Should I Take the World Seriously?
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October 6, 1991
You always believe you have to look about your interests, take care of your problems, your world. And you imagine all kinds of things will happen. There's some of you have been employed for so many years, and you are always worried about being unemployed.
You believe that's the worst thing in the world that can happen to you, and it's probably the best thing that could have happen to you, for it makes you move into a new venture, into new experiences.

The truth is you can never suffer. There is nothing in this universe that can make you suffer. If you're suffering it's your mind that is telling you things about someone, or about something, or about some place, or about some condition and this is why you suffer.

You have allowed yourself to think. You're believing your thoughts. Your thoughts control you thoroughly, completely, absolutely. Your thoughts are your worst enemy.

You learn therefore to grab a hold of your thoughts, by practicing self-inquiry, or by observing your thoughts, becoming the witness to your thoughts, watching yourself think.
As you continue practicing sadhana, you’re headed towards illumination. Yet the funny thing about this is that you are already there, and there’s nothing you have to do. You always believe you have to do something. You were brought up to believe that if you do nothing you’re a lazy bum. Yet you are nothing.
Nothingness is your true nature.

You are what you’re supposed to be. Everything is predetermined as far as your body is concerned, and you're going
through those experiences that are necessary for your fulfillment and your unfoldment.
As you become wise, and you begin to understand, you no longer react to your conditioning. Fear begins to melt.
There’s no longer anything to fight. You do not have to win any points. There’s really no one you have to overcome.
There’s no situation you have to heal.
You merely have to be yourself.
Be yourself.

How do you become yourself?
By understanding that there’s one self and you are that. There is only the one self. People call it by all kinds of names, nirvana, sat-chit-ananda, absolute reality.
It's called by all kinds of names, God. It makes no difference what you call it. You have to be it. You have to be that self that has always been and will always be. You have to lift yourself up to that place where there is no world, no universe, no body, no
mind.

It really makes no difference what sadhana you practice, whether you practice Zen, or Taoism, or mystical Christianity, or Cabala. What you practice makes no difference. But what are you doing with the practice? Are you really diving deep within yourself and finding your own reality? Or are you still reading many books, going to many
lectures, becoming totally confused?

Leave the world alone. Do not try to correct the world. When I say correct the
world, I mean correct people, places or things. Everything has a tendency to balance itself. There are certain laws in
this universe that take care of itself. There’s a power and a presence that knows the way, and you are told to surrender to this power, to this presence.
Complete surrender.
Not my will, but thine.
This is the highest teaching of any system.

When you give up your ego, totally surrender, and allow the powers that be to direct you, and guide you, and take care of you and unfold as you,
everything will work out.

~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams Volume 1