' Drop everything '...

Forget about the past. Forget about people who have hurt you before. Drop everything, let it go. Let go of everything, everything. Hold on to nothing. Stand naked in the world without a foundation, with nothing to take refuge in. Then you'll be cleansed completely, then you'll become the ascended Master. But when you take refuge in this and you take refuge in that, this keeps you from your real Self.

As an example: In buddhism you learn to take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the sangha and so forth. Yet when you do this you become an idiot, for you're holding on to something. You become dull, insensitive. Hold on to nothing. Yet most of us have fear. We're afraid to do this because we won't know what will happen to us. We feel secure when we take refuge in something. The security is your downfall. As long as you feel secure you will never grow. It's like having money in the bank. You're afraid to spend it. You're afraid to be without an account. For you think this is your nest egg, you hoard it. You always look at the balance to see what you have. This keeps you from advancing spiritually.

Remember the Israelites of old. When they were in the desert for forty years they were told not to save any manna. So they would throw away the extra manna they had, not to save anything, and new manna was provided for them daily. This is the meaning. As long as you have something to hold onto, something to save you from something, you will never become free and realized. Most of us are afraid of having nothing. Yet nothing is absolute reality. Nothing is your savior. Nothing is reality. Something on the other hand, is your enemy. Something will always hold you back.

I'm not saying you have to give your possessions away; I'm saying possess all you will but don't be possessed by your possessions. Do not believe that what you earn will be your security, it never works out this way. Your security is your Self, the faith that you have, the power that you have, the love that you have, this is your security, nothing else. Yet most of us never live this way for we have been brought up to believe that we have to have something. For if we feel that we have nothing, we haven't made it in this world and we become depressed, we compare ourselves with others.

Yet every great spiritual Master has lived from day to day, never caring at all what is going to happen the next day. But you say, "How can we do such a thing in the West?" You say, "This is for monks, nuns. For people who have given up this world." On the contrary, you'll be happier than you have ever been in your life when you stop worrying about your possessions, what you should have, what you shouldn't have, for you are not your possessions nor are you your body. It is only the mind that thinks these things.

Why not surrender right now to the power which knows the way. Make up your mind this night that you're going to give up everything, mentally. You're going to let go of the past, the future, the present, you're doing this right now this minute. You're letting go of all your fears, all of your frustrations, all of your thinking. You are no longer concerned what's going to happen to you tomorrow, where you will be, where you won't be. You're not worried about a job, income, people places and things, you have found freedom, absolute freedom.

This freedom will take care of you, will guide you, listen to it closely it'll tell you what to do at every turn. This freedom is really you.



--Robert Adams, from Transcript 248: The Silence Of The Heart, March 21,1993