Spiritual life

10/30/2020

20

When I say

“All is well, and everything is unfolding as it should,"

most of you begin to think about your

personal problems or the collective problems of the world. This is exactly what you should not do. As we go through

the vicissitudes of life we pass through much friction. This is normal.

There is absolutely nothing wrong. Most of us have been brought up to believe that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. This may appear true in the relative world, but in the spiritual world all is well, and everything is unfolding as it should.

Whatever you believe is wrong with your life or the world is nothing but an unfoldment in consciousness. It is necessary for your evolution. If you understand this you will not react to whatever happens. You will simply smile, observe, and become the witness of each situation that comes into your life as you unfold.

There is nothing in the universe that can hurt you. The substratum of the universe is divine love, pure consciousness. It does not know the meaning of hurt or evil or sin. Those are words humans make up.

When you begin to identify with your real nature, which is love, then you sail through all the so called calamities of life. If you identify with the world of appearances you seem to suffer. You become angry and upset, and you become disillusioned because the world is not turning your way. Things are not unfolding the way you think they should, according to your concepts and preconceived ideas. There is nothing wrong. Everything is right the way it is.

As you begin to understand this you find peace.

What do you really want out of life?

As most of you know, when you achieve your goals it does not turn out as you

hoped it would. As long as you look for something you will be disappointed. When wisdom begins to come to you, you stop searching. You stop needing and wanting. You live in the moment, spontaneously. Then everything unfolds the way it is supposed to.

Take a look at your life, at all the times you interfered with a condition because you believed it wasn't right, and you caused problems for yourself and for all concerned. Everything will always work out. There are no mistakes. You have to feel this. You have to have faith in yourself and in the powers that be.

While working in the world, do not react to things. You are only seeing a partial story. It is like the example of the key hole I gave you. A person looks through a keyhole and sees one part of the picture. They see someone stabbing someone else with a knife. It is horrible. But then they open the door, and they see the whole picture. They will probably see that in a previous life the man who was being stabbed, stabbed the person who was now stabbing him.

In this life the same thing is happening to him. When the observer looks further he will see the one being stabbed, and the one doing the stabbing, both laughing. For nothing has happened to them at all in reality.

You see, we never have the complete picture, it is always partial. This is why I say to not react. Whenever a situation confronts you, act from the viewpoint of wisdom by not reacting. Your body will do something. When I say “Do not react," I mean mentally. If you do not react mentally, and you are at peace with yourself, your body will take the right course of action in order to transcend that situation, and you will not have to go through it again.

If you react, and you seem to get your way and win in the situation, you have done nothing more than put your karma in abeyance for a while. The results have not hit you yet, you stopped them for a while. But according to the law of karma you will go through it all at one time or another.

If you do not react mentally, divine right action will take place and you will transcend that experience. This is the way to live in the world.

The Collected Works of Robert Adams

🕉❤

19

Everything that appears will one day disappear.

There is no permanence in the world of forms.

But that unchangeable consciousness in which all forms appear can never be diminished,

destroyed or altered in any way.

If you learn to be that consciousness you come to understand that nothing can touch or destroy you. …

Ignorance causes us to worry about the possible destruction of the body.

If you make your well-being dependent on the well-being of the body,

you will always be worrying and suffering.

When you know, from direct experience, that you are the Self,

you realize that there is no birth and death.

You realize that you are deathless and immortal.

Self-realization is sometimes called the immortal state because it never ends and because it is never destroyed or even altered.

If you keep your attention on the Self you can attain this immortality.

If you attain it,

in that ultimate state of being you will find that there is no birth, no death, no desires, no fears, no worries, no mind and no world.

- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 294

18

Question: How to stop thinking?

Papaji: By Being! (giggles) When you think that you are an object, a person, a body, or some other idea, but by Being there is nothing! Just Being. And Being is already there. You are always Being. To become something you must meditate and perform some mantra, ritual, practice. Just to Be is simple. Without Being you can't do any practice.

So don't think of anything else. Just Be!

It is so easy to Be.

Question: But when I try to just be, so much thinking happens. I am sure everyone has this problem.

Papaji: Thinking happens when you want to become something. Then you must think. But to not become something what is there to do? Stay as you are! Be as you are in whatever circumstances, just always Be, It doesn't need any practice. Whatever you get by practice you will lose, but Being will never be lost because you will not get it by any experience or practice. It simply is, Simply Be.

Don't stir your mind in Being, don't think and don't make effort. I will tell you how to be Being itself. No effort, no thinking. Avoid thinking and avoid not thinking. What is between these two?

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17

It is by the grace of God that you come to desire to know yourself. This desire to know yourself is itself a clear sign of the Atman’s grace. So, there is grace already working as the source of your effort.

Grace is not an external quality of the Self but its very nature. It abides in your Heart, pulling you inward into itself. The only task you must do is turn your attention inward and search the source of ‘I’. This is the only personal effort we have to put in.

Sri Ramana Maharshi

16

D.: If one is to withdraw oneself, why is there the world?

M.: Where is the world and where does one go withdrawing oneself?

Does one fly in an aeroplane beyond space? Is it withdrawal?

The fact is this: the world is only an idea. What do you say: Are you within the world or is the world within you?

D.: I am in the world. I am part of it.

M.: That is the mistake. If the world were to exist apart from you, does it come and tell you that it exists?

No, you see it exists. You see it when you are awake and not when asleep.

If it exists apart from you, it must tell you so and you must be aware of it even in your sleep.

D.: I became aware of it in my jagrat.

M.: Do you become aware of yourself and then of the world?

Or do you become aware of the world and then of yourself?

Or do you become aware of both simultaneously?

D.: I must say simultaneously.

M.: Were you or were you not, before becoming aware of yourself?

Do you admit your continued existence before and when you become aware of the world?

D.: Yes.

M.: If always existing yourself, why are you not aware of the world in sleep if it exists apart from the Self?

D.: I become aware of myself and of the world also.

M.: So you become aware of yourself. Who becomes aware of whom?

Are there two selves?

D.: No.

M.: So you see that it is wrong to suppose that awareness has passing phases. The Self is always aware. When the Self identifies itself as the seer it sees objects. The creation of the subject and the object is the creation of the world.

Subjects and objects are creations in Pure

Consciousness. You see pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show. When you are intent on the pictures you are not aware of the screen. But the pictures cannot be seen without the screen behind.

The world stands for the pictures and Consciousness stands for the screen.

The Consciousness is pure.

It is the same as the Self which is eternal and unchanging.

Get rid of the subject and object

and Pure Consciousness will alone remain.

~ Talks with Sri Ramana Maharishi, #453

15

You have to keep going. Hurdles will appear and must be overcome. One should overcome the problems.

A problem is a thought. From your childhood, you have accumulated many thoughts. Who has given you all those thoughts? Your father, your mother, your friends in your circle. Everything has come to you. They are all ignorant people, so what can they give you? What can darkness give to light? Tell me. Nothing, isn't it? What can you find in darkness? Nothing! All thoughts, all habits are not true. All have come to you due to ignorance.

Go to the source from where they arise and they dissolve. All bondage is only a mental bondage which you have borrowed from someone else. Money that is borrowed is not yours. In the same way, you have borrowed the thoughts of others and have taken them as your own bondage. How can it be? Throw off that bondage! Who stops you? Give the money to the creditor, and you are free of all debt! You have to be free of debt.

Ignorance is taking the world and its objects to be real. The world never tells you, "I'm real", and no object ever tells you, "I belong to you." It is you who takes all this to be true, yet it is all only a fleeting illusion. Those who still have love for the illusion do not know who they are. When you reject everything, you will know "I am Reality."

Sri Ranjit maharaj.

14

When Will I Awaken?

Many people still ask me, "Robert will I be enlightened in this life or do I have to go through many lives?

Will I awaken in this life?

Will I become free in this life or do I have to go on playing games like everybody else, making believe, when will I awaken?"

And it's very funny to me.

My answer is never!

You'll never awaken!

It's like the water in the mirage asking,

"When will I become real water?

How long do I have to be a mirage?

When will I become the real water?"

Of course it will never become the real water.

For the mirage can never become anything but a mirage.

It will always be a mirage.

So it is with us.

What you are can never be anything else.

For you do not exist as a body at all.

And if you do not exist as a body what can become self-realized?

In other words you have nothing to become self-realized with.

You cannot become self-realized it's impossible.

Forget about it.

Don't even think of it.

Self-realization has absolutely nothing to do with your body or your thoughts or your mind or your practices or your sadhanas or anything else.

Self-realization is the ultimate reality.

It is the pure awareness, the nirvana and that doesn't exist either.

So what exists?

There is no answer.

For what exists can never be known with a finite mind.

This is why we do the work from where we are.

We do not think about becoming self-realized or becoming liberated.

We simply wonder who we are.

We just ask ourselves, "Where does this body come from?

What appears to be a body?"

And we compare it to the water in the mirage.

It's an hallucination.

It has no validity.

In other words you have no existence whatsoever.

You have never had an existence.

Nothing exists.

Yet we appear to exist.

So what to do?

Nothing, there is nothing you can do about it.

That's just the way it is.

Do not try to change it.

Stay the way you are and keep still.

That is the best thing you can do.

Be happy just the way you are.

Of course the only way you can be happy is by keeping still and not reacting to things, by leaving everything alone and being yourself.

When I say, "Being yourself", I mean being you the way you are right now, nothing else.

The world of reality exists by itself.

It just is.

There is nothing you can do to change anything.

Do not try to change anything.

Do not work on yourself.

For every time you're working on yourself you are emphasizing that you're the self, the mortal self that needs to be worked at.

"just be yourself" the way you are right now, in this moment.

I'm not saying to be your self last week or to be your self a week from now.

Be yourself right this moment, this second, this instant and you'll be safe.

Do not concern yourself how to be the self.

Do not concern yourself what you have to do to be the self.

Don't even wonder what it is to be the self.

Just be!

Do not question it.

Do not try to understand it.

You will always be the way you are, nothing will can ever change that.

So you might as well get on with that and be happy.

Suffering comes when you try to change yourself.

Suffering ensues when you try to develop moksha, liberation.

When you try to transcend yourself, then you suffer.

For you are trying to attain something that doesn't exist and it hurts.

Isn't it wonderful not to do anything.

Never try to attain a thing or become anything else.

What about pain, what about lack and limitation, what about poverty.

What about the rest of these things that exist?

It's all part of life.

Do not try to get rid of it.

Look at it, accept it, be happy with it and leave it alone.

What I'm really saying is, "Get your mind off yourself".

Stop thinking about yourself.

Stop thinking about anybody else.

Whatever is supposed to come to you will come to you.

Whatever you are supposed to have you will have.

Wherever you have to go you will go.

You have absolutely nothing to do with it.

So why not enjoy where you are right this moment.

Stop trying to change things.

The very trying makes them worse.

The body that you're wearing right now is an hallucination.

You are not that person whatsoever.

But because you appear as that person you go through many experiences of what that person has to go through.

Do not fight it.

Do not try to change it.

Leave everything alone.

You'll be very surprised at what happens if you leave everything alone.

But when you try to change bad for good you're fighting a losing battle for it cannot be done.

You may tell me of people who have used their mind to achieve things in the world, to heal themselves of disease, to heal themselves of lack or limitation, to become powerful beings through thinking.

Those things are only changes, temporary changes.

Do not try to be a human being.

Go beyond that.

You go beyond that by doing nothing.

Yet some of you do not understand and think you have to sit down like a lump and do nothing on the contrary.

When you're doing nothing you're doing something.

Something is being done.

Something will always be done by you.

Yet at the same time nothing is being done.

So the question is, "Is something being done or is nothing being done?" and there is no answer.

What do you want to achieve and why do you wish to achieve those things?

Only for your self aggrandizement.

An animal leads a normal life.

It cannot think like we do.

It goes through its life and when it's time to leave their life it leaves it peacefully, happily.

But as human beings we fight, trying to live forever.

Trying to maintain the same beauty we've always had, the same happiness, the same joy.

This is all a waste of energy.

All is well, just the way it is.

You are perfect just the way you are.

There is nothing that you have to do.

There is no-one you have to please.

There is no God that you have to appease.

You are the one.

All of these ideas that are going through your mind of people, places, things, Gods, are all you.

You are creating everything.

Everything that you can think about you're creating.

Everything comes out of yourself.

Just like you're dreaming.

The mistake we make is we try to awaken from the dream, the mortal dream, from this dream.

Yet who is to awaken from it?

The person that wants to awaken doesn't exist.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Nothing exists that has to do anything.

The person who wants to be free does not exist, has never existed.

The person who is looking for moksha does not exist.

Then again what does exist?

Total silence exists.

Pure profound silence.

Never try to comprehend these things.

For you're using the mind, you're using the cells that are the mind, that are connected to the cells of the universe and you make your life miserable by doing this.

There is no difference between you and a tree or a mountain, a sky or the ocean.

The whole universe is composed of hydrogen atoms.

So you're nothing but a hydrogen atom.

How does it feel to be a hydrogen atom?

See how you mind begins to think?

It's difficult for most of you to stay silent.

You are not required to understand a thing I say.

I speak utter nonsense.

It's all nonsense and some of you are taking it in so profoundly like it's important.

Who are you really?

I have no idea?

If you have an idea of who you are you've got a problem.

For you're not that at all.

Again we go back to the beginning when I opened up this sentence.

Who thinks they're something.

You can never be anything.

The 'you' that you think you are can never be a thing.

Always remember this.

The 'you' can never become anything.

The only freedom you really have is to be still and quiet and that is the only freedom you've got.

To be totally quiet.

Everything else is an hallucination, a lie.

So most of you want me to sit here and tell you lies.

Stop worrying.

Stop fretting.

Stop believing something can happen to you, to hurt you.

What you are was never born.

It knows nothing of birth.

The one that knows about birth and death doesn't exist.

So here we are together again.

Why do you come here?

If you have a reason for coming here it's the wrong reason.

There is no reason for doing anything at all.

(long silence)

💛 Robert Adams

When Will I Awaken?

13

Examine daily what kind of thoughts you project. Are they about spiritual life or are they about worldly life? One who examines in this way, gains an inner richness. For one whose attention is turned towards the Reality, the first effect is desirelessness.

What does it mean to you if some other aspirant behaves in a certain way? What do you lose if he goes astray? We must free ourselves from the concept of "you." Otherwise, that also becomes a bondage, a source of worry. Therefore, you should not worry about anybody. Only then are you free.

- Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

💛

"Master of Self-Realization - An Ultimate Understanding" by Sri Siddharameshwar

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In the hall where Bhagavan used to give darshan there was a chimney. The chimney was closed on all sides with steel mesh, except at the bottom. One day, a beautiful small bird somehow entered it and became trapped inside this chimney. The bird found itself trapped in conditions diametrically opposed to its natural environment: the vast space where it could fly freely. From the moment it entered the chimney, it was frantically struggling to escape, but all its efforts proved futile. Why? Because, forgetting the way it came, it was repeatedly trying to escape through all the closed routes. Sri Bhagavan took this opportunity to reveal a great truth:

'This bird has given up the all-pervasive space, its natural place of residence. It has been caught in this limited space, which is opposed to its nature. Not knowing how to escape from this prison, it is agitated and afraid. Like this bird, jivas have also given up their natural place of residence, the vast space of consciousness. Through the delusion of ignorance they have become trapped in the prison of the body. Without knowing how to escape, they are tormented by various afflictions. The ceaseless efforts of this bird to reach its natural place of residence are unsuccessful because they are directed upwards, the way of bondage, instead of downwards, the way it came. Similarly, the reason why the jiva’s ceaseless effort to attain freedom are unsuccessful is because they too are directed outwards, the way of bondage, instead inwards, the way they came. The natural tendency of the bird to go upwards asserts itself even in its attempt for freedom. Likewise, the natural tendency of jivas to roam outwards asserts itself even in their attempts at liberation. This is the jiva’s natural tendency. If, through true discrimination and awareness, the jiva is made to turn back from outward-directed sight to inward sight, and if it remains fixed there, it is certain that it would attain liberation in an instant.'

(. Sri Ramana Darsanam, pp. 49-50.]

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He who has nothing to desire or leave, but lives as he is obliged to live, has his intellect as unstained as the lotus-leaf, to which dripping waters never stick.

Maharṣi Vasiṣṭha _/|\_

in Yogavāsiṣṭha Mahāramāyaṇa