words fail
Everyone is still looking for words. Words are meaningless. When you listen to words you're really taking the power away from yourself. You have all the answers. All you have to do is to become still long enough and everything will be revealed to you. Then what am I doing here? I'm simply a mirror for yourself. I'm here so you can see yourself, your true nature. There's no difference between you and me. What do you see? What you see is what you get. You can see your own divinity as the Self, or you can see the personal I getting involved in all kinds of problems. The choice is always yours. Identify with the world and you suffer accordingly. Identify with your true nature, the Self, and you're happy and blissful. Of course your true nature is omnipresence, pure intelligence. Therefore if you are experiencing your real nature, wherever you look you see harmony and peace, because you're seeing yourself.
Many people still ask me, "Robert, how can I tell if I'm making progress on the path? How can I be sure?" There are many signs. The first is a sense of peace, when you are no longer disturbed by worldly conditions. The world appears to go on. You begin to see it as a picture, a movie. You begin to recognize what the world really is, an expression of your own mind. And when you can do that the world will never harm you again. It will lose it's power over you.
Of course your body is part of the world, and so is your mind. You therefore have to give up those also. When there is no thought for the body, no thought for the mind, and no thought for the world, then divine right action is taking place in your life and every- thing becomes joy. Everything becomes love. Without you thinking about it, without de- sire, without need, you become free.
Another way to know if you're making progress is you're no longer disturbed by any condition. You may lose your job, you may lose a family member, you may go through various experiences, but you're not disappointed, because you're able to see through the experience to the other side. And the other side is the fourth state of consciousness besides
dreaming, sleeping and waking. And in the fourth state of consciousness there's always happiness, for that is the substratum of every thing you see. Again the choice is yours. You have the freedom to identify with the world, to identify with your Self. There is no one, there is no thing, that can harm you or disturb you or bother you if you focus your atten- tion on God or the Self.
Yet most people do not understand how to do this. How do I focus my attention on God?
By remembering I-am. I-am is the first name of God. When you think of I am you're invoking the name of God and you're focusing your attention on God. So, when you have some kind of problem or something disturbing you, if you feel out of sorts, if you believe something is wrong, if the war affects you, you do not have to turn off your television, or change your environment, or change your circumstances. You simply turn within and invoke the name of God by saying, "I-am." What happens when you do this? You're really saying, "I-am absolute reality, I-am pure awareness, I-am nirvana, emptiness, ultimate oneness, I am sat-chit-ananda."
All this transpires when you simply say, "I-am." This is why, in the beginning stages, the I-am meditation is very important, with the breath. When you're doing that you're pushing all your false notions, samskaras and the rest of the garbage out of the way, and you're coming into your true identity.
You can tell if you're making progress by how happy you're becoming. When you see you're just happy, without any condition making you happy, then you know some- thing is working. If you need something or someone to make you happy, the same some- one or something will make you sad. When the person who makes you happy leaves your presence you'll be sad. When the thing that you're enjoying is taken away from you, you'll be upset. Therefore do not depend on any condition for your happiness. Happiness is your real nature. All you have to do is to invoke I-am, and you're radiantly happy right there.
from a talk of Robert Adams in February 1991
words fail
Everyone is still looking for words. Words are meaningless. When you listen to words you're really taking the power away from yourself. You have all the answers. All you have to do is to become still long enough and everything will be revealed to you. Then what am I doing here? I'm simply a mirror for yourself. I'm here so you can see yourself, your true nature. There's no difference between you and me. What do you see? What you see is what you get. You can see your own divinity as the Self, or you can see the personal I getting involved in all kinds of problems. The choice is always yours. Identify with the world and you suffer accordingly. Identify with your true nature, the Self, and you're happy and blissful. Of course your true nature is omnipresence, pure intelligence. Therefore if you are experiencing your real nature, wherever you look you see harmony and peace, because you're seeing yourself.
Many people still ask me, "Robert, how can I tell if I'm making progress on the path? How can I be sure?" There are many signs. The first is a sense of peace, when you are no longer disturbed by worldly conditions. The world appears to go on. You begin to see it as a picture, a movie. You begin to recognize what the world really is, an expression of your own mind. And when you can do that the world will never harm you again. It will lose it's power over you.
Of course your body is part of the world, and so is your mind. You therefore have to give up those also. When there is no thought for the body, no thought for the mind, and no thought for the world, then divine right action is taking place in your life and every- thing becomes joy. Everything becomes love. Without you thinking about it, without de- sire, without need, you become free.
Another way to know if you're making progress is you're no longer disturbed by any condition. You may lose your job, you may lose a family member, you may go through various experiences, but you're not disappointed, because you're able to see through the experience to the other side. And the other side is the fourth state of consciousness besides
dreaming, sleeping and waking. And in the fourth state of consciousness there's always happiness, for that is the substratum of every thing you see. Again the choice is yours. You have the freedom to identify with the world, to identify with your Self. There is no one, there is no thing, that can harm you or disturb you or bother you if you focus your atten- tion on God or the Self.
Yet most people do not understand how to do this. How do I focus my attention on God?
By remembering I-am. I-am is the first name of God. When you think of I am you're invoking the name of God and you're focusing your attention on God. So, when you have some kind of problem or something disturbing you, if you feel out of sorts, if you believe something is wrong, if the war affects you, you do not have to turn off your television, or change your environment, or change your circumstances. You simply turn within and invoke the name of God by saying, "I-am." What happens when you do this? You're really saying, "I-am absolute reality, I-am pure awareness, I-am nirvana, emptiness, ultimate oneness, I am sat-chit-ananda."
All this transpires when you simply say, "I-am." This is why, in the beginning stages, the I-am meditation is very important, with the breath. When you're doing that you're pushing all your false notions, samskaras and the rest of the garbage out of the way, and you're coming into your true identity.
You can tell if you're making progress by how happy you're becoming. When you see you're just happy, without any condition making you happy, then you know some- thing is working. If you need something or someone to make you happy, the same some- one or something will make you sad. When the person who makes you happy leaves your presence you'll be sad. When the thing that you're enjoying is taken away from you, you'll be upset. Therefore do not depend on any condition for your happiness. Happiness is your real nature. All you have to do is to invoke I-am, and you're radiantly happy right there.
from a talk of Robert Adams in February 1991