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

Substitute your favorite synonym for God: Spirit, Truth, Nirvana, Life, Omnipresence, ALL, Oneness, Brahman, Tao, Love, Principle, Buddha, Consciousness, Soul, Omnipotence, Mind, I, Christ, Allness, I-Spirit, I-Christ, I-Awareness.

God's existence

Everything God has, I have.
Everything God knows, I know.
Everything God feels, I feel.
Everything God sees, I see.
Everything God hears, I hear.
Everything God loves, I love.
Everything God speaks, I speak.

Everything God has NOT, I have NOT.
Everything God knows NOT, I know NOT.
Everything God feels NOT, I feel NOT.
Everything God sees NOT, I see NOT.
Everything God hears NOT, I hear NOT.
Everything God loves NOT, I love NOT.
Everything God speaks NOT, I speak NOT.

. . . BECAUSE ONLY :
Everything God has, I have.
Everything God knows, I know.
Everything God feels, I feel.
Everything God sees, I see.
Everything God hears, I hear.
Everything God loves, I love.
Everything God speaks, I speak.

Everything … means … everything!

I Am.

DrRobinStarbuck

Primordial Emptiness

Non-duality

The Primordial Emptiness
One day you will let go of attachment to the belief in a separate self and return to your primordial emptiness. This emptiness is empty of only one thing: conditioned mental illusion and all the suffering that goes along with it. It is the source of all you perceive and are. Nothing has ever been apart from it, even your illusions.
And when you do let go of this dream, you will experience peace, bliss, and love beyond anything your mind can ever imagine.

Reincarnation vs Immortality JK

Krishnamurti, Jiddu

Question: Do you believe in reincarnation? Is it a fact? Can you give us proofs from your personal experience?

KRISHNAMURTI: The idea of reincarnation is as old as the hills—the idea that man, through many rebirths, going through innumerable experiences, will come at last to perfection, to truth, to God. Now what is it that is reborn, what is it that continues? To me, that thing which is supposed to continue is nothing but a series of layers of memory, of certain qualities, certain incomplete actions which have been conditioned, hindered by fear born of self-protection. Now, that incomplete consciousness is what we call the ego, the ‘I’. As I explained at the beginning in my brief introductory talk, individuality is the accumulation of the results of various actions which have been impeded, hindered by certain inherited and acquired values, limitations. I hope I am not making it very complicated and philosophical, I will try to make it simple.

When you talk of the ‘I’, you mean by that a name, a form, certain ideas, certain prejudices, certain class distinctions, qualities, religious prejudices, and so on, which have been developed through the desire for self-protection, security, comfort. So, to me, the ‘I’, based on an illusion, has no reality. Therefore the question is not whether there is reincarnation, whether there is a possibility of future growth, but whether the mind and heart can free themselves from this limitation of the ‴he ۮ o؉’, the ‘mine’.

You ask me whether I believe in reincarnation or not because you hope that through my assurance you can postpone understanding and action in the present, and that you will eventually come to realize the ecstasy of life or immortality. You want to know whether, being forced to live in a conditioned environment with limited opportunities, you will through this misery and conflict ever come to realize that ecstasy of life, immortality. As it is getting late I have to put it briefly, and I hope you will think it over.

Now, I say there is immortality, to me it is a personal experience; but it can be realized only when the mind is not looking to a future in which it shall live more perfectly, more completely, more richly. Immortality is the infinite present. To understand the present with its full, rich significance, mind must free itself from the habit of self-protective acquisition; when it is utterly naked, then only is there immortality.

The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti – Volume II 1934-1935: What Is Right Action?
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Ego can’t be sacrificed: it doesn’t exist

Ego

Question : “Osho,
How to sacrifice the ego?”

Osho : “It is impossible. The ego cannot be sacrificed because the ego exists not. The ego is just all idea: it has no substance in it. It is not something – it is just pure nothing. You give it reality by believing in it. You can withdraw belief and the reality disappears, evaporates.

The ego is a kind of absence. Because you don’t know yourself, hence the ego. The moment you know yourself, no ego is found. The ego is like darkness; darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is simply the absence of light. You cannot fight with darkness, or can you? You cannot throw darkness out of the room; you cannot take it out, you cannot take it in. You cannot do anything with darkness directly. If you want to do anything with darkness, you will have to do something with light. If you put the light on, there is no darkness; if you put the light off, there is darkness.

Darkness is only the absence of light, so is ego: absence of self-knowledge. You cannot sacrifice it.
It has been told to you again and again: “Sacrifice your ego” – and the statement is patently absurd, because something that does not exist cannot be sacrificed. And if you try to sacrifice it, something which is not there in the first place at all, you will be creating a new ego – the ego of the humble, the ego of the egoless, the ego of the person who thinks he has sacrificed his ego. It will be a new kind of darkness again.

No, I don’t say to you sacrifice the ego. On the contrary, I say try to see where the ego is. Look deep into it; try to locate it, where it exists, whether it exists at all or not. Before one can sacrifice anything one must be certain about its existence.

But don’t be against it from the very beginning. If you are against it, you cannot look deep into it. There is no need to be against anything. The ego is your experience – maybe it is just apparent, but it is still your experience. Your whole life moves around the phenomenon of the ego. It may be a dream, but to you it is so true.

There is no need to be against it. Dive deep into it, go into it. Going into it means bringing awareness into your house, bringing light into darkness. Be alert, watchful. Watch the ways of the ego, how it functions, how it manages at all. And you will be surprised: the deeper you go into it, the less it is found. And when you have penetrated to the very core of your being, you will find something totally different which is not ego, which is egolessness. It is self, supreme self – it is godliness. You have disappeared as a separate entity; you are no more an island. Now you are part of the whole.”

Osho, The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, Talk #12

Don’t focus on the pain. FJ

Frank Johnson

TO WHAT EXTENT SHOULD WE FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM (PAIN) THAT WE WANT TO HEAL ?
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FJ:
“The problem (so many [have,] believers included) is trying to figure things out with the mind, trying to see what the mind cannot see (aka Religion).

We don’t want to let go, we want to add to our false sense of self.

This pattern, found in religious doctrine, only leaves you confused and empty.”

Frank Johnson

Never pit sympathy against outer focus

Heal Yourself

My heart yearns to be correctly understood on this one. I utterly, completely, totally, hands down support giving all the love, care, compassion and even empathy that a suffering person could possibly hope for. It’s entirely possible that healing will be the result.
There is ALSO a possible step BEYOND that where all concerned look AWAY from the unyielding problem and into the light of pure Spirit.
These two approaches should never be pitted against each other, imho.

Dissolve self / FAMOUS

Self
Destructive Process
Not suppression or control

Afraid to die

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“The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.”

Ramana Maharshi

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Discard who you’re not

Renunciation. Non-essential. JK

Krishnamurti, Jiddu, Self

Question: Do you advocate renunciation and self-abnegation as a means of finding personal happiness?

KRISHNAMURTI: Personal happiness does not exist. So there are no means to it. There is only the creative ecstasy of life, whose expressions are many. This idea of sacrifice, renunciation, self-abnegation, is false. You think that happiness is to be found through giving up certain things, following certain actions. So you are really trading in, exchanging your sacrifice, your abnegations, for happiness. There is no abnegations or renunciation, but only understanding; and in that there is creative happiness, which is not personal, individualistic.

Let me put it differently. I begin to accumulate because I think happiness lies through accumulation, but I find at the end of a certain time that possession does not bring me happiness. Therefore I begin to renounce possessions and try to possess and pursue abnegations, which is only another form of acquisitiveness. But if I discern the inherent significance of possessiveness, then in that there is creative happiness.

Question: Isn’t it true that the essential can be found in all the phases of life, in everything?

KRISHNAMURTI: I do not think that there is the essential or the unessential. What is the essential? What is the unessential? One day I want a thing and that becomes the most essential, the most important, and in the very possession of it, it has become the unessential. Then I want some other thing; and so I go on, moving from one essential which becomes the unessential, to another essential which in its turn becomes the unessential.

In other words, where there is a craving there can never be lasting discernment. As most people are slaves to craving, they are in constant conflict of the essential and the unessential. From possessiveness merely of things, which no longer gives satisfaction, you move to mental and emotional possession of virtues, of truth, of God. From things, which were once essential, you have moved “forward” to abstraction. This abstraction becomes the essential.

Can’t we look at life, not from this point of view of the essential and the unessential, but from that which is intelligent, comprehensive? Why have we this division of the essential and the unessential, the important and the unimportant? Because we are always thinking in terms of acquisition, gain; but if we look at it from the point of view of understanding, then this division ceases, then we are meeting life continually as a whole. This is one of the most difficult things to do, because we have been and are being trained in religious and economic systems which impose certain sets of values. To a mind that is really not attributing values but is trying to live completely, without the desire of gain—to such a mind there are no degrees of changing values, and therefore there is no conflict between the impermanent and the permanent, between the stationary and the constant movement of life.

The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti – Volume II 1934-1935: What Is Right Action?
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Who am I? RM

Ramana Maharshi, Self

“The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.”

Ramana Maharshi

M: Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Both make the mind restless. Moments of pleasure are merely gaps in the stream of pain. How can the mind be happy?

Q: Between the spirit and the body, is it love that provides the bridge?

M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

Q: How to reach the Self?

M: You are the Self, here and now. Leave the mind alone, stand aware and unconcerned and you will realise that to stand alert but detached, watching events come and go, is an aspect of your real nature.

~Ramana Maharshi

Buddha mind – Osho

Buddha

People come to me and they ask, “How to attain a peaceful mind?” I say to them, “There exists nothing like that: peaceful mind. Never heard of it.”

Mind is never peaceful; no-mind is peace. Mind itself can never be peaceful, silent. The very nature of the mind is to be tense, to be in confusion. Mind can never be clear, it cannot have clarity, because mind is by nature confusion, cloudiness. Clarity is possible without mind, peace is possible without mind; silence is possible without mind, so never try to attain a silent mind. If you do, from the very beginning you are moving in an impossible dimension.

Remember always that whatsoever is happening around you is rooted in the mind. Mind is always the cause. It is the projector, and outside there are only screens – you project yourself. If you feel it is ugly then change the mind. If you feel whatsoever comes from the mind is hellish and nightmarish, then drop the mind. Work with the mind, don’t work with the screen; don’t go on painting it and changing it. Work with the mind.

But there is one problem, because you think you are the mind. So how can you drop it? So you feel you can drop everything, change everything, repaint, redecorate, rearrange, but how can you drop yourself. That is the root of all trouble.

You are not the mind, you are beyond mind. You have become identified, that’s true, but you are not the mind. And this is the purpose of meditation: to give you small glimpses that you are not the mind. If even for a few moments the mind stops, you are still there! On the contrary, you are more, overflowing with being. When the mind stops it is as if a drainage which was continuously draining you has stopped. Suddenly you are overflowing with energy. You feel more!

If even for a single moment you become aware that the mind is not there but “I am,” you have reached a deep core of truth. Then it will be easy to drop the mind. You are not the mind, otherwise how can you drop yourself? The identification has to be dropped first, then the mind can be dropped.

When all identity with the mind is dropped, when you are a watcher on the hills and the mind is left deep down in the darkness of the valleys, when you are on the sunlit peaks, just a pure witness, seeing, watching, but not getting identified with anything – good or bad, sinner or saint, this or that – in that witnessing all questions dissolve. The mind melts, evaporates. You are left as a pure being, just a pure existence – a breathing, a beating of the heart, utterly in the moment, no past, no future, hence no present either.

OSHO
Excerpt from: The Dhammapada
The Way of the Buddha
‘Mind’