It is very difficult to explain how the world is to the self-realized. The sense of ‘I am’ sets up a duality between the I and the Thou, between inside and outside, between object and subject. When the I disappears, the duality disappears. When the duality disappears, nothing exists. All is only Consciousness. The manifest world is only images in a conceptual space. So how does someone who lives only in consciousness communicate with the apparent individual who thinks they live in a real world yet is only fantasy? This is one of the rare talks where Robert talks about method.
Robert:
This is not a formal talk. I can only tell you about my own experiences, not what I read. I can tell you that nothing exists the way it appears. Everything is appearance. The trap is that we get pulled into the appearance. We react to it. We feel hurt. We feel slandered. We feel something is wrong. We have negative emotions because we are falling for a false premise-- that the world is real.
In fact, the world is not real, and neither are you. What we have to do is stop reacting to anything. The only way to do that is to discover who you are. When you discover your true nature, everything becomes perfectly clear. You are at peace. If something works out, it works out. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Your feelings have been transmuted. You never even feel what human beings feel. You just have a great love and compassion for all things. You know that the substratum of all existence is harmony, peace, emptiness. You feel wonderful all the time. What can disturb you if you are at peace? If you find true peace, what can possibly disturb you?
The world comes and goes. One day it is like this, the next day, it is like that. But what does it have to do with you? Nothing. You are free, you are not the world. You are not your body, you are not your mind. You are total freedom, total joy, total love. You have to awaken to this fact--its truth.
We speak many words and take many actions, but to what avail? Does it mater in the end? We build our life, we earn positions, we father children, and what happens at the end? Poof! It's all gone. Everything disappears. (Robert laughs) There is nothing. So what's the purpose?
People say, "I must leave make this world better for my children." They are dreaming. The world will never be better or be worse. The world is a dream of existence; like this one day, like that another. But you are not the world. Awaken to that fact.
You are not your thoughts, you are not your Karmic expressions, you are not your inclinations from past lives. Things appear real as long as you believe in them. If I believe in the devil, the devil would appear to me. I would create him myself. If you believe in God, your God would appear to you. Ramakrishna believed in the god Kali. Kali became very real to him. He used to dance and sing with Kali (Robert laughs). He created Kali. That is why no one else saw Kali but him. That is how we create our lives.
Think of the things you fear in your life. You fear becoming sick. You fear poverty. You fear getting divorced, you fear getting married. Whatever you fear is a concept created by your own mind. There is no question of should I get married or shouldn't I get married. It doesn't matter. What matters is how you react to it and expect of it. This is true in every aspect of your life. That is what you have been trained to believe since you were a little kid. Your teachers brainwashed you, your parents brainwashed you, the outside world brainwashed you, and here you are.
You are filled with ideas, concepts, emotions, attitudes, and that makes you what you are--miserable. (Laughter) As soon as you wake up, all that disappears. Nothing can ever happen to you of a destructive nature. There is absolutely nothing that can destroy you. You can not be destroyed. Your body may appear to vanish, but that is like a dream. You dream that you are doing something, then you get shot and disappear. Then you wake up.
My question to you is, "What do you believe about yourself and about the world?" "What is most important to you?" I feel that a true spiritual path should be the first thing of importance in your life. Why? Because it wakes you up. No matter how good of a life you live, you may become the richest and most famous person on earth, you'll have to experience the other side of the coin one day and be the poorest, most miserable person on earth. That's the way it works.
You may say to me, "My neighbor never has any problems. It's like he fell into a pot of gold. Everything he touches turns into money. He's as happy as a horse. He's got a beautiful wife, a big house, everything he could possibly need, and look at me! You know, that guy's life hasn't changed for 40 years."
You're making your own conclusion. He has earned this Karmically, and if he doesn't pull away from it, he might spend his whole life in goodness, human goodness. But then he will be drawn back again by the law of Karma, which is in his mind and he doesn't know it, and next time he will be a homeless person. Whatever he does, he won't be able to make a dime. He'll try his best, but he'll always be poverty stricken. He won't be able to earn a dime no matter how hard he tries. This is why we should never judge. You have no idea what your neighbor's going through. Never say he or she has a wonderful life and look at mine. Why am I poor, why am I sick, why am I this way or that way. The idea is to wake up, not to look at yourself, not to feel sorry for yourself, not to compare yourself with others, but to awaken.
When you awaken, something happens that is unexplainable. There are
no human words to explain it. When you awaken, you just understand, you know, you feel--and these words are inadequate--you become divine harmony. You are no longer fooled by person, place or thing. You no longer react.
As an example, someone tells you that you won the lotto, you won 50 billion dollars. You do not become a slave to that. Someone tells you that you lost 50 billion dollars. Same thing, same reaction. You do not become a slave to that. What happens in the human life does not matter. When you know who you are, you do not say it doesn't matter. You simply exist. You exist as yourself. You're at peace. No one can ever take the peace away from you no matter how hard they try. You are not fooled by things.
What you do is deal with yourself. You can give of yourself because you become your living self. Therefore, you can give yourself away and you're still there, for you've become the infinite self, the divine mother, omnipresence, total oneness with all things. So you can give of yourself, and yet you're always there.
When Ramana Maharshi was being robbed, his devotees wanted to attack the robbers, and he said, "No, no, no. It's our Dharma to be what we are, and it's their Dharma to be what they are. We should not interfere with their Dharma, therefore give them what they want." That's very profound. We are spiritual people. The world is not. We act in accordance with spiritual principles.
What this really means is that we, as human beings, become last, not first. That's what Jesus meant when he said, "Those who go first will be last, and those who are last will be first." You have to develop great humility. Do not long for anything. Do not want to rich, or famous or great, and do not say, "I want to be poor and have nothing" either. They're both wrong. Just be yourself. When you are yourself, you will be amazed how the universe takes care of you.
It's like the body with vitamins and medicines. Your body is a natural healing factory and able to heal itself. When we start taking too many vitamins, when we start taking medicines too much, the body will say, "Well, you've made that into your God, so now you have to depend on it." Then you have to keep taking vitamins for the rest of your life or you get sick. Think about that.
You've got to depend on yourself to take care of everything.
Now yourself is yourself. There's one self, so we take care of each other. Did you ever think of that? When you think of others you're making a mistake. The feeling will come to you one day that you are all others. There are no others, there is just the Self appearing as others. So, how do you treat others? As you treat yourself. You don't think about it. You don't think that that person's worthy and that person's not, so I'm going to help this person, not that person.
You give of yourself automatically. You do not think about it because everything is yourself, and that includes the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and everything else you don't understand. They're all part of the One. What you do to the one, you do to everything. How you treat one person is how you treat the whole universe because everything is one.
Now, these four principles I gave you have to do with all these things. You're supposed to ponder these things. How do you work with these principles?
As soon as you open your eyes in the morning---I'll speak in the first person---you have to say to yourself, "I feel and realize and understand that everything, everything---say everything twice---is a projection of my mind." Think about what that means. Forget about the other three. Work on that. "I feel that, I realize that, I understand that everything is a projection of my mind."
Then you may think about any problems if you have any and you say to yourself, "If everything is a projection of my mind, where do these problems come from?" You then realize, Why, they came from me. I projected them. I created them. Then you say, "Who is this I that created them?" Now you're getting to the meaty part, to the substance. "Who is the I that created all this illusion in my life? Where did the I come from? Who gave it birth? My mind. Where did my mind come from, the I? They're both the same. The I and my mind are the same."
It's a revelation. You think along these lines. "Where did the mind/I come from and to whom does it come?" You follow it deep, deep within yourself, and if you do it correctly you will realize there is no I. There is no mind, so there are no problems. It will be over, and you will start laughing. You will actually start laughing at yourself. You'll start to think, "I fear this and I fear that." Once you get into that consciousness something will happen to actually physically relieve you of that problem, or what you think is a problem.
As long as you believe in your mind that there's a problem ---whether it is little or big doesn't matter, they're both the same---as long as you believe you've got a problem, you'll have a problem and it will grow and you can't change it. It may appear that you change it, but it turns into something else of a worse nature when you try to work with the problem itself. You never try to work with the problem, but ask where the problem came from. How did I get it? How did I get this birth? Where did it come from? That's the problem. The birth is the problem. Because you believe you were born, you have the problem, and you can go on and on and on.
That's how you work with the principles. I feel, I understand that everything,
Everything is a projection, a manifestation of my mind. Whose mind? My mind. Whose mind. Mine. My mind. Who am I who has this problem? And as you ask yourself this question, you will begin to feel better and better and better. You will actually begin to feel better, and as you begin to feel better, the problem becomes less and less important, and it will vanish. This is great psychotherapy. It works. If psychiatrists gave this to patients, they wouldn't have to give them any drugs.
You understand, you feel, that everything is an emanation of your mind or it wouldn't exist. All existence, from the smallest nothing to the greatest cosmic galaxy--it all comes out of your mind. However, even if I tell you this, you still feel that something is real, don't you? You feel that something is real. You may say the sun is real. You may say that God is real. You may say that an atom is real, but you do not comprehend that you are creating these things. They're all a project of your mind. If you didn't have a mind, you would not have these concepts. That's why we have to annihilate the mind, to kill the mind. No mind, no concepts.
Q: Can you say the Self is real or is 'real' a term that doesn't exist?
R: If you say the Self is real, you don't really mean it. If you meant it you wouldn't have to say it, but you can say it when you are truly yourself, because it makes you feel better. It helps you live. It's better than saying that my world is real or my problem is real. It's better to say the Self is real than to say that.
Q: What is better than that, to say nothingness is real?
R: Keep silent. Say nothing. When you ask yourself the question, "Where do does my mind come from or where do my problems come from", and you keep still, that's real. The emptiness is real.
Q: Isn't the emptiness the same as the Self?
R: Yes, but when you speak you spoil it to an extent.
Q: That's right because the Self doesn't know.
R: When you say the Self is real, that becomes personal. When there's silence it becomes omnipresent.
Silence is always the best policy after you say all those things to yourself. It's in the silence that your problems just dissolve. Try it. It really works. When you keep still after saying a lot of these things, your problems will dissolve by themselves. Do not think, "I am getting rid of my problems", because that enhances the problems. Do not think about the problems at all, but work on yourself to see your own reality, and in reality there are no problems.
We can also note that to most people, no matter how many times I say this, their problems are very real to them. The problems hold them like a vice. They really feel their problems. To those people I say, "To the extent that you can realize that your mind is creating these problems, in reality you are mind-less." To that extent the problems begin to dissolve. Repeat this when you wake up, when you open your eyes in the morning. Do not go through the four principles all at once. Take one at a time, even if you don't get to the second that morning, and spend and hour or two working on the first one, that is good. You can these things all your life if necessary instead of worrying about your problems. Take them one at a time.
Now go to the second principle and work on it just like the first. The second principle is: I perceive, I feel, I understand that I was never born. I am Unborn. I do not prevail. My existence does not exist, and I will never disappear.
Q: Can you say I perceive or understand that I am unborn before the mind fully accepts it?
R: Whatever you can work with to let yourself know that you perceive or understand or feel.
Q: Would it be more honest to say "I am beginning to perceive..."?
R: There is no beginning. You can say "There is something within me that perceives, or there is something within me that knows I was never born, I do not prevail, and I will never disappear. I am that one that knows. Start working on that.
What does this "I was never born" mean? I am unborn. It sounds like a contradiction because you believe your father and mother gave you birth. This appears to be true. Who gave them birth? My grandmother and grandfather. It goes all the way back.
Who gave them birth? You go back to the beginning, way to the first man and woman and where did they come from? Who started this? Who started the human race? Who started the idea of birth? Now don't answer, because the mind will create answers, Adam and Eve, God. Somebody told you that. But is it true? Where did God come from?
Go back to the beginning. It is like asking what came first, the chicken or the egg? The tree or the seed? The man or the woman? Who made them? You will realize they don't exist. Nothing gave you birth. The whole origin of birth is false, it is a dream. It does not exist. Therefore, I do not exist the way I appear to be.
Then go back to the first premise. Who am I? You always go back to self-enquiry. Who am I that exists? If I am not the body, am I my thoughts? I can't be my thoughts because they keep changing and changing. The who am I? Keep silent for a while.
You know it's working when you start to feel a quiet, loving feeling. You start to feel a peace you have not felt before. You start to feel that all is well.
If you do this often enough, you will feel a happiness you never felt before, and you won't care if a bomb is dropped on your head. You would feel this happiness because you would know you can't die. Right now these are just words. You will actually know, some day, that you can't disappear. Nothing can kill you. "Kill" is just a word. It means something that you have accepted. We make up words and put feelings behind them. Listen to the word, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. It sounds ridiculous. The word itself has no power except the power you give it yourself.
When the mind is silent, then reality comes of its own accord. When you are think and thinking, the world has got you, and you become worldly again. Self-enquiry causes the mind to causes the mind to be quiet.
After you work on that, you go on saying, "I do not prevail." You say to yourself, "You mean that my entire existence since I was a baby, until I die, means nothing?" Then you say to yourself "I have just proven I was not born. If I was never born, how can I prevail? What prevails? Who prevails?" You will see that it is the mind that prevails. The mind wants existence, wants strength, wants power. It makes you believe you are the body. Ask yourself, "To whom comes the mind? Who gave it birth? What is its source?" Then keep still. You will begin to laugh because you will begin to feel, even if only for a moment, that there is no mind. You will actually feel no-mind. In the beginning, it may last for a moment or two. As you practice everyday, those moments of no-mind will become ever greater.
Go on and say, "I will never disappear." Now you laugh again, because you realize that which never existed disappears. I am no-mind, so how can I disappear? This becomes very meaningful for you and as you do it everyday, you become stronger and stronger in mindfulness, and something happens that's so beautiful that I can't describe it. You feel such love, such joy, such harmony, such bliss. Then you carry on.
What's the third principle? Something in me feels, understands the egolessness of all things. All these principles are alike. Did you come to that conclusion yet? They all have the same source--nothing, but you have to work with them until you get there. I feel and understand the egolessness of all things. You say ALL things, not just some things, but ALL things, from the greatest galaxy to the minutest atom. Nothing has an ego. If it has no ego, it has no source, because if it has an ego there has to be a source, and just by realizing this great truth you become free immediately. It blows your mind. It's like a Zen koan. All of a sudden, something snaps in your mind, and your mind is gone because it has no source since there's no ego. It never existed, and you feel so good.
Q: Can you say, "I Am is not the body"?
R: Yes, you can say that. That's why I tell you not to use that too much, because you make it too personal. You're still into yourself as an individual. When you read in text books, "I am not the body, I am not the mind", they're referring to the universal body and the universal mind. There is no body, nobody, no-o-o body. (Everyone laughs) Nobody exists. That sounds ridiculous to the average person.
Now you may say, "What does all this do for me?" It does everything for you if you are creative in music, art or anything else. You'll become a better musician and a better artist without wanting to, without going after it. Your body will do what its supposed to. There will be no karmic attachment. As an example, if you are a great artist or a great musician or a great carpenter, or a great loafer or a great homeless person, and you go after it humanly this is what is holding you to the earth, and you're going to have to come back again and again and again because you made yourself earthbound, don't you see? Everything that you attach yourself to pulls you back to the earth, whether it's good or bad. If you hate something, it's the same as if you love something. It pulls you back to the earth. You've got to let go. It's just you're letting go because you know, "I am my brother and my brother is me. I am everything."
Now I'll go to the last principle. You say, "I perceive and understand what realization is. I know, something within me understands and feels what self-realization is", and you keep still. Believe me, the will come to you. The only way you can find out is through negation. So you can say to yourself, "It's not the sun because the sun is a projection of my mind. It's not the moon..." Same thing. "It's not my husband or my wife, it's not my body or my organs. It's not peace. It's not the war. Everything you name it's not. When you get tired of naming things, you keep silent, and that's what it is. Everything is silence. The four principles and the silence are all the same. Any questions about this?
Q: Yes, I have a question. There are two things that you said which I had difficulty with. One of the things you said is never deal with a problem.
R: Right.
Q: And I know we should concentrate on the positive things you were speaking about, that's the essential teaching, to stress all the ideas you already talked about today. But still in this period of life that we have, as we make these statements, as we move towards this goal which I can accept, still there is the life to be lived. There are issues to deal with. So it seems to me that when you say, don't deal with the problem, this leads to enormous problems.
R: On the contrary. You're separating both. You're putting them into categories. There's only one. As an example, say somebody cheated you, and you sue them in court. When you sue somebody and you're getting involved in something like that, you're sending up an energy. Even if you win the case, you're going to have to sue somebody else and then sue somebody else and it never stops. You've set up a pattern for yourself. But if you go about it the other way, and if you know the truth about yourself, you also know the truth about the guy who cheated because you both are one.
Q: Robert, let me give you another example. Let's say that we all stay here and we have no money. Tomorrow we're all hungry in the morning, and we say we're not going to deal with this problem, but because our hunger is so great and keeps mounting, we really can't think of anything else. Eventually we can't think of any of these ideas that you told us about because we're so extremely hungry.
R: Your first premise is wrong. It doesn't work like that. It would never work like that. If you're hungry, something will happen to appease your hunger. What you're thinking about is that you sit down and you do nothing. It doesn't work like that. When you know the truth, somebody will knock on the door and bring you food.
Q: I brought up the example a week or two ago about the holocaust, and remember I said how the attitude of the Jewish people and especially the Rabbis was that God is living in Nazis, God has manifested himself through Auschwitz and the others, and so we must go along with this. Would you say that's the attitude the Jewish people should have had?
R: On the contrary, because that's an attitude. I'm not talking about attitudes. I'm talking about realization. Reading the Bible and making quotations is one thing. Being a living embodiment of the truth is another thing.
Q: Then, you're saying to deal with the problem.
R: On the contrary, if you become the truth, the problem will take care of itself.
Q: Yes, but you're speaking of a state to which we are aspiring, and I believe that would happen, but we're not in that state. We are not fully in that state because we cannot fully grasp it and manifest it.
R: If you take it personally, and you work on yourself as I said, you will do what's right. You will not be passive.
Q: So you didn't exactly say, don't deal with the problem, just realize that the body doesn't really exist. You're body will do the right thing by itself.
Q2: Remember what Christ said when he said, "Put you first the kingdom of heaven and the all rest will be added unto you." Isn't that something you're saying?
R: That's right.
Q: I have no argument with the concept, the idea, the goal and the abstract reality. I am talking the about the interim period that we live in our daily lives during the day. That's why I bring up these problems, and the food as examples of what we h
have to deal with every moment.
R: Your body and mind are motivated by karma. The law of karma takes care of them. But you are not your body. If you are aware that you are not your body, the right action will pursue.
Q: You mean you can be aware that you're not your body, yet your body will go out and get food.
R: Exactly.
Q: But you would know that you are not the doer.
Q: If you are aware, those are key words, if you are aware that you are not the body. I would say from my understanding that there are degrees of awareness. If you are completely, absolutely, totally and wholly aware that you are not the body, then I grant you that. But there are these degrees of awareness, and if you are not at that particular state, then you must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
R: In reality, there are no degrees. You either are or you're not. If you think you're not, then you have to fetch for yourself. If you think you are, you'll think about these things, and then you'll go and do something. But you won't be doing it. It will do itself.
Q: That's what I was going to say. Robert was telling us before about not being the doer, the realization that you are not the doer, is what Christ was talking about. That is, you dwell on the Self, on self-realization, and your body will continue to do whatever is necessary karmically, but your realization that you're not the body and you're not the doer doesn't mean it doesn't get done.
Q: Well, now we're getting down to the nitty gritty. Then what you're suggesting is this. Let's talk about tomorrow morning. My body-mind says go out and try to find some money to get breakfast, but all the time that I'm doing this I can still think that I am not doing this. I am not going to be getting the money. I am not going to be eating it.
R: No, no, no. When you work on the principles and you are hungry in your body, you will automatically, spontaneously go get food, but you won't dwell on it. Your mind will be somewhere else.
Take my life, for instance. When I get up in the morning, I have no idea what is going to happen that day, but I am acting and interacting. I do certain things, but not purposely; it happens spontaneously. I didn't ask to teach classes like these. It happened. I never asked for anything. It happens because my body does it, spontaneously. My mind is not aware, involved. I don't plan, except maybe to spend a couple of hours in Venice
Q: My second point is related to that. You quoted Ramana telling his devotees to give to the robbers, but couldn't his Karma have been to protect?
R: It was not his Dharma, his way, his truth.
Q2: Another teacher could have told his followers to kill the robbers.
R: That's right. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna told Arjuna to fight. It depends on the path you are on. Notice that Krishna did not have to fight. He told Arjuna to fight. When you get to the highest, there is peace. There is no need to do anything.
In the martial arts, when one becomes proficient to the highest degree, they do nothing. They don't even defend themselves. they go the other way. They accept being killed. Arjuna was not up there.
The highest teaching is that everything is being taken care of. Ramana, as a boy, would have died if it were not for this mysterious power that took care of him. He went into the jungle and into a cave and sat there. He didn't know where his food would come from. He didn't even think about it. It didn't enter his mind. He just sat there for days until a woman came to help and started to feed him. If you have trust and faith, there is a mysterious power that will take care of you, and supply all you need.
Q: But while you are paying attention to the spirit you must function in the world and deal with problems.
R: You are speaking from your own point of view. You are speaking of appearances. This is how you see it now. But is not like that.
Q: I first came because someone said it would be a good thing to do. It just happened. I didn't go to him asking for places to see. Yet, each week I have to consciously arrange to come here. Both energies exist on the same plane simultaneously.
R: No. This plane you speak of doesn't exist. As long as you believe it does, it does, because you are creating it. You give it its power. You are its power source. When you take the power away, everything just is.
When you realize you are not the doer, your body will do whatever it has come to earth to do. Your body follows Karma. But your body is not you. That can only be experienced.
To most people, this is ridiculous. All that I have said does not mean a thing. Most people want something practical, to accentuate the humanhood in them. The highest truth is that humanhood does not exist. When you come to that conclusion, your life will be bliss.
Q: Isn't the purpose of Satsang to ask questions?
R: Yes, but you have to practice the things I tell you and watch what happens. When you leave here you have to work on yourself and not just get caught up in the world until the next meeting. You'll see what happens.
Q: Could you state the four principals again, as clearly as possible?
R: (1) I understand, I feel, I perceive, that everything, everything--and emphasize the second everything---is a manifestation of my mind. (2) I feel and understand deeply, that I am unborn, I do not prevail, and I do not disappear. (3) I feel and understand the egoelessness of everything, of all creation. (4) I have a deep understanding of what self-realization is. That's it.
Q: What if we don't feel that, should we say that?
R: Say it when you wake up. It starts something going.
Q: During the day should we say that?
R: Make it a little different. Think that everything is a projection of your mind. In the morning, it is good to say I perceive, I understand. When you first open your eyes, you are not awake yet, and you are your real self. Therefore, you are confessing to yourself your real nature. It goes deep into the subconscious mind as a new idea.
Q: Should we be asking all these questions in Satsang?
R: Real Satsang is not intellectual, it is the reality of the person giving it. New students all ask the same questions. That is their perception. No matter what I say, they never will be able to see it until they become it, because they identify with their bodies.
It is the ego that wants to know. When you begin to feel that you know less, that is a good sign, because you know less about the world and more about the self. The more confounded you become, the more the ego breaks up.
This talk was recorded, transcribed, edited, entitled, manufactured and distributed by Edward Muzika. Copyright (C) 1991 by No-Self Press
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