A woman whose mother is dying asks Rupert Spira how to convey to her — and clarify for herself — the non-dual claim that essential being is not born and does not die. Spira distinguishes the experience of deep sleep from the unchanging awareness underneath it.
Transcript
So, one more little question and I will sit in the overflow room for the rest of the retreat. Um, about deep sleep only because my mom is dying and uh I want to know about death because uh I get into these meditative states with your your meditations and I'm so blown out. I'm so expanded. I'm so, you know, singing with the angels and accessing this state of just bliss. And yet it is passing and I it's an experience and I know it's the everchanging in the neverchanging. And so is deep sleep to me it's it's changeable like deep sleep is not the never changing because it comes and it goes like I go into deep sleep and then I wake up again. So if that was the ultimate ultimate state and I don't know if the word state or experience because there's no experiencer like when I'm in your meditations and I'm blown out in that state like I feel like I'm everybody I'm everything I'm everywhere it's it's incredible and it's soaring but it's a there's an experiencer at some level because it's like h not necessarily I don't know but but then you know the meditation's over I go get a cup of coffee. So it's like, oh, that was an experience. But then also deep sleep, it's like, oh, deep sleep, okay, I'm gone. I'm obliterated. But then I wake up again. So is that the ultimate state? Because it's it's ever changing, not never changing. I don't know. It's I can't I can't get this when you open your your computer in the morning and you see your I'm presuming your screen saver is blank. You you see your blank screen saver. You're just looking at the screen and then you open your your documents, your emails, your images and you've got lots of pages open and you're working all day and then a certain stage you close them down, you see the screen again. Then then later on the afternoon you open them up again. You go back and forth like this. Do do you feel that that your screen alternates with your emails and documents and images? It it the appearance of your of your screen alternates with the appearance of the documents, the emails, and the images. But the screen itself itself doesn't doesn't alternate. It's it's like that. Thank you. because there's some resonant field uh with this too that is unraveling like um to the gentleman next to me that that asked the question about um you know over time does the meditation and all of that kind of unravel that pitbull that just like sinks its teeth in this boulder that's such a block and I think it's because with my mother dying and they're all very much I love them it's beautiful but they're very deep in their evangelical Christian belief and And yet I see the fear in her eyes and I I I saw my dad go from COVID and he was just terrified of death. And you know there is an opportunity to talk to my family about these teachings. Yeah. You said it's your experience that deep sleep comes and goes. If that's true, in what medium does deep sleep come and go >> in memory >> arbitrarily? >> No, no, no. The actual experience you you you say I experience deep sleep. It appears and it disappears. That you say that's your experience where anything that appears must appear in or on some kind of medium. Yeah. You you can't have a bird without a sky. You can't have a So if deep sleep appears, if according to you deep sleep appears, exists for a while and then disappears it in what does it appear? >> The one unspeakable um all that is everything. Is that your experience or are you are you talking from >> it's it's like a philosophic um >> but I want you to go to your experience. If you say I experience the arising of deep sleep, you must experience the medium it arises in. If you say I see a movie, you must be experiencing the screen. The screen is the medium on which the movie. You can't see a movie without seeing the medium in which it appears. If you say I experience a state of deep sleep arising and then going away. You must be experiencing the medium in which it arises. So don't go to philosophy. I don't want to discuss ideas with you. I want you to know from I'm testing you your your your statement. Deep sleep is a state that comes and goes. If that's true, I'm not not saying it's not true. I'm I'm just pushing you a bit. If that's true, tell us about the the medium that the coming and going of this state appears in. You must be experiencing it. >> I guess I don't though because even to have this conversation, I'm accessing memory and some sort of time. Uh but it's the awareness. It's the general numon. Can I just use the word numon instead of phenomenon? >> The numon. Well, as long as you're speaking from experience and not just philosophically that let me ask you another question. I'm going to ask you a question the other way round because I want this to be I don't want to talk philosophy with you. I want I want you I want No, no, don't don't worry. We're all Everyone's very interested in it's not that you're going to the heart of the matter >> and if you resolve this question, this will be the greatest gift you can give to your mother as she's passing away. So, so and I know that's what what's behind your your question. >> I know I'm trying to I don't want to tell you where she goes. I I want you to experience for yourself who she really is and then you can if you know that for yourself then you can give that. That's the greatest gift a daughter could give her mother. So let me ask you a question. Let's try it from a different point of view. Have you ever experienced the absence of awareness? Has anybody ever experienced the absence of awareness? any of the 8 billion of us that are alive now or the trillions of us billions of us that have ever could anyone ever experience the absence of why do we think there is such a phenomenon as the absence of awareness? No one has ever for a moment experienced it. Why is our world culture founded on the on the presumption that awareness arises when the body arises and then vanishes when nobody You're absolutely right. When nobody has for a moment ever experience the absence of awareness. Why is our world culture founded on this erroneous belief? It is your belief that awaren it is your experience that awareness is ever present. Everything else appears and disappears in it. thoughts, feelings, sensations, p states, the waking state, the dreaming state. All the states appear, exist briefly and and and vanish. >> The deep sleep state it what you call it doesn't matter. The what's important is that there is some element of your experience that doesn't disappear that is not a state. That's what's important. There is something which is the most fundamental aspect of yourself that is ever present that is not a state. A state is something that comes and goes. You you you've you've already said to us or know it I have never experienced the disappearance of awareness. It's another way of saying in my experience awareness is ever present. >> Yeah. >> Nobody has ever witnessed the beginning of awareness. Nobody has ever witnessed the end of awareness. >> Right. No one has ever witnessed the birth and death of a w. Why do we presume there is such a thing? It's just a belief. It's just an ignorant belief. It's like believing that the earth is flat or the sun goes around the earth. It's just a childish mistake which our culture will hopefully sooner rather than later wake up from. >> Right. Right. So if you know that for yourself and and and and you you know in your own experience of yourself awareness doesn't begin and end it it it wasn't born. It doesn't die. If you know that be confident >> make that your that's your bottom line. That's your deepest knowledge of yourself is the fact of being aware is everpresent and changeless. >> That's your deepest truth. Just have I just want to give you confidence. I don't want to tell you how it is. I want to give you I I I want to give you confidence, help you to be confident in your own experience and not to believe what I or your parents or your culture or anyone else says. Look at what's happening in the world. Do you think our culture's got it right? Our culture, Do you think the founding idea of our world civilization is in line with truth when you see the the effects of those ideas in in what's happening in the world today? Of course not. >> Right? >> So be confident. Your your deepest truth, what I am at the deepest level, the fact of being aware, it is everpresent and unchanging. And if that is true for you, it must be true for your mother. Who your mother really is is not going anywhere. Yes, her mind, her body, all of that is going to is going to disappear. But who she is is not going anywhere. And the greatest you may because of her uh uh conditioning she you may not be able to speak as directly to her as I'm able to with you. She may not be open um in which case but that doesn't matter. What's important is that you know this >> you deeply feel it and you if you do that just your presence in the room will convey this understanding subliminally to her. In other words, you're not afraid that she's that she's passing away because you know that at the deepest level she isn't passing away. Her being remain and just that knowledge if if if you if you're with her, present with her, holding her hand by her bedside, stroking her head, talking to her and and you feel this, but she she will pick it up subliminally. She will somehow feel and she'll feel she'll feel blessed by you because that's what a blessing is. the the the subliminal conveying experientially of this understanding. You'll be blessing her as she passes away and at some level her mind may not register it or even acknowledge it. It may be too conditioned, but that doesn't matter. It will go into her heart. She'll feel it. That that's that's your your sole job now as your mother passes away to to stand knowingly as this everpresent unchanging being or being aware and to to to be that when you're with your mother. >> Thank you.