Resurrecting Jesus Quotes

“As Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas, “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” [Gospel of Thomas 70]”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true. THOMAS MERTON”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“The first stage of the awakening journey is the calling. The calling arrives when we first feel that spiritual impulse that galvanizes our attention. All of a sudden we sense a greater mystery to life that we seek to experience more deeply; it literally calls us.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Through the whole trajectory from birth to childhood to adolescence and then into adulthood, we change so much, not only physically but also emotionally and intellectually, yet something remains unchanged. That sense of something unchanged is the eternal spark within. At the beginning it may be felt as a very subtle, almost incomprehensible intuition, but when we bring our full attention to that felt intuition of what’s the same throughout our whole lives, then that little seed of divine radiance can begin to reveal itself, can begin to shine brighter and brighter in our lives.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Of course, there are those churches today that are inspired by the real living presence of Christ, but as a whole, Christianity needs new life breathed into it. It needs to be challenged to awaken from the old structures that confine spirit, so that the perennial spirit of awakening can flourish once again.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“There’s only one guarantee that Jesus gave: if you can receive and awaken and embody what he is speaking about, then your life will never be the same again. Then you will realize that you’re already living in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“At some point after awakening—sometimes very soon, sometimes not for quite a while—you reach a stage that I call “trials and tribulations.” In the Jesus story, this is symbolized by Jesus’ forty days in the desert and his encounter with Satan in the desert immediately following his baptism. In Buddhism, this stage is mythically portrayed by the image of Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree, assaulted by Maya, the force of illusion. Maya is an impersonal force of illusion, while Satan is a personification of what we think of as evil, but the source of evil is actually illusion, so these are really two different mythic representations of the same experience.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Jesus is saying, “Come, come into the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven exists on the face of the earth, and men and women do not understand it.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“when Legion says, “for we are many,” what are the many? Our modern interpretation would be that Legion has a completely fractured psyche. When the psyche fractures, it’s like a pane of glass dropped on the ground; it shatters into many bits and pieces. Someone to whom this has happened is literally lost in the unconscious; that becomes their reality.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“In the original Greek, one of the meanings of sin [hamartia] is simply “to miss the mark.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Power is a very dangerous aphrodisiac to the ego; many people are deeply attracted to power. Even in our ordinary everyday world, issues of power arise. If you lead a company or you’re a manager, you’re exercising power over people’s lives; they have to fit in with the structure and power dynamics that were put in place by the people above them. Power at any level, whether its an intrinsic power or a relative power due to your position in the world, can really bring to light and activate desire, because power begets the desire for more power. In every esoteric spiritual tradition there are grave warnings about indulging in these kinds of powers and seeking out the psychic abilities that may come with awakening. The usual counsel is neither to push away or deny these powers, nor to grasp or desire or indulge in them. In Jesus’ case, what we get through the story is a vital reflection of what it means to use power wisely. Jesus is a man of great authority, great inner power, and great charisma, and people are deeply attracted to him, whether for healing or spiritual transformation or simply to be in his presence. In example after example, he wields this power with wisdom and love. Throughout the Gospels we see how Jesus utilizes power, when he utilizes it and when he pulls back and leaves things as they are. He’s a master of the wise use of power.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Imagine if you took it on in yourself to reorient your life trajectory toward your divinity. Your divinity: I so loved the world, that I gave it all of myself. Imagine your birth as an act of pouring yourself forth into life as a loving means of redemption. Imagine your human life as what you have come to redeem. And when you’ve fully awakened to all of it, then you’ve fully redeemed your human incarnation.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“In the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly challenges the religious authorities of the day, but ultimately what he’s saying is relevant to all forms of religion. It wouldn’t matter if he grew up a Jew, or a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu, because he’s speaking about the structure of religion itself—its hierarchy, its tendency to become corrupted by human beings’ desires for power, for influence, for money. Jesus, I think, had a profound understanding that the religion itself, instead of connecting us to the radiance of being, connecting us to that spiritual mystery, could easily become a barrier to divinity. As soon as we get too caught up with the rites and the rituals and the Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots of conventional religion, we begin to lose sight of the primary task of religion, which is to orient us toward the mystery of being and awaken us to what we really are. Of course,”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“The Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.” [Gospel of Thomas 113]”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“we’ve come to understand sin as a kind of moral failing, but that interpretation actually comes from the power structures of the church and religious authorities. If you can convince somebody that they are inherently impure and that there is a mistake at the center of their being, then sin becomes a wrongdoing that deserves blame.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Myth isn’t about factual or historical truth, but about a deeper truth. In ancient times, people saw myth in a very different light—as a vehicle that can transmit and carry a subtlety and richness of experience that simply cannot be conveyed by linear, conceptual forms of language.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Religion’s primary function is to awaken within us the experience of the sublime and to connect us with the mystery of existence.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“One’s whole sense of passion and of drive belongs to the self, to the ego, even when it’s very positive or for the benefit of all beings. It’s very hard to convey what moves you when all of that is gone. It comes from a place that is very, very simple. In the Zen tradition, they say, when you’re hungry you eat, and when you’re tired you sleep. That doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s pointing to the simplicity of a life no longer driven by the inner forces of desire and aversion—by wanting to accomplish, or to escape, or even to convey something.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“From that place, the only thing left to do is to be a benevolent presence in the world. I don’t say this because one wants to do it or tries to do it. All attempts to be spiritual or pure or compassionate or loving, all of that striving is just what the ego or self tries to do or to be. But when all that falls away, there’s literally nothing left to do; there’s no life orientation that makes sense other than to be a selfless and benevolent presence. This may happen on a big stage, but it may just mean being a benevolent grandmother or a mother or daughter or son or business owner. It doesn’t have to look any particular way, and in fact the resurrected state can actually look quite normal.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“But Jesus never defines what someone must have faith in; he doesn’t say “your faith in me has healed you.” Rather, it’s faith itself, the trust in things unseen that heals.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“Unfortunately, when we turn to religion, often the churches box us in even more. They tell us that we are inherently flawed, that we need to be forgiven for this sin, this stain that we carry. The first and most important function of religion is to connect you with the mystery of life and the mystery of your own being. When religion fails to do this, it has betrayed its primary mission, and all we are left with is dogma and belief.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“The very root of sin, to use Jesus’ language, is something that can be forgiven. It’s forgivable because it’s an unconscious act, a result of being spiritually asleep. We can’t be blamed for being unconscious, for acting out our unconsciousness, even for feeling the effects of our unconsciousness within our psychology.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“In the original Greek, one of the meanings of sin [hamartia] is simply “to miss the mark.” Now, imagine you’ve gone to confession, and the priest says to you, “Confess your sins.” Imagine that this priest even accuses you of being a sinner; imagine how that would feel in your mind and heart, to be considered a moral failure. Now imagine instead how you’d feel if that priest were to say, “So, tell me, how have you missed the mark in your life?” There’s an enormous difference in how these two interpretations of sin are held in our hearts, in our minds, in our bodies. If we understand that sin means to miss the mark, it’s not so personal and damning.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“The Buddha image shows us abiding tranquility amidst the turning wheel of life.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“This is what occurs at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark, when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the River of Jordan. “Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove.” [Mark 1:10, NIV] When you awaken, when spirit descends, the veil of your dream state is torn apart, and all of a sudden you’re awakened to a new reality.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“It’s as if you wake up from the dream of thinking that you’re already awake in your ordinary waking state. When you are spiritually awakened, what you thought was an awake state now seems like a dream.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“This calling can arrive at any point in your life. It is that moment when the trajectory of your life begins to turn toward the mystery of life. When I say the mystery of life, what I’m referring to is that transcendent aspect of life that shines through the world of space and time.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“That’s a teaching meant to shake us from our slumber. In order to come into our full potential and to embody the truth and radiance of what we are, we must come vitally alive; we must lean once again into presence; we must pour ourselves forth into life, instead of trying to escape life and avoid its challenges.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“But in the Gospel of Thomas, the whole point of Jesus’ teaching is to discover your true identity, to realize who and what you really and truly are here and now.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic

“And so I was sitting in the back of the church and watching people go through the communion. Reading the mystics, who wrote so eloquently about their own profound experiences, I had felt a deep sense of connection, as if I’d reached back hundreds of years and connected with the living presence of another person. So I had an unconscious expectation that I was going to have the same feeling when I walked into this church and watched the mass. But when the priest started to talk, it was extraordinarily disappointing. He talked about abortion, about how families should be, about intimate issues having to do with sexuality and how you should live your life, and as he talked, I felt that he had taken the presence created by this ritual of communion and thrown it on the floor and stepped on it. I had a sense that he had completely missed the Christian message.”
― Adyashanti, Resurrecting Jesus: Embodying the Spirit of a Revolutionary Mystic