– Transcript 200
R: Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, om, peace. Good afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. It’s good to see you once again. Is everybody happy? Some of you don’t look too happy. Let’s see the smiling face. Some of you still look a little serious. Let’s try Dr. Robert’s two finger treatment. Take your right index finger, put it in this side of your mouth, and the left index finger in this side of your mouth, and pull.
If you ask the average person in the street, “Who are you?” they will tell you that my name is Fred, or my name is Mary, or my name is Henry, or my name is Joyce, but they have no idea who they really are. The name has been given to you at birth, you are not that person. Who were you before a name was given to you? Who were you before you were born? That’s the question. Who are you really?
Well, who are you? Every answer would be wrong. There is no answer. There never was an answer. Yet, you are that power that accommodates life, all of life, people, places, things, hanging in sweet repose on consciousness.
We can say that consciousness is the substratum of all existence. What is consciousness? What is the substratum? It is absolute nothing. It is no thing that you can ever figure out in your brain, in your mind. There’s no way to figure this out in your human perception. For your thoughts are always thinking of something. Therefore you can say consciousness has to be this or has to be that. How can consciousness be what your thoughts tell you, since your thoughts are part of the relative world, and thoughts have nothing for you except make you live as a human being?
You have to go way beyond thoughts, way beyond reasoning, way beyond anything and everything you have ever understood, to be consciousness, to understand consciousness. In order to do this, everything you believe must be dropped. Everything you’ve been led to understand must be transcended. Everything that you can think about has to go. Your ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, up and down, frontwards and sideways, all these things have to be totally transcended, totally removed from your thinking patterns.
After all, what is life, the way it appears? Life is but a bubble in the ocean. Bubbles come into existence, then they fade away, continuously, like waves, they come and they go. But the ocean always remains, and the bubble and the wave is part of the ocean. By themselves they come and go continuously, constantly. Millions and millions of bubbles and waves, come and go every few minutes. They return to the ocean and they come out again and become bubbles. But the ocean always remains the ocean. So it is with human life. So it is with existence. You appear to be a human being.
You appear to be person, place or thing, and you’re not. You’re only here for a short time, you disappear, come back again, disappear, come back again, disappear.
But what about the ocean? That always remains the same. In the ocean are all kinds of fish, all kinds of living creatures. In consciousness there are all kinds of living creatures, animals, insects, people. Yet these things are only here for a short time, and they go, disappear.
What do we care about all this? Why are we concerned with things like this? What difference does it make? Well, you will find one of these days that happiness, and joy, and love, and peace, are eternality to the part of your being. They’re the living truth of yourself. You are not what you appear to be. You are not the person that you think you are. You are beyond this. Yet you appear to be a person. You appear to have experiences in life. You grow up in a certain country, a certain race, a certain religion, and you believe this is you.
But this is not you at all. You are beyond that, way beyond that. And when you find out who you are, you will be extremely happy, extremely peaceful, and you’ll be a blessing for others.
The only way you can ever help other people is by knowing yourself. The only way you can ever be of service to others, is by knowing yourself. The only way you can give anybody anything, is by knowing yourself. For when you know yourself, you know others. You will find the others, are yourself. There is only one Self. Everything is that Self, everything. Every leaf, every plant, every cloud, everything is the one Self. That one Self is you.
Yet most of you have not experienced this or tasted this. And you cannot accept on blind faith what you haven’t experienced or tasted. Consequently, when you find out that something else exists, that is beyond the humanhood, beyond experience, you go searching for it. You go looking for it. But where do you go searching? Within yourself, not out in the world. When you go searching in the world, what do you find? More world, that’s all.
People go looking for answers in this world. They go looking for special teachers in this world. All they find is more world. The answer is within you, nowhere else. You are the one.
You have everything you need within yourself, to find all the answers of your life and your existence. You have it. It’s you. But something stops us from doing this. That something is called the mind. The mind is not really our friend. The mind keeps you earthbound, keeps you attached to person, place or thing. It makes you believe your happiness is right around the corner. Your freedom is in New Jersey. Your liberation is in San Jose. And you go everywhere looking for this, and you’re always disappointed.
You may find a couple of answers that seem nice to you. You may find a couple of people who tell you certain things that seem very right on. After a while it goes away, and you’re right back where you started from.
You and I know many people who have been searching for many, many years, twenty years, thirty years, forty years, for the answers to life, for reality, yet they’re still in the same place they started twenty years ago. They have gone through all kinds of things.
They’ve been to certain places. They met certain people, but they’re still the same.
For they’ve never really investigated themselves. They say they do. They say they’ve been working on themselves for years, nothing has happened. But have they really been working on themselves? What they’ve been doing is sort of just thinking about it a little bit, reading a couple of books. But they’ve never dived deep enough in the Self to find the answers. And this is exactly what you have to do.
You have to dive deep, deep, deep within yourself, deeper than you can ever imagine. And the only way you can do this is by giving up the external world, mentally, not physically. In other words, by not reacting to things. To observe things, watch the world go by, leave it alone. It’s neither good nor bad. It has nothing to offer you. Yet at the same time you’ll be doing what you have to do, what you came here to do. If you’re supposed to work, you will work. If you’re not supposed to work, you’ll not work. If you’re supposed to be married, you’ll be married. If you’re supposed not to be married, you’ll not be married. Everything will happen by itself. Yet you will know within yourself, that this is not you. The situation is not you. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. You are beyond conditioning, beyond situations, beyond experience, beyond everything. Yet you are everything also.
As you become a little more serious about this work, you will stop taking things so seriously in this world. You will begin to know how to leave things alone. You’ll be more interested in diving within yourself, to find yourself, to understand yourself, who you are, what you are. But then the mind comes to play again, and the mind grabs you, makes you give this up for a while, makes you start enjoying life, so called, makes you be a part of life again, hands you things, gives you things, you go through many experiences good and bad. Again you forget about the Self, who you are. And most people stay like this until they get old and die.
But there are a few people who will not take no for an answer. There are a few people on this earth, who are only after one thing, and that’s liberation. This is foremost in their mind. This is the only thing they think about, day and night, to become free. And what you think about, thinks about you.
So first you use your mind to desire total liberation. When you have a strong desire for liberation, something will tell you the mind has to be destroyed, the mind has to go. What I mean when I say, “The mind has to be destroyed, the mind has to go,” I’m referring to the mind has to be left alone, without interference, to observe the mind, to watch the mind, without watching, without observing.
This can be done. For when you say, I am observing the mind, I am watching the mind, the I that you’re speaking of is the mind also. So what you’re really saying is the mind watching the mind and you get nowhere. Yet there’s a way to watch the thoughts and to not watch the thoughts at the same time, to observe the thoughts and not to observe the thoughts at the same time. Just be.
You will find out as you keep doing this, everything begins to change all around you. Yet everything is the same all around you. You see things that other people do not see. You become things that other people can never become. For instance, you become all pervading. You begin to feel your presence, your essence in the leaves, in the trees, in the sky, in the animals, in the insects. You begin to see that all this is the Self, and I am that.
This is when you have total reverence for all of life. Everything becomes God.
Everything becomes consciousness. You’re no longer saying, “I, I, me, me, I need this, I want that, I feel this way, I feel that way.” You have grown out of this. When you use the term I, only speak with the people. They do not understand what you are talking about, so you use the term I with them. But you yourself know that I does not exist. There is no longer an I to keep you in bondage. The I has given way to omnipresence.
The good thing about all this, is that anybody can become liberated, at any moment. But this is because you are already liberated. If you were not liberated, you would never be able to become liberated. But because you’re already liberated, all you’re really doing is taking off the stuff that makes you think you’re not liberated, dark clouds, the layers and layers of nonsense, garbage, that you covered yourself with all of these years.
The thought, “I am important, I am somebody.” This is what keeps you in bondage.
The truth is you are nobody. You are nothing, yet you’re everything. How can you be nobody and everything? As long as you think you’re something or somebody, you’re limiting yourself. You make yourself very limited when you think you’re something or somebody. When you can be nobody, nothing, then you’re everything. You’re not one thing.
Notice when I stop talking, how quiet it becomes, in your mind. This is the state I’m referring to, that state in between thoughts, where there is nothing going on, in that second, in that moment, when the mind is total quiet, the thoughts are not moving any longer. This is your true Self, in that moment in between thoughts.
Stay in that moment. Learn to put yourself in that state, whether you are in the market place or you are in a temple, wherever you are, learn to be still. It makes no difference what is going on around you. It makes no difference what other people are doing.
You be still. When you are still, then there’s peace. When you are still, there’s happiness.
Can you ever imagine a person who is being happy all the time, for no reason whatsoever.
Most of us have been taught that to be happy we have to receive something good. We have to have something nice happen to us to be happy, otherwise we are miserable. Yet the truth is, happiness is your very nature, unalloyed happiness, eternal happiness, forever happiness.
Right now you are that, for right now nothing is happening, and when nothing is happening you are in a state of happiness, a state of peace. But as soon as the mind waves begin to move again, I begins to function. You start to think again, “I need this, I feel this, I
am this.” Then the mind quiets down again, and the I is no longer active. You feel happy, you’re at peace.
Now you realize it is the I that has to go, the I that has to be eliminated, the I that has to be transcended.
Isn’t it wonderful to sit there without saying I, without thinking of I, “I am tired, I feel this way, I feel that way?”
Now you can know who you are. Now you can really find yourself. You can understand that you are Brahman now, that you’re absolute reality, pure awareness. In the beginning you couldn’t do this, for your mind was filled with the day’s activities, filled with I, I, I. Now you are at peace. There’s no I bothering you, no I telling you anything.
You’re experiencing your true nature as this time.
So, in your everyday experience, from the moment you get up in the morning, begin to understand this. Catch yourself, catch yourself thinking. It makes no difference what you’re thinking about. Good or bad, it’s all the same. Understand where the thoughts are coming from that make you think, “I am sick, I feel like I have a headache, I feel happy, I feel sad.” You now know that the thoughts are not yours. They belong to I. Not your thoughts. You never had those thoughts. They belong to I. I is the root thought of all your problems. Therefore, to uproot the I will give you total freedom and liberation.
How do you uproot the I? By understanding what I’m talking about right now. Let the I come out of you totally. Allow it to leave you. You no longer need it.
It’s the only problem you have. Think about some of the problems that you think you have. Think about some of the situations you’re involved in. It is only because you say I. The body cannot say I. I just appears, as if from nowhere. Yet if it didn’t come from the body, where did it come from? When I refer to I, I’m referring to the ego, the mind, it’s all the same. It’s all I, the mind, the ego and I are all one.
The I really didn’t come from anywhere. The I is an optical illusion, it doesn’t exist.
The personal I never existed, and never will exist. You are not that, understand this. You have absolutely nothing to do with the I. Yet you’re not your body also. You’re not the body. You’re not the I. What are you? Find out.
Try to spend much time by yourself. Do not read too much. Do not watch TV too much. Do not get involved with the world too much. Spend time by yourself, where you can jump within yourself, go deep, dive deep within yourself, and find all the answers you’re looking for. They’re all within you, they’ve always been there. There’s nothing else you have to do. The right practice will come to you when you dive deep within yourself.
Whatever practice you have to do, will come to you by itself. You are free now.
It’s now time to play “Stump the guru.” John would you pass the stumpers.
(Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: Often times after satsang I cannot talk so I withdraw and avoid socializing. I am speechless, I am within. Do you really think this is just too much ego?A: No, why do you think it is ego at all? Accept what is happening with grace.
Feel that a power of peace has swept over you that is destroying all of the ego, all of the thoughts that you’ve had inside you for so long and giving you peace. When something like this is happening be grateful. For you are being transcended and transmuted. Don’t think it’s ego. Think it’s grace. And let it happen leave it alone. Do not fight it, do not interfere with it. Just allow it to unfold as the Self. And then you’ll find your Self then you’ll be free, happy and liberated. So leave it alone and let it happen. Next case.
Q: This morning during a silent sitting I felt the I on the right side of the chest. But I did not feel self-realized, what gives?
A: If everyone became realized by feeling something on the right side of their chest we’d have a world of enlightened people. Nothing gives. Everything just is. What is it that you’re really feeling on the right side of the chest? You don’t know. Leave everything alone. Do not come to any conclusion about anything. When your body gives itself up to the self, you will know it definitely. You will be aware of it. But if you have to ask the question, you’re not there yet.
So don’t fight it. Leave it alone and try to go deeper. Dive deeper within the Self.
When you dive deeper within the Self the I goes away. The I transforms itself into the I-am. And then you’ll be liberated. But it’ll happen by itself. Your job is to just do the work, whatever has to be one. Be happy while you’re doing it. Watch yourself going deeper, observe yourself, see what happens. You’ll be well taken care of. Mary.
Q: Is every problem that comes to us just a ruse to encourage us to recognize the Self? Or to learn to give up and trust more to let the Self manifest?
A: There are no problems that come to you. What you call a problem is simply the wrong way of looking at things. There are no problems with this universe. What you really call problems is when the world is not going the way that you want it to. When things are not happening the way that you want it to happen it’s called a problem. As an example: If you’re dying of cancer. There appears to be a problem. But is it really? Since nobody dies, what kind of problem is this? For whom is the problem? It is for the person that believes this is bad. But if you’re very healthy you believe it’s good. Those are the feelings that have to go. Those are the thoughts that have to go.
Try to remember that your life is like a bubble on the ocean. It’s here today and gone tomorrow. Life as it is is meaningless, totally meaningless. Your ego likes to tell you that something important is going on in your life that you’re supposed to be somebody important, somebody good, somebody great. It’s all a lie. It’s all part of the ego. Trying to make you feel good. Accept everything with grace. Allow everything to express itself through you, as you. Do not fight to remove certain conditions from your life. Let them be leave them alone. And become happy, very happy.
People like Rama Krishna, Ramana Maharshi, Christ and others, they were so in tune with life that the sicknesses and disease that came upon them meant absolutely nothing to them. They didn’t recognize it or give it any credence. They didn’t give it any power, they left it alone.
You are not your body. You have absolutely nothing to do with your body whatsoever. Do not feel sorry for yourself. You are only on this earth for a very short time. While you’re here find the truth. Realize your divine nature. Realize who you are. Become totally free. Then you will live forever as eternity, as pure awareness. You are no longer worried about bodies or reincarnation, karma or anything else. They will not be part of you at all.
They’ll be gone out of you. So learn to leave everything alone, be yourself and watch what happens.
Q: What are some ways the Self can be talked into manifesting into consciousness?
A: You want to talk yourself into it? (laughter) Who wants to talk themselves into it? Think of what you asked. You the ego wants to talk itself into becoming something else.
How can you possibly do that? You’re not using your voice to talk anybody into anything.
You’re trying to keep your voice quiet, keep yourself still, keep yourself at peace. There is absolutely nothing to talk anybody into anything. The Self will manifest in its own good time. For you are already that Self. You are already divine harmony, peace and love. This is your nature. What you should do is go out and help the homeless. Have loving kind thoughts for everybody. So that you can help others. Do something constructive with your life. You keep your mind in the clouds, so-to-speak. Give your mind to God and you do not think. Just do the work that you’re supposed to do but do not think. Do what you have to do but don’t think. Try not…
(break in tape)
Q: Dear Robert, Are there different interpretations of reality by different self-realized beings? If yes how do you perceive this as happening?
A: There is only one reality but there are different paths leading to it. A person may take a bhakti path, a Jnana path. There are many ways to get to the same reality. Reality is only one. Like climbing a mountain, the roads get to the summit. There is one summit. Everybody takes a different path. Therefore the path you’re taking, if you’re sincere about it, will lead you to the top, the one reality. The reality is only one, never two. There is ??? and there is reality. The reality is peace, reality is your Self. Be that Self.
Q: Robert you said that the mind is destroyed in the Jnani. How does the Jnani function then? Is not memory part of the mind?
A: The Jnani functions very well thank you. There is a pure awareness that is the Jnani. Just like the earth. The earth functions very well. Food grow, apples grow, bananas grow, leaves grow, wheat grows. Everything grows by itself it appears. Everything takes care of itself. There is a power which knows the way. That power functions in the Jnani, as the Jnani. So the mind has turned into something else.
The mind in the Jnani has turned into grace, into love, into wisdom, into joy. The mind in the Jnani always thinks like the average person does but is aware in the moment of the true reality all the time. So you can say, “Consciousness rules the Jnani! The Self rules the Jnani!” As long as the Jnani wears a body it will be taken care of by the Self if anybody has to be taken care of. Find this out for yourself. Go deeper within yourself than you’ve ever gone before. Discover your real nature and see who takes care of you.
Q: Robert, you spent some time with Nisargadatta Maharaj are his teachings different from Ramana teachings?
A: The only difference between both teachings is that Ramana was a bhakta and also a Jnani. He was a sweeter person. Nisargadatta Maharaj was a very enlightened person but he didn’t have the sweetness of Ramana. Maharaj was a very gruff person, street person sort of, who became enlightened. So his rough traits stayed with him, to an extent.
He would scream at people. Smoked cigarettes one after the other. Light hundreds of incense sticks all over the place, in a little attic upstairs, can you imagine the smoke all over the place. If anybody didn’t like it he would send them away and say, “Don’t come back.” And he died of lung cancer. This is all well and good. But he was a great being, great Master, great teacher. That’s it.
Announcements?
Mary (SM): No I don’t have any, except about thanksgiving. (R: Say anything.) Yes we have a bhandara the last Sunday in November and the last Sunday in December and everyone’s invited, it is vegetarian and we start at 1 o clock and on that week we will have satsang on Wednesday instead of Thursday, remember that. Is there anything else, Robert? (R: Umm?) Anything else?
(general talk about the organization of the bhandara)
R: Anyone like to say anything else?
It is time for prashad.
We have millefoglie.
SH: Who? (SD: You know millefoglie?) I haven’t met him yet. (laughs) R: We have some figs.
(general prashad talk between students)
Thank you for coming. Remember to love yourself, to pray to yourself, to worship yourself, for God dwells in you as you, peace, happiness, joy…
(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.