IN THE VOID
There is …
No thing.
There’s no we
No you, no me
There’s nothing.
All around
Wherever I look
I see abject
Nothingness
And I breathe.
Senses are still
Mind dissipated.
Splendor and joy
Sublime love
Nothing to do
But weep.
This is it!
Blissful solitude!
Peace unshakeable
Joy and contentment
Beyond forever
In the Void.
DrRobinStarbuck.com
THE SELF & CONSCIOUSNESS
What is the Self?
The Self is your real nature, that’s what you are. The Self is consciousness.
What is consciousness?
Consciousness is the power that is conscious of itself. It is self-contained, it is omnipresent. When you speak of love, of peace, of God, of joy, of happiness, of bliss, you’re speaking of consciousness. These words are just other words for consciousness. Consciousness is you. The Self, consciousness, they’re all synonymous. They all pertain to you.
Now what have you been seeing? What have you been reacting to?
The mind goes out and causes problems and you try to resolve them. You cannot.
For when you resolve one problem another one pops up somewhere else and there’s no end to it. It’s like trying to figure out, what came first the seed or the tree? You never get anywhere, there’s no solution. People have been trying to resolve problems, since the beginning of time and the world is getting worse. There’s no adequate solution in trying to resolve anything in the outside. The great secret of course is to;
Leave the world alone, go within your Self and there you will find happiness, joy and peace.
But how do you go within yourself? How do you dive deep within yourself?
By asking the question, “Who am I?”
I have found this to be the fastest method there is, to awakening. There are other methods, but personally I found this the fastest. All you have to do is question, “Who am I?” You do not have to answer, you do not have to analyze anything, you do not have to come up with any solution. You simply ask the question,
“From whence did I come? Where did the I come from? What is the source of I?”
Many people have been practicing Jnana Marga have made the mistake of concentrating on the I and this is why you do not get anywhere. You concentrate on the source, not on the I. The I is only an illusion. It is only something that appears to be like your body. It has no momentum, it has no substance. But yet you have to watch the I. You have to abide in the I. For it leads you to the source of existence. The source of everything.
ROBERT ADAMS
Transcript 29, p. 416
More On Satsang
9th December, 1990
Robert Adams Satsangs
The Collected Works
When your mind starts thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking about good and bad, yousimply ask the question,
“To whom do these thoughts come?”
You do not answer you simply pose the question to yourself.
Everything happens within yourself.
“To whom do these thoughts come?”
The answer will eventually come to you. “These thoughts come to me. I think them. I think them? I do?
Who is this I.
Well what is the source of the I?”
You hold on to the I, but you do not concentrate on the I, you concentrate on the source.
“Well what is the source of the I.” For it seems that all of my problems are attached to I.
For I say, “I feel bad. I feel upset. I feel angry. I feel cheated. I feel emotional,” or even “I feel good. I feel
happy,” that’s human happiness.
You feel happy because somebody gave you something you like or somebody did something for you.
That’s just as bad as feeling depressed.
I feel this and I feel that, I feel that I am a Jnani, I feel that I am not a Jnani, I feel all kinds of things.
But there’s always I, I, I.
If you investigate you will find that everything is attached to the I. And if you get rid of the I, all of your problems, the whole world, the whole universe, God and everything related to it, will disappear.
And the source will be your true Self which is pure consciousness, ultimate oneness, nirvana, emptiness.
This is your true Self.
And you will look at the world as your Self.
You will still see the world but you will see it differently. Nothing will ever upset
you again. For you will realize that the world is your Self.
How can you be upset at your Self?
You have become an embodiment of divine love, bliss, pure intelligence, ultimate
awareness, sat-chit-ananda, parabrahman, that is omnipresence.
So how can you be angry or upset over anything if you are pure consciousness, you just cannot.
Do you see what I’m saying?
If you learn to identify yourself with consciousness, you will always be happy. If you keep identifying with world conditions or with your body or your mind, you will be miserable and you’ll have short spurts of happiness, when things go your way. But then you will not trust people.
You will be suspicious of everybody’s motives and you will feel that there’s something wrong.
If you want to know whether you’re a Jnani or not, ask yourself,
“When was the last time I saw something wrong?
When was the last time something wasn’t right when I had a bad thought when I believed somebody was doing some-
thing to me, or when I became angry,” and that will give you a good inclination where
you’re coming from.
What you see in yourself, you see in everyone else. If you’re self-realized, then you know your Self as omnipresence and you can only see love, peace, harmony and happiness in everybody.
The choice is yours.
The only freedom you’ve got on this planet, in this universe, is to make the choice to go within and not to react to any condition.
Everything else about you is preordained. Everything else about you is prarabdhic
karma. Even when I lift my hand like this, it’s karmic. But what have I got to do with my hand? I am not my hand, I am not my body, I am not my mind, I-am that I-am. Absolute awareness, pure intelligence, absolute reality, parabrahman, nirvana.
I am spaceless, I am birthless, I am deathless. Water cannot drown me and fire cannot burn me. That is my true nature.
Find your true nature my friends and you’ll always be happy. Om shanti.
~ Robert Adams Satsangs
Eternal Happiness
25′ November, 1990
Good morning
Anandashram thought for the day
“The path of pure and simple Bhakti(Devotion) is one of the easiest means to reach the all-powerful feet of the Lord. Self-surrender is the goal. Pure aspiration and ceaseless meditation constitute the path. All else is secondary.”
— Swami Ramdas
Good morning, afternoon
Anandashram thought for the day
“God is absolute existence, knowledge and bliss. If He is an object of knowledge, He cannot be real and He cannot be eternal.
Because He is self-existent and self-luminous, He is not an object of knowledge. Every object of knowledge is perishable.
The mystics say much about Him, but whatever they say cannot be totally He. Therefore, in the Upanishads it is said that He is not what you think of, He is not what you talk about.”
— Swami Ramdas
Good morning
Anandashram thought for the day
“Mystics have a sense of beauty. Those who have got the talent for music, sculpture, art, etc., when they become mystics, express their exalted and holy emotions through art, music or sculpture. You will find great poets among mystics in India and other countries. They have revealed their spiritual genius through their particular talents. The mystics are in tune with nature, and through nature with God. When they stand before the vastness of a landscape, the greenness of a forest, the scintillating expanse of the blue water of the ocean, the golden hue of the sunrise and sunset, they go into a trance and feel the hallowed presence of the Most High. In ecstasy they pour out their hearts in celestial rhapsodies and songs. They love solitude where they converse with God.”
— Swami Ramdas
“Free your mind of all attachment, and you are God itself.
Free of desire, you are absolute.
There is no doubt about it.
Just get rid of desire for one second, and see how you feel.
In this instant, you fall in love with your own Self.”
~ PAPAJI
In Hinduism, and in particular Jnana Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, neti neti is a Sanskrit expression which means “not this, not this”, or “neither this, nor that” (neti is sandhi from na iti “not so”). It is found in the Upanishads and the Avadhuta Gita and constitutes an analytical meditation helping a person to understand the nature of Brahman by first understanding what is not Brahman. It corresponds to the western via negativa, a mystical approach that forms a part of the tradition of apophatic theology. One of the key elements of Jnana Yoga practice is often a “neti neti search.” The purpose of the exercise is to negate rationalizations and other distractions from the non-conceptual meditative awareness of reality.
Significance of neti neti
Neti neti, meaning, “Not this, not this”, is the method of Vedic analysis of negation. It is a keynote of Vedic inquiry. With its aid the Jnani negates identification with all things of this world which is not the Atman, in this way he negates the Anatman. Through this gradual process he negates the mind and transcends all worldly experiences that are negated till nothing remains but the Self. He attains union with the Absolute by denying the body, name, form, intellect, senses and all limiting adjuncts and discovers what remains, the true “I” alone.[1] L.C.Beckett in his book, Neti Neti, explains that this expression is an expression of something inexpressible, it expresses the ‘suchness’ (the essence) of that which it refers to when ‘no other definition applies to it’.[2] Neti neti negates all descriptions about the Ultimate Reality but not the Reality itself. Intuitive interpretation of uncertainty principle can be expressed by “Neti neti”[3] that annihilates ego and the world as non-self (Anatman), it annihilates our sense of self altogether.[4]
Adi Shankara was one of the foremost Advaita philosophers who advocated the neti-neti approach. In his commentary on Gaudapada’s Karika, he explains that Brahman is free from adjuncts and the function of neti neti is to remove the obstructions produced by ignorance. His disciple, Sureshvara, further explains that the negation, neti neti, does not have negation as its purpose, it purports identity.[5] The sage of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad II iii 1-6, beginning with there are two forms of Brahman, the material and the immaterial, the solid and the fluid, the Sat ‘being’ and tya, ‘that’ of Satya – which means true, denies the existence of everything other than Brahman. And therefore, there exists no separate entity like Jiva which Shankara states is the reflection of Brahman in Avidya (ignorance).[6
“The person is not God, the body is not God, but you are God. The reason you will not accept the fact that you are God is because of your orthodox upbringing. You still believe God to be an anthropomorphic deity up in the sky, and if I tell you you’re God, you think it’s blasphemy. That only shows me that you are identifying with your body. You believe you are a body, and there is a God somewhere up in the sky that you’ve got to pray to, and if he is in a good mood, he’ll give you a boon. If he’s not feeling too good that day, he will throw a lightning bolt at you. People still believe that.
The question is, what do you believe? It’s your life. What you believe, what you accept, becomes your lifestyle. You create it, you cause it. Why not experiment? Why not begin to believe that you are God?
What is God? God is consciousness.
What is consciousness? Something that is conscious of itself as pure awareness. And all of that is not some place outside of yourself. It is you. You are that. The whole universe is yourself. The whole universe is happiness, joy, love, peace. But you will never see that in the world until you see it within yourself. You must consequently practice seeing yourself as a loving person, as a kind person, as a joyous person. And then you will drop the person, and you will see yourself as omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence.
You are the power. There is no other power but you. Many of you, most of your lives, have been dwelling on occult powers, trying to find the golden fleece, so-to-speak, outside of yourself. It has never been outside of yourself.
Everything you’re looking for is within you. Stop searching outside of yourself.
Everything you want is within you. The potential, the possibility for everything you can imagine is within you. The omnipresent Self is your real nature.”
~ Robert Adams
Every negative condition you see in the world is a lie. Every positive condition you see in the world is a lie. Reality is beyond positive and negative. Why do you see these things? Why do you worry and fret about your life or about the life of someone else?
What can possibly happen to you? Where can you go? Who suffers? Only the body-ego-mind suffers. To the extent that you can realize that you are not the body-ego-mind, to that extent do you become totally, absolutely free.
Robert Adams
20th century
American Advaita mystic
You take a look at yourself.
Look at the way your thoughts have been ruling you, keeping you in bondage to them, how your thoughts have caused you to fear, to be suspicious, to be doubtful, to be apprehensive, to worry, and you
begin to do the work.
As long as the thoughts keep coming, you have to ask the question
“To whom do they come?”
That’s how it all begins.
Forget about the world.
Forget about everything.
I know some of you are saying already
“If I forget about everything, how will it get done?”
As I explained to you before,
before you were born everything was already laid out, and your body is going to go through the experiences it has to go through, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
So forget about that.
Deal with the thing at hand.
It meant first that your thoughts control you completely, and it’s hard for you to get away from them.
Then you start to work by inquiring
“To whom do they come?”
Whatever thoughts come to you, you pose the same question. It makes no difference whether the thoughts are good or bad.
Some of you are still believing that to pose the question “To whom does this come?” is only for bad thoughts, or when things are not going your way.
On the contrary. All thoughts are erroneous. No matter what kind of happy thoughts come to you, no matter what thoughts come to you that are horrible, you have to ask
“To whom do they come?
To whom do they come?
They come to me. I feel them. Since I can think about I, I must be separate from
myself, and all of my thoughts are threaded on the I.”
You therefore follow the I thread to the source, realizing all the time that you are not I. You become the witness to I.
That alone makes you feel wonderful, for you begin to realize that your real nature is freedom.
It is I who has the problems.
It is I who has the apprehension, the suspicions, the anger, the fears, the frustrations, the needs, the wants,
the desires, are all attached to I.
It is even I that wishes to become self-realized.
Watch the I.
Abide in the I.
Just by abiding in the I do thoughts begin to become weaker. When more thoughts come, you inquire again “To whom do they come?” and you realize they belong to the personal I. At this time, when you’re witnessing the I, do not inquire “Who am I?” but spend the time witnessing the I.
As further thoughts interrupt you, again inquire “To whom do they come?” Again “They come to me, to I.” Again
feel and realize that my real nature is safe and secure. It is I who has the problem. When you come to this realization
after a while, you then can inquire “Who is this I? Who am I?” Remember when you’re saying “Who am I? you’re
not talking about your real nature, who does not experience problems. You’re referring to your personal I, that is
separate and apart from you.
Where did this I come from?
Who gave it birth?
If you do this correctly, everything will come by itself. You will begin to feel and realize your self. “When I slept, I
was not bothered by I. When I dreamt I was not bothered by I. But now that I woke up, I is born. Who gave it birth?”
This kind of inquiry will cause something beautiful to happen to you. You will begin to feel that no one gave the I birth.
It never existed to begin with.
I know some of you still believe that consciousness, or the self, gave the I birth. How could this be? Consciousness,
the self, is all-pervading. It takes up all space. There’s no room for anything else. In other words, there cannot be
consciousness and you, or consciousness and I, or consciousness and the world, because there’s just no room. There
never was room for you and I. This will be a new revelation for you. You will awaken simply by realizing this great
truth.
When I say you look for the source of I, the source of I is nothing. It comes from no thing. But you will ask the question “Then why did it come at all?” And the answer is, it didn’t. The I exists like your body exists, like your mind exists, like the world exists, like the universe exists, like God exists. All of that is I. If none of these things
exist, neither does the I.
The important point to remember is, when you’re playing with the I, do not identify the I with the body or with yourself. Keep the I separate. Realize that your body is attached to the I, the universe is attached to the I, but the I does not exist. Nothing gave it birth. That’s why as I opened up the lecture tonight, I said your true nature is nothing.
You are plain nothing. You are no thing. No thing, nothing is consciousness, absolute reality, pure awareness. It is Parabrahman, it is beyond Brahman, and you are that. It begins and ends with you.
What do you do with all of your time during the day? There is no such thing as you’re too busy to practice self- inquiry. This should come first in your life, because this is your life. Everything else is secondary. If this appears too cdifficult for you in the beginning, surrender everything to God.
Let God take care of everything for you. Say something like this “God, self-inquiry is too heavy for me right now. I seem to go nowhere with it. But I surrender to
you my emotions, my body, my anger, my fears, my frustrations. I surrender the universe, the world. Everything that I believe I surrender to you. Take it and do as you will with me. I am only a puppet for you. Play with me as you desire,” and leave it at that.
As you keep on surrendering every day, twice a day, three times a day, just by that alone fear will leave you. Your frustrations will leave you. Your mind will not concentrate on your body. It will become
weaker just by surrendering.
The choice is yours. Do what you must. But remember, to go on playing the game of life will only lead you to more life, more births, more deaths, more frustration and more ignorance.
Realize the truth about yourself, and become free.
The Collected Works of
Robert Adams
Volume 1, page 248-249
