Part Two: You Have Never Seen Reality: Discover Who You Actually Are in Only Two Minutes | Rupert Spira

What if everything you believe about consciousness, enlightenment, God, death, and reality is backwards? In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, Rupert Spira—one of the world's leading voices on nonduality and contemporary spirituality—challenges the deepest assumptions about who we are and reveals why consciousness may be the ultimate reality of the universe, not something created by the brain. Discover why enlightenment is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in all of spiritual literature, what it actually points to, and why peace, happiness, and love are not things we acquire, but actually the very nature of our being. Rupert explains why matter doesn't generate consciousness, why being aware is your primary experience, and how near-death and out-of-body experiences can be understood philosophically as changes in the mechanics of perception rather than evidence that consciousness has a physical location. He also explores some of life's biggest questions: - Where does consciousness go when we die? - Could the soul outlive the body? - Does consciousness ever evolve? - Why are being born and dying fundamentally the same experience? - Why does nothing truly new ever come into existence? We also dive into the hidden causes of human suffering and global division. Rupert explains why suffering arises when we lose touch with our true nature, why the illusion of separation may be the root of today's global conflicts, and how a genuine felt sense of interconnectedness could transform humanity and even help prevent war. He reveals why religious and materialist fundamentalists may have more in common than they realize, why people commit terrible acts in the name of God, and what it would take for religion to return to the timeless truths at its foundation. He also explains why nonduality underlies many of the world's great spiritual traditions without requiring allegiance to any particular religion or concept of God. You'll also learn why Rupert believes we cannot begin to understand a higher power until we first explore our own experience, his philosophical case that we are all expressions of God's one being, and why nothing that happens in the world can ever truly harm your essential nature. The conversation becomes deeply practical as Rupert shares how to "go home" into yourself, how this understanding can completely transform romantic relationships, why seeing your partner as another expression of yourself changes the way conflict unfolds, and how simply embodying presence can help soothe someone who is hurting. Finally, Rupert discusses why Mayim has been experiencing more synchronicities in her life, why happiness is already present beneath our thoughts, and why recognizing our true nature may be the key not only to personal freedom, but to a more peaceful world. If you've ever wondered about consciousness, enlightenment, nonduality, near death experiences, the soul, God, spirituality, happiness, or the true nature of reality, this is a conversation you won't want to miss! Rupert Spira’s Retreats: https://rupertspira.com/events/Rupert Spira's Podcast: https://rupertspira.libsyn.com/Rupert Spira’s Meditation App: https://luminous.rupertspira.com/ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:06Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to part two of our conversation with Rupert Spira. He's a leading voice of clarity and contemporary spirituality. He uses the direct path approach, the epitome of the non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions. You don't want to miss part one of our conversation, but in part two, we talk about why consciousness doesn't evolve, why matter cannot generate consciousness, and why materialism and religion both make the same mistake in trying to help us understand why we're here.

• 0:38Jonathan Cohen?

  We also talk about why enlightenment is one of the most misunderstood terms in modern spirituality. We also talk about how the non-dualist approach and reconnecting with the core of who we are can happen in an instant and transform how we think, how we feel, and especially how we relate to one another.

• 0:57Mayim Bialik?

  Do not miss part two. Here is our conversation with Rupert Spira.

• 1:03Mayim Bialik?

  What I'm struck by, and this is like one of, you know, Jonathan and my favorite games, one of our favorite games in the hundreds of episodes that we have done here over the years that we've been sitting, talking to people, is there are, there are a few messages that are universal. Whether you're speaking to philosophers, theoretical physicists, healers, internal family systems folks, people like Pete Holmes, who have done the work on themselves, there are a few very, very basic, universal messages, and everybody's going to get them different ways. Some people are going to go to South America and they're going to have an ayahuasca experience, and some people are going to do, you know,

• 1:47Mayim Bialik?

  the classic psychoanalysis with a therapist who's also doing Jungian shadow work, and some people are going to be in their pottery studio and they're going to study and learn. Like, I don't know how many ways, you know, Jonathan and I can bring this information to me. I love it because everyone needs to hear it a different way. But how many times has my therapist told me, unblend from that hurt part? Unblend, like this is the work that you do.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Well, Jonathan, you said something very interesting. I think after the first experiment I did with Mayim, you said something like, that's the most direct way, that's the, I think you said it's the fastest way that I've ever seen. Anyway, if I were to give what I do a name, it would be the direct path. It's not a term that I coined, and the direct path means exactly what you referred to, Jonathan. Just that it's, you go directly from whatever you're experiencing, straight back to your being. Whereas, and I can do that with you two, because I know that you have, not only are you knowledgeable and experienced and you've explored these matters,

• 2:58Speaker 02

  you can't do that with everyone. And that's why the traditions have elaborated so many methods. For some people, for instance, their trauma, that their shame, their fear, their sorrow is so intense that they just can't get through it. They can't turn away from it and go all the way back to their being. And therefore, the traditions elaborate more progressive paths that may involve exploring your trauma, your shame, your guilt, and to soften up the mind, so to speak, before it's ready to go directly back to being.

• 3:38Jonathan Cohen?

  The path that you provided was extremely direct. And what I was struck by was, you know, Mayim, who we'll say often, her mind is so busy, often with song lyrics and endless ideas. For her to say that it was quiet is actually more striking than I think our reflection and our response to the exercise may have indicated initially. Like, I do want to put a really, you know, emphasize this. It's very rare that she ever says something is quiet.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  That's a beautiful observation. When, when I asked you the question, Mayim, go back to your being and tell us about it. I didn't really want you to tell us about it, but I wanted you to go there. To ask you to tell me about it means that you have to experience it. If I were to ask you now, tell me about the tingling sensation at the soles of your feet, you would go to that experience. You wouldn't think about dinner last night. You'd go to that experience. I wanted you to go to the experience of being and taste it. And it was beautiful. I didn't comment on it, but you paused.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  I asked the question, you paused, and then you said, it's quiet. It's, in that pause, you had turned your attention away from the content of your experience. You were not thinking about your thoughts, your feelings, the interviewer. You just went back to your being and you tasted it. You recognized it and you came back. It's peaceful. That's the, that's the essence of meditation.

• 5:17Mayim Bialik?

  If you had asked me to do this five years ago, 10 years ago, I don't know that I would have the slightest. I'm one of those people, you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm not a slow learner. I'm a fast forgetter, you know? I'm one of those people, like, and that's just the way God made me. You know, I need this information a lot of ways. I need to come at it, you know, from every neuron, right? So, you know, I, I've had a few instances of this. And, you know, I hate to tell people, there's no quick way to this. For some people, there is, you know? We spoke to, Thomas Campbell's a great example. The first time he tried transcendental meditation, he was skyrocketed into the universe and lost time, lost space, you know, like all this amazing stuff. That's not my experience.

• 6:01Mayim Bialik?

  But when I was practicing Kundalini Yoga, you know, there's a lot of conversation about ways to get in touch with this part. And I'm not saying that's the only way. People do it a million different ways. But for me, I remember I was in my class and there's all these meditations that they do throughout, and there's a very, very serious practitioner, the woman who's our, you know, our teacher. I don't know what it was, on this particular day, when we were doing this meditation, it was like I could hear the inside of my brain. That's the best way to describe it. It's like everything went quiet. It was like I went underwater, like the best way to describe it. Or like if you all of a sudden put in earplugs and it was like,

• 6:45Mayim Bialik?

  and I, it was like I could hear silence, like the sounds of silence. And I, of course, was thinking, which I know is a different place to be. But there was this moment where there was no thought. And it was just like, it was, I don't want to say it was like nothing. It was like everything, you know? Like, that's the best way to describe it. That place is a place I keep trying to get back to, right? It's the place I keep trying to return to. And I do believe, and this is from a lot of years of, you know, a lot of anguish and yes, a lot of complexity. Some of us have more impediments than others to get to that place. So that's what I keep trying to, you know, get to.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  I think that it is as a result of all this preliminary work that you have done, that enabled you, when I asked you the question, what is the nature of your being now, to pause and say, it's quiet. Now, having, in other words, in that moment, you went directly back to your true nature. You didn't go via Kundalini Yoga or via mantra meditation.

• 7:51Mayim Bialik?

  Right, no, you're right.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  So now, all you need to do in future is, instead of having me ask yourself the question, you can just pause and you can ask yourself, what is the nature of the awareness with which I am aware of my current experience? Whether you're depressed or agitated or lonely or excited or sick. But what is the nature of the awareness with which I know this experience? And that will take you straight back. And all, all that you need to do is stay there. Rather than answering the question and then describing it, just stay there. Just stay there for a few minutes and then go back out into your life. And every time you go back there, it gets easier.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  To begin with, your being is just a place you visit in yourself, in between all the other experience, then you stay there for 10 seconds, you go straight back to it. But each time you go back to your being, the capacity that your objective experience has to take you away from your being weakens. And it gets easier and easy to go back and easier and easy to stay there until in time, you begin to feel that you live there. You don't just visit it from time to time. It's like, this is who I am. It's always, I can live there. I can still go out into the world, but I don't leave home. I stay in my being.

• 9:15Mayim Bialik?

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• 9:57Mayim Bialik?

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• 10:41Mayim Bialik?

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• 11:24Mayim Bialik?

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• 11:52Mayim Bialik?

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• 12:35Mayim Bialik?

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• 13:19Mayim Bialik?

  hair and skin the upgrade they deserve, so you can feel confident and refreshed.

• 13:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Is this the answer to everything that ails us?

• 13:27Speaker 02

  It's an answer to the existential sense of lack and the conflict that dominates most people's lives, yes. It's not an answer to earthquakes. So, not everything. But in terms of our personal psychology and relationships, conflict in relationships, individuals, communities, nations, yes. Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, three or 400 years ago, he said, "All of humanity's problems," I'm sure you know this, "all of humanity's

• 14:09Speaker 02

  problems can be traced back to the fact that a person cannot sit alone in their room without doing anything," by which, of course, he included thinking. In other words, they can't go back to their being for five minutes and stay there. All of humanity's problems come from that. So, Jonathan, I would answer, I would say, yes.

• 14:29Jonathan Cohen?

  Thinking about us being able to go home into ourselves, into our being, and my sister, actually, and I, we have this saying, you know, we'll chat and be like, "What's going on? How've you been?" And sometimes it's like, "Oh, too much doing, not enough being," as the reason why we're out of balance or feeling shitty. Or, you know, like, I don't think people have a being practice, right? We don't have the practice of, "How much being have I done in my day, in my week?" as a health metric. But what does it look like in couples? What does it look like when two people are in an argument at each other

• 15:14Jonathan Cohen?

  to return to being before you continue interacting?

• 15:18Speaker 02

  You're completely lost in your thoughts and feelings, and you're reacting from your thoughts and feelings. You're upset, you're hurt, you're irritated, you're angry. And we all know what that feels like. You're responding to your partner from that, from that place in yourself. Now, imagine, in that argument, if you were able to take a step back from your thoughts and feelings to the experience of being, where it's peaceful. There's no reactivity there. There's no resentment there. There's no hurt there. You were able to go back there. And then, from that place, you were able to stand as that, and then

• 16:02Speaker 02

  continue the conversation. It would have a profound effect on the quality of your response. That's one thing. The second thing, you remember my initial provisional definition of non-duality, peace and happiness are the nature of your being. That's the first thing. Secondly, you share your being with everyone and everything. There's only one being. Now, there's only one being, then, if you, I know we all understand this, but if you really feel that, that your partner is not another being like you, your partner's being is your

• 16:41Speaker 02

  being. The space in your room in LA and the space in my room in the UK, it's the same space. They're not two individual spaces. There's only one vast space in the universe, seemingly separated by every building into numerous spaces, but there aren't numerous spaces in the universe. There's one space. Likewise, there's one infinite being, in religious language, God's being, seemingly bounded by thought and perception, seeming to appear as an individual being, but in reality, the same being. Now, if you not only understand that, but feel that, and that recognition of our shared being is what

• 17:23Speaker 02

  we commonly call love. That's what love is, the felt recognition that we are one, that we share our being. If you feel, if you're having an argument with your intimate companion, and yet, you feel that their being is your being. In other words, you are them. They are you. Again, how will that affect the, both the quality and the content of your conversation?

• 17:49Jonathan Cohen?

  From my experience, it will change the tenor, it will change the tone, it will change how quickly I respond, it will change how much I hear their perspective or not. Where I get a little tripped up, and where I think, you know, psychology and, we'll call it a spiritual perspective of interconnectedness, maybe start to overlap, is like, "Well, do I have to do what they want? What if their emotions are not?" You know, it's like, when it gets into the practical, like, "Do I really want to go to this event?" Or, "Actually, I don't." And then they're going to be upset. And how do you navigate hurt feelings on that level also?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  I don't mean to imply that you will therefore agree on everything, that there will still be disagreements, because disagreements take place at the level of the mind. Disagreements are always between mind. Two beings never disagree, the being never disagrees with anything. It's two minds that disagree, and all of our minds are conditioned and limited. So, there will inevitably be disagreements between minds. But if those disagreements are negotiated from a felt sense of shared being, then the disagreement doesn't then lead to conflict, animosity, and so on.

• 19:08Jonathan Cohen?

  And potentially a lot less hurt feelings if someone decides, "Wait, I just, I'm not available," or it becomes less of a narrative.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Extend this between warring nations. You know, you don't have to look farther at the wars that are happening in the world. Imagine if the perpetrators of these wars knew, not just knew, but felt, that they shared their being, that they were one, that they shared their being with the people that they were attacking. It would be impossible. So, this would have a profound effect, not just individually, but in society in general, if this understanding, the unity of being, was, became mainstream.

• 19:51Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan and I had an incident that I'll be very vague about, but Jonathan had his feelings hurt this weekend. Something occurred in me.

• 20:02Mayim Bialik?

  That was kind of beyond the content. And I don't know if it was a moment of enlightenment. But when I sort of tuned in, all I felt was that this was a hurt person. And I don't know that I was the herder. Someone hurt this person, right? But that's what I sort of tapped into. And I'm not saying I do this perfect, by no means. But it was interesting that sometimes when someone is hurt, a connection point can just be that, right? Just recognizing that someone is hurt without trying to fix it or explain it or defend it, right?

• 20:44Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, am I getting close to what it looks like to cooperate? If you have two people who are in that state, I think that's where it can feel impossible because no one has a touch point, right?

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. So one person is hurt. And then the second person you described, that they, they listen. They're open, that they don't, they don't attack. They don't defend. In other words, the person who is listening, allowing, they are, they are standing in their being. They're not standing in their reactive mind. They've taken a step back. So the person who is non-reactive, open, understanding, tolerant, considerate, gentle, kind of, they are modeling being by standing in the face of the other person's hurt.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  And, and in a way, that is the, that's the most healing position you can take because you're modeling for the other person, the, the place that they can go to in themselves. For instance, Jonathan, you were, you were hurt. It was obviously not, not your, your body. It was your, your psychological self. There was a self in you when you, if you, when you felt inside, you, you felt, I am hurt. And now if you had asked yourself, but who am I deeply in this moment? Who am I really? I'm hurt is what I feel, not what I am.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  If hurt was what you are, then you would always be hurting. But, but hurt is something you experience from time to time. But if you had been able to unblend yourself from your hurt, just take one small step back. That, that my being lies behind my head, that the hurt is the, the movie on the screen. I am the screen. It doesn't mean that the hurt feeling would not continue, but you'd no longer be feeding it with your belief that it's who you are. And without that support, it would gradually diminish.

• 22:56Jonathan Cohen?

  I wonder what the balance between, you know, the idea that one should feel the feeling, allow it to dissipate versus step back slightly and do that process?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  To feel the feeling, you have to stand as the witness of it. Someone says to you, you're, you're feeling, you're feeling depressed. And they said, you will just feel the full, feel that feeling, be aware of that feeling fully. That places you, that, that suggestion places you in the position of the witness. Be aware of your depression. So in a way, just that, that, just that statement invites you to take a step back and, and be the space for your feeling, but know that you are the space. And, and just like physical space, nothing that takes place in physical space can, can hurt it. It's the same with your being.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Nothing that takes place in your experience can hurt the, the being or the awareness within which that experience takes place. And by saying feel the experience, what, what, what, what you're really being asked to do is be the allowing of the experience. Stand as that allowing openness that, that allows the experience to arise. But you aren't that experience. You're the space in which it arises.

• 24:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you think what you're describing, being in, in this space, being the witness at this level, having an awareness of our being, is this what you believe the word enlightenment means?

• 24:31Speaker 02

  The way I would define enlightenment would be the recognition of the nature of being. So there are, there are two steps. There's one step is to, to, to unblend yourself from experience. Go back to the experience of being or being aware. That's the first step to recognize I am fundamentally awareness. I'm not what I am aware of. That's the first step. That's not yet what is traditionally called enlightenment, but it's a, it's one step on the way. The next step is to recognize the nature of the awareness that I am. It's inherently fulfilled. It's peaceful.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  It's ever-present. It has no limits. So enlightenment will be the recognition of the nature of being.

• 25:23Jonathan Cohen?

  So first is unblending from thoughts, feelings?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Take a step back from the content of your experience. Recognize yourself as the witness of that experience. But that, that recognizing yourself as the knower or the witness is not yet what is traditionally called enlightenment.

• 25:41Mayim Bialik?

  Wait, does that have to be positive? Because enlightenment, you think like, oh, enlightenment is, I mean, I don't mean to like apply good and bad and positive and negative to this, but most of us think of enlightenment as a state of bliss. So is it a positive recognition or not necessarily?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Strictly speaking, it's neither positive nor negative. But as a, it's legitimate to say it's positive with reference to the previous negative content of your experience. But strictly, really, the, the idea that enlightenment is positive is a thorn that is used to remove the thorn of your previous negative experience. When it's done that, both thorns should be thrown away. It's neither positive nor negative.

• 26:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Also, because I'm auditioning for Rupert's assistant, if peace and happiness are the nature of our being and we are recognizing the nature of our being as that, as you did when you went to being aware at the start of this exercise, then naturally that has a lot of positivity for a lack of, you know, not to, not to put a label on it.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. In fact, that was what I was going to add, that we could say enlightenment is the recognition of the nature of our being. And living that recognition to the best of our ability in our life. So it would include the expression of that understanding in it, in our life. So it's not just an inner experience. It, it's a lived experience, yes.

• 27:15Jonathan Cohen?

  There's a lot of, I think, misnomer about the nature of enlightenment because we, it's sold as you are now glowing and sort of you don't walk anymore. You generally hover around the world, which seems pretty cool. And, and then it's also described as there is no such thing as enlightenment. There are only moments of enlightenment that you can then try and stitch together more frequently.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Jonathan, I couldn't agree with you more. I think the word enlightenment is one of the most, if not the most misunderstood word in the entire spiritual literature and has caused people to travel, not only intellectually, but physically around the world in search of some exotic experience. Enlightenment is not an experience. It's not an exotic experience. It's not an experience at all. It's a recognition of the nature of that which experiences. It has nothing to do with what you are experiencing. So it's not a blissful experience. It's, it's a recognition of the nature of that which experiences.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  So I agree that, and, and by the way, I, I fell into this trap for years. I'm not immune to this misunderstanding. I had this misunderstanding for years, that enlightenment is some marvelous, extraordinary experience that if I try hard enough or practice long enough, maybe in 20 or 30 years' time, I will have this marvelous experience. And if I haven't had this marvelous experience, it means I'm, I'm ignorant. I don't know my own being.

• 28:53Mayim Bialik?

  You're not trying hard enough.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  There's a story from the Zen tradition. I think it was Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen teacher. Somebody asked him in one of his meetings, why do you never talk about your enlightenment experience? And apparently his wife, who was sitting at the back of the hall, stood up and said, because he never had one.

• 29:15Mayim Bialik?

  It's always the wife.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  It's always the wife, absolutely.

• 29:20Jonathan Cohen?

  We hear a lot of people who have had these miraculous awakenings from being a pure materialist to sitting down and doing transcendental meditation and having, you know, an internal.

• 29:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Journey that revealed the nature of reality, or someone who started meditating and after a few sessions, got hit with this sense of knowing that the universe is fully interconnected and just feeling all the bliss and like their brain or wherever hormones are coming from, release everything. And all of a sudden, they're like on the best drugs in the world.

• 29:59Mayim Bialik?

  And it lasts. I think that's, I think that's what's interesting.

• 30:01Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, some people it lasts and other people, they have this like unbelievable moment and then realize that reality is not what they seem and their life changes. And then they, they're not, they don't necessarily live in that state always. But yeah, I'm curious how you reconcile that with slow moments of realization is just everyone on their own path.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  Jonathan, I think what you're describing is not enlightenment. It's the effect that enlightenment may have on a person's mind. So enlightenment is the recognition of the nature of being. And it's, it's not an experience, let alone an exotic experience. Now, that, that recognition, it can happen very quietly. There's just this recognition, then your mind comes back. You may not even know, when I say you, the mind may not even know that it has been interrupted by this plunge into being.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  The mind may just carry on, but it will be affected by this brief recognition of your, your true nature. And the more and more of these recognitions you have, the more and more the mind will gradually be impacted by it. So in this case, I'm describing one, one end of the extreme. The mind may barely register that anything has happened. On the other end of the extreme, you could have this, this glimpse of your true nature, this recognition, and that recognition may have such a powerful effect on your mind and your body that there's this terrific expansion of the mind

• 31:47Speaker 02

  or and/or a great relaxation of the body, which we, as we all know, when the body relaxes, it often, we often cry or laugh. That's an expression of relaxation. So this, the effect, the after effect of this transparent recognition of your true nature can in some cases have this terrific effect on the mind and/or the body. But that would be the after effect in the mind and the body of this transparent recognition of your true nature. It's not the recognition itself.

• 32:23Jonathan Cohen?

  If we explore the interconnected nature of individuals and all things, what do you make of synchronicity? And, you know, is there something about becoming more aware of this interconnection? Meaning, do, as we unblend, do we become more aware of it? Mayim, in the last, I think it was yesterday, she said to me, in the last three days, three different times, I think about someone and they either call or I call them and they're like, I can't believe I'm thinking about you now. This is obviously not a double-blind experiment, but it seems like there is a state that we can achieve, a more being state, you know, people call it,

• 33:07Jonathan Cohen?

  well, you're, you're going against, you know, the flow of life. And there seems to be something where we become more aware of the interconnected nature of everything.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yes. Under the prevailing materialist paradigm, these kinds of events shouldn't happen. Or if they did, they, they would be explained by coincidence alone. But they happen far too often to be explained by coincidence. And they can be explained very, very easily under the, under the consciousness only model, that this new paradigm that places consciousness as fundamental. Namely, that the mind that we are on the inside and the matter that the world appears to be made out of on the outside are in fact two different aspects of the same reality. Just like when you fall asleep and you dream

• 34:00Speaker 02

  that you're on a Caribbean beach, you view the Caribbean beach from the localization of the person you seem to be on the Caribbean beach, and that person's experience seems to be divided into mind on the inside and matter on the outside. But when you wake up, you realize that there weren't these two separate realities, mind and matter. It was all the activity of the dreamer's mind. So if we consider that the world, as I would suggest, the world, that consciousness is the ultimate reality of the universe and that we are all localized perspectives within consciousness and that we look out through our perceiving faculties at what is in fact the activity of consciousness,

• 34:43Speaker 02

  but it looks like a physical world only because we see it through the lens of perception. In which case, what the world is on the outside and what we are on the inside are the same system. So we should expect that there would be a very close correspondence between what appear to be physical events in the world and our own internal psychological or emotional life, because they are two aspects of the same system. And this would explain synchronicity. You have a thought about something which is, it's a mentation, it's a mental event, and it, there's a physical, it corresponds to something physical in the world, because the world is not really physical.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  It only looks physical because we view it through the lens of perception.

• 35:33Mayim Bialik?

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• 36:17Mayim Bialik?

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• 37:02Mayim Bialik?

  It's completely risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Check the link in today's episode description to get started. I'm not saying that you're a far-out person, but for me in my head, this feels like a very far-out idea because these three synchronous things that happened, happened after I had some sort of shift in a lot of, there's a lot of other pieces to this. It's not important for us to talk about. But something happened where I felt a shift and then this happened, like two days later. So I'm trying to think, like, is it possible that whatever shift had happened that made me feel more connected,

• 37:43Mayim Bialik?

  coherent, whatever it is, that that opened me up to seeing or being part of these synchronous moments? I guess my question being, are people who are tapping into this more likely to experience these moments of connection and synchrony?

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Certainly more likely to notice them. But I think also more likely to experience them, yes. Can we do another experiment? Or can I ask you another question?

• 38:10Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, it's kind of stressing me out because I want to get it right. But yes, go ahead.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  So just take your, your current experience. Yeah, this conversation, your thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions. Is there anything to your current experience other than the knowing of it?

• 38:29Mayim Bialik?

  This one is disturbing because I want to say, of course, there is. Like, I make an imprint in this world. I'm moving around. I put the key in the car. But I think the answer is no, which begs the question, how do I know any of this is real?

• 38:48Speaker 02

  You're right. There's nothing to your current experience other than the knowing of it. It's very easy to check that. If you were to remove knowing from your current experience, what would remain?

• 39:00Mayim Bialik?

  I would not have an experience.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  You would not have an experience? Yeah, that, you can't even say there'd be nothing because you wouldn't be there to be aware of nothing.

• 39:09Mayim Bialik?

  No, it would be the absence of anything.

• 39:12Speaker 02

  Have you ever had an experience of anything other than the knowing of experience?

• 39:19Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Is there anything to any experience other than the knowing of it?

• 39:23Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  How do we know that there is anything other than knowing? If you admit from your own experience that knowing is all you ever experience, how do we know that there is anything other than knowing?

• 39:40Mayim Bialik?

  We don't.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  We don't. So it's not, I'm not the one that's far out. The people who are far out are the people who, and this is our world culture, are the people who believe that there is something other than knowing called matter, because matter is considered to be that which exists outside consciousness or outside knowing. Not only do they believe that matter is the ultimate reality, but they then believe that knowing or consciousness is generated by matter.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  That is far out. It's madness. It's like believing that waves generate oceans and movies generate screens. And yet, our culture is founded on that single idea. And then, look at what is taking place in the world. Could it be that this, the madness of our world, the extent of the sorrow and the conflict is a direct consequence of this mistaken view of reality that we have? The paradigm of separation.

• 40:51Mayim Bialik?

  How many people have I met in my life, or how many people have all of us met, who say, "I know the truth," with a capital T? And it usually is. It's a belief system, or it's a religion, or it's, you know, a set of whatever that they believe you should believe in. Meaning, I mean, it's kind of the foundation of a lot of religious, you know, kind of misdirection. But that, there are those, like, to me, those people are the same far out as materialists at this point, right? For you to suppose that you found the one God that knows what I should eat, drink, cover my head with, you know, all of that, that's far out.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  It's just a refinement of materialism. It's materialism with a religious name. And the consequences, as you, as you said at the beginning of the conversation, that they're even worse than regular materialism. But it's, it's basically the same belief.

• 41:51Jonathan Cohen?

  What happens to our knowing when our physical bodies no longer exist? Because it's hard to know what happens to our knowing.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  I would suggest that the same thing happens to knowing when your physical bodies exist, as will happen to the space in your room when your house is one day demolished.

• 42:10Jonathan Cohen?

  It just goes back into the collective space?

• 42:14Speaker 02

  It doesn't even go back. It was never, it was never a separate space to begin with. It was always only the vast space of the universe. It doesn't go anywhere. It was never limited in the first place. It assumed an apparent and temporary limitation. When that limitation was removed, it was just revealed as it eternally is. I think the same will happen with your being. Your being will not be liberated from its limitations. I would suggest your being, our being, everyone's being, is already God's infinite being, temporarily clothed in human experience and seeming as a result to be a finite person.

• 42:53Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you think that character of being evolves in some way? Learns, grows? Or do you think it's simply just the nature? It just exists and doesn't change?

• 43:05Speaker 02

  No, I think the experience of being you have on the moment you're born and the experience of being you have on your deathbed is the same experience. The screen at the beginning of the movie and the screen at the end of the movie, no change in it. It doesn't evolve. The content of the movie evolves, but the screen doesn't. It's the same. Consciousness doesn't evolve.

• 43:28Jonathan Cohen?

  Consciousness does not evolve. It's the, it's the same consciousness.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  The mind evolves. Mind, which is the activity of consciousness, thoughts and perceptions, emotions. The mind evolves, grows, changes, and so on. But the consciousness that is the fundamental nature of the mind doesn't evolve. The awareness with which the Buddha knew his experience is in exactly the same condition as the awareness with which you and I know our experiences. There's no change.

• 44:00Jonathan Cohen?

  And the idea of the nature of the soul as this continually reincarnating?

• 44:07Speaker 02

  That the soul is the religious name for the mind, the mind in the broader aspect, the individual mind. And, yes, the individual mind may well, there's nothing to suggest that the individual mind doesn't continue when, when, when the body dies. If, if the mind were likened to a wave on the ocean, if an individual were likened to a wave on the ocean, just a temporary localization of the one ocean. When that, when that wave dissipates, that would be the moment of death, the energies that constituted the wave while it existed

• 44:49Speaker 02

  may not dissipate entirely into the ocean. They may spread out in the ocean as ripples. And those ripples still have an energy to them. Those ripples could gather together and form the basis of a new wave. So I think there is legitimacy to the idea that the soul outlives the body and possibly reincarnates. I don't want to go, that, now, when now we're in the realm of belief, I'm not talking from my experience. So I'm cautious to go there.

• 45:17Jonathan Cohen?

  I appreciate that. And also, people do try to reconcile some of the, like, back end, you know, call it the mechanisms of our existence. And how is it that people seem to contact those people who have passed? You know, what is the nature of, you know, a human being, both, you know, an awareness and being aware of ourselves is, is an aspect? And also, you know, the unique characteristics that make up us? You know, we've spoken to people, a medical doctor who lost a husband and then, you know, began to change her understanding of the nature of reality

• 45:58Jonathan Cohen?

  because had after-death communication and interaction with this person. Instead, well, we can't only be matter if all of a sudden I am now connected to an energy that is, I'm aware of this energy and communicating with this energy outside of physical form. It starts to break down the materialist point of view.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  During this conversation, I've tried to stay very close to some, only speak about what we can verify in our current direct experience. Of course, that leads me, because knowing is the only substance that has ever been known or could ever be known. I think that's a legitimate reason for building a model of the universe based on the, on the fact that knowing or consciousness is fundamental, simply because it's our experience. You can then extrapolate that model and use it to explain how someone might come in contact with someone after they had died. But there, so that the model can explain that, which of course, materialism can't. But, but it's still going into the realm of speculation,

• 47:05Speaker 02

  using the model to, to, to explain phenomena, which I, I do do sometimes. I'm willing to do that. But I try to be cautious about what I can say for certain from experience and what is then building a model of experience to explain something.

• 47:24Mayim Bialik?

  Sam Harris, you know, is often critical of, you know, kind of coming up with an image of the external world based on one's internal experience, right? Especially very specific and, you know, kind of intimate experiences for meditation. We can't necessarily build a world on that. But I think it's really, it's very important and it's, it's a line that we appreciate you toeing with us because we think that there's, you know, been such a separation between sort of these schools of thought of people who say, "I've experienced things that I know are true or can be verified in some cases and what does it say about the larger, you know, kind of nature of our experience?" I had a really dumb, like, seven-year-old question.

• 48:07Mayim Bialik?

  Like, is there room for all the souls in the world? Like, I need to stop thinking like that. Like, I was thinking, if everybody's consciousness is just like all, it's just all floating around and everybody dies, but nobody really dies? We're just all there in oneness? Like, where do we go? Is there room?

• 48:25Speaker 02

  There's a line in the Bhagavad Gita, "That which is, never ceases to be; and that which is not, never comes into existence." So that which is, let's go back to religious language that we started with. That which is is only God's infinite being, eternal, infinite, self-aware being. And that's all there is. And it's continually modulating itself, localizing itself as a seemingly finite mind and then viewing itself through the perceiving faculties of that finite mind and perceiving itself as the universe. There's no real physical universe there. It's just what God's infinite being looks like

• 49:09Speaker 02

  when it's mediated through the finite mind. So that nothing, in the ultimate analysis, the very, very highest teachings, they say, "There's no creation." When you hear that, it feels like a denial of our experience. It feels like a nihilistic point of view. It's not that at all. In fact, it's an upgrading of the world. It's not a denial of the world. What it's saying is that nothing, nothing new comes into existence because anything that came new into existence would be something that was temporary and finite. Or all there is is God's eternal being, continually modifying itself in all the forms of experience,

• 49:54Speaker 02

  but never actually ceasing to be itself. So nothing is ever created. And by the same token, nothing is ever destroyed. You never die. You were never born. You never really die because you never came into existence. The space in your room never came into existence as a separate space and therefore won't go out of existence as a separate space. It was just seemingly limited by the four walls. But the separate space never came into existence and it won't die. It won't go away. It's the same with our being.

• 50:26Mayim Bialik?

  There's nothing new under the sun. That is the Ecclesiastes version.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Exactly. You see, it's there in the Old Testament. Correctly understood, it's all there.

• 50:36Mayim Bialik?

  Rupert, this has been unbelievable. Your writing is obviously incredible. You do amazing retreats. But if nothing else, podcasts exist so that people who never would know about you or who wouldn't have the patience or the ability to kind of read your books, I'm so grateful that we get to have this format. I don't even credit you with the wisdom. It's the wisdom that has been passed down to you, that you have this incredible ability to transmit. What would you like to leave us with? For people who maybe are new to this kind of thinking, what would be something that you'd like to leave us with as a sort of punctuation to this incredible conversation?

• 51:17Speaker 02

  I would just suggest to everyone, from time to time, pause.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Take a step back from the content of your experience. Whatever the content is, your thoughts, your feelings, your relationships, just pause. Untangle yourself, take a step back. What is it that is aware of my experience? And that, just that question takes you back from the content of your experience to your being, the fact of being or being aware. And just stay there, just go back there, just rest there. It's, it, you, that's your home. You're always safe there. You're always at peace there.

• 52:00Mayim Bialik?

  Rupert Spira, thank you so much. It's been such an honor to get to speak with you. We really, really appreciate your time and yeah, just thank you so much.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Thank you very much for inviting me. It's been, it's been a pleasure and an honor to be with you both. Thank you both of you.

• 52:21Jonathan Cohen?

  What's the matter?

• 52:22Mayim Bialik?

  My brain hurts. It's not Rupert Spira's fault. I just like, it's a lot.

• 52:28Jonathan Cohen?

  You know why? Because you're holding on so tightly to your experience that you're not willing to look at the screen.

• 52:35Mayim Bialik?

  I guess, well, if I'm not looking at the screen, I need to be one with the screen and know that the screen doesn't change, no matter what the movie is.

• 52:45Jonathan Cohen?

  I was thinking about how similar this was to things that Michael Singer talks about, but in a different way. The notion that I am not whatever I'm experiencing, sadness, hunger, other, other emotions. Hunger is harder because you kind of want a sandwich. But you have to move through your emotions, but you don't have to be in them so much that they drown you. And how is it that by having a practice of coming home to ourselves, even in a very simple way, it can help us move through the experiences that we have and remember that part of us. I thought, I thought about you and I thought about, you know, a lot of the somatic work

• 53:29Jonathan Cohen?

  you've done, a lot of the trauma work you've done. This notion comes up across people, especially who have complex PTSD, that they're broken in some way, that their experiences have marked them. And even especially if they're young childhood experiences, they get very intertwined with them naturally and they can lose a familiarity or a remembering that there is an aspect of them, even in this moment, that exists outside of all of those experiences and that they can access it.

• 54:01Mayim Bialik?

  Well, first of all, like, I think what you just said is beautiful, but a little bit, I feel like that's not the main message I got. The main message I got is we're all in a state of blending to, to one extent or another.

• 54:16Jonathan Cohen?

  All the time.

• 54:16Mayim Bialik?

  All the time. And everyone has a different path to ways to unblend that. There's not one path, there's not one answer. I'm sure that we could map out the kinds of people who do better with this than that. But you know what? It's like, what I'm thinking is like, F everyone who's ever said to me, I know what will work for you. Cause guess what? You don't. It, it's a process of figuring out what kind of person you are and what you need.

• 54:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Earlier in the episode, you experienced the true nature of reality. You had a glimpse of enlightenment and you come out 90 minutes later, swinging your fists.

• 55:00Mayim Bialik?

  You know why? I think that is the difference, let's say, between your experience and mine. Because I think everything that you said is, is true. I think that everything that Rupert said is also true, but I am struck by the ways that we're encouraged in our culture, in our family, in whatever language we speak to get there. And I think it's got a lot of variability. And, you know, we've spoken to people, as you said, Dr. Harris Wart, who saw her dead husband at the foot of her bed. Not a vision, but like, it was him, right? We've spoken with people who've died and seen things and experienced things and traveled places outside of the room that their body was in. We've spoken to a variety of people, right?

• 55:44Mayim Bialik?

  We've spoken to people with all these different experiences. And for some people, being abducted by aliens might be the way to get in touch with this connection we have with all of humanity, God and the universe. Who, who am I to say that I know, right? That someone did or didn't have an experience? That's the experience this universe gave them. I can't explain it. I don't know. But the people who've died and come back seem to have the best idea. We chose this, we're here for Earth School, classes in session.

• 56:18Jonathan Cohen?

  And also something made the song lyrics in your head go away. So that was amazing.

• 56:23Mayim Bialik?

  That's true. So much more to talk about. Please join us over on Substack. Cannot wait for you all to hear, not only the, the conversation over there, but we, we can't wait to hear from you, what this episode resonated in you, what, what this brought up for you. So please check us out on Substack, My and Bialik's Breakdown, bealikbreakdown.substack.com. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.