Being aware of being aware by rupert spira

‘It is only when we cease seeking happiness in objective experience, and allow the mind to sink deeper and deeper into the heart of awareness from which it has arisen, that we begin to taste the lasting peace and fulfilment for which we have longed all our life.’ – RUPERT SPIRA From an early age Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality At the age of seventeen he learnt to meditate, and began a twenty-year period of study and practice in the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr Francis Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P D Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997 Francis introduced Rupert to the Direct Path teachings of Atmananda Krishna Menon, the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism (which he had received from his teacher, Jean Klein), and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience Rupert lives in the UK and holds regular meetings and retreats in Europe and the USA SAHAJA PUBLICATIONS PO Box 887, Oxford OX1 9PR www.sahajapublications.com A co-publication with New Harbinger Publications 5674 Shattuck Ave Oakland, CA 94609 United States of America Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books Copyright © Rupert Spira 2017 All rights reserved No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without written permission of the publisher Designed by Rob Bowden Printed in Canada ISBN 978–1–62625–998–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher I searched for myself and found only God I searched for God and found only myself SUFI SAYING CONTENTS Acknowledgements Note to the Reader INTRODUCTION The Intuition of Happiness Knowing, Being Aware or Awareness Itself CHAPTER The Nature of Awareness CHAPTER The Overlooking of Our Essential Nature CHAPTER The Disentangling of Awareness CHAPTER The Effortless Path CHAPTER The Inward-Facing Path CHAPTER Trailing Clouds of Glory CHAPTER The Ocean of Awareness CHAPTER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all those who have transcribed the meditations in this book, in particular Ed Kelly, Will Wright, Terri Bennett, Michele Pike, Catherine Sanchez and George Mercadante I would also like to thank Ellen Emmet, Linda Arzouni, Marianne Slade, Jacqueline Boyle and Rob Bowden for the care with which they have contributed in various ways to the making of this book NOTE TO THE READER The contemplations in this book are taken from guided meditations that I have given during meetings and retreats over the past several years They were originally delivered spontaneously but have been edited for this collection to avoid repetition, and to adapt them from the spoken to the written word Meditation takes place in the space between words Therefore, these contemplations were originally spoken with long silences between almost every sentence, allowing listeners time to explore the statements in their own experience The meditations in this book have been laid out with numerous breaks between sentences and sections in order to invite and facilitate a similarly contemplative approach never find the peace and happiness for which she longs In order to know her own nature, she must turn her attention away from the objects of experience, towards that with which they are known She must know the nature of the knowing with which all knowledge and experience are known She must become aware of the experience of being aware, which is the essence of her own mind At night, the sun doesn’t disappear It continues to shine with the same brightness It is the earth that has turned away from the sun and, as a result, has fallen into partial darkness As soon as the earth turns round, so to speak, that part of it that was in darkness lights up The Fall in the Christian tradition is simply the turning away of the mind from its essence It is the turning away of the soul from God’s infinite being The presence of awareness always shines with the same brightness, behind and in the midst of all experience All experience is saturated with its presence All that is necessary is to ‘turn round’ Lalla, a fourteenth century mystic and poet from the Kashmir Shaivite tradition, referred to this turning around when she said, ‘I travelled a long way seeking God, but when I finally gave up and turned back, there He was, within me.’ We have searched for so long in objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships for peace and fulfilment Although the acquisition or experience of any of these brings our search temporarily to an end and, as a result, gives us a brief taste of the peace and fulfilment for which we long, they not last It is only when we ‘give up and turn back’ – only when we cease seeking peace and fulfilment in objective experience and turn the mind in the directionless direction, allowing it to sink deeper and deeper into the heart of awareness from which it has arisen – that we begin to taste the lasting peace and fulfilment for which we have longed all our life From the perspective of the mind, this non-practice of abiding or resting in the experience of being aware or awareness itself seems to be a blank or dull state However, in time, awareness’s innate qualities of imperturbable peace and causeless joy emerge, in most cases gradually This giving up and turning back, the turning around of the mind, was referred to in the early Orthodox Church as Hesychasm, the silence of the heart It is the remembrance to which Isaiah refers in the Old Testament when he says, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.’ It is the non-activity in which the path of knowledge and the path of love or devotion meet It is the experience in which self-investigation and self-surrender are understood to be one and the same Awareness’s recognition of itself – being aware of being aware – is not some kind of new knowledge; it is simply the clear seeing of what was always and already the case but seemingly obscured by the activity of thinking and perceiving Nor is awareness’s recognition of its own essential nature an extraordinary experience to which some minds have privileged access Being aware shines equally brightly in all experience Even a deep depression is illuminated by the light of awareness Being aware is not buried, veiled or hard to find It is the very light of knowing with which all experience is known Ramana Maharshi and the Buddha did not have special access to the nature of their own minds, nor any special qualifications The Buddha just sat down under a tree and said to himself, ‘I am going to stay here until I recognise the nature of my own mind’ The essential nature of his mind was exactly the same as the essential nature of each of our minds When Ramana Maharshi was suddenly overcome by the fear of death, he lay down on the ground and simply asked himself, ‘What is the essential nature of myself? What cannot be removed from myself? What happens to awareness when the body dies?’ In other words, he spontaneously engaged in the process of self-investigation As a compassionate concession to people’s difficulties and objections, all the great spiritual and religious traditions have enumerated various disciplines and practices to refine and prepare the mind for its eventual subsidence in its source or essence Ramana Maharshi bypassed all these progressive means and went directly from his current experience to the essential nature of his mind, thus resurrecting the Direct Path for our age This is the age of the Direct Path CHAPTER TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY I magine an actor named John Smith who plays the part of King Lear John Smith represents infinite awareness and King Lear the finite mind or apparently separate self Just as John Smith and King Lear are not two different selves, but rather the latter simply an imaginary limitation self-assumed by the former, so infinite awareness and the finite mind are not two different entities The finite mind is simply an imaginary limitation, self-assumed by infinite awareness for the sake of manifesting objective experience Imagine that John Smith played his role so effectively one night that he forgot who he really was and believed, as a result, that he actually was King Lear What would King Lear have to in order to realise that he was John Smith and thus be relieved of his suffering? In reality, King Lear could not anything, because there is no real person called King Lear To suggest that King Lear has to something to become John Smith would validate King Lear’s belief in himself as an independently existing person or entity, and would thus subtly perpetuate the cause of his suffering However, if King Lear does nothing he will simply remain King Lear – or at least he will seem to so from his own imaginary point of view – and, as a result, will continue to suffer In this case, King Lear will continue to seek relief from his suffering through the acquisition of objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships – a never-ending search that will only compound his unhappiness Therefore, as long as King Lear believes that he is King Lear, there is something for him to In fact, it is not possible for King Lear to exist without undertaking some activity to relieve his suffering If we are suffering we are by definition already engaged in a relentless search for happiness in objective experience, and therefore ‘doing nothing’ is not an option Seeking happiness in objective experience is the activity that defines the apparently separate self As a compassionate concession to one in such a predicament, the non-dual teaching will suggest some activity or practice whereby the one who suffers will be led, either directly or indirectly, to the source of peace and happiness within herself If the one who suffers is sufficiently mature, the teaching will guide her attention directly to the source or essence of her own mind, wherein lie the peace and happiness for which she longs However, if her mind is so accustomed to seeking happiness in objective experience that it is not yet stable or mature enough to turn away from the objects of experience and towards their subjective source, the teaching may give her some intermediary practice aimed at preparing her mind for its eventual return to and dissolution in its own essence These preparatory practices involve disciplining the body and the mind for the purpose of freeing attention from its fixation on the objects of experience When attention has been purified, at least to a degree, of its habit of pursuing peace and happiness in objective experience, the mind will only need a small hint as to where to find the peace and happiness for which it longs A question such as, ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Am I aware?’ will suffice Whilst all such preliminary practices are legitimate and appropriate solutions to the various inclinations, abilities and degrees of maturity of spiritual seekers, they must all lead sooner or later to divesting the mind of its limitations The Direct Path, by which the mind returns directly to its source through the recognition of its innate peace, clarity and luminosity, is the essence and culmination of all spiritual practice and can be found at the heart of all the great spiritual and religious traditions Let us return to King Lear, and let us assume that in spite of being deeply involved in the affairs of his kingdom, his mind is sufficiently mature to reflect on its own essence What does King Lear have to to recognise he is John Smith? He need only ask himself about the essence of his own mind: ‘Who am I really? What is it that knows or is aware of my experience? Am I aware?’ Each of these questions will lead King Lear away from the objective content of his experience – the drama with his daughters and courtiers – towards the essence of his own mind, the simple experience of being aware or awareness itself In other words, each of these questions will draw King Lear closer to the knowledge of himself as John Smith As King Lear travels back through layers of his own mind, discarding anything that is not essential to it – his thoughts, images, memories, feelings, sensations and perceptions – the essence of his mind will begin to emerge from its apparent obscurity At some point, when all superfluous knowledge and experience have been discarded, the knowledge ‘I am John Smith’ is revealed However, it is not King Lear who recognises John Smith Only John Smith has the experience of being John Smith John Smith is one person, so the knowledge ‘I am John Smith’ is non-dual knowledge: it does not take place in subject–object relationship The John Smith that knows is the John Smith that is known The ‘I’ that knows is the ‘I’ that is known John Smith does not need to anything or go anywhere in order to know himself He knows himself simply by being himself Likewise, only awareness is aware of awareness The finite mind is not an entity in its own right It has no existence of its own It is the activity that awareness assumes in order to know objective knowledge and experience, just as we might say that King Lear is the activity that John Smith assumes in order to manifest the drama of the play Just as John Smith never ceases being John Smith or becomes King Lear, likewise, at no point does awareness cease being awareness or become a finite mind And just as it is not King Lear who knows John Smith, so, likewise, it is never a finite mind that becomes or knows infinite awareness It is for this reason that Balyani said, ‘No one sees Him except Himself, no one reaches Him except Himself and no one knows Him except Himself He knows Himself through Himself and He sees Himself by means of Himself No one but He sees Him.’ When King Lear and John Smith each say ‘I’, they refer to the same essential ‘I’, although for King Lear this ‘I’ is coloured and thus apparently limited by thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions, whereas for John Smith it shines clearly as it is In reality, the self of King Lear is the true and only self of John Smith The ‘I’ of the finite mind or apparently separate self is the true and only ‘I’ of infinite awareness This is what Meister Eckhart was referring to when he said, ‘The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.’ The apparently separate self or finite ‘I’ around whom all experience revolves is the true and only ‘I’ of eternal, infinite awareness – the ‘I’ of God’s infinite, self-aware being that shines in each of our minds as the knowledge ‘I am’ – temporarily coloured by thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions but never being or becoming anything other than itself No self other than eternal, infinite awareness, or God’s infinite, self-aware being, has ever come into existence To believe so is blasphemy There is only infinite awareness, assuming the activity of the finite mind, thereby veiling itself with its own activity and appearing to itself as a multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves, but never actually being, becoming or knowing anything other than its own eternal, infinite being We not have to eradicate a separate self in order to be knowingly eternal, infinite awareness or God’s infinite, self-aware being There is no separate self to be eliminated To attempt to dissolve or annihilate a separate self simply perpetuates its illusory existence To discipline the separate self is to maintain the separate self The separate self is an illusion that seems to exist only from its own illusory point of view However, all illusions have a reality to them The reality of the apparently separate self or finite mind is infinite awareness Seeing the reality of infinite awareness is the death or dissolution of the apparently separate self or ego This is referred to in the Zen tradition as the Great Death It is represented in the Christian tradition by the crucifixion Until this point the separate self or ego has been equated with the finite mind due to the identification of the self with the mind However, we must now make a distinction between a finite mind that believes in its own separate and independent existence – that is, the separate self or ego – and a mind that has been divested of all such beliefs and feelings and, as a result, shines with the knowing of its own reality In the case of the latter, the finite mind will continue to arise from its source or essence of pure awareness, but its sense of separation and limitation has been neutralised in the clear light of this self-recognition Although its ability to mislead us may linger for some time through force of habit, it is only a matter of time before it fades It is for this reason that when the Indian sage Atmananda Krishna Menon was asked how to know when one is established in one’s true nature, he is said to have replied, ‘When thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions can no longer take you away’ To refer to the death or dissolution of the separate self or ego is, at best, a concession to the mind’s belief in its own independent existence More often it is a misunderstanding In reality, the mind cannot be said to have disappeared or dissolved, for there was no real, independently existing entity or mind present to begin with, just as King Lear cannot be said to have vanished because he never truly existed as such King Lear is an illusion However, like all illusions, there is a reality to him The reality of King Lear is John Smith When everything illusory has been removed from King Lear, John Smith stands revealed as he is In other words, no new knowledge has been added to John Smith It is only that ignorance has been removed from him The recognition of our essential, self-aware being – its knowing of itself – is the self-knowledge that shines after ignorance has been removed from it The removal of ignorance and the consequent dawning of true knowledge is referred to in various spiritual traditions as awakening, enlightenment, self-realisation, salvation, illumination, liberation, satori, nirvana, moksha, bodhi or prajna However, these terms tend to confer a degree of the exotic or the unfamiliar on our direct, intimate knowledge of our self, whereas in fact nothing could be less extraordinary than the knowing of our own being For a mind that is accustomed to giving its attention exclusively to objective experience, this non- objective recognition may trigger waves of profound relaxation in the mind or the body, in which the knots and contractions that have accumulated over a lifetime are released The release of these tensions may precipitate unusual effects in the mind or the body, but such external signs should not be confused, as they often are, with the simple recognition of our own being Alternatively, this recognition may happen so quietly that the mind may not even notice the transition that has taken place over some time When the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki was once asked why he never referred to his enlightenment experience, his wife, who was sitting at the back of the hall, stood up and said, ‘Because he never had one!’ The recognition of our true nature is not an exotic experience Indeed, it is not an experience at all In this recognition, our essential, irreducible, self-aware being simply loses its apparent limitations and its reality stands revealed: open, transparent, luminous, indestructible, unborn and undying When such a mind rises again from the heart of awareness and ventures out into the realm of objective experience, it does so, as Wordsworth said, ‘trailing clouds of glory’ That is, it rises from awareness still saturated with the imperturbable peace and causeless joy that are the essential qualities of awareness, and makes these qualities available to humanity CHAPTER THE OCEAN OF AWARENESS f awareness were likened to an ocean, thoughts would be the waves that play on the surface and feelings the currents that flow within it Just as all there is to the waves and currents is the movement or activity of the ocean, so all there is to the mind is the motion or activity of awareness I It is always still in the depths of the ocean; likewise, the heart of awareness is always silent and at peace For this reason, all the mind has to to find the peace for which it longs is to sink into the heart of awareness As Rumi said, ‘Flow down and down in ever-widening rings of being.’* As a wave or current flows ‘down and down’ into the depths of the ocean, it loses its agitation and ‘widens’ until at some point it comes to rest Having no activity or motion there, the wave or current has lost its form and, as a result, its limitations The wave and the current not disappear They never existed in their own right to begin with The wave and the current are simply the movement of water The water doesn’t appear when the waves and currents appear, and it doesn’t disappear when they subside Nothing new comes into existence when the wave and current appear, and nothing is removed from existence when they disappear Likewise, as the mind sinks progressively into its essence it quietens and expands – that is, it is divested of all that is finite, conditioned or limited within it – and stands revealed to itself as its essential, irreducible essence: clear, luminous, silent awareness When the waves of the mind rise in the form of thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions, nothing new appears, and when they subside, nothing real disappears As it says in Chapter 2, verse 20 of the Bhagavad Gita, ‘That which is never ceases to be; that which is not never comes into existence.’ Just as the waves that play on the surface of the ocean and the currents that flow within it are only the formless water moving within itself, so all thinking, imagining, feeling, sensing and perceiving are only awareness vibrating within itself, appearing to itself as the multiplicity and diversity of objective experience, but never ceasing to be or know anything other than itself Each of our minds is an apparent limitation of infinite awareness Just as a wave or current gives the formless ocean a temporary appearance, so each of our minds gives unlimited awareness a provisional limit, and thus a temporary name and form The finite mind is the activity that infinite awareness freely assumes in order to bring manifestation into apparent existence In assuming the form of the finite mind, infinite awareness seems to limit itself and, as such, becomes a separate subject of experience, from whose point of view it is able to know itself as a separate object, other or world Meditation is the reversal of this process When the activity of the finite mind subsides, nothing happens to awareness; it simply loses a temporary name and form It is for this reason that in the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism it is said that the path by which we fall is the path by which we climb The pathway through which infinite awareness assumes the form of the finite mind is the same pathway, traversed in the opposite direction, through which the finite mind loses its limitations and stands revealed as infinite awareness In doing so it is gradually, in most cases, but occasionally suddenly, divested of the limitations that it freely assumed in the first place in order to manifest creation The Direct Path – the pathless path of self-investigation, self-abidance or self-surrender – is the means by which the finite mind is divested of its freely assumed limitations until its essential, irreducible, indivisible, indestructible and imperturbable nature of pure awareness stands revealed to itself as it is At no point, either in the outward process of manifestation or the inward path of returning to its essence of infinite awareness, does a finite mind ever come into existence in its own right There is no such entity as a finite mind or a separate self A finite mind is the freely assumed activity of infinite awareness, through which and as which awareness knows itself as the world The finite mind is thus the agency of God’s infinite being, never an entity in its own right There is only one reality – one infinite, indivisible, self-aware being with nothing in itself other than itself with which it could be limited or from which it could be separated – from which all apparent objects and selves derive their seeming existence Infinite awareness never ceases being infinite awareness in order to become a finite mind It just colours itself with its own activity and appears to limit itself There is just awareness and the colouring of awareness but never the absence of awareness, nor the existence of any other mind or self A wave cannot find peace and fulfilment in another wave The only way for it to find lasting peace and fulfilment is to sink into the depths of itself, thereby progressively losing its agitation Likewise, the only place in which an apparently separate self or finite mind can find lasting peace and fulfilment is in the depths of its own being The separate self or finite mind that longs for peace and fulfilment in objective experience is like a current in the ocean in search of water Although the search for peace and fulfilment is temporarily alleviated by the acquisition of an object, substance, activity, state of mind or relationship, it is never fully satisfied and, as a result, resurfaces as soon as the new experience ceases or disappears It is only when the apparently separate self or finite mind dives deep within itself that it finds the rest, the peace and the fulfilment for which it longs The finite mind or separate self is an illusion that is seemingly real only from its own illusory perspective However, this does not mean that the finite mind or separate self does not exist It simply means that it is not what it appears to be All illusions have a reality to them, and if we are experiencing an illusion we are, by definition, experiencing its reality It is not possible to watch a movie without seeing the screen The ‘I’ of the separate self is the true and only ‘I’ of infinite awareness, seemingly mixed with and, therefore, apparently limited by the objective qualities of experience With this apparent limitation of awareness comes a limiting of the peace that is inherent within it It is for this reason that the primary motivation of all apparently separate selves is to find peace or fulfilment The wound of separation that lives in the hearts of most people is an invitation from the heart of awareness, drawing the mind inwards to the peace and fulfilment that live at its source and essence Just as attention or mind is awareness directed towards an object, so our longing or devotion is love directed towards a person or god And just as the peace and happiness which the mind desires live at the source of attention, never at its destiny, so the love for which the heart longs resides at the origin of its longing, never in its fulfilment As such, our longing originates from and is made out of the very substance for which it longs In the words of a sixteenth-century Italian monk, ‘Lord, Thou art the love with which I love Thee.’ The returning of attention to its source is the essence of meditation; the dissolving of devotion or longing in its origin is the heart of prayer The mind that seeks peace and happiness and the heart that longs for love must subside or dissolve in their essence We must die before we die In being aware of being aware, there is no room for a separate self There is just eternal, infinite awareness, resting in and as its own inherently peaceful, unconditionally fulfilled being…knowing, being and loving itself alone It is for this reason that Rumi said, ‘In the existence of your love, I become non-existent This nonexistence linked to you is better than anything I ever found in existence.’ In being aware of being aware – the knowing of our own essential, irreducible being – the mind loses its agitation and the heart is relieved of its yearning What remains cannot be given a name, for all names refer to the objects of knowledge and experience, and yet it is that for which all minds seek and all hearts long * Translated by Coleman Barks THE ESSENCE OF MEDITATION SERIES The Essence of Meditation Series presents meditations on the essential, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, compiled from contemplations led by Rupert Spira at his meetings and retreats This simple, contemplative approach, which encourages a clear seeing of one’s experience rather than any kind of effort or discipline, leads the reader to an experiential understanding of their own essential being and the peace and fulfilment that are inherent within it Being Aware of Being Aware Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2017 PUBLICATIONS BY RUPERT SPIRA The Transparency of Things – Contemplating the Nature of Experience Non-Duality Press 2008, Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2016 Presence, Volume I – The Art of Peace and Happiness Non-Duality Press 2011, Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2016 Presence, Volume II – The Intimacy of All Experience Non-Duality Press 2011, Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2016 The Ashes of Love – Sayings on the Essence of Non-Duality Non-Duality Press 2013, Sahaja Publications 2016 The Light of Pure Knowing – Thirty Meditations on the Essence of Non-Duality Sahaja Publications 2014 Transparent Body, Luminous World – The Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception Sahaja Publications 2016 The Nature of Consciousness – Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter Sahaja Publications & New Harbinger Publications 2017 www.rupertspira.com ... experience of being aware What is it that knows the experience of knowing? What is it that is aware of being aware? The common name for the experience of being aware is ‘I’ I am aware of the thought of. .. I am aware of the memory of childhood I am aware of the feeling of sorrow, loneliness or shame I am aware of the image of my home I am aware of the sensation of pain or hunger I am aware of the... are aware of and be interested instead in the experience of being aware itself Be aware of being aware Although the experience of being aware is not something that we can be aware of objectively,