Deconstructing Your Dreams – Adyashanti
In this video, Adyashanti talks about dreams and how we can deconstruct our dreams to gain greater insight into spiritual matters. The path to spiritual awakening is very simple, but still complex in its nature. It is not simply a narrow path toward one awakening moment but an all-encompassing journey in which the goal is as important as every single step you take along the way. Each step in the journey is important and means something. Reality itself and life itself don’t lend itself well to definition. As soon as we invest energy into defining life, we emphasize one part and forgo the other, which in turn provides us with a false picture that does not represent pure existence well.
When you can begin to ask what can you know for certain, and be honest and courageous in doing so, you will be able to utilize a strong tool in your spiritual path. Our deepest intention has to be to find out what is actually is true, more than the desire to prove ourselves right to others or ourselves. That in itself is very liberating in its essence, but is also quite rare to have an honest desire to find truth. We, as humans, mostly just want to feel better and provide some sort of relief to ourselves. We believe whatever helps us feel better. Unfortunately that desire to feel better often has the opposite effect, as it alienates us from life as it really is. The true spiritual path will most likely show you that reaching for things that make you feel better physically may hinder your spiritual walk. Part of the journey involves learning such lessons.
The ego is the ultimate storyteller. That is the chatter inside most people’s heads. Ego is constantly crafting stories, even when we are not doing anything at all. It could be reminiscing about the past or planning the future, but it is always telling us something. In doing so it strives to define the actual existence so it seems acceptable and logically understandable to us. But in the end all it does is separate our focus from the all-important moment, it prevents us from unifying with what is, with simple fact of existence. This is one reason meditation is useful. To unite and merge with what is- our core essence- we take the ego out of the picture. Then we can really experience true peace and connection with the truth of what really is.
We are creating and purposely believing in a dream that we are creating. Essentially life is a dream, your opinions, judgements, thoughts and desires are neither bad nor good; they simply do not exist. They are a dream woven by a person in order to explain and utilize reality in order to feed the ego and make us feel good. If you really think about this, it will shatter some of your long-believed perceptions. This makes the true intention and desire to find out what is truly real. Most of us want to see reality, but it is hard to peek through the guises of ourselves. Everyone wants to be enlightened but in order to get there you have to be aware of your own enlightenment at all times.
Enlightenment is just another word for being awake and seeing the truth, for clearly perceiving existence. It is what humanity is really after, but many are not aware that this is what they are truly seeking. They’ve covered up that desire via all sorts of things and layers, but at some point when they can get quiet and really listen to the whisper of their core selves, they may begin the journey. This is liberation and union. In order to do that we have a yearning to see the real, but also the bravery to humbly grasp our own limitations in attempts to find out what is real. Remember, it’s a journey and each step is part of the journey. Each step is important. Every new nugget of truth is important. Finally, life and existence transcend egos and personalities, so being enlightened means tapping into that source from which all awareness and reality sprouts from, and realizing we are all one.