Self Help Writers From The United States

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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.]"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment."

"There is within each of us a "life-instinct," which is forever working toward health, happiness, and all that makes for more life for the individual."

"This, then, is my version of the atheist’s way. I think that it is a realistic, unsentimental, arduous, and beautiful way that allows for love, good works, and human-size happiness. At the same time it avoids humbug, especially the crippling and dangerous humbug of god-talk. Take from my version whatever makes sense to you, and heroically fashion your own atheist’s way. Residing as you do in a universe without gods, you must take the lead in creating yourself, making your meaning, and living your ethics. Nothing less than your righteousness and your happiness are at stake. Aren’t you glad that the universe has entrusted these tasks to you and not to some squabbling gods or mountain sprites? Good luck on your atheist’s way—may you make yourself proud!"

"We do not know why the universe opted to make a creature that can suffer from a toothache one day and rouse his fellow human beings to righteousness the next, but here we are."

"This is your chance! You get to make existential magic, and you need no longer despair that there is no place for you in our mock-pious, bottom line-driven society. As an existential magician, a conjurer with amazing skills bestowed on you by the universe, you can create your own stepping-stones and your own journey, guided by your own moral calculations. You make your meaning, and you also make your ethics. Nature being what it is, you are the only one entitled to do either."

"I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there are no gods. We arise from nature—and nature is not a moral entity."

"All that we have on our side is that inner voice that knows better. And that is enough."

"You will stand up and be counted, even though only you are doing the counting."

"Meaning is a choice, not a lost object."

"We respect science because it tests its hypotheses. We respect ourselves when we do the same."

"I hope that our discussion of meaning-making and ethics-making has made it clear why we must stand firm in disputing god-talk: god-talk is at once a betrayal of our common humanity and a barrier to both meaning and ethics. That is not to say that you rise up in arms when you are visiting your parents’ home for dinner and grace is said or that you leap into the fray every time you hear some piety uttered. No one has the time or the energy for such vigilance, and no one wants to become a pariah. But you do need to pick some fights and then fight them. If you are upholding values such as justice, reason, fairness, equity, and decency—if these inform the meaning and the ethics that you make—then you are obliged to stand up to god-talk at least occasionally."

"It is simply not true that atheists, because of their convictions and their worldview, are as a group more depressed than believers."

"To nominate yourself as the hero of your own story is to step outside society, not with the intention of turning your back on it but with the intention of not allowing it to dictate to you."

"Few people actually nominate themselves in this way. Most defer to the meaning-making apparatus of their culture, taking comfort in the fact that others have built a meaning nest for them. This built-in cover allows them to avoid taking responsibility and at the same time causes them to grow grandiose, narcissistic, and egotistical. As soon as you put on the robes of your culture and add gravity to your mere humanness by wearing the badge of your profession, your club, your gang, or your clan, you … refuse to engage in the process of personal meaning-making, with its requirements of honesty and self-awareness."

"This individual is regularly nominated not only by himself but by others as well: by the ordinary townsfolk who beg him to save their town, their world, or their galaxy because they see that he has the strength and integrity that they lack."

"We may feel blue because we see clearly, and what we see saddens us. We see that the amount of intelligence displayed by most people may not be intelligence enough for the challenges faced by our species."

"To define what we are is to reduce and distort what we are: to say that we are nothing but our desires or nothing but our self-interest is to misrepresent us."

"These doubts must be met in the following way. You announce that meaning does not exist until you make it, and then you don the mantle of meaning-maker. The minute you do this, all previous belief systems, both those that told you what to believe and those that told you that there was nothing to believe, vanish. You suddenly enact the paradigm shift that I believe we are now ready to embrace: the shift from seeking meaning to making meaning. You let go of wondering what the universe wants of you, … and you announce that you will make life mean exactly what you intend it to mean. This is an amazing, glorious, and triumphant announcement. The instant you realize that meaning is not provided (as traditional belief systems teach) and that it is not absent (as nihilists feel), a new world of potential opens up for you."

"“I nominate myself” means “I won’t follow.” This isn’t hubris: it is simply the fruit of your decision to live on your own terms."

"The smarter, braver part of you knows that a tradition is only of value if it is of value."

"Human beings have always had the potential to know meaninglessness. Modern times activated that potential."

"The rose’s fragrance, the garden’s lushness, and the night sky’s grandeur affect us because we are built to appreciate beauty and to experience awe. To leap to a supernatural source for these powerful but ordinary feelings is to indulge in wishful thinking, romantic embellishment, and metaphoric fantasizing."

"We have not answered the free will-determinism question, but we have decided to come down on the side of personal freedom, to assert it whether or not it exists. Just as we make our own meaning, we make our own freedom. If this is a cosmic joke, then let us be the ones laughing."

"Billions of people may not be free enough to let go of their made-up gods. You will not allow that sad fact to prevent you from proving the exception. Billions of people may not be equal to seeing beyond limited self-interest to a more mindful self-interest that takes into account the future of the species. You will not allow that sad fact to prevent you from proving the exception."

"You can see why you must nominate yourself as the hero of your own story. It is your right and obligation to make idiosyncratic meaning choices, but asserting that right and meeting that obligation only launch you onto an arduous path of lifelong effort. Time and again you will find yourself dissatisfied with your meaning results, shaken by new meaning problems, confounded by the dynamic complexity of your competing meaning interests, and exhausted by the work required to live authentically. Only a hero would bother with this. An ordinary person would settle for gods and greeting card maxims."

"There is no way to complete the sentence “The meaning of life is...” without producing a small, sad result."

"To be ethical is to make ethics, not to mouth ethics."

"The universe does not care about fairness; nevertheless, you may decide that you would like to advocate for fairness."

"Before you can make meaning, an odd kind of election process must occur. You must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your life and as the hero of your own story. Then you must consciously elect yourself to that position."

"Every argument for the objectivity of meaning is merely someone’s attempt to elevate her subjective experience and her opinions above yours and mine."

"It requires your constant analyses because all meaning is subjective: the only way you can opt for settled meaning, objective meaning, or received meaning is by giving away your freedom."

"You and you alone are the sole arbiter of the meaning in your life. The second you turn to someone and say, “What does life mean?” or, “What should my life mean?” you have slipped into a mind-set that courts inauthenticity and depression. The second you agree with someone simply because of her position or reputation, whether that someone is a guru, author, cleric, parent, politician, general, or elder, you fall from the path of personal meaning-maker."

"You nominate yourself to be the one who will courageously do what you think ought to be done, even if everyone is pressing you to do something else."

"As atheists we have the opportunity to be more honest about the blues that we experience...We get to honestly look at the thing itself and not shift the issue to our relationship to some nonexistent god."

"Life is a project to live, not a mystery to unravel."

"Let others find themselves alike, My will is obstinately I. My winter blinds are wide to winds And long, in cold, My curtains fly."

"Religion is excellent cover for the unscrupulous; it is much harder to think than it is to pray."

"On religion, many are destined to reason wrongly; others not to reason at all; and others to persecute those who do reason."