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I Am
Satsang with Robert Adams
February 10, 1991
Robert: I see we have a few new people here. If you came to listen to a lecture, forget it. I am not a lecturer.
If you came to listen to a sermon you'll be disappointed. I do not give sermons. If you came to hear something
profound, again you will be disappointed, because the only thing profound here is you. I am merely a mirror and
what you see is what you get. Imagine if you will, that you are looking into a mirror. Do you like what you see?
Do you see divinity or do you see a sinner? Do you see a radiantly happy person, or do you see a miserably depressed
person? Wherever you look, you meet yourself. Whatever you see in the universe is nothing else but yourself. As
a matter of fact, there is nothing but the Self. What do you see? Think about that.
Chanting is very helpful to make you one-pointed, to put you into a state where you can absorb your own reality.
So let's do a little chanting together, shall we?
[Chanting]
Have you ever wondered where everything comes from? Think about that. Where does everything come from? The sun,
the moon, the trees, the universe, everything. When you look at the variations of the world, the amount of insects,
animals, various animals, trees, vegetables, the variations of leaves, flowers, human beings, where do they all
come from? How did they get here? Someone may say God created them. Yet what do you know about God? Who is this
God? Someone else may say, "Well, it's Consciousness. Everything comes out of Consciousness." How do
you know? Have you had that experience?
Someone else may say that everything is Para Brahman, beyond God, beyond the infinite. How do you know? Have you
experienced it?
One of the best answers to that question was an answer that Ed gave me yesterday while I was talking to him. He
said, "Robert, the more I see you, the less I know. I don't know anything. I doubt everything." And that's
profound. Because that's the truth. To know something, you have to first know nothing. The more you think you know,
the less you are. Yet where did all these things come from? How can we explain it?
Whatever you say caused it, what caused the cause? What is the explanation for life? It is infinite, but where
does it really come from?
I can answer that by telling you a story. When I was around ten years old my uncle took me to see a hypnotist.
He was a pretty famous fellow at that time. He was also a magician. There must have been about four hundred people
there at Town Hall, downtown New York. He picked out certain people. He asked for volunteers first. I told my uncle,
"Why don't you volunteer?" He said, "OK," and he did. And there were about twenty five volunteers
who sat on chairs on the stage. He spoke to each one of them. He told most of them to go back to their seats. He
picked five people out of the bunch. My uncle was one of them. He proceeded to hypnotize them and he made them
all do funny things. What I really remember is my uncle. When he was finished, before he un-hypnotized everyone
and brought them back to this reality, he said to my uncle, "When you come out of it, you will go back to
your chair, but when I clap my hands, you will imagine there
s a black widow spider on your neck." And I was really laughing. He clapped his hands first and my uncle came
out of it, out of the trance, and he said, "Was I hypnotized? I doubt it." He went back to his chair.
The hypnotists started talking about something else. Then he stopped and clapped his hands. As soon as he did that,
immediately, my uncle started squirming and slapping his neck. And he told me, "Robert, there is a spider
on my neck. See where it is." And he stood up and started wiggling and slapping himself all over. The hypnotist
clapped his hands again and my uncle came back to the natural state, the human state. When I looked on his neck
there was a red welch on his neck, like a spider bite. Where did that come from? There was no spider. Where did
the bite come from? Who put it there?
Student: Did he get sick at all?
R: No. He didn't get sick at all. When the hypnotist clapped his hands everything came back to normal. But the
welch, the red mark, was still there. The same power that caused the red mark to be there causes this universe
to be here. In other words, no-thing. There is no cause for this universe.
Another illustration is this. There was a monk sitting in the classroom with his teacher, and the teacher is explaining,
"All things come out of nothing". And this monk was interrupting the class by saying, "How can that
be, Master? That sounds impossible. How can that possibly be?" And the teacher said to the monk, "Do
you see the fig tree outside the window?" "Yes, teacher." "Go out and bring me a fig."
"Yes, teacher." He proceeded to bring the fig and put it in front of the teacher. The teacher said, "Break
open the fig," and he did. "What do you see?" "Why, thousands of seeds". "Take one
of these seeds and here's a razor blade, and now cut the seed open". It took him a long time, but he did.
And the teacher said, "What do you see?" Well, in a fig seed there is only a hollow. And the student
said, "Nothing , teacher." And the teacher said, "Correct".
The nothing that produced the fig tree is the same nothingness that produced the universe. It's an optical illusion.
The universe does not exist as it appears. It's an emanation out of your own mind. Yet the world appears real.
How can it be an emanation? Well, how can my uncle's neck become red, as if a spider bit him, but there was no
spider? I'm sure many of you, when you were children, used to stand at the railroad tracks and look way down in
the distance. It would appear as if both tracks became one. Optical illusion. When you're in the desert and you're
thirsty, you see an oasis with water, and as you investigate it closer, it's nothing. No thing exists, it's an
illusion.
This world appears to be a world of effects. No cause. The world is egoless. It didn't come from anywhere. How
can that be? Think about when you're dreaming. Does your dream have a beginning? It just begins. Everything is
already there. The trees are there, flowers are there, people are there, situations happen. Everything just begins.
There is no beginning. There is no cause. Yet where did the dream come from? Psychiatrists and psychologists tell
you the mind, the nerve impulses and the brain causes the dream. The world and the universe are just like a dream.
But how does it affect you? Being a world of effects, the whole world is impersonal, totally impersonal, until
you identify with certain situations and you make it personal. As an example, take a cold. A cold is impersonal
when it doesn't affect you, but you have been brainwashed to believe that you catch a cold. Therefore when people
have a cold, instead of just watching and not identifying with the cold, something within you subconsciously from
your upbringing believes a cold is normal and you say to yourself, "Everybody catches a cold". And sure
enough, you do also.
I recall when I was about nine years also, I used to run out every day when it snowed in my t-shirt, and play in
the snow. I would do this every day. My mother didn't see me. I had fun. I'd throw snowballs, build a snowman,
yet I never caught a cold. One day my mom saw me going out in a t-shirt and she screamed at me, "Robert, get
back in the house and put on your coat this instant or you'll catch your death of cold." Sure enough that
day I caught a cold. Why? Because I identified with what my mom told me. After all she's my mom, she must know
what she's talking about.
Lets take something else, a cancer. What we call cancer, again, is impersonal. Yet when some of us identify with
it we appear to have it also. If we looked at cancer like we do a cold, the cancer would disappear by itself. Yet
what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you've been diagnosed as having cancer? Death, and so you
start deteriorating. But in reality there are no cancers. There are no colds. There's nothing but Consciousness.
Yet, you are seeing the world, you are believing the world and you are identifying with the world. It's not the
world or any condition that has come upon you. You have created your own condition, by what you have accepted,
believed, and identified with.
Take a look at your life right now. Think what's going on in your life. Are you happy, are you miserable, are you
healthy, are you sick, are you rich, are you poor? It doesn't matter The only thing that matters is everything
you are is what you have identified with, somewhere, somehow. There is no power outside of yourself. There is no
world outside of yourself. There is no creation outside of yourself. There is no universe outside of yourself.
There is no God outside of yourself. You have given birth to all these things. You are playing a game with yourself.
You
re putting on an act. Why? Ask yourself.
This is called, in Sanskrit, leela, the grand illusion, the grand play, or Maya, which is the grand illusion. You
identify with the world and you suffer accordingly. Think about what's hurting you right now, what upsets you and
makes you angry. Something you have to do, something that's going on at home. It makes no difference what it is.
The fact remains that you are giving it power because you are identifying with it.
Now to solve that problem all we have to do is to change the identification. We have to start identifying with
the reality. But you say, "I don't know what the reality is." Then all you've got to do is to get rid
of that which is not the reality, and the reality will come by itself. In other words you have to realize and start
working on yourself. By knowing that I am not the world, I am not the physical universe, I am not my situation,
I am not my body or my mind. Therefore who am I? That is the question. You never answer. You merely remove the
obstacles, for you can never really know who you are by verbalizing it.
It is only in the silence that the ultimate truth comes to you. It is only when your minds becomes quiescent, calm,
like a motionless lake. A motionless lake reflects the stars, the moon, the sun. But a lake that is noisy, vibrating,
reflects absolutely nothing. In the same instance, a being whose mind has become motionless, whose mind has become
calm, relaxed, peaceful, begins to reflect your own divinity, begins to reflect pure awareness, Nirvana, emptiness.
That always comes by itself. The ultimate reality is already there. You do not have to search for it. No one can
give it to you. You have simply to remove the things of the world.
A person asks, "Am I to give up the world? Am I to give up my profession, my family, and go and meditate in
a cave?" Of course not. You want to give up these things mentally, not physically. Physically you give up
nothing, but mentally you begin to realize, "Everything in my life is an emanation of my own mind." As
you start to give up these things mentally, by realizing, "I am not my body, I am not my mind, I am not the
world, I am not any condition," you will notice you become calmer and calmer, happier and happier. Yet your
body will continue to do whatever it came here to do. But the things will be done better, for you are not interfering
with them. You are no longer interfering in trying to make things happen.
As an example say you're a salesman. Before you used to plan and scheme how you
re going to make the sale. But with this new knowledge there is no one to plan and there is no one to scheme, for
your mind is becoming empty. Yet your body will continue its work of being a salesman, and because there was no
one to interfere, you will become a super salesman. Why? Because the real nature of the universe is total joy and
total bliss. That is your real nature, for you are the universe. And, as you get yourself out of the way, the same
power that appears to grow the grass, that causes the flowers to bloom, that grows oranges and orange trees, will
take care of you. You have nothing to fear.
How do you start? By realizing you know nothing. Not by trying to be smart and recite affirmations that you learned
from a book, but to realize, "I know absolutely nothing. I have no idea how a tree got here. It just appeared.
What came first, the seed or the tree? I don't know. How did Henry's dog get here? Where did his dog come from?
Where did the first dog come from? Nobody knows. Where did the earth come from, the moon or the stars?" You
have to admit to yourself divine ignorance, that you know absolutely nothing. That's how it begins.
This is also why the great sage Lao Tze said,
"The more you talk, the less you know. The less you
say, the more you know." Why? Because when you talk you
re talking about the world and worldly things. What else do you talk about? And since the world doesn't really
exist the way you think it does, then you don't know too much. But the less you say, it means you're beginning
to go within, to dive deep within yourself, where your reality is. Then you begin to become your reality itself.
That's how it begins, by saying "I know nothing".
The next step is to realize that you exist. "That's the only thing I'm sure about, that I exist. Who exists?
I do. Well, who is this I that seems to exist? Where did it come from? I don't know. Who doesn't know? I."
We're back to I. So something within you begins to tell you that I is responsible for everything I believe. Where
did I come from? Who am I? You begin to search for the source of the I. You do not affirm where the source is.
There is no use affirming the source is Consciousness if you have not experienced it, but what you do is you follow
the I to its source. How do you do this? By asking yourself "Who am I?" or "What am I?" Taking
a pause and asking yourself again, "Who am I?"
As you keep practicing this something very interesting is going to ensue. You are going to find that you are becoming
happier and happier, that you are acquiring a feeling of immortality. You don't know why. You just feel it. All
these truths become revealed to you. You start to understand that there never was a time when you were born, and
you don't even prevail now as a body. There will never be a time when you disappear. You, as Consciousness, have
always existed as pure Awareness, as Absolute Reality. This will all come to you.
You will try to share this with your friends and your relatives, yet you will not be able to, for there are no
words that can describe it. What has happened to you is you have merged in Consciousness. You have become the Self
and you realize that the whole universe is none other than yourself. There are not two selves or three selves or
four selves. There is only one Self and you are that. It becomes very clear and very evident to you. Then you become
an asset to the world, for you treat everyone as you would treat yourself. This is all done automatically. I'm
trying to use words to explain it. When it happens to you those words become foreign. You become a living embodiment
of Consciousness. Consciousness is your real nature. What you think you are now does not exist. It is mass hypnosis.
The situations you are involved in are false. Nothing is as it appears to be.
Therefore begin to work on yourself. Find out if what I'm saying is true. Do not believe a word I say. Experiment
on yourself. You do not have to go anywhere. Just where you are yourself at home, begin to spend more time diving
within yourself, watching, witnessing. When thoughts pop up, simply ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts
come? To me. I think them. Who am I? What is the source of the I?" As you do this, my friends, I can assure
you a marvelous change will take place in your life, sooner or later, and you will become free.
No one is doing anything to anyone. You are not the body or the mind, either subjective or objective or universal.
It only appears that way to you when you are dreaming the mortal dream. But when you wake up it no longer exists.
S: How do we know that we were always here and that we will always be here. Isn't that just a theory?:
R: It's a theory if you have not experienced it.
S: How can you experience that?
R: Find out for yourself. Go within.
S: And if you experience it your mind is still there.
R: How do you know? Your mind is what hinders you.
S: The mind is part of the source.
R: No, it's not.
S: Everything is.
R: Nothing is because nothing exists. To be part of the source, it means that the source had to produce these conditions.
That's what you are implying. But in reality what you call the source, or Absolute Reality, only knows itself as
Consciousness. It doesn't know anything about this. You do. You know that there is a world, but the world really
is not there. What you call the source only knows itself, that's all. But find this out for yourself.
S: But then you
re saying everything always existed, the dog always existed too.
R: In the appearance.
S: We're in appearance too.
R: Your body is an appearance, the world is an appearance, but it's not really you. You are not the world as it
appears. You appear to be.
S: But we all work together. It all goes together.
R: No, it doesn't. It appears that way. But there is no one to work together. There are no others. It's just as
if you tell me the sky is blue. But if you go into the atmosphere you'll find that there is no sky and no blue.
It doesn't exist.
S: But I'm relating to you because you're there. Without you being there I don't have the same illusion, if that's
what you want to call it. If the dog isn't there I don't have the same perception, even though that perception,
that leela, whatever you call it, it's very important:
R: That's how you see it from where you are coming from.
S: I mean, isn't just being... I don't mean it's important to the person as a person. It's important because that's
what life means.
R: To whom? To you.
S: To me. That's my life.
R: That's how you see it right now. But let's imagine you are in kindergarten, in grade school. When you were in
kindergarten that was your life, and that's all you knew. But then you grow up, and now you're somewhere else,
and you're saying, that's your life. But life is a series of growing. Therefore you'll grow out of what you believe
now, one day, and you'll see something else completely.
S: But you know that after certain stage you begin to suspect that this is so. But I still feel grateful to the
flower, to whatever is here.
R: When you were in kindergarten you felt grateful for the spit balls you were throwing and the hair you were pulling.
That was your reality. So now this is what you are telling me about yourself is your reality. But there is more
to it than that.
S: I don
t mean to contradict you...
R: You can
t.
S: But if you obliterate all of that, then you have to be nothing.
R: That's it. You got it. You got it. That's it. When you become nothing, you 're everything.
S: Is there ever a point that one feels they know something?
R: There is nothing to know because you are everything. Consciousness knows itself.
S: So there is no knowing. There
s not going to be any knowing.
R: There is no knowing as it is now. There
s just pure Awareness, total Awareness, pure Intelligence. You know yourself.
S: And you know everything else as yourself, but as to where it came from, what it is, you don't really know?
R: That all becomes clear to you. It didn't come from anywhere because it never existed. It's only an appearance,
and it appears real to you at this time. But there will come a time when all of this will be gone and you'll be
free.
S: So Robert, the only thing to really do is to hold on to the nothing, but then there is nobody to hold on to
it.
R: When you follow the I to its source the I dissolves into Consciousness, which is called nothing, no-thing. In
other words, as bliss, harmony, love, you become a living embodiment of that and you can't explain it because there
are no words. Remember the finite can never comprehend the infinite. You can only find the truth in the silence,
not by words.
S: To the mind it looks like zero. But in reality it's reality.
R: The mind is zero.
S: It's just the opposite then. The mind thinks it's something and that the nothing is zero. And in truth what
you're saying, the zero is the real reality and the mind is really zero.
R: Well you can say, "All the world loves a lie. Therefore when I tell the truth, it thinks I'm telling a
lie."
S: So the dreamer can't wake up because he's not dreaming a dream.
R: Exactly.
S: I don't understand that.
R: No one is dreaming. You appear to be dreaming as long as you believe you're a body. But when you awaken you
will realize that you've always been awake. There was never a time when you've been anything else but pure Consciousness.
S: Silence is referred to sometimes as your soul.
R: No, the soul is part of your mind. The soul doesn't exist. You
re giving credence to that. Just like reincarnation, karma and the rest of it. As long as you believe you're a
body, then all these things are true and real, but as soon as you realize you're not the body or the mind everything
else becomes redundant.
S: It's like the soul is supposedly an individual and you're saying there is no such thing because there is only
Consciousness, which is not an individual.
R: This is the same thing as people believe, when they die, their soul becomes something else. You go to a causal
plane or astral plane or whatever. That is true for people who believe that they are a body, because you are creating
all these things, but as soon as you wake up to your true nature, none of that exists.
S: Robert, how do we appear to you?
R: As myself. There is only one self. When I speak of myself, I don1t mean as Robert. I mean as Consciousness.
There is only one Ultimate Reality and I am is that.
S: But you see our body, Right? You see a body.
R: Yes. I see a body like a mirror sees reflections. You see reflections from a mirror, but you're not the reflection.
You
re the mirror. In the same way, I see everything as a superimposition upon the self. But there is one Self, and
I am is that.
S: Can you see actually Consciousness? Does Consciousness have an appearance, a physical appearance?
R: Nope, I see you. It's like when you go to a movie and you see the images on a screen. You forget about the screen
and you think the images are real. But if you try to grab them you grab the screen, because there really are no
images. So I see you as Consciousness. I see the screen rather than the impressions.
S: But you can't see it with your physical eyes. Do you feel it or do you know it? A knowingness way of it or beingness
way of it?
R: I experience Oneness. Everything is one. Things come and go but the Oneness never changes.
S: Then you feel that you are each person.
R: No. I feel that I am a unity. There's one. Nothing is divided. There's only Oneness.
S: Omnipresence
R: Omnipresence. Feeling and knowing are both wrong. There is a state of being where you just become that, and
the only other word for it is silence.
S: Is it a great happiness?
R: Total bliss.
S: One of the songs you play says existence, knowledge, bliss. Is that true?
R: Sat-Chit-Ananda, existence, knowledge, bliss. Those are all part of reality. That
s all reality. But it
s beyond that. You are looking for words to explain it. Again remember, the finite can not describe explain the
infinite. There are no words to describe it. You've got to dive within yourself to prove it and yourself. This
is the reason I tell you so often, do not believe me. Do not believe a word I say. Why should you? But dive deep
within yourself and find out. Prove it to yourself, and then come and argue with me.
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