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Selling Water by the
River
In speaking regularly
with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how
addicted so many of them are to the power of charisma. They swap
stories
about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare
experiences. They get
a charge from it, many mistaking charisma for enlightenment.
Charisma
attracts at all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and
it feeds the ego's
desire to feel special. The ego loves getting hits of power—it's
like a form of
spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it?
Does it make
you free?
Freedom is not
necessarily exciting; it's just free. Very peaceful and quiet, so
very quiet. Of course, it is also filled with joy and wonder, but
it is not what
you imagine. It is much, much less. Many mistake the intoxicating
power of
otherworldly charisma for enlightenment. More often than not it
is simply
otherworldly, and not necessarily free or enlightened. In order
to be truly
free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to
feel good.
Because if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel
better you will
lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling
good or
experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice,
anyone would
choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if
this desire to
feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and
experience Truth,
then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what
is Real, while
corrupting one's deepest integrity.
_________________________
Enlightenment has nothing
to do with states of consciousness. Whether you
are in ego consciousness or unity consciousness is not really the
point. I have
met many people who have easy access to advanced states of
consciousness.
Though for some people this may come very easily, I also notice
that many of
these people are no freer than anyone else. If you don't believe
that the ego
can exist in very advanced states of consciousness, think again.
The point isn't
the state of consciousness, even very advanced ones, but an awake
mystery
that is the source of all states of consciousness. It is even the
source of
presence and beingness. It is beyond all perception and all
experience. I call it
"awakeness." To find out that you are empty of
emptiness is to die into an
aware mystery, which is the source of all existence. It just so
happens that
that mystery is in love with all of its manifestation and
non-manifestation. You
find your Self by stepping back out of yourself.
more:
http://www.adyashanti.org/index.php?file=writings_inner&writingid=31
First published in the
Inner Directions Journal, Fall/Winter 1999. © 1999
Today I Awoke
Today I awoke, finally I see the Self has
re-turned to the Self.
The Self is none other than the Self.
I am deathless. I am endless. I am free.
The birds outside sing…
The birds outside sing and there am I.
The seeing of leaves on the trees, that seeing am I.
The body breathes, breathing am I.
I am awake and I know that I am awake.
Seen from the old eyes, everything is asleep, a game, a delusion.
But now I am awake. I am the play. I am the game. I am the
delusion.
I am the enlightenment I sought, looking everywhere.
Nothing is separate, nothing is alone.
I am all that I see. All that I smell, taste, touch, feel, think
and know.
I am awake and this awakeness is the same as Shyakyamuni Buddha’s.
Today the leaf has returned to the root.
I am all name and form and beyond all name and form.
I am Spirit, no longer trapped in a body.
I am free. I am free because I am awake.
So ordinary. Who would have thought ? Who could have guessed?
I am home. I am really home. Ten thousand life times.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
This is not an experience. This is me.
I am awake. Finally, I am awake.
Nothing has changed, but I am awake.
Before I tasted the root many times and felt, how delicious.
Today I became the root. How ordinary.
~ by Adyashanti. From: My Secret is
Silence: Poems & Sayings …
Rest and Be Taken
When there is deep abundance
there is nowhere to abide.
There is nowhere to rest
or grasp onto
and yet there is rest
The sky abides
yet it never rests.
Neither can we say that
the sky is not always at rest.
We talk about the sky
as if it were something
as if it actually exists -
and yet we cannot say that
the sky does not exist.
The sky is nothing but
coming and going.
Everything is perfectly spontaneous.
The coming and going arise mutually
instantaneously.
If the true I is asleep
you will miss the point entirely
and you will continue to dwell
in the world of opposites.
So see the two as one
and the one as empty
and be liberated
within the world of duality.
At first it seems
as if begoing follows becoming.
But look even closer
and you will see
that there are only
flashes of lightning
illuminating the empty sky.
Life and death
becoming and begoing
are only words.
In order to save your life
you must see that you die
instantaneously
moment to moment
instant to instant.
Now where are you going to abide?
And where are you not abiding already?
Indeed there is nowhere
to rest your head
and there is nothing but rest.
So let go of all ideas
about permanence and impermanence
about cause and effect
and about no cause and no effect.
All such notions are dualistic concepts.
The Truth of what you are
is completely beyond all duality
and all notions of non-duality,
and yet it includes duality
and non-duality alike.
Like an ocean
that is both waves and stillness
and yet un-definable
as waves or stillness.
The truth of being
cannot be grasped by ideas
or experiences.
Both waves and stillness
are the manifest activity
or your own self.
But self cannot be defined
by its activity
nor by its non-activity.
The truth is
all-transcendent
ungraspable, all-inclusive
and closer than your own skin.
A single thought about it
obscures its essence.
The perfume of true life
is right in your nose.
There is nothing you can do
to perceive it
and yet you must do something.
I say:
Rest and be taken.
Rest and be taken.
~ by Adyashanti. From: My Secret is
Silence: Poems & Sayings …
- from My Secret is Silence: Poetry
and Sayings of Adyashanti,
by Adyashanti
To read more poems:
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/A/Adyashanti/index.htm#PoemList