Stages of Realization

Through this enlightening retreat talk, Adyashanti delineates different stages of realization and the delusions that can accompany these stages. He reveals how people often experience these phases in a certain sequence, yet shows how awakening often happens in a circular fashion where stages are often revisited. At some point, however, you come through it all and you’re at home in the essential reality, you’re at home in your humanity—you’re simply just home.

Topics Include:

• Understanding the Different Phases of Realization
• Re-circling through the Experiences of Realization
• Awakening to the Essential
• Awareness Collapsing into the Relative 
• Delusions of Realization
• Getting Attached to Realizations
• The “Got It” / ”Lost It” Syndrome
• How the Finite Is the Infinite
• Embracing Limitation 
• The Exit and Re-entry of Realization
• Being Home in the World

Quotes:

“In almost any state of realization, there are a host of potential illusions. In other words, you can delude yourself and use your realization to accomplish the delusion.”

“The danger of realization is when we have certain realizations, because each facet of awakening will feel total and complete, we will feel total and complete. And we can make these false conclusions, like 'That’s it. I’ve got it.’”

“When we realize the essential, it’s when awareness spontaneously disentangles itself from the world of experience, idea, and image. And you realize awareness is not something you possess. It is not something you as ego are doing. It’s actually something that you are. That’s why you can’t get a look at awareness. You can’t get apart from it, because awareness is always the thing that’s looking. You can’t see your seeing.”

“When we really see our true face, it’s not that we’re experiencing awareness peering through the form of the person. It’s the actual substance of the person right down to their body. We see everything to be the face of God.”

“The more we enter into the fire of the world of Samsara, the more compassion we feel, the less attached we are, and the less overwhelmed we are.”

“The resistance to suffering is in great measure the cause of continued suffering.”

“An actual lived experience of realization is consenting completely to limitation as an act of compassion, of love. Strangely when you completely consent to limitation, you no longer experience limitation."

Please Note: This recording was originally published in the download set: Silent Retreat Vol. 75 ~ Talks: Tahoe September 2019.

Recorded at Granlibakken Tahoe in Tahoe City, California on September 26, 2019.
© 2019 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.