– Transcript 228
R: Good evening. Welcome. I welcome you with all my heart. It is good to be with you once again. I love every one of you unconditionally.
When I say, “All is well and everything is unfolding as it should,” I mean that literally. If you understand the nature of the universe, you would realize there’s no time or space. It doesn’t exist except for the ego. If there is no time or space then what appears to exist is the one source appearing as, person, place or thing. As we get deeper into this, we realize that person, place or thing never existed and does not exist at all. Only the one source exists, which is called nothing, Brahman, Sat-Chit-Ananda, nirvana. Consequently, all is well. For the one source is the ultimate reality, the absolute reality. It is bliss consciousness. This is why when I say, “All is well,” I take it literally.
I’m not saying that you’re suffering and all is well, or there is something wrong and all is well. I’m saying, “All is well irrespective of what’s going on.” All is extremely well because all is really God, the ultimate reality, the oneness. Now what you’re seeing is your own business. What appears to you is a product of your own mind, your own imagination. And we grow up a certain way, brainwashed by society, by our schools, by our churches, by our parents, thinking this is right, this is wrong, this is good, this is bad, this is up, this is down. And we get further pulled into the illusion as we grow older and we see the world and all of its ramifications and we go through the vicissitudes of life. All of these appearances seem so real to us, and we react to them. Consequently, whenever we react to something, we expand the experience, karma increases and we become further deluded.
So you should ponder carefully these words, “All is well and everything is unfolding as it should.” After all who makes a mistake? If you have your eye on the Infinite, and you have taken refuge in consciousness, for whom is there a mistake? Where is the error?
There isn’t any. This is why sometimes I continue that statement and I say, “No mistakes have been made, no mistakes were ever be made and no mistakes will ever be made.” For where would they come from? If there’s one principle, one consciousness, one absolute reality? Is there room for anything else? The absolute reality is self-contained consciousness. There could be nothing else but that.
It is only when you begin to think, that the problems begin. You have preconceived ideas of life, what it’s all about. When you begin to think, you’re thinking in time and space. Time and space exist for you so you can think. But in the absolute sense it does not exist. And there’s no room for you to think.It’s like having a room full of furniture and bringing more furniture in and more furniture in until the whole room is cluttered with furniture. There’s no room for anything.
But what happened to the space? Did the space disappear? The space never went anywhere. Even though the room is filled with furniture the space still exists, except it appears to be cluttered with furniture.
And so it is with your mind, so-called mind. You have all these thoughts, feelings, emotions, that’s all the furniture. But all of your feelings, emotions and thoughts rest in space, in boundless space. The boundless space rests in consciousness. Therefore everything returns to the source, the one primary source, the absolute reality. Ponder this, this is very important.
There is absolutely nothing in this world that can rise up against you if you understand who you are! It is only when you believe that you are human, when you believe you are a body and a mind, then and only then do you begin to have problems, as it were.
But if you stop thinking, if you allow yourself not to think, where are the problems? The problems are in the thoughts. Your body is in your thoughts. Your experiences are in your thoughts. Where else would they be? And ultimately the thoughts do not exist. There are no thoughts. There is no mind. So you’re playing games with yourself. This is God’s divine Leela, the play of consciousness. And we all get sucked into it, putting on all kinds of emotions, feelings, thoughts when you become agitated, insulted, hurt.
This is why as students of Advaita, you must inquire within yourself, “To whom does this come? Who is seeing all this? Who’s feeling all this? Who’s experiencing all of this? Where does it all come from?” Ask yourself!
All the answers are within you. Everything you’re looking for is within you.
You’ve got it all. But yet you refuse to go within yourself. Instead you go outside of yourself reacting to external conditions. You allow this world to show you a certain thing and then you react to it!
As long as you think you’re a body and a mind, then you can accept the fact that everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is in its right place. In other words, that which is happening is supposed to happen and whatever you do to try to stop it, you can’t do it. That which is not happening is not supposed to happen and no matter how you try to make it happen it’ll never happen. Be resigned to this.
Consequently, what to do? Take refuge in consciousness! This is the only liberty you’ve got. Take refuge in consciousness! Or in Buddhism they say, “Take refuge in the Buddha,” same thing. The Buddha is consciousness. The Buddha is pure awareness.
What I’m saying is this, instead of thinking to remedy this world, to make this world a better place in which to live, to straighten people out, to make things go the way you think they should go, rather than do all these things, turn within and take refuge in consciousness. If you can really do this, you become the witness consciousness. You become the witness to what’s going on without reacting to it, and you’re at peace. And if you
do not react to things, they change. They disappear from your life. For they were never real to begin with.
I hope you can hear what I’m saying?
The only solution for your salvation is to take refuge in consciousness, the one reality. And if you can do this, you can say you’re a Jnani. That’s all you have to do.
There are virtually thousands of Jnanis in the world today who profess to be Jnanis, but they’re really a knower of words. They have read many books, memorized many cliches, have sat at the feet of many teachers, and then profess to be a Jnani. But I’ll give you one little test to see if you’re a Jnani, one simple test. What have you been thinking about all day long? Have you been thinking about your attachments, your health, your finances, the world, conditions? That’s it. This shows you where you’re at.
What is the nature of a true Jnani? A true Jnani rests in the silence.
There is no reaction to person, place or thing. To most people, a true Jnani seems to be a fool. For they never defend themselves. They never react to anybody or anything.
And they just go on with their business, which is no business. When most of us see a Jnani, he may look like an ordinary person. He may have habits you don’t like. He may do things that you think are wrong. What you should do in a case like that, is to go within yourself and ask yourself, “Who am I?” Discover your true nature, that’s your job. That’s the only reason you came to this earth. To find your Self. You were really never lost, but you think you were. So now you have to find your Self because you think you’re lost, imagine that!
How do you tell if you’re lost? Again, things annoy you, things bother you, you react to situations, and the world hurts you. Then you’re lost. Because you’re trying to make yourself a better life externally, and you can’t do this. Remember what I said before?
What is supposed to happen is going to happen whether you like it or not, and you will never be able to stop it. What’s not supposed to happen will not happen, even though you try to make it happen, you will not be able to.
The world appears very confusing and a spiritual adept leaves the world alone.
They do not accept the confusion of this world no matter what it shows them, no matter what appears to be going on. We see wars all around us, man’s inhumanity to man, these dastardly conditions going on all over the world. How are we to react to these things?
I can’t tell you how to react to these things, because you’re going to react to these things determined by your level of consciousness, where you’re coming from. So I cannot tell you not to react to these things you will react to these things, again, depending on where you’re coming from in consciousness, what you really know, where you’re at. It’s all going on within yourself. Nothing is going on outside of yourself. It’s all happening within you! The good, the bad and the ugly, are all going on within you. You look out of your eyes and what do you see? You see yourself. What else can you see? (laughs) Believe me when I tell you this, you cannot see anything but yourself! And some of you will say, “What? How can you say that? All these terrible things happening in this world, in my life? I don’t want these things to happen!” Sure, consciously you don’t want them to happen, but where you are at right now, you’re causing them to happen. Otherwise, where would they come from? If they didn’t come out of you, then you are saying there are two conditions. There is me and there’s the external condition going on outside of me. You know by now this is all duality. And you know duality does not exist.
Therefore, you can only come to one conclusion, that everything I see is part of me. Not only part of me, it is me! I see myself wherever I look. “If I don’t like what I see,”
the intelligent student says, “I’m not going to fight the world and try to improve it because it won’t happen. It may appear to happen for a while, but it will come up somewhere else.
So I’ll turn within myself and try to lift myself to a higher state of consciousness. Then again, wherever I look I will see myself. But this time, instead of seeing the good, the bad and the ugly, I will see harmony in the midst of all confusion. I will see love in the midst of all hatred. I will see happiness in the midst of all sadness.”
You’re not trying to psyche yourself out and imagine that bad things do not exist.
No, that’s not what you’re trying to do at all. You’re trying to know the truth about yourself. The truth about yourself is, “I am not the body or the mind phenomena. If I am not the body or the mind phenomena, then I cannot be the external world, for the external world is an extension of my body-mind. Consequently, I turn within myself. I dive deeper within myself, until I begin to feel the bliss, the joy.”
There’s nothing to change. Do not you think that you have to change yourself, because this will keep you back. There is no self wrong that you have to change. You just have to awaken to the truth, that’s it. Awaken to the truth.
Do not play mind games with yourself. Trying to change bad for good, wrong to right, hate to love. These are all mind games. They’re both opposites. They do not exist.
You want to awaken to the truth. And you can do this by becoming the witness consciousness or practicing self-inquiry or surrendering taking complete refuge in the Self. There are so many methods that you can use to do this. But are you doing this or are you just coming here to be entertained?
There has to come a time in your life when you start working on yourself. I know that there are certain Jnanis in this world who tell you, “You don’t have to work on yourself, there’s nothing you have to do.” In the ultimate reality this is true, because who does what to whom? But you cannot fool yourself into becoming a false Jnani, as I mentioned before, by saying to yourself, “I don’t have to do anything. I’m already enlightened.” You can immediately disprove this to yourself because if you’re already enlightened, why do you feel hurt? Why do you have thoughts that you react to, conditions that you react to?
This will show you’re fooling yourself. So, you develop humility — that’s a hard one for some of you. Let go of the arrogance, the cynicism. Develop some humility. When you begin to develop humility, then the hard core stuff begins to melt away, that you’ve had for years and years and years. It begins to dissolve, to disappear. And you don’t have
to make a ridiculous statement like, “I’m already awake. I’m already self-realized.” If you were, you wouldn’t say it! For there would be nothing to say!
As you work on yourself this way, as you become the witness consciousness or surrendering to the Self or self-inquiry, you will notice within yourself that you’re becoming more peaceful all the time. The thoughts come less and less. You become less vulnerable, less hurtable. And then you do awaken one day. Yes, you will awaken one day. You have to awaken one day because the truth is you’re already awake. This is the truth about you even though you don’t know it. There are no hindrances except the ones that you impose upon yourself. There’s absolutely nothing that can hurt you except the hurts that you impose upon yourself.
Look at yourself intelligently. Do not fool yourself into believing that you are something that you are not. If you are not a Jnani, you are also not a human being. They’re both wrong. Therefore, what are you? Find out! Find out if you are something at all. Remember, as I often tell you, do not try to accumulate more knowledge. Rather, empty yourself out of the knowledge that you already have. It is knowledge that you have that’s keeping you back from your self-realization. Ponder this!
It is all your beliefs, your preconceived ideas, your concepts. And every time you read a book, you add on more and more concepts. You learn more words. You become a knower of words. Whereas, the truth is in reverse. You have to know less and less words.
You have to do less and less reading, less and less debating, less and less arguing. It all has to go!
In the human world, the best debater wins the contest. If you ever went to school and were on the debating team, the better the debater you are, the bigger the hero you are in the eyes of men. But in the spiritual world it’s completely opposite. The more of a fool you are, the greater your spiritual knowledge. I’m speaking of course, being a fool in the eyes of men, in the eyes of the world. (pause)
Ask any questions.
Jorge (SR): Robert, what can we do to encourage the Self to envelope us more? (R: To encourage yourself to do what?) What can we do to encourage the Self to envelope us more?
R: Who has to encourage whom? (SR: Excuse me?) Who has to encourage whom?
What can you do to encourage the Self? The Self doesn’t need any encouraging. You can’t encourage the Self at all. You just have to let go. Stop your mind from being so active.
Become still. You have nothing to do with the Self, per-se, by encouraging it, trying to make anything happen to it. The Self is the Self. It’s like saying, “What do we have to do to fill up all of the air of the universe,” which you mention.
The air exists. The Self exists like the air. You’re already that. So you have to remove the thoughts that tell you otherwise. By not getting into debates or hot gossip or trying to make things happen, because whatever is supposed to happen will happen. By leaving everything alone, by turning within instead of without, by trying to see what is stopping you in experiencing your true Self. Be honest with yourself. See what is stopping you. Is it your emotions, your anger, your reaction to life? And surrender those things to the Self. Every day keep letting go more and more of all of the stuff that you’re going to relieve. Empty yourself out totally and completely, just like a garbage pail. Empty the garbage. Begin to have more faith in the power that knows the way.
When you get up in the morning do not turn on the television or the radio or read newspapers or drink a cup of coffee, turn around and look, look deep, inquire, “Who am I?
What is this body? Where did it come from? What are my thoughts? Where do my thoughts come from?” Inquire, dive deep within and everything will take care of itself. But what we call the Self doesn’t need any encouragement from anybody. It just is, like the air, like boundless space.
Try to be still most of the time. Try not to get into heated discussions, heated debates about anything. The mind always wants accomplish something, wants to do something, wants to be the doer. Discourage the mind by becoming the witness to its actions.
Learn to be by yourself more, leave the world alone. Do not have any opinions for or against and everything will take care of itself.
(pause)
Thank you for coming. Remember to love yourself, to worship yourself, to pray to yourself, to bow to yourself. For God dwells in you as you.
(End)
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.