Kundalini Shakti Versus Self-Inquiry and the Descent into Heart Absolute Nothingness—July 25, 1991 Kundalini Shakti Versus Self-Inquiry and the Descent into Heart 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 myexperience 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.

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.

    

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.

I Am Nothing

Most of us are filled with opinions about behaviors, diet, God, politics, and freely offer their advice about what you are doing that is right or wrong.

So called "spiritual people" are no different.  In fact, many are worse because they have absorbed so many different and contradictory teachings, which in spiritual people, becomes mixed with various moral codes of behavior.

I have had many students stay with me in my home and almost all are confused, judgmental, overly concerned with healthy or moral diets, and freely offer opinions of other behaviors.  They are constantly judging others and themselves in terms of perfection or failures in realization, food choices, politics, my behaviors, Kerimas', etc.  They have not realized that all this mental activity is just entertainment and ways to n ot be at rest with oneself.

In many cases, turmoil, depression, anger, well up, arising out of hidden internal processes, which are projected onto the environment, just as does joy and bliss upon occasion. But with practice, observing, accepting, loving whatever arises from within, after a few years all the "friction" and "bad" feelings disappear because everything moves through you far more easily than before practice.

Robert's spirituality differs from most and is most closely allied with Zen.  The spiritual practice is to try to become nothing, to become nobody, with no opinions, no knowledge, no understanding, no attainment with nothing to obtain.  The emtier you get, the happier you also get, because the mind is no ,longer serving up its constant chatter of opinions and judgments. It just rests inside one's own void or emptiness nature.

So many who come here are trying to attain some elevated enlightened state that they can only vaguely verbalized based on reading too many diverse teachers, when what is really needed is to empty one's self of all understanding, all effort to become enlightened or awakened, and instead, the effort is to mostg accurate "feel" who you are and "be" who you are in emptiness.

Become the nothingness within by observing your dark void nature and rest there.  If you see some inner light, get in that light and expand it to fill the inner dark void.  If you don't observe an inner void, instead "feel" for the I Am sensation and abide there.  The I Am sensation lies at the root of you as a human, the flowering of the Manifest Self of energies, bliss, seeing God within, surrender, and love.  

Just lying in the I Am long enough reveals the emptiness that underlies even the I Am sensation and identity.

This is where Robert Adams leads you and where Zen also leads you: a place of a silent mind with no words, no ideas, no judgments, no  opinions,  no shoulds, no fixed ideas about food, diet, sex, morality.

What is revealed then is unbelievable!

Guru-student love and sex

I have never studied with any teacher who was celibate, and most had sexual relations with their students. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why so many criticize such relationships as abusive, accusing the teacher of "humiliating abuses."  This is a kind of 1970s-style feminist position regarding the woman as being weak and vulnerable, taken advantage of by some lust-driven, power hungry male authority.

First, I object to looking at sex between a spiritual student and a teacher as being an abusive relationship, and that in consensual sex within such a relation that the woman is the victim of abuse. I experience that women  are well aware of their own sexuality and attractiveness such that they can beguile and manipulate even the strongest, self-assured male.  I see women as intelligent, very interpersonally aware, very centered, and quite manipulative in most relationships.

Secondly, no matter what your spiritual path, at some point you have to become aware of your energetic body, the so called Subtle Body, with its energies, flowing rivers of light, bliss and ecstasies, and totally alive with energies in order to bring joy to an otherwise barren practice of observing emptiness and loosening identification with the personal self.

Love and sex are a beautiful entryway into making the body come alive to its own Subtle Body underpinnings.  Not only sex, of course, but even moreso, romantic love.  One needs to awaken one's heart through love, whatever type it is, but nothing awakens the energetic body so much as romantic love and associated sex, especially when the love is so deep, and the sex so moving that one experiences orgasm in the brain and entire body, not just genital orgasms.  Most cannot imagine the energetic movement involved in such orgasms.

Then just ordinary conversations between such lovers leads to a completely open and surrendered heart such as one's own internal energies get intertwined "visibly" with those of your lover.  One actually "sees" rivers of light and energy flow between the couple in the most ecstatic wonder, such that both experience the presence of God, the divine existing separately from the couple, and to which both bow in abject surrender at the feet of the Life Force.

The Life Force, that energetic presence which is you deeper than the body, thrives in love, thrives in sexual union, demands unlimited sexual contact, loving touches, verbal touching, massage, etc.  Nothing is held back in the exploration of the other in divine union.

This is what spirituality has to awaken in you before their is a complete Self-Realization: a total awakening Shakti within you, and Shakti knows no boundaries, no rules of exclusion, no limits to her lust and desire, and in fact, generally it is the woman who carries the light of Shakti, and is the gatekeeper of Shakti, not the man, unless he is as open as is she.

Thus the ultimate awakening relationships are determined totally by how open each partner is to their own desires, lusts, energies and the life force, and finds someone as open as the other.  It is this openness that is important, not the presence of love, or sex.  The openness has to be total, allowing full access to all one's inner depths and even inner demons, and a full expression of those own's own depths to the other.

To me, someone who is that open should be that open to anyone else so capable.  If a teacher can give this grace, this opening to a student, so be it.  And if a student can bring this grace to a teacher, it is a great gift to both.

Only if you see and experience spirituality in this way can you possibly understand love and sexual relationships between a spiritual teacher and his or her students.

DOES ANYONE WANT TO HELP SPREAD ROBERT'S TEACHINGS?

Nisargadatta became accessible to many more people after Padeep Apta published the Nisargadatta Gita which is a compilation of all the paragraphs where Mahraj spoke of the I Am, or the I-Am sensation across 11 of his books edited by Jean Dunn, Robert Powell, Maurice Frydman and others.ion.

There were maybe 150 paragraphs where Maharaj spoke about the I Am sensation, the Self or Atman, and the Absolute or Witness.

Volunteers could do the same for Robert. But with Robert we have far more text than the 11 books by Nisargadatta.

The key topics for volunteers is to go through the transcripts and extract the paragraphs or sets of paragraphs on:

1. Emptiness/the Void/Silence

2. True nature/Satchitananda/Turiya

3. Self/Ataman

4. ego/mind

5. World as illusion/optical illusion/You do not exist

6. Brahman/parabrahman/Witness

7. Or pick your own favorite topic from the transcripts.

Each group of compiled paragraphs then needs to be edited and can be published.

Since these are only selections of paragraphs, there should be no problem with copyrights under copyright laws where short phrases or individual paragraphs are selected and compiled in order to build a better understanding of Robert's teachings.

No one would have to cover the entire 2,300 pages, but might select 1,000 or so and search on one topic.

This is an excellent way to study Robert's teachings more deeply.

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.