PRESENCE, VOLUME II Second Edition

Presence is a collection of profound, poetic contemplations that deeply explore the self and our search for happiness, and clearly point to our essential nature as present awareness. Author Rupert Spira was named one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in 2014 by Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine.

All that is known is experiencing, and experiencing is not divided into one part (an inside self ) that experiences and another part (an outside object, other, or world) that is experienced. Experiencing is seamless and intimate, made of “knowing” or awareness alone. This intimacy, in which there is no room for selves, objects, or others, is love itself. It lies at the heart of all experience, completely available under all circumstances.

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, J. 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. Spira resides in Oxford, UK.