Adyashanti is an American-born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the awakening of all sentient beings. He is the author of Resurrecting Jesus, The Way of Liberation, The End of Your World, and Falling into Grace.
His teachings are an open invitation to stop, inquire, and recognize what is liberating and true at the core of all existence. Adyashanti’s teachings have been compared to some of the teachers of Vedanta in India as well as Chan (Zen) masters of Chi.
Interesting Facts & Biography
He was born in 1962 in Cupertino, California, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Steven Gray. Adyashanti (which means “Primordial Peace”) studied Zen for 14 years under the guidance of Arvis Joen Justi, his Zen teacher. Besides his long meditations sessions, he also studied books about Christian mystics.
After a series of transformative spiritual awakenings, he began teaching in 1996, at the request of Arvis Joen Justi. Adyashanti gave his first talks in his aunt’s spare room above a garage to just a handful of students.
He has given over 2,300 satsangs (a Sanskrit term meaning “being in the company of the truth”) in his teachings years.
In April 2014, Adyashanti appeared in an interview with Oprah Winfrey on a Super Soul Sunday episode.
Currently, he lives with his wife, Mukti, and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area offering weekend intensives, satsangs, and silent retreats.
Here Is A List Of 30 Adyashanti Quotes On Enlightenment & Life:
#1 ”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.”
#2 “Silence is good food for the spirit.”
#3 “True meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer.”
#4 ”In the West, when you call something a myth you are basically saying it’s not true. That’s a complete misunderstanding of what myth actually is, though.”
#5 “Meditation is like an oven that forces the truth out.”
#6 ”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.”
#7 “Whatever the image of yourself, it’s a mask and it’s hiding emptiness.”
#8 “The truth is that you already are what you are seeking.”
#9 “Don’t think you need to lead a big life. Sometimes a small life is a big life.”
#10 “The greatest dream that we can have is to forget that we are dreaming.”
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#11 ”Both Buddha and Jesus are representations of archetypal spiritual patterns within us. The Jesus story is an archetype of something quite different: an engaged realization. The Buddha is the archetypal image of transcendent realization, that which was never touched by time and the world, nor by human difficulty.”
#12 “Enlightenment means waking up to what you truly are and then being that.”
#13 “Fall into the space of abiding in the hundreds of small moments during the day.”
#14 “Enlightenment is, in the end, nothing more than the natural state of being.”
#15 ”The more in harmony you are with the flow of your own existence, the more magical life becomes.”
#16 ”The sacred dimension is not something that you can know through words and ideas any more than you can learn what an apple pie tastes like by eating the recipe.”
#17 ”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.”
#18 ”At times, even the most subtle intention or technique will naturally drop away on its own when your meditation reaches a certain depth of stillness and simplicity.”
#19 “Believing in oneness is not the same as realization.”
#20 “Stop being who you think you are, and be who you are.”
#21 ”The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that.”
#22 ”The most direct thing that I can say to you is to not believe your mind. Shift your focus from the mind to the Heart, which means affectionate awareness and stillness.”
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#23 ”Over time, I began to see how delicate and challenging it was for most seekers to find the courage to question any and all ideas and beliefs about the true nature of themselves, the world, others, and even enlightenment itself.”
#24 ”If you start playing the game of being an “enlightened somebody,” the true teacher is going to call you on it.”
#25 ”If you filter my words through any tradition or ‘-ism’, you will miss altogether what I am saying. The liberating truth is not static; it is alive.”
#26 ”Fear is very often a part of the spiritual path. When people sit down and meditate, it’s not at all uncommon for fear to arise at some point.”
#27 ”I don’t identify myself as a Buddhist nor do I identify myself as really anything.”
#28 ”Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it’s not.”
#29 ”Doubt is always accompanied by a pervasive cynicism that unconsciously puts a negative spin on whatever it touches.”
#30 ”Spiritual awakening is a remembering. It is not becoming something that we are not. It is not about transforming ourselves. It is not about changing ourselves. It is a remembering of what we are, as if we’d known it long ago and had simply forgotten.”
Images credit – Shutterstock
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References https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180405093257.htmhttps://nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation/overview.htm https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/05/meditation-does-not-make-better-person-study-finds/
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As a founder and chief author at InsightState.com, Bulgarea Candin helps readers on their spiritual journeys. His writings are designed to inspire creativity and personal growth, guiding readers on their journey to a more fulfilled and enlightened life.