the way it appears. Everything is appearance. The trap is, that we get pulled into the appearance. We react to it. We feel hurt. We feel slandered. We feel something is wrong. We have negative emotions because we are falling for a false premise—that the world is real.
In fact, the world is not real and neither are you. What we have to do is stop reacting to anything. The only way to do that is to discover who you are. When you discover your true nature, everything becomes perfectly clear. You are at peace. If something works out, it works out. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Your feelings have been transmuted. You never even feel what human beings feel. You just have a great love and compassion for all things. You know that the substratum of all existence is harmony, peace, emptiness. You feel wonderful all the time. What can disturb you if you are at peace? If you find true peace, what can possibly disturb you?
The world comes and goes. One day it is like this, the next day, it is like that. But what does it have to do with you? Nothing. You are free, you are not the world. You are not your body, you are not your mind. You are total freedom, total joy, total love. You have to awaken to this fact—it’s truth.
We speak many words and take many actions, but to what avail? Does it matter in the end? We build our life, we earn positions, we father children, and what happens at the end? Poof! It’s all gone. Everything disappears. (Robert laughs) There is nothing. So what’s the purpose?
People say, “I must leave this world better for my children.” They are dreaming. The world will never be better or be worse. The world is a dream of existence; like this one day, like that another. But you are not the world. Awaken to that fact.
You are not your thoughts, you are not your karmic expressions, you are not your inclinations from past lives.
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Things appear real as long as you believe in them. If believe in the devil, the devil would appear to me. I would create him myself. If you believe in God, your god would appear to you. Ramakrishna believed in the goddess Kali. Kali became very real to him. He used to dance and sing with Kali. (Robert laughs) He created Kali. That is why no one else saw Kali but him. That is how we create our lives.
Think of the things you fear in your life. You fear becoming sick. You fear poverty. You fear getting divorced, you fear getting married. Whatever you fear is a concept created by your own mind. There is no question of should I get married or shouldn’t I get married. It doesn’t matter. What matters is how you react to it and what you expect of it. This is true in every aspect of your life. That is what you have been trained to believe since you were a little kid. Your teachers brainwashed you, your parents brainwashed you, the outside world brainwashed you, and here you are.
You are filled with ideas, concepts, emotions, attitudes, and that makes you what you are—miserable. (laughter) As soon as you wake up, all that disappears. Nothing can ever happen to you of a destructive nature. There is absolutely nothing that can destroy you. You cannot be destroyed. Your body may appear to vanish, but that is like a dream. You dream that you are doing something, then you get shot and disappear. Then you wake up.
My question to you is, “What do you believe about yourself and about the world? What is most important to you?” I feel that a true spiritual path should be the first thing of importance in your life. Why? Because it wakes you up. No matter how good alife you live, you may become the richest and most famous person on earth, you’ll have to experience the other
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