*Presence: Volume II – The Intimacy of All Experience* By Rupert Spira
This summary provides a comprehensive overview of Rupert Spira’s book “Presence: Volume II – The Intimacy of All Experience.” It continues the themes of Volume I (*The Art of Peace and Happiness*), focusing on direct, non-dual understanding of awareness and its inseparable intimacy with all experience.
1. Core Focus
While Volume I emphasizes the recognition of awareness as the background of all experience, Volume II explores the inseparability of awareness and experience. Spira demonstrates that experience itself is never apart from the awareness in which it arises, thereby dissolving the apparent boundary between subject and object.
2. The Nature of Experience
Spira shows that all experiences — sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings — arise in and are made of awareness. There is no gap between awareness and the content of awareness. Thus, the intimacy of all experience refers to the fact that experience is never something 'other' than awareness itself.
3. The Illusion of Separation
The sense of being a separate self depends on the belief that awareness is located in, or limited to, the body-mind. By investigating our actual experience, Spira demonstrates that no such boundary exists. Experience is seamless and indivisible.
4. The Collapse of Subject-Object Duality
Traditional dualistic thinking divides reality into 'self' and 'world' or 'subject' and 'object.' Spira reveals that this division is conceptual rather than experiential. In reality, what we call objects are modulations of awareness, and the subject — pure awareness — is not apart from them.
5. Everyday Life and Practice
Spira emphasizes that this understanding is not abstract but profoundly practical. The dissolution of separation brings with it freedom from alienation, fear, and the constant search for fulfillment. Life becomes infused with peace, openness, and love, as one realizes the world is not opposed to us but is our very being.
6. Style and Pedagogy
Volume II, like Volume I, combines philosophical clarity with experiential exercises. Spira uses simple, direct pointers and metaphors to guide readers into recognizing awareness in all experience. His style avoids technical jargon and remains rooted in lived experience.
7. Central Themes in Summary
- Awareness and experience are not two, but one.
- The separate self is an illusion maintained by thought.
- Reality is non-dual: seamless, intimate, and ever-present.
- True peace is found not by changing experience but by recognizing its nature.
- Love naturally flows from this recognition, as the apparent 'other' is seen
as oneself.
8. Contribution to Non-Dual Understanding
Together with Volume I, *Presence* offers a comprehensive exploration of Rupert Spira’s teaching. Volume II deepens the inquiry into the non-dual nature of reality, showing not only that awareness is our essential nature, but also that all experience is its intimate expression. This dissolves the final sense of duality and reveals the unity of being.