– Transcript 214
R: (tape starts abruptly) …and salutations. It’s good to be with you again.
Happy holidays. The holidays are over. The holidays is dead, we’re still here alive.
I brought a picture for you of yourself in the future. Here it is. (students laugh) SH: Thanks a lot.
R: This is you. This is what is going to happen to you whether you like it or not.
(laughter) You’re going to look exactly like this. (more laughter) No matter what you do or don’t do. No matter whether you’re happy or sad, rich or poor, sick or healthy, you’re still going to turn into a bag of bones. This is what happens to the average person. That is what I have to look forward to but if you would only go within yourself and know the truth about yourself then this becomes a mirage. When you discover you have eternal life that you’ve never been born, you can never die, when you discover bliss is your real nature, bliss. You were meant to be blissed out every second of the day. Happiness, true happiness that does not involve person, place or thing. When you understand this truth you become free in it. And you will always be alive, always. The body becomes like a bubble in the ocean. Bubbles come bubbles go, bodies come bodies go, here today gone tomorrow.
Many of you want to have fun all day, enjoy things. There is nothing wrong with that but it must come to end. Everything comes to an end. All of your enjoyments, all of your pleasures. Everything you’ve earned, worked for, strived for comes to an end. Everything must end.
When you’re sort of young you don’t think about these things. You think about having fun all the time, enjoying, holding on to the world making something of yourself.
Well you’ve made something of yourself, you’ve made a mess of yourself. By believing you are the mind. By believing you are living in reality. Whereas in truth the only reality is the reality you don’t know. The reality that is beyond time and space, beyond worlds, bodies. But you cannot taste this reality that I’m speaking of unless you virtually give up your life. I don’t mean you have to kill yourself. I mean give up the life that you’re living, mentally. Stop believing that the life that you’re living is important, that there’s something you have to do, something you have to accomplish. Your true life is within. The real world is within yourself. Free of all pain, sorrow. Free of man’s inhumanity to man. Free of everything.
There is a world like that you know. A real world, that is full of happiness and joy and peace. A world that has no beginning and no end. That world is you! You are that! But we’re going about it the wrong way, most of us. I have been receiving a lot of telephone calls from Santa Cruz during the holidays.
Santa Cruz must be completely enlightened because everybody that calls me from there tells me they’re enlightened. (Students laugh) This has been going on for about two or three years. They want a confirmation for their enlightenment. I usually give the same answer. I say, “If there is anybody looking for confirmation, kill that somebody. Who needs a confirmation? Does the Self need a confirmation? The ego wants a confirmation.”
But last night I got a call from Santa Cruz from a lady who got a hold of my transcript. And she tells me, “Robert for twenty-five years I’ve been reading Advaita Vedanta.
I’ve read everything there is to read, everything, every book. I sit in meditation four times a day. I travel the world. Met all the Jnanis. Seen all the holy places but nothing has happened.” This is what I told her and this important for us too. I told her, “You are doing everything backwards. The more you read, the more knowledge you gain. And who profits by this? The ego, every book that you read gives you more intelligence. Who has intelligence? The ego, every time you think you have to meditate, it is the ego that is meditating. Does the Self have to meditate? Does reality have to meditate on reality? All of the gurus you’ve seen, everything that you’ve done has actually put you back in time, not forward but back.”
The whole idea in Advaita Vedanta is to remove everything we’ve ever learnt. To get rid of all the things we’ve learnt, not to add to it. Not to add new knowledge to the old knowledge, but to become like little children so-to-speak. We do not wish to know something, we wish to know nothing. How can you know nothing when you’re reading and reading and reading or when you’re meditating your life away?
When you’re searching for new teachers all the time, all you are doing is filling yourself up with knowledge, more knowledge and more knowledge and more knowledge.
The only thing that could happen to you is you become a walking encyclopedia. You’ll be able to cite aphorisms, sutras, if you have a good memory you’ll memorize the bible backwards and you’ll have a lot to say. This is the mistake most of us make.
A true spiritual aspirant hardly has anything to say. There is no one to debate. Nobody to argue points of spirituality. No one to say, “I’m right or you’re right. This is right and this is wrong.” A true spiritual aspirant is very quiet, very still. Does not make a lot of waves but watches, looks and does nothing. Everything that has to be done will be done through the person. It’s so easy to live a life like this. It’s so easy to be still and allow the power that knows the way to move you in the right direction, to lead you. You do not have to raise a finger. And there is absolutely nothing that you have to do.
Why will you not trust yourself and stop fighting? Stop having a battle within yourself. Leave yourself alone. Remember I told you before you have to learn to love yourself? To really really love yourself. If you can really love yourself you can trust yourself. Go easy on yourself. Develop loving kindness, compassion.
A Sage is with you for a very short time, so take advantage of it. If you’re fortunate enough to be with a Sage realize that you’ve earned the privilege sometime, somehow.
Perhaps in a previous life or something you’ve done before. If you really follow what I’m telling you something wonderful will happen to you, you will find that you are the Sage yourself. You are the Sage that you’ve always been looking for. It’s you! Who else can it be.
Me? Don’t look at me, I am simply your image, you have created me. You have created me in your own image, in your own likeness. This is the only reason I appear to exist. I am your creation. What are you going to do with me? It’s up to you.
Life is never what it appears to be. Everything is Maya, yet Maya is also beautiful.
Do not hate Maya. Work with Maya by not reacting to things but enjoying its beauty and love and peace. The whole thing may be a dream but enjoy the dream. Pick out the good things of the dream and think of them. Ignore the bad things.
Learn to be still. When I say, “Learn to be still I’m not referring to meditate.” Remember when you meditate there has to be a subject and an object. When I say, “To be still,” just be still. Be still, do not think of anything special. Just be still, quiet. I’m not speaking of being still over here alone, in everyday life.
Think of all the noise that some of you made this morning as you got out of bed, the talking, the arguing, the mind chattering. That is what I’m referring to, be still. You can talk to your mind this way, tell your mind to “be still!” When your mind begins to chatter say, “Be still!” When the mind starts telling you all kind of things about somebody else say, “Be still!” When the mind brings things of the past say, “Be still!” That’s all you have to do.
You are the power. You can still the mind if you really want to, just by telling it to be still.
There is absolutely nothing in this world to be excited about, nothing. For everything must change. Therefore if you become excited about something in this world you become confused, disillusioned, upset, for all things are subject to the law of change.
Rather go within. If you can really go within you will feel a peace which passeth all understanding, divine joy and this peace and joy will become your world. You will see it wherever you look, wherever you go. Remember the only thing you see in this world is yourself, nothing else. Wherever you look you see yourself. If you don’t like what you see change yourself. Nothing wants to hurt you. Nothing wants to cause you pain.
What are the signs of a true spiritual Master? A real Master. A real Jnani. What are signs to look for?
Number One: A true Sage avoids name and fame like the plague. If a Sage has transcended the ego why would he or she need name or fame? If a Sage claims to be enlightened why would that being want to be known? To have a following, to write books, to advertise, to go into magazines, television. Can you imagine a real Master doing something like that? For what purpose? If you inquire of a person like this they would say, “Well I’m here to help people.” Bullshit! The only way to help other people is to become self-realized and leave everything alone. Why a self-realized person is all pervading, omnipresent and automatically people find peace by the person being self-realized. You don’t even have to be in the proximity of a saint, a Sage, a real Master. There is no reason being in close proximity to a person like that. That being is all pervading, everywhere present.Such a one has found total peace within the Self. They’re not looking for anything. They’re not looking for students to impress, followers to follow them. They avoid this like the plague. The only reason you see me around every week is because I’ve got a contagious disease. So think about this. A real Sage needs absolutely nothing from people. It is true where devotees gather devotees take care of the Sage. This is a different story. But a Sage feels at home wherever he or she lives wherever they go. A Sage can be happy in a cave or in a mansion, makes no difference. It makes a difference to the onlookers. They always see something wrong and talk about it. But a true Sage is total freedom, totally happy within himself.
Number Two: A true Sage has a great compassion for humanity and is filled with loving kindness automatically. Total compassion! A Sage never says, “I have come to bring you peace,” or “I have come to destroy you.” A true Sage does not come from anywhere.
He’s always been here. There is nowhere for him to come from, to bring you anything. The Sage and the peace go hand in hand. The real Sage is the peace and the joy and the happiness and the love and the understanding and the compassion. So he really has nothing to say, nothing to do. A true Sage is a lazy fellow, real lazy. He has trouble blinking. He just exists, so-it-appears, to other people that he exists.
Number Three: A real Sage never gets angry. Never has tantrum…tremors, tempers.
Never becomes excited over anything except in certain cases. When a Sage is dealing with disciples, devotees, sometimes the Sage has to put on a little act for the person, because this is what the person needs at the time. This is why it is written, “Never judge a Sage.”
You have no idea what the Sage is going to do or how he is going to act. What this means is you have to make sure the Sage is real. If you feel the Sage is real then you have to sort of throw yourself at the Sage. By “throw yourself at the Sage” I mean you must come into the sage’s consciousness and trust the Sage forever without judgment, without criticism.
Yet most westerners are not ready to do something like this, because there are so many people claiming to be Sages in town it’s difficult to know what to do. But if you pray within yourself, to yourself, you will know what to do. Everyday you have to remember your real nature, you have to remember who you are. That you are pure awareness. You are the absolute reality which is like boundless space. The only difference between boundless space and absolute reality, in absolute reality there is consciousness. Consciousness is like boundless space. It is everywhere present and all the images are only superimpositions on consciousness. Your body is only an image. It is not the truth about you. It is an image. It is an image on boundless space. This means it doesn’t exist. It appears to exist but it doesn’t. Just by remembering these things that I’m sharing with you will free you.
Start your day off this way by remembering who you are. You can say this to yourself, “I am not this body who runs around all over the world. I am not this body who has problems. I am not this body that sees things wrong. I am not this body at all. I never was this body. I am that which has always been and that which will always be. That which has never been born. That which never dies. Eternal, self sufficient, I am that!” You have so
many years left on this earth in this body so-to-speak what are you doing with them in the days, the weeks, the months, the years. If you’re running around looking for material gain you’re wasting your time. If you’re looking to make yourself happy physically you’re wasting your energy. I can assure you, you will be wonderfully happy if you go within the Self and try to understand who you are, then you will really be happy. You will have unknown happiness that you never believed existed. You are the one and there is no other.
You are the one that has always been and will always be. See yourself that way. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. The reason you feel sorry for yourself is because you think of the past and the future. If you will only stop thinking, all of your sorrows would end so-to-speak. Everything will come to a screeching halt if you shut your mind.
So for those of you who are taking news year resolutions, as a result of this year you will find illumination. You will find total freedom this year. This year you will be completely free and liberated. This is the year for liberation. Some of you are making excellent progress. By going to lunch with you and talking to you I see where you’re coming from and you’re doing very well. You’re disappearing. You are coming into your own.
Everything is unfolding as it should. Have faith in your Self. Enjoy your Self. Trust your Self. Love your Self. Be at peace.
(Robert plays a song on tape)
It’s time to play stump the guru. Do we have any stumpers?
Mary (SM): We have one. (R: One stumper.) (SH: Maybe this will do it. Hallelujah! (laughs)) (Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: Dear Robert what is logic? (there is another thing) What is organization? (what’s the next word)? And if they don’t exist can they have any significance? Logic is the first and organization is the next. Communication is I think, the next.
A: Who needs to be logical? Does the Self need to be logical? Does the reality which we really are need to be logical? If we only try to remember that these are only words and you’ve associated the words with feelings, certain feelings. You want to be logical. Why do you want to be logical? For what reason? To impress somebody? So you get ahead in life? Does humanity really need logic? Rather understand who you really are.
Discover your true nature and logic will take care of itself in its proper place. But your job is not to be logical. Be yourself! When you are yourself logic comes into play by itself also.
And you may do certain things and people may say you’re logical but you know nothing of these things. Logical or illogical they’re all the same, there is no difference. Discover who you are and then see if a question like that comes into play. What’s the next word?
Q: Oh, Organization and communication?
A: What are these words to you? Organization, communication, what are these words for? What do they do? Who wants to organize? Who wants to communicate? The ego, it’s always the ego that wants to do all of these things. The ego wants recognition. It wants to act intelligent. So you can applaud it, appease it. It wants to communicate so you can have a relationship with people. But it’s still the ego and the ego is never your friend.The ego exists only to confuse you and confound you. That is why it appears to exist. But to whom does the ego exist? Only to the mind, so we’re back to basics again.
Destroy the mind by not thinking about it. If you do not think about the mind it becomes weaker and weaker and finally it’s totally annihilated. When there is no longer a mind logic will be unnecessary, communication is unnecessary, everything is unnecessary.
For everything works by itself. It takes care of itself, in its own time and in its own place.
That is why I emphasize so much, turn into yourself. Turn within to yourself. Never try to solve your problems. You cannot do it, rather know yourself, be yourself and see if any problems disturb you at all. What I say to you sometimes seems to be ludicrous, nonsensical, but yet if you do it, if you try it, you will see if it’s nonsensical. If you would only turn within yourself and stop trying to change other people or change conditions or change behavior patterns. Leave these things alone. Be yourself! Love yourself! Worship yourself!
And then see what happens to you. (pause) Is that all the questions? (SM: Yes.) SB: Robert does the mind have any legitimate role in this life at all?
R: To confound you and confuse you. That is the only reason it exists. It exists because of the senses, taste, touch, feel, smell and hear. You need a mind to do these things. But if the mind is destroyed, so-to-speak then reality ensues. Reality is love, loving kindness, compassion, joy, peace, happiness, the true Self. This is what the universe really is. Not what it appears to be. Never judge by appearances, this means you should never judge any human being. No matter if you think you’re wrong or right whatever. You have no…you can’t judge it, you have no right to. The rapist, the murderer, you cannot judge these people. It’s not for you to judge these people at all. Everything will take care of itself.
If you judge something you become that something yourself because you have your mind embellished in it and you become…you begin to think this way. So try to be still. Quiet the mind. Do not search for anything. Do not try to become anything. You will become what you have to become, everything will happen by itself. (dog whimpers) Yeah you believe me. Toku believes me. My best dog, Toku. Anyone have anything else to say?
SH: Why would the Self want to appear anything other than it is?
R: I told you that before Henry. The Self doesn’t want to do anything. (SH: Yeah, but it’s coming on like it isn’t.) It’s not coming on at all. (SH: But it appears to come on.) To whom does it appears to you to come on. (SH: Well, to you too.) Why to me? (SH: I don’t know. You have senses as well as I.) How do you know? (laughter) (SH: I can see you’re stumbling around, you’re getting there.) People tell me all the time I have no sense. (SH: Well, there is a point there too.) (laughs) It’s all an hallucination. (SH: Huh?) It’s an hallucination. (SH: I know but why? Why hallucinate? What’s the point?) There is no point. You think you’re hallucinating.
SH: And when I come straight out with it and not vary from what really is all along, why the illusion?
R: To whom is the illusion? (SH: To he who sees it.) Who sees it? (SH: You do.) How do you know? (laughter) (SH: Because you’re not blind, you can see what is going on.) I see
what’s going on and I don’t see what’s going on also. (SH: Yeah.) I see and I don’t see at the same time. (SH: That’s a new trick.) (laughs)
Fred (SF): I thought something kind of interesting. The disciple asked the Master, “Do we live in the same world?” and the Master said, “Yes we do but the difference is that you see yourself in the world and I see the world in my self.”
R: Umm. That’s good Fred. (SF: It reminded me of the time when I was telling you how frightened I was at the riots and explosions and all and I said ??? and you said they were in me.) Umm. Which means? (SF: They weren’t real.) Exactly. This world is very funny, you’re always seeing your self wherever you look. All of the riots, the dastardly things going on in this world, in this city of Los Angeles, are your creation. Where else would they come from. Collectively we’re all thinking certain things, seeing certain things this is why many of us appear to see the same things ??? We appear to see nonsense and goodness and badness and all kinds of things. We appear to see these things because we’re all collectively thinking the same thoughts. Step out of the crowd. Be yourself.
SY: Robert if everyone was enlightened would the world dissolve?
R: If everyone was enlightened there wouldn’t be a world to begin with. There would be no world to dissolve. (SY: Then it would dissolve?) It wouldn’t dissolve because it never existed. So nothing would dissolve. There would be nothing to dissolve. (SY: Well if we created the world then if we had been our ego then the world would dissolve wouldn’t it?) You only create the world with your mind. What you’re saying is to go beyond the mind. (SY: Then the world would dissolve?) There is no world to dissolve beyond the mind. The world exists only because the mind exists or appears to exist. So if the mind is made still then you will see the world never existed and there is no world. There is absolutely nothing to dissolve. Dissolving only comes from the mind. No mind, no dissolving. Sorry about that.
SB: Robert in the Jnani you say you see the world how the appearance has an appearance in consciousness but it appears that you can’t… (R: Change?) …eliminate like?
R: Yes. If I were able to eliminate this whole world and didn’t see the world, I wouldn’t be here any more. What you call this body sees exactly what you see and doesn’t see exactly what you see at the same time. It sees and does not see. Whereas you see it and you accept it. There is nothing in me to say not to accept it and there is nothing to say I should accept it. It’s as if I’m looking at a dream. I’m 100% sure and certain that I know the dream does not exist. But I know that I’m in the dream, as a body. The body appears to be a part of the dream. But I’m always aware it’s a dream, all the time. But you forget it’s a dream and you react to it. That’s the only difference. (SB: You know it’s a dream by comparison to some other reality, right?) No, no comparison whatsoever.
SB: So if you’re abiding in consciousness so you’re abiding in the real, noticing the dream as a dream. So you have something to compare it to. Whereas we’re just abiding in the dream and we’re not abiding in consciousness. We’re unconscious of being consciousness, you’re conscious of being consciousness.R: Not quite. There is only consciousness. I’m aware that there is only consciousness that is what I’m aware of. The rest I’m not aware of, but it appears.
SH: You’re not aware of the appearance?
R: I’m aware of the appearance but not as you are aware of the appearance. I’m not aware at all of anything but I see the appearance. (SH: You see it differently than we do?) I see it like you do. (SH: You see it as illusion?) But I don’t see at all. (SH: Don’t see it at all?) Yet I see it. (SH: That is quite contradictory. You see it but you don’t see it?) (laughter) Exactly. Now you got it, that’s it. (laughter) (SH: You’re nuts.) (laughter) Thank you. (SH: You’re welcome.
That’s my final conclusion.) (laughter) That is a compliment, thank you. (SH: Yes it is.) SB: Did you say you see it through awareness. Through a different position?
R: No you can’t say that at all because there is nobody left to see it like that. (SB: There is no duality to be separate from? And yet it appears and if it appears there seems to be two but you know that it is only one.) (laughter) You’re getting close. I see it and I don’t see it and there is no definition. There are no words. There is nothing to say. (SB: Would it be like we were dreaming and there was a part of us that was inspecting the dream and we knew we were dreaming?) No. (laughter) (SG: Nice try though.) It’s so different than what you can imagine.
S: You always create a duality and that is where we get off on the wrong foot.
R: Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t say a word. (SH: And you aren’t coming from a dualistic position.) But I have to talk to you. (SH: But that is your tough luck.) (laughs) I know.
I can sit here and say nothing. And you’ll say, “Robert never tells us anything.” So I talk about these things that don’t exist. It’s okay. All is well. (SH: But you never see it as divided as…) No I don’t. (SH: It’s always monistic, it’s always whole and one?) Yes and no. (SH: Okay, confuse me further.) I just see. (SH: What do you see?) Nothing.
SH: Nothing. Trust you to take care of it that way. (students laugh) You always wind up wiping out the universe.
R: It never existed to begin with. (SH: Umm, well.) So you’ve got to wipe it out, in the end. (SH: Uh-huh. A new trick if it would work.) A new trick if you can do it? And you can do it if you try. (SH: Wiping out the universe is wiping out your own mind.) Of course.
Now you’ve got it. (SH: Yeah but it’s a boot strap operation and no one to do it.) Why do you always want to do something, do nothing. (SH: There is no one to do something or nothing.) And nothing. So do it. (laughter) (SH: Uh-oh.You’re seeping back in I thought we got rid of you.) SB: I think that is the hardest thing in the world to do, nothing. Nobody can do it. (R: Try it.) The hardest thing in the world. I tried to pay somebody to do nothing for me and they didn’t accept it.
R: Really? You didn’t offer him enough, pay him more. (laughter) SH: Try me. (SB: Yeah right.) You know you’ll lose your money fast. (SB: You just pretend Henry.) And you? (SB: If you could really do nothing you’d be sitting over there.) No way.
R: Henry doesn’t want that burden. (SH: No thanks.) Everything is beautiful.
SL: I agree. That as you said the riots scared Fred, the riots came from Fred. Is that what I understand what you said?
R: Fred is responsible for the whole thing. (laughter) (SL: There is no creation though?
Nothing is created?) You’re right. (SL: And yet Fred created this fear in his mind? As a response?) Yes. (SL: So, fear is created in some and fear and joy is created at other times in other people.) Fear and joy come out of the mind. When the mind goes there is no fear, there is no joy. (SL: Then there only appears to be creation, huh?) Yeah that is all an appearance. Even Fred is an appearance. He wants you to think he is real. You’re not real Fred you’re an appearance.
Fred’s pondering that.
Fred (SF): We react differently. Some people will be scared to death by the riots, others wouldn’t.
Each of us reacts differently according to our own make up. (R: Yes.) We have different tastes, different conditioning.) (R: But go beyond all that.) SB: Robert does human love ever become divine love? What I mean by that is consciousness. Divine love in terms of consciousness. Do you go through human love for it to become divine love consciousness or do you have to completely transcend human love?
R: Human love is sort of a step in the right direction. It is an inkling, a glimpse of what divine love is all about. But it’s a part of the material world. So naturally you’ve got to give it up. Yet if you can love enough you will be the divine love that you’re expressing.
I was speaking of the average person who just loves something because they can get something from it for their own self aggrandizement. When most people love why do they love? For their own benefit. So they can get something for themselves. They want something in order to be happy. They want to have joy, peace. But if they really love they would love everybody and everything. So human love is step in that direction. It gives you a glimpse of what divine love really is, it’s a thousand times greater. Millions of times more intense. (SB: So through that, through human love and then toward divine love the ego would be transcended eventually.) Yes. But love is the highest quality we have as humans so-to-speak.
If we could only love enough we would totally transcend the body.
Fred (SF): Christians say God is love. (R: Umm.) Oneness, no separation. (R: Exactly. But who is God.) Just a word.
R: It’s your Self! So you are love, keep loving.
(silence)
Let’s sit in the profound silence for a while. Just be still. If your mind attacks you just look at it. In a loving way just leave it alone. Don’t try to stop your thoughts, change your thoughts. Just be still. Be quiet. Do not think of anything in particular. Become aware of the thoughts that come to you. Just watch them. Do not give them any attention or change them, do no not try to change them. Just be yourself.
(long silence 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.