When Nothing Spoke...

Robert: Yesterday evening I received a call from my brother who lives in Indianapolis. I haven’t spoken to him in fifteen years. The first thing he asked me is, "Robert, are you still good for nothing?" and I said, "Yes I am, thank you." Then he went on to ask, "Have you accomplished anything worthwhile yet? Are you still a nothing?" So I said, "I've accomplished nothing, and I am nothing, thank you. Are you something?" He went on to tell me his accomplishments: "I own a hardware store, and I bought a house and I sent my family to college, my son and daughter. I’ve got stocks and bonds. Now what have you got?" And I said, "I've got nothing."

So he said, "Why don't you give it up and start living?" So I paused a moment and I said, "Are you happy?" and there was a long pause. He didn't answer. So I asked again, "Are you happy?" He changed the subject. Then he started to relate how the IRS was on his back, how his wife was running around with some other guy, and all kinds of trouble. So we ended the conversation saying, "You can be good for something, I'd rather be good for nothing."

But I am good for something. I’m good at relieving constipation. Friday a lady called me from San Francisco. I never heard from her before, and she told me, "Robert, you saved my life." So I said, "I did? That’s interesting." She said, "Come on Robert, you know you saved my life. Admit it." So I said, "Tell me what I did." So she said, "I’ve got your picture hanging in the bathroom." That’s nice. And she went on to explain, "Yesterday morning, I was really constipated...”

Student: One look at you...

Robert: "…and I thought I was going to die," she said. "I was turning blue and all kinds of colors. I couldn't get up and I looked at your picture and said, 'Robert, help me!' and you came out of the picture and you hugged me, and relieved my constipation." So I said, "Well, isn't that interesting?" And she told me that I was kidding and knew I did it. She wouldn’t believe it when I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about.

This is not the first time I’ve had experience with toilets. About two years ago, at about midnight, another lady called me from San Clemente. She said, "Robert, my toilet is stuffed up, please do something." So I said "I think you’ve got the wrong number. I’m not a plumber." She said, "No, I don't want a plumber, I want you." So I said, "You mean you want me to come over with my tool box?" She said, "No, I want you to do something, whatever you have to do." So I said, "OK," and she hung up. She called me back the next morning and said, "Thank you Robert. Everything became unplugged in the toilet." So you see, I’m good for something.

Now the question arises, can a sage be in two places at the same time? Is it possible for somebody to think of a sage, and be in communication with the sage physically, yet the sage is not there, he’s somewhere else?

When I was in Benares, in India, I went to see a jnani that nobody ever heard of, named Swami Brahmadanda, which means 'The Staff of God.' He had three disciples that had been with him for about 50 years. He was about 90 years old. And I was invited to sit by him. I think I was the first westerner to get permission. So I sat with him a few days, listening to him say nothing. He was mostly silent.

On the third day that I was with him he announced to his disciples, three of them were devotees, that his body is in pain, that it’s arthritic, but that he has work to do. He hasn’t finished his work on this plane. So he’s going to leave his body tomorrow at 3:00, and take on the body of a younger person. He said somebody would slip on the street, it was raining, and crack his head, and I will take up that body. I listened as I usually do, and we couldn't wait for tomorrow to come to see what happened. Nobody cared about the fact that he was going to die. We wanted to see if he could do what he said.

So at about 3:00 he was sitting in the lotus posture, he actually stiffened up, and he did die! I felt his pulse; no pulse. I pinched him. Nothing happened. His body was an empty shell. We fooled around with his body for about a half hour to see if we could bring him back to life or whatever. Nothing.

We heard a commotion outside. We went out and sure enough, a young man from Benares had slipped on the wet street and hit his head. There was a crowd gathered and there was a doctor there. He was pronounced dead. All of a sudden, he got up and ran into the forest. No word was ever heard from him again. Explain that one.

There are many unusual things going on in this world. Most Westerners never experience those things or come in contact with people who have.

There is also the story of a great saint who was passing through a town. And in that particular town there was a snake, a boa constrictor, who used to devour the children. They beseeched the saint. They said, "Master, please help us. We’re all afraid this boa constrictor is going to kill our children again and again. Can you do something for us?" So the master said, "Yes I will."

He went up to the snake and spoke snake language and said, "Snake, I want you to stop devouring these little children in this town. Leave them alone. Promise me that you will." And the snake said, "Yes, I promise." He couldn’t say otherwise to the great sage.

Six months passed. The sage was going through the town again. He saw a crowd of children, forty or fifty of them, playing in a circle. He went to look. And there was the snake, in the middle of the circle, all bloody. The children were throwing rocks at him, kicking him. The snake was nearly dead. The sage chased the children away and went over to the snake and said, "What’s the matter with you? Why do you allow yourself to be beaten like this? Why don’t you defend yourself? So the snake said, "Oh master, I listened to you, I can’t help it, when you told me not to harm the children. I have become helpless.." Then the sage said, "You foolish snake, I told you not to bite. Did I tell you not to hiss?

And this story is simply the fact that most of us think we ought to not get into a temper and fight because we’re spiritual. The truth is, we can make a lot of noise and do nothing. We can put on an act. Sometimes when I go to the bank to get a loan I put on a three piece suit with a tie, and act normal. They throw me out anyway, but at least I try.

The reason I’m telling you this story is because this particular saint who did this thing with the snake was seen at four places at one time, in various different cities in India. People said he couldn't have been there at this time, because he was here. And in another city up North, they said, "No, he was here." So the question again is, can certain sages can be in three or four places at the same time?

The answer is yes. This is a rare, but very possible phenomena. When you realize your omnipresence, when you have an inkling who you are, that’s all you have to know, who you really are, that you are not the body-mind phenomena, that you are absolute reality, consciousness, that you are undivided. That alone allows you to be everywhere at the same time, because you are everything. Perhaps that is why the people on the toilet were able to see me, yet I’m unaware of it. I don't have to be aware of it, due to the fact that to be aware of it I would have to be somebody else. I would have to be the person who was aware, and the person who appeared somewhere else. But there is only one. And those of use who have faith in sages and saints, can actually talk to them and see them in physical presence, yet perhaps they have been dead for many years, or they’re also somewhere else in a different country. All these things are possible.

I’ve also mentioned one day here, many times I have visions where I am walking with Ramana Maharshi along the Ganges. And we’re discussing simple things like the weather. This is just another example of the possibility of being in two or three places at the same time. A vision is not a dream. A vision is an actual experience. It is a phenomena happening in the phenomenal world. Anything is possible. Never believe that something is impossible, because it limits you. Even if you haven't experienced anything yourself, have faith in yourself, that within you are all possibilities.

Of course, the first thing you should realize is that there will never been a time when you disappear, or die, because there was never a time when you were born. You have always existed as consciousness, and you will always exist as consciousness. And even if a person is a skeptic, and he says, "Well I’m not consciousness, that’s ridiculous. I’m conscious but I’m a body, because I can feel myself and I am conscious of your body, because I see you and I can feel you."

And you can scientifically prove this, that you’re not a body. You can say to such a person, "Are you the same person you were when you were conceived?" When you were conceived you were no larger than the size of a pinhead. Yet it was you. And then when you were a young boy or girl, you were no longer the size of a pinhead, you’d turned into somebody else. When you were a teenager, you were also someone else. Now you’re a man or a woman or whatever, and you’re someone else again.

You are not who you think you are. If I put your body under an electronic microscope I would see space and atoms, trillions of atoms revolving in space, and the space would have tremendous gaps between the atoms. The space is consciousness. The atoms are superimposed on consciousness and they appear to create what you are now. So you see, you’re not really the body. You’re a bunch of atoms. You’re in a state of flux. You are constantly vibrating. You are not what you appear to be.

So when you identify with your body you’ve got problems. Who can tell me why? Why do you have problems when you identify with the body?

The body is never the same and you will always be disappointed. The body is skinny at one time, and you say, "I’m too thin." The body becomes fat, you say, "I’m too fat." The body loses its hair, you say, "I am going bald, I‘ve got to do something." The body becomes ill, you say, "I’ve got creaks in my bones." You’re never happy. You never understand what’s going on.

And if you live just to make money and you have lots of possessions, there is nothing wrong with that. I always like to say, possess what you want but never be possessed by your possessions, for if you think something is yours everything has to change. It might be yours for a short time. Then you have to give it up, either voluntarily or forcefully. And you’re always crying, you’re always bitching, you’re always complaining, you always think something’s wrong, but the only thing that is wrong is in your thinking. You are allowing your mind to dictate to you and tell you what’s what. When you finally wake up slightly, you begin to understand that the mind is not your friend. The mind is only a conglomeration of thoughts about the past and worries about the future. That’s all your mind is. Thoughts! Thoughts about the past and the future. If you listen you become disturbed for you bring the past into the present, and then you become concerned about the future.

People read the newspapers about a recession, man’s inhumanity to man, war. Who becomes disturbed? The mind. You can never be disturbed because you are egoless. You are sat-chit-ananda. You are Parabrahman. You refuse to believe that. You still believe that you are human and that your name is Mary, or Robert, or Jack or Jane, and you are deeply embedded in that belief system. Therefore you also believe the world is real, conditions are real, the universe is real, and you invent God in your own image and then you pray to this God which you have invented in your own image, just like you’re talking to Santa Claus. You believe in an anthropomorphic God, and you ask God to give you this, and give you that, and take this away from my life, and take this person out of my life, and bring this person in my life. Its all a very funny game.

Yet it helps when you pray for you’re relieving yourself. You’re becoming sort of peaceful, for you believe that this god up in the sky will answer your prayer and make you happy. And many times your prayers are answered. Such is the power of the mind. This mind is very powerful, it appears. It can create things. You’ve got to be careful what you ask for. You might get it. Yet the time comes, in our evolution, when we truly understand what the mind really is. And we begin to observe it, realizing that its functioning is not us. We begin to watch the mind in action. We watch it making us depressed. We watch it making us angry. We watch it making us happy. We watch ourselves when we accomplish something great, and we think we’re important. Just the watching alone causes you to go further in your evolution. For it shows you that I cannot possibly be the mind for I have been watching. I have been watching my thoughts bring up the past and make me unhappy, bring cares into my life, tell me something bad is going to happen in the future. We’ve been watching the mind do this to us.

Then we finally say to ourselves, "Who is the watcher? Who is this person that has been watching the mind?" We honestly have to say, therefore, "I don't know. I don't know who I am. I have no idea who has been watching, but I have to admit I have been watching. All these years I thought that when I said I, I was referring to my mind. I believed my mind was I. But now as I watch myself getting angry, as I watch myself becoming depressed, or becoming happy, I realize that I am separate from my mind. Therefore, who am I? Where did I come from? It’s amazing that I am able to watch my mind doing all these things to me. But now I know that there is an I. Who is this I? I don't know. How can I find out?"

By becoming silent. Through silence. By allowing my mind to empty itself of all thoughts, and as I keep on watching my mind in action, without responding, I notice something very interesting happening to me. I notice that I feel happier. I feel more peaceful and I feel more powerful. I notice that I’ve lost my fears, my frustrations, and even my search for truth has slowed down, for I am beginning to understand that there is really nothing to search for. It’s all here. Everything I’ve always wanted is here. An amazing discovery. Yet I still don’t know who I am. But I’m beginning to understand that I do not have to know who I am. It‘s not necessary to know who I am. Do you follow? I doesn’t have to know who it is. I don’t have to go around searching for the I, or wondering who the I was that was watching the mind in action all these years. I simply have to become still. Be still and know that I am God. And the watching all these years has caused me to become still.

In other words, as you practice observation of your thoughts and mindfulness, your mind becomes quieter, and quieter and quieter. And to the extent that your mind becomes quieter and quieter, to that extent does your consciousness become revealed to you as absolute reality.

Now when we talk about absolute reality, or Parabrahman, there are no words, for everything I would tell you about that would be superfluous. We therefore learn to be quiet. We no longer get involved in complications. We keep our lifestyle simple. We actually stop worrying about the future, about our existence or about anything else. Something tells us from within that the same power that knows how to make apples grow on apple trees, flowers bloom so beautifully, mangos grow on mango trees, wheat grow in the fields, and yet there’s just enough sun, just enough rain, just enough of everything to sustain and maintain their growth, something tells me that the same power knows how to take care of me. I can therefore be myself, silent.

Silence is consciousness. I no longer have to make something happen, and I no longer have to worry about tomorrow. I no longer have to concern myself with what other people are doing. I can let go of all of this and I will be taken care of. The realization again comes to you that what you call your body is not your body, but is also consciousness. It appears as a body. As you keep evolving you keep seeing consciousness wherever you look, for you have seen yourself as consciousness and you know there is only ultimate oneness. Therefore everything must be yourself. Everything becomes yourself and you are that, and you’re at peace. From that moment on everything takes care of itself.

What appears to be your body comes under karmic law, the law of cause and effect. Remember, that’s an appearance, and your body, so-called, came to this earth for a specific purpose. It will fulfill its purpose without any help from you. That’s the important part I wish you would remember. You will be fulfilled without thinking, without wanting, without worrying, without any kind of concern. All your needs will be met. Everything will unfold the way it’s supposed to. There are no mistakes. No one came to this earth to suffer.

I know there are some of you who believe, "Well I must have committed some great sins in the past, perhaps in previous lives, because I’m sure suffering now." Are you really suffering? Is there such a thing? Think about that. The only reason you think you are suffering is because the world is not turning the way that you want it to. Isn’t that true? You think you should be this instead of that, you should live here instead of there, you should have this instead of that, and that’s what causes you to suffer. But when you become one-pointed, and focus your attention on your self, it is virtually impossible to suffer because suffering doesn’t exist.

Now you can see, perhaps, why people like Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, Christ, and many others, who appeared to be suffering when they died, literally told their disciples, "No body suffers. I am not suffering. You are suffering because you see me suffering." That’s been difficult to understand up to now, but when you realize that you’re not your body and nothing is the way that it appears, it’s literally easy to understand.

So again, the secret is to investigate yourself within yourself. The external world can never prove anything to you. The external world is a world of effect, a world of illusion, a dream, maya, leela, a play. Do not stake your claim in the world. And let’s say that you even have good karma, so to speak, like we say, and things are relatively fine in your life. You think you’ve got what you want. You’ve got a great job, you’re making a lot of money, you’re living with someone you love, you’ve got a great house, you live in a place where the temperature is always 78 degrees, and you’re relatively happy. But, according to the so called laws of the universe, that has to change, simply because the universe is in flux. Everything must change. If you have not found yourself in this life, and you simply die like the average person, you are going to have continue and experience the opposite of what you have been experiencing. This is the reason you should not just become apathetic to spiritual life because things are going your way, and say like some people say, "Oh, spiritual life is just for people who have problems." Be careful.

Begin within yourself. Realize you are not the person you think you are. Try to understand every day, "I am not my body and mind. I am not anything I appear to be. But who am I? I must find out." And your factory of intelligence is within yourself. All the answers are within yourself. You begin, of course, in the morning, and you try to catch yourself in consciousness. Just before you wake up there’s a gap between sleeping and waking. That gap is your true reality. Try to catch yourself in that gap, just in the moment you open your eyes, before your mind takes over. It is absolute nothingness. That nothingness is the absolute reality. As soon as your mind takes over, I takes over, and that spoils it, for you’ve said to yourself, "I am awake." And then your day begins. I have to go to the bathroom, have to eat breakfast, have to get dressed, have to go to work. I have to do this and I have to do that, and you’re lost for the day. But if you saw yourself as consciousness and were able to see the gap between sleeping and waking, you will be in bliss all day, total bliss.

Then, when you go to sleep you do the same thing.

{The remainder of this transcript is not really a transcript, but a paraphrasing, done by someone else. We don’t have the original tape for this so we have left it as it was done.}

You try to find the gap between waking and sleeping just as you are falling asleep. This gap is who you really are. This gap is consciousness, nirvana. If you search for the gap you will find it. Continue the search when you get up. Ask, "Who is awake? Who am I?" The I arises when you awaken and subsides when you go to sleep. Where does it go? It goes into the gap. As you pass into sleep the I begins to weaken as you stop thinking. Where does the I go? It goes into the gap. This I is always available to you.

This gap is also known as the fourth state of consciousness after the deep sleep, dreaming and waking states. The gap is the fourth state, your reality. Just being aware of this intellectually helps. So you think, "I know that there is a gap there but I haven't caught it yet." So ask, "Who is the I that slept? Who is the I that dreamed? Who is the I that is awake? Who is the I that is looking for the gap?" It is the same I. Ask, "From where did it arise? It appears to arise when I wake up and subside when I go to sleep. Where does it go?" It goes into the gap, the space between sleeping and waking. When you go to sleep say, "I think. I think about my day, my problems, what I have to do tomorrow. Who is the I that does all this? As I go to sleep the I begins to weaken. I stop thinking. Where does the I go?" It goes into the gap. Do this in the morning as you get up and continue this sort of investigation during the day. "Who am I? What am I?" This I, I, I is always available to investigate.

During the day you follow the I and watch yourself saying, "I feel good, I feel bad, I feel angry, I feel this, I feel that. Who feels? I feel. Can there be a time when I do not feel?" Something eventually will say to you, "When I get rid of the I, I will no longer need to feel anything. I will be in the gap." You get rid of the I by following it to its source. The source is the gap. The source is consciousness. When you do this process often enough, every day, awareness will come to you. Awareness will open up to you. You will begin to realize that everything you talk about is attached to the I. The I comes first and everything else comes after that. To be upset requires you to say, "I am upset." You just can't say, "upset." Everything is attached to the I. Hold on to the I. Don't concentrate on the I, concentrate on consciousness, the source. Follow the I deep into the heart by diving deep within yourself. Ask for whom is the I? Pause, then ask again and again, pausing each time. Soon you will see that the pauses are the same as the gap between sleeping and awakening. You will become free.

Any questions?

Student: When you call for us to awaken are you saying we should awaken from being a mind to consciousness?

Robert: Awake to yourself. Wake up to who you really are, to peace, to happiness, to your real nature, which is love. Everything else you experience with your body and mind is false. When you wake up, you realize I am absolute intelligence, absolute reality, sat-chit-ananda, Parabrahman. Every cell in your body, so to speak, tingles with happiness when you wake up.

Student: Is it true that after you experience yourself like that, you experience everything else to also be the same?

Robert: When you experience yourself as sat-chit-ananda, you realize that this is your true nature as omnipresence. You are no longer an individual. Your individuality has merged into Brahman. The whole universe appears as consciousness. You no longer are John, with the attitude and problems that John used to have. You are the universe. You are the source of all creation. Nothing! You become nothing. When some one calls you good for nothing you say, "Thank you."

Student: Another word for 'nothing' is 'everything.'

Robert: You are not everything because you are no-thing. Everything is a superimposition on you. You are the chalkboard and images are drawn on you. You know yourself as the chalkboard and the images. But realize the images on the chalkboard are not real because they can be erased; nor can the images be grasped, only the chalkboard can be grasped. In the same way you know yourself as consciousness, absolute reality, and everything else is a reflection.

Student: Does enlightenment come all at once or in stages?

Robert: It appears to come in stages, but in truth it happens all at once when it happens. Awakening happens suddenly, like when you turn on a light bulb in the darkness. The darkness immediately disappears. When you turn on your own light, maya, ignorance, disappears. You are home. It happens when you don't want it to happen. As long as you want it to happen there is a somebody who wants it to happen. That somebody has to disappear. The person that wants it to happen is keeping you back. That is the personal I. Silence is the best way to wake up.

Student: Is silence where the shifts between waking, sleeping and dreaming consciousness takes place?

Robert: Not really. In silence, there is no thing happening. Silence is consciousness. Consciousness is self-contained. Consciousness is not the cause of anything but itself. Everything else is an illusion.

Student: Does it cause itself?

Robert: It only knows itself. It is self-contained. It knows itself as itself, but as nothing else. It doesn't actually cause anything.

Student: When we come back to our little self, then we recognize that we recognized...

Robert: No, you don't come back to your little self. If you come back to your little self you have never experienced anything else but the little self, except intellectually. There is no coming back. There is no where to come back to. Everything has been destroyed.

Student: Even if one just gets a glimpse of it.

Robert: You can get a glimpse of it, but you don't get the total reality. If you get into the highest truth, and you become a living embodiment of the truth, your body is gone, your thoughts are gone, the I is gone. It is all finished.

Student: How much is the view?

Robert: As much as you want to spend. By spend I mean giving up your ego. How much do you want to give up your ego. Some of us are so caught up in our lives that we think are important, that we are afraid to give up the ego in its entirety. We are afraid of the unknown. We say to ourselves, "At least now I know where I am, what I've got, and who I am with. If I give everything up, I might just be nothing at all." But, the nothing at all is God. It cannot be explained or defined. If you knew what it was you would fight like hell to get there.

Student: Are there degrees of purity or depth to silence?

Robert: The true silence is found when you dive deep into yourself, past the material world, all the states of your consciousness, all your karma; when it is all left behind. Then you are in the true silence. True silence is not quietness. It is absolute reality.

Student: When you started you said atoms were superimposed on consciousness. That implies two, atoms and consciousness.

Robert: Everything is in the same category, I. It all belongs to the personal I. Atoms are attached to the personal I. They are like the body, an appearance, an illusion. The thing that is true is yourself, which is consciousness. Everything else only appears to be, like a dream, including atoms, your bones, your body.

Student: This chair here has the form of a chair, but is consciousness. It is not illusion, but consciousness taking a form.

Robert: As long as you believe you are a body-mind, and the chair feels solid, you will believe the chair is a chair. Your saying it is consciousness is just an intellectual understanding for you. There is only consciousness.

Student: If there is only consciousness and it did not take on the appearance of a chair, then how could you walk with your body from one place to another? I can't see how.

Robert: You can't see. That doesn't mean it is not so. It's like when you are having a dream, and all these things are happening. I tell you the dream doesn't exist and all that appears in the dream is false. You tell me it is real, just as you are telling me the chair is consciousness. I am saying consciousness is all that there is, and you wake up, and everything is gone.

Student: We can't really understand it until we wake up.

Robert: That's right.

Student: Where does love come in?

Robert: Love is another name for consciousness, but not the love that you know. It is a love that cannot be explained. It is really a love that is absolute. If you only knew how you were loved you couldn't stand it. That is how powerful it is. It is identical to consciousness and absolute reality. That is why you should never believe you are being hurt. This thinking is blasphemy. You are saying, "I deny consciousness. I deny love." You cause yourself to suffer. When you identify with pure love you identify with consciousness. Then everything is OK just the way it is.

Student: What happens to you after you awaken, when you die? Where do you go?

Robert: When you wake up, you stay where you are. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to come back to. You just are. You are yourself, omnipresence.

Student: That's true when you are not awake also.

Robert: Yes, but you don't know it. That is an intellectual understanding. But when you wake up, you are actually that. You just are. You are an embodiment of love, of consciousness, and that embodiment is omnipresence.

Student: What about the reality of will and choice?

Robert: Will and choice are an illusion. The only choice you have is to not identify with anything that happens, not to identify with yourself as a body-mind. That is your only choice. Everything else is pre-ordained.