Isn’t the real goal – after all is said and done – to be so intimately connected to our Source that we’re actually able to handle the fact that we are IT?
Empirical, ill-begotten knowledge will never take us there – not to that sacred precious place where we once hailed from. It’s just too mind-boggling for our mortal minds to grasp.
And yet, we’re still, already there. We glimpse this phenomenal truth and run away – far too frightened of what more may be revealed to our pulsating hearts.
“Be not afraid” all the good books say; and we’d do well to heed them. For it’s from the very stepping out courageously, ready to listen with our every breath that we feel as we’ve been unable to previously. Feel an Alaskan snowstorm in midsummer and a sun-drenched tropical island in February. Feel as a happy little bluebird or a hippopotamus. Let us be all that we are.
You are there, and there and here ten thousand years ago and anon. Try to feel what your Soul is yearning to draw you into. Neither book nor video will ever, ever teach you all the glorious things that you already know.
DrRobinStarbuck.com
When will you grow up?
It is only what you experience that matters to you. It’s not what you read.
So what if you learn a truth you haven’t learned before?
So what if you say this teacher expresses it this way and now I know it from this angle and that angle?
I must remind you again, knowing truth intellectually does absolutely nothing for
you. You might as well take LSD, because you only get psyched up. Then again as soon as something comes your way that you don’t like, you become an imbecile, angry, mad, upset.
You want to know if you’re making progress on the path?
When was the last time you got angry? When was the last time that something mattered to you?
When was the last time you thought the world was hurting you?
When was the last time you became over-elated over something good that happened to you?
That shows you you’re still in
possession of your human faculties. You have not transcended.
You cannot escape in a book. Many people, when they are upset and they don’t want to think, will turn on the TV.
But people on the spiritual path will open a spiritual book. It’s like turning on the TV except you are memorizing spiritual truths. I won’t say that that’s not any better than TV. Of course it’s better than watching TV. But all the same, you can do that for a 1000 years and you hardly make any progress.
How do you make progress?
By using books for reference only. By practicing the methods I share with you. By
practicing self-inquiry. By watching as you go through life’s experiences and not reacting. Watch yourself become depressed. Watch yourself become angry. Do not deny it, but observe it. And if you observe yourself correctly in that calm way, you can ask yourself,
“Who becomes angry?
Who is feeling depressed?”
and follow it through.
Do this over and over and over again, as many times as you have to. One day the anger will leave you, the depressions
will leave you, your thoughts will leave you. And you’ll just be.
Until that happens do not fool yourself. Maya is very powerful. Maya is apparent reality of the world. As long as you believe you are the body, then the world is going to be very real to you. This is why you work on yourself first.
Remember your body, as well as all the universe, is a manifestation of your mind. Therefore when the mind begins to dissolve, so does your body, and so does the universe. Also remember when everything dissolves you do not see
consciousness.
As I mentioned in the beginning, you do not walk around and see empty space. One person even told me he read in a book somewhere that a sage walks around in a fog and sees fog-like people. Where do they get these ideas from?
I remind you again. The only difference between the sage and yourself is you see the world and you identify with it.
You think it’s real. A sage sees the world and he knows its a superimposition upon consciousness. So he identifies with consciousness. Consciousness is not a thing. You cannot describe it. It is not the opposite of the world, and it’s not an object, and there is no seer to see it.
Consciousness is another word for being. Being what? Being no-thing.
Now we go beyond the realm of creation, where it becomes ineffable and indescribable. That’s why we can only
explain to you what consciousness is not. Consciousness is not the world. Consciousness is self-contained, absolute
reality. It is yourself when you do not identify with the world, and that only happens to the average person just as
they are falling asleep and just as they wake up. At that time you are consciousness. But the feeling leaves you almost immediately. You begin to identify with the world. You forget about reality.
The method to remember is to catch yourself all during the day. “Who believes this? To whom does this come? Who feels this?” over and over again. When you say, “Who am I?” for some people it is better to say, “Who is I?” the same thing. What you are really doing is you’re finding the source of the I. You’re looking for the source of I, the personal I.
Who am I? You’re always talking about the personal I. Who is this I? Where did it come from? Who gave it birth?
Never answer those questions. Pose those questions, but never answer them. Keep it up. Don’t give up. Do not look for results. Because it’s your true nature, sooner or later the results must presume themselves, but it comes without your help.
You cannot help God. God does not need your help.
Just be yourself.
The Collected Works of Robert Adams. Abiding in the I
Now this is an important point. Most people read books, Advaita Vedanta, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, whatever and they see what they did, but yet they do not do anything like that themselves. They never inquire. They read the books and they obtain intellectual knowledge, mind knowledge, head knowledge. If they have a good memory they can quote passages, remember phraseologies, certain clichés, certain sayings, but they never have the experience. The experience only comes when you have complete humility. When you just let go of yourself, your little self. When you stop worrying about yourself. Stop thinking of your little self so much. Stop saying, “I need this and I need that,” and “I’ve got to become this, and I got to get this.” Give up all desire. Give up all attachments to person, place or thing. Relax. Make your life very simple. Sit in silence, investigate. Find out who has problems. Find out who feels depressed. Find out who is not enlightened and you will laugh. For you are a radiant light in a world of darkness. You are divine. You are a wonderful being. Never criticize yourself. Never put yourself down. Think of yourself as God and act the part.
Robert Adams
Transcript 8 The Three Vehicles 2nd September, 1990
If you want to make this world a better world in which to live look within yourself and inquire, “Who lives? Who’s world is this? To whom does this world belong?” Some of you are saying to yourself, “It belongs to God.” How can it belong to God if you don’t even know what God is? The word God is just a word that you’ve been trained to say.
You picked up the word in your church, in your synagogue, in your mosque, in your temple, God. People kill for God, rape for God, murder for God, do all these dastardly things in the name of God, their God. My God is better than your God. It’s like a world full of kindergarteners, fighting with each other, killing each other, murdering each other. Trying to achieve success for ourselves or we step on somebody else. We’re filled with fears, frustrations, most of us become psychopaths and we think we’re living. You’re not living until you know who you are, until you find out what you are. What you are doing now is vegetating. Most of us are not satisfied with our lives and we try to improve our lives and what do we do we try to improve everything external to ourselves and this can never be done. We try to change our environment, meet certain people, do certain things and we think this will make us happy. But it only lasts for a short time doesn’t it? And you’re back to what you were before. This world can never make you happy, it’s impossible. It may appear to make you happy for a while because you’re gaining something that you want. But it will only last a short time. True happy … true happiness comes from nothing. When your happiness arises from nothingness then you’re really happy, because nothing made you happy and nothing can take it away. If something makes you happy then if something takes it away you will be miserable. But if you learn to achieve happiness from nothing this is everlasting. It will never leave you because there is nothing to change.
Robert Adams
T225: Who Were You Before You Were Born?
When one sees the situation as it really is, that no individual is involved, that what is present is Presence as a whole and merely the expression of the Absolute, then the moment this is perceived, there is liberation. Liberation is nothing else than seeing this with full conviction <3 Nisargadatta Maharaj
Maybe we could begin to honor each other’s journeys, and recognize that we are each our own expression of Divine Source. Maybe we could begin to see that because your journey is different than mine does not make my journey wrong, and vice versa. Maybe we could stop classifying those who choose to stay in religion as being on the wrong journey. Maybe we could begin to see diversity as a thing of beauty, rather than a tool of division. Maybe we could begin to express Love without correction, and allow others to be who they are.
Divine Source wanted to experience each of us in our own expression, otherwise we would be a bunch of clones all doing the same exact thing. How boring would that be?
ELIMINATE THE THINKER !!
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We said last time when we met that we would discuss the question of intelligence, and I think if we could go through it as deeply as possible and as fully, perhaps it might be very beneficial to see whether the mind has the capacity of fully comprehending problems and thereby discovering what it is to be really intelligent. To go into it very deeply, it seems to me, first we must understand what is a problem; then how the mind comprehends or is aware of the problem, how it understands the problem—which leads, does it not, to the understanding of self-knowledge. Knowledge is always in the past. Self-knowing is an active process of the present; it is an active present. And in understanding a problem, one discovers, doesn’t one, the active process of knowing the instrument—that is, thinking, not theoretically, not academically, but actually—one experiences the process of knowing. We will go into that, and perhaps we will be able to discover what it is to be intelligent.
I don’t see how we can discuss in a serious manner what is intelligence if we do not understand how we think. A mere definition of intelligence has no significance. The dictionary has a meaning, and you and I can give definitions, conclusions. But it seems to me that the very definition and giving a conclusion indicates a lack of intelligence rather than intelligence. So, if you think it is worthwhile also, we could go into this problem of intelligence rather widely and extensively, rather with fun, with a sense of gaiety—with a desirable seriousness which has also its own humor. So if you would let me talk a little bit, then you can pick up the threads, and afterwards we can discuss together.
I feel a mind that has a problem is incapable of really being free. A mind that is ridden with problems can never be really intelligent. I will go into all that. We will discuss all that presently. A mind that is increasing problems, that is the soil of problems, that starts to think from a problem, is no longer capable of intelligently approaching the problem. And a problem surely implies a thing that the mind does not understand, it finds hard to understand, cannot grapple with, cannot penetrate through to a solution. That is what we call a problem. It may be a problem with my wife, with children, with society, individually or collectively; the problem implies a sense of not being able to find a solution, an answer, and therefore that which we cannot find an answer or a solution for, we call that a problem. A mechanic who understands a piston engine knows all the things connected with a piston engine—to him it is not a problem because he knows; there is no problem to him. And also knowledge creates problems. I don’t know if we could discuss that a little bit.
The Collected Works
of J. Krishnamurti
Volume XII 1961
There Is No Thinker,
Only Thought
Jiddu Krishnamurti
