This evening I’d like to consider ways of expanding your awareness that are legal. [Laughter from the audience.]

And to try and consider what the totality of awareness is. I suppose tonight’s talk is a primer for people who aren’t sure if they’re people anymore. And I’m not sure if we’ll be able to solve any of the great riddles or mysteries of the Sphinx tonight, but—we might!

You all know the riddle of the Sphinx, right? You don’t know your Greek Tragedies. You don’t know the riddle of the Sphinx. Why did the Sphinx cross the road? [Burst of laughter from the audience.] That’s the riddle of the Sphinx.

’Cause a moron threw him out the window, right? It’s an old Zen joke. [Laughter continues.]

Tonight we have a great show. [Laughter.]

We’re going to bring out the Astral Sisters a little later on in the evening, and, uh …

There are basically five types of spiritual seekers. [Laughter—the audience is clearly enjoying the dialogue.]

One type is represented here tonight [Rama cracks up, the audience joins in.]

No. Seriously. There are basically five types of spiritual seekers. I was talking to a friend about this earlier today. So that’s how I know it’s true. [Laughter.]

Well, how else do you know if something is true? I mean, I figure if you talk to a friend there must be some truth in it, because it’s a friend, and you wouldn’t tell a friend anything that wasn’t the truth, right?

There are basically five types of spiritual seekers.

One type is the spiritual seeker who is absolutely infatuated with eternity. I mean, they literally glow all of the time. These are extremely rare.

The second category would be a person who enters into that phase of spiritual discovery from time to time. All of you at one time or another have reached that point. But these are persons who, on a relatively regular basis go in and out of that very high, totally aware state.

The third type of spiritual seeker—I suppose we could say—is the average, only because they come in the middle. And that’s the person who is conscientious, meditates, cares about others and tries to do a good job with their life. They have moments of inspiration, they have moments of depression, frustration, hope, joy, and they’re very wonderful people.

Then we have the person who doesn’t really enjoy spiritual seeking, but they do it anyway. [Laughter.]

They feel a kind of a moral obligation to try and realize truth, because they know that it’s the thing to do. Or they’re afraid that if they don’t do this, something bad will happen to them, maybe in the afterlife. They still believe in an afterlife.

Then there are those, of course, who seek not really because they’re interested in spiritual seeking, but just because it’s an opportunity to show off their knowledge to others.

So a person who goes to a party not because they want to have a good time, but they go to the party just so they can cause others misery, in a sense.

Which type of spiritual seeker are you?

Well, let’s consider tonight the first three, because I’m sure nobody falls into the other two categories.

In the first category, we’re dealing with a very, very small percentage of persons. These are people who have reached—after many, many lifetimes—a kind of a spiritual oasis.

After meditating and seeking and striving, they’ve reached a point of tremendous purification and one-pointedness. Where all they really want anymore, you could say, is God, or nirvana, or truth, or to be of continuous service to others.

And it comes naturally. So it looks to the observer.

It never comes naturally. But it might look that way.

It just seems that this person is in a flow of light. They’re always inspired, they always glow. You see, they just have this aura, we could say a very saintly person. They’ve worked out all the basic problems in their own life, and now they’re trying to be of service to others.

But at the same time I don’t simply mean that in the sense that they’re a balanced person who is trying to help others get through the day. But they’ve actually developed their spiritual body—the body of light—to a very, very high degree. They’re very pure, in other words.

They’re always in a high state of awareness. Whether they themselves are happy or unhappy is unimportant. They’ve recognized that one’s personal happiness or unhappiness is irrelevant. That happiness, unhappiness, pleasure, pain, frustration, joy, all of these things are transitory. These are states of awareness that come and go. One day it’s cloudy, the next day it’s sunny. You know, there’s a hailstorm; there’s nothing but sunshine.

And they’re not particularly put out by any of these conditions. They accept—with an even mind—all of the conditions of existence.

But that even mind is not bored at all. They’re very excited by life, by the spiritual process, by the birth and death process, by eternity itself.

So we’re not dealing with someone who’s necessarily just in a kind of a detached state who just watches the world go by without emotions. But rather we’re dealing with someone who has become—in a sense—the cosmos. Perhaps not completely, but they’re certainly aware of their own eternality.

This does not indicate that they don’t feel pain or pleasure or things like this. But they have simply become balanced enough to deal with their life, not simply in the simple categorical sense—that most people do—of shopping. You know, selecting a good show on TV.

But rather they’ve turned their focus to eternity, realizing that eternity is all that matters, and all that ultimately brings liberation.

They no longer want to be trapped by their own frustrations and desires and limitations. Yet they realize that eternity exists not only in space per se, but in the moment, in time, in this world, in all things, in all people.

Such individuals are very rare. Obviously beyond this category we have enlightened people and stuff like that.

Now, what we see more of frequently, are people who reach that plane of consciousness for a time and they go in and out of it. And this is quite a natural process. This would be kind of our level—what I call Level Two.

In the center. That is to say people who, for a period of an hour, a day, a week, maybe two weeks, will be in a state of consciousness where they’re absolutely “on.”

They’ve pushed aside the maya, the frustration, the self-indulgence, the jealousies, all of those things, and they’re living in clear joy. Clear ecstasy. They’re absolutely in love with life and with eternity, and they radiate that completely, with a tremendous sense of poise and humility.

Again, a person may not be in that phase of consciousness for a great deal of time. It might just be for an hour, once every year.

But for that hour, they’re in a kind of a perfection, you might say. About as high as a perfection as one can attain short of very advanced self-realization.

And that hour or that minute isn’t really an hour or a minute, because it’s timeless.

They’ve moved beyond the boundaries of time and place and space and condition as we know it, and integrated their awareness with eternity.

And there’s a sense of freedom, a sense of wakefulness, of “Oh, this is life! I’d forgotten!” There is no fear, there is no hate, there is no derisiveness. There’s only eternity and it’s matchless and perfect and shining.

What a waste of time to argue, to be unhappy, how silly to fight wars. When there’s nothing but eternity, and each lifetime is so short—briefer than we realize—to enjoy, rather than to waste.

This is something that we all touch from time to time. And it’s important that we touch it. Because even though you can’t stay in that level of consciousness until you’ve really refined your being tremendously, still those moments—those wakings, those little spiritual epiphanies—cause you to remember eternity.

It’s—this is my theory of the spiritual process to some extent, or one aspect of it—and that’s that you’re out there walking around in The Valley. It’s real smoggy.

And suddenly you climb up on top of a mountain and you get on top of the mountain, and you look around you and you can see, you go above the haze. And you sight your direction, “Well, gosh, I want to keep going North, now I can see that’s the way.”

So you kind of get a fix on your direction, then you leave the mountain, go back down into The Valley, and continue on your journey.

Every once in a while you’ll reach that clearing in the maya, that displacement where eternity comes closer and you remember.

Now, when you’re back in the maya, when you’re down in The Valley in the smog again, you don’t have to forget what it was like. You may not be able to hold that moment in front of you perfectly, but yet we do have the function of recollection of memory.

We can remember, “Well, gosh, yes, the way was that way.” And even now I may kind of forget which way I was supposed to go, I may be confused, but if I remember back, “No, I remember the way quite clearly.”

So that to me is the spiritual process. That’s meditation.

Meditation is the epiphany, it’s the awakening, it’s coming to consciousness for a moment, for an hour, however long it may be.

The time spent isn’t important. What’s important is that you stop all thought.

Or that you so detach yourself from your thoughts that that breakthrough occurs. Each time you meditate, in a sense, you’re climbing that mountain.

And in that meditation, which is a lifetime, or an eternity—even if there’s only in our world time, ten seconds, perhaps at the end of that meditation period, when everything becomes clear and luminous—that ten seconds dovetails into eternal time.

There is no time then. For that moment you move through the veil of maya and everything becomes clear again.

So while we can say that there are these moments, or time periods—maybe once a year for a day or a week, or several times you’ll have that level of clarity—yet in a smaller way within each day we have those moments of clarity.

There’s a period of time each day when you have an epiphany, a breakthrough, a waking.

Or within each meditation there’s a moment of stillness or silence when everything becomes manifestly clear.

So it’s necessary to learn to cultivate these moments.

To make these moments into your life. To focus more and more of your time on these waking moments, because they inspire you and actually you can draw on them.

This is, as you know, why I suggest that you all keep a journal of these moments. That every person on the way should do that. You don’t have to write down everything that happens to you in your life. But you should write down those moments, because they’re fleeting.

Whether the moment came in a dream, in a meditation when we were together, when you were by yourself, when you were with someone—they can come at any time. Physical condition has nothing to do with one of these moments.

But it’s necessary to record them, in my estimation.

Not at that moment, but in recollection. And the recollection should be fairly soon. Because if you wait too long, in a sense you’ll lose it.

You see, the world is constantly imprinting us. It’s imprinting us with ideas, beliefs, vibrational forms, all kinds of things.

And the imprinting is so constant and so powerful, that it’s necessary for “we” to allow eternity to imprint ourselves in a slightly different way.

So when we have one of these moments, the longer we can meditate upon it, the longer we can keep it in our cumulative consciousness, the stronger in a sense it will become. Because the moment is not really a moment.

Rather, it’s an entrance into another plane of reality, and that plane of reality is always available.

For a moment you walked through a doorway into eternity. You walked into a land where there was no time, there was no space, there was no condition. What was there may be difficult, if not impossible to describe.

But you can certainly describe what led up to that moment, what it felt like to walk through. Perhaps a little bit of what it felt like, and certainly any changes you noted in your awareness afterward.

Because later, in recollection, when you read over those moments—when you recollect upon them, at that time—you will find the doorway again.

It’s not that you’re trying to go back to that exact experience. But rather, through the doorway.

You bumped into it by accident. The doorway is invisible. You were walking in the world and suddenly you walk through an invisible doorway. And you have this marvelous experience. You become God. Perfection.

Then suddenly you slip back through again. But the doorway’s invisible, and you can’t find it, although you may look everywhere.

Well, remember, the doorway is everywhere.

So, recollection is something that we use to help us back to that moment, that doorway. And the way we do it is by imprinting it on our conscious awareness. It’s kind of like learning Braille. I mean, we’re blind, and so we have to learn, we have to touch and feel something new and we have to do it repeatedly in order to learn. Once is not enough.

So, what occurs is, we imprint ourselves. We have a spiritual experience, then we write it down. And in the writing of the experience, we imprint it.

We go back over it again. We bring our field of awareness, and we direct it again to that doorway, and our awareness again becomes familiar with it, and even in writing it, you will to some extent, go back through that doorway.

In rereading that experience, perhaps a month later, or six months later, reviewing your journey, your spiritual sadhana, you’ll feel that doorway again.

There are other ways you can do this. When you leave a spiritual meeting, if you leave a center meeting, and you’re riding with friends, if we go out to the desert to a place of power, and you’re returning.

If on the return journey you discuss what occurred on the journey, let each person tell the tale, let each one be the Bard for a while and recollect and share their experiences—without egotism, without criticism, just observation—then each person will have the opportunity to recollect along with that person.

To not even listen to their words per se, because they perhaps were there, too, and saw, and felt the same things, or about the same things, but as they listen to the words—psychically, intuitively—they will feel that doorway that that person walked through to have that experience.

That’s why I like telling experiences, spiritual experiences, and very often I’ll have you, after a meditation, share your experience.

Not so that we can hear what was said, we all know what the experience was, but so we can feel the doorway again.

Because you can’t always be at that peak moment, at least not yet.

But even if you’re not at the peak moment, if you’re a little further down, in a relative way of speaking, even if you direct your attention to it, you’ll become absorbed in it.

And to be absorbed is life itself.

Spiritual absorption is not something that comes easily.

Spiritual absorption is something that comes with time. Time spent in specific ways. Focusing your conscious awareness on eternity.

We all have fields of awareness. Each one of you has a field of awareness, which you focus on something. And whatever you focus it on, you become.

Whatever you idolize enters into you, and you become. Whatever you hate enters into you, and you become.

So one learns, passing through the bardos—skipping through the bardo, skateboarding through the bardo—not to be attracted nor repulsed. Just to observe.

I’m sitting alone at my home. I’m absorbed. There’s nothing, there’s no one. There’s no world, there’s no Earth, there’s no eternity.

There’s a knock on my door. Someone comes in the house.

They come in. A world has entered my world. They sit in front of me and we talk. They tell me all of the good things that are happening to them. And I listen with happiness, I go “Oh! How exciting!”

They tell me the terrible, awful, hard time they had, and I get soooo sad! Oh, sad, sad, pity, pity, unfortunate! [Rama mimics a sad, high pitched tone.] Hey, your heart goes out! You see?

Their joys become your joys; their tribulations, your tribulations. [Rama mimics the emotions. Audience chuckles.] And you identify with that. Then later they leave, and there’s nothing. There’s no one. Not even eternity.

So with your own mind—when thoughts pass through the mind—enjoy them. Thoughts are the decoration of life.

Listen to your thoughts.

When you have happy thoughts, be excited! “Oh what a good thought!” [Rama mimics excitement.] “Boy I like that!”

Terrible, mean, ugly, jealous thoughts. [Rama’s voice gets lower and darker.] Oooww! It’s like going to a horror movie on a wet Saturday afternoon when you’re a kid, you know, and the creepy crawly things are there. Oooww!

But don’t pay too much attention to your thoughts. They’re interesting, they come and go. But they have very little to do with eternity.

When they leave, like the guest leaving the house, there’ll be nothing, as there was nothing before. Or everything, you might say.

Be neither attracted nor repulsed. Enjoy them! Have emotions! Feel, love them! But remember, in this world, everything comes and everything goes.

Do the same with people. Someone comes into your life! [Rama’s voice is very excited.] A friend!

A loved one! [Back to normal voice.]

Always watch out for them. [Rama chuckles; audience laughs loudly.]

A meeean person! A corrupt individual. A mediocre person. Is there such a thing? I’m not sure. I don’t think so.

Enjoy them! Watch out for them. But don’t get too involved. Everybody comes and everybody goes in this world, what’s the difference?

Eternity existed before them, eternity will exist after them, and since you’re eternity, what’s the difference?

Emotions come and go. You get excited—“Our side! Our team! Yaaay!” [Rama mimics excitement.] Flag waving! Super Bowl.

The opposition. Terrible, awful. Darth Vader.

Don’t get too excited by your emotions. They come and they go.

Interesting. Observe them. Enjoy them! Be excited by them. Be horrified by how awful you can be. How vain, how selfish.

But don’t be too excited. Let it come and go.

Life and death—

God! You’re born! “Wow! Here I am! What a place! I can’t believe it!” [Rama speaks excitedly.]

You’re growing up. “God! My feet are getting longer! They’re further away! Whoa!”

Adolescence. [Rama laughs freely.] “Who is that over there? I want them!” [Audience laughs.]

Maturity. Filling out tax forms.

Old Age. Realizing you blew it. [Audience laughs loudly.]

And then suddenly you’re dying!

You’ll see it all happen. Don’t be too excited by life and death, these things come and go. Eternity remains the same, eternity isn’t too concerned.

So you see, if you be eternity, if you realize that you’re eternity, then these things really aren’t a big deal. You’ve got to enjoy them, you watch them pass by. Today you’re the hero, tomorrow you’re the devil. Hey, it’s all the same.

Ultimately.

Enjoy the play, but remember, it’s only a play. After the play is over, the theater lights go down.

Somebody comes out and sweeps. And then they go home. That’s the moment I like. If you stay in the theater and everyone leaves, and then you sit there and feel—absence.

Because eternity exists both in absence and presence.

So it’s necessary to have a balanced perspective on your own spiritual aspiration.

You may be in what I call the Level Two.

That is to say, you’re in that day, or that week, or that month of just intensive aspiration, and oh, exciting, exciting!

Atmananda ⁶ calls you up on the phone and says “Come to dinner! Let’s go on a journey.” Because as you know I like to be with people who are on that phase, because that’s—they’re ready for something else I can do for them. So whenever anyone’s in that phase I spend more time with them, you see.

Then, you’re not in that phase, and the call doesn’t come.

Sad! Sad! Hours at home sitting in front of a cold meditation table! [Rama mimics a theatrical sad voice. The audience laughs.]

“Oh! Sad! I’ve fallen, I’ve fallen. Ah, before I was so high, and now I’m so low.”

Nonsense! Come on, vanity, vanity! Give yourself a break. Everybody goes up and down.

Don’t be too excited by your so-called successes or too put out by your so-called failures. They’re neither success nor failure unless you decide to label them that way.

Eternity does everything perfectly, in and through us all.

Whenever you’re supposed to get there, you’ll be there. (I always say that when I arrive late.) Whenever you’re supposed to get there, you’ll be there. [The audience laughs.] Eternity does everything perfectly, right? I mean …

You need to learn to live with all of the divergent selves inside yourself. Happily. You need to start out and make friends with all of your different selves. And it’s good if they can all like each other.

Because otherwise, it’s very difficult. The different parts of your being are at war with each other. It’s very hard to follow the spiritual process.

Because part of the spiritual process is all of your many selves—and there are so many of them, and they’re so variegated—learning to like each other and get along harmoniously with each other.

Tolerance and acceptance of your self.

To learn to love each of your selves—the happy self-giving self, the pure and humble self, the selfish self, the slothful self and the self that you don’t know yet. All of the sides of your being, to learn to love and embrace them all.

The question is, of course, who’s loving, and who’s embracing? The deeper self.

The deeper self is love. You can tell that it’s the deeper self when you’ve arrived at that level of tolerance.

Who’s acting through you at that moment. You’ve reached a deeper strata.

So in the spiritual process, then, in my estimation, anyway, you will go through tremendous oscillation.

You’ll have periods of time that seem relatively flat.

You’re out walking on the plain, not much is happening. It might seem. That doesn’t mean that’s the case. It’s just the relative mind that’s telling us, “Not much is happening.” That’s why you’re on the plain. There is no plain.

It just means you’re stuck in the relative mind at the moment. One good meditation and you can leave the plain immediately and be on the highest hill.

But the hills, the plains, the mountains, all that stuff is still relative. That is to say we’re still within the world of form.

There’s the world of form, there’s its opposite—the formless, or the void—and then there’s nirvana.

Now the worlds of form have lots and lots of gradations, as you know. So for example, there’s the physical. And then above the physical there’s the subtle physical, what we call the astral.

And then there’s something even a little thinner than that.

There are worlds in which beings live where there’s almost no time. Almost. There’s still time. But let’s say their life span might be billions of our years.

There are worlds where incarnations take place so fast that a millisecond would be eternity.

There is the void. The void is the mat that the picture is hung on.

Even the void comes and goes.

All the worlds come forth from eternity, from nirvana.

They exist in the void. The void is that infinite space of consciousness—which we call awareness.

Then they return to the source.

Then, like the Phoenix, they rise again out of their own ashes.

Eternity comes, eternity goes. Don’t be too excited by it. Be absorbed in eternity instead. Be eternity.

Be the finite, be the infinite. Be the void, but fix your eyes on nirvana, for that farthest shoreless shore.

So nirvana exists—a word we use—for that which is beyond both form and formlessness.

And when your awareness is integrated with nirvana, then we say, of course that you’ve gone beyond birth and death.

There is no one to be born, there is no one to die.

Because as you know, the operative definition of nirvana from this world is as follows:

• No one can enter into nirvana. It’s a house that no one occupies.

• No one can leave nirvana.

• Because in order to enter into nirvana, you can no longer be, in the sense that we know being.

So a human being—or whatever we are these days—can advance through all the spiritual planes, subtle planes and all that jazz.

Meditate, become perfect, but still, as long as there’s a sense of a separate self—of a finite awareness that’s advancing, becoming and being, having experiences in the bardos or whatever—there can’t be nirvana.

It’s only when that person is erased—if we take the eraser and erase them—then that’s absorption.

Now, death is different, as you know. Death simply means that you walked into a different room.

Right now we’re sitting here at one room in the Neptunian Women’s Club in Los Angeles. There’s another room around the corner.

If we go in that room, we still are.

So birth and death, they’re just different rooms.

We’re in this room for a while, we go into the room of death for a while, we come back through rebirth into this room again.

Or perhaps a different world. You don’t have to incarnate in this world.

Then there’s the dreamer and the dream, of course. Another way of looking at it. All of life is a dream. It appears to be, but it’s not.

• We see the rope on the street, you know, it’s night time, we stumble over it, we think it’s a snake. That’s the classic explanation.

• And of course, in the light of day, we see that it was just a rope.

Of course, eternity is a rope of sand. If you try and hold onto it, it dissolves in front of you.

So, self-realization, then, is waking from the dream of life. Right now we’re all in a dream. You think you’re listening to me, but it’s only a dream.

When the dream fades and vanishes, something else remains.

So when the dream of life and the dream of death—the dream of paradise, the dream of hell—when these things fade, eternity remains, nirvana remains.

So begin to identify, no so much with birth, death and rebirth. Not so much with this world. Not so much with other worlds.

But with absorption. Erase yourself. (Interesting.)

The problem is—if you’re erasing your self—what do you do when you get to the last part? [Audience laughs.] Who’s going to erase the last part?

That, that, that’s the problem. That’s the hook, you see, that most people have trouble with at the end.

Because you get to a certain point where you’re doing and seeing these great meditations, and you’ve meditated for many years, and you’ve gone through all the different steps and you’ve become pure and humble and free, and aware. Kind to others, good to small animals, all that sort of thing. [The audience chuckles.]

And you’re on the verge of realization itself!

Like the moon. When the full moon comes out, that’s the ego.

And then lifetime after lifetime, the moon, you know it becomes thinner and thinner each day. Until finally there’s just a tiny, slim, sliver of a moon left.

So as you approach realization, the ego gets smaller and smaller until there’s just a little bit of ego left. Just enough to get through the day. No more, no less.

Not enough to hurt anyone else, or to hurt you. Just enough to get you through, to do what you need to do in the world, as long as you’re still in the world.

Nirvana is the eclipse, of course. But an eclipse that never ends.

So people have trouble with that last phase. It is difficult, I admit. But when the time comes, it works out.

• You’re standing on the edge of the cliff, looking down, and it’s a long way down. Below you is the ocean, the rocks, and you want to jump, but you’re afraid.

• But one day you jump, but you never hit the water or the rocks.

That’s absorption.

I did that for some friends when we were in Hawaii on the volcano, I took a rock, and I said, “Listen! I’m going to show you what absorption is.”

And I took the rock and I threw it up in the air and it never came down.

That’s absorption. Or a very good right arm! [The audience laughs heartily.]

ॐ

So, with all this great knowledge that we’ve now unfolded, all these higher dharmic truths, you see, now you can all go out into the world … and liberate others. [Rama laughs! The audience laughs, too.]

It’s not that funny. You might be able to! It could happen! I mean it’s possible. Don’t put yourselves down, you don’t know what you can do yet.

And remember, its very exciting what happens to people who liberate others.

Well, Christ had eleven disciples. Twelve actually. And they studied with … You know he had only three years with them? And then they went off to liberate the world.

No, really! They were very sincere. And you know what happened to them. Eleven out of twelve died horrible deaths. Not that death matters, remember, it’s really not a big deal, it’s just another thing you go through.

I think you need more than three years. [Audience laughs.]

Now, should we pay attention to the eleven—or the twelfth one? Ah! A question! I wouldn’t even pay attention to the question if I were you. [Laughter.]

So, again, here we are still back in eternity, trying to figure it all out. And I think it’s good to figure it all out, it’s very constructive. [Rama exhales.]

Now let’s try it again. I’m sure we’ll get it right tonight, and we’ll all be liberated and we can skip the rest of the incarnation. [Laughter.]

Hmmm. OK, let’s try it from the point of view of Zen, how’s that?

As you know, in past lives I was a Zen teacher. So I’ll summon up the Spirit of Zen Past. [Laughter.]

Zen again … right? [Laughter, audience, then Rama.]

• Once upon a time there was a Zen. And he grew in the garden. He grew for a long, long time reaching up to the sun, but he never got there.

• What was his name?

Or …

• Two roses. Fell.

Or …

• The Zen Master was driving his Toyota. One day. Down the freeway. When he ran. Out of gas.

• Was his tank empty? Or full?

Clearly, Zen is not the way tonight, I can see. [Audience breaks into huge laughter.]

They’re laughing, that’s good.

I had a meeting with some of the people who are kind of on the staff, the other day. I say “kind of,” because I’m not sure.

But one of the things I was telling them was, it’s always good to feel that you’ll never attain enlightenment, particularly if you’re working for a spiritual organization in any capacity, because it’s probably true. It keeps you even.

The other thing that is good to remember is that anybody who studies with me must have had terrible karma in a past life. [The audience laughs.] Because otherwise you would have never gotten such an exacting, mean, disciplinarian. [Long silence.]

Well, it’s true! I’m one of the toughest, meanest, hardest teachers you’ll ever meet.

I mean, let’s consider it. There are no rules. Now can you think of anything more difficult than spirituality with no rules?

In the beginning it sounds good, “No rules! He doesn’t have any rules, Whoa!” [Rama mimics someone getting away with something. Enormous laughter from the audience.]

That’s in the beginning.

• Then you come up to the teacher and say, “Well, gee, Atmananda, I … What should I do? I just, uh, I, well, gee, I … I’m not sure, I mean, should I, should I … I have this opportunity to go to college here, or I could go to college over here, what should I do?”

• And I’ll say, “Well, how about the first school.”

• And you say, “Well, gee, I’d really like to go there, I mean it’s a beautiful place, and they’re going to give me a scholarship and you know, all this stuff, and granted, you know, it’s in the middle of, you know, Cucamonga, and I won’t be able to come to Center meetings. But I really am inspired to go there, and I just know it’ll be good for my spiritual practice.”

• And I’ll say, “Well, that sounds very good.”

• Then you’ll say, “Yeah, but you know, gosh, there’s this part of me that really wants to stay here right now, because I know if I have that contact now …”

• You know, with “that contact …” ? [Rama mimics contact in a pseudo-hip ‘valley girl’ slang style. Audience really laughs.]

• “I gotta make breakthroughs in my inner life!”

• And I’ll say, “Well, yeah, that’s true too.”

• And then you say, “Well what shall I do?!”

• And I say, “Well I don’t know.”

• And you say, “Well, didn’t you agree with me the first time?”

• And I’ll say, “Well, of course I agreed with you. It sounded terrific to me.”

• “Well, then, didn’t you agree with me about staying?”

• And I said, “Well, of course I agreed. I’ll agree with anything you say.”

You see, there are no rules. I have to agree. Why shouldn’t I agree? Who’s not to agree with? I’m friendly.

You want to do something? I think it’s wonderful! You want to do something else, I can swing that way too. What’s the difference?

You see, no rules.

Then one day of course, you say to yourself,

• “Now wait a minute. Something’s going on here. Who is this guy anyway? [Laughter.]

• “He’s telling me to do anything I want. That can’t be spiritual. He must have another motive.” [Rama laughs.]

I have no motives at all. That’s why I can agree. I’m friendly. I’m a cheap date. Listen, take me to a movie, give me some popcorn, I’m happy. [Audience laughs loud and long.] Leave me at home, I’m happy. Doesn’t matter.

I’ve often thought that spiritual teachers are … well, I don’t know if I should talk about spiritual teachers, maybe later. [Laughter.]

Let’s stick with you just for a minute.

So … how can we get out of this? We’re in a paper bag here, we can’t see the light of day, it’s very tough. Hmmm. Hmmm.

There are no rules.

Well, that means … what? It means that you have to figure things out on your own, doesn’t it. It means that you have to work a lot harder. It means that you have to become honest.

It also means that no one is going to give you the opportunity to rebel.

Ah! Tricky, huh? It’s easy, you see, when the going gets tough to say,

• “Why, that so-and-so, he said something — hmph, hah, foomf, foomf!”

• Stomp, stomp, stomp, leave, leave, leave.

• [All said in a deep cartoonish voice.]

But if somebody’s saying—if someone is not only admiring your great spirituality, but—

• Opening up the door for you to leave and, “Thanks for coming!” [Laughter.]

• And then you turn around and halfway say, “Oh, but I should stay!” and then they’ll look at you and [you] say, “Oh yes! Stay!” [Rama is comically theatrical.]

• And then they’ll look and say, “Oh no, I have to go, you’re awful.”

• You say, “Oh, I’m awful. Oh, you should go!”

It becomes very confusing! I’d be confused by that, I wouldn’t know what to do. Which is precisely, of course, what I hope.

You see, it’s like when people, when people think that … People sometimes think that if they can only do something, it’ll all … it’ll be wonderful.

So of course, they don’t do that, so they can always think it’ll be wonderful. That’s basically what sex is, I think. You see.

You see, if people ever indulged and gave way to all their fantasies, they’d be extremely bored. So the idea is, of course, to not quite go that far …

But I think you should give in. No, I do! I think you should give in! To whatever you want. Enjoy it. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wonderful if you went overboard for a while. [Audience laughs loudly.]

No! As long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else, of course, I mean that’s just being a good person. But I think you should go overboard! Do, explore what you want to.

Of course you won’t, because you’re all scared. And also because you don’t even really want to.

Ahh, you see, that’s the thing. People don’t really want to do what they say they want to do. They just want to torment themselves, so they set up things that they want to do, that they never quite do. So they can make themselves miserable. No, this is human nature!

You’ve got to understand the nature of the critter, if you’re going to work with it. Or if you’re going to work with yourself.

So I think when there’s something you really want to do, you should do it.

And then you’ll find that you’re the same, it didn’t matter a bit. Before the orgy, after the orgy, there was eternity.

Really not a big deal one way or the other. It’s only a big deal if you decide it is. And of course it isn’t.

Pleasure-pain, heat-cold, good weather-bad weather, it’s all the same, you see.

So wisdom, then, is getting out of the trap of fooling yourself into thinking that life has a meaning and a purpose.

The truly wise people know that life has no meaning and no purpose whatsoever.

Because as long as you think that life has a meaning and a purpose, you’re going to try and figure it out. And of course, since it has none, you never will.

Therefore, you’ll spend all your time trying to figure out the meaning and purpose of life and never know life itself. Because real life is beyond meaning and purpose. Meaning and purpose are but intellectual partialities. Ideas in the mind.

Whereas existence itself is perfection. Rather be absorbed in perfection, and don’t worry about partialities. Don’t worry about trying to put into words that which is beyond words. A silly occupation.

So human beings have this constant flow of desire. Where does it come from? Where does it go to? I don’t know. But it comes and it goes!

And what happens is—you’re sitting there, in perfect being. This is the power, this is what, you know, the Eden thing was all about.

You’re sitting there in perfect being—Eden—in terms of consciousness. And a desire comes by whoosh! A bird flying by, whoo.

Now, if you just kind of watch it and don’t pay too much attention to it, the bird passes by. Ah! But suppose you see a bird you like. You reach out and grab the bird. Squwak!! [Audience laughs.]

Take it home, tame it, make friends with it. The bird bites you. [Rama makes a biting sound.] But gradually you tame it and make friends with it.

Then you and the bird have what we call a relationship. [Audience laughs.] Yeah, really, the bird lives in the cage and you live outside. You see the bird in the morning, “Hi bird!” “Chirp!”

Basic communication is developed. The bird learns your routines, you learn the bird’s routines. You think that the bird is your pet. The bird thinks that you’re its pet. [Audience laughs.]

And you coexist. Two bits of consciousness put next to each other, you see. And you have transactions.

You bring a friend to see the bird. And the bird bites the friend. Or the bird runs off with the friend. Ah! [Laughter.]

Now one day either you die or the bird dies. Unless you’re into Zen, of course, and if there was Zen, there was no bird. [Laughter.]

So, there has to be a funeral, because, I mean, funerals are things that are established. Thousands of years people have had funerals. You’re going to go against the tradition?

So you have an elaborate funeral for the bird. You call up all your friends, and if you don’t have many friends, you can just take a phone book and make random calls. And invite them to the funeral of the bird. [Laughter.]

You could advertise in local newspapers or maybe even in Life Magazine about the funeral of the bird. You could have famous photographers fly in. We could even get it televised!

And the bird would be buried. You’d stand there, people would come up, “Sorry about your loss, Jack. Tough. You ought to take a little vacation, now, you know, maybe think about getting another bird.”

[Rama changes to a female voice.]

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry to hear about your bird! Oh, he was so beautiful. Oh, it’s a tragic loss, but he’ll be alright in heaven!” [Audience laughs.]

[Rama changes to a raspy male voice.]

“I never liked that bird anyway, and I thought the two of you made a lousy couple. You’re lucky he died when he did! It’s a blessing you two never had children!” [Rama laughs and laughs.]

“Think of the suffering that’s been spared.”

’Cause then the drunken Zen Master walks in, who’s drunken without having to drink anything, of course.

And he walks up, grabs the bird—in front of all the guests—gives him a big kiss on the beak. Throws him into the air, the bird disappears, and he lies down in the coffin himself! [Raucous laughter, scattered applause.]

Zen Masters are totally unreliable. [More laughter.]

So after the funeral, anyway, you collect all the clippings from the papers about the big event and stuff like that. You go home, and you experience the absence of bird.

Now, tell me, are you any different at the very end than you were at the very beginning?

No, you were nirvana before and you’re nirvana afterwards. You see? But that’s desire. You get all wrapped up.

So an enlightened person just watches the birds fly by in the sky. They don’t feel the need to trap them. They just watch them. That’s more than enough.

A liberated person doesn’t watch birds anymore. They are one. They’re flying. Of course the self-realized person runs a bird store. [Laughter.]

Which brings us back to self-realization, I guess. Now, I keep trying to figure this thing out, and I know we’ll get it sooner or later, and it might be tonight.

You know, sooner or later the world is going to disappear and we’ll all be absorbed, and we won’t have to concern ourselves. And I just figure if we come back every Wednesday night and keep trying, sooner or later we’ll get it.

Absorption.

So you find yourself on the earth, collecting birds. Some birds it goes well with, some it doesn’t go so well with.

Then one day, of course, you look beyond. And you see eternity. You see, suddenly, for some reason, out of the maya came that epiphany, that crystal clear awakening, when everything becomes clear. And shining and perfect.

And you see eternity. You feel light. No longer do you wish to collect birds. What birds?

You’re not even looking. Oh, there may be flocks of birds all around you, but you don’t even notice, because you’re so absorbed in perfection.

Then, of course, suddenly, you’re catching birds again. That’s life. For some. There is an alternative, though.

The alternative is to direct your attention endlessly towards perfection, and to go through this process which you have decided for a period of time to engage yourself in.

In which every part of your being must be trained.

I spend a majority of my time addressing your nonphysical being. We talk, chat, while away the hours. But while we’re here meditating together, there’s another show going on.

The show of words, of actions, of belief systems, has very little to do with what’s occurring. While we’re here … we’re absorbed in meditation, and my nonphysical being of eternity is addressing your nonphysical being and communication is taking place. The light is being transferred to all of you. That’s what a spiritual teacher does.

Some spiritual teachers don’t even talk. They just sit and meditate and their students come.

And that’s more than sufficient. Some like to talk. Some feel that it’s good to address what Don Juan refers to as the tonal. And to address the nagual. It’s good to address the physical being. The part of the being that extends itself into this world. The iceberg. The part that’s above the surface.

But as you know, the larger part of the iceberg is below the surface. You don’t see it, but it’s there. So the larger part of one’s being is below the surface, and most of the work that I do is below the surface.

We need to address the outer being, too. The outer being must become happy, balanced, orderly.

But our real work is on the other side.

That’s why you can come and we can talk about birds flying through the sky, or great spiritual principles, the latest movie. It really doesn’t matter.

Because our real conversation between myself and each one of you, or between any of my students and myself, or just anyone who meditates with me or any enlightened person—self-realized person—is an infinite conversation that is not bound by time, or days, or hours or ways.

Think of a person like myself as not existing. Or again, there’s just a thin sliver of a moon, just enough left to exist. No big deal. Basically a harmless person. On the surface, very often like a child. Very childlike, very silly. As I said before, a cheap date. Popcorn, a movie, happy!

But below the surface entirely different. Below the surface eternity. Abilities, powers—like an aircraft carrier. Planes always landing and taking off.

So carrier beings ⁷ constantly moving in and out between the teacher and all of the students.

Not the students who are simply physically present but all of them, all over the world. Between the teacher, and beings on different planes. And so on and so forth.

You see, you have to look beyond the veil of maya, beyond the curtain. There may be a curtain, and we see what’s going on in front of it. But in meditation we part the curtain and see the other side, we see eternity.

So all of you really need now to begin to try and address yourself—openly—to the nonphysical side of your teacher, because that’s the part that’s of most help to you.

Now again, I think the way you do that, is first by balancing the physical side. And the nonphysical sides relate automatically. That’s why you came and you study here. The physical side didn’t bring you, believe me.

The nonphysical did, and then it convinced the physical that it was a good idea. [In a deep voice.] “Fill out the application!” [Audience laughs.]

You see, the thought is in the mind, but where does the thought come from? It’s generated by the inner being.

But now it’s necessary for you to try and make a breakthrough between the two sides of your being, and see them as one.

You see, the problem is that we think that there’s two sides. Now, some people are not even aware of the second side, the larger part. They’re just aware of the little physical self in the mind. They have no realization that the inner self goes on and on and on.

So then we begin and we show you the inner self. We show you it’s various sides, aspects, dimensions, and so forth.

But then there comes a point where we integrate the awareness so that there’s no difference. You see, there is no difference between the inner being and the outer being. There’s just being.

So that’s what we’re working on now.

But you can help in the process a lot. Either by not thinking about the nonphysical communication at all and just letting it happen, if that suits you, or by focusing on it very intensely, if that suits you. Either way works fine.

It’s just a question of balance, of seeing which is the best for you. But I—or any person like myself—is available, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, we get no vacation. We don’t need them. We are a vacation.

But it’s necessary to address that, to utilize that.

You see, in spiritual discovery, you have to—this is the sad, sad, sad news—you have to change.

You know, I’ve told you before, you can’t attain enlightenment. Not one of you here will ever attain enlightenment. That is the God’s truth, even if you don’t believe in God.

None of you will ever attain enlightenment. It’s impossible.

Remember the Road Runner and the Coyote. The Coyote can’t catch a Road Runner in that cartoon, because Coyotes don’t catch Road Runners in that cartoon.

So you have to become something other than you are now.

The self that’s here listening tonight cannot attain enlightenment. It has to go away. Pack its bags, shake hands with all the old members of the staff and faculty at the college, get their gold watch and go off into the sunset to where old, tenured faculty go. Shangri-La, or whatever.

And then a new self will emerge. That one won’t attain enlightenment either, but it’ll go a little further, you see? It’ll be younger, more pliable. And then that one will fade away. And so on, and so on— you’ll go through self after self—again the moon getting thinner, and thinner and thinner. ‘Til finally, one day, there’s the thinnest, tiniest self left.

And then even that goes away, and when that goes away, life goes away, death does away, the world goes away, Adidas tennis shoes go away, Pac-Man goes away, Ms. Pac-Man goes away.

Everything goes away—which does not mean that there’s nothing.

Now here’s the problem people have with nirvana. They think that, well, gosh, nirvana must be nothing. Emptiness. A desert. You know, barren, emotionless, horrible.

No, not at all. There’s simply no way to describe it.

When we say everything goes away, it doesn’t mean everything goes away.

• One bird flying through the sky attracts your attention.

• [Rama mimics a theatrically impassioned voice.]

• “Oh God! If I could only have that bird. Oh I want that bird, oh it is the most beautiful bird. Oh Daddy, Daddy, please can I have the bird, please can I have—look at that bird. Oh! Oh! It flew away! Sad, cry, miserable.

• “Oh! Here it comes again, here it comes! Oh wonderful bird! Oh bird of light do visit me!

• “Oh, it’s going away again! Oh, he didn’t call. I sat up all night waiting. He didn’t call, he was the one, my soul mate, my opposite flame.”

• What nonsense! [Rama normal voice, audience laughs.]

• “Oh! Oh! Ooh!” [Rama impassioned voice, then back to normal voice.]

• You know, give me a break, right?

• You see? One bird can do all that! Amazing, the power of a bird. That’s why I’m a member of the Audubon Society. [Audience laughs.] Birds have power.

Now, again, for one who’s absorbed in nirvana—what Shankara ⁸ calls liberation while on the street [Rama laughs] … no, that’s an “in” joke—liberation while living.

(They didn’t go for it, oh well.) [Referring to no laughter.]

To one who is absorbed in nirvana, there could be thousands of birds all around you. You wouldn’t notice.

You see, the thing is not getting rid of the birds—it’s getting rid of you.

Ah! You in your current form.

You see, that’s all the thing with the funeral for the bird. You’re the bird.

Of course, as you know, according to the Zen Master, there was never a bird to begin with. However, the Zen Master would definitely agree there was a funeral. The funeral was for nothing. [Laughter.]

“How to lose students fast.” [More laughter.]

I try to do that all the time, you know! I’m always trying to get people to leave the center. I say the most silly things I can, to discourage people. You know, hold the door open. “Go away! Bye! Bye! Thanks for coming.”

I even give excuses so they don’t feel bad when they leave. You know, as you listen to the series of lectures that I give, seriously, I will build in rationalizations for people so they won’t feel bad.

It’s part of the service of being kind to people. So they can walk away and say, “Heh, hmph, ha, no way!” [Rama theatrical mimics dissatisfaction.]

I’ll be the first to agree.

I love it when people go away. I love it when people come. What people? [Audience laughs.]

I tell you, there are a lot of birds out, and they’re flying everywhere all at once. Nothing but birds, what a wonderful thing. I love birds, you know, you just see them everywhere. Pelicans. Lots of pelicans.

You see, nirvana! [Rama laughs.]

(I’m not going to say it.) Nope. You’re all so serious! And you think you’re gonna attain self-realization? Oh, come on. [Audience laughs.]

How many times do I have to tell you, you have to die. Christ said it, you must die before entering the kingdom of heaven.

Or, when, you know, different spiritual teachers talking about “every day I die a thousand times.”

I mean, the self is going in and out of nirvana. You see, come out—pop!—here you are again. Liberation while living. What? What’s going on? Here I am! Whoops! Fwump! You’re gone!

You’re there again. But there’s no sense of gone, since there was no one to be gone.

How do you know you haven’t been for a while? [Laughter.]

(Stttreettch that awareness, stretch that awareness, stttreettch.)

There is no end and there is no beginning. Is there a middle?

No, I’m asking you straight Zen questions, really. This is serious stuff. I’m glad you’re laughing. But this is a very formal training session tonight. [Laughter.]

So I’ve been pondering this thing about the birds for a long time. The bees were never of much interest to me. I respect bees. But no, the birds are the ones that fascinate me. (This could go on for a long time. You might as well sit back and enjoy it.) Now …

How the heck … [laughter] … are we going to get you out of your present awareness—which is limited—into eternity?

I mean, that’s, you know, if we could take a crow bar and sort of try and pry you out. No, I try all kinds of stuff. Really! I use different forces, powers, dissolve myself in front of you just to show you it’s a good time. [Laughter.]

Talk about birds, take you out to the desert, do miracles. I mean, I’ll do anything to get a person to enlightenment. I’m not proud. I’m committed.

(Yeah, I know you think I should be.) [Laughter.] But seriously, I’ll go for it.

But you see, I need you in the Level Two. See, you’re all hanging out one level down from that.

As I said, remember in the beginning of the talk, there are five?

The first is what we call, well, the levelest level. That’s you know, very advanced spiritual seekers. Well, I don’t have to deal with any of those—yet. No, I’m looking forward to it, whether it’s you or someone else.

Again, if that particular type of bird doesn’t come by that’s alright with me too, I like the ones that are here.

But if you transform into those birds, that’s fine, too. That’s somebody who’s always “on.” Who is always ready for liberation. Who will give everything to be of service to humanity.

And while being of service, is completely absorbed in eternity—who wants nothing but God. I mean such people are rare.

You are those people, eventually.

But we have to deal with today. You know, it’s great to address—you know—the commencement of the sixth grade class. [Laughter.]

And eventually, they’ll be the ones who are, you know, graduating from the university, but in the mean time, I mean, you’re still stuck in time and this world and you’ve got to deal with the commencement of the sixth grade class.

But what you are capable of doing, in my estimation— if you try a little harder—is moving into Level Two. See, remember the concept of the fluid Level Two in the Center, is that you are capable of—for a period of time—moving into that state where you’re just totally “on.”

Your self-giving is happening, your meditation is happening, your life is happening. It doesn’t matter what’s happening to you. Whether there are a few birds or many. It’s irrelevant.

No excuses. You’re just living completely. Then you glow. Then I can do some neat stuff for you, you know? I mean I have a whole, whole bag of tricks then that I can use, things I can teach you.

But until you come up to that point, you see, I can’t show you what’s over the horizon until you come up to the top of the hill. We have to keep dealing with what’s down the bottom of the hill. Which is good, important stuff. Earth.

But right now, most of you ride that middle level, which is an accomplishment in itself. I mean, that’s good. There are billions of people on the earth, and not that many of them are even in that middle level. Most of them are in the fourth level—religion.

In the sense that most people mean religion. Idolatry. Worshiping statues of birds. As opposed to the birds themselves. [Laughter.]

So you’re doing OK in my estimation. But if you could just get into that Level Two more often, you see. Then, of course, the idea is you make these little excursions to Level Two and you find out what it’s like.

And, of course, it puts you down a little bit. I mean, you have to change. Suddenly you confront life, and you see all the things that have to go.. Like yourself, yourself and yourself.

But you do it. You do your homework, and you get rid of some selves, and some new ones come in and some old ones go out, and some new—it’s like birds. They come and they go. You know, birds can come and go at night and you’ll never know? [Laughter.] Yeah. It’s a fact.

So, how are we going to do it? I mean I keep trying. I don’t know what else to do, except to keep doing the same stuff. There must be a way. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.

[Long silence, about ten seconds]

You know what I think the way is? I think I figured it out. [Laughter.]

You’ve got to do it. [Laughter.]

’Cause I’m doing the best I can.

You’ve got to do it. It’s up to you. You’ve got to reach it on your own. With all the help people like myself can supply—nonphysical beings can supply, your own inner being can supply. But you have to do it. That’s what I’ve concluded.

So I’ve decided to be patient. And if no one asks me out, I’ll stay at home at night. That’s the part I was talking about—spiritual teachers—before.

Spiritual teachers just sit at home at night waiting for someone to ask them out.

And if no one asks them out, they stay at home. They try and look their best—you know? [Laughter.]

No, really! I mean, you try and look attractive, put out a nice force, you know, stuff like that. But you just wait by the phone. [Laughter.]

It’s true! You’re waiting for somebody who’s happening. Who’s glowing, who’s ready to really go along. On a certain level.

I mean you’re out there doing the best you can for humanity, but another part of you that could be doing things, just has to wait by the phone.

And you’ll know if somebody calls, immediately. [Rama snaps his fingers.] The student pops into your consciousness. Pow! They’re there. Even if it’s for an hour. What the heck! [Raucous laughter.]

But you see, I’ll be the same after you’ve all gone. I’ll be the same forever. So you’re all phantoms for me. You all come and go.

All the selves that I see here will not exist in the future, because I see the future.

But one day you won’t be a phantom anymore, you won’t be a shadow. You see, when you move into that height of aspiration of spiritual seeking, then there’s just light. No shadows.

Even the light must be transcended eventually, but that’s an awful good start. We can’t show you how to transcend light itself until you at least become light.

So I wait at home nights, whiling away the hours. Thinking about birds, watching them fly through the night. Because I can see them at night.

Waiting.

I’ve considered getting aggressive. “Liberation of spiritual teachers,” we call it.

Just going out and saying, “Hey listen, whatch ya’ doin’ tomorrow?” [Laughter.] Yeah, I’ve even tried that. Yeah.

But … you’re better off to stay home. That’s my feeling.

Really. People misunderstand, they don’t treat you well. They think you have the wrong motives.

I tell you, we live in a structured society. Better to sit at home. And wait. And if no one comes … [in a secretive whisper] it might be better!

Because then you can sit with the birds all over your living room, and have marvelous conversations with them, and talk to them. And no one will know, will they? Because they didn’t come and find out. You see the problem? You get my “drift?”

You see, you’ll never know unless you reach a little bit more than you are. You’re doing fine, but I’d like to see you reach more.

Into eternity itself, in this lifetime while we have—who knows how much time we have together? I don’t know.

I bet the birds do, but they would never say.

But if you reach a little bit more, it’s endless. I’m trying to tell you that life is so much better than you can imagine. That eternity is so complete, nirvana is so perfect and shining—but you’re just skimming it. You’re missing it.

And that’s a part in the process.

But if you just reach a little more. If you just extend your self-giving—your love—a little deeper. If you just try a little harder in your meditations—it’s endless, it’s perfect, it’s beyond anything that you can imagine.

And I would like that for you. It would be quite wonderful.

But you’ll never know. You might even think that you know. But you’ll never know.

Unless of course …

Just some thoughts on a Wednesday night for you. For your scrap book. Should we meditate?

[Meditation for several minutes.]

ॐ

Question please? Yes.

[A male student asks a question.]

Your question is quite apt, I think, and that’s …

There are different levels of mistakes. And if I make a serious mistake, I’ll lose my way, and it may take a long time to get back. How do I deal with that?

And the response is, well, first of course, if you can avoid making a mistake, that’s always the best. Or even if you can catch yourself half way through and stop, you can minimize the damage.

And then again, if it’s gone too far, all you can do is recognize what you did, so hopefully you won’t do it again. Or do it again a minute later. You know, you have to stop the process.

And then you have to move to a kind of a middle ground, and gradually work your way back up.

But before we even do that—this gives some people problems—the idea of mistakes.

In one sense we can say everything is the dharma, and even if you make a so-called mistake, wasn’t God working through you? And wasn’t that destiny? And so maybe there aren’t any mistakes.

Now, I don’t believe that for a second, to be honest with you. Not in this world. If we’re dealing from the perspective of other worlds, I would agree.

But that’s not going to help you get through the day. In this world, you have to feel that you have freedom of choice, and that you make decisions.

Because if you don’t, you become a very confused person, in my estimation.

So, it’s necessary first, then, the way you avoid this problem is to assess what is dharma. Because it’s my belief that once you know what dharma or truth is, be it dharma in it’s larger sense, or in an individual situation. Once you know that, you’re bound to do it, it’ll happen.

Once a person has seen truth clearly, then they have to follow it. But as long as they can shine the truth on and pretend that they don’t see it, they don’t have to follow it. Again, that’s just my perspective.

So, I think, then, the place to start is with seeing truth. Truth is a very difficult thing to see.

And I don’t believe that you should present too much truth to a person at a time. No more than they can handle. Because if you do, all it does is destroy people. It discourages people.

So, for example, tonight I presented in our earlier talk, dozens of different spiritual concepts. I literally threw them at you. Hundreds of them, just bombarding you with lots of different things for you to consider.

Now, those were all leads. It’s like want ads. I gave you a lot of want ads before, and you can call up on any of them, and see if they’re available, or you can ignore them if you want to.

I’m not going to force anybody into the truth, that’s not the right way. Because you can’t.

You can’t force truth on people. They have to be ready for it and want it.

You can encourage them, you can drop little hints. That’s what I was talking about before when I was referring to sitting at home at night waiting for somebody to call you to go out.

That’s what a spiritual teacher does, you present ideas—waves of light—but people have to follow up on that.

So, and when they don’t follow up on it the way you might like them to—or if you don’t find yourself following up on it—you have to be very patient.

And you have to realize that you have many selves—which are not always in harmony—and if one self acts to do something that makes you suffer, you have to realize that that’s what happened.

There’s absolutely no shame in it whatsoever. But that if you continue to do that, you’ll continue to suffer.

So you have to bring another self in to take over. See, the horse that’s leading the sleigh loses it’s way, and the passenger is lost in the woods.

So now you have to have a … put a different horse on the sleigh, and the horse will take the sled, perhaps he knows the way a little better, you see.

So in the maya, it’s very difficult to know the way.

That’s why we have a weekly meeting, so you can sit here once a week in proximity, in an energy that you simply can’t deny, and assess what truth is. In other words, this is your correction.

Let’s say you’re going to correct … You have a compass, but maybe it’s gone off, so we want to correct it.

So if you’re sitting face to face with me—or with any person who’s in the superconscious—the force is so strong, if you have any sensitivity at all, that you see it, and it confronts you. I mean, it’s not what your mind is confronting.

You mind can sit here and think all the million discontinuous thoughts, different emotions can pass through you, it doesn’t matter worth a fig about those things.

But again, what I was discussing before, as you’re sitting here, and I’m sitting with you, on another level—on many other levels—we’re having conversations.

Not conversations like we have in this world, we’re not exchanging ideas.

First of all, I’m exchanging solid power into you, to give you the ability to follow dharma. Or, if you’ve lost the way, to pick yourself up. That’s the least I can do as a service to you.

And then, secondly, a recognition is taking place. As you look at me, you see nothing, you see an absence because I’m merely an absence. I’m a doorway, you see, the absence that you walk through. That’s all any teacher can be.

Once you walk through—then you don’t even need to look at the doorway—you’re in the other room. So I’m merely an absence.

But if all you’re seeing in your life is presence, then it gets very confusing. There’s so many things swimming around you, so many people, so many ideas, so many emotions. Where does it begin and where does it end?

So what I do, is try and bring you to a still point inside yourself.

And once you find that point of stillness, then you’ll see correspondence. Then suddenly the way will be known. Then you’ll understand things I have no words for.

So that’s really what we do.

And even if you’ve made a mistake, or you’ve totally lost your way, still you have to find your way again, anyway. I mean, it doesn’t matter.

You’re walking along a pathway. And then you go off the pathway and you’re lost. Well, you have to find the pathway again.

I mean, there are no degrees of lost. There is lost and there’s lost. I mean, there’s no “little bit lost” or “very lost.”

Again, I’m a very strict spiritual teacher, so you have to understand, I’m very old school in my ways. You know, I believe that there’s enlightenment and ignorance and there’s nothing in between.

And that people can talk all they want to about their great spiritual experiences. As far as I’m concerned, it’s refracted maya.

There is enlightenment and there is ignorance.

There is maya and there is nirvana.

So that a person can’t be a little bit lost. They’re all completely lost in my estimation. From my point of view everyone’s a shadow, still.

If you remember the analogy, you’re on the bank and the river is flowing by you. And in the river you see all kinds of people flowing by, and they’re all drowning.

So you try and reach out to those, and have somebody take your hand. You try and pull them in. But sometimes when people are drowning, they’re so disconcerted that they pull you in. They’re very confused.

So you have to be very careful, because what you’re dealing with is your self and your self is drowning. Yet at the same time your self is trying to pull you in.

And you have to be careful not to pull in the self that’s trying to help you—into the whirlpool, into the vortex. That’s the main thing.

And the way you do that, is not by worrying about mistakes or being lost. But by, again, realigning yourself with the dharma. That’s how it’s done.

You focus on light. You spend time with spiritual friends. And you don’t overdo it either. You take it in little pieces, a piece at a time that you can assimilate. And then you move forward.

You’ll see eventually, there are levels of truth and reality a million-fold, beyond your current perception. As there are layers of ignorance—a million-fold—beyond your current perception

So you’re somewhere in the middle of the maya right now, and we’re trying to get you out. And it’s done little by little—with love and care and concern—as you cultivate humility and purity, integrity and truthfulness.

As you learn trust, and you learn not to mind screwing up once in a while. Because you know you’ll always rise to the surface again, ’cause you’ve done it before and you’ll do it again.

And it’ll actually take less time—each time—to come back again. You’ll find this. That’s how you’ll know it’s working, what we’re doing is working.

And then the day comes when you just smile much more. That’s how it’s done.

So be patient. It’s a long journey. But it’s a fun journey. It’s an exciting journey. It’s all we have to do with our lives, really, is to journey. Remember, there’s no place to go. It’s just the journey itself that matters, and the journey is endless. We’re always journeying one place or another.

So just live in the moment of the journey, and just enjoy the journey. That’s what don Juan says. All paths lead nowhere. So it really doesn’t matter what path you follow. Just follow a path with heart, because the way is happy on a path with heart. A path without heart, the seeking is miserable.

Just follow a path of heart, and then the way is always happy.

And whether the way is nirvana or the way is maya. If the path has heart—even in the midst of the maya—you can be happy.

Because the way is light. That makes more sense to me.