Direct Looking

"‘Direct path’ teachings are really aimed at those who are spiritually ready. And being spiritually ready doesn’t really have anything to do with your spiritual resume...By readiness I mean we are ready to go to the core, we are ready to go to the root of the cause of suffering, the elimination of suffering, and the nature of what we really are. The direct path teachings are not for everybody. They are in stark contrast with the way we are used to dealing with things. To go the root of problems is not so much to deal with the problem, because the direct path doesn’t really tell us what to do about [problems]. They are really not about managing our conditioned self; they investigate who it is that actually suffers."
--Adyashanti, Spontaneous Awakening

Adya elaborates on this point elsewhere in the audio retreat that makes up Spontaneous Awakening. The direct path is sometimes viewed in contrast with more gradual pathways to awakening, which focus on moving into ever-deeper stages of insight and understanding until all identification with the local self drops away, and we see the Truth of What Is. However, there is a risk in using this kind of language (like using any language) that we begin to absolutize these terms. There are not really two paths.

The essence of this teaching is that moments of total, unpartial awakening are available to us all the time. Which is not to say that we don't slip back into the trance of thinking there is a separate self (taking our "selves" seriously, if you will). But once you have seen the self for what it is, even if you momentarily zone out again, you won't ever be the same. Every time awareness arises again, the truth of selflessness and interconnection will be clear.

Adya is trying to get us to stop the habit of "spiritual bypassing," or trying to use spiritual practice to "deal" with ourselves, as if there was ultimately a problem to be dealt with. This is the most fundamental way in which his path is "direct." We drop all the mental manipulation and obsession with our problems to look directly at what it is that is doing the manipulating, what it is that is obsessed. What is revealed puts all the other business (direct/indirect, problems/solutions) into proper perspective.