Interview met Adyashanti: 'Sangha in service of silence'

Hier volgt een gedeelte van een interview met Adyashanti waarin hij op een prachtige manier verwoord wat je als groep of Sangha voor elkaar kunt betekenen, wanneer je samenkomt in waarheid, zoals tijdens een Gathering. Dit interview biedt een heldere kijk op de essentie van de bijeenkomsten, zoals wij die graag met elkaar delen:

Pete: What can we do as a fellowship to encourage each other and help each other to abide in the truth?

Adyashanti: This is quite a big question. I think a big part of the answer is actually in the question itself, when you said what can we do to encourage each other. To encourage each other, to really encourage each other, is the answer. It doesn't mean to push each other, but to really encourage This (The awareness of who or what we really are). Encourage the opening to This - the realization of This. And encourage people in the struggles they go through as they're opening to This.
I think one of the beautiful things about the Sangha or fellowship is that the Sangha or fellowship is never perfect.
My teacher used to liken it to putting potatoes in a bucket of water. Unpeeled potatoes, you know, often have little green ‘eyes’ or shoots growing out and when the bucket is stirred for a while, the unwanted shoots are rubbed off. And that's what we do for each other in fellowship, things happen that wouldn’t happen otherwise when we rub together, metaphorically speaking.
The beautiful thing about our spiritual communities or friendships is, number one, that they are supportive. There's a recognition, an acknowledgement, of what we are all engaged in as realizers of the truth.
Also, there's a beautiful thing called, imperfection. A thing which a lot of spiritual communities don't have nearly enough room for. They don't have respect for the fact that people rubbing up against each other, bumping into each other, the little disagreements, the human frailties, the little moments of ego - these are actually a vital part of our unfolding.
It’s important to let go of expectations of perfect fellowship, expectations of the perfect Sangha, and accept that these gatherings are places where people can actually be who and what they are.
In our fellowships or Sanghas, we need to let people travel their own road back to themselves. Sometimes they are smooth roads, sometimes they are bumpy, but we need to demonstrate that we are a group of beings that actually has  some understanding of what this process is - the beauty of it and, at times, the difficulty of it.
When someone is realizing the truth, it's nice to have a realized friend say, "No, you're not crazy that you've just realized that, in fact, you're nothing… or everything, it's OK". Or when someone's really, really struggling and the friend says, "Yes, of course, don't worry, that's just part of it". This is an important function of the fellowship or Sangha.

Pete: As our Satsangs have continued, we seem to have the consciousness that we are not only waking up as individuals and coming into clearer understanding, but we have a consciousness of waking up as a group, as a fellowship in mutuality, as it were.

Adyashanti: Yes, that is a very beautiful function of the fellowship or Sangha as well. That's a demonstration of the truth that, 'Where two or more are gathered in my name (in the name of truth), there I AM in the midst.' It's not just a nice poetic thing is it?
You realize there is a presence and a power in more than one. There is a sense that there is points of light, people, individuals awakening and there is also the sense of the whole as awakening happens. IT is also awakening as a whole fellowship or Sangha and this has a certain power, which I think is why there has always been Sangha, because there has been a recognition that when we come together, there is a power present, a force that's greater than any of us individually. It's beautiful to recognize that.

Pete: A number of us have been particularly challenged by your admonition to not only see or recognize the teaching, but also to embody it - on a consistent basis in our daily lives - could you speak more to that?

Adyashanti: That's where the rubber hits the road, isn't it? It's one thing to be a totally enlightened Buddha when we are sitting in a room by ourselves, or we are in satsang, or we're at a retreat, and you are just so radiant you can hardly stand yourself! [laughter] That's nice and that's important to have a place to do that. But where the spiritual rubber hits the road is when we're in our daily life, isn't it? It's really the proof of how deeply this has taken hold of us, how much we've given ourselves to what we've realized. Because it's a myth that just because I realized the ultimate nature of Self, of existence, of reality - that I will, therefore, be able to automatically… [end of tape

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