Enlightenment, Happiness & Non-Duality - Rupert Spira - #349

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, my friends in Podcastland. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Rupert Spira. He's a teacher of the Non-Dualism Direct Path, an author and a potter. Non-dualism is a state of consciousness that many contemplative practitioners aim to achieve. It's a dissolving of the barrier between the observer and the experience. It's incredibly complex, but thankfully, Rupert is one of the clearest and most direct teachers of non-duality. Today, we tackle literally some of the biggest questions in enlightenment. Like what are we at our essence? What is consciousness? What does it mean to say that you are the same person that you were 20 years ago? What are we referring to when we say I? And what happens when you take away everything that we identify with? This is such a gorgeous conversation. Rupert, I think, perhaps takes the biscuit, the title of most beautiful voice on this podcast, after mine, of course. There's a meditation partway through, about 35 minutes in, where he asks some questions and suggests that you imagine what it would be like if you stripped away all of the different parts of you that you identify with. It's just, it's beautiful. If you enjoy his work, he's got tons of stuff on YouTube. You can go and check it out. He's a really, really lovely guy. And the insights that you get today are super, super profound. You're gonna love this one. Before we get to other news, an update on the Modern Wisdom reading list. It is with the designer. It is nearly finished. We have proofed it and it will be out, I promise, within a couple of weeks. It'll be out sometime very soon. I'm just finishing up the landing page, making sure that everything works before I announce it. This is so good. A hundred books that you need to read before you die. It's got descriptions from me and my favorite takeaways. And they're all categorized. It's gorgeous. So get ready for that. And thank me massively when it comes out. It took ages. But now it's time to learn about the nature of consciousness with Rupert Spira.
Rupert Spira, welcome to the show.

**Rupert Spira** (2:20)
Thank you, Chris. Pleasure to be here with you.

**Chris Williamson** (2:23)
I actually want to start at the end to perhaps give us an idea of where we're heading. How do you define enlightenment?

**Rupert Spira** (2:35)
I would suggest that enlightenment is a rather exotic term that has acquired all sorts of exotic and superfluous meanings for people. But that it really refers to something very simple and well within everybody's grasp. And it is simply this, the recognition of the nature of one's essential being or self.

**Chris Williamson** (3:12)
So, it's innately linked to some sort of truth.

**Rupert Spira** (3:16)
We could say it is the truth about what we essentially are. Now, when I say what we essentially are, I mean that aspect of ourselves that never disappears, cannot be taken away from us is inherent or integral to us. So, for instance, the current conversation that you and I are having is not inherent in us. It started a few minutes ago and it will come to an end. It's not part of our essential being. Indeed, no thought that we have ever had is essential to us. All thoughts appear, they exist briefly and they vanish. Likewise, our feelings, however intimate or deep a feeling may be, it is still something that is added to us, it lasts a while and then it vanishes. The same is true of any relationship or activity. So, if one were to imagine removing everything from ourself that is not essential to us, what would remain would be what I refer to as our essential irreducible self or being. The recognition of its nature is what is referred to in the religious and spiritual traditions as enlightenment or awakening.

**Chris Williamson** (4:42)
So, it feels a lot like that is casting off rather than learning more.

**Rupert Spira** (4:47)
Absolutely.

**Chris Williamson** (4:48)
It feels like we need to get rid as opposed to acquire.

**Rupert Spira** (4:51)
Well, it's actually not even necessary to get rid of anything.
It is simply necessary to see clearly that all those elements of our experience, namely thoughts, feelings, activities, relationships, sensations and perceptions are not essential to us. We don't actually have to get rid of them or change them or discipline them. We just have to realize they're not essential to us. The analogy that I sometimes use to illustrate this is the analogy of the screen and the image. No image, no movie is essential to the screen. If you close down all your programs, your emails, your iFotos, your notes, your YouTube clips, your Word documents, you close down all the programs that you have running through the day, what can't you close down? You even remove your screen saver, which is not essential. It seems to be there always, but actually it's not essential to the screen. What remains? Just the transparent empty screen. So yes, it's a similar process. It's a process of removing from oneself rather than adding to oneself.