WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:25.000 [Music] 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.000 Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:29.000 My name is Rick Archer. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:34.500 Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. 00:00:34.500 --> 00:00:37.200 We've done over 700 of them now. 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:40.600 If this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones, 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:44.200 please go to batgap.com and look under the interviews menu 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:47.100 where you'll see them organized in several different ways. 00:00:47.100 --> 00:00:51.600 This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:56.200 We don't monetize it in any intrusive way like some podcasts do, 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:58.200 but we do rely on donations. 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.720 So if you feel like supporting it, 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:03.920 there are PayPal buttons on every page of the website. 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:06.240 My guest today is John Audette. 00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:08.960 He is the author of a book which I just finished listening to 00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:10.960 called "Loved by the Light, 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:14.080 True Stories of Divine Intervention and Providence." 00:01:14.080 --> 00:01:17.160 John earned a master's of science degree from Virginia Tech. 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:19.960 He's a native of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:24.280 and he's been for decades a senior executive 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:26.580 in hospitals and hospice administration 00:01:26.580 --> 00:01:28.560 and physician practice management, 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:31.880 as well as the performing arts and public broadcasting. 00:01:31.880 --> 00:01:34.320 He contributed several scholarly chapters 00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:36.300 to various books by other authors 00:01:36.300 --> 00:01:39.300 about spiritually transformative experiences 00:01:39.300 --> 00:01:40.680 and non-local consciousness, 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.080 including works by Dr. Irvin Laszlo. 00:01:43.080 --> 00:01:44.880 He's also gratefully acknowledged 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:46.780 in many other books on these subjects 00:01:46.780 --> 00:01:48.720 by various well-known authors 00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:51.880 whom he assisted dating back to 1974. 00:01:51.880 --> 00:01:53.800 In fact, John, that's one thing I noticed about you. 00:01:53.800 --> 00:01:58.840 of like a Forrest Gump character in a way because you've run into all these amazing people you know 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:05.720 like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Edgar Mitchell and Kenneth Ring and all these people going back 00:02:05.720 --> 00:02:12.200 decades. You just seem to have a knack for traveling in those circles. Moody, Dr. what was his first 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:17.400 name? Raymond. Raymond Moody, right. We'll get into some of those stories but that's been kind of an 00:02:17.400 --> 00:02:22.920 interesting aspect of your story. You're writing a book of fiction, huh? A novel trilogy? Have you 00:02:22.920 --> 00:02:24.640 Have you written all three or are you just the first one? 00:02:24.640 --> 00:02:26.880 Yes, all three are written, they're finished. 00:02:26.880 --> 00:02:33.920 I'm actually just doing some final editing and polishing and I hope to have them self-published 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:34.920 sometime next year. 00:02:34.920 --> 00:02:35.920 That's great. 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:37.800 Is it sort of like spiritual fiction? 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:44.440 Yes, it's political thriller in the genre of Dan Brown. 00:02:44.440 --> 00:02:45.440 Suspense thriller. 00:02:45.440 --> 00:02:49.800 You know, I call it fiction but a lot of it is historically accurate. 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:55.760 I changed the names to protect the guilty, but I'm trying to basically do the same thing 00:02:55.760 --> 00:03:02.360 I did in writing Love by the Light, which is to convey some spiritual message points and 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:04.480 some very important calls to action. 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:09.880 One of the main ones is to encourage people to practice critical thinking. 00:03:09.880 --> 00:03:10.880 >> Oh, yes. 00:03:10.880 --> 00:03:18.480 >> Do their own research and form their own opinions that are grounded in credible evidence. 00:03:18.480 --> 00:03:23.400 Yes, and that can be taken different ways because people on both sides of various contentious 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:25.720 debates say those same words. 00:03:25.720 --> 00:03:30.320 Like all of a sudden I've become a molecular biologist and here's my opinion about this. 00:03:30.320 --> 00:03:33.040 If you want brain surgery, come to me, I'm an expert. 00:03:33.040 --> 00:03:38.160 I like that quote, you're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. 00:03:38.160 --> 00:03:40.160 Yes, who was that? 00:03:40.160 --> 00:03:43.560 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that. 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:44.560 Yes. 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:48.320 Okay, let me keep reading your bio and I might interject again because there's a lot of interesting 00:03:48.320 --> 00:03:52.840 tidbits in here. So you were the primary founder of the International Association 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:58.600 for Near-Death Studies, INS.org, with co-founders Raymond Moody, Bruce Grayson, 00:03:58.600 --> 00:04:03.920 who's been on BatGap, Michael Sabome, MD, and Kenneth Ring, and you now serve as 00:04:03.920 --> 00:04:09.440 CEO of Eterna, Eterna.org, which you co-founded with Ibn Alexander, who's 00:04:09.440 --> 00:04:13.440 been on BatGap, and Edgar Mitchell. One thing I was wondering about Edgar 00:04:13.440 --> 00:04:16.920 Mitchell, in your book, you kept saying he's a skeptic, he's a skeptic, right up 00:04:16.920 --> 00:04:22.000 until his death practically, but then I've always heard that he was the founder of, what 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.000 was it, Ions? 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:25.520 >>Kurt: Ions, the Institute of Noetic Sciences. 00:04:25.520 --> 00:04:27.280 >>Rick: Yeah, that one. 00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:31.160 So I was kind of surprised because I figured he had had some kind of mystical experience 00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:35.280 when he went to the moon or something that inspired him to start the Institute of Noetic 00:04:35.280 --> 00:04:36.280 Sciences. 00:04:36.280 --> 00:04:40.880 >>Kurt: Edgar wrote a great book called The Way of the Explorer. 00:04:40.880 --> 00:04:46.760 He talked about his oneness epiphany on the way back from the moon. 00:04:46.760 --> 00:04:51.320 started him on the path to explore consciousness. 00:04:51.320 --> 00:04:54.040 And we would often engage in dialogue 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:57.600 about whether consciousness survives bodily death. 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:01.240 In fact, John Fetzer of the Fetzer Foundation 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:05.760 offered to help fund the Institute of Noetic Sciences 00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:10.160 if Edgar would agree to seriously pursue 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:13.560 the issue of life after death 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:15.380 from a scientific perspective. 00:05:15.380 --> 00:05:17.860 And Edgar said, "John, I would love to do that. 00:05:17.860 --> 00:05:20.580 I'd love to accept your money, but in all honesty, 00:05:20.580 --> 00:05:24.020 how can I agree to do that when I don't even know 00:05:24.020 --> 00:05:26.180 the definition of consciousness? 00:05:26.180 --> 00:05:29.860 What can I tell you that survives bodily death 00:05:29.860 --> 00:05:33.060 if I don't know what it is or how to measure it 00:05:33.060 --> 00:05:36.220 or how to operationally define it 00:05:36.220 --> 00:05:38.540 from the standpoint of a research protocol?" 00:05:38.540 --> 00:05:41.100 So this sort of reminds me of an incident 00:05:41.100 --> 00:05:43.660 that happened with Dr. Moody, Raymond Moody, 00:05:43.660 --> 00:05:47.740 in Charlottesville, I think it was 1976, 00:05:47.740 --> 00:05:50.300 James McDonald from McDonald Douglas Aircraft 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:55.300 was in town to attend a symposium on future relations 00:05:55.300 --> 00:05:58.740 with at the time the Soviet Union. 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:02.740 And he came in looking very somber and concerned. 00:06:02.740 --> 00:06:04.820 Life After Life had just come out. 00:06:04.820 --> 00:06:06.380 - Raymond Moody's best book. 00:06:06.380 --> 00:06:07.580 - Raymond Moody's best work 00:06:07.580 --> 00:06:10.380 where he was pioneering groundbreaking work 00:06:10.380 --> 00:06:14.140 where he defined near-death experiences for the first time 00:06:14.140 --> 00:06:15.980 and laid out what's called a Moody model, 00:06:15.980 --> 00:06:19.100 which the common elements that are often reported. 00:06:19.100 --> 00:06:21.140 And it was catching fire. 00:06:21.140 --> 00:06:24.560 I mean, the book was truly riveting for a lot of people 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:27.140 because I think it was really the first time 00:06:27.140 --> 00:06:30.380 that a PhD MD seriously waded 00:06:30.380 --> 00:06:33.180 into the waters of survivalism. 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:36.000 Now, Raymond would always say in the beginning 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.500 that he did not know what these experiences signified. 00:06:39.500 --> 00:06:44.940 He could not, being a philosopher, doctor of philosophy, he could not legitimately claim 00:06:44.940 --> 00:06:48.060 them to be proof of survival. 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:53.060 But they were interesting anecdotal stories that deserved everyone's attention. 00:06:53.060 --> 00:06:56.500 So Mr. MacDonald came in and he said, "We had a meeting." 00:06:56.500 --> 00:07:03.500 And Bruce was there, Bruce Grayson, and Bob Monroe, Monroe Institute Out-of-Body Experience, 00:07:03.500 --> 00:07:11.500 by Noral Beat, Hemisync, and Ian had written a book called "20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation." 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:16.380 So he felt he was in good company and he said, "Look, I've got my checkbook right here." He was 00:07:16.380 --> 00:07:21.420 kind of pulled it out of his jacket. "I'm willing to write you a check for any amount, you name the 00:07:21.420 --> 00:07:28.140 amount, I'm a wealthy guy, but I need you to produce evidence that there's life after death. 00:07:28.140 --> 00:07:34.540 Because if you can do that, we will create ideological havoc in the Soviet Union, because 00:07:34.540 --> 00:07:37.420 the whole society is predicated on atheism. 00:07:37.420 --> 00:07:43.100 They said, "I'm concerned that we're going to have a nuclear confrontation, that we will 00:07:43.100 --> 00:07:44.100 not survive." 00:07:44.100 --> 00:07:45.100 Nobody. 00:07:45.100 --> 00:07:48.020 So, we have to diffuse this while we can. 00:07:48.020 --> 00:07:53.820 Your book is the most important and exciting thing I've read ever that might serve as a 00:07:53.820 --> 00:07:54.820 solution. 00:07:54.820 --> 00:07:56.820 So, will you do that? 00:07:56.820 --> 00:08:01.620 from a non-profit and I'll fund it. You can direct the research. And Raymond, you know, 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:07.540 he received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He was well trained 00:08:07.540 --> 00:08:13.540 in what constitutes proof. -Scientific method, yeah. -You know, what constitutes logic and 00:08:13.540 --> 00:08:17.780 deductive reasoning and all that and critical thinking. And so, Raymond said, 00:08:17.780 --> 00:08:23.060 this is Raymond. He's an all shucks kind of guy and very unassuming. And he just basically said, 00:08:23.060 --> 00:08:28.820 "Mr. McDonough, I appreciate the offer. I'm honored, I'm humbled, but I can't accept it because proof 00:08:28.820 --> 00:08:33.780 sets a very high standard and we cannot possibly meet it to the point where it would create 00:08:33.780 --> 00:08:40.740 ideological havoc in the Soviet Union." So he declined the gift. It's a tribute to his integrity. 00:08:40.740 --> 00:08:46.660 Yeah, you have to honor that, but at the same time, I think he could have stayed in integrity 00:08:46.660 --> 00:08:52.260 and answered the question a little differently, which is what I was hoping. I wish I could have 00:08:52.260 --> 00:08:59.940 telepathically communicate to Raymond how he should respond. We didn't know what Mr. McDonald wanted 00:08:59.940 --> 00:09:04.980 to meet about and what his offer was going to be, so there was really no chance to more or less 00:09:04.980 --> 00:09:12.980 script the conversation. But we were talking about at that time creating a 501(c)(3) to advance 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:19.380 research in the area. And what I wish Raymond had said, by the way he just turned 80 years old, 00:09:19.380 --> 00:09:25.620 I think it was June 29th, and he's in good health and good spirits and still very much the laughing 00:09:25.620 --> 00:09:31.460 Buddha. Raymond has the best sense of humor of anybody. He's quite the comedian and a great 00:09:31.460 --> 00:09:38.500 storyteller. But anyway, I had hoped he would have said, you know, we're fortunate to be embarking 00:09:38.500 --> 00:09:46.340 upon fertile ground, embryonic phenomenon called the near-death experience, which we know very 00:09:46.340 --> 00:09:52.020 little about and we certainly could further the state of the art if we had adequate funding. 00:09:52.020 --> 00:09:58.900 I can think of lots of protocols and hypotheses, controlled studies, give grants to major 00:09:58.900 --> 00:10:04.740 universities, medical schools to undertake some of this work and I can assure you that at the end of 00:10:04.740 --> 00:10:10.260 the day, while we might not have definitive proof, we will advance the state of the art that much 00:10:10.260 --> 00:10:15.700 further and probably make it that much more compelling because, to be honest, I mean, 00:10:15.700 --> 00:10:22.020 my personal opinion, and I think this is probably Raymond's point of view too, we could spend 00:10:22.020 --> 00:10:28.740 billions on research and yes, we would further the state of the art. We would accumulate some 00:10:28.740 --> 00:10:36.180 compelling information and very interesting data cross-culturally, maybe even some longitudinal 00:10:36.180 --> 00:10:42.980 studies to determine after effects, and some prospective studies designed before experiences 00:10:42.980 --> 00:10:43.980 happen. 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:50.700 But I think the takeaway at the end of the day would be to validate what we already know, 00:10:50.700 --> 00:10:53.420 which I put in "Attorney in Seven Statements." 00:10:53.420 --> 00:11:02.100 I summarized it as best I could into seven observations about the nature of reality, based 00:11:02.100 --> 00:11:08.540 on a convergence model which brings together frontier science and its exploration of these 00:11:08.540 --> 00:11:15.300 experiences, not just near-death experiences, but a whole array of exceptional, transcendent 00:11:15.300 --> 00:11:22.820 human experiences, together with the cornerstone pillar teachings of the world's great religions, 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:31.460 aligned with what the great sages and avatars and spiritual teachers have said over millennia. 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:38.500 all converge into those seven observations about the nature of reality. No matter how much more 00:11:38.500 --> 00:11:43.940 research we do, or how well-funded it is, I really don't think we're going to improve upon 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:50.180 those observations. At the very least, I think we might help to empirically validate them and make 00:11:50.180 --> 00:11:55.540 them more acceptable and credible in the minds of a lot of folks who are still on the fence, 00:11:56.180 --> 00:12:02.020 still sort of tied to materialism, but nevertheless I think they will stand the test of time. 00:12:02.020 --> 00:12:08.820 So, I'm a fan of research. I'd like to see a lot more of it. Frankly, this whole area has not 00:12:08.820 --> 00:12:15.940 been very well funded for decades, especially the burgeoning field of torsion physics, 00:12:15.940 --> 00:12:20.340 quantum physics, and how it makes use of consciousness, which I believe is the 00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:25.380 the missing link that Einstein sought for his unified field theory. So that's my 00:12:25.380 --> 00:12:29.700 long-winded answer to your question about Edgar Mitchell and John Fetzer and 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:35.260 Raymond Moody and James McDonald. Well I'd say that proof is not the right word 00:12:35.260 --> 00:12:40.020 because it's too strong a word and there are many areas of science which are very 00:12:40.020 --> 00:12:45.860 mainstream and very widely respected but which are still accumulating data after 00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:52.020 decades. When you talk about subjective experiences, have we ever proven that people dream? There 00:12:52.020 --> 00:12:55.940 can always be a white crow that shows up, you know, that refutes the notion that all 00:12:55.940 --> 00:13:02.420 crows are black, but science works by virtue of just continually amassing greater and greater 00:13:02.420 --> 00:13:07.740 evidence. And so your hypothesis gets stronger and stronger. And I think there's a heck of 00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:12.300 a lot of evidence now for the kinds of things you're discussing here. When you talk about 00:13:12.300 --> 00:13:16.340 subjective experiences. Have we ever proven that people dream? How do you 00:13:16.340 --> 00:13:20.860 videotape a dream? You don't. Everybody says they have them and we can associate 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:24.540 rapid eye movement and certain brain waves with them and so on, but I think 00:13:24.540 --> 00:13:27.860 the same thing could be done of higher states of consciousness. A lot of people 00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:32.140 have said they have them and there could be neurophysiological correlates which 00:13:32.140 --> 00:13:39.860 enable us to establish a standard for these states. Yes, well said. Well said. It 00:13:39.860 --> 00:13:46.960 reminds me of a cliche, "To the one who knows, no amount of evidence is necessary, and to 00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:53.060 those who don't know, no amount of evidence is sufficient." That's so true. Materialist 00:13:53.060 --> 00:14:00.240 science is dismissive of the phenomenology that falls under the rubric of spiritually 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:06.180 transformative experiences. They like to be dismissive of the things that materialist science 00:14:06.180 --> 00:14:13.620 cannot explain, like the vertical perception, for example. So proof is an intellectual trap. 00:14:13.620 --> 00:14:18.660 That's all it is. It doesn't serve us well at this point. That's not to say that we should 00:14:18.660 --> 00:14:26.020 buy into falsehoods or half-truths. We should, each one of us, engage in very aggressive, 00:14:26.020 --> 00:14:32.420 critical thinking. But when the anecdotal evidence is so compelling and goes back for 00:14:32.420 --> 00:14:37.900 millennia back to Plato, if not before, in the case of these experiences, and when science 00:14:37.900 --> 00:14:44.220 cannot adequately account for them, then the default position has to be, logically, to 00:14:44.220 --> 00:14:52.460 take these folks at face value. What do they believe it signifies? I've been very fortunate. 00:14:52.460 --> 00:14:58.860 I started this work at the age of 22 because of my meeting with Raymond, which was an amazing 00:14:58.860 --> 00:15:05.340 synchronicity, I call it cosmic choreography in my book, because it was a journey that went back to 00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:12.060 1960 when I was in third grade, the age of eight. The seeds were planted firmly back then, 00:15:12.060 --> 00:15:17.100 but I was raised Catholic, I gave it up for Lent when I left home at age 18. 00:15:17.100 --> 00:15:26.300 I was agnostic because I did not know what I did not know, and I wasn't going to buy into anything 00:15:26.300 --> 00:15:33.260 unless I could be reasonably sure that it was true. So, when I met Raymond, I was a full-fledged 00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:40.140 agnostic. The way in which I met him was extraordinary, and he had my full attention, 00:15:40.140 --> 00:15:46.380 because I could tell that spirit was at work without knowing what spirit was. I really felt 00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:53.180 guided, and I felt I'd heard the ring of destiny for the first time. And when he spoke, I organized 00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:58.940 his first talk, his first major talk about his research. He was a medical student at the time 00:15:58.940 --> 00:16:04.540 of Medical College of Georgia and I was an undergraduate at Augusta College. I'd just 00:16:04.540 --> 00:16:09.260 been discharged from the army and I'd been elected president of the Sociology Club and 00:16:09.260 --> 00:16:15.660 our job was to bring interesting speakers to campus and I asked my club members if they had 00:16:15.660 --> 00:16:21.340 any ideas for good speakers and only one person raised her hand and it was Kathy Tabakian, 00:16:21.340 --> 00:16:26.780 who's acknowledged in Life After Life, by the way, and Kathy said, "Yeah, I know somebody, 00:16:26.780 --> 00:16:30.620 Dr. Raymond Moody." "Oh, he's a doctor?" "Yeah, he's the doctor of philosophy." 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:36.220 "Literally philosophy?" "Yes, literally philosophy." "Well, what did he talk about? You know, Plato?" 00:16:36.220 --> 00:16:40.860 And she said, "Oh, no, no, no, he's a medical student, you know, and he's doing this fascinating 00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:47.580 research. I'm helping him with it about people who have clinically died and been resuscitated. 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:50.580 They come back telling these fantastic experiences. 00:16:50.580 --> 00:16:53.580 Well, I lit up like a Christmas tree when I heard that. 00:16:53.580 --> 00:16:57.580 Because when I was eight years old, in third grade, 00:16:57.580 --> 00:16:59.580 my best friend at the time, Mike Waters, 00:16:59.580 --> 00:17:02.580 I used to go to Mike's house frequently after school 00:17:02.580 --> 00:17:05.580 for the proverbial milk and cookies and to play, 00:17:05.580 --> 00:17:07.580 do what eight-year-olds do, 00:17:07.580 --> 00:17:11.580 and I knew that his mom had been taken by ambulance to the hospital 00:17:11.580 --> 00:17:13.580 a few weeks before. 00:17:13.580 --> 00:17:15.580 She'd had a heart attack. 00:17:15.580 --> 00:17:21.420 Apparently she was clinically dead and resuscitated, and she came back home, I think, two or three 00:17:21.420 --> 00:17:22.420 weeks later. 00:17:22.420 --> 00:17:27.420 And on this particular day, we're walking home, Mike says to me, "I want my old mom 00:17:27.420 --> 00:17:28.420 back. 00:17:28.420 --> 00:17:29.860 I miss my old mom." 00:17:29.860 --> 00:17:34.660 He was depressed because he didn't know who this new person was. 00:17:34.660 --> 00:17:35.660 And I said, "What do you mean? 00:17:35.660 --> 00:17:37.980 I thought she was fine out of the hospital." 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:40.100 "Well, yeah, she is, but she's not the same." 00:17:40.100 --> 00:17:41.620 "Well, how is she different?" 00:17:41.620 --> 00:17:43.460 She said, "Jesus freak. 00:17:43.460 --> 00:17:44.460 Jesus freak. 00:17:44.460 --> 00:17:50.300 this week. What do you mean? Well, she talks about God and angels and heaven and Jesus and how much 00:17:50.300 --> 00:17:57.100 she loves us. So we get to his house that day and I'm seeing his mom for the first time and, 00:17:57.100 --> 00:18:03.500 oh my gosh, I mean, I don't see auras, but she was aglow. She was definitely a changed woman. 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:10.540 You could see it in her face. Her countenance was remarkable. So she had my attention and I 00:18:10.540 --> 00:18:13.180 I couldn't wait to do my first ever interview 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:16.740 with a near-death experiencer at the age of eight. 00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:20.380 "Ms. Waters, Mike tells me that you went to the hospital 00:18:20.380 --> 00:18:22.460 and you had a heart attack and you died." 00:18:22.460 --> 00:18:25.220 "I sure did, honey. I sure did." 00:18:25.220 --> 00:18:27.580 "Well, what was it like to die?" 00:18:27.580 --> 00:18:31.060 "Oh, it was the most beautiful experience of my entire life." 00:18:31.060 --> 00:18:34.060 And she went on to describe a near-death experience 00:18:34.060 --> 00:18:35.580 in classic terms. 00:18:35.580 --> 00:18:39.700 And she was reassuring me that nothing to fear 00:18:39.700 --> 00:18:44.460 and God loves us and we're all greeted with incredible, 00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:46.420 beautiful love and compassion. 00:18:46.420 --> 00:18:48.440 And there is the death of the body, 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:50.480 but not the death of the soul. 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:52.880 So nothing to fear, all is good. 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:55.780 And I never forgot that story. 00:18:55.780 --> 00:18:57.220 It stayed with me. 00:18:57.220 --> 00:19:00.180 I didn't, not in the forefront of my thinking, of course, 00:19:00.180 --> 00:19:02.420 but there in the inner recesses. 00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:04.800 So when Kathy told me the story 00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:06.580 that she was doing this research with women, 00:19:06.580 --> 00:19:08.240 I was like, I gotta meet this guy. 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:10.400 I've got to meet him. 00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:14.280 And then I did the next day, and it was love at first sight. 00:19:14.280 --> 00:19:20.440 And when we brought Raymond to campus, it was standing room only and panel discussion. 00:19:20.440 --> 00:19:28.160 His book didn't come out until I think the fall of 1975, and this was April of 1974. 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:33.520 But in that presentation, I don't channel that I'm aware of. 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:38.200 However, I received what I would call thought implants during that time. 00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:43.240 They were not really my thoughts, but it was information coming through to me, I presume, 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:49.320 from spirit, and it was more or less like bullet points, like, "This is powerful stuff. 00:19:49.320 --> 00:19:51.560 This can change human nature. 00:19:51.560 --> 00:19:56.080 This can change the nature of social, political, and economic systems. 00:19:56.080 --> 00:19:57.080 Pay attention. 00:19:57.080 --> 00:19:58.840 Form an association. 00:19:58.840 --> 00:19:59.840 Do more research." 00:19:59.840 --> 00:20:00.840 That kind of stuff. 00:20:00.840 --> 00:20:05.640 So from that point on, I just kept bugging Raymond about letting me move forward with 00:20:05.640 --> 00:20:09.960 what turned out to be the International Association for Neurogast Studies. 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:16.120 Rick Good. A question just came in about Raymond from a fellow named Stuart Finney in the UK. 00:20:16.120 --> 00:20:22.920 He wonders if you've ever read Making Sense of Nonsense by Raymond Moody, and he feels that this 00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:28.600 particular book is very important with no other like it, and he has been profoundly affected by it. 00:20:28.600 --> 00:20:36.600 Yes, well thank you for that question. Great question. I am familiar with Raymond's nonsense work. In fact, he's been working on this. 00:20:36.600 --> 00:20:42.600 This is what he did when he was a student at the University of Virginia, a doctoral student. 00:20:42.600 --> 00:20:49.600 And he created a taxonomy of nonsense. I forget how many different types, but oh my god. 00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:56.600 Raymond has an intellect unlike anybody I've ever met. And his work in nonsense proves it. 00:20:56.600 --> 00:21:02.280 a tip of my way of thinking. And it's the work he's proudest of, most excited about. 00:21:02.280 --> 00:21:10.920 He has been giving workshops in how to employ nonsense techniques, nonsense exercises, 00:21:10.920 --> 00:21:15.880 that are intended to suspend the rational mind. 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:19.080 >>Rick: Can you give us an example? Because I don't know what this would be about. 00:21:19.080 --> 00:21:28.040 Well, nonsense is, by definition, a statement or a subject that one cannot logically or 00:21:28.040 --> 00:21:30.400 rationally interpret. 00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:38.680 So if I made a nonsense statement, "Giraffes, pickles, onions, and I don't know where this 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:39.680 goes." 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:44.800 I mean, a nonsense statement, that's probably a poor example, but if I made a nonsense statement... 00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:47.840 How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? 00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:49.440 not really so much nonsense. 00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:51.200 Rick: Oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense. 00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:54.320 David: Yeah, Raymond could come up with like, you know, he's very good at nonsense. 00:21:54.320 --> 00:21:55.920 Rick: Why is a mice when it spins? 00:21:55.920 --> 00:22:01.040 David: There you go, something like that. In fact, we had a nonsense party one time, 00:22:01.040 --> 00:22:06.160 and we were supposed to bring their favorite nonsense phrase, but when you hear nonsense, 00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:07.840 it suspends the rational mind. 00:22:07.840 --> 00:22:12.240 Rick: It's like a Zen Koan of a kind. And what is the sound of one hand clapping? 00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:19.240 Yeah, yeah, that's much more contemplative. This nonsense, it's not something that logically 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:24.800 computes. The rational mind goes into what the computer called, in computer programming 00:22:24.800 --> 00:22:30.440 this is concept of do loop, where the computer is trying to make sense of the command so 00:22:30.440 --> 00:22:36.600 that it can do the next task. But it's really kind of going on a circuitous, in a wild goose 00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:42.160 chase through the circuits, trying to figure out what the meaning is of this command. What 00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:50.480 fact it might not have any real meaning. Raymond's theory is that this suspends ego and it parks 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:56.640 the intellect, the rational mind, and puts it in a state of suspended animation. He thinks that 00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:05.040 nonsense exercises work really well for people who are very analytical and the type A's because he 00:23:05.040 --> 00:23:11.360 feels that when you suspend the... I mean meditation does this. When you're in deep state meditation 00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:18.640 you move outside of ego and you move outside of rational thought and you move into what I 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:25.200 affectionately call the twilight zone, but it's that place where you enter the realm of the unseen 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:32.480 and spirit begins to communicate. So yes, I personally believe that nonsense is Raymond's 00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:41.680 most important work and he also says that nonsense gives people a language that they can use when they 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:48.400 they come back from their death experiences to more effectively convey what happened to 00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:49.400 them. 00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:55.480 He believes it provides a whole new vocabulary to epiphany, one's own astral travel, if you 00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:56.480 will. 00:23:56.480 --> 00:23:57.480 Interesting. 00:23:57.480 --> 00:24:00.520 Well, they don't quite know how to put it into words. 00:24:00.520 --> 00:24:06.480 So yes, I mean, for those of you listening, I highly encourage you to get Raymond's book, 00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:08.560 Making Sense of Nonsense. 00:24:08.560 --> 00:24:18.360 And I think he does offer CDs, there were downloads on how to engage in nonsense training. 00:24:18.360 --> 00:24:23.940 And he believes that through doing this, one can engineer one's own epiphany, one's own 00:24:23.940 --> 00:24:25.740 astral travel, if you will. 00:24:25.740 --> 00:24:26.740 >>Rick: Interesting. 00:24:26.740 --> 00:24:30.640 Well, let's do an abrupt segue here. 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:37.280 In your book, you tell the story of where, as an adult, you went to see an Apache shaman 00:24:37.280 --> 00:24:41.880 who happened to be a chain smoker, although that's not really relevant, and he immediately 00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:45.320 picked up on an incident that happened to you when you were, what, six or eight years 00:24:45.320 --> 00:24:49.560 old, something like that, where some bullies made you fall off your bike. 00:24:49.560 --> 00:24:53.440 Yeah, that's one of my interesting adventures in life. 00:24:53.440 --> 00:24:59.360 The year was 2008, and a friend of mine said, "There's an Apache shaman in town who's giving 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:00.360 readings. 00:25:00.360 --> 00:25:02.480 I think you're supposed to meet him. 00:25:02.480 --> 00:25:08.160 my guidance and I'd like to suggest that you call for an appointment." And I'm like, "Well, 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:13.520 I don't really do these kinds of things." Having been involved with diuretics and with 00:25:13.520 --> 00:25:22.000 ions and atteria, I meet a lot of psychics, channels, mediums, shaman, and generally 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:29.760 it's sort of a casual thing, but I don't really pay for greetings, if you will. I've only met 00:25:29.760 --> 00:25:36.360 a handful of really good ones who I think had legitimate talents. This guy was pretty remarkable, 00:25:36.360 --> 00:25:41.760 but I didn't know that going into it. So my knee jerk was, "I told him your name, I told 00:25:41.760 --> 00:25:46.040 him I was going to call you, and he said he wants to meet you. So if you like what he 00:25:46.040 --> 00:25:51.680 has to say, you can make a donation." And I said, "Okay, fine. I can agree to it on 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:59.440 that basis." So I went to a high-rise condominium in Pompano, where he was staying with a friend, 00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:05.520 And he was out on the balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and he was a chain smoker, 00:26:05.520 --> 00:26:12.000 and on the table in front of where he was seating, coffee tables, a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:14.800 flip-top bucks, red and white. 00:26:14.800 --> 00:26:17.680 That has spiritual significance for me. 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:20.160 Yeah, we'll get into that story later. 00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:25.200 And when I tell that story, this whole meeting with him will take on new dimension, but he 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:31.800 was smoking and the interesting thing was the box of cigarettes was open and there 00:26:31.800 --> 00:26:36.120 was only one cigarette missing and it was the one he was smoking. I sat down 00:26:36.120 --> 00:26:40.800 looked at him, he's definitely Native American, you could definitely see the 00:26:40.800 --> 00:26:47.440 the attributes, qualities that would establish him as that. And he had me, he 00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:51.840 was kind of sizing me up and he was doing so very quickly and he pointed to the 00:26:51.840 --> 00:26:57.120 cigarettes on the table. He said, "I know those cigarettes have meaning for you. I 00:26:57.120 --> 00:27:02.520 just want you to know that they're my calling card and I've been smoking these 00:27:02.520 --> 00:27:07.640 cigarettes for years so it's not a plant. Many, many years this has been my brand." 00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:12.560 So he said, "I just want you to know who you're dealing with." Then he kind of 00:27:12.560 --> 00:27:18.240 steps up and he puts his left hand on my left shoulder and he's feeling the spot I 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:23.800 I have my left shoulder, which it sends me through the roof whenever anybody touches 00:27:23.800 --> 00:27:24.800 it. 00:27:24.800 --> 00:27:25.800 It's like a pinched nerve or something. 00:27:25.800 --> 00:27:29.280 And he knew right where it was and he said, "Tell me about that. 00:27:29.280 --> 00:27:30.280 What happened there?" 00:27:30.280 --> 00:27:32.920 I said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. 00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:34.080 I don't know what that is. 00:27:34.080 --> 00:27:36.480 It could be a pinched nerve maybe." 00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:37.480 He said, "No. 00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:40.880 You're carrying a traumatic incident from your past." 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:41.880 "Oh really? 00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:42.880 You think?" 00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:43.880 He said, "Yeah. 00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:47.160 When you were six years old, first grade, what happened?" 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.160 involves riding a bicycle. He saw all this. 00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:51.160 Wow, that's impressive. 00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:55.660 Oh my god. You know, I'm not a scientist, but I'm trained as a scientist. 00:27:55.660 --> 00:27:58.660 And you didn't tell your friend that story that he was staying with. 00:27:58.660 --> 00:28:03.660 I didn't. The friend who introduced me to him was not the one he was staying with. 00:28:03.660 --> 00:28:08.160 It was somebody different, but I told her. I thanked her profusely later, 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:10.660 because it turned out to be a powerful meeting. 00:28:10.660 --> 00:28:14.660 As a scientist, to me, it's like, how do you see this? How do you know this? 00:28:14.660 --> 00:28:19.340 is I try to approach things with the discipline of a scientist. 00:28:19.340 --> 00:28:23.660 So I immediately go into my wanting to ask 20 questions, but he won't let me go there. 00:28:23.660 --> 00:28:26.300 He's like, "I want to hear about the experience. 00:28:26.300 --> 00:28:28.500 Tell me from your perspective what happened." 00:28:28.500 --> 00:28:34.300 I said, "Well, I just got off training wheels and I was very good at riding my bike without 00:28:34.300 --> 00:28:39.780 training wheels and I was going down this asphalt street and it wasn't smooth asphalt, 00:28:39.780 --> 00:28:46.640 It was rocky asphalt and I was maybe a couple blocks from my home and these boys, these 00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:51.580 two young boys, I think they were older than me, I'm guessing eight and ten, eight and 00:28:51.580 --> 00:28:52.920 eleven, something like that. 00:28:52.920 --> 00:28:57.140 Their car was in the driveway, the father's car, and the hood was up, the father was working 00:28:57.140 --> 00:28:58.140 on it. 00:28:58.140 --> 00:29:03.340 There was a mechanic's dolly, which is a dolly you lay on with four wheels and slide 00:29:03.340 --> 00:29:04.340 under the car. 00:29:04.340 --> 00:29:06.700 And they were playing with the dolly. 00:29:06.700 --> 00:29:11.860 driveway was sort of slanted and when they saw me riding by they just shoved 00:29:11.860 --> 00:29:17.860 the dolly down the driveway and I couldn't brake fast enough and it ran 00:29:17.860 --> 00:29:24.220 right in front of my bike, the front tire, and I hit it and the bike reared up and 00:29:24.220 --> 00:29:29.140 I flew off the handlebars and over the handlebars and glided along the street 00:29:29.140 --> 00:29:34.820 my face made contact with it. I still have a big scar here from that event. It 00:29:34.820 --> 00:29:39.860 It just turned my face into a bloody pulp and shredded skin. 00:29:39.860 --> 00:29:40.860 It was quite painful. 00:29:40.860 --> 00:29:42.980 I was quite traumatized. 00:29:42.980 --> 00:29:47.220 I left the bike there and I picked myself up and I went home. 00:29:47.220 --> 00:29:54.380 My mom was outside with my older sister and she saw me bleeding profusely and she brought 00:29:54.380 --> 00:29:59.020 me in the house and put cold face cloth on it. 00:29:59.020 --> 00:30:04.340 She was patting it and treating it and she wanted to know what happened and I told her. 00:30:04.340 --> 00:30:06.720 My sister went and retrieved my bike. 00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:10.200 My mother had choice words for his parents. 00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:13.040 They denied the whole thing. 00:30:13.040 --> 00:30:17.840 When my father came home from work, my mother told him what happened. 00:30:17.840 --> 00:30:24.880 And he went down and spoke with the parents, the two boys, and their story was, it was 00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:26.280 an unfortunate accident. 00:30:26.280 --> 00:30:28.920 The dolly rolled down the driveway by itself. 00:30:28.920 --> 00:30:32.400 The boys did not push it, and it collided with my bike. 00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:39.280 an unfortunate accident. So the shaman's name was Eagle Bear and he said to me, "How do 00:30:39.280 --> 00:30:44.200 you interpret that?" I said, "I don't know what to make of it. I just know that it was 00:30:44.200 --> 00:30:50.120 very traumatic and painful and my face wasn't the same for quite a while." He said, "Well, 00:30:50.120 --> 00:30:55.160 those weren't little boys. Those were lizards." I said, "What do you mean by lizards?" He 00:30:55.160 --> 00:31:00.320 said, "Low vibration, interdimensional beings." Well, of course, I don't have a context for 00:31:00.320 --> 00:31:06.020 that. So I'm like, "Yeah, okay, whatever." And he got into other things, which I write 00:31:06.020 --> 00:31:12.160 about in the book, where he goes on about me being one of 46 people on the planet, and 00:31:12.160 --> 00:31:20.920 I'm supposed to help bring more love and light to help humanity avoid a very unpleasant future. 00:31:20.920 --> 00:31:28.400 And I've heard this before from other psychics and mediums, so I don't accept it as true, 00:31:28.400 --> 00:31:33.400 I don't deny it as false, I just have an open mind about it. 00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:39.680 So he wanted me to do some more work, you know, some sweat lodge, fire ceremony stuff, 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.800 some peyote, maybe some ayahuasca, another vision quest and so on. 00:31:44.800 --> 00:31:51.720 And he said my vision quest was my opening and my initiation, but I had a lot more inner 00:31:51.720 --> 00:31:58.840 work to do before I could open up these abilities of mine that would surpass his abilities. 00:31:58.840 --> 00:32:04.880 And he started getting into what I would be doing in the future once I unlocked all of 00:32:04.880 --> 00:32:10.520 my hidden talents, which I still don't know about. I mean, if I have these talents, I'm 00:32:10.520 --> 00:32:15.080 the last to know. I don't know where they are, and I don't know what they are, and I 00:32:15.080 --> 00:32:16.760 don't know how to access them. 00:32:16.760 --> 00:32:22.180 Yeah, but the key point of that story was that these so-called lizard beings, these lower 00:32:22.180 --> 00:32:28.840 dimensional beings posing as boys or inhabiting the boys or something, their intention was 00:32:28.840 --> 00:32:34.280 to thwart your spiritual aspirations, to dim your spiritual luminance so you wouldn't have 00:32:34.280 --> 00:32:38.240 the confidence to be all you could be in that way. 00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:40.200 That's true, Rick, yeah. 00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:42.600 That's the gist of the story, really. 00:32:42.600 --> 00:32:46.140 And the reason I wanted you to tell it is that I kind of think that in a way that's 00:32:46.140 --> 00:32:52.300 true of everybody on earth. Everyone has been dampened down. We all need to kind of get 00:32:52.300 --> 00:32:57.860 the monkey off our backs, so to speak, to clear away whatever it is that's repressing us. 00:32:57.860 --> 00:33:01.980 So we all have that tremendous potential. In fact, there's a quote from Yogananda that 00:33:01.980 --> 00:33:07.580 I read you earlier. This might be a good time to read it. Someone just sent this in today. 00:33:07.580 --> 00:33:13.220 Yogananda stated, "Spiritualization of material life is the real need of the modern world. 00:33:13.220 --> 00:33:18.740 We want Christ and Buddhas walking the busy streets of New York and esplanades of Calcutta. 00:33:18.740 --> 00:33:23.340 Christ and Buddhas sweeping the streets and running the big banks, performing all duties 00:33:23.340 --> 00:33:25.680 from the humblest to the most exalted. 00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:29.260 All duties are important, great ones as well as small ones. 00:33:29.260 --> 00:33:33.260 Both kinds are necessary for keeping the wheels of the world going. 00:33:33.260 --> 00:33:36.660 Smaller great duties do not make their performers great or small. 00:33:36.660 --> 00:33:39.240 Both should be performed only by great ones. 00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:43.640 When all duties of this imperfect earth will be performed by angelic men and women, when 00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:49.360 the stock market and church both will be run only by those who are nothing less than prophets, 00:33:49.360 --> 00:33:52.760 then our earth will be heaven and darkness will be changed into light. 00:33:52.760 --> 00:33:58.480 And I think Yogananda and you would both agree that essentially, inherently, intrinsically, 00:33:58.480 --> 00:34:05.920 we all are prophets, but our full capabilities as spiritual beings in a human body have been 00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:10.920 squelched, dampened or repressed by whatever it is, we can discuss what that might be, 00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:16.440 and that our duty in life ultimately is to unleash those capabilities, let our light 00:34:16.440 --> 00:34:17.440 shine. 00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:19.280 Amen, and amen, and amen. 00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:21.840 I love that quote by Yogananda. 00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:27.440 It's the whole thrust of my book, Love by the Light, and the exercise God for a day. 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:31.600 Getting back to your point, we are all for walking wounded. 00:34:31.600 --> 00:34:34.800 Life can be challenging, it can be difficult. 00:34:34.800 --> 00:34:42.320 all have our scars. And the truth is, we can be victimized by them and kept down by them, 00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:50.520 oppressed by them, or we can heal them, we can forgive, and we can blossom into the great 00:34:50.520 --> 00:34:55.160 beings that we're meant to be. And Christ said it pretty well. He said, "These things 00:34:55.160 --> 00:35:01.480 I do, you can do, and greater." I mean, I love the title of your podcast, Buddha at 00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:05.120 the gas pump got me to thinking, you know, what would I say to Buddha if I met him at 00:35:05.120 --> 00:35:06.520 the gas pump? 00:35:06.520 --> 00:35:09.280 Nothing, because that was the whole point, you know. 00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:15.360 I love that quote by Buddha, which is, "Unless you can improve upon the silence, say nothing." 00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:20.000 And that lecture he gave, it's often written about, where he just sat on the stage in the 00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:25.380 lotus position and said nothing, and finally, an hour or two later, a monk in the audience 00:35:25.380 --> 00:35:26.380 gets it. 00:35:26.380 --> 00:35:28.240 He held up a flower or something. 00:35:28.240 --> 00:35:31.320 Yeah, he's staring at the lotus flower the whole time. 00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:37.300 That's the whole thing, you know, spirit is elegant, the dance of spirit is magnificent. 00:35:37.300 --> 00:35:42.780 And when we lower the RPMs through meditation, force bathing, whatever the mechanism might 00:35:42.780 --> 00:35:49.420 be, that's when the unseen becomes visible to us with our inner eye, and that's where 00:35:49.420 --> 00:35:53.580 we start to effectuate this communion with spirit. 00:35:53.580 --> 00:35:58.820 So where all the great things happen, and I believe, you know, again, this quote was quite 00:35:58.820 --> 00:36:00.100 powerful. 00:36:00.100 --> 00:36:02.960 This is the challenge before us right now. 00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:12.460 We have a crisis that's unprecedented on many, many levels, political, economic, climatic, 00:36:12.460 --> 00:36:17.920 but our greatest challenge is what I would call the crisis of meaning. 00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:21.700 We don't know who we are or why we're here. 00:36:21.700 --> 00:36:30.380 has failed us miserably with dogma, with flawed theology, with sexual abuse, you know, with 00:36:30.380 --> 00:36:36.380 things that just don't hold up under scrutiny. And it's no wonder that people have been turned 00:36:36.380 --> 00:36:43.300 off to the whole idea of Source Creator, the whole idea of God, the whole idea of the golden 00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:50.220 rule, if you will, in favor of the golden calf, because it's not real to them. And if 00:36:50.220 --> 00:36:57.140 If religion has been their only introduction and orientation, well, obviously then they 00:36:57.140 --> 00:37:02.660 are lacking for true divine inspiration and true connection. 00:37:02.660 --> 00:37:06.620 So it's not real in any meaningful way. 00:37:06.620 --> 00:37:12.180 So the whole point of my book is to say, "Hey, look, Ken Ring and I are good buddies from 00:37:12.180 --> 00:37:17.260 way back, and it was Ken who encouraged me to write Love by the Light because of the 00:37:17.260 --> 00:37:18.260 angel stories. 00:37:18.260 --> 00:37:24.260 I remember me telling him one of the angel stories about the hitchhiker, and he said, 00:37:24.260 --> 00:37:25.500 "Write it up for me." 00:37:25.500 --> 00:37:28.540 And I did, and he said, "Fantastic, you've got to publish it." 00:37:28.540 --> 00:37:33.420 I said, "Well, Ken, it wasn't just the one angel story, there were seven others." 00:37:33.420 --> 00:37:36.380 He said, "Well, write them all up," and I did, and then he said, "This is great, you've 00:37:36.380 --> 00:37:37.380 got to publish." 00:37:37.380 --> 00:37:40.780 I said, "Well, it wasn't just the angel encounters, there was all this other stuff, too." 00:37:40.780 --> 00:37:42.100 I said, "Write it up." 00:37:42.100 --> 00:37:43.580 Yeah, so that's kind of part two. 00:37:43.580 --> 00:37:45.620 And then he said, "You've got a book, you've got a..." 00:37:45.620 --> 00:37:46.620 I said, "No, no, no." 00:37:46.620 --> 00:37:49.220 There's a part three, which is, what does all this mean? 00:37:49.220 --> 00:37:51.460 What does rubber meet the road? 00:37:51.460 --> 00:37:54.340 This is where I give great emphasis to this, 00:37:54.340 --> 00:37:58.820 because it's the most important thing that I can convey today, 00:37:58.820 --> 00:38:03.180 which is we need to evolve into a greater 00:38:03.180 --> 00:38:04.800 spiritual awakening. 00:38:04.800 --> 00:38:08.300 We need a global spiritual revolution. 00:38:08.300 --> 00:38:13.500 We need to understand, not intellectually, but emotionally, 00:38:13.500 --> 00:38:20.460 psychologically, experientially, that God is real and so too is the afterlife. I think it all 00:38:20.460 --> 00:38:28.940 stems from that fundamental issue. Is there a God, Source/Creator, and is there an afterlife? 00:38:28.940 --> 00:38:34.140 If there is no God/Creator and if there is no afterlife, then there are no transcendent 00:38:34.140 --> 00:38:40.780 consequences or meaning to earthly behavior. But if the opposite is true, if there is a 00:38:40.780 --> 00:38:46.060 Source Creator, and there is an afterlife, then of course there's transcendent meaning 00:38:46.060 --> 00:38:49.780 and purpose, significance to what we do. 00:38:49.780 --> 00:38:54.020 In the book I talk about one's God quotient, and I talk about the life review of the near 00:38:54.020 --> 00:38:57.220 death experience, where one is only met by love. 00:38:57.220 --> 00:39:00.780 There's no judgment that's taking place externally. 00:39:00.780 --> 00:39:02.400 It's all internal. 00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:08.580 The soul or the spirit is looking at their life review and it's portrayed instantaneously 00:39:08.580 --> 00:39:15.340 and panoramically, and it's a sort of a binary process. They look at what they did that was 00:39:15.340 --> 00:39:21.180 loving contrasted with what was unloving. And it's pretty clear that what they did that 00:39:21.180 --> 00:39:27.260 was unloving takes them out of resonance with this being of light, which is pure, perfect 00:39:27.260 --> 00:39:32.220 love. And in order to stay with that being of light, which is the goal, because that's 00:39:32.220 --> 00:39:36.460 all they want to do, they don't want to come back, they don't want to leave this place of 00:39:36.460 --> 00:39:42.660 perfection. But in order to stay, they have to match the vibration or the signature frequency. 00:39:42.660 --> 00:39:48.620 Now, speaking of frequency, going back to the Pachi Shaman, he made your point, he said 00:39:48.620 --> 00:39:53.220 they did that deliberately to shut you down because they want to keep you from fulfilling 00:39:53.220 --> 00:39:58.140 your destiny, which is to bring more love and light into the world. And I said, a logical 00:39:58.140 --> 00:40:04.940 question, "Well, I don't know about this destiny. I have no great gifts or talents, and I certainly 00:40:04.940 --> 00:40:10.940 don't feel I have this great destiny, one of 46, how do they know who I am when I don't 00:40:10.940 --> 00:40:16.780 know who I am? He said, "Oh, in the realm of spirit, it's all frequencies, and they 00:40:16.780 --> 00:40:20.460 know who you are even if you don't know who you are." And that's the point. You're a dead 00:40:20.460 --> 00:40:24.260 man walking and you've got to wake up, which is why you've got to come to my place and 00:40:24.260 --> 00:40:29.740 do the audience one. But this is the whole point about the life review. They want to 00:40:29.740 --> 00:40:38.540 hang with God with pure love and pure compassion. Can't improve upon it. It's ecstasy, beyond 00:40:38.540 --> 00:40:44.220 ecstasy. But they can't hang there unless they are the equivalent, which I believe, you know, 00:40:44.220 --> 00:40:48.460 Christ demonstrated on the cross when he said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." 00:40:48.460 --> 00:40:54.620 In truth, they did not know what they were doing. Any enlightened being would never think of doing 00:40:54.620 --> 00:41:01.260 such a thing. But they were coming from myopia, from blinders, and ego, which to me is evil. 00:41:01.260 --> 00:41:04.380 I mean, ego to me is synonymous with ego. 00:41:04.380 --> 00:41:06.060 >>Rick: With evil, you meant to say. 00:41:06.060 --> 00:41:12.060 >>Martin: Yeah, with evil. Ego is synonymous with evil. And this is the whole point. They're 00:41:12.060 --> 00:41:19.580 resolved to go back, I guess, through reincarnation, not necessarily in human form, not necessarily 00:41:19.580 --> 00:41:28.940 on planet Earth, but wherever or whoever or whatever to work out this karma, to seek forgiveness, 00:41:28.940 --> 00:41:33.780 and to heal, and to give love where love was denied in the past. 00:41:33.780 --> 00:41:36.220 And this was Raymond's point in his lectures. 00:41:36.220 --> 00:41:37.380 He said it many times. 00:41:37.380 --> 00:41:43.260 He would say, "I can't imagine a worse hell than being an Adolf Hitler and having to live 00:41:43.260 --> 00:41:48.420 through tens of millions of deaths that I personally caused and trying to figure 00:41:48.420 --> 00:41:51.840 out a lifetime that would atone for all of that. 00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:57.480 Yeah. Cooler Ross used to say... She was a mentor as well. I met her through Raymond. 00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:02.440 She wrote the foreword to Life After Life. A beautiful lady, a force of nature, Mr. 00:42:02.440 --> 00:42:06.840 Dearly. She would say, and I don't know if this is true scientifically 00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:12.080 speaking, I don't have data to support this, but I love it poetically. She said, 00:42:12.080 --> 00:42:18.440 one lifetime as a Jesus Christ can wipe out all the bad karma of Adolf Hitler. So I 00:42:18.440 --> 00:42:25.040 don't know how you go from one extreme to another. I don't know if you do. But this is the whole point. We 00:42:25.040 --> 00:42:30.320 have to become God-realized. My original title for this book was "Affirming God." 00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:35.200 Two stories of... That's the name of your website. Yeah, that's the name of the website for the book. I 00:42:35.200 --> 00:42:40.600 gave it up because many people said to me, "Don't use God in the title. It'll be 00:42:40.600 --> 00:42:45.160 off-putting to a lot of people. If you want people to read the book, don't use 00:42:45.160 --> 00:42:51.240 God in the title. So I kept the website name because I could only compromise so 00:42:51.240 --> 00:42:57.480 much. But this is the point. Until God becomes real, you can talk about it and 00:42:57.480 --> 00:43:02.640 intellectualize about it and listen to these near-death experience stories, read 00:43:02.640 --> 00:43:08.080 my book, "Oh John, how did these great angel encounters and these terrific vision 00:43:08.080 --> 00:43:15.480 and what have you, but maybe, yes, maybe, yeah, it's all abstract to me. So until a person actually goes through it for themselves, 00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:22.640 it doesn't become real in any visceral sense. Hence, it doesn't become real from the standpoint of behavior and 00:43:22.640 --> 00:43:26.900 values, perspectives. So that's why I recommend 00:43:26.900 --> 00:43:31.760 exercises at the end of the book, part three, "Where the Rover Meets the Road," 00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:34.800 - if you don't want to take my word for it or the word of others 00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:42.160 Who've come before me and it will come after me that God is real source creator is real and life after death is real 00:43:42.160 --> 00:43:44.080 Not the God of religion 00:43:44.080 --> 00:43:50.000 Not the survival of dogma the heaven hell eternal salvation eternal damnation 00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.360 But the New Testament stuff where there's only love and only love 00:43:54.360 --> 00:44:00.780 God can't be anything other than pure perfect love and compassion by definition 00:44:00.960 --> 00:44:06.760 So, when it becomes real, that's when transformation takes place. 00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:11.960 And we need to get to critical mass transformation, now more than ever, 00:44:11.960 --> 00:44:17.960 because the hangar-nade is in the trench, and it's smoking and fizzing, and about to detonate. 00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:22.460 So, I'm very concerned with the state of human affairs. 00:44:22.460 --> 00:44:27.260 I don't want to see the gnashing of teeth, darkness on the face of the land, 00:44:27.260 --> 00:44:30.540 the dark night of the soul, collective soul. 00:44:30.540 --> 00:44:33.500 We can evolve, we must evolve, 00:44:33.500 --> 00:44:38.380 or face ungodly challenges, unlike we've seen in the past. 00:44:38.380 --> 00:44:41.980 Today we have wars, rumors of wars, 00:44:41.980 --> 00:44:46.060 pandemic, economic pressures and woes, 00:44:46.060 --> 00:44:47.940 lack of integrity in government, 00:44:47.940 --> 00:44:50.820 unprecedented malfeasance in government, 00:44:50.820 --> 00:44:56.340 no visionary leadership coming from true, reliable integrity. 00:44:56.340 --> 00:45:03.000 We're in a sticky wicket and that's why I finally decided I had many opportunities to publish 00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:08.600 but I didn't feel motivated to do it until Ken really left me no alternative and 00:45:08.600 --> 00:45:11.600 Actually guided me through the book process 00:45:11.600 --> 00:45:14.240 Which resulted in love by the light? 00:45:14.240 --> 00:45:20.360 I only agreed to put it out there for all the good it can do to help wake people up and 00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:25.100 Give them a road map to what can be 00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:29.640 Enlightenment, expedient enlightenment. 00:45:29.640 --> 00:45:35.960 Now I wanted to demystify enlightenment, and I wanted to demystify God in this book. 00:45:35.960 --> 00:45:38.280 It's really no great mystery. 00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:40.120 It's all about love. 00:45:40.120 --> 00:45:45.960 It's all about getting away from the golden calf and becoming a purveyor of the golden 00:45:45.960 --> 00:45:49.280 rule, practitioner of the golden rule. 00:45:49.280 --> 00:45:54.680 Not about what can I do to further my own interests, but what can I do to further the collective 00:45:54.680 --> 00:45:55.680 good. 00:45:55.680 --> 00:46:01.100 all gone on that page, as Yogananda said in your beautiful quote there, we'd have heaven 00:46:01.100 --> 00:46:09.220 on earth. I would say to you, we must get on that page, lickety-split, or face nightmarish 00:46:09.220 --> 00:46:14.820 conditions beyond what we have now. So we have the power to do it, we have the tools 00:46:14.820 --> 00:46:22.140 to do it, we have the inspiration to do it. If not my book, then there are dozens of others 00:46:22.140 --> 00:46:27.980 that certainly give adequate foundation to compel this kind of transformation. But we 00:46:27.980 --> 00:46:30.820 must act because the time is short. 00:46:30.820 --> 00:46:34.700 All right, let me say a few things based on what you just said, and then I'll have some 00:46:34.700 --> 00:46:39.380 questions and we'll kind of figure out what we want to cover in our next hour. Firstly, 00:46:39.380 --> 00:46:44.940 have you heard Danny and Brinkley's near-death experiences? Just for the audience's sake, 00:46:44.940 --> 00:46:48.340 I haven't interviewed him, but I've read a couple of his books, and he was this guy who 00:46:48.340 --> 00:46:51.900 who had been a sharpshooter in Vietnam and had shot people. 00:46:51.900 --> 00:46:54.540 And he ended up having four near-death experiences, 00:46:54.540 --> 00:46:57.100 two by lightning and I think two by heart attacks. 00:46:57.100 --> 00:47:00.440 And in each one, he had like a life review 00:47:00.440 --> 00:47:04.680 in which he experienced not only the impact 00:47:04.680 --> 00:47:08.020 that his having killed people had on the people he killed, 00:47:08.020 --> 00:47:09.520 but the ripple effect, 00:47:09.520 --> 00:47:11.900 all the people connected with those people, 00:47:11.900 --> 00:47:13.900 their families and communities and whatever, 00:47:13.900 --> 00:47:18.020 and the effect that their death had on those people. 00:47:18.020 --> 00:47:21.100 And so he ended up becoming like a hospice person like yourself. 00:47:21.100 --> 00:47:25.700 You've done a lot of work in that area, and in order to perhaps atone for what he had done 00:47:25.700 --> 00:47:27.100 in Vietnam. 00:47:27.100 --> 00:47:31.580 And you can imagine if that was his experience, what Hitler's experience might have been, 00:47:31.580 --> 00:47:36.180 you know, when he had his life review, and what kind of atonement it might take to burn 00:47:36.180 --> 00:47:37.180 off that karma. 00:47:37.180 --> 00:47:38.820 I don't know. 00:47:38.820 --> 00:47:40.420 Then the whole thing about God. 00:47:40.420 --> 00:47:45.060 I have a really good friend who's used to be, believe all the stuff that you and I are 00:47:45.060 --> 00:47:50.420 talking about, but kind of eventually turned around and is now considers himself an atheist. 00:47:50.420 --> 00:47:55.540 And we have these long, friendly discussions in which neither of us make any headway, because 00:47:55.540 --> 00:48:00.260 what was that quote you said, for those who don't believe, there's nothing you can say, 00:48:00.260 --> 00:48:00.820 how did that go? 00:48:00.820 --> 00:48:06.820 >> What I said was, for those who know, no amount of evidence is necessary, 00:48:06.820 --> 00:48:10.740 and for those who don't know, no amount of evidence is sufficient. 00:48:10.740 --> 00:48:16.780 And so that to me means that somehow or other you have to have an experience which turns 00:48:16.780 --> 00:48:17.780 you around. 00:48:17.780 --> 00:48:19.300 No amount of talk is going to do it. 00:48:19.300 --> 00:48:23.040 And this reminds me of another friend who interviewed me recently who, he used to be 00:48:23.040 --> 00:48:26.620 the Amazing Randy's protege, if you know who the Amazing Randy was? 00:48:26.620 --> 00:48:31.760 He was this magician but professional skeptic who tried to shoot down and disprove pretty 00:48:31.760 --> 00:48:33.020 much everything. 00:48:33.020 --> 00:48:37.020 And this guy was of the same mindset, but he had some kind of spiritual epiphany which 00:48:37.020 --> 00:48:41.460 completely turned him around. It totally flipped him in terms of understanding consciousness 00:48:41.460 --> 00:48:45.980 to be fundamental and all this spiritual stuff and everything. But it was the experience. 00:48:45.980 --> 00:48:52.140 It wasn't his brainwashing with Randy. It was an experience that then restructured his 00:48:52.140 --> 00:48:58.380 whole philosophical outlook and his spiritual outlook. So I think that that kind of experience 00:48:58.380 --> 00:49:02.360 is - there's something in the water these days - that kind of experience is becoming 00:49:02.360 --> 00:49:06.280 more and more common, there is some kind of an enlivenment of collective 00:49:06.280 --> 00:49:12.320 consciousness that's making it more likely and possible to have spiritual 00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:16.560 awakenings, which has been the whole premise of this show, and more and more 00:49:16.560 --> 00:49:21.440 "ordinary people" are having them. It is kind of nip and tuck 00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:26.680 between the forces which would give us a dystopian nightmare for who knows how 00:49:26.680 --> 00:49:33.860 along, or an enlightened world, an ideal or enlightened society. If I only had the 00:49:33.860 --> 00:49:37.880 news media as my source of information, I would probably be pretty depressed and 00:49:37.880 --> 00:49:43.240 cynical, but there's a whole other world going on here that we don't see on the 00:49:43.240 --> 00:49:46.800 news that you and I are very much tuned into, and all the listeners of this show, 00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:50.640 and that makes me optimistic. I don't think it's necessarily going to be a 00:49:50.640 --> 00:49:56.660 totally smooth transition. There could be a lot of chaos and destruction as things 00:49:56.660 --> 00:50:01.380 shift from the way they're done now to the way they ought to be done, but I do 00:50:01.380 --> 00:50:05.860 feel we can make it. I'm therefore optimistic and that's my deepest 00:50:05.860 --> 00:50:09.700 motivation for doing this show and for having dedicated my life to teaching 00:50:09.700 --> 00:50:15.860 meditation and stuff since I was 21. Well I love what you just said. Yes, I mean 00:50:15.860 --> 00:50:19.700 while there's opportunity there's hope. While there's time there's hope. And 00:50:19.700 --> 00:50:23.780 Kupala Rosh used to always say, she didn't originate this quote, I don't know 00:50:23.780 --> 00:50:29.060 who did, but she used to always say, "It's better to light the candle than curse the darkness." 00:50:29.060 --> 00:50:35.300 She would also say, "We would not know the beauty of the Grand Canyon if it weren't for all the 00:50:35.300 --> 00:50:42.340 windstorms." So here we are, we're kind of being wrestled to the mat collectively. People are in 00:50:42.340 --> 00:50:48.020 fear, they're confused, they have high levels of anxiety. For the most part, they don't know 00:50:48.660 --> 00:50:53.860 what the future is going to hold. I mean, there's just chaos everywhere. And what's worse is that 00:50:53.860 --> 00:51:00.580 there doesn't appear to be visionary leadership anywhere that's going to lead us to the promised 00:51:00.580 --> 00:51:05.700 land. I think there's some potential visionary leaders, but they don't tend to go into the 00:51:05.700 --> 00:51:10.500 mainstream easily because the collective consciousness just doesn't support that so 00:51:10.500 --> 00:51:17.860 much. What's exciting about what I write about in my book is we don't have to take the existence of 00:51:17.860 --> 00:51:23.580 God, Source/Creator, or the existence of life after death on the basis of faith. 00:51:23.580 --> 00:51:30.900 No one's asking anyone to accept these premises or hypotheses as a matter of blind faith. 00:51:30.900 --> 00:51:36.500 There is ample evidence, if one chooses to embrace it or become familiar with it, that 00:51:36.500 --> 00:51:43.140 every day is a miracle and every day Spirit surrounds us in different ways, in ways that 00:51:43.140 --> 00:51:45.460 that are discernible, palpable, 00:51:45.460 --> 00:51:47.980 and if people are not aware of this, 00:51:47.980 --> 00:51:49.100 then there's inner work to do. 00:51:49.100 --> 00:51:51.740 And I explain different things they can do 00:51:51.740 --> 00:51:53.660 at part three of the book. 00:51:53.660 --> 00:51:54.940 But one of the things I talk about 00:51:54.940 --> 00:51:57.020 is the God for a Day exercise, 00:51:57.020 --> 00:51:58.860 which to me was my highest high. 00:51:58.860 --> 00:52:03.860 I've never ever been able to top the natural high 00:52:03.860 --> 00:52:07.660 I got when I went into my persona as God, 00:52:07.660 --> 00:52:10.700 which I could also have called it Love for a Day. 00:52:10.700 --> 00:52:15.980 So, you know, it's being anonymous and going someplace where no one knows you or you don't 00:52:15.980 --> 00:52:23.620 know anyone and you become a purveyor of unconditional love, love without strings, without attachment. 00:52:23.620 --> 00:52:28.340 Basically, you're not looking for reward or appreciation or recognition. 00:52:28.340 --> 00:52:30.660 You just give freely. 00:52:30.660 --> 00:52:36.780 And to see how that impacts people, impacts the environment, because it's not just what 00:52:36.780 --> 00:52:42.140 you do for other human beings, it's what you do for animals, what you do for the ocean, 00:52:42.140 --> 00:52:46.740 for the rivers and streams and lakes, cleaning up pollution, planting trees. I mean, this 00:52:46.740 --> 00:52:53.740 is all about being a purveyor of love. When you start to emulate God, emulate Christ, emulate 00:52:53.740 --> 00:53:00.500 Buddha, the love that they had for all things, that's when you feel the connection and the 00:53:00.500 --> 00:53:08.780 communion most strongly. So it's a way to shortcut one's spiritual awakening by doing 00:53:08.780 --> 00:53:16.740 this exercise. And it's easy to do. Anyone can do it. So this is part of my appeal to 00:53:16.740 --> 00:53:21.380 the people who are reading the book. Do God for a day. If you can't do it for a day, do 00:53:21.380 --> 00:53:25.700 it for a half day. Do it for an hour. If you can do it every day, do it every day. Because 00:53:25.700 --> 00:53:29.780 if you do it every day, and if we all do it every day, well then, hey, you know, we're 00:53:29.780 --> 00:53:34.260 going to have a perfect world. And by the way, a perfect world is not such a bad 00:53:34.260 --> 00:53:38.580 thing. I mean, I don't know what it is that keeps us in the dark. I don't know 00:53:38.580 --> 00:53:44.120 why we're so attached to it to a point of not wanting to let go of it because 00:53:44.120 --> 00:53:49.980 it's not serving us at all. Well, people don't let go of heroin even though it's 00:53:49.980 --> 00:53:55.180 not serving them. We do get addicted to all kinds of things. Well, the question is 00:53:55.180 --> 00:54:01.340 why did they go to heroin? It is a form of escapism. There's something lacking within 00:54:01.340 --> 00:54:06.940 them. I call it, well, Blaise Pascal called it, the God Void, the God Hole. 00:54:06.940 --> 00:54:13.260 >> Yeah, if they had sort of a divine inner experience, heroin would be extremely distasteful, 00:54:13.260 --> 00:54:16.380 and if they did it once, they would think, "Oh my God, I'm never going to do that again." 00:54:16.380 --> 00:54:19.900 Same with any drug or even alcohol, in my opinion. 00:54:19.900 --> 00:54:27.580 Yeah, the highest high is to be God-centered, to live one's God quotient, to become in total 00:54:27.580 --> 00:54:31.340 perfect, like I call it a resonant energy connection with God. 00:54:31.340 --> 00:54:35.620 I've never known a more profound state of being. 00:54:35.620 --> 00:54:37.460 To me it is Nirvana. 00:54:37.460 --> 00:54:40.660 And yes, you can achieve it every minute of every day. 00:54:40.660 --> 00:54:46.020 And not just in meditation, but going out there and getting outside of ego, putting 00:54:46.020 --> 00:54:52.100 your identity, your social identity, to rest for a bit and becoming pure love, a vessel 00:54:52.100 --> 00:54:57.780 of pure love. Getting outside of ego is a tough thing to do, it's a tall order, but 00:54:57.780 --> 00:54:59.380 with practice one can do it. 00:54:59.380 --> 00:55:04.020 That's why Seva is prescribed as a spiritual practice. You know the word Seva? 00:55:04.020 --> 00:55:05.020 Yeah. 00:55:05.020 --> 00:55:06.020 Selfless service. 00:55:06.020 --> 00:55:07.020 Ram Dass's foundation. 00:55:07.020 --> 00:55:13.940 He had a foundation and it's a kind of ancient word in India as a known means of spiritual 00:55:13.940 --> 00:55:14.940 development. 00:55:14.940 --> 00:55:22.060 Right. So, again, this is simple stuff. There's nothing complicated about enlightenment or 00:55:22.060 --> 00:55:29.180 spiritual awakening, and we all need to do it. And by doing it collectively, we will open ourselves 00:55:29.180 --> 00:55:37.020 to an optimal future for Earth and all its inhabitants. And our reality then could hardly 00:55:37.020 --> 00:55:43.260 compare to the reality we have now. We're in the darkness right now. We're here suffering on a 00:55:43.260 --> 00:55:50.780 trail of tears. But if we all wake up to this, we can dance on the clouds and know bliss. 00:55:50.780 --> 00:55:55.660 You know, you and I are pretty fortunate. You're in Florida, I'm in Iowa. We're not in Gaza, 00:55:55.660 --> 00:56:00.620 we're not in Ukraine, we're not in Somalia. I mean, there are places which are far worse, 00:56:00.620 --> 00:56:05.980 and we should count our blessings. But I've heard it said that the resources exist for everyone to 00:56:05.980 --> 00:56:11.420 live, to have enough food, to have proper shelter, for everything to be just hunky-dory. And then 00:56:11.420 --> 00:56:15.900 sometimes in their next breath they'll blame the politicians, but I don't think that's where it 00:56:15.900 --> 00:56:21.020 goes. I think it has to do with the collective consciousness of the world, of which the 00:56:21.020 --> 00:56:27.740 politicians are a symptom or an expression, but which we all are responsible for and contribute to. 00:56:27.740 --> 00:56:33.020 Well, you know, we do not live in a scarce universe. It's an abundant universe. There's 00:56:33.020 --> 00:56:40.540 no such thing as scarcity. Hunger, poverty, illiteracy, these things are unacceptable, 00:56:40.540 --> 00:56:47.420 inexcusable and intolerable. There's no reason for them. Why do they continue to exist? Well, 00:56:47.420 --> 00:56:53.340 there are many who would like to blame the ruling elite, the power brokers, the ones with the 00:56:53.340 --> 00:57:00.380 greatest wealth and the greatest political power, the ones who start wars or decide where wars will 00:57:00.380 --> 00:57:06.700 be fought and when, the ones who determine the relative value of currencies on any given day. 00:57:07.260 --> 00:57:15.260 They like to scapegoat it that way. And I often say to myself, what would it take in a top-down 00:57:15.260 --> 00:57:22.220 and bottom-up approach to bring us into a new way of looking at things, a new paradigm? What 00:57:22.220 --> 00:57:27.980 would it take to bring about paradigm shift? And, you know, there are many who are now talking about 00:57:27.980 --> 00:57:36.460 post-materialism because materialism is a flawed model. It doesn't work. It's a lie. It's a product 00:57:36.460 --> 00:57:44.860 of myopia and limited thinking, the evidence strongly disproves it. So, why are we still 00:57:44.860 --> 00:57:51.420 practicing or subscribing to that point of view? And what would it take to get us away from that? 00:57:51.420 --> 00:57:57.420 Because if you're coming from materialism, then nothing comes after this lifetime. Hence, 00:57:57.420 --> 00:58:00.780 this is all there is. Hence, get while the getting is good. 00:58:00.780 --> 00:58:05.100 >> Yeah, there used to be a beer commercial that said that you only go around once in this world, 00:58:05.100 --> 00:58:06.860 and so grab all the gusto you can get. 00:58:06.860 --> 00:58:07.900 - Exactly. 00:58:07.900 --> 00:58:12.380 Well, the truth is we're infinite eternal beings. 00:58:12.380 --> 00:58:14.700 Anything else is a lie. 00:58:14.700 --> 00:58:17.820 And we're not condemned to hell forever and ever and ever. 00:58:17.820 --> 00:58:21.020 This lifetime is not the only chance you get 00:58:21.020 --> 00:58:23.820 to demonstrate your divinity. 00:58:23.820 --> 00:58:26.540 You have infinity and eternity to demonstrate it. 00:58:26.540 --> 00:58:27.740 But why suffer? 00:58:27.740 --> 00:58:30.700 And this was the whole point of the message 00:58:30.700 --> 00:58:32.300 that Christ was trying to convey. 00:58:32.940 --> 00:58:40.060 if you pick up my yoke and walk in my footsteps, you too can know the Kingdom of Heaven. You too can, 00:58:40.060 --> 00:58:45.420 figuratively speaking, sit at the right hand of the Father. I don't think God has a gender, 00:58:45.420 --> 00:58:49.100 frankly, and I don't know if God has hands or arms or any of that stuff. 00:58:49.100 --> 00:58:51.340 Pete Or right or left, because I'm the present. 00:58:51.340 --> 00:58:55.420 R. Yeah, but I think that's just a figure of speech. But his point was, 00:58:55.420 --> 00:58:59.580 if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you too could move mountains. 00:59:01.180 --> 00:59:07.420 I think it was Timothy Leary who said, "I'd like to give LSD to everybody," because LSD is an 00:59:07.420 --> 00:59:14.620 entheogen. It's one of the ways to have a breakthrough experience beyond nonsense exercises 00:59:14.620 --> 00:59:24.620 and vision quests and meditation and fasting is to take peyote or ayahuasca or bufo or ibogaine or 00:59:25.340 --> 00:59:30.540 Pick your drug, you know, ecstasy, LSD, whatever. This is another way to do it. I personally 00:59:30.540 --> 00:59:39.260 don't like doing anything that causes a loss of control and I prefer other methods to open up to 00:59:39.260 --> 00:59:46.620 the divine, including the God for a Day exercise, which is my recommended method. But the thing is, 00:59:46.620 --> 00:59:51.740 until it becomes real for the decision makers, they're going to continue to worship the golden 00:59:51.740 --> 00:59:58.420 they're going to continue to stay in egocentrism, nihilism, and dualism, until 00:59:58.420 --> 01:00:05.740 they recognize that the same God who made you also made me, and that we're all one, 01:00:05.740 --> 01:00:11.380 which can be demonstrated convincingly through quantum physics, especially 01:00:11.380 --> 01:00:17.380 torsion physics, which shows the interconnectivity of thought, intention, 01:00:17.380 --> 01:00:23.300 with quanta, with the actual behavior of quanta, until it becomes real at that 01:00:23.300 --> 01:00:26.980 level, they're not going to change, they're not going to transform, they're not going 01:00:26.980 --> 01:00:31.980 to say, "Hey, all for one and one for all." No, they're going to keep saying, 01:00:31.980 --> 01:00:39.140 "Every man for himself." So, yes, we must get beyond materialism, we must do so 01:00:39.140 --> 01:00:46.500 quickly, and that's why I formed Eternia, Eternia.org, to advance this strategy and 01:00:46.500 --> 01:00:54.260 this model. It's all explained on the website, and it's my offering to humanity. It's the best 01:00:54.260 --> 01:01:01.700 blueprint I could conceive from 50 years of work in this field about how we move from the darkness 01:01:01.700 --> 01:01:08.420 into the light. What are some of the specifics that it offers aside from the God for a day exercise? 01:01:08.420 --> 01:01:15.380 Eternia is a prayer. Eternia is a concept. It is operational, but only in a minimal way. We publish 01:01:15.380 --> 01:01:22.340 a quarterly digital bulletin which 15,000 subscribers or so and we occasionally sponsor 01:01:22.340 --> 01:01:27.940 webinars and that sort of thing. But we have never been appreciably funded. There are seven 01:01:27.940 --> 01:01:36.100 program components and it's a holistic, comprehensive, multifaceted strategy to achieve 01:01:36.100 --> 01:01:44.260 individual and global transformation. And it's been refined over the years, but basically what 01:01:44.260 --> 01:01:50.740 I had in mind when I received that download from Spirit in 1974, when Raymond Moody first 01:01:50.740 --> 01:01:54.180 spoke about his work in near-death experiences. 01:01:54.180 --> 01:01:59.920 So if I had an audience with Warren Buffett who says he's going to give away his billions 01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:07.180 again a second time, I would encourage him to consider Eternia because for me it's the 01:02:07.180 --> 01:02:08.180 mother of all causes. 01:02:08.180 --> 01:02:11.180 >>Rick So if you had a billion dollars, what would you do with it? 01:02:11.180 --> 01:02:15.900 Well, I would operationalize the seven program components, look at each split, which are 01:02:15.900 --> 01:02:21.260 research number one, and I said before that there hasn't been good funding for research 01:02:21.260 --> 01:02:25.540 and there's only been precious little good work. 01:02:25.540 --> 01:02:30.540 And I think that there are all kinds of different things we could do if the funding was there, 01:02:30.540 --> 01:02:36.660 in the form of giving grants to major medical centers and academic institutions to undertake 01:02:36.660 --> 01:02:37.660 our protocols. 01:02:37.660 --> 01:02:43.100 So there's people like Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake and others doing research, but you're 01:02:43.100 --> 01:02:45.780 just saying that's a trickle compared to what could be done. 01:02:45.780 --> 01:02:48.900 We have a frontier science forum on paper. 01:02:48.900 --> 01:02:55.220 It would be populated with the best thinkers, the MDs, the PhDs, the great academicians, 01:02:55.220 --> 01:03:01.100 and we would put together the protocols and award generous funding to the major medical 01:03:01.100 --> 01:03:03.820 centers and universities. 01:03:03.820 --> 01:03:09.900 The ones that are most credible because when this comes out in the way of findings, we 01:03:09.900 --> 01:03:15.400 want press conferences and we want people to realize that the best, brightest minds 01:03:15.400 --> 01:03:21.760 on the planet, from the hallowed halls of academia and science, have put their imprimatur 01:03:21.760 --> 01:03:23.500 to this. 01:03:23.500 --> 01:03:25.920 And for what good it might do. 01:03:25.920 --> 01:03:28.620 Education is the second component. 01:03:28.620 --> 01:03:34.740 say to me, "What would you do to educate?" And I say, "Everything conceivable, limited 01:03:34.740 --> 01:03:40.940 by our own creativity." There's a lot we already know. Near-death experience has become a household 01:03:40.940 --> 01:03:47.340 word, but that's only one of many, many phenomena that validate the seven statements. So there's 01:03:47.340 --> 01:03:52.300 a lot that needs to be done in the area of education. 01:03:52.300 --> 01:03:55.020 The third is outreach. 01:03:55.020 --> 01:04:02.100 Outreach has many different initiatives, but outreach is intended to put love in action. 01:04:02.100 --> 01:04:07.580 You know, Leo Biscaglia, Dr. Biscaglia was a great, great teacher about the importance 01:04:07.580 --> 01:04:09.540 and power of love. 01:04:09.540 --> 01:04:16.380 And if I had my druthers, if we brought the major religions on board with this convergence, 01:04:16.380 --> 01:04:20.740 which is the other program component of the Convergence Coalition, we would help them 01:04:20.740 --> 01:04:27.780 reinvent themselves along the lines of what I think they were originally intended to do, 01:04:27.780 --> 01:04:29.860 which is to teach people how to love one another. 01:04:29.860 --> 01:04:35.420 If they wanted to reinvent themselves, I can't imagine going to the Vatican and convincing 01:04:35.420 --> 01:04:39.860 the conservative cardinals that they needed to reinvent themselves. As it is, they can't 01:04:39.860 --> 01:04:44.300 stand Pope Francis because he's so innovative. 01:04:44.300 --> 01:04:50.100 In my early days, I used to think that this work could be the antithesis of religion. It 01:04:50.100 --> 01:04:56.820 would make religion superfluous. And today I don't say that. Today my attitude is 01:04:56.820 --> 01:05:03.900 all religions can serve a purpose, a very valid important purpose. Teaching people 01:05:03.900 --> 01:05:09.740 how to love one another, being a support system to keep people in unconditional 01:05:09.740 --> 01:05:14.060 love when the going gets tough, implementing some of these projects and 01:05:14.060 --> 01:05:19.660 outreach, the love in action projects and the loving each other global campaign 01:05:19.660 --> 01:05:24.340 and the One World Leadership Project. There are so many different projects. They're all 01:05:24.340 --> 01:05:27.100 on the website. People who are interested can go there. 01:05:27.100 --> 01:05:31.260 And of course, to a great extent, religions have made themselves superfluous. People are 01:05:31.260 --> 01:05:36.020 leaving the churches in droves, and that term "spiritual but not religious" has become 01:05:36.020 --> 01:05:41.460 very popular. People don't feel they need mainstream religions in order to pursue spiritual 01:05:41.460 --> 01:05:42.460 development. 01:05:42.460 --> 01:05:48.340 Yes, that's exactly true. But religions have established constituencies, albeit smaller 01:05:48.340 --> 01:05:51.140 They have vast resources, they have a lot of real estate. 01:05:51.140 --> 01:05:52.140 They have a structure. 01:05:52.140 --> 01:05:53.140 They have an infrastructure. 01:05:53.140 --> 01:05:55.780 You don't have to reinvent the wheel. 01:05:55.780 --> 01:06:01.220 If they all took one of these, I call them induction techniques, or explained in my book, 01:06:01.220 --> 01:06:06.340 if they all took one of those exercises and saw the error of their ways and became instantly 01:06:06.340 --> 01:06:08.580 enlightened and concentric. 01:06:08.580 --> 01:06:13.380 By the way, the shoes of the fisherman, have you seen it? 01:06:13.380 --> 01:06:14.380 What is it? 01:06:14.380 --> 01:06:15.380 Shoes of the fisherman. 01:06:15.380 --> 01:06:16.380 I've heard of it. 01:06:16.380 --> 01:06:17.380 What is it, a movie? 01:06:17.380 --> 01:06:23.540 starred in this, I think it's 1960-something, great film, but there's a Pope who transformed 01:06:23.540 --> 01:06:30.820 the Catholic Church. And that's what I'm talking about. That's the kind of transformation that 01:06:30.820 --> 01:06:36.060 needs to happen within all the major religions, and that's what our other program component 01:06:36.060 --> 01:06:42.220 is all about, the Convergence Coalition, which is to bring science, spirituality, and religion 01:06:42.220 --> 01:06:45.620 into close collaboration with one another 01:06:45.620 --> 01:06:49.220 along the goal of promoting the seven statements 01:06:49.220 --> 01:06:52.540 and further establishing their validity. 01:06:52.540 --> 01:06:54.940 And then the other is technology development 01:06:54.940 --> 01:06:59.940 with AI and virtual reality and augmented reality, 01:06:59.940 --> 01:07:04.800 nanocomputing and linking the brain to the cloud and so on. 01:07:04.800 --> 01:07:08.460 There are all kinds of technological possibilities 01:07:08.460 --> 01:07:17.220 to use devices that can help engineer an out-of-body experience in a safe manner that isn't overly 01:07:17.220 --> 01:07:18.820 invasive or intrusive. 01:07:18.820 --> 01:07:23.740 Jeff Martin, who established the FINDERS course and whom I've interviewed, has been doing 01:07:23.740 --> 01:07:29.540 some things with Shinzen Young, who's a Zen teacher, using some kind of device that very 01:07:29.540 --> 01:07:33.740 specifically uses magnets to target particular parts of the brain. 01:07:33.740 --> 01:07:38.040 Shinsen said he's had the best experiences he's ever had using this thing. 01:07:38.040 --> 01:07:39.940 So there could be physiological traps. 01:07:39.940 --> 01:07:43.980 Now of course you mentioned Robert Monroe and biornal beats or whatever they're called. 01:07:43.980 --> 01:07:47.500 I've heard from people who say that that has been extremely profound. 01:07:47.500 --> 01:07:53.820 So there could be external modalities like that, technologies, that could elicit profound 01:07:53.820 --> 01:07:56.580 spiritual awakenings or give you a taste anyway. 01:07:56.580 --> 01:08:02.100 Well that's why technology development is up there as one of our most important priorities. 01:08:02.100 --> 01:08:07.900 And then synergy with a GE at the end, it's kind of a made up word for synergy for the 01:08:07.900 --> 01:08:08.900 earth. 01:08:08.900 --> 01:08:16.820 And that's bringing kindred spirit organizations together and get them coordinated and galvanized 01:08:16.820 --> 01:08:24.420 around specific priorities to affect institutional change and to achieve certain high priority 01:08:24.420 --> 01:08:30.580 goals that could be more medification-ly and more expeditiously if we all work together 01:08:30.580 --> 01:08:36.660 in a coordinated fashion, cooperatively, kind of a hybrid of the United Way, Chamber of Commerce 01:08:36.660 --> 01:08:40.900 model, both from funding and implementation. 01:08:40.900 --> 01:08:45.660 So yeah, all these components are explained in great detail at Eternia.org. 01:08:45.660 --> 01:08:51.180 Well, all work together cooperatively is a key phrase because when you're talking about 01:08:51.180 --> 01:08:55.140 the religions, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, yeah, but people are going to have 01:08:55.140 --> 01:08:59.960 to get over the attitude that our way is the best and everything else is either completely 01:08:59.960 --> 01:09:05.280 off are not as good as what we have. It takes a certain amount of spiritual maturity and 01:09:05.280 --> 01:09:10.200 broad-mindedness I think to come to the realization that God is not a one-trick pony and there 01:09:10.200 --> 01:09:15.560 are just so many different possibilities that suit different people. Appreciate your own 01:09:15.560 --> 01:09:17.440 thing but appreciate other people's choices. 01:09:17.440 --> 01:09:22.440 Well, that's exactly right. You can't be an ego and do this work. If you're in service 01:09:22.440 --> 01:09:29.720 to yourself or to your own agenda, your own ulterior motives, then this can't work. That's 01:09:29.720 --> 01:09:30.880 That's the whole point. 01:09:30.880 --> 01:09:36.200 That's why someone, every individual needs to have their own epiphany. 01:09:36.200 --> 01:09:37.200 That's the key thing. 01:09:37.200 --> 01:09:41.600 They can either have a virtual epiphany by reading the book and say, "Oh wow, this guy 01:09:41.600 --> 01:09:45.240 was an agnostic and look at what happened to him." 01:09:45.240 --> 01:09:47.200 I hear this from people all the time. 01:09:47.200 --> 01:09:52.480 The book speaks to them energetically and brings them into new corridors of thinking, 01:09:52.480 --> 01:09:54.040 new ways of looking at things. 01:09:54.040 --> 01:10:01.800 A woman, 28 year old, who's a law student in Madrid, finishing up law school, her fiancé 01:10:01.800 --> 01:10:05.920 killed himself from despair over the world situation. 01:10:05.920 --> 01:10:10.200 A friend of hers gave her my book and she read it and she said she was suicidal and 01:10:10.200 --> 01:10:12.880 she said it brought her out of suicidal ideation. 01:10:12.880 --> 01:10:18.440 You couldn't pay me a higher compliment, but she's going to go on now and do all kinds 01:10:18.440 --> 01:10:22.840 of good things based on what she's learned from the book. 01:10:22.840 --> 01:10:24.680 And so this is the point. 01:10:24.680 --> 01:10:26.120 It's very simple. 01:10:26.120 --> 01:10:29.280 We just need to become purveyors of love. 01:10:29.280 --> 01:10:30.680 What's the incentive? 01:10:30.680 --> 01:10:33.640 The best incentive you could possibly have. 01:10:33.640 --> 01:10:38.280 What's the common denominator that likes us all together as human beings? 01:10:38.280 --> 01:10:39.280 We're all mortal. 01:10:39.280 --> 01:10:41.200 At least the body is. 01:10:41.200 --> 01:10:42.520 We're all going to die. 01:10:42.520 --> 01:10:49.160 Kularas used to say, "We're all in death denial, to thee, to thee, to thee, but never to me." 01:10:49.160 --> 01:10:54.480 But the truth is, our days are numbered, and sooner or later it'll be the blinking of an 01:10:54.480 --> 01:10:59.720 eyelid when it happens, this life and this body will come to an end. 01:10:59.720 --> 01:11:04.520 And like John Lennon said, recorded George Harrison, John Lennon said, in one of his 01:11:04.520 --> 01:11:09.760 songs, I think Ballad of John and Yoko, your song was While My Guitar Gently Weeps, he 01:11:09.760 --> 01:11:15.040 said, "Last night the wife said, 'Oh boy, when you're dead, you don't take nothing with 01:11:15.040 --> 01:11:16.680 you but your soul. 01:11:16.680 --> 01:11:17.680 Think. 01:11:17.680 --> 01:11:18.680 Think.'" 01:11:18.680 --> 01:11:21.640 the title of Blaise Pascal's book from 01:11:21.640 --> 01:11:25.960 1674. He had a near-death experience in 01:11:25.960 --> 01:11:31.320 1654 and he invented that term the God-shaped hole, but only God can fill. 01:11:31.320 --> 01:11:35.600 You know that yearning that we all have to connect with something greater than ourselves, 01:11:35.600 --> 01:11:38.560 a cause greater, an entity greater. 01:11:38.560 --> 01:11:45.400 Only God can fill the God-shaped hole and one can only find God if God is sought in the silence. 01:11:45.640 --> 01:11:52.640 By emulating God, emulating God's love, we can strengthen the communion, improve the resonance, 01:11:52.640 --> 01:11:54.720 until God becomes real. 01:11:54.720 --> 01:12:01.080 So if I could convince a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates to give their billions to Eternia, 01:12:01.080 --> 01:12:05.280 I would quickly implement those seven program components. 01:12:05.280 --> 01:12:10.680 You know, I often say Eternia needs the budget of a small nation and the army of a small 01:12:10.680 --> 01:12:12.360 nation to succeed. 01:12:12.360 --> 01:12:19.800 If our vision was, "Hey, let's clean up Lake Okeechobee from pollution," that's very nicely 01:12:19.800 --> 01:12:22.680 defined and neatly contained. 01:12:22.680 --> 01:12:29.400 But Eternia's vision is to co-create an optimal future for Earth and all its inhabitants. 01:12:29.400 --> 01:12:36.880 And it can only do that by effecting a convergence between science, religion, and spirituality 01:12:36.880 --> 01:12:41.360 to catalyze a global spiritual revolution. 01:12:41.360 --> 01:12:46.720 that's a pretty tall order. It's very utopian, some would say naive, but frankly 01:12:46.720 --> 01:12:51.200 there is no other way, there is no other answer. And I hope you realize that 01:12:51.200 --> 01:12:56.120 Eternia would be one of many things which are contributing to this. Absolutely. 01:12:56.120 --> 01:12:59.320 Yeah, you're not saying there's no other answer than Eternia, you're saying there's no 01:12:59.320 --> 01:13:03.280 other answer than this kind of transformation. It has to be the one that 01:13:03.280 --> 01:13:08.320 waves all flags. We have to get out of the Tower of Babel, proof, we're never 01:13:08.320 --> 01:13:14.240 going to get it. The best we can get is this very powerful anecdotal stuff. It's enough 01:13:14.240 --> 01:13:21.520 to build a phenomenal advanced civilization. So why are we not doing that? Somebody needs 01:13:21.520 --> 01:13:28.160 to be the rising tide to raise all boats. I don't care who it is or what it is, so long 01:13:28.160 --> 01:13:35.960 as it's God-centered, authentically, and coming from full integrity. It's unassailable, and 01:13:35.960 --> 01:13:38.360 It's basically impeccable. 01:13:38.360 --> 01:13:41.160 It's tough to find that kind of leadership. 01:13:41.160 --> 01:13:46.840 It's tough to find people or organizations that rise to that standard. 01:13:46.840 --> 01:13:51.740 But when you find them, they're golden, you know, and we've got to come together and try 01:13:51.740 --> 01:13:59.020 to bring about mass social change while we still have the opportunity to do so. 01:13:59.020 --> 01:14:00.840 What you're saying is you want to flip the paradigm. 01:14:00.840 --> 01:14:06.000 There's a fellow named Mark Gober, whom I've interviewed, whose first book was The End 01:14:06.000 --> 01:14:11.480 to Upside-Down Thinking, and the whole premise of the book was that our whole way of thinking 01:14:11.480 --> 01:14:13.600 about the world is upside down. 01:14:13.600 --> 01:14:17.960 We consider consciousness to be this little epiphenomenon of brain functioning, whereas 01:14:17.960 --> 01:14:23.900 in fact consciousness is the rock-bottom foundation of the universe and everything else is an expression 01:14:23.900 --> 01:14:25.080 of that. 01:14:25.080 --> 01:14:30.180 And if all of modern science and our quest for knowledge and our technologies is based 01:14:30.180 --> 01:14:37.440 on such a flawed paradigm, then necessarily it has huge ramifications for the quality 01:14:37.440 --> 01:14:43.800 of the world, the impact that all of our technologies have, and which is why, you know, we've desecrated 01:14:43.800 --> 01:14:48.080 the environment and so many people are starving and there's so many wars and all this stuff. 01:14:48.080 --> 01:14:52.500 But the more pivotal level at which you can work, the easier you can affect major change 01:14:52.500 --> 01:14:53.680 with less effort. 01:14:53.680 --> 01:14:56.440 I think that's what you're getting at, that if we could establish... 01:14:56.440 --> 01:14:59.760 I call it the mathematics of eternal existence. 01:14:59.760 --> 01:15:00.760 Do the math. 01:15:00.760 --> 01:15:01.760 ...foundation. 01:15:01.760 --> 01:15:06.280 The Rower Emerson said, "Go ahead and build your castles in the air, that's where they 01:15:06.280 --> 01:15:09.040 belong, just establish foundations under them." 01:15:09.040 --> 01:15:11.560 Yes, Abraham Lincoln said that. 01:15:11.560 --> 01:15:17.200 He also said, "The best way to predict the future is to create it." 01:15:17.200 --> 01:15:18.200 Good one. 01:15:18.200 --> 01:15:19.200 Amen. 01:15:19.200 --> 01:15:20.640 This is the whole point. 01:15:20.640 --> 01:15:23.940 I call it the mathematics of eternal existence. 01:15:23.940 --> 01:15:25.320 Do the math. 01:15:25.320 --> 01:15:28.420 If you're a smart person and you care about, 01:15:28.420 --> 01:15:30.560 if your eyes are on the prize, 01:15:30.560 --> 01:15:33.820 whatever net worth you have, you can't take it with you. 01:15:33.820 --> 01:15:36.280 All that you have will one day be given. 01:15:36.280 --> 01:15:39.800 One day your voice will fall silent, never to speak again. 01:15:39.800 --> 01:15:42.320 And your time to make a difference, 01:15:42.320 --> 01:15:45.040 to make an impact is gonna be at an end. 01:15:45.040 --> 01:15:46.800 So we're all gonna die. 01:15:46.800 --> 01:15:49.680 And I've been at the bedside of many in my hospice work. 01:15:49.680 --> 01:15:52.520 And the worst nightmare I've ever experienced 01:15:52.520 --> 01:15:55.480 is when they don't have any spiritual moorings 01:15:55.480 --> 01:15:59.760 and they go into this identity crisis of the first order. 01:15:59.760 --> 01:16:00.660 Who am I? 01:16:00.660 --> 01:16:02.360 What's gonna become of me? 01:16:02.360 --> 01:16:05.000 They can't see beyond the body or the ego. 01:16:05.000 --> 01:16:06.320 That's very sad. 01:16:06.320 --> 01:16:09.080 There's so much beyond that. 01:16:09.080 --> 01:16:11.880 And when people wake up to that one way or the other, 01:16:11.880 --> 01:16:14.920 it's a whole new universe that unfolds. 01:16:14.920 --> 01:16:17.120 Kelly Caleb LeBron said it in the prophet. 01:16:17.120 --> 01:16:20.560 He said that when you die, and I'm paraphrasing, 01:16:20.560 --> 01:16:22.680 he said the veil is going to be lifted 01:16:22.680 --> 01:16:25.000 and you will see the light. 01:16:25.000 --> 01:16:26.920 And once you see the light, 01:16:26.920 --> 01:16:30.520 you will wonder why you ever spent any time in the darkness. 01:16:30.520 --> 01:16:33.280 The darkness is not where it's at. 01:16:33.280 --> 01:16:37.480 And this thing about lack of tolerance for diversity 01:16:37.480 --> 01:16:41.120 and wanting to be the 500 pound gorilla 01:16:41.120 --> 01:16:44.120 and the alpha male and the dominant species 01:16:44.120 --> 01:16:45.880 with the most toys and the most money 01:16:45.880 --> 01:16:47.880 and the most women or whatever. 01:16:47.880 --> 01:16:49.760 I mean, that's all flawed thinking. 01:16:49.760 --> 01:16:52.000 That's all illusory. 01:16:52.000 --> 01:16:54.400 But at the end of the day, you take none of that with you. 01:16:54.400 --> 01:16:58.920 So the golden calf, at the end of the day, leaves you broke. 01:16:58.920 --> 01:17:02.700 It's what have you done to advance love and light? 01:17:02.700 --> 01:17:04.240 How much love have you given? 01:17:04.240 --> 01:17:06.920 It's not how much love have you received? 01:17:06.920 --> 01:17:08.600 It's how much have you given? 01:17:08.600 --> 01:17:11.280 This guy with a blog, he always ends up by, 01:17:11.280 --> 01:17:13.880 he says, "In the end, the only tragedy 01:17:13.880 --> 01:17:18.800 is not to have been a saint. I don't know that any of us can be a saint, but we can certainly 01:17:18.800 --> 01:17:23.760 be more loving. We certainly can do God for a day. It's a simple thing to do. Love for 01:17:23.760 --> 01:17:30.120 a day. Love it for a day every day. And that's really the whole point of why I wrote the book. 01:17:30.120 --> 01:17:36.360 I hope people take it to heart, because me, for one, I'm tired of living in a world that 01:17:36.360 --> 01:17:43.640 is so suboptimal and dystopian. I'm tired of seeing suffering, you know, it affects me. 01:17:43.640 --> 01:17:50.120 I don't suffer, I'm fine, I'm living a good life, but I have great empathy for animals and for 01:17:50.120 --> 01:17:56.120 trees and for rivers and for streams and for oceans and for people. Who's starting these 01:17:56.120 --> 01:18:04.120 wars and why? What kind of bonehead decision is that? They're fighting over anthills that amounts 01:18:04.120 --> 01:18:08.440 to nothing at the end of the day, and don't they realize that they're just shooting themselves 01:18:08.440 --> 01:18:14.280 in the foot? Carl Sagan's pale blue dot. Yeah, right. All the wars that are being fought over 01:18:14.280 --> 01:18:18.440 this little pale blue dot. What you were just saying reminds me of a couple of cartoons for 01:18:18.440 --> 01:18:23.160 humor break. There was a guy, one cartoon was a guy standing in front of a bank and it says, 01:18:23.160 --> 01:18:28.280 "First reincarnation bank. You can't take it with you, so leave it with us until you return." 01:18:28.280 --> 01:18:34.360 And then the other cartoon was a tombstone and it said, "I'll be back. Don't touch my stuff." 01:18:34.360 --> 01:18:43.240 Well, that's the whole point. You're rich when you are a purveyor of love. I was never more 01:18:43.240 --> 01:18:50.120 rich than those days when I dedicated to God for a day. It's the highest time I ever had, 01:18:50.120 --> 01:18:55.480 and I encourage people to learn about that and practice it often. Eventually, you know, 01:18:55.480 --> 01:19:00.440 It's like the random acts of kindness that pay it forward. It's a variation on the same theme. 01:19:00.440 --> 01:19:01.800 Pete I'm not, you know, 01:19:01.800 --> 01:19:02.760 David It reminds me of that 01:19:02.760 --> 01:19:03.960 Christian saying, "What would Jesus say?" 01:19:03.960 --> 01:19:07.320 Pete This is ancient wisdom. It goes back to Plato, 01:19:07.320 --> 01:19:15.640 if not before. And I just hope that humanity becomes inspired by this and engages in proactive 01:19:15.640 --> 01:19:20.520 behavior to turn things in the opposite direction from where we're going, because 01:19:20.520 --> 01:19:22.360 we definitely need a course correction. 01:19:22.360 --> 01:19:25.120 David Yeah, you know, when I contemplate God for 01:19:25.120 --> 01:19:29.800 a day, it reminds me of that Christian saying, "What would Jesus do?" which you also mention 01:19:29.800 --> 01:19:30.800 in your book. 01:19:30.800 --> 01:19:34.880 And whenever I've heard that phrase, I've thought, "Well, you kind of have to be Jesus 01:19:34.880 --> 01:19:38.860 to know that," because you can only act from your level of consciousness. 01:19:38.860 --> 01:19:43.920 And if you're actually at the level that Christ was at, then your action is going to be different 01:19:43.920 --> 01:19:47.320 than the ordinary person, no matter how hard they try. 01:19:47.320 --> 01:19:51.300 But I don't quite think that as much as I used to, because I think it really makes a 01:19:51.300 --> 01:19:53.800 difference if you do try to emulate 01:19:53.800 --> 01:19:57.180 saintly people or to embody saintliness. 01:19:57.180 --> 01:19:58.900 I mean I know people who have just been 01:19:58.900 --> 01:20:00.540 meditating for decades who will still 01:20:00.540 --> 01:20:02.780 like rip people off in business deals 01:20:02.780 --> 01:20:05.900 and be unkind and things like that and I 01:20:05.900 --> 01:20:07.580 think it takes a certain amount of 01:20:07.580 --> 01:20:09.460 discernment and a certain amount of 01:20:09.460 --> 01:20:12.260 effort to be a good person. It's not, if it 01:20:12.260 --> 01:20:15.420 doesn't come automatically then try a 01:20:15.420 --> 01:20:16.940 little bit and it could make a big 01:20:16.940 --> 01:20:18.700 difference. Don't you think? 01:20:18.700 --> 01:20:20.700 Well what you do to others you do to 01:20:20.700 --> 01:20:27.020 yourself. So that's another way of saying the mathematics of eternal existence. Ben Franklin 01:20:27.020 --> 01:20:34.700 figured this out in his 13 Virtues. And one of the 13 Virtues was emulate Christ, Socrates, 01:20:34.700 --> 01:20:42.940 and be learned, be loving, be compassionate. Thomas Jefferson had the same philosophy. 01:20:42.940 --> 01:20:51.260 our Founding Father documents are expressive of this philosophy. "E pluribus unum," "of many one." 01:20:51.260 --> 01:20:59.900 In God we trust, in love we trust. This stuff goes back to, as I say, it's ancient wisdom, 01:20:59.900 --> 01:21:05.980 but you bring a good point about, you know, we're not Jesus Christ. I don't know, I'd probably have 01:21:05.980 --> 01:21:11.500 to have a million more lifetimes before I can even think. But again, I'm trying to demystify the whole 01:21:11.500 --> 01:21:18.700 thing of enlightenment and the whole subject of God, it's not too complicated. It's called 01:21:18.700 --> 01:21:25.260 love, but another word for love is kindness. Another word is compassion. Another word is 01:21:25.260 --> 01:21:32.220 empathy, sensitivity, generosity. Forget about love. If love is too abstract, too complicated 01:21:32.220 --> 01:21:38.860 a term, or Christ consciousness confuses or intimidates people, then just think about 01:21:38.860 --> 01:21:44.940 being more sensitive, being more kind, being more gentle, being more loving, being more empathetic. 01:21:44.940 --> 01:21:51.500 These are the siblings of love and I actually think they're in some ways synonymous with love. 01:21:51.500 --> 01:21:59.100 So again, it's not that difficult. This lifetime is the blanking of an eyelid. We're here today 01:21:59.100 --> 01:22:05.980 and we're gone tomorrow and tomorrow is promised to no one. So every day, you know, my prayers, 01:22:05.980 --> 01:22:11.260 my meditations I focus on gratitude, giving thanks for all my blessings and asking that 01:22:11.260 --> 01:22:17.580 everybody and everything become equally blessed, not more so. And I ask how can I be of best service 01:22:17.580 --> 01:22:25.740 with my opportunities today to promote more love and light in the world. We truly are right now in 01:22:25.740 --> 01:22:34.940 a struggle for our future. We the United States, we the humanity, the entire world, there's chaos 01:22:34.940 --> 01:22:41.020 everywhere right now. It's all throughout Europe and Asia, South America, Africa, I mean, you name a 01:22:41.020 --> 01:22:47.820 continent, maybe Antarctica is having environmental stresses, but all seven continents right now are 01:22:47.820 --> 01:22:53.980 in chaos. The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica could slip off and we'd raise sea levels by 20 feet or 01:22:53.980 --> 01:22:58.460 something, which would cause a bit of a disruption. Yeah, we've been dominating this conversation. I 01:22:58.460 --> 01:23:02.540 just want to make sure, are there questions? Well, there are a couple, yeah, let's see here. Two more 01:23:02.540 --> 01:23:08.540 questions have come in. So the first one is from Patrick Wiggins in Gainesville, Florida. 01:23:08.540 --> 01:23:14.300 "Looking forward to reading your book. You equated evil with the ego. I've come to believe that evil 01:23:14.300 --> 01:23:19.340 is taking pleasure in the suffering of others. I'm puzzled about two or three things. Is there 01:23:19.340 --> 01:23:25.500 some sense of personhood always tainted by ego? So even angels would have some quality of ego. 01:23:25.500 --> 01:23:29.900 And isn't it possible that those who enjoy the suffering of others will continue to do so by 01:23:29.900 --> 01:23:37.820 choice? Great question. Ego is self-differentiation. It's coming from 01:23:37.820 --> 01:23:46.100 separatism, dualism, me and everybody else, me against everybody else. It's self-absorption, 01:23:46.100 --> 01:23:53.180 self-possession, self-importance. It's I'm gonna get mine and to hell with the other guy. That's 01:23:53.180 --> 01:23:58.420 what I mean by ego. Raymond Moody and I had a conversation not long ago where he talked about 01:23:58.420 --> 01:24:05.420 about his only goal right now is to overcome self-esteem and ego, because he calls them 01:24:05.420 --> 01:24:12.300 the great impostors, and they are, because you can never be the best looking or the wealthiest 01:24:12.300 --> 01:24:14.180 or the strongest. 01:24:14.180 --> 01:24:20.060 Now this other dimension of taking pleasure in the suffering of others, I would say that 01:24:20.060 --> 01:24:25.900 evil exists along a continuum, and you have maybe the most diabolical, devilish form of 01:24:25.900 --> 01:24:33.500 evil that likes to inflict pain on others and maybe enjoys in some perverse sort of way 01:24:33.500 --> 01:24:34.940 watching people suffer. 01:24:34.940 --> 01:24:36.900 I can't relate to any of that. 01:24:36.900 --> 01:24:38.940 I can't watch any of that. 01:24:38.940 --> 01:24:40.940 It is too offensive to me. 01:24:40.940 --> 01:24:43.140 It's too low vibration. 01:24:43.140 --> 01:24:47.740 Somebody who is that lost is so far removed from the light. 01:24:47.740 --> 01:24:54.960 I don't know how one transforms an entity like that other than, as I say in the book, 01:24:54.960 --> 01:25:01.560 The only example I have for how to deal with evil, whatever form it takes, is the same 01:25:01.560 --> 01:25:07.080 example that we were taught by God and by Jesus and by all the great teachers, which 01:25:07.080 --> 01:25:11.860 is to pour love and light all over it, to extend compassion. 01:25:11.860 --> 01:25:17.800 Now you might still get beheaded or fed to the lions or nailed to the cross, but again, 01:25:17.800 --> 01:25:23.280 it's not about the love you receive or the compassion you receive or the kindness you 01:25:23.280 --> 01:25:29.080 receive. It's about what you give to others. That is godliness. And I think the 01:25:29.080 --> 01:25:34.940 purpose of this existence is to evolve into more godliness. And one can do that 01:25:34.940 --> 01:25:41.440 by giving love in an egoless way. Now it's very hard to do that because we're 01:25:41.440 --> 01:25:47.040 taught that our ego is all-important and we're so conditioned to stay in ego that 01:25:47.040 --> 01:25:52.640 we're all kind of operating from the principle of self-interest. And what's in 01:25:52.640 --> 01:26:00.200 it for me. And that's the motivator. But when we know that the goal is to merge with Source 01:26:00.200 --> 01:26:07.360 Creator and that we can only do that by matching the frequency and vibration, that's the prize. 01:26:07.360 --> 01:26:11.240 That's the ultimate. That's Nirvana. How do we get there? Well, we have to raise our God 01:26:11.240 --> 01:26:21.360 quotient. We have to purify by being a vessel or purveyor of selfless love. And evil is 01:26:21.360 --> 01:26:26.560 going to do what evil is going to do. That's evil's karma, and evil has to atone for that, 01:26:26.560 --> 01:26:33.320 one way or the other. In my opinion, God is not damning evil into the infernal regions, 01:26:33.320 --> 01:26:39.280 but one cannot be with God on any sustained basis unless one comes from pure love on a 01:26:39.280 --> 01:26:46.200 sustained basis. Being deprived of God, removed from God, to me is hell, and I personally 01:26:46.200 --> 01:26:51.120 don't want to hang out in hell any longer than I have to. Being without God is hell. 01:26:51.120 --> 01:26:57.840 So, you know, God could pull the plug on evil anytime God wanted to. I mean, did God 01:26:57.840 --> 01:27:03.480 create evil? No. God created free will, and with free will came choice, and with 01:27:03.480 --> 01:27:09.640 choice came, well, when you're in this time-space three-dimensional illusion, 01:27:09.640 --> 01:27:14.880 it's a very powerful illusion, you get to thinking this is all there is, and so 01:27:14.880 --> 01:27:21.440 eagle kind of takes over, and it's easy to see how people lose their way, how they literally 01:27:21.440 --> 01:27:29.920 fall off the cliff. So, God is not a camp common nut. God doesn't want sycophant slaves or tomatons. 01:27:29.920 --> 01:27:35.440 God gave us all free will. That means we can do whatever we want. But the nature or structure 01:27:35.440 --> 01:27:41.920 of reality is such that unless we're coming from pure love, we can never find our way back home, 01:27:41.920 --> 01:27:48.880 which is God's source. So, God doesn't pull the plug on evil, and if God were ever going to smite 01:27:48.880 --> 01:27:56.320 evil, my opinion is God would have done so at the crucifixion. I mean, how intolerable and ugly and 01:27:56.320 --> 01:28:02.080 horrific was that? But God did not. There were little things that happened, I talk about it in 01:28:02.080 --> 01:28:07.920 my book, that's not often talked about, but it comes from the Bible, parts of it you can trust 01:28:07.920 --> 01:28:14.640 and believe maybe, that showed that God could create earthquakes, could bring down the temple, 01:28:14.640 --> 01:28:19.520 could make the birds fall from the sky, could raise the dead from the graves, but wasn't going 01:28:19.520 --> 01:28:26.560 to smite Pontius Pilate or the Romans or the Sanhedrin or Caiaphas or all those who the soldiers 01:28:26.560 --> 01:28:32.800 who drove in the spikes. "Forgive them for they know not what they do. Go in peace and sin no more." 01:28:32.800 --> 01:28:39.120 So that's God's reaction to evil. So who am I to say we should banish evil, we should exterminate 01:28:39.120 --> 01:28:44.880 evil, we should meet evil with evil by being its equivalent? To me, that's the antithesis 01:28:44.880 --> 01:28:51.760 of perfect, pure, unconditional love and compassion. I don't like it. I would rather 01:28:51.760 --> 01:28:57.680 round up all the people who are causing all the problems and send them to a penal colony or, 01:28:57.680 --> 01:29:02.560 you know, another planet somewhere, but that's not how creators structure things. 01:29:02.560 --> 01:29:10.160 Creators structure things for this reality to be a proving ground for the spirit and nothing else. 01:29:10.160 --> 01:29:18.640 So we're here doing time on a penal colony and how we respond to need when we see it 01:29:18.640 --> 01:29:24.320 is how we're going to evaluate ourselves when the life review takes place. And we're all going to 01:29:24.320 --> 01:29:28.320 have one. So Warren Buffett, if you're listening, give me a call. 01:29:28.320 --> 01:29:30.320 >>Rick: How about Elon? Go after Elon. 01:29:30.320 --> 01:29:34.320 >>Buffett: Yeah, how about Elon Musk? Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, whatever. 01:29:34.320 --> 01:29:38.960 >>Rick: Zuckerberg. Okay, so I'm going to make a quick comment on Patrick's question, 01:29:38.960 --> 01:29:43.120 and then I'll move on to the next question. Patrick said, "Is some sense of personhood 01:29:43.120 --> 01:29:48.240 always tainted by ego?" And I often run into spiritual teachers who claim to have lost all 01:29:48.240 --> 01:29:54.260 sense of a personal self. And they claim that as being some kind of a goal, and they kind 01:29:54.260 --> 01:29:58.860 of psych others into starting to think that way. And there have been a lot of casualties 01:29:58.860 --> 01:30:04.480 of that approach in terms of people becoming nihilistic and spiritually bypassing and losing 01:30:04.480 --> 01:30:09.260 interest in their families and stuff like that. I could get into quoting scriptural 01:30:09.260 --> 01:30:15.260 references that at all levels of creation there's always going to be some sense of personal identity. 01:30:15.260 --> 01:30:17.740 Otherwise, you could put your hand in a flame 01:30:17.740 --> 01:30:19.460 and you wouldn't know it was happening. 01:30:19.460 --> 01:30:21.580 And I've heard some spiritual teachers 01:30:21.580 --> 01:30:23.780 actually using that as an alibi 01:30:23.780 --> 01:30:25.580 for sleeping with their students and stuff. 01:30:25.580 --> 01:30:27.540 Oh, I'm not doing it, God is doing it, 01:30:27.540 --> 01:30:29.260 I'm not the doer, yada, yada. 01:30:29.260 --> 01:30:30.780 So anyway, I just wanted to touch on that 01:30:30.780 --> 01:30:33.180 'cause it bugs me when I hear people. 01:30:33.180 --> 01:30:34.820 - It brings up an important point 01:30:34.820 --> 01:30:37.460 and it gives a definition of consciousness. 01:30:37.460 --> 01:30:40.500 Right now we're in individuated consciousness 01:30:40.500 --> 01:30:42.740 and ego, social identity. 01:30:42.740 --> 01:30:45.540 But when we leave the body, we're no longer the body, 01:30:45.540 --> 01:30:47.780 we're no longer the social identity, 01:30:47.780 --> 01:30:49.980 we're no longer the possessions, 01:30:49.980 --> 01:30:51.940 we're no longer American citizens 01:30:51.940 --> 01:30:56.100 or whatever citizenry we have, citizenship. 01:30:56.100 --> 01:30:57.980 And when we go to our life review, 01:30:57.980 --> 01:31:00.300 I imagine we see past lives too. 01:31:00.300 --> 01:31:01.140 - We probably do. 01:31:01.140 --> 01:31:02.340 And we're still a soul. 01:31:02.340 --> 01:31:05.780 You know, there's still some, oh, I did this, I did that. 01:31:05.780 --> 01:31:08.180 And of course there are scriptural verses which will say, 01:31:08.180 --> 01:31:10.700 well, ultimately you are not the doer, God is the doer, 01:31:10.700 --> 01:31:14.700 God is all there is, God is doing everything, and that's true, but reality is different 01:31:14.700 --> 01:31:16.380 at different levels of consciousness. 01:31:16.380 --> 01:31:17.380 Right. 01:31:17.380 --> 01:31:22.620 Well, well, Valentinus, Saint Valentinus, talked about his abilities as a healer in 01:31:22.620 --> 01:31:25.900 third century Rome, for which he was put to death. 01:31:25.900 --> 01:31:30.620 And he used to say, you know, I'm not going to renounce my faith because how can I renounce 01:31:30.620 --> 01:31:31.620 what's real? 01:31:31.620 --> 01:31:34.740 And when I heal, I feel God's love coming through me. 01:31:34.740 --> 01:31:36.500 I don't do the healing God does. 01:31:36.500 --> 01:31:39.500 I just get out of the way and God's love comes through. 01:31:39.500 --> 01:31:44.660 Well, what is God if we are all, and what is consciousness? 01:31:44.660 --> 01:31:51.900 In my book I talk about it, I define it as an aspect of the divine, a tiny, tiny, microscopic 01:31:51.900 --> 01:31:53.460 aspect of the divine. 01:31:53.460 --> 01:31:54.460 Consciousness? 01:31:54.460 --> 01:31:55.460 Yes. 01:31:55.460 --> 01:31:56.460 Individual consciousness. 01:31:56.460 --> 01:31:57.460 Yes. 01:31:57.460 --> 01:32:03.700 Well, the individuation comes about through socialization and culturation. 01:32:03.700 --> 01:32:08.340 You know, if the programming were different, our identity would be different. 01:32:08.340 --> 01:32:13.780 If we were raised, let's just say by parenting, culture, social institutions, and this gets 01:32:13.780 --> 01:32:20.540 back to the whole thing about ideological infrastructure, we have to come to some agreement as a species 01:32:20.540 --> 01:32:23.340 about who we are and why we're here. 01:32:23.340 --> 01:32:27.820 Because from that we will derive our ethics, our morals, and our values. 01:32:27.820 --> 01:32:30.820 And from that we will derive our behavior. 01:32:30.820 --> 01:32:34.420 This is what Confucius was saying, it was the basis for Buddhism. 01:32:34.420 --> 01:32:38.060 We have to get right in our perceptions of reality. 01:32:38.060 --> 01:32:42.380 We have to get right in our knowledge so we can be right in our action. 01:32:42.380 --> 01:32:45.780 I'm missing a few steps, but you get the idea. 01:32:45.780 --> 01:32:53.020 So until we agree on a few fundamentals, which I offer as a straw dog in the seven statements, 01:32:53.020 --> 01:32:56.380 I call them seven statements and not seven truths. 01:32:56.380 --> 01:33:00.220 I think they're truths, but that's for everybody else to weigh in on. 01:33:00.220 --> 01:33:05.740 Until we can get there, we're never going to have a shared ideological infrastructure. 01:33:05.740 --> 01:33:10.780 Hence, we're never going to get on the same page. Hence, we're going to have these problems with 01:33:10.780 --> 01:33:16.140 diversity. Do we only want one kind of tree or one kind of flower, one kind of fish, one kind 01:33:16.140 --> 01:33:23.500 of bird in the sky? I mean, what is wrong with diversity? Except when it puts us into dualism 01:33:24.140 --> 01:33:31.580 and makes us contentious, and we use it as reason for conflict and competition. There should only be 01:33:31.580 --> 01:33:38.860 cooperation and collaboration. We should all be pulling in the same direction for the same reason. 01:33:38.860 --> 01:33:45.420 That's the only way we're going to get out of the madness that currently is suffocating the species 01:33:45.420 --> 01:33:52.940 and the planet. I would say that unity harmonizes diversity and enriches it. So you have the fertile 01:33:52.940 --> 01:33:58.980 ground of the rainforest, there's a proliferation of variety of plants and animals and all that 01:33:58.980 --> 01:34:03.000 stuff because there's so much nutrient available to them all. 01:34:03.000 --> 01:34:06.780 And like that, consciousness is the ultimate nutrient, or God, you could say, is the ultimate 01:34:06.780 --> 01:34:11.140 nutrient, and I don't think an enlightened world would be one in which everyone was the 01:34:11.140 --> 01:34:12.520 same in some way. 01:34:12.520 --> 01:34:17.020 There would be probably even greater flourishing of diversity and cultures and so on and so 01:34:17.020 --> 01:34:19.780 forth, but they'd all be harmonized in a common foundation. 01:34:19.780 --> 01:34:26.100 >> Exactly. We all come from the same source. We all will return to the same source. We are 01:34:26.100 --> 01:34:27.100 all one. 01:34:27.100 --> 01:34:36.340 >> Yup. Okay, here's another question for you. This is from Abaya Kim in California. This 01:34:36.340 --> 01:34:40.740 is more of a statement than a question. Bliss and joy are always available. Many are able 01:34:40.740 --> 01:34:44.980 to feel it from others, especially when their hearts are open with joy. It sounds like you 01:34:44.980 --> 01:34:47.860 may be in constant peace, joy, and bliss. 01:34:47.860 --> 01:34:51.860 No, I'm not because I weep for the world. 01:34:51.860 --> 01:34:55.860 When I meditate, when I go off in nature and commune with God, 01:34:55.860 --> 01:34:59.860 I have that connection and that love. 01:34:59.860 --> 01:35:03.860 I mean, I have that connection always. I'm sustained by it always. 01:35:03.860 --> 01:35:07.860 And the most remarkable things happen. I don't have remarkable things 01:35:07.860 --> 01:35:11.860 every day. I mean, every day is a miracle and remarkable in its own way. 01:35:11.860 --> 01:35:15.860 But I do stay connected with it. But when I'm really connected 01:35:15.860 --> 01:35:20.860 is when I have my greatest self-transcendence and bliss. 01:35:20.860 --> 01:35:23.720 But I wait for the world. 01:35:23.720 --> 01:35:26.960 I'm sad because I'm feeling the pain 01:35:26.960 --> 01:35:30.020 and I'm recognizing that it's so unnecessary. 01:35:30.020 --> 01:35:33.280 And I also recognize that it's so fixable. 01:35:33.280 --> 01:35:35.080 You know, it's not irreparable. 01:35:35.080 --> 01:35:36.000 We can fix this. 01:35:36.000 --> 01:35:37.600 We can get beyond this. 01:35:37.600 --> 01:35:40.640 We were meant to be more than this. 01:35:40.640 --> 01:35:42.680 And I don't know what's holding us back. 01:35:42.680 --> 01:35:43.520 I really don't. 01:35:43.520 --> 01:35:48.260 understand why we're sitting in the dark when we could be enjoying the light. 01:35:48.260 --> 01:35:53.420 This was the message of my vision quest. I got the medicine named First Light and 01:35:53.420 --> 01:35:56.880 the message was you're not going to the conference room that's dark where all 01:35:56.880 --> 01:36:00.680 these people are sitting around a table and just turn on the light switch and 01:36:00.680 --> 01:36:04.420 and say let there be light. You have to put in a dimmer switch and you kind of 01:36:04.420 --> 01:36:08.460 have to raise it a little bit at a time so people adjust to the light as it gets 01:36:08.460 --> 01:36:12.300 greater. And I watched that in the cave up in the Mojave Desert. 01:36:12.300 --> 01:36:16.740 And you're alluding to a cool story that we didn't get to in your book. We've hardly talked 01:36:16.740 --> 01:36:19.180 about your book. We've been going off on all these things, but... 01:36:19.180 --> 01:36:20.980 Well, in a way, this has been the book. I mean, this is... 01:36:20.980 --> 01:36:24.860 Yeah, it has been, but there's some cool stories in there about your angel encounters and your 01:36:24.860 --> 01:36:30.700 vision quest in Joshua Tree and other things. So people are going to have to read that book. 01:36:30.700 --> 01:36:33.460 I didn't mean to cut you off, but keep going. 01:36:33.460 --> 01:36:34.460 That's what I wanted to say. 01:36:34.460 --> 01:36:35.460 Yeah. 01:36:35.460 --> 01:36:36.460 Cut me off. Thank you. 01:36:36.460 --> 01:36:40.300 Okay, another question came in, I want to get to them all. This one is from 01:36:40.300 --> 01:36:45.500 Anthony Parshall in Burlington, Vermont. This is interesting, I don't know what he means by this, 01:36:45.500 --> 01:36:50.620 but maybe you'll get something. What is the role of the idea of paradise for the seeker? 01:36:50.620 --> 01:36:57.180 Well, to me, paradise cannot be improved upon, that's the perfect world. By definition, 01:36:57.180 --> 01:37:04.940 perfection is that which cannot be improved upon. And to me, there's no fixed definition 01:37:05.580 --> 01:37:12.380 of perfection because we're going to continue, if we truly move into cooperation and collaboration 01:37:12.380 --> 01:37:18.380 out of a sense of oneness, out of a sense of love for each other, out of a duty to each other, 01:37:18.380 --> 01:37:25.100 not just to one human being to another, but to the animals, to flora, fauna, the forest, the trees, 01:37:25.100 --> 01:37:32.060 the rivers, the streams, the oceans, the atmosphere, space, we have to first work to 01:37:32.700 --> 01:37:38.540 restore our environment, our planet, and our atmosphere and outer space. 01:37:38.540 --> 01:37:40.620 We've got so much space junk, it's unbelievable. 01:37:40.620 --> 01:37:43.340 But we've done a lot of damage. 01:37:43.340 --> 01:37:49.820 So perfect love, perfect cooperation, perfect collaboration, first would cleanse, detox, 01:37:49.820 --> 01:37:51.260 and restore. 01:37:51.260 --> 01:37:54.700 And then, you know, it's the Star Trek mentality. 01:37:54.700 --> 01:37:57.340 The universe is our playground. 01:37:57.340 --> 01:38:02.940 If all the money and energy we put into fighting each other and competing with each other, 01:38:02.940 --> 01:38:07.980 if we put that into, "Hey, you know, let's figure out how we can get to Mars or 01:38:07.980 --> 01:38:14.700 to an exoplanet somewhere," it can be our sandbox. That's what we were meant to do. 01:38:14.700 --> 01:38:21.180 We're not meant to be stuck in the tar pits, clutting each other with femur bones. 01:38:21.180 --> 01:38:28.060 We're meant to have this wonderful, blissful dance throughout perfection. 01:38:28.060 --> 01:38:34.620 And perfection is going to be an ongoing dance of realizing our unlimited potential. 01:38:34.620 --> 01:38:41.820 We'll go on to create more and better and newer things, but in a conscious way, 01:38:41.820 --> 01:38:47.980 not in a way that's going to hurt anything or deprive anyone or disenfranchise anyone. 01:38:48.540 --> 01:38:55.500 it will be ethical evolution, if you will, God-centered evolution. So that's where I want 01:38:55.500 --> 01:39:00.940 to be and I don't want to have to die to get there. I mean, I'd like to experience that in my lifetime. 01:39:00.940 --> 01:39:07.660 So until we get there, I do feel sadness because I'm painfully aware of what is 01:39:07.660 --> 01:39:15.740 versus what could be. And my job, and everybody's job, frankly, is to help build a bridge between 01:39:15.740 --> 01:39:21.540 what is, where we are now, to where we could be. And where we could be is nirvana, while 01:39:21.540 --> 01:39:22.780 still on the body. 01:39:22.780 --> 01:39:29.180 Very good. And if enough of us were, then the world itself would display the qualities 01:39:29.180 --> 01:39:34.980 of nirvana, the heavenly qualities that it could potentially have. I just think that 01:39:34.980 --> 01:39:41.980 the world is a clear reflection of the ambient level of the subjective experience of 8 billion 01:39:41.980 --> 01:39:47.580 people. And if that subjective experience were more nirvanic, if that's a adjective, 01:39:47.580 --> 01:39:51.940 then the world, you know, think about just as an example the amount of money that we 01:39:51.940 --> 01:39:55.900 spend on wars and the other countries spend on wars. If all that money were put 01:39:55.900 --> 01:40:00.260 into education and health care and all kinds of positive stuff like 01:40:00.260 --> 01:40:05.980 technological innovations and so on, it could make a huge difference. Even for 01:40:05.980 --> 01:40:09.700 the reputation of the United States, you know, in these countries in which we have 01:40:09.700 --> 01:40:14.080 fought wars. They might love us if we put all that money into schools and 01:40:14.080 --> 01:40:19.440 health care and beautiful good things. But again it takes a changing of the heart 01:40:19.440 --> 01:40:24.340 in order for the institutions to change and that's got to happen on more of a 01:40:24.340 --> 01:40:29.200 mass scale. Yeah it takes everybody having their own personal epiphany. I 01:40:29.200 --> 01:40:32.640 mean I would like to think that they would come to transformation just from 01:40:32.640 --> 01:40:36.800 reading my book because it's fairly comprehensive and I think it speaks to a 01:40:36.800 --> 01:40:39.000 a lot of the questions people have, 01:40:39.000 --> 01:40:42.000 but I know that that will only be the case for a few. 01:40:42.000 --> 01:40:44.720 So for the rest, I put in there the formula 01:40:44.720 --> 01:40:46.280 for their own epiphany. 01:40:46.280 --> 01:40:48.680 And I really hope the wealthy and powerful, 01:40:48.680 --> 01:40:50.280 the ones who start the wars, 01:40:50.280 --> 01:40:53.600 the ones who could eradicate poverty, 01:40:53.600 --> 01:40:57.920 the ones who could eradicate abuse and illiteracy 01:40:57.920 --> 01:40:59.960 and all the other social ills, 01:40:59.960 --> 01:41:02.200 I would hope they would be among the first 01:41:02.200 --> 01:41:04.160 to undergo that transformation 01:41:04.160 --> 01:41:09.940 because I think they could be very instrumental in bringing about rapid progress and doing 01:41:09.940 --> 01:41:17.400 no further harm to any species, not just our species, but to any species and to the planet. 01:41:17.400 --> 01:41:20.880 It's karmic. What we do to others, we're going to do to ourselves. 01:41:20.880 --> 01:41:28.920 Yep. Well, may it be so. Alrighty. Well, this has been an enjoyable conversation, and I encourage 01:41:28.920 --> 01:41:35.640 people to read your book. You had a proclivity for DWS, which is driving while sleeping, and 01:41:35.640 --> 01:41:39.160 there are a bunch of stories about that in the beginning of the book and how you were 01:41:39.160 --> 01:41:45.480 quite miraculously saved from certain death. And then there are all kinds of other stories 01:41:45.480 --> 01:41:51.200 from your life about divine intervention and providence, all of which make the case that 01:41:51.200 --> 01:41:55.460 we're not alone, that there is some higher intelligence that helps to orchestrate things 01:41:55.460 --> 01:42:02.320 and helps to help save us and support us, particularly if we make ourselves receptable to such help. 01:42:02.320 --> 01:42:08.220 And then again, part three is reflections about God and divine emulation with some practical 01:42:08.220 --> 01:42:14.620 tips and exercises on how you might actualize this in your own life. Is that a fair one-minute 01:42:14.620 --> 01:42:16.120 synopsis of your book? 01:42:16.120 --> 01:42:17.660 John: Yes, thank you. 01:42:17.660 --> 01:42:22.640 Rick: Good. All right, so John, I'll put up a page on BatGap and it'll have a link to your 01:42:22.640 --> 01:42:29.520 book and a link to your websites and you want to just say quickly what kinds of ways people 01:42:29.520 --> 01:42:34.000 can engage with you. You know, might be are there webinars, are there courses, are there... 01:42:34.000 --> 01:42:40.400 Well, my book really speaks for itself. Love by the Light, the trilogy will be out next year. 01:42:40.400 --> 01:42:44.480 I don't know if we're going to publish it one volume at a time or all three depending upon 01:42:44.480 --> 01:42:49.200 where things go between now and then, but... Tell Peter Jackson to make a movie of it. 01:42:49.200 --> 01:42:52.960 Yeah, I would hope so. It would make a great mini-series to be honest. 01:42:52.960 --> 01:42:54.080 On a Spielberg or somebody. 01:42:54.080 --> 01:42:58.960 Yeah, it's too much for one movie, although you could do like a Star Trek thing or a Lord 01:42:58.960 --> 01:43:01.040 of the Rings thing where you reinforce it. 01:43:01.040 --> 01:43:02.080 Yeah, serialize it. 01:43:02.080 --> 01:43:09.840 Attorney.org has a lot of information. Affirminggod.com has a lot of information. 01:43:09.840 --> 01:43:16.080 The contact information is on both websites, the email address and the mailing address. 01:43:16.640 --> 01:43:19.920 And I encourage people to go there and learn more about it. 01:43:19.920 --> 01:43:24.400 Great. Well, thank you for all you've been doing. I'm glad you got the lizards off your back. 01:43:24.400 --> 01:43:29.280 And you've been living a good life, making a wonderful contribution, 01:43:29.280 --> 01:43:31.200 and it's always inspiring to see that. 01:43:31.200 --> 01:43:33.920 Well, back at you, Rick. Thank you for all you do. 01:43:33.920 --> 01:43:34.480 Well, thanks. 01:43:34.480 --> 01:43:36.960 That's what we came to do. 01:43:36.960 --> 01:43:39.280 To quote the Beatles again, "We're all doing what we can." 01:43:39.280 --> 01:43:42.880 Oh, doing what we can to try to make a difference. And that's the whole point. 01:43:42.880 --> 01:43:48.480 How much did the world change because of what Christ did? Not much. And if Christ came back, 01:43:48.480 --> 01:43:54.160 I think the same thing would probably happen all over again for the same reasons. So this is what 01:43:54.160 --> 01:44:00.080 Einstein was warning about. He was saying technology is outpaced consciousness. He said, "I 01:44:00.080 --> 01:44:06.080 don't know what World War III will be fought with, but I know that World War IV will be fought with 01:44:06.080 --> 01:44:08.320 with sticks and stones. 01:44:08.320 --> 01:44:10.760 Until we have enlightenment, 01:44:10.760 --> 01:44:13.280 spiritually awake and aware individuals, 01:44:13.280 --> 01:44:16.360 this is your quote from Yogananda, 01:44:16.360 --> 01:44:19.080 heading up all of the major social institutions 01:44:19.080 --> 01:44:22.040 and governments, we're gonna find ourselves 01:44:22.040 --> 01:44:24.180 right in the thick of it, all over again, 01:44:24.180 --> 01:44:25.720 shooting ourselves in the foot, 01:44:25.720 --> 01:44:29.300 doing brain dead things and making poor choices. 01:44:29.300 --> 01:44:33.640 Until we are enlightened, we're gonna continue 01:44:33.640 --> 01:44:37.220 to play out this suboptimal reality, 01:44:37.220 --> 01:44:39.400 which is no fun for anyone. 01:44:39.400 --> 01:44:41.580 - I think we may be heading for that. 01:44:41.580 --> 01:44:43.180 And it may not be in our lifetimes, 01:44:43.180 --> 01:44:46.320 at least this particular lifetimes of ours, 01:44:46.320 --> 01:44:48.440 but I think there's a momentum. 01:44:48.440 --> 01:44:51.120 And that's why I was saying earlier, I feel optimistic. 01:44:51.120 --> 01:44:55.160 And it's not obvious to the majority of people in the world, 01:44:55.160 --> 01:44:58.400 but I think there's something real going on and significant, 01:44:58.400 --> 01:45:00.280 and it's gaining momentum. 01:45:00.280 --> 01:45:01.880 - Right, amen. 01:45:01.880 --> 01:45:03.440 We do what we can do. 01:45:03.440 --> 01:45:08.280 all the ways we can do it without being attached to the results, because we cannot control 01:45:08.280 --> 01:45:09.280 results. 01:45:09.280 --> 01:45:10.280 Exactly. 01:45:10.280 --> 01:45:14.280 Bhagavad Gita says, "You have control over action alone, never over its fruits." 01:45:14.280 --> 01:45:15.280 That's right. 01:45:15.280 --> 01:45:17.720 All right, well, thanks so much, John. 01:45:17.720 --> 01:45:19.280 Hope to meet you in person someday. 01:45:19.280 --> 01:45:20.280 I always say that. 01:45:20.280 --> 01:45:24.720 I never get out of Iowa, but it would be wonderful to have some big conference someday where 01:45:24.720 --> 01:45:26.320 everybody can give each other a hug. 01:45:26.320 --> 01:45:27.320 Well, thank you. 01:45:27.320 --> 01:45:28.320 I appreciate the opportunity. 01:45:28.320 --> 01:45:30.880 It was a pleasure to be with you. 01:45:30.880 --> 01:45:31.880 Thank you. 01:45:31.880 --> 01:45:37.080 to those who've been listening or watching. We will visit the BatGap website if you'd 01:45:37.080 --> 01:45:41.320 like to sign up for an email to be notified of each new interview or if you'd like to 01:45:41.320 --> 01:45:45.400 subscribe to the podcast or some of the other things that we have. There's the BatGap bot, 01:45:45.400 --> 01:45:50.360 I haven't talked about that. We have an AI chat bot with over 100,000 documents in it, 01:45:50.360 --> 01:45:55.240 and it's very interesting. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Thanks, John. 01:45:55.240 --> 01:45:56.200 Thank you, Rick. 01:45:56.200 --> 01:45:59.560 [MUSIC PLAYING] 01:45:59.560 --> 01:46:20.520 Thank you. 01:46:20.520 --> 01:46:23.880 [MUSIC PLAYING]