Chris Hebard is the founder of Stillness Speaks, a website dedicated to presenting audio and video material from authentic spiritual teachers in a well-structured form at an affordable cost. The impulse to help truth seekers in this way arose from the difficulties Chris encountered in his own search for a teacher. These four videos are excerpts from The Transparency of Things, a two-DVD set produced in 2009 by Stillness Speaks, in which Rupert guides Chris in a systematic and comprehensive exploration of his experience.
In the first excerpt, What is the Truth of Our Experience?, Rupert explains that we automatically assume that our experience occurs in subject-object duality. The body-mind cannot be the subject of experience as we cannot be what we are aware of. Rupert begins to explore whether I, the subject of experience, has any limits.
In the second excerpt, Is Consciousness Limited?, referring to our direct experience, Rupert shows that consciousness always remains where it is, but that the experience of the body and the mind come and go. Consciousness is unaffected by the content of experience. It’s only when consciousness identifies itself with a cluster of sensations or group of thoughts that it seems to be limited.
The third excerpt, Is Consciousness Really Impersonal?, explores the inconsistency between our understanding that consciousness is impersonal and our feeling ‘I am a person’. We see that consciousness is one with the totality of experience.
In the fourth excerpt, Where are Perceptions and Sensations Experienced?, sensations and perceptions are disentangled from the interpretation that accompanies them. If we simply sit with our experience and allow the facts to speak for themselves, it becomes obvious that sounds and bodily sensations are inseparable from that which experiences them.
