And suffering will only stop, not when God answers your prayers, but when you awaken to the truth of your own Being. Then you are born again, so to speak, in a new reality and all is well. But you say to me, "But Robert, sometimes you appear to have problems too. Your karma evolved as it does all the time, or your physical body doesn't feel to good, or something is going on.” My question to you is this, "Who sees this?" There has to be a seer and an object. You're seeing yourself. When you catch on to your awakening the world does not change. You just see it differently, that's all. You acquire a feeling of immortality, a feeling of divine bliss, so to speak, when things no longer have the power to affect you. In other words, in the state of enlightenment cause and effect does not exist for you. But those who are living in the world are going through their karma, and they're beholding themselves everywhere they look. For the world, remember, is only a projection of your mind.
Now what kind of a projection is it? It depends on your state, where you are coming from. We're all looking at the world and we see something different. All we are seeing is ourselves. There are no problems. None exist. None will ever exist. The only problem that exists is what...? Who can tell me?
(Student: "Kuwait.”)
You're close. What do I always say, why does a problem exist? It has to do with your nose. That's right. You're allowing your thoughts to go past your nose. That is the only reason you have a problem. If you catch yourself quick before it gets past your nose, where is the problem? The problem is in your thought, only in your thought. When your mind slows down, when the thinking process slows down, where is the problem? It doesn't exist. But if you allow the thoughts to go past your nose then there are all kinds of problems which you come up with. You believe this is wrong, and this is not right, and this is hurting me, and you become doubtful, suspicious and apprehensive, and fearful and so forth. Because you're thinking. You may say, “How can you exist without thinking?” Quite well, thank you. The trees do not have to think. The grass does not have to think. The world does not have to think of itself. Everything is taken care of.
There is a power that knows how to take care of everything, and will also take care of your body, so called, if you stop thinking. But as long as you think I am the body then you have to take care of your body, and watch it, and feed it aspirin and cold remedy and proper foods and do all kinds of strange things with your body. But your body and your mind are not your friend. They come under a law of their own. Did your body ask you today this morning. When it's time to get up, it got up. Did it ask your permission? It does what it wants. You have nothing to do with the body or the mind. When you become depressed does your mind ask you if it can become depressed? It does what it wants. When you become fearful does your mind ask your permission? It does what it wants. When your body catches a cold does it ask you if it can catch a cold? It does what it wants. But what have you got to do with those things?
A lady called me this morning from Santa Cruz. And she asked me, “How long do I have to come to Satsang before I become self-realized?” So I told her, “Before I answer let me ask you, what do you mean by I, and what do you mean by Satsang?” And she hung up. I wonder why she did that. But it's something we can talk about, or I can talk about since I have nothing else to do. How long do "I" have to come to Satsang ? How long does "I" have to come to Satsang ? Does "I" need to come to Satsang ? What is this elusive “I”? What does it mean? How long does "I" have to come to Satsang ? The reason you would call it I, is because you misinterpreted the I. You identify the I with the body. So you're saying how long do I have to come to Satsang . Then what is Satsang ? Sat means Being, being with the Self. Therefore I and Satsang are the same thing. What this means is Satsang is your everyday experience. It's not a place you go to. It’s how you live your life. "I" makes the separation but there is no separation. There is one whole and you are That. But as long as you are separating I from your Self then you always question. I feel sick. I feel happy. I feel depressed. I feel out of sorts. Who is this I? Where did it come from? How does it originate? What is it's Source? Find out. Dive deep within and find out where the I came from. A good way to do this is before you go to sleep say to yourself, "I'm going to find my I when I get up this morning."
Just before you wake up, before you start thinking, the I presents itself as "I AM", as pure Consciousness. Catch it then. That's the best time to catch it. As soon as you awaken in the morning, in that split second before you wake up and start thinking. Before the thoughts come of the world, that is the time to catch the I AM, the Absolute Reality. For at that moment this is exactly what you are, pure Awareness. And then the thought comes, it covers it up. So remember this. If you ask yourself when you go to sleep, you tell yourself, "Tomorrow morning as I open my eyes I am going to identify with my Source I AM,” and you will. Even for a second, it will change your life.
As you keep on doing this every morning, every morning, every morning, the time between your awakening and the thought coming to you will become larger. And the space will expand and expand and expand until you are able to stay in the Awareness. Of course at that time there will no longer be a you. There will only be the Awareness. Try it. You have to investigate. You have to intelligently dive deep within yourself and find the Source of your I.
Do not accept your feeling. Do not accept your thoughts. Do not watch yourself feeling miserable, and you do nothing about it. Or you can become the witness to it. That will help too. But it's better to ask, "Why am I feeling miserable?” and realize that you said why am "I" feeling miserable. I, I'm identifying with my body as I. Again a mistake. The I in itself is pure harmony, joy, happiness. But when you identify the I with your body/mind, it becomes the personal I which doesn't even exist. But you’re making it exist. You're identifying with it. Why do you want to identify with your personal I? Your personal I never existed. Why have you befriended it? Why do you keep giving it power? Why do you make it grow?
Take your power back. Expose yourself, the real YOU, and forget all this nonsense about a mind and a body and thoughts and the world and God and everything else that appears to be real. Compare yourself with no one. Be true to your self. Never mind how much progress somebody else is making. Forget about Saints and Sages and other people. You are the only one that ever existed and there is no one but you. You are all the Saints and the Sages and the Seers. You are everything. Everything is the Self, and you are That. Why not awaken to this? Why do you want to play games with yourself so long? By believing in reincarnation you just come back again and again and again, and hoping to have a better life next time. There is no better life.
As long as you are born of the flesh you have to suffer. This is the way of the flesh. Do not try to improve your life. You're making a big mistake. For there is no question about it, if you use positive thinking and use your mind, you may appear to improve your life. But remember this world in which you live is a world of duality. For every up there is a down. For every forward there is a backward. For every good there is a bad. Therefore whatever improvement comes in your life, it will last for a while, then will subside, then you become miserable again. Then you will be happy again when you get what you want, and then that will last, and then you will be miserable again. You'll start sticking up for your rights and fighting for your survival. Then as you get what you want, you'll be happy again. You’re like a yo-yo. You go up and down, up and down. And no matter how much I talk to you about this you're going to keep on doing this. So why am I talking? I don't know. I have no choice.
You know, I never asked to do this. Strange how things turn out.
(Student: "Too late now.” )
All I know is that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. All I know is that happiness is your true nature. That you are not what you appear to be and things are not what they appear to be. Nothing can ever happen to you. Why do you worry so much? What are you afraid of? Your life? You have no life. What you call your life is nothing. It doesn't exist. It's no thing. You worry about your hair falling out. Worried about needing a new pair of shoes. You're getting fat. What a waste of energy. Like feeding a dead horse. We're all going to wind up in the cemetery so what difference does it make what you do.
Last week I was talking to a body builder. He was telling me about his muscles. And what he does for this muscle, and what he does for that muscle, and how well he eats. So I told him that's great, you'll be the healthiest man in the cemetery. And that's about the gist of it. Why not use your energy for constructive purposes? Now this does not have to mean that you ignore your body. Your body will always take care of itself. As a matter of fact the more you practice your sadhana, or realizing your true identity, your body will be able to take better care of itself than you were ever able to take care of it, because it comes under a different law. It knows what to do. It will do whatever it came to this world to do, but it has absolutely nothing to do with you. When will you wake up to that fact?
Stop thinking about yourself so much, about getting a new job, losing a job, about working or not working. No one is ever happy. Those people who work are miserable because they have to work. Those people who don't work are miserable because they can't find a job. And when they find a job they join the miserable ones who can't stand the job. Where is peace? Peace is your real nature. It's within you. It is you. Look for it and you'll find it. Seek and ye shall find.
Whatever you identify with, that's what you become. Therefore stop identifying with worldly things. Identify with yourself. Now how do you do this? It begins in the morning, as I told you before. That's the time when your mind has been free. Because you slept you've had a semblance of peace. Being in deep sleep is an unconscious method of self-realization. You're realized when you are asleep, but you are unconscious so you're not aware of it. You want to be consciously asleep. When you're consciously asleep you're awake. You're awake to your Self, to Reality, to what is, to I AM.
When you get up in the morning, immediately before the thoughts come, identify with the Self. Now how do you do this? Simply say to yourself, "I, I.” That's all you got to do, "I, I.” You're doing this before your thoughts come. Maybe in the beginning you can only do this for a couple of seconds, but that's good. Even those couple of seconds will make your day fulfilled, and you'll feel happy during the day. As time passes, as I explained before, the space will widen and you'll be able to remain longer periods in “I, I”, “I, I”. Now when thoughts come simply ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts come? They come to me." And you hold on to the me. You do not let go. But do not concentrate on the me. Just hold on to the me. You concentrate on the source of me. It's like you're holding on to a rope, and you're going to its source and you let go. Letting go is the Source. Total Awareness, Absolute Reality, I am that I am. Do not try to analyze this. Just allow it to be. As you keep doing this every morning, either watching the I, or asking, “To whom do the thoughts come?” you'll notice a subtle change is taking place in your life. The first change you will see is you develop a semblance of peace that you never had before. You'll just not be disturbed by anything and you'll be surprised at yourself. You'll notice the things that used to make you angry no longer have the power to do that. You'll notice that the things you feared, for instance depression, recession, (laughter) loss of memory, whatever, your wife ran away with the milkman. Maybe that's a good sign, but these things will no longer disturb you. You'll just feel good. You'll feel good all over. And that will turn into pure happiness You're just happy, for no reason. Can you imagine what it feels like just to be happy without interruption, for no reason. It has absolutely nothing to do with the world. It doesn't mean you'll go round laughing hysterically all the time. It means you just feel happy.
You hear about the war in Iraq and you're happy. There's no war in Iraq, you're still happy. You work, you're happy. You don't work, you're happy. You have possessions, you're happy. You don't have possessions, you're happy. In other words it makes no difference what the world may seem to bring to you. You are no longer identifying with the world and its objects. You're seeing the world as yourself, or you're beginning to, slowly but surely.
Everything begins to take on a projection of yourself. And since you are beginning to discover that you are pure Consciousness, the world starts becoming pure Consciousness also. It's like going to a movie, and the screen is pure Consciousness, the images are the world. Prior to your awakening you've been identifying with the images and you have no idea there's a screen. Oh you know it somewhere in your mind. You have a slight image of the screen, but you don't think of that because the images are very entertaining. You watch a love movie, or a war movie, or this kind of movie, or that kind of movie, and you get all wrapped up in the objects. But of course if you try to go up to the screen to grab any objects you're going to grab the screen. This is what happens when you awaken. You realize that you are the screen, which is Consciousness. And you realize that everything in the world, everything, the whole Universe including God, is superimposed on you. It's not Reality. It's a superimposition. But you identify with the screen, which is Consciousness, and you tolerate the superimposition. Yet you realize it's not you. You have nothing to do with it and you do not identify with it.
So in the same instance your body goes through all kinds of experiences, good and bad and in between, but you are always aware that you are not the body and no body exists for you. You know in reality there is no superimposition at all. It does not exist. It appears to exist but it does not. It's like hypnosis. You're hypnotized to believe a white poodle is following you. And sure enough when you wake up out of the hypnosis, you keep looking back, you will actually see a white poodle. Your mind will actually picture the white poodle and you will believe it's real. Nobody else will see it but you will, until the hypnosis wears off.
In the same way we see people, places, and things, and they appear so real to us. We identify with them and we suffer accordingly. But as you practice every morning, catching yourself between waking up and thoughts coming, little by little, slowly but surely, you will begin to realize yourself more and more. And the day will come when you awaken. Never mind how long it takes. Do not look at time. Think of how long it takes you to be what you are now. Be yourself. Identify with your reality. Try to be yourself at times. Be aware that the world is egoless. The world has no cause, so where is the effect?
If there is no effect there is no cause. How could the world have a cause? Where would it come from? When you dream you can say that your dream has a cause. You are the cause, because you are dreaming. But can you say that while you're dreaming? While you're dreaming and you're in the dream, you believe that the world has a cause, like everyone else does. And you get involved in everyday activities in the dream. You have good experiences and you have bad experiences. And then I come along and I tell you you're dreaming, but you don't believe me. You say, "I'll show you if I'm dreaming, Robert," and you pinch me. And I say, ”owl!” And you say, "See? Is that a dream?" And I try to explain to you it's a dream pinch but you don't believe it. You think it's real. Then you go across the street. And then you're walking down the street and a car hits you, and you're bleeding all over the street. And I run over and I tell you, "You're dreaming, don't be too upset. It's OK.” And you start cursing at me and shaking your fist at me. "How can you say that? Look I'm bleeding all over the place.” Then something funny happens. You wake up. Where does the dream go? Where did the blood go? Where did the car that hit you go?
Think of your personal experiences that are upsetting you right now. Think of the problems that you think you have even while I'm talking to you. Some of your minds are thinking of something else, problems, and you believe it's real. You're thinking of who you like or don't like, what you're going to eat for dinner tonight. All these thoughts come to you because you have not trained yourself how to deal with your thoughts. And you've got preconceived ideas. You have got concepts. As an example, you come and you look at me. You don't see me fresh and new like you see yourself. But you compare me with Krishnamurti, or with this guy, or the Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, or Nisargadatta, or the garbage cleaner, or with the janitor or whoever you wish to compare me with. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Your mind becomes filled with preconceived ideas. I am really nobody. I am nothing special.
So what you see in me is not real. You're seeing your own projections. You're seeing your self in other words. And if you have not developed yourself and have awakened to pure Consciousness, then you're seeing something worldly. And you make comparisons. You say, “I like, I don't like, it's good, it's bad,” and so forth. You've got to take control of your mind. You've got to realize your mind and your body are not your friend. They feed you the wrong information. They appear right for a while but then it becomes wrong again. Do not listen to your mind. Stop the thoughts before they get to the edge of your nose.
That's all I've got to say.
