People From California

"No spiritual teaching is a direct path to enlightenment. In fact, there is no such thing as a path to enlightenment, simply because enlightenment is ever present in all places and at all times. What you can do is to remove any and all illusions, especially the ones you value most and find the most security in, that cloud your perception of Reality. Let go of clinging to your illusions and resisting what is, and Reality will suddenly come into view."

"I think one of the hallmarks of a spiritual maturity (or even a human maturity) is the ability to shift perspective. (...) We often use these words that give this... impression, which I think is a false impression ultimately, that there's some ultimate perspective that is the right and correct perspective, as if unity consciousness or something is the correct perspective. But, you know, if I'm a 3-year-old kid and someone's threatening my life, and my mother's next to me, I want her to be in a fierce perspective, right? I don't want her to kinda just go "it's all one, so it really doesn't matter if you're harmed". It does matter. And so... yeah, I think the ability to shift perspective is really vital to our functionality."

"The beautiful thing is that anybody has the potential for a massive shift in perspective... even if they're a complete mess."

"It is impossible to know what words like liberation or enlightenment mean until you realize them for yourself. This being so, it is of no use to speculate about what enlightenment is; in fact, doing so is a major hindrance to its unfolding. As a guiding principle, to progressively realize what is not absolutely True is of infinitely more value than speculating about what is."

"Unity is a truth. The truth is, there's only ultimately one. All this diversity we see - and there's great diversity and great uniqueness! But underlying it, the essence of all of it is conscious spirit. Conscious spirit is what everything is. Spirit is what everything is. Spirit is what's expressing itself. When you look around you, what you're really seeing is the expressions of ineffable spirit. That's what you're seeing. No matter what you see, no matter what you experience, it's really a manifestation of spirit."

"The good news is that at the essence of who and what we are there is a deep and fundamental goodness. Not the goodness that we've been taught, not like morally good, as opposed to morally bad, but something deeper - a goodness which is inherent in what we are."

"One of the exciting things about today is [that] people are not, for the most part (...) even in their spiritual domain, they're not satisfied necessarily with just an internal revelatory spiritual experience anymore. Most people that I meet are hooked up in such a way that it only is really deeply meaningful to them unless it actually starts to transform how they move and experience... their contribution to life."

"All the ideas we have about the awakening actually are distortions about what it really is. So we really need to let go of not only all of our ideas of ourself, but all of our ideas about spiritual realization, enlightenment, spiritual awakening. All of those need to be let go of as well, so that we can find out what's the truth, what's the reality of what we are."

"Our true nature is something that is ineffable. In other words, it's not something you can grasp, it's not something you can really think about, it's not something you can touch, taste, or feel. (...) Because it has no shape, because it has no form, that is the reason that I call it spirit. Spirit is that which exists, but it doesn't have a particular shape or a particular form."

"When we come to the realization that we are not this identity that the mind has created, but we're actually spirit, at that moment spirit has become conscious of itself. It's become conscious of itself as spirit, as ineffable being, as a sort of conscious presence."

"Awakened values are not really based in morality. They're not based in should or shouldn'ts. Awakened values are values that are inherent within conscious spirit."

"The mind is something that happens within you. Thinking is something that happens within what you are. Thinking does not define what you are. Thinking doesn't define anything."

"Every human being... the way they move in live, how they act, is completely dictated by what they value."

"Sometimes, you know, when we meet people, it seems to me (...) [that] it's hard to gain access to a real conversation. It's almost like it takes one of us to just be real, even if it's to say "you know, I don't really know what to say to you." Or to say no. Sometimes you have to say no, or to set a boundary."

"Egoic consciousness is something that the vast majority of people live in almost all the time. Humanity is by and large caught in this realm of egoic consciousness, and therefore manifests it in the way that we, human beings, live our lives - both individually and collectively."

"Ego itself is a fiction created in the mind by circular patterns of thinking based on separation. So, 'the ego is the fiction in the mind' - what does that mean? [It means] that ego is basically our sense of self, and the thoughts, ideas and beliefs that circle around that sense of self that go into deriving a bigger, more conceptualized version of ourself. In other words: who we think and imagine ourselves to be."

"Our egos are always trying to find happiness where [it] can't be found. One can't find true, lasting happiness outside of themselves. Whatever happiness you find outside of yourself, can be taken away. And in time, it will be taken away, because the nature of everything that exists, everything you can observe, everything that is around you, is that it is impermanent."

"Suffering is caused by identification with egoic consciousness. When we identify with egoic consciousness, we go unconscious or become unaware of our true nature as conscious spirit."

"True love is not all bliss. As my teacher said, true love is bittersweet, like dark chocolate. It almost hurts a little bit. Ultimately all emotions contain their opposite."

"Luc Saunders: What do you think happens to individual consciousness after the death of a body? Adyashanti: The question presumes that there is such a thing as individual consciousness. Awakening shows you that there isn’t. The mind creates the illusion of individual consciousness to convince us that this awareness is ours, that it belongs to us. I imagine that, after the death of the body, it’s very difficult to maintain the illusion of individual consciousness. But who knows? We’ll see. I’ll give you a phone call if I can. [Laughs.]"

"Over time I found that one of the most important things in any spiritual teaching for anybody is to have a really basic and simple understanding of that teaching. And the reason for that is because as one gets involved in a spiritual teaching, it's really easy to lose sight of the basics, or the foundations."

"Who you think you are is just that - it is who you think you are. It is who you have been taught to believe that you are. It's a conglomeration of beliefs about yourself, ideas, opinions, judgements, all the ways that mind keeps thinking about a self - thinking a separate self into existence."

"The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief."

"It is the basics that are most important. Never leave this foundation. From this, an incredible depth is to be found - an ongoing revelation of the truth of existence."

"Perhaps the most important element of any spiritual teaching is what we bring to it, because this dictates what the teaching will reveal within ourselves."

"The main purpose of the illusion of me is to keep you at all costs from realizing your own nothingness."

"Sy Safransky: Didn’t taking the name “Adyashanti” reinforce a certain sense that you are an enlightened holy man? Adyashanti: Oh, absolutely it did. It’s sort of a ridiculous-sounding Eastern name. (...) I always tell people to call me “Adya,” and leave the “shanti” part off."

"I often tell people to make no mistake about it—enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being more or less happy. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretense. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true."

"To have enough curiosity to start to question your deepest identity is absolutely vital and essential to spiritual awakening, and to the realization of peace and freedom."

"You can't get rid of thoughts, and you can't get rid of thinking. To battle your mind is one of the most deceptive ways that the mind keeps you in its own domain."

"The cause of suffering is not thinking, it's identification with thinking. This is very, very important to understand, because if you don't understand that it's identification with thinking that's really at the heart of the matter, and you assume that it's thinking itself that's the problem, then you can waste immense amounts of time and energy trying to stop your mind from thinking, trying to better your mind."

"I was, yes. Ed was—is! I don’t see him very often—a very close friend and colleague. I had been interested in economic theory and ideas even as an undergraduate, and had come to the conclusion that we in political science didn’t pay enough attention to the importance of economics to politics and political science, so I spent a lot of my time trying to bring that together, including, as I’ve said, collaborating with Ed Lindblom—"

"Any account of the development of the international monetary system is also necessarily an account of the development of international capital markets."

"What was critical for the maintenance of pegged exchange rates, I argue in this book, was protection for governments from pressure to trade exchange rate stability for other goals."

"Writing in 1944, the year of the Bretton Woods Conference, Polanyi suggested that the extension of the institutions of the market over the course of the nineteenth century aroused a political reaction in the form of associations and lobbies that ultimately undermined the stability of the market system. He gave the gold standard a place of prominence among the institutions of laissez faire in response to which this reaction had taken place. And he suggested that the opening of national economic decision making to parties representing working-class interests had contributed to the downfall of that international monetary system. In a sense, this book asks whether Polanyi’s thesis stands the test of time. Can the international monetary history of the second half of the twentieth century be understood as the further unfolding of Polanyian dynamics, in which democratization again came into conflict with economic liberalization in the form of free capital mobility and fixed exchange rates? Or do recent trends toward floating rates and monetary unification point to ways of reconciling freedom and stability in the two domains?"

"The international monetary system is the glue that binds national economies together."

"Both the existence of these parallels and their tragic nature would not have escaped Charles Kindleberger, whose World in Depression, 1929-1939 was published exactly 40 years ago, in 1973. Where Kindleberger’s canvas was the world, his focus was Europe. While much of the earlier literature, often authored by Americans, focused on the Great Depression in the US, Kindleberger emphasised that the Depression had a prominent international and, in particular, European dimension. It was in Europe where many of the Depression’s worst effects, political as well as economic, played out. And it was in Europe where the absence of a public policy authority at the level of the continent and the inability of any individual national government or central bank to exercise adequate leadership had the most calamitous economic and financial effects."

"This history of the international monetary system is short in two senses of the word. First, I concentrate on a short period: the century and a half from 1850 to today. Many of the developments I describe have roots in earlier eras, but to draw out their implications I need only consider this relatively short time span. Second, I have sought to write a short book emphasizing thematic material rather than describing international monetary arrangements in exhaustive detail."

"Given the network-externality characteristic of international monetary arrangements, reforming them is necessarily a collective endeavor. But the multiplicity of countries creates negotiating costs."

"Progress in economics is said to take place through a cumulative process in which scholars build on the work of their predecessors. In an age when graduate syllabi contain few references to books and articles written as many as ten years ago, this is too infrequently the case."

"Aside from Yugoslavia, experiments with decentralization did not extend to planning innovation, the greatest weakness of the socialist economies. Even where markets were allowed to exert more influence over current production, the state was still responsible for planning the future. And state socialism provided only weak incentives for innovation. The Schumpeterian pressure that forced capitalist firms to innovate or die was not present in the planned economy."

"Neither the current state nor the future prospects of this evolving order can be understood without an appreciation of its history."

"Sutter and Vallejo were Mexican citizens—one native and the other naturalized—but they failed in their first duty to the southern republic when they failed to keep the gringos out of the territory."

"Sem-Yeto's capital city, seat of government, was a populous rancheria in what is now Suisun valley, though the tribes of his dominion were scattered over the great plain from Sonoma eastward to the Sacramento. The chief seems to have been an amiable aborigine and early fell in love with the mission fare and faith. After the padre had baptized him into the bosom of the church, Vallejo suggested for the convert the name of the Mission, so he was christened Francisco Solano. The comandante found the new churchman quite useful and quite faithful to the white settlers. "Solano was a king among the Indians," writes Vallejo in his annals. "All the tribes of Solano, Napa and Sonoma valleys were under tribute to him," and through this the comandante was enabled to keep peace in his great territory, covering much of what is now Napa, Solano and Yolo. As Solano fell into the ways of the palefaces—became more civilized—he lost much of the saintly character received at his mission christening, and frequently Vallejo would have to take his red friend in hand. But a night in the guard house away from the wine-cup would prepare the chief for the headache and repentance of the morrow."

"Three families and Vallejo early owned all of what is now Solano, but now, of those big ranchos, only the memories remain. Even the names have dwindled. Vallejo is used to designate a city; Vaca (the gringos called it Barker) marks the limits of a valley; Armijo is a schoolhouse, and Peña was changed to a creek, as enchanted persons in classic days were turned to fountains. Others of the early settlers have passed quite away, bag and baggage, date and name, leaving nothing for remembrance. But these improvident Españols lived well during their short residence in Las Californias, and in their big adobes a rugged splendor was maintained."

"Three times he took part in revolution against Mexico, in 1832-36-45, and the revolutionists won each time, but the successive governors they recognized always managed to get themselves in turn recognized by the Mexican government, in consequence of which matters would drop back into the old rut.There is little wonder that Vallejo at Sonoma found his grandiloquent title of Military Comandante and Director of Colonization on the Northern Frontier burdensome, and occasionally asked to be relieved. And when the Bear Flag people did relieve him of further participancy in Mexican affairs, it was likely to him a relief indeed."

"There is no doubt that Vallejo's gentle methods in dealing with the... Indians surrounding him, his rare discretion in the management of his military affairs and his practical statesmanship making for the much-needed change of flags, proved him to be a greater man, a man more deserving of appreciation than any other within the limits of the territory, and it may be said in truth, deserving of more appreciation than he received."

"Though a Californian, and sharing with other Spanish-born natives a natural distrust of strangers, Vallejo possessed an admiration and sincere friendship for the Americans, and received them kindly, even when his superiors demanded the expulsion of the dangerous foreigners."

"Though his patriotism was never doubted, he counseled annexation to the United States when he saw that Mexico had no government nor protection for California."

"His appointment in 1835 as military comandante and civil commissionado of the northern district proved to be a selection so wise that it stands out in relief from among the official errors of early California history, and during his ten years of almost autocratic rule at Sonoma, it is seen that he governed with rare justice and practical common sense."