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Post by quinn on Oct 5, 2016 8:19:58 GMT -5
An oldie but a goodie: Interview with Adya from 2002. It touches on a discussion that's currently making the rounds here about where the 'person' (complete with body and personality) is in all this. Also enjoyed this: "The whole subject of enlightenment is the most god-awful confused thing we could ever talk about."  |
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Post by maxdprophet on Dec 5, 2016 16:34:13 GMT -5
I recently listened to two audio downloads. #626 "Beyond Personal Will" and #627 "Redemptive Love." Both were very good. Free right now, if you're quick. In #626 Adya spoke about how messy the dissolving of personal will can manifest. It's not all fun and games with awakening -- profound realization, CC experiences, etc. Not all just glowing in new-found observations and bliss. One bummer is that folks sometimes go through the messiness without awakening even; not even knowing what the heck is going on. What the heck is going on is why A feels the need to address it. I will listen to this again. #627 Adya retells one of his major awakening experiences. I hadn't heard this particular aspect before -- 'love pouring in.' Powerful stuff. I will listen to this again too. It's the start of a study/retreat called Redemptive Love and I definitely feel hooked. May shell out some moola to throw the Hail Mary pass -- we seekers are such suckers! |
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Post by justlikeyou on Aug 20, 2020 18:42:46 GMT -5
“The idea is to retain the capabilities that develop with healthy ego consciousness, like self-awareness, empathy, discrimination, differentiation, etc., while waking up from and letting go of the unhealthy qualities, like concretized and conflicted ego identity, unhealthy merging, and separation, just to name a few. The more this happens, the more egoless the ego becomes. One could call this the falling away of ego, but it is perhaps more accurate to call it the hollowing out of the ego, leaving an egoless ego in its place—functioning without fixed identity.
While we can and often do take great leaps of hollowing out the ego with awakening experiences, this very rarely happens all at once in a permanent way. More often than not, the ego becomes more and more egoless as our spiritual experience and commitment mature over time. Sometimes it can feel like taking two steps forward and one step back, but if we stay committed, the overall trajectory of spiritual development is toward a more and more egoless state.”
~ Adyashanti
“A Revolution of Being: Embracing the Challenge of Awakened Living” 2018 Online Retreat
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park
Junior Member
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Post by park on Sept 21, 2023 4:28:56 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I thought y'all might be interested in the information that Adyashanti has announced that he is retiring from active teaching. He shared this information in an open letter and explained more in an hour-long podcast. The short version of it is that he is retiring because for the past 17 years he's experienced massive amounts of physical pain. A few years ago he says he found and removed the cause of the pain, after which it stopped, but he does not specify what the cause was. He says that, however, he's been left with lots of trauma as a result of the pain, for which he is taking anti-anxiety medication. He says his trauma or medication does not interfere with him seeing/being "True Nature" but that the body-mind is not in good shape, hence the retirement. I might write more about my perspective on this later, but for now leave it at this. Thoughts? |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 21, 2023 9:39:15 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I thought y'all might be interested in the information that Adyashanti has announced that he is retiring from active teaching. He shared this information in an open letter and explained more in an hour-long podcast. The short version of it is that he is retiring because for the past 17 years he's experienced massive amounts of physical pain. A few years ago he says he found and removed the cause of the pain, after which it stopped, but he does not specify what the cause was. He says that, however, he's been left with lots of trauma as a result of the pain, for which he is taking anti-anxiety medication. He says his trauma or medication does not interfere with him seeing/being "True Nature" but that the body-mind is not in good shape, hence the retirement. I might write more about my perspective on this later, but for now leave it at this. Thoughts?
Thanks for posting this. My first thought: Another sickly guru? Hmm. (Sad!) My second thought, after reading the letter and listening to his talk: What the heck was that? That was Mckenna monkey-mind rambling level. (Disappointing!) My third thought: He's just proving Inavalan's point re: self-delusional non-dualists. (So annoying! teehee...) ETA: I found this... (from 2014) m.facebook.com/IgorKufayevVamadeva/photos/prayers-for-adyashanti-reflections-this-bringsthe-news-of-adyashanti-being-ill-r/673736159382684/Bells palsy? |
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Post by laughter on Sept 21, 2023 15:31:51 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I thought y'all might be interested in the information that Adyashanti has announced that he is retiring from active teaching. He shared this information in an open letter and explained more in an hour-long podcast. The short version of it is that he is retiring because for the past 17 years he's experienced massive amounts of physical pain. A few years ago he says he found and removed the cause of the pain, after which it stopped, but he does not specify what the cause was. He says that, however, he's been left with lots of trauma as a result of the pain, for which he is taking anti-anxiety medication. He says his trauma or medication does not interfere with him seeing/being "True Nature" but that the body-mind is not in good shape, hence the retirement. I might write more about my perspective on this later, but for now leave it at this. Thoughts? heh heh .. perhaps I'm imagining it, but this seems to raise the 'ole message/messenger question. Some of Adya's pointing was as clear as it gets. Show me an immortal human body. Show me a body that has never felt pain. Conversely, depending on how that body/mind is conditioned, clarity can sting, like tilting your head back and up to a sleeting sky. The world is, what it is. Just because the suffering ends for one body/mind, doesn't mean they can't see it happening for others, and this can elicit an emotional response - an unconscious one even. Not saying this is what happened to Adya, but the link to the potential for physical pain from that is quite possible. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 21, 2023 15:47:39 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I thought y'all might be interested in the information that Adyashanti has announced that he is retiring from active teaching. He shared this information in an open letter and explained more in an hour-long podcast. The short version of it is that he is retiring because for the past 17 years he's experienced massive amounts of physical pain. A few years ago he says he found and removed the cause of the pain, after which it stopped, but he does not specify what the cause was. He says that, however, he's been left with lots of trauma as a result of the pain, for which he is taking anti-anxiety medication. He says his trauma or medication does not interfere with him seeing/being "True Nature" but that the body-mind is not in good shape, hence the retirement. I might write more about my perspective on this later, but for now leave it at this. Thoughts?
Thanks for posting this. My first thought: Another sickly guru? Hmm. (Sad!) My second thought, after reading the letter and listening to his talk: What the heck was that? That was Mckenna monkey-mind rambling level. (Disappointing!) My third thought: He's just proving Inavalan's point re: self-delusional non-dualists. (So annoying! teehee...) ETA: I found this... (from 2014) m.facebook.com/IgorKufayevVamadeva/photos/prayers-for-adyashanti-reflections-this-bringsthe-news-of-adyashanti-being-ill-r/673736159382684/Bells palsy? funnies (other than the link to the disease). Let's say a guy has a job driving a snow plow, and that he just moved north and took the job because he really needs it. His car is a little old junkbox with bald tires. There's a big blizzard while he's at work. He might get stuck trying to get into his driveway after his shift, but there are plenty of people who drive over what he plowed that night who otherwise wouldn't have.  |
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Post by inavalan on Sept 21, 2023 17:43:08 GMT -5
There seems to be a correlation between teaching your beliefs to others, even when you honestly think you are doing good, and the "negative" experiences that begin to affect your well-being: deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC).
That is a message you have to decode. Even if you succeed in addressing the current symptom, if you don't identify the root cause, it will keep manifesting in the same or different ways.
What you experience isn't caused by external causes, but by internal ones.
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Post by inavalan on Sept 21, 2023 20:17:13 GMT -5
There seems to be a correlation between teaching your beliefs to others, even when you honestly think you are doing good, and the "negative" experiences that begin to affect your well-being: deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC). That is a message you have to decode. Even if you succeed in addressing the current symptom, if you don't identify the root cause, it will keep manifesting in the same or different ways. What you experience isn't caused by external causes, but by internal ones. I think the problem is the disconnect between one's outer- and inner- selves. The symptom ("deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC)") is a warning, as the personality becomes more and more dysfunctional for the purposes of its current incarnation. This isn't only the case of spiritual gurus and teachers, but of all the others who get taken with their role and importance, even when their "work" seems to promote the "good" according to widely accepted standards. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 22, 2023 8:55:05 GMT -5
Hello everyone, I thought y'all might be interested in the information that Adyashanti has announced that he is retiring from active teaching. He shared this information in an open letter and explained more in an hour-long podcast. The short version of it is that he is retiring because for the past 17 years he's experienced massive amounts of physical pain. A few years ago he says he found and removed the cause of the pain, after which it stopped, but he does not specify what the cause was. He says that, however, he's been left with lots of trauma as a result of the pain, for which he is taking anti-anxiety medication. He says his trauma or medication does not interfere with him seeing/being "True Nature" but that the body-mind is not in good shape, hence the retirement. I might write more about my perspective on this later, but for now leave it at this. Thoughts? heh heh .. perhaps I'm imagining it, but this seems to raise the 'ole message/messenger question. Some of Adya's pointing was as clear as it gets. Show me an immortal human body. Show me a body that has never felt pain. Conversely, depending on how that body/mind is conditioned, clarity can sting, like tilting your head back and up to a sleeting sky. The world is, what it is. Just because the suffering ends for one body/mind, doesn't mean they can't see it happening for others, and this can elicit an emotional response - an unconscious one even. Not saying this is what happened to Adya, but the link to the potential for physical pain from that is quite possible. I don't think so. Firstly, if you don't know about alignment, then what Adya did (and before him Ramnana and Niz and many others) - stoically enduring physical pain - must seem like a heroic feat, it usually makes you look superhuman in the eyes of most seekers. But if you know about alignment, that attitude is just plain stupid. Sorry. Secondly, non-dual teachers like Waite who say that they just teach non-dual philosophy but lay no claim to enlightenment, are allowed to excuse their walk/talk issues with the message/messenger dilemma without looking phony. But teachers like Adya, Ramana, Niz etc. etc. don't say that. And so to excuse their walk/talk issues with the message/messenger dilemma has to look phony. Have you listened to the podcast? It's a very interesting talk. He tries really hard justifying what happened and what is happening to him. And the explanations he gives are hinting at the actual problem. Remember what Ramana said, that both the jnani and the ajnani say "I am the body". Somehow that didn't really get thru to Adya. His attitude toward pain gives it away. And if we wanted to be meanies, we could easily make the case for spiritual bypassing. Now, that doesn't change the fact that Adya was and still is one of the clearest voices in the western non-dual community. So the descriptive part of his message is fine. But when it comes to the prescriptive part of the message, there's obviously something not quite adding up. This is where an understanding of alignment would be helpful. So the question should be allowed to ask, if I, as a seeker, do what Adya suggests doing, will I have a similar fate? If your teaching makes you sick, then there's something wrong with your teaching. And if you have conquered existential suffering but are still physically suffering, then there is still something amiss. So, no. The message/messenger cop-out doesn't work here. You can't really separate the message from the messenger in non-duality, because this is about the living truth (aka truthin'), not some scholarly dogma (aka truth). |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 22, 2023 9:33:30 GMT -5
funnies (other than the link to the disease). Let's say a guy has a job driving a snow plow, and that he just moved north and took the job because he really needs it. His car is a little old junkbox with bald tires. There's a big blizzard while he's at work. He might get stuck trying to get into his driveway after his shift, but there are plenty of people who drive over what he plowed that night who otherwise wouldn't have. This raises the issue of being of service to others, and how that can be best done, under what circumstances, or if that is even possible at all. So, continuing with your analogy, if you are meandering down the highway with your bald tired jukebox, sometimes on the road, but mostly close to the ditch, what kind of example do you give for others to follow? What will those who come after you conclude? They will conclude that this is a bumpy road with lots of dangerous twists and turns, when in reality, it isn't. And so they will instruct others to follow your example and dismiss those who will tell you that there's actually an easier, direct path thru the snow as heretics. Because the original path is not easy, not direct and dangerous. So, how much of help are you, really then? Tricky question. If you have a 'the end justifies the means' and a 'no gain no pain' attitude, it probably looks like the most straightforward approach. But if you have a 'the means bring about its corresponding end' and a 'there is no gain in pain' attitude, that approach would look more like madness. As Abe always say, you cannot have a happy ending to an unhappy journey. But a lot of non-duality teachers teach unhappy journeys that are supposed to lead to happy endings. And when their own journey ends unhappy, we are supposed to excuse it with the message/messenger thingy? I don't think so. Adya is a brilliant teacher. But he is not perfect. There are things, obvious things, that he is apparently unaware of. And so his message is therefore a mixed message. The descriptive part may be brilliant, but the prescriptive part is not. A messenger in alignment would have given a different message. That's why it is difficult to separate the message from the messenger in non-duality. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 22, 2023 9:44:21 GMT -5
There seems to be a correlation between teaching your beliefs to others, even when you honestly think you are doing good, and the "negative" experiences that begin to affect your well-being: deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC). That is a message you have to decode. Even if you succeed in addressing the current symptom, if you don't identify the root cause, it will keep manifesting in the same or different ways. What you experience isn't caused by external causes, but by internal ones. I think a lot of non-duality teachers have issues with their own physicalness, corporality, materiality in general. They drone on about how you are the witness, not the body, how it's all a dream... and then they spend 18 years in severe pain that they need to 'manage' with some kind of mental 'superpower' that lets them escape their pain. Something not adding up here. A very unbalanced approach. As Seth and Abe noted, there's no virtue in sickness and poverty, no valor in struggle and pain. Adya's attitude toward pain is nonsense. And it muddles his message. This is similar to Tolle and his pain body theory. It doesn't help his message either. That's why I never fully endorsed Tolle. Same for Adya now. A bit disappointing. |
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Post by Reefs on Sept 22, 2023 10:33:25 GMT -5
There seems to be a correlation between teaching your beliefs to others, even when you honestly think you are doing good, and the "negative" experiences that begin to affect your well-being: deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC). That is a message you have to decode. Even if you succeed in addressing the current symptom, if you don't identify the root cause, it will keep manifesting in the same or different ways. What you experience isn't caused by external causes, but by internal ones. I think the problem is the disconnect between one's outer- and inner- selves. The symptom ("deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC)") is a warning, as the personality becomes more and more dysfunctional for the purposes of its current incarnation. This isn't only the case of spiritual gurus and teachers, but of all the others who get taken with their role and importance, even when their "work" seems to promote the "good" according to widely accepted standards. From the alignment/misalignment perspective this can be explained easily. Obviously, even the greatest teachers go in and out of alignment, and some of the greatest teacher aren't even aware that they are out of alignment (or they think its not important). So their experiences will be accordingly. IMO, there's a significant difference between the Eastern and (modern) Western perspective though. If we pin it down to SR and alignment, we get 4 scenarios: 1) SR and also in alignment 2) SR and not in alignment 3) not SR but in alignment 4) not SR and also not in alignment The focus in the East, especially the yoga traditions, seems to be on #1. In western non-duality circles, #2 seems to be the standard. The self-help community is mostly concerned with #3. And #4 seems like the default state of being for most people as they go thru life. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2023 14:26:02 GMT -5
funnies (other than the link to the disease). Let's say a guy has a job driving a snow plow, and that he just moved north and took the job because he really needs it. His car is a little old junkbox with bald tires. There's a big blizzard while he's at work. He might get stuck trying to get into his driveway after his shift, but there are plenty of people who drive over what he plowed that night who otherwise wouldn't have. This raises the issue of being of service to others, and how that can be best done, under what circumstances, or if that is even possible at all. So, continuing with your analogy, if you are meandering down the highway with your bald tired jukebox, sometimes on the road, but mostly close to the ditch, what kind of example do you give for others to follow? What will those who come after you conclude? They will conclude that this is a bumpy road with lots of dangerous twists and turns, when in reality, it isn't. And so they will instruct others to follow your example and dismiss those who will tell you that there's actually an easier, direct path thru the snow as heretics. Because the original path is not easy, not direct and dangerous. So, how much of help are you, really then? Tricky question. If you have a 'the end justifies the means' and a 'no gain no pain' attitude, it probably looks like the most straightforward approach. But if you have a 'the means bring about its corresponding end' and a 'there is no gain in pain' attitude, that approach would look more like madness. As Abe always say, you cannot have a happy ending to an unhappy journey. But a lot of non-duality teachers teach unhappy journeys that are supposed to lead to happy endings. And when their own journey ends unhappy, we are supposed to excuse it with the message/messenger thingy? I don't think so. Adya is a brilliant teacher. But he is not perfect. There are things, obvious things, that he is apparently unaware of. And so his message is therefore a mixed message. The descriptive part may be brilliant, but the prescriptive part is not. A messenger in alignment would have given a different message. That's why it is difficult to separate the message from the messenger in non-duality. The way I see it there is a root misconception. The metaphor (based on that misconception) can be applied to any profession. The misconception has a very deep root: functionalism. Niz was a shameless spiritual bypasser, which, when it comes to the truth is a way of most efficiently cutting to the chase. Guys like Niz and Adya say what they say because the living truth is expressing. If we want to climb one foot off the ground up the trunk of a tree toward the simians, we could say that the living truth demands expression, regardless of the medium through which it expresses. People are interested in stuff and because of their formative years they're in the habit of looking for guidance. As you say, none of these people speaking the truth are perfect, and how any one individual relates to the specifics of how that truth gets said to them has the potential to vary quite a bit. Conversely, there is that common note that can be heard by those who are not tone deaf, regardless of the medium. Clearly, your alignment model and the distinction between alignment and truth realization is high quality, and explains quite a bit to anyone willing to give it open consideration. |
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Post by laughter on Sept 22, 2023 14:28:43 GMT -5
I think the problem is the disconnect between one's outer- and inner- selves. The symptom ("deteriorating health, personal misfortune, public persecution, even death (see JC)") is a warning, as the personality becomes more and more dysfunctional for the purposes of its current incarnation. This isn't only the case of spiritual gurus and teachers, but of all the others who get taken with their role and importance, even when their "work" seems to promote the "good" according to widely accepted standards. From the alignment/misalignment perspective this can be explained easily. Obviously, even the greatest teachers go in and out of alignment, and some of the greatest teacher aren't even aware that they are out of alignment (or they think its not important). So their experiences will be accordingly. IMO, there's a significant difference between the Eastern and (modern) Western perspective though. If we pin it down to SR and alignment, we get 4 scenarios: 1) SR and also in alignment 2) SR and not in alignment 3) not SR but in alignment 4) not SR and also not in alignment The focus in the East, especially the yoga traditions, seems to be on #1. In western non-duality circles, #2 seems to be the standard. The self-help community is mostly concerned with #3. And #4 seems like the default state of being for most people as they go thru life. Yes, that's about as clear as it gets on the topic. But ... look at that branch over there! Hand me that vine! ... In my treehouse, SR isn't always single realization, and some of the intermediate realizations can have the same quality of permanence even before seeking has ended. Alignment is always a matter of degree, and it's quite possible to have experienced extreme levels of alignment at one point in time that don't last. |
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