choice they will be born to spiritual parents who are really totally evolved in this path and they will be born as a baby into those circumstances.
Third choice they will be born on another planet that’s much more advanced than this planet. Where there is total peace and bliss and happiness. And you will find liberation on that particular planet sooner or later.
So you have three choices. We’ll talk about them a little bit.
The first one. For a devotee who has been sincere in this particular path, who has really put this path first, put the teaching first for such a one they’re already liberated while in the body but they don’t know it. So when they drop the body they become totally free. Becoming all pervasive, absolute reality, becoming the entire universe. The essence of the entire universe. Yet you do not lose your knowledge of who you are. This is very paradoxical when you think about it. Every enlightened being is also the whole universe, every plant, every bug, every animal, every mineral, every human being, every planet, every universe, everything. An awakened one is part of the whole system. He is in all things.
Of course the question arises in the ajnani the one without spiritual knowledge will ask, “How can this be? How can all the enlightened beings who have been here since the beginning of time all be in the same place at the same time?” Yet this is exactly what happens. This is why I tell you so often that everything is sacred. The ground upon which you walk is holy ground. Everything is sacred. You should have reverence for all things.
All things are God, so-to-speak, the leaf, the cockroach, bedbug, the mass murderer everything is God but most people do not understand this. They judge by appearances and they want solutions immediately with the things that they see. But as you become evolved you begin to intellectually understand this thoroughly. The whole universe is Brahman. The whole universe is effortless, choice-less, pure awareness, Sat-Chit-Ananda. So a realized being is all pervasive and is all of these things.
Number two. If you need more training, more knowledge, more understanding and you were very sincere in this body, in this life, you will go into a family and be reborn.
A family that is very spiritually oriented, who are on the brink of realization. You’ll become their child. All the preliminary work has been done for you, and in that particular incarnation you’ll be self-realized.
Number three. There are many planets in this universe. Billions and drill-ions of suns. Each one has a certain amount of planets revolving around its orbit. Many of these planets contain life. Life forms such as us. So a being who in this body has again been sincere who will be into the self, putting God and reality first in their life, letting go of all the nonsense and foolishness and things that bother most people. Fears, anxieties, needs, desires, wants, giving up all of these things, attachments. Depending on your karma where you go. This particular being will go to an advanced planet, which is far more advanced than this earth. Where there are no wars. No more man’s inhumanity to man. And
these beings will become free on that particular planet at a specified time. Interesting isn’t it?
When I was twelve years old I used to ask my mother, “What am I doing here? I don’t belong here. Why am I here?” And my mother used to say, “You’re here to be like everybody else, to get a job, to have a profession. To go into this world and make something out of yourself.” And she used to retaliate, “Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” I used to say, “Nothing.” (laughter) I don’t think that I knew what I was talking about at that time. But anyway after a while she thought that we should go see uncle Louie. (laughter) Uncle Louie was a physician. And she told him what I was saying, what I was doing. So he said, “I’ll take care of this.” He gave me a physical examination, everything was fine. And again he asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I told him, “I don’t care what I am when I grow up I just want to know what I’m doing here? What am I doing here?” And he asked, “You mean on this earth?” So I said, “No in this body? What am I doing in this body? I feel like I’m in prison. I feel as if I’m confined to something.” So he looked at me and said something to my mother about a psychiatrist.
(laughter)
And the next day my mother took me to see a lady psychiatrist. She was a German lady from Austria. Her name was Sonya Leichenstein or Leichenstine. My mum told her the story. What I’ve been doing and she took me into her office. There was a nice couch there I was lying down on. I enjoyed it. She asked me, “So you don’t think you are the body? You think you’re someone else?” And she giggled, “You know Freud used to think the same thing.” So I said, “Who was Freud?” She said, “Never mind.” (laughter) Again she asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” and I asked her, “why is everybody asking me this question? There is really nothing I care to be when I grow up at all. I just feel confined to my body. I feel as if I’m in prison. I don’t belong here.” So she said, “Don’t worry about that I will get the little man out of here out of your body. There is a little man in your body that has to come out and we will work on this.”
So I went to see her every Friday. I loved it due to the fact that my mother gave me some extra money and I would not have to go to school that day or half a day at school.
And I was able to ride on the bus. I really enjoyed those times. I went to her for about six months. She finally called my mother and recommended another psychiatrist, a man.
These people kept on asking me, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” So I went to see this man. He was a different psychiatrist. I really enjoyed going to him also. Finally I got it.
And one day he asked me, “Robert do you know what you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “Yes I want to be a neurotic.” (students laugh) And that was the end of my visits with psychiatrists.
S: You were cured.
Robert continues: Now what does all of this have to do with our talk today? Absolutely nothing. (laughter) What is the moral of this story? It has no moral whatsoever. Just something I thought I’d throw in.The absolute truth is no one dies, no one is born, no one prevails. If you can only accept that for yourself, understand its meaning you will be totally free right now completely free, completely liberated. What I was telling you before about going to different planets and the rest of it is utter nonsense. There is really nowhere to go. Yet it does appear this way to people who don’t understand these things. The other planets, other universes are just like this earth. This earth does not really exist. It is not here at all. Neither is your body. But as long as you believe you are the body or you are the world and the world is real for you all the things that we were speaking about will happen. But to whom will they happen? To the one who does not understand.
It is like when you go to see a movie. To whom does the movie happen? To you!
You’re watching the movie. You may agree with some of the characters in the movie, you may disagree with some of the characters in the movie, you may get excited over some scenes in the movie but you are the one doing all of these things. The movie itself is impersonal. It’s just a movie. If you want to get excited about it and cry and laugh that’s your choice that is what you want to do. Life is the same way.
We have to understand that life is a movie. Everything that you behold with your senses are images on the screen of life. Images superimposed on the screen of life. None of it is real. Just as the movie is not real. Would you leave the movie when you go home and think the movie was real? And take all the characters with you? And think about them day and night? Of course not. You usually forget the movie as soon as you walk out the theater. While some people carry it with them a little bit and they let go of it later. But what do you do when you let go of the movie you go back to yourself. What you think you are.
You go back to your life, your problems and you forget about the movie. Life is like that.
Different things happen in this world, wars, man’s inhumanity to man, wonderful flowers grow, the sky is blue, there are mountains, everything appears real. And you go for it, you identify with it. That’s just like your reaction to the movie. Only when you identify with the things of life that appear to be real you become part of that picture. You become part of that scenario. You become part of that happening. So if you believe things are wonderful they become sort of wonderful for you. If you believe things are terrible they become terrible. You make these things happen by the way you allow yourselves to think, by the way you allow yourselves to feel, what you accept, what you deny, what you give up.
All of these attractions, all of these attachments, all of these feelings, forms, what you call your personality. So your personality is nothing but a bunch of feelings, emotions that you picked up by habit and you react this way wherever you go. You react from the emotions, the habits that you picked up along the way since you were a little one and this is what makes your personality. You hear people say, “This person has a wonderful personality,” and they picked up these habits, these feelings when they were a child. Other people have a terrible disposition, terrible personality they also picked up all of these
feelings, these emotions when they were a child. And all they can do is react to conditioning.
When you begin to pursue spiritual life you begin to understand all these things must go. All these things have to be given up. You begin to see yourself sort of like a light bulb. Your true nature is bright and shining. You are the light. But it’s as if someone comes and puts a piece of cloth over the light, another piece of cloth over the light bulb, another piece of cloth over the light bulb so you’re no longer able to see the light. You see the cloth.
Therefore you don’t want to try to put other things over the cloth to be able to see the light. What you want to do is remove the cloth layer by layer until the light shines once again. So it is with your life.
You are Brahman. You are that absolute reality, ultimate oneness, nirvana. You are the I-am that I-am, God, reality. This is you.
But for some strange reason you’ve covered yourself with layers of ignorance. You have become conditioned. You have a covering called a body which appears to you to be the Real McCoy and you go through life trying to appease the body. Trying to make the body happy. Doing things to the body so you’ll be satisfied. Yet with a little investigation you will begin to see that you are not the body. The body belongs to the I-thought. The body belongs to the ego, to the mind.
Consequently you begin to work on yourself by removing the ego, the mind and the I. As you continue to observe this and see this in yourself you begin to realize that the I-thought is the main culprit, for you say I all day long. I love this, I hate this, I feel this, I don’t feel that, you’re always using the first pronoun I. Therefore everything is attached to this I. Your spiritual sadhana becomes one of removing the I-thought totally and completely. For if you remove the I-thought everything else will go with it and you will be totally free. It’s like trying to take off the layers of cloth on the light. If you take them off one by one it will take a long time but if you go directly to the source which is the light the cloth will burn up by itself.
This is what we do here in Advaita Vedanta. We understand I am the light, I am Brahman. I have always been Brahman. I am Shiva, I am Krishna. I am all of the gods and goddesses. I am that. I may appear as the body but I am not the body. There is no mind that controls me at all. For I am the light of the world. I am that. Nothing else exists but that. You turn within to that. You turn within to the Self. By turning within I always refer to negating the body totally and completely trying to realize even intellectually there never was a body to begin with. There is no body, there is only the light, consciousness, self contained absolute reality that’s what I-am, I-am, I-am.
As you begin to think this way you will notice that you will become more expansive. You begin to feel yourself in the mountains and in the trees, in the ocean, in the sky.
At first you only have a glimpse of these things but as you continue you find that all of your so-called anger subsides. You become a peaceful person, very peaceful. All of your needs and your wants subside. All of your fears subside. You’re no longer afraid that anyone is going to do anything to you. For there is no you left that anybody can do anything to. You has been transmuted, transmuted, transcended. You have become total freedom, total love what you always were in the beginning.
How do you begin? You begin by observing everything, observing yourself especially. How you act everyday, what you feel everyday. You observe your emotions, your reactions. Watching what motivates you, what moves you. And then you inquire, “To whom do all these things come? Who is feeling all of these things? Who feels the emotions the thoughts the fears? Who has been feeling all of these things all of these years? I have, I have. Well, where did this I come from? What is the source of this I? The I has to have a source. It couldn’t come from nothing. The source is the absolute reality.
The absolute reality never produced an I to begin with. The I-thought has been a delusion all of this time. As you trace it back to the source which is the Brahman, consciousness you find that the I burns up inside the source. What really happens is that it never existed and it just disappears. Just as when you walk out of the movie, the movie is over. What is left is the screen. The screen is the substratum of the movie. So the source of you is the substratum of the image of the body and of all of the images in this world, you are the source yourself. The source has been you all this time. When you know this it makes you feel so good you start laughing hysterically.
All these years you’ve been searching and looking and trying to change things, trying to add thing onto yourself, trying to acquire things when you have been the source of everything to begin with. Everything you’ve been looking for has been within yourself you have been that. You then begin to surrender everything to yourself. You surrender all of your thoughts, all of your feelings, you surrender all of your desires, all of your wants to the Self. You pull it in all inwardly.
You become like the sea and its bubbles. The bubbles break, they form, they break, they form, they form back into the sea and then they become bubbles again. You no longer become a bubble it comes and goes every second, every minute. You become the sea. I am the bubble make me the sea.
(silence)
It is now time to play stump the guru. Can you pass the basket around, Fred?
(Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: How can we see more clearly that there is nobody home? Even with self-inquiry there seems to be a doer.
A: In the beginning stages there is always a doer. You have to do something to see more clearly. This is what self-inquiry is all about. You are doing the self-inquiry in order to awaken. I always tell you there is nothing you have to do because you’re already awake just see it, feel it, become it. Yet you will not listen to me. Therefore we have to use methods, sadhanas in order to get deeper inside of us and wake up.
Self-inquiry is one of the methods that work quite well. It can take you a long way.
Therefore constantly practice this method. Do not look for the day or the time when you
will become enlightened. For I tell you so often there is no time, there is no space. Time and space does not exist. What this means is there is no time that you can become enlightened because the time is now. There is no becoming anything. There is no space which means there is no room for you to become enlightened. There is no room for any change do you see what I’m saying? Illusion is very compact. Like a garbage compactor. (laughter) It makes the garbage so compact there is no room for anything else. This is the nature of this universe. It’s compact, full of consciousness, self contained reality. There is no room there is no time there is nothing just the present moment. The present moment is forever.
When you’re able to see this you will not question when am I going to be enlightened, when is something going to happen, when am I going to feel something. You do the work that has to be done. You do not think about it and analyze and judge it, just do it.
Some people say self-inquiry is for beginners. We’re all beginners, we’re all losers, we’re all ends, we’re all leaders, we’re all beginners, we’re all everything. We’re the whole thing. Do not think at all! Stop your thinking it’s your thinking gets you into trouble. Just do what you have to do with not thinking about it and then you’ll see progress. For in reality there is no future, there is no past, there is no beginning there is no end, everything just is and that is-ness you are that. You are that. You are Brahman, you are free right now.
Q: Each day you take the dog for a walk. Do you think a few minutes before I must get ready to go for a walk? Or does a light go on and you know it’s time? Or does your body just move to go out without thought?
A: Number three. (laughter) I just do what has to be done.
Q: What things exist in your life that you want to retain? Money? Health? Do you ever desire to eat minutes before you do and start thinking about food? Do you ever think about your health? (pause then students laugh)
A: Whether the person who wrote me that question is sincere or whether they’re not sincere. What can I say? Everything always gets done. There’s no doer. If it has to get done it gets done. You see me as a body therefore you also see this body has to eat, sleep a little, take Dimitri for a walk. Who does all of these things? But there is no doer present yet everything gets done, that has to be done. Nobody is left to say, “I am doing this and I am doing that.”
SD: Is it the same as complete spontaneity?
R: You can say that, yes. It has to be done to maintain and sustain this body. To appear as a body to you. It’s done. It’s done. As far as this is concerned listen to this: Nothing is being done as the doer, nothing is happening but it appears to you as if something is happening.
SH: Doesn’t it appear to you that something is happening?
R: No. I see movement taking place but nothing is happening. (SH: There’s no movement taking place?) Umm? (SH: You see movement taking place?) Yes. (SH: That’s movement taking place.) To you. (SH: There is no movement taking place to you?) I see it but it does nothing. I see it like watching a movie. I watch the movie, see through nothing is happening, just sitting in the seat watching. So this body appears to be part of the movie when you look at it. And it is doing things like in the movie, eating, walking, sleeping, dreaming but I am not doing anything I’m just the observer, the watcher. I’m absolutely nothing.
Again it appears to you that I get up and walk and move and do that, do this. The whole thing is very paradoxical, contradictory. Yet this is the absolute truth. No one does anything there is nothing to do.
Always go back to the compact garbage bin. The whole universe is compact, self-contained absolute reality there is no place to do anything. How can you be a doer of anything? There is no place for anything it is filled with Brahman. Brahman is the whole universe. There is nothing but Brahman called the absolute reality, pure awareness that is the only existence. There’s no room for anything to take place. But the mesmerism that most of us are in makes you think you’re doing something, makes you think some things are happening someplace. Yet I know for sure that nothing is happening.
SH: There isn’t even an illusory appearance of something happening?
R: There is no illusory appearance at all there is just the Self, just consciousness.
But at the same time I see everything you see. At the same time you’re aware of everything I’m aware of. To me it’s like a movie. (SH: But there is that appearance?) The appearance is nothing. The appearance is both. Nothing is happening… (SH: It’s nothing but it’s nonetheless appearing?) It seems to appear. (SH: As though it would?) It appears to no one. There is no one for it to appear to. (SH: Who perceives it?) There is no perceiver. No one perceives it.
(SH: Is that a perception?) There is no perception. But at the same time there appears to be a perceiver and a perception. (laughter) So you figure it out. (SH: You’re separating. It’s like a greased tennis ball.) (laughter)
S: Maybe the next question will clarify it?
SB: Robert is it true that consciousness is absolute non-motion nor motion? And you’re identified with that? You’re in that position ??? so that’s your reality and it’s observing the appearance as something as a movie but it’s not real? It knows it’s not real right?
R: Yes you can explain it like that. (SB: It’s not that. That’s just an explanation but is that an explanation of seeing…) In a way but if you talk about an experience you won’t know what to say it’s beyond anything you can ever imagine. It’s beyond the senses of course.
We normally have our senses to deal with, senses to judge with, that we won’t get over this question, do you know what I’m saying? (SB: But you rest beyond the mind that should happen by itself. You rest beyond movement. Mind isn’t movement per-se?) There is no movement there is just That and you are That. What do you see? You see movement.
SB: It’s a habit. (R: No.) An addiction. (R: No.) R: Everything that you say, touch or think are false. All of your belief system, totally false. All the truth that you know is false. Stop looking and just be. That is all you have to do. Do not be this or that just be. Next case.
Q: After your age fourteen experience did you immediately identify with self and no longer with physical bodies or was it a gradual lessening of identification with the body and more and more identification with self week by week until it was total identification with self.
A: My experience at fourteen was total and absolute. Nothing gradual about it, it just happened and I’ve been like that ever since. There is no gradual anything. Everything was made perfectly clear to me. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything. And it’s been like that ever since, no progression. You walk into a darkroom and turn on the light the light is lit at once at a time. The brightness is there immediately darkness is gone forever. So it is with total self-realization. When it happens you’re totally realized, immediately and you laugh because you’ve always been this way. Darkness has just been removed. There is total freedom from illusion.
Q: Dear Robert, please describe the self in bits and pieces as best you can? (laughter) SH: Yeah just try that. I want to hear this. Stop at the pieces and lets have a little concept.
To hell with ??? and the prashad.(laughter)
A: The only answer is silence. Look within yourself.
Q: When one awakens does one automatically become a Jnani?
A: A Jnani is a name given to an enlightened Master. An enlightened Master doesn’t have a name. If anybody walks around saying, “I’m a Jnani,” be careful. When you are the self you are something beyond description. For people who are not the self so-to-speak to figure this out, they have to words, experiences, pictures to describe the experience. All these words for the Jnani, moksha, liberation, self-realization are all for the ajnani. When people believe they’re human. For the enlightened beings there is no such word as a Jnani. Only the ego can call themselves a Jnani. A Sage has no name. A Sage just is. Always will be, always was. It’s a name that the jivas use in different ways.
An example is Ramana Maharshi he was known as Ramana Swami, Rama Swami, people gave him names that’s the reason they named him Ramana Maharshi. He was never concerned with this. “Yes, call me Ramana Maharshi, don’t call me this or don’t call me that.” He just went along with it. We called him Ramana Maharshi, he was always happy with it. I’m starting to say, him, he. Of course as far as he is concerned he didn’t have a name. He was the all pervading universe and he didn’t have a name we think of a name. When you’re all pervading you could be called a tree, dog, mouse or anything names do not stay with you especially if they say ???. Next.
Q: If you are one with the Self what physical experience do you have before or after a massage? What does a massage do for you?
A: A massage basically makes the body feel good. (SD: The apparent body.) (laughs) It’s just like eating. The only difference between you and me that I know that everything is false and nothing exists and I find that the body goes through the motions of existence.
The body that goes through the motions of existence does not really exist at all. This is a hard one for you to understand. It means I can sit here talking like this because the body appears to exist otherwise there will be no talking, there will be no teaching. No one would ever know that you’re something else in this universe. ??? For some reason I found myself sitting here doing what I’m doing, here. You see a body doing things, going through motions. I see nothing. The same thing I see even you see. You figure it out.
S: That’s why we’re here. (laughter)
Q: Dear Robert if you are permanently aligned consciousness with the self what does sitting in the silence six hours a day do for you? If you stop sitting in silence how would your inner experience be different?
A: It does absolutely nothing for me. I’m doing it for you. It makes no difference if I sit or don’t sit or if I lie or stand.
SL: Were you always doing this before you moved house?
R: I didn’t sit at those exact times. Sometimes I was sitting at noon. (SL: Robert earlier you said the I-thought is God?) The I-thought is illusory. It doesn’t exist at all. The I-am is Brahman. The I-am is consciousness. So the I-am consciousness appears to run the universe. It takes care of the body. The I-thought is the appearance but doesn’t even exist at all. But the human appearance it appears that you go through situations, conditions this is the I-thought that does this. The I-am is God, totally different. (SL: That means God doesn’t involve with illusion?) God doesn’t even exist. When you talk about God… (SL: But then consciousness is involved with God.) Consciousness has never involved anybody. There is nobody to involve with. (SL: What is just observing?) The process of the body appears to be the body. What makes you walk, what makes you go to a movie, what makes you do anything it does? It is the doer that is doing this. The I-thought. The appearance. The I-thought does all of these things.
SL: Going to a movie is not the same as making my heart beat.
R: The same process that makes you go to a movie makes your heart beat. There is only one force that controls everything. The life force, which is called the life force takes care of everything for you. All the involuntary actions of the body that are in the body, digestion, inhalation, everything, constipation. Whatever is happening to you it’s the I-thought doing this. But the reality is to transcend the I-thought completely, totally. Therefore when you see a Sage, as far as you’re concerned the Sage is being motivated by consciousness because there is no longer an I-thought left. The Sage is being motivated by consciousness. In reality the Sage knows there is no motivation whatsoever. (SL: The ??? in the Sage.) ??? All these things are for you. Something to think about. But nothing is as it appears. Just remember that. Nothing is as it appears. ??? That’s it Robert.
Fred (SF): When you had your experience and experienced the self, omniscience and all pervading. My understanding is that you did go to other people. You visited Joel Goldsmith, Yogananda there must have been some individuality left in you?
R: When actually that happened I didn’t know what happened to me at all. I had an experience I read about it. I had no idea what happened to me. I only knew I was strange. I was seeing strange things, having strange thoughts I didn’t really know what happened? So my first experience was when I attended a Christian church and he told me
to go to Joel Goldsmith. I went to Joel Goldsmith to confirm what was happening to me.
Tell me what it was all about. So he told me to see Yogananda then I went to Ramana Maharshi. (SF: You’re not considering individuality even though it is the question?) Well I didn’t know whether I was free or what? (SF: True.) I didn’t know what happened at all.
Fred (SF): Well Maharshi apparently had no questions? When he went to the temple to ordain him. He commented …unclear… But when you got to Maharshi there was no more wondering what had happened to you.
R: Well I went to Joel Goldsmith there was no more wondering any more. (SF: And why did you go to India?) ??? I saw him in the crib when I was a baby which I realized was Ramana Maharshi. So I went to him because he was the figure I saw in a book. The same person. So when I went to India I saw different Sages ??? I just did it. I didn’t have any reason or goals to push me. It just happened.
SH: Must have been some motivation to make it happen.
R: Different people have some experiences like this in different ways. ??? and had this unusual experience. When Ramana Maharshi had his experience in India, where people have been doing this for years. People knew what was going on. Most American person never heard of anything like this. So they make you feel very strange. ??? and you are working with people who are like me. And here I am.
SY: Thank God.
R: Who cares it’s prashad time. (SV: Good!) Today we have some multigrain cookies. All natural fruit sweetened cookies.
SB: Hallelujah!
(prashad continues)
Remember to Love yourself to worship yourself, to pray to yourself, to bow to yourself, for God dwells in you as you. Om shanti peace.
And we’re all finished.
(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.