The World’s Appearance Versus Its Reality

When doing this work, I feel sensations in my body and want to purge or release things. How do we work with the body when we feel we need to let go yet want to overcome the situation by staying in being? Rupert says: ‘Can we do an experiment? Close your eyes and go to the experience of your body, not the image or memory or idea of it, but just the raw experience. Imagine you’ve just been born. It’s the first experience you’ve ever had. You don’t have any memory. You are having an experience that you will later conceptualise as the body. But for the moment it’s just raw sensation. What is the sensation appearing in? It’s appearing in some kind of field, in your being or awareness. The experience of your body is not dense. It’s mostly empty space. You don’t really experience weight. You just experience a sensation of a certain intensity, and you interpret that intensity as weight. But without the interpretation, there’s no weight there. We were actually cleansing your body. We were removing all the concepts that you superimposed onto your body. Your body, how it is, is like a galaxy floating in the sky without a shape, without a size, without gender, without an age, without a density. That was a kind of experiential purification of your body.’

"I suddenly appeared on this planet out of nowhere, was given this body and mind with no say, amd then am going to die. I’m given this mind capable of generating questions, yet it can’t give me answers. What am I missing? Rupert says: ‘I would suggest the ultimate purpose of your life is to really do exactly what you say. What is your existence? Who are you really, what are you really? You are experiencing yourself now. You have the experience of being yourself. You are in a very good position to know who you are. In fact, you’re the only one who can know who you are. Self-knowledge is the most important knowledge there is. All our other knowledge is in direct relationship to our knowledge of ourself. The “why?” question doesn’t pertain to consciousness. You have to understand that the “why?” question is the wrong question. It’s not why you are, it’s what you are – that’s the right question to ask. If you understand what you are, the “why?” question will disappear. But the “why?” question won’t take you to what you are. You have to undermine the “why?” question through understanding, rather than trying to fulfil it through thinking.’"

Recently, you talked about being having different stages – appearing blank at first, then becoming more beautiful, then loving. What moves this same being through these stages? Rupert says: ‘I didn’t mean to imply that there were stages or states of being. I think I suggested that for many people, they first recognise the fact of being or being aware, and it first feels neutral. But actually, the more you rest in your being, the more you understand that that is actually what peace is, what joy or fulfilment is. These were just different words to describe the same experience of pure being. The only reason we call the nature of being love is to contrast it with our usual state of separation and conflict. They’re not different states of being. They’re all just different words to describe the same experience of pure being, which, strictly speaking, we shouldn’t attribute any qualities to it.’

I feel connected to your explanation that ‘peace and happiness are the nature of my being’ but struggle to feel in my heart that I share this being with everyone. Also, what’s the non-dual approach to healing harms that we’ve committed? Rupert says: ‘You recognise that peace and happiness are the nature of your being, because that refers to the experience of your being on the inside. What’s more difficult is that you don’t recognise that you share your being with everyone and everything, because that’s about the experience of being on the outside. Our sense perceptions persuade us that we don’t share our being with everyone and everything. You have to override that illusion with your understanding. The evidence of your understanding tells you there is one being, and it shines in and as each of us. You understand that now – now feel it in a way that is consistent with that. What is that feeling called? It’s called love. We share our being with everyone. That’s it. That single simple idea, if it was implemented in society, would bring about world peace.’

I’ve noticed that small amounts of substances like cannabis or coffee help my attention sink back more easily during meditation. What are your thoughts on this, and where’s the line between conditional versus unconditional use? Rupert says: ‘You are relying on a substance to go to your true nature. That’s what 8 billion people are doing in the world, relying on an object, a substance, an activity or a relationship to take them to their true nature. I think you’re fooling yourself. I suggest you go to your true nature directly, not by a substance. If you need circumstances to be perfect – like having no hunger, no thirst and no agitation in your mind – then you’re never gonna make it in the world. The peace of your true nature is independent. It’s imperturbable. It’s causeless.’

"In my understanding, the largest cause of suffering is resistance towards thoughts and feelings. But when my senses become heightened through awareness, they can be overwhelming. How do I work with this in systems requiring response? Rupert says: ‘When you are taking your stand as awareness, the seeking and resistance that characterise the separate self lose their hold over you. Previously, when you were taking your stand as the separate self, your attention was almost exclusively preoccupied with the seeking and resistance. Now you’re taking your stand as awareness. All the attention that was previously absorbed in your thoughts and feelings is now free. And you become much more sensitive. In those times when your perceptions seem to be overwhelming, just ask yourself, am I, awareness, really overwhelmed by the intensity of this experience? I suspect that if in those moments you really take your stand as the openness of awareness, the open resistance-less-ness of awareness, then even heightened sensations and perceptions won’t overwhelm you.’"

"I was in a bike accident and felt anger initially, but then asked myself ‘do you really want to be angry right now?’ The anger dropped and there was love. Was this higher intelligence or just psychology? Rupert says: ‘That thought is a thought that arises on behalf of intelligence. It’s an intelligent thought. It’s a thought that if awareness could have spoken in that moment, that’s what it would’ve said. Your anger is a resistance to your current situation – the suffering I’m feeling is not because of my current circumstance; the suffering I’m feeling is because I’m resisting it. Nobody can make you angry. If we are angry, it is our response to the situation. We do our anger to ourself. Nobody does it to us. If you understand clearly that your partner cannot upset you, your upset, your hurt, your anger, your irritation is your response, your resistance to the situation. That’s so liberating in a relationship, in an employment situation, in any situation. You could just say, I initially resisted my experience, and I was mad because of it. And then a thought arose: Why resist? In other words, the suffering I’m feeling is not because of my current circumstance. It was resistance that caused the suffering.’"

During this retreat, it seems like every moment awareness gives me perfectly what I need. Is this true, and if so, how is it possible considering awareness doesn’t know experience directly? Rupert says: ‘Awareness is not working out what you need for your spiritual development and giving it to you moment by moment. What’s really happening is that because of your deep interest in these matters, you are predisposed to making the best possible use of every single experience you have. And therefore, every single experience you have seems perfect to you because it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to explore these matters. As soon as you remove the resistance to your experience, then your life just feels perfectly orchestrated. Your life is always flowing smoothly, but your intermittent resistance to it makes it feel as if it’s not smooth. All psychological suffering is just the feeling inside you: “I don’t want what’s happening.” That’s it. If you just say yes to every experience you have, you’ll never suffer again.’

"Do you have thoughts on whether earth constitutes an entity in itself – a collection of consciousness bits that makes something bigger than individual pieces but smaller than consciousness itself? Is there anything special about earth as intelligence? Rupert says: ‘It’s how a segment of God’s mind appears when viewed through my perceiving faculties. Its appearance is deeply connected to the perceiver – the way the world appears is directly related to the perceiving faculties through which it is perceived. But the reality of the world is not dependent on its being perceived, but the appearance of the world is. I would suggest the earth is not a conscious entity. A conscious entity is one for whom there is something it is like to be that entity. All of us feel “I am” – we have the subjective experience of being. I don’t think there is anything it is like to be the world. In other words, I don’t think the world as an entity has conscious, subjective experience.’"

"You’ve said that when you were seven, you told your mother the world was God’s dream, and our task was to make that dream as beautiful as possible. Is there an energy that wants to recognise itself, and everything is just an attempt or experiment to recognise itself? Rupert says: ‘That’s not consciousness’s purpose. Consciousness knows itself by nature. It doesn’t need to do anything to recognise itself. It’s like the sun, self-knowing, self-luminous. Consciousness doesn’t manifest in order to know itself. That’s like suggesting that John Smith plays the part of King Lear so that he can know himself. Consciousness manifests as each of us in order to know the world. It knows the world through our perceiving faculties. It cannot know itself through our perceiving faculties, because our perceiving faculties bestow their own limitations on everything that is perceived through them. John Smith can know Cordelia through King Lear, but he can’t know himself through King Lear. He knows himself by himself. By itself, consciousness knows itself, but by itself it can’t know the world. It’s only through the agency of our individual minds that consciousness can know itself as the universe. Consciousness needs a finite mind in order to know the world. It doesn’t need a finite mind in order to know itself.’"

"In the Christian tradition I was born into, God is much involved with the characters – loves them, punishes them. But you say the screen is completely impartial to whatever appears on it. Is there no practical relation? Is it just indifference? Rupert says: ‘The screen doesn’t love or punish the characters. The screen is completely impartial, one with but completely indifferent to the characters. It’s only the different characters in the movie that love each other or punish each other. The ultimate reality is not a wrathful, punishing, fearful God. Loving – if by love you mean utterly, intimately, indiscriminately one with, then it is. We have to distinguish between love as a feeling between two people and real love, which is the absence of otherness, the absence of twoness. Real love is unity. For infinite consciousness, there are not two. There’s just one. So this absence of otherness, this oneness is pure love. This is actually what you feel when you love someone – the distance between you diminishes. So God is pure love, because God knows no other. If we make a concession to the belief that there are separate people, then it is legitimate to say God loves you. But I don’t think it would ever be legitimate to say God hates you or punishes you, because the statement that God loves you is a true statement about God’s nature, whereas the statement that God hates you or punishes you is not a true statement of the true nature of God."