4/6 Reflector PLL-DLR

Rupert Spira

How Can it Happen?

Somebody asked me a question recently, about what is meant by the term enlightenment or awakening? and so I thought I would say something about this as there is so much misunderstanding about it.

Many of us went either physically or intellectually to the east, to hear about enlightenment or awakening or liberation, to india, japan, china, tibet, thailand and so on. And these cultures are of course, by comparison with western culture, extraordinary exotic and as a result many people, myself included, conflated the idea of enlightenment or awakening with the extraordinary exotic natures of these cultures, believing that enlightenment itself is something extraordinary or exotic. That it is a marvelous experience beyond any experience that we could possibly imagine and as a result we set up a, a goal to um experience this marvelous experience that we have heard about or read about. Nothing could be further from the truth, enlightenment or awakening is not an extraordinary exotic experience, indeed it is not an experience at all, it is simply the recognition of the nature of our being which underlies and indeed pervades all experience irrespective of its content and it is for this reason that I sometimes refer to this approach as a way of recognition, recognition meaning of course to to know again, something that we have always known but have overlooked or ignored or forgotten.

So what is it that we have overlooked or ignored? It is simply our being our essential self.
Why have we ignored it or overlooked it? Simply because we have become fascinated with the content of our experience.
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The Nature of Experience

The Fundamental Presumption of our Culture
There is one fundamental presumption upon which our world culture is founded. This basic presumption states that experience is divided into two essential elements – a subject and an object – joined together by an act of knowing, feeling or perceiving.

This gives rise to the familiar formulations of experience such as, “I know such and such,” “I feel sad,” “I perceive the tree.” In this way experience is believed and felt to consist of a knower and a known, a feeler and a felt, a perceiver and a perceived. In each case a subject knows, feels or perceives an object.

The subject and object are two inseparable aspects of the same belief – the belief in separation or duality. Mystics tend to explore the subject and scientists and artists tend to explore the object or world. However, being inseparable aspects of the same belief, the investigation of either will suffice for an understanding of the true nature of experience.

Our Essential Nature of Being, Knowing and Happiness
Let us start with our self. What can we say for certain about ‘I,’ our self, the subject, the one that knows experience? The first thing is that I am obviously present – I am. If I were not present I wouldn’t be aware of these words. And the second self-evident fact about our self is that I am aware or knowing. If this were not true I would not be aware of thoughts, sensations or perceptions.

In other words, I am and the ‘I’ that I am, is aware that I am. This knowing of our own being – its knowing of itself – is the most familiar, intimate and obvious fact of experience and is shared by all.

This present and aware ‘I’ is sometimes referred to as ‘Awareness’, which means the ‘presence of that which is aware’. It is a word in which the two fundamental qualities of our self – being and knowing – are recognized as one.

What else can we know for certain from experience about our self? ‘I’ am aware of thoughts, sensations and perceptions but am not made out of a thought, sensation or perception. ‘I’ am made out of pure being and knowing.

As such ‘I’ could be likened to an open, empty space to which or in which the objects of the mind, body and world (thoughts, sensations and perceptions) appear. And just as empty space, relatively speaking, cannot resist or be agitated by the appearance or activity of any object within it, so the open, empty space of Awareness cannot resist or be disturbed by any appearance of the mind, body or world, irrespective of their particular quality or condition. This inherent absence of resistance is the experience of happiness; this imperturbability is peace. This happiness and peace are not dependent upon the condition of the mind, body or world and are present in and as the essential nature of Awareness under all conditions and in all circumstances.

Thus happiness and peace, as well as being and knowing, are essential to our true nature.
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