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

Give up all attachments -FJ &rjs

Frank Johnson expands and with razor-sharp precision expounds my topic, drawn from my inquiry into how to put Eastern wisdoms to use in the Western world:

GIVING UP ATTACHMENTS

In response to a popular query re. exactly how one could proceed with the task of putting off attachments, I cautioned that I am not a behaviorist, meaning I don’t concern myself with matters on the outside at all.

This issue is 100% a spiritual one, so setting up a plan to adjust your behavior will most assuredly miss the mark. As a matter of fact, it’s an all-or-nothing situation as with Abraham and Isaac.

If you arrive at the point where you need absolutely NOTHING AT ALL, then you’ll know the nature of true bliss. You’ll see for the first time what total freedom is truly about.
DrRobinStarbuck

Frank Johnson adds:
“True. The religious mind would have you think that change comes about by YOU taking control of your behavior. How many believe that in order to advance to some “higher level”, or to achieve some kind of spiritual breakthrough or intuitive tune-up, you need to really focus on doing better? We’ve all heard the expression… “What would Jesus do?” Does that really work?

Yes, you may achieve some limited or measured results, but ultimately and hopefully you’ll come to realize that all that “doing” is still just you. All that religious effort is still coming from you. What if you were to actually stop, and do something radically different. What if you really did what Jesus did… actually accept the divine reality of your Being? Right now, just as you are!

What if that God that we believe in is the LIFE that we already are and we were never told the truth. How many Believers ever take the time to realize or accept the truth within of who they are? What if you were to realize that the gospel message was not about “you doing something”, but that it was about the change that takes place when we accept and awaken to the truth of who we are.

What if the “I Am” that Jesus knew in himself is the “I Am” of you and me? What if YOU have been fighting the truth of your own Being all this time? Maybe the change we were looking for is found when we finally stop and just learn what it means to “Be”. To learn what it feels like to rest in the truth that it is God–our true Life, that works in, as, and through our physical being. This is how real change takes place. For now we realize that all this time we never knew the truth of who we are.”
Frank Johnson

Oh, that every man, woman and child would say ‘yes!’ to the nudge in their heart that is forever drawing them home to their Source, the reality of who they – and everyone else – are!
DrRobinStarbuck

You feel very peaceful and happy -RAdams

Working on your sadhana, spiritual exercises, spiritual practices [gives you] a sense of peacefulness. You begin to be totally peaceful. Things that used to disturb you [don’t] disturb you any longer. People that used to disturb you, used to give you trouble, they can no longer make you feel angry or upset. You feel an innate peace, the peace that passeth all understanding.

You feel very peaceful in whatever you do. It’s a beautiful peace. It’s a wonderful feeling. You are at peace with the world and at peace with the universe. You have reconciled yourself with the entire universe. With the mineral kingdom, with the vegetable kingdom, with the animal kingdom, with the human kingdom and you feel good about yourself.

Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

Everything is God, leave alone -RAdams

Be aware of yourself, always. The world goes through its own karma. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. You belong to God. Everything you see is God. This is why you should be nonjudgemental. Leave everything alone. By practising these things, you become radiantly happy. Everyone wants something. If your mind stops thinking, what happens? Some of you believe you will not have anything, that you will have more problems. But it’s in reverse. You experience bliss, joy and happiness when you don’t want anything. From what we know, people want something and when they get it, they become more miserable than ever before.

Robert Adams, Silence of the Heart

‘You’ doesn’t exist, pure consciousness -RAdams

If you know the true reason you are coming here it will make a tremendous difference in your life. You are coming here to awaken, to awaken from the dream of maya and of a personal I. You are coming here to find peace and happiness. Therefore just being here is a meditation in itself.

The modality I use to help you is silence, not words. There are no weekend seminars. There are no special mantras. There is no initiation. There is nothing. Yet the nothing is everything. You believe you are the doer, and everything you accomplish is your deed. That is a lie. You don’t even exist! You were not even born! How can you be the doer? There is no one who does anything. Yet everything gets done. It is a paradox.

When you realize you are not the doer everything gets done in a better way. You stop identifying with object and subject. You become free of all attachments. As long as you believe that you are responsible for anything that takes place, you have a problem. You will have to repeat that experience over and over, until you realize that you have absolutely nothing to do with that experience, or anything else for that matter! You are pure consciousness. Your real self is absolute reality. You have nothing to do with this world.

Robert Adams, Excerpt from Satsang 14

Tim Frekes disagrees w/R.Spira’s “Consciousness is.”, calling it theory -RSpira

Have you ever experienced anything that was not in consciousness? The obvious answer is in the question. It’s supposed to be no I haven’t, according to Spira. Now Tim has found out that he’s been wrong all these decades in assuming that because it is not true: it is not self evident. Once you see the world in this way you can get locked into it. These ideas are NOT SELF-EVIDENT. THEY’RE THEORY-LADEN. They’re an interpretation in the moment not given in the moment. All of it. This that you’re experiencing, sensations in consciousness. That’s a theory. It’s not self-evident. I’ve assumed there’s such a thing as consciousness. That doesn’t mean that I’m conscious: that’s self-evident. There is a thing called presence or pure consciousness called consciousness. IS THERE? THAT WAS A MOMENT FOR ME! IS THERE A THING CALLED CONSCIOUSNESS? Or is that a thing called a rarefication – that means you take something that isn’t a thing and imagine it’s a thing. I think that’s what I’ve done there. I think consciousness is an activity. It’s a WAY OF EXPERIENCING. I am experiencing this consciously. I’m also experiencing a whole lot unconsciously. I am experiencing some things with my psyche. It’s a way of experiencing. That’s a verb. It’s not a thing. And from that I’ve constructed this idea that there is a thing which is itself a ground of everything and is formless. I invite you to doubt that. I’m not saying that it’s wrong although I do think it’s wrong but all I want to get across in this video is to say that it’s an interpretation. It’s a thing, a presence called consciousness and within it arises sensations. Is that true? Is this raising my hand consciousness or is it a sensory experience of my hand, which is a common sense interpretation? THIS IS NOT AN APPEARANCE IN CONSCIOUSNESS A WORLD OF WHICH I AM CONSCIOUS. Let’s leave aside for the moment whether these 2 interpretations might be right and whether there might be other interpretations, which is what I’m exploring in my forthcoming book. That these are sensations arising in consciousness is NOT SELF-EVIDENT. IT’S AN INTERPRETATION OF THE EXPERIENCE. So if you take away the theory, the question, what you’re left with is Have you ever had an experience which wasn’t a conscious experience? And the obvious answer is no! That’s self evident and that’s what’s missing. When you take pure consciousness as a concept that you’ve applied to your It could be either. There’s a materialist interpretation and an idealist interpretation of this. Spiritual versus scientific is another way of looking at it together That’s why I’m excited about what it is that I’m working on. This idea that you’ve all heard in non-dual circles and spirituality that ALL EXISTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE. It’s a theory about reality to evaluate as a theory, an argument, not a given. It doesn’t show that it claims that and that’s a big difference. When I saw that I was able to extricate myself from THAT WAY OF SEEING THINGS. I’m able to see things in a new and in my opinion a much better way and that’s what I’m going to share with you in the coming months. I’ve written 35 books and what is fundamental and in my most recent I’ll share as this philosophy unfolds.