Be Here Now Remember

by Baba Ram Dass

excerpts from. sorry about any typos I may have made.


From Bindu to Ojas

To Maharaj-ji, of whose ashirbad (blessing) this is a manifestation.

The Heart Cave

"Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven"

Unless you start again. become that trusting open surrendered being, the energy can't come in. that is the kingdom of heaven. THE ENERGY. it is the same thing as cosmic consciousness.

Consciousness equals
ENERGY=
LOVE=
AWARENESS=
LIGHT=
WISDOM=
BEAUTY=
TRUTH=
PURITY.
It's all the same trip. Its all the same. Any trip you want to take, leads to the same place.

Purify enough. become beauty. immerse. become it. the potter becomes his pot. embrace the 10,000 beautiful visions. become 1 with the universe. All the energy passes thru you. you are all the energy. and it all resides in your heart. if you can go within to your spiritual heart, your hridayam, you will then know that: YOU ARE HE. and it is from this place in our heart cave where we are now we watch the entire drama that is our lives, we watch the illusion with UNBEARABLE COMPASSION.

There is writing happening. maybe that's hard for you to understand, i am here, but "i" am not here. I am writing but "i " am not writing. inside of me in the heart cave is a mantra going on that reminds me who i really am, over and over and over again. in this inner place I AM, and even as i write, where this mantra is going on, i am just watching with great awe and wonder, that awesome drama of nature, unfold before my very Eye. Before that Eye, I

I

which sees all and knows all. And on and on inside goes, AUM MANI PADME HUM. always bring me right to my heart where i dwell eternally.

When you have quieted your mind enough and transcended your ego enough, you can hear how it really it. SO: when you are with a candle flame, you ARE the candle flame and when you are with another being's mind, you ARE the other beings mind. when there is a task to do, you are the task. The mindless quality of Total involvement that comes only when the Ego is quiet and there is no attachment.

It is only when you reside quietly in your own Hridayam that you become He of total LIGHT, UNBEARABLE COMPASSION and INFINITE POWER>

SEE: if you get far enough IN, you can see.....karma. you can see patterns unfolding, (of which this life is only a part, part of a mosaic) BUT: in order to do that you have to have left THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD of TIME AND SPACE (as a matrix) you can't think in time and space. You can't be in ....your thoughts any more! Because: your thoughts are still in time and space and you can't get out of time through them. you've got to be outside that. you've got to be in the place where you see your own.

conception
birth
childhood
adolescence
maturity
age
death
and: not only that one, but that one, and that one, and that too...

The Butterfly

I am without form, without limit, beyond space, beyond time, i am in everything, everything is me, i am the bliss of the universe. EVERYTHING am i. ram tirtha.

But you're still only seeing hints. You've got a way to go yet
gate/gate/paragate/parasamgate/bodhi svaha!!
gone/gone/gone beyond/gone beyond beyond/hail the doer!

beyond even conceiving of a place beyond which you can go beyond. who's adventurous enough to want to go on THAT JOURNEY? Do you realize when you go on that journey in order to get to the destination YOU can never get to the destination? In the process YOU must die.

MUST DIE

pretty fierce journey. pretty fierce requirement. we want volunteers.

NOW: we'll make the journey as comfortable as possible, BUT: you have to realize that (after you pass through the van allen belt) you're going to get out to another belt of radiation which is going to crisp you completely and YOU WILL DIE. But there will be an essence left that will get through. NOW: who would like to volunteer?

READY?

well: couldn't we make a specially insulated suit? no. sorry. can't do it.
BUt: if you propel hard enough, there will be going through---there will be something that will get through to the other side, we can't really define what you'll be... but you'll be beyond that. why would anyone go on a trip like that? adventure? well: one thing about an adventure is: the adventurer wants to stay around and adventure. and: if he's going to be crisped in the process, there's going to be no adventurer left to have had the adventure.

but you see: there's something that pulls a person towards this journey, way back, deep inside, is a memory, there is something inside each of us that comes from behind that veil, behind the place of our own birth, it's as if you have tasted of something somewhere in your past that's been so high, so much light, so much energy, that nothing you can experience through any of your senses or your thoughts can be enough. Somewhere inside everybody knows that there is a place which is totally fulfilling, not a desperate flick of fulfillment,

IT IS A STATE OF FULFILLMENT

You may experience despair, that you'll never know that. GOOD! because through despair, and through that surrender, comes surrender. you get closer to it. and what keeps you from that place that gives you that total feeling and experience and knowing of FULFILLMENT is all of this posturing, all of your thoughts, all your way of organizing your world, all of your plans, all of your games, you exploring.

Some of us do go on this journey. we didn't stand up and say we volunteer (it didn't work that way at all, it's not like you had a choice of volunteering or not volunteering) that isn't the way it works. It's as if your PROPELLED into it like the moth into the flame. But yet nobody's pushing you. Nobody's saying: GET IN! TAKE EVERY THIRD MAN! HE GOES! it doesn't work that way either.

It's a little more like the image of a caterpillar enclosing itself in a cocoon in order to go through the metamorphosis to emerge as a butterfly. The caterpillar doesn't say: "well, now i'm going to climb into this cocoon and come out a butterfly" It's just an inevitable process.

It's INEVITABLE

IT'S JUST HAPPENING

IT'S GOT TO HAPPEN THAT WAY

We're talking about a metamorphosis. We're talking about going from a caterpillar to butterfly we're talking about how to become a butterfly. i mean: the caterpillar isn't walking around saying: MAN i'll soon be a butterfly because; as long as he's busy being a caterpillar he CAN"T be a butterfly. It's only when caterpillarness is done that one starts to be a butterfly and that again is part of this paradox. you cannot RIP AWAY caterpillarness.

The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process under which you have no control. THAT'S a hard one.

Well: what am i doing here if i have no control?

You mean i have no choice?

can't i say this is nonsense?

Can't i say this is important?

your lecture changed my whole life!

you think that's choice?

no, not at all. it's an unfolding process...

NO ACCIDENTS

If you could stand back far enough and watch the whole process you would see YOU ARE A TOTALLY DETERMINED BEING. the very moment you will wake up is totally determined how long you will sleep is totally determined. what you will hear of what i say is totally determined. there are no accidents in this business at all. accidents are just from where you're looking. to the EGO, it looks like it's miracles and accidents.

no miracles

no accidents

it's just your vantage point that you're sort of...stuck in. The whole trip i'm talking about is fraught with

PARADOX

The most exquisite paradox as soon as you give it all up you can have it all.

How bout that one?

As long as you want power, YOU can't have it. The minute you don't want power you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.

WHAT A WEIRD THING!!!

As long as you have an ego you're on a limited trip. You're on a trivial trip that's going to last ? maybe what? 60 ____ say 70__ maybe 80 years. and full with fear of its end trying to make its own eternity.

well: if "i" am not speaking if "i" am not what "i" thought "i" was, how did "i" get into this. who am "i"?

for only when "i" know who "i" am will "i" know what is possible.

UNDERSTANDING THE POSSIBILITY

There are three ways in which one knows what we are talking about tonight. one way in which you know about it is thru direct experience

thru someway or another

thru being alone in the desert

thru falling in love

thru bearing a child

thru nearly dying

thru turning on

thru yoga

thru taking any one of your senses and pushing it beyond itself

going through it you have touched a place inside yourself that has an intuitive validity. it's intuitively valid. inside you know it's right. i've been with (literally now) well over 100 people who have had such an experience which was powerful and valid but it was so discontinuous with their normal consciousness that they screamed for help

The help that was available to them was a group of minds which said "that's all right, you've just gone crazy" that is, "the experience you've just had is the experience of psychosis"

William James said:

our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it parted
from it by the filmiest of screens there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
We may go through life without suspecting their existence but apply the requisite stimulus, and
at a touch they are there in all their completeness.  Definite types of mentality which probably
somewhere have their field of application  and adaptation.  no account of the universe in its
totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.  How to 
regard them is the question.  For they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness.  They may
determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas and open a region though they fail to 
give a map.  at any rate 
concludes James
 they forbid our premature closing of 
accounts with reality.

in spite of what he said, we've closed our accounts with reality (most of us)

"that experience you had is psychotic"

"i'll give you thorazine"

"It's not valid"

"you're hallucinating"

"what do you mean, you're GOD???"

The understanding of the possibility may have come to you directly through the experience itself or: it may have come to your through inference, through your intellect: you may have reasoned and reasoned until you saw the peculiar position that rational man is in and you realized that there must be something else although you have not experienced it. you just infer the presence of "something else"

it doesn't quite make sense. nothing "turns you on" you haven't experienced it directly, but you figured there MUST be something else, something THERE. and then you read all the writings of st. john of the cross and st. theresa avila and on and on all the mystics and visionaries in recorded history and you say: "well, they can't all be nuts, they must be talking about SOMETHING" so you sort of infer the presence of this other thing, but you don't know it in your guts.

Now that's a tough one. to be in that position

Then the third way is you trust the fact that there are realized beings. and they said it and therefore you know it to be true. it's not inference any more it's not an intellectual process, you just accept what they have said.

That's faith

see: we've gotten so super-sophisticated in our evaluative mechanisms that you question everything you hear. how do you konw you're not just being hustled? I mean: what was jesus up to? what's the game man? what's he into? and you especially feel paranoid if you are one of the keepers of the tables in the temple if you are committed to an existing system with great attachment

WITH GREAT ATTACHMENT

some way or other most of you in this room (most of you, not all of you) most of you have sensed the possibility, but you can't quite....!

Surrender

what are you giving up? a hollow little trip that's good for another forty years, at best. you're giving it up for ETERNAL UNION, with PURE ENERGY AND PURE LIGHT. because surrender means YOU no longer die. It's as simple as that. that's what it means. because: YOU that lives and dies is YOU-EGO. and fear of death only comes through the brittleness of the EGO

TOTAL TOTAL

SURRENDER SURRENDER

there's no more you, no more life and death.

yeah, i'm going to die. wow! dig that! i'm going to live, wow! dig that! garbage, wow! new blossoms on the tree, wow!

patterns of energy, all patterns of energy

YOU"RE PART OF IT ALL

that's the place.

So: my father says to me: when are you going back to india? and i say: i'm going back when the guru says i am to come back, in two years. so my father says: do you do everything he says? dont' you have a mind of your own? We're giving you this exquisite position in this company and we want you to know you'll have a great deal of independent decision making power*****

what do you want to do today, marty? i don't care, what do you want to do?

I remember a few days staying in london, we had fled from copenhagen where we had a very unfortunate scene at a psychological convention. we were in london and tim and bill burroughs and i were walking down the street high on something or other and we were spending days going from park to tea room to park to tea room: and every now and then we'd stand there and nobody would seem to care. Because we were all fulfilled at that moment. right there on the streetcorner in london. We were all just VERY VERY HIGH.

You don't have to have that urge, that desire, that unfulfilled THING. just let it be. just be BE BE be more more MORE. what's holding you back? your thoughts, huh? you've got to give them up, just ego planning. what are you doing? planning for the future? well, IT"S ALL RIGHT NOW. but later? forget it, baby. that's later, now is NOW. are you going to BE HERE or not? IT'S as SIMPLE AS THAT>

But i'm so young! I have so many things to do yet! well! that'll sure keep you from being here and now. life is passingme by! hmmmmm. but if i live just in the here and now won't there be chaos? what happens if the telephone rigns? well: the here and now is the fact that the telephone is ringing! pick it up! well: what if somebody wants to make an appointment to see me three weeks from now?

RIGHT! write it down. that's here and now. well, what happens three weeks from now? three weeks from now there's that appointment. then: that is here and now. when you're child comes down the stairs this is the FIRST MOMENT all over again. This is buddha meeting buddha. over toast and coffee, over milk and porridge, over mu tea and brown rice. We never had breakfast before! THIS IS IT!!! this is all there is right now!! if it's not good enuf man, it's not good enuf.

Now: about five years ago i'm living in this community in california, with a very very beautiful high being, stever durkee, a visionary artist: a very beautiful guy, his wife and child: and i'd have a day off. it would be saturday and we'd go to the store, the dog, the babies, we'd all get into the volkswagen microbus. There'd be jane, the gal i was living with and her baby and me and steve and barbara, and the whole scene, going shopping. we'd get to the door and dakota (coby) steve's daughter would start to cry. well now. we gotta get to the store. i have saturday mornings free and saturdays we shop. all right coby, cool it! coby doesn't cool it. she cries. well, maybe we'll go to the store with coby crying, no body doesn't like that, she cries louder, or maybe barbara had better stay home with coby. Let's go! come on! are we going or aren't we? What's wrong with coby? she's just being a kid.

steve says: what's the use of going to the store? it's like what price efficiency, what happened to the vibrations what happened to the human beings in that shuffle? so we'd all do this absurd thing, we'd all stop and gather we'd all just sit down and join hands around this little kid, we'd cool ourselves out, coby would stop crying. then we'd go to the store. and steve taught me that: if you get so efficient...if you've got to turn off all the vibrations of the scene...because you're so busy about the future or the past or time has caught you...IT COSTS TOO MUCH!!!!!

1-2-Me

and you finally understand, the message you communicate with an other human being has nothing to do with what you say, it has nothing to do with the look of the musculature of your face, it's much deeper than that. MUCH DEEPER!

IT'S THE VIBRATIONS THAT EMANATE FROM YOU

if your vibrations are paranoid, that's what's being received. and when you're around pets (birds or cats particularly) or very young children or very flipped out psychotics they will know you immediately you can come and say 'hello dear, how are you?' and the dog will growl....you can't come on because they're listening to the vibrations that hand is reaching out and sending.

and you realize

that every moment you are being a full statement of your being, and you're sending out vibrations that are affecting everything around you, which in turn is affecting everything that comes back. and when you meet somebody who is caught in the world of WE and THEM, and you are HIM to that person and you get caught in his mindset, you are both just intensifying one another's paranoia

HIPPIES CREATE POLICE-----------POLICE CREATE HIPPIES

If you're in polarity you're creating opposites, polar opposites, you can only protest effectively when you love the person whose ideas you are protesting against as much as you love yourself

Love has to spring spontaneously from within: and it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. love and coercion can never go together; but though love cannot be forced on anyone, it can be awakened in him through love itself. love is essentially self-communicative. those who do not have it, catch it from those who have it. true love is unconquerable and irresistable; and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.

meher baba

and the fact of the matter is: as you go out on the astral plane you see more and more and the final thing you see in the world of form before you go into the formless and into total UNITY, you see the world of

Yin & Yang

and the world of yin and yang is another astral plane and it's one of the highest planes in the world of form but it's still duality it is still polarization.

There is GodThere is man
There is goodThere is evil
YesNo
PleasurePain
LossGain
the world most everybody is living in most of the time.

the only way out of that is to take the poles of every set of opposites and see the way in which

they are one

and: if you can get into that place where you see the interrelatedness of EVERYTHING and: you see the oneness in it all then: no longer are you attached to your polarized position.

the whole thing about generation gaps is a hype

The Spirit

Is

The Spirit

when you can center and see your whole life as a story in which chapters are UNFOLDING then: the moment-to-moment ego involvement "am i getting enough at this moment?" ceases to be a dominant theme and: you start to live in the

Tao

(the way)

jesus said: I am the way. It's the SAME way! The way is the way is THE WAY. The way is THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE. when one comes into the spirit when one sees how it is one understands that behind all the individual differences
 man-wombman, big-little, old-young,
good-bad
every label you can think of becomes background instead of figure what stands out is:

Here We Are, Here & Now, That's All There Is

and if it isn't beautiful, man there's nothing. so you say: well, i can't have it beautiful now, but LATER! when we get the food home, it will be beautiful.

LATER NEVER EXISTS

what happened to life insurance, to tenure, to planning, saving, responsibilities????

NOTHING'S HAPPENED TO ANY OF IT!

SURFING

Either you do it like it's a big weight on you, or you do it as part of the dance. when you understand "the thought is the thought of the thoughtless, your singing and dancing is no other than the voice of the dharma" -- Hakuin











She is the veil, and at some point she is Sita. Sita stands aside on the jungle path so Ram’s brother can see Ram. Ram is God. Sita is Ram’s wife and Laksaman is Ram’s brother and they’re going along a jungle path and it is God who is Ram and Sita behind Him and then the brother...Laksaman and Laksaman can’t see his brother who is God because of this woman Sita who walks between them and every now and then she just moves just a little to one side so Laksaman can see God.

DIVINE MOTHER KALI. She is my mother. She is my moon. She is my father. She is my child. She is my brother. She is the grass. She is my lover. She is the dew. She is my sun. Look at how much she can teach. Her tongue dripping blood a circle of skulls around her neck a dagger in one hand giving birth in the other the whole process of nature. How exquisitely subtle. Remember Siddartha. His journey, and the amount of time he spent in the garden of pleasure with a woman who had much to teach? She always had a new thing to teach--she will always have a new thing to teach--always. Can anyone imagine that a woman as full and seductive as that is not going to teach something? Is not going to continue to teach something?

If you think that something’s happening...like: you’re working, you’re achieving, you’re doing something worthwhile...There is much to do. All of that is just the pendant in the ear of the Divine Mother. Or it’s a little spot of color on her Cheek, or it’s a little bell on her toe...and when you meet a lover like that sure you’ll want to hang around and experience it as long as we’re greedy for experience we’re going to be around for quite awhile we’re not going to elect to go on The Crisp Trip...because that’s the end of the experiencer.

her other face is the one you’re trying to see. If she is the entire ILLUSION, she is also that which is Beyond ILLUSION. And so finally, when you have gone beyond her and become free of her and you go to beyond the beyond and you finally cross the great OCEAN OF EXISTENCE -- gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi, Swaha -- And you stand on the other side and you’re completely free, who’s there? THE DIVINE MOTHER. welcoming you. That’s the bodhisattva part of it: You have gone and you have gotten the liberation and then you are Right Here. chopping wood or carrying water [or whatever it is you do in your daily existence].

Making It Sacred

This (chopping wood and carrying water) is Karma Yoga...the yoga of daily life. The way to do it is: do what you do but dedicate the fruits of the work to ME [Ram] That’s the most esoteric way of saying it. Another way of saying it is: do it without attachment. Another way of saying it is Total Renunciation! Now that doesn’t mean you can go up to a mountain and live in a cave. It means that you renounce attachment even to your own desires. It means that you do what you do because that’s what the harmony of the universe requires. If I am a potter I make pots. But WHO is making the pots? I am not under the illusion that I am making the pots. Pots are. The potter is. I am a Hollow Bamboo.

I am a doctor... a student...a drop-out...ALL THE SAME GAME. Don’t let that offend you, but...the external world is all the same...it’s all the external world! People often say to me:

 “I would really like to do sadhana,
but...I’m a teacher now.  If I could only finish being a teacher, I could do sadhana.”
BALONEY! You’re either doing sadhana or you’re not. Sadhana is a full time thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether you’re teaching, or sitting in a monastery...whether you’re lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating...EVERYTHING is part of waking up. Everything is done without attachment. Another way of saying it is: It’s all done as consecrated action....it’s all dedicated...it’s all sacred.

In the old days, like may of you (I suppose) i was a good oral-type person. You open the refrigerator and you can’t stuff your mouth fast enough! EVERYthing turns you on. UMMMMM. I”ll have a little of that! and there’s some ice cream and there’s some cole slaw, that’ll go good with the ice cream. The stimulus arouses the response. Here’s a real sour pickle. !To Go With with SOMETHING! Oh boy! It’s too much! UMMMMMM!!!!
Have a taste of flower. You can go on the oral trip about everything. I come right out of that tradition. I want you to know where I started from--from what depths WHAT DEPTHS when i was an adolescent, I was so fat that ll my clothes had to be specially made. We would go into a store and my mother would say “he wants to see the double “Z” with balloon seats...” it took me at least $10,000.00 of my analysis to get rid of that one, i’ll tell you! So you can understand that I speak of the oral trip with a certain amount of empathy. And now suddenly comes this new ruling send down from above. All your acts will be consecrated. All your acts will be consecrated.

Wow, that’s great. but what about food? Ahh....now in the west we have a thing. You see the norman rockwell cover...THANKSGIVING DAY! There’s the turkey and everybody has his eyes closed and saying grace and the kid’s hand is already on the turkey...OKAY! Let’s say grace and EAT QUICK! So in India I was taught this thing to say to consecrate the food and it was very funny. I’d been taught it but i still had this old orality business. So I would say it, but: I could not THINK it. And I could not stop long enuf to EXPERIENCE it. At last I had to confront myself and see where I WASN’T.

You’ve got to go at the rate you can go.

You wake up at the rate you wake up.

You’re finished with your desires at the rate you finish with your desires. The disequilibrium comes into harmony at the rate it comes into harmony.

You can’t rip

the skin off the snake. The snake must moult the skin. that the rate it happens.

[On Love] You meet another person and there are qualities in that personality which offend you and there are qualities which attract you -- some qualities seduce you -- some qualities repel you -- some qualities sexually excite you -- some qualities revolt you -- some qualities fascinate you -- some qualities interest you -- some qualities bore you. It’s only when you can see through that veil...through all your own desires...and beyond sita walking in the path that you can see beyond all that to where the OTHER BEING

IS

You will do that when you’ve gone inside to see where you are --- beyond the things in you which attract you and seduce you and excite you and repel you --- the journey across the GREAT OCEAN OF EXISTENCE is a journey inward. Ever in deeper and deeper and the deeper you get in the more you meet truth.

The Guru

It’s hard to speak in words about the guru....to speak of the difference between an upa guru and and sat guru. It’s interesting that when I tell the story of my journey in india and tell of the guru, i always speak of his miracles, although, from my point of view they are not the essence of the matter at all. BUT: THEY ARE THAT WHICH IS SPEAKABLE OF...it’s a little like that persian story where nasruddin is looking for his houskey under the streetlamp and other’s come to help him and finally they ask him “where did you lose it?” and he answers, “in my house, but it’s dark in there and since it’s light out here this is the best place to look.”

I FIND MYSELF TALKING ABOUT THE THINGS WHICH ARE TALKABLE ABOUT. WHAT CAN I SAY?

Can I say (with any meaning) that when i’m with the guru, there’s nobody home? or: that I love him so thoroughly that i would do anything he would ever ask of me and the highest thing i could think of is being at his feet and at the same moment I don’t care if i never see him again in this life? Can i say that? Can i say there is absolutely nothing special about him? he’s just a little old man with a blanket? Can I say he’s right here now? Which one are you ready to hear? When I was around Maharaj-ji there was always a constant stream of devotees who have much reverence (vishwas) but not too much faith (shraddha) and they were always asking him for miracles, or to get them a job, or they wanted to use his divinatory powers and tell them about the future. and then when he would ask me what it was i wanted, i couldn’t think of anything. i just felt he was inside of me. how do you ask your inner self for something? you are already it. what is it that you could give yourself? give yourself presents? It’s all wrong. At first i didn’t trust it, so i’d have to some into his presence and the minute i’d get there i’d feel...yeah....and i’d look at him and my eyes would get all swimming with tears and i’d just laugh and i’d feel silly. I would really be Silly. SILLY. (it’s hard to get me speechless)

My teacher hari dass baba is essence

He is Pure. He is just like a crystal. He is beautiful. He is exquisitely articulated. He taught me everything I was ready to learn. THE GURU TAUGHT ME NOTHING IN FORM. he never explained anything. he’d laugh at me and twirl my hair and hand me an orange and say things like: you make many people laugh in america? and i’d say “yes” and he’d say “that’s good” that doesn’t teach you much that’s just hanging out. the teacher on the other hand was all spit and polish...all business. he is a pure brahmin and he has work to do and he is going to teach me and it was all no nonsense. he would be making me a rope to go wround my waist with seven strands and he would be explaining each strand and i honor him and love him and wish to serve him. one of them is in the world for me and one of them is not. the relationship to the guru has nothing to do with worldliness. with the worldly.

By guru I don’t mean a specific guru in my head there is a universal guru a level of consciousness a frequency of vibration connected to another plane....

I spent all last winter and the year before at the temple just making love to mahara-ji in every way being opened wider and was just so awed by the pure love of a being that there was no place for in my paranoia. yet everywhere i turned there it was and no place for it because i only say the man in the flesh probably eight times its amazing and all but two times for not more than half an hour and most of that was superfluous. i needed to see him in the flesh only because my faith was not pure enough what awes me is the people who have been sharing this journey with me these past few years who have because of their purity made direct contact with the guru in themselves through the purity of their love.

HE WAS RIGHT HERE

Laughing

and

being

here
all
the time.

Jesus said:

“because you have seen me you have believed.  blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.”

the way bhakti works you just love until you and the beloved become one.

I’ve reflected on the difference between a teacher and the guru. the guru IS the way: into this perfect center, the closer you come to the tao to the way the inner place the atman to going into samadhi the closer you come to making contact with the guru. It’s as if the guru is an airplane hovering over a landing field and there’s just too much ground traffic for the plane to land. cars all over the runway. looking for a guru. he just circles and circles. doing a holding pattern. waiting for you to clear your runway so he can land. he’s sitting up there (in here) all the time. MAHARA-JI IS NOT FURTHER AWAY FROM YOU AT THIS MOMENT THAN THE THOUGHT YOU’RE THINKING NOW AND: IF YOU WERE CAPABLE OF COMPLETELY STOPPING THIS THOUGHT OR: TRANSCENDING IT OR: BEING CENTERED FROM THE INSIDE BEHIND IT HE AND YOU WOULD THEN BE ONE.

You dig that my special relationship to him (if indeed, he is living in sat chit ananda) cannot conceivably be special. there’s no meaning to that. specialness can only be in each person’s karma. it’s not an interpersonal relationship--with a being that is not interpersonal. people say: you’ve got something going with that guru. that’s absurd. i just have what i have going with my own karma. each person is as close to the guru at every moment as he is close to the guru at that moment. and people say: maybe the guru would intervene and take on my karma. but from a guru’s point of view he just understands how it all is in ETERNAL Time and Space.

he has no attachment either to life, or death. and: if he takes on your karma, it is your karma that he should take on your karma

simple as that

you see: YOU ARE THE GURU. that’s what’s so far out. you are your own guru. I am my own grandpa. and that’s what you finally know when you are hanging out with one of these guys. you hang out with yourself. because there’s nobody at home there at all. so to the extent that there’s hanging out (in the interpersonal sense) all you can be seeing are your own desires. HE IS A PERFECT MIRROR. since there’s nobody there....

THE CHICKEN SEES.

when i met my guru who knew everything in my head i realized that he knew everything in my head whether “I” liked it or not. he knew it.

And there would be times after a particularly beautiful darshan with him when he’d say to me: “oh! you gave much money to a lama,” and i’d say yes and he’d say: “You’re very good. you’re coming along with your sadhana,” and i felt so good and then i’d go back to the temple and think “boy! i’m going to be a great yogi. i’ll have great powers. what am i going to do with them?”...and i’d start to have these horrible thoughts and all my impurities would rise to the surface and they would really be...and then i’d go to bed and have all kinds of sexual fantasies and i’d think “look you’re being a yogi and you see the absurdity of that situation you’re in...” but i’d still have the thought. and then, in the course of it, i’d have a thought (i’d be going through my shoulder bag and come across a note i’d written to myself: “remember to visit lama govinda”) and i’d think, “I must visit lama govinda while i’m in india.” and the next morning at 8 o’clock there is the messenger with instructions: “the guru said you’re to go visit lama govinda.” NOW! there isn’t a message saying: “cut out those sexual thoughts,” but he must obviously know them. od you think he just picked up on the lama govinda thing? can i assume the probabilities are he only tunes in every time i have a positive thought? and then i come before him and now i’m freaked because i know he knows it all: and i walk in, and he looks at me with total

LOVE

and i think: how can he do it? this guy must be nuts! he’s loving this corrupt...why isn’t he...? you see the predicament i was in? and then! what i understood was: he was loving that in me which was behind my personality and behind my body. not: “I really love ram dass” it wasn’t interpersonal love, it wasn’t possessive love, it’s wasn’t needful love, it was the fact that HE IS LOVE.

where he saw me he looked at me and he saw that place in me which is LOVE and here in love we are love. that’s the world he lives in and once i appreciated that and could see that he could look at this corrupt impure, ugly being and he could LOVE it that much nobody had ever done that before everybody had said i’ll love you if...and he just said ...where you really are and where i really am WE ARE LOVE and when i was around him i was IN LOVE.

NOW: once i had tasted of that Universe, where we are all US...this place: that’s the sea of love. Boy! i’m going to live in it! i’m going to be it! i’m going to submerge myself in it! you gotta protect yourself....from what? Love? Once you know there’s no place to hide then you wonder who are you hiding from anyway? there’s a sikh story about a holy man who gave two men each a chicken and said: “go kill them where no one can see.” one guy went behind the fence and killed the chicken. the other guy walked around for two days and came back with the chicken. the holy man said: “you didn’t kill the chicken?” the guy said: “well, everywhere i go, the chicken sees.”

SAHAJ SAMADHI

the guru is on an endless wave just hanging out in THAT PLACE. he’s hanging ______. where does he reside? he resides in this really interesting place. he resides right in THAT PLACE. where the divine mother merges into herself. he’s right between the yin and the yang. the two sides of the coin. he’s right at that place. he goes into ONE-WITH-IT-ALL into the void and he comes back into form in order to love it all and then through his love he goes back into it again. it’s like making love to somebody and you pick your face up from your lover in order to come down to experience arent’ we having a ball? and the you go back into ONE-ness. such a zen being does that with every breath. between each breath-1 and the the breath of-2. he is eternally in that place. he’s in what is known as SAHAJ SAMADHI.

he’s right at the edge. he stays at that edge and that’s why he stays in his body...if he just stayed in the void the body (after 21 days) just falls away, there’s no ego left to hold it together that’s the rule of the game if you’re wondering what happens. some beings do that they go into samadhi and they’ve finished with their bodies and they just leave them. and then there are others (there are some very far out stories in india) there are others who leave a thin, very, very thin thread of EGO. there’s one being who for twenty years was locked up in a cave: and every year his devotees opened the cave. once a year they’d go in to have his darshan. there was non food. nothing. and he looked like a corpse except that his hair kept growing and his nails kept growing...for twenty years...he was not hanging out with much, he was just leaving a subtle thread to keep in contact.

those of little faith need long fingernails and long hair to believe its happening.

 “lest ye see miracles ye will not believe” 
said our buddy.

everything he said was straight. you understand? all that stuff in the bible is really straight. look what happened to sail of arsus (for GODS SAKE) there he was riding along on the desert on his horse or camel or something and a voice said to him WHY ARE YOU PERSECUTING ME? (he was out in the hot sun and you know...) he flipped out he went flying off his horse and fell on the ground. “What do you want of me?”

START MY CHURCH!!!

“go to the next town and you’ll be instructed” that’s what he heard and he went the whole trip and thats an astral trip. a very groovy astral trip.

and that’s what the bible is: an astral story. a very groovy astral story...at one level. I can feel the horror in somebody. he’s saying....he’s saying.....it’s a good astral story, but illusions are illusions. it’s here. in the sound of the tamboura. in sound.....

in the beginning was....

THE WORD

ready

it’s a combination of things that make you ready to see the guru. there are many people who come to see maharaj-ji and they just see a little old man with a blanket.

can you imagine the horror? this happened to two people who heard me and figured out where the guru must be through logical deduction and went to india and went rushing to his feet and found a little old man in a blanket who threw them out, imagine what that must feel like! because you can see the difference in their minds and what it was they had a model of--the model was what they searched for it was their own thought process which kept them from seeing

two things are required: one is: VAIGAGYA....the falling away of worldliness....the return of innocence.

that means you’re starting to have enough of all that. you see that everything you’re going to experience through your senses and everything you’re going to know through your thinking mind is not going to be enough, and worldly things begin to appear like dross instead of gold....not totally, just it begins to happen. it’s falling away. my teacher said: THE VEIL FALLS AWAY LIKE THE SKIN OF A SNAKE. THE EGO THINS LIKE CLOUDS> UNTIL ONLY A TRANSPARENT LAYER REMAINS. the other thing that’s required is the PURE SEEKING. the purity of faith. there is as much faith in you here in us at this moment as anywhere in india.

where there is faith, there is the presence of THE GURU. he is it all. he is all your impurities, he is all your corruption, there he is smiling at you through them *saying* and this too! he sees he understands total compassion. total compassion means YOU ARE THE UNIVERSE. you are all form. you are the breath. you are the river. you are the void. YOU ARE THE DESIRE TO BE ENLIGHTENED.

you are enlightened.

that’s who he is. that’s who, what, a guru is. so any concept you can have of any relation to a guru obviously is a hype. how can you relate to something which already you and everything you’ve ever related to or could relate to...how are you going to talk about it? I met him _____ who? what? i’m going to look for the guru. HOW ABSURD!

You are it

it’s really just another cop-out to be searching for the guru. he’s your fingernail. just bite your fingernail and you’re eating him alive. when you know how to listen, everybody is the guru. speaking to you. it’s right here....always.

here and now

i kneep doing this because i don’t think people thoroughly grok the fact that here is where it all is. after you finish the whole thing and you’ve vibrated your spine for years and done your pranayam and meditated for years and years and sat in a cave and ants have eaten your arms and legs, here you are....you’re right here again....and what your mind is you were here all the time and it’s such a cosmic joke it’s so funny your struggling to get HERE.

at this moment if you set the alarm to get up at 3:47 this morning and when the alarm rings and you get up and turn it off and say: what time is it? you’d say: NOW _____ Here! Now, where am I? here! then go back to sleep. get up at 9:00 tomorrow. where am i? here! what time is it? now! try 4:32. there weekd from next thurs. by god. it is _ there’s no getting away from it _ that’s the way it is. that’s the eternal present. you finally figure out that it’s only the clock that’s going around...it’s doing its thing but you---you’re sitting HERE RIGHT NOW ALWAYS.

nobody is going anywhere, nobody is coming from anywhere. we’re all here. we’re all here. in eternal time and space. we’re always going to be here. we’re just doing lila rasa. the divine dance we’re dancing. and dancing and dancing dance after dance in one body and in another body and we’re all here, we’re all staying right here.

NOTHING TO DO

there is nowhere to go. and there is nothing to do. and we’re going to keep coming to know one another more and more free of being identified with any veil and we’re going to see more and more of other beings less identified with their veils. as you find the light in you, you begin to see the light in everyone else. as you find god in yourself there is god everywhere such a simple obvious sequence of stuff to do. somebody says oh i try meditating and i can’t and i just....i’m aftrad i’m not ready and i’ve got to go.... great*sure man*go*go ahead*of course. whate else is there to do? going back into the world it’s called, it’s a good step, am i going backward or forward? i can’t do either of them*i can’t go backward and i can’t go forward. and i can’t stand still, ALL OF IT IS IRRELEVANT.

we’re all just caught in the delusion all of us caught in the illusion, being aware of it as illusion and yet SO MUCH in it! if you have ever watched a beautiful zen monk. a very old monk who is really THERE, ore HERE, really here, whichever, you watch him...he’s cooking food, he’s lifting stones he’s moving youw atch him walk and it’s like nobody’s walking. the legs are going, and the whole thing is happening but nothing is happening, no matter what is happening! and that’s what blows your mind when we get out of the kinds of heads we’be got going that don’t allow us to really understand how this can be.<[>

RETURN TO THE ROOTS

you live out your karma. the best i can tell you about karma is: if you are pure spirit, you are NOT matter!...you are that eternal spirit....well: if each of us is that very old being...and not this young body, or this body that is going through this life, why don’t we REMEMBER? why don’t we remember it all?? why can’t we read the entire Akashic Record???? 1--because of our attachments to the physical plane of reality.... 2--because of the powers of our identification with our own body-senses and thoughts.

if you could go into a meditation room close up your ears * sit down * center * go * IN * IN * IN * IN further in, oh much further in, oh you’ve just begun keep going back in don’t linger to smell the pretty sunflower, don’t linger to hold on to the ecstacy of bliss, keep going in behind the senses. behind your thoughts and if you can go back in far enough you will see everything you’ve identified with “HIM” you will see...your own personality, your own body your own life drama...it’s very awesome. the point is that we have gone out and out and out and we have sought and sought and sought and found much but it hasn’t been enough! and now by merely turning the process inward you go in and in and in until you come to the place where guru rimpoche sits.

and what is this place? hindus call it the ATMAN. and what is the atman? the bhagavadam, one of the holy books of india says:

 the atman or divine self is separate from the body it is one without a second pure,
self~luminous without attributes, free all~pervading it is the eternal witness blessed is he who knows this atman for
though an embodied being he shall be free from the changes and qualities pertaining to the body he alone is ever
united with me.
this is the place of pure being. that inner place where you dwell, you just be. there is nothing to be done in that place. from that place then, it all happens, it manifests in perfect harmony with the universe. because you are the laws of the universe. YOU ARE THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE!

this is what mans journey into consciousness is all about...this is OM (home) its going OM. this is the place! becoming one with GOD returning it’s the return to the roots that the two talks about, it is the stillness * the calmness * the fulfillment. when you make love and experience the ecstacy of unity...that’s the place! when you experience a great achievement. and you feel a moment of exhilaration...that’s the place! when you see a moment of poetry in a flower or in words or in art the way it’s supposed to be...this is the place! RIGHT HERE! it’s buddha consciousness. it’s christ consciousness. Jesus says:

 I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE 
when the buddha says: you give up attachment and you finish with the illusion, THIS IS THE PLACE!

Still,
you do your thing
live your life in the world
the water goes down the stream
you chop the wood and carry the water
you do your thing you mind does it’s thing
your sense their thing but...
you
are not attached,br> because you sat in from of the candle flame
until there was just you and the candle flame
and then finally
you extricated yourself from the attachment
to your own thoughts
to the tyranny of the “drunken monkey”
even to the thoughts of I and candle flame
not so that you would never think again
i mean few people who know me
don’t appreciate the fact that i think
and have keen discrimination and i have not lost my mind
and i am a sophisticated aware being
and yet
behind every word
is a mantra
going inside my head
in which i am sitting
calmly watching this whole drama unfold

the thinking mind is a perfect servant and a lousy master, i am watching he~who~speaks * i am watching they~who~listen * I am watching thinking * thoughts are clouds * the entire process from this place inside is always calm. a place in which the flame never flickers. and as i learn to live in this eternally calm place it gets deeper and deeper and calmer and calmer and wiser and wiser and lighter and lighter and i am more love and i become more and more like the sun. just the process of claming, centering, centering, calming extricating myself from the drama.

so long as one feels
 that he is the doer
 he cannot escape
from the wheel of births and deaths.

that doesn’t mean that i’m lying in bed doing nothing* that’s drama as much as this book is drama*** drama is dramam is drama is drama. desire is drama. breathing is drama. thought is drama, emotions are drama, all form is drama. it’s all part of the drama.

“I have no scruple of change nor fear of death i was never born nor had i parents...”
what does that mean? what it means is: when you clear away all the underbrush, when you go back and back not for the fun of it or for the powers involved but to go back to be who you really are who you are turns out to be spirit, turns out not to be matter at all.

NO MATTER NEVER MIND NO MIND NEVER MATTER

either way it works.

round trip

mind creates matter. the causal plane is the world of ideas that creates the universe right at the top of the causal plane is what we call the godhead its the first place into the universe of form its the first world of form its the place where the mind that is bod manifested into the universe his thought manifested into all the lower levels of the causal place all the astral planes and the physical plane and when you go back back back you go to that place wehre you become one with the bodhead you are GOD you are the IDEA that lies behind the universe you are literally it you’re not making believe you’re it you are it.

and the funny thing is you’re still not finished. and as far as the buddhist is concerned you haven’t even begun the trip you’re still hung up on form. because he says, baby, it’s all illusion no matter how groovy it gets, the physical plane is obviously an illusion all a dream you go to bed at night and dream you notice about your dreams they’re very real and yet they don’t have any substance on the physical plane that’s the astral plane you’re dreaming on the astral plane. at the point of pure ideas something very high physicists or poets touch pure idea sometimes music, art, a vase, a heiroglyph or something gets so essency you feel you are touching GOD. by being in connection with that piece of art because it’s pure idea it’s the idea of vaseness, it’s casual plane the mind at the causal plane created that vace that place of pure idea. it’s the place where yin and yang manifest it’s the place where duality exists the first place into form from the immanent duality in the unmanifest from the formless you come into that place where there is energy becoming form.

in order to become a fully realized being you must delight in the exquisiteness at every single level you must take joy in your maleness or femaleness at the same moment that you realize that you are both male and female it’s that far out! but then you go through the final door and you go from form into the formless into the boid into the beyond the beyond when you have crossed the ocean of samskara, the ocean of illusion, the ocean of attachment, call it what you will, it’s the same ocean when you have crossed through all from you enter the state of formlessness, it is eternally quiet, it is eternally quiet. it never was.

 “push far enough into the void hold fast enough to quietness and of the ten thousand things, non can be
worked on by you i have beheld them wither they go back see all things howsoever they flourish return to the roots
from which they grew.  this return to the roots is called quietness.  quietness is called submission to
fate what has submitted to fate ceomes part of the always so to know the always so is to be
illumined not to know it means to go blindly into disaster”

so says lao tzu in the tao te ching. to go you’ve got to go the whole trip. all the way to the back before you get to the place where you see that behind all this there is all this in its OM. in its unmanifest form. always, eteranlly, you perceive that NOTHING is really happening at all NOTHING ever happens NOTHING is going to happen, there’s NOTHING you’ve got to do, there’s no doer to do it anyway.

and then: you’re in the void then the buddha nature sees there are many beings whose veils are very thin and you can come back and teach them through your being that’s the bodhisattva role. because you finally understand that: though it is all illusion...it never was and never will be...at every level at which you exist you’re part of everybody else. because: IT’S ALL ONE BEING.

REALLY!

that’s the bodhisattva problem. so: what happens is: you go all the way out and then you come back to HERE.

 “he who clings to the void and neglects compassion doesn not reach the highest stage.  but he who practices
only compassion does not gain release from the toils of existence.  he however how is strong in the practice of both
remains neither in samsara nor in nirvana.  he neither remains in the void nor in the world.” 

The final place that the game leads to is: WHERE YOU LIVE CONSCIOUSLY IN ALL OF IT. which is in nothing. you are eternal you have finished perishing there is no fear of death because there is no death. it’s just a transformation an illusion. and yet, seeing all that, you still chop wood and carry cater. you still do your thing. you flow in harmony with the universe. you are beyond morality. and yet your actions are totally moral because that’s the harmony of the universe. you see that to do anything with attachment ....with desire....with anger...greed....lust....fear....is only creating more karma, which is keeping you in the game...on the wheel of birth and death. once you see through that, desires can’t help but fall away.

WATCH IT!

but at first when you see-- you want to run down the streets shouting-- spreading the good news--run dwon the aisles of churches yelling: LISTEN TO THOSE WORDS YOUR SINGING!!! it’s really here! they’re all true! you’re singing about it all “Just like the book says!”

don’t be psychotic: watch it. WATCH IT.

that psychosis business is an interesting business. if you go through the doorway too fast and you’re not ready for it you’re bound hand and foot and thrown into outer darkness. you may land anywhere and lots of people end up in mental hospitals. the reason they do is: they went through the door with their EGO on and: WOW! i’ve been invited to the wedding feast. I mean, dig me! Sam jones [insert picture of sam jones] sam jones in heavan! sam jones standing on the right side of the lord. there’s the lod and there’s gabriel and there’s sam jones. they don’t understand that you gotta die to be born. that only when you have been born again do you enter the kingdom of heavan. so, they’ve gone in on the first round and what happens is they go on a huge ego trip and its’ called: THE MESSIANIC COMPLEX. it’s called: paranoia, delusions of grandeur.

I have a relative who is in a mental hospital, he thinks he is christ. well, that’s groovy, i am crist also but he doesn’t think i am christ, he thinks he is christ because it happened to him and he took his ego wtih him, so he says: i’m special and when i say to him: sure man you’re christ and i’m christ too, he says: you don’t understand and when he’s out he steals cars and think like that because he needs them because he’s christ and that’s all right so they lock him up, he says: i don’t know...me...i’m a responsible member of society. i go to church, me they put in a mental hospital, you’re free you’ve got a beard you wear a dress you...” sure because as far as i’m concerned we’re all god, that’s the difference if you really think another guy is god he doesn’t lock you up.

funny about that

you’ve got to be really pure, you can’t just make believe you’re pure. anything less than total purity back into outer darkness that’s what you learn after a couple of hundred of psychedelic trips. i might as well go straight because i’m beginning to feel like a yo-yo. i keep going up and coming down and up down up down up down

 “but
when the king came in to behold the guests he saw there was a man who had not on his wedding garment and he
said unto him friend how camest thou thither not having a wedding garment? a nd he was speechless then the
tking said to the servants bind him hand and foot and case him into the out darkness there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth for many are called but few are chosen.”

as long as there is an up/down in your head: OUTER DARKNESS as long as you’re in the world of yin/yang OUTER DARKNESS it takes a lot of purification, purification of what? purification of thought, purification of body, freedom from attachment and after a long time of going up and down without understanding why i was going up and down or how to stop it, slowly....slowly...it dawned on me. now why did i keep trying? the answer is very simple and almost all of you know the answer already. the answer is: ONCE THE SEED HAS BEEN PLANTED< ONCE YOU HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN, YOU DON’T HAVE ANY CHOICE.

the next message is where you are when you hear the next message. whenever you’re ready you’ll hear the next message. the interesting thing is there’s always a next message and it’s always available to you. NOW! there’s a hard one! the handwriting is always on the wall saying:

MAGIC THEATER
for madmen only
price of admission:
your
mind
\
always there. question is: CAN YOU SEE IT?

funny thing about all the secrets of the east or the secrets of mysticism...THEY’RE NOT SECRET!!! nobody’s saying “don’t tell him.” they’re telling you. they’re yelling it. they’re saying:

 “except ye be
converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heavan.”
that’s a secret? think of how many times you’ve heard that and you say: “yeah, that’s really interesting, that’s great. that’s the minister talking. he’s doing his thing. he’s got a living to earn. he’s a good guy.” the secret is a secret to you because of where your head is at. your receiving mechanism isn’t tuned for that particular frequency.

in my case i kept reading the books but i didn’t understand them. they were yelling the secrets but i coudn’t hear them because i was looking at them from the wrong! place! that was my problem and i couldn’t get my head into the right place. i still wanted to know i knew. see? i was still western rational man. so i went and i looked and looked and looked and as long as i looked like a rational man looking i didn’t find anything. i just found my own S H A D O W all the time that’s all you ever find: YOURSELF. you only read to yourself, you only talk to yourself you on ly ever know yourself. that’s all there is! strangely enough!

i saw that my whole game didn’t work. it gave me all the rewards that seemed to be offered but it didn’t work. there was a place in me that kew it wasn’t working. i knew there was something else but i couldn’t get to it. at that point i gave up. and then i was ready for the next message. when i went through the doorway i thought: wow! it isn’t like i thought at all. i mean: if i am going to spend my life manipulating this puny ego through a set of power games and sensual gratifications what’s the payoff? the end is that it’s going to end anyways because it’s all in time. and suddenly i dig who i am at that moment when i’m stoned! high! i am out of time! i am out of space! but boy! does it feel valid! does it feel real! it feels like the first real thing that’s ever happened to me! everything else had a certain hustle like quality to it, except my suffering.

AM I HE?

i was really into my suffering you can really get into your suffering, self-pity...that’s real! everything else may go, but boy! you’ve got to suffer! it’s the same for all of us. we’re just coming out of the dark night of the protestant ethic.

SUFFER BABY!

that’s the only way you’ll be good it feels so good to hurt so bad! we’ve all been on that trip. suffering is great. it’s like straightening~by~fire. it’s purifying it’s very good. a funny thing...want another paradox? this trip requires total suffering, but: it’s got to be suffering that is no suffering. you’ve got to go the whole suffering trip, but you can’t be the guy who is suffering. do you think that when christ is lying there and they’re nailing the nails in he’s saying “oh man, does that hurt!” ? he’s probably looking at the guy who’s nailing him with

absolute compassion

he digs why the cat’s doing it. what he’s stuck in. how much dust covers his eyes. why he’s got to be doing it. that’s the way it is. he said the night before: “well, tomorrow is the big trip. yeah~right~these are the nails. wow! look at that!” am i he who is being pained? no! that’s the thing. once you know that then: pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and shame, are all the same. they’re all just happening.

you’re standing on a bridge watching yourself go by.

wow! look at that!