– Transcript 199
R: Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Om, Peace. Greetings! Good Evening! It’s good to see your smiling faces. And I said smiling faces.
Why do we come to Satsang? Who knows? We actually had no say in the matter.
Some other power pushes us here. You can call this power shakti, consciousness. Whatever you call this power doesn’t matter. But it is something within you that has brought you here for this is the place you have to be tonight. Why? There’s no reason. Do not try to figure anything out. That’s the worst thing you can ever do.
To try to look for a reason as to why things happen why you’re here why you’re not here, why certain things happen to you in your life or home. Never try to figure this out. If you learn to be centered and live spontaneously in the moment then you will find everything takes care of itself and you’ll be happy all the time. But when you try to figure things out, why this has happened why that has happened, you find you get completely confused and you don’t know what to do with yourself.
Leave things alone. The universe knows what it’s doing. It doesn’t need any help from you. Leave everything alone and watch what happens. When you try to interfere with the process, you cause pain for yourself, misery for yourself. But as you leave things alone, the true Self, the I Am, comes into play and takes over your so called life, your humanhood, whatever that is and you will find joy in the right place, doing the right things and everything is unfolding as it should.
As we become deeply involved in Advaita, non-duality, we find that all the teachings of Advaita from the beginning of time tell us all that we have to do is make the mind quiescent, to make the mind calm, peaceful, relaxed, to quiet the mind and then you’ll be self-realized.
In Buddhism they say to kill the mind. In Hinduism they say to control the mind.
In all the great religions of the world they always go back to the mind because they realize that’s where all the problems come from where all the errors come from this is where the misconceptions come from, the mind.
In other words, the mind has got to go!
But trying to kill the mind is really a metaphor. All the ways of getting rid of the mind are a metaphor. You don’t really want to get rid of the mind because just by thinking of this the mind becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. You know yourself, anytime you try to quiet the mind it becomes louder and louder. Whenever you try to remove thoughts from the mind, the thoughts become stronger and stronger.
So what is a way to do this? Look at it like this. There’s a wall, an imaginary wall between consciousness and the mind and the thoughts. The thoughts and the mind are synonymous. As you try to get rid of the thoughts, you come up against a wall, you come to a dead end. Therefore, the real way to lose the mind is to get rid of the wall, not the thoughts. The so called invisible wall that separates consciousness from the thoughts. And you do this by not trying to remove any thoughts or change any thoughts or kill any thoughts. You merely “remove the wall” and the thoughts will take care of themselves or move past the wall to consciousness. And then consciousness will prevail, which is your real Self.
You do this by becoming very calm, very peaceful, very relaxed and allow the thoughts to do what they will. Don’t interfere with them, just let them do what they will. If they wish to be angry with you, let them be angry. If your thoughts wish to tell you things about people, let them tell you things about people. Do not try to change your thoughts.
Merely, do not react to them! That’s what you’ve got to do. Do not react to your thoughts.
Never react to the thoughts!
Never mind if they’re good thoughts or bad thoughts or in between. Thoughts are thoughts. They are all illusions and they cause you pain and problems. For you’ve identified with the mind somehow, somewhere. Our mind never existed, yet you identify with it. If I ask you to show me your mind, you cannot do this. You cannot show me the mind where would you find it?
Yet we talk about our mind as if it were an entity, as if it were a power that could do something to us. When in truth the mind could not do a thing to us because it doesn’t exist. So you “remove the wall” that appears to be between the reality and the thoughts, the mind. When the wall is removed, the thoughts will fall by themselves into the consciousness and you will awaken! It’s as simple as that!
There are no mantras you have to do. There are no forms of meditation you have to do. There are no pranayamas that you have to do. There are no yoga exercises you have to do. There is absolutely nothing that you have to do. Just get rid of the wall and you will be home free!
Yet it is not as easy as it sounds, due to the fact that some of us have really made a mess of ourselves and the mind has become very powerful. So it appears! The mind has become very strong. It controls you totally and completely. Isn’t this true? Look at your life just for today. Think how your mind has controlled you. Think of some incident that happened to you today. Where you have reacted to the mind because the mind told you something. It makes no difference if it were true or not.
As long as you react to the mind, the thoughts, you’re making a grave mistake.
And as you keep thinking about what I am saying as you keep reflecting on the wall, that you have to get rid of the wall, between the mind and consciousness, you will stop fighting and reacting to life. Just by thinking about this you will not react to person or place or thing any longer, for you will realize that all incidences come from the mind.
Everything comes out of the mind!
All of your conditioning comes out of the mind, all of your belief systems. Everything that has ever existed and that exists right now is a product of the mind. Where else would it come from. The world as it appears. The planets the universe all the things you do at home, all the work that you do, your belief system, it all comes out of the mind, like a dream. You’re dreaming the mortal dream. And this world appears to be very real to you. When you believe it to be actually a mirage when you begin to feel it doesn’t exist at all by allowing it to go into the consciousness by removing the wall something happens to you, something wonderful, something grand. It’s like the light has shone in your heart your heart opens up swallows your body, your past, your karmas, samskaras.
Everything is totally annihilated. Everything totally disappears and you are left as the Self with pure awareness, unbounded space, boundless space.
You have to become boundless space.
When the mind has gone into consciousness you’re no longer the body. Remember the body’s part of the mind. This body that you speak of every day is part of this mind I’m talking about, part of the imagination, the mind. So when the mind is gone there is no body left. There is only consciousness which is all pervading omnipresence, pure awareness. Then you feel yourself as being the trees, the mountains, the sky, the planets, others.
You begin to feel your oneness with all of life.
This is when you develop a reverence for all of life. You will understand that everything in this universe is You, Everything. It comes from you, it returns to you. You are the one. There is no body else. There is nothing else but the one and you are that!
Think about this, yet you ask, “I still appear as a body” This is what you say in your present state of ignorance. This is what you see where you are coming from now.
That you appear as a body. But when you receive a glimpse of awakening, you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no body. You don’t have a body at all. Yet you appear to be doing things. You appear to be the doer. This appears to others.
The enlightened one is never the doer, has no body, does nothing, nothing’s ever being done. But paradoxically it appears to others that the enlightened one is doing things just like yourself. This is the reason you have to experience this for yourself, to understand this paradox. Only when you experience this for yourself, will you understand the gist of what I’m talking about. For right now it is just words just a bunch of words. Yet, I can promise you that unalloyed happiness is your very nature. Bliss is your very Self right now! Right now you are this bliss, this unalloyed happiness, this joy, this divine love, you are that right now!
Only you’re experiencing something else because you’re deeply involved in the mortal dream. It hangs heavy on you. You got to lighten up! Stop taking the world so seriously. Do not take conditions so seriously. Do not take people so seriously. Do not react to person, place or thing. Since where it all begins is in your reaction. You have to learn to catch yourself every moment of the day. Every time you make a mistake and react to something, catch yourself. See yourself doing it and stop!
Think of the wall between consciousness and the mind. You can imagine in your mind the wall breaking down, like the Berlin wall, coming apart in pieces. It’s being totally shattered and there is no longer two of you there is no longer the mind and consciousness.
The mind and thoughts have gone into the mind of consciousness and you’re free. And as you keep practicing this every day things will begin to change for you. You will notice the change very simply happening to you day after day after day.
This is the most important job that you have to do. No thing is more important that this. Make this the number one priority in your life.
What could be more important? What could possibly be more important than finding your Self, knowing your Self, being your Self? What could possibly be more important than this? Yet, most of you become so concerned with the days activities, with what’s going on in your personal lives that you forget totally what I’m talking about and you keep turning towards the things of the world, whether it’s your health, or lack or limitation of some kind or loneliness, whatever. Those things are all false images. They are not reality whatsoever. And they are only here for a while and they will go. Every thing must change. Even if you look at it in a material way, in the relative way. We know by now that every relative thing in this world must change. The whole world and the universe is never the same.
What this means to you is that your situation will change sooner or later regardless of conditioning. It must change. So what you call suffering comes for a day. What you call human happiness comes for a day. All of your imaginings are only here for a short time and then they go. Even if you do absolutely nothing about it they will change anyway. Everything changes.
So you ask, “Why should I do anything at all? Why should I practice anything?”
Due to the fact, if things will change they will change from the relative to the relative, you will keep on experiencing the relative world forever and ever and ever. You will experience good. You will experience bad. You will experience all kinds of things in this relative world. It will change okay but you will have to keep experiencing the changes forever.
And when you drop the body, you will appear to be going into another body into the same conditioning, the same situations again and again and again. There will be no end to it!
Like dreaming, having one dream after the other, one dream after the other it never ends, unless, you wake up!
And so it is with this. When you awaken there is no longer duality. There’s no longer good and bad, sick and healthy, rich and poor, happy and sad. It has all been transcended, totally transcended, completely. You will become one of these rare Sages that was never born, can never die, does not prevail. You will become nothing! Which is the pure
Self. This is the reason not too many people are attracted to Advaita Vedanta to non-duality because this is so difficult for most people to comprehend.
Most people are stuck in a spot in time where they go through many relative phenomenon’s, good and bad, off and on, and always trying to change bad for good, always trying to remove the bad and hang on to the good. But they are both impostors. You should never try to do this, you’re wasting your energy. You should be using your energy to become totally free and liberated, not try to make yourself a millionaire or to heal yourself of every disease known to man, or make yourself famous somehow. All these things will pass. These things come and go. You experience one then the other. You want to become totally free.
Totally, absolutely free and liberated. You want to know that you’re all pervading.
There is nothing but the Self which is you, nothing else exists. The Self is absolute reality, self-contained, absolute reality. The Self is bliss, nirvana, I-am. This is what you are right now. This is your true nature, right now! This is reality right now!
Do not give your energy to this world. For the whole world is a cosmic joke, remember. And it will suck your energy out, make you weak, make you start searching for remedies, solutions to your problems. You will go through life after life doing these things.
The time is now, there is no other time but now. Now is the time to become totally free and liberated. Awaken, for you were never asleep! Awaken from the mortal dream. Let not another day go by where you react to people, places or things. Quit it! Stop it! Do not react to your own body, your own feelings. Quit it! Stop it! Understand who you really are. Stick with it!
Do not look for a time. Do not consider how long it takes, for most of you know by now there is no time. Time is a relative concept, it has no basis, no foundation. Look at yourself without time. Feel yourself without time. This means there never was a time when you were a human. There never was a time when you were a sinner. There never was a time when you had a past. There never will be a time when there is a future. You are all there is right now! All there ever was, all there will ever be is right where you are right this minute. You are that? It is you!
What do you see? And what do you feel? You must stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Do not compare yourself to anyone. Leave the world alone. Leave everybody alone. Leave things alone. Nothing could ever hurt you if you do not resist. If you do not resist the conditions, the conditions cannot hurt you. The condition can only hurt you when you resist it. You are through playing games. You are through trying to become something, trying to get enlightened. Forget about that. It’s just another game.
You are imperishable consciousness, right now, the immutable Self. This is your real nature. This is you, rejoice! For you are free!
(short silence)
Feel free to ask questions. SP: It seems like work is something that must be attended to. I have to find a job. I have to chase leads down that could produce work. I get the feeling sometimes when I listen, as I listen to you talk that I would be homeless, that I would be without work, without means.
R: Have the attitude that it is not you that’s doing anything. That you are not the doer. If you have to go get a job, your body will get a job and will know what to do by itself. Do not get involved with the actions of the body. Everything will be taken care of by itself. The power that maintains and sustains this universe knows what it is to make you happy and to give you goodness and happiness and love. Therefore when you stand in the heart, when you surrender to the heart, when you meditate on the heart, everything will take care of itself. You will go get the job that you have to get but you’ll not be the doer.
You’ll no longer say I have to get a job because the I would have been transcended, there will be no I left. Yet, your body will get a job and work and you’ll have an income. Everything will be done in a beautiful way, much better than you could ever do it yourself.
So don’t worry about these things. Simply go into yourself and know who you are, find yourself. Do not believe that you are the I that has to look for a job but focus on your heart. Realize you are consciousness, all pervading and who ever has to get a job will get a job. Whatever has to be done will be done. Everything will always be taken care of.
SK: Robert, when you were talking about removing the wall, what I heard you saying is to allow thoughts to go back into consciousness. (R: Yes.) Is there anything more to that?
R: What else do you want? (laughter) If all your thoughts go into consciousness and disappear what else could you ask for. It’s very simple, no thoughts and your free.
When the wall is removed, the thoughts go into consciousness by themselves and you’re free! (SK: And the wall is just thinking that there is a separation?) Exactly, the wall is the I. The wall is the I-thought. (SK: Thinking that there is somebody to do something to ???) Yes. (SK: …thoughts and consciousness.)
SA: Robert, lately I started to do something and then all of a sudden my mind is blank, and I’m like standing there saying, “What was I just starting to do?” And I might stand there for a minute or two before my mind starts… “Oh yeah, this is what I was going to do.”
R: You’re losing your mind, Howard. (laughter) (SA: I take it that’s good?) Do you think it’s good? (SA: I’m asking you though?) Never mind what I say, what do you say? (SA: Well you say annihilate the mind so I guess it’s good.) I want to know what you think not what I think. (SA: Well I’m trying not to think.) (laughter) That’s good. That’s all you have to do is not think and you’re safe. (SA: I’ll let you think for me, you see.) I don’t think either. There is no one who thinks what are you going to do now? (laughter)
Fred (SF): I mentioned this before but if I spend time thinking a person, place or thing should be different than it is, I’m spinning my wheels. (R: True) Every person, every place and every thing has a role to play and it’s not up to me to change it or even think it should be different than it is. (R: Exactly) And that goes for Mother Teresa or Dr. Schweitzer or Adolph Hitler or Charlie Manson.
They’re all part of the show. (R: You’re right) Thank you.
R: So why get caught up in it? (SF: Well, I don’t know. (students laugh) Well I had to say something.) If you leave something alone it will disappear. If you give it energy by thinking about it, by pondering it, it becomes stronger. Therefore, leave everything alone and you’ll be free. Try to change things or to keep things the way they are, then you will suffer.
SP: Robert, are you advocating more witnessing the mind than inquiry alone?
R: Well we are not really talking about witnessing the mind and we’re not talking about inquiry. These are both part of it too at different times. We’re talking about removing the wall, which is the I-thought that has been there for centuries. The illusory wall that doesn’t exist between consciousness and thoughts. When there is no longer a wall there, then the thoughts disappear by themselves by their own accord. But as long as there is a wall there, they will come up against the wall and bounce back again. And the mind will become stronger and stronger and stronger because it will keep bouncing back again every time it hits the wall. So you have to simply see the wall breaking up in your consciousness. If you want to practice self-inquiry you can. You can inquire “To whom does this wall come? Who sees this wall? Who has to get rid of it?” And you’ll realize that the wall doesn’t even exist. For you will say, “I see the wall. I have to get rid of this wall.”
When all the time the I is really the wall itself. So when you realize the I-thought doesn’t exist. It’s the same as getting rid of the wall. By inquiring “Who Am I?” you’re really saying, “Who’s responsible for the wall? Where did the wall come from?” You can go both ways. Play with it, see where you get, see what happens. But the wall, another name for the wall is the ego, the I-thought.
I know a lady who used to imagine that there is dynamite blowing up the wall.
That she’s lighting the fuse of the dynamite and the whole wall is blown to smithereens.
Use your imagination to get rid of the wall.
(silence)
Mary do you want to read the Jnani? (SM: Yes, Robert.)
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to the beginning of this book for text) R: Do we have any announcements?
(students announce new transcripts and also a reminder for students of bhandara and that the normal classes on the Monday and Thursday have been moved to cater for this.) R: Anything else anybody has to say? Or forever hold your peace.
It is therefore time for prashad, the reason you all came. (laughter) We’ve got some lovely figs that are high in calcium, high in potassium, high in consciousness… (laughter) We have more figs…
SH: They’re fig Newtons. (R: Fig Newtons?) Yeah.
R: Made with whole wheat flour, honey and molasses.
(prashad continues)
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.