At the Heart of Sorrow

A man says that if everything is God, he feels a deep ‘no’ in response to states of trauma and pain. How could that be God? Rupert suggests that the resistance we feel on behalf of the well-being and safety of the body is an intelligent resistance, but it is still a manifestation of the one reality. Even that is the one reality. It doesn’t make it pleasant. If we see suffering in someone else, we feel it as our own, and we resist it. Our protest is not a failure of our understanding. We are trying to understand reality with the tool that divides reality into right and wrong. It’s like trying to see white snow through orange-tinted glasses.

A woman asks for advice on how to ask awareness for guidance. Rupert suggests that she make sure her relationships are informed by the understanding that reality is one. This means we feel that we share our being with the other, that what we essentially are, is what they essentially are. It's true that awareness itself is always silent, but there are thoughts that arise in us on behalf of the qualities that are inherent in awareness.

‘Awareness’ feels like you are describing a fruit that I’ve never eaten. A woman says that it’s hard because there are no objective qualities. Rupert asks if she can say that ‘I am?’ and she replies ‘yes’. Rupert suggests that it’s that simple. She is expecting something exotic and extraordinary. Enlightenment is the recognition of the nature of our being. It is the least exotic experience there is. Even the taste of tea is more exotic by comparison.

A man, who served in Vietnam, says that more and more he is able to witness the trauma he experienced in the bunker. He currently feels like there has been a transfiguration, almost like it was a blessing. Rupert suggests that we let the one permeate the mind, heart, body and world. This understanding is no longer just in his mind or heart, but it’s beginning to percolate in his body and world. This happens naturally by exposing ourself to shared being.

A woman who talks about her love for her father, husband and therapist, expresses a fear of getting lost in love. Rupert suggests there is both an ocean of love and a sense of herself, and at the moment her sense of self is constricted. If she allows that love to come out of its confines, she is afraid that she is going to lose her life, but she will lose her sense of her separate self. The separate self is a denial of love.

A woman references the saying, ‘pain is inevitable, and suffering is optional’, saying that she can see how she converts her situation with her husband, who has dementia, into suffering, adding to it. Rupert suggests that the sorrow she inevitably feels as her husband slips away from her is a divine sorrow, not egoic; it is an appropriate expression that should not be avoided. Rupert suggests that she not be too hard on herself and relates how his mum has recently gone into a care facility because of memory loss. It is very difficult, and he has noticed irritation in himself.

A man thanks Rupert for being a friend and not a ‘proper’ guru and asks how he goes about the process of designing something new, like events, retreats, books, etc. How do you make these beautiful things? Rupert says that he starts with an intention that everything he does be an expression of understanding, then he tries to tailor that to each situation. The same intention flows into different situations and relationships. He also recognises the team that has grown around him and says that everyone shares this desire to create a form that allows love and understanding to be shared in the world.

A man comments on his experience of being at a live retreat and his feeling that non-duality is the teaching of this age. He also comments on prayer and vibration. Rupert suggests that if we really want to assess a teaching, don’t assess the words or person. The way to get the most accurate assessment is to look at the people who have gathered around it. He also says there are two kinds of mediation and two kinds of prayer – one focuses on an object, and the other traces its way back inward to its source: infinite being. Being is that which vibrates. It can exist without movement, no vibration, total stillness, or it can vibrate within itself – the primordial sound, word or logos – the first form of God. The first name of God is 'I'.

A woman shares that during meditation she feels an impulse for ‘doing’. Rupert suggests that this contraction is a residue of the sense of separation coming back as she goes deeper into the dissolution. The separate self feels that the deeper she sinks into being, the less place there is for a separate self. It fears it will die, and it’s right. Like a moth to a flame. The impulse to do something is a way of substantiating the separate self, which can only exist in identification with something else.

A woman, who talks about her family and how they don’t communicate with words but seem to express themselves through making and fixing things, says she is missing the connection she had with her deceased companion. Rupert suggests that when she next feels the sorrow of the loss of her partner, resist the impulse to escape it through the television or the refrigerator, turn towards it. Your companion is at the heart of your sorrow. When you turn from the sorrow, you turn from him. And that will take care of the relationships with the other men in your family.

A man asks about the limits of testing our experience, saying that the one claim that is hard to test is when we move from duality to the non-dual understanding, the subject disappears. Rupert suggests that instead of feeling that we move from subject–object relationship to unity, imagine that we start at unity. From there, does it make any sense to ask questions about appearance and disappearance. The reality of duality is unity.

A man asks about the materialist perspective on consciousness and the burden of proof for disproving it. Rupert says that the materialist claim is that it’s obvious that consciousness is created in the brain. However, if we ask them, ‘Do you ever know anything other than the knowing of your experience?’ they would have to conclude that no, there isn’t anything ever experienced outside of consciousness. All there is to the world is consciousness.

A man says that if everything is God, he feels a deep ‘no’ in response to states of trauma and pain. How could that be God? Rupert suggests that the resistance we feel on behalf of the well-being and safety of the body is an intelligent resistance, but it is still a manifestation of the one reality. Even that is the one reality. It doesn’t make it pleasant. If we see suffering in someone else, we feel it as our own, and we resist it. Our protest is not a failure of our understanding. We are trying to understand reality with the tool that divides reality into right and wrong. It’s like trying to see white snow through orange-tinted glasses.

A woman asks for advice on how to ask awareness for guidance. Rupert suggests that she make sure her relationships are informed by the understanding that reality is one. This means we feel that we share our being with the other, that what we essentially are, is what they essentially are. It's true that awareness itself is always silent, but there are thoughts that arise in us on behalf of the qualities that are inherent in awareness.

‘Awareness’ feels like you are describing a fruit that I’ve never eaten. A woman says that it’s hard because there are no objective qualities. Rupert asks if she can say that ‘I am?’ and she replies ‘yes’. Rupert suggests that it’s that simple. She is expecting something exotic and extraordinary. Enlightenment is the recognition of the nature of our being. It is the least exotic experience there is. Even the taste of tea is more exotic by comparison.

A man, who served in Vietnam, says that more and more he is able to witness the trauma he experienced in the bunker. He currently feels like there has been a transfiguration, almost like it was a blessing. Rupert suggests that we let the one permeate the mind, heart, body and world. This understanding is no longer just in his mind or heart, but it’s beginning to percolate in his body and world. This happens naturally by exposing ourself to shared being.

A woman who talks about her love for her father, husband and therapist, expresses a fear of getting lost in love. Rupert suggests there is both an ocean of love and a sense of herself, and at the moment her sense of self is constricted. If she allows that love to come out of its confines, she is afraid that she is going to lose her life, but she will lose her sense of her separate self. The separate self is a denial of love.

A woman references the saying, ‘pain is inevitable, and suffering is optional’, saying that she can see how she converts her situation with her husband, who has dementia, into suffering, adding to it. Rupert suggests that the sorrow she inevitably feels as her husband slips away from her is a divine sorrow, not egoic; it is an appropriate expression that should not be avoided. Rupert suggests that she not be too hard on herself and relates how his mum has recently gone into a care facility because of memory loss. It is very difficult, and he has noticed irritation in himself.

A man thanks Rupert for being a friend and not a ‘proper’ guru and asks how he goes about the process of designing something new, like events, retreats, books, etc. How do you make these beautiful things? Rupert says that he starts with an intention that everything he does be an expression of understanding, then he tries to tailor that to each situation. The same intention flows into different situations and relationships. He also recognises the team that has grown around him and says that everyone shares this desire to create a form that allows love and understanding to be shared in the world.

A man comments on his experience of being at a live retreat and his feeling that non-duality is the teaching of this age. He also comments on prayer and vibration. Rupert suggests that if we really want to assess a teaching, don’t assess the words or person. The way to get the most accurate assessment is to look at the people who have gathered around it. He also says there are two kinds of mediation and two kinds of prayer – one focuses on an object, and the other traces its way back inward to its source: infinite being. Being is that which vibrates. It can exist without movement, no vibration, total stillness, or it can vibrate within itself – the primordial sound, word or logos – the first form of God. The first name of God is 'I'.

A woman shares that during meditation she feels an impulse for ‘doing’. Rupert suggests that this contraction is a residue of the sense of separation coming back as she goes deeper into the dissolution. The separate self feels that the deeper she sinks into being, the less place there is for a separate self. It fears it will die, and it’s right. Like a moth to a flame. The impulse to do something is a way of substantiating the separate self, which can only exist in identification with something else.

A woman, who talks about her family and how they don’t communicate with words but seem to express themselves through making and fixing things, says she is missing the connection she had with her deceased companion. Rupert suggests that when she next feels the sorrow of the loss of her partner, resist the impulse to escape it through the television or the refrigerator, turn towards it. Your companion is at the heart of your sorrow. When you turn from the sorrow, you turn from him. And that will take care of the relationships with the other men in your family.

A man asks about the limits of testing our experience, saying that the one claim that is hard to test is when we move from duality to the non-dual understanding, the subject disappears. Rupert suggests that instead of feeling that we move from subject–object relationship to unity, imagine that we start at unity. From there, does it make any sense to ask questions about appearance and disappearance. The reality of duality is unity.

A man asks about the materialist perspective on consciousness and the burden of proof for disproving it. Rupert says that the materialist claim is that it’s obvious that consciousness is created in the brain. However, if we ask them, ‘Do you ever know anything other than the knowing of your experience?’ they would have to conclude that no, there isn’t anything ever experienced outside of consciousness. All there is to the world is consciousness.