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?

Cause and effect exist because of time and space. If there were no time and space, there would not be cause and effect. In reality there is no time and space and there’s no cause and effect. But in the relative world there is. Cause and effect is another name for the law of retribution. For as you sow, so shall you reap or the law of karma. And as long as you are under that law, you have to deal with the God of that law. That God is called Ishvara in Hindu, Jehovah in the Hebrew religion, Allah in Mohammed religion, and it goes by many other names.

Those Gods exist as long as you believe that you are the body-mind phenomena. And so does cause and effect. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. That’s the law of physics. It’s the same as the law of cause and effect. Everything you do ends up in a result, there’s no escape from it. Unless you turn within and you no longer react to anything. Then you transcend the law and become free. But as long as we are still body conscious, we are under that law.

This is how it works. If you want to grow oranges and you do not know anything about seeds, you would grab a lemon seed, plant it in the ground and expect an orange tree to grow. The cause is the planting of the lemon seed. The effect, the lemon tree. The seed is planted in the earth. The earth is your mind and the seeds are your thoughts. And the effect is the result you get from planting seeds. So you plant a lemon seed and a lemon tree grows. But then you start crying and screaming about it, “I wanted oranges,” you say, “I demand oranges.” And you have a tantrum, you have a fit. Nobody cares. You planted the seeds and this is what you’re getting as a result. Lemons. Of course you can always make lemonade, but you wanted oranges. So why did you plant a lemon seed? You don’t know. Maybe you planted a lemon seed in a previous life. You set up the cause at that time. For the effect can back to you many lifetimes from now, as an orange tree, as a lemon tree rather. And you’ll still scream, “Why did I plant a lemon seed, I wanted oranges instead.” So it is when we see things we do not understand. For instance, when Mahatma Ghandi died, he got shot, why would an honorable man like that get shot? The last word he said to his attacker was, “I forgive you and thank you my son.” For he realized that in some other life he had set the cause in motion. And this is the effect he gets back. This is called “Delayed Karma.”

Now there’s instant karma. Like when you step on the edge of a rake. You step on a rake, what happens? It hits you in the head. That’s called instant karma. Who takes care of this karma? The God of karma is, Ishvara, Allah, Jehovah. It is he who hands out what karma you’re going to experience in each life.

Let’s take another example. Henry invites me to his house. I come into Henry’s house and I go to the refrigerator. I say, “What’s to eat?” I eat him out of house and home. Then I say Henry can I borrow your car? And Henry’s a good guy and he says, “sure.” So I borrow his car and I wreck his car. Break his headlights, his windshield and come back and park it like nothing happened. And Henry being the good guy that he is, doesn’t say anything. Then I say, “Henry can you lend me five hundred dollars?” So Henry being a good guy says, “sure.” And I never expect to pay him back, I just take his money. Now what happens?

By not reacting, Henry becomes neutral. When you’re neutral, you do not accrue karma again. You’re finished with that part of your life. When you react you accrue karma. What happens to me? I’ve got to experience the effect sometime, somehow, of what I’ve done to Henry. It’s got to come back to me somehow. Maybe not even in this lifetime, but it will come back, there’s no escape. This is why when we see certain things in life and we do not understand, we should never judge because everything is working out like it’s supposed to. All is well and everything is unfolding as it should.

Robert Adams

Transcript 23
The Law Of Cause And Effect
11th November, 1990

Humans get angry. Therefore when you’ve reached self-realization, do you still have feelings of anger, of rage, or outrage?

A question like this is usually asked by a seeker or a disciple. A devotee couldn’t care less. When you ask a question like this you’re asking from the viewpoint of the ajnani, and there are different answers. It’s very paradoxical.

It reminds me of the time I was initiated by Paramahansa Yogananda in self- realization when I was 17, prior to going to India to see Ramana Maharshi. And during the initiation I was on my knees and he put his hand on my head and he said, “Robert, do you promise to love me no matter what I do, or no matter what you think you see me do?” I hesitated. I said to myself, “What is he going to do? Is he going to kill somebody, and wants me to love him no matter what he does?” But then I also realized that I didn’t have all the answers. So I said, “Yes.”

It’s only by being around two or three months that I realized what he meant. He reacted differently to different people, to different personalities. It was Christmas and he was living with the monks in Encinitas at that time. So I recall one monk came over to him and said, “Master,” they called him Master, “may I go visit my family at Christmas time? I’ll be gone two weeks.” He became very sweet and he said, “Of course you can. You should see your family. They miss you. Go and have a good time and come back in two weeks.”

Then somebody else came and kneeled before him and he said, “Master, may I go see my family during Christmas?” He became outraged and started screaming at the monk and said, “How dare you ask me a question like this. Why do you want to see your family? They don’t want to see you. Of course you can’t go. Don’t ask stupid questions. Go back to your quarters,” This was the dilemma, same questions different answers.

I consequently realized that he was able to read into the person. He knew exactly what was going on with each person. He couldn’t possibly give the same answer to two different people. He realized the first person had a loving family, and the first person had high self-esteem, so it wouldn’t matter where the person goes. Their heart is always on truth, on reality, on God. But the second person had a low self-esteem, and if he left he would be dragged by the powers of maya back into reality, of materiality that is, the reality of materiality and he probably wouldn’t even come back again. That’s why he gave that answer.

Robert Adams

Transcript 35
Does a Sage get Angry?
January 6th, 1991

If you want peace of mind stop reacting to life’s situations. Turn within to yourself. Nothing can keep you back from knowing yourself except you. Know yourself! Who am I? Where did I come from? What is the cause of the I? These questions must be pondered within yourself and inquired within the self over and over again. In all situations at all times. Do not think about what I’m saying to you. When you think about it you spoil it. Do not accept anything I’m saying to you. If you accept it there will be a fight within yourself. Your ego will fight you at every turn. So how are you to react to me? You’re not to react to me at all. Listen to the words I speak to you. Just become still within yourself. Never attempt to analyze anything I say. Empty yourself, and the truth of life will be revealed to you.

Robert Adams

Transcript 225
Who Were You Before
You Were Born?
21st February, 1993