The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience

The purpose of The Transparency of Things is to look clearly and simply at the nature of experience, without any attempt to change it.

A series of contemplations leads us gently but directly to see that our essential nature is neither a body nor a mind. It is the conscious Presence that is aware of this current experience. As such, it is nothing that can be experienced as an object, and yet it is undeniably present.

However, these contemplations go much further than this. As we take our stand knowingly as this conscious Presence that we always already are, and reconsider the objects of the body, mind, and world, we find that they do not simply appear to this Presence; they appear within it. And further exploration reveals that they do not simply appear within this Presence but as this Presence.

Finally, we are led to see that it is in fact this very Presence that takes the shape of our experience from moment to moment while always remaining only itself. We see that our experience is and has only ever been one seamless totality, with no separate entities, objects, or parts anywhere to be found.

About the Author
From an early age, Rupert Spira was deeply interested in the nature of reality. At the age of seventeen he learned 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, Spira immersed himself in the teachings of P. D. Ouspensky, Krishnamurti, Rumi, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Robert Adams, until he met his teacher, Francis Lucille, in 1997. Lucille introduced Spira to the Direct Path teachings of Atmananda Krishna Menon, 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. Spira lives in the UK and holds regular meetings and retreats in Europe and the United States.