Adyashanti
Nov 12, 2005, Santa Cruz
I consider myself an “online student” of Don James. He says
that awakening can be “sparked” by being in the physical presence of
someone who is awake, if one adopts the proper relaxation of mind and
openness of heart. I have proposed to test his assertion experimentally
by trying to adopt the attitude Don suggests in the physical presence
of people who Don judges are, or may be, awake. Adyashanti is one person that Don
thinks is awake who comes to the Santa Cruz area on occasion, so I went
to one of his public appearances when the opportunity presented itself.
Adyashanti's Santa Cruz area satsangs are held in the “sanctuary” at
the Inner Light Center
in Soquel. It's a high-ceilinged auditorium (with balcony) that seats a few hundred people. Admission was 10$ which the publicity
made clear was a fee, not a donation. That's admirable honesty, but did
make it impossible for me to gauge the reaction when I declined to donate (a tactic which can be quite revealing of what's truly important
to a teacher). I paid my admission and took a seat in the front row,
but on the far right side which, because of the angle of the room, gave
me an excellent view of the chair and microphone that were standing in
for Adyashanti. The attendance was good; I would guess that around 250
people were there. This satsang was being videotaped, and we were informed that all the people who came up to talk to Adyashanti would be
asked to sign releases so the video could be distributed. The woman who
told us this and other information then introduced a man who came up on
stage and played a flute, rather well I thought, for several minutes
while people listened silently.
A moment after the flutist left the stage Adyashanti walked out and sat
down in his chair. He closed his eyes, sitting straight and still, for
a few minutes of silence. Recent remarks by Arvind on the Guru Ratings
Forum attested to Adyashanti's shaking and physical nervousness. I didn't notice any of that. He seemed quite at ease to me. After the few
minutes of silence he opened his eyes, adjusted his microphone, and gave his talk. This one, it seemed to me, was about how, along with
someone most ardently desiring awakening, there must also be a powerful
fear or aversion to it operating, or else one would awaken. He traced
this aversion to the fact that awakening means the end of the world as
we know it, a daunting prospect for most everyone. Then he spent a long
time flogging a metaphor about the best thing on the menu being throwing away the menu (and getting a lot of laughs in the process). He
was preaching detachment from one's own beliefs, opinions, tastes by
holding out the carrot of awakening (which in a mysterious way, that I
can't pretend to understand, is outside of time). That seemed like the
gist of it, though I must admit that I wasn't listening too closely as
I focused on relaxing and opening to Adyashanti's physical presence.
After his talk he opened the floor to one-on-one interaction. He would
call on people with their hands up in the audience to come up to the
front, below the stage, and speak into a microphone positioned there.
On this occasion every one of them was someone who had spoken with Adyashanti at some previous satsang. Some of them were obviously
serious students of his. It started with a woman who expressed effusive
thanks and gratitude to Adyashanti for “saving” her and her daughter's
lives with the teaching and sound parenting advice he'd given her at a
previous satsang. She cried at points, giggled at others; it was pretty
clear to me that she truly believed he had helped her cope much better
with her life, and I saw no reason to doubt it from what she said. None
of the other people who took the mike were that dramatic, but they were
all interested in Adyashanti's guidance in their personal process of
inquiry. It was very similar to what I've seen in other satsangs.
The modern nondualist teacher is as much a pastoral counselor, if not
more, than any priest, rabbi or imam. What apparently works the magic
in nondualism is the idea of a _________ (fill in the blank with whatever word you use for the unsayable), which is considered real,
while “all this” is just an illusion. This seeing of everything separate as an illusion can indeed help people let go of all kinds of
attachments, attitudes, beliefs, expectations, hurts, etc. That's a good thing. Of course, strictly speaking it's nonsense because the only
reality a temporal entity can grasp is exactly all the stuff which gets
labelled illusion, while what is labelled real is entirely incomprehensible to a being in time. This remains unchanged by the fact
that “all this” is but the real appearance of an incomprehensible
_________. In the purest sense, it's all just a well-intentioned trick
in which people are fooled by doubletalk into letting go of their character armor; beautiful to see and/or experience when it actually
works.
As to the other transmission, the one that isn't of words, I didn't get
that from Adyashanti. Which is not to say that he didn't give it. If
transmission requires the proper attitude on the part of the recipient
to take place then one can never disprove a teacher's ability to “transmit”, only either prove it or fail to prove it. In the end, the
experiment is entirely subjective. To me, Adyashanti seemed quite capable as a lecturer and counselor. Others have attested to me his
abilities as a community leader as well, and I see no reason to doubt
them. My superficial impression of him and his community is positive,
and I think that those who are looking for a modern American-style nondualist teacher might be well advised to check him out for
themselves.
* – This
is an expandable set of pages. If you've been to see any of my
listees and would like to offer an "objective" report, ie
from one not already "attached" to the teacher in question
or full of ideas based on attachment to a "competing"
teacher, send it in (Feedback)
and i'll be happy to put it up. Other Reports
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