Transcript:
Robert: Any people here for the first time? Welcome. I hope what I say doesn’t shock you, because I say strange things. (laughs) I had an interesting vision this morning. In that vision I saw myself in a beautiful emerald room, and into the room walked President Bush(students laugh) and Saddam Hussein(more laughter) and Shamir of Israel and a couple of other people I didn’t recognize. Gorbachov was there too. And they all sat around a round table and they just stared at each other. So I went to the stereo and started to play some African music. At first they just smiled, then they started to tap their fingers on the desk and pretty soon they were shaking to the rhythm. And then they got up and started dancing. And they all hugged each other and talked about peace. And they realized how foolish it was to hate each other like they do. They decided to take away all the boundary lines and make the world, one united world. And then I opened my eyes. Whatever that means, it was interesting. Somebody asked me to talk about, “The law of cause and effect.” We never really talk about these things because it’s on a relative scale. We talk about absolute reality. Ultimate oneness. But yet, if we’re aware that we’re body conscious and mind conscious, we fall under the laws of karma, or cause and effect. Therefore I’ll shortly talk about these things because it helps. Cause and effect exist because of time and space. If there were no time and space, there would not be cause and effect. In reality there is no time and space and there’s no cause and effect. But in the relative world there is. Cause and effect is another name for the law of retribution. For as you sow, so shall you reap or the law of karma. And as long as you are under that law, you have to deal with the God of that law. That God is called Ishvara in Hindu, Jehovah in the Hebrew religion, Allah in Mohammed religion, and it goes by many other names. Those Gods exist as long as you believe that you are the body-mind phenomena. And so does cause and effect. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. That’s the law of physics. It’s the same as the law of cause and effect. Everything you do ends up in a result, there’s no escape from it. Unless you turn within and you no longer react to anything. Then you transcend the law and become free. But as long as we are still body conscious, we are under that law. This is how it works. If you want to grow oranges and you do not know anything about seeds. You would grab a lemon seed, plant it in the ground and expect an orange( meant lemon tree) tree to grow. The cause is the planting of the lemon seed. The effect, the lemon tree. The seed is planted in the earth. The earth is your mind and the seeds are your thoughts. And the effect is the result you get from planting seeds. So you plant a lemon seed and a lemon tree grows. But then you start crying and screaming about it, “I wanted oranges,” you say, “I demand oranges.” And you have a tantrum, you have a fit. Nobody cares. You planted the seeds and this is what you’re getting as a result. Lemons. Of course you can always make lemonade, but you wanted oranges. So why did you plant a lemon seed? You don’t know. Maybe you planted a lemon seed in a previous life. You set up the cause at that time. For the effect can back to you many lifetimes from now, as an orange tree, as a lemon tree rather. And you’ll still scream, “Why did I plant a lemon seed, I wanted oranges instead.” So it is when we see things we do not understand. For instance, when Mahatma Ghandi died, he got shot, why would an honorable man like that get shot? The last word he said to his attacker was, “I forgive you and thank you my son.” For he realized that in some other life he had set the cause in motion. And this is the effect he gets back. This is called “Delayed Karma.” Now there’s instant karma. Like when you step on the edge of a rake. You step on a rake, what happens? It hits you in the head. That’s called instant karma. Who takes care of this karma? The God of karma is, Ishvara, Allah, Jehovah. It is he who hands out what karma you’re going to experience in each life. Let’s take another example. Henry invites me to his house. I come into Henry’s house and I go to the refrigerator. I say, “What’s to eat?” I eat him out of house and home. Then I say Henry can I borrow your car? And Henry’s a good guy and he says, “sure.” So I borrow his car and I wreck his car. Break his headlights, his windshield and come back and park it like nothing happened. And Henry being the good guy that he is, doesn’t say anything. Then I say, “Henry can you lend me five hundred dollars?” So Henry being a good guy says, “sure.” And I never expect to pay him back, I just take his money. Now what happens? By not reacting, Henry becomes neutral. When you’re neutral, you do not accrue karma again. You’re finished with that part of your life. When you react you accrue karma. What happens to me? I’ve got to experience the effect sometime, somehow, of what I’ve done to Henry. It’s got to come back to me somehow. Maybe not even in this lifetime, but it will come back, there’s no escape. This is why when we see certain things in life and we do not understand, we should never judge because everything is working out like it’s supposed to. All is well and everything is unfolding as it should. Another example. People go searching for a Satguru a teacher. They go to everybody they can find. And what do they do? They try to learn everything they can. They suck the Satguru dry. They try to take all his knowledge. But do they give him their hearts? Do they surrender to him? Do they take care of him? Do they do anything for him? Most Westerners do not. They just come to take, but not to give of themselves or anything else. And when they’ve heard enough they go to somebody else and do the same things. So twenty years pass, then they wonder why they have not made any progress. Life is a reciprocal thing. Both parties have to give and then they merge into one. But if one party gives and the other party takes they come under the law of cause and effect. And they get exactly what they put out. Heres another example. I decided tomorrow that I’m going to rob Security Pacific Bank. So tomorrow comes and I write out a note and on the note it said, “I’ve got 25 hand grenades, a bazooka and a sub machine gun in my pocket, give me five hundred thousand dollars immediately or I’ll blow up the bank.” So the teller of course is frightened. And she gives me five hundred thousand dollars. And I get away clean, nobody catches me. I go to Canada. Ten years pass. I go into business and I’m successful, but then something happens and the tax people come after me. It winds up a levy on all my dealings of my business and I owe them five hundred thousand dollars. Which they get back from me. It makes me bankrupt and I’m back where I started. Do you see how everything works out? There are no mistakes. The laws exact. The only way to get away from that law is by not reacting to anything that comes to you. Because everything that happens to you is karmic in nature. If you react to it, you are setting yourself up for more karma and you are accruing more karma. If you realize that you are not the body mind phenomena, you become totally free and absolved and emancipated. And there’s no more coming or going for you. You become absolutely free. Basically that’s how it works. Any questions about that? SD: I have a question, maybe some tips on how not to react, since that it seems so difficult. R: It’s simple, whenever you’re faced with a challenge or a problem, you act but you don’t react. What’s the difference? When you act you’re spontaneous. You do what has to be done, it’s over. When you act you plan deliberately what you’re going to do. The thoughts have to come to you when you react. And the thoughts have fear, anger, jealousy, rage, frustration, getting even, whatever and then you react. But when you act there’s no thought. You just do it and it’s finished and you go on with your life. That’s basically the difference. (SD: Then what about emotions. I mean we react to emotions?) Same thing. Your mind does not know the difference between a thought and an action. You do. So when you’re planning to kill somebody, your mind believes you’ve already acted and you’ve done it. Even if you never carry it through. And that accrues more karma for you. Thoughts are things. For instance, the mind does not know the difference between a cancer and a cold. But you believe a cancer is deadly and a cold you can get over fast. So if you catch a cold, your system will make you get over it fast. But if you get cancer, your system believes that’s like death. So fear comes in, worry comes in and ultimately you die. But you have set the cause in motion by your belief, that’s how it works. So thoughts and actions are the same. There’s no difference. The idea is to free your mind from thoughts. Not to think further than your nose. Catch yourself every time you think. And ask yourself, “To whom do these thoughts come? Who thinks these thoughts? To whom do they come?” And you’ll realize they come to me. I think these thoughts. Everything is connected to the I. All your thoughts are connected to I. Get rid of the I and all your problems go with it. Follow the I to it’s culmination. Concentrate on the source of the I. And you will find that I does not exist, and you’ll become free. (SD: Did you say that you will find the I does not exist?) I does not exist. (SD: Does not exist?) Right. I leads to nothingness, to freedom, to liberation. As long as you have a sense of I, you have problems. Because you always say, “I am sick, I am poor, I am happy, I am unhappy,” and so forth. And you’re living in the world of duality. So when you follow I, all the concepts disappear with the I and there’s nobody left to think. You ultimately become free. You should also ask yourself, “For whom is karma? Who has to experience karma? Who has to experience cause and effect?” You will soon realize, that that is only for your ego, not for you. You are free and have nothing to do with it. When you transcend the ego, karma goes. And you become totally free. (SD: Who are you addressing as you?) Yourself. Your Self. (SD: And that’s not the same as I?) Same thing, yes. Me, I it’s all the same. If you ask yourself, “To whom does the karma come?” And then you say, “To me.” Hold onto the me, like holding onto a rope, and going down to the end of the rope. When you come to the end of the rope, there’s nothing. So when you come to the end of me, reality exists. And reality ensures of it’s own accord. So we’re not to look for reality, we’re not to seek reality, we’re are not to find reality, we’re are simply trying to let go of the other things. To the extent that you let go of the other things. To that extent will reality come of it’s own accord. And you will be free. Now last week, I think it was Thursday I saw Nate was here. He made the statement that he had been meditating for twenty years and nothing is happening. He’s seen thirtyfive teachers or more. And still nothing is happening. I told him to hold on and keep going, he didn’t like that. So when I went home I opened one of Ramana Maharshi’s books and I just happened to come to that page that we’re talking about. Mary would you like to read it? Mary: Sure. R: Start over here, go to here. Skip this, read this and go to here. Skip this part. Now listen to this very carefully. Mary: A visitor asked Bhagvan what one should do for the betterment of Atma. Bhagvan said, “What do you mean by atma and by betterment?” Visitor: We don’t know all that, that is why we come here. Bhagvan: The Self or Atma is always as it is. There’s no such thing as attaining it. All that is necessary is to give up regarding the not self as Self and the unreal as real. When we give up identifying ourselves with the body, the Self alone remains. Visitor: But how is one to give up this identification? Will coming here and getting our doubts removed help in the process. Bhagvan: Questions are always about things that you don’t know and will be endless unless you find out who the questioner is. Though the things about which the questions are asked are unknown, there can be no doubt that a questioner exists to ask the questions. And if you ask, “Who he is?” All doubts will be set at rest. Visitor: All that I want to know is whether satsang is necessary? And whether my coming here will help me or not? Bhagvan: First you must decide what is satsang? It means association with sat or reality. And one who knows or has realized sat, is also regarded as sat. Such association with sat or with one who knows sat is absolutely necessary for all. Shankara has said, (Bhagvan here quoted the sanskrit verse) “That in all the three worlds, there is no boat like satsang to carry one safely across the ocean of births and deaths.” This morning questions were put by a visitor by name, S P Tahal. Mr. Tahal: I have been making sadhana for nearly twenty years and I can see no progress. What should I do? Bhagvan said, I maybe able to say something if I know what the sadhana is.” Mr. Tahal: From about 5 o clock every morning, I concentrate on the thought that the Self alone is real and all else, unreal. Although I have been doing this for about twenty years, I cannot concentrate for more than two or three minutes without my thoughts wandering. Bhagvan: There is no other way to succeed than to draw the mind back, every time it turns outward, and fix it in the Self. There is no need for meditation or mantras or japa or dhiyana or anything of the sort because these are our real nature. All that is needed is to give up thinking of objects other than the self. Meditation is not so much thinking of the Self as giving up thinking of the not-self. When you give up thinking of outward objects and prevent your mind for getting or going outward and turn it inward and fix it in the Self. The Self alone will remain. Mr. Tahal: But what should I do to overcome the pull of these thoughts and desires? How should I regulate my life, so as to attain control over my thoughts? Bhagvan: The more you get fixed in the Self the more other thoughts will drop off of themselves. The mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts and the I-thought is the root of all of them. When you see this I is and whence it proceeds, all thoughts get merged in the Self. Regulation of life, such as getting up at a fixed hour, bathing, doing mantra, japa etc., observing rituals, all this is for people who do not feel drawn to self-inquiry or are not capable of it. But for those who can practice this method, all rules and disciplines are unnecessary. Robert: Thank you Mary. This is why I always say, I do not give lectures, I do not make speeches, I would rather sit in silence then have to talk. For talking gets you nowhere. You know yourself, you listen to me tonight, by the time you go home you forget everything. And then you will look at one of the magazines and you will see a new teacher on the block and you’ll say, “Let’s go hear him.” And this’ll go on forever. You’ve got to get down to the business at hand. You’ve got to make up your mind that you don’t have, that you are tired of playing mind games, jumping from teaching to teaching, from book to book and living your same old life to reversing the whole procedure. You stop reading, you stop running from teacher to teacher and you settle down doing the work of selfinquiry. Then you become free fast. Otherwise you will go lifetime after lifetime after lifetime of searching, searching, searching and never getting anywhere. But if you start practicing self-inquiry soon you will start arriving at certain feelings that the world, people, places and things, the universe, God is a concept of your own mind. You have created God in your own image. And he exists for you as long as you believe that you are the bodymind phenomena. So get to work and do something good for yourself. Any questions? Don’t look so serious. (Students laugh) SG: If this karma and stuff carries over to the next life who’s it carry over to if there is no individual. R: As long as you believe you are the body, you pick up new bodies every time. You drop the old one and pick up a new one. (SG: Is that a completely different one or does it carry over from one to the other.) It’s a carry over. You don’t look the same, but all the attitudes, samskaras, opinions they all come back to you, until you transcend them completely. So, you do not transcend these samskaras by trying to get rid of these each one at a time you can never do it. For when you get rid of anger fear pops up and so forth. Rather find out “to whom these samskaras come? Who experiences these things?” and find the source of the I. Then it will all go and never come back and you won’t have any problems. SD: So are you saying Robert that from lifetime to lifetime, assuming that one learns something in any given lifetime that there is a certain progress. R: Definitely, you carry it over. For instance, with most of you that come here. If for some reason you don’t make it in this life, what would happen to you most probably, is you will be born in a spiritual family of Jnanis. You will be that far ahead of the game. And you will carry on where you left off. But if you’re selling drugs out in the street, you will be born to a family of drug addicts and you will carry on from there. Everything is up to you. (SD: So that sort of ties in with the idea that it’s all evolving even though that’s not exactly what we’re seeing?) As long as you believe that you’re the body the soul evolves. But in reality there’s no soul and there’s no body. As soon as you can grasp that you wake up and you become free. ST: Is it possible to understand that completely if you’re sitting where I’m sitting, you know? (laughs) (R: You don’t have to understand with your human mind.) Okay. (R: You just have to be and open your heart and everything will happen by itself.) SF: What do you mean by open your heart, right now? R: It means let love shine through, compassion, love, goodness. Have no opinions, have no concepts. No preconceived ideas. Just be open in your heart, with love and everything will come. That’s what satsang is all about. Don’t be like the fellow who heard a story like this and decided to become a Zen Buddhist Monk. So he quit his job and went to Japan and had an audience with a Roshi, a head monk. And he said I wan to become a zen buddhist monk. And the Roshi said, “Okay,” and gave him all the rules and regulations. And he said, “by the way I forgot to tell you, we take a vow of silence here, we only speak only three words every ten years.” so he said, “okay.” Ten years passed and he an audience with the Roshi and the monk said, “the food sucks!”(laughter) And he went back to his quarters. Another ten years passed. He had an audience with the Roshi and he said, “The beds hard” and went back to his quarters. Another ten years passed and he went to the Roshi and he said, “Hey, I quit,” and the Roshi said, “I don’t blame you, you’ve been bitching ever since you got here.” (laughter) Don’t be like that. Let’s sing some more songs if you feel like chanting, by all means do it. (tape break and continues after music and chanting is done.) You now have an opportunity to ask any spiritual question you like about anything and we’ll see where we go. SL: About reincarnation, I take it the soul is dependent on the ego? R: The soul is dependent on the ego and the mind as long as you believe you are the body. But when you give up the body belief, everything becomes redundant. It does not exist for you any longer. So all these things exist, for as long as you identify with your body. (SL: So as long as there’s an ego there’s reincarnation?) Yes. There’s a God and there’s karma and everything else. (SL: After liberation there’s no more soul?) There’s no soul, there’s no God, there’s no world, there’s no universe, there’s no liberation, there’s no duality, there’s no non-duality. (SL: What is the difference between the soul and the ego then?) The soul is the part of you that carries on. The ego is the force behind the soul. The ego is the doer. That makes you believe that I am the doer. (SL: So it’s then just the identification that exists after the death of the body that carries over to the next so-called life?) Yes. SD: Isn’t the same ego carry forward also? I mean aren’t the soul and the ego sort of interchangeable in that way? R: The ego’s always the same. The ego, soul, concept and principle are always the same. They go from body to body and body to body they carry over. The thing to do is not to concentrate on that but to ask yourself, “For whom is reincarnation? For whom is there a soul? Who’s going through all this? I Am. Well who am I? What is the source of I?” SR: Robert, we talk about these things as if they were solid entities, or objects, you know ego, soul etc. And somehow I get confused in that because I seem to remember Bhagvan’s teaching like there is no ego, see what’s really there and that’s simply the teaching and not that they are there to get rid of. (R: Exactly.) And sometimes I feel a sense of confusion of, is there an object to be destroyed? (R: There is no object to be destroyed. It never existed.) Right. R: But as long as you are having difficulty with your life, they appear to exist. And if they appear to exist, we have to question why? “Where do they come from? To whom do they come?” and they will disappear. We work with what we’ve got. (SR: So we’re questioning appearances essentially?) Yes. (SR: What seems to be?) We’re questioning the world. Where did the world come from? Where did I come from? SG: It’s like when you ask the question, “Who am I?” there’s a kind of a blank spot, a blank space before anything comes up is that what you say consciousness is? R: Space is consciousness, correct. The space in between “Who am I?” is the real Self. Abide in that. If you continue the practice, after a while, the space will grow longer and longer and longer. You will say, “Who am I?” and pause and you will sooner get lost in consciousness. Then you start thinking again, and you go back to “Who am I?” and there’ll be another long space, until “who am I?” stops completely and you become your Self. So as you continue the practice, the space in-between becomes longer and longer. SF: Robert. Is the Self clear space or a blank or the perceiver of the space or the blank? R: The space is not a blank. It is not a perceiver. It is nothing that you can qualify. Nothing that you can discuss. Nothing that is known. For space to be known, there has to be a knower. And as long as there’s a knower, that’s not it. So you have to go beyond that. To silence. Consciousness is silence. Silence is consciousness. They’re both the same. SR: Robert, in a sense the space is not an it, but I and that is a problem in a sense, that we see it as it and not I? R: You exist. You exist where there is space and you exist where there is I. So who exists as space? Who exists as I? ask the question. Who exists? confer. Follow the existence. Follow the I. And you will come to nothing. You will come to consciousness by itself. But do not believe that the void is it. Many people experience the void and they think the void is it. But don’t you exist in the void? (tape break as Robert continues) R: …there is nothing that can be explained. As long as you can explain it, it’s not it. So what is left? Silence, quietness. SY: Why does the music or song help to realize the consciousness or unexplainable? R: The music quiets the mind. It makes the mind quieter and quieter. It makes the mind one-pointed. So you can get rid of it and become still, quiet. SU: So we can use music to quieten our mind? R: Yes. If you come home after a hectic days work, if you listen to chanting music like this, you’ll become quieter and quieter. You’ll become more and more relaxed and you’ll be able to go deep within yourself. Deeper and deeper than you’ve ever gone before. That’s how the music helps. SM: That’s not connected to the emotions of transcending is it, Robert? (R: What’s that?) Emotional transcending from listening to music? (R: Oh it quiets the emotions.) Oh I see. R: It transcends emotions. It transcends anger and fear. It’s good for you. It’s good for the soul, that doesn’t exist. (laughter) All of you still look pretty serious, I don’t know why? It’s not that bad you know. This is fun. (laughs) Put the right finger in here and left finger in here and pull. (Robert puts fingers in corners of mouth and pulls. (laughter) Smile. Do not take life serious. SF: I’ve just had a feeling, I’m glad to be here. R: I’m glad you’re here. The material life is a series of changes. The only thing permanent in life is change. So when you chase life for possessions, for things, for people. You will always become disappointed. Find your Self first and everything else will work out. Go ahead. SG: If there’s no free will is there only predetermination, that’s all? R: Everything is predetermined. The only freewill we’ve got is not to react to conditions and to turn within. That the only freewill we’ve got. Everything else is destiny, karma. Even when I lift my hand like this, it’s been predestined. SD: By whom or by what? (R: By the lord of karma, by Ishvara.) Which you said doesn’t exist? R: Of course not. But as long as you don’t know that, because you believe that you’re the body, then you’ve got to be careful. (students laugh) Otherwise I’m giving you license. You may really go and hold up a bank tomorrow, it doesn’t matter because you think there’s nothing. On the contrary. SE: It’s taking a thorn to remove a thorn. (R: Yes.) SD: So would a Jnani reincarnate? (R: No.) Because he’d be off the karmic wheel, right? (R: Exactly.) So attaining – or being a Jnani is the last time you’ll be on the earth plane right? R: A Jnani has nothing to do with the world or the universe. (SD: But I mean the body of the Jnani that appears to continue existing? Is the last physical existence.) The body of a Jnani appears to the ajnani. That’s how the ajnani sees the Jnani. But in truth the Jnani has no body. There no coming, there’s no going for the Jnani. There’s no birth, there’s no death for the body. But the ajnani sees the body. SD: But for example if you were born an ajnani and you achieved enlightenment in a given lifetime are you saying that the body would disappear or just from your perspective it would never have existed. (R: To the Jnani it never exists.) But those around you would still see a body? R: Yes. Do you want to read something? Ed: You know I was all those years in the Zen monastery. Every morning we recited the Prashna-Parameeta for Daya Sutra and for twelve or fourteen years I never understood and I tried to stop to understand after a while. I would like you to comment on it after I read it. (R: Okay.) It’s very short. Ed reads: Abuk-logi-tashwara was practicing deeply the Prashna-Parameeta and he perceived clearly that all five stundas are empty and pass beyond all suffering and distress. Oshariya-putra form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. And so also with sensation, thinking, impulse and consciousness which are also like this. All these things have a definite character of emptiness. Neither born nor dying, neither defiled nor furore, neither increased nor lessened. So in emptiness there is either form or sensation, thinking, impulse nor consciousness. No eye, no nose, no ear, no tongue, no body, no mind, no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind. No element of I nor any of the other elements, including that of mind consciousness. No ignorance and no extinction of ignorance nor any of the rest including age and death and extinction of age and death. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no wisdom and no attainment. The Bhodhisatva since he is not gaining anything by the Prashna-Parameeta has his heart set free from all of the hindrances. And with no hindrances of the heart there is no fear. Far from all perverted dream thoughts he has reached the ultimate nirvada, Nirvana. By the Prashna-Parameeta all the Buddhas of the three worlds have the utmost right and perfect enlightenment. Know then that the Prashna-Parameeta is the great spiritual mantra, the great radiant mantra, the supreme mantra. The purist mantra that removes all suffering, the true the unfailing. The mantra of the Prashna-Parameeta is taught and it is taught thus: Gatei, gatei, para-gatei, parasam-gatei, bodhi-swaha. Gone, gone, gone beyond, all together beyond, awakening fulfilled. R: That’s very good. If you’re inclined toward Buddhism, you would follow the path that he just described. Depends where your feelings go. What your karma is, what you’re inclined towards. We say exactly the same things with different words. So I can go with everything, it’s very true. We’re all inclined differently. Some of us are inclined towards Buddhism, some of us are inclined toward Jnana, some of us are inclined toward new cars. Everybody’s different, but it’s all good. Make it simple. Buddhism has a tendency to make things a little hard. Because you’ve got to remember all kinds of things. The only thing that you have to know is that you exist. You exist while you sleep, you exist while you dream and you exist right now. Ask yourself, “Who exists? What is that which exists?” Ask yourself. And when you find out you’ll be free. We try to make it very clear and very simple. The simpler the better. (short pause) We always teach also, the best time is to start in the morning. When you first wake up. You simply ask yourself, “Who woke up?” I did. “Who dreamt?” I did. “Who slept?” I did. I was present in all three states of consciousness. “Then who is this I?” follow the I. Grab hold of the I. Concentrate on the source of I and you will become free. And you will carry it through the day and your days will become happier and happier. Just by doing that. SL: What if you follow the I and it just stops, when you’re just saying, “Who am I?” (R: That’s good.) And you just keep repeating “Who am I?” for a while?” R: No, focus on the stop. Where it stopped. Put all of your attention into the place where it stopped. (SL: And repeat “Who am I?”) You only repeat “Who am I?” when thoughts come. (SL: So just try to have a blank in “Who am I?”) Your mind becomes blank but you still exist. So you really go beyond the blank mind. (SL: How like, I don’t quite understand?) You simply ask yourself, “Who has a blank mind? To whom does it come?” That has to go. Everything has to go. As long as you believe, “I have a blank mind,” you’re still caught in the trap because I is still there. So it’s not having a blank mind. It’s going beyond the blank mind into total annihilation of the mind. Where there is total freedom and bliss. Don’t be afraid of going back there, so far. A lot of people are afraid because they think that they’ll disappear. You don’t disappear. You become blissful, happy under all conditions. SG: Robert, it seems when I do this with my eyes closed, the space gets more elongated. Is this done like a formal meditation practice? R: Not really. When your space gets longer, it’s a result of thinking. It is the mind that causes this. You have to go beyond that. Dive deeper. Dive deeper and deeper by asking yourself, “To whom does this experience come? Who is feeling this? Who is going through this experience?” No matter what experience you have, ask the question. Until all experiences cease and there’s a deep silence. In that deep silence is reality. It comes by itself. SD: I get the impression when Gayle asked the question that she was talking about that deep silence, were you? SL: That’s when I had my blank mind. (R: Well the term blank mind is not too good.) Blank mind is what? (R: It’s not too good of a term.) SD: Not a good term but the experience is what you were talking about Robert? (R: You want to lose all sense of I and merge in consciousness in the silence, quietness.) But then I think Goram Pramesh was saying that, what comes after deep silence or is that it? (R: That’s it. But as long as you can explain it, it’s not that.) SL: Do you just taste the pull of it. R: That’s right. It’s not just having a quiet mind. Can you tell me why? Because you believe you’ve got a quiet mind. (SL: Uh.) You’ve got to go beyond the belief of mind. There’s nothing. There’s no one left to say that. There’s no one left to make any statement of truth. Everything has been transcended. There is no light and there is no darkness. There’s no happiness and there’s no unhappiness as we know it. There’s a total bliss consciousness which cannot be comprehended or explained. Remember, the finite can never know the infinite. So you can’t explain it. SF: It’s only afterwards that you can realize that there was nothing? (R: Afterwards there’s no one left to realize.) I mean when it’s not permanent. R: When there’s nobody left, when it’s not permanent, then I will realize everything. If it isn’t permanent, thoughts will come and you’ll just be like you were before. It’s only temporary. But if it’s permanent there are no thoughts. There’s no I. There’s no explanation. There’s nobody left. (SD: So there’s nobody to come back.) There’s nobody to go anywhere or to come back. There’s nobody home. SX: So who’s minding the store.(laughter) (R: Nobody.) Dennis nobody. (laughter) R: Who’s on first? (laughter) SD: No wonder I think the ego is afraid because it’s facing the mask of existence. (R: Of course. That’s the last thing it wants.) Is that because we feel earth bound or we feel like if our ego didn’t exist that – then we don’t exist? R: It’s part of the karmic pull, to believe that you are existence, as a body, as a mind, as an ego. And when it starts disappearing. It’ll make you afraid. For as you just said, you think you’re going into nothingness and you’re afraid to do that. But you have to push forward, until everything is gone. Then you’ll really be home and it’s a different ball game. (SD: So things that might come up would be fear of annihilation and things like that, right?) Yes and alot of things from past lives will come up. You have to get rid of everything before you become realized. But when you get rid of the I, all the dormant seeds of past experiences are attached to the I. When the I goes everything else goes. That’s why that’s the fastest way. SH: What sort of a ball game is it then? (R: It’s beyond explanation. There’s no one to say. There’s no one left to explain. You become your Self.) SL: So the senses, is that like everything that makes you a separate individual or a separate person is erased? (R: Yes. You become omnipresence. You become radiant bliss and you can say, “All this is the Self and I am that!”) SK: And I was never anything else? (R: Yes.) SD: I’m sorry what was his question? R: He didn’t ask a question. He said, “I was never anything else. Let’s sing some more songs.(laughter) (tape break as Robert continues) R: …he means he’s not attached to things. There’s nothing wrong with relationships or owning something. But do not be attached in your mind to it. That’s how you become free. By being non-attached mentally. (SU: How do you do that?) Simply by knowing the truth about yourself. (SU: Because before earlier you were saying, “To feel from the heart?”) You feel from your heart in the beginning and then that leads to a higher consciousness. Where you see everybody as your Self. All fear disappears. And when all fears disappears, you can be totally honest with people, you can own things, you can get married or not get married, you can live in a house or a tent, it doesn’t make any difference and if someone takes something from you, it doesn’t matter. As an example: In the story of Ramana Maharshi, when he lived in Iskanda Ashram, up in the hill in Arunachala. One night about three in the morning, he was attacked by thieves. He had about six devotees with him. And the thieves screamed from the window, “Give us everything you’ve got or we’ll kill you!” So the devotees wanted to fight the thieves. And he said, “No, give them what they want. Carry it out for them.” And he invited the thieves in the house to take whatever they liked. He explained to his devotees, “It is their dharma to be thieves, it is our dharma not to resist, because we are sadhus. So give them what they want.” The next day they were captured by the police and Ramana got all his things back. But it’s the attitude that counts. When you realize that you are the universe. Then the whole universe becomes you and you own the whole universe. So you don’t have any greed anymore like you have to possess something. Another story about Ramana, when he was walking around the hill. He inadvertently stepped in a hornets nest. And instead of pulling his foot out and running away, he started to speak to the hornets and he said, “Sting me all you can, it’s my fault I stepped on your nest. Go ahead sting me I deserve it” and he kept his leg there about ten minutes. Of course when he took it out it was full of bites. The average person would’ve gone to the hospital. But he just walked back to the ashram and everything disappeared in a couple of days. So that’s non-attachment. SF: Robert, if a girl is facing rape she has to fight, she can’t…? R: I guess she does, she has to fight. But I know something about this. When I had some meetings in Hawaii, I used to have a girl that told me she was raped seven times. And each time she allowed the rapist to do what he wants with her. And she didn’t care, and she was happy as a lark. That’s her attitude, so who knows? But if you don’t resist, you’ll get out of situations more quickly then if you do resist. There’s something real about that. You know yourself if you’re a woman and somebody’s trying to rape you, the thrill is in resisting for the guy, when you resist his advances. But if you come on to him and you say, “Okay, I love you what you’re doing. I’d love you to do it.” He’ll become frightened and probably leave you and go away because he didn’t expect that. If you cooperate, a rapist doesn’t like that. They like when you resist, because they’ve got power over you. That’s something to think about. Non-resistance always works. But as long as you believe that you are the body, you can never practice non-resistance. Your ego will always interfere and make you stick up or your rights. It’s only in the period when you’re practicing your sadhana, “Who am I?” self-inquiry that you become stronger and stronger, and you’re able to practice non-resistance. Therefore do not try to acquire something positive, rather get rid of the I and everything will come by itself. In other words, do not try to acquire positive traits because it’ll take you years and years. Find out to whom they come. Find out who has the problem, and find the source then everything will take care of itself. Consider this your spiritual family. Ask personal questions. Things that have been bothering you for a very long time. Don’t be afraid, let it all hang out. SD: Well assuming that our goal is to be realized within this life time, if you were facing eminent death or something and you were not realized, it would be to your advantage to resist so you can stick around and keep practicing, wouldn’t it? R: It depends. It depends on your karma. It depends on many factors. But if you’re killed while you’re practicing. There’s no doubt you’ll come back to a spiritual family and you’ll be able to practice again, when you’re young. But it depends on alot of things. SD: But you know as so many people have spoken of to Maharshi in the past, they talk about trying for twenty years and not succeeding. It seems the necessity for this as Nisargadatta said, “The only reason to be in the body is self-realization.” So one wants on a certain level to hang on. (R: To become self-realized.) To achieve that right. R: Yes exactly. But if it doesn’t happen don’t worry about it. You effort never goes in vain. Everything you do, every practice that you take. (SD: So you’ll be reborn in the next grade, sort of?) Sort of. Maybe even on a nicer planet. (laughter) SF: Robert, what about the recourse of sadhana there are these periods when one that’s doing sadhana may feel dry a little bit dejective, a little bit disappointed like he’s going nowhere. What would you have to say to him? There are periods like that in the course of sadhana. What would you have to say to that to give him support? R: Then you observe. You become a witness to those feelings. And you watch those feelings. And then after you ask yourself, “To whom do they come? Who has these feelings? To whom do they come?” “To me. I feel this.” “Who am I? Who is the I that feels dejected?” and keep still, but hang on to the I. Hold on to the I with all your might. Like holding on to a rope and then let go and when you let go there’s silence. Then you will feel that those feelings disappear and they don’t come back any more. But you have to keep going back again and again until it happens. It’s like studying to be a doctor. You have to go to class, after class, after class. Study, study, study. Sometimes you think you’re going to fail so you try again, you study harder until you finally make it. This is the same thing. But no practice is in vain, everything is accounted for. And if you die in your attempt, you carry it with you and you have another chance. You’d be ahead of the game. Do not worry about anything, be happy, be free. Love your Self, not your ego but your Self. SG: Robert. You said there’s no free will but there’s a choice to turn within or not, isn’t that a function of duality also, why that exception? R: It’s the only freedom we’ve really got. Not to react to a condition, but to turn within. That’s a choice. We don’t have to do that and allow karma to carry us along, or we can do that and become free. The choice is ours. That’s the only choice we’ve got. Everything else is predetermined. SG: Isn’t that just the illusion of choice that they have an understanding that the brain is not capable of creating a thought or initiating anything and cannot have an original thought. It’s only a receiver and receives impulses from pure consciousness outside of itself. (R: This is true.) Always reacts to that, is that not so? R: That is so, but the brain has nothing to do with the mind. It’s the mind that causes the brain to do that. Therefore we do not work on healing the brain. We work on annihilating the mind. When the mind is gone the brain will take care of itself and rest in the heart and do the right things. So don’t concern yourself with the brain. Concern yourself with getting rid of the mind and everything will take care of itself. SE: Who is to concern themselves with getting rid of the mind? R: The ego. That doesn’t exist. SG: So everything else is already determined. Is destiny determined in each moment, or is it predetermined that everything that ever will be is already known now? (R: It’s all predetermined.) It’s all predetermined, so everything that will pre-exist or has been already is so? R: And it’s all an illusion, so ask yourself, “To whom is this destiny?” And you’ll find out destiny never existed. (SD: So on the highest level, neither would pre-destiny, would that be right?) Exactly. On the highest level there’s no realization. There’s nothing to realize. SG: The mind accepts the concept of what you’re saying, but we’re getting beyond that. R: Then you have to ask yourself, “To whom does the mind come? For whom is the mind? Who has to go through all these concepts? Who has to worry about these things?” (SG: Robert, this ego wants to know.) The ego wants to know? (SG: Yes.) So, “For whom is there an ego?” (S: Just for this illusory ego, this false identification. If there’s destiny, then I have no choice whether there is awakening in this case or not?) The choice you have is to turn within and not be concerned about this. SD: So are you saying in a way that by turning within you can cancel out your predestiny? (R: Exactly.) SH: Who turns within, not the ego? (R: The mind.) That’s the last thing the ego wants. R: You have to use the mind to get rid of the mind. SG: Mind is the ego, is it not? (R: Yes.) SD: So turning it on itself, that’s what we’re trying to do. R: Turning it on itself, exactly. As you turn it on itself, it becomes weaker and weaker and weaker until it’s completely annihilated. SE: And the process appears to be free choice until the self ends and then there was no choice or no mind turned inward in the first place. (R: Exactly.) On the relative level there’s an apparent choice. (R: Yes.) But in effect there’s no choice whatsoever? (R: Because you’re already free.) SD: Are you predestined to awaken in a particular lifetime or are you predestined to become realized. R: At that level you’re right, you are. But that does not exist, so you’re not. See as long as we’re playing with concepts, we’re going to get stuck longer and longer. Forget about predestination.(laughter) Focus on the I and stop the game. SK: I have a question on that topic, being on a relative level. You see this friend and they smashed up your car and now they want to do whatever the next thing is. (R: Sue you. (laughter)) The persons who’s car that was smashed up, at some point wouldn’t they develop some concern toward their friend and somehow say something to make them aware that although it may not be hurting them themselves but karmically that they’d be hurting them to be doing these things and therefore not keep giving that person things to create bad karma with. R: Perhaps that person is not ready to listen yet? SK: Well either way, shouldn’t that person make some kind of choice out of this compassion and concern for their friend to do something, say something? (R: Say that again.) Well someone ate all my food and then they borrowed my car and smashed it up. And now they want to borrow a thousand dollars. Anyhow all these things looking at me at a point. I would be concerned about this person and maybe compassion will be expressed and I will tell that person that frankly these things, you know, I’m not incurring bad karma by you doing these things in fact it’s could be the opposite, but you yourself… (R: Oh I see what you mean.) …could very well be incurring bad karma and say something so that they could take a look at that and make some kind of choice. R: This depends in what state of consciousness they’re in. (SK: Either party?) Yeah. You can either do nothing and just watch what happens, of course if you’re not attached and you’re realized. what do you really own, nothing. (SK: Yeah but you’re seeing someone on a relative level who is involved, if you just see it that way?) But you’re not seeing that way. The realized person does not see that. (SK: Alright, an unrealized person would see that.) So now you’ve got to work with it. (SK: Yeah.) So you have to do what you have to do. (SK: Yeah, boy if I become realized I want to remember the view of an unrealized being. And that seems like that’s hopeful of someone else.) But you don’t really, because you’re seeing the unrealized being as realized. (SK: So it’s all a dream anyway.) See, when you’re realized you’re seeing the whole universe as your self. You can’t see anything else. There’s no longer duality for you. So how can you see the things you’re talking about. That’s for the ajnani. (SK: So that’s a good sign to tell where one is at?) Yes. If it bothers you. SV: Could you not say that you won’t think of it one way or another, you’ll just act spontaneously. You won’t think whether you should help or you won’t help. You’ll just do the right thing. (SK: As a human?) As a human. R: It depends what state of consciousness you’re in. As a Jnani you’ll do nothing. (SV: But nothing could be anything.) It could but you’ll probably do nothing at all. You’ll just watch because it doesn’t matter. SK: In that case, it seems I’d rather have a ajnani as a friend than a Jnani. (students laugh) SH: Well spoken. (laughter) SE: There’s a very famous Zen Koan called dropping ashes on the Buddha. Which addresses this point exactly. A man supposedly attains emptiness and there’s nothing matters to him and so he comes in and he flicks cigarette ashes on the Buddha and the question is, “how do you teach him, that there are time and places for everything and this is the wrong time and place.” And the other part of the story, “and this man is very big and he listens to no one. So how do you teach him?” That’s the koan, I never answered it. R: The answer to it is. There’s no one to teach and no one dropped ashes. SK: Because the Buddha never existed?(laughter) I always thought that that related to, that if the Buddha is outside of yourself, never deal with anything there. SE: So can you expand on that again please? R: See, who sees the ashes. Who sees the situation. The non realized beings. So they’ve got the problem. But in reality, the Buddha was never disturbed and no ashes were dropped and there’s no reaction. Or you can ask the question, “For whom is there a reaction?” For the non-realized person. They’ve got to deal with it. Let’s make it more personal. If you want to come over and stab me fifty times and cut off my fingers and my feet. Enjoy yourself, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Because it’s the body that you’re doing, that you think is real, that you’re hurting. But I have no body. So what’s the difference? Why should I protect something that doesn’t exist? That’s the answer. SH: Why do you feed it? R: I feed it because that’s the action my body takes. It’s karmic, what’s left of the karma. (SH: Yeah but no one feeds it?) You see it like that. That’s your point of view that I feed it and everything else. (SH: No, no one feeds it, it just feeds.) It feeds.(laughter) (SH: No one feeds your body.) No, exactly, exactly. You’ve got it. (SH: Boy he caned that out of my mind.) (laughter as tape ends)