Transcript:

This transcript was created automatically from the audio recording and has not been proofread yet. It may contain errors, especially with Sanskrit terms and with questions from the audience. Please get in touch if you would like to help improve it! https://robert-adams.de/contact/

Good evening. It’s good to be with you again. I welcome you with all my heart. There are some of you who can’t wait to hear me say something. But I say to you that the silence is more potent than anything I can ever say. In the silence, there is reality.

When one speaks, they spoil it. It’s not the words. It’s what I say between the words. You must comprehend this. Anyone can speak words.

And you interpret them in your brain, in accordance to your upbringing. So the words that I say mean something else to everyone. For instance, I say, And all is well.

It sounds like a statement that everybody would be able to understand correctly. But they don’t. To most people, all is well means everything is okay as long as things are going my way. To others, all is well in a certain place at a certain time.

But not in another place or another time. All is well speaks for itself. it literally means that everything is okay no matter how it looks even if you’re personally going through some kind of catastrophe or what you call catastrophe that’s your perception but all is well there’s never anything wrong except in your mind this is why we emphasize so much to get rid of the mind because if you are not functioning from your mind when I say all is well you would accept that in your heart and you would know all is well period no analyzation nothing comes after it all is well that’s it today is the first day of spring they say a man’s heart turns to love in spring how about a woman’s heart but every spring I get lots of phone calls for some strange reason from aspiring Jnanis who want confirmation for their enlightenment.

That’s very strange. I get calls from all over the country from people who want me to confirm to their enlightenment. And it’s real funny if you were there to listen to some of them.

One person called me from Houston and said, Robert, I don’t know this person, but she said, Robert, I think I’m enlightened. Can you confirm this for me? I don’t like anything anymore. I hate my family. I hate my job. I hate the world. I just want to be alone. Am I enlightened? What can I say? I told her to go back and practice some more and call me next spring. It’s been hung up. There’s no use trying to rationalize with people like that. What is Jnana and what is bhakti? We’ll talk about that a little.

Unfortunately, Jnana attracts many intellectual snobs. They read the books, they go see a few speakers, and then they can recite everything backwards and frontwards, and they think they’re enlightened. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what the word enlightened means. It means you rolled it up, like a Christmas tree. What’s enlightened? You’re a light bulb.

And somebody turns you on. What they’re actually talking about is the natural state, the way you are, for real. And for want of a better word, they call it unenlightened. What is Jnana? It means knowledge. Not dry words, but knowledge of the self. Actually, Jnana is not really knowledge. It’s being. It’s not knowing words. It’s being the self. And again, the self is another word for the natural state. There’s nothing complicated about this, and there’s nothing too intellectual about this at all. When somebody is experiencing Jnana, they become a loving person because the whole world becomes themselves. The whole universe is the self.

They become kind. They no longer think of me, me, me. They look at others as themselves. When they are just aware that the whole universe is nothing else but the self. The self actually means ultimate oneness, one, oneself, not myself and yourself, but the self. And that self involves compassion, kindness, love, peace. It’s the same as bhakti, which is devotion. When you become in your natural state, you automatically become devoted to yourself. And yourself is the whole universe. So you become the servant to humanity.

You no longer need to come first. You’re no longer fighting for survival. You’re at peace with everything. This self is you. This love is you. As long as you think you are separate,

How can you possibly be enlightened? As long as you say to yourself, I am enlightened. Or I’m getting close to it. You are still dealing with the I. You have forgotten that as long as I is around you cannot be awakened. The I has to be transcendent. You have to forget about yourself. Personal self. And you can’t imagine that you’re going to do that. It will not work. When somebody tells me Robert can you confirm that I’m enlightened?

So sometimes I ask them certain questions. When is the last time you got angry? Let’s just talk about today. When is the last time you got depressed, felt out of sorts, felt someone was picking on you, felt threatened, betrayed, felt anything? As long as there’s someone to feel anything, how can you say that you’re awake? This does not imply that a person who’s awake has no feelings, but the feelings are universal, not personal. The personal ego is dead, and you have expanded your consciousness so that you encompass the whole universe. You no longer think about your personal self. As long as you’re dealing with your personal self, when you still feel your personal emotions, you are still asleep. And when you do awaken, you will never ask the question, am I awake? Because the eye is gone. There’s no one left to ask. As long as you can still ask, you’re not there. Now the important question for us is, why do we want to get there, wherever there is? Why do we want to awaken? Because when we awaken, we will feel such peace that we can’t even comprehend it. We will feel such joy, such bliss. And yet what we call the body will carry on its work. People fail to comprehend this.

Most people still believe that jnana when you become enlightened you become like Ramana Maharshi and you go to a cave and you sit by yourself. People come to visit you and you give them nice words. On the contrary since enlightenment is your natural state you can become enlightened in every state you’re in. If you’re a garbage collector or a postman or a nurse, it makes no difference what your profession is. When you become enlightened, your body will still continue to do the work even better than you can ever imagine to do it yourself. Except your mind will not interfere because you have transcended your mind. Therefore, you will be at peace in whatever you do, whether the task is unpleasant or pleasant those feelings will no longer disturb you because there’s no one left to be disturbed and people will look at you as an ordinary person you will not be anything special except that you will be home it’s like when you’re sleeping if you were able to be conscious while you’re asleep there would be no thoughts just peace you would experience bliss learning to sleep consciously

The self is always aware of you sleeping, dreaming, waking, and whatever you do. And because you have turned into the self, you are always aware.

You are pure awareness. That is your nature. But your body continues to function. It appears to sleep, it appears to dream sometimes. During your waking state, you eat, you drink. You do everything.

Except the I has been destroyed. there is no one left to respond to anything you are always aware of yourself as everything bhakti is the same as Jnana in bhakti you surrender completely to the self or to God you no longer are concerned with your life you do nothing further than you notice you give it all up to God to take care of you to watch over you, to protect you and whatever happens is good.

And that’s bhakti, devotion. And as you abide in surrendering to God, the ego becomes deflated until you become God yourself. Then you can say, as Jesus said, I and my father are one.

Or you can feel as Moses felt when he said, I am that I am. The worst thing you can do with your life is to become an intellectual snob.

Where you read too many books on Jnana and you lose your loving feelings your devotion and your kindness never lose those things never believe that when you awaken you will not care about anything that’s not true again what happens is you expand your caring before you used to care only about yourself now you care about the whole universe everybody everything including insects, bugs, cockroaches. You have become all of those things.

You have become free. I know it’s hard for some of us to imagine, how can I care for all of those things? How can I be all those things?

And again, the example is a gigantic screen. And on the screen are all of the bugs and insects and cockroaches and plants and people and planets and galaxies. Everything is on the screen.

The screen being yourself is aware of itself, but it’s also aware of all of those things superimposed on itself. In other words, it realizes that those things are really an optical illusion because if anybody tries to grab them on the screen, where do they grab the screen? They can never grab the person or the cockroach or the plant or the animal that’s on the screen. They They grab the screen.

But yet all those things seem to appear on the screen. An awakened person knows they’re the screen. And the whole universe is superimposed on them.

But they also realize that everything is an optical illusion. It’s an appearance. That’s what I mean when I say, you are the universe. Right now, most of you believe that you are a personal self,

That you are a body and a mind. And that’s all you care about, taking care of me, looking after me. Your philosophy is, if I don’t take care of myself, who will?

So you’re stuck in the self, and you suffer accordingly. You have happy moments, you have sad moments, there are times when you suffer, and there are times when you are elated with joy, when things go your way.

But remember, when you are stuck in yourself, you are part of the world of cause and effect, and you come under the laws of karma, reincarnation, and the rest of it.

Those things, remember, are only appearances. This is the reason we should strive to wake up. If we don’t wake up, we’re like a leaf, blowing in the wind, never knowing what’s going to happen from one day to the next one day we think everything is okay then there’s a death in the family or an accident or a bankruptcy something happens and then things are not okay so in the human part of us there’s always a battle going on we’re trying to win the battle by accumulating money or accumulating property or accumulating friends always accumulating we think this will make us happy but of course it doesn’t only when we awaken will we find true happiness you don’t really find it it’s your real nature you simply awaken then you laugh the world has always been like a dream you’re awake then you go about your business So you see, there’s nothing special about Jnani or Bhakta.

All is well. I’ll give you a chance to talk. You can ask questions or make statements. Or hit me over the head with a chair. Whatever you please.

How can you react? Because what you’re really doing is you’re giving up your problems, your fears, your life to God. you feel in your heart that you will always be taken care of through powers that be not to take care of you and all of your fears better than you can so you give up your worries you give up your fears you give up everything if you give up your fears and your worries you give up your reactions of course everything goes you hold nothing back

We’re not trying to exchange negative or positive. Remember, they’re two sides of the same kind. What we think is positive is wanting things our way. That’s positive to us. When things go the way we want, if we’re unhappy over a situation, we say when the situation clears up we’ll be happy. But that’s wrong. When you surrender, you surrender all of it. You have nothing left. you are saying God take my good and take my bad take everything I am nothing and you are everything you completely empty yourself from all thoughts from all desires from all wants from all fears from all frustrations you give up everything you become an empty shell then God rushes in and fills it up and that’s bhakti you have no desires no wants and no needs what happens is good your attitude is I don’t know my human mind doesn’t know anything I don’t know what anything is so I give it all to you God take it then you begin to feel peace as long as you want to hold on to something you’re not surrendering in other words if you say take everything except it’s the antique that I’ve had for years so what are you doing that’s not surrendering you have to give up everything that’s real surrender no wants, no desires no needs the notion of surrendering to a true life the notion of surrendering of course exactly and everyone should have total confidence in surrendering for you because you have to go with God and yourself and that’s it It’s only an illusion that we have anything to surrender.

Ultimately it is, of course, because you’re really surrendering to yourself. But as long as you’re not sure of that, and you think you are the body-mind phenomenon, then surrendering is very good. Isn’t it also a real important factor is to enjoy this whole process that I think people don’t understand as much as can be expressed. The whole process is totally enjoyable. Enjoy life. Enjoy the serenity. Well, that’s easier said than done. What I mean is, sometimes the tendency is to be a zombie, or think of being a zombie as you’re doing it, or that’s the outcome of it, so maybe they go back from surrendering totally. No, you don’t want to be a zombie. The wolfman may be us. With a zombie, no. Actually, you should have no motive, you shouldn’t say I am the enjoyer. You should have no motive whatsoever. When you have no motive, and you really know what surrender is, enjoyment comes by itself. A feeling of joy overwhelms you.

It comes by itself. But you shouldn’t think, I am the enjoyer. That has to go too. You should have no thoughts about whatsoever. You give up human enjoyment and you give up human misery. You give everything up to God. And that my will be dying. That’s true surrender.

You’re empty. No thoughts. You gave it all away. These don’t like to hear this, or so-called Jnanis. They only want to hear, I am absolute reality.

While they go on being mean to people, abusing people, looking down at everybody. No, no, that’s not Jnanis. A true Jnanis has a great compassion, always remember this. A great love.

But it’s not human. It’s way above that. The within, and the without becomes the within. so everything becomes God’s love. You have nothing to hold on to physically, emotionally. You give it all up to God.

And when you really do that, your life will continue. Again, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to sit down and cheer in your house and never come out again.

You will continue to do what you’ve always done, lovingly, compassionately, kindly. but you will realize that nothing belongs to you everything belongs to God your possessions your husband, your wife your friends so if something is taken away you realize it hasn’t gone anywhere because it’s all God therefore you always remain happy the Arabs run on the arrow in this film the guy marries a Lakota woman and they have a little kid and the kid doesn’t know who to speak. Anyhow, the little kid is in quicksand and he’s sinking in quicksand. Okay, so he’s got this little harmonica that he keeps playing because he can’t talk. So one of those people, the cavalry, sees that and he goes over to a branch and he hangs down and he grabs the boy’s arms and picks him up. He swings him back and forth and throws him onto the land, and then, after he saves the little boy, the branch breaks and he goes headfirst into his land, and immediately he disappears. So, here’s Rod Steiger, the father of us. It’s sort of like, there’s no real loss, there’s no real gain, it’s just the same. One person comes out and the other person goes in and takes and disappears totally and quits him. So there’s a lot of Gandy teachings and Zen teachings and whatnot in a lot of films. Incredible. And everyone goes along their day. Whatever the event is in your life, you don’t have to be attached to that event.

I don’t like the word acceptance, because it implies to some people that they have to suffer, and that’s good. You don’t really accept. You know that all is well. You don’t even think about words. You think about God.

And if you think about God, there’s nothing to accept. Everything just unfolds the way it’s supposed to. and all is well. But it will go well with you.

Forget about words. That’s why the best words to use when you’re practicing bhakti is not my will but thine. That’s it. But don’t become too worthy.

The less you think about these things and the less words you use, the better off you are. And do not try to analyze it.

Do not try to figure it out. simply with all your heart and with all your soul saying not my will but then and realize that you’re surrendering your life, your feelings, your emotions everything to the God within you which of course is really yourself so how do you know if you’re practicing Bhakta or Jnana? if you’re practicing Bhakta

You’ll simply feel that nothing belongs to you, but everything belongs to God. But I still believe that I’m a personal I, so I’m giving everything up to God.

If you’re practicing Yama, you will feel that there’s no personal I at all to be involved, and that you do not exist as a body mind.

So you will keep on investigating the I. You will follow the I threat to its source, and that’s how you’ll work on yourself. if you’re practicing Jnana. The important thing is to be honest with yourself.

You know you are the way you appear to be at the present time. So you have to do whatever is necessary to still your mind.

You can choose bhakti, because when you surrender everything, you surrender your mind also. Or you can choose Jnana, where you realize the personal eye is the culprit. And upon investigation, you will realize the personal eye does not exist.

So a practicing Jnani always investigates the personal eye until they realize it does not exist. And when you realize the personal eye does not exist then your body does not exist your mind does not exist people does not exist the world does not exist and God does not exist. But for those of you who cannot do that then practice bhakti. become a practicing bhakta but be honest with yourself do not I repeat do not practice dry words or affirmations there’s really nothing wrong with affirmations but they’re only short lived it makes you feel good for a little while then you revert back to yourself rather ask yourself to whom did these affirmations come and you’ll see it’s your ego that repeats affirmations.

Why does the self need affirmations? The self already is. It does not need to affirm anything. So it’s the ego that needs to affirm, and that’s the self.

You do this and you start to feel calmer and happier or even at that period after you ask who I am. Are you then, is that abiding in the self or is that just another state of mind where there’s kind of a quiet mind that’s the higher state of mind? As you keep working on yourself and you’re abiding on yourself and the more you abide on yourself the more peaceful you become the happier you become so you say that is the self when you’re quiet like that it’s not just the absence of the mind exactly when you are quiet the self is an operation the best way to prove that is just before you fall asleep between falling asleep and sleeping you have a quiet mind and if you can catch yourself you will realize that you are exceedingly happy it’s the same when you wake up in the morning before you have a chance to think just as you awaken if you’re able to catch yourself to observe yourself you will realize that you are extremely happy and that’s the thing I always sort of thought that I read this book and this guy has a different point of view He said that when you really earn the self, it’s this really extraordinary experience, that these glimpses of the self, they’re not just these periods of unconditional happiness.

It seemed to have been true to me. Well, when you are the self, and you are self-contained, absolute reality, do you have to have an experience? Well, it seems to be, it’s an amazing experience of non-experience. There’s no one to have a non-experience or an experience.

The experiencer is gone. Even the non-experience is a misnomer because there’s no one to have a non-experience. Can you follow that? There has to be somebody left to have a non-experience.

It’s better not to read. Read a little bit, but not too much. Is the best to approach it as darshan? Yes. I should think so I used to carry the Blackwood Gator with me for many many years I never read it You never read it at all? I read it in later years Finally got around me But when I carried it around with me I never read it I just felt good carrying it Nothing, you’re right There’s a stage in my life when they just want me to carry me.

Like some people carry a staff. Some people carry a bucket. I carry the Gita. That’s right. See, there’s no real way to be. When we’re told not to judge others, we should take that literally. Because we can never understand another person. Do not attempt to. And one of the worst things we can do is to go around saying who’s enlightened, who’s not who’s spiritually advanced, who’s not spiritually advanced think about yourself get rid of your personal line you have no need to think of these things if you’re saying to yourself then how will I know what teacher to choose forget about choosing a teacher the guru is within you look to yourself if you were meant to have a teacher you’ll have one whether you like it or not it’ll happen by itself but don’t go running around the world like you’re for teachers God is everywhere awaken to your own teaching again, that doesn’t mean that you should say I am my own teacher do not say anything just be become aware become observant but the separate personal I can’t get rid of itself no it can’t trying to do so it only emphasizes itself. But upon investigation of the personal lie, it disappears.

That was not because of anything it did. No. Because it never existed. That’s why the only way to get rid of the mind, the ego, and the personal lie, through all pseudonymous, is by investigation.

Through proper investigation, you realize they never existed. That should take care of it. Exactly. Or surrender. Surrender, yeah. It becomes the same thing. Same thing. But do it.

Robert, when you investigate, though, that’s on the mind level. When you ask, who am I? That’s on the mind level. But when you pause after that, it becomes experiential.

It becomes experiential to an extent. But when you really investigate, where did the I come from? To whom does it come? since it never existed it disappears what I’m kind of getting at is when you ask who am I if that becomes effective and you begin to dissolve you don’t want to stay on the mental level of inquiry you want to go into but you have nothing to do with it it will happen by itself well actually it’s a question what I’m asking is do we stay on that mental level of inquiry or do we that’s what I’m saying so you’ve got nothing to do with it if you’re practicing who am I and you’re doing it correctly the time will come when the who am I will disappear right that’s what I’m saying and be free but there’s no place where you have to stop by yourself because your mind is stopping if you do that you’re using your mind and your ego in other words do not care when anything happens.

Just do the practice and everything will take care of itself. Avoid the practice, just wake up. Of course. Practice to wake up. Here’s the answer you should have. If you’re working on one of these practices, the answer you should have is I don’t care if it takes an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, ten years a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years it makes no difference to me if you have that attitude you’ll wake up already but if you have in the back of your mind well I’m going to practice for a week and I’ll see if this works you’ll always be disappointed and you’ll be running from teacher to teacher to teacher to see if you can find the one teacher that will make something happen for you.

But you will learn one day that no one can make anything happen for you because what you want to happen has already happened and you just have to wake up to that fact. You want to practice it like it’s your breath. You want to practice it like your breath? Yeah. In other words, one Zen teacher put a student in the water, right? Dunked his head under, that whole thing of if you practice with detachment, but also practice in tensile, drown him. And when he comes up, he says, if you can do your practice with that same drive that you’ve had to get a breath of air while you’re underwater, then you’ll achieve success. We saw that story when he didn’t come. The Sunday didn’t come, we saw that story. That’s the other side of practice, doing it with that energy and yet having no attachment to one or whatever. Sure. Whatever you have to do, do it. But don’t look for any time. Forget about time. Inquiry is the means and the goal, too? The means and the goal, yes. It certainly is. Regardless of the apparent intensity in which you can do it, it’s always that way. It’s always the means of the God. enlightened we recognize it so therefore it is but why is it that so many millions of people seem to be asleep i do not understand that you just answered your own question you said i do not understand that find out who the i is we do not understand and then you will see that what you said is not true. It is the personal eye that believes what you said.

So if you follow the personal eye to the source, that question becomes relevant because that’s not true. On the other hand, another way to answer that question, it appears that way. like when you’re having a dream, and in that dream you see millions of people who are ignorant,

And you’re standing over there looking at them saying, how can this be? Why should it be like this? And I come over to you and tell you, you’re dreaming. It’s not like that at all. But you don’t believe me. You say, how can I be dreaming? I see all the people here, I see you, I see everything, this can’t be a dream, it’s impossible, but I tell you you’re dreaming, but you don’t believe me, then you wake up, and all those people are gone, they never existed, it’s been a dream, there never was a time when those people were born, there never was a time when they subsided, and there never was a time when they dissolved, Because they never existed. So you laugh at yourself. So, when you follow the personal I,

And you follow it through the source, the dream bubble will burst. You will become awakened, and you will realize there are no ignorant people. There is only the self. And the self is pure awareness. And I am dead. I couldn’t jump right up there. Jay’s smoking something back there. It almost, I don’t mean to be well, I’ll just say it this way, it almost seems like perception itself is something that the mind is doing. It is. Without the mind there is not even perception. Exactly. There’s no one to perceive anything. The mind is the culprit. The mind has got to go. But perception takes place even after enlightenment. Who’s to perceive? There’s no one perceiving, but there’s perception occurring. There’s awareness, if you mean awareness. In unity and diversity, he means, right? Unity, perception and diversity, as you see, diverse things? No, I don’t mean that. Do you mean awareness? Yeah. Again, awareness is a word, but for whom is there awareness? You quotes whoever that refers to are perceiving me at this point, or what will me refer to? That’s how it appears. Yeah, that’s how it appears, but that perception is taken into the appearance. In the appearance. Yeah, that’s right. But in the reality, there’s no one left to perceive. And who needs perception? Who what? Who needs perception at that time? Who needs awakening? Who needs awareness? Who needs enlightenment? Well, there’s no separate who there. There’s nothing, as we know it.

Everything becomes redundant. People shouldn’t be mystified, either. Like, everything’s going to dissolve and blah, blah, blah, you know. I mean, if people are mystified, their mind’s just going to take off and they won’t awaken to the simplicity Well, if they practice on the eye, removing the personal eye who’s mystified, then that won’t happen. What can I do? Well, just when you get up and go to the bathroom, you’ll stumble on the bathroom. That’s it. And you’ll be mystified. No, it’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Well, perception, and what is perception? Is judgment and conditioning? Everyone perceives everything differently, so it’s all where you’re coming from, where you see it, whether you want it more or less, or a judgment. Everyone appears to be different. And we judge, we perceive, we come to conclusions, we do all kinds of things so get rid of the I and you’ll stop that well I mean in my daily life I recognize I become aware of my perception of something that turns out to be untrue, I find that’s not true anymore, I see it for what it really is and there’s freedom there for that particular thing and as I go on I see my greed and my anger, and I see that it’s, a lot of times now, it’s false, or it doesn’t hold water anymore, or it just sort of dissolves. That sounds good. But in the last analysis, you also have to get rid of the seer.

Yeah, yeah, I realize that. But like you said, you got to do what you got to do, and this is the way I got to do it. You’re doing well. That sounds good. As I think about this, it’s almost like I’m able to see just how much I’m hanging on the thing, like compartment-wise, I think about any box that I’m hanging on to there. That’s good. To see that it just comes out with so much more profound depth than… You don’t get hung up on that either. Yeah.

Everything’s got to go. I know some of you are saying but I see you Robert and I see you this way and that way that’s what you see that’s what you’re perceiving it’s always the mind the mind sees things as it was trained to do from your past experiences from your samascaras from the kormas from all kinds of nonsense you are what you are today look at yourself intelligently honestly and see who you are.

Are you the person who judges, who perceives, who comes to conclusions? Who am I? Ask yourself. Remember also when you say to yourself, who am I? What that really means is what is the source of the I? When you ask yourself that question? When I personally ask myself that question? Nothing.

Exactly. You don’t have thoughts, do you? Yeah, I don’t. If I didn’t have thoughts, I wouldn’t exist as I appear to exist right now. But my thoughts are for the moment. I don’t go past my nose. In order to function as I appear to function, I have to think I’m going to grab this. I’m going to hit gnarled over the head. I have to think about that. But that’s it. But beyond that, there’s nothing? There’s no past or future.

What’s in the place of what could be thoughts of past or future is quiet or stillness? Stillness, quiet. Exactly. There’s no thing. But don’t get hung up on the words. Don’t get hung up on the what? Don’t get hung up on the words. Any conception of it. Isn’t it? Anyway. Why is there stillness? I shouldn’t get hung up in the woods? Anyone listening? I’m trying to help you out.

I’ll try nothing. If you appear to build a house, appear to have a plan first, or would you go brick by brick? I’d have a plan. I would say this is a plan. and I was getting nervous about the house. For instance, today, I went to my mailbox, and I put the key in and it went open and got stuck. So I went to the house and got a screwdriver and a hammer and broke it open.

What went on in between from working and getting the screwdriver? Was there anger or frustration or… No, there was nothing. Nothing? Just… It was just nice that he wouldn’t turn.