seeing ghosts and maybe meeting extraterrestrials or whatever, as remarkable as those things
appear to our human consciousness, we need to remember that there's something far more
substantial behind all of those phenomena.
And we ourselves are merely one expression of phenomena.
Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.
My name is Rick Archer.
Buddha at the Gas Pump is a long-running, as in this is our 16th season, series of interviews
with spiritually awakening people.
This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers,
so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons
on every page of the site.
And speaking of the site, it is batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P.
And if you're just watching this on YouTube or listening to the audio podcast, you might
want to check it out because there are things there that you won't find on YouTube.
My guest today is Jim Grove.
Jim is a lifelong practitioner of yogic meditation who grew up in a small logging town on the
west coast of Canada.
At age 13, he was introduced to a teacher who was one of the few ministers directly ordained
by Paramahansa Yogananda during his lifetime.
That's Mother Yogacharya M. Hamilton of Seattle.
A series of early transcendental experiences convinced him to commit himself to continued
yogic practice under her tutelage.
His recent memoir, A Curious Spiritual Journey, recounts some of the prominent experiences
that have arisen from his practice over four decades.
Starting from early adolescence, he likes to speak plainly about spiritual experience
and practice, avoiding the vague, abstract, and sometimes inflated language used in much
spiritual and new age writing.
That's what I gathered from your book.
The subtitle of this interview is "Conversations with Ordinary Spiritually Awakening People"
and the reason we chose that and the reason that was a motivation for starting this show
is that many people have a fantastical notion of what awakening or spiritual development
might be and therefore they could have actually been spiritual practitioners for quite some
time but feel like the hope of them ever attaining anything significant is rather slim because
they're not yet able to float two feet off the ground and they don't glow in the dark.
One of my motivations in starting this was to interview people, ordinary spiritually
awakening people, so people could see that people like them were having some significant
breakthroughs and you really made that part of your practice in a way you've said in
your book and in your life, "Hey, I want to just be a regular guy and work on my spiritual
development, but, yeah, I'm still going to go out drinking with my buddies and do this
and do that and be a normal human being," in addition to being a spiritual aspirant.
Those types of things can be taken to extremes, and once in a while you probably indulge them
more than you were happy to have done the next morning, but nonetheless continue to
have profound breakthroughs and experiential realizations as you've gone along.
Yes, and thanks for that synopsis. I feel like you articulated it better than I would
have.
Oh, I don't know. You've got a better education than I do, and you have been a professional
writer at times. The book was very readable. It was really entertaining. Sometimes I read
or listen to spiritual books and I get a little bored, but yours really held my interest.
Oh, great. A lot of effort went into that in terms of editing for anyone out there who's
interested in writing. The original manuscript was about 80,000 words because there was a lot of
stuff I had in there. And I just came back and I mercilessly edited and took stuff out that I felt
wasn't necessarily contributing to the sort of central thesis narrative of things that maybe they
delighted me personally, but they didn't necessarily contribute to a story that would help anyone that
was reading it. So the manuscript went from about 80,000 words down to 55,000 words.
>> Yeah, Mark Twain once said to somebody, "I'm sorry to have sent you such a long letter. I was
too busy to write a short one." >> Yes. That's a big inspiration for me,
him and I dare say Hemingway. I know Hemingway gets a bad rap.
>> He could spend a whole afternoon on a paragraph. >> Yeah.
>> Okay, so Jim, shall we do this somewhat chronologically? You mentioned that you
first got bitten by the spiritual bug when you were 13. How did that happen?
Yeah, it's interesting. I would say that I had a good grounding, and as I explain in the book, I had a good grounding prior to that in the Anglican Church of Canada. It's the equivalent in Canada of the Episcopalian Church in the United States.
So liberal, open-minded?
Yeah, yeah. And there's such a thing as high Anglican, which is almost like the Catholic Church, and then there's low Anglican. The little country parish that I went to was very much low Anglican. It's of the people, for the people.
>> RICK Kind of Unitarian-ish.
>> KYLE But I've always been really grateful for that grounding that I had. And the way I put it
is at age 12, of my own recognizance, as is the tradition within the church, you're encouraged to
take First Communion, which is you taking up the mantle from baptism. Your parents baptized you and
said they'd raise you in the Christian church. And then at age 12, you say, "Yeah, I hereby take up
the mantle and I'm going to continue in the faith. And I did that and I was very enthused about it,
and that was coming from me, it wasn't coming from my parents. I was already starting to find that I
was getting, I don't know, there was something that was missing for me. I always had a sensibility or
a sensitivity to that stillness, that sense of presence, that sense of something bigger, and
the church wasn't quite touching that for me with its, in terms of the weekly sermons and what have
you. And then my brother Peter came to visit. He's 15 years older than me, so at this time he would
have been like 27. And he started talking about this teacher that him and his wife had met in
Seattle, Mother Yogacharya Hamilton. And I got interested. And at that point I had no idea
what a guru was. I paid attention and I listened to understand. And then as he described what she
was about and some of the things she was teaching. Something lit up for me anyways. Some part of me
knew that this is interesting to me and he said as it happened to be that she was visiting Victoria
the following week to give a lecture and that she frequently came up to Victoria. She had a group
there in the center in Victoria. So I went and it was pretty much was an aha kind of moment listening
to her speak and then meeting her afterwards and talking with her. There was no... Looking back
now I can say in hindsight that what I was feeling was very much her aura, her energy field, and it
was incredibly powerful. I couldn't possibly say enough about that. And she had been a contemporary
of Yogananda? She was one of his original disciples. So Yogananda first traveled in the United States
in 1925 and on his grand tour he stopped in Seattle. My guru met him, she was 21 years old,
she went to see him speak and same kind of thing, she was immediately converted as it were and became
his disciple. Within about 15-20 years she had become a leader, like a center leader in Seattle.
Shortly prior to his death in 1952, he gave her the title of Yogacharya, which means Master of Yoga.
She was one of the 14 or so that he ordained during his lifetime, but more than that,
she was actually one of the first five or six people in his ministry. So I feel,
imagine, I feel very privileged to have been able to have her as my teacher.
Yeah, and she was quite remarkable. There were a number of occasions where she could clearly read
what you were thinking without making a show about it. There was never any show, there was never any
flash, and that's something that I really liked about her. That may come from the fact that she
was born in Duluth. I know she was from Minnesota, I think she was from Duluth originally, and came
from a working class, very much a working class family. Yeah, there was a funny story where you
You and your brother went down to see her from Victoria down to Seattle and she was getting
pretty old at this point and you wanted to take her out to lunch but you didn't have
any money and you couldn't certainly afford it at a very expensive place and you didn't
think she would want to eat at a place like Denny's and then somehow or other she says,
"Let's go to Denny's."
So you all go to Denny's and she buys you lunch I think the story went.
But there were some other things too where she would pick up on some thought you had and
without again being a show-off about it, but just make it very clear to me that she understood
what you were thinking and could respond accordingly.
Yes, and I would like to add that particularly on that occasion when we went to Seattle and
my brother and I were driving to her apartment and we were, it was a Sunday and at that time
we couldn't get any American currency and we thought, "What are we going to do?
You're supposed to honor the guru by taking them out for a nice meal or doing something
for them."
And the one thing we knew is that Denny's in the United States at that time anyways would accept Canadian currency.
So we looked at each other as we're driving along, we thought maybe we can take her to Denny's and we both started laughing like, yeah, that's never gonna happen.
And in this junky old car that we were driving with my mother's, this really beat up car, and we just felt like most disheveled devotees in history.
But we brushed all that off and when we got there,
and we sit down in the living room,
we start chit-chatting and she's being polite
and just asking us how we're doing, whatnot.
And then I wanna say that she was toying with us.
She was playing with us a bit.
She just went quiet for a minute
and then she looked at us each in turn and said,
have you guys eaten lunch yet?
And she just let it hang for a bit.
And Peter and I look at each other and go, no.
And she says, what do you say we go to Denny's?
I'll buy.
- That's great.
She was like that, I would like to emphasize that. She had such a great sense of humor.
But at the same time, she could be very strict with devotees when the moment required it.
In a way that was never about asserting her authority, it was very much about, I took it as the ultimate mark of respect towards the devotees.
I'm taking you at your word that you're serious about being here and that you're serious about learning and progressing.
So, therefore, I'm going to give it to you straight with both barrels."
And I always appreciated that, but I know there were some people that didn't like having
that kind of truth presented to them, so it wasn't everybody's cup of tea.
Rick Yeah.
Jesus said, "Be in the world, but not of it."
He also said, "Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves."
And that's been one of your mottos, not the second one, but the first one, "Be in the
world, but not of it."
How would you define that, and how have you lived that out so far?
In the world, not of it.
Yeah, definitely my motto.
Basically bringing my practice and realizations, that knowledge, into some kind of actual work,
basically.
It's that simple in the world.
But always maintaining that balance, there's that sense of being here and yet knowing that
I come from somewhere else, that I'm part of something infinite, something larger.
So even though I'm here represented in this finite body that we choose to call Jim, it's
about always maintaining that essential contact with that greater source and allowing that
source to basically emerge and speak through this channel, if I dare say that.
>> Yeah.
Would you say, also, that doing that does not necessitate any kind of conceptualization?
It's really more of an experiential thing.
>> Oh, yeah.
Very much so.
>> It's not like you're running around philosophizing all day about how you're not really in this
world and you're doing things in the world.
No, it's more of the nitty-gritty reality of your daily experience, right?
Yes, very much. And I'm actually very cautious about talking about it. As years go by, I'm less inclined to talk about it, unless people ask, unless people have specific questions and are interested in what that practice looks like.
But I'm also very guarded or cautious against letting my intellect interfere with things.
And when it gets into too much talking about it and conceptualizing about it, I just find that
becomes an impediment to that source, that channel, that presence coming through. And
I don't feel the need to label everything. I saw a YouTube video yesterday which was entitled
something like, "I had a spiritual awakening and now I've lost all motivation." The guy went on
to explain that he doesn't really have any initiative to do anything, that he's lost all
interest in the world as a result of his spiritual awakening. I made a comment in the comment section
under the video that that's not the final awakening. Awakened people can be very motivated,
is just that there's a different intelligence driving the motivation. It's shifted from just
individual intelligence to divine will or cosmic intelligence.
>> David: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what I feel driving me. That's what I feel
my experience to be. And it's interesting. It's easy to get excited about all of the things that
I would like to accomplish, but in this particular human vehicle, I'm also able to reflect that,
"Oh, it's going to be whatever it's going to be, whatever that infinite source has intended."
I'm interested in the physiological side, obviously, of everything. Very much part of
yoga practice is maintaining your body, taking care of your body, because this is the vehicle,
and including your nervous system and everything else, that's going to be transmitting all of this
energy and doing the work. Some people are very fortunate and blessed to be born
in this world with a very healthy strong body. We know that people are born with
different cognitive potentialities, we know that. Some people develop their
potentiality, some people have great potentiality, but don't develop it for
whatever number of reasons. Same thing with our physical body. So we just have
to make do with whatever we're given, if that makes sense. And I'm just grateful
I'm grateful that I feel fortunate that I've been given a pretty healthy body and a healthy
mind and the opportunity to be exposed to a set of teachings that help to develop all
the potentialities that this channel can be.
Yeah, no, it is a blessing for sure and a precious opportunity, I would say.
Another quote would be, "The body is the temple of the soul."
So it's the instrument through which the soul, if you will, functions.
That was one of my early realizations toward the end of my teenage drug phase.
I was thinking, "I'm stuck in this body, and if I damage it, I'm going to be stuck in a
damaged body all of my probably short life, so I better clean up my act and start taking
care of it."
Yeah, it's great that you had the presence of mind to recognize that maybe some spark
of the divine was intervening to say, "This wasn't part of the plan for you, Rick."
Yeah, I think so.
I often ponder that.
It wasn't obvious to me at the time, but in retrospect, you can see the hand of the Divine
over the course of your life.
Gosh, when you say that, it conjures up all sorts of memories for me.
Close calls and near misses and things.
Oh yeah, I drove my guardian angels crazy during those days.
Oh my God, what are we going to do with this guy?
They all had nervous breakdowns.
So going along as this unfolds, we're talking about being guided by the divine, having it
bless our lives or protect us from dangers or shift us in more wholesome directions and
so on.
And I imagine you would agree, it's obvious that this could mean different things for
different people, not everybody is meant to do the same thing.
So what would you say to the thought that being in an enlightened state or awakened state
and being guided by divine intelligence, having Brahman be the charioteer, to quote the Katha
Upanishad, doesn't mean you're going to be doing earth-shaking spiritual things and be
standing up on stage in front of thousands of people. You could be working an ordinary job,
raising kids, doing all that ordinary stuff, and yet take it from there.
>> Steven And the ripples I always imagine, I always think about the ripple effect of
every little effort that we make.
This is really important to me and has been for years.
With each passing year, I become even more aware of each little thing that I'm putting
out in terms of my thoughts, in terms of little actions during the day.
But I can tell you one prominent aspect of this chosen work in my life, apart from being
a father of three children and having really relished raising my children to the best of
ability. I wasn't a perfect father, but I think they would probably mostly tell you
that I mostly did a good job. And they're all very beautiful people, so I'm very
proud of them. One of the things I like to share is that for just about 25 years
I was a community soccer coach. I'm really into soccer and have been since I was a
little boy. I got into coaching and I've coached all sorts of kids that were not
My own kids only briefly played soccer and got interested in other sports and whatnot, which was fine by me.
But in coaching soccer, I always saw it as spiritual work. Let me just say that.
I never said that to any of the kids or any of the parents, and if any of them are watching now, they might be scratching their head or not.
But for me, it was always about... how can we say this? This operates on so many different levels.
You must be familiar with the writings of Robert Bly.
Yeah, I never read them, but I'm aware of him.
And one of the themes that comes across in, certainly, Iron John, is about boys need male
figures who are positive. And I saw that need in my community. And the same thing with girls
need positive models who are male and what have you. And I coach a lot of girls teams.
But I want to say that beyond all the soccer and teaching how to pass and kick and shoot and
tactical play and all that kind of stuff, it was always for me about infusing all of it with a
sense of kindness and joy and, quite frankly, love. Everything for me was an expression of love.
It was about seeing the inherent divinity in each of those people.
And I would not hesitate to say that.
I think it even surprised me perhaps,
my ability to be able to see the inherent divinity in each of those individuals,
even a couple of the characters who were misbehaving and disruptive and whatnot,
and they know who they are, God bless them.
And one of these guys came back to me years later.
We went out for beer, the team called me up, or somehow it happened, and we went out to the pub a few years ago.
These guys are all in their mid-late 30s now.
And at one point, they're all sharing anecdotes and story, and it was really pleasing to me that one of these guys, he just, he suddenly dropped his head and was very, feeling, he had this sense of shame.
He says, "I was a real jerk. I was a real a-hole."
And I said, "I just laughed and I said, 'Yeah, but you know, that's where you're at that time,
and that's what was going on, and I understood that, and it's anyways."
Yeah.
That's me reminiscing, clearly.
But you might like to check out this thing that a friend of mine is doing,
who has been on BatGap a couple times. Her name is Mariana Kaplan, and she and her son
have been traveling all over the world handing out soccer balls to kids who might be using
something to serve as a soccer ball that's not really a soccer ball. Places in Africa and Indonesia and
places where kids can't afford soccer balls. So it's this mission to propagate goodwill and
positivity and spirituality through the avenue of soccer. You can google it, you'll find it.
- Mariana Kaplan.
- Kaplan, C-A-P-L-A-N. She's a psychotherapist and lives in Maine now. And she's written some
really cool books like "Halfway Up the Mountain, The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment."
Do you need a guru? That was another one. And some others.
Oh, I'm already interested.
You can see her interviews on that. Anyway, yeah, it's a good thing you weren't a boxing coach.
It might have been harder to still love your trainees.
Okay, love this guy. Now knock his lights out.
So, the importance of not obsessing over dogma at the expense of losing touch with
or becoming blind to intuitive learning and perception.
You got your start in a Christian church, presumably it wasn't a very dogmatic one, but dogma
is not limited to Christianity or religions.
There are people who are politically dogmatic, there are people who are perhaps even dogmatic
about their soccer team.
In the so-called spiritual world, New Age or contemporary spirituality, people can be very
fixated on particular ideas and dismissive of those who think differently.
Absolutely, and that's why I think for the most part I've shied away from being part of any spiritual community.
I really enjoy the encounters that I have with other spiritual people who are engaged in some form of practice and who are very devoted to their practice.
But I have the utmost faith that God, that infinite source, Brahman, whatever name we give to it, is always the charioteer, is always taking me where I need to be going, whether it's in work, in my family life, or in these relationships.
And the word I like to use is around that phenomena as it were, is emergence.
But, sorry, I'm meandering prematurely already.
Going back to dogma, suffice it to say, I rail against dogma in all forms.
I embrace knowledge, I embrace truth, I embrace questioning.
But even the Buddha talked about that you have to doubt, you have to question things.
And I'm suspicious even of myself if I become a little too attached to what I believe to
be an absolute certainty.
Yeah, there's a great quote from the Buddha.
I could pull it up if I took a few seconds, but it basically said, "Don't believe anything
because the scriptures say it, because some authority says it.
Don't even believe anything because I say it.
Just really think about it on your own and ponder it deeply, and then if it seems to
be conducive to the well-being of everyone, then put it into practice or abide by it."
And there's one more quote I want to throw out, relevant to something you said a couple
minutes ago, which I've said in many lectures, but I think it always bears repeating, which
was from Padma Sambhava, which was, "Although my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention
to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour."
The reason I like that quote is that he's just saying that, hey, you can really be cosmic,
really an awakened dude, but it doesn't grant you a pass to do whatever the heck you please.
You have to be quite meticulous or impeccable in your behavior and not deviate from the
Tao or the Dharma.
It bears saying because there are some people who take the opposite conclusion.
They think, "Okay, now I'm enlightened so I can do whatever I want, and after all, I'm
not doing it.
God is doing it, so it must be okay."
I helped to start an organization called the Association for Spiritual Integrity because
there has been so much hanky-panky in spiritual communities and it's caused so much harm.
We got together with some friends and started this organization and it's really doing well,
and it seems to be striking a much-needed chord.
Ben Do you have a website for that?
David Yeah, it's called spiritual-integrity.org,
and we have like nearly 800 members now and over 50 member organizations, and we've given
presentations at Harvard Divinity School and so on. But it's an important thing. I'm a student
of Swami Sarvapriyananda, among others. It's not like he's my guru or anything, but I like
his classes. And he always emphasizes that ethical development is actually foundational.
That's the first step. And then you build everything else on top of that. I emphasize
that because, again, the harm that's been done by people who don't recognize that, and
even some very well-known spiritual teachers. There was one at a conference in Denver a
few months ago who said, "If you think that ethics has anything to do with awakening, you
don't understand awakening.
Yeah.
I want to go back to that quote.
I like that very much and the explanation you offered.
And he's saying, "Even though my awareness is as vast as the sky."
So he's saying, "Okay, I'm awakened," and whatever that meant in those days, "but you
got to be careful."
Absolutely.
And I think part of what I take from that is that because your awareness has expanded as
vast as the sky. I feel that it is incumbent upon me all the more to act
with the utmost integrity. I do believe that there is a distinction made. This is
something that just comes from my intuition, but I do suspect or believe
there is a distinction to be made in terms of karma. If I go out and crash up
a car and I don't know any better, that's one thing, but if you go out and
crash up a car but you knew better. That's a different thing. And I think in Islam
they talk about that, the intention, what was the intention behind it.
If an uneducated person commits a certain crime, there would be some consequences. What if
the judge does it? Same crime. Judge really should know better. Of course in
this day and age the judge probably gets off and the other guy goes to jail.
And this goes on all around the world. I think it's a really good analogy or
example, because what happens then is that ultimately that break in trust, that
break in integrity, ends up trickling down through the entire system and it
affects the whole organism. And this is why it is absolutely essential, like your
organization, to be maintaining integrity, to develop integrity. In my case, I think
that goes back to, well probably goes back to a lot of things, past lives, to my
early upbringing in that Anglican country parish, where I was surrounded by
really good people, just really good, simple people, who were very involved in
the community. My mother was always involved in, for example, Meals on Wheels,
helping people. There was just this overriding sense of your responsibility
to the community and to the people around you. Take care of people, and of
course, part and parcel of that is it was a given that you have to act with
integrity. Yeah, you can see what has happened in the Catholic Church and probably some other
denominations where priests end up molesting children and it's such a violation of trust and
so shattering of people's faith and so traumatizing. This is a crude example, but imagine if
Yogacharya Hamilton had said, "All right guys, you know, give me all your money," or "Take off your
clothes," or whatever. Imagine the effect that would have had on your life. Yeah, that was one of the
things that, yeah, she never asked for money. No, never. And that's always stuck with me. She just
transmitted it. Again, there's that, just the living example of integrity. And again, I'm so
blessed and fortunate to have been able to have that kind of a teacher.
>> Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to sound preachy, but it's just in my position of being so
interconnected with so many different people around the world in the spiritual communities,
and also through my involvement in the ASI, I just encounter so many examples of misbehavior,
which is extremely traumatizing and disillusioning to people. I place such value on spiritual
development for individuals and for the world that it just seems like a tragedy when these
things happen. I often have to maybe check myself depending on who the audience is and who I'm
talking with. Yeah. Because I don't know why it should be such a big concept for some people,
but it is. I think it's because our whole notion of integrity and honesty at large has become
so diluted. I'll give you one brief example. I don't want to inadvertently reveal the person's
identity, so I'll have to leave out all the sort of most salient details, but it basically...
Unfortunately, I'm not psychic like your teacher was, so I won't be able to guess.
This is a person, a colleague, who I have high respect for, very high regard for, wonderful person, and an intrinsically good person.
But they grew up in a certain region and in a certain culture, and despite their education and everything else,
I made a comment about somebody that had demonstrated a lack of integrity and deceit.
And this person said to me, they've responded, "Oh, but everybody does that."
As in, it's normalized. So that kind of behavior is not necessarily seen, even, and we're talking
minor deceits, but the fact that this notion, very casually expressed, "Oh, that's just normal.
That's normal."
Yeah, that's an interesting thing. It brings up the point of, are ethics cultural phenomenon,
or do they have some universal value? Because you might grow up in a culture where everybody
thinks, or you might have grown up in a culture 150 years ago in the States where everybody
thinks that it's okay to own black people, or in 1930s Germany, the horrible things that
people were saying about Jews, and little kids.
I was just reading something the other day where somebody was so shocked because this
little kid started saying these horrible things about Jews that he had heard from his friends.
So just because everybody does something doesn't mean it should be accepted.
And I think some of our most inspiring people throughout history, Mahatma Gandhi or Martin
Luther King or others, were inspiring because they bucked the trend.
They didn't do what everybody else did.
They said, "Wait a minute, this is wrong and I'm going to speak out."
And both of them were probably channeling a lot of Kundalini or something because they
They have the power, not only the awareness, that sort of awakened mindset, but they also
have the power and the strength and the confidence to be able to transmit that against the overwhelming
odds that were against them.
>> RICK: Was it Margaret Mead said something like, "Don't think that great changes can't
be affected by a small group of dedicated people.
In fact, that's the only thing that has ever brought about great changes."
>> BF: Yes.
>> RICK: Something like that.
Misquoting or you probably heard the quote. That was pretty reasonable close
paraphrase. So I like to quote from scripture whether it's the Upanishads or
the Bible and when we were talking about integrity one of my favorites is this is
we've already passed this topic but I just I always remember this one in Jesus
he said for any of those who would ever harm a child it would be better that a
millstone was tied around their neck and they were dropped into the ocean.
I think a lot of priests somehow miss that verse.
Yeah, pretty heavy. Heavy karma, in other words. Heavy karma.
Okay, so everything we're saying here, it wouldn't be an abrupt segue to read your next point,
which is the importance of simple humility and kindness. Let's dwell on that for a little bit.
Yeah, for me, one of the happy discoveries in my life, having heard this said by a lot, especially a lot of the great Buddhist teachers, but Yogananda talked about it a lot, is just the simple practice, making it a habit of being kind, making it a habit of demonstrating compassion.
And of course there's research around this now too
in terms of the neurofeedback that comes back to us.
And just witnessing the beauty that emerges from that,
and then as you make it more and more of your habit,
it just becomes such a natural part of who we are.
It's like compounding interest
on a really good investment portfolio, but this grows.
- It grows and it refines your nervous system, actually.
You were talking earlier about the nervous system.
Crude behavior coarsens the nervous system.
Compassion, humility, kindness, that kind of stuff
refines the nervous system.
And a more refined nervous system is more suitable,
if that's the best word,
more capable of reflecting pure consciousness
and spiritual divine values.
- Yes, absolutely.
And I'm always aware of that
and increasingly aware of how everything contributes.
It's a constant feedback loop.
As we practice these things, we're also refining the body,
refining the mind, refining the spirit,
the whole experience.
- Yeah.
I'm involved with this marvelous fellow named Nipun Mehta,
who leads an organization called Service Space,
servicespace.org.
He's behind this whole AI chat bot project
that I've been involved with for a couple of years.
Service Space, its motto is small acts of kindness.
And he just started out 25, 30 years ago with this,
I think it was the first project was this thing
called Karma Kitchen, where they opened the restaurant
and anybody could come to eat.
And afterwards you pay what you thought it was worth
or you just walk out if you don't wanna pay.
But it worked, people did it, they supported it.
And they've gone on to do all kinds of things.
And now millions of people are involved
all around the world doing wonderful things
just through this motto of small acts of kindness.
It's interesting to witness, beautiful to witness,
how a project like that, when it's coming from a good place
and it carries this initial vibration and this intention,
and then it's subsequently building that energy
and that intention and transmitting it to others,
it catches fire and expands and grows
if it's rooted in truth.
Yeah, I'm reminded at this point in our political scene of the importance of leaders reflecting
these qualities of kindness and humility and so on.
Unfortunately the pendulum seems to have swung in a direction where that's not so much the
case, but it really makes a difference.
You were bullied as a kid.
You talk about it in your book, and you can imagine the playground scene where there's
a bully and then a certain mindset gravitates around the bully and they become little mini-bullies
following the big bully with whatever he does. And conversely, there might be someone who is
just really kind and helpful to other kids and all that stuff and probably he would attract a
certain type of person. But the predominance of one or the other can shift in any circumstance,
such as a playground or a nation or the world. It's interesting to consider which is the cart
and which is the horse. Is there something in collective consciousness which would give rise to
despotic leaders, or do despotic leaders bring out something in collective consciousness and enliven
that tendency in the populace? I think it's the first. There are certain elements or ingredients
in collective consciousness that give rise to different types of leaders at different times,
give expression to those qualities in the person of this or that leader.
I've often thought about that same question and that's what emerged for me and it's what I've observed.
And you can observe this in different corporate cultures and different places I've worked for example.
I come in from the outside and we have a good leader.
I joined a really wonderful culture. I was attracted to that culture from the outset.
And then say there's a leadership change and lots of people who work in big organizations report this of course.
and then, oh my god, terrible news, our leader left and this new manager came in.
And the people that were already there enjoying a happy culture, if they really are representative
of that culture in terms of their own intrinsic values and virtues, they will leave.
They will find ways to leave.
And at the very least, they're probably going to stop being productive because they're not
in a happy place.
The people that will come in to replace those who have departed will be much more in the
mold somebody that doesn't mind that kind of a leader and they find that kind of person
really appealing.
So that's coming from those individuals as far as I'm concerned.
I think it emerges from that collective unconsciousness.
I think it's going to start to become controversial in Canada because the Americans who are moving
here for the most part are those who have substantial resources to do so.
they're coming up and buying substantial properties and...
Driving up the real estate prices and so on.
Yeah.
Perhaps you should build a wall.
It would have to be a long wall.
You know what, if there's enough tariffs put up against our softwood expert,
that means we'd have a surplus of softwood, so we could build a wall out of, I don't know...
Okay, next point. You mentioned the importance and relevance at times of suffering in awakening.
Now there have been some spiritual aspirants who have intentionally inflicted suffering
upon themselves through all kinds of austerities and tapas it's sometimes called, sometimes
quite extreme, and we can picture yogis on beds of nails and so on, and others who haven't
done that intentionally.
I had this cool experience where I was up in Iowa City because Irene had to go to the
hospital for something and I was walking down the aisle of a little food store where we'd
stop to pick up something and this young Buddhist nun started walking toward me and we both just
stopped in our tracks and I was like, "Whoa, are you from Fairfield?" which is where I live,
and she said, "No, but you are." I said, "Do I know you? Are you from Fairfield?" She says,
"No, but I know you. You're from Fairfield." She had been watching Batgap, but she's got a
terrible case of cancer. I won't go into the details, but she's gone through horrendous
suffering. And she said she has just maintained this Buddhist attitude of, "I'm taking on this
suffering for humanity." It's not, "Oh, poor me." It's more, "Okay, I'm just going to go through
this, and hopefully in doing so, I will relieve the suffering of others." So, what would your take
be? Why do we suffer? And if God wants everybody to evolve and grow spiritually, why does suffering
sometimes have to be part of it. I can only speak to my own experience, but I
know for myself in the periods when I've suffered greatly, there have been times,
just for example, there's been a few things in the last 10 years, but I had a
strange mishap with my back about two years ago, and I was in such excruciating
pain. I've had lots of back problems over the years and whatnot, and you know,
it's how my back hurts, and oh I can't sleep very well, and it's really
uncomfortable and it's not pleasant. No, this was next level. It was off the charts. It was a major
pinched nerve down at the base of my spine and I lost feeling in my left leg that still hasn't
fully returned. But my walking is good and I can still run, play soccer, which makes me happy.
That boy. Bend it like Beckham.
Yeah. The pain was so bad that I just slept on the hardwood floor of our living room for about
ten days I didn't dare try to sleep even on a thin foamy or anything because
anything that would not support my back would just introduce that the slightest
movement was like agonizing pain that would go straight to the top of my crown.
When they talk about blinding pain that's the kind of pain this was it was
absolutely blinding and it got to the point after a few days where I was
seriously wishing for death because you get to a point where it's just
intolerable. I just can't sustain this any longer. And at that point, that's when
you touch something deeply. So this circling back here after my long
narrative, the pain, the suffering, when we really sit with it and be with it and I
did, I was doing my best, I was practicing my breathing and everything else. It
forces us to touch bottom in a way that takes us to that source. There's no other
place to go. The only place to go is that source. And that's been my experience.
Like I say, all I can do is describe in my experience. Having said that, and
having described that particular anecdote, the big difference between back pain and
say being in a conflict zone where there's bombs falling and what have you,
there's different kinds of suffering. And I suspect, like, what a terrible thing for
a parent to lose their child. I can't imagine the pain in that, but I suspect
that in that there is a kind of a deeper learning probably around non-attachment.
One of the things that my guru used to say, this is her sense of humor, but it
was also dead serious too. One thing we need to remember, she said, "No one gets
out of here alive. Yeah, that's an old one. No one gets out of here alive and that
might provide cold comfort. But I do think it's a reference point that we
need to look to. I had occasion to travel to China 10 years ago and long story, but
there I just happened to meet with a group of Tibetan Buddhists. These are
interesting enough ethnic Chinese who practice Tibetan Buddhism and I was
suspicious and skeptical and but when I actually talked with them at length
about their practices I was impressed as best as I can tell they are practicing
the real deal and very sincere aspirants. One of the things that comes out of
Tibetan Buddhism is this notion of always having an awareness of death,
always having an awareness of our mortality. Yeah. And I know that's a
current that runs through all of Buddhism but in Tibet in particular it's
a very strong current. If I understand correctly, I think traditionally a lot of Buddhist families
would have a skull on a mantelpiece somewhere, that as a child growing up with this skull
sitting on the mantelpiece, but as just simply as a means of reminding people that, "Hey,
you're not going to be here forever." People in the developing world know this, like, "You
could get sick tomorrow and good luck. You could be dead by the end of the week." And
that happens all too often, enough that people live with this awareness that I don't think
we have so much of that in the developed world.
Rick There are places in the so-called developed
world where a good chance your child's going to get shot on the way home from school, or
something like south side of Chicago or whatever, but it is a theme in most spiritual traditions
to contemplate your mortality.
There's a famous portrait of this monk contemplating a skull, just looking at it.
>> Tom: I forget his name now.
>> Rick But in any case, that's the reality of the situation.
We only live for a snap of the fingers in the cosmic time scale of things.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die is not necessarily the best strategy,
because when you do, will eating, drinking, and merriment have actually fulfilled your
purpose for being here?
>> Tom: I think we always, yeah, in that regard, we just always have to turn our attention
to doing as much good as we can.
And I use the word good very loosely.
Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking only makes it so.
>> Rick: Oh, Hamlet.
I was thinking it was Shakespeare, yeah.
>> Tom: Yeah, Hamlet.
Act two, scene two, maybe?
>> Rick: Okay.
So, we might have covered that one.
In any of these points, we could talk for the whole time about it, and maybe we'll get together
some time and just shoot the breeze. But it's good to skip along and if people want to hear
more about any particular thing we're raising, they could send in a question. At least one
question has come in so far, but I'll wait for Irene to send it over to me.
Okay, the importance of different traditions and teachers. You've mentioned you've lived
with a prominent leader who spoke with you about traditional shamanic practices, contact
with sky people, forest spirits, lucid dreams. You live five houses away from a Tibetan Lama
and you discuss the nature of perception with him. You mentioned, "We can deepen our understanding
of our own experience and traditions by talking with people of other traditions and comparing
notes." I very much agree with that. I used to be much more monochromatic in my spiritual
pursuit when I was just heavily into the TM movement. I would read things. I read Carlos
Castaneda and various books, but I had the attitude that, "Oh, the thing I'm doing is
the best thing," which a lot of spiritual people feel, because if they thought theirs
was second best, they'd probably leave it and do what they thought was the best.
But in any case, I've found it very enriching now, especially doing what I do, to expose
myself deeply to so many different perspectives.
It really broadens my perspective and enriches it a lot.
>> Yeah, and what interests me is the points of intersection between different faiths in
particular because ultimately, I think all religions, including the yogic traditions,
there's this great trap that over time they fall into sort of systems of religiosity,
which is to say dogma, which by its nature leads to a certain kind of closed-mindedness.
And also it leads to creating layers upon layers of rules and beliefs and God knows what concepts
that take us further and further away from the elemental truth of things.
And the elemental truth is something that is nameless and cannot be spoken in words
for starters.
But that elemental truth has appeared in all of these great faiths, in all of these great
traditions, including certainly the indigenous traditions and the aboriginal traditions in
Australia, I always encourage people to look at those things and acknowledge those things.
It's a beautiful testament to the fact that there is this universal element and truth to everything
that lives beyond the dogma and all of the religiosity.
- Yeah, there's a story where God and the devil are walking down the road and God sees something
shiny on the ground, picks it up, puts it in his pocket, and the devil says, "Oh, what'd you find?
What's that? And God said, "Oh, it's just the truth." And the devil says, "Oh, give it to me. I'll organize it for you."
Chatting with somebody the other day who
spent a lot of time in Thich Nhat Hanh's community.
She said she had to leave there because of all the power trips that people were on. You could have
anybody, this even happened around Jesus, but anybody. And there's always going to be
administrative types who are going to want to wriggle in there and start amassing power and pushing people around.
that anybody who's been in any spiritual organization can relate to what I'm saying.
Yes, I've witnessed that and I'm a big fan of Thich Nhat Hanh. I love Thich Nhat Hanh. Anytime
I see anything from him, I just, wow, he just, everything that comes out of him is just this,
for me, this pure fountain of truth. It's interesting, you talk about organizing.
Somebody who I really appreciated in that regard was Joel Goldsmith. Have you ever
read much of Joel Goldsmith?
Not much. I've heard of him and I know you mentioned him. I might have read a little
bit or heard a little bit of some audiophile or something, but I never really got into him.
What was he all about? Joel Goldsmith was, I'll briefly give a bio for anybody that's not familiar
with Joel Goldsmith. I noticed recently that Eckhart Tolle had a quote of how much he appreciated
Joel Goldsmith on the back of a republished book of Goldsmith. Goldsmith is a contemporary of
Yogananda, born in 1892, died in 1964. He was raised as a non-practicing Jew in New York City.
His dad had a textile importation business and they would make frequent business trips to Europe.
He was agnostic and on one business trip there on a transatlantic voyage, he witnessed someone get a
hands-on laying of hands healing and he was just curious and he says, "What was that about? What
did I just witness?" and he found out that these people were Christian scientists and he went, "Oh
that's interesting. I might like to know a little bit more about that. So he subsequently joined
the Christian Science community and started practicing healing and very quickly became
the best healer in the community. And at some point, the story went something like this. This
is again another example of what happens within spiritual communities and around dogma and whatnot.
They were having some discussion about when you lay on the hands, it's like this and it's like
that and this is how it works. And Goldsmith just put his head, he goes, "Well, actually, no,
that's not precisely what's going on. What's really happening is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
And they probably excommunicated him basically, which was ultimately all for the betterment of
the world, I think, because I'm a big fan of Goldsmith. Goldsmith subsequently went on to
open his own healing practice. He started having all sorts of mystical experiences.
It's never been made clear to me in everything I've read about him, but he obviously started to read
about other traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, and he was versed, and he certainly started reading
the Bible. And so, his books can be dense. He likes to quote from the Bible, and he likes to
quote from the Old Testament. So, his writing style can sometimes be a bit heavy, a bit somewhat
impenetrable almost, but it always is based in the primacy of experience, direct experience,
and this notion of the presence that is with us at all times and that we are part of.
His favorite book of his, I think, 15 books he wrote is called Practicing the Presence. I would
highly recommend that to anybody that feels directed towards that kind of writing. Here's
There's an anecdote I really like. It's somewhat apocryphal and uncertain as to the truth of
it, but you're familiar with Robert Adams.
So Robert Adams...
It turned out to be a bit of a fraud, but go ahead.
And this is why I think there's some question as to the veracity behind this story. But
as he told the story of how he found Ramana Maharshi...
Which he didn't.
Oh, there you go.
He never went to India.
Really?
Yeah. There's a whole story about this, but he wrote a nice book.
Okay, then maybe we can just unpack this as a good story then.
Yeah.
Because obviously he was a good storyteller because he had me convinced.
There's a great quote from Aldous Huxley.
He said, "The greatest innovation of the scientific revolution was the scientific method itself
and particularly the working hypothesis."
Any spiritual idea, let's say, that people have killed each other over or believe in
or whatever, told they're going to hell if they don't believe in, can be taken as a working
hypothesis. Let's see if there's evidence for it. And maybe it's true even if you can't
actually prove it in your lifetime, because how can you prove that, let's say you go to
heaven after you die, there's some evidence for that because people have near-death experiences,
they remember past lives and so on. But we don't have to hold rigidly to any particular
idea, treat it as a working hypothesis and see if you can substantiate it through your
own experience or not. Or maybe somebody else's experience seems credible and they've substantiated
But everything is subject to revision, to reinforcement through more evidence, or through diminishment,
through refutation of apparent evidence, and so on.
>> Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that as well.
Work with a hypothesis and test it, and don't be afraid to test it.
All too often we're discouraged from doing that.
You've heard that expression, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
>> Yeah, that's good.
In other words, we don't know if there are other universes.
Some people have this multiverse theory that we're only one of billions of universes.
There's no evidence for it, and there could never be any evidence that we know of because
of the limitations of the speed of light and all that.
But it doesn't mean there aren't other universes.
It's not evidence of there not being other universes.
There might be, but we'll never have any evidence to prove it one way or the other.
Probably.
Shouldn't say never.
a really good example and so many others where basically we don't have and will
never have the technology available to us where we can take those kinds of
measurements and in many cases we're stuck within this three-dimensional
physical plane and multiverse obviously by its very nature is in existent other
dimensional planes and we don't have access to them and I don't know how we
ever will have.
Okay.
You said, "First and foremost, I'm interested in all the various subjects that were listed
in our online information form."
Yeah, we have all these categories and people can check which one they fit into.
You and I are alike in this sense.
Everything from Advaita Vedanta to reincarnation, ghosts.
I've had experience with basically everything that appeared on that master list, including
ghosts and visitors.
I feel like all those things are meaningful in our awakening as we can make sense of it
all.
One thing I would say is, even though there might be a million different things which
actually exist in some way, shape, or form, there's not time in life to investigate them
all.
We can't all be ghostbusters or whatever.
But that's not to say they don't exist.
Sometimes you can check out something for just an afternoon, read an article or something,
and then, okay, got it.
Don't need to know more about that.
And I would say my approach to all of that is just to take it as it comes.
One of the conversations I had with the Tibetan Buddhist Lama down the road from me, who I
started meeting for tea on occasions, we had a good couple of discussions, I would say,
around the whole notion of phenomenological experience.
So much of this stuff is just plain old phenomenon, and it's interesting phenomenon.
I don't know, seeing ghosts and maybe meeting extraterrestrials or whatever, but as remarkable
as those things appear to our human consciousness, we need to remember that there's something far
more substantial behind all of those phenomena, and we ourselves are merely one expression of
phenomena in this universe. So, to the same degree that we wouldn't take ourselves all that
seriously in terms of this vessel is called Jim. And I've had that experience
of course, I live with that experience and that awareness that to look at the
mirror and I go who is that guy? That's not the real essence of what this being
is. So in the same measure that I'm not going to take this phenomena all that
seriously, I'm not going to get too obsessed about these other phenomena. I
do think it's important to acknowledge these phenomena because what I've
experienced and what I've witnessed in others is as you're traveling along your
merry way through life on some occasion you'll have one of these experiences of
these other phenomena and it can be quite disoriented and can shake people
up and be confusing. I'll go back to my guru and what she said about these
things she said yeah there's all sorts of signposts and things that you're gonna
see along the road as you're traveling but just acknowledge them don't get hung
up on them and just keep on trucking.
>> Rick Yeah, that's good advice.
Now, of course, one might wish to specialize in something.
For instance, there's a guy named Jim Tucker who took over the work of Ian Stevenson on
reincarnation.
I've interviewed Jim.
He devoted many years of his life to studying reincarnation.
So it's good to have specialists.
They're people who devote their lives to studying the UFO phenomenon.
It's not to say that you can't be a seeker of enlightenment, which is the ultimate realization,
and not have an interest in one of these particular branches, but if you lose sight of the forest
for the tree, if you lose the sight of the whole because you've gotten so obsessed with
a particular part, then perhaps you've missed the boat.
>> Tom: Thank you.
You, again, articulated it better.
That's what I was reaching for, was precisely that.
Because there's certainly things, sort of niche interests and topics that I'm interested in
that I find really interesting and amusing and have explored.
But like I say, as long as we don't let that sort of become all-consuming.
One thought that's been kicking around my head as we've been talking is, at times, we've
talked about different traditions and how they all have their value and significance
and so on.
I don't like to limit it to the Earth.
I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot photo, if you've ever seen that, where it's
It's a picture of the Earth taken from out by the rings of Saturn or someplace.
He comments on all the wars and territory grabs and power struggles and everything that
have happened on this little pale blue dot and how absurd that seems.
But if you consider the number of inhabited planets that probably exist in our universe,
then each of them probably have numerous spiritual traditions going back throughout their history,
most of which probably claim that theirs is the only one or the best one or so on.
helps to zoom out to that extent. I never thought of it that way. I've certainly
thought about it. There's got to be a lot of planets in a universe that's full of, as
Carl Sagan said, billions upon billions of stars or planets. But I never thought of it
that way. Each of them would have their own religion, and each of them would
think they're the one and only truth. Yeah, even if there's only one
advanced civilization in each galaxy, there are trillions of advanced
civilizations in the universe, and undoubtedly there are a lot more. With
our modern telescopes now, we can see that almost every star has planets around
it. Yeah, it's fascinating, and I think it's useful for people to remember that
for the skeptics out there, there's definitely got to be life out there.
Yeah. Here's a question from Marie in Colorado. If the mind or consciousness is
the rider of the physical body horse, then the rider needs to control the horse, but
also take good care of a horse you can't dismount.
That's a good way of putting it.
It relates to what we said.
You're not going to get off this horse, so you better take good care of it and also be
a skillful rider.
Yeah, well said.
I'm very fond of making analogies and creating metaphors, and I like that one.
We've talked about reincarnation.
You've had a bunch of past life regressions, right?
And you actually remembered a bunch of stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, and I was glad that you mentioned Ian Stevenson, and I make reference to him in my
book and my interest in that whole topic.
You also mentioned Michael Newton, who's a good one to read.
I started off by doing, oh, I don't know, probably 15 years ago, I used an audio cassette
with a script from Brian Weiss, who of course is a big figure in that space.
And I did some regressions at home, and they're very short.
The induction where you're relaxing, meditating is maybe 15-20 minutes.
And then the actual guided meditation where you're prompted with little questions as to,
"Okay, where are you?
What do you see?
What's happening?"
And the images spontaneously come to your mind quite clearly in this case because I suppose
from years of meditating, it comes up quite easily, the visual aspect of it.
I've had all kinds of experiences that I felt very deeply.
It definitely goes beyond intellect.
Each of these experiences I felt, they showed me something, but at a much deeper level,
something clicked.
That's all I can say.
And a healing took place, or a certain, either a healing took place of some aspect of this
present character or a new understanding came to light and these things have stayed with me.
So they've survived the test of time. Now more recently in 2021 I had something that had been
bothering me for quite a while, basically a blockage in my heart chakra, that's how I could
describe it. And I knew it was there and it was something that I wasn't getting past and then it
occurred to me having read all kinds of Michael Newton and Brian Weiss and whatnot, I'm not getting
any sort of conscious awareness of this for my current lifetime of what this could be.
And I thought, I wonder if this could be something from a past life.
And that's why I'm having a hard time shaking it.
On that suspicion, I went to the Michael Newton Institute website online, and they have a
page there where you can type in the name of your state and your provinces, it would
be in Canada, and your city, and it provides a list of counsellors who are trained in his
methodology and it happened that there was a woman just up the road from me a
mile away from me just up the road so I gave her a call and we had a nice chat
and she said yeah sounds like this could be it and so I went and did a couple of
sessions with her and that healing took place like it was remarkable what
happened I don't know if I need to go into the details of what the past life
was. And if you want. For anyone who hasn't experienced this I want to share
it detail by detail. It is just so remarkable. Now she took me through like a one hour induction
process that is deep relaxation, deep meditation, there's gentle music playing and you're laying
down on the sofa. And I want to emphasize at no point in this process did I forget that my name
is Jim and that I live in Victoria. But then as she starts to provide prompts you get past the
induction process and says okay you're walking down the stairs, you step through the doors into
the light. Now look down at your feet and what do you see? So here's what I saw.
And I've been through this before with the Brian Weiss tapes, all sort of similar
process. And I've had the bare feet in the past or a bit sandals and yeah. But I
looked down at my feet on this occasion and I'm wearing these furry boots and the
conscious Jim is still there as a participant as an observer and she warned
me about this. She said, "Look, your critical intellect is going to want to jump in at different
moments and start trying to analyze or understand." And said, "Look, try not to do that. Just try to
hold that at bay and just take in what you're seeing." Take in what you're seeing, yeah. Don't
let your intellect get in the way. Yeah. So what do I see? I see these furry boots. Yeah,
they're made of fur. And the toes are drawn up like little curly toes, but they're like definitely
made of fur. I don't know, it looks like muskrat or something. I think in Lapland or something,
Don't they have boots like that with the toes curled up?
Ah, yes, my dear Watson.
But that's not what came to me.
I just, what the heck are these boots?
And then we're moving along and so, okay, now look at your hands.
And I got these big, powerful working hands.
And are you a man or a woman?
And everything just comes like this when you're in this deep state.
Oh, man.
And so how old are you?
36.
What's your name?
Lars.
My brother and I, we grew up in Loggingtown.
logging town and there's a lot of Norwegians in our logging town.
There's a certain character and apologies to all the people of Norwegian heritage out
there but we always have certain comments to make about Norwegian people.
Basically dour, pretty serious, really hard working, really hard working and this experience
that I had was again another testament to that.
So I'm Lars and I'm standing in a pasture and it's dark, it's twilight, is your house
nearby and I go yeah I think so and it's like my vision turns right around and I'm
looking the other way and I see this house and it's in the distance like a
hundred yards away and it's like a log house but it's red and it's got white
windows and the roof is bright green Kelly green my critical intellect is
looking at this going what I've done roofing I years ago worked in
construction and I'm like green roof like it doesn't compute this doesn't
make any damn sense anyways went through the whole experience and it get led
through the regression and eventually I died and I had a hard time transitioning
to the light and it all had to do with this deep grief where my parents
basically didn't really love me, didn't show me any tender care, but they used me
because this is back around the year 1800. As we know in those days if you're
a living or subsistence farmers there's no such thing as old age care homes. The
son or the children are expected to take care of the parents as they get old and
so that was me, that was my role. I never married, never had kids, never had family.
I had a miserable life.
It was awful.
And on top of that, my parents didn't love me.
They more or less, actually, they almost despised me.
There's this sense that they thought I was stupid, but I was
a useful workhorse for them.
Subsequent to this, I went on Google and I got home and I
cleared all this stuff by the way.
And there was all kinds of crying and sobbing and powerful stuff as
I transitioned to the light.
And this very skilled counselor took me through that.
And so it's all good, happy ending to the story.
So I go to Google later, it did come to light that this was where are you?
And the answer came like that was Scandinavia, Norway, I think.
So later I did a Google and I start looking at images and log cabin, Norway, red.
And then all these images start coming up and lo and behold,
completely unbeknownst to me.
That's a standard architectural form that dates back to something like the 1300s or
the 1400s were a log cabin, painted bright red, white windows, and the roof, of course,
is a green sod roof.
>> RICK I was thinking it was plants of some kind.
That's interesting.
So here was a case where past life regression actually healed something, and did you notice
a change in your heart chakra after that?
>> TOM Oh, yeah, very big.
And it was really interesting because in this, like the Michael Newton methodology, at least
you can summon the guides.
So she says to me, "If you like, you can summon your guides to help you."
Because I was convulsing on the table and at some point I thought I was going to have a
heart attack or else, but I decided I was going to stay the course because I could just sense
I wanted this to be done with.
And the guide comes and it's a presence that you feel and the counselor through this process,
again, if you've never been through it, starts prompting and says, "Okay, now Jim, I'm going
to talk to your guide if that's okay."
"Yeah, that's okay."
And as soon as you give that consent, then she starts asking questions to the guide,
and lo and behold, I'm speaking whatever it is that the guide has to say.
And again, the conscious Jim of the 21st century is just observing this, going, "Wow, this
is interesting.
I'm not making this up.
Like, this is just, it's coming from someplace."
I'm sharing this because what the guide had to say was fascinating.
that my heart was upside down, which later I took to mean that basically, according to
yogic theory, the chakras of course are spinning and they're supposed to spin in a particular
direction.
But I take it to mean that I think mine was inverted.
And this comes from the pain of deep trauma and not being loved and all that kind of stuff.
But basically at that point, the guides reached into my chest and I, fortunately, I felt like
somebody was doing live surgery on me. I felt hands reach into my chest, grab my
heart, and turn it around. And in that process, it was as painful as you could
imagine if someone was to take your heart and turn it around. And I was in
agony. And I don't want to scare anybody by sharing this, but I was in physical
agony as this was taking place. But again, when I came through it at the other side,
I'm really grateful for the experience. It's absolutely been a life-changer for
for me.
>> Yeah, it's interesting to consider how deep certain traumas might be that we carry
around with us and how it influences or restricts our behavior or our experience.
And interesting to consider what it might take to actually unravel those or heal those.
>> Yeah, I'm very interested in that.
And for the sake of so many people that need deep healing through my own experiences, I've
been convinced of the value of that kind of somatic healing and somatic
processes. I've done other stuff prior to that. Two years ago, I did a weekend
workshop in Vancouver that involved holotropic breathing and it's not
something I would advise for a lot of people. I'm not a big fan of it. I think
it's gotten a little bit too popular. I think there are risks associated with
that, but again in my case, I was following my higher guidance. I felt
directed to pursue that and it had a really positive effect on me. But again
that was probably my first real powerful experience in a somatic healing.
This brings up an interesting question. You've tried a lot of things. How do you
balance an open-minded exploratory attitude where you're willing to try a
whole lot of things without becoming a dilettante, a superficial dabbler? Can you
go both deep and broad at the same time? Or just to finish my question, some say
you should dig one deep rather than ten shallow wells, but I would say how about
if you could use ten different tools to dig the one deep well? Maybe a jackhammer
and a pickaxe and a shovel and a... So anyway, how do you reconcile that?
Oh, I like what you just said. Let's use ten different tools to dig the one deep.
Absolutely. The first thing I went to, but I like your version better,
first thing I went to was, no I'm working one deep well, but along the way I pick
up little tidbits here and there, other things, because if I was to give a
percentage value to my practice, like my yogic practice, I feel like encompasses
90% of what I need in my life, but occasionally, I should say it
It encompasses 100% of what I need.
However, there's been some moments that were like, I always describe it as a log jam.
You can meditate all you want on this.
You can have Samadhi experiences.
There's some things that are really hard to dislodge.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using whatever tool you have to get that junk,
that debris out of the way.
I don't believe in being a dilettante at all.
I would discourage people from that.
and just jump around, like, this year I'm a Buddhist, last year I was a yogi, you know,
the year before I was a Muslim.
You know, there are people that do that, and I just, no, that's not the...
That brought up an interesting thought, which is, I often discuss this with a friend of
mine, which is, there have been so many really impressive spiritual teachers, many of them
world famous, who had great gifts, but really had some personal hang-ups or problems, either
with sexuality or with anger or various other things, and really quite hypocritical in their
behavior, quite harmful to people.
And what you were saying is you can have all these Samadhis and so on, but it doesn't
necessarily crack these or heal or change these deep grooves, these deep patterns.
Some people say that perhaps we need a blend of the ancient Eastern spirituality with modern
psychology and that some of these gurus would do well to have been in therapy or something,
and they might not have gone off the rails as they did.
Have you ever given any thought to that notion?
>> Oh, yeah, very much.
Yeah, and I'm wholly in agreement with that.
I've had various conversations with a good friend of mine here around precisely the,
in our own observations, the need to deal with some of those fundamental psychological
pieces of debris prior to engaging in your practice, but certainly alongside there's certain
things that have to be healed. Goes back I think to something you said earlier about your awareness
being as broad as the sky and your attention to karma and the grain of barley flour. People want
to have that blissful experience, that transcendental experience all the time. I'm like,
I want to be soaring through the sky and embracing the all, but you got some hang-ups man. There's
There's some stuff there that needs to be dealt with and a lot of that stuff gets worked out
through the activation and the channeling of Kundalini as it rises through the Sushumna
and it's clearing stuff out and it's clearing out debris along the way.
But it doesn't mean to say, going back to the well with the many tools, there's no reason
why you couldn't also use a few other tools to clear out some of that debris and it would
help you a great deal in those instances where your kundalini is activating your second chakra
or your...
(laughter)
>> RICK Yeah.
>> JIM And it's encountering some debris, maybe there's too much debris there, and if you
had cleared it out ahead of time, it'd be a much easier time.
>> RICK So perhaps if I could summarize this point, it would be to say that a person can
apparently have achieved enlightenment and really have powerful shakti and radiant presence
and Sidhe's and all kinds of other things, and yet still have flaws that they might not
themselves even be aware of.
So somehow or other, I think we need to evolve into an even more mature spirituality in this
world where we understand perhaps that we're always going to be a work in progress and
that we always have to be vigilant and that there'll never be a time at which we can
just rest on our laurels and proclaim ourselves finished?
What are your thoughts on that?
Pete: Yeah, we cannot rest on our laurels.
This is one of the things I like about Joel Goldsmith.
So, he called his path, for better or for worse, he called it the infinite way.
And in his opinion, it was this constant unfoldment.
We could probably see that in relation to this notion of the ever-expanding universe, the
expanding creation around us and we are obviously part of that, part and parcel
of that. So there's always something new, there's always new growth, there's
always new levels of awakening and what have you. One of the things that
Goldsmith said that I really liked and I think is germane to what we're
discussing here is he said every day you must receive new manna from heaven and
And he speaks in all literary metaphors and what have you, and that's an allusion of course to the Old Testament when the Israelites were in the...
and they're starving and whatnot, but God sends them manna from heaven.
And it's this notion of receiving the spiritual food and being fed.
Well, a lot of people, they're halfway up the mountain, like the Marianna Kaplan book, they say, "Oh yeah, I've had these experiences, I'm already there, I'm just going to sit back."
and there's always more. And you run the hazard there of cutting off that source of manna from
heaven. That manna has to be replenished every day. And Goldsmith says, "It's no good to rely
on yesterday's newspapers." Who needs yesterday's papers? You can't rely on yesterday's...
You can't rely on yesterday's manna. That was wonderful, but that was intended for that moment.
and today is a new day, and every day has to be renewed. New manna from heaven. So,
somewhere in there, I guess what I'm getting at is the trappings that a lot of people fall into,
a lot of very awakened people who have had a lot of awakening experiences. They basically
stop questioning. They stop seeking. They're resting on their laurels, and as a consequence,
they're not necessarily rooting out those unresolved issues.
That's great. Have you ever read the Lord of the Rings books or seen the movies at least?
I've seen the movies. I tried to read them years ago and I have a hard time with fantasy. It's not
my vibe. The reason they came to mind is the ring itself of course had this incredibly addictive
quality. You had to be really humble and simple to be the bearer of the ring or else it would go to
your head and you'd be in big trouble. But towards the end of the book, spoiler alert, as Frodo gets
gets to Mount Doom or whatever it's called, where he has to throw the ring in to destroy
it, the closer he gets to that point, the more magnified his ego becomes, because it's like
the ultimate test as you get close to the final realization.
The only reason he managed to achieve his purpose was that Gollum, who had coveted the
ring, lunges at him at the last minute and bites his finger off to get the ring, and
and the ring fall into the fire and the ring gets destroyed.
As soon as that happens, Frodo is freed from the egomania that had afflicted him
as he got so close to the final achievement.
But anyway, that whole thing is metaphorically appropriate to what we're talking about.
Oh, it's spot on. It's funny. I'd forgotten that.
And of course, yeah, like, what an incredible piece of storytelling or metaphor from Tolkien.
It really was.
Because I think that's precisely how it is.
Certainly, my guru used to talk about that. She talked about the danger of as you ascended in consciousness,
she said the ego grows in equal measure.
And you have to, not that the ego grows, but there's always that element there.
There's always that reality for the ego to usurp all of that progress and take over.
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think in Christian tradition, it's considered that the devil was like the highest angel,
But he got too big for his britches because he was so high, he crashed all the way down.
The moral of the story I think is the higher we fly, everyone's got something to hide from,
except for me and my monkey, it's from that. So the more careful you need to be,
and the more you need to counterbalance whatever it is you're experiencing with
simplicity and humility, arcing back to a point we made an hour ago.
>> Yeah, and that word humility, that's maybe not the first time we mentioned it,
But I wanted to say that is something that I meditate on that word a lot, that concept a lot, particularly for myself, because in this lifetime, I've been, again, blessed with being a good physical body and mind and stuff.
During my lifetime, I've actually been awarded all kinds of accolades for my academics and for athletics at one time.
And all of these things that have the potential to feed the ego, and certainly have fed my ego at times.
But bearing that in mind, and always being aware that whatever comes to me, to, again in the words of my guru, give it back to God.
But whatever comes to us is to recognize that if it's an authentic appreciation of something truly beautiful that has emanated or come forth from you, give that back to God, because that's where it comes from.
And again, I want to emphasize, I don't say that with coming from some sort of a statement of dogma or quote unquote belief.
It's something that I feel very deeply, and very much like Frodo and the Ring, in the moment that
I give it back to God, there's actually like a weight that comes off my shoulders, and it's a
beautiful thing. And if I can keep that going on a regular basis, I feel like that's reconditioning
the nervous system, like we were talking about, but it's reconditioning the heart, our whole
spiritual, all the various bodies, all the koshas. "Thy gifts, my Lord, I surrender to Thee."
from some Vedic scripture. I don't know. You have to constantly give it back rather than appropriate
it or rather than take possession or ownership or authorship of it, which reminds me of another
nice phrase. You mentioned humility. I've heard humility defined as the quality of not insisting
that things happen in a particular way. And if you think about that, if you insist that things
happen in a particular way, then your individuality is concretizing itself and trying to run the show.
And I'll couple this with another nice quote I heard, which is to turn your desires into preferences.
A desire is, "This has got to happen for me." A preference is, "If thou wills it,
Lord, then this would be nice, but hey, you're running the show, so whatever."
Yes, and yeah, that infinite intelligence very much knows better than us most of the time
as to what we need. But yeah, that's part of humility for sure, and also not needing to be
recognized. And that's probably one of the hardest things for human beings is we all want some sort
of degree of affirmation. We all want some degree of recognition. It's some form of validation.
And when that's taken to megalomaniacal measures, we know certain people in the world at present,
that's where they're really coming from, is this rabid need that's grown out of control,
this need to be recognized, this need to be acknowledged. Now that's one extreme, of course,
But traveling in China, I met all sorts of people that were just absolutely of the most sincerely humble manner.
And also Latin America. I've traveled a lot in Latin America.
Your wife is Chilean, right?
That's right. And meeting those people and being with those people, including the Latin American community here where I live, it's been transformative for me.
for me. It's again another element of the big picture for me and just it's something that
inspires me to emulate as much as possible. There's a point you brought up a couple times
in your notes about an essential experience of deep shame or anguish as the false self is
recognized. Do you feel like everyone has this intrinsic core wound of shame or anguish that
they carry around with them and it's some kind of a threshold that they have to pass through
in order to arrive at one's true nature?
Pete I don't think that people are carrying it around with them all the time, at least not all
people. Some people are, you know, some people by virtue of their childhood upbringing, God knows
they've been through all sorts of trauma, they carry all kinds of unfounded shame and whatnot.
And I realized after I wrote that note that maybe shame isn't the best word. Maybe the word
I'm looking for is grief or grieving. It's something if there was an intersection between those two words of shame and grief
And what I was getting at and what i've experienced or I think i've experienced
Is this notion that as you awaken?
There's a moment
Where you're not there, you're not fully ascended as it were and you suddenly get this full vision of yourself
Your humanness and where you've been
And it's like that wincing
Homer Simpson, "Don't!" like this, but in the deepest sense. And I think this in the Bible
is represented by the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son is the one, the son who
leaves home and goes away and gets drunk and carouses and does terrible things. But he eventually
comes back and the father loves him just as much as the other son who was the good boy all the while.
And of course, the good boy is really upset. "Hold on a second, that guy's, he's a jerk, you know,
He's been misbehaving all this time. How can you possibly love him as much as me?
And the beauty of that story is that no, like we are never separate from God, that source,
that spirit, that is just our true identity. But living in this illusion, of course,
in separateness, I think it's just part of that transition. That's what I was reaching for
when I wrote that note. And I think I still stand by that. Maybe there's something in my
comprehension that's still lacking, but I think it's also represented in the story of Christ on
the cross when he cries out, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" There's this moment of doubt,
"Oh, God, like maybe I'm really not worthy. Maybe I'm really not the person I thought I was or the
being that I thought I was." There's a moment, and it's very, at least for me, was very acute,
very painful, and maybe it's not exactly shame, it's a deep sense of grief that I experienced
anyways. But then coming through that, it's all good now. This feeling, this glorious feeling that
as much as I am not perfect in my humanhood, I know where my true source lies, and I will
continue to endeavor to live with the utmost integrity and I will become a follower of your
website, the integrity website.
>>Rick Oh, the ASI website.
>>David But yeah, that's what I was reaching for.
>>Rick One theme that's gone throughout our conversation
that popped up at various times is that in your reincarnation story when you had that
therapy and what you just said and a few other times is that whatever its qualities, there
is some kind of, as Samuel Bondur likes to call it, core wound or ekartoli, the pain body,
Or Upanishad says, "Certainly all fear is born of duality."
So there's some kind of core fear at the very junction point of our universal and individual
natures.
But there's some gunk down there.
And the theme that we've come back to several times is that, one way or another, we can't
bypass it, because if we skip around it and think we've landed in Shangri-La, it's going
to rear its ugly head again and cause problems in our behavior.
we have to transcend it and yet purify and neutralize it in the course of our spiritual
progress.
Yeah, I wholly agree.
And you can elaborate, but that was my attempt to summarize that theme that's come up several
times here.
Oh, I wish I could elaborate, but I can't.
I thought you expressed it so well.
You still have a full-time job or are you retired?
I still have a full-time job.
What do you do?
I work in communications.
So I was in the private sector for 25 years and then two years ago I took a job with our
provincial government.
I have a good story to share around how that happened.
It was during that period when I was laying on the floor with my back in pain for 10 days
and I was still working in the private sector and something clicked with me mentally and
I realized I needed to leave my job and make a transition.
I was talking with a good friend of mine.
It was in San Francisco.
My dear brother introduced me to our guru.
He's a chiropractor now.
And he does all kinds of this sort of energy work and whatnot.
Anyways, here's what happened.
In the moment that I had the realization, the real clear understanding that I need to
quit this job and move on, my back went click and the pain disappeared.
That's very interesting.
Yeah.
And then here's the next thing that happened.
This is an exercise in faith and trust in the universe.
Made myself a cup of coffee.
I wandered out into the garden.
Then I stared up at the sky and clouds,
and then I thought, what's gonna happen now?
(laughing)
And I thought, gosh, I don't know.
I don't have really any irons in the fire at this moment.
Let's see what happens.
But I got a trust.
I had sent the email to my old employer
saying that it's been wonderful,
but there's my two weeks notice, right?
And so I go out and make my coffee.
And I wandered back into the house finally an hour later,
and I checked my email,
and it was from this job that I had applied to
18 months prior.
And it said, "Hi, Jim.
"I don't know if you remember,
"but you applied for this job and we interviewed you,
"and you were the second candidate at the time,
"but this other candidate's gone now.
"They've moved on, and we'd like to hire you.
"Are you interested in the job?"
(laughing)
And I said, yeah, I am, because it was a job that I was very interested in.
And that's where I am today.
It's funny because every day that I go into the office, I just pleased as punch.
I'm just so happy.
I'm just in my happy place.
But part of the lesson in that story was the fact that my back was out for 10 days.
And the fact, actually the fact that my back was out in the first place was
emblematic of the resistance I had put up against leaving my old work, right?
Because I had actually had strong inklings prior to that, but I was resisting that out
of fear.
So, there you go.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I get a lot of synchronicities like that myself.
So far, they haven't had to involve severe back pain or something, just things like having
some thought and then having some amazing coincidence happen to fulfill that thought.
It's nice that you enjoy your job now.
I loved my old work for a very long period of time.
There's a good 10 years there or whatever.
But what had happened is I just got to the point where my soul knew that it was time
to move on.
And again, the key point in all of this is I was resisting.
Why was I resisting?
And for me, it's pretty clear that was my Protestant upbringing.
And maybe it goes all the way back to Lars the Norwegian as well.
I think I've had many generations.
I've always had this attitude of you'd never quit a job unless you've got another job already
like you've somewhere else.
But the idea of quitting a job, like you just don't do that.
So I feel like this was the universe laying it out for me.
Jim, it's time for you to really learn some real trust.
That Protestant work ethic is really nice, and for the most part, it's a good thing,
for the most part.
However, when it gets to the degree that it blocks your awareness that God is taking care
of you, the universe is taking care of you, I think it's time for us to show you, to set
you straight on this, and this was done to me in, I feel like, in a very compelling manner.
Yeah, it's interesting that you had to go through ten days of agony to get the message.
Maybe next time you'll just get it and you won't have to go through that.
I was wondering what was so cosmic about this new job that he had to go through all that
suffering to make up his mind to shift to the new thing.
Maybe that's not the point.
Maybe there's not that dramatic a difference between your old job and your new, but it
was just the principle of learning to go with the flow a little bit more and not impose
your own will and thing.
That was certainly a huge part of it.
Go with the flow, go as you're directed.
You're being directed.
Pay attention, listen, and trust.
Faith.
What value is all your talk about faith and spirit if you don't actually practice it?
But I will say this, it was also the case that I'd gone as far as I could go in terms
of what I had to offer in that old employment, and in terms of those relationships which continue
to this day. It's wonderful and it's great, but it's like it just simply run its
course. And where I am now, I really feel again on the surface level I do my work
and I'm very proud of the work I do and I like what I do on a daily basis, but
it's the relationships. And actually this is a big theme for me we haven't touched
on today. For me one of the most glorious things in this life is relationships. Of
Of course it's a truism that as mammals and humans we are social creatures, but it is a
deeply spiritual experience.
Our relationships are how we grow and how we help others to grow.
In my new place of employment, I feel I'm able to see the infinite indwelling in each
individual and hopefully something of that in me.
And of course you never know what might yet come of the fact that you were in that circumstance
rather than the other.
Have you ever seen that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow called "Sliding Doors"?
Yes.
It's cool.
Totally different trajectories of her life depending on whether she managed to get on
the subway or not on a particular occasion.
There's a quote from a British mountaineer, I forget the guy's name, but it was sometimes
attributed to Goethe about once we begin to take action or initiative, all kinds of events
and circumstances and synchronicity happen to support us. In other words, you have to
move and then the train is moving, everybody jumps on the train and comes to your assistance.
I'm totally slaughtering the quote, but you know that one I'm talking about?
David Yeah, and that's always been one of my favorite
quotes. And oh, here I thought it was Goethe, but it's not Goethe.
Rick Everybody always attributes to him, but it's
actually another guy. David
I've certainly seen that in my life. And I've often quoted that to my children in encouraging
them to pursue their innermost direction.
And that's something that is so important to me as a father.
If there's one thing that I would like to be able to get right in raising my children,
I would like to know that I've helped to instill that knowledge and that practice in their
habits and that confidence in themselves.
And ultimately, their desire to establish that contact with their innermost guidance, and
then to thereafter have the courage to follow it.
Yeah.
Good.
That's a good ending point.
Okay.
You do have a website.
What do you offer on your website?
Is it just your book, or do you have some kind of sessions with people, or anything
like that?
No.
At this point, no.
I've been too busy with working and other things going on.
I'll probably start doing a blog, probably add a blog.
At present, it's really just promoting the book.
But yeah, we'll see where it goes.
I'm waiting to see what emerges.
It's a nice little autobiography.
Took me about five hours and something to listen to it.
I always convert things to audiobooks.
But it's not a big, long read, but I think people will enjoy it.
And I found there were a lot of just little things you went through that I found edifying,
educational for myself.
made me reflect in certain ways that I found useful.
I'm so glad to hear that.
It's interesting to hear the reader response that I've had from different people.
People of all different ages will draw something different from it, which is what I would have
hoped for, frankly.
I think there's a lot of different lessons and opportunities in that.
It's just pleasing to me that people are taking value from it.
First and foremost, my motivation was to write a story that would demonstrate principles rather
than elucidate on concepts. >> Nice, that was good, and you did a good job of it. Okay, thanks, Jim.
I really enjoyed getting to know you and having this conversation. >> Oh, my pleasure. >> Thanks
to those who've been listening or watching. Next interview is going to be with Diane Hennessey
Powell, whose name you will recognize if you have listened to the Telepathy Tapes, which
briefly became the most popular podcast in the world.
It's still, I'm sure, quite popular.
It's about autistic children who can't speak, but they use a letter board to communicate,
but for whatever reason, and the whole podcast explores this, are uncannily psychic, telepathic.
fascinating podcast. Anybody who listens to it gets really drawn into it. Diane
Hennessey-Powell is the chief scientist in the project and has been studying
these kids. So we're going to talk about that. It goes way beyond autistic kids
who can't speak, who are telepathic. There are all these implications. The podcast
unfolds about what's going on in the world in terms of its spiritual
awakening and what role these kids are playing and so on and what humanity
might end up like eventually once we go through all of our transitions. So stay
tuned for that. That's the next one. All right, thanks Jim.
Thanks Rick. Thank you.
Thank you.