The trajectory is toward surrender

So when people ask me whether they need to make effort or not, whether it’s all grace, or whether it requires any of their attention, the most useful pointer I can offer is to look within for the answer. If you are really truthful with yourself, you will know from the inside whether it is necessary to investigate a fixation in the mind or in the body or in the gut; you will know when you are called to discipline yourself and look closely at something. And if you need to make effort to look at it, so be it. Make the effort to look at it, question it, and uncover it.

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There is no prescription that I can give for when to do one and when to do the other—it’s a matter of sensitivity, a matter of being honest with yourself.

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Too many people abdicate responsibility for themselves. Too many people in spirituality want someone to tell them what to do. They want the teacher to say, “Do this or don’t do that. Meditate this much or meditate that much.” If we get caught in this habit, we can stay in a sort of spiritual infancy. At a certain point we need to grow up; we need to look inside ourselves for inner guidance.

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There’s a time to make effort and to be disciplined. There is a time to let go and realize you cannot do it alone, that it is up to grace, that effort and struggling and striving play no part.

But understand one thing: no matter what our path— whether it’s a progressive path or a direct path, whether it’s a devotional path or otherwise— the trajectory of our spiritual lives and of all spiritual awakening is toward surrender.

Adyashanti. The End of Your World (pg 160-163).

I love Adyashanti’s straight talk. This was a book that I read early on in my practice and promptly failed to assimilate. But how do you assimilate advice when it takes the form of “sometimes it’s like this / sometime it’s like that”? The reality that Adyashanti acknowledges is that on some level it’s impossible to offer general advice. How you should approach your own emotional life, the question of will vs surrender, even what style and type of meditation you should practice — all of these kinds of questions are specific to the individual and where they are in their practice. Of course over time you gain a sensitivity that enables your internal compass. But early on this is why you need a skilled teacher who can relate to you, and with empathy and discernment understand what it is you need in your practice. This is one reason I’ve grown skeptical of attempts to “scale meditation instruction” via various technologies — since advice is often contradictory, it seems like only a relational, heart-to-heart, unscalable model will work.