A D Y A S H A N T I
He says to see through the thoughts [that come when you would have silence]. Yes, let’s not jam them up but let them keep moving along. In that way our real being takes over and we see through our apparatus as Spirit which sees through and as everyone else. Adyashanti says:
“When we really start to take a look at who we think we are, we become very grace prone. We start to see that while we may have various thoughts, beliefs, and identities, they do not individually or collectively tell us who we are. A mystery presents itself: we realize that when we really look at ourselves clearly and carefully, it is actually astounding how completely we humans define ourselves by the content of our minds, feelings, and history. Many forms of spirituality try to get rid of thoughts, feelings, and memories—to make the mind blank, as if that were a desirable or spiritual state. But to have the mind blank is not necessarily wise. Instead, it is more helpful to see through thoughts and to recognize that a thought is just a thought, a belief, a memory. Then we can stop binding consciousness or spirit to our thoughts and mental states. With that first step, when I realized that what was looking through my eyes and senses was awakeness or spirit rather than conditioning or memory, I saw that the same spirit was actually looking through all the other pairs of eyes. It didn’t matter if it was looking through other conditioning; it was the exact same thing. It was seeing itself everywhere, not only in the eyes, but also in the trees, the rocks, and the floor.
“It is paradoxical that the more this spirit or consciousness starts to taste itself, not as a thought or idea or belief, but as just a simple presence of awakeness, the more this awakeness is reflected everywhere. The more we wake up out of bodies and minds and identities, the more we see that bodies and minds are actually just manifestations of that same spirit, that same presence. The more we realize that who we are is totally outside of time, outside of the world, and outside of everything that happens, the more we realize that this same presence is the world—all that is happening and all that exists. It is like two sides of a coin.
“The biggest barrier to awakening is the belief that it is something rare. When this barrier is dropped, or at least you start to tell yourself, “I really don’t know if my belief that awakening is difficult is true or not,” then everything becomes instantly available to you. Since this is all that exists, it can’t be rare and difficult unless we insist it is. The basis of all this is not theoretical, it is experiential. No one taught it to me, and no one can teach it to you. What is so beautiful about awakening is that when you are no longer functioning through your conditioning, then the sense of “me” who was living that life is no longer there. Most people are familiar with the sense of a me living this life. But when this is seen through, the experience is that what really runs and operates this life is love, and this same love is in everybody all the time. When it is working its way through your personal stuff, it gets dissipated, but it is still there. Nobody owns this love. Everybody is essentially the manifestation of this love.
“You have experienced moments in your life, whether or not you are aware of them, when you momentarily forgot the “I” with which you have been identified. It can happen spontaneously at a beautiful sight, or it can occur from egoic forgetfulness. People usually discount these moments. After experiencing the “nice moment,” you then reconstitute your familiar sense of identity. But actually these opportunities are like little peepholes through which the truth is experienced.”
Adyashanti
Just as naturally as Adyashanti sees awakening – a non-rare event, so we can also continue to find our cherished goal of two minutes of total silence, as it will come much more readily with his stress-free approach to living his life.
DrRobinStarbuck