Ego death, especially ego death that precedes unity, is actually a transition experience. You're just leaving the one domain of consciousness, the conditioned domain of consciousness, into the unconditioned.
— The Way of Effortless Effort
— The Way of Effortless Effort
I remember hearing a talk from a very famous Tibetan teacher, a man who had spent many years in a small, stone hut in the Himalayas. He was crippled, and so he couldn’t use either one of his legs. He told a story of how a big boulder fell on his legs and broke them, and he spent many years in a stone hut, because there was really nothing that he could do. It was hard for someone with broken legs to get around much in the Himalayas.
He told the story of being in this small hut, and he said, “To be locked in that small hut for so many years was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It was a great grace, because if it wasn’t for that, I would never have turned within, and I would never have found the freedom that revealed itself there. So I look back at the losing of my legs as one of the most profound and lucky events of my whole life.”
Normally, most of us wouldn’t think that losing the use of our legs would be grace. We have certain ideas about how we want grace to appear. But grace is simply that which opens our hearts, that which has the capacity to come in and open our perceptions about life.
– Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace
He told the story of being in this small hut, and he said, “To be locked in that small hut for so many years was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It was a great grace, because if it wasn’t for that, I would never have turned within, and I would never have found the freedom that revealed itself there. So I look back at the losing of my legs as one of the most profound and lucky events of my whole life.”
Normally, most of us wouldn’t think that losing the use of our legs would be grace. We have certain ideas about how we want grace to appear. But grace is simply that which opens our hearts, that which has the capacity to come in and open our perceptions about life.
– Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace
There’s an old Zen story where a monk’s sitting in meditation and his master walks up to him and says, ‘What are you doing?’
He says, ‘I’m polishing my mind so it becomes like a mirror and reflects reality perfectly.’
Isn’t that a nice spiritual idea? The only problem is that it’s a bunch of bull.
So the teacher leans over and picks up this tile off the floor - two tiles - and starts rubbing two tiles together as a response to what his student said.
And the student said, ‘What are you rubbing two tiles together for?’
(Teacher) says, ‘Cause I’m trying to make a perfect mirror.’
And the student, embarrassingly, understood the point. No amount of tile polishing will make the tiles into a perfect mirror. No amount of mind polishing will make the mind unconditioned.
Only the unconditioned is unconditioned.
Your own awareness itself is unconditioned.
Have you noticed?
Not what you are aware of, that’s conditioned to the hilt. But the awareness itself - is completely unconditioned.
It’s as unconditioned as the day before you were born. And by paying attention to that, by just resting as that awareness - spontaneously an unconditioned consciousness becomes conscious of itself. That’s what spiritual awakening is - unconditioned consciousness becomes conscious of itself.
He says, ‘I’m polishing my mind so it becomes like a mirror and reflects reality perfectly.’
Isn’t that a nice spiritual idea? The only problem is that it’s a bunch of bull.
So the teacher leans over and picks up this tile off the floor - two tiles - and starts rubbing two tiles together as a response to what his student said.
And the student said, ‘What are you rubbing two tiles together for?’
(Teacher) says, ‘Cause I’m trying to make a perfect mirror.’
And the student, embarrassingly, understood the point. No amount of tile polishing will make the tiles into a perfect mirror. No amount of mind polishing will make the mind unconditioned.
Only the unconditioned is unconditioned.
Your own awareness itself is unconditioned.
Have you noticed?
Not what you are aware of, that’s conditioned to the hilt. But the awareness itself - is completely unconditioned.
It’s as unconditioned as the day before you were born. And by paying attention to that, by just resting as that awareness - spontaneously an unconditioned consciousness becomes conscious of itself. That’s what spiritual awakening is - unconditioned consciousness becomes conscious of itself.
Wisdom without love is like having lungs but no air to breathe. Do not seek wisdom in order to acquire knowledge but in order to live and love more fully.
It's very important to not mistake teaching or spiritual practice strategies for the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth has to be experienced.
Abide in non-abiding - don't land anywhere.
THE WORLD OF INTERRELATEDNESS
by Adyashanti
“When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to THE WORLD OF INTERRELATEDNESS
by Adyashanti
“When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to you, and yet you can’t see it, you can’t weigh it; it doesn’t have any objective sort of existence. Nonetheless, we treat it as more real than the things we consider to be real—certainly as more important.”
When we think of interrelatedness, we usually think of big or small things that are in relationship with one another. However, the way I’m using the word is not like that. I’m not denying that, but there is something deeper than that. Things are actually nothing but interrelatedness itself.
It’s really hard for a human mind to think that a thing could be nothing but interrelatedness, that interrelatedness itself ends up to be what things actually are. In this sense, things end up to be no-things, and no-things end up to be all things. So when we hear words like no-thing or nothingness, we shouldn’t try to understand that conventionally. In its truest sense, nothingness doesn’t have much to do with nothing. It has to do with interrelationship or interrelatedness.
And so it is with each of us. When you look inside for your true being, you might say, “Okay, exactly, precisely, what is this thing called ‘me’? What actually is it?” The more you look for it, the more you can’t find it. The reason you can’t find it is because it is nothing but interrelatedness. There’s no substance. There’s no thought, idea, or image to grasp. In that sense, it’s empty, but not empty in the sense of being nonexistent. It’s empty in the sense of being unexpected or inconceivable.
When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to you, and yet you can’t see it, you can’t weigh it; it doesn’t have any objective sort of existence. Nonetheless, we treat it as more real than the things we consider to be real—certainly as more important. Most people, if they feel love, their love feels more important to them than the solidity of their toaster. The love has no solidity to it at all. It has no objective tangibility to it, and yet, it’s something that one could orient their whole life around.
The Buddha used to talk about the thusness or suchness of each moment. It means not just each moment, but the thusness or suchness of each apparent thing that we perceive. So when I say being, this is the sense I’m using it in, a similar way that the Buddha used the thusness or suchness of something. When we perceive the thusness or suchness of something, we’re actually perceiving it as being nothing but interrelatedness itself. So this ordinary moment, with nothing particularly unusual about it, is being awareness, and awareness itself is interrelatedness. It’s not like interrelatedness is aware; it’s more like interrelatedness is. It’s not that the interrelatedness is that which is aware—it’s that the interrelatedness is awareness.
This is probably the fundamental barrier that any of us will bump into in spirituality: the barrier between awareness and the objects of awareness. The fundamental duality is that there is this world of things, and then there’s seeing and experiencing this world of things, and somehow those two are different. One of the great misunderstandings about unity is the belief that it reduces the world to a sort of homogenized “goo” of agreement. Actually, in some ways it’s almost the opposite. It frees the uniqueness in you, and it frees you to allow the uniqueness in others. Uniqueness flourishes when we see the unity of things. It doesn’t get flattened out—just the opposite. You just stop arguing with the difference that isn’t like yours.
When you have two viewpoints that are open to interrelating, almost always something will arise if you stick with it long enough, if you’re sincere, if you’re openhearted, if you actually want the truth more than you want to win or be right. Eventually something will bubble up from that engagement that’s truer than either one began with. If you have two people who are openhearted and see the truth and usefulness, even the utility, of really relating, they’ll see that, and both people walk away feeling like “Gosh, I feel good about that, like we both win because we both discovered more than we started with.”
The unity of things isn’t that there are no differences. It isn’t that a tree doesn’t look different than the sky, or behave differently than the sky, or have a different kind of life than the sky. The unity is that a tree—an object—is nothing but interrelatedness. The sky is nothing but interrelatedness, and the awareness of things is itself nothing but interrelatedness. That’s an explanation that is coming from a way of perceiving. That’s what enlightenment really is: seeing that the seeing and what one is aware of are one simultaneous arising. It’s an arising that’s always flowing because interrelatedness isn’t static—it’s ever flowing.
That’s why I’m always saying that this is really about a kind of vision, not in the sense of having visions, but the quality of our vision, the quality of our perception when we can perceive without the dualistic filter. What seems to be this impenetrable sort of barrier between us and things, us and the world, us and each other, is fundamentally between our consciousness and what consciousness is conscious of. That seemingly basic and immovable sense that there is a fundamental difference, a fundamental separation, is what’s really dispelled when our insight gets deep enough.
At the deepest level, the most fundamental level, interrelationship is just that—it’s interrelating. It’s not things interrelating. Things end up to be themselves interrelatedness. When vision becomes clear, that’s what we perceive. The world becomes not a world of things, but of interrelatedness.
Excerpted from “The World of Interrelatedness,” April 10, 2019 ~ Garrison, NY
by Adyashanti
“When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to THE WORLD OF INTERRELATEDNESS
by Adyashanti
“When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to you, and yet you can’t see it, you can’t weigh it; it doesn’t have any objective sort of existence. Nonetheless, we treat it as more real than the things we consider to be real—certainly as more important.”
When we think of interrelatedness, we usually think of big or small things that are in relationship with one another. However, the way I’m using the word is not like that. I’m not denying that, but there is something deeper than that. Things are actually nothing but interrelatedness itself.
It’s really hard for a human mind to think that a thing could be nothing but interrelatedness, that interrelatedness itself ends up to be what things actually are. In this sense, things end up to be no-things, and no-things end up to be all things. So when we hear words like no-thing or nothingness, we shouldn’t try to understand that conventionally. In its truest sense, nothingness doesn’t have much to do with nothing. It has to do with interrelationship or interrelatedness.
And so it is with each of us. When you look inside for your true being, you might say, “Okay, exactly, precisely, what is this thing called ‘me’? What actually is it?” The more you look for it, the more you can’t find it. The reason you can’t find it is because it is nothing but interrelatedness. There’s no substance. There’s no thought, idea, or image to grasp. In that sense, it’s empty, but not empty in the sense of being nonexistent. It’s empty in the sense of being unexpected or inconceivable.
When you feel love or fall in love, that’s a very real feeling to you, and yet you can’t see it, you can’t weigh it; it doesn’t have any objective sort of existence. Nonetheless, we treat it as more real than the things we consider to be real—certainly as more important. Most people, if they feel love, their love feels more important to them than the solidity of their toaster. The love has no solidity to it at all. It has no objective tangibility to it, and yet, it’s something that one could orient their whole life around.
The Buddha used to talk about the thusness or suchness of each moment. It means not just each moment, but the thusness or suchness of each apparent thing that we perceive. So when I say being, this is the sense I’m using it in, a similar way that the Buddha used the thusness or suchness of something. When we perceive the thusness or suchness of something, we’re actually perceiving it as being nothing but interrelatedness itself. So this ordinary moment, with nothing particularly unusual about it, is being awareness, and awareness itself is interrelatedness. It’s not like interrelatedness is aware; it’s more like interrelatedness is. It’s not that the interrelatedness is that which is aware—it’s that the interrelatedness is awareness.
This is probably the fundamental barrier that any of us will bump into in spirituality: the barrier between awareness and the objects of awareness. The fundamental duality is that there is this world of things, and then there’s seeing and experiencing this world of things, and somehow those two are different. One of the great misunderstandings about unity is the belief that it reduces the world to a sort of homogenized “goo” of agreement. Actually, in some ways it’s almost the opposite. It frees the uniqueness in you, and it frees you to allow the uniqueness in others. Uniqueness flourishes when we see the unity of things. It doesn’t get flattened out—just the opposite. You just stop arguing with the difference that isn’t like yours.
When you have two viewpoints that are open to interrelating, almost always something will arise if you stick with it long enough, if you’re sincere, if you’re openhearted, if you actually want the truth more than you want to win or be right. Eventually something will bubble up from that engagement that’s truer than either one began with. If you have two people who are openhearted and see the truth and usefulness, even the utility, of really relating, they’ll see that, and both people walk away feeling like “Gosh, I feel good about that, like we both win because we both discovered more than we started with.”
The unity of things isn’t that there are no differences. It isn’t that a tree doesn’t look different than the sky, or behave differently than the sky, or have a different kind of life than the sky. The unity is that a tree—an object—is nothing but interrelatedness. The sky is nothing but interrelatedness, and the awareness of things is itself nothing but interrelatedness. That’s an explanation that is coming from a way of perceiving. That’s what enlightenment really is: seeing that the seeing and what one is aware of are one simultaneous arising. It’s an arising that’s always flowing because interrelatedness isn’t static—it’s ever flowing.
That’s why I’m always saying that this is really about a kind of vision, not in the sense of having visions, but the quality of our vision, the quality of our perception when we can perceive without the dualistic filter. What seems to be this impenetrable sort of barrier between us and things, us and the world, us and each other, is fundamentally between our consciousness and what consciousness is conscious of. That seemingly basic and immovable sense that there is a fundamental difference, a fundamental separation, is what’s really dispelled when our insight gets deep enough.
At the deepest level, the most fundamental level, interrelationship is just that—it’s interrelating. It’s not things interrelating. Things end up to be themselves interrelatedness. When vision becomes clear, that’s what we perceive. The world becomes not a world of things, but of interrelatedness.
Excerpted from “The World of Interrelatedness,” April 10, 2019 ~ Garrison, NY
Sometimes when you are with someone who is truly Loving, it can awaken that same Love within your own being. It’s a direct transmission of grace. As I often say, the true teaching is not contained within the words, but in the living presence from which they come. When we truly become open enough to begin to experience the transmission of the teaching, a simple gesture can reveal more reality than all of the sacred scriptures ever written. When I think of my years spent with my teacher Arvis, I remember simple gestures, simple actions, simple expressions that revealed and transmitted more truth than all the words she spoke. Her greatest teaching was who she was.
~ “Redemptive Love” Online Course
~ “Redemptive Love” Online Course
Meister Eckhart had a wonderful way of putting it: If you are in a state of rapture meditating and your neighbor is hungry and needs a bowl of soup, it would be much more pleasing to God to give your neighbor the soup than to stay in the rapture.
There is joy in these very simple movements of compassion. When we are not awake to our true nature, we may do these things anyway out of some idea of compassion. But when we have literally touched our true nature, we find that it finds joy in meeting the moment of need. When the selfless nature of Self is awakened, we find this nature does not seek to avoid. Period.
Now the second kind of suffering—the other ninety-five to ninety-nine percent— is psychological suffering that is created by inner states of division. This kind of suffering happens because one does not know one's true nature.
The hallmark of knowing one's true nature fully is to be undivided. This does not mean that once enlightened, you will never experience hunger, or if a loved one dies you will not feel grief. You may experience states of mind that are unpleasant, but what you will not feel is the interior fracturing that makes the initial sadness much, much more. That is another layer of suffering that gets added on top of unavoidable pain.
Source : Emptiness Dancing, p.78
There is joy in these very simple movements of compassion. When we are not awake to our true nature, we may do these things anyway out of some idea of compassion. But when we have literally touched our true nature, we find that it finds joy in meeting the moment of need. When the selfless nature of Self is awakened, we find this nature does not seek to avoid. Period.
Now the second kind of suffering—the other ninety-five to ninety-nine percent— is psychological suffering that is created by inner states of division. This kind of suffering happens because one does not know one's true nature.
The hallmark of knowing one's true nature fully is to be undivided. This does not mean that once enlightened, you will never experience hunger, or if a loved one dies you will not feel grief. You may experience states of mind that are unpleasant, but what you will not feel is the interior fracturing that makes the initial sadness much, much more. That is another layer of suffering that gets added on top of unavoidable pain.
Source : Emptiness Dancing, p.78
We go through life walking in the immense darkness of unknown realities with a little flashlight in our hands, imagining that only what our little light makes visible is real. We generally see and experience only an infinitesimally small sliver of what actually exists and remain strictly within the confines of what our tiny light illumines. The true power of life does not lie within the confines of our tiny light, but in the immense darkness of unknown realities that are the greater story of our lives. Our lives are much more immense than we know, and connected to vast currents of hidden influences and possibilities. But we must stretch out into the darkness with the full measure of our longing, and surrender to the greater unknown context of our lives in order to begin to embrace and be embraced by a Love that is awaiting our invitation. And it is not only an invitation in word but also in deed—the act of offering our Being and the fullness of our lives to the darkness of the unknown currents—eternal possibilities that we cannot control but must instead invite with heartfelt surrender.
Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special—it's not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred. I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe. The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence. Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time—not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment.
ENLIGHTENMENT IS NO STATUS
“Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it’s not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred.
I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe.
The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence.
Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time; not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment.”
“Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it’s not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred.
I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe.
The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence.
Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time; not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment.”
The light of awareness has a welcoming wholeness to it—it sees the ordinary moment just as it sees the peak moment.
It’s very important to not mistake teaching or spiritual practice strategies for the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth has to be experienced.
EGO IS A VERB
From early childhood, we are given messages such as, "You are pretty," "You are smart," "You got a good grade, so you are good," or "You did not get good grades, so you are not good."
Soon the child starts to believe it, to feel it, to own that emotional essence as "me." In the same way, someone can have a thought, and pretty soon he or she will start feeling that thought. If he thinks about a happy, sunny day, soon his body will start taking on that tone, feeling something that doesn't exist. So, of course, this makes it rather difficult when someone is told to get rid of ego, because who is going to get rid of ego? What is trying to get rid of ego? That's how it maintains itself, thinking it has to do something with itself.
Ego is a movement. It's a verb. It is not something static. It's the after-the-fact movement of mind that's always becoming. In other words, egos are always on the path. They are on the psychology path, the spiritual path, the path to get more money or a better car. That sense of "me" is always becoming, always moving, always achieving.
Or else it is doing the opposite—moving backward, rejecting, denying. So in order for this verb to keep going, there has to be movement. We have to be going forward or backward, toward or away from. We have to have somebody to blame, and usually, it's ourselves. We've got to be getting somewhere because otherwise, we are not becoming.
So the verb—let's call it "egoing"—is not operating if we are not becoming. As soon as a verb stops, it's not a verb anymore. As soon as you stop running, there is no such thing as running—it's gone; nothing is happening. This ego sense has to keep moving because, as soon as it stops, it disappears, just like when your feet stop, running disappears.
From "Emptiness dancing" p.51
From early childhood, we are given messages such as, "You are pretty," "You are smart," "You got a good grade, so you are good," or "You did not get good grades, so you are not good."
Soon the child starts to believe it, to feel it, to own that emotional essence as "me." In the same way, someone can have a thought, and pretty soon he or she will start feeling that thought. If he thinks about a happy, sunny day, soon his body will start taking on that tone, feeling something that doesn't exist. So, of course, this makes it rather difficult when someone is told to get rid of ego, because who is going to get rid of ego? What is trying to get rid of ego? That's how it maintains itself, thinking it has to do something with itself.
Ego is a movement. It's a verb. It is not something static. It's the after-the-fact movement of mind that's always becoming. In other words, egos are always on the path. They are on the psychology path, the spiritual path, the path to get more money or a better car. That sense of "me" is always becoming, always moving, always achieving.
Or else it is doing the opposite—moving backward, rejecting, denying. So in order for this verb to keep going, there has to be movement. We have to be going forward or backward, toward or away from. We have to have somebody to blame, and usually, it's ourselves. We've got to be getting somewhere because otherwise, we are not becoming.
So the verb—let's call it "egoing"—is not operating if we are not becoming. As soon as a verb stops, it's not a verb anymore. As soon as you stop running, there is no such thing as running—it's gone; nothing is happening. This ego sense has to keep moving because, as soon as it stops, it disappears, just like when your feet stop, running disappears.
From "Emptiness dancing" p.51
If you start playing the game of being an "enlightened somebody," the true teacher is going to call you on it. He or she is going to expose you, and that exposure is going to hurt. Because the ego will be there, standing in the light of Truth, exposed and humiliated. Of course, the ego will cry "foul!" It will claim that the teacher made a mistake and begin to justify itself in an effort to put its protective clothing back on. It will begin to spin justifications with incredible subtlety and deceptiveness. This is where real spiritual sadhana (practice) begins. This is where it all becomes very real and the student discovers whether he or she truly wants to be free, or merely wants to remain as a false, separate, and self-justifying ego. This crossroad inevitably comes and is always challenging. It separates the true seeker from the false one. The true seeker will be willing to bare the grace of humility, whereas the false seeker will run from it. Thus begins the true path to enlightenment, granted only to those willing to be nobody. Discovering your "nobodyness" opens the door to awakening as beingness, and beyond that to the Source of all beingness.
The teacher can light a fire, but the teacher is not going to complete the process for you. Transmission is most powerful for people who feel a sense of resonance with what is being offered. If the resonance is there, a potential is ignited. Once the potential is woken up, then you need to take responsibility for what’s happening. Don’t just sit around waiting for the teacher or the teacher’s transmission to do it for you, because then you come into a dependent relationship. And as soon as you come into a dependent relationship psychologically or emotionally, the effect of the transmission is dampened down tremendously. It just kills it right on the spot. It’s like putting water on a fire. We need to become responsible for our own transformation because no teacher can in any way do everything for us. We’ve got to do it for ourselves. We’ve got to look for ourselves. Being in the presence of somebody might light a fire spontaneously, but you yourself have to tend that fire.
Enlightenment means the end of all division. It is not simply having an occasional experience of unity beyond all division, it is actually being undivided. This is what nonduality truly means. It means there is just one Self, without a difference or gap between the profound revelation of Oneness and the way it is perceived and lived every moment of life.
How You Treat Others
Spiritual people often want unconditional support and understanding from their friends, family, and mates, but all too often seem blind to their own shortcomings when it comes to the amount of unconditional support and understanding that they give to others. I have seen many spiritual people become obsessed with how unspiritual others are and assume an arrogant and superior attitude while completely missing the fact that they themselves are not nearly as spiritually enlightened as they would like to think they are.
Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others—with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.
As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back, you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy. When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy.
It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.
To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am describing is the birth of true Love.
Spiritual people often want unconditional support and understanding from their friends, family, and mates, but all too often seem blind to their own shortcomings when it comes to the amount of unconditional support and understanding that they give to others. I have seen many spiritual people become obsessed with how unspiritual others are and assume an arrogant and superior attitude while completely missing the fact that they themselves are not nearly as spiritually enlightened as they would like to think they are.
Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others—with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.
As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back, you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy. When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy.
It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.
To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am describing is the birth of true Love.
When your image of the me takes a break, you’ll find all you are doing at that moment is just being open. You feel quite relieved that you are not trying to get to another moment or a better experience. You feel yourself just being in a very relaxed, easy sense of peace. You haven’t gained anything at all—you’re not smarter, you don’t necessarily know more than anyone else, and you haven’t suddenly become holy. If you are resting as your own true nature, then you feel that there is really nowhere else to go.
At that moment, you feel as if your path has ended. It can be hard to end it when so much is invested in your path, but if you really want to be free, you must want to know the truth more than anything else. And when you do, you find that the truth is so damn empty. There is so much nothing to it. There is so much nobody there, just a very vivid awakeness.
At that moment, you feel as if your path has ended. It can be hard to end it when so much is invested in your path, but if you really want to be free, you must want to know the truth more than anything else. And when you do, you find that the truth is so damn empty. There is so much nothing to it. There is so much nobody there, just a very vivid awakeness.
Discerning Healthy Relationships
Q. "I feel the falling away of self happening very gradually, leaving me with an ever-increasing need for stillness, gentleness, and simpleness.
I live in a very negative, hectic, chaotic, and verbally violent environment, with a person who is in constant emotional pain. He yells a lot, and is almost always angry.
I feel like I’m suffocating, and I just want to leave, to walk out. I just want silence. I accept him for where he’s at. But my partner says that if I were truly feeling the falling away of self, that none of this negativity would bother me. Is this true?
When you transcend the ego, or when the self falls away, does this mean nothing bothers you anymore? Is the desire to be away from negative environments, an egoic desire?"
Adya. "Thank you for your question. Let me start by saying that your partner is wrong in assuming that if you were liberated you would feel fine in any situation. The more free you are, the more you can discern what are healthy and unhealthy conditions and relationships, and the more you feel free to take the appropriate action. Freedom is not stupid, nor is it a doormat for others’ dysfunction. It is the freedom to act as life dictates.
Please do not let anyone use these teachings to disempower or dehumanize you. They are meant to serve the liberation of all."
From: No Self Study Course - Q&A - 2013
Q. "I feel the falling away of self happening very gradually, leaving me with an ever-increasing need for stillness, gentleness, and simpleness.
I live in a very negative, hectic, chaotic, and verbally violent environment, with a person who is in constant emotional pain. He yells a lot, and is almost always angry.
I feel like I’m suffocating, and I just want to leave, to walk out. I just want silence. I accept him for where he’s at. But my partner says that if I were truly feeling the falling away of self, that none of this negativity would bother me. Is this true?
When you transcend the ego, or when the self falls away, does this mean nothing bothers you anymore? Is the desire to be away from negative environments, an egoic desire?"
Adya. "Thank you for your question. Let me start by saying that your partner is wrong in assuming that if you were liberated you would feel fine in any situation. The more free you are, the more you can discern what are healthy and unhealthy conditions and relationships, and the more you feel free to take the appropriate action. Freedom is not stupid, nor is it a doormat for others’ dysfunction. It is the freedom to act as life dictates.
Please do not let anyone use these teachings to disempower or dehumanize you. They are meant to serve the liberation of all."
From: No Self Study Course - Q&A - 2013
The problem is that most people are paying attention to objects, to what they perceive - rather than to the ultimate perceiver, the background. Either way, awareness is happening 100% of the time. The light is on brightly. It never goes off, but where is it looking?
The human condition is characterized by a complete fascination with objects, starting with this object that we interpret as 'me.' Me is only a thought. You are before this me thought.
The human condition is characterized by a complete fascination with objects, starting with this object that we interpret as 'me.' Me is only a thought. You are before this me thought.
Student: I've heard it said that the ego must die in order to be enlightened. What does ego death mean?
Adyashanti: It is said that the ego must die in order for you to truly live. But nothing need die; you simply need to grow up. A child does not die in order to grow into an adult. The child simply grows up; it evolves and leaves behind what is no longer appropriate. See that the ego is no longer useful or appropriate and leave it behind. Only the ego makes its own demise seem dramatic.
Adyashanti: It is said that the ego must die in order for you to truly live. But nothing need die; you simply need to grow up. A child does not die in order to grow into an adult. The child simply grows up; it evolves and leaves behind what is no longer appropriate. See that the ego is no longer useful or appropriate and leave it behind. Only the ego makes its own demise seem dramatic.
We have long ago forgotten what it means to contemplate some- thing. With the click of a computer mouse we can get the answer, or what promises to be the answer, to almost any question we can imagine. All of the world’s most ancient spiritual teachings are but a click or download away, and yet we remain so lost to ourselves, so cut off from what nourishes the soul, that we are collectively suffocating under the weight of our ignorance and alienation from the sacred dimension of Life.
Love is a flame that burns everything other than itself. It is the destruction of all that is false and the fulfillment of all that is true.
As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.
Beings
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