Transcript:
Robert: I had quite an interesting day today. I received approximately fifteen phone calls from people all over the place. My door bell rang about ten times. The dog was barking and biting everyone who comes in. My daughter was playing the stereo at full blast. And yet my body responded the way it’s supposed to. But I had absolutely nothing to do with it. It didn’t affect me, the Self, one iota. Yet my body did what it had to do, took care of the calls and answered the door, quieted the dog, turned down the stereo, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I’m bringing this point up to show you that you can be in the most horrendous situations and be at peace. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, even death. It makes no difference. The real you has absolutely nothing to do with it. You are free from the whole thing. There may be wars all around you, people fighting and stabbing each other, people quiet and peaceful. Look at both those situations the same way, with even mindedness. Do not react to anything. Do not allow your mind to go out and respond. Do not think past your nose. Your body is going to do whatever it has to do, but you are not your body. Anything that you respond to is a product of your mind. It is your mind that becomes angry. It is your mind that becomes stubborn. It is your mind that wants to get even. It is your mind that is hurt. But if you subdue your mind, tell me, where is the anger? Where is the depression? Where is the response to conditions? There isn’t any. When the mind is subdued there is only eternal peace and that peace is the Self, consciousness. Consciousness is always peaceful, always happy. It has nothing to do with conditions. All conditioning comes from the mind. Therefore I say to you, do not try to change conditions. Do not try to change situations. Simply learn how to control the mind by making it passive and quiet, and then you will find that things turn out better for you than you can possibly ever hope for. There are no problems. There is nothing wrong. Everything is unfolding as it should. Everything happens in its own time. Space and time are illusions. They really do not exist. They’re stationary. Causation does not exist either. No thing has a cause therefore no thing has an effect. Cause and effect are again products of your own mind. When the mind is quiet, karma ceases, samskaras are non-existent. There never was a cause for anything. But if you feel that in a previous life you did something wrong and now you are paying the price, or if you think that you did something wrong in this life and you’re paying the price, then you’ll pay the price, because that’s what you think. There is virtually no price to pay, because nothing ever happened. If it appears to have happened to you then you have to go through the consequences of having the effect returned, or karma will come back to you, because that’s what you feel, that’s what you believe. It’s all in your feelings and your belief system. But if you feel as if you’re born at every moment, every moment becomes brand new. Where is the effect? There is no time for any effect. There is no space in which to have the effect. Space and time and causation become one, the present moment. And if you feel like that then you can look into the future, which doesn’t exist, and see what’s happening. It all has to do with your mind. As long as you feel situations you know it’s your mind that’s doing it. There’s a story about Buddha and the courtesan. One day Buddha and his devotees were going through a forest and they came to a town. The words spread through the town that Buddha was coming. And there was a beautiful home where there lived this courtesan, this high class prostitute. She heard about the wonder of Buddha, how beautiful he was, and she said to herself, “I must have this man.” So she sent her handmaidens out to the edge of the forest where Buddha was camping, and they beseeched him to come see their mistress. Buddha’s devotees tried to chase them away, but Buddha said, “No, I will go.” And the devotees told him he was crazy. How come he’s going with them? He said, “I shall return, wait here.” He went into this mansion of a home, and he saw this beautiful lady. And she looked at him and she said, “I wasn’t wrong.” And she told the Buddha, “Stay with me, I will give you riches that you never dreamed of. I will give you love that you’ve never known.” And the Buddha smiled and he said, “Not now.” And she beseeched him and said, “I will give you my body and you will have love that you never experienced. I will give you my home. Stay with me and I will make you the happiest man that ever lived.” And Buddha said, “No, not now.” And this went on for a couple of hours. Finally she got worn out, and Buddha said, “Thank you,” and left. He went back to his devotees, didn’t say anything, they traveled through the forest and left the town. Thirty years passed. The Buddha was going through the town again with his devotees. All of a sudden he remembered something and he told his devotees, “Stay here and wait for me. I have to go see my beloved.” So he went back to where the house used to be. It was now nothing but a shambles. And he looked for the lady. He saw people laughing in the street. And there she was, a beggar with leprosy. People shunning her and spitting on her. And he came over to her and he said, “My beloved, I have returned for you. Now I want you as much as you wanted me.” And he kissed her on the forehead and she was healed. She became his disciple and spent the rest of her life with the Buddha. The moral of that story, of course, is things are not the way they seem. We judge situations by the way they appear. We look at someone and we think that’s the way they are. We respond to conditioning. We’ve been brainwashed since we were children to believe that things are supposed to be a certain way. But things are not supposed to be any way. Things just are. They have no substance, they have no reality. As you respond to conditions you are simply wasting your energy, when you can be using that energy to uncover your Self, to discover your own reality. What are you doing with your life? How do you spend your days? The appearance is that your body is getting older and older, and if you’re still judging by appearances you try to look younger and younger by putting creams on your face, by exercising day and night, by buying the finest clothes. It’s like beating a dead horse. The so-called body is not meant to last. As soon as you were born you began to die. Therefore find out. Who was born? Who dies? Who has experiences? Who is going through this entire mess? Who needs it? Who wants it? Wake up! The question is always asked in this respect, if it’s necessary to do sadhana in order to awaken? Is it necessary to spend years in yoga techniques and pranayama, breathing exercises, to sit in meditation, to think of certain things, to pray? Is all this necessary? What do you think? Who can tell me? SK: It’s not necessary, but it sure is helpful. Robert: That’s actually a good answer. My question is, therefore, to whom is it helpful? Who is getting satisfaction from sadhana? Only your ego. It is true to an extent you’re subduing your ego, but you and I know many people who’ve been doing sadhana for a hundred years and nothing happened. As a matter of fact some of you even become worse. It’s paradoxical. For some people it causes them to move ahead. But it’s still all in relative terms, and as we all know by now, relative terms do not exist. So for whom is sadhana? Again it’s for the mind and the ego. If you think it’s helping, by all means continue. But remember I said, “If you think it’s helping.” If you stop thinking you do not have to do any sadhana. I suppose sadhana is necessary as long as you believe you are the mind and the body. Again, after all, who is doing the spiritual disciplines? Does the Self need to do that? Does consciousness need to do discipline? Does absolute reality need discipline? What needs discipline? The mind and the body. Therefore the more you are attached to the mind and body the more you have to do sadhana. Does that make sense? (S: Sadly, yes.) So I won’t say to you, “Stop doing it,” due to the fact that many of you have a strong connection with your body and your mind. As long as you do I suppose sadhana makes you sort of quiet for a while and gives you it’s own experience of a sort of peace that doesn’t last too long. It causes samadhi for some people, nirvikalpa samadhi. But if you’re an aspiring Jnani, what’s the purpose of sadhana? You simply ask yourself, “Who needs to do this? I do. What is this I? This personal I, where did it come from? How did it get here? Who gave it birth?” As you ask yourself these questions, that is your sadhana. That’s all you need to do. But you continue doing this 24 hours a day. That’s what it means by ‘praying without ceasing.’ As you meet the challenges of the day you keep asking yourself, “To whom does this come? Who is feeling this condition? Who is going through this situation? Who feels emotional?” As you keep doing this all day long, you will find that you become more peaceful, you become happy and your life becomes better. That’s really the only sadhana you need. But of course if you cannot do that then you have to do whatever you have to do. Whatever helps you, that’s what you have to do. I suppose that’s why it says that Jnana Marga, atma-vichara, is for the mature soul, one who can do this regularly, without reverting back to Hatha Yoga or Raja Yoga, any of the Yogas. They all have their place, but self-inquiry is the royal way. It’s the short cut. But it’s up to you. It’s your choice. And of course self-inquiry is merely to quiet the mind. It’s a fast method to quiet the mind. For when you ask, “To whom does this come? It comes to me,” and you hold on to that me by inquiring, “Who am I? What is I?” and saying “I – I” to yourself, “I – I,” the mind becomes quieter and quieter. The deeper you go within yourself the quieter you become. And that’s your sadhana. That’s all you have to do. Any questions? SL: You said that you had an interesting day, but it seems that you were alluding to the phone calls and the door bells as being annoying to you, except that you were aware that it didn’t bother you, because it wasn’t an interruption. R: No, I wasn’t really aware of anything. (SL: Was it just something that was just happening?) Something was happening and I was responding accordingly. (SL:Yeah.) But there was no feeling or emotion or anything. (SL: I see. The card you gave us on Sunday said, “Be an irrepressible fountain of happiness.” If a person feels that way, then is that also just the ego entertaining itself?) It depends why you feel like that. Do you feel that way? (SL: For no specific reason.) Well that’s good. That’s all you need to do. If you feel like that because of a reason or because of a condition… see, that card is really for the ego. When you’re working out of the ego you have to force yourself to be happy, to try to be good to people, to develop loving kindness, and develop all these emotions. (SL: What if it just happens to you without any purpose?) Then you’re advanced. That’s a good sign. (SL: If the door bell ringing becomes a wonderful opportunity and the telephone ringing, when it rings, feeling like something wonderful is happening, is that practically the ego again?) Well, when the door bell rings and the phone rings, it’s not supposed to feel that something wonderful is happening. You’re supposed to be wonderful within to begin with and then that’s just a happening that’s going on. (SL: What if everything seems to be a good lesson?) Well that’s good for your growth then. (SL: Even going bowling could be good way of working on oneself.) It could be. There’s no question about that, but for whom? (SL: Right.) We get back to the ego again. (SL: (laughs) The ego goes bowling.) The ego does everything. (laughter) Everything you do is the ego. When the time comes, when you know with certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not the ego and you’re not the body or the mind, then everything happens spontaneously. The door bell rings, you answer the door. (SL: I suppose most of us would be acutely aware of that when we’re not attached to our body.) Of course. When you are not identified with the body there’s nobody left to be aware. It’s just a spontaneous happening. There are no words to really describe it. SL: I’m hogging all the questions here, but another thing, when you were talking about the Buddha kissing the courtesan and healing her. The healing was a good thing then, it was good for her, it was something he gave to her. It was, in other words, the appearance of her being a leper was not as good as the appearance of her being a healthy woman. So he choose to heal her. R: For her it was necessary for this to happen. This was her experience. (SL: It isn’t necessary for everyone to be healed?) No, it’s not. It’s neither good nor bad. Because after all, what is healed? The body which doesn’t even exist. So why should you waste your time healing a body that doesn’t exist? SL: If there are more lessons to be learned in this life, then a person who is well is more able to advance – and I don’t understand reincarnation – but is more able to, well to get further and, as you said the other night, come back with more advantages of understanding. R: That’s how it appears. But in reality there’s no causation for existence. So none of that is relevant. It’s only relevant when your mind’s on that level. (SL: There really is no cause and no effect?) In reality, it doesn’t exist. SK: Absolute reality? (R: Absolute reality, yes.) SL: But on this plane as we know it, as we’re making our way towards understanding. R: But who knows this plane? The ego. (SL: I see.) Therefore if you work on destroying the ego there are no planes to contend with. And there’s no relative world to contend with. It all goes back to the ego. The ego has to work things out. The ego has to make progress. The ego tells you you’re healthy or sick. The ego gets you in trouble. So don’t try to change the condition. SH: Can it get you out of trouble too? (R: When you destroy it.) (laughter) SN: It is trouble. (R: It’s trouble to begin with, right.) SH: The only trouble. (R: Sure, and it doesn’t even exist.) SL: If one is, as we are all apparently stuck in this ego… (R: Speak for yourself.) (laughter) …I mean the people on this side of the room. (R: How do you know what’s going on, on this side of the room?) Umm, as we are, as we appear to be, in this ego life here, if we find it easy, or not even easy, but natural or whatever, to live as an irrepressible source of happiness does that point of view seem to make everything work on that level, on a good level, as we see, as we appear, to want things to be smooth, like the plumbing doesn’t break all the time. R: Well, as far as the relative world is concerned, what you’re saying is true. But there is a happiness that is beyond plumbing, there’s a happiness beyond everything. (SL: Well that’s why we’re here.) The idea is to find your real happiness, to find out what is real happiness. It’s unconditioned. It has nothing to do with person, place or thing. Happiness is your real nature. You are happiness. Happiness is another word for you. But it’s unconditioned. It’s not replacing good for bad or bad for good. It has nothing to do with good and bad. Those are relative terms. Happiness is another word for absolute reality or consciousness, for ultimate oneness, for pure awareness. That’s synonymous with happiness. (SL: I understand.) And it’s omnipresent. So when you have the real happiness you see it in the world because the world becomes your Self. And there is none other than your Self that exists. (SL: But there’s something beyond that, just being as we are, seeing beauty, happiness, joy, peace, everywhere?) Who sees that? (SL: Even though that it’s the ego seeing that, it’s still all good.) That’s the opposite of bad. (SL: Pardon me?) It’s the opposite of bad. (SL: Yes?) Seeing all these good things. (SL: Yes?) So when you see a beautiful flower, and then it fades the next day and dies, you become disillusioned. You have to go and pick another flower. (SL: But it never does die, because the seed in the flower is making another seed.) But as far as you’re concerned there’s birth and death. Just like with bodies. Old flowers die and new ones are born, just like people. So you look at that condition and you say, “What does this mean?” I think you say that. “What’s the purpose to all this? Is that what life is all about?” (SL: Creation.) For whom is creation? Creation is a bad dream. (SL: Creation is a bad dream?) Yes. SK: Or a good dream, right? R: No, all creation is a bad dream. Because all of creation is birth and death. (SK: As a dream?) Yes. (SK: That’s why they don’t worship Brahman anymore, they just worship Shiva and Vishnu.) Correct. SL: Creation is a bad dream? R: Mmm. Because everything you see happening in the world is happening in creation. The United States is about to go to war with Iraq, that’s creation. And then you fall in love and you think it’s going to last forever, that’s creation. But people grow old and grow tired, they die, that’s all part of creation. Now what is the cause of creation? The mind. When the mind slows down creation ceases and you just become your Self. So do you want to be your Self or be creation? SG: Is that mind synonymous with God? (R: Mind?) That mind. R: Yes, synonymous with God, because God is a result of mind. Everything comes out of your mind. Everything that you behold: the universe, God, people, places, things, reincarnation, karma. SK: It wouldn’t be God if it’s a word pointing to some kind of absolute. it would be God as Ishvara. (R: Ishvara, personal God, that’s right.) It’s not God used in as a word to point to that absolute. (R: No I didn’t. We talked about God. Whenever I refer to God, I’m talking about absolute reality or consciousness.) So then God wouldn’t be the mind. (R: No, not in that case. But usually when people refer to God, they refer to a personal God, which is okay as long as you believe you’re the mind and body.) SG: Can you say that the ego does everything, and Bhagavad Gita says God is the doer, that’s coming from the point of the body-mind. R: God is the doer, yes. It comes from body-mind, that’s right. (SL: So God, as we think of as God, as the creator, is still the ego’s idea, the mind thinking?) Exactly, yes. (SG: It’s pure ego?) It’s pure ego. But I don’t like to call it pure ego, because it sounds important. (laughter) (SK: So who’s the doer?) There is no doer. (SK: There is no doer?) No doer exists. Never has existed. (SK: So does the Bhagavad Gita say God is the doer?) There is a point yes, it says the personal God is the doer. Because that God is. (SK: Is what?) Is the doer, because God tells you do this and do that. You say, “God made me do it.” That kind of a God is a doer. SH: What is the relationship between absolute consciousness and functioning of mind, if there is any? (R: Functioning of mind?) Yes, the mind, that is an offspring of consciousness in some way? (R: I don’t think so.) Where does it arise from? (R: It doesn’t.) Where does the appearance come from? R: The appearance comes from your imagination. (SH: I imagine there is a mind?) It’s called false imagination, that you imagine there’s a mind and then there’s an appearance. It’s like the optical illusion I always talk about, the sky is blue or the mirage in the desert. You’re looking at the desert and you see tanks coming, and they’re coming and you think it’s false, and they blow you apart, and your troubles are over. SG: Shankaracharya said that all is illusion, there is only Brahman, and the universe and Brahman are one. But you don’t have to come to a place of first seeing everything as an illusion. Then there is a place where everything is simply the Self to that extent? R: No, you don’t. Because when you come to that place when you see everything as an illusion, it’s the ego who sees all that. But if the ego is destroyed then where is the place, where is the illusion? Everything is gone with it. The ego-mind invents all these things. SF: Robert, the illusion is that there seems to be an illusion. R: That’s the illusion, right. SL: But you said you see the illusion, you see like pictures on the screen. (R: Sure I do. I see everybody sitting in this room. But I see everyone as consciousness.) SG: Also, do you also see your body of Robert in this room too? (R: Well sure I do.) Do you see that as consciousness? (R: I see my body as consciousness.) SR: We make the mistake of thinking that the bodies are seeing the bodies, and that’s why we tend to see them as bodies. Whereas the truth is consciousness is not seeing it from a place, so it’s only seeing itself. R: It’s just a different viewpoint. That’s right. In the movie you see the screen and you see the images. But most of us forget there’s a screen, and we’re only concerned with the images. But the screen exists whether there are images or not. The screen always exists. In the same way consciousness exists whether you are aware of it or not. You can identify with your body and that’s where all the trouble starts, or you can identify with consciousness and become free, and realize all of life is only superimposed on the screen, on consciousness. (SH: And only the screen exists, period.) That’s it. SR: Since there is no time, in a certain sense, we’re always free to really make that choice. It’s not like were stuck for a long time and then maybe some day well get that choice. But it’s really as long as we drop that idea that we’re bound in time. (R: That’s right. It’s an idea. It’s a belief.) That question, “How long does it take?’ is really making the first assumption that you’re stuck in that to begin with. (R: How long does it take? When you say how long does it take, it holds you back.) Right? (R: It keeps you back from realizing.) This lady said the ego sees the flower, and in a sense that’s really not true. Consciousness knows, in a sense, everything. It’s only the reaction that seems to be ego. (R: There is no ego and there is no flower.) Right. (R: There’s only consciousness.) And when there’s reaction there seems to be an appearance of ego. (R: When the mind is active everything takes place, flowers, death, birth, imagination.) SH: Can the mind be active if there’s no ego? (No. The mind and ego are synonymous. We use all these words but they mean the same thing.) SL: It seems like a person would become a vegetable. (R: To whom does it feel like that?) Oh, sure I know. (R: You see that’s your ego you’re fighting. Your ego doesn’t want you to do anything. It wants you to stay the way you are. So it will tell you all these things about vegetables and everything else.) (laughter) SF: Robert, when you say about the only feeling is not to react, I think this surely is, it’s impossible for the ajnani not to react. Because even not reacting is reacting. I think maybe for the Jnani… (tape break question unfinished as Robert continues as tape starts abruptly) R: …So why not start at the top, and just awaken and become free of it all. SR: When we ask these questions it’s like the awakening stage has to appear first to someone. When we say other people, they are in the waking state of the ego that’s asking the question. So right there you’ve got the fact that the waking state is appearing and you’re taking it to be real. So it seems like there’s the time for inquiry. R: Of course. You should spend your hours all day long asking yourself, “To whom does this come?” Every time you react to any condition ask the question, “To whom does it come?” Even if it’s a good reaction. (SR: Even if it’s just seeing that the world is in front of your eyes, ask.) “To whom does it come?” And you should start as soon as you get out of bed. SG: I find it just as disruptive having something I wanted to come to me and that giddiness and the happiness, that supposed happiness for having it, I use self-inquiry on that as well as something is just as… R: Of course. Remember happiness and unhappiness are two sides of the same coin. Do not allow happiness to fool you, human happiness, because you know how long that lasts. Therefore work on yourself. Catch yourself. Catch yourself being humanly happy. Enjoy the happiness, but ask yourself, “To whom does it come?” and you’ll realize that it’s your ego being happy, with itself, for a while, and then it will turn into something else. Remember the only thing apparent in this life is change. Everything must change. Therefore do not become disillusioned, because you won the lottery or you met someone you love very dearly or you inherited a new home or a car. Do not allow that to cause you not to work with your sadhana of self-inquiry. SL: From your point of view is it impossible to love one person more than another? (R: No.) To have to be able to see their development as different. (R: Who sees?) Who sees? (laughs) Well, from your point of view. (R: From my point of view, all is well.) All is well. SN: Robert, does the Jnani get angry? (R: Nope, except sometimes to teach a lesson.) So he fakes it? (R: Sometimes.) (SH: He has the appearance of anger.) (R: Sometimes.) SG: Does he fake happiness. Does he fake the appearance of happiness. R: Sometimes. (SN: But I’m not asking whether he faked it or not. What I’m asking is does anger come to a Jnani?) Not really. Unless he fakes it. (SN: I’ve been reading “I Am That,” and Nisargadatta was known getting angry a lot.) I know. He used to get very angry at Balsekar. (laughter) But that was the appearance. (SN: So you’re saying it was an act?) Yes. SN: Because someone asked him a question on that and he said, “When I identify with the gunas, then anger arises. When I stop identifying with it, then anger disappears.” So he was saying, at that moment, because I was identifying with it, the anger arose. But when I recognized the anger and discontinued identifying with it, it disappeared. R: He didn’t mean that. If he spoke like that he wouldn’t be a Jnani.) (SN: Well that’s what he said in the book.) I know. There’s no emotion in a Jnani. There is no anger or happiness, human, unless they are putting on an act. Because the mind has been completely transcended. (SN: So he was acting?) Apparently. (SN: He acted a lot?) He sure did. SN: That couldn’t be understood just as his samskaras? I remember reading in Tripura Rahasya, they were talking about three types of Jnanis. One type completely destroys any kind of samskaras. Another type, that hasn’t occurred, and that he draws from that from time to time, to appear to be human, I suppose. R: Yes, I recall that. But that’s only for an interpretation of a book. But you have to understand, in reality there’s only one Jnani, not two or three or four. SN: But I suppose the question really is then was Nisargadatta coming from the level of the mind or was he a Jnani. (R: He was a Jnani.) So regardless of all the things we hear about him, I mean I heard at one point he was really angry at this one woman because she was going to see another teacher and he was trying to throw the table at her and yelling at her, “Get out, get out, go and see him, don’t come back,” you know. (SF: Did he miss with the table?) (laughter) R: He did all of those things. But it was all in fun. (SN: Many things in “I Am That” can be misleading.) Yes they can. (SN: If you don’t read it the right way.) That’s why I’ve told you many times, those books are dangerous to some people. SL: Somebody said, an old teacher of mine, that Jesus never laughed. Is that true? R: He never laughed? I wasn’t there. I don’t know. (SL: But if you’re a Jnani, and Jesus was the same, would the consciousness be the same? I’ve seen you laugh.) No, see what you do, as you develop yourself, you have some of your personality left in your body. (SL: You have what?) Some of your personality, that’s sort of human. That’s still part of the illusion, that appears to be there. So when you see a Jnani reacting in a different way it has to do with their personality, which doesn’t even exist. But it appears to exist for your sake. And none of these quirks exist, but they appear to, for your sake. SN: So from the onlooker actually the Jnani looks like anyone else? R: Yes, and they see in the Jnani what’s in them.) (SN: But don’t we see in each other also what is in us, not just the Jnani?) Yes we do. The onlooker sees, wherever he looks, he sees himself. (SN: From the point of the view of the onlooker that the Jnani is not any different than anyone else. How is one to distinguish?) That’s why it is said that you must turn within yourself and the answer will come out of yourself and you will know. (SN: But Ramana would say that you can tell because when you’re in the presence of a Jnani you feel a great peace. In other words their peace becomes your peace.) That’s true to an extent. But if the Jnani is walking in the market place and you bump into him you will not be able to tell, usually. But if you’re in a class with a Jnani then there’s a peace, yes. Then you feel peace. (SN: But what I’m saying is when people were with Nisargadatta he was getting angry and carrying on obviously he looked like anyone else.) But people felt a great peace with him, except those he chased away. (laughter) SR: A lot of people didn’t feel anything around Ramana. (R: That’s right.) SN: Yeah, I guess that’s a point. R: It all depends on yourself. If you work on yourself, if you go within, then you will be led to the right teacher at the right time and all will go well with you. But if you’re only doing things externally you’ll make a lot of mistakes and go to the wrong places. SG: If that is also part of where you need to be at that time though, too? R: Yes. Everything is preordained. (SG: right.) So why worry about these things? Turn within, find yourself, and be free. Most people go around saying who’s a Jnani, who’s not, who’s enlightened, who’s not. It’s a waste of energy. Forget about all this. It doesn’t matter. Find yourself. And then see if those questions come to you. SN: Robert, in the process of finding yourself the question of practice comes up. And is not vichara itself a practice? R: You can call it a practice, but it’s a technique for destroying the ego. And if you’re practicing enough, and you call it a practice, you will see amazing results. But we’re using words it’s semantics. We say this is a practice, this is a technique. It doesn’t matter what you call it. We should all do it. (SN: Well it’s not to say as if vichara is the only the only path?) Oh, there are many paths of course. It depends on the temperament of the devotee. (SN: But it is a practice itself. So in the end if everything is predetermined, the question arises why do a practice at all, nevertheless…) Because you act as if it is not predetermined. You are to act as if nothing is predetermined, even though it is. You will do what you are supposed to do. That’s why we are told to stop reacting completely and to dive deep within the Self and become liberated. (SN: But Jnana Marga is a pathless path.) Sure you can say that. Of course it is. But what good are those terms if they don’t mean anything. SN: Well, it almost seems as though you were saying that, well we need to do vichara and we talked about surrender, that was another path, and witnessing. What I’m getting at is, whether we should think in terms of cause and effect. If we do this, that will be the cause, and the effect will be self-realization. What I’m saying is that self-realization ultimately is something that just happens of itself. In the meantime you just pretend, well if I do this, this will happen. R: What you should do is to stop thinking. (laughter) And you should do everything you can to stop your mind from thinking these things. Because all the things that you say seem important, but they have no validity to atma-vichara. The less we think the better off we are. Even about the practice. SF: That’s a question I have, Robert, what is the point, if there is a point of encounter between an inquisitive quite egoic mind, who wants to know everything, all the details, on one side. And the other side is, you yourself have said before, don’t take for granted all that I tell you. Come up with your own conclusions. The Buddha said, “Be a lamp unto yourself.” (R: Yes.) So you have to find a medium term or position between those two extremes. R: Not really. (SF: No?) Because when you say you have to find, who has to find? You go right back to the ego. (SF: Right.) All we have to do is still the mind. (SF: Right, and any of these activities?) Whatever helps us. All of the things that help us still the mind are good. (SF: Right.) As long as they are helping us to still the mind. But if they make us too active, then we’re on the wrong track. SF: Trying to clarify any point to the utmost extreme, or trying to read too much. All that is feeding the ego or the mind, extremely. (R: Yes. Simplicity. Keep everything simple, quiet.) Who doesn’t want to accept atma-vichara. I mean if I don’t want to accept atma-vichara as a practice, if I don’t want to accept that practice, also I’m sort of resistant. And who is resisting? It’s the ego I guess. R: Of course. And then you look for other paths and you try this and you try that for a couple of months and you try something else. But you never sit down and try to quiet the mind. You keep searching. The mind searches. The mind never wants to rest. So you’ve got to observe your mind, you’ve got to become the witness to your mind, and keep inquiring, “For whom is the mind?” And then you come home free. SR: We’re really looking for our questions to be extinguished, and not answered. R: True, of course. SH: When we refer to the mind we’re just referring to thoughts that occur. There isn’t anything such as a mind. R: Exactly. A mind doesn’t exist. (SH: No.) The mind is only a conglomeration of thoughts. So do not think of your mind is an entity. It’s the thoughts that you have to subdue because you think too much. It doesn’t really matter what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s good, what’s bad. All thinking has to stop, and then reality comes of itself. SG: When Ramana said that the mind is nothing more than a bundle of thoughts. (R: True.) There is no location for that bundle of thoughts. (R: There’s no what?) There’s no location. (R: No location.) I mean there isn’t a bundle, it’s a finite bundle that finally gets the last stick, the last thought, and it’s gone. R: That’s right. Thoughts do not even exist, but they appear to exist and that’s called the personal I. So that’s why were told to follow the I. And when the I disappears, so will everything else. (SK: Follow the I inward to the source, not outward.) Inward, yes. If you follow it outwards you have all kinds of problems. You follow inwardly and it becomes the I am, pure reality. SR: It’s funny how we take words to be so real, like the word bundle. (R: Like what?) Like the idea of “bundle.” Funny how you give reality to these things that are just meant to be tentative descriptions. Like we miss the intention then. R: And the mind images all these things how they look, and makes a case out of them. (SR: Yes, it will.) And then we have to destroy everything. (SR: That’s because we don’t really focus on the silence. We focus on what comes out of it.) Exactly. Be still and know that I am God. (pause) See? Most of you are thinking. Why do you allow yourself to think? Catch yourself before you make up stories. (laughter) Always catch yourself before the thoughts go past your nose. And you can catch yourself by simply observing and being aware that you’re thinking, becoming the witness to your thinking, or keep asking yourself, “To whom do these thoughts come?” But do it as often as you have to. That’s why satsang is so important, because it’s easier here. So if you come to enough satsangs you carry it through during the working day and you keep remembering not to think. And the remembering becomes stronger, and stronger, and stronger, until you actually stop your thoughts. And then you’re free. There’s really nothing profound about this teaching. It’s simple. Stop thinking. SL: So simple it eludes me. R: Who is eluded? You can never be eluded. Never put yourself down. Watch what you say about yourself. No matter how many mistakes you make, get up again, brush yourself off, and carry on. (SL: Now that is one problem I find about being old, that there were so many things in my memory that I find myself carrying. That phrase I heard somewhere and I thought it was funny, and I said, it wasn’t my thought, “So simple it eludes me.” I think W. C. Fields said it as a matter of fact.) Really? Where do all these thoughts stay? There is no cause. So they don’t even exist. They appear to exist as I. That’s why I tell you get rid of the I and all your thoughts will go also. (pause) There’s nothing else to do but to be still. SF: Robert, in the phrase “I am consciousness,” what I is that? R: The real I. I am consciousness is simultaneously both correct. SL: And when you say to us, “I love you,” you were speaking from That? R: I’m speaking of the universal ‘I,’ ‘I’ as omnipresence. Love as omnipresence. You as omnipresence. So the I is the entire universe, the I is the Self, the I is pure consciousness. (SL: But when we, speaking from our ego point of view, say, “we love you,” it seems like in most of life, it seems a manipulative word.) Well, change it. (SL: Well I don’t think I mean it that way. I think it comes from a ego place.) Well why even think about that? (SL: Pardon me?) Why think about that at all? Why do you think about it at all? Stop thinking and just do it. (SL: Say I love you?) Speak from your heart. In other words do not think where it’s coming from. You don’t want to walk around all day saying, “This came from here and this came from there.” Simply say what you mean and forget it. SF: It’s afterwards there comes a doubt. (R: Yes.) You didn’t mean it. (R: Of course.) And there’s no doubt at the time. (R: Exactly.) SR: It’s not the ego until that doubt comes in. R: That’s right. It’s always yourself. You are always yourself until your mind starts thinking. (SR: Right.) Then you lose it. (SR: But even when you’re like thinking of your grocery bill, or you know, that’s not a problem.) You’re still yourself if everything is spontaneous. (SR: Right.) But as soon as you become attached, or you start worrying about it, or fearing it, or thinking something is wrong, then you can know the ego is at work. SH: It’s the manipulation of whatever occurs. (R: The manipulation.) If it occurs and it’s gone, there’s no problem. (R: If it occurs and you let it go, there’s no problem.) It’s the analyzation. (R: Analyzation.) SF: What you’re saying Robert is that every thought is non-dual until someone is concerned themself with the I. R: Yes, exactly. All thoughts are pure. (SF: Non-dual.) Until you start thinking about them. (SF: Only when someone gets concerned with the thoughts identifying with them?) Then the trouble starts. (SF: identifying yourself?) That’s true. (SF: Something to the thinker.) SN: So when you say don’t think, you don’t mean stop all your thoughts. You mean stop identifying with the thoughts that are occurring. (R: Yes.) Thoughts come before the thinker comes on the picture. (SD: That’s very clear.) SN: So is there any point where they stop, where the thoughts do stop? R: The thoughts do stop, yes, and you just act spontaneously. But they appear like thoughts, but they are no longer thoughts. For instance if I think I’m getting up off this chair, the thought had to come to me spontaneously, but that’s the end. So I’m not really thinking about getting off the chair. I just did it. SR: That’s like the end, the duration, is no longer present. The thought arose, died, there was no concern. (R: That’s right.) SH: There is no separation between the thought and the action. R: Exactly. It’s all one. (SH: One.) SR: So really what happened is you lost all sense of division like there was separate thought entities. They come, they end, another one comes, it’s just like, right? R: There’s no beginning and no end. SF: So actually non-duality is the real thing, even with thoughts, and what appears to appear is the I or the one concerned with the thoughts, and that’s when duality surges up. R: It all has to do with time and space. (SF: Right.) Time and space are nonexistent. (SF: That’s still the personality or ego.) The ego has to do with time and space. So when time and space stops everything is spontaneous and there’s no ego, and all causation ceases. Causation has to do with time and space. SR: So memory ends too? (R: Memory ends also.) SF: This is so important Robert, because when you say that we should stop the thoughts, actually what you’re implying is not to slow them, but actually let the thoughts be as they are in a non-dual way. The only thing is, don’t let the I come up in between or the duality to appear in that sense. R: You can say that. Yes, if you just are spontaneous and you just act from your spontaneity, then you’re safe. But if you have to think about it too much, then you’re caught up in it again. (SF: Right.) SG: Like sitting here, there’s no need for thoughts. (R: Right.) There’s nothing here to do. So there shouldn’t be any thoughts. So when the thoughts are just coming, then I catch it and they go down, I play along the thought line. (R: You keep catching your thoughts faster and faster. And then it all starts slowing down.) SH: When you’re spontaneous there’s no possibility of the ego occurring. (R: There’s no ego at all.) Then it’s vanished. (R: It’s gone. The ego has to do with thinking.) SF: Excuse me, but when you try to catch the thoughts, there is an observer there which is the I, Robert, or the ego trying to observe or catch the thoughts. R: The I, the ego, the mind are simultaneously the same. It’s the same thing. So when you think, it becomes the I. I think. Then I act. My mind thinks. But when you’re spontaneous there’s no I to think. SF: Right, but that’s how it usually happens. Everything is spontaneous. The I surges almost in an atomic time, immediately… (R: I think, yes.) …and captures the actual thought or the thought which is occurring. R: That’s right, yes. You identify with the I. So when you work on yourself and keep asking, “To whom does this come?” the personal I becomes weaker and weaker until it disappears. So let’s practice this together. Let’s become still. Now what we’re going to do now is just close our eyes and watch our thoughts, and catch them. As soon as you see yourself thinking ask yourself, “To whom does it come? It comes to me.” Hold on to the me and ask yourself, “Who am I? Who am I” over and over again. Or you can say, “I – I, I – I.” Then the thoughts will start again. Do the whole procedure over again, “To whom do they come? To me. Who am I? Who is this I to whom they come? What is this I?” Then some more thoughts will creep in. And you do it again, and again, and again until they start slowing down. And as you say, “Who am I?” that will last longer and longer, until it stops. So let’s try that. (long silence for practice) R: Let’s discuss your experiences that you’ve had. But we have got some prashad. Let me hand it out for you. Take one and pass the bag around. (general talk during prashad) So remember to love yourself, to bow down to yourself, to worship yourself, because God dwells in you as you. I love you all. Peace, until we meet again. Have a good time. Enjoy life. Keep eating. (laughter) SM: Thank you for the refreshments Robert. (tape ends)