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[Music]

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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.

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We've done over 700 of these now, so if this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones, obviously you can do that on YouTube, but you'll find that if you go to batgap.com, we have some ways of organizing, categorizing the interviews, which is hard to do on YouTube.

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on YouTube, so you might want to check that out too.

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Appreciate it if you like the video with the little YouTube

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It tweaks the algorithm and makes more people watch it.

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And as I always say, this program

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is made possible through the support

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You'll see a little symbol.

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My guest today is Thomas LeGrand.

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Thomas lives in Plum Village in France,

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or near Plum Village, which was the home of Thich Nhat Hanh.

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He'll be talking about Thich Nhat Hanh and about his teaching.

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Thomas is a wisdom seeker, a social scientist,

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and sustainability practitioner.

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He is the author of the internationally acclaimed book

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called "The Politics of Being, Wisdom and Science

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for a New Development Paradigm."

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I just finished reading the book, nearly finished,

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and enjoyed it a lot.

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This book won the Grand Prize

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of the Nautilus Book Award in 2024.

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Thomas's spiritual journey began at the age of 23

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with an encounter with native spirituality in Mexico

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before embracing the wisdom of a wide range of traditions and practices, including meditation,

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energetic healing, and Tai Chi Chuan.

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He lives with his wife and their two young daughters near Plum Village, as I just mentioned,

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the monastery of Thich Nhat Hanh, which is in the southwest of France, is the country

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where he grew up.

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He is currently the lead technical advisor for the United Nations Development Program.

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Is that what the DP stands for?

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convened, it's a conscious food systems alliance

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that he is the lead technical advisor on.

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People might be wondering, okay, Buddha at the gas pump,

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it's about spirituality, spiritually awakening people.

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What does it have to do with politics?

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And of course, the title of your book implies

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that politics and spirituality might actually

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very much have something to do with one another,

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the politics of being.

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So why don't we start by answering that question.

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People usually don't associate politics

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and spirituality in the same thought.

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I think it was Mark Twain who said,

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"Politicians and diapers should be changed often

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and for the same reason."

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(laughing)

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- Yeah, and I don't think it will get us,

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you know, through the crisis we are facing now,

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which I think, you know, call for a connective awakening.

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And my question is, how do we organize societies for that?

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You know, I'm also, you know,

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often people think about individual processes of awakening.

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It's very important, of course,

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but I'm a social scientist,

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so I know that we are fashioned by society, right?

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We are modeled somehow by society.

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And actually, right now,

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All institutions are based on a wrong paradigm, which is trying to bring force.

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They are based, let's say, on a vision of human nature that is not very accurate

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and rather emphasizes what's wrong with human beings in terms of, you know,

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it's based on this economic paradigm that people are selfish, competitive,

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and only looking to maximize their own material interest.

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So we have to understand that the ethical crisis we are facing now is a result of how our design, our institutions, our society,

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and we can intentionally design in a different way in order to bring about the best in humans.

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Myself, as an environmentalist, I've come to the conclusion there is little we can achieve

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until we keep viewing progress in terms of having and material prosperity,

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because at some point it has become antithetical with respecting the planetary boundaries.

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So that's why I think we need to reinvent a new vision of progress,

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which is more about being rather than having.

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And I build on what the inter-religious, inter-spiritual movement has said about it,

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especially in the Earth Charters, it says, "When basic needs have been met,

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human development is primarily about being more rather than having more."

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So I was looking for a wisdom-based approach to politics or development,

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and that's how I designed, I found out, developed this concept of politics of being.

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Good. Personally, since the 1970s, I've always felt that spirituality

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and the world situation are very much intertwined,

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and that ultimately spiritual development

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is the most influential factor that

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could change the world situation, because it's

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the most fundamental thing.

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And the more fundamental a level at which you operate,

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the more leverage you have.

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But you look at the world and so many situations,

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and industries are so powerful, and governments

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are so powerful and weaponry and these huge forces, which

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seem so intractable, so entrenched.

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It seems like a David and Goliath situation.

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You wonder, it seems like there needs

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to be a radical restructuring of everything

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in order for humanity to survive.

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I can resort to my thinking about consciousness

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being fundamental and a change in consciousness resulting

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in a change in the world.

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but I can easily sympathize with the average person who thinks that that would be magical

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thinking and that they might despair that any fundamental change is ever really going

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to happen or we're doomed.

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Yeah, well I think you know maybe it's because a lot of people fear looking reality in that

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way that we need you know almost a miracle that maybe we're not able to point out really

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more clearly what is wrong and address it. I see that myself and I work, as I said, in

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climate change, environmental conservation, etc. And I do feel that people are not aware of the

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depths of the change that needs to happen. And there's always this thing, "Okay, we'll bring some

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negativity, we'll have to be hopeful, etc." But sometimes that prevents looking more clearly at

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the real, the deep roots of our problems. And I do think it's something very profound that

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needs to happen and I do think it's possible. And I think what we need, I mean the main narrative,

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let's say, I'm trying to promote, which is a positive one and I think more important than

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the eventual collapses that we'll be facing, is the fact that we are close to make that

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historical breakthrough towards spiritual civilization. And I think that's what needs

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to happen to bring the world into balance. It has been prophesied in many traditions,

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and I think a lot of us agree that this world is not so far away, which is the best,

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but the worst is also right here. And it's a kind of yin-yang thing, right? They bring together.

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Without this vision, we may not have the willingness, the capacity to make that big leap in collective

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consciousness.

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So, now, today is the 9th.

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Election Day in the US was four days ago and Donald Trump won.

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And a lot of my friends, a lot of people I've spoken to have jumped to the conclusion, which

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I might agree with, that perhaps there needs to be a serious destruction phase or dismantling

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or chaotic phase before things can get better.

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They say it's darkest before the dawn.

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Well, maybe it hasn't gotten dark enough yet, and maybe he's the guy to do it.

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And of course, his supporters would say, "Oh, no, no, it's going to get so much better now.

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We'll see how it goes."

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But there have been many prophecies from ancient traditions saying that a time of great trial

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and tribulation will happen before there's going to be a significant about-face, a significant

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transformation to a more enlightened age.

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Do you resonate with those types of prophecies?

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Yes, completely.

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You know, as I said, I think evolution is a dialectical process, and we see right now

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that even in America it has been used for a couple of years already, very spiritual language,

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the soul of America. So I would say both the light and the darkness somehow are competing

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together and because the darkness is showing up that we may turn towards greater spiritual,

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let's say, solution that address this issue at the root level. Having said that, I have to

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recognize I'm also you know I'm also a little bit perplexed about

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theoretically destruction you know we are into that it makes a lot of sense

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what Donald Trump seems to be bringing to me in terms of destruction may not be

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the best destruction I would like to see you know because he may also strengthen

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a capitalist system which become increasingly more destructive I think

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democracy needs to evolve it doesn't need to be destroyed.

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As you were speaking I was reminded of some verses in the early part of the

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Bhagavad Gita where initially Arjuna has this bravado, certainty, confidence, "Let me

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at these guys, I can beat these guys" and so on. And then Lord Krishna says a few

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things to him and he begins to doubt himself and he sits down in the chariot

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and he's feeling dejected and he thinks, "I can't do this." And one

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commentary on the Gita that I've read said, "As long as people think that they

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can manage, that they have within their own capacity the ability to solve their problems,

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then they haven't necessarily gotten to the point where they can solve them because there's

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a higher authority, you know, the Divine that ultimately needs to come to their assistance

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for the problems to genuinely be solved.

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And those verses in the Gita kind of illustrated that turning point for Arjuna.

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Perhaps there needs to be a similar turning point for the world where all the strategies

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and methods that we have used to try to deal with our problems need to be shown to be inadequate

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demonstrably and definitively before we can perhaps even consider that there could be a

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spiritual solution or a consciousness-based solution to those problems. Yeah, definitely.

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One way to make that a little bit more concrete would be just to say that until we think we can

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solve our problems, you know, looking at their manifestation, but not their roots, which I think,

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you know, we have to recognize that's a spiritual crisis. I'm trying to make also, you know, I'm,

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of course, I have a very spiritual background, but I'm trying also to translate that for people,

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for decision makers and people more using the language of social science, etc. But yeah,

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Until we look at superficial solutions, we are losing our time because they won't bring us where we need to go.

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You know, sometimes when you use spiritual teachings which are usually targeted at the individual level,

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they are, you know, they're very profound and quite radical.

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And I'm trying to see how these spiritual teachings relate to society.

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society and I think maybe at some point there's some differences that I think there are a

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lot of solutions that have a spiritual nature and some not so radical that you know there

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is no solution until you know we have this great collective awakening but that's my way

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to translate it at the collective level. But yeah I think to really recognize because I

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I think, you know, in the book I show that there are lots of existing solutions, but they are

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not brought together in a collective vision which is spiritual, which I call the politics

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of being, and which recognize that until we don't acknowledge our spiritual nature and

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what does that mean for our life on Earth, we probably won't be able to put them together

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into this new vision.

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As you know, and you can perhaps elaborate, there does seem to be some kind of spiritual

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epidemic or renaissance or something going on in the world, facilitated in part by our

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technologies.

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I mean, the fact that you and I are having this conversation wouldn't have been possible

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even 20 years ago, because we didn't have Zoom and the internet was too slow and stuff

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like that.

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So, all these spiritual teachings are spreading around the world like crazy, in addition to

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all the crazy stuff that's spreading around the world, all the misinformation and everything.

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Millions of people are tuning in and getting interested in spirituality and practicing meditation or other practices.

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Something's happening here, to quote Dylan.

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On the other hand, it might seem airy-fairy, you know, or pie in the sky,

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to suggest that, oh, a bunch of people sitting on their butts meditating and doing Tai Chi and whatnot

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is actually going to change climate change or solve the Middle East conflict and things like that.

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things like that. It just seems too abstract, too ethereal. Let's say someone said that to you,

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what would you say to them? As I said, I think, you know, these individual transformations

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are happening, but how do we put what we have not yet managed is to translate that into society.

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And for this is not only spiritual teachings, but, you know, there is this discussion like

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how spiritual teachers, let's say, are qualified to talk about, to address world issues. And I think,

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you know, they are part of the solutions, but they don't have all the solutions. It's really

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a field in itself on how to translate our spiritual understanding into practical solutions for the

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world. And that I think we are lagging behind somehow. The importance of building communities,

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is very important to translate that,

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these individual transformation into something

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that can transform our world.

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I think it will take a little bit of time still.

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- I used to think that if a person meditated, let's say,

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and developed consciousness,

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then automatically every aspect of their life

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would just be transformed spontaneously.

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They wouldn't have to attend consciously to their ethics

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or their health, or their social behavior, or other things.

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All those things would automatically flourish.

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I no longer believe that.

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Through decades of observation, I

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feel like you do have to consciously attend to that.

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I know people who've been meditating

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50 years who would still cheat people in business,

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or very difficult to get along with, full of anger,

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different problems like that.

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So perhaps the same thing applies to spirituality and the world

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situation, if spirituality is going to be a solution to the world situation, it can give

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us the tools to be more conscientious, be more concerned about the environment or animal

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rights or different things like that.

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But it's in our hands whether we're going to use those tools or not.

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It's not adequate to just sort of do your spiritual practice and everything's going

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to ripple out and change the world.

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I really think there needs to be people on every level that use that inner development

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in a very intentional way to bring about changes and innovations?

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Definitely. In Buddhism, I know you refer to often, you know, we talk about wisdom and

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compassion and we said compassion is blind without wisdom. So you may have a think, you

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know, often what you see is that indeed when people go into some spiritual transformation,

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tend to care more about others and the earth, but to be able to translate that into practical

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solutions to have the wisdom on how to apply that to transform societies, that takes also

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an understanding about how each of these things work.

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Without even mentioning, you know, those that may get lost and you know, we know that some

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spiritual world, for example, there is some because we as spirituality leaders to look

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at things in a different way, in a way that is often not acknowledged.

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There can be conspiracy theory, etc.

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And sometimes it's not so much for the good as I would believe myself.

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That's an important point.

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A few years ago around the beginning of the pandemic, I interviewed these three guys who

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do the Conspiratuality podcast.

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that's an interesting word, "conspiratuality," because it turned out that a lot of so-called

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spiritual people had gotten into conspiracy theories much more than the general population.

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So that tells you something, which perhaps is that discernment and discrimination are

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important on the spiritual path.

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Spiritual people, by definition, believe in things that are not so obvious, so that's

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good thing, but it perhaps inclines many of them to just believe any suggestion of things

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going on that aren't obvious. It makes them more gullible in a way. I mean, we've seen

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that with cults, how gullible people can be, how easily manipulated.

00:18:59.180 --> 00:19:07.100
Yeah, no, and you know, all the spiritual reality, let's say, is very complex. You know,

00:19:07.100 --> 00:19:14.540
I feel myself quite a lot of experience and insights, but I'm always cautious about what

00:19:14.540 --> 00:19:20.700
I'm really seeing and what will really happen. So it's very difficult, as you said. There needs to

00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:27.020
be a lot of discernment. And when we talk about reality, you need also to just, if you don't have

00:19:27.020 --> 00:19:35.100
understanding of this more practical material reality and how things work in this world,

00:19:35.100 --> 00:19:40.300
can lead you to interpret your spiritual insights, you put that on the world in a way that's not

00:19:40.300 --> 00:19:46.780
really real and realistic. Which brings up the whole thing about spirituality and science. I

00:19:46.780 --> 00:19:52.300
really happen to be very fond of collaboration between spirituality and science. They're not

00:19:52.300 --> 00:19:57.820
opponents, they're actually collaborators, at least they should be and can be and need to be.

00:19:57.820 --> 00:20:02.140
But that's a whole topic, I mean you can comment on that if you want or we can just keep moving on.

00:20:02.780 --> 00:20:08.620
But, you know, I mean, the scientific method is designed to enable us to discern truth from

00:20:08.620 --> 00:20:15.340
falsehood and to allow consensus to arrive at truth rather than just a person's individual whims.

00:20:15.340 --> 00:20:21.260
>> Bruno: Yeah, definitely. So, my method, I would say, has been to look at what are the main

00:20:21.260 --> 00:20:28.380
spiritual insights of many traditions, and especially how they relate to certain aspects of

00:20:28.380 --> 00:20:36.300
life so that we can develop a way of organizing societies based on spiritual values as often

00:20:36.300 --> 00:20:41.900
been prophesized and I think in the book I show very concrete, I name these spiritual values,

00:20:41.900 --> 00:20:48.860
I show how certain ways of organizing societies, certain policies are linked to the spiritual

00:20:48.860 --> 00:20:55.100
values and by bringing them together we can have a very concrete, tangible politics of being with

00:20:55.100 --> 00:21:00.940
actionable agendas. Yeah, good. We'll get into some of those specifics as we go along. One other

00:21:00.940 --> 00:21:07.420
general theme I just wanted to throw in. If you look at history, it seems to me that the changes

00:21:07.420 --> 00:21:15.020
that happen in history are not just the ripple effect of individual people changing, but there's

00:21:15.020 --> 00:21:21.980
some kind of, you could say, more cosmic forces that govern the trends of time, and things move

00:21:21.980 --> 00:21:29.980
in vast cycles of time and various ages and huge changes in society.

00:21:29.980 --> 00:21:33.800
Spirituality is important, of course, but I think there's more than just the individual

00:21:33.800 --> 00:21:35.980
efforts being made.

00:21:35.980 --> 00:21:41.980
There's a story from the, might be from the Srimad Bhagavatam, where there was this village

00:21:41.980 --> 00:21:46.500
and for some reason Indra was mad at the village, I guess, because it was Krishna's village

00:21:46.500 --> 00:21:49.540
and Indra and Krishna were having a fight.

00:21:49.540 --> 00:21:53.460
And so he made it rain, and it was raining and raining and raining, threatening to kind

00:21:53.460 --> 00:21:55.860
of drown out the village.

00:21:55.860 --> 00:22:00.380
And Krishna came along and picked up a mountain and held it like an umbrella over the village

00:22:00.380 --> 00:22:02.820
and protected the people from the rain.

00:22:02.820 --> 00:22:05.740
And then the people thought, "Oh, it must be a very heavy mountain.

00:22:05.740 --> 00:22:06.780
He might strain his wrist.

00:22:06.780 --> 00:22:07.780
We better help."

00:22:07.780 --> 00:22:10.700
So they picked up sticks and kind of helped hold the mountain.

00:22:10.700 --> 00:22:12.380
And of course, they weren't really doing anything.

00:22:12.380 --> 00:22:14.500
It was Krishna holding the mountain.

00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:21.380
So like that, I sometimes think that there are vaster forces that are governing the trends

00:22:21.380 --> 00:22:28.720
of time and causing major changes over the centuries, and that such forces may be very

00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:36.900
evidently in play right now, as we appear to be in a time of very intense transformation,

00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:42.400
and perhaps with some kind of cataclysmic quality as we go through the coming decade

00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:43.400
or two.

00:22:43.400 --> 00:22:48.000
Myself, I'm inspired by the work of Sri Aurobindo and the mother, right?

00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.400
And Sri Aurobindo was a guru, let's say, in India.

00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:59.400
He died in 1950 and he was a leader of, an independentist leader of India.

00:22:59.400 --> 00:23:05.000
And then he retired for the last 25 years of his life in his room, not going away,

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.200
and really working on these planetary energies.

00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:15.360
And this part of his work is not so known, but it's very interesting when you get into it.

00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:21.440
And he said that, you know, he was actually harnessing these spiritual energies for

00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:28.880
political, social transformation, even in the Russia revolution, and especially also during

00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:38.080
World War II, seeing that beyond Hitler was a lot of dark spiritual forces that he was fighting,

00:23:38.080 --> 00:23:42.640
including the mother. You know, there is a whole spiritual history that is completely

00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:49.360
behind the historical facts that we completely ignore collectively. And you see, you know,

00:23:49.360 --> 00:23:54.480
some people use, you know, in France we have a philosopher quite famous called Edgar Morin.

00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:59.920
He looked at what was happening during World War II, which were like some small miracles,

00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:04.240
and he's not using the language of spirituality. Maybe he doesn't have this understanding, but

00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:07.680
you know, when you know what, for example,

00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:10.160
people like Shobindo were doing,

00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:11.760
you can bring the two together, right?

00:24:11.760 --> 00:24:14.000
That's interesting.

00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:15.520
There's a man, I believe, in Holland

00:24:15.520 --> 00:24:17.680
named

00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:19.200
Jürgen Zewi, you know Jürgen Zewi?

00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:22.960
He's been on BatGap and

00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:25.120
he has had these deep mystical experiences

00:24:25.120 --> 00:24:27.280
most of his life, where he travels into

00:24:27.280 --> 00:24:29.200
the astral and celestial realms and

00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:31.360
sees all the beings there and what's going

00:24:31.360 --> 00:24:33.280
on, and he's written a new book

00:24:31.360 --> 00:24:37.040
beautifully illustrated using AI technology to create what he feels are realistic depictions

00:24:37.040 --> 00:24:43.520
of what's happening in these subtle realms. Anyway, you and I have been talking back and forth and

00:24:43.520 --> 00:24:49.920
agreeing on the point that you and I have just been discussing, which is that there are subtler

00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:55.040
forces at work than the obvious ones that, you know, we see in politics and all that stuff.

00:24:55.040 --> 00:24:59.440
There are deeper forces that you were just alluding to in Sri Aurobindo's work,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:07.440
that what we see is perhaps a tug of war between various forces on the surface is just symptomatic

00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.000
of a tug of war between these deeper negative and positive forces.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:18.880
Yeah, definitely, and I think in spiritual work, ceremonial work, etc., we know that

00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:25.600
we tend to think that the spiritual reality is what informs the material reality, right?

00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:32.960
Actually, from that point of view, yeah, I do believe that what happened at this level is

00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:39.360
really tough at the moment, is really strong, and this is spiritual work in that, you know,

00:25:39.360 --> 00:25:46.320
working on subtle energies, etc., can help shift the reality that we see at the political, social

00:25:46.320 --> 00:25:51.440
levels. Which reinforces the point we've been making, because if you're just working on political

00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:57.360
or economic levels, then you're not even touching those deeper, subtler forces that need to be

00:25:57.360 --> 00:26:03.920
purified in some way. But if a person is doing deep spiritual practice, as Sri Aurobindo was,

00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:08.800
then you're actually venturing into those realms and helping to purify them,

00:26:08.800 --> 00:26:15.360
both within yourself and within the collective. >> Yeah, but I think it can be even powerful to

00:26:15.360 --> 00:26:20.880
make the link, you know, even when you're working at the spiritual level, I've been doing some

00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:28.720
healing ceremonial work, if you're able to talk to the people where you are and kind of open their

00:26:28.720 --> 00:26:33.760
hearts at a more material level by talking to them, you know, you connect the material and

00:26:33.760 --> 00:26:40.000
the spiritual and that makes seeing much more effective, right? Yeah, that's very important,

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:41.840
meeting people where they are.

00:26:41.840 --> 00:26:45.400
There's a proverb in India that when the mangoes are ripe,

00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:49.280
the branches bend down so that people can just pick them

00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:54.520
at their level, rather than having to climb the tree.

00:26:54.520 --> 00:26:55.840
OK.

00:26:55.840 --> 00:26:59.880
You provided very useful points at the end of your book,

00:26:59.880 --> 00:27:04.000
10 main points that summarize what is discussed in the book.

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:06.200
And I'm going to start going through these points,

00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:08.600
in most cases, actually just reading them, and then

00:27:08.600 --> 00:27:11.600
having you comment on them and having us discuss them.

00:27:11.600 --> 00:27:13.640
So point number one is,

00:27:13.640 --> 00:27:16.320
we need a collective shift of consciousness,

00:27:16.320 --> 00:27:19.280
a cultural evolution of a spiritual nature

00:27:19.280 --> 00:27:21.640
to address our current challenges.

00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:23.360
It is already ongoing,

00:27:23.360 --> 00:27:27.720
and we are currently facing an evolutive crisis,

00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:30.200
which requires individuals and societies

00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:32.580
to look inward and transform.

00:27:32.580 --> 00:27:34.760
- What's more systemic?

00:27:34.760 --> 00:27:39.760
what's common to all the crises we see in the world

00:27:39.760 --> 00:27:42.240
is the same kind of consciousness.

00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:44.760
If we bring it a little bit down, something more concrete,

00:27:44.760 --> 00:27:47.660
we could talk even of mindset, of culture,

00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:51.440
which mainly is the result of modernity

00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:54.640
and based on specific values,

00:27:54.640 --> 00:27:58.600
materialism, individualism, reductionism,

00:27:58.600 --> 00:28:01.200
anthropocentrism, et cetera.

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:03.360
And we need to understand that what we see

00:28:03.360 --> 00:28:06.120
or the way our world functions,

00:28:06.120 --> 00:28:07.560
the way our institutions are designed,

00:28:07.560 --> 00:28:09.160
our laws, our policies,

00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:12.680
they reflect this kind of worldview or mindset.

00:28:12.680 --> 00:28:14.760
And that's what we need to change

00:28:14.760 --> 00:28:17.200
to be able to live in harmony.

00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:19.340
- And there's a quote which is attributed to Einstein,

00:28:19.340 --> 00:28:22.040
which is that you can't solve problems

00:28:22.040 --> 00:28:24.000
from the same level of consciousness

00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:26.240
at which the problems were created.

00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:27.160
- Yeah. - Yeah.

00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:29.320
- And in the book, I say it's funny

00:28:29.320 --> 00:28:32.920
because I often see these quotes in some reports, et cetera,

00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:37.840
And often the same report to me doesn't go deep enough into the chain.

00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:42.960
They often still work in the same paradigm that I qualify of this, you know,

00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:47.520
modern worldview and paradigm of economic growth and having.

00:28:47.520 --> 00:28:51.040
And yeah, often it feels a bit like, you know, there's this other sentence from

00:28:51.040 --> 00:28:54.280
the, from a movie, which says, you know, everything needs to change so that

00:28:54.280 --> 00:28:56.320
nothing, uh, so that nothing changes.

00:28:56.320 --> 00:28:56.600
Right.

00:28:56.920 --> 00:29:04.840
So often they kind of changing to preserve still what I qualify as the main paradigm

00:29:04.840 --> 00:29:09.160
and I think we need to go deeper into that kind of spiritual transformation.

00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:12.600
They're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

00:29:12.600 --> 00:29:13.660
Yeah.

00:29:13.660 --> 00:29:21.080
Okay, here's point number two. As a wisdom-based, science-informed approach,

00:29:21.080 --> 00:29:26.520
a politics of being can support this evolution, the evolution that we've just been discussing.

00:29:26.520 --> 00:29:33.120
"Its main goal is to support the fulfillment of all beings, that is to say, the realization

00:29:33.120 --> 00:29:35.920
of our truest and highest being.

00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:42.600
Being, in quotes, is a wiser and more adequate development objective than having.

00:29:42.600 --> 00:29:44.720
It applies to the whole Earth community."

00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:51.120
And of course, that gets us into the wealth gap, the wealth disparity, where you have

00:29:51.120 --> 00:29:58.320
like what 10 or 15 people in the world have more wealth than the 90% of the population

00:29:58.320 --> 00:30:04.640
or you know the statistics I'm sure but there are huge disparities between the rich and the poor.

00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:11.760
Yeah and this health really does not really matter so much from a point of view of being you know to

00:30:11.760 --> 00:30:17.680
help them become who they are and the best version of themselves you know nobody needs that amount of

00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:24.560
well. So this concentration is just a manifestation of this paradigm of having we are in. If we would

00:30:24.560 --> 00:30:32.480
rather think in terms of being, then one doesn't have to have extreme wills to be. And it will

00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:41.600
lead us to address inequalities because being, you know, having make us competitive. If I have more,

00:30:41.600 --> 00:30:49.600
probably you have less. Being works for everyone. If I be more, I mean, because we inter-are,

00:30:49.600 --> 00:30:54.080
if you are more, then I can be more. Also, you're helping me to be more.

00:30:54.080 --> 00:30:58.560
There's an interesting section in your book about universal basic income,

00:30:58.560 --> 00:31:04.480
which would mean that everybody, either in a country or even in the world, gets a certain

00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:10.480
amount of financial support so that all their basic needs are met.

00:31:10.480 --> 00:31:15.800
And as I understand it, the means are there to provide such a thing.

00:31:15.800 --> 00:31:20.320
I'll let you elaborate, but there's even sections about where people wouldn't be obligated to

00:31:20.320 --> 00:31:24.800
work, they would just sort of have a basic income, but when this has been tried experimentally,

00:31:24.800 --> 00:31:31.280
it's found that people do work, or they engage in something constructive or creative or whatever.

00:31:31.280 --> 00:31:34.640
to consider the possibility of the whole world functioning that way?

00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:41.520
Well, that change of paradigm has really to do about all views of human nature.

00:31:41.520 --> 00:31:47.360
Either we think, you know, we're just selfish, materialist, and we don't want to support

00:31:47.360 --> 00:31:48.840
other people.

00:31:48.840 --> 00:31:53.080
So if you think that way, we give you money, then you work less.

00:31:53.080 --> 00:31:58.000
But if you think that people are naturally drawn to find meaning in their lives and to

00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:04.560
contribute to society. And that's what we see more in these studies, is that they just,

00:32:04.560 --> 00:32:10.560
this extra money just help them build the conditions to express themselves in this healthy

00:32:10.560 --> 00:32:17.320
manner and trying to contribute positively. So it's an evolutionary process and often

00:32:17.320 --> 00:32:23.200
our institutions are what maintain that kind of vision of human nature. We assume that

00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:29.040
vision, a negative vision of human nature, but we can also construct our societies or

00:32:29.040 --> 00:32:34.040
even our organizations in a way based on completely different assumptions.

00:32:34.040 --> 00:32:38.120
And the funny thing is that it's called also Theory X, Theory Y.

00:32:38.120 --> 00:32:41.120
You know, there's these two different ways of functioning.

00:32:41.120 --> 00:32:43.680
And then the question is, which one is real?

00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:48.560
And the answer is people react about how you frame the situation.

00:32:48.560 --> 00:32:55.020
If you frame it in a way that you're not trusting people and then everybody is trying to cheat,

00:32:55.020 --> 00:33:02.560
if you're rather trusting people and then people respond with responsibility to this assumption.

00:33:02.560 --> 00:33:07.160
Now I can hear people objecting that, well, there are always going to be jobs that no

00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:08.160
one wants to do.

00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:13.760
No one wants to lay asphalt on a highway in the summertime or work in a pig slaughterhouse

00:33:13.760 --> 00:33:19.440
or do a lot of horrible things that people seem to think need to be done.

00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:23.880
I sometimes think, "Okay, well, there are a lot of jobs which probably shouldn't exist

00:33:23.880 --> 00:33:25.120
in a more enlightened world.

00:33:25.120 --> 00:33:31.960
Do we really need tobacco and whiskey and gambling and all kinds of things that just ruin people's

00:33:31.960 --> 00:33:33.080
lives?

00:33:33.080 --> 00:33:36.920
Maybe in a more enlightened society, those industries wouldn't even exist, but, you know,

00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:41.880
we still need to lay asphalt on the highway and do some stuff that isn't necessarily that

00:33:41.880 --> 00:33:42.880
pleasant.

00:33:42.880 --> 00:33:46.520
But maybe with AI we'll have robots that can do that.

00:33:46.520 --> 00:33:50.560
We don't have to get people out there to do it.

00:33:50.560 --> 00:33:56.320
If everyone just sort of did what they found most creative and fulfilling, I wonder if

00:33:56.320 --> 00:34:00.280
major sections of the workforce would go empty.

00:34:00.280 --> 00:34:06.480
Yeah, no, and I think we will try collectively to minimize that kind of work because we're

00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:11.840
not assuming some people we don't care that will be doing it and we'll just, you know,

00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:17.680
them, let's say. So I think we would organize in a way, I think by sharing, you know, these

00:34:17.680 --> 00:34:22.840
tasks so that people don't spend their whole life doing the bad things and also trying to

00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:31.440
find ways to either have robots or trying to minimize this kind of things that require

00:34:31.440 --> 00:34:34.880
works that are not very fulfilling, right?

00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:41.280
Yeah. Another interesting section of your book was about the prison system and how, you know,

00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:47.540
United States has the highest per capita percentage of people in prisons and you

00:34:47.540 --> 00:34:52.440
were contrasting the conditions of US prisons with places like Norway or maybe

00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:56.960
it was Denmark, one of the Scandinavian countries, which you know prisons are

00:34:56.960 --> 00:35:00.900
almost like these little country clubs which are you know not so bad, hey sign

00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:04.680
me up, but they produce tremendous results in terms of...

00:35:04.680 --> 00:35:11.120
Yeah exactly, it's a view you know if you think people are you know I've done a

00:35:11.120 --> 00:35:16.640
crime because they are bad people and you need to be tough on them in order to create that kind of

00:35:16.640 --> 00:35:21.840
incentives because that's how people work so they don't want to be in prison. That's your view.

00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:27.200
People in Norway, they would rather think, you know, there have been some causes and conditions.

00:35:27.200 --> 00:35:33.840
People, you know, don't want to do crimes naturally. It's because of their conditionings

00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:42.000
And prison should look like any house and community so that people then can reintegrate when they end

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:47.520
their stays in prison. So it's really based on this kind of, you know, how do you think

00:35:47.520 --> 00:35:55.040
people are and how do you think things work, right? Yeah. And getting back to our earlier point about

00:35:55.040 --> 00:35:59.920
collective consciousness, and we could call it maybe the stress in collective consciousness,

00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:05.160
You know how in clouds the static electricity builds up and eventually you have lightning

00:36:05.160 --> 00:36:09.280
striking because the cloud can't hold that much static electricity before it has to be

00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:12.000
neutralized or balanced or released.

00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:17.960
So you could think of collective consciousness as being like a cloud and qualities build

00:36:17.960 --> 00:36:22.600
up in the collective consciousness such as tension and stress and then eventually you

00:36:22.600 --> 00:36:26.500
have a war, you know, or you have a crime wave or something.

00:36:26.500 --> 00:36:31.020
And if you think about it, the prisons, at least in the U.S., are like little stress

00:36:31.020 --> 00:36:36.380
factories where people are living, a couple million people are living under very miserable,

00:36:36.380 --> 00:36:39.580
difficult conditions, becoming more stressed.

00:36:39.580 --> 00:36:44.660
The stress that caused them to commit crimes in the first place is being amplified in many

00:36:44.660 --> 00:36:45.660
cases.

00:36:45.660 --> 00:36:50.260
Obviously, some people undergo transformations and come out and live a better life, but there's

00:36:50.260 --> 00:36:54.780
high recidivism rate and many people come out hardened criminals who weren't actually that

00:36:54.780 --> 00:36:59.120
hardened when they went in. I mean that's one major thing. It's like we have this

00:36:59.120 --> 00:37:04.800
network of little transmitters of negativity throughout the country.

00:37:04.800 --> 00:37:09.360
And we have to understand that there are very strong social

00:37:09.360 --> 00:37:14.280
determinants of crime. There is this video, you may have seen it, where

00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:19.360
you have all the people in the prison in a circle and then someone asks, "Okay, who

00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:24.360
who had been abused as a child, make one step.

00:37:24.360 --> 00:37:27.360
We have some people and you see that

00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:29.300
there have been a lot of traumas

00:37:29.300 --> 00:37:31.480
that has led them a lot of violence,

00:37:31.480 --> 00:37:33.260
that led them to be in prison.

00:37:33.260 --> 00:37:35.360
So, you know, it's not because they are bad people,

00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:38.480
it's just because of social conditioning.

00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:42.200
The other thing then it's also because it's a business,

00:37:42.200 --> 00:37:46.880
you know, so instead of addressing the causes of crimes,

00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:48.480
now it has even become a business,

00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:54.400
know, the prison and it fuels, you know, that kind of dynamic of economic growth

00:37:54.400 --> 00:37:59.760
without creating any prosperity or well-being. But, you know, it fuels an

00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:05.040
economy also. Oh yeah, you probably know that in the United States many of the

00:38:05.040 --> 00:38:09.560
prisons are actually run by private corporations and just since the other

00:38:09.560 --> 00:38:14.000
day when Trump got elected the stock in these corporations has gone up 30 or 40

00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:17.080
percent and they're all like really excited. Well, this is such a great

00:38:17.080 --> 00:38:20.920
business opportunity we're going to lock up 20 million people and throw them out of the country.

00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:27.160
Okay, I'm going to go on to point three before I start ranting and raving too much.

00:38:27.160 --> 00:38:33.080
Cultivating our fundamental interbeing or relational nature is instrumental to allow

00:38:33.080 --> 00:38:38.680
us to live in harmony with one another and the earth community. Our spiritual nature makes us

00:38:38.680 --> 00:38:43.880
interconnected at the level of being with everything that is. Only by recognizing their

00:38:43.880 --> 00:38:49.320
interconnectedness and sustaining the whole can each part thrive. So that's a beautiful point.

00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:53.160
And just towards the end of your book, I was just listening to this section about

00:38:53.160 --> 00:38:56.280
unity and diversity, which that point relates to.

00:38:56.280 --> 00:39:05.640
There is a reframing of the social crisis, ecological crisis we are seeing as relational

00:39:05.640 --> 00:39:12.360
crisis. And we know that mystics from all different traditions, it's a very new understanding,

00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:17.480
they all have the same kind of experience. They use different names, different concepts, but it's about

00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:25.400
the fact that we are one or we inter-are with everything, you know. And if we have this

00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:32.120
understanding, obviously we want to take care of others and nature because we don't feel separate

00:39:32.120 --> 00:39:40.360
from that, right? And this is a very deep spiritual insight that maybe we won't all of us, you know,

00:39:40.360 --> 00:39:46.240
experience. But I think the importance is the direction. And even the science that tells

00:39:46.240 --> 00:39:54.780
us the more we are closer to being healthy, the connection to self, others and nature,

00:39:54.780 --> 00:40:00.640
they go together basically. And we see that someone that is more connected to his own

00:40:00.640 --> 00:40:08.240
needs, more healthy, will take care of others and nature better. And these three connections

00:40:08.240 --> 00:40:17.280
also, they fuel well-being, they fuel happiness, and that's why it explains why this inner human

00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:24.480
development is also good for societies, for nature. So, I tried to read that language,

00:40:24.480 --> 00:40:30.400
spiritual language, and the science language. In science, we talk about our relational nature,

00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:35.600
and it's a fact, you know, our own identity is based, we know from psychology, our identity

00:40:36.160 --> 00:40:41.360
is based through relationship first, especially with our mother and our parents.

00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:48.480
And when you look at scientific studies about the most important drivers of happiness,

00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:54.400
relationship comes first, right? So that's, you know, it's a way to show how this spiritual

00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:59.840
understanding is reflected in a more scientific, more concrete evidence that we have, right?

00:41:00.720 --> 00:41:05.560
There's a verse in the Gita which talks about enlightened people seeing all beings in the

00:41:05.560 --> 00:41:09.120
self and the self in all beings.

00:41:09.120 --> 00:41:13.080
And Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

00:41:13.080 --> 00:41:15.720
So I think he was describing his experience.

00:41:15.720 --> 00:41:20.020
Also in the Gita, going back from Jesus' quote, it talks about seeing the same self, not only

00:41:20.020 --> 00:41:24.720
in our self, but in the dog, in the elephant, in the cow, and so on.

00:41:24.720 --> 00:41:30.860
So Jesus is describing his experience of if you mistreat a dog, you're mistreating me

00:41:30.860 --> 00:41:35.900
because my innermost being is the same innermost being that the dog has.

00:41:35.900 --> 00:41:39.880
So obviously if we could all see the world that way, the golden rule, do unto others

00:41:39.880 --> 00:41:44.960
as you would have others do unto you, because actually you are them, they are you.

00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:52.000
Yeah, and I think it's true that through Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings, we kind of have a different

00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:58.920
view but to look at that maybe a little bit more concrete, saying that a lot of our suffering

00:41:58.920 --> 00:42:05.480
is collective in nature. A lot of it comes also just through our ancestors, you know,

00:42:05.480 --> 00:42:12.680
we have their genes and this is being transmitted to us. I, you know, meditated quite a lot on

00:42:12.680 --> 00:42:18.760
that and at some point, you know, really asked myself, does all the happening in the world

00:42:18.760 --> 00:42:25.560
really affect my own well-being. And yeah, I mean, maybe sometimes, you know, I see some

00:42:25.560 --> 00:42:34.080
catastrophes in TV, etc. And it does not necessarily change my day. But at a deeper level, I think

00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:44.320
the way I inhabit the world is very much influenced by how things are here, about all the suffering.

00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:51.000
Yeah, I mean we're all in the same big swimming pool and if some people are peeing in the

00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:56.000
pool, pooping in the pool, it influences us.

00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:57.840
That's kind of a weird way of putting it.

00:42:57.840 --> 00:43:03.160
I don't experience this but I've talked to people who when some terrible thing happens

00:43:03.160 --> 00:43:07.160
some place, they feel it as if they're right in the middle of it.

00:43:07.160 --> 00:43:12.200
I've even heard people describe how they hadn't even heard the news that something had happened

00:43:12.200 --> 00:43:16.520
some place, but they're having this horrible feeling. Something's really shaking them up.

00:43:16.520 --> 00:43:22.040
It reminds me of Star Wars where Obi-Wan Kenobi stopped all of a sudden, and just as Darth Vader

00:43:22.040 --> 00:43:26.040
with the Death Star had blown up the planet Alderaan, and he hadn't gotten the news of that,

00:43:26.040 --> 00:43:32.120
but he said he just stopped. He said, "I just felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions

00:43:32.120 --> 00:43:37.240
of beings were crying out in alarm." I think that's the way he phrased it. So, yeah, I think

00:43:37.240 --> 00:43:42.680
that's a real thing. Yeah, I think that, you know, I think I've done so much in the force

00:43:42.680 --> 00:43:49.160
these last few days, we could say, and I have experience of that. I remember once I had a

00:43:49.160 --> 00:43:56.200
nightmare about some people wanting to kill me or something and my wife had the same and then I

00:43:56.200 --> 00:44:03.720
checked later on during the day I noticed that we were one year after some important terrorist attacks

00:44:03.720 --> 00:44:10.600
and friends. So basically my own consciousness was just sensing, I think, what was happening at the

00:44:10.600 --> 00:44:16.840
more subtle level in the collective consciousness of the country. And... Charlie Hebdo or that...

00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:22.760
Yeah, yeah, that was Charlie Hebdo in January. So, you know, that really can tell us, you know,

00:44:22.760 --> 00:44:28.760
what's happening to your consciousness is not separated from the collective consciousness.

00:44:29.640 --> 00:44:35.000
I had this friend, he's passed away now, but he used to teach Transcendental Meditation in Louisiana,

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:40.760
where he grew up, and that's, you know, the Bible Belt. One morning he was just sitting in meditation

00:44:40.760 --> 00:44:46.280
and all these negative images started coming at him as if he was under attack or something,

00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:51.080
and he thought, "What is going on?" And then later on he discovered that a newspaper article had been

00:44:51.080 --> 00:44:57.320
written about him, that he's a devil worshiper, he's serving Satan, and all this kind of stuff.

00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:01.800
So he had all these people faking that kind of thoughts about them and it was getting to him.

00:45:01.800 --> 00:45:09.560
I will go on to point four. Okay, point four. Societies progress as they increasingly honor

00:45:09.560 --> 00:45:16.840
the highest values, qualities, and ideals such as freedom, goodness, beauty, truth, understanding,

00:45:16.840 --> 00:45:24.040
life, happiness, love, peace, etc. These are spiritual qualities in the sense that they

00:45:24.040 --> 00:45:29.800
reflect an awakened human being or divine perfection. Science and practical

00:45:29.800 --> 00:45:34.560
initiatives shaped around these universal values can help us design a

00:45:34.560 --> 00:45:40.080
politics of being. Cultural development relates fundamentally to an evolution of

00:45:40.080 --> 00:45:47.680
our values which shape our worldviews and institutions. All right, so how do

00:45:47.680 --> 00:45:53.760
science and practical initiatives shape themselves around these values? How can

00:45:53.760 --> 00:46:01.120
we get those who are holding the reins of science and government to shape their initiatives

00:46:01.120 --> 00:46:07.440
around values such as freedom, goodness, beauty, truth, it often seems like they have a different

00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:14.900
agenda, many of the people. We vote, but that doesn't always seem to work out in the interest

00:46:14.900 --> 00:46:17.000
of those qualities.

00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:20.600
So you have mentioned freedom, goodness, truth, and beauty. So goodness, truth, and beauty

00:46:20.600 --> 00:46:26.760
are called the Platonic transcendentals and they have been recognized in Western philosophy as a

00:46:26.760 --> 00:46:33.960
kind of template for the good society. Friedem Hegel, the philosopher, used to say that history

00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:41.080
was about the manifestation of the nature of the mind, which is freedom. And in this book,

00:46:41.080 --> 00:46:45.560
I mentioned, I rather have one chapter on all the others that you have mentioned.

00:46:45.560 --> 00:46:53.160
And just acknowledging a new reality is that we now have happiness science developing, we have

00:46:53.160 --> 00:46:59.960
a compassion empathy science developing, we have a peace science developing, etc. And all these

00:46:59.960 --> 00:47:07.400
things tell us how to cultivate these qualities at the individual level sometimes, but also at

00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:14.920
the collective level. And actually a lot of cutting edge, I would say, social change initiatives

00:47:14.920 --> 00:47:22.440
are built around explicitly. All of these values you have social change initiatives that are

00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:29.880
finding new models based on these values to transform society. Understanding is, I refer

00:47:29.880 --> 00:47:35.000
to systemic and complex thinking and a kind of spiritual understanding of how we should think.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:40.680
I think I mentioned life in all the regeneration movement, for example, this idea we should

00:47:40.680 --> 00:47:46.680
harmonize ourselves with how nature works, which all indigenous wisdom has been about that, we could say.

00:47:46.680 --> 00:47:58.680
So the idea is that now we have very concrete, practical ways that have some science backing to tell us how to transform society in that way.

00:47:58.680 --> 00:48:09.680
Obviously, it's not yet an agenda that is very recognized, that we now have this possibility of being more intentional about how we transform our cultures.

00:48:09.680 --> 00:48:12.680
But I think it's there now, and that's what I propose.

00:48:12.680 --> 00:48:16.680
Yeah, one time I attended one of the Bioneers conferences.

00:48:16.680 --> 00:48:20.680
I didn't go in person, but they had it video-streamed locally here.

00:48:20.680 --> 00:48:26.680
And it was really interesting. At the end, they had this long, long, long list of organizations.

00:48:26.680 --> 00:48:30.680
It took quite a few minutes to have them scroll down the screen,

00:48:30.680 --> 00:48:34.680
who were doing all these amazing things, you know, all this really cool stuff.

00:48:34.680 --> 00:48:41.680
If you rely on the 6 o'clock news for your information on what's happening in the world,

00:48:41.680 --> 00:48:42.680
you don't get to see that stuff.

00:48:42.680 --> 00:48:44.680
They don't cover those things.

00:48:44.680 --> 00:48:47.680
In your book you mention a lot of things like that.

00:48:47.680 --> 00:48:53.980
There's some really cool, interesting, inspiring, hopeful initiatives taking place around the

00:48:53.980 --> 00:48:54.980
world.

00:48:54.980 --> 00:49:00.080
There's that saying in the newspaper industry, "If it bleeds, it leads."

00:49:00.080 --> 00:49:04.080
So we see the bloody stuff, but we don't see some of the good stuff.

00:49:04.080 --> 00:49:11.720
just doesn't really make news. So it could be perhaps uplifting, can counteract the

00:49:11.720 --> 00:49:17.400
depression one might feel, to realize how many good initiatives are underway.

00:49:17.400 --> 00:49:21.920
Yeah, and definitely it's the same thing, as you say, the media rather are

00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:27.520
feeding the bad seeds in us, the seed of fear and this whole vision of

00:49:27.520 --> 00:49:32.520
humans are not trustable. And they are, in the media, I would say,

00:49:32.520 --> 00:49:36.920
the solution in the politics of being would be to have this kind of more positive media.

00:49:36.920 --> 00:49:42.880
And I know Chick Natan at some point was a guest editor of some Indian magazine, and

00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:49.360
that's what he emphasizes that we need to feed different stories, we need to feed different

00:49:49.360 --> 00:49:54.000
seeds in our consciousness that can develop then new collective possibilities.

00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:59.120
Yeah, I'm on an email list called the Good News Network.

00:49:59.120 --> 00:50:04.080
And I get an email every day with like four little stories of something really good that's

00:50:04.080 --> 00:50:05.080
happening.

00:50:05.080 --> 00:50:09.300
I read the other stuff too, as you can tell from the things I'm quoting here, but I try

00:50:09.300 --> 00:50:11.140
to keep it balanced.

00:50:11.140 --> 00:50:13.340
There is some good stuff going on.

00:50:13.340 --> 00:50:14.540
Point five.

00:50:14.540 --> 00:50:20.180
The focus on being, the highest values, wisdom and science, which can integrate all relevant

00:50:20.180 --> 00:50:22.240
claims and initiatives.

00:50:22.240 --> 00:50:27.620
As such, it can help unify this vision and strengthen this movement.

00:50:27.620 --> 00:50:33.340
There was a spiritual teacher, one of whose favorite slogans was "Highest First."

00:50:33.340 --> 00:50:37.180
And he also liked to say, "That to which you give your attention grows stronger in your

00:50:37.180 --> 00:50:38.180
life."

00:50:38.180 --> 00:50:42.020
You know, "Highest First" would mean there's so many options, so many things you could do,

00:50:42.020 --> 00:50:43.420
so many things you could try.

00:50:43.420 --> 00:50:48.040
Figure out which one is the highest, which would have the most impact and beneficial

00:50:48.040 --> 00:50:50.860
influence, and do that one.

00:50:50.860 --> 00:50:53.600
Maybe you'll get to the other ones later, maybe you won't, but you start with the highest

00:50:53.600 --> 00:50:55.100
one that you can perceive.

00:50:55.100 --> 00:51:02.000
Yeah, and I would say also the highest, because these values are universal, it's also the

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:07.180
highest that can bring us together as one humanity.

00:51:07.180 --> 00:51:11.500
When you see what's going on in the world, like the situation with Israel and Palestine

00:51:11.500 --> 00:51:17.980
or the Ukraine war, things like that, in your mind, do you have ideas of what you would

00:51:17.980 --> 00:51:24.460
do if you were Vladimir Zelensky or if you were Prime Minister of Israel or for that

00:51:24.460 --> 00:51:30.280
matter Vladimir Putin, you have ideas. How would you do things differently to move

00:51:30.280 --> 00:51:34.060
the situation toward a resolution which isn't happening at present?

00:51:34.060 --> 00:51:42.300
Yeah, I think we have to recognize that these are based on deep, long traumas.

00:51:42.300 --> 00:51:47.020
It's incredible what we're seeing in the Middle East. It's probably rare to see

00:51:47.020 --> 00:51:53.660
such a conflict. You know, they are all traumatized victims on both sides. It

00:51:53.660 --> 00:52:00.700
It seems to me like we have reached, it's almost a historical, yeah it's very unique to reach

00:52:00.700 --> 00:52:07.540
that kind of situation where you can say there's so much trauma on both sides and offenders

00:52:07.540 --> 00:52:10.500
are also victims.

00:52:10.500 --> 00:52:16.760
I think that we really need to have some place for deep collective healing.

00:52:16.760 --> 00:52:27.000
same in Russia and Ukraine. There's a whole history that has not been unpacked and healed,

00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:32.340
and we need to be proactive. I think we're in a process somehow, as we were saying in

00:52:32.340 --> 00:52:38.400
the beginning, of purification and all the shadows, all the bad things are coming out,

00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:44.600
asking for healing and transformation so that we can move to the next stage. If I would have

00:52:44.600 --> 00:52:49.920
some responsibility around that, I would be much more proactive, intentional, creating

00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:52.880
this space for collective healing.

00:52:52.880 --> 00:52:54.840
Which some people in those situations are doing.

00:52:54.840 --> 00:52:58.840
I mean, there are groups of Arabs and Israelis that meet together.

00:52:58.840 --> 00:53:01.640
In fact, I think you quote Thomas Hubel in your book.

00:53:01.640 --> 00:53:03.680
I've interviewed him a couple of times.

00:53:03.680 --> 00:53:08.160
He's German, his wife is Israeli, and he's been working on trying to heal the trauma

00:53:08.160 --> 00:53:10.840
even from the Holocaust still.

00:53:10.840 --> 00:53:13.080
I think it can be healed.

00:53:13.080 --> 00:53:17.240
You and I have been on a spiritual path for many years, and we've probably both felt that

00:53:17.240 --> 00:53:22.640
a lot of healing has taken place within us as a result of our practices.

00:53:22.640 --> 00:53:24.720
And I think that can happen on a societal level.

00:53:24.720 --> 00:53:29.280
It's not that these patterns have to repeat themselves endlessly.

00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:34.320
Even if you look at the more spiritual level, you know, this notion of egregores, if you

00:53:34.320 --> 00:53:40.960
look at what's happened in Jerusalem over centuries, you know, you really see that kind

00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:48.640
of pattern that always come back and not necessarily through even through the same people.

00:53:48.640 --> 00:53:55.320
And even I would say in Europe and Russia, etc., I would say, you know, there is a pattern

00:53:55.320 --> 00:54:00.760
of domination starting, you know, with the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church, etc.

00:54:00.760 --> 00:54:05.800
There is always this vision that one has to dominate to flourish.

00:54:05.800 --> 00:54:11.200
So there are also probably some healing to be done at more subtle and spiritual levels,

00:54:11.200 --> 00:54:12.200
right?

00:54:12.200 --> 00:54:16.720
It's not only about the Palestinian and the Israelis and the Ukrainian and the Russian,

00:54:16.720 --> 00:54:21.760
there's even a deeper, more profound pattern that's the only part of that.

00:54:21.760 --> 00:54:22.760
Yeah.

00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:29.400
It seems that sometimes, at least superficially from my perspective, which is relatively superficial,

00:54:29.400 --> 00:54:35.880
It's sometimes a war, as horrible as it is, and we don't want to hope for wars, but a

00:54:35.880 --> 00:54:39.180
huge transformation happens afterwards.

00:54:39.180 --> 00:54:45.080
Look at the transformation that Germany underwent after World War II, and Japan for that matter.

00:54:45.080 --> 00:54:52.280
They both flipped to being US allies or Western allies, but also their societies flourished

00:54:52.280 --> 00:54:54.280
as compared to what had been happening.

00:54:54.280 --> 00:54:59.000
So it almost seems like maybe they had a load of karma to pay off or something, and the

00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:04.920
The leaders they chose, you know, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito, were instruments of leading

00:55:04.920 --> 00:55:12.120
them into a dire situation which would burn off that karma, and then once it was burned,

00:55:12.120 --> 00:55:16.080
everything could get better again, which harkens back to something I said at the beginning

00:55:16.080 --> 00:55:18.280
of the interview about our current situation.

00:55:18.280 --> 00:55:21.840
Do you think there's any merit to that?

00:55:21.840 --> 00:55:27.360
How do you understand the somewhat radical transformation that a society can sometimes

00:55:27.360 --> 00:55:34.080
undergo after a war? It's a complex process, you know, it's true we could say on one side that

00:55:34.080 --> 00:55:40.880
somehow Hitler unified Europe, you know, if you look at history that's what happened and

00:55:40.880 --> 00:55:47.600
you know it's this process by which the bad can have at the end ultimately, you know, be part of

00:55:47.600 --> 00:55:57.120
a deeper process that can actually bring some good. I do think that we humans seem to only really

00:55:57.120 --> 00:56:04.320
make change because of breakdowns. There is this sentence from historians saying, "After

00:56:04.320 --> 00:56:09.620
the breakdowns come the breakthrough." And I think what we see right now, it seems that

00:56:09.620 --> 00:56:15.560
we really need that kind of breakdown to be able to, some can change our models. Otherwise,

00:56:15.560 --> 00:56:22.680
people think we can go on like that, even if that can lead to catastrophe. So I would

00:56:22.680 --> 00:56:26.680
So at the material level, you know, it's true that sometimes it works that way.

00:56:26.680 --> 00:56:31.580
If we go back to World War II and let's say the merry days also, we have to look

00:56:31.580 --> 00:56:33.840
also at the traumas that have been led, no?

00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:38.820
And I think when we're talking about what's happening in Israel and Palestine,

00:56:38.820 --> 00:56:44.360
obviously there is some deep trauma by the Jewish people because of the Holocaust.

00:56:44.360 --> 00:56:49.040
And then that has some implication about what's going on right now.

00:56:49.280 --> 00:56:56.480
So it's a very complex pattern, but to me, just to say that, you know, there's the good

00:56:56.480 --> 00:57:02.160
and the bad work together and sometimes, you know, some very bad things can have some positive

00:57:02.160 --> 00:57:06.640
effects, but they do also leave an imprint that needs to be transformed later.

00:57:06.640 --> 00:57:11.920
Yeah. Maybe it doesn't always have to be that way. In a minute, I'll ask you to think of some

00:57:11.920 --> 00:57:17.520
examples of breakthroughs that weren't preceded by breakdowns, but even in nature, leaves have

00:57:17.520 --> 00:57:21.040
have to die and fall off the tree before you can have spring and new leaves.

00:57:21.040 --> 00:57:26.320
And caterpillars have to turn into mush and lose their structure as caterpillars

00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:30.920
before the imaginal cells can mold them into becoming a butterfly.

00:57:30.920 --> 00:57:32.960
There are a lot of examples.

00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:38.320
Things have to die and rot in the forest in order for new growth to appear.

00:57:38.320 --> 00:57:41.960
It would be nice if we could just transform without the trauma

00:57:41.960 --> 00:57:43.560
and without the suffering.

00:57:43.560 --> 00:57:45.880
But maybe it's part of nature's plan.

00:57:45.880 --> 00:57:49.040
Can you think of examples of profound transformation

00:57:49.040 --> 00:57:51.520
that didn't necessitate a breakdown?

00:57:51.520 --> 00:57:55.400
- Well, I think the work of Gandhi, right?

00:57:55.400 --> 00:57:58.400
I think he has been instrumental

00:57:58.400 --> 00:58:02.040
into making a very deep political transformation,

00:58:02.040 --> 00:58:06.760
relatively peaceful, in a relatively peaceful way

00:58:06.760 --> 00:58:11.200
and led a strong heritage for that in history, right?

00:58:11.200 --> 00:58:12.640
- That's a good example.

00:58:12.640 --> 00:58:15.300
And Martin Luther King, who was inspired by Gandhi,

00:58:15.300 --> 00:58:18.660
did much of the same, could have been worse.

00:58:18.660 --> 00:58:24.660
Gandhi has had a different view on Hitler, for example, than Schrobingo.

00:58:24.660 --> 00:58:32.820
He was assuming maybe that his non-violent ways of working would be effective, and Schrobingo was

00:58:32.820 --> 00:58:39.700
rather saying, considering the spiritual forces that are behind Hitler, it's a spiritual battle,

00:58:39.700 --> 00:58:47.700
You know, probably all have a role to play and some means are more effective than others in different situations.

00:58:47.700 --> 00:58:54.700
Yeah, I think Gandhi thought that perhaps the same Satyagraha that had worked in India would work against Hitler.

00:58:54.700 --> 00:58:56.700
I don't think he was right.

00:58:56.700 --> 00:59:04.700
Of course, in India itself, the story of the Gita, at one point Arjuna said, "I don't want to fight this battle. Let's just be friends and make peace."

00:59:04.700 --> 00:59:07.280
and Krishna said, "Sorry, it's gone too far.

00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:10.460
It has to be an actual physical fight at this point.

00:59:10.460 --> 00:59:13.060
So get up and do it."

00:59:13.060 --> 00:59:15.780
Okay, point seven.

00:59:15.780 --> 00:59:20.820
Concrete and actionable policy recommendations supporting this agenda already exist in many

00:59:20.820 --> 00:59:21.820
sectors.

00:59:21.820 --> 00:59:25.740
A politics of being can bring them together and scale them up, articulating them in a

00:59:25.740 --> 00:59:28.240
coherent and meaningful narrative.

00:59:28.240 --> 00:59:33.820
So how can a politics of being do that, and how can a politics of being actually begin

00:59:33.820 --> 00:59:41.500
to happen in a more manifest way because certainly our contemporary politics aren't much about

00:59:41.500 --> 00:59:42.500
being.

00:59:42.500 --> 00:59:47.540
And maybe back to the previous point, I think, is that this idea that we see a lot of different

00:59:47.540 --> 00:59:53.260
social change initiatives based on these highest human values, but they are not necessarily

00:59:53.260 --> 00:59:59.260
conscious of being part of something, you know, something that can bring them together

00:59:59.260 --> 01:00:04.780
and articulate them in a new vision for society, which is what I developed with The Politics

01:00:04.780 --> 01:00:11.660
of Being. What was your question? How can we... Well, I mean, your book is beautiful and it's

01:00:11.660 --> 01:00:16.700
a nice concept, the idea of a politics of being, but it's not the predominant politics anywhere.

01:00:16.700 --> 01:00:22.940
We have different politics going on. And you say a politics of being can bring them together.

01:00:22.940 --> 01:00:26.060
How does it get into the game more effectively?

01:00:26.060 --> 01:00:28.940
I think it's just because

01:00:28.940 --> 01:00:31.180
here and there in different fields

01:00:31.180 --> 01:00:33.720
all the real

01:00:33.720 --> 01:00:35.580
paradigmatic solutions

01:00:35.580 --> 01:00:39.980
Are from this new paradigm of being so if you're looking at you know

01:00:39.980 --> 01:00:45.580
How to deal with education how to deal with justice how to deal with governance how to deal with health

01:00:45.580 --> 01:00:47.980
You will end up

01:00:47.980 --> 01:00:49.720
with these

01:00:49.720 --> 01:00:56.680
policies, these new models that are part of the politics of being. So being very pragmatic,

01:00:56.680 --> 01:01:02.380
probably what we will see is that all these solutions will get traction in themselves because

01:01:02.380 --> 01:01:08.440
they are the real solutions before we bring them together, before we can assemble them

01:01:08.440 --> 01:01:15.240
in a new vision for society because yeah, it's a big shift to have people seeing progress

01:01:15.240 --> 01:01:22.440
in that way. So I rather trust that rather a separate solution, they will make all their

01:01:22.440 --> 01:01:28.600
own ways before being assembled in a new meaningful vision and narratives, right?

01:01:28.600 --> 01:01:34.840
You know, while I was working on this book, I really reflected why is it that because I was

01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:40.920
starting from spiritual insights and just seeing how they were translated in different sectors,

01:01:40.920 --> 01:01:47.720
basically in different parts of society. And then I was really pleased to see that actually

01:01:47.720 --> 01:01:53.400
these are the real solutions and people who are to me the most the smartest people thinking about

01:01:53.400 --> 01:01:59.320
these problems in all these different fields, they come to the same conclusions. So why is that? And

01:01:59.320 --> 01:02:07.080
that just made me realize it's because we have gone so much in the direction of the old paradigm.

01:02:07.640 --> 01:02:12.440
So there's a kind of imbalance and now all the solutions are on the other side.

01:02:12.440 --> 01:02:16.840
So in other words, you're saying that the pendulum has swung about as far as it can swing

01:02:16.840 --> 01:02:24.040
in terms of the old paradigm and its ineffectiveness will become glaringly obvious

01:02:24.040 --> 01:02:28.200
and it's going to have to swing back in the other direction inevitably at this point.

01:02:28.200 --> 01:02:36.120
We have been so limiting and so playing so negatively with human dimensions, let's say,

01:02:36.760 --> 01:02:43.640
that has brought a lot of problems and ineffectiveness, and that's why most of the

01:02:43.640 --> 01:02:49.400
solutions need to address that inner human dimension. So another thing I think I heard you

01:02:49.400 --> 01:02:57.640
say just now is that maybe visionaries initially have these concepts of how it could work, how it

01:02:57.640 --> 01:03:03.160
could be more ideal than it is, and initially that those visions are just in their heads,

01:03:03.720 --> 01:03:12.440
but they are perhaps just more sensitive receivers of ideas whose time has come, and that over a

01:03:12.440 --> 01:03:19.080
period of however much time, a few years, many years, whatever, those ideas will percolate into

01:03:19.080 --> 01:03:25.000
the mainstream, be received by less sensitive receivers than the visionaries themselves,

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:31.720
and become more normalized. Yeah, I would say maybe I've found these ideas coming from a spiritual

01:03:31.720 --> 01:03:36.920
understanding of things, but people who are dealing with very concrete problems in health,

01:03:36.920 --> 01:03:44.200
for example, or in education, I think the smartest people are getting at the same solution that I

01:03:44.200 --> 01:03:50.440
come to from my spiritual understanding. Yeah, it's in the zeitgeist somehow. You're probably

01:03:50.440 --> 01:03:57.080
familiar with Rupert Sheldrake's work in morphogenetic fields and so on. He cites examples

01:03:57.080 --> 01:04:04.520
of ideas that someone had, like Sir Isaac Newton, that someone else had at the same time.

01:04:04.520 --> 01:04:09.480
And perhaps Newton was able to publish it first, or Charles Darwin is another example, was

01:04:09.480 --> 01:04:10.700
able to publish it first.

01:04:10.700 --> 01:04:15.800
But the idea was ready to pop, and people were starting to get it, people who hadn't

01:04:15.800 --> 01:04:18.120
communicated with each other about it.

01:04:18.120 --> 01:04:21.220
It's starting to rise up in society.

01:04:21.220 --> 01:04:25.640
Just to reiterate a point I was just making, perhaps the visionaries, the mystics, pick

01:04:25.640 --> 01:04:32.600
up on ideas first that are surfacing in collective consciousness, but they are surfacing irrespective

01:04:32.600 --> 01:04:39.000
of the mystics and they will soon become more prevalent. Less sensitive people will begin to

01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:45.160
pick up on them and at a certain point they could become mainstream. What I would say is that also

01:04:45.160 --> 01:04:50.200
a lot of the solutions that I'm pointing and maybe at some point we can mention a few of them

01:04:50.760 --> 01:04:55.640
are not necessarily people who are reaching that conclusion.

01:04:55.640 --> 01:04:59.320
They are not really thinking that these are spiritual solutions

01:04:59.320 --> 01:05:02.360
because they don't look like that necessarily.

01:05:02.360 --> 01:05:06.280
But I think an important part of my work has been able to

01:05:06.280 --> 01:05:09.720
recognize the spiritual nature by defining it

01:05:09.720 --> 01:05:16.280
so that I can recognize it in other completely different language,

01:05:16.280 --> 01:05:23.800
words or aspects, right? One thing is for specialists in one field, education or health,

01:05:23.800 --> 01:05:29.400
to point out these solutions, but they are not necessarily, they don't see them as spiritual

01:05:29.400 --> 01:05:34.280
solutions. And my own vision, you know, the way I define very, trying to be very simple with

01:05:34.280 --> 01:05:40.040
spirituality, translates in terms of the highest, you know, human values, for example, as we have

01:05:40.040 --> 01:05:47.800
said or certain ways of thinking that we find in wisdom traditions, etc. But you know, it's also

01:05:47.800 --> 01:05:54.600
the what's often missing is that the acknowledgement of their spiritual nature. And it goes both ways

01:05:54.600 --> 01:06:01.720
because often when you think of people talking about spiritual evolution of humanity, etc,

01:06:01.720 --> 01:06:06.920
often they are not able to lend that vision into practical solutions. So I think what you

01:06:06.920 --> 01:06:12.060
What you may have seen in my book is trying to make that bridge between a very deep understanding

01:06:12.060 --> 01:06:20.220
spiritual on one side and a very concrete, grounded way of translating that in societies.

01:06:20.220 --> 01:06:25.640
Yeah, in a way it's an artificial dichotomy because everything is spiritual.

01:06:25.640 --> 01:06:31.020
So all the practical concrete stuff has its spiritual essence.

01:06:31.020 --> 01:06:35.860
So it's a little artificial maybe to say spiritual solutions, practical solutions.

01:06:35.860 --> 01:06:37.340
So maybe you could give us some examples.

01:06:37.340 --> 01:06:41.260
You mentioned you could give a few examples of some of these so-called spiritual solutions

01:06:41.260 --> 01:06:47.820
that practical people might begin to implement without even using the term spiritual.

01:06:47.820 --> 01:06:55.460
For example, if you look at health, especially in our western countries, we have an aging

01:06:55.460 --> 01:07:02.180
population, the cost of health are rising, there's a whole industry that is looking for

01:07:02.180 --> 01:07:09.660
how to maintain or grow their profits and if people are healthy maybe it doesn't work.

01:07:09.660 --> 01:07:16.800
So the main burden now is coming from what we call civilizational disease, right?

01:07:16.800 --> 01:07:20.100
They are not like in the past infectious disease.

01:07:20.100 --> 01:07:24.700
They are more related to our way of living.

01:07:24.700 --> 01:07:26.820
Do we live healthy lives?

01:07:26.820 --> 01:07:28.260
Do we eat well?

01:07:28.260 --> 01:07:29.260
Do we sleep well?

01:07:29.260 --> 01:07:30.640
Do we exercise?

01:07:30.640 --> 01:07:38.960
we don't have so much stress, etc. So I think all societies will have to empower people

01:07:38.960 --> 01:07:47.080
to live healthy lives. What is the main insight of an important wisdom tradition in relation

01:07:47.080 --> 01:07:53.440
to health, which is Ayurveda, right? So there are this whole chain of causality leading

01:07:53.440 --> 01:07:59.400
to disease, and you know, at some point, they have the kind of healthy life. And before

01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:04.720
that, this is at the end of where you live your life is a reflection of your own mental

01:08:04.720 --> 01:08:11.720
health. You know, if you are healthy internally, let's say you will live a healthy life. So

01:08:11.720 --> 01:08:17.080
I think that brings us to mental health just to remain very concrete. And we have a mental

01:08:17.080 --> 01:08:22.560
health crisis in many of our countries. It has a huge economic cost, and it can make a

01:08:22.560 --> 01:08:31.240
a lot of sense to try to address our health crisis from that level of healthy lifestyle,

01:08:31.240 --> 01:08:35.800
mental health, and then even if you go one step beyond, you know, before a lot of mental

01:08:35.800 --> 01:08:39.880
health issues have to do also with some trauma, so trauma healing.

01:08:39.880 --> 01:08:47.780
There is a good case to argue that a public health policy should rather focus much more

01:08:47.780 --> 01:08:52.060
on not that kind of disease-centered paradigm,

01:08:52.060 --> 01:08:54.020
but health-centered paradigm,

01:08:54.020 --> 01:08:58.540
prevention and the quality of being, we could say,

01:08:58.540 --> 01:09:01.900
of the people as an important part of health.

01:09:01.900 --> 01:09:03.200
- Yeah, a good point.

01:09:03.200 --> 01:09:05.520
I mean, to take an example that came to mind,

01:09:05.520 --> 01:09:08.160
let's say you live down at the mouth of the Ganges

01:09:08.160 --> 01:09:10.020
as it enters the Bay of Bengal,

01:09:10.020 --> 01:09:12.960
and there's all this garbage floating down the river,

01:09:12.960 --> 01:09:14.780
and you think, "We gotta do something about this garbage."

01:09:14.780 --> 01:09:17.580
So you have boats going out and picking up the garbage

01:09:17.580 --> 01:09:20.380
and taking it to the shore, and you keep doing that every day.

01:09:20.380 --> 01:09:22.380
That's going to be an endless task

01:09:22.380 --> 01:09:24.300
if you don't prevent garbage from being

01:09:24.300 --> 01:09:26.380
put in the river upstream.

01:09:26.380 --> 01:09:30.140
So of course, we hear about preventative medicine

01:09:30.140 --> 01:09:32.580
and don't smoke, don't drink, get exercise.

01:09:32.580 --> 01:09:34.860
People are encouraged to do all these things.

01:09:34.860 --> 01:09:37.800
But then ultimately, the majority of cost

01:09:37.800 --> 01:09:41.460
involves treating people who haven't done those things, who

01:09:41.460 --> 01:09:45.020
end up sick, and then trying to deal with their sickness.

01:09:45.020 --> 01:09:52.660
The prevention health-centered paradigm goes at some point against that logic of economic

01:09:52.660 --> 01:09:53.660
growth.

01:09:53.660 --> 01:09:58.940
If you don't attend the root cause, you always have symptoms to treat and that's a business.

01:09:58.940 --> 01:10:04.180
If you address the root causes, there is a business for that also, obviously, but it

01:10:04.180 --> 01:10:09.780
probably can be much more economically sustainable for societies to direct our attention on these

01:10:09.780 --> 01:10:10.780
things.

01:10:10.780 --> 01:10:11.780
Yeah.

01:10:11.780 --> 01:10:16.500
I heard some quote the other day, something like, "There isn't a hunger problem, there's

01:10:16.500 --> 01:10:19.420
a greed problem," or something like that.

01:10:19.420 --> 01:10:23.220
There's so many examples we can think of in so many different areas, health as we're discussing

01:10:23.220 --> 01:10:29.020
now, or hunger, or various other things, where, to quote Benjamin Franklin, "A stitch in time

01:10:29.020 --> 01:10:30.020
saves nine."

01:10:30.020 --> 01:10:35.580
In other words, if you could stop these things at their root cause, then it would be so much

01:10:35.580 --> 01:10:41.760
more efficient than having to deal with the symptoms later on.

01:10:41.760 --> 01:10:44.560
What is the main driver of public health?

01:10:44.560 --> 01:10:47.040
It's not health care facilities, etc.

01:10:47.040 --> 01:10:49.520
It's economic inequalities.

01:10:49.520 --> 01:10:57.280
So a lot of social ills we have, crime, teenage pregnancy, even level of litigation, etc.

01:10:57.280 --> 01:11:01.280
So you can tell, and they say, you know, there's a book on that, and they say you can tell

01:11:01.280 --> 01:11:07.520
people to behave, to not get pregnant early, to do sports, to do things, but the real driver

01:11:07.520 --> 01:11:13.200
of all these manifestations is actually economic inequality.

01:11:13.200 --> 01:11:16.920
It's interesting to ponder this stuff. As I try to understand it, I keep trying to put

01:11:16.920 --> 01:11:22.120
it in the spiritual context and I keep thinking of metaphors such as getting to the source

01:11:22.120 --> 01:11:27.400
of the river rather than trying to deal with things downstream. And again, you can think

01:11:27.400 --> 01:11:33.480
in terms of education. There's so much that could be done in preschool and early education

01:11:33.480 --> 01:11:38.160
and everything else that would change the whole trajectory of children's lives. And

01:11:38.160 --> 01:11:43.160
I don't think society has quite gotten that point yet of getting to the root of everything

01:11:43.160 --> 01:11:45.680
rather than dealing with the symptoms.

01:11:45.680 --> 01:11:49.880
Especially if the roots is inside each of us because...

01:11:49.880 --> 01:11:51.320
It is, yeah, ultimately.

01:11:51.320 --> 01:11:57.240
I think what we see in general is that for human beings, you know, we prefer to avoid

01:11:57.240 --> 01:12:00.600
looking inside until we have to do it.

01:12:00.600 --> 01:12:05.240
You know, doing all this research, I was surprised that there are some studies that shows, you

01:12:05.240 --> 01:12:13.200
know, the economic benefits of addressing trauma or taking care of children, well-being,

01:12:13.200 --> 01:12:16.040
etc. or mental health.

01:12:16.040 --> 01:12:21.080
It seems like we're not able to see these potentials because we are just so used to look

01:12:21.080 --> 01:12:28.360
at external solutions that we don't see all the potential that lies in terms of addressing

01:12:28.360 --> 01:12:34.320
these issues at the root level inside our own consciousness.

01:12:34.320 --> 01:12:35.500
That's very interesting.

01:12:35.500 --> 01:12:40.320
Just the way individuals are structured, the senses are designed to be pointed outwards,

01:12:40.320 --> 01:12:45.240
you know, to be directed outwards, and that becomes deeply ingrained.

01:12:45.240 --> 01:12:50.660
And starting a spiritual practice is a process of turning 180 degrees and beginning to go

01:12:50.660 --> 01:12:55.820
inward. And I think if the majority of people were doing that, then the society

01:12:55.820 --> 01:13:00.580
would do that also. Our systems and our policies would be inward-looking and

01:13:00.580 --> 01:13:05.380
preventative and so on. But if the majority of people aren't doing that, if

01:13:05.380 --> 01:13:11.300
they're habitually outer-directed, then it would be impossible for our systems to

01:13:11.300 --> 01:13:15.860
be anything other than outer-directed. You know, we have seen a lot of progress

01:13:15.860 --> 01:13:22.780
progress in societies for the last centuries, you know, thanks to science, which led us

01:13:22.780 --> 01:13:29.980
to understand how the material world works and develop the technologies to be able to

01:13:29.980 --> 01:13:36.380
live better in that material world. I think we are on the verge of just starting to the

01:13:36.380 --> 01:13:44.840
next stage of our evolution is to look inside and develop that collective understanding of

01:13:44.840 --> 01:13:51.800
human psychology and consciousness and then honors that for our collective evolution, for progress.

01:13:51.800 --> 01:14:02.120
And obviously it's a huge potential, even I would say greater than this outer, than controlling the

01:14:02.120 --> 01:14:07.640
outer world. And that's really the shift in all the politics of being, I call it a development

01:14:07.640 --> 01:14:12.920
paradigm. We have right now economic growth, it's a reflection of that kind of culture that we have

01:14:12.920 --> 01:14:18.600
with modernity and the new paradigm would be the politics of being, how we can flourish

01:14:18.600 --> 01:14:26.200
as human beings, even as souls coming on earth for our own evolutive purpose. And once we develop an

01:14:26.200 --> 01:14:33.480
understanding about what needs to happen for that, we will create the basis for a flourishing world.

01:14:33.480 --> 01:14:41.240
I don't know about you, but I know in my own case, I didn't have my big turnaround until I had kind

01:14:41.240 --> 01:14:46.680
kind of reached rock bottom and realized that whatever I was doing was not working and I

01:14:46.680 --> 01:14:50.560
had to totally change my life and my direction.

01:14:50.560 --> 01:14:56.120
And they say that with alcoholics too, they have to bottom out before they can seek help.

01:14:56.120 --> 01:14:58.340
And perhaps that is also true of society.

01:14:58.340 --> 01:15:05.080
Maybe it has to be unavoidably proven to us on a mass scale that the way we are doing

01:15:05.080 --> 01:15:07.160
things doesn't work.

01:15:07.160 --> 01:15:10.840
And doing them more isn't going to yield different results.

01:15:10.840 --> 01:15:17.320
Einstein quote, I think he said his definition of insanity was doing the same thing over

01:15:17.320 --> 01:15:20.040
and over again and expecting different results.

01:15:20.040 --> 01:15:21.040
Exactly.

01:15:21.040 --> 01:15:27.560
You know, that's a kind of definition somehow of intelligence and wisdom to be able to anticipate

01:15:27.560 --> 01:15:32.160
and take the right decisions before you see the consequences.

01:15:32.160 --> 01:15:37.400
But I think what we see often, both at the individual and the collective level, is that

01:15:37.400 --> 01:15:43.360
there is very little anticipation and we keep the same kind of way of doing things until

01:15:43.360 --> 01:15:47.120
we really face a wall and we need to change, right?

01:15:47.120 --> 01:15:48.120
Yeah.

01:15:48.120 --> 01:15:51.840
Well, maybe that wall is getting closer because we definitely need to change.

01:15:51.840 --> 01:15:55.520
Yeah, that's what, you know, we were saying at the beginning, you know, after the breakdowns

01:15:55.520 --> 01:15:56.800
come the breakthrough.

01:15:56.800 --> 01:15:58.760
I think it's also very important.

01:15:58.760 --> 01:16:05.020
That's how I see my work is also preparing the ground so that when we have this opportunity

01:16:05.020 --> 01:16:08.460
for breakthrough, there's a new model that is most already there.

01:16:08.460 --> 01:16:13.340
That's a good point. Yeah, it's not like you have to wait until this thing can actually go

01:16:13.340 --> 01:16:15.740
mainstream before you develop it to get it all ready.

01:16:15.740 --> 01:16:20.700
At small scale, as I see, I'm building on a lot of things that are already happening.

01:16:20.700 --> 01:16:27.580
Maybe it won't become the new paradigm before breakdowns happen because we are so

01:16:27.580 --> 01:16:33.820
attached to our ways of doing things. There are so much powerful interest that are keeping things

01:16:33.820 --> 01:16:39.660
ready and we don't see, you know, through our any political systems really the way to make

01:16:39.660 --> 01:16:43.820
this kind of big shift, you know, even in the political conservation, you know, to face one

01:16:43.820 --> 01:16:49.900
problem it needs to have something really serious to happen often so that we change on one thing.

01:16:49.900 --> 01:16:56.460
But to change the whole society and its direction, yeah, it will probably take, you know, really major

01:16:56.460 --> 01:17:01.900
crisis to force us to change and overcome the hold of powerful interests.

01:17:01.900 --> 01:17:07.740
Yeah, so true. Okay, I'll read the next point. Spiritual teachings and wisdom traditions,

01:17:07.740 --> 01:17:15.740
through dialogue among them and with science, have much to bring to inspire, help design,

01:17:15.740 --> 01:17:22.540
and implement a politics of being. They are our most valuable common heritage, able to offer a

01:17:22.540 --> 01:17:27.620
profound understanding of human nature, as well as practical knowledge and tools for inner

01:17:27.620 --> 01:17:30.140
and ultimately social development.

01:17:30.140 --> 01:17:34.800
Again, most people in the world, even though they might be religious people and they go

01:17:34.800 --> 01:17:38.540
to church and all that stuff, well, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

01:17:38.540 --> 01:17:44.500
A lot of people do seem to think that their religion has practical application to current

01:17:44.500 --> 01:17:53.460
situations, although sometimes they support policies that I think are retrograde or not

01:17:53.460 --> 01:17:57.020
so positive, like homophobia.

01:17:57.020 --> 01:18:01.860
The 10th commandment says you shouldn't covet your neighbor's slaves, basically.

01:18:01.860 --> 01:18:06.380
They want to put the 10 commandments up in the school so the Bible actually condones

01:18:06.380 --> 01:18:07.500
slavery.

01:18:07.500 --> 01:18:13.060
Just because spiritual traditions are ancient doesn't mean they're right about everything.

01:18:13.060 --> 01:18:18.980
obviously there's a lot in them that is good, and perhaps that's where science comes in, helping to

01:18:18.980 --> 01:18:24.340
separate the wheat from the chaff and distill out the stuff that is still applicable in the modern

01:18:24.340 --> 01:18:31.300
age. Yeah, and also inter-spirituality, you know, I said through a dialogue among themselves. I think

01:18:31.300 --> 01:18:37.860
when the more you're looking into different wisdom traditions, where you see convergence,

01:18:37.860 --> 01:18:42.580
They are on some bad points also, but you can recognize a common direction.

01:18:42.580 --> 01:18:48.020
And I think, you know, it's more like a kind of insight, we could say, a direction that tells you

01:18:48.020 --> 01:18:55.060
what to look at somehow. And then we can move then to specialists of a specific situation to see,

01:18:55.060 --> 01:19:02.020
you know, what does that mean in practice? A good example I like to mention is the Bahá'í vision.

01:19:02.020 --> 01:19:03.540
You know the Bahá'í right here? Sure.

01:19:04.180 --> 01:19:10.420
There's been a prophet in the 19th century, Bahá'u'lláh, born in Iran, and he was telling

01:19:10.420 --> 01:19:18.500
to be the kind of new prophet for all times. And he has this vision of progressive revelation,

01:19:18.500 --> 01:19:23.940
that all prophets come from the same source and their teachings vary according to what's

01:19:23.940 --> 01:19:32.100
needed in different times and different places. And he realized that often clergy was a barrier

01:19:32.100 --> 01:19:38.740
for the next revelation. And so he decided to be very intentional in building a way to organize

01:19:38.740 --> 01:19:45.460
its religion without clergy and he designed some institution that says that could provide a

01:19:45.460 --> 01:19:53.380
template for humanity to freely adopt if they choose so. And it's very interesting. I could go

01:19:53.380 --> 01:20:00.820
into more details about what it is in practice, but it's a lot about a kind of pyramid where people

01:20:00.820 --> 01:20:06.660
elected at the local level, choose among themselves a representative at a higher level.

01:20:06.660 --> 01:20:13.620
There is also collective use of the power. So they have a whole system and I mentioned in my book

01:20:13.620 --> 01:20:22.340
a book who tried to ask people in Asia what is an ideal governance system. They asked people

01:20:22.340 --> 01:20:28.340
in America what is an ideal governance system and both kind of converge into a middle way,

01:20:29.140 --> 01:20:35.300
combining somehow the best of democratic system, America, and the best of what they call meritocracy,

01:20:35.300 --> 01:20:43.860
you know, like the learns, decides, into one system. And this system is striking similarities

01:20:43.860 --> 01:20:51.700
with the Baha'i system. And it's a lot also about how to avoid political polarization, which is,

01:20:51.700 --> 01:20:57.380
you know, the main ill we see now in our modern democracy. So I do really think in that case,

01:20:57.380 --> 01:21:03.740
There have been a very deep vision from Bahá'u'lláh and the Baha'is about developing something

01:21:03.740 --> 01:21:10.340
which great wisdom that is proving to be probably a direction of a solution for all times.

01:21:10.340 --> 01:21:12.820
Yeah, you talk about that quite a bit in your book.

01:21:12.820 --> 01:21:16.380
We'll go to the next point.

01:21:16.380 --> 01:21:21.660
Each nation needs to reconnect to its own soul and wisdom to develop its version of

01:21:21.660 --> 01:21:27.180
a politics of being that can support its development and help it bring its unique contribution to

01:21:27.180 --> 01:21:32.940
the world. Unity and diversity is the key to harmonious coexistence of nations in a globalized

01:21:32.940 --> 01:21:33.940
world.

01:21:33.940 --> 01:21:38.380
Okay, a couple questions about that. If you think of the soul of a nation, let's say

01:21:38.380 --> 01:21:43.540
the soul of the United States, is that Native American? Because those are the people who

01:21:43.540 --> 01:21:49.700
were here for thousands of years and now we're a mishmash of immigrants from other places.

01:21:49.700 --> 01:21:55.240
Or do the immigrants, such as myself, whose ancestors came from England, is there an English

01:21:55.240 --> 01:22:00.600
soul for the people from that, a French soul in America for the people who came from France,

01:22:00.600 --> 01:22:05.560
and a German soul for the people who came from Germany. What exactly is the soul of a nation

01:22:05.560 --> 01:22:11.880
in this age when everything is so intermixed? Yeah, to start with, yes, it has to do at some

01:22:11.880 --> 01:22:18.360
point with the land. In the land are certain energy. It's, you know, even indigenous people

01:22:18.360 --> 01:22:24.600
in different parts of the world, see the earth as one living organism, with different parts,

01:22:24.600 --> 01:22:31.160
having a specific function, you know, like organs in a human body. So that's one thing, you know, and

01:22:31.160 --> 01:22:36.120
you know, we could say, for example, the America would be probably, you know, where

01:22:36.120 --> 01:22:43.640
a lot of different people in the world connect a kind of spine or nervous systems. So each nation

01:22:43.640 --> 01:22:51.160
has a specific function and has a specific mission to realize specific energy. I would rather think

01:22:51.160 --> 01:22:57.800
people in the history of nations, we have seen first as kind of ethnicity, then as kind of a

01:22:57.800 --> 01:23:03.640
project to which people are there to some specific values. And then I think the next stage, which is

01:23:03.640 --> 01:23:10.760
more of a spiritual understanding, is that nations are actually like energetic fields and people

01:23:10.760 --> 01:23:16.600
connect to that energetic field for, or soon we could say connect to that, choose to incarnate or

01:23:16.600 --> 01:23:21.720
come to a specific place because they feel it's an opportunity for their evolution.

01:23:21.720 --> 01:23:29.320
If I look at France, for example, I think the soul of France, you know, it's interesting to see that

01:23:29.320 --> 01:23:35.560
it has been, if you look at Paris and a lot of artists and intellectuals who has made what France

01:23:35.560 --> 01:23:42.120
is and what Paris is, has come from outside. So they kind of probably, you know, more embody that

01:23:42.120 --> 01:23:49.000
truth of the French soul, even if they have not been born in France. Think about all the

01:23:49.000 --> 01:23:56.800
Picasso, etc. who all converged to Paris in these times. So I like that vision of a nation

01:23:56.800 --> 01:24:00.560
which is more, you know, it has a specific purpose, it has a soul, it's an energetic

01:24:00.560 --> 01:24:07.800
field. So from that point of view, an immigrant that comes to a specific country may have

01:24:07.800 --> 01:24:11.660
you know, sometimes maybe more even resent because they are more intentional maybe about

01:24:11.660 --> 01:24:17.620
it for being there and participating to that soul of a nation than, you know, people that

01:24:17.620 --> 01:24:23.220
are there but may feel less connected or with less energy to nourish that kind of energy

01:24:23.220 --> 01:24:24.220
that is there.

01:24:24.220 --> 01:24:28.900
I remember when Seals and Crofts were very popular in the early 70s.

01:24:28.900 --> 01:24:30.900
They were Baha'i musicians.

01:24:30.900 --> 01:24:31.900
Remember Seals and Crofts?

01:24:31.900 --> 01:24:33.380
Summer Breeze was one of their songs.

01:24:33.380 --> 01:24:37.300
There are a couple of white guys and they both married black wives.

01:24:37.300 --> 01:24:42.540
And I remember hearing at the time that that was some part of the Baha'i tradition or

01:24:42.540 --> 01:24:45.860
faith was intermingle the races.

01:24:45.860 --> 01:24:49.540
I believe your wife is Costa Rican, right?

01:24:49.540 --> 01:24:51.860
And obviously we are all one planet.

01:24:51.860 --> 01:24:56.580
Do you think that there's some kind of destiny of the world where eventually there'll be

01:24:56.580 --> 01:24:59.620
a blending of all the different races?

01:24:59.620 --> 01:25:05.460
Or do you think that something of cultural integrity will be lost if we do that?

01:25:05.460 --> 01:25:09.020
You know, that vision of unity and diversity I think is important.

01:25:09.020 --> 01:25:16.860
A lot of different cultures need to somehow protect their uniqueness so that they can

01:25:16.860 --> 01:25:20.460
offer their gifts to humanity.

01:25:20.460 --> 01:25:26.500
And I also think that humanity is going in the direction of being one, that's its destiny,

01:25:26.500 --> 01:25:28.540
but one but diverse also, right?

01:25:28.540 --> 01:25:32.880
So that we can keep maintaining the different wisdom,

01:25:32.880 --> 01:25:35.500
the different visions, different cultures,

01:25:35.500 --> 01:25:37.340
so that they can enrich our humanity.

01:25:37.340 --> 01:25:39.740
And I think, you know, we're talking about Sulum Nation,

01:25:39.740 --> 01:25:43.380
I think the US mission somehow is has to do

01:25:43.380 --> 01:25:45.340
with that kind of unification of humanity.

01:25:45.340 --> 01:25:48.020
And just by observing the history

01:25:48.020 --> 01:25:50.860
and how this country has populated itself

01:25:50.860 --> 01:25:55.580
and what it is now, I think it has a great role to play

01:25:55.580 --> 01:25:58.580
in that process of unification.

01:25:58.580 --> 01:25:59.500
- When this point comes up,

01:25:59.500 --> 01:26:01.500
I often think of the rainforest

01:26:01.500 --> 01:26:06.100
where you have the most fertile growing conditions

01:26:06.100 --> 01:26:07.940
in terms of the soil and the rain.

01:26:07.940 --> 01:26:12.940
And that results in the most diverse plant and animal life

01:26:12.940 --> 01:26:15.540
all in one particular environment.

01:26:15.540 --> 01:26:19.100
So you would think perhaps that diversity

01:26:19.100 --> 01:26:23.660
will not be blotted out by global spiritual awakening,

01:26:23.660 --> 01:26:26.480
but it will actually be enriched and enhanced,

01:26:26.480 --> 01:26:28.220
even magnified.

01:26:28.220 --> 01:26:29.440
- Yeah, it's the same thing, I think,

01:26:29.440 --> 01:26:31.320
at the individual level.

01:26:31.320 --> 01:26:33.260
Spiritual growth, I think, you know,

01:26:33.260 --> 01:26:35.120
brings people together,

01:26:35.120 --> 01:26:38.280
but it allows everyone also to be,

01:26:38.280 --> 01:26:39.940
or manifest more,

01:26:39.940 --> 01:26:43.640
realize his or her own specificity, right?

01:26:43.640 --> 01:26:46.240
- It's true, people tend to be less conformist,

01:26:46.240 --> 01:26:48.520
more autonomous, more blossomed

01:26:48.520 --> 01:26:51.040
in their own unique personality.

01:26:51.040 --> 01:26:52.240
- More authentic, yeah.

01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:53.360
- Authentic.

01:26:53.360 --> 01:26:56.960
sometimes just very distinctive, colorful personalities.

01:26:56.960 --> 01:26:58.960
If you think of some of the spiritual greats

01:26:58.960 --> 01:27:00.920
throughout history, they really stood out

01:27:00.920 --> 01:27:03.680
in terms of their uniqueness.

01:27:03.680 --> 01:27:05.720
Interesting, so I think the whole world could be like that.

01:27:05.720 --> 01:27:07.360
We could all be like the rainforest

01:27:07.360 --> 01:27:10.580
where we're all brilliant in our own right,

01:27:10.580 --> 01:27:12.820
but quite distinct from other people

01:27:12.820 --> 01:27:15.680
with a common unifying foundation.

01:27:15.680 --> 01:27:18.600
- Yeah, that brings me to the last point you mentioned.

01:27:18.600 --> 01:27:21.920
I think, you know, like each nation have their own,

01:27:21.920 --> 01:27:24.640
have to design at their own view of the good life

01:27:24.640 --> 01:27:29.400
and somehow it relates also to their spiritual understanding.

01:27:29.400 --> 01:27:33.080
And we have mentioned these different human values

01:27:33.080 --> 01:27:36.120
and it's interesting to show that somehow

01:27:36.120 --> 01:27:37.760
they are present in all traditions,

01:27:37.760 --> 01:27:39.220
in all wisdom traditions.

01:27:39.220 --> 01:27:41.160
But if you look at different cultural contexts,

01:27:41.160 --> 01:27:43.600
they will emphasize one or the other.

01:27:43.600 --> 01:27:46.240
You know, let's say Buddhism and Bhutan,

01:27:46.240 --> 01:27:48.000
we have this gross national happiness

01:27:48.000 --> 01:27:50.600
because a lot of Buddhism has, you know,

01:27:50.600 --> 01:27:56.680
vision of happiness. Another one I mentioned is in South America and all indigenous cultures,

01:27:56.680 --> 01:28:04.200
the living well, good living, it emphasizes also very much a connection to nature. So,

01:28:04.200 --> 01:28:09.800
different cultures will have different labeling on this politics of being, will put some emphasis

01:28:09.800 --> 01:28:15.080
on different things, but when they are balanced, all these values are connected.

01:28:15.640 --> 01:28:21.000
And in a balanced vision, we found them all, but maybe they would put to the front different names

01:28:21.000 --> 01:28:24.920
according to, because they have a different understanding of the good life.

01:28:24.920 --> 01:28:30.600
This reminds me of when October 7th happened in Israel and the war started and everything,

01:28:30.600 --> 01:28:35.640
I began having conversations with this woman in Israel named Georgie Y. Johnson,

01:28:35.640 --> 01:28:41.320
who's been on BatCaptain. She's a therapist, a very wise person. But we were talking about how

01:28:43.080 --> 01:28:46.160
how difficult it is to arrive in any kind of harmony there

01:28:46.160 --> 01:28:49.740
because there are so many extremists on either side.

01:28:49.740 --> 01:28:51.360
There are kind of reasonable people in the middle

01:28:51.360 --> 01:28:52.560
who could actually get along,

01:28:52.560 --> 01:28:54.600
but the extremists insist that,

01:28:54.600 --> 01:28:56.180
no, Israel has to be wiped out,

01:28:56.180 --> 01:28:58.720
or no, Gaza has to be wiped out,

01:28:58.720 --> 01:29:00.980
back and forth.

01:29:00.980 --> 01:29:02.440
And it's really hard to resolve,

01:29:02.440 --> 01:29:06.780
but this whole notion of the ground of being,

01:29:06.780 --> 01:29:08.940
being a unifying force,

01:29:08.940 --> 01:29:11.660
which enables differences to thrive

01:29:11.660 --> 01:29:13.580
and yet be harmonized.

01:29:13.580 --> 01:29:15.820
You can have uniqueness and distinctiveness

01:29:15.820 --> 01:29:18.020
and yet harmony simultaneously.

01:29:18.020 --> 01:29:20.860
It doesn't have to be that everybody becomes the same.

01:29:20.860 --> 01:29:23.140
I think that's really the solution.

01:29:23.140 --> 01:29:24.260
- Yeah, definitely.

01:29:24.260 --> 01:29:28.980
To me that conversation brings to me that thought about,

01:29:28.980 --> 01:29:31.420
you know, I'm surprised that we are not trying

01:29:31.420 --> 01:29:35.100
to be more intentional in looking into wisdom

01:29:35.100 --> 01:29:37.660
for dealing with the problem that we have.

01:29:37.660 --> 01:29:41.020
I made with this book, you know, that very concrete,

01:29:41.020 --> 01:29:44.220
what is a wisdom-based approach to politics and development.

01:29:44.220 --> 01:29:47.420
And what, I mean, myself as an individual,

01:29:47.420 --> 01:29:50.880
at some point when I came with some problems in my life,

01:29:50.880 --> 01:29:54.020
to me, it's natural to take refuge in wisdom

01:29:54.020 --> 01:29:56.520
and trying to find what would be a wider way

01:29:56.520 --> 01:29:57.360
to deal about these things.

01:29:57.360 --> 01:29:59.220
And I think if we unpack,

01:29:59.220 --> 01:30:03.540
if we go through that journey and unpack that reflection,

01:30:03.540 --> 01:30:05.040
you know, that's why I'm trying to show in the book,

01:30:05.040 --> 01:30:06.540
you know, we could really agree

01:30:06.540 --> 01:30:09.600
about these universal human values.

01:30:09.600 --> 01:30:11.640
and then all these principles

01:30:11.640 --> 01:30:13.880
and what they mean in our societies.

01:30:13.880 --> 01:30:16.360
If we would have that understanding

01:30:16.360 --> 01:30:20.540
as our collective basis for our discussion,

01:30:20.540 --> 01:30:23.460
then I think we have a greater possibility

01:30:23.460 --> 01:30:25.800
to deal with what we are facing now.

01:30:25.800 --> 01:30:27.760
- Yeah, and I think some people are doing that

01:30:27.760 --> 01:30:31.600
in Israel specifically and also obviously around the world,

01:30:31.600 --> 01:30:36.100
but generally that's not the way the powers that be think,

01:30:36.100 --> 01:30:38.640
those who are actually in control at this point.

01:30:38.640 --> 01:30:41.720
And maybe that brings us back to the point of trauma,

01:30:41.720 --> 01:30:44.080
which is actually the 10th point in your list here.

01:30:44.080 --> 01:30:47.400
You say, "Healing trauma is, for individuals and societies,

01:30:47.400 --> 01:30:48.740
"the gateway to being.

01:30:48.740 --> 01:30:51.380
"It is fundamental in order for new ways of being

01:30:51.380 --> 01:30:53.400
"and living together to be possible,

01:30:53.400 --> 01:30:56.260
"and for the whole Earth community to flourish."

01:30:56.260 --> 01:30:59.180
So perhaps the reason that these opposing forces

01:30:59.180 --> 01:31:01.640
in these different places, like Ukraine, Russia,

01:31:01.640 --> 01:31:05.520
or Israel, Gaza, can't resolve things

01:31:05.520 --> 01:31:08.040
is that they haven't addressed their trauma,

01:31:08.040 --> 01:31:11.680
and that keeps their thinking polarized and fragmented.

01:31:11.680 --> 01:31:13.260
- Yeah, definitely their thinking,

01:31:13.260 --> 01:31:17.120
but also all these emotions that manifest

01:31:17.120 --> 01:31:19.120
because of these traumas.

01:31:19.120 --> 01:31:20.920
I think it's just a recognition

01:31:20.920 --> 01:31:25.920
that healthy human beings do naturally good.

01:31:25.920 --> 01:31:31.280
And why we are not manifesting that healthy ways of being

01:31:31.280 --> 01:31:36.280
is because of the traumas that have disconnected us

01:31:36.280 --> 01:31:38.440
from what we really are.

01:31:38.440 --> 01:31:41.600
And I think that the work of all times to address that

01:31:41.600 --> 01:31:44.960
and the individual and collective level.

01:31:44.960 --> 01:31:47.520
We have to be proactive for that.

01:31:47.520 --> 01:31:50.440
We can't wait for conflicts to manifest.

01:31:50.440 --> 01:31:55.440
We need to in advance, discuss and heal all these aspects.

01:31:55.440 --> 01:31:57.480
- Yeah, and unless we do,

01:31:57.480 --> 01:31:59.560
conflicts will continue to manifest.

01:31:59.560 --> 01:32:00.400
- Exactly.

01:32:00.400 --> 01:32:05.040
- Do you outline in your book ways of healing trauma?

01:32:05.040 --> 01:32:08.400
What I mentioned, Thomas Hubble's work, for example,

01:32:08.400 --> 01:32:13.400
which may be more on the subtle level part of things,

01:32:13.400 --> 01:32:17.320
even indigenous people do also ceremonies

01:32:17.320 --> 01:32:21.120
to take care of these things at more subtle levels.

01:32:21.120 --> 01:32:24.960
But historical examples of the truth

01:32:24.960 --> 01:32:29.320
and reconciliation process, for example, in South Africa,

01:32:29.320 --> 01:32:31.320
we have it in Canada also.

01:32:31.320 --> 01:32:33.400
I think these are very good models

01:32:33.400 --> 01:32:41.960
have proved quite effective in terms of bringing, opening the conversation and developing spaces

01:32:41.960 --> 01:32:48.920
where truth can be said and healing and reconciliation happen. President Biden recently

01:32:48.920 --> 01:32:54.520
apologized to the indigenous people in America for those schools that were set up which tried to

01:32:54.520 --> 01:33:00.520
strip the children of their cultures. I think perhaps it takes a lot more than an apology to

01:33:00.520 --> 01:33:03.180
to really heal deep trauma.

01:33:03.180 --> 01:33:05.120
But there are a lot of methodologies.

01:33:05.120 --> 01:33:07.960
I mean, all the different spiritual practices and therapies

01:33:07.960 --> 01:33:11.240
and possibly psychedelics and just all kinds of things

01:33:11.240 --> 01:33:14.280
that are becoming more and more popular,

01:33:14.280 --> 01:33:18.360
perhaps we'll be healing trauma more and more deeply.

01:33:18.360 --> 01:33:21.160
- I think psychedelics is more and more science

01:33:21.160 --> 01:33:23.960
about showing their effectiveness,

01:33:23.960 --> 01:33:26.000
more at the individual level, I would say,

01:33:26.000 --> 01:33:28.880
but I think it's quite amazing what can be done

01:33:28.880 --> 01:33:32.480
with ayahuasca, for example, et cetera.

01:33:32.480 --> 01:33:33.840
But that's the individual way.

01:33:33.840 --> 01:33:35.800
I think the collective way, you know,

01:33:35.800 --> 01:33:38.360
has more to do with restorative justice, you know,

01:33:38.360 --> 01:33:42.760
with being all in circles where we can really listen

01:33:42.760 --> 01:33:46.120
to the pain, to the violence that has been done

01:33:46.120 --> 01:33:49.800
and to take responsibility for what has been done

01:33:49.800 --> 01:33:54.360
and find ways to, victims to feel they have been hurt

01:33:54.360 --> 01:33:58.440
and we are able to find ways that can compensate

01:33:58.440 --> 01:34:02.560
or provide some healing in a way that is a bit more concrete,

01:34:02.560 --> 01:34:04.600
but we need to have these conversations.

01:34:04.600 --> 01:34:09.020
- Well, I think your book will prove to be prescient.

01:34:09.020 --> 01:34:10.280
People will look back and say,

01:34:10.280 --> 01:34:13.180
"Wow, this guy really saw the future

01:34:13.180 --> 01:34:14.840
when he wrote that book."

01:34:14.840 --> 01:34:19.720
I think we will eventually end up with a politics of being

01:34:19.720 --> 01:34:22.560
and a world based in being.

01:34:22.560 --> 01:34:25.440
I don't know exactly how much turbulence

01:34:25.440 --> 01:34:28.440
we're going to have to go through between here and there,

01:34:28.440 --> 01:34:29.940
between now and then,

01:34:29.940 --> 01:34:32.960
but I suspect there will be a fair amount of it.

01:34:32.960 --> 01:34:35.800
In any case, I hope it can be as smooth as possible.

01:34:35.800 --> 01:34:40.000
And to whatever extent the recommendations you provide

01:34:40.000 --> 01:34:42.680
in your book can be adopted,

01:34:42.680 --> 01:34:45.080
can help to make it more smooth.

01:34:45.080 --> 01:34:45.920
- Thank you.

01:34:45.920 --> 01:34:48.320
Yeah, I think it's also, you know, I'm not naive.

01:34:48.320 --> 01:34:51.320
I know that doesn't work like you're putting,

01:34:51.320 --> 01:34:53.600
you know, I think there's a sentence here,

01:34:53.600 --> 01:34:58.480
Yiddish proverb says, you know, tell your plans to God and he will love you, you know, or

01:34:58.480 --> 01:35:00.360
something like that.

01:35:00.360 --> 01:35:07.240
It's rather to put kind of a map so that we can know what we decide, what we discuss, how

01:35:07.240 --> 01:35:13.120
does this fit into the journey of where we are in this paradigm of having an economic

01:35:13.120 --> 01:35:21.200
growth and modern worldview towards in the journey towards a more evolved being paradigm

01:35:21.200 --> 01:35:27.840
and what it means for society. So to navigate that transition, I think the book is a kind of a map

01:35:27.840 --> 01:35:34.560
to navigate that transition. So besides your United Nations work, what are you doing? Do you hold

01:35:34.560 --> 01:35:40.960
courses or webinars or anything like that? Do you mean on Politics of Being? Yeah, is there any way

01:35:40.960 --> 01:35:45.680
that people can interact with you about this stuff? Well, they are welcome to connect with me

01:35:45.680 --> 01:35:52.800
and spread these ideas. I've not yet built a course, I think I will in the future or maybe a community,

01:35:52.800 --> 01:35:58.320
but I'm quite focused on my work with the Conscious Food Systems Alliance, which I think is

01:35:58.320 --> 01:36:04.480
also a great opportunity to pilot that from the United Nations, that agenda about the role of

01:36:04.480 --> 01:36:10.240
consciousness and inner transformation, post-systemic transformation. So I feel I kind of

01:36:10.960 --> 01:36:17.360
receive that opportunity and the way to test in one sector, the food and agriculture sector,

01:36:17.360 --> 01:36:23.280
that kind of, you know, what conscious systemic transformation means. So I've been, you know,

01:36:23.280 --> 01:36:28.480
spending quite a lot of time in the recent years on that. But yeah, no, I think in the future,

01:36:28.480 --> 01:36:34.880
I want to, and I said, obviously, this is a collective project. And I would really like,

01:36:34.880 --> 01:36:39.600
you know, to bring together all the people that are part of the solutions in many different

01:36:39.600 --> 01:36:45.040
sectors together and being able to work together to support that change. Yeah, I'm sure there are a lot

01:36:45.040 --> 01:36:50.000
of conferences and things that you could speak at that would be relevant to this, like Bioneers,

01:36:50.000 --> 01:36:56.880
as I mentioned earlier. I do some speaking and teaching and yeah, teaching with some universities,

01:36:56.880 --> 01:37:02.560
etc., but you know, not a whole course on Politics of Being. I've been also part of

01:37:02.560 --> 01:37:06.960
different collective books with different communities, you know, that think about these

01:37:06.960 --> 01:37:14.400
these ideas. All right, well thanks Thomas. Really enjoyed speaking with you. Any closing thoughts?

01:37:14.400 --> 01:37:21.680
Well, I don't know, maybe just thanking you also, Rick. I think it's very great work you're doing.

01:37:21.680 --> 01:37:29.280
I've enjoyed watching a few videos and spreading that understanding, you know, and that acknowledgement

01:37:29.280 --> 01:37:35.440
that there is a lot of this spiritual transformation happening in the world that goes a little bit

01:37:35.440 --> 01:37:43.840
and notice often, so I think it's very important to make that more known, tangible, acknowledge,

01:37:43.840 --> 01:37:48.960
and that's the basis for the change we want to see outside in society. So thank you.

01:37:48.960 --> 01:37:56.880
Thank you. And thanks to those who've been listening to or watching this interview. Stay

01:37:56.880 --> 01:38:01.600
tuned for the next one. Visit the website if you like. You can sign up for an email list to be

01:38:01.600 --> 01:38:08.000
be notified of future interviews and check out the menus on the website for a few other

01:38:08.000 --> 01:38:10.600
interesting things we have to offer.

01:38:10.600 --> 01:38:11.600
So thanks, Thomas.

01:38:11.600 --> 01:38:12.800
Thank you, Rich.

01:38:12.800 --> 01:38:16.160
[MUSIC PLAYING]

01:38:16.160 --> 01:38:19.520
[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Thank you.