Expertly yes. Emotionally unattached no. You can hear it in his tonal change and see it in his body when he is challenged. And the guy is not being ‘challenging’ in the sense that he’s argumentative without reason. But Rupert is agitated to some extent. “So what?” From a Dutch guy is merely a direct “and what more?”. Rupert is not unattached from his emotion, which is living in awareness without entanglement.
I wish someone would make the point that the reason I say I slept well is because of the way I feel when I’m saying it. I judge whether I slept well by the awareness of the body/mind/emotions at the moment I make the statement not by the qualities of the deep sleep.
I was just about to write the same comment! Thank you for making it. I know I slept well because my mind and body feel refreshed. How can there be an experience of no experience? Personally I believe any I is to he found at the centre of a finite experience within the infinite field of consciousness. There is no awareness without experience.
There needs to be an awareness of there being absolutely nothing there during sleep. Looking back on sleep, we say there is no object, no space, no time, no experience. How would we possibly come to that conclusion if there weren’t some being there.
Sometimes you wake up scared from a loud noise and your heart is pounding. Still you can say that you woke up from a deep sleep despite your body-mind being in an unpleasant state at the time that you make the statement.
No awareness unless their is experience?So what happens between sleeping and waking?Do you fall out of existence ?How do you know it’s the same you if you(awareness)disappear?@@momsazombie1
I know that this is an old video but Rupert would make a great detective! He'd also be quite a scary school teacher too. This is one of his best interegations. Thank you Rupert.❤
I often see advaita teachers making this assertion. But when I say “I slept well” I am referring to how I feel in the present moment. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I had the experience of sleeping well or that I was aware during deep sleep, it’s that I feel refreshed and assume that I slept well.
True but what you are feeling in that present moment is in reference to a past event. You cannot recall or even reference that past event if you were not there.
I wish Rupert would have been a little kinder in the first half. I know he was explaining to him concepts that people who come to these retreats are usually familiar with, but compassion can never hurt us. Love is indeed the nature of our being, after all. I’m glad he softened afterwards though, and it seemed to help the questioner understand:)
I also think if someone does not understand immediately it is actually very helpful ,as the Teacher being forced to explain painstakingly helps a lot of people watching on TH-cam who may not understand at all. I also think a bit more compassion would be lovely I find his teaching very uncomfortable when people are struggling to comprehend .
Ropert is very kind and calming when he’s sharing these messages , its not his fault that the person can’t understand it or comprehend it right away , it can take a while , however he still does a great job.
My two cents: Rupert is actually one of the kindest Teachers, is not the kindest. These lessons are very hard to explain, especially to the ones who are new to it. These are more experienced and realized with glimpses. Anyway, have a happy day!
The reason why I know I slept well is in the instant I wake up, my body is heavy, I’m in a semi-sleep state like I’ve been on drugs, my brain is half conscious, I have this profound feeling of satisfaction. I’m need to stretch and breathe and I don’t want to get out of bed. That’s what happens when I know I slept well, you?
@Pascal Rosier: There's a state of potential energy felt in the body when has slept well . . . because part of sleeping well is the restoration of energy that is depleted in everyday life. Your feeling of "satisfaction" could be understood as being that feeling of potential energy . . .
I agree with Pascal Rosier. Who says I slept well was not present in the deep sleep. That which is present in the deep sleep can't say I slept well. Awareness can't claim though awareness always present. Egoistic I which claims but it doesn't know. I slept well is claim of egoistic I which doesn't present in the deep sleep.
@@VirendraSingh-iu2nc I agree, I know I slept well afterwards, when I realise I have been asleep all night and not awake and worried. In sleep I have been oblivious to being asleep.
@@stephenrutherford Agreed. This is a very confusing bit, unfortunately. I feel bad for the questioner here. I've read a few of his books and I don't recall him talking about sleep. I think he's since dropped this fruitless angle. The direct path is based on first principles - what we can know from direct experience. What happens in sleep is a mystery.
@@stephenrutherford The point is there is no discontinuity of being. Whether you recall it or not is not the point. The fact that you can say anything at all about what occured proves that you were there
Awareness is always On/eternal. Awareness of the mind is blackness or restful(passive) in deep sleep. In waking state, body and mind are active in awareness, so that mind recognizes that sleep was well. Can we live with that pure awareness/restful while we are in the state of waking state? That is a real meditation. Center in the existence, consciousness and bliss.
Hi Rupert, I’ve been reflecting on your thoughts about the “I am” for quite sometime now. But what if this persistent sense of self, which endures beyond our emotions and feelings, is a construct created by the brain-an evolved concept, perhaps an illusion, that allows us to navigate and survive? When the brain ceases to function, could this “I am,” this sense of self, vanish as well? How can we know for certain that the self persists once the brain no longer operates?
Amazing talk. This is one of the finest and clearest neti-neti guidance I've seen in a while. And yet, that question of "how do you know you slept well?", isn't that an inference that we do in the morning? "I feel well now that I wake up, therefore I must have slept well" and not a direct experience of sleeping well during the whole night? Thank you, Rupert.
@ZENderista, You have nailed the really key question in this whole talk perfectly. The whole thesis that Rupert puts forth depends on the answer to this question. Is the knowledge of "having slept well", knowledge by direct experience/perception of actually sleeping well (the Pratyaksha pramaan of Vedanta terminology) or is it knowledge by inference ( Anumaan pramaan ) ? If it be knowledge by inference after waking (which it well could be because having slept well is experienced only as the energetic freshness felt on waking up), then, the whole thesis that there is a continuous experiencer that exists even when the mind does not exist in deep sleep, comes into question and the infinite, uninterrupted existence of that entity, consciousness, becomes suspect. This single issue, that of "Deep Sleep" (Shushupti) is the lynchpin around which ultimate Vedantic experiential logic revolves. It might well be the gateway to the liberation. The Mandukya Upanishad that deals with this issue centrally, therefore is said to be the single upanishad which can lead one to the final knowledge and liberation.
That's so right. The knowing of "sleeping well" wouldn't be a subtle objective knowledge of some sense of the body? Isn't deep sleep supposed to be lacking any objective external qualities?
@Zendista, Yes. I suppose the traditional Vedantic reasoning to wriggle out of this argument is to say that the "Absence of everything objective" is also an experience and this complete absence of the objective world as well as the absence of the Mind itself is experienced by the entity higher than the Mind viz. the Turiya or what Rupert refers to as the "I" of the I AM. The contradiction in this is that this Turiya, is supposed to be ever awake. Then on waking up who is it that says "I slept well" ? If it is the Mind that is saying it, then it cannot be an experience at all since the Mind was absent in deep sleep. It must be an inference. If it be the Turiya that is saying it then it is falsehood since the Turiya, is ever awake in all the three states of lower consciousness ! This is a tough Vedantic nut to crack and digest !
Francis Lucille addresses a similar question in this dialogue (structured around the Hindu myth of the two birds sitting in a tree, one eating the fruit and the second one simply observing): th-cam.com/video/weusGnzZWYY/w-d-xo.html
@@paarkour83 Even if that was the truth... you stopped being quiet the moment you said that you've always been... It's like someone saying "I am humble"... You cannot be humble and brag about it.
What's interesting is we all know instinctively that the "I AM" has no objective qualities. Have you ever thought to yourself, "what if i was a rock?" That question alone implies that you KNOW that the true nature of what you are is not this body or the brain or the mind. I AM that I AM
Thoughts and feelings indeed come and go but the sense of embodiment has never left me throughout my life. Save for having an out of body experience I doubt I will feel absolutely assured I am not my body.
I don’t know... if someone asked me if I slept well, I would answer depending on how I felt in the moment. If I felt groggy and tired and have memories of vivid nightmares, I would say no. If I slept like a baby through the night and woke up feeling refreshed, I would say yes. In no way would I refer to my experience of deep sleep, since I have no recollection of deep sleep.
I agree. Love Rupert sooooo much but he always loses me on this one. Deep sleep is not an experience to us but 100% inference, as far as I can tell. We know we slept well because of how we feel when we wake up and what we remember
@@robmaric How do you infer deep sleep then?? In deep sleep what happens is that we have no awareness of anything.. When you close your eyes does that mean that you have no power to see?? No, it's there it's just that when we close our eyes we are not seeing a thing..
@@indicphilosopher8772 Infer means to make a logical conclusion based on indirect evidence. I'm pretty sure what that's what the word means. I don't remember being in deep sleep, but I feel very refreshed and I am not remembering waking up or dreaming. I therefore infer that I must have been in deep sleep.
@@robmaric How do you feel refreshed?? That means you must be aware during deep sleep too.. Where would that refreshing register then, if you were not aware?? You are recalling an experience which means awareness!!
@@indicphilosopher8772 Feeling refreshed means simply feeling fresh. We say re-freshed because we have a memory of feeling tired before bed to compare it to. It's common knowledge that deep sleep is required to wake up feeling fresh, so therefore it's an inference, at least to me.
I am confused about the state of deep sleep. Rupert Spira says that "I am always present". I think it requires some clarifications. If someone talks to me in deep sleep I will not reply. In a certain sense the "I" ceases to be present. When I say "I slept well", it is not because "I" was always aware, it is because my body feels rested now, and I have also a thought that it was not the case before. I thought that in other clips he considers the "deep sleep situation" as an example where the "I" is gone. Also, can I say "I am" without any experience whatsoever ?
Recently had surgery and with the anesthesia I was out totally. Asleep and then awake with no sense of anything in between whatsoever. No awareness or consciousness whatsoever. No sense of a good sleep or a bad sleep but a total sense of non existence. No I Am. That doesn’t mean that consciousness was there it simply means that nothing went into memory like someone in a blackout. ❤
One question: I say I slept well because my mind feels refreshed and it concludes it must have rested well. Why does it have to point to the presence of awareness in deep sleep?
but you still had the experience of sleeping right? Suppose you go to sleep feeling tired and you wake up feeling the same, just as tired, unable to tell the diffrence, you would still say that " i slept "
the experience of me sleeping well is not the experience of some self as it slept, its the experience of some self in the moment of waking up, in this moment my body can feel rested, slowed down whatever, its not a experience from the time while i was sleping, so i dont know that i slept, or existed while i was sleping, there was no I am, there was nothing or there wasnt evan that...
medwaca No. When someone asks you if you slept well, you will try to remember what happened during your sleep. If your sleep is sound and undisturbed, you will say you slept well.
NO No. you can try to remember, but if you slept well you wont acctually remember that well sleeping, NO. you will conclude that this happend without remmebering it, you will right now feel good, like after a good sleep, but you do not actually remmember that good sleep or actually experience it... you can say what you want or think what you want, but can you experience deep sleep, do you know that experience ? NO, you know only the experience of waking up, and feeling good when you wake up after a good sleep, this is happening and experiencing in the now in the waking state but you dont have the experience of deep sleep, you dont know that, it like not existing... when you wake up you can only know the right now being felt as you wake up, and you can remeber the experience of falling a sleep, but the sleeping dindt exist, i mean you dont have at all the experience of deep sleep, there is no councious experience or knowing of it... it the morning you only know the morning, the mornig will be different after good sleep vs bad sleep, but its a different morning, the phases of deep sleep have no experience to it...
Safat Hossain i dont contradict my self, i donw know that there was no i am, i dont know that they was anything, so i didnt know at all, and then i conclude that i now i know (because that what i know) that while i waa sleeping i didnt know anything, there waa no knowing at all, its not like i was aware of that while i was sliping, im concluding that now while i am awake and i dont remeber anything while sleeping... i know the no self experience while i am awake-i had those, but while in deep sleep there isnt anything, there isnt evan the ,,is" or I am, there is no awareses or being for me... its hard to express my self because of my englis... i hope you get what i try to comunicate
youre cherry picking my words... its not important how i expressed my self, its about what i mean... while sleeping there was no me, no time, no empty space, no witness, no awareness, no experience, there wasnt anything in any positive statement... there was something before i felt a sleep, and when i woke up, in between there was no awareness, no experience of absence it was the abscence of experience, and it wasnt evan that, it was like ,,before i was born"... the conclusion would be that counciousnes and awarenes comes from the brain or from the aweke body-brain... when youre not born, when you die, and when you sleep there is no counciousness/awarenes, no you, nothing... if yes, then tell me about the experience before you were born, how actually was it? who was there? and so on... ;)
I'm not aware when I'm in deep sleep. I know I slept well, not because I was aware of it while I was sleeping, but because I woke up fully rested and my sleep had been uninterrupted. All a bit silly.
Awareness has two modes of functioning/knowing: conscious and unconscious, and functions in both modes simultaneously. Thus our heart beats on its own unconsciously while we consciously attend to something else. We cannot know our self as an object because what we are has no objective qualities to be known. We can only experience being our self knowingly. Be still and know that I am, in contrast to what I am and who I am and is that from which they arise and that to which they return.
Hi Rupert, I found that when I'm asking the questions to another person it is well accepted if I ask them to try to be aware of being without feeling it with the five senses. To imagine not feeling, seeing, hearing, speaking or touching anything...are you still being? This kind of experience seems to be easier for a person to experience being aware of awareness.
thats where I get hung up. Is there an I that exists outside of or prior to experience? Or is that I simply synonymous with experience? One could then say "well do u disappear when u r in deep, dreamless sleep- i.e. when there is no experience?" and that makes sense to me rationally, but doesn't get me any closer to an I that would exists without experience.
Rupert. I have not seen you “prove” the presence of “I” in deep sleep - in any videos. My self inquiry simply returns the fact, that I have no experience at all. Or a memory of an experience for that matter. “I slept well” is about as poor an explanation, I can think of. Would love to believe, that I’m still around under deep sleep, but I cannot verify it.
I have seen this query come up many times over many years of observing these kinds of dialogues. It is a reasonable objection. It is one I myself raised at one time. That said, I would also point out that it is actually irrelevant - for-all-intents-and-purposes - because you can never have the experience of I Am Not, and therefore in the only sense that matters you can never cease to be. The issue of whether you are in fact something bigger and truly all encompassing I find to be something of a philosophical distraction for the questioner. Eventually it becomes readily apparent that you are That which I am, but, even now, in the context of this kind of discussion it is for-all-intents-and-purposes still so. So I would suggest that might be another angle to approach this question.
@@joshuawhawcroft Thanks a lot, Joshua. I am relatively new to non duality (and Rupert), but have studied these “matters” for decades. I’m starting to get, that there is an element of “surrender”, and that questions of the mind can be counter productive. I just have a hard time being at ease with Rupert taking on these questions. I would much prefer that he simply dismissed them, maybe even state that he is not able to answer. Answering questions about reincarnation by waving his hands in the air, guessing and defaulting to the whirlpool analogy, makes me back off...
@@joshuawhawcroft Chiming in a bit late here. Would that mean that you are identical with experience? That seer, seeing and seen were one, as it were. So there would be no separate subject. Don't mean to wax philosophical, but ironically it seems I am looking for an I outside of experience, when it is indeed one continuum of consciousness. Ironic because it is non-dual. And do you work a lot with non duality? is Rupert your main teacher? Curious how your practice/ realization is. All the best!
@@mejohn101 As you say, seer-seeing-seen is one. When have you ever experienced something outside of experience? Anything outside of experience to be recognised would itself be an experience. That's what experience is. And as you seem to have identified, consciousness is nondual, yes. Obviously so, in fact. Though seeking tends to go looking for some finite experience of a separate 'me' having a 'nondual experience' - But of course this is nonsense - there is just this. When it's all boiled down to the essence, the message is that you're 'IT'. All that remains when this is seen is to adjust the psyche (mind and body) so that it ceases to cause itself grief by continually acting out of fear in pursuit of wellbeing for a 'me' whose entire existence is nothing but a meme - a repeated idea and the emotional response that accompanies it - the idea that I am something or other. Keep things simple! I wouldn't concern myself with ideas like nonduality too much - in hindsight these are somewhat of a subtle distraction. In the absolute sense, I have no characteristics or traits of any kind - because every 'thing' is me. In the relative sense, from the perspective of mind and being, the natural state is peace (relaxation). There have been many people who have been influences, who I might call teachers. Though in the end it's all a bit quirky because what matters doesn't really have 'degrees', it's almost an all or nothing affair, and looking back it appears it has always been so. Occasionally I write something online in these context in wandering about. TH-cam is a terrible place for dialogue really. Google me for other writing, or if you think you'd like to chat more. All the best. =)
When I say "I slept well", I mean that my body feels great and well rested in this moment. The other possibility is still feeling sleepy, it feeling unwell.
...well, you don't have the experience of I AM while in deep sleep, you only know the pure I AM was present afterwards by the absence of experiences in deep sleep...
The effect it had on my body obviously. It's not always about being aware of the process as it is being aware of its results through personal experience. In all actuallity, experience is necessarily the result and not the process.
There is a question I would dearly love to ask Rupert Spira, but unfortunately there is no way of doing so without attending one of his events. My question is "Where am I under anaesthetic?" In my experience of anaesthesia for surgery, I simply didn't seem to exist beetween losing consciousness and re-gaining it after the op. Absolute nothingness, absolutely no "I am" and scary. I would appreciate others' experience in this area
I recently went under general anaesthetic and can relate. Wasn’t like sleep or any other experience I’ve had. No sense of time. One moment I’m going under, next moment I’m coming round and 2 hours have passed. My own thinking is that personal consciousness gets knocked out, maybe similar to death, when the little ‘me’ is not there anymore.
The problem with what Rupert is saying here is that thoughts and perceptions are not actually discreet, they are a constantly changing flow of vibrational change, like ripples on water. So the question should be ‘have you ever had an experience of no experience?’ To which the answer would certainly be no, which would imply that awareness and experience are inseparable.
How does ‘ I slept well’ confirm or validate that awareness was present during sleep??? I ask the question since the ‘ I slept well’ could also be a thought or a reaction based on the fact that the body has simply rested and recovered? ‘ I slept well’ cannot really be justified as being absolutely creditable?
@@Zigmatico Its the body/mind you wake up with the stick! It’s a relevant comment by Dee Dhesi. I have not seen Rupert “prove” consciousness in deep sleep in any videos.
One is never aware ALL the time that he or she is. when engaged with activity the awareness is elsewhere. So the awareness of that is equally fleeting. Whilst the awareness itself trully never leaves, still, in deep sleep there can not be any awareness detection simply because there is nothing there which would activate it. Therefore, it is time to introduce another viewpoint, a word, by which to define that i am, i.e, awareness. As long as one says i am awareness, one can not disasociate from ego. So instead of saying i am, awareness, it is better to say, there is nothing but awareness - a phenomenon.. consciousness by which everything is known. The easiest way to see exactly what mind does when i is reffered to and a charge invested into a sense of self is going after the experience of no self. Some ten years ago i came across one very simple test, seemingly innocent, on the net, and i believe the page is still there. It is called No Self Experience.. because whilst you would bet your life that you are, the matter of fact is that there is everything else but the self. Nothing and noone can define you. Guess why? you are not part of existence. You are a phenomenon, a universal phenomenon which is creating everything, even yourself. But that is difficult to follow, because in these shoes one has got a firm trust that - i am. And the intruder is the I. But when you ride a bike, two legs are peddaling, an ass is sitting, eyes seeing, mind is humming a tune, and when you get to your destination the mind says " i have arrived". But that is not true. Your ass did... it is painful to lose the individuality. But do not worry, individuality will always be there, because the phenomenon of awareness and consciousness is not personal. And that which is aware is intrinsincly you, a phenomenon. Not a spirit, not a soul, not a god, or a body, or mind... but a mere phenomenon. Isnt that akin to a miracle? Mind blowing, when you try to comprehend it.. contain it.. the only useful thing at this point for anyone is just to observe how the mind uses the sense of self to get involved into the world which it can not touch.. the rest is less relevant for now
Yes the imaginary self will always claim the message especially when it's framed as I am. There is no such thing as being aware of this at all times because the constant dreaming activity is obscuring it through thought, memory and perception. It is therefore better to see the dreaming activity that has obscured being from which it is possible to see that there is only awareness.
Rupert, from what authority can you affirm that your I am is eternal, not born and always present ? And how do you differentiate consciousness from your mind ? Personally, I don't see any difference between the mind and consciousness.
He begins with a misstatement; that the questioner, or Rupert, have “no objectivity”. But this not a unquestionable fact. For example, there is (or at least was at the filming moment) a maximum bench press weight he can lift (not very much I’d wager), or that he does have a British accent, and so forth, or that he hasn’t wings to fly with. This is indeed an object of him. It is undeniable. Next: “I am” changes considerably as an experience depending on the state of affairs, I am (pissed off, 43 years old, raised in South Africa, married with 2 children, fluent in Italian....there is always something more that can be added to the sentence “I am _____”. Heidegger proved this. We are beings IN A WORLD, DASEIN, the-there, somewhere, engaged with time, materials, cares, and surroundings. ...simply finish the sentence. Even if we limit it to “I am alive” (as opposed to “I am dead” ). This is therefore not eternal, nor infinite unless he wishes to resort to pure mystical speculation and fairy tale talk, which he seems very to NOT want to do. So what is Rupert directing us to? Someone please intelligently help me see the light here...finally, when he asked have you ever been in a state of non-existence, I would have to say YES, under general anesthesia for one you are essentially gone, you could have been under for a minute or a month, you wouldn’t know, that is what makes it possible to cut you open without pain, is it a temporary unplugging of ALL awareness. Another answer could be prior to my birth, while gestating. Alive but unconscious. Deep sleep can be like this, but the reason deep sleep fails to satisfy the non-existence thought experiment is that our waking is so close to the surface, should a loud noise or drastic change in environment or such occur you would awaken, and so the body is in a dormant state of awareness in sleep, leaving these emergency systems in place for protection, a product of evolution probably....under general anesthesia there is no “I”. I want to be blown away by Rupert’s wisdom he leaves many philosophical holes open, its not a tight argument. He may be deluding himself.
But if I am not my sensations, thoughts, perceptions or body, then I don’t speak, and I can ask no questions. Awareness doesn’t label itself or state “I Am” . Is “who am I ?” a trick question ?
I like Rupert. But he seems to be completly wrong here. What started my search again a while after seeing my true nature, was the fear, that this "I am" could also only be an object of perception and not my true identity. My questions were: "Where is "I AM" in deep sleep? Where is it when I am under anaesthetic? I tried like a maniac to perceive the transition from being very tired but conscious to deep sleep and being unconscious over and over again - without success. Honestly, I could not solve this problem independently. It took the help of a "seeing friend" to understand that I was looking at the problem from a completely wrong angle. What is important is not what others say about what happens when you go to sleep. Much more important is how how you experience this "situation". And you experience the the situation like this: Scene 1: You seemingly go to bed,you feel tired, it's dark, you set the alarm clock, you look at the clock one last time, which shows for example 23:00 clock, you switch off the light, and maybe you perceive dreamlike, apparently not quite so solid objects...and then ... it goes on seamlessly in .... Scene 2: It's light, the birds are chirping, the alarm clock rings and shows 06:00 clock and you feel refreshed. The solution is simple: There is nothing between scene 1 and scene 2. There is no such thing as deep sleep or unconsciousness for the first person. Deep sleep or unconsciousness does not exist. What is real never sleeps. The prerequisite for the existence of deep sleep would be that time is real. But that is not the case. Consciousness is alway on. I am also not sure if Rupert himself believes in deep sleep, or if he has just used this as an example to answer the question of the listener.
Not remembering where "I am" is during deep sleep doesn't mean it wasn't there. There were no objects in deep sleep for the mind to remember. Any memory you have had is a memory filled with objective things (thoughts, feelings, and perceptions). Same goes for when you're under anaesthetic.There isn't nothing there, but there is nothing to remember, you the knowing you, is still continuous.
Are you saying that most people aren't aware that they are? And if I go and ask someone do you exist, they'll say yes without feeling or knowing what the yes means?
No, you say you slept well if you have a good feeling in the body and you don't feel tired. I am unaware that I slept, only on reflection that there is a memory hole I can think I slept.
Language is just not build to speak about meta. It can only point to something, in this case it is pointing to the awareness that is prior to the experiencing of limited form. This Awareness is absolutely free of any conditioning, but in order to experiencing ITself it must reflect like light on something within the limited form. If this experience is not intervented by any part of the experience, like it happens in a state of pure concentrated equanimity, this awareness is trancending the experience of duality to oneness.
No, it is a time when the mind is turned off. And the mind is part of you but not identical to it, since you HAVE a mind. You are still there but your mind isn't.
"At 6.41..have you ever had the experience that you are nonexistent?NO..agreed...But in deep sleep I had no experience that iam existing also.so in deep sleep ..I exist or I don't exist ..both are not there. Yes? Thus in deep sleep there is no awareness of anything. Aware of itself or not aware of itself. Right? So after death also the same will be the case.. yes.?
Why do you make the distinction between your perceptions/feelings and your “being”? Is your being anything more than a rather persistent feeling? By the way, that feeling may be more deeply engrained in our human experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a feeling. Your sense of self, or “I am” is subject to radical change, and can come and go like any other thought, so long as it is exposed to the right external forces. So if our self is as ephemeral as anything else in the universe, then I have to believe that the "self" as we know it doesn’t exist. Where Rupert believes the universe exists in pure consciousness, I believe consciousness exists in pure universe, if that makes sense. I think that’s an important distinction because I believe that, like everything else in the universe, what we perceive as ourself is entirely the product of external forces, and therefore we have no free will. I would guess that Rupert is a "you are god" type, which I think is fundamentally false.
It is totally pointless to find out whether ''I'' am present or not during deep sleep. You see, if I was not present, whatever happened, it didn't exist for me. The moment I fell asleep was just the previous moment to the moment I woke up. The physical brain has to reconstruct, that time must have past while my body slept. This isn't the case for ''I''.
Perhaps could have taken the mans initial dilemma, when he says "I cannot find anything". And replied, Who is not finding anything? Who is having the experience of not finding anything? Be aware of the one having this experience, and there You are !
Arif Zainal excellent question. From what I understand, we could easily confuse consciousness with memory. When we are babies, we just are but do you remember when you were two months old? Maybe under hypnosis you would but not likely now. Under general anesthetic, we lose that memory progression, but we don’t even remember seizing to exist. The same question applies here, “do you remember that you did not exist?” Cheers.
Jeanette Bernal Good point, but when we were babies, others could verify if I was conscious or not regardless if I remember or I don't. When it come to anesthesia, how can I tell if I was still conscious or l just don't remember! My point is, how can I be sure that awareness is always present when you don't remember?
Arif Zainal people can outside verify many things. But Rupert’s teachings are all about inner exploration. Not outside evidence. No one can tell you that you are conscious but yourself. Others can see you exist. Consciousness is your own to explore. Books cannot tell you what you are, Rupert would not want you to believe him. Please explore. Memory is not consciousness... memory arises from it. Consciousness is the back ground. Just like you cannot have music without silence (or better yet, the listening) and as Rupert often says... the movie without the screen.
“We cannot know ourselves, we can only be ourselves knowingly”👍🏽
Fucking genius idea
when i lisened to this sentence... i started to cry. right in the core of this fucking mistery called LIFE
Fucking beautiful
Glad you posted this thought. While watching the video, I had to replay this comment a few times.
Rupert, I can't imagine my life without your precise teachings.... You are amazing......
It's not a teaching
When he says ‘so what’, Rupert handles that so expertly he helps him understand, much for us all to learn here
Expertly yes. Emotionally unattached no. You can hear it in his tonal change and see it in his body when he is challenged. And the guy is not being ‘challenging’ in the sense that he’s argumentative without reason. But Rupert is agitated to some extent. “So what?” From a Dutch guy is merely a direct “and what more?”. Rupert is not unattached from his emotion, which is living in awareness without entanglement.
@@samanthaemaguire Even if he is not emotionally detached, he does not forget himself and what is important, which is all that matters
Beautiful, patient, perfect wisdom. Rupert "you" are a treasure.
i like that
I wish someone would make the point that the reason I say I slept well is because of the way I feel when I’m saying it. I judge whether I slept well by the awareness of the body/mind/emotions at the moment I make the statement not by the qualities of the deep sleep.
I was just about to write the same comment! Thank you for making it. I know I slept well because my mind and body feel refreshed. How can there be an experience of no experience? Personally I believe any I is to he found at the centre of a finite experience within the infinite field of consciousness. There is no awareness without experience.
There needs to be an awareness of there being absolutely nothing there during sleep. Looking back on sleep, we say there is no object, no space, no time, no experience. How would we possibly come to that conclusion if there weren’t some being there.
@@billgraham6449 The conclusion cannot prove the premise
Sometimes you wake up scared from a loud noise and your heart is pounding. Still you can say that you woke up from a deep sleep despite your body-mind being in an unpleasant state at the time that you make the statement.
No awareness unless their is experience?So what happens between sleeping and waking?Do you fall out of existence ?How do you know it’s the same you if you(awareness)disappear?@@momsazombie1
I know that this is an old video but Rupert would make a great detective!
He'd also be quite a scary school teacher too.
This is one of his best interegations.
Thank you Rupert.❤
I have realised I AM. Thank you and I'm glad that I realised who I am through your words. Now I can let go and be whatever I am being at any time.
The way Rupert helps you to see your own deepest blindness is nothing short of amazing....
Rupert the great. Blessing to all of us.Such simply put.
I often see advaita teachers making this assertion. But when I say “I slept well” I am referring to how I feel in the present moment. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I had the experience of sleeping well or that I was aware during deep sleep, it’s that I feel refreshed and assume that I slept well.
True but what you are feeling in that present moment is in reference to a past event. You cannot recall or even reference that past event if you were not there.
@@GoldenArcanuma past event experienced by the body-mind, not by awereness
Thank you, for your inspiration. A three word prayer. That came to me is this: "Aloha I am" Amen.
Bingo! I was the same as him, 'cannot find myself,' beautiful explication of the nature of 'I Am,' been looking for this for awhile!
FOR MY EGO THIS IS THE BEST TALK OF RUPERT I´VE NEVER LISTENED ...... touché
Amazing explanation of "I AM"
A truly accomplished advaitin master. One such as him but rarely walks the earth. We are lucky to have him in our midst.
DhanyabadDhanyabadDhanyabad. Thanksgretitude Rupertspira
I wish Rupert would have been a little kinder in the first half. I know he was explaining to him concepts that people who come to these retreats are usually familiar with, but compassion can never hurt us. Love is indeed the nature of our being, after all. I’m glad he softened afterwards though, and it seemed to help the questioner understand:)
I also think if someone does not understand immediately it is actually very helpful ,as the Teacher being forced to explain painstakingly helps a lot of people watching on TH-cam who may not understand at all. I also think a bit more compassion would be lovely I find his teaching very uncomfortable when people are struggling to comprehend .
Ropert is very kind and calming when he’s sharing these messages , its not his fault that the person can’t understand it or comprehend it right away , it can take a while , however he still does a great job.
My two cents: Rupert is actually one of the kindest Teachers, is not the kindest. These lessons are very hard to explain, especially to the ones who are new to it. These are more experienced and realized with glimpses. Anyway, have a happy day!
“If”
The reason why I know I slept well is in the instant I wake up, my body is heavy, I’m in a semi-sleep state like I’ve been on drugs, my brain is half conscious, I have this profound feeling of satisfaction. I’m need to stretch and breathe and I don’t want to get out of bed. That’s what happens when I know I slept well, you?
@Pascal Rosier: There's a state of potential energy felt in the body when has slept well . . . because part of sleeping well is the restoration of energy that is depleted in everyday life. Your feeling of "satisfaction" could be understood as being that feeling of potential energy . . .
I agree with Pascal Rosier. Who says I slept well was not present in the deep sleep. That which is present in the deep sleep can't say I slept well. Awareness can't claim though awareness always present. Egoistic I which claims but it doesn't know. I slept well is claim of egoistic I which doesn't present in the deep sleep.
@@VirendraSingh-iu2nc I agree, I know I slept well afterwards, when I realise I have been asleep all night and not awake and worried. In sleep I have been oblivious to being asleep.
@@stephenrutherford Agreed. This is a very confusing bit, unfortunately. I feel bad for the questioner here. I've read a few of his books and I don't recall him talking about sleep. I think he's since dropped this fruitless angle. The direct path is based on first principles - what we can know from direct experience. What happens in sleep is a mystery.
@@stephenrutherford The point is there is no discontinuity of being. Whether you recall it or not is not the point. The fact that you can say anything at all about what occured proves that you were there
Awareness is always On/eternal. Awareness of the mind is blackness or restful(passive) in deep sleep.
In waking state, body and mind are active in awareness, so that mind recognizes that sleep was well.
Can we live with that pure awareness/restful while we are in the state of waking state? That is a real meditation. Center in the existence, consciousness and bliss.
Rupert Spira is best at cutting intellectual mind to understand the real nature of Being.......
Hi Rupert, I’ve been reflecting on your thoughts about the “I am” for quite sometime now. But what if this persistent sense of self, which endures beyond our emotions and feelings, is a construct created by the brain-an evolved concept, perhaps an illusion, that allows us to navigate and survive? When the brain ceases to function, could this “I am,” this sense of self, vanish as well? How can we know for certain that the self persists once the brain no longer operates?
Beautiful, I love all his videos, I have read his books, he explained excellent. Thank you
Absolutely brilliant explanation coupled with high logic...Adi Shankaracharya would be proud of him!!😊
I finally lost my mind! And i love it :)
I wish I could speak with Rupert... I had a profound experience listening to his discussion and damn... idk why but i want to talk about it..
Amazing talk. This is one of the finest and clearest neti-neti guidance I've seen in a while. And yet, that question of "how do you know you slept well?", isn't that an inference that we do in the morning? "I feel well now that I wake up, therefore I must have slept well" and not a direct experience of sleeping well during the whole night? Thank you, Rupert.
@ZENderista, You have nailed the really key question in this whole talk perfectly. The whole thesis that Rupert puts forth depends on the answer to this question.
Is the knowledge of "having slept well", knowledge by direct experience/perception of actually sleeping well (the Pratyaksha pramaan of Vedanta terminology) or is it knowledge by inference ( Anumaan pramaan ) ?
If it be knowledge by inference after waking (which it well could be because having slept well is experienced only as the energetic freshness felt on waking up), then, the whole thesis that there is a continuous experiencer that exists even when the mind does not exist in deep sleep, comes into question and the infinite, uninterrupted existence of that entity, consciousness, becomes suspect.
This single issue, that of "Deep Sleep" (Shushupti) is the lynchpin around which ultimate Vedantic experiential logic revolves. It might well be the gateway to the liberation. The Mandukya Upanishad that deals with this issue centrally, therefore is said to be the single upanishad which can lead one to the final knowledge and liberation.
That's so right. The knowing of "sleeping well" wouldn't be a subtle objective knowledge of some sense of the body? Isn't deep sleep supposed to be lacking any objective external qualities?
@Zendista, Yes. I suppose the traditional Vedantic reasoning to wriggle out of this argument is to say that the "Absence of everything objective" is also an experience and this complete absence of the objective world as well as the absence of the Mind itself is experienced by the entity higher than the Mind viz. the Turiya or what Rupert refers to as the "I" of the I AM.
The contradiction in this is that this Turiya, is supposed to be ever awake. Then on waking up who is it that says "I slept well" ? If it is the Mind that is saying it, then it cannot be an experience at all since the Mind was absent in deep sleep. It must be an inference. If it be the Turiya that is saying it then it is falsehood since the Turiya, is ever awake in all the three states of lower consciousness !
This is a tough Vedantic nut to crack and digest !
same perplexity
Francis Lucille addresses a similar question in this dialogue (structured around the Hindu myth of the two birds sitting in a tree, one eating the fruit and the second one simply observing): th-cam.com/video/weusGnzZWYY/w-d-xo.html
Abide as awareness.🙏
"Those who talk do not know, those who know, do not talk."
Human Being I’ve always been quiet
@@paarkour83 Even if that was the truth... you stopped being quiet the moment you said that you've always been...
It's like someone saying "I am humble"... You cannot be humble and brag about it.
I know, I'm guilty of talking ... exactly like you are! lol
*comes to video, clicks 'like' immediately, before video starts*
I love myself ever present awarness
Excellent feeling indeed...imagine you start leading your life based on this knowledge...nothing can stop you-this is reral power !!
Our Being and Gods being is *literally* the same being. How can we not show ourselves infinite kindness and compassion knowing that truth?
What's interesting is we all know instinctively that the "I AM" has no objective qualities. Have you ever thought to yourself, "what if i was a rock?" That question alone implies that you KNOW that the true nature of what you are is not this body or the brain or the mind. I AM that I AM
Thoughts and feelings indeed come and go but the sense of embodiment has never left me throughout my life. Save for having an out of body experience I doubt I will feel absolutely assured I am not my body.
Superb; sense that guy got there in the end. Took a masterful display from Rupert to get him there x
I don’t know... if someone asked me if I slept well, I would answer depending on how I felt in the moment. If I felt groggy and tired and have memories of vivid nightmares, I would say no. If I slept like a baby through the night and woke up feeling refreshed, I would say yes. In no way would I refer to my experience of deep sleep, since I have no recollection of deep sleep.
I agree. Love Rupert sooooo much but he always loses me on this one. Deep sleep is not an experience to us but 100% inference, as far as I can tell. We know we slept well because of how we feel when we wake up and what we remember
@@robmaric
How do you infer deep sleep then?? In deep sleep what happens is that we have no awareness of anything..
When you close your eyes does that mean that you have no power to see?? No, it's there it's just that when we close our eyes we are not seeing a thing..
@@indicphilosopher8772 Infer means to make a logical conclusion based on indirect evidence. I'm pretty sure what that's what the word means. I don't remember being in deep sleep, but I feel very refreshed and I am not remembering waking up or dreaming. I therefore infer that I must have been in deep sleep.
@@robmaric
How do you feel refreshed??
That means you must be aware during deep sleep too.. Where would that refreshing register then, if you were not aware??
You are recalling an experience which means awareness!!
@@indicphilosopher8772 Feeling refreshed means simply feeling fresh. We say re-freshed because we have a memory of feeling tired before bed to compare it to. It's common knowledge that deep sleep is required to wake up feeling fresh, so therefore it's an inference, at least to me.
Thank you! 🙏😊❤️
🙏 I AM🙏
Most peaceful residing in heart as I
Something like consciousness that can’t be explained as an object can be explained as a process!
Just wow! ❤️🙏🏻❤️
I am confused about the state of deep sleep. Rupert Spira says that "I am always present". I think it requires some clarifications. If someone talks to me in deep sleep I will not reply. In a certain sense the "I" ceases to be present. When I say "I slept well", it is not because "I" was always aware, it is because my body feels rested now, and I have also a thought that it was not the case before. I thought that in other clips he considers the "deep sleep situation" as an example where the "I" is gone. Also, can I say "I am" without any experience whatsoever ?
C'est Magnifique!
👍 Rupert Explained it perfectly!
Beautifull !
He is a great philosopher!
Recently had surgery and with the anesthesia I was out totally. Asleep and then awake with no sense of anything in between whatsoever. No awareness or consciousness whatsoever. No sense of a good sleep or a bad sleep but a total sense of non existence. No I Am. That doesn’t mean that consciousness was there it simply means that nothing went into memory like someone in a blackout. ❤
Thanks, Rupert
One question:
I say I slept well because my mind feels refreshed and it concludes it must have rested well. Why does it have to point to the presence of awareness in deep sleep?
but you still had the experience of sleeping right? Suppose you go to sleep feeling tired and you wake up feeling the same, just as tired, unable to tell the diffrence, you would still say that " i slept "
@@memesmojo5622your answer makes it clear. Thanks.
Pure Subject
the experience of me sleeping well is not the experience of some self as it slept, its the experience of some self in the moment of waking up, in this moment my body can feel rested, slowed down whatever, its not a experience from the time while i was sleping, so i dont know that i slept, or existed while i was sleping, there was no I am, there was nothing or there wasnt evan that...
medwaca No. When someone asks you if you slept well, you will try to remember what happened during your sleep. If your sleep is sound and undisturbed, you will say you slept well.
NO No. you can try to remember, but if you slept well you wont acctually remember that well sleeping, NO. you will conclude that this happend without remmebering it, you will right now feel good, like after a good sleep, but you do not actually remmember that good sleep or actually experience it... you can say what you want or think what you want, but can you experience deep sleep, do you know that experience ? NO, you know only the experience of waking up, and feeling good when you wake up after a good sleep, this is happening and experiencing in the now in the waking state but you dont have the experience of deep sleep, you dont know that, it like not existing... when you wake up you can only know the right now being felt as you wake up, and you can remeber the experience of falling a sleep, but the sleeping dindt exist, i mean you dont have at all the experience of deep sleep, there is no councious experience or knowing of it... it the morning you only know the morning, the mornig will be different after good sleep vs bad sleep, but its a different morning, the phases of deep sleep have no experience to it...
If someone stuck a pin in you while you were in deep sleep your awareness would let you know
Safat Hossain i dont contradict my self, i donw know that there was no i am, i dont know that they was anything, so i didnt know at all, and then i conclude that i now i know (because that what i know) that while i waa sleeping i didnt know anything, there waa no knowing at all, its not like i was aware of that while i was sliping, im concluding that now while i am awake and i dont remeber anything while sleeping... i know the no self experience while i am awake-i had those, but while in deep sleep there isnt anything, there isnt evan the ,,is" or I am, there is no awareses or being for me... its hard to express my self because of my englis... i hope you get what i try to comunicate
youre cherry picking my words... its not important how i expressed my self, its about what i mean... while sleeping there was no me, no time, no empty space, no witness, no awareness, no experience, there wasnt anything in any positive statement... there was something before i felt a sleep, and when i woke up, in between there was no awareness, no experience of absence it was the abscence of experience, and it wasnt evan that, it was like ,,before i was born"... the conclusion would be that counciousnes and awarenes comes from the brain or from the aweke body-brain... when youre not born, when you die, and when you sleep there is no counciousness/awarenes, no you, nothing... if yes, then tell me about the experience before you were born, how actually was it? who was there? and so on... ;)
I am holding the same place in the universe what I was holding in my dream.
I'm not aware when I'm in deep sleep. I know I slept well, not because I was aware of it while I was sleeping, but because I woke up fully rested and my sleep had been uninterrupted. All a bit silly.
The self can only be seen by itself
Thank u Rupert ❤
Awareness has two modes of functioning/knowing: conscious and unconscious, and functions in both modes simultaneously. Thus our heart beats on its own unconsciously while we consciously attend to something else.
We cannot know our self as an object because what we are has no objective qualities to be known. We can only experience being our self knowingly.
Be still and know that I am, in contrast to what I am and who I am and is that from which they arise and that to which they return.
This is IT!!!
Hi Rupert,
I found that when I'm asking the questions to another person it is well accepted if I ask them to try to be aware of being without feeling it with the five senses. To imagine not feeling, seeing, hearing, speaking or touching anything...are you still being? This kind of experience seems to be easier for a person to experience being aware of awareness.
thats where I get hung up. Is there an I that exists outside of or prior to experience? Or is that I simply synonymous with experience? One could then say "well do u disappear when u r in deep, dreamless sleep- i.e. when there is no experience?" and that makes sense to me rationally, but doesn't get me any closer to an I that would exists without experience.
My master 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Rupert. I have not seen you “prove” the presence of “I” in deep sleep - in any videos. My self inquiry simply returns the fact, that I have no experience at all. Or a memory of an experience for that matter. “I slept well” is about as poor an explanation, I can think of. Would love to believe, that I’m still around under deep sleep, but I cannot verify it.
I have seen this query come up many times over many years of observing these kinds of dialogues. It is a reasonable objection. It is one I myself raised at one time. That said, I would also point out that it is actually irrelevant - for-all-intents-and-purposes - because you can never have the experience of I Am Not, and therefore in the only sense that matters you can never cease to be. The issue of whether you are in fact something bigger and truly all encompassing I find to be something of a philosophical distraction for the questioner. Eventually it becomes readily apparent that you are That which I am, but, even now, in the context of this kind of discussion it is for-all-intents-and-purposes still so. So I would suggest that might be another angle to approach this question.
@@joshuawhawcroft Thanks a lot, Joshua. I am relatively new to non duality (and Rupert), but have studied these “matters” for decades. I’m starting to get, that there is an element of “surrender”, and that questions of the mind can be counter productive. I just have a hard time being at ease with Rupert taking on these questions. I would much prefer that he simply dismissed them, maybe even state that he is not able to answer. Answering questions about reincarnation by waving his hands in the air, guessing and defaulting to the whirlpool analogy, makes me back off...
@@joshuawhawcroft Chiming in a bit late here. Would that mean that you are identical with experience? That seer, seeing and seen were one, as it were. So there would be no separate subject. Don't mean to wax philosophical, but ironically it seems I am looking for an I outside of experience, when it is indeed one continuum of consciousness. Ironic because it is non-dual. And do you work a lot with non duality? is Rupert your main teacher? Curious how your practice/ realization is. All the best!
@@mejohn101 As you say, seer-seeing-seen is one. When have you ever experienced something outside of experience? Anything outside of experience to be recognised would itself be an experience. That's what experience is. And as you seem to have identified, consciousness is nondual, yes. Obviously so, in fact. Though seeking tends to go looking for some finite experience of a separate 'me' having a 'nondual experience' - But of course this is nonsense - there is just this.
When it's all boiled down to the essence, the message is that you're 'IT'. All that remains when this is seen is to adjust the psyche (mind and body) so that it ceases to cause itself grief by continually acting out of fear in pursuit of wellbeing for a 'me' whose entire existence is nothing but a meme - a repeated idea and the emotional response that accompanies it - the idea that I am something or other.
Keep things simple! I wouldn't concern myself with ideas like nonduality too much - in hindsight these are somewhat of a subtle distraction.
In the absolute sense, I have no characteristics or traits of any kind - because every 'thing' is me.
In the relative sense, from the perspective of mind and being, the natural state is peace (relaxation).
There have been many people who have been influences, who I might call teachers. Though in the end it's all a bit quirky because what matters doesn't really have 'degrees', it's almost an all or nothing affair, and looking back it appears it has always been so.
Occasionally I write something online in these context in wandering about. TH-cam is a terrible place for dialogue really. Google me for other writing, or if you think you'd like to chat more.
All the best. =)
@@joshuawhawcroft Thanks for your response! I will sit with this. Such an interesting journey- being with, in and as consciousness
When I say "I slept well", I mean that my body feels great and well rested in this moment. The other possibility is still feeling sleepy, it feeling unwell.
...well, you don't have the experience of I AM while in deep sleep, you only know the pure I AM was present afterwards by the absence of experiences in deep sleep...
Bombing Raid how do you know that you don't have the experience of I Am in deep sleep? Something must register the apparent 'lack of experience'
This guy sounded so rude and cocky, glad you put him in is place.
The effect it had on my body obviously. It's not always about being aware of the process as it is being aware of its results through personal experience. In all actuallity, experience is necessarily the result and not the process.
For ESL speakers: " I AM = I Exist"
Rupert can be more effective if he sits in the chair very relax way and explain about being, existence or subjectivity
There is a question I would dearly love to ask Rupert Spira, but unfortunately there is no way of doing so without attending one of his events. My question is "Where am I under anaesthetic?" In my experience of anaesthesia for surgery, I simply didn't seem to exist beetween losing consciousness and re-gaining it after the op. Absolute nothingness, absolutely no "I am" and scary. I would appreciate others' experience in this area
Please check out the Mandukya Upanishad for an answer straight from the source of Rupert’s teachers and lineage. Namaste :)
I recently went under general anaesthetic and can relate. Wasn’t like sleep or any other experience I’ve had. No sense of time. One moment I’m going under, next moment I’m coming round and 2 hours have passed. My own thinking is that personal consciousness gets knocked out, maybe similar to death, when the little ‘me’ is not there anymore.
How do you know "I am" is not a thought? If you can't describe yourself, how could you even say "it is" or "it is not"?
I know I’ve slept well when I don’t wake up during the night and wake up not feeling tired.
I can see clearly now my brain has gone
The problem with what Rupert is saying here is that thoughts and perceptions are not actually discreet, they are a constantly changing flow of vibrational change, like ripples on water. So the question should be ‘have you ever had an experience of no experience?’ To which the answer would certainly be no, which would imply that awareness and experience are inseparable.
Super
How does ‘ I slept well’ confirm or validate that awareness was present during sleep??? I ask the question since the ‘ I slept well’ could also be a thought or a reaction based on the fact that the body has simply rested and recovered? ‘ I slept well’ cannot really be justified as being absolutely creditable?
What if I hit you with a stick when you are sleeping? Are you going to wake up? Who is aware of being hit by a stick?
@@Zigmatico Its the body/mind you wake up with the stick! It’s a relevant comment by Dee Dhesi. I have not seen Rupert “prove” consciousness in deep sleep in any videos.
One is never aware ALL the time that he or she is. when engaged with activity the awareness is elsewhere. So the awareness of that is equally fleeting. Whilst the awareness itself trully never leaves, still, in deep sleep there can not be any awareness detection simply because there is nothing there which would activate it. Therefore, it is time to introduce another viewpoint, a word, by which to define that i am, i.e, awareness. As long as one says i am awareness, one can not disasociate from ego. So instead of saying i am, awareness, it is better to say, there is nothing but awareness - a phenomenon.. consciousness by which everything is known. The easiest way to see exactly what mind does when i is reffered to and a charge invested into a sense of self is going after the experience of no self. Some ten years ago i came across one very simple test, seemingly innocent, on the net, and i believe the page is still there. It is called No Self Experience.. because whilst you would bet your life that you are, the matter of fact is that there is everything else but the self. Nothing and noone can define you. Guess why? you are not part of existence. You are a phenomenon, a universal phenomenon which is creating everything, even yourself. But that is difficult to follow, because in these shoes one has got a firm trust that - i am. And the intruder is the I. But when you ride a bike, two legs are peddaling, an ass is sitting, eyes seeing, mind is humming a tune, and when you get to your destination the mind says " i have arrived". But that is not true. Your ass did... it is painful to lose the individuality. But do not worry, individuality will always be there, because the phenomenon of awareness and consciousness is not personal. And that which is aware is intrinsincly you, a phenomenon. Not a spirit, not a soul, not a god, or a body, or mind... but a mere phenomenon. Isnt that akin to a miracle? Mind blowing, when you try to comprehend it.. contain it.. the only useful thing at this point for anyone is just to observe how the mind uses the sense of self to get involved into the world which it can not touch.. the rest is less relevant for now
Matija Strbat nice objective view
Yes the imaginary self will always claim the message especially when it's framed as I am. There is no such thing as being aware of this at all times because the constant dreaming activity is obscuring it through thought, memory and perception. It is therefore better to see the dreaming activity that has obscured being from which it is possible to see that there is only awareness.
Imagine Rupert on LSD! I'd love to be part of that conversation!
_"Imagine Rupert on LSD!"_
It'd be the reverse...the LSD itself would get super high and addicted to Rupert...
Nick J
Never mind LSD, apparently 5-MeO-DMT is the royal road to non-duality -
th-cam.com/video/bWSOl62memg/w-d-xo.html
top kek
"When you are in Detroit, you don't need to take a bus to go to Detroit", Ram Dass.
Rupert once said everything in consciousness is real , so that would mean that the beauty I saw on mushrooms is real . Right ?
If perception is everything, I am nothing.
Rupert, from what authority can you affirm that your I am is eternal, not born and always present ? And how do you differentiate consciousness from your mind ? Personally, I don't see any difference between the mind and consciousness.
Please put your talks and books on Audible, thanks
non-duality.rupertspira.com/home maybe you can find something here similar lots of videos and audio etc
www.amazon.com/Light-Pure-Knowing-Meditations-Non-Duality/dp/0992972604/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1532792870&sr=8-7&keywords=rupert+spira
Dave Whelan Audible
CD's
He begins with a misstatement; that the questioner, or Rupert, have “no objectivity”. But this not a unquestionable fact. For example, there is (or at least was at the filming moment) a maximum bench press weight he can lift (not very much I’d wager), or that he does have a British accent, and so forth, or that he hasn’t wings to fly with. This is indeed an object of him. It is undeniable. Next: “I am” changes considerably as an experience depending on the state of affairs, I am (pissed off, 43 years old, raised in South Africa, married with 2 children, fluent in Italian....there is always something more that can be added to the sentence “I am _____”. Heidegger proved this. We are beings IN A WORLD, DASEIN, the-there, somewhere, engaged with time, materials, cares, and surroundings. ...simply finish the sentence. Even if we limit it to “I am alive” (as opposed to “I am dead” ). This is therefore not eternal, nor infinite unless he wishes to resort to pure mystical speculation and fairy tale talk, which he seems very to NOT want to do. So what is Rupert directing us to? Someone please intelligently help me see the light here...finally, when he asked have you ever been in a state of non-existence, I would have to say YES, under general anesthesia for one you are essentially gone, you could have been under for a minute or a month, you wouldn’t know, that is what makes it possible to cut you open without pain, is it a temporary unplugging of ALL awareness. Another answer could be prior to my birth, while gestating. Alive but unconscious. Deep sleep can be like this, but the reason deep sleep fails to satisfy the non-existence thought experiment is that our waking is so close to the surface, should a loud noise or drastic change in environment or such occur you would awaken, and so the body is in a dormant state of awareness in sleep, leaving these emergency systems in place for protection, a product of evolution probably....under general anesthesia there is no “I”. I want to be blown away by Rupert’s wisdom he leaves many philosophical holes open, its not a tight argument. He may be deluding himself.
How do we know there's an experience of absence in deep sleep? You say there is, but I don't know that.
You dont know because you(person) didnt exist in deep sleep... it was absence nothing was there not even you the person
But if I am not my sensations, thoughts, perceptions or body, then I don’t speak, and I can ask no questions. Awareness doesn’t label itself or state “I Am” . Is “who am I ?” a trick question ?
🙏🙏🙏
Wow!
We cannot know ourselves we can only be ourselves knowingly
Knowing ourselves is so simple, that's why we find it so Confusing.
I like Rupert. But he seems to be completly wrong here.
What started my search again a while after seeing my true nature, was the fear, that this "I am" could also only be an object of perception and not my true identity.
My questions were: "Where is "I AM" in deep sleep? Where is it when I am under anaesthetic?
I tried like a maniac to perceive the transition from being very tired but conscious to deep sleep and being unconscious over and over again - without success.
Honestly, I could not solve this problem independently. It took the help of a "seeing friend" to understand that I was looking at the problem from a completely wrong angle.
What is important is not what others say about what happens when you go to sleep. Much more important is how how you experience this "situation".
And you experience the the situation like this:
Scene 1: You seemingly go to bed,you feel tired, it's dark, you set the alarm clock, you look at the clock one last time, which shows for example 23:00 clock, you switch off the light, and maybe you perceive dreamlike, apparently not quite so solid objects...and then
... it goes on seamlessly in ....
Scene 2: It's light, the birds are chirping, the alarm clock rings and shows 06:00 clock and you feel refreshed.
The solution is simple: There is nothing between scene 1 and scene 2. There is no such thing as deep sleep or unconsciousness for the first person. Deep sleep or unconsciousness does not exist. What is real never sleeps.
The prerequisite for the existence of deep sleep would be that time is real. But that is not the case. Consciousness is alway on.
I am also not sure if Rupert himself believes in deep sleep, or if he has just used this as an example to answer the question of the listener.
Not remembering where "I am" is during deep sleep doesn't mean it wasn't there. There were no objects in deep sleep for the mind to remember. Any memory you have had is a memory filled with objective things (thoughts, feelings, and perceptions). Same goes for when you're under anaesthetic.There isn't nothing there, but there is nothing to remember, you the knowing you, is still continuous.
You are seeking, therefore you are resisting.
Are you saying that most people aren't aware that they are? And if I go and ask someone do you exist, they'll say yes without feeling or knowing what the yes means?
No, you say you slept well if you have a good feeling in the body and you don't feel tired. I am unaware that I slept, only on reflection that there is a memory hole I can think I slept.
You also are aware of you have been tossing and turning all night
beautiful
clear explanation of "I am" if someone dont understand it :)
Thank you, Rupert
🙏🙏
Language is just not build to speak about meta. It can only point to something, in this case it is pointing to the awareness that is prior to the experiencing of limited form. This Awareness is absolutely free of any conditioning, but in order to experiencing ITself it must reflect like light on something within the limited form. If this experience is not intervented by any part of the experience, like it happens in a state of pure concentrated equanimity, this awareness is trancending the experience of duality to oneness.
I don’t get it. I am not present in deep sleep.
Yes
Could you please put Portuguese subtitles
Isn't the time when we are asleep a time when "I am not"?
No, it is a time when the mind is turned off. And the mind is part of you but not identical to it, since you HAVE a mind. You are still there but your mind isn't.
During sleep its not that awareness is absent-its actually that you are aware of the absence of the objective world !
"At 6.41..have you ever had the experience that you are nonexistent?NO..agreed...But in deep sleep I had no experience that iam existing also.so in deep sleep ..I exist or I don't exist ..both are not there. Yes?
Thus in deep sleep there is no awareness of anything. Aware of itself or not aware of itself. Right? So after death also the same will be the case.. yes.?
Why do you make the distinction between your perceptions/feelings and your “being”? Is your being anything more than a rather persistent feeling? By the way, that feeling may be more deeply engrained in our human experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a feeling. Your sense of self, or “I am” is subject to radical change, and can come and go like any other thought, so long as it is exposed to the right external forces.
So if our self is as ephemeral as anything else in the universe, then I have to believe that the "self" as we know it doesn’t exist. Where Rupert believes the universe exists in pure consciousness, I believe consciousness exists in pure universe, if that makes sense. I think that’s an important distinction because I believe that, like everything else in the universe, what we perceive as ourself is entirely the product of external forces, and therefore we have no free will. I would guess that Rupert is a "you are god" type, which I think is fundamentally false.
It is totally pointless to find out whether ''I'' am present or not during deep sleep.
You see, if I was not present, whatever happened, it didn't exist for me.
The moment I fell asleep was just the previous moment to the moment I woke up.
The physical brain has to reconstruct, that time must have past while my body slept.
This isn't the case for ''I''.
Perhaps could have taken the mans initial dilemma, when he says "I cannot find anything". And replied, Who is not finding anything? Who is having the experience of not finding anything? Be aware of the one having this experience, and there You are !
What happens to the consciousness during general anesthesia? Don't you lose time? Why can't you tell how long you have been out post surgery?
Arif Zainal excellent question. From what I understand, we could easily confuse consciousness with memory. When we are babies, we just are but do you remember when you were two months old? Maybe under hypnosis you would but not likely now. Under general anesthetic, we lose that memory progression, but we don’t even remember seizing to exist. The same question applies here, “do you remember that you did not exist?” Cheers.
Jeanette Bernal Good point, but when we were babies, others could verify if I was conscious or not regardless if I remember or I don't. When it come to anesthesia, how can I tell if I was still conscious or l just don't remember! My point is, how can I be sure that awareness is always present when you don't remember?
Arif Zainal people can outside verify many things. But Rupert’s teachings are all about inner exploration. Not outside evidence. No one can tell you that you are conscious but yourself. Others can see you exist. Consciousness is your own to explore. Books cannot tell you what you are, Rupert would not want you to believe him. Please explore. Memory is not consciousness... memory arises from it. Consciousness is the back ground. Just like you cannot have music without silence (or better yet, the listening) and as Rupert often says... the movie without the screen.
Arif Zainal what about question do i awareness ever experence my own absence?
🙏🙏🙏😌✨