Teaching from the Highest Understanding

I had an experience of no-self but now there’s hypervigilance trying to get back there. When I rest as awareness, it feels more local than the original effortless experience. How can I transcend this witnessing position? Rupert says: ‘If you are lost in the content of experience and you superimpose on yourself the idea, “I shouldn’t have to make an effort”, all that’s going to happen is that you’re going to remain lost in the content of your experience. So, you do have to make the effort to extricate yourself. You should find that the more you return to the presence of awareness, the pull of experience gets weaker, and therefore less and less effort is required. That feeling of looking at yourself from behind, that’s the last stance of the separate self. It’s the witnessing presence of consciousness before the witness has collapsed. You can’t really make the effort to stop being the witness. It’s too subtle for effort. When you are there, it’s just a surrender – surrender that last little remnant of localisation.’

I understand intellectually that I am awareness, but I don’t experience the peace and love you describe. What am I misunderstanding? Rupert says: ‘You can experientially take your stand as awareness rather than in your thoughts and feelings. That which is aware of your fluctuating feelings, does that one fluctuate? Is that one anxious or restless or nervous? Most of the time you are involved in or immersed in the content of your experience. Just briefly take a step back from the content of your experience, disentangle yourself from your thoughts and feelings, come back to the screen of awareness and rest as that. Every time you go back, you are weakening the pull of your thoughts and feelings. At some stage, there’s a shift. Your new centre of gravity, your new home is your being.’

"I have clear non-dual understanding but don’t feel much interest in resting as awareness anymore. I want to fully embrace my humanness and engage with the world. Is this correct? Rupert says: ‘I would agree with you. So far, we’ve only focused on withdrawing our attention from the content of experience and going back to the fact of being. That’s only half the story. The other half is, having recognised oneself as the presence of awareness, to turn round, so to speak, go back to the content of experience from which we previously extricated ourselves and to realign it with this new understanding. There are two goals in life. One, to recognise our true nature. Two, to share the fruits of that recognition in society, in life.’"

When I eat food, I don’t do it to awaken as awareness. What is the goal of human life if not everything is about awareness? Rupert says: ‘I don’t eat food or engage in any activities in order to awaken to my true nature. The only way to awaken the presence of awareness is to go directly to awareness. I just do it because I can’t help it. There are two goals. First, to recognise your true nature. Second, to share the fruits of that recognition in society. There are so many ways to share this understanding. Teaching is just one possible way. There’s almost no sphere of human activity that could not be infused with this understanding, and as a result, become a vehicle of it.’

I find comfort in ‘it is’ when the world feels chaotic, and now meditate on ‘I am’. How do these relate, and is there separation between the ‘it’ and the ‘I’? Rupert says: ‘The phrases “it is” and “I am” refer to exactly the same thing, but from two different perspectives. When you say about the glass, “it is”, and the glass says about itself, “I am”, they refer to exactly the same being. “It is” is the second-person point of view. “I am” is the first-person point of view. The knowledge “I am” is the highest truth because it states awareness’s experience of itself. Only awareness knows itself. So, only its first-person experience is true. In order to say “God is”, we have to set ourselves up as a second entity separate from God, as a second being, a second self. And that’s blasphemy because it denies God’s infinite being.’

When I recognise what I am, I feel detached from results but not aloof. However, if I work hard and don’t get expected results, I still feel bad. How does this work? Rupert says: ‘Detached, but not aloof. Aloof is a position of separation accompanied by a feeling of superiority. Awareness is detached from the content of experience, but at the same time, one with it in the same way that a screen is detached from the content of the movie. It’s affectionate detachment. The affection suggests the closeness, the detachment suggests the freedom. You are doing the activity in order to be fulfilled. But if the activity you’re engaging in comes from a feeling of sufficiency, of fullness, of wholeness, of peace, you feel fulfilled. And then you engage in the activity. Your being is always fulfilled. Causeless joy is the nature of being.’

With my scientific background, when you say I wasn’t born and won’t die, this seems too spiritual. Awareness started when I was born and will end when I die. Rupert says: ‘Is it your experience that awareness begins and ends, or that it arises, exists and vanishes? I’m not aware that it starts and I’m not aware that it ends. If you’re not aware that it starts and that it ends, why are you so convinced that it does? We have all been indoctrinated by our culture with this belief. This belief is very pernicious. You are exploring the fundamental presumption on which your life and your entire culture is founded, that what you essentially are shares the limits and the destiny of the body. This discovery, this exploration is the most profound question that you could ask.’

I understand there’s no separate self to surrender, but you sometimes talk about accepting. If someone asks what they should do, how should I respond? Rupert says: ‘The teaching to surrender yourself, or the teachings around acceptance or surrender – these are addressed to one who believes that they are a separate self. If it is clear to you that there is no separate self, then the question of self-inquiry or self-surrender doesn’t even arise. You always go for the highest answer, and then you only come down off the top of the mountain as far as is necessary to meet the person at their understanding. You have to find where they are, what their question is, what their understanding is. And you have to go to them. You have to be sensitive to them and then tailor your understanding to them.’

I understand space and perception are interdependent, but regarding thought and time, do we always need time to have a thought? Rupert says: ‘Any thought takes a duration. Even the thought “chair”, [although] it has a much shorter duration. If there were no time, in what dimension would a thought exist? A thought has a linear dimension. Thoughts are sequential one after the other. And that implies a line of time within which the sequence can exist. Time “starts” really when the infant starts thinking. Thought doesn’t create time. It imagines time. Time is how reality appears when filtered through thought. Likewise, space is what reality looks like when filtered through perception. Reality itself has no dimensions. When awareness assumes the form of thinking and perceiving, awareness refracts itself into time and space.’

Two and a half years ago, I had profound recognition that lasted one and a half days, but then doubt returned strongly. How does this process work? Rupert says: ‘There can be a genuine recognition, but that recognition can then be obscured again by an old habit of thinking and feeling. It’s quite common that the first recognition is given to you unsolicited. This out of nowhere, this recognition of their true nature, and then it goes away again. The first glimpse or recognition is like a free gift. The first time it was just a sample, a free sample. The second time you have to make your own way back. And that’s where there’s some kind of help from a friend. You should just take whichever pathway back feels to you most effective. Make it your own. You conquer your own experience.’

When I experience pure being, I know it’s peaceful, but then thoughts arise, and I view the peace as just another state of mind. How can I know peace is truly inherent? Rupert says: ‘At any moment of your experience, you can just take one step back to your being. Right there in the statement “I am lonely”, you have the “I am” qualified by the loneliness. All you need to do is take the statement “I am” and ask yourself, what do I mean by “I am”? If it was true that your being was a state of mind, you would need to find an experience in which your being is absent. Tell us about the experience of being. It’s quite peaceful. Your inherently peaceful being is always present, always accessible. Because it’s always available, its inherent qualities are always available. Yes, inherently peaceful being is always present, always accessible, and it’s so simple to go there.’

When I try to abide as pure awareness, it comes with the notion “I am” and heart sensations. I can only stay in pure awareness for two seconds before getting attached. How can awareness remain stable? Rupert says: ‘You cannot stay in pure awareness because there’s no you other than pure awareness itself. You are always awareness. Sometimes, you become lost in the content of experience. And you sometimes come back to yourself. The “I am” is not the pure being. It’s a concept that refers directly to pure being. You are always pure awareness, either lost in your experience or remaining in yourself, but in both cases, you are always pure awareness. You can’t rest in it. You can only be that knowingly. Just remain as awareness while you’re having a conversation. Don’t lose yourself completely in your experience. Stay in touch with yourself.’

How do I know if I’m experiencing pure awareness rather than awareness that’s like content? How can I be certain I’m there and not experiencing something objective? Rupert says: ‘If it was the content of experience, it would be something that you are aware of. If it had any objective qualities to it, it would be something that you were aware of. Just refer to the pure experience of being aware itself, without reference to any other, without contrasting it with any other experience. You really can’t say anything about it. It’s just pure knowing, pure luminosity. It’s not an emotion. We only refer to it as being peaceful when we are trying to contrast it with our normal state of agitation. If we just experience the fact of being or being aware, without reference to anything else, then we really fall silent.’