Adyashanti

True Meditation

True meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer. All methods aiming at

achieving a certain state of mind are limited, impermanent, and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to

bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial awareness.

True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not being manipulated or controlled. When

you first start to meditate, you notice that attention is often being held captive by focus on some object: on thoughts,

bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon

objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets and tries to control what it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and

distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.

In true meditation all objects (thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc.) are left to their natural functioning. This

means that no effort should be made to focus on, manipulate, control, or suppress any object of awareness. In true

meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness

itself. Primordial awareness is the source in which all objects arise and subside.

As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind’s compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Silence of

being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free

of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.

As you rest into stillness more profoundly, awareness becomes free of the mind’s compulsive control, contractions, and

identifications. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest potential, the silent abyss beyond all

knowing.

SOME COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDITATION

Q. It seems that the central instruction in True Meditation is simply to abide as silent, still awareness. However, I often

find that I am caught in my mind. Is it OK to use a more directed meditation like following my breath, so that I have

something to focus on that will help me to not get lost in my mind?

A. It is perfectly OK to use a more directed technique such as following your breath, or using a simple mantra or

centering prayer, if you find that it helps you to not get lost in thought. But always be inclined toward less and less

technique. Make time during each meditation period to simply rest as silent, still awareness. True Meditation is

progressively letting go of the meditator without getting lost in thought.

Q. What should I do if an old painful memory arises during meditation?

A. Simply allow it to arise without resisting it or indulging in analyzing, judging, or denying it.

Q. When I meditate I sometimes experience a lot of fear. Sometimes it overwhelms me and I don’t know what to do.

A. It is useful when experiencing fear in meditation to anchor your attention in something very grounding, such as your

breath or even the bottoms of your feet. But don’t fight against the fear because this will only increase it. Imagine that

you are the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, or Christ in the desert, remaining perfectly still and unmoved by the body-

mind’s nightmare. It may feel very real but it is really nothing more than a convincing illusion.

Q. What should I do when I get an insight or sudden understanding of a situation during meditation?

A. Simply receive what is given with gratitude, without holding onto anything. Trust that it will still be there when you

need it.

Q. I find that my mind is spontaneously forming images, almost like a waking dream. Some of them I like, while others

are just random and annoying. What should I do?

A. Focus attention on your breathing down in your belly. This will help you to not get lost in the images of the mind.

Hold the simple intention to rest in the imageless, silent source prior to all images, thoughts, and ideas.

© 2011 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

The Way of Liberation: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

The Way of Liberation is a stripped-down, practical guide to spiritual liberation, sometimes called awakening, enlightenment,

self-realization, or simply seeing what is absolutely True. It is impossible to know what words

like liberation or enlightenmentmean until you realize them for yourself. This being so, it is of no use to speculate about what

enlightenment is; in fact, doing so is a major hindrance to its unfolding. As a guiding principle, to progressively realize what

is not absolutely True is of infinitely more value than speculating about what is.

Many people think that it is the function of a spiritual teaching to provide answers to life’s biggest questions, but actually the

opposite is true. The primary task of any good spiritual teaching is not to answer your questions, but to question your

answers. For it is your conscious and unconscious assumptions and beliefs that distort your perception and cause you to see

separation and division where there is actually only unity and completeness.

The Reality that these teachings are pointing toward is not hidden, or secret, or far away. You cannot earn it, deserve it, or

figure it out. At this very moment, Reality and completeness are in plain sight. In fact, the only thing there is to see, hear,

smell, taste, touch, or feel, is Reality, or God if you like. Absolute completeness surrounds you wherever you go. So there is

really no reason to bother yourself about it, except for the fact that we humans have long ago deceived ourselves into such a

confined tangle of confusion and disarray that we scarcely even consider, much less experience for ourselves, the divinity

within and all around us.

The Way of Liberation is a call to action; it is something you do. It is a doing that will undo you absolutely. If you do not do

the teaching, if you do not study and apply it fearlessly, it cannot effect any transformation. The Way of Liberation is not a

belief system; it is something to be put into practice. In this sense it is entirely practical.

To read this book as a spectator would be to miss the point. Being a spectator is easy and safe; being an active participant in

your own awakening to Truth is neither easy nor safe. The way forward is unpredictable, the commitment absolute, the

results not guaranteed. Did you really think that it could be any other way?

Excerpted from the Introduction of The Way of Liberation by Adyashanti.

The Immensity of Solitude

When the mind is free of all of its content, all of its conditioned thinking, it enters into the solitude of silence. That silence

can only arise when one sees the limitations of one’s thinking. When one sees that his or her thoughts will not bring truth,

peace, or freedom, there arises a natural state of silence and inner clarity. And in that silence there is a profound solitude,

because one is not seeking a more advantageous relationship with thought or with the accompanying emotions that are

derived by thought.

In that solitude all ideas and images are left behind, and we can intuitively orient ourselves toward the unborn and

uncreated ground of being. In that ground we find our true being; and in the same manner in which our being is uncreated,

it is also undying. Therefore, all that we will ever be or can be is found in our solitude (within ourselves) and is timelessly

present in its fullness and completeness, now and eternally.

It is within our deepest solitude, where we take leave of every image and idea of ourselves as well as of God, that we come

upon the fullness of our being. And in that fullness of being we recognize the divinity of all things and all beings, no matter

how great or small. For divinity is not something earned or given, but lavishly present within all. To have the eyes to see the

divinity of all beings is to bring light into this world.

So we are given this one small task: to cease being what we are not, and to be what we eternally are. Such a task would

seem to be a gift of Love, but how often is it denied in favor of the blind security of conforming to the dictates of our fear

and blame? If we would only see that all limitations are self-imposed and chosen out of fear, we would leap at once into the

arms of grace, no matter how fierce that embrace might be.

It is Love that leads us beyond all fear and into the solitude of our being. There we find our utter aloneness because we

stand free of all the false comforts of illusion and find the capacity to stand where no one else can stand for us. We are alone

not because we have isolated ourselves behind an emotional defense or false transcendence, but because we are no longer

held captive by either the mind or fear.

To stand alone in true solitude is to stand in the recognition of the absolute completeness and unity of all manner of

existence. And from that common ground, where nothing and no one is foreign to you, your love extends across the

magnitude of time and embraces the greatest and smallest of things.

© Adyashanti 2012

the Question of Being

Above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi were written the words, “Know Thyself.” Jesus came along and added a sense of

urgency and consequence to the ancient idea when he said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will

save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

What Jesus is saying is that spirituality is serious business, with serious consequences. Your life hangs precariously in the

balance, teetering between a state of unconscious sleepwalking and eyes-wide-open spiritual enlightenment. The fact that

most people do not see life this way testifies to how deeply asleep and in denial they truly are.

Within each of our forms lies the existential mystery of being. Apart from one’s physical appearance, personality, gender,

history, occupation, hopes and dreams, comings and goings, there lies an eerie silence, an abyss of stillness charged with an

etheric presence. For all of our anxious business and obsession with triviality, we cannot completely deny this phantasmal

essence at our core. And yet we do everything we can to avoid its stillness, its silence, its utter emptiness and intimate

embrace.

To remain unconscious of being is to be trapped within an ego-driven wasteland of conflict, strife, and fear that only seems

customary because we have been brainwashed into a state of suspended disbelief where a shocking amount of hate,

dishonesty, ignorance, and greed are viewed as normal and sane. But it is not sane, not even close to being sane. Nor is it

based in reality. In fact, nothing could be less real than what we human beings call reality.

By clinging to the mind in the form of memory and thought, we are held captive by the movement of our conditioned

thinking and imagination, all the while believing that we are perfectly rational and sane. We therefore continue to justify the

reality of what causes us, as well as others, immeasurable amounts of pain and suffering.

Deep down we all suspect that something is very wrong with the way we perceive life but we try very, very hard not to

notice it. And the way we remain blind to our frightful condition is through an obsessive and pathological denial of being -- as

if some dreadful fate would overcome us if we were to face the pure light of truth and lay bare our fearful clinging to illusion.

The question of being is everything. Nothing could be more important or consequential -- nothing where the stakes run so

high. To remain unconscious of being is to remain asleep to our own reality and therefore asleep to reality at large. The

choice is simple: awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep. 

© Adyashanti 2012

What Calls the Eye to See

What you are now stands before me immortal and true. I see it in the ground underfoot, and in the clouds in the sky, and in

the mist gathering among the canyons, and in the face of the old man walking his grandchild down the sidewalk. In the

robes of monks I see it, and in the rags worn by the women begging for change outside the supermarket. I see it in the

sympathetic eyes of the mother greeting her young son as he returns home from the war, and in the father trying to comfort

his baby daughter as he stands in line at the grocery store. I see it in the curve of my face in the mirror, and in the

multitudes of stars in the sky.

I not only see it but I hear it as well. I hear it in the cries of the newborn baby hungry for its mother’s breast, and in the

laughter of the old men sitting in the donut store together, and in the quiet sobs of the man placing flowers at his wife’s

grave. I hear it in the ancient chants echoing through the open window of the old church, and in the ladies sitting on

benches in the garden laughing with delight, and in the man working at the butcher shop asking his customers “Who’s next?”

What calls the ear to listen or the eye to see more than the surface façade that shrouds the essential spirit? Parting the

strata and dross, what is essential picks its way through the manicured narrative of endless lives. In each moment of every

day, Truth is not lacking or held in abeyance for some later date; it is given in full measure, and abundantly so. Do not be

afraid of what appears to be chaos or dissolution—embrace the full measure of your life at any cost. Bare your heart to the

Unknown and never look back. What you are stands content, invisible, and everlasting. All means have been provided for our

endless folly to split open into eternal delight.

© Adyashanti 2011

Everything Under the Sun

Look around you; there is only one reality. The reason that you are here, wherever here is for you, is because it is the only

place that you can be right now. But even though reality is right here, and even though there is quite literally nothing but

reality, it is very possible for you to miss it altogether. By miss it I mean to imagine that reality is something or somewhere

other than here. As strange as it may sound it is very possible, even probable, that even though you have eyes to see, you

do not see. And even though you have ears to hear, you do not hear. What you see and hear is not exactly what is actually

here, but what you imagine is here.

Our imagination is a very powerful force in determining what we perceive. If we imagine that the world is teeming with evil

forces, we will surely perceive the world as evil. But if we imagine the world to be essentially good, we will perceive it as

good. Either way it is the same world that we are looking at. But the world is neither good nor bad in and of itself; it is

simply what it is. And if we see the world as either good or bad, we will not be able to see it as it actually is. We will only be

able to see it as we imagine it to be.

Now take this idea and apply it to everything and everyone in your life. Try it for a moment, or an hour, or a day. And if you

do, you may begin to notice that the world you imagine to exist does not exist at all. This may cause you some fear, or

possibly the thrill of discovery, but either way the important thing is to get some distance from the habitual way the mind

contorts and creates perception.

But even though our mind imagines the world and everything in it to be other than the way it actually is, the reality of

existence remains eternally untouched by our misperception of it. This is both relatively good and bad. It is good in that

existence is eternally what it is. We need not worry about reality becoming something other than reality. But it is bad in the

sense that the world we imagine to exist is always colliding with the world as it actually is. This collision is the cause of

immense human suffering and conflict.

So we are trapped within our illusions and misperceptions. And the greatest illusion of all is to believe that we are not

trapped. But even when we realize that we are confined within a prison of our own making, we are trapped because all the

ways we struggle to get out of our illusions are illusions themselves. So, yes, we are trapped, and helpless to boot.

But there is a very strange thing that can occur at exactly the point where you realize that there is no escaping the

imaginary world of your illusions. You bare your heart open to illusion, surrender your eternal struggle against it, and admit

to being bound by its cunning imagination. I don’t mean that you become despondent or resigned to your fate. I mean that

you truly let go in the face of your utter defeat and stop struggling.

And when all the struggle ceases, we realize that the prison of our mind cannot hold us in anymore, because the prison was

all along something we imagined into existence. And imagined things aren’t real, they don’t exist. But we could never really

see this as long as we were fighting the phantoms of our minds. We needed the one thing that our imaginary minds could

not bring about, could not fake or create: the genuine surrender of all struggle.

In the blink of an eye, we are no longer confined within illusion nor our attempt to avoid illusion. When all struggle ceases,

there is nothing to bind us to a distorted perception of existence and we can finally see. What we see is that we do not

simply exist within existence, but all of existence exists within us as well. And although everywhere we look we see the

endless diversity of life, we also now see our own true face in everything under the sun.

© Adyashanti 2010

Standing in Your Own Two Shoes

The real search isn’t a search into tomorrow, or to anywhere other than now. It’s starting to look into the very nature of this

moment. In order to do that, you have to “stand in your own two shoes,” as my teacher used to say. What she meant by

“standing in your own two shoes” is you have to look clearly into your own experience. Stop trying to have someone else’s

experience. Stop chasing freedom or happiness, or even spiritual enlightenment. Stand in your own shoes, and examine

closely: What’s happening right here and right now? Is it possible to let go of trying to make anything happen? Even in this

moment, there may be some suffering, there may be some unhappiness, but even if there is, is it possible to no longer push

against it, to try to get rid of it, to try to get somewhere else?

I understand that our instinct is to move away from what’s not comfortable, to try to get somewhere better, but as my

teacher used to say, “You need to take the backward step, not the forward step.” The forward step is always moving ahead,

always trying to attain what you want, whether it’s a material possession or inner peace. The forward step is very familiar:

seeking and more seeking, striving and more striving, always looking for peace, always looking for happiness, looking for

love. To take the backward step means to just turn around, reverse the whole process of looking for satisfaction on the

outside, and look at precisely the place where you are standing. See if what you are looking for isn’t already present in your

experience.

So, again, to lay the groundwork for awakening, we must first let go of struggling. You let go by acknowledging that the end

of struggle is actually present in your experience now. The end of struggle is peace. Even if your ego is struggling, even if

you’re trying to figure this out and “do it right,” if you really look, you might just see that struggle is happening within a

greater context of peace, within an inner stillness. But if you try to make stillness happen, you’ll miss it. If you try to make

peace happen, you’ll miss it. This is more like a process of recognition, giving recognition to a stillness that is naturally

present.

We’re not bringing struggle to an end. We’re not trying to not struggle anymore. We’re just noticing that there is a whole

other dimension to consciousness that, in this very moment, isn’t struggling, isn’t resentful, isn’t trying to get somewhere.

You can literally feel it in your body. You can’t think your way to not struggling. There isn’t a three–point plan of how not to

struggle. It’s really a one–point plan: Notice that the peace, this end of struggling, is actually already present.

The process is therefore one of recognition. We recognize that there is peace now, even if your mind is confused. You may

see that even when you touch upon peace now, the mind is so conditioned to move away from it that it will try to argue with

the basic fact of peace’s existence within you: “I can’t be at peace yet because I have to do this, or that, or this question

hasn’t been answered, or that question hasn’t been answered, or so–and–so hasn’t apologized to me.” There are all sorts of

ways that the egoic mind can insist that something needs to happen, something needs to change, in order for you to be at

peace. But this is part of the dream of the mind. We’re all taught that something needs to change for us to experience true

peace and freedom.

Just imagine for a moment that this isn’t true. Even though you may believe that it’s true, just imagine for a moment: What

would it be like if you didn’t need to struggle, if you didn’t need to make an effort to find peace and happiness? What would

that feel like now? And just take a moment to be quiet and see if peace or stillness is with you in this moment.

Excerpted from Falling Into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering

by Adyashanti

© Sounds True 2011

The Infinite

All things—all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary—are equal expressions of the Infinite. There is no more or

less Infinite, no higher or lower Infinite. Therefore, all attempts to either find or hold onto the Infinite are based in illusion.

And illusion itself is none other than the Infinite.

The Infinite uses all measures in order to awaken in all the various forms in existence. It uses birth, life, death, happiness,

sorrow, clarity, and delusion in order to awaken. All of your seeking is in reality the activity of the Infinite as well. No matter

how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace. If you could all at

once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would

effortlessly present itself.

True Autonomy

To discover our autonomy is the most challenging thing a human being can do. Because in order to discover our autonomy, we must be free from all external control or influence. This means that we must free our mind from all that it has collected, all that it clings to, all that it depends on. This begins by realizing that we are in a psychological prison created by our minds. Until we begin to realize how confined we are, we will not be able to find our way out. Neither will we find our way out by struggling against the confines we have inherited from our parents, society, and culture. It is only by beginning to examine and realize the falseness within our minds that we begin to awaken an intelligence that originates from beyond the realm of thinking. If spirituality is to be meaningful, it must deliver us from all forms of dependence—including the dependence on spirituality—and help awaken within us that creative spark which all beings aspire to. For the culmination of spirituality lies not only in discovering our inherent unity and freedom, but also in opening the way for life to express itself through us in a unique and creative way. Such uniqueness and creativity is not to be found in anything the human mind has ever created, nor is it to be found in our ideals of human perfection or utopian dreams. True autonomy arises when we have broken free of all the old structures, all psychological dependencies, and all fear. Only then can that which is truly unique and fearless arise within us and begin to express itself. Such expression cannot be planned or even imagined because it belongs to a dimension uninhibited by anything that has come before it. True autonomy is not trying to fit in or be understood, nor is it a revolt against anything. It is an uncaused phenomenon. Consciously or unconsciously all beings aspire to it, but very few find the courage to step into that infinity of aloneness. © Adyashanti 2009

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© Adyashanti 2010

Immeasurable Reality

In its true sense spirituality is not a plaything or a pastime. It has nothing to do with enhancing you or your status in the

dream state. Nor is it about gurus in long flowing robes, secret oral teachings, ancient traditions, or holy books that people

claim were written by God. It’s about here and now and you, and whether you are asleep within the dream state or awake

within the awakened state.

It is the nature of all dreams that the characters therein are so busy being—well, dream characters—that the bigger reality

of what lies outside the dream state eludes them. But then again, dream characters don’t wake up from the dreams they are

a part of; the dreamer does. If spirituality is to be meaningful it must address what lies beyond the dream state that most of

us create in our minds and humanity lives in day-to-day, for unless we awaken from our personal and collective dreams we

will continue to live in a state of unconsciousness on the surface of a life of infinite potential.

Only that which is real and true has the power to liberate us from the mechanical and magnetic draw of the dream state. For

ultimately it is ignorance (the belief in things that are untrue) that imprisons us within a trance state, which is induced by

taking the conditioned stream of thinking within one’s mind to be true. If we are to awaken from the mind’s hypnotic

embrace, we must question all of our beliefs and assumptions down to the very source of our being until that which is true,

real, and everlasting reveals itself.

Truth is that which lies beyond the grasp of the dreaming mind. It is not something that can be captured and stated like a

fact can. Truth is a timeless reality and therefore sacred in the true sense of the word. Please do not think of truth in

mystical terms or even in spiritual terms. Truth refers to the whole of existence and beyond. Truth exists as much in your

teacup as it does in your temples and churches. Truth is as present in shopping for your groceries as it is in chanting to God.

To think of truth only in spiritual or religious terms is to miss the whole of it, for in doing so you create the boundaries and

divisions that are the very antithesis of truth.

Truth is an immeasurable reality not at all separate from your own being. For in the revelation of truth, all beings rest within

your being. Put more simply, if you cannot find it now underfoot, I’m afraid that you have missed it entirely.

© Adyashanti 2009

Truth Is

Truth is only discovered in the moment.

There is no truth that can be carried over

to the next moment, the next day, the next year.

Memory never contains truth, only what is past, dead, gone.

Truth comes into the non-seeking mind fresh and alive.

It is not something you can carry with you, accumulate, or hold onto.

Truth leaps into view when the mind is quiet, not asserting itself.

You cannot contain or domesticate truth, for if you do, it dies instantly.

Truth prowls the unknown waiting for a gap in the mind’s activity.

When that gap is there, the truth leaps out of the unknown into the known.

Instantly you comprehend it and sense its sacredness.

The timeless has broken through like a flash of lightning

and illuminated the moment with its presence.

Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing and a sacrament.

Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself

and illumines the human heart from the inside out.

© Adyashanti 200

An Inner Revolution

The enlightenment I speak of is not simply a realization, not simply the discovery of one’s true nature. This discovery is just

the beginning—the point of entry into an inner revolution. Realization does not guarantee this revolution; it simply makes it

possible.

What is this inner revolution? To begin with, revolution is not static; it is alive, ongoing, and continuous. It cannot be

grasped or made to fit into any conceptual model. Nor is there any path to this inner revolution, for it is neither predictable

nor controllable and has a life all its own. This revolution is a breaking away from the old, repetitive, dead structures of

thought and perception that humanity finds itself trapped in. Realization of the ultimate reality is a direct and sudden

existential awakening to one’s true nature that opens the door to the possibility of an inner revolution. Such a revolution

requires an ongoing emptying out of the old structures of consciousness and the birth of a living and fluid intelligence. This

intelligence restructures your entire being—body, mind, and perception. This intelligence cuts the mind free of its old

structures that are rooted within the totality of human consciousness. If one cannot become free of the old conditioned

structures of human consciousness, then one is still in a prison.

Having an awakening to one’s true nature does not necessarily mean that there will be an ongoing revolution in the way one

perceives, acts, and responds to life. The moment of awakening shows us what is ultimately true and real as well as

revealing a deeper possibility in the way that life can be lived from an undivided and unconditioned state of being. But the

moment of awakening does not guarantee this deeper possibility, as many who have experienced spiritual awakening can

attest to. Awakening opens a door inside to a deep inner revolution, but in no way guarantees that it will take place.

Whether it takes place or not depends on many factors, but none more important and vital than an earnest and

unambiguous intention for truth above and beyond all else. This earnest intention toward truth is what all spiritual growth

ultimately depends upon, especially when it transcends all personal preferences, agendas, and goals.

This inner revolution is the awakening of an intelligence not born of the mind but of an inner silence of mind, which alone

has the ability to uproot all of the old structures of one’s consciousness. Unless these structures are uprooted, there will be

no creative thought, action, or response. Unless there is an inner revolution, nothing new and fresh can flower. Only the old,

the repetitious, the conditioned will flower in the absence of this revolution. But our potential lies beyond the known, beyond

the structures of the past, beyond anything that humanity has established. Our potential is something that can flower only

when we are no longer caught within the influence and limitations of the known. Beyond the realm of the mind, beyond the

limitations of humanity’s conditioned consciousness, lies that which can be called the sacred. And it is from the sacred that a

new and fluid consciousness is born that wipes away the old and brings to life the flowering of a living and undivided

expression of being. Such an expression is neither personal nor impersonal, neither spiritual nor worldly, but rather the flow

and flowering of existence beyond all notions of self.

So let us understand that reality transcends all of our notions about reality. Reality is neither Christian, Hindu, Jewish,

Advaita Vedanta, nor Buddhist. It is neither dualistic nor nondualistic, neither spiritual nor nonspiritual. We should come to

know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality. When

we perceive from an undivided consciousness, we will find the sacred in every expression of life. We will find it in our teacup,

in the fall breeze, in the brushing of our teeth, in each and every moment of living and dying. Therefore we must leave the

entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence into the unknown,

beyond where all paths end, to that place where we go innocently or not at all—not once but continually.

One must be willing to stand alone—in the unknown, with no reference to the known or the past or any of one’s conditioning.

One must stand where no one has stood before in complete nakedness, innocence, and humility. One must stand in that

dark light, in that groundless embrace, unwavering and true to the reality beyond all self—not just for a moment, but forever

without end. For then that which is sacred, undivided, and whole is born within consciousness and begins to express itself.

© Adyashanti 2008

This Amazing Opportunity

Let’s remember why we’re here at retreat: for this amazing opportunity to really look into the core of our own existence, the

core of life itself that is so easy to overlook. It’s so easy not to pay attention to it, because it’s not noisy and it’s not

clamoring for attention like all the other aspects of the human mind. Egoic consciousness is always pretending to be the

most important thing that is happening.

And yet there’s this thread, this sense of something other than, deeper than, more real than, more essential than this

scattered and divided noise that so many human beings live in, in their minds. And right in the midst of all that, there is a

presence, there is an awareness, an unconditioned awareness, an unconditioned consciousness. Right in the middle of this

conditioned mind, conditioned consciousness, is this shining, unconditioned essence. Essence doesn’t mean a little part

hidden somewhere in us, the little teeny kernel of essence. Essence means the totality, the whole thing. Essence means the

truth of you as opposed to the untruth of you.

Essence isn’t a small thing, essence is an immense thing. The essence of you is everything you ever see, taste, touch, and

experience. Everywhere you go, every step you take, every breath you take is actually happening by the essence, of the

essence, in the essence, and to the essence. All the rest is noise and chatter.

So we come here to give our attention, our affection, our time. Our most highly prized commodity is our time. Anything or

anyone you give your time to shows immediately what is most important. And I want to remind everyone that what you

really are, what the person next to you is, what the children in Africa scraping up the little grains of rice are, this timeless

essence, is not hidden. It’s not hidden at all. It’s in plain view. Everywhere you look, that’s the essence. And the mind would

say, “Where? Where? I don’t see it. All I see is a car, a billboard, a tree, the person in front of me, the funny man on the

stage. Where is this essence?”

It’s easy to grasp for it, isn’t it? “Where is it? What is it? I want to understand it. I want to know about it. How can it work

for me? How can I utilize it?” But it doesn’t come upon us through the grasping of it, through the striving for it, and through

the struggling for it. There’s no merit gained through wasted effort, through excess struggle. There are no merit points for

the people who drove themselves the craziest along the way to self-realization. For most people it’s so obscure that it seems

very intuitive to grasp and to struggle instead of relaxing, not grasping, letting something come to you, letting the truth of

your being reveal itself to you on its terms, in its way, letting it happen.

It will happen. It’s always happening. It’s always trying to show itself.

© Adyashanti 2008

The Indispensable Qualities of Awakening

In essence the entire spiritual endeavor is a very simple thing: Spirituality is essentially about awakening as the intuitive

awareness of unity and dissolving our attachment to egoic consciousness. By saying that spirituality is a very simple thing, I

do not mean to imply that it is either an easy or difficult endeavor. For some it may be very easy, while for others it may be

more difficult. There are many factors and influences that play a role in one’s awakening to the greater reality, but the

greatest factors by far are one’s sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage.

Sincerity is a word that I often use in teaching to convey the importance of being rooted in the qualities of honesty,

authenticity, and genuineness. There can be nothing phony or contrived in our motivations if we are to fully awaken to our

natural and integral state of unified awareness. While teachings and teachers can point us inward to “the peace beyond all

understanding,” it is always along the thread of our inner sincerity, or lack thereof, that we will travel. For the ego is clever

and artful in the ways of deception, and only the honesty and genuineness of our ineffable being are beyond its influence. At

each step and with each breath we are given the option of acting and responding, both inwardly and outwardly, from the

conditioning of egoic consciousness which values control and separation above all else, or from the intuitive awareness of

unity which resides in the inner silence of our being.

Without sincerity it is so very easy for even the greatest spiritual teachings to become little more than playthings of the

mind. In our fast-moving world of quick fixes, big promises, and short attention spans, it is easy to remain on a very surface

level of consciousness without even knowing it. While the awakened state is ever present and closer than your feet, hands,

or eyes, it cannot be approached in a casual or insincere fashion. There is a reason that seekers the world over are

instructed to remove their shoes and quiet their voices before entering into sacred spaces. The message being conveyed is

that one’s ego must be “taken off and quieted” before access to the divine is granted. All of our ego’s attempts to control,

demand, and plead with reality have no influence on it other than to make life more conflicted and difficult. But an open

mind and sincere heart have the power to grant us access to realizing what has always been present all along.

When people asked the great Indian sage Nisargadatta what he thought was the most important quality to have in order to

awaken, he would say “earnestness.” When you are earnest, you are both sincere and one-pointed; to be one-pointed

means to keep your attention on one thing. I have found that the most challenging thing for most spiritual seekers to do is

to stay focused on one thing for very long. The mind jumps around with its concerns and questions from moment to

moment. Rarely does it stay with one question long enough to penetrate it deeply. In spirituality it is very important not to

let the egoic mind keep jumping from one concern to the next like an untrained dog. Remember, awakening is about

realizing your true nature and dissolving all attachment to egoic consciousness.

My grandmother who passed away a few years ago used to say to me jokingly, “Getting old is not for wimps.” She was well

aware of the challenges of an aging body, and while she never complained or felt any pity for herself, she knew firsthand

that aging had its challenges as well as its benefits. There was a courage within my grandmother that served her well as she

approached the end of her life, and I am happy to say that when she passed, it was willingly and without fear. In a similar

way the process of coming into a full and mature awakening requires courage, as not only our view of life but life itself

transforms to align itself with the inner mystic vision. A sincere heart is a robust and courageous heart willing to let go in the

face of the great unknown expanse of Being—an expanse which the egoic mind has no way of knowing or understanding.

When one’s awareness opens beyond the dream state of egoic consciousness to the infinite no-thing-ness of intuitive

awareness, it is common for the ego to feel much fear and terror as this transition begins. While there is nothing to fear

about our natural state of infinite Being, such a state is beyond the ego’s ability to understand, and as always, egos fear

whatever they do not understand and cannot control. As soon as our identity leaves the ego realm and assumes its rightful

place as the infinite no-thing-ness/every-thing-ness of awareness, all fear vanishes in the same manner as when we awaken

from a bad dream. In the same manner in which my grandmother said, “Getting old is not for wimps,” it can also be said

that making the transition from the dream state to the mature, awakened state requires courage.

Sincerity, one-pointedness, and courage are indispensable qualities in awakening from the dream state of ego to the peace

and ease of awakened Being. All there is left to do is to live it.

© Adyashanti 2008

Are You Ready to Lose Your World?

There is a very famous poem written by the third patriarch of Zen, Seng-ts’an, called the Hsin-Hsin Ming, which translates as

Verses in Faith Mind. In this poem Seng-ts’an writes these lines: “Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish

opinions.” This is a reversal of the way most people go about trying to realize absolute truth. Most people seek truth, but

Seng-ts’an is saying not to seek truth. This sounds very strange indeed. How will you find truth if you don’t seek it? How will

you find happiness if you do not seek it? How will you find God if you do not seek God? Everyone seems to be seeking

something. In spirituality seeking is highly honored and respected, and here comes Seng-ts’an saying not to seek.

The reason Seng-ts’an is saying not to seek is because truth, or reality, is not something objective. Truth is not something

“out there.” It is not something you will find as an object of perception or as a temporal experience. Reality is neither inside

of you nor outside of you. Both “outside” and “inside” are not getting to the point. They both miss the mark because outside

and inside are conceptual constructs with no inherent reality. They are simply abstract points of reference. Even words like

“you,” or “me,” or “I,” are nothing more than conceptual points of reference existing only in the mind. Such concepts may

have a practical value in daily life, but when assumed to be true they distort perception and create a virtual reality, or what

in the East is called the world of samsara.

Seng-ts’an was a wily old Zen master. He viewed things through the eye of enlightenment and was intimately aware of how

the conditioned mind fools itself into false pursuits and blind alleys. He knew that seeking truth, or reality, is as silly as a dog

thinking that it must chase its tail in order to attain its tail. The dog already has full possession of its tail from the very

beginning. Besides, once the dog grasps his tail, he will have to let go of it in order to function. So even if you were to find

the truth through grasping, you will have to let it go at some point in order to function. But even so, any truth that is

attained through grasping is not the real truth because such a truth would be an object and therefore not real to begin with.

In order to seek, you must first have an idea, ideal, or an image, what it is you are seeking. That idea may not even be very

conscious or clear but it must be there in order for you to seek. Being an idea it cannot be real. That’s why Seng-ts’an says

“only cease to cherish opinions.” By opinions he means ideas, ideals, beliefs, and images, as well as personal opinions. This

sounds easy but it is rarely as easy as it seems. Seng-ts’an is not saying you should never have a thought in your head, he

is saying not to cherish the thoughts in your head. To cherish implies an emotional attachment and holding on to. When you

cherish something, you place value on it because you think that it is real or because it defines who you think you are. This

cherishing of thoughts and opinions is what the false self thrives on. It is what the false self is made of. When you realize

that none of your ideas about truth are real, it is quite a shock to your system. It is an unexpected blow to the seeker and

the seeking.

The task of any useful spiritual practice is therefore to dismantle cherishing the thoughts, opinions, and ideas that make up

the false self, the self that is seeking. This is the true task of both meditation and inquiry. Through meditation we can come

to see that the only thing that makes us suffer is our own mind. Sitting quietly reveals the mind to be nothing but

conditioned thinking spontaneously arising within awareness. Through cherishing this thinking, through taking it to be real

and relevant, we create internal images of self and others and the world. Then we live in these images as if they were real.

To be caught within these images is to live in an illusory virtual reality.

Through observing the illusory nature of thought without resisting it, we can begin to question and inquire into the

underlying belief structures that support it. These belief structures are what form our emotional attachments to the false self

and the world our minds create.

This is why I sometimes ask people, “Are you ready to lose your world?” Because true awakening will not fit into the world as

you imagine it or the self you imagine yourself to be. Reality is not something that you integrate into your personal view of

things. Reality is life without your distorting stories, ideas, and beliefs. It is perfect unity free of all reference points, with

nowhere to stand and nothing to grab hold of. It has never been spoken, never been written, never been imagined. It is not

hidden, but in plain view. Cease to cherish opinions and it stands before your very eyes.

© Adyashanti 2007

The Novel of Life

When you read a novel, and you read about various characters, you may like some and not like others. Or when you watch a

movie, think about your relationship with the characters. You might like them; you might not like them—but you’re not

finding your sense of self in them. You’re not referencing your self-worth by the characters in a novel or when you turn on

the TV. You just have your thoughts about them.

But imagine if you turned on your TV or you read a novel and you actually completely derived your sense of being and your

sense of self from one of the characters. Immediately your perspective is very different, isn’t it? Now your perspective has

gone from something that’s very vast to something that’s very limited, seen only through the eyes of the character. Sadly,

that’s how most human beings spend their lives. They have this little character in their mind called "me," and they’re

actually viewing that “me” as personal when it’s not.

The “me” is very impersonal, not meaning cold or distant, but just meaning without inherent self nature, in the same way

that when you read a book, the characters are without self nature. They actually don’t exist outside of your imagination.

They don’t even exist in the book, because the book is just words. And without someone reading the words and bringing it

all alive within imagination, nothing even exists on the printed page. It’s all within the reader, all the life.

When the Buddha talked about the realization of no-self, he was talking about the self that’s an image in the mind being

completely seen through. And when there is no image of self, experience has nothing to bounce off of. Everything just is as

it is, because there's no secondary interpretation. The one that’s interpreting is the one that’s in pain. And that’s the

one who suffers. That’s the one who causes others to suffer.

The false self, the self that’s an image in the mind, uses every experience to measure itself: “How am I in relationship to

what’s happening? Am I wise? Am I stupid? Am I clumsy? Am I courageous? Am I enlightened about this?” That’s the

movement of consciousness reflecting on an image of itself that doesn’t actually exist. It’s always measuring each and every

experience, and then believing in the interpretation of the experience rather than seeing “Everything just is.”

Everything actually just is. From the perspective of consciousness, even resistance just is. And if you resist resistance, that’s

just what is. You can’t get away from it. You start to see that the only thing that goes into resistance, a story, or an

interpretation of what is—whatever it is—is this mind-created persona. It's like a character in a novel. When you read a

novel, every character has a point of view. It has beliefs. It has opinions. There’s something that makes it distinct from other

characters. Our persona is literally this mind-created character that’s always making itself distinct. So it always needs to

evaluate everything against its preconceived idea.

There’s another vantage point. The other vantage point is not only outside the character, it's also inside the character. It’s

the ultimate vantage point that’s outside, and it’s also playing all the parts from the inside.

That’s basically what it means to really wake up: we’re waking up from the character. You don’t have to destroy the

character called “me” to wake up from it. In fact, trying to destroy the character makes it very hard to wake up. Because

what’s trying to destroy the character? The character. What’s judging the character? The character.

So you leave the character alone. The character called you, just leave it alone. Then it’s much easier for the awakening out

of that perspective to happen.

You don’t lose the character; you just gain the whole novel of life. It’s not like you lose anything. You just gain the whole

book. You gain the whole universe. As Buddha would say, “Lose yourself, gain the universe.” It’s not a bad deal. Or Dogen:

“To know yourself is to forget yourself, and to forget yourself is to be enlightened by the 10,000 things,” which means to see

yourself everywhere. Wake up from your character, and then you see your self nature in all characters—not just one, but all

of them.

So we don’t lose anything. We gain all characters. We just lose the fixation, that’s all.

© 2005 Adyashanti

Realizing Your True Nature

Awakening to the truth is a deep realization of what you are as an experience. What is it that is feeling? What is it that is

thinking or sensing? This is not about coming up with the right name for it, so don’t name it for a moment. It’s about just

noticing, just experiencing. Feel it. Sense it. Welcome it. Spiritual awakening is realizing what occupies the space called

“me.” When you listen innocently, you’ll see that there really is something more here than a me.

Your me is always experiencing this moment in relation to some other moment. Is this moment as good as it was two weeks

ago? Will it be the same today as it was yesterday? The me worries about what it knows and whether or not it is good

enough to get enlightened. Your me might call itself Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Advaitan, atheist, agnostic, believer, or

nonbeliever, but no matter what your me is identified with, when you become very open and relaxed, you can suddenly be

aware that something else is occupying your body-mind. Something else is looking out from your eyes, listening from your

ears, and feeling your feelings. That something has no qualities. Realizing your true nature is realizing what is present

without qualities. We can call it the emptiness of consciousness, the Self, or the No-Self. To directly experience this

emptiness—the aliveness of it—is spiritual awakening. It is to realize yourself as beautiful nothingness, or more accurately,

no-thing-ness. If we say it’s just “nothing,” we miss the point.

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.

But even then you can realize the truth and still not operate from it. You can have a very deep awakening experience and

still not function from that awakening because the me is still convinced that a me is necessary. The me always brings you

back into relationship with another—it can be the world and me, my job and me, the dog and me, whatever. Have you

noticed how the way you relate to your thoughts, feelings, and sensations is often slightly adversarial? How it’s never quite

the right moment? How it’s almost perfect, but not quite? The Buddha said, “All suffering originates from craving, from

attachment, from desire.” This is the movement of the me who always wants a little more out of the moment.

The me is clumsy. As my mother used to say, “You’re like a bull in a china shop.” Did you ever hear that? If you let your

mind imagine a bull getting loose in a china shop, that’s how the me is. It’s knocking things over, things like the most

precious china. With a whisk of its tail, there goes . . . grandma’s four-generation-old antique china cups! Boom—they’re

gone. When your me is operating, it’s like that bull. It tends to make a lot of noise because it’s always in a slightly

adversarial relationship with its moment. It produces noisy thoughts, feelings, beliefs, or opinions. It also likes to search,

moving its head around, scanning for the right emotion in the body, scanning through the mind for the right concept. It’s

always in movement like a radar, looking for the right thing to happen.

As soon as you move your attention away from the radar scan, you start to notice something else. Inside, there is something

that is not creating nearly as much noise as the me. This something else, this openness, this awakeness, is not searching for

the next moment or scanning for the right emotion or experience. You can get the sense of it now. What does it feel like to

simply be awake? Whether you think you are awake or not doesn’t matter—don’t worry about that for now. What does the

awakeness itself feel like? What is the experience of that awakeness before you try to be more or less awake? Just with a

willingness to open, you can start to feel it. How does this awakeness feel? How does this openness feel? Just by bringing

your attention there, just by noticing without any effort, this formless or empty sense of being heightens itself as if to say,

“Someone is finally paying attention.”

When this openness is present, you can recognize how it experiences your body. How does openness experience a feeling,

emotion, or thought? How does it experience the movement called “me”? Allow yourself to get a real taste of this. This

openness is in a completely different relationship with everything that exists, starting with you. It’s in a different relationship

with the moment; it’s not going anywhere. Have you noticed? It’s not trying to achieve something else. It hasn’t elevated

you or demeaned you. Start to sense the profound innocence of this openness. It’s not perceiving from the past—not from

the last moment, much less from the accumulation of a lifetime. It’s perceiving only in this moment.

Openness has not accumulated anything, so it’s free. It has a profoundly innocent but wise relationship to everything. It is

something primary, awake, and alive. You can sense how incredibly precious it is. When you look right into it, there is

nothing there. Let yourself experience this openness, this nothingness. Let yourself see how it experiences your body and

mind right now, in this moment. It’s so different from the experience of the me. This nothingness is the peace that surpasses

all understanding, and it’s right here at your fingertips.

Awakeness is inherent in all things and all beings everywhere, all the time. This awakeness relates to every moment from

innocence, from absolute honesty, from a state where you feel absolutely authentic. Only from this state do you realize that

you never really wanted whatever you thought you wanted. You realize that behind all of your desires was a single desire: to

experience each moment from your true nature. You find that simply walking outside and seeing a leaf in the breeze or

seeing a street person on the corner is the most exquisite of experiences. You don’t need anything big; each moment has a

beauty all its own. Even the very ugly moments have a beauty when experienced from this innocence, this beautifully

disarming state of awakeness.

During any moment, you can ask yourself, “What is it like for emptiness to experience this moment? What is it like for

awakeness?” Really listen, because openness is quiet and soft. You can’t insist upon it. You can’t grab for it, so don’t reach.

Just open. Look for the openness, feel from the openness, and relate from the openness. It can freak you out if you’re not

used to it. If you find yourself in a place that you don’t like, just ask how openness is experiencing this moment. A shift

happens, and you find yourself saying, “I’ll be damned—it’s actually enjoying this!”

This relationship from your heart, from the truth of your being, from openness—is something that can’t be taught. I

remember what it was like when I went as a Buddhist to undertake the precepts. You read through them, study them, and

kind of take them inside. You do whatever the little me does with them, like deciding you are going to do a really good job of

it—until you find out otherwise. You think you know what the precepts are, then you really awaken to your true nature and

realize that this is how your true nature naturally sees things. It’s very simple. That’s it. Now you don’t need any precepts

because your true nature sees that way all the time. You don’t need to be reminded of how your true nature sees. You only

need to be reminded of what your true nature is.

So if you want to find out how openness relates to each moment, just go inside. Be that openness. Be that emptiness. All

you can do is ask yourself, inquire for yourself. How is it relating to this thought in my head? To this person? To this

moment? You can see this. Go directly to the source, to the only authority that is finally liberating: your own awakeness,

your own emptiness perceiving this moment. It will teach you how to live.

Berkeley, California, March 17, 2002

Authentic Inquiry

What is inquiry, really? This is a good question. And like most really good questions, it is very basic. Authentic inquiry is

allowing yourself to care, to take on the weightless burden of caring. Everyone knows what it’s like to inquire out of

intellectual interest—asking for the sake of asking or because you think you should. This is not caring. When you care about

something, it gets inside of you. It gets inside the shell that keeps you from being affected or bothered, the shell that keeps

anything really new from happening.

So in the beginning, to deeply inquire about anything, you have to care about it. You have to care enough to allow it to get

inside that shell. What do you really care about? What pulls you into here and now, this minute? What is the most important

thing to you? For real inquiry, it is important to be asking about something you sincerely care about. The question needs to

be personal, not about a spiritual teaching or something that’s outside of your experience. It needs to be something that’s

coming from the inside.

When you care, you care from the inside. Many people impose ideas from the outside upon themselves, but this isn’t inquiry.

When you really care, you enter a love affair with what you care about. Sometimes it draws you into bliss, sometimes into

confusion. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know where you are going. You feel a bit out of control. You’re letting this

caring get under your skin. To find out that you care like this is the most important thing; otherwise you can spend your

whole life caring about what someone else says you should care about.

Like many people, you may be afraid to find out how much you care because that caring could just steal you away. What is

the one thing that will matter the most at the end of your life? Without it, you would say: “That’s what it was all about and I

missed it.” If you had the best job, lots of money, the perfect lover, or whatever your ideal is, and suddenly your life was

over, what would still be left undone? That’s what it’s all about.

When you find that kind of caring, inquiry has some power behind it. You also find your own inner integrity. You find

something inside that’s stable. There’s a place inside you that is willing to be a little crazy—crazy enough to take inquiry

seriously and hold nothing sacred. Holding nothing sacred means that nothing is assumed to be true and all of your

assumptions are fair game. The more spiritual they are, the more they are fair game. Ultimately it is your most sacred and

unquestioned assumptions about yourself, others, and life that are most important to question.

Many people find their spirituality taking them outward. They think they are going inward because they have heard the

spiritual teaching, “Inquire and look within.” Meanwhile, they are out in the stars somewhere looking for someone else’s

experience, looking for the right experience, or looking for the experience they believe they are supposed to have. This is

spirituality going entirely in the wrong direction. Inquiry is a means of taking you back to yourself, back to your experience.

When inquiry is authentic, it brings you into the experience of here and now, bringing you to the full depth of it, pulling you

into it. The question pulls you back into the mystery of your experience. “What am I?” takes you right back into the mystery.

If your mind is honest, it knows it doesn’t have the answer. You ask, “What am I?” and instantly, there is silence. Your mind

doesn’t know. And when it doesn’t know, there is an experience right here, right now, that is alive. You bump into

nothingness inside—that no-thing, that absolute nothingness which your mind can’t know.

The answer does not come in the form of a description or phrase; it is a direct experience. And this experience, your

livingness, always transcends any words or intellectual answer. In fact, the truth of your being is eternally transcending

itself. As soon as it projects itself out as something, even as a profound insight, it has already transcended it. So eventually

the inquiry wears itself out. You wear yourself out. You wear your ego self out. You wear your spiritual self out. You wear it

all out. You’ve inquired yourself out of this whole thing, and you’re disappearing faster than you can put yourself together.

As Nisargadatta Maharaj said so brilliantly and beautifully, “The ultimate understanding is that there is no ultimate

understanding.” When it’s in the head, it’s an impressive piece of understanding; when it’s in the heart, as the Buddha said,

it’s extinguished. You find a living experience of being, empty of content, empty of you. This is where spiritual awakening

begins. This is the living answer of authentic inquiry.

© Adyashanti 2007

A Single Desire

Awakeness is inherent

in all things and all beings

everywhere

all the time.

This awakeness relates to every moment

from innocence

from absolute honesty

from a state where you feel

absolutely authentic.

Only from this state

do you realize

that you never really wanted

whatever you thought you wanted.

You realize

that behind all of your desires

was a single desire:

to experience each moment

from your true nature.

© 2007 by Adyashanti.

The Quest

The quest for enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. It’s not a quest for ideas about truth—that’s philosophy. And it’s

not a quest to realize your fantasies about truth—that’s fundamentalized religion. It’s a quest for truth on truth’s terms. It’s

a quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence.

In your quiet moments of honesty, you know that you are not who you present yourself as, or who you pretend to be.

Although you have changed identities many times, and changed them even in the course of a single day, none of them fit for

long. They are all in a process of constant decay. One moment you’re a loving person, the next an angry one. One day

you’re an indulgent, worldly person; the next a pure, spiritual lover of God. One moment you love your image of yourself,

and the next you loathe it. On it goes, identified with one self-image after another, each as separate and false as the last.

When this game of delusion gets boring or painful enough, something within you begins to stir. Out of the unsatisfactoriness

of separation arises the intuition that there is something more real than you are now conscious of. It is the intuition that

there is truth, although you do not know what it is. But you know, you intuit, that truth exists, truth that has absolutely

nothing to do with your ideas about it. But somehow you know that the truth about you and all of life exists.

Once you receive this intuition, this revelation, you will be compelled to find it. You will have no choice in the matter. You will

have consciously begun the authentic quest for enlightenment, and there is no turning back. Life as you’ve known it will

never be quite the same.

A great Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” If there is a primary practice or path to

enlightenment, this is it—to cease cherishing illusions. Seeking truth can be a game, complete with a new identity as a truth-

seeker fueled by new ideas and beliefs. But ceasing to cherish illusions is no game; it’s a gritty and intimate form of

deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth. You don’t find truth as

much as you stumble upon it when you have cast away your illusions.

As the master said, “Do not seek the truth.” But you can’t stop seeking just because some ancient Zen master said to.

Seeking is an energy, a movement toward something. Spiritual seekers are moving toward God, nirvana, enlightenment,

ultimate truth, whatever. To seek something, you must have at least some vague idea or image of what it is you are

seeking. But ultimate truth is not an idea or an image or something attained anew. So, to seek truth as something objective

is a waste of time and energy. Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Seeking what you

are is as silly as your shoes looking for their soles by walking in circles. What is the path that will lead your shoes to their

soles? That’s why the Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth.” Instead, cease cherishing illusions.

To cease cherishing illusions is a way of inverting the energy of seeking. The energy of seeking will be there in one form or

another until you wake up from the dream state. You can’t just get rid of it. You need to learn how to invert it and use the

energy to deconstruct the illusions that hold your consciousness in the dream state. This sounds relatively simple, but the

consequences can seem quite disorienting, even threatening. I’m not talking about a new spiritual technique here; I’m

talking about a radically different orientation to the whole of your spiritual life. This is not a little thing. It is a very big thing,

and your best chance of awakening depends on it. “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” And if you’re

like most spiritually oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that.

© 2007 by Adyashanti.

How Very Fortunate

Adyashanti's Reflections After Ten Years of Teaching

It has been ten years since I began teaching, and in those years there has been much change and evolution in the

expression of the teaching, as well as the emergence of a growing community and supportive organization. Since I began

teaching at my teacher’s request, I have focused on only one thing: to express and transmit the fundamental realization of

unity that lies at the heart of all forms of true spirituality in the most direct and unadorned way possible. I have always held

the conviction that while the various spiritual traditions and lineages are valuable carriers of ancient teachings, practices,

and subtle transmissions, they need to have a constant living renewal breathed into them by truly free and creative human

beings lest they start serving the needs of the dream state and not those of the awakened state. It is good to remember that

the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to create Christs, not Christians. In

the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus

to awakened life and living.

To serve this intention my teaching has been, and continues to be, in a constant state of renewal. As more and more of my

students come into the deeper realms of spiritual adulthood, so too does the expression of the teachings evolve to address

and clarify the deeper reaches of spirituality. I find that as time goes on I can touch upon more subtle and challenging

aspects of spiritual awakening as those who come to see me become more established in the deeper aspects of spiritual

realization. It is this spontaneous dance and interplay between teacher and student that breathes new life into our shared

exploration and expression of truth.

While the expression and scope of this teaching work evolves, it continues to be rooted in the direct experience of awakening

from identifying with the body-mind-personality to the universal truth of what we are. For all things and all beings are

enlightened Buddhas from the very start and it is only attachment to identity, ideas, and concepts that obscures this fact.

Thus the paradox of already being the very truth that you are seeking. Beware though, for intellectual understanding will do

as little to bring you to realization as repeating the word “water” will do to quench your thirst. An intuitive leap of

remembrance is what’s called for, for you are awake and nothing, expressing yourself as everything in this very moment.

Never did I anticipate or imagine the size or growth of this Sangha. There were some evenings in the early days of my

teaching when I was the only one who came. On such evenings I would sit in silence for an hour or so before gathering my

things and returning home. Other times two or three people would come, and over time more and more. From the

beginning, numbers were unimportant. I always felt that if I could help just one person to truly wake up, I would feel

fortunate. And how very fortunate I have been!

I can honestly say that I know much less now than I did ten years ago when I began teaching. Each day that passes now is

a deeper step into the unknown, a place far beyond where thought has ever touched. A place where there are no ideas,

ideals, or new theories—but instead a living and dynamic whole which alone can be called sacred, everlasting, and right

before our very eyes.

May all beings realize the nature of the ground upon which they stand, and who it is that stands upon it.

© 2006 by Adyashanti.

Everything Comes Back to Nothing

Inexplicably it comes. When you least expect it. For a reason you can never know. One moment you are striving, figuring,

imagining, and then, in the blink of an eye, it all disappears. The struggle disappears. The striving disappears. The person

disappears. The world disappears. Everything disappears, and the person is like a pinpoint of light, just receding until it

disappears. And there’s nobody there to witness it. The person is gone. Only, only awareness remains. Nothing else. No one

to be aware. Nothing to be aware of. Only that remains itself. Then it’s understood, finally and simply.

Then everything—all the struggle, all the striving, all the thinking, all the figuring, all the surrendering, all the letting go, all

the grabbing hold of, all the praying, all the begging, all the cursing, too—was just a distraction. And only then is it seen that

the person was, is, and ever will be no more than a thought. With a single thought, the person seems to reemerge. With

more thoughts, the world seems to reemerge right out of nothing. But now you know.

The incarnation is nothing more than a thought. A thousand incarnations are but a thousand thoughts. And this amazing

miracle of a mirage we call the world reappears as it was before, but now you know. That’s why you usually have a good

laugh, because you realize that all your struggles were made up. You conjured them up out of nothing—with a thought that

was linked to another thought, that was then believed, that linked to another thought that was then believed. But never

could it have been true, not for a second could it have actually existed. Not ever could you have actually suffered for a

reason that was true—only through an imagination, good, bad, indifferent. The intricacies of spiritual philosophy and

theologies are just a thought within Emptiness.

And so at times we talk, and I pretend to take your struggles seriously, just as I pretended to take my own seriously. You

may pretend to take your own struggles seriously from time to time, and although we pretend, we really shouldn’t forget

that we are pretending, that we are making up the content of our experience; we are making up the little dramas of our

lives. We are making up whether we need to hold on or surrender or figure it out or pray to God or be purified or have

karma cleansed—it’s all a thought. We just collude in this ridiculous charade of an illusion pretending that it’s real, only to

reveal that it’s not. There is no karma. There is nothing really to purify. There’s no problem. There is only what you create

and believe to be so. And if you like it that way, have at it!

But we cannot continue this absolute farce indefinitely. We cannot continue to pretend this game we play, indefinitely. It’s

impossible. Everything comes back to nothing.

And then it’s a bit harder to hold a straight face consistently for the rest of your life.

Transcribed from a talk in Pacific Grove, CA, June 9, 2006.

© 2006 by Adyashanti.

Everlasting Inheritance

An Unfinished Poem by Adyashanti

Listen now, or lose your life, for what I have to say is what you have imagined in quiet moments but have failed to realize in

full. Perhaps you were too timid or astonished at the critical moments, or couldn’t find the courage to step through the veil of

your frail life when the door was opened for you.

Or perhaps you wanted to keep your life as your own, and chose to hold onto a few pennies when you could have had gold.

No matter, for yesterday has passed into the dust of remembered dreams, and tomorrow’s story is yet to be written.

Which is precisely why you and I are now here together. You and I. You and I. Oh, the sheer mystery of it—how could

anything be more grand? Stand with me here at the precipice and take my hand in yours, for I am good company to those

ready to depart familiar ground. If not, then let loose of my hand now and take that of a more familiar companion. For where

we stand is known, but our next step will not be—nor the one after or the one after that.

So shoulder all of your longing and intent and leave all else behind. I give you fair warning: The world you are about to leave

will not be there when you return. For nothing truly left behind is ever the same upon our return. Let us not waste any more

time on discussions or debates; you have surely been caught in those tide pools too long already. Too much talk is wearying

to the soul and evades the spirit of things. Longing is the true measure of a man or woman and alone has the power to draw

us out of ourselves and into the vast air of eternity. But we shall not rely only on the winds of longing, for they can be fickle

and unpredictable. We shall also need the fire of intent—that fine-tipped arrow of courage flying true and straight to its goal,

piercing through the fabric of our dreams as it goes.

This is as fair a day as any to begin the journey back to your origin. So lift your foot together with mine and we will step off

the well-trodden paths and into the uncharted woods where the essence of things lies waiting for you to open your eyes.

It is time to begin watching your steps, dear companion. For you have already wasted the goodness of too many days

stumbling along with the unconscious drove. Today I bid you to place no foot upon the earth without feeling the sinews, skin,

and bone of your feet with each step. How awake you are to the least of things will determine how awake you become to the

greatest in due time. For in the play of time, the great and manifold diversity of things in the end proves their unity. And it is

toward the end that we are headed, for it is only by means of the end that we arrive here, on this spot, free and immortal.

I can see in your eyes a fear and confusion. All this talk of endings brings a tremble to your bones. But fear not, for I do not

speak of death or chaos except to point out that you have already fallen prey to both. No, I talk of awakening from the death

of sleepwalking in dreams and veiled imagination. Beyond the veil all is well, and more well than I can attest. Within the

immortality of what you are, there is a contentment and peace born only of your true identity.

Have you not been told how grand you are, how uncontained, how limitless? I for one maintain that you are as unseen and

eternal as the space that spans beyond the myriad universes. I praise the immortal self—not one self among many, but the

self within all selves. For everywhere I go, and in each and everyone I meet, I greet my secret and unseen self. For I know

each man and each woman as I know myself, none greater or lesser in essence or worth.

I have no desire or pull toward the gods, nor sacred relics, nor holy books. For I have waded through the various dogmas

and found them lacking the essential vision, the unitary glance that reveals God’s hand within every gesture. Why should we

go looking for more than we are, when we are what we are looking for? Beware of a misguided longing, for it leads in the

end to brutality. How much blood has already been spilled in God’s name and how much more to come?

I bid you, dear companion: Throw off the yoke of belief, for to arrive at the nobility of truth you must be cleansed of all

borrowed knowledge till you are as innocent as the day before you were born. You must forge from within your longing a

fiery sword of discrimination, unsheathed from the past—starting now on this hill we stand upon, determined to never again

take anything secondhand, but instead prove true or false each statement yourself.

For truth belongs to neither man or woman, nor holy book, nor well-reasoned philosophy or belief, but only to itself—

immortal and pure. I seek only to remove untruth from your mind so that you may be restored to the unitary vision which is

your everlasting inheritance.

© 2006 by Adyashanti.

Radical Emptiness

To the extent that the fire of truth wipes out all fixated points of view, it wipes out inner contradictions as well, and we begin

to move in a whole different way. The Way is the flow that comes from a place of non-contradiction—not from good and bad.

Much less damage tends to be done from that place. Once we have reached the phase where there is no fixed self-concept,

we tend to lead a selfless life. The only way to be selfless is to be self less—without a self. No matter what it does, a self isn’t

going to be selfless. It can pretend. It can approximate selflessness, but a self is never going to be selfless because there is

always an identified personal self at the root of it.

Being selfless isn’t a good, holy, or noble activity. It’s simply that when there is no self, selflessness happens. This

selflessness is very different from having a moralistic standpoint. When action is selfless, it tends to do no harm. It tends to

be the salvation, the secret alchemy that awakens and removes conflict. It’s a byproduct of not having a self. It just so

happens that reality is overflowing with goodness and love.

This is radical emptiness—where everything is arising spontaneously. There is no more need to discriminate with the mind

between what seems to be the right thing or the wrong thing to do. In ego-land it’s helpful to have an ego that can

discriminate between right and wrong, but at a certain point, that’s not what you are operating by. You are operating by the

flow of the Tao, which is a higher order of intelligence. You don’t need to intellectually discriminate anymore because the Tao

discriminates without discriminating; it knows without knowing; it moves without moving. There is no sense of being

enlightened or unenlightened. Since there is no self, there is nothing to be enlightened or unenlightened.

We can talk about enlightened beings and non-enlightened beings, and conceptually that has a use. But when there is no

self, when there is radical emptiness, the whole enlightenment thing is sort of irrelevant because reality has become

conscious of itself, which is enlightenment. That’s what is often missed. People believe that enlightenment is an

improvement on reality, like becoming a super human being or God-knows-what. But enlightenment is when reality is awake

to itself as itself within itself.

© 2006 by Adyashanti.

The Awakened Way

What is it like to live an awakened life?

While the world is trying to solve its problems and everyone around you is engaged in the same, you’re not. While everybody

around you is trying to figure it out, trying to arrive, trying to “get there,” trying to be worthy, you’re not. While everyone

thinks that awakening is a grand, noble, halo-enshrouded thing, for you it’s not. While everybody is running from this life

right now, in this moment, to try to get there, you’re not. Where everybody has an argument with somebody else, mostly

everybody else, starting with themselves, you don’t. Where everybody is so sure that happiness will come when something

is different than it is now, you know that it won’t. When everybody else is looking to achieve the perfect state and hold on to

it, you’re not.

When everybody around you has a whole host of ideas and beliefs about a whole variety of things, you don’t. Everyone on

the path is getting there; you haven’t gotten anywhere. Everyone is climbing the mountain; you’re selling hiking boots and

picks at the foot in the hope that if they climb it and come back down, they may be too exhausted to do it again. When

everybody else is looking to the next book, to the next teacher, to the next guru to be told what’s real, to be given the

secret key to an awakened life, you’re not. You don’t have a key because there’s not a lock to put it in.

When you’re living what you are in an awakened way, being simply what you’ve always been, you’re actually very simple.

You basically sit around wondering what all the fuss is about.

When everyone is sitting around saying, “I hope that happens to me,” you remember when you did that. You remember that

you didn’t find a solution to that. You remember that the whole idea that there was a problem created all of that.

When you’re being what you are, when you’re living the awakened life, there’s nobody to forgive, because there’s no

resentment held, no matter what.

The truth of your being doesn’t crave happiness; it could actually care less. It doesn’t crave love, not because you are so full

of love, but because it just doesn’t crave love. It’s very simple. It doesn’t seek to be known, regarded highly, or understood.

When you’re living what you are in an awakened way, there’s no ideal for you anymore. You’ve stepped off the entire cycle

of suffering, of becoming; you’re not interested.

It’s a curious life you find yourself in. You find yourself… where you are. Not where I am, where you are. Where you really

are. Where we really are. It’s a curious place to be (especially in the beginning) not to be driven by anything—pleasure or

displeasure, helping or hurting, loving or hating. The only thing that will move you (and I don’t mean to be too poetic about

this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a tree. It’s simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always

know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that’s the way you go. You don’t ask questions anymore. You don’t

evaluate why the breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don’t know why. And you know you can’t know

why. There’s never been a leaf anywhere that knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That breeze

changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment, simply because that’s the way life’s moving. And when

you’re living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way it’s moving because it is the same as you are.

And you know that the breeze was always there, from the very beginning, and that it wasn’t reserved for special people. If

you didn’t notice it at some point in your life, you know it was because you weren’t listening, or because you thought you

had to figure something out before you could listen, or because you thought there had to be some conclusion before you

could just listen so deeply, so without agenda, so without hope of a better future that you would feel the movement.

Many of you know what I’m speaking of.

Truth never explains why it’s moving that way at that moment. And if you ask, it won’t give any information. It would be like

a leaf asking the wind, “Why are you moving that way right now?” The question doesn’t make any sense to the wind.

But your argument with the way the truth would move—whatever that way is—is no longer there for you. You’re no longer

arguing with it. You’re no longer trying to figure it out. Mother Mary didn’t figure it out. Buddha didn’t figure it out. Ramana

didn’t figure it out. None of them figured it out. They just became That. Simple. Ordinary—in the same way a leaf is

ordinary.

When you’re living in your awakened being and living in an awakened way, power on any level is not an issue for you. It’s

not interesting. The power to control another human being is not interesting. Intellectual power is not interesting. The power

to control yourself is not interesting. The power that people want to give you is not interesting to you—not because it

shouldn’t be; it’s just not. What would you want to do with it? You see that there’s nothing you want to do with it.

You realize, in the truth of your being, that you are the totality itself, but you have no interest whatsoever in doing anything

with that knowledge, with using that knowledge.

Finally, you realize that you really don’t want to change anybody, not because you shouldn’t want to change them, because

you just don’t. You might not want to be around everyone, but still you don’t want to change them.

None of this is an ideal—it’s the end of ideals. None of this is holiness; it’s the end of holiness. It’s the beginning of

wholeness. None of this is something to achieve, because it’s not achievable. It’s simply what is in the truth of your being.

It’s just what is. You can’t attain what’s naturally so. And nobody anywhere can ever tell you when or why, or to what

degree you’ll let go of untruth; you will let go when you let go, usually when nothing else works.

When you’re living in the awakened way, in the awakened being that you are, you’re alone, and you’re finally comfortable

with it. You’re alone, but you’re not lonely at all, because the only one who was ever supposed to meet you where you are—

the only one who ever could meet you where you are one hundred percent—was you. Nobody else could ever fully meet you

where you are—maybe ninety percent, maybe ninety-five. Nobody can meet you fully but you. When you finally do, then you

don’t need anybody else to do it for you. Then you’re alone, more alone than you could ever imagine. And strangely—very

strangely—you are more connected, more intimate, more at one with everything. More. And you would have never thought

that those two could in any way be together: total aloneness and total oneness. You would have never guessed that that’s

the way it would end up. But it does, and it always has.

And finally, when you’re just living in the awakened way that you really are, you’ll never form an image again of what it’s

like. Even as it’s happening, you won’t form an image because you’ll know they’re all images, dust. The way it was yesterday

won’t be the way it is today.

© 2003 by Adyashanti. Awakened Living Intensive. Berkeley, CA. October 5, 2003

You Are the Buddha

Rediscovered years later in an old file, the following talk was written by Adyashanti in preparation for the first silent retreat

he taught, in July 1997:

Starting right now, this moment, I am asking you to become the Buddha. I am asking you to take your stand, to stand

absolutely firm in your intention to awaken to the Truth of your Self.

This is what the Buddha did. He didn’t say, “I’ll try.” He didn’t say, “I hope I’ll find the Truth.” He didn’t say, “I’ll do my

best.” He didn’t say, “If not in this lifetime, then maybe next lifetime.” He came to the point where he didn’t look for anyone

else to tell him the Truth or show him the Truth. He came to the point where he took it all on himself. He sat alone under the

Bodhi Tree and vowed never to give up until the Truth be realized.

The power of this very simple, yet unshakable intention and absolute stand to be liberated in this lifetime propelled him to

awaken to the simple fact that he and all beings are liberated—that all beings are freedom itself. Pure awakeness.

The Buddha was no different from you. No different. That is why he serves as a good model, because he was as you are

now. So don’t worship the Buddha. Don’t put him on a pedestal. Don’t even look up to him. Become him. Have the same

intentions, take the same stand. Be the Buddha now! Put an end to all delaying, to all excuses, to all bowing down to saintly

figures of the past or present. Stand up!

You are the Buddha! You are freedom itself! Stop dreaming your dream! Stop pretending that you are in bondage—stop

telling yourself that lie! Stop pretending to be someone, or something! You are no one, you are no-thing! You are not this

body or this mind. This body and mind exist within who and what you are. You are pure consciousness, already free, awake,

and liberated. Stand up and walk out of your dream. I am here to say that you can do this.

Step out of the dream of your concepts and ideas. Step out of the dream of what you imagine enlightenment to be. Step out

of the dream of who you think you are. Step out of the dream of everything you have ever known. Step out of your dream of

being a deluded person. Stop telling yourself those lies and dreaming those dreams. Step out of all of that. You can do it.

Nothing is holding you back. There are no requirements and no prerequisites to awaken. There is nothing to be done,

nothing to think, nowhere to go.

Just stop all dreaming. Stop all doing. Stop all excuses. Just stop and be still. Effortlessly be still. Grace will do the rest.

At each and every moment from here on out, have the intention to directly experience Truth, your true liberated Self. Don’t

think about the Truth—directly return to your experience here, now, moment to moment. Experience Truth. Experience your

Self. Dive into your experience. Your experience! Your experience of hearing, of seeing, of tasting, of breathing, of your

heart beating, of your feet touching the floor, of the birds, of the wind.

Experience the vastness of who you are. Experience the freedom of who you are. You are the Buddha—experience that. You

are the Buddha.

© 2005 Adyashanti

How Long Will It Take?

There is a wonderful story about a young man who checks into the monastery, full of juice and ready to be enlightened

yesterday. He asks the abbot, "How long will it take me to be enlightened?" To which the abbot answers, "About ten years."

The young man says, "Ten years! Why ten years?" The abbot replies, "Oh, twenty years in your case." The man asks, "Why

do you say twenty years?" The abbot says, "Oh, I’m sorry. I was mistaken…thirty years."

If you really get it, you realize that to even ask the question gets you ten years. As soon as the thought, "When will I really

be free?" comes up, time has just birthed itself into existence. And with this birth of time you have to think, "Probably at

least ten years, maybe forever." Where can you go in order to get here? Any step takes you somewhere else.

This is surprising to the mind because the mind always thinks of freedom, or enlightenment, as some sort of accumulation,

and of course there is nothing to accumulate. It’s about realizing what you are, what you have always been. This realization

is outside of time because it’s now or never.

As soon as your idea of enlightenment becomes time-bound, it’s always about the next moment. You may have a deep

spiritual experience and then ask, "How long will I sustain this experience?" As long as you insist on the question, you

remain time-bound. If you are still interested in time and the spiritual accumulations you can have in time, you will get a

time-bound experience. The mind is acting as if what you are looking for isn’t already present right now. Now is outside of

time. There is no time, and the paradox is that the only thing that keeps you from seeing the eternal is that your mind is

stuck in time. So you miss what’s actually here.

Have you ever felt that you really didn’t like being here very much and that you wanted some wonderful eternal experience?

That’s what is often thought but not said when the teacher says, "Be here right now." Inside you are feeling, "I am here, and

I don’t like being here. I want to be there, where enlightenment is." If you have a really true teacher, you will be told that

you are mistaken, that you have never been here. You’ve always been in time, therefore, you have never actually shown up

here. Your body was here, but the rest of you went somewhere else.

Your body has been going through this thing called "life," but your head has been going through this thing called "my fantasy

about life" or "my big story about life." You have been caught in an interpretation about life, so you have never really been

here.

Here is the Promised Land. The eternal is here. Have you ever noticed that you have never left here, except in your mind?

When you remember the past, you are not actually in the past. Your remembering is happening here. When you think about

the future, that future projection is completely here. And when you get to the future, it’s here. It’s no longer the future.

To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are. That’s all! And then you realize, "I’m here." Here is where

thoughts aren’t believed. Every time you come here, you are nothing. Radiantly nothing. Absolutely and eternally zero.

Emptiness that is awake. Emptiness that is full. Emptiness that is everything.

Freedom and the Unknown

Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security

and safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a state of complete and absolute insecurity and not

knowing. So, in seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the freedom you want. There is no security

in freedom, at least not in the sense that we normally think of security. This is, of course, why it is so free: there's nothing

there to grab hold of.

The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing than you ever imagined it would be. If you don't

experience it that way, it means you're not resting there; you're still trying to know. That will cause you to suffer because

you're choosing security over Freedom. When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your experience

becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just

intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what you are. A few minutes ago, you knew who you were—

you had a history and a personality—but from this place of not knowing, you question all of that.

Liberated people live in the Unknown and understand that the only reason they know what they are is because they rest in

the Unknown moment by moment without defining who they are with the mind. You can imagine how easy it is to get caught

in the concept of the Unknown and seek that instead of the Truth. If you seek the concept, you'll never be free, but if you

stop looking to myths and concepts and become more interested in the Unknown than in what you know, the door will be

flung open. Until then, it will remain closed.

I've seen people who have never meditated come to satsang and have a deep experience of the Unknown, and I've known

many who remain in the trance because they stay with the mind's techniques and strategies. There is no prerequisite for

experiencing the Unknown. Everyone has equal access to it.

© 2002 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

The Courage to Question

Spiritual seekers are some of the most superstitious people on the planet. Most people come to spiritual teachers and

teachings with a host of hidden beliefs, ideas, and assumptions that they unconsciously seek to be confirmed. And if they are

willing to question these beliefs, they almost always replace the old concepts with new, more spiritual ones, thinking that

these new concepts are far more real than the old ones.

Even those who have had deep spiritual experiences and awakenings beyond the mind will in most cases continue to cling to

superstitious ideas and beliefs in an unconscious effort to grasp for the security of the known, the accepted, or the expected.

It is this grasping for security in all its inward and outward forms which limits the perspective of enlightenment and

maintains an inwardly divided condition which is the cause of all suffering and confusion.

You must want to know the truth more than you want to feel secure in order to fully awaken to the fact that you are nothing

but Awakeness itself.

Shortly after I began teaching, I noticed that almost everyone coming to see me held a tremendous number of superstitious

ideas and beliefs that were distorting their perceptions and limiting their scope of spiritual inquiry. What was most surprising

was that in almost all cases, even those who had deep and profound experiences of spiritual awakening continued to hold

onto superstitious ideas and beliefs which severally limited the depth of experience and expression of true awakening.

Over time I began to see how delicate and challenging it was for most seekers to find the courage to question any and all

ideas and beliefs about the true nature of themselves, the world, others, and even enlightenment itself. In almost every

person, every religion, every group, every teaching and every teacher, there are ideas, beliefs, and assumptions that are

overtly or covertly not open to question. Often these unquestioned beliefs hide superstitions which are protecting something

which is untrue, contradictory, or being used as justification for behavior which is a less than enlightened.

The challenge of enlightenment is not simply to glimpse the awakened condition, nor even to continually experience it, but to

be and express it as yourself in the way you move in this world. In order to do this, you must come out of hiding behind any

superstitious beliefs and find the courage to question everything, otherwise you will continue to hold onto superstitions which

distort your perception and expression of that which is only ever awake.

© 1999 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

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.

© 1998 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.

The Only Price

Life without a reason, a purpose, a position... the mind is frightened of this because then "my life" is over with, and life lives

itself and moves from itself in a totally different dimension. This way of living is just life moving. That's all.

As soon as the mind pulls out an agenda and decides what needs to change, that's unreality. Life doesn't need to decide

who's right and who's wrong. Life doesn't need to know the "right" way to go because it's going there anyway. Then you

start to get a hint of why the mind, in a deep sense of liberation, tends to get very quiet. It doesn't have its job anymore. It

has its usefulness, but it doesn't have its full-time occupation of sustaining an intricately fabricated house of cards.

This stillness of awareness is all there is. It's all one. This awareness and life are one thing, one movement, one happening,

in this moment -- unfolding without reason, without goal, without direction. The ultimate state is ever present and always

now. The only thing that makes it difficult to find that state and remain in that state is people wanting to retain their position

in space and time. "I want to know where I'm going. I want to know if I've arrived. I want to know who to love and hate. I

want to know. I don't really want to be; I want to know. Isn't enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?" No. It's the

ultimate state of being. The price is knowing.

This is the beautiful thing about the truth: ever-present, always here, totally free, given freely. It's already there. That which

is ever-presently awake is free, free for the "being." But the only way that there's total and final absolute homecoming is

when the humanness presents itself with the same unconditionality. Every time a human being touches into that

unconditionality, it's such peace and fulfillment.

In your humanity, there's the natural expression of joy and love and compassion and caring and total unattachment. Those

qualities instantly transmute into humanness when you touch into emptiness. Emptiness becomes love. That's the human

experience of emptiness, that source, that ever-present awakeness. For the humanness to lay itself down -- your mind, your

body, your hopes, your dreams, everything -- to lay itself down in the same unconditional manner in which awareness is

ever present, only then is there the direct experience of unity, that you and the highest truth are really one thing. It

expresses itself through your humanity, through openness, through love. The divine becomes human and the human

becomes divine -- not in any "high and mighty" sense, but just in the sense of reality. That's the way it is.

The only price is all of our positions. The only price is that you stop paying a price.

Copyright ©2004 Adyashanti.

Selling Water by the River

Many seekers do not take full responsibility for their own liberation, but wait for one big, final spiritual experience which will catapult them fully into it. It is this search for the final liberating experience which

gives rise to a rampant form of spiritual consumerism in which seekers go from one teacher to another,

shopping for enlightenment as if shopping for sweets in a candy store. This spiritual promiscuity is rapidly

turning the search for enlightenment into a cult of experience seekers. And, while many people indeed

have powerful experiences, in most cases these do not lead to the profound transformation of the individual, which is the expression of enlightenment.

In speaking regularly with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how addicted so many of them are

to the power of charisma. They swap stories about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare experiences. They get a charge from it, many mistaking charisma for enlightenment. Charisma attracts at

all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and it feeds the ego's desire to feel special. The ego loves

getting hits of power—it's like a form of spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it?

Does it make you free?

Freedom is not necessarily exciting; it's just free. Very peaceful and quiet, so very quiet. Of course, it is

also filled with joy and wonder, but it is not what you imagine. It is much, much less. Many mistake the

intoxicating power of otherworldly charisma for enlightenment. More often than not it is simply otherworldly, and not necessarily free or enlightened. In order to be truly free, you must desire to know

the truth more than you want to feel good. Because if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel

better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and

bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth,

then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest

integrity.

In my experience, everyone will say they want to discover the Truth, right up until they realize that the

Truth will rob them of their deepest held ideas, beliefs, hopes, and dreams. The freedom of enlightenment

means much more than the experience of love and peace. It means discovering a Truth that will turn your

view of self and life upside-down. For one who is truly ready, this will be unimaginably liberating. But for one who is still clinging in any way, this will be extremely challenging indeed. How does one know if they

are ready? One is ready when they are willing to be absolutely consumed, when they are willing to be fuel

for a fire without end.

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.

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.

Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception in the form of grasping, and away from

objects in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is. This movement of grasping and aversion gives rise to a sense of a separate "me," and in turn the sense of "me" strengthens itself this

way. It is this continuous loop of causation that tricks consciousness into a trance of identification.

Identification with what? Identification with the continuous loop of suffering. After all, who is suffering?

The "me" is suffering. And who is this me? It is nothing more than a sense of self caused by identification with grasping and aversion. You see, it's all a creation of the mind, an endless movie, a terrible dream.

Don't try to change the dream, because trying to change it is just another movement in the dream. Look

at the dream. Be aware of the dream. That awareness is It. Become more interested in the awareness of

the dream than in the dream itself. What is that awareness? Who is that awareness? Don't go spouting out an answer, just be the answer. Be It.

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. Nonduality means that the inner revelation and the outer

expression of the personality are one and the same. So few seem to be interested in the greater

implication contained within profound spiritual experiences, because it is the contemplation of these

implications which quickly brings to awareness the inner divisions existing within most seekers.

Spiritual people can be some of the most violent people you will ever meet. Mostly, they are violent to

themselves. They violently try to control their minds, their emotions, and their bodies. They become upset

with themselves and beat themselves up for not rising up to the conditioned mind's idea of what it

believes enlightenment to be. No one ever became free through such violence. Why is it that so few people are truly free? Because they try to conform to ideas, concepts, and beliefs in their heads. They try

to concentrate their way to heaven. But Freedom is about the natural state, the spontaneous and

unselfconscious expression of beingness. If you want to find it, see that the very idea of a someone who is

in control is a concept created by the mind. Take one step backward into the unknown.

There is nothing more insidiously destructive to the attainment of liberation than self-doubt and cynicism.

Doubt is a movement of the conditioned mind that always claims that “It's not possible,” that “Freedom is

not possible for me.” Doubt always knows; it "knows" that nothing is possible. And in this knowing, doubt

robs you of the possibility of anything truly new or transformative from happening. Furthermore, doubt is

always accompanied by a pervasive cynicism that unconsciously puts a negative spin on whatever it touches. Cynicism is a world view which protects the ego from scrutiny by maintaining a negative stance

in relationship to what it does not know, does not want to know, or cannot know. Many spiritual seekers

have no idea how cynical and doubt-laden they actually are. It is this blindness and denial of the presence

of doubt and cynicism that makes the birth of a profound trust impossible, a trust without which final liberation will always remain simply a dream.

All fear comes from thought in the form of memory (past) or projection (future). Thought creates time:

past, present, and future. So fear exists and comes from the perceived existence of time. To be free of fear is to be free of time. Since time is a creation of thought, to be free of fear you must be free of

thought. Consequently, it is important to awaken and experience your Self outside of thought, existing as

eternity. So question all notions of yourself that are creations of thought and of time—of past, present,

and future. Experience your eternalness, your holiness, your awakeness until you are convinced that you are never subject to the movement of thought, of fear, or of time. To be free of fear is to be full of Love.

Many spiritual seekers get "stuck in emptiness,” in the absolute, in transcendence. They cling to bliss, or

peace, or indifference. When the self-centered motivation for living disappears, many seekers become

indifferent. They see the perfection of all existence and find no reason for doing anything, including caring

for themselves or others. I call this "taking a false refuge." It is a very subtle egoic trap; it's a fixation in the absolute and all unconscious form of attachment that masquerades as liberation. It can be very

difficult to wake someone up from this deceptive fixation because they literally have no motivation to let

go of it. Stuck in a form of divine indifference, such people believe they have reached the top of the mountain when actually they are hiding out halfway up its slope.

Enlightenment does not mean one should disappear into the realm of transcendence. To be fixated in the

absolute is simply the polar opposite of being fixated in the relative. With the dawning of true

enlightenment, there is a tremendous birthing of impersonal Love and wisdom that never fixates in any realm of experience. To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from

all fixed points of view is the birth of true nonduality. If emptiness cannot dance, it is not true emptiness.

If moonlight does not flood the empty night sky and reflect in every drop of water, on every blade of

grass, then you are only looking at your own empty dream. I say, “Wake up!” Then your heart will be flooded with a Love that you cannot contain.

Maybe I can point you to the great Reality within you. Maybe you will awaken to the direct experience of

Self-realization. Maybe you will catch the fire of transmission. But there is one thing that no one can give

you: the honesty and integrity that alone will bring you completely to the other shore. No one can give you the strength of character necessary for profound spiritual experience to become the catalyst for the

evolutionary transformation called "enlightenment." Only you can find that passion within that burns with

an integrity that will not settle for anything less than the Truth.

Enlightenment has nothing to do with states of consciousness. Whether you are in ego consciousness or unity consciousness is not really the point. I have met many people who have easy access to advanced

states of consciousness. Though for some people this may come very easily, I also notice that many of

these people are no freer than anyone else. If you don't believe that the ego can exist in very advanced

states of consciousness, think again. The point isn't the state of consciousness, even very advanced ones, but an awake mystery that is the source of all states of consciousness. It is even the source of presence

and beingness. It is beyond all perception and all experience. I call it "awakeness." To find out that you

are empty of emptiness is to die into an aware mystery, which is the source of all existence. It just so

happens that that mystery is in love with all of its manifestation and non-manifestation. You find your Self by stepping back out of yourself.

Ramana Maharshi's gift to the world was not that he realized the Self. Many people have had a deep

realization of the Self. Ramana's real gift was that he embodied that realization so thoroughly. It is one

thing to realize the Self; it is something else altogether to embody that realization to the extent that there is no gap between inner revelation and its outer expression. Many have glimpsed the realization of

Oneness; few consistently express that realization through their humanness. It is one thing to touch a

flame and know it is hot, but quite another to jump into that flame and be consumed by it.

First published in the Inner Directions Journal, Fall/Winter 1999.

© 1999 Adyashanti.