Rupert Spira Podcast: Dr. Kevin W. Reese

Rupert Spira Podcast: Dr. Kevin W. Reese
In this episode, Rupert Spira talks to holistic health author and educator Dr. Kevin W. Reese. They discuss essential nature, and how the dominant belief system of our culture obscures our understanding of ourselves.

This podcast begins with Rupert’s statement: ‘Instead of spending a life trying to find happiness, turn around and investigate the one that seeks’. What follows is largely an exploration of what is traditionally called ‘self-enquiry’. This is the name given to a process of turning attention back towards the one who is asking questions and looking for answers.

Peace and happiness, says Rupert, are our nature; so first we have to know ourselves as we truly are. We all refer to ourselves as ‘I’, we have a sense of ‘being myself’, but we don’t know ourselves clearly.  

This lack of self-knowledge is what veils our true nature. What we have to do, therefore, is discover it, not as something to become but as what we already and always are.

Questions such as ‘Who am I?’, ‘Am I aware?’, or ‘Where do my thoughts come from?’, to which there are ultimately no answers, lead the mind into subsiding in its source. Eventually, the mind reaches a place beyond which it cannot go. At this point, it can only rest. This is when self-enquiry becomes self-abidance, or just being ourself.  

No state of mind – such as anxiety, loneliness, or being in love – can ever be what we essentially are because they come and go. We must therefore turn our attention away from these transient states, however captivating. 

Rupert suggests putting some time aside every day to allow our mind to relax its habitual activity of focusing attention outward, and to rest in itself just as it is.  

Practices such as vipassana or mantra meditation, affirmations, mindfulness exercises, and the like can be seen as preparation for the direct path to awareness, or self-abidance.

You can listen to the Rupert Spira Podcast here.

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