This conversation begins with Rupert relating his experience, aged twenty, of a relationship in which he had invested his future happiness and had assumed would continue for the rest of his life. It ended abruptly, however, in a two-minute phone call with his girlfriend. This showed him very clearly the folly of believing that anything external to oneself – such as a relationship, which could so quickly and easily collapse – could ever be relied upon to deliver lasting peace and happiness.
Many of us, of course, make the same mistake of pursuing external peace and happiness, and not just once, but again and again. And not just with relationships, but also through jobs and the pursuit of accomplishments and acquisitions. We especially do this with states of mind, even trying to alter them through food, alcohol or drugs.
But only something that is never subject to change, or possible to be removed, could be the source, or basis, of lasting happiness. The ancient wisdom traditions of both East and West have known for a very long time that only the unchanging Self, or Being, or Awareness, is that.
Following that painful early experience, Rupert’s exploration of the true nature of the self, which had already begun in his teens, intensified and focused. Asked to elaborate on this, and about how to define consciousness and where it fits, he explains that the task for all of us is to look deeply into our experience and find out what aspect of it has never changed.
The answer is not conceptual, although it can be named as ‘consciousness’, but its power lies in our resting in that which is the experiencer rather than in any of the objects of experience.
This may sound abstract but is in fact not. Rupert takes Connor through a brief series of questions about his own experience, leading to a clear recognition of the simple fact that being aware is the ever-present continuity in experience, yet it has no objective qualities.
The conversation continues around questions of solipsism, panpsychism, and the nature of time, and how they relate to the non-dual understanding, or consciousness-only model. Finally the two discuss the perils of the materialist paradigm, or ‘myth of separation’, which so often leads to internal misery and external conflict and strife. Only when we know ourselves to be, in essence, no different to or separate from all other beings will such things ever truly cease.
You can listen to this episode on the Rupert Spira podcast here.
