– Transcript 231
R: Good afternoon. It is good to be with you once again. I welcome you with all my heart. I love every one of you just the way you are. All is well. There are no mistakes. Everything is in its right place. Always understand this! Everything is always in its right place. The error is in your mind, not in the way things look. Transcend the mind and you will see harmony wherever you look.
Let me ask you a question. What is the purpose for you coming to Satsang? Why do you come here? If it’s to listen to a lecture, you came for the wrong reason. If it’s for entertainment purposes, you came for the wrong reason. If it’s to compare the speaker with other speakers, you came for the wrong reason. There’s really no reason to come to Satsang at all, unless you have an open heart! If you come to Satsang with an open heart, reality will be yours. Not my reality or your reality, but reality, the reality, what people call the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.
You are already that, but you have so many concepts, you cover it up. You have so many feelings and dogmas and attitudes that you cover up the Godliness. So you have to open your heart and let your reality shine through.
How do you do this? By keeping silent, by not being judgmental, by leaving the world alone. There will always be something in this world to correct, either in yourself or in your family or in the world or in people. We have learned from experience that you cannot do this. The correction is always made within yourself.
For it is yourself, with a small ‘s’ that sees a problem. But if you try to resolve the problem outside of you, it will never be resolved. It’s resolving yourself, knowing the truth, understanding who you are, that brings you peace and realization.
What you see, what you think, what you smell, what you taste, what you hear, this is all false imagination! It appears real. It appears very real, as the world appears real, as your body appears real. But if you investigate you will find there’s no reality to it.
Do not be perturbed by whatever happens in your life, whether there is sickness, lack or limitation, whatever you’re going through, whatever is happening. Do not be concerned with this. Go deep within, search for reality by becoming still, by not arguing, not trying to make things happen. The universe knows how to cleanse itself. Whenever change comes about there seems to be turbulence, cataclysms, all these things are necessary for change to come about on this earth.
In order for a beautiful rose to grow, the seed has to be destroyed. And if you were the size of an atom, the destruction of the rose seed would be like a major earthquake. Yet when it calms down, the shoot comes out and the rose is blooming in full beauty and happiness. So it is with your life.
Never mistake suffering for something bad. Never say, “Why did this happen to me? I’m just a poor innocent bystander!” For change to come, there first has to be an upheaval of some kind. For instance, if you’re going for a new job, you have to make a lot of changes, you might have to move to a new city, make new friends, drop old friends, buy different clothes. Things have to happen for you to get into the new job. So it is with your life.
Whatever happens in your life, never feel sorry for yourself. Never be too serious about anything. For this too shall pass. If you concern yourself with the spiritual work, then all will always go well with you. But if you get involved in trivialities, materialism, then you will have a nervous breakdown, you will have major problems with your mind.
You will go through all sorts of rituals to try to make yourself happy.
Happiness in your birthright! You are happy, totally and completely happy, every one of you here! Yet some of you do not think you are. Simply because of wrong identification. You are identifying with a situation that will change eventually. And unless you’ve worked on yourself before, you will not be able to handle it when it comes along.
When I say work on yourself, what does this mean? It means you understand the truth about yourself, who you are, what you are. To know that you are not the body, you’re not the condition, you’re not the situation, you’re not the thoughts. You deny the whole world. You let go of the whole world, the whole universe and realize your Self.
Yet people get involved in things. They think it’s real. They become hurtable. And when I tell you it’s like a dream, you do not believe me. You say, “How can this be a dream? This is impossible, this is going on in my life and this is going on in my life. And the world is in a complete mess. How can it be a dream? How can I be dreaming this whole world, what I see before me as vast splendor and harmony and disharmony and all kinds of things going on? How can this be my dream?” Yet when you go to bed at night and you dream, where does this dream come from that you’re dreaming at night? How did it get there? Who gave it birth? Who else but you.
In that dream you may dream that you’re a little person, just born. Then you’re five years old, you go to school. Then you’re a teenager. Then you go to college. You become an accountant. You get married. You have children. You move to different places in the world. This all happens in your dream in less than a few seconds! The dream only last a few seconds, you know. And in that dream, your whole life went by. Why can’t you accept the fact that this is also a dream? What you call the waking state?
You were a little girl or a little boy in the waking state. You grew up into what you are right now, just like in the dream. There’s no difference. There’s absolutely no difference between the dream and the waking state. Yet when you’re in the dream, you take it seriously. You become angry over things. You become upset over all sorts of things in the dream. Then when you wake up, you laugh at yourself! You say, “Imagine me, a prison
convict. In my dream I went to prison for fifteen years. I got hit by a train. My legs were amputated. Then I woke up and here I am.” Then you laugh.
The same thing is going to happen to you in this life. When I share these things with you I am sharing my own experiences. I’m not sharing something I read in a book or something I heard in a lecture. I am sharing my personal experiences with you! You are dreaming the mortal dream! And the only way to wake up is not to take it seriously, but to observe it and watch it and not to react to it. This is the only way to awaken. You have a choice to do this. But you must remind yourself in the morning when you get out of bed.
“I just woke up,” you say to yourself. “I went from one dream into another dream!” If you remind yourself of this in the morning when you wake up, you will be able to handle the whole day sufficiently. It will be sufficient for you, the day as it is. For you will not get involved in the world too much. You will not become judgmental over things. You will leave everything alone!
Imagine again that you’re dreaming at night, but now you’re aware that you’re dreaming. If you’re aware that you’re dreaming, are you going to react to anything? Will you react to situations, if you know that you’re dreaming? Of course not. You’ll laugh!
You’ll see a war going on and you’ll get in the middle of the battlefield and you’ll say, “What are you doing? This is all a dream! Throw your guns away. You’re wasting your time!” Nobody dies, nobody’s killed, nobody’s born. It’s all a dream. And they’ll probably shoot you for saying that! Makes no difference if they shoot you! You’re aware that you’re dreaming so you’re the witness of you being shot and you keep laughing. And then you wake up, sure enough it was a dream.
Now I suppose the only difference between you and me is that I am aware twenty-four hours that this is a dream. Subsequently, if I’m shot or if I’m not shot or if I become a multimillionaire or become a pauper, it’s all the same. For I realize that this is a dream. I’m aware of it, I know it. I don’t think about it. I don’t hope that it is. I don’t pray that it is, it is, for me. And I am the witness to the whole process.
Remember this even if you were dreaming at night. But remember now, instead of dreaming to yourself you’re not caught in the dream anymore you’re awake in the dream.
You’re awake in the dream, think of that situation. You see everything going on, but you’re not disturbed. You see things changing, changing constantly like it’s supposed to. You’re not disturbed. You understand also that if you get involved in the dream, you’ll forget that you’re dreaming! You’ll forget that you’re dreaming! You get involved in the dream, you’ll forget all about the dream. But you’ve been practicing prior to dreaming. And you’re in control. Whatever happens you will not react to it. Why not? Remember? If you react to it, you’ll become part of the dream! You’ll forget that you’re dreaming, you’ll be asleep dreaming. You’ll be in deep surrealistic slumber.
This is what the Jnani is, the witness to the dream.
Take a look at your life. Think how serious you make things appear. Since you were a little boy or little girl, the things you took for granted. Imagine if you were a little boy or girl and you understood this at that time. But here you are, dreaming the mortal dream as if it’s real, reacting to it, getting caught up in it, feeling sorry for yourself.
Again, if you were the witness of your dream at night, you would not try to improve yourself, improve your affairs. You would not even react to anything. Because there’s nothing to improve, because you’re not that at all. The dream is like the images on the chalkboard, they can be erased and new images put on and erased and new images put on. The dream is like bubbles in the ocean, the bubbles come, the bubbles go, but the ocean remains the same. The dream is like the water in the mirage. It doesn’t exist but it seems real. And so it is with you.
You appear to be real. Everything appears to be real to you, but it’s not. And again I say, do not believe what I say. Find out for yourself. Prove it to yourself. The only way you can prove it to yourself, is by practicing sadhana, spiritual disciplines. If you do nothing, you get nothing. You just go through life like a leaf in the wind and your life will end and you’ll appear again somewhere else. Because you continue to dream. In that dream there is reincarnation, there’s karma, there’s God. There’s all kinds of things happening in the dream.
But also remember, the dream came out of you originally to begin with. It emanated from you, where else would it come from? There’s no one to cause the dream but you. Who caused the dream that you dream at night? You may dream about God. You may dream about karma and reincarnation. You could dream that you’re an angel. You may dream that you go to heavenly planes. You hear blissful music. What’s causing this to happen? You! There’s only you. You are the cause of everything that takes place. Everything!
Again, to prove this you go into sleep, into deep sleep and you don’t dream, there’s no dream taking place. You’re in dreamless sleep. The universe is gone, the world is gone, your body is gone, God is gone, your troubles are gone, everything is gone! This is why when you awaken, you say, “I feel refreshed. I slept good.” Because you were without the world and its manifestation.
You must become the witness to this dream also, not the doer, but the witness.
There’s quite a difference. The doer believes the body and the mind are real. So they have to take action and make things happen, get involved in the world. But the witness really just imagines that everything’s okay, even though they have not had a realization yet, but they try to witness everything to the best of their ability. They become the seer, the witness of all the happenings on this earth. But there’s no reaction. And if there’s no reaction, the mind becomes weaker and weaker and weaker, for it has nothing to do anymore. Until the mind is slowly transcended and you become free and liberated.
The choice is always yours. As I said before, do not believe anything I say. Why should you? This has been my experience, but you have to have your own experience.
When it comes is up to you.
People ask me sometimes, “Robert, when will I have this experience? I have been waiting thirty, forty years and I haven’t had any experience at all. I’ve been practicing sadhana, nothing happens?” So I tell the person what he has to hear at the time. I may say, “Trust in God. Surrender everything to God and everything will be okay.” To another person I may say, “Practice self-inquiry, inquire, Who does not have this experience? Who thinks he doesn’t have an experience of enlightenment? To whom does this come? Who feels this?” To an advanced devotee I will say, “Be still and know that I am God.” Not referring to Robert, but to I-am. Be still and know that I-am is God, and the devotee will understand this and close their eyes and go deep into the Self. So we work on many levels of consciousness.
Some people ask me certain questions and want certain answers. I will immediately feel their egos are so big that nothing can save them in this incarnation. And I will keep silent. I have nothing to say. And they have to stay in the silence and they begin to work on themselves immediately. So everyone is different. Where you go from here is determined by what you are. It’s your ball game.
When it’s time to give up this body, to drop it, you can’t take anybody with you, nobody, no possessions, nothing. All the things you’ve been fighting for will have to be left behind. All your beliefs, your politics, everything will all have to be left behind. So how fortunate you are to be able to hear these things.
Do not spend your life discussing politics or the world or people or places. Save yourself! Save yourself!
I suppose this is another reason why we have Satsang, so you can hear these things over and over again, until it clicks and something happens. You are the only one who can really save yourself. Take refuge in the Self. At the end of each day, go back to the day in retrospect, and see how you reacted to situations. This will give you a good idea of where you’re coming from. It’s between you and yourself. See the kind of day that you had. “What affected you today,” you say to yourself. Were you affected by life, life’s vicissitudes? Is your mind always thinking, thinking, thinking constantly and consistently about person, place and thing? You have to be totally honest with yourself. It’s your life. You can do whatever you want with it.
I can only explain to you how the universe works, what’s going on and the experiences that I’ve had. You must learn to love yourself just the way you are. If you really love yourself you will love others. Whatever quality you have, that’s what you see in others.
Remember, there’s no machine that churns out pieces of the universe. There’s no God that’s created this universe. It’s all coming from your own mind. It comes from yourself.
You are the one. You must think of these things when you awaken in the morning. Do not get up and put on your clothes and go to work right away, get involved in the TV and newspaper. It’s your dream! What are you doing with it? Are you lost in your dream? Are you taking the world as being real and reacting accordingly? It’s your choice.It’s interesting when I talk to people, they tell me what’s going on in the world, all these dastardly things happening in this world today. And I say, go back fifty years from now, the same things were happening to different people, a hundred years from now, two hundred years from now, the same things will happen again and again to different people.
If you go backwards or frontward, the world will always be this world. The world keeps changing and changing but it only has so much leeway. It will only change so much until it starts from the beginning again. This world is very tricky. It will fool you.
You think the world is personal to you, but the world is going through its own karma, so-to-speak. And people react when new changes come along, how foolish. In other words, they’re not working on themselves trying to become free and liberated.
They’re concerned with the world and what’s happening and trying to change things. It will appear that things are changing but it will never change, it will always be the same. It will keep changing so that it becomes the same again and again and again, different situations, different people, different conditions, but the same world doing the same things.
I suppose what it takes is to be totally and completely disgusted with this world, and have no desire or wants or needs. This doesn’t mean that you’ll starve to death or it will cause problems for yourself, on the contrary, you will be well taken care of. If you only become still and watch the unfoldment of everything. You become like a giant redwood tree. Think of how many hundreds of years a redwood has stood there, those big redwoods in northern California. How many wars they’ve seen! How many killings they’ve seen! How many people were born and died in front of them! And they just stood there majestically, no comment, people come, people go, but the giant redwood just stands there in all of its glory and splendor. You have to become like a giant redwood! Let things happen all around you. Do not react to them! Let everything transpire the way it will.
Leave it alone. And you will be spared the sufferings and the nonsense most people go through.
And so, to sum up, when you get up in the morning, become the witness to everything that you see. Do not take anything for granted. Do not react to anything. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Every morning is a new beginning for you. As you get out of bed and you get dressed, realize who you are. “I am pure awareness, consciousness, I am Brahman, the absolute reality. Fire cannot burn me, water cannot drown me. For I was never born and I will never die. I am forever.” Remember the I-am you are referring to is not you or your body. It is consciousness itself. I-am forever. I have always been and I will always be.
If you can start your day like this, then you will remember these things as you go through the day. When you go to work or wherever you go, you’ll remember who you are, what you are, why you’re here. And you’ll do the right thing to awaken. Again, the choice is yours. Do with it as you will. Peace!
It is now time to play, stump the Guru again. Do we have any stumpers over there?
(Q - Mary reads, A - Robert answers)
Q: Dear Robert, please describe what is compassion, where does it come from? In reality, does compassion really exist?
A: A being who has transcended the small self, that has become self-realized, becomes the epitome of compassion automatically. Compassion is a virtue of consciousness, of absolute reality. Compassion really means when you leave everything alone and you love it. You have a joy in your heart for everything that you see, the good the bad and the ugly. It means that you’re not judgmental, that you’re totally free and you let everything else be free.
True compassion is like when you’re in a dream and you see an accident happening in the dream. Even though it’s a dream you come over and help the person because you realize that person doesn’t know that he’s dreaming. You have a great compassion for everything that’s happening, for all humanity, the suffering that’s going on. Even though you understand that it’s a dream, you do not become arrogant and cynical and say, “Oh, this is this way and this is like that and this is going to happen this way, I’m going to fix this and I’m going to take care of this and I’m going to do that.” You keep silent and in the silence you have a great compassion, great love for everything that exists.
“The ground upon which I stand is holy ground,’ meaning that the whole universe is God, so-to-speak. Everything is God and you have compassion for all things, animals, insects, all kinds of vegetation. Everything that you see you have compassion for. But it’s a virtue of consciousness. As you work on yourself and develop yourself, then compassion comes by itself. You have compassion for those who abuse you, for those who cause problems in the world. You know that they’re asleep. They’re living the mortal dream, they can’t help what they do. Again, as you work on yourself, compassion will come of its own accord.
Q: What is infinity? Is a Jnani and infinity the same or equal?
A: Everything is infinity. Everything is infinite. The Jnani is infinite, infinite like the sky. Emptiness is infinity, total emptiness, boundless space. The substratum beyond the space is infinity. The glue that holds the planets together in their orbit is infinity. Everything beyond the body, beyond the mind, beyond the thoughts is infinity. So we can say that infinity is just another word for consciousness.
Jorge (SR): Robert, is infinity equal to a Jnani or is infinity more than a Jnani?
R: When you speak of a Jnani, there’s no such thing as more or less. A Jnani encompasses everything. So we cannot say that infinity is different. Infinity is the Jnani, the same as pure awareness or Sat-Chit-Ananda. It’s all infinity, there’s no separation. You’re trying to separate a Jnani from something. There’s never any separation. It’s all the same.
It’s all one. It’s only when the mind starts to think, that you break it up into segments and duality. But beyond the mind there’s infinity. Infinity, consciousness, Jnana, it’s all the same. Just words to express a different way. Go beyond the words.
Q: Why is there seemingly intensity of physical energy felt in a human beings awareness after having been in the presence of an enlightened one?A: Think of going out into the sun. The closer you get to the sun, the more heat ensues. The closer you are to a Jnani, the more reality, the more truth goes into yourself.
The Jnani is like a force of power, electrical charge. The Jnani is always emanating grace. If you feel it, then accept it. When a Jnani has transcended the whole world, the whole universe, then all the power of the universe is in the Jnani. There is on longer any difference between the universe and the Jnani. It’s all one. It’s all pervading. But the manifestation of consciousness has become the Jnani. Just as the sun shines and the rays of the sun are all different. Some are stronger than others. So it is with the Jnani, like the rays of the sun. The closer you get, the more heat that you get. So the closer in proximity you are with the Jnani, the more the mind becomes destroyed, reality comes, and you feel it. But you are a Jnani! Awaken to this truth, you are That! There’s no difference between you and me! You see the difference, I don’t.
Anybody like to say anything else?
Jorge (SR): Robert is the Jnani aware of everything in infinity or does infinity just act through the Jnani?
R: There’s no difference between a Jnani and infinity, it’s all the same. There’s only one. Infinity does not act. If you would imagine a power that takes up all space and time there’s no space anywhere, for the power takes up all of that space. So you can’t say there’s space and something else, for there’s no place for anything else. All space has been taken up. So it is with infinity. The same thing has happened with infinity. It pervades all space.
There’s no place or room for anything else. Again, you can’t say that the Jnani is infinity, there’s only infinity!
(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.