You have got to have heart

Introduction

Robert starts off this Satsang stating "Chanters you are not."
He and I loved Satsang, but it was difficult to get our group to chant. Part of it was we had no musicians playing instruments, but had only tapes from various sources such as Self-Realization Fellowship or old Muktananda tapes. Robert especially loved Yogananda’s "Oh God Beautiful," which strangely enough, was the first chant I ever learned. Both he and I started off our official spiritual careers through SRF.
Robert then goes on to explain why we should chant. He says Jnana—knowledge—without Bhakta, is dry knowledge. He says there are many Jnanis who he called "Cold Fish" at times as they had no Bhakta. He said you had to have love or your wisdom is dry and you are dry. He says if you practice chanting you will notice a dramatic change.
He even tells the story of one chap who would only observe Satsang, and who felt chanting was ridiculous. I don’t remember whether this was at Ramana Ashram or elsewhere. He did this abstract observing week after week and felt superior to the chanters, but also he was not attaining freedom.
Robert repeatedly suggested that the guy do chant, and he did one day. According to Robert, he soon attained freedom.
You will see the difference for yourself even if you just chant along with a tape, or even more dramatically, if you chant at Satsang. Chanting soothes the mind and you automatically go within.
Robert also talks about taking a walk every morning. His walks always led to a small park a few blocks away. He always took his dog, Dimitri. As he said, and as I saw him do, Dimitri walked him not the other ways around. Indeed, that is what it looked like; he trailed behind Dimitri with a very slack collar. This is how he was with some of his students too. They would take him by the hand to show him something, and he was like a two-yeart-old following his mother or father.
It was in this park that he met his first students in the late 1980s, and where I now take people who want to know of his being and teachings.
This Satsang had the format of so many others: chanting, his talk, a reading from the Ashtavakra Gita by me, more chanting, Darshan and then food. He used to joke that no one would come without the cookies.
On Sundays, the food layout could be quite elaborate, with hot dishes and various juices. The Pershad family would bring various Indian foods and sweets. I would bring my own favorite, chocolate chip cookies.
Robert would not eat anything unless everyone else was served first. Usually Mary, Kerima or I would prepare his plate, but he would not eat until everyone else ate.
While people were loading up their plates (Or cookies on a slow Thursday night), we would have Darshan, consisting of going up to the guru, prostrating in Indian style, then talking to him about whatever. Often people would bring him gifts, such as food, some potion meant to treat his Parkinson’s Disease, or a medicinal magnet or some such to hang around his neck, wrist, knee, etc. Robert indulged everyone.
One time, as was his way, he did the entire Satsang with a powerful medicinal magnet under his shirt. When someone brought him his plate of food during Dharshan, as usual, he put the plate aside. However, this time he took a fork and stuck it to his chest, and all during the rest of Satsang, he had the fork glued to his chest to the great delight and laugher of the group.
Unfortunately, most of the tapes I have on the Internet were recorded by me. When anything happened except Robert talking, I turned the tape recorder off so that I was sure there was enough tape to catch all of his words. Therefore, most of the chanting parts of Satsang are missing as are Mary or my own recitations of the Ashtavakra Gita or Robert’s own "Confessions of the Jnani" found elsewhere on this website.
Sometimes during this digital mastering, I have included some of the chanting, or my recitation. I stated before, that Robert’s Satsangs were an entirety and that hearing his talks alone was maybe 50% of the overall impact of Satsang. This is far different from Balsekar for example, where the tapes are sometimes better than the Satsang itself.
As you can hear on the tape, on Sundays the birds were always talking to us. It was a very sweet and wonderful experience which I dearly miss. I was so fortunate to be with Robert and I am afraid my spiritual thickness at the time prevented me form truly appreciating how extraordinary Robert and his Satsang was.

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Robert: Good Afternoon. It is good being with you once again on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Everyone is sweating profusely. Chanters you are not. Why should we want to chant?
Jnana (Wisdom, knowledge) without Bhakta (Love, devotion) is dry knowledge. You have to have Jnana with Bhakta.You have to feel passion. You have to feel love. You have to feel loving kindness. This comes with Bhakta. Unless youbecome a Bhakta, you cannot be a Jnani. They both go together hand in hand. It's like a man and a woman. You can'thave one without the other.
There are many people who profess to be Jnanis. They are very dry intellectuals. Very cold people. When you chant to the Goddess or the God, and you feel the chant in your heart, you will feel this way towards your fellow man. The same love you give to God, you give to your fellow man. How can you love others if you do not love yourself? You love yourself by letting your heart open up and feel the passion, the joy, the harmony which is your divine real nature.
Become involved in the chanting. Feel it. Be it. And you will be amazed at the change that comes over you.
I take a walk every morning and meet many interesting people. There is a little old lady I meet once in awhile and we talk.
She asked me this morning: "Robert, do you believe in God?"
Now, the answer I am going to share with you is true about each one of us here and everyone else on this earth. I answered by saying: "Before I answer please let me know what do you mean by 'you' and what do you mean by 'God'?"
She said: "Well, the person you." I remarked, and this is important for us to understand: "As long as there is a personality, we have to believe in something. We believe we are an atheist, we believe in God, we believe in politics, we believe in this, we believe in that. Where there is a personality, there is a believer.
Then, God is apart from us.
Some of us would even say "I believe in God within myself." This is sort of wrong thinking. If it weren't for what we call God, absolute reality, pure awareness, there couldn't be a you. There would be no personality unless there was a God, or absolute reality, Satchitananda or whatever you want to call it.
It is like a print on the paper. The print is you, the personality, and the paper is God. If you didn't have the paper, youcouldn't have the print. Like the screen and the image. The screen is what we call God. The image is you, the personality. Therefore, when the you is transcended, the you is really the "I" thought. When the personal "I" or the personal "you" is completely and totally transcended, where is there anyone who has a belief system left? For whom was the belief?
You see what I am saying? There is no one left over to believe anything. There is no personality left. Therefore, how canyou believe something? To believe, there has to be a believer and an object to believe. When you have transcended the personality, when there is no "I" thought, when there is no "you", you become all-pervading. You become the total reality, omnipresent. Consequently, where is there room for God? There is no room for God when you are all pervading. You are omnipresent. You are the absolute reality, the pure awareness.
Only again when you are a personality, when you are a body, can you say: "I believe in God, I believe in this, I believe in that, I don't believe in this, I don't believe in that. You have that option as long as there is a personality.
When there is no personality, when there is no "I" thought, when there is no body, there is only space. Space is the absolute awareness. This is your true nature. This is what you really are.
There is the story of the holy man who died and went to heaven. As he was going towards the gates of heaven, they wouldn't let him in. He called: "It is me, your humble servant, the one who has praised your name for centuries. I havecome."
St. Peter said, "I'm sorry, you can't come in." The holy man sat down and started to gaze in silence to ponder this. "Why won't St. Peter let me in? I've been good. I've practiced the scriptures." He pondered this for six months.
Finally, he said to himself: "I've got the answer." He knocked on the door, and Peter came to the gate. He said, "Let me in. I'm your humble servant. The one who has chanted your name for centuries, who has bowed to you, who has prayed toyou."
St. Peter said, "I'm sorry. There is no room for you here." Again, he closed the door. This time the holy man became completely upset. He didn't know what the problem was. He had been a good person, a holy person. Why won't that guy let me in? He said to himself, "I'm going to sit here forever, if I have to, until I come up with the right answer." Finally, after a year of sitting in front of the gate, the answer came.
He got up and knocked on the door of heaven. God came to the door and said: "Who is this?" The holy man said: "It is thou." God opened the gate and said: "Come in, my son. There never was enough room in here for both me and you."
This is true with us. As long as we think we are individuals, as long as we think we are personalities, we will go through life with problems, having good times and bad times; up times and down times. We will go all kinds of experiences. When the time comes when you realize there is no difference between you and the ultimate reality, then you'll be totally free. Youwill appear as a body, but you will no longer be a body. You will be Satchidananda. You will be absolute reality. You will be the ultimate oneness. The Truth.
When you look at yourself and you see yourself, do not think of you as a mere human being. Do not think of yourself as a person. Do not think of yourself as someone who needs help. Someone who is alone in this world. That's not really you.You are the One that has always existed, the One that will always exist. That One that never had a problem. That One that is healthy and happy and peaceful. There are no others.
Do not judge yourself. Do not look at yourself and say: "I have sinned; I have made mistakes." Do not worry about the future and think karma is going to catch up with me. I have to reap the laws of karma that I have sown. It is true that as long as you feel yourself to be human, as long as you believe in Karma, past, future and causation, you will go through Karma. You will appear to go through all the things in space and time that seem to punish you and reward you.
Gradually you will give up the belief in Karma. You will begin to see there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only the eternal now, and you are that. You are the One that has always existed and that One will always be. You are not your karma. Karma only exists when you believe it exists. For who is karma? For the body, not for you. Karma is for the individual. For the one who thinks he is a body and a mind. For that one, there is karma.
As you grow spiritually, as you practice devotion, as you practice Jnana, you begin to feel different. You begin to feel Oneness with the whole universe. The universe becomes your friend. The mineral kingdom. The vegetable kingdom. The animal kingdom. The human kingdom. You are no longer able to see problems or troubles. You have transcended this.You have risen to that place where there is only God, what we call God, which is yourself. I shouldn't say yourself. The Self. The Self makes it impersonal.
The Self are the trees, the sky, the birds, everything. Everything is the Self. Nothing is excluded. This is why you should practice Ahimsa. Non-violence to any living thing. After all, whatever you hurt, whom are you hurting but yourself? Whatever you do to someone else, you are doing to yourself.
As long as you believe you are personal, the Self has to come back to you and return to you what you gave out. It is like a boomerang. You throw a boomerang and it comes back to you. When you throw out words and deeds and actions, they return to you. As long as you believe you are an entity, as long as you believe you are a body, as long as you believeyou are an "I" thought, everything must return to you.
But, you may say, when I become a Jnani (Self-realized), I can do anything I like? I can hurt people and steal and rob and rape? And, I will have no Karma? Well, when you become a Jnani come see me, and see if you want to do those things.You'll never even have an idea of a thing like this. Things like this won't even enter your consciousness. They'll be no place for it to stay. There will be no doer to want to do anything. You will be totally free. You are already totally free. Butyou think you are not. You are attached to person, place and thing. You respond to the world. You react to conditions, to situations. Is there any wonder that you suffer?
Always remember; your body came to this plane to do certain work. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. You are totally free. You are the embodiment of love. You have absolutely nothing to do with your body. I know it sounds strange.You're asking, "Are there two of us? Is there the body and myself?"
No. There is only one. The one is either yourself or your body. There is never anybody else but the One. When the body does the work, it's for others. It's for the world which you know you are not. The body becomes like the water in the mirage. It appears to be there, but when you try to grab it, it's not there. It doesn't exist. Like the sky. Like the blue in the sky. You wake up. You see a sky and you want to grab it. It doesn't exist. So it is with us.
We are like the print on the paper. The print appears on the paper but you need the paper to have the print. You can'thave print without the paper.
You have to begin to identify with the Real Self. You have to begin to let go of all the false beliefs, conceptions, dogmas and be yourself. Be the Self you've always been. Be the Buddha. Be Krishna. You have that quality deep within you. Wake up. Do not let calamity rule you any longer. Know yourself. Do not use the mind to react to conditions. Learn to be the observer.
Don't think you must run away from conditionings or you must run away from your job or you must leave your family oryou must do anything like this. Never concern yourself with the body. Mentally learn to let go; to think less. Cut down on your thinking and your thoughts. Some of you still believe that if you do not think about something, it will never happen. This is not true. As a matter of fact, it is reverse. If you do not think, then the true nature of yourself will be revealed, and the true nature of the universe will be revealed.
They are the same. Pure awareness. Absolute Reality. But you must let go mentally and not be attached to things. Do not concern yourself with other people, with politics, with the world conditioning. This earth is going through a process, and it will go through whatever it has to go through. The earth is billions of years old. There have been many civilizations on this earth. Civilizations have come, civilizations have gone. We are just another civilization and, yet, we think we are in control.
When your ego believes you're in control of things and you are in charge of your life and you are in charge of your environment; then an earthquake comes along and lets you know differently. Doesn't it? When you feel an earthquake, don't you feel small and you have no power? You feel very limited. This goes to show you who do you think you are?You are nobody. In one instant you could be wiped out.
Therefore, why not turn within and leave the world alone? I know there are many redeemers of the world. Many fanatics and many good people want to bring peace to this world. I tell you this is impossible. The world is as it is. It is Maya--a dream only. It is duality. There are good times, there are bad times. This is the nature of this world. See if I'm telling the truth.
For thousands of years people have been working to bring peace to this earth. They have worked very diligently. People like Gandhi, Martin Luther King. There have been thousands in previous ages. Now, look at the world. Is it any better? Do we have love and peace in this world? Have all those do-gooders given us a semblance of peace? Things have become relatively worse.
I kid you not about the truth of this. If this is God's world, leave the world to God. Your job is to realize the truth. As yourealize the truth about yourself, you become the Self of all. You become the Self of the Universe. You become the Self of all the countries, all the worlds, all the planets. Then you will see that beyond this world, beyond the Maya, beyond the illusion, that all is well. The world doesn't need your help.
I know it sounds good and wonderful to try to bring peace to this world. It's a good thing and there will always be people who will do these things. They mean well. But, I say to you that in the higher teachings, to the extent you know yourself, to that extent you can bring peace into this world. You cannot bring peace into this world if you do not know yourself. For ifyou have not achieved a semblance of harmony, of goodness, joy and peace within you, what are you giving the world? Your hate, you vindictiveness?
All you can give the world is the self which you think you are. Begin with you. Begin to see yourself not as a human being but as the universe. You are all the others. There are no others separate from you. Wake up. Be free. Do not allow your mind to control you. Your mind is not your master. Inquire within: To whom does the mind come? Inquire within yourself: Who has to bring peace to this world? Who has to change things? As you inquire within yourself, you will begin to feel and see that it is your ego that wants to change things. It is the personal 'I'. The personal "I" wants to do all these things in this world.
It wants to become successful; it wants to become famous; it wants to be the savior of mankind. It is the personal "I" that wants to be all these things.
Great sages have discovered that if you remove this personal "I" there will be no-one who will want to do anything. There will be total happiness, total love and total peace. Only remove the personal "I". The way to remove the personal "I" is to inquire: For whom does it come? What is it's source?
Do not try to remove the thoughts for the thoughts will never cease. You'll have good thoughts and bad thoughts for as long as you live. Realize the "I" is the culprit. The "I" has the thoughts. "I" thinks. "I" feels. "I" talks. "I" acts. Without the "I"you wouldn't have the ambitions or the type of thinking you've got. Follow the "I" thought to the Source, and that is howyou will find peace. That's how you will find love. That's how you will find joy. It's up to you.
A correspondence course of Robert's teachings is available. Participants will receive two lessons a month and may ask questions about practice, experiences and problems. Write for details.The Jnana Marga Society. This talk was recorded, transcribed, edited, introduced and manufactured by Edward Muzika, Ph.D. Copyright (C) No-Self Press, 1992