WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.840
I was managing a department, I had to have meetings,

00:00:02.840 --> 00:00:05.160
I had to give talks, I had to do presentations.

00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.720
And I remember at Apple, in the middle of a training

00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:12.280
exercise for a bunch of managers, and then just going,

00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:13.880
who's standing up here talking, you know,

00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:17.440
really looking in, and then just like I was another person,

00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:19.920
I was just floating awareness in the room.

00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:23.800
There's Dan, waving his arms, and pointing at the board,

00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:27.120
and going on, and I have nothing to do with it.

00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:28.800
It's just running on its own.

00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:35.800
experiencing that sense of space was just very profound and never left

00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:43.680
welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump

00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:45.480
my name is Rick Archer

00:00:45.480 --> 00:00:49.800
Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually

00:00:49.800 --> 00:00:51.320
awakening people

00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:55.080
I've done seven hundred and thirty something of them now and uh...

00:00:55.080 --> 00:01:00.440
If you are not familiar with this and you'd like to check out the archive, go to batgap.com,

00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:05.600
B-A-T-G-A-P, and you'll see them categorized in various ways.

00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:10.840
This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers.

00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:15.340
That's really our only means of support, so if you appreciate it and would like to help

00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:20.600
support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site and a page about alternatives

00:01:20.600 --> 00:01:21.600
to PayPal.

00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:28.520
Also, it helps in terms of viewership if you like or and subscribe and so on when you're watching a YouTube video

00:01:28.520 --> 00:01:30.520
It helps with Google's

00:01:30.520 --> 00:01:32.360
algorithm in terms of making

00:01:32.360 --> 00:01:34.240
the thing

00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:36.160
accessible to more people

00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:38.940
So my guest today is Dan Kelso

00:01:38.940 --> 00:01:44.720
Dan worked at a number of companies as a human factors engineer

00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:50.240
If he wants he can explain to us what human factors is but it's not too relevant to our interview

00:01:50.360 --> 00:01:53.760
Dan's first love was always spiritual exploration in

00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:57.640
2011 after a number of years of trial and error

00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:00.280
refining the process of self-inquiry

00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:03.140
into deep self-investigation

00:02:03.140 --> 00:02:08.480
There came an undeniable recognition that he was not a separate self simply no one at all

00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:11.740
There was only this the selfless this

00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:15.360
Aware existence this became his permanent condition

00:02:15.880 --> 00:02:21.740
Soon after from a certain perspective Dan left a successful corporate position and his old life

00:02:21.740 --> 00:02:27.000
Following an intuitive impulse to be in a more free natural and creative circumstance

00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:31.640
He now lives with his wife Victoria in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina

00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:37.480
Loving nature exploring various forms of artistic expression and guiding others to awakening. I

00:02:37.480 --> 00:02:40.160
read Dan's book

00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:46.400
Deep self-investigation a modern guide to awakening and a lot of our conversation will be based upon that

00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.180
So Dan welcome

00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:52.200
Thanks, sir. Inviting me. You're welcome

00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:55.100
somebody from Scotland

00:02:55.100 --> 00:03:02.020
David Hill sent in a question, which is a good opening question, which is how did you discover deep self-investigation?

00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:05.360
while having no free will he asks and

00:03:05.900 --> 00:03:09.260
And that's another question we might get into, whether we do have free will. There's a lot of

00:03:09.260 --> 00:03:12.460
these paradoxical questions that I think we're going to tussle with today.

00:03:12.460 --> 00:03:18.300
>>Joseph: Well, I think that's actually a deeper question. Deep self-investigation,

00:03:18.300 --> 00:03:25.580
it's really just modified, maybe in some ways updated for Western thought,

00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:33.100
version of self-inquiry, which is an ancient practice. I think most people know it in the

00:03:33.100 --> 00:03:42.220
non-dual or Advaita lineage in India and in the East, but it's, you see it cropping up in philosophy and

00:03:42.220 --> 00:03:49.100
even in some ways I would say neuroscience. You're seeing that like Sam Harris, I think.

00:03:49.100 --> 00:03:50.300
- I was just thinking of him.

00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:57.020
- That connection, yeah. And so deep self-investigation of DSI is really just

00:03:57.820 --> 00:04:04.780
the way I made that more palatable in my own experience trying to investigate this sense of

00:04:04.780 --> 00:04:12.860
self that seems so persistent. What is the problem with having a sense of self, if there is a problem?

00:04:12.860 --> 00:04:17.580
And maybe you should also define what do we mean by sense of self? Because I think it has many

00:04:17.580 --> 00:04:23.740
flavors or many points on a spectrum of what it could be. Well, yeah, so initially I think the

00:04:23.740 --> 00:04:30.220
sense of self as, let's say, relatively speaking, as somebody's reflecting on it. It's more how

00:04:30.220 --> 00:04:36.860
they think of themselves. So, who they are as a person, are they a man or a woman, their job,

00:04:36.860 --> 00:04:42.220
the things they like, their hobbies. It starts on that level. And then as you investigate that,

00:04:42.220 --> 00:04:48.380
you go, "Well, I'm a postman, but I'm not really a postman. I just do postal service."

00:04:49.020 --> 00:04:52.940
So that's not exactly who I am. So I think as you as you begin to

00:04:52.940 --> 00:04:58.060
look at it and question it, you gradually and naturally, I think, drop through sort of the

00:04:58.060 --> 00:05:04.780
universal layers of that, the superficial layer of labels. And then there's, well, I'm a body or I'm

00:05:04.780 --> 00:05:09.900
a body mind. And then as you look at that, it's the same thing. If I lose a part of my body,

00:05:09.900 --> 00:05:16.300
do I go with it? Am I now in two locations at once? It just progresses through that.

00:05:17.100 --> 00:05:21.000
And then you end up with very subtle elements of yourself.

00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:26.700
It's like, well, I'm not exactly the body and I'm not exactly the mind,

00:05:26.700 --> 00:05:28.700
but I seem to be in there somewhere.

00:05:28.700 --> 00:05:32.000
And so we begin to explore this subtle sense of who we are.

00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.700
I don't know if you want me to answer the first question, like,

00:05:34.700 --> 00:05:35.700
what's the problem?

00:05:35.700 --> 00:05:40.100
Well, let me bounce back something to you now and then we can keep

00:05:40.100 --> 00:05:45.500
going. Are you familiar with the Advaita Vedanta breakdown of the

00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:49.340
personality structure. There's a bunch of layers that they outline.

00:05:49.340 --> 00:05:53.980
Yeah. In traditional Advaita. Yeah, yeah. So you have the Anamaya Kosha,

00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:56.860
which is the physical body. I think you're more familiar with it than I am.

00:05:56.860 --> 00:06:00.140
So, yeah, I'm going to rattle it off for a second. So you have the Anamaya Kosha,

00:06:00.140 --> 00:06:04.060
which is the physical body. And "ana" means food. It's made of food. And then you have

00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:09.020
the Pranamaya Kosha, which is breath. And then you have the Manamaya Kosha, which is mind. And

00:06:09.020 --> 00:06:14.300
then the Vijnanamaya Kosha, which is intellect. And then the Anandamaya Kosha, which is said to

00:06:14.300 --> 00:06:19.940
be the bliss sheath. All these are said to be sheaths, like Russian dolls. And then beyond

00:06:19.940 --> 00:06:25.260
all that, you have the Atman, which is not really individual anymore. So there's all

00:06:25.260 --> 00:06:32.500
these individual structures serving as a kind of instrument through which the Atman is reflected,

00:06:32.500 --> 00:06:35.060
resulting in the ability to live life.

00:06:35.060 --> 00:06:41.500
I think one of the things I was intentional about doing with this is keeping it on the

00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:47.900
direct experiential level, staying with my direct experience, like what did I see in my

00:06:47.900 --> 00:06:54.540
present experience, and exploring from there. So, while I did touch on literature and scripture

00:06:54.540 --> 00:07:01.420
around it, and those do sound familiar, I generally tend to, you know, I usually don't

00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:05.820
describe it in those terms, and I, although it fits with what I was just talking about,

00:07:05.820 --> 00:07:08.060
so I see why you brought that up. - That's why I brought it up, yeah.

00:07:08.060 --> 00:07:09.060
>> Yeah.

00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:15.660
>> But I think I tend to shy away from it to say with, "Well, what can I prove directly?

00:07:15.660 --> 00:07:18.200
What do I know in my direct experience?"

00:07:18.200 --> 00:07:23.420
You end up describing it in different ways based on that versus maybe what literature

00:07:23.420 --> 00:07:26.100
might say in terms of the sheaths and so on.

00:07:26.100 --> 00:07:27.100
>> Yeah.

00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:28.100
>> Does that make sense?

00:07:28.100 --> 00:07:29.100
>> No, it does, and I think that's great.

00:07:29.100 --> 00:07:31.140
It's a scientific approach, which I really believe in.

00:07:31.140 --> 00:07:37.180
I believe spirituality should be pursued scientifically, in other words, empirically, based upon what

00:07:37.180 --> 00:07:42.380
you can actually experience, not sort of going off in intellectual flights of fancy. But sometimes

00:07:42.380 --> 00:07:46.980
these intellectual structures are useful, and these cultures have been studying this stuff

00:07:46.980 --> 00:07:51.220
for thousands of years. And like you say, you know, the Inuit have like 30 names for

00:07:51.220 --> 00:07:55.700
snow because they're so familiar with snow. And so these guys, you know, they have all

00:07:55.700 --> 00:08:00.300
these different names for consciousness and all these subtle nuances that Western psychology

00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:01.820
hasn't even considered yet.

00:08:01.820 --> 00:08:07.340
One of the things I think too that's important with this is that, you know, we're steering

00:08:07.340 --> 00:08:15.640
away from the intellect, so toward more what I would call perception or bare noticing versus

00:08:15.640 --> 00:08:18.560
conceptualizing.

00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:23.660
Basically steering clear of that because there's so much of a, there's such a strong habit

00:08:23.660 --> 00:08:30.400
to go to the mind for answers and go to representations and even if you speak with most people, they

00:08:30.400 --> 00:08:34.680
they don't really know the difference between what they think about what's going on and

00:08:34.680 --> 00:08:39.780
what they're directly experiencing is going on and there tends to be a heavy overlay.

00:08:39.780 --> 00:08:46.340
So I think over the years just became very shy about venturing into that.

00:08:46.340 --> 00:08:50.960
Still noting it if I would read something I would think, "Okay, this sounds relevant,

00:08:50.960 --> 00:08:52.900
but then now I got it.

00:08:52.900 --> 00:08:55.480
Now I'm going to move on and let me verify it."

00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:58.240
And I like that you said it's scientific.

00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:02.080
It's very much follows, I think, the scientific method.

00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:09.460
Observe, report, keeping it accurate means really not assuming anything.

00:09:09.460 --> 00:09:17.380
So I think that in that sense it very much follows a scientific spirituality approach.

00:09:17.380 --> 00:09:22.260
To someone who is just thinking about this stuff, I might say, "Okay, now think about

00:09:22.260 --> 00:09:23.260
lunch.

00:09:23.260 --> 00:09:24.260
All right, you still hungry?

00:09:24.260 --> 00:09:25.260
Yeah?

00:09:25.260 --> 00:09:28.060
- Okay, think some more, but I'm still hungry.

00:09:28.060 --> 00:09:29.660
All right, let's eat, you know,

00:09:29.660 --> 00:09:31.340
have the actual experience.

00:09:31.340 --> 00:09:33.340
- Yeah, just keep thinking till you're full.

00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:34.300
- Right.

00:09:34.300 --> 00:09:35.720
So this is an important point.

00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:37.700
There's knowledge and experience.

00:09:37.700 --> 00:09:39.900
And I think they complement and supplement

00:09:39.900 --> 00:09:41.980
and reinforce each other.

00:09:41.980 --> 00:09:45.100
There can be a mutual confirmation value,

00:09:45.100 --> 00:09:48.560
but neither alone is generally adequate.

00:09:48.560 --> 00:09:49.860
Would you agree with that?

00:09:49.860 --> 00:09:54.540
- I think what we're leaving out is the interference factor.

00:09:54.540 --> 00:10:03.340
which is so if we think of attention as having a limited scope of what can be attended to

00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:11.820
then focusing attention on thought is in a sense it's displacing time that could be focused on

00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:19.900
investigating exploring in like i said this more perceptual kind of way on the level of

00:10:19.900 --> 00:10:26.220
direct noticing. So, I think that's where I see it becoming problematic. Like, I don't believe in

00:10:26.220 --> 00:10:30.540
getting rid of the mind, trying to destroy thoughts, even trying to decrease thoughts,

00:10:30.540 --> 00:10:38.780
but I also recognize that there is a factor of interference going on in that thoughts tend to

00:10:38.780 --> 00:10:45.180
occupy attention. So, in that way, I would say, yeah, I would approach it, particularly when it

00:10:45.180 --> 00:10:52.060
comes to something like self-investigation, because we're dealing with, particularly as it gets deeper,

00:10:52.060 --> 00:11:00.460
we're dealing with levels of the sense of being of individual self that is very subtle and

00:11:00.460 --> 00:11:07.020
it doesn't really require thought. It really requires just careful looking and almost like

00:11:07.020 --> 00:11:12.220
a photographic plate, you know, when they take these photographs of astronomical, you know, like

00:11:12.220 --> 00:11:20.300
a nebula. Well, they let the plate sit there and just absorb photons for extended periods of time.

00:11:20.300 --> 00:11:26.060
It can go on for hours and it gets more detailed that way. And I think that's the way attention

00:11:26.060 --> 00:11:32.540
works. It's like a photographic plate. You just put it there, you aim it at this and you begin

00:11:32.540 --> 00:11:38.140
this cumulative absorption of the detail of what's there. Because that whole point is to see

00:11:38.860 --> 00:11:44.620
what's there clearly and recognize it. Does that make sense?

00:11:44.620 --> 00:11:48.140
Yeah, it does. Do you find that the mind settles down more and more while you do that?

00:11:48.140 --> 00:11:49.340
Yeah.

00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:53.260
Or it doesn't remain agitated and fluttery so much?

00:11:53.260 --> 00:11:58.860
It tends to. It tends to have that side effect. It's almost like you're depriving thought

00:11:58.860 --> 00:12:05.100
of energy and so it will naturally kind of go into a… and you could say this is very much

00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:10.940
contemplative or meditative. I like contemplative because it feels more like

00:12:10.940 --> 00:12:15.100
the reflection that goes on with this. Which does have a nice calming

00:12:15.100 --> 00:12:21.300
effect not just on thought in the mind but the body and so physiologically.

00:12:21.300 --> 00:12:26.820
Yeah it reminds me of the first couple of verses of the Yoga Sutras. One of them

00:12:26.820 --> 00:12:31.340
said the first or maybe it's the second verse says yoga which means union or you

00:12:31.340 --> 00:12:37.660
you know, merging with the self, capital S. Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of

00:12:37.660 --> 00:12:42.660
the mind, the vrittis, or the excitations of the mind settle down. And then the next

00:12:42.660 --> 00:12:48.820
verse says, "And then the seer rests in the self." And the analogy is often used to, like,

00:12:48.820 --> 00:12:53.500
agitated water trying to reflect sunlight. It doesn't get a very clear reflection, but

00:12:53.500 --> 00:12:59.180
if the pond is just like mirror smooth, then the reflection of the sunlight can be brilliant.

00:12:59.180 --> 00:13:00.180
Right, right.

00:13:00.180 --> 00:13:01.180
Yeah.

00:13:01.180 --> 00:13:02.180
Great example.

00:13:02.180 --> 00:13:03.180
Okay.

00:13:03.180 --> 00:13:10.180
And I wonder how this, I mean, I've been practicing meditation since the 60s and the

00:13:10.180 --> 00:13:15.140
way I've practiced it, it fits the description I just gave where the mind settles down more

00:13:15.140 --> 00:13:20.380
and more and as it does so, you know, there's just an awareness expands, there's less and

00:13:20.380 --> 00:13:27.260
less constriction and at times, you know, unboundedness and real clarity.

00:13:27.260 --> 00:13:31.020
But there's no intellectual process involved.

00:13:31.020 --> 00:13:37.140
What you're describing sounds to me a little bit more volitional or a little bit more,

00:13:37.140 --> 00:13:44.400
you know, systematic in terms of one being engaged in some kind of inner inquiry.

00:13:44.400 --> 00:13:45.400
Is that correct?

00:13:45.400 --> 00:13:46.400
Yeah, that's correct.

00:13:46.400 --> 00:13:47.400
Yeah.

00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:52.700
I mean, I would say, and this almost gets back to that original question by Scott, I think.

00:13:52.700 --> 00:13:53.700
Yes.

00:13:53.700 --> 00:13:55.420
Like, how can you do it?

00:13:55.420 --> 00:13:56.820
How do you do this if there's no...

00:13:56.820 --> 00:13:58.580
I think it was Dave, but he was from Scotland.

00:13:58.580 --> 00:14:00.420
>> Yeah. >> Okay. There we go.

00:14:00.420 --> 00:14:09.620
Got from Scotland. So, the thing is, at the beginning, if there is no self, the way we

00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:14.660
think of ourselves, the way we conceive of ourselves, if there's not a separate self,

00:14:14.660 --> 00:14:20.980
then how is this all happening? How does personal, what looks like personal intention,

00:14:22.660 --> 00:14:31.300
action take place. So we begin to, what we begin to see is that, and within, and in this process of

00:14:31.300 --> 00:14:36.180
self-investigation, you start seeing, seeing not this, not this, not this, right? The netty-netty

00:14:36.180 --> 00:14:42.180
process. And eventually there's nothing left. There's just, and yet action takes place,

00:14:42.180 --> 00:14:48.100
thought takes place, everything about the character, what I call the character,

00:14:48.100 --> 00:14:52.660
continues to operate, but there's not really somebody doing it.

00:14:52.660 --> 00:14:56.500
So who's doing it? Well, here's the question.

00:14:56.500 --> 00:15:00.580
Well, yeah, so that's a little different question, but

00:15:00.580 --> 00:15:07.620
that whole idea that somebody or something needs to do it is part

00:15:07.620 --> 00:15:10.180
of that's built into the way of thinking of

00:15:10.180 --> 00:15:14.020
separate selves. Somebody's got to do it for it to happen.

00:15:14.020 --> 00:15:22.020
But we would never say that about the weather. Well, who's generated the clouds? Unless you

00:15:22.020 --> 00:15:27.060
went into more of a religious description of, "Well, God's doing it," or something like that.

00:15:27.060 --> 00:15:33.300
>> Rick: Or you could get into laws of nature and temperature and pressure differentials and

00:15:33.300 --> 00:15:39.300
the rotation of the Earth and all kinds of factors. Natural phenomenon are doing it.

00:15:39.300 --> 00:15:48.340
>> Well, we'd say it's happening and there's an interplay and there's a network of interrelated

00:15:48.340 --> 00:15:55.940
connections to it, but we don't have to insert anything personal into it. We don't even have to

00:15:55.940 --> 00:16:04.740
conceive of a giant entity called God. We can just say, and I think a lot of this is,

00:16:04.740 --> 00:16:12.980
And this is the tricky part, because it seems almost like a little bit of New Age spirituality,

00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:16.540
but we can...

00:16:16.540 --> 00:16:18.660
It's funny, sometimes I lost my train of thought there.

00:16:18.660 --> 00:16:19.660
I was going to make a subtle...

00:16:19.660 --> 00:16:21.660
- You want me to say something and get you going?

00:16:21.660 --> 00:16:22.660
- Yeah, go ahead.

00:16:22.660 --> 00:16:26.620
- Well, I was thinking about the weather, your analogy.

00:16:26.620 --> 00:16:30.460
And I mean, human beings are different than the weather.

00:16:30.460 --> 00:16:34.420
A cloud doesn't say, "I think I'll go over and marry that cloud," or "I think I'd like

00:16:34.420 --> 00:16:40.100
this for lunch," or "I'm going to become a meteorologist," or something.

00:16:40.100 --> 00:16:41.620
Those are just natural phenomena.

00:16:41.620 --> 00:16:51.940
Human beings, however, they appear to have volition, and they appear to make decisions,

00:16:51.940 --> 00:16:57.860
and to take initiative, and to be attracted to things, or repelled by things.

00:16:57.860 --> 00:17:04.300
There's all kinds of stuff that human beings do, and even squirrels for that matter, that

00:17:04.300 --> 00:17:08.860
clouds and rain and stuff like that don't appear to do.

00:17:08.860 --> 00:17:15.580
Well it's again I would say that's what thinking tends to tell us.

00:17:15.580 --> 00:17:18.940
That's what condition thought, that's the conventional view is.

00:17:18.940 --> 00:17:23.140
Well we're different from nature in that way.

00:17:23.140 --> 00:17:28.260
But I would say, so from my experience, there's no difference at all.

00:17:28.260 --> 00:17:32.380
So for example I would say, well which one of these bodies is mine?

00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:36.880
Am I inhabiting this body and not inhabiting that one?

00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:42.740
So the sense of these two bodies, the Rick on that and the Dan on this end, the direct

00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:48.180
experience of that is they're both objects in awareness.

00:17:48.180 --> 00:17:55.580
And so everything that happens in, you know, that looks like Dan doing something that's

00:17:55.580 --> 00:18:03.340
different from clouds moving through the sky. It only seems that way if you think about it.

00:18:03.340 --> 00:18:09.180
If there's attention on thought about it that says, "Well, this is how I'm going to interpret this.

00:18:09.180 --> 00:18:14.700
This is different. This is within the human experience. This is outside the human experience."

00:18:14.700 --> 00:18:20.540
But so part of what happens with this is you begin to see that that's actually an arbitrary

00:18:21.500 --> 00:18:27.900
framework to put on things and not necessary. I think that's the thing is, is it really necessary?

00:18:27.900 --> 00:18:34.380
But that can seem that that can be a big step if it's like no, but it just seems so personal and

00:18:34.380 --> 00:18:41.580
that seems so impersonal. So I get I get the I get the maybe the confusion about that or

00:18:41.580 --> 00:18:49.580
might disagree with that. But yeah, my comeback to that would be that there there is an impersonal

00:18:49.580 --> 00:18:57.300
dimension and there's a personal dimension, and we don't have to reside exclusively in

00:18:57.300 --> 00:18:59.780
one or the other, and I'm not even sure if we can.

00:18:59.780 --> 00:19:05.940
Now, most people are unaware of the impersonal dimension, with awareness, as you call it,

00:19:05.940 --> 00:19:15.460
and some people identify more with the awareness dimension to the point of dismissing the reality

00:19:15.460 --> 00:19:18.940
of the personal dimension.

00:19:18.940 --> 00:19:20.580
But let me take an analogy.

00:19:20.580 --> 00:19:27.200
So let's say a wave considers itself totally autonomous and separate from all the other

00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:30.140
waves and everything, and then at some point it realizes, "Oh, wait a minute.

00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:31.540
I'm actually the ocean.

00:19:31.540 --> 00:19:36.100
I'm just a wave on the ocean, and all these other waves are made of the same stuff as I

00:19:36.100 --> 00:19:38.300
am."

00:19:38.300 --> 00:19:45.500
So that gives me a much vaster picture on what my existence actually is, but still, I'm a

00:19:45.500 --> 00:19:55.500
I'm maybe I'm primarily the ocean, but in a manifest sense, I'm a wave and you know, I'm the same stuff as that wave over there, but I'm also different.

00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:59.500
And it's a kind of a both-hand way of looking at it.

00:19:59.500 --> 00:20:06.500
So what you're saying, sorry I pulled my headset off for a second there, I missed the very beginning, but you're saying you see two different dimensions here.

00:20:06.500 --> 00:20:11.500
One's the personal dimension and then there's an impersonal dimension. Is that how it started out?

00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:16.100
started out. Uh-huh, and I'll throw another Vedanta term at you. They use the term

00:20:16.100 --> 00:20:21.940
Vyavaharika, which means transactional reality. So there's a reality that is, you

00:20:21.940 --> 00:20:29.260
know, our day-to-day practical experience, and then there's the underlying reality

00:20:29.260 --> 00:20:34.060
that it's all Brahman, and the two coexist. They don't, they're actually not

00:20:34.060 --> 00:20:38.260
in conflict. You don't step in front of buses thinking, "Oh, it's all Brahman. It's

00:20:38.260 --> 00:20:42.800
not going to matter. It does matter on the transactional level, even though

00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:47.020
ultimately you and the bus are all Brahman, but then the blood and gore is

00:20:47.020 --> 00:20:54.880
going to be all Brahman if you do that. Which could happen. So what happens

00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:01.200
if we just say, "Do we need a sense of self for all that to take place?" I would say

00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:08.960
no, no, a sense of self, a sense of individual being is not necessary for all that to be

00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:11.480
true and as it is.

00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:16.080
That actions take place, that individuals step out of the way of buses.

00:21:16.080 --> 00:21:22.800
So part of this, and I actually got this from the conversation I heard you having with somebody

00:21:22.800 --> 00:21:26.360
about is the self annihilated that we talked about earlier.

00:21:26.360 --> 00:21:27.360
Right.

00:21:27.360 --> 00:21:31.120
Susanna Marie, she and I had a conversation that's on her YouTube channel.

00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:36.000
that

00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:38.640
the sense of self,

00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:40.640
when it is seen for what it is,

00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:41.520
the sense of individuation, the sense of

00:21:41.520 --> 00:21:44.800
being

00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:48.080
identical to the body-mind, is it

00:21:48.080 --> 00:21:49.040
we realize is it's not, it's a

00:21:49.040 --> 00:21:52.480
fiction.

00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:56.960
It's simply not real.

00:21:56.960 --> 00:21:59.760
It's as a thought, it seems real.

00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:04.640
as a direct experience, it not only is it not findable and identifiable and provable and verifiable,

00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:12.640
it's not necessary for things to continue to happen. So I would say that it all looks

00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:19.280
impersonal is fun, it's a funny word because it makes it sound like it's dry and kind of dead

00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:24.240
like space or something, but it's not like that at all. I mean there's something amazing going on here

00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:33.120
really, truly, every moment. And it doesn't, this sense of self just is an obscuration

00:22:33.120 --> 00:22:39.280
to that going on. And it's so unnecessary. And so, yeah, go ahead.

00:22:39.280 --> 00:22:43.920
- No, you go ahead. I don't want to interrupt. Keep going as long as you are on the roll.

00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:50.640
- I'm on the roll, yeah. So, I think part of this is, you know, what we're doing, we're looking and

00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:55.840
going, "Well, is it really necessary? Do I really believe that? Is that my actual... and ultimately,

00:22:55.840 --> 00:23:02.080
is that my actual experience?" These things that you talk about as human plans,

00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:12.240
do you actually have a direct experience of you, of a you, a real self planning, strategizing,

00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:22.400
managing and creating these events. And I would say that sense of you is a projection into that.

00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:29.440
It's what I call in the book, I talk about the "I cluster." At the center of that cluster is

00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:40.640
basically this sense, this "I thought," and around it is the body, circumstances, a story,

00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:44.640
a narrative, that all kind of makes up the cluster,

00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:50.400
right? Feelings, etc. But if as we go through that we go, well am I

00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:53.680
identical to this feeling or to this thought? If you were

00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:59.760
identical to your thoughts, then how could you continue to be them

00:23:59.760 --> 00:24:02.560
if they keep changing? And completely, some of them are

00:24:02.560 --> 00:24:07.280
completely gone. Did you feel like you vanished with them, for example?

00:24:07.280 --> 00:24:11.920
So that would be a way of directly verifying, "Well, am I my thoughts?"

00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:15.920
Same with like the body. If parts of the body were gone

00:24:15.920 --> 00:24:20.080
or set aside, would you feel like you went with them? Did you split up?

00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:25.200
So very quickly we get a clear sense that we're not identical to

00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.800
these things. So then what's left of this "I" sense? So

00:24:28.800 --> 00:24:32.240
I think that's the thing that drove this from the beginning was

00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:37.760
was a curiosity and an interest, you know, early on in the 20s, my 20s.

00:24:37.760 --> 00:24:43.920
And, and also an intuitive sense that there's something fishy about this sense of identity.

00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:50.240
There's just something fishy about it. And I would call that just an intuition, that somehow I felt,

00:24:50.240 --> 00:24:54.080
I got to check this out. I got to find out what this is about.

00:24:54.080 --> 00:25:01.200
Yeah. Um, I would say that the, of course, you're not your thoughts and you're not your body. And

00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:05.400
know, there is something which is aware of your thoughts and your body and your

00:25:05.400 --> 00:25:09.520
feelings and all that stuff and so it would make more sense to suggest that

00:25:09.520 --> 00:25:13.760
you are that which is aware of the things rather than the things themselves

00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:19.880
and that awareness obviously persists, it abides, it doesn't come and go. Whereas

00:25:19.880 --> 00:25:23.520
like you know the old movie screen analogy, the screen always stays, the

00:25:23.520 --> 00:25:28.280
movies keep playing. Right, which I just want to mention is very different

00:25:28.280 --> 00:25:32.880
from any conventional idea of a sense of self.

00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:34.880
Conventional meaning common, normal, everyday.

00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:42.260
Common or even conventional within the spiritual circles, in spiritual circles.

00:25:42.260 --> 00:25:48.680
The way you just described, you know, what we seem more to be as awareness, I think it's

00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:55.000
a very good description and I think it's very uncommon.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:01.220
already disregarded thought and feeling and the body, so like all the major players are

00:26:01.220 --> 00:26:02.960
out of the picture there.

00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:04.520
But I interrupted, so...

00:26:04.520 --> 00:26:05.520
No, it's okay.

00:26:05.520 --> 00:26:06.520
No, it's not...

00:26:06.520 --> 00:26:11.460
I mean, if anybody's read any Vedanta books or anything, it's not that uncommon.

00:26:11.460 --> 00:26:16.960
This kind of idea has been around for thousands of years and is certainly in vogue these days

00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:19.360
for those who study these things.

00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:26.520
But maybe we could call the things we're describing, thought and body and emotions and everything

00:26:26.520 --> 00:26:31.160
else, or even the sense of self, there's a word for that in Sanskrit, it's called ahamkara,

00:26:31.160 --> 00:26:33.480
which means "eye maker."

00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:39.640
And it's considered in these traditions that it's not something that is utterly eradicated,

00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:46.720
but that the identification with it falls away, not the function itself.

00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:52.440
And some would argue that a functional eye sense remains necessary for basic human functioning,

00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:57.320
like knowing foot from floor and finger from knife when you're cutting vegetables and things

00:26:57.320 --> 00:26:59.320
like that.

00:26:59.320 --> 00:27:08.160
But there will still be opinions and tastes, which might even get amplified with awakening.

00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:16.520
So I'm sorry to be throwing so many little Vedic phrases at you, but another one is, another

00:27:16.520 --> 00:27:19.160
Another one is, "Brahman is the charioteer."

00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:24.760
What that one is meant to mean is that, you know, Hertz has not put you in the driver's

00:27:24.760 --> 00:27:26.320
seat, if you remember those old commercials.

00:27:26.320 --> 00:27:30.080
You're in the back seat, you're the passenger, Brahman is driving the car.

00:27:30.080 --> 00:27:34.820
So the cosmic intelligence, the wholeness or whatever, that is the – you were talking

00:27:34.820 --> 00:27:38.520
earlier about free will and the doer, that's the real doer.

00:27:38.520 --> 00:27:44.480
But we're still in the car, you know, there's still some kind of ahamkara, some eye-maker,

00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:49.480
I some self-sense that is different for you than for me.

00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:54.760
I mean, if you have appendicitis attack all of a sudden,

00:27:54.760 --> 00:27:58.000
you're gonna be experiencing a lot of pain.

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:00.840
I'm not, 'cause I'm in a different location

00:28:00.840 --> 00:28:03.200
with a different individual expression,

00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:06.240
even though fundamentally we're the same

00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:08.640
cosmic intelligence, same awareness.

00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:10.120
What do you think about that?

00:28:10.120 --> 00:28:14.000
- Yeah, so, well, there's a couple of things there

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:19.520
I could go up, but let me go after this one because it relates back to the conversation

00:28:19.520 --> 00:28:29.960
that you and Susanna were having is the sense of being identical to is what we're looking

00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:32.160
at with identity.

00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:36.560
That's the sense of self is a sense of being identical to.

00:28:36.560 --> 00:28:42.960
So I could describe my experience in terms of what you were describing the scriptures

00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:47.240
there, well something remains of the self.

00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:54.640
It's called Leysia Vidya in Vedanta, which means faint remains of ignorance.

00:28:54.640 --> 00:29:00.640
But I wouldn't say that it's a faint... there's something about this, and it's a reason why

00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:02.400
it's called awakening, right?

00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:10.440
Awakening out of any sense of identification with any kind of self, any kind of separate

00:29:10.440 --> 00:29:18.440
And it just ends. So as as Susan was telling you, it's just it's just not there.

00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:22.440
There's no sense of confusion about that anymore. It's just over.

00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:31.440
It's as in a sense. It's as much a surprise to you, you know in quotes as as to anybody.

00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:39.440
It's like wow, it's like that. Oh, oh, but there's no sense of it's such a distinct.

00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:42.720
It's such a distinct vacancy.

00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:45.600
I like that word vacancy.

00:29:45.600 --> 00:29:52.580
Where I, you know, for such a long time, even after getting past all this superficial and

00:29:52.580 --> 00:30:01.980
even deeper sense of self around the body and the mind, and location, the end of even

00:30:01.980 --> 00:30:09.420
any subtle sense of being, residing in, I would say the only thing that's left is

00:30:09.420 --> 00:30:15.420
there is an interesting, as aware, I say as awareness, at some point you realize

00:30:15.420 --> 00:30:23.100
what I am is this, a live being, a live existence, a live presence, aware presence,

00:30:23.100 --> 00:30:29.620
that's all talking about the same thing. As that, there's a sense of association

00:30:29.620 --> 00:30:35.380
with, and this isn't the best word, but it's the best one I can come up with, with this

00:30:35.380 --> 00:30:36.380
body.

00:30:36.380 --> 00:30:38.980
Okay, association, that's not a bad word.

00:30:38.980 --> 00:30:46.260
So I like that because it's fairly neutral, it doesn't personalize it in any way because

00:30:46.260 --> 00:30:49.140
it does not feel personalized.

00:30:49.140 --> 00:30:57.220
And yet, it's almost like, it's a little like watching a ship, like a small sailboat.

00:30:57.220 --> 00:31:03.100
It starts on the beach and then gradually it's drifting out to sea, but for a long time it's

00:31:03.100 --> 00:31:09.100
within view and it gets a little special attention, but you can feel it just at some point you

00:31:09.100 --> 00:31:15.980
can see the progression in that it just becomes less and less important.

00:31:15.980 --> 00:31:18.940
And that's a good description of the whole process.

00:31:18.940 --> 00:31:26.940
It's like what's all this emphasis put on Dan's life and his interests and his opinions?

00:31:26.940 --> 00:31:31.100
And so you see all that following away in the process as you're investigating the eye, you

00:31:31.100 --> 00:31:34.260
don't go directly at, "Well, I don't want to have all these opinions anymore.

00:31:34.260 --> 00:31:36.160
I want to stop stating opinions."

00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:38.140
You start disidentifying with it.

00:31:38.140 --> 00:31:40.660
It's like, "That's not even my idea.

00:31:40.660 --> 00:31:43.500
Why do I give a shit about that?"

00:31:43.500 --> 00:31:50.260
So there's a gradual process like that going on about very specific elements of the personal

00:31:50.260 --> 00:31:56.740
experience, but also the whole of the body-mind, the whole of the sense of self in general.

00:31:56.740 --> 00:32:05.620
There's a, you know, what we're calling "waking up" or "awakening" is this increasing

00:32:05.620 --> 00:32:12.980
lack of a sense of identicalness to this, to the point where it feels much more like an object in

00:32:12.980 --> 00:32:19.460
awareness and yet, like I said, there's an interesting association with this particular

00:32:19.460 --> 00:32:25.220
body-mind. It's not steady, it's not constant either. So many times it's completely, there's

00:32:25.220 --> 00:32:31.860
no interest in this at all, it's just a bird, there's a bird on a tree and that, so it seems

00:32:31.860 --> 00:32:36.100
to have something to do with attention and maybe the habit of attention. Anyway, go ahead, I think

00:32:36.100 --> 00:32:41.700
you were going to say something. Well, yeah, it also seems to me to have to do with the circumstances,

00:32:41.700 --> 00:32:48.340
Like, there might be circumstances in which there is no need for there to be a close association

00:32:48.340 --> 00:32:52.980
with what the body is doing. Other times, you know, you're driving in heavy traffic or,

00:32:52.980 --> 00:32:57.700
I don't know, you're about to injure yourself or something or other, the association kind of

00:32:57.700 --> 00:33:03.060
zooms in, like a camera lens. It can kind of zoom in when necessary and zoom out when not necessary.

00:33:03.060 --> 00:33:04.340
And, um…

00:33:04.340 --> 00:33:09.380
>>Jeffrey: I would say that happens independently, though, of the sense of identification.

00:33:09.940 --> 00:33:13.940
So I don't think that those two necessarily are the same thing.

00:33:13.940 --> 00:33:20.500
Yes, and my experience is that even if I'm having some very intense experience, like

00:33:20.500 --> 00:33:26.340
I brought this up several times, this happened to me a few years ago where I tripped over

00:33:26.340 --> 00:33:31.860
something on the pickleball court and I landed on my face and my, you know, bleeding and everything.

00:33:32.820 --> 00:33:40.100
In the instant of that happening, there was this clear awareness that was untouched by it.

00:33:40.100 --> 00:33:47.940
And the intensity of the experience threw that into contrast more than just everyday circumstances.

00:33:47.940 --> 00:33:49.140
- Right, right.

00:33:49.140 --> 00:33:53.060
- Yeah, and I wouldn't have had time to think about that if I wanted to.

00:33:53.060 --> 00:33:55.220
I was busy falling on my face, but it was--

00:33:55.220 --> 00:33:56.980
- Or trying to detach from the pain.

00:33:56.980 --> 00:33:58.260
- No, no effort, no.

00:33:58.260 --> 00:34:00.180
It was just there, that's the way it is.

00:34:00.180 --> 00:34:07.680
And what would you attribute that to? Half a century of meditation and spiritual practice and stuff?

00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:13.100
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which is growing incrementally, you know?

00:34:13.100 --> 00:34:19.200
Yeah. But I would say that naturally involves self-investigation.

00:34:19.200 --> 00:34:25.820
Yeah. Perhaps in a different mode or method or form than exactly what you're doing,

00:34:25.820 --> 00:34:33.820
but you know, I've derived tremendous progress and benefit from what I've been doing.

00:34:33.820 --> 00:34:38.820
And I'm always open to new things, you know, I'm just curious about it all.

00:34:38.820 --> 00:34:44.820
So I would say though in that moment, there was a disidentification with detachment,

00:34:44.820 --> 00:34:49.820
not feeling identical to the body and the pain in the body at that moment.

00:34:49.820 --> 00:34:52.820
Right, which had already been there before I fell on my face,

00:34:52.820 --> 00:34:56.740
but which was more obvious as I was hitting the pavement.

00:34:56.740 --> 00:35:00.900
>>Right. For some reason, the contrast, like you said,

00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:08.980
intensity of the experience can accentuate that sense of not identical to.

00:35:08.980 --> 00:35:12.340
>>For some reason, I get that when I'm running through a busy airport or something, too,

00:35:12.340 --> 00:35:15.940
just the chaos in contrast with the silence, you know?

00:35:15.940 --> 00:35:20.900
>>Right. But at the same time, so I think this is a good

00:35:20.900 --> 00:35:28.660
segue into exploring, well, what's the problem with identification? Is there was a sense of

00:35:28.660 --> 00:35:38.020
awareness that which saw Rick sitting there with his bloody nose and in pain, and all of a sudden

00:35:38.020 --> 00:35:47.300
there's awareness of that condition, right? So, the identification tends to obscure that.

00:35:48.100 --> 00:35:55.260
And that's how I would describe, that's one of the nice side effects or even the point

00:35:55.260 --> 00:36:03.140
of this is that all this attention to me, me, me-ing all the time, is it really necessary?

00:36:03.140 --> 00:36:04.140
Is it helping?

00:36:04.140 --> 00:36:05.140
Does it make anything clearer?

00:36:05.140 --> 00:36:08.660
It actually seems to act as a obscuring.

00:36:08.660 --> 00:36:16.240
And I'm not saying that ultimately that in the cosmic, you know, view of things that

00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:22.120
I like the idea that there's nothing wrong with identification, that it's serving some

00:36:22.120 --> 00:36:31.120
purpose and that it truly is just as miraculous as anything else occurring.

00:36:31.120 --> 00:36:32.720
So I'm not saying it's a terrible thing.

00:36:32.720 --> 00:36:38.400
I don't tear into the ego and say we've got to destroy it or even the sense of self.

00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:41.040
It's a matter of just, it's time to wake up.

00:36:41.040 --> 00:36:43.280
It's time to see things more clearly.

00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:44.960
Let's look and see.

00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:45.960
Let's look and see.

00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:50.400
It's this thing that's always at the middle, right?

00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:53.120
Me, the sense of me.

00:36:53.120 --> 00:36:54.120
Is it really?

00:36:54.120 --> 00:36:56.520
See, is it the most significant thing?

00:36:56.520 --> 00:36:59.560
It's in the most significant seat in the house.

00:36:59.560 --> 00:37:02.600
Is it the most significant thing going on here?

00:37:02.600 --> 00:37:10.960
Yeah, there's a verse in the Bhagavad Gita which says that someone who claims authorship

00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:15.720
of action is actually taking something that doesn't belong to him and he's a thief.

00:37:15.720 --> 00:37:18.040
calls him a thief for doing that.

00:37:18.040 --> 00:37:19.040
>>JONATHAN Yeah, I like it.

00:37:19.040 --> 00:37:21.160
>>MIKE But there are these paradoxical verses though.

00:37:21.160 --> 00:37:25.520
I mean, there are a bunch of verses like that where it says, "You are not the doer.

00:37:25.520 --> 00:37:29.120
Action is done by what they call the gunas of nature," you know, some forces of nature

00:37:29.120 --> 00:37:34.640
and so on, and the wives or the enlightened have this sense that, "I do not act at all."

00:37:34.640 --> 00:37:38.560
But then it'll get to another verse which says, "You have control over action alone,

00:37:38.560 --> 00:37:40.160
never over its fruits," you know?

00:37:40.160 --> 00:37:42.120
"Don't attach yourself to inaction.

00:37:42.120 --> 00:37:44.240
Engage in action," and yada yada.

00:37:44.240 --> 00:37:48.220
So it attributes authorship to action.

00:37:48.220 --> 00:37:50.880
So it gets us back to the point of paradox.

00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:56.000
I still think that both of these things can be simultaneously true without conflicting

00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:57.000
with each other.

00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:02.560
>>Jeffrey Heister Yeah, it's like, how do we reconcile the

00:38:02.560 --> 00:38:05.400
contradiction or the paradox?

00:38:05.400 --> 00:38:10.160
Some of this I think is, and I see this in teaching and working with people, I'll say

00:38:10.160 --> 00:38:14.640
one thing and then somebody would say, "Yeah, but you told her to do this." And I'll say, "Well,

00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:21.600
that was within the context of what we were talking about in there." And language is a burden,

00:38:21.600 --> 00:38:27.120
you know, at times, because it's got its limitations. And so if I'm saying, "Yeah,

00:38:27.120 --> 00:38:30.720
you know, you can't take any action because there's no you to take it." And then here it's like,

00:38:30.720 --> 00:38:35.440
"You need to get busy and work harder." You know, it's like, "Well, which is it?" You know,

00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:41.200
is there a me that needs to work harder or is there no me and no one to take action? And it's like,

00:38:41.200 --> 00:38:46.240
well, they're both true. >> Both true. I'm reminded of Sly and the Family Stone,

00:38:46.240 --> 00:38:53.680
different strokes for different folks. >> There you go. >> Sly Stone just died recently.

00:38:53.680 --> 00:39:00.960
>> Oh, he did. >> Yeah. So yeah, paradox. Nisargadatta Maharaj said that the ability

00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:04.880
to appreciate paradox and ambiguity is a sign of spiritual maturity.

00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:14.880
I think, and that's actually, I was thinking about that, that it's a natural part of the progression of this is you start going, "Oh, oh."

00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:22.880
You somehow, I think it's a matter of increasing perspective, almost like literally you're getting height on the issue.

00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:31.880
And you can say, "Well, from up here, I can see how these pieces, you know, look in disparity and yet they fit together."

00:39:31.880 --> 00:39:34.880
So I think that's, I think there's some truth to that.

00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:40.880
Yeah, and speaking of progression, maybe you could take us through a little bit of progression.

00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:43.880
So when did this, how many years ago did this begin to dawn on you?

00:39:43.880 --> 00:39:48.880
And initially was there a "I got it, I lost it" phase that went on for some while,

00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:50.880
and then eventually it became more abiding.

00:39:50.880 --> 00:39:56.880
And then third part of the question is, you know, now, month to month, year to year,

00:39:56.880 --> 00:40:05.680
Do you feel that a certain deepening or maturation or refinement or some such thing is still continuing?

00:40:05.680 --> 00:40:07.800
>> Jeff: Yeah, I knew this was going to happen.

00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:12.480
You'll ask a complex question with multiple things, and I'm like, "Okay, what was the

00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:13.480
first one?"

00:40:13.480 --> 00:40:14.480
>> Rick: Okay, I'll go back.

00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:18.960
So, the first part, you know, how many years ago did this first happen, and was there an

00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:22.120
initial phase where it was just a glimpse here and a glimpse there, but most of the

00:40:22.120 --> 00:40:27.760
it was not there, and then it got more and more frequent, and then eventually just seemed

00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:29.640
to be there all the time.

00:40:29.640 --> 00:40:30.640
Yeah.

00:40:30.640 --> 00:40:37.320
Yeah, so initially, so there was this initial thing of just exploring a lot of spirituality

00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:42.520
and different forms of Christianity, because that's what I was raised with, and then just

00:40:42.520 --> 00:40:48.120
coming into Ram Dass and those guys, and then going, finding self-inquiry and going, "There's

00:40:48.120 --> 00:40:54.920
something about self-inquiry and Ramana Maharshi and those kind of sages that started really

00:40:54.920 --> 00:40:58.920
resonating, you know, and then being drawn into that.

00:40:58.920 --> 00:41:06.960
And then spending years, and honestly this is why I wrote the book eventually and developed

00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:11.720
this approach, was I couldn't make sense out of it.

00:41:11.720 --> 00:41:16.520
Ramana Maharshi was the best version of what was coming out of the teachings that were written

00:41:16.520 --> 00:41:23.400
around what he said. That was the best I could find and it just didn't really help me a lot in what to

00:41:23.400 --> 00:41:29.880
do. So a lot of fumbling around with it, just trying to look, not knowing how to look, and then finally

00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:35.160
getting that, "Oh, you look like this. This is how you do investigation." You know, attention goes here,

00:41:35.160 --> 00:41:41.880
it focuses on this, you stay with direct experience, and then down the road, I mean years

00:41:41.880 --> 00:41:52.040
along the road of working with that, having flashes that would just seem to come not exactly from my

00:41:52.040 --> 00:41:55.000
moment to moment, like I would say, "Okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this,

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:00.600
I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to have an awakening kind of experience. I'm going to have a

00:42:00.600 --> 00:42:06.840
selfless experience," or that sense of awareness is just pregnant in the moment, you know, just

00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:14.680
ball of awareness is almost obliterating any sense of self. Those were happening and then it would be

00:42:14.680 --> 00:42:19.960
getting it, losing it, and then being frustrated and going, "I got to get back to that because that

00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:26.120
is like my reason for living. I mean, it's what I want more than anything. I don't know why,

00:42:26.120 --> 00:42:33.400
but I gotta." It just seems like the most profound experience of truth that I could think of. And

00:42:33.400 --> 00:42:41.040
And then just working and struggling and taking wrong turns and then focusing and refining

00:42:41.040 --> 00:42:47.960
the self-inquiry down and not even knowing if that's working, wanting to quit and just

00:42:47.960 --> 00:42:51.820
say this is all, maybe I'm making this all up.

00:42:51.820 --> 00:42:55.380
But I could never forget, I think I mentioned in the book there was one experience happened

00:42:55.380 --> 00:43:00.120
probably in my mid-twenties, just real clear.

00:43:00.120 --> 00:43:02.520
It wasn't from self-inquiry exactly.

00:43:02.520 --> 00:43:08.160
It was I was reading Alan Watts and I was kind of reading it in parallel to some Buddhist

00:43:08.160 --> 00:43:13.960
texts around no self, anatta, and going, "What are these guys talking about?"

00:43:13.960 --> 00:43:19.440
I mean, they really seem to be talking about that there isn't an actual self.

00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:25.320
And then just having this flash all of a sudden, just doing this simple thing of just looking

00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:34.000
in going, "Am I actually in here?" and not thinking my way to it, but just looking.

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:37.960
Looking right where I should have been the most and realizing, number one, I'd never

00:43:37.960 --> 00:43:39.720
looked there.

00:43:39.720 --> 00:43:40.720
Never looked.

00:43:40.720 --> 00:43:43.480
I just assumed I was there.

00:43:43.480 --> 00:43:45.120
And when I looked, I didn't find anything.

00:43:45.120 --> 00:43:49.440
I didn't confirm my presence, my existence.

00:43:49.440 --> 00:43:56.480
And then the profundity of that just had that kind of, it was like an awakening experience.

00:43:56.480 --> 00:44:02.080
And then of course, that seemed to fade and then it was hard to even remember what it

00:44:02.080 --> 00:44:04.280
was like and then just trying to get back there.

00:44:04.280 --> 00:44:06.480
So yeah, I think, did I answer your question?

00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:09.200
No, you were part there, most of it, or at least the first part.

00:44:09.200 --> 00:44:12.740
I mean, the thing you were looking for was the thing that was looking.

00:44:12.740 --> 00:44:14.320
So no wonder you didn't find anything.

00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:15.320
Yeah.

00:44:15.320 --> 00:44:16.320
Yeah.

00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:17.320
But in that moment, I was...

00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:18.560
Like a dog chasing its tail or something.

00:44:18.560 --> 00:44:22.840
I think in that moment, the snake eats its tail.

00:44:22.840 --> 00:44:26.200
You know, it's just like, this is it.

00:44:26.200 --> 00:44:29.860
Even that statement, this is it, this is it.

00:44:29.860 --> 00:44:33.560
I mean, there's so many levels to the truth of that.

00:44:33.560 --> 00:44:34.400
- Yeah.

00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:39.360
- But what I did notice was it didn't need a me.

00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:41.960
And the sense of me at that moment, that flash,

00:44:41.960 --> 00:44:46.160
that one flash at that moment, that clear moment,

00:44:46.160 --> 00:44:52.940
was enough to just annihilate all kinds of thinking around my necessity, the necessity

00:44:52.940 --> 00:44:55.240
of my sense of self.

00:44:55.240 --> 00:45:03.680
I just knew it's not necessary to this, that whatever we are is something far beyond that.

00:45:03.680 --> 00:45:09.720
And so it was almost just the most natural thing from there to have a certain level of

00:45:09.720 --> 00:45:14.440
just rejection of that, if that makes sense.

00:45:14.440 --> 00:45:17.140
- Yeah, so what effect did all this have on your life?

00:45:17.140 --> 00:45:22.020
I mean, you're still alive, so it's still having an effect,

00:45:22.020 --> 00:45:24.660
but at least in those initial stages,

00:45:24.660 --> 00:45:28.300
did you find that it was enhancing your relationships,

00:45:28.300 --> 00:45:33.300
your abilities at work or whatever,

00:45:33.300 --> 00:45:35.140
or was it distracting you from them?

00:45:35.140 --> 00:45:38.840
Was it kind of deadening your emotions or enriching them?

00:45:38.840 --> 00:45:40.660
And what kind of impact did it have?

00:45:40.660 --> 00:45:44.340
- Yeah, so yeah, more psychologically, personality,

00:45:44.340 --> 00:45:54.660
You know, so I had more than a fair share of negative conditioning, dysfunctionality, anxiety,

00:45:54.660 --> 00:45:55.660
things like that.

00:45:55.660 --> 00:46:02.180
So, interestingly, I was interested in psychology, so I was working on trying to work my way

00:46:02.180 --> 00:46:08.720
through that, doing some therapy, but at the same time I was working on self-investigation.

00:46:08.720 --> 00:46:16.240
What I found was that the self-investigation was just like really cleaning through stuff

00:46:16.240 --> 00:46:19.960
without even having to pick through it.

00:46:19.960 --> 00:46:23.960
And whereas the psychological work, I think gradually there was a shifting away from that.

00:46:23.960 --> 00:46:32.240
But in general, I would say very much a process of, although relationships ended, they ended

00:46:32.240 --> 00:46:40.080
messily sometimes. You know, no jobs, you know, there was issue with career issues and going to

00:46:40.080 --> 00:46:45.440
school and failing at things. There's plenty of that. But in general, I'd say very positive,

00:46:45.440 --> 00:46:54.960
very things getting cleaner and lighter and clearer. And yet, I even now, so you,

00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:59.920
you know, you know, I'm married and I've been in a relationship for 20 years.

00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:10.720
and we have a daughter, and those relationships go through cycles of challenge. You know, we,

00:47:10.720 --> 00:47:16.800
so every year we have sort of a State of the Union address, you know, where we address where are we

00:47:16.800 --> 00:47:21.920
in the relationship, what's going on with this. And this sounds a little cold, and it's not meant

00:47:21.920 --> 00:47:29.520
that way, because it's very intimate, but it's like, does this need to continue? Does it feel

00:47:29.520 --> 00:47:35.120
right for this to continue. So there's never there's never a resting and I would say that's a

00:47:35.120 --> 00:47:42.160
big part of sort of what we call post-awakening right is that hey things go on but there's a an

00:47:42.160 --> 00:47:52.560
awareness of those and in a in a sense in a very impersonal way and yet significant attention is

00:47:52.560 --> 00:47:59.520
given to it. And on this level of considering, does this serve, does this seem to serve

00:47:59.520 --> 00:48:10.160
everyone? Does it serve a sort of a higher purpose of things? Is it growing? Is it,

00:48:10.160 --> 00:48:18.160
is there more clarity? Or is it drifting into what a lot of relationships do, which is

00:48:18.720 --> 00:48:25.840
distance and apathy and things like that. So I'm covering a lot of ground here.

00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:32.640
In other words, you don't let your relationship just sort of stagnate or fall into a habitual rut.

00:48:32.640 --> 00:48:41.360
There's this kind of periodic reassessment with a sort of a somewhat detached perspective

00:48:41.920 --> 00:48:49.360
an evaluation to, you know, maybe course correct a little bit or, you know, decide if it should

00:48:49.360 --> 00:48:54.560
continue going in the direction it is. I think that's what you said. Relatively speaking, it's

00:48:54.560 --> 00:49:00.640
like that. It's like I'm attending to the... I'm giving a mature attention to, you know, I'm being

00:49:00.640 --> 00:49:05.840
mature about it, I'm being, you know, honest about it. What's the state of the relationship?

00:49:06.560 --> 00:49:12.560
In the bigger sense, that's relatively speaking, the bigger sense, I let Dan take care of it.

00:49:12.560 --> 00:49:19.680
I mean, honestly, there's a sense of, look, he's pretty good about that. He'll take care of it.

00:49:19.680 --> 00:49:26.080
He does the checking in, he deals with the grocery clerks and does all that stuff.

00:49:26.080 --> 00:49:31.840
So there's a real ease of, I actually had a friend who was a psychologist say,

00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:35.680
you know, this sounds like a dissociative state that you're talking about. And I just said,

00:49:35.680 --> 00:49:42.160
Well, maybe, yeah, maybe in a sense it does, but what's it like to be associated?

00:49:42.160 --> 00:49:49.440
You know, what's the other end of that? So it's a very easy, it's detached and not

00:49:49.440 --> 00:49:56.200
in the sense of not being enmeshed in the issues and the struggle and a lot of

00:49:56.200 --> 00:49:59.960
thought about it. Like these things I'm talking about with the relationship,

00:49:59.960 --> 00:50:03.520
there's not a lot of thought going on with it. It seems very natural and very

00:50:03.520 --> 00:50:09.440
intuitive. Hey, what's the state of this relationship? How's it going? Are we happy?

00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:17.680
Is there increasing intel? And sometimes that ends up, and often you're talking to my wife

00:50:17.680 --> 00:50:23.280
about this, it's a challenge because I'll say, I feel like it could be,

00:50:23.280 --> 00:50:28.560
it seems like it could be more effective. What do you think? Do you want to take part in that?

00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:34.500
But there's always it's always very open-ended like if you don't want to be a part of that anymore. That's understandable

00:50:34.500 --> 00:50:40.240
Start speaking with her, you know, right but but I can't do anything else

00:50:40.240 --> 00:50:48.080
I'm, not really capable of just going. Yeah. Well, let's just coast and we'll watch tv together in the evenings and you know, whatever just

00:50:48.080 --> 00:50:51.360
We'll keep each other company until we're too old

00:50:51.360 --> 00:50:55.680
And then it's like who are you after

00:50:58.080 --> 00:51:05.840
Have I met you? Well, it's funny that your name is Dan, because I have this old friend named Dan,

00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:10.400
and we used to be part of this satsang group that met every week, and he used to talk about

00:51:10.400 --> 00:51:14.400
Big Dan and Little Dan. You know, there was Little Dan, and then there was Big Dan, and

00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:21.680
kind of, you know, what you're talking about was just that. And I would distinguish between

00:51:22.240 --> 00:51:33.600
what you just described, and disassociation as a psychologically undesirable trait or state,

00:51:33.600 --> 00:51:41.520
as being that type of disassociation in psychology is a fragmentation of the individuality.

00:51:41.520 --> 00:51:46.240
>> Jeff: Right. Due to trauma and trying to get away from...

00:51:46.240 --> 00:51:52.000
>>Rick Right, and there's no universal self or pure consciousness in the picture, it's

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:58.200
just the individual personality is fragmented, whereas what you're talking about is the distinction

00:51:58.200 --> 00:52:04.640
between kind of big self and little self, capital S and small s self, you know, pure awareness

00:52:04.640 --> 00:52:05.640
and individuality.

00:52:05.640 --> 00:52:06.640
Am I right?

00:52:06.640 --> 00:52:07.640
>>Douglas Right, right.

00:52:07.640 --> 00:52:12.960
And it's all about being identical to or not.

00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:19.540
So seeing, you know, not being identical to the character, right?

00:52:19.540 --> 00:52:25.880
Or any "I sense" which is not really something that arises anymore, but if there was one,

00:52:25.880 --> 00:52:33.400
that would be seen in its objective nature as also not self, not what I am, not what

00:52:33.400 --> 00:52:34.400
I am.

00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:41.820
So there's that sense of detachment, and yet it's never, it's not un-intimate, right?

00:52:41.820 --> 00:52:49.380
It's actually very intimate, but there's no sense of, like you can't, there's no way to

00:52:49.380 --> 00:52:53.380
put yourself in there at a certain point.

00:52:53.380 --> 00:52:56.100
And no need to, there's no need to insert.

00:52:56.100 --> 00:53:04.260
It would feel like a completely pretended, pretentious action to insert myself, whatever

00:53:04.260 --> 00:53:06.820
I am, which is part of the mystery, right?

00:53:06.820 --> 00:53:12.500
You can call it awareness, you can call it consciousness, but to insert that into...

00:53:12.500 --> 00:53:13.500
It's everywhere.

00:53:13.500 --> 00:53:14.500
It's all around.

00:53:14.500 --> 00:53:16.340
The body is arising in it as it.

00:53:16.340 --> 00:53:20.740
So it's like the way you were talking about Brahman.

00:53:20.740 --> 00:53:21.740
But there's no...

00:53:21.740 --> 00:53:27.620
It would feel completely false to then say, "And somehow Brahman is more important inside

00:53:27.620 --> 00:53:30.860
the body, inside a character, than outside."

00:53:30.860 --> 00:53:31.860
No.

00:53:31.860 --> 00:53:32.860
I mean...

00:53:32.860 --> 00:53:33.860
No, yeah.

00:53:33.860 --> 00:53:34.860
You would never...

00:53:34.860 --> 00:53:43.140
I mean, if Brahman is the totality, then it's all pervading.

00:53:43.140 --> 00:53:47.500
It isn't more Brahman if it's poured into a body mind.

00:53:47.500 --> 00:53:48.500
Right.

00:53:48.500 --> 00:53:52.140
It's just as much Brahman in a pile of dog poop as it is in a body mind.

00:53:52.140 --> 00:53:53.780
I mean, it's all pervading.

00:53:53.780 --> 00:54:02.420
But you could say that the conventional view of things is that Brahman inside the body

00:54:02.420 --> 00:54:09.060
is much more that me as Brahman in the body, this sense of me, is more important than all

00:54:09.060 --> 00:54:10.700
other Brahman.

00:54:10.700 --> 00:54:16.980
I mean that's kind of, that's a way of looking at how the sense of individual importance

00:54:16.980 --> 00:54:21.420
manifests in, we'll say, the unawake.

00:54:21.420 --> 00:54:26.940
Yeah, well in the unawake they're not thinking in terms of Brahman, they're just thinking

00:54:26.940 --> 00:54:28.500
in terms of their individuality.

00:54:28.500 --> 00:54:35.420
I'm just using that term because we can talk about that there's something that's the fundamental

00:54:35.420 --> 00:54:38.040
ground of being.

00:54:38.040 --> 00:54:42.500
One way I look at it is that the universe, who was it?

00:54:42.500 --> 00:54:47.700
Brian Swim, whom I interviewed a few years ago, he said, "You take hydrogen and leave

00:54:47.700 --> 00:54:56.060
it alone for 13.8 billion years, and you end up with rose bushes, giraffes, and Mozart."

00:54:56.060 --> 00:55:03.540
So there's something marvelous about the self-organizing nature of the universe, and some would say

00:55:03.540 --> 00:55:08.220
it's not just hydrogen somehow, you know, organizing itself into all these things, there's

00:55:08.220 --> 00:55:15.540
an underlying intelligence that, you know, contains within it laws of nature that orchestrate

00:55:15.540 --> 00:55:22.340
the whole evolution of the universe into greater and greater complexity, and the more complex

00:55:22.340 --> 00:55:31.860
the form, the more fully the form can embody that intelligence which gave rise to it. So,

00:55:31.860 --> 00:55:38.660
a human being can embody it much more fully than an ant, and so on. And so, there is something,

00:55:38.660 --> 00:55:39.060
in a way…

00:55:39.060 --> 00:55:39.940
>>Jeffrey: As far as we know.

00:55:39.940 --> 00:55:47.140
>>Rick: Yeah. So, there is something kind of special about, you know, a more complex form.

00:55:48.580 --> 00:55:53.060
It's taken a lot more evolution for it to have come into being.

00:55:53.060 --> 00:55:59.940
And yet, I've met a few dogs that are a lot more embodying of that than people.

00:55:59.940 --> 00:56:01.220
Yes, I could agree.

00:56:01.220 --> 00:56:06.020
So it's interesting that just having a higher brain functions and so on

00:56:06.020 --> 00:56:13.220
doesn't guarantee that there's the same level of recognition of the…

00:56:14.740 --> 00:56:20.420
Yeah, there's a bumper sticker that's something like, "May I be the kind of human that my dog

00:56:20.420 --> 00:56:23.540
thinks I am?" Something like that. Oh, there you go.

00:56:23.540 --> 00:56:26.500
And there was a Zen koan, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?"

00:56:26.500 --> 00:56:29.940
Yeah. And I would say yes,

00:56:29.940 --> 00:56:36.420
but does the dog know it's Buddha nature, or is it able to sort of fully realize and express its

00:56:36.420 --> 00:56:42.260
Buddha nature as fully as some higher life form? That's a whole, maybe that's just a tangent.

00:56:43.540 --> 00:56:46.900
But that's an interesting, it kind of goes off on an interesting,

00:56:46.900 --> 00:56:51.940
touches on something interesting. What happens to the body-mind

00:56:51.940 --> 00:57:01.940
with awakening? And even approximating these levels of clarity? Well, there's clearly an

00:57:01.940 --> 00:57:08.020
influential effect. So, we see that of the body-mind, yeah, the character. So, you see somebody,

00:57:08.020 --> 00:57:12.020
you know, you can pick any of the great sages and just say,

00:57:12.020 --> 00:57:17.300
as just from a human being level, you could tell there was something going on there.

00:57:17.300 --> 00:57:24.260
There was a certain equanimity, a certain peacefulness, a certain clarity, wisdom,

00:57:24.260 --> 00:57:24.900
things like that.

00:57:24.900 --> 00:57:26.420
- Bliss, happiness.

00:57:26.420 --> 00:57:30.020
- Happiness, yes. So, there's an influence there.

00:57:30.020 --> 00:57:30.580
- Yeah.

00:57:30.580 --> 00:57:36.260
- But then what happens is a student comes along and says, "Oh, that's

00:57:36.260 --> 00:57:38.780
That's the teacher.

00:57:38.780 --> 00:57:42.100
It's all contained within the character.

00:57:42.100 --> 00:57:45.220
So they start treating the character like it's special.

00:57:45.220 --> 00:57:51.660
And most teachers worth their salt would come along and go, "You're missing the point."

00:57:51.660 --> 00:57:53.660
But you don't hear much talk about this.

00:57:53.660 --> 00:58:03.220
The influence of awakening is it transcends, awakening transcends the body-mind and yet

00:58:03.220 --> 00:58:05.220
there is an influence.

00:58:05.220 --> 00:58:08.580
body and mind begins to reflect that condition.

00:58:08.580 --> 00:58:13.460
Yeah, that's a great point, and it's an important one.

00:58:13.460 --> 00:58:18.580
And also, I'm reading a biography of Gopi Krishna now, whom I don't know if you've

00:58:18.580 --> 00:58:19.580
heard of him, but he was…

00:58:19.580 --> 00:58:20.580
I haven't.

00:58:20.580 --> 00:58:21.580
All I had known about him was…

00:58:21.580 --> 00:58:23.420
See the one that had all the gals around him?

00:58:23.420 --> 00:58:24.420
No, no, no, no, no.

00:58:24.420 --> 00:58:26.300
That was Krishna himself, and the Gopis.

00:58:26.300 --> 00:58:27.300
Oh, okay.

00:58:27.300 --> 00:58:33.660
This is an Indian guy who lived in the 20th century, whose name happened to be Gopi Krishna.

00:58:33.660 --> 00:58:37.900
But he had this, he was a brilliant man, he had this profound Kundalini awakening, and

00:58:37.900 --> 00:58:41.780
he went through hell and heaven.

00:58:41.780 --> 00:58:47.300
And the hell part was that his body was so profoundly impacted by the awakening that

00:58:47.300 --> 00:58:53.580
was taking place that he had to be extremely careful of what he ate and what he did and

00:58:53.580 --> 00:58:54.580
how he acted.

00:58:54.580 --> 00:59:01.100
I mean, the slightest deviation from honesty and truth and all really would impact him.

00:59:01.100 --> 00:59:05.660
the heaven part, the interesting part was, well, that was a good part, too, although difficult,

00:59:05.660 --> 00:59:13.020
but he also began to, like, compose verse, first in his native language, which I think was Urdu,

00:59:13.020 --> 00:59:19.340
and then in German, and languages he had never spoken, and he found himself composing these

00:59:19.340 --> 00:59:22.380
verses. So… - He had never studied, right?

00:59:22.380 --> 00:59:26.540
- And never had studied or learned or knew how to speak or anything else. This stuff started

00:59:26.540 --> 00:59:32.700
coming out of him. So just the impact of that on the body-mind, it reminded me of that,

00:59:32.700 --> 00:59:37.340
you know, just what you're saying there. Now there's an interesting thing, go ahead,

00:59:37.340 --> 00:59:39.500
you might want to respond to that before I say anything more.

00:59:39.500 --> 00:59:40.700
No, no, go ahead.

00:59:40.700 --> 00:59:48.220
Okay, so what you've described about your experience so far reminds me of a whole

00:59:48.780 --> 00:59:56.460
kind of topography of higher states of consciousness that I once studied deeply. And

00:59:56.460 --> 01:00:07.900
one stage of it is where, as you're describing, there's this detachment between self and non-self,

01:00:07.900 --> 01:00:13.900
or self meaning, you know, the pure awareness, or non-self meaning everything else,

01:00:15.180 --> 01:00:22.860
including the world. And then over time, the gulf between them begins to narrow.

01:00:22.860 --> 01:00:31.180
And it does so because of the impact of that realization on the body-mind, in which it

01:00:31.180 --> 01:00:38.460
refines it, it purifies it. And as it does so, the heart begins to grow more, appreciation

01:00:38.460 --> 01:00:42.140
of everything begins to grow more. >> Jeff: Heart meaning not the physical heart,

01:00:42.140 --> 01:00:43.260
but… >> Rick: No, the emotional…

01:00:43.260 --> 01:00:44.780
>>Rick: Ability to love.

01:00:44.780 --> 01:00:51.420
>>Ben: To love, yes. And also even the senses begin to get more refined and to appreciate

01:00:51.420 --> 01:01:01.740
the creation and its finer values. And so the kind of gulf between the pure awareness and

01:01:01.740 --> 01:01:08.300
the world begins to narrow and the appreciation begins to grow, and it blossoms into something

01:01:08.300 --> 01:01:12.900
which in this topography was called God consciousness.

01:01:12.900 --> 01:01:17.900
And then that takes a further step in which the self,

01:01:17.900 --> 01:01:19.340
which we realize ourselves to be

01:01:19.340 --> 01:01:21.780
in that initial stage of realization,

01:01:21.780 --> 01:01:24.100
is seen to be the essential constituent

01:01:24.100 --> 01:01:27.220
of the creation itself.

01:01:27.220 --> 01:01:30.860
So there's really no distinction between that and this,

01:01:30.860 --> 01:01:33.120
and that would be unity.

01:01:34.780 --> 01:01:41.980
that there's a sort of a unification of an initial gulf or detachment that took place.

01:01:41.980 --> 01:01:49.020
Right. Yeah, so, I mean, my take on that is that, and this touches on

01:01:49.020 --> 01:01:57.100
something that I think happens with awakening in parallel to that, a sensitivity, I would say, to,

01:01:57.100 --> 01:02:02.860
and I'm just going to do my best to kind of describe it, but it's almost like there are

01:02:02.860 --> 01:02:08.860
other dimensions literally in the sense of more than three or four dimensions.

01:02:08.860 --> 01:02:15.460
There's other dimensions of existence that you begin to access as a natural

01:02:15.460 --> 01:02:16.760
part of this process.

01:02:16.760 --> 01:02:22.460
And so like that sense of on one level I'd say and I've talked to people about

01:02:22.460 --> 01:02:22.660
this.

01:02:22.660 --> 01:02:24.260
It's like I love nature.

01:02:24.260 --> 01:02:26.060
That's why I live where I live.

01:02:26.060 --> 01:02:27.160
We live in the mountains.

01:02:27.160 --> 01:02:29.260
We have 20 acres.

01:02:29.260 --> 01:02:32.260
It's you can walk around on it and it's beautiful.

01:02:32.260 --> 01:02:39.620
it's like having your own park. And it just, aside from the fact that it was kind of mystical

01:02:39.620 --> 01:02:49.300
the way it all came about, but there's such a sense of connection to life in the forest.

01:02:49.300 --> 01:02:57.860
But to say, I feel connected to the tree is to miss the other dimensions where there's

01:02:57.860 --> 01:03:05.820
much more activity going on with that. So it started as a felt sense of union with

01:03:05.820 --> 01:03:10.100
that there's something about the tree, and I'm looking at a tree out the window

01:03:10.100 --> 01:03:17.060
right now, something about that tree that's completely in common with this

01:03:17.060 --> 01:03:23.540
the sense of being. That's one. But it's not the tree, it's not the

01:03:23.540 --> 01:03:29.540
physical form of the tree. But I can sense, I sense the reality of that.

01:03:29.540 --> 01:03:31.700
Rick: It's like the essential nature of the tree.

01:03:31.700 --> 01:03:36.740
David Martin: Yeah, so the tree and the body-mind, this is one way that the body-mind becomes very

01:03:36.740 --> 01:03:43.460
transparent to those other dimensions of existence. And that I would say after what I'm calling

01:03:43.460 --> 01:03:49.220
awakening, which is just the end of this sense of identification, it just goes on. I mean,

01:03:49.220 --> 01:03:56.260
this process continues on, it does not end there. So, it's a little misnomer to call it "awakening"

01:03:56.260 --> 01:04:02.820
as if it's an end, or "enlightenment" for that matter, because it just continues enlightening.

01:04:02.820 --> 01:04:09.220
Yeah. So, but I just kind of wanted to convey that and see if that made sense, this sense of this

01:04:09.220 --> 01:04:15.620
other dimension to experience, and like the sense that the physical is very transparent to that,

01:04:15.620 --> 01:04:20.500
just increasingly so. Oh, I love it. I love what you're saying. I totally agree.

01:04:20.500 --> 01:04:28.500
The subtitle of this show used to be "Interviews with Spiritually Awakened People."

01:04:28.500 --> 01:04:33.780
I was wondering why you changed it to… Yeah, we changed it to "Spiritually Awakening"

01:04:33.780 --> 01:04:38.740
because "awakened" is too static, you know? And then we also changed it to "conversations"

01:04:38.740 --> 01:04:40.740
instead of interviews because I talk too much.

01:04:40.740 --> 01:04:42.740
(laughter)

01:04:42.740 --> 01:04:45.740
But, you know, St. Teresa of Avila said,

01:04:45.740 --> 01:04:47.740
"It appears that God himself is on the journey."

01:04:47.740 --> 01:04:51.740
So, my sense of things is that there's no end

01:04:51.740 --> 01:04:56.740
to any, for anybody, and who knows where it all leads.

01:04:56.740 --> 01:05:01.740
And yet, there are discrete, there are discrete transitions.

01:05:01.740 --> 01:05:02.740
Yes.

01:05:02.740 --> 01:05:05.740
Like the transition, I think, the one that seems

01:05:05.740 --> 01:05:12.100
seems the one of the most significant of at least as far as so far is away from

01:05:12.100 --> 01:05:16.420
that sense of identification. Not being identical to any longer. It's just

01:05:16.420 --> 01:05:22.540
such an opening and clarifying and it's completely in line with this thing we're

01:05:22.540 --> 01:05:28.860
talking about in terms of the sensing and experiencing and exploring and

01:05:28.860 --> 01:05:35.180
curiously involved with other dimensions of existence. The deeper dimensions of

01:05:35.180 --> 01:05:41.900
things. So, that seems to be a big turning point, getting this sense of self. It's like,

01:05:41.900 --> 01:05:46.620
"Look, let's just get it out of the way so we have a better view." I mean, that's one way of

01:05:46.620 --> 01:05:52.220
looking at it. It's just about wildest attention to that. There's so much more.

01:05:52.220 --> 01:06:00.380
- Yeah, I think when that reminds me of an important point, I think that Ramana and many

01:06:00.380 --> 01:06:06.600
other skillful teachers were good at tailoring their teaching to the person they were addressing.

01:06:06.600 --> 01:06:09.820
And it would, again, be different strokes for different folks.

01:06:09.820 --> 01:06:16.020
There's a saying in India that when the mango tree is ripe, the branches bend down so people

01:06:16.020 --> 01:06:17.840
can easily pick the mangoes.

01:06:17.840 --> 01:06:22.860
So the teacher kind of meets the student at the level which is appropriate for that student.

01:06:22.860 --> 01:06:26.540
And that would be different things for different students.

01:06:26.540 --> 01:06:30.860
But sometimes in this day and age, you know, and it used to be that certain teachings were

01:06:30.860 --> 01:06:35.420
kind of secret and they wouldn't just be, you know, broadcast to everybody, that you'd

01:06:35.420 --> 01:06:38.220
have to go through certain stages of readiness before...

01:06:38.220 --> 01:06:39.220
Rick: Rituals and...

01:06:39.220 --> 01:06:43.460
David: Yeah, certain maturation before you receive a certain teaching.

01:06:43.460 --> 01:06:45.700
These days everything is out on the internet.

01:06:45.700 --> 01:06:53.460
And I think it's a bit of a problem because some people for whom this no-self teaching

01:06:53.460 --> 01:07:02.460
who might not yet be at a stage where that is what they need to hear, try to apply that, and they can get into trouble.

01:07:02.460 --> 01:07:11.460
There's this lady I interviewed named Jessica Nathanson, who kind of specializes in helping rehabilitate people who've gone heavy into neo-Advaita,

01:07:11.460 --> 01:07:13.460
and they've become nihilistic.

01:07:13.460 --> 01:07:14.460
Destabilized.

01:07:14.460 --> 01:07:19.460
Yeah, they've gotten destabilized, they've lost interest in their families, they can't hold down a job,

01:07:19.460 --> 01:07:24.580
They're having suicidal ideation and in some cases actual suicide.

01:07:24.580 --> 01:07:34.120
So I think it's very important to ready the ground before administering certain teachings

01:07:34.120 --> 01:07:35.940
to certain people.

01:07:35.940 --> 01:07:37.860
Yeah, I agree.

01:07:37.860 --> 01:07:41.420
I actually don't work with that many people, for one thing.

01:07:41.420 --> 01:07:42.420
I don't do...

01:07:42.420 --> 01:07:49.940
I've come up through the Advaita community with Adyashanti and a lot of the popular teachers

01:07:49.940 --> 01:07:54.500
where they have large rooms with lots of people and everything. I don't have any interest in that

01:07:54.500 --> 01:07:59.140
at all. I think it's too, number one, it's too hard to really see where people are at.

01:07:59.140 --> 01:08:08.580
I like to work very personally, keep it small. And to your point, are you, I've turned away more

01:08:08.580 --> 01:08:14.340
people and I do this gently but it's so it sounds a little harsh but I've told more people that's

01:08:14.340 --> 01:08:19.780
like look this is not for you. I would just say look you don't want I don't think you want this

01:08:19.780 --> 01:08:26.500
and I'll we'll talk about it I mean I'll talk to anybody but basically you really need to be

01:08:26.500 --> 01:08:32.260
ready to dive into this and you got to have a in one way very psychologically stable.

01:08:33.780 --> 01:08:39.780
any of that stuff is going to get stirred up and it'll preoccupy your attention anyway.

01:08:39.780 --> 01:08:44.660
And so every once in a while, when I first started out, I've been doing this for like 12 years now,

01:08:44.660 --> 01:08:53.940
so after watching this process with a few hundred people, many of the people that I worked with at

01:08:53.940 --> 01:09:00.740
the beginning, I catch the signs of that early on and just say, "You know, I'll tell it, go check

01:09:00.740 --> 01:09:05.460
that out. You should go check that. You want to, you know, I don't answer questions about should I go

01:09:05.460 --> 01:09:11.860
to graduate school and things like that. It's like, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I

01:09:11.860 --> 01:09:18.820
can point at the sense of self and help you investigate that. But I think it's, I think that

01:09:18.820 --> 01:09:26.820
the risks there of, and I've had a couple of people that were actually just, they weren't students at

01:09:26.820 --> 01:09:31.620
the time they were just friends who were really curious. One was, well I thought she was pretty

01:09:31.620 --> 01:09:38.500
stable, seemed pretty solid and comfortable and confident and masters, she had masters in social

01:09:38.500 --> 01:09:42.340
work or whatever and she's like, "So what is this self-inquiry thing you're doing, you know,

01:09:42.340 --> 01:09:46.820
tell me about it?" And we, I said, "Let's do it together." And we started to explore it and she

01:09:46.820 --> 01:09:54.020
got so uncomfortable with that vacancy that's just touching on it. She said, "That's, this is just too

01:09:54.020 --> 01:10:00.980
weird. I never want to do that again. So, you know, I just think you, you know, it's exactly what you're

01:10:00.980 --> 01:10:07.220
saying. You got to be ready for it. You got to be right. And there's indicators of that. And sometimes

01:10:07.220 --> 01:10:11.940
you just have to experiment with it a little and go, yeah, it doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel right.

01:10:11.940 --> 01:10:18.980
Because it was, this was a very fairly comfortable process all the way through. Certainly struggles

01:10:18.980 --> 01:10:24.020
at times, but not terrifying or dark night of the soul. There was nothing like that.

01:10:24.020 --> 01:10:33.460
So, at least I know that can be the progression. And it still allows for the fact that it could get

01:10:33.460 --> 01:10:40.500
very, it could be a dark night of the soul kind of thing. But there's usually indicators of,

01:10:40.500 --> 01:10:45.860
like, I'll get a sense of, is this a good, should this person go on or not? You know,

01:10:45.860 --> 01:10:52.660
Do they need to back off and do a little psychotherapy and get stabilized again, or are they in a place

01:10:52.660 --> 01:11:00.660
where this is ready to fall off? And so I think reading that is kind of the responsibility part of it.

01:11:00.660 --> 01:11:07.860
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, definitely. There's problems with the big mass approach,

01:11:07.860 --> 01:11:10.660
you know, where everybody's taught the same thing.

01:11:10.660 --> 01:11:20.100
and I would never do this with more than 15 people. Yeah. And that's about what I'm handling right now.

01:11:20.100 --> 01:11:25.540
So I think it's very, I think as soon as you get, it's also short changing people because you can't

01:11:25.540 --> 01:11:31.620
really be there. It's a very intimate, you know, connection that you're making with somebody

01:11:31.620 --> 01:11:34.500
in some ways, much more intimate than making friends with people.

01:11:35.860 --> 01:11:42.340
And they're letting you into some very vulnerable places. And so you've got to be present in a sense for that.

01:11:42.340 --> 01:11:48.740
So what, you say you've dealt with what, 100, 200 students over the years?

01:11:48.740 --> 01:11:50.900
Probably, yeah, a few hundred.

01:11:50.900 --> 01:11:58.660
Yeah. And in general, if you could generalize, what's been your experience with them all?

01:11:58.660 --> 01:12:03.140
Has there, I mean, obviously you have to generalize, but...

01:12:03.140 --> 01:12:04.340
Yeah, the whole range.

01:12:04.340 --> 01:12:10.980
has it tended to enhance their lives in addition to having…you see, one of my concerns coming

01:12:10.980 --> 01:12:18.260
into this was the notion that this could actually…well, you said in the beginning that this

01:12:18.260 --> 01:12:24.660
is not an intellectual path to realization where you're sort of denying the reality of the relative

01:12:24.660 --> 01:12:31.460
world and hammering that thought into your head. That approach can be appropriate for recluses or

01:12:31.460 --> 01:12:37.140
people who are inclined to be recluses, but if a householder does that, it can make them disinterested

01:12:37.140 --> 01:12:43.060
in the life that they're living and the responsibilities that they have. So, I think...

01:12:43.060 --> 01:12:48.100
Some of that is going to happen anyway. I mean, there will be changes. It happened in my case.

01:12:48.100 --> 01:12:53.700
You know, I mean, I had a career and it was going, it was the pinnacle of my profession.

01:12:53.700 --> 01:13:01.060
And I mean, working at Apple and doing this work that I had studied and was interested in.

01:13:01.060 --> 01:13:08.260
And then just it was right around this period just, you know, around post awakening and then

01:13:08.260 --> 01:13:15.860
I just lost interest in it. And I had to deal with, you know, I talked to my wife and tell her,

01:13:15.860 --> 01:13:20.740
"Look, I'm thinking of going in a whole different direction here. So the income level is going to go

01:13:20.740 --> 01:13:26.740
way down." And just seeing if she's on board with that. But I didn't really have a choice. I mean,

01:13:26.740 --> 01:13:30.260
and it was very... What's that? How old were you at that time?

01:13:30.260 --> 01:13:35.260
- Let's see, that was about 10 years ago, 58.

01:13:35.260 --> 01:13:37.860
- You were 58, okay.

01:13:37.860 --> 01:13:39.500
- Yeah, yeah.

01:13:39.500 --> 01:13:44.500
So, yeah, so, but then, it felt very natural

01:13:44.500 --> 01:13:46.280
for those things to drop away.

01:13:46.280 --> 01:13:49.360
And I think that's one of the indicators of this.

01:13:49.360 --> 01:13:52.500
It's fine if life changes are taking place,

01:13:52.500 --> 01:13:54.420
but they don't happen fast.

01:13:54.420 --> 01:13:57.140
It's not immediate, it's not overnight.

01:13:57.140 --> 01:13:59.440
So that's a bit of a red flag.

01:13:59.440 --> 01:14:01.960
If somebody, people come back from retreats all the time

01:14:01.960 --> 01:14:04.040
and this is their experience and they're like,

01:14:04.040 --> 01:14:06.800
I'm breaking up with my husband or my wife,

01:14:06.800 --> 01:14:09.040
I'm gonna change my profession.

01:14:09.040 --> 01:14:11.440
It's like, whoa, just slow down a little bit,

01:14:11.440 --> 01:14:14.240
you know, just give it a couple of days or something

01:14:14.240 --> 01:14:16.880
before you start changing everything.

01:14:16.880 --> 01:14:19.280
But they will change and it's radical.

01:14:19.280 --> 01:14:21.960
I mean, we moved out, I lived in California

01:14:21.960 --> 01:14:24.760
and around cities and working in big corporations

01:14:24.760 --> 01:14:27.520
and now my life now is completely different from that.

01:14:27.520 --> 01:14:34.800
And all that felt very natural and in a natural progression, but it didn't happen rapidly.

01:14:34.800 --> 01:14:39.280
Yeah, I mean, I would probably have wanted to make the same move you did.

01:14:39.280 --> 01:14:46.880
And, you know, getting out of the Bay Area or wherever you were and into the woods of

01:14:46.880 --> 01:14:52.480
North Carolina sounds great. Now, on the other hand, somebody else, you know, might

01:14:54.080 --> 01:14:58.960
want to stay there and, you know, could still progress spiritually under a high-pressure

01:14:58.960 --> 01:15:04.080
situation. You know, in India, they traditionally, they had these different stages of life. There's

01:15:04.080 --> 01:15:09.040
the Brahmachari stage, your student, and then there's the householder married stage, and then

01:15:09.040 --> 01:15:14.240
up to, you know, mid-50s or something, and then you shift into a bit more reclusive stage, just

01:15:14.240 --> 01:15:20.880
like you've done, and then possibly at the very end, you go into a sannyasi stage. So, it's natural.

01:15:20.880 --> 01:15:28.680
Yeah, I can see that as certainly, while I think this transcends any kind of physical

01:15:28.680 --> 01:15:37.160
chronological stage thing, it does seem to reflect that, that at certain stages.

01:15:37.160 --> 01:15:46.400
But I would say it was the depth and clarity and impact of the awakening process that initiated

01:15:46.400 --> 01:15:49.840
the change, not that it was necessarily a time in life.

01:15:49.840 --> 01:15:56.640
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. But also I wanted to add to that just that I think it can be,

01:15:56.640 --> 01:16:05.200
I think this is, it feels like a loving existence. So it can be gentle. It doesn't have to be, I

01:16:05.200 --> 01:16:11.040
think if it's a lot of trauma is being triggered, that's an indicator of something. It's like,

01:16:11.040 --> 01:16:17.280
ease up, eat some ice cream, watch a movie, you know. Yeah, chill. Coast for a while, you know,

01:16:17.280 --> 01:16:22.880
You'll still be attending, you know, pay attention, you'll keep paying attention and investigating,

01:16:22.880 --> 01:16:27.880
you'll be curious, your curiosity is not going anywhere, but it's okay to back off.

01:16:27.880 --> 01:16:33.920
I mean, I certainly did it many times, and like I said, even going, you know, I quit.

01:16:33.920 --> 01:16:35.680
It's not, I don't think this is ever going to work.

01:16:35.680 --> 01:16:42.200
I mean, who am I to think that I can, you know, achieve what these great saints have

01:16:42.200 --> 01:16:43.840
achieved and all that kind of stuff.

01:16:43.840 --> 01:16:53.840
So just wanting to dump it and then backing away and just playing the game for a while and then going, "I gotta get back to it. I gotta keep going."

01:16:53.840 --> 01:17:04.840
Yeah, that's an important point you're making. And the people you talked about who would go on a retreat and then come home and, you know, throw away all their possessions and put on a loincloth or something.

01:17:04.840 --> 01:17:11.440
You know, it's just like, "Hey, dude, this is a marathon, not a sprint."

01:17:11.440 --> 01:17:16.640
You can apply yourself with a great deal of ardor and diligence, but at the same time,

01:17:16.640 --> 01:17:22.700
you're not going to become the Buddha this weekend or something.

01:17:22.700 --> 01:17:25.600
It takes time to mature into this, really.

01:17:25.600 --> 01:17:26.600
>>Right.

01:17:26.600 --> 01:17:32.400
And I think that's part of what comes with the process, is there is a certain degree

01:17:32.400 --> 01:17:41.600
wisdom and like, "Pace yourself. Take it easy." There's nothing terrible about any of this.

01:17:41.600 --> 01:17:47.320
It's not an awful thing that you're... I wasn't running away from something, right? I wasn't

01:17:47.320 --> 01:17:51.520
running away from corporate work or anything. It was actually good to be in the midst of

01:17:51.520 --> 01:18:02.000
that craziness and the demanding nature of it. It was good. It fueled this inner process.

01:18:02.000 --> 01:18:07.760
Yeah, that can be what a person needs at a certain point, the intense activity to sort

01:18:07.760 --> 01:18:09.960
of stabilize and integrate.

01:18:09.960 --> 01:18:16.520
In fact, I knew this guy who was over in Switzerland on the international staff of the TM movement,

01:18:16.520 --> 01:18:21.240
and he was really spacey, you know, he was just kind of like too much meditation and

01:18:21.240 --> 01:18:22.240
everything.

01:18:22.240 --> 01:18:24.320
Maharishi said, "Go back home and get a job loading trucks."

01:18:24.320 --> 01:18:25.320
Yeah.

01:18:25.320 --> 01:18:26.320
Yeah.

01:18:26.320 --> 01:18:28.160
Did he do it?

01:18:28.160 --> 01:18:31.760
I think so, yeah.

01:18:31.760 --> 01:18:32.760
I just know that a bunch of...

01:18:32.760 --> 01:18:33.760
Go ahead, I'm sorry.

01:18:33.760 --> 01:18:40.760
I was just remembering a teacher, I didn't get a lot from him, but Daufrey John, he used

01:18:40.760 --> 01:18:41.760
to be called Daufrey.

01:18:41.760 --> 01:18:42.760
Oh, brother, yeah.

01:18:42.760 --> 01:18:43.760
Yeah.

01:18:43.760 --> 01:18:44.760
Oh, yeah.

01:18:44.760 --> 01:18:45.760
Yeah.

01:18:45.760 --> 01:18:46.760
Yeah.

01:18:46.760 --> 01:18:50.840
He had a lot of talk about a wacky spiritual guy.

01:18:50.840 --> 01:18:56.040
But one of the things when I was studying some of his teachings at the time and living

01:18:56.040 --> 01:18:59.400
up in Oregon, and I was working part-time jobs, I was like, "I don't want to be a part of

01:18:59.400 --> 01:19:00.760
the corporate world."

01:19:00.760 --> 01:19:07.160
And then he just, and it wasn't just that he had said this or wrote it, it was that it

01:19:07.160 --> 01:19:09.560
resonated, it just clicked.

01:19:09.560 --> 01:19:14.860
And he said, "You got to be willing to go out and get a job full time and just make money,

01:19:14.860 --> 01:19:16.120
just make some money."

01:19:16.120 --> 01:19:18.560
And I thought, I didn't even think about that.

01:19:18.560 --> 01:19:21.280
You know, I mean, I've been just so resistant to it.

01:19:21.280 --> 01:19:24.120
I didn't think it would, might be a part of the spiritual process.

01:19:24.120 --> 01:19:32.960
And it began a whole opening into, you know, facing fears and challenges that I wouldn't

01:19:32.960 --> 01:19:35.920
have gotten if I hadn't done that.

01:19:35.920 --> 01:19:39.720
And then ultimately there was an abandonment of all that, but at the right time.

01:19:39.720 --> 01:19:42.640
It felt right to leave all that behind.

01:19:42.640 --> 01:19:44.600
And that made it so much easier.

01:19:44.600 --> 01:19:46.440
It was just such an easy transition.

01:19:46.440 --> 01:19:51.360
All these people that retire out of corporate world and they just go nuts.

01:19:51.360 --> 01:19:53.840
They're like, "I don't know what to do with myself."

01:19:53.840 --> 01:19:55.880
And I know exactly what to do with myself.

01:19:55.880 --> 01:20:00.560
I'm going to paint, I'm going to sculpt, I'm going to move to a really cool place because

01:20:00.560 --> 01:20:02.960
I don't have to be here to work anymore.

01:20:02.960 --> 01:20:06.560
Yeah, which you could do because you had some money, because you've been working.

01:20:06.560 --> 01:20:07.560
Right, exactly.

01:20:07.560 --> 01:20:14.920
I just noticed that a bunch of questions came in, so this might be a little bit disjointed

01:20:14.920 --> 01:20:20.120
as we jump around, but let's see what we've got here.

01:20:20.120 --> 01:20:27.120
There was another question from that guy in Scotland, whose name was David Hill.

01:20:27.120 --> 01:20:29.120
Not Scott.

01:20:29.120 --> 01:20:40.120
No, not Scott. Dave from Scotland. Can you know physical pain without being in physical pain? I think I know what he means.

01:20:40.120 --> 01:20:45.840
Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of what we've been talking about is this sense of it's

01:20:45.840 --> 01:20:54.360
a healthy natural detachment from not the pain. See, we're not

01:20:54.360 --> 01:20:58.840
being the pain. We're being the one who, I would say, we're the one who's

01:20:58.840 --> 01:21:07.440
experiencing the pain. So seeing through the sense of the pained one releases.

01:21:07.440 --> 01:21:12.340
It doesn't mean the pain goes away though, it still registers.

01:21:12.340 --> 01:21:15.280
So I'd say that's what we're really talking about.

01:21:15.280 --> 01:21:17.040
Does that make sense?

01:21:17.040 --> 01:21:22.200
Yeah, I sometimes wonder about that, like, you know, I could handle my pickleball accident,

01:21:22.200 --> 01:21:28.600
no big deal, but if I were crucified or something horrible like that, I mean, could I, you know,

01:21:28.600 --> 01:21:32.080
would I just totally lose it and be overshadowed or, I don't know.

01:21:32.080 --> 01:21:39.480
Well, you know, since you speak so about during the COVID thing, so my body really got hit

01:21:39.480 --> 01:21:42.160
hard with that and I ended up in the hospital.

01:21:42.160 --> 01:21:47.360
And so, and it affected my breathing, it was hard to breathe, I needed oxygen and there

01:21:47.360 --> 01:21:52.160
was a point where, so you sit, there you are, you know, looking at the body, sitting in

01:21:52.160 --> 01:21:56.560
the bed in the hospital, doctors are coming in, everybody's looking real serious.

01:21:56.560 --> 01:21:58.360
And they're saying we might have to innovate.

01:21:58.360 --> 01:21:59.360
Debate.

01:21:59.360 --> 01:22:05.280
Yeah, yeah, because it was beginning really hard to breathe but the whole time there was just a sense of

01:22:05.280 --> 01:22:07.620
It sounds too good to be true

01:22:07.620 --> 01:22:14.740
But it was and I was this in a sense surprised as is the next person was like, oh, maybe this is it

01:22:14.740 --> 01:22:20.140
Death, you know, so there was a sense of the discomfort. I mean not being able to breathe is pretty uncomfortable

01:22:20.140 --> 01:22:24.680
You're not crucified, but it's it's up there in the top ten

01:22:24.680 --> 01:22:29.520
You know being feeling like you're you just can't get a breath. You're drowning, you know

01:22:29.520 --> 01:22:31.640
and

01:22:31.640 --> 01:22:37.440
Just feeling the body getting really weak. I mean losing like 30 pounds within a week and really

01:22:37.440 --> 01:22:43.300
And and just a sense that this is the end. This could be the end of the body

01:22:43.300 --> 01:22:47.600
It wants to maybe it wants to go, you know and being almost

01:22:47.600 --> 01:22:50.120
joyful about that

01:22:50.120 --> 01:22:56.400
So but certainly detached certainly a sense of I could not get into that pain

01:22:56.400 --> 01:22:59.020
So just to address Dave's David's

01:22:59.020 --> 01:23:05.640
Point there was no getting into it. There was no becoming identical to the one suffering it

01:23:05.640 --> 01:23:10.160
So there was a sense of freedom around it that freedom that it's always there

01:23:10.160 --> 01:23:13.720
So so at least that was a taste of that

01:23:13.720 --> 01:23:18.560
Sure, you know discomfort real high discomfort level and to

01:23:19.080 --> 01:23:23.960
Potentially being death and then there was no remorsefulness. It was kind of like what's next

01:23:23.960 --> 01:23:31.580
It was it was like that. Yeah, Woody Allen said I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens happens, right?

01:23:31.580 --> 01:23:33.580
Yeah

01:23:33.580 --> 01:23:40.000
Yeah, talking about falling they go I don't mind falling I just it's the abrupt stop at the yeah, it's the landing

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:44.840
Here's a question from somebody named Marie in the u.s

01:23:44.840 --> 01:23:53.840
Dan, do you still engage in formal practice or contemplation of some sort, or did any need or impulse to do this drop away with the final non-dual insight?

01:23:53.840 --> 01:23:57.840
What do you recommend to your students in this regard?

01:23:57.840 --> 01:24:00.840
In regards to, at some point...

01:24:00.840 --> 01:24:02.840
Formal practice of some sort.

01:24:02.840 --> 01:24:09.840
Yeah. Well, so there's one point around, do you keep doing a lot of practices?

01:24:09.840 --> 01:24:12.840
practices and so when I talk to students I say,

01:24:12.840 --> 01:24:16.240
I don't encourage you to spread yourself around so much pick

01:24:16.240 --> 01:24:19.840
something that you really feel is meaningful significant that

01:24:19.840 --> 01:24:21.340
has a big impact.

01:24:21.340 --> 01:24:25.840
It seems like your path and I would say as soon as you can

01:24:25.840 --> 01:24:30.340
commit to that, you know, don't dig a bunch of shallow holes.

01:24:30.340 --> 01:24:31.840
So she's not asking this.

01:24:31.840 --> 01:24:35.040
I don't think exactly but so I would say at some point.

01:24:35.040 --> 01:24:39.340
So whatever it was 12 years ago or something like that, you

01:24:39.340 --> 01:24:42.900
of the way after awakening that was the

01:24:42.900 --> 01:24:45.140
other self-inquiry there was a little bit

01:24:45.140 --> 01:24:48.340
of looking looking around so looking

01:24:48.340 --> 01:24:51.300
continued there's still like is it here

01:24:51.300 --> 01:24:54.900
is it is anything here nope okay keep

01:24:54.900 --> 01:24:56.740
but keep looking because the looking had

01:24:56.740 --> 01:24:58.180
gone on so long but then eventually

01:24:58.180 --> 01:25:00.660
that's just the end of self-inquiry

01:25:00.660 --> 01:25:03.100
practice there's no sense of self to

01:25:03.100 --> 01:25:05.100
inquire into anymore there's just such a

01:25:05.100 --> 01:25:08.540
sense of clarity and in the end of that

01:25:08.540 --> 01:25:18.040
that nothing to do but the new practice so the sense of awareness or presence

01:25:18.040 --> 01:25:24.180
awareing around but that continued it was just wasn't channeled towards self

01:25:24.180 --> 01:25:29.820
investigation it was now it was kind of like explore what's the nature of so

01:25:29.820 --> 01:25:33.660
sometimes I'll say this to a student I'll go so you're starting to come into

01:25:33.660 --> 01:25:40.380
you have a sense of awareness. Explore this awareness. There's a sense of self that's there.

01:25:40.380 --> 01:25:44.860
Explore that. The sense of self disappears and the awareness becomes very pronounced.

01:25:44.860 --> 01:25:50.700
Check out this pronounced sense of awareness experience. So, you're already prepping for that

01:25:50.700 --> 01:25:59.260
in what they're doing. And then as you go through these stages and like I said, awakening out

01:25:59.260 --> 01:26:06.540
away from the end of the sense of identification or sense of self is a major turning point.

01:26:06.540 --> 01:26:13.420
But yet the process continues. So it's almost like, and this sounds a little trite, but life

01:26:13.420 --> 01:26:19.740
becomes a meditation. There's just a natural reflection, I would say a contemplation.

01:26:19.740 --> 01:26:27.900
It's more just an ongoing contemplative process, just reflecting on, "Wow, what's the

01:26:27.900 --> 01:26:35.740
nature of these other dimensions of experience? What's that? It's all about the direct experience.

01:26:35.740 --> 01:26:45.980
So in that sense, you could call that a practice. But it's not, like I said, it becomes more,

01:26:45.980 --> 01:26:52.300
and I think that's a good way to look at this is, you know, let self-inquiry, self-investigation,

01:26:52.300 --> 01:27:01.420
deep self-investigation is your calling, you know, then dive in and let it show you, in a sense,

01:27:01.420 --> 01:27:08.220
let what you see show you the way to go. You know, let it become the way you live your life,

01:27:08.220 --> 01:27:14.140
not something that you do at special times during the day. You know, I don't agree with that idea

01:27:14.140 --> 01:27:20.380
that you just isolate certain portions of your life and say, "I do really intense meditation here,

01:27:20.380 --> 01:27:25.820
but then I don't. The rest of the time I'm just, you know, living my life and doing whatever.

01:27:25.820 --> 01:27:31.260
I'd say let it infiltrate the rest of your life. It's what you do.

01:27:31.260 --> 01:27:39.820
Yeah. Also, I meditate a couple hours a day if you add it all up. And it has its place. I don't

01:27:39.820 --> 01:27:43.900
meditate all day. I don't eat all day. I don't take a shower all day. I don't sleep all day.

01:27:45.100 --> 01:27:50.860
The day is apportioned into these various things, and like you said earlier, this awakening

01:27:50.860 --> 01:27:55.740
has an influence on the neurophysiology, on the mind-body system.

01:27:55.740 --> 01:28:03.860
So certainly meditation itself has a neurophysiological effect, but that kind of carries over into

01:28:03.860 --> 01:28:12.900
the day, and I think that the whole process is a continual refinement of the neurophysiology,

01:28:12.900 --> 01:28:14.980
an evolution of it over time.

01:28:14.980 --> 01:28:22.500
I would guess too on a deep level that your meditation never ends.

01:28:22.500 --> 01:28:23.500
True.

01:28:23.500 --> 01:28:29.820
On some level you're always, whatever it is, that it's always there.

01:28:29.820 --> 01:28:30.820
Yes.

01:28:30.820 --> 01:28:31.820
That it's infiltrated the rest.

01:28:31.820 --> 01:28:33.660
You can't turn it off completely.

01:28:33.660 --> 01:28:37.940
You can't say, "Now I'm not doing that and I'm doing this other thing."

01:28:37.940 --> 01:28:38.940
No.

01:28:38.940 --> 01:28:39.940
Yeah.

01:28:39.940 --> 01:28:43.860
>>Jeffrey Yeah, you could say that what you initially

01:28:43.860 --> 01:28:49.620
started meditating to reach ends up being there all the time, but it's still nice to meditate

01:28:49.620 --> 01:28:55.800
because it gives the mind-body a chance to just settle down into a state of deep quiescence

01:28:55.800 --> 01:28:56.800
and rest.

01:28:56.800 --> 01:29:00.420
I'm told the Buddha meditated all his life, you know.

01:29:00.420 --> 01:29:05.420
So, but you know, that's an individual consideration, not something I'm saying everybody should

01:29:05.420 --> 01:29:06.420
do.

01:29:06.420 --> 01:29:12.900
kind of became my life's habit and it's saved me from being a high school dropout drug fiend to

01:29:12.900 --> 01:29:20.260
live a constructive life. Well, and I think though those, like I would say, sometimes

01:29:20.260 --> 01:29:27.940
at night, just to talk in regular terms, at night, the mind's very active. And so, the pasana

01:29:27.940 --> 01:29:34.100
comes back. Yeah. You know, watching the breath. It's a very natural, it went on for years,

01:29:34.100 --> 01:29:40.900
hadn't, you know, no formal practice for years and yet it's right there. And it's a very, and I think

01:29:40.900 --> 01:29:46.340
this is what I read about the Buddha around that, it's like to go into certain meditative conditions

01:29:46.340 --> 01:29:51.700
at certain times, it's just, it's enjoyable to do and it's very… It's good for you.

01:29:51.700 --> 01:29:56.900
It has a really great effect. Yeah, like getting a good night's sleep. It's just a different state

01:29:56.900 --> 01:30:01.540
that has a different effect, but it's comparable. So in that sense, I think…

01:30:01.540 --> 01:30:03.020
- What you were saying a few minutes ago,

01:30:03.020 --> 01:30:04.060
I wanted to just come back to,

01:30:04.060 --> 01:30:06.320
you were saying how somehow your orientation

01:30:06.320 --> 01:30:09.280
has shifted to exploring what this is,

01:30:09.280 --> 01:30:11.660
you know, the subtler levels of-

01:30:11.660 --> 01:30:12.640
- The dimensions of-

01:30:12.640 --> 01:30:14.520
- Dimensions and stuff.

01:30:14.520 --> 01:30:18.680
And it reminds me of that topology I outlined earlier,

01:30:18.680 --> 01:30:20.220
which is that, you know,

01:30:20.220 --> 01:30:24.400
the teacher who I learned that from used to say that,

01:30:24.400 --> 01:30:27.080
you know, until you know who or what you are,

01:30:27.080 --> 01:30:28.680
you can't really know what all this is.

01:30:28.680 --> 01:30:30.360
I mean, who knows it, you know?

01:30:30.360 --> 01:30:37.800
has to be that foundation for any significant appreciation of the world to develop. But once

01:30:37.800 --> 01:30:43.480
that foundation is established, then you can really begin to enhance your appreciation of

01:30:43.480 --> 01:30:49.480
creation, including all of its subtle values, subtle realms, subtle dimensions. And it sounds

01:30:49.480 --> 01:30:54.200
like that's kind of what's happening to you. Yeah. Well, I would say that there's a big overlap,

01:30:54.200 --> 01:31:01.800
though in that. So even when there's you know a lot of struggle that seems to be going on or

01:31:01.800 --> 01:31:09.560
a sense of identity that still persists, you're getting flashes of things. You're getting flashes

01:31:09.560 --> 01:31:19.800
of like I can remember you know 15, 18 years ago sitting and just doing formal self-inquiry and

01:31:20.600 --> 01:31:30.360
then later, after the fact, it just sort of came to me that this thing that feels much more fleshed

01:31:30.360 --> 01:31:36.200
out now, a sense of dimension around. At the time I thought, "Am I imagining that I'm psychic and I'm

01:31:36.200 --> 01:31:41.960
doing…?" What is it they did with the government, did those projects with projecting the…

01:31:41.960 --> 01:31:43.880
>> RICK: Oh, yeah. Remote viewing.

01:31:43.880 --> 01:31:45.640
>> TOM: Remote viewing, yeah. So, I thought…

01:31:45.640 --> 01:31:47.560
>> RICK: MK Ultra or something like that.

01:31:47.560 --> 01:31:52.280
Right, right. So I said, "Oh, is this kind of a remote viewing thing? It's like I can see the

01:31:52.280 --> 01:31:58.200
back of the leaves, the side that's not facing me in the house." And that was the beginning,

01:31:58.200 --> 01:32:04.440
though, of feeling this other dimension of things. And it's the same with people. Like,

01:32:04.440 --> 01:32:09.080
without realizing it, there was, for quite a while, people would say, "Wow, you're pretty

01:32:09.080 --> 01:32:13.320
perceptive." You know, they'd say something like that to describe it. But it was just like I was

01:32:13.320 --> 01:32:19.280
picking up on things without making it sound too new agey, woo woo stuff.

01:32:19.280 --> 01:32:25.080
But it's kind of like at some point you just have to go, "There's something to this."

01:32:25.080 --> 01:32:30.240
There's a sense here, I'm like, "I'm just going to open, let it be."

01:32:30.240 --> 01:32:33.000
Even though the mind is saying, "Oh, that's bullshit."

01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:37.640
You know, or you're just imagining things.

01:32:37.640 --> 01:32:44.600
And I think that's part of what develops with this is a sense of openness to this other

01:32:44.600 --> 01:32:45.720
dimension of life.

01:32:45.720 --> 01:32:51.280
And I would say now it's hard to imagine life without this constant sense of that.

01:32:51.280 --> 01:32:54.600
It just gives such a depth to every…

01:32:54.600 --> 01:32:55.600
Remember that movie Contact?

01:32:55.600 --> 01:32:57.160
>>Rick: Oh, I love that.

01:32:57.160 --> 01:32:58.640
The Jodie Foster, right?

01:32:58.640 --> 01:32:59.640
>>John: Yeah.

01:32:59.640 --> 01:33:02.080
So you remember when they're looking at the… they're working with it.

01:33:02.080 --> 01:33:08.800
get that first they get the audio signal and they record it and they go oh there's more here and

01:33:08.800 --> 01:33:15.040
then they go oh yeah there's a there's a video you know depth that's attached to it so then they look

01:33:15.040 --> 01:33:21.920
at that and it's another dimension it's a great dimensional model for this so then you see that

01:33:21.920 --> 01:33:28.560
that audio level and then or the video level right and it's on the same signal but it's piggybacking

01:33:28.560 --> 01:33:35.120
on it. And then they continue to study it and then they find an engineering thing that's

01:33:35.120 --> 01:33:40.400
built into the pixels of the video image. And then they can't figure out how to put

01:33:40.400 --> 01:33:42.320
the pages together. You remember that?

01:33:42.320 --> 01:33:46.200
I don't remember. It's like 30 years since I saw that movie.

01:33:46.200 --> 01:33:52.520
I loved it because of this metaphor. And then finally, they get some really smart guys on

01:33:52.520 --> 01:33:59.880
it and they realize they have to find a primer. How do we read the language that's on this

01:33:59.880 --> 01:34:03.360
engineering thing? And then they, so they have all these images and they've tried all

01:34:03.360 --> 01:34:07.520
these configurations and they can't figure out how they fit together. And then somebody

01:34:07.520 --> 01:34:13.760
says they're in three dimensions. So they bend it and they put it in a three-dimensional

01:34:13.760 --> 01:34:21.400
matrix and then they go, there it is. At every corner is the primer or the thing that tells

01:34:21.400 --> 01:34:24.080
you how to interpret the language.

01:34:24.080 --> 01:34:27.000
And so, that's kind of the way this is.

01:34:27.000 --> 01:34:28.000
Life is like that.

01:34:28.000 --> 01:34:30.080
I mean, this is existence.

01:34:30.080 --> 01:34:31.680
It has these dimensions.

01:34:31.680 --> 01:34:39.760
And gradually, I think the awakening process, most of it is about discovering that dimension

01:34:39.760 --> 01:34:42.760
of existence, these other dimensions.

01:34:42.760 --> 01:34:47.200
It's not this getting beyond the sense of self.

01:34:47.200 --> 01:34:50.160
It's a big step, but it's just the beginning.

01:34:50.160 --> 01:34:55.200
>>JONATHAN I love that, yeah, I love what you're saying. In fact, if I had to define the term

01:34:55.200 --> 01:34:58.880
enlightenment, which I don't like to use, I don't like to use that term, but if I had to define it,

01:34:58.880 --> 01:35:07.200
it would be the sort of development of the capacity to incorporate within your experience

01:35:07.200 --> 01:35:11.760
the full range of life's dimensions from the most manifest to the unmanifest,

01:35:11.760 --> 01:35:14.640
and there's a great range in between those two extremes.

01:35:14.640 --> 01:35:16.240
>>MIKE Yeah, yeah, that's great.

01:35:16.240 --> 01:35:17.040
>>JONATHAN Yeah.

01:35:17.040 --> 01:35:18.040
Yeah.

01:35:18.040 --> 01:35:19.040
Yeah.

01:35:19.040 --> 01:35:22.600
But you only know that, the funny thing is you cannot get your brain around that.

01:35:22.600 --> 01:35:24.800
Like what would that be like?

01:35:24.800 --> 01:35:26.400
You can experience it directly.

01:35:26.400 --> 01:35:28.040
I mean that's what it's all about.

01:35:28.040 --> 01:35:32.680
And when you experience it directly, I like to talk about this because I don't have a

01:35:32.680 --> 01:35:44.280
better way of referring to it, but we start to rely on intuitive knowing instead of intellect.

01:35:44.280 --> 01:35:48.100
And you realize that that gives you, that's the right tool.

01:35:48.100 --> 01:35:54.280
That gives you this dimension of experience and it's almost like you see, feel, perceive,

01:35:54.280 --> 01:35:57.740
feel the truth of something.

01:35:57.740 --> 01:36:01.680
And then you just become, I would say with awakening, you just become very comfortable

01:36:01.680 --> 01:36:09.760
with that dimension always being present and accessing it, like I said, through this, like

01:36:09.760 --> 01:36:17.200
It's almost like you develop a new sense, these new senses, sensory apparatus.

01:36:17.200 --> 01:36:18.200
Very true.

01:36:18.200 --> 01:36:21.800
Yeah, you're right up my alley.

01:36:21.800 --> 01:36:26.520
Have you heard of the Telepathy Tapes podcast?

01:36:26.520 --> 01:36:30.960
It's this really cool podcast, which actually at one point was the most popular podcast in

01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:33.600
the world, surpassing Joe Rogan.

01:36:33.600 --> 01:36:34.600
Really?

01:36:34.600 --> 01:36:35.600
Yeah.

01:36:35.600 --> 01:36:39.480
In fact, he had her on his show, the lady who put this thing together.

01:36:39.480 --> 01:36:44.000
But it's, and I've had the scientist who was involved in it on my show a couple of times,

01:36:44.000 --> 01:36:45.600
Diane Hennessey Powell.

01:36:45.600 --> 01:36:51.080
But what it's about is these autistic kids who are nonverbal, they can't really speak,

01:36:51.080 --> 01:36:55.120
they have to use a letter board or an iPad or something to communicate, but they are

01:36:55.120 --> 01:36:57.560
extraordinarily telepathic.

01:36:57.560 --> 01:36:58.560
Like they can sit...

01:36:58.560 --> 01:37:00.480
>>Rick: I think I heard about that.

01:37:00.480 --> 01:37:03.920
>>Brett: Yeah, they can sit with their mother, and let's say their mother has a shuffled deck

01:37:03.920 --> 01:37:09.040
of cards and they can't see what she's looking at, and they'll get like 98% accuracy, you know,

01:37:09.040 --> 01:37:16.000
telling you what card she's looking at as she goes through them. And in addition to that, these kids

01:37:16.000 --> 01:37:20.800
can't really carry on a conversation. No, not invert, no, they can't really speak most of them.

01:37:20.800 --> 01:37:26.240
So they're open to this subtle dimension and these certain subtle capabilities, even though they're

01:37:26.240 --> 01:37:33.440
kind of not able to function in the ordinary gross dimension so well. But in addition to this,

01:37:33.440 --> 01:37:40.560
they have this thing called The Hill, where they meet at night, and they're from all over the world,

01:37:40.560 --> 01:37:46.000
and they meet with each other and talk with each other and communicate and share ideas and stuff.

01:37:46.000 --> 01:37:47.600
>>JF: Is this on a computer or this is a--?

01:37:47.600 --> 01:37:52.160
>>BF: No, it's like some kind of a Akashic internet or something, you know?

01:37:52.160 --> 01:37:53.120
>>JF: Oh, okay.

01:37:53.120 --> 01:37:59.840
>>BF: Where they're just tuning in to some collective field. And it's a fascinating podcast,

01:37:59.840 --> 01:38:04.960
which is why it became so popular and it's extremely well produced. But these kids feel like, you know,

01:38:04.960 --> 01:38:10.480
there is this sort of spiritual unfolding taking place in the world and they're playing a part in

01:38:10.480 --> 01:38:17.120
helping to catalyze it. Wow, yeah, that's interesting. Do you mind sending me the, do you have a link or

01:38:17.120 --> 01:38:20.960
something you can send me later? Yeah, I will send it to you and anybody listening, if you just search

01:38:20.960 --> 01:38:28.240
for the telepathy tapes, it'll come right up. I love that idea that they actually can go to this

01:38:28.240 --> 01:38:34.720
dimensional space where they meet. And somehow they're able to communicate that back.

01:38:34.720 --> 01:38:38.720
>>Rick: Yeah, and it's not just their say-so. I mean, you know, they'll tell their mother,

01:38:38.720 --> 01:38:43.920
"I experienced this on the hill," and she'll check with the mother of some kid in New Zealand or

01:38:43.920 --> 01:38:48.240
something. "Yeah, my son said the same thing to me." >>John: Right. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

01:38:48.240 --> 01:38:54.960
>>Rick: Yeah. Pretty neat. Okay, let's get back to some more of these questions people have sent in.

01:38:56.080 --> 01:39:05.120
This one is from, oh, another Scott, Kenny Hogan in Scotland. "I spent a few days with family and my

01:39:05.120 --> 01:39:10.240
mind was fully occupied with thoughts relating to the ongoing activities. When I returned home,

01:39:10.240 --> 01:39:15.360
I really had to ground my awareness and return to my realized self. Would you say this is the

01:39:15.360 --> 01:39:20.320
correct way to go about life from day to day, where I allow myself to be pulled out of my

01:39:20.320 --> 01:39:24.080
effortless state of mind to ensure I maintain a stable family life?"

01:39:24.960 --> 01:39:29.280
Well, yeah, there's a couple things there. So, do you have to do that to maintain,

01:39:29.280 --> 01:39:36.480
do you have to get pulled into things to maintain a good family life? I would say no. I would say no,

01:39:36.480 --> 01:39:43.200
there's another, there's an alternative to that. And I think that, I would say that as this,

01:39:43.200 --> 01:39:51.680
as this progresses, at least my experience with it was, I became much more functional with family.

01:39:51.680 --> 01:39:57.720
It was you could do it with your eyes closed kind of thing rather than feeling so drawn into the drama and all that kind of stuff

01:39:57.720 --> 01:40:00.640
But

01:40:00.640 --> 01:40:06.960
Well, I don't know what he means by realized self like come back. I come back and I go to my realized self

01:40:06.960 --> 01:40:09.240
So I'm well

01:40:09.240 --> 01:40:11.400
my sense of this question is

01:40:11.400 --> 01:40:16.860
You know how it there's sort of a tenderness or delicacy to realization

01:40:16.860 --> 01:40:22.580
initially where you kind of lose it if you get into an excited situation.

01:40:22.580 --> 01:40:30.140
But eventually you maintain it even in excited situations or stimulating situations and it

01:40:30.140 --> 01:40:32.540
gets more stabilized, it gets more integrated.

01:40:32.540 --> 01:40:36.940
And eventually I think for most people you kind of lose interest in getting into, you

01:40:36.940 --> 01:40:41.460
don't go to discos at 2 in the morning and stuff, you just don't need that kind of stimulation,

01:40:41.460 --> 01:40:42.660
that's not where you get your ya-ya's.

01:40:42.660 --> 01:40:43.660
Yeah, yeah.

01:40:43.660 --> 01:40:50.580
Yeah, well, it becomes really obvious that a lot of temporal, you know, a lot of, you

01:40:50.580 --> 01:40:56.460
know, sensory distraction and overload is not all that pleasant.

01:40:56.460 --> 01:41:00.620
So I think now, and I would say that's actually it's a little bit of a side point from what

01:41:00.620 --> 01:41:02.340
this gentleman's talking about.

01:41:02.340 --> 01:41:05.580
But I noticed that a lot of that falls away.

01:41:05.580 --> 01:41:07.700
It's like, yeah, parties.

01:41:07.700 --> 01:41:08.700
I don't care.

01:41:08.700 --> 01:41:09.700
I don't care.

01:41:09.700 --> 01:41:13.100
you know, after going to a couple of parties and just, you know,

01:41:13.100 --> 01:41:18.300
wanting the conversation to move toward something of substance and not seeing

01:41:18.300 --> 01:41:21.940
it happen and feeling like, what is all this talk about? You know,

01:41:21.940 --> 01:41:24.900
it's all me, me, me stuff, you know? Um,

01:41:24.900 --> 01:41:28.340
it just became uninteresting to be, to be part of that.

01:41:28.340 --> 01:41:32.620
So a lot of that kind of falls away anyway, I think also affects family.

01:41:32.620 --> 01:41:35.940
Um, but again, I would want to know, well,

01:41:36.260 --> 01:41:40.260
I was going to talk to this gentleman, I'd say, and he can send me an email if he wants.

01:41:40.260 --> 01:41:47.780
But what is going back to the realized self? What's going on there? What are you doing when

01:41:47.780 --> 01:41:53.300
you come back? Because ultimately, whatever your practice is, what we were talking about earlier,

01:41:53.300 --> 01:41:58.100
it's like, let it infiltrate the rest of your life. You're sitting there talking to your mother,

01:41:58.100 --> 01:42:05.300
and she's triggering all this stuff. For example, sit there and look in and go, who's feeling

01:42:05.300 --> 01:42:07.660
Feeling tension, who's feeling that?

01:42:07.660 --> 01:42:09.820
I am, I am.

01:42:09.820 --> 01:42:10.820
What is that?

01:42:10.820 --> 01:42:11.820
Is that me?

01:42:11.820 --> 01:42:12.820
Am I really there?

01:42:12.820 --> 01:42:13.820
What's going on?

01:42:13.820 --> 01:42:14.820
I mean, that's that investigative.

01:42:14.820 --> 01:42:19.740
And then maybe having a little bit of a breakthrough, like all of a sudden there's mom jabbering

01:42:19.740 --> 01:42:24.100
on and there's a sense of detachment and going, "Oh, okay.

01:42:24.100 --> 01:42:26.020
Now this is interesting."

01:42:26.020 --> 01:42:31.300
So I think that bringing that in there and ultimately the realized self, it's not like

01:42:31.300 --> 01:42:36.660
Like you get in touch with the realized self and then it's gone and we really have to eventually

01:42:36.660 --> 01:42:43.820
see through this coming and going of being, of true or whatever we call it, the realized

01:42:43.820 --> 01:42:45.980
self.

01:42:45.980 --> 01:42:47.860
So it's never gone.

01:42:47.860 --> 01:42:48.860
It's always here.

01:42:48.860 --> 01:42:51.620
It's accessible everywhere.

01:42:51.620 --> 01:42:53.060
Let's check that out.

01:42:53.060 --> 01:42:54.060
Let's find out.

01:42:54.060 --> 01:42:58.100
It reminds me of something Ram Dass said, "If you think you're enlightened, go spend

01:42:58.100 --> 01:42:59.260
a week with your parents."

01:42:59.260 --> 01:43:08.020
Yeah. And maybe that week will tell you, I'm enlightened. You know? Yeah. Hey, it

01:43:08.020 --> 01:43:12.460
doesn't it doesn't matter anymore. But yeah, that's the, I think family turns out

01:43:12.460 --> 01:43:17.860
that that's one of those big trigger areas. And most people say, well I can do

01:43:17.860 --> 01:43:22.500
my practice but when I go there, and I did this at work too for a while, there

01:43:22.500 --> 01:43:27.260
was a sense of like, I mean, I was managing a department, I had to have

01:43:27.260 --> 01:43:32.380
meetings, I had to give talks, I had to do presentations, I had to... and I remember at

01:43:32.380 --> 01:43:39.900
Apple in the middle of a of a training exercise for a bunch of managers and then just going,

01:43:39.900 --> 01:43:45.020
who's standing up here talking, you know, really looking in and then just like I was another person,

01:43:45.020 --> 01:43:51.740
I was just floating awareness in the room and then and just seeing and this is very impacting,

01:43:51.740 --> 01:43:59.900
There's Dan waving his arms and pointing at the board and going on and I have nothing to do with

01:43:59.900 --> 01:44:07.500
it. It's just running on its own. So that sense of experiencing that sense of space was just very

01:44:07.500 --> 01:44:15.340
profound. It never left, but it definitely muted down, but it was always as part of this cumulative

01:44:16.060 --> 01:44:20.060
impact of having flashes of insight. So, yeah.

01:44:20.060 --> 01:44:26.940
>>Cumulative, that's a good word. It tends to be cumulative for most people and, you know,

01:44:26.940 --> 01:44:33.260
and eventually accumulates to the point where it seldom, if ever, seems to go away.

01:44:33.260 --> 01:44:33.980
>>Right.

01:44:33.980 --> 01:44:37.100
>>But it takes time and integration. Pardon?

01:44:37.100 --> 01:44:42.300
>>I think that's easy to miss, that every time you expose yourself, that's why I say,

01:44:42.860 --> 01:44:53.740
sometimes I just make a joke and go, "You've got to do 30,000 self-investigation actions. Do 30,000

01:44:53.740 --> 01:44:59.260
of them." I don't know what the number is, but there is a cumulative effect to that. Each time

01:44:59.260 --> 01:45:07.260
there's… even if we don't come right to selfless awareness in the process, that little incremental

01:45:07.980 --> 01:45:11.420
Insight is it stays with you. It's it's it's

01:45:11.420 --> 01:45:14.420
accumulating somewhere and

01:45:14.420 --> 01:45:15.820
It's adding to this

01:45:15.820 --> 01:45:23.180
That's why these big the big breakthroughs where there's this complete sense of clarity around something that was confusing for a long time

01:45:23.180 --> 01:45:30.820
They just seem to emerge in the moment, but they it wasn't what you were doing in that moment that brought it about so

01:45:30.820 --> 01:45:35.180
What you've been doing all these years, whatever you've been doing all these years. Yeah

01:45:35.180 --> 01:45:38.180
Yeah. Did you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers?

01:45:38.180 --> 01:45:41.180
That sounds familiar, but I can't remember what it was about.

01:45:41.180 --> 01:45:57.180
Yeah. He talked about 10,000 hours, and he used the Beatles, Bill Gates, and a couple other people as examples of people who had put in 10,000 hours of practice or training in whatever they were doing, and then they became as great as they became because of that.

01:45:57.180 --> 01:46:04.540
Yeah, right. Yeah. I think I've heard that concept before of right with athletes. There's a lot of athletes. It's like look

01:46:04.540 --> 01:46:10.300
It's all that work that you're doing it is if it's affecting something. Mm-hmm. Yeah

01:46:10.300 --> 01:46:13.220
Okay, let's see

01:46:13.220 --> 01:46:16.380
This is from Martin Klein in Germany

01:46:16.380 --> 01:46:21.380
I doubt that the sense of me is usually in the middle of people's awareness

01:46:22.020 --> 01:46:28.200
Quite the opposite. I would claim that the majority of people are not aware of themselves most of the time other than a diffuse

01:46:28.200 --> 01:46:36.100
Sensation but not really conscious in the sense. What do I sense in this moment? What do I feel in this moment?

01:46:36.100 --> 01:46:39.060
What do I think in this moment? What do you think of this?

01:46:39.060 --> 01:46:43.140
Yeah, well, I would say that diffuse sense of I

01:46:43.140 --> 01:46:48.880
Think what I would say is that most people hang out in the in-between zone

01:46:49.500 --> 01:46:53.740
They're not all the way in to the sense of their attention isn't all the way in and it's not

01:46:53.740 --> 01:46:59.880
It's not all the way out. There's sort of a vague sense of self like that, but that is the sense of self

01:46:59.880 --> 01:47:01.880
It's that diffused

01:47:01.880 --> 01:47:03.520
sense

01:47:03.520 --> 01:47:05.820
Kind of meet the cloud of meanness

01:47:05.820 --> 01:47:12.460
That we're talking about that is the eye sense. So I would say well, that's exactly what we're talking about

01:47:12.460 --> 01:47:17.960
And that is something I would probably disagree with them and say you are aware of that all the time

01:47:17.960 --> 01:47:26.200
and it just feels like the wallpaper, you know, it's in the background. But you can look at language,

01:47:26.200 --> 01:47:31.080
look at reference points and everything. Everything is back to you. It's about you,

01:47:31.080 --> 01:47:36.360
how's this person, you know, do I want to meet them, what can they do for me, what might come

01:47:36.360 --> 01:47:43.400
of this meeting, this situation, is it going to benefit me? So, you can just look at how the mind

01:47:43.400 --> 01:47:51.320
and how you think about things moment to moment, day to day, and see how much of it is referencing

01:47:51.320 --> 01:47:54.120
that vague sense of self. >> Okay.

01:47:54.120 --> 01:47:56.200
>> And it has to-- >> I'm sorry.

01:47:56.200 --> 01:47:59.240
>> I'm sorry. No, you go. >> Well, it has to be vague too,

01:47:59.240 --> 01:48:01.240
because it's not-- >> Right, it's subtle.

01:48:01.240 --> 01:48:03.080
>> It's not real. >> Right.

01:48:03.080 --> 01:48:09.960
>> It's got to be, it's mirage-like, because you go to a center of a mirage and you don't find water,

01:48:09.960 --> 01:48:16.840
you know? So, and yet that's what makes it work. And I'd say that's the divine beauty of it is,

01:48:16.840 --> 01:48:23.480
man, is it persistent or what? Without having any real substance to it. So.

01:48:23.480 --> 01:48:31.080
>> I wonder if the sort of absolutely persistent nature of consciousness itself

01:48:31.880 --> 01:48:41.880
kind of bleeds into or lends a sense of persistency to the "I" sense, the ahamkara in Sanskrit.

01:48:41.880 --> 01:48:49.320
Yeah, absolutely. I would say that... So I made a joke about this. I say, "Look,

01:48:49.320 --> 01:48:54.600
the thing that gives credibility to the 'I' sense cluster, whatever that has to be,

01:48:54.600 --> 01:49:00.200
a sense of the body, a sense of, you know, location, things like that, the thing that

01:49:00.200 --> 01:49:06.680
that gives credibility to it, that gets it into the party, is the presence of awareness.

01:49:06.680 --> 01:49:08.200
It's always there.

01:49:08.200 --> 01:49:11.680
And the mind loops it in.

01:49:11.680 --> 01:49:17.480
And so, it's kind of like, so I talk about it as three strangers and one familiar person

01:49:17.480 --> 01:49:19.600
to the party that they're going to.

01:49:19.600 --> 01:49:23.040
They go there and they see these strangers show up in the porch.

01:49:23.040 --> 01:49:28.800
The person that gets them in the door is the one they know, right?

01:49:28.800 --> 01:49:37.360
what lends credibility to this sense of self. So I think the presence of awareness is, and it's

01:49:37.360 --> 01:49:43.040
funny because this between your the beginning of looking at the sense of self to the very end,

01:49:43.040 --> 01:49:49.840
awareness is always there. It's always there to give weight and credibility to the sense of self.

01:49:49.840 --> 01:49:56.400
It's always present. We just start to realize it's not the things that cluster around it. It's not

01:49:56.400 --> 01:50:02.560
with the mind clusters together to say, "Well, this is you." So, even this person talking,

01:50:02.560 --> 01:50:09.600
that was talking about Klein, I think, that was talking about this vague kind of fuzzy sense of

01:50:09.600 --> 01:50:17.120
self. The thing that's most impacting and significant about that is awareness. But

01:50:17.120 --> 01:50:24.000
somehow the mind just has this ability to join them together and say, "Yeah, there you are."

01:50:24.800 --> 01:50:32.400
Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah. And at a certain stage, they get unjoined.

01:50:32.400 --> 01:50:36.720
And then at another stage, everything gets merged again. I mean, we go through these phases,

01:50:36.720 --> 01:50:44.320
building upon each phase. Ken Wilber talks about states and stages. States are like, you know,

01:50:44.320 --> 01:50:48.880
a state you can get into if you take LSD, or if you meditate for three hours, or this or that.

01:50:48.880 --> 01:50:53.840
And stages are more like stable platforms that get established eventually, and then

01:50:53.840 --> 01:50:59.120
build upon one another. So did you want to take us through some process?

01:50:59.120 --> 01:51:06.720
Yeah, let's do it. Okay, tell us what to do. Yeah, okay, I'll talk to us. Take my glasses off.

01:51:06.720 --> 01:51:15.600
So, let's see, what's a good place to go into? So normally the person comes and they say, "Yeah,

01:51:15.600 --> 01:51:19.840
this is what I'm trying to do. So why don't you tell me what you'd like to take a look at,

01:51:19.840 --> 01:51:25.840
and give me sort of a walk-in, because you know, you understand a lot about self-inquiry,

01:51:25.840 --> 01:51:34.080
self-investigation already. Why don't you take me in, like, how do you look at, if you're,

01:51:34.080 --> 01:51:39.280
if you were going to question, well, who am I? Yeah, just maybe talk me through the beginning.

01:51:39.280 --> 01:51:42.560
I don't know if I'm a good subject, because I don't do that. Yeah, I just kind of,

01:51:44.320 --> 01:51:52.320
Okay. You know, I have had my own process which has yielded good results, but I've never used this sort

01:51:52.320 --> 01:52:00.800
of self-inquiry method really. So I have an idea. Okay, I'll just dive in. So what makes you feel

01:52:00.800 --> 01:52:10.080
like you're, what is the most, what gives the strongest sense that you are located there in

01:52:10.080 --> 01:52:19.360
that chair? I'm only, let me put it this way, I've said this before, but if I had to describe my

01:52:19.360 --> 01:52:27.200
experience, I'm everywhere, I'm nowhere, and I'm right here in the chair. And both, all three of

01:52:27.200 --> 01:52:33.920
those flavors, they're not like distinct, discrete, concrete things, they're more just like flavors

01:52:33.920 --> 01:52:40.400
that sort of like, if I reflect on my experience, all those components or qualities are there.

01:52:40.400 --> 01:52:44.800
And the fact that I'm in the chair here and haven't got stood up for two hours, you know,

01:52:44.800 --> 01:52:49.920
I feel like stretching, go and get some exercise, but you know, that's certainly not the totality

01:52:49.920 --> 01:52:56.000
of my experience. So in what way are you everywhere? Just, and based on your, so we'll say

01:52:56.000 --> 01:53:02.320
this, based on your direct experience, your direct perception, not so much what you think. Right.

01:53:02.320 --> 01:53:03.520
No, it's a sense.

01:53:03.520 --> 01:53:04.960
How were you everywhere?

01:53:04.960 --> 01:53:05.360
Yeah.

01:53:05.360 --> 01:53:14.240
Sense of vastness, a sense of non-locality, you know, non-confinement, you know, just like

01:53:14.240 --> 01:53:15.600
no boundaries.

01:53:15.600 --> 01:53:19.120
Okay. So in that sense, you're not in the body.

01:53:19.120 --> 01:53:21.520
No, the body's in me.

01:53:21.520 --> 01:53:30.160
The body's in you, exactly. So then, in what sense are you then the body? Do you need to

01:53:30.160 --> 01:53:32.640
change does that need to change in any way?

01:53:32.640 --> 01:53:38.560
No. Is there something about this experience or that thought says that

01:53:38.560 --> 01:53:43.440
says well you got to be this too. Don't feel like it needs to change I feel like

01:53:43.440 --> 01:53:48.120
all is well and wisely put and the body is the instrument through which this is

01:53:48.120 --> 01:53:56.600
lived. Okay so this body here now is the instrument through which what is lived?

01:53:56.600 --> 01:54:04.600
this experience of, you know, life with all its dimensions, including the

01:54:04.600 --> 01:54:10.200
vastness and the silence and the activity and everything, the whole

01:54:10.200 --> 01:54:16.600
kit and caboodle. Right. So in that sense though, you in some way need to

01:54:16.600 --> 01:54:23.560
inhabit the body. I'd say that the body is necessary as a

01:54:23.560 --> 01:54:28.560
as a vehicle for reality to be a living experience,

01:54:28.560 --> 01:54:30.940
or you could even put it in terms of God,

01:54:30.940 --> 01:54:35.940
for God to have a living experience of his or her,

01:54:35.940 --> 01:54:39.900
its unmanifest nature.

01:54:39.900 --> 01:54:43.520
>> Right, so now that's an interesting idea,

01:54:43.520 --> 01:54:48.400
and it may be true, but if you're going to just describe

01:54:48.400 --> 01:54:51.240
your direct experience now,

01:54:51.240 --> 01:54:55.120
You don't really necessarily experience that, right?

01:54:55.120 --> 01:54:58.700
Perceive it directly, without thought, without thought.

01:54:58.700 --> 01:55:01.720
- No, that's more intellectual.

01:55:01.720 --> 01:55:04.940
The other stuff I just said earlier is more experiential,

01:55:04.940 --> 01:55:07.740
but that little bit is kind of a philosophical

01:55:07.740 --> 01:55:10.840
consideration.

01:55:10.840 --> 01:55:12.200
- So you said at the beginning, though,

01:55:12.200 --> 01:55:16.100
in some way you're in and as of the body in other ways.

01:55:16.100 --> 01:55:17.600
But again, if we don't think about it,

01:55:17.600 --> 01:55:21.200
if we just look for the evidence of that, right?

01:55:21.200 --> 01:55:25.440
What about direct experience verifies that or does it?

01:55:25.440 --> 01:55:31.440
Um, well, it's not like it's not like I am in and as the body, um, although the

01:55:31.440 --> 01:55:34.220
individual I sense

01:55:34.220 --> 01:55:36.220
occupies this body, um

01:55:36.220 --> 01:55:38.560
and

01:55:38.560 --> 01:55:44.720
Both seems to animate it and doesn't you know, it seems to be on automatic but on the other hand

01:55:44.720 --> 01:55:49.860
You know, there seems to be some volition. We never got into the subject of free will in this conversation

01:55:50.640 --> 01:56:00.400
but there seems to be some impetus or incentive that some individual faculty initiates.

01:56:00.400 --> 01:56:07.360
And I'm not just philosophizing here, I'm kind of introspecting on the way I function.

01:56:07.360 --> 01:56:14.640
>> Yeah. So, yeah, we can stay with, we'll stay with more the perception of these things rather

01:56:14.640 --> 01:56:18.640
than a description or interpretation.

01:56:18.640 --> 01:56:19.640
Okay.

01:56:19.640 --> 01:56:24.040
So, do you actually have a… let me just ask, I mean it sounds like I'm going to be repeating

01:56:24.040 --> 01:56:29.560
myself, but do you actually have a sense of being in the body as well as this other thing

01:56:29.560 --> 01:56:30.560
that's going on?

01:56:30.560 --> 01:56:32.040
But do you feel like you're in the body?

01:56:32.040 --> 01:56:34.440
Do you have a location?

01:56:34.440 --> 01:56:36.920
Or do you… it's more like the body's in you, right?

01:56:36.920 --> 01:56:37.920
Yeah, the latter.

01:56:37.920 --> 01:56:42.080
Maybe a little bit of both, you know, I mean there is certainly… my senses are in the

01:56:42.080 --> 01:56:48.320
body. I see out of my eyes, hear out of my ears, you know, around or in my immediate environment, but

01:56:48.320 --> 01:56:59.520
I'm not constrained by the limits of the body. >> Right. So let's take this, my senses.

01:56:59.520 --> 01:57:06.800
We know there's senses. There's a direct experience of sensory operation going on.

01:57:07.760 --> 01:57:16.320
But what makes a mine? Try to just go into the mine part, the owner. Can you find that the way you

01:57:16.320 --> 01:57:22.960
find the sense? Is that findable? Well, it's like... Without thinking about it. Okay.

01:57:22.960 --> 01:57:32.480
I guess maybe mine isn't the best word, but they are part of the functioning of this body.

01:57:32.480 --> 01:57:38.880
Like, right now, I can't look out your window and see your tree outside, and you can't see,

01:57:38.880 --> 01:57:44.320
you know, what's sitting on my desk here. We each function, our bodies function with

01:57:44.320 --> 01:57:51.360
certain limited range of capacity, and, you know, that's not who ultimately we are,

01:57:51.360 --> 01:57:55.200
but that's the limit that the instrument through which we live life has.

01:57:55.200 --> 01:57:58.480
>> Jeff: Well, I'm probably intellectualizing too much still.

01:57:58.480 --> 01:58:00.160
>> Steven: Yeah, so that's conceptual.

01:58:00.160 --> 01:58:00.960
>> Jeff: It is.

01:58:00.960 --> 01:58:05.160
So it's tricky because we're so, we spend nine days.

01:58:05.160 --> 01:58:09.360
I'm not used to doing this with you, so maybe if I sat with you regularly I would not get

01:58:09.360 --> 01:58:11.920
into this kind of mind game.

01:58:11.920 --> 01:58:17.680
So one of the things I do with this is I try to reverse this habit that we have of relying

01:58:17.680 --> 01:58:23.380
like 95% on thought to tell us what's going on and 5% on other faculties.

01:58:23.380 --> 01:58:29.320
And I'm saying, just like we're talking about these other dimensions of existence, there

01:58:29.320 --> 01:58:36.680
is a dimension of direct perceiving, I'll just use the word perceiving, or being aware of noticing,

01:58:36.680 --> 01:58:44.040
that has a great dimension to it to know, to understand. And so, I say, let's rely on that,

01:58:44.040 --> 01:58:48.120
we'll call it perception, just staying with perception, staying with aware of,

01:58:48.120 --> 01:58:54.680
noticing, and maybe five percent thought, so very little thought. So, we're going to rely… So,

01:58:54.680 --> 01:58:59.320
So there's a great, a really cool teacher guy I really love, Sailor Bob Adamson.

01:58:59.320 --> 01:59:00.320
Oh yeah, I know.

01:59:00.320 --> 01:59:01.320
He's Australian.

01:59:01.320 --> 01:59:02.320
Sure.

01:59:02.320 --> 01:59:03.320
He was always saying this.

01:59:03.320 --> 01:59:07.920
He'd go, "Where's the problem if you don't think about it?

01:59:07.920 --> 01:59:10.360
What's happening if you don't think about it?

01:59:10.360 --> 01:59:12.520
Who are you if you don't think about it?"

01:59:12.520 --> 01:59:17.400
And it was a great tool to just kind of immediately go, "Okay, so I'm not thinking about it.

01:59:17.400 --> 01:59:19.440
What do I know?"

01:59:19.440 --> 01:59:25.640
So it would really bring me back to this place of just perceiving.

01:59:25.640 --> 01:59:27.880
So just staying with this moment.

01:59:27.880 --> 01:59:29.880
So let's try this.

01:59:29.880 --> 01:59:34.600
I get that this is new to you, so I mean, we're doing fine here.

01:59:34.600 --> 01:59:36.800
And most of the stuff we do, we don't have to think about.

01:59:36.800 --> 01:59:41.560
If I'm riding my bicycle, I don't have to think, "Oop, rock, go around this rock, don't

01:59:41.560 --> 01:59:42.560
hit that tree."

01:59:42.560 --> 01:59:45.080
You know, it's like, everything's automatic.

01:59:45.080 --> 01:59:48.880
- Yeah, well, and there's many more things about that,

01:59:48.880 --> 01:59:51.280
many more things where that's true too,

01:59:51.280 --> 01:59:53.760
that we don't need to think about it.

01:59:53.760 --> 01:59:55.900
It's this incessant thing that's going on.

01:59:55.900 --> 01:59:59.720
So right now though, just using your hand,

01:59:59.720 --> 02:00:02.800
point to the center of yourself right now.

02:00:02.800 --> 02:00:06.940
This is the center of the feeling of personal presence.

02:00:06.940 --> 02:00:07.760
(laughing)

02:00:07.760 --> 02:00:08.600
Okay.

02:00:08.600 --> 02:00:11.660
So does it not have a center?

02:00:11.660 --> 02:00:12.800
Is that the feeling?

02:00:12.800 --> 02:00:14.240
Is that the perception?

02:00:14.240 --> 02:00:17.840
So you don't really have a center.

02:00:17.840 --> 02:00:20.800
No. Individuality?

02:00:20.800 --> 02:00:23.440
No, that's not true. Or no, you don't have a center.

02:00:23.440 --> 02:00:26.800
No. Well, the real you...

02:00:26.800 --> 02:00:30.640
I know it sounds like I'm intellectualizing, but this is experience.

02:00:30.640 --> 02:00:31.840
Yeah, try not to.

02:00:31.840 --> 02:00:36.240
The real you doesn't have a center. It's...

02:00:36.240 --> 02:00:40.240
I'm talking about just the sense of you now, you know.

02:00:40.240 --> 02:00:45.120
We're not thinking about the real us or the ultimate us or that kind of thing, the center of.

02:00:45.120 --> 02:00:53.840
If I said just say me and point to me, where would you point? Here? Here?

02:00:53.840 --> 02:00:55.760
No, I couldn't point anywhere really.

02:00:55.760 --> 02:01:03.440
Right. So it doesn't feel like there's… See, here's the thing, Rick. You're already seeing

02:01:03.440 --> 02:01:09.840
a lot of what I would point you to. You're not in the body. You don't have a low… you don't have a

02:01:09.840 --> 02:01:17.280
sense of location. You said at the beginning, the body is in you. That's not just relatively true,

02:01:17.280 --> 02:01:25.280
that's absolutely true. Whatever you are, you can feel it right now. The body is in it. The body,

02:01:25.280 --> 02:01:30.240
mind. If we go into the dimension of mind, which is another dimension other than physical,

02:01:30.240 --> 02:01:38.240
even that, emotional, it just rests in awareness. I mean, that is your direct experience.

02:01:38.240 --> 02:01:43.440
>> Yeah. I have a friend named Harry Alta who's been on the show three times. He said like if

02:01:43.440 --> 02:01:49.520
he's walking down the street, the whole environment is moving through him. It's not like he's going

02:01:49.520 --> 02:01:53.680
down the street. It's like cars, street, buildings, everything's moving through him.

02:01:53.680 --> 02:01:59.920
>> Right, right. Well, Douglas Harding, he's a teacher in England. He's a really sweet guy.

02:01:59.920 --> 02:02:04.000
And you described this headless process. >> Headless way, yeah.

02:02:04.000 --> 02:02:10.240
It was to get you in touch with the presence of awareness and how there's this other dimension

02:02:10.240 --> 02:02:15.120
of experience. And he would say the same thing, you know, notice that as you're moving down the

02:02:15.120 --> 02:02:20.080
road, the road moves through you as you're driving along, even the hands. And actually, I remember an

02:02:20.080 --> 02:02:28.480
acid LSD experience that was like that. And it was just so distinct that the hands were steering the

02:02:28.480 --> 02:02:35.760
wheel to the car and that I was not. There's a complete sense of separation. It's the first

02:02:35.760 --> 02:02:42.320
big flash of that sense of, but now that's what goes on all the time. So I think the thing is

02:02:42.320 --> 02:02:47.200
you're seeing, the things you're seeing, we're just putting it in a new context. We're saying,

02:02:47.200 --> 02:02:54.640
well, you're not identified in the body anymore. That's not, there aren't internal to the body

02:02:54.640 --> 02:02:59.920
indicators. Most people, if you ask them, "Point to yourself," they immediately go, "Me." Right?

02:02:59.920 --> 02:03:05.760
"Me. I'm talking about me." Or if they've done a little bit of investigation, they go,

02:03:05.760 --> 02:03:12.880
"Me." They say, "It's up here. It's more back there." But once you get past those, then it's

02:03:12.880 --> 02:03:19.440
like, "Well, where are you?" So the thing is, if you really reflect on what you're seeing already,

02:03:19.440 --> 02:03:24.080
the fact that that you you're already feeling that your awareness

02:03:24.080 --> 02:03:27.920
the awareness that holds the body and the room

02:03:27.920 --> 02:03:31.600
and everything in the field of experience

02:03:31.600 --> 02:03:39.200
it holds that you're already you're already feeling the truth of that

02:03:39.200 --> 02:03:42.800
so what we would do so what i would do if we were going to keep working on this

02:03:42.800 --> 02:03:46.320
is go well let's see in what way what ways

02:03:46.320 --> 02:03:52.480
there's a little stickiness around that. In what way does it feel like, "Yeah, but I gotta ground

02:03:52.480 --> 02:03:58.960
myself to go into this experience." That's an example of, "I gotta get closer to a sense of

02:03:58.960 --> 02:04:04.720
identity." Or, if there isn't anything like that going on, it'd be like, "Well, let's explore the

02:04:04.720 --> 02:04:11.280
nature of this awareness." I mean, just leave Rick to do his thing. He's got it all taken care of,

02:04:11.840 --> 02:04:18.640
But in a very real way you can begin to sense what Rick does has nothing to do with you.

02:04:18.640 --> 02:04:24.880
It's not your concern. It doesn't need to be monitored. Awareness doesn't need to monitor

02:04:24.880 --> 02:04:31.920
Rick, make sure he's doing it right. So it's a real trusting and surrendering to just the truth

02:04:31.920 --> 02:04:37.360
of the way things are. Like Dan, what Dan does is not my business, including this conversation.

02:04:38.320 --> 02:04:48.280
what I am is at best just witnessing that, and Dan seems to be doing just okay at taking

02:04:48.280 --> 02:04:49.840
care of things.

02:04:49.840 --> 02:04:58.640
So there's a real sense, felt sense of detachment, it's not the best word, but from, "Hey, that's

02:04:58.640 --> 02:04:59.760
cool, that's good."

02:04:59.760 --> 02:05:00.760
It's very comfortable.

02:05:00.760 --> 02:05:03.320
>>Rick Yeah, I want to throw in a little proviso

02:05:03.320 --> 02:05:04.320
here though.

02:05:04.320 --> 02:05:10.040
This quote from Padmasambhava that I often utter, which is that, he said, "Although

02:05:10.040 --> 02:05:17.480
my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour."

02:05:17.480 --> 02:05:19.920
And Carlos Castaneda's teacher said something similar.

02:05:19.920 --> 02:05:23.560
He said, "A warrior has time only for his impeccability."

02:05:23.560 --> 02:05:29.080
You find these characters who are claiming self-realization behaving horribly.

02:05:29.080 --> 02:05:32.200
I mean, Adi Da is a case in point, you mentioned him.

02:05:32.200 --> 02:05:38.120
So a lot of times this kind of perspective, and they may have genuine realizations, but

02:05:38.120 --> 02:05:40.600
there's a lot of cleaning up yet to do.

02:05:40.600 --> 02:05:44.520
Ken Wilber's talked about waking up, cleaning up, and growing up.

02:05:44.520 --> 02:05:49.240
So I just want to emphasize that this stuff we're talking about should never be used as

02:05:49.240 --> 02:05:54.420
an alibi for inappropriate behavior, saying things like, and I'm quoting someone who actually

02:05:54.420 --> 02:05:59.200
said this, you know, who was sleeping with all the women who would come to his meetings,

02:05:59.200 --> 02:06:03.240
You know, I'm not doing it, God is doing it, I'm just a witness, you know, and I'm not

02:06:03.240 --> 02:06:04.880
involved, that kind of stuff.

02:06:04.880 --> 02:06:05.880
That's just BS.

02:06:05.880 --> 02:06:06.880
>> Jeff: Right.

02:06:06.880 --> 02:06:15.880
Well, and I think that's the thing, is there's, there has to be a deep honesty about this.

02:06:15.880 --> 02:06:25.540
Not because honesty is a good morality principle, but because it's so integral to awakening.

02:06:25.540 --> 02:06:27.320
It's about the truth.

02:06:27.320 --> 02:06:28.680
It's about the truth.

02:06:28.680 --> 02:06:35.480
So I think both of the things, both ends of this can be, can fit together.

02:06:35.480 --> 02:06:37.280
It's another one of those things that seems paradoxical.

02:06:37.280 --> 02:06:42.600
Yeah, but if you're detached, then maybe you're just going to have sex with other students

02:06:42.600 --> 02:06:46.040
and take out your frustrations on them and things like that.

02:06:46.040 --> 02:06:49.720
But I did not find that that was the case.

02:06:49.720 --> 02:06:52.200
I'm not accusing you of it.

02:06:52.200 --> 02:06:53.880
No, no, I know, I know.

02:06:53.880 --> 02:06:59.480
What I found was that there, I'm so I'm agreeing with you, I think there's a real awareness,

02:06:59.480 --> 02:07:05.080
so maybe getting back to Patanjali, is it who? Patanjali? Oh, Padmasambhava.

02:07:05.080 --> 02:07:16.520
Yeah, that there's an awareness down to this granular level of sight, any kind of, you know,

02:07:16.520 --> 02:07:24.120
tendency towards manipulation or, you know, taking advantage or any of that. Like, I have a clear

02:07:24.120 --> 02:07:31.400
sense, for example, of students and it's not a boundary there, but there's just certain things,

02:07:31.400 --> 02:07:37.320
it's a discovery that's not necessary to go certain places. Because it's inevitable with

02:07:37.320 --> 02:07:42.360
this, anytime you're in a position of authority or a position that people will be drawn to you and

02:07:42.360 --> 02:07:48.840
and they will project things and they're… but I think that's part of the clarity and maybe wisdom

02:07:48.840 --> 02:07:54.360
that comes with this. It's like… and I'm speaking from a place of… from a personal perspective,

02:07:54.360 --> 02:08:00.920
having made a lot of personal mistakes in life, you know. There were some affairs in there,

02:08:00.920 --> 02:08:09.960
things like that, big mistakes made and learned from, right? All adding to a sense of, you know,

02:08:11.080 --> 02:08:18.120
increased awareness of what are the effects of these things. So, I think in a way psychologically,

02:08:18.120 --> 02:08:28.120
there's a certain mastering of the psychological level of life that comes along with, but also a

02:08:28.120 --> 02:08:36.360
detachment that comes and they go hand in hand. The sense of detachment does not create a sense

02:08:36.360 --> 02:08:40.920
of like, well, whatever, like you're talking about this one teacher. Yeah, all those affairs,

02:08:40.920 --> 02:08:42.680
they weren't me, they were somebody else.

02:08:42.680 --> 02:08:47.620
Yeah. Yeah, I'm just saying that one should never use one's sense of detachment as an

02:08:47.620 --> 02:08:54.760
alibi for inappropriate behavior. Each, you know, each level of life has its own rules

02:08:54.760 --> 02:09:01.360
to abide by, you could say, or laws of nature, whatever. And, you know, it's like...

02:09:01.360 --> 02:09:06.880
>> Well, can we know, can we know what, do you think you can be awake and know what's

02:09:06.880 --> 02:09:08.680
inappropriate?

02:09:08.680 --> 02:09:09.720
I think you can.

02:09:09.720 --> 02:09:18.400
I think you can even on a level that's deeper and more dimensionally available than the normal

02:09:18.400 --> 02:09:22.960
person who has a strong code of ethics and moral standard.

02:09:22.960 --> 02:09:23.960
>> Yeah.

02:09:23.960 --> 02:09:30.400
I mean, or you could be awake to some degree, there are always degrees of it, and use your

02:09:30.400 --> 02:09:36.560
awakeness as justification for inappropriate behavior as Adi Da did very much, you know,

02:09:36.560 --> 02:09:41.120
sleeping with everybody's wives and taking drugs and all this stuff, you know, and claiming that

02:09:41.120 --> 02:09:45.680
he was in some kind of crazy wisdom phase. Pete: Oh, I know, yeah. I mean, I was in the

02:09:45.680 --> 02:09:52.080
community for about a year way, way back when and so I, that was actually the reason why I left,

02:09:52.080 --> 02:09:57.520
was a sense of like, you know, they were making these stories about mystical experiences and it

02:09:57.520 --> 02:10:00.880
turned out he was smoking a cigarette and he accidentally burned somebody with some of the

02:10:00.880 --> 02:10:07.680
ash or something during a sex act. And I'm going, "Just tell us that! Don't make up some

02:10:07.680 --> 02:10:14.320
mystical story." Yeah. So, it just really said a lot about, not just about him, but also about the

02:10:14.320 --> 02:10:21.440
way the community rationalized what was going on. Pete: Yeah. I helped to establish an organization

02:10:21.440 --> 02:10:25.120
that I'm still involved with called the Association for Spiritual Integrity.

02:10:25.120 --> 02:10:26.120
Pete Yeah.

02:10:26.120 --> 02:10:28.360
Pete Because I've encountered so many of these

02:10:28.360 --> 02:10:32.880
instances, and I think it's a real shame.

02:10:32.880 --> 02:10:40.040
It can really shatter the faith of a, you know, sincere young aspirant when they encounter

02:10:40.040 --> 02:10:44.520
things like this, throw them off the track, you know, for a lifetime.

02:10:44.520 --> 02:10:51.360
So it's important, I think, that spiritual teachers walk their talk or, well, that's

02:10:51.360 --> 02:10:56.360
not a good line because their talk might justify this, but you know, just have their act together

02:10:56.360 --> 02:10:58.760
on all levels and be exemplars.

02:10:58.760 --> 02:11:02.680
This Gopi Krishna guy that I referred to as a case in point, he worked in this government

02:11:02.680 --> 02:11:04.960
office and everybody was corrupt.

02:11:04.960 --> 02:11:10.160
They were all taking bribes in India and the contractors were, you know, trying to outbid

02:11:10.160 --> 02:11:16.080
each other with the bribes and then the contractors would make their money by using shoddy materials,

02:11:16.080 --> 02:11:19.840
you know, so they'd get more profit, which was endangering people's lives.

02:11:19.840 --> 02:11:25.000
Gopi Krishna would not stand for it one iota, even though his family was rather poor and

02:11:25.000 --> 02:11:31.920
he could have used the money, he just wouldn't play that game.

02:11:31.920 --> 02:11:40.840
And I found it interesting because here was an example of a guy whose behavior really aligned

02:11:40.840 --> 02:11:47.800
with his spiritual development in the kind of way I would respect and admire.

02:11:47.800 --> 02:11:52.800
What was his focus in terms of a spiritual approach?

02:11:52.800 --> 02:11:59.240
>> RICK: Well, he started from a young age, he started having profound experiences.

02:11:59.240 --> 02:12:02.860
The next thing I'm going to interview will be all about this, but he started having profound

02:12:02.860 --> 02:12:06.760
experiences and then he went through various stages where he was meditating a lot and going

02:12:06.760 --> 02:12:11.760
into deep states of samadhi, and then kundalini awoke one day like a rushing waterfall up

02:12:11.760 --> 02:12:16.720
his spine, and he started having all these sublime states of awareness and beautiful

02:12:16.720 --> 02:12:23.200
stuff. And I haven't finished the book, but meanwhile, he was living an ordinary life

02:12:23.200 --> 02:12:32.840
in Kashmir and working in a government office as a mid-level clerk. And it was an interesting

02:12:32.840 --> 02:12:33.840
story.

02:12:33.840 --> 02:12:34.840
>> Yeah.

02:12:34.840 --> 02:12:35.840
>> Yeah.

02:12:35.840 --> 02:12:40.960
>> Yeah, well, and so I would think, just to loop back in, is it seems that this should

02:12:40.960 --> 02:12:50.600
be a natural part of true spiritual awakening. That it should naturally be integrated.

02:12:50.600 --> 02:12:52.560
You mean like…

02:12:52.560 --> 02:12:58.580
This recognition of, just recognizing basic things of right and wrong. A lot of this comes

02:12:58.580 --> 02:13:05.200
down to levels of manipulation of those around you. That manipulation should start feeling

02:13:05.200 --> 02:13:07.080
very inappropriate.

02:13:07.080 --> 02:13:09.800
It should. And it amazes me how…

02:13:09.800 --> 02:13:14.600
community should always, I think there should always be an encouragement, just like any

02:13:14.600 --> 02:13:20.520
dysfunctional situation in families, simply, you know, kids and they should be able to call the

02:13:20.520 --> 02:13:26.840
parents out on stuff. I mean, I totally believe in there are no authorities here that aren't beyond

02:13:26.840 --> 02:13:33.480
reproach. So that has to be a part of it, no matter what the system is. And I'd say the same thing

02:13:33.480 --> 02:13:41.320
about this. I remember Andrew Cohen went through, that one teacher went through a lot of stuff

02:13:41.320 --> 02:13:48.760
not too long ago. And it really took, and the same thing with Daufrey John, it took people calling him

02:13:48.760 --> 02:13:56.120
out to get him somewhat in line, somewhat in line, but he knew he couldn't. So, and I think in a way

02:13:56.120 --> 02:14:01.000
that we have to keep that responsibility. It's like, look, if you think there's something unethical

02:14:01.000 --> 02:14:09.160
or inappropriate going on, confront the teacher. They should not be beyond being confronted about it.

02:14:09.160 --> 02:14:15.000
Yeah. Just today I sent somebody a quote from the Dalai Lama, which I'll read. He said,

02:14:15.000 --> 02:14:19.800
"A teacher who behaves unethically or asks students to do so can be judged as lacking

02:14:19.800 --> 02:14:25.000
in ultimate insight," His Holiness said. "As far as my own understanding goes, the two claims that

02:14:25.000 --> 02:14:30.360
you are not subject to precepts and you are free, these are the result of incorrect understanding.

02:14:30.360 --> 02:14:36.040
No behavior is free from consequences. For this reason, true wisdom always includes compassion,

02:14:36.040 --> 02:14:41.160
the understanding that all things and beings are interconnected with and vulnerable to each other.

02:14:41.160 --> 02:14:45.640
Even though one's realization may be higher than the high being, as His Holiness said,

02:14:45.640 --> 02:14:51.000
one's behavior should conform to the human way of life. When teachers break the precepts, behaving

02:14:51.000 --> 02:14:55.880
in ways that are clearly damaging to themselves and others, students must face the situation,

02:14:55.880 --> 02:15:01.160
even though this can be challenging. Criticize openly. That is the only way. If there is

02:15:01.160 --> 02:15:05.640
incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing, teachers should be confronted with it. They should be

02:15:05.640 --> 02:15:10.600
allowed to admit their wrongs, make amends, and undergo a rehabilitation process. If a teacher

02:15:10.600 --> 02:15:15.240
won't respond, students should publish the situation in a newspaper, not omitting the

02:15:15.240 --> 02:15:20.120
teacher's name. The fact that the teacher may have done so many other good things should not

02:15:20.120 --> 02:15:27.640
keep us silent. Yeah. See, on the other hand, I would say that naturally as a part of the awakening

02:15:27.640 --> 02:15:35.560
process, you will leave behind certain social orders of things, some rules of conduct that

02:15:35.560 --> 02:15:43.160
are rightfully left behind. So, there's many things that are part of cultural, you know,

02:15:43.160 --> 02:15:49.720
this is what a good person is, this is how a good person acts. Be nice, be kind, you know,

02:15:49.720 --> 02:15:54.600
But I think that a lot of that will be left behind in the process.

02:15:54.600 --> 02:16:03.080
But I think this is part of the sophistication of awakening, and when it's effective, is that

02:16:03.080 --> 02:16:10.040
there's sort of knowing when to revolt, you know, when to say, "I don't need to adhere to that

02:16:10.040 --> 02:16:18.920
any longer." And there's a time to say, "I'm accountable for my actions in this."

02:16:19.560 --> 02:16:23.080
And I think you should know you should have a good sense of the difference.

02:16:23.080 --> 02:16:28.440
So I think and it can be confusing to somebody looking at it from the outside and go,

02:16:28.440 --> 02:16:32.360
yeah, but he's not really, you know, he's not acting like a regular person anymore. He's not

02:16:32.360 --> 02:16:37.640
obeying the laws of that. I would say a good example of that is my marriage situation. I

02:16:37.640 --> 02:16:42.840
don't care about the contract. I don't care about what culture says about a marriage. What I care

02:16:42.840 --> 02:16:56.040
about is our living relationship together. Is it growing? Is it positive? Is it healthy?

02:16:56.040 --> 02:17:05.560
I interpret that based on this situation. This is always tricky, but it's not important

02:17:05.560 --> 02:17:10.600
that I stay married or not for the wrong reasons.

02:17:10.600 --> 02:17:11.600
It's not important.

02:17:11.600 --> 02:17:13.880
I mean, that's not what I intend to.

02:17:13.880 --> 02:17:18.600
It's like, "Oh, I got to stay married because we've been married and we have a contract."

02:17:18.600 --> 02:17:25.960
At the same time, there's a freedom to just focus on what's meaningful in that.

02:17:25.960 --> 02:17:33.680
It's a relatively mutual situation, so the other person has say in that.

02:17:33.680 --> 02:17:38.000
If they don't want to be a part of that, they want a traditional marriage, that's their right

02:17:38.000 --> 02:17:43.040
and there's no criticism of that, but that may not be something that I'm capable of doing

02:17:43.040 --> 02:17:44.040
anymore.

02:17:44.040 --> 02:17:48.600
So, I don't know if this is making sense, but I'm trying to see how both of them...

02:17:48.600 --> 02:17:49.600
>>Rick: Kind of is.

02:17:49.600 --> 02:17:50.600
I mean, yeah.

02:17:50.600 --> 02:17:52.520
The thought that comes to mind is that there have been a lot of things that have been cultural

02:17:52.520 --> 02:17:57.840
norms that have been horrible, like slavery, or putting indigenous people, children in

02:17:57.840 --> 02:18:00.800
these schools and taking them away from their parents at the age of five.

02:18:00.800 --> 02:18:04.800
I just heard about this on the radio this morning, and, you know, whipping them if they spoke their

02:18:04.800 --> 02:18:10.160
native language, and then the priests and nuns are sexually abusing them, all kinds of things that

02:18:10.160 --> 02:18:15.360
have been sort of like accepted by society that are terrible. So who would want to go away? We

02:18:15.360 --> 02:18:21.920
should rebellion those things. But then I think what it really boils down to is the golden rule,

02:18:21.920 --> 02:18:26.240
you know, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, just don't harm people.

02:18:27.840 --> 02:18:33.920
And, you know, that would probably be the greatest compass to follow.

02:18:33.920 --> 02:18:39.760
Well, and I would say, kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of sensing

02:18:39.760 --> 02:18:47.200
these other dimensions of things, there is a dimension of experience where right behavior

02:18:47.200 --> 02:18:52.560
is perfectly evident, aside from any thought I have about it.

02:18:52.560 --> 02:18:54.160
Spontaneously.

02:18:54.160 --> 02:19:00.560
It's like, yes, you can feel the rightness of it. And that's not just fluffy thinking.

02:19:00.560 --> 02:19:08.000
That is a deeper sense of right and wrong. And I think that's many of these rules that have kind

02:19:08.000 --> 02:19:15.680
of been handed down and just memorized and embodied without really reflecting on the deeper meaning of

02:19:15.680 --> 02:19:20.880
it, I think have lost that. And so, that's part of this rejection. It's like, look, I don't care

02:19:20.880 --> 02:19:25.440
what people say, I don't care what they say is right. What I care about is what I feel,

02:19:25.440 --> 02:19:31.600
what I have a direct experience of, what I intuitively know to be right and wrong.

02:19:31.600 --> 02:19:37.600
And it's never really led me astray. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. And what always puzzles me,

02:19:37.600 --> 02:19:42.720
and we won't drag this out too long, but it's kind of interesting. But what always puzzles me is

02:19:42.720 --> 02:19:46.960
these guys who are really impressive in many ways, you know, they really they glow in the dark,

02:19:46.960 --> 02:19:52.320
They've got so much, you know presence shock shock charisma and all who are behaving

02:19:52.320 --> 02:20:00.760
Reprehensibly in many ways and my best understanding of it at this time. Is that there's such a thing as a

02:20:00.760 --> 02:20:04.520
Partial awakening certainly in Kundalini terms. It's called

02:20:04.520 --> 02:20:10.120
Deflected rising where Kundalini rises to a great extent and but gets off on the wrong track

02:20:10.120 --> 02:20:14.360
Right and it can endow you with charisma and eloquence and you know

02:20:15.280 --> 02:20:21.440
cities even, and yet you are not enlightened and a lot of the lower chakras haven't really

02:20:21.440 --> 02:20:26.400
been cleaned up properly. And when they start acting up, all hell breaks loose.

02:20:26.400 --> 02:20:30.880
>> Jeff: Right, right. Yeah, and I agree. And that's part of, I think I tried to allude to

02:20:30.880 --> 02:20:36.480
that at the beginning. There was a lot of, there was certainly a lot of attention to that early on

02:20:36.480 --> 02:20:44.400
in the spiritual process of just, of really looking at, not just looking at conditioning

02:20:44.400 --> 02:20:50.160
and reactiveness and fears and things like that, but also really reflecting on, well, what's truly

02:20:50.160 --> 02:20:56.720
right? How do I know? Because it's changing. Like you said, slavery at one point, everybody, what,

02:20:56.720 --> 02:21:01.600
you don't have a slave? You know, what's wrong with you? - Washington, Jefferson, all these guys

02:21:01.600 --> 02:21:08.960
owned slaves. - So, clearly, yeah, even with, you know, fairly intelligent, wise men and women,

02:21:08.960 --> 02:21:16.240
there was an acceptance of a condition that just seems so obviously not acceptable. So in a way,

02:21:16.240 --> 02:21:24.880
I think what we're talking about is something that transcends history and culture and society,

02:21:24.880 --> 02:21:30.960
and just considering the possibility that there's another way of knowing right and wrong and

02:21:32.560 --> 02:21:41.200
truth and falseness and so on. Yeah Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching and also some other scriptures say that

02:21:41.200 --> 02:21:46.240
if a society is really in tune with the Tao, you know, really enlightened, then you hardly need any

02:21:46.240 --> 02:21:52.160
government, you hardly need any laws, just people all behave spontaneously. But when the Tao

02:21:52.160 --> 02:21:59.040
degenerates or is, you know, crumbles down to a low level, then you need all these laws and rules

02:21:59.040 --> 02:22:02.560
because people aren't just going to behave spontaneously rightly.

02:22:02.560 --> 02:22:06.960
Yeah, I like that. That actually is a good description.

02:22:06.960 --> 02:22:10.400
Well, we've done a bit of a marathon here. We should probably wrap it up,

02:22:10.400 --> 02:22:11.920
but it's fun talking to you.

02:22:11.920 --> 02:22:13.520
Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed it.

02:22:13.520 --> 02:22:14.960
Yeah.

02:22:14.960 --> 02:22:16.960
Thanks so much for inviting me on the show.

02:22:16.960 --> 02:22:23.040
So I'll have a link to your website on your BatGap page,

02:22:23.040 --> 02:22:25.040
and people can get in touch with you through that.

02:22:25.040 --> 02:22:27.920
If you want, I can even put your email on there, but you might get swamped.

02:22:27.920 --> 02:22:32.920
So maybe you'd prefer that they go through the contact form on your website?

02:22:32.920 --> 02:22:34.920
Yeah, that's probably a good idea.

02:22:34.920 --> 02:22:37.920
Do you work with people remotely or do they have to come to North Carolina?

02:22:37.920 --> 02:22:40.920
No, I do. I'm working with a few people.

02:22:40.920 --> 02:22:43.920
It's something about being in person.

02:22:43.920 --> 02:22:44.920
It is nice.

02:22:44.920 --> 02:22:47.920
So it's much more effective.

02:22:47.920 --> 02:22:49.920
So I encourage people.

02:22:49.920 --> 02:22:54.920
Usually if I'm working with them remotely, they've got to really want to do the work.

02:22:54.920 --> 02:22:59.920
And also, I like to see them every once in a while, so we figure out a way to have them come out.

02:22:59.920 --> 02:23:02.920
So we've got a few people doing that.

02:23:02.920 --> 02:23:06.920
And also I'll have a link to your book on your BatCat page, so people can check that out.

02:23:06.920 --> 02:23:07.920
Appreciate it.

02:23:07.920 --> 02:23:08.920
Alright, well thanks so much, Dan.

02:23:08.920 --> 02:23:10.920
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

02:23:10.920 --> 02:23:11.920
Yeah, I enjoyed spending time with you.

02:23:11.920 --> 02:23:12.920
Yeah, same here.

02:23:12.920 --> 02:23:15.920
If I ever get down in North Carolina, I'll hop in.

02:23:15.920 --> 02:23:18.920
Yeah, I'd love to see you. And Irene.

02:23:18.920 --> 02:23:19.920
And Irene.

02:23:19.920 --> 02:23:22.440
- And Irene, well, thank you to those

02:23:22.440 --> 02:23:23.640
who've been listening or watching.

02:23:23.640 --> 02:23:25.440
And the next interview, as I mentioned,

02:23:25.440 --> 02:23:29.580
will be with this fellow who was a close student

02:23:29.580 --> 02:23:32.020
of Gopi Krishna for quite a few years.

02:23:32.020 --> 02:23:33.580
His name is Michael Bradford.

02:23:33.580 --> 02:23:37.640
Then we have an upcoming interviews page on BatGap

02:23:37.640 --> 02:23:39.940
if you wanna see what else is scheduled.

02:23:39.940 --> 02:23:41.700
So, see you next time.

02:23:41.700 --> 02:23:44.280
(upbeat music)