Only That: The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson

by Kalyani Lawry

Bob sometimes uses a story to illustrate the point that when habits start to dissolve, the seemingly subtle becomes increasingly pronounced. He recounts that years earlier when he had started to give up smoking, the first handful of sunflower seeds he ate seemed bland with little taste to them. After a while without cigarettes, his tastebuds began to be able to discern the subtleties of the seeds. Likewise, the beliefs that had formed the notion of a separate “me” by imagining it was apart from the totality had seemingly clouded the very taste of the oneness. In the seeing through of this false notion of a separate “doer” who imagines it has volition and control, the numinous, the oneness, begins to be seen. “Start to get the taste of it,” he says, knowing that once it is savoured there can be no forgetting.