Feel Yourself as the Other
- Duration: Video: 59 minutes and 54 seconds / Audio: 59 minutes and 54 seconds
- Recorded on: Sep 19, 2022
- Event: Seven Day Retreat at The Vedanta – 17th to 24th September
A woman who is engaged in cranial-sacral therapy asks Rupert about something he said previously about expanding beyond the body. Rupert suggests that this is feeling that you are the other, like in intimate relationships. Place yourself in the other and feel yourself as them. That is what love is. In her work, she is doing this instinctively.
A woman speaks of her 21-year-old son who is suffering from extreme emotional distress and asks how to help him with his anxiety and depression. Rupert asks if he wants to be helped. If so, he recommends a skilled therapist as it's difficult for a mother to help a child directly. He suggests that she work on her own reactivity and be in the imperturbable peace and love of her own being.
A woman relays an experience she had fifty years ago in which her awareness split in two: one was a formless nothingness; the other was in the room with her husband. Rupert suggests that the dream analogy may help her understand this experience. When we dream at night, a part of our mind dissociates in order to ‘become’ the dream character and world. This is a natural faculty. He suggests that her mind dissociated and turned into two entities. One fell asleep and the other was wide awake.
A man who is new to the direct path asks how to go directly to being in meditation, which sometimes happens spontaneously and sometimes with self-enquiry. He asks what the best tool is. Rupert responds that there are different pathways because we are all different. The question 'Am I aware?' works well for some. For others, it can be a matter of focusing on the 'I am'. Sometimes different pathways work at different times for the same person. The simplest, clearest is to say the name 'I' and allow it to take you directly to its referent. In the Direct Path, there really is no tool or practice. Instead ask 'Why do I want to practice?' and see whether a sense of lack is creating the impulse to practice.
A man shares that he touches consciousness but doesn't stay there. Regarding the first, Rupert suggests that you cannot stay there, but you also cannot leave there. You are your being. Being your being is the only thing you don’t need to make an effort to maintain. Being’s nature is peace, which takes care of our inner experience, and love, which takes care of the outer experience.
A man thanks Rupert for his comments on values and the death of Queen Elizabeth. He also describes moving all his life and how it made him feel like he was on a Odyssean quest. Now he is not happy where he is. He asks how to overcome his fears about where to live. Rupert responds with a personal story whereby someone told him a Sufi-like phrase, 'You'll regret it if you do; you'll regret it if you don't’. What you really want is not a place, but your being, which is your true home. No place or relationship will give you what you want except for this recognition.
A woman who is engaged in cranial-sacral therapy asks Rupert about something he said previously about expanding beyond the body. Rupert suggests that this is feeling that you are the other, like in intimate relationships. Place yourself in the other and feel yourself as them. That is what love is. In her work, she is doing this instinctively.
A woman speaks of her 21-year-old son who is suffering from extreme emotional distress and asks how to help him with his anxiety and depression. Rupert asks if he wants to be helped. If so, he recommends a skilled therapist as it's difficult for a mother to help a child directly. He suggests that she work on her own reactivity and be in the imperturbable peace and love of her own being.
A woman relays an experience she had fifty years ago in which her awareness split in two: one was a formless nothingness; the other was in the room with her husband. Rupert suggests that the dream analogy may help her understand this experience. When we dream at night, a part of our mind dissociates in order to ‘become’ the dream character and world. This is a natural faculty. He suggests that her mind dissociated and turned into two entities. One fell asleep and the other was wide awake.
A man who is new to the direct path asks how to go directly to being in meditation, which sometimes happens spontaneously and sometimes with self-enquiry. He asks what the best tool is. Rupert responds that there are different pathways because we are all different. The question 'Am I aware?' works well for some. For others, it can be a matter of focusing on the 'I am'. Sometimes different pathways work at different times for the same person. The simplest, clearest is to say the name 'I' and allow it to take you directly to its referent. In the Direct Path, there really is no tool or practice. Instead ask 'Why do I want to practice?' and see whether a sense of lack is creating the impulse to practice.
A man shares that he touches consciousness but doesn't stay there. Regarding the first, Rupert suggests that you cannot stay there, but you also cannot leave there. You are your being. Being your being is the only thing you don’t need to make an effort to maintain. Being’s nature is peace, which takes care of our inner experience, and love, which takes care of the outer experience.
A man thanks Rupert for his comments on values and the death of Queen Elizabeth. He also describes moving all his life and how it made him feel like he was on a Odyssean quest. Now he is not happy where he is. He asks how to overcome his fears about where to live. Rupert responds with a personal story whereby someone told him a Sufi-like phrase, 'You'll regret it if you do; you'll regret it if you don't’. What you really want is not a place, but your being, which is your true home. No place or relationship will give you what you want except for this recognition.