I've followed Adyashanti's teachings for years and read all his books. I'm now convinced he's a cult leader.

Anybody else have any thoughts concerning this "guru"?

Do not recommend him. But if you want spend 1000$ for retreat and find out some judgments about yourself, go ahead. I wouldn't pay him anything.

He is not going to point you to the truth, he will point you to the qualities he doesn't like about your personality. True teacher would make you feel peaceful, like Ramana Maharishi.
Unfortunetly Adyashanti only mess you up and cause more problems into your psyche.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2020 12:59AM by Gaja.

The price of his retreats is prohibitive for me so I haven't encountered him in real life. I only know him from his talks and books and those are often very insightful IMO. He doesn't seem concerned with anyone's personality so I don't get the criticism that "he will point you to the qualities he doesn't like about your personality." Nor do I see any tell-tale signs of him being a cult leader, but like I said, I only know him from afar.

Well,
One women attended his satsang and ask about her efforts to try make herself a better person, I guess, there was something about improving herself, he answer her, that - he is not interested with it - he said to her, she can improve her personlaity, but it is like dressing pig with pearls, it doesn't make it look better if pig is squealing.

The other time, it was about my personalilty, while I was in huge trouble in life, he compared my personality to exhausted dragon. This was in time, when I was emotionally abused, and mentally ill, and I was looking for a help. His help was, actually to depressed me even more. At that time he also was compering me to a women with dully eyes covered with spider's net.

Now it doesn't matter to me, because I know this is not what I'm or who I'm, but this is appropriet to say about things, that Adyashanti never wanted to help me to know the truth, rather to listen bullshit he thinks I'm, he imagined me to be.

The other time, when in public I was criticising Mooji, Adyashanti, protected him, and said that Mooji is true teacher, and told me, I should allow myself being called ego by him, and get humiliated by being called like that (?) also added, that I'm being complitly fake, if I criticise him (after telling me, how criticising people is really bad thing, and oh my god, it is really hard to talk about how innapropriete is to criticise people). I said, I know I'm ego, and I do not have a problem with being my ego. I also said, that Mooji did abused me, and is keeping his damage work in public life, and cannot understand that is unwanted by people, and cannot left the stage, perhaps too attached to his own image. But Adyashanti protect him more than me, licked his ass, I guess, they are friends, and I became their enemy on the road of their career, or they protect themselves, because they do not want to feel guilt. Poor Mooji must be protected by all sangha and by Adyashanti, because he is scared of one girl... I know what had happened and no one have to believe me. The most important thing is I know what had happened.

And I say, Adyashanti is hypocrite. Once he said, the buddha nature is awaken to itself, and whole humanity can be, what it is now,and OH my god, humanscannot be criticiesed, and the other time say, he is disgusted when he sees all those greedy, hateful, racist people, who hurt each other so much. He can have opinions about people, but buddha nature sees life as buddha nature allready.

And why I bother with someone I do not even care about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2020 09:24PM by Gaja.

Those things can be heard in video - pearls on the pig.
Also there is video when he complains about how much he suffered loss of his dog, when he lie down on the floor for week or something. This story is totally made up. A guy from a good home, who never know any suffering, made up some stories for his spiritual career. - the video is called - loss of the buddha dog.

Beside I caught him on making up many stories, some prophet theories about future. This is all so pathetic, he had to make up so many stories and make people believe in it, to attract listeners.

He knows what I talk about, you do not have to believe me. He knows very well what I talk about. And now I have satisfaction I saw through him.

He is also spiritual muddler.

Matthew Remski examines Adyashanti's 2016 Post Election Letter.

[matthewremski.com]

Original source of A's letter is on Facebook

[www.facebook.com]

First Remski gives us the screenshot text of Adyashanti's letter. Matthew Remski gives this overview after which he examines A's text point by point.

(Remski)

Quote

I don’t know how representative this is of the rest of Adyashanti’s work or writing. I don’t know whether it’s an uncharacteristic foray into politics. It might constitute a conscious shorthanding of complex issues for a social media format. But it’s a public letter on a platform of tens of thousands, addressed therefore to a broad spectrum of folks and experiences, so I’m responding to this (and this alone, being ignorant of his other work) as if it’s an important and influential document.

Also, it’s not unique. Since the election, posts like this have permeating whole sectors of yoga and meditation land. These sermons are built upon on (at least) five dangerous errors:

1 Spotlighting emotions like fear and anger as fundamental problems to address, rather than the violence and oppression to which these emotions are responding.

This amounts to a kind of spiritualized tone-policing that values civility and respectability over justice.

2 Failing to show any awareness of how gendered, racial, and class privilege shapes and determines both the unequal consequences of political oppression and our unequal abilities to respond to it.

By suggesting that everyone is responding to the same thing and from the same place, this language mirrors the propagandistic tool of false equivalency. In the campaign this was used to claim no difference between parties, or to focus on emails over admitted sexual assault. In these sermons, false equivalency is used to equalize the emotional responses of people in vastly different situations.

3 Pretending that spiritual language is neutral, and that vague appeals made to undefined values like love and wisdom are somehow the first step to addressing violence and injustice, and not the first step to actually ignoring violence and injustice.

Vague and supposedly neutral spiritual language is essential for keeping a spiritual teacher’s usually depoliticized base of support intact. For an example of a (white, privileged) spiritual teacher who’s actually challenging this norm, check out what’s happening on Marianne Williamson’s page. She’s willing to lose hundreds of her it’s-all-good hardliners by the minute by taking a pretty basic stand on pretty basic issues. I’ll embed an example below.

4 Fostering the notion that charisma is more important than content.

Adyashanti has said that he has “penetrated to the emptiness of all things and realized that the Buddha I had been chasing was what I was.” So I’m sure he won’t take it personally if I use his incredibly anemic letter to illustrate these errors and offer edits and suggestions:

As a taste of how Remski assesses Adyashanti's response to the 2016 election, here is a sample:

Quote

LETTER FROM ADYA: Dealing with Post-Election Turmoil (would you consider “Trauma”?)

(Adyashanti) This election has stirred up a lot of emotion in people — mostly fear and anger, as far as I can see.

Remski(Possibly from your vantage point you can’t see terror and clinical depression — consider adding these in? Also stirred up is the violence at rallies and now a surge of hate crimes spilling over the border into Canada. Positioning emotion as the primary problem confuses the response to existential terror with the bodily reality of it. This seems to be a standard move by spiritual teachers who want to reduce complex socio-political issues down to matters of internal attitude that they can minister to with books and retreats. Maybe better to avoid this opening gambit.)

(Adyashanti) We are in a time of great cultural upheaval in both the United States and Western Europe.

Remski (Maybe add in the Middle East? Climate refugees? Syrians drawing neo-Nazi backlash as soon as they scramble up the beach?)

(Adyashanti) People on both the left and the right of the political divide feel disenfranchised, ignored, and threatened in so many ways.

Remski (To avoid extending the pernicious false equivalencies and white male working-class myths that propagandized the US and Brexit campaigns and that aren’t borne out by available data, how about adding some nuance here about who has been disenfranchised and how?)

(Adyashanti) And it all boiled up to the surface during this election. It was bound to happen and in many ways necessary.

Remski (Repressed racism and misogyny also revealed themselves, not as emotions, but as foundational structural realities. Maybe consider adding these? Also, the fatalism here is problematic. Some of your congregation will resonate with the nod at karma and hints at purification, but those who will be deported by Theresa May or killed by the Trump presidency cancelling the ACA may not.)

For the rest of the article, go here:

[matthewremski.com]

Corboy: For many years, I have seen photos of Adyashanti. Calling it as I see it, Adyashanti's eyes have always looked flat and dead, like fish on ice that is no longer fresh. Its the kind of first impression that cults, Buddhism Lite and yoga society teach us to ignore.

In the comments following this article by Matthew Remski, one reader wrote:

Quote

Ilona says:
July 21, 2017 at 12:11 am

Just found your site via a Facebook thread. I saw Adyashanti being interviewed several years ago at a “Wake Up Festival” organized by Sounds True. Unlike most of the other presenters (and gurus) of that event, I felt like there was nobody at home in his body. Had he spiritually bypassed himself? I have a hard time understanding his appeal. Thank you for calling him out.

Adyashanti is one of the few of these people I like. I’ve never heard anything bad about him. He’s like “the exception that proves the rule.” I agree with zizlz that his talks are insightful.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Gaja. If his criticism was as personal as you took it, I agree that's very inappropriate behavior. And it's disappointing that he doesn't see a problem with Mooji.

And Corboy thanks for sharing the article, though I think it's a shame that apparently the only way for Remski to make sense of so many people voting for Trump is to see them as evil. That blindness to the despair and humanity of so many people, that polarizing attitude, is exactly what Adyashanti tried to address in his letter IMO. Both the political left and right seem to be unable to get beyond that mentality. To be honest I haven't read the whole article because I couldn't get through it. He calls Adyashanti's facebook followers "members of his congregation." Okay.

Interesting thread cause Adya is one of the spiritual teachers with whom I've struggled to find fault. I recently took part in his online retreat which was made very affordable due to covid and not having to go somewhere. At the end they showed a photo montage of all the employees and you could tell that it was a close group of people that weren't brainwashed and really enjoyed working together so I don't get any culty vibes. Also his focus is very simple - on meditation and not on himself like other "charismatic" leaders.

Having said that I do think the whole prospect of enlightenment is just a con. Some time back I realised if the only person who I could be sure was enlightened was Ramana then what was the point as he is just one person from millions and why did i want it anyway? So now my focus is different, I'm not so much chasing anything as just enjoying my meditation practice and dip in and out of Adya's teachings and find nothing that sets off alarm bells as happens with literally all other teachers. Anyway I'm open to hearing more and am aware of the saying "beware the wolf in sheep's clothing?"