Breaking It All Down

“In order to become aware of undifferentiated being, the latent awareness within undifferentiated being must separate itself from being enmeshed in dualistic consciousness. Undifferentiated being can never be perceived as an object, and therefore, it cannot be known in a conventional sense; it can only be known by being itself knowingly.” ~ Adyashanti

What actually is consciousness? What is awareness? How are these the same, but different? In this profound illumination and exploration of the fundamental nature of reality, Adyashanti offers two retreat talks in which he untangles commonly referenced concepts within spirituality. By delineating subtle distinctions of consciousness, awareness, and undifferentiated being, he provides a doorway into dimensions of awakening, and into the unified, redemptive, and yet ultimately unknowable nature of all existence.

TALK ONE TOPICS:

• Distinguishing Consciousness and Awareness
• Spiritual Bypassing through Attachment to Awareness
• Awakening to Unity
• Awareness Doesn’t Resist Experience
• Living in a Question Mark

TALK TWO TOPICS:

• Realizing Undifferentiated Being
• Beyond the Will to Be
• Collapsing Subject and Object Perception
• Fearing Annihilation by the Void
• The Ultimate Ground of Forgiving Compassion

Quotes from this Download Set:

“Awareness is That which is really the same, no matter what state of consciousness you might find yourself in, whether your consciousness expands to include the whole universe, or diminishes into a state of suicidal depression.”

“The tricky thing about all this is when we come into a realization of awareness itself, the realization itself produces changes in your state of consciousness. And so often they’re thought of as the same thing. But you can mimic almost all the changes in states of consciousness that come as a byproduct of realization, without having the realization. A lot of the spiritual techniques actually are ways of mimicking the pleasant byproducts of a deeply awakened state by consciously altering your state of consciousness.”

“To really awaken to a more unified way of being, one of the most potent and powerful ways to go about this is just to dwell in the sense and the feel of awareness. Even though awareness isn’t a sense or a feeling, it has its corresponding effect on the subtle body. And so it’s just the sense and the feel of awareness.”

“If we end up halfway awakened, we experience the total emptiness of awareness, but we don’t experience the fullness.”

“All phenomena are comprised of the will to be, from the tiniest particles that make up the phenomenal world to a human being’s instinct to survive and procreate.”

“Curiosity is the thing that really drives the whole of our spiritual inclination forward.”

Please Note: The recordings in this download set were originally published in the download set: Silent Retreat Vol. 58: Tahoe May 2017 ~ Talks

Recorded at Granlibakken Conference Center in Tahoe City, CA on May 14, 2017 and May 18, 2017.
© 2017 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.