Adyashanti - 'Awakening' - interview by Renate McNay
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- Опубликовано: 4 авг 2011
- Adyashanti is author of several books including, 'Emptiness Dancing' 'Falling Into Grace' and 'The End Of Your World.' In this interview he talks in detail about his years as a Zen meditator; life as a top athlete; his two significant awakenings; the obstacles he discovered in the way, and the nature of illusion.
The transcript of this interview is available to view here.
www.conscious.tv/text/78.htm
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I have been listening to Adya for 15 years and I love him with every turn of this planet. I am so grateful he came into my life. He is such a wonder-filled teacher, and I love his sense of humor!
When the divine is ready to awaken through you, it will happen and nothing can stop it. No one knows how or why or when awakening/full awakening happens. It doesn't happen because you meditated. You meditated because the divine is waking up in you, not the other way around. It's not like going to school and passing a final exam as some sort of accomplishment. It just happens and that's the divine mystery. It can't be turned into a scientific process and churned out as a repeatable testable process- it's the mind/ego that wants that control. The divine that decides to wake up and move through you- that's what creates the drive to move relentlessly towards it (or not if it happens spontaneously). In that sense, there is nothing to do to create an awakening. You never know when God will knock on your door to come into your house. All meditation does is clean your house for when the divine does arrive.
I like this... Some times a few words in a book can trigger the opening same words same book for another soul does nothing.. lololol.. the big mystery...
Deep desperation can also do it.
@@RippleDrop. this is true
I couldn't agree more
If Adya didn't meditate so much for years, he probably wouldn't have been awake. That's my five cents.
RUclips definitely helped me awaken too.
The metaphor I resonate with most regarding awakening is the waves of the sea. Before my awakening I was pushing the waves because I thought that's how waves moved. After awakening I am just letting the waves do their thing. Now I am not forcing my life, I am just being totally authentic but in a completely effortless way.
Q: What does a caterpillar need to do in order to change in to a butterfly?
A: Nothing! (it happens anyway without effort)
How are you today?
How’s your decade of awakening been my friend?
Everything is helping us awaken, isn't it?
@@aurelienyonrac
Catalyst is frequently not used; something inside the person must elect to allow learning to occur. This greatly involves becoming aware of what the catalyst is, for it arrives, we would say, unconsciously. Hence the value of meditation, reflection, contemplation and so forth. What prevents the mind from electing to use catalyst is the belief in the reality of matter -- a trap -- over the freely spread wings of the mind. Sometimes Revelation reveals this, sometimes Samadhi, sometimes a Near Death (near Life!?) Experience. But reality is not what we are accustomed to thinking; and in the 3rd density, not at all apparent. We but view flickering shadows on a cave wall while bound at hand and foot, as Plato put it (surely a good reflection of the densities, which has been explicated in the Law of One Ra Material (1981).
By the way, in regards to the butterfly, something called transformation of the body -- usually called death -- occurs. Ever cell comes to a grinding halt, and the butterfly all but dies, until one single cell, called a Radical Cell, breaks free from this pattern and triggers a new phase of development at the DNA level. If death is nothing, then either is life. For the two cannot but be one.
I am very happy and thankful that I found this guy. Especially his guided meditations. He has cleared up a lot of my misconceptions.
Thank you Adya for allowing me to understand the meaning of "There is LISTENING but no listener, there is SEEING but not seer, there is thinking but no thinker"
What a gift to have your CLARITY and the contribution to the community through your awareness..... A million thanks!
SENSATIONAL!!!
The interviewer and The interviewed (Adyashanti).
Thank You So Much!!!!
it almost seems like you wrote that both of them are Adyashanti, hilarious 😂
so many was to find the absolute truth, so many roads...they all lead to the same place in the end. we can just relax and know that these realizations are inevitable for all of us..because the truth will find us all...and i think that is what his experience teaches us...we can use many books and spiritual practices to find the truth...but when the desire for absolution calls us from within...there is nothing left to do but follow that intuition and let it to take us on a ride...much love to all...
Thank you 7 years apart :)
To a life that has been hounded by fear for a very long time, Adyashanti's descriptions sound entrancing. Thank you for clarifying what he said.
Thank you Renate and Adyashanti for this beautiful, gentle sharing. It has been so rich and so very helpful. Blessings and joy!
Recently discovered ConsciousTV channel. What a wealth and treasure trove of wonder.
the meaning of life for me is experiencing every moment without attaching thought or emotion and simply appreciating the fact that i do have the ability to power or weaken thoughts and emotions but choose not to.
The clarity in his explanations...is divine. I have been able to validate my own process (tearfully relieved). My Undying Gratitude for You!! Thank-you!!!
I have known of Adyashanti but I have never known he is so humble and beautiful.
Thank you for this wonderful interview; Renate and the team at Conscious Tv.
Adya is who I consider my primary Teacher. He’s right to the point, and no bullsh@t or blah blah about bliss. Straight to the point.😀
I love looking at the comments for these kinds of videos because it's actually incredible how many people are actually experiencing awakenings of one nature or another and how readily available the internet has become to support people who don't understand what is happening to them or what happend to them. Personally I can blame youtube for my awakening which doesn't sound spiritual or enlightened but there you go.
(I am) (floored). I have never been so intensively focused for one continuous hour in my life.
I was mind blown by Adyashanti's experience of going to few past lives and wispering words of clarity/wisdom into them.. Like the movie interstellar's blackhole moment of space-time access; Here it being a spiritual reality for Adya. Am I the only one who saw it this way ?
Yeah wtf….. I wish she asked more him more follow up questions… what can he recollect about was happening in these past life scenes ???? Fascinating
@@SM-gl3inidk why, but I like the way you wrote that comment. The “yeah wtf” and everything.
Inevitably the self arises. Adya said "Identification" isn't the problem morso the taste for it that is. I feel taste and distaste fall under the same category in these situations as there is a taste for the state that you "lost". I relate to what you say and that is why I have added a therapeutic process to my journey of awakening to help for when the self arises A teacher once told me "Anything that has a beginning in time, has an end in time and isn't it." Those words have greatly helped me.
Always exactly what I need to hear exactly when I need it. Thank you Adya.
danke für das schöne Interview! Es ist selten, dass Moderatoren so viel eigene Erfahrung, Verständnis und Wissen zu dem Thema mitbringen! So wird manches durch Nachfragen wunderbar vertieft und verdeutlicht!
The Internet is full of awakened people. Reading the comments on here you'd think the entire planet was glowing with radiant light by now.
I have live the very same experience within the 'christian' contest. Thank you for this video. Rejean
What strikes me the most about Adya's story is the lack of great fear or despair. It is hard to imagine travelling a spiritual path where you are not driven by those emotions.
Thank you
thank you Renate and Adyashanti for opening the collective experience into a glimpse through the knot hole of the wall of illusion
Loved this. Great interviewing. Adyashanti is a sweetie!
Thank you !!!So inspiring and most of all REVEALING and Guiding in practical ways...Lots of releasing...surrendering....quiescencing.... And to Know as we Awake nothing much changes like ascending from the 'form'...just ASCENSSION IN CONSCIOUSNESS...into ONENESS EXPERIENTIALLY...
WOW A GREAT INTERVIEW WITH ADYSHANTI
The transcript of this interview is available to view here.
www.conscious.tv/text/78.htm
Thank you for sharing this video.
Many thanks and blessings.
His story is very interesting and insightful, and though I've never experienced awakening myself I have a greater understanding of what it entails as well as its place within the human experience. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if all humans will awaken upon death. Even if your material body is obliterated in an instant, your ego will fight, and then ultimately accept death, and your conscious being will evaporate into whatever it is beneath this universe that makes us sentient beings instead of material robots. Literal/figurative death is the key to awakening. Being absolutely sure that you're dying/going to die imminently, struggling tremendously with that fact and then ultimately giving in and accepting it. It's only when you finally and completely let go of yourself as the person you are that you ascend into the infinite. So it's literally the most terrifying and threatening thing possibly imaginable, but you must succumb to it to reach ultimate and true peace.
That is why DMT and psychedelics can thrust you into an ego-death, because the power of the substance on your conscious being and sense of self is SO strong, that it can utterly convince you that you've died. So naturally, taking a powerful dose of such a drug would be literally the most terrifying thing you could do short of cutting your head off. And if you're not prepared to let yourself go in that state, then you may well end up with PTSD or other extreme psychological trauma from essentially a horrific near-death experience. But if you are able to fully let go, then you'll achieve awakening and a sense of utter inner-peace. Meditation is a practice of training your mind to accept a state of no stimulus, until you reach a point where your ego is fading, eventually to the point where you believe that you're dying in that moment. In that moment if you can accept that you're gone forever then you'll become directly conscious of nature of everything.
So for people that have experienced awakening, they've literally died, passed on and then been able to come back. I can imagine how that would "take the edge off" of life, becoming directly conscious of the fact that your ego is a façade, and that death is nothing to fear; that losing yourself is nothing to fear. You could live your life on with all its limitations, all your mental shortcomings, habits, attachments, etc; but without being convinced that all you are is your human self, and to sort of acknowledge the neuroticism that comes along with living under the veil of this limited existence.
Thank you for both of you for the interview.
Blissful presence
I am grateful for the beauty of this. I bow to you both and everything ❤️
extraordinarily intense sadhana. thank you!!! so helpful, useful and awareness opening.
During my childhood, I used to be a grt listener n observ everything without any judgement. , since my childhood, I knew I had my own judgements, wisdom, as if I hv known smthing else to b true. Thankyou
You are approaching unity as a concept. Adya is describing it as a direct experience of reality. There can be no shadow side to an experience of the nature of reality because that encompasses both the light and the shadow.
A great video. Lots of good info here. Thank you
Man, when I get down or freaked out by existence stories like Adyashanti's really help me. You can wake up in this life.
As walking on path of spirituality. I know that much that this guy speaking from the heart and heart never lies.
I love Adya. But many us of hadn't such a pussifyed existence. And for that I actually feel blessed
This is very insightful for me. Thanks for the video. Keep up the good work!
and again i feel more in tune with my self. if there even is a self :) thank you adya and renate
Adyashanti's story is very inspiring because of what he was able to achieve by the age of 32. Awakening seems to be a far off and distant thing, and delusion so powerful, that if you are on the spiritual path disillusionment and apathy can set in. He has directly stated that we should take seriously the possibility of awakening for ourselves, in this very life. It is not only for far off people on mountaintops. We can experience profound freedom and peace. It's an important message.
Adyashanti quote highlights from this video: “I was 7 or 8 and very confused about adults and why they acted the way they did. It just seemed sort of odd. And, one day, I just had the insight, ‘I get it, they're crazy. They believe what they think … They believe their mind.’”
“This pull towards finding out what this enlightenment thing is, it's not something that I can take or leave. It's not something in my control. It's something that kind of grabbed me, and it has hold.”
“My very idea that I am the director of my own life-I have control over it, and it's going to go where I want-you wake up and realize that is not going to work for you anymore.”
“Something about enlightenment has to do with reality, and reality has something to do with seeing things as they actually are-of not being trapped in your mind, not being lost but actually having a real intimate connection with the real.”
“I could see that that which I had been chasing was this that was chasing it … I knew that what I had been chasing was what I am … I knew that I wasn't separate from what I was seeking anymore.”
“Meditation was a time when there could be total allowance to do nothing. I would call it the doing of nothing, the practice of doing nothing.”
“It takes whatever time it takes. Our lives are tailor-made for our own awakening.”
“If there's a defining characteristic, the unknowability is the defining characteristic.”
What a lovely talk. Yes, an infinite potential with an underlying joy. Words do fall short which leaves one laughing and waving their arms around as if... :)))))
not to say that i dont often get swept away by thoughts and emotions brought on by conditioning but from moment to moment i try increase my ability to not dwell on past or future
Thank you this talk offer me much Clarity and understanding it open a door somewhere in me but it is difficult to describe it apart from
using this words I just written before “clarity and understanding” but maybe I can say it goes waaaay deeper than that .. thanks 🙏
I would kill to have it as easy as Adya did. "I had to go through it all." I think your "all" is not most people's "all".
Wow what an amazing story ! X
hey when he is talking about going up to his past lives and telling them that they were dying.. thats like bill and teds excellent adventure! awesome.
Excellent
Thank you for sharing.
Adya is one of a handful of accessible teachers who seem authentically awake. So many teachers seem genuine, but less awake or clear. And some seem really confused.
Another observation from when he describes the sound of the bird merging with the "listener" etc: Neurological studies show that blood flow to meditators' superior parietal lobes increases, resulting in a lack of spacial awareness. The sense of "self" merges with the environment to varying degrees. And of course there are other neuro changes (including increased gamma) that can account for a lot of our "mystical" or strange experiences as meditators (I've certainly had a few).
I was waiting for Renata to ask Adya, "So that voice that would come to you and say 'keep going' was actually the you that was fully awake whispering in your own ear? How marvellous!"
His vibe his energy is so 💖💖💖💖💖
I love Renate! She’s so nice.
The more I've thought about Adya's life story and path to awakening - many people would be astounded at how few emotional, family, or financial obstacles he had - the more I've thought that he lacks the ability to relate to what most people go through. At his age now - 56 - I don't think he is going to change. It is up to those of us who really have suffered on the path to awakening and who grew up in a different time to challenge his very unusual perspective.
For instance, in one particularly damning article I read in Tricycle Magazine, Buddhism in North America has been referred to as the "Upper Middle Way", i.e. only well-off people can actually afford regular retreats with people like Adya. And indeed, pretty much everyone at his retreats is well-heeled, backed by personal or family financial stability - which is fine, but also extremely limiting for the dharma. Everyone else - too bad, so sad.
Regarding Adya himself, he worked exactly two jobs before he began teaching, and both were for his father. Not exactly a broad view of the world. And no, just because he is enlightened in many ways (and I genuinely believe he is) does not mean he is enlightened in many other ways - I think he really cannot see all of the shortcomings of his teachings that I have mentioned.
Ken Wilber has written about how enlightenment experiences can give you such an unshakeable confidence in your true self (very good) that they can cause you to be completely blind to issues staring you right in the face (very bad). Adyshanti is better than a lot of teachers at this, but still has massive blind spots.
I consider Adya to be the most relatable out of all the other spiritual teachers I've encountered. Because he talks specifically about awakening and the challenges of it which most other teachers and traditions either don't talk about or only discuss in secret. The spiritual path is obsessed with enlightenment and yet it is taboo when someone actually talks about it! I am not so concerned about his surface background or where he grew up or how old he is. Nor do I need to go on his retreats when I can download his books for a fraction of the cost and has all his teachings right there. I can relate to the stuff he talks about and have found his book like "End of your world" to be precious compared to the other stuff that's out there. He cannot be everything to everybody, nor can he be perfect and have just the perfect amount of poverty to please everyone who believes in awakening mythologies. The fact that you expect that means that you're projecting your power onto him as a teacher. He is enlightened and is a unique perspective and point of consciousness- it's just one perspective. There are trillions more lifeforms and perspectives including your own. You can either see his limitation as a form and a life or you can see that this form has realized his own limitless nature beyond all that.
I've noticed that every time someone criticizes Adyashanti, the response is inevitably to try and turn it around on the questioner i.e. "It's your ego talking", which effectively kills all debate. But debate is important, because that is how spirituality progresses.
Imagine if every time someone criticized a scientist, the scientist said, "That's your ego". Would science ever progress?
I believe that awakening is orchestrated by the soul, and each of us who experiences it walks our own path. How one arrives at awakening can vary widely (NDE, twin flame connection, etc.) and I believe our soul chooses for us the vehicle that serves our life mission best. The amount of suffering likely varies based on the lessons the soul is learning, and/or the ego's resistance. However it occurs, though, the end result is the embodiment of unconditional love for self and others, and indeed, the understanding that there are no others--that the Universe is God/Source expressing in infinite ways, including as each of us.
@@tinaw.9485 That's fine and all, and may well be true, but what does it *mean* in terms of day-to-day practice? What do you do? How do you live your life? What if you are mentally ill? Should you take medication? Should you investigate other treatments? What does one actually DO to get enlightened?
Check out Gary Weber. He "attracts wounded people" and doesn't charge. Books freely downloaded. A science guy.
Always being, always becoming...
After watching the whole thing he seemed really straight up.
thanx - I have the first book (will give that a look-over again) and will check out the other 2 you recommended. I find that the ego loves to rush back in once you've done some 'house cleaning'. Yes, of course we'll cross paths on the mountain top - like attracts like as they say. Cheers and thanx again.
Beautiful...
Thanks Adya!
i went through a thing as a child.. my parents were a bit dysfunctional.. and as a kid it was too painful to look at directly so i went into a sort of hibernation where i didnt feel anything. Its only much much later i realised this is what happened and am now trying to let myself feel more again. There is a deep part which fears i am not ok.
Maybe you could talk to someone about it like a doctor or something?
Simon0 Look into Peter Levine's trauma healing work. trauma sounds like a big word...but parents can traumatise us without realising (especially dysfunctional [what's functional though - Peter Walker's book Complex PTSD outlines that] ones). THis hibernation you speak of an this lack of an ability to feel.. and the worthiness stuff. .it's a reaction to being traumatised...called immobility response. peter explains it very well... and shows you how to return yourself to yourself, step by step. well he's helped me enormously anyway....i've diagnosed ptsd, but suspect i'm complex ptsd (more to do with your childhood upbringing than the 'standard ptsd" defn though they're intertwined naturally... peter's wonderful bc he 'gets' that trauma is often an opening to spiritual awakening...ya just gotta get the body playing along with you...so you can 'integrate/embody' all your awakening/spiritual experiences.
So inspiring 🔥
wonderfull! Yesterday i go to bed and toughts comes in my mind and i dont like what they told to me.
In the next moment i got the same inside, why i believe in!?
I just laughing, but yes we forgot it fast. So i sleep and today wake up with the same problem.
No i walk in the forest to calm my mind, relax and wait for insides.
"You have to calm, relax and walk my mind says and i believe in it.
No iam at home and intuitiv i klick on this video, and must laugh again :D
Thank you with warmly greetings from germany
@BarryCroucher our attachments in life come from memories. memories which give us pain are sad memories, those which give us happiness are good memories. But if there is No memory, ( even for 1 millisecond) there is nothing good or bad to hold on to. What remains is presence or silence. In this state if you move your attention to this feeling of presence, you realize, this feeling is not coming from inside the body , its everywhere.
then only love , no suffering :-)
keep going and never stop :) I'm roughly in the same boat, but surrounding yourself with books on awakening can be a great help. I recommend 'Zen mind beginners mind', 'After the ecstasy the laundry' and 'the buddha and his teachings'. there is always work to be done.. perhaps we'll cross paths on the mountain one day ;)
Thanks Adya.
Meditation just awakens you to the moment... when it works. haha. There's the rub. It leaves most people in a sort of limbo, where they're just bewildered by it. But when you have a breakthrough and step more fully into reality, this very moment, you're anything but prone to manipulation. How could you be when you're more in touch with reality than you ever have been?
awesome!!!
I'll just say, if it happened to me, it can happen to you. I always felt I would be the last one to awaken. I never saw it coming, but that's typical. It seems distant, but it's nearer than your breath. It's been over two years now. It's not complete, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Relax, feel the subtle thrill of relaxation and let your mind drop into your heart, do not push it, let it fall of its own accord, like stone drifting down thru water or a leaf drifting to Earth.
Active and passive would be a less loaded way of putting it, but even in the religious traditions there is debate about exactly what that means or how it manifests.
I had my first awakening experience 30 years ago, everyone thought I was a crazy stupied kid. No one listen to me and now, 30 years later everything I "knew" come to pass :))
Awesome!
Find the answer you have been looking for at Truth Contest (google it) and click the first entry called The Present. That book can change the world.
Now we need to learn how to replicate this kind of realization in everyone, systematically and at scale. Otherwise, it is just an inspirational story, nothing more.
Just love.
yes what Adyashanti said is wild. why i think it is true . i was told how to fix ever thing on earth and how everything thing works . just about everything anyway . l am here to tell you can easy be fix . this one of big problems Cognitive Dissonance Theory argues that the experience of dissonance (or incompatible beliefs and actions) is aversive and people are highly motivated to avoid it. In their efforts to avoid feelings of dissonance, people will avoid hearing views that oppose their own
me too - know what you mean. between meditating and finding stuff like this on-line - poof, it happened, a part of my ego did in fact die. It wasn't easy, but it was. The only diff between this speaker and others is that he addresses what happens after that happens. He touches on that. Now I'm in/ out of some limbo like place - my life looks the same but I don't want anything. What do you do with that? keep going I guess...
Most of the so called enlightened people interviewed by ConsciousTV are full of themselves. Adyashanti is an exception.
If you were awakened you wouldn't say this.. There wouldn't be any judgement.. Truth resonates with that within you, and you recognise it being said by Adyashanti and many others, if not all others interviewed on Conscious TV..Everyone's journey is different, but the realization of truth is the same, i.e. of what we are, and what we are not.. ❤️
Really nice lady and vid :) RUclips is a good practise tool for the collective mind to become one again. I feel it is easier and safer to be honest and do the right thing here. Real world out there easily seems agressive and frightening but I guess that is because of the conditioning of the media and all the lies of the moneypeople... But then again these are all thoughts :D
So beautiful
I have read many modern Buddhist texts and Adyashanti excels at the description of the awakened state (and doesn't follow the ridiculous Buddhist pattern of denying claims of realization concerning oneself, a tradition that does more harm than good in the world of today).
Also the Buddha himself declared to everyone that he was enlightened! Right after it happened, he told someone and they didn't believe him and walked on! So Buddhists trying to keep it a secret is utterly ridiculous.
@Simon0 No, you can't - although it's a paradox, you also must give up hope, because it is another concept holding you back, So you have to continually strive for awakening without hoping for it in your mind. It's tough to do. Right now after a great deal of effort and practice I am feeling quite disillusioned about ever feeling even somewhat free, but I still work at it, because what else is there to do?
like what he said
the first time i came across this guy i dismissed him primarily based on his name. it seemed presumptuous for him to assume this high and mighty sounding name. i had first been exposed to these ideas through ken wilber...and found him to be a huge turn off. he smoke of ego-less living...yet gave off an air of having a HUGE ego. didn't like that. ken that is...not this guy.
but...i gave adyashanti a chance and now i love his approach. so amicable and real. love it. great interview!
this article talks about his name change... www.bestfriendofmind.com/en/adyashanti-part-i/
❤️❤️❤️
Secret of happiness?? Never grow up. ❤✌👍
The 'Ultimate' he talks about [emptiness, darkness etc] is just Nirvana - the first stage, but it's certainly not the Ultimate.
if the ego was meant for anything it was meant to design the internet to spread the word of enlightenment.. i recon in some really strange way life is moving in such a way that it will always come to know itself again
But if the ego was never there in the first place everyone would already be enlightened
likewise bro.
This is a very interesting and funny interview
"see them as suffering instead of suffering from them" > good insight, didn't think of that before. My awakening was of the "non-abiding" nature - it lasted about 3 weeks then ego came rushing back in with a frenzy. Now I'm in a place of being back in the dream, believing it's true but knowing it's not. So, I continue to sit and read. To be honest I was floored that I even pulled that off or that it happened at all. And now I live in 'limbo' land - an odd place/ state to be.
In traditions other than Buddhism it is common to describe liberation in positive terms - e.g. the 'fullness' of existence rather than the emptiness. Words are not sufficient. Adya's doing the best he can here. He goes into more detail elsewhere, such as in Emptiness Dancing and The End of Your World.
Thank you,!!!!?!
@Simon0 Thanks, I continue the journey. And good luck to you as well :)
Ineffable
To each his own
thank you for your comment. I don't think those 3 weeks were special or not special, it's just something that happened. I do believe in awakening, but respect your view that there is no such thing. To be clear, I don't layer this notion with anything romantic or sentimental, rather I see it as something natural. Cheers