THE ROBERT GITA

Robert Adams, October 10, 1991

Sages have told us that if we can remove the I-thought, we'll have a different picture of everything. Everything will disappear in this world. For everything is contained in the I-thought and as far as I'm concerned the easiest way to do this is to inquire from where the I-thought comes. Can anything be easier?

Just finding out where the I-thought came from will remove all of your problems you ever had. Will set you free. It's all you have to do. Spend your spare time asking yourself where the I- thought came from. Can anything be simpler? "Where did the I-thought come from?" There is no answer to that question because the answer is in the ssilence of your spiritual heart.

Therefore follow the I-thought to it's source in the spiritual heart. The spiritual heart is consciousness, absolute reality, God, nirvana, sat-chit-ananda, Brahman. As the I- thought is dissolved in the spiritual heart you become your Self, simple. All you've got to do right now is to do it, and you will be free.

THE ROBERT GITA:

All things are created by mind. The mind superimposes images and form onto the underlying screen of Consciousness. The world and body, as well as the sense of I are illusions cast by mind. 

Mind is just a conglomeration of thoughts. Thoughts do not exist in themselves; they are temporary pointers and form creators and have no autonomous existence of their own. 

Thoughts create temporary forms in Consciousness and are Consciousness. These forms also have no existence of their own.  They impose imaginal distictions onto the pure, infinite, formless, lighted emptiness that is Consciousness. 

This is my confession.  You must have your own experience.

You are not a thing.  You are not a thought. You have no existence as a subject or as an object, except as an illusion imposed by thinking and the mind. What you are cannot be known by mind or spoken of by mind.

If you follow the I-thought or I thread to its source, the I disappears, leaving you as the underlying, formless, empty, lighted space of Consciousness. To follow the I,  you must dive deeply into yourself, deeply into the silence of your spiritual heart.

There you cannot say what I is, Self is, world is, for all answers would be words and words totally miss the point. In silence there is no truth, no existence or non-existence. There you are uncreated, unborn, formless, and at peace beyond any understanding.

Only when the mind is entirely still, silent, does a different existence become revealed as you. Iin this stillness there is no you, no world, no separation, no unity, no now, no past or future, no movement or time at all.  Just unadulterated existence, awareness of it, and unalloyed happiness.

To get there you need to find the I am, love your Self, worship your Self, and all will be revealed.

The Collected Works of Robert Adams
Brief Quotes from Transcript 1

You Must Have Your Own Experience
3rd August, 1990

Robert: I welcome you with all my heart.

This body does not presume that it has anything new to teach you. I will refer to this body as I, to make it short. I have nothing new to tell you. I am not a philosopher. I am not a preacher. I am not worthy. I simply have a confession. I confess to you, your own
reality. It is not a teaching it's a confession. I am speaking to my Self confessing and you are my Self.

You are sat-chit-ananda — knowledge, existence and bliss. You are not the body or the mind. What you appear to be is not the truth, it may be a fact but it is not the truth. A fact is something that appears to be true but it changes.

You cannot be who you think you are for when you were a baby, you were quite different. And when you were a little boy or a little girl you were also different. And the way you are now is completely different than you were before. Consequently how can you
be the body? What are you? Who are you? Sat-chit-ananda? What's that?

Even if I tell you this, it means absolutely nothing. You must have your own experience. You mustn't believe a word I say. Why should you believe me? What do I know? I am simply confessing to you that there is only para-Brahman, consciousness, bliss, being,
awareness, pure intelligence. This has been my experience. There is nothing else.

Everything else is an experience of the mind, an appearance, like hypnosis. The world seems real, so does a dream.

What is this world? It's as if you just woke up from your dream and you still remember the dream. In the dream you were going places, getting married, having children, getting older then you wake up and you halfway remember the dream and halfway remember
the world in which you wake up. So which one is real, the world or the dream? It has been my experience that they're both alike. There is no real difference. You attach yourself to this world, in the same way you attach yourself in your dream.

You have to let go mentally of all conditioning, of all objectivity. And you must still your mind. Make your mind placid, like a motionless lake.

Then reality comes of its own accord. Happiness comes of its own accord. Peace comes of it own accord. Love comes of its own accord. Freedom comes of its own accord. These things are synonymous. They happen without you ever thinking about them. But first you must get rid of the notion, that I am the body, or mind, or the doer and then everything will happen by itself.

Be still and know that I am God.

The point is this: It's not what you say. It's not what you proclaim. It's what's deep, deep, deep in your heart that determines what happens to you. It's not reading books, it's not studying, it's not going to classes. It's sitting by yourself, becoming quiet, going deeper and deeper within yourself. Transcending your mind and your body until something happens.

When thoughts come to you, you simply ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts come? From whence cometh these thoughts," follow the thoughts to their source.

Find out the source of your thoughts. You will find that the source of your thoughts is I. Follow the I-thread to its source by asking, "Who am I?" or "What is the source of I? Where did this I come from?" You will realize that the pronoun I, is the first word that was ever
spoken and everything else is attached to I. Every other word. Every other thought, every other feeling, every other emotion, they're all attached to the I. I feel happy. I feel sad. I feel sick. I feel well. I feel poor, I feel rich. Everything is attached to I. If the I becomes dissolved, so does everything else and you become free.

Find out for whom there is an I and you will discover something amazing. You will discover that I never existed. There never was an I. You will discover that you never existed. There's no such thing as you. You will discover that you are the imperishable Self. 
That you are never born and you can never die. You will discover that you're omnipresence, omniscient, omnipotent. That there are no others. There is no world. There is no universe. There is no God. There is only the Self. All this is the Self. All that you behold is
the Self and "I-am" is that. This will give you a feeling of freedom, of bliss, of happiness.

You will not lose your awareness.

When I speak these things people believe that they become completely annihilated and there's nothing left. They melt into the great ocean of nirvana. This is not necessarily true. You will always be awareness. You will always be pure intelligence for that is your
real nature. You will always be blissful. Except you will understand that you are not who you appear to be.

Your body will still appear to be doing things, going through its motions. You will appear to be an ordinary person but you will know. You have lifted yourself up above the gross world into the heavenly world of pure consciousness and you will be at peace.

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As Robert expressed above, this too is exactly my experience.  There are two aspects: the I-thought and the I sensation, or the sense of I-Am.
The I-thought is the lynchpin that holds together your personal network of thought that creates the world you appear to live in.  Once you "discover," or "awaken" to the fact that the I-thought does not pont to anything, that entire network shatters, disappears, and you are left in emptiness.  The world disappears along with the I, and 'you' discover yourself as something entirely different from what you thought you were.
My own experience of the non-existence of either the I-thought or the I sensation occurred to me while taking a shower and is described along with other experiences on the website http://wearesentience.com/my-experiences.html.
Briefly I will describe here my own first experience of the truth of Robert's teachings.
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One morning, I returned from my morning walk, which that day seemed especially invigorating, and took a shower. I felt unusually relaxed; the warm water was incredibly inviting. Feeling the water's delightful touch on my back, I looked within, into the inner emptiness of Consciousness, trying to see if I could find whom it was who experienced the water's touch. I had done this observation thousands of times before, in thousands of different circumstances, seeking the 'I' who was the experiencer and never finding it, yet clinging still to the notion I was an I, a person.

This time, like all the others, there was nothing there, only a vast inner emptiness that contained everything: the kinesthetic sensations of moving arms, back and neck muscles, the touch of the water, the sound of it's spray, and a few thoughts, but mostly there was a silent emptiness that felt inviting and full. I saw no one, no thing, no I, there at all for the ten thousandth time, but this time, God knows why, it was different. The reality of 'no-one' sank in! There was no person, no one experiencing the water's touch. There was no one home, so to speak. There was just the touch of water, the feeling of my feet against the bottom of the shower. My hands were touching my back and neck, putting on soap, but there was no one experiencing any of this. There was just experience happening in awareness.

Briefly, I felt intense fear. The fear was, "Who is watching the store?" I felt, or better, there was a feeling of insecurity, because no one was there to protect and control. All that there was, was experiencing, happening in Consciousness.

All the air left my lungs, almost as if it had been knocked out of me, and I relaxed. Years of tension drained out of me. I did not breathe for what seemed like minutes. There was no need to breathe. There was no me, no I to pump up anymore, so my body just relaxed and deflated.

My mind (actually, 'the' mind since there was no I) became utterly still. No thoughts, no special attention to any one thing, just the grand, silent, all-pervading emptiness, illuminated by the inner light of Consciousness, and which contained all experience. My mind was gone.

I felt too weak to stand up, so I dried myself off and laid down on a couch to explore the inner-ness from the viewpoint of the discovery that I had no I, no me, no personal self. With the utter mental silence, 'my' Consciousness expanded to fill up the emptiness which was everywhere, rather than remain affixed to the mental chatter that normally exists in the service of the I.

This is what I discovered: The I was not there. There was no central kernel that gave illusory life to me as a person. There never was an I. There had never even been an idea that there was an I, the doer and experiencer; even that was gone. What I had thought to be I, was really I-Am, the sense of presence, of being-ness. But that I-Amness, the presence, the Consciousness contained no point of I, and it never had. 'I' had only been a belief, an idea held tenaciously, that created an apparent experience of I as a person.

When the idea of I died, the whole realm of conceptualization changed and became clear. All other ideas depended on the belief in a separate I, set apart from the rest of the experienced world, and when this duality was exposed as fantasy, so were all other concepts that depended on the I-Other duality.

Looking within, the I-Am-ness, the presence I had called Consciousness, seemed to have a center or source near the heart (of my apparent body); it appeared that Consciousness arose and flowed from this center.  Yet that heart center was only a happening in Consciousness and had nothing to do with the belief in an I as the doer and experiencer. The I-Am, the sense of presence that pervades all inner and outer emptiness and experience has no I as a central core. It really is an Am-ness, not an I-Am-ness. Without an I, there is no not-I within Consciousness. There is only Consciousness, only One. The One contains all experience. All experiences are only modifications of that one Consciousness.

I turned my attention to thoughts, and saw that thoughts just float through Am-ness, as if from outside the body. There is no mind as such, just thoughts passing through Am-ness, beingness. Without an I, the illusory personal center, there is no one to take possession of a thought or desire and to act on it or make it real. The Am-ness has no inclination to participate in the thoughts, and is free of their tyranny. The Am-ness is free to take delivery of a thought briefly, and make it real, such as an idea that I need to do some chore, which may be transformed into action, or it can let the thought or desire pass through, unaccepted.

Thoughts, forms, and imaginations are infinitely changing and moving. They have no permanent existence. They are just modifications within the overflowing process of I-Am. The only reality was Am-ness, which contained all experience, and which was being witnessed. So, I then asked myself, "Who witnesses all this?" The answer came as an inner voice: "No one at all!" I realized there is only witnessing, but with no witness! Just like there was no I to take possession of a desire or thought, there is no witness to take possession of any experience. The idea of the witness, and the apparent experience of the witness, arises from the apparent duality the I-idea creates. When this fundamental duality disappears, so do all the others, including the imagined duality of the witness and the witnessed, the observer and the observed.

However, if there is no witness, then there are no objects to be witnessed. If the I is unreal, everything observed by the I is unreal. You can't have only one half of a duality. If half is unreal, so is its opposite, or else the duality was only apparent. The objects, the body, the mind, the world, are all unreal, only mindstuff, dreams in Consciousness. With no I, and no observed world, there are only happenings within Consciousness, and Consciousness is all that there is― Oneness.

A few moments later came the feeling that even this Consciousness, the sense of presence, of Am-ness is unreal, a kind of visual-auditory-tactile illusion added onto pure silence, pure emptiness. About this time, all the forms, sounds, sights and feelings began to flow together, and I could see their temporary and evanescent nature. There was no I, no world, no body; there was only presence, and even that, I am not. Even the I-Amness, Consciousness, was only mindstuff ― a construct. I am that I-Am only as long as I live in the illusion of Consciousness. Imagination, ideas, and all phenomenal experience were all just mind. The mind does not create the world, the mind is the world; mind is everything. With that I began laughing. What my teacher had said was true, it is all a joke, a tale told by an idiot, implying nothing. Anything said here too is only a conceptualization, mindstuff, therefore a mistake!

The whole experience lasted a few hours, and I eventually returned to a place where a chair was a chair and potato salad was a food. I was different though. I could not find an ‘I’ or even the belief there was an I. That core was gone.

Over the days following the shower experience, other understandings of what the experience of no-I meant became clear. First, all understanding, whatever can be said in words is untrue or misleading. Everything is mindstuff ― everything! Anything said, is said in illusion about illusion. Anything said is a mistake. Mind cannot grasp anything other than itself. It cannot go beyond itself. Conceptions, phenomenality, and what we call dreams, are all made of the same illusory substance.

Second, there was no one to take delivery of 'my' life. It was just being lived. There was no one to take possession of any thought or responsibility. There was no decision maker who willed an intended end. Intentionality, the idea we can conceive of and then create an outcome, was a fraud.

Over the following months the experience widened and deepened. Sometimes the world appeared real, sometimes unreal, sometimes both; but, I understood that these appearances of real or unreal were just judgments added onto the basic illusion of phenomenality and of Consciousness itself. When there is only One, all judgments or knowledge about qualities or parts of the One, such as 'the world was unreal,' or 'that is a car,' are themselves illusory because they are divisive, and there is only One. 

Days and weeks would pass where I felt I was living in a hologram. I felt as if I could see through objects in the world and my own body because my focus was on the emptiness which permeated all things, inside and out. Everything was 'hollow,' insubstantial images and sensations projected onto an underlying empty space of still silence. Sometimes too, I would see an object out of the corner of my eye, an automobile for example, and it would only be half there, like a movie set where only the front existed. Days passed into nights and then into days again with barely the feeling of the passage of time.
The whole process was great fun ― sometimes, seeing the world as empty and insubstantial images changing rapidly through time, without the personal involvement that had formerly made the world seem so real. When I told Robert about the phenomena of half disappearing objects bereft of substantiality, I jokingly asked whether this was part of the awakening process, or an entering into insanity. With wry humor he replied, "They go hand in hand."

A week later, I asked Robert again whether seeing the world as an empty and hollow dream was a temporary state, or something one leaves behind as a passing phase. "It's always like this," he said, waving his hand around the room to include everything. Then he said, "In the end, fundamentally nothing has ever existed, nothing has ever happened."

TRANSITIONING TO THE SILENCE OF THE HEART

Before we move on to another Robert Adams transcript, please ponder deeply the transcripts we have already explored.

Robert repeatedly warns you not to read too much about spirituality, not to go from guru to guru seeking truths about yourself, not to spend $500 on a three day retreat to receive Shaktipat, because his way, the way of the Jnani, is not to add new concepts or states, but to gradually subtract all concepts, all spiritual states, so as to see and experience yourself directly, without a filter of understanding, which is the mind.

You have to get "before the mind" comes into existence, to a deeper level of awareness that you find when you stop thinking and living with your awareness centered in words and concepts, and instead have it centered in the silence and emptiness of your heart. Thus the title of his only book: The Silence of the Heart."

When you read a lot, you look for books with concepts and words that "resonate" with you, meaning the words sound and feel true to you, meaning the words conform to what you already believe and hold true, and maybe expand those truths a little.

But you never get to know who you are by having correct words or concepts. Any words or concepts "filter" the real through your intact netword of thought. You have to get rid of all understanding and dwell for a long period of time in a state of complete unknowing, of being dumb as a rock as Seung Sahn advised repeatedly. This is not a state comfortable to many, because we tend to worship knowledge and those who appear to know, or those who can do. How often to we worship someone so simple that they understand nothing. It is a big step to take for the average person and an even bigger step to take for a highly intelligent and highly educated person.

In a sense, the highly educated person whose life centers on thinking and reaching solutions, a lawyer, a scientist, an economist, are much like the rich man that Jesus speaks of, where it is more likely that a camel will pass through the eye of a needle, than a rich man enter the kingdom of God. For Jesus the attachment that most blocked an awareness of God was an attachment to the external world. For Robert, it is an attachment to one's own intelligence, to one's own pride in being able to solve problems.

Now the spiritual seeker who reads many books and seeks many different teachers is loading up even more heavily on concepts which further filter a direct experience of one's own self, as well as a direct experience of the external world, innocently, openly.

Seung Sahn here states one must achieve what he calls a "don't know mind," one where you are as dumb as a rock. Actually, once you escape from your own negative judgement about such a state and actually experience it, you will find it infinitely enjoyable, because in that state, you no longer have the pressure to figure things out. It is a state of being very active, but of no longer planning any responses or solutions. You find out thinking is not really that necessary to live and perform in everyday life because most actions are quite routine, and having no mind allows you to experience day to day life from moment to moment, without the mental filter.

The feeling stupid state, the heavy mind state, the don't know mind state is a by product of your center of awareness dropping from your brain into your heart. It is a state that needs to be embraced rather than shunned.

AUDIO RECORDING OF NICOLE ADAMS TO ME REGARDING ROBERT

http://www.wearesentience.com/nicole-adams-message-of-thanks.html

Nicole Adams:

Ed,

I got interrupted and this is Nicole.  How long did it take you to know Robert?

I have known him in this way forever.  I don't think anyone else could define or describe this person like you have done.  It is utterly amazing, I could not stop reading!

Utterly amazing!

If everyone could know him like that, then that would be perfect. 

Amazing! Don't have to talk anymore, its all on paper.  Great work... great um...Ed.  Very well done. 

Maybe you should publish that. It is amazing!!

And with this I leave you.  It took you awhile I guess, but you found him. 

O.K., bye, bye.

Nicole Adams recorded telephone message, September 3, 1995

GOING DEEP INTO YOUR HEART

I was with Robert for six years before he left for Sedona, and visited him often in Sedona.

Robert taught on many levels, finding words for just about anyone who listened to him.

But if you listen closely, not only to the words you understand, but also to those you do not, you'll find he is an enigma.

So many just listen to the level of concepts that they "resonate" with. That is, they take him as conformation of whatever beliefs or understanding you have.

But you can't really understand Robert until you get "before" the mind.  This is one meaning of transcending your mind or ego.  You go into deeper levels of Consciousness within and dwell there where mind does not touch.  You dwell in an inner world of emptiness, a lighted inner space that permeates your body, your brain, your heart and gut, as well as all the sensations that come through your senses. 

Sound, vision, taste, touch, smell, as well as the kinesthtic senses of movement--all are permeated by light, but the Void, and you live here rather than in your brain or mind.

From this inner space, the mind and ego are seen as transparent entities that hardly touch you.  Only you exist, and your mind, ego, and world are all superimposed on you.

When in this place you know all speaking or arguments about who and what you are, what the I is, whether I exist or not, whether all is pre-determined or free-will, whether the world or your body are real or a dream, what God is, etc., all are seen as specious arguments that have validity only on the level of mind.

When you transcend mind, when you get "prior" to the mind and live in that subtlety of the lighted, sentient, void, you have an utter certainty of who and what you are because you know yourself from direct experience as opposed to trying to understand all of what Ramana or Robert said in words.

Robert kept talking in words about karma, enlightenment, Consciousness, the unreality of your body aand the world as illusions (of the mind), because the people who came to hear him "lived" at the level of mind.  They read many books, sought many teachers, took many retreats, but to no avail because they were trying to comprehend who they were and the world that Robert lived in in terms of the words they read written by Robert or spoken by Ramana.

Until you learn how to live before your mind, until your center of awareness and Consciousness rets in your heart, you can only understand the philosophies that Robert was teaching.  But if you followed the I-thought to its source of emptiness within, or dwell for a long time on the I-Am sensation centered in the heart, you don't know.  Your mind is a trap.  You have to go deeper into your heart.

Absolute Nothingness—July 25, 1991
       

There is a big difference between Robert Adams’ Advaita Vedanta using the method of Self-Inquiry, and the path of Kundalini-Shakti.  It is very easy to get seduced by the latter path because of the pleasurable energies encountered, the bliss, the powers one can develop such as the ability to heal, or to produce objects out of emptiness.



        In the end, at the end of both paths, comes a similar understanding: everything is Consciousness, and the super imposition of appearances on that consciousness, like the appearance of our bodies, or the existence of another person, or the world are just manifestations of Consciousness.


        There is a difference though.  For Robert the appearances did not exist in realty; only Consciousness exists, not body, not mind, not world.  But these appearances have a reality for the Kundalini-Shakti teacher.


        Also, the end state of Sahaja Samadhi is defined differently by the Shakti Guru and by an Advaita Vedanta Guru.  For the Shakti Guru identity has disappeared and all is Shakti—only Shakti exists.  There is no personal self and one is absorbed in bliss.


For the Advaita teacher, all appearances are viewed/apprehended as unreal, identity also disappears, an one rests in utter peace with nothing to do, nowhere to go.  You are Consciousness, not any of the objects therein.  This is more akin to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, but not identical.
       

Now, a Kundalini master is always busy, feeling his or her energies and trying to transmute lower energies into higher energies.  He or she develops powers to help the world, or practices black magic to make changes in the world.  The Advaita Guru, a Robert Adams, simply exist in themselves with nothing perceived to be done, and nothing to be judged or transmuted.


        One way of characterizing the difference is to say the Kundalini Guru emphasizes the Manifest Self, exploring one’s divine Self, God, surrender, love, energies, and transformation.  The Advaita guru emphasizes going into the depth of oneself, penetrating down into emptiness, and through the Void to pure awareness.  In this state, the mind is entirely gone and it makes no sense to speak of anything.  No thing exists; only Consciousness; the world, your body, the witness and witnessed all collapse into Consciousness and you are that.  Then even the you disappears.


Let us follow Robert’s discussion:


“Anyway, I was walking in the park this morning like I usually do. I
started speaking to a gentleman. He happened to be a Muktananda
devotee. And he asked me to tell him the difference between jnana
marga and kundalini shakti. Of course in reality none of them exist. By
holding on to either one, it keeps you from becoming liberated. The idea
is to let go of concepts and names and forms. But we had a discussion
and I guess we'll talk about that, since I can't think of anything else to talk about.


“What is kundalini shakti? They are Sanskrit words, meaning the serpent power. It is said that when a person meditates intensely on shakti, or when one practices Tantric Yoga, the kundalini, the serpent power, begins to awaken at the base of the spine. Already you can see the fallacy of this, when something has to awaken in your spine. Your spine in reality does not exist, neither does your body. So how can something awaken in it? But nevertheless in all the kundalini books it tells you the same thing.


“The so called kundalini, which is like a serpent, begins to rise up the channel which is adjacent to the spine. As it touches each chakra, thereare seven chakras, that part becomes enlightened. When it goes up to the crown chakra, on top of the head, the entire body becomes enlightened. That is called kundalini shakti.


“How can a human body become enlightened? Jnana marga is not any better or worse than kundalini shakti. I'm not trying to downgrade any teaching. All teachings are important. All teachers are important.


“Everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is in it's right place. But how can a body develop powers, supernatural powers, and then you believe that's enlightenment. What kundalini shakti does, supposedly does, when it reaches the crown chakra, supernatural powers (Siddhis) are developed.


“Yet I can truly tell you, when the jnani has observed people with
supernatural powers, they have not been very happy. They quarrel
amongst themselves. It makes no difference what you can produce out
of the air, it makes no difference if you can raise people from the dead.
This has absolutely nothing to do with enlightenment.  The reality of it is
you are consciousness. You are absolute reality. Trying to develop powers
holds you back. Trying to become famous inflates the ego. Trying to
develop anything holds you back from really awakening.


“The whole idea is to transcend your mind, kundalini, gunas,
everything. Do not get involved in yoga practices. It keeps you
earthbound. Get involved in trying to understand who you are. Try to
realize that I have to experience the gunas, the kundalini, enlightenment.


I want to experience these things. Focus on the I. The I who wants
supernatural powers. The I who has problems. The I who can't seem to
get along. The I who believes something is wrong and something is right.
Focus on the I. Who is the I? Where did the I come from? When you're
sleeping at night the I is not there, for you're asleep, but something is still watching you sleep.


“The kundalini people say that when the kundalini shakti travels to
the head you become enlightened, but the jnani sees it differently. The
kundalini rises from the heart, from the right side of the chest and goes
through a channel to the brain. But when it gets to the brain, this is not
enlightenment. This is when you become aware of the world. You
become aware of the body, and the mind phenomena. It is when the
kundalini goes from the brain back to the heart, the spiritual heart center, that enlightenment comes.


“So when you're asleep, what you call the kundalini is in the heart,
where it's supposed to be. The kundalini is really the mind. It's just another name for the mind. When you're in deep sleep it rests in the heart where it's supposed to be. But as you wake up in the morning, you become cognizant of I. That's because instantaneously the mind, or the kundalini, or whatever you want to call it, rushes up to the brain, and that's how youbecome conscious of the world. So the object is to cause the mind, what some people call the kundalini, to go back into the heart center, which is on the right side of the chest, and stay there. When that happens you are awake and liberated.


“Therefore the best time to catch yourself is when you awaken in
the morning. You should remember these things I tell you in the morning.
As soon as you open your eyes, in that split second before you become
cognizant of the world, the kundalini, the mind and the I, (and by the
way they're all synonymous, they're all the same thing), is resting in the
heart. Therefore the second that you open your eyes, you are
enlightened, you are liberated, you have no problems, there is nothing
wrong, all is well, just for a split second.


“Then you spoil it, for you become aware of the world, and yourself, and your body. You say, "I am awake." What has happened is in that split second, the I-thought, what some people call kundalini, some people call the mind, has risen to the brain. As soon as it merges with the brain, you become aware that you are a body and a mind. And then you become aware that there's a world, and a universe, and a God and everything else. In other words your existence only remains because you have allowed the I to go to the brain.


  “Therefore atma-vichara, or self-inquiry, is simply to cause the Ithought to go back to the heart. And when it returns to the heart you
become the Self once again, the Self that you always were. You become
consciousness. You become pure awareness. You become your Self. And
in that Self there is total emptiness, nirvana. There's no mind, there's no
body, there's only the pure, unadulterated Self. If only you were able to
stay in that Self. The only time you're in the Self is when you were asleep.


“When you're dreaming, the I is dreaming. When you're awake, the I is awake. But when you're sleeping, the I becomes the Self.


“Why do you want to get into a state where you are the Self?
Because in that state all is well. It is a state of total happiness, of total bliss, of total love. It is your true nature. It is what you really are.


“Therefore again I remind you, the best time to become aware and
practice is as soon as you open your eyes. You should immediately ask
yourself, "Who am I?" As soon as you wake up. What you are saying is,
"What is the source of the I? Where did the I come from, the I that tells me I am awake, I am the body, I am the mind, I see the world, I'm hungry, I'm getting dressed, I'm going to work? Where did that I come from?" Ask yourself. And follow the I. Imagine it going back to the source which is your spiritual heart. And simply inquire, "Who am I?" If you have to get up a half hour earlier, do so.


“This is not meditation. Self-inquiry is not meditation. You are actively inquiring, "Who am I?" You are not meditating or concentrating on
anything. Even when you follow the I-thought back to it's source, you are
not concentrating. You're simply observing. You become aware of what
you are doing. You say "Who am I?" and you wait. Then you say "Who am
I?" again. You remain silent. "Who am I?" again. And now perhaps
thoughts are trying to dominate you. Thoughts become stronger. Do not
feel slighted. Simply ask yourself "To whom do these thoughts come?" and
wait.


“Remember the reason you're doing this is because in reality there is no one getting dressed, there is no body, there is no I, there's no
procedure. You're therefore inquiring so you can come to this conclusion.


“When I tell you there is no body, there is no mind, there's no world, there's no universe, this is the jnanis experience.
       

“You have to do it. I can lead you to the gold mine, but you have to
do the digging. I can share these things with you, but unless you do it
yourself, you will never know that your real state of mind is consciousness.


"Your mind is really consciousness. You are pure awareness, absolute
reality. You are sat-chit-ananda. You were never born, you can never die.
You will live forever, just as you are now, as the Self.”

---------------------------------------------


I hope you are aware that once again Robert has provided a method and the urging to drop one’s awareness into one’s heart, and to stay there.  When you drop your awareness into your heart and stay there you live in a different level of beingness, one where the mind is not prominent. It just chatters in the background, but mstly is silent, and you live in the Self, which Robert also calls Consciousness.


However, I have discovered from my own journey, as well as from the experience of many others, that self-inquiry as directed by Robert or Ramana, or Nisargadatta, can produce zombies instead of enlightenment, and these people, recognizing that they no longer feel anything, flee self-inquiry and take a Bhakti path such as Sufism, or a Kundalini path because of the bliss and energies make them feel alive again.


It is also m yexperience that after a while, all the energies, Shakti, the lights and visions, the perceived entities, the powers or Siddhis begin to be perceived as unreal, as unreal as the world appeared before.  They become perceived as a kind of entertainment that the Kundalini student perceives as real and important, but eventually are experienced as distractions.


At this point, the Kundalini student relaxes, submerging into the Self that Robert speaks of which is utter peace, the utter disappearance of mind, of identification, or movement, of appearances, of the witness/witnessed split. All ideas, concepts have been transcended. No knowledge exists, and one is completely at peace with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Kundalini Shakti Versus Advaita Vedanda--and Descent into Heart

Absolute Nothingness—July 25, 1991

       

There is a big difference between Robert Adams’ Advaita Vedanta using the method of Self-Inquiry, and the path of Kundalini-Shakti.  It is very easy to get seduced by the latter path because of the pleasurable energies encountered, the bliss, the powers one can develop such as the ability to heal, or to produce objects out of emptiness.

        In the end, at the end of both paths, comes a similar understanding: everything is Consciousness, and the super imposition of appearances on that consciousness, like the appearance of our bodies, or the existence of another person, or the world are just manifestations of Consciousness.

        There is a difference though.  For Robert the appearances did not exist in realty; only Consciousness exists, not body, not mind, not world.  But these appearances have a reality for the Kundalini-Shakti teacher.

        Also, the end state of Sahaja Samadhi is defined differently by the Shakti Guru and by an Advaita Vedanta Guru.  For the Shakti Guru identity has disappeared and all is Shakti—only Shakti exists.  There is no personal self and one is absorbed in bliss.

For the Advaita teacher, all appearances are viewed/apprehended as unreal, identity also disappears, an one rests in utter peace with nothing to do, nowhere to go.  You are Consciousness, not any of the objects therein.  This is more akin to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, but not identical.

       

Now, a Kundalini master is always busy, feeling his or her energies and trying to transmute lower energies into higher energies.  He or she develops powers to help the world, or practices black magic to make changes in the world.  The Advaita Guru, a Robert Adams, simply exist in themselves with nothing perceived to be done, and nothing to be judged or transmuted.

        One way of characterizing the difference is to say the Kundalini Guru emphasizes the Manifest Self, exploring one’s divine Self, God, surrender, love, energies, and transformation.  The Advaita guru emphasizes going into the depth of oneself, penetrating down into emptiness, and through the Void to pure awareness.  In this state, the mind is entirely gone and it makes no sense to speak of anything.  No thing exists; only Consciousness; the world, your body, the witness and witnessed all collapse into Consciousness and you are that.  Then even the you disappears.

Let us follow Robert’s discussion:

“Anyway, I was walking in the park this morning like I usually do. I

started speaking to a gentleman. He happened to be a Muktananda

devotee. And he asked me to tell him the difference between jnana

marga and kundalini shakti. Of course in reality none of them exist. By

holding on to either one, it keeps you from becoming liberated. The idea

is to let go of concepts and names and forms. But we had a discussion

and I guess we'll talk about that, since I can't think of anything else to talk about.

“What is kundalini shakti? They are Sanskrit words, meaning the

serpent power. It is said that when a person meditates intensely on shakti, or when one practices Tantric Yoga, the kundalini, the serpent power, begins to awaken at the base of the spine. Already you can see the fallacy of this, when something has to awaken in your spine. Your spine in reality does not exist, neither does your body. So how can something awaken in it? But nevertheless in all the kundalini books it tells you the same thing.

“The so called kundalini, which is like a serpent, begins to rise up the channel which is adjacent to the spine. As it touches each chakra, thereare seven chakras, that part becomes enlightened. When it goes up to the crown chakra, on top of the head, the entire body becomes enlightened. That is called kundalini shakti.

“How can a human body become enlightened? Jnana marga is

not any better or worse than kundalini shakti. I'm not trying to downgrade

any teaching. All teachings are important. All teachers are important.

“Everything is unfolding as it should. Everything is in it's right place. But how can a body develop powers, supernatural powers, and then you believe that's enlightenment. What kundalini shakti does, supposedly does, when it reaches the crown chakra, supernatural powers (Siddhis) are developed.

“Yet I can truly tell you, when the jnani has observed people with

supernatural powers, they have not been very happy. They quarrel

amongst themselves. It makes no difference what you can produce out

of the air, it makes no difference if you can raise people from the dead.

This has absolutely nothing to do with enlightenment.  The reality of it is

you are consciousness. You are absolute reality. Trying to develop powers

holds you back. Trying to become famous inflates the ego. Trying to

develop anything holds you back from really awakening.

“The whole idea is to transcend your mind, kundalini, gunas,

everything. Do not get involved in yoga practices. It keeps you

earthbound. Get involved in trying to understand who you are. Try to

realize that I have to experience the gunas, the kundalini, enlightenment.

I want to experience these things. Focus on the I. The I who wants

supernatural powers. The I who has problems. The I who can't seem to

get along. The I who believes something is wrong and something is right.

Focus on the I. Who is the I? Where did the I come from? When you're

sleeping at night the I is not there, for you're asleep, but something is still watching you sleep.

“The kundalini people say that when the kundalini shakti travels to

the head you become enlightened, but the jnani sees it differently. The

kundalini rises from the heart, from the right side of the chest and goes

through a channel to the brain. But when it gets to the brain, this is not

enlightenment. This is when you become aware of the world. You

become aware of the body, and the mind phenomena. It is when the

kundalini goes from the brain back to the heart, the spiritual heart center, that enlightenment comes.

“So when you're asleep, what you call the kundalini is in the heart,

where it's supposed to be. The kundalini is really the mind. It's just another name for the mind. When you're in deep sleep it rests in the heart where it's supposed to be. But as you wake up in the morning, you become cognizant of I. That's because instantaneously the mind, or the kundalini, or whatever you want to call it, rushes up to the brain, and that's how youbecome conscious of the world. So the object is to cause the mind, what some people call the kundalini, to go back into the heart center, which is on the right side of the chest, and stay there. When that happens you are awake and liberated.

“Therefore the best time to catch yourself is when you awaken in

the morning. You should remember these things I tell you in the morning.

As soon as you open your eyes, in that split second before you become

cognizant of the world, the kundalini, the mind and the I, (and by the

way they're all synonymous, they're all the same thing), is resting in the

heart. Therefore the second that you open your eyes, you are

enlightened, you are liberated, you have no problems, there is nothing

wrong, all is well, just for a split second.

“Then you spoil it, for you become aware of the world, and yourself, and your body. You say, "I am awake." What has happened is in that split second, the I-thought, what some people call kundalini, some people call the mind, has risen to the brain. As soon as it merges with the brain, you become aware that you are a body and a mind. And then you become aware that there's a world, and a universe, and a God and

everything else. In other words your existence only remains because you

have allowed the I to go to the brain.

  “Therefore atma-vichara, or self-inquiry, is simply to cause the Ithought to go back to the heart. And when it returns to the heart you

become the Self once again, the Self that you always were. You become

consciousness. You become pure awareness. You become your Self. And

in that Self there is total emptiness, nirvana. There's no mind, there's no

body, there's only the pure, unadulterated Self. If only you were able to

stay in that Self. The only time you're in the Self is when you were asleep.

“When you're dreaming, the I is dreaming. When you're awake, the I is awake. But when you're sleeping, the I becomes the Self.

“Why do you want to get into a state where you are the Self?

Because in that state all is well. It is a state of total happiness, of total bliss, of total love. It is your true nature. It is what you really are.

“Therefore again I remind you, the best time to become aware and

practice is as soon as you open your eyes. You should immediately ask

yourself, "Who am I?" As soon as you wake up. What you are saying is,

"What is the source of the I? Where did the I come from, the I that tells me I am awake, I am the body, I am the mind, I see the world, I'm hungry, I'm getting dressed, I'm going to work? Where did that I come from?" Ask yourself. And follow the I. Imagine it going back to the source which is your spiritual heart. And simply inquire, "Who am I?" If you have to get up a half hour earlier, do so.

“This is not meditation. Self-inquiry is not meditation. You are actively inquiring, "Who am I?" You are not meditating or concentrating on

anything. Even when you follow the I-thought back to it's source, you are

not concentrating. You're simply observing. You become aware of what

you are doing. You say "Who am I?" and you wait. Then you say "Who am

I?" again. You remain silent. "Who am I?" again. And now perhaps

thoughts are trying to dominate you. Thoughts become stronger. Do not

feel slighted. Simply ask yourself "To whom do these thoughts come?" and

wait.

“Remember the reason you're doing this is because in reality there is no one getting dressed, there is no body, there is no I, there's no

procedure. You're therefore inquiring so you can come to this conclusion.

“When I tell you there is no body, there is no mind, there's no world, there's no universe, this is the jnanis experience.

       

“You have to do it. I can lead you to the gold mine, but you have to

do the digging. I can share these things with you, but unless you do it

yourself, you will never know that your real state of mind is consciousness.

"Your mind is really consciousness. You are pure awareness, absolute

reality. You are sat-chit-ananda. You were never born, you can never die.

You will live forever, just as you are now, as the Self.”

---------------------------------------------

I hope you are aware that once again Robert has provided a method and the urging to drop one’s awareness into one’s heart, and to stay there.  When you drop your awareness into your heart and stay there you live in a different level of beingness, one where the mind is not prominent. It just chatters in the background, but mstly is silent, and you live in the Self, which Robert also calls Consciousness.

However, I have discovered from my own journey, as well as from the experience of many others, that self-inquiry as directed by Robert or Ramana, or Nisargadatta, can produce zombies instead of enlightenment, and these people, recognizing that they no longer feel anything, flee self-inquiry and take a Bhakti path such as Sufism, or a Kundalini path because of the bliss and energies make them feel alive again.

It is also m yexperience that after a while, all the energies, Shakti, the lights and visions, the perceived entities, the powers or Siddhis begin to be perceived as unreal, as unreal as the world appeared before.  They become perceived as a kind of entertainment that the Kundalini student p

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?”

-------------------------------------------

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.

-------------------------------------

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.

----------------------------------------

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.