EVERYTHING IS NOTHING

JUNE 6, 1992

There is one theme, one teaching Robert returns to over and over: You are Nothing; you don’t exists; everything is Nothing. Know this and you are liberated.

After you wake up in the morning, for the first second or two, you don’t exist. Then very suddenly the mind comes awake and you and the world snap into place. The wakened mind creates you and it creates the world. All your beliefs, memories, ideas, opinions, bring you into existence and the world simultaneously. But when your mind stops and you can sink into your heart, you “become” something entirely different. You become the emptiness before the mind comes alive, and that emptiness is illumined by Consciousness’s own light.

Now, let look at Robert’s transcript Everything is Nothing. This will be a brief quote for discussion and educational purposes only, allowable under international copyright laws.

Robert Adams:

“Many people ask me, "Robert, what is really the fastest way to

quiet the mind?" for many of you realize now that when the mind is quiet,

liberation comes by itself. There is really nothing else you have to do to

become liberated. When the thoughts stop, everything takes care of

itself. Then you are in your natural state.

“Therefore what should you do to quiet the mind? Should you

practice self-inquiry? Should you become the witness, the observer?

Should you do pranayama, breathing exercises? Should you practice the

I-am meditation? All of these things are good, but yet ours is the easy

path, the direct path.

“Here's the easiest way to do this. If you would realize in your heart,

that everything is nothing, your mind would become still. You would

become perfectly still. Ponder what I just said. If you would only realize in

your heart that everything is nothing, there would be no thoughts. This is

very profound. This is really all you have to do. Realize in your heart, not in

your mind, but in your heart, that everything you behold, everything you

see, is actually nothing. There will be no thoughts. You will become free.

“Let me explain. When you see a tree, what is the source of the

tree? The seed. What is the source of the seed? What came first, the tree

or the seed? Where did the first seed come from? Where did the first tree

come from? When you look at a mountain, what is the source of the

mountain? When you look at the world, what is the source of the world,

the universe, the planets? You may say, "Well, God is the source." What is

the source of God? Is God something? You have to ask yourself, you

have to inquire within yourself, "What is the source of all these things?"

“And you will realize nothing is the source of everything. Everything comes

out of nothing.

“When you come to this conclusion in your heart, something

happens. Immediately all of your karma, all of your samskaras, all of your

delusions are totally eradicated and you become free. See how easy it

is? All these years you've been looking for methods, teachers, things to

hold onto, things to rely on, where in truth, all you have to do is to realize,

in your heart, that all existence comes out of nothing. If you take a flower

and begin to dissolve the flower, you will get molecules, you will get

atoms, you will get energy, and then you will get nothing. Whatever you

dissolve to the nth degree, everything, turns into no thing, into nothing.

“Therefore God is nothing. You are nothing. There is only nothing. Why

won't you accept this, and become free?”

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Is it not surprising that this 2,000 year old teaching reaches the same conclusion as modern physics that states the universe was created instantaneously 13.9 billion years ago out of nothing in the form of the Big Bang? Moreover, they also hold that all matter, all appearances, from a galaxy down to an atom, are nothing but energies in emptiness, whether be it in the form of fundamental particles, or energy strings. For physicists, all matter and energy comes out of and is permeated by infinite space, emptiness, the Void.

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A student then asked Robert: Isn't nothing just another concept?

R: Nothing is certainly another concept.

S: Just the opposite of everything.

R: Of course.

S: So where do you get by saying everything is nothing?

R: When you begin to accept that everything is nothing,

everything inside begins to dissolve. All of the things you've been holding

on to for all of these years, all of the teachings, all of the dogmas, the

concepts, they begin to dissolve, dissolve, dissolve into nothing. This is why

I say, do not think about this in your mind. For the mind will fool you and it

will be another concept, as you so rightly said. But if you think about this

in your heart, and of course in your heart you do not think, you just have

a realization of this truth in your heart, that everything is nothing, all of a

sudden something will happen. The heart will open up. The heart is the I am, the absolute reality, the pure awareness, and you will find that you

have become nothing. By becoming nothing, you've become

everything. You're essence is in everything, when you are nothing. You will

laugh. You will be happy. Nothing will disturb you. You will have infinite

peace. It's so simple, so simple.

“Yet many of you want to analyze this. You want to think too much

about it. You want to try to understand it. This is what keeps you back

from experiencing liberation. When you try to understand what I say, you

are simply using your concepts, your dogmas, your training over these

years, and from previous years, and from previous incarnations. All this

stuff is inside of you. And you try to use this intelligence, so called, to try to

understand nothing, and you cannot do this. It will never happen. You,

the finite, have no faculty to understand nothing. So can't you

understand now how foolish this is, to try to use your human intelligence,

your human understanding, to understand nothing? This is what holds you

back from realization, this very thing itself. Ponder this.

“Your human intelligence has to be gotten out of the way. Your

human concepts have to be dissolved. Everything you feel, believe and

experience, up to this point, has to be totally transcended. Nothing will

never appear to you until you have become nobody. When you are

nobody, you'll be nothing. But you want to be somebody. Somebody

can never be nothing. You have to be nobody to be a nothing.

(laughter) Nothing is hard to come by. (more laughter) Look at some of

you, you think you're somebody. You have the pride inside of you that

makes you think you're somebody.

“We believe we're something. Even when we say we're nothing,

we think we're something. Understand yourself. See where you're really

coming from. Think of all the books you have to read, the teachers you

have to visit, the talking you have to do to explain things. I'll remind you

again, and again, and again. As long as you are involved in intelligence,

and things that come out of human intelligence, you can never be

nothing. And if you can never be nothing, you can never be self-realized.

“Even though self-realization is your nature, and you are already that, the

clouds of ignorance have covered you up, making you believe you're

something.

“The years spent in studying scriptures, memorizing passages, where

has it gotten you? It's only more stuff that you've got to get rid of. I tell you

again and again, this teaching is an emptying process, not an adding on

process. Do not think you have to know something profound to become

liberated. It's actually what you do not know, that makes you liberated.

“The knowing keeps you human. Knowingness makes you a talking

encyclopedia. It's only when you begin to empty yourself, that you find

yourself, and you're welcome to use the simple method we're sharing.

Just realize right now that everything is nothing. In your heart realize this.

Can't you see what's happening? It's so simple. As you realize everything

is nothing, there is nothing to think about.”

R.A.

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Robert is absolutely correct here, but usually we can’t become nothing by believing in the concept that we are nothing. Usually it takes many years of quietly looking into one’s own source, the dark void inside, the inner world deeper than the mind, feeling into the heart area until our center of awareness drops out of our heads into our hearts. Literally we have to get out of our heads, because as long as our awareness is centered in the brain, we will remain the person we think we are, that we were taught we were, with all of our memories and habits. We stay as the mind until we drop into the heart.

Once our center of gravity, so to speak, our center of awareness, drops into our hearts, then we realize the truth of Robert’s teachings instantly. Suddenly we become aware that we are not our bodies, not the world, but are the infinite lighted Consciousness extending throughout our infinite emptiness.

In this emptiness there is nothing to be done, no where to go. We are happy, rested, at home without words, concepts, habits, desires, forcing us to do something, or to go somewhere. We are free, totally rested, infinite awareness.

Now, go to the full transcript and read it slowly. Let Robert’s message sink in.