Being Aware of Being Aware – the Highest Meditation from the media False vs. True Certainty

I recently woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t know who I was. I had no name, memories, or sense of location – just pure awareness searching for something to anchor to. Eventually, I remembered my name and location, then fell back asleep. Was this consciousness being severed from the body-mind? Rupert says: ‘That experience is a gift from God. That’s a really beautiful experience . . . When you woke up in the night, you didn’t know what you are, but you knew that you are, you knew you were present . . . Who you really are, was there, but it was attached to nothing. It was just pure presence . . . That’s a free sample of your true nature . . . You started as your true nature, and you watched how being clothes itself in experience and as a result seems to shrink itself into a body and mind. You watched that process taking place. And that’s very, very beautiful.’

I observe that many of us are conditioned within Christian culture, yet you found this understanding through Sufism and Vedanta rather than Christianity directly. Was this just circumstance, or was there something necessary about leaving your own tradition first? Rupert says: ‘I don’t think this was by accident . . . I couldn’t find answers to my questions in the Christian tradition. So I came across the Sufi tradition . . . a seamless transition from my devotional Christian approach to a devotional Sufi approach . . . It wasn’t until later, when I met Francis (Lucille), and he introduced me to the Direct Path . . . that my mind really began to feel satisfied. And I went back to the Vedantic tradition . . . It wasn’t till much later that I understood in my own experience what he was talking about . . . I came across Sufism and Vedanta in my mid-teens. But it wasn’t until I started speaking and writing . . . that I went back to the Christian tradition, in particular, Meister Eckhart . . . I was blown away by it . . . For me, I had had to leave the Christian tradition . . . to find this understanding through the Sufi and Vedantic traditions. And it was that that enabled me to come back to my Christian tradition and find in it this core of non-dual teaching.’

I’ve been contemplating the difference between false certainty based on beliefs and deeper certainty or confidence. Could you elaborate on this distinction, especially regarding awakening to ultimate reality? Rupert says: ‘There are two different types of certainty . . . The certainty of the mind . . . it’s a brittle certainty. It’s a fake certainty, because everything the mind knows is by definition limited by the mind that knows it . . . the only real certainty that’s absolutely true . . . that everybody can verify for themself is the awareness of being . . . Real confidence only comes from that which is absolutely certain, the awareness of being . . . One who is in touch with and established most of the time in their being has this quiet confidence that they’re not easily shaken . . . And when you are next to someone who has this quiet confidence, you kind of catch it from them.’

During deep meditation, I sometimes hear sounds – a cough, church bells – or my own name being called very loudly. This doesn’t come from dreams or thoughts, and feels very powerful. Whose voice is this that calls my name? Rupert says: ‘There’s a beautiful line in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, “I have called you by your name. You are mine.” . . . Your name is a symbol of the “I am” principle in you . . . your own mind is sounding its own name in order to take itself to its essence . . . Your own mind is sounding its own name . . . and taking you to your true nature. “I have called you by your name. You are mine.” . . . Each of our Christian names is our individual name for the Christ principle. The “I am” in us . . . each of our Christian names is a symbol in each of our minds for who we truly are . . . Your mind sounds your own name once and takes you to your true nature.’

You mentioned yesterday that great works of art are pulled from the collective unconscious. Which works do you feel really do that – particularly stories that contain this understanding. Rupert says: ‘The really great works of art penetrate even through the personal unconscious, through the collective unconscious, all the way back to pure being. And that’s the source of the really great timeless works of art . . . I have my own conditioning, my own limitations. So I have my own particular repertoire of artists . . . people like Beethoven, Bach, Rembrandt, Turner, Rothko . . . My favourite story is a story that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote called, “The Song of the Morrow” . . . a very mysterious, beautiful story.’

You’ve said we cannot have memory of being in deep sleep, yet when I’m in touch with being, I know I’ve been there afterwards. What kind of confidence can I have about being in touch with being if I don’t have memory from it? Rupert says: ‘When you now try to remember the experience you had in deep sleep, you go to your being and you recognise your being – that experience takes place in eternity; it doesn’t take place in time . . . with reference to the time that seems to be real in the waking state, the finite mind says that’s the experience you had eight hours ago in deep sleep. No, in deep sleep there was no time . . . To remember or access what you experienced in deep sleep, you don’t have to go back in time to an experience. You just go deeply into your being . . . it’s a recognition or a revelation, not a real remembrance.’

I still struggle with intimate relationships, but they're evolving from us trying to avoid triggering each other to working through unconsciousness together. How can we live truth and love together in relationships? Rupert says: ‘Why do you formulate an intimate relationship in terms of triggers . . .That’s a slightly depressing view of intimate relationship . . . Love is not a relationship. On the contrary, it’s the collapse of relationship . . . Love is the collapse of the sense of separation. It’s the absence of two. It is oneness . . . an intimate relationship more than perhaps any other relationship is one of the deepest expressions of love of our shared being . . . the primary purpose of the relationship is to express your shared being . . . You want to choose your partners carefully . . . someone that doesn’t require a daily dose of conflict in order to feel good about themself.’

I recently woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t know who I was. I had no name, memories, or sense of location – just pure awareness searching for something to anchor to. Eventually, I remembered my name and location, then fell back asleep. Was this consciousness being severed from the body-mind? Rupert says: ‘That experience is a gift from God. That’s a really beautiful experience . . . When you woke up in the night, you didn’t know what you are, but you knew that you are, you knew you were present . . . Who you really are, was there, but it was attached to nothing. It was just pure presence . . . That’s a free sample of your true nature . . . You started as your true nature, and you watched how being clothes itself in experience and as a result seems to shrink itself into a body and mind. You watched that process taking place. And that’s very, very beautiful.’

I observe that many of us are conditioned within Christian culture, yet you found this understanding through Sufism and Vedanta rather than Christianity directly. Was this just circumstance, or was there something necessary about leaving your own tradition first? Rupert says: ‘I don’t think this was by accident . . . I couldn’t find answers to my questions in the Christian tradition. So I came across the Sufi tradition . . . a seamless transition from my devotional Christian approach to a devotional Sufi approach . . . It wasn’t until later, when I met Francis (Lucille), and he introduced me to the Direct Path . . . that my mind really began to feel satisfied. And I went back to the Vedantic tradition . . . It wasn’t till much later that I understood in my own experience what he was talking about . . . I came across Sufism and Vedanta in my mid-teens. But it wasn’t until I started speaking and writing . . . that I went back to the Christian tradition, in particular, Meister Eckhart . . . I was blown away by it . . . For me, I had had to leave the Christian tradition . . . to find this understanding through the Sufi and Vedantic traditions. And it was that that enabled me to come back to my Christian tradition and find in it this core of non-dual teaching.’

I’ve been contemplating the difference between false certainty based on beliefs and deeper certainty or confidence. Could you elaborate on this distinction, especially regarding awakening to ultimate reality? Rupert says: ‘There are two different types of certainty . . . The certainty of the mind . . . it’s a brittle certainty. It’s a fake certainty, because everything the mind knows is by definition limited by the mind that knows it . . . the only real certainty that’s absolutely true . . . that everybody can verify for themself is the awareness of being . . . Real confidence only comes from that which is absolutely certain, the awareness of being . . . One who is in touch with and established most of the time in their being has this quiet confidence that they’re not easily shaken . . . And when you are next to someone who has this quiet confidence, you kind of catch it from them.’

During deep meditation, I sometimes hear sounds – a cough, church bells – or my own name being called very loudly. This doesn’t come from dreams or thoughts, and feels very powerful. Whose voice is this that calls my name? Rupert says: ‘There’s a beautiful line in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, “I have called you by your name. You are mine.” . . . Your name is a symbol of the “I am” principle in you . . . your own mind is sounding its own name in order to take itself to its essence . . . Your own mind is sounding its own name . . . and taking you to your true nature. “I have called you by your name. You are mine.” . . . Each of our Christian names is our individual name for the Christ principle. The “I am” in us . . . each of our Christian names is a symbol in each of our minds for who we truly are . . . Your mind sounds your own name once and takes you to your true nature.’

You mentioned yesterday that great works of art are pulled from the collective unconscious. Which works do you feel really do that – particularly stories that contain this understanding. Rupert says: ‘The really great works of art penetrate even through the personal unconscious, through the collective unconscious, all the way back to pure being. And that’s the source of the really great timeless works of art . . . I have my own conditioning, my own limitations. So I have my own particular repertoire of artists . . . people like Beethoven, Bach, Rembrandt, Turner, Rothko . . . My favourite story is a story that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote called, “The Song of the Morrow” . . . a very mysterious, beautiful story.’

You’ve said we cannot have memory of being in deep sleep, yet when I’m in touch with being, I know I’ve been there afterwards. What kind of confidence can I have about being in touch with being if I don’t have memory from it? Rupert says: ‘When you now try to remember the experience you had in deep sleep, you go to your being and you recognise your being – that experience takes place in eternity; it doesn’t take place in time . . . with reference to the time that seems to be real in the waking state, the finite mind says that’s the experience you had eight hours ago in deep sleep. No, in deep sleep there was no time . . . To remember or access what you experienced in deep sleep, you don’t have to go back in time to an experience. You just go deeply into your being . . . it’s a recognition or a revelation, not a real remembrance.’

I still struggle with intimate relationships, but they're evolving from us trying to avoid triggering each other to working through unconsciousness together. How can we live truth and love together in relationships? Rupert says: ‘Why do you formulate an intimate relationship in terms of triggers . . .That’s a slightly depressing view of intimate relationship . . . Love is not a relationship. On the contrary, it’s the collapse of relationship . . . Love is the collapse of the sense of separation. It’s the absence of two. It is oneness . . . an intimate relationship more than perhaps any other relationship is one of the deepest expressions of love of our shared being . . . the primary purpose of the relationship is to express your shared being . . . You want to choose your partners carefully . . . someone that doesn’t require a daily dose of conflict in order to feel good about themself.’