Experiencing No-Self

"The falling away of self is the most significant, bewildering, and liberating spiritual event in one's entire life, and perhaps the least understood." - Adyashanti

The no-self perspective opens the doorway to true freedom and liberation. In this audio course, Adyashanti will guide you through the sometimes precarious territory of no-self as he sheds light on the falling away of self and the perspective that the no-self experience reveals. He uncovers the delusions and cul-de-sacs sometimes afflicting those experiencing the falling away of self and offers insight and guidance about:

• Understanding exactly what the experience of no-self is.
• How no-self fits in within the overall arc of awakening.
• Reorienting to this new and liberating perspective.
• Spiritual autonomy and the no-self perspective.
• Losing your inner world.
• Getting stuck in the no-self experience.
• Limitations of the no-self perspective.
• Living and relating from no-self.

The course includes a series of talks and dialogues, weekly exercises, and a 78-page guide (printable PDF) with written Q&A between Adyashanti and the original course participants.

Themes of Exploration

SESSION 1

Topics:

• Philosophy vs. Direct Experience
• Transcending Self vs. No-Self
• Ego and No-Self
• The Experience of No-Self
• The Physical Component to the No-Self Experience
• The Way God Speaks to You
• Can No-Self Be Non-Abiding?

Quotes:

"Any moment of transcendence is a mortal blow to the ego. It begins the ego’s demise."

"You see that what you thought defined you is not actually what you are, but is something that exists within you."

"Life beyond ego becomes something that’s very simple. It matures into a kind of ordinariness because it’s simply the way things are."

"Ego is essentially a kind of friction. Self is that which looks at ego. Self is the act of consciousness reflecting within."

"Wherever we are in our own unfolding is perfectly adequate. Our own intuition of what we’re called to is Reality speaking to us individually and perfectly. We have to listen to how the Infinite talks to us and leads us. Reality, life, the Infinite, God, has a way of leading us in just the perfect way, if we will only just listen to it."

"What’s important is the capacity to listen, to be quiet, and to be patient so we can intuit the way that God or life wants to reveal itself to you."

"You have to be really honest with yourself."

SESSION 2

Topics: 

• Concepts of Self and Ego
• Shifting from Ego to Self
• The Highest Form of Self
• The Continuum of Self to No-Self
• Loss of Will and Motivation
• Life Living Itself
• Letting Go Completely
• Coming Back to Free Illusion
• Trusting Your Inner Knowing
• A Predictable Trajectory
• Cultivating Unrestricted Truth 

Quotes:

"When you’re in self, you’re experiencing life through the beautiful medium of self, or whatever is left of self. When self falls away, there’s nothing between. There’s just the Infinite experiencing itself from within itself. It’s no longer you experiencing God; it’s God experiencing God."

"When we come into the most profound and liberating sense of self, we think that is the highest reality. We think we’re experiencing something transcendent of self. We don’t recognize that what we’re experiencing is actually self. . . . When self is fully expanded, it doesn’t feel isolated, separate, or different. This experience is commonly mistaken for the falling away of self."

"There’s a dying-out process from self-centered will to boundless loving will."

"Do we want the truth for the sake of truth, or do we want the truth for a payoff? Do we want truth for its own sake, no matter what it is?"

"When we’re in any degree of self, we want that wonderful divine experience to some extent."

"The holy states belong to the highest dimensions of self. The Infinite never conceives of anything separate from itself. Even the idea of no separation doesn’t occur."

"The paradox is that no-self is the fundamental reality of what we are."

SESSION 3

Topics:

• The Expression of Life Beyond Self
• Becoming What We Eternally Are 
• Seeing Through the Heart of Grace
• The Ground of Being Will Find Its Way
• Relating with Divine Wisdom & Love 
• Relationship with Children 
• Opening of the Spiritual Heart
• The Pain of Disconnection

Quotes:

"In the relinquishing of self, you do not receive grace; all experiences of giving or receiving are based in ego or self. Instead we see from the eyes of grace, from the heart of grace."

"In the being of this love, we can have no image of what it’s going to look like -- not a saintly person or even a holy person. To go beyond self is to go beyond all that, as beautiful and noble as it may be."

"The dimension beyond self moves from something prior to causes and reasons."

"Life does move in the absence of motivation.”

"It helps when there’s a deep trust that that which is beyond all self will find its way through your human expression. There is something inside that you can trust, even though you can’t make it happen."

"It’s not unusual in the state of no-self that there are still things that need to be seen through, so that divine love can embody itself through this humanity."

"When it comes to human relating from the divine ground, one of the most important things to realize is that even when someone has a deep grounding in no-self, it does not mean that they know how to relate to other people very well."

"When the self falls away, we become more and more simple. The more simple we become, the more wisdom we embody and the more love we live."

"In the modern age, the concept of God as 'other' is breaking down. What we’ve lost with that is that sense of something beyond our self."

"Your letting go is not just a personal thing; it’s an act of love. It becomes a gift to the people and the world around you, because it increases your capacity to love truly selflessly and intimately."

SESSION 4

Topics:

• Grounding the Teachings in Silence
• Existential Aloneness
• Dying Into the Great Silence
• Transcendence vs. Falling Away
• The Unconditioned Mind
• Life from Life's Point of  View
• Seeing Through the Eyes of Eternity
• Love That is Not Based on Feeling
• Absolute Intimacy
• Abide in the Deepest Thing You Know
• Unconditioned Mind: Be It

Quotes:

“If we start thinking we’re higher or better than most people, we’re simply operating at an egoic level of delusion. It’s the falling away of seeing yourself as inferior or superior.”

“We must want the actual Truth more than we want the Truth that we imagine.”

“Love can start to undergo a transformation where the experience of it goes from being emotionally based to love that is not based in feeling and emotion. It’s not defined by experience at all.”

“When self falls away, freedom falls away with it. There’s no sense of freedom; freedom doesn’t make sense anymore.”

“With no-self, you’re going beyond the medium that experiences things through experience. It’s not defined by feeling states, but neither is it unfeeling.”

“If the self fundamentally drops away, ego drops away, too. But you can have ego fall away and still have self.”

“You really can’t suffer unless you pick up the conditioned mind.

Please note: All the recordings and PDF included within audio courses are available to download for 30 days. 

Recorded in San Jose, California, November, 2013. Recordings and course handbook are published by Open Gate Sangha, San Jose, CA.
Music: © 2007 by Eric Fischer.
© 2013-2014 by Adyashanti. All rights reserved.