An American reputed to be of great Spiritual Attainment by the name of Robert Adams, who I had the opportunity of meeting on more than one occasion, Awakened it has been said to the Absolute, similar in fashion to that of the ancient classical masters. In talks over time with his supporters he revealed that at a very young age, starting around six or seven and leading up to his Enlightenment, he experienced a continuing series of what he called visitations by a man with white hair and white beard that spoke to him in a language he couldn't understand. Years later, while thumbing through a book he saw a picture of the exact same man, a man identified in the text as being the venerated Indian holy man the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. By the time Adams reached age 18, after spending a number of fairly unfruitful months at the temple of Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship near San Diego toying with the idea of becoming a monk with the order and seeking answers, he was getting off a bullock cart in front of the Ramana ashram in India, staying three years.

The first time I crossed paths with Adams I was a young boy around half his age and he was in his teens. Because of that crossing of paths we met again years later (both meetings of which I get into below). However, the first time I bring him up chronologically in my works is in the somewhat indepth exploration of the American spiritual traveler Larry Darrell, the same person that turned out to be my Zen mentor (as found in the source so cited at the end of the quote). Far down in the text is a nearly overlooked mention of a Adams that goes like:







"During that period he (i.e., the Wanderling's mentor in the full text) met with a man he knew by the name of Frederick Mathias Alexander, an actor who began his career as a Shakespearean recitalist and orator. Alexander had developed a semi deep-meditation technique that some people said paralleled in a sense, albeit a strongly western version of Zazen of which my mentor had, along with Zazen's counterpart, Shikantaza, an extreme interest in. "Interestingly enough, my uncle --- who was highly prominent in my own life prior to meeting my mentor --- had also, at one time, met Alexander, the only known connection between my uncle and my mentor except for possibly the artist and onetime wartime medical orderly William Rothenstein and one Robert Adams , mentioned to me by both at one time or the other briefly in passing for reasons I am unable to recall at the moment." (source)





In a biography of sorts of Adams by a former student, friend, and person in his own right, Edward Muzika , who probably knew him better than most, elaborates on what I have mentioned above, that is, by age seven Adams was experiencing Siddhis that involved Ramana. According to Muzika, on more than one occasion, Adams, in his pre-teen years, was confronted by a man with white hair and white beard that "spoke to him in a language he could not understand." Muzika, speaking of Adams, goes on to say:





"Years later, after his awakening experience, he was looking through a book on the teachings of Ramana Maharshi when he saw that sage's picture. 'I was shocked!' he said, 'The hair on my head and neck stood straight up. The little man who had lectured me all those years was Ramana!'"





In THE MEETING: An Untold Story of Sri Ramana , I write how Adams and I ended up at Paramahansa Yogananda's Fellowship at the same time and how one year or so later I got stuck high in the mountains overnight at a long closed down isolated relic of a stage stop. In the middle of the night, basically out of nowhere, I was confronted face on by a dark skinned man with short-cropped white hair and beard holding, but not quite leaning on, a half his height walking stick. One glance into his eyes and I was totally engulfed throughout my body by an almost electric-like shuddering cold chill. I experienced that very same awe-inspiring feeling a second time when several years later it dawned on ME that the photograph of a man on the cover of a pamphlet size book I was looking at and the man at the stage stop was the same person and that person was the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.[1]

Then, relating a second incident in a continuing theme not too dissimilar to mine, the Adams biographer goes on with:





"During the Fall of 1946, Robert arrived by train to the town of Tiruvannamalai, a few miles from Arunachala Mountain, where lay Ramanashram and his future teacher, Ramana Maharshi. He took a bullock cart to the Ashram, was admitted, and stayed the night. Early the next day while walking back from the mountain, towards the Ashram, he spotted Ramana walking down the path towards him. An electrifying energy coursed through his body, and the last of what men call an ego left him."





Adams, who was born January 21, 1928, was age 18 at the time. He stayed at the ashram, or at least in the caves above the ashram for three years. His arrival in Tiruvannamalai coincided almost perfectly with my experience at the stage stop in Catalina. I am not sure if his experience meeting Ramana was similar to mine or not. However, regarding Adams, from the above quote by his biographer:





"...while walking back from the mountain, towards the Ashram, he spotted Ramana walking down the path towards him. An electrifying energy coursed through his body..."





The Maharshi is known to have NEVER left India, at least physically or in the traditional sense, in his life. Matter of fact he never left Tiruvannamalai after he arrived that September morning fifty years before, and in later years, years that encompassed the exact same time as my experience at the stage stop, he never even left the ashram. Interesting, is it not that in later years --- years that encompassed the exact same time as my experience at the stage stop --- that Ramana NEVER left the ashram, yet Adams, in that same period, the Fall of 1946, while walking back from the mountain towards the ashram --- TOWARDS the ashram, not IN the ashram --- following his first day of arrival, he spotted Ramana walking down the path towards him AND "an electrifying energy coursed through his body."[2]





The following is from a person who wrote a critique about a book on Enlightenment using the screen name Rain Cloud and posted on the Amazon.com online review section. In the review, Rain Cloud interjects the fact that he knew Adams, confirming in a sense, Muzika's take on things. So said, Rain Cloud writes:





"I once knew an American who was a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi. In the late nineteen forties he flew to India at age 17 and arrived at Ramana's ashram unannounced. The Maharshi was in the meditation hall sitting on a slightly raised dais, as always. He greeted the american kid warmly, asked some questions about his hometown of new york city (for example: 'Are the buildings really that tall?') The Maharshi already had advanced cancer and could only hobble around painfully with a cane, but he personally got up, took the kid's hand, and led him to a dilapidated cabin where he could bed down. Having made certain the kid was comfy, Ramana left. My friend then practically fainted from exhaustion (trans-oceanic flights then were still endless propeller-driven marathons). "The kid was awakened (i.e., awakened with a small "A" as in awakened from his sleep) nine hours later by a soft tapping at his door. He opened it. There stood Ramana, all alone, holding a palm leaf filled with food. Ramana sat down, like a good dad, and watched the half-starved boy scarf the meal. Apparently satisfied that the boy was recovering, Ramana Maharshi slowly stood up and limped back to his seat in the meditation hall."





Notice, apparently arising from information gathered through personal conversations with Adams, that Rain Cloud writes the "Maharshi already had advanced cancer and could only hobble around painfully with a cane" and he "slowly stood up and limped back to his seat in the meditation hall." No such rememberance comes forth from the Wanderling regarding the events at the stage stop nor does Adams recall anything similar as quoted by Muzika. He simply says that on the mountain outside the ashram Adams "spotted Ramana walking down the path towards him," nothing about hobbling or limping or other ambulatory difficulties. Basically, Siddhi initiated experiences, including translocation, override physical barriers, both personal and across the conventional plain. Running with the inference, it follows that the difference between the two events is that Adams' meeting with Ramana along the path manifested itself through Siddhis (i.e., NO hobbling, limping, etc., observed or mentioned) making it comparable to the Wanderling's experience at the stage stop, while Ramana bringing a meal to Adams' room thus then, transpired on the conventional plain.

Rain Cloud concludes by saying what he has written is a TRUE story, the man was Robert Adams, and that he, Adams, died in 1997 with the same nobility with which he always lived.





NOTE: Even though Rain Cloud quotes Adams as saying "the Maharshi already had advanced cancer and could only hobble around painfully with a cane", Ramana's hobbling around --- at the time of Adams' earliest interactions with the Maharshi --- although accurate in it's discription (i.e., Ramana's hobbling), it was NOT cancer induced. During the last years of Ramana's life, from well before the mid-1940s through to his demise in 1950, he was heavily impacted with an array of non-cancer related health issues. He had severe rheumatism over his entire body. His legs were crippled and his back and shoulders were racked with pain (hence his hobbling around with a cane). As presented above, Adams arrived at the ashram in the fall of 1946. However, it was as least two years AFTER Adams arrival, December, 1948 in some reports, early 1949 in others, that for the first time a precursor to cancer, a small nodule that had appeared below his left elbow, was noticed (Ramana's legs were not involved). The following February the nodule was removed medically, and for the most part, without further concern by the medical staff in attendance. Within a month it returned, only larger and more painful. Doctors diagnosed the nodule as a malignant sarcoma (cancer of soft tissues). In March doctors from Madras came and operated a second time. The wound did not heal properly and the tumor soon grew to even a larger size in a higher location. Amputation of the arm was suggested but as a jnani's limbs should not be removed the amputation was denied. The arm became heavier and more inflamed each day. In August a third operation was done followed by radium treatment. After a few months of apparent improvement, the tumour reappeared climbing up higher in the arm to be nearer the shoulder. A fourth and last operation was performed in December. After this the doctors gave up hope. It has been said that the reason for the Maharshi's frailty was the fact that he was alleviating the Karma of his devotees. There was evidence that he truly bore their burdens. There were many incidents recorded where his devotees suffering disappeared when he took over their pain.





OUR FIRST MEETING:

According to written accounts and Adams himself, he was at the Ramana ashram --- or at least the caves above the ashram --- some three years or slightly longer, from the fall of 1946 until the death of or close to the death of, the Maharshi in 1950. Both my arrival and departure at the ashram, as outlined in The Last American Darshan , transpired BEFORE Adams arrived --- thus in turn, because I had already left, placing him in the day-to-day conventional time frame reference, physically, as most likely the last American sitting disciple in the ashram of the Bhagavan, IF that is, splitting hairs, he left the caves and sat before Ramana.

The "Last" in Last American Darshan --- as used by me --- most typically refers to the incident at the stage stop some years afterwards as found in the link above --- as well as referring to our present time, i.e., that is now, with me being the last of the two boys still alive. However, as complicated as it all seems to come off, it seemingly becomes even more super-complicated, at least on the surface as viewed from the conventional plane of the Samsara world, when the Siddhi inspired events found in The Code Maker, The Zen Maker are folded into the mix.





THE CODE MAKER, THE ZEN MAKER

SHANGRI-LA, SHAMBHALA, GYANGANJ, BUDDHISM AND ZEN





Interestingly enough, in the year or so that elasped BETWEEN the time I was at the Ramana ashram and Adams left for Tiruvannamalai, unbeknownst to either of us, we inadvertently crossed paths in America. Then again, many years later, both as grown ups, we crossed paths again, yet again inadvertently.

During that later crossing of paths sequence Adams, refering back to what I call our first meeting, told me he was sure he recognized me, having seen me once before, many years previously. He remembered me specifically because he was at the temple of Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship near San Diego in the process of possibly becoming a monk with the order. He said he was around 16 or 17 years old and been there a few months when I was brought in by a man with a beard he said was my father to see Yogananda. He said it seemed I had been to India a year or so prior and returned with what the man with the beard was concerned with as being an odd preception of the world. Conjecturing somehow that the problem might be spritual in nature, Adams said my father began taking me around to a variety of people he thought might be able to shed some light on the situation. Eventually, in the process, ending up taking me to Yogananda at the exact sametime Adams just happened to be there. Some years later, for much the same reasons, as I outline in The Tree , I would be taken to see another American of equally great spiritual Attainment by the name of Franklin Merrell-Wolff.





NOTE: In the above I have reported it as Adams recalled it regarding our encounter. However, at the time we are talking about here between Adams and myself at the Fellowship, circa mid-1940s plus, my father was NOT in the picture and would not be for several years. The man with the beard that Adams saw me with was not my father, but my Uncle . Following the death of my mother my father dissolved the family and disappeared into the hinterlands heavy into alcohol. After returning from my trip to India I ended up living with my grandmother on and off for a few years. It was she who was initially concerned about my seemingly askew perspective on things. In turn, because of her concerns, she contacted my uncle to see if he had any idea where my father was. Almost immediately my uncle came out to assist, the first of several trips before he actually remained on a permanent basis, thanks to a request of my Stepmother after my father came out of hiding, sobered up and remarried. My uncle, who, although he had at one time met and knew both Rabindranath Tagore and the Zen master Sokei-an, he was not totally versed in things spiritual. He only selected Swami Prabhavananda of the Southern California Vedanta Society and then Paramahansa Yogananda of the Self-Realization Fellowship for me to be taken to not because he knew them or was familiar with their works, but for no other reason than both were of the highest profile in the Eastern spiritual movement that had taken root on the west coast following World War II. The fact that Robert Adams was at the Self-Realization Fellowship at the exact same time as my visit was pure coincidence.[3]





THE SECOND MEETING:

Some 40 years later, sometime in the early 1990s, I had the very good fortune of meeting Adams a second time, albeit briefly and quite by accident one afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, an area somewhat north of the city of Los Angeles in Southern California.

A few weeks before I had set a meeting with a man who had been an eyewitness to an event in World War II that I was in the process of doing a bit of research on. The event so mentioned circulated around an incident that came to be known as the Battle of Los Angeles wherein a giant airborne object of an unknown nature overflew Los Angeles creating a major havoc throughout the city and causing the authorities to put into place an area wide blackout. Since I had seen the object as a young boy myself I sought out the man to hear what he had to say and then physically visited the areas he talked about. Visiting those areas is how my meeting with Adams came about.

It just so happens the airborne object apparently skirted the north side of the Santa Monica mountains toward the east along Ventura Boulevard only to turn south in a gap in the mountains about midway along the southwestern edge of the San Fernando Valley. While I was following the route and observing the area I pulled into a small park just north of the Ventura Freeway to look at the map, review some notes, and basically reorient myself. Walking to a bench I made very unusual eye contact with a man nearby that was sitting with a couple of people. Finishing my work and knowing that being in the park put me only a few blocks away from a very well known vegetarian restaurant by the name of Follow Your Heart I always wanted to visit I decided to go there. When I gathered up my stuff to leave I noticed the man and his friends were gone. However, when I arrived at the restaurant the man and his friends were there. The man was Robert Adams. He was at the park and the restaurant that day holding court with a few followers like he apparently did several days a week. Although it would change in seconds, at that moment I thought we did not know each other nor had we ever met or heard of each other, but, no sooner had I sat down when Adams sent a person over from his table to ask me to join him. Which I did. It was during our conversations that afternoon in the restaurant that Adams related to me of our encounter at the Self-Realization Fellowship.[4]

Near the top of the page I write that Adams was mentioned to me at one time or the other briefly by both my uncle and my mentor for reasons I was not able to recall. Adams from his own mouth said he and my uncle, with me in tow, crossed paths at the Self-Realization Fellowship. However, as for he and my mentor, when and where they may have met, or if they ever did even, is a question. I only recall that my mentor mentioned him. By the time Adams and I met at the restaurant both my mentor and uncle had passed. I told Adams at the restaurant that when we made eye contact in the park it was as though I knew him from someplace. Most people would not realize the sensation bordering on joy I felt when he told me about seeing me and my uncle at the Fellowship. I only vaguely recall being there as it was at a time very early in my coming out of my blackout period. Hearing Adams describe the events surrounding the visit --- especially from a third party of sorts --- was deeply welcomed. Matter of fact, if it wasn't for Adams I would never have known about it at the level that I do.









For those of you who may be so interested there is, at least for the time being, some rather interesting email related back-and-forth going-ons related to Robert Adams regarding a disciple, adherent, or follower of his mentioned several times in the main text above named Edward Muzika. As clearly shown on this page Robert Adams is of course, in most circles, genuinely acknowledged as a highly regarded person of deep spiritual attainment with Muzika usually categorized as a longtime close acquaintance of his. The online version of a page on Muzika offered by me in my works was written by Muzika, and has, except for a few links and such, been pretty much left unaltered as I've presented it. At onetime Muzika's original was readily available online in a variety of locations and may well still be, having been online almost as far back as any of the pages that have been presented by me, although mine during that period of time drawing little or no comment to speak of one way or the other, not even from Muzika himself (maybe once ten years ago). However for the past 18 months or so, without really taking notice until recently, there have been a number of comments filtering through to me by those who take issue with what Muzika has to say for some reason, most specifically so what is found in his blog offerings. A cabal or a coincidence? Who knows? See the following site, especially Footnote [1]:

EDWARD MUZIKA









AND NOW THIS:







------ -----

ADAM OSBORNE CIRCA 1982 ------- KATYA, ACTRESS, CIRCA 1964 ------ KATYA AT ASHRAM CIRCA 1944

For those of you who have read this far, in the same vein as the above regarding Edward Muzika, there are also a number of controversies surrounding Robert Adams that as I view it are a must read. There are in what is presented in the link below several email comments from Katya Osborne Douglas the daughter of the highly acclaimed author of many Sri Ramana books Arthur Osborne and older sister to Adam Osborne that refutes if not questions much of what has come to us regarding Robert Adams. I have great faith in anything Katya would have to say when it comes to Sri Ramana, the ashram and any goings on there during her tenure growing up there and would again, advise anybody who has read this far and are interested in anything pertaining to Robert Adams, Sri Ramana, et al, to read the contents in the following, which is presented in two parts. Please see:





There has been some question in some areas by some people if in fact the emails so attributed to Katya Osborne so presented in the above link were in fact written by her. It has been brought to my attention through an email from Steven Strouth, the author of the above link, that Katya Osborne has recently written an article published in the Ramana ashram publication "The Mountain Path," July-August 2020, that substantiates what appears in the emails. A copy of that article can be reached HERE .

Concerned readers can take or leave both the above and what I suggest below, but the highly reputable and longtime Ramana follower V. Ganesan, in a book I cite often in my works, RAMANA PERIYA PURANAM (Inner Journey of 77 Old Devotees) sets aside as one of the 77 a whole chapter on Robert Adams starting on page 434. See:





A few paragraphs back I write that according to Adams was at the Ramana ashram --- or at least in the caves above the ashram --- some three years or slightly longer. The Ramana Ashram is built at the foot of the Holy Hill Arunachala just below the caves both Adams and Ramana lived in. Arunachala is considered to be so sacred and the holiest of the holy because geologically-speaking the hill itself dates back into ancient, ancient times, long before man ever tread foot on the surface of the Earth or even the mighty Himalayas themselves existed. How the early cultures of India ever determined such a thing before geological proof is not known. However, given some minor wiggle room, such is the truth. So said, because of its history and background the very spot is imbued with what some would call a spirituality, a spirituality for those such as Adams and Ramana can and are able to tap into, in turn enhancing things to transpire that seem to others as being magical and mystical. See:







"I would take the information so provided by the Wanderling with a grain of salt." REALLY? ---------- AS SO GRACIOUSLY OFFERED BY

---------- A READER OF MY WORKS



(please click image)











Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where

we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience

and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.















AWAKENING

EXPERIENCE IN THE

MODERN ERA

(click image)





CLICK

HERE FOR

ENLIGHTENMENT



ON THE RAZOR'S

EDGE







































































