Top 15 Adyashanti Quotes

Sometimes, you know, when we meet people, it seems to me (...) [that] it's hard to gain access to a real conversation. It's almost like it takes one of us to just be real, even if it's to say "you know, I don't really know what to say to you." Or to say no. Sometimes you have to say no, or to set a boundary.

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.

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

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.

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.

It is impossible to know what words like liberation or enlightenment mean until you realize them for yourself. This being so, it is of no use to speculate about what enlightenment is; in fact, doing so is a major hindrance to its unfolding. As a guiding principle, to progressively realize what is not absolutely True is of infinitely more value than speculating about what is.

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.

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.

Unity is a truth. The truth is, there's only ultimately one. All this diversity we see - and there's great diversity and great uniqueness! But underlying it, the essence of all of it is conscious spirit. Conscious spirit is what everything is. Spirit is what everything is. Spirit is what's expressing itself. When you look around you, what you're really seeing is the expressions of ineffable spirit. That's what you're seeing. No matter what you see, no matter what you experience, it's really a manifestation of spirit.

Every human being... the way they move in live, how they act, is completely dictated by what they value.

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.

When we come to the realization that we are not this identity that the mind has created, but we're actually spirit, at that moment spirit has become conscious of itself. It's become conscious of itself as spirit, as ineffable being, as a sort of conscious presence.

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.

The mind is something that happens within you. Thinking is something that happens within what you are. Thinking does not define what you are. Thinking doesn't define anything.

The cause of suffering is not thinking, it's identification with thinking. This is very, very important to understand, because if you don't understand that it's identification with thinking that's really at the heart of the matter, and you assume that it's thinking itself that's the problem, then you can waste immense amounts of time and energy trying to stop your mind from thinking, trying to better your mind.