Silence of the Heart

Silence of the Heart: Satsang with Robert Adams

edited by Ananda Devi and Blake Warner, PhD

Infinity Institute, Sedona, Arizona     © 1997   228 pp.

Robert Adams was a spiritual teacher who was born in New York in 1928, who spontaneously awakened at age 14. Several years later he traveled to India, where he spent the last three years of Ramana Maharshi’s life with that great sage. After Ramana’s death, Adams “visited many great teachers over the next 17 years, to verify his enlightenment, [and] to make sure his understanding was complete.” Eventually he moved to Sedona, Arizona, and began holding satsangs (the company of Truth) in which he transmitted his Awakened Reality/Presence and taught the Truth, both in silence and in words. The book is a compendium of transcripts of his satsang talks from 1991 to 1993. They include students’ questions and his answers. Adams died in 1997.

In the tradition of Ramana, Adams mainly taught the practice of self-inquiry (asking “who am I?”). There are endless tips on why and how to engage this practice, which he believed was the quickest way — for most people — to reach Enlightenment. But there are also teachings on every other conceivable question and problem the spiritual seeker might ask or encounter.

Adams was a wonderful teacher — playful, passionate, poetic, natural, simple, accessible, compassionate, and hilariously funny (e.g., “Just watch, observe. The ego is the great analyzer. It wants to analyze everything. It wants to know. When there is no one left to know, then you will be That all the time. After all, who knows? The shadow knows. Remember the shadow?”).  I mean, despite his profundity — the result of a hyper-serious-mega-Enlightenment — Adam somehow stayed tuned into popular culture, making himself an excellent teacher for the likes of us McCluhan babies in these our times. That combination of the highest teachings, along with a very down-home sense of humor, makes him truly a delight to read. One of his students said of him: “He was SILENCE. He was LOVE. He was BEING,” so it was all there! One rues the day it’s too late to experience him in the flesh. That being the case, don’t even dream of missing this book!

Let me close with the poem Adams wrote that lyrically throws light on the book’s title:

Everything that you can ever imagine, that you want to be,
you already are.
You are the imperishable Self that has always been,
that you will always be.
Beyond birth, beyond death, beyond experiences,
beyond doubts, beyond opinions.
Beyond whatever it is your body is going through,
whatever thoughts your mind thinks.
You are beyond that.
You are the Silence.
The Silence of the Heart.

-- reviewed by Karen Fierman