You Have Never Seen Reality: Discover Who You Actually Are in Only Two Minutes | Rupert Spira

Rupert Spira (0:00)

The world is not really physical. Whether you're having a psychedelic trip, a vision of God, a near-death experience, consciousness hasn't changed. It's perception that's changed. And materialist scientists say that consciousness is generated by matter. It's like believing that waves generate oceans, and movies generate screens. Most people feel that being the body is their primary experience. That's a mistake.

God's being is infinite and eternal. Enlightenment is the most misunderstood word in the entire spiritual literature.

Mayim Bialik (0:33)

The truest essence is not what many of us are interacting with.

Rupert Spira (0:37)

If you unblend your experience, just by going back to the simple awareness of being, there's a place in you that has never been traumatized. This recognition of the nature of your being, it's the ultimate healing.

Jonathan Cohen (0:51)

What happens to our knowing when our physical bodies no longer exist?

Rupert Spira (0:55)

It was never a separate space to begin with.

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Mayim Bialik (1:34)

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

Jonathan Cohen (1:36)

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

Mayim Bialik (1:37)

And welcome to our breakdown. We've got a lot of shocking questions to ask today. What if every major religion has actually misunderstood not only the true nature of God, but our true essence?

What if there was a fast track to enlightenment that all of us can access for free right now?

Jonathan Cohen (2:01)

And what if we've actually been lied to about what enlightenment actually is? We've been sold courses and books and steps and paths, and none of them are actually leading there.

Mayim Bialik (2:11)

Our guest today does not promise anything except access to the part of you that has always been and will always be. Rupert Spira is a leading voice of clarity in contemporary spirituality. He is known for his ability to guide people to a direct experience of their innate happiness, their essential nature. He uses what's called the direct path approach. I had never heard of it, but he's going to explain non-duality to us. And this is, I'd say, one of our more intellectually astonishing episodes. He listened to our episode with Bernardo Kastrup to prepare for this episode. And he holds incredible retreats, which you can learn about at rupertspira.com/events.

He's got a podcast. It's the Rupert Spira podcast.

I highly recommend You Are the Happiness You Seek, Uncovering the Awareness of Being, which is a fantastic exploration of all of the questions that we ask. But I'm going to be honest, we ask a lot of them today. It is a pleasure to welcome Rupert Spira to The Breakdown. Break it down.

Rupert Spira (3:20)

Thank you for inviting me. Pleasure to be with you.

Mayim Bialik (3:22)

I've heard your name from many different people. Pete Holmes, who we've had on the podcast, spoke about you actually in our episode, and obviously we have a lot of other overlap. You're one of these names that kind of keeps coming into my life. People keep mentioning you here and there, and obviously your body of work is vast and so important, and we can't wait to get into all of it. But I wonder if you can give our audience a little bit of an introduction to put it plainly, who you are in terms of your mission and your life path and how you intersect with others and why it's important.

Rupert Spira (3:58)

So I have been exploring and practicing the non-dual understanding for exactly 50 years. And for the first 35 years, it was just my private practice. I was working in my studio as an artist. It never occurred to me to write about these matters or speak about them. Anyway, 15 years ago, I did write a book.

I thought I would then just go back to my studio and spend the rest of my life in my studio, which is what I always thought I was destined to do and indeed wanted to do. Then I started getting invitations to speak and hold retreats.

One thing led to another, and so I then gave up my life as an artist and just devoted my full time to writing and speaking about the non-dual understanding, writing, holding retreats, meetings, and so on.

Why does it matter? Because our culture is founded on the assumption of separation, that we are all separate individuals, separate from each other, separate from the world. And I don't need to describe the inevitable consequence of the paradigm of separation, which informs our world culture. One quick look at the news. We show that the inevitable consequence of the assumption of separation outside of yourself, out in the world, but the extent of sorrow, suffering, anxiety that people feel on the inside is the inevitable consequence of the assumption of separation internally. So why does it matter? Because any solution to the sorrow and conflict which we witness in our world today, from within the existing paradigm, may at best temporarily leave the situation, but won't make any fundamental change. A fundamental change has to come from outside the paradigm. And that is what the non-dual understanding suggests, that the recognition of the unity of being, the unity that underlies everyone and everything. So, that's why it matters, because it is the ultimate answer, both to sorrow, anxiety on the inside, and conflict in the world between individuals, communities and nations. And my mission, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a mission, but my vision is just to share my understanding, such as it is, with as many people as would like to know about it.