Transcript:
Robert: Good evening. It’s good to be with you again, I welcome you with all of my heart. It’s nice of you to come here and get in out of the rain. Something to do. You got tired of watching the war on TV. It’s over. SH: No more war. R: Now you can come here. It’s interesting to note how much you are looking for self-realization. When I say, “How much you’re looking,” I mean self-realization is nothing you look for. But you think you have to look. So you come here and this is good. Whatever you put first in your life that’s what you achieve sooner or later. By taking the trouble to go out into the rain and driving on this mountain path to come here, shows that you are interested in your Self. When I was about sixteen years old, I lived in the Bronx in New York and I used to go listen to Joel Goldsmith. Anybody heard of him? (um-hm) He was in Manhattan. In the middle of the winter I had to take the train, change and take a bus. The temperature was maybe seventeen degrees but somehow something in my heart made me go because I wanted to be there. Not particularly to listen to what he had to say, because I already knew what he had to say. But I just wanted to be in his company, with like minded people. It’s the same thing here. When you go out of your way to come to satsang, especially in inclement weather when it’s hard for you to do. Especially when you can be in a nice cosy home watching TV or drinking wine or whatever you do at home. You have come out of your way for spiritual life. This means something, not to me but to yourself. It means that you are on the path and that is all you need to do. Now your attitude at satsang is important. What kind of an attitude do you have? What do you expect? Those who expect nothing get everything. If you expect me to say something profound you will always get disappointed. If you expect me to make a great speech you will always get disappointed. If you expect me to give a sermon, again you will be disappointed. But if you expect nothing, then my nothing and your nothing merge and becomes everything. So your attitude should be, no attitude. You should never have any attitude and you shouldn’t expect anything. That is called empty mind. When your mind is empty your true Self automatically emerges and you feel a great joy. You feel a great happiness, a great bliss. You begin to feel awareness, joyful awareness. You just become aware not of something, you become aware of no thing and the no thing is consciousness. So by coming here with an empty mind you feel pure awareness. You don’t really feel it because you can’t feel pure awareness. You become pure awareness. How do you become pure awareness? You become conscious of pure awareness. You can’t really become anything. The personal self can never become pure awareness. The personal self can never know consciousness. When you came here with an empty mind, you gave up the personal self. Therefore you experience pure awareness as consciousness and that results in bliss. Bliss you can feel. Pure awareness, consciousness you cannot. But in order to feel bliss you have to become pure awareness. Which means to be aware of something, to be aware of consciousness. When you are aware of consciousness, but who’s consciousness are you aware of? Not yours because you don’t exist. Consciousness exists but you don’t. Therefore you can never say that, “I am experiencing pure awareness,” or “I am experiencing consciousness.” You cannot say that because I can never experience those things. Therefore when somebody tells you, “I think I am experiencing consciousness?” Look at that person funny because I can never experience consciousness. I can never experience pure awareness. Pure awareness and consciousness just are. They are not this or that they just exist as themselves. Now somebody tells you, “Well in the Upanishads and the Vedas it says, I am Brahman.” So they are saying that they are Brahman. No, they are not. Now get this and remember it all the time. They are saying, “I am is Brahman.” They’re not saying, “I the personal I is Brahman,” or “consciousness.” They are stating their true confession that I-am Is Brahman. I-am is consciousness not you. You don’t exist. But I-am, Brahman, consciousness, pure awareness, bliss are all synonymous, they happen at the same time. The reason we speak about these things is because of time and space. When you are the body speaking, time and space appear to exist. When time and space appear to exist you have to use words to explain what you mean. So you say your real nature is pure awareness. Aware of what? Aware of consciousness, which leads to bliss, which is absolute reality. Yet these words are all synonymous they all mean the same thing therefore a realized person to make you understand that they all mean the same thing is silent. Now can you see why silence is the ultimate teacher? As long as you use words you confuse yourself and you confuse people. But as you become silent like Fred the real Self becomes domineering and the personal self rushes back into the heart. Therefore those of you who talk too much realize that you are the most confused, for words merely confuse. And remember again because you believe you are the body time and space exist for you and in that space and in that time you are speaking words. You have to speak them one after the other so that somebody else who appears to be like you listens to your words and then they react. They become happy if you said something nice and they become angry if you say something ugly and life goes on. So the reason we come to satsang is to understand that there is no body, there is no mind, there is only the Self. The Self cannot be explained by words, can only be experienced as pure being. And that being is consciousness, that consciousness is pure awareness which is absolute reality and results in bliss. This is why you hear me say so many times that the first sign of progress on the spiritual path is when you begin to feel a profound peace within yourself. That’s the bliss I’m talking about. You perhaps not experienced it completely but you just feel a profound peace that you never felt before. Things that used to bother you cease. People who made you angry cease making you angry. They haven’t changed, you have grown. Words become meaningless. You begin to spend more time by yourself and you become very, very happy. The question therefore arises, do you mean if I become self-realized that I have to be by myself? I have to become a hermit? On the contrary, I’m talking about mentally. For instance: There was a birthday party in my family recently and there were about fifteen-twenty people there. As usual I sit in the chair and watch. And there was all kinds of noise and dancing and everything going on, but I am eternal peace. It makes no difference what anybody does or says. I am at peace. I do not say, “I can’t stand it in here there is too much noise and I have to go be by myself in peace.” I am at peace wherever I go. You see the difference? Those of you who believe or think that you have to run away from your environment or from certain people because they drive you crazy, these people are a blessing in disguise. For they make you see yourself. What do they make you see? They make you see that you are not at peace with yourself. Do you really think that if you go to a monastery or to an ashram or to a cave you will be at peace? If you cannot be at peace at a party? Don’t you see? Wherever you go you’ve got to take yourself with you. And if you are not at peace where you are, if you go to a cave to live by yourself you’d go insane. Your mind would drive you out of your mind! (laughs) Which is good! The world is your laboratory, where you practice on yourself. Do not try to escape from the world. Do not try to change things, but watch yourself, see what you’re all about. Watch the things that upset you. Watch how many words you use during the day. How you talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. Watch how you react to what people say. How many of you react to your TV? You watch a program you laugh if it’s funny, you cry if it’s sad, you get angry if they do what you don’t like you are not in control of yourself. The TV controls you. I know a person who turns on the TV as soon as they get out of bed and they turn it off at about twelve o’clock at night when they go to sleep. They can’t stand to be alone without somebody telling them something. Because when they are by themselves without a TV or without a radio, their mind drives them crazy. All sorts of thoughts pop up, so to escape they watch the TV. And then before they turn off the TV they are already thinking what am I going to do now. So they go to a movie before the movie’s over they are already thinking what am I going to do when the movie is over? They go bowling, they’ve got to be doing something all the time. They cannot be alone because their thoughts confound them. You have to examine yourself. You have to see who you are. You have to begin to understand, you are not the doer and become still and relaxed and peaceful with yourself. The way you become peaceful is by realizing I am not the doer. I didn’t ask to be born the way I am. I didn’t ask to be born of certain parents, in a certain country, at a certain time. I didn’t ask to be born into an impoverished family or into a wealthy family or into a spiritual family or into an atheist family or into a family of agnostics. You didn’t ask for that yet you find yourself in that particular family. If you are fortunate enough when you get to the age of reason you begin to question, “How did I get here? What am I doing in this environment? Who put me here? What is my purpose?” As you sincerely ask yourself these questions, the answers will be revealed to you and you will begin to understand that everything was predetermined, preordained. If you are fortunate enough to come under the tutelage of a guru, or a Jnani it will be explained to you that you may appear to think that you were born into this particular family under these circumstance but in reality that is not you. You are not that. You are boundless. You are free. You are of the unborn. You have always been and you will always be. That is your true nature. Can you imagine learning these things when you are young? Having this type of understanding? That even though I may appear to be a body. Even though I may appear to be doing something. In reality I am doing nothing and I am not the body. And if you are not the body and you are doing nothing then who is doing the work? And the answer is, noone. There was noone ever born, there is noone who subsists and there is noone who disappears. And you are that noone. Now as I share this with you, what do you personally think you are? The first mistake you make is to believe that you are the personal I. Identification with the body. That’s your first mistake. The second mistake is that your mind identifies with the world. And the third mistake is that your mind and body reacts to your environment. We therefore begin with the body. You say to yourself, “I exist, there is no doubt about this, I exist. But who is this I that exists? It’s the personal I. Yet when I go to sleep I am not aware of that I. But yet I still exists even though I am asleep. And when I’m dreaming, I dream about all kinds of things. Yet I say I dreamt.” I is always persisting itself to remind you that you are I. And you keep identifying with I, most of your life. When you begin to question, you begin to question your own existence. “How can I exist the way I am? For when I was a baby I existed as a completely different body. As a teenager I also existed but I was different than I am today. And look at me today I exist as I am today. But I, I, I, always seems to be present. Therefore, who am I? Who am I really?” And the questioning begins. You have shown yourself that you are not your body because you’ve been different at different times of your life. You’ve appeared different so you cannot be the body that seems to appear one way at one time and different ways at different times. Am I my mind, how can I be my mind. My mind is only a conglomeration of thoughts, thoughts of the past and thoughts of the future. So I cannot be my mind. Therefore what am I? If you ask sincerely something will tell you within yourself that if you get to the source of the I, all your problems will be over. So you start thinking about the source. As you think about the source you think of nothing because the source of the I is no thing. And you begin to see that the I that has been confronting you all of these years has to have a source and the source is no thing. If the source is no thing how can there be an I? Now you begin to wake up and you laugh at yourself. You finally realize, “I don’t exist, I never have existed, I don’t exist as consciousness, I don’t exist as pure awareness, I just don’t exist. But the source is omnipresence, is ultimate oneness.” Then you can say, “I am the source.” Because at that time you will realize when you say, “I am,” you are not referring to your body any more you are not referring to your mind. You are referring to God, to pure awareness, to consciousness, to absolute reality. At that state you don’t even think of those words. For as I mentioned before those words only exist in time and in space. And in your realization you understand that there is no time and no space. So there are no words, there is only the source and you become free and liberated. Now I know some of you don’t even know what I’m talking about. So let’s ask some questions. ST: Okay so Robert is there an almighty God? An all knowing God? R: Aside from you? (ST: An almighty, all knowing God?) Beside yourself? (ST: No that’s not what I’m asking. I don’t want to relate myself to God. I’m asking you is there an almighty and all knowing God?) What do you think you are? (ST: No I’m very limited.) Then there is a God for you. (ST: No that is not what I’m asking. I’m asking you if there is a God? An almighty, all knowing God?) For you? (ST: Forget me. I’m asking you.) As long as you believe that you are limited there is. (ST: No I’m asking you, for you is there an almighty, all knowing God? Not for me, forget me.) Why should there be one for me and not for you? (ST: Well there could be, I don’t know?) Then there are two Gods, or three Gods, or four Gods. (ST: Well maybe I don’t know of them, and you do.) I don’t know of any God? (ST: You don’t.) No. (ST: So all this teaching I have perceived is all baloney?) Sure. It’s all baloney. (laughter) Now what? (students laugh) (ST: Just wanted to know if that…you know?) That is why I say, “Words are all baloney.” The more you talk the less you know. If you can become still and go into the silence and ask sincerely, “Who am I?” Then you will know who God is. It makes no difference what I think. (ST: So there is no all knowingness? All pervasiveness?) I don’t know? What do you think? (ST: I don’t know? I’m not there.) What’s the difference what I think or what I know? What good does it do you? (ST: I’m just trying to see what you would…) Find out for yourself! (ST: Well I’ve been trying but I could not find anything in that sense.) Try harder. (ST: I’ve heard of people who claim they know a lot more than I do, you know. People who I have been in contact with which they have told me that they have merged with eh, …who knows?) Well when somebody tells yo that be careful. (students laugh) How can I merge with anything. There would have to be two of me, a mergerer and a mergeree. There is noone to merge. (ST: Well how do you explain intelligence? In my opinion nature is intelligence.) You don’t explain intelligence you become intelligence. (ST: Yeah but if you are intelligent you’re supposed to be able to demonstrate intelligence?) Says who? How do you demonstrate it, by talking? (ST: No, let’s say if I was nature, I would be able to create flowers, trees whatever, right?) How do you know you don’t? (ST: Well I know I am not able to create.) Who knows? (ST: I do, as I’m sitting here.) That is the answer, “Who is the I?” What I are you talking about? You are talking about a personal I? And a personal I can never know anything. Except the world as it looks. So the whole idea is to transcend the personal I and you wouldn’t have that question. (ST: But you seem to say that if you are in the awareness of the higher I or what you call it the “I am” presence or whatever. You are just in silence there is no knowing involved, is that so?) That’s so, silence. (ST: And silence creates intelligence?) No, silence doesn’t create anything. (ST: Doesn’t create anything?) Because nothing exists but silence. Silence is synonymous with the Self, with consciousness, with pure awareness it’s the same thing. You see the difference. Silence isn’t created. Silence is that. (ST: I understand that but still when it goes into pure awareness, awareness meaning to be aware of everything…) To be aware of consciousness. (S: Pardon?) To be aware of consciousness. (ST: Yeah but that would imply that you were aware, like all knowing, aware of everything, aware of pure awareness.) What do you mean by everything? (ST: Like I say, all knowing, represents to me pure awareness.) You are referring to knowing about material things? (ST: No not just that, everything, from the highest to the lowest, the whole scope.) But there is no highest and there is no lowest. (ST: Okay I just made that in a sense that there is multiple differences, a diversity in oneness, let’s say?) No there is not, no there is not at all. There is only oneness and there is no diversity. (ST: But there is unity and then there is diversity we have many things in the universe.) To you. That is how it appears to you. That is your precept. (ST: Okay.) That’s your opinion. That is how you see it. (ST: But then you are saying when you are in pure awareness you do not know anything?) You are nothing. As far as this material world is concerned. When you are nothing you are everything. (ST: Okay.) I know what you are referring to. You are still interested in Siddhi’s, powers. (ST: No I’m just referring to, like people to God or to religious God, you know. Most religions believe in a God who knows all.) But what do you care what most religions believe, what do you believe? (ST: I don’t know?) Find out. (ST: I’m guessing.) Question. Question yourself, find out! (ST: That is what I’ve been trying to do but I can’t find my answer so…) Go deeper. That is all you’ve got to do. Ask yourself, “Who doubts?” Find out and get rid of that person. Then you’ll be free. (pause) Feel free to ask anything or say something. Throw a pie in my face. Do whatever you like. SG: Robert, I don’t know whether this is just something I want to say or maybe see what you think about it. I am beginning to think that this state is, maybe I’ve read it before … the problem is that it is beyond our senses. It’s beyond seeing, feeling, touching, hearing… (R: Indeed.) …therefore it is, it’s a whole other thing it, we can’t perceive it in any other way that we are accustomed to perceiving it. (R: Exactly.) And also my explanations of things are also limited because they’re all done in terms of my senses. (R: Exactly.) And so this state is beyond that? R: Exactly. That is why you have to go into the silence. Where you are not disturbed by words and people and things and go deep within the silence and then you experience the bliss of the silence. And you become free… (tape break) …beyond things. Words cannot describe it. ST: How old were you when this happened to you? R: What happened to me? (ST: When you went through this state?) You make it sound like a catastrophe. (students laugh) I was fourteen. (ST: You were fourteen?) Umm. (ST: And you’ve got a family and everything?) Yes. (tape break) R: (tape starts abruptly)…people are crying, people are moaning, it’s not that bad you know. SU: Robert are children closer to their I am? R: Are children closer? (SU: Yeah.) Definitely, because they were recently born and they have not been brainwashed by the world yet. Just like animals. So they are much closer to themselves then grown ups are. Grown ups become opinionated and brainwashed and brain dead. (laughter) SG: That’s truth. R: That’s why we have wars and man’s inhumanity to man. Can you imagine fighting over a piece of land? It’s ludicrous. Or fighting over anything? Yet this is the way of the world. Children in their natural state do not really fight until they learn from grown ups. So become as a little child. What this injunction means is to see the world with awe, fresh and new. See everything as a miracle and wonder where it all came from? Again if you sincerely inquire, “Where did the world come from? Where did the trees come from? Where did the animals come from? Where did the insects come from?” If you ask the question deep within yourself, the answer will come that it’s all a projection of your own mind. It comes out of you just like a dream does. When that answer comes to you, you will be happy. You will be at peace. SL: But didn’t you say it doesn’t exist? R: It doesn’t. (SL: How can something that doesn’t exist and then it makes us happy?) No the happiness doesn’t come from that. When you look at the world with awe and you see the miracle of creation… (SL: That’s easy.) …and you inquire, “Where does this come from? How did it get here?” If you are sincere enough the answer will come through you that everything came out of your mind. Is a projection of your mind and the answer makes you happy, to know. ST: But if somebody dies? The mind is gone but the body is still going to be here. R: If somebody dies? (ST: Yeah.) The body is going to be here? (ST: The corpse is going to remain here, whether you are here or not.) That is how you see it. (ST: No. Everybody sees the corpse.) Everybody who thinks the same way who sees the corpse. (ST: Yeah, so that is something that…) What does that mean? (ST: …isn’t attached to the mind. The corpse is not a product of the mind then, when the mind is gone?) The mind doesn’t go anywhere… (ST: When you die what happens?) You don’t die, nobody dies. (ST: What is the process of dying? Do you simply become unconscious like you fall asleep? What is it?) You are thinking that you die, but you don’t die. When you are awake you watch everything like a movie. Nobody dies. (ST: Life energy leaves the body isn’t that an effect?) No that is on the relative plane. (ST: Pardon?) It’s on the relative plane only. That is how it appears and as long as you believe you are the body mind that is true. (ST: No that is not what I’m saying. I’m saying the body is separate from the mind, it appears to be because if a man dies the body is still here but it’s a dead corpse.) That is how it appears. But to whom does it appear that way? (ST: To everybody who sees the corpse.) No. To the person… (ST: No the person is gone, he is no longer here.) No you are still a person… (ST: Pardon?) You are still a person. As long as you still believe you are the body you go nowhere. (ST: No, no. Robert the person is dead, he’s gone, he’s maybe in heaven or who knows where that person is.) So how can you be dead? If he goes to heaven how can he be dead? (ST: He is no longer in the body. If the person is still in the body it’s still alive.) So you have gone to heaven? (S: Yeah.) And you have left your body? (ST: Right the body is dead, here just a corpse.) And you have left it and gone to heaven? (ST: Pardon?) You have left your body and gone to heaven? (ST: Yeah.) And the corpse is lying on the floor, dead. (ST: Right.) Says who? (ST: Everybody knows that.) No they don’t. (ST: A corpse is a corpse. It starts rotting immediately when the mind finds out, she leaves.) That is how it appears just like everything else in the world. (ST: So why does it start rotting?) To whom does it rot? Who sees it like that? (students laugh) It’s just like you are saying, “Why is the lamp on? Why is room blue? Why is the sky blue? Why does everything exist the way it appears to exist?” Who is doing the seeing? (ST: Because there is intelligence involved in it.) But who is doing the looking? Who is doing the seeing? (ST: Everybody his own way.) Forget about everybody, talk about yourself. As long as you see these things you have to ask yourself, “Who sees?” And you will realize that your ego sees all these things. All these things happen to you on an ego level. But if you go beyond the ego it doesn’t exist. (ST: Are you saying, nothing exists then?) Nothing as you know it. (ST: Yeah.) See all the things you are telling me is coming from the point of view that you are at now. (ST: Right.) That state that you are in. (ST: Right.) But there are other states. (ST: Tell me Robert how do you see if somebody dies? What do you see? What is happening?) I see through it. (ST: But what actually do you see? What happens?) Nothing happens. (ST: Nothing happens?) Nothing happens. (ST: Something must have happened or you wouldn’t see a dead corpse here?) Look at it this way, when you see a reflection in the mirror what happens? Does the mirror suffer from the reflection? Does the mirror see the reflection? The mirror remains the mirror, but the reflection appears to be in the mirror. But the reflection always changes. (ST: What happens to an ordinary person who dies a normal death in bed, let’s say. What kind of tremor or what kind of experience do they go through?) But you are talking about them. Speak about yourself. (ST: Mate I’ve not died yet, I don’t know?) So you are saying in other words, when you die what am I gong to go through? (ST: Yeah okay, yeah.) You will go through whatever you are going through now. (ST: What?) If you stay the way you are, you will go through… (ST: I’m asking you for the process what if that…) But there is no process because there is no death. But as long as… (ST: What is happening when I fall asleep?) You dream. You sleep. You wake up. (ST: Okay is that the same experience as falling asleep?) There is no going to sleep when you die. (ST: Well what is the difference between falling asleep and death?) Falling asleep is when you are still conscious. (ST: No, if I fall asleep I don’t know nothing nobody’s here, if I was asleep right now I do not know what’s going on?) But your real Self is conscious. What you really are is always conscious. (ST: Yeah.) It’s consciousness. (ST: Okay. My question is if you could just explain to me what’s happening when you die? Not just falling asleep not just…) What I’m trying to tell you is nothing happens. (ST: Nothing happens?) You want something to happen. (ST: There is some kind of process happening there.) It’s happening to you as long as you believe what you believe. So you will go through a process. You’ll appear to leave your body. You’ll go to the astral plane, take a rest or vacation and then you’ll go back into another body. And you will continue forever because that is what you believe now. (ST: Well not necessarily, I grew as a Catholic so I have no experience of reincarnation, you know.) So what experience do you have as a Catholic? (ST: None except their teachings.) R: As you believe it is done unto you. So whatever you believe now, that’s what happens to you, forget about others. Do not think about other people think of yourself. That’s the whole point. Whatever you believe about yourself now, that is what happens to you when you die. In other words if you believe you go to heaven and hell, that is what you will do. But it is all a reflection of your mind. You are creating all those states. Therefore find out, “Who is doing all of this? To whom does this belief come?” Find out and be done with it and you will be free. Do you see what I mean. The mistake you are making is you want to bring everyone into the picture. There are no others. Whenever you want an answer to a question, it’s between you and the questioner, you and your Self. So ask yourself, “Where do I go after death? Who wants to know? I do. Who am I? Who am I?” And when you find out who I is, all your questions will be answered, but it’s always between you and your Self. Never mind the other people. SV: Robert there are people who have been listening to teachings like this for fifty or sixty years. They could stand in a room and have an angry outburst in front of other people or to someone, they can vent your anger, say unkind things, be hostile and think of the rut and then after doing that they can sit in a room and glare at people and give them hateful looks. And they think that they are self-realized, can you comment on that? R: Well of course people like that are growing and they are trying and one day they will awaken, so what’s to say? We must learn to have compassion for everybody. (SV: I understand. Could you comment on the stupidity of that host. To be angry and not know that you are angry is to be deluded?) Well nobody is stupid. Somebody who is angry will one day ask the question, “Who is angry?” And they will begin the path. (SV: True, let it begin.) But what matters is what do you see? (SV: I already know that.) If you feel the anger then you have to work on yourself. (SV: I understand. Until they’ve seen that they haven’t even got on the path yet, they think they are already at the end.) Well forget about them. Leave them all alone. (SV: Well I’m just trying to help them out the right now.) That’s okay. Just be your Self. That’s how you help. Can you see that? (SV: I understand.) When you become yourself you are omnipresent and your vibrations go into everything. (SV: I understand.) ST: So do you feel one with me? (laughter) There’s no me, there’s no me, practically. There is only you? R: There is not me and there is not you. (ST: Okay.) And I can’t pick you out and say… I can’t pick you out and say I feel one with you. (ST: Huh?) I can’t pick you out and say I feel one with you. I feel one, period. (ST: Yeah but if you feel one you don’t give a damn about me?) (students laugh) SH: Oh yes he does. (students laugh) R: Because I give a damn about me I give a damn about you because there is only one. I am you. (ST: It appears to me like that. You are too self-centered you don’t know nothing about what’s your business, how you feel doesn’t really … it’s none of my business right?) SH: Well you think I’m the separate self, like you believe you are… (ST: Yeah fine. That’s the reality to me.) Is that true? Question it. (ST: According to Robert no, according to me yes, you know.) Well you can question it. Some time you will. (ST: Well maybe?) R: Be gentle with yourself and watch the things you say. (ST: But can you be practical in that sense?) Of course. (ST: Yeah?) Of course. (ST: Because how free are you in that state?) Totally free. (ST: Totally free?) True. (ST: You still have to maintain your separate existence, like when we talk to each other.) That’s how it appears. (ST: Yeah and also you cannot express yourself in a way that there is oneness. That I feel it. You couldn’t express yourself to me that I feel it that there is no separation. As two persons speaking to each other I mean.) I can only be my Self and you can only be yourself. (ST: That’s what I mean. This is the dilemma of humanity that we cannot see oneness in each other. I am just myself and I have nothing to do with the rest of the people.) On the contrary because if you remember when I say, I’m myself, I’m not speaking of Robert I’m speaking of the Self that I am. (ST: That is what I mean. Can you not as Robert can you be oneness that you express?) I don’t have to feel oneness. Oneness already exists. (ST: No, I mean you express it to the individual? That the individual will feel oneness with that almighty oneness.) It’s like asking for Gods grace. (ST: Yes that’s what I’m saying.) God’s grace is always present… (ST: Okay.) …but it’s a mature person that can feel it. (ST: It’s only a mature person…?) …that can feel it. (ST: I was just recently reading a book of Clia Prophet, you know and she says prayer only works if you have a degree, meaning demand to God to manifest his grace.) So what can I say? (ST: I don’t know.) R: Everybody says all kinds of things. SR: I think what Rama Krishna says, “The Grace of God is always flowing, you have to run through it with your sails.” (R: Umm, that’s good.) SS: Robert a few years ago my eldest son had a profound spiritual experience. He was with a large group of people in the presence of a Master and he said he really couldn’t explain it to me. He said that words don’t explain it but he felt the oneness of everything and he said that people looked at him after that experience as though he were different. As though he was special, as though he was as something really different had happened to him and what he experienced as nearest he could tell me was that he could see them and he felt that they were looking at themselves when they saw him and he kept telling them, don’t you know you are seeing yourself? And then after that he said mum it’s so easy, it’s so easy, it’s right there, just right there. Could you comment on that? R: Yes, that’s the example I gave of the mirror. Look at me as a mirror and when you look at the mirror you see yourself. You see your reflection, but that doesn’t change the mirror. I see a reflection superimposed on myself, but I realize I am the mirror and not the superimposition. Therefore the whole world is a superimposition on the Self and when people become the Self, there is only one Self. And superimpositions are reflections of that Self. But your son realizes that he is the mirror and everything else is a reflection. It comes and goes but he never changes. The whole universe is that Self. And he is that. Do you follow that? Is that clear? SS: Yes very clear. But he wasn’t able to retain that state, he tried very hard for quite sometime to keep that state but it was very difficult for him in the world to retain it. He’s been trying to get the state again since. R: He had a glimpse of reality. (SS: Yeah he did.) That’s good. SD: Why would it go away or become dimmer? R: Because it wasn’t fully developed. SJ: What do you suggest to fully develop that kind of state? R: To go deeper within and to be able to see that you are consciousness by keeping silence. (SS: I do remember him telling me that he did want to stay quiet. He wanted to stay silent but that was very difficult to stay in the silence.) If he would ask himself continuously, “To whom does the world come? Who is experiencing the noisy world?” And follow the I to the source, he would become totally free. SD: Robert would you explain again your answer to the Master Maharshi’s teaching as to the explanation of what the Self is? R: What the Self is? You want to know what the Self is? (SD: Yes.) Umm, what is the Self? The Self is the Self when everything else is removed. When the world is removed, when the thoughts are removed, when the mind is removed, when the universe is removed then the Self is left over. (SD: So the Self is both everything and nothing. It makes up all that is.) Everything is the Self and everything is no thing. SH: It doesn’t seem to make much sense. (R: That’s good.) SG: It’s not supposed to. R: You’re making progress. (SH: Thank you Robert, it’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said.) If it made sense you would be in trouble. (laughter) SG: So in that “I Am” condition is there no experience whatsoever? R: For whom is there an experience? The experiencer has been eliminated. SL: Is that the continual state of your day? What is your day like? What goes on inside? R: My day is like everybody else’s day. (SL: But how can…? it’s a trap, I knew that, I shouldn’t have asked the question.) (laughs) There is nothing special about me. SD: Except that you’re awake and we’re not, or we don’t think we are. (laughs) R: Well to me that’s just natural. SL: You have experiences but there is no experiences? R: What kind of experiences do I have? (SL: Well thinking about your day?) I just go through the day spontaneously. (SL: Excuse me?) I go through the day spontaneously, doing whatever has to done at that moment. (SL: But you do not experience it?) I’m not the doer, I watch myself doing, but I realize that I’m not the doer. (SL: Is that all there is to it?) That’s it, simple. What do you want? (laughter) (SL: That’s really all there is to it? There’s just standing back and realizing that life is beautiful. (laughs) But if it doesn’t exist why is there even an adjective?) You become spontaneous and the adjective is consciousness. You realize yourself as consciousness like the screen and you enjoy watching all the pictures on the screen. But you understand that you are the screen. (SL: So if a person is going through this alleged life, enjoying everything and not reacting but simply being spontaneous then is that all there is to it?) That’s it. (SL: Besides knowing that, besides even living that there is still an experience?) For whom? (SL: Well, like the experience that her son had. Probably most everybody here sees everyone else here as themselves.) Again never mind everybody else. Speak only about yourself. (SL: Well that sounds, sounds egotistical?) It has to be because if you know you are egotistical that is how you get rid of the ego, by knowing you are an ego first. So that’s a good point. (SL: But what are we all lacking?) Nothing. (SL: We are lacking an experience?) No we are not. See that is your point of view. (SL: Then we are exactly where you are then?) Of course. (SL: If we live in beauty and in love we are where you are?) Forget about living in beauty and love. (students laugh) SH: If you throw out the beauty and love then you’re there. (students laugh) SL: Well if we’re living the miracle then, as you said everything is a miracle? R: And you ask yourself, “To whom does it come? To whom does the miracle come?” (SL: To nobody.) That’s right. So you’re nobody. You’re no body. You’re just no body. You have no body. Now you’ve got it. (long silence) If you truly wish to repent just sit in silent meditation and see the perfect reality within. For all manners of evil merely arise in erroneous thought. (tape ends)