All is well and everything is unfolding as it should. There was once a Prime Minister of a large Kingdom. And he went to his Guru who simply used to say, “All is well and everything is unfolding as it should.” And the Prime Minister used to wonder why he says this. And the Guru would say, “Just come here and listen to those words and repeat them to yourself.” He did this often enough, enlightenment came. And he did realize, all is well and everything is happening as it should.

So he went back to the kingdom and sat in his chair and gave advice to the people as he usually did. Now the head of the security force had a problem. That day he was due to get promoted to chief and he was bypassed and somebody else got promoted, so he was disturbed. He went to see the Prime Minister and told him his troubles. And the Prime Minister smiled at him and said, “Don’t worry, all is well and everything is unfolding as it should.” And the guard got mad, he went away mumbling, “How can he tell me something like this, this is ridiculous.”

Now the head chef had a problem because his wife ran away with one of the cooks. And he was very disturbed. He came to the Prime Minister and said, “Mr Prime Minister what should I do? My wife ran away. I feel very bad.” The Prime Minister said, “Don’t worry, all is well and everything is unfolding as it should.” And the chef got very upset and he left.

He was walking down the hall and he bumped into the guard and they related their stories. And they said, “Lets fix this guy. He can’t tell us things like this, we have serious problems.” And they were thinking of a way to get even. They were walking down the corridor and they saw the royal barber shop. And there was the king getting his royal shave. The barber inadvertently slipped and cut the kings throat and it was deep gash. Royal blood was spilling all over the floor. (laughter) And they both looked and they said, “I know what we’ll do,” they conceived a plan. When the king was feeling better with a bandage around his neck. They went and said, “Your majesty, we went and told the Prime Minister that you cut your royal neck and you know what he said? He said, All is well and everything is unfolding as it should.” So the king said, “What! Bring him to me.” So they brought the prime minister and the king said, “Look at my neck, I’m in total pain. Do you see the cut and the bandage? What do you think of that?” And the prime minister looked and he said, “Don’t worry your majesty, all is well and everything is unfolding as it should,” and the king said, “What! How dare you tell me something like this when I’m in pain, throw him in the dungeon!” So they threw the prime minister in the dungeon.

Now, it was Wednesday afternoon. And every Wednesday afternoon the king went hunting in the jungle with the prime minister. But since the prime minister was in the dungeon he went hunting by himself.

Now in the jungle there lived a tribe of Kali worshippers. And these Kali worshippers always sacrificed somebody to Kali. And this was the day of the sacrifice. So the chief of the Kali worshippers told the worshippers, “Go out and find me somebody virtuous so we can sacrifice this person to Kali.” They got on their horses and rode out. And sure enough they found the king. And they didn’t care whether he was a king or what he was. They grabbed him and took him to the chief. And the chief said, “Good you found somebody, undress him and bathe him and let’s sacrifice him.” They proceeded to undress him and they saw the cut on his neck. And they showed the chief and the chief said, “What! This guys no good, he’s not pure. Throw him back where he came from.” And they took him back and let him go.

On the way back to the kingdom the king started to think and he said, “Now wait a minute, if didn’t get this cut I would be dead meat. The prime minister was right,” and he rode back to the kingdom, to the palace and he said, “Release the prime minister.” Which he did and he related the story to the prime minister and he said,”you were right all the time.” So the prime minister said, “Not only that your majesty, but if I rode with you today and you didn’t throw me into the dungeon, they would have caught me also and I didn’t have a cut and they would have sacrificed me to Kali. So by being in the dungeon my life was spared.” This story shows you that when something happens to you and you try to solve it by blaming others or believing there’s something wrong you are making a dreadful mistake. For if you are able to see the whole picture, whatever happens to you is for your ultimate good.

Never curse the darkness if you don’t understand what’s going on.

This is why when things are troubling you and you have no idea, why, and you think you have got bad luck, or people are against you, or life is very hard. If you would merely go within yourself, dive deep within yourself and ask yourself, “To whom does this come?” or “who am I?” and follow the I to the source, everything will be revealed to you. EVERYTHING will be revealed to you. And you will find unalloyed happiness, total joy and total peace. But you have to do the work. You cannot just ride through life and take things as they come. Simply begin the work of self-inquiry and everything else will take care of itself. And remember do not ask about time, when it’s going to happen. It will take care of itself.

Robert Adams

Transcript 29
More On Satsang
9th December, 1990

THIS SIMPLE MEDITATION CAN SETTLE YOU !!

HAVE YOU BEEN TRYING AND TRYING to calm your zillions of runaway thoughts and fears, but somehow find yourself assaulted yet again? This guy, Robert Adams, knows what he’s talking about when it comes to going deep and staying there! Hint: he even allows a moment or two of self-inquiry to stare down [my words] any particularly obstreperous unwanted thoughts. Here, I’ll let him tell you himself. Remember the key word is SIMPLE :

“I Am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I Am with your respiration. I Am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try. Inhale and say, “I.” Exhale and say, “Am.” Doesn’t that make you feel good? Just by saying I Am to yourself, it lifts you up. So the thing to do is this: Whenever you have a problem, I don’t care what it is, I don’t care how serious you think it is, whether it’s worldly or personal, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment, forget about the problem for as long as you can, and do the I Am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again, and do the I Am meditation.
“When I explain this to some people they say, Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it. This is true. This is the highest truth. But most people cannot do this. Remember Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls, people who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It’s like going to school. Self-inquiry, Advaita Vedanta, is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself.
“There are so many people who try to practice Self-inquiry and they give it up. Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That’s the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for a while and they always revert back to themselves, your personal self. So, I give them the I Am meditation.
“Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to the I Am. It’s really powerful. Do not take it as simple. I can guarantee you this: if you practice I Am for one day, all of your troubles will be transcended. You will feel happiness like you have never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed.
“As you keep practicing the I Am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will feel an inner bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I’m going through. It makes no difference, because it is God that is going through this, not me. And God has no problems. You automatically become happy, just by using the I Am meditation.
“In the Bhagavad Gita it says, “Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people who search, one finds Him.[“] It’s sort of difficult. That’s how it appears. But, if you begin to use I Am as a meditation and you allow the I Am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and the I Am will take over.
If you want to mix Self-inquiry, Atma Vichara, with I Am, that’s permissible. You can use them both together. I’ll explain how. Say you’re using the I Am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they’re good thoughts or bad thoughts makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire “To whom come these thoughts?” Just observe and watch.
“When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I Am meditation with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire, “To whom do they come?” As you progress in this method, you complete the question. “The thoughts come to me. What is the source of me? Who am I? What is the source of I?”
“You begin to feel and see that the “I” that seems to have the problem is not you. You begin to feel “I” have a problem. “I” am sick. “I” am angry. “I” have no peace of mind. And you begin to laugh. For the realization tells you, “I” has all these things, I don’t. “I” is the culprit. “I” appears to want this and need that. So it is with wants, desires and self-aggrandizement. All of this belongs to the “I.” Who is this I? Where does it come from? If the “I” isn’t really me, then who am I? And you keep still.
“Now you may go back to the I Am with respiration. You inhale and you say I. You exhale and say Am. As you progress this way, you’re going to find out something interesting happens to your life. You’re going to find there’s more space between I Am. It will happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden, nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with Am. You will inhale again and say I. Remember you’re not putting this on, you’re not making this happen. It’s happening all by itself and the space between I Am is the fourth dimension of consciousness. After waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the Jnani. It is your freedom. It is Pure Awareness. And when you keep practicing, “Who am I?” alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say, “Who am I?” again.
“That space is bliss. You’ll feel something you’ve never felt before. An inner joy. An inner delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the Self, and I Am That. As the months progress, the words become less and less. You may start off with I Am, and then you will be in the Silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the Silence. That Silence is Nirvana, Emptiness. It is no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the Silence.”

ROBERT ADAMS
I AM Meditation
Silence of the Heart
pages 101-104