Forget about the past. Forget about people who have hurt you before.

-Robert Adams, from Transcript 248: The Silence Of The Heart, March 21, 1993 ☀️

Forget about the past. Forget about people who have hurt you before. Drop everything, let it go. Let go of everything, everything. Hold on to nothing. Stand naked in the world without a foundation, with nothing to take refuge in. Then you'll be cleansed completely, then you'll become the ascended Master. But when you take refuge in this and you take refuge in that, this keeps you from your real Self.

As an example: In buddhism you learn to take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the sangha and so forth. Yet when you do this you become an idiot, for you're holding on to something. You become dull, insensitive. Hold on to nothing. Yet most of us have fear. We're afraid to do this because we won't know what will happen to us. We feel secure when we take refuge in something. The security is your downfall. As long as you feel secure you will never grow. It's like having money in the bank. You're afraid to spend it. You're afraid to be without an account. For you think this is your nest egg, you hoard it. You always look at the balance to see what you have. This keeps you from advancing spiritually.

Remember the Israelites of old. When they were in the desert for forty years they were told not to save any manna. So they would throw away the extra manna they had, not to save anything, and new manna was provided for them daily. This is the meaning. As long as you have something to hold onto, something to save you from something, you will never become free and realized. Most of us are afraid of having nothing. Yet nothing is absolute reality. Nothing is your savior. Nothing is reality. Something on the other hand, is your enemy. Something will always hold you back.

I'm not saying you have to give your possessions away; I'm saying possess all you will but don't be possessed by your possessions. Do not believe that what you earn will be your security, it never works out this way. Your security is your Self, the faith that you have, the power that you have, the love that you have, this is your security, nothing else. Yet most of us never live this way for we have been brought up to believe that we have to have something. For if we feel that we have nothing, we haven't made it in this world and we become depressed, we compare ourselves with others.

Yet every great spiritual Master has lived from day to day, never caring at all what is going to happen the next day. But you say, "How can we do such a thing in the West?" You say, "This is for monks, nuns. For people who have given up this world." On the contrary, you'll be happier than you have ever been in your life when you stop worrying about your possessions, what you should have, what you shouldn't have, for you are not your possessions nor are you your body. It is only the mind that thinks these things.

Why not surrender right now to the power which knows the way. Make up your mind this night that you're going to give up everything, mentally. You're going to let go of the past, the future, the present, you're doing this right now this minute. You're letting go of all your fears, all of your frustrations, all of your thinking. You are no longer concerned what's going to happen to you tomorrow, where you will be, where you won't be. You're not worried about a job, income, people places and things, you have found freedom, absolute freedom.

This freedom will take care of you, will guide you, listen to it closely it'll tell you what to do at every turn. This freedom is really you.

--Robert Adams, from Transcript 248: The Silence Of The Heart, March 21, 1993

Listen to Your Heart

Robert Adams
Excerpt from: Silence of the Heart
“Listen to Your Heart”

We don't have to wait until the body 'dies' for this to happen. It can happen to us now.You can become totally Free and Liberated Now, if you will. All you have to do, is to let go. You let go of everything that has been keeping you in bondage mentally.

Listen to your heart. Observe, observe yourself. Become cognizant of your feelings, your emotions. Is this really you? Are you really your emotions? Are you really your feelings that you observe? Where do these feelings come from? Ask yourself, "Who am I? Where do my feelings come from Where do my thoughts come from? Where does my life come from? Who is playing the game? Who is being alive? Who is 'growing up', becoming 'old', and 'dying'? Who is playing this game? Who is the 'I' that is playing this game? Who am I?

Something And Nothing

Many of you come here because you think I know something, and you want a piece of the something that I know.

 You believe the something will make you become self-realized, perhaps. 

But in truth I know nothing. 

Then you come to me because you want a piece of the nothing.

 And you think if you know nothing you'll become self-realized. 

But in truth you have to know something to know nothing. 

It is the something that we'll talk about tonight. 

What do you have to be to become nothing?

 What do you have to know to be nothing? 

To be nothing is a misnomer, for you make the nothing into something. 

If you're trying to be nothing, then you're trying to be something, aren't you? 

Because the nothing is something, that you're trying to become. 

Consequently, you should never strive to be nothing and you should never strive to be something, for they're both erroneous concepts. 

None of them really exist.

 The question therefore is, "If something doesn't exist, and nothing doesn't exist, well what is?" 

And the answer is silence.

 Absolute silence. 

For the human mind and the human thinking, the human thoughts, can never comprehend what silence is. 

You try to put it into words, and you spoil it. 

There are no words that can interpret the silence, for when you go into the true silence, you go beyond nothing and something. Yet everyone has experienced this true silence who has gone beyond nothing and something, and appeared to have to first become something and nothing, in order to be silent.

.

There's something you have to know:

Number 1:

Nothing is as it appears. 

You have to feel this deep in your heart. 

Nothing in this whole universe is as it appears.

 So do not be fooled by appearances. 

You do not allow the appearance to get to you, to make you feel this way or that way, no matter what the appearance may be. 

You are to look at the appearance as you would look at a mirage. 

And this is scientific, for the appearance will change sooner or later anyway. 

Therefore when you feel something from an experience, it is subject to change. 

You'll not be the same again. 

This is why the average person keeps going up and down like a yo-yo. 

They respond to a condition, then the condition changes and they respond in a different way to the same condition, and this changes and you respond again to the condition. 

They keep responding again and again to what they see as a condition.

Number 2:

Do not say that the world is maya, for if you say the world is maya, that's a concept you have. And this is a non-duality concept, but nevertheless it's a concept, for you're holding on to the fact that the world is maya. In reality maya does not exist. There is no maya. Therefore everything that appears to come from maya, must also not exist. Do you follow this? Whatever you think does not exist, is a concept. It becomes a thing, something to hold on to. You go around saying, "Everything is maya, everything is maya, the universe does not exist." But then maya exists to you and this is the big mistake you're making, for you think maya exists. What is maya? An illusion. To whom comes the illusion? To the one who believes maya as a concept, maya as a thing, a belief. In other words, everything that you believe up to this point is erroneous, and it should be dropped. The same is true with the words of absolute reality, pure awareness, Brahman, sat-chit-ananda.

These things become a safe haven for you, and they keep you back from your full realization, for you are holding on to these beliefs that there is absolute reality, there is sat-chit-ananda, there is nirvana. Where would these things come from except from your own mind? It is you who gave these things names. We have given names to something we do not understand. We call it reality. What is reality? Something that never changes. And the something that never changes, becomes a concept and you hold on to that. Is it any wonder such few people are self-realized? Is it any wonder that certain people only are liberated, very few people liberated? For we have simply exchanged terms. We say the world does not exist but maya exists. We say everything comes from consciousness, everything comes from the absolute reality. We merely change words, change terms.

There is no absolute reality. There is no sat-chit-ananda. There is no Brahman. It is we who made these terms up, and we feel safe and secure by holding on to them. At one time we used to say, "God is with me." Now we say, "Consciousness is with me," or, "I am the absolute reality." We've just changed the names. That's all we've done.

Number 3:

You are not even the silence, for as long as you can express the word silence, that's not it. 

You have to get to the place where you have absolutely nothing to hold on to, nothing to lean against. 

Even when Buddha said to take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the sangha, take refuge in the eight fold path, this again is a mistake. 

I'm not saying the Buddha made a mistake. 

What I'm saying is the reason he said this, is because he was speaking to ignorant people who had to hold on to something. 

But the Buddha realized there's nothing to hold on to. 

There never was anything to hold on to. 

Even when you're told you're total freedom, the word freedom becomes a concept for you. 

As long as you can lean in to it, as long as you can hold on to it, and you feel good in it, it's a mistake.

 Again, this is the reason so few people are self-realized. 

You're holding on to something. 

You're attached to something. 

Whether it's a teaching, or a person, or a satsang, or a sangha, you can never become free while you're attached to something.

-- Robert Adam, T187: Something And Nothing

Whatever you do is preordained.

Robert Adams
Excerpt from: Satsang
“Illusion”

Now you cannot intellectually say, "I do not believe I am the body, therefore the world doesn't exist for me, I can do anything I like." 

This will never work. 
As long as you feel you are alive as a human being then no matter how intellectual you will say to yourself, "This world does not exist," it will exist. 
Do not make that mistake.

 Believing that the world does not exist.
 For some people tell me if the world does not exist they can do anything they like. I can rob a bank. I can kill people. It doesn't matter nothing exists. 

Of course the answer is, if nothing exists you wouldn't be talking like this.

 If you really were aware that nothing exists, the world does not exist, you would be silent. 
There would be absolutely nothing for you to say because you do not exist either.

Therefore who is asking this question?
 As far as preordination is concerned this is a truth for the ajnani. 

For a human being who is steeped in ignorance of the world. 

And you can tell yourself if you are or you're not by the way the world affects you. 

If you become depressed, discouraged, angry, upset. 
You think there is something wrong somewhere. 

You look at the world situation, you worry, you're upset over it. This means that you believe you are the body and you are going through experiences on this earth. Therefore this world does exist for you. It is very real never think it's not. 

And everything in your life is preordained, predestined. 
Therefore do not believe that you can do anything you like. 
Whatever you do is preordained.

Do not concern yourself whether you're going to do anything wrong or right. 

You are just one of the many actors on the stage of life.

 Everybody has come here to play a role, so-to-speak. 

Some people have to be the good guys, some people have to be the bad guys. 

This is the reason we never judge anybody. 

This is the reason you should never call anybody evil or bad. 

It is really a role that they're playing. 

And a person on the path of Jnana does not judge anybody or anything. 

They leave everything alone. 
They observe it, they watch it. 

Come to no conclusions. 
Good and bad is out of their vocabulary. 
Right and wrong has been transcended. 
This happens before you become fully enlightened. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong in this whole universe least of all yourself. 
You no longer worry about yourself. 
For even though you still feel you are a piece of the body you understand that there is a grand bliss, a joy, an absolute reality that you can call God that takes care of you completely and totally when you surrender completely and totally to the source.

So you see you do not have to look after your life. 
You do not have to watch what you eat or watch where you go or watch what you do. 

For whatever you eat, wherever you go, whatever you do is the right thing for you at the moment. 
It is where you're supposed to be. 
You are where you're supposed to reap. 
Everything is in its right place. 
If you learn to have faith like this you will grow. 

But if you keep believing I am the doer and I have to make things happen, otherwise nothing will happen and I will fall apart, then you will be making things happen all of your life. 

There will always be something to make happen. It will never end. 

Yet this is also your role that you have to play here on this earth. 
This is the destiny that's yours. 
To do what you're doing right now.

The best thing you can do in the morning when you wake up is to ask yourself, " Who am I?

The worst thing you can do in the morning is turn on the TV and read the newspaper. That is the worst thing you can do.

The best thing you can do in the morning when you wake up is to ask yourself, " Who am I? " and "What am I doing here?"

The worst thing you can do at night before you go to sleep is to think about your job or your family or your finances or your sicknesses or your...all the other things that have been going on in your life.

The best thing you can do before you go to sleep or when you're sleeping, going to sleep is to inquire, "To whom do these activities come? 

To whom has the days activities come? 

Who has experienced these days activities".

So you see it's up to you to do the right thing. 

Wherever you go in this world you still have to take yourself and no-one can transcend your mind but you. 

No-one can cause self-realization but you. 

No-one can awaken you but you. 

You are the one. 

The world really has nothing to offer you. 

Your dreams have nothing to offer you. 

Look to yourself. 

Look to eternity within yourself.

 Learn to love yourself. 

When you're loving your self you're loving the universe for the Self is the whole universe.

Robert Adams

Such is the power of true understanding.

Ramana Maharshi says,

‘The ‘I’ removes the ‘I’ yet remains the ‘I’.’
It means the I-consciousness-presence
removes the I-person belief and thereafter remains
the unmixed and impersonal I-consciousness.

This is the paradox of Self-realisation. 

This ‘I’ that removes the I-person
does not even have to touch the I-ego.

When a lion enters a room, he doesn't ask those there
to pack their things and leave.

There is only emptiness remaining.
Such is the power of true understanding.

~ Mooji