I Feel I Don’t Belong in the World | Rupert

‘I feel I don’t belong in the world, but I love the world very much!’

A woman asks Rupert to help her understand the conflict she feels between this sense of not belonging and loving the world?

Rupert says: ‘Many of us feel we don’t belong in the world. And that’s right, because what we are is not of the world, or of the flesh – it’s of the spirit. So, we feel this restlessness, this discomfort. And for many of us, in the early stages of our spiritual quest, this caused us to turn away from the world and to reject it’

‘But in my experience, the more deeply we go into this sense of who we really are, we actually begin to love the world more, not less. And I noticed that it gets stronger. I feel that I’m less and less “of the world”, and yet I get touched by people more easily. I love the world more, and I feel more passionate about the world than I used to. It’s a sort of paradox – not a contradiction, but a paradox.’

*This video is from one of Rupert’s in-person retreats at Mandali, 7–14 September 2024.

Timestamps:

0:00 I Don’t Belong in the World
1:30 We Are Not Of the World
2:58 Loving the World
4:12 Thought Creates Time
5:46 The Eternal Now
8:33 Mission Joy