The Dream Metaphor of Mary & Jane (Rupert Spira Summary)

I finally dove deep into the dream metaphor of Mary and Jane from Rupert Spira.

This post is synthesized from several public videos of Rupert Spira describing the metaphor in slightly different ways.

Quick Housekeeping:

I’ve minimally paraphrased direct quotes.
I’ve organized everything into as seamless a flow as possible.
Emphasis has been added in bold for readability/skimmability.

The Dream Metaphor of Mary & Jane (Rupert Spira Summary)

Introduction:

“This is a metaphor which I feel has almost more explanatory power than any other metaphor including the screen and the image.” — Rupert Spira

It’s a metaphor pointing to the similarity between the dream state (many personas, one mind) and the true perspective of Consciousness (many minds, one Consciousness).

The Metaphor:

Mary or Mary’s Mind = infinite Consciousness

Jane or Jane’s mind = finite mind

Mary falls asleep in London and dreams that she’s Jane walking in a forest in Peru.

From Jane’s point of view, she thinks she’s seeing 10,000 things in the Peruvian forest—a world of multiplicity and diversity with separate objects, and she is one amongst innumerable such objects. Everything on the inside of her is made out of ‘mind’, and everything on the outside of her is made out of ‘matter’ (in other words, made out of stuff that is other than herself). Jane thinks, ‘My mind is looking out through my eyes at the world, therefore my mind must be contained in my head. My mind exists in my body’. But, Jane doesn’t really have her own mind—she is not a separate person.

Jane’s mind and everything that seems to take place inside it and outside it, all take place in Mary’s Mind. It’s all Mary’s Mind! Jane is seeing by borrowing Mary’s awareness, but it’s really Mary that is seeing through the agency of Jane. All Jane is really seeing is the inside of Mary’s Mind. From Jane’s point of view, she has no idea that she is a temporary, finite, localized, limited contraction of Mary’s Mind. She knows nothing of Mary, although all there is to her is Mary. If Jane realizes that her mind really belongs to Mary, then what she sees will be relieved of the limitations that her mind superimposes upon it, and all of this will appear not as a multiplicity and diversity of objects but as God’s face.

Mary wakes up. What was the stuff out of which the 10,000 things seemed to be really made of? Mary’s single, indivisible Mind. It was her own, single, indivisible Mind that appeared to Itself as a multiplicity and diversity of objects through the agency of Jane. Mary in London cannot know the Peruvian forest—she can only know her own Mind. If Mary wants to know the Peruvian forest, she has to fall asleep to the nature of her own Mind and imagine that she is Jane—it is only from Jane’s point of view that Mary can know the Peruvian forest. Mary freely overlooks the knowing of her own Mind and assumes the form of Jane—it is through Jane’s mind that Mary knows the inside of her own Mind. Mary’s Mind pervades Jane’s mind—it’s all there is to Jane’s mind—but Mary’s Mind extends way beyond Jane’s mind. Mary’s Mind is extended across the entire universe that Jane perceives. The whole thing is Mary’s Mind. From Mary’s point of view, both the subject and object are inside her—the world is made of her own Mind (Consciousness).

Taking the metaphor further:

Imagine that the dream were to continue but Jane was to die. Jane dies, so Jane’s body leaves Mary’s Mind, but Mary’s Mind remains intact, exactly as it always is. In fact, Jane’s body doesn’t leave Mary’s Mind because there’s nothing outside—it cannot go outside Mary’s Mind. So, what appears to be the death of Jane is simply the unlocalizing of Mary’s Mind. Mary’s Mind ceases to localize itself in the form of Jane; Mary ceases to localize herself as Jane’s mind. Nothing happens to Mary—she doesn’t die or change.

The Meaning:

Each of us are Jane—a finite mind or a point of view in Mary’s Dream. At a certain stage, there is this recognition: there is no such thing as Jane’s mind. That is the experience of peace. It’s the recognition that our minds are Mary’s Mind—our finite minds are only modulations of infinite, indivisible, inherently peaceful Consciousness. Just as the Peruvian forest is the activity of Mary’s Mind, so the universe is the activity of Consciousness’ Mind.

Finite & Infinite, Localized & Unlocalized:

There is something beyond the finite mind, but it’s not stuff called ‘matter’—it’s stuff called ‘Consciousness’. You, your finite mind, are the agency through which Consciousness knows the world.

Consciousness assumes the form of the finite mind and seems to become a separate subject of experience from whose point of view it knows a separate object or world.
From the point of view of infinite Consciousness, it is dreaming the universe within Itself. In other words, the universe is the activity of its own Mind. It’s a vast Mind with a capital M—a vast Consciousness that is dreaming, imagining the universe within Itself.
When infinite Consciousness ‘wakes up’ to Itself, it realizes in order to manifest the universe, ‘I’ divided myself in two: not just one subject of experience, but numerous separate subjects of experience. ‘I’ localized myself as numerous separate subjects of experience, that is each of us. The unlocalized portion of myself is what appears to these subjects as the world. So, all of this is what the unlocalized activity of Consciousness looks like from each of our localized perspectives. When viewed from each of our localized perspectives, the universe seems to be made out of stuff outside of ourselves called ‘matter’.

Our Dream & God’s Dream:

We are all dreams in the Mind of God.

Our dream:

When we have a dream at night, we dream a world within our own mind. But, in order to view that world, we have to enter into our own imagination, and we view the dreamed world from the perspective of a separate subject of experience in that world.
Could it be that we are now having a kind of waking dream, and that what appears from the point of view of each of our bodies to be a multiplicity and diversity of objects is in fact all made out of the single, infinite, indivisible stuff called ‘Consciousness’, or ‘God’s infinite being’, or a common name for it, ‘I’? Is that not consistent with our experience? Nobody here has ever or could ever experience anything other than the knowing of experience. Knowing is the only substance that anyone has ever found.

God’s Dream:

Each of our minds are like points of view within God’s Dream—through which God knows Itself as the world.
Each of our minds are like windows through which God sees Itself as the world. And, each of our minds realizes or actualizes a segment of God’s infinite potential. God needs our mind to know Itself as the world, but it doesn’t need the mind to know Itself as it is.
Each of our minds is a dream in the Mind (with a capital M)—the infinite, indivisible Consciousness. In other words, each of our minds is the agency or the activity through which Consciousness is able to realize a segment of its infinite potential. Consciousness looks through each of our finite minds and sees Itself as the world. This is what the Sufis mean when they say, ‘There is only God’s face.’ Infinite Consciousness is freely assuming the form of the finite mind, and through the agency of the finite mind, is seeing Itself as the world.

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