9th June, 1991 Robert: Its good to be with you again. We have just the right amount of people here today. This is the way I like it. And I know everybody, so I dont have to be careful what I say. I can insult you and do anything I want. Let me ask you a question. Are you really happy? I mean really, really happy? Student: No. Robert: Thats an honest answer. Why? Dont answer that. The reason why somebody really is not happy, is because they dont really know yet who they are. Thats the only reason. If you really were aware of who you really are, your real nature, happiness would exude from every pore of your body. Its just wonderful. Happiness is. There is really no reason for anyone to be unhappy. People who are unhappy take the world too seriously. They take themselves too seriously. They take life too seriously. They think things are real, and theyre going to last. It makes no difference what position youre in right now. It makes no difference whats going on in your life. It makes no difference where you are, or who you are. The only thing you have to do is come to terms with yourself. When you understand yourself, how can you possibly be unhappy? Your Self is the Self of the universe. Your Self is consciousness. Consciousness is just being conscious of your happiness, being totally conscious. When youre totally conscious you have to be happy. Why? Because what we call happiness is the substratum of existence. Its the underlying cause of everything. Do not judge by appearances. Do not look at things and believe thats the way they are. Live in the moment. Can you be unhappy in the moment? The only reason, again, youre unhappy is because youre thinking of some condition or situation you dont like. True? Youre thinking about something from the past or youre worried about some- thing thats going to happen in the future. Thats the only reason youre sad and not happy. But if you learn to live in the moment, if you learn to become aware now, how can you possibly be unhappy? Because now is bliss. Just dont think. Experience now. If youre really not thinking and youre experi- encing now, youre in bliss. Now is reality. Now is ultimate oneness. Now is liberation. But as soon as you allow your mind to tell you, Oh this is nothing but a bunch of b.s., why do you think so? You are thinking of a condition, you are thinking of a situation in your life that you dont like. Youre thinking of something thats wrong some place, somewhere. And you believe its going to last forever. We do not change conditions. We change our- selves. As you know, youve changed conditions most of your life, and when you get into a new situation, everything seems rosy. But then after a while you turn right back to your old ways. The novelty has worn off and again youre unhappy. You therefore have to do things to be happy. You have to watch a lot of TV, or go to the movies, or read newspapers, or read books, or get involved in some kind of situation, so you dont think. The only rea- son you get involved in all kinds of physical, material situations, is so you will not have to think. You will be too busy to think. But when youre alone, when youre by yourself, when there is no one around, how long can you sit by yourself before you become mad at yourself or angry over something, and you turn on the TV, or drink a bottle of beer, or go bowling, or do something. Even those of you who go look at nature, climb mountains, enjoy flowers and the trees, are doing so because you really believe that the joy, and the love, and the experience you see out there is external to you. So even the beauty of the so called world is erroneous. Youre running away from something. Youre looking for beauty outside of yourself. You have to learn that you are the beauty. You are the joy. You are the flowers that you enjoy so much. You are the trees and the ocean and the sky and the mountains. Its all coming from you. If you really realize that you are that, would you run around seeking things? Eve- rything that you want is within you. You are that. Even relationships. You look for rela- tionship with someone so they can make you happy, so you can enjoy their company, so you can love them, so you can be with them. But I can assure you that within yourself is a greater love, a greater joy, a greater peace than you can ever find anywhere else. True. Youve got it all. There is nothing, no thing that you need from the outside. And nothing can ever happen to you, because there is no one to make it happen, except yourself. When you begin to think erroneously, you imagine all sorts of things are going to happen to you. You imagine that youll lose your job, that youll be bankrupt, youll get sick, youll die from disease. You have all kinds of imaginings. This is the only thing that makes you miserable. If you can only learn to look within, if you can only learn to dive deep within yourself and identify with the Self, merge with the Self, I cant begin to tell you the joy you would feel. There is nowhere you have to go. There is no one you really have to meet. There is no thing you have to do. You simply have to be yourself. You are the joy of the world. The question arises, is a guru necessary? Is a teacher necessary? Think of that question. The definition of a guru is from darkness into light. “Gu” is darkness and “Ru” is light. Thats why when you hear children saying gugu, gugu, theyre in darkness. Theyre experiencing the world, so they say gugu, for they have already subconsciously realized that the world is darkness. But when you say “Ru,” thats the light. Therefore a guru should always be a Sage that takes you from darkness into light. How does the Sage take you from darkness into light? By doing certain things in order to make you realize that you are the one. Not by saying, I am the guru and you are my disciples. By making you see that you are that one that has never been born, that can never die, that is imper ishable, that is absolutely sat-chit-ananda. You are that one. And you are that one just the way you are right now. What do I mean by that? Just the way you are right now? If right now you are thinking about you are the body, or you are the doer, or youve got problems, or theres something wrong, thats not you. But if youre living right now as we just mentioned be- fore, in the now, the eternal now, then you are that one, just the way you are right now, right now, in this split second. If you think, you spoil it, for thoughts are always about the past or the future. Even if its the past minute or a minute into the future, youre spoiling it, because youre not centered in the now. So you are Brahman just the way you are right now. The guru should be able to tell you that, and make you understand it and see it and feel it. Not everyone needs a guru. A guru can be a tree, a mountain, a lake, a flower. Youve heard this before, but let me explain it. When a tree becomes your guru, the tree is no longer an ordinary tree. Its you. You are identifying with the essence of the tree, which is consciousness. Youre not seeing the tree as a tree. Its the beauty of the tree or the moun- tain, or the lake, or whatever, that first attracts you. But if you just see the tree as a tree, youll be disappointed, for the leaves drop off, bugs attack it, people chop it down. Yet if you identify with that tree, spontaneously, intelligently, that tree becomes you, and the essence of the beauty is the essence of your beauty. In that respect the tree is your guru. Therefore a guru in the human form is a being whose words in the silence you feel in your heart. And just like the tree, the essence of the guru is your essence. There is only one. Therefore when a student is sincere in their spiritual practice, when they put that first before anything else, when they continue to work on themselves, automatically the guru within yourself, the essence within yourself, like a magnet, will attract and pull you to a guru outside of yourself, which is really yourself, that can cause you to rise higher and become liberated. Youve got to stop seeing yourself as a human being. Youve got to catch yourself. Whenever you think something is wrong, someone has hurt you, someone has rubbed you the wrong way, when things do not go right at your job or at home, do not be like the ordinary person and react to it. And do not believe that if you do not react, things will get worse. I cannot tell you enough that every situation that happens to you is necessary for your growth. There are no mistakes. Everything that youve been through, everything that youre going through, is absolutely necessary for your spiritual growth. If it does not look kosher to you, realize its your mind reacting. Its your ego reacting. And the way to han- dle it, is to just observe. Do not get involved by arguing, fighting, trying to change things. Just observe. If you can observe without getting excited, then youve passed that test and you will not have to repeat it. But if you get angry, you get upset, you want to get even, youre always thinking about it, and you have hate and animosity, even though you move away from that situation, you will meet that situation again, and again, and again, until you learn not to react to it. The universe is a university to educate the soul. Before we can go any higher and awaken, we have to have these little realizations where we begin to feel that there is noth- ing wrong. There is absolutely no thing wrong. All the good of the universe is yours. There is absolutely nothing wrong, nothing. If you can only live in the moment and feel what Im saying, everything in this world, in this universe will become you. Thats why people like Jesus and others have been able to say, All that I have is yours, meaning that conscious- ness is bliss, and bliss is expressing itself as the world, as the universe, as yourself. Live in that bliss. Refuse to acknowledge anything else. It appears that if you do not acknowledge something, something will go wrong in your life. But you are not made for something to go wrong in your life. There is absolutely nothing wrong anywhere, so how can anything go wrong in your life. Even those of you who believe God is running the show, God couldnt be good and bad, or there would be a capricious universe in which we live. The moon would crash into the sun, wheat would grow one time and roses would grow another time from the same seed, when we live in a capricious universe. There are not two powers here. There is one power and you can call that God. It is all-pervading. If it is all-pervading, and there is no place where it is not, how can there be a problem? For in order to be a problem there has to be God and something else. But all youve got to do is a little meditation, and you will see that there is only God as everything and there is no room for God and anything else. So you say, Where does sickness come from? Where does lack and limitation come from? Where does mans inhumanity to man come from? I have to ask you, who sees it? Who sees this? Most of the worlds populace. Most of the world sees lack, limita- tion, disease, mans inhumanity to man, and this is why these things perpetuate them- selves, and appear to be collectively everywhere in the universe. But then there are the few of us who step out of the parade. And they hear the beat of a different drummer. Thats how it begins. They no longer acknowledge evil as a reality. It may be a fact, but whose fact? Those who are living in the dream world. And again all facts are subject to change. Therefore anything thats a fact can never be reality. Reality presumes that it is the same for ever and ever without change. Harmony is reality. Love is reality. Joy is reality. Bliss is reality. You are reality, just the way you are, not when you think. When you begin to think, you can argue with me and say, How can I be reality when Im experiencing this and experiencing that? Youre thinking, thats why you say this. But if you stay just as you are, in the moment, then youre reality. As you begin to think about these things, you raise yourself higher and higher, and again, because youre cleansing your personal consciousness from all past karma and samskaras, the inner Self, the guru within will lead you to the guru without, and when you sit in satsang you will hear all these truths which are spoken in the silence, and something will happen. You will begin to feel that there is no birth, there is no cause for this universe. It will just come to you. Situations are not what they appear to be. The universe is but a dream. It will come to you all by itself. For instance, the Rishis of old did not have pen and pencil to write notes, or have tape recorders to record tapes, or have newspapers or books to read. Yet if you read the Upanishads, the Vedas, you will find that these Rishis, these Sages, even though they didnt know each other, all came to the same conclusion about reality. For they were able to dive deep within themselves, and they were able to see that this world does not exist, the body does not exist, the mind is non-reality. They were able to merge their body-mind in their own nature, which is consciousness, absolute reality. They then became absolute reality, pure awareness. And they wanted to spread the word to the world, but they couldnt, because they realized the world doesnt exist, so there is really no one to spread anything to. Yet when they think of themselves, all others are included. It therefore appears as if there are others. And amongst the others are certain people who are ready to be liberated. And these people sat at the feet of the Rishis, and they became Sages. And thats how the word was spread. Then writing began, and manu- scripts were written, and many people were able to come into this truth, through reading and through listening to the Sage. But now I must tell you the truth, that none of this exists. Everything I told you is for kindergarten students. Why should you have to do anything to awaken when your divine nature is already awakened? Why should you have to strive or overcome condi- tions or straighten out your life? In the dream that youre dreaming you give importance to your humanhood. Thats the only problem you really have, giving importance to your humanhood. And once you do that, every other lie comes into experience. That you got to straighten conditions out, youve got to do this and youve got to do that, but theyre all lies. Consciousness has nothing to do. Absolute reality is absolute reality just the way it is. It doesnt have to practice any sadhanas, chant any mantras, or do anything. Why not awaken now? What are you waiting for? Make up your mind that youre going to awaken right now, and allow your mind to turn into your heart, which is pure awareness. Do it. Some of you are still asking, how do you do it? Through silence, experiencing the moment, the now, the reality. Nothing is happening now. No one is suffering. Now is the only moment youve got. Abide in the now. Everything is perfect right now. Feel It. Dont think about it. Feel it. There are no yesterdays, there are no tomorrows. All of your so called sins have been transcended. No past and no future. You are fully alive now. Right now. Enjoy. (silence) Remember as your mind starts thinking, grab hold of it by observing it, and go back to the now. Whenever you float away in thoughts, keep remembering to catch your- self. (silence) There are many of you allowing your minds to run away. Stay in the moment. There is no thing happening in the moment. The moment is eternity. (short silence) If youre doing this correctly, you should start to feel a joy welling up within you. A joy, a bliss, a peace that you never felt before. Feel it. Nothing else exists except for this peace, this love, this awareness. Call it by any name you like. Doesnt matter. You are that. (silence) Anything you want to get off your chest? SL: Its a nice day, thats a beautiful song. (R: Good. Thats a nice remark.) R: We have a small group here today, so you can ask a question that youve been holding in and nobody will know about it. SB: Robert I think this is an insect world. R: An insect world? What do you mean by that? (SB: Well by just observing people including myself they act more like insects. Running all over each other...) What kind of insect would you like to be? (SB: No I wouldnt like to be one but I just observed that...) A grasshop- per? (SB: I like the ants crawling all over this...) Thats how you see it. (SB: Thats the way they act. If you ever drop down to see it you would notice it.) R: But then you should ask yourself, Who sees this? To whom does this come? Whos the one that thinks that everybody is an insect? And Why do I think that? Be- cause you are identifying with mans inhumanity to man. Youre not seeing God, youre not seeing reality, youre not experiencing consciousness, youre experiencing the opposite. So you feel that everybodys an insect crawling over the top of one another. Its as if youre having a dream and you believe the dream is true. But if you ever woke up you would realize its not so. So it is with you. You are seeing these insects be- cause you are thinking its a rough world, people are this way and that way. But who sees that? We usually see what we are. So you must be the chief insect. (laughter) When you see other insects crawling all over. But know the truth about yourself and you will know the truth about everyone else. (short silence) SK: Robert just wanted to say that our 17 year old kitty cat is dying right now so Id like to ask everyone if you could just add a little prayer on her behalf right now. And in your prayers when you pray ... because shes going downhill fast and Im sure every little bit would help. (short silence) R: Kerema I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that your kitty cat is in good hands and there is nothing to worry about. Do we have announcements? SM: Can we read this? (R: Yes.) Its called, Dont Quit. When things go wrong as they sometimes will. When the roads youre trudging seems all uphill. When the funds are low and the debts are high. When you want to smile but you have to sigh. When care is pressing you down a bit. Rest you must but dont you quit. Life is queer with its twists and turns. As everyone of us sometimes learns. And many a fella turns about when he mightve won if he stuck it out. Dont give up thou the pace seems slow. You may succeed with another blow. Often the goal is nearer than it seems to a faint and ... man Often the struggler has given up. When he might have captured the victors cup. And he learned too late when the night came down. How close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out. The silver tint of the clouds of doubt. And you never can tell how close you are. It maybe near when it seems afar. So stick to the fight when youre hardest hit Its when things seem worse that you mustnt quit. SM: And heres another little poem on the end called How to Count. Count your blessings and save your crosses. Count your gains instead of your losses. Count your joys instead of your woes. Count your friends instead of your foes. Count your smiles instead of your tears. Count your courage instead of your fears. Count your full years instead of your name. Count your kind deeds instead of your mean. Count your health instead of your wealth. Count on God instead of yourself. SM: I think thats beautiful Robert, thank you. And I have one other announcement to make. All of you who like Davids music so well, I know I do and I have some tapes available with the words of the tapes written on the inside. And wed like to sell them for ten dollars a piece. If any of you are interested please contact me. They are beautiful, I know I like them. R: You want to say something about another lesson? (SK: No.) Kerema and Ed put together another lesson. This is really a good one, so if you want to make copies of it, let me know and Ill give you one. If we each make ten copies we can bring them back here next week and everyone can get one. So if maybe four or five people can make ten copies. If you want you can come over and get one, Mary? Dont all come up. Two more left. Give this one to Lee. SH: Thats special for Lee. SB: Could you announce Josephines’ phone number? R: Oh yeah, Josephine wants to come here but she needs a ride. So anyone who would like to pick her up, let us know. Where does she live? (SB: She lives up in the ... near Laurel canyon or lookout mountain up on the top of the mountain there.) Anybody who comes that way, you can have the phone number and go and get her. (SB: Call her up and shell give you the directions. Even if you could pick her up like once a month or ... it doesnt have to be every night.) R: These transcripts by the way are for your own personal use and you can share them with your friends. But as you know I dont have ambitions or goals, so please dont send these to radio stations or TV stations. I got a couple of calls as a matter of fact yester- day I got a call from Ramana ashram in India. They received one of these lessons from somebody and now they want me to run around the Krishna centre and do all kinds of weird things. Which I would rather not get involved with. (SB: Ramana ashram wants you to run around the Krishna centre?) Yeah. A guy by the name of Reddy called me. He said he remembered me when I was there 35 years ago. And he wanted my address also. So when they come over with a group they can stay at my house. (laughter) Were not prepared for things like that here. Please dont send them to strange people. SE: Everybody in spiritualitys strange. R: I know. Youre right. So dont send them to anybody. (laughter) Were not pre- pared for anything like that. To run an ashram. And of course I dont want to go on any TV program or have any radio discussions or do anything like that. What else shall we talk about. SE: Talk about death. R: There is no death, there is only life. So there is really nothing to talk about. Death is a lie, who dies? Only the ego. SB: Does the cat have an ego? R: The cat has its own ego, sure. (SB: Can an animal get realization?) Of course. Everything can get realization because everything is already realized. (SB: Whats stopping the animal then?) Nothing. (SB: Are they realized?) Everythings realized in reality? The leaf, the cockroach, everything is realized. (SB: Its only the human being has thats in trouble huh?) The human being is part of everything. The human being is not in trouble. Youre separat- ing yourself. There is only consciousness and the world exists as consciousness. Therefore everything that exists is consciousness. (SB: So even the mind doesnt separate us?) Nothing separates us. There is no separation. Its all false belief. All separation is false belief. When I speak of oneness everything is incorporated. Animals, insects, trees, oceans. Everything is God, so everything is realized. There are no exceptions, there is only one and you are that. SM: So Robert instead being sad when there’s death and that goes for animals and people we should kind of - not rejoice but be glad that the soul or whatever has gone on to realization? R: No we dont have to be glad and we dont have to be sad. Just be. The only reason we have other thoughts and other emotions, glad and sad is because we separate. Theyre here and were here. If we were able to see oneness then we would realize that everything is us and there is no death, there is eternal life. Death is a misnomer, nothing dies. SH: Things change, there is continual change? R: To whom? (SH: To anybody who wants to look.) The person who sees change is the person who believes they are the body. When the body doesnt appear any longer there is nothing to change. As you see yourself you see the world. So as you see yourself change, youre getting older or youre getting smarter. Then you see everybody else changing also. But when you realize that you are unchangeable, youve always been the same and you are the same, youre like the chalkboard. Then all of your images are just imposed on the chalkboard. (SH: And there is nothing appearing or disappearing on the chalkboard?) The chalk- board, things appear, things disappear and you appear to appear. (SH: Appear to appear but dont actually?) They dont actually appear they just appear to appear. And then they ap- pear to disappear. So on the chalkboard there is a picture of you as a baby, than thats erased, disappears. Then youre a teenager, thats erased. Then youre growing up, thats erased. Then you are like you are now, so thats erased. But the chalkboard never changes. So are you the chalkboard or are you the change? (SH: Im the whole bowl of wax.) Thats right, true and all is well. (SH: I think you have a point there.) Points on my head. (laughter) SY: Id like to share something. (R: Sure.) I have a seven year old daughter who likes to occasionally bring up the question of death. And its usually when shes falling asleep at night, she gets into these thoughts. She said, I think maybe its a relief when you die, get out of this calf muscles and this tight skin. And then she said, There is one thing you can never get rid of. And I said, So what’s that? And she said, Your heart. R: Umm. Thats clever. Whered she learn that? SY: She comes with it. She was talking about last night how she thought it was pretty silly how we celebrate birthdays. She didnt see the point of celebrating the day we were born. And then she talked on and on about it a little bit and then she said, Well I guess its good to celebrate our joyfulness. R: Sounds like a good kid. How about the rest of your kids? (SY: Theyre all the same.) How about your husband? (SY: Hes good too. I think hes any problem.) Good, you mean youll hold on to him for a while? SN: When you wanted to celebrate Ramanas birthday at the ashram. Ramana said the same thing about birthdays. He says its ironic that we celebrate a day of birth because actually its kind of like a day of death. The day of birth that we think were separate is kind of like suicide. Its the birth of the ego, but its the death of the Self. So why would anyone want to celebrate that? That’s what Ramana said. (R: True.) SL: Because you get presents. (SY: Who wants presents?) (laughter) And everybody gets together and wishes you well. SH: And say you dont look a day older than you look in ten years. (laughter ) R: As long as you believe that you are the body you can celebrate birthdays. Be- cause if you believe that you are the body and you dont celebrate your birthday, then youll be sad. (SH: Really?) True. Wont you? (SH: Yeah.) In other words you cant tell your- self, Im not going to celebrate my birthday. But you havent received your realization yet because then you will be thinking about your birthday anyway. Youll be thinking youre a year older and if you celebrated your birthday you wouldve gotten presents. So youll feel upset. Ramana was able to say that because he was in a different category. This is what I mean when I say sometimes, We shouldnt fool ourselves. Do not make yourself suffer. For instance when I tell you that nature, the trees, the mountains, the oceans are within yourself and you dont need to go anywhere. This is true if you can experience that, but if you cant experience that yet dont lock yourself up in your room and refuse to look at anything or acknowledge anything and keep saying, I am the Self. Youll go mad. Do what comes naturally. Enjoy everything until the time comes when you can enjoy yourself. SE: I think you ought to open an ashram in India. (SH: Ed is going to get you in an ash- ram one way or another. (laughter) Weve got you heading for an ashram Robert. Youre sure gonna need it.) Get one in the mountains about 8 or 10 thousand feet where its nice and cool. Twenty acres, ten houses. R: Whatever has to happen has already happened and we just have to sit back and watch it unfold. Any more comments? SB: Robert you said our only freedom is not to react to conditions and I was thinking about that and I thought, our only freedom is not to be I. R: Thats right the I reacts to conditions. So when youre not I nobodys left to re- act. That is why the first thing you do is to remove the I. (SB: So our only freedom is not to identify with the mind.) By annihilating the I. When you kill the I the mind goes too. (SB: So everybodys doing it wrong? The whole world.) I dont know, forget about the world. (SB: The whole world is doing the opposite.) Never mind what the world is doing, what are you doing? (SB: Im doing it opposite.) Well do it! Remember to worship yourself, to love yourself, to pray to yourself because God dwells in you as you. I love you peace. All Is Well. ! (tape ends) [TOC] Thanks for this recommendation Partridge Fritz !!
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 22:51:44 +0000