Fall into the Center of Now
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Grace is all around us, if we only have the eyes to see it. The good moments are grace, the difficult moments are grace, the confusing moments are grace. When we can begin to open enough to realize that there is grace in every situation, in each person we meet, no matter how easy or difficult we perceive them to be, our hearts will flower and we'll be able to express the peace and the love that each of us has within us.
We let go into this grace. It's something we fall into, like when we fall into the arms of another, or we put our head on the pillow to go to sleep. It's a willingness to relax, even in the midst of tension. It's a willingness to stop for just a moment, to breathe, to notice that there's something else going on other than the story our mind is telling us. In this moment of grace, we see that whatever might be there in our experience, from the most difficult emotional challenges to the most causeless joy, occurs within a vast space of peace, of stillness, of ultimate well-being.
If we can let go for just a moment, if we can relax, if we can fall into the center of now, we can encounter directly the freedom that we've all been seeking. It is right here, right now. It doesn't lie in the future. It's not going to come when life changes, when the circumstances of our day-to-day reality become different. Freedom is something that's right in the midst of this moment. When we begin to surrender our demand that life change, that life alter itself to suit our ideas, then everything opens. We begin to awaken from this dream of separateness and struggle, and we realize that the grace we were always seeking is actually right there at the center of our own existence. This is the heart of spiritual awakening: to realize that what we have always yearned for is the very thing, in our deepest source, that we have always been. Freedom is always available to us. In those very moments when we know we don't know, when we take the backward step, heart wide open, we fall into grace.
Adapted from Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering by Adyashanti. Copyright © 2011, 2013 by Adyashanti. Published by Sounds True.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adyashanti began teaching in 1996 after a series of transformative spiritual awakenings. Today, his retreats are so popular that would-be attendees must win a lottery held only once a year. Adya's teachings have been compared to some of the early Ch'an (Zen) masters of China as well as teachers of Advaita Vedanta in India. His books include Emptiness Dancing (Sounds True, 2006), The End of Your World (Sounds True, 2008), Falling into Grace (Sounds True, 2011), and his most recent book, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic (Sounds True, 2014). He lives in northern California. See adyashanti.org and soundstrue.com.
We let go into this grace. It's something we fall into, like when we fall into the arms of another, or we put our head on the pillow to go to sleep. It's a willingness to relax, even in the midst of tension. It's a willingness to stop for just a moment, to breathe, to notice that there's something else going on other than the story our mind is telling us. In this moment of grace, we see that whatever might be there in our experience, from the most difficult emotional challenges to the most causeless joy, occurs within a vast space of peace, of stillness, of ultimate well-being.
If we can let go for just a moment, if we can relax, if we can fall into the center of now, we can encounter directly the freedom that we've all been seeking. It is right here, right now. It doesn't lie in the future. It's not going to come when life changes, when the circumstances of our day-to-day reality become different. Freedom is something that's right in the midst of this moment. When we begin to surrender our demand that life change, that life alter itself to suit our ideas, then everything opens. We begin to awaken from this dream of separateness and struggle, and we realize that the grace we were always seeking is actually right there at the center of our own existence. This is the heart of spiritual awakening: to realize that what we have always yearned for is the very thing, in our deepest source, that we have always been. Freedom is always available to us. In those very moments when we know we don't know, when we take the backward step, heart wide open, we fall into grace.
Adapted from Falling into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering by Adyashanti. Copyright © 2011, 2013 by Adyashanti. Published by Sounds True.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adyashanti began teaching in 1996 after a series of transformative spiritual awakenings. Today, his retreats are so popular that would-be attendees must win a lottery held only once a year. Adya's teachings have been compared to some of the early Ch'an (Zen) masters of China as well as teachers of Advaita Vedanta in India. His books include Emptiness Dancing (Sounds True, 2006), The End of Your World (Sounds True, 2008), Falling into Grace (Sounds True, 2011), and his most recent book, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic (Sounds True, 2014). He lives in northern California. See adyashanti.org and soundstrue.com.
