Description

Transparent Body, Luminous World – The Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception is a box set that includes six mp3 CDs with over 30 hours of guided yoga meditations, a 248-page paperback book of transcripts of the spoken meditations, and a slipcase. The 24 yoga meditations explore the experience of the body and world as a continuously changing flow of sensations and perceptions appearing in, known by and made of awareness. These direct and penetrating contemplations discuss and facilitate the gradual alignment of the non-dual understanding with the way the body and world are felt and perceived.’Under Rupert Spira’s precise and loving guidance, this esoteric teaching becomes an actual, felt experience… As you follow his pointing-out instructions, body, thoughts, sensations and sounds start to reveal themselves as arising inside a borderless Awareness. In time, you begin to feel your entire experience as saturated with Awareness, made of Awareness, dancing inside Awareness. Connecting to the Presence flowing through Rupert’s words, you literally catch the awakened state. Rupert’s pointing-out instructions can free Consciousness to recognize itself, so that gradually – or suddenly! – your body and the world around you become transparent to the knowing Presence that is experiencing itself as you.’ Sally Kempton, author of Meditation for the Love of It and Awakening Shakti’Rupert speaks from within a field of infinite tenderness, mind and heart joined in awe of the mystery of existence. This is a voice from inside the truth, creating fresh language, a lovingly crafted stream of revelation. This is a voice of infinite gentleness speaking through space and time from the Awareness beyond space and time, reminding us all of our own essence. I am stunned by the beauty and clarity here.’ Lorin Roche, author of The Radiance Sutras: 112 Gateways to the Yoga of Wonder and Delight and Meditation Secrets for WomenIn the Introduction of his book Transparent Body, Luminous World, Spira writes,”As a young adult my interest in truth or the nature of reality involved the study and practice of the nondual tradition of Advaita Vedanta. I received the initial teaching in this tradition at Colet House in London from Shantananda Saraswati, at the time the Shankaracharya of the north of India, and through the writings of Ramana Maharshi, who was my constant companion during those years. This exploration reached its culmination when, in my mid-thirties, I met my teacher, Francis Lucille, who introduced me to the teachings of Atmananda Krishna Menon and, more importantly directly indicated the ultimate reality of experience.Until this encounter, my primary interest had been the recognition of my true nature, which I considered to be the height of the spiritual path. However, soon after we met, Francis also introduced me to the Tantric approach of Kashmir Shaivism, which he had learnt from his teacher, Jean Klein, who himself had brought it from India to the West Towards the end of the 20th Century. As a result, I realised that the recognition of our true nature is a stage in but not the end of the spiritual path. The aim of this approach is to establish the nondual understanding in all realms of experience. It involves a process of realigning the way we feel the body and perceive the world with the recognition of our true nature of eternal, infinite Awareness….Even after the recognition of our essential nature of eternal, infinite Awareness, it is common for many of us to find a discrepancy between what we understand and what we feel. We may understand that everything appears in Awareness, is known by Awareness and is made of Awareness, and yet we may still feel the body as something solid, dense, limited and located. Likewise, and as an inevitable corollary to this feeling, we may perceive the world as something that is separate and at a distance from our self. Thus our thoughts may be more or less free of the separate self, but our feelings and perceptions, and subsequent activities and relationships, may betray the residues of an apparently separate self still present in the deeper, more hidden layers of experience. The yoga meditations presented in this collection are aimed at dissolving this discrepancy.This approach, which I call the Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception, starts with the recognition of our true nature and proceeds from there to fully explore the relationship between Awareness and objective experience. Although this relationship is implicit in the Vedantic tradition, it was made explicit in the Tantric traditions, particularly that of Kashmir Shaivism. Ramana Maharshi would sit for many hours in silence with his students, and the exposure and dissolution of these feelings would be brought about in this silence. In the Tantric traditions, of which this Yoga of Sensation and Perception is a contemporary expression, a more proactive approach is taken to exploring the feeling of separation in the body. Thus, the two traditions of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism are complementary aspects of a complete approach to the exploration of experience, and not, as we so often find scholastic commentaries on these two traditions, at odds with each other….If the Vedantic path is the path from ‘I am something’ – a body and mind – to ‘I am nothing’, the Tantric path could be said to be from ‘I am nothing’, to ‘I am everything’. If the Vedantic path is one of exclusion or discrimination, the Tantric path is one of inclusion or love. In the Zen tradition the Vedantic path is known as the Great Death, the Tantric path as the Great Rebirth. This path of inclusion or love involves a realignment of feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities and relationships with the recognition of our eternal, infinite nature of pure Awareness. It is the second stage of the spiritual process, in which we return to the objective real of experience, having already recognised our true nature. It is the path in which the residues of the separate self in the body are gradually exposed by, surrendered to and, in time, dissolved in the light of Awareness [emphasis is mine] . It is an invitation to the body to be felt and the world to be perceived in a way that is consistent with the understanding that our true nature of eternal, infinite Awareness is the sole and ultimate reality of all experience. We do not want to simply know that I am ever-present, unlimited Awareness; we want to feel it, and we want to live in a way that is consistent with this feeling-understanding in all realms of experience….Is it absolutely necessary to undertake the second stage of the process, this Tantric Yoga of Sensation and Perception? No, it is not required for the recognition of our true nature. The recognition of our true nature requires only Awareness’ knowing of its own being and is independent of the content or quality of the mind or body. It is between Awareness and itself. However, if we want to access the peace and fulfillment that are inherent in our true nature of pure Awareness, and live and express this in life, that is, in our activities, relationships and perceptions, then yes, it is necessary to undergo this second part of the process. ” (paragraphs selected from pages xiii-xix)Endorsements‘Tantric wisdom tells us that everything we experience is made of pure Awareness – untouched, yet constantly manifesting as perceptions, sensations and thoughts. Under Rupert Spira’s precise and loving guidance, this esoteric teaching becomes an actual, felt experience. His words contain a profound transmission of the reality he’s describing. As you follow his pointing-out instructions, body, thoughts, sensations and sounds start to reveal themselves as arising inside a borderless Awareness. In time, you begin to feel your entire experience as saturated with Awareness, made of Awareness, dancing inside Awareness. Connecting to the Presence flowing through Rupert’s words, you literally catch the awakened state. Rupert’s pointing-out instructions can free Consciousness to recognize itself, so that gradually – or suddenly! – your body and the world around you become transparent to the knowing Presence that is experiencing itself as you.’– Sally Kempton, author of Meditation for the Love of It and Awakening Shakti‘Rupert speaks from within a field of infinite tenderness, mind and heart joined in awe of the mystery of existence. This is a voice from inside the truth, creating fresh language, a lovingly crafted stream of revelation. This is a voice of infinite gentleness speaking through space and time from the Awareness beyond space and time, reminding us all of our own essence. I am stunned by the beauty and clarity here. Transparent Body, Luminous World is an extraordinarily clear and sensitive articulation of sensory meditations I learned 47 years ago and have found infinitely valuable in personal experience and in teaching. These sensory explorations lead the way to developing practices that correspond with your intimate inner nature. There is nothing foreign in Rupert’s teaching; rather, here is an invitation to explore your own essence through direct experience.’– Lorin Roche, author of The Radiance Sutras: 112 Gateways to the Yoga of Wonder and Delight and Meditation Secrets for Women‘Rupert points out that it’s one thing to think the separate self doesn’t exist, quite another to actually feel it. Here, in extraordinary depth and clarity, we are taken through a series of explorative meditations to allow us to feel and experience directly our real nature – unnameable knowing – beyond all boundaries of time and space.’– Billy Doyle, author of Yoga in the Kashmir Tradition: The Art of Listening and The Mirage of SeparationBiographyFrom an early age Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At the age of seventeen he learnt to meditate, and began a twenty-year period of study and practice in the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr. Francis Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India. During this time he immersed himself in the teachings of P. D. Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997. Francis introduced Rupert to the Direct Path teachings of Atmananda Krishnamenon, the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism (which he had received from his teacher, Jean Klein), and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience. Rupert lives in the UK and holds regular meetings and retreats in Europe and the USA.www.rupertspira.com