Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

Interesting information about Robert Adams regarding feet of clay.

I recently received an email from one of Robert's former students that visited him in 1993.  At one point she asked Robert "What were Neen Karola Baba and Nisargadatta like?, too which Robert responded, "Just guys, XXX, just guys."

When asked "Robert, how do you perceive the world: As light only?  As Emptiness?  As bliss?  As Consciousness alone?", Robert replied, "I see the world just like you do.  If I saw any of those things, I could not function. The only difference is that I know it is all Consciousness."

Samantha, one of Robert's students who was obviously a quasi girlfriend for a while, because he bought her flowers and chocolates for her birthday, and he took me to lunch with her, at one point had an angry falling out with Robert. 

She would never say what happened, and at one point, as Robert exited one Sunday Satsang in Woodland Hills, he threw a bottle of pills at her which shocked everyone there since he very rarely expressed anger.

Samantha lived near me in Santa Monica and I saw her once in a while, but she would say nothing about Robert except, "He is just a man, an ordinary man."

Yet so many teachers act as if they have gone beyond being human, forsaking even human love for a supposedly transcendental spiritual love of loving everything equally, just being love.

Others are just emptiness, nothingness, like Robert, while others are just the Self, the Manifest Self of Turiya, and Turiyatta likeRamana.

But so many feel they have gone beyond being human, rather than having added onto their humanhood.  Imagine, forsaking the love of a child, a lover, or a cat--human love--to been ensconced in a constant state of love for everything.  It sounds good, but misses the human vulnerability of loving another with the possibility of loss, death, and grief.

My dear friend is lost in seeking this state of ever increasing love for all beings, while another ex-student has run away from human love because of hurt, and now only talks about grace and her lack of need for love or a teacher of any sort.

I ask my students to always be loving of others and themselves, but also to seek within the Self, as well as greet and love all emotions and tensions that arise in themselves while doing inquiry.  Most of all, they need to be "tender" to themselves and others, be open and vulnerable to everything, and don't be attached to any state that much, like I was to emptiness, the Void for  many years, or even to one's sense of presence.  They can be taken away from you in a moment.  Your personal unfolding reveals innner vistas such as the Void, Bliss, Total Love, then you transcend them and move on to something else, or else they just disappear one day with no warning.

All in all, remain in your humanity no matter what spiritual vistas become yours to explore.