Breaking news everyone, you are it. There is nothing outside of you right here right
now that will add onto the realization of your true nature that you are seeking. You
are it. There is nothing outside of you that will fill any illusionary void within. Nothing
needs to be added to the absolute being that you are for you to realize your true nature.
What needs to be done is actually things need to be removed. The onion needs to be peeled
The layers need to be removed.
Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.
My name is Rick Archer.
Buddha at the Gas Pump, if you've never seen it, is an ongoing series of conversations with
spiritually awakening people.
Done well over 700 of them now.
And if this is new to you and you would like to check out the previous ones, please go to
backgap.com and look under the past interviews menu where you'll find them
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the site and also a page that explains
alternatives to PayPal. My guest today is
Emeline Lambert. I'm going to have her pretty much
introduce herself.
She was an actress. She was in something
called House of the Dragon, which was a
prequel to Game of Thrones and something called Django, another thing called Invasion.
But then she had a series of profound spiritual experiences and her life path kind of diverged
into a different direction.
I'll let you elaborate, Emeline.
Well, let me ask you some questions to make it easier for you to get started.
First of all, as a child, did you have some kind of unusual experiences?
I often find that with people who've had spiritual awakenings a little bit later, like children
who as children they maybe saw auras or angels or felt a sense of unity or things like that.
And then usually during their teenage years it all kind of fell away and then came back.
Did you have anything like that?
You don't necessarily have to say yes.
I'm letting the answer come in the most authentic way.
So when I was born I didn't want to open my eyes.
because there was anything wrong with me medically, I just, you know, had them shut
angrily. You remember that? No, my mom told me. Oh, okay. I don't remember that. That would be pretty extraordinary.
That would be impressive. Yeah, no, so my mom told me that, you know, she took me to the doctor and he said she just
needs a bit more time and it seems like that... You're like a kitten, you know, they don't open their
white eyes for a couple of weeks. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. What I do remember, though, and that was
quite a pretty early memory was this feeling of what the F am I doing here?
And I would tell my parents, you know, with absolute certitude, I'm not your
child, like we can pretend for the cameras, you know, Truman show hidden up
in the corners, that's fine.
I can play along, but I know I'm not your child.
I come from Mars.
I know that my brother, my brother.
Yeah.
I would say miles.
I don't know why.
Very interesting.
Just different planets.
And I would say, listen, I'm not angry at you.
Like we can all pretend you'll love me.
That's fine.
But I know I am not meant to be here.
I know I'm not part of this family.
And that is something I remember vividly.
My mother had to show me the pregnancy pictures and all
of that.
But it still wouldn't ring true.
I think what became the theme of my life from a pretty early age
was this sort of profoundly painful realization
that well I'm not going back home anytime soon I'm stuck here. All right what do we do then?
And I think that the defense mechanism set in place very very early on was okay well
if I'm stuck here I'm gonna have to be anyone but me because me the real true me is this
entity that knows that this essence that understands on some strange level that this isn't home
this isn't this isn't the main event this is the waiting room and I don't know why people
pretending this is the main event, I'm not buying it. And so very early on the quest or rather the
escape become a constant search for identity. Who am I? Who can I become if not me? And that
translated into performance, performance art. I discovered ballet. I had quite a lot of
apto-rat syndrome so you know my mother felt like I had this energy to sort of like spend physically
and so it started with ballet which I ended up doing professionally
in France. I was born outside of Paris, I'm half French, half Swedish and so I grew up doing ballet,
trained at Paris Opera Ballet School which is quite a reputable school which is really really hard
with all the cliches and stereotypes that you can imagine around them, the ballet world, but it was
fantastic because I found myself an identity so I could be the ballerina but obviously that's not
the truth. So at some point life came in the way. I got injured so I had to stop pretty much before
transitioning professionally to the company. And so again for the first time in a very long time
I was faced with this thing of okay I'm not the ballerina anymore, I'm not the dancer,
that's fine. Who else then? Who's next? Who can I become? Not what can I do but who can I be?
and so my 20s became pretty much an attempt, followed by constant failure, to just be anyone
but me. And that sort of, the paroxysm of that was redacting, which you then become everyone but you.
And it was really interesting because it was just, it's obviously still very, very hard
from space and I remember like it was yesterday, it was in fact a year and a half ago, my agent's
assistant had called me regarding the tape and you know you're asked to do American,
different various sorts of accents and for this one they didn't really know so they asked me to
the American accent, British, different ones and the assistant called me and said you know
Good work on the tape. By the way, just flagging we can hear you. We can hear you in the tape
I said, oh, okay. Sorry, you uh, you can hear the britishness coming out in the american. No, no, not really
No, I said do you french in the british? No, no, it's not french. It's not british. It's not it's you we can hear you
And it's such a mundane thing to say to an actor. I mean, you know, you work on accents
it's just part of the toolbox, right? But there was just an exactitude in what she said, and
there was something about time and space that froze at that second where I just sort of
thought, "Okay, I spent 30 years running away from myself and I thought I became so
skilled at it, and you can still hear me in the tape. Oh, well, I give up." And there
was just a sort of collapse in that moment where I realized what kind of undercurrent
of intention had driven every single one of my choices my entire life, which was just
a pull outside of me, running away from whatever me was. And in that moment, which could have
been nothing—I had millions of conversations like this with you before—but there was
something about just the energetic signature of that moment where I thought, "Oh, I give
up. I just can't do it. I can't spend my life pretending to be someone I'm not and I don't
want to be. So what do I do? And it's interesting because now retrospectively I see it as this
crumbling down that needed to happen so that truth could come through the cracks.
But I just gave up. And so I thought, okay, every single choice I've made my entire life
I've been out of fear and lack rather than love and abundance and it's been a need to run away from me
and I'm skipping the 20s which were, you know, suicidal, PTSD, OCD,
on antidepressant medication. We don't need to go into these because it happens to so many people,
but there was a real sort of thing going on that just came to a halt recently and from that point
to complete stillness and absorption of why I had done everything I had done up until
now. I just decided to stop, to stand still in the discomfort of it, and I don't really
know why, but that became the work. And then I had always been spiritually curious, having
felt this sense of complete discomfort with the world from early on. And then things started
to happen and I went to a few retreats. One of them was very intense and something tangible
happened there and the sort of death that had started carried on in that moment. And
the long story, which is not that short, is that I've had a strange experience recently
which left me with nothing of the past life and of the past self and this mental construct
of me was just replaced with a sense of peace and complete acceptance and just bliss. And
I've been trying to make sense of it ever since. And somehow I'm here, which I don't
think I know why, but I'm happy to be here.
So I have some questions based on what you just said. The first is I found it remarkable
that you felt like you were from Mars, because I interviewed a guy, interviewed before the
previous one, two interviews ago, who's some leader in something called the Aetherius Society,
which was inspired by a guy named George King, who lived in the UK. And one of their main
contentions is that there are advanced civilizations on all the planets, and they particularly
focus on Mars and Venus, which at first glance seems absurd, because those places are
uninhabitable because of the environmental conditions, but they say it's subtle life,
a subtle form of life. And that they are communicating with certain people on Earth and inspiring
and they say Jesus and Buddha came from Venus, but you know, one of their main sources of
wisdom and information was this guy from Mars or this entity or being of some sort from
Mars, which they claim has a very advanced civilization living in a subtler dimension.
So I just thought that was kind of coincidental in an interesting way that you felt like you
were from Mars.
Maybe you're one of them.
The second thing I was wondering as you were unfolding all that, well you did answer my
first question very well, which is something that maybe a lot of people have this, but
the kind of people I interview very often have realizations like that when they were
very young.
They just feel like they don't belong here, where did they come from, who are these weirdos
that they live with. I think there might be something to that because, you know, I think
a lot of us come from, if we're on a spiritual path, we're accustomed to a deeper reality
or we feel like we belong in a deeper reality than is the norm we're born into. There was
a guy I interviewed named Christian Sundberg who at one point began to remember not only
his past life, but his before-birth life. He remembered kind of signing up to be born on
earth and then chickening out when he was in the womb and aborting himself, and then getting
a second opportunity eventually in being born, but it was a real shock and a real challenge
to be in this world compared to the world he had dwelt in before.
Anyway, we'll skip ahead here, and I know you don't want to dwell on all the details
of your depressing twenties, but you did mention in a previous interview that I listened to
that you, and you mentioned just now, that you suffered from a lot of depression during
your twenties and were on medication and you had suicidal impulses and things like that,
but it wasn't clear from that interview what snapped you out of it.
mentioned some retreat. What happened? Would you care to describe what the retreat was
about or who was teaching it or what kind of experiences you had that turned the corner
for you?
Yes, I think I'm purposely going to answer this by focusing only partially on the retreat,
meaning the event, because I think we tend to glamorize these types of moments of meeting
some sort of higher truth and it's not, I don't think that's necessarily needed to come out of
suffering. And so for me it was twofold. The first part was the experiential realization of
why I had done everything I had done up until that point in order to escape myself. And that
realization was very much both on an intellectual and lived level. And what I mean by that is that
you know, life sends you. I do believe that the universe speaks a different language, right,
and it is our duty to listen. And if we don't listen the first time, it'll be a little nod
that'll be missed, and then maybe a little tap on the shoulder, and maybe something a bit stronger
last. And so I spent my life not listening, because listening would have meant admitting
the truth and therefore what I was running away from. And there was a concordance of events
which led to me being forced to listen and to accept the reality of why I had made the decisions I had made.
It just so happened that for me, it just happened to me on my own.
These things can be sometimes discussed in therapy.
There is no blueprint for how you receive the truth that you're running away from.
And the reason why I mentioned that part is because that part forced me to stop.
it forced me to, if not run towards my true self, at least not run away from it.
And so for the first time in 30 years, I had to accept the truth of standing still
in the discomfort of the realization that every single thing I did, thought, felt,
was, and incarnated, were products for me to be as far removed from myself.
And it's that stillness that allowed me to, out of that stillness,
came in a very organic way a sense of, "Okay, well, what's next? We've been trying to turn
left your entire life, left is a cul-de-sac, where are we going now?" And it's in the standing still
that something arose within me. And again, a series of circumstances, I signed up to a
mindfulness program, had no idea why, and that mindfulness program sent me to the Pasana retreat
within the first few weeks. I didn't even Google the Pasana, I had no idea what that was.
I didn't know that in the Garenka style you meditate 10 hours a day. It just sort of all
happened. And then something very strange and profound and pinpointable happened during that
retreat where it's only now after speaking to people that I can sort of make sense of it,
although I don't understand it intellectually, but there was a death. I feel like I
peeked up behind a curtain and everything became crystal clear and in that
understanding of the truth of our real nature, something fundamental that I thought was nearly
just dissolved in an instant, like Velcro being pulled apart. It was extremely painful,
and it was extremely unexpected because I was just trying to get through a retreat, frankly.
I thought, you know, it's the difference between a state and a treat. I very incredibly thought that
that it was going to last a few days. I had a bit of a, I don't know, an episode, I don't
know, and that I was going to go back to my life and, you know, it would have been what
it would have been, but then things would have gotten back to normal. And I was the
first one surprised when things didn't get back to normal and the states didn't go away
in very organic, turned into, well, all there is, frankly.
And it's been strange and a bit challenging to make sense of it,
because people around you are very uncomfortable,
and it's not something that my family or friends have--
I mean, you know, why would they understand, frankly?
But I've been trying to understand it and make sense of it ever since.
without intellectualizing it, there's no point. But I guess no one asked for my opinion, but that I'm
now on a different riverside or something, you know, and that makes sense. Yeah, it does.
I question the wisdom of throwing new meditators into a retreat where they're doing 10 hours of
meditation a day. It seems to have worked out for you, but you hear stories of psychosis and whatnot,
you know, people. It's too much too soon, I think, for some people. So I would just throw that out
as a general caution to people. And I would say, quite a few people left. Yeah. And I think that's
great. I think that's fantastic to have the distance to feel that you can leave and you
should leave. Yeah. There are people like Willoughby Britton who runs something called
Cheetah House in Rhode Island who specialize in helping train wrecks from spiritual practice,
people who have just had quite the opposite of their hoped-for result.
It usually has to do with doing too much of it, or someone who is mentally unstable.
Was there any kind of screening when you went to the retreat, like whether you were psychologically
healthy before they admitted you?
Yeah, in the application, they asked me quite a few questions.
So you mentioned a lot of pain on that retreat.
Was that the physical pain of just having to sit and meditate for 10 hours or was it
also more of a psychological or psychic pain, which I think you alluded to in your previous
answer?
Yeah, both, absolutely.
I had actually pulled a muscle in my back a few days prior to starting the retreat.
So that was an interesting one.
And then you have to sit for all those hours.
Yeah, it was, I mean it was a gift really, because again it was a masterclass in sensations.
But yeah, of course, I mean you're faced with the discomfort of nowhere to run and to just absorb the present moment and the mind.
Just the constant and the commentary that the mind creates around any given what is and given moment
Absolutely, so that's inculturable
yeah, and
Was the awakening on the treat on the retreat sort of a night and day difference in a moment?
Or did it just sort of dawn on you over the course of the retreat that things had shifted?
The experience itself was pretty instantaneous and pretty
black and white brutal before and after and there was there was sort of in and knowing
within me that had sense that something really strange and profound had happened but I could
absolutely not verbalize. I would say that it was leaving the retreat where I sensed
oh this is not going away this is deepening what is going on so I think the change of
environment made it clear that something profound had taken place and I was
millions of miles away from being able to explain it. Do you find yourself a little
unable to function in normal circumstances at first? Like you were
from Mars and you're just you know getting used to
Earth? And did people notice that if that were the case? Did they say, "Oh,
What happened to her?
Yes. Yes
Some of my friends
Texted my family saying we're worried about her. There's something strange going on
Uh, my family were very confused as well at first
there was a real sense of
huge distance between
this thing, um this persona and and and the rest of the world and also why wouldn't it be they just
They just witnessed them
a result of something they didn't go through the process with me so they were just left with a
very strange sort of version of their daughter or friend or sister that they did not recognize and
I think it took me I think that there was I would say for some people almost anger because I
I had ruptured the contract of the quality of our friendship which is to complain together
and so you know all the architectural pillars upon which certain friendships and relationships
are built when they are fundamentally unhealthy or not stable. When one of the people breaks
that sort of dynamic of these pillars then the thing crumbles, right? And so some friendships
were challenged and scattered and yes it was it was not the easiest sort of transition but I
didn't really choose any of it. I think time is just accepting that the process of integration
was going to take the time it takes. And if some things have to be left by the side of the road,
then so be it. That's also okay. There's an old Bengali saying which is,
"If no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone." I know in my case, you know, back in the 60s,
I had been taking full advantage of everything the 60s had to offer. And when I learned to meditate
in '68, I pretty much immediately dropped all my friends because they were just continuing to do
the stuff I had been doing, which had been very destructive. And I thought, "Okay, I'll just
walk the dog every day and go down to the beach and not have friends for a while." And then,
you know, after a few months, I started to meet new people who were living healthier lifestyles.
Of course, I'm not implying that your friends were like my friends had been, but I needed to
upgrade my whole life. I couldn't keep doing the same things or hanging out with the same people
anymore. It just didn't work. Yeah and I think it's something that happens quite naturally as well if
you let it. And what I mean by that is just, you know, the sort of overarching experience of not
having any personal preferences. If your friendships remain, wonderful, they remain. If they don't,
that's okay too. And the state of pure acceptance of what is when it presents itself, whether it's
pleasant or not, to have the freedom to navigate any given moment without the
fundamental cling to strong personal preferences makes it fundamentally easier
and more truthful to walk life with integrity that way. Yeah and of course
that's a core teaching of many traditions such as Buddhism and so on, so
And maybe we'll talk more about that as we go along.
Did you maintain a regular practice of some kind after the retreat, some regular meditation
or something?
Yeah, so I, we didn't speak about this, I've been meditating for quite a while.
I tried various styles, meditations, and you know, processes, and I had never tried the
personal. It's not necessarily what I practice now. It was wonderful learning about it but
it's not what I responded to in terms of daily practice. But yes, I mean I live a pretty
monastic lifestyle. I'm on my own in my meditation and I'm often silent. So yeah, meditation
Although I've come to challenge the concept of meditation, the mind hangs on to very powerfully,
especially when you make spirituality at the forefront of your existence. I now invite
different versions of what we think meditation is. I don't think it's that important.
I think it's it's incredibly enriching to sit down and close your eyes
And and sit still
But I think you can meditate on zopen walking the dog doing the dishes
I mean the the level of mindfulness that you bring to any given present moment is
Is really truly?
um what matters on the central level
Yeah, I mean one size does not fit all as they say and you know, whatever works for you
um, and like you say it's
I meditate, eyes closed, but then also everything that happens throughout the day is a kind
of a meditation in that it can be done mindlessly and impulsively, or it can be done with sort
of a certain one eye in, one eye out, a certain introspection or scrutiny of one's behavior,
one's thoughts, one's state, which can make life much more smooth if you attend to such
things and not blunder about speaking or acting thoughtlessly.
Yeah.
Not being trapped in the mind, yeah.
Right.
To be with what is, here and now.
Yeah.
any periods of nostalgia or doubt or wanting to return to your old life or was it a clean
break?
No.
Clean break.
Clean break, yes.
Yeah.
Good.
And you mentioned you're kind of a recluse.
I heard you say in your other interview that you live on a farm, so you're out in the country
someplace.
You just by yourself out there?
Are you and the sheep or is it, you know, you have like some...
I am surrounded by sheep, yeah.
It is, so after almost 10 years in London, I moved back home at a time where the acting
industry was in disarray.
There were strikes in Hollywood that impacted greatly the UK and so I just simply didn't
have the money to stay in London and pay rent.
So I moved back home here to this, it used to be a horse stable, I think, a hundred years
ago and then it was abandoned and now it's a house.
Is this where you grew up or this is? Yes.
Okay, are your parents still there living or? No, they're outside. They come
they come quite often but they have their own thing
outside of Paris and so it became a sort of like family house.
It must be very bucolic and peaceful. Yeah, it's
wonderful. I'm very lucky. What do you do with your time?
Um, do you do any actual farming stuff like milk the cows or are you just kind of what do you do?
No, I wish
Um, I know I do work part-time. I work remote
Um, I have you know, I mean I have to keep on it's it's I think that's the sort of
um
strange in between where
It's it feels that you have glimpsed at the true nature of reality and who you are and your essential truth
beyond the mind beyond the body and then you still have to pay the bills and you still have to work
and you still have to of course like anybody else and so i'm welcoming the the period of transition
where right now what i do is not necessarily a career that i want to have i'm not really
interested in having any sort of career to be completely honest i i work because i have to but
i i do believe that if i stay long enough with a sort of spaciousness within i think there is
such power in not knowing and in remaining with a question and remaining with a doubt and not
letting the mind jump to organization, planning, controlling that the mind has,
and the structure and power of the mind is that, and to remain in the ethereal unknown
and be okay with that, then something will come out of that element. Something will come out of
that stillness within. That will not be my choice. It will be something offered to me as a completely
logical and seamless next step. And so I don't know what's next for me, but what I do know
is that if I honor that stillness within, it will show up. And in the meantime, I do
the work that I can to be able to, you know, buy groceries and be okay. But yeah.
It's not any kind of spiritual work, it's just some sort of job that you do online. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean when I was your age, which is what, about 30 or so, I couldn't possibly
have imagined what I would be doing now. I thought maybe I'd be a monk in the Himalayas
by now, but I don't think that was what I was supposed to do. I have friends who were
thinking the same thing who are actually doing that now, and I don't envy them in the least.
I feel like what I'm doing is much more in line with what I'm supposed to be doing.
But I spent years being a computer consultant, climbing around under people's desks, hooking
up wires and taking their computers apart.
I did search engine optimization for years, helping people sell widgets, and stuff which
had no intrinsic profound value, but like you say, I had to pay the bills. And then the
idea to do this came along, and the idea wouldn't let go. It was like, "This is one thing I
absolutely need to do," and then one thing led to the next, and it just got all kinds
of support. So I'm sure your life will go similarly, in which all kinds of support will
come when it's supposed to come.
Yes, and I mean you touch on something that I find fascinating which is that I profoundly
believe that there is, we share an inner purpose which is to awaken and I think that's connected,
that is not just you or a few selected people. I think that the purpose of humanity on this
earth is to awaken on an individual and collective level. That is an inner purpose and I think
whatever you do outside in the world will be an expression and a manifestation of the fulfillment
and the curiosity given to that inner purpose and that will be different for everyone, but it will
come from a place of wholeness and unity around the devotion to that inner purpose which is to awaken.
However that manifests for each of us is the lottery and that's what's so fascinating,
maybe some people just remain silent and that is their gift to the world on a very local
level and some people become incredible.
But I don't think that matters as much as to get in touch with the true nature of who
you are, meaning the true nature of your inner purpose, which is to awaken to who you are.
Yeah, well you know Jesus is saying, "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else
should be added unto thee. And there are many other sayings like that in different traditions.
There's a verse in the Gita which goes, "Because one can perform it, one's own dharma, the lesser
in merit, is better than the dharma of another. Better is death in one's own dharma, the dharma
of another brings danger." Yeah. So, and, you know, dharma, for those who don't know
the term just in this context means that course of action which is most conducive to evolution.
And it's not necessarily being a monk in the Himalayas or some such thing, or a girl living
on a farm. It's what for you is the most evolutionary thing, and that might be raising a child or
doing this kind of a job or all kinds of things. But I think what you just said is very important.
If you have a deep inner intention and desire for evolution, then nature kind of organizes
your life accordingly and presents you with opportunities to go in that direction.
Yes, absolutely.
And then it's our job to listen.
To honor what's what's served to us, which is not necessarily the comfortable thing
In fact, it's never the comfortable thing because we don't awaken in the comfort zone
Right it takes it takes challenge
Life is in some way here to challenge us
in order to awaken us
Yeah, you mentioned um that you you go hours sometimes without thinking
um
did that
Experience just um come upon
you spontaneously, naturally, or is it something that you in some way intentionally settle
into because you enjoy it?
I would say that one of the most immediate and powerful byproducts or consequences of
this strange thing that happened to me during this retreat was, again, twofold. First of all,
becoming so incredibly aware that there is a thinking machine in the mind that is constantly
operating that it becomes impossible to ignore anything that streams through the process of
of the mind. And so I think that in this sort of death that I felt in that moment, something
of a separation took place. And so within that internal distance and space within, it
became so clear who was the witness and who was the thinking being thought. And from that
greater distance it became impossible to avoid anything that came to thinking. And very naturally
while that distance sort of amplified internally and that spaciousness
lingered, what happened without again without me realizing it was just
a slowing down of thinking um
it would I think
Yeah, it was I just very naturally
without even choosing to
uh
Started thinking way less very little of course, I still think in some days more than others, you know, that's normal
But the sort of uh white noise, you know the broken radio
at the corner of a room that sort of
constant um
um sports radio presenter commentator commenting on absolutely everything that subsided to an extent that was
quite drastic, um
And and became a new sort of normal, but yes, yeah
That's really nice. Um, yeah, most people's minds are like you say
Several radios playing at the same time and um, and a lot of energy is wasted with all those
superfluous extraneous
You know
irrelevant thoughts. And I've often read and heard it described and that in a more enlightened state
of functioning, you don't stop thinking, but you have thoughts that are worth having, that are
relevant, that are pertinent to the situation. And when the situation doesn't call for any
thoughts you may not have any. Same with dreams I think I heard you say that you
don't dream very much anymore. No I don't think I do I mean it's hard because
sometimes you don't remember your dreams so it's it's a harder one to sort of
pinpoint but um no I don't dream I don't dream a lot no. Yeah. And I think when it
comes to thought it's it's also marking the clear difference between what is
your thoughts, a thought incarnated by an individual impulse and you know what
Krishnamurti says when he says you think you're thinking of your thought, but you're not.
You're thinking society's thoughts. There's processes of data
flashing through you that the mind grabs and holds on to and tries to make
sense of and meaning of and create patterns around but they're not your
thoughts. They're just sort of like connecting, being thought
for you. And that quality of thinking subsides greatly, yes. Of course when a
situation arises where you need thinking, then thinking becomes an incredible tool.
But you know as everyone says, great servant not great master. So obviously
that shift is becomes clearer with time loss. Yeah, it's said that a lot of
thinking is just the action-impression-desire cycle playing itself
out, which is kind of an habituation or an addiction really. And you know, we have a
desire, we act on it, it creates an impression, that plants the seeds for another desire.
And many people are just bound up, most people are bound up with layer upon layer of this
conditioning. And you know, what you have experienced is a shift out of the conditioned
way of functioning. And so, I would say, I would presume that most of your thoughts are
not just habitual impulses due to that cycle. They're just coming from a deeper, more intuitive
place. I mean, someone like the Buddha, let's say, had probably just really cleaned out
the whole conditioning process of action, impression, desire, but he still had thoughts,
taught and he wrote things and so on. But those thoughts were not... they're from a completely
different mechanism than habitual conditioned thoughts. And the same is true with dreams.
Dreams are just the release of impressions during deep sleep that cause mental experiences,
which we experience as dreams. But if most of the impressions have been dissolved, then
there's no impetus for having as many dreams. You might still have some, but also a lot of dreams can be more,
you know, astral traveling or some kind of intuitive, uh, other, other realm experience.
Well,
yeah, and it's, I mean, I find it fascinating and it's what you point to, which is
anything pertaining to
the illusion of self,
uh, when you come to the visceral realization that it is an illusion,
that it is not real, that there is no self, there is no thing,
and all of that dissolves and then you come to see how much of your thinking pattern and habit and addiction was
revolving around the
protection, the
solidification, the sort of confirmation of this self, this separate self, moving through space and time
and how much of thinking was spent
Enhancing that entity through designs through a virgin through the future planning through remembering the past
You know great people through relationships. It's just about solidifying this this illusionary self that wants to solved
There's nothing to protect anymore
It's what my strike art says when he says, you know
There's a place in the soul that cannot be ruined it that then the formless part of who we are that the real oneness of being
is untouchable and does not need protection through the mind and through the construct of these thoughts.
So I think the mass, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying by any mean that I'm an enlightened Buddha.
Let's just make that very, very clear.
Because you know,
but it's,
it just becomes so clear, it just becomes so transparent when
somehow
There is a moment in time that shows you the truth behind the curtain.
Like a flash of truth, it just becomes so embodied within that there is no hiding behind
thoughts anymore.
Yeah.
I was just talking to a friend yesterday and we both, we compared notes on a similar experience
which we both had, which was falling flat on our faces on the cement.
me by tripping over a curb in New York City and me by tripping over something on the pickleball
court, but it was like wham, right in the face, and we both ended up with big black eyes and
bloody noses and stuff.
But the reason we were talking about it was that we both experienced that at the moment
of impact, there was just this pure silence where, you know, this traumatic experience
is happening, but you kind of, it throws into contrast the deep silence that is always there
to which injury cannot happen, or pain, or suffering, or anything.
It's just this shining inner silence that you take for granted,
but when something like that happens, it becomes more obvious.
That's incredible that you were capable of picking up that depth
within such a moment of "survival" there. I think that's really interesting.
Yeah, that's not something you could try to do. I mean it all happens too fast.
It's just something that is there, you know, and it's there all the time.
But usually there's nothing so contrasting as to, you know, notice it so clearly.
And it happens in the... I mean you can test it out. Again, it's not something you can control, but...
For instance, when, you know, you're in a room and someone opens the door quite abruptly and you turn around
and there is a moment where you don't know who's going to come through the door
And so you're just in state of complete, again, complete stillness, complete waiting, or the
cat waiting by the mousetrap, this sort of alert awareness that doesn't judge, that just
is in the background constantly.
And that is the container operating, this container where the content is taking place.
But in certain moments of the day it's very potent, where you just realize that there
There is a still alertness operating in the background constantly.
Yeah, no, it's fascinating.
Yeah.
On the same note, when you were describing the detachment between the thought process
and the self or the pure consciousness or whatever you want to call it, have you found,
you find that because of that detachment, because you're not overshadowed and identified and
absorbed in all your thought processes, that sometimes a thought can arise and you see
that that's not a thought I want to entertain and you can just nip it in the bud?
Yes, it's something I was talking about with someone a few days ago as to how
I don't know, I can only speak from personal experience, but I do believe there are
various ways of interacting with a quality of a thought you don't want to experience in the moment.
Some people it is turning away nothing in the birds. No, thank you. Bye
What I have found
Seems more natural for me and to me is to witness the arising of that thought and
to say yes
Yes to the thought whatever it is. There's a there's a there's rather sort of like an open openness where I welcome it funny
Because I do believe thoughts have energetic cycles and so it ought to pass through me quicker if I say yes to it, whatever it is.
And so instead of seeing it happen and being like "No, thank you, not interested", I turn myself towards the thought, whatever that is, and say yes to it.
And in welcoming the trajectory of the thought, it becomes clear that it only passes through me in order to go and bother someone else after.
Yes, the sort of the sort of openness of the yes
Is again this this this idea, you know
But the only thing that's real is now you only have the present moment right and so you can either contract
In the face of the present moment the present moment is not something they find evident or you you accept the present moment feeling
You might not rejoice about the present moment, but it has to start with acceptance.
And so that knows that the scale of resistance within, and to me that acceptance starts with yes, absolutely, all right.
Knowing that it doesn't belong to me, knowing that these thoughts are not the truth, knowing that they're not real,
knowing that they have no weight, no gravitas, and no impact upon my life.
But the openness of "yes" I find more conducive to this constant vibration of acceptance that
I believe is needed to live in accordance with the truth of the present moment.
Yeah, that's good.
It's good you said that, because I didn't want to give the impression that one should
be always on guard and then just fighting against some negative thought that comes up
or something.
It's more like a little subtle adjustment of the steering wheel as you're driving, where
you don't have to fight the steering wheel, you just tweak it a little bit and it keeps
you in your lane.
And the reason you can do that is that you actually are residing in a place that is prior
to the emergence of thought.
And it's kind of like, let's say, bubbles in an ocean, they come up from the bottom and
they get bigger and bigger and pop on the surface.
So for most people, they don't see the bubbles until they pop on the surface, and there's
nothing much you can do about them at that point.
They've already bubbled up.
But if you were like a diver at the bottom of the ocean, you know, maybe you could just
sort of... from there, the bubble is a tiny little thing, and it might be easier to change
its direction or prevent it from bubbling or whatever.
Let's talk about relationships and connections and stuff like that for a while.
We mentioned friendships changing. Have you acquired a new set of friends if you're not
so much with your old ones? Are you pretty much like a recluse out there?
Being alone is what feels the most natural in the world to me, at least for now. It has
always been though. I have wonderful friendships and wonderful friends with whom I remain close
and who understand and appreciate and accept the sort of transition they've witnessed.
Same with my family.
But there is a constant sort of intuitive knowing that's a known but never knowning state,
just being with the self and the sort of expansion needed when you are on your own,
to sort of be in this contemplative space is what fits me best. So I don't have many
relationships in that way. I would rather sort of make sure that the ones I do
Have uh remain healthy and aligned and pure
um
But love is not possessive. So I you know, it's all of these things are cycles. Um
For now, yes, I there is a real sense of um
Embodied peace when I find myself on my own
Sounds great
quality over quantity
and
you know, I mean, I have some of my best friends are people I've never met because I met him through this and met in person
Uh, you know face to face because I met him through this show, but I have you know, beautiful long
philosophical conversations with him and stuff while i'm walking in the woods and uh that kind of thing so
it's this um doing this show has given me a
Put me in an interesting position for meeting all kinds of fascinating people that I would never never otherwise have met
um
But one thing I've found, and you've probably found this too traveling around, is wherever you go
there are real gems of people everywhere in the world. I mean, I've lived in Iran and Philippines
and all kinds of places, and they're very deeply spiritual people in every culture. Some of them
very much, you know, a fish out of water in a culture that is not at all in alignment with
their nature, but they're there nonetheless.
And again, I think these people attract each other on some level.
We only operate at the level of consciousness we're at.
So when you encounter someone who exists at a similar level of consciousness,
that recognition becomes extremely clear.
And it has this sort of retroactive boomerang effect I find.
So yes, in some way I found myself encountering people with similar interests and a similar
sort of yearning for an internal life to be explored more than maybe an external one,
more recently.
Yeah.
Nice.
And how about relationships, let's say that you have to, well I don't want to put you
on the spot, but you know, we all have that crazy uncle that we have to meet at Thanksgiving
or something, or Christmas and stuff.
Have you found yourself more artful in your behavior with people who are totally not on
your wavelength?
It's interesting that you say that.
Again, it's something I spoke about with a friend not so long ago.
I don't want to sound like any of this is something that I have control over in some
way, because I don't.
I find myself realizing things, ways of operating, ways of enacting certain truths on the spot.
It's not something that I control or iterate.
And what became increasingly obvious and immediate after all these things happened was that it
seems only logical, right, that one of the most immediate consequences of understanding
that there is no Self, not capital Self, but there is no Jiva, right, there is no tiny
Self, there is no persona, no mask. Well then, if I don't exist, then this illusion of separation
is only an illusion. There is no separation between you and I, and if there is no separation
between you and I and other people then when I hurt you I hurt myself. So then why would the
fuel of every interaction, the fuel of every single instance shared with someone not be
absolute love and compassion? How is it possible for someone to understand the truth of your own
nature and true nature of who you are without accommodating new space for this absolute love
and compassion that oneness um
uh sort of invites you to to incarnate so
What what I see now is just people are some people are in pain more than others, right?
and that suffering creates um
Like a domino effect a series of unhealthy toxic behaviors or choices
Or ways of expressing themselves in the world and navigating it, but it is a suffering
Suffering it is the illusion of separation. It is the illusion of lack and it is this
complete veil put on who they think they are versus their true nature, their real
essence, the formless divine within them. And so there is just compassion
really, truly, and love. And that doesn't mean, you know, "I'm open, cut me like a
vegetable." You need sense of boundaries and sometimes saying
yes to the present moment means saying no to someone, but the ego doesn't have
To come into that no doesn't have to be no because you don't respect me. It's just no just a skillful. No
No that comes from place of love rather than a place of luck
so
Yes, I I do have I am surrounded by quite
Earthy complicated earthy. Yes
People and and there
Love absolute love and compassion
And if that needs to be at a distance sometimes then so be it. It doesn't mean that I can't impact by sending love
Metta loving kinds to this person and
There that I don't need to aggrandize myself by judging and thinking you're superior and you know, yeah, it's just acceptance
There's a verse in the Gita which is something like
To the enlightened being the enlightened being and not that I'm calling you enlightened because I know you don't want to be called that
enlightened being perceives all beings in the self and the self in all beings. By
self we mean obviously not individual self and so do you have a sense that you
know in encountering various people that you sort of tune into their true nature
even though they may not be doing so? I heard you in a previous interview say
you do that with trees, so why not people? Maybe trees are easier to tune into.
What I find absolutely blissful and divine on so many levels is to sort of,
whether it's for observing someone, whether it's for being in nature or in
stillness, you know, if you have the opportunity of observing someone
without looking like a weirdo, that's up to any sort of single situation but to
find yourself in a place of pure observation where it's like looking
into a mirror right, that your state of still observation allows you to
yes, sneak a peek at what's going on behind the curtain of the persona of the
other person. So there is the same way that there is within you an innate aliveness,
there is within them an innate aliveness. And to get in touch with that aliveness that
is always there because it is there true in nature whether they realize it or not is absolutely
wonderful as a practice almost. And that can happen when I love, I mean I'm going to sound
I love looking at people in the bus, you know, when they're on the bus, on their phone, looking
outside the window, when they're not talking, when they're not necessarily interacting with
the outside world and there is a sense of stillness.
They might be thinking, feeling, and ruminating on what's been happening and what they need
to prepare for dinner and what's going to happen in the future, but there is a sense
of stillness because they're sat there.
you allow yourself to tune into the recognition of the inner alignments of the other person
becomes so clear that we share the same fabric, the same tapestry of being. And it obviously
is, I do believe it is also the reason why people enjoy being in nature because that
recognition becomes ten times clearer in nature. This aliveness is sort of unfiltered, unveiled
by mechanisms of the mind of the person, of the habits, of the patterns, of the behaviors
that personalizes the self. There is an inner aliveness that
filtrates through every single being and thing in nature and it becomes transparent in nature.
So I think that's one of the reasons why we do feel so connected when we are in a place with
nature. Yeah, I don't know if that answered your question. No, it does and it also reminds me of
why we love animals so much and little babies, you know, because they're not all covered up with
layers and layers of crud. You know, you can look into a dog's eyes and you kind of like looking
right into their soul or a baby. That's exactly it and it's fascinating with this. I was listening to
wrote the Spyro a few days ago and he was talking exactly about that, about since he's specialized
in non-duality and all these things and you know the nature of consciousness and he was taking this
example of a birth. If you've just been born and you don't have any notion of self, any notion of
you, any notion of the world, any notion of separation, any thoughts, any emotions, you are
just been brought into the world, just been born. What is that state if not pure being?
And that is the state that you recognize in a baby because you recognize it in yourself as well.
We only recognize what we experience. I can look at my dog and know that it's breathing because I
know what breathing is. And I recognize it in the dog because I know it in myself.
And this this oneness that you mentioned that you see in animals and babies and nature
We we recognize it as such maybe without naming it because it exists within us
Um, and that is it's it is the moment of sort of uh encounter within that makes it so clear as well
Yeah, nice
um, and of course I you know, I mean there are different philosophical
attitudes about this I
I don't think that babies are tabula rasa. They don't come in as a blank slate. They come in with
a load of karma, but at least they haven't gotten all encumbered in this life yet, you know, by
the stuff that comes at us. And on a similar note, for the sake of philosophical discussion,
not argument, you know, you mentioned a few minutes ago that there isn't a jiva, and this
gets into a sort of Hinduism versus Buddhism thing where, you know, the Buddhists, as I understand it,
feel that there is no discrete entity such as a jiva that goes from life to life even though they
believe in reincarnation. And I don't completely understand this because they feel like the Dalai
Lama has been the Dalai Lama in many lives and you know when they choose a new one the kid has to try
to recognize things that belong to the previous one and so on. But in the Hindu worldview it's more
like the jiva or sukshma sharira as it's sometimes called which is the subtle body does actually go
from one gross body to the next and progresses as it does so. And there is some kind of integrity to
it. So even though you might be a tennis player in one life and an invalid in another life and
all kinds of different roles that you take on to work out different kinds of karma and gain
different kinds of experiences, there is some essential entity that evolves through these lives.
So I think you kind of stand along
on the buddhist line of thinking more from what i've heard you say so far, but I just thought i'd throw that out out there
because I think
I like to take things as interesting hypotheses and
ponder all the possibilities
Yes, absolutely, um, I don't know why I stand I don't I don't feel affiliated to any um,
um spiritual philosophical religious discourse, I I do think
and you know maybe probably most likely many people will disagree with me on
this but I I do think that to some extent they are all pointing to the
same truth. Their arrows are different, the path might be taking to encountering
that truth are varied and different but in my opinion the way I perceive it is
that they are pointing towards the same truth whether you call it the Buddha
nature, whether you call it Atman, the Kingdom of Heaven, it, it,
Dao, these, these are pointers, they're not the truth, they are pointers
towards the truth. The truth is ineffable, right, it cannot be put into
words, and, and I do believe that they are all
pointing towards the same direction. Um, yeah, I don't, yeah.
Sure, and not only different religions, but even within the same, even within
Advaita Vedanta, there are about six different schools that have been arguing
with each other for centuries. And, you know, it's the old blind man and the elephant thing.
They're all right. The elephant is kind of like a tree trunk and kind of like a snake
and kind of like a, you know, a spear. But, you know, nobody tends to see the whole elephant.
A question came in. This is from Tanya Green in Zurich, Switzerland. What is the sense
- and this is related to what we're saying, kind of - what is the sense of awakening in
human life if we were already awake before incarnating?
That's a great question. I'm not sure I have an answer.
I could take a stab, which is that we weren't already awake before incarnating,
that's why we incarnated.
Yes, so the way, yes,
I think there is a difference between knowledge and experience,
right? That's the primordial difference. The formless dimension of who we are, whether you
call it the divine, the soul, it doesn't matter, the untouchable part, the pure being, the truth,
our true nature, who we really are, separates itself into matter, not in order to know because
it is all known, but because it is everything first and foremost. I do believe it separates
itself into matter, into the illusion of separation. You can go left, I can go right,
we can live in America, not in order to know more but in order to experience that knowledge
through the infinite multiplicity of experiences. So there is a fundamental difference between
knowledge and experience and being sent here on that plane in order not to discover but to remember
what we know as the formless within happens through experience.
Experience is only of the earthly plane.
And so yes, we awaken to the truth that we already are,
but we awaken to that truth through the filter, through the momentum of experience
in the 3D.
I don't know if that makes sense.
No, that's good. I think that's part of it.
And again, various traditions say that
you know, the pre-birth or between-birth state is a realm, it's a loka, but you generally don't
awaken there. It's kind of like a resting place, or you kind of recalibrate before you take on
another lifetime, but the actual awakening has to take place in an embodied state.
And there are some provisos that, you know, in some cases one can awaken even from a higher
loka and never come back to the earthly plane. But according to these traditions, for what
it's worth, they say that, you know, human birth is a great opportunity, an enviable one,
an envied one, the angels are jealous, because it's an opportunity for great evolution,
however challenging it may be, or perhaps because it's challenging.
Yes, we go back to where we said at the beginning, there is no...
Life is not here to make us happy. It is not here to accommodate us.
We need to look at the trajectory of evolution of the past, I don't know how many millions of years.
It is here to challenge us, because it is here to awaken us in the earthly plane.
and awakening happens to the challenges, the friction, the emotion of separation.
Here's another question that came in from Gregory Hartzler Miller in the US.
What is your sense of the word "love" at present?
It's the language the universe speaks.
It really is the glue that holds everything together, at every single level.
Love is order. Love is knowing, knowing the self and knowing other.
Love is... there is a reason. It is our true nature.
I think you know we use words such as awakening in the night and I think if we just
Captain speaking about our true nature. I might feel closer
and not so exotic and sophisticated and
One might call it love someone else might call happiness joy bliss it is love is the return home
It is it is the recognition of one's true nature
And it is in my opinion what the universe is made of
Beautiful answer. Very good.
You know, you mentioned you have some kind of job that you support yourself with.
Have you found that post-awakening, and we were talking also about the efficiency of thought not being cluttered with a million extraneous thoughts,
Have you found that your action in practical circumstances, such as doing your job, has
become more skillful or efficient or something as a result of your current inner state?
Yeah, so this is an interesting one because I, for anyone who knows me personally, I am,
I have this sort of, how can I put it in a politically correct way, I'm very organized.
I am and I think it comes as um
You know, I don't know why it's just part of the persona's. Um
toolbox, rooney, um
and the the
organizational skill obviously is is sort of um
A ramification that comes from what was before I need to control I need to control I need to oversee
I need to plan I need to force it to forecast to curate so control was was the origin of
my organization and what sort of happened recently is how does a sense of
inner discipline in organization remain without the control?
How does that manifest when the root has been cut and the thing
the skill still exists but doesn't come from the same place the same intention?
and so I am slower than I used to be.
I think I was very much wired quite
hyper before. I'm definitely slower but
what I found incredibly efficient and skillful
not just at work, in life always, is to just
Welcome the task that needs to be done with with full intent. I I I don't let the inner commentary
There is so much waste so much energy wasted on denial tasks that we don't want to perform, especially at work
That's lower us down. So it is just to welcome
The absolute necessity of hearing now what needs to be done
Um and to find if not a sense of joy in it
Or purpose just a sense of pure acceptance
um, and that is
I think
In a strange way, um
A recipe for efficiency to just accept finning what needs to be done here and now
um
It probably doesn't answer the question. No, it does. That's a very good answer. Um
I think
it as you were
Saying it. I I thought of the fact I thought that perhaps there are many qualities which
Might be considered neurotic or something. Um
ordinarily, which actually, if freed from their neurotic qualities, could still exist,
but in a wholesome and useful way.
So you just talked about, you know, you're kind of obsessive-compulsive or something about
getting everything organized.
Now you're organized, but without all the obsessiveness and compulsion.
And we can probably think of a dozen other qualities like that, which have a dark side
and a light side, depending upon whether they're encumbered by conditioning or not.
The nature of the intention behind them.
And it's quite interesting actually, because I was serving at a meditation center in the
UK recently, where they do work retreats where you volunteer a little bit every day and then
they nod you.
And so I was there for three weeks, and they had put me into the kitchen, which is quite
high stakes, high intensity space.
And so I was forced into a rhythm that was not my own. I was forced into walking quickly,
carrying heavy plates, putting things on the table super quickly when 100 people were waiting
in line and, you know, forced into a pace of existing that is not my natural state.
And what I found wonderful to witness was that there is, again, from the outside people
can see as, "Oh my God, she's so stressed and, you know, she's walking quickly." But
to
in the mind that says, "Okay, that needs to happen, and then don't forget that, and not
quick enough, and look at all these people, oh my goodness, they're waiting, they're slow,"
and to just meet the moment with what the moment means of being to be that vessel.
And sometimes it requires a high speed, and it's really interesting to see how that can
happen without the sort of feeling overwhelmed by that speed, which then becomes stress,
to just be in flow with the rhythm and the situation, if that makes sense.
Oh yeah, I don't think that being spiritual means talking slowly, moving slowly, and acting
kind of like a happy zombie.
I think you could be very dynamically active, like you were just describing, and be in a
very still state within.
You could be a professional tennis player, or actress for that matter.
Although actress is a little weird because you have to take on all these other personalities
and do stuff that you're not inclined to do, you know, sometimes I imagine that's probably
why you got away from it.
Although I would say with any sports, any art forms, you know, they describe it as flow.
You enter a state of acute awareness and profound consciousness where the mind has dissipated.
is no, you're just absolutely enthralled in the act of it as an extension of the self,
as an extension of being. In fact, there is a quality of being that infuses the doing so much
that one really becomes the sort of manifested and incarnated version of the other. So when you do
enter that state of flow then, wonderful, you're free of the mind, you're liberated, you're just
one with the present mind. And that's where I am.
I guess. Yeah, that sounds interesting. I know there are some actors and actresses who are very
spiritual people. They practice meditation and stuff. I wonder if acting could be conducive to
evolution, certainly if it's your dharma to do it. But also just by virtue of the fact that you do
have to take on all these different persona, I wonder if that can make you somehow more flexible
or less attached to the persona with which you were born,
kind of enhance the witnessing quality.
It's a fascinating conversation.
We speak about it quite a lot with an actor friend of mine.
And I mentioned him because the approach is acting
from a place of absolute love and abundance.
I know that he was meant to be an artist, storyteller,
whether it's actor or something else.
He is meant to use his being in this way in this lifetime.
I approached it from, as we've determined,
a running away from myself, don't want to be myself, so I'll be anybody else.
I approach it from the attention of lack and fear
and not the profound disillusion and disbelief that I am not good enough
just being you. So I think it really depends
on the platform upon which you build your house. You know, is the foundation
sturdy and is the foundation authentic and just love, you know. And if that's the case,
then wonderful because that means that by incarnating other beings, by allowing the
boundaries of yourself to become more flexible because less identifying with you and your story,
the story of me, what you do is that you let compassion in, in a beautifully experiential
and in this whole way you quite literally allow yourself to become someone else and live in
their shoes with their set of fears and releases in habitual patterns and and you if if done right
and if honored you cultivate a tremendous amount of compassion for that other person because you
can't be a good actor if you're not um if you're judging your character that's that's just not
possible so it invites um a deep sense of love and kindness in the presence of embodying someone else
Could you imagine yourself ever going back to it with this whole new orientation?
Who knows? I feel no desire. Yeah, no, that's it. That's perfectly
totally natural, appropriate. Perhaps you have friends or family who are urging you to do so,
but I totally respect your whatever moves you, you know. I think you'll make the right choices.
I think it's hard to unlearn what you've learned and don't know what you know.
It would feel for now like squeezing myself into a box that's very tiny and narrow in which I could barely breathe
It does cost you a bit of peace to be an actor. I mean, you know you and an energetic level it is dreaming to to perform
um with your body as a as a tool and
And when you are um given the opportunity to
Perform mitty mitty gritty roles, you know, the complex drama
Are highly psychological ones that everyone sort of craves for
Then it's it's painful because you exist in a in a lower state of vibration of um
Whatever the world requires of you, which is, you know pain anger grief. I mean it is the
You're not in a state of homeostasis
You're not in a state of
Inner peace and balance because you have to embody the truth of that lived moment for that character and that is painful
yeah, i'm thinking that movie with glenn close and michael douglas were
Who is it called I forget but anyway, she had to play this really horrific, you know crazy person
I should think that having to act that way hours on end would enliven those qualities in you to some extent
I think I think if you don't take care of yourself
during before after does
It can damage. I mean i've i've heard quite a few stories of people who really have been damaged
Short term and long term by certain rules because you just give everything of you in it. So
Yeah, it's uh, it requires experience and wisdom to to play with the boundary between what is real and what isn't and recognize that
Yeah
interesting
Um another question came in this one is from brent elkholm in australia
Do you have any thoughts on dealing with the shadow self if you are not in a fully awakened state every moment of the day?
I think calling it shadow self makes it so
Heightened and scary
In my view which is very personal there is no shadow self there is no separate entity that lives within you that is
Causing your suffering
um
people
Do treat the mind and thoughts as a as a
As a separate entity rather than a process and I don't think that's helpful
I think
what is causing most people suffering is their relationship with the mind, is their relationship with thinking.
Maybe not for everyone, but I do believe that it can be boiled down to that.
What is the relationship that you entertain with your mind, with thinking?
If you observe the quality of your thoughts on a day-to-day basis, if you really become the observer of what is happening in your mind,
it will become very clear what the mind does
and how the mind identifies with certain traits, how the mind identifies with the past, with the
future, what happened to you, the story of me, how I can't get through the story of me, the story
of me is defining me, it was my past that I'm bringing into the present, it will define my
future, then our relationship with the mind is what causes our suffering. In other words, there is a
huge difference between an event and our mind's commentary and relationship to the event.
An event is an event. What the mind makes of the event is what sticks, is what creates
unpleasant memories and traumas and all these things.
The process of identifying with the truth that the mind builds, the story of me, is what causes suffering.
There is nothing to do
to actively pursue
in order to
kill the mind. There's no point in trying to achieve that, it would be a mistake.
The first step is to recognize the mind for what it is, is to invite spaciousness within,
like we spoke about earlier, is to realize that there is within you bits of data circulating all
the time that the mind makes personal, that thinks about the past, about the future, about you, about
the contours of your identity, where you come from, and what's painful, and reliving what's painful,
reinforcing your sense of self constantly, the mind, thoughts, and if you can create
spaciousness within, if you can start just through pure observation, not by doing anything,
to recognize that you are not the mind. You are the witness observing the mind.
You are not the mind, you are not the thoughts, you are not the emotions attached to the thoughts.
Emotions just being thoughts incarnated into the body really.
There is a sense of spaciousness between who you really are
and the mind.
I find that going about it this way makes it less personal.
There is not a separate self that is on a vendetta against you called the
shadowed self that is trying to ruin your life.
It is just a process that we are addicted to,
that is causing the suffering. And that process is not who you are. You're the person witnessing
that process and observing it from a place of distance. And it is inviting that spaciousness
within between that process, thinking dysfunctional, addictive patterns of thinking,
and who you really are that is going to get, alleviate the anxiety that comes with just
being human and being alive. And that is not something that requires any doing per se,
it is just a state of pure observation. If you can start observing your thoughts and
observing the rhythm of your mind, it will become so clear that you are not the mind.
It will become so clear that you are the instance, ever silent, ever non-judging,
never commenting, always just observing purely and stillly the mind. You're the thing observing it.
and the more distance is invited within, the more you carry focusing on that stillness and that
spaciousness within, the less weight, the less importance, the less gravitas you will give to
the space that mind and thoughts occupy. You will see it for what it is. It is actually impersonal
bits of data moving through you and the mind holds on to it and grabs it and tries to make it personal
mind is a pattern-making and meaning-making machine, but it certainly feels personal,
I know it does, but you're not the story of me that the mind is trying to paint of you,
you are the truth witnessing it. And to invite that spaciousness within is the first step
towards a sense of stillness because of separation between who you really are and this
constant and permanent change happening. If you can see that who you really are
cannot be wounded by the impact of your thoughts and feelings, then you will come to realize that
there is an innate peace that was always there but it was just veiled by the movements and the
addiction of the mind and the suffering it causes. There is no peace to find, you are that peace,
It has just veiled. It's been veiled by layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of conditioning created by the mind.
It did and there's a kind of a prescription description thing going on here where in your own case
you didn't really try to
inculcate the state that from which you now function you went on a retreat and
You know you did this long meditation and something flipped and your whole orientation shifted quite
Spontaneously and stayed shifted you didn't try to maintain the shifted state. It just kind of stuck and
So but a lot of people listening won't have that experience and they will be
governed by those layers and layers of conditioning you just described so
What can we prescribe for them that will enable them to?
eventually get to the point, get to the state you've just described, and
they shouldn't expect to get to it overnight or next weekend or
something. It might take a while to develop. What would you have them do?
Literally what I just said. So if you can take five minutes out of your busy day to
sit, close your eyes, and focus on breath, and realize that there is
focus on just breathing in and out. You will not be able to move through two, three, four,
five breaths without the mind interacting, without the mind commenting on the present moment,
without the mind having an opinion about what's going on. This sucks, this doesn't work, this is
stupid breath, who cares? Or I can't do it, I'm not good enough, look at me, I'll never be able
to this, this and that. The mind commenting on the present moment. If you can get to a stage
where it becomes crystal clear that what is causing you pain is not the present moment,
99.9% of the time it is not the present moment. It is what the mind has to say about the present
moment. The commentary associated to the event, that is what's causing you pain. If you can get
to a state where this becomes evident, this becomes just incarnated in your being because
it becomes so clear, then you... 70% of the work is done. I mean, I'm inventing a percentage here,
but you know what I mean. That is the biggest leap. The biggest leap is just the lived truth
of experiencing the separation between, which by the way is always there, we just don't see it,
but the lived separation between who you truly are and the motions of the mind. If you can,
on an experiential level, understand that what is causing suffering is not the event,
but what the mind has to say about the event, then you have won. That is it, because that is
in itself a shift in paradigm. That is you shifting the model of your reality and by doing so you are
inviting a new logic, a new way of approaching the present moment every single time and then
it just becomes a habit. It becomes reinforcing that experience and making it second nature which
is just a matter of repetition but you have created a new model of understanding the present moment
for yourself. If you're at a bus stop waiting for the bus and you just missed it and the sun is
raining, it doesn't matter. You're wearing a blazer or you're not. You're cold or you're warm,
it doesn't matter. These are just neutral events, sensations fleeting temporarily through your body.
If the mind tells you, "Of course you missed the bus because it's new, because you're so unlucky
and you missed the bus and it's Monday and I'm going to be late," what is causing unhappiness?
The commentary of the mind. If you train yourself, I don't like train because it implies resistance,
If you invite that truth back again and again and again and again on a daily basis, you
will invite a new way of looking at reality in yourself.
And you will see reality for what it is, not for what the mind would like you to see it
for.
Not the reality you want it to be, the reality that is.
And if you do that, repeatedly, without scolding yourself, without being impatient, without
thinking that this is stupid and it takes too much time. Just seeing things and seeing what
the mind has to say about things. Always going back to that truth. Things what the mind has to
say about it. Which one is causing suffering? The event, the commentary. The event, the commentary.
What is causing the pain? How am I experiencing this pain? What am I hearing? What are the
thoughts that come back and forth all the time? That come back on a circle. If you do that,
you will enter a new dimension of being because if you do that you will realize that the only
thing that is real is your experience of the present moment beyond the mind, above or deep
well, it doesn't matter, then the mind. It is a mindless, in a way, experience of the
self in the present moment. And that's why I didn't want to linger too much on that thing
that happened because I again I think we tend to crystallize these events and sort of stamp
of approval something amazing happened yay I've got it you know it's not it's simply not true
yes something happened and maybe it deeply accelerated an understanding that would have
taken longer but I do believe that whether it's fast-tracked or not the understanding of reality
is the same. The coming home journey starts with understanding what you are not. You're
not the mind, you're not the thoughts, you're not the feelings, you're not the body.
Good. One key word in everything you just said, and it was all good stuff, but one key word is
repetition. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers, in which he talked about
several different people like the Beatles and Bill Gates and some others who spent 10,000 hours
honing their craft, and that made them as good as they were. And that is true of an athlete,
or an actress, or a mathematician, or any other thing that people do in life.
And the same, in a sense, could be true of spirituality. I mean, people meditate for
years and decades, or practice some kind of spiritual thing, and as they do so,
the neurophysiology actually restructures itself. They've done studies in which, you know, they
find long-term meditators have thicker prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus is this way and all
kinds of things like that. The brain actually changes and it doesn't change instantly. It
takes time. In the case of somebody like you, you might have had predisposition or proclivity for a
a sudden shift, but most people don't have sudden and abiding shifts.
Some people are "oozers" as a friend of mine says.
They ooze slowly into whatever they develop.
But nonetheless, I think that slow and steady wins the race, so to speak.
If you find some kind of, like what you just said, the five-minute thing, or some form
of meditation, or something that seems to work for you, and then just do it regularly.
It says that in the Yoga Sutras also, it says through persistent practice over a long time,
samadhi is attained.
I don't know exactly how the verse goes, but something like that.
So as with everything in life, eating healthy, exercising, learning a skill, make spiritual
development a priority and a part of your daily routine, whatever else your daily routine
might involve, and it will bear fruit.
And can I just add to that as well?
I absolutely agree with everything you said.
I also think it's, again, it's very personal.
It does tend to rub me the wrong way when I hear, you know, and I think the intention
is pure, but people talk of the spiritual path, the spiritual journey, and that implies time
and space and a distance between where you are now and what you're trying to accomplish
or achieve or discover or unfold.
I really don't think that's helpful.
At least in the spiritual realm,
you start with a destination.
The destination is the journey
and you have already arrived.
Breaking news, everyone, you are it.
There is nothing outside of you right here, right now
that will add onto the realization of your true nature
that you are seeking.
You are it.
So then, wonderful, let's go on a journey,
but with the premise and remembrance
that you are the destination.
There is nothing outside of you
will fill any illusionary void within. That is not true. Nothing needs to be added to the absolute
being that you are for you to realize your true nature. What needs to be done is actually things
need to be removed. The onion needs to be peeled off. The layers need to be removed slowly and
gently. For some people, layers are removed at once and it's brutal. For some people,
layers are removed slowly and gently, that doesn't matter. The truth is the diamond is within,
behind the layers, and whether we remove them slowly or rapidly, they're being removed by
the work of inner awareness, the spiritual curiosity that you infuse in your daily life.
But you are the destination. Yes, enlightenment, awakening, great,
doesn't matter ultimately, I don't know. We're here to remember our true nature.
That's it. That's what it is. I mean that's what that word is supposed to represent.
And I think, and then who is excluded then from their true nature? Nobody. Exactly.
That includes the psychotic and Adolf Hitler and all kinds of baddies.
which, yeah, everyone has the same true nature, a tiger, a turtle, whatever, but you know,
there, as you've said, as we've discussed, there are many degrees of occlusion or obscuration
and that have to be removed and sometimes people have quick breakthroughs, sometimes it takes
decades, but I had a teacher who used to say the goal is all along the path, which is what you just
said. So it's there, but then we don't want to make the mistake of like some of these neo-advaita
people who say, "You're already enlightened, don't do anything, you know, just accept that and you're
done. Don't do practices because it will only reinforce the notion of a practicer." I think
that kind of advice is not useful. But on the other hand, you know, we don't want to just sort of
moan and groan and long for some glorious future while passing over the present because again
what we are is here now and it's just a matter of perhaps realizing it more and more fully.
There's already water in the well but you just have to draw it up and to take advantage of it.
Okay, so incidentally at any point during this conversation, if you have some thought to
talk about something and I'm not asking you a question, then just bring it up.
Have you ever experienced, well since your awakening, have you ever had like outbursts of
anger or depression or you know kind of things like that that you might once have experienced
years ago, but do they ever kind of bubble up? And if so, what do you do?
No.
Good. They just don't bubble up.
No. I've experienced sadness. I've experienced grief, anger.
I remember hearing you talk about experiencing profound sadness about world suffering.
So it's not like you're sad about yourself. You're sad about the world.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I can experience and witness, you know, moments of weeping
and seeing the destruction that we inflict upon ourselves.
But then the sadness is not personalized
and therefore doesn't become a different quality of anger
or something.
It is just the observation of us running into the wall,
essentially, and the sadness that comes with it.
Losing my dog, my grandmother, in the space of a few days,
these things that create sadness.
But there is constantly the container is peace
And within that container is experience thoughtful nations objects of perceptions more less present
But it doesn't remove the container of peace that has to just never left. And so yeah, everything is experienced in the background
Nice very nice
um, so there's this thing called city voices and
I understand you're affiliated with that in some way you you participate you you
Help people who come
To you through city voices. Is that correct?
Yes, I met uh, the one who damn pray, uh, who is the director of city voices. Um,
I don't remember when um before I went to my retreat in one day
um
and uh, he has created a spirit charity groups and Saturdays where
My purpose is with him and then something called friendship squad, which is um
sort of initiative that helps people who deal with loneliness, mental health issues, sadness, grief,
depression and all these things to just have a shoulder to cry on or a friend to go back to when
they are experiencing distress on their own. And it's been wonderful.
So people have zoom conversations with you or something through that?
Yeah, text or phone rather. Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, and then on Saturdays we do the the sprayer charity groups with either a person who's being interviewed someone who
Was invited to join or just us where we hold meditation spaces and discussions on pretty much everything you and I talk about
Good. Well, it may sound like i'm concluding this interview, but i'm not but um
But anyway, if if someone wants to get in touch with you, is that the best way to do it through city voices?
I guess so. I mean any other way do you you probably don't want to put your email address out there or something
You just get a ton of emails, but not website or anything, right? I don't know
I don't have social media and I don't have a website but maybe
Well, yeah, city voices would be down for a city voices would be a good way
Okay, I'll put a link to that on your back gap page. Yes good. Okay, but as I say I want to keep talking to you
So we won't finish that
Are most of the people who come through city voices troubled in some way like you were saying lonely or suicidal or whatever do people?
or sometimes they're just real spiritual seekers and have they ever had a shift
or an awakening working with you? I think both, yes. I've experienced people
suffering in some way or another, yes absolutely, because Dan has created a
container of absolute safety and care so people feel free to join knowing that
They are not the only ones in pain suffering and there is a collective sort of them output of compassion. I
My goodness would I not claim that anyone
You've been a catalyst somehow talking to somebody
Here's the thing
I think we have so much more impact than we do in
general a friend used to tell me that when I was doing acting and you know
complaining being upset about we don't have any auditions and nothing's
happening and he told me something I will never forget which is 90% of
progress of growth of impact is invisible it is all happening
behind the curtain so we you by holding the space me by by choosing to be here
and sharing the space with you people by answering and asking questions and I'll
I'll just add that what I
Again going back to the sense of without going into neo
Whatever the the truth the absolute truth that you are the destination you've arrived. You're it's fine. Yes
um
It is always um wonderfully mind-blowing how little it takes for someone to
Recognize that yeah
Because that's what it is. The truth is not new the truth is ancient. It's a recognition
It's it's a remembering and so because it lives within them. It takes very very little to sort of um,
um
somehow
Trigger or invite that realization and it's different for every person
everyone carries very individual baggage and are more or less resistance more or less inclined to
um
To to something different and new that will challenge them and their worldview and sometimes there is such a thing as divine timing sometimes
You will someone will just not have it
Um, they were just not interested
and and it also very much sort of
Has to do somehow with the quality of their suffering, you know, but um
I I'm always incredibly
Humbled and more of how little it takes for someone to remember true
of who they are and how to get there. And then again it's a matter of showing up again and again
and again to that truth to water the seed with something pure and honest because if it took you
60 years to get to that state of absolute suffering and dread and anguish then it might take
a bit more than two weeks to reverse all of that momentum, right, that sort of energetic
karma that's been set into place. But it takes very little and whether it's me or somebody else
It really it doesn't matter. It's them. It's it's the return home their remembrance and
sometimes the then the pieces are set in the perfect way and everything is sort of
Orchestrated in a way that is ideal for someone to remember that right within and sometimes it takes a bit more
discussion
conversing
Back in court, but it's them. It's it's them. Yeah. Yeah, there's an encouraging verse in the Gita says
No effort is lost and no obstacle exists even a little of this Dharma removes great fear
Do you think you'll ever step into the role of a teacher aside from what you're doing on city voices, can you imagine yourself?
Sitting up there talking to a group of people that kind of thing
You're good at it. I mean you speak very well, and you're deeply insightful
First of all, I did I truly don't know okay. I don't I don't think I want to know I think
I'm still in there. I want to be of service
There's one thing that has sort of shaped itself and that is an absolute suit of
extension of the truth I go with is that I I
Want to be of service and and I think
When you live it the law becomes so clear, you know gift first you receive after
That's, to me, that's the law. You give and then you receive. You give not out of, you know, selfless, you know, sort of martyrdoms.
You give because that's what we're here to do. We're here to give, whatever that looks like.
And so I do want to be of service in some way. I also don't want to have any personal preference because I don't believe that I know what's best for me.
I believe it's whatever, you know, consciousness incarnate in through me does.
I don't believe I do the little self. So it will come from a place of stillness
within whenever it's ready to, you know, be born into the world. But I don't know.
That's a good answer and I think that's the right motivation, you know. I mean
I've heard of people, you know, being overheard at spiritual retreats. "I can't
wait to get awakened so I can quit my day job and become a spiritual teacher, you know?
And wrong motivation!
So…
I think, I also think that is running in the opposite direction of awakening, so…
Right.
It's ego-based, yeah.
Yeah.
No, I totally, I love that answer, that, you know, we want to be of service.
God make me an instrument of thy peace, to quote St. Francis.
You know that prayer of St. Francis, all those lovely things where there is anger, let me
sow peace and all that stuff.
Because really that's what a spiritual teacher is.
It's not you giving people stuff, you're just a conduit.
You know, you're just a channel or a, you know, a conduit, that's a good word, for some
higher wisdom that we couldn't possibly own.
Absolutely.
I loved what you said about birds.
I like birds too. I feed them and I give them bath water, you know, bird baths and stuff like that, and animals in general.
And I think what you said about birds in your interview with Dan is that there's no leader. You see a flock of birds and there's no leader.
It made me think of geese, in which there seems to be a leader, because there's one goose out in front.
But actually they take turns because it's hard to be the lead goose.
He has to sort of break the wind resistance and the others take advantage of that by forming this V formation.
But they trade off so that they can all get have it a little bit easier.
So even with it and then there's that whole fascinating thing about murmurations of starlings.
You've probably seen videos of those which each starling can only see seven birds around it at most.
But the whole thing moves in these beautiful patterns. I don't know. What do you make of that? It's
It's a it's a quasi perfect illustration for
What then?
Movement of collective awakening should be whether it is for fish whether it's a herd of sheep whether it's a flock of birds
There is no it's a it's a bottom-up phenomenon. There is no leader
Yeah, there is there is just a unifying field of conscious movement that inhabits all of these, you know
with this collective momentum. I do profoundly believe that we've reached a stage in evolution
and that's a personal opinion, so take it or leave it, it's not worth much, but
we can't get by with one Jesus, one Buddha. We need more. We can't get by with one awakened
leader anymore. We have reached a state of urgency in the post-sara revolution collectively where
We need to awaken together. It needs to happen together collectively. We need to utilize with skillful authenticity and integrity the movement of
The motion and the power of waking up together. It happens together and it just doesn't happen. Um
and so I think that's why what you do and other people do is so skillful and so beautiful because it is
inviting this this energetic sort of uh signature and vibration to
to to heighten to
to elevate, you know, um
It's not meant to be an individual phenomenon, it's not meant to be an individual process
and event.
It is the awakening, true awakening has to be collective.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh saying the next Buddha may be the
Sangha.
Oh, yeah.
You know, not like there's going to be some individual savior, but it's like, it's a collective
phenomenon now.
Yeah.
And that was one of my motivations actually for starting this was that, you know, I was
talking with people who had been meditating for ages and they, you know, and some people
were getting awakened, but the rest of the people were skeptical of that because they
kind of envisioned awakening as some supernatural or super normal or, you know, kind of like
Jesus or Superman or something like that.
And they thought, "Wow, this guy thinks he's had an awakening.
He must be deluded."
It couldn't happen to him, couldn't happen to me.
And I thought, no, it's happening, and I want to just show people that it's happening to
people like them.
And so the whole theme of Bath Gap from the beginning has been conversations with ordinary
spiritually awakening people.
Who would add the gas pump, you know, some guy pumping gas next to you.
And that's what I like about it.
That's what I like about what you're doing.
awakened. It is a process. It is a continuation. It is not something that is open-ended. It
is not something that has an end. Because it lives beyond space and time. It is a state
of absolute being. It doesn't respond to the law of space and time. So there is no end
in space and time of "I declare freely today that I am enlightened." And from then on,
there will be no furthering of the enlightened. No. It is a continuing process of deepening
constantly. And I think again that is a way of looking at it that might be a bit
more... well first of all I believe honest and skillful in how people relate to
this strange seemingly exotic although it's not process that awakening is to
wake up to your true nature that is right here right now. Which
layers are we going to impure for you to realize who you truly are? Yeah. But when
you realize who you truly are, that the work, I believe, carries on. Although it's not painful,
but the momentum of awakening carries on and takes different shapes throughout the cycles
of life for different people.
Yeah. The tagline of Batgap used to be "interviews with spiritually awakened people," and we
changed it to "awakening" for that very reason. And I often quote St. Teresa of Avila, who
said, "It appears that God himself is on the journey."
Yeah.
Wow, that's beautiful.
Yeah.
And there was this wonderful woman named Peace Pilgrim.
I don't know if you've ever heard of Peace Pilgrim, but there's a little book about her.
She just walked around the United States for years with no possessions, nothing but the
shirt on her back which said Peace Pilgrim on it, and people would just take care of
her, and she was just at the mercy of nature.
But she had this little chart in her book which was that the pace of evolution is kind
is kind of maybe gradual for a while, but once evolution, once awakening has happened, it
kind of goes like a hockey stick and accelerates, goes up much more quickly, which would stand
to reason because you're not interfering with it anymore, you know? You're not throwing
monkey wrenches in the works. You're allowing nature to do it, and nature is much more powerful
than our individuality.
which is something we didn't touch upon, but is absolutely huge for another time.
But surrender, the role of surrender in that process/destination of coming home to yourself,
to your true nature.
Yeah, very good.
And what I wanted to add as well, in terms of awakening and these things, is I don't
have the answer.
a rhetorical question but how many people in a group of a million let's say, how many people
actually do need to awaken for the dynamic of the entire group to change? What is the percentage?
And I do think it's way less than you think. So we're what seven, eight billion of us now,
how many would it actually take to change the course of our civilization and to steer it in
a different direction, through awakened minds, through another compassion and everything
that comes from that state. I do think it's way less than we think it is.
In the heart, 1% of the cells are called pacemaker cells and they emit electrical signals that
regulate the beating of the other 99% of the heart. And in a laser, if the square root of 1%
of the photons align with each other and become coherent,
the rest of the photons entrain with them and the whole thing becomes as if a
one coherent beam of light. So there are examples from nature about small
percentages having a big effect on the whole.
One percent it is then. Or even the square root of one percent.
Who knows? Okay, final question. If you could
Talk to Emeline from 10 years ago who was depressed and suicidal and all that stuff.
What would you like to tell her?
I would tell her that it's perfectly safe just to be herself.
Perfectly safe just to be herself?
Yes.
And do you think that would have shifted her experience a lot to have heard that from her
future self?
I, she, needed to go through. Suffering is still at the level of consciousness where
the catalyst for awakening. So it's one thing to understand something intellectually,
um, it's different to inhabit that truth experientially. You know, I heard people say
that in the past and I was just like, oh my goodness, ridiculous, but I, grateful would be
It's not that I'm grateful for my suffering. That implies a sort of binary system with
good and bad. I see suffering as an absolutely necessary and paradoxically, even if it isn't,
divine chapter of coming home to myself. I see now the absolute necessity of suffering
the way I did. I wish maybe I would have understood the nature of surrender earlier on because
I maybe would have needed to suffer a bit less. But it just happened the way it happened.
And I responded to what happened at the level of consciousness I was at. I didn't know
any better. But there's a quote by one of my favorite plays by Edward Albee in The Zoo
new story. 14 page play, it's really sort of nothing but it's absolutely beautiful.
And one of the characters, Jerry, says something, he has a long, long mug and he starts by saying,
"I'm going to tell you the story of how sometimes it's necessary to travel a long
distance out of your own way in order to come back a short distance correctly." And that's
it. It's a movement of expansion and coming home. And one can only happen if the other
of the prior wanted place. So a long distance, but then you come back a short distance correctly.
Very nice. All right. Well, thank you so much, Emeline. I've really enjoyed getting to know
you a little bit and having this conversation. I'm sure the people who watch this will really enjoy
it. And as I mentioned in the beginning, if they currently, if they want to get in touch with you,
they can do that through City Voices, and I'll provide a link to that. And if new things open
up in the future, like if you get a website or anything, just let me know and I'll add that to
your page on batgap.com. Take care and stay in touch and thank you for letting me interview you
and thanks to those who've been listening and watching for doing so. Thank you for having me.
Thanks so much.
[Music]