INTRODUCTION TO ROBERT ADAMS

I'll tell you a secret. You cannot understand Robert using your mind, because ultimately his teachings are about what you and he are before the mind ads thinking, evaluating, judging. He ultimately speaks about what you are before the first thought arises.  Yet Robert talks endlessly.

I just did a word count on all of the transcripts posted on the Internet, about 2,300+ pages with an average word count of 600 words per page for a total of over 1,400,000 words.

During his talks Robert tells jokes, tells stories, talks about Ramana, Nisargadatta, Laksmanan, his own experiences in India and with his family.  He also speaks of many concepts that will be strange to beginners in spirituality.  He will talk about Satchitananda, AKA Existance-Knowledge-Bliss.  He will talk about Brahman, Self, non-existence, that you are not your body or mind, that you don't exist, emptiness, the Void, self-illumined Consciousness, bliss, self-realization, and many other things.

Once you seriously begin to observe yourself, look into your inner nature, feel into your sense of existence, all kinds of magical things begin to happen.  The things you will discover, the experiences you will have, are explained in words by the philosophies of Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism.  These are two complicated philosophical systems used to explain the problems of life and death as experienced by sages thousands of years ago.

One can get a good understanding of what these concepts mean in systematized form by reading the books of Jan Esmann or Swami Shankarananda.  I recommend Shankarananda's "Consciousness is Everything" as an overview and synthesis for those who need to "feel" their way into Robert's teachings by getting many mouths full of "intellectual food" to help sate the hungry mind.

As Robert repeats over and over again, "Your mind is not your friend."  Indeed, for Robert the ultimate state is found in silence, no thought, no ideas, in complete rest, in complete motionlessness.  But this state is not easily acquired. The mind wants to place itself first and is always interrupting what you are doing with a question, a doubt, a song fragment, a memory, and so on, chattering endlessly.

You have to turn your attention inwards, towards your inner Self, towards the internal emptiness from which all thoughts, images, daydreams, songs, the ringing in your ears, come, and by so doing, you begin to open yourself to the wonder that you are, and states of bliss, peace, and understanding you would have never encountered unless you had followed Robert's guidance to turn within.  He'd say, ignore your body; you are not your body.  Ignore the world, it is not real.  What you see is the construct of your mind.  Your mind takes raw experience and creates a 3-dimensional interpreted world.  Robert asks you to ignore that external world because it is not real, it is a fiction created by your mind, and the only way to experience reality is by observing with a silent mind, not analyzing it, by observing with a very relaxed mind not intent on figuring out one's own experience.

In this way you begin to experience yourself and the world without the veil of ignorance created by all the inaccurate ideas you have about your self and the world.  You begin to experience the emptiness inside you, the Void.  You begin to see the Light of Consciousness illuminating that emptiness.  Ultimately you are trying to be in a perfectly resting state of mind in order to experience your own self and the world as they really are.

Thus you begin to walk a path from having a mind full of concepts, and turn within to see who you are with fresh eyes.  And thus proceding, wonderful new vistas open within you, opening you to bliss, to understanding, to long hidden emotional states, to emptiness, quietness, peace, etc.

All the states and experiences you will have on the way to complete silence and emptiness, is that which is described by the philosophies of Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, and Tantra.  States of bliss, energy, love, devotion, surrender, and then more bliss.  Finally, after a long period you come to rest in yourself, in utter peace, completeness, having witnessed and experienced all the truths of all philosophies and coming to rest in the truth of yourself which falls entirely outside of all those philosophies and ideas.

So, when you read Robert, do so with a mind as empty as possible, not trying to understand, analyze, memorize, etc., but with an open, receptive mind, an innocent mind.  If you read with a mind full of another teacher's teachings, you won't be able to understand Robert.