Experiences of Emptiness (Excerpt) 

My experience has been the same as the one Adya describes: a sort of un-caused, tranquil, serene form of well-being. It is deep and flows effortlessly, and it's very hard to get me out of there.

It was day 26 of a 30-day Vipassana Meditation course I was sitting with S.N. Goenka in India. The advanced instruction Buddha taught was to go into the Heart Chakra, what he called "The Seat of Consciousness" and then observe sensations within the entire body. As I was observing, all of a sudden I experience that "there is no James". There is no one meditating. And there is no past, no present, no future. Only Consciousness, consciousness which is awake, aware, aware of being consciousness, and energy, energy as a "luminous presence". And a profound "knowing" that everything IS consciousness and energy, energy AS Consciousness. That it is all ONE. That we are a drop of the ocean, but we are also the ocean, we are ONE with everything, and because we are consciousness and energy, we ARE everything, we are ONE, there is NO separation. And, ironically, no one becomes "enlightened", consciousness wakes up, consciousness is no longer asleep, it wakes up to itself as consciousness and energy. This awareness is joyful, detached, beyond time, and exists as it is, as awareness. It was several years after this experience I went and saw Adya in Los Angeles to ask about this experience because Goenka doesn't really emphasize the experience of enlightenment or awakening as the goal, which is wise. However, I asked Adya if this was an experience of awakening, and he said it was. It was very helpful, however, it doesn't change the laws of nature, we still don't escape suffering, it does not inoculate us against these experiences. In the long-run we come to know the "truth", which is in many ways comforting, but we do not escape the realm of dukka, suffering, however, knowing the truth IS comforting.

Thank you thank you thank you 🙂🙏♥️

I like this topic. Hadn't thought about it like this.

I feel there is a spectrum of emptiness. I ve experienced the dark emptiness of depression and the joy of emptiness that I coincidentally feel this morning drinking my coffee ☕ catching another chilling video of Adyashanti 😊

Well, i will never shake off a realization that i am ever only looking at (my own) consciousness. And when it's dark, in the absence of light, i am also staring directly at (my own) consciousness void of the world as I know it. It must be the emptiness Adya talks about. Once seen it, it can never be ignored. I am but a tiny ripple in it. It's also understood that i am but i tiny bit of it, of God. The great void.

Love Emptiness as "Serene Joy" ❤

Sounds like the words emptiness is being used for lots of different states... very much the way the word love is used for different states

I love how Adya talks about the ego, so compassionate.

Thank you!

My whole life it seemed like we didn’t have an answer to the question “What happens when we die?” and as I studied Buddhism/Hinduism I couldn’t find the answer to “What is enlightenment” but now it seems that I understand the answer to both questions and they have the same answer: One thoughtless mind in empty space without time. Is it not that simple? I thought it was this grand secret that I’d have to climb a mountain to find but it seems like this is it.

There's an emptiness from the perspective of the ego and there's an emptiness from the KNOWING perspective. To say knowing is the base level description of being I can think of before being. To be you have to know and to know you have to be. They are one in the same but the ego has an entirely different perspective and misplaced the knowing part of this within itself the ego hence knowings confusion.

my destination i feel is near the void, i feel i'm close but i'm never there for me i hit that point 8 years ago but i dont feel ready, i hit epiphany but it isnt true yet

For a month, I lived every word you said about true emptiness. But it has subsided kind of. How can i deepen this realisation? Thank you

The thinking process can never be an observer or the witness ,so what is it that is observing?

Emptiness.....is the last perception!

I feel the emptiness as loving acceptance of what is.

I see it as being content 🙂

Zero and infinite at the same time

An aspect of emptiness is agendaless.