Snowfall and Silence

and the passing of Sailor Bob Adamson

It’s been snowing here for days. For the first two days, it snowed non-stop. It poured down. It was quite magical. The ground is white and it’s still snowing off and on. I was snowed in for several days. We do get snow here in Ashland, but usually it’s very light and anything that sticks on the ground usually melts away by midday. But every now and then we get a winter storm like this one.

Snow has a magical quality when it’s falling, and then as it covers the ground, all the sharp contours disappear. Snow softens and silences everything.

Maybe that’s partly why I’ve been in a very quiet place this week, not feeling the urge to write anything.

But I do want to let you know about the passing of someone who was very dear to me and I know to many of you as well:

Sailor Bob Adamson (1928-2025):

Sailor Bob died peacefully at home, his wife Kat at his side, on February 6th. Bob was a contemporary Australian who spent time with Nisargadatta Maharaj in the 1970's. Bob's message was simple, clear and direct. He pointed to the unbroken, nondual wholeness, the One-without-a-second, and to the fact that there is nothing to do or not do other than exactly what is already choicelessly happening. Bob never for a moment bought into any story that "this isn't it.”

I was very fortunate to spend time with him in person in Chicago in 2004. We’d already been connecting by email and he’d been very helpful to me. Hanging out with him in Chicago was a real joy. I found him to be very generous, awake, kind, sincere and down-to-earth. He had genuine humility and was completely devoted to sharing this simple and profound realization. He didn't set himself above those who came to him. He always affirmed that you are already That, and he pointed uncompromisingly to the indivisible aliveness Here / Now.

“The value of any insight, understanding, or realisation can only be in the ever-fresh presence of the moment…The idea of enlightenment or self-realisation as a onetime event or a lasting and permanent state or experience is an erroneous concept. Understand-ING or know-ING is alive in the immediacy which can never be negated. The emphasis is on the activity of know-ING which is going on as the immediacy now – not the dead concept I understand or I know.”

He encouraged everyone to look for themselves and see that there is always only presence-awareness, the intelligence-energy that vibrates into different patterns but is always the One-without-a-second from which no separation is ever possible:

“Have a look at nature and see the way it’s patterning and shaping and forming. Galaxies are forming, the earth and planets are moving round, seasons are coming and going, the tides moving in and out…the whole of nature is suffused with an innate intelligence, and you’re nothing but a pattern of energy. That intelligence is what is breathing you, growing your hair and your fingernails, replacing cells in your body, digesting your food—it’s all happening quite naturally and effortlessly.”

There are several excellent books of his teachings including Presence-Awareness: Just This and Nothing Else; What's Wrong with Right Now Unless You Think About It?; A Sprinkling of Jewels (photos and text); One Essence Appearing as Everything; As It Is; and Only That: The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson. You can find audio and/or video recordings on his website, his YouTube channel, and on the Urban Guru Cafe.

Here’s a 2016 documentary about Bob:

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Love to all…