Rupert Spira Podcast: Mark Matousek

Rupert Spira Podcast: Mark Matousek
A conversation between Rupert Spira and Mark Matousek, in which Rupert talks about moving beyond self consciousness.

As part of his life-course community, ‘The Seekers Forum’, Mark Matousek hosts a series of podcast conversations with teachers and writers in the sphere of spiritual enquiry. This episode begins with Rupert’s personal story, how he came to the Direct Path via Classical Advaita, which seemed to suggest a degree of turning away from the world, and how, as an artist in his twenties and early thirties, he experienced a conflict between his love of truth and his love of beauty. 

Only when he met Francis Lucille did he come to realise that they were the same. It then took time for what he now calls the ‘inward-facing Vedantic’ and the ‘outward-facing tantric’ paths to be reconciled.

Rupert considers the Direct Path to be the one for our age, as it requires no particular affinity to any teacher or tradition, and nothing to subscribe to or believe in. To Mark’s comment that the Direct Path is perceived by some as dry and intellectual, Rupert replies that while it has no overtly devotional aspect, to a teacher or practice, which must at some point dissolve – the devotion to truth is its highest form. Also, there are pitfalls on both the path of devotion and the path of knowledge.

Having touched on spiritual materialism, fear, and common misconceptions about the Direct Path, they discuss the journey from suffering: through the early stages of opening to it, then travelling back through the layers to that which seems to lie behind the content of experience, staying there a while, then getting lost again. Until, eventually, suffering arises less and less, and we find ourselves established there, in our true nature of peace and happiness.

In response to Mark’s final question about hope, Rupert responds that he is with T. S. Eliot, who wrote in his poem ‘Wait Without Hope’, ‘I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope/For hope would be hope for the wrong thing’. Because what we are hoping for is already always present. Hoping for a change in the world, however, would be like a prayer. 

You can listen to this episode on the Rupert Spira Podcast. 

https://rupertspira.libsyn.com/episode-20-mark-matousek

For more discussion of the Direct Path, we recommend watching on of Rupert's teachings, Discovering the Direct Path

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