# Awareness, Consciousness & the Nature of Self with Rupert Spira

An episode of [Next Level Soul Podcast with Alex Ferrari](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1560904383), 12 Sep 2026, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74955888/nls_725.mp3

What if the world you experience isn't reality itself, but reality filtered through the human mind? Rupert Spira joins us for a profound exploration of consciousness, perception, non-duality, death, meditation, and the nature of existence. Rupert compares our senses to a VR headset: so convincing and so constantly present that we've forgotten we're looking through it. He argues that what we call the physical world is how a deeper reality appears through our limited faculties of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. Rupert also explores what happens to awareness when the body dies, why near-death experiences may involve expanded access to reality, the danger of spiritual bypassing, and why peace isn't something we ultimately acquire from the outside world. At the heart of his teaching is a beautifully simple invitation: recognize the awareness behind experience and discover what remains unchanged beneath the constantly moving drama of life. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/next-level-soul-podcast-with-alex-ferrari--4858435/support. Take your spiritual journey to the next level with Next Level Soul TV — our dedicated streaming home for conscious storytelling and soulful transformation. Experience exclusive programs, original series, movies, tv shows, workshops, audiobooks, meditations, and a growing library of inspiring content created to elevate, heal, and awaken. Begin your membership or explore our free titles here: https://www.nextlevelsoul.tv

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome to Next Level Soul, the place where we deep
[0:03] Speaker 1: dive into the mysteries of existence, uncover hidden layers of consciousness,
[0:07] Speaker 1: and explore the journey of the soul. I'm your host,
[0:11] Speaker 1: Alex Ferrari, and every week we sit down with the
[0:13] Speaker 1: world's leading spiritual teachers, mystics, scientists, and truth seekers to
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[0:27] Speaker 1: And how do we elevate our lives, our purpose, and
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[0:33] Speaker 1: for transformation, a space for expansion, a space to remember
[0:38] Speaker 1: who you really are. So take a deep breath, open
[0:42] Speaker 1: your mind, and prepare to step into your next level soul. Now,
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[1:18] Speaker 1: by our guests are their own and do not necessarily
[1:21] Speaker 1: reflect the beliefs or positions of Next Level Soul, its host,
[1:25] Speaker 1: or any of the companies they represent. Now let's dive
[1:28] Speaker 1: into today's episode. I'd like to welcome to the show
[1:32] Speaker 1: Rupert Spira. How are you doing, Rupert?
[1:34] Speaker 2: Very well. Thank you for inviting me. Lovely to be
[1:36] Speaker 2: with you.
[1:37] Speaker 1: Owen, thank you so much for being here, my friend.
[1:39] Speaker 1: I've been an admirer of your work for a while now,
[1:43] Speaker 1: and I've always wanted to have you on the show.
[1:45] Speaker 1: We never could connect, but we finally had a mutual
[1:47] Speaker 1: friend connect us, and here you are. So I really
[1:51] Speaker 1: am looking forward to this conversation, Rupert.
[1:53] Speaker 2: Likewise. Thank you for asking.
[1:55] Speaker 1: So my first question is, your apprenticeship under Michael Cardell,
[1:59] Speaker 1: who's one of Britain's most influential studio potters, what did
[2:04] Speaker 1: clay teach you that words never could?
[2:08] Speaker 2: In some ways, I felt that my entire education took
[2:12] Speaker 2: place with Michael Cardell. It was so many things on
[2:17] Speaker 2: so many different levels, apart from anything, just the discipline
[2:20] Speaker 2: of working– in a studio with a small group of people.
[2:26] Speaker 2: And ceramics is a process where once you start making something,
[2:32] Speaker 2: it's a long process. It's a three-month process from beginning
[2:35] Speaker 2: to end, and every stage of the process needs to
[2:38] Speaker 2: be attended to. So it's a real commitment of your time,
[2:44] Speaker 2: your energy, your focus. What did I really learn? Let
[2:51] Speaker 2: me tell you a story. that will give you a
[2:55] Speaker 2: sense of my apprenticeship with Michael and will go some
[3:00] Speaker 2: way to answer your question. I had been there maybe
[3:03] Speaker 2: for about six months. I was 20 years old. Michael
[3:06] Speaker 2: was 80 years old. So I had the last couple
[3:08] Speaker 2: of years of his life with him. And I'd been
[3:11] Speaker 2: there for about six months. I was making bowls. I
[3:13] Speaker 2: was beginning to be a bit pleased with myself. I
[3:16] Speaker 2: thought I was doing quite well. And Michael came into
[3:19] Speaker 2: the workshop one day. It was a long, it was
[3:21] Speaker 2: an old skittle alley. It was a long, narrow workshop.
[3:24] Speaker 2: He came in at one end, I was working at
[3:26] Speaker 2: the other end and I had lots of bowls. I'd
[3:28] Speaker 2: been working all morning on the shots. He came up
[3:30] Speaker 2: and he just stood in front of the bowls and
[3:34] Speaker 2: kind of surveyed them for a long time. And I
[3:36] Speaker 2: was expecting my first, my first accolade from him. And
[3:41] Speaker 2: I remember he just turned to me with this withering
[3:45] Speaker 2: look on his face. And he said, Rupert, you haven't
[3:47] Speaker 2: begun to take that shape into yourself and left. And
[3:54] Speaker 2: that was the way the apprenticeship worked. There was no explanation.
[3:57] Speaker 2: I was just left completely, you know, my pride completely wounded. And,
[4:09] Speaker 2: of course, having to work out for myself what he
[4:12] Speaker 2: meant by that, what he meant by taking a shape
[4:15] Speaker 2: into yourself, making it your own. And that's just the
[4:20] Speaker 2: way the apprenticeship worked. Very little was explained. Michael was
[4:25] Speaker 2: working there, his son, Seth, there was one other apprentice.
[4:28] Speaker 2: And I just learned by watching, copying, looking, very few explanations.
[4:36] Speaker 2: And you just learn more and more what it means
[4:38] Speaker 2: to take a shape into yourself, to really make it
[4:41] Speaker 2: your own and not copy something from the outside. and
[4:47] Speaker 2: not to try and impose something of your own on
[4:52] Speaker 2: your materials and your processes. So it was, sorry, go on.
[4:58] Speaker 1: No, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Well, ceramics, it's one of those, all the elements are involved, earth, water, fire.
[5:09] Speaker 2: So a pottery workshop is like a conjunction of all
[5:15] Speaker 2: the kind of elements and forces of nature. And you,
[5:20] Speaker 2: as the, as the maker are kind of orchestrating this, um,
[5:25] Speaker 2: confluence of materials and processes, um, and sort of harnessing them,
[5:32] Speaker 2: harnessing the materials and energies of, of nature. And it's
[5:37] Speaker 2: a very humbling process. Um, it's very, um, exposing of you.
[5:44] Speaker 2: If you try to impose yourself, it's a, it's in
[5:47] Speaker 2: a way it's a kind of spiritual practice it was for.
[5:50] Speaker 1: Me you mentioned that is as a bowl is a
[5:53] Speaker 1: sacred transmission um that comes through and as an artist
[5:57] Speaker 1: i understand that because when i do my work as
[5:59] Speaker 1: an artist many times i feel like almost almost a
[6:03] Speaker 1: channel of energy coming through to create the art that
[6:07] Speaker 1: you're creating or the item that you're creating but What
[6:11] Speaker 1: do you mean by a sacred transmission when a bowl
[6:14] Speaker 1: is a sacred transmission? For us, it's an everyday object.
[6:16] Speaker 1: But when you're creating it as a pottery, as a ceramic,
[6:19] Speaker 1: it's a very different experience.
[6:21] Speaker 2: It's an everyday object. But as with all objects, all
[6:26] Speaker 2: objects are the appearance of, I would suggest, the physical
[6:33] Speaker 2: world in general is the appearance of objects. of the
[6:39] Speaker 2: reality of the world, which lies, as it were, behind it.
[6:43] Speaker 2: It's not really a physical world that we live in.
[6:45] Speaker 2: The physical world is just how our senses render reality.
[6:50] Speaker 2: And that goes, of course, for every object. So to
[6:53] Speaker 2: come to your question now, a bowl, what it is
[7:00] Speaker 2: in and of itself is not a physical object. It's
[7:04] Speaker 2: just our senses render it as a physical object. William
[7:11] Speaker 2: Blake said it so perfectly. He said, every bird that
[7:14] Speaker 2: cuts the airy way, every bird that flies through the sky,
[7:18] Speaker 2: every bird that cuts the airy way is an immense
[7:20] Speaker 2: world of light enclosed by our five senses. So he
[7:24] Speaker 2: had this idea that the senses kind of dumb down
[7:28] Speaker 2: reality and present the reality, in Blake's case, the reality
[7:34] Speaker 2: of the bird, the reality of the object, the reality
[7:36] Speaker 2: of nature, present it to us in a way that
[7:38] Speaker 2: is consistent with our perceiving faculties, but what it is
[7:42] Speaker 2: in itself, William Blake said, an immense world of delight
[7:46] Speaker 2: enclosed or captured or reduced by our five senses. So
[7:51] Speaker 2: I would say a bowl was the same thing. It's
[7:53] Speaker 2: the appearance of all the energies that have gone into
[7:59] Speaker 2: the make of it. And those energies are partly your
[8:03] Speaker 2: own personal ideas and emotions and thoughts But it's also
[8:08] Speaker 2: everything that you've inherited from your culture. So a bowl
[8:13] Speaker 2: is a confluence of ideas captured by our perceiving faculties.
[8:21] Speaker 2: And in that sense, the object is a transmission of
[8:25] Speaker 2: the ideas that have gone into the make of it.
[8:29] Speaker 2: So depending on the ideas that that are behind. And
[8:35] Speaker 2: this is the same for your work, for any creativity.
[8:38] Speaker 2: The created object is the representation, the manifestation of all
[8:43] Speaker 2: the ideas, the emotions, the energies that have gone into it.
[8:46] Speaker 2: And they deliver these energies, these ideas to the viewer
[8:53] Speaker 2: as a bowl or a piece of music or a
[8:55] Speaker 2: movie or an object. So in that sense, the bowl
[9:01] Speaker 2: is a representation All the ideas, some of them your
[9:05] Speaker 2: own personal ideas, but also those that you've inherited from
[9:07] Speaker 2: your culture and from your era, from your time, from
[9:12] Speaker 2: your location.
[9:13] Speaker 1: That's why looking at art from the past is such
[9:16] Speaker 1: a portal into that artist's experience.
[9:20] Speaker 2: Absolutely. You're going into the mind. You're looking at a
[9:24] Speaker 2: painting or listening to a piece of music. But what
[9:28] Speaker 2: you're really doing is looking into the mind. the person
[9:33] Speaker 2: who created it and not just their personal mind of
[9:36] Speaker 2: course their personal mind is part of it but their
[9:38] Speaker 2: personal mind as indeed as our personal minds are also
[9:43] Speaker 2: the repository of of the ideas that we've inherited from
[9:47] Speaker 2: our culture so each of our minds represents not only
[9:51] Speaker 2: our personal ideas but the ideas that we've been we've
[9:54] Speaker 2: inherited from our parents and our culture so every work
[9:57] Speaker 2: of art is both you're looking into the mind of
[10:00] Speaker 2: the maker, of the artist, of the composer, of the painter,
[10:04] Speaker 2: of the ceramicist, but you're also looking into their culture.
[10:12] Speaker 1: At the time, of that time.
[10:15] Speaker 2: Exactly. And then some works of art, of course, are very,
[10:21] Speaker 2: are just expressions of the ideas of their time. But
[10:26] Speaker 2: some works of art, and I would suggest that these
[10:28] Speaker 2: were the really great works of art, transcend the temporal,
[10:33] Speaker 2: local ideas. And the artist is a channel not just
[10:38] Speaker 2: for the temporal, local ideas of their culture, but of
[10:43] Speaker 2: universal truths, albeit expressed in the time and place in
[10:50] Speaker 2: which they were working. And that's what I mean by
[10:53] Speaker 2: a sacred transmission. A sacred transmission is a transmission of
[10:56] Speaker 2: something that is impersonal. It's not just an individual person's truth,
[11:01] Speaker 2: but something that is universally true.
[11:07] Speaker 1: Like a perfect example, coming from my world of filmmaking,
[11:11] Speaker 1: there are films that are very dated, meaning they are
[11:14] Speaker 1: a product of the time and the filmmaker. Exactly. But
[11:18] Speaker 1: then there are films that are timeless that you can
[11:21] Speaker 1: watch at any time and it doesn't seem to be
[11:25] Speaker 1: stuck in a specific time. I'll use Star Wars. Using
[11:28] Speaker 1: Star Wars for an example or The Matrix for an example.
[11:31] Speaker 1: In a hundred years, both those films will be looked
[11:34] Speaker 1: upon and will continue to go where many of their
[11:38] Speaker 1: contemporaries will fall to the wayside because they were a
[11:42] Speaker 1: product of their time.
[11:44] Speaker 2: That's very true. That's what I would call a great
[11:47] Speaker 2: work of art, a work of art that transcends its
[11:50] Speaker 2: local temporal framework. And they're also the works of art
[11:55] Speaker 2: that every time you watch them in the case of
[12:01] Speaker 2: a movie, every time you listen to them in the
[12:03] Speaker 2: case of a piece of music, every time you use
[12:05] Speaker 2: the object in the case of a... They keep on
[12:07] Speaker 2: delivering their meaning fresh. They're always fresh. They're evergreen. They're
[12:14] Speaker 2: always fresh. You never... feel, oh, I'm watching the same
[12:17] Speaker 2: film again. I know this. You've seen something new in it.
[12:21] Speaker 2: You experience it new every time. The work has that
[12:25] Speaker 2: power because the understanding it is conveying is something alive
[12:31] Speaker 2: and present and relevant now.
[12:34] Speaker 1: It's kind of like anytime you watch a Stanley Kubrick film.
[12:37] Speaker 1: You know, when you watch it at 20 is very
[12:39] Speaker 1: different than when you watch it at 50.
[12:41] Speaker 2: Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly. Yes.
[12:44] Speaker 1: Yes.
[12:46] Speaker 2: And of course, it goes for writing as well, a
[12:48] Speaker 2: piece of writing, a sacred text, a powerful poem. They
[12:54] Speaker 2: go on delivering their meaning.
[12:56] Speaker 1: Right. I mean, The Christmas Carol, a perfect example of work.
[13:01] Speaker 1: Any Dickens, Shakespeare, Bacon.
[13:04] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[13:05] Speaker 1: They just carry on forever. They just carry on forever.
[13:08] Speaker 1: The Christmas Carol is timeless and will be timeless forever.
[13:14] Speaker 1: And will we continue to be retold until we, until
[13:18] Speaker 1: we stop our last breath?
[13:19] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
[13:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[13:21] Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. So, so that, that's what I mean by a,
[13:24] Speaker 2: by a sacred transmission, a sacred work of art. And
[13:28] Speaker 2: it can be a, uh, it can be a, it
[13:30] Speaker 2: can be a magnificent symphony, but it can also just
[13:33] Speaker 2: be a cup and saucer. It's, um, Almost universal truths
[13:41] Speaker 2: can be expressed through any medium. Filmmaking, of course, is
[13:45] Speaker 2: one of the great mediums of our time, our era.
[13:49] Speaker 1: Right, exactly. It's only about 125 years old at this point.
[13:53] Speaker 1: It hasn't been around a long time, but it is
[13:56] Speaker 1: a combination of all the arts. Every one, almost, is
[14:00] Speaker 1: included in the making of those. It's beautiful. So you were...
[14:07] Speaker 1: You were a potter and you had your own studio
[14:11] Speaker 1: for about 30 years, if I'm not mistaken?
[14:14] Speaker 2: That's right. Yes.
[14:16] Speaker 1: During that time, you were moonlighting because you were a
[14:21] Speaker 1: potter by day and a very well-known and popular and
[14:27] Speaker 1: successful potter, but you were also studying deep thoughts and
[14:31] Speaker 1: philosophies and spirituality. Yes. I don't know if it was
[14:35] Speaker 1: quiet or not, but you were doing it both at
[14:36] Speaker 1: the same time, correct?
[14:37] Speaker 2: You're right. By day, I was working as a potter
[14:42] Speaker 2: in my studio and exhibiting around the world. And I
[14:45] Speaker 2: did this for 35 years or so. But yes, I
[14:50] Speaker 2: was moonlighting. My passion, well, pottery was my passion, but
[14:55] Speaker 2: I had this twin passion. I was deeply interested in, well,
[15:02] Speaker 2: really in the... recognition of my true nature. But I
[15:06] Speaker 2: was exploring it particularly through the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition.
[15:11] Speaker 2: So I learned to meditate when I was 16. I
[15:14] Speaker 2: was doing the Mevlevi Sufi turning. I learned Gurdjieff's movements.
[15:18] Speaker 2: I was reading Ouspensky and Krishnamurti and Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi.
[15:25] Speaker 2: So by night I was studying and contemplating and thinking
[15:31] Speaker 2: and meditating and reading. And by day, I was working
[15:36] Speaker 2: in my studio, yes.
[15:39] Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
[15:45] Speaker 1: And now, back to the show. Let me ask you,
[15:49] Speaker 1: the Sufi dance, which is when people think of Sufis,
[15:52] Speaker 1: they automatically, the most popular part of a Sufi, which
[15:56] Speaker 1: is a mystic, it's a mystic sect in Islam, correct?
[16:00] Speaker 1: It's kind of a mystic.
[16:00] Speaker 2: That's right.
[16:01] Speaker 1: Yes. So with that dance is when they have the
[16:04] Speaker 1: hat and they're.
[16:05] Speaker 2: All, that's right.
[16:07] Speaker 1: And they just are spinning and spinning. Can you explain
[16:10] Speaker 1: to me the spiritual, the spiritual idea behind that, or
[16:14] Speaker 1: is it a meditation or what is the reasoning for
[16:18] Speaker 1: the dance and what is it supposed to be transmitting
[16:21] Speaker 1: or connecting you to when you're doing it?
[16:23] Speaker 2: It's a meditation and at the same time, a prayer.
[16:29] Speaker 2: And it's, it's really a, um, it's really a complete
[16:33] Speaker 2: surrender to God. It's a devotional practice of complete surrender
[16:39] Speaker 2: of oneself to God. And it's a very powerful practice
[16:44] Speaker 2: because when you're doing the turning, to begin with, if
[16:48] Speaker 2: you were to start turning now in your room, you
[16:52] Speaker 2: would feel that you were going round and round and round.
[16:56] Speaker 2: And you do feel that to begin with, but after
[16:58] Speaker 2: a while, you begin to feel it. very, very, this
[17:03] Speaker 2: is when you're doing the Mevlevi turning, you begin to
[17:05] Speaker 2: feel completely still. And instead of you turning anti-clockwise, you
[17:13] Speaker 2: feel that you're completely still and that the room is
[17:15] Speaker 2: turning clockwise around you. So you come to this complete
[17:20] Speaker 2: feeling of stillness, although you are actually turning anti-clockwise. And
[17:26] Speaker 2: it's quite a demanding practice physically, but you come to
[17:30] Speaker 2: this very, very still place, right at the kind of
[17:34] Speaker 2: heart of your experience. So in that sense, it's a
[17:39] Speaker 2: very profound meditation, but it also has a deep devotional
[17:43] Speaker 2: aspect to it. It's a complete surrender of oneself to God.
[17:48] Speaker 1: It seems like it's a technique then to basically quiet
[17:50] Speaker 1: the mind or get rid of all of the stimulus
[17:54] Speaker 1: of the world, which is what meditators have a problem with,
[17:57] Speaker 1: especially when they start. is all that stuff. But it
[17:59] Speaker 1: kind of just, it seems what you're explaining that it's like, it's,
[18:03] Speaker 1: it just, you're focused so hard on not falling.
[18:07] Speaker 2: And that you're spinning.
[18:09] Speaker 1: It's, it's a meditation.
[18:10] Speaker 2: That's true, but it would not do it justice to
[18:13] Speaker 2: say that it was a technique to quieten the mind.
[18:16] Speaker 2: Quietening the mind is the side effect.
[18:19] Speaker 1: Correct. That makes sense.
[18:20] Speaker 2: It's the almost inevitable consequence of the practice, but it's
[18:25] Speaker 2: not a, a technique, um, It's true what you say,
[18:29] Speaker 2: but to call it a technique to quiet the mind
[18:33] Speaker 2: would be to diminish it.
[18:34] Speaker 1: I agree. I understand.
[18:36] Speaker 2: You would never call it a prayer, a technique.
[18:39] Speaker 1: A technique. Fair enough. It's too technical.
[18:42] Speaker 2: Got it. Although you're right in the sense that it's
[18:44] Speaker 2: very technical. You have to do it right. It's demanding physically.
[18:48] Speaker 2: If you do it, you can't turn for half an
[18:52] Speaker 2: hour without getting extremely dizzy and sick.
[18:56] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[18:58] Speaker 2: And it's also demanding to keep your hands. It's very specific.
[19:02] Speaker 2: So you're right. There is a technique to it, but
[19:04] Speaker 2: that is the least of it. But you have to
[19:08] Speaker 2: get that correct and out of the way. And then,
[19:11] Speaker 2: of course, so that you're not focusing on that. Like
[19:15] Speaker 2: any art form, you have to master the A to
[19:19] Speaker 2: Z of your craft, but then you have to forget it.
[19:22] Speaker 2: It has to be so So you have to be
[19:26] Speaker 2: so familiar with your technique, your materials, your processes, that
[19:30] Speaker 2: they're no longer an obstruction. So yes, there's a technical
[19:34] Speaker 2: aspect to it, but that's the least of it.
[19:36] Speaker 1: Right. It's essentially like as a writer, when you're going
[19:39] Speaker 1: to sit down to write a novel, you aren't thinking
[19:42] Speaker 1: about the hero's journey the entire time you're writing. You
[19:47] Speaker 1: already have that in you, so you're just a flow, essentially.
[19:49] Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
[19:51] Speaker 1: Exactly. Yes.
[19:52] Speaker 2: But if you haven't mastered the A to Z of
[19:54] Speaker 2: your craft, you spend all your time struggling with your
[19:57] Speaker 2: technique and you never enter into that flow. So you
[20:02] Speaker 2: have to do that. You can't bypass that, but you
[20:06] Speaker 2: have to transcend that. You have to master it and
[20:08] Speaker 2: transcend it.
[20:09] Speaker 1: Now, Rupert, I've always said that this reality is very intoxicating.
[20:17] Speaker 1: It's once our being is in this avatar, walking in
[20:22] Speaker 1: this reality, what's around and it's designed this way is
[20:26] Speaker 1: extremely enticing from all the physical pleasures, all the stimuli,
[20:31] Speaker 1: all the interactions, all of that stuff. is extremely, and
[20:35] Speaker 1: it feels so real that it is always a challenge
[20:38] Speaker 1: to quiet that, to connect to the true self, to
[20:43] Speaker 1: connect to the awareness or the observer that is watching
[20:46] Speaker 1: it because this is so enticing. Why is it that
[20:50] Speaker 1: being a person feels so much more real than awareness itself,
[20:57] Speaker 1: where the awareness or the observer or the soul is
[21:00] Speaker 1: the real thing when this is not?
[21:03] Speaker 2: Our sense perceptions are so powerful. Our waking state experience
[21:12] Speaker 2: is dominated by sense perception. The entire waking state experience
[21:17] Speaker 2: takes place through sense perception, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling.
[21:21] Speaker 2: So our entire experience of the world is mediated through
[21:26] Speaker 2: sense perception. Sense perception is like a VR headset that
[21:32] Speaker 2: we're wearing. except that we've been wearing it for so
[21:34] Speaker 2: long that we don't realize we're wearing it. So we
[21:38] Speaker 2: believe and deeply feel that perception gives us an accurate
[21:42] Speaker 2: representation of reality. It's like someone who's been wearing orange-tinted
[21:47] Speaker 2: contact lenses for 30 years and no longer realizes they're
[21:51] Speaker 2: doing so, and they think the world is orange. No, no, no,
[21:53] Speaker 2: the world isn't orange, but they've forgotten they're looking at
[21:56] Speaker 2: it through an orange-tinted lens. Well, perception is the orange-tinted
[22:00] Speaker 2: lens that tints reality and makes it appear as a
[22:06] Speaker 2: physical world. And it's very persuasive because all our waking
[22:13] Speaker 2: state experience is filtered through perception. So we tend to
[22:18] Speaker 2: believe the evidence of sense perception, whereas the awareness, as
[22:23] Speaker 2: you say, which is what we are at the deepest level,
[22:26] Speaker 2: never shows up in the content of experience. Although it's
[22:33] Speaker 2: what we are at the deepest level, it never registers
[22:39] Speaker 2: as an experience. Just like when you're watching a movie,
[22:43] Speaker 2: all you're really seeing is the screen, but the screen
[22:45] Speaker 2: never shows up in the movie. If you get lost
[22:50] Speaker 2: in the movie, you forget that you're seeing the screen.
[22:54] Speaker 2: The screen seems to become invisible. Of course, you're never
[22:58] Speaker 2: experiencing anything other than the screen, but you don't realize that.
[23:02] Speaker 2: because you're lost in the content. Well, our experience is
[23:05] Speaker 2: like the drama in the movie. As you say, it's
[23:08] Speaker 2: so intoxicating. It's either so pleasurable, it's either so pleasant
[23:12] Speaker 2: or so unpleasant that one way or the other, it
[23:17] Speaker 2: absorbs our attention to the exclusion of the screen. The
[23:23] Speaker 2: screen in this context, of course, is the presence of awareness,
[23:26] Speaker 2: which is not only that which knows our experience, but
[23:30] Speaker 2: it's also the medium in which all experience takes place.
[23:34] Speaker 2: But it's transparent, it's invisible, it's silent. So for one
[23:40] Speaker 2: who only looks through sense perception, we overlook it, we
[23:47] Speaker 2: ignore it.
[23:47] Speaker 1: Can you explain to people, and I ask it so flippantly,
[23:52] Speaker 1: but can you explain to people the nature of the
[23:54] Speaker 1: true reality?
[23:58] Speaker 2: The nature of reality.
[24:00] Speaker 1: Yes, of nature of the true reality, not just this reality.
[24:04] Speaker 1: Not just this reality, but the nature of it because
[24:06] Speaker 1: so many people are intoxicated by this world. But yet,
[24:09] Speaker 1: it seems in recent decades that there is a hunger
[24:15] Speaker 1: to look beyond it. I brought up the Matrix earlier.
[24:18] Speaker 1: The Matrix was one of those first zeitgeist moments that
[24:21] Speaker 1: people said, wait a minute, are we in a computer simulation?
[24:25] Speaker 1: Whether it's a computer simulation, but we are in a simulation.
[24:28] Speaker 1: It's been talked about in the Vedas. It's been talked
[24:29] Speaker 1: about by the Aborigines. It's been talked about by the
[24:32] Speaker 1: American Indians. It's a concept that's old as time itself.
[24:36] Speaker 2: So the ancients knew this. So can you explain a
[24:38] Speaker 2: little bit? And you're right that there is a hunger nowadays.
[24:41] Speaker 2: And I think it's because people look around at what
[24:44] Speaker 2: is happening in the world. And for all our scientific sophistication,
[24:51] Speaker 2: and if you look around at the extent of the
[24:56] Speaker 2: the anxiety and the sorrow people feel on the inside
[25:00] Speaker 2: and the extent of the conflict on the outside. People
[25:03] Speaker 2: look around and think, we've got something wrong. You know,
[25:09] Speaker 2: if an alien was to visit our earth and can
[25:13] Speaker 2: sample our lives, how people spend their lives and relate
[25:17] Speaker 2: to one another, that they would think these people, These
[25:21] Speaker 2: people are crazy. They've got something wrong. So I think
[25:24] Speaker 2: this is why there is this hunger. Now, to your question,
[25:32] Speaker 2: can I explain the reality? I'm not going to explain it. Ultimately,
[25:39] Speaker 2: it's very hard. It's impossible to explain. I know you
[25:43] Speaker 2: understand this. But can I try to respond to your
[25:48] Speaker 2: question again experientially? So your listeners don't feel that I'm
[25:53] Speaker 2: just telling them how things are, but helping them to
[25:58] Speaker 2: discover for themselves. And that will also show everyone who
[26:05] Speaker 2: is listening how I've arrived at what I consider to
[26:09] Speaker 2: be the ultimate reality and what many of the great
[26:14] Speaker 2: traditions for hundreds, thousands of years have considered to be
[26:17] Speaker 2: the ultimate reality. So start with your experience. with what
[26:22] Speaker 2: you're experiencing now. Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, feeling, imagining, thinking,
[26:32] Speaker 2: that's all we have. Let's just call it thinking and perceiving,
[26:37] Speaker 2: for sure. That's what everybody is doing now. That's all
[26:40] Speaker 2: we ever know, thinking and perceiving. And if you touch
[26:47] Speaker 2: the stuff that thinking and perceiving are made of, all
[26:53] Speaker 2: you find is knowing or consciousness. Another way of expressing this,
[27:00] Speaker 2: all we have is experience. All that is ever known
[27:05] Speaker 2: by anyone is experience. And the only substance present in
[27:09] Speaker 2: experience is knowing, consciousness. So the only substance that anybody
[27:17] Speaker 2: actually ever knows is knowing or consciousness. And of course,
[27:22] Speaker 2: if you then ask, what is it that is knowing
[27:27] Speaker 2: this knowing? It's only knowing. It's only consciousness aware of itself.
[27:33] Speaker 2: So this knowing, this consciousness is the only substance present
[27:38] Speaker 2: in experience, just as you might say the screen is
[27:40] Speaker 2: the only substance present in a movie. It looks like people, objects,
[27:45] Speaker 2: a landscape, but it's all a coloring of the screen.
[27:50] Speaker 2: All experience is a coloring of consciousness, a coloring of knowing.
[27:54] Speaker 2: And for that reason, I would suggest that knowing pure
[27:59] Speaker 2: consciousness is the ultimate reality. Because that's our experience. Our
[28:05] Speaker 2: experience is that the only substance we ever come in
[28:08] Speaker 2: contact with isn't knowing or consciousness.
[28:12] Speaker 1: There's a quote that Paramahansa Yogananda wrote. Which I think
[28:17] Speaker 1: is so beautiful and I think it illustrates what you're
[28:19] Speaker 1: trying to say so beautifully. That he says, when you're
[28:22] Speaker 1: in a movie theater and looking at a screen, you
[28:24] Speaker 1: get caught up in the drama and the violence and
[28:27] Speaker 1: the death and the love and the beauty and all that.
[28:31] Speaker 1: And that's what you're seeing on the screen. And you
[28:33] Speaker 1: get intoxicated by the screen. He goes, but that's not
[28:36] Speaker 1: where you need to be focused. You need to turn
[28:38] Speaker 1: around and look at where the light is coming from.
[28:41] Speaker 1: That is beautiful. where your focus should be. What do
[28:45] Speaker 1: you think of that quote?
[28:46] Speaker 2: I think it's absolutely right. It draws attention to one
[28:54] Speaker 2: aspect of consciousness, which is the illuminating element. It's the light.
[29:03] Speaker 2: As you say, you turn around, you turn away from
[29:05] Speaker 2: the movie, you look back. It's the light bulb that
[29:08] Speaker 2: illuminates the movie. So it's a beautiful analogy. And it
[29:13] Speaker 2: illuminates the knowing aspect of consciousness. But like all analogies,
[29:23] Speaker 2: it has its limits. And what's limited about it, and
[29:27] Speaker 2: this is not, I just want to be absolutely sure
[29:31] Speaker 2: you understand, this is not the criticism of Paramahansa Yogananda,
[29:35] Speaker 2: for whom I have the highest regard All analogies are limited.
[29:43] Speaker 2: So the analogy of the light bulb in the traditional
[29:47] Speaker 2: cinema draws attention to the illuminating factor, the knowing factor
[29:51] Speaker 2: of consciousness. It's consciousness that renders our experience knowable. It
[29:55] Speaker 2: is consciousness that is knowing your thoughts, that is hearing
[29:59] Speaker 2: my words and so on. But what it doesn't do,
[30:02] Speaker 2: because there is a distance in this analogy, because there
[30:06] Speaker 2: is a distance between the bulb and the movie, it
[30:10] Speaker 2: suggests that consciousness is one thing and experience is something else.
[30:18] Speaker 2: Because the bulb is one thing and the movie is
[30:20] Speaker 2: something else. Well, that's why I use the analogy of
[30:24] Speaker 2: a laptop screen where the bulb The light is in
[30:32] Speaker 2: the screen. But the screen is also the medium within
[30:39] Speaker 2: which the movie is taking place.
[30:42] Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
[30:48] Speaker 1: And now, back to the show.
[30:52] Speaker 2: And that has more, this analogy, using the idea of
[30:56] Speaker 2: a laptop screen, where the bulb, the film, and the
[31:00] Speaker 2: screen are all the same thing is a closer analogy
[31:05] Speaker 2: to consciousness because consciousness is not just that which knows
[31:10] Speaker 2: our experience. It's also the medium within which all experience arises.
[31:16] Speaker 2: And it's not only the medium within which experience arises.
[31:20] Speaker 2: It is also that of which all experience is a modulation,
[31:26] Speaker 2: just like the movie could be said to be a
[31:28] Speaker 2: modulation of the screen. So I like Yogananda's quote. It
[31:36] Speaker 2: has a certain explanatory power. I think once that analogy
[31:41] Speaker 2: has done its job in drawing your attention to the
[31:44] Speaker 2: presence of awareness, the knowing element in all experience, it
[31:48] Speaker 2: then has to be abandoned in favor of another analogy,
[31:52] Speaker 2: which collapses the distinction between awareness, between consciousness and experience.
[31:58] Speaker 1: I mean, what we're discussing here is essentially Plato's allegory
[32:01] Speaker 1: of the cave. And he said that over 2,000 years ago.
[32:05] Speaker 1: It's a similar concept, correct?
[32:07] Speaker 2: Absolutely. I am not saying anything that nobody else has
[32:13] Speaker 2: been saying for millennia. I'm possibly saying it in a
[32:18] Speaker 2: language that is, I hope, contemporary and relevant to our time.
[32:23] Speaker 2: But these ideas, going back to what we were saying
[32:26] Speaker 2: about the physical senses giving us a representation, of what
[32:32] Speaker 2: is really there, that those are the shadows on the cave,
[32:37] Speaker 2: on the cave wall. But, you know, if Plato had
[32:41] Speaker 2: had a laptop and watched movies, he would have upgraded
[32:44] Speaker 2: his analogy. He would not have spoken in terms of
[32:48] Speaker 2: a fire and the prisoners and their shadows on the wall.
[32:51] Speaker 2: He would have upgraded his, and I believe that Ramana Maharshi,
[32:56] Speaker 2: you know, in his time in the mid in the
[32:59] Speaker 2: 1940s and 50s, there were cinema screens with projectors at
[33:03] Speaker 2: the back in the villages of India. That was the
[33:05] Speaker 2: obvious analogy to use. If Ramana Maharshi was alive now
[33:09] Speaker 2: and had a laptop, I'm quite sure he would have
[33:11] Speaker 2: upgraded his analogy. And I'm quite sure that in 30
[33:17] Speaker 2: years' time when laptops and computers IMAX, when we're all
[33:23] Speaker 2: looking at holograms.
[33:26] Speaker 1: The holodeck from Star Trek.
[33:29] Speaker 2: Exactly. Somebody will upgrade this analogy of the movie and
[33:34] Speaker 2: the screen, and it'll all be holograms, just the world
[33:37] Speaker 2: appearing in a modulation of empty space and a modulation
[33:42] Speaker 2: of luminous emptiness.
[33:44] Speaker 1: I wanted to get your take on this question because
[33:48] Speaker 1: A lot of times we think about something and you
[33:51] Speaker 1: kind of explained it a little bit with experiential. I
[33:53] Speaker 1: found that experiential knowledge is so much more powerful than
[33:57] Speaker 1: knowledge that you are told by somebody else. Kind of like, hey,
[34:01] Speaker 1: if you put your hand in the fire, you're going
[34:03] Speaker 1: to burn. Hey, if you put your hand in the fire,
[34:05] Speaker 1: you're going to get burned. And you're like, I understand
[34:07] Speaker 1: the concept. But until I put my hand in the
[34:10] Speaker 1: fire and actually get burned, then I go, oh, now
[34:13] Speaker 1: I really get it. So what separates the thought of
[34:16] Speaker 1: peace in your life? from peace itself.
[34:22] Speaker 2: Let's stick with yoga, the classical analogy of the light
[34:29] Speaker 2: bulb behind you as opposed to the movie in front
[34:33] Speaker 2: of you. And as you suggested, you have to turn
[34:37] Speaker 2: away from the content of the movie in order to
[34:40] Speaker 2: see the light bulb. So the analogy for this is
[34:42] Speaker 2: that we turn away from the content of experience and
[34:47] Speaker 2: we sink back. to the the fact of being or
[34:52] Speaker 2: being aware and and if we do that if we
[34:56] Speaker 2: temporarily turn our attention away from our thoughts feelings sensations
[35:00] Speaker 2: perceptions and we we go back to the simple fact
[35:04] Speaker 2: of of being or being aware that is always at
[35:10] Speaker 2: peace that that's the experience of peace is your nature
[35:15] Speaker 2: Peace is the nature of being, or the nature of
[35:19] Speaker 2: being aware, awareness itself. In just the same way that
[35:23] Speaker 2: the screen on which the drama of a movie plays
[35:27] Speaker 2: is never disturbed by the drama. It is one with it,
[35:32] Speaker 2: but it is not implicated by it. It's the same.
[35:36] Speaker 2: The screen of awareness on which the drama of experience
[35:39] Speaker 2: plays is totally one with experience, but is never disturbed.
[35:43] Speaker 2: harmed or moved or changed or disturbed by it. And
[35:48] Speaker 2: that is, is the, it's, it's this recognition that at
[35:53] Speaker 2: the deepest level, the awareness that you essentially are is
[35:57] Speaker 2: inherently peaceful.
[35:59] Speaker 1: Robert, so I love this now because essentially you just
[36:02] Speaker 1: said something that just, I never thought of in this
[36:05] Speaker 1: way before the screen. As you can imagine, I've spent
[36:08] Speaker 1: a lot of time in movie screens and movie theaters
[36:10] Speaker 1: and working in cinema. So I've never thought about this,
[36:13] Speaker 1: but the screen itself is not disturbed. You're correct. It's
[36:16] Speaker 1: never disturbed by the movie. It is one with it.
[36:19] Speaker 1: And no matter, the screen does not change, ever, until
[36:25] Speaker 1: something is projected onto the screen. The laptop screen does
[36:28] Speaker 1: not change until it turns on and someone is moving it.
[36:32] Speaker 1: The laptop itself is. The screen itself in a movie
[36:35] Speaker 1: theater is moving. Period. But whatever gets projected onto it
[36:41] Speaker 1: is what we perceive. Can we unpack that idea a
[36:45] Speaker 1: little bit with the nature of this reality? Because this
[36:48] Speaker 1: reality is our screen. But what we project or what
[36:51] Speaker 1: is being projected on it is what we're perceiving. We're
[36:55] Speaker 1: getting into the deep ends of the water here. So
[36:56] Speaker 1: I love this.
[36:57] Speaker 2: No, no, no. This is this is that you're right.
[37:00] Speaker 2: We're going to the very heart of the matter. So
[37:02] Speaker 2: first of all, can we upgrade the traditional metaphor of
[37:09] Speaker 2: a projector at the back of a cinema projecting something
[37:13] Speaker 2: onto a screen? And can we come to a, we're
[37:17] Speaker 2: watching a movie on Netflix. It's the screen, it's not
[37:21] Speaker 2: that the movie is not projected onto the screen from
[37:24] Speaker 2: the outside. It's the screen itself that modulates itself in
[37:30] Speaker 2: the form of the movie. So the movie, you haven't
[37:34] Speaker 2: got the screen and something projected onto it. All there
[37:39] Speaker 2: is is the screen. And it's the screen itself that
[37:42] Speaker 2: modulates itself in the form of the movie, assumes the
[37:46] Speaker 2: colors and the shapes of the movie without ever actually
[37:49] Speaker 2: ceasing to be the screen.
[37:52] Speaker 1: Right.
[37:52] Speaker 2: So that's what I would suggest, that it is consciousness. Okay,
[37:58] Speaker 2: this is more difficult to explain now. Because consciousness is
[38:01] Speaker 2: both the medium on which or in which all experience appears,
[38:08] Speaker 2: but it is also that which knows our experience. So
[38:13] Speaker 2: consciousness has a luminous quality. It illuminates or knows our experience,
[38:19] Speaker 2: but it also has a spacious quality. It contains all experience. Now,
[38:25] Speaker 2: consciousness by itself, it being alive, All that there is,
[38:30] Speaker 2: it is infinite. There's nothing in itself other than itself
[38:35] Speaker 2: with which it could be divided or limited. So consciousness
[38:38] Speaker 2: itself is limited. And therefore, consciousness cannot know experience directly.
[38:45] Speaker 1: Why?
[38:46] Speaker 2: Because for there to be experience, there must be a
[38:49] Speaker 2: subject and an object. And the subject must stand apart
[38:54] Speaker 2: from the object. You can't see your eyes. Because you
[39:00] Speaker 2: can see everything that is at a distance from your eyes,
[39:04] Speaker 2: but within the limits of the analogy, the one thing
[39:07] Speaker 2: your eyes cannot see are themselves. Why? Because they cannot
[39:12] Speaker 2: stand apart from themselves. It's just an analogy. So likewise,
[39:18] Speaker 2: for anything to be known, such as a world, it
[39:22] Speaker 2: must be known by a subject that stands apart from it.
[39:28] Speaker 2: And this subject-object relationship is the mechanism by which all
[39:33] Speaker 2: experience takes place. And this is enshrined in common parlance.
[39:37] Speaker 2: I know my thoughts. I feel sad. I perceive the
[39:41] Speaker 2: tree and so on. All experience, with the exception of
[39:45] Speaker 2: the awareness of being, takes place in subject-object relationship. Consciousness
[39:52] Speaker 2: by itself is a realm of infinite potential, but it
[39:58] Speaker 2: cannot know that potential by itself. In order to know something,
[40:04] Speaker 2: it must localize itself. It must contract into a finite
[40:09] Speaker 2: mind that that's you and me. That's all of us.
[40:14] Speaker 2: It must, in just the same way that Your mind,
[40:18] Speaker 2: I'm mixing my metaphors, my apologies. When you have a
[40:21] Speaker 2: dream at night, all possible dreams lie in potentially your
[40:26] Speaker 2: individual mind. But when you dream one of those dreams,
[40:30] Speaker 2: you don't view it. If you're in Austin, Texas, and
[40:34] Speaker 2: you dream that you're on the streets of London, you
[40:36] Speaker 2: don't view the streets of London from your bed asleep
[40:41] Speaker 2: in Austin. Your mind simultaneously creates the dream. and localizes
[40:48] Speaker 2: itself in the dream as a separate subject of experience
[40:52] Speaker 2: from whose point of view your own mind sees its
[40:56] Speaker 2: own activity as the streets of London, as the dreamed world. Well,
[41:00] Speaker 2: I would suggest that consciousness does exactly the same thing.
[41:04] Speaker 2: It vibrates within itself, so to speak. It modulates itself.
[41:14] Speaker 2: But in order to, but it cannot, experience its own
[41:18] Speaker 2: activity directly it has to it has to divide itself
[41:22] Speaker 2: in two it has to divide itself into a subject
[41:25] Speaker 2: and an object or numerous subjects and numerous objects and
[41:29] Speaker 2: each of us are the numerous subjects that are localizations
[41:35] Speaker 2: of infinite consciousness and it is through our perceiving faculties
[41:40] Speaker 2: that consciousness views itself as the world So what the
[41:46] Speaker 2: world really is, is mind. It's the activity of consciousness.
[41:52] Speaker 2: In religious language, it's God's mind. But because we view
[42:01] Speaker 2: the activity of consciousness through the screen of perception, we
[42:06] Speaker 2: experience it in a way that's consistent with our perceiving faculties.
[42:11] Speaker 2: Our perceiving faculties consist of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling.
[42:16] Speaker 2: And not surprisingly, we experience reality as sight, sounds, taste, textures,
[42:22] Speaker 2: and smells. There are no sights, sounds, tastes, textures, and
[42:25] Speaker 2: smells out there. There's no physical world out there. Our
[42:28] Speaker 2: perceiving faculties render the activity of infinite consciousness as a
[42:34] Speaker 2: physical world. So in other words, what we perceive as
[42:39] Speaker 2: the physical world takes place at the interface between infinite
[42:44] Speaker 2: consciousness and each of our finite minds. And this is
[42:48] Speaker 2: what the poet William Wordsworth meant when he said, we
[42:50] Speaker 2: half perceive, half create the world. So the world exists
[42:58] Speaker 2: outside of our individual minds. I'm not suggesting that all
[43:01] Speaker 2: there is to the world is the projection of our
[43:03] Speaker 2: individual mind. There is a reality to the world outside
[43:07] Speaker 2: and independent of each of our finite minds. But the
[43:11] Speaker 2: finite mind gives the world its appearance. So the world
[43:17] Speaker 2: owes its reality to infinite consciousness, but it borrows its
[43:21] Speaker 2: appearance from the finite mind.
[43:24] Speaker 1: Well, it's very much like the old saying, if a
[43:27] Speaker 1: tree falls in the forest and no one's there to
[43:29] Speaker 1: see it, does it actually fall? Or can you hear it?
[43:33] Speaker 1: Or something along those lines. It's something similar, right?
[43:36] Speaker 2: But even more than that, if the tree falls in
[43:39] Speaker 2: the forest and there's no one there to hear it,
[43:41] Speaker 2: does it make a sound? If there's no one there
[43:45] Speaker 2: to hear it, you see, the question presumes that there's
[43:49] Speaker 2: still a tree and there's still a forest. And the
[43:52] Speaker 2: tree falls in the forest, but there's no one there
[43:54] Speaker 2: to hear it, so it doesn't make a sound. If
[43:56] Speaker 2: there's no one there to hear it, there's no one
[43:58] Speaker 2: there to see it. And if there's no one there
[44:00] Speaker 2: to see it, there's no tree and there's no forest.
[44:04] Speaker 2: The reality of the tree and the forest, what they
[44:07] Speaker 2: really are in and of themselves, is present. But But
[44:12] Speaker 2: what is that? It's an idea. It's the activity of consciousness.
[44:17] Speaker 2: It's mind, not matter. It's only our perceiving faculties that
[44:22] Speaker 2: renders the activity of infinite consciousness as a physical world.
[44:26] Speaker 1: You said the word rendered a few times, and I
[44:29] Speaker 1: understand what you mean by render because in the language
[44:32] Speaker 1: of today, a computer is rendered or visual effects are
[44:36] Speaker 1: rendered on a screen. So you're rendering something. So in
[44:39] Speaker 1: a construct like this, we are rendering the reality. I've
[44:44] Speaker 1: been told and I've seen this as well or heard
[44:46] Speaker 1: about this as well that right now in this room
[44:50] Speaker 1: where I'm in, this is my reality. The door's closed.
[44:54] Speaker 1: You and me, we're the only things that really exist
[44:57] Speaker 1: in the world at this moment in time. You are
[44:59] Speaker 1: in your office looking at me and your reality is
[45:03] Speaker 1: your room. But we both know that outside we have
[45:07] Speaker 1: perceived Other things, the streets of London, the streets of Austin,
[45:11] Speaker 1: for example. We'll be right back after a word from
[45:15] Speaker 1: our sponsor. And now back to the show. But the
[45:26] Speaker 1: reality is rendered as needed by the perceiver. In other words,
[45:31] Speaker 1: right now would be a really big waste of time.
[45:34] Speaker 1: I'm really getting into deep philosophical conversation here. But in
[45:38] Speaker 1: the deep, it would be a waste of computing power,
[45:42] Speaker 1: let's say, to render the streets of London if I'm
[45:46] Speaker 1: not perceiving them right now. In other words, right now,
[45:48] Speaker 1: my perception is not rendering the streets of London. It's
[45:51] Speaker 1: not rendering anything outside of this room.
[45:52] Speaker 2: Yes, yes. Absolutely right. And why is that? Because in
[45:57] Speaker 2: order to maintain you, Alex, as this temporary localization of
[46:03] Speaker 2: infinite consciousness, you must have a boundary. And that boundary,
[46:08] Speaker 2: it's your perceiving faculties that create the boundary, that create
[46:12] Speaker 2: the illusion of you being an individual located in space.
[46:19] Speaker 2: And because you are boundaried by your perceiving faculties, it's seeing, hearing, touching, tasting,
[46:26] Speaker 2: and smelling that make you feel localized and limited in space. Now,
[46:30] Speaker 2: in order to maintain that limited space, that localization called Alex,
[46:37] Speaker 2: your perceiving faculties have to exclude the vast majority of
[46:44] Speaker 2: reality and only give you what is necessary for you
[46:49] Speaker 2: to be able to thrive and survive in nature. So
[46:53] Speaker 2: the vast majority of what is present in reality is
[46:59] Speaker 2: excluded from each of our minds. If it was not excluded,
[47:04] Speaker 2: if the whole of reality were to flood into your mind,
[47:08] Speaker 2: it would be like trying to get the totality of
[47:10] Speaker 2: space into your office. The walls would be blown to smithereens.
[47:16] Speaker 2: So that our perceiving faculties are like a filter, that
[47:22] Speaker 2: they exclude the vast majority of what is present in reality,
[47:28] Speaker 2: and they also present it to us in a way
[47:31] Speaker 2: that doesn't... that doesn't select for truth. It selects for
[47:43] Speaker 2: fitness and reproduction. Our perceiving faculties help us survive and reproduce.
[47:49] Speaker 2: They're not supposed to give us a true version of reality.
[47:54] Speaker 2: On the contrary, they're supposed to exclude the vast majority
[47:58] Speaker 2: of reality from us because we would not be able
[48:01] Speaker 2: to function if we could. if we could see the
[48:06] Speaker 2: whole of reality. So our senses filter most of reality
[48:11] Speaker 2: and give us just what we need to be able
[48:14] Speaker 2: to survive and function and reproduce.
[48:16] Speaker 1: Very similar. Even with that example, even this room that
[48:20] Speaker 1: I'm in, my mind is focused on you. Unless I go, hey,
[48:25] Speaker 1: look at everything else around me in this room. Look
[48:27] Speaker 1: at the lights. Look at the screen in front of you.
[48:29] Speaker 1: Look over there. Look over there. Then it starts to
[48:32] Speaker 1: get a little overwhelming. But my mind is focused 100%
[48:36] Speaker 1: on you right now because that's what, and I'm assuming
[48:39] Speaker 1: you're the same. You're not thinking about all the books
[48:41] Speaker 1: behind you and reading all those books and what the
[48:43] Speaker 1: information of those books are and other things like that.
[48:46] Speaker 1: So it is a technique to do that. Now, I
[48:48] Speaker 1: want to even get a little bit more, that's the micro,
[48:51] Speaker 1: but how about the macro? So as human consciousness, as
[48:55] Speaker 1: humanity itself, we are also filtered out by what's in
[48:58] Speaker 1: the universe by design. So- other solar systems, other planets,
[49:04] Speaker 1: other possible civilizations. Imagine if we had a clear view
[49:09] Speaker 1: of another civilization on another planet somehow. Our brains would
[49:12] Speaker 1: fry if we had that reality mixed with our reality.
[49:16] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Yes, yes.
[49:17] Speaker 2: I mean, take infinite, if we at least provisionally accept
[49:22] Speaker 2: that infinite consciousness, and by infinite consciousness, I don't mean
[49:25] Speaker 2: consciousness that is extended indefinitely in all directions. I mean
[49:30] Speaker 2: consciousness that has no dimensions. It is our VR headset
[49:38] Speaker 2: of thought and perceptions. that expands consciousness into time and space.
[49:43] Speaker 2: In other words, time and space are not inherent in reality.
[49:47] Speaker 2: They're just how reality appears when looked at through the
[49:50] Speaker 2: lens of thought and perception. But now to your question,
[49:55] Speaker 2: there may be other kinds of mind in consciousness that
[50:02] Speaker 2: how unlikely is it that infinite consciousness would only localize
[50:08] Speaker 2: itself as a bundle of thinking and perceiving that constitutes
[50:14] Speaker 2: a human being and a few other animals. There may
[50:18] Speaker 2: be other minds that don't think or perceive, that have
[50:24] Speaker 2: different faculties. You remember the film, what was the film about?
[50:32] Speaker 1: Oh, The Arrival, The Arrival.
[50:34] Speaker 2: The Arrival, yeah.
[50:35] Speaker 1: With Amy Adams.
[50:36] Speaker 2: That was a good example. And you remember the woman who.
[50:38] Speaker 1: Then, Amy Adams, yeah. Communicate.
[50:43] Speaker 2: She tries to communicate, and then she's watching, and she
[50:45] Speaker 2: realizes that they think that their thinking is circular. It's
[50:51] Speaker 2: not linear. So our thinking is linear. So we impose
[50:57] Speaker 2: the idea of time. Time is linear. We don't think
[51:03] Speaker 2: about time because it exists. It seems to exist because
[51:06] Speaker 2: we think about it. And because we think time seems
[51:11] Speaker 2: to be linear. But in the arrival, these aliens, they
[51:16] Speaker 2: had different powers of mind. Processing.
[51:24] Speaker 1: The processing.
[51:24] Speaker 2: So for them, time was circular, not linear. So there
[51:29] Speaker 2: could be other kinds of mind in reality. that our
[51:34] Speaker 2: perceiving faculties are not sufficiently calibrated to apprehend, except under
[51:42] Speaker 2: extraordinary circumstances. Now, there could be extraordinary circumstances where there
[51:48] Speaker 2: may be an enlargement or a relaxation of the limits
[51:54] Speaker 2: of our perceiving faculties, where we are able to apprehend
[51:59] Speaker 2: a greater degree of reality than we are currently able
[52:04] Speaker 2: to do, in which case such a mind would break
[52:11] Speaker 2: into the space time that we experience from our limited
[52:16] Speaker 2: point of view, and you would see an alien. So
[52:20] Speaker 2: the alien would be the representation of a different kind
[52:23] Speaker 2: of mind perceived through our perceiving faculties. There could be
[52:30] Speaker 2: such minds in reality. I don't mean in time and space.
[52:34] Speaker 2: I mean in reality, not in the time and space
[52:38] Speaker 2: that our minds know because reality is not in time
[52:42] Speaker 2: and space. Time and space is just our interface. I
[52:45] Speaker 2: don't know if I'm explaining that clearly.
[52:47] Speaker 1: No, no. It makes all the sense in the world.
[52:53] Speaker 1: It's fascinating to think about these ideas because you're starting–
[52:58] Speaker 1: We're getting– well, there's a concept in near-death experience. I'm
[53:02] Speaker 1: not sure how much research or experience you have with
[53:05] Speaker 1: near-death experiencers. I've spoken to probably a couple hundred of them.
[53:09] Speaker 1: And you have much more.
[53:11] Speaker 2: Yes.
[53:12] Speaker 1: So the concept that is said again and again in
[53:16] Speaker 1: many of these near-death experiences is that when they're on
[53:19] Speaker 1: the other side and they're experiencing pure love, pure bliss,
[53:23] Speaker 1: and all of that, There's one thing that's pertinent to
[53:26] Speaker 1: our conversation is that all of a sudden they understand everything.
[53:31] Speaker 1: They have all the knowledge at their disposal whenever they
[53:35] Speaker 1: think about it. So the second the question is answered,
[53:39] Speaker 1: a question is asked, the answer is there instantly. It's
[53:42] Speaker 1: like they're tapped into the cloud. I use it as
[53:45] Speaker 1: the cloud to give an analogy. We're tapped into the cloud.
[53:49] Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, instead of going in and
[53:51] Speaker 1: like manually pulling out a file or pulling out a book,
[53:55] Speaker 1: All books are open. All files are open instantly. And
[53:58] Speaker 1: all you need to do is focus your attention on
[54:00] Speaker 1: the question or what you're interested in. And the answer
[54:03] Speaker 1: is instant. So they would be like, hey, what is
[54:05] Speaker 1: quantum physics like? Oh, I understand quantum physics now. And
[54:08] Speaker 1: they're like, oh, what is that? Oh, I understand that now. So, oh,
[54:11] Speaker 1: that's what the meaning of life is. And they have
[54:13] Speaker 1: these large questions that they get answered up there. But
[54:15] Speaker 1: when they come back, they lose it all. Because this
[54:19] Speaker 1: computer cannot process the cloud. Like this laptop in front
[54:24] Speaker 1: of me can't process every piece of information on the
[54:26] Speaker 1: internet at the same time.
[54:29] Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly. So when you die, when you have a
[54:33] Speaker 2: near-death experience, basically you take off the headset of thought
[54:38] Speaker 2: and perception. You are released from the limits of thinking
[54:42] Speaker 2: and perceiving. And as a result, knowledge... that previously lay
[54:49] Speaker 2: outside your apprehension now is, is, is possible for you to, to,
[54:55] Speaker 2: to understand because you're, you're, you're, you're, you have a
[54:59] Speaker 2: greater access to, to reality. You're not squeezed into this narrow,
[55:06] Speaker 2: narrow frame of thinking and perceiving, which just gives us a,
[55:10] Speaker 2: a narrow slice, narrow window onto reality. The window is
[55:15] Speaker 2: expanded and, and, And what you see, we're so conditioned
[55:22] Speaker 2: by the faculties of thought and perception. We think space-time
[55:27] Speaker 2: is the medium in which reality takes place. We think
[55:32] Speaker 2: space-time is fundamental to reality. It's not. It's just our interface.
[55:37] Speaker 2: It's just how reality appears when we look at it
[55:40] Speaker 2: through the narrow lens of thought and perception. We look
[55:43] Speaker 2: at it through thought and perception, so we see four
[55:46] Speaker 2: dimensions of space-time. But there could be other minds that
[55:50] Speaker 2: perceive in six dimensions or eight dimensions, if those minds
[55:57] Speaker 2: are configured in a way that is different from ours.
[56:01] Speaker 1: Now, I wanted to change the subject for a second,
[56:04] Speaker 1: and I wanted to hear your thoughts on spiritual bypassing,
[56:08] Speaker 1: which is a concept that I've recently kind of dived into.
[56:12] Speaker 1: which is where people use, let's say, enlightenment talk or
[56:17] Speaker 1: spiritual talk to avoid real feelings and using it as
[56:24] Speaker 1: a technique to trick the brain into thinking that it's
[56:28] Speaker 1: actually doing work on themselves or really digging into something
[56:33] Speaker 1: when actually they're avoiding their true feelings by focusing on that.
[56:37] Speaker 1: Does that make sense? And what are your thoughts on that?
[56:39] Speaker 2: I think the accusation that is sometimes leveled at, well,
[56:44] Speaker 2: people like myself that draw attention to the presence of awareness, that,
[56:50] Speaker 2: to use Yogananda's analogy, that turn around away from the,
[56:54] Speaker 2: that don't get involved in the content of the movie,
[56:56] Speaker 2: they turn around, they're interested in the nature of the
[56:58] Speaker 2: light bulb. The accusation that is sometimes leveled at them,
[57:04] Speaker 2: at them, I should say, us, it's a legitimate objection
[57:12] Speaker 2: But it's also very, at best, it's a legitimate objection.
[57:17] Speaker 2: At worst, it's a misunderstanding. Because I would suggest, at
[57:21] Speaker 2: least the way I speak about these matters, is that
[57:24] Speaker 2: it is necessary to turn away from the movie, the
[57:30] Speaker 2: drama of experience, in order to recognize your true nature
[57:34] Speaker 2: and its inherent peace. You have to, I'm obviously not
[57:38] Speaker 2: my thoughts. I am that which is aware of them.
[57:41] Speaker 2: I'm obviously not my feelings. I'm that which feels them
[57:44] Speaker 2: and so on. So this initial turning away from experience
[57:48] Speaker 2: is necessary. And you get this in all the Vedantic tradition,
[57:52] Speaker 2: as well as the tantric tradition. Now, if that was
[57:57] Speaker 2: the end of the journey, then one could be legitimately
[58:02] Speaker 2: accused of neglecting the content of experience. and even using the,
[58:10] Speaker 2: this recognition of the nature of awareness as a means
[58:14] Speaker 2: of not dealing with the messy business of everyday life.
[58:18] Speaker 2: But I would suggest that to go back to the
[58:21] Speaker 2: presence of awareness and recognize its nature as peace and
[58:26] Speaker 2: fulfillment is only half the journey that once you've done that,
[58:30] Speaker 2: it's necessary to turn around again and go back to
[58:33] Speaker 2: your messy life and, um, infuse it integrate what you've
[58:39] Speaker 2: understood of your true nature into your life into the
[58:44] Speaker 2: way you think and feel into the way you act
[58:46] Speaker 2: and perceive and relate with others.
[58:49] Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of like if you were in
[58:51] Speaker 1: the himalayas in a cave meditating for 40 years and
[58:55] Speaker 1: you discover enlightenment but the job is not done there
[58:58] Speaker 1: the job is now come down from the mountain go
[59:01] Speaker 1: into the world become a CEO, do something that you
[59:05] Speaker 1: can infuse this information, this knowledge, this experience into not
[59:09] Speaker 1: only your experience everyday life, but hopefully inspire others by
[59:14] Speaker 1: you as an example.
[59:15] Speaker 2: Yes. You bring back the fruits of this understanding and
[59:18] Speaker 2: it not only takes you to peace and fulfillment in yourself,
[59:22] Speaker 2: but you share it with humanity. That's one thing. The
[59:26] Speaker 2: second thing is that it's relatively easy to be peaceful
[59:31] Speaker 2: in a cave when your kids aren't disturbing you and
[59:34] Speaker 2: you haven't got any bills to pay. Come back to
[59:39] Speaker 2: your life as a CEO or an employee. I think
[59:44] Speaker 2: it's not only a very good test, but a necessary
[59:47] Speaker 2: test because a peace that is only peace in the
[59:50] Speaker 2: privacy of your bedroom or your cave, it's a fragile peace.
[59:54] Speaker 2: It's a brittle peace that is easily disturbed. And the
[59:57] Speaker 2: peace of your true nature is the peace that passeth understanding.
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: It's the peace that cannot be disturbed. And there's no
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: better place to have that tested than family life and
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: a full-time job.
[1:00:12] Speaker 1: Like Ram Dass says, he goes, oh, you think you're spiritual?
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: Spend a weekend with your family.
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: Exactly. I think family life, full-time job, life in the world,
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: it's not in any place to express the fruits of
[1:00:28] Speaker 2: of our understanding, but it also tests our understanding. And
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: that's very important. It shows us those aspects of ourselves
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: that are not yet aligned with this understanding. And we
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: need that. We need the world, our friends, our colleagues.
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: We need to have that reflected back to us.
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: And now, back to the show. Rupert, what happens to
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: the awareness when the body dies?
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: What happens to awareness when the body dies is what
[1:01:10] Speaker 2: happens to the space of your room that you're sitting
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: in now when your room will one day be demolished.
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: In other words.
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: This body will go.
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: No, I'm using an analogy. The space in your room
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: The physical space, it's an analogy, the physical space in
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: your room, which now seems to be a temporary finite
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: space because it's enclosed in the four walls of your room.
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: What will happen to it when your building is demolished?
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: Nothing.
[1:01:48] Speaker 2: No, the space will stay the same. The space won't go.
[1:01:52] Speaker 2: The space, nothing will happen to the space. It'll just
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: remain as it is. The walls will go. The books
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: will go. The furniture will go. The pictures will go.
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: Everything will go. But nothing will happen to the space.
[1:02:06] Speaker 2: I think death is like that.
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: Oh, that's beautiful. I never even thought about that. You're
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: absolutely right. Because right now, what I'm perceiving in this
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: room is just the room. This room will not be
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: here for another 3,000 years. It won't. It will go away.
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: And it wasn't there 3,000 years ago. But the space was.
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: But the space was. Unless it was underwater and we
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: were in Atlantis, but that's another conversation.
[1:02:30] Speaker 2: Well, okay.
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: No, but I understand what I mean. But the point
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: is the space, regardless if it's underwater or not, the
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: space on the planet stays.
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: Exactly. And even more than that, how old is your building?
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: Let's say it's.
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: 10 years old. No, it's about 10, 15 years old.
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: Something like that.
[1:02:52] Speaker 2: Okay. Let's say 20 years ago, it was just, the
[1:02:56] Speaker 2: vast space of the universe. Now, when your building was
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: put up, did anything actually happen to the space? Did
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: it suddenly cease being the vast space of the universe
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: and become a temporary finite space?
[1:03:11] Speaker 1: No.
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: The space in your room now is not really the
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: space in your room. It's the vast space of the universe.
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: It's that now. It was that before your building was
[1:03:25] Speaker 2: put up. It's that during the existence of your building,
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: and it will remain that when the building is taken down.
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: I would suggest exactly the same is true of infinite awareness.
[1:03:38] Speaker 2: Infinite awareness is all there is. Infinite consciousness is all
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: there is. When it clothes itself temporarily in human experience,
[1:03:47] Speaker 2: in thought and perception, it seems to localize itself. just
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: like the vast space of the universe seems to be
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: localized in your room. But even when it seems to
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: be localized in your room, it's still the vast space
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: of the universe. The awareness that is the essence of
[1:04:05] Speaker 2: each of us now is now infinite awareness. It's that now.
[1:04:12] Speaker 2: So just as when your building is demolished, the space
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: in your room is not suddenly going to unite with
[1:04:19] Speaker 2: the vast space of the universe. It's that already. But
[1:04:23] Speaker 2: when we die, we don't suddenly unite with infinite consciousness.
[1:04:28] Speaker 2: That's what we are now at the deepest level.
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: We just take off.
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: You take off the headset. You take off the headset.
[1:04:35] Speaker 2: You take off the headset of thought and perception. And
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: you consciousness are relieved of time and space. Time and
[1:04:44] Speaker 2: space are just how you appear to yourself when you're
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: wearing the headset of thought and perception. You're just relieved
[1:04:51] Speaker 2: of an apparent but not real limitation.
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: Now, Rupert, if someone's feeling totally lost right now in
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: life in general, where would you suggest they start with
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: these ideas, this concept that could help them?
[1:05:05] Speaker 2: Ask themselves this question. So let's say they're totally lost.
[1:05:10] Speaker 2: They're upset. They're anxious. They're hurt. They have conflict in
[1:05:15] Speaker 2: their relationship. Their job's not going well. They're They're struggling
[1:05:20] Speaker 2: in life. You could start like this. You just ask
[1:05:23] Speaker 2: yourself a question. What is it that is aware of
[1:05:28] Speaker 2: my experience? Not what am I aware of? What am
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: I aware of? Thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities. That's what
[1:05:38] Speaker 2: I'm aware of. But what is it that is aware
[1:05:42] Speaker 2: of all of this? That's turning around and looking at
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: the light bulb. That's tracing your way back. I'm obviously
[1:05:51] Speaker 2: not my thoughts. I am that which knows my thoughts.
[1:05:56] Speaker 2: I'm obviously not my feelings. I'm that which is aware
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: of my feelings. So you trace your way back through
[1:06:04] Speaker 2: the layers of experience, temporarily discarding anything that's not essential
[1:06:09] Speaker 2: to you. You're going back to your being. And you
[1:06:14] Speaker 2: go all the way back to your being. It's peaceful there.
[1:06:19] Speaker 2: It's so simple that everybody's nature is peace and it's
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: available to everybody 24 seven. But because we look for
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: it out in the world and of course never find it,
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: we overlook or forget or ignore that the peace we
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: really long for is in the depths of our being.
[1:06:44] Speaker 2: And to go there, we just have to temporarily, it's
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: like standing back. from the content of your experience, taking
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: a step back into your being or into awareness.
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: Is that what meditation does in many ways?
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: Absolutely. That's what meditation is. Exactly. Yeah.
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: It's a way to silence the noise to look inward.
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: And many people could do it through prayer and through
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: a dance. Yes.
[1:07:13] Speaker 2: But it's a slightly different approach because most approaches to meditation,
[1:07:17] Speaker 2: as you've just rightly said, you first of all silence
[1:07:21] Speaker 2: the noise in order to get back to your true nature.
[1:07:25] Speaker 2: I'm recommending the opposite. Don't worry about the noise. It
[1:07:29] Speaker 2: doesn't matter what is happening on the screen. The bulb
[1:07:33] Speaker 2: that illuminates it is the same. Don't start a battle
[1:07:41] Speaker 2: with your thoughts and feelings. What you're interested in is
[1:07:45] Speaker 2: what it is that is aware of your thoughts and feelings.
[1:07:48] Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what's happening in your thoughts and feelings.
[1:07:51] Speaker 2: Whether you have the thought two plus two equals four,
[1:07:54] Speaker 2: or whether you have the thought two plus two equals five,
[1:07:58] Speaker 2: both thoughts are known by the same awareness. It doesn't
[1:08:02] Speaker 2: matter what the content of your thoughts or feelings are.
[1:08:05] Speaker 2: The awareness with which they are known is the same.
[1:08:09] Speaker 2: So you don't have to change the content of the movie,
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: the content of your experience, in order to recognize yourself
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: as awareness. You just have to temporarily let go of
[1:08:23] Speaker 2: the content of experience. Just let it go, not change it,
[1:08:26] Speaker 2: not get rid of it. Just let it go. It's
[1:08:29] Speaker 2: the drama in the movie. You let it go. You
[1:08:31] Speaker 2: are the screen.
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: What is the purpose of our individual life? Why do
[1:08:37] Speaker 1: people go through a life that suffers and live a
[1:08:41] Speaker 1: very loving life or live a very rich life or
[1:08:43] Speaker 1: live a poor life? We've explained a lot about the
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: nature of reality, but the true question is, why are
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: we in this reality? What is the purpose?
[1:08:54] Speaker 2: I think that, as I tried to explain before, infinite
[1:09:00] Speaker 2: consciousness by itself cannot perceive the world. It cannot know
[1:09:07] Speaker 2: the potential that lies inside it. In order to do so,
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: it has to localize itself as a finite mind. So
[1:09:15] Speaker 2: each of us are the eyes and ears of infinite consciousness.
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: through which infinite consciousness perceives itself as the world. So
[1:09:26] Speaker 2: from a universal point of view, our purpose is to
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: manifest the potential that lies in infinite consciousness. Infinite consciousness
[1:09:38] Speaker 2: only has access to its own innate potential through each
[1:09:44] Speaker 2: of us. So that's our purpose from a universal point
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: of view. Now, our purpose from an individual point of view,
[1:09:52] Speaker 2: once we have localized as a separate self or a
[1:09:56] Speaker 2: finite mind, we are, by definition, in a state of contraction.
[1:10:03] Speaker 2: We're really infinite consciousness, but we've been squeezed into a
[1:10:07] Speaker 2: finite mind. And as a result of this limitation or contraction,
[1:10:12] Speaker 2: there's a tension in all of us, in the hearts
[1:10:16] Speaker 2: of everyone. There is this existential tension. Longing. What we
[1:10:23] Speaker 2: call that longing varies from person to person. Peace, happiness, fulfillment, God, enlightenment.
[1:10:29] Speaker 2: But there is this longing. And what we're really longing
[1:10:31] Speaker 2: for is to be relieved of this, the tension of separation.
[1:10:38] Speaker 2: The contraction of being a temporary finite self. We're longing
[1:10:42] Speaker 2: to go back to our original condition. And we experience
[1:10:48] Speaker 2: that longing as the desire for happiness. When we desire happiness,
[1:10:52] Speaker 2: we're not really desiring the object or the substance or
[1:10:55] Speaker 2: the relationship. What we're really longing for is to be
[1:10:58] Speaker 2: divested of the limitations of experience that we have borrowed
[1:11:03] Speaker 2: from experience and to be returned to our natural condition.
[1:11:07] Speaker 2: So as an individual, I think that's our purpose in life.
[1:11:10] Speaker 2: Our primary purpose is to recognize our who we are
[1:11:17] Speaker 2: at the deepest level. And then our secondary purpose as
[1:11:21] Speaker 2: an individual is to express that recognition in life, to
[1:11:26] Speaker 2: share it to the best of our ability with humanity,
[1:11:30] Speaker 2: or whatever that means for each of us.
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: Robert, if every book or talk you've ever given vanished tomorrow,
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: what is one sentence you would like to survive?
[1:11:40] Speaker 2: This is the one sentence that that I would like
[1:11:43] Speaker 2: to remain, and the one sentence that actually contains within
[1:11:46] Speaker 2: it the entirety of everything I've ever said or written.
[1:11:50] Speaker 2: And it's this, peace and happiness are the nature of
[1:11:55] Speaker 2: your being, and you share your being with everyone and everything.
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: Beautifully said, Rupert, beautifully said. Rupert, where can people find
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: out more about you and the amazing work you're doing
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: in the world?
[1:12:09] Speaker 2: Thank you for asking. The first place to go at YouTube,
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: I have, well, from one, you understand, I have numerous, 1,500
[1:12:22] Speaker 2: YouTube clips. That's the first place to go. Go to
[1:12:26] Speaker 2: my YouTube channel, Rupert Sparrow. The second place to go,
[1:12:30] Speaker 2: I have an app. It's a free app. It's called Luminous.
[1:12:35] Speaker 2: If you just look for Luminous Rupert Sparrow in the
[1:12:38] Speaker 2: app store, it's a free app. And it's just one
[1:12:40] Speaker 2: short 10-minute meditation for free every day. So that's another
[1:12:47] Speaker 2: place where I distill the understanding into very manageable 10-minute contemplations.
[1:12:55] Speaker 2: I have a Substack channel, which I publish regularly too,
[1:12:59] Speaker 2: called The Transparency of Things. Rupert Sparrow, and my website, rupertsparrow.com.
[1:13:05] Speaker 1: Rupert, it has been an absolute pleasure and honor speaking
[1:13:09] Speaker 1: to you today.
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: Likewise.
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: I feel more at peace after this conversation. These concepts
[1:13:16] Speaker 1: have been, I've talked ad nauseum about these kinds of concepts,
[1:13:20] Speaker 1: but I always am interested in the energy and the
[1:13:24] Speaker 1: perspective of different teachers. Because like you said before, we're
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: not reinventing the wheel here. What we've been talking about
[1:13:33] Speaker 1: has been said for millennia, but it needs to be
[1:13:36] Speaker 1: translated into the words of today. Just like a movie
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: that was made in the 20s needs to be remade
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: today because it just won't hit the audience the way
[1:13:47] Speaker 1: it did before. So I appreciate you, my friend, and
[1:13:51] Speaker 1: everything you're doing to help awaken this planet. So thank
[1:13:53] Speaker 1: you so much.
[1:13:54] Speaker 2: Alex, likewise, the beautiful work you do in the world.
[1:13:58] Speaker 2: It's also my pleasure and honor to speak with you
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: and with your audience. So thank you again for inviting me.
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: Thank you for spending this sacred time with us today.
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: If you feel called to explore this conversation further, you'll
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: find the show notes for this episode at nextlevelsoul.com forward
[1:14:16] Speaker 1: slash 725. And if your soul is craving an even
[1:14:21] Speaker 1: deeper journey, step into Next Level Soul TV. our streaming
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: sanctuary for spiritual films, documentaries, original shows, guided meditations, channeling sessions, audiobooks,
[1:14:31] Speaker 1: and transformative teachings. It's a space created to support your awakening,
[1:14:36] Speaker 1: your healing, and your return to the truth of who
[1:14:39] Speaker 1: you really are. Begin your journey at nextlevelsoul.tv. Until next time,
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: keep expanding, keep seeking, and keep walking your path towards
[1:14:50] Speaker 1: the next level of your soul.

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