Spira addresses why the separate self habitually shrinks from openness to experience. He explains that subject-object knowing requires a felt division within consciousness, and that the contraction of the separate self is the residue of that structural divide.
Transcript
Nice to see you. >> It's lovely to see you. >> Lovely to see you. >> How are you? >> I'm good, thank you. Um, really happy for this retreat. Um, there's a couple of quotes. I don't know if you'll have time for both of them that I'm um I wanted to ask you about. Um, the first one is one of your own. um you say at its core the separate self is a shrinking from intimacy with and openness to all experience. So that quote really resonated strongly because it's it's so much my own experience. Um, what I don't understand though is why that strong tendency is is present in the first place and why it's protected. Glinton, it's present in the first place because in order to know or experience anything, you must do so in subject object relationship. The reason you can't see your eyes is because you cannot stand at a distance from them. You can only see something that is at a distance from yourself. The reason you can see me on your screen is that I stand at a distance from you. You know me in subject object relationship. But the reason you can't see your eyes is because you can't separate yourself from your eyes and look back and say, "Oh, there are my eyes." That's just an example. All experience without exception takes place in subject object relationship. You couldn't know a thought or feel an emotion or perceive the world. Um if without this subject object relationship indeed the subject object relationship is the mechanism of experience. There cannot be experience without the subject object relationship. But the subject object relationship comes at a price. Although ultimately the subject object relationship takes place in consciousness in the same way that when you have a dream at night your own the dream takes place in your own mind. Although your own mind divides itself into a dreamed character in a in a dreamed world but it all takes place in your mind. So in the waking state th this waking dream so to speak takes place in consciousness but it still takes place in subject object relationship. So what I'm getting to your question if there is to be experience you have to exper experience it from the perspective of a separate subject. There has to be separation. There has to be duality or apparent duality for you to know or experience anything. Um and the the the pri in other words the price consciousness pays for experience is this division of itself in two. Just like your mind divides itself in two when you have a dream at night. Consciousness divides itself in two. A subject that knows that's all of us. Each of us is the the subject that knows and the object that is known. Everything that we know or experience. So, so, so in order for you to have experience, you have to seem to be a temporary finite self. You have to seem to be separate from what you know. And it is this this separation that um both creates and substantiates the illusion of being a a temporary finite separate self. So um in other words, apparent separation is inevitable is necessary for there to be experience and and and but but the price is that you feel separate from everyone and everything. And this separate self is characterized by two essential emotions. one. I am temporary, finite, and therefore I I I'm not complete. I'm not whole. I lack something. And therefore, this apparently separate self is always in a state of seeking, seeking to complete itself. And the second um overriding or essential emotion that characterizes the apparently separate self is is is resistance because the separate self is always trying to protect its identity. So that that the separate self is always in a state of seeking and resisting and and that's why I suggested in the quote that um that [clears throat] the way I phrased it in the quote was that um the complete openness and intimacy with all experience is is the equivalent to collapsing this resistance this complete um absence of resistance to all experience. in that absence of resistance that there is a a collapse of the distance between you and your experience because that distance is maintained either by desire or by fear. By desire or resistance. Sorry, I'm not sure that I explained that very well. >> Yes, absolutely. Um but then comes a thing is that my experience is that it's the the resistance is automatic. It it seems that there's nothing that has any control over it. saying it. It's it's it's almost automatic. I Clinton, it's habitual. >> Yes, >> it's not automatic. Yes, I agree. It's habitual. We have all for one reason or another been taught and encouraged to behave like this by our culture. So, it's it's a very deep habit, but it's not inherent in us. That habit can be overridden by our understanding. You can make a conscious effort to say yes to an experience that you would previously have said no to out of habit. >> I say that um fear arises when there appears to be other um and again >> absolutely >> when you're speaking that what keeps coming up is this this fear this this fear because of separation. Um, I wondered if I could give you this second quote which hopefully addresses this because I don't understand the quote and maybe it sheds light on. It says, "Creator separate from creation was the first illusion where all gifts of fear were born. For now creation could not be like its creator." [snorts] Read the first sentence again. Clinton >> creator separate from creation was the first illusion where all gifts of fear were born. >> Yes. Okay. So in in in the consciousness only model we understand that the universe is a is an appearance of the one reality infinite consciousness. So there's no um there's no separation or distance between the creator pure consciousness and the universe because in the in the consciousness only model there's not a creator and the created there are not two things God and the world there's just one thing which is of course not a thing infinite consciousness and its activity appears as the universe. So but in the in the traditional religions or some as some branches of traditional religion that have forgotten this they they posit a creator god beyond and separate from the world. It's actually an extension of the belief in in a separate self. A creator god separate from the world. and and this so from this point of view that there's a separate self there's a world and then beyond the world there's a creator god so the idea of a creator god is actually a subtle extension of the belief in a separate self and [clears throat] fear is inherent in the separate self for the reason I just said the two overriding emotions of the separate self desire and fear seeking and resistance so the idea of a creator god is predicated on the idea of a separate self And inherit in the inherent in the idea of a separate self is the fear is is fear of of of death. So yes so in that sense create imagining a creator god creates the fear that we as a separate self feel. In other words the separate self and the creator god they they they arise and fall together. that >> yeah makes absolutely >> really this this understanding should be called non triality [laughter] it's not just self and the world it's self the world and god [clears throat] it's these three entities they're all actually um predicated on the belief I am a temporary finite self if I am a temporary finite self there is a world outside of myself and if there is a world outside of myself there must have been something beyond that which created it so the idea the traditional religious idea of a creator God is a subtle extension or not so subtle extension of the belief in a in a separate self and indeed perpetuates it because if there is a creator of the universe at an infinite distance from ourself then you maintain yourself as a as a second self this the creator and yourself >> and and fear is inherent in the feeling of being a separate self. So, so fear, the idea of a creator god and fear that they're part and parcel of the same idea. That that's what the quote >> says. Read the second sentence. >> Second sentence. Well, it's half the sentence, but uh for now creation could not be like its creator. >> That's right. In this idea, the creator god must be of a different nature from its creation. It's something other than its creation. Whereas in the consciousness only model, the very nature of the universe is the consciousness of which it is an appearance. >> Yes, that makes perfect sense. Thanks for clearing that up and clarifying it. Um, one last thing. Um, something else in the separate self that that I've seen that doesn't make any sense to me when you talk about the shrinking at its ultimate because it's heading somewhere. it it it seems to be invested strongly in the idea of death and I say the idea of death not the actuality of it um and seems to go in that direction it's thoughts everything seems to just as the opposite seems everything seems to go towards life whatever that might mean >> yes >> why why is that that the shrinking down in other words goes into the idea of oblivion the mind's or ego's idea of death or oblivion >> yes that You're you're you're absolutely right, Clinton. Remember that the the the apparently separate self or the finite mind is a is a localization of infinite consciousness within itself. How does consciousness through what mechanism does consciousness seem to localize itself as a finite mind? By rising in the form of thinking and perceiving. So consciousness, infinite consciousness modifies itself in the form of thinking and perceiving and in doing so seems to draw a boundary around itself, the the circle on the bit of paper and localize itself within itself as a finite mind. So for that finite mind, everything that finite mind knows, it knows through the medium of thought and perception. So reality no longer appears to the finite mind as eternal and infinite. It appears to the finite mind as time and space. That's why all finite minds think that the universe takes place in time and space. It doesn't take place in time. There's no time and space in the reality of the universe. The reality of the universe is eternal infinite consciousness. But it only appears as time and space when viewed through the thinking perceiving faculties of a finite mind. So inherent in the finite mind is this belief in time. So the finite mind believes I was born, I am evolving, I will die, I will come to an end in time. So the the the belief in in time in death again is inherent in the finite mind. You can't have a finite mind that doesn't believe in in well you can you can have a a finite mind that's informed by this understanding but but the the the activity of thinking and perceiving by definition localizes us in time and space as an apparent entity. So the finite mind thinks I am an entity in time and space. I was born. I evolve. I'm going to die. I'm moving around in time and space. Who we really are pure conscious is not moving around in time and space. It lives in eternity. Time and space only seem to be such from the point of view of our localized from our localized point of view. And and you I gave I suggested I just gave a hint of this at the end of the meditation this morning. I I I said um something like sometimes you can feel that that you never go anywhere or that you never do anything that experience come moves through you. You don't move through it. You have this you have this experience. I'm always here not here at place in space but I'm always here where I am. I'm always here where I consciousness am. And I don't go anywhere. Thoughts and perceptions flow through me, but I don't flow through them. [laughter] [snorts] >> You should know me by now, Clint. You have to be be careful when you ask me a question about it. >> No, I absolutely love it. Thank you. You you you've blown my mind clean away [laughter] from home. Thank you. >> Nice to see you again. You're looking welcomed. >> Thank you so much, Vaper. Bless you. Thank you. >> Bless you.