Category Archives: Rupert Spira

I Am -RSpira

Rupert Spira

Full version of Rupert’s “I am”

I am
I have no words to express Myself but all words express only Me
I have no meaning but impart meaning to all that is perceived
I am without beginning and end but all things begin and end in Me
I have no name but am called by all names
I have no form but all form indicates Me
I have no origin but am the origin of all things
I am without division but all divisions exist in Me
I exist by Myself

I am the longing in sadness and the longed for in all longing
I am the expecting and the expected in all expectation
I am the restlessness of the restless
I am the peace of the peaceful
I am happiness

I cannot be contemplated but am the object of all contemplation
I am imperceivable yet you perceive only Me
I am full but have nothing
I am empty but contain all
I give away everything but am never diminished
I receive all but never expand
I am everyone’s lover
I shine

I speak but am silent
I move but am motionless
I see but cannot be seen
I hear but cannot be heard
I taste but cannot be tasted
I smell but cannot be smelt
I touch but cannot be touched
I smile

Whatever appears appears in Me but I never appear
I am the silence in music and the music in silence
I am concealed in the world but reveal the world
I am the womb and the tomb of all that exists
I offer and contain in one gesture like an open bowl
I give Myself unconditionally to all things
I receive all things without choice
I am empty

I am the knowing in all that is known
I am the experiencing in all that is experienced
I am the allowing of all seeming things
I am pure sensitivity, openess and availability
I am the sun in the moon
I am the friendship of friends
I am knowing and unknowing
I am dark in the day and bright at night
I am luminous

Time borrows its continuity from My ever-presence
Space borrows its permanence from My unlimitedness
All colours borrow their light from Me
All lovers borrow their love from Me
All things borrow their existence from Me
I am abundant

I am eclipsed by you but you are illumined by Me
I am ‘yours’ and ‘mine’
I am the ‘yes’ in the ‘no’
I am the ‘now’ in the ‘then’
I am the ‘here’ in the ‘there’
I am the ‘me’ in the ‘you’
I am the ‘this’ in the ‘that’
I am the ‘always’ in the ‘never’
I am

I am the uncertainty of all things and the certainty of uncertainty
I am the security of insecurity
I am the true in the false
I am the dignity in pride
I am the reality of an illusion
I am the existence of all that exists
I am an open secret

I move but am motionless am motionless but move
I am concealed in boredom but am not boring
I am veiled by doubt but am not myself in doubt
I live beneath fear but am neither afraid nor frightening
I abide in Myself

If you look in front I am behind
If you look behind I am in front
If you look above I am below
If you look below I am above
I hide Myself but reveal Myself
I dance

I am immanent and transcendent
I am the bright, self-luminous emptiness of the mirror
and the dancing colourful images that appear in it
I am the light in all experience

I break open the body and spread it across the world
I break open the world and hold it dismembered in my heart
I am pregnant with the universe
I am the isness of things
And the amness of self

I am the unknown in the known and the known in the unknown
I am the love in hatred and the hope in despair
I am the same in all difference and different in the same
I think but cannot be thought about
I feel but cannot be felt

I cannot be approached but am always present
I cannot be known but know all things
I do not exist but am never absent
I am nowhere and everywhere
I am nothing and everything
I play

I am the love with which I am loved
I am the desire with which I am longed for
I am the knowledge in ignorance
I am the answer in the question
I give Myself and receive Myself perpetually
I lend Myself to all seeming things

I forget Myself for the joy of discovery
I divide Myself for the beauty of friendship
I hide Myself for the pleasure of seeking
I look for Myself for the pleasure of finding
I find Myself for the pleasure of knowing
I know Myself for the pleasure of being
I am Myself for no other reason
I shine

I become ugly for the sake of beauty
I become hostile for the sake of love
I am cruel for the sake of kindness
I am vast and bright
I am the heart of the heart
I am the voice of a child
I am wonder, astonishment and delight

Time and space move through Me but I do not move through them
I live in the space between thoughts but I play in your thinking
My abode is the moment between breaths but I dance in your breathing
I am never experienced yet you experience only Me
I never repeat Myself but am always the same
I am utterly vulnerable but cannot be harmed
I am made of nothing but cannot be destroyed
I have no defences but am your refuge
I have no goal but am the fulfilment of every desire
I have no feelings but am open to all feelings
I have no thoughts but all thoughts are an image of Me
I am kindness itself

I am undisturbable and am thus peace itself
I am without resistance and am thus happiness itself
I am one with all seeming things and am thus love itself

I shine in the mind as ‘I’
I shine in the heart as ‘you’
I shine in the world as ‘it’
But I only ever know Myself

Of the known I am the knower
In the knower I am the knowing
As the knowing I am and know Myself alone

I render all experience knowable
But am not Myself an experience
All seeming things are My names and forms
But I have no name or form

In ignorance I come and go in the world
In wisdom the world comes and goes in Me
In love all is Me and I am all
But for Myself there is no I or all
I am neither beyond nor within

I am the relationship in all relationships
I am the understanding in all meaning
I am the permanent in all impermanence
I am the experiencing in all experience

I am the thinking in the thought
I am the feeling in the felt
I am the seeing in the seen
I am the hearing in the heard
I am the touching in the touched
I am the smelling in the smelt
I am the tasting in the tasted
I give continuity to the world
I am happiness itself

I am lost in the world and the world is lost in Me
I am abundant yet empty, empty yet overflow
I am homeless at home everywhere
I am helpless but help all things
I have no cares but I care
I have no desires but long for your heart
I wait without waiting

I cannot be recognised but recognise Myself in all things
I have no substance but am the substance of all things
I have no experience but am all experience
I depend on nothing but all things depend on Me
I am never found but never lost
I am the embrace of lovers and the love in an embrace
I am your call and you are My echo
I sing

Whenever you think of Me it is I that am thinking of you
I was not born but all are born of Me
I do not die but all things die in Me
I have no cause but cause all things
I do not last in time but all time lasts in Me
I am ordinary but extraordinary

Whatever is seen I am seeing Myself
Whatever is heard I am hearing Myself
Whatever is touched I am touching Myself
Whatever is smelt I am smelling Myself
Whatever is tasted I am tasting Myself
Whatever is thought I am pondering Myself
Whatever is felt I am feeling Myself
Whatever is experienced in any way I am always only experiencing Myself
I enjoy

I am the present in the past
I am the mirror of Narcissus
I am youthful but not young
I am ancient but not old
I am a fool but not foolish
I am a child but not childish
I am alone but not lonely
I am closer than your breath but further than the stars
I am intimate but impersonal
I am infinite

I am not something but not nothing
I am not somewhere but not nowhere
I am not ‘me’ but not ‘other’
I do not exist but am not non-existent
I am desired and yet feared
I am longed for but avoided
How strange

I project the mind within Myself, the world within the mind and the body within the world
I dissolve the body into the world, the world into mind and mind into Myself
Existence is a movement of My breath

I take the shape of thinking and seem to become a mind
I take the shape of sensing and seem to become a body
I take the shape of seeing, hearing, touchng, tasting and smelling
And seem to become a world
But always remain Myself
I am, know and love Myself alone

My eternity appears as time to the mind
My infinity appears as space to the senses
But I know only My own eternal dimensionless being

I become something then nothing then everything but always remain Myself
I can be separated from all things but no thing can be separated from Me
The world is My mirror and I am its lover
I am peaceful like the sky
I am open like the sea
I am empty like space
I shine by Myself
I play
I enjoy
I am.

Rupert’s writing -RSpira

Rupert Spira

Rupert Spira

Contemplating the Nature of Experience

Love is the dissolution of the ‘I’ that loves and the ‘other’ that is loved. It is the collapse of relatedness and the dawn of intimacy.

How can I reconcile the absolute and relative points of view?

Would you say that there is definitely no Rupert or Jérôme?

Hi Rupert,

I have a short question for you…how do you conciliate the absolute point of view with the relative one? I mean, does the knowledge that there is no world except visual perceptions or no body except sensations, feelings etc, exclude the possibility of Libya or France, or exclude the possibility of a headache or a cancer (and consider them instead) as purely conceptual? But if I say there is no world, I suggest at the same time that there is a world, if I say there is no Rupert, I suggest that there is a Rupert! My question is: do the the two perspective meet each other or would you say that there is definitely no Rupert or Jérôme?

Thank you for your answer!

Jérôme, sorry, no Jérôme!

Dear Jérôme,

I would not try to reconcile the absolute and relative points of view, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as an absolute point of view. Nor, in fact, is there any such thing as a relative point of view except from the imaginary position of a relative point of view. In other words, the relative is in the view; it doesn’t have a view!

The ●Absolute is absolute precisely because it doesn’t have a point of view. That is, it doesn’t view things, objects, events etc. from a point or a place. In fact, things are only things, objects are only objects, events are only events, headaches are only headaches, Rupert is only Rupert and Jérôme is only Jérôme from the limited point of view of an imaginary centre of perception, otherwise know as the separate self.

And this, of course, includes the separate self! In other words, the separate self is only a separate self from the imaginary point of view of the separate self! The Absolute, which is just another name for the true and only Self, knows nothing of such apparent things.

●You, the Absolute, doesn’t see things, places, people, events etc., as such, because all these – that is, outside objects – are only seen as such from the point of view of an imaginary inside self.

The Absolute is so utterly, intimately one with all these apparent things that it cannot separate itself out from them and know them as ‘something.’ It is so utterly intimate with experience that it cannot know it as something other than itself. That is why ‘I,’ the Absolute, pure intimacy and experience are all synonymous and, ultimately, un-nameable. ‘Love’ is perhaps as close as words come because in love there is not the slightest trace of otherness or separation.

In other words, for the Absolute, which means for your Self, there are no things there in the first place to be utterly intimate with. There are simply ‘not two things’ – a-dvaita.

However, as soon as we try to name what that is, we are back in the world of duality where something is ‘one’ as opposed to ‘two,’ ‘something’ as opposed to ‘nothing,’ ‘being’ as opposed to ‘not being’ etc. In other words, without the idea of ‘two,’ the idea of ‘one’ cannot stand. No ‘two,’ no ‘one.’

That is why the ancients, in their wisdom and humility, called this Non-Duality rather than Oneness. To say it is ‘not-two’ is more correct than saying it is ‘one,’ although both statements are, ultimately, untrue.

It other words, things, events, objects, France, Libya, headaches, cancer, Rupert and Jérôme etc. are all for the imaginary point of view of the separate entity. In fact, that’s precisely what the separate entity is – a point of view.

For the Absolute or the Self, there is just itself. It is only thought that superimposes selves, objects, people, places etc. onto the raw, intimate, un-nameable, ever-present reality of pure Being.

So back to your questions now: “Do the the two perspective meet each other?” If you insist that there are two things, one, reality and, two, illusion, then the best we can say is that Awareness is all that they share – Awareness is where they meet. It is all they have in common. But that answer is a concession to the belief that there really is a real illusion. Once it is seen that illusion is an illusion, the question no longer makes sense. Only reality remains….this very experience here and now, shining with the light of your own presence alone.

And two, “Would you say that there is definitely no Rupert or Jérôme?” There is no Rupert or Jérôme as they are normally conceived to be, that is, as bodies and minds that have their own reality, independent of Awareness. Such a reality is non-existent. It exists only as the thought that thinks it.

However, there is a reality to every thought, sensation and perception (including those that are normally considered to be ‘Rupert’ or ‘Jérôme’) and that is your Self. In other words, if ‘Rupert’ and ‘Jérôme’ are the names we give to our Self, Awareness, then they refer to that which is real. If they refer to a body and mind that is considered to have its own independent reality, they refer to an illusion.

In fact, the same could be said of all names and nouns: if they refer to objects, people, places and events, they refer, as such, to an illusion. However, if they refer to the reality of the apparent objects, people, places and events, then each of these words is itself one of the many names of the Absolute and, as such, points towards the ever-present reality of all experience, otherwise known as your Self – Jérôme!

With love,

Rupert