Author(s): Adyashanti

Spiritual growth

Adyashanti asks us to let go of our struggles with life and open to the full promise of mindfulness and spiritual awakening: the end of delusion and the discovery of our essential being. In his many years as a spiritual teacher, Adyashanti has found the simpler the teaching, the greater its power to initiate this awakening. In Falling into Grace, he shares what he considers fundamental insights that will spark a revolution in the way we perceive life-through a progressive inquiry exploring the concept of a separate self and the choice to stop believing the thoughts that perpetuate suffering; "taking the backward step" into the pure potential of the present moment; why mindfulness and spiritual awakening can be a disturbing process; absolute union with every part of our experience and true autonomy-the unique expression of our own sense of freedom.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: The Human Dilemma
Chapter 2: Unraveling Our Suffering
Chapter 3: Awakening from the Egoic Trance
Chapter 4: Letting Go of Struggle
Chapter 5: Experiencing the Raw Energy of Emotion
Chapter 6: Inner Stability
Chapter 7: Intimacy and Availability
Chapter 8: The End of Suffering
Chapter 9: True Autonomy
Chapter 10: Beyond the World of Opposites
Chapter 11: Falling into Grace

Excerpt:

When I was a young child, about seven or eight years old, one of the things I started to notice and ponder as I watched the adults around me was that the adult world is prone to suffering, pain, and conflict. Even though I grew up in a relatively healthy household with loving parents and two sisters, I still saw a great deal of pain around me. As I looked at the adult world, I wondered: How is it that people come into conflict?

As a child, I also happened to be a great listener-some may even say an eavesdropper. I would listen to every conversation that went on in the house. In fact, it was a family joke that nothing happened in the house without me knowing about it. I liked to know everything that was going on around me, and so I spent a lot of my childhood listening to the conversation of adults, in my home and in the homes of relatives. Much of the time, I found what they talked about to be quite interesting, but I also noticed a certain ebb and flow to most of their discussions-how conversations moved into a little bit of conflict, then back away from it.