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In a certain sense, if I have an idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made you into something very small. This is the way of human beings, this is what we do to each other.

Adyashanti

What will carry us into living freedom is not the holding of attention so much as the holding of appreciation.
ADYASHANTI

Appreciate Appreciation Attention Freedom Holding Living Meditation
When you stand in your own authority, based in your own direct experience, you meet that ultimate mystery that you are. Even though it may be at first unsettling to look into your own no-thingness.
ADYASHANTI

Authority Based May Mystery Stand Suffering Ultimate Want
Self-inquiry is a spiritually induced form of wintertime. It’s not about looking for a right answer so much as stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do without, what you are without your leaves.
ADYASHANTI

Answer Inquiry Looking Right Self Spirituality Stripping Wintertime
No matter what identity we cling to, it takes great courage to step out of the old masks we wear and the old scripts that we live by, and open ourselves to the mysterious inner core of our being.
ADYASHANTI

Courage Great Identity Mask Matter Old Script Step
Truth has no finality to it. It is not something to be held on to. Truth is discovered minute to minute or not at all.
ADYASHANTI

Discovered Finality Minute Something Truth
Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception in the form of grasping, and away from objects in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is.
ADYASHANTI

Away Ego Giving Grasping Mind Object Perception
Only something as insane as human beings would ever asked themselves if ‘I’m good.’ You don’t find oak trees having existential crisis. ‘I feel so rotten about myself. I don’t produce as much acorns as the one next to me.’
ADYASHANTI

Being Good Human Insane Oak Rotten Themselves Tree
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. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind.
ADYASHANTI

Filter Liberating Lying Mind Missing Saying Tradition Truth
All we really want in the end is to be connected once again with the Truth of our being, to realize what it is that wears this mask of self.
ADYASHANTI

Again Connected Reality Realize Realizing Self Truth Want
If you resist confusion,you are always confused. We think that we resist certain states because they are there, but actually they are there because we resist them.
ADYASHANTI

Actually Anger Certain Confusion Resist Think Whatever
This moment in which you experience stillness is every moment. Don’t let the mind seduce you into the past or future. Stay in the moment, and dare to consider that you can be free now.
ADYASHANTI

Experience Future Mind Moment Past Seduce Stillness
To remain unconscious of being is to remain asleep to our own reality and therefore asleep to reality at large. The choice is simple: awaken to being or sleep an endless sleep.
ADYASHANTI

Asleep Choice Endless Large Reality Remain Sleep Unconcious
Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier.
ADYASHANTI

Becoming Better Crumbling Destructive Enlightenment Process
When you let go of the egoic self what you’re getting in exchange is the whole universe.
ADYASHANTI

exchange Go Letting Self Universe Whole
It is easy to imagine that the Buddha, the awakened one, is something or somewhere other than here or that awakening to reality will happen sometime other than now. But as long as we continue to think in terms of time we will deceive ourselves.
ADYASHANTI

Awakened Buddha One Reality Somewhere Thinking Time
You think that enlightenment is something other than what is happening right now. This is your primary mistake.
ADYASHANTI

Enlightenment Happening Mistake Now Primary Right Thinking
Instead of striving towards some distant goal that you will never reach, I invite you to stop and ask: How am I avoiding the enlightenment that is already present in each moment? How am I seeing separation where it doesn’t exist?
ADYASHANTI

Asking Distant Enlightenment Goal Invite Reach Separation Stop Striving
If moonlight does not flood the empty night sky and reflect in every drop of water, on every blade of grass, then you are only looking at your own empty dream.
ADYASHANTI

Dream Drop Empty Grass Looking Moonlight Night Sky Water
Gratitude is the appreciation of what is, of life, of existence, of anybody and anything, for just the way it is.
ADYASHANTI

Anybody Appreciate Appreciation Existence Gratitude Way
Once again, we find ourselves back in the unknown – not in the idea of the unknown, but in the lived reality of it. It’s the mind humbled, on its knees, with bare feet and free of the known.
ADYASHANTI

Back Free Known Life Lived Ourselves Suggest
As soon as the mind pulls out an agenda and decides what needs to change, that’s unreality. Life doesn’t need to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Life doesn’t need to know the “right” way to go because it’s going there anyway.
ADYASHANTI

Agenda Change Decide Life Mind Need Pull Soon Unreality
Our illusions-the beliefs we hold on to-are the very doorways to our freedom. We simply have to enter through them without grasping or pushing away. We must not believe them, but we must not run away from them either.
ADYASHANTI

Belief Believe Compassion Doorway Enter Freedom Illusion Running Simply
Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attributes. As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind’s compulsive contractions and identifications. It returns to its natural non-state of Presence.
ADYASHANTI

Arise Attribute Awareness Eternal Natural Object Profound Silence Witness
As you peel it back, in the heart of nothing, that is love. You are what you are seeking. Life is a set up so that each of us can actually see in ourselves the truth for ourselves.
ADYASHANTI

Each Heart Life Love Nothing Peel Seeking Taken You
Sincere and committed now, with absolute honesty and willingness to uncover and let go of any illusions that come between you and the realization of Reality.
ADYASHANTI

Absolute Committed Illusion Sincere Uncover Willingness
The truth is you can’t try to let go. Trying is the opposite of letting go. To let go is to relinquish trying. To let go is much more like to let be.
ADYASHANTI

Go Letting Opposite Opposites Relinquish Truth Trying
We are birthed into sangha, into sacred community. It is called the world.
ADYASHANTI

Birthed Community Sacred Sangha World

In a certain sense, if I have an idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made you into something very small. This is the way of human beings, this is what we do to each other.

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In a certain sense, if I have an idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made you into something very small. This is the way of human beings, this is what we do to each other.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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