How to Awaken From Illusion   Many who seek to awaken, seek the Real in the Unreal, in the world, in philosophy, religion or a legion of teachers and gurus. The source of consciousness, often called 'Self' in the East, will never be found by looking without; that which appears to look without must learn to accurately look within. This is obvious. The witness cannot be found in the witnessed. There are many ways of looking within to find the originating place of consciousness and understand what consciousness is. We must understand first, even if you assume it for the sake of argument, that the world itself arises from the mind as an appearance within consciousness. The world is mind, mind is the world. Without mind, the world is not. The world is created by thoughts, and the mind is nothing more than thoughts; it is not an entity with autonomous existence separate from consciousness. The 'real' world exists only in the mind and you are neither mind nor the world. The mind and thoughts are not you. They are like ghost-clouds that float on top of you. You are that which is beyond, the stateless state, untouched by the waking world, the sleep world or deep sleep darkness. All these are added onto you. You are beyond all phenomena. This you must see clearly. In fact, there is no looking within. Within and without only arise with thoughts which are the world which create the conceptual duality of within and without. There is no beyond either, as the concept implies the opposite of not-beyond, or here. You are neither beyond, nor not-beyond. You are not real or unreal. You are not mortal or immortal, because immortal implies eternal presence or existence. You have nothing to do with either. You are beyond all measures, beyond all dualities and opposites, beyond even the concept of beyond, beyond freedom and enlightenment. This you must grasp at some point. This website is now divided into two parts. The old website which is large and extensive is found immediately below. This old website is for Advaita/Zen Buddhist beginners. Many seekers start searching on exactly the right note, self-inquiry using Who Am I questioning and looking for the source or I, common Zen and Advaita practices, but then got diverted by seeking the console of gurus and spiritual teachers, and got lost, utterly lost and burnt out. We will walk through the minefields of the mind that would trap and delay you from going free. We will walk through pathways provided by six Zen masters, Muktananda, his swamis, and many other teachers.  One extremely important teacher who has had a profound impact on Non-dual seekers is Nisargadatta Maharaj, one of whose most accomplished disciples, Jean Dunn, was also one of my teachers. She gave me a small booklet written by Nisargadatta in 1963 which is included on this site. Those who seek enlightenment are following a very steep and narrow path of self abidance and self-inquiry. You need all the help you can get. The central point of this old site was introducing you to my teacher, Robert Adams who went free--saw the basic illusory nature of existence--and then studied with one of the greatest Advaita teachers of the last hundred years. From my perspective, Robert was a hundred-story giant of spiritual power and understanding. Before I met Robert, I walked a long and tortuous journey through conceptual minefields and pointless practices. Afterwards, it was still pointless and wandering, but there always was a single undercurrent of trust, faith. All the rest of this old site is accessed by the buttons on the left. There are at least a thousand pages just of Robert's talks. A lot are just story telling, entertainment; stories of Robert’s life and teachings, Zen and Zen masters, and dozens of other topics including a psychoanalytic paper I wrote about consciousness.  Then a month ago there was a stirring within that this site developed a whole new rationale. That was the birth of the New Site. The New Site begins at the yellow button below (which is not yellow because I haven't figured out how to use the HTML editor yet, but it works). The new site is an endeavor to teach you how to go beyond. The resources that should be used are given on the resources link on the first page of the new site here. These include both books and other URLs. Learn how to abide in yourself, be yourself, be aware of yourself. The real "practice" is found in silence.

The Teachers the 'Me' studied with:  Robert Adams, who was my living teacher; Maezumi Roshi, one of the founders of Zen in the United States and with whom I studied for 4 years, the most intellectual of all Zen masters; Thich Tien-An, my ordination teacher, a Vietnamese Zen master who brought Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhism--essentially Zen--to the states; Kozan Roshi, a very down to earth Rinzai master from Okinawa; the unforgettable Sasaki Roshi, whose concentration camp-like Mt. Baldy Zen Center was a source of great pain and great pleasure and whose antics are legend; Seung Sahn Soen Sa, a ball of energy who transformed American Zen; Philip Kapleau Roshi, one of the originators of Zen in America, my first Zen master, whom I would later consider a friend; Song Ryong Hearn, an American Zen master who later became a psychologist in West Los Angeles;  Muktananda, who I knew only briefly, but I loved the chanting; J. Krishnamurti, whose talks I attended for several years in the 70s at the Oak Grove in Ojai; the other Krishnamurti, U.G., with whom I had several long phone conversations---chatty guy, not at all what one might expect after reading his books; Bernadette Roberts, a catholic devote who spent her life trying to understand her very Advaita-like enlightenment experience and who was a neighbor of mine in Santa Monica for many years; Ramesh Balsekar, who led me to the irrepressible Nisargadatta Maharaj, whose wisdom became the guidepost of my searching; Jean Dunn, a very close Bhakta disciple of Nisargadatta and editor of the three best Nisargadatta books, who also became a good friend, guide and confidant.

What we will explore: This site is both a personal expression of my understanding as gained through these teachers and on my own. I consider this as a how-to site. We will explore: Being and Nothingness The things 'Me' went through before I met Robert: Meditations of various sorts, including sitting and doing nothing; Other practices and phenomena, such as all kinds of kundalini experiences and how to handle them. Kundalini experiences can scare the crap out of you; Self-inquiry in all its forms; this is the core teaching of this site; Chanting, and various styles, such as Japanese, Korean, Yogananda, but especially the extremely moving Muktananda style;  Zen Buddhism; the Void; Emptiness; Enlightenment; Fundamental concepts that sustain the world-matrix and their removal; the various mental states, states, their meaning and duration; psychoanalytic object relations concepts of the self; Self-knowledge; Self-realization as well as years of endless experiences of altered states, understandings that came and went, and personal experiences with these gurus and friends. Finally, I will dwell endlessly on the life and teaching of the most unusual man I ever met, who was to become my closest friend and teacher for eight years until his death, Robert Adams. My own awakening experience led me to the realization that the "Who Am I?" inquiry, done poorly, can actually intensify the apparent existence of the I-thought and the sense of separate existence from the Oneness totality. While it is essential for the I-thought to be destroyed, seeking it and even seeking the source of it, may intensify it. On the other hand, "analyzing" the void nature of mind and the world, the absence of experience between sensations and states of mind, is the process of self-realization.

New Stuff This site is updated regularly. The additions will be marked as new on this page. The Online Satsang page has been supplanted by my blog: http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com. The original letters are still on the Online Satsang page, but new additions are on the blog. Most of the update notes below are old. I've left them there because they shown the progression of additions of Robert material to this site, from transcripts to MP3 audio files. I've done this for a reason; see the note on the Infinity Foundation below who has tried to shut down this site because of false claims of copyright infringements.   Old New Stuff Below: March 26, 2006 I've had so much time on my hands that I actually cleaned out my storeroom, something I've been threatening to do for a year. To my surprise, I actually did find what I was looking for: 25 or so of Robert's talks taped back in 1990, and about 60 transcripts, as well as some of his own writings before he ever came to LA. I also found a voicemail left by Robert's wife in 1997, telling me how well I had captured Robert in my writings and urged me to publish my understanding of him. Her voicemail is posted under Authenticity. If Nicole Adams says I am authentic, how can I not be? Having time to learn a new trade, I took up voice auditing and am now an pseudo-expert in converting cassette tapes into CDs, as well as posting voice vignettes of Robert all over this site as well as two complete Satsangs. Lastly, during the past six weeks that I have been off the air, I have receive about 100 emails from people all over the world asking some of the usual questions. I am surprised, but I am also getting a lot of questions from Kundalini yoga types as well as Kriya yogis from the Yogananda lineage. Both Robert and I were initiated into Kriya yoga, but years apart. The first 10-15 years of my practice, because it was so severe and austere, caused a massive arising of the Kundalini energy which I talk about elsewhere on this site, mainly in the Zen section. Kundalini is powerful and ultimately a nearly useless energy to fool around with. It is only peripherally relevant to self-discovery. Mostly, it is a pain in the spine. You have to realize that it is an energy associated with the body, and concentration thereon, pins you deeper into the body rather than freeing you for self-realization. This is one of the problems Robert had with Yogananda, and why the latter never allowed Robert to become a monk in Encinitas. Robert saw the uselessness of all the Raja Yoga practices. Yet, somehow the Kundalini yogis have found me and I am answering their questions. I just heard from a viewer of this site that the Infinity Institute website, that claims to be the only authenticate purveyor of Robert's teachings, appears to be a New-Age Christian site rather than Advaita-oriented, as they talk about Christianity and prayer--a lot--and Robert never did. New for June 7, 2006 I finally have done what I promised. A complete audio and transcript of a Satsang entitled, "It is all a Cosmic Joke" is now on this site: cosmicjoke.html. If this link doesn't take you there, go to the buttons on the left, near the bottom, and press "Cosmic Joke." When you open this page, Robert will start talking after a short introduction by me. It is 39 minutes long with a very short, Stump the Guru section. Along with my boring introduction and Robert's mumbling, I've included a transcript of the talk and an introduction. Recently I sent this file to someone in Australia. He said he could only understand 60% of what he heard. Congratulations! We all had this problem listening to Robert. It made us, and you, listen more intently. The transcript, which we did not have, will help lots. I'll tell you though, Robert's talk here is very easy to understand versus how he spoke two or three years later. During 1995 I would be translating for Robert at Satsang, mostly unsuccessfully, and have to call on three or four others to help translate. He thought it was very funny. So did we. The sound file is about 10 megs, so it may take forever to download. But if you want to hear the entire talking part of Satsang, it is here. New for June 9, 2006 I am starting Satsang on line again, but rather than on this site, it will be on my companion blog: http://www.itisnotreal.blogspot.com. New for June 11, 2006 Three years ago, I was forced to move from Santa Monica, where it never got hotter than 80 degrees and almost always had an ocean breeze, to Chatsworth, where it is usually 100 degrees plus in the summer, and the ocean only a distant memory. As of the day of this writing, it was 106 degrees. (A month later it was 119!!!) We were fortunate to find a house with a large enclosed back yard for our kitties. The house is located about 4 miles from where Robert lived all the time he was in Los Angeles. I, and all his students, would pick him up at his condo and drive a block or so to Warner Park, where we would spend an hour or so before going to lunch. This was Robert’s hang out. He’d walk there twice a day from his condo with Dinitri, his little dog. He let Dimiti go wherever he’d wanted, and would follow behind. This is where he first met people, some of whom were to become disciples and he was first recognized as a guru. After the park, we’d go to a close by vegetarian restaurant called "Follow Your Heart." Then, with sorrow, at least in my case, we’d take him home and be off. My day was Thursday—for about seven years. After I moved here, three years ago, I went to the restaurant twice, but felt nothing special there. A week or so ago, I suddenly felt it was time to start a Satsang. For some reason it came to me that it should be at Warner Park, Robert’s hangout. I don’t know where the thought came from or why the Park. This morning I visited the park. The trees, before quite small and young, had aged and grown for eleven years. The park was greener. Few people were there. It was very quiet and peaceful. I walked over to the concrete picnic table where we usually sat, and I sat. Robert was there, or at least the residuals of his energy; I felt a powerful yet gentle energy that settled heavy onto my apparent body pushing my awareness inwards, into myself, into silence and solitude. It felt like one of those perfect, gently rainy days where the greens were greener than ever, flowers popped with color, and the air was heavy with a misty dampness. It was like one of those days of my youth where I would be sitting by an open window reading a book, with the sound and smell of the rain leaving me perfectly contented, alone. Happy. But I also felt a great nostalgia. I thought of Robert and Dimitri and wept. This was the perfect place. I could feel his presence. He would have loved to continue Satsang and Darshan at this park. I have found even more of Robert’s old transcripts, some by me and some by others. I have about 20 tapes. There is enough material to write at least one and perhaps two books about Robert and his teachings. There are another hundred or so transcripts and taped talks out there in the world that can be turned into a dozen books. There is a lot of work to be done getting his and Ramana’s teachings out to the world and for all to use. Maybe there will be an ashram. We all used to think about it often, having a community of like-minded people, sharing that kind of energy in a living situation. But that too never happened. I think Robert would have been happy had we all lived close to each other, but not in the old-style, single building ashram-style. Who knows, or, as Robert might say, "What’s the point?" or, more humorously, "Who cares?" New for June 14, 2006 I have added a full, 120 minute talk by Robert. It is called The Good for Nothing Man. The beginning is extremely funny. The second time round makes it much easier to understand and laugh at. It is a huge MP3 file and sometimes loads slowly. It is a talk already transcribed and has been on this site for over a year, but now his voice is added. The tape has deteriorated somewhat and sometimes there were problems with the microphone; therefore the first 10 minutes require attentive listening. The transcript will help. This is one of Robert's "Start humorous and gradually suck you into yourself" tapes. It is a great talk after the first 10-15 minutes. It is a subpage of Robert Adams-1 if the link here does not work: it is located at: http://itisnotreal.com/subpage19.html New for July 1, 2006 1) The first is in the Memories page, and speaks about Robert's attitude towards chanting and developing a loving openness. I also talk about him and his dog Dimitri. It serves a double purpose as a new Introduction to the transcript "You Have Got to Have Heart," on the Robert-1 page. 2) The second entry will just blow you away. It is a sub page of Robert 2, entitled "Dimitri." Something like this reveals why Robert was more than a step and a half above the average guru. I know this story is true, as I knew both Robert and Dimitri, as well as their bond. December 12, 2006 Beginning today, I will be adding 3-5 new transcripts a week.  Right now, the new transcripts will be added to Robert Adams-4. My internal linkages do not work, so get to that page via the buttons on the right. December 26, 2006 Christmas Present: I've added ten transcripts to the Collected Works page. Two mention me, my wife and transcribing. Good to see that I accomplished something worth while. Or, I should say, nothing special. December 31, 2006 I have added five transcripts to the Collected Works-I page. January 6, 2007 I have added five more transcripts on Collected Works-1. If you want to see more and you find these valuable, please help me continue by making a donation below. July 19, 2007 Update There are now almost 120 of Robert's transcripts on this site. I have twice as many audio files I cannot put up because they require too much disk space and bandwidth. About 100 of the audio tapes have not yet been transcribed and maybe never will be. There are close to 1,000 pages of Robert on this site, more than enough talks for you to understand if you read very slowly and ponder each paragraph. Robert can be speed-read, but insight takes a slow mulling over. This site has grown stale as I have been involved with animal welfare issues in Los Angeles. You guys out there, for me, are an impersonal audience, I cannot touch or see you. But the animals and rescue/welfare people I see here are 'real' and in my face. In LA City and County alone, about 70,000 animals are euthanized for want of a home or animal shelter systems that do not know how to find them homes. Robert loved animals; this was a bond we shared. Click on Infinity Institute to read about how Robert's wife tried to shut this site down because it interfered with her family business of selling Robert's transcripts, books and satsang recordings.