WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:25.000 [Music] 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:35.000 Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:43.000 We've done over 700 of them now. If this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones, go to bathgap.com and look under the interviews menu. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:46.000 Where you'll see them organized in several different ways. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.000 This program is in South Carolina. I'm repeating myself here. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 providing psychiatric care to under- 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:53.000 -ated and would like to help support it. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:55.000 There are PayPal buttons on every page of 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:57.000 the website and a page 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.000 explaining alternatives to PayPal. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.000 My guest today is 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:03.000 Melinda Edwards. I'm going to 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.000 read her bio as I usually do. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:07.000 Melinda is a doctor, 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.000 a psychiatrist, a mother, 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:11.000 writer, and physician in 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.000 Charleston, South Carolina. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 I'm repeating myself here. Providing psychiatric 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 care to under-deserved adults. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:22.000 She completed her residency in psychiatry at Stanford Medical Center. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000 She has studied complementary and alternative medicine with Andrew Weill, MD, 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:31.000 researched the effects of MDMA on PTSD, 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:35.000 and is a columnist for Autism Parenting magazine. 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:41.000 Dr. Edrudes is the author of "Psyche and Spirit, How a Psychiatrist Found Divinity 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:45.000 Through Her Lifelong Search for Truth and Her Daughter's Autism." 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:52.000 As a child of medical missionaries, Melinda grew up in a Mayan village, a Mayan Indian village in Guatemala. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.500 Early in life, she experienced an inner pull to a deeper truth. 00:01:56.500 --> 00:02:08.000 Her journey has taken her through various spiritual practices, including meditation retreats, guidance from spiritual teachers, travel to India, and living in spiritual communities. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.500 And her quest led to the ongoing discovery of the sacred in all. 00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:17.500 And I'm very familiar with all that because I listened to her whole book and really enjoyed it. 00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:23.500 So, inspired by her daughter, her journey with her daughter, Saatchi, which we'll be talking about, 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:28.500 Dr. Edwards founded the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Living Darshan, 00:02:28.500 --> 00:02:32.500 to foster a deeper understanding of autism in the world. 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:36.500 And just to give you a few highlights from her book, as I was reading it, 00:02:36.500 --> 00:02:39.500 I thought of a saying that a spiritual teacher once said, 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:44.500 said that when the postman knows you're going to move, he tries to deliver all your mail. 00:02:44.500 --> 00:02:46.960 He was saying that with regard to karma. 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:53.180 And you know, she grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and had this morbid fear 00:02:53.180 --> 00:02:57.740 of eternal damnation in hell because she didn't feel like she had been saved and couldn't 00:02:57.740 --> 00:03:01.060 quite figure out how to pull that off. 00:03:01.060 --> 00:03:06.660 She was overtaken by profound silence as a child, which is not necessarily a traumatic 00:03:06.660 --> 00:03:08.460 thing but maybe it was. 00:03:08.460 --> 00:03:13.900 Yeah, I think it kind of was. We'll talk about that. She was struck by lightning. And Mindy, 00:03:13.900 --> 00:03:17.980 did you know that in South America, they have what they call lightning shamans, 00:03:17.980 --> 00:03:25.580 who are people who are struck by lightning, and then it bestows them with shamanic abilities? 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:26.700 - I had no idea. 00:03:26.700 --> 00:03:35.260 - There is such a thing, yeah. She had tuberculosis. Her family car went off the road and nearly went 00:03:35.260 --> 00:03:41.340 down a steep cliff which would have killed everybody in the car, but it was saved by a 00:03:41.340 --> 00:03:46.060 couple of trees that just happened to be in the right place. She had near-lethal anorexia, 00:03:46.060 --> 00:03:52.140 requiring hospitalization and institutionalization, and then she went to medical school and had this 00:03:52.140 --> 00:03:58.460 grueling routine which would have killed me many times over, and eventually had a daughter who has 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:04.780 autism and that has been a challenging journey, but as she'll say a very evolutionary one. So, 00:04:04.780 --> 00:04:09.260 You know, I kind of feel like you're packing a lot into this life. 00:04:09.260 --> 00:04:16.060 Yeah, either the mailman wanted to deliver a lot of mail or I required a lot of hard knocks to 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:19.580 kind of break through with my contractions. One of the two. 00:04:19.580 --> 00:04:26.460 Yeah, yeah. And if one believes, as I believe you do, that life is not capricious and arbitrary 00:04:26.460 --> 00:04:32.540 and meaningless and accidental, then there is some evolutionary significance to all this stuff. 00:04:32.540 --> 00:04:40.380 Yeah, and you know, as I remember during my teenage years, when that tremendous terror 00:04:40.380 --> 00:04:48.540 shifted or opened into this intense longing for truth, the longing was so intense, I would just 00:04:48.540 --> 00:04:53.980 call out to the universe and say, "Whatever it takes, whatever it takes." Now, in the thick of, 00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:59.180 you know, the traumas I would experience and all the suffering, I would regret having said that, 00:04:59.180 --> 00:05:04.860 but I kept saying it. I kept saying it and watch out what you ask for. 00:05:04.860 --> 00:05:10.780 Pete: Yeah, and you know, that's a perennial theme. I've heard that in so many interviews I've done 00:05:10.780 --> 00:05:17.260 where a person just has this ardent desire for truth and they say something like whatever it 00:05:17.260 --> 00:05:24.860 takes and it sometimes takes a lot, but as Jesus said, you know, "Seek and ye shall find." Once 00:05:24.860 --> 00:05:30.980 Once that epistle is put out there, once that request or demand is voiced, the universe 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:31.980 responds. 00:05:31.980 --> 00:05:33.980 Sandra: Yes, it does. 00:05:33.980 --> 00:05:34.980 Pete: Yeah. 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:40.420 So, I think that's a key point that we're kind of starting with, which is that, and I've 00:05:40.420 --> 00:05:45.780 heard many spiritual teachers, both Eastern and Western, say this, including, you know, 00:05:45.780 --> 00:05:46.780 well-known gurus in India. 00:05:46.780 --> 00:05:53.380 There's a saying in India that sometimes attributed to God and sometimes it's things gurus say, 00:05:53.380 --> 00:05:57.700 one step toward me and I'll take a thousand steps toward you. 00:05:57.700 --> 00:06:04.260 And Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras talks about degrees of ardency or intensity in one's spiritual 00:06:04.260 --> 00:06:12.900 path and he basically correlates greater intensity with greater rapidity of realization. 00:06:12.900 --> 00:06:21.860 And you know the longing itself emanates from that which I'm seeking or that which we are 00:06:21.860 --> 00:06:28.340 seeking, that which we're longing for. So, it can't help but bring us back to that. It can't help but 00:06:28.340 --> 00:06:34.580 respond because it's born out of that very, it's not a thing, but it's born out of what we're 00:06:34.580 --> 00:06:40.180 longing for. Pete: Yeah. There are nice quotes by Meister Eckhart and Rumi and people like that 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:45.540 about, you know, that which you're seeking is, I don't know, it's essentially that which you are, 00:06:45.540 --> 00:06:49.620 are, and it's kind of the divine seeking itself, you know? 00:06:49.620 --> 00:07:00.740 Yes, yeah, it is. I mean, that's the beautiful dance of existing as a separate individual 00:07:00.740 --> 00:07:06.460 is getting to dance back into the love that we all are. 00:07:06.460 --> 00:07:12.460 Yeah. So, you know, going a little bit chronologically, you were in Guatemala because your parents 00:07:12.460 --> 00:07:17.940 were doctors and they were medical missionaries and you lived in this little village way out 00:07:17.940 --> 00:07:20.300 in the boonies. 00:07:20.300 --> 00:07:28.060 And yeah, you know, your parents were fundamentalist Christians and you were routinely exposed 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:36.140 to a lot of fire and brimstone, which instilled a fear in you of eternal damnation, which 00:07:36.140 --> 00:07:41.260 I think, you know, I've always taken exception to that teaching. 00:07:41.260 --> 00:07:47.260 think, what a horrible thing to impose upon people, you know, striking that kind of fear into little 00:07:47.260 --> 00:07:57.020 kids. And, you know, if we juxtapose that with a more love-based or divinely, you know, appreciative 00:07:57.020 --> 00:08:05.660 view of God and of God's mercy and compassion and desire for all beings to be happy and so on, 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:07.500 it's quite stark, the contrast. 00:08:07.500 --> 00:08:15.100 [Kathryn] It is, yeah. And you know, for me, growing up, my parents dedicated obviously their entire 00:08:15.100 --> 00:08:22.380 lives to their belief system. They were both physicians and they chose to live in a little 00:08:22.380 --> 00:08:31.180 primitive Indian village in Guatemala and kind of spread the word and save people from hell. 00:08:31.980 --> 00:08:37.660 So, I was instilled in that belief system and in that terror, that fear of going to hell. And, 00:08:37.660 --> 00:08:43.740 you know, I write in the book about trying desperately to receive the Lord into my heart, 00:08:43.740 --> 00:08:48.380 because that's the solution. That's all you have to do is receive the Lord into your heart. 00:08:48.380 --> 00:08:56.380 And I never felt anything different when I would do that. And so, I assumed that something was 00:08:56.380 --> 00:09:00.780 terrible, as children do, that there was something terribly wrong with me that Jesus would not come 00:09:00.780 --> 00:09:05.900 into my heart. In retrospect, it was an intuitive knowing that something was out of alignment 00:09:05.900 --> 00:09:12.540 with truth. But at the time, my mind interpreted it as, you know, something terribly wrong with me. 00:09:12.540 --> 00:09:17.740 And so, it wasn't just fear, there was tons of shame wrapped around it. I didn't tell anybody 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:27.420 until later on about me not being saved, even though I tried to be saved. So, there were a lot 00:09:27.420 --> 00:09:35.260 of layers that I had to meet and allow to unwind and it was quite intense because these were 00:09:35.260 --> 00:09:42.140 things deeply ingrained in my whole system, in my nervous system, in my energetic system 00:09:42.140 --> 00:09:48.860 contractions, if you will. And so, you know, ultimately the development of anorexia as part 00:09:48.860 --> 00:09:55.580 of that, there's a lot, there were a lot of layers to that. But, and then through therapy first, 00:09:55.580 --> 00:10:01.180 that helped to open me to these aspects that I hadn't been able to meet when I was younger. 00:10:01.180 --> 00:10:04.380 Yeah, so I'll leave it there. 00:10:04.380 --> 00:10:07.660 Pete Yeah, a spiritual teacher once said that 00:10:07.660 --> 00:10:14.540 God may be omnipotent, but there's one thing he can't do, which is remove himself from your heart. 00:10:14.540 --> 00:10:20.540 And the reason for that is he's also omnipresent. And I'm saying he for convenience sake, obviously, 00:10:21.420 --> 00:10:28.780 but all-pervading. So, you know, you can't bring Jesus into your heart because he's already there. 00:10:28.780 --> 00:10:35.020 - Beautiful. Yes. Yeah, very true. Sometimes we kind of have to go around the world or around 00:10:35.020 --> 00:10:40.540 the universe to get back to that, but. - Yeah. There was a beautiful little story, 00:10:40.540 --> 00:10:46.700 I'll try to tell it quickly. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's teacher's teacher, who when he was a young 00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:51.100 boy in the Himalayas having left home at the age of nine to find a guru and having found 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:57.180 one after about five years or eight years of searching, his guru sent him away to some 00:10:57.180 --> 00:11:00.100 caves nearby to do long meditation. 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:03.300 And also because he felt like, I think the guru felt like, "Well, this guy's a lot 00:11:03.300 --> 00:11:08.700 more advanced than these other dimwits I've got around me here, so he's going to get 00:11:08.700 --> 00:11:09.700 some social." 00:11:09.700 --> 00:11:11.540 So anyway, he went off to the caves. 00:11:11.540 --> 00:11:18.780 And after a while the teacher sent an emissary over there to ask if there was any space available 00:11:18.780 --> 00:11:22.500 for him to come to those caves. 00:11:22.500 --> 00:11:25.300 And the boy said, "No, sorry. 00:11:25.300 --> 00:11:30.520 I know you're just in the capacity of a messenger here, but tell him that there's no space available." 00:11:30.520 --> 00:11:33.740 So the guy goes back and there's this big uproar in the ashram. 00:11:33.740 --> 00:11:36.300 How dare that young upstart say a thing like that? 00:11:36.300 --> 00:11:37.540 "No space available." 00:11:37.540 --> 00:11:41.140 It doesn't mean you understand the way you're supposed to treat a master with great respect 00:11:41.140 --> 00:11:43.140 and so on and so forth. 00:11:43.140 --> 00:11:47.780 So finally, you know, the master realized there was a buzz in the ashram, so he sent for the 00:11:47.780 --> 00:11:57.460 boy and he came into the presence of everybody and he asked him to explain why there was 00:11:57.460 --> 00:11:58.460 no space available. 00:11:58.460 --> 00:12:04.920 And he said, "After I surrendered to you, there was nothing but complete fullness. 00:12:04.920 --> 00:12:10.280 And had I realized you wanted to come a second time, I could have reserved some space. 00:12:10.280 --> 00:12:14.160 But as it was, there was absolutely no space for you to come a second time because you 00:12:14.160 --> 00:12:18.360 totally fill my heart and my environment with your presence. 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:19.360 Beautiful. 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:21.200 I love that. 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:22.200 Yeah. 00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:28.520 You know, and Rick, circling back to, we were talking sort of in more general terms about 00:12:28.520 --> 00:12:39.480 fear-based religions. In one sense, yes, it's a barrier to love, to opening to what we really are, 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:49.320 both just as an individual but also collectively. But it also is an opportunity, 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:56.600 as everything is in life, but it's also a doorway into what we really are because it comes, 00:12:56.600 --> 00:13:02.360 everything is born out of that. So everything is a doorway back to that. And just to kind of weave 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:11.320 the psychological in here too, in my experience, being present with these different emotions or 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:18.600 contractions or issues, whatever we want to call them, it's almost like layers kind of unwinding 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:26.360 or dissolving as we meet each layer. So, a lot of times, you know, oftentimes the most superficial 00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:31.720 layer might be anger. That's when we're really projecting everything outwards or blame or 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:40.760 criticism. And then if I, I'll speak about myself, if I sit with that and just and don't discharge it 00:13:40.760 --> 00:13:48.040 through action or through thought and just in present with it in this body, the energy of that, 00:13:48.040 --> 00:13:53.400 it can open to other layers. Sometimes it, you know, it might be fear. These are all labels that 00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:58.680 the mind attaches to the energy, but nevertheless it's an opening and an unwinding fear. And then 00:13:58.680 --> 00:14:04.600 nearly always in my experience, getting down to the bottom layers, there's this pain 00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:14.520 or sadness or grief. And while there might be an individual story or circumstance that our mind 00:14:14.520 --> 00:14:21.000 attaches to it, the core of that is the pain of separation in my experience. And when I 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:29.600 open to that pain, whether the story is present or not in my mind, there's tenderness and 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:34.920 just this tenderness. Tenderness and tenderness is, you know, you open to that, it's just 00:14:34.920 --> 00:14:43.000 love. Non-separation, just love. So, just sort of, again, just weaving in the psychological, 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:49.840 psychological and spiritual process ongoing. Yeah, so you're saying that there's a kind 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:56.840 of a strata of various sleeping elephants that we have to tiptoe through to kind of 00:14:56.840 --> 00:15:02.320 get to the other side, so to speak, and as you tiptoe through them, elephants start waking 00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:05.760 up and you feel, "Oh, this elephant is making a fuss over here and that one's making a fuss 00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:13.920 over there. But the ultimate kind of like the last elephant is guarding the threshold is pain, 00:15:13.920 --> 00:15:14.400 you're saying. 00:15:14.400 --> 00:15:18.000 Jennifer In my experience, typically. Now, sometimes, 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:25.360 you know, the fear will open straight to love, but oftentimes it's that grief of separation. 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:26.000 Pete Yeah. 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:26.960 Jennifer Yeah. 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:30.480 Pete There's, how does it go? There's some line in the 00:15:30.480 --> 00:15:37.280 Upanishads, all fear is born of duality or something like that. There's this thought that at the very 00:15:37.280 --> 00:15:45.040 kind of inception of manifestation, we step into duality from unity. And so, there's a kind of, 00:15:45.040 --> 00:15:49.360 I think, Sanyal Bander of the Waking Dawn group called it the core wound and perhaps 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:57.120 Eckhart refers to it as, you know, the pain body. But there's some kind of core thing that is the 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:04.160 most that's at the root of everything else. And I've spoken to a lot of people who feel like it's 00:16:04.160 --> 00:16:09.280 a very scary threshold to cross when they finally encounter that. There's great fear that the ego is 00:16:09.280 --> 00:16:15.680 recoiling against having to go through that. >> Yeah, and I think there's also, not exactly 00:16:15.680 --> 00:16:24.080 sure how to put this in words, but just how everything is sort of a microcosm of the macrocosm 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:32.080 that we go through this deepening or and it's also an opening to more and more subtle aspects of 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:40.960 being as we move through these levels. But we go through some of these at one level that brings us 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:47.760 into compassion maybe for another person and then other times we're opened even more deeply into the 00:16:47.760 --> 00:16:55.520 sense of total unity and love, a connection with absolutely everything and no separation. 00:16:55.520 --> 00:16:56.880 I forget where I was going with that. 00:16:56.880 --> 00:16:58.160 Pete: [Laughter] 00:16:58.160 --> 00:17:04.720 Oh, nice in and of itself. Yeah, so I guess what we're laying out here is that there's a 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:13.600 range of levels in our subtle mind-body system, which we're ordinarily unaware of, 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:19.040 and we have to traverse that range in the process of spiritual evolution and we have to 00:17:19.040 --> 00:17:22.160 deal skillfully in one way or another with what we encounter. 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:31.200 Kitty: Yes, and open. Because most of our lives, and I'm sure much less so the people who come to 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:38.160 BatGap, but most of our lives are spent running from the pain of separation, whether that's through, 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:45.280 you know, addiction or, you know, food, alcohol, the internet, social media, whatever, we're kind 00:17:45.280 --> 00:17:52.800 of running from what we really are. So, and then, you know, this to the point I'm kind of making too, 00:17:52.800 --> 00:18:01.440 the truth that everything is born out of love, out of truth, we can experience that directly. 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:08.480 it's not just a philosophy or the Upanishads or whatever. You can, you and I get to experience 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:14.880 that directly by turning towards and opening to these contractions within our system or these 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:19.600 things that otherwise the individual me might want to turn away from. 00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:20.240 Pete: Yeah. 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:27.680 Kirsten: Because they, everything will lead us back to love because it's born from love. Everything 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:31.360 is born from love. So, we get to experience that firsthand. 00:18:31.360 --> 00:18:34.640 Pete Yeah, so I got two things out of what you 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:38.800 just said. One is that everything we're talking about here and everything in the whole world 00:18:38.800 --> 00:18:46.720 of spirituality is, it's not merely a philosophy or something that's interesting to think about. 00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:51.680 The whole point of it is to have the direct, visceral, concrete living experience. 00:18:51.680 --> 00:19:00.640 Karen: Yes. To realize it, realize it through our whole system. And it's useful for the mind to have 00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:08.240 paradigms and, you know, its list of stages, whatever, you know, paradigm it wants to take, 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:12.640 because the mind can get agitated if it doesn't have, you know, something to kind of rest with. 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:20.800 But that's not the ultimate realization or experiencing. It's fine to talk about it, 00:19:20.800 --> 00:19:27.280 but the opening to what's really here is, in my experience, where it's really at. 00:19:27.280 --> 00:19:30.000 Pete Yes, but I also think that, you know, 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:36.320 intellectual understanding is not just entertainment. First of all, it can inspire you, you can have an 00:19:36.320 --> 00:19:42.400 understanding of what's possible, and secondly, as you go along, it's really easy to misinterpret 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:47.200 various states and stages that you might be going through, and with adequate understanding, 00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:52.160 you can turn what might have been a cause of fear into a cause for celebration or, you know, 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:58.480 something nice. Or you can also manage to not over inflate yourself and think that you have 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:03.200 reached some pinnacle of human realization when you're basically just starting out. 00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:06.000 Jennifer Yes, yeah. And I'm glad you're pointing 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:13.600 that out because my path has been more experiential. But of course, the mind is a wonderful tool on the 00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:20.240 spiritual journey and a wonderful guide can be a wonderful guide on the spiritual journey. 00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:25.280 Pete: Yeah. So, and it's a faculty, you know, like we have all these different faculties 00:20:25.280 --> 00:20:31.040 and each one has its place and, you know, if one of them tries to usurp the others and take over, 00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:36.000 then we're out of balance. But, and so, obviously, one can get too heady with all this stuff, 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.560 so, but in proper proportions, then the path is more safeguarded. 00:20:40.560 --> 00:20:42.000 >> Yes. >> Yeah. 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.360 >> Yeah. >> Okay, so let's loop back a little bit 00:20:45.360 --> 00:20:56.000 more to your past again, going the way back machine. So did your anorexia start when you 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:00.160 were still in Guatemala or was that after you left and came to the States? 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:05.760 >> It started in Guatemala, but it really kind of took a nosedive once we got to the US. 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:12.640 And again, there's so many layers to that. There were, you know, from the psychological perspective, 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:20.160 there were a lot of family dynamics, which I won't get into. I did kind of outline them in the book, 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:27.360 but another dynamic was I was the sensitive one in the family, so I absorbed all the family, 00:21:27.360 --> 00:21:34.480 not all, but a lot of the family pain and the terror, you know, the energy of all of this. 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:41.200 ultimately my system could not contain anymore. And so, the anorexia at one level was an attempt to 00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:45.920 try to control that. So, you know, just sort of externally trying to control what I'm eating, 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:54.160 but it was really an attempt to control these intense energies that were in my system, 00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:58.640 if that makes sense. No, it does. And we're going to be talking a little bit later about the 00:21:58.640 --> 00:22:04.720 spiritual implications of autism. I'm wondering as you speak whether there are some spiritual 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:11.680 implications of anorexia, and you're kind of saying there are, and it's more like a, well, 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:15.840 I'll let you pick up from there rather than speculating. You know, I haven't really thought 00:22:15.840 --> 00:22:23.760 about this in those terms. I think that there's levels that we can look at everything from, 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:28.560 and you know there's the psychological which would include the family dynamics, my own 00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:37.920 personality patterns, sort of the type A, you know, control type thing. And then it's hard 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:42.080 for me to differentiate between psychological and spiritual these days, but with the spiritual 00:22:42.080 --> 00:22:50.480 in terms of energy, that's how I experience spirit is energy. Just kind of what I alluded to that 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:59.840 there was this intense energy within my system and I wasn't equipped to know how to be present 00:22:59.840 --> 00:23:07.680 with it or manage it and so it needed some sort of outlet and so that outlet for me was the anorexia 00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:13.520 and I mean there's so many I don't even know which way to go with this there's so many ways to go but 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:20.880 one kind of interesting aspect of it was this terror and fear that I had been living with was 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:30.800 sort of killing these other aspects of being in myself. And sort of as a mirror of that, 00:23:30.800 --> 00:23:37.520 the anorexia reflected that because the anorexia was actually killing my body. So, what was happening 00:23:37.520 --> 00:23:45.040 internally at an emotional or energetic level was being mirrored with what was happening with my 00:23:45.040 --> 00:23:53.200 body. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I was fantasizing the other day about if I could get 00:23:53.200 --> 00:24:00.000 in a time machine or something and go back to like 1964 where I was hanging out with my friends at the 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:05.920 beach, you know, I was 14 years old and just sit down and talk with myself and perhaps my friends 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:12.440 also and tell them some things about that would help them get through the teenage years that 00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.640 they were starting to get heavily into. 00:24:15.640 --> 00:24:22.420 And I doubt that too many 14, 15 year old girls are watching this interview, but you know, 00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:29.100 if you were to, maybe you have counseled such girls as a psychiatrist, you know, what would 00:24:29.100 --> 00:24:33.760 you say to them as someone who went through it also and who has ended up in a very nice 00:24:33.760 --> 00:24:38.640 place and didn't kill herself or starve to death or, you know, whatever. 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:44.920 Yeah. You know, Rick, what comes to me is not specific to anorexia. My experience with 00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:53.040 myself and with the people that I work with is that we all are longing to be received 00:24:53.040 --> 00:25:01.160 and fully, deeply heard, not just our words, but deeply received. And so, if I could offer 00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:07.240 anything, that's what I would offer would be just a deep listening and deep receiving. 00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:17.520 And then, you know, also using words to support, encourage, frame things in a way that the 00:25:17.520 --> 00:25:21.920 mind can use in a healthy way. 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:29.600 Yeah, because, you know, to me, life is such a precious opportunity and whenever I hear 00:25:29.600 --> 00:25:34.560 of someone committing suicide or, you know, somehow throwing this opportunity away, I 00:25:34.560 --> 00:25:36.720 think, "Oh, I wish I could have spoken to them. 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:38.280 I wish, you know, they could have known." 00:25:38.280 --> 00:25:44.160 Because, you know, it's just there's so much potential in life and it's open to everybody 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:46.600 no matter how dark things seem. 00:25:46.600 --> 00:25:47.600 Yes. 00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:48.600 Yeah. 00:25:48.600 --> 00:25:55.040 Yeah, I've experienced the same with friends who, well, one in particular who committed 00:25:55.040 --> 00:26:01.860 suicide and the regret afterwards of was there, you know, that's just this natural process 00:26:01.860 --> 00:26:07.960 to a grief, but the regret, you know, was there anything else I could have done to love 00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:09.480 her more to? 00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:10.480 Yeah. 00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:11.480 Yeah. 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:17.160 Yeah, there's this guy in town who I kind of knew pretty well, very nice guy and committed 00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:19.800 suicide recently. 00:26:19.800 --> 00:26:24.320 And my sister told me that there he had a sign up at the local store saying, I'm lonely. 00:26:24.320 --> 00:26:29.280 anyone would like to hang out with me, let me know. And I wish I had seen the sign. He could 00:26:29.280 --> 00:26:32.000 have taken walks with me in the woods, you know, it could have made a difference. 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:37.760 - What a poignant cry for help. 00:26:37.760 --> 00:26:46.160 - Yeah, really. Okay. I guess what we're sort of evidencing here is that, you know, 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:51.840 compassion is part of the spiritual path and a component of spiritual development. We could be 00:26:51.840 --> 00:26:56.560 just sitting here saying, "Oh, life is an illusion and it doesn't matter what happens because nothing 00:26:56.560 --> 00:27:02.800 ever really happened and there is no person, so nobody dies and yada, yada, yada." But that's not 00:27:02.800 --> 00:27:09.360 the way I choose to see it. Yeah, well, all true, but here we are. Here we are. And I noticed too, 00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:18.000 on my path, the more I open or the more my system opens to all aspects of being, 00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:23.760 of course, the more the heart opens and the more compassion comes forward naturally. 00:27:23.760 --> 00:27:24.400 Pete: Yeah. 00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:26.400 Kirsten Yeah. And we, you know, 00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:32.000 probably a bit trite for the people that are listening in because you all are, you know, 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:40.880 further along, but it's impossible to be really present with somebody else's pain or trauma or 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:48.240 anger or anxiety or depression until we've been fully present with that in ourselves. 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:55.040 Pete Yeah, good point. I mean, because if we haven't been, then to the extent we haven't been, 00:27:55.040 --> 00:28:00.800 we're numb. And if we're numb, we can't really commiserate or tune in with other people. 00:28:00.800 --> 00:28:03.760 Jennifer Yeah, or receive. And so, then we might try to 00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:10.720 come up with solutions or, you know, problem solve. And that can be useful. But first of all, 00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:14.880 we all really need to be heard. That's my experience. 00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:21.680 - That's probably largely what you do as a psychiatrist is enable people to be heard. 00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:26.160 - Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, you know, because I work in a really traditional setting 00:28:27.760 --> 00:28:35.360 with underserved people, many who are suffering deeply. Some are homeless, some are chronically 00:28:35.360 --> 00:28:42.960 suicidal or psychotic, some have killed other people, you know, so deep, deep suffering. 00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:52.080 But it's all the same. It's just everybody's longing to be heard, and it is such a privilege 00:28:52.640 --> 00:29:02.160 to witness another human being begin to bloom and open when they are heard and when they begin to 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:07.840 be able to open to those aspects of themselves and listen to those aspects of themselves. 00:29:07.840 --> 00:29:12.640 Pete: Yeah. Now, I guess there's different ways we can understand being heard, 00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:17.920 being heard by others, but then, you know, some would say, well, the ultimate thing is you really 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:24.880 need to know who you are. You know, you need to know the self and perhaps you could tie those 00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:32.400 two together in some way. Can you really be her if you haven't sort of tapped into who and what 00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:42.320 you are ultimately? So, in my experience, when there's been great trauma and very little of 00:29:42.320 --> 00:29:52.960 actually having been loved or heard previously, what is necessary or perhaps necessary is having 00:29:52.960 --> 00:30:00.960 somebody externally not just model that but expose you to that, expose your heart to that. 00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:09.360 And then we internalize that or the person like my patients or when I was a patient as an adolescent, 00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:17.680 my therapist transmitted that to me, that love. And so, then it's almost like a virus isn't the 00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:21.600 right word because that's a negative connotation, but love is like a virus, you know, it spreads. 00:30:21.600 --> 00:30:22.000 Pete Right. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:24.160 Mary And so, when that is shared 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:30.960 with someone, we really aren't separate. It's an energy that then we absorb and then internalize. 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.800 Is that responding to your question? 00:30:32.800 --> 00:30:37.600 Pete I think so. Yeah. I'm sort of thinking about, 00:30:37.600 --> 00:30:45.680 as we speak, I'm thinking about how external aids of various types are essential for most people, 00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:51.040 vast majority of people, on the spiritual path. The vast majority of people couldn't just go sit 00:30:51.040 --> 00:30:56.880 in a cave and close their eyes. They'd go batty, you know. So, call it a crutch if you like, 00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:01.520 but if you have a broken leg, you need a crutch. And, you know, we're all broken to some extent, 00:31:01.520 --> 00:31:06.800 and that's the whole reason we have spiritual teachers. And one topic you and I are going to 00:31:06.800 --> 00:31:14.480 to get onto here today is what a shame it is when spiritual teachers violate their role, 00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:24.240 you know, and abuse or take advantage of students who are in such dire need of a trustworthy guide. 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:28.480 - Yeah, yeah. You wanna dive into that now? 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:32.000 - We could. We can always loop back to other things, but we can dive right into that. 00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:41.120 that one. Okay. Yeah, this, you know, I was with many spiritual teachers on my journey 00:31:41.120 --> 00:31:54.120 and some cleaner than others, but one in particular that I'll speak to when I first heard that 00:31:54.120 --> 00:32:01.040 person speak, I felt this enormity of truth energy, for lack of a better word. There was 00:32:01.040 --> 00:32:12.600 just this intense energy and it resonated deeply with me and I just I was just overwhelmed 00:32:12.600 --> 00:32:19.460 and tremendously grateful that moved very quickly into devotion and the longing had 00:32:19.460 --> 00:32:23.840 been there throughout my life but then the longing kind of shifted into this intense 00:32:23.840 --> 00:32:33.360 devotion and along with that, this projection onto the teacher, idealization of the teacher 00:32:33.360 --> 00:32:43.920 that he was truth and, you know, that I had to get there. So, and that's, you know, projection is 00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:49.520 part of our human condition. So, but with the spiritual teacher, it kind of can, it can get 00:32:49.520 --> 00:32:55.520 heightened. Now, I'm not sure exactly where to go with this, Rick, with the story, but 00:32:55.520 --> 00:33:00.800 I don't know that I need to give all the details of the story. But what I guess what I want to… 00:33:00.800 --> 00:33:04.000 Rick>> And it's all my fault, because you found them on BatGap. 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:04.800 [Laughter] 00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:06.640 Dina>> I wasn't going to say that, but… 00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:08.960 Rick>> I've got some very mixed karma here. 00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:11.920 Dina>> Jumping to the end here, I'm actually really grateful for 00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:19.520 intensity of my experience with this teacher because, you know, here I am. So, but there, 00:33:19.520 --> 00:33:27.680 I want to kind of just highlight some red flags that perhaps people might be able to hear, 00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:31.040 red flags of spiritual teachers. Now, when we're in the throes of devotion, 00:33:31.040 --> 00:33:36.160 there's just, you know, it's the mind gets overridden. I can't tell you how many times I 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:42.160 thought, "Wow, you know, if my colleagues or my friends heard what this person is 00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:49.800 saying, they would think he's grandiose or off the rails or, you know, he's the 00:33:49.800 --> 00:33:55.160 Avatar, the only one." And my mind would jump in and say, "But they aren't 00:33:55.160 --> 00:34:00.520 here, they aren't experiencing the intensity of this truth force," which he 00:34:00.520 --> 00:34:05.240 also claimed was truth force. Now, it was intense energy, that's absolutely 00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:13.880 true. And many spiritual teachers have this intense energy or charismatic energy. The truth is any of 00:34:13.880 --> 00:34:19.400 us can cultivate that. And particularly when someone's sitting up there and students are 00:34:19.400 --> 00:34:27.000 projecting all of this onto them, that energy intensifies. So, it kind of feeds itself because 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:31.240 we're projecting our energy onto them. And so, the energy gets more intense. 00:34:32.120 --> 00:34:39.080 So, back to the devotion thing, devotion can override all common sense, but perhaps 00:34:39.080 --> 00:34:47.000 if we just highlight a few red flags, maybe for some people it will allow the mind to step in 00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:52.760 and prevent some unnecessary suffering. Although, of course, at one level, we know that whatever 00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:58.440 suffering we come into is necessary, as it was in my case. So, one of them is, one of the red flags 00:34:58.440 --> 00:35:05.640 is if the teacher says that basically they're the only one, that they're the only path to 00:35:05.640 --> 00:35:10.040 enlightenment, that they're the most realized person on the planet, they're the avatar, 00:35:10.040 --> 00:35:17.080 you know, if you encounter that, I would say just hightail it out of there, run the other way. 00:35:17.080 --> 00:35:25.320 There are as many pathways home to love, to truth, as there are people on the planet. 00:35:25.320 --> 00:35:26.920 So, you want to jump in. 00:35:26.920 --> 00:35:29.960 Pete: And there are a lot of teachers out there saying they're the only ones, so. 00:35:29.960 --> 00:35:37.240 Jennifer: Yeah. So, and along with that is just a lack of humility. What I've come to realize 00:35:37.240 --> 00:35:46.360 is that humility is actually a sign of spiritual maturity. Even, like, better is if a teacher 00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:51.800 shares their own humanness, their own struggles, and not just from, like, the distant past, but 00:35:51.800 --> 00:36:01.560 their ongoing current struggles. That keeps us all humble. And the other point here is, 00:36:01.560 --> 00:36:10.200 just kind of coming back to what I said, we can't just assess what they say with our minds. We have 00:36:10.200 --> 00:36:17.320 to use sort of our intuitive discrimination because... Our bullshit meter. Exactly, you got it. 00:36:17.880 --> 00:36:26.040 even better said because they can really, you know, use the spiritual lingo. Like this particular 00:36:26.040 --> 00:36:33.960 teacher was saying that the student who I knew well had deceived him and manipulated him and 00:36:33.960 --> 00:36:40.520 all this and he sort of shrouded it in, "I'm just too gullible. I'm too open. I didn't see that." 00:36:41.640 --> 00:36:48.440 but still blaming her as if for whatever he was, you know, saying was an issue. 00:36:48.440 --> 00:36:54.520 So, spiritual teachers are really adept. We all are adept. Our minds are smart, you know, 00:36:54.520 --> 00:36:59.640 they're wily and mischievous and they like to cloak things in ways that may not be completely 00:36:59.640 --> 00:37:07.320 true. So, we really have to sense into, you know, the bullshit meter. So, another red flag I would 00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:13.320 say is if there's fear of leaving the community or leaving the teacher, that's a huge red flag. 00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:20.120 There certainly was in the community I was in. And if there's pressure to stay or if there's 00:37:20.120 --> 00:37:26.120 criticizing others when they leave, this teacher would say things like, would pressure people to 00:37:26.120 --> 00:37:31.960 stay and then tell them they were losing their opportunity for enlightenment, realization, 00:37:31.960 --> 00:37:36.520 if they were going to leave. And then when they would leave, the few who did escape, sometimes in 00:37:36.520 --> 00:37:40.680 the middle of the night, that's a red flag. If people feel they have to leave, sneak out. 00:37:40.680 --> 00:37:47.240 This person, this teacher would say, "Oh, not everyone is ready. You know, they just didn't 00:37:47.240 --> 00:37:54.760 have it. They weren't ready." So if you're staying out of fear that you won't get there if you leave 00:37:54.760 --> 00:38:01.720 or if you won't get enlightened if you leave, that's a red flag. And another one would be any 00:38:01.720 --> 00:38:09.720 form of emotional or verbal abuse or consistent harshness. Now, sometimes teachers use, you know, 00:38:09.720 --> 00:38:18.280 Kali to, you know, try to break through some egoic structures, but emotional or verbal abuse, 00:38:18.280 --> 00:38:23.800 it's just never in alignment with love or truth. Jump in any time, Rick, you know, I'm just… 00:38:23.800 --> 00:38:29.560 Rick: Yeah, no, those are all good points. And it's a pattern because I've, you know, 00:38:29.560 --> 00:38:33.720 seen the same thing happen with various teachers. They all say the same thing, you know, I'm the 00:38:33.720 --> 00:38:37.080 greatest and this is your opportunity for enlightenment. If you leave, you're not going 00:38:37.080 --> 00:38:42.840 to get enlightened in this lifetime or perhaps many lifetimes and all that stuff. So, it's a 00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:48.600 sort of a syndrome and I just want to put in a little context here because, you know, like you 00:38:48.600 --> 00:38:54.200 said, there was a lot of positive, powerful energy around this guy and I think that to a certain 00:38:54.200 --> 00:38:58.920 extent is just a function of the group dynamics, the group consciousness. You know, you can get 00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:04.920 that at a rock concert, but still, you know, teachers can actually be in a state where they 00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:09.640 can radiate a lot of Shakti, a lot of energy, and you feel it. It's palpable in their presence. 00:39:09.640 --> 00:39:10.280 - Yes. 00:39:10.280 --> 00:39:15.720 - Yeah, and so that can be very confusing because you think, "Well, how could this guy be a phony 00:39:15.720 --> 00:39:21.960 or nuts if he's radiating this kind of energy? I feel so good in his presence." But there's a thing 00:39:21.960 --> 00:39:29.320 that you and I have talked about before, sort of deflected Kundalini rising in which the 00:39:29.320 --> 00:39:35.120 Kundalini rises to a certain degree but then gets off on a side channel, but you know, 00:39:35.120 --> 00:39:41.800 the degree to which it has risen confers upon you eloquence, charisma, you know, energetic 00:39:41.800 --> 00:39:50.560 radiation, you know, energy, Shakti, and other gifts, even Siddhis, and very often, you know, 00:39:50.560 --> 00:39:54.840 convinces you and the people around you that you are enlightened. 00:39:54.840 --> 00:40:02.880 But what it ends up doing, and I've seen it many times, is it ends up aggrandizing one's 00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:05.280 ego or one's sense of self. 00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:12.800 So you become like this spiritualized ego, and you become a megalomaniac in some cases. 00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:17.480 You just think you're the greatest thing since sliced toast. 00:40:17.480 --> 00:40:22.400 you're headed for a fall, it's not gonna last forever, but you can kind of mess up a lot 00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:24.600 of people before that happens. 00:40:24.600 --> 00:40:31.160 Jennifer Yes. Yeah, and the areas that are contracted 00:40:31.160 --> 00:40:35.400 within the spiritual teacher or walled off or not being met, whatever we want to call 00:40:35.400 --> 00:40:42.200 that, they get played out in the community or with their devotees because they're not 00:40:42.200 --> 00:40:50.120 being present, just like in our lives, you know, our shit gets played out if we aren't 00:40:50.120 --> 00:40:51.320 being present with it. 00:40:51.320 --> 00:40:55.640 We act it out because that energy has to have somewhere to go. 00:40:55.640 --> 00:40:59.720 So that's where the harm comes in. 00:40:59.720 --> 00:41:06.120 And just to kind of provide a little balance here too, in my experience, you know, there 00:41:06.120 --> 00:41:11.360 was a lot of wisdom that came through this person's teachings and love. 00:41:11.360 --> 00:41:18.960 there was tremendous trauma also that others experienced as a result of his inability to 00:41:18.960 --> 00:41:22.080 be present with aspects of himself. 00:41:22.080 --> 00:41:27.760 Yeah, and that's happened with a lot of teachers. I mean, Chogrim Trumpa or Adida or Osho and 00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:34.160 many of them, you know, they arguably had some real gifts and were brilliant in many 00:41:34.160 --> 00:41:41.200 respects, but they had these blind spots that, you know, they were blind to themselves. You know, 00:41:41.200 --> 00:41:47.600 if you have, if you exhibit some flaws, let them leave. You don't want those kind of stuff to be 00:41:47.600 --> 00:41:54.320 Monday about the importance of, you know, being yourself as a spiritual teacher, not trying to 00:41:54.320 --> 00:42:02.080 build a facade to impress people. Because such facades are always shaky. And, you know, if your 00:42:02.080 --> 00:42:08.800 students are the types that are going to leave if you have, if you exhibit some flaws, let them 00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:13.920 leave. You don't want those kind of students anyway. You know, it's just better to be yourself. 00:42:13.920 --> 00:42:17.920 And you know, some of them, you know, Adyashanti comes. 00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:22.560 - Yes, yeah, just the importance of being real for all of us. But, you know, 00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:23.120 talking about - 00:42:23.120 --> 00:42:28.480 Had a problem like Bell's palsy, which he was bothered by, and he would talk about it. And, 00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:33.760 and no one thought the less of him. In fact, it made him much more popular with, I would 00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:41.760 say, a rather mature breed of spiritual seekers, you know, people who didn't want to be bamboozled 00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:45.800 and didn't need to be impressed by someone who feigned perfection. 00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:51.120 Yes, yeah, just the importance of being real for all of us, but you know, talking about 00:42:51.120 --> 00:42:58.080 spiritual teachers, just being real. I notice in myself, I can sense when there's projection, 00:42:58.080 --> 00:43:05.560 It can come with the MD or it can come with now that the book is out, an author or even 00:43:05.560 --> 00:43:11.320 this backup interview when a couple people found out, "Oh, you're going to be on backup?" 00:43:11.320 --> 00:43:14.120 And then one person even said, "Welcome to the backup club." 00:43:14.120 --> 00:43:16.840 Someone else who was interviewing, I'm like, "Oh!" 00:43:16.840 --> 00:43:21.600 And then I started to feel some anxiety about it actually, but that's another story. 00:43:21.600 --> 00:43:30.600 But you can kind of feel the projection and I always just have this urge to pop that bubble 00:43:30.600 --> 00:43:34.240 and the urge to just, you know, share my humanness. 00:43:34.240 --> 00:43:35.240 Yeah. 00:43:35.240 --> 00:43:42.640 Because something about that is, I mean, projection again is the nature of this whole world. 00:43:42.640 --> 00:43:49.160 That's what creates other, you know, but when it comes in my sphere, when I can feel that, 00:43:49.160 --> 00:43:52.600 My urge is just to prick it. 00:43:52.600 --> 00:43:59.120 The way to prick it is to share my humanness in this moment, just to be real. 00:43:59.120 --> 00:44:00.120 Just to be real. 00:44:00.120 --> 00:44:01.120 Yeah. 00:44:01.120 --> 00:44:07.080 The Dalai Lama, the current Pope, and Gandhi all come to mind as examples of people that 00:44:07.080 --> 00:44:12.400 a great huge fuss is made around them or was made around them, and yet they managed to 00:44:12.400 --> 00:44:15.080 kind of keep it simple, keep it real. 00:44:15.080 --> 00:44:16.080 Yes. 00:44:16.080 --> 00:44:17.080 Ram Dass is another great example. 00:44:17.080 --> 00:44:18.080 Great example, yeah. 00:44:18.080 --> 00:44:22.880 share what was going on. I remember when I was in my 20s, you know, Ram Dass was, 00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:29.520 and still is, such a dear teacher to me. And I remember in my early 20s with that, 00:44:29.520 --> 00:44:36.560 oh, just that burning longing for truth and all the way no matter what, bring it on universe, 00:44:36.560 --> 00:44:42.880 whatever. And I remember him saying once, you know, as we go along on the spiritual journey, 00:44:43.520 --> 00:44:51.040 my issues are issues don't go away. They just get less intense and less frequent. And at the time, 00:44:51.040 --> 00:44:58.240 I was like, no, I am going all the way. And well, I'm there now, you know, where it's, 00:44:58.240 --> 00:45:03.760 it's that is the truth. He spoke truth and took me a while to come to that because, 00:45:03.760 --> 00:45:08.720 because you know, the Rajas and the longing was so intense. I want to if it's okay, 00:45:08.720 --> 00:45:13.120 I want to keep on with some of the red flags. Of course, yes. One that really gets my goat. 00:45:13.120 --> 00:45:15.120 Pete: Got a real book bite going here. 00:45:15.120 --> 00:45:15.920 Lisa has bags. 00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:16.480 [Laughter] 00:45:16.480 --> 00:45:24.880 Lisa: Yeah. One that really gets my goat is giving instructions or advice that they are 00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:34.000 not qualified to give, like medical or psychological or psychiatric. And I can give a couple of examples 00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:43.000 of this teacher that I was with, one of his students or devotees was in India and had 00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:50.160 chest pain and I knew that this person had also had high blood pressure and this guru 00:45:50.160 --> 00:45:55.440 or teacher told him it was just energy that he didn't need to worry about it and that 00:45:55.440 --> 00:46:01.360 was deeply concerning to me because, you know, we need to be present with the biological aspects 00:46:01.360 --> 00:46:08.000 of existence too, even while we're on the spiritual journey. Another devotee had a history of 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.400 what's called schizoaffective disorder, which is kind of like bipolar disorder with some 00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:18.640 psychosis. But he was on medication when he came to the community and was doing well from 00:46:18.640 --> 00:46:25.760 a psychiatric perspective. He ultimately decided he wanted to go off of his medications and 00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:32.240 this teacher supported him in doing that. Well, he got manic and he got psychotic and this teacher 00:46:32.240 --> 00:46:40.880 then seemed kind of proud. He interpreted it as a manifestation of this teacher's own force, 00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:45.760 like it kind of overwhelmed this guy. No, this person has a biochemical imbalance. 00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:49.840 Just like, you know, if you've got diabetes, you need medication. If you've got high blood 00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:54.880 pressure, you need medication. You know, there are biological components to our existence that we 00:46:54.880 --> 00:47:05.080 need to honor and attend to. And when teachers start giving you advice about things that 00:47:05.080 --> 00:47:09.320 is not, they're not trained in or that's a red flag. 00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:15.080 Yeah. Well, if this guy really believed his own words that he was an avatar and was the 00:47:15.080 --> 00:47:22.880 greatest teacher to, you know, bless the earth, then he probably believed that he had the 00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:29.720 power or ability to, you know, make such, offer such medical advice. 00:47:29.720 --> 00:47:37.320 And you know, he, and of course it's very self-deluded because he wasn't qualified. 00:47:37.320 --> 00:47:44.440 I mean, the same teacher I happen to know divested a few of his students, at least, of very large 00:47:44.440 --> 00:47:47.160 sums of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars. 00:47:47.160 --> 00:47:52.800 And in one case, the guy had, some guy told him he had gotten an inheritance of about $900,000 00:47:52.800 --> 00:48:00.480 dollars and he said, "Oh, you should have told me this money has Asuric energies attached 00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:05.800 to it and you need to give it to me so I can purify the money for you, otherwise it would 00:48:05.800 --> 00:48:07.960 have been very bad for your evolution." 00:48:07.960 --> 00:48:12.680 And the guy signed it over to him and last I heard he was still trying to get it back, 00:48:12.680 --> 00:48:14.520 I don't know whether he did or not. 00:48:14.520 --> 00:48:22.720 But is this teacher so cynical and so insincere that he's actually just using that as a line 00:48:22.720 --> 00:48:25.680 to get money, or does he really believe - 00:48:25.680 --> 00:48:26.640 - He believes it. 00:48:26.640 --> 00:48:28.400 - The stuff that he fabricates, yeah. 00:48:28.400 --> 00:48:33.120 - He, this particular teacher believes it in my experience. 00:48:33.120 --> 00:48:34.160 - Yeah. 00:48:34.160 --> 00:48:34.800 - Yeah. 00:48:34.800 --> 00:48:39.760 - So, what does that say if you believe that you are the greatest and that everything you 00:48:39.760 --> 00:48:42.800 say is the truth and that no one can, you know - 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:44.000 - Yeah. 00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:49.360 - You alone can solve all the problems of the country or of your students or whatever. 00:48:49.360 --> 00:49:06.360 And even using it as justification for bad behavior, like this teacher, and you know, I don't necessarily want to just get into criticizing this particular teacher, but just to use it as a demonstration, he would say, "Okay, I lost my train of thought, Rick. Where are we going with this?" 00:49:06.360 --> 00:49:14.360 Whether this teacher in particular, or teachers like him, since we're just using him as a template, actually believe all this stuff that they say. 00:49:14.360 --> 00:49:15.360 Yeah. 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:22.920 So, using this "I'm the avatar" or "the one" to justify bad behavior. 00:49:22.920 --> 00:49:29.160 So, this teacher would say, "Well, because I'm this vessel of truth," and he also believed 00:49:29.160 --> 00:49:31.480 he was Krishna incarnate. 00:49:31.480 --> 00:49:32.480 Yeah. 00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:43.320 Because I'm this vessel of truth, everything that I do is used to further truth in this 00:49:43.320 --> 00:49:48.680 world to further your spiritual growth. So again, just used as a justification, and it is such a 00:49:48.680 --> 00:49:53.400 primitive defense that it's hard to understand. I mean, this is my mind, you know, critiquing it, 00:49:53.400 --> 00:49:56.680 of course, because it's, yeah. But... 00:49:56.680 --> 00:50:00.600 - Kind of reminds me of Richard Nixon telling David Frost, "Well, if the president does it, 00:50:00.600 --> 00:50:01.640 then it's not a crime." 00:50:01.640 --> 00:50:11.400 - Yeah. Yeah. So, and then another red flag is when a teacher 00:50:12.040 --> 00:50:19.240 fosters dependence on their wisdom or their teachings or them instead of turning you back 00:50:19.240 --> 00:50:26.920 to yours. That doesn't mean they don't offer support and, you know, teachings are so useful 00:50:26.920 --> 00:50:33.400 and so are transmissions of energy, but using that to foster dependence on them 00:50:33.400 --> 00:50:41.400 is just sort of another egoic maneuver to keep them as teacher and you as student. It's one of 00:50:41.400 --> 00:50:45.800 One of the things that bothers me about teacher, like I don't even like that term, I remember 00:50:45.800 --> 00:50:50.320 when I was filling out the form you asked me to fill out for BATGAP, I had to check 00:50:50.320 --> 00:50:53.320 a box, you know, like what category will this be in? 00:50:53.320 --> 00:50:58.120 And I just kind of had this aversion to teacher and I reluctantly checked it because nothing 00:50:58.120 --> 00:51:01.960 else kind of was like, nothing else matched up. 00:51:01.960 --> 00:51:09.240 But I really feel like, you know, I'm just a friend and we're all walking arm in arm together. 00:51:09.240 --> 00:51:19.920 And I just want to serve and love and offer my heart and offer my humanness because we're 00:51:19.920 --> 00:51:20.920 all human. 00:51:20.920 --> 00:51:29.560 So, anyways, I think trying to foster dependence keeps that whole projection thing going, keeps 00:51:29.560 --> 00:51:37.080 a spiritual teacher who's really identified as being a spiritual teacher is really underneath 00:51:37.080 --> 00:51:42.280 everything going to need students for there to be a teacher. Does that make sense? 00:51:42.280 --> 00:51:49.560 Yeah, sure. I mean, that's his bread and butter. But obviously, I mean, you wouldn't want to have 00:51:49.560 --> 00:51:55.560 stayed in medical school for the 30, 40 years. At a certain point, you graduate and you become a 00:51:55.560 --> 00:52:03.800 doctor, you know, and any teacher and no medical school would succeed if it tried to keep its 00:52:03.800 --> 00:52:09.400 students there forever. So, obviously, it wants to graduate them and have them go on and perhaps 00:52:09.400 --> 00:52:14.200 even train other doctors and so on. So, it should be that way with spiritual teachers, obviously, 00:52:14.200 --> 00:52:17.720 and as a mother, you know, there's a stage at which one's child is dependent, 00:52:17.720 --> 00:52:20.840 but you don't want them living in the basement when they're 40. 00:52:20.840 --> 00:52:27.640 - Right. The whole intention as a mother bird or a parent bird is that they fly the coop, right? 00:52:27.640 --> 00:52:28.120 - Yeah. 00:52:28.120 --> 00:52:29.120 [Laughter] 00:52:29.120 --> 00:52:32.960 >> The whole thing of it. 00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:39.520 So and along with the humility thing is just entitlement and lack of gratitude. 00:52:39.520 --> 00:52:42.360 I witnessed that and was always just baffled by it. 00:52:42.360 --> 00:52:46.440 There was never an expression of gratitude or a sense of it. 00:52:46.440 --> 00:52:53.480 It was just this entitlement, like, you know, I gave money and I don't, and not that I cared 00:52:53.480 --> 00:52:58.760 personally, if there was a thank you or something like that, but there just wasn't a heartfelt 00:52:58.760 --> 00:52:59.760 sense of gratitude. 00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:00.760 Pete: Yeah. 00:53:00.760 --> 00:53:06.040 Kirsten: Okay, and the last red flag is just if we are overriding our common sense. 00:53:06.040 --> 00:53:07.520 Pete: Mm hmm. 00:53:07.520 --> 00:53:11.640 Kirsten: But I'm sure you know of a lot more red flags if you want to keep this part 00:53:11.640 --> 00:53:12.640 of it going. 00:53:12.640 --> 00:53:16.320 Pete: Oh, I'll see if I think of any. But yes, common sense is an important thing and 00:53:16.320 --> 00:53:23.320 one thing I often say with regard to the Association for Spiritual Integrity is that we hope to 00:53:23.320 --> 00:53:31.080 kind of in, raise awareness of what is and is not appropriate on the spiritual, in a spiritual 00:53:31.080 --> 00:53:36.120 community or with a spiritual teacher. And, you know, because one thing I've seen happen many times, 00:53:36.120 --> 00:53:42.520 including from my own, through my own eyes and with my own former teacher, is that, you know, 00:53:42.520 --> 00:53:47.320 you sit there and things are getting weirder and weirder. But then you think, well, this guy is 00:53:47.320 --> 00:53:53.720 so impressive and it's had such an impact on my life and he's apparently enlightened and I don't 00:53:53.720 --> 00:53:59.720 think I am, therefore I guess I'll just keep sitting here and so, you know, we've seen the 00:53:59.720 --> 00:54:05.880 extent to which cults can go off the rails. I mean, Jonestown being an extreme example, but 00:54:05.880 --> 00:54:13.320 many others with that kind of mentality, I think, among most of the students, they just, 00:54:13.320 --> 00:54:19.480 and it's incremental. It doesn't, you know, if you just walked into that scene, you'd say, 00:54:19.480 --> 00:54:23.160 "Oh, my God, this is weird. I'm leaving. Bye." But if you've been there since the start, 00:54:23.160 --> 00:54:27.240 it's like the frog in the slowly heating water. You don't notice that it's heating. 00:54:27.240 --> 00:54:35.400 Yes. Yeah, exactly. I love that analogy. And just that, I think, you know, this is another example 00:54:35.400 --> 00:54:42.920 of where the mind can really be useful. Recognize each of us when we're with a spiritual teacher 00:54:42.920 --> 00:54:50.200 that the nature of this is projection, that they have it and I don't, that that's not true, 00:54:50.200 --> 00:54:56.920 but that's sort of the game we're playing as we move along on our journey, and sometimes we need 00:54:56.920 --> 00:55:03.960 to see it out there before we can realize it here. So if your mind can hold that framework and you 00:55:03.960 --> 00:55:11.720 recognize that, I think that can be really useful in terms of not buying into completely that they 00:55:11.720 --> 00:55:17.080 have it and you don't. Yeah, it's a balancing act because obviously they have something that 00:55:17.080 --> 00:55:23.160 we don't have or we wouldn't go there to get it. You know, like the same with the school analogy, 00:55:23.160 --> 00:55:29.320 they know stuff in medical school that you don't know yet, so you want to be there to learn it. 00:55:29.320 --> 00:55:36.280 But on the other hand, well, actually medical school is an interesting example because 00:55:37.080 --> 00:55:43.880 as you described it, that so many of the doctors teaching were egomaniacs and were just extremely 00:55:43.880 --> 00:55:52.920 cruel to the students and abusive and full of themselves. So, maybe there's a corollary here 00:55:52.920 --> 00:55:55.880 between that and the spiritual teaching scene. 00:55:55.880 --> 00:56:06.760 Sarah: Maybe so. Yeah. It's on a different level. You know, the medical is more sort of the mental, 00:56:06.760 --> 00:56:11.880 that the physical aspect of existence and spiritual teachers are operating at a 00:56:11.880 --> 00:56:20.520 hopefully different level. But along those lines, just kind of shifting into the medical system, 00:56:22.040 --> 00:56:31.480 it's very fear-based and the training is and so is the medical environment and I can give a couple, 00:56:31.480 --> 00:56:35.240 and I go into that more in the book. Is it okay to kind of go in this direction, Rick? 00:56:35.240 --> 00:56:40.520 Rick - Yeah, I just want to say quickly, I'm reminded of my friend Miranda McPherson, 00:56:40.520 --> 00:56:46.200 who's a spiritual teacher and been on BatGap a couple times. And she's been in her 50s, I guess, 00:56:46.200 --> 00:56:50.600 and she's been a spiritual teacher since she was in her 20s and through going through various phases 00:56:50.600 --> 00:56:57.360 of it, but she makes a point of going to therapy periodically, maybe once a month or something, 00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:02.740 I don't know how often, and going to sit with other teachers or go on other teachers' retreats 00:57:02.740 --> 00:57:09.260 and stuff like that, just to kind of get feedback and keep it real and, you know, have a little 00:57:09.260 --> 00:57:10.260 bit of self-scrutiny. 00:57:10.260 --> 00:57:13.260 And it's a good example. 00:57:13.260 --> 00:57:22.180 Yeah, and in my experience, therapy can be such a support for a spiritual journey. 00:57:22.180 --> 00:57:25.020 Of course, they're not really separate. 00:57:25.020 --> 00:57:28.440 It also can, everything can be its opposite, right? 00:57:28.440 --> 00:57:34.560 But the support is, just like we were talking about before, with therapy, I learned how 00:57:34.560 --> 00:57:41.820 to open to aspects of myself and open to my emotions, open to, become aware of my thought 00:57:41.820 --> 00:57:48.520 patterns, become aware of my tendencies. What I found late in my teens was I'd 00:57:48.520 --> 00:57:53.040 been in intensive therapy for a long time. I felt hopeless at some point because I 00:57:53.040 --> 00:57:58.200 realized I was just moving the furniture around in the house, you know, like, but I 00:57:58.200 --> 00:58:02.340 would be doing that forever, you know, like I realized somehow like this isn't 00:58:02.340 --> 00:58:05.640 it, you know, this isn't what I'm longing for, this isn't what I'm seeking, this 00:58:05.640 --> 00:58:11.720 inner child work, this cognitive work, this, all this. Right. It didn't go deep enough. 00:58:11.720 --> 00:58:18.840 Yeah, and I'm sure there are some therapists who can take it deeper than others. 00:58:18.840 --> 00:58:22.920 But the nature of what we call the spiritual journey, and again, there's really truly no 00:58:22.920 --> 00:58:26.120 differentiation but it's useful to have these concepts. 00:58:26.120 --> 00:58:31.440 The nature of the spiritual journey is the dissolution of the individual me, right? 00:58:31.440 --> 00:58:36.800 Like dropping into this place of love that we all are. 00:58:36.800 --> 00:58:43.160 So, I think they can go hand in hand, and the other piece is psychological maturity can 00:58:43.160 --> 00:58:45.880 really support our spiritual journey. 00:58:45.880 --> 00:58:51.740 When that's not there, we still have to meet those aspects on our spiritual journey, meet 00:58:51.740 --> 00:58:55.500 the contractions or psychological issues or trauma or whatever. 00:58:55.500 --> 00:59:02.240 Those are going to come up for sure with the intensity of the spiritual journey. 00:59:02.240 --> 00:59:08.600 Yeah, now some spiritual teachers say that there's a tight correlation between development 00:59:08.600 --> 00:59:14.400 of consciousness and then the development of all the other aspects of your makeup, you 00:59:14.400 --> 00:59:18.680 know, your psychology, your health, your behavior, and so on. 00:59:18.680 --> 00:59:24.960 And others say, like Ken Wilber says, for instance, that the correlation can be very 00:59:24.960 --> 00:59:25.960 loose. 00:59:25.960 --> 00:59:30.600 He has what he calls lines of development model where, you know, consciousness can be very 00:59:30.600 --> 00:59:35.480 developed and yet your emotional maturity could be very undeveloped. They can be way out of sync. 00:59:35.480 --> 00:59:39.480 And, you know, I kind of think of it as a big stretchy rubber band. There's a correlation, 00:59:39.480 --> 00:59:46.360 they do kind of pull each other along, but they can get really out of sync. And, yeah, so, and this… 00:59:46.360 --> 00:59:48.280 Jennifer: To your point, with spiritual teachers. 00:59:48.280 --> 00:59:48.840 Pete: Yeah. 00:59:48.840 --> 00:59:54.920 Jennifer: Right? I mean, they can be very advanced spiritually or have had profound insights and 00:59:54.920 --> 00:59:59.660 and realizations and still have left a lot behind. 00:59:59.660 --> 01:00:01.100 It's not integrated. 01:00:01.100 --> 01:00:03.180 - Which is why somehow or other, 01:00:03.180 --> 01:00:05.100 you need to pay attention to all this stuff 01:00:05.100 --> 01:00:08.400 and maybe therapy is only one tool 01:00:08.400 --> 01:00:09.660 and there could be others, 01:00:09.660 --> 01:00:13.740 but it really needs to be holistic, your development. 01:00:13.740 --> 01:00:16.740 And in fact, the word enlightenment, 01:00:16.740 --> 01:00:19.420 I hesitate to use it because it can, 01:00:19.420 --> 01:00:22.940 is sometimes attributed to people who like we're saying 01:00:22.940 --> 01:00:23.980 are very out of sync. 01:00:23.980 --> 01:00:28.860 have a lot of consciousness development but are pretty messed up in other areas. And I would 01:00:28.860 --> 01:00:34.700 reserve that word if I were to use it at all for someone who is holistically developed in all areas 01:00:34.700 --> 01:00:39.020 and there's no end to that. Right. I mean, enlightenment, you know, 01:00:39.020 --> 01:00:47.420 it doesn't exist and it's what we all are. And sometimes our minds like to put it on to somebody 01:00:47.420 --> 01:00:54.540 out there, you know. But I would agree that the more an individual human being has 01:00:54.540 --> 01:01:04.700 open to all these different aspects of being and their personal stuff, the more awake, 01:01:04.700 --> 01:01:08.620 and I mean that literally, you know, not just in sort of the spiritual terms awake, 01:01:08.620 --> 01:01:13.420 but literally the more awake that person is to being itself. 01:01:13.420 --> 01:01:19.120 Yeah, and I, as you say that, I'm thinking of, you know, some so-called spiritual teachers 01:01:19.120 --> 01:01:23.020 who if they were to hear this conversation would say, "You guys are crazy. 01:01:23.020 --> 01:01:28.500 You're just wallowing around in all this Maya, all this illusory stuff. 01:01:28.500 --> 01:01:32.140 Can't you just realize that you're already enlightened and you don't even, it's not that 01:01:32.140 --> 01:01:35.820 you are already enlightened because you don't even exist and that alone is and there's only 01:01:35.820 --> 01:01:40.180 this and you don't need practices, you don't need teachings, you don't need therapies, 01:01:40.180 --> 01:01:42.820 just, you know, wake up." 01:01:42.820 --> 01:01:50.420 >> Yeah, and you know, when I was, I guess I'll call it just sort of coming up, I'm still coming 01:01:50.420 --> 01:01:58.420 up, we all are, but early on when I moved to the Bay Area to do my residency in order to be around 01:01:58.420 --> 01:02:05.220 spiritual teachers, the non-dual teachers back then, and I don't know about now because I 01:02:05.220 --> 01:02:12.260 don't have much opportunity to listen in on podcasts and stuff, but back then that was kind of- 01:02:12.260 --> 01:02:19.240 of what was being taught, you know, this, this, none of this is real and, and this truth and 01:02:19.240 --> 01:02:24.760 wisdom coming through them that resonated so deeply in me, like it's true that there 01:02:24.760 --> 01:02:30.080 is no other, instead of saying none of this is real, I prefer to say there really isn't 01:02:30.080 --> 01:02:36.880 any other, but here we are, you know, I've got this body, here it is, you know, but, 01:02:36.880 --> 01:02:44.920 But kind of going a little deeper with that too is there is, for me, I'll just talk about 01:02:44.920 --> 01:02:51.200 myself, and this happened when I was parting ways with that spiritual teacher, and for 01:02:51.200 --> 01:02:57.160 this I will ever be grateful, not to the teacher, but just to that whole situation. 01:02:57.160 --> 01:03:04.280 The realization of what I call "Aloneness" with a capital "A," some people might call 01:03:04.280 --> 01:03:12.840 emptiness, with a capital E, that there is no other. For me, and I know everybody that 01:03:12.840 --> 01:03:17.960 has this realization experiences it differently, but it was utterly devastating. It was so 01:03:17.960 --> 01:03:25.760 stark, so devastating. It was almost like a nuclear bomb went off, but so enormous that 01:03:25.760 --> 01:03:34.200 it blew up the whole world and the whole universe. So nothing was left. So stark. And it was, 01:03:34.200 --> 01:03:42.440 realization was, and still reverberates through here, much more real than anything I had ever 01:03:42.440 --> 01:03:51.000 experienced. It wasn't just a mental philosophy, you know, like a philosophy. So, it's like, 01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:59.040 you know, we can come to that and it's the ego's worst nightmare. It's like if I had 01:03:59.040 --> 01:04:03.440 known that at the beginning of my spiritual search, that's where it would sort of culminate, 01:04:03.440 --> 01:04:07.120 I would have run the other way. 01:04:07.120 --> 01:04:11.520 But Rick, I totally forgot why I got on this tangent. 01:04:11.520 --> 01:04:14.120 It's not exactly a tangent, but what were we talking about so I can kind of come back 01:04:14.120 --> 01:04:15.120 to the context of it? 01:04:15.120 --> 01:04:17.120 Rick: We were talking about the Neo-Advaita philosophy. 01:04:17.120 --> 01:04:18.120 Oh, yeah. 01:04:18.120 --> 01:04:19.120 You know, nothing is real. 01:04:19.120 --> 01:04:21.120 Yeah, that there is truth there. 01:04:21.120 --> 01:04:22.120 Yeah. 01:04:22.120 --> 01:04:27.700 But in my experience, so this time of utter, utter devastation alone, and there was nothing 01:04:27.700 --> 01:04:33.400 anybody could say, no teacher could say anything, because all of that was recognized to be, you 01:04:33.400 --> 01:04:38.500 Unreal just another thought or so you truly are alone in that 01:04:38.500 --> 01:04:42.780 There's nobody to depend on nobody to turn to nobody nothing. There's nothing 01:04:42.780 --> 01:04:51.000 Now over time my experience was it was gradual here other people have different experiences 01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:55.900 There was just sort of this very gradual after a long period of that 01:04:55.900 --> 01:05:02.340 Engagement in the world little by little and it wasn't that I wasn't I was going through my motions and doing what I needed to 01:05:02.340 --> 01:05:06.500 do to take care of my daughter, to work, all of that. But I'm talking about sort of more of a 01:05:06.500 --> 01:05:16.660 human being engagement in the world and this recognition or experience of it more as a dance. 01:05:16.660 --> 01:05:19.620 Pete: Object to life. 01:05:19.620 --> 01:05:20.340 MaryLiz Yes. 01:05:20.340 --> 01:05:21.540 MaryLiz Yes. 01:05:21.540 --> 01:05:23.780 Pete: There's a line in the Briharani. 01:05:23.780 --> 01:05:29.220 MaryLiz Be this human being, this individual point of consciousness here in this body and to be able 01:05:29.220 --> 01:05:37.300 to identify as this. So, yeah, so there's a profound truth to what those teachers were saying 01:05:37.300 --> 01:05:44.980 back then when I was, you know, resonating deeply with what they said. And now, for me, there's also, 01:05:44.980 --> 01:05:46.740 you know, just this - 01:05:46.740 --> 01:05:48.100 Pete: There's a larger truth. 01:05:48.100 --> 01:05:48.660 Kirsten: - life. 01:05:48.660 --> 01:05:49.300 Pete: Yes. 01:05:49.300 --> 01:05:50.500 Kirsten: Yes, yes. 01:05:50.500 --> 01:05:57.220 Pete: There's a line in the Briharanika Upanishad where a student is espousing the kind of, you know, 01:05:58.180 --> 01:06:02.820 nothing is real philosophy that you were just mentioning and the teacher says to him, 01:06:02.820 --> 01:06:12.740 "This Brahman of yours is one-footed." So, it's partial. There's a famous line from Shankara 01:06:12.740 --> 01:06:17.460 who wrote, "Brahma," I'm reading this, I don't have it memorized, "Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya 01:06:17.460 --> 01:06:22.580 Jivro Brahmaiva Napara," which is typically translated as, "Brahman is the only truth, 01:06:22.580 --> 01:06:26.100 the world is unreal, and therefore ultimately there's no difference between Brahman and 01:06:26.100 --> 01:06:33.780 individual self. But mithya does not mean the world is unreal. It means it is existing and 01:06:33.780 --> 01:06:44.580 non-existing simultaneously, or neither existing nor not existing. And one classic metaphor that's 01:06:44.580 --> 01:06:50.180 used is if you go into a pottery shop and see a bunch of pots, you could truthfully say that 01:06:50.180 --> 01:06:56.180 there's nothing here but clay. That's it, clay. But that's not entirely true because there are pots, 01:06:56.180 --> 01:07:02.260 even though they're made of clay, it's equally true to say there are pots here in this room and 01:07:02.260 --> 01:07:09.060 you can do things with them. So, you know, the world is both real and unreal. It exists and it 01:07:09.060 --> 01:07:11.540 doesn't. It's paradoxical. Debra: 01:07:11.540 --> 01:07:20.020 Yes, it is. And, you know, to come back to that profound realization, the nature of realizing 01:07:20.020 --> 01:07:26.900 that nothing is real is not having access to this other leg, if you will, like you said, 01:07:26.900 --> 01:07:35.780 it's just, this is all there is. So, yeah, I just wanted to speak to that part of the journey, 01:07:35.780 --> 01:07:39.700 partly in case other people are experiencing that. And there's different levels of that 01:07:39.700 --> 01:07:44.180 experience of aloneness too. You know, there's sort of the human level of loneliness. Everything we 01:07:44.180 --> 01:07:53.380 experience is an emanation from a quality of being that's right next to truth or love or, 01:07:53.380 --> 01:07:59.860 you know, the core essence of our being. So, sometimes it gets further and further out on 01:07:59.860 --> 01:08:06.420 the branches, the experience of it, but that's why we can follow everything back to what we really 01:08:06.420 --> 01:08:06.580 are. 01:08:06.580 --> 01:08:07.580 are. 01:08:07.580 --> 01:08:09.180 And that's where integration comes in. 01:08:09.180 --> 01:08:10.180 Yes. 01:08:10.180 --> 01:08:11.180 Yeah. 01:08:11.180 --> 01:08:12.180 Yes. 01:08:12.180 --> 01:08:13.180 Stabilization, integration. 01:08:13.180 --> 01:08:14.180 Yes. 01:08:14.180 --> 01:08:16.180 And it doesn't have to be either or. 01:08:16.180 --> 01:08:19.780 You don't have to swing back and forth from this extreme to that extreme. 01:08:19.780 --> 01:08:21.740 Both can be lived simultaneously. 01:08:21.740 --> 01:08:22.740 Yes. 01:08:22.740 --> 01:08:23.740 Yeah. 01:08:23.740 --> 01:08:24.740 Yeah. 01:08:24.740 --> 01:08:25.740 And that takes time, as you said. 01:08:25.740 --> 01:08:30.100 You know, I mean, at first you were blasted with this and, you know, there wasn't much 01:08:30.100 --> 01:08:33.340 integration and then the integration gradually happened. 01:08:33.340 --> 01:08:34.340 Yeah. 01:08:34.340 --> 01:08:42.100 And you know, now my experience of life is just this river flowing through, but to pop 01:08:42.100 --> 01:08:48.580 any bubble, so to speak, of course there's stuff that comes up, you know? 01:08:48.580 --> 01:08:55.260 I get impatient with my daughter and I'm overwhelmed a lot of times with, you know, everything 01:08:55.260 --> 01:09:00.220 that my mind thinks that I need to get done. 01:09:00.220 --> 01:09:05.380 And sometimes I have reactions that come up to something that's, you know, like a pain 01:09:05.380 --> 01:09:08.340 body that's coming up in my patient. 01:09:08.340 --> 01:09:11.620 I had anxiety that came up about this interview. 01:09:11.620 --> 01:09:19.300 So, you know, it's not like you get to a place where there's just this, "Oh, it's all joy 01:09:19.300 --> 01:09:22.580 and wonder." 01:09:22.580 --> 01:09:29.900 But there is this underlying sense of this wonder and miracle and this experience of 01:09:29.900 --> 01:09:33.300 life as energy and as a dance. 01:09:33.300 --> 01:09:37.120 Yeah, I wasn't going to use those very same words, but I was actually going to use the 01:09:37.120 --> 01:09:38.120 word "underlying." 01:09:38.120 --> 01:09:42.700 I was going to ask you, is there, despite all these human things that we all experience, 01:09:42.700 --> 01:09:49.580 is there an underlying something, rather, that is abiding, you know, continuous, and 01:09:49.580 --> 01:09:54.620 that is kind of foundational to all the relative experiences in your life. 01:09:54.620 --> 01:09:55.260 Yes. Yeah. 01:09:55.260 --> 01:10:05.900 Yes. And, you know, sort of moving into the mind too with that, it's like before when stuff came up, 01:10:05.900 --> 01:10:15.180 it was like I was working on me all the time. This project of me, I call it, you know, 01:10:15.180 --> 01:10:19.500 that disappeared after that period of aloneness and emptiness. This is the gift of that. 01:10:19.500 --> 01:10:30.140 Nothing. It wiped out everything, all longing, all spiritual endeavors, all 01:10:30.140 --> 01:10:37.660 thoughts that I needed to get somewhere, trying to get anywhere spiritually. It just wiped. There 01:10:37.660 --> 01:10:45.100 was nothing left. There was nothing left. So, that's kind of where it's still at, where there's 01:10:45.100 --> 01:10:52.860 nothing left to get. So, there's a freedom in that, but there's still stuff that comes up. 01:10:52.860 --> 01:10:56.620 But there's not this, it's a little hard to put into words. 01:10:56.620 --> 01:10:57.580 - No, I know what you mean. 01:10:57.580 --> 01:11:02.460 - You get it, yeah. So, the project of me dissolved. It doesn't mean that when something 01:11:02.460 --> 01:11:08.860 comes up, I don't sometimes search. And I think a lot of people interpreted that as, you know, 01:11:08.860 --> 01:11:12.780 okay, I'm done. I need to have technique or something, but it kind of comes up in the moment 01:11:12.780 --> 01:11:17.740 as opposed to, I'm trying to get somewhere. You know, there's a line in the Patanjali's 01:11:17.740 --> 01:11:23.100 Yoga Sutras in the Niyama's section where he says, "From contentment, one attains unparalleled 01:11:23.100 --> 01:11:29.340 happiness." And, you know, Papaji famously said, "Give up the search." And I think a lot of people 01:11:29.340 --> 01:11:37.580 interpreted that as, you know, okay, I'm done. But I think what happens is at a certain stage, 01:11:37.580 --> 01:11:44.540 one naturally does give up the search in the sense of the yearning, nagging, you know, oh, God, 01:11:44.540 --> 01:11:52.460 I can't be happy until I find this thing, quality that often rules the lives of spiritual seekers, 01:11:52.460 --> 01:11:55.820 and a contentment dawns. And so, you no longer feel that way. 01:11:55.820 --> 01:11:56.540 - Yes. 01:11:56.540 --> 01:11:59.500 Pete But it doesn't mean you're done. 01:11:59.500 --> 01:12:04.660 It doesn't, I mean, to me, that shift happened, I don't know when, it just, you know, kind 01:12:04.660 --> 01:12:08.620 of snuck up, as Jesus said, like a thief in the night. 01:12:08.620 --> 01:12:15.140 And, but I'm still as enthusiastic about all this stuff as I ever was, but it's more of 01:12:15.140 --> 01:12:20.220 an adventure and an exploration rather than a desperate yearning, searching kind of thing. 01:12:20.220 --> 01:12:27.100 Yeah, it's kind of like this. In my experience, I didn't give it up. It just sort of disappeared. 01:12:27.100 --> 01:12:28.060 Yeah. 01:12:28.060 --> 01:12:29.500 That search seeking. 01:12:29.500 --> 01:12:34.940 Right. Well, to use an analogy, the sun began to rise and you were no longer stumbling around 01:12:34.940 --> 01:12:41.100 the dark, you know, looking for something because there is some illumination that had come. And, 01:12:41.100 --> 01:12:47.340 you know, so there's, you know, no longer stubbing your toes and you're enjoying life 01:12:47.340 --> 01:12:49.340 with some degree of sunshine. 01:12:49.340 --> 01:12:51.740 >> Yeah, beautifully put. 01:12:51.740 --> 01:12:59.260 >> Yeah, and I'm sure you don't feel like you've lost interest in spiritual stuff or 01:12:59.260 --> 01:13:02.700 anything like that. You wouldn't be doing this interview if you had, I don't suppose. 01:13:02.700 --> 01:13:09.260 >> Right, yeah. It's kind of like, again, it's sort of like I experience life as a river 01:13:09.260 --> 01:13:16.460 moving through and, you know, what appears, it's like I'm curious about and whatever appears, 01:13:16.460 --> 01:13:26.940 and I take the next step and there's a joy and a wonder and love, love and compassion that arises. 01:13:26.940 --> 01:13:28.700 Yeah. 01:13:28.700 --> 01:13:34.380 - Yeah, well, speaking of life as a river, ponder the spiritual implications of these words, 01:13:34.380 --> 01:13:41.580 row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a 01:13:41.580 --> 01:13:44.060 dream. - I love it. 01:13:44.060 --> 01:13:45.060 it. 01:13:45.060 --> 01:13:46.060 Yeah. 01:13:46.060 --> 01:13:47.060 You're still rowing. 01:13:47.060 --> 01:13:48.060 Still rowing. 01:13:48.060 --> 01:13:49.860 But the river is mainly doing it. 01:13:49.860 --> 01:13:53.460 You're just kind of, you know, tweaking it a little bit here and there like you do with 01:13:53.460 --> 01:13:57.180 your steering wheel or on the road, micro adjustments. 01:13:57.180 --> 01:14:03.020 And you know, since you're not thrashing against the current anymore, you're merry and life 01:14:03.020 --> 01:14:04.740 is a dream. 01:14:04.740 --> 01:14:06.220 Even as life is a dream. 01:14:06.220 --> 01:14:07.220 Yeah. 01:14:07.220 --> 01:14:08.220 Right. 01:14:08.220 --> 01:14:09.220 Beautiful. 01:14:09.220 --> 01:14:10.220 Yeah. 01:14:10.220 --> 01:14:11.220 Okay, what else we got? 01:14:11.220 --> 01:14:16.340 have a lot of interesting points here to talk about. One thing I would love to, I mean you, 01:14:16.340 --> 01:14:21.300 yeah, no, yeah, please go for it. Okay, I think we talked a little bit about, yeah, 01:14:21.300 --> 01:14:29.460 we talked about therapy. I would love to just bring up the issue or topic of psychiatric medication 01:14:29.460 --> 01:14:36.740 on a spiritual journey. And I bring it up because I remember, you know, back in my 20s hearing 01:14:37.620 --> 01:14:43.780 some very prominent teachers say that psychiatric medication, advising not to take it because it's 01:14:43.780 --> 01:14:50.340 an avoidance of being present with what it is. And some of them, of course, like Thorazine or 01:14:50.340 --> 01:14:55.060 whatever, they're going to really dull you out totally, but right, but there's certain ones that 01:14:55.060 --> 01:15:00.580 are... Yeah, I mean, there's certain ones that I wouldn't prescribe because they're addictive and 01:15:00.580 --> 01:15:09.300 because they do just kind of cloud the mind. But just like the point being more, is psychiatric 01:15:09.300 --> 01:15:15.700 medication really an avoidance of being present with what's arising or what's coming up? Or 01:15:15.700 --> 01:15:28.580 can it be a support for further deepening? And I think each of us needs to first assess 01:15:29.300 --> 01:15:36.740 motivation for wanting or not wanting medication. And you have to sense into that, like, am I 01:15:36.740 --> 01:15:44.340 avoiding something? Or in my case, it was I had been sitting with this heavy energy of depression 01:15:44.340 --> 01:15:52.580 and opening to it for years. And I did not want medication because I had the idea that it would be 01:15:53.300 --> 01:16:01.780 closing off my doorway to truth. And I suffered tremendously as a result. Finally, 01:16:01.780 --> 01:16:08.260 you know, extremely depressed and suicidal, I agreed to take medication because it was kind 01:16:08.260 --> 01:16:12.100 of life or death at that point. Was this in your anorexic phase or later? 01:16:12.100 --> 01:16:16.500 Um, no, it was later. Yeah, during medical school. 01:16:16.500 --> 01:16:17.460 During medical school. Yeah. 01:16:17.460 --> 01:16:20.980 Yeah, operating on three hours sleep. Yeah. 01:16:20.980 --> 01:16:29.620 right or less. Yeah. So, and when I took an antidepressant for the first time, it takes a while 01:16:29.620 --> 01:16:36.180 for this three or four weeks for them to actually kind of kick in. I was astounded. It didn't make 01:16:36.180 --> 01:16:45.140 me high. I just felt like I was myself and it really allowed me to, I could feel that it was 01:16:45.140 --> 01:16:52.580 sort of breaking my neuronal pathways out of these tracks they had been going down over and over and 01:16:52.580 --> 01:17:03.540 over again all those years. And it opened up my mind and my whole self to the possibility of further 01:17:03.540 --> 01:17:10.980 deepening. So there is such a thing as a biochemical imbalance and I think, you know, one way again to 01:17:11.700 --> 01:17:18.580 attuned to, is it right for me or not, is have I been sitting with something or opening to or 01:17:18.580 --> 01:17:22.980 working with something? And we all have to be really honest with ourselves. You know, 01:17:22.980 --> 01:17:26.740 when I'm working with it, am I really resisting it or avoiding it? Or am I really genuinely 01:17:26.740 --> 01:17:31.540 opening to this and just kind of going around and around and no transformation, no shift? 01:17:31.540 --> 01:17:38.900 In that case, it's likely a biochemical imbalance. And I'll add that, you know, research shows us in 01:17:38.900 --> 01:17:44.660 terms of antidepressants. When they're given to people who are depressed with a biochemical 01:17:44.660 --> 01:17:51.540 imbalance, those people improve, typically. When they're given to people that aren't depressed, 01:17:51.540 --> 01:17:55.620 nothing happens. It's not like they get high. They just experience the side effects of the 01:17:55.620 --> 01:18:00.340 medication, but they don't get high. So it's not like if you take certain kinds of medications, 01:18:00.340 --> 01:18:06.500 it's not like you're going to get a high and be able to run from something that needs to be 01:18:06.500 --> 01:18:13.780 experienced. Yeah, all right. I have a few questions on that. One is, do you, in most cases, 01:18:13.780 --> 01:18:22.020 does a person take such medications for a long, long time or continually, or do they just get 01:18:22.020 --> 01:18:26.740 you through a phase and then you can stop them again? That's question number one. Each person 01:18:26.740 --> 01:18:30.820 is different. I mean, of course, there's from the medical level, there's guidelines with that. If 01:18:30.820 --> 01:18:37.780 it's first episode of depression, it's best to be on, and research backs all this, it's best to be on 01:18:37.780 --> 01:18:43.300 the antidepressant for at least a year to try to kind of get those, you know, make sure you don't 01:18:43.300 --> 01:18:48.580 default back into those grooves. If you've had more than a couple episodes, it would be longer 01:18:48.580 --> 01:18:56.900 term. And it's different for each sort of mental health issue. Bipolar disorder typically needs 01:18:56.900 --> 01:19:03.800 medication long-term. That is truly a biochemical imbalance and schizophrenia 01:19:03.800 --> 01:19:09.500 or schizoaffective disorder. Now, there's all these caveats though. You know, there 01:19:09.500 --> 01:19:14.500 are people I know that I work with who, if another psychiatrist saw them, would 01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:18.780 chalk them up as psychotic, but they're having a spiritual opening. So, there's 01:19:18.780 --> 01:19:23.300 all these caveats, but there also is just true psychosis where the mind, there's an 01:19:23.300 --> 01:19:29.140 imbalance of chemicals and thank goodness we have medications that can help set that straight. 01:19:29.140 --> 01:19:35.060 Yeah, I have another question but before I forget, I'm going to send you a link to an 01:19:35.060 --> 01:19:40.100 organization that contacted me recently that includes Daniel Ingram and a bunch of other 01:19:40.100 --> 01:19:47.260 people that I've interviewed and they are, he's a doctor, and there's them and then there's 01:19:47.260 --> 01:19:55.140 also Cheetah House with Willoughby, Britain, which deals with people who've had psychotic 01:19:55.140 --> 01:19:59.020 or other such episodes as a result of spiritual practice. 01:19:59.020 --> 01:20:04.860 But this first group, I forget the name of it, is recognizing that there is a kind of 01:20:04.860 --> 01:20:09.700 an epidemic of spiritual awakening taking place and they're trying to raise awareness 01:20:09.700 --> 01:20:13.780 of that so that it's not misdiagnosed. 01:20:13.780 --> 01:20:18.680 And so that, I mean, because I've been contacted by people who themselves, they don't feel 01:20:18.680 --> 01:20:21.520 like they're mentally ill, but they feel like there's something powerful going on. 01:20:21.520 --> 01:20:25.080 They don't know what it is, and they think there might be something wrong with them. 01:20:25.080 --> 01:20:27.440 And a little bit of reassurance might be all they need. 01:20:27.440 --> 01:20:28.440 Yes. 01:20:28.440 --> 01:20:29.440 You know? 01:20:29.440 --> 01:20:30.440 Yes. 01:20:30.440 --> 01:20:33.040 But other people get destabilized by such things and might need some medications. 01:20:33.040 --> 01:20:34.040 Yes. 01:20:34.040 --> 01:20:40.400 And I can speak from my own experience as well about just having these sort of kind of wild 01:20:40.400 --> 01:20:41.400 experiences. 01:20:41.400 --> 01:20:48.260 After I went on my first go anchor the pasana retreat which many of you may know or quite intense and a lot of people get 01:20:48.260 --> 01:20:50.960 cracked open with those I 01:20:50.960 --> 01:20:54.940 Returned to medical school after taking a break from that school 01:20:54.940 --> 01:21:02.040 And I would find myself in all kinds of states something cracked wide open where there was no me there was there was no ability to 01:21:02.040 --> 01:21:04.060 differentiate 01:21:04.060 --> 01:21:06.980 Objects suddenly I'd be in somebody else's body 01:21:06.980 --> 01:21:10.340 You're seeing or as I remember or as 01:21:11.020 --> 01:21:15.780 You know, I don't even know that my mind believes in past lives. I don't care 01:21:15.780 --> 01:21:19.860 whether they exist or not, to tell you the truth, but I remember one 01:21:19.860 --> 01:21:25.220 time clearly walking behind a woman and just all of her past lives just flipping 01:21:25.220 --> 01:21:32.060 through. So all these experiences that can happen when we're cracked open and I, 01:21:32.060 --> 01:21:36.300 thank goodness, knew that I wasn't psychotic. I knew this was some kind of 01:21:36.300 --> 01:21:43.340 opening and nature would have it or the universe or whatever we want to call it that I got somehow 01:21:43.340 --> 01:21:51.260 linked up with a psychiatrist that was open to this, which is extremely rare. So, I got support. 01:21:51.260 --> 01:21:51.900 Pete: Yeah. 01:21:51.900 --> 01:21:55.740 Mary: Which back in those days was hard to come by. There wasn't the internet or anything like that. 01:21:55.740 --> 01:22:00.620 Pete: And I remember you saying that some guy who gave you a ride home from that retreat, 01:22:00.620 --> 01:22:03.660 if it was that same retreat, was really bonkers after. 01:22:03.660 --> 01:22:05.020 >> Yes. >> Yeah. 01:22:05.020 --> 01:22:10.700 >> He was, and he was giving me a ride to the airport from the retreat and he was just weeping. 01:22:10.700 --> 01:22:15.180 I mean, I was concerned for our safety in that car because he was weeping so profoundly while 01:22:15.180 --> 01:22:22.300 he was driving. It had opened up a memory of old sexual trauma that he had not had access to. 01:22:22.300 --> 01:22:26.940 And, you know, Goenka retreats, at least when I used to go to them, 01:22:26.940 --> 01:22:33.340 they're very Eastern and not supportive of sort of our Western sort of psychological understanding. 01:22:33.340 --> 01:22:37.040 And so, it's just technique, technique. 01:22:37.040 --> 01:22:42.140 Other places, like, the reason I ended up shifting over more to Spirit Rock was because they did 01:22:42.140 --> 01:22:47.340 have – they held the space for these types of things as well, the emotional, the psychological. 01:22:47.340 --> 01:22:48.340 Yeah. 01:22:48.340 --> 01:22:54.460 Okay, so that brings up an interesting point, which is the whole point of the necessity 01:22:54.460 --> 01:23:00.900 of proper support and care and caution in an intensive meditation retreat. 01:23:00.900 --> 01:23:05.780 speaking I wouldn't advise throwing newbies into a 10-hour-a-day meditation routine or 01:23:05.780 --> 01:23:12.500 whatever the routine is. It's just too much too soon, too fast. And I know there have 01:23:12.500 --> 01:23:18.260 been many casualties from such things. And then, second question I have, unless you want 01:23:18.260 --> 01:23:20.300 to comment on that. 01:23:20.300 --> 01:23:26.540 I think in general I would agree. In my case, I had tried meditating, you know, like an 01:23:26.540 --> 01:23:32.220 hour here or there or whatever and I had such a monkey mind and you know I couldn't get anywhere 01:23:32.220 --> 01:23:38.380 with it and I and my nature too is to dive in all the way so I just was like I'm going all the way 01:23:38.380 --> 01:23:45.500 with this 10-day retreat and so yeah but it was precarious it was very precarious and you know 01:23:45.500 --> 01:23:51.740 if you can imagine going through the intensity of medical school while experiencing these states you 01:23:51.740 --> 01:23:54.740 you know, where I didn't know time or space, didn't know, I'm here, 01:23:54.740 --> 01:23:57.540 I am supposed to be asking patients, what's the date. 01:23:57.540 --> 01:24:00.820 I don't even know the year, the nothing, what a date is, you know? 01:24:00.820 --> 01:24:04.900 So just, and then juggling all the left brain stuff, 01:24:04.900 --> 01:24:09.580 having to study and you know, all night and this and that. 01:24:09.580 --> 01:24:12.420 And it was very intense, but in retrospect, 01:24:12.420 --> 01:24:17.260 my sense is that the intensity of medical school kept me 01:24:17.260 --> 01:24:21.700 grounded world and kind of balance that out. But boy, 01:24:21.700 --> 01:24:28.180 "Oh, it was a pressure cooker." I can imagine. Yeah. Another question I had is, you know, 01:24:28.180 --> 01:24:38.020 let's say that there existed facilities where people could go if they were depressed or having, 01:24:38.020 --> 01:24:42.340 you know, difficulties, but they were also a spiritual seeker. And like, you know, five minutes 01:24:42.340 --> 01:24:50.580 ago, you're talking about the value of medications as a supplement to spiritual practice or whatever 01:24:50.580 --> 01:25:00.900 to help get you through rough periods. Do you think that under such care, medication could be 01:25:00.900 --> 01:25:08.980 forgone and that there could be actual spiritual practices or some kind of methodologies to kind 01:25:08.980 --> 01:25:14.740 of get you through depression or these other difficulties without chemical aids? Or do you 01:25:14.740 --> 01:25:23.620 think that even there, medications would be an important part of the protocol? 01:25:23.620 --> 01:25:27.180 It depends on the person. 01:25:27.180 --> 01:25:35.860 If the depression is deeply ingrained in the nervous system, then medication can be a real 01:25:35.860 --> 01:25:39.140 support for further deepening. 01:25:39.140 --> 01:25:41.100 It's not a bad thing. 01:25:41.100 --> 01:25:50.860 it's not like we need to try to avoid it at all costs. But there are many people who shift, 01:25:50.860 --> 01:25:55.660 that energy shifts with meditation or even just with therapy, just sort of addressing 01:25:55.660 --> 01:26:02.060 the psychological aspects. So I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about it. I think 01:26:02.060 --> 01:26:08.220 each person is unique in their biochemistry and their genetic predisposition and their 01:26:08.220 --> 01:26:10.300 history of trauma, all of that. 01:26:10.300 --> 01:26:16.060 Yeah, I guess a related question is, do you think that doing, obviously we want to change 01:26:16.060 --> 01:26:22.900 the biochemistry or we want to change whatever is going on in the brain that is causing depression, 01:26:22.900 --> 01:26:26.980 change it to a healthy state where we no longer have the depression. 01:26:26.980 --> 01:26:30.260 Spiritual practices I think can do that, they do change the brain, there's been a lot of 01:26:30.260 --> 01:26:35.900 research on that, but can medication also do that so that if you take it for a while 01:26:35.900 --> 01:26:43.400 it resets the biochemistry and you can taper off the medication, but you will have a different 01:26:43.400 --> 01:26:45.220 brain chemistry going forward. 01:26:45.220 --> 01:26:47.220 I think that would be a great study. 01:26:47.220 --> 01:26:48.220 Yeah. 01:26:48.220 --> 01:26:50.620 Just to see. 01:26:50.620 --> 01:26:57.600 What we do know from research in general, but this is without necessarily somebody utilizing 01:26:57.600 --> 01:27:02.540 spiritual practices, is that if someone goes off of medication too soon, they typically 01:27:02.540 --> 01:27:03.980 get depressed again. 01:27:03.980 --> 01:27:09.380 But as you're saying, if there were these extra supports in place that were actually transforming 01:27:09.380 --> 01:27:16.900 the biochemistry or the neurobiology, I can't see why not for some people, depending on, 01:27:16.900 --> 01:27:19.260 again, how deeply ingrained this is. 01:27:19.260 --> 01:27:20.260 Yeah. 01:27:20.260 --> 01:27:23.780 I mean, there's all kinds of different methodologies out there. 01:27:23.780 --> 01:27:29.860 You know, there's bionaural beat, or whatever they're called, and there's Ayurveda, and 01:27:29.860 --> 01:27:31.180 there's a million different things. 01:27:31.180 --> 01:27:38.380 you can imagine something that would just sort of be able to custom tailor a protocol for each 01:27:38.380 --> 01:27:44.700 individual, you know, using whichever of these methodologies would be helpful. It would be really 01:27:44.700 --> 01:27:51.340 cool. Yes, polytrophic breathwork. Yeah, there you go. Even recently, some studies a friend of mine 01:27:51.340 --> 01:28:00.780 spearheaded using MDMA to treat PTSD, like what we call the lingo we use is sort of treatment-resistant 01:28:00.780 --> 01:28:06.220 PTSD that everything else had been tried, medication, therapy, everything. And not just 01:28:06.220 --> 01:28:13.020 throwing MDMA at them and off you go, but in a somewhat of a breathwork type session, 01:28:13.020 --> 01:28:21.260 holotropic breathwork type session, significant improvement in the depression with one or two, 01:28:21.260 --> 01:28:25.980 I don't know what the protocol was, but it was a limited number of sessions. And it was long term 01:28:27.900 --> 01:28:33.500 with these studies. So, to your point, I mean, that wasn't, they're not on medication long-term. 01:28:33.500 --> 01:28:42.060 It's not depression, it's PTSD, but the symptoms shifted dramatically with those interventions. 01:28:42.060 --> 01:28:47.820 Yeah, you're probably well aware of the research at Johns Hopkins and places like that where 01:28:47.820 --> 01:28:54.700 stage 4 cancer patients who are terrified of death, you know, have the most profound experience 01:28:54.700 --> 01:28:59.340 of their lives on psilocybin or something, they're not afraid of death anymore, or alcoholics, or 01:28:59.340 --> 01:29:05.100 whatever, you know, just lose the desire. And, you know, so, yeah, all this stuff is valuable and 01:29:05.100 --> 01:29:10.780 needs to be better understood and studied. And while we're still on this topic, I just want to 01:29:10.780 --> 01:29:17.100 mention Ajah Shanti announced when he retired that he had, you know, been through a lot of traumatic 01:29:17.100 --> 01:29:24.140 experiences, particularly regarding from his health situation, I think a lot of pain, and that 01:29:24.140 --> 01:29:30.060 that he was actually taking some anti-anxiety medication to help him through that phase, 01:29:30.060 --> 01:29:33.780 which is one thing I always liked about Ajay is he just tells you the truth. 01:29:33.780 --> 01:29:37.980 And, you know, that could be very helpful to people that someone, a role model like 01:29:37.980 --> 01:29:40.420 him would admit to doing that. 01:29:40.420 --> 01:29:41.420 Yes, absolutely. 01:29:41.420 --> 01:29:42.420 Yeah. 01:29:42.420 --> 01:29:43.420 Yeah. 01:29:43.420 --> 01:29:44.860 All right, a question came in. 01:29:44.860 --> 01:29:47.100 I mean, there it is. 01:29:47.100 --> 01:29:49.820 This is from Corin Turgaman in Israel. 01:29:49.820 --> 01:29:56.880 I'm going through Kundalini awakening the past last five years and also diagnosed with ADD. 01:29:56.880 --> 01:29:57.880 Attention deficit disorder? 01:29:57.880 --> 01:29:58.880 That's ADD. 01:29:58.880 --> 01:29:59.880 All right. 01:29:59.880 --> 01:30:03.260 I'm currently first year of academic studies and I wonder if I should take medication for 01:30:03.260 --> 01:30:04.880 ADD like Ritalin. 01:30:04.880 --> 01:30:09.060 I don't know how it may affect the energetic phenomena of Kundalini. 01:30:09.060 --> 01:30:10.060 Good question. 01:30:10.060 --> 01:30:12.060 Thanks for sending it in, Corinne. 01:30:12.060 --> 01:30:15.700 Wow, that's a really good question. 01:30:15.700 --> 01:30:21.020 you know, I guess I don't feel real comfortable giving medication advice 01:30:21.020 --> 01:30:26.420 without being able to talk to you a little bit more, Corin, but there are 01:30:26.420 --> 01:30:30.940 different medications for ADD. There are the stimulants, they're sort of 01:30:30.940 --> 01:30:35.340 more potent, like you mentioned Ritalin, Adderall, but there's a few that are 01:30:35.340 --> 01:30:42.300 gentler and are not stimulants, including Stratera is one of them, one of the 01:30:42.300 --> 01:30:48.780 oldies but goodies. So I would, you know, I would just tune into having 01:30:48.780 --> 01:30:54.140 compassion for yourself. If you're going into this academic setting and 01:30:54.140 --> 01:30:58.620 experiencing this kundalini energy at the same time, that's 01:30:58.620 --> 01:31:05.500 really intense. If you feel it's best for you to try to navigate that without 01:31:05.500 --> 01:31:10.540 medication, then go for it. But if you start feeling like it's just too intense 01:31:10.540 --> 01:31:17.020 or you need extra support with the ADD just so that the academics aren't 01:31:17.020 --> 01:31:21.980 terribly problematic, then you might want to try medication. It doesn't mean you 01:31:21.980 --> 01:31:28.820 have to take it forever. And I don't know, I'm not knowledgeable enough to know 01:31:28.820 --> 01:31:35.780 whether medication interrupts Kundalini. In my experience, when I took medication, 01:31:35.780 --> 01:31:44.060 my spiritual, for depression, so ADD, different thing, my spiritual journey 01:31:44.060 --> 01:31:50.180 deepened as a direct result of being able to sort of get off the train tracks 01:31:50.180 --> 01:31:57.300 of these loops that my mind was taking. So I wish I could be more specific. I 01:31:57.300 --> 01:32:04.740 don't know if ADHD medication would interrupt the Kundalini process. I don't 01:32:04.740 --> 01:32:10.680 think it would, but I don't know that for sure. Okay. Would you be open to having 01:32:10.680 --> 01:32:15.660 paid sessions with people like that around the world who, you know, would like 01:32:15.660 --> 01:32:20.540 to speak to a psychiatrist who has a spiritual orientation? And I don't know 01:32:20.540 --> 01:32:24.700 what the legalities of that would be or anything, but are you maxed out and 01:32:24.700 --> 01:32:30.660 wouldn't really be interested? No, it's, right now life is sort of shifting in a different 01:32:30.660 --> 01:32:36.780 direction with the book out and stuff. So I'm opening to different, you know, 01:32:36.780 --> 01:32:40.860 different work in the world, if you will, or different ways of being in the world. 01:32:40.860 --> 01:32:48.500 I am limited, unfortunately, because of the MD. I'm only able to work with 01:32:48.500 --> 01:32:52.860 individuals who reside in the states that I'm licensed in, which is South 01:32:52.860 --> 01:32:58.740 Carolina and California, and I'm not yet set up to do that right now. But I am 01:32:58.740 --> 01:33:05.300 opening to that and certainly groups. I've just started working with some groups, 01:33:05.300 --> 01:33:09.300 so that would be another possibility where we could engage in a conversation like that. 01:33:09.300 --> 01:33:16.420 I've interviewed some psychologists. They're not named them. I don't want to get them in trouble, 01:33:16.420 --> 01:33:22.500 but they do online sessions with people all over the place. How do they do that? Are they 01:33:22.500 --> 01:33:25.700 breaking the law? I mean, you mentioned psychologists. 01:33:25.700 --> 01:33:32.500 that's different than a psychiatrist. I see. Unfortunately, the MD is limiting in terms of 01:33:32.500 --> 01:33:38.980 who we can see. You've got too much education. I guess. I don't know. I mean, the mentality, 01:33:38.980 --> 01:33:46.980 I guess, behind these laws is that if there's a bad outcome and a patient needs or wants to sue, 01:33:46.980 --> 01:33:53.460 they can't really sue us in a place where we're not licensed. I don't know. So. Okay. Okay, good. 01:33:54.740 --> 01:33:58.180 So, what else? I've got a list of points here. What pops into your mind? 01:33:58.180 --> 01:34:04.820 Well, sort of the medical world or autism or whichever. 01:34:04.820 --> 01:34:08.660 Oh yeah, we haven't talked about your daughter yet. Let's talk about that. 01:34:08.660 --> 01:34:12.100 So, tell us about your daughter. 01:34:12.100 --> 01:34:22.180 Well, my daughter, her name is Saachi. She's 15 years old and she was diagnosed really young 01:34:22.180 --> 01:34:29.620 at 16 months of age with autism. And I'll just give a little background so you all can 01:34:29.620 --> 01:34:38.180 kind of understand how I came to my sense of her. I always sensed that she was this 01:34:38.180 --> 01:34:44.820 exquisitely sensitive being and it certainly manifested physically for her. She, you know, 01:34:44.820 --> 01:34:49.860 was exquisitely sensitive to sounds and lights and just from the time she was born, screaming and 01:34:49.860 --> 01:34:55.620 when we would go into a grocery store sensitive to other people just crying and not able to sleep just 01:34:55.620 --> 01:35:07.220 real sensitive to sensory input. And when she was diagnosed, I fully bought into the traditional 01:35:07.220 --> 01:35:14.580 medical disease paradigm. Nothing wrong with it, but that was I was very limited in how I saw it 01:35:15.140 --> 01:35:21.780 out of fear. It triggered a lot of fear in me, and I would say the couple of fears were, 01:35:21.780 --> 01:35:30.500 I'm a single mom and her biological father is an anonymous sperm donor, so it's not like there's 01:35:30.500 --> 01:35:35.700 another person in the picture, or and she doesn't have any siblings. So one fear is like, who's going 01:35:35.700 --> 01:35:41.780 to be there for her when I'm gone? So it triggered that, if she's not able to be fully independent. 01:35:43.140 --> 01:35:49.540 And then the other fear that it triggered was, "Will she be able to love or be loved?" because 01:35:49.540 --> 01:35:57.940 the core symptom from the medical paradigm of autism is lack of sort of social-emotional 01:35:57.940 --> 01:36:03.540 connection. Now, that's actually false. It looks that way, but it's quite the opposite. 01:36:03.540 --> 01:36:11.380 These beings are so deeply connected, there's very little or no separation. But at any rate, 01:36:11.380 --> 01:36:17.940 I got thrown into the fear mode with the diagnosis and threw myself into therapies and all kinds of interventions 01:36:17.940 --> 01:36:24.000 And it still pains me to say to try to help her be more normal 01:36:24.000 --> 01:36:32.460 So that she could function in this world so that she could love and be loved. That was always my motivation and 01:36:32.460 --> 01:36:40.460 Over time it was like there would be these the curtains would part and I would see these 01:36:40.460 --> 01:36:45.840 different aspects of her, you know, the fear would blind me to it but then it 01:36:45.840 --> 01:36:52.020 just would come through like she just was, she would speak my thoughts and I kept 01:36:52.020 --> 01:36:55.180 denying it and saying, "I must have said that, you know, but finally, okay she's 01:36:55.180 --> 01:37:00.140 really saying it. I did not say that, I just thought that." And she, you know, she 01:37:00.140 --> 01:37:08.140 was fully aware and would feel whoever came in the house, their emotions and 01:37:08.140 --> 01:37:14.620 and just psychic. I mean, I can, I'll tell one story real quickly. We went to see 01:37:14.620 --> 01:37:21.100 Shamdas chant. He came to Charleston and we both love chanting and we had never heard of him or 01:37:21.100 --> 01:37:25.500 seen him before, but we went and we both enjoyed it. She was probably three or four at the time. 01:37:25.500 --> 01:37:30.860 Came home, went on with our lives, didn't mention it again, but about a year later, 01:37:31.820 --> 01:37:37.900 She couldn't talk yet, but she could try to formulate words. She started saying, "Shut up, 01:37:37.900 --> 01:37:43.580 shut up, shut up," and I couldn't understand her. And she kept saying it over and over and over 01:37:43.580 --> 01:37:48.700 again. And this went on many times a day to the point where I was getting so frustrated with it, 01:37:48.700 --> 01:37:52.060 I didn't know what she was saying. I was trying to understand, you know, tried everything to get 01:37:52.060 --> 01:37:56.140 her to not say it, you name it. I told the therapists about it, they were involved, 01:37:56.140 --> 01:38:01.340 everybody involved in trying to get this thing to go away. Well, it didn't work. And then finally, 01:38:01.340 --> 01:38:05.100 one day I understood what she was saying. She was saying Shambhas and I said, "Well, 01:38:05.100 --> 01:38:15.260 Sachi, he's back in India. We can't go see him now." And she kept on. And so I thought, "Okay, 01:38:15.260 --> 01:38:20.620 I'll just look and see maybe he's somewhere in the United States and I'll just take her to get this 01:38:20.620 --> 01:38:26.140 over with. I'll take her wherever." And so I looked it up and she'd been doing this for about a month, 01:38:26.140 --> 01:38:32.620 literally a month before he had died. And so, you know, she had received that somehow. 01:38:32.620 --> 01:38:34.620 Pete: Yeah, like in a motorcycle accident, right? 01:38:34.620 --> 01:38:41.900 Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, you know. And so, once I understood and we went down into the yard and 01:38:41.900 --> 01:38:47.020 got a flower and brought it and I said, "Oh, I get it now." You know, after we, you know, 01:38:47.020 --> 01:38:53.180 sort of were with that, she didn't say it anymore. So, that's just one example of just this openness 01:38:53.180 --> 01:38:58.620 where you know this energy and this accessibility is the wrong word it's 01:38:58.620 --> 01:39:06.540 just this porousness to energy, information, all of that. And so my 01:39:06.540 --> 01:39:12.700 paradigm or my way of thinking about autism expanded or deepened. I think 01:39:12.700 --> 01:39:17.060 there's there is value in the medical disease paradigm because we identify 01:39:17.060 --> 01:39:22.060 what we call symptoms but by the way the symptoms are a manifestation of this 01:39:22.060 --> 01:39:28.780 deeper openness, porousness, sensitivity. I have friends on the spectrum and I'll 01:39:28.780 --> 01:39:35.540 give you one example, a direct example of how a symptom can be a manifestation of 01:39:35.540 --> 01:39:40.780 this deeper sensitivity. So my friend Tony tells me one of the core symptoms again 01:39:40.780 --> 01:39:44.320 of autism is lack of eye contact, that's what we call it. My friend 01:39:44.320 --> 01:39:49.820 Tony tells me she can't look people in the eye because she sees their whole 01:39:49.820 --> 01:39:53.780 soul, their whole being, and it's just too much for her. So she's found a way to 01:39:53.780 --> 01:39:58.540 compensate. She looks people on the forehead. So people that can verbalize 01:39:58.540 --> 01:40:04.380 this openness or this, she doesn't call it openness, but I do, you know, they're able 01:40:04.380 --> 01:40:09.580 to speak to that, but most of these beings cannot. And my experience of my 01:40:09.580 --> 01:40:15.460 daughter and the patients that I work with who are on the spectrum and just in 01:40:15.460 --> 01:40:20.580 general neurodiverse people who don't fall on the normal curve and we can call 01:40:20.580 --> 01:40:25.900 them brain disordered, no problem, that's sort of the medical paradigm. We can do 01:40:25.900 --> 01:40:29.540 that from this sort of neurotypical or underneath the normal curve because 01:40:29.540 --> 01:40:35.380 there's more of us, but watch out because more of these beings are coming into the 01:40:35.380 --> 01:40:44.540 world and that normal curve is going to get broader and broader. So anyways, this 01:40:44.540 --> 01:40:49.860 is what I recognize about my daughter and other beings on the spectrum is that there's this 01:40:49.860 --> 01:40:58.780 profound openness and porousness. And so she is a perfect mirror for me because she is so 01:40:58.780 --> 01:41:06.100 pure and innocent and open. That doesn't mean she's not a kid. She's a teenager and we are 01:41:06.100 --> 01:41:11.340 really going through it with the teenage years. You know, I get hollered at and all the other 01:41:11.340 --> 01:41:18.620 good stuff. But that's my deeper understanding and recognition of these beings. And so, I 01:41:18.620 --> 01:41:23.540 founded this non-profit Living Darshan to help sort of usher in this deeper understanding 01:41:23.540 --> 01:41:24.940 of these beings. Yeah. 01:41:24.940 --> 01:41:30.700 Nice. I'll link to that from your Batgap page. I want to ask you about some of the spiritual 01:41:30.700 --> 01:41:36.580 implications, but first I just wanted to ask you as a doctor, what you make of the allegation 01:41:36.580 --> 01:41:42.660 that vaccines cause autism. There was that study by Andrew Wakefield that was published in The 01:41:42.660 --> 01:41:50.580 Lancet and was later retracted due to ethical concerns and fraudulent data. But the conspiracy 01:41:50.580 --> 01:41:58.180 theory, if you want to call it that, lingers. Yeah, it is a polarizing issue. I am in the 01:41:58.180 --> 01:42:08.820 medical field and I value research studies and the left brain and research has not shown that vaccines 01:42:08.820 --> 01:42:16.260 cause autism. Having said that, I have a couple of friends who are mothers and who say that right 01:42:16.260 --> 01:42:21.060 after their child got a vaccine, it was sort of, you know, there's two types of autism, the 01:42:21.060 --> 01:42:29.060 progressive and regressive that the regression developed. But there have been many studies 01:42:29.060 --> 01:42:34.420 done now that don't show the correlation. Now, as you know, there's a difference between 01:42:34.420 --> 01:42:40.260 correlation and causation. I mean, you know, something, you know, people have heart attacks 01:42:40.260 --> 01:42:44.340 all the time and sometimes after getting a COVID vaccine, somebody has a heart attack. 01:42:44.340 --> 01:42:48.980 Now, was it caused by the COVID vaccine or, you know, were they just due to have one? 01:42:49.540 --> 01:42:56.420 Yeah, yeah. Now there might be other factors involved, like my daughter has a genetic issue, 01:42:56.420 --> 01:43:04.820 and so along with that is the autism, but also immunosuppression, and so she can't get live 01:43:04.820 --> 01:43:16.020 vaccines. You know, so there may be other factors involved that sort of affect vaccines, but that's 01:43:16.020 --> 01:43:22.660 my medical take on it. And again, I acknowledge my medical left brain bias with that, but you know. 01:43:22.660 --> 01:43:27.540 Yeah, well I didn't want to spend a lot of time on that, but I just wanted to see what you thought. 01:43:27.540 --> 01:43:31.620 Um, yeah, so this is interesting. So you say there are more of these kids coming in. 01:43:31.620 --> 01:43:37.700 Is that a statistical fact? You know, some people are still trying to chalk it up as, 01:43:37.700 --> 01:43:40.900 "Oh, it's just being diagnosed now." But I can tell you that several years ago, 01:43:40.900 --> 01:43:46.740 I remember when it was 1 in 96 children or 90-something children, at least it was 1 in 88. 01:43:46.740 --> 01:43:56.420 Now it's 1 in 36. This is not just because it's being recognized. This is, you know, 01:43:56.420 --> 01:44:02.900 more and more beings that are on the spectrum and also just the term now that people are using to 01:44:02.900 --> 01:44:08.180 broaden that out is neurodiverse, like people who think differently, who process things differently 01:44:09.380 --> 01:44:14.980 are coming in, there's no doubt. And I have a friend who's really into human design, which I 01:44:14.980 --> 01:44:21.220 don't know a whole lot about, but he tells me that the guy who started that way back in the 70s or 01:44:21.220 --> 01:44:28.580 early 80s foresaw that these beings, he didn't call it autism then, would be coming in. And I 01:44:28.580 --> 01:44:33.620 have another friend who's very psychic and communicates with non-verbal people on the 01:44:33.620 --> 01:44:43.100 the spectrum and verbal, but you know, they tell her they're here to shift the consciousness, 01:44:43.100 --> 01:44:45.420 human collective consciousness. 01:44:45.420 --> 01:44:53.180 And as we touched on yesterday, Rick, the symptoms make sense if we think in terms of 01:44:53.180 --> 01:45:01.580 these exquisitely sensitive beings who are vibrating at a frequency that's much faster. 01:45:01.580 --> 01:45:05.980 not, you know, it's not, none of this is better or worse. I'm not saying that, but they're vibrating 01:45:05.980 --> 01:45:11.500 at a higher for an over, but it just, they just can't learn it on this planet. So, they come in, 01:45:11.500 --> 01:45:20.380 in these bodies, in this kind of grosser realm. And of course, it's hard to function. Of course, 01:45:20.380 --> 01:45:26.300 it's like, and it really is like they're coming from another realm. I mean, my daughter, I mean, 01:45:26.300 --> 01:45:30.460 there's so many things like they don't understand social etiquette. And I mean, you can teach it 01:45:30.460 --> 01:45:37.900 over and over, but they just can't learn it. And my daughter too, like, I'll just share this. 01:45:37.900 --> 01:45:42.620 You know, she just doesn't understand the need for clothing. And you know, we all didn't 01:45:42.620 --> 01:45:48.620 understand the need for clothing. Like, you know, she runs around naked and doesn't understand that 01:45:48.620 --> 01:45:55.980 when there's people here, we need to keep our clothes on. And so, you know, the way I try to 01:45:55.980 --> 01:46:01.420 explain it to her is, well, we live in a culture, a society, where, you know, there's certain rules 01:46:01.420 --> 01:46:08.860 and we kind of have to live by them. So, my job, one of my jobs as her mom, is to help her learn 01:46:08.860 --> 01:46:15.900 how to live in this realm. But on, so it's not like I'm changing necessarily what I did when I 01:46:15.900 --> 01:46:22.620 was driven by fear, right? Because I'm still supporting her towards independence. But what 01:46:22.620 --> 01:46:28.780 she is doing her role here, even though she's not verbalizing it, and others on the spectrum, 01:46:28.780 --> 01:46:36.060 this is my take, you know, it's a paradigm, I get that, but is that they are here to shift 01:46:36.060 --> 01:46:44.700 the collective energy of the planet. And I'm open to anything, you know, 01:46:46.780 --> 01:46:55.500 critique of that perspective as well. When I felt, when the sort of the download for the vision of 01:46:55.500 --> 01:47:02.700 Living Darshan, the non-profit, came through, I did, I really searched deeply, like, is this just 01:47:02.700 --> 01:47:09.660 like a compensation for grief about her condition? Like, am I just trying to make her and others on 01:47:09.660 --> 01:47:18.700 the spectrum into some kind of, you know, special being or yes, special. And I really searched that, 01:47:18.700 --> 01:47:23.020 I'm not finding that anywhere because I'm really, well, I didn't find that anywhere, 01:47:23.020 --> 01:47:30.380 any need for her to be special in that way. And also, I don't feel attached to that being the 01:47:30.380 --> 01:47:36.460 reality, you know, so anyways, it can be an ongoing reflection, but yeah, that is interesting. 01:47:37.820 --> 01:47:44.300 I'm totally open to the idea that there could be groups of souls that come in and that we 01:47:44.300 --> 01:47:49.340 move from dimension to dimension, soul families or whatever. 01:47:49.340 --> 01:47:56.020 And I'm also very open to the idea that there are other realms or lokas as they're called 01:47:56.020 --> 01:48:01.300 in Sanskrit where life is very different than it is here. 01:48:01.300 --> 01:48:06.940 And they're not necessarily on some planet someplace, but just in other dimensions. 01:48:06.940 --> 01:48:12.340 And that we move from dimension to dimension as we go through various lifetimes. 01:48:12.340 --> 01:48:13.340 Uh-huh. 01:48:13.340 --> 01:48:14.340 Yeah. 01:48:14.340 --> 01:48:19.580 Anyway, it doesn't matter what I believe, but anyway, I do. 01:48:19.580 --> 01:48:20.900 A couple more questions came in. 01:48:20.900 --> 01:48:21.900 Let's see. 01:48:21.900 --> 01:48:29.580 Okay, since we're on the topic of autism, this is from Bhavani Kondamundi in California. 01:48:29.580 --> 01:48:31.460 I would like to know your thoughts on autism. 01:48:31.460 --> 01:48:36.240 We've already expressed some, but she has a 17-year-old son on the autism spectrum who 01:48:36.240 --> 01:48:42.800 has speech delays to no speech, but he uses vocalizations of sounds. He seems very free-spirited 01:48:42.800 --> 01:48:47.200 without wanting to take any responsibilities like typical people and seems very present 01:48:47.200 --> 01:48:54.520 in the moment. Loves nature, music, hikes. Any advice for me to work with my son? 01:48:54.520 --> 01:49:02.160 You know, those of us who are parents of folks on the spectrum, we really chose what I would 01:49:02.160 --> 01:49:06.480 like to call like an advanced curriculum of the soul. 01:49:06.480 --> 01:49:07.480 Pete: Yeah. 01:49:07.480 --> 01:49:08.480 [Laughter] 01:49:08.480 --> 01:49:14.160 Katie: Because it's intense and I mean, what you're describing is this freedom of spirit 01:49:14.160 --> 01:49:27.040 that he is and this inability to sort of fit into our world the way, into this realm the 01:49:27.040 --> 01:49:32.880 way we would sort of expect someone to. 01:49:32.880 --> 01:49:36.200 What I do, and I think you said her name is Bhavani? 01:49:36.200 --> 01:49:37.200 Bhavani, right. 01:49:37.200 --> 01:49:38.200 Yeah. 01:49:38.200 --> 01:49:39.200 Yeah. 01:49:39.200 --> 01:49:45.480 What I do, Bhavani, is I recognize my role in supporting Saatchi in learning how to be 01:49:45.480 --> 01:49:46.480 in the world. 01:49:46.480 --> 01:49:47.480 And I do that. 01:49:47.480 --> 01:49:55.680 And it's a lot of work, and it's hard, because it takes a million times more teaching, and 01:49:55.680 --> 01:50:00.320 just don't come naturally to these beings that would come to others. So it's hard. 01:50:00.320 --> 01:50:07.240 But I just keep doing that. In truth, my... well, I'm not going to say that. But I 01:50:07.240 --> 01:50:13.600 just keep doing that in my role as her mother. At the same time, realizing and 01:50:13.600 --> 01:50:21.080 recognizing this depth of her being. And that recognition, that really seeing her, 01:50:21.080 --> 01:50:26.720 allows her to bloom even more. I don't know how to, I don't really know how to 01:50:26.720 --> 01:50:32.120 put that into words, but I can see her her spirit expanding. Yes, we want... 01:50:32.120 --> 01:50:35.000 That's what you were saying in the beginning. You were saying people have this need to be seen. 01:50:35.000 --> 01:50:40.440 Yes, it's universal, you know, it's universal. So when I recognize that in her and 01:50:40.440 --> 01:50:44.880 mirror that back to her, not necessarily through my words, but just the awareness 01:50:44.880 --> 01:50:50.720 of it gets transmitted, our recognition of who they are, just like when we're with 01:50:50.720 --> 01:50:55.440 anybody. It's just kind of everything's amped up, you know, exponentially with 01:50:55.440 --> 01:50:59.140 folks on the spectrum because the intensity of their energy, because, you 01:50:59.140 --> 01:51:07.600 know, but keeping, maybe just really keeping in mind and recognizing with 01:51:07.600 --> 01:51:15.600 your heart your son's beauty and that while we want our kids to function in 01:51:15.600 --> 01:51:22.880 this world, there's a greater, there's a deeper intention for, I've realized, for my daughter. 01:51:22.880 --> 01:51:28.920 She has her purpose in this world and what we're trying to do by making them more functional 01:51:28.920 --> 01:51:34.920 in the world is sort of superficial. It's necessary, but it's on the surface. It's necessary 01:51:34.920 --> 01:51:41.740 and intense and hard, but holding the space for this deeper understanding, even as you're 01:51:41.740 --> 01:51:45.360 working with your son, and I'm sure it's frustrating. He's not taking responsibility. You know, 01:51:45.360 --> 01:51:50.560 want him to be independent. So allowing for that too and then everything my 01:51:50.560 --> 01:51:55.680 daughter brings up in me is a doorway, an opportunity. I don't always take the 01:51:55.680 --> 01:51:59.600 doorway, but it always, whenever we're given an opportunity in life, 01:51:59.600 --> 01:52:03.080 whether it's with our autistic kids or otherwise, you know, if we don't, if 01:52:03.080 --> 01:52:07.760 there's a doorway, something that arises in me that's uncomfortable or creates 01:52:07.760 --> 01:52:12.880 suffering in me and I don't open it and go through that, guaranteed it's gonna 01:52:12.880 --> 01:52:18.680 come up and bite me in the bottom later in a bigger way, because life is going to have 01:52:18.680 --> 01:52:23.520 us walk through these doors ultimately and open to these aspects that are hard to be 01:52:23.520 --> 01:52:24.520 with. 01:52:24.520 --> 01:52:25.760 So I got off on a tangent there. 01:52:25.760 --> 01:52:27.440 That was a good tangent. 01:52:27.440 --> 01:52:31.520 Yeah, but Bhavani, you know, my heart is with you. 01:52:31.520 --> 01:52:32.520 It's hard. 01:52:32.520 --> 01:52:33.760 It's really hard. 01:52:33.760 --> 01:52:37.120 And there's no solution. 01:52:37.120 --> 01:52:45.280 just know that you are on, you are partaking in an intense souls curriculum here. 01:52:45.280 --> 01:52:52.320 Nice, that's good. Okay, here's a question unrelated to autism from Hamad Lachman in 01:52:52.320 --> 01:52:59.120 South Africa. His question is, I'm going through a Kundalini awakening the past five years and 01:52:59.120 --> 01:53:03.760 battling with sexual transmutation. I don't know quite what he means by transmutation, 01:53:03.760 --> 01:53:10.720 but maybe you do. Change. Oh spiritual. Changing spiritual. Can you chat of the importance of 01:53:10.720 --> 01:53:16.640 celibacy during Kundalini awakening? Oh. Can you tell me what Irene said about 01:53:16.640 --> 01:53:20.640 the sexual transmutation? How she clarified that? How did you clarify that, Irene? What? 01:53:20.640 --> 01:53:27.440 Mindy wants to know what you just said. Yeah. Oh, just I looked it up. What transmutation? Oh, 01:53:27.440 --> 01:53:32.400 she looked it up. What does it mean? It means the energy's shifting, you know, from. So it 01:53:32.400 --> 01:53:38.920 So it doesn't mean the person is becoming transgender, it means, okay, I got it. 01:53:38.920 --> 01:53:44.640 Yeah, let me quickly comment because I know what it means now and then you can elaborate. 01:53:44.640 --> 01:53:49.000 So it's said that when you go through a Kundalini awakening, the energy is rising, right? 01:53:49.000 --> 01:53:56.920 And it's said that if sexual desires are not fulfilled externally, the energy gets sublimated 01:53:56.920 --> 01:54:03.400 and rises up and is transmuted into sort of higher energy and enlivens the higher chakras. 01:54:03.400 --> 01:54:10.280 And that if one is going through such a transformation and is not so, 01:54:10.280 --> 01:54:13.800 that it can sometimes feel very draining. I think that's what he means. 01:54:13.800 --> 01:54:20.600 >> Okay. I'll start by saying I am not a Kundalini expert. I mean, I certainly went through what I 01:54:20.600 --> 01:54:31.240 I didn't know was Kundalini energies and risings. But what I do know is that when we are able 01:54:31.240 --> 01:54:37.400 to refrain from discharging any type of energy, whether it's sexual, whether it's anger, whether 01:54:37.400 --> 01:54:49.560 it's... when we're able to refrain and hold it, yes, it can transmute into other energy. 01:54:49.560 --> 01:54:56.060 But there are times when it's too much and we need to rein it in. 01:54:56.060 --> 01:55:01.720 I know I experienced that where I, you know, the energy was so intense at one point and 01:55:01.720 --> 01:55:03.080 I talked to my teacher. 01:55:03.080 --> 01:55:07.000 I could feel that it was, I was going to go nuts. 01:55:07.000 --> 01:55:14.840 My brain was going to, literally, my whole brain was going to, the circuitry was going 01:55:14.840 --> 01:55:24.840 to go wacko because it was so intense and I had been trying to stabilize it. I had, I don't eat 01:55:24.840 --> 01:55:29.560 meat but I was trying to eat meat. I was running, I was doing all that stuff to try, I wasn't going to 01:55:29.560 --> 01:55:37.080 satsangs. I was trying to, because I was afraid for my daughter. Ground yourself. Ground myself 01:55:37.080 --> 01:55:42.280 because I was afraid I would become permanently non-functional because it was beginning to damage 01:55:42.280 --> 01:55:49.000 my nervous system. So in that case, discharging energy, now that's extreme, but I think we 01:55:49.000 --> 01:55:54.200 each have to really listen or get guidance from someone, hopefully, that you can work 01:55:54.200 --> 01:56:01.840 closely with when you're experiencing that. And listen deeply. If your natural tendency 01:56:01.840 --> 01:56:09.000 is to sort of discharge the sexual energy, well, it might be useful to really hold that 01:56:09.000 --> 01:56:17.320 and see what happens with that. If it becomes too intense or dangerous on any level, then, 01:56:17.320 --> 01:56:23.160 you know, you need to take a little break from that. Now, Kundalini teachers might say otherwise. 01:56:23.160 --> 01:56:26.840 They might say, "No, just hold it, hold it, hold it." I don't know. Again, I'm not an expert in 01:56:26.840 --> 01:56:34.440 Kundalini, but I know in my own life I have had to, against my will, because I was so one-pointed 01:56:34.440 --> 01:56:41.800 about truth, I had to, for safety's sake, so that this human vessel could continue to survive, 01:56:41.800 --> 01:56:45.640 I had to a few times back off. Pete: Yeah, safety first. 01:56:45.640 --> 01:56:49.080 Sarah: Mm hmm. Pete: There's a couple of spiritual teachers 01:56:49.080 --> 01:56:55.400 in South Africa. There's a fellow named Brad Loglin whom I interviewed about a year ago or 01:56:55.400 --> 01:57:00.280 something and his wife, Leslie Temple Thurston, although she's not teaching anymore, but you might 01:57:00.280 --> 01:57:05.480 might want to get in touch with Brad and he'll find him on Batgap. Maybe he could 01:57:05.480 --> 01:57:08.400 help. And of course in this day and age you can talk to people all over the 01:57:08.400 --> 01:57:14.680 world. But something good is happening. You can be assured of that and you just 01:57:14.680 --> 01:57:18.600 need to like as Mindy was just saying, you just need to kind of pace 01:57:18.600 --> 01:57:24.640 yourself and you know do things that are stabilizing and integrating. You don't 01:57:24.640 --> 01:57:29.240 necessarily need to ground yourself in like if you don't eat meat you don't 01:57:29.240 --> 01:57:33.080 If you need to work, you know, you need to try to make sure that you're functional to 01:57:33.080 --> 01:57:34.080 do that. 01:57:34.080 --> 01:57:35.080 So, it all... 01:57:35.080 --> 01:57:40.920 And hike in the woods and do yoga or various things that will have a grounding influence. 01:57:40.920 --> 01:57:47.040 And part of it, too, Rick, depends on our life circumstances. 01:57:47.040 --> 01:57:52.640 Like I have a responsibility to be able to parent my daughter. 01:57:52.640 --> 01:57:58.780 And you know, if you need to work, you know, you need to try to make sure that you're functional 01:57:58.780 --> 01:58:05.280 to do that. So, there's a lot that can play into our decisions about how we work with 01:58:05.280 --> 01:58:06.280 energy. 01:58:06.280 --> 01:58:11.940 Yeah. But, you know, I'm sure you've seen this, Mindy, and you've talked about it today, 01:58:11.940 --> 01:58:18.780 and I've seen it over the years. The spiritual path is, it is a marathon and not a sprint, 01:58:18.780 --> 01:58:25.300 you know. So, you know, and safety first, it bears repeating. You want to sort of stabilize 01:58:25.300 --> 01:58:30.100 and integrate and make sure that you know everything is in order and not push yourself so hard 01:58:30.100 --> 01:58:32.820 that you do crack because people do crack. 01:58:32.820 --> 01:58:34.820 Yes, yeah. 01:58:34.820 --> 01:58:41.260 And if you read Gopi Krishna for instance, he'll describe this in detail but you know 01:58:41.260 --> 01:58:48.300 the nervous system can become actually damaged as a result of not handling this properly. 01:58:48.300 --> 01:58:54.300 Another good resource is Joan Shiva Pitta Harrigan who's on Batgap who's written a massive 01:58:54.300 --> 01:59:00.700 book all about Kundalini in great detail. Everything you've always wanted to know about Kundalini, 01:59:00.700 --> 01:59:08.140 but were afraid to ask. In fact, we have a whole category, I think, of Kundalini in the 01:59:08.140 --> 01:59:14.140 categorical index page on BatGap. So, educate yourself and find good resources. 01:59:14.140 --> 01:59:15.140 Great. 01:59:15.140 --> 01:59:21.060 Okay, so is there anything else? We're kind of getting near the end. Is there anything 01:59:21.060 --> 01:59:26.540 else that you want to, oh, you know, one thing I just wanted to say is that an overriding 01:59:26.540 --> 01:59:32.160 sentiment that I got from reading your book is just the, it made me, just I love the feeling 01:59:32.160 --> 01:59:36.860 that it gave me, but just the power of a mother's love. It's like the most powerful thing in 01:59:36.860 --> 01:59:43.100 the world in some respects, and you know, just, it amazes me, and you know, it's, in 01:59:43.100 --> 01:59:48.500 a way it's kind of what saves the world, and it's the hope of the world, but just the devotion 01:59:48.500 --> 01:59:53.500 and an incredible force of a mother's love. 01:59:53.500 --> 01:59:56.820 And you've been such a beautiful example of that. 01:59:56.820 --> 01:59:59.700 I just, I mean, you didn't have a choice, I don't think, 01:59:59.700 --> 02:00:02.740 'cause you are who you are, but I commend you for that. 02:00:02.740 --> 02:00:03.580 - Thank you, Rick. 02:00:03.580 --> 02:00:05.100 Thank you for saying that. 02:00:05.100 --> 02:00:06.820 You know, and what comes to my mind too, 02:00:06.820 --> 02:00:10.580 as you say that is, it's not limited to mothers, of course. 02:00:10.580 --> 02:00:13.420 The energy of that love is, 02:00:13.420 --> 02:00:16.460 obviously it resonates with you, so it's in you too, 02:00:16.460 --> 02:00:21.900 we have a male body or female body. Yeah, my mother, I often think of her that way. I mean, 02:00:21.900 --> 02:00:26.940 she went through a lot of difficulty. He was my alcoholic father and three suicide attempts and 02:00:26.940 --> 02:00:33.980 all kinds of things. But boy, she just she hung in there and ended up having some really nice 02:00:33.980 --> 02:00:40.220 spiritual turnaround later in life. That was very gratifying to me. Still a little nutty to their 02:00:40.940 --> 02:00:47.980 dying day, but there was a she definitely shifted to a higher phase. Yeah. 02:00:47.980 --> 02:00:57.100 I love the part about still a little nutty. You know, it's like, our quirks are so beautiful. 02:00:57.100 --> 02:01:06.220 Yeah, it's what makes us human. So, you know, the mental criticism and I got to get rid of this got 02:01:06.220 --> 02:01:12.220 to get rid of that. It's like, you know, delight in it. Just you can go down that mental track or 02:01:12.220 --> 02:01:18.300 whatever. But it's just I mean, I just love my quirks. And I love quirks. And that's why I chose 02:01:18.300 --> 02:01:22.860 to be a psychiatrist, of course, because I love quirks, quirks, quirky people. They're quirky. 02:01:22.860 --> 02:01:29.660 Yeah, but you know, we can embrace what we would otherwise criticize in ourselves and others. 02:01:29.660 --> 02:01:35.980 Yeah, I'm full of all kinds of nutty sayings and songs that I got from my mother and Irene and I 02:01:35.980 --> 02:01:40.940 I sort of joke about it. I even sometimes occasionally think of a new one that I haven't told her. 02:01:40.940 --> 02:01:47.820 All right, Mindy, so this has been great. I really have enjoyed getting to know you, 02:01:47.820 --> 02:01:53.300 reading your book, talking to you, and we'll see where it goes from here. You'll have a 02:01:53.300 --> 02:01:59.540 page on Batgap. Did you want me to put your email address on there for people to get in 02:01:59.540 --> 02:02:00.540 touch with? They can do that through... 02:02:00.540 --> 02:02:01.940 They can do it through my website. 02:02:01.940 --> 02:02:02.940 Through your website. 02:02:02.940 --> 02:02:03.940 I just went to edwardsmd.com. 02:02:03.940 --> 02:02:08.020 Rick>> Right, and you also have your Living Darshan website, so I'll put links to both 02:02:08.020 --> 02:02:12.900 of those up and there's contact info on those, contact page or something. 02:02:12.900 --> 02:02:13.900 Maffie>> Perfect. 02:02:13.900 --> 02:02:14.900 Rick>> Great. 02:02:14.900 --> 02:02:20.220 So, thanks a lot and thanks to our mutual friend Maffie for having recommended you and 02:02:20.220 --> 02:02:21.220 set this up. 02:02:21.220 --> 02:02:24.260 Maffie>> Yes, yeah, thank you Rick. 02:02:24.260 --> 02:02:28.780 Thank you so much and thank you all of you for being present here with us. 02:02:28.780 --> 02:02:30.780 We are all in this together for sure. 02:02:30.780 --> 02:02:31.780 Rick>> Great. 02:02:31.780 --> 02:02:37.580 And speaking of Spirit Rock, I think my next interview is with Joan Halifax Roshi. 02:02:37.580 --> 02:02:38.580 Okay. 02:02:38.580 --> 02:02:41.180 She's associated with Spirit Rock. 02:02:41.180 --> 02:02:42.940 So stay tuned for that. 02:02:42.940 --> 02:02:43.940 All right. 02:02:43.940 --> 02:02:44.940 Well, thank you. 02:02:44.940 --> 02:02:45.940 You're welcome. 02:02:45.940 --> 02:02:45.940 [Music] 02:02:45.940 --> 02:02:49.300 [MUSIC PLAYING] 02:02:49.300 --> 02:03:11.300 [Music]