From Separation to Source Transcription Date: 01/17/1976 Venue: Myriad Convention Center Location: Oklahoma City, OK 00:06: (Begins mid-sentence) BRD: ...the most obvious level. This is a social cultural phenomenon. We are part of a happening of some sort or other, this is it, we are it right now. We came to a happening and it's happening, then it will have happened and you will say 'I was there when it happened'. (Laughter). That's one level. Then there is the level of the intellect. Some of you have read 'Be Here Now' or "The Only Dance There Is' and you know that I'm a relatively intelligent fellow and you are interested in social philosophy and theology and the changes in the moral and philosophical quality of the times, and you come to hear me as a social commentator. I wish you luck! (Laughter). There is nothing more frustrating than coming with your intellect, leading with your intellect and then ending up singing 'Oh Mary Don't You Weep Don't You Wail' all night. (Laughter). Some of you come to get fed in your hearts. 00:35: You come because of love, not the 'I love you' love, but the ocean of love love, the Christ love. And you come to taste that love. And you know that when a gathering of relatively pure beings come together that love can eXist and you'd like to drink of that love. For you, you need only breath in and out of the your, the middle of your chest, and breath gently and deeply, and sit straight, and over the course of the evening you will fill with that love. Some of you define yourself as spiritual seekers, you are doing sadhana or spiritual practice. And you come to hear, you come to have satsang or sanga, the community of beings on the path, you come to share a moment with beings on the path. Perhaps pick up a method or two and perhaps come away with a little stronger faith in the game you're playing. 04:42-:54 - Silence. 04:55: And that faith is fed by the intellect and by the heart but it is also, and more profoundly, a feeding of the soul a feeding of the deeper place within yourself. 05:09-:20 - Silence. 05:21: And some of you are here in order to 'be' it. Not to do it, not to learn about it, not to collect it, but to 'be' it. To be God, to be the Living Spirit, to be - if you'll pardon me - to be here now. To be in the moment. And for you I suggest that you don't get too lost in the words, for words come and go and I can talk endlessly; and it's all fascinating or boring but it's just words. Within the words is the vibration of the spirit and for you, you can use this as a meditation chamber. We have for this moment in this room created a temple, a temple of the spirit, just as if you had gone to Jerusalem or gone to India or gone to any sacred space; you just sit quietly and go to God. Let the words pass through. Now and then your intellect needs a little feeding, grabs a word here and there, and then you lose the words and you go into your heart and you feel a feeling and then that goes away and you feel a clear empty space, a deeper quietness. You may feel energy pour through your body. Experiences, eXperiences, eXperiences. And beyond eXperiences here we are again. I am an experience, but that isn't 'it'. That's just more stuff along the way. When you don't need the experience then you are totally free to enjoy it; as long as you think you need it you have work to do. Am I getting too heavy too fast? I could start, I never know what level to start at you know. Back at Harvard (Laughter). 08:19: We will go gently through the evening, I'll rap for a while, then we'll have some more music and chant together, then we'll do a meditation together, then we'll have some more music, we'll do some questions and answers and you can satisfy every level of the game you want to; and we'll just take it very gently. When you've had enough - leave okay? There are no points for staying until the end (Laughter) it isn't how much you collect and it isn't necessarily good to the last drop. Take only as much as you need and you know when you've had enough. One of the first rules of this game is 'trust your own heart'; trust your own inner voice. And if you decide after a few minutes that this is really not your trip, my love goes with you for your honesty. Just get up - with love, you don't get up with guilt or furtively or look like you're going to the bathroom - just leave it's okay. Each person knows what they need and you have to honor each individual's need. I respect you for your truth. For this is a game of truth. Out of truth comes goodness, but out of goodness does not necessarily come truth. 09:51: Many of you come to take pictures of me, let me take a word picture of you. You are, there are many different levels I can focus my camera. On your physical bodies, on your psychological bodies, on your astral bodies. 10:26-:45 - Silence. 10:47: But let me suggest, let me share with you one photographic image. Who are you? To the extent that you are a separate entity at all, just think of you for this moment as a, an entity, an entity. And entity that exists over large expanse of time and it goes through eXperience after experience the same way as today has been full of crossing the street, eating, going to the toilet, experience after experience. So spread out you, as an entity, have gone through literally thousands and thousands of births and deaths. It's just a picture now, those of you who don't want to buy it just use your imagination. Time after time you’ve been born, born into an identity, then you've died. And each time you died you tried to cling to life because you thought when you died you didn't eXist any more. And then you died and here you still were! Then something or other happened and you were born again. Birth death birth death birth death birth death. Buddha, the Buddha looked back at one point with the flick of his eye because he was outside of time and space, he saw his last 99,000 incarnations and those were only a drop in the bucket. Here you are, in the middle of one of these rounds. The quality of this round is that it seems very real, you really think you're here, you really think this body is who you are or this personality is who you are. And when the body dies you figure that's it. With your intellect many of you know that isn't it, but with your gut it's still it. 14:13-:29-Silence. 14:30: If you will imagine, for a moment now, a clock. Twelve o'clock a being is totally in harmony with everything around it, no differentiation, no separation, perfect flow, we will to give it a familiarity to you call it 'The Garden of Eden'. There is nothing separate, everything flows together, all the parts are not identified with their separateness but with the One. 12:01 something happens, you are separate. This is YOUR history, this is YOUR life, YOUR vibes. 12:01 something happens. It has to do with the apple. Because the eating of the apple, we can think of for this moment, as the developing of duality of subject/object. It led to the fig leaf, it led to God saying 'Who told you you were naked?' and so on. It's the moment of separation, it's the moment in which the separate entity knows it knows rather than being, it just lost being into knowing. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Can you hear this? 12:01 separateness. You know you know. You ate of the apple of knowledge. That's the beginning of lust, it's the beginning of greed, it's the beginning of doubt, it's the beginning of all of the effects of separation from the One. 12:01 to 5:59, life after life, birth death birth death. Each life you enter through the womb, build an ego structure that tells you you are a separate entity, and spend your life trying to gain through your own personal power the re- experiencing of that perfect harmony that you once knew before you became separate. Achievement, orgasm, adventure, all of it, designed for that moment of merging, that moment of transcendence. Trying to create through your control your own heaven on earth with you as God, mastery and control. Trying to optimize the strategy of your life so you gain as many of those moments that feel like how it used to be, that feel like you're back at the source, as possible.