Episode 39: Guru Viking

And that our job is to make it as pleasant a dream as possible. So I had this childish um intuition uh um articulated in in the Christian language because that was the tradition that I was brought up in, that that that reality was um i uh the the activity of God's mind. uh and that um our uh our our role as apparent individuals was was somehow to to to to bring the truth of that.

into i into existence, to share it i i in our lives. So this was a very childish intuition, w which a actually hasn't evolved very much. Th obviously the the um the way I speak about it has ev evolved a great deal. So um I I had a um My parents were were um not not religious, but my mother certainly was interested i in these matters. So it it was uh these ideas were around me in my childhood.

as I was growing up. And they really were first formulated in me um at the age of uh fifteen, fifteen, sixteen when I uh discovered the the uh poetry of Rumi and uh soon after that I I I learnt to uh meditate, uh mantra meditation. in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. Um so just rew rewinding a little bit, um so from the age of of seven, I w I was I went to boarding school and I was at boarding school for for ten years. Um uh boys only uh English

public school system with all the um benefits and disadvantages that come with that. Perhaps not the the time to go into into detail about that. Um but, you know, such an education, it's a it's a mixed blessing. There are some wonderful uh it's a very good education, very classical education. There are some wonderful things that come

with it. Uh but but it also has a uh uh th there's a price to be paid for being taken away from one's parents at such a young age to be in an all male environment. I th there is a price to be paid. So um

uh I I I I was exposed to the the the full range of the English public school system. Um As I say fast forward ten years, mid teens, I came in contact with uh the poetry of Rumi, uh the the the teaching of the classical Advaita Vedanta um tradition and uh up until that point I had w wanted to be a um a biochemist or or or to study medicine. But my my kind of incipient career as a scientist to to to took an abrupt um change. At that time I also came across the um

The the work of Michael Cardiw, one of the founding fathers of the British studio pottery movement. So o in my mid teens there was a there was a big really a big upheaval. uh I was introduced to the arts and to the spiritual tradition in in the Sufi and Advaita traditions. And and this really from then on really became the backbone, the f the foundation of my life.

Um and I started uh I started meditating, I learned the Mevlev turning, I learned Gurchiev's movements, I started attending weekly meetings and and and and so on.

uh in objective knowledge, there would always be something more to know. Wha w what what we know now objectively will always be replaced by something else. uh and and that that's the nature of objective knowledge. But th that I realised that objective knowledge was not to uh explore or recognize the nature of reality. That that it would be endlessly frustrating, one horizon after another, that that that that there could be no finality there, no no certainty. So so this this question

formulated itself in my mind. What what what can we know for absolutely certain? What what is not dependent upon uh um The limitations of the finite mind? Is there anything that can be we can know for certain beyond or prior to the limitations of the finite mind? Now I didn't. r um articulate to myself quite as clearly as I am doing now. It was it was more of a um it was more of an intuition and to begin with it it kind of gripped me i i in a kind of visceral way.

But later I formulated it in i in in this way, and I think this was uh largely responsible for my disenchantment. with the the the the the scientific uh I I I can't even say that I had begun a scientific career, but that was the direction I was he heading in. And I think this intuition put an end to that.

I I I realised another way of putting it would be I realized it could never be deeply satisfying. It would never satisfy those existential questions. Who am I really? What is the nature of reality?

uh I was fifteen, he was seventy-five. And uh within a year of that I had also uh ke come across the poetry of Rumi and shortly after that I first saw the Medvlevi uh Turning in London and shortly after that I learnt a mantra meditation and began to study the Advaita Vedanta. teaching at College House in London. So uh w w within a period of l let's say uh a a year or eighteen months, the these two very powerful in uh um

influence. I was in I was introduced to these two very very powerful influences. The art and uh um spiritual understanding. And of course th it it's no coincidence. that um that that this happened at the same time in in in my life. That that they were really the same event. What one um um one through the faculty of perception

and the other through thought and feeling. So i i i i i that i i if if we Yeah, if we we can say that as human beings we think, we feel and we perceive on all three of these channels. during this very potent time in my mid teens, uh I was I had this intuition of a reality that I had not up until then. um known about or at least I had as a child, but I had forgotten about it in my upbringing. And they th th these three th these influences, they reawakened in me.

this um feeling for the divine, this feeling for truth, for for for reality.

would lead towards lead to me becoming a a potter. He did not at that time think it a a a worthy career, uh uh for someone who had received um the education that I had. However, to be fair to him, um he changed over the years. And and to be honest, I don't blame him. I think if um I as I'm sure you know, I also have a a son, one son, he's twenty two.

Two years old now, I think well, I think perhaps things are different now, but but i i if I had um if if he in his mid teens had just uh on what at least appeared to be a a a a whim, just decided to to take off, to leave school, to take off, to to to do something which was so far outside my own comprehension as to seem to be uh

completely foolhardy, impossible to make a living, I I think I would probably have been a alarmed. So I I don't looking back, I I'm a lot more sympathetic now with my father's uh response. He he was afraid for me. You know, he was concerned, as as all fathers are for their children. He wanted to make sure that I was going to be able to make it in the world, and that this he thought that I was just dropping out. And actually i he might have been right. It turned out that he wasn't.

Um so uh um yeah he he he was he was very alarmed.

Uh but again to be fair to him he was very supportive. I then went to art school. I did an apprenticeship with Michael Cardew, I set up my first studio in my early twenties, and he was very supportive. And it was ten years later, beautiful turning point in our lives when he came down to visit me in my life. studio and one of the few times I saw my father cry, he wasn't really crying, but he had tears in his eyes. He said, You know, Rupert, I'm envious of you. I'm so glad you didn't follow me in

It's you you you ha you're you have a wonderful life. It's so fulfilling. By this time I was beginning to to be successful, having having uh exhibitions around the world. So he no longer feared for my for my financial wellbeing and my security. And and there was this beautiful moment when he turned round and just acknowledged that he was that he had thought I had done the right thing.

He never actually expressed it, but I could feel it, that I didn't have his total approval. And this weighed on me. I I I wanted him to feel good about me. I wanted his blessing. So when this uh finally came, I was probably in my late twenties now, perhaps thirty, um, it it liberated me from a from a a sorrow that I didn't even really know was then.

And actually our relationship, it was very healing in our relationship too. We we then, having had a a a difficult ten years, really from then on we just became closer and closer.

I'd like to ask you a bit about Michael Cardieu, if you don't mind. As you mentioned, you apprenticed with him for two years, and you said that that was in many ways a complete re-education. I think he was about eighty or in his eighties when when that took place. For those who may not know, who was Michael Cardew? Um in your experience, what sort of a man was he? And how was it that you came to begin this apprenticeship relationship?

Then um the war came along, he went to to Africa, uh uh and Nigeria and Ghana for twenty-five years and then came back, aged I think sixty-five, to um Corma, where he started um

uh a another pottery where where where I uh later lived and worked with him during the last two years of his life. M Michael was um he was uh um a fierce irrascible, unpredictable, um highly intelligent and articulate, but also he was very very soft, very tender, um And you just never know what you were going to get from from one moment to another.

And he always had two apprentices living and working in the house with him. W it seemed that most of our time was spent cooking and gardening and that we made pots in our spare time. But it was it was like a whole kind of it was like a re education. He he was just just unlike and he was like an old Zenma.

Of course I I I wouldn't I didn't even realise it at the time, but later looking back on him I I r realised he it's not like I I don't think he was like a Zen Master. I think he was a Zen Master, although he would never um speak directly of of an any of these matters. But his whole approach to to to life, to the pottery, Um it was like living with a with a Zen master. You had to be constantly on on uh on your toes, on on on high alert. Um and nothing was said uh directly. Um

Let me give you an example. I I remember um I'd been making bowl. I've been there for about six months. I'd been making bowls. All day and was beginning to be a little... Pr you know, I thought I am really beginning to get to get I was feeling pleased to myself and and m Michael, it was um the the the workshop was a long it was an uh an inn that he had converted. It was the Skittle alley of the inn, so it was a long narrow room. He walked into the room one end of the room and kind of

made his way up through the through the workshop to where I was working at at the other end. And then for a long time he stood surveying these these lines of of of bowls. I'm sure he didn't do it on on purpose, but as he was doing so I could feel my My pride kind of rising as I as I presumed he he he was, you know, n noticing my progress, and I was a

expecting to receive my first proper accolade from him. And I remember I can still I can close my eyes and see and hear him saying it now. He said, Rupert, you haven't begun to take this shape.

Repeat these bowls. These bowls aren't like real people, they're like actors on a stage. And then and then left. And you are just left. Just wanting the earth to swallow you up. It was just feeling completely completely crushed. But also not knowing exactly what was meant. Y you you had to find out then what was meant. And then on another occasion Uh we were packing the kiln. It was this huge wood fired kiln and Uh he had decorated a series of large dishes.

And I it was my job to to pack them all in the kiln. It was rather precarious. I'd stacked them all up, one on top of the another. They must have been fourteen, fifteen or sixteen of these big, beautiful painted dishes. And there were kind of bricks around they they were fired upside down on their unglazed rims and there were bricks around each one. Anyway, um I I obviously didn't realise, but I uh one of the bricks at the bottom must have been loose. Anyway, during the firing they collapsed.

Of course we we didn't know this because it's all sealed up and the firing takes thirty six hours, it's an old big, huge wood fired kiln. Then it takes a week to cool down. So The after a after a week we came to unpack the kiln and and all the dishes had had collapsed onto each other, and then because it because the kilns fired to thirteen hundred degrees they had all welded into a into this ugly gnarly. mild mass of splits.

dishes with the glazes all kind of welded into each other. It was a it was a terrible sight and I I had to go and tell Michael, who who at that time was writing his autobiography, used to have a uh kind of office up above the the the the the stable. And up so I I remember going to him. I mean I I was just in trepidation, shaking. I was so afraid.

I remember going to Mike Michael and then I explained to him. He just smiled at me so gently said, Rupert, don't worry, it won't be the last time in your life for something like this. and carried on writing. It was like, no, he couldn't have been i and n no no never mentioned it again. It was just so you you just you just never knew. It was it was an extraordinary Yeah, you you you learnt by by observation, by listening. It was never direct.

It was you you just had to and and th this is why y you know, uh I lived with him, I I cooked for him, I gardened for him. It was like a total immersion experience. Uh, but it had a profound uh an effect on me. It was he introduced me to a a way of life, a way of thinking that was so at odds with my education. Um, it was a real real privilege to to spend and then he died shortly after I left. So I had a the last two years of his life with him.

Um I'm curious actually in those moments, did you did you know what he meant? Did could you see what he was pointing to? Uh and then it took time to understand how to make it not so?

He wasn't saying anything about me, but my it was the bowls were an extension or an expression of my attitude. So it it you you had to go you had to go inside yourself. You had to find the place in yourself from which your work was coming. That's where the adjustment, it wasn't like just changing the shape of something on the outside, because the outside was just corresponding with the attitude on the inside which had given rise to it.

So it was but you had to find that for yourself, and it was a process of of of combination of conversation, observation, trying over and over again. Michael's son Seth worked in the in the studio and another uh another apprentice as well. So it w it was um it was a non-rational exploration. It it it these if I had asked Michael, what what do you mean I haven't taken this?

shape into myself. Well, he was extremely articulate. He probably could have said something about it, but but i he i it The training took place below the threshold of the rational mind, whereas much of my education up until that point had been directed towards the rational mind. So it kind of introduced me to a whole realm of experience that was, so to speak, just below the surface. Uh that um and he kind of opened opened me up to that. to that world. It it's really the world of the um

the realm that the arts and and poetry and and and literature addresses. And I think that I had not that it was not available, to be fair, in in my education. It probably would have been, but it's not if I had if I had perhaps gone more in that direction, maybe I would have found it there. But for whatever reason I I didn't. It took this this um

uh this this meeting with Michael, he was like a force of nature. It it it took it took this meeting with him to open me up to this whole new possibility. The possibility, for instance, of of um Really it's it's the experience of beauty, the power of beauty, the the power of an object. to somehow cut through the conceptual edifice through which we perceive reality and to take us directly to that experience. What Shusanne said.

When you said that I want my I want my work to give people a taste of nature's eternity. I don't want to describe nature's eternity to people. I want to get I want them I want it it's it's it's much more intimate than that. I want them to have a taste of reality. Well Michael uh helped me i i uh i initiated me really into into understanding that objects have this power.

It's not just words. Yes, the the understanding to a degree can be described in word words, but this was like a visceral transmission. And it was something completely new in my life and and quite it was very powerful. And um I was very, very fortunate uh to to to have met him early on in my in my life.

Thames in Barnes in London. And Merrill used to um to come down from time to time and and stay, which of course I I loved'cause she was a lovely feminine presence in an otherwise rather um male and monastic institution. Um Mariel went to Collitt House. where I had first gone as a sixteen year old and had learnt the Mevlevi turning, had learnt mantra meditation, Gurdjieff's movements. And um she was very involved at Collitt House and and so I knew her independently of Michael.

through through um call it house. Michael didn't know this, as far as I know, and for for a reason why I never really understood, Merriel wanted me to keep it quiet. She she she said, don't don't don't don't let on that we know know each other. And I I I I'm I'm not sure about this. Michael disapproved, I think. Of um

the c the activities that went on at at Collitt House. It was too um I always felt that he disapproved of any attempt to articulate the nature of reality in the terms of the rational mind. He felt that it it belonged in a realm to which the rational mind has no access, and of course he's quite right, and therefore to which the rational mind has no right to speak of. He felt his work spoke of it.

uh and that one should not speak uh uh directly about it. So I think for this reason he um I think he disapproved of Marios. activities. He he and I think that Mariel was concerned that if he knew that I was directly influen uh interested in these matters, that di it might somehow um tarnish our relationship. I'm not sure that it would, but but um So uh uh the I I definitely kept that side of my life quiet.

Um of course in the evenings I would go up to my room and I was reading uh Ramana Mahashi and Rumi and and but uh I was uh it was I was very private. I would I would never um I would never mention that. And of course when Mario came down occasionally we would have conversations about it. But we carried on as if as if uh w we didn't let this shared interest Um we didn't expose it to Michael.

the themes you brought up here in terms of your initiation that Michael Cardiou provided you with, presumably those themes then un un unpack and elaborate or continue through throughout the arc of a thirty year career. What what what does it take to produce that kind of art over that that kind of uh sustained period of time.

of particul uh the Far Eastern traditions, the Chinese, particularly the Korean, uh there there was a certain quality uh in these works and and I I always had the th the feeling I I want that I want to make Hots with that quality, that that expressive, that communicative. And I always had the feeling that I was failing. So there was always a feeling that I was approaching something, refining and refining and refining this um intangible quality.

which was nevertheless the most important thing ab about about any object that one made, and was truly its its expressive power.

soon as I'd uh I um uh I had worked for two or three months, had a had a had a firing Looked at the pots soon as they were out, I lost interest in them. Now you might think that's the interesting bit no no no no that's not the interesting but as soon as you you look at them And you you immediately see what's lacking in them. I just wanted to put them on one side, to to to to to get them out of my sight. I wanted to go back to my studio and start again.

try again. So I make the same thing over I was making to begin with tableware, but more and more uh lately I was just making balls. I would just want to go back. I'd I'd Make them over and over again and then each time there would be this confrontation with the firing. You'd see I felt Like like like the Zen master who said, All I see are my mistakes.

when you unpack a kiln, you know, if there was ever a visitor there they Oh, these marvellous things coming out of the kiln. No, I never saw any marvellous things coming out of the kiln. All I could see were were the that the um The few the the the things that were wrong, all I could see were my mistakes, and then there was this impulse to go straight back into the studio and rectify those mistakes, try to make something that was that was th that that

appro that approximated more and more closely s closely to this idea of uh beauty for want of a better word. But then I noticed that towards the end of that thirty years, um The next step ceased appearing. I I felt at one stage I've done all I can do. I I've refined this process. I've taken it as far and I began in the last couple of years I began to get this feeling

There isn't a next step. It doesn't mean to say that I felt that I had arrived. There was never the feeling of having arrived, but it was like I was no longer being pulled inexorably forward towards this. this goal. It was as if it it kind of petered out. I I I had the feeling a number of times in the last few years I I've done everything I can do in this medium.

There's and of course it no coincidence at all that at at around that time I wrote The Transparency of Things, I began to speak about these matters and over a period of a couple of years Uh I began using a different kind of medium. Uh um as I said once. I started making bowls out of words instead of bowls out of clay. And that that was no that was no coincidence, of course, that that that my work as a potter just

over a number of years it it it it just came to an end as this new possibility opened up. And what's interesting, and it's really uncanny, is that I the trajectory of my life as a potter is almost identical to the trajectory as my life as um Uh w one who speaks and writes about about these matters. I started off with a uh I did my apprenticeship. so to speak, with uh Francis Lucia and I was utterly devoted to him as I was to to um

Michael Cardieu. You know, in both cases their words were gospel. I I surrendered myself to to use traditional language. I I kind of surrendered myself to to both of them. I surrendered any d desire or will that I had. I just put myself i i uh uh under them, to to to absorb and imbibe and learn. what they had to give because in both cases I recognized something that th that's what I want.

And and and so there was this very th there was this apprenticeship, uh, which lasted longer with Francis than it did with Michael. It was thirteen or so years. And then uh um I I I uh um N not I I never moved away in my heart, but but I I I stopped attending meetings and retreats. I began was the equivalent of starting my own studio. I left Michael Claudio's pottery. I started my own uh um started my own studio and started making my own things. I I did the equivalent.

W with Francis, I left, I started holding retreats at church farm, and just as I had done with Michael, the first bowls I made were very similar to Michael's. I remember the head of ceramics at Bonham's auction house said to me once after a few years, Rupert, when are you going to stop making pots like Michael Cardew's?

And it had never occurred to me to stop making pots like Michael Cudge. I was just just n d naturally doing w what came naturally to me, and I had trained with Michael, so inevitably I had imbibed his language, and that was language was in It it was evident in my own language. It took several years for for th for Michael's language to fade and for my own voice to begin to express itself. And exactly the same happened with uh Francis when I started giving my own retreat.

I've no doubt that my language, my my metaphors, my lines of reasoning were all uh um h uh highly influenced by him because I had surrendered my mind so deeply to him. It was only over the years that slowly, slowly, slowly hi his voice faded. And and and my own voice began to to to take over. And so so the way I express myself now is almost unrecognisable.

From Francis, just as the pots that I made towards the end of my career as a ceramic artist were completely unrecognizable. You would never have known that I was a a a student of of um Michael Cardiew's. But it but it takes time. But I noticed it was the same process.

Just as I was making the s bowls over and over and over again, refining and refining and refining and refining, it's exactly the same process. Speaking about these matters, which is really always the same matter, the nature of reality, the nature of the self and but but Speaking about it, every time I speak of it it's a refinement. It it becomes more economical, clearer, cleaner, more precise, more experiential, more efficient.

And and the the same process is going on and I sometimes wonder Because of the the similarity of these two apprenticeships, th th the these two um careers, for want of a better Whether although I'd never suggest what I was doing now as a career, but uh uh I I sometimes wonder whether they will end in a similar way. Remember I said about the pottery after thirteen years, I Over the last couple of years I thought a number of times I

There's nothing else for me to say in this medium. I've said I've gone as far as I can go. I've stretched the medium as far as I can go. It this is no longer the right medium. And I sometimes wonder with my with my love my love of language, uh my desire to uh um express the nondual understanding with these clean, clear, efficient

um pathways, lines of reasoning, and and and speaking about the same thing over and over again, refining my language. I s sometimes wonder whether in a number of years' time I'll Feel I've done everything I can do in Word. that I now want to express myself in a different way. And what would that way be? I think it would go more towards silence. I think that would be the the final medium. First of all it was clay, It was words.

So it there was a refinement from clay to words. And then I think the the natural refinement would be from words to silence. And in fact I notice it now, not so much in my online meetings, because Doesn't work so well online, but I I certainly noticed in my live retreats, having started them again, there's more and more silence. There are less words, more silence. I think that's the way it's tending.

So we'll we'll see. We'll see. But I I wonder whether i i the the the similarity between these two trajectories. so uncannily similar. It's as if I'm kind of following an archetypal process that has been handed down in apprenticeships and and with students and disciples and and uh for for centuries.

And um I was going to ask you, from where does this energy come from? Uh don't you ever Get tired of Striking striking that note, you've described your teaching as very simple teaching, and you said you've learned learned only very simple a very simple thing. And then it's just expressing that in all these different ways. I wonder but and that but now uh h hearing you talk about your r your relationship to uh your ceramic work, now I perhaps

uh begin to understand a little bit more about that. I'm curious if you have the same relationship to your teachings as you did to your pots when they came out of the kiln. Perhaps I'll say one more thing about that. I r I remember on one occasion I was uh I attended a talk of yours in San Jose, and sitting next to me I was a friend of mine who's very um also a very acclaimed author.

And we were sitting there and he was talking to me about what you were saying, but not the content of what you were saying, what he said. The he said it with I can't quite replicate the tone, but he said, you know, the thing about Ruby.

Uh on the on the hot you do speak as if you're reading from your book, which then comes from what you've spoken. So anyway, I'm wondering um do you have the same relationship to your teachings like this book? Does this book look like one of your old parts? To you?

And in fact, the best compliment I've ever had from anyone about any of my books was an email I received from someone who uh I can't remember the I think it was th the what the book that preceded Being Myself, Being Aware of Being Aware. He said, I picked it up and he said, I just held the book in my hand and looked at it in its cover.

And the experience took me th th th th th doing so took me to the experience of being aware of being aware. It was a beautiful I don't he he didn't realise, I don't think, but it was to me that was like a the highest compliment that the the non-verbal experience of of just holding the book, look looking at it, it had conveyed its contents.

And and of course th that the same was true of my work as an artist. That that's what I I wanted to uh subliminally convey in a pre verbal way. I wanted I wanted I wanted my work to take, like Cezanne said, to give people a taste of nature's eternity. But to go back to what you said about being prolific, I was very prolific um as an artist. Not that I made a lot of parts which actually i i did too but but it was it was my life

It was not, it was never my work. It was never, that's why my the word career that I use. Five minutes ago was inappropriate. It was not a career, it was my life. It was I I lived it and breathed it. It was just an extension. of my life. So i I was uh there was never any m my my workshop was always a a at my home and um there was no distinction between my life as a work uh as an artist and my life at home. And r really the non-dual understanding is is the same. It it's the it's my entire life.

and now speaking about it, uh writing about it, expressing itself. I don't i i i it's it's uh something that's so integral to my life. And I have this great energy. I love to

To communicate my understanding such as it is, through writing, through words, says there's nothing I enjoy more than being with friends on a retreat, um, exploring these matters. And I have and I mean this literally And sometimes people ask me, uh I'm not implying that you've asked me this, you you haven't, but sometimes people ask me, uh don't you get bored always hearing the same question?

I've been asked that a couple of times recently and and I remember thinking but I've never been asked the same question. If I thought that I was being asked the same question, then yes, I would be bored. But I have never heard the same question twice. If if if I ever did feel that, that would be the time to stop teaching. Because I would be referring on hearing the question, I would be referring to my past. I would not be going to the

The place in that person from which their question comes. And if you go to that place, it's fresh every single time, simply by virtue of the fact that the person's question is their real question. It's coming from their fr fr from their understanding, from their feeling in that moment. And your your your job as a so called teacher, for want of a better word, is is is to go to that place in themselves, to find them there, to meet them there, and then to begin to walk.

with them. So uh I I I I never have the feeling of of being bored, nor is it i tiring. What I to notice is that at the end of a of a week of retreat or two two weeks of retreat, I tend to notice then I I'm tired. But during during the event itself, um It it's it's t tiring i i in that

A tremendous amount of energy. You're you're you're giving out a tremendous amount of energy. But it's not tiring in in a draining or exhausting way. It's it's tiring in in in a actually in a very pleasant way. You just feel you're giving the whole of yourself. to whatever is in front of you. And if it's tiring, well, too bad. So what? You're just just giving yourself completely. What what else would one rather be doing?

And I think it was exactly the same in in the pottery. I was just giving myself one hundred percent to to to to to to my life as a potter making making these things.

And then the other way, of course, is to derive the value of a work inferentially by uh the value of the creator. I by in that sense, uh there can be uh And perhaps this this is somewhat to do with marketing, but there can be a sense of uh m making a something of the creator, creating a legend or making a celebrity of them and so on. So the piece in a certain sense becomes owning a a piece of them or becomes a proximity to that sort of legend, if you like.

And I wonder if uh maybe we're stretching the similarities or I'm stretching the similarities too much here, but I wonder your your work uh Constantly coming back to direct experience. Direct experience. Um always bring coming back to that. I wonder also if this dynamic is possible in terms of spiritual teaching or whatever we could say. sort of cult of personality if you like. Um or to say it more psychologically project

looking at you on the stage or whoever it might be on the stage and saying, wow, you know, this is the really enlightened person and et cetera, et cetera. Perhaps missing the point in that way. I'm wondering what you think about that idea. Becoming as you have so well known all around the world now as a spiritual teacher, um, I imagine Uh you deal with the degree of that.

people wanting you to be something or someone or s something like that for them somehow. Uh do you experience that at all? And if so, how do you how do you navigate it? And is the comparison to the art world uh appropriate here?

um or or even intellectual value. It's it's a symbol of the maker. And as you rightly say, by owning a piece of the art, you feel that you somehow subs if not own a part of the artist, you subscribe to a club that is run by the artist and by doing so your own sense of yourself is aggrandized by association. I would say that accounts for a lot of today's art world. Now, going on uh uh transferring that to the to the spiritual realm, I think a lot of that also takes place.

the as you say, the cult of the personality, um in which uh the um Uh you y your your affiliation with a particular person. uh um is is uh cultivated a and um promoted by the person and in in a way that becomes the i it the That becomes primary.

in in in the relationship. You and and Well in in in uh ironically, one one's ego, one's sense of being a separate self is aggrandized by association with a person who in this particular field is considered uh have a certain stature and and and ironically in in this field particularly when so much of spirituality is about the diminishing of the sense of separation or the ego. So to what extent do I feel this takes place in in my life?

Um for the first couple of years when I started um speaking about these matters, I was not aware of people's projection. I was naive about this. And um But after a couple of years it it I I couldn't help but notice it. And I also realized that it was um that it was that it was naive of me not to notice it, but that also it was um It was not only naive of me, but but that it was my responsibility to

as a so called teacher, by putting myself in the position that I was in, speaking, holding retreats, holding meetings, I had a responsibility Not to pretend that this resp pr projection was not taking place, but to see the projection, to understand it, and to learn to deal with it. to uh um to to turn the projection around and and and hand it back. Now it took me a couple of years to uh uh notice the projection, if I think if I'm honest

I didn't really want to notice it. There was a degree of naivety in myself and I think also a degree of denial in my I just didn't want to acknowledge that it was happening. And I I realised, as I said, that this was it it was irresponsible of me. not to acknowledge it. So after a while I began to to notice it and I began to to, I hope, develop um skilful ways of turning it around. But above all, being very careful not to buy it or pull for it in any way.

Because it's hugely seductive, or at least if there is an ego present who requires. other people's um respect, uh adulation, admiration. I if one's if one's sense of oneself needs to be enhanced by other people in this way, then you know the the the uh the i i it uh being a spiritual teacher is is is perfect for for such an ego and and we see this Um so uh um I had to check um one, that there was nothing in myself that was uh

subtly being um enhanced or aggrandized by this by their increasing respect and admiration that I I was receiving. Um I was very clear uh that there wasn't anything in me, but it's something that it's not just a a recognition I came to once, it's something that I've always been very vigilant about. And then I I took great care To uh um to to find ways of turning the projection round.

of not of not um buying it. And I remember having a very interesting conversation with um my friend Bernardo Castrap in in the early days and he said, Well the trouble is Rupert, the more you do to throw yourself off the pedestal, the higher the pedestal becomes. And um I recognize that there is some some truth in that. That that I uh for instance I I I recognize at least that one can seem To try to throw oneself off the pedestal whilst at the same time subtly pulling for people's attention.

somebody asks you, um, uh this never happened to me, but but uh uh somebody asks the teacher, wh why do you continue to allow

uh um your students to come and kiss your feet and and or or th and and and and you answer, oh, it it's nothing to do with me. It's just I just leave them free to do whatever they like is th this this pretense that what is taking place is not being orchestrated by you to me is an example of Someone who tries to take themselves off the pedestal, but in the fact at the same time colludes with their being o on the pedestal. So um I'm I take a lot of care um in my retreats.

Not to send any message whatsoever. that I'm uh uh different from anybody else. And of course I No one would actually say that, but that there are ways that one can behave. One can behave in in such a way that you convey this attitude subliminally. For instance. I remember the first time I went to Omega.

And I was being the first time I held a retreat there I was being shown around the the I think you've taught at Omega haven't you yeah, so you remember the big dining hall there where seats 400 people and that so I was shown around and then the person showing me around said and then this little room here, this is where the teachers eat.

And I remember she took me into this miserable little room, g sh shut off from everywhere else, where I was supposed to have lunch and dinner on my own. I looked at her and said, Y you've got to be joking. You you expect me to have dinner in here

on my own. But what what about all my all all my um all the people that are attending the retreat? I I want to to be to me Oh no, no, she said this is this is so that you can be apart from them so that they won't bother you so And and I realised so uh of course I I I never use the room if i if I um If I'm on a retreat I just sit down at the table l like everybody else and and um um join in the uh the the conversation and

Actually, uh it was on this last retreat on the west coast at the Mercy Center. I think I said during a meeting once we were talking about this. And I said, You know, there's nothing I like more than sitting down at a meal with a whole group of you round the table, and to be completely ignored by you.

It's like th nobody nobody stops talking, nobody turns to you in a deferential way. No, no, no. It's just like you sit down like everybody else. Yeah, ten minutes later you're next door. They might turn around and say something to you. But I I I I go out of my way. To be exactly the same as in little details. I sit in the same kind of chair.

I don't need a th why should I sit on a chair that's more comfortable than everybody else? Why should I sit on a chair that's bigger than anybody else's? They've got to sit for two hours on a chair. Why shouldn't I? Um I don't expect people to stop talking when I come into a room. Well why why should people stop talking when I come into the room? I mean nobody stops talking when anybody else walks into the room. It's I I uh these are the little details.

Th I could give you more examples, but but s suffice to say that I'm I think think I I've searched my heart, I think this is a hundred percent genuine. I I I do my my very best and I I say to people please do not Think of me or refer to me as a spiritual teacher. I do not consider myself a teacher. I like friendship. I I'd like to I want to be your friend. I want to be I want you to be my friend. It's like a kind of spiritual friendship.

That that that's the that's the quality of this relationship. There's absolutely no hierarchy in it. If if you're asking me a question, you temporarily become a student. I temporarily become a teacher. But if I ask you a question, then I become your student and you become my teacher. And in the absence of any question or answer, we're neither a teacher nor a student. We're just friends. with no hierarchy at all. So I think that's very important. And I think it's in these little details.

that the real teaching takes place. I think this is where the Uh I think this is where you can really tell the quality of a teaching, not just in the fine words that are used, but but but in the actual quality of the relationship that takes place in the community of people that that that gather around the teaching.

Sorry, that was rather a long winded answer. I hope I've I've responded to your um to your question there.

I can't see a correlation with what you're doing now. I can't see many uh so I'm asking you, I suppose, is there a similar sort of is there a workshop that functions to keep you honest in some sense? Um think can happen in both worlds and it can be a sort of f feedback loop. The they like it. I guess it must be good.

Good. I guess I must be a great artist. Or I guess I I guess I must be, you know, enlightened. Gosh, maybe these words which I hadn't really thought that much about, my they're responding very well. Gosh. Uh I guess I must be maybe I've got it. I guess I have it. You know, something like this. This is a feedback loop in the way.

So I'm wondering um if if there's a workshop for you in that same way. And also I'm wondering that um something that perhaps can happen is the artist or themselves can begin to confuse the acclaim with the uh value of what they're producing. So therefore they can become artists of attracting acclaim. Yes.

It's not true of all artists who become public figures, but I was very private as an artist. I spent my life in my studio. I never went anywhere for thirty years, except for you know, when I was having an ex exhibition or with my family of course, but um So I was never a personality as an artist. I was rather actually rather reclusive. I just spent my life in my

Whereas now it's obviously uh I go as a person to speak at meetings and retreats. So the the the claim is direct. You know, I think that if one is relatively free of ego oneself, I don't mean to say that one is perfect, I don't think anyone is perfect, but but to the degree that one is free of ego oneself, that message is subliminally conveyed without having to speak of it. And it places the other in the correct relationship to us.

and that if we in turn are in the presence of someone with very little ego, We are almost compelled, at least those of us that are sensitive to these matters, it's not always the case. We are almost compelled by the way they comport themselves to behave in a reciprocal way. So I feel that I get very little um Adulation Um Yes, peop people respect me, but no more than I respect them. There's very little uh on on my On my retreat.

If you didn't if you didn't actually attend one of the formal meetings themselves, you'd be hard pressed to know who was in charge. If you if you were walking around the r the the building, apart from informal meetings obviously because I'm sitting up front. But apart from that, you y you wouldn't know who is who is in charge.

personality, a great teacher. That th then then because that that's an an ego that needs to do that. Um And even if someone does come to begin with with that attitude, they get taken up by the by the group of friends, the people that have been around this teaching for a while, and they very quickly that that projection uh is dropped, that they learn from the others, from the old timers, very quickly that this is just Is we just don't do that.

cult personality thing. After a couple of days people p people get the hang of it. So it I don't really feel it's something I have to deal with very much now.

You're pro I mentioned you're prolific all over the internet. Type in Rupert Spyro on YouTube and many, many interviews going into great depth, many, many talks going into great depth. So um that's all that's all readily available and I'd encourage people to to check it out. Well uh couple of c a couple of questions though in that area. Um You've said, and this is I think a great quote, I modelled myself from Romana Maharshi for twenty years and failed spectacularly.

in truth or reality, for want of a better word. So I had these two loves and um Uh of course I the third aspect of I also loved love itself. I loved relationship, but Um there were these two um two main interests, uh um, truth and and and and beauty. But the um in the classical uh system of Advaita Vedanta

with a negation of objective experience. I'm not my mind, I'm that which is aware of my mind. I'm not the body, I'm that which knows the experience of the body. I'm not the world, I'm that which perceives the world. That The classic neti neti, I am not this, not this, not this approach. And some traditional schools of Advaita Vedanta don't go further than that.

my case, there was no in in in the teaching that I was studying, there was no rejection o o of the world and the body. But it was not really included in one's meditation, in one's exploration. Um uh um by day I was making objects out of uh out of uh um clay, water, fire. So there was a contradiction here for me. I loved making things, objects.

And yet philosophically I was always being I was always turning my attention away from the object objective content. That th the world was considered a a distraction. Um objects were considered to be made out of stuff called matter as opposed to one's true nature of pure consciousness. So there was this tension, this conflict between in me, between my love of objects. and my interest in that which knows.

the objective content of experience. And and this was a it was a it was a um it was a source of conflict for me. I felt that these two passions were somehow mutually exclusive. And it was supported at least subtly by the classical advita teaching. And it wasn't until I met

Francis, and it was it's one of the things that I'm perhaps most grateful for, that I that that I realised that my love of truth and my love of beauty are in fact then they're not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are the same love. The beauty is just the name we give to reality when we approach it through perception. And truth is the name we give to reality when we approach it through thought.

I had considered truth and beauty to be opposite and therefore in conflict with each other. And it wasn't until uh I met Francis that I realized that this was a misunderstanding, that they were in fact two facets of the same love, and really that that reconciled something that had been really very troubling for me and in fact my career as an artist kind of began to take off because it was no longer, I was, I no longer felt apologetic about it.

I had felt apologetic, at least to a degree about it, because it somehow conflicted with my study of the Vedantic tradition. Now that this removed that conflict and it was enabl I w it it enabled me to give myself a hundred and fifty percent to my work as an artist without holding anything back for the sake of truth.

private, inner. I think this this remov and and of course my my interest in beauty was to do with my work in the world, objects, materials, activities. And this this I think it removed um not only the conflict between my love of truth and my love of beauty, but it brought my love of truth out into the world. It it it ceased to be something private. It integrated more with my everyday life. I don't think.

th this barrier between my internal life and my life out in the world, it it it began to diminish. Um I didn't feel there were there were two camps. in my life to to to to different elements that that they it it kind of unified my life. Everything I was doing, it was all essentially about one thing.

Perhaps one question to to end then on a little bit on this theme. One often One sometimes hears of artists who

uh in themselves that makes the the friction that seems necessary to pr M um motivate. uh somehow that's been resolved or quieted by the their spiritual quest or so. So one sometimes hears that that oh I was a poet, I was uh this I was a that and then XYZ I I you know had an experience or over time uh i it the spiritual side just sort of subsumed the art somehow. And uh

So I suppose my question now is How do you see that relationship, then, between now, between the Uh these different aspects of your life and that crossover period. Have I characterized it correct correctly? And if not, um where have I where where have I mischaracterized you? And what do you think of the the storyline of the artist being eclipsed by the spiritual Impulse.

If they become deeply interested in spiritual matters and begin to find relief from their suffering through their spiritual inquiry, then the motivation that previously underlay their art. will uh uh diminish and they may no longer feel any motive to work. as you say, that that their impulse to to to work will be eclipsed by their interest in spiritual matters. However, not all artists are motivated by suffering.

It's quite possible that one would be uh motivated as a as an artist to to to um to penetrate through uh as for instance Cezanne was, to to to penetrate through appearances, to to to to somehow apprehend the reality that is appearing to us as the world. And that one's art is the means by which one makes that exploration into the into the reality of the world that we perceive. In in which case, uh, one's work as an artist i is of the highest spiritual order. It it is what uh a a mystic is doing.

uh um either penetrating deeply into themselves to know the essential nature of themselves, or uh trying to penetrate through appearances to see the the unity of being that uh lies behind the multiplicity. In which case, the more deeply one goes into one's um spiritual inquiry or practice, um uh the the more deeply this informs your work as an artist and your work as an artist will grow with as you mature spiritually. Now I think I w I'm in the latter camp. I'm not to say that I didn't have my

fair share of suffering as I grew up, although I had basically a a a happy childhood and a and a happy youth. But my I never uh um approached the arts. I never had the desire to become a potter in order to relieve suffering. Uh on the contrary, when when I when I first saw that exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre of my course, I I was I was blown away by the experience of beauty. It was the first

It wasn't the first time I'd experienced beauty, but it was the it was the most powerful experience of beauty I had ever had. And I just thought, I want to know what that is. I want to make things that have that. same power to to give people the taste of nature's eternity. Suffering didn't come into it. So I think that's why you you you very um astutely uh observe that that for me uh m my my my work as an artist actually took off. It was liberated.

and and and it followed. It it just it became deeper and and deeper as my uh my exploration and investigation of of of of spiritual matters uh grew and became deeper. They went hand in hand.