for - comparison - Rupert Spira - limited human being striving for return to natural condition - Dasietz Suzuki - The elbow does not bend backwards - insight - freedom is our natural state - because in our contracted human form - we desire to return to our original expansive form - Rupert Spira comment - As Dasietz Suzuki observed, within the limitations of our form, there is a freedom - After listening for a 2nd or 3rd time, I noted something I missed on the 1st listening. A metaphor helps - My nickname reflects this desire to return to the original expansiveness. "Bottled up" and existing in a "contracted" human form, - we possess a natural desire to expand out of the contracted human form back into its original, primordial expansive state - This is indicated by our innate desire for freedom

for - nonduality - not acting against violence in such a case (as Ukraine war) is an egoic response - acting out of cowardice - Rupert Spira

comment - One can act egoically both to take action AND to not take action.

for - question - nilhism - nondualism - is fighting evil a contradiction? - Rupert Spira - Bernado Kastrup - question - nilhism - how do we prevent falling into?

question - nondualism - is fighting evil a contradiction? - Pondering this idea raises the question: - Is fighting evil a contradiction? - Do we fall into duality if we fight evil? - Does nonduality imply not creating categories of morality of good and evil? - This question has no answer because - If you understand the question, you are already - a language user - applying some morality - We are already post category and post linguistic - we can never undo this and get back to pre-category and pre-linguistic - Fighting evil cannot conquer it because - in fighting evil, this implies using (deadly) force - deadly force results in death, the most extreme form of suffering - It is tantamount to abuse and justifying death is the greatest act of separation, causing great suffering to the other - In effect, we have the same result as the abuser and this can create a new generation of abused

question - nilhism - how do we prevent falling into? - Rather, what is needed is to PENETRATE moral relativism / dualism altogether to re-discover the common sacred ground both moral categories are based upon - The use of force as a form of vengeance - is the perpetuation of the abused-abuser cycle

for - BEing journey - meditate on two polar images - apply nondual love - can you recognize the sacred? - the shared being of both? - Rupert Spira

BEing journey - meditate on two polar images - apply nondual love - can you recognize the sacred? - the shared being of both? - Rupert Spira

adjacency - between - Rupert Spira's exercise to identify the Common Human Denominator (CHD) of the sacred in both - abused-abuser relationship - adjacency relationship - Rupert's exercise can lead to compassion if we study the abused-abuser relationship deeply and bring it to bear - The coexistence of - the feeling of anger arising from the suffering the abuser causes - the feeling of sadness arising from the suffering the abuser has suffered earlier in life - creates a mixture of feelings in the same person - Also can help to think of the mechanism by which the abused-abuser cycle continually becomes reconstructed and perpetuated in the world

reference - untreated childhood abuse of children - they can grow up to become dictators - such as Putin, Trump and Kim Jong Un - https://hyp.is/LOhh4mqvEe-mU3_0EcDYiQ/acestoohigh.com/2022/03/02/how-vladimir-putins-childhood-is-affecting-us-all/

for - definition - love - as the recognition of our shared being - Rupert Spira - question - reconciling Rupert Spira's interpretation of the Eastern definition of "love" with the inherent suffering designed into nature

question - reconciling Rupert Spira's interpretation of the Eastern definition of "love" with the inherent suffering designed into nature - Consider that every individual of every species must eat in order to survive and maintain life, - In other words, suffering is unavoidable in life itself, and exists at every scale of multi-scale competency architecture (Levin) - How do we reconcile this definition of "love" with the suffering inherent in all of life itself? - If we accept that the universal consciousness manifests in ALL living beings, then it is indeed a strange situation because: - reality itself evolved biotic out of abiotic reality and - it did so by creating intrinsic suffering as predators must kill, eat and cause suffering to its prey and - mortality is built into all living organism, bringing about constant innate anxiety to defend against death through innate alertness to and defense against predators

for - quote - poverty mentality - Rupert Spira

for - empathy - deep meaning - universal consciousness perspective - Rupert Spira

for - personal awakening journey - description - Rupert Spira

personal awakening journey - description - Rupert Spira - Interesting description of his awakening journey - He would gradually learn to abide more and more often in the background awareness and less in the content of experience

for - quote - claim - natural impulse of finite minds - to revert from finite mind back to infinite consciousness - Rupert Spira

for - duality - infinite consciousness - mistaking itself for finite counsciousness - entangled with the content of experience - Rupert Spira

duality - infinite consciousness - mistaking itself for finite counsciousness - entangled with the content of experience - Rupert Spira - What does this really mean? - What does it mean to be entangled? - What does it take to get dis-entangled? - It would seem that falling into suffering through unbalanced - self-identify and - self cherishing - is what he is getting at

for - metaphor - John Smith (actor) - King Lear - Rupert Spira

metaphor - John Smith (actor) - King Lear - Rupert Spira - This is an interesting thought experiment - In the metaphor, the infinite consciousness is like John Smith and the finite human consciousness is like King Lear - The universal consciousness is playing the role of the finite consciousness but loses itself in the role - Spira says: - just as the only consciousness in each of our finite minds is universal consciousness nevertheless - King Lear doesn't know that - King Lear believes i am King Lear, a temporary finite separate person - just like our finite minds don't on the whole know that their reality is infinite consciousness<br /> - So although - the only person present in King Lear is John Smith and - John Smith knows himself just by being himself in the form of King Lear<br /> - he overlooks that knowledge and therefore as King Lear - he has to self-reflect on himself in order to arrive at the experience i am John Smith - What is the relationship between the infinite vs the finite consciousness within the same human? - This reminds me of Dasietz Suzuki's koan that surfaced at the time of his Satori experience - that the elbow does not bend backwards. - Within the bounds of the finite is the infinite

for - metaphor - analogy - dissociation - Bernardo Kastrup - to - 3D imax cinema - localize Rupert Spira - terminology - dissociate - Bernado Kastrup - terminology - localize and contract - Rupert Spira - universal consciousness contracts to finite human consciousness - question - meaning of dissociate - Bernardo Kastrup

metaphor - analogy - dissociation - Bernardo Kastrup - to - 3D imax cinema - Rupert Spira - At 3d Imax cinema, we wear a pair of special glasses - that make the otherwise fuzzy image to acquire a 3rd dimension - In the same way, our raw universal consciousness is like the fuzzy pattern we see on the 3d Imax screen when we DON'T have any special glasses on - When we perceive and think, it is like putting on the 3D glasses in the Imax theatre and suddenly we see objects with great clarity - Spira talks about universal consciousness "localizing" within its own activity - in the form of a finite mind of a human being

question - meaning of dissociate - Bernardo Kastrup - Does Kastrup mean that we infinite / universal consciousness dissociates from itself into the finite human consciousness? - answer - It appears so, as at time 45:50, Spira summarizes Kastrup's views on dissociation

for - adjacency - key insight - quote - localization enables (infinite or universal consciousness) to perceive itself - Rupert Spira - discerning single voice at a busy party metaphor - existential isolation - umwelt

adjacency - between - key insight - quote - localization enables (infinite or universal consciousness) to perceive itself - Rupert Spira - discerning single voice at a busy party metaphor - existential isolation - adjacency relationship - quote - localization enables (infinite or universal consciousness) to perceive itself - Rupert Spira - This localization process enables (infinite) consciousness to perceive itself as the universe because - infinite consciousness cannot perceive its own activity directly - because if infinite consciousness were to perceive the universe directly - it would have to do so from every single point of view in the universe - It would be the deepest, darkest black image you could imagine - So in order to perceive an object - (infinite) consciousness must localize itself as an apparently separate subject so - the apparent localization of our self or - the dissociation of ourselves - as finite minds out of infinite consciousness enables - perception and - thought

• There is a metaphor that applies here:
  • At a busy dinner party, many people are talking at the same time
  • As the number of people approach infinite, the signal becomes more difficult to detect
  • In the same manner, as the activities of the universe are seemingly unbounded, how could infinite consciousness possibly observe its own infinite entirety?
  • Existential isolation is deemed depressing because it makes us feel intrinsically separated and disconnected from others, yet
    • it may be very necessary
  • Can you imagine hearing and understanding the voices of every human being, much less every living being?
  • An individual human does not have the capacity to process all that information
  • In the same manner, the body of every living organism is fine tuned for only one specific set of unwelts
  • How would we process the unbound amounts of information if we had an infinite number of different detectors?

for - key insight - universal consciousness contracts to localized human consciousness - experiences its own activity as the outside universe - Rupert Spira

for - recognizing true nature - validation of conceptual method - Rupert Spira

for BEing journey - self knowledge exercise - removing everything from our experience that is not essential Rupert Spira

BEing journey - self knowledge exercise - removing everything from our experience that is not essential Rupert Spira - metaphor - Like taking all our clothes off when we are preparing for bedtime

comment - self knowledge exercise - Rupert Spira - This exercise makes me think of my own thoughts around discovering or rather, rediscovering one's true nature - If we are to discuss the "greater self" from whence we came, then it's tantamount to discovering - the nature nature within - human nature - So anything that is recognized as human nature, cannot be the ground state - The ground state must go beyond anything that depends on the human body - Thoughts and perceptions are mediated by brains and sense organs, both depend on the human body and so - are dependent on human nature - Self knowledge is unmediated and directly experienced - It has the quality of the ground state within us, the nature part of our human nature

for - quote - know thyself - recognizing our true nature - has never been more important than at this hour of our civilization - Rupert Spira - Deep Humanity - know thyself - rekindling wonder - awakening to our true nature - Rupert Spira

quote - know thyself - recognizing our true nature - has never been more important than at this hour of our civilization - Rupert Spira - (see below) - The words "know thyself" were carved above the entrance of the temple temple of apollo in delphi and stand as such at the dawn of western civilization and - I would suggest that at this hour of our civilization, - this recognition of the essential nature of our self and therefore - the recognition of the essential nature of - all people - all animals and - all things - has perhaps never been more important than it is now

for - Rupert Spira - meditation - metaphor - movie and screen - BEing journey - identifying our true nature - movie and screen metaphor - Rupert Spira

for - BEing journey - self knowledge exercise - removing everything from our experience that is not essential Rupert Spira

BEing journey - self knowledge exercise - removing everything from our experience that is not essential Rupert Spira - Remove phenomenological experiences that are transient - that is, have a beginning or end - The fact that they do not last implies that they cannot be part of our essential, unchanging nature

for - key insight - quote - self knowledge - Rupert Spira

key insight - quote - self knowledge - Rupert Spira - There is one aspect of the universe that we have direct unmediated access to w

• When i say unmediated i mean we have access to it through a channel that is does not go through

  • perception or
  • thought and that is our knowledge of our self

• Our knowledge of our self is the only knowledge there is that is not mediated through

  • thought or
  • perception

• and therefore it is the only channel through which we have direct unmediated access to the reality of the universe

• It is for this reason that self-knowledge stands at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions.

for - quotation - Rupert Spira - reality lies behind the multiplicity and diversity of appearances and is concealed by them

quotation - Rupert Spira - reality lies behind the multiplicity and diversity of appearances and is concealed by them - A subset of this claim is that the same universal consciousness is in the multiplicity and diversity of appearances of human INTERbeCOMings

for - nonduality - ultimate reality - cannot be objectified - Rupert Spira

nonduality - ultimate reality - cannot be objectified - Rupert Spira - This is echoed in many spiritual practices. - For example, the cliche "those who know do not (cannot) speak about it" - To explore this further, - An object is inherently a part of something bigger - It is known that ordinary people have great difficulty appreciating hyperobjects such as climate change because - they are already far beyond our evolutionary sensing equipment - Ultimate reality, being the mother of all objects and hyperobjects is going to be even more subtle

for - podcast - Adventures in Awareness - episode - Bernardo Kastrup - Rupert Spira

Summary - A very rich interview with Rupert Spira and Bernardo Kastrup to explore where there perspectives on idealism, materialism and consciousness align and differ. - It appears they mostly align with a few minor differences - Rupert approaches the true nature of mind from an introspective, experiential and meditative angle whilst - Bernardo approaches it from a philosophical and conceptual angle - Rupert opens with a metaphor of the movie vs the movie screen and an accompanying meditation on phenomenological experience and the awareness that experiences all of it - This introduces the audience to experiencing - what Spira alternately calls the true nature of mind and universal consciousness and - what Kastrup refers to as the "ground zero" of consciousness

• Title
  • consciousness is not in the brain
• Author
  • Rupert Spira
• Description
  • Rupert Spira takes the interviewer on a BEing journey to experience awareness directly and answer the question
    • how does consciousness emerge from brains?