Vacant: Adyashanti is very clear and he is usually very down to earth in his teaching. I took my wife and daughter to see him when he visited Nashville a few years ago and I had no problem with anything he said. He was very patient and gentle with questioners. During his visit one of my friends drove him around town and got to know him quite well. Later, my friend went to California, stayed in his home with he and his wife for a few days, and a year later was sanctioned by him to teach in his tradition. I discussed Adyashanti at length with my friend to get his impressions of how his teachings translated into daily life. As I suspected, his life is quite ordinary, and he emphasized this ordinary quality to my friend. The only thing he said to my friend that I found interesting was his way of explaining how understanding gradually descends from the head to the gut. I thought that was an accurate way to describe the process of attaining freedom, and it is another way of saying that enlightenment comes from the neck down. IOW we start at the level of the head, and as our understanding deepens, our connection to reality gradually becomes more and more embodied. At some point all of our reflectivity dissipates and we are left with a life that is "just like this." It is very simple, very obvious, very empty, and very grounded. There is nothing to get and nothing that needs to be resolved. We see that who we are is what is. The artificial and imaginary boundaries that in the past psychologically separated us from the living truth have disappeared. Now we "chop wood or carry water" in a state of active emptiness.
We go to see teachers like Adyashanti for one or two main reasons--(1) because we think that they have something that we lack that we need to get or (2) because we enjoy being in the presence of someone who is unpredictable and whose words are alive. The first reason is based on a totally erroneous assumption. Adyashanti, like other good teachers, does not have something that we lack; he lacks something that we have. We have ideas about who we are whereas he lacks ideas about who he is. We think we know who we are whereas he knows who he is. He knows, through his body, that who he is is beyond ideas. We are seeking something, but he is not. He lives in a timeless emptiness, but we live with the idea that we are separate entities existing in time and space.
This quote by Adyashanti is interesting because it shows that even someone who is extremely clear can sometimes say incredibly dumb or misleading things. Let's look at the words:
"Many spiritual seekers have had glimpses of the absolute unity of all existence" this is true.
"but few are capable of or willing to live up to the many challenging implications inherent in that revelation." Do what? This makes it sound as if there is an entity who is unwilling or incapable of doing something as a result of glimpsing unity. This is absurd. "Challenging implications?" What challenging implications? There are no implications unless we want to waste more time imagining. It would have been far more meaninful and less confusing if he had said something like this:
Many spiritual seekers have had glimpses of the absolute unity of all existence, but these kinds of experiences, except in rare instances, do not change old existing habits of mind. Seekers will remain attached to the idea that they are separate entities until their focus shifts to direct sensory perception or they become sufficiently silent. Ironically, this shift to direct perception or silence is not under their control because there are no separate entities who can choose to do anything. It only appears that way. The only thing a teacher can do is point to the truth and whether that pointing helps anyone is up to God.
The second paragraph begins:
"Applying this realization to the arena of personal relationships is something that most seekers find extremely challenging, and is the number one reason why so many seekers never come completely to rest in the freedom of the Self Absolute."
This is a bizarre statement, to say the least, and if this were typical of Adyashanti's teachings, I would advise people to run away from him. The number one reason why so many seekers never find freedom is that they spend 99% of their time thinking and talking to themselves. It doesn't have a d...m thing to do with their interpersonal relationships. If we stop thinking and talking all the time, we finally get enough mental space to see the truth and interpersonal relationships will take care of themselves. There are no implications here. The whole thing is a blooming mystery. Whether we fall in love or fall out of love is neither personal nor impersonal; it is simply how "what is" manifests.
I can only recommend that people not waste any time trying to understand this quote and turn their attention to what they can see or hear. Stop, be still, put it all down, don't know, give up, etc. The truth is always here and now. It is very ordinary. It is always "just like this." A tree outside the window is preaching the truth. It will be cheaper and easier to sit down in a chair and stare at a tree in silence, than traveling somewhere and getting more confused by words that trigger more thoughts. Adyashanti is clear, but these words do not reflect that clarity. Cheers.