Have you ever experienced anything that was not in consciousness? The obvious answer is in the question. It’s supposed to be no I haven’t, according to Spira. Now Tim has found out that he’s been wrong all these decades in assuming that because it is not true: it is not self evident. Once you see the world in this way you can get locked into it. These ideas are NOT SELF-EVIDENT. THEY’RE THEORY-LADEN. They’re an interpretation in the moment not given in the moment. All of it. This that you’re experiencing, sensations in consciousness. That’s a theory. It’s not self-evident. I’ve assumed there’s such a thing as consciousness. That doesn’t mean that I’m conscious: that’s self-evident. There is a thing called presence or pure consciousness called consciousness. IS THERE? THAT WAS A MOMENT FOR ME! IS THERE A THING CALLED CONSCIOUSNESS? Or is that a thing called a rarefication – that means you take something that isn’t a thing and imagine it’s a thing. I think that’s what I’ve done there. I think consciousness is an activity. It’s a WAY OF EXPERIENCING. I am experiencing this consciously. I’m also experiencing a whole lot unconsciously. I am experiencing some things with my psyche. It’s a way of experiencing. That’s a verb. It’s not a thing. And from that I’ve constructed this idea that there is a thing which is itself a ground of everything and is formless. I invite you to doubt that. I’m not saying that it’s wrong although I do think it’s wrong but all I want to get across in this video is to say that it’s an interpretation. It’s a thing, a presence called consciousness and within it arises sensations. Is that true? Is this raising my hand consciousness or is it a sensory experience of my hand, which is a common sense interpretation? THIS IS NOT AN APPEARANCE IN CONSCIOUSNESS A WORLD OF WHICH I AM CONSCIOUS. Let’s leave aside for the moment whether these 2 interpretations might be right and whether there might be other interpretations, which is what I’m exploring in my forthcoming book. That these are sensations arising in consciousness is NOT SELF-EVIDENT. IT’S AN INTERPRETATION OF THE EXPERIENCE. So if you take away the theory, the question, what you’re left with is Have you ever had an experience which wasn’t a conscious experience? And the obvious answer is no! That’s self evident and that’s what’s missing. When you take pure consciousness as a concept that you’ve applied to your It could be either. There’s a materialist interpretation and an idealist interpretation of this. Spiritual versus scientific is another way of looking at it together That’s why I’m excited about what it is that I’m working on. This idea that you’ve all heard in non-dual circles and spirituality that ALL EXISTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE. It’s a theory about reality to evaluate as a theory, an argument, not a given. It doesn’t show that it claims that and that’s a big difference. When I saw that I was able to extricate myself from THAT WAY OF SEEING THINGS. I’m able to see things in a new and in my opinion a much better way and that’s what I’m going to share with you in the coming months. I’ve written 35 books and what is fundamental and in my most recent I’ll share as this philosophy unfolds.
Monthly Archives: August 2020
CS & TIW Only -JSG
Once you make something like The Infinite Way or CS or any approach a thing that you can explain, it is lost. How can you explain the invisible?
Grilling debate 🤨 -RSpira
Should such pure Spirit be subject to offensive debate?
Screen never veils movie -RSpira
All there is to your experience is a knowing of it. Practice seeing while staying aware of yourSelf.
Surrender to Father explained supportively -RSpira
Surrender is another name for self enquiry and for king Lear going back to John Smith. It’s a letting go.
Am I aware = practicing the Presence -RSpira, jsg
What am I? In Christian tradition = practicing the presence jsg.
Getting to the work of healing -JSG
Position 50: destruction of individuality, integrity… mental miasma.
If you can name it come of that isn’t it. If you can claim it, that isn’t it. [Sounds wonderfully familiar!]
Love can only win -SB many
“There is a region beyond reason. Unless you get there, you will not know the sweetness of love, nor the Divine.”
~ Sadhguru
“To love is to recognize yourself in another. The “otherness” then stands revealed as an illusion pertaining to the purely human realm, the realm of form.
Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“Love is not a feeling. Love is the experience that others are not others.
Love is the natural condition of all experience before thought has divided it into a multiplicity and diversity of objects, selves and others.
We consider love to be a relationship. We consider love to be a feeling that takes place between two people. Love is not a relationship. It is the collapse of relationship. In the experience of love, the self and the other dissolve. Love is the dissolution of the apparent separation between self and other, and a revelation of the prior unity of these two apparently separate selves. So love is not an experience that the separate self has. It is the dissolution of the separate self, the revelation of reality, the revelation of consciousness. Consciousness is love.”
~ Rupert Spira
“Love is not a relationship, love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not “in love”, one is love.
Millions of people are suffering: they want to be loved, but they don’t know how to love. And love cannot exist as a monologue; it is a dialogue, a very harmonious dialogue.”
~ Osho
“Most people are unhappy; and they are unhappy because there is no love in their hearts. Love will arise in your heart when you have no barrier between yourself and another, when you meet and observe people without judging them, when you just see the sailboat on the river and enjoy the beauty of it. Don’t let your prejudices cloud your observation of things as they are; just observe, and you will discover that out of this simple observation, out of this awareness of trees, of birds, of people walking, working, smiling, something happens to you inside. Without this extraordinary thing happening to you, without the arising of love in your heart, life has very little meaning.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
“The universe only pretends to be made out of matter. Secretly, it is made out of love.”
~ Daniel Pinchbeck
“Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.
In true love there is no heartbreak. A broken heart means broken demands, broken expectations, broken hopes.”
~ Ravi Shankar
“We’re all looking for love, in our confusion, until we find our way back to the realization that love is what we already are. Your true nature is love.
Life is love. All else is imagined confusion.
There is no one who doesn’t live in love. There are few who realize it.”
~ Byron Katie
“Upon discovering truth, the natural love one has for oneself expands until it encompasses the whole world.”
~ Mooji
“In dream you love some and not others. On waking up you find you are love itself embracing all.
When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is, and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.
I cannot but see you as myself. It is in the very nature of love to see no difference.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“Love is verily the heart of all religions.
Love itself is the actual form of God.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
~ Jesus
“Love doesn’t leave anybody out. Until your compassion is big enough to include those who oppose you, you are simply contributing to the continuation of destructiveness. The end of separation is the salvation for all.”
~ Adyashanti
“Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.”
~ Yukteswar Giri
“The ordinary human being does not know what love is. When somebody gives you pleasure, you tend to think you love that person. But in reality it is yourself you love – your ego has been pleased by the other person’s attention; that is all. Would you go on ‘loving’ that person if he/she should cease to give you pleasure?
Love gives without expecting anything in return.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“It is possible to live twenty-four hours a day in a state of love. Every movement, every glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with love.
We all have the seeds of love in us. We can develop this wonderful source of energy, nurturing the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return. When we understand someone deeply, even someone who has done us harm, we cannot resist loving him or her.
Happiness is only possible with true love.”
~ Thích Nhất Hạnh
“I belong to no religion. My religion is love. Every heart is my temple.
There comes a time when nothing is meaningful except surrendering to love.
For love, I come to you without me, come to me without you.
There is no love greater than love with no object. For then you, yourself, have become love, itself.
Except for love, nothing you see will remain forever.”
~ Rumi
“Love has nothing to do with another person. Love is Truth. Love is Beauty. Love is Self. To know yourself, to surrender to the truth of yourself, is to surrender to love.
The love that you search for everywhere is already present within you. It may be evoked by any number of people or events. But finally, you must realize you are this love. The source of all love is within you.
True forgiveness and love arise naturally, effortlessly, from the silence of the heart.
Finally all that is trustworthy is this immeasurable silent awareness that is the truth of who you are, that is love.”
~ Gangaji
„When you really love someone, there’s no longer an ‘I’ or an ‘other’.”
~ Jean Klein
“Love is the absence of separation. I don’t love others. I am the others.
The sense of duality, which is a barrier to true love, must prevail so long as the apperception of truth has not occurred. Once individuality is surrendered, there is only total love.”
~ Ramesh Balsekar
“Love is not something that we ‘do’ – it is an effortless recognition, beyond the story of time and space, that I am already what you are.
Love is not a presence, but an absence, of separation, and the illusion that in our essence we are divided. Love is simply what we are, prior to the exhausting and seemingly endless search for it. No need to seek love – it is already here, closer than breathing.
Trying to fall in love is like trying to make your heart beat backwards. It can’t be done. And so we don’t fall in love; we simply notice that we are in love already, and always have been. We are all so deeply in love that we don’t realize it.
There are no conditions to love. And no end to its depths.
Love is the answer. The question is unimportant.”
~ Jeff Foster
“Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.”
~ Liam Neeson
“Love is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of love, you really haven’t learned anything.”
~ Muhammad Ali
“It doesn’t matter who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it only matters that you love!”
~ John Lennon
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~ Jimi Hendrix
“Love always wins in the end.”
~ Francis Lucille
Many thanks to Simon Bartholomé
Illusion of death -SB many
“When someone we love dies, we get so busy mourning what died that we ignore what didn’t.”
~ Ram Dass
“Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.”
~ Mary Elizabeth Frye
“Death is nothing to be sad about, it is something to be celebrated with songs and dances. It is a moment of rejoicing. Death is only the death of the body. But you will go on living in the universal consciousness, forever and forever.”
~ Osho
“A culture that denies death inevitably becomes shallow and superficial, concerned only with the external form of things. When death is denied, life loses its depth.
Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” – and find that there is no death.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
“The real does not die, the unreal never lived.
In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as after death.
In some cases death is the best cure. A life may be worse than death, which is rarely an unpleasent experience, whatever the appearances. Therefore, pity the living, never the dead.
With death the idea ‘I am this body’ dies. The witness does not.
People are afraid to die, because they do not know who they are and what death is. The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
“The only reason why people have such a fear of death is they know nothing beyond the body.”
~ Sadhguru
“This form is just a costume for a while. But the one behind the costume is eternal. If you know this, you don’t worry about anything. When you discover yourself as awareness, the fear of death will not trouble you any longer.”
~ Mooji
“If you are afraid of death, be afraid. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable surprise: you don’t die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are.”
~ Alan Watts
“Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson: you cannot die.
The reality of your life cannot die for you are indestructible consciousness.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“There is no birth, there is no death. There is no coming, there is no going. We only think there is.
When we know that birth and death are together always, we are no longer afraid of dying. What you call birth and death are only transformation.
When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no-birth, no-death. Pay attention to the world around you, to the leaves and the flowers, to the birds and the rain. If you can look deeply, you will recognize your beloved manifesting again and again in many forms. You will release your fear and pain and again embrace the joy of life.
No coming, no going, no after, no before, I hold you close, I release you to be free; I am in you and you are in me.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
Death belongs to life as birth does. The walk is in the raising of the foot as in the laying of it down.
And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.
Man is immortal; therefore he must die endlessly. For life is a creative idea; it can only find itself in changing forms.
In death the many become one; in life the one become many.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
“If thought turns its attention away from the objects which it seems to know, turns its attention back on itself, it ceases to be thought and is revealed as pure Consciousness. This open, empty, dimensionless, objectless Awareness that we essentially are, is not limited by any of the thoughts, feelings, sensations or perceptions that appear within. It was present prior to the appearance of the body-mind, it is present during the appearance of the body-mind, and it remains present after the disappearance of the body-mind. That is not something we discover when we die. We can discover it any moment.
Nothing ever disappears. Only forms are constantly transformed.”
~ Rupert Spira
“Consciousness was pre-existent and will survive the body.
The body dies, but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death.
When a pot is broken, the space within is not. When the body dies, the Self in it remains eternal.
The dead are fortunate. It is only those who are left behind who feel miserable.
Discover your undying Self and be immortal and happy.”
~ Ramana Maharshi
“Nobody dies. There is no such thing as death. There is only eternal life, and you are that.
You are dreaming the mortal dream! If you’re aware that you’re dreaming, are you going to react to anything? Will you react to situations if you know that you’re dreaming? Of course not. You’ll laugh! You’ll see a war going on and you’ll get in the middle of the battlefield and you’ll say, “What are you doing? This is all a dream! Throw your guns away. You’re wasting your time! Nobody dies, nobody is killed, nobody is born. It’s all a dream.” And they’ll probably shoot you for saying that! Makes no difference if they shoot you! You’re aware that you’re dreaming, so you’re the witness of you being shot, and you keep laughing. And then you wake up.”
~ Robert Adams
Many thanks to Simon Bartholomew
Old habits want to eclipse our awareness -RSpira
Old habits that we have been rehearsing for decades are hard to get rid of. One glimpse of our true nature… AHA! I am the awareness with which my experience is known, in which my experience appears and out of which my experience is known…. is not enough to put an end to old habits of thinking and feeling. The old nature and habits come back to eclipse our awareness of our true nature. We need to re visit it and to take pathways back to our self over and over again. That’s what meditation is ultimately. All prayers some of which reach out to the breath or the concept of God outside – they’re all right because they are preparations for the ultimate prayer which is sinking back into our true self which is God. What is called God live at the source of the mind and can never be an object. It can never live at the destiny of the mind.