Kissing the Toad and Embracing Your Feelings from the media A Shift in Perspective
A man, who is a long-term member of Alcoholics Anonymous, was introduced to Rupert on the Insight-Timer app when he came across objectless meditation. After practising 'kissing the toad', he asks how to get rid of the toad, which is his father. Rupert responds that his father is not the toad, anxiety is the toad. You're 'kissing the toad' in order to get rid of him, but it is your feelings that need to be embraced. Have no agenda to get rid of them but accept, allow and embrace the feeling of anxiety. It is your rejection of the feelings that keep them around. Be the open, empty space of awareness.
- Duration: 10 minutes and 32 seconds
- Recorded on: Oct 11, 2022
- Event: Seven Day Retreat at Garrison Institute – 9th to 16th October
A woman wants to reconcile the one being with the idea of reincarnation. Rupert says that if time is real then there is a possibility of past lives but suggests that time is our limited mind's view of reality. There is only the eternal now which appears as time. These two ideas are compatible. Our shared being is formless, but this formless being localises itself through particular forms, and each is on their unique trajectory back to the one.
A woman asks if when the return to being is complete, is shared being changed because of that return. Rupert uses the screen analogy and says that each character takes a different journey around the world but this makes no difference to the screen. Being is changeless.
A man, who is a long-term member of Alcoholics Anonymous, was introduced to Rupert on the Insight-Timer app when he came across objectless meditation. After practising 'kissing the toad', he asks how to get rid of the toad, which is his father. Rupert responds that his father is not the toad, anxiety is the toad. You're 'kissing the toad' in order to get rid of him, but it is your feelings that need to be embraced. Have no agenda to get rid of them but accept, allow and embrace the feeling of anxiety. It is your rejection of the feelings that keep them around. Be the open, empty space of awareness.
A woman asks about conditioning and the dissolution of self. Rupert suggests that the body is that portion of the mind that is perceivable to the senses. When the body dies a part of the mind delocalises and begins the return to the infinite awareness, but the death of the body is not necessarily the death of the mind which appeared as that body. It is a dissolution of that aspect of the mind.
A woman asks about the experiment Rupert suggested of being the person or awareness. Do we hold both awareness and the individual, and how does that work with feelings? Rupert suggests that we are not both simultaneously. There are not two things. There is just awareness that appears to be temporarily localised and limited. We are only that. The sense of lack and longing is only for that which feels limited. John Smith never suffers, only when he seems to become King Lear. Investigate the one who suffers.
A woman asks,’ Are emotions triggered for long periods of time?’ Rupert responds that emotions can linger in the body for a while depending upon the depth of the conditioning.
A man asks about Rupert’s previous comment that a shift in perspective is necessary. Rupert suggests that it is a shift from believing ourself to be a separate being to understanding that we are the one being. In almost all cases, this takes time due to the inertia of habit and conditioning. This unfolding goes on and on. ‘I am that’ is a concession to the separate self. 'I am I' is what that awareness says about itself.
A woman says she has been looking for 'the shift' for fifty years and wants to think, feel and act from awareness, but it still feels far away. Rupert guides her in self-enquiry to help her discover the nature of her true nature so she might see if there needs to be a shift or whether she's already there. This is the Direct Path to recognition or realisation. The shift comes about as a result of the repetition of this self-enquiry. It gets easier and lasts longer.
A woman wonders if our being becomes more expensive over time. Rupert responds that it seems to expand from the perspective of the finite mind, but being never really contracts or expands. He suggests abandoning the idea of a shift.
A woman wants to reconcile the one being with the idea of reincarnation. Rupert says that if time is real then there is a possibility of past lives but suggests that time is our limited mind's view of reality. There is only the eternal now which appears as time. These two ideas are compatible. Our shared being is formless, but this formless being localises itself through particular forms, and each is on their unique trajectory back to the one.
A woman asks if when the return to being is complete, is shared being changed because of that return. Rupert uses the screen analogy and says that each character takes a different journey around the world but this makes no difference to the screen. Being is changeless.
A man, who is a long-term member of Alcoholics Anonymous, was introduced to Rupert on the Insight-Timer app when he came across objectless meditation. After practising 'kissing the toad', he asks how to get rid of the toad, which is his father. Rupert responds that his father is not the toad, anxiety is the toad. You're 'kissing the toad' in order to get rid of him, but it is your feelings that need to be embraced. Have no agenda to get rid of them but accept, allow and embrace the feeling of anxiety. It is your rejection of the feelings that keep them around. Be the open, empty space of awareness.
A woman asks about conditioning and the dissolution of self. Rupert suggests that the body is that portion of the mind that is perceivable to the senses. When the body dies a part of the mind delocalises and begins the return to the infinite awareness, but the death of the body is not necessarily the death of the mind which appeared as that body. It is a dissolution of that aspect of the mind.
A woman asks about the experiment Rupert suggested of being the person or awareness. Do we hold both awareness and the individual, and how does that work with feelings? Rupert suggests that we are not both simultaneously. There are not two things. There is just awareness that appears to be temporarily localised and limited. We are only that. The sense of lack and longing is only for that which feels limited. John Smith never suffers, only when he seems to become King Lear. Investigate the one who suffers.
A woman asks,’ Are emotions triggered for long periods of time?’ Rupert responds that emotions can linger in the body for a while depending upon the depth of the conditioning.
A man asks about Rupert’s previous comment that a shift in perspective is necessary. Rupert suggests that it is a shift from believing ourself to be a separate being to understanding that we are the one being. In almost all cases, this takes time due to the inertia of habit and conditioning. This unfolding goes on and on. ‘I am that’ is a concession to the separate self. 'I am I' is what that awareness says about itself.
A woman says she has been looking for 'the shift' for fifty years and wants to think, feel and act from awareness, but it still feels far away. Rupert guides her in self-enquiry to help her discover the nature of her true nature so she might see if there needs to be a shift or whether she's already there. This is the Direct Path to recognition or realisation. The shift comes about as a result of the repetition of this self-enquiry. It gets easier and lasts longer.
A woman wonders if our being becomes more expensive over time. Rupert responds that it seems to expand from the perspective of the finite mind, but being never really contracts or expands. He suggests abandoning the idea of a shift.