looking for consciousness in the brain is like looking inside a radio for the announcer

I watched something a few years ago (Maybe a follow-up to The Secret???) with Neale Donald Walsch and Michael Beckwith in which they suggested using the biblical scripture pronouncing God’s name.....”I Am that I Am,” more pragmatically by placing a comma after the word “that.” Ruppart’s suggestion to spend the week looking at everything as himself, triggered the experience I had when consciously applying the comma experiment. For example, when crossing paths with a homeless person asking for money, interacting with an obnoxious coworker, admiring a sunset, or admiring the character of a mentor....etc, rather than judging (myself or the other) I’d consciously say silently in my head, I am that, I am. The second I Am is only to emphasize the first statement - I Am That. I remember it having a pretty significant influence on my overall mood and my ability to hold space and show compassion for others and myself. I hadn’t yet encountered Rupert’s pointings, or practiced self inquiry, so I’m excited to try the experiment again in this deeper context.

How I love this type of sceptical inquiry! It is important that we stay sceptical (and also open-minded) when we are to investigate the mystery of life, consciousness and experience. With open minded scepticism, we don't succumb to either naive acceptance of every idea on the one hand, or close ourselves off to new experience, wisdom and knowledge on the other. This is why curiousity is such an important virtue when it comes to maturing knowledge and wisdom.

Sometimes i have the impression that most teachers don't help or allow questioners to fully express themself. Often we are doubtious about something without knowing why just because the doubt is not fully formulated. But once we proceed to clarify it we have the opportunity to answer the question it imply, gaining an insight that is not only a theoretical understading but an intuitive comprehension. I don't understand why this opportunity gets often ignored.

From a prism, light is refracted in many different places simultaneously.

The philosopher Bernardo Kastrup explains that beautifully with a metaphor about disassociate personality disorder. The same being having multiple separate points of view is well known in psychiatry.

Rupert Spira is the greatest man in the world to explain reality in models. But in the end, the map is not the territory. Even to say it's a map is to give it to much a credit. Any search for truth is a mindgame. When you drop your search and questions regarding truth, that is when you "drop" your mind and find that you ARE the truth. And all there is..is experiencing.., mysterious and obvious at the same time. Obvious in the way that you find any "search" for truth as foolish(since you ARE the truth). Take care! Love you❤️

Rupert has a beautiful deep gentle syrupy voice. I could listen to him for hours on end. He would easily play the God character in a film, sharing his wisdom.

What beautiful guidance and exploration. I love Rupert's impeccable skill at explaining things of such depth...

First of all, I really enjoy Rupert's method. One thing I've come to notice now though is that this model of teaching has the disadvantage that the person answering can't really think too deeply about the question. I think this is a disadvantage because it's hard to understand what the questioner's problem really is. Like here, I feel like the issue isn't that the questioner thinks that he can't have two experiences at once, he's rather having an issue with the idea that one's main attention can be fixed to two aspects of experience at one time. He might be aware of the mic, or attentive to someone's voice, and still not be attentive to the fact that his foot is touching the ground, and to the fact that there's a certain quality of feeling attached to that experience; there are always levels of awareness to certain experiences. Then comes the second issue, that he thinks that this kind of attention is analogous to consciousness being at several places at the same time. Which, it seems to me, means that he thinks that awareness of something equals consciousness of something, but whatever experience I'm aware of is something that's entered consciousness. I always focus on a part of consciousness, and not to be focused on something doesn't mean that it's unconscious. I guess this means that the issue is also semantical, how do we define awareness, how do we define consciousness? When I say awareness, I seem to mean the fact that I use one or more senses to aim at some object of the senses and to do so, I must be conscious of that object. With consciousness, I seem to mean the prerequisite for there being anything to aim one's attention at in the first place. I mean, it must be really difficult for anyone, enlightened or not, to catch up on all of this while trying to have a conversation with somebody. o_O'

So beautifully put🙏 God bless you Rupert

Rupert is worlds no 1 spiritual teacher 🙏

Honestly, this fundamental question is the most challenging one to puzzle through for someone seeking to find the nondual nature of consciousness. People are conditioned into believing that differences in perspective is sepperation. I am not aware of my all the things my nerves experience all the time, but I would never deny that they are my nerves. But Ruperts point about our experience of yesterday being forgotten, in the same way we forget each other and everything in between. This is the key. It's sad it wasn't enough for the seeker he is responding too.

My mind keeps shattering 💥 each time I listen to this. I was so close to this truth back in high school - 40 years ago!! - my friend and I had versions of this same conversation. And then off to college I went, society got its hooks in me, I bought into the whole separate self business and i went to hell and back trying to figure out what was wrong with me AAAARRRRGGGHH So I return here to my starting point and recognize the truth of conscious mind, only this time I have the experience of knowing the light by having met the dark. 🙏❤️

"I'm out finding myself...if I get back, before I return...keep me here." Wonderful that he was kept there with poignant analogies until he returned. ☺️

The "practice" of seeing in that particular way he gives him at the end of the video is great way to see and i was somehow similirly intuitevely known about such practice but somehow never really actually done it, i will try for the next week to keep that in mind

The point: consciousness transcends our limited idea and belief of what space and time exists as.

A simpler answer to me is that all consciousness comes from the same source. But that source is outside of our experience and manifests in conscious forms in our reality. It is the vast number of forms and different experiences that creates the illusion of separation. Once we come to realize that it is all one experience, occurring simultaneously through different forms, we are freed from the illusion

If you relax; local awareness spreads out again & you are not as locked in individual identity. It's hard to accept because the ego wants to protect itself, but you don't need to listen to the ego just because it throws a tantrum:)

Lol it's funny how I'm commenting to myself on a video about myself explaining myself to myself, on a platform created by myself

Fantastic....this was always a sticky point for me, but it is so clear now. ....Another helpful experience for me is realizing that even in my own awareness I can dissociate in a waking state (dreaming, of course, too as he explains)....for instance, in a waking state when I am driving on the freeway and become lost in thought or conversation....my mind can completely lose track of my drive, and a couple hours may go by during which I am absorbed completely in something besides driving which my consciousness must also be making decisions about. I have consciousness that knows how to drive without requiring my foreground awareness....the car to pass, the speed changes, the exit to take etc. However, if there is a sudden urgency to become very aware, I immediately am present as driver to deal with the car that pulls out in front of me, etc. My localized consciousness is aware of things that "I" am not seemingly aware of.

It’s like how when you have a dream the characters in the dream seem separate, you cannot read their minds or predict or control those characters, even though they are generated by your sleeping mind.

Rupert has highlighted many entries into Presence in this video. The moment shines with the opportunity of unity. In spite of seeming separation love dispels all boundaries; as boundaries are localized reflections of the all mind.

Amazing question! His question essentially is 'how can one consciousness have multiple experiences?' The answer is clear. That the one consciousness CANNOT have multiple experiences. From the one consciousness point of view, there is just one experience. And this quality is shared by the one consciousness with our mind as well, that we cannot experience two things at the same time. The hearing and looking at Rupert are not simultaneous, but in rapid quick succession. Because of the rapidity, the hearing and looking at Rupert appear simultaneous, but really they are not simultaneous. Similarly, one consciousness has one experience, the experience of the whole. At the level of one consciousness, there are no differentiations of many, yet, things become many at the level of mind. That's why the one consciousness is also described as one in many and many in one.

Consciousness is an ocean. We are the waves.

It’s a good question and a very wonderful answer 🙏 thank you Rupert 🌸 you’re amazing

Can the witness be witnessed? Can the observer be observed? Can the Seer be seen? Be aware without objects you are the One Pure Reality you are That Parabrahman 🙏🕉️ Namaste

this was so light- hearted and lovely 💗

The questioner is still under the impression that he is the same person moment to moment. This is an illusion. We are constantly being reborn each millisecond. Think of it this way: you could wake up each day as a different person, and you’d never know, because you would always have the memories of the person you woke up as. That’s how strong the illusion of “self” is. You can actually experience this by smoking enough weed to the point where your hippocampus gets impaired and you can’t remember what happened 5 seconds ago. Once your memories are gone, the illusion goes too. The universe is experiencing itself every millisecond through whatever sentient vessel it can. Science has already acknowledged that there’s no single point inside your brain for a “self” to exist. The “self” you think you are is literally the conscious universe experiencing itself but since it’s not physically connected to other parts of itself (aka other people’s minds, animals, etc) in a way that it can communicate, the illusion of being separate persists. Not to mention, there are parts of the brain which are believed to be responsible for maintaining an ego, which if turned off (often through meditation or various psychedelics) the illusion of separation between “self” and the rest of the universe dissolves. Imagine a day in which we can physical connect our minds in a way that made sense. We would then realize that we were never separate to begin with. Our seemingly separate experiences would merge together. The True Self aka God as a single “entity” exists outside of both space and time, but is experiencing itself through an infinite number of forms through both the dimensions of space (other people’s minds) and time (what you though 5 seconds ago). Nonduality points to the fact that differentiating between one and infinity is also a duality. One IS infinity and infinity IS one. Differentiation is a concept that the mind does. So, when speaking of whether consciousness is one or infinite, the difference is only conceptual. Consciousness as Rupert says is One, but it’s also infinite, but again, the difference between the two is just a duality, a conceptual differentiation which does not ACTUALLY exist in reality.

This is too complicated for me. My hats off to the rest of you. I have to go do a spreadsheet....and feed the cat!

I do it in my dreams all the time. Proof enough.

I believe the speaker, Spira, in his brilliance, is talking about "awareness" as the nature of the localized self and is God consciousness. I've just started watching and listening and I am so excited to feel my anxieties disappearing.

This was awesome! He really explains it well

Thank you, thank you, thank you! We are a dream in the conciousness that will last about 90 years, and will have to end💖🙏

That was a remarkable answer. Answered it in two sentences as far as I’m concerned.

Wonderful explanation

I loove this explaination. In my body there are a lot of proceses going on that I am not aware of. Or as the unconscious aspects of our minds too. This make sense to me. 😊 🙏🏼

Infinite Awareness, the eternal Now, is outside of time, space and movement, so there can be no sequentiality, only simultaneity - a reality our temporal mind simply cannot grasp.

Bahut. Bahut. Gretitude. Thanks.

The radio broadcast the same signal every where but each radio set reproduce that only one signal in different ways I have never had problem in understanding this very basic concept of non duality

True but Universal Mind can experience all thoughts. Example from “Lord Meher”: “During a stage of avatar Meher Baba’s regaining worldly consciousness, Meher Baba began experiencing the thoughts of all human beings in the universe. The individual thoughts of those persons in the gross world , irrespective of whether they were near ( on earth) or far ( in another galaxy) , would instantaneously pour into his universal mind at the moment they were created ( thought). The numerous thought-waves were so forceful and so tremendously rapid, it is virtually impossible to describe their effect. The very process of “ infinite” thinking was rushing through Meher Baba’s individual mind, he could withstand it only because his mind had become “ universal.” Thought-waves vibrate faster than any speed known to man; thus , all thought-waves of all humanity on earth would stream into and permeate Meher Baba’s universal mind in a few minutes. At the beginning of this particular stage of Meher Baba’s coming down , when his universal mind was starting to function , one day he was sitting alone by a canal at Sakori. Within a few minutes , the force of the thoughts of thousands and thousands of persons on earth entered his universal mind. The impact of it was so tremendous that Meher Baba became extremely agonized as if his mind was being pulled apart by all the contradictory thoughts. He soon became extremely uneasy and restless , and at that time, he had to submerge his head underwater in the canal to try to break the shock! He had his head underwater several minutes until his individual mind found relief” ~ “The Biography of the Avatar of the Age Meher Baba Volume One 1894-1922”

Consciousness is like light passing through our individual equipment. Depending on our unique equipment a projected experience takes place. The same light passing through different prisms will give different rainbows. This issue afflicts the Homo sapiens more than it does to any other species. Primarily because of the duality of our equipment. It understands by a subject object analogy than as a unity.

One thing that is fascinating about the realm of imagination is the ability to in some way unforget what consciousness knows fully, that being to somehow witness the life as someone else as if it was a vivid memory of your own consciousness

Consciousness is the light shining through the minds of Man (includes Woman). Our minds are like different shades of glass which, each gives the light according to its colour. That is why it is possible for multiple experiences (shades of colour) to happen simultaneously.

The analogy was helpful with understanding.

I would edit this to the last 10 minutes or so. Rupert's explanation was succinct and brilliant. But, what an hilarious ending. I almost expected Emily LItella to come out and say, "Nevermind".

Rupert patience is truly infinite ...

Computer games do this all the time. Many characters, one computer. Back in the day before all these fancy parallel computing devices you could still do it with what are often referred to as interrupts or co-routines. Whatever you call them the principle is the same. Every character gets a tiny slice of time to update its behaviour. The update is so small it can't be perceived. A similar thing could be imagined to happen for people in real life. Same processor, thousands of different perspectives every second. It's a crude mechanical analogy, but it might help some.

thank you rupert

We are one consciousness divided into many. You can experience for instance looking at a red ball in the middle of a room together with your friend and understand that this friend sees the same ball from a different angle. But you both see the same red ball. The fact is that this red ball is in your both's field of vision. Different location is an experience of one consciousness dividing into multiple, which is you and your perspective and your friend and his perspective. But there's only ONE red ball existing in the room.

It’s a good question 💫

I am afraid we need mary&jean now 🤣🤣🤣❤️ I love you rupert ...i really do ..‘ thank you man🙏

I have a more complex suggestion. Consciousness is like breathing, it keep going ON and OFF, or let's say come and go. As you know time is an illusion, consciousness have plenty of times to come and go in every single living being within a certain frame of time, for an example, a little millisecond. What's define your ego is your brain, so does your memories, so then when consciousness come into you it has no clue of what just happened outside your own perspective. That's why meditation is sooo powerful, it makes you "more often" conscious, that way you take back the control of your thoughts, our feelings and emotions. If you go further and further, you may even find out who you really are. 🧘‍♂️

Qué bueno!!! Muchísimas gracias

What an explanation O my…what a gift of god Rupert is!

Each angle (localized consciousness) is "point of view" but there is no one to claim the view. As soon as the claiming starts, the questions and doubt starts, then as the lights go out, the movie of duality (play of life) begins.

This is exactly my question. It is actually the limitation of language. It should be rather said like that there is only 1 consciousness (the the dream of the being or god) in which our existences are the different dream characters. When we investigate, we get the glimpses of our true nature the 1 consciousness. This is how I understood it.

Let me tell you a pathway that makes you perfectly accept that: a psychotic break. I guarantee! I had 2! It's been a trudge to recover, but I can totally accept consciousness having many experiences at the same time. It's a shortcut that I would not recommend overall, but it does work. It's not like I was looking for this specific shortcut, but once I was placed in front of that door I was pushed into it, I know I didn't push it, still looking for my pusher... We need to have a serious conversation :)

By 26:49 I started to feel this person was argumentative and was determined NOT to understand. A great metaphor was that pot plant. The Universe is the soil in the pot experiencing the room through each of those flowers. Each flower in this context is a person.

The guy is right there is a missing point in his explanation which the jiva which is the reflection of consciousness in each separate mind

That was very good

Perfect 🥂

Wir können nur einen Gedanken gleichzeitig haben, aber wir switchen so schnell hin und her, dass wir glauben alles gleichzeitig wahrzunehmen.

Amazing and I get it!!!!

The contradiction that the questioner is struggling with is that if consciousness is divided into *many* separate forms, then _in what sense_ can it be said to be *one,* since it never gets together with itself and has that one single experience of all viewpoints at once, and appears to be limited in its ability to merge with itself. Where is the evidence that it even has the ability to be one consciousness, since what divides our separate experiences from each other is a wall of not just physical division but also persistent perceptual division. Just saying that one consciousness has chosen to build those walls does not fully satisfy the questioner, who feels that he ought to have some kind of access to the other experiences he(it), as the one consciousness, is having. I don't personally feel that his intellectual question is satisfactorily, fully, answered. The answer given is a theory. That is why Spira goes on to the practical strategy of "try out my theory and see if it fits". I do think this is a valid strategy for testing a model of perception. I like this approach of upping the ante and testing the theory. It is not as unscientific a method as Spira rather humbly suggests. Science may not like that approach but that's because science has strict limits. But this is a useful plan B. If it's hard to theoretically test an idea, then practically test it. In effect, push your chips into the middle of table and bet on them for a week. The nice thing about this kind of gamble is that it's not really a gamble. Many people are resistant to new ideas due to some kind of irrational security issue around their world view. But you can always go back to the naive materialism model later if this new idea doesn't work, so therefore why not give it a go for a week. The potential gain is a new angle of perception, which may not even exclude naive materialism, but could augment and append that model in a way that gives an amount of additional clarity to it. After all, even science is just a model. It's not the only valid model we use to perceive or comprehend the world. A map, for example, is an accurate representation of the world. But so is a dialogue. So is my first person eyes forward cine reel of my life. So is the atoms and molecules endlessly spinning model. These models augment and append our understanding of *it* but no model ever, in so doing, excludes any other model. The consciousness model is simply a layer that is ignored by the other layers. That is the partiality of science, that's how and why science of each kind, whether it's chemistry or cartography, works. In fact, the *only* test of science is _does it work?_ and therefore Spira's final answer is potentially validated both scientifically and perceptually.

got there in the end

I don't have any problem with this. What I don't understand is why we don't all have the awareness of all experiences, if it's all just one anyway. But I only know my own limited experience, not those around me, nor do they know mine.

Bravo

The question is not whether consciousness can have different experiences at the same time. Of course it does. The guy wants to know whether one person can have different lives in other dimensions at the same time. That is why he says that Rupert misunderstood him.

Simply - we are all One, One is each and all of us, One is all of the bits, all separate bits as individual wholeness within themselves but part of the greater Wholeness, Consciousness, Oneness, God, Creation... All whole and One within each but all within One

The Saints be like : This is The best and entertaining ever and to See Sir Rupert doing what he does best but there is no doer....😌😂🙏🏽❤️✨ Thank You Sir Rupert!

El que pregunta parece argentino. Que fortuna haber podido ver a Rupert.

our senses are limited in nature. To realize or to be aware of the true consciousness is like asking a computer to feel the emotions/senses of it's creator. Awareness never stop or sleep, even when we're in a deep sleep, a poke/shake will be sensed and wake you up. Even when we see a preacher and simultaneously hearing him/her, other senses are still working. Even though you might not sense it, but the awareness of that sensing is always there. Otherwise you won't feel a prick of a needle while your focus is with the preacher. By using our limited senses to explain how to be aware will produce a limited version of awareness, why not let the true awareness to take control by letting go the feels/senses of the limited ones

The man in the audience insists that his space-time perception is all that exists and the only valid one. He should try shrooms or LSD. He needs to experience non-locality, expanded awareness and timelessness for himself.

I think Rupert totally missed the point of Mateo's question. It is actually about why solipsism wouldn't more reasonable and parsimonious that inferring that there are other minds we cannot directly experience. In the same vein, it is also about the absurdity of saying a single mind can hold mutually exclusive experiences simultaneously and yet still be regarded as one single mind. It makes me wonder if Rupert even has a good answer to the question.

I see it took half an hour to come to the conclusion that you both have always agreed. What I understood from the question is that the questioner wanted from the beginning to explore that intermediate step that occurs in the process of localization and limitation in a single point of view. Also my experience include something like that.... a sort of middle “world” in the process in which infinite consciousness begun to color itself with a single shape and gradually collapse into a single point of retransmission and manifestation. taking our steps backwards in reasoning passes that way. at least as such it has been for me. No doubt that Rupert is the best in reasoning, I appreciate also the honesty of the questioner... and I love the irrational one week experiment Rupert offers him, because it addresses to the felt sense... and in that way, the heart 💜 is the master. 🙏🏾

Rupert, I love your videos with all my heart, thank you dear friend for sharing. if our consciousness is not embodied in a physical form (we exists as one with the ever present eternal now) do we maintain any sense of “I” as the knower relative to what can be known? What does ever present now, practically, look like assuming we could fathom it? Also, any thoughts on how Bhakti connects with the model you discuss here? In the Shrimad Bhagavtam, it seems (in my humble, novice experience) Bhakti Vedanta maintains a sense of individuality in pursuit of devotion to Bhagavan, and at the same time Bhakti merges the two… so there is individuality and Union. I wonder if that total union also leads to the same ever present now now discussed in non-duality. And once again, can the lover know its beloved without some semblance of individuality or “I.” I wonder how Bhakti and non-duality relate to one another.

When “you” dream at night, “others” may appear IN the dream. “They” may speak to “you.” Do these appearances have “minds?” Or do “you” imagine “them” to? What are these appearances made of? Is there any substance to these appearances other than the knowing of them? Why in the waking state is it assumed any differently? Why is it assumed in the waking state that these appearances have “minds?”

As close as I’ve seen Rupert get frustrated/angry. The metaphors and explanations are exquisite even to those who’ve ‘seen’ but haven’t quite pieced it all together.

Hi Rupert. Always glad to hear your talks. Have you ever researched the amazing similarities (there are differences also of course) between your ontology and that of Saint Maximus the Confessor regarding the Logos and logoi? Juxtapose this to atman and Brahman. It is , I believe, truly amazing how the ontology of India and Christianity meet

"Don't make your beliefs conform to your experience. Make your experience conform to your beliefs."

Could someone answer me, taking the dream as an example. Why some dreams are premonitory and become true months or years later?

The dream analogy breaks down here, since all the other characters in the dream were indeed "cardboard cutouts" and Mary only experiences the dream from a single point of view, Jane's. When she wakes up she cannot recall the dream from the point of view of any of the other characters in the dream. Similarly, the disassociative personality disorder analogy doesn't work either. In a person suffering from the condition, only one alter is ascendant at any given time, and is reported as having gaps in its memory when it was not ascendant. Ultimately, we cannot know either way, and I consider it moot. Whether a) infinite consciousness localises itself to billions of individual points of view simultaneously or b) infinite consciousness only localises itself to my own individual point of view makes no meaningful difference because in both cases, it's still just infinite consciousness experiencing only itself. The underlying reality is the same.

My question is: why does consciousness take the many forms of our separate selves at all? For what reason does it do this? If it is to experience itself (as we do in a dream), why should it want experience itself? We supposedly dream because that helps our conscious selves process the worries or fears of life that happens subconsciously (under our conscious awareness). But does the unity consciousness really have worries or things that needs processing that happens under its conscious awareness? What would it even be aware of in its “waking state” as we are aware of trees and such in our waking state? The unity consciousness is everything that we can conceive of after all. So again why does the consciousness want to experience itself through the lens of an individual such as ourselves?

Consciousness is the emotional response to intellectual conclusions to thought processes of ones senses. Done please email me my award.

I guess consciousness has to experience limitation to experience existence in form. In whatever the form might be.

I think he was trying to say that if we're all the same conscious how is it we have individuality. I think we would all have to be enlightened or awakened to see each other as one and see passed the vessel. Maybe individuality only comes from the finite mind but then is it consciousness making decisions and choices adding to the individuality of a person?

Mateo´s question could be explained with a Mary and Jane metaphore, in wich Mary has a conversation with John in the dream. In this case, John thoughts and words are completely private and unknown to Mary, but it s just a serie of thought of the same Jane ´s mind. Mary and John seem to feel that they have private thoughts, but that privacy is just an illusion for their illusory selves, but they are a reality to Jane ´s mind.

12:29: Mary & Jane

When I add individual angle I make the concsiousness limited and equate limited with unlimited...and the problem arises ... concsiousness is unlimited and if replaced with awareness .. probably the difference will be better understood..one object surfacing from the soup of many..for each in the greater whole of concsiousness/ awareness

That was a good ride ;)

I think there are multiple thoughts in each human mind also even simultaneously. It's almost like a collapse of thoughts.

There can't be "localizations" of consciousness because the atom is empty space. There is no matter. It is only the belief in a body and brain that posits an outline/ a form/ a finite expression. Using the term "minds" always confuses, because it is not the fact. There never are "minds".

Things don't blur when you're not focused on them, awareness doesn't focus it experiences everything that is happening now

Wow

If this was truely the experience of Rupert that the world is a dream that is known in consciousness I would wonder if he had lucid dreams every night. Because in a sleeping dream if one becomes aware of the consciousness of the dreamer then it triggers a lucid dream

He was having trouble communicating his thought and Rupert wouldn't give him the time to explain in totality?

I think he is talking about the egoic individuality which he is confusing with the word same consciousness

Can someone sum up the test/experiment Rupert gives? That week long test based on what Rupert said earlier. Thank you ❤️

We're all different lenses of the same consciousness.