Transcript:
Robert: Greetings and salutations. We can be real informal. All I can do is tell you about my own personal experiences, not what I read. And I can tell you that nothing exists the way it appears. Everything is an appearance, and the trap is we get pulled into the appearance. We react to it. We feel hurt. We feel slandered. We feel as if something is wrong. We have emotions and they become negative, because we are falling for a false premise, and the false premise is that the world is real. In fact, the world is not real and neither are you. What we have to do is stop reacting to anything. And the only way to do that is to discover who you are. When you discover your true nature, when you awaken to your true nature, everything becomes perfectly clear. You’re at peace. If something works out, it works out. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But you don’t look at it that way. Your feelings have been transmuted. You no longer feel what human beings feel. You just have a great love for all things, a great compassion. And you know that the substratum of all existence is harmony, peace, emptiness, and you feel wonderful all the time. What can disturb you if you are at peace? If you’ve found true peace, what can possibly disturb you? The world comes and goes. One day the world is like this, the next day it’s like that. But what does it got to do with you? Nothing, you are free. You are not the world. You are not your body, you are not your mind. You are total freedom, total joy, total love. You have to awaken to this fact. It’s the truth. Science is beginning to see this more and more. They are beginning to see that the only thing permanent in life is change. We speak many words, we take many actions, but to what avail? Does it matter in the end? We build our life, we own possessions, we father children, and what happens at the end? Poof! It’s all gone. Everything just disappears (he laughs). There’s nothing. So what’s the purpose? People say, “I’m making this world a better world for my children.” They’re just dreaming. The world will never be better, it’ll never be worse. The world just is a dream of existence and it’s like this one day, it’s like that another day. But you are not the world. You have to awaken to that fact. You are not your thoughts. You are not your karmic expressions. You are not your inclinations from past lives. These things appear real as long as you believe in them. As an example, if you believe in the devil, the devil will appear to you, because you are creating the devil yourself. If you believe in a god, the god will appear to you. As for instance, Rama Krishna believed in the god Kali. Kali used to become very real to him, and he used to dance and sing with Kali (he laughs), and this was true as far as he was concerned. But he created Kali. That’s why nobody else was able to see her but him. And that’s how we create our lives. Think of the things you fear in your life. Say you fear becoming sick, you fear poverty, you fear getting divorced, you fear getting married. Whatever you fear is a concept created by your own mind. There is no question of should I get married or shouldn’t I get married. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how you react to it, how you see it, what you expect of it. This is true of every aspect of your life. That’s what you’ve been trained to believe since you were a little kid. It first started in kindergarten. Your teachers brainwashed you, your family brainwashed you, the outside world brainwashed you, the system brainwashed you, and here you are. You are filled with ideas, concepts, notions, feelings, attitudes and that makes you what you are: miserable. (laughter) As soon as you wake up all that disappears. Nothing can ever happen to you that is of a destructive nature. There is absolutely nothing that can ever destroy you. You cannot be destroyed. Your body may appear to vanish, but that’s like a dream. You dream about yourself, you’re doing something, and you get shot, and you disappear. But then you wake up. So my question to you is, “What do you believe about yourself and about the world? What’s most important to you?” This is why I feel that a spiritual path, not necessarily this one, but a true spiritual path, should be the first thing of importance in your life. Why? Because it wakes you up. No matter how good of a life you live, you may become the richest and most famous person on earth, you will have to experience the other side of the same coin one day and be the poorest, most miserable person on earth. That’s the way it works. You may say to me, “My neighbor never has any problems. It’s like he fell into a pot of gold. Everything he touches turns into money. He’s as healthy as a horse. He’s got a beautiful wife, a big house, everything he could possibly need, and look at me! And I know that guy’s life hasn’t changed in forty years.” You’re making the wrong conclusion. He has earned this karmically, and if he doesn’t pull away from it he might spend his whole life in goodness, human goodness. But then he will be drawn back again, by the law of karma, which is in his mind, and he doesn’t know it, and this time he will be a homeless person. And whatever he does, he won’t be able to make a dime. He’ll try his best, but he’ll always be poverty stricken. He won’t be able to earn a dime no matter how hard he tries. This is why we should never judge. You have no idea what your neighbor’s going through. Never say, “He or she has a wonderful life and look at mine. Why am I poor? Why am I sick? Why am I this way? Why am I that way?” The idea is to wake up, not to look at yourself, not to feel sorry for yourself, not to compare yourself with others, but to awaken. When you awaken something happens that is unexplainable. There are no human words to explain. When you awaken you just understand, not even understand, you know, you feel, and those words are inadequate, you become, divine harmony. You are no longer fooled by person, place and thing. You no longer react. As an example, someone tells you, “Oh, you won the lotto, you won fifty-billion dollars.” It’s okay. You do not become a slave to that. Someone tells you, “You lost fifty billion dollars,” same thing, same reaction. You do not become a slave to that. What happens in the human life does not matter. When you know who you are you do not say it doesn’t matter. You simply exist. You exist as yourself. You’re at peace. No one can ever take the peace away from you, no matter how hard they try. You’re not fooled by things. Rather, what you do is you give of yourself. You can give yourself because you become the living Self. Therefore you can give yourself away and you’re still there, for you’ve become the infinite Self, the divine mother, omnipresence, total oneness with all things. So you can give of yourself and yet you’re always there. When Ramana Maharshi was being robbed by robbers his devotees wanted to attack the robbers, and he said, “No, no, no. It’s our dharma to be what we are, and it’s their dharma to be what they are. We should not interfere in their dharma. Therefore give them what they want,” and that’s very profound. We are spiritual people. The world is not. Therefore we act in accordance with spiritual principles. What this really means is we, as human beings, become last, not first. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Those who go first will be last, and those who are last will be first.” You have to develop a great humility. Do not long for anything. Do not long to be famous, or rich, or great. And do not say,” I want to be poor and have nothing,” either, they’re both wrong. Just be yourself. When you are yourself you will be amazed how the universe takes care of you. It’s like the body with vitamins and medicines. Your body, you know, is a natural healing factory. It really knows how to heal itself. But when we start taking too many vitamins and not enough sugar (he laughs), when we start taking medicines too much, the body says, “Well, you have made that into your god, so now you’ve got to depend on it.” And then you have to keep gulping vitamins for the rest of your life or you get sick. Really, think about that. SD: Or you become a crazy addict. R: Or a crazy addict, doesn’t matter. (laughter) But think about those things. You’ve got to depend upon your Self to take care of everything. Now yourself is your Self. There’s one Self, so we take care of each other. But you don’t think of that. When you think of others you’re making a mistake. The feeling will come to you one day that you are all others. There are no others, there is just the Self, appearing as others. So how do you treat others? As you treat yourself. You don’t think about it. You do not say that person is worthy and that person is not, so I’m going to help this person, not that person. You give of yourself automatically. You do not think about it because everything is your Self, and that includes the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and everything else you don’t understand. It’s all part of the one. What you do to the one you do to everything. How you treat one person, that’s how you treat the whole universe, because everything is one. Now, these four principles I gave you (back to the four principles) have to do with all these things. You’re supposed to ponder these things. How do you work with these principles? First, who can tell me what they are? Go ahead. (A student recalls them) R: Now you said them correctly, in a way, but it’s like you’re reciting a lecture. SD: That’s because we’re just learning them. R: But it’s the way you say it to yourself. As soon as you open your eyes in the morning (I’ll speak in the first person) you have to say to yourself, “I feel, and realize, and understand, that everything, everything, say everything twice, is a projection of my mind.” And think about what that means, forget about the other three. Work on that. “Everything! Everything! I feel that, I realize that, I understand that, that everything is a projection of my mind.” And then you may think of the problems you have, if you have any, and you say to yourself, “If everything is a projection of my mind, where do these problems come from? Where did they begin?” You then realize, “Why, they came from me. I projected them. I created them.” And then you say, “Who is this I that created them?” See? Now you’re getting to the meaty part, to the substance. “Who is the I that created all this delusion in my life? Where did the I come from? Who gave it birth? My mind, where did my mind come from? The I. Why, they’re both the same! The I and my mind are the same,” and that’s a whole new revelation. You think along these lines. “Where does the mind-I come from and to whom does it come?” And you follow it deep, deep within yourself. If you do it correctly you will realize there is no I, there is no mind, so there are no problems, and it’ll be over, and you’ll start laughing. You’ll actually start laughing at yourself. You’ll say, “To think, I feared this and I feared that.” And once you get into that consciousness something will happen to actually physically relieve you of the problem, or what you think is a problem. As long as you believe in your mind that there’s a problem, whether it’s little or big doesn’t matter, they’re both the same, but as long as you believe you’ve got a problem, you’ll have a problem, and it’ll grow, and you can’t change it. It may appear that you change it, but it turns into something else of a worse nature, when you try to work with the problem itself. Never try to work with the problem but ask where the problem came from. “How did I get it? How did I get this birth? Where did it come from?” That’s a problem, the births the problem because you believe you were born you have the problem, and you can go on and on and on. That’s how you work with the principle. “Everything! I feel and understand that everything is a projection, a manifestation, of my mind. Whose mind? My mind. Who is my? I, my? I and my. Who am I? Who am I who has this problem?” And as you ask yourself this question, you will begin to feel better, and better, and better. You will actually begin to feel better, and as you feel better the problem becomes less and less important, and it will vanish. This is great psychotherapy. It works. If psychiatrists gave this to patients they wouldn’t have to give them any drugs. So you understand, you feel, that everything is an emanation of your mind, or it wouldn’t exist. All existence, from the smallest atom to the greatest cosmic galaxy, it all comes out of your mind. But even if I tell you this you still feel that something is real, don’t you? You feel that something is real. You may say, “The sun is real.” You may say, “Well, God is real.” You may say, “An atom is real,” but you do not comprehend that you are creating these things. They’re all a project of your mind. If you didn’t have a mind, you would not have these concepts. That’s why we are told to annihilate the mind, to kill the mind, no mind, no concepts. All these ideas come as you begin to realize that everything is a projection of your mind. SD: Can you say the Self is real or is real a term that doesn’t exist? R: Well, if you say the Self is real you don’t really mean it. If you meant it you wouldn’t have to say it, but you can say it when you are training yourself, because it makes you feel better. It helps you live. It’s better than saying that my world is real or my problem is real. It’s better to say the Self is real than to say that. (SD: But better would it be…) (R: To keep silent.) (SD: …that nothing is real?) Don’t even say that, say nothing. When you ask yourself the question, “Where does the mind come from?” or “Where do my problems come from?” And you keep still, that’s real. The emptiness is real. (SD: Isn’t the emptiness the same as the Self?) Yes, but when you speak you spoil it to an extent. (SD: That’s right because the Self doesn’t know anything.) When you say the self is real, it becomes personal. When there’s silence it becomes omnipresent. Silence is always the best policy after you say all those things to yourself. And it’s in the silence that your problems just dissolve. Try it, it really works. When you keep still after saying all these things, your problems will dissolve by themselves. Do not think, “I am getting rid of my problems,” because that enhances the problems. Do not think about the problems at all but work on yourself to see your own reality, and in reality there are no problems. Yet I also note to most people, no matter how many times I say this, their problems are very real to them. And they’ve got a hold of them like a vice. They really feel their problems. So to those people I say, “To the extent that you can realize that your mind has created these problems, and in reality you are mind-less, to that extent, will your problems begin to dissolve.” But do this when you wake up, when you open your eyes in the morning. Don’t go through the four principles all at once and say, “I’m finished. Now I can go worry about my problems,” (laughter) Take one at a time, even if you do not get to the second one that morning. An hour or two has passed and you’re working on the first one, that’s good. You can work on these things all your life, if necessary. It’s better than worrying about your problems. But take them one at a time. Now you go to the second one and you work on the second one just like on the first one. Now what’s the second did you say Sam? SM: We were never born? R: True, but it’s the way you say it to yourself that counts. (SM: Right.) Use your own words that are comfortable for you. You have to sort of say something like this: “I perceive, I feel, I understand that I was never born or I am unborn. I do not prevail. All my existence does not exist, and I will never disappear.” SD: Can you say, “I perceive” or “I understand” before your mind really has fully accepted it? R: Whatever is more appealing to you. Whatever you can work with. But let yourself know that you perceive it and you understand it and you feel it. (SD: I mean, would it be more honest to say, “I am beginning to perceive or…?”) There is no beginning. So when you say, “I’m beginning” you begin, and begin, and begin, every day. It never ends. Speak up for the truth. You can say, “There’s something within me that perceives, there’s something within me that knows I was never born, I do not prevail, and I will never disappear. And I am that one that knows.” So you start working on that. What does this mean, “I was never born, I am unborn?” It sounds like a contradiction because you say my father and mother gave me birth. This appears to be true. Who gave them birth? My grandmother and my grandfather. Then you go all the way back. Who gave them birth? Who gave them birth? And you go back to the beginning. Where did the first man and woman come from? Who started this? Who started the human race? Who started the idea of birth? Now don’t come up with your answers because the mind answers. You can say, “Adam and Eve, God.” Somebody told you that. You learned it from reading the Bible. But is it true? Where did the God come from, who created everything? So you go back to the beginning and you can say to yourself, it’s like saying, “What came first, the chicken or the egg? The tree or the seed?” It’s the same thing. “What came first, the man or the woman? How did they both get together? Who made them?” Then you will realize they don’t exist. Nothing gave you birth. Because the whole origin is false. That’s what I call false imagination. The whole origin of birth is false. It’s a dream. It doesn’t exist. Therefore, I do not exist the way I appear to be. Then you go right back to the first premise. Then, “Who am I?” See, you’re always going back to self-inquiry. “Who am I that exists? If I am not the body, am I my thoughts? I can’t be my thoughts because they keep on changing, changing. Then who am I?” Then you keep silent for a while. You know it’s working when you start getting a quiet, loving feeling. You start to feel peace that you have not felt before, and you start to feel that all is well. (SD: What if you say, “I am the eternal now?” Even that is a product of the mind?) Yes it is. It’s a temporary help, because the mind creates it. (SD: There should be no knowing just an inner knowing?) Yes, if you do this often enough – this is why you have to do this every day, when you wake up – pretty soon you will start to feel something. Really, you will feel a happiness that you never felt before, an extreme happiness, and you couldn’t care if they dropped a bomb on your head. You would feel this happiness because you will know that you can’t die. See, right now they’re just words. But you will actually know someday that you just can’t disappear. Nothing can kill you. Kill is just a word that means something that you have accepted. It’s just an ignorant word. We make up words and we put feelings behind them. Say it to yourself for a while. See how ridiculous it sounds, Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. It’s just an English word that human beings make up to connote some kind of danger. But the word has no power except the power that you give it yourself. When the mind is silent then reality comes of its own accord. When you’re thinking, thinking, thinking, then the world has got you, and you become worldly again. So self-inquiry causes the mind to be quiet. And after you work on that you go on. “I do not prevail.” So you say to yourself, “You mean my entire existence, since I was a baby, until I die, means nothing?” And then you say to yourself, “I have just proven that I was never born, because I’ve gone way back to the beginning. So if I were never born, how can I prevail? What prevails? Who prevails?” And you will see it’s the mind that prevails. The mind wants existence, wants strength, wants power. It makes you believe that you are a body. You ask yourself, “To whom comes the mind? Where does the mind come from? Who gave it birth? How did it originate? What is its source?” And then keep quiet, keep still. And you will begin to laugh because you will actually feel, even if for a moment, that there is no mind. You will actually feel no-mind. In the beginning it may last for a moment or two. But as you practice everyday those moments of no-mind will become greater, and greater, and greater and greater. And then you go on and you’ll say, “I will never disappear.” So now you’re laughing again because you realize, “Who disappears? That which never existed disappears. But I am no-mind so how can I disappear?” And this becomes very meaningful for you, and as you do it everyday, you become stronger and stronger in mindfulness. And something happens that’s so beautiful that I can’t describe it. You feel such love, such joy, such harmony, such bliss. Then you carry on. Now what’s the third principle? (Student responds.) SM: Isn’t it that everything is egoless? R: Say it the way you’re supposed to say it. You begin with “I feel.”(students laugh) See how easy we forget. You’ve got to feel it. You’ve got to say, “Something in me feels, understands, the egolessness of all things.” All these principles are alike. Did you come to that conclusion yet? They all have the same source: nothing. But you have to work with them until you get there. I feel and understand the egolessness of all things. And you say, “All things,” not just some things, but “All Things,” from the greatest galaxy to the minutest atom. Nothing has an ego. If it has no ego, it has no source, because to have an ego there has to be a source, and just by realizing this great truth you become free immediately. That blows your mind. It’s like a Zen koan. All of a sudden something snaps in your mind and your mind is gone because it has no source, since there’s no ego. It never existed, then you feel so good. [There was a tape break here – Must have been a question concerning Hussein and the gulf war – Ed.] (Robert continues) I can like them or dislike them. For this is a worldly thing and you are not of this world. So you react completely differently to things like that. When I discuss these things with you it’s to make conversation. But it doesn’t exist. It will come and go. Whether there is a war, or there’s not a war. The fact remains you’re still going to die. So what’s more important? To discuss who’s good and who’s bad in the world, or to find out your true Self, and become free from everything. (SD: I just meant, would it help something like that, not matter?) Of course it helps because it makes them disappear. (SD: Yeah.) You realize it’s part of the mind, like the blanket, like the radio. (SD: And just saying he’s egoless doesn’t mean it in the way we would say that. But it means he has no source, he came from nothing.) How he appears does not exist, just like his body, same thing. See, when you say, “I am not the body” you’re not speaking of your body. You’re speaking of “the” body, the universal body. Nobody is the body. (SD: So you could say, “I am is not the body?”) Yes, you can say that. That’s why I tell you not to use that too much, because you make it too personal. You’re still into yourself as an individual. When you read in the text books, “I am not the body, I am not the mind,” they’re referring to the universal body and universal mind. That there is no body, nobody, noooooooo body. (laughter) Nobody exists. That sounds ridiculous to the average person. Now you may say, “What does this do for me?” It does everything for you. If you are creative in music, or in art, or anything else, you’ll become a greater musician or a greater artist without wanting to, without going after it. Your body will do what it’s supposed to. There will be no karmic attachment. As an example, if you were a great artist and a great musician, or a great carpenter, or a great loafer, or a great homeless person, and you go after it humanly this is what is holding you to the earth, and you’re going to have to come back again, and again, and again, because you’ve made yourself earth bound, don’t you see? Anything that you attach yourself to pulls you back to the earth, whether it’s good or bad. If you hate something it’s the same as if you love something. It pulls you back to the earth. You’ve got to let go. If you read that lesson on non-attachment I gave you last week it explains it all. It’s not being indifferent. It’s just a letting go because you know, “I am my brother and my brother is me. I am everything.” So I do not have to attach myself to anything. The egolessness of all things. And now I go to the last principle which is what? (A student replies.) R: Good! No, you say, “I perceive and understand what realization is. I know, something within me understands, and feels, what self-realization is,” and you keep still. Then the thoughts will come to you that the only way to find out is through negation. So you can say to yourself, “It’s not the sun, because the sun is a projection of my mind. It’s not the moon, same thing. It’s not my husband or my wife, it’s not my body, it’s not my organs. It’s not Hussein, it’s not peace, it’s not the war.” And everything you name, it’s not. So when you get tired of naming things, you keep silent, and that’s what it is. Everything is silence. All four principles end in silence, they’re all the same. Any questions about that? SA: Yes, I have a question concerning two things that you said which I have difficulty with. One of the things you said is never deal with a problem. (R: Right.) And I know that if you concentrate on the positive things that you’re speaking about, that’s the essential teaching, say to express all the ideas that you’ve already talked about today. I realize that that is the energy that must be expended. But still, in this period of life that we have, as we make these statements, and as we move towards this goal which I can accept, and this theoretical idea which I accept – this abstract idea – still there is the life to be lived, and there are issues to deal with. (R: Yes.) So it seems to me that if you say, “Don’t deal with the problem,” this leads to enormous problems. R: On the contrary, you’re separating both. You’re putting them in two categories. But, they’re only one. As an example, say somebody cheated you, and you sue them in court. When you sue somebody, and you’re getting involved in something like that, you’re setting up an energy. Even if you win the case you’re going to have to sue somebody else, and then sue somebody else, and it never stops, because you’ve created a pattern for yourself. But, if you go about it the other way, if you know the truth about yourself, you also know the truth about the guy who cheated, because you’re both one. SA: All right, let me give you another example. Let’s say that we’re all here and we all stay here and we have no money. And tomorrow we’re hungry. We’re all hungry in the morning, and we say we’re not going to deal with this problem, but because our hunger is so great and keeps mounting, we really can’t think of anything else. Eventually we can’t think of any of these ideas that you’ve told us about because we’re so extremely hungry. R: Your first premise is wrong. It doesn’t work like that. It’ll never work like that. If you are hungry, something will happen to appease your hunger. See, what you’re thinking about is you sit down and you do nothing. It doesn’t work like that. When you know the truth somebody will knock on the door and bring you food. SA: I brought up the example a week or two ago about the holocaust, and remember I said how the attitude of the Jewish people, and especially the Rabbis was that God is living in the Nazis, God has manifested himself through Auschwitz, and the others, and so we must go along with this. Would you say that is the attitude the Jewish people should have had? R: On the contrary, because that’s an attitude, I’m not talking about attitudes. (S: But it’s a problem to deal with?) I’m talking about realization. See, reading the Bible and making quotations is one thing. Being a living embodiment of the truth is another thing. So I’m not saying you’re supposed to be passive. There are times that you’re not passive. (SA: Then, you are saying, “Deal with the problem?”) On the contrary, if you are in the truth, the problem will deal with itself. SA: Yes, but you’re speaking of a state to which we are aspiring, and I grant what you say. I believe that would happen, but we’re not in that state yet. I mean, we are, but we are not fully in the state because we cannot fully grasp it and manifest it. R: If you take it personally and you work on yourself as I said, you will do what’s right. You will not be passive. SG: So you would say that your body will do the right thing by itself. It’s not a matter of trying to think of it or not think of it. That’s the easiest way to look at it, right there. SA: It isn’t that at all. It’s your mind that tells you to put on clothes and go out and find food in the morning. Your body too, but it’s the body-mind working together. SD: Remember what Christ said when he said, “Put ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be added unto you.” Isn’t that sort of the same thing you’re saying? (R: Yes, it is.) If you dwell on self-inquiry or self-realization, somehow these things will be taken care of, maybe even by the body. SA: Wasn’t it Christ also who said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s?” And that’s the critical point here. There’s no argument with the concept, the idea, and the goal and the abstract reality of it. I am talking about the interim period as we live in our daily bodies through the day. (SD: Before we are realized.) Yes, and that’s why I bring up these problems of the fan, which I did the other day, and the food, as examples of these things that we have to deal with every moment. R: Your body and your mind are motivated by karma. The law of karma takes care of them. But you are not your body. If you are aware that you are not your body, right action will pursue. SD: You mean you can be aware that you are not your body, and yet your body will go out and get food. (R: Exactly.) But you would know that you are not the doer. SA: But you say, “If you are aware,” those are your words, “if you are aware that you are not the body.” I would say from my understanding of the teaching, there are degrees of awareness. If you are fully and completely, and absolutely, and totally and wholly aware that you are not the body, then okay, I grant you that. But there are these degrees of awareness, and if you are not at that particular state then you must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. R: In reality, there are no degrees. So you either are or you’re not. If you think you’re not, then you have to fetch for yourself. If you think you are, you’ll think about these things, and then you’ll go do something. But you won’t be doing it. It will do itself. SD: That’s what I was going to say. The answer to me is what Robert was telling us before about not being the doer. The realization that you are not the doer is even what Christ was talking about. That is, you dwell on the Self, on realization, and your body will continue to do whatever is necessary karmically, but your realization that you’re not the body and you’re not the doer doesn’t mean it doesn’t get done. SA: Well, now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty. All right, then what you’re suggesting is this. Let’s talk about tomorrow morning. And I’m hungry so if my body-mind says go out and try to find some money to get breakfast, but all the time that I’m doing this I can still think I am not doing this (R: No, no.) I am not going to be getting the money. I am not going to be eating it. But both can exist simultaneously. (SG: You don’t think about it.) R: No, no, no. See what’s going to happen when you work on the principles, and if you have hunger in your body, you will automatically, spontaneously, go get food. SD: But you won’t be dwelling on it. (R: Your mind will be somewhere else.) Could you say like, “Okay, Here I am going to La Bread Bakery, but this is all a dream?” SG: You won’t even say it like that. (SD: Yeah you wouldn’t, I understand.) R: See, take my life, for instance. When I get up in the morning I have no idea what’s going to happen the next day or that day, or during the day, but I am active and I’m not active. I do certain things but I don’t do purposely. It happens spontaneously. I didn’t ask to teach classes like this. It happened. I never asked for anything. But it happens because my body does it, spontaneously. But my mind is not aware of it and I’m not involved in it. But I’m fed, I live in a house. I come to these meetings. But I never say I’m going to do it. (SD: You don’t plan?) I don’t plan. I may plan a couple of hours in advance, or something like that, but I have no long drawn out plans. But everything works out. I know it is hard to perceive. It’s really hard to perceive how I live. SA: My second point is related to this one and you said at the beginning of the speech tonight. You quoted Ramana, for him being robbed. And you said that he told his followers to give. To allow the robbers to take what they wanted and that was their karma. (R: Their dharma.) And it was his karma to have it and to give it. Why couldn’t it also be his karma to protect what he has? R: Because it was not his dharma it was not his way. (SD: What is the difference between dharma and karma?) Dharma is the way things are. The Truth of the way things are. SG: So another enlightened teacher could have said anything. I mean they both are the two sides of the same coin in reality, right? (R: In a way that’s true.) Just say, “Go kill em” although… you know I mean not kill them but I mean, in reality there’s no difference. R: Well you’re right. Just like in the Bhagavad-Gita with Arjuna. (SG: Yeah exactly.) When Krishna told him to go fight. (SG: Or go sue them or go fight them.) SA: So he could have said, “Lets protect what we have?” SG: Yeah and they’re really both the same, but that wasn’t his… (R: He said, “This is not our path”.) This is not his path? SD: Saying dharma? See I have the same question because I thought dharma and karma were the same thing. (R: No.) So they’re not so, the dharma would be the teaching, to teach them not to resist, but karma might be to beat the shit out of them. (R: Yes.) (laughter) But if you were holy enough you would go with the dharma without taking really… R: It depends on the path that you’re on. People are on different paths I guess. But the highest teaching of all, not only that, Krishna himself didn’t have to fight, did he? He told Arjuna to fight. (SG: That’s right.) You see. SA: Well it’s easy to tell somebody else to fight. (laughs) R: When you get to the highest, there’s peace. SG: There’s no need to. (R: There’s no need to do anything.) Theres no need for anything. Maybe to just show, maybe as a demonstration for somebody else, you could say, “Fight or don’t fight.” I mean as an extension… (R: For your students.) …for your students, yeah. R: It’s like in the martial arts, when somebody becomes so proficient in the martial arts. I mean proficient, the highest he can ever go, higher than that. They do nothing. They do not even defend themselves. They go the other way, just sit. They except being killed. There’s nothing to fight. But Arjuna was not up there, he belonged to the warrior class. SA: And so do we or one of the more… R: You belong to whatever you believe. (SG: Castes are like beliefs in your mind.) So you belong to whatever you believe. It’s all in your mind. If you want to believe you’ve got to fight then go fight. If you have to believe you got to take care of yourself because if you don’t do it then who’s going to do it then you’ve got to. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. But I’m speaking of the highest teaching. Where everything is taken care of. Look at Ramana again as an example. When he was a boy, he would have been dead, if it weren’t for this mysterious power to take care of him. He just went into the jungle, went into a cave and sat there. He didn’t know where his food was going to come from. He didn’t even think about it, how he was going to take care of himself. It didn’t enter his mind. He just sat motionless, for days, until a woman came up the hill and started to feed him. SD: But he was more or less born enlightened and we’re just struggling. R: Well I’m just speaking of the highest ideal. What I’m trying to tell you is that if you have trust and faith, there is a mysterious power that will take care of you and supply all you need. SN: Arnold you’ve mentioned several times, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s but continue to render unto the Lord that which is the Lords, and that man does not live by bread alone, but every word which proceedeth from the mouth of the Lord. So let us ask ourselves, “What is Caesar?”, “What is the Lord?” and what is “The bread of life?” It seems the body alone life is not sustaining, life is not perceived from the body alone. R: That’s a good point. Jesus himself never rendered unto Caesar. He told that to the people. (laughter) (SN: He always passed it on.) (SD: Better you than me.) (laughter) SA: I don’t see that what you’re saying at all, but my problem is with the acknowledgement of the bread part of it, how one deals with that, and I think people have those concrete problems, like in the world dealing with the world as…you all do simultaneously with the work of the Lord and all that. While you pay your attention to the spirit. At the same time you have these other problems. That’s the fact. R: Arnold, remember Arnold you’re speaking from your point of view. SN: Ultimately there are no problems and it’s a matter of where we put our attention. Wherever we put our attention that becomes our reality. So if we focus in on the bread, so if we focus in on the Caesar but what if we ask ourselves, “What is the source of our life?” Is it from Caesar or is it from the bread? That’s the question, so even if you solve the problem of the bread then you are fed, but if you never know who you are, subsequent problems are inevitable. (SA: That’s true, I don’t deny that.) So it’s not only finding out who we are, but it’s also a matter of… that there’s a flow, and to realize that flow, and connect ourselves with that flow. And from that flow comes the bread and it’s not just us, but it’s all things. So it’s not just conquering that one problem. When you conquer the problem of the Self all the other problems are conquered. SA: Theoretically, but remember also in the past I’ve mentioned this. In every culture, in every time, whether in Catholicism in the middle ages, in the West or whether in Buddhism in the East, because of the awareness of this problem, those who are in control have established communities, they’ve established ways in the world for the process to go on, and that’s why it’s still existent. That’s why monasteries do exist. That’s why there are groups of teachers of Sufi’s out in the desert everywhere and that sort of thing. Or where arrangements are made for survival while the processes…) SN: Even as those arrangements are made, they’re not really made, they happen of themselves and again that’s the flow. R: See you’re speaking of appearances. That’s how it appears to you. That’s what I said in the beginning, this is your point of view, that’s how you see it now. But it’s not like that. SN: The Ashrams themselves didn’t say, “Well let’s make an Ashram”. They happened of themselves because the people that were involved of it were unfolding of themselves. Everything unfolds of itself. Our life shall unfold of itself. But when we think we’re the doer then there are problems. Not that we don’t do anything. It’s not that we do nothing, it’s not that we do. Be as we are. It unfolds of itself. There’s no stopping of action and there’s no action. SA: Maybe it’s just semantics, let’s try another attack. When I came here Sam said to me several times that I should come here. This just happened. I didn’t go to Sam, I didn’t say, “Please tell me what to do where to go?” I wasn’t even aware that he was thinking of me. It came to me just in the manner we were speaking of. And I did. Nevertheless every week I have to arrange to come here. So the two energies exist simultaneously on this plane, so I see. R: No, this plane doesn’t exist, but as long as you believe it does, it does because you’re creating it. You’re giving its power. You are the power source. When you take the power away, everything just is. SN: That kind of gets to a question that I have, it’s not really a question and I kind of know that. I feel it’s a little fruitless for me to ask questions? R: No, that’s all right. (SN: Well, I feel I’m kind of doing it for conversation too, because I realize that I’m at a point where I’m beyond questions but, everything is an emanation of the mind?) Umm, yes? (SN: But the mind does not exist?) Exactly! (SN: So we have different levels here. (Pause) Okay, Well; Everything is an emanation of the mind, but the mind does not exist. Everything is an emanation of the mind as if it’s a dream, however the dream does not really exist. So one level is first of all, if everything is an emanation of the mind thus there is a process which is the dream, yet the mind does not exist. The dream itself has no reality. It’s real but it’s not true.) It’s better to ask questions to yourself than to make statements. When you come to this conclusion you ask yourself, “Who’s mind doesn’t exist? Where did the mind come from? To whom does it belong?” and you keep silent. Then your answer will be emptiness, nirvana and you will know. SD: What questions should I have asked myself? R: The question that you’re asking me, you should ask yourself, “Who has all these questions?”. (SD: Are you meaning, “Who has to get her act together again?”) All these things. You start with realizing that, “I have to do these things.” Then go back to the I and say, “Where did the I come from who has to do all these things?” and follow the I through to its culmination, to its source. SA: Let me try another tack to express these ideas. A parent has a child and the child, let’s say that the child is afraid of a bogey man or whatever. And we know that children have this fantasy life and I know as a parent how you deal with children. If you have a little child of yours who is going to bed, you know very well that these fantasies that he’s having, they’re not real. You know that they’re not going to have any substance in his future life or in your life, there is no substance to it whatsoever. Nevertheless because you know he is a child and you know that he is on a certain level, you go along with it and you know that he is moving gradually towards greater realization as he gets older and as the reality of the world, or the unreality if you like, becomes more apparent to him. But nevertheless you have to deal with him on those levels and that’s why a parent will say, “Oh, I don’t think that terrible man’s going to come in the door,” and you’d talk to him about all of these things and you go along with him on his level even though you know it’s not real and he knows it too in some way inside. R: But you’re doing all that in the dream. That’s all part of the dream. (SA: That’s true, but in doing it you enable him to move to higher levels of realization. If you said to the child, “I am not going to discuss this because there is no reality there, I am not going to do this.” Then you keep the child from moving.) That’s the dream, what you’re saying is the dream. But if you just wake up, all that doesn’t exist and you wouldn’t have to do all of those things. (SA: What would you do to the child, what would you say to the child?) As long as you’re not listening, you say what you think. (SA: What would you say if you were deep in the reality?) I have two girls and when they were babies I read books to them and did what you said, but I realized that I was not the doer, that’s the point. I went through all that. It doesn’t mean that I’m not going to do anything at all. I realized that I was just playing a part. I was not the doer so I read them books, calmed their fears and did what a father has to do. But I knew I am not the doer, that’s the difference. (SA: Yes but in doing that you helped the girls to move to higher levels. It’s the girls that I’m thinking about as being the important issue here. I’m using that as an example of our own position in life. People who are…) R: Are you going Sam? (SM: Yeah.) Go in peace. SD: Are you going to play music? (SM: Yeah.) R: When you realize that you are not the doer. Your body will do whatever it came to this earth to do. Your body follows karma and your body will do whatever you’re supposed to do. But it’s not you. And that can only be experienced. SD: We were just talking while you were out of the room. I don’t know if this is correct or not but in a way as I perceive it, it’s taking an overview and knowing as you go through these bodily actions, it’s a dream. You’re captured in the dream, and you’re watching yourself as on video, you know you’re not and you know that’s you… SN: You do all the worldly things. (R: Umm.) But you say, “But I’m not the doer.” R: You don’t say that, if you have to say that then you are. (SD: True.) You just realize that you are the universe and you’re playing all the parts. (SD: But we cannot just say that, “I’m not the doer,” Robert?) SN: Some of the other teachings would say, “That you are not the doer” but this isn’t thinking that. You know, we interpret it that way but that isn’t what it’s saying. SD: Well I agree with Arnold that we’re all at different levels that we’re all at. R: It appears that way. (SD: We seem to need words.) That’s why you have to inquire, “For whom are there levels?” (SD: So after “I am not doer,” you have to say, “Who is I?”) No, when you know that you are not the doer you won’t say anything. (SD: But in the meantime I seem to need to say, “I’m not the doer,” to remind myself, because I’m at a lower level or I feel that I’m at a lower level. I need words like that to tell me.) SN: Better to not say that, I’m not the doer, because that’s that type of certain pattern. It’s better to ask yourself, “Who is the doer?” than to say, “I am the doer.” (SD: That’s a good point.) Yes, see that’s the point. The point is that, “I am not the doer” is not this practice. Question. (SD: Because that’s duality?) Well it’s not self-inquiry. (SD: Well it could lead to self-inquiry, you could say, “Who is I?”, I is nonexistent.) When you’re conquering something in the world and you say, “I am not the doer,” that is not what this path is teaching. That’s like a negation. You neither affirm nor negate. This is non-duality, you ask yourself, “Who is the doer?”, “To whom does this come?” Not “I am not the doer” because in a sense what you’re saying is, “I am,” you’re already affirming yourself, by saying, “I am not the doer” you’re saying well I exist. (SD: You could be saying, “I am is not the doer.” ) That’s different! Yeah but in your mind, what do you do? See when I was saying, in the Bible it says, “Be still and know that I am God”. Well, I got one impression when I was doing that, but when I said, “Be still and know that I am is God,” I got a totally different impression because I became God rather than a God outside of me. So when we slur that, we have to be very careful. (SD: Yeah.) Better to define it and say, “I am” or “To whom does this come?” rather than… R: Remember that you can never become God because God is you. You don’t become anything because you don’t exist as it appears. See, remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned this is my confession. This is the way I feel about it and to most people it’s ridiculous. It’s gobbledygook, it doesn’t mean a thing, it doesn’t seem practical in the beginning, to most people, because most people want something practical that they can improve their humanhood with. But the highest truth is, humanhood does not exist and if you come to that conclusion your life will be bliss. SD: But isn’t one of the purposes of Satsang is to ask those questions that we’re asking so that we are aspiring to understand? R: Yes that’s what Satsang is all about. But then you have to practice the things that I tell you and watch what happens. In other words, you can’t go home and get caught up in the world and forget about this until the next meeting. You’ve got to work on yourself, work on yourself and you’ll see what happens. SD: But I think it’s so in vain Robert, the reason Sam was unable to say the four fundamentals with feeling, like an actor or something, is because we are still at the point of learning them and the grasping of each individual one will come later. It’s very helpful you to tell us to like expand on each one or maybe do one at a time. But if we know we’re going to be questioned when we come to class, the night before we’re going to be ready you know. Otherwise don’t you have to start that way before they become out of the attic? R: Yes, you work on one until you become a living embodiment of it. You can repeat all four to yourself or when you work on yourself you take one at a time. (SD: Right.) SA: I’d like to write them down in your words if I may as succinctly as possible, is that all right? (R: That’s fine.) I’ll need a pen. (SD: I think I wrote them down the other day. Every time he says it, it’s kind of different anyway.) Could you tell me the four as a… R: Okay, Number One: I understand, I feel, I perceive that everything, Everything twice everything, two times everything. Everything, emphasize the second everything. Put a line under it. Is a manifestation of my mind. Number Two: I feel and understand deeply that I am unborn, I do not prevail and I do not disappear. (SD: Either die or disappear?) Same thing. Number Three: I feel and understand the egolessness of everything, of all creation. Number Four: I have a deep understanding of what self-realization is. That’s it. SD: Wasn’t number four, the ending of that, by what it’s not? R: That’s how you work on yourself, through negation. (SD: Because you always say it different, the way you told me was, “You can discover what self-Realization is by what it is not?”) Yes. (SD: Or Neti-neti.) If I were quoting from books I would say the same thing all the time, but I say it as it comes and that’s the only difference. SN: Yeah when you said that we perceive and we have a deep understanding and though we don’t feel that, we say that? R: It’s good to say it when you wake up because it starts something going. (SN: But I’m saying during the day if we do the principles do we say the same thing?) You can sort of make it a little different. During the day you can just think about, that everything is just a projection of your mind. But in the morning it’s good to say, “I perceive, I understand,” you know why? Because when you first open your eyes you’re not awake yet and you’re your real Self. So you’re actually confessing to your Self your real nature. That I perceive, I understand and it goes deeper into the subconscious mind. When you just woke up you’re fresh, your mind is fresh, no ideas. And during the day when the worlds got you, you can just say, “Everything is a projection of my mind, EVERYTHING!” and leave the I perceive off. (SN: Yeah but does the tree think I Am?) Yeah, but does a tree exist? (students laugh) You see it’s a perception of your mind. (SN: Well some of the principles are easier than others. “Everything is a projection of the mind,” I can follow that, but, “I have no beginning.” There’s not a feeling inside of me that I don’t have a beginning because I identify with the body.) I exist, remember. You work with “I exist,” that’s the beginning, because you can’t say you don’t exist. So you exist and you say to yourself, “I exist” and you put more space between “I” and “exist” as you keep going. “I,” “exist” and then you ask yourself, “who is this I that exists? Where did it come from?” SD: My mother used to instill that to us, she used to say, “Where will you spend eternity?” As if eternity was in the future. And I would say even then, “Mother how could eternity be something that comes later. It has no beginning and no end.” (SG: And what did she say?) Blasphemous sort of words. R: See real satsang is non-intellectual. (SD: Then what is it, is it emotional?) It’s not emotional. It’s the reality of the person giving it. Whenever we have new students they’ll ask the same questions, but that’s their perception. That’s where they’re coming from. And no matter what I say they will not be able to see it until they become it. Because they’re identified with their body. But you’re getting more advanced because you’re realizing things of a higher nature. (SD: The more advanced the more confused.) That’s good, that’s a good sign. (SD: (laughs) I don’t know, is it? The more I know the less I know. The more I know the more I don’t know what anything is.) That’s good because you’re getting rid of your ego. The ego wants to know. It has to know. For when you begin to feel the less I know that’s a good sign for you, because you know less about the world and more about the Self. (SD: (Unclear) That’s good. (SD: Even the Self. (laughs)) Keep it up, it happens. SN: Arnold, Do you feel that your perceptions are different from a non-dual point of view since you’ve been coming to satsang for quite a while? SA: Well not particularly because I have been aware of this teaching for a long time. (SN: Non duality?) Yeah, oh yeah. I would say that since I’ve been coming here there is a deeper quality of realizing, but intellectually I’ve been aware of this for a long time. (SN: No, well I don’t mean intellectually, I’m just saying, well basically do you feel any difference.) Well I would say there is yeah. I would say it has permeated myself more, my non-self. R: You see the more confounded you become the more the ego breaks up, whether you know it or not. (SD: Does it or doesn’t it sort of become more manageable?) No it breaks up. When the ego is… (tape ends)