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FOREWORD When I was a Zen monk, I learned to distinguish between “live words” and “dead words.” Most of the words we read and hear are lifeless, in the sense that they’re rooted in concepts and intended to appeal to the mind. Of course, such “dead words” have an important role to play on a relative level, in helping us to negotiate the world of apparent objects and people. To point us beyond the body-mind to the source from which this relative reality arises and in which it abides, however, we need “live words,” like those we find in the teachings of the great nondual masters and sages. The sayings of Ramana Maharshi, for example, or the Tibetan master Tilopa, or the Third Patriarch of Zen have the power to short-circuit the mind, light up the heart, and quicken the revelation of who we really are. In Vajrayana Buddhism, such words are called pith instructions or heart wisdom. As Jean Klein puts it, they are saturated with the perfume of the source from which they come. The space in which live words are spoken is called satsang—literally, “being together in Truth.”
In addition to his passionate call to awaken to our identity as the Self, rather than as the body, senses, and mind, Adyashanti puts particular emphasis on what he calls embodiment. In this, he provides a much-needed counterpoint to some contemporary teachers of Advaita Vedanta, who seem to suggest that awakening is complete after the first glimpse of Truth. Rather, Adyashanti teaches that awakening is a never-ending process of opening and deepening, in which we’re often faced with difficult old patterns and stuck places that rush to the foreground of our experience to be liberated and released. As this liberation unfolds, our lives increasingly become an expression of the unfathomable mystery we have discovered ourselves to be. The process of embodiment culminates in the elimination of any vestige of separation. Awakening continues, but there is no one who is awakened.
He has a penetrating way of engaging in dialogue with people, in which layers of false understanding drop away in the radiance of awareness, leaving the freshness and clarity of the living moment. He embodies what he teaches, and his approach is truly nondual; nothing is left out, not even the ego!
WHO ARE YOU? You are … beyond the body-mind and personality, beyond all experience and the experiencer thereof, beyond the world and its perceiver, beyond existence and its absence, beyond all assertions and denials. Be still and awaken to the realization of who you are. In this realization of no separate self, the supreme Reality which you are shines unobscured in all things, as all things, and beyond all things. Having returned to the formless source and transcended all separateness, do not stop or cling even to this source, but go beyond to the supreme realization which transcends all dualities, yet does not deny even a speck of dust. The enlightened sage abides as the eternal witness, wholly unconcerned, yet intimately engaged, resting beyond all definitions, neither clinging to transcendent freedom, nor entangled by the dualistic world; therefore, one with all of life.
Living in the perfect trust of supreme realization, the enlightened sage has nothing to gain or lose and naturally manifests love, wisdom, and compassion— without any personal sense of being the doer of deeds. Having abandoned all concepts and ideas, the enlightened sage lives as ever-present consciousness, manifested and manifesting in the world of time and space that which is eternal, ever new, and whole. In this unobscured realization, supreme Reality shines consciously in all things, as all things, and beyond all things. Shining unobscured, it penetrates the entire universe. Penetrating the entire universe, it knows itself as Self.
THE EVOLUTIONARY IMPULSE TO BE FREE ~ Do not seek after what you yearn for; seek the source of the yearning itself. ~
Enlightenment depends to a large extent on believing that you are born for freedom in this lifetime, and that it is available now, in this moment. The mind, which creates the past and future, keeps you out of the moment where the Truth of your being can be discovered. In this moment, there is always freedom and there is always peace. This moment in which you experience stillness is every moment. Don’t let the mind seduce you into the past or future. Stay in the moment, and dare to consider that you can be free now. ~
A: Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries. Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed. This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the
ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don’t go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are.
What always is, is so easy to overlook because it’s not a thing and it’s not an experience.
AI Summary
The Impact of Awakening by Adyashanti presents key insights from the Advaita Vedanta tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.