– Transcript 196
R: Good afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. It’s good to be with you again.
Let me remind you that I do not give lectures. I do not preach sermons. I do not teach philosophical courses, nor do I teach science. I do absolutely nothing. The nothing that I speak may be useful to you or may not be useful to you. It is up to you, but expect nothing.
Nothing is what exists. Everywhere you look you see nothing. Yet some of you believe you see something. The something that you think you see is called Maya, delusion, mesmerism’s, hypnosis. You think you see a world, for you think you are your body. As long as you believe this, you will be part of this world and you will have many, many experiences, good and bad, off and on. When you finally lose the idea that you are a body, you will be totally free, liberated, living in the absolute reality, becoming pure awareness.
I received an interesting phone call this morning from a gentleman in Santa Cruz.
He told me, “Robert, you don’t know me but I’m enlightened. There is a question I want to ask you. Do enlightened people vote? Should I vote? If so, for whom shall I vote?” I had to remove the phone from my mouth to keep from laughing. I answered, I told him, “As long as you ask the question, vote. As long as you have to ask should I or shouldn’t I, then do it.
For whom should you vote? If you are the Self of all as you say, you vote for your Self!
Presumably an enlightened person like you is all pervading. There is only one and you’re that one. Therefore, for whom are you going to vote but your Self.” I don’t think he liked my answer. He hung up on me.
As a matter of fact, I received about 5 or 6 phone calls the last few days about people asking me for whom they should vote for or should they vote. What have I got to do with these things?
S: You should run.
S: …away.
S: Robert for President. (laughter)
R: What is spirituality? True spirituality is realizing you are not the body nor the mind phenomena. That you are consciousness, you are the absolute reality. When one realizes this, what is there left to do? Is there anything one has to do in this world, when one understands their true nature? There’s total happiness and bliss at all times, always, unending. I believe this is what we are all looking for, happiness, harmony, peace, bliss.Stop looking, you found it! If only you would learn to keep still mentally, it’s been there all the time. All the joy you’re looking for, the happiness, the peace of mind, the harmony is you. This is your real nature. This is what you are. You do not have to go search for it. You do not have to practice sadhanas, spiritual practices, meditation, deep breathing, yoga. What has this got to do with reality? These are practices that you do for better health, to improve your body.
But as the years pass, the body gets older anyway. It doesn’t care how long you have been meditating or what you have been doing. The body becomes older and older and older and you get disappointed and discouraged because nothing has happened.
It is not more practices that you need, it is an awakening that you need. To totally, completely wake up! Wake up to the Self! That’s all you have to do. When you awaken to your Self, there is nothing else to do forever.
That is why I say, “You are nothing!” You have always been nothing, nothing! This is a compliment when I tell you this, not an insult. Whenever you hear anybody tell you, “You are good for nothing,” say, thank you. Be grateful they told you this.
How can you prove this to yourself? By living in the moment. In the moment, there is absolutely nothing happening. In the moment everything is peaceful, serene and harmonious, but as soon as you begin to think, you spoil the whole thing. As soon as you allow your mind to take off and splurge with all the thoughts and ideas and conceptual thinking, then you’re human again. Therefore, the practice that you learn is to keep still. To make the mind quiescent by not causing any conflict.
It is interesting the way the mind works. When the mind is in conflict, it becomes very strong, very powerful. When there is no conflict, the mind disappears. What do I mean by the mind being in conflict? I mean reacting to the world, reacting to person, place or thing. Whenever you react to any condition or situation, you are in conflict with your mind. When you are in conflict with your mind, your mind grows stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and the conflict increases tenfold, until you get totally depressed, disillusioned, discouraged and you start looking around the world for a teacher or a guru or somebody who could show you the way.
Know that the true teacher is within yourself. You are the teacher. What am I? I am your Self, what else? There is only one Self. When you look in the mirror, you see the one Self. When you look at the world, you see the one Self. You are always seeing your Self no matter where you look. What you see shows you where you’re at!
Therefore, when you see troubles, when you see problems, when you see man’s inhumanity to man, when you see the chaos and confusion in this world, cataclysms, know that you’re seeing your self. Where else would they come from? There’s really no separation. There is not you and the conflict or you and the world or you and the experience that you are going through, there is only you as the condition. There is only you and your self, nobody else. You are the one!
Everything you are looking for is within you. Everything that you have been searching for all of your life is within you. No one can really give you anything. You’ve got it all yourself, but you’ve got to dive deep inside to find it. How do you dive inside? By quieting the mind! By keeping still! By not reacting!
To the extent you can do this, to this extent will you find that the mind will become quieter and quieter and quieter. As the mind becomes quieter and quieter and quieter, your happiness begins to expand and expand and expand. Your peace of mind expands and expands and expands. When the mind totally disappears, this is what people call self-realized.
There is really no such thing as self-realization. These are just words we use to make you understand there is a state that is totally and completely different from where you are right now. A state of supreme happiness which is your real nature, what you really are. Only you have covered it up with what we call delusion. That is the experiences of this world, perhaps the experiences of past lives and you are a product of those experiences.
This is why everybody appears different. For everybody is a product of the experiences they have been through. They are habit patterns that have made you what you are today. You are a product of your environment, the schools you attended, the churches you attended, your parents and they brainwashed you with thinking certain ways and here you are sitting here looking at me.
You must wake up sometime, why not do it now!
Some of us are waking up from sleep. When you wake up from sleep you are in a new world. The old world is dead and you’re alive. What you do with the world is up to you.
What is going on in your mind right now? What kind of thoughts are you allowing to come through you? Notice that most of you cannot sit still for even a minute without thoughts going through your mind. True? (silence) You see what I’m talking about?
There are thoughts that are constantly going through your mind. These thoughts never leave you. They are there all the time. As long as you have these thoughts, you can never have peace or happiness. It makes no difference if they are good thoughts or bad thoughts.
It doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. They’re all thoughts. They come from the same source and all thoughts are part of delusion, part of the Maya, part of the experience.
If you can only remember this: To find true happiness, real peace, you simply have to get rid of your thoughts. Stop the thoughts from coming to you. You cannot stop the thoughts, by being in conflict with them, remember this also. No conflict.
Again by conflict I mean, do not try to work on your thoughts to stop them forcibly. As an example, by changing your mind by trying to think good thoughts. By trying to think good thoughts to replace bad thoughts you are in conflict with your mind. But when you observe your thoughts, when you watch your thoughts, without reacting to them, then you are on the right track. When you become angry, do not fall into the trap of identifying with anger. Do not identify with the anger but watch yourself becoming angry. Take a step backwards if you can and observe yourself becoming angry. Watch yourself, always watch yourself. Observe yourself constantly. That’s the way to work with yourself.
Inquire within, you are your own laboratory. All of the experiments are going on within yourself. Inquire within, “To whom do these thoughts come? Who’s thinking these thoughts? Who gave them birth? Where did they come from?”
Keep asking yourself these questions over and over again wherever you are, whether you’re driving your car, washing your dishes, going to a movie. Never forget to inquire within yourself, “Who am I?” You’re asking who is the I that has these thoughts?
Who is the I who thinks? Where did this “I” come from? Who gave it birth? Ask yourself.
Yet, never answer this question. For by answering this question you are using your mind and the mind does not want to go, it wants to stay and make you miserable. It wants to play with you and tell you all kinds of things that are going on in this world for you to be angry about. You have to realize the nature of the mind first, in order to get rid of it.
So why do we want to get rid of the mind? If there is no mind, there is total peace, harmony, love, happiness, joy. When there’s a mind, you have misery, anger and the rest of those things. This is why you want to transcend the mind totally, completely, absolutely.
The next step is that you realize every time you use the word I you’re speaking of your body and your thoughts and the world and everything in it. Whenever you say the word, I, I is a thought, it is not an entity, it has no reality. It is a thought. When you say I feel bad today, I feel depressed, I feel confused, what are you really saying? Are you saying you feel depressed, you feel confused? No, you’re saying I does! I feels this way, not you but I does. See what you’re doing now, you’re separating yourself from the I. You are not this I that has all these emotions, conflicts, disharmonies, this I is not you!
When you are able to see this, you awaken! You just have to see this. From now on whenever you say the word I, stop and think about it. Who is the I? I feel happy, I feel sick, I feel this way, l feel that way. It is the I that feels this way, not you! Consequently, you have to follow the I to the I center where it came from.
If you would catch yourself in the morning when you wake up, you will notice that the I starts from the heart, which is on the right side of your chest and goes up through the spinal cord into the brain. When the I does this, you are what we call humanly awakened, where you are able to cognizance the world, your body, others. You say, “I see this, I this, I feel this,” but if you will catch yourself doing this and start to begin to realize the I is not you, you’re not this I at all, it will begin to leave you alone, just by being able to see the I is not you.
When you are able to do this, you will follow the I back to its source, which is the heart center, which is the absolute reality which is the pure awareness which is really you!
The object is to make the I go back to where it came from, to its source. When the I does this, you become immediately, so-called enlightened, you’re all pervading. You become
the whole universe and you have total freedom and happiness. What else do you have to do with your life, then to find out who the I is?
Take a look at yourself, the things that you think about all day long the nonsense, the fears, the attachments, all the things that you worry about, that you concern yourself with…
S: (students arrives) Robert.
R: Hi Glen.
…It’s up to you. You are free to do whatever you want. No one should ever tell you what to do. I never asked you to come here but here you are. There must be a reason why you’re here. There are no mistakes. Everything is in its right place. By you coming here and sharing with me, it means you are ready for the higher path.
Most of you are tired of playing around in this world. You’ve been through all kinds of experiences, you’ve had all types of conditioning and you’re tired of it all. This is the first requisite. You have to be tired of the world and its nonsense to find something else. As long as you’re still satisfied with this world and the world has a good hold over you, it is only when you become tired of this world and the games people play that you will get down to true spirituality. As long as you are still playing games in this world, trying to get things outside of yourself, obtain things, looking at the world as if it had something to offer you, you can never become self-realized.
It’s impossible, for the world has a hold on you. The world is your teacher, it shows you all kinds of things that you respond to and you think you’re having a good time. You think you are enjoying yourself, you’re having fun. Then the time comes when you should change. Change comes along which it always does and you start to experience the other side. You become miserable, you become upset, you become depressed and you go back and forth like this. Most people do this all their lives until they drop dead and then they have to repeat it again and again.
Why not begin to do something about this world now? Why not begin understanding who you are, your true nature and what you have to do to remove the idea of body-mind. By coming to satsang alone, wondrous things ensue in your life. By practicing self-inquiry at home or the office you are enhancing the satsang. By not reacting to person, place or thing the mind becomes quieter and quieter and quieter until it is totally transcended. It’s up to you! It is always up to you! There is really no one in this world who can actually do anything for you until you allow it to happen.
Why not surrender all of your habits, all of your preconceived ideas, all of your concepts, all of your dogmas? Why not surrender all of these things to the Self? The Self is ready to gobble it all up and set you free, but it can’t do this if you are still playing games.
By believing something outside of you has the power to hurt you or to cause you unhappiness of any kind, cause you misery, this has to be changed. Only you can change it!
In the world things come and go very fast. Everyone is excited about a presidential election. It will be over in a couple of days. Everything will be back to status quo and life goes on. What are you going to do with your life? Are you going to continue to struggle in order to survive, have two jobs, have three jobs, work like a dog. Where did this expression come from, “Work like a dog?” (laughter) I’ve never seen a dog work. (laughter) Work like a human being. Who wants to work like a human being? The dog is better off than most people.
There is a power in the universe that will take care of you totally and completely you know, if you will surrender to it. All this power asks is for you to surrender to it totally by developing humility and compassion and you will be carried on a stream of blessedness for your highest good. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop being selfish and everything being I, I, I, what do I need? What’s in it for me? Forget about yourself. Throw yourself away.
Try doing this starting tomorrow. Forget about yourself, but you have to catch yourself to do this. You have to catch the I saying, I feel this and I feel that and I feel this and I want to go to this place and I want to accomplish this and I want to see this person and I want to do that. That’s selfishness, for you’re always thinking of what’s good for you.
I know some of you are saying, “If I don’t think about myself, who will think about me? I have to take care of myself” This is not true! You didn’t ask to be born but here you are.
The same power that guided you back into a body, knows how to guide you in this existence as long as you live in a body and takes care of you totally and completely and absolutely, if you would surrender to this power.
Let’s do this right now. Make yourself comfortable, close your eyes. Think of all the stuff that’s going on inside of you, observe it, watch it. Think of all of your fears, your disappointments, your entire life. Think, “Who am I? Am I the person who experienced all of these things since I was a child, growing up? Am I this person?” Observe your thoughts, watch the thoughts.
(long silence)
It is now time to play “Stump the Guru”.
SZ: (A new comer asks) Stump the guru?
R: We have questions that you are supposed to write down when you come in.
Whoever stumps the guru gets five days vacation in the absolute reality! (laughter) SZ: Well give me a piece of paper. (laughter)
(Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: Dear Robert, Before I came to you I was not seeking a teacher, in fact I was quietly meditating at home each day and satisfied. I really did not want to meet a special teacher. Someone suggested I meet you. I came and immediately I knew I had to come again and again. I knew this felt right. What happened? How did I come? What drew me? What role did your awareness play?
Did you attract me?
A: What happened is you found your Self to an extent. Something inside of you has been yearning for years and years to become totally free, totally liberated. That something within has obviously been doing things. You’ve been going to different places, looking for different teachers, reading different books and now you have found your Self, to an extent. This is merely an extension of your Self. That’s all it is.
In other words, whatever you are ready for comes upon you. If you are ready for something like this, you will be drawn here, but remember, there is only one Self and you are that! You’re simply meeting your Self. That’s all you are doing. Very simple. Now what you have to do is go deeper within, and you will find what you are looking for, but to be together in Satsang is very good. You have been looking for this for many, many years, for many centuries, many eons and now that you have found it, what are you going to do about it? You have returned home. You have returned to your Self. You see all this is taking place within, it has absolutely nothing to do with you as a body, as a person, as an entity. It has to do with your Self, your real Self. You have come home to your Self. Be happy. Be your self!
Q: What is the role of the divine in a guru-devotee relationship?
A: The Divine is always present. There is never a time when the divine is not here.
There is no difference between the divine and your Self. When you are ready, when you are prepared a teacher is attracted to you or sometimes it is a book or a mountain or a tree and you recognize this as being your Self again. Wherever you look you see your Self. The divine is always at play, it’s always present. There is nowhere where it is not. What you call the divine is the Self, the pure awareness. You are That! Everything is taking place in consciousness. There is only one consciousness and you are that one and that one is omnipresence, all pervading and all is well! Next case.
Q: How is a devotee able to surrender? Can you give suggestions or hints?
A: You simply surrender when you get tired of this world and its manifestations.
You say to yourself, “I’m tired of playing this game. I’m tired of all this running around.
I’m completely tired of all these things I have to do each day, trying to make ends meet, trying to form new relationships, going to work, fighting for survival, not knowing whether I am going to get mugged or get killed tomorrow or die of a heart attack.” Therefore, you say, “I surrender all of this. I give it all up.” You surrender the whole thing to your Self. All of this stuff that you have been carrying for so many years is totally surrendered to the God within you. Give it all away. Give it all up. Do not hold on to anything.
You can say it verbally. You can say, “Okay, God I give you everything, all the burdens I’ve been carrying, all the karma, all the false ideas, everything that exists in my life I give to you, take it, I am free of it.” That’s all, surrender!
Q: Dear Robert, is reincarnations only goal to let us learn to let go of I (little I), death and desires and rather live by faith and trust in the Self so that we will be pure enough to live in Self, always, in any dimension? Is the Self demanding more purity and dedication trust before allowing us to hang out with the Self?
A: Who is this Self you are referring to? The one you are referring to is already here! You’re already that! Inquire to whom does reincarnation come from or come to. Who reincarnates? Who goes through these experiences? The Self is always available, is always here. There never was a time when the Self was not. Do not make it complicated for yourself. Simply return to what you were by letting go of everything else. By not reacting to the world. By diving deep within, into the heart center where the true reality awaits you. You are a divine being, a spiritual being. You are not the body or the mind. Know yourself, be yourself! Awaken to the Self! Forget about reincarnation. Reincarnation is not for you. It is for the deluded ones. You are free of all karma, free of all samskaras, free of playing games. Feel your freedom. All is well.
That takes care of the questions.
SZ: I want to get my bid in for the week of the absolute! (R: Okay ready, we still have an opening.) Is there any significant difference essentially or in terms of practice between no self and one Self? Why seek the Absolute as or with a who?
R: For whom is no self? For whom is one self? There is only the Self. The no self never existed. Even the Self we are talking about doesn’t exists. Nothing exists that can be explained. By trying to explain the self you have to use words and words spoil it. For what you really are is beyond the self, which is called Parabrahman and this thought is only a name that the intelligent mind tries to make something out of. We have to develop humility, total humility, total compassion. No Self, the Self, where do these words come from, books something we read, something somebody said.
To have a spiritual experience of what they call the Self everything has to go all concepts, all ideas of what the Self is has to go. The idea of a no self that has to go. It’s the idea of self that has to go because it limits you. When you think consciously of the self in your mind, you can think only of an idea, an idea of what a self must be and it’s impossible for the finite mind to ever understand. It’s beyond all ideas, all concepts, beyond all words, beyond all thoughts. So just take a deep breathe and relax and forget about the whole thing. What’s the other question?
Q: Why seek the absolute as, or, with a who?
A: True, why seek it? Who’s seeking it? Don’t seek it at all! The idea is not to seek anything, the idea is to give up what you’ve got. To empty the garbage pail so-to-speak.
Our minds have been bombarded with all kinds of teachings, with all kinds of books, all kinds of experiences. You simply have to empty this out, become totally empty. When you are empty there is nothing to seek. The person who seeks is a person who is filled with garbage, filled with ideas, habits, concepts, dogmas and they decide to seek in order to hang on to it and this could never be. You have to become like nothing, total nothing, empty everything out, get rid of it and you will be free.
SZ: What’s the significance of calling that state of total freedom, Self?
R: The significance is that Self makes you understand that there is only one. It means oneness, it means that there is only one entity called the Self, that’s all pervading, omnipresence and you are that! It’s a name we give it to make sure we understand where its at. That we’re something, that we are an entity of some kind, that we are a Self, but the
Self really doesn’t exist. Just another word, like all the rest of the words everything is a bunch of words, but we speak these words to make us understand there is something higher than where we are, something so beautiful, so grand, we can’t even imagine what it is. It is beyond imagination, then anything we can grasp or explain, that’s what you are that is you, you are That. When you try to define it you spoil it. Just be! Do not be this or that, just be!
SZ: If intelligence fills our trash can with garbage, is intelligence a help or a hindrance?
R: Human intelligence is a hindrance. Look at this world today, look at the chaos and confusion in this world, politics, whatever, this is human intelligence. Human intelligence is not where it’s at. Supreme intelligence is where it’s at and supreme intelligence is silence. (somebody coughs or sneezes everybody laughs)
R: Fred woke up. (laughter)
Fred (SF): If something in the mind contains an element of time, it has already strayed from the truth, cause time is a creation of the mind so…in other words it would be something different then it is now and that puts it out of the game.
R: Of course, you’re right. Time is part of the human game. (SF: And space too?) Space and time is all part of the human game. It’s all on the relative plane. (SF: The relative plane?) When you’re working with the relative plane you’ve got problems. (SF: Astral plane, causal plane?) Astral plane, causal plane are all part of the mind, all Maya, all a dream. (SF: Confusing) So why think about it? (SF: I’m trying not to.) SH: If you try not to you will. (SF: Yeah.) It’s like trying not to think of a white horse.
R: Do we have announcements? Tell them about the transcripts.
Mary (SM): Oh yeah we do have transcripts of Robert’s talks and they’re on the table they’re free of charge. Two boxes filled with them too. So please feel free to help yourself.
R: We want to get rid of them. (laughter)
It is time for prashad. It’s about time. Thursday nights is when we have good prashad but this will do for now. (unwraps prashad) Fig newtons. Enjoy it.
SY: What do they have on Thursday Robert?
R: Nice jelly doughnuts, whipped cream cakes.
Thank you for coming remember to love yourself, to worship yourself, to pray to yourself, for God dwells in you as you, peace.
(prashad continues 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.