Returning Home

Written on April 26, 2008 by Tom Stine


Welcome home! I came back to Missouri to the warm embrace of my amazing son. It was a pleasure to be around him for a few hours (he’s at his mom’s house until Monday). I felt a tenderness for him that, while I have felt before, feels deeper and richer now. More expansive and loving. I have always adored my kid, but now, so much sweeter.

I will be slowly coming “down off the mountaintop” of my retreat with Adyashanti over the next few days. I tried last night, after the end of the retreat, to write a few words and respond to some comments here, but I had a difficult time. The Silence this time was very intense, and while I’ve been talking easily with people, I almost need the give and take of dialog to keep me going. When I stare at a blank screen, well, I don’t really mind that it is blank!

In a few days I will post a report on the retreat. Adya was not only healthy for this retreat, but he was in rare form. He was funnier, more engaging, more alive and vibrant than the last retreat, and I’ve never heard a crowd laugh as much on any recording I’ve heard of his (and I have over 150 hours of his recorded talks). When the recordings of this retreat go on sale late in the summer, I strongly suggest you buy a copy. You will love it.

Glad to be home, though. As Adya is fond of saying, the real retreat begins when the retreat ends. It’s called “my life.”

Related Posts:

  1. Home Sweet Home
  2. Adyashanti Retreat Report No. 2
  3. Fortnightly Tweets for 2009-06-07
  4. Adyashanti Retreat Report
  5. A Few Thoughts on Jed McKenna

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Comments

DavidyaNo Gravatar  said
on April 26th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Wow – nicely put Tom. I just got back from a couple of hours with my sons myself. The oldest just turned 19 and finished 1st year university. Hard to believe. I literally look up to him. (laughs)

Sounds like it was very special there. Give yourself time to come back. Thats the best way to stay and return both. What has been is only real now.

Mark KrusenNo Gravatar  said
on April 27th, 2008 at 12:49 am

Welcome home Tom. I’m looking forward to your first Post retreat post. I’m sure it will be as thought provoking as all of them have been since I found your blog.

Mark Krusen’s last blog post..I was tagged, now your justa tagged~ Sorry!

JEMi | Tips for Life, Love, YouNo Gravatar  said
on April 28th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Sounds like a really special experience :) Reading the description about coming home to your son is really heart warming btw

Oh, I’ll have you know I looked up and listened to some Adya because of you and this site. :) thank you – I’m really enjoying the find

JEMi | Tips for Life, Love, You’s last blog post..Self Fulfilling Prophecies: Getting Your Life Back

Tom StineNo Gravatar  said
on April 28th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

@JEMi Glad you found Adya. There are lots of free videos and audio downloads on his site. Great to listen to. My pleasure.

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The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into brief existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a dream character, of course, unless it’s your goal to wake up, in which case the dream character must be ruthlessly annihilated. If your desire is to experience transcendental bliss or supreme love or altered states of consciousness or awakened kundalini, or to quality for heaven, or to liberate all sentient beings, or simply to become the best dang person you can be, then rejoice!, you’re in the right place: the dream state, the dualistic universe. However, if your interest is to cut the crap and figure out what’s true, then you’re in the wrong place and you’ve got a very messy fight ahead and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

—Jed McKenna

But beauty, real beauty, ends where intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of a face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don’t think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.

—Oscar Wilde

Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.

—Charlotte Joko Beck

Q: Since all is pre-ordained, is our self-realization also pre-ordained? Or are we free there at least?

A: Destiny refers only to name and shape. Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise, it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.

—Nisargadatta Maharaj

So the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary…. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet – because it is the purpose of humanity. Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence.

—Eckhart Tolle


Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a Soul, Self or Atman. According to the teachings of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

—What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula

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