– Transcript 222
R: I welcome you with all my heart. I love you all unconditionally. All is well. There are no mistakes. Everything is in its right place where it’s supposed to be.
People keep asking me, “Robert how long does it take to become self-realized?
When will I become self-realized?”
The answer is always the same. When you get rid of the world in your mind. The world is in your mind. Where else would it be. It doesn’t exist on its own. It has no existence of its own. It exists in your mind. You have created it out of your own mind. Consequently when you uncreate the universe, the world and your mind, self-realization will be there. It never went anywhere. It’s yours. You’ve got it.
It is the world that you believe in that keeps you back. It’s like the clouds in front of the sun. Today we have no sun we have rain and we think there is no sun. What happened to the sun? We call it a gloomy day. We say we feel depressed when it’s not sunny.
Yet the sun is in back of the clouds and the clouds will dissipate and you’ll be full sun again. And so it is with life. You believe conditions are real. You believe persons, places and things are real. You will not remember they are of your own creation. You forget about this. No matter how many times I tell you this you look at the world and react to it because you think the world is real. This is what keeps you away from self-realization. This is the only thing there is nothing else.
If you’re only able to get rid of the world in your mind by putting it back up into the mind, going for the source, the source of creation. You will see it comes out of you. You are the one that created everything. You are the one. So, what you have to do is uncreate the universe. You uncreate the universe by looking at things and not reacting to them. By just observing the world, doing this and doing that but having no reaction whatsoever, neither good nor bad, neither happy nor sad. It’s like looking at a movie. You as the audience are looking at a movie, the movie has a beginning, a middle and an end, but it has absolutely nothing to do with you. You wouldn’t get up on the screen and start beating up the bad guy. Maybe you would, I don’t know? Because you realize that this is a movie. It will end soon. And then you go back home.
So it is with spiritual life. It’s a movie, you are the screen. And the images of things are superimposed on the screen. For this means it’s all in your mind. All of creation is in your mind. You have created your own world. The world that you live in now. You have created your own world. The world in which you live in now. It came out of you, you’ve done it. Otherwise where would it come from? Now as I have said, I’ve explained this to you many times but most of you still believe that you have to read books. Find sacred teachers. Meditate for hours. Travel the world looking for the right person, the right place, the right thing. Searching for the holy grail to become free.
What are you doing when you do this? Aren’t you accumulating more knowledge? You want to empty the garbage pail, not keep adding to it. True? But yet you keep adding to it. Every time you read a new book it comes out. You’re adding to the garbage pail. In other words you’re inflating your ego more and more, your ego becomes bigger and bigger. Because you have something new to talk about don’t you. A new teacher, a new method, a new mantra, you become excited over this and you become excited over that. This is what keeps you back from realization. Always remember this. Never forget this. You want to subtract, you want to delete, not add on.
No matter how many times I tell you this there is still somebody who calls and says, “Robert have you read this it just came out. Great book!” or, “I found a new method, standing on my head repeating a mantra will do it.” (laughter) Think of what you’re doing.
There are no new methods. There are no methods. All you have to do is remove the world.
You do this simply by looking, by observing, by watching intelligently. And inside of you something tells you, “This is not real. This is not me. I have nothing to do with this world.
My nature is Brahman. I am the absolute reality. I am consciousness. I am pure awareness, not the world.” You want to unlearn everything you’ve ever learnt. You want to become a divine madman. Know absolutely nothing. Nothing means no thing.
You may say then, “Well what about a profession? This is okay for people who live in ashrams or who’ve given up the world but I’ve got to work for a living.” It’s all foolishness. What you have to do will be done without you. This again is something to remember. Your body will do whatever has to be done and do it perfectly and good, when you get yourself out of the way. As long as you believe that you are the doer and it’s up to you to make things right or wrong, you suffer accordingly. But when you let go and let God so-to-speak, everything works harmoniously, beautifully and you will always find yourself in the right place doing the right things. Yet you never plan anything, you never scheme, you never try to make anything happen you are simply observing the world, observing conditions by not reacting to them at all. This is how you become self-realized.
When the last ounce of world is removed from you and there is nothing left, you awaken to the truth of your being. But as long as you’re holding onto something. Things frighten you, things make you angry, things make you mad then you have a problem.
Again you have to unlearn everything you’ve learnt. You have to let go of everything you’ve been holding onto. To be free you have to become nothing, perfect nothing, no thing and then freedom is yours. Another problem we have on this path is judgment.
Many of us are very judgmental and this again keeps you back from your realization.
When you’re judgmental who are you judging but yourself. If you’re familiar with metaphysical Advaita you begin to understand that there is only one Self! And you are that Self, so whom are you judging? You’re judging yourself. You hurt yourself when you
judge someone else. You have to learn to leave people alone, to leave the world alone and not be judgmental. You say to yourself, “Well this person is doing this, this person is doing that.” This person is you! This person is not separate from you.
When you hear about the bank robber, hear about the murderer, you hear about man’s inhumanity to man you want to become outraged, but as long as you’re studying Advaita and you’re coming on this path, you will have to understand that there is nobody to be outraged at. There is nothing to be outraged at. It’s all yourself. There is only one Self and that Self is you. You are that Self. Out of you emanates everybody and everything. So you’re becoming outrageous to yourself. This strikes me to be very funny when I see people being angry at people, hurting people, hurting themselves. It comes back to you. It comes back in different ways, strange ways, but it always comes back to you. Then you say, “Well you mean I’m supposed to be a doormat and let people walk all over me?” On the contrary, that will never happen to you if you’re in the right consciousness. If you’re in the right consciousness people will not walk all over you at all. People will leave you alone. When you understand that you are the one Self, who can hurt you? But think of the ways you get mixed up in this world by believing situations are real. Think of your life just today since you got out of bed. How many things turned you on, to anger, to hatred, to disharmony? It’s your fault, it’s always your fault.
A wise students of Advaita never reacts to anybody or anything. But when your ego is at play then you’re going to say to yourself, “They can’t talk about me like that. They can’t do this to me, I’ll show them. I’ll get even. I’ll do this and I’ll do that.” Who are you hurting but yourself, for you believe you are a body going through experiences and that is a lie. You’re not a body and you’re not going through any experiences. You are Brahman.
You’re all pervading. You’re not a body that appears to be a body that is bound, you are boundless awareness.
Whenever you’re judgmental, again you can never get the correct picture. I use the keyhole example again. You look through the keyhole and you see four people fighting with each other with knives and clubs, beating the hell out of each other. And you’re looking through the keyhole and you’re saying, “Wow this is terrible. This is awful, look what’s going on, they’re beating each other to death. I’ve got to do something to stop this.” So you open the door and you’re surprised you are no longer looking out of the keyhole you’re seeing the whole picture. You are seeing these people on the stage and you see an audience of millions of people and they’re acting this out. It’s not real. It’s all a play. It’s a play of consciousness, it’s a Leela and you’re amazed. Now the audience represents consciousness. The players on the stage represent the ego. The ego is always fighting, always angry, always trying to get even. Only thinks about me me me me me. While the infinite lies in sweet repose smiling, observing, watching, does nothing. Then you notice the play is over and the people who were fighting go down to the audience and become part of the audience. They have overcome, they have transcended, they’re a part of consciousness and new players take their place. Now there is a war on the stage. Like the war in the Bhagavad-Gita or like the civil war. Nation against nation people are killing each other, there is blood all over the place but now you’re able to seethe whole picture and you’re not disturbed for after a while all the players come down off the stage and join the audience and they become part of consciousness. Then you look you again and you see there is nothing, there is no longer an audience, there is no stage, there is no players, there is absolute bliss. Everything has turned into bliss, into joy, into happiness.
So you see all of your judgments were wrong. Remember you were programmed since you were a child to believe certain things are good and certain things were bad, this is this way and that is that way, but nothing is anyway, everything just is and your programming makes you feel upset, your programming makes you feel something is wrong that you have to take some action to do something to somebody. This is all a lie.
Another example is the tapes I play here. Some people after all ask me, “Robert why do you play some of these tapes that have nothing to do with spirituality?” I say, “You’ve just answered your own question. I play them because I have nothing to do with spirituality. To break up your linear thinking.” Some of you believe that being spiritual is having a long face, never laughing, taking things seriously. (students start laughing as Robert puts on a mask, a students comment)
SB: Now we’ll call you miss sugananda.
R: This is my real self. (laughter) We have to be serious about spiritual life. (laughter) You’re not supposed to laugh. (laughter) You’re supposed to be real serious. (laughter) This is a serious situation. (laughter) (SB: So you finally had your nose fixed, it’s an improvement.) Therefore you believe things should be a certain way. So I play certain tapes to break up that thinking. Everything I do with you is planned. (SE: Seconds ahead of time?) Exactly. (laughter) True. Everything is sacred. Everything is spiritual, everything. There is no such thing as this is sacred and this is not. Somebody else asked me, “Well Robert, why do you play some love songs once in a while?” Because I’m in love, with you, with life, with the Self. So I do this for you. Learn to be loving. Not to pick pick pick pick pick.
Learn to be happy. Learn to be yourself. That is all I’ve got to say to you. (pause) Now I’ll play a little of those songs. (Robert tries to play his tape) Nothing is happening here. Okay let’s see. Nothing, nada. (laughter)
SH: You fix it for him Mary.
(tape played)
It is now that time to play… (everyone yells out) Stump the guru!
R: Right. (laughter) Do we have stumpers? (SM: Yes right here Robert.) You’re ahead of me Mary? (SM: Yeah. I checked it already but we only got three.) (Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: Robert is ones enlightenment already predestined or can one get enlightened at any moment? I’ve been waiting fifteen and a half years already. (laughter)
A: Enlightenment has absolutely nothing to do with predestination. They’re both different places, different things. Predestination doesn’t exist accept when you believe you’re the body. So as long as you’re working from that viewpoint you have a problem.
But if you forget about predestination and you go back to yourself who you really are by giving up all attachment, giving up all kinds of holding onto the universe in any way shape or form then you become free. You’re already free, you’ve always been free. There never was a time when you were not free.
So predestination is one part of the ball game, realization is your very nature. In reality there is no predestination because who determines predestination? Good old Ishvara, the God of karma, but does that God really exist. Only for the one who believes they are the body and the world is real. As long as you feel that everything that happens to you is real. As long as you feel upset, mad, angry, something is wrong, then you are creating the God called Ishvara and he throws thunderbolts at you called karma. As you go through your karma, you go through predestination and everything else. But when you’re ready to give it up you will dive deep within the Self, understand immediately who you are and become free and liberated. The choice is always yours. Do you want to go through life playing these games over and over again for another fifteen years? Give it up. Forget about time and space. Understand who you are, what you are, where you came from, where you’re going and you will find out you came from nowhere, you’re nothing and you’re not going anywhere. You’ve always been and you will always be, just the way you are, pure Brahman, absolute reality, this is you.
Q: Sometimes one is on a path of training with very great Masters and being a yogini for a very long long time, then how do you know what your career is, which truly benefits the greatest amount of beings and also the financial abundance is continually also there? Thank you.
A: Being a yogini, being on the path are erroneous conclusions that you come to. A yogini and a yogi are both on the same path to destruction. For these people go over life after life after life and never find freedom and realization because they think they’re on a path. Forget about a path, there never was a path. It’s a mirage, hallucination to think you’ve got to be on a path. You are what you are and that is what you are, you’re Popeye the sailor man. That’s who you are, accept it. We think too much, that’s our problem. We just think too much. We think by thinking we’re going to solve any situation, we’re going to come to a resolution when we become enlightened. Not by thoughts, not by thinking, not by words, but again by emptying yourself out completely.
So for the yogini, get rid of the idea that you’re a yogini. Get rid of the idea that there is a path that you’re on, that you have to follow a path. Get rid of the idea that you’ve been doing this for fifteen years and nothing has happened to you. All those are stumbling blocks. There are no paths to realization. There is only realization. Realization is already here. It has always been here and never went anywhere. All you have to do is awaken to it, wake up! Awaken to yourself! Stop thinking. Stop trying to make things happen. Leave everything alone. See the truth within yourself, by denying everything in the world. What do I mean by denying everything in the world? By looking at things and saying, “Neti-neti, not this, not this, this is not the truth.” When you’re watching television, don’t feel what you’re watching, the news, as if it were true. “This is not the truth,” you tell yourself, “this is not it, this is not it.” As you keep doing this you’re emptying yourself out. But if you don’t do this what are you doing you’re absorbing ore information, aren’t you?
What happens when you absorb more information? Your ego expands. The more information you absorb the more your ego expands. Think of all the information you absorbed this week, about politics, about crime, about man’s inhumanity to man, about what’s going on in the world and you eat it up. You’re filling up the garbage pail. Instead of emptying it, you’re filling it up. Whenever somebody bothers you, whenever somebody annoys you, whenever you bother to be judgmental, think of what you’re doing, you’re filling up the garbage pail more and more and more how can you ever become enlightened this way, it’s impossible. You’re keeping yourself back by looking at everything as being real. As far as your employment goes, as far as your job is concerned that will always take care of itself. It will always take care of yourself. You will do what you have to do, but you have nothing to do with it. It may sound paradoxical but it’s true. Whatever has to be done will be done but it has nothing to do with you. Become like an apple tree.
The apple tree doesn’t worry whether it’s going to bare apples this year. The apples come by themselves. Everything happens by itself and I’m very serious when I say this, look at my face and it’ll tell you. (laughter) Have you ever seen anybody more serious than this?
SB: Robert how can we trust you when you have to hide behind a disguise? (laughter) R: Who tells you to trust me, you shouldn’t trust me. (laughter) (SB: Does your nose make a noise like a horn, can we squeeze it?) No it’ll fall off. My nose will fall off. (laughter) When you trust yourself you’ll trust me. I am nothing but a reflection of you. You have all created me this way. (laughter) You’re looking at yourself. What have you done to yourself? (SB: You look like you’re a reincarnation of Sigmund Freud.) (laughter) Whatever you see that’s what I am. (laughter) More. (Robert asks Mary for the next question) Q: Some Master said there was no teacher and no disciple. Can you comment on that?
R: If there is no teacher and no disciple what’s to comment on? (laughter) Listen next time. (laughter) Anything else? (SM: That’s it Robert.) Anybody else wish to comment?
Make funny noises?
Fred (SF): Yeah I got a deal. Often times we hear this thing, God is love. The word love means so many things now, but in this context it might be called oneness which is the same as pure awareness, pure consciousness. And if anything is separate from oneness, then it’s departed from reality and - hold on a sec I have to straighten my mind - in other words everything is nothing and nothing is everything as you said. And if I think there is anything separate from me I’m separate from God, separate from the Self, pure awareness. In other words if I think I’m different from the Brooklyn bridge (laughter) or the Taj Mahal, I’m living in ignorance, that’s a fact isn’t it?
R: Yes. (laughter) (SH: That’s fairly complicated.) (SF: I’m afraid it’s true.) (laughter) Fred you are the essence of all existence. (laughter) (SF: The what?) Don’t ask me. (SF: We all
are.) So you’re the Brooklyn bridge you’re everything you want to be. I bet you always wanted to be a Brooklyn bridge? (SF: In my dream my mother sir had dedicated it. In 1885.) (laughter)
SH: You know you stumped him. You wanted to stump the guru, you’ve done it.
R: I said he’s the essence of everything.
Fred (SF): There is another thought. We might come upon some important information if we compare the dream state to the waking state. Because in the deep sleep state something happens and all conscious things arise in the dream state. Some things we are familiar with in the waking state and somethings all new, they just arise, they’re witnessed and they go away again. And the time element is all together different than it is in the waking state and it may seem like a long period of time in the dream but in the waking state…the time in the waking state is altogether different. And the idea is everything in the dream state is unreal. We don’t worry about it the next morning and it’s a similar situation in the waking state. Is that not so also? (R: Yes it’s so.) Thank you.
R: Any other brilliant questions? (laughter) Or we’ll play some more music.
As many of you are aware, Joel Goldsmith was the first teacher that I contacted when I had my experience when I was fourteen years old, and he meant a great deal to me. So Mary is going to read to you from one of his writings, why words and syllables are a waste of time to speak. Go ahead Mary.
(Mary reads)
All too often prayer consists of too great a degree of words, statements, quotations.
Whereas prayer itself actually is wordless. Prayer has nothing to do with anything that we voice.
Whether in the form of a petition, affirmation, denial or any other form of speech or thought. Rather prayer is that which we become aware of, in the silence, the word of God uttering itself within our consciousness. In other words we do not pray unless prayer can be understood as a state of receptivity. Actually the word of God is nothing that we say but rather that which God says within us. One form of meditation is to quietly consider some idea concerning God, think upon it or even voice it, but dwell upon it for only a short time. Then become receptive and let the meditation come through from God. In other words God does the meditating we become aware of the fruits of that meditation.
In an introduction to an old edition of the bible we read, “For as the kingdom of God become words or syllables. Why should be in bondage to them if we be free? Is the kingdom of God words? Is the kingdom of God syllables? No, the kingdom of God is within you and that kingdom of God must make itself manifest to you. It must declare itself to you, utter itself to you, voice itself to you. And so the kingdom of God is not your words nor your syllables. In our prayers very often we carry around problems and we wonder what form of treatment we could use for this particular problem or that articular problem or what form of prayer or if there was some greater understanding we could inquire as to how to pray. If you are having that experience ponder this passage and the realization in it. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them?” That is to the words or the syllables if we be free. Scripture teaches that we are free. We are children of God, if children then heirs, if heirs then joint heirs in Christ with God. We are already free, if we were not free there is no God power that could make us free. We are free and the entire truth teaching is of course to bring out that realization or revelation of our present freedom. Not to make it so. It would be well for us to remember with any of the problems now bothering us that we might just as well not be in bondage to words or syllables or statements of truth. But be willing to sit a while and let God reveal its plan to us, its plan for us, to us.
We find this in the Smith translation of the scriptures, the nineteenth psalm. The heavens are telling the glory of God. The skies shows forth the work of his hands. Day unto day pours forth speech. Night unto night declares knowledge. There is no speech nor are there words. Their voice is not heard yet their voice goes forth through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.
But the last four lines go back to the first. The heavens are telling the glory of God. But then it says, there is no speech nor are there words and that is true. The heavens are not voicing themselves in words of speech and yet they are telling the glory of God. And the skies shows forth the work of his hands and he says, “Their voice is not heard.” Certainly the sky has no voice and yet it does show forth the work of his hands. Yet their voice goes forth, that is the heavens and the sky and the day and the night. Their voice goes forth without speech, without syllables, without words. Their voice goes forth and declares. And so it is that our entire experience is one that shows forth the glory of God. It tells the story of the glory of God. Our whole experience, our entire life, our body, are continuously showing forth the work of his hands. If at this moment our bodies or health does not seem to be showing forth that divine harmony it is only because we have come under the belief that we have health of our own, bodies of our own, powers of our own instead of realizing that all that concerns us in the body, in the purse or in the home is God showing itself forth, manifesting its beauties, its nature or its character.
The moment we make the transition from the belief that we have health, that we can lose or gain, the moment that we give up the idea, the belief that we have health that can be improved and understand that the only health that there is in all the universe is the health of God manifesting itself as the health or our bodies. Then do we come into the realization of this nineteenth psalm. The heavens are telling the glory of God and they are doing it without words and without speech. The sky shows forth the work of his hands and it does it without words and without speech. Day unto day pours forth speech. Yes but day unto day does not talk, it only pours forth speech in the sense of pouring forth the harmony of God’s being. Night unto night declares knowledge and it does so without voicing it in speech or other impartations of ideas except through the activity of showing off God’s glory. Now all that we are and all that we hope to be, is God. Showing itself forth as our health, as our strength, as all of the good in our experience. Then let us give up at once the belief that our health or wealth is dependent upon certain arrangements of words into treatments or prayers. For the kingdom of God is not words or syllables. The kingdom of God is already established within you. Give up the belief that your health or wealth or home can be dependent upon anything other than the activity of God. Once you have seen that point that it is the activity of God that maintains the harmony of your being you will commence to see a new light on the subject of prayer.
R: Thank you Mary. (SM: Thank you Robert…)
(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.