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/

This beautiful Thursday afternoon. I welcome you with all my heart. All is well. Everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes have ever been made, and none will ever be made. Everything is right, just the way it is. I received a phone call this morning from an old devotee who had just passed away. His brother called me from Saskatchewan, Canada.

I met this person in Ramana Ashram in 1978. We worked together about three years. I hadn’t seen him since. His brother called me and told me he had a heart attack two weeks ago and he’s gone.

The point of the story is, what is life? To examine life, you see the futility of it. You’re here today and you’re gone tomorrow. No thing ever remains the same. Everything must change. There has to be friction to cause anything to happen. The world of duality. For every up, there’s a down. For every backward, there’s a forward. For every amount of pressure that’s pressed forward, an equal amount of pressure that’s pressed backward. This is duality.

If you get hooked on the world, you’ll always be disappointed. Why, therefore, should we quarrel with each other? Why should we be upset with one another?

Why should we believe something is wrong somewhere? Because we do not understand. If you try to figure life out in your mind, you will get nowhere.

Everything will just become more confounding. you cannot understand life the way it appears no one can if you try to understand life the way it appears you will become insane take a look at the world has there ever been peace?

You cannot have peace in a world of duality every collective peace in the world there is a collective war and for every war there is peace and so it goes if you look at your life in retrospect You will see you’ve had all sorts of upside downs and right side ups. Things last for a while, then they change. Nothing is ever the same. We therefore learn to turn to God. Our religions tell us God is the answer. Yet no one understands what God is. What does the word God mean? Usually something that somebody turns to when their life is in upheaval. when things do not go right in one’s life then they turn to god but is that the answer had more wars in the name of religion than all the other wars put together when we begin to have a little wisdom we begin to recognize that we have to turn within the only god we will ever discover is i am we begin to investigate in the beginning believe i am is apart from us As we pray, as we become peaceful, as we develop humility, as we develop love, we begin to feel something else. We begin to feel that our true nature is expansive,

That we are not limited to the body. We begin to understand that this expansiveness is of the mind. And for years we’ve become involved in the mental sciences. Everything comes from the mind. One day we inquire, where did the mind come from? And we come to the conclusion that the mind is the formulation of ideas, imagination, things. In other words, we discover that the mind is only a bundle of thoughts.

Thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future. As we grow, we seek for the way to eliminate the mind, to transcend the mind. to transmute the mind. For we begin to realize it is the mind that keeps us earthbound, that makes us think we’re human, and it is the mind that makes us think we’re expansive. The whole universe is a creation of the mind. All these things are true in our search for truth. There has never been a mistake. When those people become involved in the different Yogas, in particular Raja Yoga, They begin to feel that the mind is very powerful and can cause everything and anything to happen. And so it is. Most people stay at that level for a lifetime. Discovering interesting ways to use the mind. Trying to become successful through use of the mind. Trying to heal through the use of the mind. Unless these people find a proficient teacher who can lift them up out of their mind, they will be involved in mind stuff for thousands of years. The mind likes to play games with you. It likes to make you believe that you reincarnate and that you go through astral planes and mental planes and causal planes, that you have lived before thousands of times, that you’ve had various experiences thousands of times. These things are true for the person who believes in their mind. Just as a dream is true, as long as you’re dreaming. When you are dreaming, you will never believe that your dream is false.

When you’re working out of your mind, you will never believe that your experience in life is false. Right now we’re all sitting here, and you believe you’re sitting in a group of people, and I’m giving a talk, and everything is real. But the truth is none of these things exist. and most difficult to go beyond the mind. As long as we’re working at the level of the mind, we feel safe and secure. Learn if we don’t like a situation, we change our mind.

If we want to create a new life, we begin to imagine it first in our mind. We use our imagination to picture the situation we’d like to be in.

And then the mind will create it. Now, this is true as far as it goes, but it does not bring you freedom, liberation, or happiness. When you play mind games, you have to go through all sorts of experiences, yet if you’re truly sincere, as I said, if you’ve got humility, if you have faith in the unknown, something will happen to you. You may be attracted to a teacher, or it may happen of its own accord, which is very rare. You will come to the conclusion that the mind has to be destroyed, totally annihilated in order to become liberated. You wonder how to do this. If you do not have the proper teacher, you may go on for incarnation after incarnation, century after century, being stuck to the verities of mind. But if you have the right attitude within yourself, and I use the word humility again, When you are sincere, either a teacher, or a book, or something within you which is the self, will tell you the way to destroy the mind is by stopping your thoughts, bringing an end to all thinking, causing the mind to be quiescent, having a quiet mind. Once the mind is free of thoughts, your true nature, realization, comes forth by itself. So you want to free yourself from thinking. All thoughts. Remember, I’m not saying you want to change bad thoughts to good thoughts. This is futile. You want to remove all thoughts. No thought stage. How to do this. You begin to practice mantras. Thought is true. When you are repeating a mantra, you have no time to think. Only thought that persists. And if you repeat the mantra correctly and sincere about it, your mind will slow down. When your concentration becomes one-pointed, go into a state which is called Savakalpa Samadhi. When you’re concentrating on one point, which is your mantra. This takes a long time. It usually takes many lifetimes before you go to the next state by using mantras.

When the time does come, the mantra begins to do you, and there is silence. The time does come by doing mantras that you experience great periods of deep silence. You merge in consciousness for a while, and you taste the bliss of eternity. This state is called Nerva Culpa Samadhi. You may go through many incarnations practicing Nerva Kulpa Samadhi, but it doesn’t last. You may become proficient in Nerva Kulpa Samadhi, where you can do feats like being buried alive for a week and then being unburied and you’re still living. You may make your heart stop beating and you look as if you’re dead, but you’ve merged with absolute reality. And then it always comes back, the world always comes back, and you still relate to your problems, you still relate to the world, you still have a worried mind, except for the time you go into Navakapa Samadhi, it doesn’t last. This is as far as a person can go by themselves, and there’s only a rare few that go further by themselves. The average meditator has to find a sad guru, an enlightened one, who has passed that stage. The enlightened one can give them grace so that they may transcend Nivakalpa Samadhi and go into Sahaja Samadhi, which is becoming normal again in a state of bliss,

Transcending the world in a state of liberation, back to your normal self. normal self I mean you begin to function again like everybody else in the world but deep inside you are not of this world you have become totally liberated you have become absolute reality pure awareness you have become all pervading you have become totally free many people ask me again and again Robert what is the fastest way to get there many teachings are given to the person usually when I’m with someone I am able to see how far they’ve gone in their spiritual unfoldment and they proceed accordingly yet there is one way that is above all ways there is one way to get there faster than you can possibly have I usually share this with intimate devotees the reason for this is because others will take it the wrong way those who are not prepared to hear this it’s like hitting a nerve some people even become upset over it but I feel tonight everyone here is very sincere about this spiritual life so I will share this with you and it’s very simple beyond self inquiry beyond becoming the observer being of service to the guru how does that strike you?

Jay knows why why Jay? you are of service to the guru service to the self there is only one self Therefore, you are a service to yourself. There are not two entities, the guru and the disciple, or the devotee. There’s only one, and you are that. If there’s only one service to the teacher, the self becomes more prominent. And you begin to see that there’s no teacher, there’s no student, there’s no devotee, there’s no disciple. You begin to become the self, for you are serving the self.

Every great has shared the secret with their closest devotees. It is not for everyone, especially in the West. I feel this evening as I should share this with you.

Treat the teacher as you would treat yourself. In other words, you find no difference. The guru becomes yourself, your mother, your father, yourself. when you think of yourself you want the best for yourself so when you think of your teacher you want the best for your teacher there are no longer two of you there’s only one this is why many devotees of Ramana Maharshi became Ramana Maharshi they acted like him they spoke like him they had all his mannerisms they became liberated because there’s only one liberator and that is the self.

Never believe you’re being of service to a human being. You are serving yourself. I think this is very important. This is why I decided to share this with you.

It goes beyond self-inquiry. It goes beyond every teaching you can ever imagine. What I am saying is you become one with the self. by surrendering your ego, your doubts, your apprehensions to the self. Many of you have asked me the fastest way to get there. I have revealed it. Again, I think this is very important. Therefore, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Say that again. Show love. Try to show love. By doing the act, instead of searching for it, just be it. Well, you cannot be it. And you can’t act it out unless you first surrendered it.

Because if you try to act it out, the only thing you’re going to act out is what you are right now. Therefore, if you have a lot of problems, it will increase.

You surrender completely. That’s the first thing you do. You surrender all of your thoughts, all of your ambitions, all of your doubts, all of your apprehensions, all of your being to the self.

You become empty. of all of your preconceived ideas, all of your concepts. It’s like taking a garbage pill and emptying it out totally and completely. Of all of your preconceived ideas, everything you’ve ever known and learned, and all to the Self. Wouldn’t service to any form of life taken as the Self be equally effective, not just to a guru? Not really, due to the fact when you are of service to a tree and you plant something around the tree and you take care of the tree and you watch the tree grow beautifully, the tree is not activated to give grace. Only a self-realized being can give grace.

Therefore, when you are giving to humanity, to nature, to respect of consciousness, when you give and surrender to a sad guru or to the self,

Then the return comes forth quickly. The grace comes forth quickly. Again, only a self-realized sage. When you think of that sage, can the grace come forth so that you become like the sage? To thatria. Yeah, referring to. This is quite true. As I said before, this is very rare. Just like Ramana became self-realized by himself. And he didn’t do anything. But this is very rare. And that’s why it’s dangerous to read books about sages like the Tatrya, especially for Westerners, because it tells you in the book, like you just said, he surrendered to the trees, to the river, to the mountain, to the 24 elements, and he became liberated. This is all good and well for him, but how about you? These are very rare beings. Try to remember again, the only reason I’m sharing this with you is because so many of you call me and tell me I’ve been practicing for years, I’m practicing self-inquiry until it’s coming out of my nose, and nothing is happening. Let me tell you again that practicing self-inquiry is an excellent practice. If you forget about time and practice, it will take you to the goal eventually. The fastest way to get there in this life is total service and surrender to the Self. You’ll write about this, tell me. This is why these things are not discussed. I did discuss this with Ramana Maharshi and he agreed with me 100% and he also added this method is only good for ripe devotees.

Having Ramana as a guru is only good for intense concentration, because the body is no longer there. The grace has become unmanifest, it has become universal, it has merged my thoughts. So having a dead guru is only beneficial for concentration. It makes you one-pointed, it leads you to the effortless no-thought stage, where you experience Nerva Kalpa Samadhi. But for Sahaja Samadhi to become totally liberated, you need a living Guru, a living Sag. I’m not saying this to you for myself. This is why sometimes it’s dangerous for me to say things like that. To surrender completely to the Guru? Yes, it certainly will. Because I, at this point, feel that it’s so far beyond me and so selfish. Thank you for being truthful. Most Westerners are like that. They have not been brought up with that kind of understanding. The ego is very big in most Westerners, and they don’t even like to talk about things like this. As I mentioned before, it hits a nerve when they talk about things like this. It is only for the few people who are ready to go all the way and become totally liberated in this life. I was serving him and I was noticing the fantastic things happening to me and I told him and when I was leaving I said I want to do some work for you when I go back to America because I’m seeing what serving you does for me and he wouldn’t give me any job to do all he said was meditate and he might have said after you’ve meditated a while maybe i’ll give you a job i can’t remember anyways i haven’t received a job i’ve just meditated but your having said this tonight brings back that memory which was more than a memory it was an experience and i realized it’s an experience i’ve forgotten and when you say that serving the self-realized being is an act of surrender and an active surrender of my mind my little mind it strikes true that feels right and if i want to let go of my little mind I guess you’ve given me teaching, that you’ve showed me a doorway where surrendering my mind to a self-realized person that I’ve got to be willing to either trust or take a chance.

Because, you know, there’s always people talking about meeting gurus that turned out to be untrustworthy. So you’ve given me a kick in the pants that I think is good.

And I may not serve you because if all these other 55 people here start serving you, there won’t be any spot for me, so I’ve got to find somebody else. I’m not particularly saying to you to serve me alone. Well, I threw that into your… I am telling you to serve yourself. I understand, but it tricks me into serving the self. There is only one self. That self is the tree, the mountain. It does not give grace. I wondered about that very thing that Henry wondered about also, and you really explained it good for me, the difference in the grace. Most of you were ready for this. That’s the reason I shared it with you. historical in your teaching. Since I met you, I’ve been waiting for you to tell what you said tonight. In all the traditions, it seems that that has been the case and somebody wants to then realize. You have had to serve the Guru in any way and the relationship has to be to a living Guru. The contraction of the ego tries to escape to this reality and tries to find ways and start thinking about serving a deaf guru or serving nature as an expression of the self and so on. But the real relationship is with the living master, the one you have choose. The one you are gathering all your development.

I mean, I appreciate and I thank you for what you say. Thank you, Irene. What happens to disciples that begin on this pathway or their teacher and the teacher, the body of the teacher passes away? What then happens afterwards? It’s up to them to find another living guru with love and want. But in order to make further progress, you have to found another living sage that can emanate grace. It’s really interesting to me. The reason I don’t talk about this so much is because many devotees and disciples in the world like to take a dead guru for their guru. For some reason, it feels satisfying. You do not have to account to anyone in person. That’s why we worship Jesus and Buddha and other people like this. It’s safe for the ego. It’s safe for the ego. We can do anything we like. No one is going to reprimand us. No one is going to argue with us. We can think about a dead guru any way we like and we won’t get any argument. You have a guru-disciple relationship. That’s It’s a real heavy trip because it means to love the Guru, no matter what you see or what you think or what appears. By loving the Guru, I mean you’ve got to love yourself because you are the Guru and it expands. You become an embodiment of love. I do admit it’s difficult for people in the West to do that. This is why things like self-inquiry has been given to you because self-inquiry keeps you busy so you can’t think. When he goes deep enough to awaken. Unless the grace of the Guru is there, you have a hard job.

Is it possible for a self-realized person to have some negative desires and thereby use his disciples? I’m thinking of the dozen or so self-realized beings I’ve met, there was one I can remember who exuded love but he had one thing on his mind it seemed he wanted to know from the disciples how much money they made and try to exact a check from them every week or month now if a person became a servant or slave to such a guru who was exuding love I don’t know if my calling that negativity is my small-minded interpretation, would that disciple still receive grace? Such a being, a sage who is like this, is not an enlightened being. He is not realized to begin with. Are you sure? Yes. A self-realized being never needs anything for himself. Never needs anything for himself. never needs anything for himself, never wants anything for himself, but is taken care of by the devotees.

A self-realized being who has a family is taken care of by the devotees. Nothing should be said about this. It should be known by the devotees what to do. If a sage, so-called, talks about money,

And as you say, tries to find out what all of his students make, and tells them they have to give him money, such a being is not a self-realized being it makes no difference to a liberated sage where they live what’s going on around them what they own, think of things like this yet a sage is no good to the world is totally useless to the world so the devotees have to take care of that sage they talked a little bit about scripture, I know a lot of scripture and as I said last week it’s been a friend From what you told me, I gather that if I put my trust in the words of the Scripture, even though I feel pretty sure I understand a good deal of it intellectually, If I put my trust in the Word, I’m putting it in an outside authority.

And perhaps the best course of action would be to try to concentrate on whatever power or whatever force it is that has enabled me to understand the scripture or the meaning behind the words as well as I do and put my trust in whatever it is that’s out there to come to my rescue. Would you comment on that? There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to stand naked before God. by stand naked I mean no scripture no fancy words no preconceived ideas no spiritual intellectual knowledge but to be totally naked in humility and humbleness therefore when you can forget about your scripture forget about everything you’ve learned and become totally empty you will then become full That’s good.

Some of you may be thinking of people like Krishnamurti, who sort of denounced gurus, teachers. I had one talk with him back in 1972. He spoke for about 10 minutes, and I asked him that, and he smiled at me and he said, you’re absolutely right if one really needs a guru to become self-realized when he really thought about this he told me you’re absolutely right but the world is not ready for this yet the egos are too big the position that he was in where he attracted thousands of people and he was proclaimed a sad guru he realized he’d probably get killed His teaching went so far. His teaching is excellent, but it went so far. Yet I have to share with you that not one of his students ever became enlightened, because he didn’t teach enlightenment. He meant of love, a true spiritual philosopher. Was he enlightened? It’s not for me to say. The point I’m trying to make is every sage that ever has explained through grace that you can become enlightened, the grace that flows from a living sage. Yes. And you can’t blame them, you can’t blame him, because there are so many so-called gurus in the world, and he had some bad experiences with gurus, but deep inside he realized that you do need a sad guru, a true guru. He admitted that to you? He said that to me. I asked him the question, and he just said, yes, I agree, but the world is not ready for this.

He was involved with theosophy. He saw so much fraudulent things going on. He met so many people who believed they were embodiments of Buddha, people who had channels speaking through them. This is why he turned against this. He didn’t want people to go after these people, so he turned them to themselves and told them, You are the universe. You are your own answer. So I’ll share this with you, and I won’t take it any further. When he was a young boy, 12 years old, he was sexually molested by a guru. Yes, he did. Things are not like they seem. Everything is completely different than you believe it is. Now can you see why I don’t want auditoriums full of people, and why sometimes I appear to talk sort of stupid, so people will not come back. I’m not interested in filling up auditoriums, in traveling and promoting seminars, intensives, looking for name and fame. Coming from a place of not wanting and not giving, needing whatsoever. So how would one put giving service in relation to being, I mean that’s like being totally empty, not like you said, no thought whatsoever, no talking, no giving. When you are totally empty and not wanting and not giving, that is for the ego. When you become the self, you give to the self. The self gives to itself. Who doesn’t want… Excuse me? As long as there’s someone left who thinks that they don’t have to give and there’s no need to want, that’s still the I thought that thinks of these things.

And there’s no I-thought left, there’s no doer, and the self acts upon the self. You have the thought, I have to give, or I don’t want to give. They’re two sides of the same coin.

That’s the I-thought playing games with you. When you give, you give without thought. A good example of that is I had lunch with Henry the other day, and a homeless person came over to us and asked us for a couple of dollars and gave us a sob story.

I didn’t feel that this story was true, but it made no difference. Henry gave the girl $5 and we forgot about it. There was no judgment. There was no thinking what she’s going to do with it.

It was forgotten when the deed was done. And that’s how it should be. We have no business judging anything or anyone. We either do something or we don’t. This is very possible, yes.

If a devotee is releasing us there, and they have the Guru’s form in their minds most of the time, the Guru will come to them in dreams and advise them,

And give them information. But the Guru is not really doing it. It is the Self taking care of the Self. That’s why when so many people came to Ramana Maharshi and told them, Bhagavan, I dreamt about you,

And my wife was unable to conceive a baby, but you told me not to worry, and she became pregnant next month. And Bhagavan always said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I had absolutely nothing to do with that. This is true. The sage does not physically do anything. The sage only rests in its own nature and is all-pervading. The devotee thinks of the sage in the right way things happen. Would it be valued to thinking of the sage any old way? What do you mean by that? Well, I recall one time I was sort of mad at you in my mind for something and sort of having an argument with you and it seemed like kind of a positive energy exchange situation. That’s possible as long as you’re concerned. It’s possible as far as you’re concerned. That can happen. That’s all possible. Not a generally recommended procedure necessarily. The procedure is good. Dreams are good. If you are focusing on the saved, there’s nothing higher that you can do. It doesn’t need to be served, absolutely. From our dualistic point of view, we think that we have to serve, or we are serving the sage. The sage doesn’t lack anything, doesn’t need anything, absolutely. Actually, the disciple who serves the sage is serving himself in that sense, because the sage doesn’t have any ego or desires or wishes which need to be fulfilled. Exactly. Very true. There are many things that I don’t talk about many times.

I would never know where my meal is coming from, to the jungle, knowing if there were going to be tigers or cobras. Never thinking about those things. But everything happened to keep me alive. And here I am. What I’m doing here, I don’t know. A lot of things happened. And now I’m back with my family. There’s nothing to think about. There’s nothing to judge. There’s just a happening. A self-realized sage is like a magnifying glass. The sun shines in all directions. When you get a magnifying glass, you grab hold of the sun as rays. Very powerful. They work through the magnifying glass. So you’re able to start a fire. Whereas without the magnifying glass, the sun would shine by itself. Yet you would not be able to start a fire. And so it is with the sage. The sage is like the magnifying glass. All of the grace of the universe is projected through the sage.

So those who are in tune with the sage are in tune to the sage’s grace and they catch the fire thus becoming realized. Do you follow that?

His consciousness is merged with the universal consciousness. Even when the sage has a body, the sage really has no body. You see the body, but the body does not exist. But because you see the body, the sage becomes like the magnifying glass and condenses grace through the body into yourself. Does it need a body to do that? A body is necessary. It is necessary. Without a body, there is no sage. It’s like the sun sending warmth to the whole universe. But when the magnifying glass is used, then all the rays are condensed into the magnifying glass. and the power comes out the other side. But doesn’t Ramana Maharshi still function in that way? No. No? It doesn’t, because the body is gone. The body was used to function that way. But people see him in dreams. They see him in dreams, this is all good for concentration. Well, that’s what the magnifying glass does. But the magnifying glass doesn’t exist. The power is gone from the body. The power is one with the whole universal.

It is no longer condensed through a body called Ramana Maharshi. But to a devotee in the dream, there is a dream body of Ramana Maharshi. Yes. And they feel the power concentrated there. They feel the power in the dream body, but the power is not really power. It is a dream body and it is a dream power.

Power can only come through a living sage. Are you speaking of this for the aspect of self-realization? for all the baby steps along the way that most of us are involved in also. Only when a person surrenders to the sage can that grace be felt. But if a person is practicing self-realization and also surrendering to the sage, it comes twice as fast. There has to be a sacrifice of the ego from the discipline standpoint. and the only way he can sacrifice this ego is to a living sage. Yes, that’s very true. To give up the ego, it has to be surrendered to one who is in the body. Surrendering it to God is like merging it in the ocean. Surrendering it to the sage is like merging it to the wave. The wave is part of the ocean, but it’s still the wave and not its power. Whereas the ocean is still and quiet, yet the wave has tremendous power. The wave is like the living sage. The dead sage is like the ocean. Sure. That the sage is no good to the world. By that, did you include that… Did you mean that the sage can’t hold down a job that requires thinking in the logical mind? or did you mean something else? There have been sages who have held down jobs and who have worked in the world. This is part of the bodily karma. But the truth is, when all bodily karma is destroyed, there is nothing that a sage can do in the world.

The sage is only good for transmitting grace and would not be able to function otherwise. Two for a time can go together. Parabdha-Karma is unfolding and wearing itself out, could go with the sage in the full position. Yes. Unless that’s gone, then only the grace is left. Only the grace is left. What is it that the sage cannot do in order to so-called work in our world? Is he unable to think with his left brain? There’s no brain. There’s no thinking. There’s no I thought. There’s no thinking about the world and about the needs of the world. The world does not exist for the sage. So how can the sage work? I’ll be retired before I become self-realized. It will take care of itself. It seems like all the sages like Jesus, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, all of them work. They didn’t have jobs. So what’s the point? They lived, they survived. Oh, of course. Naturally.

When you’re speaking about survival, you’re speaking of the body. When you’re referring to a sage, there’s no one left who has to survive. There is no I that needs to survive.