Advaita Satsang with Robert Adams

Robert Adams
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Spirituality
  • Series

Join Satsang with Advaita Master Robert Adams. Following the spiritual tradition of Non-Duality he talks about how we can experience true Freedom, Happyness and Bliss. His calm voice is very relaxing and may help with sleep and ASMR induction. More on https://robert-adams.de

  1. 08/02/1990

    You Must Have Your Own Experience

    Transcript: Robert: I welcome you with all my heart. This body does not presume that it has anything new to teach you. I will refer to this body as I, to make it short. I have nothing new to tell you. I am not a philosopher. I am not a preacher. I am not worthy. I simply have a confession. I confess to you, your own reality. It is not a teaching it's a confession. I am speaking to my Self confessing and you are my Self. You are sat-chit-ananda — knowledge, existence and bliss. You are not the body or the mind. What you appear to be is not the truth, it may be a fact but it is not the truth. A fact is something that appears to be true but it changes. You cannot be who you think you are for when you were a baby, you were quite different. And when you were a little boy or a little girl you were also different. And the way you are now is completely different than you were before. Consequently how can you be the body? What are you? Who are you? Sat-chit-ananda? What's that? Even if I tell you this, it means absolutely nothing. You must have your own experience. You mustn't believe a word I say. Why should you believe me? What do I know? I am simply confessing to you that there is only para-Brahman, consciousness, bliss, being, awareness, pure intelligence. This has been my experience. There is nothing else. Everything else is an experience of the mind, an appearance, like hypnosis. The world seems real, so does a dream. What is this world? It's as if you just woke up from your dream and you still remember the dream. In the dream you were going places, getting married, having children, getting older, then you wake up and you halfway remember the dream and halfway remember the world in which you wake up. So which one is real, the world or the dream? It has been my experience that they're both alike. There is no real difference. You attach yourself to this world, in the same way you attach yourself in your dream. If you were dreaming and you dreamt you were falling off a mountain and I was falling beside you. And I said to you, "Don't worry, nothing can happen to you, you're dreaming," you wouldn't believe me, you would be filled with fear and you would say, "Can't you see we're falling, can't you see what's happening, how can you tell me I'm dreaming?" Just before you hit the ground you wake up, and you laugh, "It was all a dream." In the same way you have attached yourself to sickness, to health, to good, to bad, to happiness, to unhappiness, these are all concepts. You've attached yourself to person place or thing. You have forgotten that this is a dream. You believe it’s real and because you believe it’s real you suffer accordingly. When you leave your body you will have to come back again and again and again, all part of the dream, until you become detached. How do you do that? By simply observing what's going on around you and not attaching yourself to it. By being awake to your reality. Understanding yourself that you are not the doer. Everything that you do has been preordained. It will be done. You have to let go mentally of all conditioning, of all objectivity. And you must still your mind. Make your mind placid, like a motionless lake. Then reality comes of its own accord. Happiness comes of its own accord. Peace comes of it own accord. Love comes of its own accord. Freedom comes of its own accord. These things are synonymous. They happen without you ever thinking about them. But first you must get rid of the notion, that I am the body, or mind, or the doer and then everything will happen by itself. Be still and know that I am God. There was once a girl who was born into a house of prostitution. And across the street in front of the market place there was a preacher, a holy man. He used to exclaim the virtues of God and talk about the house of prostitution. How it was filled with sinners and he told people to repent. Yet the girl who grew up in the house of prostitution was twenty-three years old. She used to look out the window everyday and cry to herself and she would say, "How I wish I was like that Holy man, how I wish I was spiritual," and she would imagine in her mind that she was a holy person and yet go on with her work. Now they both got old and died and went to St. Peter to go into heaven. St. Peter told the man, "You can't come in you've got to go to hell," and he told the girl, "you can come in." So the Holy man became dumbfounded and said, "Why? For all these years I've proclaimed your goodness and your virtues. I told people to repent. How can you let her in when she was a prostitute and leave me out?" And St Peter said, "You've been a hypocrite. You were very worthy and talked a lot and said nothing. In your heart you thought everybody was a sinner but you. Whereas the girl in her imagination, in her feelings, always was thinking of God. So she can come in, you can't." The point is this: It's not what you say. It's not what you proclaim. It's what's deep, deep, deep in your heart that determines what happens to you. It's not reading books, it's not studying, it's not going to classes. It's sitting by yourself, becoming quiet, going deeper and deeper within yourself. Transcending your mind and your body until something happens. When thoughts come to you, you simply ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts come? From whence cometh these thoughts," follow the thoughts to their source. Find out the source of your thoughts. You will find that the source of your thoughts is I. Follow the I-thread to its source by asking, "Who am I?" or "What is the source of I? Where did this I come from?" You will realize that the pronoun I, is the first word that was ever spoken and everything else is attached to I. Every other word. Every other thought, every other feeling, every other emotion, they're all attached to the I. I feel happy. I feel sad. I feel sick. I feel well. I feel poor, I feel rich. Everything is attached to I. If the I becomes dissolved, so does everything else and you become free. Find out for whom there is an I and you will discover something amazing. You will discover that I never existed. There never was an I. You will discover that you never existed. There's no such thing as you. You will discover that you are the imperishable Self. That you are never born and you can never die. You will discover that you're omnipresence, omniscient, omnipotent. That there are no others. There is no world. There is no universe. There is no God. There is only the Self. All this is the Self. All that you behold is the Self and "I-am" is that. This will give you a feeling of freedom, of bliss, of happiness. You will not lose your awareness. When I speak these things people believe that they become completely annihilated and there's nothing left. They melt into the great ocean of nirvana. This is not necessarily true. You will always be awareness. You will always be pure intelligence for that is your real nature. You will always be blissful. Except you will understand that you are not who you appear to be. Your body will still appear to be doing things, going through its motions. You will appear to be an ordinary person but you will know. You have lifted yourself up above the gross world into the heavenly world of pure consciousness and you will be at peace. Any questions about that? Feel free to say anything you want: SA: Hi Robert, I've been thinking about the practice of the teachings in the world in daily life. I was mulling over this recent business of the problem of the two Christian Scientists in Boston whose child had died. I'm not sure whether you're aware of that? This was in the news recently. And of course there was strong similarities between the teaching and Christian Science. And of course these parents believed that the illness was error and they wanted to project only health, only divine health, divine reality which was all that existed according to the teaching whether it’s Christian Science or this teaching or whatever. And so they refused to acknowledge that the child was sick. So what do you have to say about this subject that has, do you want us to believe that you are projecting a different reality, the true reality or not? R: This has nothing to do with the belief system. You have to understand what's going on and where you are. If you are sick you see a doctor, if you're hungry you eat, if you're in the sun burning up, you get out of the sun. It's not a belief. This is why I tell you to believe nothing. Do not believe what I say. Do not believe anything. Christian Science unfortunately believes that you shouldn't go to doctors even if your sick. But they have a belief system. A belief system doesn't make it so. You have to have a consciousness of the Truth. That’s why there are some Christian Scientists who do not go to doctors and it works but most of them that do not go to doctors die because they are not high enough. You can't just accept this system and say, "This is the way it is," mentally. You have to become a living embodiment of the teaching and then it works. In other words you can't join a Christian science church and never go to a doctor again. You have to work on yourself. You have to do certain things within your own consciousness until you lift yourself up and out of the ordinary human error, then things begin to happen. But of course what I'm saying to you is go beyond sickness and health, beyond poverty and riches, beyond good and bad. We're not trying to exchange bad for good, they're two sides of the same coin. We are trying to get off the wheel. To become completely totally free of human good and human bad. It's a completely different dimension. If you exchange bad for good, you'll have to exchange good for bad. For we live in a world of duality. For every good there's a bad. For every bad there's a good, for every up there's a down. For every amount of pressure pushing this way an equal amount of pressure pushes the other way. Like in the flying

  2. 08/11/1990

    There Is No Birth

    Transcript: Robert: Think and ask yourself, "Why did I come here today? We come to a hot room for what? We could have gone swimming, bowling, we could be home watching TV, but something motivated us to come here, what?" Ask yourself. There is a mysterious power that motivates people to do what they do. Some people are motivated to go to a house of ill repute. Some people are motivated to go to the movies. Some people are motivated to go to spiritual meetings, what causes this? Who makes this happen? We can say God does it, but of course God is within yourself and some of the things you do, you would never allow God to make you do that, if God is yourself. So we would have to say it's your karma. It's your karma that motivates you to come here or to go anywhere else. When you come to a meeting like this you can rest assured that you have been working on yourself in past lives. You've been practicing for many lifetimes. Remember this is not a church and this is not a teaching, this is a confession of reality. Whenever I use the pronoun "I," I am not referring to myself, I am referring to I am. So when I refer to my confession, I am referring to our confession, omnipresence. Remember whenever I use the word "I," it means omnipresence. So, I am here to confess, of absolute reality, of being unborn, of ultimate oneness, of pure intelligence, of emptiness, of nirvana. I confess all these things for you. Let's ponder these things as we meditate together. [ plays music then Robert continues ] If you truly want to repent, just sit in silent meditation and see the perfect reality within, for all manners of error merely arise in erroneous thought, and like the morning due before the rising sun, can perfectly be eliminated through the benevolent light and wisdom. Om, shanti, shanti, peace. When we meditate like this, it's for the purpose of emptying the mind. The mind is like a garbage can. It's full of preconceived ideas, thoughts, concepts, not only from this life but from previous lives. There's a lot of stuff in that mind. In truth there is no mind, but as long as you're expressing concepts, ideas, opinions, then we will talk of a mind. As you sit in silent meditation and you watch your thoughts, observe how they come, and they go. Observe the kind of thoughts that come to you. We do not try to change them. We do not repeat affirmations. You merely watch the thoughts and they leave of their own accord. This is how you deal with your mind. You observe your thoughts, you become the witness to your thoughts or you ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts come?" one or the other. If you do this often enough, the day is going to come, when you become totally free and you realize and understand what I mean, when I say, "You are unborn, you are nirvana, emptiness." What do I mean when I say you are unborn? Now the opinions that I express to you, does not have to be accepted. Remember I am speaking to my Self. I-am is speaking and I-am is the infinite, the absolute reality. And I tell you in truth I-am unborn, everything is unborn. Take a tree for instance, what gave birth to a tree? A seed, where does the seed come from? Another tree? Where does the tree come from? Another seed, and you go back like that and there is no answer, no validity. Take for instance, creatures, worms, cockroaches, bugs, who gave them birth, originally? Where did they come from? Flowers, the moon, the sun, the earth, the stars, human beings, ideas, intuition, discrimination. I tell you none of these things exist. Nothing has ever been born. It is a false premise you believe in. Changing bad to good, wanting positive experiences, it's all nonsense. The reason you don't want a positive experience is because you've never had a negative experience. There is no birth. What gave anything birth? Where did it come from? Do you know what anything is? You have no idea what anything at all is, you just give it a name. For instance, a cat, what is a cat? You have no idea. It was here when you came into existence and we called it a cat. Why don’t we call it a tree? We call it a cat. We give everything a name. That's the first mistake because no thing is, what it appears to be. Therefore the first rule of the true spiritual path is called divine ignorance. Divine ignorance. You have no idea what anything is, you just assume to know. You want to act intelligent, to imagine you know something. So you study harder, to learn relative existence. But what you don't realize, is that you're studying yourself right into the grave. You'll learn and you'll study and you'll become something as it appears, and you'll get older and older and older and before you die you'll wonder what anything is all about. You have no idea what anything is, but I tell you again, everything is unborn. Nothing actually exists and the only explanation is, it's like a dream. When you have a dream, do you give birth to everything? The dream just begins, with everything as it appears. You do not go to a beginning, or to an end. The dream just starts from nothing and it goes on until you awaken. The waking state is called the mortal dream. We're dreaming the mortal dream. All of the things that you are interested in, all of your fears, all of your frustrations, goods and bads, all of your happy and sads, it's all a dream. And the more you get attached to it, the more human you become. It's like getting attached to a dream and never waking up and you keep living the dream. Consequently, you create your own reincarna- tion because you are attached to person, place and thing. And this pulls you back into a body, over and over and over again until you learn to let go, until you start practicing, emptiness. Remember, there is no being and there is no non-being. There is no birth and there is no death. Just knowing this brings you a semblance of peace. Just thinking of these things makes you happy. But it is beyond human happiness. It is beyond human peace. It is beyond laughter. Laughter is when the body is happy over something. When you realize there is no body, where is the laughter? Where is the crying? Where is being impersonal come in? None of those things exist. Therefore you ask the question, "Well do I exist?" You have to ask yourself, "What do I mean by I? Do I exist as a human being? As a reacting mechanism? As a person who gets turned on and turned off?" That is a false concept. It is called false imagination. You imagine a world populated by insects, trees, the moon, the sun, human beings and everything else that appears to exist and you have discrimination. You like this, you hate this, you enjoy this, you despise that, but I say to you, you must go beyond these concepts if you wish to be free. Just imagine how peaceful you feel when your mind stops thinking, stops trying to change conditions, stops trying to get even, to fight for your rights. What rights? You have no rights. As a human being you have rights, and you always will have to fight for them, for it will appear that someone is trying to take them away, but in reality, there are no rights. There is nothing to stick up for. You may ask, "Well what do I become, nothing?" No, emptiness is not no thing. It is called emptiness because it means nothing exists as it appears. But there is something, a mysterious power that is an embodiment of love, compassion, peace, happiness, joy, bliss. Yet those words are meaningless. They do not give it justice for it is much more behind that. You have to experience it to understand it. You have to experience to go beyond cause. Metaphysics teaches you, there's a cause for everything but that's kindergarten. Cause does not exist. There never was a cause, for there would have to have been someone to make the cause, to produce the cause and of course most people call that God. So we get into duality, into separation. We say that God made the cause and we're experiencing the effect. So I ask you, "Where does this God come from that made the cause? And who made the God?" It's all concepts, it's all relative thinking. Do not try to understand this with your finite mind, you cannot. The infinite can never comprehend the finite or the finite can never comprehend the infinite. They are two different things. Suffice it to say, that you as you exist now are complete emptiness. You are pure intelligence, pure awareness, absolute reality, nirvana. Just the way you are right now! Do not think about it, if you think about it you spoil it. Do not just try to understand this with your finite mind, you cannot. The infinite can never comprehend the finite or the finite that can never comprehend the infinite, they are two different things. Suffice it to say, that you as you exist now are complete emptiness. You are pure intelligence, pure awareness, absolute reality, nirvana, just the way you are, right now! Do not think about it. If you think about it you spoil it, just the way you are this moment. You are pure intelligence, absolute reality, you are the unborn, but every time a thought comes into your mind you spoil it. When you first wake up, those few seconds between getting up, waking up. Just before you wake up, that’s when you are in your true state. You just opened your eyes and you haven’t thought of a single thought yet, that lasts a few seconds. Think about that time, don’t you really feel good in those few seconds. Before you start thinking about the days activities, that's reality. Try to catch yourself tomorrow morning as soon as you open your eyes. Before a thought comes. That is your true state and that is what you are. Forget about your problems. There is a power that knows how to take care of everything for you, if you allow it to. You have to allow it to. You have to surrender your ego, your pride, your concepts, your opinions, your questions, your answers, everything has to be surrendered and the power works on its own volition. A great Master said, "Take no thought of what you should e

  3. 08/15/1990

    My Confession

    Transcript: Robert: What I teach is utter nonsense, gobbledygook. It has no meaning except to my Self. I have no teaching. It is simply my confession. It’s useless for most people because I’m not giving you direction. I’m not telling you to meditate for twelve hours a day or to stand on your head or to utter mantras, there is no instruction. There is just my personal confession, the way that I feel. Now, it does some people good for it is an invisible instruction, by just being here, by just opening your heart, something happens. So don’t listen with your head. Do not try to analyze or judge or come to any conclusions. As I always say, "Do not even believe a word I say," why should you? Who am I? I am nobody, nobody important. Listen to your own heart. I’m sort of a mirror. What you see in me is your self. Subsequently the way you feel about yourself is the way you feel about me because you're looking into the mirror. I can truthfully say that I am ultimate oneness, absolute reality, emptiness, unborn, nirvana, I am that I am. When many people read spiritual books on Advaita Vedanta or on Jnana Marga, they immediately try to act out the part and they memorize many of these quotations, sayings, they become useless. You have to go through spiritual disciplines to get to the place where you wake up. In my own experience, I had probably did these disciplines in a previous existence, for when I was very young I had felt these things. I had no idea what it was until I read the books, so reading of books confirmed my experience. And then I went to see Ramana Maharshi, for I had already felt this. There is a difference. I've got to be very careful what I say, because this path sometimes gives people license to become arrogant, obnoxious, rude. It’s just the opposite if you really have Jnana, knowledge, you show lovingkindness, mercy, compassion, joy and you express your Self as that. Many of us believe in a cause. In metaphysics we learn that there is a cause for everything. And even on the path of Jnana Marga we say there is a substratum. But that's just to explain that there is an underlying power. But in truth I tell you there is no substratum, there is no cause. There isn't any cause for anything. Since there is no cause there is no effect. What I am saying is simply this: You're always looking for a reason, for why you are like you are, why you have these habits, why you look and appear to be this way, why your kind or why your mean. You're always looking for a reason, a solution, a cause, but there is no reason, there is no cause, there's no effect, there's emptiness. Emptiness is the Self and I am That. Now when I speak of I-am, I am not referring to Robert. I am referring to omnipresence. I-am is That. Therefore when I utter I am, I’m speaking for all of us. For there is only one, ultimate oneness and we are all ultimate oneness, there is no distinction. People ask me strange questions. It's strange to me but not to them I guess. For instance someone asked me this week, "How come all the great Sages died of disease, not all of them but some of them, like Ramana died of cancer, Nisargadatta died of cancer, Jesus was hung on the cross?" And the question was, "If these people are so great, why did they suffer so?" And I can only laugh when I hear a question like this. The answer is who sees the suffering? For whom is there suffering? This is why in my predicament, people say I've got Parkinson’s disease. And they try to help me with remedies and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing because I see perfection. Perfection is all there is, oneness, ultimate reality, there is nothing else. But you say, "But I see these people suffering, do my eyes deceive me?" And then I answer, "The sky is blue," when someone takes me outside and say, "Robert, look at the beautiful blue sky," so I agree, but I know in reality there is no sky and there is no blue! It just doesn’t exist! It’s an optical illusion – a mirage in the desert – there appears to be an oasis with water but when you get closer there is only sand. It's the same thing. Your eyes deceive you, your senses deceive you, things are not like they appear. All is well and everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes. No mistakes have been made, no mistakes are being made, and no mistakes will ever be made. Everything is perfect just the way it is. Consequently when you see a condition, before you judge you have to ask yourself, "Who sees that condition? For whom is that condition?" For instance, let's take a simple example. If we all looked at this room and I asked you, "What is your impression of this room?" One person will say, "Oh I think it's lovely," another person will say, "I hate it!" Another person will say, "It's too small," somebody else will say, "It’s too big," somebody else will say, "It’s very clean," someone else will say, "It’s very dirty," that's how it is, you're seeing yourself. You're seeing nothing but yourself. The world is a reflection of your mind. The universe is an emanation of yourself. If you didn't exist there would be no universe. The universe exists because you exist. You are the universe and that's true of every so-called fact in your life. It's a fact that someone is dying and if someone dies, that's a fact but it’s not the truth. The truth is, we are all unborn. Noone was ever born. If noone was ever born how can you die? Noone was born and noone dies. Again I’m expressing my confession. That’s how it appears to me. That’s what I mean when I say, "This teaching is useless to most people," because you can't do anything with it, yet things happen, lives improve, spirituality grows, happiness ensues, bliss comes. It all happens spontaneously. Just by being present and this is what satsang is all about. By being present, without taking thought, without manipulation, without playing mind games, without trying to improve yourself, without thinking of yourself, without thinking of others, everything good happens, all by itself. Why? Because emptiness is goodness, nirvana is absolute reality. The unborn is the Self and you are that, what else can I say. So what do you think about this. I’m open to questions. SG: I have a question: The hill that Ramana Maharshi spent his life, Arunachala, what function did that play in his enlightenment? And what function does the natural areas, the harmonies that are out there and balanced ecosystems of the world important for us to keep in touch with? R: It’s important for some people. Arunachala for some reason had a tremendous impact on Ramana’s life. Arunachala is another name for Shiva, and Ramana's family, his ancestors, were all worshipers of Shiva. So the hill called Ramana at an early age. Some mysterious power led him to the hill, that was his experience. There have been others who have walked around the hill and felt absolute nothing and it was meaningless for them. The same is true of the other places you are speaking of. For most people they mean nothing. Now what happens to most people, especially in the West, they imagine they're feeling something, it’s a mind game. It’s just like the healing shrines. You work yourself up into a frenzy and you can’t wait to get to this healing shrine. So naturally when you go there, you experience a healing. It’s not the shrine that did it, it’s yourself because you worked yourself up into a frenzy. it is your mind that caused it. And I'll relate a true story that happened in this way. In Italy, in a little town there was a healing shrine. People used to come from all over the world and they would climb the steps and get on their knees and hundreds of thousands of people were actually healed from all kinds of diseases. Now, the fathers of the town found out from some scientists that there was going to be an earthquake in that town. This article was in Time magazine in about 1967. So what the fathers decided to do, is to remove the remains of the saint who was buried underneath the shrine to another point of town where there was no earthquake. They began to dig, and low and behold no saint was ever buried there, there was nothing. They built the shrine upon nothing. What did the healing? How come all these thousands of people were healed? It’s all in the mind. When you psych yourself out mentally, you can accomplish almost anything. So again to answer your question, most of these things are meaningless. Arunachala meant a great deal to myself. I've had experiences inside Arunachala. But for most people it’s just a hill. So again the answer is this: Work on yourself, worship yourself, find yourself, find out who you are. And when you do this everything becomes Holy, and like Moses said, "The ground upon which I stand is Holy ground." Everything becomes Holy, not only certain places but everything. And that’s only because you have become that your Self. Your omnipresence makes it Holy. You have become one with all there is and you can truthfully say, "All of this is the Self and I am that." Does it make any sense? (SG: Yes) Good. (SG: In what sense is the spirit of the whole earth our mother?) Our brother? (SG: Our mother, as giving us birth to another state of being.) The earth has no power without you, you are the power and the earth is within yourself. So when you become powerful, the earth has power. When you are weak, the earth is weak. The earth like the universe is an emanation of yourself. The mother, the father, it's all within you. Everything is within your Self. There is no power outside of yourself. When you see some power happening from some place, it is because collectively people are giving it their power. But the people are the power. They misunderstand. They think the thing has power by itself. Nothing exists except yourself. Nothing exists because everything changes, nothing is ever the same. What changes, cannot be real. Take your body for instance: You didn’

  4. 08/18/1990

    The Four Principles of Self Realization of Noble Wisdom

    Transcript: Robert: I want to let you in on a little secret. There are no problems. There are no problems. There never were any problems, there are no problems today, and there will never be any problems. Problems just mean that the world isn't turning the way you want it to. But in truth, there are no problems. Everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is right. You have to forget about yourself and expand your consciousness until you become the whole universe. The reality in back of the universe is pure awareness. It has no problems. And you are that. If you identify with your body, then there's a problem, because your body always gets into trouble of some kind. But if you learn to forget about your body and your mind, where is there a problem? In other words, leave your body alone. Take just enough care of it. Exercise it a little, feed it right foods, but don't think about it too much. Keep your mind on reality. Merge your mind with reality, and you will experience reality. You will live in a world without problems. The world may appear to have problems to others, but not to you. You will see things differently, from a higher point of view. I had an interesting phone call this week. Someone asked me, "Do self-realized people dream, or have visions?" Now, in order to have a dream or a vision, there has to be somebody left to have it, and yet if you're self-realized, there's nobody home. There's nobody left. So it's a contradiction, as truth is. All truth is a contradiction, it's a paradox. The answer is, Sages do dream sometimes, and have visions. But they're aware of the dreamer. In other words they realize that they are not the person dreaming or having the vision. But as long as there's a body there someplace, there will be dreams and visions. Even though there's no one home, there will still, once in a while, be a dream or a vision. As an example, Ramana Maharshi often dreamt and had visions. Nisargadatta dreamt and had visions. And they were both self-realized. But again, the question is, who dreams, who has the vision? There's no ego left, as long as the dreamer is separate from the I. I can only speak from my own experience. There's no difference, to me, in the waking state, the dreaming state, the sleeping state, or the vision state. They're all the same. I'm aware of all of them, but I am not them. I observe them. I see them happening. As a matter of fact, sometimes I don't know the difference. Sometimes I don't know whether I'm dreaming, or awake, or having a vision, or I'm asleep. It's all the same, because I take a step backward, and I watch myself going through all these things. So, for some reason, lately, I've been dreaming about the Queen of England. She was coming to Satsang. I don't know why… for about three nights in a row. But I did have an interesting vision this morning at about four o'clock, and we'll spend the rest of the time discussing them because I found it very interesting. As many of you know, I have had a constant vision, periodically, of myself going to Arunachala, the sacred mountain where Ramana Maharshi lived. And the mountain is hollow, in the vision. And I go through the mountain, to the center, where there's a bright light, a thousand times more brighter than the sun, but yet it's pleasing and calm, and there's no heat. And then I meet Ramana, Jesus, Rama Krishna, Nisargadatta, Lao Tse, and others. And we smile at each other, we walk toward each other, and melt into one light, and become one. Then there's a blinding light and an explosion, sort of. And then I open my eyes. I've shared that with you before. But this morning, for the first time, I had a very interesting vision, which I'll share with you again. I dreamt I was somewhere in an open field, beautiful field. There was a lake nearby, trees, a forest. And I was sitting under a tree, in this open field. And I had on the orange garb of a renunciate. I must have been Buddhist. All of a sudden hundreds of bodhisattvas and mahasattvas come from the forest and start walking toward me. And they all sit down in a semi-circle around me, in meditation and I wondered what I was doing. Then I realized that I had become the Buddha. And we all sat in silence for about three hours. Then one of the bodhisattvas got up and asked a question. He said, "Master, what is your teaching?" It was not in English. I don't know what language he spoke. But I understood quite clearly. And without hesitation I said, "I teach Self Realization of Noble Wisdom.” And he sat down. We sat for about another three hours in silence, and then another bodhisattva got up and asked a question. "Master, how can you tell when one is close to selfrealization? How can you tell when one is about to become self-realized? How does one tell?" And this is what I'd like to discuss today. How can we tell if we're on the path correctly? I gave four principles, which I really never do in the waking state. I never have a teaching. But I was giving a teaching, so I'll share it with you. I explained four principles, where you know that you're close to self-realization. Of course, we're all self-realized already. Principle number one: You have a feeling, complete understanding that everything you see, everything in the universe, in the world, emanates from your mind. In other words, you feel this. You do not have to think about it, or try to bring it on. It comes by itself. It becomes a part of you. The realization that everything that you see, the universe, people, worms, insects, the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, your body, your mind, everything that appears, is a manifestation of your mind. You have to have that feeling, that deep understanding, without trying to. So you ask yourself, "What do I think about all day long?" Of course, if you fear something, if you worry, if you believe something is wrong somewhere, if you think you're suffering from lack, or limitation, or sickness or anything, then you're out of it completely, because you're not understanding that all these things are simply a manifestation of your own mind. And if you worry about these things you become attached to false imagination. It's called false imagination. You've been attached to habit energy for many years, and all these attachments and beliefs come from habit energy. It's like watching a TV show and becoming one of the characters, when you know that you're not even in the TV. But you believe you're one of the characters in the TV show. So it is with the world. Do not get involved. I don't mean you become passive. I mean your body does what it's supposed to do. Remember, your body came to this earth to do something. It will do something without your knowledge. It'll take care of itself, don't worry. But do not identify your body with your Self. They're different. Your body is not your Self. And I'll prove this. When you refer to your body what do you say? Don't you say, "My body?" Who is this "my" you're referring to? You say, "My finger,” "my eye.” Who are you referring to? You couldn't be talking about your body, because you’re saying it's my body, like you own it. Who owns it? This proves to yourself that you're not your body. So do not identify your Self with the body and the world. Therefore the first principle, to see how close you are to self-realization is: You are not feeling that you are identifying with the world. You're separate and you're feeling happiness, because your natural state is pure happiness. Once you identify with worldly things, you spoil it. The happiness disappears, it dissipates. But when you're separate from worldly things happiness is automatic, beautiful, pure happiness. It comes by itself. So that's the first principle. The second principle I explained to the bodhisattvas was this: You have to have a strong feeling, a deep realization, that you are unborn. You are not born, you do not experience a life, and you do not disappear, you do not die. You are not born, you have no life, and you do not die. You have to feel this, that you are of the unborn. Do you realize what this means? There is no cause for your existence. There is no cause for your suffering. There is no cause for your problems. Some of you still believe in cause and effect. This is true in the relative world, but in the world of reality there is no cause. Nothing has ever been made. Nothing has ever been created. There is no creation. I know it's hard to comprehend. How do I exist if I was not born, I have no life and I do not disappear in old age? You exist as I-am. You have always existed and you will always exist. You exist as pure intelligence, as absolute reality. That is your true nature. You exist as sat-chit-ananda. You exist as bliss consciousness, but you do exist. You exist as emptiness, as nirvana, but you do exist. So don't worry about being non- existent. But you do not exist as the body. You do not exist as person, place or thing. Do you feel that? If you have a strong feeling about that, then you're close to selfrealization. Principle number three: You are aware and you have a deep understanding of the egoless-ness of all things, that everything has no ego. I'm not only speaking of sentient beings. I'm speaking of the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom. Nothing has an ego. There is no ego. And do you realize what this means? It means that everything is sacred. Everything is God. Only when the ego comes, does God disappear, what we call "God." Everything becomes God. You have reverence for everything. When there is no ego, you have reverence for everybody and everything. So you have to be aware of the egoless-ness of all things. Animals have no ego, minerals have no ego, vegetables have no ego, and humans have no ego. There is no cause, so there cannot be an effect. There is only divine consciousness, and everything becomes divine consciousness. So if you look at your fellow man and animals and everything els

  5. 08/22/1990

    The Four Principles Revisited

    Transcript: Robert: I welcome you with all my heart. Most of us have been searching for reality for many years. We've been to many teachers, many groups. But we still haven't found peace. Why? Because we're searching. That's a direct, succinct, answer. Because we're searching for something. No matter how many times I emphasize there's nothing to search for, people still search. Sometimes it would be better if we tore up all the books. Books are only to motivate us, to make us know there's something else. But there comes a time when we have to go within and try to understand what this body really is. The truth of course is, not a teaching. I do not philosophize. I do not give a teaching as it were. I simply give a confession and to most people it means nothing. But we're not trying to attract most people. Those who feel something in their heart will always come to Satsang. And you'll always attract a teacher that is more to your liking. I do not consider myself a teacher or a guru. I do not consider myself anything at all. But, the reality that is left over is your reality. It is omnipresence. There is one unqualified reality and this is it, right here, right now. There are no bodies here. What you see is your own business. When you see others you're making a mistake. There never were others. We're always looking for something. We want to find the right teacher. But, as I often say, you are the right teacher. The right teacher is where you are. Person, place or thing is not the right teacher. You probably saw the movie Siddhartha, where he found the river and the peace of the forest. Even that's a mistake because he took the river seriously and made too much of the forest. He was the forest. He was the river. What we're seeking is utter foolishness. There's nothing to seek. I get so many calls. People tell me their problems all the time. And I really don't know how to respond. To whom shall I tell my problems? There just are not any problems. There are no problems, there never were problems, and there never will be problems. You may say to yourself, "If he only knew my problems." But if you live in the moment, is there a problem right now, this second? There's nothing. Nothing is your real nature. A problem begins only when you start thinking. But if you learn not to think, where's the problem? So, we have to empty the mind and then get rid of the mind. And we cannot empty the mind by thinking, only by observation. Only when there is no thought, is there reality. There's no sense saying to yourself, "I am parabrahman, absolute reality. I am unborn." Those are just words. And the next moment you have a problem, you have an emotion, you feel something is wrong. But you keep declaring, "I am unborn. I am the absolute reality." It is better to say nothing, to believe nothing, to be nothing, and that's just being yourself. It's better just to sit and think of nothing and try to become nothing, than it is to chant mantras, or to make affirmations, or to keep saying, "I am Brahman." Just by sitting you will become yourself. Last Sunday I gave you four principles, which I usually don't do. But I shared four principles with you, and everybody was in awe. But in the next couple of days I received phone calls from people, still telling me their problems. If you understood the principles, where is the problem? Even if you understood one principle and you ponder that you would be at peace. So what are the four principles? Who can tell me? Sam do you remember? SM: I know it but I uh… R: But yet you know about food, you know about sleep. You know about girls. SM: Count me out of that. (laughter) SD: I know the first one. That everything emanates from the mind. R: Yes. Think about that. Everything in this universe, person, place or thing, everything, your body, your thoughts, creation, God, everything you can think about… (SD: Each other?) …yes, everything, and I mean everything, is a projection of your mind. If you really understand this, how can you have a problem? But you may say, "Well, my rent's due on the first and I don't have any money, so how can this help me?" You would be amazed at what it does for you. Do the trees lack for leaves? Do the flowers fail to bloom? If you could realize the truth, that everything is an emanation of your mind, you would become yourself, and your Self is omnipresence. It includes everything for the survival of your body. Think about that. Your body comes from your mind. But as long as you believe your body is yourself, and you understand that it comes out of your mind, it will be provided for, just like leaves are provided for the trunk of the tree. So this teaching is quite predictable and it can be used to improve your human-hood. Not by trying to improve your human-hood directly, that's where you've got problems, but by forgetting about your human-hood and realizing everything is a mental projection. Again what happens? When you realize that the whole universe is a manifestation of your mind you become omnipresence. And in the omnipresence is contained all of your needs, and all of your needs are met from within. But, when you start worrying or thinking about it, you spoil it. Then you have to do human things to take care of you. But if you leave the human-hood alone, and go back to the understanding that it's all in your mind, you automatically let go of your mind, and the Self takes over, bringing the right people into your life, the right situation, the right address. Remember again, your body came to this earth because of karma. And it's going to go through whatever is has to go through. But you've got absolutely nothing to do with that because you are not your body. But if you think about it you spoil it. Subsequently, allow your body to do whatever it came here to do. Do not interfere. Do not fight. Simply observe. Do not react. You will be okay. SC: Is it okay to ask questions during this? (R: Sure.) How about following your inner feelings? What I've been doing lately is going by my inner feelings more. This feels really right for me. Is this also… R: You've got to watch yourself because most of the time inner feelings are really habit energy from past lives… (SC: OK.) …and from this life when you were a little kid. You developed certain habits. Most people believe their inner feelings. (SC: Well I feel I go against my inner feelings, like church. I stayed in there against my inner feelings and it tore me apart to stay there. I feel so much clearer now that I've left.) Well you were meant to leave, so you did. (SC: Pardon me?) You were meant to leave. You were not meant to be there. SD: Well what about this inner voice people talk about? Is that the unconscious, and how reliable is that? R: Most of the time it's a bunch of nonsense, because to whom comes the inner voice? To the mind. (SC: It's all part of the body?) Yes. It's all part of astral planes, mental planes, causal planes. It all has to do with your body. So you have to ask yourself, "To whom does the inner voice come?" SD: Would it be distinguished from instincts? R: It would in the mental plane. When we're speaking of the mental plane we speak of distinguishing between instinct and intuition. (SD: And is one better than the other?) They're both the same. When we're talking about this path we realize that intuition, as well as instinct comes to the ego. It is the ego that feels these things. The Self is omnipresent. There's no room for anything else. It's emptiness, nirvana, the unborn. SC: Is it possible that this body and mind can go on living, like it seems like, maybe go on inner feelings, maybe not, that always looking beyond that into, who am I? R: Your body will go on living anyway. (SC: Right.) It'll take care of itself. (SC: Right.) And all those thoughts come from the ego. (SC: Okay. So that's the point, if you look at it properly.) Yes. (SC: To see that it goes on by itself.) Exactly. (SC: Okay.) But do not concern yourself with what you should eat, what you should wear, or where you should go. (SC: So it all becomes apparent?) Sure does. (SC: It all becomes apparent, That's good.) R: There is something within you that guides you. It'll direct you when you become still, when you make the mind quiescent, quiet, calm. You will then be guided to know what to do. It is true that some people use their intuition and accomplish great things. But how long does it last before it attracts misery to it? As long as you're living in the world of cause and effect, the world of duality, for every good there's a bad, for every bad there's a good. For every up there's a down. Don't be fooled. You use your intuition, you hear voices, and they guide you and tell you to do this, and you become successful. And you think you did something good. But before you know it the IRS gets a hold of you (laughter) and they throw you in jail. (SC: Well I guess they drive you right into the grave one day.) Of course. SD: I think the question is, "Is the inner voice superior to regular feelings?" R: Nothing is superior to the Self. Be your Self, abide in your Self and you'll never go wrong. But when you hear voices it comes out of your mind. You're trapped. (SD: And the mind is Maya.) The mind is very powerful. SC: Isn't that one of the questions: Who's aware of this? R: Well tell me who is? Who is? (SC: Who is?) Who's aware of it? There's nobody to be aware of anything, nobody is home, emptiness. (SC: I feel that that's true.) Who feels that? (SC: Uh-uh okay.) Even the feeling is wrong. You just abide in the Self. There's no feeling. There's nirvana, there's emptiness, there's the state of the unborn. (SC: It's really interesting that all the manifestations can point to that. Even the words, "Who am I?" It just says, "Oh." To me it says something's aware of it. That seed.) The seed's got to go. (SC: Pardon me?) The seed has to go. (SC: Seed?) It has to go. You should have no feeling. (SC: As myself?) As yourself, but somet

  6. 08/29/1990

    The Three Vehicles of Self Realization

    Transcript: Robert: Greetings and salutations. We can be real informal. All I can do is tell you about my own personal experiences, not what I read. And I can tell you that nothing exists the way it appears. Everything is an appearance, and the trap is we get pulled into the appearance. We react to it. We feel hurt. We feel slandered. We feel as if something is wrong. We have emotions and they become negative, because we are falling for a false premise, and the false premise is 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. And the only way to do that is to discover who you are. When you discover your true nature, when you awaken to your true nature, everything becomes perfectly clear. You're at peace. If something works out, it works out. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But you don't look at it that way. Your feelings have been transmuted. You no longer feel what human beings feel. You just have a great love for all things, a great compassion. And you know that the substratum of all existence is harmony, peace, emptiness, and you feel wonderful all the time. What can disturb you if you are at peace? If you've found true peace, what can possibly disturb you? The world comes and goes. One day the world is like this, the next day it's like that. But what does it got 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. It's the truth. Science is beginning to see this more and more. They are beginning to see that the only thing permanent in life is change. We speak many words, we take many actions, but to what avail? Does it matter in the end? We build our life, we own possessions, we father children, and what happens at the end? Poof! It's all gone. Everything just disappears (he laughs). There's nothing. So what's the purpose? People say, "I'm making this world a better world for my children." They're just dreaming. The world will never be better, it'll never be worse. The world just is a dream of existence and it's like this one day, it's like that another day. But you are not the world. You have to awaken to that fact. You are not your thoughts. You are not your karmic expressions. You are not your inclinations from past lives. These things appear real as long as you believe in them. As an example, if you believe in the devil, the devil will appear to you, because you are creating the devil yourself. If you believe in a god, the god will appear to you. As for instance, Rama Krishna believed in the god Kali. Kali used to become very real to him, and he used to dance and sing with Kali (he laughs), and this was true as far as he was concerned. But he created Kali. That's why nobody else was able to see her but him. And that's how we create our lives. Think of the things you fear in your life. Say 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, how you see it, what you expect of it. This is true of every aspect of your life. That's what you've been trained to believe since you were a little kid. It first started in kindergarten. Your teachers brainwashed you, your family brainwashed you, the outside world brainwashed you, the system brainwashed you, and here you are. You are filled with ideas, concepts, notions, feelings, 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 that is of a destructive nature. There is absolutely nothing that can ever destroy you. You cannot be destroyed. Your body may appear to vanish, but that's like a dream. You dream about yourself, you're doing something, and you get shot, and you disappear. But then you wake up. So my question to you is, "What do you believe about yourself and about the world? What's most important to you?" This is why I feel that a spiritual path, not necessarily this one, but 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 will have to experience the other side of the same 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 healthy as a horse. He's got a beautiful wife, a big house, everything he could possibly need, and look at me! And I know that guy's life hasn't changed in forty years." You're making the wrong 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 this time he will be a homeless person. And 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? Why am I 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. When you awaken you just understand, not even understand, you know, you feel, and those words are inadequate, you become, divine harmony. You are no longer fooled by person, place and thing. You no longer react. As an example, someone tells you, "Oh, you won the lotto, you won fifty-billion dollars." It's okay. You do not become a slave to that. Someone tells you, "You lost fifty 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're not fooled by things. Rather, what you do is you give of yourself. You can give yourself because you become the 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 by robbers 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 in their dharma. Therefore give them what they want," and that's very profound. We are spiritual people. The world is not. Therefore we act in accordance with spiritual principles. What this really means is 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 a great humility. Do not long for anything. Do not long to be famous, or rich, 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, you know, is a natural healing factory. It really knows how to heal itself. But when we start taking too many vitamins and not enough sugar (he laughs), when we start taking medicines too much, the body says, "Well, you have made that into your god, so now you've got to depend on it." And then you have to keep gulping vitamins for the rest of your life or you get sick. Really, think about that. SD: Or you become a crazy addict. R: Or a crazy addict, doesn't matter. (laughter) But think about those things. You've got to depend upon your Self to take care of everything. Now yourself is your Self. There's one Self, so we take care of each other. But you don't 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 do not say that person is worthy and that person is 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 your Self, and that includes the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and everything else you don't understand. It's all part of the one. What you do to the one you do to everything. How you treat one person, that's how you treat the whole universe, because everything is one. Now, these four principles I gave you (back to the four principles) have to do with all these things. You're supposed to ponder these things. How do you work with these principles? First, who can tell me what they are? Go ahead. (A student recalls them) R: Now you said them correctly, in a way, but it's like you're reciting a lecture. SD: That's because we're just learning them. R: But it's the way you say it to yourself. 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." And think about what that means, forget about the other three. Work on that. "Everything! Every

  7. 09/01/1990

    The Three Vehicles

    Transcript: Robert: I welcome you with all my heart. It's good to see you again. Those of you who are new, welcome. I confess to you that I am not the body-mind phenomena. That I am eternal spirit. When I use the pronoun I, I refer to omnipresence. I'm not talking of myself, personally. I'm speaking of the universal, I. So whenever I use that pronoun, this is what I refer to, and so when I make a confession I'm not talking about Robert. I'm talking about every sentient creature on this earth. I am absolute reality. I am birthless, deathless and do not disappear. I am eternal bliss, no beginning and no end. I am that I am. I am pure intelligence, always available, omniscient, omnipotent, residing in everything. I am that, sat-chit-ananda. All knowledge, existence, bliss. I am Nirvana. I am emptiness. And because I am that, all is well. There are no problems. Nothing is wrong. There is no creation. Nothing has ever been created. I am that eternal something that has always existed from the beginning, exists now and will always exist. All is well. No problems. No anxiety. Peace, harmony, love, bliss, I am that. (tape break) I get a few phone calls from different people all over the world. Basically they ask the same questions. How do I solve my problems and how do I become self-realized? And that's a funny question to me. It's like a person standing in the middle of the ocean, asking for water. Self-realization is your very nature. You are already that, but because we are attached to maya, we are earthbound. We use discrimination and we believe everything we see is real. Because of this, because we believe the body is real, the mind is real, it becomes like the clouds hiding the sun. You do not say there is no sun, you wait for the clouds to dissipate and the sun shines again in all its glory and splendor. You are Divine. You are a radiant being of light. Only the clouds of ignorance appear have to fallen upon you and so do you believe you are human. You believe you have problems. You believe you need enlightenment. You think something is wrong someplace. But I say to you that there are no mistakes. No mistakes have ever been made. No mistakes are being made. No mistakes will ever be made. Everything is right just the way it is. Everything is beautiful. Everything is God. Everything is absolute intelligence, absolute reality, parabrahman. That is what you are. That is your real nature. How did we get lost? Again one way is by reading too much. There are so many books. So much to read, we become confused. We do not know which path to follow. We get involved in all kinds of pseudo-religious cults and this causes us to go down, as it were, until we can really find ourselves again. Reading is only for motivation. Be careful what you read. There are too many books. If you speak to those people who have really become enlightened, you will find that they hardly ever read at all. May be a couple of books but what they did, was the sadhana, the spiritual practices required. They worked on themselves consistently, constantly, 24 hours a day. How bad do you want realization? This is determined by what you do. If you're more interested in entertainment, TV, parties, drinking, going out a lot, spending time with the idiot friends, what do you expect? You get out of life what you put into it. If you're really looking for enlightenment in this incarnation, before you leave your body it's possible, but you have to do certain things, and through investigation, we have found that the fastest way for the average person to feel the urge for enlightenment is to sit in satsang. It tells you this in the Upanishads. Only those who sit in satsang will achieve the final goal. This means you do not even have to read. You do not have to practice meditation, formally. All you have to do is sit in Satsang and things begin to happen of their own accord. You automatically start inquiring yourself. You begin to investigate. It happens spontaneously. Now this is an important point. Most people read books, Advaita Vedanta, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, whatever and they see what they did, but yet they do not do anything like that themselves. They never inquire. They read the books and they obtain intellectual knowledge, mind knowledge, head knowledge. If they have a good memory they can quote passages, remember phraseologies, certain clichés, certain sayings, but they never have the experience. The experience only comes when you have complete humility. When you just let go of yourself, your little self. When you stop worrying about yourself. Stop thinking of your little self so much. Stop saying, "I need this and I need that," and "I've got to become this, and I got to get this." Give up all desire. Give up all attachments to person, place or thing. Relax. Make your life very simple. Sit in silence, investigate. Find out who has problems. Find out who feels depressed. Find out who is not enlightened and you will laugh. For you are a radiant light in a world of darkness. You are divine. You are a wonderful being. Never criticize yourself. Never put yourself down. Think of yourself as God and act the part. I give you this information so that you can do something with yourself, something practical. I give you the three vehicles that cross the ocean of samsarra to the land of selfrealization. But you have to use the vehicles. You have to work with them day after day. When you first get out of bed. When you first open your eyes. And these vehicles begin to make sense to you after you practice the four principles that I shared with you. The First Vehicle is this: You have a strong desire to be alone. This doesn't mean you become antisocial. It means that you have to make the time to be alone. For instance, yesterday morning before 10 o'clock, I got three phone calls, invitations to go here, to go there, to go to a movie, to go to this place, but I declined. I was all by myself in the house. I sat down and looked at the trees and before you knew it, it was five o'clock, but I was filled with bliss, filled with joy, filled with happiness, which never goes away, anyway. There's a time to be by yourself and there's a time to be with people. But those who really want to become enlightened, have to make the time to be by themselves. So they can think of the four principles. They can inquire, "Where does the mind come from? Who thinks these thoughts?" Watch the thoughts, watch what they're doing to you, observe them, do not react to them, but ask, "To whom do they come," and realize they come to you. "Who are you? Who am I?" and as you follow the I thread to its source, there will be perfect peace in your life. Many people say, "Is a path like this practical?" and I always answer what do you mean by practical. Is your life right now practical? You have no idea, I say, what life is all about. You have no idea whether you're living or dead, you just exist. Find out who exists? Discover who you are. As far as practicality is concerned, as you discover who you are your humanhood seems to increase and become better, because the vibrations you're putting into your image-body, that appears to be real for you, is of a higher vibration and life becomes easier for you. You stop struggling. You stop reacting. You simply exist and like a divine magnet, you seem to attract everything you need in your life. But this only happens when you're truly on the path. Everything is supplied at the right time. The right people come into your life at the right time. The right things always happen. But you have loving kindness for all things. Your temper, your ego, your emotions have subsided. You no longer become angry at things that don't go your way. Because you realize you have no way. You no longer try to make God into your image and believe God is Santa Claus and you ask God for gifts or to have mercy on your soul. You realize all that God is you are. And you inquire within yourself, "To whom comes this emotion? To whom comes these questions?" This begging to God for things, "To whom does it come?" You will realize in time it's your ego and it will happen by itself. Something will tell you, your ego has to be annihilated, removed, destroyed. You do this through self-inquiry, "Who has an ego? Where did it come from? Who gave it birth?" You will come up with your own answers and the answers are never the solution. But you come up with answers to help your humanhood. Things unfold properly, in the right way. There's nothing to fight. Nothing to change. Everything happens by itself. And the question many people ask, "How can things happen by themselves? How can that be?" Well, when you understand who you are, you realize, that which you call your body, has been programmed before you were born. When you first came into this body, everything was already mapped out for you. What the body was going to become. Where you're going to end up. Even the day of your the so-called death of the body, it is all mapped out, everything is mapped out and nothing changes. So why worry? Again, this doesn't mean that you've got license to do whatever you want. As I said previously, you have to have loving kindness for all. Humility, mercy, you always have to remember, "I am my brother and my brother is me." What's good for you is good for your friends and your relatives and everybody else. Do not separate yourself from anything. Everything is one. Not only human beings but animals, minerals, vegetables, it is all one. However you treat anything, you're really treating yourself. The whole world is a looking glass for you. And what you see is what you get. So what do you see? This is why it is so often. I am merely a mirror for you. When you see me, you're seeing yourself. The question is therefore, "What are you seeing, what kind of self are you seeing?" If you're seeing something ugly, something negative, you have to work on yourself. Do not try to change other people. Do not try to change your

  8. 09/05/1990

    Satsang vs Practice

    Transcript: Robert: Thursdays, we're very informal. We have a chance to get into things perhaps, we don't usually talk about on Sunday. We should continually remind ourselves of Truth, of who we are and what we are. Don't let yourselves get caught up in your jobs or in your work, or in whatever you do, where you forget about yourself. Always confess the Truth to yourself. So when I make my confession, I speak in the first person, "I Am". And as you are aware, when I say, "I Am," I am not referring to Robert. I'm referring to "I Am," omnipresence. Which includes all sentient beings. So the confession includes you, not me. For I don't have to say anything myself. So let's close our eyes and remind ourselves of this Truth. I am absolute reality. I am unfathomable wisdom. I am pure intelligence. I am satchit- ananda, parabrahman. I am of the unborn. I am perfect intelligence. Divine mind. Nirvana. Emptiness. I was never born and I shall never disappear. I am that I am. This is the Truth about me. This is my confession. This is my reality. (silence) Who am I? I am He. I am not the body. (phone rings) I am not the doer. I am not the mind. I am pure consciousness, parabrahman, omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. This is my Truth. (short silence Robert continues) Om Shanti, shanti, shanti, peace, peace. You can open your eyes. Become aware of this truth all of time. Do not let an hour go by, when you are not aware of this truth about yourself. Someone called me on Tuesday and asked me this question, “Sunday you said that the best way to awaken is to be at Satsang all the time and then later you said the best way to awaken is to practice the teaching at home. Which is which? Sounds like a contradiction.” Who can tell me the difference? (Students guess) SD: I can guess that satsang is more or less an attitude. R: You're on the right track. Anymore answers? SK: Satsang is where you can get a taste or understand what the state is and you go home and develop that doing your practice? R: In a way that's true too. SD: What's the original question? R: I said that Satsang is the best way to awaken, but then later I said, if you practice the things at home that we learn. That awakens you also. So which is real? Which is better? (laughs) (Students ponder and guess) SF: No difference? R: There is no difference? But remember we're talking to students. So if a person is a real devotee, then Satsang is a thing for them. But if they're a disciple, or if they're a student who goes from teaching to teaching, then they should practice at home. That's the main difference. Do you see that? For a real devotee, all you need is Satsang, nothing else. (SD: Continue learning at home?) No, whenever you're there. That will do it for you. SG: I've never separated the two before. (R: It depends on your discerning.) SN: Robert once gave a Satsang on the difference between a devotee and a disciple. It's worth hearing. I think I have it on tape. Robert is there a difference between a devotee and a disciple and between a bhakti and a Jnani? R: In reality as you know there’s no difference. But at a level from where somebody is coming from, or where they think they're coming from, there’s a difference. So it depends on what level you're talking about. Bhakti leads to Jnana. Everything leads to Jnana. When you love God with all your heart and with all your soul, you become God. So you become a Jnani. SD: Isn't also a Jnana is acknowledging bhakti with devotion? (R: Yes.) So devotion is leading to ultimate reality? R: Yes, and when you're devoted to God, really devoted, and you really surrender your life to God. Then you will merge with God. SN: Now if you go to satsang with a devotional attitude, I can see how that would make one a devotee. However if you're more tending toward Jnani then would you still feel that devotion in satsang? See what I'm getting at? R: Yes. When you attend satsang, the vibration for a devotee, makes you equal with the Jnani. You become one with the Jnani. (SN: But if you're more tending toward being a Jnani then is that devotion near?) The devotion is near. (SN: So even if you're a Jnani you could feel a great love still.) Yes, you always feel great love. (SN: So what's the difference?) At that stage there’s no difference. SD: But if you actually in sanscrit break the words down there’s a slight difference between devotion and knowledge, Bhakti means devotion and Jnana means knowledge, that's all. SN: But really isn't it having love but as well as understanding? R: It's all one. For whom is there a difference? For the ajnani. The person that still thinks they are the body. Then there’s a difference. And that’s the person we're talking about. So for instance we get some students who go from teaching to teaching. Read all kinds of books. Do all kinds of things. That’s more of a disciple type person. So that person has to practice and come to satsang. But the true devotee, like the person I always talk about who used to fan Ramana. Who used to pull the fan and fan Ramana for forty years. (laughs) That's all he did. He was a devotee and when he dropped dead, Ramana said, "He's not coming back." (SD: So he would have reached enlightenment by devotion.) By pulling the fan. (SD: Which is devotion?) Yes. (SN: He didn't have to do anything else?) That’s it. He was always at satsang. SF: I was going to ask you Robert a question. Of course it seems like aside from the Jnanic gesture or inquiry I would say self-inquiry, but yet devotion to the guru per se also takes you to the Self, doesn't it? R: The devotion of the guru? (SF: To the guru.) Oh to the Guru, oh yes, of course, but it doesn't mean you have to worship the guru. (SF: No.) It means if you're devoted to the guru you're devoted to God and to your Self. SD: That's what he was telling us, the man who did the fanning on Maharshi, he was a devotee and that devotion led him to enlightenment. SF: Okay. So, would you consider in the process of self-inquiry somebody may just be a devotee more than a disciple or he could be a next step right? R: Well, what usually happens is that a devotee becomes a Jnani and the Jnani becomes a devotee. But they're all are the same there’s no difference and the devotee is to the Self. They begin to see, if somebody like Ramana, as the whole universe. Everywhere they look they see Ramana. SD: Then are you saying that the devotee has reached enlightenment? (R: Possibly.) In the case of the man who fanned Ramana he didn't know within this lifetime that he would not come back so at his death… R: Well even when he was alive because he knew nothing else. (laughs) All he knew was Ramana. He didn't have a mind of his own anymore, his mind was gone. His mind became Ramanas mind. (SD: He would be enlightened in a sense that he did for forty years?) Yes, he never said anything. SN: You know how they say in the Bhagavad-Gita. The thought, the last thought you have before you leave the body, think on that and it's not so much the last thought but progression, what you are, you become. So he became Ramana in his lifetime. R: Well not only that if you take it literally. If you say, "Well I don't have to do anything, on my last thought I'll think of God-realization and become realized" But the trick is you won't be able to. SN: You won't be able to? (R: No) And also isn't there a principle when you leave the body then you become enlightened, like at that moment it's like sudden or final enlightenment? I forget what the term is, I've been thinking about that. SD: That's Jivan-mukti when you're enlightened while living and there’s another kind and I forget the word too but another kind of mukti? SU: For whom does all this come? (R: That's right.) Who wants to know. (laughter) SD: I've a question, and I know what your answer going to be, but when you had us close our eyes and more or less repeat with you or absorb with what you were saying about the "I AM." There’s always the part of me, and I know this will be your answer to this, "Who thinks that" but, that feels too insignificant and humble to believe that stuff. (R: Just observe.) Observe that there is a part of me feeling too insignificant. R: Observe what’s going on, become aware of it.Just to be aware of it,get's rid of it. SG: That's just the difference between I Am and your little self. SN: But I would say, the truth is, is that you are that. First of all, yes you, yes you! But also to feel humble in such a way, well not humble but… (SD: Well it is humble and insignificant.) Insignificant, that's kind of blasphemy again because I remember once I mentioned to Robert, "Well I'm just ignorant" and he said, "Well that’s blasphemy." (SD: Well I maybe feeling that once I question your words but nonetheless that’s how I feel, that keeps me the same way.) Well what I'm trying to say, it's kind of a reverse psychology because one is like the ego is saying, "Well I'm great" which is like not specific and the other one is saying, "Well poor me." Which is the same thing because it's still me. And it's the same thing, Yes you!!" I would say, "Yes You!" (SD: Well I knew you would say, "Well who feels insignificant, right?") R: Well, not only that but just to be aware of your feelings, makes those feelings disappear. Just to be aware of them. To watch them. To observe them. SD: I sometimes don't feel worthy when you say, "I Am." I started to ask should I resist that feeling but I just observe it. R: No, resist nothing. SG: You merge into that and there’s no ego to feel in that sense. SD: Yeah that’s true, does anybody else have a hard time dealing with their omnipresence. SN: Well I did, I did and then when Robert brought that to light I saw the mechanism. (SD: Two sides of it?) Yes, So my point to you is understand the mechanism. It's the same force showing it's face at a different thing, and know that you are, you are that, you are that, you are all of that. And when you think

See All (58)

About

Join Satsang with Advaita Master Robert Adams. Following the spiritual tradition of Non-Duality he talks about how we can experience true Freedom, Happyness and Bliss. His calm voice is very relaxing and may help with sleep and ASMR induction. More on https://robert-adams.de

Information