Sinking Into Awareness Is Not Accurate, But Evocative from the media Be the Joy
A man says that in order to sink into awareness, he has to give awareness a spatial aspect. Rupert says the suggestion to sink into your being is not supposed to be accurate, but evocative. There is no sinking. It's fine to consider it that way to begin with, but we're projecting onto awareness the space that we seem to be aware of when we look at awareness through our sense perceptions. It gives the mind something to suck on. But eventually, we have to give up this characterisation. Rupert guides the man in self-enquiry to go beyond all characterisations.
- Duration: 9 minutes and 59 seconds
- Recorded on: Oct 26, 2023
- Event: Seven Day Retreat at Mercy Center, CA – 22nd to 29th October
A woman asks about Rupert's decision-making process, such as when he switched from pottery to teaching. Rupert responds that he didn't carry out any practical considerations, he simply did what he loved. And the same process applied to picking up writing and publishing. There was no decision; he just said 'yes' as opportunities and invitations arose.
A woman asks about Rupert's use of the word 'blasphemy', and whether it is blasphemy to say 'I am God?' Rupert responds that actually it's the opposite. To assume that there is something other than God, something finite, is blasphemous. There is no separate self either to be God or not to be God. There is only God's being.
A man finds himself deep in being after meditation, but then he goes to lunch, and life resumes, and he's back in the story again. What should he do? Rupert suggests that while the awareness of being experienced during meditation is obscured by experience, it doesn't disappear. It goes into the background. It is the foreground in meditation. So the idea is to remain as being through all experience.
A psychoanalyst, who has herself in therapy for 20 years, is having great difficulty dealing with the retirement of her own therapist to whom she is fiercely attached. Rupert suggests that the silence and love that she feels is still there. All that is changing is the representation of that silence and love. Yet the field of silence and love is always here. Grief is the loss of the representation, not the loss of silence and love. Rupert uses the example of the love that remains since his mother passed. If anything, the love for his mother is brighter now. It is fine to grieve; no need to get rid of it.
A woman says her life has become less challenging, and her practice is down to almost nothing. She also feels very intimate with everyone and everything. She asks if this is a natural evolution. Rupert says he thinks it is, yes.
A man says he didn't understand the meditation this morning, and Rupert says he doesn't want to explain further. A poet doesn't like to explain his poetry. And he suggests that the man understands better than he thinks he does.
A woman says she had a full understanding that the voice of the separate self is always a second-person perspective. Rupert agrees and says it's not just the voice of the separate self but the finite mind. The separate self cannot survive this understanding.
A man describes an experience he has in the morning of relaxing the body and the mind, and the understanding 'I am'. Then his mind says, 'We made it,' and the realisation that everything is what I am. He says, 'God's having fun.' Rupert speaks of the difference between meditation or prayer, and that he felt this morning's meditation was more like prayer. Prayer is deeper than meditation.
A woman says she feels as if she's singling herself out when saying 'I am' and feels she should be saying 'we are.' Rupert responds that when you allow yourself to be drawn into where the 'I am' takes you, you go beyond the personal. There is only one being. When you've explored everything that is objective, eventually you come to being, and there is nothing personal there. There's no question of 'we are' when there is only one space. There are not two 'I am's.
A woman asks about offering difficult emotions to the space. She asks when to embrace the feeling and when to offer it up. Rupert says it's really the same thing, offering the fear and surrendering it. He suggests rather than being with the fear, be with your being.
A woman says she has a belief that it is difficult to go to her heart. Rupert guides her in self-enquiry to discover experientially what she claims she cannot otherwise feel or understand.
A man, who is an addict, asks if every question about the past comes from the ego. Rupert says 'no', it would be valid to ask questions about the past that don't imply a separate self.
A woman says she has been feeling raw and uncomfortable and guilty the last few days, and that going back to being can feel like denial, that the darkness should be dealt with rather than overlooked. Rupert responds that if you go into the heart of any feeling, you find the peace behind whatever it was.
A man comments that there is space without doing the yoga meditations and that Rupert's word count has gone down. Rupert agrees and says that he does do yoga meditations, but they are so much more refined.
A man describes a sound he heard that he felt is there all the time, which has felt like the separate self. Rupert responds, 'If you are aware of it, forget it.'
A man says that in order to sink into awareness, he has to give awareness a spatial aspect. Rupert says the suggestion to sink into your being is not supposed to be accurate, but evocative. There is no sinking. It's fine to consider it that way to begin with, but we're projecting onto awareness the space that we seem to be aware of when we look at awareness through our sense perceptions. It gives the mind something to suck on. But eventually, we have to give up this characterisation. Rupert guides the man in self-enquiry to go beyond all characterisations.
A man asks, given that the word 'being' is used instead of 'knowing', is it still necessary to see that all there is is knowing, or is there a higher step? Rupert says to go with whatever way is most experiential to you. They're the same. The primary experience is 'I am,' the primary experience of an object is 'it is'. So the primary element of everthing is being. 'I am' and 'it is' are the same.
A woman describes an experience of being in two locations. Does 'it is' bring the 'I am' back into one? Rupert responds that the combination of thought and perception divides reality into two. The experience of intimacy, or love, is the realisation that 'I am' and 'it is' are the same.
A woman asks Rupert about a conversation he had with Donald Hoffman, and Rupert's goal of stripping down the language of this understanding, and is he successfully doing that? She suggests that he is. Rupert responds that he loves speaking with Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup because of their luminous perspective, which makes them humble and humane.
A woman asks what is the difference between 'kiss the toad' and an answer he gave to another. Rupert says that the other answer he gave was to be the princess. It doesn't matter what you do, you get what you deeply want. Do whichever feels best.
A question is asked about a reading of the Ashtavakra Gita having to do with being the knower and the known. Rupert suggests that it is about the duality of the knower and the known and the activity – the knowing – that joins the two. He uses the metaphor of Mary and Jane.
A woman who had brain surgery and who is now experiencing difficulties and perhaps a terminal situation, asks about how to help those close to her who are devastated. Rupert suggests she speaks quite eloquently about her happiness for every day that she has left, and to just be that joy and peace. That will be the greatest gift to give to her family. Ask if they will let her go.
A woman asks about Rupert's decision-making process, such as when he switched from pottery to teaching. Rupert responds that he didn't carry out any practical considerations, he simply did what he loved. And the same process applied to picking up writing and publishing. There was no decision; he just said 'yes' as opportunities and invitations arose.
A woman asks about Rupert's use of the word 'blasphemy', and whether it is blasphemy to say 'I am God?' Rupert responds that actually it's the opposite. To assume that there is something other than God, something finite, is blasphemous. There is no separate self either to be God or not to be God. There is only God's being.
A man finds himself deep in being after meditation, but then he goes to lunch, and life resumes, and he's back in the story again. What should he do? Rupert suggests that while the awareness of being experienced during meditation is obscured by experience, it doesn't disappear. It goes into the background. It is the foreground in meditation. So the idea is to remain as being through all experience.
A psychoanalyst, who has herself in therapy for 20 years, is having great difficulty dealing with the retirement of her own therapist to whom she is fiercely attached. Rupert suggests that the silence and love that she feels is still there. All that is changing is the representation of that silence and love. Yet the field of silence and love is always here. Grief is the loss of the representation, not the loss of silence and love. Rupert uses the example of the love that remains since his mother passed. If anything, the love for his mother is brighter now. It is fine to grieve; no need to get rid of it.
A woman says her life has become less challenging, and her practice is down to almost nothing. She also feels very intimate with everyone and everything. She asks if this is a natural evolution. Rupert says he thinks it is, yes.
A man says he didn't understand the meditation this morning, and Rupert says he doesn't want to explain further. A poet doesn't like to explain his poetry. And he suggests that the man understands better than he thinks he does.
A woman says she had a full understanding that the voice of the separate self is always a second-person perspective. Rupert agrees and says it's not just the voice of the separate self but the finite mind. The separate self cannot survive this understanding.
A man describes an experience he has in the morning of relaxing the body and the mind, and the understanding 'I am'. Then his mind says, 'We made it,' and the realisation that everything is what I am. He says, 'God's having fun.' Rupert speaks of the difference between meditation or prayer, and that he felt this morning's meditation was more like prayer. Prayer is deeper than meditation.
A woman says she feels as if she's singling herself out when saying 'I am' and feels she should be saying 'we are.' Rupert responds that when you allow yourself to be drawn into where the 'I am' takes you, you go beyond the personal. There is only one being. When you've explored everything that is objective, eventually you come to being, and there is nothing personal there. There's no question of 'we are' when there is only one space. There are not two 'I am's.
A woman asks about offering difficult emotions to the space. She asks when to embrace the feeling and when to offer it up. Rupert says it's really the same thing, offering the fear and surrendering it. He suggests rather than being with the fear, be with your being.
A woman says she has a belief that it is difficult to go to her heart. Rupert guides her in self-enquiry to discover experientially what she claims she cannot otherwise feel or understand.
A man, who is an addict, asks if every question about the past comes from the ego. Rupert says 'no', it would be valid to ask questions about the past that don't imply a separate self.
A woman says she has been feeling raw and uncomfortable and guilty the last few days, and that going back to being can feel like denial, that the darkness should be dealt with rather than overlooked. Rupert responds that if you go into the heart of any feeling, you find the peace behind whatever it was.
A man comments that there is space without doing the yoga meditations and that Rupert's word count has gone down. Rupert agrees and says that he does do yoga meditations, but they are so much more refined.
A man describes a sound he heard that he felt is there all the time, which has felt like the separate self. Rupert responds, 'If you are aware of it, forget it.'
A man says that in order to sink into awareness, he has to give awareness a spatial aspect. Rupert says the suggestion to sink into your being is not supposed to be accurate, but evocative. There is no sinking. It's fine to consider it that way to begin with, but we're projecting onto awareness the space that we seem to be aware of when we look at awareness through our sense perceptions. It gives the mind something to suck on. But eventually, we have to give up this characterisation. Rupert guides the man in self-enquiry to go beyond all characterisations.
A man asks, given that the word 'being' is used instead of 'knowing', is it still necessary to see that all there is is knowing, or is there a higher step? Rupert says to go with whatever way is most experiential to you. They're the same. The primary experience is 'I am,' the primary experience of an object is 'it is'. So the primary element of everthing is being. 'I am' and 'it is' are the same.
A woman describes an experience of being in two locations. Does 'it is' bring the 'I am' back into one? Rupert responds that the combination of thought and perception divides reality into two. The experience of intimacy, or love, is the realisation that 'I am' and 'it is' are the same.
A woman asks Rupert about a conversation he had with Donald Hoffman, and Rupert's goal of stripping down the language of this understanding, and is he successfully doing that? She suggests that he is. Rupert responds that he loves speaking with Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup because of their luminous perspective, which makes them humble and humane.
A woman asks what is the difference between 'kiss the toad' and an answer he gave to another. Rupert says that the other answer he gave was to be the princess. It doesn't matter what you do, you get what you deeply want. Do whichever feels best.
A question is asked about a reading of the Ashtavakra Gita having to do with being the knower and the known. Rupert suggests that it is about the duality of the knower and the known and the activity – the knowing – that joins the two. He uses the metaphor of Mary and Jane.
A woman who had brain surgery and who is now experiencing difficulties and perhaps a terminal situation, asks about how to help those close to her who are devastated. Rupert suggests she speaks quite eloquently about her happiness for every day that she has left, and to just be that joy and peace. That will be the greatest gift to give to her family. Ask if they will let her go.