Without A Second

By Karl Renz

‘What to do?’ asks Karl when questioned about surrender. ‘What was yours in the first place that is not owned by life already? What is it that you can surrender? Surrendering simply appears as an arrogant idea of a me trying to surrender something. Besides, why do you surrender? You surrender because you want some advantage from it!’

These talks, loaded with scathing pointers, were delivered at a blistering pace at the foothills of Arunachala, the mountain that he loves to call as the ‘Light of Shiva’. Karl delights his audience with his idiosyncratic English and his crazy wisdom... often more to confuse but never, as he claims, to enlighten them. As he speaks like an empty loudspeaker, the living words talk from the Self to the Self entirely bypassing the personality. There is no escape, however. You can go to the most distant part of the Universe and who do you find there? You!

This pointer from Advaita means, there’s no second. ‘Without a second,’ asks Karl, ‘How can the one who’s not there realize the one who’s not there? You experience the prison and the guard but where’s the inmate? Who can ever catch you? You’re uncatchable. In that sense, you are the Absolute doer, the Absolute doing, and the Absolute done. So, what needs to be done?’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karl Renz
• Release date: Jun 10, 2021

Karl Renz

Karl Renz was born in Germany in 1953, and, after some years of rather unorthodox "seeking" (including time spent in Mexico looking for Don Juan), experienced an Awakening in the late 1970s. He travels around the world talking about, well, what can't be talked about -- and does pretty well at it. He's visited Santa Fe each fall the last five years or so, offering evening "Self-Talks" ("the self talking to the self", as he puts it) at the home of a friend.

Book preview

The auspicious Shiva who doesn’t know any Shiva, this no moon or no light is Mahashivaratri when the Self is without Self, neither light nor no light, neither presence nor absence.

Absolute not knowing anything, that’s Buddha’s middle path. You’re neither love nor wisdom nor anything else, neither form nor non-form neither-neither. This neti-neti is complete.

– KARL RENZ

Without A Second

By Karl Renz

Copyright © 2021 Karl Renz

First Edition: June 2021

PUBLISHED BY

ZEN PUBLICATIONS

A Division of Maoli Media Private Limited

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Book Design: Red Sky Designs, Mumbai

Cover Image: Detail of a painting by Karl Renz

Photograph on Page 40: Alex Wolter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author or his agents, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

CONTENTS

If the Absolute needed to be complete, it would not be absolute

Even if you make separation disappear into oneness, you still depend upon oneness

Being free of yourself would be a confirmation that there’s a second

There’s only a meaning when there’s a ‘me’

You have to see for yourself that you cannot be found anywhere

What you are is an uninterrupted river of silence

Other Books by Karl Renz

•Blisstears

Bliss, the root of all suffering

•Undecided: Neti-Neti

•Commentaries On The Gospel Of Thomas

Excerpts from the Marsanne talks

•A Little Bit Of Nothingness

81 Observations On The Unnamable

•The Song of Irrelevance

Meditation of what you are

•Heaven and Hell

•Am I - I Am

•May It Be As It Is

The Embrace of Helplessness

•Worry and be Happy

The Audacity of Hopelessness

•Echoes of Slience

Avadhut Gita Revisited

•The Lies About Truth

•Peace Off

And Be What You Are

•Soy Yo - Yo Soy (Spanish)

•Mythen in Tüten (German)

ES macht nix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Publishers wish to thank Anjali Walsh, for her invaluable help in making this book possible.

If the Absolute needed to be complete, it would not be absolute

Q: What is the role of will in your approach? What is will?

K: It is willy because it comes when it wants and not when you want. [Laughter] It has a life of its life. The lingam pops up when the lingam pops up! God becomes aware when he becomes aware, but not because he wants to be aware.

Q: Is there anything that could be done?

K: No. If God could avoid being aware, it would always stay in the absence. Always! Absence is bliss, joy.

Q: But you can’t stay there…

K: No. You cannot have absence without presence. But that’s the problem of all the seekers. God as a seeker has a preference for absence.

Q: Is there something a seeker can do?

K: No.

Q: Then where is the place for will? I’m thinking of Aurobindo. Can something be given to a seeker to do, that will release him or her from the avid tendencies and the negative emotions?

K: Then I would go with Ramana. The only thing is that the ownership drops, that’s all. But not that there’s something going on. The will of the next moment wants what happens. The future demands what comes next. It’s not anyone wanting it. Whatever comes next is just the will of destiny; it happens without you having any choice. There is no ‘chooser’ in it.

Q: How do we become the chooser?

K: That’s an imagination. That’s a dream.

Q: Can I not push and push, and something happens?

K: No. You cannot push anything. Things happen by themselves. Even the cave experience that happened, happened by itself and not because I expected it. It just happened. It’s like being born without wanting it. Everything that comes later is a result of something else happening. It’s the future demanding it. It’s not as if anyone has any control.

Q: So, the point of this teaching is that if we become proficient in doing nothing, who we are in essence will take care of the trip anyway?

K: It took care of it all the time, it already takes care right now and will always take care.

Q: But then it will take too many lives…

K: It will take infinite lives; it will not stop.

Q: But isn’t there something we can do to fix this?

K: You can be quiet and be what you are. There is no one born in it. Life will continue living itself – infinitely.

Q: Isn’t that the basis of trust? It sounds very suspiciously like bhakti…

K: Just surrender to yourself. [Laughter] I always say when there is jnani, there is bhakti. In nature there is no difference because for jnani the ownership drops and with that you surrender to existence. There is a natural surrendering in understanding and it’s not one against the other. In bhakti you totally surrender to what you are… and in that what you are, there is no way out. You cannot stop living yourself. There is no way of stopping. The death experience means that you have an experience of death, but you don’t die in it. The experience of death is not a way out. Nothing stops in it. Then the last hope, that you will die with dying, drops. That’s Ramana’s dropping of the idea that he can die. Then you’re quiet. What is there to do? You cannot escape anyway. Then there is peace. Then it doesn’t need to be peaceful for you to be in peace.

Q: So, the attempt to escape…

K: There is the hope that you will die in dying. That is what keeps you on because that makes you hopeful.

Q: So you die to the hope?

K: The hope that when the body dies, you would be free. But you will not be free. The envelope goes but the letter continues. Then another envelope comes. Another experience, the next moment. It never started and it never stops. Eternity living life in… whatever you can say. You are That and by being That there’s peace. There was always peace, but you always give attention to some idea that something has to happen for that peace. I just tell you that whatever has to happen will not change anything.

Q: So, there’s nothing one can do about suffering?

K: You can take a pill. If you have pain, take a painkiller. If you have a psychological problem, you go to a therapist or you can do a karma cleaning. But for what you are, it makes no difference. There are two different ways of living yourself, relatively and absolutely. The Absolute life is always fine. The relative life always tries to change something. Even the big masters who claim to be nothing, they seemed to have found a place where they seem to be fine. They’re depending on nothing to be fine. Even as something you are as fine as being nothing. What you are is always fine. What you are is so fine that it cannot be de-fined.

Q: That’s attainment. It comes as a result of…

K: It’s never a result of anything. It’s just your nature.

Q: If we were born with that knowledge, everything would be smooth. But that doesn’t seem to be the case…

K: Love is the problem.

Q: But that’s not my problem…

K: You cannot not fall in love with your beloved. You can only experience yourself as the lover and the beloved. There’s nothing for you to do.

Q: So, there’s nothing wrong in loving the Beloved?

K: No. You just take care about your beloved self. If it’s fine, you’re fine. If you’re healthy and everything runs as you like it, then you’re fine. If not, you suffer. That’s the passion of Christ. Christ had to go through that as well before he was crucified, and eternal life remained. But until then, he wanted to avoid being crucified. Even Christ! Who are we to try to avoid? It’s the same tendency of love trying to survive. This love affair, this relationship… and there’s nothing right or wrong with it. It’s just the way it is. What to do with it?

You have to be ‘in spite’ of that love affair what you are, and not because the love affair is a nice one or it’s an unconditioned love. What you are neither knows conditioned or unconditioned: it never depends on unconditioned love to be what it is. If you’re depending on unconditioned love, you’re still imprisoned by an idea. To be in spite, is more than natural. It’s your very nature – presence or absence whatever it may be. You never left it, that’s the problem. How can you go back to what you never left?

Q: This conviction that you have and you’re expressing, that we are as we have always been, seems to be a conceptual truth. But to make it as an experiential truth, we have to go through suffering that releases us from truth being a concept. It makes truth as an experience…

K: Nisargadatta and Ramana had to go through the death experience. They had to watch the body die and remain as what they are. If there is no such experience, you doubt your intellectual understanding. In that sense you’re right. Maybe you really need a death experience so that you are in spite of the body, absolutely. Every night you are in spite of the body but you’re not aware of it.

Q: One man in a million…

K: At any given point, there are only a handful on this planet who had that experience and are established in that. I don’t care how many, but it’s more than rare for sure. Otherwise, you’re lived by this love affair of consciousness. It just takes you and you cannot escape. It’s an accident and it’s not because of what they’ve done before… it’s not by design.

And I sit here and tell you – don’t wait for the accident. Just be now what you are because the accident may or may not happen. You have to be in spite of the accident what you are. But in some cases, there was this accident, and they talk from that . It means they’re so established in that there is no way back. They never landed anywhere. So, they’re in any circumstance what they are and not in any special circumstance of awareness or nothingness or anything. Normally everyone can be that what he is only in a special circumstance, when he’s more aware or he’s untouched or he’s detached from everything. But who needs to be detached from what?

There are rare cases who are attached and detached what they are – presence or absence doesn’t matter anymore. Then they sit there – what to do? They tried to do everything, and nothing worked; like Buddha, nothing worked. He failed in every sense. He even failed to die in dying. That’s the final failing. You fail in dying. You cannot die in dying. So, your last hope just explodes.

Q: There’s a difference between Buddha and someone else who goes through the same experience…

K: The last thing is not different. The hope that you can ever escape finally drops. No escape, no way out.

Q: So, the road ends when you see there is no hope…

K: It’s not a seeing. It’s an absolute experiencing of being in spite, never because.

Q: Sometimes I think you’re the only person who has gotten to this result but that’s enough…

K: I don’t care about others because I cannot find anyone else. My problem is I cannot find anyone else so why should I worry about others? That’s what I ask you, worry about yourself because only your self counts, no one else. Don’t worry about Nisargadatta or Ramana, if someone else had it or not. The only thing what counts is what you are. But that what counts cannot be counted. The counter is already an accountant, he’s that what counts. Fuck the counter and be that what counts.

Q: So, it has to be experienced…

K: In a way you experience it every night to be that what is in spite. But you fall in love every morning again with what you call as your life and you cannot change it because falling in love is by accident. You cannot not fall in love because trying to not fall in love is too late. Now not to be in love is too late. You only want to drop love out of love because you think without loving my body, I’m free. So, out of love for yourself, you want to get rid of something else. But that’s not love.

Q: There are many selves, that’s the problem. There’s not just one…

K: Every chicken wants to be the cock but they’re just chicken. [Laughter] Tandoori fried chicken. That’s why when the corpses are burnt, they’re tandoori fried chicken. I cannot be serious about corpses. In Varanasi, they live with corpses that are burnt. They’re constantly confronted with death because they think it helps. Does that work? Maybe in one case, or maybe not even that. No one knows anything. It may or may not work. But even if that happens, nothing happens. That’s the problem.

That’s what Papaji meant when he said nothing happens. In that what is Silence, nothing ever happens; nothing comes, and nothing goes. That is silence. Nothing ever comes and nothing ever goes. Nothing is ever born; nothing will ever die because Life is eternal and that what you call life is just a reflection of something. It will just be transformed and transformed and transformed.

Q: The wheel will just keep on turning, no escape…

K: And no one is ever born, that’s the problem and no one will ever die. That’s the result of no one is ever born. So, what to do?

Q: We try to get out of it…

K: Because you’re in love with an idea that this is life. You think that this food body that keeps transforming is life. It’s not life. It’s just a temporary masquerade; a carnival.

Q: But you seem to be a happy person, there must a secret that you’re not telling us…

K: There was never any happy person I tell you. [Laughter]

Q: Is there any use of an organized religion?

K: Yes. It’s for fun and for raising money.

Q: For whom?

K: So that temples and ashrams get built or for themselves.

Q: They only increase our problems…

K: Imagine them saying there is no hell, you don’t have to come here, there is no devil, there’s no after life, there’s no karma. [Laughter] Who would go to temple and pray to God? If Ganesha is as helpless as you are and cannot give a good place for your son in University. In America you can pay sometimes but then you end up in a prison, thank God.

Q [Another visitor]: By being impersonal, instead of becoming free, one feels guilty. One always feels that he cannot make it. So, what to do?

K: Poor me! Don’t ask me what to do, just go to a pub and drink something. Have a big battery of alcohol at home and whenever you feel hopeless… [Laughter] I have no idea. It seems to be a common technique. Or fuck around, many have different techniques to get rid of their hopeless emptiness – having sex, drinking, making money… whatever. But when all that doesn’t work, close your eyes and fall in love with what you are. If that doesn’t help, then I cannot help you anyway. Some fall in love with the absence inside but they always come back and then they preach, that is better than this one. So, even that is a trap – imagine!

You fall in love with the emptiness, you fall in love with the absence of me. Then no me is better than me. Always sounds good. There is a person whose spiritual name is ‘no me’.

Q [Another visitor]: He was called Bhagawan ‘no me’… [Laughter]

K: There was a lady from England called devi.

Q: Will they be taken care?

K: Maybe there will be an ashram for leftover gurus. [Laughter] Giving yourself a name like that!

You cannot avoid any hopeless feeling or suffering. It’s all part of your design.

Q: Is not being impersonal a personal preference?

K: You are with and without the preference. This first preference that no me is better than me, you cannot get rid of. That’s called love. Out of love you want to disappear. It’s a permanent attempt to commit suicide. Even God wants to get rid of God out of love. For God to be God it’s two gods too many. In the beginning when God becomes aware, he has the tendency to get rid of himself – imagine! Even the presence or awareness is already a ray of discomfort. The only comfort is what you are in that there is no presence or absence at all. That’s the comfort you are which never needs any comfort. But the moment you exist, there’s a presence and that’s the beginning of discomfort.

But I sit here and say you cannot escape it. That’s the way life lives itself. You cannot not realize yourself. No way! And to that realization, everything has to happen. All the suffering, all of those absolute aspects of life have to be there. If you could take one aspect away from it, you could kill life because it’s only complete with all the absolute aspects of its absolute existence. You’re just living one aspect of infinite aspects. Every emotion has to be there for life to live itself in infinite ways. So, what to do?

And I’m not here to help anyone. No way! No interference. But who can take that? No one can take that. What you are has