Adyashanti Quotes

Our egos are always trying to find happiness where [it] can't be found. One can't find true, lasting happiness outside of themselves. Whatever happiness you find outside of yourself, can be taken away. And in time, it will be taken away, because the nature of everything that exists, everything you can observe, everything that is around you, is that it is impermanent.

All the ideas we have about the awakening actually are distortions about what it really is. So we really need to let go of not only all of our ideas of ourself, but all of our ideas about spiritual realization, enlightenment, spiritual awakening. All of those need to be let go of as well, so that we can find out what's the truth, what's the reality of what we are.

I think one of the hallmarks of a spiritual maturity (or even a human maturity) is the ability to shift perspective. (...) We often use these words that give this... impression, which I think is a false impression ultimately, that there's some ultimate perspective that is the right and correct perspective, as if unity consciousness or something is the correct perspective. But, you know, if I'm a 3-year-old kid and someone's threatening my life, and my mother's next to me, I want her to be in a fierce perspective, right? I don't want her to kinda just go "it's all one, so it really doesn't matter if you're harmed". It does matter. And so... yeah, I think the ability to shift perspective is really vital to our functionality.

True love is not all bliss. As my teacher said, true love is bittersweet, like dark chocolate. It almost hurts a little bit. Ultimately all emotions contain their opposite.

Suffering is caused by identification with egoic consciousness. When we identify with egoic consciousness, we go unconscious or become unaware of our true nature as conscious spirit.

The beautiful thing is that anybody has the potential for a massive shift in perspective... even if they're a complete mess.

One of the exciting things about today is [that] people are not, for the most part (...) even in their spiritual domain, they're not satisfied necessarily with just an internal revelatory spiritual experience anymore. Most people that I meet are hooked up in such a way that it only is really deeply meaningful to them unless it actually starts to transform how they move and experience... their contribution to life.

Sy Safransky: Didn’t taking the name “Adyashanti” reinforce a certain sense that you are an enlightened holy man?
Adyashanti: Oh, absolutely it did. It’s sort of a ridiculous-sounding Eastern name. (...) I always tell people to call me “Adya,” and leave the “shanti” part off.

The good news is that at the essence of who and what we are there is a deep and fundamental goodness. Not the goodness that we've been taught, not like morally good, as opposed to morally bad, but something deeper - a goodness which is inherent in what we are.

Awakened values are not really based in morality. They're not based in should or shouldn'ts. Awakened values are values that are inherent within conscious spirit.

Egoic consciousness is something that the vast majority of people live in almost all the time. Humanity is by and large caught in this realm of egoic consciousness, and therefore manifests it in the way that we, human beings, live our lives - both individually and collectively.

Ego itself is a fiction created in the mind by circular patterns of thinking based on separation. So, 'the ego is the fiction in the mind' - what does that mean? [It means] that ego is basically our sense of self, and the thoughts, ideas and beliefs that circle around that sense of self that go into deriving a bigger, more conceptualized version of ourself. In other words: who we think and imagine ourselves to be.

Our true nature is something that is ineffable. In other words, it's not something you can grasp, it's not something you can really think about, it's not something you can touch, taste, or feel. (...) Because it has no shape, because it has no form, that is the reason that I call it spirit. Spirit is that which exists, but it doesn't have a particular shape or a particular form.

No spiritual teaching is a direct path to enlightenment. In fact, there is no such thing as a path to enlightenment, simply because enlightenment is ever present in all places and at all times. What you can do is to remove any and all illusions, especially the ones you value most and find the most security in, that cloud your perception of Reality. Let go of clinging to your illusions and resisting what is, and Reality will suddenly come into view.

The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief.