Feeling the Peace Not Dependent on Circumstances

How far down the chain of being can we carry the understanding that all sentient beings are localisations of consciousness? Do insects, microbes and trees have inner experience? Rupert says: ‘By sentient being, I mean any being that has inner experience, any entity for whom there is something it is like to be that entity. I would suggest not for trees. This table is not having the experience of being itself. You are all having experience. That doesn’t mean that everything is conscious. That would be panpsychism. I don’t feel strongly about where the line is drawn between what is a sentient being and what is insentient. I see sentient beings as localisations of infinite consciousness. Everything else, the unlocalised aspect of infinite consciousness, would appear to be insentient.’

Why is there such a strong tendency in the separate self to shrink from intimacy with and openness to all experience, and why is this tendency so protected? Rupert says: ‘In order to know or experience anything, you must do so in subject-object relationship. All experience, without exception, takes place in subject-object relationship. The price consciousness pays for experience is this division of itself in two. So, in order for you to have experience, you have to seem to be a temporary finite self. This separate self is characterised by two essential emotions. One, I am temporary, finite, and therefore I’m not complete. And the second overriding emotion is resistance, because the separate self is always trying to protect its identity.’

How can we practically break down the habit of identifying with what we are not? Rupert says: ‘It’s more breaking down the habit of identifying yourself with something that is not essential to you, like thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions. That’s a well-worn habit that you’ve been rehearsing for decades. For the vast majority of us, there is this back and forth, we have to keep going back and visiting our true nature.’

How can I feel the sufficiency and peace that isn’t dependent on outer circumstances? I struggle to access this experience in meditation. Rupert says: ‘When you’re just resting in being, resting as being, do you feel any lack there? No. That’s it. Happiness is literally what being tastes like. It’s not always experienced, because it’s obscured by the seeking mind. Your very search is the denial of the happiness that is already present. You can’t be happy and seek happiness at the same time. When the activity of seeking subsides, happiness, which is the nature of being, then shines.’

How much should I allow someone else’s view to influence my projection of reality on the shared screen of consciousness? Rupert says: ‘You don’t have your own screen. The reality of the world, which is the screen onto which we project our images is shared. It’s a single shared reality. Consciousness localises itself as each of our finite minds and looks back at itself, its single reality, through the lens of each of our minds. What you perceive as the world is an interaction between your finite mind and the activity of infinite consciousness.’

Being very sensitive, I find myself rejecting experiences because they feel too intense. How can I stop this resistance that seems to strengthen over time? Rupert says: ‘When you say “it’s too intense”, for whom is it too intense? Is awareness saying “this emotion is too intense for me”? What is it or who is it in you that says this is unbearable? Your whole life revolves around this one for whom experience is too much. If you saw clearly the nature of the one for whom you say experience is too much, you could just walk out of your home with an open heart, open to the world. If you understand that the feeling that life is unbearable is for a non-existent self, what’s going to happen to the feeling that life is unbearable?’

Do I have ‘a consciousness’, and then there’s consciousness? How do you know you’re right about eternal, infinite consciousness being what there is? Rupert says: ‘It’s just like there isn’t a separate space for every building in the world, and then the space outside all the buildings. There’s just one space that fills all buildings but is not divided into separate spaces by them. There is one consciousness that fills your mind and perceives through your perceiving faculties. It’s the same consciousness that perceives through the faculties of each of our minds. I know that it’s true because I know for absolute certain, for myself, that consciousness, or knowing, is all that I’ve ever known. Have you ever experienced anything other than the knowing of your experience? Point to something now that is something other than the knowing of your experience.’

Can you explain how intuition functions? Rupert says: ‘All of our minds are porous. Particularly if you’re very close to someone, the contents flow back and forth. The vibrations can flow between minds. Some information from the broader medium of mind leaks in, because your mind is porous. When you have an intuition like that, you are accessing information from the broader medium of mind that is not normally accessible to you in the waking state.’

How can we help people we love who are suffering but are closed to this understanding? Rupert says: ‘You have to tailor your understanding to their understanding and speak to them in a way that conveys this understanding indirectly. You have to use their language. If you try to talk non-duality to them, it’s just going to provoke resistance. Deep down, you know that who they are, right now, in this very moment, is not suffering. If you know that, however you interact with them, even if it’s just being loving, being kind, this knowledge will communicate itself to them subliminally. Don’t presume that just because they are not interested in these matters that they’re not capable of going directly to their true nature. Everybody is.’

I’ve noticed that in meditation there seems to be a focused awareness behind the worldly persona. Is there another layer of identity between infinite consciousness and the finite mind? Rupert says: ‘The way awareness focuses itself or directs its attention is through the mind. Awareness cannot focus its attention without rising in the form of the mind. The mind is the mechanism through which awareness narrows its field and focuses on an object. Prior to the arising of the mind, there’s no focusing of awareness.’

You suggested we experiment with being the unified single consciousness rather than a separate self. How do we actually do this? Rupert says: ‘When you find yourself interacting with people, the first thing you know about that person, normally, is their appearance, how they look. What I’m suggesting is the first thing you know about someone is that you share your being with them. The first thing to know about them is, “I share my being with you. I am you.” And you feel that. It’s a belief that we are separate from them. I’m asking you to question your old belief that you are separate from them. Do the experiment. Act as if you did share your being. And see the quality of the interaction that ensues. Don’t just do it with people – do it with nature, with the inanimate universe, as well as sentient beings.’