Rupert Spira

Rupert Spira is an English spiritual teacher, philosopher and author of the "Direct Path" based in Oxford, UK.

Spira considers that his spiritual journey started on reading the poetry of Rumi at age fifteen. Following in his parents' footsteps, he studied at Colet House, London under Dr Francis Roles, himself a student of mystic-philosophers Ouspensky and Gurdjieff and the mantra meditation of Swami Shantananda Saraswati. This also led him to an interest in classical Advaita (non-duality) while he also continued to investigate Sufism through the art of Mevlevi Turning, a form of sacred movement combining prayer and meditation. He also read teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi and, in the late 1970s he attended Krishnamurti’s last meetings at Brockwood Park.

In the mid-1990s meetings with Robert Adams and Francis Lucille led Spira to the Direct Path teachings of Atmananda Krishna Menon which forms the basis of his own 'no-nonsense' Direct Path approach to spiritual awakening.

In essence Spira teaches that ‘The greatest discovery in life is that our essential nature does not share the limits or the destiny of the body and mind'. He suggests that a form of happiness, a satisfying if unexotic 'enlightenment', can be found if one can identify with the I that lies behind the imagined I of feelings and thoughts.