Happiness Is Primary

How can there be only now whilst events still appear to unfold sequentially in time? Rupert says: ‘When you dream that you journey around the world and it takes you three months in your dream, but when you wake up, you realise that it was just a moment in the waking state it’s only a small step from there to consider the possibility that what takes place in time in the waking state doesn’t take up any time in consciousness. Time is the imagined duration between two events. We never actually experience the duration between two events. What is experienced is the eternal now – it’s always the same now.’

How does our concept of free will create the illusion of control, and must this understanding eventually collapse? Rupert says: ‘Ultimately, you let go of it because you realise that there’s no individual entity that either has free will or doesn’t have free will. The illusion of free will is an inevitable consequence of believing yourself to be a temporary finite consciousness. The deeper question is whether you are a separate entity either to have or not have free will. If you discover who you are, the question of free will and all the other questions will take care of itself.’

Why does chronic facial tension persist and even worsen despite deepening my understanding over ten years? Rupert says: ‘You could just practise breathing the emptiness of the luminosity and emptiness of awareness into this density and intensity of sensation, and feel on the exhale that the sensation expands out into the space all around. Whatever it is that’s caused it, it’s just a response in your body to your understanding as it deepens and grows. Don’t get too spiritual about it.’

Why does the localised sense of self seem to be dominated by negative emotions like fear and lack, while positive emotions like peace and love seem less accessible? Rupert says: ‘Because consciousness seems to localise itself as a temporary finite entity. And that entity by definition feels two overriding emotions: one, lack or incompleteness and two, vulnerability or fear. The so-called positive emotions of peace and joy and love are the nature of awareness and so-called negative emotions are the emotions that arise on behalf of this temporary finite self. Start with the evidence of your experience. My primary experience is not my experience of an outside world. Try to reeducate your mind to derive its thoughts and narratives from the evidence of your experience, not the apparent evidence of sense perception.’

How do heritage, DNA and cultural lineages function within a consciousness-only understanding? Rupert says: ‘DNA is a representation in the mind of an idea that is passed on from generation to generation. There’s a deep connection between your mind and your parents’ mind, not between your body and your parents’ body. All the ideas about heritage, genetics, DNA, these are all true ideas. But we are just upgrading them and transposing them onto our consciousness-only model. It’s not a mechanism of the way matter behaves. It’s a mechanism of the way mind behaves.’

Do feelings like gratitude and joy originate in consciousness itself or arise in the finite mind? Rupert says: ‘Strictly speaking, pure consciousness has no qualities. When pure consciousness shines between the gaps of a human mind, it’s contrasted with the human mind. By contrast with your sorrow, fear, shame, guilt, consciousness is peace, happiness, joy, love. But consciousness would never say of itself, “I am peace, happiness, or love”. If it says anything at all, it would just say, “I am”. That’s why we call suffering unhappiness. There’s this deep intuition in us that happiness is primary, is prior, and suffering is unhappiness – the veiling of happiness.’

What is happening when tears and laughter arise spontaneously during meditation? Rupert says: ‘Due to your life’s experience, you’ve experienced a fair share of trauma and difficulty. Because at the time you experienced it, you didn’t know how to handle it, so you had to avoid it and repress it. Now you come here and you are in this beautiful, loving community. You feel safe here. So, there’s no longer any need to keep these unbearable emotions at bay. These feelings have been waiting to come out, they’ve been stored inside you for probably a few decades. They’re just bubbling out to the surface.’

Where does understanding occur, and how does it move between experience and consciousness? Rupert says: ‘Understanding is a glimpse of consciousness recognising itself. Understanding is expressed in the mind, but it doesn’t take place in the mind. It takes place after the end of the story, but before its expression in the form of laughter. In other words, it takes place in between two activities of the mind. That’s why understanding is always joyful. And it’s also why understanding is always the same experience. Understanding is always the same experience, but its expression is always tailored to whatever it is that preceded the understanding.’

How can one distinguish between healthy sensitivity and losing oneself in others’ emotions? Rupert says: ‘I suspect it’s more the latter – as you’re very sensitive to people’s feelings but in the past, you tended to feel another person’s feelings so strongly that you lose yourself in them. You need to also maintain a boundary, which enables you to then be able to help them. What you are describing sounds like you’ve gone so deeply into your experience that your own thoughts and feelings have become so transparent that they’re barely there. Your next-door neighbour’s emotion doesn’t have any power over you either.’

Is it theoretically possible to artificially create new localisations of consciousness through AI? Rupert says: ‘It’s theoretically possible that we could manipulate the ripples in the stream and cause them to coalesce into a new whirlpool. We cannot know for sure what is a localisation of consciousness or not. So therefore, what has the capacity to suffer or not. Therefore, the only compassionate and loving stance is to treat all appearances with love and respect. If the entire sentient universe is fundamentally the same reality that each of us are, why would you show any less love to your knife and fork or the pavement. Your love just extends to everything and everyone.’

Is gratitude a quality of pure consciousness or does it arise in the finite mind? Rupert says: ‘Gratitude, kindness, generosity, we can’t say these are the nature of consciousness in the same way that we can say peace, love, and joy are the nature of consciousness. But I think we can say that gratitude, kindness, compassion and generosity are the inevitable qualities that arise in a mind that has been touched by this love and understanding. These are really the divine qualities. They’re expressions in the finite mind of our true nature.’

How can one navigate the experience of nothingness knowing everything without falling into overthinking? Rupert says: ‘I think you are overthinking this. During these meditations, the model that I’m building and asking you to experience, it’s not really supposed to be accurate. It’s supposed to be evocative. I’m trying to take you to the feeling, the experience. I’m using metaphors. These don’t bear too much rational scrutiny – sooner or later they fall to pieces. I think you’re subjecting these meditations to too much rational analysis.’

How can one differentiate between hardwired characteristics and deeply ingrained mental habits? Rupert says: ‘The most important thing to know is that even the ones that are hardwired are not essential to you. The ones that are hardwired are essential to your mind. The structure of thought and perception is hardwired into the human mind, but it’s not hardwired into consciousness. The core feeling of separation that’s wired into the mind expresses itself as seeking and resistance, fear and desire. And then your individual ways of expressing those two core dispositions are the tendencies that you’ve accumulated during your lifetime.’

How can one work with extreme sensitivity to a partner’s communication style whilst maintaining love? Rupert says: ‘You have to make a distinction between being sensitive and being touchy. Awareness is pure sensitivity but it’s not hurt by anything. Whereas the separate self borrows its sensitivity from consciousness, but it adds a personal element to it, and it feels sensitivity as touchiness. You want to become more and more sensitive and less and less touchy.’