Greetings Healers,
These words from Robert Adams echo many I heard from Herwig over the years and constitute perhaps the best integration advice I've ever encountered. Perhaps you, too, might find value in them:
"The only thing you can do is to wake up. When you wake up you see the world as a reflection, as a reflection of a mirror. The mirror is always the same. It never changes. The reflections change.
The question is, of course, then why are there reflections? Where do they come from? And as you know, my answer is that they do not exist. It's an analogy I give you to let you understand where everything is coming from.
Only reality exists and you are that. Only consciousness exists and you are that. Only love exists and you are that. If you only realized who you were you would be the happiest person that ever lived, and I mean happy, totally happy, unchanging happiness. Is there such a thing? Yes there is. Unchanging peace. Unchanging love.
But you have chosen to identify with the maya, with the unreality, and so you think you suffer. You believe your life is not the way it should be. You compare yourself to someone else. You want to make changes. As you know by now, when you make those changes they only last a short time, then you're back where you were before.
The wise person, therefore, does really not look to change anything. They become quiet. They have patience. They work on themselves. They watch their thoughts, watch their actions and observe themselves getting angry, observe themselves getting depressed, observe themselves getting jealous and envious and the rest of it.
Little by little they realize, "That's not me. That's hypnosis. That's a lie." They do not react to their condition. To the extent that they do not react to their condition, to that extent do they become free. They no longer care what anybody else is doing. They compare themselves with no one. They compete with no one. They simply watch themselves. They observe themselves. They see the mental confusion. They don't run around shouting, "I am absolute reality. I am God. I am consciousness." Rather, they see where they're coming from and they leave everyone else alone.
Such a being unfolds at a fast rate. It makes no difference what predicament such a being is in. It doesn't matter, for such a being is already free. When the mind rests in the heart, that means when the mind does not go out any longer and identify with the world, when the mind rests in the heart there is peace, there is harmony, there is pure being. When you allow your mind to go out of yourself it begins to compare, it begins to judge, it begins to feel offended, and there is no peace. There’s no rest.
How do you begin? Well, first you realize the place that you're in right now, whether you think it's good or bad, whether you think you're happy or sad, whether you think you're rich, or poor, or sick, or healthy, the place where you’re in right now is your right place. That's a beginning.
You stop trying to be someone else. You stop trying to change your life. You’re in your right place, right now, just the way you are. If you can become happy and peaceful in the place where you are right now, all of a sudden you will find circumstances will change in your favor, and then again you will be in your right place. Whatever change comes along as far as your body-mind is concerned, you’re in your right place. The more you can see that, the more you can look at what I just said intelligently, the more peaceful you become, the more the karmic patterns begin to break away and you begin to awaken.
It may be gradual at first. You notice that things that used to annoy you no longer annoy you. You notice that people that you live with, the conflicts you had, they stop because you've stopped. There's no more trying to get even. There's no more trying to win your point. There's no more trying to find the right book, or the right teacher, or the right anything. You remain centered. You remain free. When something comes along, whether it's good or bad, you simply sit where you are and you ask, "To whom has this come?" and you laugh, for you have separated yourself from your body-mind and you begin to realize that your body-mind is going through the experience but not you.
So there is nothing to worry about. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing that can upset you. There's nothing that can harm you. You realize whatever someone does to your body, physically, or with words, or otherwise, can never, never hurt you because you are not your body. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter what you see with your eyes, it can never affect you, for you are not your mind. You have actually separated yourself from your body and your mind."
—The Collected Works of Robert Adams, Volume 1: Sitting in the Silence
These words from Robert Adams echo many I heard from Herwig over the years and constitute perhaps the best integration advice I've ever encountered. Perhaps you, too, might find value in them:
"The only thing you can do is to wake up. When you wake up you see the world as a reflection, as a reflection of a mirror. The mirror is always the same. It never changes. The reflections change.
The question is, of course, then why are there reflections? Where do they come from? And as you know, my answer is that they do not exist. It's an analogy I give you to let you understand where everything is coming from.
Only reality exists and you are that. Only consciousness exists and you are that. Only love exists and you are that. If you only realized who you were you would be the happiest person that ever lived, and I mean happy, totally happy, unchanging happiness. Is there such a thing? Yes there is. Unchanging peace. Unchanging love.
But you have chosen to identify with the maya, with the unreality, and so you think you suffer. You believe your life is not the way it should be. You compare yourself to someone else. You want to make changes. As you know by now, when you make those changes they only last a short time, then you're back where you were before.
The wise person, therefore, does really not look to change anything. They become quiet. They have patience. They work on themselves. They watch their thoughts, watch their actions and observe themselves getting angry, observe themselves getting depressed, observe themselves getting jealous and envious and the rest of it.
Little by little they realize, "That's not me. That's hypnosis. That's a lie." They do not react to their condition. To the extent that they do not react to their condition, to that extent do they become free. They no longer care what anybody else is doing. They compare themselves with no one. They compete with no one. They simply watch themselves. They observe themselves. They see the mental confusion. They don't run around shouting, "I am absolute reality. I am God. I am consciousness." Rather, they see where they're coming from and they leave everyone else alone.
Such a being unfolds at a fast rate. It makes no difference what predicament such a being is in. It doesn't matter, for such a being is already free. When the mind rests in the heart, that means when the mind does not go out any longer and identify with the world, when the mind rests in the heart there is peace, there is harmony, there is pure being. When you allow your mind to go out of yourself it begins to compare, it begins to judge, it begins to feel offended, and there is no peace. There’s no rest.
How do you begin? Well, first you realize the place that you're in right now, whether you think it's good or bad, whether you think you're happy or sad, whether you think you're rich, or poor, or sick, or healthy, the place where you’re in right now is your right place. That's a beginning.
You stop trying to be someone else. You stop trying to change your life. You’re in your right place, right now, just the way you are. If you can become happy and peaceful in the place where you are right now, all of a sudden you will find circumstances will change in your favor, and then again you will be in your right place. Whatever change comes along as far as your body-mind is concerned, you’re in your right place. The more you can see that, the more you can look at what I just said intelligently, the more peaceful you become, the more the karmic patterns begin to break away and you begin to awaken.
It may be gradual at first. You notice that things that used to annoy you no longer annoy you. You notice that people that you live with, the conflicts you had, they stop because you've stopped. There's no more trying to get even. There's no more trying to win your point. There's no more trying to find the right book, or the right teacher, or the right anything. You remain centered. You remain free. When something comes along, whether it's good or bad, you simply sit where you are and you ask, "To whom has this come?" and you laugh, for you have separated yourself from your body-mind and you begin to realize that your body-mind is going through the experience but not you.
So there is nothing to worry about. There's nothing to fear. There's nothing that can upset you. There's nothing that can harm you. You realize whatever someone does to your body, physically, or with words, or otherwise, can never, never hurt you because you are not your body. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter what you see with your eyes, it can never affect you, for you are not your mind. You have actually separated yourself from your body and your mind."
—The Collected Works of Robert Adams, Volume 1: Sitting in the Silence
