WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:25.000 [Music] 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:35.000 Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:47.000 We've done over 700 of them now and if this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com and look under the interviews menu, where you'll see them organized in several different ways. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:53.000 This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:58.000 So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the website, 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:01.000 and a donations page that explains more. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:05.000 And also we have a nice team of volunteers that helps with some different things, 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.000 such as proofreading transcripts and so on. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:12.000 So if you'd like to help with those kinds of things, get in touch. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.880 My guest today is Josh Jost. 00:01:14.880 --> 00:01:22.120 Josh started out in a family of strict religious Mennonite people, and he later led a healing 00:01:22.120 --> 00:01:24.840 movement during his youth, and he was the healer. 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:27.320 Some miraculous stories around that. 00:01:27.320 --> 00:01:35.240 He eventually got married, experienced financial hardship, living in drug-filled slums in Scotland, 00:01:35.240 --> 00:01:39.400 I believe it was, cleaning toilets in a factory. 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:46.120 became an advisor to heads of Fortune 500 companies and billionaires and is currently working 00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:50.100 with one of the world's most renowned private islands. 00:01:50.100 --> 00:01:52.720 Josh's journey has been unusual to say the least. 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:58.760 Fueled by his yearning for awakening, his story is about embracing disillusionment as the path 00:01:58.760 --> 00:01:59.960 to enlightenment. 00:01:59.960 --> 00:02:03.440 So he lives in Tahiti, which is why we got our time zones mixed up. 00:02:03.440 --> 00:02:07.160 I was presuming that was way out in the Western Pacific, but it's actually slightly east of 00:02:07.160 --> 00:02:10.760 Hawaii, but it's in the southern hemisphere, and so you're heading into winter, so it's 00:02:10.760 --> 00:02:12.200 all very confusing. 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:14.520 But you don't have winter in Tahiti, I'm sure. 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:18.620 So you live there with your wife and youngest son, and we're gonna start out, I guess, talking 00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:24.280 about your Mennonite upbringing and the topic of disillusionment, of which you said you 00:02:24.280 --> 00:02:26.320 had three major ones. 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:31.720 And I always regard that word as having a positive connotation, because if not being enlightened 00:02:31.720 --> 00:02:35.800 is being in a state of illusion, then we want to get disillusioned, right? 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:42.120 Yeah, I agree with you and thanks by the way Rick for inviting me on the on the show this morning. It's a pleasure to speak 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:44.800 Yeah, so I think that 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:51.960 Disillusionment, I think it's something when you know when you're kind of early in the journey of enlightenment. I think it's a very terrifying thing 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:59.720 When you're invested in your illusion, you know in the illusory world and you start to see some cracks in the matrix 00:02:59.720 --> 00:03:02.160 So to speak then I think that's really scary 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:08.780 I think as you progress it becomes something that you learn to embrace and almost enjoy as a part of like, okay 00:03:08.780 --> 00:03:13.840 There's another part of me that I can let go or another part of my illusion that I can let go and I know that there's 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:16.780 A greater reality that I'm discovering beyond it 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:21.920 So I have come to see it as a positive word, but I don't think it's viewed that way 00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:27.720 You know, I would say in the mainstream. Yeah, I'm reminded of that Queen song and other one bites the dust 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:31.680 as we shed our illusions. 00:03:31.680 --> 00:03:33.680 Seems to be a lot of that going on right now. 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:34.680 Yeah. 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:39.680 So, considering that we're going to have a conversation about your profound spiritual awakening, 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:43.680 which would resonate very much with Eastern spirituality, 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:47.680 the fact that you started out in a strict Mennonite family 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:51.680 necessitates your having gone through some major shifts in perspective, 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:53.680 hence some disillusionments. 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:55.680 Yeah, indeed. 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:59.680 Yes, I was born in Kansas in a small Mennonite community. 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:03.680 You know, there's sort of a spectrum within the Mennonite world 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:07.680 of those that are very ultra-traditional and those that are still quite traditional but not quite 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:11.680 to the sort of ultra-scale. So, some of them look just like the 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:15.680 Amish in terms of how they live and practice and live 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.680 as when they came to the New World a couple hundred years ago. 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:23.680 Others have become a little bit more modern. We've got cars and technology 00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:27.680 and so forth, but I still have a very conservative viewpoint of the world. 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:31.680 So, we were a little bit more in the less 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:35.680 ultra side of things, and that happened to do with my dad decided 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:39.680 when he was young that he was going to become an airline pilot, and you know, my grandfather 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:43.680 told him, "There's no way you're going to fly with those contraptions," but he would sneak up 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:47.680 before Sunday school and Sunday mornings and get flying lessons and 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:51.680 eventually worked his way into a flying career. So, you know, I had this 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:57.680 Very strange contrast between living in a community that was very conservative. 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:01.680 We had a lot of cousins that dressed like they were off the set of Little House on the Prairie. 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:06.680 And being in that sort of community space, and then my dad taking me away on trips, 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:11.680 and then visiting London and Paris when I was a kid, and parts of the U.S., 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:15.680 and having your eyes open to the way the rest of the world was. 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:19.680 So it was an interesting dichotomy to grow up in. 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:25.440 you know, I was very interested in spirituality and purpose and so forth from a young age. 00:05:25.440 --> 00:05:31.120 Matter of fact, I even had at one point, this is when we had moved away, we were living in California, 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:35.760 I had a picture story of Bibles, like a comic book version of the Bible for kids, and I would 00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:39.760 take that in my, I had a little red wagon, and I put it in my wagon, I'd go around the door to door 00:05:39.760 --> 00:05:45.600 telling people about the Bible, because I was just so fascinated with the Holy Spirit. You know, I kind 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:49.760 I guess was always the good kid and sort of did things the way that I was told growing up and 00:05:49.760 --> 00:05:54.560 you know did what I was supposed to and then I think my first stage of disillusionment happened 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:58.880 when I was in high school because I went to of course a Mennonite high school this one was in 00:05:58.880 --> 00:06:05.040 a community in California and I was doing all the right things and inside I just felt so unhappy 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:10.000 I felt really miserable you know I was looking around at all my Christian friends and you know 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.240 I kind of thought you know I think we're all in the same place here we're told that we have the 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:18.360 life, we've got the truth, it's all heaven and joy and all that sort of stuff, but I 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:20.880 didn't feel like any of us were actually living that. 00:06:20.880 --> 00:06:25.580 So I just became a, came to sort of point of personal crisis where I said, okay, either 00:06:25.580 --> 00:06:29.000 this is something that's worth everything or it's worth nothing. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:30.000 There's no in between. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.920 If what we say we believe is true, then it's worth everything. 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:38.240 And if it's not true, then what's the point of spending a life living in these religious 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:39.240 confines? 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:44.240 So I began a journey at that stage where I kind of reasoned that I had several generations 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:48.880 of people who had given up everything several times and migrated around the world because 00:06:48.880 --> 00:06:50.280 of their religious faith. 00:06:50.280 --> 00:06:52.640 They were pacifists, they didn't want to fight in wars. 00:06:52.640 --> 00:06:57.200 That would often be what would cause them to move onto a new country because whatever 00:06:57.200 --> 00:07:00.920 country they're in, we're trying to conscript them into these battles and they felt like 00:07:00.920 --> 00:07:03.640 they were a kingdom, not in this world. 00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:05.000 Governments do what governments do. 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:07.240 They've got to protect their people and so on and so forth. 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:12.920 You know we live in a higher order and you know therefore we don't believe that it's right for us to participate in war 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:17.580 We'll be medics and other things I have family that were like medics and things like that in World War two 00:07:17.580 --> 00:07:22.680 So they moved around the world because of this faith they had and I thought well certainly 00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:26.920 If they were willing to do all of that there must be something to it 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:33.600 I didn't know what but there must be something there worth exploring and I started this period where I said, okay before 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:38.480 before I decided to step out and make my way in the world and just have fun with life, 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:42.320 I'm going to give all this a try and see if there's anything real to it. 00:07:42.320 --> 00:07:48.960 So that kind of disillusionment led to a sort of intention that I made at the time of, I'm 00:07:48.960 --> 00:07:53.460 going to give this a try and if I can find something real here, I'm going to give everything 00:07:53.460 --> 00:07:54.460 to it. 00:07:54.460 --> 00:07:59.840 So I started a period for several weeks where I would just lock myself away in my room and 00:07:59.840 --> 00:08:05.640 I would just start praying and meditating and just waiting for something to show itself. 00:08:05.640 --> 00:08:06.760 And I didn't know what to do. 00:08:06.760 --> 00:08:10.680 I didn't know how to find it, but I just knew I had to find something. 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:14.640 And so it was like several weeks of this where I hit, I guess what you would describe as 00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:19.660 this sort of transcendental state, but I had this experience where I just felt this incredible 00:08:19.660 --> 00:08:22.480 ecstatic joy come over me. 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:26.760 There's a practice that they do in some of the church, which is kind of how it unfolded 00:08:26.760 --> 00:08:27.960 for me. 00:08:27.960 --> 00:08:31.640 terrible name. They call it being slain in the spirit for some reason. I don't think they came 00:08:31.640 --> 00:08:36.200 up with that. But I almost consider it more of a somatic exercise. It's really an exercise of just 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:40.280 sort of surrendering your body physically to whatever experience you're having spiritually, 00:08:40.280 --> 00:08:44.440 and it sort of helps you to open up to that. And so that's what kind of happened. I sort of fell 00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:49.480 down and I was just in this state for I don't know how long, but I woke up from it and I was like, 00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:55.400 wow, this is the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. And I was at the time working a 00:08:55.400 --> 00:09:01.080 part-time job after school in this huge factory in our area and my job was 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:04.280 basically to be the janitor and clean all the toilets so there was something 00:09:04.280 --> 00:09:07.400 like you know 200 men there and I have to go in and clean the toilets every day. 00:09:07.400 --> 00:09:13.240 It was the most disgusting job but I was so enjoying this experience I was having 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:16.800 as I go to school every day I couldn't wait to get there after school every day 00:09:16.800 --> 00:09:20.680 and shut the door I'd lock the door out so nobody could come in and I'd have a 00:09:20.680 --> 00:09:24.600 couple hours cleaning bathrooms without being disturbed and that whole time I'm 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:28.120 just experiencing this transcendental joy. 00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:35.000 So that went on for several weeks and then I had somebody on campus approach me and ask 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.480 me for some advice, just very random, out of the blue. 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:42.600 And so I started opening up about this experience that I was having and he got really interested 00:09:42.600 --> 00:09:45.220 and this was the Imagine Mennonite school. 00:09:45.220 --> 00:09:48.040 There were a few kids there that belonged to local families who sent their kids there 00:09:48.040 --> 00:09:49.340 because they knew it was a good school. 00:09:49.340 --> 00:09:53.480 So he wasn't a Mennonite and he was kind of known as a school troublemaker. 00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:56.680 I told him about the whole experience and I said, "Do you want to try this?" 00:09:56.680 --> 00:09:59.640 I had no idea if it would work, but I said, "I'll let you try it." 00:09:59.640 --> 00:10:00.640 He said, "Yeah, sure." 00:10:00.640 --> 00:10:04.880 We went in the school chapel and I prayed for him. 00:10:04.880 --> 00:10:08.560 He fell down and had the exact same experience that I had. 00:10:08.560 --> 00:10:12.320 He woke up and went, this sort of look of like, "What on earth just happened to me?" 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:15.000 It was in a complete daze. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:16.200 He goes, "This is amazing." 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:17.400 He says, "Wait here." 00:10:17.400 --> 00:10:22.840 He runs out the chapel and he comes back about 10 minutes later with this girl who was the 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:40.040 the 00:10:40.040 --> 00:10:41.640 She's gonna beat me up. 00:10:41.640 --> 00:10:47.740 So I very nervously put my hands on her and I explained what I was doing and did the whole thing and the same thing happened to her. 00:10:47.740 --> 00:10:51.140 But in the process she broke and just started weeping and just crying. 00:10:51.140 --> 00:10:54.840 And she got up and then they're like, "Okay, let's meet here after school." 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:59.840 And then they started bringing all of their friends who were basically all the school rebels. 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:06.140 And before we knew it, we were having these meetings every night at my house where we were having these experiences. 00:11:06.140 --> 00:11:09.540 And then spontaneously out of that, somebody just got healed. 00:11:09.540 --> 00:11:12.860 I think it was like an ear thing or something like that and they were excited and we were 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:14.740 all kind of a bit shocked. 00:11:14.740 --> 00:11:19.740 And this went on for several weeks and then summer came and then of course everybody was 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:21.420 going off to college in various places. 00:11:21.420 --> 00:11:22.780 I was a senior. 00:11:22.780 --> 00:11:25.260 So the whole thing sort of fizzled out at that stage. 00:11:25.260 --> 00:11:30.220 But it really was the start of an awakening for me that there was something more to this 00:11:30.220 --> 00:11:33.020 life and I had to find out what that was. 00:11:33.020 --> 00:11:37.060 And of course this sort of made me a black sheep amongst the Mennonite community because 00:11:37.060 --> 00:11:41.700 you know, they were just horrified that all of this was going on and, you know, this devil work or 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:48.100 whatever it was. So I wasn't very popular in my community when I left, but I spent a year working 00:11:48.100 --> 00:11:53.620 with an inner-city Christian organization dealing with gangs and stuff like that in Fresno, because 00:11:53.620 --> 00:11:58.100 there's a lot of gang stuff there, and sort of did that volunteer. And then afterwards, I went and 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:04.100 joined a Bible college in Hawaii. So I had this vision that I was going to be doing some sort of 00:12:04.100 --> 00:12:08.060 of a Christian ministry, teaching, healing work, that sort of thing. And this was a place 00:12:08.060 --> 00:12:15.380 that was sort of open to that stuff. So I got to Hawaii and had some pretty challenging 00:12:15.380 --> 00:12:20.540 experiences, I mean in a positive way, challenging my ego and my commitment to what I was doing 00:12:20.540 --> 00:12:25.860 and so on and so forth. And I was coming off the back of an experience in Fresno, where 00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:30.700 I'm from, where I had started attending this church there and they had this youth pastor 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:35.420 that I absolutely idolized. And shortly before I finished school, it came out that he was 00:12:35.420 --> 00:12:40.620 doing some inappropriate things with one of the girls in the youth group. I think she 00:12:40.620 --> 00:12:46.860 was over age, she was 18, but still it was incredibly inappropriate and so forth. And 00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:50.700 so he was overnight fired and moved away. And it really shook me because I just thought 00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:55.580 that this guy was the closest thing to Jesus that I had met. So that was kind of really 00:12:55.580 --> 00:13:00.180 weighing on me when I was in Hawaii because I just thought, I don't want to end up like 00:13:00.180 --> 00:13:06.900 that. I don't want to have some sort of a gift and get carried away with that and so forth and then 00:13:06.900 --> 00:13:13.220 someday end up like him because I've not developed the character to contain that. So that was a kind 00:13:13.220 --> 00:13:18.580 of the second stage of somewhat of disillusionment with the trappings of success and worried that 00:13:18.580 --> 00:13:24.340 success would become too much for me and I sort of had this feeling of I want to know that I'm doing 00:13:24.340 --> 00:13:30.500 what I meant to be doing in this world. So I made an intentive prayer to say, "Okay God, whatever 00:13:30.500 --> 00:13:36.500 you have for me in this life, I want it. I want to live the fullness of whatever I'm here to do, 00:13:36.500 --> 00:13:41.380 but I don't want you to release me into that until I'm ready." I wanted to make sure that I had the 00:13:41.380 --> 00:13:48.020 foundation right before that. And so I expected that, you know, it would be sort of a couple years 00:13:48.020 --> 00:13:52.820 of training and development and then I'd start on my way. And then it was just like at that stage, 00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:59.460 my whole life just took a turn for the worst. And it just felt like everything started falling 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:04.060 apart, going wrong, to the point that I ended up marrying somebody that I met there who's 00:14:04.060 --> 00:14:09.220 from Scotland. She got pregnant within a few months of us getting married. I had to drop 00:14:09.220 --> 00:14:13.820 out of Bible college to look after her. We moved to the north of Scotland where I had 00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:17.620 like five days of sunshine a year. I mean, I literally one year I could count on one hand 00:14:17.620 --> 00:14:21.980 how many days of sunshine I had. And this is for a kid from California. You know, I'd 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:27.140 I come from this fairly comfortable middle class American upbringing and we show up there, 00:14:27.140 --> 00:14:29.140 there's no money, I struggle to find work. 00:14:29.140 --> 00:14:34.380 I eventually found a job at a restaurant working double shifts, trying to look after this baby 00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:35.580 that was coming. 00:14:35.580 --> 00:14:42.300 So we had no options for anywhere to stay and we went to the local government council office 00:14:42.300 --> 00:14:46.760 and they have a homelessness division and we went in and said, "We need a house, can 00:14:46.760 --> 00:14:48.720 you give us something?" 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.260 So they took us as a part, you get one choice. 00:14:51.260 --> 00:14:55.740 They give you one option and then if you don't take it, well, you're in a hostel or sleeping 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:57.060 rough in a car. 00:14:57.060 --> 00:15:02.540 So they take us to this apartment and I show up and it was just horrific. 00:15:02.540 --> 00:15:06.900 This woman who lived there for the better part of her life, chain smoking and died in 00:15:06.900 --> 00:15:07.900 the apartment. 00:15:07.900 --> 00:15:13.300 So all of the ceiling and the walls were just covered in years and years of cigarette tar. 00:15:13.300 --> 00:15:16.520 And she had carpets which had just been put down roughly with carpet staples. 00:15:16.520 --> 00:15:20.360 So the council had come in and just ripped the carpets up, but they hadn't removed all 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:25.000 the staples. So you imagine the floor was just filled with almost thousands of razor-sharp 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.000 spikes and I'm thinking I'm about to bring an infant into this house and I can't even 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:34.160 put it on the floor. And it was just awful in this area. I went to work and told people 00:15:34.160 --> 00:15:37.320 where we were living and they're like, "No, you can't be living there." I was like, "Why?" 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:40.840 They're like, "Well, that's Little Bosnia." Because that was during the Bosnia War and 00:15:40.840 --> 00:15:46.320 it was like, this was just seen as a war zone locally. So we worked and kind of made the 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:52.440 best of that place and scrubbed walls and pulled up these needles from the floor and kind of 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:53.760 made our best out of it. 00:15:53.760 --> 00:15:57.080 But there were times where we'd come home in the evening and there was blood all over our 00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:00.240 door because somebody had been shooting up under our light. 00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:04.180 The lawn right in front of our apartment was just riddled with hypodermic needles. 00:16:04.180 --> 00:16:07.400 We had to pull probably about 40 or 50 out of there. 00:16:07.400 --> 00:16:10.640 And you know, we have people pounding on the windows at night and I mean, it's just on and 00:16:10.640 --> 00:16:11.640 on. 00:16:11.640 --> 00:16:14.680 It was just absolutely one of the darkest experiences of my life. 00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:16.760 And I was serious in that dark night of the soul. 00:16:16.760 --> 00:16:18.880 I felt like completely abandoned by God. 00:16:18.880 --> 00:16:21.160 I felt like, God, where are you? 00:16:21.160 --> 00:16:25.520 I've given my life to you and this is where you put me and so on and so forth. 00:16:25.520 --> 00:16:29.920 So we finally managed to find a better house in a better part of town. 00:16:29.920 --> 00:16:33.120 And this is where the story almost gets better. 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:38.400 We move out of there and it was the private landlord who was going abroad for a year. 00:16:38.400 --> 00:16:41.840 And I knew we were just on the edge financially what we could afford. 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:43.480 She had done a deal for us on the rent. 00:16:43.480 --> 00:16:46.860 I said, "Okay, if we rent this from you," and we were doing each other a favor because she 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:48.680 didn't want to give up her house if she moved away. 00:16:48.680 --> 00:16:50.360 So I said, "We rent this from you. 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:54.360 We need to know we've got a minimum of a year to be able to live here because hopefully by 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:58.400 that stage I'd be financially better off, but any less than that, we'd be in dire straits." 00:16:58.400 --> 00:17:01.780 So she agreed, minimum of a year, it was a handshake agreement. 00:17:01.780 --> 00:17:07.120 She went off, decided six months later that she didn't want to be abroad anymore and she 00:17:07.120 --> 00:17:09.680 was coming home and she wanted her house back immediately. 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.120 This happened to happen right over Christmas. 00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:17.520 And we had just broken up work from Christmas, but just before Christmas, 00:17:17.520 --> 00:17:22.480 I basically got let go from my company because they were in financial difficulty. 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:27.120 And my wife was six months pregnant again at the time with our second. 00:17:27.120 --> 00:17:32.400 So it was Christmas time, nobody was hiring, there were no jobs available at the time. 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:38.640 We had no income, we had no savings, and we were just being kicked out of our house again. 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:43.200 So we went back to the council office and asked them for another apartment. 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:47.520 And they took us out, again, one option, they took us out to this neighborhood. 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:50.160 I later on found out it was where they put all the pedophiles. 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:53.120 And now I've got a young daughter, I've got another one on the way. 00:17:53.120 --> 00:17:57.120 And the apartment is the exact same story, it's a rinse and repeat from the first one. 00:17:57.120 --> 00:17:59.760 We show up, again, somebody ripped up carpets, 00:17:59.760 --> 00:18:04.000 thousands of spikes on the floor, just completely awful. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:05.520 It's a total slum area. 00:18:05.520 --> 00:18:10.320 And Scotland has those. I mean, drug abuse in North Scotland is just crazy. 00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:16.000 And I'm looking at this place and I'm just thinking, "I cannot do this again. We didn't have an option." 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:23.520 And it was just somewhere inside of me, it was my inner voice or what, but I just had this thought come to mind of, 00:18:23.520 --> 00:18:26.360 "I have to believe that life has more for me than this." 00:18:26.360 --> 00:18:33.480 I didn't know what, I didn't know how, but I just had to believe that there was more in life for me than what we were experiencing. 00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:38.280 So I turned around to the woman there and I said, "I'm sorry, we're not going to take this." 00:18:38.280 --> 00:18:41.000 My wife was shocked. She knew we didn't have any options. 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:44.200 But I just said, "I can't do it." I told her, "We have to believe there's more for us." 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:48.280 So we didn't know where to go. So we begged some friends and they let us stay on their 00:18:48.280 --> 00:18:52.920 guest room on the floor. And we all happened to also get the flu at the same time. 00:18:52.920 --> 00:18:57.720 So it was Christmas. We're sleeping on their floor, posing on them with the flu. 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:02.120 And I just had nothing, nowhere to go and no ideas of what to do. 00:19:02.120 --> 00:19:05.960 And so I put out an email to everyone on my contact list and I said, 00:19:05.960 --> 00:19:08.360 can you please pray for us because we don't have any options. 00:19:08.360 --> 00:19:09.600 We need somewhere to stay. 00:19:09.600 --> 00:19:14.880 And I've got this call a few days later from this very proper, 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:19.160 well-spoken English woman, Scottish woman actually saying, 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:21.800 but spoke with that kind of accent saying, Josh, 00:19:21.800 --> 00:19:24.960 I've heard about your situation. You must come stay with us. 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:29.120 So I've forgotten this woman was on my contact list cause I only met her briefly 00:19:29.320 --> 00:19:31.440 about six months prior. 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:36.160 And she was a very celebrated interior designer in the UK. 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:38.640 She did work for all sorts of celebrities 00:19:38.640 --> 00:19:41.680 and wealthy individuals and so forth. 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:43.880 But she and her husband were very close friends 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:46.720 of Queen and Prince Philip at the time. 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:47.800 And when I say close friends, 00:19:47.800 --> 00:19:50.120 I mean they came over for dinner every time 00:19:50.120 --> 00:19:52.560 they were staying in Balmoral and vice versa. 00:19:52.560 --> 00:19:54.600 They went hunting together. 00:19:54.600 --> 00:19:56.080 Their kids, Harry and William, 00:19:56.080 --> 00:19:59.200 grew up swimming in their pond in the front of their house. 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:05.320 and so on and so forth. And they had this huge Downton Abbey style manor house on a private 00:20:05.320 --> 00:20:10.240 estate up in the highlands of Scotland. And it was just like a whole other world, but it 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:14.320 was an hour outside of where we lived. And she said, we want you to come and stay with 00:20:14.320 --> 00:20:17.840 us. And I'm protesting because I don't really know them. I don't know how I'm going to live 00:20:17.840 --> 00:20:23.000 stay an hour outside of town and find work. So I'm protesting, you know, we can't do that. 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:26.600 She wouldn't take no for an answer. She just kept insisting, you're going to come and stay 00:20:26.600 --> 00:20:30.600 with us. So finally I said, okay, this woman was a force of nature. I was like, okay, we 00:20:30.600 --> 00:20:37.440 load up our car, we drive outside an hour out of the city where we lived and we were within 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:43.000 a mile of their house. And it was at night, so middle of winter, so it's dark, pitch black, 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:47.000 and we're about a mile from their house and I blow a tire. So we're stuck on the side 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:50.120 of the road and we're already running late. And I'm just thinking, oh, these are, they're 00:20:50.120 --> 00:20:53.680 going to be so angry at me. We're keeping them waiting. They're probably foods on the 00:20:53.680 --> 00:21:01.440 table and I sheepishly called her up and I'm thinking I have to be the most ineffective 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:05.000 human being on the face of the planet right now. I can't even put a roof over my family's 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.400 head. I can't even get them to a place of safety. So I was just completely broken really 00:21:09.400 --> 00:21:14.280 at the time. So I called her up and told her the situation and apologized. We'll get it 00:21:14.280 --> 00:21:18.500 fixed. We'll be there shortly. All that. And she says, wait right there. She comes flying 00:21:18.500 --> 00:21:22.760 down the hill in her Audi and gets out with her shawl on and you know, get in the car, 00:21:22.760 --> 00:21:23.760 You know, that sort of thing. 00:21:23.760 --> 00:21:27.800 And load all our stuff in the car and they take us up the hill and it's like driving 00:21:27.800 --> 00:21:29.840 up the hill is the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. 00:21:29.840 --> 00:21:34.320 This house glowing up on the hill and you come inside and you can imagine being an interior 00:21:34.320 --> 00:21:35.320 designer. 00:21:35.320 --> 00:21:38.640 I mean, this house had literally been on the cover of the British version of Better Homes 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:45.320 and Gardens and it was just immaculate, but very sort of traditional Baroque style, I 00:21:45.320 --> 00:21:46.320 believe. 00:21:46.320 --> 00:21:48.280 Not Baroque, it was Georgian style. 00:21:48.280 --> 00:21:52.820 So they take us into the kitchen and all the foods on the table, you know, pheasant and 00:21:52.820 --> 00:21:53.820 wine and all that. 00:21:53.820 --> 00:21:58.320 And we sit down and I'm apologizing profusely that we're imposing on them and, you know, 00:21:58.320 --> 00:22:01.720 all of that and making my assurances we won't be there long, we'll be on my feet, we'll get 00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:03.520 out, be a couple of weeks. 00:22:03.520 --> 00:22:05.160 And she says to me, no, you won't. 00:22:05.160 --> 00:22:06.160 I said, I'm sorry. 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:09.440 She goes, no, you're going to be here for six months. 00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:12.120 And I said, sorry, I always get teary when I tell the story. 00:22:12.120 --> 00:22:16.320 She said, you're going to be here for six months and your baby's going to be born here. 00:22:16.320 --> 00:22:17.320 And that's that. 00:22:17.320 --> 00:22:21.160 I said, "I don't understand." So she and her husband started telling us the story, 00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:25.240 because she and her husband are very spiritual people, you know, within the sort of Christian 00:22:25.240 --> 00:22:31.320 faith, but very intuitive. And they had felt six months before that God had told them that 00:22:31.320 --> 00:22:34.840 the first six months of the new year, they were not to have anybody stay with them. 00:22:34.840 --> 00:22:38.280 Now, they were the sort of people that had people staying with them every single weekend. 00:22:38.280 --> 00:22:42.280 There were always house parties at their house. It was just a very popular place. 00:22:42.280 --> 00:22:46.920 There was just a revolving door of guests coming in and out of that place. And for six months, 00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:49.960 They didn't know why they weren't supposed to have anybody stay with them. 00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:54.840 In other words, they weren't supposed to plan to have anybody stay with them because you came but 00:22:54.840 --> 00:22:57.960 they weren't supposed to fill the place up with somebody else. 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:02.680 Yes, exactly. They knew there was a reason for it. They just didn't know what so they, 00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:07.080 you know, they didn't accept any requests from people. They didn't put out any invitations. 00:23:07.080 --> 00:23:11.240 They cleared their calendar for six months. And then she was in the middle of making Christmas 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:16.600 dinner for her family and she had some time while the oven was cooking and she gets down and sees, 00:23:16.600 --> 00:23:19.400 She's like, "I'll go check my email," which she never does during the holidays. 00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:22.400 She's very disciplined about separating work and family. 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:24.120 But she's like, "I'm going to check my email." 00:23:24.120 --> 00:23:28.400 So she checks her email, she sees her inbox and sees my email, and said to her husband 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:32.680 Andy, she said, "Andy, this is why we weren't supposed to have anybody stay for six months." 00:23:32.680 --> 00:23:35.480 So they said, "We know that you're supposed to be here. 00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:39.500 We've known for six months that somebody was supposed to be here, and we don't want you 00:23:39.500 --> 00:23:40.600 to worry about anything. 00:23:40.600 --> 00:23:42.260 We don't want you to worry about finding a job. 00:23:42.260 --> 00:23:44.400 We don't want to worry about food, diapers. 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:46.160 We have an account at the shop in the village. 00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:47.520 We want you to go and help yourself. 00:23:47.520 --> 00:23:48.480 Just put it on our account. 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:49.560 We'll take care of it. 00:23:49.560 --> 00:23:51.760 And I basically had a six-month retreat 00:23:51.760 --> 00:23:55.120 in the Highland of Scotland in this magnificent home. 00:23:55.120 --> 00:23:57.440 And I was in quite a bit of shell shock at that time 00:23:57.440 --> 00:23:59.980 for the sort of few years I'd been before 00:23:59.980 --> 00:24:02.700 and had six months of just decompressing 00:24:02.700 --> 00:24:06.060 of all of this experience that we had gone through. 00:24:06.060 --> 00:24:08.400 And it just sort of opened me up to, you know, 00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:10.760 know that yes, life will take care of us. 00:24:10.760 --> 00:24:12.360 Life has a plan for us. 00:24:12.360 --> 00:24:14.440 Life has a purpose for us being here. 00:24:14.440 --> 00:24:15.920 And I can trust in that. 00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:19.920 And it's interesting, ever since then, I've never struggled for housing. 00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:24.920 I've lived in the most amazing places well beyond my means ever since. 00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:28.920 We just have the most wild, interesting opportunities come to us. 00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:33.920 And, you know, even like now where we live in Tahiti, I mean, it's just been absolutely incredible. 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:36.920 And we're just so blessed and fortunate. 00:24:36.920 --> 00:24:38.920 And it's just something I've never worried about since that time in my life. 00:24:38.920 --> 00:24:41.920 I always know there'll be a place for us somewhere. 00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:44.920 So that's kind of the first part of the story. 00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:46.560 Maybe take a breath. 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:49.460 Was that disillusionment number one that we just covered? 00:24:49.460 --> 00:24:50.460 That was one and two. 00:24:50.460 --> 00:24:56.420 So the second disillusionment was when I was in Hawaii and I became disillusioned with this 00:24:56.420 --> 00:24:59.760 external measure of what success looked like or had to be. 00:24:59.760 --> 00:25:00.760 Oh, I see, I see. 00:25:00.760 --> 00:25:05.440 My success in terms of what my divine purpose was. 00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:07.180 So that was the second disillusionment. 00:25:07.180 --> 00:25:13.120 And the third disillusionment was stepping back to my Bible college days, because that's 00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:17.920 important to understand here. One of the things I did when I was in Bible college, it was a 00:25:17.920 --> 00:25:22.640 modular program, so you do one course for a compressed period of time. And so I did 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:27.720 a nine-month course called the School of Biblical Studies, which was an inductive course on 00:25:27.720 --> 00:25:34.320 the Bible. So the idea was you set aside all preconceptions about what the Bible's saying 00:25:34.320 --> 00:25:38.120 in terms of the doctrine that you've been taught growing up and your taught principles 00:25:38.120 --> 00:25:44.000 of hermeneutics and how to understand the history around each particular book of the Bible and 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:50.200 apply logic and reason to making sound interpretations of what the Bible is actually saying for itself. 00:25:50.200 --> 00:25:54.400 It's meant to be an approach to letting the Bible speak for itself but understanding within 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:59.040 its context. So every book of the Bible is essentially a letter written by someone to 00:25:59.040 --> 00:26:04.240 someone for a specific purpose. It has a specific message, a specific idea it's trying to drive 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:10.160 home. So to understand, it can't mean anything to us it didn't mean to the original audience. 00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:14.800 So the principle is let's understand what it meant to the original audience and then we can 00:26:14.800 --> 00:26:20.320 understand what might be applicable to us outside of that because some of it is cultural and it was 00:26:20.320 --> 00:26:26.480 speaking to specific context, specific issues at the time. It wasn't necessarily meant to be 00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:32.320 interpreted the way we do in the modern day, which is where a lot of modern Christianity derives its 00:26:32.320 --> 00:26:36.960 proof text things or it takes things very literally and then tries to apply it to our current situation. 00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:42.320 Yeah, that's a healthy approach. I wish that certain political factions could do that with 00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:49.920 the Constitution and the founding fathers as well. Indeed, yeah, we should take that approach with 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:53.520 anything. You know, I mean, if you opened up somebody else's inbox and started reading through 00:26:53.520 --> 00:26:57.120 your emails, you're only getting half the conversation. You're liable to draw some 00:26:57.120 --> 00:27:00.800 pretty strange conclusions without being able to see the entire email thread. 00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.480 Did you have to study Aramaic and Greek and anything like that? 00:27:04.480 --> 00:27:09.360 - Ancient Hebrew, I studied bits and pieces here and there, not enough to where I could read it, 00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:14.160 but you have to get into a lot of word studies to understand because so much of it's locked up 00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:19.280 in figures of speech and metaphor. And that's where it's very commonly misinterpreted because 00:27:19.280 --> 00:27:23.760 we take things literally that were meant as a figure of speech to sort of drive home a point. 00:27:23.760 --> 00:27:28.560 And through the course of the nine months that I was in this program, we had to read the Bible 00:27:28.560 --> 00:27:33.920 five times and write a paragraph by paragraph commentary on the entire Bible. So it was 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:39.000 incredibly intense. You were studying morning till night, but it was also really fascinating 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:43.160 because you saw the way, and you studied it chronologically because people don't know 00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:47.560 the Bible's not chronological in how it's ordered. It's ordered thematically. So you 00:27:47.560 --> 00:27:53.040 have narrative books, you have prophecy books and poetry books and so on and so forth. It's 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:57.500 ordered in that way as opposed to in a chronological order. So some books are chronological within 00:27:57.500 --> 00:27:58.500 they're set. 00:27:58.500 --> 00:28:03.700 Pete: Also, may I ask here, do you believe, as some do, that the Bible is just sort of 00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:10.340 a small subset of all the potential information that it could have included and that there 00:28:10.340 --> 00:28:16.060 are all kinds of things that were either never found or edited out for various political reasons 00:28:16.060 --> 00:28:22.140 or doctrinaire reasons, so that it's not necessarily as complete as it could have been? 00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:27.620 Well, there's certainly indications in what we have that there are scribal changes. Now, 00:28:27.620 --> 00:28:32.700 some of those might not be as malintended as they were. I mean, some of them might just 00:28:32.700 --> 00:28:36.740 be, they misunderstood something and went, "That can't be right. We're just gonna change 00:28:36.740 --> 00:28:41.280 that letter to that." And you also see some differentiations in the manuscripts with some 00:28:41.280 --> 00:28:44.580 of the, you know, the New Testament books where some of them have additional portions 00:28:44.580 --> 00:28:48.780 that were into them that they think were added later. But I think it's an important segue, 00:28:48.780 --> 00:28:50.300 I'm glad you brought that up. 00:28:50.300 --> 00:28:55.740 Just to embellish it just a little bit, so for instance, Yogananda in "Autobiography of a Yogi" 00:28:55.740 --> 00:29:01.660 argued that reincarnation was edited out of the Bible at the Council of Nicaea or some such thing 00:29:01.660 --> 00:29:06.220 and that they didn't do a really thorough job because there are little hints and snippets of 00:29:06.220 --> 00:29:10.780 it that got left in. That's really fascinating and by the way I loved "Autobiography of a Yogi", 00:29:10.780 --> 00:29:15.020 I thought it was a phenomenal book and it came along at a very important time in my life. 00:29:15.900 --> 00:29:21.580 Reincarnation and the Bible is a very interesting topic. There certainly are cases where they 00:29:21.580 --> 00:29:26.540 believed in it, right? Because they believed that Elijah was going to be reincarnated and, 00:29:26.540 --> 00:29:31.020 you know, became John the Baptist. Well, some of them believed that that was Elijah and Jesus said, 00:29:31.020 --> 00:29:36.220 alluded that, you know, he was Elijah reincarnated. Elijah was one of the great prophets, by the way, 00:29:36.220 --> 00:29:40.220 in the Old Testament for those who don't have that background. And then, for example, Jesus, 00:29:40.780 --> 00:29:46.140 many believe was also the priest Melchizedek, King Priest Melchizedek, who was living a second 00:29:46.140 --> 00:29:52.380 incarnation. As Jesus. As Jesus. And Paul talks about, you know, you were a priest, I believe it 00:29:52.380 --> 00:29:56.300 was Paul, you were a priest in the order of Melchizedek, and then he talks about how the way 00:29:56.300 --> 00:30:02.060 that Abraham treated Melchizedek indicated that he believed that he was of a higher level of being. 00:30:02.060 --> 00:30:07.100 He was essentially a divinity because he made a sacrifice to him which he wouldn't have done 00:30:07.100 --> 00:30:11.180 any other way and brought him an offering. So there's those indications, but then when you 00:30:11.180 --> 00:30:16.300 look into New Testament history, there's, you know, for example, Origen, who was a very famous 00:30:16.300 --> 00:30:21.020 New Testament early Christian theologian who was a reincarnationalist. But what I find most 00:30:21.020 --> 00:30:25.420 fascinating, and this is jumping ahead a little bit in the story, but there were three main sects 00:30:25.420 --> 00:30:29.820 within Judaism at the time of Christ. There were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and there was another 00:30:29.820 --> 00:30:34.940 group, they're a bit more enigmatic, called the Essenes. And the Pharisees were the very staunch 00:30:34.940 --> 00:30:42.620 traditionalists, they were the right wing of the day legalists, that kind of thing. And the Sadducees 00:30:42.620 --> 00:30:46.940 were more this sort of contemporary liberal modernists and they were kind of nihilists, 00:30:46.940 --> 00:30:51.340 they didn't really believe there was an afterlife. And they were the ones that kind of ran Israel of 00:30:51.340 --> 00:30:55.500 the day. And then there was this group called the Essenes, they were a little bit more enigmatic, 00:30:55.500 --> 00:31:01.900 they were like a mystical group. And they had, they had, they lived in sort of little communes. 00:31:01.900 --> 00:31:06.940 So, they had one in Nazareth. I believe there was one in Mount Carmel, or it was close to 00:31:06.940 --> 00:31:12.340 Mount Carmel. I know, like, Mount Carmel was very special to them. They had one in Jerusalem. 00:31:12.340 --> 00:31:16.900 They had one in Alexandria, I believe, in Egypt. There was one in Egypt somewhere. And 00:31:16.900 --> 00:31:22.580 then they had one in Qumran, and they kept a library of documents in Qumran, which we 00:31:22.580 --> 00:31:28.440 now know as the Dead Sea Scrolls. And we know from their writing that they were reincarnationalists. 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:33.280 they believed in reincarnation. They also believed that the main priesthood of Israel at the 00:31:33.280 --> 00:31:39.360 time was apostate. What does apostate mean? Oh, apostate, meaning like they lost their 00:31:39.360 --> 00:31:44.200 way in terms of the truth. They were just hypocrites or whatever. Well, it was more 00:31:44.200 --> 00:31:48.440 than that. It was like false teaching. They didn't believe, for example, that God had 00:31:48.440 --> 00:31:53.640 ordered all of these animal sacrifices to be committed all the time. They were vegetarians. 00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:58.720 They didn't eat meat, they didn't kill animals, and they collected works from all over the 00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:01.360 world, including a lot of works from the East. 00:32:01.360 --> 00:32:05.360 So a lot of the Buddhist and Hindu texts were found in Qumran. 00:32:05.360 --> 00:32:08.800 So it wasn't just the ancient Judaic texts that they were reading, I mean, it was everything. 00:32:08.800 --> 00:32:10.800 They kept a whole library of this stuff. 00:32:10.800 --> 00:32:11.800 Nice. 00:32:11.800 --> 00:32:17.460 And then when you look at Jesus, Jesus spent time in all the places where they had communes. 00:32:17.460 --> 00:32:22.480 So he was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth, spent time in Jerusalem, spent his 00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:26.560 boyhood part of it in Egypt when they had to flee. So you know these places where 00:32:26.560 --> 00:32:32.200 they were he lived and a lot of his teachings were actually almost word for 00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:36.400 word out of their teaching. There are a few sort of parables and stuff he told 00:32:36.400 --> 00:32:39.800 that were just like word for word what the Essenes taught. What do you make of 00:32:39.800 --> 00:32:44.280 the theory that he went to India during some of those lost years? It's 00:32:44.280 --> 00:32:47.200 fascinating because the first time I heard that I was like oh that's a bunch 00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:49.880 of baloney and then you kind of hear some of the stories about it and you're 00:32:49.880 --> 00:32:53.000 like, well, it's an interesting prospect. You know, I mean, there certainly was this 00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:56.760 whole long period and, you know, when you look at his teachings, there's a lot in it 00:32:56.760 --> 00:32:59.320 that resembles more of an Eastern philosophy. 00:32:59.320 --> 00:33:04.440 And there are legends in India of someone like him having come there and all. 00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:08.840 Right, exactly. Exactly. There's one particular monastery that claims that they have, they 00:33:08.840 --> 00:33:12.280 call them Iza or something like that, I can't remember what it was, but they claim he was 00:33:12.280 --> 00:33:16.160 there and they have the records of it and so forth. And yeah, it's a very fascinating 00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:22.000 story. Whether he went there or whether it's because he was raised within a scenic community 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:25.520 and had the influence and the teaching of it from within the community, there's no doubt 00:33:25.520 --> 00:33:30.000 that there's an Eastern influence and perspective that he brings because it was very different than 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.800 what you read in the Old Testament, and I think there's a reason for that. A couple other things 00:33:34.800 --> 00:33:39.440 that pointed to Jesus being in a scene, apart from the fact that he taught some of their teachings, 00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:44.160 was also the fact that a lot of the scenes were called "Nazirites" because there was a sort of 00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:48.960 of Nazirite vow that they took. And then a lot of Jesus followers were also called Nazirites. 00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:52.520 So when they say Jesus of Nazareth, it's a double meaning. It was Nazareth because it's 00:33:52.520 --> 00:33:57.640 where he grew up, but it's also Nazareth because the sort of Nazirite vow, which he didn't follow 00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:02.080 Nazirite vow, but he was kind of associated with that group that these scenes were commonly 00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:07.320 referred to. And they were very interesting as a group because they were known for having 00:34:07.320 --> 00:34:13.320 tremendous psychic or prophetic powers and being readers of the stars. And they foretold 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:18.320 to Pontius Pilate that he would rise to power. And that was, they think, the reason why Pilate 00:34:18.320 --> 00:34:21.800 didn't want to condemn Jesus was because of the fact that he knew he was part of this 00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:26.200 group and he had this great admiration for these scenes. And locally, they were also 00:34:26.200 --> 00:34:29.880 known as the healers. They were, that's probably how they're most commonly referred to as 00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:33.760 healers. They're dressed in white and they're the people you went to when you needed some 00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:38.120 sort of spiritual, medical, you know, physical healing. It's just an incredibly interesting 00:34:38.120 --> 00:34:42.000 group of people. And so, when you sort of connect all those dots and the fact that the 00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:45.600 New Testament mentions the Pharisees and the Sadducees but doesn't mention the 00:34:45.600 --> 00:34:49.040 Essenes. It just all points to the idea that it was the Essenes that were writing 00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:52.840 the book, it was the Essenes that were the early followers of Jesus, and he came 00:34:52.840 --> 00:34:55.320 out of that group and they weren't putting the spotlight on themselves, they 00:34:55.320 --> 00:34:59.760 were putting the spotlight on Jesus. And I think that had that sort of influence 00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:02.600 on him, but yeah, coming back to the original question, they did believe in 00:35:02.600 --> 00:35:06.280 reincarnation. And I agree, there are hints throughout the Bible that could speak 00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:11.280 toward there being reincarnation and reincarnation being true and and so forth. 00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:16.280 So, yeah, I think that's a fair comment from what Yogananda said. 00:35:16.280 --> 00:35:21.560 And just out of curiosity, this is a little off topic maybe, but do you think that the 00:35:21.560 --> 00:35:26.880 miracles that Jesus was purported to have performed are exaggerations, or do you think 00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:31.080 that he was such a great being that he might actually have done those things? 00:35:31.080 --> 00:35:33.200 I do believe that those are real. 00:35:33.200 --> 00:35:36.920 You know, whether or not any of it's been story-fied, I don't know, but, you know, I mean, you have 00:35:36.920 --> 00:35:43.040 same stories about some of the yogis in India performing exactly the same things. So if 00:35:43.040 --> 00:35:46.400 he had trained there, he may have developed those abilities there, he may have developed 00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:51.600 them within the Asena community because they were known for that as well. Myself, I don't 00:35:51.600 --> 00:35:57.120 put any question on that. But at the same time, if somebody else questions it and feels uncomfortable 00:35:57.120 --> 00:36:02.280 with it, it doesn't bother me either. I think it's the message that's more important. And 00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:06.000 And so this is where, you know, to your point about, you know, has it been doctored? 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:11.720 The way I look at the Bible is, the Bible and Scripture in general is not the truth. 00:36:11.720 --> 00:36:13.780 It's an account of the truth. 00:36:13.780 --> 00:36:17.520 It's like a window upon which we see the truth or can see the truth. 00:36:17.520 --> 00:36:21.560 And some windows are a bit more clear than others, but no window's perfect. 00:36:21.560 --> 00:36:26.640 There's always these blemishes and so forth that can slightly obscure the picture when 00:36:26.640 --> 00:36:30.240 you look at the detail, but when you stand back, you can see the big picture of what it 00:36:30.240 --> 00:36:31.420 is. 00:36:31.420 --> 00:36:35.460 And so I tend to think in terms of, you know, if you understand the Bible within its context 00:36:35.460 --> 00:36:40.620 and you understand the arc of the story and so forth, you get a pretty clear picture of 00:36:40.620 --> 00:36:43.180 what it's trying to say if you're looking for it. 00:36:43.180 --> 00:36:44.980 But of course a lot of people don't read it that way. 00:36:44.980 --> 00:36:48.900 What a lot of people read it to do is to validate their own beliefs. 00:36:48.900 --> 00:36:53.000 So you know, they start picking and choosing, you know, I like this verse because it makes 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:57.060 me feel good about what I believe and makes us feel like we're the right ones and they're 00:36:57.060 --> 00:36:58.820 the wrong ones. 00:36:58.820 --> 00:37:03.620 And so, we have a tendency to want to kind of read our own subjective viewpoint on it 00:37:03.620 --> 00:37:07.860 and rather than letting it speak for itself and being open to the truth of whatever it 00:37:07.860 --> 00:37:08.860 is. 00:37:08.860 --> 00:37:09.860 Pete: Sure. 00:37:09.860 --> 00:37:13.420 Yeah, I mean, the 19th century slaveholders used the Bible to justify slavery. 00:37:13.420 --> 00:37:14.420 Yeah. 00:37:14.420 --> 00:37:17.820 And so, when you say you got disillusioned with Christianity, it sounds to me like you 00:37:17.820 --> 00:37:21.780 really appreciate Christianity, but you got disillusioned with the kind of Christianity 00:37:21.780 --> 00:37:27.420 that you were familiar with, that you had been raised in, and perhaps even that tends 00:37:27.420 --> 00:37:32.100 to predominate today. Yeah, or maybe I could nuance that slightly. I'd say that the early 00:37:32.100 --> 00:37:36.820 followers of Christ, and they called themselves Christians, that was a label that came later. 00:37:36.820 --> 00:37:41.380 And I think it was a different entity when that came later, because, you know, I think 00:37:41.380 --> 00:37:45.700 the early followers of Christ, they often called themselves followers of the way or so forth, 00:37:45.700 --> 00:37:51.060 but they didn't really put a label to themselves. And that's because Jesus, if you read what 00:37:51.060 --> 00:37:56.900 he was trying to do, he was not trying to start another religion. I believe very much that 00:37:56.900 --> 00:38:00.340 He was there trying to help them transcend religion. 00:38:00.340 --> 00:38:04.660 And where I sort of became disillusioned with it is, you know, so to finish the story, I 00:38:04.660 --> 00:38:08.900 finished that course and I decided I was going to write a book about what I had learned through 00:38:08.900 --> 00:38:10.540 seeing the whole picture of the Bible. 00:38:10.540 --> 00:38:12.780 I wanted to sort of be able to string that story together. 00:38:12.780 --> 00:38:16.700 So I spent another 10 years, this is while I was going through all this stuff in Scotland 00:38:16.700 --> 00:38:22.260 and all these difficulties, spent another 10 years doing a sort of much deeper, more reflective 00:38:22.260 --> 00:38:26.300 journey through the Bible to really try and understand how this story strings together 00:38:26.300 --> 00:38:31.180 and how do you make sense of Jesus and what he taught in light of what seems like a very angry 00:38:31.180 --> 00:38:36.460 God in the Old Testament? How do you reconcile these? And I came out through the end of that 00:38:36.460 --> 00:38:43.020 period with just a profound awe at the book that is the Bible when I knew it in its context, 00:38:43.020 --> 00:38:46.620 but at the same time just a profound disillusionment with Christianity because 00:38:46.620 --> 00:38:51.340 so much of what was being taught in the pulpits was almost the exact opposite of what Jesus was 00:38:51.340 --> 00:38:56.300 teaching. And that was really frustrating. And then when you try to have conversations with people, 00:38:56.300 --> 00:38:59.500 it was just like they just didn't want to know. It's just the walls go up, you know, 00:38:59.500 --> 00:39:05.260 and it's like, blah, blah, blah, you know. Don't tell me anything that sort of rocks my 00:39:05.260 --> 00:39:09.820 view of the world. And I was really struggling with that because it was like, 00:39:09.820 --> 00:39:15.980 Jesus in his context was a liberator. He did things during his time on earth that actually 00:39:15.980 --> 00:39:21.660 showed that men and women were equal. For example, when he was in Bethel and there's a whole story 00:39:21.660 --> 00:39:26.940 about the washing of his feet with the perfume and it said that Jesus had the women sitting at 00:39:26.940 --> 00:39:32.140 his feet. Well, that would have been like shock in their time because the sitting at the feet of a 00:39:32.140 --> 00:39:38.780 rabbi meant that you were a disciple of the rabbi and rabbis didn't have women disciples. 00:39:38.780 --> 00:39:43.660 So, he was showing they have equal place in the Kingdom of Heaven. And there was just many things 00:39:43.660 --> 00:39:48.940 like that and he was trying to set them free from the legalism that religion had brought. 00:39:48.940 --> 00:39:53.660 And what now has happened in Christianity, at least much of it, is what I would call a 00:39:53.660 --> 00:39:58.460 crypto-legalism. You know, we say, okay, you're not under law, you're under grace, 00:39:58.460 --> 00:40:03.660 you know, you're free, right, in Christ. But if you really love God, you're not going to do this, 00:40:03.660 --> 00:40:06.540 you're not going to do that, you're not going to do this, and then you give this whole laundry 00:40:06.540 --> 00:40:11.260 list of things that you have to do and you'll be shunned if you violate those rules. But you're 00:40:11.260 --> 00:40:18.220 you're under grace. And so it's this sort of secret, this kind of hidden legalism and Jesus 00:40:18.220 --> 00:40:22.500 was trying to set them free from all of that and it's just become the same thing over again. 00:40:22.500 --> 00:40:26.100 And so that's where I became disillusioned with Christianity because I became disillusioned 00:40:26.100 --> 00:40:30.580 with the institution of Christianity, not with Christ. And I really wanted to know more 00:40:30.580 --> 00:40:34.900 and I wanted to grow beyond where I had gone in my spiritual walk at the time. And so I 00:40:34.900 --> 00:40:41.940 I remember this time where I had completed this book and I was contemplating what to do, really 00:40:41.940 --> 00:40:46.020 feeling out of place in the church. I hadn't left at the time, but I was very much on the 00:40:46.020 --> 00:40:53.660 fringe and I was introduced to a gentleman in Vancouver Island, he was an older guy, he 00:40:53.660 --> 00:40:59.460 was like in his late 60s at the time, who was just one of the most enlightened beings 00:40:59.460 --> 00:41:03.780 I've ever met. And he has similar background to me, that he came out of a Pentecostal church 00:41:03.780 --> 00:41:09.300 movement, left that, started traveling the world on a spiritual truth quest, ended up 00:41:09.300 --> 00:41:13.700 in India, spent a lot of time there at the feet of various gurus and just, and learned, 00:41:13.700 --> 00:41:18.580 and was just so open and just so vast in his knowledge. And we would start talking on the 00:41:18.580 --> 00:41:23.460 phone every now and then, we'd speak for hours and hours. And he was just opening my 00:41:23.460 --> 00:41:27.940 mind in incredible ways. And what's interesting is a lot of the stuff that I had come to understand 00:41:27.940 --> 00:41:32.540 about Christ was aligning with what he had said, and he told me about, you know, autobiography 00:41:32.540 --> 00:41:37.020 of the yogi and so forth. And then it fascinated me when I read some of what the Indian writers 00:41:37.020 --> 00:41:40.700 had written about Jesus. It was like, yeah, this is the stuff I found out, but it's the 00:41:40.700 --> 00:41:46.220 stuff I've never been taught in the church. And so we would talk on the phone every night, 00:41:46.220 --> 00:41:51.840 and I was sort of more and more opening up to thought outside of the Christian space. 00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:55.620 And I remember at one point, you know, I was really wrestling because at the one time, 00:41:55.620 --> 00:41:58.380 you know, on the one hand, like, you know, leaving the comfort zone of what I had grown 00:41:58.380 --> 00:42:02.140 up in the Christian faith and generations of that. 00:42:02.140 --> 00:42:08.700 To step out of that and open up completely, fully, spiritually, it was scary. 00:42:08.700 --> 00:42:09.700 David Wick was his name. 00:42:09.700 --> 00:42:12.780 He said, "Josh," he said, "what are you worried about? 00:42:12.780 --> 00:42:15.780 Don't you think your father's big enough to get you where you need to go?" 00:42:15.780 --> 00:42:19.420 And it was just like something in me just kind of let go at that stage. 00:42:19.420 --> 00:42:25.540 And I ended up going out for a walk in the forest, and this was at a period where, again, 00:42:25.540 --> 00:42:27.880 I was becoming disillusioned with Christianity. 00:42:27.880 --> 00:42:30.920 My marriage at the time was hitting the wall. 00:42:30.920 --> 00:42:33.580 That was coming apart at the seams. 00:42:33.580 --> 00:42:36.080 And I was disillusioned with life because, I mean, even though we had done better with 00:42:36.080 --> 00:42:39.840 housing, like, it was just nothing that I envisioned for what I was going to do in life 00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:40.840 worked out. 00:42:40.840 --> 00:42:46.200 Everything I tried failed, and I could just never seem to really make any progress in life. 00:42:46.200 --> 00:42:48.080 And I was just done with everything. 00:42:48.080 --> 00:42:51.120 I just felt so fed up with life. 00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:54.640 And I was like, I don't feel like I necessarily want to live anymore. 00:42:54.640 --> 00:42:58.080 I didn't want to kill myself. I had kids, all that. It wasn't like I was suicidal. 00:42:58.080 --> 00:43:01.840 But I also just didn't feel like life had any appeal to me anymore. 00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:05.440 And so I went out and took a walk in the forest. 00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:09.840 We lived in a forest there. I just took a walk and it was along this river. 00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:16.560 And as I'm walking, it was just like that sort of giving up thing just turned to complete silence in my mind. 00:43:16.560 --> 00:43:23.840 And I all of a sudden, I felt like that sort of self-identity started falling away. 00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:33.040 And the way I describe it is it felt like that scene out of Avatar where they first step into the world and they see the whole thing glowing and all that sort of stuff. 00:43:33.040 --> 00:43:39.440 And it was just like I was seeing the world completely differently and everything felt alive. 00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:40.540 And I can feel it. 00:43:40.540 --> 00:43:45.740 And it's just like you could just feel this interplay of connectedness amongst everything. 00:43:45.740 --> 00:43:50.740 And I felt the most profound peace I'd ever experienced in my life. 00:43:50.740 --> 00:43:55.660 There was nothing to fight for, struggle for, anything like that. 00:43:55.660 --> 00:43:59.780 And I came back just a completely changed person from that. 00:43:59.780 --> 00:44:03.340 And from then on, just knowing everything's fine, everything's good. 00:44:03.340 --> 00:44:05.460 I don't need to worry. 00:44:05.460 --> 00:44:10.140 And so that's where I started my journey, slowly progressing out of institutional Christianity 00:44:10.140 --> 00:44:16.140 and expanding my spiritual horizons, so to speak, and growing in this idea of, I guess 00:44:16.140 --> 00:44:19.700 what you call no-mindedness and so forth. 00:44:19.700 --> 00:44:25.420 So I started reading Autobiography of a Yogi and I have so many books through both Taoism 00:44:25.420 --> 00:44:27.460 and Buddhism and Hinduism and all of that. 00:44:27.460 --> 00:44:28.780 I was just absorbing it all. 00:44:28.780 --> 00:44:30.980 I think one of my favorites was the Vindhya Gita. 00:44:30.980 --> 00:44:34.700 It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever, you know, writings I've ever come across. 00:44:34.700 --> 00:44:35.700 The what Gita? 00:44:35.700 --> 00:44:36.700 The Vindhya Gita. 00:44:36.700 --> 00:44:37.700 Vindhya Gita. 00:44:37.700 --> 00:44:39.100 I haven't heard of that. 00:44:39.100 --> 00:44:44.060 It's a portion, I'm going to slaughter the pronunciation on this. 00:44:44.060 --> 00:44:48.860 It's a portion of an ancient Indian text called the Tripura. 00:44:48.860 --> 00:44:54.860 I can look at Rahasia. Yeah, I prefer Rahasia and the Vindhya Gita is a portion of it. 00:44:54.860 --> 00:45:00.860 It's where all the gods are inquiring about ultimate wisdom and then wisdom herself shows up 00:45:00.860 --> 00:45:04.860 and what it says about being is just phenomenal. Nice. 00:45:04.860 --> 00:45:08.860 Yeah. You went to India, right? I did. Yeah, I spent time there. I was there about three months. 00:45:08.860 --> 00:45:13.860 I had a friend who was from Punjab. So we spent a while, you know, going around Punjab together 00:45:13.860 --> 00:45:19.860 and had a phenomenal time. And it was amazing to visit, went to Amritsar as well, which is an incredible place. 00:45:19.860 --> 00:45:23.860 The Sikh temple, golden temple. Yes, the golden temple. 00:45:23.860 --> 00:45:30.860 And so how did you transition from all that into advising companies on how to find transcendent purpose 00:45:30.860 --> 00:45:35.860 and working with the leaders of Fortune 500 companies and things like that? 00:45:35.860 --> 00:45:40.860 Keeping in mind that we want to budget our time because we have some cool stuff yet to cover. 00:45:40.860 --> 00:45:45.260 From there, I left Scotland shortly after that because my wife and I separated. 00:45:45.260 --> 00:45:52.560 I was thinking about coming back to the US, but I didn't want to be that far away from my two daughters that were still there. 00:45:52.560 --> 00:45:59.560 So I had an opportunity to come up in London and I would travel back and forth between London and Scotland to see my daughters or bring them down. 00:45:59.560 --> 00:46:10.260 So I was involved with that company for a few years and then that came to an end and I was not sure where to go next. 00:46:10.260 --> 00:46:15.860 And I was really fascinated at that time about the idea that companies can have a transcendent purpose. 00:46:15.860 --> 00:46:23.060 And I think it was at that time that I, somebody introduced me to that TED Talk by Simon Sinek about "Start with Why", 00:46:23.060 --> 00:46:30.260 which I thought was really interesting about, you know, building organizations around the idea of why you exist rather than what you do. 00:46:30.260 --> 00:46:36.260 For those of you who haven't seen it, it's worth a watch on TED. I think it's the most watched TED Talk of all time. 00:46:36.260 --> 00:46:42.260 So I was really fascinated by that idea, but I didn't know where you would start to work with that. 00:46:42.260 --> 00:46:48.260 And I read his book at the time and it didn't really offer anything more in-depth on how do you build an organization around why. 00:46:48.260 --> 00:46:54.260 And I searched a load online, I was trying to find different books that might have some answers to that, and no one did. 00:46:54.260 --> 00:46:59.260 I think there was a sort of assumption that if a leader has their why, then the organization will also have a why. 00:46:59.260 --> 00:47:02.260 But I felt like there had to be more than that. 00:47:02.260 --> 00:47:07.260 And so I started looking, I thought, well maybe I can come up with an analogy for this. 00:47:07.260 --> 00:47:11.260 I can find some way, I can develop my own model around this and something I can test out. 00:47:11.260 --> 00:47:15.260 And then it was at that point I came across another talk, another message. 00:47:15.260 --> 00:47:22.260 It was given by somebody in India who was asked to be the spiritual advisor for one of the largest corporations in India. 00:47:22.260 --> 00:47:24.260 And to develop the spiritual life of the organization. 00:47:24.260 --> 00:47:27.260 I thought, oh, this is interesting, you know, let's see what he has to say. 00:47:27.260 --> 00:47:31.900 And I expected that he would say, you know, so we set up meditation rooms in all of the 00:47:31.900 --> 00:47:35.980 offices and we, you know, had retreats and all of that. And he said, "So, really, 00:47:35.980 --> 00:47:40.700 we started looking at the myths, values and rituals of the organization." 00:47:40.700 --> 00:47:45.420 And I was like, "Hang on a second, I didn't expect that." And then I started thinking about it. And I 00:47:45.420 --> 00:47:52.300 was like, you know, I spent my whole life immersed in religion and theology. And what if religion is 00:47:52.300 --> 00:47:58.220 is nothing more than a belief system to help us find connection and build a common shared 00:47:58.220 --> 00:48:03.020 sense of purpose. And through that I can find an analogy for how you build an organization 00:48:03.020 --> 00:48:08.500 on purpose. So I began almost kind of reverse engineering how belief systems work. I looked 00:48:08.500 --> 00:48:13.060 at religions, I looked at political systems, so on and so forth, and you start to see some 00:48:13.060 --> 00:48:18.260 common themes that arise through belief systems. It was just as the guy said, there's sort 00:48:18.260 --> 00:48:24.500 of three pillars of the belief system. You have your myth, you know myth doesn't mean 00:48:24.500 --> 00:48:28.220 a fable, it's you know come to colloquially mean that, but it means a kind of story of 00:48:28.220 --> 00:48:34.820 your origin, a story you ascribe to origin. And that story helps us as a people answer 00:48:34.820 --> 00:48:39.020 the question why do we matter? Because it's through that story of origins where we see 00:48:39.020 --> 00:48:43.980 okay this is how we came to be, this is the reason why we're here on this planet. So that 00:48:43.980 --> 00:48:47.820 connects people emotionally because we share the same story, we have the same core idea 00:48:47.820 --> 00:48:52.220 about why we're here. And out of that, then you develop your values, and your values are 00:48:52.220 --> 00:48:56.180 then, okay, what matters to us? So this is why we matter to the planet, and these are 00:48:56.180 --> 00:49:00.980 the things that matter to us. And then beyond the values, then they develop... So those 00:49:00.980 --> 00:49:05.140 sit in... exist in the heart of the belief system. And then the intellect of the belief 00:49:05.140 --> 00:49:09.740 system is the ideology, the set of principles and beliefs that you ascribe to. So they also 00:49:09.740 --> 00:49:15.480 develop these set of principles or ideas that help us think alike. This is how we think the 00:49:15.480 --> 00:49:19.400 world works. So you move from the why question to the how question. This is how we think 00:49:19.400 --> 00:49:23.220 the world works and how we think the world should work. And so that connects us on an 00:49:23.220 --> 00:49:27.040 emotional level and an intellectual level. But then there's the third level, which is 00:49:27.040 --> 00:49:32.620 the physical level. And so what they do is they take these ideas and they intentionalize 00:49:32.620 --> 00:49:37.340 them by creating a set of habits and practices that are related symbolically to whatever 00:49:37.340 --> 00:49:42.240 these ideas are, so that you have a way of somatically putting into exercise what you 00:49:42.240 --> 00:49:46.440 believe and so it becomes something that engages you on all three levels and 00:49:46.440 --> 00:49:49.160 that's why they're so powerful. They can be powerful use for good and they can 00:49:49.160 --> 00:49:53.240 also be a powerful use for evil. It's a very powerful tool but it's something 00:49:53.240 --> 00:49:56.640 that we all live with whether or not we're conscious of it. We all have some 00:49:56.640 --> 00:49:59.960 sort of an internal belief system within us about why we think we're on this 00:49:59.960 --> 00:50:05.040 planet, what our values are, and habits that we formed around our life because of 00:50:05.040 --> 00:50:08.720 what we value. Sometimes those habits are positive, sometimes they're toxic 00:50:08.720 --> 00:50:10.720 depending on our values and so to speak. 00:50:10.720 --> 00:50:14.720 So there's a sort of framework for how we live and operate as humans 00:50:14.720 --> 00:50:19.720 and this is because it enabled us as people to move beyond living in tribes. 00:50:19.720 --> 00:50:23.720 So before we developed belief systems, Yuval Harari talks about this, 00:50:23.720 --> 00:50:27.720 before we developed belief systems, the largest that a human group could get to 00:50:27.720 --> 00:50:31.720 would be about 140 and then they would break off and they would start another tribe. 00:50:31.720 --> 00:50:34.720 And that had to do with something called Dunbar's Principle, 00:50:34.720 --> 00:50:37.200 was that when you're in a group of people, 00:50:37.200 --> 00:50:39.000 you know, say you're a group of 12 people, 00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:40.960 understanding all the relationship dynamics 00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:43.280 is not just knowing 12 relationships. 00:50:43.280 --> 00:50:44.840 It's actually knowing about 144, 00:50:44.840 --> 00:50:46.440 because it's 12 times 12. 00:50:46.440 --> 00:50:48.160 Say you get to 140 people, 00:50:48.160 --> 00:50:51.240 and you know, the exponential of that would, 00:50:51.240 --> 00:50:52.720 I don't know, I'm not a mathematician, 00:50:52.720 --> 00:50:55.040 but it's a large number of relationships 00:50:55.040 --> 00:50:56.200 that you have to keep track of 00:50:56.200 --> 00:50:57.560 to know who's doing what, 00:50:57.560 --> 00:50:58.520 and who can you trust, 00:50:58.520 --> 00:50:59.360 who can't you trust, 00:50:59.360 --> 00:51:00.480 and so on and so forth. 00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:02.160 So civilizations struggle, 00:51:02.160 --> 00:51:03.960 or tribes struggle to grow beyond that 00:51:03.960 --> 00:51:08.200 until they develop storytelling and then belief systems that enable us to feel that we had 00:51:08.200 --> 00:51:12.880 a shared commonality between us even if I don't really know you. 00:51:12.880 --> 00:51:17.560 It'd be about 20,000 relationships, I just pulled up the calculator. 00:51:17.560 --> 00:51:22.360 Yeah, that's a lot of relationship dynamics to manage. 00:51:22.360 --> 00:51:26.840 So belief systems are what have enabled us to develop as a species both for good or for 00:51:26.840 --> 00:51:27.840 bad. 00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:31.400 So I see them as belief system itself, not as inherently right or wrong. 00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:35.880 It's what you plug into that belief system that determines if it's good or bad and if 00:51:35.880 --> 00:51:38.120 it's toxic or healthy. 00:51:38.120 --> 00:51:43.400 So I started using that, you know, very openly as a model for developing corporate identity 00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:44.400 that was holistic. 00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:49.280 Because when I would go in and consult with companies, you know, I would ask them, you 00:51:49.280 --> 00:51:52.080 know, I'd go through and say, "What's your story? 00:51:52.080 --> 00:51:53.080 Why are you here on earth? 00:51:53.080 --> 00:51:55.640 What are you here to do that's more than just making profit?" 00:51:55.640 --> 00:52:02.200 And I sort of take this model, the difference between sort of the money being the purpose 00:52:02.200 --> 00:52:03.680 versus the reward. 00:52:03.680 --> 00:52:06.880 So a carpenter's purpose is not to make money. 00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:09.480 A carpenter's purpose is to serve through carpentry. 00:52:09.480 --> 00:52:14.960 The reward that he gets from serving and bringing value to others is the profit that he makes. 00:52:14.960 --> 00:52:18.880 So you know, in the same way, we confuse this idea that a business should exist for profit. 00:52:18.880 --> 00:52:23.040 No, a business should exist to bring value to the world in some way that's beneficial 00:52:23.040 --> 00:52:24.280 to humanity. 00:52:24.280 --> 00:52:26.640 The reward they get for that is making profit. 00:52:26.640 --> 00:52:29.520 The more value they're bringing, the more profit they make. 00:52:29.520 --> 00:52:30.920 - So it seems like some businesses, 00:52:30.920 --> 00:52:33.080 if they were to find a transcendent purpose, 00:52:33.080 --> 00:52:34.940 would have to either shut down 00:52:34.940 --> 00:52:37.440 or completely change what they do, 00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:39.960 like a tobacco company, I'm thinking. 00:52:39.960 --> 00:52:41.680 And many others that I could think 00:52:41.680 --> 00:52:44.560 that are just essentially harmful to people. 00:52:44.560 --> 00:52:47.240 - Yeah, and it's funny because I spoke to a guy 00:52:47.240 --> 00:52:51.320 who was one of the legal counsel to Monsanto. 00:52:51.320 --> 00:52:53.620 This is at a conference I was invited to speak at, 00:52:53.620 --> 00:52:57.500 And I asked him about the ethics of what they do, 00:52:57.500 --> 00:53:01.180 and it was just amazing the sort of gymnastics he was doing. 00:53:01.180 --> 00:53:02.940 (laughing) 00:53:02.940 --> 00:53:03.780 - Yeah. 00:53:03.780 --> 00:53:05.420 - Ethically, I won't say what he said, 00:53:05.420 --> 00:53:07.660 but it was quite humorous. 00:53:07.660 --> 00:53:08.500 - Yeah. 00:53:08.500 --> 00:53:09.320 - I fully agree that. 00:53:09.320 --> 00:53:11.300 I think there are a lot of companies 00:53:11.300 --> 00:53:13.920 that are sort of more leeching off of the planet. 00:53:13.920 --> 00:53:15.900 They're leeching off our resources, 00:53:15.900 --> 00:53:17.980 they're leeching off our health and welfare, 00:53:17.980 --> 00:53:18.980 you know, and on and on. 00:53:18.980 --> 00:53:21.300 I mean, there's a lot of companies like that. 00:53:21.300 --> 00:53:22.620 It doesn't need to be that way. 00:53:22.620 --> 00:53:25.740 I'm fortunate enough to work in a place that doesn't see the world that way. 00:53:25.740 --> 00:53:32.460 Yeah, now you're working in a place, the world's number one private island according to Google, 00:53:32.460 --> 00:53:37.180 which is also considered to be the world's most sustainable resort. You're located on a private 00:53:37.180 --> 00:53:43.260 atoll, which is one of Polynesia's most sacred assets. Did I hear you say that Marlon Brando 00:53:43.260 --> 00:53:50.140 used to own the island? Yeah, it's true. It was his private atoll. It's not just an island, 00:53:50.140 --> 00:53:56.300 it's 12 of them, and he came to French Polynesia to shoot mutiny on the bounty in the late 50s. 00:53:56.300 --> 00:54:00.940 And it was where he kind of had a bit of a spiritual awakening. I wouldn't say he was 00:54:00.940 --> 00:54:05.180 awakened by any stretch. But, you know, he came out of Hollywood at that time. It was interesting, 00:54:05.180 --> 00:54:09.740 Marlon never wanted to be famous. That was never his goal. And he kind of resented the fame that 00:54:09.740 --> 00:54:16.780 went with it. He took his trade very seriously, but he never had a sightset on that. So he came here 00:54:17.500 --> 00:54:23.980 looking for respite and discovered Polynesia and discovered spirituality through Polynesia and 00:54:23.980 --> 00:54:29.820 discovered this atoll through that period which for the Polynesians had been seen for, you know, 00:54:29.820 --> 00:54:34.780 the better part of a thousand years as a place of renewal and regeneration. So in their lore, 00:54:34.780 --> 00:54:39.260 if you die here, your soul goes there to be regenerated and then come back again. 00:54:39.260 --> 00:54:44.540 And there's an incredible what they call mana or energy on this place which Marlon 00:54:44.540 --> 00:54:49.660 saw in it and he fell in love with it. So he wanted it to be preserved for the generations to come, 00:54:49.660 --> 00:54:54.700 but he also wanted it to be a place that would inspire people to find a way to live more 00:54:54.700 --> 00:55:00.140 harmoniously and sustainably with their world. And so what has come today wasn't built by him, 00:55:00.140 --> 00:55:05.260 it was built by some hotelier that he'd become friends with here locally, but they conceived it 00:55:05.260 --> 00:55:11.020 together and it was built to the letter of his wishes. So yes, it's a very special place. It 00:55:12.060 --> 00:55:17.660 sometimes gets a reputation of being a bit of a sort of A-list celeb haunt, but it's not really about that. 00:55:17.660 --> 00:55:23.820 It's a very, you know, when you go, it's very sort of down-to-earth, a very kind of natural human experience, 00:55:23.820 --> 00:55:30.540 and you're just immersed in Polynesian culture and in a, in this natural environment of paradise that is 00:55:30.540 --> 00:55:33.980 extraordinary. I mean, there's only one of the 12 islands has been developed, 00:55:33.980 --> 00:55:38.460 the others are being kept as a private nature reserve, and so you go there, you're just immersed in 00:55:38.760 --> 00:55:44.120 unbelievable paradise and so it's a really special place to be. But it's kind of purpose 00:55:44.120 --> 00:55:51.240 in life is to number one model what sustainable hospitality can look like that works in partnership 00:55:51.240 --> 00:55:59.540 with community and it works in balance with the ecosystem. And so it models that and then 00:55:59.540 --> 00:56:05.040 also educates people on what's possible when they come. And it's what's caused an explosion 00:56:05.040 --> 00:56:10.880 of eco-resorts around the world that have essentially tried to model what they've done here, because 00:56:10.880 --> 00:56:17.080 it was the first to really do that at the sort of level that it's done. So, Leonardo DiCaprio 00:56:17.080 --> 00:56:22.760 started developing his project down in Belize because he was inspired by this. So, it's a 00:56:22.760 --> 00:56:25.440 very special place to be a part of. 00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:30.480 Nice. You mentioned working with a woman who is leading a Polynesian cultural expert and 00:56:30.480 --> 00:56:36.600 has advised Disney on the Mona film projects and that he said that she has interesting 00:56:36.600 --> 00:56:42.200 spiritual insights on how the Polynesian worldview may provide an antidote to the Western imbalance. 00:56:42.200 --> 00:56:43.200 Yes. 00:56:43.200 --> 00:56:46.200 Is that just kind of what you were just saying in terms of being in tune with nature? 00:56:46.200 --> 00:56:47.600 Is there something more to that? 00:56:47.600 --> 00:56:50.440 Yeah, I can dive a little bit deeper on that. 00:56:50.440 --> 00:56:55.880 In the West, and Hinano, by the way, is a phenomenal individual, both very, she was a former teacher, 00:56:55.880 --> 00:56:59.960 so she has all the academic side, but she's also very spiritually attuned. 00:56:59.960 --> 00:57:06.120 So she brings outside and she can comfortably work in both sides without a problem. 00:57:06.120 --> 00:57:11.800 So her story was that when John Lasseter came over, they were looking to develop Disney Moana. 00:57:11.800 --> 00:57:16.400 He came to Morea, which is a neighboring island where she lived, and he was introduced to her 00:57:16.400 --> 00:57:21.840 and asked her to be an advisor on the film for Disney's animated Moana. 00:57:21.840 --> 00:57:26.600 And he told her she cost him millions of dollars in the end because she made him change so much. 00:57:26.600 --> 00:57:30.360 It had a profound effect on the country because they were losing their language. 00:57:30.360 --> 00:57:34.600 The kids didn't want to speak their local Tahitian language anymore. 00:57:34.600 --> 00:57:39.100 And one of her stipulations when she did it was that she wanted them to make a version 00:57:39.100 --> 00:57:42.220 in Tahitian for the local kids. 00:57:42.220 --> 00:57:43.220 And so they did that. 00:57:43.220 --> 00:57:44.220 She didn't think they would. 00:57:44.220 --> 00:57:45.220 They did it. 00:57:45.220 --> 00:57:47.800 They sent a thousand DVDs, which they sent to all the schools and all the kids saw it 00:57:47.800 --> 00:57:49.920 for the first time in their own language. 00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:52.920 And then they said that for like weeks after the kids would be running through the streets 00:57:52.920 --> 00:57:54.880 singing all the Mohana songs in Tahitian. 00:57:54.880 --> 00:57:56.040 Is it just dubbed in Tahitian? 00:57:56.040 --> 00:57:58.200 It's the same film, but it's dubbed into Haitian. 00:57:58.200 --> 00:58:01.160 Yeah, I mean, well, all animated films are dubbed, so... 00:58:01.160 --> 00:58:01.800 Of course, yes. 00:58:01.800 --> 00:58:08.760 So she pulled together a group and they got in a sound studio and they did all the overdubs and 00:58:08.760 --> 00:58:09.880 singing and so forth. 00:58:09.880 --> 00:58:10.360 Nice. 00:58:10.360 --> 00:58:11.160 So it's very special. 00:58:11.160 --> 00:58:13.400 So they've asked her to come back and advise on the second one. 00:58:13.400 --> 00:58:18.200 So coming to your question about the Polynesian culture and what it teaches us, 00:58:18.200 --> 00:58:21.560 I often wonder if some of this is attributed to climate, right? 00:58:21.560 --> 00:58:25.320 We come from a temperate climate where life can be tough at times, 00:58:25.320 --> 00:58:31.480 you know, especially the further to the poles that you get. And we have this sort of idea that to live 00:58:31.480 --> 00:58:36.760 well, to live meaningfully means to succeed in life, right? It's to further and develop your 00:58:36.760 --> 00:58:42.280 resources so that you can look after your family and bring value to your community and so forth, 00:58:42.280 --> 00:58:45.640 right? So it's all about the value you're bringing to others, which is then translated in a 00:58:45.640 --> 00:58:52.760 capitalistic society of more, more, more, right? And the Tahitians have come from very small islands 00:58:52.760 --> 00:58:57.720 that are closed ecosystems where you don't have to grow fruit, it grows on its own and 00:58:57.720 --> 00:59:03.080 the seeds replenish themselves, but you can quickly get come to a place where if you overuse 00:59:03.080 --> 00:59:05.540 your resources you can end up in a famine. 00:59:05.540 --> 00:59:06.540 Like Easter Island. 00:59:06.540 --> 00:59:10.760 Easter Island, exactly. Cut down all the trees and then they get marooned and they can't grow 00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:16.560 fruit and so on and so forth. So they're consciously aware when they're young of how delicate our 00:59:16.560 --> 00:59:22.120 ecosystem is and the importance of keeping things in balance. So they developed a process 00:59:22.120 --> 00:59:28.600 called "Refuee" which is when things become too over harvested or fished they will 00:59:28.600 --> 00:59:34.680 declare a "Refuee" where they will put a restriction, a taboo on say fishing in 00:59:34.680 --> 00:59:37.800 that lagoon and they do that by sticking these palm fronds up in the sand 00:59:37.800 --> 00:59:41.680 vertically and they along the beach and then you know that area is "Refuee". They 00:59:41.680 --> 00:59:47.840 take it so seriously that if you violate a "Refuee" it's capital punishment. They 00:59:47.840 --> 00:59:52.960 kill you? Not nowadays, right? Historically, historically you violated a 00:59:52.960 --> 00:59:57.200 Rahui's capital punishment. If you violated another tribe's Rahui, it was an 00:59:57.200 --> 01:00:01.760 act of war. So this was the most important thing to them. So from a value 01:00:01.760 --> 01:00:07.080 standpoint, they have a perspective that the most important thing for us to do is 01:00:07.080 --> 01:00:12.240 to learn to live in harmony with our world. And that means, of course, our 01:00:12.240 --> 01:00:17.160 families, our community, it means our land, but it also means the ancestors and the 01:00:17.160 --> 01:00:23.400 gods. Their entire life is from the perspective of how do I find and maintain harmony with 01:00:23.400 --> 01:00:27.120 everything around me? And so they have that perspective on the world rather than the "give 01:00:27.120 --> 01:00:28.120 me more perspective." 01:00:28.120 --> 01:00:33.400 It'd be nice if that could be somehow implemented on a wider scale. As it is now, you have huge 01:00:33.400 --> 01:00:39.360 Chinese factory ships just parked off the coast of South America, you know, just decimating 01:00:39.360 --> 01:00:43.000 the fish population, and there's not much anybody can do about it. 01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:48.280 There are people trying to bring that concept to the wider world in different ways and it 01:00:48.280 --> 01:00:49.280 definitely needs that. 01:00:49.280 --> 01:00:54.940 I mean, part of what we do through the non-profit here is actually trying to bring restrictions 01:00:54.940 --> 01:00:59.500 on things that affect the ocean like overfishing and in our case what we're most concerned 01:00:59.500 --> 01:01:03.960 about is seabed mining because these companies are going to go and basically just tear up 01:01:03.960 --> 01:01:08.800 the seabed a mile below the surface where nobody can see what they're doing and potentially 01:01:08.800 --> 01:01:10.760 destroy the ocean ecosystem. 01:01:10.760 --> 01:01:15.240 Yeah, they found that they can get lithium out of all these little rocks on the seabed 01:01:15.240 --> 01:01:17.640 that which they can use to make electric car batteries. 01:01:17.640 --> 01:01:18.640 Correct. 01:01:18.640 --> 01:01:19.640 Yes. 01:01:19.640 --> 01:01:25.040 So it's a huge concern for not just for them, but for native peoples around the world who, 01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:27.600 you know, have communities that thrive on the on the sea. 01:01:27.600 --> 01:01:28.600 Interesting. 01:01:28.600 --> 01:01:29.600 Yeah. 01:01:29.600 --> 01:01:32.720 And the ocean is actually a lot. 01:01:32.720 --> 01:01:37.240 The ocean is a living entity, and therefore it has rights. 01:01:37.240 --> 01:01:42.240 So that's their approach, is to try and get the nations to ascribe to the rights of the ocean. 01:01:42.240 --> 01:01:49.240 Because it should be treated as a living entity, not just as an inanimate resource that we can use for whatever we want. 01:01:49.240 --> 01:01:52.240 As should the whole world. The whole thing is a living entity. 01:01:52.240 --> 01:01:54.240 Yes, it is. 01:01:54.240 --> 01:02:01.240 It's tricky because, you know, like in the case of the seabed, getting all that lithium would be great in terms of making more electric cars, 01:02:01.240 --> 01:02:06.400 have a nice impact on the environment, but even now there's environmental devastation and 01:02:06.400 --> 01:02:10.380 unfair labor practices and all to get the kinds of minerals they need to make electric 01:02:10.380 --> 01:02:11.380 cars. 01:02:11.380 --> 01:02:17.760 So it's hard, I suppose, to find a balance between compassion and environmental sustainability 01:02:17.760 --> 01:02:23.560 and getting the resources we need to transition to a different technological framework. 01:02:23.560 --> 01:02:26.520 Yeah, and I think it's going to happen on two fronts. 01:02:26.520 --> 01:02:31.920 I mean, technology will help, but we also have to change how we view and live with the world 01:02:31.920 --> 01:02:37.680 and perhaps not be as materialistic and be content with less. 01:02:37.680 --> 01:02:40.680 Find inner contentment rather than chasing outer contentment. 01:02:40.680 --> 01:02:43.600 You know, I think it's not one or the other, it's both and. 01:02:43.600 --> 01:02:47.600 But particularly with the question of the lithium and the batteries, we published a 01:02:47.600 --> 01:02:52.680 white paper here, basically on the, it was picked up by one of the journals, that we 01:02:52.680 --> 01:02:53.680 won't need lithium. 01:02:53.680 --> 01:02:58.480 be very soon obsolete because they have new methods for making batteries. I heard there's a sodium 01:02:58.480 --> 01:03:02.160 alternative that might work. Yeah, I don't remember what the alternative was, but the 01:03:02.160 --> 01:03:08.000 technology is here. It's not something that is possible. They have the technology and it's easier 01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:11.040 for these companies to keep pumping lithium out of the ground because that's what their business 01:03:11.040 --> 01:03:15.440 model is than to switch to a new business model. So there is that factor. Interesting, yeah. Well, 01:03:15.440 --> 01:03:21.280 that could be a whole other conversation. So we've talked about disillusionment and how 01:03:21.280 --> 01:03:26.720 the constructive influence that played in your life, and perhaps we could shift it a little bit to 01:03:26.720 --> 01:03:31.920 societal disillusion and generational disillusionment. You mentioned some of that in your 01:03:31.920 --> 01:03:36.160 notes, that it's terrifying for people, but it's the only way in which we can find our freedom from 01:03:36.160 --> 01:03:40.240 illusion and be awakened to our higher self-consciousness. I'm reading your notes, 01:03:40.240 --> 01:03:45.200 "Without facing disillusionment, we end up caught between the ego self and the higher self, 01:03:45.200 --> 01:03:51.040 trying to escape something or attain something, spiritual escapism. When we face illusion and 01:03:51.040 --> 01:03:55.280 and let it go, we find the truth that is always there. 01:03:55.280 --> 01:03:59.360 You mentioned you struggle to find anyone who's gone through great spiritual growth and awakening 01:03:59.360 --> 01:04:02.840 that hasn't at some point reached a state of disillusionment with the world. 01:04:02.840 --> 01:04:09.040 And then you go on to talk about Generation Z and why, because they're collectively disillusioned 01:04:09.040 --> 01:04:10.040 these days. 01:04:10.040 --> 01:04:13.360 And you said some interesting things about that, so perhaps we could talk about that. 01:04:13.360 --> 01:04:19.040 I spent some time recently talking to a lot of Gen Zers about what are the questions they 01:04:19.040 --> 01:04:21.040 what are they looking for in life? 01:04:21.040 --> 01:04:23.040 And just trying to really understand the 01:04:23.040 --> 01:04:25.040 generations and where things are going. 01:04:25.040 --> 01:04:27.040 And the answers that I've had back 01:04:27.040 --> 01:04:29.040 have been really surprising and somewhat 01:04:29.040 --> 01:04:31.040 encouraging. A lot of the ones 01:04:31.040 --> 01:04:33.040 I've spoken to, they are looking 01:04:33.040 --> 01:04:35.040 for some sort of meaning in life, 01:04:35.040 --> 01:04:37.040 but they're looking for meaningful work 01:04:37.040 --> 01:04:39.040 that's in balance with life. 01:04:39.040 --> 01:04:41.040 They don't have the same capitalistic 01:04:41.040 --> 01:04:43.040 drive that the previous 01:04:43.040 --> 01:04:45.040 generations did. I've had 01:04:45.040 --> 01:04:47.040 questions about how to get out of 01:04:47.040 --> 01:04:51.040 hookup culture. A lot of them are very disillusioned with hookup culture that's been going on. 01:04:51.040 --> 01:04:55.040 What is hookup culture? Like transitory, trivial, romantic relationships? 01:04:55.040 --> 01:04:59.040 Is that what that means? Yeah, yeah, one night stands. Yeah, that kind of thing, sure. 01:04:59.040 --> 01:05:03.040 Yeah. So there seems to be a lot of disillusionment with that. 01:05:03.040 --> 01:05:07.040 And they want to know if there's hope for the world, because a lot of them feel very hopeless. 01:05:07.040 --> 01:05:11.040 And they see a lot of that driven by governments and by 01:05:11.040 --> 01:05:15.040 big corp, and they don't want to play 01:05:15.040 --> 01:05:20.160 the game anymore. I say sort of Gen X, you know, we started getting disillusioned with it, but we were 01:05:20.160 --> 01:05:25.040 a small generation, so we just made some really good rock and roll about it. Gen Y became a little 01:05:25.040 --> 01:05:30.320 bit more idealistic and thought they could sort of bring change from within the inside, but Gen Z are 01:05:30.320 --> 01:05:37.920 I think very disillusioned with the world and very uncertain about the future and not wanting to play 01:05:37.920 --> 01:05:41.920 the game anymore and they're big enough to matter. What age brackets are these? I never get those 01:05:41.920 --> 01:05:47.440 things straight. All I can remember is the baby boomers because I am one. What do the XYZs represent? 01:05:47.440 --> 01:05:57.040 So I think X went from the boomers up until just after '75, '76. People who were born '75, '76. 01:05:57.040 --> 01:06:03.040 Yeah. Yeah, so I was born '76, so I'm just at the start of the Gen X, but then they say, 01:06:03.040 --> 01:06:07.200 just to confuse it further, there's a sort of 10-year span that sort of like the last five 01:06:07.200 --> 01:06:13.040 five years of Gen X and the first five years of Gen Y that they call the Xennials, X-ennials, 01:06:13.040 --> 01:06:17.440 because they were sort of caught in between both because we were young enough that we adopted 01:06:17.440 --> 01:06:22.680 technology at a young age, but still also remembered the time before technology. So that's 01:06:22.680 --> 01:06:26.920 why they call us, they say we're sort of an oddball in the generational mix. 01:06:26.920 --> 01:06:31.800 So then you have Gen Y, which goes up until, well, until almost the millennium, or I think 01:06:31.800 --> 01:06:36.080 until the millennium, because my oldest daughter was late millennial, she was 98. And then you 01:06:36.080 --> 01:06:41.280 have from there until I think it's about 15 or so, I think, are the Gen Z and then 01:06:41.280 --> 01:06:45.560 you have the Alpha Generation coming up. Now of course a lot of young people go 01:06:45.560 --> 01:06:49.440 through a phase like this and then people like Abbie Hoffman, Reggie Davis, 01:06:49.440 --> 01:06:53.280 or whatever his name was, end up becoming stockbrokers or something. It doesn't 01:06:53.280 --> 01:06:58.400 always last. Well that was very true of your generation, right? Yeah, yeah, but I 01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:02.360 think it's a good phase of life if one can really latch on to it and set 01:07:02.360 --> 01:07:06.640 one's life in that direction and if the whole generation can do it, the whole culture could 01:07:06.640 --> 01:07:07.640 change. 01:07:07.640 --> 01:07:12.840 The way I look at it though is that your generation, Rick, played an important part in starting 01:07:12.840 --> 01:07:14.460 the wake-up process. 01:07:14.460 --> 01:07:20.720 And then that sort of took time to mature until where we are now, whereas I think that 01:07:20.720 --> 01:07:24.100 this generation has the potential to further that. 01:07:24.100 --> 01:07:25.100 It's not going to be on their own. 01:07:25.100 --> 01:07:27.960 I mean, I think it's going to be helped by some pretty interesting circumstances we're 01:07:27.960 --> 01:07:31.760 going to find ourselves in in the next few years where a lot of our structures are really 01:07:31.760 --> 01:07:37.160 shaking up. I think that too. My feeling and it's just a feeling that you know 01:07:37.160 --> 01:07:41.240 we're gonna see a lot of our power structures really shaken and I think 01:07:41.240 --> 01:07:44.920 during that process we're gonna see a polarization because I think we're gonna 01:07:44.920 --> 01:07:50.420 see people either running forward into technology and transhumanism and the 01:07:50.420 --> 01:07:54.400 virtual world and then you're gonna see a reversion of a bunch of people who are 01:07:54.400 --> 01:07:58.360 gonna be trying to skate back to traditionalism. So you see even now you 01:07:58.360 --> 01:08:04.120 you see guys like Andrew Tate and you know these sort of machismo masculine misogyny sort of making 01:08:04.120 --> 01:08:08.920 a resurgence and you also see women there's this whole trad wife movement where women are sort of 01:08:08.920 --> 01:08:14.920 basically kind of returning to like 1950s housewife. So you have that on one hand and then also political 01:08:14.920 --> 01:08:19.880 revisionism and I think some people be piling back into religion looking for some sort of comfort 01:08:19.880 --> 01:08:26.280 there but the thing is is that those structures I don't think fit the world that we're destined for 01:08:26.280 --> 01:08:30.600 and it will take some disruption before we're able to get to that world. 01:08:30.600 --> 01:08:34.680 And so I think in the middle there's going to be a sort of third wave of people that are 01:08:34.680 --> 01:08:39.880 attuned and conscious and they're seeing the world that's to come and they're excited about it. 01:08:39.880 --> 01:08:44.040 Yeah, I interviewed a guy named Dwayne Elgin a couple of times and in my second interview with 01:08:44.040 --> 01:08:50.040 him he showed this little graphic. I think we actually had a little video. He feels that sort 01:08:50.040 --> 01:08:54.920 of three possible scenarios in each of which everything is going to pretty much collapse, 01:08:54.920 --> 01:09:01.880 but then number one is it stays collapsed for a long time, just chaos. Number two is some kind of 01:09:01.880 --> 01:09:08.680 Chinese-style technological autocracy gets imposed. And number three is out of the collapse, there's a 01:09:08.680 --> 01:09:15.000 spiritual renaissance and we have a bright new age as many ancient traditions have prophesied. 01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:17.800 Pete Yeah, and I'm hoping it's the latter. 01:09:17.800 --> 01:09:18.120 Pete Yeah. 01:09:18.120 --> 01:09:20.120 Pete You know, I have a sense that's where we're going. 01:09:20.120 --> 01:09:21.560 Pete Because I'm also encouraged by the fact 01:09:21.560 --> 01:09:27.000 that spirituality is growing amongst millennials and Gen Z. They're interested and they're looking 01:09:27.000 --> 01:09:33.000 for the answers. And so, I have hope that, you know, we are going that way, but it's birth pangs, 01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:37.800 it's gonna be a process. Pete: Yeah. And you say, I expect to see the unfolding world of events as 01:09:37.800 --> 01:09:43.320 a polarizing force that will either drive people toward their spiritual path through disillusionment 01:09:43.320 --> 01:09:47.880 or they will double down on the material world, afraid to let go of the illusion. 01:09:47.880 --> 01:09:54.080 I sometimes, when I think about that, I think of the analogy of a rising tide lifts all boats, 01:09:54.080 --> 01:09:58.360 which is fine for the boats if they don't happen to be anchored, but if they insist on 01:09:58.360 --> 01:10:00.160 remaining anchored, they're going to capsize. 01:10:00.160 --> 01:10:01.160 You know? 01:10:01.160 --> 01:10:02.160 That's a great analogy. 01:10:02.160 --> 01:10:06.720 It's time to draw your anchors up. 01:10:06.720 --> 01:10:07.960 Yeah. 01:10:07.960 --> 01:10:11.040 And I wonder about that because I would like to see huge changes. 01:10:11.040 --> 01:10:15.640 I think we need huge changes, but I hate the thought that a lot of people are going to 01:10:15.640 --> 01:10:18.780 suffer in the process or through that transition. 01:10:18.780 --> 01:10:19.780 I agree. 01:10:19.780 --> 01:10:21.780 I know it's going to be a trying period. 01:10:21.780 --> 01:10:27.140 I think a lot of the suffering is going to be fear-driven, which is the worst suffering. 01:10:27.140 --> 01:10:30.020 The fear and the terror, you know, when bad things go wrong. 01:10:30.020 --> 01:10:31.340 I mean, you saw that in COVID, right? 01:10:31.340 --> 01:10:36.220 I mean, it was the fear of COVID was worse than the reactions of that cause as a result 01:10:36.220 --> 01:10:38.900 was worse than, you know, the pandemic itself. 01:10:38.900 --> 01:10:39.900 Yeah. 01:10:39.900 --> 01:10:41.180 I'm not saying it wasn't bad. 01:10:41.180 --> 01:10:44.340 My father almost passed away with COVID, so I know it can be bad. 01:10:44.340 --> 01:10:47.460 but our reaction to it made things worse. 01:10:47.460 --> 01:10:52.060 But at the same time, we know that there's life beyond all of this, and this is something 01:10:52.060 --> 01:10:57.020 I think the seers have looked toward for generations and generations. 01:10:57.020 --> 01:10:58.020 Yeah. 01:10:58.020 --> 01:11:00.400 Some good stuff in your notes here. 01:11:00.400 --> 01:11:04.540 The dissolution of the world's power structures, which will give humanity an opportunity to 01:11:04.540 --> 01:11:08.440 transcend ego-based living into a form of life that is aligned to a higher self and 01:11:08.440 --> 01:11:10.700 our divine potential. 01:11:10.700 --> 01:11:16.340 So, I guess we're seeing the disillusion, well, there's a disillusion, but there's also the 01:11:16.340 --> 01:11:21.460 disillusion, the dissolving of the world's power structures. 01:11:21.460 --> 01:11:27.380 I sometimes wonder, you know, there are some very powerful structures in this world, political, 01:11:27.380 --> 01:11:32.540 economic, technological, and so on, which, you know, it's a David and Goliath kind of 01:11:32.540 --> 01:11:33.540 a situation. 01:11:33.540 --> 01:11:38.540 How can the so-called spiritual people, if they are going to be instrumental in any kind 01:11:38.540 --> 01:11:44.620 transformation go up against these powerful things and prevail. But David won, I believe, because 01:11:44.620 --> 01:11:49.500 God was on his side. I hate to use that phrase because, you know, that's used for football games 01:11:49.500 --> 01:11:56.220 and things, but he had a larger destiny and power behind him that enabled him to prevail. So, I 01:11:56.220 --> 01:12:01.980 sometimes think that if God wills it, to put it in those kinds of terms, if God wills that there's 01:12:01.980 --> 01:12:08.640 is going to be a huge global societal transformation, nothing will be able to stop it. 01:12:08.640 --> 01:12:13.040 Because that power we're talking about is far more powerful than any mundane power. 01:12:13.040 --> 01:12:14.040 I completely agree. 01:12:14.040 --> 01:12:15.260 And I like how you put that. 01:12:15.260 --> 01:12:18.160 I think we're not leading this. 01:12:18.160 --> 01:12:19.240 We're supporting it. 01:12:19.240 --> 01:12:24.460 And I think if this is happening as we suspect it is, there will be other forces at work 01:12:24.460 --> 01:12:28.620 which we'll be supporting from this, you know, maybe not straight from the sidelines, but 01:12:28.620 --> 01:12:32.620 you know, will be supporting through being there and helping to ease the suffering on the planet 01:12:32.620 --> 01:12:36.220 and helping to bring people to peace and joy and awakening. 01:12:36.220 --> 01:12:37.220 Yeah. 01:12:37.220 --> 01:12:41.820 And I think these things will, you will create a hunger for that and it's gonna be a joy 01:12:41.820 --> 01:12:44.620 to participate in that side of things. 01:12:44.620 --> 01:12:51.180 There's a great story from the Indian scriptures where there was a huge deluge, rain and rain 01:12:51.180 --> 01:12:57.560 and rain, and the village where Krishna lived was getting inundated and the people appealed 01:12:57.560 --> 01:13:01.640 to Krishna who was supposed to be an avatar of God, "Please save us," you know. 01:13:01.640 --> 01:13:05.080 So Krishna just picked up a mountain and held it up, you know, over the village like an 01:13:05.080 --> 01:13:08.760 umbrella and saved the people from the water. 01:13:08.760 --> 01:13:12.440 But then they thought, "Well, it's an awfully big mountain and he might strain his wrist 01:13:12.440 --> 01:13:16.040 or something," so they all picked up sticks to help hold up the mountain. 01:13:16.040 --> 01:13:19.880 And of course, their sticks weren't really doing anything, he was the one who was holding 01:13:19.880 --> 01:13:21.880 it up, but they felt like they were helping. 01:13:21.880 --> 01:13:24.760 So that's kind of an illustration of what you just said. 01:13:24.760 --> 01:13:30.760 I love it. We're here to be the witness, you know, and that's what people need is a witness to the truth. 01:13:30.760 --> 01:13:33.760 But yeah, I like that analysis. It's great. 01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:38.760 Okay, now feel free. I'm starting to talk a little bit more than I was throughout the interview and I don't want to dominate. 01:13:38.760 --> 01:13:45.760 So we're talking about dissolution of the world's power structures as a necessary function of a transition to a very different world, 01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:51.760 which I think many of us idealistically and hopefully not naively expect to have happen, 01:13:51.760 --> 01:13:56.400 have happens, whether or not it happens in our lifetimes, I don't know. Then here's a cool one 01:13:56.400 --> 01:14:02.000 that you mentioned. We are transcending world religions into one true spiritual religion, 01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:07.120 which has no name. Jerusalem and Babylon are actually archetypes of this. And of course, 01:14:07.120 --> 01:14:12.080 everyone has heard the term spiritual but not religious, where people like you and I, 01:14:12.080 --> 01:14:15.360 we respect all the different religions, we don't feel like any one of them is 01:14:16.160 --> 01:14:23.680 the true one or any such thing, and perhaps we are harbingers of the kind of spiritual religion 01:14:23.680 --> 01:14:29.760 you're talking about where it's an appreciation of a universal truth. When I run up against 01:14:29.760 --> 01:14:35.520 religious fundamentals, there's this Amish guy that used to come to the farmer's market, and I 01:14:35.520 --> 01:14:39.520 would sit down and start talking astronomy with him and try to give him an idea of how large the 01:14:39.520 --> 01:14:47.040 universe is, when I think of spirituality, I think of it on that scale, the whole universe. 01:14:47.040 --> 01:14:53.260 Certainly not the exclusive province of even one planet, much less one particular religion 01:14:53.260 --> 01:14:54.260 on a planet. 01:14:54.260 --> 01:14:55.720 Yes, yes. 01:14:55.720 --> 01:14:57.920 I think that's, it's a nice picture. 01:14:57.920 --> 01:15:05.080 I guess how I relate to that, first of all, I think having a belief system is useful only 01:15:05.080 --> 01:15:06.480 as far as it's useful. 01:15:06.480 --> 01:15:11.440 There was a passage in the New Testament where Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath, and 01:15:11.440 --> 01:15:12.440 they were up in arms. 01:15:12.440 --> 01:15:15.560 And the reason they were is it was probably one of the most sacred laws in all of Judaism 01:15:15.560 --> 01:15:19.640 is keeping the Sabbath, because it was a symbol of their covenant relationship with God. 01:15:19.640 --> 01:15:21.920 Yeah, these days they won't even switch a light switch on. 01:15:21.920 --> 01:15:22.920 It gets too much work. 01:15:22.920 --> 01:15:24.920 Yeah, well, Orthodox Jews won't. 01:15:24.920 --> 01:15:27.720 Right, exactly. 01:15:27.720 --> 01:15:32.260 They treated it very seriously because of its symbolic nature, and when they asked Jesus 01:15:32.260 --> 01:15:37.140 about it. He said, "Well, man was not made for the Sabbath, but Sabbath for man." By 01:15:37.140 --> 01:15:41.420 extension, man was not made for religion, but religion for man. So I have this perspective 01:15:41.420 --> 01:15:48.740 of religion. Paul called it, best translation, the teacher, the tutor. So he referred to 01:15:48.740 --> 01:15:53.540 Judaism as a tutor that brought him to the place where then he could step into Christ, 01:15:53.540 --> 01:15:59.700 which was the spiritual, universal consciousness, the logos. And so I kind of view it that way 01:15:59.700 --> 01:16:06.880 in terms of I don't look back with horror and hatred on the time that I had in Christianity. 01:16:06.880 --> 01:16:11.760 I see it as the school ground that helped me along to where I was able to step into real 01:16:11.760 --> 01:16:18.240 spirituality. It's really important because when we are in school, when we're young, we're 01:16:18.240 --> 01:16:24.320 living in a construct of reality that's scaled down. It's not the real world, right? It's 01:16:24.320 --> 01:16:29.680 a sort of microcosm of it in a way that allows us to learn. And, you know, when kids are playing 01:16:29.680 --> 01:16:33.520 they're practicing and being grown-ups, right? They play with cars, or they play with kitchens, 01:16:33.520 --> 01:16:37.680 and whatever else, and practicing what it's going to mean to be a grown-up. At some point, 01:16:37.680 --> 01:16:41.840 they get to the point where they need to graduate school, and being there any longer 01:16:41.840 --> 01:16:45.840 feels like they're in a prison. They just can't wait to get out of school. "Let me free." 01:16:45.840 --> 01:16:51.760 That's that difference between religion and spirituality, or what you could say is the 01:16:51.760 --> 01:16:57.280 true religion, which isn't any earthly religion. It's a whole spiritual fabric of reality, 01:16:57.280 --> 01:17:02.800 is that understanding that it serves a purpose. There are places you could go to in the world 01:17:02.800 --> 01:17:06.640 today where if you just walked in and said, "Let's eradicate religion as it is," they'd 01:17:06.640 --> 01:17:10.720 descend into utter moral chaos. Yeah, good point. They need that. 01:17:10.720 --> 01:17:16.320 Right. They haven't developed the moral compass to the point where you take away the fear factor 01:17:16.320 --> 01:17:21.600 and they go, "Okay, well, I'm going to be kind to my neighbor because it's good for the world." 01:17:21.600 --> 01:17:26.000 They would go, "Well, what's good for me is good for me, and I'll take your cows and your wife and 01:17:26.000 --> 01:17:31.280 or whatever else that I want, those places still exist and they existed even more so back in the 01:17:31.280 --> 01:17:36.240 time that the Bible was written. So, it still serves a purpose and I just tend to look at it 01:17:36.240 --> 01:17:39.600 as people on a different stage of their journey. At some point, they'll run dry and they'll be 01:17:39.600 --> 01:17:44.000 looking for something beyond it and that's I think what we're seeing with a lot of religions, 01:17:44.000 --> 01:17:48.480 you know, around, a lot of people who were religious around the world that are saying, 01:17:48.480 --> 01:17:51.040 okay, I need something more real, more tangible than this. 01:17:51.040 --> 01:17:56.640 Yeah, that's good. A lot of examples I can think of such as training wheels on a bicycle, 01:17:56.640 --> 01:18:00.600 which are really useful when you're just learning to ride, but they get in your way after you've 01:18:00.600 --> 01:18:08.480 learned. Or Taoism talks about how the higher the level of consciousness that predominates 01:18:08.480 --> 01:18:13.800 in a society, the less rules and the less government it actually needs because people 01:18:13.800 --> 01:18:20.280 spontaneously abide with the flow of the Tao, you know, and they abide by what is Hinduism 01:18:20.280 --> 01:18:25.800 and probably Buddhism also have similar points. Hinduism talks about the yugas, different ages, 01:18:25.800 --> 01:18:32.040 and it's in our yuga, which they say is the darkest age that you need the most structures 01:18:32.040 --> 01:18:39.000 because people aren't spontaneously behaving. Yes, that's really interesting. I have a very 01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:43.000 vivid analogy of this. When my daughter was young, she was about seven years old, 01:18:43.000 --> 01:18:46.600 and when she was born, I thought, you know, the main thing I want to teach her in life is how to 01:18:46.600 --> 01:18:50.600 to love other people. I don't want to put a sort of pressure on her to be anything or do 01:18:50.600 --> 01:18:54.280 anything. I just want her to love others. And so she was young, I was trying to teach 01:18:54.280 --> 01:18:59.240 her, "I want you to love your sister and love the people around you." And I kept trying 01:18:59.240 --> 01:19:02.280 to teach her this and she just wasn't getting it. And at one point she was being really 01:19:02.280 --> 01:19:06.560 ornery with her sister and her, and I got really annoyed with her. And I was like, "You 01:19:06.560 --> 01:19:11.760 know what? Damn it, we had rules when I was a kid. We have rules in our house now." So 01:19:11.760 --> 01:19:16.920 So I went to the internet, found somewhere online a set of rules and I printed them off and I 01:19:16.920 --> 01:19:22.440 went and put them on a refrigerator door and I marched my daughter over to it and I said, 01:19:22.440 --> 01:19:23.960 "Okay, here's the rules of the house." 01:19:23.960 --> 01:19:25.400 It was very simple things. 01:19:25.400 --> 01:19:28.920 Don't hurt others, don't hurt your sister, don't take from others, don't steal from others, 01:19:28.920 --> 01:19:31.040 don't, you know, on and on, you know. 01:19:31.040 --> 01:19:35.120 And just very simple rules, graduated down to her level. 01:19:35.120 --> 01:19:40.040 So she's looking at these rules and she just sits there quietly for a minute and she looks 01:19:40.040 --> 01:19:44.640 at me and she goes, "You mean that if I follow these rules you won't be angry with me?" 01:19:44.640 --> 01:19:49.280 And I go, "Yeah." And then I'm like, I'm starting to feel really bad because I'm like, 01:19:49.280 --> 01:19:55.280 "Poor am I as a father." This is her response. And then she gets this big smile on her face. 01:19:55.280 --> 01:20:00.380 I'm feeling even worse. And I'm like, I realized in her mind when I say, "Okay, love your sister," 01:20:00.380 --> 01:20:04.640 she has no idea what that means. She hasn't developed the mental capacity to understand 01:20:04.640 --> 01:20:10.880 what does it mean, the wisdom, to love my sister or my parents or whatever. So to her, I was like this 01:20:10.880 --> 01:20:14.880 big bear all the time where I was just randomly getting angry at her because she'd done something 01:20:14.880 --> 01:20:19.520 and she's like, "Well, what have I done?" And it just gave me this whole perspective on the Old 01:20:19.520 --> 01:20:24.000 Testament because, you know, when the Hebrew slaves came out of Egypt, they were illiterate 01:20:24.000 --> 01:20:29.120 and they were raised as slaves. So if you're raised as a slave, you're not taught how to do 01:20:29.120 --> 01:20:34.160 anything for yourself. You're not taught how to make decisions. You're not taught how to make 01:20:34.160 --> 01:20:38.960 any decisions at all, let alone run a community, let alone build a country. So these illiterate 01:20:38.960 --> 01:20:43.680 slaves come out of Egypt, which is probably one of the most well-ordered countries on the planet 01:20:43.680 --> 01:20:46.560 at the time, and they come into the wilderness without the foggiest idea of what they're going 01:20:46.560 --> 01:20:52.960 to do. Slaves their entire life. And so they would have had the mental perspective of the world of a 01:20:52.960 --> 01:20:59.200 child, no education, completely illiterate. So then when you read the story of the Old Testament 01:20:59.200 --> 01:21:05.200 through their eyes, it's like the story of an angry father telling a child off. And I remember when I 01:21:05.200 --> 01:21:08.880 was, you know, my dad would tell me off as a kid, I thought a couple times he was gonna kill me. Of 01:21:08.880 --> 01:21:13.120 course, you know, you grow up later and you realize that wasn't the case, but in your five-year-old 01:21:13.120 --> 01:21:16.480 mind, you're like, "Oh, I don't know if I'm gonna live the rest of the afternoon," you know? 01:21:16.480 --> 01:21:17.760 Pete: [Laughter] 01:21:17.760 --> 01:21:21.760 Jeff: That didn't make him sound really bad. It wasn't. It was just that you have that 01:21:21.760 --> 01:21:26.800 perspective as a kid where your parents can be really scary at times and unpredictable. 01:21:26.800 --> 01:21:31.040 So when you look at Judaism from that standpoint, and this is a very exoteric religion, it wasn't 01:21:31.040 --> 01:21:34.560 like the Eastern philosophies, which are very internalized, it's very much about the inner 01:21:34.560 --> 01:21:41.200 journey. It was about building and modeling community and what a positive community looks 01:21:41.200 --> 01:21:46.320 like. And if you look at all of the laws that were made within that context, there was almost 01:21:46.320 --> 01:21:50.800 all of them, you can find some sort of a reason or rationale why those laws were given. They made 01:21:50.800 --> 01:21:55.920 some sort of sense from a communal standpoint. So what you do with a child when you raise a child 01:21:55.920 --> 01:22:03.520 is you start out giving them a set of rules that protect them and they show them what love looks 01:22:03.520 --> 01:22:09.280 like. They aren't love itself, but you hope that through them practicing the rules and you building 01:22:09.280 --> 01:22:14.720 the discipline within them, over time they're going to start to get a picture of what love looks like. 01:22:14.720 --> 01:22:18.800 And at some point when they're older, that will translate into actually loving people. 01:22:18.800 --> 01:22:23.520 When they start having the practice of showing love and seeing the effect it has on others around 01:22:23.520 --> 01:22:29.280 them. That begins to inspire them to live a life that is loving toward others. The whole Old 01:22:29.280 --> 01:22:35.840 Testament, all the laws were built on this idea of do no harm. In the Old Testament, it worked in a 01:22:35.840 --> 01:22:41.360 forbidden, permissive, legal mindset. They had a covenant legal relationship with God. By the way, 01:22:41.360 --> 01:22:47.120 all the stuff about God pouring his wrath out on Jesus and all of that, you know, to punish him for 01:22:47.120 --> 01:22:53.700 all of our sins was a complete misunderstanding of what the whole affair was about with the 01:22:53.700 --> 01:22:54.980 cross and what that meant. 01:22:54.980 --> 01:22:56.820 The Jews had a covenant mindset. 01:22:56.820 --> 01:22:59.700 They had a legal agreement with God that said, "You and I are one." 01:22:59.700 --> 01:23:01.260 It's the same as a marriage covenant, right? 01:23:01.260 --> 01:23:02.620 The two become one. 01:23:02.620 --> 01:23:05.100 Us as a nation and you are one. 01:23:05.100 --> 01:23:07.620 Somebody does something to us, they're doing it to you and vice versa. 01:23:07.620 --> 01:23:09.860 So they had this sort of perspective. 01:23:09.860 --> 01:23:15.020 So it was always prophesied in the Old Testament that when the Messiah would come, the law 01:23:15.020 --> 01:23:21.500 would be written on their hearts. That's the transition from the school ground to spirituality 01:23:21.500 --> 01:23:26.020 because it becomes in the heart. So, when you read Paul's writing, he makes it very 01:23:26.020 --> 01:23:31.860 clear. He said five times, five key books of the Bible, he said, "All things are lawful 01:23:31.860 --> 01:23:37.740 unto me, not all things are beneficial." Paul worked from a harmful beneficial standpoint, 01:23:37.740 --> 01:23:41.700 not a forbidden permissive standpoint. And that was what he was trying to teach the churches. 01:23:41.700 --> 01:23:45.700 So all of Paul's writing in the churches were contextual instruction 01:23:45.700 --> 01:23:49.700 addressing specific issues at the time to say this is how love 01:23:49.700 --> 01:23:53.700 should look like in your community. He was not writing a law that said 01:23:53.700 --> 01:23:57.700 every Christian from now on should do this. He was trying to train them up and teach 01:23:57.700 --> 01:24:01.700 them how to have the wisdom of love and how to live as a loving community. 01:24:01.700 --> 01:24:05.700 That's the thing that's very often misunderstood about him. It was written to 01:24:05.700 --> 01:24:09.700 a very specific group of people. Now you can learn from it by understanding why he 01:24:09.700 --> 01:24:14.980 he was doing it, but it was never meant to be literally applied to our present day. 01:24:14.980 --> 01:24:17.980 As you were speaking, I was thinking about Ken Wilber's work. I don't know if you've 01:24:17.980 --> 01:24:22.440 ever read any of him. And there's also a thing called spiral dynamics, in which they 01:24:22.440 --> 01:24:26.480 have all these colors. I always forget what the different colors represent, but it kind 01:24:26.480 --> 01:24:32.100 of sketches out the kinds of things we're discussing about the various levels of psychological 01:24:32.100 --> 01:24:38.420 and emotional maturity that humans go through and societies go through, and how they tend 01:24:38.420 --> 01:24:43.100 to view the world based on any particular level of maturity and what kind of society you have 01:24:43.100 --> 01:24:48.140 to have, what kind of religions you're going to have, if a certain level of maturity predominates. 01:24:48.140 --> 01:24:49.140 Yes. 01:24:49.140 --> 01:24:53.660 Interesting stuff. You also might want to watch my interview with Father Sean O'Leary 01:24:53.660 --> 01:24:58.580 who argued that there's no archaeological evidence that there were ever any Jewish slaves 01:24:58.580 --> 01:25:01.100 in Egypt or in the desert for 40 years. 01:25:01.100 --> 01:25:05.060 He claims the whole thing, but I can't get into that whole argument. 01:25:05.060 --> 01:25:11.060 I'll tell you what, I'll watch that interview, but look up a guy on YouTube called Robert Feather. 01:25:11.060 --> 01:25:17.060 He was a metallurgist. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls is called the Copper Scroll, and he was asked to review it. 01:25:17.060 --> 01:25:24.060 And he found out it was like something like 99.99% pure copper, which he said would have been impossible to do at the time. 01:25:24.060 --> 01:25:26.060 And the scroll was made of copper? 01:25:26.060 --> 01:25:31.060 The scroll was made of copper. And he was an atheist at the time, and he became really fascinated by the scroll. 01:25:31.060 --> 01:25:34.580 the scroll. How did these ancient people manage to do this at the time when they didn't have 01:25:34.580 --> 01:25:39.540 the technology? So, he started studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and there was one of the 01:25:39.540 --> 01:25:44.220 scrolls called the Temple Scroll which describes the building of this new temple, the rebuilding 01:25:44.220 --> 01:25:49.940 of the temple. But the dimensions of the temple do not fit on the mountain in Jerusalem. It's 01:25:49.940 --> 01:25:53.460 too big. And they've never been able to work out why, the scholars, you know, why was this 01:25:53.460 --> 01:25:57.620 temple so much bigger than the Jerusalem Mount? And so, he's reading about this and he reads 01:25:57.620 --> 01:26:04.340 this word in there of Akhenaten. And he says, "What is this?" And he asked one of his esteemed 01:26:04.340 --> 01:26:08.900 colleagues, you know, he's an expert in that, he said, "What is this?" And he said, "Well, 01:26:08.900 --> 01:26:13.260 that was a pharaoh in Egypt." I believe it was Nefertiti's father. So, he started looking 01:26:13.260 --> 01:26:18.980 up this pharaoh in Egypt and he found this pharaoh existed and they found they had a 01:26:18.980 --> 01:26:25.340 whole city and a temple mount that matched perfectly with his scroll. And they've uncovered 01:26:25.340 --> 01:26:30.540 this. Essentially, he brought monotheism to Egypt for a short period and he got rid of 01:26:30.540 --> 01:26:37.480 the polytheism and he had this group of slaves that were there through that period and he 01:26:37.480 --> 01:26:43.520 traces the whole story of how they went from, these were the proto-Hebrew slaves and he's 01:26:43.520 --> 01:26:49.000 got evidence for that, traces them into the wilderness and actually finds the tabernacle 01:26:49.000 --> 01:26:52.260 mount that's listed in the Bible, which is in a completely different place than what 01:26:52.260 --> 01:26:56.020 traditionally believed. And this is all on the YouTube thing. So, have a watch, it's really 01:26:56.020 --> 01:26:56.420 interesting. 01:26:56.420 --> 01:27:01.380 Pete: Check it out. I'll connect you with Sean O'Leary, you guys can duke it out. 01:27:01.380 --> 01:27:03.780 [Laughter] 01:27:03.780 --> 01:27:07.780 Then you also said an interesting thing here about how we're about to transcend 01:27:07.780 --> 01:27:12.740 worldly government into a spiritual government that is guided by spirit rather than legislation 01:27:12.740 --> 01:27:17.620 and penalty, which is kind of along the lines we've been speaking. But again, when you actually 01:27:17.620 --> 01:27:24.340 try to conceive of the changes that would have to take place in the governments of the world 01:27:24.340 --> 01:27:29.700 in order for that to come about in a meaningful way, you can't imagine how those changes would 01:27:29.700 --> 01:27:33.880 take place. I mean, it's all we can do to get some piece of legislation through the 01:27:33.880 --> 01:27:35.180 Congress these days. 01:27:35.180 --> 01:27:40.820 Yes. I think where we're going, it's hard to imagine what it's going to be like at all. 01:27:40.820 --> 01:27:42.380 We're going somewhere we've never been before. 01:27:42.380 --> 01:27:49.020 I hope we are. I'm not like these gen-whatevers who are, well, disillusioned. I have a lot of optimism, 01:27:49.020 --> 01:27:55.260 but I can't conceive of the actual mechanics that will have to be undergone for us to get from here 01:27:55.260 --> 01:27:59.980 to there in terms of, you know, how governments... because everything seems so recalcitrant, you know, 01:27:59.980 --> 01:28:06.380 so resistant to change, so stodgy. Everything's kind of locked in, not only in our country, 01:28:06.380 --> 01:28:12.060 but many countries. So how does it happen? I think it's going to happen at grassroots level. 01:28:12.060 --> 01:28:14.620 I think what we're going to see is governments fragmenting. 01:28:14.620 --> 01:28:19.020 Where we've had a lot of superpowers before, I think we're going to see those superpowers 01:28:19.020 --> 01:28:21.200 diminish and become more fragmented. 01:28:21.200 --> 01:28:25.060 And I think within that you'll find spaces that almost might become a little bit more 01:28:25.060 --> 01:28:28.060 self-governing and futile in terms of how they operate. 01:28:28.060 --> 01:28:31.800 It's not to say they won't be a part of any larger government, but I think we'll see those 01:28:31.800 --> 01:28:36.220 governments weakened to the point where you'll have some places that will be incredible and 01:28:36.220 --> 01:28:38.140 they will really express what community looks like. 01:28:38.140 --> 01:28:41.020 And I think you have other places that won't be so much. 01:28:41.020 --> 01:28:46.860 I don't see this as being an immediate overnight thing, but I think we will see a transition 01:28:46.860 --> 01:28:53.020 as these structures shake. We will see a transition toward that, but I have no idea how long that's 01:28:53.020 --> 01:28:58.220 going to take to happen. Yeah, it could take a while, but who knows? The pace of change seems 01:28:58.220 --> 01:29:05.420 to be increasing exponentially, and now with AI that's another major accelerator, as the internet 01:29:05.420 --> 01:29:10.760 it was but even more so now. Yeah, yeah I mean it's accelerating at a scary pace. It may 01:29:10.760 --> 01:29:15.420 be kind of the why now sort of thing because if that continues at that pace the amount 01:29:15.420 --> 01:29:20.220 of self-destruction that we could do would be wild. I mean it would be incredible. I mean 01:29:20.220 --> 01:29:24.740 not incredible in a good way, I mean vast. It could become very dangerous and you know 01:29:24.740 --> 01:29:29.660 even guys like Elon Musk have stood up and said this stuff's dangerous. So when you get 01:29:29.660 --> 01:29:34.740 guys like that who are very cutting edge on the technology, take it seriously. Well you're 01:29:34.740 --> 01:29:38.740 a pretty safe place. You can just eat fish and collect rainwater. 01:29:38.740 --> 01:29:40.980 Pete: [Laughter] 01:29:40.980 --> 01:29:42.740 Climate training gets mangoes, you know. 01:29:42.740 --> 01:29:48.900 Pete: Right. Yeah. Okay, so we've covered a lot here. What haven't we covered that you want to 01:29:48.900 --> 01:29:51.700 make sure that, you know, we touch upon before we conclude? 01:29:51.700 --> 01:29:57.860 Richard: I'd like to actually talk about what made me come to see Christ in a more universalist 01:29:57.860 --> 01:29:58.100 light. 01:29:58.100 --> 01:29:58.740 Pete: Okay. 01:29:58.740 --> 01:30:02.420 Richard Roar touched on this and I thought what he said was great. 01:30:02.420 --> 01:30:04.420 You mean in my interview with him? 01:30:04.420 --> 01:30:06.420 Yes, yes, sorry, in your interview with him. 01:30:06.420 --> 01:30:08.420 You talked about how Christ is not Jesus' last name. 01:30:08.420 --> 01:30:10.420 It was a title, it was a function. 01:30:10.420 --> 01:30:16.420 And it's a function that's incredibly rich with symbolism that we don't get. 01:30:16.420 --> 01:30:20.420 The first Christ was King Solomon in Jewish history. 01:30:20.420 --> 01:30:22.420 He was the first to have that title. 01:30:22.420 --> 01:30:24.420 It was an almost King Priestly type role. 01:30:24.420 --> 01:30:28.420 And the word literally means "anointing", the anointed one. 01:30:28.420 --> 01:30:32.120 And when you sort of break down the symbolism of what anointing means is where it sort of 01:30:32.120 --> 01:30:35.660 starts to open up this concept and what it means. 01:30:35.660 --> 01:30:40.720 So the anointing oil that they used in Israel at the time, there were different elements 01:30:40.720 --> 01:30:45.500 that were used in the temple worship, including olives, which they make oil for the lamps, 01:30:45.500 --> 01:30:49.260 spices they use for the bread, incense they use on the fire, and they would crush it together 01:30:49.260 --> 01:30:53.620 to make, they call it "oud" in the Middle East, but like an oil fragrance, cologne, perfume 01:30:53.620 --> 01:30:56.620 sort of thing that smelled amazing. 01:30:56.620 --> 01:31:01.340 It's very symbolic of spiritual awakening because, you know, you put a fragrance on and then 01:31:01.340 --> 01:31:05.020 you go walk out in the world and then you walk past somebody and all of a sudden they 01:31:05.020 --> 01:31:07.980 get a whiff of it and they're awakened to this thing. 01:31:07.980 --> 01:31:14.980 And so, there's this symbolism, this idea that the work of the Christ is to create unity, 01:31:14.980 --> 01:31:15.980 create oneness. 01:31:15.980 --> 01:31:20.580 Where the oil is a symbol of taking separate bitter elements and crushing them together 01:31:20.580 --> 01:31:24.500 so they become one pleasant substance. 01:31:24.500 --> 01:31:28.260 And here when you say the Christ, you mean like the cosmic consciousness or something, 01:31:28.260 --> 01:31:30.260 not just Jesus as Nazareth, right? 01:31:30.260 --> 01:31:34.460 So, yeah, so Christ is essentially, it's the cosmic consciousness. 01:31:34.460 --> 01:31:35.460 Right, right. 01:31:35.460 --> 01:31:36.460 It's the I Am. 01:31:36.460 --> 01:31:37.460 Yes, okay. 01:31:37.460 --> 01:31:42.140 But the idea that that consciousness would dwell on earth through men and it would have 01:31:42.140 --> 01:31:45.980 an effect of bringing oneness on the planet. 01:31:45.980 --> 01:31:50.660 So where we take all of these separate substances, crush them together, bitter they come together, 01:31:50.660 --> 01:31:55.100 beautiful fragrance is what happens when men are brought together into oneness. 01:31:55.100 --> 01:31:59.100 So in the Jewish mind, the Messiah, of course they didn't see it on quite a cosmic level, 01:31:59.100 --> 01:32:04.620 they saw the Messiah as being this sort of godly, almost priest king who was going to 01:32:04.620 --> 01:32:09.500 create unity between the people of Israel and going to create unity between them and 01:32:09.500 --> 01:32:11.980 God so that they would be in one and they would have peace. 01:32:11.980 --> 01:32:16.540 Because they had this history before the kings arrived of just being constantly wiped out 01:32:16.540 --> 01:32:17.700 by their neighbors. 01:32:17.700 --> 01:32:21.520 They build up again and they get wiped out, and they build up again and get wiped out. 01:32:21.520 --> 01:32:22.520 And they wanted peace. 01:32:22.520 --> 01:32:26.540 And peace would come through the Messiah who would unite them together in peace. 01:32:26.540 --> 01:32:29.700 Because before that, everyone did what was right in their own eyes, that's what it said 01:32:29.700 --> 01:32:30.840 in the Judges. 01:32:30.840 --> 01:32:34.460 So they had this view that ultimately there would be the ultimate Messiah that would come, 01:32:34.460 --> 01:32:39.520 that they were looking toward, and which of course Christians believe is Jesus, that would 01:32:39.520 --> 01:32:41.800 do this job once and for all. 01:32:41.800 --> 01:32:46.860 So when you have this idea of the anointing oil and this sort of creation of oneness, what's 01:32:46.860 --> 01:32:52.060 It's really interesting when Jesus is at the Last Supper with his disciples, when he says, 01:32:52.060 --> 01:32:54.820 in John, he says, "I and the Father are one. 01:32:54.820 --> 01:32:57.540 You're one with me, you are one with the Father." 01:32:57.540 --> 01:33:01.540 And this whole talk there was about the oneness that they had together. 01:33:01.540 --> 01:33:05.700 And then he was bringing, there's this beautiful verse in the Psalms that said how good, how 01:33:05.700 --> 01:33:09.060 pleasant it is when brethren dwell together in unity. 01:33:09.060 --> 01:33:11.660 It is like oil flowing down the beard of Aaron. 01:33:11.660 --> 01:33:13.420 Aaron was the first high priest. 01:33:13.420 --> 01:33:14.740 So that's the picture, right? 01:33:14.740 --> 01:33:18.140 It's that anointing that just unifies everything. 01:33:18.140 --> 01:33:21.560 And in the temples, they take this oil and everything was touched by the same substance 01:33:21.560 --> 01:33:24.620 to show that it was all sanctified, it was all one. 01:33:24.620 --> 01:33:30.100 So you have Jesus at the Last Supper with his disciples talking about how they are one with 01:33:30.100 --> 01:33:31.100 him. 01:33:31.100 --> 01:33:32.100 He is one with the Father. 01:33:32.100 --> 01:33:36.760 No one has seen the Father because the Father can't be seen, at least in this material form. 01:33:36.760 --> 01:33:42.300 And he leaves the Last Supper to go out to the Garden of Gethsemane to spend the night 01:33:42.300 --> 01:33:46.360 praying and interceding for his disciples because he knows what he's about to go through. 01:33:46.360 --> 01:33:50.960 The word "Gethsemane" in Hebrew means "the olive press." 01:33:50.960 --> 01:33:55.700 So his soul was being crushed on their behalf that night, and as he was praying that they 01:33:55.700 --> 01:33:57.900 would be one through that. 01:33:57.900 --> 01:34:03.100 And so, this whole idea about what Christ means and what it stands for is oneness. 01:34:03.100 --> 01:34:08.460 It's a very simple, purest essence, and it's the bringing together of everything into 01:34:08.460 --> 01:34:12.100 oneness, as Paul said, the summing up of all things in Christ. 01:34:12.100 --> 01:34:19.180 So this is the idea, and Jesus was of course the incarnation of that, but the concept stands 01:34:19.180 --> 01:34:25.440 much bigger in that moment in time. It's really the Logos, the uncarved block, you almost say 01:34:25.440 --> 01:34:29.540 it's like the uncarved block of the Tao Te Ching walking amongst us as a human to show 01:34:29.540 --> 01:34:34.500 what it looks like to be in a perfect state of peace. So I don't know if that makes sense 01:34:34.500 --> 01:34:35.500 to you at all. 01:34:35.500 --> 01:34:41.300 Yes, it does. Kind of related to what you've been saying about the history of the Jews and 01:34:41.300 --> 01:34:45.800 so on, how they kept getting wiped out and all. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or insights 01:34:45.800 --> 01:34:51.760 about the Middle East situation as it now stands. If we appoint you Prime Minister of Israel 01:34:51.760 --> 01:34:55.800 tomorrow, what are you going to do? I don't think that would be a job I would want, nor 01:34:55.800 --> 01:35:02.060 many others. It's such a sticky situation there because there are so many conflicting 01:35:02.060 --> 01:35:07.100 interests there that go beyond just two religions warring. If you could get people together and 01:35:07.100 --> 01:35:10.620 and you could get them to share, you could cross that divide. 01:35:10.620 --> 01:35:14.380 And there's a great story, I think it was Adam Sandler, 01:35:14.380 --> 01:35:16.580 when he filmed "Zohan" I think. 01:35:16.580 --> 01:35:18.500 In the story, they had some Jews 01:35:18.500 --> 01:35:19.900 and they had some Palestinians, 01:35:19.900 --> 01:35:22.420 and they're sort of at each other's throats. 01:35:22.420 --> 01:35:24.500 And they spoke about behind the scenes, 01:35:24.500 --> 01:35:26.060 'cause they used Jewish and Palestinian actors. 01:35:26.060 --> 01:35:28.200 When they started the film, they hated each other, 01:35:28.200 --> 01:35:29.660 and they were always arguing with each other. 01:35:29.660 --> 01:35:31.420 They'd sit down for meals and just be arguing 01:35:31.420 --> 01:35:32.620 the whole time through. 01:35:32.620 --> 01:35:35.300 But by the end of it, as they had taken time 01:35:35.300 --> 01:35:40.420 hear each other's sides, they started to understand one another and they actually finished the shoot 01:35:40.420 --> 01:35:45.220 as like best friends. That's what needs to happen there and in any other place of conflict, but it's 01:35:45.220 --> 01:35:50.020 going to be hard when you have other interests that don't like the idea of resolving these things 01:35:50.020 --> 01:35:56.420 because conflict is beneficial for them in some way or another. Yeah, there's this fellow named 01:35:56.420 --> 01:36:02.420 Thomas Hubel that I've interviewed a couple of times and his specialty seems to be generational 01:36:02.420 --> 01:36:09.060 trauma. He's German, his wife is Israeli, and he's done a lot over the trauma of the Holocaust and 01:36:09.060 --> 01:36:14.660 the lasting impression that is made in the collective psyches of Germans and Jews and so on. 01:36:14.660 --> 01:36:20.100 And I think he's been applying it to other contexts as well, but there's a huge amount of that in the 01:36:20.100 --> 01:36:25.620 Arab-Israeli situation. Because I think of collective consciousness just as we individually 01:36:25.620 --> 01:36:32.960 have our psychologies and our mentalities and we can accumulate grievances and biases and 01:36:32.960 --> 01:36:33.960 all that. 01:36:33.960 --> 01:36:38.940 I think that entire cultures do that, and just as it might take a fair amount of therapy or 01:36:38.940 --> 01:36:45.200 catharsis of some kind for us to cleanse ourselves individually of those qualities, the same 01:36:45.200 --> 01:36:47.560 is true of societies. 01:36:47.560 --> 01:36:52.480 And lacking that, failing to do that, we end up with wars, because this stuff just builds 01:36:52.480 --> 01:36:57.280 up to a breaking point like static electricity and clouds, eventually lightning has to strike. 01:36:57.280 --> 01:37:04.160 But if there could be ways of defusing it before it had to break out as wars by actually 01:37:04.160 --> 01:37:10.920 really having some deep fundamental transformational technologies for entire societies and cultures 01:37:10.920 --> 01:37:16.180 as well as individuals, then perhaps that would be part of the mechanism of transitioning 01:37:16.180 --> 01:37:20.800 to the kind of more enlightened world that you and I have contemplated in this conversation. 01:37:20.800 --> 01:37:25.800 It's really interesting because the Mennonite community, one of the things I'm really grateful 01:37:25.800 --> 01:37:31.120 for about my upbringing was experiencing community like the Mennonites have. 01:37:31.120 --> 01:37:35.080 Kind of answering this in a bit of a roundabout way, you lived in a place where you didn't 01:37:35.080 --> 01:37:40.200 lock your door, you didn't worry about walking down the street, everybody was there to help 01:37:40.200 --> 01:37:41.200 one another. 01:37:41.200 --> 01:37:45.600 They built very, very strong communities to the point that even in, there's a very traditional 01:37:45.600 --> 01:37:48.920 one in Belize right now, that's actually growing. 01:37:48.920 --> 01:37:52.200 Even though they're so traditional, they're actually having people coming from Mexico 01:37:52.200 --> 01:37:54.780 and Belize saying, "Can we join your community?" 01:37:54.780 --> 01:37:58.940 Because they're so inspired by seeing real community in action. 01:37:58.940 --> 01:38:01.180 And they have this very interesting perspective. 01:38:01.180 --> 01:38:03.160 They saw themselves as a kingdom, not of this world. 01:38:03.160 --> 01:38:06.480 So they saw themselves already as part of a higher order. 01:38:06.480 --> 01:38:10.880 And their motto was the Bible and the plow, which meant that they felt like the way that 01:38:10.880 --> 01:38:14.400 you express your spirituality is through your work. 01:38:14.400 --> 01:38:17.540 So they wanted to build and model, almost to be like this island, they wanted to build and 01:38:17.540 --> 01:38:21.900 model what a real community looks like, a real spiritual community looks like, so that they 01:38:21.900 --> 01:38:26.900 could inspire other people to live the same way. And they did. They were so effective 01:38:26.900 --> 01:38:31.540 with their agriculture that Catherine the Great came to visit them in the Ukraine during 01:38:31.540 --> 01:38:35.020 her time to understand how they could be so effective with their agriculture. But they 01:38:35.020 --> 01:38:39.020 were just very hard workers who modeled what community looked like. And you knew growing 01:38:39.020 --> 01:38:43.780 up that you had to be a part of this community and you had to fit in with this community and 01:38:43.780 --> 01:38:46.740 participate and bring value to it and so forth. 01:38:46.740 --> 01:38:51.980 I see that as a lot of the antidote to where we are because part of the problem with all 01:38:51.980 --> 01:38:54.700 of the mental health issues and everything that we're going through is we were never 01:38:54.700 --> 01:38:57.900 meant to be people that lived the way we're living. 01:38:57.900 --> 01:39:03.340 Isolated individuals, we were meant to grow up and live in community. 01:39:03.340 --> 01:39:05.900 And in Polynesia, they still practice that. 01:39:05.900 --> 01:39:09.820 The village raises a child and everybody's uncle and aunt. 01:39:09.820 --> 01:39:12.980 Single mothers is not even remotely an issue here. 01:39:12.980 --> 01:39:16.980 It's like, the woman gets pregnant and has a baby, well, auntie and granny and whoever 01:39:16.980 --> 01:39:20.940 else looks at it, and she goes off and she's still a young woman, has a life, and she comes 01:39:20.940 --> 01:39:21.940 home to her baby. 01:39:21.940 --> 01:39:25.480 And because the whole family, the whole village is raising the child, and they have this very 01:39:25.480 --> 01:39:30.500 close connected sense that you realize doesn't exist elsewhere in the world. 01:39:30.500 --> 01:39:33.940 Where I sort of bridge the divide of the East and the West is, you know, the East has been 01:39:33.940 --> 01:39:36.420 very much focused on the inner journey. 01:39:36.420 --> 01:39:41.260 And it's fascinating, you go to India where there's just so much spiritual pursuit and 01:39:41.260 --> 01:39:45.260 insight and yet, you know, people won't even sweep their own front door sometimes. 01:39:45.260 --> 01:39:49.260 But you go to the opposite end where you have very exoteric religions that have been very focused on the external 01:39:49.260 --> 01:39:53.260 of trying to force community, force countries to live and behave 01:39:53.260 --> 01:39:57.260 in a certain way, but they've been very much focused on the outward expression of what 01:39:57.260 --> 01:40:01.260 spirituality should look like. And it's not an either/or. I think the only way we 01:40:01.260 --> 01:40:05.260 can fully express ourselves spiritually is within community. You know, it's how 01:40:05.260 --> 01:40:09.260 we're meant to function. And I think that's going to be what I hope is the next 01:40:09.260 --> 01:40:15.100 stage for us in terms of spiritual awakening is we'll be awakening, but awakening into 01:40:15.100 --> 01:40:16.100 community. 01:40:16.100 --> 01:40:19.660 I think there'll be a hunger more and more for people to say, "I don't want to live isolated 01:40:19.660 --> 01:40:20.660 on my own anymore. 01:40:20.660 --> 01:40:24.860 I want to live with other people where we can share this life together and share in love 01:40:24.860 --> 01:40:27.100 and compassion and so forth." 01:40:27.100 --> 01:40:29.300 That's what I'm kind of looking forward to. 01:40:29.300 --> 01:40:32.780 I think we'll see those happen organically in different places, and I think we'll see 01:40:32.780 --> 01:40:33.940 those grow. 01:40:33.940 --> 01:40:37.180 And as people see it, they become the lights, you know, the city on a hill, you know, it's 01:40:37.180 --> 01:40:42.980 that sort of concept where it starts to slowly change minds and perspectives of what life 01:40:42.980 --> 01:40:45.660 can and should look like on this planet. 01:40:45.660 --> 01:40:49.640 At the end of the Rig Veda, there's this verse, parts of which are, "Know your minds to be 01:40:49.640 --> 01:40:55.140 functioning together from a common source." That's one phrase. And another phrase is, 01:40:55.140 --> 01:41:00.780 "An assembly is significant in unity." And I think both of those indicate that essentially 01:41:00.780 --> 01:41:06.140 we are all unified. But like these islands that are around you, they're actually all one 01:41:06.140 --> 01:41:10.540 landmass, but you only see the tips of them because of the water. So, you know, we're 01:41:10.540 --> 01:41:16.500 all essentially one collective consciousness, but we seem much more individuated than we 01:41:16.500 --> 01:41:17.500 are ultimately. 01:41:17.500 --> 01:41:21.900 Yeah, and at some point, we'll start to emerge as a more connected landmass, maybe. 01:41:21.900 --> 01:41:22.900 Yeah, interesting. 01:41:22.900 --> 01:41:25.260 I like that. Nice analogy. 01:41:25.260 --> 01:41:29.020 Right. Which kind of points to the notion that ultimately the solution to the world's 01:41:29.020 --> 01:41:36.040 problems is not political or economic or technological, or even though all those things need to be 01:41:36.040 --> 01:41:41.660 considered and transformed, but ultimately the solution is the source from which everything 01:41:41.660 --> 01:41:46.540 derives its nourishment, which is the God or deep inner spirit or our essential nature 01:41:46.540 --> 01:41:51.340 or whatever you want to call it. If we can all, a lot of us get in tune with that, then 01:41:51.340 --> 01:41:56.540 I think things will tend to sort themselves out on the surface in ways that we can't foresee. 01:41:56.540 --> 01:42:00.380 Pete: Yeah, I think the principle is we don't overthrow, we supplant. 01:42:00.380 --> 01:42:01.380 Jared: Yeah, nice. 01:42:01.380 --> 01:42:04.680 So, that was essentially what the Bible taught. 01:42:04.680 --> 01:42:08.620 The way was not to try and topple the system that's there, it was to supplant it with something 01:42:08.620 --> 01:42:09.620 better. 01:42:09.620 --> 01:42:13.020 Yeah, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. 01:42:13.020 --> 01:42:14.020 Precisely. 01:42:14.020 --> 01:42:18.660 So, you don't have much of a social media presence or a website or anything else, but 01:42:18.660 --> 01:42:23.740 is there any way in which if people get inspired by this conversation, they can interact with 01:42:23.740 --> 01:42:28.740 you in any way or you just prefer to remain a private person and you just wanted to have 01:42:28.740 --> 01:42:29.740 a conversation? 01:42:29.740 --> 01:42:35.140 I appreciate it. I felt like I should stick some content out for people to have it. 01:42:35.140 --> 01:42:39.740 So I've started slowly putting some stuff on YouTube, a little bit on Instagram and TikTok, 01:42:39.740 --> 01:42:43.040 although it remains to be seen if TikTok will be around in six months time. 01:42:43.040 --> 01:42:44.940 Maybe it will be in Polynesia. 01:42:44.940 --> 01:42:49.940 Yeah, maybe. So I think I sent you a link, like a link tree that has all those, 01:42:49.940 --> 01:42:51.840 but I can send you those separate links to all. 01:42:51.840 --> 01:42:56.340 Send them separately just to be safe, to make sure I get them and I'll put them up on your BatGap page. 01:42:56.340 --> 01:42:58.040 That would be great. Appreciate that. 01:42:58.040 --> 01:42:59.540 Okay, great. Well, thanks, Josh. 01:42:59.540 --> 01:43:03.640 I appreciate spending the time with you. Sorry I couldn't make it out to Tahiti to do this 01:43:03.640 --> 01:43:10.780 in person. Part C will be in person. Yeah, right. Alrighty. I really enjoyed the conversation 01:43:10.780 --> 01:43:15.540 today. Yeah, me too. Very stimulating. And thanks to those who've been listening and/or 01:43:15.540 --> 01:43:17.420 watching. So we'll see you for the next one. 01:43:17.420 --> 01:43:42.520 [Music]