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! A high-quality and effective air purifier is key to tackling the fall allergy season. Visit https://rabbitair.com or call their 24/7 consultants today. Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/BREAKER! #honeylovepod Thanks to Monarch for partnering with me! Start your free trial and get 50% off your first year of total money clarity using my link https://monarchmoney.yt.link/ZtigfhP or code mayim50 for 50% Off Monarch Core tier. Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to https://www.quince.com/breakdown for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Upgrade your kitchen with Our Place today. Visit fromourplace.com/BREAK http://fromourplace.com/BREAK and use code BREAK for 10% off sitewide. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The world is not really physical. Whether you're having a psychedelic trip, a vision of God, a near-death experience, consciousness, it hasn't changed. It's perception that's changed. Materialist scientists say that consciousness is generated by matter. It's like believing that waves generate oceans and movies generate screens. Most people feel that being the body is their primary experience. That's a mistake. God's being is infinite and eternal. Enlightenment is the most misunderstood word in the entire spiritual literature.

• 0:33Mayim Bialik?

  The truest essence is not what many of us are interacting with.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  If you un-blend your experience just by going back to the simple awareness of being, there's a place in you that has never been traumatized. This recognition of the nature of your being, it's the ultimate healing.

• 0:50Jonathan Cohen?

  What happens to our knowing when our physical bodies no longer exist?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  It was never a separate space to begin with.

• 1:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 1:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:07Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. We've got a lot of shocking questions to ask today. What if every major religion has actually misunderstood not only the true nature of God, but our true essence? What if there was a fast track to enlightenment that all of us can access for free right now?

• 1:31Jonathan Cohen?

  And what if we've actually been lied to about what enlightenment actually is? We've been sold courses and books and steps and paths and none of them are actually leading there?

• 1:41Mayim Bialik?

  Our guest today does not promise anything except access to the part of you that has always been and will always be. Rupert Spira is a leading voice of clarity in contemporary spirituality. He is known for his ability to guide people to a direct experience of their innate happiness, their essential nature. He uses what's called the direct path approach. I had never heard of it, but he's going to explain non-duality to us. And this is, I'd say, one of our more intellectually astonishing episodes. He listened to our episode with Bernardo Castrup to prepare for this episode.

• 2:22Mayim Bialik?

  And he holds incredible retreats, which you can learn about at rupertspira.com/events. He's got a podcast. It's the Rupert Spira Podcast. I highly recommend You Are the Happiness You Seek, uncovering the awareness of being, which is a fantastic exploration of all of the questions that we ask. But I'm going to be honest, we ask a lot of them today. It is a pleasure to welcome Rupert Spira to the Breakdown.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  Break it down. Thank you for inviting me. Pleasure to be with you.

• 2:52Mayim Bialik?

  I've heard your name from many different people. Pete Holmes, who we've had on the podcast, spoke about you actually in our episode. And obviously, we have a lot of other overlap. You're one of these names that kind of keeps coming into my life. People keep mentioning you here and there. And obviously, your body of work is vast and so important, and we can't wait to get into all of it. But I wonder if you can give our audience a little bit of an introduction to, you know, to put it plainly, who you are in terms of your mission and your life path and how you intersect with others and why it's important?

• 3:28Speaker 00

  So I have been exploring and practicing the non-dual understanding for exactly 50 years. And for the first 35 years, it was just my private practice. I was working in my studio as an artist. It never occurred to me to write about these matters or speak about them. Anyway, 15 years ago, I did write a book. I thought I would then just go back to my studio and spend the rest of my life in my studio, which is what I always thought I was destined to do and indeed wanted to do. And then I started getting invitations to speak and hold retreats.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  One thing led to another, and so I then gave up my life as an artist and just devoted my time, full-time, to writing and speaking about the non-dual understanding, writing, holding retreats, meetings, and so on. Why does it matter? Because our culture is founded on the assumption of separation, that we are all separate individuals, separate from each other, separate from the world. And I don't need to describe the inevitable consequence of the paradigm of separation, which informs our world, culture.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  One quick look at the news. We show that the inevitable consequence of the assumption of separation outside of yourself, out in the world, but the extent of sorrow, suffering, anxiety that people feel on the inside is the inevitable consequence of the assumption of separation internally. So why does it matter? Because any solution to the sorrow and conflict, which we witness in our world today, from within the existing paradigm, may at best temporarily alleviate the situation, but won't make any fundamental change.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  A fundamental change has to come from outside the paradigm. And that is what the non-dual understanding suggests, that the recognition of the unity of being, the unity that underlies everyone and everything. So that's why it matters, because it is the ultimate answer, both to sorrow, anxiety on the inside and conflict in the world between individuals, communities, and nations. And my mission, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a mission, but my vision is just

• 6:23Speaker 00

  to share my understanding, such as it is, with as many people as would like to know about it.

• 6:31Mayim Bialik?

  A lot of people might hear this and think, oh, that's something for optimists. That's something for people who are not engaged in the world. Like, he doesn't know what it's like to be me. Can you explain why suffering results from this separation, both on a personal level and on a larger level? And if that also leads to an explanation of non-duality, this would be a great time for that, too.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  If we don't recognize who we essentially are, if our identity is derived solely from our thoughts, our feelings, our narratives, sensations, perceptions, activities, relationships, and so on, we will inevitably feel that we are a fragment, incomplete, lacking something. This sense of lack will be our fundamental experience. And we will always try to be relieving this sense of lack through the acquisition of some kind of objective experience, an object, a substance, an activity, a relationship, and so on. And likewise, conflict.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Again, if we feel that we are an individual separate from another, that what we essentially are is separate from the other, then that will allow us to treat others in a way that we would never want to be treated ourselves. It denies the fundamental unity that we share with all beings. And therefore, conflict is the inevitable consequence of this belief in separation.

• 8:11Mayim Bialik?

  I'm holding just two of your books here, which I especially, you know, am recommending. You Are the Happiness You Seek because of the sort of format, which I think is really helpful, because it's taking the questions that we all want to keep pushing on to be met with, you know, some sort of equanimity. But can you explain a little bit what non-duality is?

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Non-duality, it's the understanding that underlies all the great religious and spiritual traditions, and that has been spoken of for the last 3,000 years by different people at different times, in different cultures, in different languages, in different ways, and so on. But the core understanding that lies at the foundation of all the great religious and spiritual traditions is the same understanding. And it's very, very simple, namely, peace and happiness are the nature of your being, and you share your being with everyone and everything.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  That's basically it. Now, why does it seem to be complicated? Why have the traditions elaborated so many methods and pathways and practices and so on? Because of our difficulties and objections and questions. So when we're met with a non-dual understanding, we say, let's take the first definition, peace and happiness are the nature of your being. You might think, well, that's funny. When I look inside, I don't find peace and happiness. I think conflict and suffering and sorrow and anxiety punctuated by both brief moments of peace and happiness. I would say that suffering was my bottom line and peace is just a brief respite from it from time to time.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  So then, in response to that, the teaching then has to elaborate a pathway to help people recognize that actually the fundamental nature of their being is peaceful. And depending on the time, the place, that the person, how intellectual the person might be, how in their feelings, how heart-centered the person might be, that the teaching will elaborate different pathways to suit different temperaments and different levels of understanding. So the non-dual teaching has grown very complex. It's expressed in so many different ways in different traditions, but the core understanding is very, very simple.

• 10:30Mayim Bialik?

  Even though, when many of us look inside, we're not tapping into peace and happiness, the notion that many meditators and those of particular religious traditions, those who have transcendental experiences, people who have had psychedelic experiences, there's a similar message there. We are all connected and that our true essence, like the truest essence of us, is not what many of us are interacting with when we look in the mirror, when we look inside. But one of the things that I think is a challenge for a lot of people, you know, we're in an age of spiritual but not religious, right?

• 11:11Mayim Bialik?

  And I've been a person of faith my entire life. And one of the things that people most point out to me is religion is the cause of all of our suffering, all of the wars that are fought, all of the people killing in the name of God. You could even look at our current political climate, the global climate, you know, how much of our life, and I'm being the devil's advocate here, right? I have my own personal explanations, but I wonder if you can speak to, from the perspective of if peace and happiness is at the core of all of the great religious traditions for thousands and thousands of years, why do people fundamentally kill, pillage, take land in

• 11:55Mayim Bialik?

  the name of God?

• 11:57Speaker 00

  Simply because they misunderstand the core message of their religion. And when the founders of those religions, and of course, the founders of the religions didn't realize they were founders of religions, that came later. But when the founders of the religions were speaking about these matters, that they were usually speaking to small groups of people, but when they passed away, others who didn't share their understanding then took their teaching, appropriated it, mixed it with their own level of understanding, misrepresented it, used it for their own egoic purposes and so on.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  So as the religions evolved, that they got more and more distorted and then used in the service of the ego, whereas, and hence giving rise to all the atrocities that you mentioned. What we now know of as religion is so very far from the fundamental truth that the founders of the religions spoke of.

• 13:04Mayim Bialik?

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• 14:32Mayim Bialik?

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• 16:00Mayim Bialik?

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• 17:12Jonathan Cohen?

  Does nonduality require a belief in a higher power, in a universal force, or a deity or God?

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Absolutely not. Nonduality requires you to explore, challenge every single belief. You have not only the belief in an external God or a higher power, but your belief in yourself as a man or a woman, as a person. And in fact, it primarily requires an exploration of yourself, because all you know of the world or indeed a higher power stands in relationship to yourself. So your knowledge of anything, your knowledge of the world, your knowledge of a higher

• 18:04Speaker 00

  power, your knowledge of anything will always be a reflection of your knowledge of the nature of the knower. So everything that is known stands in relationship to the knower. Be that an ordinary thought, an emotion, the world, a higher power, the idea of God. Everything stands in relationship to yourself. It is always you that knows your experience. So the non-duality fundamentally asks you to question that you, that self, upon whom all your other experience relies. It basically says, until you understand yourself, until you know who you truly are,

• 18:48Speaker 00

  you cannot know what anything is, because everything stands in relationship to yourself. So no, not only does non-duality not require a belief in a higher power, non-duality is a questioning of all beliefs, even our most fundamental belief, namely that I am primarily a body, a primarily a person, primarily a man or a woman. It's a very gentle but radical investigation. It makes no assumptions at all.

• 19:20Mayim Bialik?

  For many of us who, you know, use a text, let's say, that is quite old, if nothing else, right? We can know that it's old. You know, what you're asking me to do, and I'm happy to do it, but what you're asking me to do is to, you know, step out of even the most basic texts, right? Specifically of Judeo-Christianity, because the Old Testament is already, forgive me, you know, several, several steps away from this peace and happiness that we're seeking. And there are many, many beautiful, you know, aspects to Judeo-Christianity and to those kind of origins.

• 20:01Mayim Bialik?

  But once you get to the Old Testament, you know, and I'm speaking as someone who has studied it for most, you know, of my life in one form or another. You know, once you get to the Old Testament, there is, there is a God of vengeance and wrath, and there is territory, and there is, you know, a lot of suffering that we are essentially, you know, and most of us don't keep to this. But the notion, you know, of many of these religious traditions are about tribalism and about territory, right? If, when I tap into, you know, the parts of, let's say, religious experience that, that are beyond that or before it, yeah, I think about what it must have been like

• 20:42Mayim Bialik?

  for Moses to, you know, have a mystical experience that then was written about, right? Or I think about what it was like for prophets to be in some sort of dream state and envision things that, you know, that no one could yet imagine. How do we reconcile that most of us have been handed traditions that already are quite far removed from these original sources?

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Well, some of the Old Testament may be far removed, but I would also suggest that the Old Testament contains within it that what I consider to be the highest formulation of the absolute truth ever spoken by anybody in any tradition at any time. God replied to Moses when Moses asked God, when he, I think he was due to see the Israelites the next day, and he said to God, you know, when I, when I meet them, who shall I tell them that you are? What can I say to them about who you truly are? How can I explain? They don't understand what you, what you truly are. They have all these beliefs about you. But, but what can I say about them to let them know who you truly are?

• 21:56Speaker 00

  And as you well know, God said to, tell them that I, tell them that I am just what I am.

• 22:03Mayim Bialik?

  Ahia, Asher, ahia is the Hebrew, yes.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  I would suggest God saying, I am just, I am.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  That is that, that idea, that statement is the foundation of all the great religious and spiritual tradition. It's the high, I would suggest, the highest expression of truth in the English language, if properly understood.

• 22:27Mayim Bialik?

  I want you to help us expand that out. Let's, let's remove, let's remove the Old Testament from it. Let's remove Judeo-Christianity from it. Help us understand why this concept is literally universal.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Can you say from your experience now, I am? Is it true of you?

• 22:50Mayim Bialik?

  I think so, but I really respect you. So if you tell me that I'm wrong, I'll believe you.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  No, no, I'm going to, I'm going to say, of course you can say that.

• 22:59Mayim Bialik?

  Of course I can say that, Rupert, of course.

• 23:01Speaker 00

  I mean, I mean, let me ask you the opposite question, Mayim. Can you say from your experience now, I am not? I do not exist? Of course not.

• 23:11Mayim Bialik?

  Saying I am not presupposes that I am.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  What I wanted you to say when I asked you, can you say from your experience now, I am? What I was hoping you would say, and what I, what I want you now to see as true, that yes, of course, that I am is my most fundamental experience. But I am refers to the experience of just being.

• 23:33Mayim Bialik?

  It's consciousness, awareness.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Nothing mystical, which is nothing, take religion, meditation, philosophy, non, take everything,

• 23:43Speaker 00

  nothing, I'm not referring to anything spiritual or enlightened or, but just the ordinary, intimate, everyday, familiar feeling of being. You're, you're having that experience. You have it all day long. Everybody has it all day long, just that simple. And common parlance betrays this. All day long, we either think or feel or say,

• 24:14Speaker 00

  I am waking up, I am tired, I'm having a shower, I'm having a cup of tea, I'm traveling to work, I'm answering an email, I'm lonely, I'm sad, I'm excited, I'm in love, I'm 22, I'm 47, I'm married, I'm divorced, on and on and on and on. I'm having a conversation with Mayim and Jonathan, et cetera. Always, always, always, I am temporarily qualified by a thought, a feeling, an activity, a state of mind, an age, or a relationship. But the I am is the same I am. When you say, I am now having a conversation with Rupert, and you said this morning, I am now having breakfast, you referred to the same self, the same being.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  So being is the, it's the golden thread that runs unbroken throughout all experience. And it's the only experience there is that is constant.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  The awareness of being, the experience of being, no other experience you have ever had.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Experience consists of thoughts, images, feelings, memories, sensations, perceptions, act it, and so on. None of those are constant. They are all temporary, coming and going continually.

• 25:28Mayim Bialik?

  But I'm always here, having all of those experiences, thoughts, feelings.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  You are always present, having, having your waking state experience. You remain present during your dreams, aware of your dreams, and you remain present in deep sleep, aware of nothing. So this I am, this just simple awareness of being, it is, it's, it runs continuously present through all experience and is temporarily qualified by the content of experience, thoughts, images, feelings, and so on. I'm trying to answer you, but experientially, not philosophically. I'm trying to draw it in answer to your question about what God meant by I am, that I am.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  This awareness of being is your, your primary experience.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  It's your most essential experience. Take a newborn infant. A newborn infant doesn't know that it is a newborn infant. It doesn't know that it has just been born. It doesn't know that it is a girl or a boy. It doesn't know that it is a person. It doesn't know that it has a mother. It doesn't know that there is a world. But it has the experience of being. It can't conceptualize that experience, of course. But the core experience of being is its primary experience. I want first of all to draw attention to this ordinary, familiar experience of being before it is qualified by experience.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  If, if being was, was like the screen, experience would be like the movie. Can I do an experiment with you?

• 27:15Mayim Bialik?

  I love an experiment.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Okay, great. Go now to the, just to the ordinary, intimate, familiar experience of being, the experience that enables you to say, I am, before that experience is mixed with the content of your experience, before any thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, memories.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Try and go there and then tell us something about that experience if you can.

• 27:49Mayim Bialik?

  Well, it's still... It's quiet.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  It's quiet, yes, yes.

• 27:57Mayim Bialik?

  And I would say, if I had to describe it, it's unproblematic.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  Only refer to the experience, not to any ideas, just the pure, simple experience of being. Does it have an age?

• 28:13Speaker 00

  Imagine you don't have the faculty of thinking and remembering.

• 28:16Mayim Bialik?

  Ah, no, then it has no age. It's got no age. It's got no age. It has no gender or shape. Yeah.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Prior to... Imagine that you don't yet have the faculty of perception. It's like you're deeply asleep,

• 28:26Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  but you're wide awake and aware of being.

• 28:28Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Is the experience of being... If you just isolate the experience of being, is it located anywhere?

• 28:37Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Does it have any extension in time or space, prior to thought and perception?

• 28:43Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  How would you describe philosophically something that has no extension in time or space? Eternal and infinite. It has no extension in time, which is just another way of saying it's eternal, and it's not expanded in space. It has no finite dimensions. It's infinite. We're not talking philosophy. We're just talking your experience. Not some mystical experience, not some enlightened experience, not some experience that some sages have access to, that we don't have access, just the ordinary intimate feeling of being before it is mixed with or qualified by experience. It's eternal and infinite. Now, go back to the idea of God. How would you describe God's being?

• 29:27Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, we call it Ain self, that which has no end.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  That's another way of saying eternal. Yeah, God's being is infinite and eternal. You recognize that your own being, before it is mixed with or qualified by experience, is infinite and eternal, and God's being must be infinite and eternal. How many infinite eternal beings can there be?

• 29:49Mayim Bialik?

  Um, Echad, just one.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Just one. And this is the core understanding at the heart of non-duality. There's only one being, that your being is God's being, the only being there is. But the reason we feel that we're temporary finite beings, in other words, separate individual, people and so on, is because our being, we don't experience our being purely, essentially, as it is. We experienced it mixed with our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. So instead of experiencing the pure I am, we experience, I am tired, I am lonely, I am sad, I am a man, I am a woman, I am et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  So that all the methods, I would suggest, in all the great religion and religious and spiritual traditions, one way or another, more or less directly, not necessarily as directly as I have just done with you, that the purpose is to take you to your being before it is qualified by experience and to recognize that your being is God's being, the only being there is. That there is only God's being, and everyone and everything borrow their apparently independent existence from that one being. That's non-duality. And I don't think it differs very much from your religion.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  It doesn't differ from any religious or spiritual tradition. If you go right to the core of that... The language we use and the methodology we use, of course, differs, but the core understanding is the same.

• 31:33Jonathan Cohen?

  I think this particular experiment is the fastest way to access something that, you know, so many teachers and paths, but like, to be able to, that quickly, drop into something that is spoken about and courses are sold on, and yet, right there, all of a sudden, you can have access to it right away.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. Unmediated access.

• 32:03Jonathan Cohen?

  How do we know that the nature of the human experience or our natural nature is that to be peaceful, joyous? I don't want to misquote you, but you gave a description at the beginning of the podcast, and then that answers it.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  The very first thing that Mayim said, when I said, "Go to your being", and I could see that you were not just following me philosophically, but I could see you had gone back to your being. I think the very first thing you said was, "It's quiet."

• 32:33Speaker 00

  That's it. That's it. Your thoughts may be agitated, your feelings may be sorrowful, your body may be in pain, the world may be in chaos, but if you go to your being, it's quiet. You didn't make it quiet by stilling your thoughts, or... Its nature is peace, irrespective of what is taking place in your thoughts and feelings. Its nature is peace. And that's not... It's not a belief. It was the very first thing you said, Mayim. You said, "It's quiet." That's it. Now, that peace is available, is available to everybody 24/7,

• 33:13Speaker 00

  just by virtue of the fact that everyone is continually having the experience of being. Everyone is aware of being. And anyone can go to their experience, just like we did then, and access this peace.

• 33:27Mayim Bialik?

  When we talk about, you know, consciousness as fundamental, this is, I think, a philosophical question. Where does this come from? This ability to have I-am-ness?

• 33:39Speaker 00

  The fact that you are able to say, from your current experience, "I am", means that not only that there is being, but that you are aware of being.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  Your table can't say, "I am." The table is, it undoubtedly is, but it can't say, "I am." There's nothing it is like to be a table.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  But you can say, "I am," because you are aware that I am. So when you say, "I am," what you're really saying is, "I know that I am." It is my experience that I am. I am aware that I am. Yes? Now, take these two statements. One, "I am", and two, "I know that I am."

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Now, take the I that I am,

• 34:43Speaker 00

  and the I that knows that I am.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  Are there two different I's in you, or is it, it's you that knows that you are? In other words, your being is self-luminous or self-aware. You are aware of yourself, the same self. So the being that you essentially are is not an inert being, it's aware being, or awareness, or consciousness. So the words "being" and "consciousness" are synonymous.

• 35:18Mayim Bialik?

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• 36:47Mayim Bialik?

  It's completely risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Check the link in today's episode description to get started. Jonathan and I speak to a lot of people who have extraordinary experiences, many of whom, you know, are declared dead, let's say, in hospitals, and they're brought back. And in many cases, they are witnessing and experiencing things that seem to be as if consciousness is a thing that leaves a body and can go other places. How do we reconcile these kind of conversations, which do happen in the world of theoretical physics and things like that? How do we reconcile that with the I who's in this meat suit right now?

• 37:32Speaker 00

  When people say they're lying on a hospital bed, they're having an operation, they wake up in the operation, and they view the operation from the corner of the room. What has changed is...

• 37:45Speaker 00

  The locus of their perspective, consciousness hasn't moved or changed. They're just looking at the world from a different location. Their perceiving faculties

• 37:58Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  have been altered. And because of this close connection between consciousness and perception, they mistakenly believe that consciousness has left their body. It's not. They've just had an altered state of perception, means that they're now experiencing that the room, from a different location in space. It's perception that's changed, not consciousness.

• 38:22Mayim Bialik?

  So they're still them. I mean, the most important thing for us is that they're still aware, right? That they are them.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Mayim, you don't need to have a near-death experience to experience this change in the locus of your perception. Imagine tonight, you fall asleep in L.A. You dream that you're on a Caribbean beach. Yeah, now you view that Caribbean beach from the location of somebody on the beach in the Caribbean. Your consciousness hasn't moved, but your locus of perception has moved from L.A.

• 39:03Mayim Bialik?

  Right.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  to Caribbean. So we're all quite familiar with this, the mechanics of perception changing.

• 39:11Mayim Bialik?

  But I'm not picturing things that are actually happening on that Caribbean beach. I think that's my challenge is when people are reporting things that are happening in rooms that they're not in and like, information seems to be existing in ways that the I, who I am, kids, and I don't know either. Like, I'm not convinced here.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  But you're asking me questions about the content of consciousness. My interest, and I think our interest, is the nature of consciousness. Whether you're having a regular experience, like each of us now is having a conversation like this, whether you're having a psychedelic trip, whether you're having a vision of God, whether you're having a near-death experience or an out-of-body experience, or whatever, whatever you're experiencing, however ordinary or extraordinary it might be, it takes place in consciousness and it is known by consciousness.

• 40:14Jonathan Cohen?

  We have people try and say that consciousness is in the brain.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  The reason we think this in our, in our culture is because just for the last few hundred years, we've been brought up in a culture that believes that the, that the evidence of sense perception, sense perception gives us apparent evidence of a physical world, that pre-existing us as a person. So we presume that consciousness is generated by the body, which in turn was generated by the world and so on. So we have this vision, this paradigm of matter being the fundamental reality and consciousness being a derivative of it. But this is in fact not consistent with our experience.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  If you stay very close to the evidence of experience, being aware is your primary experience. Nobody has ever experienced anything prior to consciousness. Have either of you ever had an experience of anything? Two things, one, prior to consciousness, and two, outside consciousness.

• 41:26Mayim Bialik?

  Not me, not this one. Jonathan, do you believe, either for yourself or other people, that you can have memories in utero?

• 41:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, but that would be still being aware of the memory.

• 41:46Mayim Bialik?

  This is up to Rupert.

• 41:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Would still have consciousness.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Yep, you could have a memory in, an experience in utero. But if you did have an experience in utero, where would that experience take place? In consciousness. What would it be known by? Consciousness. Let's say you have a vision of God.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Where would that vision take place?

• 42:08Mayim Bialik?

  In consciousness.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  The only place it's possible for any experience to take place, in consciousness, known by consciousness. Now, ask yourself, have you, or indeed anyone, think of the billions of people, think that, include all the animals, trillions of beings, has anybody ever had an experience prior to consciousness? Consciousness is the prerequisite for experience. An experience without consciousness is not an experience.

• 42:41Jonathan Cohen?

  What the materialist point of view would say, well, of course, that's the case because we have a brain. And so if we have a brain that has our consciousness in it, I can't have an experience or a memory or, you know, a vision without having the brain and then therefore which, you know, so it doesn't fully explain it.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  I understand that, I would say a mind rather than a brain. I understand it's not possible to have objective experience without a mind. For instance, it's not possible to see the world, experience the world without the faculty of perception. A human mind has, consists of thinking and perceiving. I agree, in the absence of thought and perception, there is no objective experience, deep sleep. But that doesn't say, tell us anything about consciousness. It just tells us about the absence of thought and perception. The reason that a materialist scientist would say that consciousness is generated

• 43:44Speaker 00

  by the, by the brain is simply because they don't realize how profoundly they have bought in to the prevailing materialist paradigm that presumes matter is the ultimate nature of reality. They have simply subscribed unconsciously to that belief, built a model of reality based on it. And not only that, and their identity is invested and their whole career and their identity is invested in that belief. So they are perfectly capable of following the conversation that we're having now. But if your identity is invested in a belief, then you're no longer willing to really scrutinize that belief because you're, it's not just the belief that's, that's at risk, it's your

• 44:27Speaker 00

  identity, your sense of yourself that is being challenged. And, and if your sense of yourself, your sense of your ego, it feels, the ego has to be invested in something, in some belief, or if the, if the belief is taken away from the ego, that the ego dies. So that's why people defend their beliefs so tenaciously, people that are perfectly intelligent enough to recognize that matter is obviously not the fundamental nature of reality, but because their identities are invested in that belief, they hold on to it.

• 44:58Mayim Bialik?

  I like that for 35 years, you were making beautiful pottery and thinking all these things, and now you get to like Godzilla, you get to come into the world and be like, you're all wrong. Matter is not the nature of reality.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Two reasons why that this prevailing materialist paradigm has just taken over our entire culture. And we could explore either of them. One is that most people feel that being the body is their primary experience. That's a mistake. Being aware is your primary experience. If you think that being a body is your primary experience, you will then consider that awareness or consciousness is a faculty of the body, like breathing or digesting. You'll think it's something that the body has or generates. But being a body is not our primary experience.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  Being aware is prior to the sensations and perceptions that constitute our experience of the body. Our only knowledge of the world is sense perception, seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. And we think that our sense perceptions are like a clear windscreen onto reality. We believe the evidence of sense perception. And sense perception, there it tells us there is a physical world outside our individual mind. I would suggest there is a reality outside our individual mind, but it's not a physical reality. So the combination of these two aspects for our experience, one, the belief that being a body is my primary experience, and two, believing that the evidence of sense perception

• 46:38Speaker 00

  conspires to create this prevailing materialist paradigm that dominates our world culture. But neither of them stand up to the scrutiny of experience. Neither of those two beliefs stand the scrutiny of inquiry or experience.

• 46:54Mayim Bialik?

  I wonder if you can give us any window, you know, into how we can expand this into individuals who don't communicate in the ways that we typically would to assess awareness.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  You are now aware of your experience. The sight of my face, the sight of your room, the sound of my voice, your thoughts, and so on. Now, go back, it's morning, your time, go back to dinner last night.

• 47:23Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Whatever you were experiencing at dinner last night, you were aware of it.

• 47:29Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  Obviously, the content of your experience now and the content of your experience yesterday have changed numerous times.

• 47:38Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  What about the awareness with which you are aware of this experience and yesterday's experience?

• 47:47Mayim Bialik?

  It's the same.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  It's the same. And what about the experience that you had 10 years ago? Is it the same awareness or different awareness?

• 47:53Mayim Bialik?

  The quality of awareness changes over time.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  The content of awareness changes over time. The quality of your experience has changed.

• 48:02Mayim Bialik?

  Sure.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Now you're having a friendly conversation, last night you were having an argument with a friend or whatever. In other words, you can have two very different types of experience. One, very positive, one, very negative, one, very pleasant, one, very unpleasant. But the awareness with which these two different experiences are, is the same, the awareness is the same. Now imagine that last night.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  You had had far too much to drink. And you were drunk. So you were experiencing an altered state.

• 48:35Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. You were aware, whatever that altered state was, you were aware of it.

• 48:41Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  The content of your mind, the content of your experience had changed, but you were still aware of the experience.

• 48:49Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  The awareness hadn't changed. The content had changed.

• 48:54Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  Take that even further. Imagine that you were very sick, or imagine that you went through an episode of some severe mental or emotional trauma, and the content of your mind was severely changed. I'm bringing in what you said about people with locked-in syndrome, or go to the extreme, more extreme than just getting drunk. What I'm trying to point at is that the awareness that the person with, say, locked-in syndrome has, and the awareness with which you and I are aware of our current experience, is

• 49:38Speaker 00

  exactly the same awareness, the same quality. The content is very different, but the awareness hasn't changed. The screen is always the same. The movie can be a love story, it can be a horror movie, it can be, but the screen is always the same. Consciousness is like the screen. It doesn't change. You can check that in your experience. If you ask yourself, what is the, I'm going to do the experiment again. You are now having the experience of being aware. So tell us about that experience. You are aware that you're conscious. Don't tell us about what you're aware of. Don't tell us about your thoughts, feelings, memories, but just that pure experience of being aware. How would you describe it?

• 50:21Mayim Bialik?

  Well, it doesn't feel that different from being.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  Perfect. It's the same. Now, imagine now that you're deeply depressed. Imagine that now, in this moment, imagine that you're deeply, you're still having this conversation, but underneath you're feeling wretched and depressed. Now, do the same experiment. Tell us about the awareness with which your deep depression is known.

• 50:46Mayim Bialik?

  I'm blending the wretchedness with the awareness.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  That's the primary methodology of the non-dual understanding. Unblend your being from the content of your experience. For the vast majority of us, for the vast majority of time, our being, or the experience of being aware or consciousness, is completely blended with experience. So we don't know ourselves as we essentially are. We don't know the pure I am with its inherent peace and fullness. We know I am lonely, I am depressed, I am agitated, et cetera, et cetera. But if you unblend your experience, just by going back to the simple awareness of being,

• 51:37Speaker 00

  you recognize that your being is whole, unblemished, unhurt, untarnished, that there's a place in you that has never been traumatized by anything that has ever happened to you. So this recognition of the nature of your being, it's the ultimate healing, not the healing that takes place in 20 years' time after 20 years of therapy. I'm not saying that's not valid. It's valid and necessary. But the ultimate healing is to recognize that your being now is whole, is perfect, is at peace. It's never been hurt by experience, just like a screen is never hurt by the movie.

• 52:19Mayim Bialik?

  We're going to hit pause here on our conversation with Rupert Spira. There is a lot more in part two. We have never been born and we never die. Rupert will explain why that is and why that should give us comfort.

• 52:32Jonathan Cohen?

  We also talk about why enlightenment is one of the most misunderstood terms in the spiritual language.

• 52:39Mayim Bialik?

  In addition, Rupert's going to do a few more experiments to help me be the guinea pig in understanding the knowing of our existence. And we also talk about how these kinds of insights can transform all of our relationships, not just our relationship with ourself and the universe. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we will see you next time in part two of our conversation with Rupert Spira.