I Don't Have to Get It to Be It

A man who had a question before the meditation found that it was answered during it. He asks to reformulate and review it with Rupert. Rupert says he can’t improve on his answer. The man then asks, ‘Should we practise radical openness as love?’ Rupert suggests that being doesn’t require practising. Being is what we are. Being is the only element of experience that doesn’t require practise. Whether you say, ‘I am walking, I am eating, I am cold, I am tired’, being is present in all activities.

A woman, who says she understands that her true nature is peace and happiness, wonders about the ability to remain aware of that as she ages and her mind declines. Rupert asks if her if her being is something that needs to be grasped by the mind. Anything that needs to be grasped would be an object, and by definition you will have to eventually let go of it. Being cannot be forgotten. It is what we are; it’s not something we need to remember. We cannot grasp understanding; understanding comes towards us.

A woman asks, ‘What is “being aware of being aware”?’ Rupert suggests that she make it simpler and think of the ‘awareness of being’. ‘Being aware of being aware’ is something some get immediately and clearly, but if we don’t we should think of the awareness of being. It’s the same thing. It’s simpler. It’s almost impossible not to understand what is meant by the awareness of being. Could anyone not say ‘yes’ to the statement, ‘I am?’

A woman, who said that she had been struggling with understanding a previous discussion, tossed and turned all night trying to figure it out, and then she asked for help. In the morning, she opened a book and read, ‘Let it go’ and suddenly she understood that ‘I don’t have to get it to be it.’

A man references death and how consciousness loses its limitation, which got him thinking of black holes which consume everything, but still everything is left on the event horizon. All this makes him think that nothing is lost. Rupert suggests that nothing is lost because what a thing is when it is in existence is only being, so when it passes out of existence, all it loses is a name and form, but its reality – being – remains. In that sense, nothing is lost.

A woman mentions a statement Rupert made in the past that as a person’s understanding becomes more colonised, they become more eccentric. She feels like she is getting more eccentric and asks, ‘Would it help me to let go of the idea that I don’t function well in day-to-day life, or should I embrace the idea that it’s not my strong suit?’ Rupert suggests that she drop the idea that she doesn’t function well in everyday life rather than perpetuate the belief that she is a dysfunctional person.

A physicist references a previous question about whether quantum mechanics is consistent with space being generated by perception and time by thinking. He says that how to incorporate space-time into the quantum framework is an open question and that thinking and perception are vague terms and don’t fit in with the quantum framework.

A man references a previous question on black holes where Rupert said that ‘nothing is lost’ and he says that idea is an important element of physics. Black holes have been very confusing in that regard because it seems like information has been lost.

A man asks Rupert how the experience of shared being has changed his relationship to people, animals, insects, plants and inanimate objects. Rupert says that he considers the being of animals and his being to be the same. Just as he wouldn’t want to harm himself, he wouldn’t want to harm them. With nature and the environment, he feels that the felt sense of separation with objects has diminished. As a result, there is the feeling of an absence of separation between himself and the world. The world feels like his body.

A woman asks about oneness and uniqueness as she wonders if they are paradoxical. Rupert says that what is oneness is our being. At the deepest level our being is without form and personal characteristics. But as a body-mind, we each have unique characteristics, skills, tendencies. Individuality is a unique expression of our essential being. The expressions are unique – being expressing itself through the faculties of the person without being mediated by the sense of separation.

A woman who typically retreats to solitude, ‘knows’ things, has had profound spiritual experiences and has searched her whole life to understand God, asks, ‘Am I Crazy?’ Rupert suggests that she is sensitive and learned spontaneously to withdraw and go into her being and take refuge there. Like many children’s minds, hers was porous, which made her aware of information outside the delineated mind of adults. All along, what she was looking for was being, which was projected outside of her as God.

A woman asks if assisted death is ever a moral thing to do, explaining that her husband lives in assisted living with severe dementia, and his doctor suggested she bring him home and withhold food and water for a peaceful medicated death. Rupert asks if he appears to be suffering. She answers no. He refers to how animals know when it is time in nature and suggests there is no violence in that, nor is it a denial of life. But in this case, Rupert suggests that there is still some time for them to spend together. Rupert suggests, as this unfolds, to always ask, 'What would your husband want?'

A man asks about the porous mind and if Rupert can speak to it. Rupert says that the universe is what the activity of universal consciousness looks like from our localised perspective. The activity of consciousness appears outside as the world and is experienced on the inside as thoughts and feelings. Under the materialist paradigm, what happens outside – matter – and what happens inside – mind – are considered two different things. In the consciousness-only model the inside and outside are the same.

A man wants a roadmap for the death transition, but then he asks who wants this roadmap? He asks about how to explore something of value while at the same time noticing that it’s coming from the separate self. Rupert says that the suggestion for death is the same as the suggestion for life. Namely, stay in touch with your being, at all times, under all circumstances. That’s the best preparation for life, the death process and death.

A woman asks for practical advice for how to manage a porous mind and her sensitivity to energies around her. Rupert suggests trying to find a way to make the mind less porous. Recognising the need is a big step. Put some boundaries in place. Rupert suggests that many people need to learn to be more open, but some are too open – it leaves them vulnerable. It is valid to have appropriate boundaries.

A woman who rests as being but also has pain from an autoimmune illness, says that things are coming up from her unconscious. Rupert suggests that this region of her mind that hasn’t been available is asking to come up into the light of awareness. As she stands as the open empty space of awareness, which cannot be harmed by this content, there is no reason to supress unconscious content anymore. It’s bubbling up. The important thing is to not get lost in it, but to let it get lost in her. Let it come up in its own time.