Bob Adamson

Well, one question that pops up now and then is: is it appropriate to reveal the whole ‘truth’ or is it best to give just enough information to allow a gradual discovery to take place?
- The implication or belief is that one needs to, somehow, 'reach a state of awakening' before a complete understanding reveals itself. The guru plays the role of being an awakened one and the seeker plays the role of being one who wants to awaken. – Both roles are a display of ignorance, ignorance of what truly is – yet the role of the guru can be played knowingly and that active ‘knowing’ is suffusing the ‘exchange’.
- The whole drama of 'virtual' and unsatisfying devotion, a servile attitude, is the guru-disciple 'thing' and it all revolves around this unquestioned belief - this indirect indulgence in a mind game and that is ignorance.
- It is all unconsciously taken for granted that this 'play'is how it is and there is no other way to proceed from right here, right now, (as IF there was somewhere to go and something substantial to get).
- It is rather unpopular to point out that the whole thing is an error or just uninvestigated 'stuff' - and that the fact of pure seeing and knowing are right here, right now, prior to whatever appears - it is that immediate pure functioning that has been ignored 'for too long'.
- And the 'spiritual empires' crumble without all those time bound beliefs and that is why the 'average guru' will not point directly - appart from the fact that he is ignorant of the error himself.
If he reveals (and he does unconsciously already) that he does not actually ‘own’ that ‘state’ of enlightenment, which his followers believe he 'owns', then those seekers may well all disappear into the distance, going in search of another who does ‘claim’ to have what they want. – The one who is free is not interested in ‘holding the ‘seekers’ company any longer than is necessary. – The popular word for spiritual meetings is ‘Satsang’. – In my experience, these Satsangs are just an ego display of spiritual specialness.



Well, lets explore a little further.
Does the capacity of the ‘student’ play a significant part in what we call ‘self liberation’? - It appears like that.
Ultimately, no harm done, either way, it is all just how it 'appears' to be.
What is is always what is and the appearance of what is is just a transitory way it appears. - The essence is unchanging, yet invisibly so.
The apparent journey of ‘gradual awakening’ and the apparent ‘sudden revelation’ are both appearances in ‘time’.
The ‘clear moment’ of 'seeing through' is from beyond ‘time’ and that 'pure function of seeing' is always present as THIS moment.
The word 'moment' implies 'time'. - It is just a word and so is the word ‘time’. - It is all words and the way words are put together in a 'certain order' apparently offer to us a particular meaning.
Each teacher expresses ‘knowledge’ in his or her own way or manner, or at least that is how it appears.
In relativity, I can speak of my case, although I do not take the stance of being a teacher, I have a tendency to 'spill the beans', expose the whole charade.
- That tendency wins me no friends, if you know what I mean.
Branded as a rebel, it seemingly increases a sense of separation that does not actually exist. - It is of no concern to me.
That 'rebel' appears, maybe because ‘I spent’ around 20 years (time) dabbling in secret knowledge and indulging in a kind of frustration of being ‘so close’ and yet ‘not finding’. - I have no interest in mind games that do not release the one apparently caught in it. – Is that familiar to you, no?
Ultimately it is all ‘as it is’. – “Water finds its own level” as the old Chinese saying goes.
It would seem that only when a seeker has exhausted the path of ‘selfish pursuit’ and ‘personal gain’ and in ‘not finding’ any satisfaction that lasts, only then is there a willingness to ‘cut to the chase’ in an impersonal investigation of what this consciousness is.
The average ‘person’ will not go near the foundations of belief in the ‘person’ that they think that they are. – The average ‘spiritual person’ 'plays around it' as long as there is some ‘special-ness’ still feeding that ‘self centre’.
The ‘teachers’ from this lineage, Siddharameshwar, Nisargadatta, Bob Adamson, all cut away or expose the mind game by pointing directly to the essential nature of (your own) presence.
In a one to one conversation with any of these ‘teachers’ there would be an ‘exchange’, a conversation and that would reveal the appropriate ‘information’ to be given.
But you can be sure, that things (would) quickly come to the essential point.
You are not be asked to ‘go the long way home’.
The immediate presence, the actuality is always pointed to.
Telling you that you must 'do this practice' and 'use this method' would not come up and the concept of ‘ten years in the future’ would be dismissed as a dream or as fanciful notions belonging to ignorant gurus and their devotees.
If you read the transcription from Bob Adamson’s meeting below this note you will see how directly it is presented.
In reading Bob Adamson’s book, you will be introduced to the concept of “Intelligence Energy”. Instead of using the word ‘God’ Bob prefers to use these words, intelligence energy’ to point to That which behind or within all things and all actions etc.
In my own case, this intelligence energy 'took me' through all those years of inner work and struggle, and on to 'where I needed to go' and by some miracle, I found some members of this 'living lineage', each one was clearly a living expression of 'what' I was looking for:

The third one I met was 'Sailor Bob' Adamson. He has been giving talks in Melbourne for around thirty years. - The message is basically the same. - It appears to have refined itself into an inescapeable 'pointing out', for anyone that really pays attention with a genuine interest. - Many of you are familiar with how this thing expresses through me, Gilbert, but I want to share a transcript I did yesterday of part of a recent meeting at Bob's. - It was hearing these similar 'pointers' that 'awakened' a deep interest in myself and led me to a thorough investigation of the sense of self and of what the mind believes is real. - Here is that transcription.

December 2006:

Questioner: So, awareness cannot know itself. - So, that which it knows cannot be it.

Bob: It is self aware. - Self-knowing. - But that, which it knows, is it (also) – but not as it is appearing or (what it is) known (as).

- That, which thinks it knows it, is it also.

Bob: (Long pause) - You can never get around it with a concept or grasp it.
We get this word ‘awareness’ and try to define it and make something of that.
It is just a pointer and not much better than a lot of the other pointers.
What is the actual experiencing there?

Q: Of awareness?

Bob: No, just your actual experience – what is going on?

Q: I would say that it is projection, when we recognize that it is projection.

Bob: No before that. - What is the actual experience there? - Can you say you are not?

Q: No, you could say that that sense of ‘I’ is not.

Bob: That sense of ‘I’ is not but there is still ‘seeing’ there.- (you are) still hearing, breathing, heart still beating. - Thoughts may start coming up on that and then pause for a moment. - Could any of that take place without that knowing that you are or that basic being or life essence that you are? (If we have to put a concept on it)

Q: I would say that it couldn’t happen without ‘knowing’ being there.

Bob: Well ‘knowing’ is what I call intelligence. Not your intellect. Intelligence.
That is the activity of knowing – intelligence energy. - Knowing is an activity – of something that is going on in the immediacy of the moment. - Any activity is a movement of energy. - Not the content of knowing, I know this or I know that, than is all acquired, all conceptualized, all words stuff.

The basic activity of knowing. - You are not knowing a moment ago. - You are not knowing a moment in the future either. - It is going on in the immediacy of the moment, so its an activity – something is happening now. - It is this energy or life force or whatever label you want to put on it. - It is functioning there in the immediacy of the moment. - That is what you are.

You can never encapsulate it in a word or an idea.
Well, have a look at that knowing – thinking is taking place in it. - Seeing, hearing, heart beating, the whole lot is taking place in that knowing.

Questioner 2: Bob, these are senses, the seeing, hearing.

Bob: That is how they express through that pattern we call the body. - But you see, what you call these senses, if the life essence was not in the body, what senses do the body have - without that life essence?

Can the corpse see or hear? - Can the corpse be aware, can the corpse feel, taste, touch or smell? - (No) So it is not in the body, it is in that life essence itself.
For it to express as a feeling, taste or touch, there has to be a pattern for it to function through.
It is like a computer, you have all sorts of information in the computer. - It is useless without the power surging through it. - Take that power away and the keyboard won’t work, the screen has no images, no words, the screen is dead – the whole thing is inanimate. - This body (of ours) is just like that.

That intelligence energy form a pattern, just like it forms (all) lots of appearances.
This particular pattern has the capacity of ‘reasoning’ and that tree out there has no capacity for reasoning but that pure intelligence functions as a root stretching out to find moisture or food in the soil. - It will go down between rocks or whatever it needs to do to find what it needs. - The branches and leaves turn around towards the light.

When the cold season comes, the sap stops running and the leaves fall off.
Spring comes and buds and leaves form. - Fruit contain the seeds for new growth, new trees. - It is all within it, innately within it.

But then again, cut the root and what good is the tree? - Branches and leaves wither and it is dead.

Q: So in meditation, you have a feeling or a thought, you just label it ‘thought’ or ‘feeling’ or ‘shame’ or ‘guilt’ or whatever. - Then you let it go.

Bob: What if you don’t label it?

Q: I want to get the connection here, you say everything is energy, patterns. - So whatever feeling comes up and I do not label it, just let it happen, that is a different thing (than what I mentioned before). - The Buddhists say just label it and see it for what it is and you say “Don’t label it”. - What about this?

Bob: Well, if you are not labeling it, you are really seeing it for what it is. It is just pure intelligence energy. - When you put the label on it, you have got the concept of what you believe it to be.

Q: So why do they say to do that?

Bob: You will have to ask them. (group laughter)
This intelligence will still bring up the concepts that are needed for the functioning in the activity of the moment – but you haven’t got an entity in the way that is saying “It shouldn’t be like this” or “I don’t want this” or “It’s going away and I want more of it”. - That is constantly interfering and causing the conflict. - It only does that because it is not recognized that that is ‘it’ also. - There is nothing there with any substance or independent nature of itself so it could not be anything separate from That (Intelligence Energy).

So if reference points come up, they are not hung onto. That is part of what it says in Hsin Hsin Ming – “Hold no opinion for or against anything”. - (note: ‘The Great Way” - read the whole text from link on this website)

It does not say “Don’t have any opinions”.
If you look at it closely, all your problems arise from that belief in an entity that has got some power of its own. - That has become the self centre or the ego.

It is simply a reference point. - It has no independent nature or substance – it is just a group of thoughts.
(Without all that) You are in the natural state – that natural functioning is going on.


Gilbert's note for today:
Your mind is like a bucket suspended in a flowing waterfall.
It is constantly filling up with thoughts and images.
You identify with it all and feel unsatisfied because nothing stays put.
It is all replaced constantly by ‘new input’ (even though a majority is stale old conceptual nonsense).
If you turn the bucket upside down a clear and empty space is clearly present.
This taste of clear presence is not restricted by the form of the bucket.
In fact, that clear and empty space of knowing, includes within it the waterfall. - In fact the whole universe in appearing in That. - (That is just unacceptable to the intellect until the potency of the fact hits home)
A master may say, “Identify yourself with that vastness – that is your true nature”.
It is more direct to point out that you ARE that and that no process of identification is actually needed at all.
Yet, paradoxically there is ‘no one’ that can ‘do’ this.
It is!
When it is realized that all concepts, no matter how refined they may be, they are all just appearances in ‘what you are’.
You cannot discover what you are – you can only see and know what you are not.
In seeing that you are not whatever appears – it flips over and you see and know that you are all of it – all inclusive as the actual 'presence' – the immediate living presence of ‘what is’.