Rupert Spira | Awakening to Your True Nature

Most of us need the help of a friend or a teacher, someone who says to us, just pause what you're seeking. Enlightenment, awareness, God. But who is the one who is seeking? Have you ever pursued that one? Instead of always seeking something, something that you're going to become, something you're going to acquire, something you're going to realize, recognize, and so on, have you ever thought to ask who is it that is seeking? Who is it that is unhappy? Who is it that wants to be enlightened? Who is it that's seeking awareness or wants to become more conscious? And so on. And this question initiate a kind of. It's not really a turning around of the attention, but it's a sort of turning around of the attention away from the content of experience, thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions. And our attention begins to travel backwards inwards. Self words we can call it a self towards that which is aware rather than that which we are aware of.

Welcome to the Radical responsibility podcast. I'm Dr. Fleet Mahler and I'm excited guided to guide you on a journey of authentic transformation. In each episode I'll bring you insights from leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive psychology and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness and life optimization. This is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change, helping you find alignment with the person you were always meant to be. Let's get started.

What if the awareness you've been seeking is already who you are? Rupert Spira, a world renowned teacher of non duality and non dual approaches to realization or awakening, takes us on a deep exploration of consciousness, identity and the illusion of separation. We dive into the nature of awareness, the power of direct experience and how language shapes our spiritual understanding. Rupert shares profound insights from both the Buddhist and Vedic traditions or offering a clear path beyond conceptual seeking and into the direct realization of our true nature. This conversation will challenge your assumptions, expand your perspective and bring you face to face with the essence of who you really are. Let's dive in. My name is Dr. Fleet Maul, your co host for this session and I'm very happy to be here today with Rupert Spiro. Welcome Rupert.

Thank you Fleet. Very nice to be here.

So I'd like to start off with a little bit of your origin story and I know it's not really fair to ask you to encapsulate that into just a couple of minutes minutes. But I'm just curious as you know, what triggered your journey into non dual awareness and becoming a teacher of non duality and practices and contemplative practices and so Forth I know you're, you're an artist and you're involved in ceramics and sometime that connection between being an artist and then into non dual wisdom. Interesting journey. So if you could just share a little of that.

Yes. Well, my interest in these matters, the non dual understanding, the source of lasting peace and happiness, the essential nature of myself began quite early on in my mid teens. And this in fact at the same time as this interest developed, I also, I took a career change. Up until that. Not that I had begun my career by then, up until that time, the middle of my teens, I had been destined for a life in science, either medicine or biochemistry. And there were two or three events that happened around that time that really initiated me into this understanding and inspired a deep interest. I'll just relate those briefly for you because they were all connected. The first really event I remember was after a physics lesson at school, coming back and sitting on my bed and being overcome by a recognition that the mind could never know the nature of reality. It's not a coincidence that it was after a physics lesson we were exploring the nature of reality. I was just overcome by this recognition that the mind, our faculty of thinking and perceiving, is by definition limited and therefore anything that we know through it must share its limitations. And a sort of panic arose in me that if I was to pursue this career that I was embarking on, I could never get to reality through it. And I remember a feeling of panic coming me. So that was a little. A crack in my world. It was the first real crack in my world. And shortly after this I saw the retrospective exhibition of a man called Michael Cardew, one of the founding fathers of the British studio pottery movement, with whom I later apprenticed for the last few years of his life. And seeing his work was also a kind of initiation into the power of form, the power that an object can have over the mind. That initiated my changing my career path from biochemistry or medicine to the arts, ceramics. At about the same time, I came across the writings of Jalaluddin Rumi. They were not then available in the lovely renditions by Coleman Barks and others. It was just a very dry scholastic translations, Arbery and Nicholson. But I love these writings. And they awakened. It was like they awakened a memory in me. When I was very young, six or seven years old, my mother used to tell me that I used to regularly tell me that I had said to her when I was 6 or 7, I think that our life is a dream in God's mind. So from very, very early on I had this sense that reality, existence was a. I expressed it in childish religious terms then, but I would express it the same way now. Reality is what we know of reality, what we know of the world is an appearance in infinite consciousness. But I forgot that intuition, that childish intuition. I forgot this as I was growing up. But it was reawakened in me in my mid teens when I first came across the poetry of Rumi. This intuition I had as a young child through reading his poetry was reawakened in me. And I started to study the classical Advaita Vedanta teachings at that time and learnt mantra meditation. So this really initiated my interest in these matters. And then around this time, it was a little bit later, a few years later, and this was more of an emotional event. My girlfriend at the time, first girlfriend, with whom I thought I would live happily ever after after a number of years of being together, just called me from a phone box and said I'm off, bye. It lasted about two minutes. It was shattering after being together three years and that was the first time I. Of course I knew intellectually that everything passes. Nothing can be relied on in particular, no one. And nothing can be relied on as a source of happiness. I had been studying the non dual understanding for this time. I understood that. But this event made it real. I understood viscerally if I want lasting peace and happiness. Not just fleeting moments of peace and happiness, but lasting peace and happiness. And of course everybody wants lasting peace and happiness. To look for it in objects, substances, activities and relationships in this case was just a recipe for disappointment and failure. And I understood this really properly for the first time. And this. It didn't initiate my interest in these matters, but it certainly intensified. It took it onto another level. So these were some of the events that took place in my mid to late teens that really both initiated and deepened my interest in these matters. I then became a potter. I was a potter for 30 years until I was about 50. And then that naturally, all the while my real love, at least on the inside, my passion on the inside was this love of the nature of reality and this exploration into the nature of consciousness on the outside. By day I was working in my studio. But that began to. My work in the studio began to peter out when I was about 50, about 14, 15 years ago, I began to lose interest. I felt I had less and less in common with the art. I felt that I had said everything that I wanted to say and could say in that medium. And just spontaneously I began to write about my real Love, which was non dual philosophy. And then later on that developed into holding meetings and retreats and so on. So that's a very quick, very quick.

Sure, very condensed, but fascinating journey. So as you studied Vedanta teachings and did you pursue studies in Advaita and were you influenced by Ramana Maharshi in that stream of teaching?

My original source for the non dual teachings was the Vaita Vedanta, which I learned through Charya of the north of India, Shantananda Saraswati. And I learned these at. I learned about this tradition and attended many meetings at Khalid House. So for the first, for the next 20 years, really from my mid teens to my mid 30s, the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition and mantra meditation which accompanied it, a daily practice of mantra meditation was really my, my foundation. But all the while I was studying and exploring Ramana Maharshi's teaching, Srinatta Maharaj's teaching, reading a fair amount of Sufism, practicing the Mevlevi turning. I'd done the Gurdjieff movements and was reading Ospensky. So I was reading very exploring quite widely. Although the classical Advaita Vedanta teachings were my bedrock.

Yeah, we share a lot of the same interests and I was pursuing a lot of that same study as a young man. I ended up more in the Buddhist realm, but I was certainly studying all those teachers. So, you know, I think as meditators, and many meditators sort of understand themselves as someone who's pursuing awareness or the ability to become more aware, to reach awareness or to realize awareness in some way, and the sense of someone who's doing that's obviously where we all begin. But in non dual meditation, I think we're often invited to recognize awareness as being already present. So I wonder if you could help us understand this shift in perspective.

Yes, yes. It's very natural that most, if not all of us start out to begin with seeking to find awareness, to know awareness, to become more aware, to awaken, to find enlightenment and so on. This is very natural. Why? Because prior to that, most of us spend our life seeking peace, happiness, fulfillment in the conventional realms of experience, objects, substances, activities, relationships, and so on. And usually after a number of years, more or less, for different people, we begin to realize that this pursuit of happiness in objective experience is destined to fail. And as a result of this, our search is refined. We stop seeking happiness in the conventional realm of objects and substances, and we rebrand our search for happiness, the search for enlightenment or the search for God. And we start Seeking it in more subtle ways. Teachers, teachings, mantras, all sorts of practices. And I did this very fully. And it's very natural. It's all we've known all our life. Seeking fulfillment in something external to us. So the search for enlightenment is just an extension, a refinement, and an extension of that search. But sooner or later, just as we got to the end of our search for happiness in the conventional realm of experience, sooner or later we begin, after perhaps a number of marvelous experiences, meditating and so on, we begin to realize that even the subtle experiences that we have on the spiritual path, they come and go. They can't be what we essentially are, nor can they be a source of lasting happiness. And really, when we've exhausted all the possibilities that are on offer to us in the spiritual or religious traditions, well, where do we go from there? We've explored everything. This precipitates a crisis in us, or it may precipitate a crisis. In some people, the crisis is very intense. It can initiate a crisis of depression or despair where you feel completely hopeless. You've tried everything, everything's failed. In other people, it's less intense. But occasionally, as a result of this crisis, someone will spontaneously turn around, so to speak, away from the content of experience. Even the subtle experiences of the mind, the subtle states of mind that one may encounter during meditation. Occasionally one spontaneously turns around and begins to investigate the source of the mind. But it's quite unusual that there are stories in the tradition of people for whom this has happened spontaneously. But most of us need the help of a friend or a teacher, someone who says to us, just pause. What you're seeking. Enlightenment, awareness, God. But who is the one who is seeking? Have you ever pursued that one? Instead of always seeking something outside of yourself, something that you're going to become, something you're going to acquire, something you're going to realize, recognize, and so on. Have you ever thought to ask, but who is it that is seeking? Who is it that is unhappy? Who is it that wants to be enlightened? Who is it that's seeking awareness or wants to become more conscious and so on? And this question initiates a kind of. It's not really a turning around of the attention, but it's a sort of turning around of the attention away from the content of experience. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions. And our attention begins to travel backwards, inwards. Self, words we can call it a self towards that which is aware rather than that which we are aware of. And this sinking of the attention, this relaxing of the attention Away from the objects of experience, however refined they may be, back to the source of attention, which is of course, awareness itself is really the essence of meditation and prayer in whatever tradition we are practicing it in. Sooner or later, all meditation and prayer practices more or less directly lead to this subsidence of the attention in its source, pure consciousness. So this transition from seeking happiness in the world, seeking enlightenment in the spiritual traditions, and then investigating the seeker and the final subsidence of the seeker in the true source of happiness, our being is a very natural progression for most of us.

So I'm curious about the role of the body in this journey. And I know you talk about the dissolution of the separate me feeling, which you're somewhat. We're just referencing. And that me feeling is very much embedded in the body. I mean, it's. We begin with this natural kind of dualistic situation where we have this strong sense that I'm physically here and there's things that are physically out there. And we naturally are. Are set up for a fairly dualistic kind of perception in life. And so in terms of one's ongoing practice and this shift in perspective, how does that begin to dissolve over time? And what role does the body play in that or any shift in terms of our relationship to the body or our embodied experience, if you will, or embodied. Even if it's this non dual awareness, is it a kind of embodied awareness? I'm curious if you could just talk about that a bit.

Yes, most people consider their self to be a mixture of consciousness plus the body. Most people feel I am this body and the consciousness with which I know my experience, the consciousness that is knowing my thoughts or hearing these words or perceiving the world, lives inside the body and shares its limitations and its destiny. In other words, that the consciousness that supposedly lives inside the body was born with the body. It evolves with the body and will disappear with the body. And this mixture of consciousness plus the body creates the apparently separate self. So the separate self is a. The apparently separate self is a compound entity comprising consciousness plus the body. The separate self, the temporary, finite, limited separate self, derives its separateness, its limitations from the body, but its essence, its reality from consciousness. So to begin with, there is this separating process. It's like the space in your room. If I were to ask you now describe the space in the room, you might look around and say that my room is small and dark and square and full of books and so on. No, the space in your room is not small and dark and room and full of books. The Space in your room is the vast space of the universe. It's not in your room. If you were to take a sample of the space in your room. It's the vast space of the universe. But it seems to share the limitations of the four walls of your room. Plus the objects that it contains. So the space in your room consists of the vast space of the universe. Plus the four walls and the objects. The space in your room is a kind of compound. Well, the separate self is a compound which consists of the vast. Or more accurately, infinite consciousness. Apparently contained within. And limited to the four walls of the body. So the first step is a process of discriminating. Is seeing clearly that consciousness does not share the limitations or the destiny of the body. Just as you discriminate the space in your room. And see that it does not share the quality of your walls. Or the books or anything else. That's the first step. It's a kind of separating, discriminating. Not my thoughts. I am that which is aware of them. I am not the sensations that constitute the experience of my body. I am that which knows them or feels them. I'm not my emotions and that which is aware of them and so on. It's a process of separating out or discriminating. And that leads to this recognition. I am consciousness. Now, that recognition is not a recognition that a mind or a person or a separate self has. Consciousness is recognition of itself. Only consciousness is conscious. Only consciousness is aware. So only consciousness can have the experience of being itself, being consciousness. But then it's necessary, as it were. Turn the attention back round again. And return to the content of experience. Our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions. And reintegrate this understanding with our experience. Including our experience of the body. Because once you've recognized that the space in your room is not the space in your room. It's the vast space, physical space of the universe. Nevertheless, your room is still pervaded by space. And once we recognize that I am the infinite, the one infinite consciousness. Nevertheless, my experience of the body is still pervaded by consciousness. And it's still mixed with consciousness. Although I'm no longer fooled by that mixture. So there is a second step that takes place after this recognition of our true nature. Which is to reintegrate recognition of ourself. With the felt sense of the body. And also with the way we perceive the world. Because we recognize that not only is the infinite consciousness the medium in which our thoughts, feelings and the medium in which our body appears. But it's also the medium in which the entire world appears. So that then it's necessary to completely infuse one's experience of the body and the world with this new understanding.

So I want to explore then how we actually work with this. But there's an analogy I use in teaching that I want to offer. And so we can kind of complete this part of the conversation. So I often talk about. Before we start practicing in some way or develop much self awareness altogether. We're kind of lost in the content of our experience, the sensory experience, including our thought. And even the concepts of there must be a me in this body. And the way that their compounded sense of a me and a body, the way you were speaking of. And we're kind of lost in all that without a lot of self awareness. So it's sort of like we're in this river of sensate experience and river of conceptual experience. And a compounded sense of self. And identify with all that kind of jumbled together into something. And we're kind of just lost in that. And when we get introduced to a practice of some kind, it's sort of like we climb out of the river and we can sit on the bank. We can begin to get a sense that there is some awareness of all this. And we can begin to shift our identity somewhat. Not to a limited conceptual self where there must be muse having all this experience, but more the actual awareness of the experience. And so that's the beginning of this kind of witness mind that we can connect with. And you know, we could collapse that down and just kind of a me. But if we through many experiences, often it. We realize it's not limited to that. It's a much more profound kind of witness awareness or. And as that stabilizes though, then we can relax that and sort of slip back into the river and now be in our sensory experience, be in the world of form, but with awareness and experience it directly. And ultimately, as you were saying, you know, after having made this initial discrimination, we can then sort of reintegrate. And in that way it's not only that consciousness. I would suggest, and I'm curious about your thought on this, that the world of form, materiality, the body and the rest of the world is not only pervaded by consciousness. That it's none other than consciousness itself. That it's an actual manifestation of consciousness. So I'm just curious about that flow and how that.

I would agree with you that I sometimes divide these into three steps. The first step, as you say, I am the witness of my experience. I am the knower of the known, the experiencer of the experiencer, and so on. At this stage of understanding, consciousness could be likened to the sun which illuminates the earth. From a distance we separate our self consciousness from the content of experience and we view it from the distance of the observer or the witness. We've separated ourselves from experience and the sun and the earth are a reasonably good analogy for that first stage of understanding. But then we notice that as we begin to turn back towards our experience again, we realize that we consciousness are not just that which knows or illuminates our experience, but we are the field, the medium, the space within which all experience arises, not just our thoughts and feelings. Most people are comfortable with the idea that their thoughts and feelings arise in consciousness, but the sensations that constitute our experience of the body and indeed our perceptions of the world. The sound of my voice, for instance, is appearing in consciousness. This is the second step. And in this stage, the analogy of space, it's often used in the Buddhist tradition. And consciousness is like the sun in the sense that it illuminates our experience. It's like space, it's space, like in the sense that it's the medium or field within which all experience takes place. But in both these cases, there's still a subtle duality between the consciousness that knows our experience and the consciousness in which experience appears. There's still a subject and an object. So the third stage, exactly as you say. The analogy I use for this is more like the. I use the analogy of the ocean, where experience, thoughts, images, feelings, sensations, perceptions and so on would be likened to the waves and current, the ripples, the waves and the current on and in the ocean and consciousness is the water. So the wave, the ripples, the waves and the currents are the temporary names and forms. They are the activity of the ocean, but made only of pure water. There's only water. And there's either water at rest in the depths of the ocean or water in motion on the surface of the ocean. But it doesn't matter, it's all only water. So the same thing. First of all, we recognize consciousness as the witness of experience. Then we recognize consciousness as a container of experience. Then we recognize consciousness as the very substance or reality of everything.

Yeah, I love that three step view. So as someone, whether through personal experience or serendipity or karma, if you will, or, you know, they've read a book and they get interested in not just being caught in this pattern of seeking, I mean, maybe they've moved from seeking happiness in the material world. To seeking spiritual happiness. But at some point they get curious about who the seeker is. Right? So they enter more into this realm of practice you're describing. So what does practice actually look like at that point? How do you guide students? What does daily practice look like from a more non dual perspective?

In the context of your question feet, it might look something like this. A question such as what is it that is aware of your experience? Ask yourself that question and see what happens to your mind as it tries to find the answer.

So is that that kind of inquiry is something then one would sort of do as a formal contemplative practice on a regular basis? Like sort of sit with that question and inquiry?

No, I don't recommend it. I don't see it as a practice, as something one does formally. You sit down, you shut your eyes, and you ask your question self. The question of who am I? It's a loving inquiry. I don't see it as a formal practice. You could practice it for me, but I'm resisting a little bit the use of the term formal practice because it implies to me an imposing of a discipline on yourself from the outside in order to achieve some result. Where this comes from the inside, it comes from a love of truth. And this deep love of truth compels us sooner or later to ask the question, but who is the one that is at the source of my experience? Who is this I? So you may ask yourself that question one day, but the next day you'll ask a completely different question. What is it that cannot be removed from me? What is it that is worthy of the name I have been calling myself I all my life? Well, what has remained with me all my life? All my thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, these are continually coming and going, so they don't qualify as I. So what is this I that I refer to numerous times throughout the day? So these are questions that you find for yourself. A friend may suggest one or two questions to you to get you going, but very quickly, because of your love of truth, you find your own questions, your own pathway, and then it's not something you're imposing on yourself from the outside. You have this passion to find out for yourself.

Yes. I've also often suggested in various forms of meditation practice, even in the mainstream secular mindfulness movement, there's the idea of cultivating certain attitudinal qualities in one's practice, things like a sense of self acceptance, non judgment, things like that. And I always suggest that the most important one is actually curiosity, a deep longing to know the truth. Of one's experience, the truth of reality, this spark arises within one that really becomes the fuel of one practice. And I'm not wanting to invite you into anything other than what you actually teach, so I'm wanting to explore with you how you actually teach this, because I'm also thinking for our audience. So if one had this passionate sort of longing or the truth arise, you know, the search for the truth arising with someone that could and, you know, pull you into this kind of unfolding spirit of inquiry and asking yourself different questions at different times. But in the midst of one's life, in the midst of a busy life full of distractions and many people dealing with all kinds of emotional issues and conflicting emotions, in some cases related to their traumas and their past experience, people have a hard time settling into anything, much less there being enough of a sort of continuity of that inquiry you're speaking of to have it go somewhere. So I'm curious what, as you're guiding students, unless they have, they're already on fire with this quest, somehow that's arisen within them, so that's just going to keep them going. How else would someone find them walls into some kind of continuity of this inquiry?

Everybody is already on fire with the love of happiness, the search for happiness. 8 billion of people are out on the street. What's the one thing everybody is doing all the time? Seeking happiness in objects, substances, activities, relationships, spiritual teachers and teachings. And everyone is already on fire with this search for happiness. And it's just this search for happiness is it just gets continually refined until eventually it takes us back to the source of happiness, which is being our own being. And so I'm very spontaneous. The way I explore this with people. I don't have any set practices. I'm spontaneous. I just take the mood of the room, the conversation, the people. And I just developed. I just take people where they are and go from there. I just want to say, please don't misunderstand me. I don't mean that I don't respect more formal practice. I do. I practice mantra meditation for almost 25 years and it's valuable. I have great respect for more formal practices, but the way I share this understanding is creative and exploratory and very experiential, tailored to the person or the group. It's why when I come into to start a retreat, for instance, I've no idea what I'm going to say or what we're going to do or where we're going to start or anything. It's I Feel it has to come from the moment, it has to be living. Otherwise the danger is that the teaching becomes mechanical and no longer tailored to our age. It's just a repetition of old. Nothing wrong with the repetition of old practices. Some of them are very beautiful and valuable practices. It's just not. It's not the way I tend to share this understanding.

So then, as you were describing, we're already on fire with the seeking, the search for happiness. And it's a myriad forms that we do that. And you're suggesting that over time that will refine itself and there will somehow spontaneously be this shift in perspective to not looking out or looking inward.

Occasionally spontaneously, but usually initiated by something we read or a friend.

Right. Once that happens, though, the refining of that, because the habitual momentum to be continuously seeking it outwards. I mean, for example, when I was probably, I don't know, I was probably 16 or 70 and I was reading one of Krishnamurti's books, right? And you know, he's obviously guiding in a similar way to what you're describing. And I read a passage and I just had this complete opening, right? And it's like quite a profound opening. And there was that shift for me, but that didn't like just suddenly turn the whole momentum of all my habitual paths.

Absolutely. That's beautiful. So you're reading a book by Krishnam, something about the words, they take you to the experience that is being described. And you have a free sample, a free taste of your being. All you were doing, you weren't practicing anything or you were reading. And then, and you were just given this gift, this free gift, a taste of your true nature. But then, as you say, your old habits of thinking, feeling, acting, relating and so on, they flood back in pretty quickly. And what was a very real experience for you in the moment now becomes a distant memory. So then, yes, then you have to. Having been given the free sample, you then have to make your way back there. And that is what the religious and spiritual traditions orientated towards one giving you that awakening, that taste of your true nature, and then giving you pathways whereby you might find it again on your own. And all the traditions have elaborate numerous different pathways, some of them very direct and some of them less direct, but all sooner or later taking one back to one's true nature. And the way that I share this understanding is very direct. We just go directly, what is it that is aware of your experience? Pause. Your mind lets go of what it is aware of and just goes back directly. So not always quickly but directly it just goes back to its source and you abide there until through force of habit, the momentum of old habits, you find yourself lost in the content of experience again. So you keep tracing your way back through these, investigating your true nature or whatever practice you're engaged in until you begin not just to visit your true nature from time to time, but it becomes your. It's not like a country cottage that you go and stay in for the weekend. You move in, it becomes your home, it becomes, you become stable in that recognition.

So I imagine you're familiar with in the Buddhist traditions, in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, as well as in the Zen tradition, and also pointing out the nature of reality. And it sounds like in similar. By inviting these kind of inquiries in spontaneous and fairly simple ways, you're kind of creating a situation or inviting a student kind of pointing out to where they'll get a glimpse of this. So then my question becomes, and I'm really offering this in a spirit of inquiry with you to really try to unfold and understand your path. So I don't mean to be doing this in an argumentative way, but the stabilization of that, and I'm curious of what you think about, you know, as long as we're in a body, we are very. Our experience of the body, our experience of the mind, our experience of consciousness, if you will, is very influenced by the neurophysiology of the body and our nervous system and brain and so forth. And over time, however one practices that is actually changing that neural architecture of the brain and the nervous system. And over time we're actually developing a, a body and a neural architecture that can be, is a much more refined receiver transmitter, if you will, that tune into more pure consciousness. Right? So that may be happening in a very, you know, unintentional way or can be happening in a more direct way. But nonetheless, over time there, there needs to be, at least my kind of experience or understanding is there needs to be some stabilization of a vehicle, however one thinks of that, in which one can begin to really rest in states of non dual awareness. And the other side of that is that stabilization, that deep resting ability to really abide. The other side of that is the risk of doing the practice in a fairly cognitive way and having it be kind of more abiding in a conceptual understanding of non dual awareness or more of a conceptual experience that hasn't really been grounded and become fully embodied. So I'm just curious about your thoughts around that as you see students on the path and you See people exploring this.

You respond first to what you said about the body. The body, as we all know, is the repository for our feelings, for our emotions. And so if our emotional life is dominated largely by sorrow and lack and agitation and fear and conflict and so on, because these feelings felt in the body, we have a very dense feeling of the body. The body feels heavy and dense because it mirrors the states of our emotions, which are themselves heavy and sorrowful and so on. So what tends to happen is that as the recognition of our true nature becomes clearer and clearer to us, and in particular its innate peace and its innate joy become more and more obvious experientially to us, we feel that what we are at the deepest level is imperturbable peace and causeless joy. This recognition is like a sort of dissolving agent. It gradually dissolves our sorrow and our lack and our agitation and our fear and so on. And as a result of this, the body is. Becomes lighter, becomes more transparent, becomes less dense. And until you don't, you feel that the body is like a wave of. Like a ripple of sensation flowing through consciousness. Transparent. The light of consciousness made of consciousness. So the body becomes increasingly lighter, freer, more transparent. It's liberated from the tyranny of the separate self. And all the energies in the body that previously went into maintaining this illusion of density and separation are now freed and the same energies are now available. They are now at the disposal. They're made available to the qualities, if we can call them qualities of our true nature, the qualities of joy and peace and love and so on. So the body becomes lighter. There's more creativity, the density of the body, the feeling of separation between my body and others, or the world begins to diminish. So there's this feeling of oneness that we begin to feel with everyone and everything. A dense prison of the body begins to dissolve. We become lighter, freer.

I think we're describing very much the same thing. I think we're two slightly different windows perhaps, but much the same thing.

Yeah, we come from different traditions. You come more from a Buddhist tradition and your language is conditioned like that. I've come more from the Vedantic tradition and Sufi tradition. My language is conditioned by that. It's obvious we're talking and we've also both arrived at this throughout the slightly different pathways. Maybe you're a bit more formal than me, at least more recently.

Well, I also have a strong influence from the whole world of current neuroscience and neurophysiology because I. Yes, that I think the body can actually become a. Because the body is inseparable from pure consciousness, it actually is a manifestation of pure consciousness. If we go deeply into the body, ultimately that's what we find is pure consciousness.

Exactly. If we go deeply into the body, we go out of the body.

Exactly. It becomes subtler and subtler.

You think you're going deeply into the body and you end up with pure consciousness. You go into the body, you go out of it.

Yeah, exactly that.

The comment towards the end of your last question, you mentioned about conceptual understanding. Really, conceptual understanding is a sort of contradiction of terms, really. I mean, conceptual understanding is belief. That's one thing to believe it. But what would a conceptual understanding of two plus two be? You understand that two plus two equals four. How could you understand that conceptually and not really, really understanding if you've had a tast, a recognition, a glimpse of who you are at the deepest level, Just the fact of being or being aware.

Pose the question this way. I've been a passionate student of the art of meditation and spiritual evolution my whole life. And I've practiced very deeply in the Buddhist tradition, in particular the Zen and very particularly the Tibetan Vajrana tradition and the non forms of that soul, Chenna Mahamudra. And that's still my primary path. But I've always studied everything and I've been seeing so many different teachers and I've tried to expose myself to everything. And so I've been with a lot of more secular non dual teachers, some associated with Vedic roots and Vedanta Advaita roots and others in a more kind of secular Neo Advaita kind of realm that aren't that connected to those roots. But then I've been around communities where in some of the communities where there's this kind of approach of this inquiry and kind of going through these dialogues and there seems to be some. But intuitively, in some of these communities, what I don't see is a lot of real change. I see a lot of adeptness with the language of non dual dialogue, but not a lot of really deep change. And also a lot of people being kind of attracted into that kind of practice who are ones who would shy away from deep work actually, but they. Yet you're smart people and if you're intelligent and clever, you can kind of master the dialogue and have a sense, even like I, when I read Krishna Murti, maybe really have a sense that, oh, I get that, I grok that, but is there real transformation going on?

I think that there's possibly a danger of that. Yes, yes, I think that's a legitimate objection. And my experience is very different from yours. You know, part of groups, first of all at Collet House, and then after that, the group of friends that gathered around Francis, and then more recently, the group of friends that have attended my retreats and come back regularly. So I've always been around a lot of people. My entire social life, really, from teens onwards has been. So I'm very familiar with being in a group and a part of a group, and every retreat I do now, my heart just melts when I see the quality of people that attend these retreats. Not only their level of intelligence, but their sincerity, their depth of understanding, their humility, their. The love, the warmth, the humor. I never met a group of people like that anywhere. Wonderful. So I acknowledge that it's a danger, it's a possibility, it's not my experience.

Well, I think we're all, you know, I mean, it's very likely that the students that are drawn to come study with you and be around you have an affinity and already adept for that kind of practice. I mean, it's kind of speculative, but even you, the experiences you had as a young child that your mother shared with you, and then even later, the ones that you are aware of begs the question of, you know, what do we all come into this particular embodiment, this particular lifetime with in terms of our past experiences and what we're ripe for? In a sense, yes.

Yeah.

I have a question. I asked this not in a philosophical sense or for sake of philosophical argument, but more really in terms of, you know, how we work with our mind at the subtler levels of non dual practice and understanding and inquiry. And so in the Vedic traditions, as one begins to recognize this quality of pure consciousness and more connected or identify with that, there is sometimes the expression is used the I am, and there's even a particular I am movement and so forth. And there's the expression tatoma, see, I am that I am. So it's almost a sense of pure subjectivity, which is not the limited self subjectivity, but it's just consciousness. Right. And in the Buddhist traditions, because there's such an emphasis on chenyata, selflessness, boundlessness, and such a reluctance to reify anything associated with the world, self or I. Generally, when looking at that source, when looking at that consciousness, one doesn't find anything that looks like a self or a limited self. One doesn't really find anything at all other than consciousness. So in the Buddhist tradition, they usually don't would not Label that as I am, or even something like that. Instead, they talk about the nature of perception from that view and almost a pure objectivity, which of course is limited kind of expression because that would imply there has to be a subject. But they use a term like tathagata, right, the vatness. And I've always found that interesting because I've been exploring these things deeply for a long time and always tremendously curious about, you know, we're right in the cusp of the same thing in these very subtle non dual practices. If you read the poetry of the great non dual masters and all the great traditions, whether the Vedic traditions or the Suvi tradition or the Tibetan Vajran tradition, even the great Zen masters, they're all, you know, right, right here in the same territory, you know, expressing it in different ways and unfolding in different ways. But there seems to be this some way of describing what we're experiencing in an outdoor state. And there's that, you know, the tendency in the Buddhist tradition is more of just thatness, just that which is, you know, that which is tathagata. And whereas in the Vedic traditions there can be more of a comfort with a sense of I am, which isn't the limited I. But it's, I'm just curious by your own sense of how what that is not just from a philosophical perspective, but how we work with our mind that either way, not the one is better than the other. I'm just saying in terms of understanding, of how we actually facilitate the release into the, you know, finally, because, you know, the levels of obscuration are subtle and subtle as we go along until there's some release into some kind of stabilized pure consciousness. How that's described in many traditions.

Yes, it's very interesting. Yes. In the Buddhist tradition, I understand and respect greatly the reluctance to name, objectify or reify reality or whatever we're going to call it. Because to objectify anything, to make an object out of anything, to know anything as an object, one must by definition stand apart from it as a subject. When you look at a tree, you perceive a tree from a distance. You can't see your eyes because you can't separate your eyes from your eyes. So all knowledge and experience takes place in subject object relationship and all knowledge and experience are relative to the point of view of the separate subject from which they are known. So Buddhists quite rightly recognized that to reify reality is to make an object out of it. And to make an object out of it, one must stand apart from it as a separate subject. But that separate subject could not possibly know the reality because everything it knows is limited. And if it objectifies reality, then that object itself must also itself be limited just by virtue of the fact that it's separate from the subject. So I understand and respect why Buddhists are so reluctant to give it the name I, or self or God or anything. But to call it that is to do precisely that. It is to objectify it. Think of the way you use the word, that everyday experience, you refer to yourself as this. Always. You would never point yourself and say that. You point over there and say that you point to yourself as this. So that is always is the word we use to point to an object. So to call reality, to refuse to call reality God or self, or refuse to give it a name. But then to call it that is to do what you have just denied doing. That is always an object. That is always over there. It's always an object. So why do I feel that the term I am is a higher and more accurate expression of the truth than to refer to it as thatness? It's for this reason if there is only one reality, and I think we all agree with whatever tradition, Buddhist, Christian, Vedantic, I think we all agree that there is only one reality. And being only one, it's indivisible and infinite. It's not really divided, it appears to be. It's one, it's whole, it's perfect, it's without parts, and so on. So what is it that could know that reality it could only be known by itself. Now, if that one reality could speak, what would it say of itself? What would be the first true thing it could say of itself? Would it refer to itself as that? No, because that is an object that is always something other than yourself. And for the One, there is nothing other than itself. So the One would never say I am that. What would the One say? If the One could speak, what would be the first true thing it could say about itself? In fact, what would be the only true thing it could say about itself? I am, because that is a statement of the subject's experience of itself. Whereas when we refer to it as that, we stand as a separate subject apart from of experience, apart from the reality, and we label it that as an object. So it is for this reason that I would suggest that I am apart from just silence, which is the we all agree on this. Ultimately the truth cannot be spoken. So obviously the very, very highest expression that Ramana Mahatri said, silence is the highest eloquence. But if we want to take one step down from that, I would suggest that I am is how reality would express its experience of itself were it able to speak. And its reality, its experience of itself, must be the only true reality. And it is for this reason that you referred to it. It's for this reason. I don't mean to criticize the Buddhist tradition. Goodness. Who am I to do that? And I understand it's beautiful to refer to it as thatness or suchness in my tradition. I would offer a similar critique, the four great Mahavakyas, where you referred to one of them, I am that or Thou art that. Again, that's what the finite mind says when it's trying to persuade somebody else. But the infant would never say to itself, thou art, that the infinite would only say to itself, I am. So I think the I am is higher, a higher statement than even the four great Mahavakyas in the Vedantic tradition. And it's said. It's why Ramana Maharshi said that statement in the Old Testament, I am. That I am is the highest expression of the truth in words. And I feel the same way.

Yeah, well, we got right to the heart of the argument there, didn't we?

That is the Vedantic Buddhist argument. Precisely. And I think it's really interesting one because as you acknowledge, silence is really the most eloquent expression and all language breaks down. I think the argument really, in Buddhist terms is more of a practical one, because in both cases, we're using language that in common usage references something which we're not trying to say. Right, so you're saying that normally means pointing over there, I or self. We're usually referencing to the limited self. Right. So I think in practical terms, I think from the Buddhist perspective, you say, well, the I self thing is so loaded that it's better not to use that language and that you have your same logic for using the other. So I think we can resolve that in silence.

I agree. I understand what you're saying. I agree with you. When we try to speak of reality, and I know you understand this very well, Fleet, and I'm sure most of, if not all of your listeners do as well. We understand that reality cannot be described in language. Our language has evolved to describe the content of experience, and it's reasonably good at that. But there isn't a real language describing reality. So our words. The purpose of our words is not to be accurate. The purpose of our words is to be effective, to try to precipitate in someone this taste of their true nature. And if that's our aim, then it doesn't matter what words one use. If the words I am are effective, then they're the right words to use. If they're not because of someone's conditioning or what we associate with the words, they're the wrong words to use. If the word that or thatness is the right words to use for all the reasons you've just very clearly explained, then thatness is the perfect word to use, not to describe but to evoke this recognition. Likewise, the word God, or maybe even that, has no spiritual or religious association. It might be someone talking about these matters spontaneously in response to a conversation may use a word that's got nothing to do with the spiritual, but it may work. That's what's important. The words need to be powerful and effective, not accurate. So having analyzed the use of the word thatness, and I am, I'm not attached to that analysis. I think whatever works and that I am, that they're all effective if used not mechanically, but skillfully, sensitively.

I think that's exactly the point. And I've always been fascinated with what I've always felt in some ways. I mean, you know, there's been these incredible philosophical arguments over time in various schools and even within both the Vedic Buddhist traditions and other associated traditions, you know, a lot of division and varieties. I've also felt that the arguments are ultimately somewhat false arguments because they're caught up in the language. And yet if one's willing to kind of work with it, you know, and take that side and take this side and get, you know, and kind of get in there and understand it can actually sort of sharpen and refine the mind. And one's ability then to find that silence and that place of community.

True sages never disagree with each other, irrespective of what century they come from, what side of the world they come from, what tradition they're in, because their experience is the experience of the nature of being. And there can be no disagreement by that. All the disagreements happen at the level of the mind. And they all basically boil down to one thing, which is my teacher's better than yours. That's what all the disagreements about. You know, I am is better than thatness, and thatness is better than I am, or God is, and so on. I agree with you. It's valid to discuss these matters. If our discussions are for the only purpose of deepening understanding, deepening recognition. But if it's very easy, as you point out, for these discussions to be appropriated by the ego, a separate self in us. And then they become a way for the ego to aggrandize itself or to argue its points. And then, of course, the very words that were supposed to precipitate understanding in us reinforce the sense of separation in us. So I hold these arguments very lightly. And I think your language of thatness is just as good as mine or many other expressions in the different traditions.

Yeah, it's really for this reason that I encourage students I work with and certainly encourage everyone on the summit to really study widely. If we can love our own tradition, I think it's important to go deep in some tradition. There's a lot of benefit to go deep in a particular tradition, but then to really explore it all and love it all and embrace. Because there's a kind of one less likely to get stuck if one really kind of grapples with all this, not trying to prove which is best, but trying to understand.

Trying to understand. Exactly. There's no better refuge for the separate self than to become a fundamentalist follower of a Ramana Maharshi fundamentalist or a Buddhist fundamentally, or a Sufi. Any kind of fundamentalism or narrowness on is a sure sign that the ego is lurking there. So go very deep in one, into one tradition, but stay very open and also be open to other people's language. Not to insist that everybody uses the words the way you use them, as somebody else uses the. To be accommodating, to be fluid for one's mind, to be open, not rigid and dogmatic and tied to a particular formulation or a particular teaching. Yes, I agree with you.

You've used an expression I'd like. And I've really enjoyed our conversation, Rupert. And I think in bringing it to a close, you've referenced something a number of times that I think we can always sort of circle back to, and that is the possibility and the reality of direct experience. Direct experience is available to us. And you've used the express in tasting. Yes, tasting this non Dual awareness. Tasting this pure consciousness. It is something available to us apart from all the language or whatever language we end up using to describe it by we can taste this. It's available to us in direct experience.

Yes, exactly. Tasting is. I think I probably borrowed the phrase, the word without realizing it at the time. But looking back, I love Paul Cezanne's paintings. And when he was describing what he was trying to do with his paintings, he said he had beautiful description of it. I won't quote the whole thing, but at the end of it. He says, I want my paintings to give people a taste of nature's eternity. And I love that. He didn't want to describe it to them. He didn't want people to think about it. He wanted. I mean, there's not many more experiences that are more intimate than tasting. It's visceral. That's what I want to the best of my ability, when I'm speaking about these matters. I. I can use reason and logic and I can explain the I am and all, but all of that is. It's not important. What is important is that one way or another, through whichever path, whichever tradition, through the path of knowledge, through the path of devotion, that we get this taste. Recognition is a little. It's a recognition, but it's too dry. It tastes. It's so visceral, so direct, so immediate.

So can use the word intimate.

Every single person, without exception, is by definition aware. Just the fact that all your attendees are listening to this, if they were not aware, they would not be able to hear this conversation. So it is everybody's fundamental experience. I am aware. All that is necessary is just to temporarily turn our attention away from what we are aware of or even to go through it. But let's say for the moment, to turn away from what we are aware of and just to taste that pure experience of being aware. Just drinking the pure water of awareness before it is mixed with tea and grapes and orange. It's just the tasting the pure water. And then, of course, when you're drinking tea and orange and wine, you taste the water in the wine. It's there. It's there in everything. You taste it in every experience. And the experience we're having now is pervaded by knowing. There's not a single particle of experience that's not saturated with knowing or being aware. So it. In the end, one doesn't really need to turn away from experience. You just go deeply into any experience and their consciousness is shining. And we are that beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for this illuminating conversation. I really thoroughly enjoyed it. How could people find out more about your work and your teaching, your books and so forth?

I think there are two ways. My YouTube channel, Rupert Spirer, or my website, Rupertspirer.com wonderful.

Well, I encourage people to check that out and I'm going to pick up one of your books myself. So thank you very much for this delightful conversation.

Thank you, Fleet. Thank you for inviting me in, and I wish you the best with the beautiful work that you do.

All the best.

Bye for now.

Thank you for joining me on the Radical Responsibility Podcast. Remember, real change happens when when we commit to our growth, face our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment. Stay grounded, stay present and stay true to you. Take care.

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