The Infinite I Am | Rupert Spira with Bill Free

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:07]My name is Bill Free. I am the creator of this conference platform. It was >> given to me just when COVID came. I uh miraculously went to Zoom in a few months before COVID and I learned how to use this platform as a conference platform and uh this is our 10th conference and I'm just honored to have been chosen by consciousness or to directed by uh what directs all of us to make these available year after year.

[00:00:49]This is number 10. And Rupert has been to every single conference except one since we started. I'm honored to have him as our opening uh teacher and uh presenter. He he doesn't say that he's a teacher, but man, he is a teacher and he is a mystic and he has he's just an amazing humble guy. I love Rupert Spyra like a brother. He has supported us in all these conferences. His teacher Francis Lucille has also supported us in all of these conferences. Thank you to both of you guys.

[00:01:31]uh I needed you to complete or at least to bring the awareness of love's presence bring awareness to my own direct experience and it happened at a Rupert Spyra retreat in Garrison New York and I'm just going to give a a short bio for Rupert. Uh many of you don't uh know him and and many of you may not know him, but Rupert is an internationally respected guide to the pathless path and the recognition that we are already and always the infinite awareness that we seek. This draws on the ancient traditions of advantage shyism. And he shares this understanding not as a teacher but as a friend pointing to the truth that lies at the heart of all experience.

[00:02:33]From a very young age he has been exploring the fundamental question that lies beneath all seeking.

[00:02:43]as we be already uh invited this question, who am I really beneath it all? Through his books uh amazing books I would add and meetings and retreats worldwide, Rupert offers not beliefs or methods but invitations to us all.

[00:03:04]invitations to turn inward, to question the illusion of separation, and to rest in what is already whole, already free.

[00:03:16]His approach, his approach dismantles the false identity conditioning that shapes our thoughts and sense of self, revealing the timeless, undivided awareness that remains when all the story and the personal self falls away.

[00:03:37]His most recent book, The Shining of Being, explores how this infinite awareness, the I am that precedes all experience, is not hidden or distance, but it shines as the very heart of our existence. In times of great unraveling, like right now, when personal and collective identities crumble, this recognition becomes not merely spiritual philosophy, but vital clarity.

[00:04:11]Who doesn't need that?

[00:04:15]What we essentially are has never been touched, never been lost. And Rupert's approach is especially relevant for those no longer content with spiritual bypasses or surface answers, but ready to see through the ego entirely and awaken to the truth of what they really are. Not someday, but now. Ultimately, he says, the peace and happiness that everyone longs for is already the nature of our being. And we share our being with everyone and everything without exception.

[00:04:54]Everyone, please give a warm welcome and a huge online hug to our friend Rupert Spyra. Rupert, you're here. Thank you, >> Bill. Thank you for your characteristically generous introduction and hello everybody.

[00:05:18]Goodness, there's lots of you here.

[00:05:19]Lovely to see so many so many faces. A few of whom quite a few of whom I recognize.

[00:05:28]>> Lovely to to see you all. And Bill, as always, it's it's an honor and a pleasure to be with you all. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:05:37]>> Thank you, Rubert. Thank you for everything that you do for uh Pure Presence Conferences, for Awakening Mind Films, for for the world, the global community uh loves you and thanks you. And uh I'm just going to hand the mic off to you. I don't want to hear me. I want to hear you.

[00:05:58]>> Can you Can you all see me okay and hear me? Is the volume okay? You You're okay?

[00:06:03]Yes. Good. Lovely.

[00:06:10]Well, I I suggest we start with our eyes closed. It's not necessary. So, feel free to keep them open if you prefer, but I suggest at least to begin with we start with our eyes closed and and just allow your experience to be exactly as it is.

[00:06:37]from moment to moment without trying to change it in any way at all.

[00:06:44]Don't try and stop your thoughts or control your thoughts or just let your experience be.

[00:07:17]Now just soften the focus of your attention from the content of your experience.

[00:07:26]By content of your experience, I mean thoughts, images, feelings, memories, sensations, perceptions and so on. Just relax your attention and become aware of the simple feeling of being.

[00:07:57]Strictly speaking, the experience of being is not a feeling.

[00:08:02]But I refer to it at this stage as a feeling because I want you to really connect with the experience of being in your in your actual experience.

[00:08:14]Go to the experience of just being.

[00:08:31]I say go to the experience of being.

[00:08:36]It would be more accurate to say come back to the experience of being.

[00:08:45]Let go of your thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, and so on. Don't try to get rid of them. Just let go of them and come back to the simple feeling of being.

[00:09:20]The reason I suggest come back rather than go to the feeling of being is that the experience of being is your innermost most intimate experience.

[00:09:42]It lies as it were behind or underneath your thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, and so on. It is more intimate than even your most intimate thoughts and feelings.

[00:10:38]Don't try to find the experience of being as an as an object in your experience. It is it is too close to you to be found in the content of your experience.

[00:10:56]For the same reason your eyes cannot see themselves.

[00:11:00]So you cannot stand apart from your being and know it in subject object relationship.

[00:11:10]And yet at the same time you cannot say that you are not having the experience of being.

[00:11:23]The experience of being the awareness of being is a unique experience. It is unlike any other experience in that it is the only experience there is if we can call it an experience that doesn't take place in subject object relationship.

[00:11:50]So don't try to find your being.

[00:11:55]Just sink back into it.

[00:12:15]Then just rest Yeah.

[00:12:44]When I suggest rest there, I don't mean to imply that you are one thing and your being is something else that you may or may not rest in being what you essentially are.

[00:13:09]So you rest not in being but as being.

[00:13:22]You just take a step back from the drama of experience and sink into being This this resting as being is the highest form of meditation or prayer.

[00:14:17]Indeed, it is the the meditation or prayer for which all other methods and practices are a preparation.

[00:14:33]It is the highest meditation, the ultimate prayer and It is the highest form of devotion.

[00:15:10]It is the highest form of surrender to God.

[00:15:13]For those of you that don't mind me using the God word The experience of simply being is your most intimate, familiar, innermost experience.

[00:16:17]And you are, even though you might not recognize this, you are always experiencing your being 24/7.

[00:16:33]Why does it seem much of the time that you are not aware of your being?

[00:16:42]Because you are aware of so many other things.

[00:16:47]thoughts, images, feelings, memories, sensations, perceptions and so on. And your awareness of all these things obscures or veils your awareness of being or at least seems to In the same way that one who is lost in the drama of a movie seems not to see the screen.

[00:17:36]So for one who is lost in the drama of experience, thoughts, images, feelings and so on, the awareness of being seems to be obscured.

[00:17:57]Indeed, it seems to be so obscure that it seems at time to be missing. And this apparent absence of being and its innate qualities of peace, joy and love initiates a great search which often takes us around the world at least intellectually if not physically.

[00:18:26]Traditions, teachings, teachers, methods, practices and so on.

[00:18:35]What are we searching for?

[00:18:39]Our being the person that travels the world intellectually or physically in search of being. This mysterious enlightened state called the recognition of being is like a a fish that travels the ocean asking every other fish that it encounters, where can I find water?

[00:21:05]The experience of being is like the screen behind a movie, intimately one with the entire content of your experience and yet completely free and independent of it.

[00:21:25]In other words, your being does not share the agitation that characterizes your thoughts.

[00:21:37]It does not share the the sorrow of your feelings.

[00:22:07]And thus the nature of your being is peace.

[00:22:12]Not a peace that is derived from the content of experience, but a peace that is independent of what does or does not take place in experience.

[00:22:28]This is the peace that passes understanding. The peace that has to do with content of the mind.

[00:22:54]And just as the screen is by definition present throughout the entire movie, unaffected by it. So your being remains consistently present throughout your entire experience. No matter how wonderful or awful or neutral your experience may be, your being is always shining quietly and brightly in the background of your experience.

[00:23:23]And it is available to you at every moment of experience irrespective of the content of experience.

[00:23:50]your being is the place of peace in you.

[00:23:56]It is your refuge, your home, your sanctuary.

[00:24:08]And you take it with you wherever you go.

[00:24:25]And nobody has nobody has privilege to access to being the Buddha, Jesus, Anand, St. Theres. So these these people did not have any greater access to their being than do you or I.

[00:25:00]The experience of being is freely available 24/7 to everyone without exception.

[00:25:24]And the experience of being is the same experience for everyone.

[00:25:33]There are almost 900 people attending this gathering. Now, if I were to ask you all to describe your thoughts or your feelings, we would have 900 different versions.

[00:25:53]900 different thoughts, likewise your sensations and perceptions.

[00:26:03]But if I were to ask you all to try to describe the experience of being, your descriptions would be identical.

[00:26:23]Because everyone's experience of being is the same experience.

[00:26:32]If Raman Mahashi and Hitler were with us now, their experience of being would be exactly the same as yours and mine.

[00:26:55]And what is traditionally referred to as enlightenment or awakening, it's really a a misnomer, a misleading concept that suggests some marvelous experience that is only available to a few rare privileged people.

[00:27:28]Enlightenment simply means the recognition of the nature of being.

[00:27:38]Not some extraordinary, mysterious, rarified being, but the simple experience of being that each of you is now and always having.

[00:28:01]Of course, although everyone is always having the experience of being this does not mean that everyone knows their being clearly.

[00:28:14]Why not?

[00:28:17]Because most people have allowed their being to become mixed up with the content of experience to become qualified or conditioned by thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions and so on.

[00:28:38]And therefore, whilst everyone knows their being, not everyone knows their being clearly as it essentially is.

[00:28:53]And it is this clear self-nowledge, this recognition of the nature of being as it essentially is before it is conditioned by experience.

[00:29:04]That is traditionally referred to as salvation or enlightenment or awakening and so on.

[00:30:47]Now, thus far, I have used the word being to describe our essential nature. But I'd like to take this a step further because being is the word that the mind uses to try to refer to that which we essentially are.

[00:31:27]But if we were to ask being itself about itself, if we were to ask being what its experience of itself is, it would never refer to itself as being.

[00:31:49]Bill does not refer to himself as Bill.

[00:31:52]That's what we call him.

[00:31:55]Lisa does not refer to herself as Lisa.

[00:31:59]That's what we call her.

[00:32:03]Suz and Sally and Bey and Vicki and Karen and Jenny and Richard and I'm just reading names from my screen. Dennis, you do not refer to yourself by your Christian names. That's what that's how we all refer to you from a second person point of view.

[00:32:28]How do you all refer to yourself?

[00:32:35]Bill doesn't say Bill is Bill says I am.

[00:32:45]All of you when you are referring to yourself you say I am.

[00:32:53]I am expresses your own first person experience of your being.

[00:33:02]If we were to ask being what is your experience of yourself?

[00:33:10]Not me telling you about being. But if we were to ask being tell us what is your primary experience of yourself in order to refer to itself the first thing being would have to do would be to give itself a name and that name would be I because I is the name that that which knows itself gives to itself.

[00:33:43]It is the divine name.

[00:33:51]And then if we were to say to being what is your primary experience of yourself? What is your experience of yourself?

[00:34:03]If it could speak, it would say simply, I am.

[00:34:28]And if we were to press being and ask being to tell us something else about itself, it would it would just remain silent because there is nothing in being other than being which could qualify it in any way.

[00:34:57]In being's own experience of itself, there are no borders, no divisions, no objects.

[00:35:30]In other words, in beings experience of there are no limits.

[00:35:53]In other words, if we pressed being, I'm caricatururing being, of course. If we pressed being to tell us more about itself, it would say there is nothing in myself other than myself with which I could be limited or divided.

[00:36:13]I am perfect. I am whole. I am complete.

[00:36:19]I have never been tarnished by experience.

[00:36:24]I am infinite.

[00:36:57]The only reason that we believe and feel that we are a temporary finite separate person is because we have allowed our being come entangled.

[00:37:14]in the content of experience and as a result to have acquired the limitations of experience.

[00:37:23]Experience is temporary and finite.

[00:37:25]Therefore, we feel I am temporary and finite.

[00:37:58]in meditation or prayer, we just sink into being. And as we do so, either gradually or occasionally suddenly, our being is divested of the limitations that it borrows from the content of experience and stands revealed as infinite being, God's being, the only being there is.

[00:38:35]and infinite being God's being shines in each of you each of us as the knowledge I am.

[00:38:58]In other words, the knowledge I am is Is God's signature in your mind?

[00:39:06]Is God's presence in your heart.

[00:39:18]And the reason I suggested earlier that this abidance as being is the highest form of devotion or surrender is because The only being present in you is infinite being.

[00:39:41]Just as the only space, the only physical space that is present in your room right now is the vast space of the universe.

[00:39:51]There are no individual spaces.

[00:39:56]There are just spaces that seem to be enclosed within numerous buildings, but space is in fact never enclosed or limited by any container.

[00:40:11]It's exactly the same. There seemed to be numerous individual beings, each one housed or contained in the body.

[00:40:25]But if you go to the experience of being, not some special extraordinary enlightened mysterious being, but just the ordinary intimate feeling of being that each of you is presently having.

[00:40:44]And you look clearly at that.

[00:40:47]You taste that as you are tasting it now.

[00:40:52]divested of the qualities that it borrows from the content of experience.

[00:41:01]Right there you stand as God's infinite being. The only being there is the infinite. I am If the art of meditation or prayer is to return to being and abide as that.

[00:42:41]And then the art of everyday life would be to to return to the content of experience to go back to thinking, feeling, sensing, perceiving, acting and relating and yet remain in touch with being.

[00:43:04]This is what it means in the orthodox tradition when they speak of praying without ceasing.

[00:43:17]They don't mean repeating words endlessly. They mean remaining as infinite being. Not just in the absence of experience, not just in formal periods of meditation or prayer.

[00:43:34]But to remain as infinite being in the midst of experience.

[00:44:10]So without losing touch with your being, let's open this up for conversation. If any of you would like to ask anything, please do.

[00:44:23]There are a lot of you. So if you've got a question, please formulate it very clearly and succinctly.

[00:44:33]And please remember I'm not a therapist or a doctor.

[00:44:37]Thank you. Um Mitra, hello.

[00:44:43]>> Hi Robert, thanks for taking my question.

[00:44:47]I've been I've been actually very fascinated uh about this sense of being as before I used to do stillness and uh silent but then I got very fascinated with the being sense of being a couple of months ago and when I started I thought it's very easy and after a while I thought I'm not actually doing it right and even while you were taking us through it um I don't think um actually understanding what it is it is the sense of >> okay >> pure existence right >> if I were to ask you now do you exist >> yes >> what would you Yes.

[00:45:47]>> You say yes to to what experience did you refer in order to answer yes to that question?

[00:45:56]Did you go to your thoughts and think oh because I am thinking therefore I exist?

[00:46:05]>> No.

[00:46:06]>> No. Did you go to your Did you go to the sensations of your body and >> think because I am feeling my body therefore I deduce from this that I exist? No.

[00:46:21]>> No.

[00:46:22]>> You went to the experience of being.

[00:46:25]You paused after I asked you the question, do you exist? You paused, checked your experience. Yes, I am.

[00:46:35]You went to your being.

[00:46:38]Being is not something you can do right or wrong.

[00:46:43]All other forms of meditation that involve focusing, directing, concentrating, stopping the mind. And and I don't mean this in any way negatively. They're all valid practices. I don't mean to imply any criticism, but these types of practices, you can do them right or wrong, or at least well or not so well.

[00:47:07]But you you can't be being is not something you practice. It's it's what you are.

[00:47:13]Whatever you are doing, whatever you're thinking, whatever you're feeling, whatever you're doing, you are.

[00:47:23]Your being is is just the most obvious, intimate, familiar experience there is.

[00:47:28]You're not doing it.

[00:47:31]You are it.

[00:47:36]I constantly have to go to my mind to actually >> you have to go to your I'm sorry to interrupt you m >> you have to go to your mind think or perceive. Yeah I I agree with you. If I were to ask you now what did you have to go what did you have for breakfast this morning? You would have to go to your mind. If I were to ask you now what's taking place outside your window, you'd have to go to your perceptions. In other words, to your mind. But if I were to ask you now, do you exist?

[00:48:10]You don't refer either to thoughts or perceptions.

[00:48:14]You refer to your being. And your being is not in your mind in the same way that the screen is not in the movie.

[00:48:22]Your mind is the content of the movie, the content of thought and perception.

[00:48:26]being doesn't exist in that.

[00:48:30]It doesn't exist in the time and space that seem to be real from the point of view of thought and perception.

[00:48:37]Just as the screen doesn't exist in the time and space that seem to be real in the movie.

[00:48:45]>> So when you experience being, do you experience it with your body or I feel like my mind is very involved. Mitra your body does not experience it is experienced.

[00:49:03]Your it's not your your your cheek or your shoulder or your elbow are not listening to my words.

[00:49:14]It a body does not experience. It is experienced.

[00:49:20]Only awareness is aware. And therefore only awareness experience is anything either its own being its own self or indeed anything else.

[00:49:32]>> Okay.

[00:49:33]>> So it it is awareness that that has the experience of being that is the experience of itself.

[00:49:44]>> So you think I'm actually doing it right?

[00:49:50]Mitra, you are neither doing it right nor are you doing it wrong. You are.

[00:49:55]Your mind does certain things right and certain things wrong. So does my mind.

[00:50:01]It gets some things right and some things wrong. That's the nature of the mind.

[00:50:06]But your being is not something you can do right or wrong. It's it's what you are. It's like the space in your room.

[00:50:14]It never changes.

[00:50:18]You might paint the color of You might paint the walls of your room and think, "Oh, no, that's the wrong color, but you never say that's the wrong space."

[00:50:27]You never walk into your room and say the space is wrong. Or indeed, the space is right. The space is just space. It's not right or wrong.

[00:50:37]Your being just is and is aware and is at peace.

[00:50:43]Nice to meet you, Mitra. I wish you the very best, Maddie. Hello.

[00:50:48]>> Hello, Robert. Nice to meet you.

[00:50:51]>> Nice to meet you.

[00:50:52]>> Very nice to meet you. Yeah. Uh my question, I have actually two questions, but I only ask one. I know that.

[00:50:58]>> Just ask one. Yes.

[00:50:59]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh so my question, you know, is about uh career job, you know, from this understanding. No. So u >> Okay. Let me respond to that, Maddie.

[00:51:13]Let let me respond to that. I I should have said not only am I not a therapist or a doctor, I'm not a career advisor, but I'm going to say something very briefly about your career. Sorry, I I didn't allow you to answer your ask your question because I've intuited it. You should choose a career in my I would suggest you should choose a career that enables you to share with humanity the qualities if we can call them qualities that are inherent in being.

[00:51:48]Strictly speaking being doesn't have any qualities but with reference to the experience of agitation, sorrow, conflict and so on. We could say that the quality of being are peace, joy and love and understanding.

[00:52:07]So when choosing a career, I would suggest you choose a career that not only enables you to to a living that uses your skills and talents and interests to enable you to earn a living, but that has a deeper purpose, namely to share with humanity the love and understanding we speak of here.

[00:52:37]Thank you, Maddie. I wish you the very best in your career.

[00:52:42]>> Thank you. Thank you, >> Susan. Hello.

[00:52:54]>> Hello. Thank you for doing this, Robert.

[00:52:57]Um my question is related to what's unfolding.

[00:53:05]I practiced TM for a number of years and settled into great comfort in the beingness. Discovered there and then had medical situation that required me to be in bed for two years and the only way to get out of pain was to continue to meditate. And through that experience of deep stillness, there was a a great clarity about everything that came forward from that that wasn't of me or came wasn't of Susan anyway. And so, Bill and Lisa have really helped me see that I can do my daily life with that present. It doesn't have to just be when I'm in perfect stillness. You mentioned doing daily activity with the be with beingness. So I feel like at this stage I'm experiencing something almost like dual vision. Yes.

[00:54:09]>> Can I interrupt you Susan? Can I interrupt you? Sorry.

[00:54:12]>> Can you can you try to formulate your question?

[00:54:16]>> Yes.

[00:54:17]Is it normal to have a period of uh time where there's like a dual track going of like very focalized uh activity of objects based stuff >> and an ability to see the unrestricted vision >> of that vocalized stuff.

[00:54:42]>> Yes, Susan. Yes. It it's very natural to begin with and and for a while for for there to be a um a polarity sometimes even a conflict between um being and doing.

[00:55:02]Being is the screen, doing is the movie.

[00:55:05]So it's all very well resting in being when you're in formal periods of meditation or prayer. you you've to closed the door, you've turned your phone off and so on. But then when you go back to everyday life, you lose yourself in experience again and being seems to to disappear. So it it it's natural that to begin with, as you say, there are these two elements, being and the content of experience.

[00:55:33]And and for this reason the all the traditions in one way or another suggest these formal periods of prayer or meditation when we turn our attention away from the content of experience and this helps us to establish ourself in being as being and then we go back to life. You lose yourself in the content of experience and then you have to come back to being again. But more and more in everyday life you find there are these little pauses in between your thoughts and activities there. You may not be able to spend 20 minutes in meditation or prayer but you have 20 seconds. So throughout your day you you you interpose these these homeopathic doses of your being and then you lose yourself in the content of experience. And in time you begin to feel that your being is not something you just visit during these periods either formally or informally during the day. Your being is like um it's like an ocean that underlies your experience. It's like an ocean of peace that underlies your experience. And it's always there. And fewer and fewer experiences retain the power to take you away from your being.

[00:57:02]Maybe one or two really intense, difficult, painful experiences do take you away from your being, but it happens less and less often. And when it does happen, it lasts for less and less time until you begin to feel that your being is not just something you visit from time to time, but you live there.

[00:57:25]You you you you live in that as that.

[00:57:29]So it's normal that observation of this going up this coming back down to this >> like this like >> Yes.

[00:57:39]>> Okay.

[00:57:39]>> Yeah. Yeah. Nice to see you, Susan.

[00:57:41]Thank you.

[00:57:42]>> Thank you.

[00:57:45]>> Mitch, could you turn your video on so we can uh put you in the cube?

[00:57:53]>> Is it okay to keep it off? I'm in bed.

[00:57:57]>> Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. Hey, Raper.

[00:58:02]I am um yeah, I'm loving this. I feel really grateful that my being is very present throughout my life and it's very um yeah, it's very clear. Um, it's also I have a very habitual mind pattern that's still very active and so um I just have >> Can you tell me can you tell me what your name is? I >> Yeah, sure. It's Meech.

[00:58:38]>> Me. Me. Hi. Hello.

[00:58:40]>> Hi.

[00:58:41]>> Um, I can hear you but not see you. Me Mish, what is your question? Yeah, the question is um what is the best way to kind of um remain as being while the mind patterns are very strong.

[00:59:02]Mind emotional patterns get strong of like repetitive loops of this topic or that topic.

[00:59:12]>> Yes.

[00:59:12]>> Okay. Mishe, um I'm sure you've had the experience of loving someone very much, a child, a friend, a companion, or >> and do do you know what it's like um to be immersed in your everyday life, your work life, your whatever you're involved in, but for this the presence of this person and your love for them to remain present in the background ground all the time. For instance, if you have a child or a a close friend, just that their presence remains in the background.

[00:59:55]Have you had that experience?

[00:59:58]>> Yes. I think it's very also common to have the experience where you forget that you love someone as you're getting mad at them.

[01:00:06]>> But but but that that's not that's not the point. Your question was how to remain in touch with being in the midst of experience. So I'm giving you an analogy >> uh to to try and help you to to see how it is possible to be fully engaged in everyday experience and to feel this presence with you all the time. So I'm just giving you the analogy um of uh what it's like to be fully engaged in everyday life and to feel this presence of being or for those of you of a religious inclination, God's presence all the time.

[01:00:54]It it's it's like that. It's just like you feel the presence of a loved one, someone you love deeply, a child or a friend. You just the love kind of pervades everything you do.

[01:01:07]If you have a child, those of you that have a child, your your love of your child, say you're you're a a mother, you have a young child, a 5-year-old child, every moment of your day, whatever you're doing, your child is never out of your mind or your heart, whatever you're doing during the day, however important it is, however demanding it is, whatever you're feeling, what your love for your child is just always there. It pervades your light. It It's like that just this love of being just saturates. To begin with, you feel it in the background of your experience, but in time it begins to perade pervade the foreground of your experience. It just saturates your entire experience.

[01:02:00]meaning regardless of mind looping. It doesn't matter what it it's like u I'm going to give you another analogy now Misha I'm sorry I'm not I don't mean to well I I do mean to mix my metaphors I'm sorry like when you're watching a movie you are seeing the screen no matter what is taking place on the movie however dark it is however funny it is however beautiful it is however sad it is how you are seeing the screen but now of course the screen of being is not something you see it it you understand that but it's the same thing in the same way that the screen per the screen lies both in the background of the movie and it pervades the foreground of the movie irrespective of the content of the movie is like that it lies in the background that's where most of us find our being first in the background of experience but in time the foreground is permeated and saturated with being in the same way. So that whatever you're experiencing upset, hurt, depression, excitement, um confusion, shame, whatever you're experiencing or feeling, that experience is pervaded by being and uh everyday language uh points to this. This understanding is enshrined in our everyday language. We say I am. If someone asks you how you are, you say I am lonely. I am depressed. I'm heartbroken. I'm upset. I'm confused.

[01:03:40]I'm excited. I'm happy. I'm in love. I'm sick. I'm It's always I am plus some qualification.

[01:03:50]I am plus a thought, a feeling, an activity or a relationship. But the I am is always there. The the I am is shining. Your being is shining in your depression. Otherwise, you wouldn't say I am depressed. You'd say there is depression. But you don't feel there is depression over there. You know, you feel I am depressed. That depression is like a dark cloud that has temporarily colored my being. But my being is there.

[01:04:16]If there being is like the sky. It is temporarily colored by the dark cloud.

[01:04:21]But if there was no sky, there would be no cloud.

[01:04:25]So yes, every experience without exception that you have is pervaded by being.

[01:04:32]>> Yes. Thank you.

[01:04:33]>> Nice to meet you. Um even though I can't see nice to meet you in this way, I wish you the very best.

[01:04:41]>> Thank you, >> Andrew. Hello.

[01:04:49]About 20 years ago, I had a um a really strong experience. Yes, it was on magic mushrooms, but I had done a lot of spiritual work and it it didn't seem like a far out thing.

[01:05:05]Basically, I felt I I knew and felt that I was everything. Um, and I it felt like I knew everything was everything and I felt one with everything but everything was me.

[01:05:22]And >> then I realized that I am completely alone. I'm the only thing in existence.

[01:05:35]Utter utterly alone. And that's haunted me for 20 years. the this this >> um >> this and it's I'll just one last bit and basically it's it's halted my spiritual development because I fear of be I fear becoming >> of raising my vibration because if I do then I'll just be alone the only thing there is >> understanding okay all right Andrew um we have to make a distinction here between being >> I'm not talking about I'm talking about >> we have to make a distinction.

[01:06:18]>> Sorry.

[01:06:21]>> We have to make a distinction here between being and existence.

[01:06:27]Existence refers to that which exists or that which seems to exist. It it refers to the the multiplicity and diversity of things, people, objects, places, things. All of these exist or seem to exist. They are the content of the movie.

[01:06:47]Whereas being is the screen. It is that from which everything borrows its existence.

[01:06:55]So at the level of being, you are right.

[01:06:58]being is alone in the sense that there is just one being.

[01:07:05]The the screen in the movie there may be 10,000 people in the crowd but there's only one screen. There are not two in that sense the screen is alone but it's not the aloneeness of the mind. It's not loneliness because there's no other from being's point of view. There is no other being to be separate from or to long for and therefore loneliness is impossible for being.

[01:07:37]To to feel alone or lonely is the the core existential feeling of the separate self or ego. It's the ego that feels I am alone. I am one insignificant individual cut off from everyone else and therefore I am alone and lonely and that is intolerable.

[01:08:04]So you have to distinguish between the the oneness that is the nature of being, the aloneeness of being and the aloneeness or separateness of the ego.

[01:08:21]For the ego, yes, the feeling of being alone is terrifying.

[01:08:26]But for being, the feeling of being one is pure joy. In fact, it's it's it's the experience of love because that's what love is. is the absence of otherness.

[01:08:36]So the experience of for being its experience of its own oneness is pure love.

[01:08:45]>> I understand that I'm sort of anthropomorphic.

[01:08:48]>> So you have to go through this feeling of loneliness which is a comes from the sense of being a separate self to you have to go through that back to your being where there is just peace and love no question of loneliness.

[01:09:11]So it's like I brought my my loneliness up to up to that level.

[01:09:18]>> Exactly. Exactly.

[01:09:21]A Andrew, you're spot on. Um, you have attributed the loneliness that properly belongs to >> You have attributed the loneliness that properly belongs to the ego to pure being and believe therefore that it's must be terrifying to be established in your true nature because you're so alone there. It it's the opposite. It's terrifying to be an ego because there you are alone.

[01:09:50]>> Yeah.

[01:09:57]But Andrew, you've understood that now.

[01:10:00]So you don't need to be subject to this fear anymore. If you feel the fear of loneliness, go back to your being.

[01:10:08]There's no there's no sorrow there.

[01:10:10]There's no loneliness there.

[01:10:13]The space in your room in the room in which you are sitting now doesn't feel lonely because it is the vast space of the universe. It's it's not cut off from all the other spaces because there are no other spaces.

[01:10:28]>> So so the one the ultimate being doesn't have the capacity to feel alone or it's just not processing.

[01:10:41]>> You're you're absolutely right. It doesn't have the capacity to feel alone.

[01:10:43]Because in order to feel alone, you have to first feel otherness.

[01:10:48]>> Yeah. And it doesn't feel that way.

[01:10:51]>> It's because you have previously had friendships. I I I don't mean you personally, Andrew. It's because one has previously had friendships and now one has no friends that one feels alone. But for being that there is always only itself. So there's it's never being never exists in relationship because it it exists in love and love is the absence of relationship the collapse of relationship. So for being there's no aloneeness there is oneness.

[01:11:27]>> I wish you the best Andrew. Nice to meet you.

[01:11:29]>> Thank you very much.

[01:11:32]>> Hello.

[01:11:33]>> Hello. Thank you for all your help.

[01:11:36]Robert, I meditate with you for a while now and today I just realized that beings seems to be in the distance and today it's like merge with everything like body and being and it was one like one point everything was one. So my question is is that body and the being in actually are one.

[01:12:06]>> Okay.

[01:12:07]>> It's not in a distance.

[01:12:10]>> Okay.

[01:12:11]>> Marola, can I to close can I ask you to close your eyes for a minute?

[01:12:15]>> Mhm.

[01:12:17]>> Are you having the experience of being?

[01:12:21]>> Yes.

[01:12:26]How far from yourself is the experience of being taking place, >> no distance.

[01:12:41]>> Perfect. That's the answer to the first part of your question about being taking place at a distance from yourself. Now, open your eyes.

[01:12:51]Open your eyes again. Now, >> Mhm. Have a look at the world. Uh is there anything that you see in the world? Anything you see in the room that that is not being?

[01:13:12]The books, the walls, the paintings, the furniture, the curtains, the Is there anything that is not being?

[01:13:24]No, actually not.

[01:13:30]>> That's it.

[01:13:32]So you go inside. That's what you did first with your eyes closed. Your inner experience is pervaded by being. And then you open your life. You open your eyes.

[01:13:44]And everything you encounter, whether it's the objects on your table or the the moon and the stars, everything you encounter is, in other words, the amness of yourself and the isness of things are the same infinite being. Everyone and everything borrows their apparently indep individual existence from the one infinite being or in religious language from God's being.

[01:14:25]But for some reason today everything seems like it's in here and comes from one place outside.

[01:14:39]It seems like being was in the distance.

[01:14:41]Today it merged and is everything is in one place.

[01:14:45]Wherever you look, Marriott, wherever you look, wherever you go in experience, inside, outside, into the past, into the future, whatever you encounter through your thoughts, through seeing, through hearing, through touch, whatever you encounter, whatever anybody has ever encountered Everything, thoughts, feelings, images, perceptions, the world, everything is everything is pervaded by being, including yourself. And from the point of view of being, there are no divisions. There only seem to be divisions when we look at being through the lens of perception. It's like everything you see on a screen, on a movie. You may see 10,000 things in the movie, but those 10,000 things are just refractions of the one infinite indivisible screen.

[01:15:50]It's the same being is the one infinite indivisible being from which everyone and everything borrows its existence.

[01:16:02]That's what it means in the Bible.

[01:16:06]God is that in whom we move and live and have our existence.

[01:16:11]It is the it is the medium the stuff from which everything emerges in which everything subsists and into which they vanish. And of course in reality no things ever really emerge from being with their own independent existence just as no objects ever really emerge from the screen. It's just the screen appearing as objects. So it's just infinite being appearing as the world.

[01:16:41]>> So in that sense, >> I'm sorry. So in that sense, everything is one >> as a concession to the existence of things, we could say everything is one.

[01:16:54]But at a deeper level, there are no things either to be one or not to be one.

[01:17:01]>> Okay. Okay.

[01:17:04]Nice to see you, Mariola.

[01:17:06]>> Oh, hello.

[01:17:09]>> Hello. Is it Liaoing? Liaoen.

[01:17:12]>> Just call me Violet. Yeah. Um, thank you so much, Rupert. Um, I I want to ask you this question about grief. Um, so how do you reconcile grief with being if grief is like a content of experience?

[01:17:30]>> Yeah.

[01:17:32]Yes. Um, Leo, grief is Do you understand what I mean when I say that love is the nature of being?

[01:17:48]Yeah. Love I I'll just say very briefly, love as we all know is the absence of otherness or oneness. When you love someone, you are one with them. So that that's being's constant experience because for being it's never separated into parts. So love is the nature o of being. And one of the ways that being expresses itself in the mind is grief when a loved one dies.

[01:18:29]So when you've been in a relationship where love has been the the essence of that relationship, the relationship takes place in the mind.

[01:18:40]The love is underneath the mind. But when that person you lose that person or they pass away, then the love you feel for them shines in your mind as grief.

[01:19:03]So um so if that's the case then um how do you embrace if if if ever grief comes up like you know um >> like sometime how do you embrace it >> by by by feeling through it to the love that is its deeper nature.

[01:19:31]So you don't try to get rid of the grief because it's a very natural emotion. But the grief rises on account of love. If there were no love, there would be no grief. So you just feel through the grief to the love and then you you let the grief be there.

[01:19:50]the grief will gradually subside leaving the love all alone. So grief is like a a thin veil over the love. But it's natural. It's not a it's not a failure of your understanding. It it's completely natural that love shines in the mind as grief when a dear friend passes away or you lose a companion.

[01:20:18]So you you just have to suffer the grief in in with with with grace and dignity and acceptance and patience and it will slowly be outshone in the love.

[01:20:41]>> Okay. So love is the answer to everything like the end.

[01:20:46]>> Exactly. Exactly. Yes.

[01:20:50]>> Thank you very much. Thank you.

[01:20:52]>> Thank you. Very nice to meet you.

[01:20:54]>> Thank you.

[01:20:59]>> Uh you Hello.

[01:21:01]>> Hi. Nice to see you again, Rupert.

[01:21:04]>> Good to see you.

[01:21:04]>> Um um maybe you answered part of my question and talking to I think it was Marola. I'm not sure I'm saying her name right. Um, I've been doing a lot of like sense gate work and including infeders where you sort of go out of your thinking and into hearing or feeling or seeing or tasting. Um, which seems like content of experience.

[01:21:32]Um, and your meditation this morning was about going into being. And I know everything arises in being, but maybe you could, you know, circle that square for me if you understand where >> certainly. Um, is it is it usel?

[01:21:48]>> Ul, >> C is pronounced like a G.

[01:21:52]>> Ul. All right. Um, UGEL.

[01:21:59]What what I what I suggested earlier during our meditation was an example of um what is sometimes referred to as the direct path.

[01:22:11]What does this mean? It means you go directly from the content of your experience back to your being in one step.

[01:22:23]So whatever you're thinking, whatever you're feeling, however bad your experience is or however good it is or you just take one step back to the fact of being or or being aware, you go there directly. Now for some people that for many people uh the content of their experience is so difficult or painful or or um demanding or distressing that and their identification with their experience is so strong that it's just too big a step, too radical a step to go straight from the content of your experience back to your being. And so in recognition of this, the spiritual traditions interpose um an intermediary or sometimes several intermediary steps.

[01:23:27]So in response to what you said particularly where you go from your thoughts to your sensations, your thoughts may be so demanding and so overwhelming and so sticky and so they may demand your full attention that every time you go back to your being, you just get pulled back into your thoughts again. So um as a response in response to that the >> in response to that the tradition says or the teaching or the teacher says okay it's too too big a step to go from your thoughts straight back to being let's go take a more neutral experience.

[01:24:18]uh the the sensation soles of your feet.

[01:24:21]The sensation at the soles of your feet is not distressing.

[01:24:27]It's not like your thoughts. It's also much quieter than your thoughts. It's not changing 19 to the dozen all the time. So it's it's it's a quieter, more neutral, more stable experience. And as such, it's a good halfway house between the agitation of your thoughts and the peace of your being.

[01:24:45]So the breath is another very common halfway stage and it's a very good halfway stage because the breath is not only neutral and and stable. It's not agitated. It's not demanding. It's almost free of content. There's just a very slight sensation there. But your breath is also almost transparent. So it it mimics the qualities of being and is therefore a good preparation for it.

[01:25:20]So Eugel, it's fine. These intermediary practices, they're they're there for a very good reason. If you find it's too much to go straight from your thoughts back to being, go take a sensation, a sensation that is neither particularly pleasant nor particularly unpleasant, a neutral sensation. Let your attention rest there. That will take your attention off your agitated thoughts. And then when you've rested there for three or four minutes, it's just a small step back from there to your being.

[01:25:57]That's what's called the the progressive path or the indirect path. And please, I don't mean to imply any hierarchy between these paths. I'm not meaning to imply that one is better than the other.

[01:26:11]They're both appropriate.

[01:26:14]But this is referred to as the progressive path or the indirect path because we go instead of going directly to our being, we go there indirectly. We go there via a sensation or via a mantra or via an image and so on.

[01:26:36]>> We are I wish you the very best at the end of our time.

[01:26:39]>> See you.

[01:26:40]>> We're at the end of our time and Rupert uh this is another amazing and brilliant session with you. Thank you so much and uh we so appreciate the insight and the wisdom that comes with you. And for those of you that had your hand up or that love Rupert, uh please click on his speaker page and go to his website so you can connect more with Rupert Spyra. And uh until we meet again, my friend, thank you.

[01:27:16]>> Lovely to see you again, Bill. Thank you, Bill. Well, thank you, Lisa. Lovely to see all of you. I hope you have a lovely conference, lovely weekend. I'm sure you sure you will. God bless.

[01:27:26]Bye-bye. Bye-bye. We'll see you all in the next sessions and you can just click on the link and go there. Bye-bye.