“You have to go way beyond thoughts, way beyond reasoning, way beyond anything and everything you have ever understood, to be consciousness, to understand consciousness. In order to do this, everything you believe must be dropped.

Everything you’ve been led to understand must be transcended. Everything that you can think about has to go. Your ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, up and down, frontwards and sideways, all these things have to be totally transcended, totally removed from your thinking patterns.”

Robert Adams

Somehow you’ve been hypnotized, mesmerized, deluded, into believing that you are a separate entity, a separate body, and you have to fetch for yourself, care for yourself. While the bubble persists, it is well taken care of by the ocean. While the wave persists, the ocean looks after it. That’s why waves become big sometimes, they become tidal waves. They’re still part of the ocean.

As you persist in believing that you’re human, believing that you are a body, that you are separate, you are still looked after and protected. You may still suffer and go through experiences, because you think you’re the body or the mind, but nevertheless you are always protected and looked after.

In any case you don’t have to worry. In any case you don’t have to fear. Why? Because you live in eternity. You live in bliss. You live in total joy and happiness. You are immersed in consciousness, like space. Space is immersed in consciousness. And all the forms, like planets, galaxies, universes, are superimpositions in space. And what holds space together? Consciousness.

You do not have to do anything to understand this. You simply have to recognize it. You do not have to pray, or meditate, or do mantras or japa. There is nothing you have to do to recognize your reality, that you’re the ocean, you’re consciousness. You simply have to see it, and recognize it, and awaken. That’s all you have to do.

Robert Adams

When you are [enlightened], you have unalloyed happiness all the time. Eternal happiness and eternal joy is always with you, regardless of conditions. For you are no longer conditioned. You are no longer looking for anything. Does it make sense for an enlightened person to look for a healthy body, or for a prosperous body, or for this or for that? Of course not. This is the fact that nobody’s left to look for these things. The ego who does this has been totally transcended.

Look at the world like bubbles on the ocean, bubbles and waves on the ocean. Look at people that way too. They keep disappearing. They keep coming back. The bubbles, the eddies, the waves come and go continuously, constantly. Yet the ocean understands that the bubbles, the eddies, the waves, are part of the ocean. They’re not separate from the ocean. Yet the bubbles come and go. The waves come and go. So it is with us.

Bodies come and go continuously, constantly. You make such a fuss out of life, out of a body that’s so important. They come and go like bubbles in the ocean. New bodies appear every day, old ones fade away, yet the source, beyond everything, is consciousness. The substratum of all existence is consciousness. Consciousness is like the ocean, and all the forms on this earth, in the universe, are superimpositions on consciousness.

In other words, all the forms are like bubbles and waves on the ocean. When you discover who you are, you’re no longer a bubble or a wave. You no longer come and go. You become the ocean. The average person in this world believes they are a bubble or a wave. They identify only with their little self. They’re always thinking about themselves. I need, I want, I hurt, I this, I that, I everything. It’s always I, I, I. This is how the bubble thinks, that it’s separate from the ocean. But the ocean knows it’s not separate.

Robert Adams

What is going on in your mind right now? What kind of thoughts are you allowing to come through you? Notice that most of you cannot sit still for even a minute without thoughts going through your mind. … There are thoughts that are constantly going through your mind. These thoughts never leave you. They are there all the time. As long as you have these thoughts, you can never have peace or happiness.

It makes no difference if they are good thoughts or bad thoughts. It doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. They’re all thoughts. They come from the same source and all thoughts are part of delusion, part of the maya, part of the experience. If you can only remember this: To find true happiness, real peace, you simply have to get rid of your thoughts. Stop the thoughts from coming to you.

You cannot stop the thoughts by being in conflict with them, remember this also. No conflict. Again by conflict I mean, do not try to work on your thoughts to stop them forcibly. As an example, by changing your mind by trying to think good thoughts. By trying to think good thoughts to replace bad thoughts you are in conflict with your mind.

But when you observe your thoughts, when you watch your thoughts, without reacting to them, then you are on the right track. When you become angry, do not fall into the trap of identifying with anger. Do not identify with the anger but watch yourself becoming angry. Take a step backwards if you can and observe yourself becoming angry. Watch yourself, always watch yourself. Observe yourself constantly. That’s the way to work with yourself.

Robert Adams

[Upon awakening some people expect] to see blazing lights and see stars and geometrical figures and hear beautiful music. These things are all of the mind. All you’re doing when these things ensue you’re going into subtle areas of the mind. Where there are things happening just like they’re happening in this plane of existence.

So in the subtle planes of existence there are also things happening. They may be a little different. You may hear sacred voices talking to you. You may hear the voice of your deity. Maybe it’s the Christ or Buddha or somebody else. You’re making headway but remember this is also of the mind. It is the mind that causes all of this.

You want to go beyond that. You want to go beyond everything. Never stop and say ‘I have arrived.’ For when you make that statement, ‘I’ve arrived,’ it shows that you have not arrived because there was somebody to arrive. When you have arrived there is nothing to say and there is no one to say it. It’s all been transcended.

Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

Everything is preordained.
As long as you are living a worldly life, as long as the world affects you and you affect the world, everything is predetermined, everything.
But as soon as you become humble and you acquire humility, you begin to turn within, instead of thinking, “I am great,” and “I can do this,” and “I can do that,” you would rather feel that you are nothing and surrender everything to the Creator by turning within and offering to the Creator.
That is the time when the predetermination becomes weak.
But as long as you are living in this world as a worldly person thinking, I am that and this is this and this is this way and that is that way, everything, even the raising of the finger is predetermined.
Only when you dive deep within yourself and you surrender your ego, your ambitions, your temper, your emotions, your idea of right and wrong, your consciousness, and you become empty, only then will you become free.
But as long as you react to conditions and to the world you can never be free, it’s all predetermined. And you go on life after life after life until you give it up. The ego appears to be very strong. It will tell you you’re this or you’re that and you’re good person and you should become this and you should become that, that is your ego at work. You should smile and say, “No, give it all up to consciousness,” become empty.
Robert Adams

“When you sit in the silence the power of the Self is at work. Even though your mind is still thinking thoughts. As long as you’re sitting in your quiet and you don’t talk, no noise is going on, even though the mind maybe busy, the power of the silence is at work.

When you talk a lot, have too many conversations, maya [illusion] is at work. Maya rules over you. I’m not speaking of in satsang in particular. I’m speaking of in your home, at work. Always have very little to say and you’ll be safe. If you have too much to say it causes conflict, misunderstanding and chaos.”

~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

The universe is a cosmic joke. It plays games with you.
It wants you to become attached to things.
You cannot possibly find yourself when you are engrossed in the world.
So you do not have to keep thinking about your affairs
and your body and the world most of the time.
You must begin to understand that you are the only one who can
dissolve the maya and awaken to the truth of your being.

You can tell where you’re at by what you do all day long.
Just think about today, since you woke up this morning.
How often did you think about your higher Self.
How often did you practice self-inquiry.
How often did you surrender completely.
Not too much, you identified yourself with the worldly situation.
You identified with maya.
With things, with persons, with places and then you tell me
I want to awaken. I want to become self-realized.

Of course the truth is that you’re already self-realized, you know that,
but those are just words.
What are you doing to prove it? Robert Adams