Confusion about Rupert Spira quote

[Kevin]

Hi so I just wanted to get some input on this. This quote is from the Rupert Spira book called presence volume 2: the intimacy of all experience.

 

I’m often at a loss because people read and listen to Rupert Spira and it seems like they resonate and enjoy what they are reading. What I feel reading this is loneliness. The page before he says there are not two things. There is only awareness. I interpret that as I am awareness and things appear to me. Rupert and his book are appearances. If all this is true how come Rupert is able to tell me these things if he is just an appearance. This all has me very confused and I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into words here.

[Mandy]

When someone you love dies you can still be aware of their presence, it's just not the body physical form presence that we believe ourselves to be. When the world is seen through the "I am the body" lens, death is a horror and death of a loved one is excruciating. It's so painful partly because our feeling is guiding our thoughts, and our thoughts insist upon separation of love being a matter of fact. This belief feels horrible to hold because it's simply not true. There's still grief, but when this is felt directly rather than thought, there are also windows of previously assumed to be impossible connection and communion, communication, etc. 

 

1 hour ago, Kevin said:

I’m often at a loss 

Sorry to nitpick the language (sorry, not sorry) but it's interesting that you use this phrase when this page is explaining the impossibility of loss. 

1 hour ago, Kevin said:

I interpret that as I am awareness and things appear to me. Rupert and his book are appearances. If all this is true how come Rupert is able to tell me these things if he is just an appearance. This all has me very confused and I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into words here.

If you are being literally everything, literally everything is pointing back to you. 

 

Also, I'm not sure if this is what you're doing but if it is, don't give Rupert credibility he doesn't have (not to say that he doesn't have it) and think that you fail to stack up to be aware of it. Don't try to force specific spiritual teachings into working for you. Fast food phrases seen on trash on the side of the road, a sign on a store or an image you see in a cloud might be exactly what you are needing to aww/hear in that moment,. Journal and write for yourself, read what you like, then if you like come back to it later.  The intent of the writing is to heal the belief in loss, you might want to journal about the topic of loss if it sparks something in you. 

[Kevin]

15 minutes ago, Mandy said:

When someone you love dies you can still be aware of their presence, it's just not the body physical form presence that we believe ourselves to be. When the world is seen through the "I am the body" lens, death is a horror and death of a loved one is excruciating. It's so painful partly because our feeling is guiding our thoughts, and our thoughts insist upon separation of love being a matter of fact. This belief feels horrible to hold because it's simply not true. There's still grief, but when this is felt directly rather than thought, there are also windows of previously assumed to be impossible connection and communion, communication, etc. 

Thoughts come up around the idea of it was never their presence it was always my own self. Rupert says this over and over in the book. He says there was never separate objects or people there is always only our self aware presence. That’s then come up about how if I am that self aware presence then all others are simply appearances. Another thought arises about how all those others are simply just images and nothing more.

 

I’m sorry for bringing up these ideas. I’m basically looking for help clearing this confusion up. My emotions are telling me I’m way off base. I feel terrible contemplating these things but for some reason logically it makes sense and it seems like this is what all the non dual texts are saying.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Sorry to nitpick the language (sorry, not sorry) but it's interesting that you use this phrase when this page is explaining the impossibility of loss. 

If you are being literally everything, literally everything is pointing back to you. 

 

This is part of what freaks me out. It does seem like everything points back to me. Like completely. And it scares me. It feels lonely. I must be missing something here.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Also, I'm not sure if this is what you're doing but if it is, don't give Rupert credibility he doesn't have (not to say that he doesn't have it) and think that you fail to stack up to be aware of it. Don't try to force specific spiritual teachings into working for you. Trash on the side of the road might be exactly what you are needing to hear in that moment, or an image you see in a cloud. Journal and write for yourself, read what you like, then if you like come back to it later.  The intent of the writing is to heal the belief in loss, you might want to journal about that topic if it sparks something in you. 

Definitely a good idea for me to journal about all this because it feels very heavy at the moment.

[Mandy]

2 minutes ago, Kevin said:

Thoughts come up around the idea of it was never their presence it was always my own self. Rupert says this over and over in the book. He says there was never separate objects or people there is always only our self aware presence. That’s then come up about how if I am that self aware presence then all others are simply appearances. Another thought arises about how all those others are simply just images and nothing more.

Have you heard the analogy about getting a thorn stuck in your hand and using another thorn to dig out the first thorn? Occasionally a belief may be broken by being presented with the fact that the opposite is true. But there aren't facts. There isn't an opposition between those opposites. You may be trying to believe the opposite of a prior belief instead of throwing away the first. 

 

6 minutes ago, Kevin said:

That’s then come up about how if I am that self aware presence then all others are simply appearances. Another thought arises about how all those others are simply just images and nothing more.

Simply just as if they were diminished somehow, as if by losing their borders they lose their reality and not just their limitations. If you were infinite love, how would thinking yourself to be "simply just an image" feel? An image is a fleeting thing, the screen is what allows them to be. No longer taking the screen to be an image doesn't mean that the images lose any of their beauty or vividness.

12 minutes ago, Kevin said:

My emotions are telling me I’m way off base. I feel terrible contemplating these things but for some reason logically it makes sense and it seems like this is what all the non dual texts are saying.

 

Listen to the emotions, and express them rather than continuing to try to digest the indigestible or stick additional thorns in your hand trying to get the first out like the little old lady who swallowed the fly. 

5 minutes ago, Kevin said:

I’m sorry for bringing up these ideas.

Please don't be, that's exactly what this place is for. 

14 minutes ago, Kevin said:

This is part of what freaks me out. It does seem like everything points back to me. Like completely. And it scares me. It feels lonely. I must be missing something here.

It doesn't point back to you, it points back to You. Union and loneliness are the same concept, really. If I become one with everything I lose my separate identity, and gain the world. Alone or all one. 

[Kevin]

10 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Have you heard the analogy about getting a thorn stuck in your hand and using another thorn to dig out the first thorn? Occasionally a belief may be broken by being presented with the fact that the opposite is true. But there aren't facts. There isn't an opposition between those opposites. You may be trying to believe the opposite of a prior belief instead of throwing away the first. 

 

Yes I have heard that. And to be honest I’m a little unclear about the rest of this paragraph.

 

10 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Simply just as if they were diminished somehow, as if by losing their borders they lose their reality and not just their limitations. If you were infinite love, how would thinking yourself to be "simply just an image" feel? An image is a fleeting thing, the screen is what allows them to be. No longer taking the screen to be an image doesn't mean that the images lose any of their beauty or vividness.

 

definitely. That resonates a lot more than the way I was looking at it.

 

10 minutes ago, Mandy said:

Listen to the emotions, and express them rather than continuing to try to digest the indigestible or stick additional thorns in your hand trying to get the first out like the little old lady who swallowed the fly. 

Please don't be, that's exactly what this place is for. 
 

I appreciate that this place exists where we can discuss these things. A while ago I was very concerned about loneliness and solipsism. I thought I’d gotten past it but today for some reason a bunch of anxiety around those topics came up. I felt a little bad bringing it up cause it feels like a downer. It feels like I’m sharing negativity. I guess it’s good though. Posting here is part of expressing.

10 minutes ago, Mandy said:

It doesn't point back to you, it points back to You. Union and loneliness are the same concept, really. If I become one with everything I lose my separate identity, and gain the world. Alone or all one. 

To be honest when I read the part about union and loneliness being the same concept I felt a little anxiety. And alone or all one. It feels kind of negative to me. Do you interpret it differently?

[Phil]

4 hours ago, Kevin said:

I’m often at a loss because people read and listen to Rupert Spira and it seems like they resonate and enjoy what they are reading. What I feel reading this is loneliness. The page before he says there are not two things. There is only awareness. I interpret that as I am awareness and things appear to me.

Loneliness is perceived isolation. That awareness is perceived or isolated doesn’t resonate because awareness isn’t perceived or isolated. Being perceived requires a ‘second thing’, a perceiver. Being isolated requires a ‘second thing’, the thing awareness would be said to be isolated form. Awareness is un-interpretable, as there is no interpreter.  

4 hours ago, Kevin said:

Rupert and his book are appearances. If all this is true how come Rupert is able to tell me these things if he is just an appearance. This all has me very confused and I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts into words here.

Appearance is singular, appearances is plural & is essentially returning to that there are two things, two appearances. There is one appearance, and yet if there is one appearance, awareness must be aware of - the one appearance. If there are not two things, then there is also not awareness and, one appearance. 

[Kevin]

3 hours ago, Phil said:

Loneliness is perceived isolation. That awareness is perceived or isolated doesn’t resonate because awareness isn’t perceived or isolated. Being perceived requires a ‘second thing’, a perceiver. Being isolated requires a ‘second thing’, the thing awareness would be said to be isolated form. Awareness is un-interpretable, as there is no interpreter.  

Appearance is singular, appearances is plural & is essentially returning to that there are two things, two appearances. There is one appearance, and yet if there is one appearance, awareness must be aware of - the one appearance. If there are not two things, then there is also not awareness and, one appearance. 

I don’t fully grasp what your saying here. But that’s ok I might just need to read it a couple times. I do feel a bit better after reading what you wrote so that’s good.

[Mandy]

10 hours ago, Kevin said:

Yes I have heard that. And to be honest I’m a little unclear about the rest of this paragraph.

You might be taking the pointer "not two" to mean that you lose one of the two. You do not lose one, you can't lose one exactly because there never was a separation between them to make two in the first place. 

 

10 hours ago, Kevin said:

To be honest when I read the part about union and loneliness being the same concept I felt a little anxiety. And alone or all one. It feels kind of negative to me. Do you interpret it differently?

No, I feel it as the absence of fear and isolation around others that I often felt for a lot of my life. I don't feel the absence of other, I feel the absence of separation between. 

 

It might help to read Rupert's or similar writings and feel into the words, stay with them longer than jumping to what they mean, and what they mean for you. Kinda like trying to understand the lottery vs winning it. 

 

"Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you." - Rumi

 

"Love is the whole thing, we are only pieces." - Rumi

 

Try giving this poem a read when you're feeling good and let me know how it hits you. https://plumvillage.org/articles/please-call-me-by-my-true-names-song-poem/

[Kevin]

8 hours ago, Mandy said:

You might be taking the pointer "not two" to mean that you lose one of the two. You do not lose one, you can't lose one exactly because there never was a separation between them to make two in the first place. 

 

Yes I was taking not two to mean just Kevin and no others.

 

8 hours ago, Mandy said:

No, I feel it as the absence of fear and isolation around others that I often felt for a lot of my life. I don't feel the absence of other, I feel the absence of separation between. 

 

It might help to read Rupert's or similar writings and feel into the words, stay with them longer than jumping to what they mean, and what they mean for you. Kinda like trying to understand the lottery vs winning it. 

 

"Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you." - Rumi

 

"Love is the whole thing, we are only pieces." - Rumi

 

Try giving this poem a read when you're feeling good and let me know how it hits you. https://plumvillage.org/articles/please-call-me-by-my-true-names-song-poem/

I’m not a big poetry guy but I really like that poem.

thanks for your responses. I’ve struggled a lot for the last 2 years with solipsistic thinking and loneliness. I thought I was past it but yesterday I got a lot of anxiety and it felt like I got close to panic attacks thinking about these things. However reading through your responses and Phil’s really she’d some light for me. It’s a little early to say for sure but things feel different today. I really think I might  have gotten over it.

🙏 

[Mandy]

@Kevin 🙏❤️