If consciousness is all there is, is it true that even negative thoughts, such as the thought ‘I am sad’, are made of consciousness? What does it mean when we say we are identified with thought? And who is it that becomes identified with thought?

Rupert Spira is an English teacher of the “direct path”, a method of spiritual self-inquiry through talks and writing, and a notable English studio potter with work in public and private collections. 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 studying and practicing the teachings of the classical Advaita Vedanta tradition under the guidance of Dr. Francis Roles and Shantananda Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of the north of India, which he continued for the next twenty years. 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 Atmanada Krishna Menon and to Jean Klein and the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, and, more importantly, directly indicated to him the true nature of experience.