Adyashanti

'Because of an innocent misunderstanding you think that you are a human being in the relative world seeking the experience of oneness, but actually you are the One expressing itself as the experience of being a human being.'
Adyashanti, from ‘My Secret is Silence’

 

 

Adyashanti is a contemporary American-born spiritual teacher, educated in Zen Buddhism. His non-dual teachings have been compared to those of the early Zen masters and Advaita Vedanta sages. They express both the infinite possibilities and the ordinary simplicity of a spiritually realized life.
His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is true and liberating at the core of all existence. They are free of any tradition or ideology. “The Truth I point to is not confined within any religious point of view, belief system, or doctrine, but is open to all and found within all.”
Based in California, he teaches throughout North America and Europe, offering satsangs, weekend intensives, silent retreats, and a live Internet radio broadcast.
(copied from Adyashanti’s website: www.adyashanti.org)

Adyashanti's latest book, The Way of Liberation, is currently available as a free down-load from his website.


Extract from The End of your World; 2008, published by Sounds True:

More and more people are "waking up" spiritually. And for most of them, the question becomes: now what? "Information about life after awakening is usually not made public," explains Adyashanti. "It's most often shared only between teachers and their students." The End of Your World is his response to a growing need for direction on the spiritual path. Consider this book Adyashanti's personal welcome to "a new world, a state of oneness".

“Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbing away of untruth. It’s seeing through the façade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagine to be true”.

“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.”