“Jesus might have had an expectation that they would understand him in a deep way and they didn’t. And they did not understand him right up to the point where he died and they all abandoned him. That is a pretty deep state of aloneness. And then to overstate the experience even more, he is abandoned by God. ‘My God why have you forsaken me?’ This is about as alone as a human being can possibly get.

“But what he is really losing? He is losing his personal perception of God. He is losing his personal relationship with that God. That’s my reading. And then he transitions into a more profound experience of Divinity. That transition is not always easy. Once the transition is made it is easy, but the transition itself is not always easy.”

Adyashanti teaches deep practices for aligning with inner divinity and he has seen his own students go through their own versions of this profound loneliness.

 “One of the things that almost nobody counts on is that is what it really means to embrace this extraordinary quality of aloneness,” says Adyashanti. “We want to wake up from the dream state but we forget that that is where 99.9 percent of everyone we know is,” he says with a laugh.

“Everyone goes through this,” he says, “even if it’s not because of an enlightenment or awakening thing. People go into their own moments in their lives where they experience a profound aloneness.

“Maybe they are experiencing a kind of physical pain, an emotional pain, or they are grieving and that makes them feel isolated and alone. They have lost a loved one and everyone around them is trying to be as supportive as they can, but of course when you are in a deep grief you feel extremely, extremely alone.”

For a detailed explanation of how Adyashanti reads Christian scripture in a way that reflects universal spiritual truths that transcend religious dogma see the article “Throwing Yourself into the World As An Act of Love” in December 2014 Science of Mind magazine.