At the 2011 Science and Nonduality Conference, Rupert Spira argues that experience is always now — every attempted step out of the present resolves into another experience taking place now — and that what knows experience is the open, empty, luminous awareness one already is.
Transcript
open because you say yes unconditionally and indiscriminately to all appearances of the mind body and world like empty space you have no mechanism inherent within you that can resist any appearance we don't have to make this the case it is already the case empty because although you i this aware presence is aware of thoughts sensations and perceptions it is not made out of a thought a sensation or a perception it is made out of pure knowing or awareness and luminous because just like the sun relatively speaking that renders all objects seeable so you i this open empty presence renders all experience knowable in fact we don't really see objects relatively speaking illumined by the sun we just see reflections or modulations of the sun's light appearing as a multiplicity and diversity of color in the same way we don't really know the objects of the mind body and the world we just know our knowing of them all we know all that is known is the knowing of experience and you are that knowing all that is ever known is a modulation of our own knowing presence modulating itself in the in the form of thinking sensing and perceiving and seeming to become a mind a body and a world but we never actually know a mind a body and a world as they are normally conceived we just know our knowing of them and this knowing the substance of our experience the only substance of our experience is our self in other words we know ourself alone awareness knows nothing other than itself be knowingly this open empty luminous presence of awareness we don't need to do anything special to make this happen above all we don't have to manipulate the mind in any way whatsoever to be this presence of awareness this presence of awareness which is simply our self what we refer to when we say i is ever present just check this in your own experience nothing that i am saying this evening there is nothing that cannot be checked in your own direct experience right now i bring no special knowledge to this meeting i don't have a store of knowledge which i am disseminating i'm just within the limits of language trying to describe the current experience ask yourself do i know anything other than now try to experience the not now try first to experience the past it's easy to experience a thought about the past but what about the actual past to which this thought refers try to experience that can you step into the past can you go one second into the past or one second into the future thought can go there but what about you really try to go there to make sure that this is not just a interesting philosophical conversation but it is actually your experience that the past and the future are never experienced and if the past and the future are never actually experienced they are only thought about and that thought about the past and the future is always now if this past and future are never experienced what does that say about time time is a movement between a non-existent past towards a non-existent future it's a theory a necessary and valid theory but a theory that doesn't refer to the reality of our experience nobody has ever or could ever experience time when i say nobody i mean yourself awareness the only one that knows or is aware when i arrived off the plane from london to in washington dc last weekend before coming here the friend who picked me up asked me how the flight was and she said how long did it take and i experienced thought being cranked up like an old motor a little resistant to get going and for a moment i could feel the cogs of thought almost moving trying to work out how much time the flight had taken because in my experience it had been now all the way i had never left london london had left me i had never got onto an airplane a flow of sensations and perceptions that thought abstracts and calls a body in an airplane flowed through me and i never arrived in washington dc washington dc arrived in me or at least the cluster of perceptions that thought calls washington dc arrived in me in the same way nobody ever walked into this room and nobody is sitting on a chair and nobody is listening to a talk a colorful flow of sensations and perceptions appears in awareness but awareness never goes anywhere or does anything it is always here and now not here a place and now a time here this dimensionless now this timeless presence of our own being that is our experience whether we recognize it or not now the mind may feel a little rebellious when it hears this it may say yes yes yes that's true but there is an undeniable continuity to my experience and this undeniable continuity would seem to be evidence of time where does this felt sense of continuity come from all we know of the mind is the current thought or image and thoughts and images are intermittent the body is known through sensation and all sensations are intermittent all we know of the world is perception that is sights sounds tastes textures and smells in fact nobody has ever experienced a world as such a world as it is normally conceived to be we just know the current perception and all perception is intermittent so if the so-called mind body and world are intermittent from where does this felt sense of continuity come from it comes from the only thing if we can call it a thing that is truly continuous or in fact not continuous but ever present now in our experience and that is our own being the presence of awareness the presence of awareness is the only thing that is known to be ever present now the mind knows nothing of awareness because the mind only knows apparent objects so when the mind looks at experience to find what it is that accounts for continuity it cannot see awareness and so it manufactures a substance called time to account for the continuity of experience in other words continuity in time is what eternity looks like when viewed through the narrow slit of the mind permanence in space is what the infinite unlimited nature of awareness looks like when viewed through the narrow slit of the mind continuity and permanence are pale reflections at the level of the mind of the true eternal and infinite nature of awareness that is of our self what else can we say about ourself from our actual experience which means right now what can we know for certain about ourself not what thought may tell us about ourselves but what we actually know in this moment derived only from our experience of our self ask yourself can i this open empty knowing presence can i be agitated thought can be agitated sensations or the body can be agitated the world can be agitated but what about you the one that knows the apparent mind body and world can you this open empty presence be agitated see in your experience right now that you ah and this of course is just an image i like an open empty space such as the space of this room nothing that appears within this room can agitate it we are all sitting peacefully now but if we were to stand up and start dancing or fighting would the space of this room become agitated you are like that you i the presence of awareness are undisturbable imperturbable we don't need to become imperturbable and this undisturbability of our self is not dependent upon the condition of the mind right now you awareness are utterly imperturbable and for this reason another name for ourself is peace peace is not a quality but our self has it is what our self is not peace of mind minds are more or less agitated this piece that passeth understanding that is not of the mind it doesn't have to be sought it is not hiding in the background of experience this very awareness that is seeing hearing knowing is pure peace itself shining in all experience however apparently agitated that experience may be ask yourself can i this presence of awareness ever lack something can say that something is missing feelings can say that something is missing but what about you without referring to thought or feeling is there the slightest motive in you to avoid the now and replace it with the not now see that in yourself this presence of awareness there is not the slightest impulse or possibility to avoid the now and what do we call this absolute absence of resistance to the now the absolute absence of resisting what is and seeking what is not what is the common name we give to this it is called happiness we all know that when we are happy we are by definition not resisting the now and seeking in the past or the future by happiness of course i do not mean a pleasant state of the mind or the body i mean this absolute impossibility of ourself ever to resist or seek to resist what is and to seek what is not so happiness like peace is just another name for ourself it is not a quality that ourself has it is what our self is what else can we say for certain based on this current experience about ourselves when i was driving here or being driven here the day before yesterday from the airport in san francisco i was looking in the wing mirror of the passenger seat and i noticed the words inscribed at the bottom of the wing mirror and they said objects in the mirror are closer than you think a statement of pure non-duality objects that appear in the mirror of consciousness are closer than we think how close to a mirror are the objects that appear in it are there in fact two things one the objects that appear in the mirror and two the mirror or is it all just mirror all we know of the apparent mind is the experience of thinking and thinking is just a modulation of yourself a modulation of knowing or awareness all we know of the apparent body is the experience of sensing and sensing is a modulation of yourself awareness all we know of the apparent world is the experience of seeing hearing touching tasting and smelling these are all modulations of knowing modulations of our self in other words we never truly know a mind or a body or a world these labels are just abstractions that thought superimposes on the intimacy of our experience from the point of view of experience which is the only real point of view experience is much closer much more intimate so close as to not admit the possibility of two things one myself awareness and to the object that i know even that is an abstraction it may be a useful stepping stone a halfway understanding to conceive of thoughts sensations and perceptions arising in awareness but nothing arises in awareness the only substance of all experience the only substance of thinking sensing and perceiving is already awareness what do we call this absolute absence of two things a subject that knows and an object that is known take now the experience of hearing go to the sound of the air conditioning forget about the labels sound and air conditioning our only knowledge of the apparent air conditioning is the experience of hearing how close does hearing take place to you five meters away ten meters away refer only to your experience not to what thought tells you about sound where is hearing is it close intimate and in the experience of hearing can you find two parts one part that hears and another part that is heard or is it just one seamless intimate substance called my self and what about this room thought says i the inside self in here sees the room the outside world out there but what does experience say all we know of the apparent room is the experience of seeing remove seeing and the room vanishes in other words we don't know a room we just know the experience of seeing does seeing take place 5 10 15 meters away from yourself or is seeing utterly intimate and can you find two parts to the experience of seeing one part that sees and another part that is seen or is it just one seamless intimate substance and what is the name the common name we give to the absolute intimacy of all experience it is called love love is the most familiar experience that we all know the collapse or dissolution of the sense of a self in here and an object other or world out there the collapse of this sense of separateness distance otherness not me ness is what we call love love is just another name for non-duality if we call it non-duality there's just a few thousand of us in the world that are interested in it but if we call it love or peace or happiness then all seven billion of us are interested in it so why is it if love peace happiness are the natural condition of all experience the substance out of which all experience is made how is it that it seems not to be experienced it is because of a single thought that rises in awareness made only of awareness which imagines that awareness shares the limits of the thoughts feelings and sensations that appear within it it is like imagining that a mirror shares the limits of the objects that appear in it with that thought alone the ever-present unlimited awareness which is what we are seems seems to acquire or take on the apparent limits of the body and the mind just as the screen seems to take on the limits of an image when a film begins as a result of this imaginary collapse or contraction of our self unlimited eternal awareness into a body and a mind these qualities of love peace and happiness are seemingly veiled and it is for this reason that the self the separate self that thought imagines us to be is always by definition on a search in the imaginary outside world for the apparently lost love peace and happiness however this imaginary inside self cannot by definition find the love that it seeks because its very presence its apparent presence is the veiling of that love all the separate self seeks is love in fact the separate self is not an entity that searches it is the activity of resisting the now and seeking the not now all this seeking ever wants is love but love is the dissolution of this seeking the dissolution of this imaginary self in other words the separate self that seeks love is like a moth that seeks a flame the flame is all the moth wants but it is the only thing it cannot have because as the moth touches the flame it dies that is its way of knowing the flame it becomes the flame as it touches it that is the separate self's way of finding love by dying in it the death or dissolution of the separate self is the experience of love so simply be knowingly this open empty luminous presence of awareness whose nature whose inherent nature is love peace and happiness not a love peace and happiness that is in the background of experience that has to be sought that is shining in full view at the heart of all experience in fact experience is made out of this substance called peace or happiness you