How may we find happiness and peace?In this book, Rupert Spira distills the message of all the great religious and spiritual traditions into two essential truths: happiness is the very nature of our self or being, and we share our being with everyone and everything.Drawing on numerous examples from his own experience, Spira demonstrates that to seek lasting happiness through objects, situations and relationships is destined for failure and disappointment, a...

'Full of twists, the emphasis is on comedy . . . but the extraordinary Holmes can pull the heartstrings too.' THE TIMESThe McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim.Who hasn't wondered for a split second what the world would be like the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But ...

Everybody is aware, all seven billion of us. We are aware of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. All people share the experience of being aware, but relatively few people are aware that they are aware. Most people’s lives consist of a flow of thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, sensations, sights, sounds, and so on. Very few people ask, 'What is it that knows this flow of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions? With what am I aware of my experience?'The knowing of our bein...

Being Myself is a contemplative exploration of the essential nature of our self.Everyone has the sense of ‘being myself,' but not everyone knows their self clearly. In most cases, our sense of self is mixed up with the content of experience and, as a result, its natural condition of peace and happiness is veiled. Through investigation and analogy, the meditations in this collection take us back to our true nature again and again, until we ...

In The Heart of Prayer, Rupert Spira elaborates on the understanding that the peace and happiness we seek can be found in the knowing of our own being. Drawing on the wisdom of Being Aware of Being Aware and Being Myself, this new volume explores another essential aspect of meditation—that which is known as union with God and traditionally approached through prayer.The belief shared by most people that we are a separate person, a tiny part of a vast world...

Our world culture is founded on the assumption that the Big Bang gave rise to matter, which in time evolved into the world, into which the body was born, inside which a brain appeared, out of which consciousness at some late stage developed. As a result of this “matter model,” most of us believe that consciousness is a property of the body. We feel that it is “I,” this body, that knows or is aware of the world. We believe and feel that the knowing with which we are aware of our experience ...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.The ‘Great War’, from July 1914 to November 1918, was without parallel. It brought to an end four dynasties, ignited revolution, and forged new nations. It introduced killing on an unprecedented scale, costing an estimated nine million lives. It was the war that destroyed any notion of romance or chivalry in battle; it pulled in combatants from nations across the globe and shattered them, body and mind.The War involved a...

'Full of kindness, even tenderness... He is a brilliant writer: opulently gossipy as few are these days, but also truthful, witty, wise and stoical' Rachel Cooke, Observer'Everett is a brilliant writer - funny, waspish, warm and seductive' Camilla Long, The Times'[An] eccentric and exquisite new collection of stories' TatlerRichly imagined and extraordinarily affecting... Everett is a terri...

Your self, aware presence, knows no resistance to any appearance and, as such, is happiness itself; like the empty space of a room, it cannot be disturbed and is, therefore, peace itself; like this page, it is intimately one with whatever appears on it and is thus love itself; and like water that is not affected by the shape of a wave, it is pure freedom. Causeless joy, imperturbable peace, love that knows no opposite, and freedom at the heart of all experience…this is your ever-present na...

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 ...

“Rupert Spira is one of the great souls. Read his books, and be clarified.”—Coleman Barks, translator of Rumi, including Soul FuryA contemplative poem about the intimate, impersonal, infinite nature of being.In A Meditation on I Am, Rupert Spira contemplates the essential nature of our self before it has been conditioned or qualified by the content of experience. It is a poem, a prayer and a hymn of...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD PRIZE FOR FICTION WITH A SENSE OF PLACE'His confident, spellbinding prose is jewelled with uncanny details, gliding along in language that strikes, unsettles, and reawakens at every turn...This is a brilliant book' Maya C. Popa'Cool and controlled...Electrifying...Reading Rupert Thomson novels can easily become an obsession' The Times--------Set on the eve...