– Transcript 220
January 28th, 1993
R: Good Evening. It is good to be with you again.
I want to thank those of you who celebrated my birthday and gave me some gifts last week. Thank you for thinking about me. To be born is really a curse! So I don’t know why I’m thanking you. (laughter) But thank you anyway. I especially enjoyed all the tapes and the shirt I’m wearing, all the clothes I’m wearing are gifts. Otherwise I’d be here naked! (laughter) How would that look. (SH: Good.) Anyway you know that you’re giving to yourself. There is only one Self. And when you give from your heart to the Self, you’ll never lack or want of anything. This is universal law.
There are certain points you have to remember, if you want to be happy and live a good life, never make a pretty woman your wife! This is an old calypso. (laughter) ST: That’s not going to make the pretty woman very happy. (laughter) (SR: How do you know?) I’d be grateful. (laughter)
R: But anyway…
SH: Get one to love Bob. (laughs)
R: There are certain things that you should remember, if you want to be happy and live a good life. And what I’m talking about is consciousness. Consciousness is everything never forget this. Consciousness is absolute reality, pure awareness and pure awareness is Brahman. If you could only realize that consciousness is everything, you’d be at peace and you’d be very happy. For consciousness is peace, love, God, bliss. And if you remember that you are consciousness, and so is everything else, how can you be sad or upset or depressed or feel there’s a problem going on? It’s virtually impossible to have a problem of any kind when you consider and ponder that consciousness is everything. Everything, everyone, every situation, no thing is apart from consciousness. But when you know that consciousness is bliss then nothing will ever disturb you again. Whatever your eyes behold, whatever your ears hear, wherever you are, wherever you go, realize that consciousness is all of these things. Everything is consciousness, everything! Again, this means that everything is harmony. Everything is good. Everything is perfect, just the way it is!
This is what the word consciousness means, that everything is perfect. Perfection.
There are no mistakes and there is nothing wrong anywhere. If something appears wrong to you, then you’ll have to re-evaluate your thinking. “Why does this thing appear wrong to me?” you say to yourself. It’s because it’s not acting the way you think it should act. It’s not doing the things you think it should do. In other words, the world is not turning the way you think it should. So you become upset, you become angry, you become mad, you become depressed. But again, when you realize that everything is consciousness, you will only associate everything with perfection. Then you can say to yourself, “Even though I do not understand this, it is perfect and good.” By making this statement, by realizing this greatness in the statement you make, you will be put back on a harmonious path and everything will be resolved in your life. This is true!
It’s not that things will change to your liking. It’s just that your attitude and reactions to things will be quite different, when you had the realization that everything is consciousness. You will be able to see through the things going on in your life through the negation, through the depression. Through all these things that have been bothering you perhaps. You’ll be able to see through these things. And you’ll see bliss. You’ll see peace.
You’ll see joy. You’ll be the happiest person that ever lived when you realize and know that consciousness is everything.
It means the universe is your friend. You have no enemies, nobody’s against you.
No one wants to hurt you. You’re free! You’ll develop a great deal of humility, a great peace, loving kindness towards person, place and thing. All of this happens just by realizing that everything is consciousness. You should do this when you first awaken in the morning. Do not start thinking about your life and what you have to do during the day.
But as soon as you get up in the morning, realize immediately that everything is consciousness. Consciousness means there’s something alive going on, some living thing happening. The very air you breathe. The space that you take up is consciousness. It is your true nature. You are that your Self. Everything is consciousness. Nothing is left out, nothing!
You may say to yourself, “What about the evil going on in this world, or man’s inhumanity to man going on in this world?” To whom does this happen? Who thinks this?
Who sees this? Who believes this? The ego. The mind. But when you have the realization that everything is consciousness, you transcend the mind and the ego, you go beyond the mind and the ego. You become the substratum of all existence, the underlying energy where all images rest. The world and the universe seem to be resting in space but it’s really consciousness.
What I am saying is all is well. Exceedingly well.
In order for you to prove this you have to let go of those things that have been hounding you for years. Those things that appear to be wrong or erroneous. You have to turn away from these things and turn to consciousness, which is your friend, your lover.
Which will never desert you, never leave you, which is always with you under all circumstances. All you have to do is know this truth. That is all you have to do is know it. Know it intimately and wonderful things will begin to happen to you.
Do not judge the world or judge by appearances. Do not judge other people. If you find yourself in a certain situation, do not think that this is bad or something is wrong with this. But see the situation for what it is consciousness. See the people you are associating with as consciousness. Remember consciousness is bliss. It is goodness. It is God, joy.
It is love. There can never be consciousness and anything else. There is only consciousness.
Everything is consciousness. Ponder this deeply. Realize what this means to you personally. Assimilate this.
There are many things happening in this world that some of us don’t understand why these things happen in this world. Yet you can never look at this world as if it is real.
If you realize the world is not real, you will no longer react to things. It’s only when you believe the world is real and can hurt you, do things to you that you feel you have to respond in the same kind. You have to get even, you have to do things to other people.
When you do this, when you act this way, then you’re setting up karma. You’re accruing karma. You come under the law of karma. And you go through all kinds of experiences believing the experiences to be real. But instead of trying to hurt somebody or do something to somebody or get even with somebody, if you realize that everything is consciousness, all is well!
I know it sounds too simple for some of you, but nevertheless, try to do this and see if it’s simple. Try to think of everything as being consciousness. When you’re watching television, when you see dastardly things happening in the news. When you’re dealing with a body that may be sick or you’re the care-taker of somebody else that’s sick or somebody just mugged you. All kinds of situations may happen. Yet if you prepare yourself ahead of time you’ll be able to handle it correctly. But if you wait until the last minute, you’ll not be able to handle it correctly. In other words, you have to know that everything is consciousness before anything happens.
It’s just like when you’re leaving your body. It is known that when you leave the body the last thing that you think about you become. So you say, “That’s good. I’m going to think of myself as a saint, a Sage that will live forever.” But if you have not practiced being this, when it comes time to leave the body you will not be able to do it. You will be filled with fear, anxiety. You think you’ll be able to do it but you won’t. When death knocks on your door, you become a coward. You become afraid.
But if you’ve been practicing all these years, where is there fear? You will realize that you came from consciousness and you’re returning to consciousness. You’re just becoming your real Self, that’s all. You will feel beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were never born, you can never die and you have never prevailed. That you are total freedom right now, this moment. You’re all pervading, effortless, choice-less, pure awareness is your nature, this is who you are, all the time. No matter what appears, do not allow your mind to decipher these things. Look at it and turn from it. Turn to your real Self. Turn to consciousness. I know it’s hard to imagine that you’re not the body when you see yourself every day as a body. But your body is really consciousness. You never did have a human body. Even though it appears human to you. It is like a dream body. In a dream body you may cut yourself with a knife and bleed all over the place, but you wake up and it was only a dream. So it is with consciousness. When you realize and know that your body is a dream, nothing will ever bother you again. Nothing can ever hurt you again. But when you take your body to be real then you become like everybody else. You have to fight for survival. Always be aware of this truth.
Just by knowing this, the knowingness goes deeper and deeper and deeper inside of you, until everything is transcended totally and completely and absolutely. And even though you still appear to be walking around in a body, there’s nobody home! Nothing can ever happen to you again! Do you see what I’m trying to say? If somebody shoots you, hits you over the head, tears your eyes out, and all these other good things, it will not be happening to you!
This sounds strange, I know, to some of you, but it’s the absolute truth. All of these things can only happen to a human being. As long as you believe you’re a human being you’ll experience these things over and over again like all good human beings do. But as soon as you give up the body, I don’t mean dying, I mean giving up the body and you will say, “This is not me. This was never me. I am not a being that gets older and older and older and dies. That’s not me at all! I am pure consciousness. I am Brahman.” Then something very interesting will happen to you. You will see through the dream to reality. The world will never fool you again. The world to you will be like water in the mirage. It will be an hallucination. The world will never hurt you again.
The choice is always yours. You have total freedom of choice. The question you have to ask yourself is, “Whom shall I follow this day, God or mammon?” Who the heck is mammon? (students laugh) Mammon is the bad guy! And you have the choice of what you want to do. You can believe in this world, go through many experiences of this world or you can become free and have life everlasting. This is the only freedom you have. Everything else is preordained, predestined. You’re like a puppet on a string, manipulated by Ishvara, the God of karma. To break out of this hypnosis, you merely have to see the truth.
You have to see yourself as all pervading consciousness.
You were born to be happy, so-to-speak. You were born to have peace and love and joy in your life, but you’re seeing something else. All of the power is within you. You have the choice to see whatever you like. Whatever you see you become. Whatever you believe you become. Whatever you think you become. Look back in retrospect on your life and see if what I am saying is not true. There are no mistakes. No mistakes have ever been made, none are being made and none will ever be made. Everything is in its right place right now, everything. You are in your right place. You may hate the place you’re in. You may hate your job. You may hate your environment. You may hate lots of things. But you’re in your right place because you put yourself there. How else would you get there?
Life is not chance. You didn’t get there by chance. You got there by your actions, your belief systems, your thoughts, your vision. This is what put you where you are today. If you don’t like where you are, change your mind. That’s all you have to do, is change your mind. When you change your mind you then get rid of your mind. It begins by taking a good look at yourself. You have to be totally honest with yourself. If you’re not totally honest with yourself you’re defeating your whole purpose. You have to inquire within
yourself, “How did I get into this position? What caused me to be the way I am?” Accept yourself as being responsible for being where you are and what you are. Once you accept yourself as being responsible for your actions and responsible for who you are, then you make an about face and know the truth about yourself.
I-am Parabrahman. I-am the absolute reality. Never was I born. Never can I die. I-am not the body nor the mind nor the doer. I-am pure consciousness, all pervading. Fire cannot burn me. Water cannot drown me. No harm can ever come to me. For I am not what I appear to be. How wonderful this is. You should spend all of your spare time thinking of these things. Most of us do not like to be alone without people around us, without the radio playing, without the TV playing, yet you have to face yourself someday. Why not do it now? Sit by yourself for a half hour and see if you can do it. When you’re getting depressed or feeling bad, sit by yourself, no noise just yourself. And watch the thoughts that come to you. You will see how uncontrolled your mind really is. Some of us believe we’ve got it together. Yet we’re afraid to sit by ourselves with nothing to do. Try staying up all night sometimes, just sitting, doing nothing, watching your thoughts, watching your emotions, observing yourself. This will explain to you how disciplined you are, how spiritual you are, by what happens.
When you sit by yourself you can practice self-inquiry which becomes very interesting. Watch your thoughts as they attack you and inquire, “To whom do they come?”
Observe your thoughts, become the witness to your thoughts, and inquire, “What is the source of my thoughts? Where do all my thoughts come from? I do not wish to think about them but yet they attack me from all directions. Where do they come from? Who thinks these thoughts? I do. What is the source of the I? Where does the I come from who thinks these thoughts?” You see I share these tools with you for you to use and play with.
Some people have read a lot of books on Jnana, Advaita Vedanta and they think there is nothing they have to do. Some of these people believe that enlightenment will come to them sooner or later anyway. So they might as well do nothing. The only problem is while you’re doing nothing the world will press itself in on you and you will find the world is very strong, because your mind is very strong and your mind is the world. But when you start controlling the mind through self-inquiry, asking, “How did I come by this mind?
Where did this so-called mind come from? What is its source?” You will soon find that you’re becoming more peaceful, more kind and more joyous, happier than you’ve ever been before. All of these things happen by themselves if practice self-inquiry or you practice some spiritual discipline. So spiritual discipline is very important. The ego is very cunning. It will tell you, you do not have to do anything, but it will control your life more than you can ever imagine.
I have met many people in my travels who claimed to have been enlightened, who tell me they’re on the verge of enlightenment yet the first person who bumps into them they become angry, when they trip and stub their toe they start cursing, is this control? Do not fool yourself. Forget about things like enlightenment, awareness, liberation. Just work on yourself and let the consequences take care of themselves. One of the methods that works very well for people who enjoy to meditate, people who like to meditate, is the I-am meditation. The I-am meditation is a very powerful meditation. When you’re alone and you have nothing to do you should practice this all of the time, it’s good for you. It lifts you up. So let’s all do this together. The I-am meditation.
Close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, become aware of your breath. Listen to your breathing. Practice a little bit of Vipassana meditation. Observe your feelings, observe your thoughts. Do not attempt to change anything, just observe. Ask yourself this question, “Who is the observer? Who observes? Why I am.” Now with your respiration inhale say, “I,” exhale say, “am.” Inhale say, “I,” exhale say, “am.” If you loose your thought and your mind starts telling you all kinds of things gently bring it back to I-am. This type of meditation transcends the mind. Makes you very powerful and strong. Keep on doing this. “I” inhale, “am” exhale.
(silence)
Fred (SF): You said that once in a while there is somebody who announces that he’s become enlightened, but a man of realization there is nobody apart from him to be impressed by that fact. Is that not so?
R: This is very true. There is no more ego, there is no mind left. So who became enlightened. There’s no one to become enlightened. (SF: There is no point in announcing it.) There is nothing there. (SF: Nothing.) No announcer. The announcer has been wiped out completely.
SI: I’ve been following your processes too. I have been able to slow down my thoughts but they just keep happening. And I’ve been able to get into the space where there is no more thoughts.
And I feel connected to space but I don’t feel the boundary of my body but that’s all it is, it’s just simply that I don’t feel connected yet to the source.
R: That comes later. You’re on the right track, go deeper. Go beyond all that. Go deeper than you’ve ever gone before and you will feel your own bliss which is all pervading, which is your reality. What you’re doing is you’re experiencing the void. You’re going into the void. That’s three quarters to the top. We go beyond the void. You may do this by inquiring, “To whom does this void come to? Who is experiencing this void, this emptiness?” And you’ll go beyond. But you’re doing well, keep it up. Do not settle for anything else but the reality, the whole reality. Whatever you’re experiencing go beyond it.
Always go beyond it, go deeper.
SY: Robert up until about a week ago I could differentiate between the states of sleep and waking up. So I would have that few seconds before the thoughts, but last week I had insomnia because the mind has speeding up, I’m not thinking, it’s just when I’m trying to sleep at night that the thoughts are just driving me nuts, I have to hold really strong to stop them during the night because it’s going on all the time. I won’t get any sleep unless I stop the thinking.
R: Can you observe yourself? Can you observe this happening?
SY: It’s very difficult, it’s fuzzy. It’s a funny stage. The thoughts are just streaming on. I feel like I’m not really involved in them. There seems to be an observer. But I’m not quite awake and not quite asleep. But I’m aware that the thoughts are running off without me.
R: The mind is very tricky. It will play all sorts of games with you. Everything emanates from the mind. Again go beyond that by realizing that it’s all from the mind. All your experiences are from the mind. Ask yourself, “To whom does this come? Who is experiencing this? Who is going through this? I am. Who am I?” Keep going deeper and deeper, further and further beyond everything. Do not settle for anything except the ultimate. Keep watching yourself, keep observing yourself and keep going deeper. You can go as deep as you like, it’s up to you. But do not let this annoy you at all. It’s the mind that wants you to believe that it annoys you. It’s the mind that does all these things. Just go beyond the mind. Sit still and smile and watch these things happening to you. Watch the thoughts rushing by and ask, “To whom do they come? Who is experiencing all of this? I am. Then who am I?” by doing this you will go deeper then you’ve ever gone before and you’ll overcome that problem. You can also go down to the heart center. Feel yourself in the heart, that’s where all the thoughts came from to begin with, the heart. (SY: The thoughts came from the heart?) Umm. The mind, the thoughts came from the heart. When you watch yourself in the morning as you said, you will see that you’re at peace when you first wake up, the first few seconds that you awaken.
SY: I could sit, I could do that easily but the more I get into self-inquiry I don’t have that break, this is going on all night, you know. I read about the part about, “Abide in me,” in the heart and I was doing it, then this thing comes and there is no break in it, I feel as though I’m going to break up ??? I’m just staying at the same constant level.
R: Yes, it’s all coming from the mind instead of the heart. (SY: Oh.) That is what the problem is. So go back to the heart and watch it coming from the heart and it will all stop.
You’ll overcome it, truly this week you’ll see, you shall overcome. Be at peace.
Mary would you read the Jnani?
(Mary reads the Jnani refer to beginning of this book for text) R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert.) Any announcements?
Mary (SM): Oh yes, I mentioned that I had a few people ask me about the book, “Silence of the Heart?” These are the talks of Robert from 1990. And I’ve had people ask me how they could get it.
Andy is here and he will take your orders for the book. They’re beautiful talks. They help everyone.
Believe me they do. (SY: How much are they Mary?) They’re twenty dollars. (SE: That’s two bottles of Tequila.) ST: And a large part of that twenty dollars is a donation for these meetings. Jane is getting these books made at a low cost so it’s a donation as well as a purchase that you make.
(more discussion about the book)
R: Anything else? It is time for prashad, the real reason for you coming here…
(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.