– Transcript 217
R: (tape starts abruptly) …makes you one pointed. Removes problems from you. Makes you feel wonderful all over. So let’s all get involved in the chant. You were all supposed to join in. (students laugh) You all looked like a bunch of zombies. I’ve seen better expressions on a dead corpse. (laughter)
SH: You didn’t lead us.
R: I’m not a leader. (SH: You didn’t even follow.) I’m not a follower. (laughter) (SH: What the hell are you.) I am a nothing. (SH: Good. (laughs) You’ve made it.) (silence)
R: Even though you look like a bunch of zombies, so serious. You look like you have the whole world on your shoulders. You shouldn’t feel like that. You should feel joyful and happy. This is a happy occasion. It’s raining. It’s the end of the world. Rejoice!
(students laugh)
People continuously keep asking me how do I get rid of my problems? Everybody seems to have a problem. I keep telling you there aren’t any problems. But you tell me about your particular problem. Things are like this, things are like that, that’s not a problem. You want things to be a certain way, your way. You want things to fall into place the way you’ve been brought up to believe is right. It will never happen. Life goes on just the way it is.
It’s our business to understand what life really is, what we’re all about. If we have a clear understanding of ourselves we become the happiest people on earth. Where we become compassionate, kind, peaceful. Where we no longer have anything to fight. We no longer wish to change anybody or anything. We leave everything alone just the way it is including ourselves especially. We stop feeling sorry for ourselves because we don’t have what we think we should have or because we have what we think we should’nt have.
People want to know in Advaita Vedanta that the best way to get rid of a problem is to sit still and surrender everything to God. Or if we should become active and make something happen ourselves.
As an example: Somebody cheats you. Should you sue them take them to court?
Should you take any action? Should you just sit still and say, “Let God take care of it.”
What should you really do?
S: Both.
R: Both are wrong. (students laugh)Both supposes that you are the doer. That you can do something. That you have a choice in the matter. That it’s up to you. In reality you have no choice whatsoever. Everything is predestined and preordained. This means that whatever you’re doing was inevitable to happen.
In other words if you find yourself sitting still and doing nothing this is what you’re supposed to do and nothing can make you do anything no matter how hard you try. If you’re supposed to do something nothing will make you sit still. You’ll go ahead and do whatever you’re supposed to do. But the whole secret is that you’re supposed to understand that you are not the doer. Whatever you wind up doing you’re not the doer you’re not doing a thing. It is not you that is doing anything whatsoever. Everything is happening the way it’s supposed to happen.
There is a karmic principle involved that causes you to do what you do. You are like a puppet and the puppeteer is karma.
A lot of you do not like to hear something like this. Because the ego tells you that I’m the doer, I’m supposed to do something. I make my own decisions, I make my own laws, my own rules, my own regulations. That’s what you think. That is how it appears to you. But whatever happens is happening from karma. Everything is a continuum. Nothing happens to you that is not supposed to happen. The only freedom you have is your reaction. This is the freedom you have. If you react in the right way you’ll be happier than you can ever imagine. I’m not saying the problem will be resolved the way you want it to be resolved. I’m just saying you’ll be happier than you can ever imagine.
There is no one on this earth who does anything. The whole universe is a puppet show. We’re dancing the dance of Shiva. We think we’re something important. But we’re really nothing as we appear. Your job is to observe to watch, to see what’s going on and not to react to anything that is happening but to stay…to stay separate from the happenings. To separate yourself from what is happening. What’s happening is happening to the I, to the ego, not to you. Nothing can ever happen to you. For your true nature is Brahman, absolute reality, pure awareness. This is what you really are whether you like it or not. Yes you are God whether you like it or not. Whether you care or you don’t, you are God. So what are you going to do about it.
All you really have to do is to know who you are, to know yourself. Not intellectually, not physically, but consciously. When you see yourself consciously as God you will see the whole universe as your Self. Everything in this whole universe will become you.
There will be no separation between you and your fellow man, the animals and the minerals and the flowers. It will all be one. They’ll be you. You are that!
So you see there are no real problems in the world. There are no challenges in the world. Some people like to use the word challenge for some problem. Who wants to challenge you there is nobody who challenges you. There is nothing you have to overcome.
There is nothing you have to fight. There is nothing you have to attain and there is nothing
you have to become. All you have to do is see this clearly for it to happen. Just see it clearly. Not cloudy but clearly. When you see it clearly you become that which you see.
Now my question to you is, what have you been seeing all of these years? What have you been seeing? What have you been looking at? Have you been seeing problems, lack, limitation, feeling unloved, feeling as if there is something wrong someplace? This is the reason why you see things outside of yourself to. The world becomes what you see and you have the freedom to choose what you see. That is the only freedom you have.
Everything else is preordained. This doesn’t mean you’re stuck in karma or it doesn’t matter what you do because whatever you do is preordained. It means that as you see the truth about your life you become free.
In other words to the extent you can see the truth about your self that you are really Brahman, God, that you are that which will never change, that which is permanent and totally free of anything, to the extent that you can see yourself this way to that extent are you free. If you see yourself 20% this way you’re free 20%, 50%, you’re free 50%, 100% you’re free 100%.
How can you tell what you’re doing? By the way you react to conditions. What frightens you. What makes you mad. What makes you angry. What makes you think something is wrong. This will tell you where you’re coming from. When you are filled with peace and harmony nothing can ever hurt you. You become unhurtable. But when you believe what you see, when you believe what you hear, when you believe what the world tells you is true, then you have to experience all the things that you see and believe and hear. It’s so simple.
Life your head to heaven and you’ll be in heaven. Lift your head down to hell and you’ll be in hell.
The world has absolutely nothing to with it. People have nothing to do with it.
You have the freedom to being known as Brahman. You have the freedom to being known as a person who has problems. The choice is always yours. The choice is always yours.
How do you feel about yourself right now? Do you really like yourself? Do you appreciate yourself?
It makes no difference what position you’re in or what you’re doing in life. You can’t say you like yourself if you have a good job and you’re making a lot of money and you’re the healthiest person on earth. These things have absolutely nothing to do with it.
For you are not the body. You are not who you think you are. Let go of all the thoughts about yourself, good or bad.
Right now let’s go over everything. Everything that has ever bothered you. Everything that has ever hurt you, drop it. Lift yourself up to the highest. Where there is no pain, no lack, no limitation.
This is the land of the Buddha, the end of samsara. In the land of the Buddha there is only peace and quietness and joy. You have crossed the ocean of samsara and you are totally free, right now. Your burdens have been expunged. You no longer have to carry your karma around with you.
Samskaras, karmas, it’s all finished for you, feel this. Feel your freedom. Your freedom from being confined to a body. Feel free from this. You are consciousness, pure awareness and you encompass the whole universe. How beautiful it is, all fear has left you. You are seeing the whole world as a dream. It can never hurt you again, it has no power. The only reason you’ve been hurt previously is due to the fact that you thought this world as being real and you’ve reacted to it. But now you’re beginning to see that this world is Maya.
It is a dream and like in a dream you are the dreamer. When you’re asleep you are total peace. You have a dream about a war, you’re in the war, you get wounded. Your leg has to be amputated. You go through all kinds of experiences. Then you wake up and you feel refreshed. You had a long and beautiful sleep. But you were dreaming about the war.
You were dreaming about the experiences.
This is how this is right now for you. The whole world, the whole universe that you behold is your dream and you’re taking it for reality. This is where suffering ensues.
You take the world to be real and you react to this world but you’re reacting to a dream.
And as long as you keep reacting to this world you’ll never awaken. It is virtually impossible to awaken as long as you think this world is real.
Catch yourself thinking, ask yourself, “Who thinks?” Be truthful to yourself say, “I think.” But you’ll realize that you are not the I. So I thinks and you have absolutely nothing to do with it. “Then where did this I come from? If I have absolutely nothing to do with it,” you say to yourself, “why is the I there? Why does it present itself to me?” By that very question the I will be destroyed and you’ll find absolute freedom. You have to learn to keep inquiring within yourself. Nobody outside of you can help you. All the answers are within you. You are the answer.
Feel how wonderful this is. That all the answers you’ve been looking for are within yourself. Whatever you’ve been searching for, whatever your needs are they’re all within yourself. You’ve got everything you need within yourself. Dive deep within yourself. Don’t be afraid to let go. Nothing can ever hurt you again.
As you’re sitting here this way all of the stuff that has been pulling you back from your highest good is melting away. Feel this happening. All of those things that have held on to you for so long in the form of disease, lack, limitation, unhappiness of any kind, ignorance, feel it all dissolving right now. Feel it happening. You are the divine one. You are that which has always been and that which will always be, pure awareness, total joy and peace. You do not have to try to make it happen it’s already happening.
There is nothing you have to do just be still and know that I-am God. “Be still and know that I am God,” say this to yourself. Not your ego, not the personal I but I-am which is really you, is God. “Be still and know that I-am God. Be still and know that I-am God. Be still and know that I-am God.”
(silence)
It is now that time again to play “Stump the Guru.’
Do we have any stumpers over here?
Mary (SM): I don’t think there is anything Robert.
R: We forgot to pass the basket around. (SM: There is nothing here.) No stumpers today. We’ll have to ask if you have any questions.
Fred (SF): Yeah I got something. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned something that I’ve run across, heard that seemed to be important and the more I think about it the more so it seems. But it’s about this disciple who went to the Master and I use the word Master because”the Master”
rather than “a Master” because there is only one Master. And he asked him, “Do you and I live in the same world?” And the Master said, “Yes we do but there is a difference and that is that you think you live in the world and I know the world lives in me.” That seems to be the whole deal in a nutshell.
R: Yes that is in a nutshell. The whole world in a nutshell. (SF: Nutty shell.) SH: You’re the nut. (laughter)
R: I’m the head nut. That’s good Fred. (SF: It’s still intellectual.) R: Anyone like to say something, ask a question. Do something.
Glen (SG): Shouldn’t we start building an ark? (R: This is an ark.) Sure is.
SK: Robert if it’s all predestined then what happens to man’s freewill in creativity and literature.
R: Man’s freewill is only not to react. The only freewill that we have is not to react to a condition, person, place or thing. (SK: Umm.) Art, literature will take care of itself. It’s all karmic. Your body is here for a specific purpose. In reality your body doesn’t exist. And because you think you are a body, leave it alone. If you leave it alone it’ll be done better than you can ever do anything. Whatever you came here to do will be done, in a beautiful way, and you will have absolutely nothing to do with it. It’ll happen by itself. When you think you have to do something and you’re the doer, you’re not the doer. When you’re the doer you suffer accordingly because you’re part of the world which doesn’t exist.
But when you realize that you are the one beyond everything, transcending everything, then everything takes care of itself. So whatever is happening watch it, don’t judge it, observe it, look at it, do not react to it and then you will do whatever you’re supposed to do automatically. Whatever you came here to do you will do. Karmically we all came here for a specific purpose. That is the appearance. So you will find your right place by doing nothing. (SK: It’s hard doing nothing.) By doing nothing I mean mentally. Keep your mind still. Do not agitate your mind by thinking thoughts that you have to do something, that something has to be done. Keep your mind on God so-to-speak. By keeping it clear, absent from thought. Through self-inquiry, it will calm the mind down. But you will see while you are doing this your body will pick itself up and do what it has to do. Better than you can ever do it yourself. Everything will be done. You can rest assured that it will be done you have nothing to do with it. It will be done.
Try it, see what happens. Try let’s say starting tomorrow. You will not think about your work or the food that you’re going to eat during the day or what you’re going to wear. But try to keep your mind clear, free. But you will watch yourself. You will see that you get up out of bed. You put on the right clothes. You eat your breakfast like you’re supposed to. You go out into the world and do whatever you’re supposed to do. But you’re not part of it anymore, mentally. Your mind is on God. Your mind is on the absolute reality. Your mind is on perfection. Your mind is still and quiet. Yet you will continue to do what you have to do. You will no longer have to watch the clock or watch space and time and leave everything alone and everything will happen by itself in a beautiful way. Try it.
SI: Robert whenever it gets to the morning I’m trying to keep peace of mind and I just get stuck. Nothing seems to happen I just get in my way?
R: How do you get stuck? (SI: It seems like I just get to my name and that is as far as it goes.) What happens after that?… (short silence) …that is what supposed to happen, nothing, so you’re doing well. (laughter) You always want something to happen. Nothing is supposed to happen. So you’re doing good. Keep it up. (laughter) When something happens then you got a problem. (SI: I always think something is supposed to happen.) No, on the contrary nothing is supposed to happen. (SI: I’m not supposed to have a realization?) (laughter) There is no such thing. Do not look for anything to happen and then everything will happen how it’s supposed to. Everything is natural.
Scientifically if you investigate this universe you will find that there is no room for anything to happen, because everything has already happened. Everything is already done, finished. There is nothing to be done, there is nothing to happen. Most of us are hallucinating, we think we have to make something happen. Be happy and to have peace of mind but it’s already happened you just have to wake up to the truth. It’s a waking up process. It’s not a happening process, it’s a waking up process.
This is what I meant before when I said, “Be still and know that I am God.” Be still and you will know. You will know that there is no one to know. There is nothing to know…
(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.