• ABOUT ADYA
    ABOUT ADYA

    ABOUT ADYA

    Adyashanti (whose name means “primordial peace”) is an American-born spiritual teacher who has been teaching for 26 years. His teachings include evening meetings, weekend intensives, silent retreats, live internet broadcasts, and online courses. He has taught throughout the US and also in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and Australia. More than 30,000 people in 120 countries are connected to his website through free email subscription. He is the author of eleven books.

    Born Stephen Gray in 1962 in Cupertino, California, Adyashanti grew up as an athlete and competitive bicycle racer. At age 19, he became interested in enlightenment, began to meditate, and became fully absorbed in a quest for ultimate truth. . . .

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  • SUNDAY COMMUNITY PRACTICE
    SUNDAY COMMUNITY PRACTICE

    Sunday Community Practice meets live online twice a month for deep spiritual practice and inquiry. Each practice is two hours and includes meditation and a talk by Mukti. Check our program calendar to see future session dates and which teacher will be leading.

    Time: 9:00–11:00 am PT. (Preprogram meditation at 8:00 am PT)

    We offer two options for participation:

    Monthly Subscription ($25/month) which includes:

    • Access to two live Sunday online practices each month.
    • Replay video or download audio of any Sunday practice that airs during or after the month you joined. (Note: replays are available within one week of each Sunday practice, and expire after three months.)
    • Monthly subscription is recurring and will be charged on the 2nd day of each month.
    • Cancel subscription for future months at any time by logging in to your account. (Current month is not refunded.)
    • Scholarship applications accepted.

    Single Practice Registration ($15) which includes:

    • Access to one live Sunday practice, to be viewed at the time of the broadcast. (Note: replays are NOT included with this option.)

    REGISTER NOW

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  • SUBSCRIBE
    SUBSCRIBE

    Subscribe to Our Programs

    THE STREAM

    Stream eight AUDIO recordings each month from Adya’s media area and access your selected recordings as often as you like in the same month!

    • Purchase and download audio recordings from your current monthly selections for 50% off.
    • Stream either single talks or broadcasts.
    • $15/month

    READ DETAILS & JOIN HERE

    YOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP

    Membership Programs on Adya’s YouTube channel allow us to make available a selection of full-length video teachings not previously accessible other than by purchasing them in our online store.

    • Basic Membership: $4.99/month
    • Membership Plus: $9.99/month

    LEARN MORE & SUBSCRIBE

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    SIGN UP

    Please note: If you already have an account, see “Stay Connected” in your account area to update.

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FEATURED WRITING

The Doorway of “I Am”

How strange it is to look deeply into one’s true nature. We can all state with certainty, “I am.” That’s the starting point—not “I am this or that,” but simply “I am.” We have all been taught to add onto this sense of “I am” various defining characteristics and evaluations. But these are secondary at best, a collection of conditioned conclusions and evaluations, most of which were inherited from the people and the world around us; put simply, they are nonessential. The “I am” is essential to being self-conscious; it is the quintessential articulation and confession of self-consciousness itself. Everything that gets added unto this primary sense of “I am” obscures one’s essential nature.

Another way to approach the “I am” sense is to simply attend to your immediate sense of being. This is not as simple as it...

How strange it is to look deeply into one’s true nature. We can all state with certainty, “I am.” That’s the starting point—not “I am this or that,” but simply “I am.” We have all been taught to add onto this sense of “I am” various defining characteristics and evaluations. But these are secondary at best, a collection of conditioned conclusions and evaluations, most of which were inherited from the people and the world around us; put simply, they are nonessential. The “I am” is essential to being self-conscious; it is the quintessential articulation and confession of self-consciousness itself. Everything that gets added unto this primary sense of “I am” obscures one’s essential nature.

Another way to approach the “I am” sense is to simply attend to your immediate sense of being. This is not as simple as it sounds because we are so accustomed to thinking about our experience rather than simply experiencing our experience. This is exactly where good spiritual practice comes in. The essence of any good spiritual practice is to focus on direct experience rather than on what we think about the experience. To focus on the immediate sense of “I am” devoid of all interpretations and evaluations is itself a powerful spiritual practice. The immediate sense of “I am” is like being a simple conscious presence, prior to being a someone or something with a history in time. In fact, with a little practice and willingness to let go of clinging to one’s familiar identity, this simple and immediate sense of “I am” will reveal itself to be the same underlying conscious presence as all other conscious beings.

This then forms the basis of a transformed relationship with all beings, where our essential sameness becomes the ground of our relatedness with others, even as we have a newfound respect and appreciation for our human differences. The universal “I am” wears an infinite variety of masks that we human beings call our personality. But connecting with the universal “I am” in oneself and in other beings allows us to connect from a universal and essential basis, rather than from being exclusively entranced by surface appearances and conditioned reactions.

The “I am” is a doorway into the essential, the universal, and the sacred. To gain entry into that doorway requires us to step into the realm of not knowing—which is simply to say that we must unknow, or temporarily suspend, everything that we think that we know about ourselves. We must enter into a state of innocent unknowing just prior to all egocentric identification. We must not only think about doing this, or imagine doing it—we must actually do it! We must let go and not know who or what we are. Then, and only then, can we directly sense into the “I am,” the conscious presence which pervades any and all perceptions and experiences. Then we dwell as that conscious presence. The rest of the unfolding will happen by itself, in its own time. Patient persistence is the key.

Eventually, even the “I am” sense will fall away . . . and self-consciousness will dissolve into its source. But for now, let’s not define this source, for there is no substance to the source to grasp hold of. Everywhere the supreme reality is on display, but nowhere can it be grasped. Follow the “I am” to its source, to that dark light that sees but cannot be seen, and knows but cannot be known. When the eye that never sleeps awakens—yes, this is a contradiction to the intellect—the dharma wheel of enlightenment turns everywhere. This, at least, is how it feels and has always felt.

Copyright © 2021 Adyashanti.

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FEATURED PROGRAM
Sunday Community Practice
Online with Mukti

Sunday, January 19, 2025

9:00-11:00 am PT

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FEATURED PROGRAM

Sunday Community Practice meets live online twice a month for deep spiritual practice and inquiry. Each practice is two hours and includes meditation and a talk by Mukti. Adya oftens joins in meditation.