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A Total Commitment to Truth

Anybody can awaken to the truth of being. And yet, when it is realized, often
the person who has committed a large portion of his or her life to the
spiritual path is more readily able to let go and flow with that realization
than the person who hasnt been on a spiritual path. Does that have
anything to do with some sort of merit earned by sitting on a meditation
cushion, or whatever the spiritual practice was? Absolutely not! It has
nothing to do with that. It has nothing whatever to do with preparing the
field, tilling the soil, or fertilizing the soul. Its just that its possible, though
not a guarantee, that someone who has made the spiritual search his or her
priority in life is already in fidelity to truth when realization happens.
Realization was wanted more than anything else, and his or her life has been
a living, walking, breathing demonstration of this fidelity.
But if those who walk in off the street and realize the truth of their being
want it just as much as those who put in decades of spiritual practice, guess
what? They are at no disadvantage whatsoever. None. Zero. And by the way,
having put decades into the spiritual life and spiritual practice does not
necessarily mean that we actually value the truth more than anything else.
Its no guarantee. But to take awakening into enlightenment requires a
certain sort of fierce commitment to the truth. It is a surrender to what is
realized, a surrender to not be moved in the face of anything. And for
anybody who loves the truth, really loves the truth, this surrender is not
going to be avoided.
In the past, the deepest spiritual teachings were reserved for a very small
part of the spiritual population. Those were the people who became monks
or nuns or sadhus (renunciants), and committed their entire existence to get
the teachings. You couldnt get the teachings until youd done that, walked
away from family and friends and life as you knew it, and put everything on
the line. And even then, teachers wouldnt give the teachings to you
immediately. Theyd probably make you wait some years. Why? Because
those few enlightened beings knew that to really take awakening to
enlightenment or liberation was going to require that kind of commitment,
that kind of love of the truth, and the kind of person who would put all their
eggs into that basket, right there.

Today you do not have to live in that rarified spiritual environment or commit
your entire life to get the teachings of the truth. And yet, to realize the truth
and then take it all the way into living and being what you really are, fully
and completely, the internal commitment is not any less. It cant be any less
because nothing less than a full, internal love of truth will do. If you love
anything more than you love the truth, theres no way this realization can
complete itself. You can realize it, you can awaken, and you can have a nice
enlightenment experience, but its not going to be something thats going to
be stable and effortless, or last forever. Thats just the physics of it. Im not
writing the rules. Its just the way things are.
When you realize the truth, then you know that this truth is not fooling
around. This truth wants you, and it wants your life, and its going to devour
you and eat you up for dinner. The truth is not playing games. Ive had more
than one person say, Adya, how do I turn this off? How do I back out of this
deal? This isnt what I signed up for. And the only answer is, Sorry, its too
late, you cant back out. You can walk away from me and from all teachers,
and from spirituality altogether. You can go to the end of the earth and play
some other game, but its too late. You cant unrealize what you realize. Its
a game until its not, but by the time you realize that its not a game, you
cant back out.
By and large, people want liberation, freedom, bliss, peace, love, and total
release from fear. They want all the accoutrements of enlightenment without
having to pay the price. They dont want to pay the price of a total love
affair, a total commitment. Im not speaking of anything that is separate or
different from your life. This doesnt have anything to do with the monastery
or leaving your day-to-day existence. The truth is here in every single
moment of your life. Thats the truth. Its not separate from your life. You
cant run away from yourself and your life in order to awaken to reality. Your
life is your path to awakening. Stop and open your eyes: You were free from
the very beginning.
Please understand that its not you that wakes up; its reality that wakes up,
the truth wakes up. You are not enlightened; enlightenment is enlightened.
Ultimately this realization doesnt have anything to do with individuals, since
there arent any separate individuals. That is the whole illusion, that there is

something separate from the ultimate reality. When its clear that theres
nothing going on other than the ultimate reality, its a done deal -enlightenment is effortless.

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.

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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 selfjustifying 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 specialit'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

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joke. I use the word enlightenment all the timenot 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

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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 timeof 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

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"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.

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

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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.

Beyond Opposites
To move beyond all pairs of opposites within oneself is the heart and soul of spirituality. Awareness itself is
not a female or a male awareness. It doesnt belong to me; it doesnt belong to you. Its not a right
awareness or a wrong awareness. Awareness itself, consciousness itself, lies beyond and before the
opposites.
The fundamental ground of your nature is inherently already and always free, inherently already and always
complete. This part, when its discovered, is where you realize everything is One. It is an exquisite place
beyond the pairs of opposites. It is in the very heart of every being, and it is the same in every being. This is
a wonderful thing to realize, because then you can start to connect to that which is indivisible. And that is an
entirely different place to live ones life from.
Most human beings are living their whole lives from the pairs of opposites because its the only way they
know. But when you discover that there is within you this place that is beyond the pairs of opposites, and
that place, that state of awareness, is actually what you are, you start to realize you can live from that
place.
To live from that place, self-grasping must be let go of more and more fully, because the only thing that
keeps anybody from living from that place is holding onto thoughts, ideas, judgments, regrets -- all those
things that cause you to hold onto yourself. They literally create your self, and as soon as they are let go of,
that self is not there anymore.
Living from that place, you start to choose to be simple, to give your attention to the simplicity, to whats
awake in you, to what lies beyond the pairs of opposites: your inherent nature as awareness or
consciousness itself. Its a very simple thing. Through this, it introduces you to the fundamental nature of
yourself, the fundamental nature of reality.
Youll know when you get there, because you stop asking, Have I gotten there yet? Its an exquisite place
to get to. Its very liberating when you discover yourself as you truly are. Its that place within you that is
free, within and from the pairs of opposites. The exquisiteness is the sense of freedom. Its what brings rest.

You Are the Buddha

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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 didnt say, Ill try. He didnt say, I hope Ill find the Truth. He didnt say,
Ill do my best. He didnt say, If not in this lifetime, then maybe next lifetime. He came to the point
where he didnt 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 liberatedthat 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 dont worship the Buddha. Dont put him on a pedestal. Dont 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
bondagestop 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. Dont think about the Truthdirectly 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.

The Awakened Way

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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, youre not.
While everybody around you is trying to figure it out, trying to arrive, trying to get there, trying to be
worthy, youre not. While everyone thinks that awakening is a grand, noble, halo-enshrouded thing, for you
its not. While everybody is running from this life right now, in this moment, to try to get there, youre not.
Where everybody has an argument with somebody else, mostly everybody else, starting with themselves,
you dont. Where everybody is so sure that happiness will come when something is different than it is now,
you know that it wont. When everybody else is looking to achieve the perfect state and hold on to it, youre
not.
When everybody around you has a whole host of ideas and beliefs about a whole variety of things, you
dont. Everyone on the path is getting there; you havent gotten anywhere. Everyone is climbing the
mountain; youre 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 whats real, to be given the secret key to an awakened life, youre
not. You dont have a key because theres not a lock to put it in.
When youre living what you are in an awakened way, being simply what youve always been, youre 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 didnt find a solution to that. You remember that the whole idea that there was a
problem created all of that.
When youre being what you are, when youre living the awakened life, theres nobody to forgive, because
theres no resentment held, no matter what.
The truth of your being doesnt crave happiness; it could actually care less. It doesnt crave love, not
because you are so full of love, but because it just doesnt crave love. Its very simple. It doesnt seek to be
known, regarded highly, or understood. When youre living what you are in an awakened way, theres no
ideal for you anymore. Youve stepped off the entire cycle of suffering, of becoming; youre not interested.
Its 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. Its a curious place to be (especially in the beginning) not to be
driven by anythingpleasure or displeasure, helping or hurting, loving or hating. The only thing that will
move you (and I dont mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a
tree. Its simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that
way, and thats the way you go. You dont ask questions anymore. You dont evaluate why the breeze is
blowing that way because you know that you dont know why. And you know you cant know why. Theres
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 thats the way
lifes moving. And when youre living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way its 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 wasnt reserved for
special people. If you didnt notice it at some point in your life, you know it was because you werent
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 Im speaking of.

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Truth never explains why its moving that way at that moment. And if you ask, it wont give any information.
It would be like a leaf asking the wind, Why are you moving that way right now? The question doesnt
make any sense to the wind.
But your argument with the way the truth would movewhatever that way isis no longer there for you.
Youre no longer arguing with it. Youre no longer trying to figure it out. Mother Mary didnt figure it out.
Buddha didnt figure it out. Ramana didnt figure it out. None of them figured it out. They just became That.
Simple. Ordinaryin the same way a leaf is ordinary.
When youre living in your awakened being and living in an awakened way, power on any level is not an
issue for you. Its 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 younot because it shouldnt be; its just not. What would you want to do with it?
You see that theres 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 dont want to change anybody, not because you shouldnt want to change
them, because you just dont. You might not want to be around everyone, but still you dont want to change
them.
None of this is an idealits the end of ideals. None of this is holiness; its the end of holiness. Its the
beginning of wholeness. None of this is something to achieve, because its not achievable. Its simply what is
in the truth of your being. Its just what is. You cant attain whats naturally so. And nobody anywhere can
ever tell you when or why, or to what degree youll let go of untruth; you will let go when you let go, usually
when nothing else works.
When youre living in the awakened way, in the awakened being that you are, youre alone, and youre
finally comfortable with it. Youre alone, but youre not lonely at all, because the only one who was ever
supposed to meet you where you arethe only one who ever could meet you where you are one hundred
percentwas you. Nobody else could ever fully meet you where you aremaybe ninety percent, maybe
ninety-five. Nobody can meet you fully but you. When you finally do, then you dont need anybody else to
do it for you. Then youre alone, more alone than you could ever imagine. And strangelyvery 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 thats the way it would end up. But it does, and it always has.
And finally, when youre just living in the awakened way that you really are, youll never form an image
again of what its like. Even as its happening, you wont form an image because youll know theyre all
images, dust. The way it was yesterday wont be the way it is today.

Radical Emptiness

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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 noncontradictionnot 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 lesswithout a self. No matter what it does, a self isnt 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 isnt a good, holy, or noble activity. Its 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. Its
a byproduct of not having a self. It just so happens that reality is overflowing with goodness and love.
This is radical emptinesswhere 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 its helpful to
have an ego that can discriminate between right and wrong, but at a certain point, thats not what you are
operating by. You are operating by the flow of the Tao, which is a higher order of intelligence. You dont 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. Thats what is often missed. People
believe that enlightenment is an improvement on reality, like becoming a super human being or God-knowswhat. But enlightenment is when reality is awake to itself as itself within itself.

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 couldnt 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 tomorrows
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 benor 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 intentthat fine-tipped arrow of courage flying true and straight to its goal,
piercing through the fabric of our dreams as it goes.

14
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 selfnot
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 Gods 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 Gods 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 paststarting 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 itselfimmortal 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.

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 theres 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 its understood, finally and simply.

Then everythingall 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, toowas 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

15
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. Thats
why you usually have a good laugh, because you realize that all your struggles were made up. You conjured
them up out of nothingwith 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 trueonly 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 shouldnt 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 cleansedits all a thought. We just
collude in this ridiculous charade of an illusion pretending that its real, only to reveal that its not. There is
no karma. There is nothing really to purify. Theres 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. Its impossible. Everything comes back to nothing.
And then its a bit harder to hold a straight face consistently for the rest of your life.

The Quest
The quest for enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. Its not a quest for ideas about truththats
philosophy. And its not a quest to realize your fantasies about truththats fundamentalized religion. Its a
quest for truth on truths terms. Its 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 youre a
loving person, the next an angry one. One day youre 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 youve known it will never be quite the same.

16
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 itto 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; its a gritty and intimate form of deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all
of your illusions and whats left is the truth. You dont 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 cant 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
cant 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?
Thats 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 cant 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.
Im not talking about a new spiritual technique here; Im 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 youre like most spiritually
oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that.

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.

Authentic Inquiry

17
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 its like to inquire out of intellectual interestasking 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 thats outside of your experience. It needs to be something thats coming from the inside.
When you care, you care from the inside. Many people impose ideas from the outside upon themselves, but
this isnt 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 dont know what to do. You dont know where you are going.
You feel a bit out of control. Youre 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:
Thats 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? Thats what its 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 thats stable. Theres a place inside you that is willing to be a little crazycrazy
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 elses 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 doesnt have the answer. You ask,
What am I? and instantly, there is silence. Your mind doesnt know. And when it doesnt know, there is an
experience right here, right now, that is alive. You bump into nothingness insidethat no-thing, that
absolute nothingness which your mind cant 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. Youve inquired yourself out of
this whole thing, and youre 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 its in the head, its an impressive piece of understanding; when its in the
heart, as the Buddha said, its 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.

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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 dont name
it for a moment. Its 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, youll 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 bodymind. 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 emptinessthe
aliveness of itis spiritual awakening. It is to realize yourself as beautiful nothingness, or more accurately,
no-thing-ness. If we say its just nothing, we miss the point.
When your image of the me takes a break, youll 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 havent gained anything at allyoure not
smarter, you dont necessarily know more than anyone else, and you havent 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 anotherit 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 its never quite the right moment? How its 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, Youre 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, thats how the me is. Its knocking things
over, things like the most precious china. With a whisk of its tail, there goes . . . grandmas four-generationold antique china cups! Boomtheyre gone. When your me is operating, its like that bull. It tends to make
a lot of noise because its 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. Its 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 doesnt matterdont 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

19
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. Its in a different relationship with the moment; its not going anywhere. Have
you noticed? Its not trying to achieve something else. It hasnt elevated you or demeaned you. Start to
sense the profound innocence of this openness. Its not perceiving from the pastnot from the last moment,
much less from the accumulation of a lifetime. Its perceiving only in this moment.
Openness has not accumulated anything, so its 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. Its so different from the experience
of the me. This nothingness is the peace that surpasses all understanding, and its 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 dont 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 cant insist upon it. You cant
grab for it, so dont reach. Just open. Look for the openness, feel from the openness, and relate from the
openness. It can freak you out if youre not used to it. If you find yourself in a place that you dont like, just
ask how openness is experiencing this moment. A shift happens, and you find yourself saying, Ill be
damnedits actually enjoying this!
This relationship from your heart, from the truth of your being, from opennessis something that cant 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 ituntil 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. Its very simple. Thats it. Now you dont need any precepts because your true nature
sees that way all the time. You dont 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.

Truth Is

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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 minds 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.

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 minds 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 minds compulsive control,
contractions, and identifications. Awareness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifest
potential, the silent abyss beyond all knowing.

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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 dont 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 dont 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-minds 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.

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 ones 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.

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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.

"Naturally the mind

has no groove;
it is like water, which has no shape.
Consciousness has no shape;
it takes whatever form it gets identified with.
Out of the formless the forms appear."
~
"Questions appear real for as long as you consider yourself to be a person.
When you realize you are the impersonal presence, all questions vanish."
Ignore the mind out of existence
Ignoring the mind is a beautiful sadhana. This is what many of the sages did. They ignored the mind out
of existence. It loses its influence and its potency when it is ignored.

Ignore the mind until there is no future. When there is no future, future is not a trap. Past is not a
trap. And then you can talk about anything, because future and past are not sucking from now. You see?
Otherwise, with this suck, there is an oscillation between future and past. And that brings in another
noise, and another noise

When the attention is not straying, when it is not picking up all types of nonsense, then you will find
that you are in peace.

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