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tadeas
Czech Republic
314 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 06 2009 : 4:43:13 PM
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This is an excerpt from the book Emptiness Dancing by Adyashanti.
(Bold parts marked by me.)
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Can you imagine how it could change your life if you have the revelation that there is no other and you get very curious about the implications? What if you asked, "What does this mean for me for the rest of my life?"
Most humans base their entire life on the idea of self and other, a personal me and you. But with the revelation that there is no other, there is suddenly no such thing as a personal relationship. How does one live with this implication? Fundamentally, what would it mean to actually know and live as if there is no other, even when you relate as apparently self and other in the world of appearances? Most people who are interested only in personal enlightenment think, "As long as I'm free, no one can make any demands on me," or "I'll try to teach others how to be enlightened." There is nothing wrong with being personally free. But what if you take the inquiry all the way? How can you be free if there is no personal I? Who is there to be enlightened?
One of the most painful experiences I've had in a long time was when I opened up this idea of relationship in satsang and sat back as person after person implied in their question, "I'm not getting what I want in my relationship," and "I want to know how to have a better relationship." Students asked how I experience relationship. Annie, my wife, told them, "We don't need anything from each other, and we don't use our relationship to work out things because that is not what a relationship is about." This was ignored, and all those questions continued to come up.
Look at the implications of the awareness that there is no other. When you wake up, you wake up out of this "me and you". If you realize what that means, it just takes your breath away. If there is no other, there is no personal relationship. The whole problem with any relationship has to do with one or both people not taking seriously that there is no other. There is no one to get anything from, no one to change, no one to need or to fulfill a need - all of that is a dream. This is how challenging it gets when you do not just seek after a spiritual experience, but endeavor to understand what is inherent in the experience.
The experience of awakening is like a personal experience of the big bang. Its initial revelation was the beginning. It started out as nothing, so the physicists tell us, and then this little blip ultimately became the whole universe. At the beginning, you might have seen this blip and not realized what was inherent in it, and if you turned away from it, you missed everything. If you look into the blip called spiritual awakening, it holds as much potential as the big bang, and more.
Many people ask, "How do I integrate my spirituality into everyday life?" You don't. You can't. How could you integrate it? You can't stuff the infinite into your limited life. Instead, give your life to the divine impulse. There is no integration. There's only realization, and that realization is always a perfect destroyer. It is a destroyer of all the sense of separateness, a destroyer of that which is not true. Throw your life into Truth. Don't try to stuff Truth into your life.
Even when you become very serious and endeavor to deepen your realization, seeing more deeply into it, the appearance of a you and an other continues. If you don't fully take your realization into your relationship, it is going to go on more or less as it always has. The pieces might get rearranged, but the relationship may remain based more or less on what you get from each other and how to work things out. When you go deeper to uncover the deepest realization that there is no other, the realization itself rearranges how this dream of appearances operates. The sense of relationship will operate differently, because you have truly realized there is no such thing as a personal relationship between a you and a me. It spontaneously reorchestrates how the whole world of relationship works without you making any effort to control it. To make the relationship better, just wake up more. It may or may not change in the way you want it to, but it will change. Wake up more. Because when you are truly awake, things are simply the way they are.
You don't need a teacher to explain the implications of there being no other - you need to do that for yourself.
- Adyashanti |
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Metta
Sweden
24 Posts |
Posted - Aug 06 2009 : 6:06:56 PM
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Thank you tadeas!
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stevenbhow
Japan
352 Posts |
Posted - Aug 06 2009 : 9:07:40 PM
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| Love this book and Adya's teaching. I'm re-reading it right now as a matter of fact. I'm hoping to attend one of his Satsangs some day and maybe a retreat. Has anyone done either of these? |
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Aug 06 2009 : 9:12:58 PM
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Hi stevenbhow.....
Kirtanman knows/knew Adya and was a regular attendee of his Satsangs. Perhaps he will chime in. If not there is always the PM option
Love,
Carson |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2009 : 07:55:03 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by stevenbhow
Love this book and Adya's teaching. I'm re-reading it right now as a matter of fact. I'm hoping to attend one of his Satsangs some day and maybe a retreat. Has anyone done either of these?
Here is a topic on him:
American Guru Tradition, Non-Guru - Adyashanti
I attended one of his satsangs. He is really good. 
He has the deepest/stillest eyes I have ever seen (well, along with Swami Nithyanada's of course  ). During the Satsang, few times he kinda stopped talking and was looking in my direction, altho he may have been looking in that general area, not at me I am sure, but I looked into his eyes and really, there was nothing in them, like total emptiness.
Before he starts, the entire group sits in silence for 10-15 min.. and the energy in that room was so amazing, it felt a lot like the energy I feel with our Global group meditation.
If you get a chance to see him, I would recommend it for sure. The whole experience is beautiful. The energy and the words than come from him are both amazing. |
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stevenbhow
Japan
352 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2009 : 10:35:05 PM
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| Thanks everyone for the info and advice. I have relatives that live in the Bay Area, so I'm hoping I can see Adyashanti sometime in the future. |
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Adyashanti on relationship
