All Available Biographical Information About Robert Adams from People
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All Available Biographical Information about Robert Adams from People who Knew Him Collected from the Internet May, 2021 It is obvious from listening to Robert’s satsangs and reading the transcripts that he is speaking from a consistent and deep experience of the truth. This expression is articulate, witty and wide- ranging. However, if one ventures to know who Robert was as a person, it immediately becomes difficult. He hardly seems to have spoken or written anything about his biography, and what little he did has been limited from spreading by well-known threats of litigation and take-down orders. What reportage is available ranges from the hagiographical to the defamatory. Which presentation of Robert is “true?” One answer could be that it does not matter as much as the deeper truth pointed to in his teachings. Another answer could be that aspects of all the reports are true, insofar as the people sharing them believe and stand by them, and they help to convey aspects of what Robert may have been like as a teacher and person, while the “whole picture” is about as clear or reliable as anything in the ephemeral manifestation of this world. At the very least it is important to have all these accounts of Robert from individuals who knew him collected in one document from the shifting landscape of the Internet, for the historical record. Matthew Brown May, 2021 CONTENTS: 1. Jane Adams “To Robert – a Sage in Sedona” (posted 2012) 2. V. Ganesan “Robert Adams Chapter from Ramana Periya Puraanam (posted 2013) 3. Luis de Santiago “On How Ramana and Robert Adams Found Me” (posted 2014) 4. Kym Chaffin “Real Enlightenment and the Energy Body: Kundalini Kindling in OKC/ Zen in Dallas/ Tao in Texas/ Advaita California Style/ The Gnani Robert Adams” (posted 2019) 5. Peter, Jean Pierre and Kheyala (3 online satsang reviews, retrieved 2010) 6. Edward Muzika “Biography of a Sage” (posted 2007) + Blog Post “Robert Adams as Advaita Guru and Shaman” (posted 2013) and Facebook Posts (2015) 7. Stephen Strouth “The Mystery of Robert Adams: Did He Really Meet Ramana Maharshi and the Sages of India?” (posted 2020) To Robert, a Sage in Arizona – Part One Posted on June 25, 2012 by janeadamsart http://janeadamsart.wordpress.com/2012/06/ This is the story of a pilgrimage in 1996 to Robert Adams. He died the following year. Born in New York, he “woke” into the atoms at 14, during a school math class. Then he met Yogananda. In early 1950, still in his teens, he went to India, sat with Ramana Maharshi (December 1879- April 1950) and ran wild on Arunachala for a while. Back home, he became a silent and reclusive wanderer, but people always found him again, so he taught them Self-enquiry. The drawings and portraits in this memoire, are all posthumous – done shortly after his mahasamadhi. People were very generous, and gave me photos – around Robert, these were rare. ** ** A JOURNEY TO SEDONA IN ARIZONA, APRIL 1996 The elephant in his dream beholds the lion that wakes him up from sleep. Even so, the seeker in his dream-like waking life of ignorance sees the Guru, and wakes from slumber dark. Garland of Guru’s Sayings 28, by Muruganar ** In Phoenix, we picked up our hired car without too much disorientation, and resisted Alamo’s businesslike attempts to persuade us to take a larger, more powerful model for the 4,000 foot climb to Sedona. Our vehicle was the smallest car in all America; we christened him “Mr Swiftie”. We had no trouble, except in getting out of it; for the doors were electronically calibrated to seat belt fastenings and the foot-brake, and often baffled us. Presently, on a high mountain road of uncertain camber, Mr Swiftie met a Big Bad Guy, chewing gum, real mean. Finally the confrontation allowed some passage.. The hummer jeep shot by with a scrunch of stones, splattering a spray of dust. Mr Swiftie’s beautiful green skin was baptized powdery red all over. In Sedona, vastly girt with red rock Gothic cathedrals, we pitched our tent on a hill behind Keren’s house. The bright stars were our canopy. One of them looked brilliantly fuzzy and strange. Was it a comet? A long misty tail followed a cloudy cluster of tiny stars at great speed; thoughts of strange lands and sages. Slept surprisingly well. In the morning, Mr Swiftie took us to a millionaire’s paradise settlement called Enchantment, at the mouth of Boynton Canyon. We walked far into the canyon, under the noble red and silver cliffs; deep in its heart of peace, tall pine forests grew, like a marital garland of Arunachala with mid-Wales. In the godlike majesty of the rocks overhead, the silent breath has carved everywhere the elephant Ganapati, seed of speech and poetry. Every hiker and tourist we met on the path, lit up with total and untiring pleasure in greeting another human. We decided Sedona is a truly ethical town, as no one locks their doors. Is this red cavern of angels a spiritual antipodes to Arunachala? We were too tired to find a Gaz canister for cooking, after all this. We returned to the tent to rest, and then went to Satsang with Robert at Mountain Shadows Drive in the town – our first meeting with him. His speech has become completely indistinct, but I could hear “be still”. He wore smart white trainers, a US general’s baseball cap embossed with a golden quail bird, and shades. His movements are slow, casual and careful, rather stooped. As he enters, he turns and gives a direct, unreadable glance towards the visitors from England through the dark glasses. He sits down, looks around the room quietly, and jokes with his intimates. He mouths the Siva bhajans, and others join in and chant. A gentle devotional fervour is engendered. For a first time visitor who has traveled a long way, Robert’s fast slurred whisper is bewildering. The mind wants words and forms. It does its best, hearing “be still”, “no fear”, “be free” to open into the heart of this authority. It feels shut out of understanding. After fifteen or twenty minutes, Robert puts away the microphone and we all listen to a live three-piece traveling band; a blend of Oriental and native-American instruments perform a couple of Sivaic bhajans … ** ** Robert is father to a large family. He keeps a sort of eye open, and came up and gave Aj and me a hug. The Jnani comes gently towards, a bit at a time, comes through the people to meet and to whisper. His tongue is stricken by Parkinsons disease. This protects him. There are other ways of speech. Since he came to roost in Sedona, his curvy wife Nicole has turned into Queen Shakti, and makes his appointments. “I do just love to hear an English voice,” she said, with warmth … We went to recuperate in Red Rock State Park – silver white cottonwoods, red earth, wild blue sky, a serpentine vortex stroll to Gray Fox, and the stunning surrealism of it all. Then we came back to Sedona and had a gigantic slice of cream pie and tea. The “recalcitrant ego” is in a state of culture shock. Finely tuned to the ancient gentle landscape of the Welsh hills, Devon and the Chilterns, it is disorientated by the deluge of red rock rivers in this millionaire’s Shangri-la of endless elemental grandeur. Learn to turn the red rock angels inside out to percept the colour which floats them. Turn points into cavities. Crimson inner light, wings, wide landscapes, corn gold. ** ** Look at this elderly man in a grand restaurant, with a big family party around a table; the vivacity of his brood of youngsters! I see sometimes, in the interplay, the gleam of the eyes. They shine, empty, rimmed dark with the night, bright and searching. A young child comes impishly out of them, clean like a light.. This makes his close friends love him desperately. They laugh and kiss and play with him. He plays fool with the food and cocks his baseball hat to a rakish angle over his ear, but cannot speak; yet he is their realized Master. An alchemy shines from his eye to the opened soul which tries to hear beyond the words it cannot hear, the Unknown. A secret personal alchemy works from this jnani to each of our openings. It is love, our Self. Beware of statements too often used, which enclose! I am baffled, bewildered, rebuffed. He takes his time to come through when we are ready, not when we think. In the evening, we couldn’t get our act together to cook al fresco. It was cold and windy, and I couldn’t understand the little stove – a new one since the old one got stolen last year at Chartres – and I was neurotically afraid of spilling Gaz. It was not to be, and everything was rather overwhelming. Desert of failed doership and tears, then early and exhausted retirement for the night. Aj dined imperturbably on cornflakes. ** ** White limestone strata in the beds of sandstone, outcrop an uninterrupted line of faery castle battlements along the fluted flanks of the red peaks. I cannot believe it is not built by man. Walking on great tablelands of rock within the ravine, I found myself inside this painting, done about 10 years ago; it is called Ravine … an adventure (I knew not what to paint next, it emerged as I traveled) of coloured rock forms, huge interior abysses of fallen sky, a green complementary horse-head mirror, a “netzach” man I loved, flipped upside down, a white bird flying.