Rupert Spira
A man asks why he is not aware of himself during deep sleep.
This clip has been taken from Rupert’s retreat in Titignano, August 2019. To watch the full video, please follow the link below.
https://non-duality.rupertspira.com/watch/the-essential-ingredient-of-all-experience
Source
Where is the seeing power when the eyes are closed?
But what about anaesthesia is the also the awareness of non existence ?
❤️❤️🙏🙏
Por gentileza, coloquem legendas em português…🙏❤😊
I believe there are different stages of consciousness of reality (and ourselves since we are a part of reality). Dreams in r.e.m. are different than being awake. Comatose is different than dreaming…then there is death.
Has anyone here read any Nisargadatta or Ramesh Balsekar. That’s probably a silly question.But anyway they both refer to the Absolute as being prior to Consciousness.I don’t understand what they are pointing too. It can’t be an experience per se. Does anyone have a way of explaining what prior to consciousness is. Has anyone got any good metaphors or analogies ?
I hope everyone is well.
I lost interest @ 2:00 when speaker began interrupting and self-providing the answer he was seeking. Not very self-aware if you are doing that on a YouTube presentation. Just sayin'
The fact that you know that you slept, is the awareness itself. Therefore, the Self/Consciousness /or the Awareness is ever present, never sleeps, never dies.
Deep sleep is called the doorway to mass consciousness and enlightenment is called "deep sleep while awake" (Nirvakalpa Samadhi). Is the void in the middle of the Zero (deep sleep) really empty? Maybe it is beyond awake state comprehension, as in pure consciousness? After all something is derived from it, if only being refreshed in the morning?
Excellent direct teaching that clarifies alot of misconceptions and confusion.
I don’t think this has to be a big complicated deep discussion. When you deep sleep, you’re ‘unconscious’. You’re simply not aware of anything taking place. It’s no different than being drugged. To presuppose all this other stuff is just projecting and trying to force a philosophy to fit. Rupert does this from time to time where you can feel the ‘push’ behind it. It’s a forcing type energy rather than a leading, allowing.
I like a lot of his talks but sometimes he goes too far to always ‘know’ and be right. I imagine this is a big challenge for guru types and upholding that image. ET is one of the only ones that seem beyond it and are ‘ok w/not knowing’…
The response to “How do you know you slept well? “ would be given by checking memory for how many times did I wake up? The truth is this. It is another experience that is so common that it is very rarely remembered. Our minds forget it and disregard the experience of deep sleep 99.9% of the time. That being said you can be aware of and remember the experience of deep sleep. It requires a good amount of … not sure what word to use… building up of the familiarity of being in a state of awareness. You are always aware but not knowingly. If that makes sense. Speaking from personal experience there have been times while intentionally meditating that I have watched thoughts turn into dreams. That is how I know that dreams and thoughts are made of the same mind stuff. And that the amount of control we have over our thoughts and dreams in little to none. We can disregard our thoughts and in doing so remove the hold they have on our true self. Awareness/ Consciousness. I have also experienced deep sleep on a couple of occasions. What is it like? I’ll tell you exactly. Time moves differently, it may seem like an hour but three have gone by. There is no mind activity at all. Just peace. What does it look like? There is infinite space. It looks like deep space, no objects to perceive. But it is also like deep space in that although it appears to be dark it is actually filled with the light of consciousness. It only appears to be dark because there are no objects for consciousness to reflect on. This is what Vedanta calls the state of potential, and that the waking and dreaming worlds actually arise from this state. I have to agree because I have seen the dream world rise from a point in this infinite space and envelope my perceptions and instantly I was within a dream. On another occasion I was able to… again not sure what word to use… move back and withdraw from the dream world and experience a wall or veil that separated the dream world from my self and I found I was outside the dream and was able to move in and out of it slowly like putting your head around a corner and seeing what Is there and moving it back and veiling it again. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m asleep and dreaming or awake and thinking it is that similar. We just forget it most of the time because it’s something we have been experiencing our entire lives and we train our minds to disregard the common. So why don’t we experience deep sleep? You do, you just don’t remember.
Always the same weak argument, I know I slept well because I feel the positive effects of a good sleep on my body, that's it. Love Rupert but time to find better arguments for this.
Dualistic
This is what my direct experiences have thaught me.
There is this Human You and the Higher You. This Human You is a mental product, it's not even real, while the Higher You is more real than this Human You but it's still not the ultimate thing, the ultimate thing is the Inner Self, the Higher Self, the True Self, the Atman, the Spark of God. It appeared to me in the form of a sphere of Golden Light, people call it the Inner Sun, that's how it actually looks.
When we go to sleep, the physical body goes to sleep, the Higher You awakens. The Higher you is the one who planned your earthly life, it travels to other realms and it communicates with other beings. Sometimes this Human You passes through and this is how we get to have out of body experiences and lucid dreams.
You are both the Human You, the Higher You and the Higher Self, it's just while in this body, you do not remember.
Deep sleep is only for the physical body, it is the deepest state in which the body recovers itself, full relaxation.
Of course, most people lack the experience and they only talk using mental concepts and being limited by the material world so for them, deep sleep means no awareness or awareness of absence which both are not true. Oh, you are very much AWARE when you got o sleep, except that maybe not this Human You but the Higher You for sure.
I have over 400 out of body experiences.
If the world is an image—- sleep is also an image
The guy who asked was right. In retrospect you can say u had deep sleep-because of no dreaming or you feel good – bec. Of good ‚rest‘ – but there is no experience of deep sleep- because – if this game is ‚an illusion‘-sleep is it also…. (…part of the game called live….or simcity….it seems as if you send the pc to sleep …. and continue the game next day – how much do you perceive of tour gamecharacter when the pc is shut down? How can zu know his sleep, when his sleep is a Code of the game? And the pc is shut down?)
Then does that mean during deepsleep – for one who experiences it – does the world really disappear with all its constituents (for real)?
And if it be so, without any volition of the Consciousness, the world / Universe appears and (really) disappears ?
This sleep argument doesn't work at all. There may have been an awareness of absence, but the mere fact of saying "I slept well" doesn't prove that at all since it is only short hand for feeling better after waking up than going to sleep. The statement "I slept well" is the conclusion of an inference, not a report of an experience. What is it that knows it ? The consciousness after waking up based on that inference.
This answer/understanding was profound for “me”.
None of your buisness
The clarity and elegance in this is beautiful!
It is the absence of awareness for me. And when someone asks if you slept well, the question and answer are generally rhetorical. If anything, you answer that you slept well because you didn’t toss and turn and in fact, you feel rested.
My consciousness is not conscious when I sleep. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be sleep.
Thank you! I've been pondering this question for months. The words are now pointing somewhere. I now know where to look and experience this for myself.
what if science found a method so that we no need to sleep? we could be awake 24 hours
So he's saying we should be afraid of death?
Sweet
This is a really poor answer by Rupert. What is present in deep sleep is only the "Self" which is NEVER experienced. Rupert's insistence on calling the Absolute "awareness" is here shown to be untenable and wrong. Nisargadatta's teaching, Prior to Consciousness, is a far better understanding.
The 'Deep-Sleep' present the Night-consciousness, Night-bodies.
When We move our Day-consciousness, to the Night-bodies, one by one, our physical body become Night-body. (We dont remember any thing from the Night-bodies/Deep-Sleep)
REM-sleep present, the 'transfer-body', dreams, OBE, NDE, ghosts coma.
So, We are always Here and Now, and our consciousness too.
The 'Night' present a Circuit, some of the Night-bodies are old, and some are young, compare to our physical body, which is our primary developing-body.
We dont develop at night, it is rest and repair.
When We leave our physical body permanent, then We also stay in the Night-bodies, just much longer, which means, that We stay 'above' about the same time as We stayed in our last physical body. (We stay max.100 year)
I take issue with this explanation of deep sleep though.
When I awake, I decide whether I slept well or not on of I feel *in the present*. If I feel refreshed, I assume I slept well; if I'm tired or stressed, I don't. I have no memory – except occasionally for dreams – of how deep sleep feels. I do know that I can't remember consciousness either disappearing or re-appearing at the beginning and at the end of my sleep time; but the point about how "it felt" seems really wonky to me.
Right, Rupert needs to look up the word "inference". You don't dread awareness going byebye during sleep b/c you know you're safe and will wake up. You know you slept well b/c you infer it from your body feeling refreshed in the morning. If these spiritual teachers told you that the peace of enlightenment is the peace of a rock or a tree you wouldn't pay to see their seminars lol.
I'm finally starting to get this
When someone says they slept well they are referring to the feeling of being refreshed in the morning. At least that’s what I’d be really referring to because there’s no memory left of any experience in deep sleep. And the notion of awareness of absence is just self-contradictory. If you’d be really aware of absence it wouldn’t really be absence would it?
Sorry I don’t like to be so critical usually. I think Rupert can be a great teacher, but I’d like him to appear a little more humble sometimes, not so know-it-all. I suggest you listen to Bernardo Kastrup, a friend of his, in case you haven’t already. He has some good thinks to say with regards to the consciousness-only ontology
I think all concepts are mental only, they have nothing to do with the reality.
Isn't the answer to the question based off of how you feel now that you have woken up ? I answer the question "did you sleep well?" Based off of how I feel in that present moment. If I feel awake and well rested then the answer is yes. If I still feel groggy and tired then the answer is no . The answer can also be based off of how many times I remember waking up throughout the night . These are just thoughts I have associated to this question. Can anyone help to clarify these things ?
Deep sleep is our true reality. Yoga nidra gives you access to it. 🙏
I agree with Rupert on everything except this. To me, did I sleep well, I'm referring to my current experience in the waking state: if I'm tired NOW then I say no; if I feel NOW rested and bodily satisfied with my rest, then I say yes. If I didn't go with my current feeling, then I'd say I don't know, I wasn't aware of the quality of it – there was just nothingness until I woke up. Also, EXPERIENCIALLY, isn't the absence of awareness the same as the awareness of absence? It doesn't make a difference other than another way of interpreting what happens in deep sleep – but the experience is still the same – voidness, emptiness and nothingness
I think what Rupert means by awareness is the single indivisible whole reality, and if you just stick to this meaning, what he says makes sense.
Initially, I found myself too confused and not convinced by what Rupert was saying about deep sleep, for deep sleep is not an experience by definition, so how can you state or prove that there is still awareness of absence, which is a legitimate and logically-correct observation.
However, once you see awareness is just a name for the single whole reality, it becomes obvious that when you are in deep sleep – or generally when there is absence of human conscious experience – the single whole reality is still there, just being itself as "always".
In my opinion, "awareness of absence" should not be interpreted as a kind of experience of absence, for that is a contradiction, experience of absence does not exist by definition. The point is to fully realize that you are this single indivisible whole reality which is manifesting in what we call "here and now" as you. Therefore, If there is no separation between you and reality (non-duality) then there is just reality, and when conscious experience goes away reality does remain, we all know this very well but we simply forget and leave ourselves out the reality as detached independent conscious observers.
Such a great teaching. Lots of pranam to enlightened yogi like you.🙏🙏🙏🙏
It’s right here
I love sleep. I’m disappointed when I awake at times.
What if I said, “I assume I slept well because I have no memory of waking up multiple times in the night”. ?
Brilliant talk.
You answer that you slept well because you wake up feeling rested and refreshed. That is my question as well.
I have to sleep on this one 😉 Thank you Mr Spira.
I know that deep sleep is the awareness of absence. But I never look forward to going to sleep. I would much rather stay up, putzing about. What gives?
This teaching falsely claim that " deep sleep" is an experience of peace. In deep sleep there is no peace nor conflict because the body-mind is temporary dead. How can a dead body-mind have peace? Peace is for those who are alive. Also there is no " AWARENESS" in deep sleep because "AWARENESS" never sleeps.