Bernardo Kastrup | Rupert Spira: With Reality in Mind

An excerpt from a 5-week course with Bernardo Kastrup & Rupert Spira.

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CONTENT

00:00 Self Enquiry as a direct way to know reality
18:41 Differences between Bernardo & Rupert:Is consciousness self-aware?
23:00 Experiential vs philosophical approach to understanding reality & reducing suffering
25:00 Experience is the goal, philosophy clears the way
33:00 “Your intellect has carved a pathway”
34:45 The goal is to abide in what is actually going on
35:44 Why does the universe dissociate?
36:47 Is dissociation always pathological?
39:03 Ultimately, there is no dissociation
46:31 Consciousness is self-aware as the sun is self-luminous
56:08 Naturalism means Ultimate Consciousness is not metacognitive
58:30 There’s no plan but there is a direction
1:08:00 Can Universal Consciousness learn anything?
1:15:10 Is Universal Consciousness inherently peaceful?
1:20:10 Are the nonlocal transpersonal aspects of consciousness in peace?
1:22:25 It is in the nature of consciousness to appear unpeaceful
1:26:41 Is it possible to always be at peace?
1:30:18 Idealism increased empathy
1:36:11 What happens at death?
1:39:06 What psychedelics imply about death
1:40:52 What about anaesthesia?
1:47:47 Anaesthetics remind us we don’t know what time is
1:54:30 Can ultimate consciousness be veiled from itself?
1:56:00 Can there be localisations within localisations?
1:56:57 Is the universe trying to make sense of itself?
1:57:02 The world is a symbol of our shared mind
2:01:59 There are no parts, there is only one mind
2:04:48 Is there a place for worship?
2:09:24 Bernardo’s journey
2:13:50 Language is just a model

[innerlight]

Well..what to say about them two together..Bernardo+Rupert the best satsang one could ever aspire to..Grateful to all the three of you gentlemen.

[rblvegan]

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one Consciousness experiencing Itself subjectively, there’s no such thing as death life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves…..here’s Tom with the weather” Bill Hicks <3

[kimelzen]

My absolute favorite spiritual food, Rupert and Bernardo together. So grateful! I can't get enough of them. If it's true that we all get what we deserve, I'm in awe of what i must have done to receive this gift beyond compare.

[glynisvanrooyen]

My first awareness of conciousness was at 2 yrs old, I very early on perceived the concept of a vibrant force of life in the universe but my environmental circumstances knocked this out of me and i seem to have lost the capacity to endure my own perceived self until now in my 70's. I determined to persue with passion the realities of life having worked at dumping one by one the false beliefs of a cultured mindset. So I think we are born with awareness and culture whacks it out of us to a greater or lesser degree, and some people are numbed into acceptance and others fight their way out of ìt

[AngelicaChristi]

I find the comments very interesting and only because I followed Rupert years ago, and only discovered Bernardo a short time ago through the I AM... podcast with Jonny Wilkinson and found that profound in regards to 50 years of spiritual exploration, and something was always missing. Always one more thing to do or think. Bernardo's 'allowing nature to live us' made more sense than anything anyone else had said. Of course it was more than that, but perhaps because when I was in my 20, 30, 40, and 50's, life was about manifesting materialism and spiritual awakening. That was until one day I realized none of it mattered, it was all just stuff and beliefs, and none of it was a pathway to what I thought it was. I crashed my material world and what a journey it has been--one most cannot understand. But Bernardo did, and Trust and Surrender to Nature/Creator, in this nano-second IS peace, is clarity. It is living a life of creativity and not bound to stress or fear. I other reason I stopped listening was because I had never heard a tone in Rupert's voice as I did this time--I can't define it, it was a sense of slight superiority even though he 'complimented' Bernardo repeatedly, and that was surprising. Yes, I get it, this is my reality (at least for this moment) and certainly not someone else's.

[joas]

Accidently bumped into Bernardo through an online article about AI. This is the first thing I see and hear after this and my mind is blown! I'm studying and practicing Dzogchen on a modest level and this knowledge aligns very well with it. Excited to hear more 🙏🏻

[mysoulwaitsinsilence]

I was brought here through my "religious" background and interest in Rupert's teachings. I am very sceptical of scientists, until Bernardo began describing his personal/spiritual experiences as a replica of my own 🤯

[dazlemwithlovelight]

Great sharing thanks and gratitude beyond measure. After many decades on this wonderful experience I have learned that our purpose is to bring joy, peace and happiness to it. This is not available without us. Cheers from a retired soldier down under.

[qwstc]

Thank you for making this discussion between Rupert and Bernado available to the public. I find trying to express my thoughts clunky because of the limitations of language. The importance of abiding in the awareness of the essential self in regard to mitigating the overall anxiety experienced in this world cannot be overstated. These gentlemen are pointing in the right direction. ❤

[kathleenhannan]

About the fact that dissociation/illusion never truly happens (spoken of by Bernardo and Rupert before 45 min.) I have come to recognize this in doing Byron Katie style self-inquiry, known as the Work. When I investigate whether a thought I believed in a past stressful situation is true, I begin the process believing that stressful thought, such as "she abandoned me". In the inquiry I discover how I reacted in that situation when believing that thought... reactions such as anger, fear, feeling very young, yelling at her, judging myself harshly as well as her, feeling tension in my body, not listening to her etc. And then in the 4th question of the Work, "who would I be in that situation without that thought?" I discover that I would be calm, open, compassionate, connected to her and to myself, and also autonomous, not reactive. After doing the Work for many years I suddenly saw that I, awareness/ consciousness/true nature was there all along during stressful events, although it appeared to me at the time that my calm, compassionate self was not present. But through the lens of the 4th question I actually recognize things that I may have not seen for 20 years... who is it that can remember things I as a "separate"imaginary self could not see at the time? The One Consciousness that we all always are. In fact, the real question is who was I without the thought rather than who would I be. What I truly am, was there at the time, seeing without concepts, even while the mind's identification as a separate suffering self was happening.

[maurylee]

When Bernardo talked about being his childhood self again, he was acknowledging that the child now had meta consciousness. He could be the child and experience the child, but he could now appreciate the child from a different perspective.

[kathleenbrady]

What an amazing sharing and depth of honesty, it's so refreshing to witness such integrity and intimacy from such wonderful minds. Thank you so much 🪷

[AlokAsthana]

I am a Hindu Indian. My scriptures of Vedanta tell me the same thing. However, they make a point succinctly but do not explain, clarify or expound on it. Hence it gets lost to us who are at the yet un-evolved state.
But these two, and many others in the western world, go the extra mile to make it understandable even to us.
Many thanks..

[kellyalamanou]

Excellent conversation so many thanks!
2.10.59:What Rupert is saying here to Bernardo is really moving..ॐ ❤

[allenlunde]

Because of a chronic medical condition, I have to go undergo general anesthesia about every six months. I have begun to ask the doctors to let me know when the medication begins so I can observe the effect. I’ve come to realize there is consciousness in that place. It is beyond space/time. It has no attributes. It is perfectly peaceful. We associate psychedelics with the idea of confronting our true nature. I realize that experience only opens us up to more content of experience. Yes, the experience of ego death is illuminating but it is still awareness of objects. I’ve come to see the experience of being under general anesthesia as a much closer analog to reality. Infinite consciousness undifferentiated by any experience, wrapped in a black velvet of probability.

[VanEazy]

The two of them are so inspiring 💓 I’ve listened so many times to them and continue to pick up new wondrous things I didn’t get before

[keiththompson]

This is an extraordinary conversation on the philosophical underpinnings of Rupert’s work and the experiential underpinnings of Bernardo’s. Thanks to both of you for taking the time and bringing your full being to the inquiry. 🙏

[michaeldillon]

This is an intense discussion that shouldn't obscure the fact that Bernardo is expressing a very very profound idea that matter is a ' product ' of Consciousness not the other way around . He gives fantastic scientific and philosophical bases for this point of view . For this I regard him as the Galileo of Consciousness.. All three participants deserve great respect for this civilized debate 🕊️ E=🕉️

[DeepakShakyaaa]

You blew mind away at 2:10 by describing reality in the most powerful way that i could imagine. thank you.

[newtonslaw]

A massively important conversation. Thanks to all involved. I was in a coma 5 days and had and continue to have a complete absence of any awareness during this period. I’m not sure how to process this experience in the context of this discussion