– Transcript 207
R: Shanti shanti shanti om peace, peace, peace. Good evening. (Students: Good evening Robert) It’s wonderful being with you again. Good seeing you. I see we have a few new faces here, welcome.
I want you to ask yourself, “Why am I here at satsang tonight? What is my purpose? What is the real reason I’m here?” Ask yourself. Did you come to check out the speaker. To compare him to other speakers. Did you come to hear something profound, strange, unearthly, that’s good because that is exactly what you are going to hear strange things, unearthly things, weird things.
SE: And murder too. (R: True.)
Robert continues: What do you believe that you are? What do you think of yourself? You believe that you were born, you go through experiences on this earth. You meet different people have different experiences with each person. Then you get old and die.
None of this is true. You were never born, you do not get old, you do not prevail and you do not exist. What gave you the idea that you were a human being subject to birth, death and destruction? What gave you the idea that you exist to begin with?
No one exists. Nothing exists. The universe does not exist and your thoughts, the thinker of these things does not exist. Just think if it weren’t for your thoughts you wouldn’t have any problems of existence and nonexistence, of enlightenment and non-enlightenment. You only think about these things because you have a mind so-to-speak that doesn’t exist either. But you believe you have a mind you have thoughts, you have ideas, concepts, beliefs.
Where do they all come from?
They didn’t come from anywhere. They never came at all. Where did your belief come from to be able to think this? You’re not really thinking anything nobody is doing a thing. There is only consciousness, the absolute reality which is the Self. And I’m not too sure about that either. (students laugh) You want something to exist. You want a better world, a peaceful world. You want enlightenment, you want liberation.
What are these things that you are looking for? Where did you hear about them?
You’ve read many books, voluminous books, thousands of books about Saints and gurus, about liberation, saving yourself they’re all a bunch of lies.
You would have been better off if you never read anything at all, never believed anything, never did a thing. Just be. Just be yourself. That is all you have to do. There is nothing else you have to do. You don’t have to practice sadhanas or meditations or japa or pranayama or anything.
Who are you that you have to do these things? What do you think you are that you have to practice all these things year after year after year? To what avail? To what purpose? To become enlightened and then what?
You believe if you are enlightened your life will be better. This is a great mistake because if you’re enlightened you have no life to be better.
Where would the better come from? Your life exists because you think you’re human. So if you didn’t exist at all there would be no life to be better or worse. You have to come to the conclusion yourself. I do not exist, I never existed, I never will exist then, “Who am I? If I do not exist then who am I? What am I all about?”
You are not the “I” to begin with, you are not the “am” and you are not the “who.”
So “Who am I?” even becomes redundant. Somebody has to say, “Who am I?” and the somebody who says it does not exist. Therefore there is only “Who am I?” when there is a being around to say it. If you knew who you were you’d have nothing to say. Because you don’t know who you are you have plenty to say.
What good are all these words you’ve been speaking all of your life? What have they done for you? All these frustrations you’ve been through. Trying to make your life a better life. Trying to heal yourself. Trying to make yourself happy. Who needs this? Who wants this? Who wants to be happy? Who wants to live a good life? Can’t you see it’s all an illusion? The good life that you’re yearning for?
Where we have uninterrupted happiness and peace and joy, there is no such life.
Where would it come from?
Yet the opposite does not exist either. In other words there is no evil in this world.
Evil does not exist. There are no problems. Opposites do not exist. Nothing exists. I don’t exist and you don’t exist. So why are we having this dialogue, this conversation? Why am I talking? Who is talking? Who is the teacher and who is the student? Who is dead and who is alive? Who is happy and who is sad? Find out, inquire and then ask, “Who is inquiring?” If you go through this you will find that you don’t exist whatsoever.
Yet the appearance is very strong with some people. The appearance of death, sickness, lack, limitation. The appearance of happiness, fortune, joy, peace. They’re all part of duality. All part of the nonsense of this universe, the Leela, the Maya. And yet the Leela and the Maya do not exist either.
I’m trying to take everything away from you as you can see. Everything that you ever believed. Every concept you ever had. Every idea that you had of getting enlightened, becoming free, becoming liberated. Every idea and belief of thinking that you’re not liberated. That you have to get liberated. All of these things I’m trying to remove from your thinking patterns and then you remove your thinking patterns. You have to leave yourself empty, totally empty. To be totally fulfilled you’ve got to be totally empty first.
You have to look at your past and say, “Forget it.” The past is dead. Forget about all the mistakes you made, the rough times you had. The people who abused you, hurt you. The people who have loved, fed you, gave birth to you. This is all in the past. As far as you’re concerned it never happened because you can’t bring it back now. It’s only a memory.
And what is the future? The future is part of your false imagination. You see into the future whatever you think you are. But for who is there a future? For who is there a past? For whom is there a present? There is nothing to hold onto. Never forget this. You have absolutely nothing to hold onto just empty space, boundless space.
Is there something beyond boundless space? Is there something else? What about all this bliss I hear about? The unalloyed happiness I hear about? The total joy that an enlightened person feels? How do you know what an enlightened person feels? You imagine all these things. There is no difference in you believing that an enlightened person feels unalloyed happiness, bliss and joy and the old fashion people who believe they are going to go to heaven and sing songs for the rest of their lives. There is no difference.
Stop mapping things out. Stop thinking the way things should be, what you’d like.
Everything happens by itself. It doesn’t need any help from you. Who do you think you are trying to help the infinite know itself. Things begin to happen when you drop everything. Things begin to you happen when you don’t want anything. When you stop searching. When you stop planning. When you stop being afraid. When you have no desires.
Then things begin to happen.
What happens?
What happens is beyond time and space. So how can I tell you. What happens is beyond words and thoughts. So how can I explain it to you? What happens is so vastly different from what you’ve imagined that if it came to you all of a sudden you wouldn’t be able to contain it, you would blow up to pieces. You would leave your body totally, completely if you were able to grasp it right now. Suffice it to say what happens when you reach reality it’s different than anything you could ever imagine. Just different. It’s different than the stories you’ve read. It’s different to what words tell you. It’s different than anything you can ever imagine or be. There is no words to describe it.
Yet when this happens to you, it’s already happened to you but you don’t know it you will just be the entire universe. So you’ll be all pervading consciousness. You’ll be the mountains, the sky, the plants, the animals, the people this would be you. It’s difficult to fathom this in your present state. How can I be the animals and the people and the mountains and the sky? Yet you are already that now. That’s what you already are, right now.
Therefore develop a good disposition. Develop loving kindness. Develop peaceful attitudes. This is the way it begins.
Unfortunately many of us have not gone through the beginning stages. We want someone to touch us, to look at us, to illumine us and we go on everyday being the same old me, me, me we’ve always been.You should imagine that you’re already enlightened. How would you act then?
How would you act towards people, towards places, towards things if you’re already awakened? Intellectually you have an idea. The first thing you do is realize that everything is you. So how would you treat yourself? You know that the way you treat others is the way you treat yourself. How you react to people, places and things is the way you react to yourself. But there is only the one Self and you are that. Even knowing this intellectually is very good for it makes you a better person. You stop wanting and desiring trying to become something. Rather you give yourself away completely. You surrender completely.
There is one very important way in which to alleviate all problems, alleviate all error, alleviate all ignorance and find your true Self. And that way is to love yourself. To really love yourself. It sounds easy but try it it’s not easy to totally and completely love yourself just the way you are. When you begin to love yourself this way you automatically rise to a higher state of consciousness. For you’re loving the Self when you love yourself.
You are really loving the one Self which is omnipresent and all pervading. Therefore when you love yourself you love everything that exists. Nothing is left out of that love. Nothing.
And this is what raises your consciousness. This is what transforms you. Forget about being enlightened, awakening. That will take care of itself.
But see how you react everyday. Look at the things that disturb you, make you angry, upset. If you realize that you are a God would you become upset over anything?
Would you react to anything? Would you become depressed and disillusioned and feel strange about anything? Of course not. For being in God you’re everywhere present, you’re all pervading. Everything is you. So if you’re upset over anything you’re upset over yourself. Be happy, allow yourself to be happy. For no reason whatsoever.
It is erroneous to believe that if you get something you like then you’ll be happy.
For you know by now how it works. When you wish to attain something. Say you want to buy a new car. You save your money to buy a new car. You’re striving to save the money.
Your mind is always on this new car that you want to buy. Then you finally have enough money to buy the car and you feel happy. But what is really happy? Is it the car that has made you happy? Of course not. It is the mind that achieved its goal. When the mind achieves its goal it rests in the heart, it goes back into the heart and the heart center is really pure happiness. So happiness ensues. Yet you are saying that it is the car that made you happy. It’s not the car at all. It’s the mind going back into the heart that the happiness came from.
Think about this. When the mind returns to the heart center then happiness ensues all by itself. So the person who intellectually knows what I’m talking about realize that if you can make the mind go back into the heart without any effort, without anythings whatsoever without any desires, without any wants then the same feeling will come if they had something they wanted to buy or needed and they achieved it. In other words you can
fulfill yourself and be happy without anything whatsoever. By allowing the mind to go back into the heart where it belongs then the Self ensues and you’re happy. Totally happy.
But most people think that people, places and things make them happy. But you can tell if you go back in retrospect this doesn’t work that way. For when you’ve achieved your desire how long does it last before you become unhappy again and looking for something new again?
Take for instance the example of human love. You meet someone new you fall in love with the person and you’ve got to have that person. That is all you can think about, that person, day and night. The time comes when you get that person and you live together and get married whatever. The mind has gone back into the heart and you’ve achieved what you wanted. But as time passes it changes. You take the person for granted.
It’s not the same anymore. The mind has come way out again. It’s come back out. The mind has become active again looking for something else. Wanting something new. And then you become miserable until you get something new.
So the average person goes through this day after day, week after week, month after month. Always believing they have to have this, they have to have that. If they have certain things they will be really happy if they don’t they won’t. What a waste of energy, what a waste of life.
Know for sure that happiness is your birth right, you already have it, you possess it, it’s yours. Bliss is your birth right, you already have it, you possess it, it’s yours. It has nothing to do with person, place and thing. Your real nature is Brahman which is consciousness all pervading absolute reality. This is your real Self. This is what you are.
Awaken to yourself. Now. Be yourself. Peace.
Feel free to ask questions, to make statements.
Fred (SF): I have something that I want to check on. It’s kind of heavy so I wrote it down. (R: Okay Henry.) Sir? (R: That’s good Frederick.) Because I get confused sometimes when I think of these things. Anyway this is what I put down. This psychosomatic apparatus known as Fred Barnell, has a role to play in this cosmic dance, this Leela, and is no more real and no less real and in no way separate from the other players such as Billy Graham or Charlie Manson or Jesus or Judas or Dr Schwartzer or Adolf Hitler? That’s hope?
R: You are all of these people. They’re all you and you are them. You’re not any different than anybody. But why think about those things? Why not put… (SF: They are mental concepts that are valueless.) That Fred, Fred Barnell doesn’t exist. Who is Fred Barnell? It’s a person who has a name called Fred Barnell. But who are you for real? Who are you truly? Are you really Fred Barnell? (SF: Something other than that.) You’re way way different from Fred Barnell. Do not think of yourself as Fred Barnell. Do not think of yourself as anybody or anything. Just do not think at all. And what you are will come out by itself and you will begin to shine. Fred will be gone to the garbage dump. And you really won’t… (SH: Congratulations!) …come back. (SF: Sir?) You really will be there. The real Self what you are really is already shining, is already there you are that now. Love yourself. SR: Robert? (R: A voice in back of my head.) (laughter) Robert why do you say, “Love yourself,” instead of saying, “love the Self?”
R: Because if I say, “Love the Self,” you won’t know what to love. If I say, “Love the Self,” how can you love the Self when you believe you are a human being? That’s virtually impossible. So when I say, “Love yourself,” when you love yourself the way you are automatically you rise in consciousness and become the real Self. (SR: I see.) But it begins by loving yourself just the way you are. (SR: So you’re saying to love the body-mind self and that in turn will lead you to the higher Self?) Yes, but when you love your body-mind self do not think about being your body-mind self or about your sins of omission or commission or your past or future, don’t see yourself as a body at all but love yourself just the same. Love yourself without outlining. Love yourself without judgment. Love yourself the way you are in this moment. When you get up in the morning look in the mirror and say, “I love you Self. I love my Self.” Do not think who your Self is. Or you’ll come up with the human self. Do not go into your past or your future or the present. Just be there loving your self.
And loving your self this way will take care of everything else.
But if you begin to say, “I love myself,” and your mind brings up all kinds of episodes in your life then you’ll hate yourself. That is not the way to do it. Love yourself without qualification and then your higher Self will come into play.
(silence)
Mary would you like to read the Jnani?
Mary (SM): Yes Robert I would.
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to beginning of this book)
R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.)
R: Announcements?
SE: No satsang on Saturday.
Mary (SM): Right. No satsang on Saturdays any more for a while and there will be no satsang on Wednesday, oh no, on Thursday it’ll be on Wednesday…
(Announcements continue)
R: Anything else we should talk about or forever hold your peace.
It is time for prashad. We have a shopping bag full of goodies. (laughter) (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.