By Prana Lite 
Participant: Okay, so how do you see emotions? It feels like the direct path is just about going to bliss immediately. Are you saying we can…?
Rupert: Why wouldn’t you want to go to bliss immediately? Why go slowly if you can go quickly?
Participant: Well, it feels like you can’t go there directly… I mean, in the meditation this morning, you said to just notice that we are awareness, open, and peaceful, right? In that sense, isn’t there a sense of trying to change people’s emotions to be directly in that state?
Rupert: No, no. We’re not trying to interfere with emotions or thoughts. I don’t think I suggested that this morning, nor did I intend to. There’s no tampering with one’s thoughts or feelings. I simply suggested going directly to the experience that we refer to when we say, “I am.” I made it very clear that we didn’t have to turn away from experiences like “I am depressed,” but simply emphasize the “I am,” rather than the depression.
Participant: So, the “I am” has the quality of peace, right? Or love?
Rupert: Yes, “I am” is innately peaceful. It’s like empty space, imperturbable. It cannot be disturbed.
Participant: So, in a way, it’s about aligning with that feeling?
Rupert: No, it’s not a feeling or an emotion. It’s the background of all emotions, not a particular one. The “I am” is not a specific experience. It’s the ever-present background of all experience, whether blissful, painful, or neutral. You don’t need to change experiences to reach it. Just like you don’t need to change the movie to see the TV screen—it’s always equally visible, no matter what’s playing.
Participant: So, even negative emotions are just a different degree of love?
Rupert: Yes, all emotions are ultimately made out of love.
Participant: So, when you experience a negative emotion?
Rupert: That is love veiled. And when you experience a positive emotion, it’s love unveiled. Like a movie can veil or unveil the screen, when the happiness of our true nature is veiled, we call it unhappiness. When it’s unveiled, we call it happiness.
Participant: And it’s the mind that veils this love?
Rupert: Yes, we could say it’s the activity of the mind. The mind’s activity is like the movie’s activity that seems to veil the screen. All there is to the movie is the screen, but when the screen vibrates as the movie, it seems to lose itself in its own activity.
Participant: But we don’t control the movie, right?
Rupert: The one who thinks they control the movie is a character in the movie.
Participant: So, ultimately, every emotion is love?
Rupert: Yes, but we have to be careful not to trivialize this. Emotions like sorrow or depression don’t feel like love when we’re in them. Their negative quality feels real. But if we explore the reality of these feelings, we eventually discover their essence, which is love or peace.
Participant: But it’s confusing how the mind can veil this love if it’s always there, like a movie veiling the screen.
Rupert: Let’s go back to the analogy of watching a movie. You sit on your sofa, absorbed in the movie, and forget that you’re actually watching a screen. The movie seems real, and you get lost in it—excited, fearful, or sad. The same thing happens with the mind. We forget the presence of pure awareness, and the experience seems real.
Participant: So it’s the mind that’s doing this? You’ve described consciousness as pure love and understanding…
Rupert: Let’s set aside words like love and understanding for a moment because they carry emotional connotations. Think of consciousness or awareness as the screen or space in which all experience appears. It’s colorless, quality-less, and featureless—like an empty screen before the movie starts. Consciousness is like that—empty, without qualities or characteristics.
For example, your thoughts are appearing and disappearing right now. Anything that appears and disappears must do so in something, just as clouds appear in the sky or an email appears on a screen. So, what is the medium in which your thoughts appear?
Participant: I can’t really describe it.
Rupert: Exactly! Why can’t you describe it?
Participant: Because anything I try to conceptualize would appear in it, and it’s like an infinite space.
Rupert: Perfect! It’s like a mirror that has no color but reflects all colors. If I asked you the same question about your emotions—like your thoughts, they come and go—what medium do they appear in? Is it the same medium or a different one?
Participant: I think it’s the same medium, but maybe a different layer?
Rupert: If there were different layers, you would be able to distinguish them, which means they’d have qualities. But the medium itself is without qualities. Thoughts and feelings have distinguishing features, but the space in which they arise does not.
Participant: But I want to understand how the veiling happens.
Rupert: The veiling happens when consciousness vibrates within itself and appears as its own activity. Just like a hologram can seem to condition and limit space, your experience is like a hologram in the knowing space of consciousness.
Participant: I can’t find the edge of that space.
Rupert: Exactly. No one can. And if we can’t find the edge of awareness, we cannot claim anything exists outside of it.
Rupert: Can you now travel with your attention beyond the field of awareness in which your experience appears?
Participant: I guess not.
Rupert: I don’t like guessing. Visualize awareness like a physical space—it’s not a physical space, it has no dimensions, but for now, imagine it as such. Everything you experience takes place inside it, right? Your thoughts, sensations, and the sound of my voice all take place in this vast, empty space of consciousness, yes?
Participant: Yes.
Rupert: Now, with your attention, try to find the edge of this space in which your experience appears.
Participant: I cannot.
Rupert: Can anyone here find the edge of the space in which their experience appears? You’re not alone in this—imagine asking the same question to all seven billion people on the planet. If they understood the question, could anyone ever find the edge of this space with their attention?
Participant: No.
Rupert: So far, we’ve established that no one has ever, or could ever, find the edge of this space of awareness. This means we can never say that there is anything outside awareness. Since no one has ever been outside of awareness, we cannot claim there is something beyond it. Can we agree on that?
Participant: Yes, but it’s still not satisfying.
Rupert: It’s unsatisfying because of the deep conditioning you have from the materialistic culture we’ve all grown up in. This conditioning tells us that information must come from an objective source. Since you’re not yet fully aware that this is just conditioning, you think it’s a fact. So, any answer I give that doesn’t align with this belief will feel unsatisfactory. It’s not the answer that’s unsatisfying; it’s the conditioning.
Participant: So how do you see information? Is it just coming up, and we’re meant to let it be? How do you see the shapes and things that are happening?
Rupert: Ultimately, they come from consciousness. I’m talking about their ultimate source. I’m not denying that as transparent, empty consciousness assumes the form of experience, there are pathways or patterns that give rise to repeating experiences or information. But I’m speaking in a broader sense, not about the specific structure or layers through which consciousness contracts or localizes to form an experience.
You could imagine infinite, formless consciousness going through a series of contractions. With each contraction, it takes on more form, more separation, and eventually manifests as an object or thought. This is just a model, but it helps to explain how consciousness can localize itself to form experiences.
Participant: And that’s what you call “mind”?
Rupert: Yes, exactly. I call “mind” the activity of consciousness. Once consciousness starts vibrating within itself, that’s what we call mind. But mind isn’t separate from consciousness. All there is to mind is consciousness, but in motion. Think of consciousness as mind at rest, and mind as consciousness in motion. All activities—thinking, sensing, perceiving—are part of what we call mind. All of this is the movement of consciousness.
Let me ask you another question. Are you now experiencing anything other than the knowing of your experience?
Participant: No.
Rupert: Have you ever experienced anything other than the knowing of your experience?
Participant: No.
Rupert: Could you ever experience anything other than the knowing of your experience?
Participant: No.
Rupert: If we asked the same three questions to all seven billion people on the planet, would anyone ever experience anything other than the knowing of their experience?
Participant: No.
Rupert: How do we know that there is anything other than knowing or consciousness? No one has ever experienced anything outside of knowing. Matter—the stuff scientists believe exists outside consciousness—has never been seen or known. And yet, our entire culture is built on the belief that this matter gives rise to consciousness. It’s a back-to-front view of reality, and the result is unhappiness in ourselves and conflict between communities and nations.
Rupert (contemplation): Nobody can tell us who we are. People can tell us about objects, but nobody can tell us about ourselves. That is a non-objective discovery we must make for ourselves, by ourselves, in ourselves.
If thought turns its attention away from objects and directs itself inward, it ceases to be thought and is revealed as pure consciousness. This open, empty, dimensionless, objectless awareness that we essentially are is not limited by any of the thoughts, feelings, sensations, or perceptions that arise within it. It was present before the appearance of the body-mind, it remains present during the appearance of the body-mind, and it will be present after the disappearance of the body-mind. This is not something we discover when we die; we can discover it in any moment.
All we know of the body-mind is a collection of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions, and these are constantly appearing and disappearing. But you—the “I am”—have never appeared or disappeared. Numerous times each day, the body-mind-world appears and disappears in our experience, but we never experience the disappearance of ourselves. This is the great discovery: to realize that what we essentially are does not share the limits or destiny of the body.
Until we make this discovery, we cannot truly know what anything is. Everything appears in conformity with our belief about ourselves. If we think we are a temporary, limited self, we will believe that the world is also temporary and limited. But when we discover our true nature, everything takes on a new appearance, reflecting that realization.
