Inspired by a powerful spiritual awakening at a very young age, Adyashanti teaches a unique non-dual Buddhist approach to every aspect of living, including activism.

What follows is a series of questions posed to him about activism, and his answers.

Question: How do I reconcile allowing things to be as they are without taking a stand? There are a lot of areas in my life where I feel I can’t just allow things to be as they are, but I must take up arms and oppose them.

Answer: There’s never a need to oppose. Opposition is an attitude of the separate self. Do what is true. In doing what is true, there is no attitude to opposition.

Question: It wouldn’t feel right in my soul to lay back and do nothing. It would be cowardly. At times, allowing things to be as they are can enter into the realm of cowardice.

Answer: Let the Truth inform action.

Question: Does that kind of action come from a feeling about what’s right under the circumstances?

Answer: It’s before feeling.

Question: Even at the risk of consequences?

Answer: Truth doesn’t care about consequences. It’s concerned with the Truth. It doesn’t care if you’re liked or not liked. You won’t always be liked for it, and sometimes you will be disliked for it. As long as you’re acting in the world based on what you like or don’t like, or what others like or don’t like, you’re not in the realm of the Truth. Truth insists that we not only be truthful, but that we act truthfully. It’s not enough just to know the Truth. You have to be it – to act it, and to do it.