Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

A Symphony Too Large

The totality of Robert Adams talks including audios can be found by doing a google search on the web for "Robert Adams" and relevant to our Robert terms such as Satsang, talks, enlightenment, info or information. I cannot put up a link as Infinity won't let me.

His transcripts alone are a book of 3,700 pages, close to a million words. Yes, if you read Robert, you will find a contradiction every dozen pages or so.

Sometimes there are small inconsistencies, such as his story of first meeting Ramana Maharshi.  Sometimes he is inconsistent about method, saying that one should diligently practice self-inquiry alone, while at other times even suggesting mantra practice or watching the breath. At other times he’ll say forget practice altogether and just be with the guru, serve and love the guru.  Sometimes he’d just say forget that even that and just wake up. He would always tell people at Satsang to avoid the world and just stay close to him, while those close to him, he’d urge to stay involved in the world and did all kinds of things himself to keep himself “grounded” and involved in the world.

His closer students would act as “apologists” explaining away the inconsistencies with the idea he was speaking truth to different levels of students, some more advanced than others. In a sense this was true, but mostly in his Satsang he spoke to beginners, especially during the large Satsang on Sundays when a more general audience came.

He used to say that each teacher had their own message, and that is why you have the sometimes large differences in doctrine taught by Ramana, Nisargadatta, Osho, Muktananda, etc.

Students, unable to tolerate inconsistency, and not having found their own truth, were always trying to reconcile inconsistencies between teachers, such as Ramana, Robert and Nisargadatta. Tiny, minor, inconsistencies that hardly mattered to some, created huge crises of faith for some students. Some refused even to acknowledge in their minds that even blatant inconsistencies existed, or they explained them as one teacher was “really” realized, versus another who voiced a contradiction.

Consistency is a huge thing with a logical mind.

In the 1930s, a German mathematician named Kurt Gödel published a paper later called Gödel’s proof, which demonstrated that all the truths or theorems of simple arithmetic, or any comparable number theory, could not be proved within the framework of a certain type of logical system with was logically similar to the subject matter of the arithmetic being investigated. That is, the truths, or theorems, of even simple arithmetics could not be proved within the confines of such a system. There would always be some logical inconsistency within the truth expressions of any arithmetic or propositional logic.


It was a world shattering discovery that truth cannot be confined to exposition of logical consistency.

So too was Robert’s teachings. It was too large for consistent and sequential exposition.

You might think of Robert’s teachings as a symphony needing 80 instruments or voices to fully express all the nuances of his message, yet at any Satsang, he never had more than a single voice. It is like at some Satsangs he brought an oboe, while to others he brought a drum or a violin. In each Satsang he was a soloist, singing in one voice, one aspect of his truth, and in order to understand Robert, you had to listen to him for years to bring in your being, all the voices together into a beautiful symphony.

However, the highest symphony note was when the teachings stopped and he was silent. All the notes and instruments stopped for a moment, and the truth of no truth, of immediate apprehension of one’s own being was thrust upon those ready for it. Everything was in the silence if only you listened with a silent and alert mind.

Really, all the words to that point were merely lullabies to put your mind to sleep allowing you to see truth beyond truth if you were ready and not looking for truth in words and concepts.