Saunders: Do you use the terms “awakening” and “enlightenment” interchangeably, or are you talking about two different experiences?
Adyashanti: Awakening is when you realize that what you thought you were was nothing more than a dream, and you perceive the reality outside the dream, what’s dreaming the dream of you. It’s not just a mystical experience. It is actually realizing the underlying unity of all things.
Simply because you’ve had an awakening, however, does not mean you stay awake. Enlightenment, in simple terms, is when you stay awake. If the awakening is abiding, that’s enlightenment. And most awakenings are not abiding — at least, not initially.
Saunders: Awakening and enlightenment sound like head-bound or heart-bound concepts.
Adyashanti: Enlightenment has nothing to do with the head or the heart. Certainly, the head and the heart tend to open up, but that’s a byproduct. Enlightenment is actually waking up from the head and from the heart. It’s waking up from the dream of “me” and seeing the oneness of all things. That’s what I mean by “reality”: that oneness. The truth is that you are that unity. You are not simply a particular person in a particular body with a particular personality; you are that one reality, which manifests itself as all these seemingly separate things.
Saunders: Are the body and physical sensations illusory?
Adyashanti: Yes and no. Ultimately, everything’s a dream, and yet you still have to deal with the body. It’s still there. You can call it “a dream,” but it’s still going to hurt if you bump your head.
Safransky: Most traditions suggest that years of spiritual practice are necessary before one becomes enlightened, but you say that it’s a mistake to look to the future, to see spiritual awakening as some kind of goal.
Adyashanti: One of the best ways to avoid awakening is to let the idea of awakening be co-opted by the mind and then projected onto a future event: something that’s going to happen outside of this moment. Of course, something may happen in the next moment — something’s always happening in the next moment — but the truth lies right here and right now; it is right here and right now. This looking to the future isn’t really the fault of the spiritual practices themselves; it’s the attitude with which the mind engages in the practices — an attitude that is seeking a future end and seeing that end as somehow inherently different from what already exists here and now.
The role of the spiritual practice is basically to exhaust the seeker. If the practice does what it’s supposed to do, it exhausts our energy for seeking, and then reality has a chance to present itself. In that sense, spiritual practices can help lead to awakening. But that’s different from saying that the practice produces the awakening.
The spiritual practitioner is like someone who’s running and is really tired and wants to rest. You could say, “Well, just stop, then.” But they have this idea that they have to cross a finish line before they can stop. If you can convince them that they can just stop, they’ll be amazed. They’ll say, “I didn’t know I could stop and rest.” Or maybe they won’t hear what you’re telling them, and they’ll have to go all the way to their finish line. And after they cross it, then they’ll stop and say, “Wow! It feels really good to rest.” So awakening can come after you cross the finish line in the future, but it’s also possible to find it at any point along the way if you stop for just a moment.
As I see it, reality is always looking for that moment of vulnerability, when we let our guard down. It’s not looking for good people or bad people. Clearly some real scoundrels have had amazing experiences of reality, right? Some are transformed by them, and some aren’t. Reality is not operating on any moral principle. It’s looking for a moment when the seeker is exhausted. It can be prompted by some tragic event: an illness, or the death of a loved one, or a divorce. Reality rushes into the crack and presents itself.
Safransky: Many people say they feel most alive right after having experienced some great loss. Their world stops.
Adyashanti: Exactly. Everything is stopped. Now, whether they stay stopped is another matter. Just because somebody has a difficult experience and feels much more alive as a result, it doesn’t mean they won’t go back to their neurotic ways later. After that initial awakening, there is almost always the work of cleaning up, of the “me” surrendering itself. I usually say that’s the beginning of the second phase of spirituality: what I think of as “life after awakening.” There’s this myth of “That’s it. I have that experience; I hoist my enlightenment flag, and it’s over.” Sooner or later most everybody realizes it’s not that simple. There’s a whole other phase of the spiritual life that happens after awakening, and in some ways it’s more subtle and complex and difficult to navigate. There’s not much written about it, and most of what is written is so old and trapped in tradition that modern people can’t make sense of it.........from thesunmagazine.com
1 comment:
"The second phase of spiritual life" - Adya touches upon this in 'The End of your World' and some of his satsangs. Whereas the first movement was about mystical revelation, transforming identity, seeking and spiritual growth - the second is is the opposite, the complete dissolution of the sense of self, the self-reflective "I" and the personal will. A transition from oneness to no-thingness, from the light to the void. Bernadette Roberts also has published works covering this exact topic of the two movements. The first movement is like an enlightenment candy-shop, full of bliss and fresh perspectives. The second movement into truth is where the fun and ego-gratification ends. This transitional phase is painful, disorientating and world-shattering. UG Krishnamurti even calls it a "calamity" to the personal self.
It's great that a small select few genuine spokespersons are actually speaking out about this.
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