Anywhere

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Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Rupert Spira, Sacred meetings, William Blake

(Uphill above our bay today, outside this church)

One breath of oneness; then one more; one at a time

Thus ever gratefully we breathe for one and all

Every experience

announces, celebrates, indicates

God’s infinite being

Our only experience of the world is perception. That is; sights, sounds, tastes, textures and smells. All there is to perception in our experience, is perceiving, and the only substance present in perceiving, is knowing.

All there is to the mind, are thoughts and images. Our only knowledge of thoughts and images, are thinking and imagining. And the only substance present in thinking and imagining, is knowing.

See, that knowing, or consciousness, is the only substance that is ever actually known, or experienced.

Try now to find something in your experience –in your current experience; your remembered experience; your imagined experience– that is made of anything other than knowing.

Test your experience.

Go to the extremes.

Imagine:

A vision of God

A near-death experience

A deep depression

A moment of ecstasy

Or, simply the taste of tea

Is there anything to any of these experiences… Could there be anything to any of these experiences, or indeed to any experience, other than: knowing.

And ask yourself the question:

What is it that knows the experience of knowing?

Is it known by itself? Or is it known by something other than itself? Can you find anything other than knowing, with which knowing could be known?

Wherever we look in experience, there is only knowing. It is knowing that knows this knowing.

Now, ask yourself the question:

Is this knowing ever divided into parts?

If knowing were divided into parts, there would have to be something within knowing, other than knowing, with which it could be divided. In just the same way, that in order to divide the space of this room, we would have to build a wall through the middle of this room, made out of something other than the space.

Is there anything in empty space, with which empty space could be divided? Space cannot divide space.

Is there anything in knowing, other than knowing, with which knowing could be divided into parts?

See that this knowing is indivisible, there is nothing in itself with which it could be divided or limited, and therefore it is unlimited, or; infinite.

This knowing is not something foreign to our self; it is our very own self, the only self –if we can call it a “self”– there is.

This single, infinite, intimate, indivisible Whole, or Self, admits no other self or entity within itself.

No separate object or self ever comes into existence; existence, from the Latin ex-, meaning “out of”, and sistere, meaning “to stand”. No object or self ever exists, or “stands out from” this infinite, intimate, indivisible knowing, with its own independent existence.

There are no real objects or selves.

It is not blasphemous to say: “I am the infinite, perfect Whole.”

In other words, it is not blasphemous to say: “I am God’s infinite being.”

It is blasphemous to say: “I am a separate self.” That is the true blasphemy.

Because, to consider oneself “a self”, as separate individual, is to deny the only Presence of the infinite Whole. There is no room for the finite in the Infinite. There is no room in God’s infinite being for anything other than itself. To assert the existence of a separate self, or an object, is to deny the reality of God’s infinite being.

When Ramana Maharshi was asked by his devotees if he would like to take a tour round India, speaking to people in various parts of the country, he said: “What’s the point? I never see anything.” He didn’t mean that truly “I don’t see appearances”, but his vision was completely equal; he only ever experienced one thing, and travelling around India would give him no further experience of that one thing that he experienced at home in Arunachala. His vision was even, equal; knowing only knowing.

In the early stages of our investigation on the inward-facing path, objective experience seems to be a distraction from Reality. Objective experience –thinking, feeling, sensing, perceiving– seems to veil the reality of pure knowing, or God’s infinite being, and therefore we have to turn away from it.

But in the more advanced stages of our exploration in the outward-facing path, there is no question of being distracted from pure knowing. If there is nothing in experience, other than pure knowing, what could distract us from this knowing? What would be the need for the focusing of our attention; the resisting of any experience, or the accepting of any experience? In the more advanced stages of this investigation, objective experience is not a distraction, or an obscuration of Reality; it shines with Reality.

Every experience announces, celebrates, indicates God’s infinite being.

This is why Krishnamurti, when asked, towards the end of his life, “What is your secret?” he simply said, “I don’t mind what happens.” His students were expecting some marvellous new teaching; he just said, “I don’t mind what happens.” That was his secret. “I see the same thing in all experience. A vision of God; a deep depression; a moment of ecstasy; the taste of tea… It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. Knowing; knowing only knowing.”

It’s why… – sorry, I can’t resist this…
[laughter in the audience, as they can tell he is about to repeat one of his favourite stories]

It’s why when William Blake was asked by one of his friends:

“When you see the Sun rise,
do you not see a round disc of fire,
somewhat like a guinea?”

he replied:

“Oh, no, no, no…!
I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying
‘Glory, Glory, Glory is the Lord God Almighty!’.”

Rupert Spira transcribed by Leon Hieros

🙏💜

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Moment by moment

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Krishnamurti, Rupert Spira, Sacred meetings

Turning our attention away from the objects that we seem to know, towards the knowing with which they are known.

Yesterday before lunch, you said something similar to… this; ahm… “You have allowed yourself to be entangled with an object, and you believe you are this object”. Ahm… There are a couple of questions I have around that. At the moment you said it, I knew who you were speaking to… And, with the word “allow” –and you used it this morning, which brought my hand up–
“allow” to me implies that there is also “disallow”, which implies some sort of control.
So would you speak to those two things?

You see, it’s not absolutely true to say that we have allowed our true nature to be veiled, because from the point of view of our true nature, it only knows itself. From its point of view, which is the only real point of view, there is no veiling of itself, and therefore there is no ignorance, or ignoring of itself. So, the statement, “We have allowed ourselves, or you have… we have allowed ourselves to become entangled with the body and the mind,” is a concession, to the apparently separate self that believes and feels itself to be temporary and finite. It is to that apparent one that we believe and feel ourselves to be the… that the statement is made, “You have allowed yourself to become entangled with thoughts and feelings.”
Now, the implication as you rightly point out in the phrase, “You have allowed yourself to become entangled,” is the possibility that you could not allow. That you could choose not to become entangled. Which then raises the question, “Does I, the separate self, have the free will to choose whether or not I become entangled with the bodymind?” Again, the statement that “You have the freedom to choose whether you are entangled with thoughts and feelings or not,” is a concession to the separate self we believe and feel ourselves to be. As a concession to that one, it is said:
“You have the choice.
Hm.
You have consented to limit yourself. You can choose not to.” And the reason it is said in this way to the separate self, is because from the separate self’s point of view, it has choice, freedom; the separate self feels that it has the freedom to choose. That is implicit in the separate self. A separate self that says, “I feel that I have no free will, or choice, is making a contradiction. The separate self by definition feels that it is choosing, and therefore the teaching says, “OK, you feel you have the freedom to choose. Choose to disentangle yourself; make that your first choice in life: to disentangle yourself from the body and the mind, and to know yourself as you truly are.”
When we… When the mind returns to the heart, when the separate self is divested of its separateness and stands revealed as the true and only self of pure awareness, then it becomes clear that there was never a separate self to begin with. And therefore, the question as to whether the separate self has choice or not, is moot.
… moot. [Uttered simultaneously; woman laughs.]
However, we shouldn’t… we shouldn’t fall into the very common trap that a lot of contemporary Advaita teachings fall into, which is to believe and feel that I am a separate self, and to appropriate the non-dual understanding, “There is no free will, or choice.” And to mix these two beliefs together –one, the belief that I am a separate self; and two, the belief… from… because from the point of view of the separate self, it is a belief that I have no free will, or choice– so we mix these two beliefs together, and we end up with the statement, “I, the separate self have no choice,” and we end up with this nihilistic, depressing view of contemporary Advaita, that “We may as well just go down to the pub,” [audience laughs] as opposed to coming to satsang. It’s… No, if we think we are a separate self, we should be honest: we by definition feel that we are making choices. And as that apparently separate self, the highest choice we can make, is to turn our attention away from the objects that we seem to know, towards the knowing with which they are known.
That choice, to make that choice, effects this disentanglement of our self from the bodymind, and we stand… our true nature stands, revealed as it is.

Yeah… It seems… that most of us make that choice to be entangled somewhere… –I mean, for me it was very unconscious, it appears– but that… that… as… you know, as we walk around this earth and are here, in our separate selves, that seems like a very common choice people make… Does that…?

Yes. It’s a common choice, and it’s a less common choice to refuse to consent… to being limited by the body and the mind. But, that choice is open to everybody. At any moment, the possibility to turn the light of our attention around on itself, in order to know the nature of our self, that is the nature of the knowing with which we know our experience. It’s an open door.
Once the… Once we have consented to limit ourselves in time and space, and become as a result a temporary, finite entity that lives in and as the body, we are then destined to experience in a way that is consistent with that consent. And as such, we are destined to suffer. In fact, the experience of suffering is itself like a wake-up call. It is like a red flag, telling us, “Stop! You have mistaken yourself; you have consented to limit yourself to a mind and a body.” That is what the experience of suffering tells us. So, once that consent has been made, we are then destined to experience all the pleasures and pains that the separate self goes through.
However, that separate self always has the choice to turn around and step out of that entanglement; and to question its true nature; and therefore, to step out of the destiny of being a separate self. This is why Krishnamurti titled one of his books, The First and Last Freedom. When we consent to become a separate self –that is, when we consent to take on, or assume the limitations that properly belong to the body and the mind– we lose our true freedom, and we are bound as a result to suffer, to enjoy and suffer as a separate self. So, that is our last freedom; we give up our freedom. However, at every moment, the first possibility of all separate selves is to direct the knowing with which they know their experience back towards itself. That is the first freedom that all separate selves have. And it is a freedom that is always available to us.

You know, I don’t remember making that… consenting.
But looking back… I’m wondering, “Why would I give up freedom?!”

You see, it’s not a choice that you made in the past. It’s a choice that we make moment by moment. Don’t think, “Oh, I made this choice forty years ago, and I have been suffering the consequences ever since.”

[Woman laughs.] Ahhh…

This is a choice…
Thank you.
… we make moment by moment; …
Thank you.
… and therefore, moment by moment we can choose not to make that choice.

[Sighing] Thank you.

🙏

Transcribed by Leon Hieros, this satsang excerpt with precious Rupert Spira: