(Robert Adams)

The beginning of wisdom is when you realize that all the teachings in the world, all the spiritual practices in the world, all the yoga practices, all the disciplines that you've been doing, are not going to awaken you one iota. You've been wasting your time. There is nothing that can awaken you. You're waiting for me to tell you what will awaken you. There is no thing that can ever awaken you. If a thing awakened you, it would not be awakening. If you relied on something to wake you up, it would not be a real awakening. What happens is, you simply begin to see. You become pure being. But nothing made it happen. Do not think that all the hard work you've been doing will make you awaken faster.

I'm telling you these great truths tonight for your own benefit, because most of you have been here for a long time. All of the things in this world will not awaken you. There is nothing that can awaken you, for you’re relying on some thing, and all the things simply pull you deeper and deeper into maya (illusion). You and I know many people who have been practicing spiritual disciplines for many years. They can recite the bible backwards and frontwards. They memorize beautiful stanzas in spiritual books. They're good debaters on points of Advaita Vedanta, or other teachings. They've been around the world to many teachers, to many places. They're still the same as they always were. All they've done is add on to their ignorance. They keep adding, and adding, and adding all of the different teachings. They're filling themselves up with teachings. This will never awaken you. It's when you dispose of the teachings, when you get rid of the teachings, when you empty yourself out totally and completely, when there's nobody left to learn anything, that's when you simply see yourself as no body. You look at yourself and you realize what you are. But no thing can make this happen to you.

Therefore what is the attitude to take? No attitude. What should you do? Nothing. What should you study? What should you learn? Nothing. Where should you go? Nowhere. With whom should you associate? No one.

When you can get to this place, you are already awakened, for there was never anyone who had to be awakened, there was never anyone who had to practice spiritual teachings, there was never anyone who had a body, there was never anyone who existed. I know to some of you this sounds very strange, yet it is the truth. It is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The only way you're ever going to learn this is by not learning anything, by keeping silent.

— Robert Adams, from Transcript 176: Great Truths, 25 June, 1992