After finishing this book in May of 2024, I wrote,

 

"Many spiritual writers lose me in their use of words and phrases that leave me clueless of what they may be referring to. Adyashanti does that too, but much less often. And what I do grasp makes a lot of sense to me. A lot of mind-blowing ideas!"

 

My clippings below collapse a 259-page book into seven pages, measured by using 12-point type in Microsoft Word.

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See all my book recommendations.  

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Here are the selections I made:

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Contrary to our most basic human assumption , we are not human beings who possess consciousness — we are consciousness having a very human experience , with all the ups and downs , triumphs and tragedies that this entails . We’ll get to this rather counterintuitive insight presently ; for now it is only proper to appreciate the utter gift and miracle that consciousness is .

 

This is to say that our questions reveal as much about ourselves and our point of view as they do about the subject of our inquiry .

 

We must be willing to suspend the compulsive drive of the ego for quick and convenient answers to our deepest questions and be willing to live in the creative tension between the known and the unknown .

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1. Transforming Emotions, Feelings of Unworthiness, and Physical Challenges

 

There is a thread of presence that runs through all , through sickness and health , through happiness and sorrow , through success and defeat . That thread is what you hold to and weave all through your human self , for it is a pure light of conscious being , ever shining and weaving its way through the forest of all of your days .

 

What I did was to take time out of the equation . What I mean by this is that I rigorously kept my mind out of future thinking . The way I did that was to imagine that , somehow , I knew with total certainty that my condition would never change . How , then , would I deal with the present moment ? Suddenly , resistance made no sense at all . I mean , where was it going to get me ? Only to more suffering .

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2. Meditation, Inquiry, and Spiritual Practice

 

The meditator cannot bring about the falling away of the meditator ; that can only happen spontaneously . The most you can do is to gradually minimize the experience of being the meditator by letting go of effort more and more as the mind becomes more stable , open , and spacious .

 

Abiding in non - abiding means clinging to nothing , not even stillness . When there is no clinging onto any state of being , there is no self - centered activity going on .

 

Who’s meditating , who’s observing , who’s aware ? Even if your mind tells you There’s no one , keep looking , keep inquiring . What are you when there is no “ you ” there ?

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3. The Illusion of Ego and Separation

 

So even though concepts are a part of daily functioning , and necessarily so to some degree ( though not to the degree that we imagine ) , when we forget that the boundaries they impose upon our perception are an illusion , we take the conceptual game of naming and believing far too seriously and lose not only our sense of humor , but also any deep sense of freedom and love .

 

Self is consciousness in motion and has no lasting core or unchanging substance to it .

 

If your ego identity is centered around doing , then not - doing will evoke feelings of being bad , wrong , or deficient in some way , as you mentioned in your email . In our culture , not - doing is very undervalued

 

Surrender is the name of the game and it is the only game that leads to liberation .

 

Awareness is the more fundamental reality because it can exist with or without the ego , while the ego cannot exist without awareness .

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5. Levels of Awakening: Head, Heart, Gut, and No-Self

 

My motto is very simple : Do what works , attend to what needs healing , and let your experience guide the way .

 

Who is afraid ? Only a thought , and you are not a thought — you are what the thought occurs in . Be that vast empty space and all else will unfold quite naturally and spontaneously .

 

What a divine paradox , to find a letting go that has let go from before the beginning of time .

 

Awakening at the gut level often feels like a very real death . Even though it is not a physical death , it can feel even more real than physical death . It is the death of the self at its most fundamental level .

 

So realization embraces this paradox of always being and always becoming .

 

Beyond this it is best not to formulate any rigid ideas of what “ full awakening ” is like . It is full only in the sense of feeling whole and complete , but it is forever open to disclosing and realizing this completeness more deeply and clearly .

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6. Relating from a New Way of Being

 

If effort is needed then by all means make some effort , or as my teacher used to say , “ effortless effort . ” Just don’t mistake effort for struggle , for struggle is simply wasted effort .

 

Personal will is the raw driving energy of egoic consciousness . It is very difficult to understand exactly what personal will is until it has diminished to a certain extent .

 

Although there are exceptions to this rule , it has certainly been my observation that it is much easier to let go of a relatively healthy ego structure than a very divided one .

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7. Compassionate Regard for the World

 

As you learned , it is easy to get compassion fatigue when our compassion has a fix - it agenda — or any other agenda for that matter .

 

Turning the tide of compassion within yourself to all of those parts that feel cut off , frightened , and abandoned is an essential part of being a loving and wise presence in the world .

 

When I use the word “ God , ” I am referring to the unfathomable wisdom and love that is woven into the fabric of existence and which transcends existence at the same time .

 

The problem begins when we conceive of a God who consciously decides what will and will not happen . Then we have to wonder why such a God would decide , or allow , for so many terrible things to occur . There are many elaborate theologies to explain this conundrum away , but in the end , none of them make a whole lot of sense . The problem is not with God , but with our conception of God . We have created God in our own image ; that is the problem . God is the infinite — containing all possibilities and all outcomes .

 

How can I / we be truly , deeply happy and at peace when there is so much intense suffering , as I am one with all ? A : The key is to be present to the sorrows of the world without entertaining any attending thoughts or judgments such as , This shouldn’t be this way , or How terrible this is , or I don’t want it to be this way , etc . While such thoughts may seem justifiable , they are simply the way that the ego mind resists or dualistically discriminates between good and bad , right and wrong . While such forms of discrimination may be useful at other times , they are not inherent to the world as it is , and end up closing the heart instead of opening it .

 

Part of what facilitates our awakening is to begin to see the difference between unavoidable and optional suffering . It is often quite shocking how much of what we feel to be unavoidable suffering is indeed optional . But neither type of suffering should be denied or looked down upon . From our true being , all forms of suffering give rise to compassion and love , never judgment and blame .

 

As spiritual seekers , we should never turn suffering into a badge of dishonor or shame , but neither should we turn it into a form of victim identity . Instead , we are all better served by developing open and intimate hearts , and inquiring minds .

 

It is a fact of life that sometimes love will fill your heart and sometimes it will break it — and at other times it will both fill and break your heart simultaneously .

 

Allowing your grief and sadness to be felt can be very healing . Simply allowing these emotions to flow through the body - mind without attaching to painful thinking is the way your body purifies itself of sorrow .

 

As to why a person may take their own life , I cannot venture to guess except to say that one simply wants to end their suffering . Suffering has a way of making it seem like our options are very limited and makes us feel very isolated . Since we all have experienced suffering in our life , we can all have some true compassion for anyone who has taken their own life . We cannot get into someone else’s mind and completely understand what they have gone through or exactly why they have done whatever they have done , but we can open our hearts to fully honoring their life . Letting go of guilt is a way to honor your child’s life and to hold your child in the arms of love .

 

Try as we might , we cannot make anyone happy in a lasting way . Nor are we responsible for another’s happiness . What we can do is to have true love and compassion for others ’ suffering , and even lend a helping hand if asked to . But each one of us is ultimately responsible for our own lives .

 

Selflessness is what everyone fears , even those who are intrigued by it . In a very real sense , you become ( or are revealed to be ) that which everyone is afraid of — the abyss of infinity . There you can bring no preferences , no agendas , and no certainties . It is the end of your inner world . Perhaps that’s the best way to explain it . Okay , now , do you still want it ? And no , you cannot be assured of being of service , at least service as it is usually thought of . No certainties can come along for the ride — everything must be surrendered , no exceptions .

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8. The Enlightened Heart

 

However , redemptive love is characterized by a sense of warmth and intimacy and an overall feeling of total forgiveness as though there was never anything to forgive

 

As Ramana said , “ Let what comes come , let what goes go , find out what remains . ”

 

Love always shows us that there is ultimately nothing to forgive , which is itself true forgiveness . When we truly see this , we drop the resentments we may have held toward others . But it is also true that acknowledging our own hurtful behavior toward others , and apologizing for it , can be very helpful in allowing them to forgive us and move on . Such humility is a profound and healing act of love .

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9. Enlightened Living

 

Contrary to the conditioned outlook , the present does not flow out of the past — the past has always , and is always , flowing out of the present .

 

As one old Zen master said , “ It’s not doing nothing , it’s doing nothing . ” And there is a saying in the Taoist tradition : “ In the Great Tao , nothing is done , and nothing is left undone . ” So the paradox we are dealing with during this course is a doing that is an expression of nondoing .

 

Discovering effortless effort is a real art . It’s like learning to walk again . It’s discovering a new dimension of inner balance , a sort of dynamic stillness where polarities are contained within a greater whole .

 

In a true sense , ego is just confused individuality . Ego mistakes individuality to imply separation ; in fact , ego is built upon this very confusion .

 

A simple way to think of the difference between the psychological and spiritual domains is that the psychological domain is oriented toward self - improvement ( becoming a happier and more well - adjusted person ) , while the spiritual domain is focused on transcending and awakening from the self and embodying awakened perception in everyday life .

 

The reason that I took the time to define the difference between the two is to point out that psychological self - improvement will not , in and of itself , lead to spiritual awakening , nor will spiritual awakening necessarily heal all of one’s psychological blind spots . They are related but not the same .

Epilogue

 

Although this has been a book of questions and answers , you may have noticed that I rarely give comprehensive answers to people’s questions . I give just enough of an answer or direction to spark deeper insight by the questioner , for our deepest existential questions do not need answers as much as they need insight .

 

Take from this book not only specific answers to various questions — though I hope that they may be of some use to you — take rather the spirit of the open question and the fearlessness to stretch out beyond the known , deep into the silent and powerful presence of your being .