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seeing ghosts and maybe meeting extraterrestrials or whatever, as remarkable as those things

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appear to our human consciousness, we need to remember that there's something far more

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substantial behind all of those phenomena.

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And we ourselves are merely one expression of phenomena.

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Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.

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My name is Rick Archer.

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Buddha at the Gas Pump is a long-running, as in this is our 16th season, series of interviews

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with spiritually awakening people.

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This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers,

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so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons

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on every page of the site.

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And speaking of the site, it is batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P.

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And if you're just watching this on YouTube or listening to the audio podcast, you might

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want to check it out because there are things there that you won't find on YouTube.

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My guest today is Jim Grove.

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Jim is a lifelong practitioner of yogic meditation who grew up in a small logging town on the

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west coast of Canada.

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At age 13, he was introduced to a teacher who was one of the few ministers directly ordained

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by Paramahansa Yogananda during his lifetime.

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That's Mother Yogacharya M. Hamilton of Seattle.

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A series of early transcendental experiences convinced him to commit himself to continued

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yogic practice under her tutelage.

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His recent memoir, A Curious Spiritual Journey, recounts some of the prominent experiences

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that have arisen from his practice over four decades.

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Starting from early adolescence, he likes to speak plainly about spiritual experience

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and practice, avoiding the vague, abstract, and sometimes inflated language used in much

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spiritual and new age writing.

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That's what I gathered from your book.

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The subtitle of this interview is "Conversations with Ordinary Spiritually Awakening People"

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and the reason we chose that and the reason that was a motivation for starting this show

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is that many people have a fantastical notion of what awakening or spiritual development

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might be and therefore they could have actually been spiritual practitioners for quite some

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time but feel like the hope of them ever attaining anything significant is rather slim because

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they're not yet able to float two feet off the ground and they don't glow in the dark.

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One of my motivations in starting this was to interview people, ordinary spiritually

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awakening people, so people could see that people like them were having some significant

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breakthroughs and you really made that part of your practice in a way you've said in

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your book and in your life, "Hey, I want to just be a regular guy and work on my spiritual

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development, but, yeah, I'm still going to go out drinking with my buddies and do this

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and do that and be a normal human being," in addition to being a spiritual aspirant.

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Those types of things can be taken to extremes, and once in a while you probably indulge them

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more than you were happy to have done the next morning, but nonetheless continue to

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have profound breakthroughs and experiential realizations as you've gone along.

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Yes, and thanks for that synopsis. I feel like you articulated it better than I would

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have.

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Oh, I don't know. You've got a better education than I do, and you have been a professional

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writer at times. The book was very readable. It was really entertaining. Sometimes I read

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or listen to spiritual books and I get a little bored, but yours really held my interest.

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Oh, great. A lot of effort went into that in terms of editing for anyone out there who's

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interested in writing. The original manuscript was about 80,000 words because there was a lot of

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stuff I had in there. And I just came back and I mercilessly edited and took stuff out that I felt

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wasn't necessarily contributing to the sort of central thesis narrative of things that maybe they

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delighted me personally, but they didn't necessarily contribute to a story that would help anyone that

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was reading it. So the manuscript went from about 80,000 words down to 55,000 words.

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>> Yeah, Mark Twain once said to somebody, "I'm sorry to have sent you such a long letter. I was

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too busy to write a short one." >> Yes. That's a big inspiration for me,

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him and I dare say Hemingway. I know Hemingway gets a bad rap.

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>> He could spend a whole afternoon on a paragraph. >> Yeah.

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>> Okay, so Jim, shall we do this somewhat chronologically? You mentioned that you

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first got bitten by the spiritual bug when you were 13. How did that happen?

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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.

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So liberal, open-minded?

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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.

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>> RICK Kind of Unitarian-ish.

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>> KYLE But I've always been really grateful for that grounding that I had. And the way I put it

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is at age 12, of my own recognizance, as is the tradition within the church, you're encouraged to

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take First Communion, which is you taking up the mantle from baptism. Your parents baptized you and

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said they'd raise you in the Christian church. And then at age 12, you say, "Yeah, I hereby take up

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the mantle and I'm going to continue in the faith. And I did that and I was very enthused about it,

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and that was coming from me, it wasn't coming from my parents. I was already starting to find that I

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was getting, I don't know, there was something that was missing for me. I always had a sensibility or

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a sensitivity to that stillness, that sense of presence, that sense of something bigger, and

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the church wasn't quite touching that for me with its, in terms of the weekly sermons and what have

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you. And then my brother Peter came to visit. He's 15 years older than me, so at this time he would

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have been like 27. And he started talking about this teacher that him and his wife had met in

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Seattle, Mother Yogacharya Hamilton. And I got interested. And at that point I had no idea

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what a guru was. I paid attention and I listened to understand. And then as he described what she

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was about and some of the things she was teaching. Something lit up for me anyways. Some part of me

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knew that this is interesting to me and he said as it happened to be that she was visiting Victoria

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the following week to give a lecture and that she frequently came up to Victoria. She had a group

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there in the center in Victoria. So I went and it was pretty much was an aha kind of moment listening

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to her speak and then meeting her afterwards and talking with her. There was no... Looking back

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now I can say in hindsight that what I was feeling was very much her aura, her energy field, and it

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was incredibly powerful. I couldn't possibly say enough about that. And she had been a contemporary

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of Yogananda? She was one of his original disciples. So Yogananda first traveled in the United States

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in 1925 and on his grand tour he stopped in Seattle. My guru met him, she was 21 years old,

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she went to see him speak and same kind of thing, she was immediately converted as it were and became

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his disciple. Within about 15-20 years she had become a leader, like a center leader in Seattle.

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Shortly prior to his death in 1952, he gave her the title of Yogacharya, which means Master of Yoga.

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She was one of the 14 or so that he ordained during his lifetime, but more than that,

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she was actually one of the first five or six people in his ministry. So I feel,

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imagine, I feel very privileged to have been able to have her as my teacher.

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Yeah, and she was quite remarkable. There were a number of occasions where she could clearly read

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what you were thinking without making a show about it. There was never any show, there was never any

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flash, and that's something that I really liked about her. That may come from the fact that she

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was born in Duluth. I know she was from Minnesota, I think she was from Duluth originally, and came

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from a working class, very much a working class family. Yeah, there was a funny story where you

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You and your brother went down to see her from Victoria down to Seattle and she was getting

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pretty old at this point and you wanted to take her out to lunch but you didn't have

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any money and you couldn't certainly afford it at a very expensive place and you didn't

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think she would want to eat at a place like Denny's and then somehow or other she says,

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"Let's go to Denny's."

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So you all go to Denny's and she buys you lunch I think the story went.

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But there were some other things too where she would pick up on some thought you had and

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without again being a show-off about it, but just make it very clear to me that she understood

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what you were thinking and could respond accordingly.

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Yes, and I would like to add that particularly on that occasion when we went to Seattle and

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my brother and I were driving to her apartment and we were, it was a Sunday and at that time

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we couldn't get any American currency and we thought, "What are we going to do?

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You're supposed to honor the guru by taking them out for a nice meal or doing something

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for them."

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And the one thing we knew is that Denny's in the United States at that time anyways would accept Canadian currency.

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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.

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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.

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But we brushed all that off and when we got there,

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and we sit down in the living room,

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we start chit-chatting and she's being polite

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and just asking us how we're doing, whatnot.

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And then I wanna say that she was toying with us.

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She was playing with us a bit.

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She just went quiet for a minute

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and then she looked at us each in turn and said,

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have you guys eaten lunch yet?

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And she just let it hang for a bit.

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And Peter and I look at each other and go, no.

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And she says, what do you say we go to Denny's?

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I'll buy.

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- That's great.

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She was like that, I would like to emphasize that. She had such a great sense of humor.

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But at the same time, she could be very strict with devotees when the moment required it.

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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.

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I'm taking you at your word that you're serious about being here and that you're serious about learning and progressing.

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So, therefore, I'm going to give it to you straight with both barrels."

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And I always appreciated that, but I know there were some people that didn't like having

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that kind of truth presented to them, so it wasn't everybody's cup of tea.

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Rick Yeah.

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Jesus said, "Be in the world, but not of it."

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He also said, "Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves."

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And that's been one of your mottos, not the second one, but the first one, "Be in the

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world, but not of it."

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How would you define that, and how have you lived that out so far?

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In the world, not of it.

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Yeah, definitely my motto.

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Basically bringing my practice and realizations, that knowledge, into some kind of actual work,

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basically.

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It's that simple in the world.

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But always maintaining that balance, there's that sense of being here and yet knowing that

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I come from somewhere else, that I'm part of something infinite, something larger.

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So even though I'm here represented in this finite body that we choose to call Jim, it's

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about always maintaining that essential contact with that greater source and allowing that

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source to basically emerge and speak through this channel, if I dare say that.

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>> Yeah.

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Would you say, also, that doing that does not necessitate any kind of conceptualization?

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It's really more of an experiential thing.

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>> Oh, yeah.

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Very much so.

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>> It's not like you're running around philosophizing all day about how you're not really in this

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world and you're doing things in the world.

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No, it's more of the nitty-gritty reality of your daily experience, right?

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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.

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But I'm also very guarded or cautious against letting my intellect interfere with things.

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And when it gets into too much talking about it and conceptualizing about it, I just find that

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becomes an impediment to that source, that channel, that presence coming through. And

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I don't feel the need to label everything. I saw a YouTube video yesterday which was entitled

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something like, "I had a spiritual awakening and now I've lost all motivation." The guy went on

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to explain that he doesn't really have any initiative to do anything, that he's lost all

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interest in the world as a result of his spiritual awakening. I made a comment in the comment section

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under the video that that's not the final awakening. Awakened people can be very motivated,

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is just that there's a different intelligence driving the motivation. It's shifted from just

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individual intelligence to divine will or cosmic intelligence.

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>> David: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what I feel driving me. That's what I feel

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my experience to be. And it's interesting. It's easy to get excited about all of the things that

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I would like to accomplish, but in this particular human vehicle, I'm also able to reflect that,

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"Oh, it's going to be whatever it's going to be, whatever that infinite source has intended."

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I'm interested in the physiological side, obviously, of everything. Very much part of

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yoga practice is maintaining your body, taking care of your body, because this is the vehicle,

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and including your nervous system and everything else, that's going to be transmitting all of this

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energy and doing the work. Some people are very fortunate and blessed to be born

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in this world with a very healthy strong body. We know that people are born with

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different cognitive potentialities, we know that. Some people develop their

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potentiality, some people have great potentiality, but don't develop it for

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whatever number of reasons. Same thing with our physical body. So we just have

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to make do with whatever we're given, if that makes sense. And I'm just grateful

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I'm grateful that I feel fortunate that I've been given a pretty healthy body and a healthy

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mind and the opportunity to be exposed to a set of teachings that help to develop all

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the potentialities that this channel can be.

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Yeah, no, it is a blessing for sure and a precious opportunity, I would say.

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Another quote would be, "The body is the temple of the soul."

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So it's the instrument through which the soul, if you will, functions.

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That was one of my early realizations toward the end of my teenage drug phase.

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I was thinking, "I'm stuck in this body, and if I damage it, I'm going to be stuck in a

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damaged body all of my probably short life, so I better clean up my act and start taking

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care of it."

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Yeah, it's great that you had the presence of mind to recognize that maybe some spark

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of the divine was intervening to say, "This wasn't part of the plan for you, Rick."

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Yeah, I think so.

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I often ponder that.

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It wasn't obvious to me at the time, but in retrospect, you can see the hand of the Divine

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over the course of your life.

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Gosh, when you say that, it conjures up all sorts of memories for me.

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Close calls and near misses and things.

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Oh yeah, I drove my guardian angels crazy during those days.

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Oh my God, what are we going to do with this guy?

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They all had nervous breakdowns.

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So going along as this unfolds, we're talking about being guided by the divine, having it

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bless our lives or protect us from dangers or shift us in more wholesome directions and

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so on.

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And I imagine you would agree, it's obvious that this could mean different things for

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different people, not everybody is meant to do the same thing.

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So what would you say to the thought that being in an enlightened state or awakened state

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and being guided by divine intelligence, having Brahman be the charioteer, to quote the Katha

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Upanishad, doesn't mean you're going to be doing earth-shaking spiritual things and be

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standing up on stage in front of thousands of people. You could be working an ordinary job,

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raising kids, doing all that ordinary stuff, and yet take it from there.

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>> Steven And the ripples I always imagine, I always think about the ripple effect of

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every little effort that we make.

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This is really important to me and has been for years.

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With each passing year, I become even more aware of each little thing that I'm putting

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out in terms of my thoughts, in terms of little actions during the day.

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But I can tell you one prominent aspect of this chosen work in my life, apart from being

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a father of three children and having really relished raising my children to the best of

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ability. I wasn't a perfect father, but I think they would probably mostly tell you

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that I mostly did a good job. And they're all very beautiful people, so I'm very

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proud of them. One of the things I like to share is that for just about 25 years

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I was a community soccer coach. I'm really into soccer and have been since I was a

00:18:04.740 --> 00:18:09.700
little boy. I got into coaching and I've coached all sorts of kids that were not

00:18:09.700 --> 00:18:16.700
My own kids only briefly played soccer and got interested in other sports and whatnot, which was fine by me.

00:18:16.700 --> 00:18:22.700
But in coaching soccer, I always saw it as spiritual work. Let me just say that.

00:18:22.700 --> 00:18:31.700
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.

00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:36.700
But for me, it was always about... how can we say this? This operates on so many different levels.

00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:39.420
You must be familiar with the writings of Robert Bly.

00:18:39.420 --> 00:18:41.900
Yeah, I never read them, but I'm aware of him.

00:18:41.900 --> 00:18:48.700
And one of the themes that comes across in, certainly, Iron John, is about boys need male

00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:56.380
figures who are positive. And I saw that need in my community. And the same thing with girls

00:18:56.380 --> 00:19:00.780
need positive models who are male and what have you. And I coach a lot of girls teams.

00:19:01.340 --> 00:19:07.100
But I want to say that beyond all the soccer and teaching how to pass and kick and shoot and

00:19:07.100 --> 00:19:14.540
tactical play and all that kind of stuff, it was always for me about infusing all of it with a

00:19:14.540 --> 00:19:23.580
sense of kindness and joy and, quite frankly, love. Everything for me was an expression of love.

00:19:24.140 --> 00:19:30.140
It was about seeing the inherent divinity in each of those people.

00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:34.140
And I would not hesitate to say that.

00:19:34.140 --> 00:19:37.140
I think it even surprised me perhaps,

00:19:37.140 --> 00:19:42.140
my ability to be able to see the inherent divinity in each of those individuals,

00:19:42.140 --> 00:19:47.140
even a couple of the characters who were misbehaving and disruptive and whatnot,

00:19:47.140 --> 00:19:49.140
and they know who they are, God bless them.

00:19:49.140 --> 00:19:52.140
And one of these guys came back to me years later.

00:19:52.140 --> 00:19:57.640
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.

00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:00.040
These guys are all in their mid-late 30s now.

00:20:00.040 --> 00:20:11.240
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.

00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:14.740
He says, "I was a real jerk. I was a real a-hole."

00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:20.500
And I said, "I just laughed and I said, 'Yeah, but you know, that's where you're at that time,

00:20:20.500 --> 00:20:23.700
and that's what was going on, and I understood that, and it's anyways."

00:20:23.700 --> 00:20:24.580
Yeah.

00:20:24.580 --> 00:20:26.020
That's me reminiscing, clearly.

00:20:26.020 --> 00:20:29.220
But you might like to check out this thing that a friend of mine is doing,

00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:34.980
who has been on BatGap a couple times. Her name is Mariana Kaplan, and she and her son

00:20:34.980 --> 00:20:40.580
have been traveling all over the world handing out soccer balls to kids who might be using

00:20:40.580 --> 00:20:46.500
something to serve as a soccer ball that's not really a soccer ball. Places in Africa and Indonesia and

00:20:46.500 --> 00:20:51.700
places where kids can't afford soccer balls. So it's this mission to propagate goodwill and

00:20:51.700 --> 00:20:57.460
positivity and spirituality through the avenue of soccer. You can google it, you'll find it.

00:20:57.460 --> 00:20:58.580
- Mariana Kaplan.

00:20:58.580 --> 00:21:04.580
- Kaplan, C-A-P-L-A-N. She's a psychotherapist and lives in Maine now. And she's written some

00:21:04.580 --> 00:21:09.620
really cool books like "Halfway Up the Mountain, The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment."

00:21:09.620 --> 00:21:13.620
Do you need a guru? That was another one. And some others.

00:21:13.620 --> 00:21:15.620
Oh, I'm already interested.

00:21:15.620 --> 00:21:19.620
You can see her interviews on that. Anyway, yeah, it's a good thing you weren't a boxing coach.

00:21:19.620 --> 00:21:23.620
It might have been harder to still love your trainees.

00:21:23.620 --> 00:21:26.620
Okay, love this guy. Now knock his lights out.

00:21:26.620 --> 00:21:31.620
So, the importance of not obsessing over dogma at the expense of losing touch with

00:21:31.620 --> 00:21:34.620
or becoming blind to intuitive learning and perception.

00:21:34.620 --> 00:21:41.300
You got your start in a Christian church, presumably it wasn't a very dogmatic one, but dogma

00:21:41.300 --> 00:21:45.220
is not limited to Christianity or religions.

00:21:45.220 --> 00:21:50.260
There are people who are politically dogmatic, there are people who are perhaps even dogmatic

00:21:50.260 --> 00:21:51.940
about their soccer team.

00:21:51.940 --> 00:21:58.260
In the so-called spiritual world, New Age or contemporary spirituality, people can be very

00:21:58.260 --> 00:22:03.700
fixated on particular ideas and dismissive of those who think differently.

00:22:03.700 --> 00:22:12.900
Absolutely, and that's why I think for the most part I've shied away from being part of any spiritual community.

00:22:12.900 --> 00:22:23.700
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.

00:22:23.700 --> 00:22:40.700
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.

00:22:40.700 --> 00:22:47.700
And the word I like to use is around that phenomena as it were, is emergence.

00:22:47.700 --> 00:22:51.700
But, sorry, I'm meandering prematurely already.

00:22:51.700 --> 00:22:58.700
Going back to dogma, suffice it to say, I rail against dogma in all forms.

00:22:58.700 --> 00:23:03.700
I embrace knowledge, I embrace truth, I embrace questioning.

00:23:03.700 --> 00:23:08.700
But even the Buddha talked about that you have to doubt, you have to question things.

00:23:08.700 --> 00:23:14.620
And I'm suspicious even of myself if I become a little too attached to what I believe to

00:23:14.620 --> 00:23:16.220
be an absolute certainty.

00:23:16.220 --> 00:23:18.540
Yeah, there's a great quote from the Buddha.

00:23:18.540 --> 00:23:23.140
I could pull it up if I took a few seconds, but it basically said, "Don't believe anything

00:23:23.140 --> 00:23:26.060
because the scriptures say it, because some authority says it.

00:23:26.060 --> 00:23:28.620
Don't even believe anything because I say it.

00:23:28.620 --> 00:23:32.980
Just really think about it on your own and ponder it deeply, and then if it seems to

00:23:32.980 --> 00:23:38.260
be conducive to the well-being of everyone, then put it into practice or abide by it."

00:23:38.260 --> 00:23:41.900
And there's one more quote I want to throw out, relevant to something you said a couple

00:23:41.900 --> 00:23:46.220
minutes ago, which I've said in many lectures, but I think it always bears repeating, which

00:23:46.220 --> 00:23:53.820
was from Padma Sambhava, which was, "Although my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention

00:23:53.820 --> 00:23:56.860
to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour."

00:23:56.860 --> 00:24:01.500
The reason I like that quote is that he's just saying that, hey, you can really be cosmic,

00:24:01.500 --> 00:24:06.780
really an awakened dude, but it doesn't grant you a pass to do whatever the heck you please.

00:24:06.780 --> 00:24:14.280
You have to be quite meticulous or impeccable in your behavior and not deviate from the

00:24:14.280 --> 00:24:16.020
Tao or the Dharma.

00:24:16.020 --> 00:24:21.460
It bears saying because there are some people who take the opposite conclusion.

00:24:21.460 --> 00:24:26.060
They think, "Okay, now I'm enlightened so I can do whatever I want, and after all, I'm

00:24:26.060 --> 00:24:27.060
not doing it.

00:24:27.060 --> 00:24:29.460
God is doing it, so it must be okay."

00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:33.980
I helped to start an organization called the Association for Spiritual Integrity because

00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:39.740
there has been so much hanky-panky in spiritual communities and it's caused so much harm.

00:24:39.740 --> 00:24:43.900
We got together with some friends and started this organization and it's really doing well,

00:24:43.900 --> 00:24:47.260
and it seems to be striking a much-needed chord.

00:24:47.260 --> 00:24:48.940
Ben Do you have a website for that?

00:24:48.940 --> 00:24:51.580
David Yeah, it's called spiritual-integrity.org,

00:24:51.580 --> 00:24:57.820
and we have like nearly 800 members now and over 50 member organizations, and we've given

00:24:57.820 --> 00:25:03.740
presentations at Harvard Divinity School and so on. But it's an important thing. I'm a student

00:25:03.740 --> 00:25:08.380
of Swami Sarvapriyananda, among others. It's not like he's my guru or anything, but I like

00:25:08.380 --> 00:25:14.860
his classes. And he always emphasizes that ethical development is actually foundational.

00:25:14.860 --> 00:25:19.180
That's the first step. And then you build everything else on top of that. I emphasize

00:25:19.180 --> 00:25:23.340
that because, again, the harm that's been done by people who don't recognize that, and

00:25:23.340 --> 00:25:27.580
even some very well-known spiritual teachers. There was one at a conference in Denver a

00:25:27.580 --> 00:25:32.700
few months ago who said, "If you think that ethics has anything to do with awakening, you

00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:34.700
don't understand awakening.

00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:35.700
Yeah.

00:25:35.700 --> 00:25:38.700
I want to go back to that quote.

00:25:38.700 --> 00:25:43.500
I like that very much and the explanation you offered.

00:25:43.500 --> 00:25:46.900
And he's saying, "Even though my awareness is as vast as the sky."

00:25:46.900 --> 00:25:52.580
So he's saying, "Okay, I'm awakened," and whatever that meant in those days, "but you

00:25:52.580 --> 00:25:53.580
got to be careful."

00:25:53.580 --> 00:25:54.580
Absolutely.

00:25:54.580 --> 00:25:59.540
And I think part of what I take from that is that because your awareness has expanded as

00:25:59.540 --> 00:26:06.920
vast as the sky. I feel that it is incumbent upon me all the more to act

00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:12.080
with the utmost integrity. I do believe that there is a distinction made. This is

00:26:12.080 --> 00:26:16.820
something that just comes from my intuition, but I do suspect or believe

00:26:16.820 --> 00:26:21.920
there is a distinction to be made in terms of karma. If I go out and crash up

00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:25.720
a car and I don't know any better, that's one thing, but if you go out and

00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:30.120
crash up a car but you knew better. That's a different thing. And I think in Islam

00:26:30.120 --> 00:26:34.120
they talk about that, the intention, what was the intention behind it.

00:26:34.120 --> 00:26:38.800
If an uneducated person commits a certain crime, there would be some consequences. What if

00:26:38.800 --> 00:26:43.280
the judge does it? Same crime. Judge really should know better. Of course in

00:26:43.280 --> 00:26:46.640
this day and age the judge probably gets off and the other guy goes to jail.

00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:52.480
And this goes on all around the world. I think it's a really good analogy or

00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:58.560
example, because what happens then is that ultimately that break in trust, that

00:26:58.560 --> 00:27:02.860
break in integrity, ends up trickling down through the entire system and it

00:27:02.860 --> 00:27:08.360
affects the whole organism. And this is why it is absolutely essential, like your

00:27:08.360 --> 00:27:15.360
organization, to be maintaining integrity, to develop integrity. In my case, I think

00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:19.660
that goes back to, well probably goes back to a lot of things, past lives, to my

00:27:19.660 --> 00:27:24.060
early upbringing in that Anglican country parish, where I was surrounded by

00:27:24.060 --> 00:27:30.260
really good people, just really good, simple people, who were very involved in

00:27:30.260 --> 00:27:34.260
the community. My mother was always involved in, for example, Meals on Wheels,

00:27:34.260 --> 00:27:40.060
helping people. There was just this overriding sense of your responsibility

00:27:40.060 --> 00:27:44.460
to the community and to the people around you. Take care of people, and of

00:27:44.460 --> 00:27:48.340
course, part and parcel of that is it was a given that you have to act with

00:27:48.340 --> 00:27:53.060
integrity. Yeah, you can see what has happened in the Catholic Church and probably some other

00:27:53.060 --> 00:28:00.340
denominations where priests end up molesting children and it's such a violation of trust and

00:28:00.340 --> 00:28:07.140
so shattering of people's faith and so traumatizing. This is a crude example, but imagine if

00:28:07.140 --> 00:28:11.780
Yogacharya Hamilton had said, "All right guys, you know, give me all your money," or "Take off your

00:28:11.780 --> 00:28:17.060
clothes," or whatever. Imagine the effect that would have had on your life. Yeah, that was one of the

00:28:17.060 --> 00:28:22.340
things that, yeah, she never asked for money. No, never. And that's always stuck with me. She just

00:28:22.340 --> 00:28:29.300
transmitted it. Again, there's that, just the living example of integrity. And again, I'm so

00:28:29.300 --> 00:28:32.660
blessed and fortunate to have been able to have that kind of a teacher.

00:28:32.660 --> 00:28:39.300
>> Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to sound preachy, but it's just in my position of being so

00:28:39.300 --> 00:28:44.260
interconnected with so many different people around the world in the spiritual communities,

00:28:44.260 --> 00:28:51.780
and also through my involvement in the ASI, I just encounter so many examples of misbehavior,

00:28:51.780 --> 00:28:57.460
which is extremely traumatizing and disillusioning to people. I place such value on spiritual

00:28:57.460 --> 00:29:02.420
development for individuals and for the world that it just seems like a tragedy when these

00:29:02.420 --> 00:29:07.780
things happen. I often have to maybe check myself depending on who the audience is and who I'm

00:29:07.780 --> 00:29:12.660
talking with. Yeah. Because I don't know why it should be such a big concept for some people,

00:29:12.660 --> 00:29:20.500
but it is. I think it's because our whole notion of integrity and honesty at large has become

00:29:20.500 --> 00:29:27.140
so diluted. I'll give you one brief example. I don't want to inadvertently reveal the person's

00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:32.420
identity, so I'll have to leave out all the sort of most salient details, but it basically...

00:29:32.420 --> 00:29:37.220
Unfortunately, I'm not psychic like your teacher was, so I won't be able to guess.

00:29:37.220 --> 00:29:46.220
This is a person, a colleague, who I have high respect for, very high regard for, wonderful person, and an intrinsically good person.

00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:53.220
But they grew up in a certain region and in a certain culture, and despite their education and everything else,

00:29:53.220 --> 00:30:00.220
I made a comment about somebody that had demonstrated a lack of integrity and deceit.

00:30:00.220 --> 00:30:03.220
And this person said to me, they've responded, "Oh, but everybody does that."

00:30:03.220 --> 00:30:11.740
As in, it's normalized. So that kind of behavior is not necessarily seen, even, and we're talking

00:30:11.740 --> 00:30:18.660
minor deceits, but the fact that this notion, very casually expressed, "Oh, that's just normal.

00:30:18.660 --> 00:30:19.660
That's normal."

00:30:19.660 --> 00:30:24.540
Yeah, that's an interesting thing. It brings up the point of, are ethics cultural phenomenon,

00:30:24.540 --> 00:30:28.180
or do they have some universal value? Because you might grow up in a culture where everybody

00:30:28.180 --> 00:30:33.300
thinks, or you might have grown up in a culture 150 years ago in the States where everybody

00:30:33.300 --> 00:30:39.480
thinks that it's okay to own black people, or in 1930s Germany, the horrible things that

00:30:39.480 --> 00:30:42.400
people were saying about Jews, and little kids.

00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:45.940
I was just reading something the other day where somebody was so shocked because this

00:30:45.940 --> 00:30:51.420
little kid started saying these horrible things about Jews that he had heard from his friends.

00:30:51.420 --> 00:30:58.340
So just because everybody does something doesn't mean it should be accepted.

00:30:58.340 --> 00:31:03.780
And I think some of our most inspiring people throughout history, Mahatma Gandhi or Martin

00:31:03.780 --> 00:31:08.580
Luther King or others, were inspiring because they bucked the trend.

00:31:08.580 --> 00:31:10.220
They didn't do what everybody else did.

00:31:10.220 --> 00:31:13.700
They said, "Wait a minute, this is wrong and I'm going to speak out."

00:31:13.700 --> 00:31:18.740
And both of them were probably channeling a lot of Kundalini or something because they

00:31:18.740 --> 00:31:24.940
They have the power, not only the awareness, that sort of awakened mindset, but they also

00:31:24.940 --> 00:31:31.860
have the power and the strength and the confidence to be able to transmit that against the overwhelming

00:31:31.860 --> 00:31:33.460
odds that were against them.

00:31:33.460 --> 00:31:38.180
>> RICK: Was it Margaret Mead said something like, "Don't think that great changes can't

00:31:38.180 --> 00:31:42.860
be affected by a small group of dedicated people.

00:31:42.860 --> 00:31:45.900
In fact, that's the only thing that has ever brought about great changes."

00:31:45.900 --> 00:31:46.900
>> BF: Yes.

00:31:46.900 --> 00:31:47.900
>> RICK: Something like that.

00:31:47.900 --> 00:31:52.300
Misquoting or you probably heard the quote. That was pretty reasonable close

00:31:52.300 --> 00:31:57.740
paraphrase. So I like to quote from scripture whether it's the Upanishads or

00:31:57.740 --> 00:32:02.180
the Bible and when we were talking about integrity one of my favorites is this is

00:32:02.180 --> 00:32:06.600
we've already passed this topic but I just I always remember this one in Jesus

00:32:06.600 --> 00:32:12.660
he said for any of those who would ever harm a child it would be better that a

00:32:12.660 --> 00:32:17.460
millstone was tied around their neck and they were dropped into the ocean.

00:32:17.460 --> 00:32:20.260
I think a lot of priests somehow miss that verse.

00:32:20.260 --> 00:32:25.700
Yeah, pretty heavy. Heavy karma, in other words. Heavy karma.

00:32:25.700 --> 00:32:33.060
Okay, so everything we're saying here, it wouldn't be an abrupt segue to read your next point,

00:32:33.060 --> 00:32:38.580
which is the importance of simple humility and kindness. Let's dwell on that for a little bit.

00:32:39.140 --> 00:32:58.640
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.

00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:00.600
And of course there's research around this now too

00:33:00.600 --> 00:33:03.280
in terms of the neurofeedback that comes back to us.

00:33:03.280 --> 00:33:07.240
And just witnessing the beauty that emerges from that,

00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:10.680
and then as you make it more and more of your habit,

00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:14.220
it just becomes such a natural part of who we are.

00:33:14.220 --> 00:33:15.720
It's like compounding interest

00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:19.060
on a really good investment portfolio, but this grows.

00:33:19.060 --> 00:33:22.640
- It grows and it refines your nervous system, actually.

00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:24.840
You were talking earlier about the nervous system.

00:33:24.840 --> 00:33:28.600
Crude behavior coarsens the nervous system.

00:33:28.600 --> 00:33:31.400
Compassion, humility, kindness, that kind of stuff

00:33:31.400 --> 00:33:33.360
refines the nervous system.

00:33:33.360 --> 00:33:38.160
And a more refined nervous system is more suitable,

00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:39.560
if that's the best word,

00:33:39.560 --> 00:33:43.080
more capable of reflecting pure consciousness

00:33:43.080 --> 00:33:45.640
and spiritual divine values.

00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:47.000
- Yes, absolutely.

00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:48.600
And I'm always aware of that

00:33:48.600 --> 00:33:51.760
and increasingly aware of how everything contributes.

00:33:51.760 --> 00:33:54.040
It's a constant feedback loop.

00:33:54.040 --> 00:33:57.320
As we practice these things, we're also refining the body,

00:33:57.320 --> 00:34:00.040
refining the mind, refining the spirit,

00:34:00.040 --> 00:34:01.400
the whole experience.

00:34:01.400 --> 00:34:02.360
- Yeah.

00:34:02.360 --> 00:34:05.160
I'm involved with this marvelous fellow named Nipun Mehta,

00:34:05.160 --> 00:34:08.320
who leads an organization called Service Space,

00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:10.120
servicespace.org.

00:34:10.120 --> 00:34:14.120
He's behind this whole AI chat bot project

00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:16.520
that I've been involved with for a couple of years.

00:34:16.520 --> 00:34:20.280
Service Space, its motto is small acts of kindness.

00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:24.720
And he just started out 25, 30 years ago with this,

00:34:24.720 --> 00:34:26.680
I think it was the first project was this thing

00:34:26.680 --> 00:34:29.000
called Karma Kitchen, where they opened the restaurant

00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:30.520
and anybody could come to eat.

00:34:30.520 --> 00:34:33.200
And afterwards you pay what you thought it was worth

00:34:33.200 --> 00:34:35.400
or you just walk out if you don't wanna pay.

00:34:35.400 --> 00:34:38.400
But it worked, people did it, they supported it.

00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:40.400
And they've gone on to do all kinds of things.

00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:41.920
And now millions of people are involved

00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:44.040
all around the world doing wonderful things

00:34:44.040 --> 00:34:47.360
just through this motto of small acts of kindness.

00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:51.660
It's interesting to witness, beautiful to witness,

00:34:51.660 --> 00:34:56.660
how a project like that, when it's coming from a good place

00:34:56.660 --> 00:35:01.160
and it carries this initial vibration and this intention,

00:35:01.160 --> 00:35:04.580
and then it's subsequently building that energy

00:35:04.580 --> 00:35:07.560
and that intention and transmitting it to others,

00:35:07.560 --> 00:35:10.760
it catches fire and expands and grows

00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:12.680
if it's rooted in truth.

00:35:12.680 --> 00:35:21.160
Yeah, I'm reminded at this point in our political scene of the importance of leaders reflecting

00:35:21.160 --> 00:35:24.440
these qualities of kindness and humility and so on.

00:35:24.440 --> 00:35:28.200
Unfortunately the pendulum seems to have swung in a direction where that's not so much the

00:35:28.200 --> 00:35:31.280
case, but it really makes a difference.

00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:32.880
You were bullied as a kid.

00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:36.880
You talk about it in your book, and you can imagine the playground scene where there's

00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:43.440
a bully and then a certain mindset gravitates around the bully and they become little mini-bullies

00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:48.240
following the big bully with whatever he does. And conversely, there might be someone who is

00:35:48.240 --> 00:35:53.600
just really kind and helpful to other kids and all that stuff and probably he would attract a

00:35:53.600 --> 00:35:59.600
certain type of person. But the predominance of one or the other can shift in any circumstance,

00:35:59.600 --> 00:36:05.040
such as a playground or a nation or the world. It's interesting to consider which is the cart

00:36:05.040 --> 00:36:10.080
and which is the horse. Is there something in collective consciousness which would give rise to

00:36:10.080 --> 00:36:18.560
despotic leaders, or do despotic leaders bring out something in collective consciousness and enliven

00:36:18.560 --> 00:36:24.480
that tendency in the populace? I think it's the first. There are certain elements or ingredients

00:36:24.480 --> 00:36:29.840
in collective consciousness that give rise to different types of leaders at different times,

00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:33.920
give expression to those qualities in the person of this or that leader.

00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:40.920
I've often thought about that same question and that's what emerged for me and it's what I've observed.

00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:45.920
And you can observe this in different corporate cultures and different places I've worked for example.

00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:49.920
I come in from the outside and we have a good leader.

00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:54.920
I joined a really wonderful culture. I was attracted to that culture from the outset.

00:36:54.920 --> 00:36:59.920
And then say there's a leadership change and lots of people who work in big organizations report this of course.

00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:06.420
and then, oh my god, terrible news, our leader left and this new manager came in.

00:37:06.420 --> 00:37:11.980
And the people that were already there enjoying a happy culture, if they really are representative

00:37:11.980 --> 00:37:16.680
of that culture in terms of their own intrinsic values and virtues, they will leave.

00:37:16.680 --> 00:37:18.420
They will find ways to leave.

00:37:18.420 --> 00:37:22.300
And at the very least, they're probably going to stop being productive because they're not

00:37:22.300 --> 00:37:24.040
in a happy place.

00:37:24.040 --> 00:37:28.440
The people that will come in to replace those who have departed will be much more in the

00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:33.560
mold somebody that doesn't mind that kind of a leader and they find that kind of person

00:37:33.560 --> 00:37:35.140
really appealing.

00:37:35.140 --> 00:37:39.640
So that's coming from those individuals as far as I'm concerned.

00:37:39.640 --> 00:37:44.080
I think it emerges from that collective unconsciousness.

00:37:44.080 --> 00:37:49.180
I think it's going to start to become controversial in Canada because the Americans who are moving

00:37:49.180 --> 00:37:53.840
here for the most part are those who have substantial resources to do so.

00:37:53.840 --> 00:37:56.800
they're coming up and buying substantial properties and...

00:37:56.800 --> 00:37:58.800
Driving up the real estate prices and so on.

00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:00.000
Yeah.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:01.200
Perhaps you should build a wall.

00:38:01.200 --> 00:38:04.240
It would have to be a long wall.

00:38:04.240 --> 00:38:09.360
You know what, if there's enough tariffs put up against our softwood expert,

00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:14.400
that means we'd have a surplus of softwood, so we could build a wall out of, I don't know...

00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:19.840
Okay, next point. You mentioned the importance and relevance at times of suffering in awakening.

00:38:20.480 --> 00:38:25.400
Now there have been some spiritual aspirants who have intentionally inflicted suffering

00:38:25.400 --> 00:38:30.560
upon themselves through all kinds of austerities and tapas it's sometimes called, sometimes

00:38:30.560 --> 00:38:37.240
quite extreme, and we can picture yogis on beds of nails and so on, and others who haven't

00:38:37.240 --> 00:38:38.240
done that intentionally.

00:38:38.240 --> 00:38:44.480
I had this cool experience where I was up in Iowa City because Irene had to go to the

00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:48.840
hospital for something and I was walking down the aisle of a little food store where we'd

00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:54.840
stop to pick up something and this young Buddhist nun started walking toward me and we both just

00:38:54.840 --> 00:38:59.960
stopped in our tracks and I was like, "Whoa, are you from Fairfield?" which is where I live,

00:38:59.960 --> 00:39:04.040
and she said, "No, but you are." I said, "Do I know you? Are you from Fairfield?" She says,

00:39:04.040 --> 00:39:08.440
"No, but I know you. You're from Fairfield." She had been watching Batgap, but she's got a

00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:12.760
terrible case of cancer. I won't go into the details, but she's gone through horrendous

00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:19.400
suffering. And she said she has just maintained this Buddhist attitude of, "I'm taking on this

00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:24.760
suffering for humanity." It's not, "Oh, poor me." It's more, "Okay, I'm just going to go through

00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:31.560
this, and hopefully in doing so, I will relieve the suffering of others." So, what would your take

00:39:31.560 --> 00:39:39.640
be? Why do we suffer? And if God wants everybody to evolve and grow spiritually, why does suffering

00:39:39.640 --> 00:39:44.240
sometimes have to be part of it. I can only speak to my own experience, but I

00:39:44.240 --> 00:39:49.720
know for myself in the periods when I've suffered greatly, there have been times,

00:39:49.720 --> 00:39:53.840
just for example, there's been a few things in the last 10 years, but I had a

00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:59.760
strange mishap with my back about two years ago, and I was in such excruciating

00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:03.920
pain. I've had lots of back problems over the years and whatnot, and you know,

00:40:03.920 --> 00:40:07.400
it's how my back hurts, and oh I can't sleep very well, and it's really

00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:14.120
uncomfortable and it's not pleasant. No, this was next level. It was off the charts. It was a major

00:40:14.120 --> 00:40:21.160
pinched nerve down at the base of my spine and I lost feeling in my left leg that still hasn't

00:40:21.160 --> 00:40:26.600
fully returned. But my walking is good and I can still run, play soccer, which makes me happy.

00:40:26.600 --> 00:40:29.000
That boy. Bend it like Beckham.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:36.040
Yeah. The pain was so bad that I just slept on the hardwood floor of our living room for about

00:40:36.040 --> 00:40:41.720
ten days I didn't dare try to sleep even on a thin foamy or anything because

00:40:41.720 --> 00:40:47.280
anything that would not support my back would just introduce that the slightest

00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:51.080
movement was like agonizing pain that would go straight to the top of my crown.

00:40:51.080 --> 00:40:55.560
When they talk about blinding pain that's the kind of pain this was it was

00:40:55.560 --> 00:40:59.920
absolutely blinding and it got to the point after a few days where I was

00:40:59.920 --> 00:41:04.480
seriously wishing for death because you get to a point where it's just

00:41:04.480 --> 00:41:10.280
intolerable. I just can't sustain this any longer. And at that point, that's when

00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:13.720
you touch something deeply. So this circling back here after my long

00:41:13.720 --> 00:41:19.680
narrative, the pain, the suffering, when we really sit with it and be with it and I

00:41:19.680 --> 00:41:24.360
did, I was doing my best, I was practicing my breathing and everything else. It

00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:31.400
forces us to touch bottom in a way that takes us to that source. There's no other

00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:37.540
place to go. The only place to go is that source. And that's been my experience.

00:41:37.540 --> 00:41:42.440
Like I say, all I can do is describe in my experience. Having said that, and

00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:46.760
having described that particular anecdote, the big difference between back pain and

00:41:46.760 --> 00:41:50.800
say being in a conflict zone where there's bombs falling and what have you,

00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:55.520
there's different kinds of suffering. And I suspect, like, what a terrible thing for

00:41:55.520 --> 00:42:02.560
a parent to lose their child. I can't imagine the pain in that, but I suspect

00:42:02.560 --> 00:42:10.240
that in that there is a kind of a deeper learning probably around non-attachment.

00:42:10.240 --> 00:42:15.680
One of the things that my guru used to say, this is her sense of humor, but it

00:42:15.680 --> 00:42:19.960
was also dead serious too. One thing we need to remember, she said, "No one gets

00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:26.280
out of here alive. Yeah, that's an old one. No one gets out of here alive and that

00:42:26.280 --> 00:42:30.640
might provide cold comfort. But I do think it's a reference point that we

00:42:30.640 --> 00:42:38.240
need to look to. I had occasion to travel to China 10 years ago and long story, but

00:42:38.240 --> 00:42:42.800
there I just happened to meet with a group of Tibetan Buddhists. These are

00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:48.400
interesting enough ethnic Chinese who practice Tibetan Buddhism and I was

00:42:48.400 --> 00:42:52.060
suspicious and skeptical and but when I actually talked with them at length

00:42:52.060 --> 00:42:57.080
about their practices I was impressed as best as I can tell they are practicing

00:42:57.080 --> 00:43:03.200
the real deal and very sincere aspirants. One of the things that comes out of

00:43:03.200 --> 00:43:09.120
Tibetan Buddhism is this notion of always having an awareness of death,

00:43:09.120 --> 00:43:13.080
always having an awareness of our mortality. Yeah. And I know that's a

00:43:13.080 --> 00:43:17.000
current that runs through all of Buddhism but in Tibet in particular it's

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:22.760
a very strong current. If I understand correctly, I think traditionally a lot of Buddhist families

00:43:22.760 --> 00:43:29.440
would have a skull on a mantelpiece somewhere, that as a child growing up with this skull

00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:35.240
sitting on the mantelpiece, but as just simply as a means of reminding people that, "Hey,

00:43:35.240 --> 00:43:39.480
you're not going to be here forever." People in the developing world know this, like, "You

00:43:39.480 --> 00:43:44.520
could get sick tomorrow and good luck. You could be dead by the end of the week." And

00:43:44.520 --> 00:43:52.280
that happens all too often, enough that people live with this awareness that I don't think

00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:55.040
we have so much of that in the developed world.

00:43:55.040 --> 00:43:57.560
Rick There are places in the so-called developed

00:43:57.560 --> 00:44:03.320
world where a good chance your child's going to get shot on the way home from school, or

00:44:03.320 --> 00:44:08.640
something like south side of Chicago or whatever, but it is a theme in most spiritual traditions

00:44:08.640 --> 00:44:11.160
to contemplate your mortality.

00:44:11.160 --> 00:44:15.400
There's a famous portrait of this monk contemplating a skull, just looking at it.

00:44:15.400 --> 00:44:16.680
>> Tom: I forget his name now.

00:44:16.680 --> 00:44:19.880
>> Rick But in any case, that's the reality of the situation.

00:44:19.880 --> 00:44:25.180
We only live for a snap of the fingers in the cosmic time scale of things.

00:44:25.180 --> 00:44:30.920
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die is not necessarily the best strategy,

00:44:30.920 --> 00:44:35.400
because when you do, will eating, drinking, and merriment have actually fulfilled your

00:44:35.400 --> 00:44:37.000
purpose for being here?

00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:42.960
>> Tom: I think we always, yeah, in that regard, we just always have to turn our attention

00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:46.600
to doing as much good as we can.

00:44:46.600 --> 00:44:49.180
And I use the word good very loosely.

00:44:49.180 --> 00:44:51.760
Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking only makes it so.

00:44:51.760 --> 00:44:53.080
>> Rick: Oh, Hamlet.

00:44:53.080 --> 00:44:55.480
I was thinking it was Shakespeare, yeah.

00:44:55.480 --> 00:44:57.080
>> Tom: Yeah, Hamlet.

00:44:57.080 --> 00:44:59.080
Act two, scene two, maybe?

00:44:59.080 --> 00:45:00.080
>> Rick: Okay.

00:45:00.080 --> 00:45:01.400
So, we might have covered that one.

00:45:01.400 --> 00:45:05.720
In any of these points, we could talk for the whole time about it, and maybe we'll get together

00:45:05.720 --> 00:45:09.800
some time and just shoot the breeze. But it's good to skip along and if people want to hear

00:45:09.800 --> 00:45:14.640
more about any particular thing we're raising, they could send in a question. At least one

00:45:14.640 --> 00:45:19.000
question has come in so far, but I'll wait for Irene to send it over to me.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:25.520
Okay, the importance of different traditions and teachers. You've mentioned you've lived

00:45:25.520 --> 00:45:30.280
with a prominent leader who spoke with you about traditional shamanic practices, contact

00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:38.200
with sky people, forest spirits, lucid dreams. You live five houses away from a Tibetan Lama

00:45:38.200 --> 00:45:43.800
and you discuss the nature of perception with him. You mentioned, "We can deepen our understanding

00:45:43.800 --> 00:45:48.080
of our own experience and traditions by talking with people of other traditions and comparing

00:45:48.080 --> 00:45:54.040
notes." I very much agree with that. I used to be much more monochromatic in my spiritual

00:45:54.040 --> 00:45:58.480
pursuit when I was just heavily into the TM movement. I would read things. I read Carlos

00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:02.800
Castaneda and various books, but I had the attitude that, "Oh, the thing I'm doing is

00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:06.980
the best thing," which a lot of spiritual people feel, because if they thought theirs

00:46:06.980 --> 00:46:10.800
was second best, they'd probably leave it and do what they thought was the best.

00:46:10.800 --> 00:46:16.860
But in any case, I've found it very enriching now, especially doing what I do, to expose

00:46:16.860 --> 00:46:20.040
myself deeply to so many different perspectives.

00:46:20.040 --> 00:46:23.680
It really broadens my perspective and enriches it a lot.

00:46:23.680 --> 00:46:29.520
>> Yeah, and what interests me is the points of intersection between different faiths in

00:46:29.520 --> 00:46:37.320
particular because ultimately, I think all religions, including the yogic traditions,

00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:43.040
there's this great trap that over time they fall into sort of systems of religiosity,

00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:50.240
which is to say dogma, which by its nature leads to a certain kind of closed-mindedness.

00:46:50.240 --> 00:46:59.420
And also it leads to creating layers upon layers of rules and beliefs and God knows what concepts

00:46:59.420 --> 00:47:03.520
that take us further and further away from the elemental truth of things.

00:47:03.520 --> 00:47:08.960
And the elemental truth is something that is nameless and cannot be spoken in words

00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:09.960
for starters.

00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:15.480
But that elemental truth has appeared in all of these great faiths, in all of these great

00:47:15.480 --> 00:47:19.520
traditions, including certainly the indigenous traditions and the aboriginal traditions in

00:47:19.520 --> 00:47:24.640
Australia, I always encourage people to look at those things and acknowledge those things.

00:47:24.640 --> 00:47:31.360
It's a beautiful testament to the fact that there is this universal element and truth to everything

00:47:31.360 --> 00:47:36.480
that lives beyond the dogma and all of the religiosity.

00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:42.800
- Yeah, there's a story where God and the devil are walking down the road and God sees something

00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:47.680
shiny on the ground, picks it up, puts it in his pocket, and the devil says, "Oh, what'd you find?

00:47:47.680 --> 00:47:53.200
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."

00:47:53.200 --> 00:47:57.360
Chatting with somebody the other day who

00:47:57.360 --> 00:47:59.600
spent a lot of time in Thich Nhat Hanh's community.

00:47:59.600 --> 00:48:03.600
She said she had to leave there because of all the power trips that people were on. You could have

00:48:03.600 --> 00:48:08.240
anybody, this even happened around Jesus, but anybody. And there's always going to be

00:48:08.240 --> 00:48:14.480
administrative types who are going to want to wriggle in there and start amassing power and pushing people around.

00:48:14.560 --> 00:48:18.080
that anybody who's been in any spiritual organization can relate to what I'm saying.

00:48:18.080 --> 00:48:23.200
Yes, I've witnessed that and I'm a big fan of Thich Nhat Hanh. I love Thich Nhat Hanh. Anytime

00:48:23.200 --> 00:48:28.640
I see anything from him, I just, wow, he just, everything that comes out of him is just this,

00:48:28.640 --> 00:48:33.360
for me, this pure fountain of truth. It's interesting, you talk about organizing.

00:48:33.360 --> 00:48:37.600
Somebody who I really appreciated in that regard was Joel Goldsmith. Have you ever

00:48:37.600 --> 00:48:38.880
read much of Joel Goldsmith?

00:48:38.880 --> 00:48:42.560
Not much. I've heard of him and I know you mentioned him. I might have read a little

00:48:42.560 --> 00:48:47.120
bit or heard a little bit of some audiophile or something, but I never really got into him.

00:48:47.120 --> 00:48:52.800
What was he all about? Joel Goldsmith was, I'll briefly give a bio for anybody that's not familiar

00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:58.000
with Joel Goldsmith. I noticed recently that Eckhart Tolle had a quote of how much he appreciated

00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:03.760
Joel Goldsmith on the back of a republished book of Goldsmith. Goldsmith is a contemporary of

00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:11.680
Yogananda, born in 1892, died in 1964. He was raised as a non-practicing Jew in New York City.

00:49:11.680 --> 00:49:17.120
His dad had a textile importation business and they would make frequent business trips to Europe.

00:49:17.120 --> 00:49:27.200
He was agnostic and on one business trip there on a transatlantic voyage, he witnessed someone get a

00:49:27.200 --> 00:49:32.880
hands-on laying of hands healing and he was just curious and he says, "What was that about? What

00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:37.600
did I just witness?" and he found out that these people were Christian scientists and he went, "Oh

00:49:37.600 --> 00:49:43.200
that's interesting. I might like to know a little bit more about that. So he subsequently joined

00:49:43.200 --> 00:49:50.080
the Christian Science community and started practicing healing and very quickly became

00:49:50.080 --> 00:49:54.880
the best healer in the community. And at some point, the story went something like this. This

00:49:54.880 --> 00:50:01.920
is again another example of what happens within spiritual communities and around dogma and whatnot.

00:50:01.920 --> 00:50:05.840
They were having some discussion about when you lay on the hands, it's like this and it's like

00:50:05.840 --> 00:50:10.000
that and this is how it works. And Goldsmith just put his head, he goes, "Well, actually, no,

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.640
that's not precisely what's going on. What's really happening is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

00:50:14.640 --> 00:50:24.080
And they probably excommunicated him basically, which was ultimately all for the betterment of

00:50:24.080 --> 00:50:30.320
the world, I think, because I'm a big fan of Goldsmith. Goldsmith subsequently went on to

00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:34.240
open his own healing practice. He started having all sorts of mystical experiences.

00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:40.160
It's never been made clear to me in everything I've read about him, but he obviously started to read

00:50:40.160 --> 00:50:45.040
about other traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, and he was versed, and he certainly started reading

00:50:45.040 --> 00:50:50.640
the Bible. And so, his books can be dense. He likes to quote from the Bible, and he likes to

00:50:50.640 --> 00:50:56.400
quote from the Old Testament. So, his writing style can sometimes be a bit heavy, a bit somewhat

00:50:56.400 --> 00:51:04.640
impenetrable almost, but it always is based in the primacy of experience, direct experience,

00:51:04.640 --> 00:51:10.880
and this notion of the presence that is with us at all times and that we are part of.

00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:18.080
His favorite book of his, I think, 15 books he wrote is called Practicing the Presence. I would

00:51:18.080 --> 00:51:22.880
highly recommend that to anybody that feels directed towards that kind of writing. Here's

00:51:22.880 --> 00:51:28.040
There's an anecdote I really like. It's somewhat apocryphal and uncertain as to the truth of

00:51:28.040 --> 00:51:32.160
it, but you're familiar with Robert Adams.

00:51:32.160 --> 00:51:33.160
So Robert Adams...

00:51:33.160 --> 00:51:35.280
It turned out to be a bit of a fraud, but go ahead.

00:51:35.280 --> 00:51:39.680
And this is why I think there's some question as to the veracity behind this story. But

00:51:39.680 --> 00:51:43.120
as he told the story of how he found Ramana Maharshi...

00:51:43.120 --> 00:51:44.120
Which he didn't.

00:51:44.120 --> 00:51:45.120
Oh, there you go.

00:51:45.120 --> 00:51:46.120
He never went to India.

00:51:46.120 --> 00:51:47.120
Really?

00:51:47.120 --> 00:51:51.200
Yeah. There's a whole story about this, but he wrote a nice book.

00:51:51.200 --> 00:51:55.200
Okay, then maybe we can just unpack this as a good story then.

00:51:55.200 --> 00:51:56.200
Yeah.

00:51:56.200 --> 00:52:01.360
Because obviously he was a good storyteller because he had me convinced.

00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:03.080
There's a great quote from Aldous Huxley.

00:52:03.080 --> 00:52:08.320
He said, "The greatest innovation of the scientific revolution was the scientific method itself

00:52:08.320 --> 00:52:10.600
and particularly the working hypothesis."

00:52:10.600 --> 00:52:15.600
Any spiritual idea, let's say, that people have killed each other over or believe in

00:52:15.600 --> 00:52:19.760
or whatever, told they're going to hell if they don't believe in, can be taken as a working

00:52:19.760 --> 00:52:25.620
hypothesis. Let's see if there's evidence for it. And maybe it's true even if you can't

00:52:25.620 --> 00:52:29.520
actually prove it in your lifetime, because how can you prove that, let's say you go to

00:52:29.520 --> 00:52:32.880
heaven after you die, there's some evidence for that because people have near-death experiences,

00:52:32.880 --> 00:52:37.560
they remember past lives and so on. But we don't have to hold rigidly to any particular

00:52:37.560 --> 00:52:44.000
idea, treat it as a working hypothesis and see if you can substantiate it through your

00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:49.040
own experience or not. Or maybe somebody else's experience seems credible and they've substantiated

00:52:49.040 --> 00:52:56.080
But everything is subject to revision, to reinforcement through more evidence, or through diminishment,

00:52:56.080 --> 00:52:59.480
through refutation of apparent evidence, and so on.

00:52:59.480 --> 00:53:02.560
>> Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that as well.

00:53:02.560 --> 00:53:05.960
Work with a hypothesis and test it, and don't be afraid to test it.

00:53:05.960 --> 00:53:09.520
All too often we're discouraged from doing that.

00:53:09.520 --> 00:53:15.320
You've heard that expression, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

00:53:15.320 --> 00:53:17.360
>> Yeah, that's good.

00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:20.280
In other words, we don't know if there are other universes.

00:53:20.280 --> 00:53:25.320
Some people have this multiverse theory that we're only one of billions of universes.

00:53:25.320 --> 00:53:28.920
There's no evidence for it, and there could never be any evidence that we know of because

00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:31.840
of the limitations of the speed of light and all that.

00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:34.180
But it doesn't mean there aren't other universes.

00:53:34.180 --> 00:53:36.960
It's not evidence of there not being other universes.

00:53:36.960 --> 00:53:41.240
There might be, but we'll never have any evidence to prove it one way or the other.

00:53:41.240 --> 00:53:42.240
Probably.

00:53:42.240 --> 00:53:43.240
Shouldn't say never.

00:53:43.240 --> 00:53:49.360
a really good example and so many others where basically we don't have and will

00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:53.720
never have the technology available to us where we can take those kinds of

00:53:53.720 --> 00:53:57.360
measurements and in many cases we're stuck within this three-dimensional

00:53:57.360 --> 00:54:03.960
physical plane and multiverse obviously by its very nature is in existent other

00:54:03.960 --> 00:54:07.880
dimensional planes and we don't have access to them and I don't know how we

00:54:07.880 --> 00:54:10.160
ever will have.

00:54:10.160 --> 00:54:11.160
Okay.

00:54:11.160 --> 00:54:16.040
You said, "First and foremost, I'm interested in all the various subjects that were listed

00:54:16.040 --> 00:54:17.840
in our online information form."

00:54:17.840 --> 00:54:23.080
Yeah, we have all these categories and people can check which one they fit into.

00:54:23.080 --> 00:54:24.760
You and I are alike in this sense.

00:54:24.760 --> 00:54:28.680
Everything from Advaita Vedanta to reincarnation, ghosts.

00:54:28.680 --> 00:54:32.680
I've had experience with basically everything that appeared on that master list, including

00:54:32.680 --> 00:54:34.240
ghosts and visitors.

00:54:34.240 --> 00:54:38.000
I feel like all those things are meaningful in our awakening as we can make sense of it

00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:39.000
all.

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:43.540
One thing I would say is, even though there might be a million different things which

00:54:43.540 --> 00:54:48.180
actually exist in some way, shape, or form, there's not time in life to investigate them

00:54:48.180 --> 00:54:49.180
all.

00:54:49.180 --> 00:54:53.220
We can't all be ghostbusters or whatever.

00:54:53.220 --> 00:54:55.460
But that's not to say they don't exist.

00:54:55.460 --> 00:55:00.220
Sometimes you can check out something for just an afternoon, read an article or something,

00:55:00.220 --> 00:55:01.780
and then, okay, got it.

00:55:01.780 --> 00:55:03.780
Don't need to know more about that.

00:55:03.780 --> 00:55:09.700
And I would say my approach to all of that is just to take it as it comes.

00:55:09.700 --> 00:55:14.900
One of the conversations I had with the Tibetan Buddhist Lama down the road from me, who I

00:55:14.900 --> 00:55:20.020
started meeting for tea on occasions, we had a good couple of discussions, I would say,

00:55:20.020 --> 00:55:24.780
around the whole notion of phenomenological experience.

00:55:24.780 --> 00:55:29.980
So much of this stuff is just plain old phenomenon, and it's interesting phenomenon.

00:55:29.980 --> 00:55:36.780
I don't know, seeing ghosts and maybe meeting extraterrestrials or whatever, but as remarkable

00:55:36.780 --> 00:55:42.380
as those things appear to our human consciousness, we need to remember that there's something far

00:55:42.380 --> 00:55:49.180
more substantial behind all of those phenomena, and we ourselves are merely one expression of

00:55:49.180 --> 00:55:55.180
phenomena in this universe. So, to the same degree that we wouldn't take ourselves all that

00:55:55.180 --> 00:56:00.520
seriously in terms of this vessel is called Jim. And I've had that experience

00:56:00.520 --> 00:56:03.820
of course, I live with that experience and that awareness that to look at the

00:56:03.820 --> 00:56:08.660
mirror and I go who is that guy? That's not the real essence of what this being

00:56:08.660 --> 00:56:13.220
is. So in the same measure that I'm not going to take this phenomena all that

00:56:13.220 --> 00:56:17.380
seriously, I'm not going to get too obsessed about these other phenomena. I

00:56:17.380 --> 00:56:22.300
do think it's important to acknowledge these phenomena because what I've

00:56:22.300 --> 00:56:26.100
experienced and what I've witnessed in others is as you're traveling along your

00:56:26.100 --> 00:56:30.020
merry way through life on some occasion you'll have one of these experiences of

00:56:30.020 --> 00:56:36.020
these other phenomena and it can be quite disoriented and can shake people

00:56:36.020 --> 00:56:40.260
up and be confusing. I'll go back to my guru and what she said about these

00:56:40.260 --> 00:56:44.260
things she said yeah there's all sorts of signposts and things that you're gonna

00:56:44.260 --> 00:56:48.860
see along the road as you're traveling but just acknowledge them don't get hung

00:56:48.860 --> 00:56:51.100
up on them and just keep on trucking.

00:56:51.100 --> 00:56:53.300
>> Rick Yeah, that's good advice.

00:56:53.300 --> 00:56:56.740
Now, of course, one might wish to specialize in something.

00:56:56.740 --> 00:57:01.660
For instance, there's a guy named Jim Tucker who took over the work of Ian Stevenson on

00:57:01.660 --> 00:57:02.660
reincarnation.

00:57:02.660 --> 00:57:05.220
I've interviewed Jim.

00:57:05.220 --> 00:57:09.300
He devoted many years of his life to studying reincarnation.

00:57:09.300 --> 00:57:10.500
So it's good to have specialists.

00:57:10.500 --> 00:57:14.820
They're people who devote their lives to studying the UFO phenomenon.

00:57:14.820 --> 00:57:19.820
It's not to say that you can't be a seeker of enlightenment, which is the ultimate realization,

00:57:19.820 --> 00:57:26.820
and not have an interest in one of these particular branches, but if you lose sight of the forest

00:57:26.820 --> 00:57:33.140
for the tree, if you lose the sight of the whole because you've gotten so obsessed with

00:57:33.140 --> 00:57:36.340
a particular part, then perhaps you've missed the boat.

00:57:36.340 --> 00:57:37.340
>> Tom: Thank you.

00:57:37.340 --> 00:57:38.900
You, again, articulated it better.

00:57:38.900 --> 00:57:41.940
That's what I was reaching for, was precisely that.

00:57:41.940 --> 00:57:46.340
Because there's certainly things, sort of niche interests and topics that I'm interested in

00:57:46.340 --> 00:57:50.820
that I find really interesting and amusing and have explored.

00:57:50.820 --> 00:57:55.180
But like I say, as long as we don't let that sort of become all-consuming.

00:57:55.180 --> 00:57:58.420
One thought that's been kicking around my head as we've been talking is, at times, we've

00:57:58.420 --> 00:58:02.220
talked about different traditions and how they all have their value and significance

00:58:02.220 --> 00:58:03.620
and so on.

00:58:03.620 --> 00:58:05.380
I don't like to limit it to the Earth.

00:58:05.380 --> 00:58:09.900
I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot photo, if you've ever seen that, where it's

00:58:09.900 --> 00:58:13.420
It's a picture of the Earth taken from out by the rings of Saturn or someplace.

00:58:13.420 --> 00:58:18.580
He comments on all the wars and territory grabs and power struggles and everything that

00:58:18.580 --> 00:58:23.040
have happened on this little pale blue dot and how absurd that seems.

00:58:23.040 --> 00:58:28.180
But if you consider the number of inhabited planets that probably exist in our universe,

00:58:28.180 --> 00:58:34.260
then each of them probably have numerous spiritual traditions going back throughout their history,

00:58:34.260 --> 00:58:38.540
most of which probably claim that theirs is the only one or the best one or so on.

00:58:38.540 --> 00:58:43.340
helps to zoom out to that extent. I never thought of it that way. I've certainly

00:58:43.340 --> 00:58:46.860
thought about it. There's got to be a lot of planets in a universe that's full of, as

00:58:46.860 --> 00:58:52.420
Carl Sagan said, billions upon billions of stars or planets. But I never thought of it

00:58:52.420 --> 00:58:55.660
that way. Each of them would have their own religion, and each of them would

00:58:55.660 --> 00:59:01.060
think they're the one and only truth. Yeah, even if there's only one

00:59:01.060 --> 00:59:04.860
advanced civilization in each galaxy, there are trillions of advanced

00:59:04.860 --> 00:59:09.500
civilizations in the universe, and undoubtedly there are a lot more. With

00:59:09.500 --> 00:59:13.180
our modern telescopes now, we can see that almost every star has planets around

00:59:13.180 --> 00:59:18.600
it. Yeah, it's fascinating, and I think it's useful for people to remember that

00:59:18.600 --> 00:59:22.500
for the skeptics out there, there's definitely got to be life out there.

00:59:22.500 --> 00:59:30.040
Yeah. Here's a question from Marie in Colorado. If the mind or consciousness is

00:59:30.040 --> 00:59:36.860
the rider of the physical body horse, then the rider needs to control the horse, but

00:59:36.860 --> 00:59:40.440
also take good care of a horse you can't dismount.

00:59:40.440 --> 00:59:41.440
That's a good way of putting it.

00:59:41.440 --> 00:59:42.440
It relates to what we said.

00:59:42.440 --> 00:59:46.680
You're not going to get off this horse, so you better take good care of it and also be

00:59:46.680 --> 00:59:47.680
a skillful rider.

00:59:47.680 --> 00:59:48.680
Yeah, well said.

00:59:48.680 --> 00:59:55.560
I'm very fond of making analogies and creating metaphors, and I like that one.

00:59:55.560 --> 00:59:57.200
We've talked about reincarnation.

00:59:57.200 --> 00:59:59.320
You've had a bunch of past life regressions, right?

00:59:59.320 --> 01:00:01.320
And you actually remembered a bunch of stuff.

01:00:01.320 --> 01:00:02.320
Oh, yeah.

01:00:02.320 --> 01:00:06.680
Yes, and I was glad that you mentioned Ian Stevenson, and I make reference to him in my

01:00:06.680 --> 01:00:09.320
book and my interest in that whole topic.

01:00:09.320 --> 01:00:13.520
You also mentioned Michael Newton, who's a good one to read.

01:00:13.520 --> 01:00:21.060
I started off by doing, oh, I don't know, probably 15 years ago, I used an audio cassette

01:00:21.060 --> 01:00:27.220
with a script from Brian Weiss, who of course is a big figure in that space.

01:00:27.220 --> 01:00:29.740
And I did some regressions at home, and they're very short.

01:00:29.740 --> 01:00:35.020
The induction where you're relaxing, meditating is maybe 15-20 minutes.

01:00:35.020 --> 01:00:39.780
And then the actual guided meditation where you're prompted with little questions as to,

01:00:39.780 --> 01:00:40.780
"Okay, where are you?

01:00:40.780 --> 01:00:42.340
What do you see?

01:00:42.340 --> 01:00:43.340
What's happening?"

01:00:43.340 --> 01:00:48.280
And the images spontaneously come to your mind quite clearly in this case because I suppose

01:00:48.280 --> 01:00:53.520
from years of meditating, it comes up quite easily, the visual aspect of it.

01:00:53.520 --> 01:00:57.620
I've had all kinds of experiences that I felt very deeply.

01:00:57.620 --> 01:01:00.120
It definitely goes beyond intellect.

01:01:00.120 --> 01:01:05.560
Each of these experiences I felt, they showed me something, but at a much deeper level,

01:01:05.560 --> 01:01:06.560
something clicked.

01:01:06.560 --> 01:01:07.920
That's all I can say.

01:01:07.920 --> 01:01:13.040
And a healing took place, or a certain, either a healing took place of some aspect of this

01:01:13.040 --> 01:01:19.760
present character or a new understanding came to light and these things have stayed with me.

01:01:19.760 --> 01:01:27.200
So they've survived the test of time. Now more recently in 2021 I had something that had been

01:01:27.200 --> 01:01:32.480
bothering me for quite a while, basically a blockage in my heart chakra, that's how I could

01:01:32.480 --> 01:01:37.760
describe it. And I knew it was there and it was something that I wasn't getting past and then it

01:01:37.760 --> 01:01:42.240
occurred to me having read all kinds of Michael Newton and Brian Weiss and whatnot, I'm not getting

01:01:42.240 --> 01:01:46.640
any sort of conscious awareness of this for my current lifetime of what this could be.

01:01:46.640 --> 01:01:49.920
And I thought, I wonder if this could be something from a past life.

01:01:49.920 --> 01:01:53.240
And that's why I'm having a hard time shaking it.

01:01:53.240 --> 01:01:59.380
On that suspicion, I went to the Michael Newton Institute website online, and they have a

01:01:59.380 --> 01:02:04.760
page there where you can type in the name of your state and your provinces, it would

01:02:04.760 --> 01:02:11.180
be in Canada, and your city, and it provides a list of counsellors who are trained in his

01:02:11.180 --> 01:02:15.500
methodology and it happened that there was a woman just up the road from me a

01:02:15.500 --> 01:02:20.620
mile away from me just up the road so I gave her a call and we had a nice chat

01:02:20.620 --> 01:02:24.020
and she said yeah sounds like this could be it and so I went and did a couple of

01:02:24.020 --> 01:02:30.140
sessions with her and that healing took place like it was remarkable what

01:02:30.140 --> 01:02:33.980
happened I don't know if I need to go into the details of what the past life

01:02:33.980 --> 01:02:40.000
was. And if you want. For anyone who hasn't experienced this I want to share

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:46.080
it detail by detail. It is just so remarkable. Now she took me through like a one hour induction

01:02:46.080 --> 01:02:51.760
process that is deep relaxation, deep meditation, there's gentle music playing and you're laying

01:02:51.760 --> 01:02:56.880
down on the sofa. And I want to emphasize at no point in this process did I forget that my name

01:02:56.880 --> 01:03:02.240
is Jim and that I live in Victoria. But then as she starts to provide prompts you get past the

01:03:02.240 --> 01:03:06.640
induction process and says okay you're walking down the stairs, you step through the doors into

01:03:06.640 --> 01:03:11.200
the light. Now look down at your feet and what do you see? So here's what I saw.

01:03:11.200 --> 01:03:15.000
And I've been through this before with the Brian Weiss tapes, all sort of similar

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:23.200
process. And I've had the bare feet in the past or a bit sandals and yeah. But I

01:03:23.200 --> 01:03:28.440
looked down at my feet on this occasion and I'm wearing these furry boots and the

01:03:28.440 --> 01:03:33.440
conscious Jim is still there as a participant as an observer and she warned

01:03:33.440 --> 01:03:37.840
me about this. She said, "Look, your critical intellect is going to want to jump in at different

01:03:37.840 --> 01:03:43.120
moments and start trying to analyze or understand." And said, "Look, try not to do that. Just try to

01:03:43.120 --> 01:03:48.320
hold that at bay and just take in what you're seeing." Take in what you're seeing, yeah. Don't

01:03:48.320 --> 01:03:53.520
let your intellect get in the way. Yeah. So what do I see? I see these furry boots. Yeah,

01:03:53.520 --> 01:03:58.240
they're made of fur. And the toes are drawn up like little curly toes, but they're like definitely

01:03:58.240 --> 01:04:02.320
made of fur. I don't know, it looks like muskrat or something. I think in Lapland or something,

01:04:02.320 --> 01:04:04.320
Don't they have boots like that with the toes curled up?

01:04:04.320 --> 01:04:07.320
Ah, yes, my dear Watson.

01:04:07.320 --> 01:04:08.320
But that's not what came to me.

01:04:08.320 --> 01:04:10.320
I just, what the heck are these boots?

01:04:10.320 --> 01:04:13.320
And then we're moving along and so, okay, now look at your hands.

01:04:13.320 --> 01:04:16.320
And I got these big, powerful working hands.

01:04:16.320 --> 01:04:18.320
And are you a man or a woman?

01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:21.320
And everything just comes like this when you're in this deep state.

01:04:21.320 --> 01:04:22.320
Oh, man.

01:04:22.320 --> 01:04:23.320
And so how old are you?

01:04:23.320 --> 01:04:24.320
36.

01:04:24.320 --> 01:04:26.320
What's your name?

01:04:26.320 --> 01:04:27.320
Lars.

01:04:27.320 --> 01:04:29.320
My brother and I, we grew up in Loggingtown.

01:04:29.320 --> 01:04:32.920
logging town and there's a lot of Norwegians in our logging town.

01:04:32.920 --> 01:04:37.720
There's a certain character and apologies to all the people of Norwegian heritage out

01:04:37.720 --> 01:04:43.600
there but we always have certain comments to make about Norwegian people.

01:04:43.600 --> 01:04:49.680
Basically dour, pretty serious, really hard working, really hard working and this experience

01:04:49.680 --> 01:04:52.400
that I had was again another testament to that.

01:04:52.400 --> 01:04:57.840
So I'm Lars and I'm standing in a pasture and it's dark, it's twilight, is your house

01:04:57.840 --> 01:05:01.980
nearby and I go yeah I think so and it's like my vision turns right around and I'm

01:05:01.980 --> 01:05:05.640
looking the other way and I see this house and it's in the distance like a

01:05:05.640 --> 01:05:10.620
hundred yards away and it's like a log house but it's red and it's got white

01:05:10.620 --> 01:05:16.320
windows and the roof is bright green Kelly green my critical intellect is

01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:19.640
looking at this going what I've done roofing I years ago worked in

01:05:19.640 --> 01:05:23.180
construction and I'm like green roof like it doesn't compute this doesn't

01:05:23.180 --> 01:05:26.720
make any damn sense anyways went through the whole experience and it get led

01:05:26.720 --> 01:05:30.760
through the regression and eventually I died and I had a hard time transitioning

01:05:30.760 --> 01:05:34.080
to the light and it all had to do with this deep grief where my parents

01:05:34.080 --> 01:05:38.240
basically didn't really love me, didn't show me any tender care, but they used me

01:05:38.240 --> 01:05:43.480
because this is back around the year 1800. As we know in those days if you're

01:05:43.480 --> 01:05:47.660
a living or subsistence farmers there's no such thing as old age care homes. The

01:05:47.660 --> 01:05:51.520
son or the children are expected to take care of the parents as they get old and

01:05:51.520 --> 01:05:56.040
so that was me, that was my role. I never married, never had kids, never had family.

01:05:56.040 --> 01:05:57.800
I had a miserable life.

01:05:57.800 --> 01:05:58.580
It was awful.

01:05:58.580 --> 01:06:01.000
And on top of that, my parents didn't love me.

01:06:01.000 --> 01:06:03.840
They more or less, actually, they almost despised me.

01:06:03.840 --> 01:06:07.560
There's this sense that they thought I was stupid, but I was

01:06:07.560 --> 01:06:09.300
a useful workhorse for them.

01:06:09.300 --> 01:06:12.360
Subsequent to this, I went on Google and I got home and I

01:06:12.360 --> 01:06:13.640
cleared all this stuff by the way.

01:06:13.640 --> 01:06:16.400
And there was all kinds of crying and sobbing and powerful stuff as

01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:18.120
I transitioned to the light.

01:06:18.120 --> 01:06:21.440
And this very skilled counselor took me through that.

01:06:21.440 --> 01:06:24.980
And so it's all good, happy ending to the story.

01:06:25.360 --> 01:06:29.940
So I go to Google later, it did come to light that this was where are you?

01:06:29.940 --> 01:06:34.300
And the answer came like that was Scandinavia, Norway, I think.

01:06:34.300 --> 01:06:39.900
So later I did a Google and I start looking at images and log cabin, Norway, red.

01:06:39.900 --> 01:06:43.660
And then all these images start coming up and lo and behold,

01:06:43.660 --> 01:06:45.240
completely unbeknownst to me.

01:06:45.240 --> 01:06:50.460
That's a standard architectural form that dates back to something like the 1300s or

01:06:50.460 --> 01:06:55.900
the 1400s were a log cabin, painted bright red, white windows, and the roof, of course,

01:06:55.900 --> 01:06:57.020
is a green sod roof.

01:06:57.020 --> 01:06:59.820
>> RICK I was thinking it was plants of some kind.

01:06:59.820 --> 01:07:01.020
That's interesting.

01:07:01.020 --> 01:07:06.580
So here was a case where past life regression actually healed something, and did you notice

01:07:06.580 --> 01:07:08.540
a change in your heart chakra after that?

01:07:08.540 --> 01:07:10.020
>> TOM Oh, yeah, very big.

01:07:10.020 --> 01:07:14.620
And it was really interesting because in this, like the Michael Newton methodology, at least

01:07:14.620 --> 01:07:16.300
you can summon the guides.

01:07:16.300 --> 01:07:20.100
So she says to me, "If you like, you can summon your guides to help you."

01:07:20.100 --> 01:07:23.540
Because I was convulsing on the table and at some point I thought I was going to have a

01:07:23.540 --> 01:07:29.100
heart attack or else, but I decided I was going to stay the course because I could just sense

01:07:29.100 --> 01:07:31.340
I wanted this to be done with.

01:07:31.340 --> 01:07:36.860
And the guide comes and it's a presence that you feel and the counselor through this process,

01:07:36.860 --> 01:07:41.380
again, if you've never been through it, starts prompting and says, "Okay, now Jim, I'm going

01:07:41.380 --> 01:07:43.340
to talk to your guide if that's okay."

01:07:43.340 --> 01:07:44.780
"Yeah, that's okay."

01:07:44.780 --> 01:07:49.260
And as soon as you give that consent, then she starts asking questions to the guide,

01:07:49.260 --> 01:07:53.780
and lo and behold, I'm speaking whatever it is that the guide has to say.

01:07:53.780 --> 01:08:00.660
And again, the conscious Jim of the 21st century is just observing this, going, "Wow, this

01:08:00.660 --> 01:08:01.660
is interesting.

01:08:01.660 --> 01:08:02.660
I'm not making this up.

01:08:02.660 --> 01:08:04.740
Like, this is just, it's coming from someplace."

01:08:04.740 --> 01:08:08.420
I'm sharing this because what the guide had to say was fascinating.

01:08:08.420 --> 01:08:15.300
that my heart was upside down, which later I took to mean that basically, according to

01:08:15.300 --> 01:08:19.540
yogic theory, the chakras of course are spinning and they're supposed to spin in a particular

01:08:19.540 --> 01:08:21.180
direction.

01:08:21.180 --> 01:08:23.860
But I take it to mean that I think mine was inverted.

01:08:23.860 --> 01:08:28.900
And this comes from the pain of deep trauma and not being loved and all that kind of stuff.

01:08:28.900 --> 01:08:35.380
But basically at that point, the guides reached into my chest and I, fortunately, I felt like

01:08:35.380 --> 01:08:41.020
somebody was doing live surgery on me. I felt hands reach into my chest, grab my

01:08:41.020 --> 01:08:46.860
heart, and turn it around. And in that process, it was as painful as you could

01:08:46.860 --> 01:08:51.380
imagine if someone was to take your heart and turn it around. And I was in

01:08:51.380 --> 01:08:55.700
agony. And I don't want to scare anybody by sharing this, but I was in physical

01:08:55.700 --> 01:09:00.420
agony as this was taking place. But again, when I came through it at the other side,

01:09:00.420 --> 01:09:05.340
I'm really grateful for the experience. It's absolutely been a life-changer for

01:09:05.340 --> 01:09:06.340
for me.

01:09:06.340 --> 01:09:11.900
>> Yeah, it's interesting to consider how deep certain traumas might be that we carry

01:09:11.900 --> 01:09:18.140
around with us and how it influences or restricts our behavior or our experience.

01:09:18.140 --> 01:09:24.180
And interesting to consider what it might take to actually unravel those or heal those.

01:09:24.180 --> 01:09:27.260
>> Yeah, I'm very interested in that.

01:09:27.260 --> 01:09:33.220
And for the sake of so many people that need deep healing through my own experiences, I've

01:09:33.220 --> 01:09:37.220
been convinced of the value of that kind of somatic healing and somatic

01:09:37.220 --> 01:09:43.100
processes. I've done other stuff prior to that. Two years ago, I did a weekend

01:09:43.100 --> 01:09:47.300
workshop in Vancouver that involved holotropic breathing and it's not

01:09:47.300 --> 01:09:50.780
something I would advise for a lot of people. I'm not a big fan of it. I think

01:09:50.780 --> 01:09:55.840
it's gotten a little bit too popular. I think there are risks associated with

01:09:55.840 --> 01:10:00.020
that, but again in my case, I was following my higher guidance. I felt

01:10:00.020 --> 01:10:06.440
directed to pursue that and it had a really positive effect on me. But again

01:10:06.440 --> 01:10:11.940
that was probably my first real powerful experience in a somatic healing.

01:10:11.940 --> 01:10:16.340
This brings up an interesting question. You've tried a lot of things. How do you

01:10:16.340 --> 01:10:22.220
balance an open-minded exploratory attitude where you're willing to try a

01:10:22.220 --> 01:10:27.900
whole lot of things without becoming a dilettante, a superficial dabbler? Can you

01:10:27.900 --> 01:10:34.520
go both deep and broad at the same time? Or just to finish my question, some say

01:10:34.520 --> 01:10:39.520
you should dig one deep rather than ten shallow wells, but I would say how about

01:10:39.520 --> 01:10:43.880
if you could use ten different tools to dig the one deep well? Maybe a jackhammer

01:10:43.880 --> 01:10:48.040
and a pickaxe and a shovel and a... So anyway, how do you reconcile that?

01:10:48.040 --> 01:10:53.520
Oh, I like what you just said. Let's use ten different tools to dig the one deep.

01:10:53.520 --> 01:10:59.040
Absolutely. The first thing I went to, but I like your version better,

01:10:59.040 --> 01:11:04.360
first thing I went to was, no I'm working one deep well, but along the way I pick

01:11:04.360 --> 01:11:08.920
up little tidbits here and there, other things, because if I was to give a

01:11:08.920 --> 01:11:14.920
percentage value to my practice, like my yogic practice, I feel like encompasses

01:11:14.920 --> 01:11:20.560
90% of what I need in my life, but occasionally, I should say it

01:11:20.560 --> 01:11:22.560
It encompasses 100% of what I need.

01:11:22.560 --> 01:11:27.400
However, there's been some moments that were like, I always describe it as a log jam.

01:11:27.400 --> 01:11:30.000
You can meditate all you want on this.

01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:32.280
You can have Samadhi experiences.

01:11:32.280 --> 01:11:36.080
There's some things that are really hard to dislodge.

01:11:36.080 --> 01:11:41.260
I don't think there's anything wrong with using whatever tool you have to get that junk,

01:11:41.260 --> 01:11:43.640
that debris out of the way.

01:11:43.640 --> 01:11:46.440
I don't believe in being a dilettante at all.

01:11:46.440 --> 01:11:48.480
I would discourage people from that.

01:11:48.480 --> 01:11:53.760
and just jump around, like, this year I'm a Buddhist, last year I was a yogi, you know,

01:11:53.760 --> 01:11:55.800
the year before I was a Muslim.

01:11:55.800 --> 01:11:59.160
You know, there are people that do that, and I just, no, that's not the...

01:11:59.160 --> 01:12:02.400
That brought up an interesting thought, which is, I often discuss this with a friend of

01:12:02.400 --> 01:12:06.800
mine, which is, there have been so many really impressive spiritual teachers, many of them

01:12:06.800 --> 01:12:14.080
world famous, who had great gifts, but really had some personal hang-ups or problems, either

01:12:14.080 --> 01:12:21.040
with sexuality or with anger or various other things, and really quite hypocritical in their

01:12:21.040 --> 01:12:24.720
behavior, quite harmful to people.

01:12:24.720 --> 01:12:30.000
And what you were saying is you can have all these Samadhis and so on, but it doesn't

01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:36.880
necessarily crack these or heal or change these deep grooves, these deep patterns.

01:12:36.880 --> 01:12:43.240
Some people say that perhaps we need a blend of the ancient Eastern spirituality with modern

01:12:43.240 --> 01:12:48.440
psychology and that some of these gurus would do well to have been in therapy or something,

01:12:48.440 --> 01:12:51.560
and they might not have gone off the rails as they did.

01:12:51.560 --> 01:12:53.880
Have you ever given any thought to that notion?

01:12:53.880 --> 01:12:55.840
>> Oh, yeah, very much.

01:12:55.840 --> 01:12:58.440
Yeah, and I'm wholly in agreement with that.

01:12:58.440 --> 01:13:04.440
I've had various conversations with a good friend of mine here around precisely the,

01:13:04.440 --> 01:13:11.200
in our own observations, the need to deal with some of those fundamental psychological

01:13:11.200 --> 01:13:17.200
pieces of debris prior to engaging in your practice, but certainly alongside there's certain

01:13:17.200 --> 01:13:22.160
things that have to be healed. Goes back I think to something you said earlier about your awareness

01:13:22.160 --> 01:13:28.080
being as broad as the sky and your attention to karma and the grain of barley flour. People want

01:13:28.080 --> 01:13:32.560
to have that blissful experience, that transcendental experience all the time. I'm like,

01:13:32.560 --> 01:13:38.880
I want to be soaring through the sky and embracing the all, but you got some hang-ups man. There's

01:13:38.880 --> 01:13:43.360
There's some stuff there that needs to be dealt with and a lot of that stuff gets worked out

01:13:43.360 --> 01:13:49.660
through the activation and the channeling of Kundalini as it rises through the Sushumna

01:13:49.660 --> 01:13:53.780
and it's clearing stuff out and it's clearing out debris along the way.

01:13:53.780 --> 01:13:58.160
But it doesn't mean to say, going back to the well with the many tools, there's no reason

01:13:58.160 --> 01:14:03.020
why you couldn't also use a few other tools to clear out some of that debris and it would

01:14:03.020 --> 01:14:10.020
help you a great deal in those instances where your kundalini is activating your second chakra

01:14:10.020 --> 01:14:11.020
or your...

01:14:11.020 --> 01:14:12.020
(laughter)

01:14:12.020 --> 01:14:13.020
>> RICK Yeah.

01:14:13.020 --> 01:14:16.500
>> JIM And it's encountering some debris, maybe there's too much debris there, and if you

01:14:16.500 --> 01:14:20.220
had cleared it out ahead of time, it'd be a much easier time.

01:14:20.220 --> 01:14:24.880
>> RICK So perhaps if I could summarize this point, it would be to say that a person can

01:14:24.880 --> 01:14:30.900
apparently have achieved enlightenment and really have powerful shakti and radiant presence

01:14:30.900 --> 01:14:38.140
and Sidhe's and all kinds of other things, and yet still have flaws that they might not

01:14:38.140 --> 01:14:40.300
themselves even be aware of.

01:14:40.300 --> 01:14:48.460
So somehow or other, I think we need to evolve into an even more mature spirituality in this

01:14:48.460 --> 01:14:54.100
world where we understand perhaps that we're always going to be a work in progress and

01:14:54.100 --> 01:14:57.660
that we always have to be vigilant and that there'll never be a time at which we can

01:14:57.660 --> 01:15:01.720
just rest on our laurels and proclaim ourselves finished?

01:15:01.720 --> 01:15:02.720
What are your thoughts on that?

01:15:02.720 --> 01:15:06.080
Pete: Yeah, we cannot rest on our laurels.

01:15:06.080 --> 01:15:08.280
This is one of the things I like about Joel Goldsmith.

01:15:08.280 --> 01:15:13.440
So, he called his path, for better or for worse, he called it the infinite way.

01:15:13.440 --> 01:15:17.480
And in his opinion, it was this constant unfoldment.

01:15:17.480 --> 01:15:22.560
We could probably see that in relation to this notion of the ever-expanding universe, the

01:15:22.560 --> 01:15:28.080
expanding creation around us and we are obviously part of that, part and parcel

01:15:28.080 --> 01:15:33.160
of that. So there's always something new, there's always new growth, there's

01:15:33.160 --> 01:15:37.000
always new levels of awakening and what have you. One of the things that

01:15:37.000 --> 01:15:41.400
Goldsmith said that I really liked and I think is germane to what we're

01:15:41.400 --> 01:15:48.560
discussing here is he said every day you must receive new manna from heaven and

01:15:48.560 --> 01:15:56.160
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...

01:15:56.160 --> 01:16:00.760
and they're starving and whatnot, but God sends them manna from heaven.

01:16:00.760 --> 01:16:05.660
And it's this notion of receiving the spiritual food and being fed.

01:16:05.660 --> 01:16:13.360
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."

01:16:13.360 --> 01:16:20.560
and there's always more. And you run the hazard there of cutting off that source of manna from

01:16:20.560 --> 01:16:26.640
heaven. That manna has to be replenished every day. And Goldsmith says, "It's no good to rely

01:16:26.640 --> 01:16:30.960
on yesterday's newspapers." Who needs yesterday's papers? You can't rely on yesterday's...

01:16:30.960 --> 01:16:39.040
You can't rely on yesterday's manna. That was wonderful, but that was intended for that moment.

01:16:39.040 --> 01:16:44.080
and today is a new day, and every day has to be renewed. New manna from heaven. So,

01:16:44.080 --> 01:16:49.360
somewhere in there, I guess what I'm getting at is the trappings that a lot of people fall into,

01:16:49.360 --> 01:16:54.080
a lot of very awakened people who have had a lot of awakening experiences. They basically

01:16:54.080 --> 01:16:59.600
stop questioning. They stop seeking. They're resting on their laurels, and as a consequence,

01:16:59.600 --> 01:17:03.680
they're not necessarily rooting out those unresolved issues.

01:17:03.680 --> 01:17:08.640
That's great. Have you ever read the Lord of the Rings books or seen the movies at least?

01:17:08.640 --> 01:17:13.760
I've seen the movies. I tried to read them years ago and I have a hard time with fantasy. It's not

01:17:13.760 --> 01:17:18.920
my vibe. The reason they came to mind is the ring itself of course had this incredibly addictive

01:17:18.920 --> 01:17:25.880
quality. You had to be really humble and simple to be the bearer of the ring or else it would go to

01:17:25.880 --> 01:17:32.760
your head and you'd be in big trouble. But towards the end of the book, spoiler alert, as Frodo gets

01:17:32.760 --> 01:17:37.320
gets to Mount Doom or whatever it's called, where he has to throw the ring in to destroy

01:17:37.320 --> 01:17:45.880
it, the closer he gets to that point, the more magnified his ego becomes, because it's like

01:17:45.880 --> 01:17:50.220
the ultimate test as you get close to the final realization.

01:17:50.220 --> 01:17:56.280
The only reason he managed to achieve his purpose was that Gollum, who had coveted the

01:17:56.280 --> 01:18:00.480
ring, lunges at him at the last minute and bites his finger off to get the ring, and

01:18:00.480 --> 01:18:03.480
and the ring fall into the fire and the ring gets destroyed.

01:18:03.480 --> 01:18:08.480
As soon as that happens, Frodo is freed from the egomania that had afflicted him

01:18:08.480 --> 01:18:11.480
as he got so close to the final achievement.

01:18:11.480 --> 01:18:15.480
But anyway, that whole thing is metaphorically appropriate to what we're talking about.

01:18:15.480 --> 01:18:19.480
Oh, it's spot on. It's funny. I'd forgotten that.

01:18:19.480 --> 01:18:25.480
And of course, yeah, like, what an incredible piece of storytelling or metaphor from Tolkien.

01:18:25.480 --> 01:18:26.480
It really was.

01:18:26.480 --> 01:18:29.480
Because I think that's precisely how it is.

01:18:29.480 --> 01:18:35.780
Certainly, my guru used to talk about that. She talked about the danger of as you ascended in consciousness,

01:18:35.780 --> 01:18:38.680
she said the ego grows in equal measure.

01:18:38.680 --> 01:18:43.080
And you have to, not that the ego grows, but there's always that element there.

01:18:43.080 --> 01:18:50.080
There's always that reality for the ego to usurp all of that progress and take over.

01:18:50.080 --> 01:18:56.980
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think in Christian tradition, it's considered that the devil was like the highest angel,

01:18:56.980 --> 01:19:02.180
But he got too big for his britches because he was so high, he crashed all the way down.

01:19:02.180 --> 01:19:06.580
The moral of the story I think is the higher we fly, everyone's got something to hide from,

01:19:06.580 --> 01:19:09.620
except for me and my monkey, it's from that. So the more careful you need to be,

01:19:09.620 --> 01:19:14.500
and the more you need to counterbalance whatever it is you're experiencing with

01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:18.100
simplicity and humility, arcing back to a point we made an hour ago.

01:19:18.100 --> 01:19:22.420
>> Yeah, and that word humility, that's maybe not the first time we mentioned it,

01:19:22.420 --> 01:19:39.420
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.

01:19:39.420 --> 01:19:47.420
During my lifetime, I've actually been awarded all kinds of accolades for my academics and for athletics at one time.

01:19:47.420 --> 01:19:52.420
And all of these things that have the potential to feed the ego, and certainly have fed my ego at times.

01:19:52.420 --> 01:20:02.420
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.

01:20:02.420 --> 01:20:17.620
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.

01:20:17.620 --> 01:20:24.020
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.

01:20:24.320 --> 01:20:30.000
It's something that I feel very deeply, and very much like Frodo and the Ring, in the moment that

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:34.800
I give it back to God, there's actually like a weight that comes off my shoulders, and it's a

01:20:34.800 --> 01:20:41.200
beautiful thing. And if I can keep that going on a regular basis, I feel like that's reconditioning

01:20:41.200 --> 01:20:45.840
the nervous system, like we were talking about, but it's reconditioning the heart, our whole

01:20:45.840 --> 01:20:51.440
spiritual, all the various bodies, all the koshas. "Thy gifts, my Lord, I surrender to Thee."

01:20:52.080 --> 01:20:57.360
from some Vedic scripture. I don't know. You have to constantly give it back rather than appropriate

01:20:57.360 --> 01:21:02.960
it or rather than take possession or ownership or authorship of it, which reminds me of another

01:21:02.960 --> 01:21:10.000
nice phrase. You mentioned humility. I've heard humility defined as the quality of not insisting

01:21:10.000 --> 01:21:14.960
that things happen in a particular way. And if you think about that, if you insist that things

01:21:14.960 --> 01:21:21.600
happen in a particular way, then your individuality is concretizing itself and trying to run the show.

01:21:21.600 --> 01:21:26.400
And I'll couple this with another nice quote I heard, which is to turn your desires into preferences.

01:21:26.400 --> 01:21:30.960
A desire is, "This has got to happen for me." A preference is, "If thou wills it,

01:21:30.960 --> 01:21:34.640
Lord, then this would be nice, but hey, you're running the show, so whatever."

01:21:34.640 --> 01:21:41.600
Yes, and yeah, that infinite intelligence very much knows better than us most of the time

01:21:41.600 --> 01:21:50.400
as to what we need. But yeah, that's part of humility for sure, and also not needing to be

01:21:50.960 --> 01:21:57.040
recognized. And that's probably one of the hardest things for human beings is we all want some sort

01:21:57.040 --> 01:22:03.680
of degree of affirmation. We all want some degree of recognition. It's some form of validation.

01:22:03.680 --> 01:22:09.920
And when that's taken to megalomaniacal measures, we know certain people in the world at present,

01:22:09.920 --> 01:22:15.920
that's where they're really coming from, is this rabid need that's grown out of control,

01:22:15.920 --> 01:22:20.560
this need to be recognized, this need to be acknowledged. Now that's one extreme, of course,

01:22:20.560 --> 01:22:30.560
But traveling in China, I met all sorts of people that were just absolutely of the most sincerely humble manner.

01:22:30.560 --> 01:22:33.560
And also Latin America. I've traveled a lot in Latin America.

01:22:33.560 --> 01:22:35.560
Your wife is Chilean, right?

01:22:35.560 --> 01:22:46.560
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.

01:22:46.560 --> 01:22:52.560
for me. It's again another element of the big picture for me and just it's something that

01:22:52.560 --> 01:22:58.080
inspires me to emulate as much as possible. There's a point you brought up a couple times

01:22:58.080 --> 01:23:03.440
in your notes about an essential experience of deep shame or anguish as the false self is

01:23:03.440 --> 01:23:11.520
recognized. Do you feel like everyone has this intrinsic core wound of shame or anguish that

01:23:11.520 --> 01:23:16.640
they carry around with them and it's some kind of a threshold that they have to pass through

01:23:16.640 --> 01:23:19.040
in order to arrive at one's true nature?

01:23:19.040 --> 01:23:23.360
Pete I don't think that people are carrying it around with them all the time, at least not all

01:23:23.360 --> 01:23:28.400
people. Some people are, you know, some people by virtue of their childhood upbringing, God knows

01:23:28.400 --> 01:23:33.680
they've been through all sorts of trauma, they carry all kinds of unfounded shame and whatnot.

01:23:33.680 --> 01:23:39.520
And I realized after I wrote that note that maybe shame isn't the best word. Maybe the word

01:23:39.520 --> 01:23:45.920
I'm looking for is grief or grieving. It's something if there was an intersection between those two words of shame and grief

01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:51.540
And what I was getting at and what i've experienced or I think i've experienced

01:23:51.540 --> 01:23:54.560
Is this notion that as you awaken?

01:23:54.560 --> 01:23:56.800
There's a moment

01:23:56.800 --> 01:24:03.840
Where you're not there, you're not fully ascended as it were and you suddenly get this full vision of yourself

01:24:03.840 --> 01:24:06.480
Your humanness and where you've been

01:24:06.480 --> 01:24:08.880
And it's like that wincing

01:24:08.880 --> 01:24:15.760
Homer Simpson, "Don't!" like this, but in the deepest sense. And I think this in the Bible

01:24:15.760 --> 01:24:21.120
is represented by the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son is the one, the son who

01:24:21.120 --> 01:24:26.240
leaves home and goes away and gets drunk and carouses and does terrible things. But he eventually

01:24:26.240 --> 01:24:31.200
comes back and the father loves him just as much as the other son who was the good boy all the while.

01:24:31.200 --> 01:24:35.600
And of course, the good boy is really upset. "Hold on a second, that guy's, he's a jerk, you know,

01:24:35.600 --> 01:24:38.880
He's been misbehaving all this time. How can you possibly love him as much as me?

01:24:38.880 --> 01:24:45.840
And the beauty of that story is that no, like we are never separate from God, that source,

01:24:45.840 --> 01:24:49.920
that spirit, that is just our true identity. But living in this illusion, of course,

01:24:49.920 --> 01:24:55.200
in separateness, I think it's just part of that transition. That's what I was reaching for

01:24:55.200 --> 01:25:00.960
when I wrote that note. And I think I still stand by that. Maybe there's something in my

01:25:00.960 --> 01:25:07.920
comprehension that's still lacking, but I think it's also represented in the story of Christ on

01:25:07.920 --> 01:25:13.920
the cross when he cries out, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" There's this moment of doubt,

01:25:13.920 --> 01:25:19.920
"Oh, God, like maybe I'm really not worthy. Maybe I'm really not the person I thought I was or the

01:25:19.920 --> 01:25:26.640
being that I thought I was." There's a moment, and it's very, at least for me, was very acute,

01:25:26.640 --> 01:25:32.400
very painful, and maybe it's not exactly shame, it's a deep sense of grief that I experienced

01:25:32.400 --> 01:25:42.560
anyways. But then coming through that, it's all good now. This feeling, this glorious feeling that

01:25:42.560 --> 01:25:50.000
as much as I am not perfect in my humanhood, I know where my true source lies, and I will

01:25:50.000 --> 01:25:54.800
continue to endeavor to live with the utmost integrity and I will become a follower of your

01:25:54.800 --> 01:25:57.280
website, the integrity website.

01:25:57.280 --> 01:25:58.720
>>Rick Oh, the ASI website.

01:25:58.720 --> 01:26:01.440
>>David But yeah, that's what I was reaching for.

01:26:01.440 --> 01:26:04.040
>>Rick One theme that's gone throughout our conversation

01:26:04.040 --> 01:26:08.920
that popped up at various times is that in your reincarnation story when you had that

01:26:08.920 --> 01:26:14.560
therapy and what you just said and a few other times is that whatever its qualities, there

01:26:14.560 --> 01:26:21.280
is some kind of, as Samuel Bondur likes to call it, core wound or ekartoli, the pain body,

01:26:21.280 --> 01:26:25.320
Or Upanishad says, "Certainly all fear is born of duality."

01:26:25.320 --> 01:26:30.360
So there's some kind of core fear at the very junction point of our universal and individual

01:26:30.360 --> 01:26:31.360
natures.

01:26:31.360 --> 01:26:33.160
But there's some gunk down there.

01:26:33.160 --> 01:26:37.880
And the theme that we've come back to several times is that, one way or another, we can't

01:26:37.880 --> 01:26:42.920
bypass it, because if we skip around it and think we've landed in Shangri-La, it's going

01:26:42.920 --> 01:26:46.240
to rear its ugly head again and cause problems in our behavior.

01:26:46.240 --> 01:26:53.800
we have to transcend it and yet purify and neutralize it in the course of our spiritual

01:26:53.800 --> 01:26:54.800
progress.

01:26:54.800 --> 01:26:57.320
Yeah, I wholly agree.

01:26:57.320 --> 01:27:01.920
And you can elaborate, but that was my attempt to summarize that theme that's come up several

01:27:01.920 --> 01:27:02.920
times here.

01:27:02.920 --> 01:27:05.360
Oh, I wish I could elaborate, but I can't.

01:27:05.360 --> 01:27:07.920
I thought you expressed it so well.

01:27:07.920 --> 01:27:10.520
You still have a full-time job or are you retired?

01:27:10.520 --> 01:27:12.520
I still have a full-time job.

01:27:12.520 --> 01:27:13.520
What do you do?

01:27:13.520 --> 01:27:16.080
I work in communications.

01:27:16.080 --> 01:27:22.580
So I was in the private sector for 25 years and then two years ago I took a job with our

01:27:22.580 --> 01:27:23.580
provincial government.

01:27:23.580 --> 01:27:27.980
I have a good story to share around how that happened.

01:27:27.980 --> 01:27:33.940
It was during that period when I was laying on the floor with my back in pain for 10 days

01:27:33.940 --> 01:27:39.900
and I was still working in the private sector and something clicked with me mentally and

01:27:39.900 --> 01:27:44.540
I realized I needed to leave my job and make a transition.

01:27:44.540 --> 01:27:46.940
I was talking with a good friend of mine.

01:27:46.940 --> 01:27:48.620
It was in San Francisco.

01:27:48.620 --> 01:27:50.780
My dear brother introduced me to our guru.

01:27:50.780 --> 01:27:52.620
He's a chiropractor now.

01:27:52.620 --> 01:27:55.500
And he does all kinds of this sort of energy work and whatnot.

01:27:55.500 --> 01:27:57.080
Anyways, here's what happened.

01:27:57.080 --> 01:28:02.380
In the moment that I had the realization, the real clear understanding that I need to

01:28:02.380 --> 01:28:08.820
quit this job and move on, my back went click and the pain disappeared.

01:28:08.820 --> 01:28:10.180
That's very interesting.

01:28:10.180 --> 01:28:11.180
Yeah.

01:28:11.180 --> 01:28:12.660
And then here's the next thing that happened.

01:28:12.660 --> 01:28:16.780
This is an exercise in faith and trust in the universe.

01:28:16.780 --> 01:28:18.700
Made myself a cup of coffee.

01:28:18.700 --> 01:28:20.660
I wandered out into the garden.

01:28:20.660 --> 01:28:22.780
Then I stared up at the sky and clouds,

01:28:22.780 --> 01:28:25.740
and then I thought, what's gonna happen now?

01:28:25.740 --> 01:28:28.580
(laughing)

01:28:28.580 --> 01:28:30.100
And I thought, gosh, I don't know.

01:28:30.100 --> 01:28:32.940
I don't have really any irons in the fire at this moment.

01:28:32.940 --> 01:28:33.900
Let's see what happens.

01:28:33.900 --> 01:28:35.060
But I got a trust.

01:28:35.060 --> 01:28:37.140
I had sent the email to my old employer

01:28:37.140 --> 01:28:38.500
saying that it's been wonderful,

01:28:38.500 --> 01:28:40.580
but there's my two weeks notice, right?

01:28:40.580 --> 01:28:42.100
And so I go out and make my coffee.

01:28:42.100 --> 01:28:44.940
And I wandered back into the house finally an hour later,

01:28:44.940 --> 01:28:46.840
and I checked my email,

01:28:46.840 --> 01:28:50.460
and it was from this job that I had applied to

01:28:50.460 --> 01:28:52.820
18 months prior.

01:28:52.820 --> 01:28:54.260
And it said, "Hi, Jim.

01:28:54.260 --> 01:28:55.860
"I don't know if you remember,

01:28:55.860 --> 01:28:59.040
"but you applied for this job and we interviewed you,

01:28:59.040 --> 01:29:01.220
"and you were the second candidate at the time,

01:29:01.220 --> 01:29:03.120
"but this other candidate's gone now.

01:29:03.120 --> 01:29:06.660
"They've moved on, and we'd like to hire you.

01:29:06.660 --> 01:29:08.320
"Are you interested in the job?"

01:29:08.320 --> 01:29:10.580
(laughing)

01:29:10.580 --> 01:29:15.580
And I said, yeah, I am, because it was a job that I was very interested in.

01:29:15.580 --> 01:29:17.980
And that's where I am today.

01:29:17.980 --> 01:29:23.680
It's funny because every day that I go into the office, I just pleased as punch.

01:29:23.680 --> 01:29:24.620
I'm just so happy.

01:29:24.620 --> 01:29:26.300
I'm just in my happy place.

01:29:26.300 --> 01:29:32.420
But part of the lesson in that story was the fact that my back was out for 10 days.

01:29:32.420 --> 01:29:36.160
And the fact, actually the fact that my back was out in the first place was

01:29:36.260 --> 01:29:43.660
emblematic of the resistance I had put up against leaving my old work, right?

01:29:43.660 --> 01:29:49.380
Because I had actually had strong inklings prior to that, but I was resisting that out

01:29:49.380 --> 01:29:50.380
of fear.

01:29:50.380 --> 01:29:51.380
So, there you go.

01:29:51.380 --> 01:29:52.380
Yeah, that's really interesting.

01:29:52.380 --> 01:29:56.100
I get a lot of synchronicities like that myself.

01:29:56.100 --> 01:30:01.420
So far, they haven't had to involve severe back pain or something, just things like having

01:30:01.420 --> 01:30:06.900
some thought and then having some amazing coincidence happen to fulfill that thought.

01:30:06.900 --> 01:30:08.420
It's nice that you enjoy your job now.

01:30:08.420 --> 01:30:12.780
I loved my old work for a very long period of time.

01:30:12.780 --> 01:30:15.220
There's a good 10 years there or whatever.

01:30:15.220 --> 01:30:20.860
But what had happened is I just got to the point where my soul knew that it was time

01:30:20.860 --> 01:30:21.860
to move on.

01:30:21.860 --> 01:30:26.060
And again, the key point in all of this is I was resisting.

01:30:26.060 --> 01:30:27.600
Why was I resisting?

01:30:27.600 --> 01:30:33.480
And for me, it's pretty clear that was my Protestant upbringing.

01:30:33.480 --> 01:30:36.920
And maybe it goes all the way back to Lars the Norwegian as well.

01:30:36.920 --> 01:30:38.960
I think I've had many generations.

01:30:38.960 --> 01:30:45.520
I've always had this attitude of you'd never quit a job unless you've got another job already

01:30:45.520 --> 01:30:46.800
like you've somewhere else.

01:30:46.800 --> 01:30:49.960
But the idea of quitting a job, like you just don't do that.

01:30:49.960 --> 01:30:54.160
So I feel like this was the universe laying it out for me.

01:30:54.160 --> 01:30:58.320
Jim, it's time for you to really learn some real trust.

01:30:58.320 --> 01:31:02.360
That Protestant work ethic is really nice, and for the most part, it's a good thing,

01:31:02.360 --> 01:31:03.360
for the most part.

01:31:03.360 --> 01:31:08.720
However, when it gets to the degree that it blocks your awareness that God is taking care

01:31:08.720 --> 01:31:15.520
of you, the universe is taking care of you, I think it's time for us to show you, to set

01:31:15.520 --> 01:31:20.280
you straight on this, and this was done to me in, I feel like, in a very compelling manner.

01:31:20.280 --> 01:31:24.780
Yeah, it's interesting that you had to go through ten days of agony to get the message.

01:31:24.780 --> 01:31:28.680
Maybe next time you'll just get it and you won't have to go through that.

01:31:28.680 --> 01:31:33.080
I was wondering what was so cosmic about this new job that he had to go through all that

01:31:33.080 --> 01:31:36.920
suffering to make up his mind to shift to the new thing.

01:31:36.920 --> 01:31:38.080
Maybe that's not the point.

01:31:38.080 --> 01:31:42.080
Maybe there's not that dramatic a difference between your old job and your new, but it

01:31:42.080 --> 01:31:48.400
was just the principle of learning to go with the flow a little bit more and not impose

01:31:48.400 --> 01:31:50.760
your own will and thing.

01:31:50.760 --> 01:31:52.880
That was certainly a huge part of it.

01:31:52.880 --> 01:31:55.560
Go with the flow, go as you're directed.

01:31:55.560 --> 01:31:56.560
You're being directed.

01:31:56.560 --> 01:31:59.640
Pay attention, listen, and trust.

01:31:59.640 --> 01:32:00.640
Faith.

01:32:00.640 --> 01:32:05.680
What value is all your talk about faith and spirit if you don't actually practice it?

01:32:05.680 --> 01:32:12.660
But I will say this, it was also the case that I'd gone as far as I could go in terms

01:32:12.660 --> 01:32:17.760
of what I had to offer in that old employment, and in terms of those relationships which continue

01:32:17.760 --> 01:32:21.940
to this day. It's wonderful and it's great, but it's like it just simply run its

01:32:21.940 --> 01:32:27.680
course. And where I am now, I really feel again on the surface level I do my work

01:32:27.680 --> 01:32:32.580
and I'm very proud of the work I do and I like what I do on a daily basis, but

01:32:32.580 --> 01:32:36.960
it's the relationships. And actually this is a big theme for me we haven't touched

01:32:36.960 --> 01:32:43.200
on today. For me one of the most glorious things in this life is relationships. Of

01:32:43.200 --> 01:32:48.200
Of course it's a truism that as mammals and humans we are social creatures, but it is a

01:32:48.200 --> 01:32:51.080
deeply spiritual experience.

01:32:51.080 --> 01:32:56.520
Our relationships are how we grow and how we help others to grow.

01:32:56.520 --> 01:33:02.160
In my new place of employment, I feel I'm able to see the infinite indwelling in each

01:33:02.160 --> 01:33:06.080
individual and hopefully something of that in me.

01:33:06.080 --> 01:33:10.400
And of course you never know what might yet come of the fact that you were in that circumstance

01:33:10.400 --> 01:33:11.880
rather than the other.

01:33:11.880 --> 01:33:16.840
Have you ever seen that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow called "Sliding Doors"?

01:33:16.840 --> 01:33:17.840
Yes.

01:33:17.840 --> 01:33:18.840
It's cool.

01:33:18.840 --> 01:33:22.960
Totally different trajectories of her life depending on whether she managed to get on

01:33:22.960 --> 01:33:25.480
the subway or not on a particular occasion.

01:33:25.480 --> 01:33:31.200
There's a quote from a British mountaineer, I forget the guy's name, but it was sometimes

01:33:31.200 --> 01:33:38.180
attributed to Goethe about once we begin to take action or initiative, all kinds of events

01:33:38.180 --> 01:33:44.100
and circumstances and synchronicity happen to support us. In other words, you have to

01:33:44.100 --> 01:33:49.060
move and then the train is moving, everybody jumps on the train and comes to your assistance.

01:33:49.060 --> 01:33:51.780
I'm totally slaughtering the quote, but you know that one I'm talking about?

01:33:51.780 --> 01:33:54.100
David Yeah, and that's always been one of my favorite

01:33:54.100 --> 01:33:57.300
quotes. And oh, here I thought it was Goethe, but it's not Goethe.

01:33:57.300 --> 01:33:59.060
Rick Everybody always attributes to him, but it's

01:33:59.060 --> 01:34:01.700
actually another guy. David

01:34:01.700 --> 01:34:07.460
I've certainly seen that in my life. And I've often quoted that to my children in encouraging

01:34:07.460 --> 01:34:12.340
them to pursue their innermost direction.

01:34:12.340 --> 01:34:15.820
And that's something that is so important to me as a father.

01:34:15.820 --> 01:34:20.480
If there's one thing that I would like to be able to get right in raising my children,

01:34:20.480 --> 01:34:28.580
I would like to know that I've helped to instill that knowledge and that practice in their

01:34:28.580 --> 01:34:31.720
habits and that confidence in themselves.

01:34:31.720 --> 01:34:39.560
And ultimately, their desire to establish that contact with their innermost guidance, and

01:34:39.560 --> 01:34:43.080
then to thereafter have the courage to follow it.

01:34:43.080 --> 01:34:44.080
Yeah.

01:34:44.080 --> 01:34:45.080
Good.

01:34:45.080 --> 01:34:46.080
That's a good ending point.

01:34:46.080 --> 01:34:47.080
Okay.

01:34:47.080 --> 01:34:48.080
You do have a website.

01:34:48.080 --> 01:34:49.080
What do you offer on your website?

01:34:49.080 --> 01:34:53.600
Is it just your book, or do you have some kind of sessions with people, or anything

01:34:53.600 --> 01:34:54.600
like that?

01:34:54.600 --> 01:34:55.600
No.

01:34:55.600 --> 01:34:56.600
At this point, no.

01:34:56.600 --> 01:35:00.000
I've been too busy with working and other things going on.

01:35:00.000 --> 01:35:03.200
I'll probably start doing a blog, probably add a blog.

01:35:03.200 --> 01:35:06.200
At present, it's really just promoting the book.

01:35:06.200 --> 01:35:07.200
But yeah, we'll see where it goes.

01:35:07.200 --> 01:35:09.400
I'm waiting to see what emerges.

01:35:09.400 --> 01:35:11.440
It's a nice little autobiography.

01:35:11.440 --> 01:35:14.320
Took me about five hours and something to listen to it.

01:35:14.320 --> 01:35:16.760
I always convert things to audiobooks.

01:35:16.760 --> 01:35:20.520
But it's not a big, long read, but I think people will enjoy it.

01:35:20.520 --> 01:35:26.160
And I found there were a lot of just little things you went through that I found edifying,

01:35:26.160 --> 01:35:28.480
educational for myself.

01:35:28.480 --> 01:35:31.760
made me reflect in certain ways that I found useful.

01:35:31.760 --> 01:35:33.240
I'm so glad to hear that.

01:35:33.240 --> 01:35:37.000
It's interesting to hear the reader response that I've had from different people.

01:35:37.000 --> 01:35:41.040
People of all different ages will draw something different from it, which is what I would have

01:35:41.040 --> 01:35:42.400
hoped for, frankly.

01:35:42.400 --> 01:35:47.680
I think there's a lot of different lessons and opportunities in that.

01:35:47.680 --> 01:35:51.640
It's just pleasing to me that people are taking value from it.

01:35:51.640 --> 01:35:59.160
First and foremost, my motivation was to write a story that would demonstrate principles rather

01:35:59.160 --> 01:36:06.920
than elucidate on concepts. >> Nice, that was good, and you did a good job of it. Okay, thanks, Jim.

01:36:06.920 --> 01:36:11.560
I really enjoyed getting to know you and having this conversation. >> Oh, my pleasure. >> Thanks

01:36:11.560 --> 01:36:15.560
to those who've been listening or watching. Next interview is going to be with Diane Hennessey

01:36:15.560 --> 01:36:21.780
Powell, whose name you will recognize if you have listened to the Telepathy Tapes, which

01:36:21.780 --> 01:36:24.620
briefly became the most popular podcast in the world.

01:36:24.620 --> 01:36:27.860
It's still, I'm sure, quite popular.

01:36:27.860 --> 01:36:34.500
It's about autistic children who can't speak, but they use a letter board to communicate,

01:36:34.500 --> 01:36:42.940
but for whatever reason, and the whole podcast explores this, are uncannily psychic, telepathic.

01:36:42.940 --> 01:36:48.420
fascinating podcast. Anybody who listens to it gets really drawn into it. Diane

01:36:48.420 --> 01:36:54.420
Hennessey-Powell is the chief scientist in the project and has been studying

01:36:54.420 --> 01:36:59.440
these kids. So we're going to talk about that. It goes way beyond autistic kids

01:36:59.440 --> 01:37:02.580
who can't speak, who are telepathic. There are all these implications. The podcast

01:37:02.580 --> 01:37:06.900
unfolds about what's going on in the world in terms of its spiritual

01:37:06.900 --> 01:37:12.100
awakening and what role these kids are playing and so on and what humanity

01:37:12.100 --> 01:37:17.940
might end up like eventually once we go through all of our transitions. So stay

01:37:17.940 --> 01:37:21.100
tuned for that. That's the next one. All right, thanks Jim.

01:37:21.100 --> 01:37:24.300
Thanks Rick. Thank you.

01:37:24.300 --> 01:37:47.300
Thank you.