This world can never make you happy,

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 take 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.

The same is true for peace of mind.
 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. 

Get rid of this extraneous knowledge and then you will know. Remember you do not know by acquiring knowledge, you know by getting rid of the knowledge.

 When you are empty you will know. As long as you are filled with knowledge then you will know relative knowledge of this world, but you will never know the truth of your existence, of who you are, where you came from. 
With all these things you have to be empty, not full.
-- Robert Adams, T225: Who Were You Before You Were Born?

To see through that illusion is the most important and greatest leap available for getting closer to comprehending Reality.

Independent of content, the capacity to be, to know, to exist, and to be aware are the a priori substrates to life in its expression as consciousness. 
To exist and be conscious of existence supersedes all logic, reason, or proof. 
Awareness is aware that it is aware. 

To know God, it is only necessary to know and fully comprehend the significance that one exists.


From: “I: Reality and Subjectivity” (2003), Chapter 13: “Mind”, p. 219


---------------------------------
With Additional Context:
---------------------------------


Everything reveals the miracle of existence and, therefore, everything, without exception, is equal to everything else by virtue of its existence. 

The miracle of existence is a quality that supersedes all others. 

The holiness of the Allness of Creation stands forth as self-evident, and the manifestation of the capacity to exist demonstrates its innate divinity. 

When presumptions are no longer projected onto the observed, the radiance of Divinity shines forth from the world as well as from the Self. The Radiance of God as Self shines forth as the Infinite ‘I’.


►Independent of content, the capacity to be, to know, to exist, and to be aware are the a priori substrates to life in its expression as consciousness. To exist and be conscious of existence supersedes all logic, reason, or proof. Awareness is aware that it is aware. To know God, it is only necessary to know and fully comprehend the significance that one exists.◄ Realize that even the animal knows that it ‘is’ and loves its own existence. (On testing, that calibrates as a true statement.)


The pathway of the heart then bypasses the intellect and puts its faith in the perfection of love rather than the pursuit of the intellect and reason. 

To love, the intellect and logic are merely tools but they are not ‘who I am’. 

‘Mind’ cannot transcend mind by pursuit of the mind, but only by the surrender of the illusion of mind as savior

It is by the heart of Love that one is saved from the limitations of mind by love itself. 
Only love has the power to overcome beliefs. At this point, historically, the seeker is counseled to “Throw away all the books and just be. 

Surrender all to God without reservation. 
Stop struggling and allow the realization of that which you already are.”


The letting go of identification of self as thoughts is facilitated by disengaging from the content of group beliefs, with their well-known and predictable agendas and reactions. 

One can refuse to identify with them as ‘me’. 
To surrender identification with that which was presumed to be ‘me’ allows the real Me to shine forth as the immanent quality of Divinity that is the source of the unencumbered reality of ‘I’.


Q: We note that your lectures always start with the same opening statement, “Everything is happening of its own; nothing is causing anything else.”


A: The belief in linear causality is a basic axiom of the whole structure of the ego/mind dualistic belief system. 

To see through that illusion is the most important and greatest leap available for getting closer to comprehending Reality.


It is critical to grasp that the illusion of linear causality as an explanation for the observed phenomena of life is the major and most profound limitation of thinkingness.

 It is the major block that cannot be transcended even by intellectual geniuses who characteristically calibrate at 499.


From: “I: Reality and Subjectivity” (2003), Chapter 13: “Mind”, pp. 219–220

This is what you really are.

If you think your human, if you believe you're human
everything has been planned for you.
Your whole life has been ordained, outlined. 

But now if you come to the conclusion that you're not human,
that you're not the body or the mind, that there are no problems,
you were never born and so you have nothing to do with your existence. 

There never will be a time when you will leave your body.
You are the same, yesterday, today and forever. 

Absolute reality, self-contained, all-pervading, Brahman,
sat-chit-ananda, nirvana, this is your real nature. 

This is what you really are.

Then why does the world affect you so? Why don't you awaken?
You don't know.You don't know because you are already awake. 

There's nothing to know. In order to know something
there has to be a knower.
 Who is the knower? 

Never answer that question, for there isn't any knower. 

A knower does not exist, consequently there's absolutely
nothing to know. There's nothing to do. 

There's nothing to be or become. There is no enlightenment.
There's no self-realization. 

There is absolute blank! And you are the blankety, blank, blank.

Why do you think of yourself as a person
that goes through experiences? 

Because you appear to go through experiences,
this is the appearance in your life. 

You have one experience after the another.
But don't you have the same experiences in dreams? 

When you dream you dream that you are going through experiences,
one experience after the other,
yet you wake up and you realize it's a dream. 

Yet you sit here and take life so seriously
believing that's the dream but this is reality.

Yet if I approached you in your dream you would tell me that
this is reality. You would swear up and down that the dream
was a reality and that I didn't know what I was talking about.

Yet, you woke up and you called the experience a dream.
What to call this experience? A mortal dream, a lie, delusion?

Even by calling it names like this is a mistake,
because there is someone left calling names. 

There has to be someone to name something
so the someone is calling this is a delusion,
calling this existence a lie. 

By those very thoughts the experiences become true and real
for you. There is absolutely nothing you can do about your situation
except keep quiet
Do you follow what I'm saying?

If you try to denounce the world and you keep saying
the world is a lie, you will feel the world more deeply,
for there's someone whose saying that. 

It is that someone who has to be destroyed, not the condition,
not the situation. For the condition, the situation
is only an appearance coming from the someone. 

So do not work on trying to remove the delusion in front of you,
do you see what I'm saying?

Do not do the meditation of trying to see the world as nothing
rather try to imagine or see who this someone is
who sees this world as nothing. 

It is that someone who has to be annihilated,
not the affect but the cause. The cause is that
there is someone thinking about all of these things. 

There's someone trying to be self-realized.
There is someone trying to end all their problems.
There is someone trying to heal themselves or others.
There is someone who judges.
It is that someone who has to go. 

And the name of that someone is I. It is I who does this.
I am trying to become self-realized.
But the I is already self-realized. 

For the I in reality, is Brahman. 
Pure awareness.
This is the true nature of the I. 

Therefore the I that you think is real doesn't even exist,
for there can only be one I and that I is I-am, all-pervading.
Do you see this?

It is the I, or the thinker, or the knower who has to be eliminated. 

For in reality there is absolutely nothing to know. 

If you are all-pervading, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent,
what else do you want? 
You've got everything. 

You are everything.
So when you try to know something, you're making a grave mistake. 

This is a very important point. Remember this.

In Advaita Vedanta, the knower is the last to go. 

What comes after the knower? Silence! 

There is nothing else.

Just think how much knowledge you've gathered all these years.
Reading so many books. Meditating for years. Seeing so many teachers. 

Having so many discussions, debates, arguments.
Can't you see now this is what's been holding you back? 

This is what has been holding you back.
For you have believed that you're the knower. 

For you have to become a knower to become free.
Yet no one has to know anything for there is absolutely nothing to know. 

Why is there nothing to know?

 Because there is only omnipresence, infinity, absolute reality and there is no name for this.

In other words, you cannot know absolute reality.
You cannot know pure awareness.

As long as there is someone who knows about it, it doesn't exist. 

It's only when you put an end to knowing that you become the Self. 

The Self has no shape, no form, no identity. It is no thing. Yet you are that. 

What are you going to do about it?
-Robert Adams - T118: The Knower Is The Last To Go! -
9th January, 1992

I want to be free and I want to be loving' and I realize I Am That.

 ~
Q: So, this morning I had an amazing experience, because yesterday I said 'I want to be free and I want to be loving' and I realize I Am That.
So, I understand that I am being aware or pure Awareness. And yet (I was talking with my neighbor) you can't understand it with you mind. Well, how do you know it's true? How do I know that's what I am?
It's maybe a silly question. I can see the test of experience. I know that I'm not all these images I have of myself. But if I can't know this with my mind, how do it know it? I don't know any other way in my experience of knowing it.

Rupert Spira  When you say 'How can I know this apart from my mind?'..., when we talk about the mind, we mean [here] thoughts and images. If you look inside your mind now (it's a bit of a generalization but) it's a mixture of thoughts and images. Yes? Now, is a thought aware of your experience?

Q: No.

R: For instance, is a thought listening to our conversation?

Q: No.

R: A thought can't hear, an image can't see. So, what is it that is knowing our experience? [Silence]

Q: That's the question.

R: Whatever it is..., is You. It is You that is now knowing your experience. You are knowing the contents of your mind; that is, a series of thoughts and images, including feelings and sensations. But a sensation cannot know a thought. A perception of this room cannot feel a sensation. What is it that is knowing all of these?

Q: I am.

R: I am. Perfect. So what is the nature of the 'I'? 'I' is obviously not made out of thoughts; it knows our thoughts. The 'I' that is aware of our feelings is obviously not itself a feeling. The 'I' that is perceiving this room is obviously not itself a perception.
But 'I' is common to each of these experiences.
What is its nature?

Q: To be aware of all these thoughts, sensations, feelings...

R: Just to be aware. So, whatever it is that is NOW aware of your experience is not what is called the mind (in the sense of thoughts, images, feelings) ..., we could say it is the essential nature of the Mind, which is to be aware.
So, to be aware, that is, Awareness Itself, which is knowing our thoughts, sensations and perceptions, but what is it that knows the experience 'I am aware?'

Q: It's the Awareness.

R: It knows Itself.

Q: Right.

R: I am aware of thoughts, I am aware of feelings, I am aware of perceptions, and I am aware that I am aware.
In other words, before I-Awareness am aware of thoughts, sensations and perceptions, I am aware of my own Being: I am that I am. In other words, Awareness' primary experience is to know and be Itself.

How do I know that I am? Because the I that I am is aware that I am. My Being is an aware Being. It is Self-aware. It is Self-luminous. It illuminates Itself. It knows Itself by Itself.
It doesn't need to take the shape of the finite mind (that is thought, sensation and perception) in order to Know Its own Being.

As Baliani said, “God doesn’t need another Self to know Itself.” Consciousness doesn’t need to rise in the form of the mind in order to Know Itself. It Knows Itself by Itself, through Itself, as Itself, in Itself. That is our primary experience. And I’m describing everybody’s…, before any of us know anything, we all know our own Being. It is the most obvious, ordinary, intimate, familiar experience there is, and all 7 billion of us have this experience and Know this experience. But we overlook it because it has no objective qualities.

Q: And you said that like the infant that doesn’t know it, receives it in his body. The infant, that maybe has a trauma when it’s a young baby is not aware that it’s aware because it’s days old.

R: You see, it is never the infant that is aware. Your question about the infant being aware is based on an old habit. In spite of the experiment that we’ve just walked through, immediately an old habit is kicking in, which says ‘It is I-this-body which is aware’. And therefore, you’re presuming that the infant is either aware or not aware. No, the infant is not aware. You-the-body is not aware. It is not the body that is aware.

Q: Right.

R: This is the great misconception. We think now, as we’re sitting here…, we think I-the-body is aware. No! [Smiles] It is I-Awareness that is aware.

Q: Yeah, I get it. Thank you. Thank you.

R: It’s a profound change in the way we think; the conditioning ‘I-this-body am aware’…, in other words, the belief that Awareness shares the limits of the body is so profound; it’s so woven into our upbringing. Our culture is so deeply based on this assumption that even when we go very simply (and it is very simple)…, when we go to our simple experience that ‘No, it is I-pure-Awareness that is aware’…, the implications of that take some time to reverberate through the body/mind. When we first recognize that, it’s like there is a kind of crack in the structure of our world…

Q: It’s discombobulating.

R: … that it takes some time for our word-view to completely fall apart and to be built again on this new understanding; on the foundation of this new understanding. It’s discombobulating. It’s very challenging. It’s threatening; it can evoke a lot of fear.

Q: I actually feel excitement, not fear.

R: Beautiful. Beautiful. When I say that, don’t feel that you have to…, it’s not in everyone.

Q: Thank you.
~ ~

Nothing is the way it appears!

We take a look at ourselves, as human beings so called.
What are we doing here? Why are we here? 

Where did we come from originally? We don't know. 

Therefore, to a person who wishes to become liberated,
divine ignorance is very important. It’s a sort of surrender. 

It’s the same as practicing neti-neti, not this, not this.
We see all of these things and we understand that
they do not exist like we think they exist. 

Nothing is the way it appears! 

That's the first consideration you have to have.
And you have to keep thinking about these things
pondering these things, everyday.

We’re told were supposed to live certain lives, doing certain things,
becoming professional people in certain objects and subjects. Why? 

If were going to die in any event.
What's the purpose of going to school for 25 years becoming
a professional engineer, doctor, lawyer,
whatever when we have to leave all of this behind. 

The average person does not want to consider this
it’s too frightening! The average person wants to go on
with their duties, with their work, with their families,
with their life as if it is never going to end. 

But alas, here comes good old death which takes us away.
But we don't want to think about these things
we don't want to consider them. 

We want to have fun we want to run around
we want to become the top in our profession
we want to acquire millions of dollars, be in perfect health
that's all we care about. 

But when you begin to ponder that you have to leave
all of this behind, and one day you will leave your body behind
we wouldn't like to ponder this at all.

Therefore, the first step to consider in Advaita Vedanta
is divine ignorance. When you admit to yourself I don’t know.
I don’t know anything! 

But most of us have never wanted to be this way.
We want to make people think we know! 

So we talk and talk and talk about things
to make people think we know. But we know nothing. 

To know that you don't know is Divine ignorance.
To not know that you do not know is plain ignorance.

That's the first consideration.
The second consideration to ponder is to tell yourself,
I am consciousness. 

And Consciousness is like a gigantic Screen
that takes up the whole Universe, that is the whole Universe,
beyond the Universe.
And you think of a screen which takes up all time and space
there is absolutely nothing but this screen is consciousness
and this is my true nature.
Yet, somehow, consciousness appears to produce a replica
of Itself as a human being as a person,
that is superimposed upon itself. 

I know some of you are thinking, 'But Robert,
you told us that consciousness is nothing it is self-sufficient, all-pervading. 

How can it produce a human being?"
Well, it is like water in the mirage. 

It doesn't really do this but in order to explain it and for us
to become evolved and liberated we have to think of it this way.
This is a process. Something to think on a higher level. 

It is true when you see water in a mirage,
when you're walking in the desert and you're thirsty
and you go after it and you jump on it and you grab it
you grab sand! In the same instance,
when you try to grab the human beings,
so called on the Screen of Life, which is Consciousness,
you grab the screen!

So the first person appears super imposed on consciousness. 

This first person is the I-thought. The personal self. 

Now the personal self thinks of itself and creates out of its mind
other beings like itself all super imposed on consciousness
or the Screen of Life. 

You create families, friends, enemies, different types of situations.
They all appear on the Screen, until the Screen is totally covered
with people, places and things and you forget about the Screen
and get involved with the people that you have created out of your mind
and the situations and the conditions and everything else. 

I am referring to all of us.

Everything you behold everything you see the stars the moon
the sky, the trees, the water it is all a superimposition
on consciousness on the Screen. 

It doesn't exist. 

Yet it is difficult for most of us to understand that
when something exists it doesn't exist!! 

It exists and at the same time it doesn't exist at all.
Like the sky is blue. The sky looks beautiful, blue if you go up
into the atmosphere there is no blue sky. 

There never was a blue sky. It’s an optical illusion. 

Like the snake and the rope. The rope appears to be a snake
and frightens you until you find out it’s not really a snake. 

Therefore, you will never be frightened by a rope again.
So these pictures on the Screen, some are frightening,
some are happy some of this and some of that. 

You get involved in the play of life.
You appear to get old and die and you are reborn again,
go through different experiences

Remember you are creating all the time, with your mind.
The further you get involved in this picture the more you create images, situations, persons, places and things
the more that you get stuck in these things. 

And they appear So real to you that again you forget
this is a superimposition on the Screen. 

The Screen has long been forgotten. 

Consciousness has long been forgotten. 

The reality to you is the people, the things, the places the things
that make you happy you go after things that make you happy
trying to get rid of things that make you unhappy.

And you keep on like this, life after life after life after life after life.
The time comes when you get tired of playing
and you begin to take the search for the answers of life seriously.

You begin to ponder and wonder what this is all about
by practicing divine ignorance,
which is what we've been talking about. 

You realize everything comes and goes
and within time no one will remember you ever existed.

Therefore, you begin to ponder this.
“Who am I?", you say to yourself. 'What is my Real Nature?" 

You begin to give up the places, things, situations that seem to make you
happy or sad, because you begin to understand this will not last long. 

So what I really should be doing is trying to find out the Truth
about all of these things. 

Where did they all come from? What gave them birth?
What is their purpose? 

You'll finally come to the conclusion that ‘you’ exist and yes,
that everything is within your Self. 

This is the greatest discovery a human being has made.
All of the answers are within you.
-Robert Adams - T.138 - Divine Ignorance - 19th March, 1992

Most of us believe we've got our own thoughts

You are a product right now from the conditioning you had
since you were little.
That is what you're experiencing right this moment, nothing else. 

Most of us believe we've got our own thoughts, we can think.
We can make decisions, but that is not true.
You're totally programmed, mesmerized, hypnotized. 

You have many false beliefs inside of you,
waiting to come out at the first opportunity you give them. 

They're like dormant seeds waiting to sprout.
Yet you've got all the ammunition that you need
to get rid of all of these things if you will but use it.

You have self-inquiry to work with. 

You can become the witness to your thoughts and emotions.
You can realize the world is maya and
not identify with its conditionings.

You can know that your body is also maya and not react to it.
You have all those wonderful tools in which to work.
You are free, totally and absolutely free. 

You are boundless, pure awareness right now. 

The old you is melting away. 

All your fears and frustrations of the past are gone. 

You have lifted yourself to a higher vibration. 

The things that used to bother you, annoy you,
are now gone totally and completely. 

You're awake and all is well.

~Robert Adams -T226: Whatever You See Is The Self -
25th February, 1993

You will awaken, simply by realizing this great truth.

I know some of you still believe that consciousness, or the Self,
gave the 'I' birth.

How can 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.

~Robert Adams -T. 085 Nothing is your Real Nature - Aug. 8, 1991

art must “give us a taste of nature’s eternity.”

THE ULTIMATE REVOLUTION
Essay by Rupert Spira

Well over a hundred years ago the painter Paul Cézanne said, “A time is coming when a carrot, freshly observed, will trigger a revolution.”

Has this revolution taken place, is it slowly taking place or is it about to take place? 

And what is the revolution to which Cézanne referred? 
How could something as insignificant, inconsequential and ordinary as observing a carrot trigger a revolution?

Cézanne meant that if we could see even a simple everyday object such as a carrot, as it truly is, our experience would be revolutionized.

 But what does it mean to see an object as it truly is? 
The key is in the phrase ‘freshly observed,’ which means to see clearly, unobstructed by the concepts that thought superimposes on our experience. 

In fact, most of us are completely unaware that our experience is filtered through a fine mesh of conceptual thinking that makes it appear very different from how it actually is.

As the Chinese sage Huang Po said, some 1200 years ago, “People neglect the reality of the illusory world.”

 The illusory world? Now that’s even more radical than Cezanne! It’s one thing to look freshly at a carrot, spade, house or world, but quite another to consider it an illusion. 
What did he mean? 

We often hear phrases in the non-dual teaching such as, ‘The world is an illusion.’
 But such phrases may create a rebellion in us, for we know that our experience is very real. 
So how to reconcile these two positions – one, ‘the illusory world’ and two, the undeniable reality of our experience?

Anything that appears must appear in or on something.
 For instance, an image appears on a screen; a chair appears in the space of a room; the words of a novel appear on a page; a cloud appears in the sky.

What about the mind, body and world? 
Our only experience of them is what currently appears to us as thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, sights, sounds, textures, tastes and smells. 
In other words, all we know of a mind, body or world are appearances, and all these are continually appearing and disappearing. 

We may have a concept of a continuously existing mind, body or world, but we never actually experience such an object.

As Cezanne also said, “Everything vanishes, falls apart.”
 All we know of the world are perceptions that continuously appear and disappear. 
However, anything that appears and disappears must do so in or on something. 
What is that something?

Start with thoughts: wherever our thoughts appear is obviously what we refer to as our ‘self,’ ‘I.’ 

Our thoughts don’t appear outside of our self! 

However, we cannot see or find that ‘something’ in which thoughts appear because it has no observable qualities. 
As such, it is open, empty, transparent. But that doesn’t mean it is not known. 
It cannot be known as an object and yet it is not unknown.

If we are reading these words we are, by definition, seeing the screen on which they are written, although we may not be aware that we are seeing it.
 If we are reading a novel we are, likewise, seeing the paper. 

If we are watching a movie we are, whether we realize it or not, seeing or experiencing the screen. If we are seeing clouds, we are experiencing the sky. It is not possible to see the words, novel, movie or clouds without, at the same time, experiencing whatever it is they appear in or on.

So, if we are experiencing thoughts we are necessarily experiencing whatever they appear in. Likewise, if we are experiencing a sensation or a perception – and the only experience we have of a body or world are sensations and perceptions – then we are also knowing or experiencing whatever these appear in or on. 

In what does our perception of the world appear?
 In what do bodily sensations appear? 

Perceptions of the world don’t appear in the world; sensations of the body don’t appear in a body. 
Perceptions and sensations appear in exactly the same ‘place’ as thoughts, that is, they appear in the open, emptiness of our self.

However, they do not just appear in our self; they are simultaneously known by our self, for our self is not just present but also aware; not just being but also knowing. 

Hence it is sometimes known as Awareness – the presence of that which is aware – or the light of pure Knowing.

Now, having discovered that all we know of a mind, body or world are thoughts, sensations and perceptions, and having seen that all these arise within our self, we may ask where they come from and of what they are made. 

What is their substance, their reality?
If we leave a jar of water outside on a freezing cold night, ice will start to form in it. The opaque ice is made only of the transparent water. However, the ice appears to be something separate from and other than the water. It seems to have its own independent existence or reality.

Likewise, the ice has a form and yet it is made of something that has no form. The ice gives form to something that is itself essentially formless.

 How is it possible for something that has no form of its own to appear as form, without anything being added to or taken away from it? The formlessness of the water has the capacity within itself to assume all possible forms. 

In fact, it is precisely because the water has no form of its own, that it is possible for it to appear as this multiplicity and diversity of forms.

Our experience is very much like this. The multiplicity and diversity of experience – thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions – appears in and is made out of our self. This ‘self’, pure Awareness, in which all experience appears, with which it is known and out of which it is made, is itself empty, transparent; it cannot be named and has no form, and yet it is the substance or reality of all names and forms. 

All experience arises within our self, this transparent emptiness.
 And the only ‘stuff’ present in our self, out of which all experience can be made, is our self itself. It is our direct, intimate experience that all we know of a mind, body or world is made out of and is identical to the transparency of our own Being, the light of pure Knowing.

And what is present in our own self, prior to the experience of a thought, feeling, sensation or perception? 

Just itself, pure Awareness!

 All experience – that is, all thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions – is a modulation of the presence our own Being, the light of pure Knowing.

 The entire multiplicity and diversity of names and forms is made out of one transparent, empty, indivisible substance.

Just as the screen on which an image appears is usually overlooked due to our exclusive focus on the image itself, so this open, empty, transparent presence of our own Being is usually overlooked due to our exclusive focus on the objects of the mind, body and world – that is, on thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions.

However, just as it is not possible to see an image without seeing the screen so, although this Presence is usually overlooked, it is never truly unknown. 

Just as all we really see when we are seeing an image is the screen, so all we ever truly experience is the transparent, open, empty presence of our own Being, the light of pure Knowing. All It ever knows or experiences is Itself.

Love is the common name we give to experience when the ‘other’ is no longer experienced as ‘other;’ when the subject/object relationship collapses.

 It is to see the appearance of an image but to know it only as screen. It is to attribute the reality of the image to the screen. It is to know everyone and everything as one’s own self.

It is this transparent, empty Presence that, refracted through the mind, appears as a multiplicity and diversity of names and forms. 

However, the mind is itself a modulation of that very Presence.

 In other words, it is pure Awareness itself which, vibrating within itself, takes the shape of mind and, from the illusory point of view of one of the selves contained within that mind, seems to see a multiplicity and diversity of separate objects and selves, each with their own independently existing reality.

 In other words, the separate self is only a separate self from the illusory point of view of a separate self.

From the true and only real point of view of pure Awareness there is only its infinite self, refracted into an apparent multiplicity and diversity of finite forms, but never ceasing to be itself. 

This is what William Blake meant when he said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
 This is what the Sufis mean when they say, “Wherever the eye falls, there is the face of God.” 

This is what Huang Po meant when he said, “People forget the reality of the illusory world.” 

This is what Jesus meant when he said, “The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.” 

This is what Parmenides meant, echoing the words of the Bhagavad Gita, when he said, “That which is, never ceases to be; that which is not, never comes into existence.” 

This is what Cézanne meant when he said that art must “give us a taste of nature’s eternity.”

All the great sages and artists from all times and all places have said or expressed this in one way or another. This is the one true revolution. 

At the root of all desire for change is this ultimate desire: to know only the reality of all experience; to know only love.

Unless and until the problems facing humanity are traced back to their ultimate source – the ignoring of this reality – they may be temporarily alleviated but will never be truly solved.
Rupert Spira
January 2013

We go beyond the light.

Student: I have one other question, reading some works on death and when one is dying and one is releasing hold of the body. Can one just continue with self-inquiry in the process when the subtle experiences start to arise? 

Robert Adams: Unless you've been practicing before it will be most difficult to hold on to the I when you're dying. For with the average person when death starts arriving there is total fear and you become more engrossed in the I than ever before. That is why upon death according to the ancient scriptures the I leaves the body and grabs hold of another body and then you go through the same experiences of I.

Student: But what can one do when one is dying and maybe in the first three days - was looking at - that can happen any time you know?

Robert: As I said, it is not what one can do when you're dying. You will not have any choice because a death experience will be so frightening to you, it will be so powerful in your mind, you will not be able to do anything.

 But, if you've been practicing eliminating the I all of these years, perhaps you have not come home yet, awakened yet, but you'll be an advanced devotee and you will not hold on to the I, you will simply smile as you leave your body and you will realize that you are I-am, consciousness.

Student: Because in the book I was reading they said the mandala appears and at the center is the white light and if one just surrenders to that light then you can let go more.

Robert: In this teaching you have to ask yourself, "To whom does the white light come?
 To whom does the mandala come?" 

To the ego, to the I. 
The I is experiencing the vision of the mandala.

 It does not free you. You cannot become free this way.

 The whole I has to go.

 In other words, the object and the observer have to both become annihilated. 
You are the observer, the I is the observer it's observing the mandala. 
They both have to go. The only good that can do you I think, is because you are experiencing the vision of the mandala you can become a buddhist monk in the next incarnation. 

And you'll sit if front of mandala for thirty-forty years. 
Contemplating the mandala. That is as much good as you'll get out of it. (laughter)

Student: Well in this teaching the light is supposed to be our Self, you know, who we really are. You know and they say that if you get distracted by other worlds and that's where you end up then you're in doubt, you have like a chance a special opportunity...

Robert: Again you will not be able to do those things unless you've been practicing meditation before.
That is why in the Tibetan Book of the Dead they explain you have to practice how to die for years before you die. 

To die correctly. Most people do not do this.
 But we go further in Jnana. 

We go beyond the light.
 When you split the atom there is a tremendous light. 

When you go deep within yourself you will see fantastic light.
 It's like seeing visions.
 You're seeing the source of your existence.
 But you're not seeing the real source.
 Which is nothing. 
You're seeing the source of your existence, the light. 
The question is, "Where did the light come from?" 

Go beyond that. That is the only way you become free. But lights, visions, mandalas, colors, those are all in the occult world. 

We're told to go beyond the occult. Beyond the visions. Beyond the light. 

To become totally liberated, totally free.

 One must destroy the I who sees all these visions, all these lights and you do that by inquiring, "To whom has the I come?" or "Who am I?"

This would mean that you would be forever happy, forever at peace.

Look at the second you are living in.
Is there anything happening in that second?

Is there something annoying you, something bothering you?

There is no time for this to happen, because you are living in the second.

In the second in which you live right now,
there is absolutely nothing happening to make you miserable,
to make you happy, according to human standards,
you are living in the immediate second.

Now what if you were able to take that second to expand it,
expand it, into eternity, into infinity.

This would mean that you would be forever happy, forever at peace.

~Robert Adams .

Change is the ego.

It  is true when you find a new environment,
when you see a new teacher, when you read a new book,
the novelty is very strong, it's great, because everything is new,
and human beings love change. 

Change is the ego. 

It is the ego that pushes you around the world
and wants you to do this and do that, and see this, and change jobs,
and go change teachers, and change clothes, and change, change.
The ego does all these things for you. 

When you remember this you will remember who your Master is. 

The more active you become mentally, the greater the ego,
the greater the mind. 

And the mind is your Master, the mind is your God,
for you're following your mind.

If you learn to control your mind, you will have less desires,
less needs and less wants. 

And you will find eternal bliss,
eternal peace, eternal happiness. 

No one can really interfere in your life. 
It is your life. 

You came to this earth specifically to transcend the body
and become eternally free. 

Consequently see what you're doing with your life,
how you act every day, the things that disturb you,
the things that annoy you, the things that frighten you,
the things that you love, the things that you want, the things that you enjoy. 

They're all impostors. They're all lies.

The truth is that you're eternal sat-chit-ananda,
parabrahman, absolute reality, pure intelligence,
ultimate oneness, nirvana, emptiness. 

You are that, stay like that and be happy.
—Robert Adams

into eternal delight

There is a very simple secret to being happy.

LETTING GO
There is a very simple secret to being happy.
 Just let go of your demand on this moment. 

Any time you have a demand on the moment to give you something or remove something, there is suffering. 

Your demands keep you chained to the dream state of the conditioned mind.
 The problem is that when there is a demand, you completely miss what is now. 

Letting go applies to the highest sacred demand, and even to the demand for love.

 If you demand in some subtle way to be loved, even if you get love, it is never enough.

 In the next moment, the demand reasserts itself, and you need to be loved again. 

But as soon as you let go, there is knowing in that instant that there is love here already. 

The mind is afraid to let go of its demand because the mind thinks that if it lets go, it is not going to get what it wants—as if demanding works. 

 This is not the way things work.

 Stop chasing peace and stop chasing love, and your heart becomes full. 

Stop trying to be a better person, and you are a better person.

Stop trying to forgive, and forgiveness happens.

 Stop and be still. 

- Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing

The Transparency of Things

Rupert Spira - The Transparency of Things - p 48 - Ego

Imagine you have spent your whole life living in a large house serving a demanding man who lives on the top floor.

Although you never see the man you spend from morning until night doing his chores. One evening during a rare break you are lamenting your fate to a friend. The friend suggest you try and reason with the old man.

When he hears that you never see him, let alone speak to him he is puzzled and encourages you to go find him.

You are reluctant at first but after several such encounters with your friend, you venture into the old man's room.
On you first visit you only have the courage to peep around the door but you cannot see the man. When you report this to your friend he encourages you to be bolder and have a good look into the room.

You make more visits to the old man's room and each time you search his quarters a little more thoroughly. It is only after several visits that you are convinced that there is no old man.
However such as your habits that for some time you still continue to wake up at 6 am every morning and perform many of the tasks you used to perform while serving the imaginary old man. Some of these habits cease immediately, whilst others take time to come to an end.

In this story the old man is the separate entity and the friend is one who encourages you to look inside and find out who this one that rules you life really is.

As we look more and more deeply into the nature of our self we find that there is no entity there.
We spend our lives serving a non-existent entity.
 It is only our imagination that binds us, and it is clarity that liberates.
In most cases this requires revisiting the issue many times, each time going a little more deeply into it, in order to be absolutely certain there is no personal entity there.

Our subservience to a separate entity consists,at the level of the mind, in the belief that "I am a separate, personal entity", and at the level of the body, as a feeling that "I am this body", or "I am in this body".

In Reality, everything occurs of its own,

You will begin to feel a peace and a joy

Think about that. 
Can you imagine brushing your teeth and flossing three times a day for a thousand years.
 Having to take a shower, eat.
 Always going along with what is happening in the world for a thousands of years.
 You will beg to die. 

This is why, kindly nature allows you to live so long in your body when you do not awaken as reality. 

You have so many years and then you're given another chance to have a new body. 

And again you have the opportunity to find your Self, to use discrimination, to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and again you don't make it and you take on another body and go through more experiences.

[…]
If you begin to let go of the world something will immediately start to happen to you.

 Immediately you will to grow spiritually.

 Something will take its place. 

To the extent that you let go of the world with all its problems, with all its beauty, with all its joys and sorrows, to the extent you can let go of that, to that extent will you be filled up with spirit. 

If you let go 20% you will be filled 20%, if you let go 40% you will be filled 40%. 

The void will always become filled. The space you leave when you let go will become filled with God, consciousness, nirvana, call it anything you like. 
You will begin to feel a peace and a joy that you've never felt before. 
To that extent that you can let go.

-- Robert Adams, T96: Self Inquiry Precursor: A Disgust For The World

You are the pure Self.

Identify with the reality.

Let's say for instance you have a hernia. You go to the doctor.
There is nothing wrong with going to the doctor.
There is nothing wrong with this at all.
The doctor tells you what you have to do to correct the hernia.

All the time you realize you know that you are not the body,
you are not the image on the chalkboard. 

You are the pure Self. 

But yet you go through the hernia operation.
You don't think about it. You don't argue about it.
You've done whatever has to be done.
And the body appears to be in good shape again.

When all the time you realize that nothing happened,
there was noone who went through this experience. 

This is how you should look at your everyday affairs,
at your business.Look at your home life. Look at the world,
look at what is happening in the world the same way.

Images, everything is images. 

The light of the Self appears to cause these images
to take form and to do whatever it has to do. 

But there is only the Self, this is the reality
and the images do not even exist. 

We don't even say, "They appear to exist."
For when you think they appear to exist you're giving them value,
you're giving them power.
You're believing in them as if they were reality.

So you have to ask the question. "To whom do they exist?
To whom do these images exist? 
They exist to me. I feel them." 

As soon as you say this to yourself
immediately the answer should come to you.

It is the I, the I-thought that feels the images not you. 

You are free and clear, you have absolutely nothing to do
with the I-thought. 

Now when you have done this you have separated the disease,
the problems where they may seem to be from yourself
haven't you?

 Because the I-thought is out here some place.
It has nothing to do with you. 

The I-thought feels sickness, it feels a headache.
The I-thought feels that when something good happens
you're happy in this world. 

That is all the I-thought that feels this.
So you just watch. You observe.

As you keep doing something like this, as you understand
what I'm talking about, you will notice that the pain disappears. 

For after all who has the pain? The I-thought, not you.
Therefore look at yourself as two separate entities, this will help. 

You look at yourself as the I-thought which goes through the world
and has all kinds of experiences in the world,
good and bad, rich and poor, sick and healthy. 

And the Self which is absolute reality
and is free and clear of everything.

This simply means that what you call sickness or disease
or a problem is outside of your jurisdiction. 

It appears to exist by itself, it is not you.
You have absolutely nothing to do with these things.
Do not judge by appearances. 

Do not try to analyze or figure it out.
For you get deeply involved when you do this. 

Even discussing this is not right. This is between you and yourself. 

There is absolutely nothing to discuss.
 Nothing to talk about.
You remember the chalkboard analogy. 

And you realize that you've always been, you always will be.
There never was a time when you were not and these other things
were simply images that seemed to be superimposed on the self.
So do not identify with the disease itself.
Do not identify with the problem or whatever. 

Rather identify with the Self.
The one that has always been. I am that!

It's not really hard.
As you go through everyday experiences always catch yourself.
Always catch yourself thinking.
Catch yourself worrying, being afraid.
And immediately understand that you are the chalkboard. 

You are the absolute reality that has never changed.
It has always been and will always be. You are perfect.
-Robert Adams - T130: Health Sickness And Death