What is Meant by 'Self Remembering'? | Rupert Spira

0:00 just so the women all sure that we're talking about the same thing when we speak of remembering our self because that's a yes I was that a phrase that you and a few others are familiar with from his pen skis tradition but it's the same although this was not fully understood often in this Penske's tradition but what what is really meant by remembering oneself is being aware of being aware it's it's self investigation on self abidance or returning attention to its source so if we visualize awareness as the source of attention the place from which attention rises

0:48 attention goes away from its source towards an object in order to know something other than awareness and then when it's attention is not focused on the object it falls back to its source so then what is called self remembering or self abidance or self investigation or Ramana Maharshi called it sinking the mind into the heart the Christian tradition the practice of the presence of the God it is the the returning of the attention to its source that the idea is not that the tension is merged in its source 24/7 and never goes out to the object it's necessary

1:34 to be engaged with objects and objects are not a problem so when our attention is required by the world in other words when there is something for us to engage with or to to pay attention to we should do so we should we should allow the attention to go out and engage with that object now what are the circumstances in which attention is from the spiritual point of view legitimately engaged in the world functional if it's required for practical purposes if it's invited for ink required for investigative purposes but by which I mean the kind of conversation you and I are having

2:20 now and also for celebratory purposes for instance if you want to play music together or go out for dinner together or in other words engage in some kind of sharing of love for beauty or then the mind is required so in all these cases practical purposes exploratory purposes and celebratory purposes there's nothing wrong with the attention going out towards the object and then when it's finished with the object it should come naturally back home and rest there until it's required to go out again what happens in most cases is that when our attention is no longer required by the world in order to prevent sinking back into its source it manufactures a kind of filler object with which

3:15 to busy itself until it is next required by the world and the majority of our of what we attend to is this filler object and the sole purpose of this filler object is to perpetuate the finite mind that the separate self because the one thing the finite mind or attention doesn't want to do is to sink in its source because it momentarily dies there it ceases to exist so that is why most most people we go towards objects and substances and relationships but if there's nothing to go towards if we can't find an object to direct our attention to we'll just manufacture a daydream a fantasy a

4:03 daydream and the purpose of these these kind of repetitive useless thoughts is simply to pipette the finai mind and the separate self that is at its heart so I say that so that to be clear that there's nothing wrong with the attention going out to objects being engaged with objects so yes I like I remember sanctuaries metaphor and it's a very nice metaphor but the moments when attention returns to its home and we abide knowingly as the presence of awareness these aren't these are like punctuation x' throughout the day in between those those times our attention goes out to whatever it

4:50 is our work our family our situation and when it's no longer required by the situation the natural the most natural thing to do is to allow the attention to just sink back to its source and and yes as you you quote the chancre aria saying if we if we become accustomed to bide to abiding or resting the attention in its source between all these activities then at some point it the source of attention awareness it's like an undercurrent that runs through so it's not just moments that punctuate our day there is this it's like an undercurrent or it's this it's like

5:38 this presence of peace in the background that sometimes we give our attention specifically to that piece we rest our attention in that piece but when our attention is needs to go out into the world the piece remains in the background kind of pervading the activities of the mind in its engagement with the world so it's like an it's like a child with its mother to begin with the child is the infant is looking only towards its mother it never once it gets upset if ever its mother is not in eyesight it starts crying it wants to be together with its mother all the

6:24 time but in time the child begins to grow away and starts to turn in the other direction and go outwards towards the world but to begin with the child only goes out for a minute or two and then immediately wants to turn back and to know that its mother is there so it turns back it checks that its mother is there and having reconnected with with its mother and to felt that love and security again it goes out again this time a little bit further into the world a little bit for a little bit longer and every now and then it just keeps turning back to check that its mother is there in the background and then as time goes on the child can go further and further away so it's a little bit like that the attention just keeps coming back to its source to re-establish

7:17 what we essentially are and then the attention can go safely out into the world again because it knows that in the background of experience that there is this peaceful presence of a Wen's which is our true identity yes that really is helpful it sort of really puts it in context I hadn't seen it that way can I just go further and try to be clearer about the self remembering try to relate it to the situation of the screen and the film is this self remembering that we're speaking of being aware of being aware is that a situation where the film is running you are still

8:07 identified with the film but you are aware of the screen and and so you have a certain amount of control and that there is another stage where the identification is primarily with the screen and the film is still going on but that identification with the film is not pronounced I say this because there is a situation where I feel as though yes I've remembered the teaching I've remembered something it makes not the scrubber difference it it it doesn't suddenly bring light but if

8:57 on another occasion three perhaps discrimination or something or a meditative moment I'm talking about an infinitesimal moment there is an enormous freedom that can come that can express itself say in the form of realizing momentarily that there is no one something happens to all that everything is passing through me and I'm not passing so either all that happens if the if the realization is is anything like as deep as this then a a big weight falls and there is real freedom whereas

9:44 this other situation is good it gives control but it's not exactly being born again if you want to use Christ's words here and I feel as though if the other state could be maintained all the time that certainly would be being born again you've been a different world completely okay I'd like to just go back to this phrase self remembering if I were to ask you now to remember breakfast this morning you could do that yes yes and lunch this afternoon yes you could do that now if I were to ask you now turn your attention towards the presence of awareness

10:37 what do you do with your awareness what you do with your attention in other words if I were to ask you to remember awareness will you leave it alone what I'm getting at is if I ask you to remember breakfast this morning breakfast this morning appears as an image yes a subtle object yes because it's an image you can direct your attention towards it if I were to say turn your attention towards that mirror you direct your attention here's an object I say lunch today lunch appears as another image you direct your attention towards it now if I say direct your attention or remember the presence of awareness you cannot indirect your attention you can't

11:27 cause you can only direct your attention to something with objective qualities and this is something that was has been misunderstood in the Spence Keys tradition the phrase self remembering does not mean remember yourself in the same way that you remember breakfast oh yes remembering is is not a good word and it has led to decades of misunderstanding in us Penske and Gurdjieff's tradition I recommend not using the word self remembering I occasionally use it but I only use it to connect with people that I know used to belong to that tradition to let them know that what was meant by self remembering is not the remembering is not an activity of

12:16 the finai mind it is not the remembering of an object it is the wrestling of attention in its source so the only reason I use that phrase is to connect that tradition with this tradition so because in other words anything you remember is an activity of the finite mind the one thing thing the finite mind cannot know or remember is its origin because that that is not finite all a finite mind can know is something finite in other words the finite mind cannot know or even direct itself towards awareness so that is why it is said to be a sinking back of the attention

13:04 of falling back of the attention or a resting of the attention in its source rather than a directing of the attention so that that's that's important to understand that what is meant by self investigation self remembering self abiding is not something we do with the mind it's a if anything it's a wrestling of the mind and the mind because awareness is not in any known direction so now just going on from there to your comment about the screen I'd like to give you another metaphor which as you know I like the screen metaphor very much but there's a I think a

13:55 more efficient metaphor for your question about self remembering or self investigation or self abidance forget for the moment the metaphor of the screen take the metaphor of an actor let's say an actor called John and John is playing the part of King Lear so John has learned King King Lia's lines and he comes into the theatre he gets Johnny's happily married at home but he leaves his home he comes to the theatre he puts on King Lia's clothes and he adopts King Lia's lines to all intents and purposes he becomes King Lear he doesn't cease to be John but he's put on King Lear both the thoughts both physically emotionally and

14:45 mentally he now feels King Lia's feelings he thinks King Lia's thoughts and he wears King Lia's body and he he lives Kingsley as King Lia's life and he suffers King Lia's life so he John is so immersed in his role as King Lear that when the play comes to an end he leaves the theater and he starts walking home but he's still wearing King Lia's costume he's still thinking King Lia's thoughts and he's still feeling King Lia's feelings so he he's miserable he doesn't realize the play has come to an end some stage he meets various people on the way

15:33 who all tried to help him he stops he tries to have therapy on the way to help him with his with his suffering he tries all sorts of things he tries substances he tries he tries everything to to cure his misery but nothing he tries works and one day he meets a friend who just sits him down on the bench and and says to him take the thought I he's talking to King Lear his friend is talking to King Lear of course his friend knows that King Lear is really John but as a concession he speaks as it were to King Lear and he says to King Lear take the thought I don't worry about

16:19 your daughter's don't don't worry about about all the the difficulties in your life don't worry about your thoughts don't go into your feelings don't worry about the condition of your body just or all your life you've been saying I what does it mean and King Lear begins to begins to think yes well what is I and he starts to describe to his friend his thoughts and his friend says no no no you are the one that is aware of your thoughts that don't pay attention to your thoughts go find out who this eye is and then King Lear says my feelings and my body and every time the friend says to know go more deeply into the sense of I and and with the help of his friend his attention

17:10 King Lia's attention is drawn to himself not his thoughts not his feelings not his situation not his not his circumstances to himself and as his attention goes more and more to himself his a kind of memory begins to wake up in him I'm not King Lia's thoughts I'm not King Lia's feelings I not kill his bodily circumstances and he his attention keeps going deeper and deeper into into his just his essential sense of himself just the feeling of being and without realizing it as he

17:58 travels more and more deeply into himself that all the super imposed or King Lear's superimposed thoughts and feelings gradually fall away and at some point this memory I am John occurs to him now it's I am John is not a new self it's not a new I the only thing that is common between King Lear and John is I it is the same eye the eye of King Lear is the eye of John so King Lear was

18:48 practicing self remembering self abiding taking the thought eye and allowing his attention to be drawn deeper and deeper and deeper into what that I essentially is and as the eye our attention is drawn deeper into ourselves everything that is extraneous or superfluous to the eye leaves it of its own accord and then at some point there is this realization I am John now in our case John is of course awareness awareness has itself taken the shape of the finite mind and has closed itself in limited thoughts and free so awareness no longer knows its own being as it truly is it

19:38 knows its own being to be limited by the body mind a whence has put on the body mind in the same way that John put on King Lear so the process of self remembering or self investigation or self abidance or prayer is taking the thought i if we think we are a separate self then the separate self takes the thought I just the regular I that we think we are however we find ourselves we take the thought I and we allow our attention to be drawn deeper and deeper and deeper into what this I essentially is and as it is drawn deeper into into our essential nature it is gradually divested of all the super imposed limitations just like John was gradually divested of King Lear and

20:28 at some point there is this recognition I am pure awareness pure awareness in the sense that I am a when's that is not mixed with anything other than itself just naked awareness yes that that is a lovely illustration represent and it makes a good deal of sense that it works by itself if s the if the fundamental self remembering real self remembering is a pointer in that direction which will shed discard the the trimmings yes but but in whatever condition one finds oneself if one's ed

21:17 in whatever emotional or mental state one finds oneself whatever physical condition one is in one is always saying I I feel sad I feel lonely I am agitated I am unhealthy I am sick I am I am I am I am I am this that and the other so if our attention is drawn to the essential nature of this that I am rather than the qualities that have been added to this that I am but if we really want to know what is this I that I've been talking about all my life and they allow the tension to go there we find but or all that remains of I is just as pure aware being if you if you go

22:12 back to an experience in your early childhood and you think of how it felt to be yourself at that moment go go back to an experience go back as far as you can go everyone in your memory it can be ten years twenty years and go to something that you can actually remember and ask yourself don't be interested in what you can remember but be interesting in how you felt yourself to be at that moment what was it like to be me the one that was aware of my experience at that moment and now I compare that with what it feels like to be me now the one that is aware of my experience

23:00 it's the same there is no difference the I that I was then aware of my experience if you go to the feeling of how it felt to be that the knower of your experience that that hasn't evolved it hasn't changed it hasn't moved it hasn't grown grown old nothing has happened to it it hasn't been stained by all the thousands of experiences that have passed through it no I I can understand this illustration yes again I'll come back on the different eyes I saw the time Rupert before the end of the week just one other thing before I put down the mic

23:49 in relation to this sinking back when you refer to it I believe last night all the previous night and you said you invited as I believe to look at it what if there were any effort in relation to this what is it Court came to my what seemed to light out was though was when you also suggested that we could just allow everything to be just without any reservation at all complete no resistance

24:34 yes to anything and that feels like sinking back into into the attention sinking back is like is that yes great it's the beginning of the attention sinking back because as long as we are resisting something our attention is engaged with that object so if we first take the position of no resistance totally allowing we are disengaging the attention from any object all that is necessary then is to allow this free attention free because it is not attached or directed towards an object just to gradually sink back into its source so yes first of all stand as this

25:29 unengaged attention to total allowing of the situation and then allow the attention to rest in the experience of being aware so it's just it's resting in and as the experience of being aware now to a mind that has been accustomed to engaging with objects all the time it may seem like an effort to continually disengage with objects and return to its source the only reason it feels like an effort is because of our previous habit of being almost constantly engaged with

26:20 objects so yes for the finite mind what is called self abiding or prayer or self memory seems to be an effort from the point of view of the finite mind from the point of view of awareness to simply know its own being as it is requires no effort at all from its point of view an effort was in fact apparently needed in order to rise as the finite mind and go outwards towards the object so from awarenesses point of view if anything at all it is the relaxation of an effort not the making of an effort whereas from the point of view of the separate self it seems to be that an effort is required so that is why I say if it feels that an effort

27:09 is required then make the effort in time we will realize no actually it's not a new effort that we have to make it is rather the cessation of an old effort of which we were previously not aware okay Rupert thank you very much I'll digest this thank you very much thank you