Thoughts-Spira

Liberating Our Thoughts from the Tyranny of the Illusory Self
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Q: Would you say that thoughts are things, as bodies are?

R: Thoughts are what I call ‘objects’. Anything that has an objective quality, I call objects. By objective quality, I don’t just mean physical objects. A feeling, a feeling of loneliness, has an objective quality to it. It’s not the taste of tea. It’s the feeling of loneliness. It has distinguishing features. Yes? Those distinguishing features are objective. We know them. ‘I feel lonely.’ The feeling of loneliness has a particular quality that is observable or feel-able, knowable. The taste of tea has other particular qualities that are knowable or perceivable. So, yes, in that sense, thoughts are objects.

Q: So, my relationship to thought can be much the same to my relationship to the world…

R: Yes.

Q: …in that I can’t control what happens in the world and I really can’t control what thoughts come in. I think that there’s a tendency to kind of, you know, identify my quality of Being by the thoughts that arise.

R: No. No. Identify the quality of Being just by the quality of Being. The screen doesn’t derive its qualities from the image. Your relationship to thoughts and perceptions is the same as the relationship between a screen and an image. In other words, the screen is intimately one with the image; it’s closer than close to the image…, but at the same time, it is completely independent of it. That is You.

You-this-experience-of-being-aware are totally intimate with all your experience, every experience you have. That is, every so-called inside feeling, but also every so-called outside perception are this close. [Brings two hands together with fingers inter-lacing] Not even intimate, because there are not two things there to begin with. There isn’t a screen and an image. It’s just You; just Knowing.

So, in that sense You are intimate with all experience; equally intimate. Not more intimate with this [taps his knees] than you are with this [holds drinking glass] …, equally intimate with all experience. And at the same time, You-the-experiencer-simply-being-aware are absolutely independent of all experience. So, it’s this mixture of total intimacy and total freedom.

Q: I think I have an easier time with…, you know, you made a comment earlier about ‘The world is reflected as we are. As we believe ourselves and life to be, that’s what we see’. You didn’t exactly say that, but it is that, right?

R: Yes. As we understand ourselves, so we see the world. If we think, in other words, that ‘I am a finite, temporary self that shares the limits of the body’…, if we think that ‘I am a temporary, finite object’…, then our experience will appear in conformity with that belief. In other words, your experience will be a multiplicity and diversity of finite objects. You will feel that you are separate from everyone and everything, related to them through an act of knowing, feeling or perceiving. ‘I know such-and-such. I love you. I see the tree.’ These are the three channels: knowing, feeling and perceiving…, through which the inside self, the subject, the apparent subject, is connected to the outside object, other or world. That’s if you believe you are a temporary, finite subject made out of mind, living in the body.

But if you know that You are simply this un-qualified experience of being aware, then you find yourself equally pervading all experience.

You cannot say ‘I’m closer to my thoughts than I am to the sound of that car’. Thoughts are made out of thinking; the sound of the car is made out of hearing. Both appear equally in Me. And when I try to touch the stuff that they are made of, all I find is this empty Knowing.

Q: That’s true…

R: But…? [Chuckles]

Q: No, really, Rupert, I have that experience. But I have thoughts that are in direct contradiction to that…, even in the midst of that experience.

R: So, you have to re-condition your mind as well as your body. That’s part of what we do here. It’s one thing to understand that (and you obviously understand it) but just understanding it is not enough. Because your mind and your body have been laboring for decades, serving for decades the demands and the fears and the neuroses of an illusory, finite self.

So, just the recognition of your true nature is not enough to put an end to those habits. They come back with a vengeance; very often stronger than they were before because the separate self feels, quite rightly, that it is threatened, its existence is threatened by our new understanding. It IS threatened. Its days are numbered. [Chuckles] And it’s going to do everything it can to prevent itself disappearing. So, this tidal wave of thoughts (and more importantly, feelings) are going to come back and assail you and try to persuade you of the validity of the separate self.

So, much of what we do here is not just about the recognition of our true nature. It is about the re-alignment of our thoughts, feelings, activities, relationships and perceptions with that understanding.

So, when these thoughts keep coming back, you have to be firm with them. When a thought appears on behalf of the separate self, before doing what the thought wants you to do…, (the thought is going to take you off down a journey of activity or relationship, whatever it is)…, before doing what the thought tells you to do, QUESTION the self on whose behalf that thought is arising: “Who are you representing?” Ask the thought: “On whose behalf do you come to me?” And if it is a thought that is based on being a temporary, finite self…, then instead of following the thought, question the validity of the self on whose behalf that thought is arising.

Be relentless about that. Every thought that rises on behalf of a separate self, question it…, rather than doing what the thought wants you to do. And eventually you will erode this old habit of the mind rising on behalf of an illusory self. And the mind, more and more, will begin to rise on behalf of the qualities of the true and only Self, of Your Awareness.

You won’t stop having thoughts, but your thoughts will be an expression of what you truly Are…, not what you previously imagined yourself to be. So, it’s not a ‘getting rid of’ thoughts. It’s a liberation of our thoughts (and indeed, our feelings and perceptions) from the tyranny of a non-existent, finite self.

Q:  So, do you ever have thoughts that you just have to say ‘No’ to?

R: Yes. Occasionally an old thought arises in me based on an old habit of believing myself to be a finite self, and I do exactly what I’ve just suggested to you.

To begin with, when a thought rises on behalf of a finite self, it takes us maybe 20 minutes to question the ‘I’ around whom that thought revolves. And we might have to take some time, slowly walking ourselves back to find the true ‘I’ of simply Aware Being. That may take some time. The first time, we may do it 20 minutes, and then the second time 15 minutes, and the third time 10 minutes. Then as we become more practiced at this, we find short cuts. We don’t have to go every single step; plod, plod, plod. Because we’ve done it before, we can go quicker. We find short cuts. And in the end, we find that when that thought arises on behalf of the finite self, it doesn’t really require time anymore to walk ourselves back. It’s just like an instant recognition [snaps fingers] and it falls.

Q: There’s often a physical resistance along with the thought, or there’s a physical thing along with the thought.

R: Yes, yes. We’ll spend a lot of time this week exploring just that. Because the separate self, the apparently-temporary, finite consciousness that is the separate self is not just concealed in our thoughts as beliefs. More importantly, it is concealed in our body as feelings. That, in fact, is the deeper root of the separate self. In fact, long after the separate self has been flushed out of our beliefs, it remains present, hiding in our feelings. And in this approach, we spend a lot of time (as you know) exploring this deeper root of the sense of separation. First of all, exposing the sense of ‘me’ in the body, gradually encouraging it to come up out of its hiding places…, and then gradually allowing it to dissolve.

Q: Thank you.
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Rupert Spira
Liberating Our Thoughts from the Tyranny of the Illusory Self
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H656H4pWtzk