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

Q & A with Rupert -RSpira

Rupert Spira

Why Think Of Reincarnation
If I know myself as pure Consciousness, formless pure light. Does that mean that when I quit that apparent entity, that personality, that ego, that apparent me will dissolve completely?
Dear Rupert,

I read you every day on your site and I’m so grateful to you for your teaching. I resonate a lot with it and I have a question.

Consciousness is all there is. Consciousness chooses to experiment with a body and a world with free will. I understand that there is no separate entity in the sense that it is impermanent and that all those apparent entities take form in and out of consciousness and so are impersonal.

If I know myself as pure Consciousness, formless pure light. Does that mean that when I quit that apparent entity, that personality, that ego, that apparent me will dissolve completely?

If yes, who are all those dead entities that some people have the ability to see and get in touch with and even help them to transition. This seem to be so real and quite confusing and what about reincarnation?

Thank you for your great generosity.

Denise

Dear Denise,

If we truly know that Consciousness is all there is, this question would not arise.

It is more in line with non-duality to be honest about our thoughts and feelings rather than to adopt a new apparently non-dual belief. No belief is non-dual including the belief in non-duality.

It is not that the separate entity is impermanent – it is rather that it is non-existent.

The apparently separate entity is a figment of the imagination whether it appears in the waking state, the dream state or an after death state.

That separate entity does not transition anywhere. How can a non-existent entity transition anywhere?

Why think of reincarnation? You are not even incarnated let alone reincarnated!

Incarnated means ‘born into the body.’ See clearly that the Awareness that you intimately know yourself to be in this very moment is not located in or as the body.

Be knowingly that Awareness and allow all appearances of the apparent entity and all ideas about incarnation and reincarnation to pass through you.

Who is the ‘I,’ the you, that will quit ‘that apparent entity, that personality, that ego?’ That one does not have to quit anything – it is already inherently free of the separate entity.

And who is ‘that apparent entity, that personality, that ego’ that needs to be quit? It dies or disappears every time the thought or feeling about it ceases. In other words, it is constantly dying.

In fact, it was never alive in the first place. As an entity it is just an object, like a table or a chair. However, if we look for that entity, we never find it. We find instead this presence of Awareness, that is, it finds or knows itself. That is what is alive in all seemingly alive things.

That is the light, the aliveness, the ‘experiencing’ in all seeming things and experiences.

Take your stand knowingly as this presence of Awareness and see that it never moves, changes, appears disappears, is born or dies.

With love,
Rupert

~ Rupert Spira

Another way to awaken -RAdams

Adams, Robert

Another way to awaken is to trust the power that knows the way. In other words you have to have faith in the goodness of life. You have to have faith in supremacy of goodness. When you have faith in supremacy of goodness you move upward. In other words what I’m saying, when you look at the dastardly things happening in this world and you can look through it and see glory and joy and happiness and peace then you’ve made tremendous progress.
This is why I can only speak of my own experiences and it’s hard for people to understand this. When I give you the illustration of a mirror cannot see itself therefore when I look at the world I’m seeing myself. Now since the Self is consciousness and pure awareness and absolute reality this is the only Self I can see. I cannot see any other Self. This is the reason why I can say these things and tell you that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. This is the truth. This is what I see, honestly, truly. I see such joy, such love, such harmony, such peace and I see yourself as myself. In other words I do not see anything else that separates yourself from me. The love that I see is you. The absolute reality I see is yourself.
Now I’m a mirror and I cannot see myself so I see myself as the world. You are a mirror also and you cannot see yourself. But what do you see when you look at the world. Your mirror is covered with dust. You see man’s inhumanity to man. You see terrible cataclysms, wars, and you become upset, you become worried, you become frustrated. Not realizing that when you become like this it clouds your mirror even more. …

Robert Adams, satsang

Separate The I From Reality!

3rd September, 1992

The transparency of things -RSpira

Rupert Spira

💯 DEEPEST EXPLANATION SPELLED OUT (rjs) 💯

https://youtu.be/6ZrwsAP9s64
DO YOU DARE TO GO THIS DEEP … AND STAY THERE? rjs

Fear comes from the very deep association of consciousness with the body that if this tiny fragment of a vulnerable body disappears then I will disappear. This is the core exclusive association of consciousness with the body. If we don’t avoid that discomfort and cover it over with other activities but rather have the courage to stay at that uncomfortable place and allow the reality of the experience to reveal itself because the reality of the experience is that this knowing presence is not exclusive. This sensation is JUST A SENSATION! Just the fact of witnessing it is the loosening of it – just simply sitting with it and seeing, allowing the bodily sensation to be whatever it is and allowing it to do with absolutely no agenda I mean why have an agenda with a bodily sensation? It’s not necessary to get rid of it because it’s a sensation. It’s not a problem. It’s only a problem when it is half seen, when it’s believed to be what we are and therefore it is felt that when it disappears we’re going to disappear. So it’s only lack of clarity lack, of clear seeing to what is actually a neutral bodily sensation to become an abode of fear.

CLENCHED FIST ANALOGY IS US HOLDING TIGHTLY OUR BELIEF OF BEING A SEPARATE SELF.

Meditation is not something we do, it’s letting go of this tightened fist contraction hold over our real identity.

We know with our “mind” consciousness cannot be personal, but we feel that it is, which presents a contradiction… There’s a mixture of consciousness plus a collection of sensations which we call the body. If our eyes are closed our only experience of our body is sensations – either a single sensation or a network, a cluster, of sensations. There’s no distance between the sound and you the perceiving consciousness. Consciousness is impersonal. All there is is what is. Not solepsism, not the same. There is only what is doesn’t refer to objects. Only what is present in deep sleep is real. Ramana Maharshi. Only Consciousness is.

In the silence -SB many

Silence, Simon Bartholomé

“You are never more essentially, more deeply, yourself than when you are still.
Stillness is the only thing in this world that has no form. But then, it is not really a thing, and it is not of this world.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

“Silence is truth. Silence is bliss. Silence is peace. And hence Silence is the Self.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

“Beyond the mind, there is infinite intensity of emptiness and silence.
In peace and silence, the skin of the ‘I’ dissolves and the inner and the outer become one.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

“When you are willing to stop looking for something in thought, you find everything in silence.”
~ Gangaji

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”
~ Rumi

“Silence is not the absence of sound. Silence is the absence of you.”
~ Wu Hsin

“The only way you will ever awaken is through silence, not through analyzation of facts.
Everything that you can ever imagine that you want to be, you already are. You are the imperishable Self, beyond birth, beyond death, beyond experiences, beyond doubts, beyond opinions, beyond whatever it is your body is going through. Whatever thoughts your mind thinks, you are beyond that. You are the silence, the silence of the heart.
When you sit in the silence, it will come to you. You will see how the body came to be, and how the body goes, and a new body comes to be, and a new body goes. But you are alive. The real You persists. Nothing can ever destroy it. Water cannot drown it. Fire cannot burn it. Whatever happens to the body in this world cannot eliminate the ‘I am’. It has nothing to do with your age, or whether you’re well or sick, or rich or poor. It is the Self. It has always been and it will always be. It is YOU.
It’s in the silence that your problems just dissolve. Try it. It really works.”
~ Robert Adams

“When you can bear your own silence, you are free.
There is a mystery within all beings bursting to reveal itself, in the ones who become quiet enough to discover it. In this discovery a benevolent force shines spontaneously from your presence towards all beings, and this light cannot help but illuminate the world.”
~ Mooji

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
We’re fascinated by the words – but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”
~ Ram Dass

“Stop the noise in your mind in order for the wondrous sounds of life to be heard.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“It was long before dawn when the sharp cry of a bird woke up the night for an instant and the light of that cry faded away. And the trees remained dark, motionless, melting into the air; it was a soft quiet night, endlessly alive; it was awake, there was movement; there was a deep stirring with utter silence. Even the village next door, with its many dogs, always barking, was quiet. It was a strange stillness, terribly potent, destructively alive. It was so alive and still that you were afraid to move; so your body froze into immobility and the brain, which had awakened with that sharp cry of the bird, had become still, with heightened sensitivity. It was a brilliant night with the stars in a cloudless sky; they seemed so close and the Southern Cross was just over the trees, sparkling in the warm air. Everything was very quiet.
What was necessary was a very sensitive, alert mind which had stopped entirely, willingly and easily, its chatter. It had become very quiet, seeing and listening without interpreting, without classifying; it was quiet and there was no entity or necessity to make it quiet. The mind was very still and very alive. That immensity filled the night and there was bliss.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Screen People

IMAGINATION, Quantum world

I WOULD LIKE TO INTRODUCE YOU TO A GROUP OF PEOPLE KNOWN ONLY AS “SCREEN PEOPLE”. THEY ARE TWO-DIMENSIONAL BEINGS WHO RESIDE IN MY – AND NOW YOUR – IMAGINATION. THEY HAVE ONLY LENGTH AND WIDTH, BUT NO HEIGHT. BEING SINCERE SEEKERS OF TRUTH WHEREVER IT MAY BE FOUND, OF COURSE, WE WANT TO KNOW HOW THEY WOULD CHARACTERIZE THEIR GOD, SO DR. HUGH ROSS HAS COME FORTH WITH A LITTLE HELP FOR US IN “BEYOND THE COSMOS”:

…Imagine a plethora of debates among screen people who saw dots, lines (of different configurations), circles and ellipses (of different sizes), staying still or moving, appearing or disappearing, enlarging or shrinking. At some point, one group might band together to found the Church of the Three Circles, while another group launches the Ellipsoid Society; another, the Two Circle Fellowship; another, the Science of Lines; and yet another, the Church of the One True Ellipse. These groups might divide up through time, of course, and new groups begin as new interpretations of the revelations arise. The teachings of each group might be similar in some points, but for the most part sharply divergent. We can imagine the ensuing conflicts that might arise should attempts be made to overlook differences and to unite against big social problems. We can even imagine the cynicism of some screen people who say all this talk of higher beings means nothing; all that has appeared is some amazing but explicable (with enough research) screen phenomenon that, once understood, will usher in a new age of screen people consciousness. The great irony of the disagreement about the higher being is that none of these groups and individuals has more than a tiny clue about who that being is and what that being can do. All have an incredibly limited perspective on the attributes of the being, especially on the powers available to him or her.

DO YOU STILL THINK IT’S STRANGE TO PRESUME THAT JUST MAYBE OUR HEAVENLY FATHER (TRINITY AND ALL) RESIDES BEYOND OUR OWN HUMAN REALM?

Let it breathe -rjs

Robin Starbuck

SOMETIMES A SPIRITUAL REVELATION NEEDS TIME TO “BREATHE” IN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS. This I know to be the case because I’ve been only too keenly aware that I was unable to adequately answer certain questions re. I AM. It entails a new level of awareness wherein all descriptions cease; all concepts and definitions of God drop by the wayside.

This awareness doesn’t come all at once. I understood it almost perfectly and then it escaped me – several times!! Finally I “got it” and discovered that nothing in all the world could ever be as simple. It leaves no room for the slightest ambiguity or misappropriation.

Robin Starbuck 2017

Military miracle

Miracles are divinely natural!

CAN GOD HELP THE MILITARY ?
Many years ago a close, personal friend, Marvin J. Charwat, told me about a first-hand experience he had in the military. He was stationed where bombs were dropping right and left.
“One day,” he said, “You wouldn’t believe what I did, Robin. For no apparent reason I ran through the building I was staying in – up and down the stairs – screaming ‘Get out! Get out! Right now! Get out!'”
“No sooner did everyone – for no seeming reason – vacate the building, when a bomb hit and the whole building blew up!”
Marvin had saved the lives of countless people that day and I can tell you it had everything to do with his being so consistently at one with spiritual consciousness.

Stop analyzing -RAdams

Adams, Robert, Non-duality

“So the question is, what shall I do? You do exactly what you’re doing now, but you do not think about it. This is the important point. Do not try to find some new profound teaching, that will give you new words, or new methods, or new rules and regulations. You merely do what you’re doing now and you do not think about it, you do not attempt to analyze it, you do not think this teaching is higher than any other teaching.

You leave yourself alone. When you learn to leave yourself alone, in body and in mind, you have arrived. Do not ask, ‘Where have I arrived? To what have I arrived?’ This spoils the whole thing. This is what I’m trying to explain to you. Do not look at something that I say, and attempt to analyze it, tear it apart, try to make something out of it, or take refuge in it. Just be. Be neither this nor that.

If you were only able to do what I tell you, you would immediately feel a tremendous happiness, a tremendous bliss inside of you. You would feel a tremendous joy welling up within yourself. This happiness, this bliss and this joy is your very nature. It has nothing to do with words, places or things. It is what you are when you let go of everything that you’ve been holding on to.”

~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

SURRENDER. Did I really write this?! -rjs

Robin Starbuck, Surrender

To Truly Enter the Stillness one needs to
SURRENDER COMPLETELY.

Many many times in my meditations
I tried to enter the Stillness
But came up kinda short.
Oh, it was good each and every time
Like a refreshing dip in the ocean that is God.

But this time was different:
I YEARNED for a deeply spiritual and lasting,
Life-changing experience.
The YEARNING grew and grew until
I wanted nothing else –
Just cleanse everything about me
And let me stay indefinitely.

It was tantamount to total
Unmitigated SURRENDER
Although I gave no particular
Thought to it.
I was humbled to the depths
Of my soul.
Moisture told me I had never
Wanted anything so badly.

It happened!
The floodgates of Love burst open
And I saw. I saw everything.
I saw all you guys perfect as you are.
Saw my passed-on parents
And sister and brother.
I saw the whole world
Healed and whole.

DrRobinStarbuck, 2018

When u go into the
STILLNESS
don’t try to DO anything.
This is the place where u can ‘see’ in proportion to ur ABSOLUTE SURRENDER. rjs