Finding Yourself By Losing Yourself

Inspired by Adyashanti, this meditation invites you to find yourself by losing yourself. This is something we cannot “do” but rather “allow.” We let go of the notion of self that has no independent reality in order to experience our true identity, which is paradoxically personal and universal. What is truly me is no other than what is truly you, and what is truly all. This meditation can be used alone or as a companion to Adyashanti's "Direct Way" teachings. I hope you enjoy it.

Audio editing by Eric Fischer.
Music by Six Missing.

Audio by Eric Fischer.
Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke.

Transcript

Hello friends,

Today's little mini practice,

Inspired by Adyashanti,

Is about finding yourself by losing yourself.

The paradox of contemplative insight is that we come to a flowering of identity by emptying ourselves of our old identity.

This emptying is not something we do,

It's something we allow to happen.

We cannot be forced with effort or will,

Only allowed by a response of our heart that softens the subtle strands of grasping in us.

And so paradoxically,

By losing ourselves,

Losing a self that has no independent reality,

We discover a new identity.

Not an identity we can easily describe or capture or even imagine,

But one that is simultaneously impersonal and personal and universal.

What is truly me is no other than what is truly you and what is truly all.

And so by losing self,

You find that ground where you are the unborn and unformed source of your own being and the being of all created things.

It is where you are the unnameable and empty potentiality flowing through the heart of existence as your great absence shines with full presence.

So let yourself now become very still,

Letting stillness of the body invite stillness of the mind,

And stillness of the mind invite stillness in the body.

And from this stillness,

Let the quietness within you see through your eyes and hear through your ears and feel through your senses.

No matter what you have or have not realized,

Simply with heartfelt devotion,

Let go all at once of any sense of the meditator,

The doer,

The realizer,

The controller.

Let them fall away as easily as if you were dropping a leaf from your hand and rest in this spacious sense of no past,

No future,

No self,

Resting in the condition of eternity,

The timeless now.

When you know yourself to be this condition of ungraspable freedom,

To be at peace,

Then you have found yourself by losing yourself.

There is nothing to fear here.

Only freedom awaits you.

So as long as you like,

Continue to rest in this stillness,

Letting the quietness within you see through your eyes and hear through your ears and feel through your beautiful senses,

Knowing itself through you.

Be well,

My friend.