"The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide between." #ACIM

show it to me

i honor the place in you

Robert Adams Tolle Ramana

test of reality-Rupert

The Test of Reality
~ ~ ~
If something is real, it has to satisfy three qualities:

First of all, it can not disappear. If something disappears, it has to disappear into something. When we put a cube of ice in a glass of water. The ice disappears into water. So, the reality of ice is water. That's the first test.

The second test of reality, is that it can not change. So, the water is not real too bcoz its made outta H2O. When the water is heated, it becomes the vapours. So, H2O is the same in the ice and in the water. But the names and its labels change. That's the second test.

The third test of reality is that it can not be known by something, other than itself. If it is known by other than itself, then its reality is relative or dependent upon its knower. So, it can not be absolute reality.

So, these are the three qualities of the reality of our experience. What is it in our experience that satisfies all these three tests is awareness. All else is illusory, disappearing, changing and known by the awareness of it.
~ ~ ~
.
From the Rupert Spira audio entitled "The Test of Reality"

be grateful for everything

stay with the I-Robert Adams

everything as equal-Robert Adams

You and your self are the universe. You are the whole universe. You are the self, omnipresent, all-pervading. This is your real nature. If you just have a glimpse of this, how can you possibly fear anything? If you learn to live in the present and become spontaneous, forgetting about the past, not concerning yourself about the future, but understanding who you are right now, can't you see that this will take care of everything?

It reminds me of this old story about Krishna and Arjuna. They were invited to a rich man's home for dinner. When they entered the home and they sat down at the table, the rich man abused him. He told Krishna he doesn't believe anything he says. His teaching is a waste of time. He told him, "Why don't you go and get a decent job someplace?" and Krishna didn't say a word. When they were finished. Krishna blessed him and he said to him, "May your prosperity increase a thousand fold, and may your riches become a million more than you have now," and they left the home. Arjuna wondered about this, but he didn't say anything.

The following morning they were invited to breakfast to a poor man's house, and the poor man had no possessions except for a cow. But the poor man fell at Krishna's feet when they came in, and he worshipped Krishna and Arjuna, gave them the last bowl of rice he had and sang glories to Krishna. When Krishna and Arjuna were leaving the house Krishna blessed him also, and he said, "May your cow drop dead soon," and they left.

And Arjuna couldn't hold it in any longer and he said, "Krishna, tell me what you’re doing? What's going on? You went to the rich man's house and he abused you, and you blessed him and told him his wealth will multiply. And you go to the poor man's house who loves you, and his only possession is a cow, and you told him his cow will drop dead. What is the meaning of this?

And Krishna said, "You see, the more you're attached to, the less of a chance you have for enlightenment." So I told the rich man his wealth will increase. This means he will be attached to his wealth for many, many incarnations. Thousands of incarnations he will be attached to his wealth, and he will never become enlightened for a long time. Now the poor man, his only attachment was his cow. When he got rid of his cow, he would be finished on this earth, and he will become self-realized. So I told him his cow will soon die and he will be free.

This story is very significant of the way we live. We have something we own, a person, place, or thing. We can not get it out of our mind. We're attached. Because of this attachment we go through many lives, it appears, and we go through many experiences, simply because we are attached to something. It can be mental or physical.

Even if you hate someone. If you hate someone or something with a passion, that's attachment. You will come back to this earth, or to another planet similar to this earth, again, and again, and again, and you will meet this person that you hate so much under different circumstances again, and again, and again. One time he may be your daughter, he may be your mother, he may be your husband, he may be your wife. But that person that you despise so much will meet you again, and again, and do things to you in order to upset you. And you will hate again, and again. You will never be free until you understand.

The understanding is to turn within, to forget about the person, but to see your own reality, to trace the I thought to the source. After all it is the I thought that hates and loves, that has attachment to person, place or thing. When the I thought is transcended, only the self remains. Then your karma is finished, your body is finished, your world is finished, your God is finished, and you're home free. But as long as you allow a person, place or thing, and it may be your own body that you're attached to, your own mind, that's person, place or thing also, as long as you feel deeply about those things, you will never become free until you let it go.

You have to reconcile yourself with the whole universe, the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, the human kingdom. When you have become friends with the entire universe, you will not have to do atma-vichara. You will not have to trace the I, or worry about the I. Just the reconciliation with the universe will free you. After all, when you love everything, unqualified, what else can you do? There's nothing else. The total love of the whole universe kills the ego. For it is the ego that plays the other games with you, that makes you love someone special or hate someone special, that makes you despise certain animals and eat them, that makes you think poison ivy is worse than the rose, that causes you to qualify life. A sage sees everything as equal. No thing is worse or better than any other thing. And just by hearing this, allowing it to go into your heart, feeling it, will lead you to an awakening.

- ROBERT ADAMS

selling me my own watch

the right ones

nothing else to do

the world moves in it

Beware

Wake Up!! Robert Adams

Wake up. Get rid of all those feelings that are beseeching you to do all these stupid things. Awaken. Be free. Simplify your life. Have no fear. Fear is another thing that you become attached to and it keeps you back.

Look at the world. The world is a cosmic joke. It appears to be real, the good things, the beautiful things, the horrible things. They are all imposters. This world is a world of duality. For every good there has to be a bad. It has to balance. For every bad there has to be a good. For every up there’s a down. For every forwards there’s a backward.

We can never understand this world. It's too complex. Get out of it, not by committing suicide, but by transcending the mind and body, and awakening to your real self. That's how you get out of it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop paying so much attention to your thoughts, to the world, to your body. Let come what may. Surrender totally to yourself. Yourself is God, consciousness. Begin to identify with the I am, not with conditions. Leave conditions alone.

- ROBERT ADAMS

This is the secret

thank you

there is only one dreamer

thoughts robert adams

There is only one problem that affects everyone. And that is, you think. It's your thoughts that get you into trouble. You have an opinion on almost everything. If you would only learn to control your thoughts you would become absolutely free. Even now, while I'm talking to you, there are many thinking of something else. Your mind appears to have complete control over you. Now if your mind were real you would have a battle on your hands. But, since your mind doesn't even exist, you merely have to see the mind for what it really is, the self. There is no mind. There are no thoughts. There is only the self. All the scriptures of the world have tried to explain this. Be still and know that I am God. Focus your mind on God, and all will go well with you. They're saying the same thing.

Do not allow your mind to persuade you with all the different thoughts that come into your head. Your mind is not your friend. It appears that it wants to survive, so it's going to do everything in the book to cause it to survive. It will tell you all kinds of stories. It will bring up everything from the past. It will bring out doubts, apprehensions, suspicions, anger, greed. It will make you believe that you're right to act the way you do, and to feel the way you do. Great rishis, sages, since time immemorial have realized that the only problem you have to deal with is your mind. If you can only stop your mind from thinking, self-realization will come of itself.

How do you do that? Through self-inquiry, no matter what thoughts come to you. Makes no difference what they are. We're not talking about negative versus positive thoughts. We're talking about all thoughts, no matter how true they may appear. Even if your eyes show you, even if your brother is over to your house and while you're sleeping he takes $50 out of your pocket, your eyes are showing you something is wrong. It doesn't mean that you let him go away with the $50. You confront him, but you do not react. You simply take back your $50 and you forget it. It's finished. It doesn't even mean that you have to continue inviting your brother to your house. Yet nothing is done with malice. The secret is to forget and forgive as fast as you can. Remember your brother is going through his own karma, and this is what he was supposed to do, so how can you hate him? You have a vocabulary of different names. You are ready to call him thief, crook, no good and so on. All this has to be forgotten. Remember again, you do not become a doormat for him to step on. You merely take the right action that you will do, and you forget it. And that's the end of it.

Your body knows what to do by itself. It's your mind that makes up all these things, that holds grudges, that holds malice, day after day, week after week, that's hurt by words. Give it all up.

- ROBERT ADAMS

something you should always remember

a single sunbeam

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows -Francis of Assisi

Heaven

"Heaven is not a place....It is merely an awareness of perfect oneness." #ACIM

ruthless becoming

How ruthless a man is in his desire to become

interconnectedness

keep quiet

hold on to I am

let the mind become still

help or hinder

we would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon

Awareness has bodies and minds

Heart

the greatist happiness

resistance

become free as fast as you can

end the dream

Robert Adams: Q&A

Robert Adams: There is one thing I can tell you for sure. All is well. Everything is unfolding as it should. I can tell you that truly nothing is wrong anywhere. If you think you have a problem, that’s the mistake — thinking you have a problem. As soon as you stop thinking, everything will go right.
Questioner: Isn’t everything going right while you are thinking?
R: Yes, but you don’t know it. Some of us don’t think it is, saying, “I’ve got a problem,” or “I’m involved in some-thing I can’t handle which is bigger than I am,” or “Some-thing hurts me,” or “I feel anger.” But I can assure you, there is nothing wrong! All that you have to do is watch yourself. As soon as your mind starts thinking past your nose, grab it — not your nose, but your thoughts. You can grab your nose too if you want (laughter). Grasp your thoughts with your mind, and put a stop to them any way you can, either by observing the thoughts or by practicing self-enquiry and asking to whom they occur. Whatever you need to do, do not allow yourself to think. If your mind does not think, you will be exceedingly happy. You will have unalloyed happiness.
Some people ask me, “Robert, why don’t you just speak the highest truth all the time?” Some others tell me to speak in such a way that they can understand what I am talking about (laughter). So that is the dilemma. I do whatever I have to do. I plan nothing. Everything is extemporaneous. I have no rehearsals.
A man called me yesterday telling me he had been practicing for two weeks, took a seminar and paid seven hundred dollars, and is still not realized. I get calls like this all the time. What you say determines the answer I give you. But there is a standard answer. Think of the question, “When will I become self-realized?” Before I answer this one, I usually ask, “Please tell me what do you mean by `I’?” Then I further ask, “What do you mean by `Self-realization’?” They usually become silent, so I finally ask, “Who do you think the `I’ is? Who wants to become Self-realized?”
If you can’t do anything else, surrender to consciousness. By surrender, I mean surrender your ego, your problems, your emotions, your fears, your frustrations and anger. Give it all up. Say, “Take it, consciousness!”
Do not get carried away by your emotions. Stop in the middle and watch. Watch your emotions ruling you. Watch your fears controlling you. Watch your anger arise. Do not try to stop it, just watch and observe. Look intelligently and realize who it is that is getting angry. It is not you. It is not even your ego because there is no ego. It is not your body because there is no body. It is not your mind because there is no mind. Therefore, what is making you angry? Nothing.
I was talking about all the phone calls I’ve been receiving. People still ask what I think about this or that teacher, this or that person, or why shouldn’t they go to see other teachers as well? I really don’t know what to say. You have to do what you have to do. I can tell you that the more people you consult, the more confused you’ll become. I don’t care if you never come back here again because I am not looking for anything.
If you do find a teacher that you seem to have an affinity for, you should stick around for a while. If you run from teacher to teacher, you will become totally confused. Every teacher has his place. You will be attracted to the person you have to be with for as long as necessary. It depends on where your consciousness is.
Q: Robert, throughout the spiritual literature there are distinctions made between a gradual path and instantaneous enlightenment. A lot of this stuff about passing through stages — I can’t relate to it. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
R: What can’t you relate to?
Q: Just the idea that you pass through one stage to the next stage.
R: This is for the person who is striving. The truth is there is nothing to pass through. It appears that some people, who need to understand these things and research them for themselves, will be helped to see where they are coming from. Perhaps you don’t need it.
Q: The state of happiness you talk about I would not call happiness. The state seems far above happiness. Happiness as the opposite of sadness.
R: You are right.
Q: Sadness could even come into that state you are I and it would only be something that was passing through with no identification.
R: You are right. As an example, I can cry at a funeral but I realize who is crying. I can have sadness if I want to but I am never really sad.
Q: The state of non-attached mind, that’s really the closest thing to it, isn’t it?
R: That’s true. I am looking for words to describe things. More importantly, there is always total happiness. It is not human happiness. For most people to be happy, there has to be a person, place, or thing involved in their happiness. In true happiness, there are no things involved. It’s a natural state. You will abide in that state forever.
Q: From the standpoint of practice, I have noticed that no matter what state arises, the problem is whether I am willing to let this go. Is it important for me to stay in my emotional state? The answer is that there is nothing you can do anyway as it comes and goes.
R: Act as if there is something you can do, even though there is nothing you can do. If you were passing a starving man in the room, don’t think there is nothing you can do. Give him a piece of bread.
Q: But in that state of mind arising, emotions arising, perceptions arising, there is nothing you can do.
R: Except watch. Just watch. Just observe. Another thing to consider is this: if you were here as a visitor, having only one meeting with me, and you would never see me again, I would expound the highest truth to you and take off. You would say how great that is. But when I see you twice a week or more, I begin to know you quite well, and everything I say is to help you grow because that is what is needed at that time, since I’m going to be with you again. To people who were with Ramana Maharshi as devotees, he didn’t expound absolute truth to them all the time. He would talk to them like an ordinary person. He would inquire about their welfare, their health, about their problems, and he would give them practical advice. He wouldn’t say, “Nothing matters because nothing exists.” They had problems. So he would talk to them in a practical manner.
Q: If we don’t see progress within ourselves and see we are continually getting upset, we shouldn’t let that bother us?
R: Keep observing, keep watching, keep focusing on the Self, and there will be nobody to ask who is bothered or who is not bothered. You only ask such a question when your attention is more on the bothering than it is on the Self. If you change your attention to the Self, see what happens.
Q: The question is, is that gradual?
R: For some people. It depends on how much time you give to it.
Q: We can’t just turn our emotions off. When I go to work sometimes, I find such an intensity there, with people snapping at each other, I get caught up in it. Of course I become aware, usually after the fact, asking myself, “will this disappear gradually by abiding in myself, or will I someday suddenly awaken?”
R: In the morning, when you first open your eyes, that’s the time to work on yourself. Ask yourself, “Who am I? How did I get here?” Reconcile yourself with yourself. If you do that upon first waking up, the whole day will be good, without these problems. Just don’t go straight to work. Get up an hour early if you have to. See yourself for what you are, and realize the truth. Focus on the self. Ask yourself, “Who Am I?” and wait. Concentrate on the source of “I Am,” or say to your-self, “I Am, I Am,” and then go to work. Then you will see changes. You will build up a power that you will carry with yourself all day long.
Q: To follow that “I” to its source, to find the “I” by self-enquiry and abide in it seems to mean non-existence, statelessness.
R: Don’t worry about being non-existent. Simply observe the “I,” and watch it going into the heart.
Q: It is not so much a following then, but that it happens by itself?
R: It happens by itself.
Q: When I contemplate “I Am,” does it mean that already I am the Self?
R: Yes it does.
Q: Robert, it’s because we have the concept we are not the Self that we miss the fact that we are abiding in the Self all the time. As Ramesh Balsekar has said, we only have the doubt we are not the Self, but the truth is we have always been it.
R: Exactly. When we don’t see that, we go through all these troubles and play all these games, until we realize we are the Self. Then that is it.
Q: If we don’t have the Self and are saying, “I am it,” what is to keep that from becoming a parrot-like repetition?
R: It doesn’t become a parrot-like repetition if you do it with your breath. When you inhale, say “I.” When you exhale, say “Am.” A subtle change of energy takes place within the Self, and you will become more peaceful, calm, and soon you will lose all identification with your body and mind. You will remain as “I Am.”
Q: Robert, when we do self-enquiry, actually that is the beginning step to find the “I.” When we develop a sense of abiding in the “I,” there isn’t much need of enquiry because we go straight to the abidance.
R: Self-enquiry has no beginning. If you practice “Who Am I,” it sounds simple, but is very powerful. Only say, “Who Am I?” then pause, then say it again, “Who Am I?” Never answer the question. Just keep repeating “Who Am I?” Eventually, something will happen.
Q: I’m asking, if you develop a sense of self-abidance, you can watch states come and go, watch identification with the ego, and then self-enquiry is not necessary if you can go directly to that.
R: If you are abiding in the Self, there is no ego to watch — there is only the Self. You watch the ego with the mind, not with the Self. If you abide in the Self, there is nothing else. You are finished. You’re cooked. Everything else is of the mind. When I say abide in the Self, I mean for-get everything and be yourself. There is nothing else to know at that point.

I Am

Most people usually call me and ask me how to alleviate their problems. "How do I get rid of a bad marriage? How
do I find another job? How do I remove illness from my life? How do I become a millionaire?" And so forth and so
on. What I usually say is “Do not think of your problems, but think of God."

Now I'm not speaking of the God up in the sky. I'm not speaking of an anthropomorphic deity. I'm speaking of pure reality, of consciousness. When I mention God I mean absolute intelligence. Think of God whenever your problem
comes along, whenever you feel despondent, whenever you feel out of sorts, whenever you feel something is wrong, think of God.

"How do I do this?" they ask. "How can I think of God? What we call God is invisible. Absolute reality has no form and no shape. How can I think of God."
I've gone over this once before. Who can tell me? How does one think of God? How does one meditate on God? I'll
give you a hint. What is the first name of God?

Student: I am

Robert: Exactly. I am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I am, with your respiration. I am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try it. Inhale and say I, exhale and say “am." Inhale, say I, exhale, say “am."

Doesn't that make you feel good? Just by saying I am to yourself it lifts you up.
So the thing to do is this. Whenever you have a problem, I don't care what it is, I don't care how serious you think it
is, whether it's personal or worldly, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment forget
about the problem, for as long as you can, and do the I am meditation. Every time the problem comes back to you, do the I am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again and do the I am meditation.

When I explain this to some people they say “Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it." This is true. This is the highest truth. But yet most people cannot do this.
Remember, Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls, people who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It's like
going to school. Self-inquiry, Advaita Vedanta is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself. There
are so many people who try to practice self-inquiry and they give it up.

Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That's the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for awhile and they always revert back to themselves, their personal self. So I give them the I am meditation.

Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to I am. It's really very powerful. Do not take it simply.
I can guarantee you this. If you can practice I am for one day, just one day, all of your troubles will be transcended.
You will feel happiness you've never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed. As you keep practicing I am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will begin to feel an inner joy, an inner bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I am going through. It makes no difference, because it is God who is going through this, not me. And God has no problems.

You automatically become happy, just by using the I am meditation.
In the Bhagavad Gita it says “Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people that search,
one finds him." It's sort of difficult. That's how it appears. But if you begin to use I am as a meditation, and you allow the I am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and I am will take over.

If you want to mix self-inquiry, atma-vichara, with I am, that's permissible. You can use them both together. I'll explain how. Say you're using the I am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they're good thoughts or bad thoughts, makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire “To whom comes these thoughts?" and you don't have to go any further. Just observe and watch. When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I am meditation, with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire “To
whom do they come?"
As you progress in this method you complete the question. "The thoughts come to me. What is the source of me?
Who am I? What is the source of I?" You begin to feel and see that the I that seems to have problems is not you.
You begin to feel, I have a problem, I am sick, I am angry, I have no peace of mind, and you begin to laugh, for the
realization tells you I has all these things, I don't. I is the culprit.
I appears to want this and need that, filled with desires, wants, self-aggrandizement. All this belongs to the I. "Who
is this I? Where does it come from? If the I isn't really me, then who am I?" And you keep still.

Now you may go back to I am again, with the respiration. You inhale and you say I, you exhale and you say “am.” As you progress this way you're going to find something very interesting happening to your life. You're going to find there's more and more space between I am. It’ll happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with “am." You will inhale again and say I.

Remember, you're not putting this on. You're not making it happen. It's happening all by itself. And the space
between I am is the fourth dimension of consciousness, after waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the jnani.
It is your freedom. It is pure awareness. Pure awareness is not the I am. The I am leads you to pure awareness. And
when you keep practicing who am I, alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say
“Who am I?" again. That space is bliss. You will feel something you've never felt before, an inner joy, an inner
delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the self, and I am that.

As the months progress, the words will come less and less. You may start off with I am, and then you will be in the
silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the silence. That silence is nirvana, emptiness. It is
no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the silence.

~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams

rid me of fear and ego: Mooji

Drop everything, drop, drop, drop.
We are never going to be experientially one
while you retain an idea of yourself as a person,
because every person is conditioned.
Every person belongs to some party, some religion,
some philosophical group, some political group,
some kind of social group, some identity you are wearing.
And every identity fights to retain its own perspective. Okay?
We are never, ever, ever going to agree
while you are in the state of personhood.
This is what is radically fresh about self-inquiry.
I bring you the message of Ramana Maharshi,
I bring the message of Sri Adi Shankara,
which is not only just a philosophical message.
I am their living message right now.
And I am not afraid to say this, controversial as it may seem.
It is not pride because someone must have the courage to say things as they are.
Someone asked me, ‘What is your Master's highest teaching?’
Without thinking I said, I am my Master's highest teaching.
I have to say it. It sounds arrogant, but its not arrogance.
I have not failed my Master. He instilled in me the courage to say what I am.
So I now say this on your behalf, because you are afraid to say.

However, it is not enough just to say you are it.
It is not just having the intellectual conviction.
It has to be a seamless experience.
And I am waiting for too long to get you to this point.
You are too slow. You are so apologetic.
And so I have to affirm in front of you: I am That.
On behalf of you. To give you courage to say this.
There is an appropriate time to admit this and it is not blasphemy,
it is not arrogance to declare from your heart, ‘I am That.’
You understand?

We are not going to reach this as one human family
while we keep on believing in and are loyal to
our group mentality and conditioning.
Because it teaches you that you are Muslim, that you are Christian,
that you are Hindu, Buddhist, so we will never meet.
Even those who you may call
the most liberal in any group, they still cannot meet.
I have met groups sometimes, the most liberal within the group,
and they are only some watered-down version of their conditioning.
No. This has to be a living Truth.
And the only way you are going to come to the living Truth is:
You have to be like the cow that jumped over the moon,
and this moon is your mind.
You have to jump over it.
And as long as you stay as this person,
you are going to argue like a person,
you are going to defend like a person,
and I am showing you the most beautiful way.
The most beautiful way is the way of Being.
You have to come out of this tight box of conditioning.
I show you. I show you.
I don't say go. I say come.
Look with me and prove with me your original Self.
It is not a spiritual fantasy.
It is not escapism.
It is the most real.
Everything else on this planet will vanish.

Accept what I am speaking with you, the truth of it.
And I am only telling you, you have to be cured of this mistake
that makes you hold onto an identity that you are merely flesh and blood.
You are that, too. But you are not that, only.
It is time to grow up. Don't just grow old.
Grow up and look with the eyes I am looking at.
When I see you, I see the Self.
But when I hear you, you are not speaking as the Self.
You are speaking as something that is born of time,
and in a few seasons will not be here.

Take courage, and listen with your heart what I tell you.
Follow my guidance because what I say now with such power and conviction
you yourself will be able to speak—from the authority of your own experience.
I am not just asking you only to believe.
Belief and trust—that is all good.
But it must also be experienced directly—proven.

I am talking with you straight now.
I have shown and proven it to you many times, your true nature and Self.
I am proving it to you again here, but again you hold back sheepishly.
You say you want to discover the most important thing in the world,
but you offer so little of yourself to the search.

You must have the courage to stand up and say,
‘Rid me of fear and ego and merge me with you.
May the great God remove all that I am not
and set my soul forever free.’

~ Mooji, Monte Sahaja 2016