The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment

More and more people are “waking up” spiritually. And for most of them, the question becomes: now what? “Information about life after awakening is usually not made public,” explains Adyashanti. “It’s most often shared only between teachers and their students.” The End of Your World is his response to a growing need for direction on the spiritual path. Consider the book you hold in your hands Adyashanti’s personal welcome to “a new world, a state of oneness.”

Adyashanti begins by describing the “I got it/I lost it” phenomenon that perplexes so many of his students—the fluctuation between what he calls “nonabiding” awakening and the ultimate state of “abiding” enlightenment. With straight talk and penetrating insight, Adyashanti then points out the pitfalls and cul-de-sacs that “un-enlighten” us along the journey, including the trap of meaninglessness, how the ego can “co-opt” realization for its own purposes, the illusion of superiority that may accompany intense spiritual breakthroughs, and the danger of becoming “drunk on emptiness.” “Full awakening comes when you sincerely look at yourself, deeper than you’ve imagined, and question everything,” teaches Adyashanti. The End of Your World is your invitation to join Adyashanti for an honest investigation of what you really are—and how to live once you discover it.

Contents

Chapter One: Exploring Life After Awakening

Chapter Two: Authentic Awakening—And the Disorientation That Can Follow

Chapter Three: “I Got It, I Lost It”

Chapter Four: We Come to Nirvana by Way of Samsara

Chapter Five: Coming Completely Out of Hiding

Chapter Six: Common Delusions, Traps, and Points of Fixation

Chapter Seven: Life Itself Holds Up a Mirror for Our Awakening

Chapter Eight: The Energetic Component of Awakening

Chapter Nine: When Awakening Penetrates the Mind, Heart, and Gut

Chapter Ten: Effort or Grace?

Chapter Eleven: The Natural State

Chapter Twelve: The Story of the Wedding

Chapter Thirteen: An Interview With Adyashanti

Excerpt

There’s a phenomenon happening in the world today. More and more people are waking up—having real, authentic glimpses of reality. By this I mean that people seem to be having moments where they awaken out of their familiar senses of self, and out of their familiar senses of what the world is, into a much greater reality—into something far beyond anything they knew existed.

These experiences of awakening differ from person to person. For some, the awakening is sustained over time, while for others the glimpse is momentary—it may last just a split second. But in that instant, the whole sense of “self” disappears. The way people perceive the world suddenly changes, and they find themselves without any sense of separation between themselves and the world. It can be likened to the experience of waking up from a dream—a dream you didn’t even know you were in until you were jolted out of it.

In the beginning of my teaching work, most of the people who came to me were seeking these deeper realizations of spirituality. They were seeking to wake up from the limited and isolated senses of self they had imagined themselves to be. It’s this yearning that underpins all spiritual seeking: to discover for ourselves what we already intuit to be true—that there is more to life than we are currently perceiving.

But as time has passed, more and more people are coming to me who have already had glimpses of this greater reality. It is because of them that I am giving the teachings of this book.