The End Of Your World (Adyashanti)
A Blind Man Leading the Blind
[My two-star Amazon review (October 15, 2013) of “The End of Your World: Uncensored Talks on the Nature of Enlightenment” by Adyashanti.]
In the interview at the end of this book, Adyashanti implicitly makes it clear that he has no business writing books on spiritual awakening, or anything else for that matter. He says that "awakening is a mystery," and confesses: "What I really know is that I don't know." When the interviewer asks him, "Is there anything you know for certain?" he replies, "Only that I am; that's it." Regarding his own enlightenment, he is also uncertain. He says, "I hesitate to say, `Oh, yes, I have crossed a certain finish line,' because I don't see it that way..." He informs us, "Trying to put the truth into word is a fool's game..." Then why does he play it? I think you can guess the answer.
Even though Adyashanti doesn't know anything for certain, he nonetheless thinks he can identify reality. He informs us, "What is actually real is an infinite expanse of emptiness." Why would anyone want to awaken to a reality of empty space? And how does he know it's infinite? In contrast to Adyashanti, and in agreement with the great Hindu sages, I say what is actually real is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss), not an ineffable emptiness. Emptiness is not an ontological primary; it is a derivative, because it can only "exist" within the context of a Thing or Being that is empty, or devoid of content.
Adyashanti has little understanding of "mysticism." He says, "One of the great misunderstandings about awakening or enlightenment is that it is some sort of mystical experience... Spiritual awakening is very different from having a mystical experience." Au contraire, spiritual awakening is a mystical experience, and if Adyashanti opened a dictionary, he'd see mysticism defined as "union with Ultimate Reality."
Adyashanti makes many of the same banal statements that pepper the neo-Advaita Vedanta texts I've recently reviewed at Amazon, which raises the question: Is he aping them or are they aping him? In alignment with these texts, he reduces awakening to "a shift in one's perception" and informs us that enlightenment is already the condition of all beings. Adyashanti tells us that when the Buddha awoke, he said, "I and all beings everywhere have simultaneously realized liberty." The Buddha never said that. Rather, he emphasized that each individual had to work out his own salvation through intense sadhana.
Adyashanti believes that awakening begins with the experience of no-self. I say it begins with the initial experience of the Holy Spirit, or Shakti. Any bloke can conceptually recognize that the self is not an entity, just an amalgm of discrete psycho-physical tendencies that combine to create an illusory self-sense; but real awakening does not begin until one is baptized in (or by) the Spirit, which is tantamount to receiving what Hindu yogis call "Shaktipat."
Adyashanti mentions "energetic unfolding" relative to the awakening process, but fails to provide details on this unfoldment and how it translates into final awakening. If he were fully, finally, awakened, he'd know that Kundalini-Shakti severs the spiritual Heart-knot, and once the knot is cut, the yogi is never again bound, as thereafter a permanent, radiant Force-current between the Heart-center and the crown outshines arising thought-forms, rendering them impotent as agents of bondage. This is not just my opinion but also that of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, India's greatest twentieth-century guru. Moreover, the Buddha also equated the attainment of enlightenment, or Nirvana, with the Heart-release. Adyashanti, by contrast, reduces "Heart Level Enlightenment" to "awakening on the level of emotion."
In my first book, "Beyond the Power of Now," I did not include any of Adyashanti's books on my Spiritual Reading List, but I did state that those interested in Advaita Vedanta might benefit from his books. That was mistake. At the time, "Emptiness Dancing" was the only book of his I had read, and though I didn't consider it an impressive text, I thought that newbies might find it a worthwhile read. I still think it's a three-star book (see my Amazon review), but I removed any reference to Adyashanti's books in my second book, "Electrical Christianity."
Now, after reading and reviewing "The Way of Liberation" and "The End of Your World," I will no longer refer anyone to Adyashanti. Based on what he says in this book, he is a blind man leading the blind.
[My two-star Amazon review (October 15, 2013) of “The End of Your World: Uncensored Talks on the Nature of Enlightenment” by Adyashanti.]
In the interview at the end of this book, Adyashanti implicitly makes it clear that he has no business writing books on spiritual awakening, or anything else for that matter. He says that "awakening is a mystery," and confesses: "What I really know is that I don't know." When the interviewer asks him, "Is there anything you know for certain?" he replies, "Only that I am; that's it." Regarding his own enlightenment, he is also uncertain. He says, "I hesitate to say, `Oh, yes, I have crossed a certain finish line,' because I don't see it that way..." He informs us, "Trying to put the truth into word is a fool's game..." Then why does he play it? I think you can guess the answer.
Even though Adyashanti doesn't know anything for certain, he nonetheless thinks he can identify reality. He informs us, "What is actually real is an infinite expanse of emptiness." Why would anyone want to awaken to a reality of empty space? And how does he know it's infinite? In contrast to Adyashanti, and in agreement with the great Hindu sages, I say what is actually real is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Consciousness-Bliss), not an ineffable emptiness. Emptiness is not an ontological primary; it is a derivative, because it can only "exist" within the context of a Thing or Being that is empty, or devoid of content.
Adyashanti has little understanding of "mysticism." He says, "One of the great misunderstandings about awakening or enlightenment is that it is some sort of mystical experience... Spiritual awakening is very different from having a mystical experience." Au contraire, spiritual awakening is a mystical experience, and if Adyashanti opened a dictionary, he'd see mysticism defined as "union with Ultimate Reality."
Adyashanti makes many of the same banal statements that pepper the neo-Advaita Vedanta texts I've recently reviewed at Amazon, which raises the question: Is he aping them or are they aping him? In alignment with these texts, he reduces awakening to "a shift in one's perception" and informs us that enlightenment is already the condition of all beings. Adyashanti tells us that when the Buddha awoke, he said, "I and all beings everywhere have simultaneously realized liberty." The Buddha never said that. Rather, he emphasized that each individual had to work out his own salvation through intense sadhana.
Adyashanti believes that awakening begins with the experience of no-self. I say it begins with the initial experience of the Holy Spirit, or Shakti. Any bloke can conceptually recognize that the self is not an entity, just an amalgm of discrete psycho-physical tendencies that combine to create an illusory self-sense; but real awakening does not begin until one is baptized in (or by) the Spirit, which is tantamount to receiving what Hindu yogis call "Shaktipat."
Adyashanti mentions "energetic unfolding" relative to the awakening process, but fails to provide details on this unfoldment and how it translates into final awakening. If he were fully, finally, awakened, he'd know that Kundalini-Shakti severs the spiritual Heart-knot, and once the knot is cut, the yogi is never again bound, as thereafter a permanent, radiant Force-current between the Heart-center and the crown outshines arising thought-forms, rendering them impotent as agents of bondage. This is not just my opinion but also that of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, India's greatest twentieth-century guru. Moreover, the Buddha also equated the attainment of enlightenment, or Nirvana, with the Heart-release. Adyashanti, by contrast, reduces "Heart Level Enlightenment" to "awakening on the level of emotion."
In my first book, "Beyond the Power of Now," I did not include any of Adyashanti's books on my Spiritual Reading List, but I did state that those interested in Advaita Vedanta might benefit from his books. That was mistake. At the time, "Emptiness Dancing" was the only book of his I had read, and though I didn't consider it an impressive text, I thought that newbies might find it a worthwhile read. I still think it's a three-star book (see my Amazon review), but I removed any reference to Adyashanti's books in my second book, "Electrical Christianity."
Now, after reading and reviewing "The Way of Liberation" and "The End of Your World," I will no longer refer anyone to Adyashanti. Based on what he says in this book, he is a blind man leading the blind.
