Robert: Most people come here to listen to what I say. That is the wrong reason. This is satsang. There really should be no talk, no lecture. You come here to meditate, to observe yourself, to observe your thoughts in action and to see what is going on within yourself. I am yourself. Therefore when you observe yourself correctly, you see I am.
This body is not a lecturer. This body is not a minister. This body is not even a talker. I do so for your sake. For the average person coming here for the first time I would be most boring, because I speak in a monotone, and I repeat things many times. You have to understand what satsang really means. It means being in the presence of your own divinity, being in the presence of your own consciousness.
Do not look at me as something separate from you. Most public speakers, ministers and philosophers plan their speech and come prepared. When it is over everybody says, "What a wonderful talk." But nothing happens. You feel good for a moment, but when you go home you revert back to your old self.
If you know the true reason you are coming here it will make a tremendous difference in your life. You are coming here to awaken, to awaken from the dream of maya and of a personal I. You are coming here to find peace and happiness. Therefore just being here is a meditation in itself.
The modality I use to help you is silence, not words. There are no weekend seminars. There are no special mantras. There is no initiation. There is nothing. Yet the nothing is everything. You believe you are the doer, and everything you accomplish is your deed. That is a lie. You don't even exist! You were not even born! How can you be the doer? There is no one who does anything. Yet everything gets done. It is a paradox.
When you realize you are not the doer everything gets done in a better way. You stop identifying with object and subject. You become free of all attachments. As long as you believe that you are responsible for anything that takes place, you have a problem. You will have to repeat that experience over and over, until you realize that you have absolutely nothing to do with that experience, or anything else for that matter! You are pure consciousness. Your real self is absolute reality. You have nothing to do with this world.
I know some of you are asking, "Then why am I here?" Well, in reality you are not here. Where are you? No where, and everywhere. Some of you say, "I want to experience all the happiness I can while I am here." If so you are subject to the laws of duality, of karma. You go up and down like a yo-yo. You are happy when you get what you want and disillusioned when your possessions are taken from you.
This is like a person who goes out into the hot sun and gets burned, and then returns to the shade of a tree. After he is cool he forgets the heat of sunlight, and goes back out into the sun and gets burned again. Then he again takes refuge under the tree until he forgets the heat of the sun and runs back out. Only a fool would do this.
Yet that is exactly what we do with our lives. We erroneously believe that person, place or thing will bring us happiness. There is no thing external to you that can ever bring you happiness. Why? Happiness is your very nature. You are happiness all by yourself. When you pursue happiness outside of yourself, any happiness you find is a temporary condition.
You can't wait to see a certain movie. You pay your seven dollars, see the movie, and are happy. But, then it is over! What now? Now you have to look for another thrill. You believe you have to find something else to make you happy. You search, scheme and plan, and sure enough something else comes along. This lasts again for a time. All things change. You become disillusioned again. You have not learned your lesson. You are still looking for happiness and joy outside yourself.
Again, it is like running out into the sun, getting burned, and running back into the shade. You never learn. Soon you are old and tired, and it is time to leave the body. Then you think, "When I leave my body, I will find true peace." But, there is no where to go! If you believe that you are the body then there are many bodies. When you drop one, you take up another. You continue the game.
The game never ends, until one day you become so disgusted with life that something within you leads you to the right book or the right teacher. You begin to feel that there is something else. You become a seeker after truth. You discover the various forms of Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, mystical Christianity, Yoga and the occult. You think you have discovered something. Life after life you remain involved in those things, for you are still seeking outside of yourself, but in a more subtle form.
If you are a sincere seeker something else will touch you. You will discover a teacher who is just right for you at the time. You will become a disciple. You will still have doubts and apprehensions. You will turn on and off like a water faucet. You will stick to the same philosophy for a while and pursue teachers of that teaching, but eventually will settle on one teacher. This is what makes you a disciple.
This process continues incarnation after incarnation. If you are really sincere, again something will touch you. You will realize, "I and my father are one. If you have seen me, you have seen the father." You will begin to feel that you are one with your teacher, and that the teacher is within and without you. The teacher within pushes you forward. The teacher without pushes you inward. You begin to understand that the only thing you have to do is to get rid of the idea that you are the body-mind phenomena. Thus you become a devotee, meaning you become one-pointed, pursuing one path--which you become when you awaken. Most people never even become a seeker. Many people think a path like this is selfish. Instead of trying to help the world, to make it a better place to live, we are only interested in our own awakening.
The truth is, unless you awaken you can never make this world a better place to live. Why? You are the universe! Just the way you are, right now, you are the universe!
Therefore, if you are filled with anger, greed, and avarice, then so is the universe! You create the world. The world is an emanation of your own mind. What you think of yourself you think of the world. If you are filled with fear the world frightens you. If you are filled with greed you believe everyone else is greedy. The world is a reflection of you.
When you awaken, you see a new world. You are in heaven. When you awaken you realize the real self transcends the universe and that the world is like a dream. It exists, but as a dream.
The self, or consciousness, the reality, I am that. "I am" doesn't mean Robert. "I am" is consciousness. Therefore when you awaken you can state I am that. You are no longer talking about your individual I. You are speaking about the whole universe. I am that.
Now everyone becomes that also. Remember, I am is omnipresence. I am that. This is why a realized person can only see himself or herself. They do not see what other people see. They see love, harmony, peace, joy and happiness. They have discovered their true nature as pure awareness and happiness. They no longer are the personal I. They have risen. They no longer run into the hot sun. They are always under the shade tree. No thing external can ever happen to them again, as in birth, death or anything between. The universe is not for real to them. They are egoless. This is how you bring peace into the world.
There have been people trying to bring peace into the world forever. No one has ever succeeded. It is the nature of this planet to be what it is. No matter how you try to improve it, it will never happen.
Why does it seem sometimes that the world is improving? Because of time and space. It will improve to a certain degree, until people start talking about the Golden Age. Then it will regress again back into the Dark Ages. This is the dream of maya. When you identify with the body-mind or the world, and you believe you are the doer, you keep coming back again during different phases of the earth's and society's evolution. You may come back during the Dark Ages, during the inquisition, or during a Golden Age with much harmony and peace. As long as you live in duality you have to experience both.
There are many people I speak to who feel suffering and say, "Soon I will give up my body and find peace." True, you do take a vacation when you leave your body, where you review all your karmic activities. (Remember, all these things I am telling you are lies. I tell you these things because you want to hear it. As long as you identify with the body, the lies appear to be true.) You take a rest until you are pulled back or return voluntarily to a body, where you continue the game, until you get sick and tired. Then you become a seeker of truth and you evolve that way.
How do you begin truth-seeking? You begin by taking a good look at yourself, and review your life in retrospect. You ask, "Who has gone through all these experiences?" You will realize, "I have." You will remember having experiences as a little boy or girl, and different experiences as a teenager. But you always refer to the first pronoun, I, as having had those experiences and as having present experiences. Something within yourself will make you think, "It is always I. I always return to I. I have this experience. I have that experience. I was born, I went to school, I got married, I got divorced." Always I.
Who is this elusive I and where does it come from? How does it arise. It doesn't exist when I am sleeping. It is only when I wake up that I start thinking of I. At that time I can say, "I slept." Ask, "Where does the I go to when I sleep?” It does not appear to be around. You begin to feel that all your problems concern themselves with the I. You say to yourself, "If I get rid of this I everything else will go also." This is true.
You therefore look for ways to get rid of the I. You begin to understand that the only way to get rid of this I is to question it. Where did you come from I? Who gave you birth. Then follow it to its source. Ask yourself, "What is this I? Where did it come from? Who am I?" If you are sincere you will follow the I to its source, which is the self. The I, or the personality, will therefore dissolve into the self. This is called awakening. People attach all sorts of names to this, self-realization, moksha, liberation, reality.
All that you have done is to become yourself. There is nothing mysterious about it. You do not have to repeat sacred mantras or study ancient philosophies. Everything you are looking for is within yourself.
There are people that come to me and ask me, "Robert, we should have a special class of those who have been around you for a long while, where you can give the highest teachings." There are no higher teachings! This is it! What else is there? Destroy the I and become free. Satsang is coming to place like this and you don't wonder what I am going to talk about. You have not come to hear me speak. Its a place you come to meditate, to awaken, to see me within yourself, for I am yourself. If you can only remember this, you will stop running around looking for lecturers. Find someone you have an affinity with, someone who does not talk too much, and just sit. Everything will take care of itself.
In the beginning, I said I wasn't going to talk too much, and I did. It always happens because most of you want to hear me talk. But the day will come when you come here and I won't say a word. Then we will see what you do.
Student: Why do you talk?
Robert: Who knows? Because I feel that most of the people here come to hear what I have to say. I try to explain certain things. But I emphasize over and over that talk is not going to do it. It may inspire you for a while, it may give you a good feeling, but when you leave here, you revert back to yourself. You think about who you will listen to tomorrow. This seeking mind is good to an extent, but it will not awaken you. You will only awaken when you realize, "I am myself. I have always been myself. There is only one self, and it is called sat-chit-ananda, Parabrahman, absolute reality, and I am that." I am that includes everyone, the whole universe. This is the time you will awaken.
Student: Is reincarnation an illusion?
Robert: Reincarnation never existed and never will exist. It appears to exist. You cannot deny it if you believe you are the body. As long as you believe you are the mind or body, and as long as you believe the world is real, then reincarnation is real. You must ask though, to whom does reincarnation come? You will realize it comes to your body, not to you. You have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Student: Since things happen to the body, not to us, then we need not worry.
Robert: It is easy to say, "Don't worry, be happy." But how many of us can do that? We only do it when things go our way.
Student: Even if we could not worry and be happy, what good is that?
Robert: You are realizing yourself when you are not worrying and being happy.
Student: In the ego state?
Robert: No, it has nothing to do with the ego. When you are in the ego state you cannot possibly be completely happy because ego happiness is dependent on things.
Student: It seems that there should be much more than just bliss.
Robert: Remember, you ask this question from your viewpoint. When you experience real bliss you become the universe, the creator, love. It is a completely different ball game. You become self-contained happiness. Since you are omnipresent there is no comparison you can make. All of your comparisons have been transcended.
Student: In my tradition it is taught there is more than just sitting in your own bliss.
Robert: Who said you were going to sit in your own bliss and do nothing? I never said that.
Student: So if you don't worry you will be happy. That is all we are talking about?
Robert: There is more than that. When I speak about bliss I am referring to absolute reality. You become an instrument of love in the world. Your very presence cause harmony and peace in people. Your very presence is a blessing to the whole universe because you are the universe. It has nothing to do with human understanding or knowledge. It has absolutely nothing to do with human bliss or happiness. It is beyond comprehension.
Student: Ramana Maharshi was a doer.
Robert: On the contrary, Ramana Maharshi didn't do anything himself.
Student: Yet things happened.
Robert: He denied he had anything to do with it.
Student: He can deny all he wants, but other people had the experience of him doing things.
Robert: They believed things happened because of him. It is their belief that made it happen. A sage does nothing purposely, yet all kinds of things can happen around him.
Student: If one had strong faith in these teachings then nothing could stop self-realization, right?
Robert: It is not that simple. It has to do with God's grace, which is always available. You awaken into that grace. You can't pinpoint what leads to self-realization.
Student: Are you a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj?
Robert: I wasn't a student of his but I was with him for a while.
Student: Was that before you were with Ramana Maharshi?
Robert: No, I spent six months with him many years later.
Student: What kept you there for six months?
Robert: I was interested in watching his actions. I was there when Ramesh Balsekar was his interpreter.
Student: What was your conclusion after watching him?
Robert: My conclusion is that all is well, and everything is unfolding as it should.
Student: When I look back over my life I see that I didn't cause anything.
Robert: Find out the I that looks back over your life. I only know myself and you are myself. Therefore you are absolute reality, pure intelligence, emptiness, nirvana, consciousness.
Student: But you cannot see her personality or my personality?
Robert: I don't look at personalities.
Student: Can you see it if you wished to, or not?
Robert: Look at it this way. You take a screen and put images on it. The images change and have all kinds of personalities. But the screen remains the screen. If you try to grab the images you grab the screen. So I feel the world and its images are superimposed upon the screen. I see everything but they are not real to me.
Student: But you do see her.
Robert: Yes.
Student: So you have access to my life story, you can see what my life has been.
Robert: No I can't. There would have to be somebody to see that. There is nobody left to see anything.
Student: When seekers came to Ramana with difficulties in their lives was he able to help them?
Robert: He never helped anybody voluntarily. He simply sat on his couch and everybody did what they wanted to do. He asked them a couple of questions now and again and kept silent most of the time. When people came to him with all kinds of problems he used to look at his attendant and say, "They come to me to help them with their problems. To whom should I go?"
Student: I am confused.
Robert: He was not the doer! How can he help people with problems? He is not a psychologist.
Student: I know someone who is not a doer, and someone came to him with a physical problem. This person went up and did something to the other's body and that person was helped.
Robert: By Ramana's presence people were helped. Ramana was silent most of the time. People did all kinds things under the silence. Just by sitting in his presence all their troubles vanished.
Student: In the presence of someone like that you seem to feel something.
Robert: You are feeling your real self, your own bliss and happiness. That is beyond words.
Student: I have different feelings in the presence of different teachers.
Robert: That is confusion. You have never changed. The whole idea is to get the feeling to go deep within yourself. A real sage gives you the feeling you want to dive deep within yourself, deeper than you have ever gone before.
Student: You are talking now, that is phenomena. How does that go together with your all-pervasive consciousness and your mind talking?
Robert: The body talks. The body acts. The body does what it came here to do. But I have nothing to do with that.
Student: What is a siddha?
Robert: A siddha is a person who has been working with Kundalini, it has risen, and powers have developed. But a siddha is not a sage. Forget about siddhas, forget about everything. Find your true self and become free.
Student: Some people are attracted to these powers and equate these people with enlightenment, with sagehood. But many siddhas use these powers to attract followers and manipulate them. I don't think these are true sages.
Robert: This is true. That is why I told you not to seek siddhis. Do not follow powers or these gurus of powers. Follow the I and become free.
Student: You are saying Kundalini is not worth seeking?
Robert: In my opinion anything that leads to powers is dangerous. It keeps you earthbound. Bypass them, go beyond them. It is true that as we evolve we develop siddhis. But don't get caught. Go beyond them. The example I use, is that the king invites you to his mansion to share the kingdom with him. He has 2,000 acres of beautiful property. When you drive up to his gate you see beautiful flowers, and you become interested in botany. You forget about the king. A few years later you remember and resume your drive towards the mansion. Now you see beautiful mountains, beautiful shrubbery and dancing girls. You get involved with them, forgetting about the king. Each thing you get involved in is a siddhi, a power. If you go straight to the king you will share the kingdom. That is the difference.
Student: You said your body is happening. On the other hand you said you are all pervasive. Are not then you and your body one?
Robert: I tell you my body is acting for your sake, because that is how you see it. In reality no one is acting and no one exists. The body does not exist.
Student: If no one exists why is it all happening?
Robert: It doesn't. It appears to.
Student: God did not create anything?
Robert: There is no God to create a thing. In reality, there is no creation, no God, no realization, no illusion.
Student: What I am trying to get at is why is there this big universe? It is not just because of me. When I vanish there is still a whole universe left. Isn't there a fundamental I-ness, or God, which is perfect, right?
Robert: There is nothing apart from you.
Student: Let's forget me for now.
Robert: If you forget you, you forget everything else too. If you don't exist, nothing else exists.
Student: Only from my point of view.
Robert: When you go to sleep what exists for you?
Student: Just my point of view. But we know from other points of view all the rest exists.
Robert: No we don't. It just appears like that.
Q; The appearance is enough.
Robert: Because you believe you are the body.
Student: I don't have a choice. When I wake up I am in the body.
Robert: That is how it appears to you. Ask yourself, "To whom does the body come?"
Student: To me. When I wake up I am in the body.
Robert: That is an illusion. Everything you are telling me is an illusion because you identify with it.
Student: Do I have a choice? I don't. When I awake I am in this mind. That's it!
Robert: Sure you have a choice. Ask yourself, "To whom does this body come? To whom does the mind come?"
Student: It comes to me.
Robert: Who is me? That me is I. Follow I to the source, and it will disappear.
Student: What is consciousness?
Robert: Consciousness is a word used to describe that which is beyond phenomena, emptiness. The finite mind cannot go beyond this, it cannot comprehend the infinite. But you can experience it.
This body is not a lecturer. This body is not a minister. This body is not even a talker. I do so for your sake. For the average person coming here for the first time I would be most boring, because I speak in a monotone, and I repeat things many times. You have to understand what satsang really means. It means being in the presence of your own divinity, being in the presence of your own consciousness.
Do not look at me as something separate from you. Most public speakers, ministers and philosophers plan their speech and come prepared. When it is over everybody says, "What a wonderful talk." But nothing happens. You feel good for a moment, but when you go home you revert back to your old self.
If you know the true reason you are coming here it will make a tremendous difference in your life. You are coming here to awaken, to awaken from the dream of maya and of a personal I. You are coming here to find peace and happiness. Therefore just being here is a meditation in itself.
The modality I use to help you is silence, not words. There are no weekend seminars. There are no special mantras. There is no initiation. There is nothing. Yet the nothing is everything. You believe you are the doer, and everything you accomplish is your deed. That is a lie. You don't even exist! You were not even born! How can you be the doer? There is no one who does anything. Yet everything gets done. It is a paradox.
When you realize you are not the doer everything gets done in a better way. You stop identifying with object and subject. You become free of all attachments. As long as you believe that you are responsible for anything that takes place, you have a problem. You will have to repeat that experience over and over, until you realize that you have absolutely nothing to do with that experience, or anything else for that matter! You are pure consciousness. Your real self is absolute reality. You have nothing to do with this world.
I know some of you are asking, "Then why am I here?" Well, in reality you are not here. Where are you? No where, and everywhere. Some of you say, "I want to experience all the happiness I can while I am here." If so you are subject to the laws of duality, of karma. You go up and down like a yo-yo. You are happy when you get what you want and disillusioned when your possessions are taken from you.
This is like a person who goes out into the hot sun and gets burned, and then returns to the shade of a tree. After he is cool he forgets the heat of sunlight, and goes back out into the sun and gets burned again. Then he again takes refuge under the tree until he forgets the heat of the sun and runs back out. Only a fool would do this.
Yet that is exactly what we do with our lives. We erroneously believe that person, place or thing will bring us happiness. There is no thing external to you that can ever bring you happiness. Why? Happiness is your very nature. You are happiness all by yourself. When you pursue happiness outside of yourself, any happiness you find is a temporary condition.
You can't wait to see a certain movie. You pay your seven dollars, see the movie, and are happy. But, then it is over! What now? Now you have to look for another thrill. You believe you have to find something else to make you happy. You search, scheme and plan, and sure enough something else comes along. This lasts again for a time. All things change. You become disillusioned again. You have not learned your lesson. You are still looking for happiness and joy outside yourself.
Again, it is like running out into the sun, getting burned, and running back into the shade. You never learn. Soon you are old and tired, and it is time to leave the body. Then you think, "When I leave my body, I will find true peace." But, there is no where to go! If you believe that you are the body then there are many bodies. When you drop one, you take up another. You continue the game.
The game never ends, until one day you become so disgusted with life that something within you leads you to the right book or the right teacher. You begin to feel that there is something else. You become a seeker after truth. You discover the various forms of Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, mystical Christianity, Yoga and the occult. You think you have discovered something. Life after life you remain involved in those things, for you are still seeking outside of yourself, but in a more subtle form.
If you are a sincere seeker something else will touch you. You will discover a teacher who is just right for you at the time. You will become a disciple. You will still have doubts and apprehensions. You will turn on and off like a water faucet. You will stick to the same philosophy for a while and pursue teachers of that teaching, but eventually will settle on one teacher. This is what makes you a disciple.
This process continues incarnation after incarnation. If you are really sincere, again something will touch you. You will realize, "I and my father are one. If you have seen me, you have seen the father." You will begin to feel that you are one with your teacher, and that the teacher is within and without you. The teacher within pushes you forward. The teacher without pushes you inward. You begin to understand that the only thing you have to do is to get rid of the idea that you are the body-mind phenomena. Thus you become a devotee, meaning you become one-pointed, pursuing one path--which you become when you awaken. Most people never even become a seeker. Many people think a path like this is selfish. Instead of trying to help the world, to make it a better place to live, we are only interested in our own awakening.
The truth is, unless you awaken you can never make this world a better place to live. Why? You are the universe! Just the way you are, right now, you are the universe!
Therefore, if you are filled with anger, greed, and avarice, then so is the universe! You create the world. The world is an emanation of your own mind. What you think of yourself you think of the world. If you are filled with fear the world frightens you. If you are filled with greed you believe everyone else is greedy. The world is a reflection of you.
When you awaken, you see a new world. You are in heaven. When you awaken you realize the real self transcends the universe and that the world is like a dream. It exists, but as a dream.
The self, or consciousness, the reality, I am that. "I am" doesn't mean Robert. "I am" is consciousness. Therefore when you awaken you can state I am that. You are no longer talking about your individual I. You are speaking about the whole universe. I am that.
Now everyone becomes that also. Remember, I am is omnipresence. I am that. This is why a realized person can only see himself or herself. They do not see what other people see. They see love, harmony, peace, joy and happiness. They have discovered their true nature as pure awareness and happiness. They no longer are the personal I. They have risen. They no longer run into the hot sun. They are always under the shade tree. No thing external can ever happen to them again, as in birth, death or anything between. The universe is not for real to them. They are egoless. This is how you bring peace into the world.
There have been people trying to bring peace into the world forever. No one has ever succeeded. It is the nature of this planet to be what it is. No matter how you try to improve it, it will never happen.
Why does it seem sometimes that the world is improving? Because of time and space. It will improve to a certain degree, until people start talking about the Golden Age. Then it will regress again back into the Dark Ages. This is the dream of maya. When you identify with the body-mind or the world, and you believe you are the doer, you keep coming back again during different phases of the earth's and society's evolution. You may come back during the Dark Ages, during the inquisition, or during a Golden Age with much harmony and peace. As long as you live in duality you have to experience both.
There are many people I speak to who feel suffering and say, "Soon I will give up my body and find peace." True, you do take a vacation when you leave your body, where you review all your karmic activities. (Remember, all these things I am telling you are lies. I tell you these things because you want to hear it. As long as you identify with the body, the lies appear to be true.) You take a rest until you are pulled back or return voluntarily to a body, where you continue the game, until you get sick and tired. Then you become a seeker of truth and you evolve that way.
How do you begin truth-seeking? You begin by taking a good look at yourself, and review your life in retrospect. You ask, "Who has gone through all these experiences?" You will realize, "I have." You will remember having experiences as a little boy or girl, and different experiences as a teenager. But you always refer to the first pronoun, I, as having had those experiences and as having present experiences. Something within yourself will make you think, "It is always I. I always return to I. I have this experience. I have that experience. I was born, I went to school, I got married, I got divorced." Always I.
Who is this elusive I and where does it come from? How does it arise. It doesn't exist when I am sleeping. It is only when I wake up that I start thinking of I. At that time I can say, "I slept." Ask, "Where does the I go to when I sleep?” It does not appear to be around. You begin to feel that all your problems concern themselves with the I. You say to yourself, "If I get rid of this I everything else will go also." This is true.
You therefore look for ways to get rid of the I. You begin to understand that the only way to get rid of this I is to question it. Where did you come from I? Who gave you birth. Then follow it to its source. Ask yourself, "What is this I? Where did it come from? Who am I?" If you are sincere you will follow the I to its source, which is the self. The I, or the personality, will therefore dissolve into the self. This is called awakening. People attach all sorts of names to this, self-realization, moksha, liberation, reality.
All that you have done is to become yourself. There is nothing mysterious about it. You do not have to repeat sacred mantras or study ancient philosophies. Everything you are looking for is within yourself.
There are people that come to me and ask me, "Robert, we should have a special class of those who have been around you for a long while, where you can give the highest teachings." There are no higher teachings! This is it! What else is there? Destroy the I and become free. Satsang is coming to place like this and you don't wonder what I am going to talk about. You have not come to hear me speak. Its a place you come to meditate, to awaken, to see me within yourself, for I am yourself. If you can only remember this, you will stop running around looking for lecturers. Find someone you have an affinity with, someone who does not talk too much, and just sit. Everything will take care of itself.
In the beginning, I said I wasn't going to talk too much, and I did. It always happens because most of you want to hear me talk. But the day will come when you come here and I won't say a word. Then we will see what you do.
Student: Why do you talk?
Robert: Who knows? Because I feel that most of the people here come to hear what I have to say. I try to explain certain things. But I emphasize over and over that talk is not going to do it. It may inspire you for a while, it may give you a good feeling, but when you leave here, you revert back to yourself. You think about who you will listen to tomorrow. This seeking mind is good to an extent, but it will not awaken you. You will only awaken when you realize, "I am myself. I have always been myself. There is only one self, and it is called sat-chit-ananda, Parabrahman, absolute reality, and I am that." I am that includes everyone, the whole universe. This is the time you will awaken.
Student: Is reincarnation an illusion?
Robert: Reincarnation never existed and never will exist. It appears to exist. You cannot deny it if you believe you are the body. As long as you believe you are the mind or body, and as long as you believe the world is real, then reincarnation is real. You must ask though, to whom does reincarnation come? You will realize it comes to your body, not to you. You have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Student: Since things happen to the body, not to us, then we need not worry.
Robert: It is easy to say, "Don't worry, be happy." But how many of us can do that? We only do it when things go our way.
Student: Even if we could not worry and be happy, what good is that?
Robert: You are realizing yourself when you are not worrying and being happy.
Student: In the ego state?
Robert: No, it has nothing to do with the ego. When you are in the ego state you cannot possibly be completely happy because ego happiness is dependent on things.
Student: It seems that there should be much more than just bliss.
Robert: Remember, you ask this question from your viewpoint. When you experience real bliss you become the universe, the creator, love. It is a completely different ball game. You become self-contained happiness. Since you are omnipresent there is no comparison you can make. All of your comparisons have been transcended.
Student: In my tradition it is taught there is more than just sitting in your own bliss.
Robert: Who said you were going to sit in your own bliss and do nothing? I never said that.
Student: So if you don't worry you will be happy. That is all we are talking about?
Robert: There is more than that. When I speak about bliss I am referring to absolute reality. You become an instrument of love in the world. Your very presence cause harmony and peace in people. Your very presence is a blessing to the whole universe because you are the universe. It has nothing to do with human understanding or knowledge. It has absolutely nothing to do with human bliss or happiness. It is beyond comprehension.
Student: Ramana Maharshi was a doer.
Robert: On the contrary, Ramana Maharshi didn't do anything himself.
Student: Yet things happened.
Robert: He denied he had anything to do with it.
Student: He can deny all he wants, but other people had the experience of him doing things.
Robert: They believed things happened because of him. It is their belief that made it happen. A sage does nothing purposely, yet all kinds of things can happen around him.
Student: If one had strong faith in these teachings then nothing could stop self-realization, right?
Robert: It is not that simple. It has to do with God's grace, which is always available. You awaken into that grace. You can't pinpoint what leads to self-realization.
Student: Are you a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj?
Robert: I wasn't a student of his but I was with him for a while.
Student: Was that before you were with Ramana Maharshi?
Robert: No, I spent six months with him many years later.
Student: What kept you there for six months?
Robert: I was interested in watching his actions. I was there when Ramesh Balsekar was his interpreter.
Student: What was your conclusion after watching him?
Robert: My conclusion is that all is well, and everything is unfolding as it should.
Student: When I look back over my life I see that I didn't cause anything.
Robert: Find out the I that looks back over your life. I only know myself and you are myself. Therefore you are absolute reality, pure intelligence, emptiness, nirvana, consciousness.
Student: But you cannot see her personality or my personality?
Robert: I don't look at personalities.
Student: Can you see it if you wished to, or not?
Robert: Look at it this way. You take a screen and put images on it. The images change and have all kinds of personalities. But the screen remains the screen. If you try to grab the images you grab the screen. So I feel the world and its images are superimposed upon the screen. I see everything but they are not real to me.
Student: But you do see her.
Robert: Yes.
Student: So you have access to my life story, you can see what my life has been.
Robert: No I can't. There would have to be somebody to see that. There is nobody left to see anything.
Student: When seekers came to Ramana with difficulties in their lives was he able to help them?
Robert: He never helped anybody voluntarily. He simply sat on his couch and everybody did what they wanted to do. He asked them a couple of questions now and again and kept silent most of the time. When people came to him with all kinds of problems he used to look at his attendant and say, "They come to me to help them with their problems. To whom should I go?"
Student: I am confused.
Robert: He was not the doer! How can he help people with problems? He is not a psychologist.
Student: I know someone who is not a doer, and someone came to him with a physical problem. This person went up and did something to the other's body and that person was helped.
Robert: By Ramana's presence people were helped. Ramana was silent most of the time. People did all kinds things under the silence. Just by sitting in his presence all their troubles vanished.
Student: In the presence of someone like that you seem to feel something.
Robert: You are feeling your real self, your own bliss and happiness. That is beyond words.
Student: I have different feelings in the presence of different teachers.
Robert: That is confusion. You have never changed. The whole idea is to get the feeling to go deep within yourself. A real sage gives you the feeling you want to dive deep within yourself, deeper than you have ever gone before.
Student: You are talking now, that is phenomena. How does that go together with your all-pervasive consciousness and your mind talking?
Robert: The body talks. The body acts. The body does what it came here to do. But I have nothing to do with that.
Student: What is a siddha?
Robert: A siddha is a person who has been working with Kundalini, it has risen, and powers have developed. But a siddha is not a sage. Forget about siddhas, forget about everything. Find your true self and become free.
Student: Some people are attracted to these powers and equate these people with enlightenment, with sagehood. But many siddhas use these powers to attract followers and manipulate them. I don't think these are true sages.
Robert: This is true. That is why I told you not to seek siddhis. Do not follow powers or these gurus of powers. Follow the I and become free.
Student: You are saying Kundalini is not worth seeking?
Robert: In my opinion anything that leads to powers is dangerous. It keeps you earthbound. Bypass them, go beyond them. It is true that as we evolve we develop siddhis. But don't get caught. Go beyond them. The example I use, is that the king invites you to his mansion to share the kingdom with him. He has 2,000 acres of beautiful property. When you drive up to his gate you see beautiful flowers, and you become interested in botany. You forget about the king. A few years later you remember and resume your drive towards the mansion. Now you see beautiful mountains, beautiful shrubbery and dancing girls. You get involved with them, forgetting about the king. Each thing you get involved in is a siddhi, a power. If you go straight to the king you will share the kingdom. That is the difference.
Student: You said your body is happening. On the other hand you said you are all pervasive. Are not then you and your body one?
Robert: I tell you my body is acting for your sake, because that is how you see it. In reality no one is acting and no one exists. The body does not exist.
Student: If no one exists why is it all happening?
Robert: It doesn't. It appears to.
Student: God did not create anything?
Robert: There is no God to create a thing. In reality, there is no creation, no God, no realization, no illusion.
Student: What I am trying to get at is why is there this big universe? It is not just because of me. When I vanish there is still a whole universe left. Isn't there a fundamental I-ness, or God, which is perfect, right?
Robert: There is nothing apart from you.
Student: Let's forget me for now.
Robert: If you forget you, you forget everything else too. If you don't exist, nothing else exists.
Student: Only from my point of view.
Robert: When you go to sleep what exists for you?
Student: Just my point of view. But we know from other points of view all the rest exists.
Robert: No we don't. It just appears like that.
Q; The appearance is enough.
Robert: Because you believe you are the body.
Student: I don't have a choice. When I wake up I am in the body.
Robert: That is how it appears to you. Ask yourself, "To whom does the body come?"
Student: To me. When I wake up I am in the body.
Robert: That is an illusion. Everything you are telling me is an illusion because you identify with it.
Student: Do I have a choice? I don't. When I awake I am in this mind. That's it!
Robert: Sure you have a choice. Ask yourself, "To whom does this body come? To whom does the mind come?"
Student: It comes to me.
Robert: Who is me? That me is I. Follow I to the source, and it will disappear.
Student: What is consciousness?
Robert: Consciousness is a word used to describe that which is beyond phenomena, emptiness. The finite mind cannot go beyond this, it cannot comprehend the infinite. But you can experience it.