Hi Gordon—
You said something the other day that’s been sitting with me like a bell still ringing in the quiet. When I asked if you watched that Rupert Spira video I sent—the one titled "If You Want to Know the Nature of Reality, You Must Know the Nature of Yourself"—you replied:
“No, I did not. The title seemed to tell me I didn't need to, as it clearly states all we see around us is unreal.”
Now, I get that. I really do. (I get that all you heard was the title.) There’s a place in me that also nods when I hear something like that. After all, we’ve both read the great mystics. We’ve both walked the path, been burned and healed by it, and still return again and again to its center. The unreal nature of the world? The illusion of form? Yeah—those ideas aren’t new to either of us.
But Gordon, here’s why I’m still writing you.
It’s not about whether we’ve heard the teaching. It’s about whether the teaching still has us. Whether it still calls us deeper. Whether it still surprises us with the mirror we didn’t know we needed.
Rupert didn’t say anything I haven’t heard before. And yet, it stopped me in my tracks—because this time, I wasn’t listening with the mind that wants to agree or disagree. I was listening with the longing.
That same longing you and I have talked about late into the night. The ache in the heart that feels like a homesickness not for a place, but for a condition of being.
As Rupert says in the video, "If we didn’t know the taste of happiness, we wouldn’t know what to seek.” That longing is the memory of our eternity.
You of all people understand this. You've often spoken of your direct experience with God, with the Christ Light, with the blazing inner silence that needs no validation. And I believe you, truly. I've seen it in your eyes. I’ve felt it in your words when you speak of A Course in Miracles—that core recognition that what we are looking for is actually what we are looking from.
But here's the gentle place where I think Rupert might meet you—not as a teacher with new content, but as a brother pointing to a different depth of contact.
He’s not saying “The world is unreal, so forget about it.” He’s saying: yes, the world is a dream, but have you realized who is dreaming it?
And even more—have you returned to that awareness not just in thought, but in the quiet, minute-by-minute rhythm of your life (karma yoga)? Not as intellect and metaphysics, but as feeling?
That’s where he had me.
He spoke of the way consciousness appears to limit itself so it can know itself as form. That to become “someone,” we had to forget that we are everyone. That the Infinite paid for creation with its innate happiness. That separation—this painful masquerade of ego—is the price of admission into this magnificent dream.
He said:
“In each of our hearts, there is this wound. This longing. This memory of our eternity.”
And I couldn’t help but think: That’s you. That’s me. That’s all of us. Even when we think we’ve “got it,” and are "resting on our laurels", we’re still standing at the shoreline of what cannot be spoken or made a notch on our crossbow.
Nisargadatta said, “The I am is the first and the last.” Rupert touches that thread too. And like Nisargadatta, he doesn’t leave us floating in abstraction. He invites us home.
And home is not a new teaching. It’s the place in us that always was. The recognition that doesn’t shout, but whispers, or even remains in the silence.
You once told me that ACIM had a lot to offer you—and that’s part of what made you turn inward. Me too. But what Rupert does in this dialogue is not just reject the world—he shows how to reintegrate with it from truth. Not to escape, but to return as love itself.
In fact, that’s the only point I really want to share here: this isn't about knowing something new. It’s about being reminded—and letting that reminder soften us again.
“Whoever knows their self, knows their Lord,” Rupert says, echoing the Sufi mystics.
And yet, do I know the Self fully today? Could I still be clinging to subtle identities, even spiritual ones? Can I taste this moment’s “I Am” without adding any label to it?
Brother, you and I both honor silence as the highest truth. And yet, I’m learning how easy it is to protect ourselves with silence instead of letting silence strip us. Letting it make us naked again, a concept Rupert expresses so beautifully.
So that’s why I keep listening. That’s why I keep watching.
Because sometimes, even the most familiar truths carry a different flavor when heard from a heart that’s cracked open just a little more.
And that’s my only invitation here. Not to say you’re missing anything. Just to say: maybe there’s another scent in the air, another note in the music, another moment to surrender that we hadn’t noticed before.
I love you. I honor your path. You are my brother—in soul and in Spirit.
But if you ever feel the nudge, the pull, the whisper, here’s that link again. Not as a lesson. Not as content.
But as communion.
👉 Know Thyself Podcast with Rupert Spira
With love, Bill