All posts by Dr. Robin Starbuck

About Dr. Robin Starbuck

Professor of English 1973 M.A., New York University 1989 Ph.D., New York University Linguistics

Until there’s nothing left -rjs

As fallen human beings
We believe that
Guns have power,
Bombs have power,
Floods have power,
Hate & fear have power,
Ghosts and goblins have power,
Jealousy and envy have power,
Poverty has power,
Selfishness & sickness have power.
As Spiritual beings we do not.
We know that miracles are
Divinely natural.
We lift up our thinking
And our Loving
Until there’s nothing left to behold.

Robin Starbuck 2017

Not there yet? -rjs

Are you not there yet?
Not where you yearn to be?
Trying, trying, trying?
Quit!!
The only thing that’s
Ever in the way
Is our incessant
Unrelenting
Idiotic
“Need” to pull God down
To our littleness.
How ridiculous – really!
Can’t we see that
We – not God –
Need to lift ourselves
To the spiritual
Realm of the real.

Robin Starbuck 2017

I welcome and love everyone of you -RAdams

I welcome you with all my heart. I love every one of you. Always remember deep in your heart that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes anywhere at any time. What appears to be wrong is simply your own false imagination, that’s all. But we live in a universe of Brahman, of absolute reality, self-contained consciousness, where there is perfection, perfect life, perfect bliss, perfect being.

This perfection knows nothing about wrong and right, good and bad, happy and sad, it only knows itself as perfection and you are that. You are the Self, that perfect immutable Self. Nothing else exists. Nothing else ever existed. Nothing else will ever exist. There is only the one Self and you are that. Rejoice!

Robert Adams

Non-attachment -RM

What is non-attachment?

As thoughts arise,
destroying them utterly without any residue in the very place of their origin is
non-attachment.

Just as the pearl-diver ties a stone to his waist, sinks to the bottom of the sea and
there takes the pearls,
so each one of us should be endowed with non-attachment, dive within
oneself and obtain the Self-Pearl.

~ Who Am I? (Nan Yar?)
The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

Three essential steps -RSpira

There are three essential steps on the spiritual path: the first is to notice that one is not a body or a mind, but rather the Awareness in which these appear, and with which they are known; the second is to explore the nature of Awareness and discover that it doesn’t share the destiny or the limits of the body and mind – that is, to discover its eternal, infinite nature; and the third is to live a life that is consistent with this understanding.

Rupert Spira

No simpler and easier way -NM

Questioner: Is the witness-consciousness permanent or not?

Maharaj: It is not permanent.
The knower rises and sets with the known. That in which both the knower and the known arise and set, is beyond time. The words permanent or eternal do not apply.

Q: In sleep there is neither the known, nor the knower. What keeps the body sensitive and receptive?

M: Surely you cannot say the knower was absent. The experience of things and thoughts was not there, that is all. But the
absence of experience too is experience. It is like entering a dark room and saying ‘I see nothing’. A man blind from birth knows not what darkness means. Similarly, only the knower knows that he does not know. Sleep is merely a lapse in memory. Life goes on.

Q: And what is death?
M: It is the change in the living process of a particular body. Integration ends and disintegration sets in.

Q: But what about the knower. With the disappearance of the body, does the knower disappear?
M: Just as the knower of the body appears at birth, so he disappears at death.

Q: And nothing remains?
M: Life remains. Consciousness needs a vehicle and an instrument for its manifestation. When life produces another body, another knower comes into being.

Q: Is there a causal link between the successive body- knowers, or body-minds?
M: Yes, there is something that may be called the memory body, or causal body, a record of all that was thought, wanted
and done. It is like a cloud of images held together.

Q: What is this sense of a separate existence?
M: It is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In this reflection the unlimited and the limited are confused and taken to be the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of Yoga.

Q: Does not death undo this confusion?
M: In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after
death.

Q: But does one get reborn?
M: What was born must die. Only the unborn is deathless. Find what is it that never sleeps and never wakes, and whose pale reflection is our sense of ‘I’.

Q: How am I to go about this finding out?
M: How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart on it. Interest there must be and steady
remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.

Q: Do you mean to say that mere wanting to find out is enough? Surely, both qualifications and opportunities are needed.

M: These will come with earnestness. What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behaviour must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal.

Q: Tenacity and honesty are endowments, surely! Not a trace of them I have.

M: All will come as you go on. Take the first step first. All blessings come from within. Turn within. ‘I am’ you know. Be with it
all the time you can spare, until you revert to it spontaneously.
There is no simpler and easier way.

  • Excerpt from:I AM THAT
    Chapter 5. What is Born must Die
  • Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

World never changes-RAdams

“You think the world is personal to you, but the world is going through its own karma, so-to-speak. And people react when new changes come along. How foolish. In other words, they’re not working on themselves, trying to become free and liberated. They’re concerned with the world and what’s happening and trying to change things.

It will appear that things are changing but they will never change, it will always be the same. It will keep changing so that it becomes the same again and again and again—different situations, different people, different conditions— but the same world doing the same things. …

When it’s time to give up this body, to drop it, you can’t take anybody with you—nobody, no possessions, nothing. All the things you’ve been fighting for will have to be left behind. All your beliefs, your politics, everything will all have to be left behind. … Do not spend your life discussing politics or the world or people or places. Save yourself! Save yourself!”

~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

Must I have a single teacher/guru?

The necessity for a guru- different questioners

Q: Is a teacher necessary?

M: With any kind of physical and mental training we look for a competent teacher — the same rule applies to spiritual matters.

Q: Is a guru needed for spiritual progress?

M: Yes, but the guru is ●●within you; he is one with ●●your own Self.

Q: Is the guru necessary?

M: Yes, the guru is necessary. He shows the road to the Self and carries a light for you.

The guru sees all people as the Self. To him there are none who are ignorant; he finds no difference between them and himself.

Q: Is a guru absolutely necessary?

M: So long as duality persists in you, a guru is necessary.
Take the guru to be the Self, and yourself to be the individual self.

Because you identify yourself with the body you think the guru is also somebody, but you are not the body and neither is the guru. This knowledge that you are the Self and so is the guru,
is gained by what you call realization.

Q: Can’t a guru give us realization as a gift?

M: The guru is a very powerful aid on the path, but your effort is also essential; it is you who sees the sun — can your spectacles do it for you? You have to see your true nature.

  • Conscious Immortality