Transcript:
Robert: How many of you are satisfied with your life? (laughter) Are you really satisfied with your life? You can only be satisfied with you life, when you understand the reality. Otherwise, no matter what you do, there are always problems. Even right now, I can hear your thoughts, they’re just chattering away, thinking, thinking, thinking and the thinking is always about the past and the future, never on the present. If you centre yourself on the present, there’s no time for the past or the future and you cannot possibly have any problems. You only have a problem when you centre yourself on the past and the future. So, I get a lot of phone calls. And one of the questions I’m usually asked is this: “Why did God make the world the way it is? If the world is not real, why do I feel it so much? And no matter what I do, I can’t get rid of the feeling that my body is reality.” And this person was truthful who asked me this question because that’s how everybody usually feels. It’s good to talk about absolute reality. It’s good to talk about absolute oneness. It’s good to talk about nirvana and emptiness. But that doesn’t solve the problem. To solve the problem you really have to cry out for God. You have to give up the world in your mind. I mean really give up the world in your mind. I don’t mean quit your job and become a hermit. I mean keep your job, stay married if you’re married, stay divorced if you’re divorced, stay however you are, but in your mind is where you give up. Surrender your mind to God. Now who is this God? Because we always say, “In reality there is no God, there are no others, there is no enlightenment, there’s no duality and there’s no non-duality. So who is this God?” Well, as long as you believe that you are the body God does exist. Do not fool your self. Do not believe I am not the body and God does not exist because you will suffer. God does exist as long as you believe you are the body-mind phenomena. So you don’t walk around quoting scriptures and quoting truth. What you do rather is surrender. Total surrender in your mind. “Not my will but thine.” That’s the best thing you can do. To totally surrender everything, your entire life. You can say something like this: “God, I don’t care what you do with me. I want nothing form you, I need nothing. Just make me your own and do with me as you will.” When you surrender this way, something comes over you. A peace that you never felt before. And in that peace you realize, “Who’s body is this? Who’s mind is this? What am I really?” See these questions come automatically when you surrender, they come of their own accord. But when you’re arrogant. When you’re aggressive. When you have no humility. When you’re belligerent and you walk around voicing truth statements, they go against you, not for you. Be careful. Watch what you say. Don’t walk around saying, “There is only the absolute reality.” While you’re mad at your neighbor. Don’t walk around and say, “There’s only ultimate oneness.” While you cheat your friends. Be truthful to yourself and you’ll be truthful to everybody around you. And you’ve got to be careful about that. Do not analyze what I say. When you begin to analyze anything I say, your mind will contradict. The nature of the mind is to contradict. The nature of the mind is to upset you. To make you feel out of sorts. To make you believe something is wrong some place. That is the nature of the mind. The mind always leads you astray. You cannot have faith in your mind. You cannot believe in your mind. Remember what your mind is. It’s a conglomeration of thoughts of the past and worries about the future. That’s all your mind is. But to come into truth, you have to stand naked before God. By naked I mean you have to give up everything. All your wants and desires. I don’t mean you have to be like Ramana Maharshi. When he came to the temple in the beginning when he was a boy. He took off all his clothes and stood naked in the street and it started to rain and he shaved his head. I’m not referring to that, you do not have to do this. But what you have to do is to empty your mind. You have to empty your mind of all thoughts. It’s not that hard, really. How do you do this? You simply observe your thoughts. You watch your thoughts. You become mindful of every act you perform. From the moment you get out of bed in the morning, you become mindful of what you’re doing. If you wake up angry, you immediately catch yourself. You do not carry the anger with you. You either ask yourself, you inquire, “To whom has the anger come?” Or you simply observe yourself angry and say nothing. You do whatever you have to do to transcend the anger. You watch yourself becoming angry. You realize this has been my nature up to now. I’m an angry person, why? Maybe it’s from my childhood? Maybe it’s from samskaras from a past life? Who cares? The whole idea is, I have nothing to be angry about. But then your mind will take over again and it’ll say, “Well you’ve got to be angry about this. You got fired from your job last week. You were there for twelve years and now you’re without money, without a job and you have no reason to be fired. That’s why I’m angry.” But then your wisdom should come in and tell you, “Nothing happens from nothing. Everything is preordained. And if everything is preordained, my getting fired from my job is correct. Therefore why should I be angry?” When you have that kind of an attitude, you immediately transcend that state of consciousness and you go a step higher and you’ll never be angry again. You will actually never be angry again. When you understand the principle of anger. The principle of anger is simply that it’s preordained. It was meant to be before you came into your body. Everything was determined. Even the anger. Even my getting fired from my job. Once you’ve realized this your mind becomes weak. You begin to kill the mind. This is how you annihilate the mind. You reason out every situation. You realize where it came from. Say you feel belligerent. You may ask yourself, “To whom does this belligerence come?” And of course the answer will be, “to me.” Then you hold on to the me. The me is only a thought. It is not reality. You hold on to the me as long as you can, and eventually the me will disappear into nothingness and so will your belligerency. Because your belligerency, your anger and everything else is part of the I-thought or the me-thought. It’s only a thought. It is not real. If you can’t do that. Again you simply become the witness to your belligerency. You watch. You watch yourself becoming belligerent and your mind will tell you why you feel like that. You say, “Well my partner cheated me out of ten million dollars, now I’m broke. I have a good reason to be belligerent.” No, you don’t. Something will tell you this was preordained. Or you may say, “I smashed my car into another car last week. I forgot to take out insurance. It was a new car and it was the other persons fault but I’ve got to pay ten thousand dollars for a new car now.” Accident, no, we have got to understand that there are no accidents. Nothing happens by chance. Everything is preordained, everything is determined. That alone should make you feel good. For you realize, the person who hurt me or the person I hurt, that was also predetermined. And that will stop your anger. It will stop belligerency. And once you come to terms with it, what happens? Your mind becomes weaker again. Every time you do this you weaken your mind. Every time you do this you weaken your mind. And soon your mind becomes so weak, that you’re able to practice self-inquiry and your mind will not interfere. But until that comes you have to confront every situation in yourself. You have to admit it. You have to admit, “I’m a no good S.O.B. I’m always screaming at people. I’m always scheming and planning. I always think something is wrong some place. I’m suspicious of peoples motives.” Be honest about it, that’s the first step. And then you realize, “Who is this way? Who’s suspicious? Who’s doubtful? To whom do these feelings come? Who has these feelings? I do. What I, am I talking about? What is the source of this I? Where did it come from? Who gave it birth? Does the I exist? If it does where does it exist?” As you think along these lines the I will go deeper and deeper into your heart. And with it will go everything else. Never forget everything in the world is attached to I, including your body, your mind, your belief that you are the doer and all your feelings. All your senses. They’re all attached to I. Subsequently, you don’t have to get rid of feelings by themselves. Get rid of I and all the feelings will go with the I. Then you can go to higher things. When the mind is weak and you seem to have a little control of your mind, you then can make the statement, “I am absolute reality.” And when you make a statement like that at the time your mind is weak — but remember your mind has to be weak first — what absolute reality means will automatically come into your mind to take the place of your thoughts. So the picture will present itself to you, that you are like a screen in the movie and everything in the world are images superimposed on the screen. All this will come to you by itself. Can you see the difference? Do you know what I’m talking about? Most of us have been going around saying, “I am absolute awareness, I am emptiness, I am nothing, I am this and I am that.” But when we get down to the nitty gritty, the first problem that confronts us, we become angry. So we’re really not that at all and they’re just dry words. But when you slow down the mind first, then a statement of truth will come to you automatically. And then you can make your confession, like I do every week. I am not the body. I am not the doer. I am not the mind. I am not any condition. I am unconditioned pure awareness. I am absolute reality. I am ultimate oneness. I am that I am. I am Sat-chit-ananda. And it’s not you making this confession. You’re not doing it, it is your Self, that’s making the confession. You do nothing, you’ve gotten yourself out of the way. The point I’m trying to make is, don’t allow your ego to make you think that you’re something you’re not. Your ego mind is very powerful. It’ll fool you all of the time. Be careful, always watch it. So remember, you do not have to make statements of truth at all. Why? They will come by themselves. All you have to do is to concern yourselves with slowing down the mind. And how do you do this, either through self-inquiry, through observation, through mindfulness, through witnessing. Whatever way suits you. What happens when the mind slows down? Truth takes its place. When you hear the Buddhist term, empty mind, what that means is your mind is empty of all relative terms and relative livingness. But your mind is filled with the Buddha. Your mind is filled with reality. Your mind is filled with truth, all by itself. Now why does this happen? Because your reality is your real nature, that’s what you really are. Therefore you do not have to do anything to make it happen. You just have to get your bloomin’ nothingness out of the way. When you get yourself out of the way, reality shines forth and all the images come to you. You realize again you’re like a gigantic screen. The screen is the entire universe and everything on the screen are superimposed images. They come and they go, they come and they go, they come and they go. But you understand that you are like the screen and you’re also like the images. Only the images are not real. But the Self or the screen is real. Then you can say, “All this is the Self and I am that!” For you realize what the Self means. But just to make empty word statements like that is absurd. It gets you nowhere. First you’ve got to slow down the mind and then everything will pop in by itself because everything is already there. Now you may say, “Well that’s hard to do.” If you think it’s hard to do then you have to start from the beginning and say, “To whom is it hard? Who finds it hard? I do. What is this I?” And go right back to that again. “Where does the I come from? Where does the images come from? The images that I am sick. I am poor. I’ve got problems. Something is wrong.” And the question as far as the world is concerned, “Why does God allow evil in the world?” is answered by itself. And the answer is simply this, “It’s mass hypnosis. The world that you’re talking about, does not exist,” and the examples will come to you of their own accord. Like the sky is blue. The sky appears blue, but in reality there’s no sky and there’s no blue. There’s only space and space is consciousness. And all the planets and all the stars and all the worlds and all the people and all the insects and everything that you can think of, they’re all super imposed on the space. And you can call space the screen of life and you are the space. You are not what appears to be. That’s what it means when you say, “I am not the body.” Because you are really space. How do you prove this? If you were the size of an atom, and you know how small an atom is, and you found yourself somewhere in your body. All of your cells would be equivalent to planets and you would see so much space between each cell. Equivalent to the space between all the planets and you would be in a completely different universe. You would have no body. That’s why this universe is sometimes called “the body of God.” It’s all relative and the absolute is space, the body’s relative. So you are the absolute. You are not the body you think you are. Just like the sky is not blue. Just like in the desert, when you see a mirage, you see water. But the closer you get, it turns into sand. It’s a mirage. We look at each other and we see people here. But in truth I can tell you there are no others, there’s only one and I-am that. Of course when I refer to I-am, I am not referring to Robert. I’m speaking of omnipresence. Every time I use the term I, I’m not referring to myself. I refer to omnipresence. Your true nature is omnipresence. Your body appears the way it appears because of relativity. But your body is formless space. Your body is emptiness. That’s why you can truly say, “I am not the body.” But from now on you’re not going to make that statement are you? What are you going to do? You’re going to quiet the mind. And what will happen? When the mind is quiet everything will happen by itself. The truth will come out of you. You will not have to think about it. You will be aware of reality and you will find unalloyed happiness, great joy, a great peace, a great love and you will have a great compassion. And you will be kind to everything to insects, to animals, to humans, to minerals, everything is alive and you will have reverence for all things. This feeling will come of its own accord. If you try to put it on it won’t last. That’s why some of you always tell me, “Robert I feel great when I’m here at satsang, but as soon as I walk out the door, I feel bad again, why?” That’s why, because you haven’t developed a consciousness of the truth. When you develop a consciousness of the truth it can never leave you never. You do not go on and off like a light switch. Once you have a consciousness of the truth, you have it forever. And you have a feeling of immortality. You just know, you don’t voice it, you just know, I was never born, I can never die and I do not persist while I’m alive. I am egoless, everything just happens. It comes through by itself. This is why I tell you so many times, not to read too much, Jay, not to read too much because when you read too many books on Buddhism and Daoism, on Ramana’s books, on Nisargadatta and everybody else in the world, total confusion sets in. Isn’t it better just to sit still at home in the silence and stop the mind from thinking? That’s the easiest way, it’s the best way, it’s the simplest way. If you don’t believe me, try it. Try it for a week and see what happens. For one week I would like you to experiment. I don’t want you to read any book. Think you can do it? Don’t look at any spiritual literature. Just sit by yourself as much as you can. And watch your mind, watch your mind. Do whatever you have to do to slow down your mind and then you’re going to be amazed. You will laugh at yourself. For when the mind becomes quiescent, reality will rush in. And you’ll see it’s so simple, it’s so simple. Why didn’t I know this all the time? I used to believe by reading volume after volume I’ll become enlightened. But it was so easy, I just had to quiet my mind. Those of us who met yesterday, if you remember, we’re going to be silent every Monday. Do you remember? Do you think you can do it? Just for one day, one day, tomorrow, be silent. Do not say a word to anybody. Try to spend that day by yourself if you can. If you have to go to work for a living, anybody work for a living here? (laughter) – (For some reason all the people we attract don’t work (students laugh) – But if you have to go to work, be silent in your mind. Now here’s how you work this. If you have to talk to your employees or your employer, talk to them but shut it out of your mind. Do not entertain what you say. Get rid of it immediately after you finished. If you talk about a work problem, resolve the problem and then go back to silence. In other words do not carry it with you. Do not carry it with you at all. It reminds me of the story of the two Buddhist monks. They went shopping for some groceries in town. It was raining. And they saw a beautiful young lady trying to cross the street. There was a big puddle, so one of the monks took off his jacket said to his fellow monk, “Here hold this.” And he ran over and picked up the girl and carried her across the flooded area and he put her down. And they went about their business. They shopped and went back to the Ashram, to the Zhendo. And that night when they were eating dinner, the other monk looked at him and said, “Do you realize what you did today? We took and oath never to look at a woman and you picked her up and actually carried her across the flooded area and put her down. How can you do that?” And the other monk said, “Well I put her down this morning, but apparently you’re still carrying her.” And isn’t this true of us? We always carry with us, old hurts, the past. We never get rid of it. We carry our past mistakes, things that happened to us when we were kids. We have to let go of everything. And remember the way to let go. You either ask yourself, “To whom does this come?” and follow it through, or you observe your mind in action and do nothing about it. You just observe your mind in action and watch it burn itself out. But whatever you have to do, by all means do it. So I will repeat again. When you learn to slow down your mind, the reality will rush in of its own accord because your true nature is reality. Your true nature is emptiness. Your true nature is pure awareness, pure intelligence. That’s what you really are. You don’t have to try to find it, you’ve got it. Simply let go of the other. SF: As you were talking earlier about one of the ways of dealing or confronting stuff that comes up, is realizing that everything is preordained. How can we do that without it being a belief, on our part or on my part that this is actually so. R: Well then you practice self-inquiry. If you realize that you exist, you don’t have to do that. And you’ll come to that realization by yourself. You should have a little faith. I know I always tell you not to believe a word I say, but you’ve got to have a little faith in yourself. And if that helps you to stop the noisy mind, by all means use it. Because when you realize that everything was predetermined before you came into your body, you sigh with relief, you say, “Ah, why should I react?” And it makes you feel good. But if you cannot use this method, you have to practice self-inquiry. Then you have to realize that I is having the problem, and follow the I to its culmination, to the source and there will be no problem. You have to use whatever method you need at the time. Whatever you have to do, that’s what you have to do. But we share all these different methods so you can do something. (SF: As the mind becomes quieter, as we surrender then we would automatically use the best method?) Yes, to the extent your mind becomes quieter, to that extent does your reality become seen or felt and it’s intuitive. It will tell you what to do. It will guide you and lead you in every direction. But the mind has to be quiet, that’s the first requisite. And to quiet the mind use whatever method you have to. I know some people who really get angry with their mind, and it worked for them and they shout at it, they say, “Shut up mind, I don’t want to hear a word you say, keep yourself still! I can’t stand you anymore. Shut up! I don’t believe you, you don’t exist.” And they had a talk with the mind for about a half hour and the mind quiets down. You have to use whatever method you have to use. But the whole idea is to quiet the mind and everything will happen of its own accord. Believe nothing, just practice and see what happens. SB: Robert, the mind can be quiet but isn’t also the presence necessary? Because a lot of the Buddhist texts say, they speak of the person whose mind is quiet but they kind of like, their consciousness is hazy they’re like in a daze, a daydream, they’re not present, awareness. R: The presence is always there. What happens when you quiet the mind the presence becomes more dominant. SG: I read in that book that you showed me that said that there was a disciple of Ramana who sat in the hall for long hours and he was able to stop thinking but he wasn’t in the correct state and Ramana made him go for walks and everything. (R: Oh yes.) What was that all about? If he was his mind was quiet and yet it wasn’t a correct state? R: Well because fear was coming in. He began to be fearful. He picked up a lot of fear. The way he quieted his mind, whatever method he used caused fears to come in more powerful. SH: But how can you call it a quiet mind if there was fear present? R: It wasn’t really quiet. It was never quiet. But there was fear, so he made him walk around. (SB: Oh, so it was a feeling of fear.) It was a feeling of fear, yes. (SB: So that’s also a mental construct, fear and emotions.) Of course. That’s why I say you don’t have to use one particular method to quiet your mind. Do whatever you have to do to quiet your mind. And everything will take care of itself. Everybody’s different, what’s good for you may not be good for somebody else. So that’s why I never say, “This is the only method.” You have to do what’s right for yourself, practice, find out. If you read too much you can never find out. Be alone with yourself. Find out what makes you tick and everything will work out. SH: Well, reading is after all mental activity, isn’t it? (R: Of course it is.) There’s no way of getting away from that? R: Exactly. That’s why, the more you read the more numb you become. (student laughs) Really! You actually become numb. You become a person with a feeling, “I know everything now. I’ve read everything, I know the whole thing I don’t have to learn anything else.” But you never have an experience. You’re still unhappy, the problems bother you. You have fears, frustrations and haven’t turned into a living Buddha. (SH: You have it all worked out conceptually and you’re completely out of touch.) (laughs) Yes, exactly. And there are too many people like that, unfortunately. Do you know there are people who are like that who don’t know their like that? They think they’ve got knowledge, but you can tell. When was the last time you got annoyed at somebody? When was the last time someone rubbed you the wrong way or you have doubts, suspicions, bad feelings? That shows something is wrong someplace. You’ve got to have humility and that again comes with total surrender to your Self or to God. I think humility is the first requisite that you have to develop. If you want to find your Self again. Humility is very important. So what if someone kicks sand in your face? What difference does it make? If you remember the stories about Ramana, when thieves broke into his house and his disciples wanted to fight them off and he said, “No don’t do anything, give them what they want. It’s their dharma to steal from us and it’s our dharma not to resist. So give them what they want.” Then again, when Ramana was walking around the mountain, Arunachala, he stepped in a hornets nest. Instead of pulling his foot out and cursing the hornets, he left his foot there and he spoke to the hornets, he said, “Sting me, it’s your right to sting me because I broke into your home. So sting me all you want.” And he came home that night all swollen. Does that sound stupid? If you think about it, it sounds stupid. But if you don’t think about it (students laugh) then you’ll understand. SB: Well Robert what is real humility? Real humility seems to only be a… (break in tape, Robert continues as tape restarts) R: …quiet your mind, you’ll be stronger and you will not react, you’re right. SB: Most of the Saints talk about being humble are just as big egotists you can find. (R: This is true.) Because they’re trying to be humble. R: You can’t, if you try. But when you quiet your mind again, humility comes of its own accord. But even if you think about humility, it’ll make you quiet your mind. So you can develop the quality. One thing leads to the other, so you might as well act humble. Act like you have humility, it’ll help. Everything helps. SM: If one has humility does one automatically have compassion, Robert? R: Yes, humility leads to compassion. (SM: Compassion for every living thing right?) Compassion for the mineral kingdom, for the animal kingdom, for the vegetable kingdom, for the human kingdom and for everything else, everything is sacred. Have reverence for all of life. SK: If you forget to do that, if you don’t have thoughts of doing that, I imagine in the thoughtless state that would happen automatically without having to think about it? R: When your mind becomes quiescent, still, quiet, all the realities come out by themselves. SH: Is your mind permanently quiet? R: Not all the time, I have thoughts that come and they disappear right away. They don’t stick around. (SH: They don’t stick around?) They know better than to stay. (SH: They’re immediately witnessed and disappear. R: That’s it, as soon as I confront them, they’re gone. That’s the reason I can sit in a chair at home for maybe four to six hours and it seems to me like five minutes passed. Because I draw a blank. But in the blank, in the void, there’s power, fantastic power. It’s not a blank, it’s unexplainable. But there’s a feeling of boundless love. It’s as if my own individuality has melted into boundless eternity. (SH: Into what?) Boundless eternity, and I just rest that way. Another question somebody asked, they say, “Robert, if you are consciousness why don’t you know what’s happening all over the world? Why can’t you know what’s happening in Europe, in Iraq, what somebody else is thinking. If you’re everything, how come you don’t know?” Who can answer that? SG: There’s no one else to know? R: You’re on the right track. (SG: There’s nothing else to know?) Consciousness is self-contained. Consciousness has nothing to do with the relative world. So if you are consciousness, you are beyond the relative world. The relative world does not exist for you. So how can you know anything relative. SH: How can you say it has nothing to do with it, when it all occurs within consciousness. R: That’s the appearance. What occurs in consciousness is an appearance. It is not reality. (SH: But without consciousness nothing would occur, period.) Exactly, but consciousness knows itself as consciousness. It does not know itself as anything else. (SH: Oh I see.) You say that. But if it’s consciousness, it’s consciousness. And everything is superimposed on consciousness. But consciousness only knows itself. (SH: Otherwise it would be relative.) Of course it would be relative. (SH: Right.) SB: But some of the Saints are able to do that, they’re able to know what’s happening. R: Oh they’ve got all kinds of powers. (SB: …powers that they can know what’s happening in other parts of the world and to other people.) People develop siddhas, but that’s dangerous. (SL: What is it called?) (SN: It’s actually siddhis.) Siddhis yes. (SH: Psychic powers.) SB: That’s of the mind, isn’t it? (R: Of course.) So they’re limited? R: All the books tell you, avoid those things. SK: So then there’s another group of Saints who they come spontaneously to them and they spontaneously arise for the help of other people. (R: To help other people?) Yeah. R: Well to an extent, but the highest way to be is to know yourself as omnipresence. Then you become other people. And that’s how you help them. SK: Ramana knew the heart of everyone who came to him? R: Sure. He didn’t know anything, that’s why he knew the heart of everybody. He was empty, and everybody claims that he helped them. And he said, “Me, I didn’t do anything.” But they attributed all kinds of miracles to him. If you’re empty how can you do anything? There’s nothing to do. SL: Robert when you say sit in the chair for 45 hours… (R: 45 hours.) (laughs) …for 4 to 5 hours, but anyway that’s a long period of time, in what position do you sit in. R: Just like this, I sit like this. I sit still. SB: Robert during that time do you sometimes feel a great ecstasy or is it always the same. R: It’s always the same. There’s nothing to feel anything, nobody’s home. (SB: But it’s very pleasant, right?) It’s blissful, it’s always, even right now it’s blissful. It doesn’t go away. (SB: More like self sufficient.) When I sit by myself it’s not to gain anything, it’s just to be. (SB: So that state or that place is self sufficient happiness unto itself.) It’s unalloyed happiness, it never goes away. (SL: That’s just to BE?) Just to be your Self. SH: Are you always in that state without exception? R: Nothing ever happens to take me out of it. (SH: Is that what they term as Sahaja Samadhi?) Sahaja Samadhi. You can cut my fingers off, you can put a needle through my head, I guess I’d feel it to an extent but you can’t take away my bliss, so-to-speak. (SH: I wouldn’t try. I want you to have your bliss.) How can you take it? (SH: Or do I want to?) It’s yours too. (SH: Yes it has to be. If you’ve got it we’ve all got it.) We’re all one. That’s why I do not have to do anything to make myself happy. Some people always invite me out. Once in a while I go to a movie with Dana to make her happy. But I’m happy just the way I am, I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to go anywhere, I don’t have to do anything. SL: Then what is the purpose of us in our false reality of being here then? (R: What do you mean?) False reality meaning that if we’re not enlightened then our body is just here to reach that state of enlightenment? R: Well you’re saying that you’re not enlightened. (SL: Yes.) But I see you differently. I see you as my Self. I don’t see what you see. I see you as my Self, an extension of me. (SL: But I am not enlightened so I don’t see myself as an extension of you.) Who says that? (SL: I do.) Who are you? (SL: I don’t know.) Find out. SM: Robert you were born this way. We don’t have a way to be born again to become enlightened do we? (R: Nope, everything can be done now.) SF: Just one thing about the letter that you shared with us last week is that… (R: Which one is that?) The letter, it’s a very nice letter. (R: Oh the fellow from New York.) But one of the things that occurred to me is that it gives out that it’s possible, perhaps it’s possible for any of us. (R: Of course it is, there’s no question about that.) Robert, is it inevitable for us? R: It’s inevitable, it’s unavoidable. It’s your nature. (SH: That’s good news.) (laughter) Of course. (SH: The best.) SB: But it might take many many lives, right? R: Why? (laughter) (SK: Thursdays and Sundays is what you need?) Why? Why not just awaken right now? (SK: Yeah.) Just wake up. Stop playing games, just wake up. All you’ve got to do is become tired of the world and just wake up. As long as you have desires, wants and needs you cannot wake up. So how many of you are ready to give up all your desires, wants and needs? Not too many, that’s why you can’t wake up. Because there’s something in your mind that’s very important to you. Get rid of that and you’ll wake up. Even if you’re thinking right now, I can’t wait to go home and eat dinner, that’s a strong desire. That prevents you from waking up. Or when I leave here I’m going to see this movie. That’s a desire that prevents you from waking up. To wake up you’ve got to be desire-less, total desire-less. That’s in your mind of course. It doesn’t mean that you have to give up anything physically. You have to give it up mentally. As an example: If you’re attached to your car. And you’re always thinking about your car, how you love it. You hope nobody steals it. Those thoughts have got to go. Enjoy your car. Drive your car, but do not allow it to possess you. In your mind that is. So you really don’t have to give up anything physically. Everything is given up mentally. SB: Robert is it because when a desire is in the mind consciousness cannot be pure? R: No, any desire is a thought form and a thought form takes the place of reality. So when the thought form is subdued, reality ensues. Therefore all thought forms have to go. And desire is a strong thought form. (SB: So a thought form is like a modification that’s preventing, something whole and pure and emotionlessness.) You can say that, yes. SM: So Robert is it predetermined that we were all to come here to be with you? R: Definitely. Nothing happens for nothing. SL: I’m still puzzled about if we were not enlightened or if we did reach a state of enlightenment then we’ll just be attached to our bodies? R: No. If you reach a state of enlightenment you become your natural Self. And as your natural Self, you go about your business like you always do, but you are not your business, you are not the doer. Your body does whatever it came to this earth to do, but it has nothing to do with you. You’re separate. (SL: Thank you.) In other words, you do not have to go to a cave or a jungle retreat. You can be in the world and do whatever it is you have to do. But you’re not attached. SB: So basically, you’re identified with consciousness, or there’s identification with consciousness instead of identification with me. R: Yes, you have the realization that you are the mirror and the reflection at the same time. You watch the reflection but you know that you’re the mirror and not the reflection. The identification is with the mirror. (SB: It’s a very mysterious kind of a state or a very mysterious kind of a place to be, it’s like not knowing anything.) You know plenty. (SB: It’s a total mystery.) That’s how it appears to the ajnani, but it’s beautiful. SL: When you’re enlightened could you go back down to experience any level that you want to? R: No. You don’t do that. You stay that way. You stay awake. (SL: So you wouldn’t delve into the siddhis? Is that what it’s called?) Siddhis are powers, powers. (SL: Okay then, so you would not go into that area?) You have no need to, no desire. (SL: Because you don’t have any desire at that point?) You’ve got everything, what else do you need? You have become everything. You are the source of the siddhis, the source of the power.) (SL: So at that point you would not even want to necessarily know anything.) You don’t even think about it. SK: Yet sometimes spontaneously something arises for them, maybe to tell the disciple that it’s helpful for that disciple. But they’re not delving into that, they haven’t a desire to know. It just arises. (R: That’s what we’re talking about now.) Yeah. (R: That’s why we have satsang.) SL: Yes I’ve noticed that at different satsangs sometimes different people have spoken about different things. Before you came here we talked and discussed and you brought in your discussion at different times and different people had different things that were spontaneously brought up in discussion per se. (R: That happens.) SG: Yes it does happen. You do talk about things that are very pertinent. To think, at least for me personally that have been on my mind. It happens almost every time. (R: As long as it helps.) SB: You started the Sunday satsang saying that we’re always self involved and we’re always focussed on ourselves and that there was no space in our consciousness for reality to shine. (R: Okay?) And then, that was the first part of it, and then you talked about divine ignorance. (R: Okay. What’s the point?) The point is, it seems to me the fact that we’re always self in ego, self involved, self meditative and living from the point of view from the me. That seems to be the obstacle to realization. R: For a person who is practicing self-inquiry, nothing else is necessary. Meditation is not necessary, reading is not necessary. Only satsang, self-inquiry is all you need. If you’re not practicing self-inquiry everything else is necessary. SL: So self-inquiry is, “Who am I?” (R: Yes.) “I am not the body.” R: Forget about “I am not the body.” Ask yourself, “To whom do my thoughts come?” (SL: And try to answer your own questions?) No, the answer will come by itself, “They come to me.” And when you can say, “it comes to me,” hold on to the me. Follow the me into the heart centre. Hold onto me. (SL: Meaning, asking who is me? Who is me?) No, when you hold onto me, ask nothing. Just hold onto it. But if another thought comes, to interfere. Then you ask, “To whom does this thought come?” By holding onto the me, I mean you follow the me-thread, to the heart. “How did me arise? Where did it come from?” and of course if you follow it to its culmination, you will realize it does not exist. Me just doesn’t exist. There’s no me. It’s like the sky is blue. Me is only a thought. Again that’s why I say, “When you stop your thoughts, me vanishes.” I feel it’s the best way, fastest way. You just say to yourself, “I – I.” You can do it with your breath. Inhale, you say, “I” exhale and say, “I – I, I – I.” I is the first name of God. That’s very powerful. SH: That’s the best mantra for that purpose? (R: Oh yes.) (student says different mantra) R: That’s different. I don’t want to get into Buddhist mantras. But “I – I” is the most powerful one there is. (SH: It is, huh?) Yes. If you have to use a mantra. SG: So even saying the “I-am?” (R: You can say, “I am” too if that suits you.) Same thing? (R: Same thing with your breath. Inhale you say, “I”, “Am” exhale. But remember self-inquiry is not a mantra. “Who am I” is not a mantra! Only the things I tell you are mantras, you can use them as mantras.) Let’s play some more music. (music played question start up again) ST: When you say the name God, you don’t mean something outside of yourself? What’s the use of God, the name God, is it something like, not a part of… R: As long as you believe that you are the body, then God Ishvara, the lord of karma, exists for you. When you realize you’re not the body, that type of God disappears. But that God is very real as long as you believe that you are the body. (ST: But you use the words, God the belief in God, but that is part of our Self isn’t it?) God is none other than your Self, exactly, but it becomes egoic when you say, “I-am God.” It’s better to say, “God is my Self.” (ST: And the term preordained, well that’s not from without.) That’s what? (ST: Well that’s not separate from ourselves, preordained?) As long as you believe in the body, there’s reincarnation, there’s karma and everything is preordained. As soon as you find out who you really are, it all disappears. It becomes redundant. (ST: Then what is preordained?) Preordained means everything was planned before you came into your body because you believe that you’re the body. Everything was planned before you came by Ishvara, the Lord of karma. Sounds a little confusing because it doesn’t really exist. (ST: Yeah that’s what I was wondering?) But as long as you believe you’re the body, it does.) (ST: Everything is preordained as long as you believe that yourself is the body?) Yes. SH: Does it really exist, or does it appear to exist? R: It appears to exist. (SH: Yeah. Actually it has no reality.) But when I say that or you say that, it sounds like it’s easy to get rid of. It’s not. It’s very powerful or it appears to be powerful. (laughter) (SH: It’s been preordained that way.) (laughter) Exactly.) (SH: Then who preordained it?) The preordainer. (SE: The preordainer who doesn’t exist?) (laughter) R: Exactly. But you see, to some people especially new people, when you talk like that, that nothing exists, they take it for license to act the way they want to act. So you’ve got to be careful. (SH: Let the ego go hot wired.) Exactly. ST: But yet, we’re all meant to be here. (R: All meant to be what?) All meant to be here, with you. (R: It’s preordained.) But we don’t believe in our body anymore. R: You don’t believe in it? If I pinch you will you believe in it? (student laughs) See that’s what I was talking to you previously. It’s not what you believe, it’s what you really are. If you take it a step further, none of us exist the way we think we do. None of us are bodies. But that sounds ridiculous to talk about because you feel you are the body. And it’s only when you get into the transcendental state, that you realize that you’re not the body. So the thing is to work on yourself. Then you won’t ask the question. SN: So in a way the idea is to get rid of the question? R: Get rid of the body first, then there’ll be no question. SB: But aren’t we aware already, we’re already rid of the body because we’re the one looking out of it. R: You’re rid of the body, but are you sure about that? Do you know definitely you are? When was the last time something disturbed you? (S: Six seconds ago.) (laughter) That answers the question. It’s easy to make statements of truth. I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am this, I am that. But when you have to live your everyday life, that’s when you catch yourself. SK: That’s why it’s kind of good to live in LA (laughs) (R: You can say that.) Maybe we should have a field trip and go down the rocks or somewhere to see how… (R: You can go first and tell us what happens.) I’ve worked at several places, really rough places in the city, while working at night. Saw a stabbing and stuff of things like that while working at night. (R: What kind of work did you do?) Tile work, setting tiles. (R: At night?) Yeah at the shoe stores when they close, downtown LA. (R: (laughs) He’s a tile setter at night.) SH: You would get double the pay. Smart thing to do. (SK: Yeah double the education.) SL: Robert have you seen God? (R: No, God is my Self.) SG: Robert again, a question came to mind… (R: What mind?) (laughter) The mind that I believe that I have. (laughter) The question is, why if my real nature is self-contained unlimited why would I believe that I’m this thing with all these problems and all this stuff and everything, why would I get into such a… R: Who is the I that believes that? You’re not the problems, don’t you see? You don’t exist the way you think you do. It’s like the sky is blue. You’re not like that at all. But you’ve been hypnotized to believe you are, but you’re not. (SG: And the way you get unhypnotized is to still the mind?) Still the mind and know the truth and the truth will make you free. SB: So it’s a case of mistaken identity.(R: You can say that.)Like Sherlock Holmes movies. SK: Do you ever watched someone who has been watching a movie and they start crying? And you’re sitting there thinking, if the movies not real why are they crying? They feel like it, they want to get involved, through desire and the feeling they get from it. R: There’s more to it than that. I remember watching the Ananda maya movie yesterday, tears came to my eyes. (SL: At what part?) Just observing her, just watching her in action. (SL: Why?) Why? Who knows? Does there have to be a reason? See many people have a misapprehension, that self-realized people are cold and nothing disturbs them, nothing bothers them, they just walk around like a stone, not so. You feel and you have compassion, you have joy, you have bliss. You have total understanding of your fellow man. I am you and you are me. There’s no separation. So when you hurt I cry. That’s what’s wrong with this path, because a lot of people who follow Advaita, think you have to be cold and calculated, no feelings, no emotions, don’t care. It’s not so, on the contrary. SB: Robert if there’s no one home, there’s no ego, who is it that is feeling the crying? (R: Don’t ask me?) (laughter) God himself? (R: Who knows? I have no idea?) SL: Watching a movie, is that similar to you — not you but — the one watching themselves as if he were looking at a movie? R: No I was just watching a movie, just like you watch a movie, nothing special about it.) (SL: Before you said that when we’re just looking at ourselves, we need to look at ourselves as if we were watching a movie. How do we go back one step again?) When I see you, when I watch you, I see what you’re doing, but it comes in and goes out and disappears. So if I see you hurting, I can cry because you’re hurting, but I don’t feel it emotionally. I feel it differently, I can’t explain it. (SL: What about ourselves, how are we supposed to view ourselves, our body.) Quiet your mind and it’ll take care of itself. (SL: And you said we should just kind of observe ourselves, what we’re doing?) Become mindful, yes. Start it tomorrow morning when you get out of bed. Observe your feet going on the floor. See how you stand. Going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast. Become mindful of all of your activities. Watch yourself, see how long you can keep it up. (SL: Being present in the here and now.) Yes, same thing. And that quiets the mind too. Don’t worry about the future and forget about the past. Stay centered. But again, it’s hard to do unless you quiet your mind. So selfinquiry and mind quietening comes first. Sammy? SG: Could we say on a certain level that this is all God’s dream? R: Well there’s no God to have a dream. So who’s dreaming. Nobody’s dreaming. It’s an illusion. (SG: The Self?) The Self doesn’t dream. It’s like the sky is blue again, there’s no sky and there’s no blue. So nobody’s dreaming about anything. SM: Robert, is this a big mystery that it’s revealed to one when you become realized? R: What’s revealed to one is that you are the Self of all. (SM: That’s it?) That’s it. (laughter) What else do you want? You want your cake and eat it too. (SM: There must be a purpose for all this misery we go through?) When we think there’s a purpose, because we have a body, so we think there’s a purpose. But when you understand that you’re not the body, there’s no purpose. There’s no purpose for existence. SB: Couldn’t you also say it’s for the joy of realizing there’s no purpose? (R: No.) (laughter) Or for the joy of realizing that you are the existence? R: Who needs that joy? Does the Self need that joy? The Self is self-contained. It needs no joy that you’re talking about. (SB: To realize it’s unlimitedness.) That’s relative joy. (SB: So the Self has realized its unlimitedness?) When you’re not realized, then you realize it, then you have joy. But for the Self there’s no joy because the joy’s already there, it needs nothing to be joyous. You do. SH: Touche. (R: Touche.) (students laugh) SL: He quieted your mind. (laughter) (SH: That takes care of you bud.) (laughter) R: See again, let me explain to you, that I have no idea what I am. People call me names. (students laugh) You should hear some of the names they call me. But I don’t go around saying, “I’m a Jnani, I’m a Jnani.” Because that’s a word that you give me. But I don’t even know what it means. I’m just my Self. That’s it. We have all these profound ideas about self-realization and that’s what keeps you back, because of your profundity. Stop being so profound. Just be your Self and forget the whole thing. Right Arnold? (SA: Right.) It’s so simple and we make it so complicated. What do we do with all these tapes? (laughter) (SB: It helps support my ego.) R: I don’t know what you do with the tapes, but I get calls from New York, New Zealand, from every place in the world. And they talk about the tape. (students laugh) Where are you sending all these tapes? SB: We sell them on the black market. SM: Our tapes are the best way to stay centered. I listen to them before I go to bed. I listen first before I get up in the morning, sometimes I listen at night and I’ll listen to them all night long and I’ll wake up and they’re still going. (laughs) R: But I’ll have to say that’s fine as far as it goes but the best way is to stand naked before God, nothing, no crutch. Take me the way I am, that’s the best way. (ST: Before God?) Before your Self. Remember as long as you believe that you are the body, there’s a God, so before God. Until you understand that I am that. (ST: You mean you’re using that term for us?) Yes. (ST: But you don’t use that term for yourself though?) No I don’t. SL: Robert, is that true that as long as you believe you’re the body, there’s a God. Is that true for atheists? (students laugh) R: Well atheists don’t believe in God at all. But whether they believe it or not, there’s a power that moves them around like a puppet. (tape ends)