– Transcript 215
R: Om shanti shanti shanti om, peace.
Good afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. It is good to be with you once again. I love all of you just the way you are. All is well.
Many people still ask me, “Robert will I be enlightened in this life or do I have to go through many lives? Will I awaken in this life? Will I become free in this life or do I have to go on playing games like everybody else, making believe, when will I awaken?”
And it’s very funny to me. My answer is never! You’ll never awaken! It’s like the water in the mirage asking, “When will I become real water? How long do I have to be a mirage?
When will I become the real water?” Of course it will never become the real water. For the mirage can never become anything but a mirage. It will always be a mirage. So it is with us. What you are can never be anything else. For you do not exist as a body at all. And if you do not exist as a body what can become self-realized? In other words you have nothing to become self-realized with. You cannot become self-realized it’s impossible. Forget about it. Don’t even think of it.
Self-realization has absolutely nothing to do with your body or your thoughts or your mind or your practices or your sadhanas or anything else. Self-realization is the ultimate reality. It is the pure awareness, the nirvana and that doesn’t exist either. So what exists? There is no answer. For what exists can never be known with a finite mind. This is why we do the work from where we are. We do not think about becoming self-realized or becoming liberated. We simply wonder who we are. We just ask ourselves, “Where does this body come from? What appears to be a body?” And we compare it to the water in the mirage. It’s an hallucination. It has no validity. In other words you have no existence whatsoever.
You have never had an existence. Nothing exists. Yet we appear to exist. So what to do? Nothing, there is nothing you can do about it. That’s just the way it is. Do not try to change it. Stay the way you are and keep still. That is the best thing you can do. Be happy just the way you are. Of course the only way you can be happy is by keeping still and not reacting to things, by leaving everything alone and being yourself. When I say, “Being yourself,” I mean being you the way you are right now, nothing else. The world of reality exists by itself. It just is.
There is nothing you can do to change anything. Do not try to change anything.
Do not work on yourself. For every time you’re working on yourself you are emphasizing that you’re the self, the mortal self that needs to be worked at. Just be yourself the way you are right now, in this moment. I’m not saying to be your self last week or to be your self a week from now. Be yourself right this moment, this second, this instant and you’ll be safe.
Do not concern yourself how to be the self. Do not concern yourself what you have to do to be the self. Don’t even wonder what it is to be the self. Just be!
Do not question it. Do not try to understand it. You will always be the way you are, nothing will can ever change that. So you might as well get on with that and be happy.
Suffering comes when you try to change yourself. Suffering ensues when you try to develop moksha, liberation. When you try to transcend yourself, then you suffer. For you are trying to attain something that doesn’t exist and it hurts.
Isn’t it wonderful not to do anything. Never try to attain a thing or become anything else. What about pain, what about lack and limitation, what about poverty. What about the rest of these things that exist? It’s all part of life. Do not try to get rid of it. Look at it, accept it, be happy with it and leave it alone.
What I’m really saying is, “Get your mind off yourself.” Stop thinking about yourself. Stop thinking about anybody else. Whatever is supposed to come to you will come to you. Whatever you are supposed to have you will have. Wherever you have to go you will go. You have absolutely nothing to do with it. So why not enjoy where you are right this moment. Stop trying to change things. The very trying makes them worse. The body that you’re wearing right now is an hallucination. You are not that person whatsoever. But because you appear as that person you go through many experiences of what that person has to go through. Do not fight it. Do not try to change it. Leave everything alone. You’ll be very surprised at what happens if you leave everything alone. But when you try to change bad for good you’re fighting a losing battle for it cannot be done.
You may tell me of people who have used their mind to achieve things in the world, to heal themselves of disease, to heal themselves of lack or limitation, to become powerful beings through thinking. Those things are only changes, temporary changes. Do not try to be a human being. Go beyond that. You go beyond that by doing nothing. Yet some of you do not understand and think you have to sit down like a lump and do nothing on the contrary. When you’re doing nothing you’re doing something. Something is being done. Something will always be done by you. Yet at the same time nothing is being done. So the question is, “Is something being done or is nothing being done?” and there is no answer. What do you want to achieve and why do you wish to achieve those things?
Only for your self aggrandizement. An animal leads a normal life. It cannot think like we do. It goes through its life and when it’s time to leave their life it leaves it peacefully, happily. But as human beings we fight, trying to live forever. Trying to maintain the same beauty we’ve always had, the same happiness, the same joy. This is all a waste of energy.
All is well, just the way it is. You are perfect just the way you are. There is nothing that you have to do. There is no one you have to please. There is no God that you have to appease. You are the one. All of these ideas that are going through your mind of people, places, things, Gods, are all you. You are creating everything. Everything that you can
think about you’re creating. Everything comes out of yourself. Just like you’re dreaming.
The mistake we make is we try to awaken from the dream, the mortal dream, from this dream. Yet who is to awaken from it? The person that wants to awaken doesn’t exist. Do you see what I’m saying? Nothing exists that has to do anything. The person who wants to be free does not exist, has never existed. The person who is looking for moksha does not exist. Then again what does exist? Total silence exists. Pure profound silence. Never try to comprehend these things. For you’re using the mind, you’re using the cells that are the mind, that are connected to the cells of the universe and you make your life miserable by doing this.
There is no difference between you and a tree or a mountain, a sky or the ocean.
The whole universe is composed of hydrogen atoms. So you’re nothing but a hydrogen atom. How does it feel to be a hydrogen atom? (SB: Hydrogenating.) (laughter) See how you mind begins to think? It’s difficult for most of you to stay silent. You are not required to understand a thing I say. I speak utter nonsense. It’s all nonsense and some of you are taking it in so profoundly like it’s important.
Who are you really? I have no idea? If you have an idea of who you are you’ve got a problem. For you’re not that at all. Again we go back to the beginning when I opened up this sentence. Who thinks they’re something. You can never be anything. The you that you think you are can never be a thing. Always remember this. The you can never become anything. The only freedom you really have is to be still and quiet and that is the only freedom you’ve got. To be totally quiet. Everything else is an hallucination, a lie. So most of you want me to sit here and tell you lies. Stop worrying. Stop fretting. Stop believing something can happen to you, to hurt you. What you are was never born. It knows nothing of birth. The one that knows about birth and death doesn’t exist.
So here we are together again. Why do you come here? If you have a reason for coming here it’s the wrong reason. There is no reason for doing anything at all.
(long silence)
(Tape stops and restarts for questions. No questions as Robert remarks) R: What a bunch! (SB: We’ve given up trying to stump the guru.) R: Feel free to ask anything.
Glen (SG): Well that’s the question. (laughter) Is there a question that can be asked where the answer to it is not in the same category as the question asked?
R: Every question you ask has its own answer in the categories that we have in our mind. Is we put categories on questions. Therefore when you ask a question it has an answer. The answer may be in the same category asked because it is the only category there is. Put them in a category. There is only one question one category, it’s all the same. There is nothing else.
SE: What’s the number on your drivers license? (laughter) (R: I don’t have one.) SG: Good try. (laughter)SK: You said always be yourself and I look at myself and I see I’m always changing. So I’ve come to the conclusion that there will always be changes. It sounds like an oxymoron.
R: Change is the only reality. Everything must change. But look at yourself and don’t judge yourself. Just look at yourself. Watch the changes being made and keep looking at yourself. If you do this correctly you’ll go through the changes. You’ll go beyond the changes. By looking at yourself the changes are outside of you not inside. But your true Self does never change there is nothing to change. Because there is only one Self and that is you. So when you look at yourself you see changes. As you keep looking at yourself day in, day out and watching the changes, the changes will come to an end and you’ll find something beyond the change. But it’s something that cannot be explained or talked about.
SD: Robert I have a question. You’ve often spoken of reality as effortless choice-less pure awareness. Can you explain the use of the word choice-less in that context?
R: We do not have a choice because we’re already real. What we are is choice-less.
There will be nobody making a choice. There is no choice whether you want to be real or not. You are choice-less awareness, you’re pure awareness, this is you and the one who chooses is the ego. But in reality you have no choice. No matter what the ego does, no matter what you choose, no matter how many mistakes you make or appear to make you are going to be choice-less awareness this is your real nature, this is what you really are.
No matter what else you do. Deep down you’re choice-less awareness. You have no choice in the matter that is what you are, awareness. So when you think you’re making a choice you’re making a mistake. It’s the ego that seems to choose. But as choice-less awareness just exists by itself and you are that.
Fred (SF): We don’t have a choice in any area really?
R: Exactly. You have no choice whatsoever. Everything is unfolding as it should.
Everything is happening the way it’s supposed to happen.
Glen (SG): The idea that there are choices is illusion. There are no choices?
R: There is no illusion either. (laughter) Who has the illusion? The one who has the illusion thinks that they are human, they can have an illusion. But if you don’t exist you don’t have an illusion. You have to exist to have an illusion. But since you do not exist there is no one left to have an illusion. Do not think about these things, just be yourself, just be, just… We get very confused when we think about illusions, reality. They’re both impostors. Reality is something we make up with our finite minds. We say, “Absolute reality, pure choice-less awareness, Brahman.” We say, “This is reality.” For we don’t know what we’re talking about. For reality is way beyond those things. There is no such thing as reality to begin with. Nothing is real and nothing is unreal. That is why the only thing I can help you with is not to think. Do not think about what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what’s real what’s not, don’t do it. And then you’ll be safe.
SB: Robert if reality encompasses everything, so thinking is part of reality so why would thinking encumber reality? (R: Thinking is not part of reality.) Well how can something be outside of reality if reality would have to be all there is.
R: Reality is all there is but it has nothing to do with your thinking. Your thinking comes from the ego, not from reality. (SB: Yeah If reality is everything that exists, how can there be something like - if reality is God and God is everything, how can we be thinking outside of reality and outside of God?) There isn’t. Who says there was? (SB: Well you’re saying to stop the thinking. Why should thinking have to be stopped? Why should it be an encumbrance if it’s part of reality?) It shouldn’t. (SB: Right.) But I tell you this so you can know what you’re doing. (SB: But it does. We know for a fact that thinking does, of stopping it, the realization of what we are, it’s funny.) It is funny. Nothing can stop the realization of what you are because you’re nothing. So you have no obstruction. But to think about this is also a hindrance. But I tell you to stop thinking because it is the only thing I can tell you. There is nobody to stop thinking really. Nobody exists who has to stop thinking. But as long as you think you exist then you have to stop thinking. So I say, “Stop thinking,” because you believe you exist as a body or somebody or something. (SB: Oh so the one that is thinking is an illusion?) Of course it’s an illusion, it’s all an illusion. As long as you believe you are the body then you have to stop thinking. (SB: Very strange.) You’re very strange. (laughter) We’re all very strange.
SK: Robert where is Elvis?
R: Where is Elvis. Wherever you want him to be. It’s up to you. Elvis came from your mind and returns to your mind. You’re the creator of Elvis.
SL: Robert? (R: Umm.) You were talking about becoming less…that we should become less self involved, less self absorbed. How does one go about doing that?
R: By not doing anything. Become self absorbed by simply watching, listening, looking and not reacting to anything. By taking time out during the day to sit and do absolutely nothing just sit. Not meditate, just sit. Just by the very act of sitting, self absorption really begins. As you sit everything becomes very clear, it comes back on you. You pull the whole universe back inside of you, just by sitting by yourself. And you’re self absorbed. It happens by itself. There is nothing you have to do to make it happen. There are no books you have to read, no teachers you have to see, nothing you have to get rid of, just sit.
SE: The way of the couch potato. (SL: That’s right.) (R: Exactly.) (laughter) SB: What do you do to keep from gaining weight? (laughter) Call it the weightless watcher. Weightless watcher cookbook. Eat your way to enlightenment.
R: If you sit you won’t get hungry.
SL: Last week Robert and Henry were talking about the impossibility of doing nothing.
And it used to be part of christian practice or at least an acceptable part of observing the family and people weren’t supposed to even buy a newspaper or anything like that. This is ridiculous, at least it’s close to doing nothing. If you can do it, it actually is. (laughs) But Sunday’s become such an active day where all the stores are open and people are never quiet.
R: Yes. That is people what about you? (SL: Matured.) Matured. Let people do what they want. (SL: It was just interesting because it seemed like such an outrageous idea to be quiet and still in the mind then we have this, a well known practice.) Yes, the quakers are good at it.
We will now have a reading from the Ashtravakra-Gita by Mary.(Mary reads.)
Dispassion
Seeing to this, neglecting that. Setting one thing against another, who is free of such cares?
When will they ever end? Consider, without passion, with dispassion, let go. My child rare is he and blessed who observes the ways of men and gives up the desire for pleasure and knowledge, for life itself. Nothing lasts, nothing is real, it is all suffering threefold affliction. It is all beneath contempt. Know this and give it up and be still. When will men ever stop setting one thing against another? Let go of all contraries, whatever comes be happy and so fulfill yourself. Masters, Saints, seekers they all say different things. Whoever knows this with dispassion becomes quiet. The true Master considers well with dispassion. He sees all things are the same. He comes to understand the nature of things, the essence of awareness. He will not be born again. In the shifting elements see only their pure form. Rest in your own nature set yourself free. The world is just a set of false impressions give them up. Give up the illusion. Give up the world and live freely.
R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.)
(Robert plays a song on tape)
R: Someone one asked me, “What does this song have to do with this teaching?”
Absolutely nothing because I have no teaching. Announcements?
(Announcements about satsang newsletter (Village Idiot) and new transcripts) R: Anyone wish to announce anything? Birth, death? Divorce? Marriage?
SQ: I’ve been meaning to ask you a question about relationships with a man, I can’t get the question out at times when I want to ask you about relationships. Every time I want to ask you something I know it’s illusion. All this stuff about soul mates and partners and the right person it all comes to me as rubbish. (laughter)
R: It is and it isn’t, yes and no. (SQ: A clear answer.) It’s rubbish when you think about it. When you don’t think about it, it happens by itself. (SE: It’s still rubbish.) The word rubbish, the idea is about… (break in tape) …leave you and everything happens by itself. That is the beautiful thing about life. If you’re really living, you will always be with the right person, doing the right thing and the right things will happen by themselves.
When you have to plan and scheme then that is rubbish. Where do all these soul mates come from? (SE: Hell.) (laughter) Do not put anything down. You do not believe anything either. Do not accept or reject and you will always find yourself in the right place doing the right things. All is well. (pause) Howard do you want to say something?
ST: Does anybody know someone who has a potters wheel they’d like to sell? See me?
R: You’re becoming a potter in your old age?
Anymore brilliant questions.
Well it’s time for prashad. Time to eat…
(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.