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Shadows on the Path
All words are lies. At best, they point towards the truth. At worst they totally mislead and create confusion. We already know everything there is to know—if we could only quiet our minds. The constant chatter, anxiety and self-questioning born out of the illusion of separation from our source magically lift when we remember our inherent connection. We have all experienced moments of it, whether in deep prayer or meditation, observing or creating an object of beauty, or in giving or receiving an act of kindness.
There is a famous teaching in the Zen tradition which tells of a student asking about the moon. A stick is used to point to it and the teaching warns us not to mistake the stick for the moon. The problem with all words is that they are sticks—they can never be the moon. At best they are beautiful sticks that delineate the moon’s shape, light or majesty and allow our eyes to gaze at it directly. At worst they are several-headed branches that splay out into many different directions and confuse us even more. I remember being a young child in Nigeria. I was trying to tell my friend Femi, who had never been outside of Lagos and its oppressive year-round heat, about snow. I remember opening the freezer door and pointing to the frost and trying to say how in a snow storm this stuff just comes out of the sky and blankets the ground. Even the frost in the freezer was melting as I kept the door open. Close to forty years later that experience still reverberates through me. Truths have to be experienced in our lives and in our bones in order to belong to us. This book ismy humble attempt to offer some clarity and encouragement to all those who know that there is more than meets the physical senses. As we live our lives, pay our bills, seek or nourish relationships, inflict or lick deep wounds, judge and are judged, there is a craving for peace. Whether it is through material acquisition or surrender, psychological integration or drug abuse, the universal truth is that we are all looking for some solace.
My search for truth started as a child and became an inner fire during my teens. My path has included drug abuse, a fascination and flirtation with the thin edge of the abyss, sitting at the feet of many spiritual masters, decades of therapy, a deep martial arts and meditation practice, divorce and twenty years of work as a therapist and acupuncturist including learning from and working with patients dying from AIDS. The one thing that I have learned from treating literally thousands of people from all walks of life—from hardened criminals to CEOs of major corporations, prostitutes to priests, solitude-seeking monks to famous actors and artists—is that we are all the same. We all have the same hopes and fears wrapped in different disguises. What I share here are observations from my own journey, the teachings of those who have helped me on my path and the wisdom of the travelers whom I have had the privilege to serve. It is my intention to remind you of your majesty and to clear any clouds covering that bright light ruling the night sky of your consciousness. This book is just a stick. You are the moon.
There is a famous teaching in the Zen tradition which tells of a student asking about the moon. A stick is used to point to it and the teaching warns us not to mistake the stick for the moon. The problem with all words is that they are sticks—they can never be the moon. At best they are beautiful sticks that delineate the moon’s shape, light or majesty and allow our eyes to gaze at it directly. At worst they are several-headed branches that splay out into many different directions and confuse us even more. I remember being a young child in Nigeria. I was trying to tell my friend Femi, who had never been outside of Lagos and its oppressive year-round heat, about snow. I remember opening the freezer door and pointing to the frost and trying to say how in a snow storm this stuff just comes out of the sky and blankets the ground. Even the frost in the freezer was melting as I kept the door open. Close to forty years later that experience still reverberates through me. Truths have to be experienced in our lives and in our bones in order to belong to us. This book ismy humble attempt to offer some clarity and encouragement to all those who know that there is more than meets the physical senses. As we live our lives, pay our bills, seek or nourish relationships, inflict or lick deep wounds, judge and are judged, there is a craving for peace. Whether it is through material acquisition or surrender, psychological integration or drug abuse, the universal truth is that we are all looking for some solace.
My search for truth started as a child and became an inner fire during my teens. My path has included drug abuse, a fascination and flirtation with the thin edge of the abyss, sitting at the feet of many spiritual masters, decades of therapy, a deep martial arts and meditation practice, divorce and twenty years of work as a therapist and acupuncturist including learning from and working with patients dying from AIDS. The one thing that I have learned from treating literally thousands of people from all walks of life—from hardened criminals to CEOs of major corporations, prostitutes to priests, solitude-seeking monks to famous actors and artists—is that we are all the same. We all have the same hopes and fears wrapped in different disguises. What I share here are observations from my own journey, the teachings of those who have helped me on my path and the wisdom of the travelers whom I have had the privilege to serve. It is my intention to remind you of your majesty and to clear any clouds covering that bright light ruling the night sky of your consciousness. This book is just a stick. You are the moon.
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2007
33 people are currently reading
265 people want to read
About the author
Abdi Assadi
6 books8 followersAbdi Assadi is a spiritual counselor and healer in his 37th year of clinical practice. His work centers on helping his patients use their disease and dysfunction as a doorway to spiritual serenity. Through his decades of practice, he has learned that identifying and integrating the human shadow - those disowned or repressed puzzle pieces of self that wreak havoc in our lives - offers the most lasting healing for what ails us in body, mind, and spirit. He has studied Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese acupuncture, body centered psychotherapy, external and internal martial arts, indigenous shamanic practices as well as diverse meditative techniques. He believes we should live in this transient world as fully as possible.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 4, 2020
commodified new age bs is bed rest under the guise of awakening, u get a beautiful taste of truth bit never dive into the ocean, u just stand n the shallow water . Look at the 60s generation of enlightened naval gazers.
If u worship anyone but what is in you, you practice idolatry
(Why dont i trust my mind? Because my mind said not to trust it?)
Self help is ego candy. Knowledge will not awaken you, only experience can
We are all addicts, we use behaviors to escape reality. We have evolved to go toward pleasure and to avoid pain
People get narcissistically addicted to yoga, plant medicine, tarot cards, psychics, apocalyptic thinking, all addictive behavior is an avoidance of the real work,
Spirituality is a death of the ego
Are you unconciously carrying your parents anxiety?
What is your role in the family? What have you taken from the others in assuming your role? When the wall moves on a house, the other walls all have to move to keep the house in balance
Addiction is- the inability to be in the moment
Am i carrying childhood wounding?
It takes tremendous energy to feed the machinery that keeps the terror suppressed
Tether yourself to your center, be intimate with yourself
Intend that your external life be aligned with your inner truth, be open to the messages that come to you, act in each moment, dont try to figure out the future
The gap between thoughts is who you really are. The sun is always shining there. Sit and make friends with that space
The will is often used to fortify the ego under the guise of spiritual awakening
You are not in control, be co-creator, not director
If u worship anyone but what is in you, you practice idolatry
(Why dont i trust my mind? Because my mind said not to trust it?)
Self help is ego candy. Knowledge will not awaken you, only experience can
We are all addicts, we use behaviors to escape reality. We have evolved to go toward pleasure and to avoid pain
People get narcissistically addicted to yoga, plant medicine, tarot cards, psychics, apocalyptic thinking, all addictive behavior is an avoidance of the real work,
Spirituality is a death of the ego
Are you unconciously carrying your parents anxiety?
What is your role in the family? What have you taken from the others in assuming your role? When the wall moves on a house, the other walls all have to move to keep the house in balance
Addiction is- the inability to be in the moment
Am i carrying childhood wounding?
It takes tremendous energy to feed the machinery that keeps the terror suppressed
Tether yourself to your center, be intimate with yourself
Intend that your external life be aligned with your inner truth, be open to the messages that come to you, act in each moment, dont try to figure out the future
The gap between thoughts is who you really are. The sun is always shining there. Sit and make friends with that space
The will is often used to fortify the ego under the guise of spiritual awakening
You are not in control, be co-creator, not director
March 31, 2014
This book was on our reading list for yoga teacher training along with the other greats of Indian yogic philosophy. What I found so different and refreshing about this book was how it actually chastised our desire to delve deep into spiritual practices and how we often use these as the perfect way to actually avoid identifying and exploring our shadow side. The writing style is extremely accessible, chatty, but informative and revealing. This book taught me a lot about myself without lecturing me on what I 'needed' or trying to sell me a quick fix solution. It helped me appreciate that there is still work to do, that the shadows only lead us further into the light and that 'spirituality' isn't necessarily the perfect solution for people wishing to evolve towards living from their higher self.
March 19, 2024
Wow, I didn’t expect this book to fall into my path and I was even resistant to it at first but I’m so grateful my curiosity egged me on. I really need to sit with this one, I feel like Abdi Assadi was course correcting / clarifying me with every chapter.
February 25, 2019
Truly difficult
November 9, 2020
This book actually Saved my life I was in a very sensetive situation and only books and podcasts of abdi assadi who is one of my relaatives btw help me through my path :)
November 18, 2021
A lot of people love this book, but I don't know, I just couldn't connect with the speaker. Interesting musings, but it didn't engage me.
March 30, 2010
I've been going through this book over the past few months. The author speaks out of what appears to be many years of Buddhist spiritual practice, yoga, psychotherapeutic experiences and some hard knocks of life, including being an inner-city social worker in the South Bronx and a recovered drug addict himself. He speaks with modesty, openness and calmness. He refrains from offering quick fixes for the problems that he discusses, presenting instead what could be said is an "existential" approach akin to Irvin Yalom (author of "Existential Psychotherapy") and many Buddhists. Among the topics in the book are a discussion of relationships as a spiritual practice; surrendering to helplessness; spiritual materialism (addiction masquerading as spirituality). These are familiar topics if one has already read about them from other spiritual leaders such as Choygam Trungpa or Thich Nhat Hanh, but Assadi has his own uniquely unromantic, urban, American but cosmopolitan voice. One unique aspect of this book is his ability to combine psychodynamic understanding with the practice of Buddhism, both of which were apparently developed under the social pressures of being an immigrant New Yorker since 1977, when he was probably a teenager, becoming enmeshed in American consumer culture, he became depressed and lost himself for many years, and so speaks out of compassion and awareness due to having spent many years in recovery. Assadi also offers stories about his therapy practice, and offers meditation practices that are designed to explore our own spirituality.
July 25, 2013
Just finished this book after meeting with Abdi. I will not describe my experience with the healer here but I will say that this is a wonderful book, full of engaging stories and simple yet profound insights. I don't know how much was new information, but he articulates things so well that the insights feel fresh. For instance, his ideas about romantic relationships are quite good, especially how we some of us tend to be caretakers and how destructive this pattern can be. Having met the author, I trust his advice and knowledge perhaps more than I would some other spiritual guide--yet even in the text, you can sense his generous and down-to-earth spirit. Highly recommended and a quick read.
November 14, 2016
A nice cross between memoir, essay, and spiritual guide. The author is a therapist with an interesting background, born in Iran and lived all over the world, an accomplished student of martial arts and yoga, and a therapist who uses several different techniques.
He shares his own experiences with darkness while giving uncomplicated, useful suggestions for how to explore personal shadows.
Recommended reading for anyone who senses or knows that the spiritual path isn't all joy and light.
He shares his own experiences with darkness while giving uncomplicated, useful suggestions for how to explore personal shadows.
Recommended reading for anyone who senses or knows that the spiritual path isn't all joy and light.
January 22, 2020
A mainstay of my library (and often bedside table); and the book I most often gift to friends. I once bought it for an office mate, and about an hour into it the lovely dude was sobbing with some deep self revelations, and I don’t think this is that uncommon. This is a quick and easy read (not necessarily emotionally!) so you really can’t lose, and I recommend it to everyone, especially those open to self help with a spiritual bent.
April 24, 2008
THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER JUST READ IT.
January 8, 2011
One of the best books on spirituality I have ever read, and I have read many.
December 26, 2012
Not enough positive things to say about Abdi's book--it's a beautiful, clear culmination of his heart-cutting insights.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews