– Transcript 206
R: …shanti shanti shanti om peace, peace. Good afternoon. (Students: Good afternoon Robert.) It is good being with you holy people. One holy people whoever you may be. It’s good to see your smiling faces. Happy face, let’s see the happy face.
Those of us who have been studying Advaita Vedanta, the non-duality concepts have come across the one principle of Advaita and remember it intellectually. The one principle being, “Everything is Brahman. The whole universe is Brahman. Only Brahman exists and this world that appears to you is an hallucination.” You’re hallucinating by believing the world is real. Non-dualists understand this, they realize this.
And yet some people have a hard time in grasping the truth of this, what this really means. Brahman cannot be explained. It is beyond words and thoughts, there is no valid explanation for Brahman. You can only know Brahman when you leave your senses behind. When you go out of your mind. This is the only time when you will know Brahman. So when somebody tells you you’re out of your mind say, “Thank you,” (students laugh) it’s a compliment. You want to be out of your mind. It’s no fun being in your mind.
For in your mind you relate to the world. You relate to person, place, and thing. So you want to be out of the mind, totally out of the mind.
Think of this.
There is only Brahman nothing else and we can’t explain Brahman. We can say it’s like boundless space. Boundless space is of the void that you hear about in Buddhism. The difference between boundless space and Brahman is that Brahman is consciousness. What we call Brahman is consciousness. Which simply means that Brahman is a power that is conscious of itself. It is not conscious of anything else. It is not conscious of this world or your body or your mind or the phenomena of the world or the universe. This has completely nothing to do with consciousness. Remember the world is a hallucination, a mirage, a no thing to Brahman. If you don’t know Brahman the world is real, very real with its phenomena, with its manifestations.
So we learn that we somehow have to identify with Brahman. This is a mistake.
You can see this, if everything is Brahman then who has to identify with Brahman. There has to be a subject and an object. The subject wants to identify with something. So they look at Brahman as being out side of themselves and they try to identify with Brahman.
This is the mistake that you make. And this is the reason it takes so long to become self-realized and become free. Because you’re looking to do something and in truth there is absolutely nothing to do. There is nothing to do to become free and liberated. What is there to do?
If you say, “I have to try,” you’re saying the hallucination has to try. You’re believing in the hallucination, the falsity, the mirage. Thinking that this is the truth and you have to identify with something to become higher. No, all you have to do is remain still, that’s all. Remain quiet, still. Nothing to do. Nothing to become. If you try to become something you get caught in the world of cause and effect and you will have all kinds of problems.
But if your mind…if you’ve made the mind still and quiet then there is no one to identify with anything and you become free. You don’t become free you awaken to the freedom that you already are. Ponder this.
Another mistake that most of us make is that we understand that Brahman is the ultimate reality. The nature of Brahman is bliss, consciousness, peace, love, yet inadvertently we try to manipulate Brahman to give us what we want. This is another thing that holds you back from realization trying to manipulate Brahman. And we don’t do it purposely we do it subconsciously, inadvertently. In other words some of us think of our problems so-called or some of our needs and wants, and we think if we pray to Brahman or identify with Brahman or think about Brahman our needs will be met.
Now let me give you a little secret: Brahman doesn’t give a damn about you at all!
Because to Brahman you don’t exist. You exist to your ego. Brahman doesn’t know anything about you. Nothing at all. It’s you that knows about yourself. It’s what you appear to be right now that thinks it’s a somebody or a something. And then you try to identify with something higher or become something higher and manipulate something higher. This is where suffering comes in. For as you try to do this your world falls apart.
You cannot manipulate Brahman. You have to leave everything alone. Leave everything alone.
Some people suffering from lack or limitation or from some kind of disease or depression or they’re having…want things a certain way believe if they sit down and think of Brahman, Brahman will heal them or will become something for them or do something for them. This again is a grave mistake that you make. For you are wasting your time by believing you’re somebody that has to have something. By feeling that you have to be healed or you have to be cured and you need a new body or a new mind or a new mate or something. All this is foolishness.
Remember again that only Brahman exists and you don’t. But you think you exist.
You believe you exist.
Therefore all these spiritual practices that have been given to you, various sadhanas to lift you a little higher to that place where you become one-pointed. And one day you are able to see that all the sadhanas that you’ve been doing is a bunch of nonsense.
Your spiritual practices have been nonsensical because there is a human being trying to become a higher human being and you don’t exist. You just ain’t there! Nobody’s home!
No matter how many times I tell you this you will still feel your ego telling you things, leading you, guiding you, directing you. You become upset over this, you become upset over that. You will like this, you will love that. All of this is part of the phenomena.
Part of the illusion. Part of the Maya.
If you can only understand that Brahman is all there is, what is there for you to do.
We’re not saying Brahman is and then we have to play hide and seek and try to find Brahman. We’re saying Brahman is. That’s it! Brahman is not this and Brahman is not that.
Brahman just is. That’s all, that’s it. There is absolutely nothing you have to do to find this out, to discover this besides to keep quiet. Do not try to find peace, find happiness, find love how can you do this when Brahman is. If Brahman were an entity then you would have to search for Brahman, try to be like Brahman, try to identify with Brahman. So Brahman is a nonentity. Therefore there is nothing to search for, there is nothing you have to become or to be. Nothing.
Can you feel nothing? It’s so beautiful when nothing exists. When there is nothing you have to fix, nothing to straighten out, nothing for you to condemn. Nothing.
Remember you didn’t come here to hear a lecture or a talk, you came here to be nothing and you can go home as nothing. Who can actually stop you from being nothing but yourself.
Remember the nothing you’re talking about is Brahman, which is consciousness, which is bliss, the absolute reality, which is unalloyed happiness, total peace. This is Brahman, this is you right this moment. There is absolutely nothing to think about.
Do not try to analyze anything I say. Do nothing with what I say. Don’t accept it, don’t reject it. Don’t like it, don’t dislike it. Don’t be happy about it, don’t be sad about it.
Do absolutely nothing about it since there is nothing to do, no one to do it to.
Once you understand this and the mind has become quiet, peaceful, the thinking has slowed down considerably, all of your karma, all your samskaras or samsaras are totally wiped out. Karmas, samsaras, samskaras only exists for a human being who believes they are a body. Not for a person who is totally free and peaceful in the mind. What I’m saying to you is the past does not matter. The past cannot hurt you unless you look at yourself as a human being as a body, as a mind. Then you have to concern about the past, the past lives and all sorts of things.
When you stop solving problems and stop trying to do things and manipulate things to become something then there is nothing for you to do.
The whole secret again is to make your mind quiescent by not trying to solve your problems, by not trying to come to conclusions, what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s good, what’s bad. If this is difficult for you the next best thing for you to do is self-inquiry.
If you practice self-inquiry you should do so continuously without stopping, night and day. By inquiring, “Who is this person going through this experience? Who is having these feelings? Who feels depressed? Who feels negation? Who feels that they have been dealt a bad hand in life? Who feels they’re going to die soon? Who feels all these things?” Ask your self, inquire within yourself. The answer is within yourself. And the answer will come, “I feel this way. “I” feel this way. I feel troubled” Catch yourself saying this and scrutinize the I. “Where did the I come from? The I that feels these things. I’ve just admitted to myself that I feel this. But am I, I? I, I, I. I, I, I, I, I. Who is this I? Am I this I? I feels tired, I feels sick, I feels depression, I feels it’s too good to be true, I feels all of these things,” not you! Not you but “I!” Therefore the next question you ask yourself is, “Where does I come from? What is the source of this I? Where did it come from? How did it get here? Who am I?” When you get to that point you keep totally quiet and still.
For soon you will realize that the I does not exist whatsoever. The I-thought never existed, doesn’t exist now, it will never exist. It is simply a thought, an erroneous thought.
That’s what the I is. Just thinking this way will set you free. What else do you have to think about? Remember there is absolutely nothing for you to think about. You say, “I have to think about my affairs, my life, my money, my job, my security.” Who told you, you have to do this? This is the illusion, hallucination I’m talking about.
Brahman again is all in all, you are Brahman, nothing but Brahman, Brahman is consciousness, pure awareness. Consequently does Brahman have to become something or think about something or do something or worry about something? Your life is Brahmans life. And when you let go and stop worrying about something, stop thinking about something, then Brahman starts to express itself, as harmony, as bliss, as peace and you will find yourself in your right place going through those experiences and those situations that you have to go through and all is well. You have absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s none of your business what happens to you.
If you can only do this and try it and practice it, you will see what I am talking about is real and true. Give it a chance, practice it for one day only and watch what happens. Instead of watching television, reading a newspaper, being concerned about the world and man’s inhumanity to man, for one day practice self-inquiry or just being still and watch what happens to you. Watch the direction that you take, you will be moved by the unmovable. You will be carried along by the stream of blessedness to your highest good, by the current that knows the way. What I’m trying to say is that everything will take care of itself. Everything will always take care of itself. And Brahman is the Self!
There is only the Self that is all there is. Brahman, the self, consciousness, these are all synonymous. So stop feeling sorry for yourself. Realize that there is nothing wrong anywhere that what you really are was never born, can never die, does not prevail and be happy, be totally happy. When I say be happy it doesn’t mean you have to laugh hysterically all the time. When people continue laughing hysterically all the time, watch those people. (students laugh)
You’ve heard that song, “Crying on the inside, laughing on the outside?” Many people put on an exterior laugh all the time and laugh hysterically are hiding a lot of problems inside. So you don’t want to become an entity of laughter. It’s good to laugh, it’s good to cry, it’s good to be yourself, it’s good to do nothing but do not put anything on that you
don’t feel. Surrender to the power that knows the way. Give up. To say give up does not seem too positive. But what I’m referring to is give up your belief in your humanity, that there are mistakes, that there is something wrong. This is how you help the world. This is how you bring peace into this world, by knowing your Self. For when you become acquainted with your Self you will see your Self wherever you look. And if you’re experiencing the Self you’re experiencing harmony, peace, bliss, joy, happiness, therefore wherever you look you will see these entities, you’ll see these things.
Start today, do something for yourself. Be at peace with yourself. All is well. Peace.
It is now time to play stump the guru. If you stump the guru I disappear. (laughter) (Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: Dear Robert, tell me what you do not know? (laughter) SH: That’s stumped the guru. (laughter)
A: The answer is silence.There is no answer, it’s silence. It’s only silence. Next case.
Q: This could be a continuation, I don’t know? Are you just a walking, breathing embodiment of the higher Self as far as your identification is concerned?
A: I’m not walking, I’m not being, I don’t exist. What you see is your business.
(students laugh and someone claps their hands) You can think anything you like. But I will not admit to it. (laughter) Next.
Q: Is not your experience as if you were just watching a continuous movie?
A: What movie? I saw a movie last week. (laughter) The movie plays again and again. There is no movie to watch. There is nothing to do. I’m not watching a movie. If I was watching movies that movie would exist. There is no movie to watch. There is nothing to do. The movie is over. (laughter) Great movie. Next case.
Q: Some people desire to leave the body and go to spirit, however you seem to desire nothing. Are you happy whether you stay with Robert or drop any connection with the body of Robert?
Do you desire any change in dimension?
A: There is no one left to decide that. There is nobody home who makes decisions like this. There is nothing for me to decide what to want or to need. I just am and everything happens that is supposed to happen. I make no decisions, no judgments, I do nothing. Yet things happen the way they’re supposed to. That is why I always say, “All is well and everything is unfolding as it should.” There is nothing to do. What has to be done?
Nothing. Next.
Q: If you could change what is, what would you change? This world of matter, peoples beliefs, peoples actions, laws of physical or karmic world, how long it takes your disciple, devotees to self-realize.
A: You’re speaking to an entity and the entity doesn’t exist. Who am I to want to change anything? I’m not looking to change things or make things better or worse. I just am. I’m not this, I’m not that, I’m not trying to make anything happen to any place. Just me, the way I-am, nothing. No changes, nothing new, nothing old. Everything just is.
That’s the way it goes. (laughter)
Jorge (SR): Maybe you should disappear?
R: I will soon. Mary? (SM: That’s it Robert.) That’s it Robert. Anyone like to say anything or something?
Fred (SF): Yeah there is something I’ve been wondering about. A while back we had some discussion about out of the body experiences. Where from what you said I got the impression that what happens is, an individual without losing his individual identity somehow gets transported to another plane. I think you used the term, the causal plane or the astral plane. My impression is that those planes are no more real and no less real than this plane which I sometimes understand is called the relative plane. And in any case they’re all unreal. And I know when Maharshi was asked, “What is it like when an individual dies,” he said, “why do you want to know what it’s like after you die before you know what it’s like to live?” And he also would say as always, “Who wants to know?” So I guess the whole idea is to forget the whole thing. (laughter) R: Why say it at all. (laughter) Why say it at all. You’re right. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. (SF: I thought I was but that’s…) (laughter) Every plane, every phenomena comes out of the mind. Comes out of your mind. You create everything. Causal planes, astral planes, mental planes it’s all your own creation. Out of the body experiences all come out of the mind. When the mind is gone it all stops and you become eternal bliss which you always have been. So there is nothing to become, nothing to be, nothing to change, nowhere to go, you’re already home. Just where you are right now, that’s it. That is all there is.
SY: For me you’re giving new meaning to the expression, “thanks for nothing.” (laughter) R: (laughs) You’re welcome. (laughter)
Jay (SJ): Think nothing of it. (laughter)
ST: Robert in your talk here it reminds me of this… in concerning what Ramana Maharshi wrote, I want to reiterate and that was that Brahman is real, only Brahman is real, the world is unreal, Brahman is the world. Now, if consciousness is totally unaware of it, totally unconcerned with the world, it would seem to me that a God-realized man who realizes the absolute which is in coincidence with realizing and experiencing the phenomenal world that he has put one foot in the absolute and one foot in the phenomenal world, one foot in being and one foot in becoming. He is actually in a superior position to the Godhead itself. If it is a compassionate God-realized being. (R: What’s the question?) Well how can there be an absolute that is totally unconcerned with the world and how can that be squared with a God-realized Master who is fully conscious of the world and compassionate towards the world and at the same time is totally God-realized and fully aware of the absolute as the absolute.
R: Who asked this question? Who asks this kind of a question? That’s what you see, from your viewpoint. That doesn’t exist that way. In reality only Brahman exists as Brahman. The statement Brahman exists as the world means only Brahman exists. There is no world, there is nothing happening. Nothing is going on, the way you see it, the way
you explain it. There is no one with a foot here and a foot there, a hand here and a hand there. That’s your imagination, nothing exists like that whatsoever. The world does not exist whatsoever at all. There is no one who exists who does anything. Nothing has to be done. Everything has been done that has to be done. All is well.
ST: Another question. How does that account for our misidentification though with the body and the mind? And even our misidentification with getting to the point where we think that we’re transcending the body and the mind because we’re starting to get a sample of the self where that’s still more like atman or atman and as I understand it, the realization is when the atman realizes its karma mind. How can there be this step where we are at right now and that realization?
It’s unreal to be done with?
R: You’re just answered your own question. It’s not real to begin with. There are no steps, who is taking the step? The one who thinks he is a human being, a person, place or thing takes a step. Go beyond that. There is no one to take any step there is no one to do anything. Nothing has to be done. There is nothing to do. You don’t exist! Accept that you don’t exist and be free. And all this stuff and everything else will disappear from your viewpoint. As long as you think you’re real you’re a body then what you’re saying is true.
There are steps to take, this to do, that to do, that’s from your viewpoint. When you go higher than that you will see there is nothing to do, no steps to take, nobody to do anything because there’s no world. The world is an hallucination. You’re hallucinating. Go see a psychiatrist. (laughter)
ST: The next question would be, how do we know when we have transcended that hallucination?
R: A little birdie will tell… (break in tape) (laughter) SR: There’ll be no you to know. (R: Exactly.)
SY: Robert is it predetermined, when? (laughter) You know is there a when, when the hallucination leaves? Is it predetermined? Do you just relax and be, and then at some point it automatically - for every person?
R: It never came so how can there be an end to it? It was never there to begin with.
You think something happened to you and now you’re going to have to get rid of it. Nothing has happened. You never were and you never will be. There is nothing you have to do.
Just be still and everything will take care of itself. There is no point when something happens. If something happens that means there was something wrong to begin with and then something has to happen to be right. (SY: But how does the veil happen?) It never happened. Nothing ever happened. You feel something happened but nothing ever happened.
Nothing is happening, nothing will ever happen. It’s like the water in the mirage. There appears to be water in the desert, you try to grab it, you grab sand. Like the sky is blue.
Like the snake in the rope. These things are all hallucinations they don’t exist. Life is like that, it appears to be real then upon investigation you will find life never existed. You’ll be okay don’t worry. SL: When you say a stillness that we need with all this illusion is keeping the stillness as we go through because to be still in the being through the action as we, through work, through the jobs, through the things that we have to do, we don’t have to do but yet there is things to tend to, whether we have family or things. But in the process of the illusion what I’ve got is the stillness.
Going through this but the stillness I’m not really - but as we do.
R: True. But realize that you are not the doer. Everything that you’re doing or what you’re supposed to be doing has been preordained for you. (SL: Exactly.) So you’re not the doer there is nothing that you’re doing. (SL: It’s just going - in the flight.) Everything is happening. (SL: Yeah.) So let it happen leave it alone. It will take care of itself. You have absolutely nothing to do with it. (SL: But keeping the stillness?) By trying to keep still in the situation of action you can’t keep still. But when you realize there is no action, nobody is acting, nobody is doing anything then you’ll keep still.
SY: Help other people believe in their hallucinations? (R: Say that again?) Helping other people believe in their hallucinations?
R: You’re not doing anything like that. It’s not up to you to do anything like that.
(SY: Don’t do anything.) Everything will happen by itself. (SY: Right.) You’re not helping or not helping. (SY: Okay. Helping wasn’t the right word.) You’re not doing anything for anybody. (SY: Got you.) SL: Then just be? (SY: Be, right.)
SI: Where is the doing come from?
R: From nowhere, doing appears to be real but there is nobody doing anything. It doesn’t exist.
SI: I find that since I’ve been coming here I find myself wanting to withdraw more and more from my ordinary activities, like at night I like to go home and light a candle and read your notes. Look into what you’ve been saying. And since I’ve been coming, which is a really short period of time only a month or so. I feel a greater peace and a greater, much more expansiveness but this issue of the doer is the one that has got me confused because what I had decided to do with myself is just to bide my time between being still and being involved in the hallucination, do you know what I mean?
R: You’re trying to be holy don’t do that. Just be your Self. When the mind is quiet you’ll do whatever you have to do. (SI: So it’s okay to do it?) Sure. (laughter) (SI: Just what I needed to know.) Do not separate one thing from the other, it’s all one.
(pause)
Prashad.
(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.