WEBVTT

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Breaking news everyone, you are it. There is nothing outside of you right here right

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now that will add onto the realization of your true nature that you are seeking. You

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are it. There is nothing outside of you that will fill any illusionary void within. Nothing

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needs to be added to the absolute being that you are for you to realize your true nature.

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What needs to be done is actually things need to be removed. The onion needs to be peeled

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The layers need to be removed.

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Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.

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My name is Rick Archer.

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Buddha at the Gas Pump, if you've never seen it, is an ongoing series of conversations with

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spiritually awakening people.

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Done well over 700 of them now.

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And if this is new to you and you would like to check out the previous ones, please go to

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backgap.com and look under the past interviews menu where you'll find them

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all organized in various ways. You'll find other things on the site that you

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might find interesting such as a spiritual AI chatbot which has hundreds

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of thousands of documents loaded into its data corpus including 1,700 of the

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world's sacred texts and you can ask it all kinds of spiritual questions and get

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detailed answers. This program is made

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possible through the support of

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appreciative listeners and viewers, so if

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you appreciate it and would like to help

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support it, please go to badgap.com and

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there are PayPal buttons on every page of

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the site and also a page that explains

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alternatives to PayPal. My guest today is

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Emeline Lambert. I'm going to have her pretty much

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introduce herself.

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She was an actress. She was in something

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called House of the Dragon, which was a

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prequel to Game of Thrones and something called Django, another thing called Invasion.

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But then she had a series of profound spiritual experiences and her life path kind of diverged

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into a different direction.

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I'll let you elaborate, Emeline.

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Well, let me ask you some questions to make it easier for you to get started.

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First of all, as a child, did you have some kind of unusual experiences?

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I often find that with people who've had spiritual awakenings a little bit later, like children

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who as children they maybe saw auras or angels or felt a sense of unity or things like that.

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And then usually during their teenage years it all kind of fell away and then came back.

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Did you have anything like that?

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You don't necessarily have to say yes.

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I'm letting the answer come in the most authentic way.

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So when I was born I didn't want to open my eyes.

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because there was anything wrong with me medically, I just, you know, had them shut

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angrily. You remember that? No, my mom told me. Oh, okay. I don't remember that. That would be pretty extraordinary.

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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

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needs a bit more time and it seems like that... You're like a kitten, you know, they don't open their

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white eyes for a couple of weeks. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. What I do remember, though, and that was

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quite a pretty early memory was this feeling of what the F am I doing here?

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And I would tell my parents, you know, with absolute certitude, I'm not your

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child, like we can pretend for the cameras, you know, Truman show hidden up

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in the corners, that's fine.

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I can play along, but I know I'm not your child.

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I come from Mars.

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I know that my brother, my brother.

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Yeah.

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I would say miles.

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I don't know why.

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Very interesting.

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Just different planets.

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And I would say, listen, I'm not angry at you.

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Like we can all pretend you'll love me.

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That's fine.

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But I know I am not meant to be here.

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I know I'm not part of this family.

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And that is something I remember vividly.

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My mother had to show me the pregnancy pictures and all

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of that.

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But it still wouldn't ring true.

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I think what became the theme of my life from a pretty early age

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was this sort of profoundly painful realization

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that well I'm not going back home anytime soon I'm stuck here. All right what do we do then?

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And I think that the defense mechanism set in place very very early on was okay well

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if I'm stuck here I'm gonna have to be anyone but me because me the real true me is this

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entity that knows that this essence that understands on some strange level that this isn't home

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this isn't this isn't the main event this is the waiting room and I don't know why people

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pretending this is the main event, I'm not buying it. And so very early on the quest or rather the

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escape become a constant search for identity. Who am I? Who can I become if not me? And that

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translated into performance, performance art. I discovered ballet. I had quite a lot of

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apto-rat syndrome so you know my mother felt like I had this energy to sort of like spend physically

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and so it started with ballet which I ended up doing professionally

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in France. I was born outside of Paris, I'm half French, half Swedish and so I grew up doing ballet,

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trained at Paris Opera Ballet School which is quite a reputable school which is really really hard

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with all the cliches and stereotypes that you can imagine around them, the ballet world, but it was

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fantastic because I found myself an identity so I could be the ballerina but obviously that's not

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the truth. So at some point life came in the way. I got injured so I had to stop pretty much before

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transitioning professionally to the company. And so again for the first time in a very long time

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I was faced with this thing of okay I'm not the ballerina anymore, I'm not the dancer,

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that's fine. Who else then? Who's next? Who can I become? Not what can I do but who can I be?

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and so my 20s became pretty much an attempt, followed by constant failure, to just be anyone

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but me. And that sort of, the paroxysm of that was redacting, which you then become everyone but you.

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And it was really interesting because it was just, it's obviously still very, very hard

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from space and I remember like it was yesterday, it was in fact a year and a half ago, my agent's

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assistant had called me regarding the tape and you know you're asked to do American,

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different various sorts of accents and for this one they didn't really know so they asked me to

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the American accent, British, different ones and the assistant called me and said you know

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Good work on the tape. By the way, just flagging we can hear you. We can hear you in the tape

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I said, oh, okay. Sorry, you uh, you can hear the britishness coming out in the american. No, no, not really

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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

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And it's such a mundane thing to say to an actor. I mean, you know, you work on accents

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it's just part of the toolbox, right? But there was just an exactitude in what she said, and

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there was something about time and space that froze at that second where I just sort of

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thought, "Okay, I spent 30 years running away from myself and I thought I became so

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skilled at it, and you can still hear me in the tape. Oh, well, I give up." And there

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was just a sort of collapse in that moment where I realized what kind of undercurrent

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of intention had driven every single one of my choices my entire life, which was just

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a pull outside of me, running away from whatever me was. And in that moment, which could have

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been nothing—I had millions of conversations like this with you before—but there was

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something about just the energetic signature of that moment where I thought, "Oh, I give

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up. I just can't do it. I can't spend my life pretending to be someone I'm not and I don't

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want to be. So what do I do? And it's interesting because now retrospectively I see it as this

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crumbling down that needed to happen so that truth could come through the cracks.

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But I just gave up. And so I thought, okay, every single choice I've made my entire life

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I've been out of fear and lack rather than love and abundance and it's been a need to run away from me

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and I'm skipping the 20s which were, you know, suicidal, PTSD, OCD,

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on antidepressant medication. We don't need to go into these because it happens to so many people,

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but there was a real sort of thing going on that just came to a halt recently and from that point

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to complete stillness and absorption of why I had done everything I had done up until

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now. I just decided to stop, to stand still in the discomfort of it, and I don't really

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know why, but that became the work. And then I had always been spiritually curious, having

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felt this sense of complete discomfort with the world from early on. And then things started

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to happen and I went to a few retreats. One of them was very intense and something tangible

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happened there and the sort of death that had started carried on in that moment. And

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the long story, which is not that short, is that I've had a strange experience recently

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which left me with nothing of the past life and of the past self and this mental construct

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of me was just replaced with a sense of peace and complete acceptance and just bliss. And

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I've been trying to make sense of it ever since. And somehow I'm here, which I don't

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think I know why, but I'm happy to be here.

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So I have some questions based on what you just said. The first is I found it remarkable

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that you felt like you were from Mars, because I interviewed a guy, interviewed before the

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previous one, two interviews ago, who's some leader in something called the Aetherius Society,

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which was inspired by a guy named George King, who lived in the UK. And one of their main

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contentions is that there are advanced civilizations on all the planets, and they particularly

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focus on Mars and Venus, which at first glance seems absurd, because those places are

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uninhabitable because of the environmental conditions, but they say it's subtle life,

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a subtle form of life. And that they are communicating with certain people on Earth and inspiring

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and they say Jesus and Buddha came from Venus, but you know, one of their main sources of

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wisdom and information was this guy from Mars or this entity or being of some sort from

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Mars, which they claim has a very advanced civilization living in a subtler dimension.

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So I just thought that was kind of coincidental in an interesting way that you felt like you

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were from Mars.

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Maybe you're one of them.

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The second thing I was wondering as you were unfolding all that, well you did answer my

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first question very well, which is something that maybe a lot of people have this, but

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the kind of people I interview very often have realizations like that when they were

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very young.

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They just feel like they don't belong here, where did they come from, who are these weirdos

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that they live with. I think there might be something to that because, you know, I think

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a lot of us come from, if we're on a spiritual path, we're accustomed to a deeper reality

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or we feel like we belong in a deeper reality than is the norm we're born into. There was

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a guy I interviewed named Christian Sundberg who at one point began to remember not only

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his past life, but his before-birth life. He remembered kind of signing up to be born on

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earth and then chickening out when he was in the womb and aborting himself, and then getting

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a second opportunity eventually in being born, but it was a real shock and a real challenge

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to be in this world compared to the world he had dwelt in before.

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Anyway, we'll skip ahead here, and I know you don't want to dwell on all the details

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of your depressing twenties, but you did mention in a previous interview that I listened to

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that you, and you mentioned just now, that you suffered from a lot of depression during

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your twenties and were on medication and you had suicidal impulses and things like that,

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but it wasn't clear from that interview what snapped you out of it.

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mentioned some retreat. What happened? Would you care to describe what the retreat was

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about or who was teaching it or what kind of experiences you had that turned the corner

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for you?

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Yes, I think I'm purposely going to answer this by focusing only partially on the retreat,

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meaning the event, because I think we tend to glamorize these types of moments of meeting

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some sort of higher truth and it's not, I don't think that's necessarily needed to come out of

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suffering. And so for me it was twofold. The first part was the experiential realization of

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why I had done everything I had done up until that point in order to escape myself. And that

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realization was very much both on an intellectual and lived level. And what I mean by that is that

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you know, life sends you. I do believe that the universe speaks a different language, right,

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and it is our duty to listen. And if we don't listen the first time, it'll be a little nod

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that'll be missed, and then maybe a little tap on the shoulder, and maybe something a bit stronger

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last. And so I spent my life not listening, because listening would have meant admitting

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the truth and therefore what I was running away from. And there was a concordance of events

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which led to me being forced to listen and to accept the reality of why I had made the decisions I had made.

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It just so happened that for me, it just happened to me on my own.

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These things can be sometimes discussed in therapy.

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There is no blueprint for how you receive the truth that you're running away from.

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And the reason why I mentioned that part is because that part forced me to stop.

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it forced me to, if not run towards my true self, at least not run away from it.

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And so for the first time in 30 years, I had to accept the truth of standing still

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in the discomfort of the realization that every single thing I did, thought, felt,

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was, and incarnated, were products for me to be as far removed from myself.

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And it's that stillness that allowed me to, out of that stillness,

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came in a very organic way a sense of, "Okay, well, what's next? We've been trying to turn

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left your entire life, left is a cul-de-sac, where are we going now?" And it's in the standing still

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that something arose within me. And again, a series of circumstances, I signed up to a

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mindfulness program, had no idea why, and that mindfulness program sent me to the Pasana retreat

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within the first few weeks. I didn't even Google the Pasana, I had no idea what that was.

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I didn't know that in the Garenka style you meditate 10 hours a day. It just sort of all

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happened. And then something very strange and profound and pinpointable happened during that

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retreat where it's only now after speaking to people that I can sort of make sense of it,

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although I don't understand it intellectually, but there was a death. I feel like I

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peeked up behind a curtain and everything became crystal clear and in that

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understanding of the truth of our real nature, something fundamental that I thought was nearly

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just dissolved in an instant, like Velcro being pulled apart. It was extremely painful,

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and it was extremely unexpected because I was just trying to get through a retreat, frankly.

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I thought, you know, it's the difference between a state and a treat. I very incredibly thought that

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that it was going to last a few days. I had a bit of a, I don't know, an episode, I don't

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know, and that I was going to go back to my life and, you know, it would have been what

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it would have been, but then things would have gotten back to normal. And I was the

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first one surprised when things didn't get back to normal and the states didn't go away

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in very organic, turned into, well, all there is, frankly.

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And it's been strange and a bit challenging to make sense of it,

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because people around you are very uncomfortable,

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and it's not something that my family or friends have--

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I mean, you know, why would they understand, frankly?

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But I've been trying to understand it and make sense of it ever since.

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without intellectualizing it, there's no point. But I guess no one asked for my opinion, but that I'm

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now on a different riverside or something, you know, and that makes sense. Yeah, it does.

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I question the wisdom of throwing new meditators into a retreat where they're doing 10 hours of

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meditation a day. It seems to have worked out for you, but you hear stories of psychosis and whatnot,

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you know, people. It's too much too soon, I think, for some people. So I would just throw that out

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as a general caution to people. And I would say, quite a few people left. Yeah. And I think that's

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great. I think that's fantastic to have the distance to feel that you can leave and you

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should leave. Yeah. There are people like Willoughby Britton who runs something called

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Cheetah House in Rhode Island who specialize in helping train wrecks from spiritual practice,

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people who have just had quite the opposite of their hoped-for result.

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It usually has to do with doing too much of it, or someone who is mentally unstable.

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Was there any kind of screening when you went to the retreat, like whether you were psychologically

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healthy before they admitted you?

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Yeah, in the application, they asked me quite a few questions.

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So you mentioned a lot of pain on that retreat.

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Was that the physical pain of just having to sit and meditate for 10 hours or was it

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also more of a psychological or psychic pain, which I think you alluded to in your previous

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answer?

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Yeah, both, absolutely.

00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:52.060
I had actually pulled a muscle in my back a few days prior to starting the retreat.

00:19:52.060 --> 00:19:54.060
So that was an interesting one.

00:19:54.060 --> 00:19:56.060
And then you have to sit for all those hours.

00:19:56.060 --> 00:20:02.060
Yeah, it was, I mean it was a gift really, because again it was a masterclass in sensations.

00:20:02.060 --> 00:20:14.060
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.

00:20:14.060 --> 00:20:21.520
Just the constant and the commentary that the mind creates around any given what is and given moment

00:20:21.520 --> 00:20:23.940
Absolutely, so that's inculturable

00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:26.380
yeah, and

00:20:26.380 --> 00:20:32.640
Was the awakening on the treat on the retreat sort of a night and day difference in a moment?

00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:37.380
Or did it just sort of dawn on you over the course of the retreat that things had shifted?

00:20:37.380 --> 00:20:43.020
The experience itself was pretty instantaneous and pretty

00:20:43.020 --> 00:20:49.380
black and white brutal before and after and there was there was sort of in and knowing

00:20:49.380 --> 00:20:53.300
within me that had sense that something really strange and profound had happened but I could

00:20:53.300 --> 00:21:01.380
absolutely not verbalize. I would say that it was leaving the retreat where I sensed

00:21:01.380 --> 00:21:06.580
oh this is not going away this is deepening what is going on so I think the change of

00:21:06.580 --> 00:21:12.360
environment made it clear that something profound had taken place and I was

00:21:12.360 --> 00:21:17.740
millions of miles away from being able to explain it. Do you find yourself a little

00:21:17.740 --> 00:21:22.000
unable to function in normal circumstances at first? Like you were

00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:27.260
from Mars and you're just you know getting used to

00:21:27.260 --> 00:21:31.740
Earth? And did people notice that if that were the case? Did they say, "Oh,

00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:33.340
What happened to her?

00:21:33.340 --> 00:21:35.340
Yes. Yes

00:21:35.340 --> 00:21:36.940
Some of my friends

00:21:36.940 --> 00:21:40.940
Texted my family saying we're worried about her. There's something strange going on

00:21:40.940 --> 00:21:45.020
Uh, my family were very confused as well at first

00:21:45.020 --> 00:21:48.300
there was a real sense of

00:21:48.300 --> 00:21:51.020
huge distance between

00:21:51.020 --> 00:21:58.780
this thing, um this persona and and and the rest of the world and also why wouldn't it be they just

00:21:58.780 --> 00:22:01.260
They just witnessed them

00:22:01.260 --> 00:22:05.900
a result of something they didn't go through the process with me so they were just left with a

00:22:05.900 --> 00:22:11.180
very strange sort of version of their daughter or friend or sister that they did not recognize and

00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:18.300
I think it took me I think that there was I would say for some people almost anger because I

00:22:18.300 --> 00:22:24.540
I had ruptured the contract of the quality of our friendship which is to complain together

00:22:24.540 --> 00:22:30.620
and so you know all the architectural pillars upon which certain friendships and relationships

00:22:30.620 --> 00:22:39.180
are built when they are fundamentally unhealthy or not stable. When one of the people breaks

00:22:39.180 --> 00:22:44.860
that sort of dynamic of these pillars then the thing crumbles, right? And so some friendships

00:22:44.860 --> 00:22:51.820
were challenged and scattered and yes it was it was not the easiest sort of transition but I

00:22:51.820 --> 00:22:59.820
didn't really choose any of it. I think time is just accepting that the process of integration

00:22:59.820 --> 00:23:05.740
was going to take the time it takes. And if some things have to be left by the side of the road,

00:23:05.740 --> 00:23:11.500
then so be it. That's also okay. There's an old Bengali saying which is,

00:23:11.500 --> 00:23:18.380
"If no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone." I know in my case, you know, back in the 60s,

00:23:18.380 --> 00:23:23.820
I had been taking full advantage of everything the 60s had to offer. And when I learned to meditate

00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:29.900
in '68, I pretty much immediately dropped all my friends because they were just continuing to do

00:23:29.900 --> 00:23:34.940
the stuff I had been doing, which had been very destructive. And I thought, "Okay, I'll just

00:23:34.940 --> 00:23:41.900
walk the dog every day and go down to the beach and not have friends for a while." And then,

00:23:41.900 --> 00:23:47.020
you know, after a few months, I started to meet new people who were living healthier lifestyles.

00:23:47.020 --> 00:23:53.820
Of course, I'm not implying that your friends were like my friends had been, but I needed to

00:23:53.820 --> 00:23:59.100
upgrade my whole life. I couldn't keep doing the same things or hanging out with the same people

00:23:59.100 --> 00:24:04.220
anymore. It just didn't work. Yeah and I think it's something that happens quite naturally as well if

00:24:04.220 --> 00:24:11.180
you let it. And what I mean by that is just, you know, the sort of overarching experience of not

00:24:11.180 --> 00:24:16.780
having any personal preferences. If your friendships remain, wonderful, they remain. If they don't,

00:24:16.780 --> 00:24:23.660
that's okay too. And the state of pure acceptance of what is when it presents itself, whether it's

00:24:23.660 --> 00:24:32.060
pleasant or not, to have the freedom to navigate any given moment without the

00:24:32.060 --> 00:24:40.380
fundamental cling to strong personal preferences makes it fundamentally easier

00:24:40.380 --> 00:24:47.380
and more truthful to walk life with integrity that way. Yeah and of course

00:24:47.380 --> 00:24:52.020
that's a core teaching of many traditions such as Buddhism and so on, so

00:24:52.020 --> 00:24:56.100
And maybe we'll talk more about that as we go along.

00:24:56.100 --> 00:25:02.420
Did you maintain a regular practice of some kind after the retreat, some regular meditation

00:25:02.420 --> 00:25:03.420
or something?

00:25:03.420 --> 00:25:11.620
Yeah, so I, we didn't speak about this, I've been meditating for quite a while.

00:25:11.620 --> 00:25:19.140
I tried various styles, meditations, and you know, processes, and I had never tried the

00:25:19.140 --> 00:25:28.380
personal. It's not necessarily what I practice now. It was wonderful learning about it but

00:25:28.380 --> 00:25:34.700
it's not what I responded to in terms of daily practice. But yes, I mean I live a pretty

00:25:34.700 --> 00:25:41.340
monastic lifestyle. I'm on my own in my meditation and I'm often silent. So yeah, meditation

00:25:41.340 --> 00:25:52.620
Although I've come to challenge the concept of meditation, the mind hangs on to very powerfully,

00:25:52.620 --> 00:26:00.700
especially when you make spirituality at the forefront of your existence. I now invite

00:26:00.700 --> 00:26:07.260
different versions of what we think meditation is. I don't think it's that important.

00:26:09.180 --> 00:26:12.700
I think it's it's incredibly enriching to sit down and close your eyes

00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:14.780
And and sit still

00:26:14.780 --> 00:26:18.300
But I think you can meditate on zopen walking the dog doing the dishes

00:26:18.300 --> 00:26:22.460
I mean the the level of mindfulness that you bring to any given present moment is

00:26:22.460 --> 00:26:24.940
Is really truly?

00:26:24.940 --> 00:26:27.500
um what matters on the central level

00:26:27.500 --> 00:26:33.660
Yeah, I mean one size does not fit all as they say and you know, whatever works for you

00:26:33.660 --> 00:26:36.380
um, and like you say it's

00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:46.000
I meditate, eyes closed, but then also everything that happens throughout the day is a kind

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:52.620
of a meditation in that it can be done mindlessly and impulsively, or it can be done with sort

00:26:52.620 --> 00:27:02.320
of a certain one eye in, one eye out, a certain introspection or scrutiny of one's behavior,

00:27:02.320 --> 00:27:11.800
one's thoughts, one's state, which can make life much more smooth if you attend to such

00:27:11.800 --> 00:27:17.160
things and not blunder about speaking or acting thoughtlessly.

00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:18.160
Yeah.

00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:21.560
Not being trapped in the mind, yeah.

00:27:21.560 --> 00:27:22.560
Right.

00:27:22.560 --> 00:27:25.960
To be with what is, here and now.

00:27:25.960 --> 00:27:26.960
Yeah.

00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:34.480
any periods of nostalgia or doubt or wanting to return to your old life or was it a clean

00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:35.480
break?

00:27:35.480 --> 00:27:36.480
No.

00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:37.480
Clean break.

00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:38.480
Clean break, yes.

00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:39.480
Yeah.

00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:40.480
Good.

00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:44.800
And you mentioned you're kind of a recluse.

00:27:44.800 --> 00:27:49.560
I heard you say in your other interview that you live on a farm, so you're out in the country

00:27:49.560 --> 00:27:50.560
someplace.

00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:51.560
You just by yourself out there?

00:27:51.560 --> 00:27:55.400
Are you and the sheep or is it, you know, you have like some...

00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:57.400
I am surrounded by sheep, yeah.

00:27:57.400 --> 00:28:05.740
It is, so after almost 10 years in London, I moved back home at a time where the acting

00:28:05.740 --> 00:28:07.460
industry was in disarray.

00:28:07.460 --> 00:28:14.200
There were strikes in Hollywood that impacted greatly the UK and so I just simply didn't

00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:16.680
have the money to stay in London and pay rent.

00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:23.280
So I moved back home here to this, it used to be a horse stable, I think, a hundred years

00:28:23.280 --> 00:28:27.280
ago and then it was abandoned and now it's a house.

00:28:27.280 --> 00:28:29.760
Is this where you grew up or this is? Yes.

00:28:29.760 --> 00:28:34.800
Okay, are your parents still there living or? No, they're outside. They come

00:28:34.800 --> 00:28:38.080
they come quite often but they have their own thing

00:28:38.080 --> 00:28:41.680
outside of Paris and so it became a sort of like family house.

00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:45.840
It must be very bucolic and peaceful. Yeah, it's

00:28:45.840 --> 00:28:50.000
wonderful. I'm very lucky. What do you do with your time?

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:55.600
Um, do you do any actual farming stuff like milk the cows or are you just kind of what do you do?

00:28:55.600 --> 00:28:58.480
No, I wish

00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:01.920
Um, I know I do work part-time. I work remote

00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:07.600
Um, I have you know, I mean I have to keep on it's it's I think that's the sort of

00:29:07.600 --> 00:29:09.280
um

00:29:09.280 --> 00:29:11.280
strange in between where

00:29:11.280 --> 00:29:18.080
It's it feels that you have glimpsed at the true nature of reality and who you are and your essential truth

00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:22.880
beyond the mind beyond the body and then you still have to pay the bills and you still have to work

00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:28.720
and you still have to of course like anybody else and so i'm welcoming the the period of transition

00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:34.560
where right now what i do is not necessarily a career that i want to have i'm not really

00:29:34.560 --> 00:29:39.120
interested in having any sort of career to be completely honest i i work because i have to but

00:29:39.120 --> 00:29:44.960
i i do believe that if i stay long enough with a sort of spaciousness within i think there is

00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:49.680
such power in not knowing and in remaining with a question and remaining with a doubt and not

00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:54.880
letting the mind jump to organization, planning, controlling that the mind has,

00:29:54.880 --> 00:30:00.560
and the structure and power of the mind is that, and to remain in the ethereal unknown

00:30:00.560 --> 00:30:05.360
and be okay with that, then something will come out of that element. Something will come out of

00:30:05.360 --> 00:30:13.600
that stillness within. That will not be my choice. It will be something offered to me as a completely

00:30:13.600 --> 00:30:22.080
logical and seamless next step. And so I don't know what's next for me, but what I do know

00:30:22.080 --> 00:30:27.040
is that if I honor that stillness within, it will show up. And in the meantime, I do

00:30:27.040 --> 00:30:35.880
the work that I can to be able to, you know, buy groceries and be okay. But yeah.

00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:41.600
It's not any kind of spiritual work, it's just some sort of job that you do online. Yeah.

00:30:41.600 --> 00:30:49.100
Yeah, I mean when I was your age, which is what, about 30 or so, I couldn't possibly

00:30:49.100 --> 00:30:54.720
have imagined what I would be doing now. I thought maybe I'd be a monk in the Himalayas

00:30:54.720 --> 00:31:02.480
by now, but I don't think that was what I was supposed to do. I have friends who were

00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:07.040
thinking the same thing who are actually doing that now, and I don't envy them in the least.

00:31:07.040 --> 00:31:14.800
I feel like what I'm doing is much more in line with what I'm supposed to be doing.

00:31:14.800 --> 00:31:21.000
But I spent years being a computer consultant, climbing around under people's desks, hooking

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:24.720
up wires and taking their computers apart.

00:31:24.720 --> 00:31:32.800
I did search engine optimization for years, helping people sell widgets, and stuff which

00:31:32.800 --> 00:31:40.280
had no intrinsic profound value, but like you say, I had to pay the bills. And then the

00:31:40.280 --> 00:31:46.920
idea to do this came along, and the idea wouldn't let go. It was like, "This is one thing I

00:31:46.920 --> 00:31:50.160
absolutely need to do," and then one thing led to the next, and it just got all kinds

00:31:50.160 --> 00:31:56.700
of support. So I'm sure your life will go similarly, in which all kinds of support will

00:31:56.700 --> 00:31:59.040
come when it's supposed to come.

00:31:59.040 --> 00:32:06.520
Yes, and I mean you touch on something that I find fascinating which is that I profoundly

00:32:06.520 --> 00:32:14.640
believe that there is, we share an inner purpose which is to awaken and I think that's connected,

00:32:14.640 --> 00:32:20.480
that is not just you or a few selected people. I think that the purpose of humanity on this

00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:28.160
earth is to awaken on an individual and collective level. That is an inner purpose and I think

00:32:28.160 --> 00:32:35.680
whatever you do outside in the world will be an expression and a manifestation of the fulfillment

00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:41.680
and the curiosity given to that inner purpose and that will be different for everyone, but it will

00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:48.960
come from a place of wholeness and unity around the devotion to that inner purpose which is to awaken.

00:32:48.960 --> 00:32:56.800
However that manifests for each of us is the lottery and that's what's so fascinating,

00:32:56.800 --> 00:33:02.520
maybe some people just remain silent and that is their gift to the world on a very local

00:33:02.520 --> 00:33:04.520
level and some people become incredible.

00:33:04.520 --> 00:33:11.840
But I don't think that matters as much as to get in touch with the true nature of who

00:33:11.840 --> 00:33:17.720
you are, meaning the true nature of your inner purpose, which is to awaken to who you are.

00:33:17.720 --> 00:33:22.680
Yeah, well you know Jesus is saying, "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else

00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:28.640
should be added unto thee. And there are many other sayings like that in different traditions.

00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:35.640
There's a verse in the Gita which goes, "Because one can perform it, one's own dharma, the lesser

00:33:35.640 --> 00:33:42.680
in merit, is better than the dharma of another. Better is death in one's own dharma, the dharma

00:33:42.680 --> 00:33:49.680
of another brings danger." Yeah. So, and, you know, dharma, for those who don't know

00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:59.600
the term just in this context means that course of action which is most conducive to evolution.

00:33:59.600 --> 00:34:05.300
And it's not necessarily being a monk in the Himalayas or some such thing, or a girl living

00:34:05.300 --> 00:34:12.080
on a farm. It's what for you is the most evolutionary thing, and that might be raising a child or

00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:20.020
doing this kind of a job or all kinds of things. But I think what you just said is very important.

00:34:20.020 --> 00:34:30.140
If you have a deep inner intention and desire for evolution, then nature kind of organizes

00:34:30.140 --> 00:34:37.620
your life accordingly and presents you with opportunities to go in that direction.

00:34:37.620 --> 00:34:40.140
Yes, absolutely.

00:34:40.140 --> 00:34:45.740
And then it's our job to listen.

00:34:45.740 --> 00:34:50.380
To honor what's what's served to us, which is not necessarily the comfortable thing

00:34:50.380 --> 00:34:54.540
In fact, it's never the comfortable thing because we don't awaken in the comfort zone

00:34:54.540 --> 00:34:57.260
Right it takes it takes challenge

00:34:57.260 --> 00:35:00.300
Life is in some way here to challenge us

00:35:00.300 --> 00:35:03.020
in order to awaken us

00:35:03.020 --> 00:35:08.700
Yeah, you mentioned um that you you go hours sometimes without thinking

00:35:08.700 --> 00:35:10.540
um

00:35:10.540 --> 00:35:12.540
did that

00:35:12.540 --> 00:35:15.580
Experience just um come upon

00:35:15.580 --> 00:35:26.060
you spontaneously, naturally, or is it something that you in some way intentionally settle

00:35:26.060 --> 00:35:33.180
into because you enjoy it?

00:35:33.180 --> 00:35:43.740
I would say that one of the most immediate and powerful byproducts or consequences of

00:35:43.740 --> 00:35:52.700
this strange thing that happened to me during this retreat was, again, twofold. First of all,

00:35:52.700 --> 00:35:59.420
becoming so incredibly aware that there is a thinking machine in the mind that is constantly

00:35:59.420 --> 00:36:07.180
operating that it becomes impossible to ignore anything that streams through the process of

00:36:07.180 --> 00:36:18.940
of the mind. And so I think that in this sort of death that I felt in that moment, something

00:36:18.940 --> 00:36:25.100
of a separation took place. And so within that internal distance and space within, it

00:36:25.100 --> 00:36:32.180
became so clear who was the witness and who was the thinking being thought. And from that

00:36:32.180 --> 00:36:38.420
greater distance it became impossible to avoid anything that came to thinking. And very naturally

00:36:38.420 --> 00:36:44.580
while that distance sort of amplified internally and that spaciousness

00:36:44.580 --> 00:36:52.340
lingered, what happened without again without me realizing it was just

00:36:55.140 --> 00:36:57.140
a slowing down of thinking um

00:36:57.140 --> 00:36:59.620
it would I think

00:36:59.620 --> 00:37:03.220
Yeah, it was I just very naturally

00:37:03.220 --> 00:37:06.100
without even choosing to

00:37:06.100 --> 00:37:07.300
uh

00:37:07.300 --> 00:37:13.380
Started thinking way less very little of course, I still think in some days more than others, you know, that's normal

00:37:13.380 --> 00:37:16.580
But the sort of uh white noise, you know the broken radio

00:37:16.580 --> 00:37:19.380
at the corner of a room that sort of

00:37:19.380 --> 00:37:20.980
constant um

00:37:20.980 --> 00:37:28.020
um sports radio presenter commentator commenting on absolutely everything that subsided to an extent that was

00:37:28.020 --> 00:37:31.220
quite drastic, um

00:37:31.220 --> 00:37:35.460
And and became a new sort of normal, but yes, yeah

00:37:35.460 --> 00:37:39.540
That's really nice. Um, yeah, most people's minds are like you say

00:37:39.540 --> 00:37:45.380
Several radios playing at the same time and um, and a lot of energy is wasted with all those

00:37:45.380 --> 00:37:48.080
superfluous extraneous

00:37:48.080 --> 00:37:50.100
You know

00:37:50.100 --> 00:37:59.620
irrelevant thoughts. And I've often read and heard it described and that in a more enlightened state

00:37:59.620 --> 00:38:08.260
of functioning, you don't stop thinking, but you have thoughts that are worth having, that are

00:38:08.260 --> 00:38:15.860
relevant, that are pertinent to the situation. And when the situation doesn't call for any

00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:20.660
thoughts you may not have any. Same with dreams I think I heard you say that you

00:38:20.660 --> 00:38:28.740
don't dream very much anymore. No I don't think I do I mean it's hard because

00:38:28.740 --> 00:38:32.660
sometimes you don't remember your dreams so it's it's a harder one to sort of

00:38:32.660 --> 00:38:41.380
pinpoint but um no I don't dream I don't dream a lot no. Yeah. And I think when it

00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:44.900
comes to thought it's it's also marking the clear difference between what is

00:38:44.900 --> 00:38:51.340
your thoughts, a thought incarnated by an individual impulse and you know what

00:38:51.340 --> 00:38:54.820
Krishnamurti says when he says you think you're thinking of your thought, but you're not.

00:38:54.820 --> 00:38:58.540
You're thinking society's thoughts. There's processes of data

00:38:58.540 --> 00:39:04.220
flashing through you that the mind grabs and holds on to and tries to make

00:39:04.220 --> 00:39:07.780
sense of and meaning of and create patterns around but they're not your

00:39:07.780 --> 00:39:11.340
thoughts. They're just sort of like connecting, being thought

00:39:11.340 --> 00:39:17.900
for you. And that quality of thinking subsides greatly, yes. Of course when a

00:39:17.900 --> 00:39:22.340
situation arises where you need thinking, then thinking becomes an incredible tool.

00:39:22.340 --> 00:39:27.180
But you know as everyone says, great servant not great master. So obviously

00:39:27.180 --> 00:39:34.980
that shift is becomes clearer with time loss. Yeah, it's said that a lot of

00:39:34.980 --> 00:39:39.180
thinking is just the action-impression-desire cycle playing itself

00:39:39.180 --> 00:39:47.220
out, which is kind of an habituation or an addiction really. And you know, we have a

00:39:47.220 --> 00:39:54.940
desire, we act on it, it creates an impression, that plants the seeds for another desire.

00:39:54.940 --> 00:39:59.340
And many people are just bound up, most people are bound up with layer upon layer of this

00:39:59.340 --> 00:40:05.800
conditioning. And you know, what you have experienced is a shift out of the conditioned

00:40:05.800 --> 00:40:11.520
way of functioning. And so, I would say, I would presume that most of your thoughts are

00:40:11.520 --> 00:40:19.800
not just habitual impulses due to that cycle. They're just coming from a deeper, more intuitive

00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:26.000
place. I mean, someone like the Buddha, let's say, had probably just really cleaned out

00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:30.520
the whole conditioning process of action, impression, desire, but he still had thoughts,

00:40:30.520 --> 00:40:37.200
taught and he wrote things and so on. But those thoughts were not... they're from a completely

00:40:37.200 --> 00:40:43.680
different mechanism than habitual conditioned thoughts. And the same is true with dreams.

00:40:43.680 --> 00:40:50.640
Dreams are just the release of impressions during deep sleep that cause mental experiences,

00:40:50.640 --> 00:40:56.120
which we experience as dreams. But if most of the impressions have been dissolved, then

00:40:56.120 --> 00:41:01.640
there's no impetus for having as many dreams. You might still have some, but also a lot of dreams can be more,

00:41:01.640 --> 00:41:09.240
you know, astral traveling or some kind of intuitive, uh, other, other realm experience.

00:41:09.240 --> 00:41:11.080
Well,

00:41:11.080 --> 00:41:15.320
yeah, and it's, I mean, I find it fascinating and it's what you point to, which is

00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:17.960
anything pertaining to

00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:20.120
the illusion of self,

00:41:20.120 --> 00:41:23.400
uh, when you come to the visceral realization that it is an illusion,

00:41:23.720 --> 00:41:26.840
that it is not real, that there is no self, there is no thing,

00:41:26.840 --> 00:41:34.040
and all of that dissolves and then you come to see how much of your thinking pattern and habit and addiction was

00:41:34.040 --> 00:41:37.460
revolving around the

00:41:37.460 --> 00:41:39.140
protection, the

00:41:39.140 --> 00:41:44.600
solidification, the sort of confirmation of this self, this separate self, moving through space and time

00:41:44.600 --> 00:41:47.640
and how much of thinking was spent

00:41:48.820 --> 00:41:55.060
Enhancing that entity through designs through a virgin through the future planning through remembering the past

00:41:55.060 --> 00:42:04.020
You know great people through relationships. It's just about solidifying this this illusionary self that wants to solved

00:42:04.020 --> 00:42:06.360
There's nothing to protect anymore

00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:08.860
It's what my strike art says when he says, you know

00:42:08.860 --> 00:42:15.360
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

00:42:15.560 --> 00:42:22.600
is untouchable and does not need protection through the mind and through the construct of these thoughts.

00:42:22.600 --> 00:42:28.000
So I think the mass, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying by any mean that I'm an enlightened Buddha.

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Let's just make that very, very clear.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:32.560
Because you know,

00:42:32.560 --> 00:42:34.560
but it's,

00:42:34.560 --> 00:42:40.820
it just becomes so clear, it just becomes so transparent when

00:42:40.820 --> 00:42:43.280
somehow

00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:49.720
There is a moment in time that shows you the truth behind the curtain.

00:42:49.720 --> 00:42:56.760
Like a flash of truth, it just becomes so embodied within that there is no hiding behind

00:42:56.760 --> 00:42:57.760
thoughts anymore.

00:42:57.760 --> 00:42:58.760
Yeah.

00:42:58.760 --> 00:43:04.400
I was just talking to a friend yesterday and we both, we compared notes on a similar experience

00:43:04.400 --> 00:43:09.620
which we both had, which was falling flat on our faces on the cement.

00:43:09.620 --> 00:43:14.260
me by tripping over a curb in New York City and me by tripping over something on the pickleball

00:43:14.260 --> 00:43:19.180
court, but it was like wham, right in the face, and we both ended up with big black eyes and

00:43:19.180 --> 00:43:20.700
bloody noses and stuff.

00:43:20.700 --> 00:43:24.060
But the reason we were talking about it was that we both experienced that at the moment

00:43:24.060 --> 00:43:30.620
of impact, there was just this pure silence where, you know, this traumatic experience

00:43:30.620 --> 00:43:37.740
is happening, but you kind of, it throws into contrast the deep silence that is always there

00:43:37.740 --> 00:43:42.340
to which injury cannot happen, or pain, or suffering, or anything.

00:43:42.340 --> 00:43:47.340
It's just this shining inner silence that you take for granted,

00:43:47.340 --> 00:43:51.840
but when something like that happens, it becomes more obvious.

00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:59.640
That's incredible that you were capable of picking up that depth

00:43:59.640 --> 00:44:04.840
within such a moment of "survival" there. I think that's really interesting.

00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:07.840
Yeah, that's not something you could try to do. I mean it all happens too fast.

00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:11.240
It's just something that is there, you know, and it's there all the time.

00:44:11.240 --> 00:44:16.840
But usually there's nothing so contrasting as to, you know, notice it so clearly.

00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:23.840
And it happens in the... I mean you can test it out. Again, it's not something you can control, but...

00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:29.640
For instance, when, you know, you're in a room and someone opens the door quite abruptly and you turn around

00:44:29.640 --> 00:44:33.840
and there is a moment where you don't know who's going to come through the door

00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:41.000
And so you're just in state of complete, again, complete stillness, complete waiting, or the

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:48.520
cat waiting by the mousetrap, this sort of alert awareness that doesn't judge, that just

00:44:48.520 --> 00:44:50.680
is in the background constantly.

00:44:50.680 --> 00:44:56.720
And that is the container operating, this container where the content is taking place.

00:44:56.720 --> 00:45:03.000
But in certain moments of the day it's very potent, where you just realize that there

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:08.960
There is a still alertness operating in the background constantly.

00:45:08.960 --> 00:45:12.920
Yeah, no, it's fascinating.

00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:14.240
Yeah.

00:45:14.240 --> 00:45:20.080
On the same note, when you were describing the detachment between the thought process

00:45:20.080 --> 00:45:27.160
and the self or the pure consciousness or whatever you want to call it, have you found,

00:45:27.160 --> 00:45:33.960
you find that because of that detachment, because you're not overshadowed and identified and

00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:41.800
absorbed in all your thought processes, that sometimes a thought can arise and you see

00:45:41.800 --> 00:45:47.160
that that's not a thought I want to entertain and you can just nip it in the bud?

00:45:47.160 --> 00:45:56.440
Yes, it's something I was talking about with someone a few days ago as to how

00:45:56.440 --> 00:46:06.040
I don't know, I can only speak from personal experience, but I do believe there are

00:46:06.040 --> 00:46:14.040
various ways of interacting with a quality of a thought you don't want to experience in the moment.

00:46:15.720 --> 00:46:19.720
Some people it is turning away nothing in the birds. No, thank you. Bye

00:46:19.720 --> 00:46:22.360
What I have found

00:46:22.360 --> 00:46:30.800
Seems more natural for me and to me is to witness the arising of that thought and

00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:33.320
to say yes

00:46:33.320 --> 00:46:40.520
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

00:46:41.560 --> 00:46:51.560
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.

00:46:51.560 --> 00:47:01.560
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.

00:47:01.560 --> 00:47:08.560
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.

00:47:09.600 --> 00:47:12.840
Yes, the sort of the sort of openness of the yes

00:47:12.840 --> 00:47:19.160
Is again this this this idea, you know

00:47:19.160 --> 00:47:27.160
But the only thing that's real is now you only have the present moment right and so you can either contract

00:47:27.160 --> 00:47:34.320
In the face of the present moment the present moment is not something they find evident or you you accept the present moment feeling

00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:39.960
You might not rejoice about the present moment, but it has to start with acceptance.

00:47:39.960 --> 00:47:47.960
And so that knows that the scale of resistance within, and to me that acceptance starts with yes, absolutely, all right.

00:47:47.960 --> 00:47:53.960
Knowing that it doesn't belong to me, knowing that these thoughts are not the truth, knowing that they're not real,

00:47:53.960 --> 00:47:58.960
knowing that they have no weight, no gravitas, and no impact upon my life.

00:47:58.960 --> 00:48:09.040
But the openness of "yes" I find more conducive to this constant vibration of acceptance that

00:48:09.040 --> 00:48:14.000
I believe is needed to live in accordance with the truth of the present moment.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:15.320
Yeah, that's good.

00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:18.720
It's good you said that, because I didn't want to give the impression that one should

00:48:18.720 --> 00:48:24.480
be always on guard and then just fighting against some negative thought that comes up

00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:25.480
or something.

00:48:25.480 --> 00:48:31.080
It's more like a little subtle adjustment of the steering wheel as you're driving, where

00:48:31.080 --> 00:48:34.400
you don't have to fight the steering wheel, you just tweak it a little bit and it keeps

00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:37.760
you in your lane.

00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:42.680
And the reason you can do that is that you actually are residing in a place that is prior

00:48:42.680 --> 00:48:47.240
to the emergence of thought.

00:48:47.240 --> 00:48:52.640
And it's kind of like, let's say, bubbles in an ocean, they come up from the bottom and

00:48:52.640 --> 00:48:54.360
they get bigger and bigger and pop on the surface.

00:48:54.360 --> 00:48:58.280
So for most people, they don't see the bubbles until they pop on the surface, and there's

00:48:58.280 --> 00:49:00.120
nothing much you can do about them at that point.

00:49:00.120 --> 00:49:01.520
They've already bubbled up.

00:49:01.520 --> 00:49:05.000
But if you were like a diver at the bottom of the ocean, you know, maybe you could just

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:11.080
sort of... from there, the bubble is a tiny little thing, and it might be easier to change

00:49:11.080 --> 00:49:16.560
its direction or prevent it from bubbling or whatever.

00:49:16.560 --> 00:49:23.160
Let's talk about relationships and connections and stuff like that for a while.

00:49:23.160 --> 00:49:30.280
We mentioned friendships changing. Have you acquired a new set of friends if you're not

00:49:30.280 --> 00:49:34.440
so much with your old ones? Are you pretty much like a recluse out there?

00:49:34.440 --> 00:49:44.480
Being alone is what feels the most natural in the world to me, at least for now. It has

00:49:44.480 --> 00:49:53.080
always been though. I have wonderful friendships and wonderful friends with whom I remain close

00:49:53.080 --> 00:49:58.920
and who understand and appreciate and accept the sort of transition they've witnessed.

00:49:58.920 --> 00:50:01.920
Same with my family.

00:50:01.920 --> 00:50:15.920
But there is a constant sort of intuitive knowing that's a known but never knowning state,

00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:22.560
just being with the self and the sort of expansion needed when you are on your own,

00:50:22.560 --> 00:50:32.000
to sort of be in this contemplative space is what fits me best. So I don't have many

00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:36.480
relationships in that way. I would rather sort of make sure that the ones I do

00:50:37.200 --> 00:50:40.880
Have uh remain healthy and aligned and pure

00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:42.640
um

00:50:42.640 --> 00:50:48.480
But love is not possessive. So I you know, it's all of these things are cycles. Um

00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:54.400
For now, yes, I there is a real sense of um

00:50:54.400 --> 00:50:58.880
Embodied peace when I find myself on my own

00:50:58.880 --> 00:51:01.120
Sounds great

00:51:01.120 --> 00:51:03.120
quality over quantity

00:51:03.120 --> 00:51:05.360
and

00:51:05.360 --> 00:51:11.440
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

00:51:11.440 --> 00:51:17.120
Uh, you know face to face because I met him through this show, but I have you know, beautiful long

00:51:17.120 --> 00:51:22.960
philosophical conversations with him and stuff while i'm walking in the woods and uh that kind of thing so

00:51:22.960 --> 00:51:26.640
it's this um doing this show has given me a

00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:32.800
Put me in an interesting position for meeting all kinds of fascinating people that I would never never otherwise have met

00:51:32.800 --> 00:51:34.560
um

00:51:34.560 --> 00:51:38.320
But one thing I've found, and you've probably found this too traveling around, is wherever you go

00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:45.360
there are real gems of people everywhere in the world. I mean, I've lived in Iran and Philippines

00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:53.440
and all kinds of places, and they're very deeply spiritual people in every culture. Some of them

00:51:53.440 --> 00:52:01.280
very much, you know, a fish out of water in a culture that is not at all in alignment with

00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:04.560
their nature, but they're there nonetheless.

00:52:04.560 --> 00:52:10.560
And again, I think these people attract each other on some level.

00:52:10.560 --> 00:52:13.600
We only operate at the level of consciousness we're at.

00:52:13.600 --> 00:52:20.400
So when you encounter someone who exists at a similar level of consciousness,

00:52:20.400 --> 00:52:23.040
that recognition becomes extremely clear.

00:52:23.040 --> 00:52:27.280
And it has this sort of retroactive boomerang effect I find.

00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:33.880
So yes, in some way I found myself encountering people with similar interests and a similar

00:52:33.880 --> 00:52:41.080
sort of yearning for an internal life to be explored more than maybe an external one,

00:52:41.080 --> 00:52:42.560
more recently.

00:52:42.560 --> 00:52:43.560
Yeah.

00:52:43.560 --> 00:52:44.560
Nice.

00:52:44.560 --> 00:52:48.520
And how about relationships, let's say that you have to, well I don't want to put you

00:52:48.520 --> 00:52:53.200
on the spot, but you know, we all have that crazy uncle that we have to meet at Thanksgiving

00:52:53.200 --> 00:52:55.880
or something, or Christmas and stuff.

00:52:55.880 --> 00:53:04.760
Have you found yourself more artful in your behavior with people who are totally not on

00:53:04.760 --> 00:53:05.760
your wavelength?

00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:08.760
It's interesting that you say that.

00:53:08.760 --> 00:53:16.800
Again, it's something I spoke about with a friend not so long ago.

00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:22.640
I don't want to sound like any of this is something that I have control over in some

00:53:22.640 --> 00:53:24.160
way, because I don't.

00:53:24.160 --> 00:53:36.240
I find myself realizing things, ways of operating, ways of enacting certain truths on the spot.

00:53:36.240 --> 00:53:39.600
It's not something that I control or iterate.

00:53:39.600 --> 00:53:52.000
And what became increasingly obvious and immediate after all these things happened was that it

00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:58.400
seems only logical, right, that one of the most immediate consequences of understanding

00:53:58.400 --> 00:54:04.240
that there is no Self, not capital Self, but there is no Jiva, right, there is no tiny

00:54:04.240 --> 00:54:11.440
Self, there is no persona, no mask. Well then, if I don't exist, then this illusion of separation

00:54:11.440 --> 00:54:18.560
is only an illusion. There is no separation between you and I, and if there is no separation

00:54:18.560 --> 00:54:24.880
between you and I and other people then when I hurt you I hurt myself. So then why would the

00:54:24.880 --> 00:54:29.920
fuel of every interaction, the fuel of every single instance shared with someone not be

00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:37.280
absolute love and compassion? How is it possible for someone to understand the truth of your own

00:54:37.280 --> 00:54:44.480
nature and true nature of who you are without accommodating new space for this absolute love

00:54:44.480 --> 00:54:46.480
and compassion that oneness um

00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:50.480
uh sort of invites you to to incarnate so

00:54:50.480 --> 00:54:56.720
What what I see now is just people are some people are in pain more than others, right?

00:54:56.720 --> 00:54:59.040
and that suffering creates um

00:54:59.040 --> 00:55:04.340
Like a domino effect a series of unhealthy toxic behaviors or choices

00:55:04.340 --> 00:55:09.040
Or ways of expressing themselves in the world and navigating it, but it is a suffering

00:55:09.040 --> 00:55:13.760
Suffering it is the illusion of separation. It is the illusion of lack and it is this

00:55:13.760 --> 00:55:20.420
complete veil put on who they think they are versus their true nature, their real

00:55:20.420 --> 00:55:27.020
essence, the formless divine within them. And so there is just compassion

00:55:27.020 --> 00:55:32.180
really, truly, and love. And that doesn't mean, you know, "I'm open, cut me like a

00:55:32.180 --> 00:55:37.660
vegetable." You need sense of boundaries and sometimes saying

00:55:37.660 --> 00:55:42.320
yes to the present moment means saying no to someone, but the ego doesn't have

00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:48.160
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

00:55:48.160 --> 00:55:52.480
No that comes from place of love rather than a place of luck

00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:55.040
so

00:55:55.040 --> 00:55:59.400
Yes, I I do have I am surrounded by quite

00:55:59.400 --> 00:56:04.160
Earthy complicated earthy. Yes

00:56:04.160 --> 00:56:08.600
People and and there

00:56:08.600 --> 00:56:11.640
Love absolute love and compassion

00:56:11.640 --> 00:56:17.800
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

00:56:17.800 --> 00:56:19.880
Metta loving kinds to this person and

00:56:19.880 --> 00:56:28.040
There that I don't need to aggrandize myself by judging and thinking you're superior and you know, yeah, it's just acceptance

00:56:28.040 --> 00:56:32.440
There's a verse in the Gita which is something like

00:56:32.440 --> 00:56:38.360
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

00:56:38.360 --> 00:56:46.120
enlightened being perceives all beings in the self and the self in all beings. By

00:56:46.120 --> 00:56:50.880
self we mean obviously not individual self and so do you have a sense that you

00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:56.200
know in encountering various people that you sort of tune into their true nature

00:56:56.200 --> 00:57:00.400
even though they may not be doing so? I heard you in a previous interview say

00:57:00.400 --> 00:57:07.760
you do that with trees, so why not people? Maybe trees are easier to tune into.

00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:17.840
What I find absolutely blissful and divine on so many levels is to sort of,

00:57:17.840 --> 00:57:21.720
whether it's for observing someone, whether it's for being in nature or in

00:57:21.720 --> 00:57:26.040
stillness, you know, if you have the opportunity of observing someone

00:57:26.040 --> 00:57:32.920
without looking like a weirdo, that's up to any sort of single situation but to

00:57:32.920 --> 00:57:39.000
find yourself in a place of pure observation where it's like looking

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:45.480
into a mirror right, that your state of still observation allows you to

00:57:45.480 --> 00:57:52.720
yes, sneak a peek at what's going on behind the curtain of the persona of the

00:57:52.720 --> 00:57:59.120
other person. So there is the same way that there is within you an innate aliveness,

00:57:59.120 --> 00:58:05.560
there is within them an innate aliveness. And to get in touch with that aliveness that

00:58:05.560 --> 00:58:12.320
is always there because it is there true in nature whether they realize it or not is absolutely

00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:17.480
wonderful as a practice almost. And that can happen when I love, I mean I'm going to sound

00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:24.480
I love looking at people in the bus, you know, when they're on the bus, on their phone, looking

00:58:24.480 --> 00:58:28.480
outside the window, when they're not talking, when they're not necessarily interacting with

00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:30.600
the outside world and there is a sense of stillness.

00:58:30.600 --> 00:58:34.760
They might be thinking, feeling, and ruminating on what's been happening and what they need

00:58:34.760 --> 00:58:38.320
to prepare for dinner and what's going to happen in the future, but there is a sense

00:58:38.320 --> 00:58:43.240
of stillness because they're sat there.

00:58:43.240 --> 00:58:48.720
you allow yourself to tune into the recognition of the inner alignments of the other person

00:58:48.720 --> 00:58:54.640
becomes so clear that we share the same fabric, the same tapestry of being. And it obviously

00:58:54.640 --> 00:58:59.600
is, I do believe it is also the reason why people enjoy being in nature because that

00:58:59.600 --> 00:59:06.440
recognition becomes ten times clearer in nature. This aliveness is sort of unfiltered, unveiled

00:59:06.440 --> 00:59:13.560
by mechanisms of the mind of the person, of the habits, of the patterns, of the behaviors

00:59:13.560 --> 00:59:18.840
that personalizes the self. There is an inner aliveness that

00:59:18.840 --> 00:59:25.880
filtrates through every single being and thing in nature and it becomes transparent in nature.

00:59:25.880 --> 00:59:33.400
So I think that's one of the reasons why we do feel so connected when we are in a place with

00:59:33.400 --> 00:59:38.760
nature. Yeah, I don't know if that answered your question. No, it does and it also reminds me of

00:59:38.760 --> 00:59:43.640
why we love animals so much and little babies, you know, because they're not all covered up with

00:59:43.640 --> 00:59:49.480
layers and layers of crud. You know, you can look into a dog's eyes and you kind of like looking

00:59:49.480 --> 00:59:58.840
right into their soul or a baby. That's exactly it and it's fascinating with this. I was listening to

01:00:00.520 --> 01:00:06.520
wrote the Spyro a few days ago and he was talking exactly about that, about since he's specialized

01:00:06.520 --> 01:00:12.520
in non-duality and all these things and you know the nature of consciousness and he was taking this

01:00:12.520 --> 01:00:19.480
example of a birth. If you've just been born and you don't have any notion of self, any notion of

01:00:19.480 --> 01:00:23.720
you, any notion of the world, any notion of separation, any thoughts, any emotions, you are

01:00:23.720 --> 01:00:31.240
just been brought into the world, just been born. What is that state if not pure being?

01:00:31.240 --> 01:00:36.680
And that is the state that you recognize in a baby because you recognize it in yourself as well.

01:00:36.680 --> 01:00:44.120
We only recognize what we experience. I can look at my dog and know that it's breathing because I

01:00:44.120 --> 01:00:49.240
know what breathing is. And I recognize it in the dog because I know it in myself.

01:00:49.240 --> 01:00:53.480
And this this oneness that you mentioned that you see in animals and babies and nature

01:00:53.480 --> 01:00:59.000
We we recognize it as such maybe without naming it because it exists within us

01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:05.240
Um, and that is it's it is the moment of sort of uh encounter within that makes it so clear as well

01:01:05.240 --> 01:01:08.680
Yeah, nice

01:01:08.680 --> 01:01:11.660
um, and of course I you know, I mean there are different philosophical

01:01:11.660 --> 01:01:14.280
attitudes about this I

01:01:14.440 --> 01:01:19.240
I don't think that babies are tabula rasa. They don't come in as a blank slate. They come in with

01:01:19.240 --> 01:01:25.320
a load of karma, but at least they haven't gotten all encumbered in this life yet, you know, by

01:01:25.320 --> 01:01:33.320
the stuff that comes at us. And on a similar note, for the sake of philosophical discussion,

01:01:33.320 --> 01:01:38.440
not argument, you know, you mentioned a few minutes ago that there isn't a jiva, and this

01:01:38.440 --> 01:01:44.120
gets into a sort of Hinduism versus Buddhism thing where, you know, the Buddhists, as I understand it,

01:01:44.120 --> 01:01:49.400
feel that there is no discrete entity such as a jiva that goes from life to life even though they

01:01:49.400 --> 01:01:53.480
believe in reincarnation. And I don't completely understand this because they feel like the Dalai

01:01:53.480 --> 01:01:58.280
Lama has been the Dalai Lama in many lives and you know when they choose a new one the kid has to try

01:01:58.280 --> 01:02:04.840
to recognize things that belong to the previous one and so on. But in the Hindu worldview it's more

01:02:04.840 --> 01:02:12.120
like the jiva or sukshma sharira as it's sometimes called which is the subtle body does actually go

01:02:12.120 --> 01:02:20.120
from one gross body to the next and progresses as it does so. And there is some kind of integrity to

01:02:20.120 --> 01:02:28.280
it. So even though you might be a tennis player in one life and an invalid in another life and

01:02:28.280 --> 01:02:32.680
all kinds of different roles that you take on to work out different kinds of karma and gain

01:02:32.680 --> 01:02:38.200
different kinds of experiences, there is some essential entity that evolves through these lives.

01:02:39.400 --> 01:02:41.560
So I think you kind of stand along

01:02:41.560 --> 01:02:47.640
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

01:02:47.640 --> 01:02:49.240
because I think

01:02:49.240 --> 01:02:51.880
I like to take things as interesting hypotheses and

01:02:51.880 --> 01:02:55.080
ponder all the possibilities

01:02:55.080 --> 01:03:03.560
Yes, absolutely, um, I don't know why I stand I don't I don't feel affiliated to any um,

01:03:03.560 --> 01:03:09.240
um spiritual philosophical religious discourse, I I do think

01:03:09.240 --> 01:03:13.920
and you know maybe probably most likely many people will disagree with me on

01:03:13.920 --> 01:03:20.080
this but I I do think that to some extent they are all pointing to the

01:03:20.080 --> 01:03:26.280
same truth. Their arrows are different, the path might be taking to encountering

01:03:26.280 --> 01:03:32.040
that truth are varied and different but in my opinion the way I perceive it is

01:03:32.040 --> 01:03:37.240
that they are pointing towards the same truth whether you call it the Buddha

01:03:37.240 --> 01:03:40.280
nature, whether you call it Atman, the Kingdom of Heaven, it, it,

01:03:40.280 --> 01:03:45.720
Dao, these, these are pointers, they're not the truth, they are pointers

01:03:45.720 --> 01:03:49.640
towards the truth. The truth is ineffable, right, it cannot be put into

01:03:49.640 --> 01:03:52.920
words, and, and I do believe that they are all

01:03:52.920 --> 01:03:58.680
pointing towards the same direction. Um, yeah, I don't, yeah.

01:03:58.680 --> 01:04:02.280
Sure, and not only different religions, but even within the same, even within

01:04:02.280 --> 01:04:05.720
Advaita Vedanta, there are about six different schools that have been arguing

01:04:05.720 --> 01:04:11.320
with each other for centuries. And, you know, it's the old blind man and the elephant thing.

01:04:11.320 --> 01:04:14.720
They're all right. The elephant is kind of like a tree trunk and kind of like a snake

01:04:14.720 --> 01:04:22.840
and kind of like a, you know, a spear. But, you know, nobody tends to see the whole elephant.

01:04:22.840 --> 01:04:29.040
A question came in. This is from Tanya Green in Zurich, Switzerland. What is the sense

01:04:29.040 --> 01:04:32.840
- and this is related to what we're saying, kind of - what is the sense of awakening in

01:04:32.840 --> 01:04:38.680
human life if we were already awake before incarnating?

01:04:38.680 --> 01:04:43.720
That's a great question. I'm not sure I have an answer.

01:04:43.720 --> 01:04:47.400
I could take a stab, which is that we weren't already awake before incarnating,

01:04:47.400 --> 01:04:50.520
that's why we incarnated.

01:04:50.520 --> 01:04:56.520
Yes, so the way, yes,

01:04:56.520 --> 01:05:01.720
I think there is a difference between knowledge and experience,

01:05:01.720 --> 01:05:08.360
right? That's the primordial difference. The formless dimension of who we are, whether you

01:05:08.360 --> 01:05:14.200
call it the divine, the soul, it doesn't matter, the untouchable part, the pure being, the truth,

01:05:14.200 --> 01:05:21.560
our true nature, who we really are, separates itself into matter, not in order to know because

01:05:21.560 --> 01:05:26.520
it is all known, but because it is everything first and foremost. I do believe it separates

01:05:26.520 --> 01:05:30.840
itself into matter, into the illusion of separation. You can go left, I can go right,

01:05:30.840 --> 01:05:36.440
we can live in America, not in order to know more but in order to experience that knowledge

01:05:36.440 --> 01:05:45.320
through the infinite multiplicity of experiences. So there is a fundamental difference between

01:05:45.320 --> 01:05:50.440
knowledge and experience and being sent here on that plane in order not to discover but to remember

01:05:50.440 --> 01:05:56.840
what we know as the formless within happens through experience.

01:05:58.120 --> 01:06:01.640
Experience is only of the earthly plane.

01:06:01.640 --> 01:06:06.120
And so yes, we awaken to the truth that we already are,

01:06:06.120 --> 01:06:10.600
but we awaken to that truth through the filter, through the momentum of experience

01:06:10.600 --> 01:06:13.320
in the 3D.

01:06:13.320 --> 01:06:15.480
I don't know if that makes sense.

01:06:15.480 --> 01:06:18.280
No, that's good. I think that's part of it.

01:06:18.280 --> 01:06:22.680
And again, various traditions say that

01:06:22.680 --> 01:06:34.600
you know, the pre-birth or between-birth state is a realm, it's a loka, but you generally don't

01:06:34.600 --> 01:06:41.720
awaken there. It's kind of like a resting place, or you kind of recalibrate before you take on

01:06:41.720 --> 01:06:48.760
another lifetime, but the actual awakening has to take place in an embodied state.

01:06:50.520 --> 01:06:57.480
And there are some provisos that, you know, in some cases one can awaken even from a higher

01:06:57.480 --> 01:07:02.040
loka and never come back to the earthly plane. But according to these traditions, for what

01:07:02.040 --> 01:07:09.040
it's worth, they say that, you know, human birth is a great opportunity, an enviable one,

01:07:09.040 --> 01:07:16.000
an envied one, the angels are jealous, because it's an opportunity for great evolution,

01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:21.000
however challenging it may be, or perhaps because it's challenging.

01:07:21.000 --> 01:07:26.000
Yes, we go back to where we said at the beginning, there is no...

01:07:26.000 --> 01:07:31.000
Life is not here to make us happy. It is not here to accommodate us.

01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:37.000
We need to look at the trajectory of evolution of the past, I don't know how many millions of years.

01:07:37.000 --> 01:07:42.000
It is here to challenge us, because it is here to awaken us in the earthly plane.

01:07:42.000 --> 01:07:49.000
and awakening happens to the challenges, the friction, the emotion of separation.

01:07:49.000 --> 01:07:55.000
Here's another question that came in from Gregory Hartzler Miller in the US.

01:07:55.000 --> 01:07:59.000
What is your sense of the word "love" at present?

01:07:59.000 --> 01:08:04.000
It's the language the universe speaks.

01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:16.000
It really is the glue that holds everything together, at every single level.

01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:23.000
Love is order. Love is knowing, knowing the self and knowing other.

01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:29.000
Love is... there is a reason. It is our true nature.

01:08:29.000 --> 01:08:34.220
I think you know we use words such as awakening in the night and I think if we just

01:08:34.220 --> 01:08:37.360
Captain speaking about our true nature. I might feel closer

01:08:37.360 --> 01:08:41.160
and not so exotic and sophisticated and

01:08:41.160 --> 01:08:48.460
One might call it love someone else might call happiness joy bliss it is love is the return home

01:08:48.460 --> 01:08:52.160
It is it is the recognition of one's true nature

01:08:52.160 --> 01:08:58.360
And it is in my opinion what the universe is made of

01:08:58.360 --> 01:09:05.360
Beautiful answer. Very good.

01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:08.360
You know, you mentioned you have some kind of job that you support yourself with.

01:09:08.360 --> 01:09:17.360
Have you found that post-awakening, and we were talking also about the efficiency of thought not being cluttered with a million extraneous thoughts,

01:09:17.360 --> 01:09:25.600
Have you found that your action in practical circumstances, such as doing your job, has

01:09:25.600 --> 01:09:33.400
become more skillful or efficient or something as a result of your current inner state?

01:09:33.400 --> 01:09:47.480
Yeah, so this is an interesting one because I, for anyone who knows me personally, I am,

01:09:47.480 --> 01:09:54.520
I have this sort of, how can I put it in a politically correct way, I'm very organized.

01:09:54.520 --> 01:09:57.640
I am and I think it comes as um

01:09:57.640 --> 01:10:02.680
You know, I don't know why it's just part of the persona's. Um

01:10:02.680 --> 01:10:05.620
toolbox, rooney, um

01:10:05.620 --> 01:10:08.660
and the the

01:10:08.660 --> 01:10:12.120
organizational skill obviously is is sort of um

01:10:12.120 --> 01:10:17.640
A ramification that comes from what was before I need to control I need to control I need to oversee

01:10:17.640 --> 01:10:23.320
I need to plan I need to force it to forecast to curate so control was was the origin of

01:10:23.880 --> 01:10:34.280
my organization and what sort of happened recently is how does a sense of

01:10:34.280 --> 01:10:38.440
inner discipline in organization remain without the control?

01:10:38.440 --> 01:10:41.880
How does that manifest when the root has been cut and the thing

01:10:41.880 --> 01:10:46.040
the skill still exists but doesn't come from the same place the same intention?

01:10:46.040 --> 01:10:54.040
and so I am slower than I used to be.

01:10:54.040 --> 01:10:57.800
I think I was very much wired quite

01:10:57.800 --> 01:11:01.720
hyper before. I'm definitely slower but

01:11:01.720 --> 01:11:05.560
what I found incredibly efficient and skillful

01:11:05.560 --> 01:11:11.880
not just at work, in life always, is to just

01:11:12.840 --> 01:11:19.880
Welcome the task that needs to be done with with full intent. I I I don't let the inner commentary

01:11:19.880 --> 01:11:25.880
There is so much waste so much energy wasted on denial tasks that we don't want to perform, especially at work

01:11:25.880 --> 01:11:29.080
That's lower us down. So it is just to welcome

01:11:29.080 --> 01:11:32.280
The absolute necessity of hearing now what needs to be done

01:11:32.280 --> 01:11:35.960
Um and to find if not a sense of joy in it

01:11:35.960 --> 01:11:39.020
Or purpose just a sense of pure acceptance

01:11:39.020 --> 01:11:41.800
um, and that is

01:11:41.880 --> 01:11:43.880
I think

01:11:43.880 --> 01:11:46.120
In a strange way, um

01:11:46.120 --> 01:11:51.480
A recipe for efficiency to just accept finning what needs to be done here and now

01:11:51.480 --> 01:11:53.240
um

01:11:53.240 --> 01:11:57.000
It probably doesn't answer the question. No, it does. That's a very good answer. Um

01:11:57.000 --> 01:11:59.480
I think

01:11:59.480 --> 01:12:01.240
it as you were

01:12:01.240 --> 01:12:05.960
Saying it. I I thought of the fact I thought that perhaps there are many qualities which

01:12:05.960 --> 01:12:09.320
Might be considered neurotic or something. Um

01:12:10.180 --> 01:12:18.940
ordinarily, which actually, if freed from their neurotic qualities, could still exist,

01:12:18.940 --> 01:12:21.900
but in a wholesome and useful way.

01:12:21.900 --> 01:12:25.380
So you just talked about, you know, you're kind of obsessive-compulsive or something about

01:12:25.380 --> 01:12:27.100
getting everything organized.

01:12:27.100 --> 01:12:34.100
Now you're organized, but without all the obsessiveness and compulsion.

01:12:34.100 --> 01:12:39.380
And we can probably think of a dozen other qualities like that, which have a dark side

01:12:39.380 --> 01:12:43.980
and a light side, depending upon whether they're encumbered by conditioning or not.

01:12:43.980 --> 01:12:46.380
The nature of the intention behind them.

01:12:46.380 --> 01:12:52.660
And it's quite interesting actually, because I was serving at a meditation center in the

01:12:52.660 --> 01:12:57.180
UK recently, where they do work retreats where you volunteer a little bit every day and then

01:12:57.180 --> 01:12:58.180
they nod you.

01:12:58.180 --> 01:13:01.860
And so I was there for three weeks, and they had put me into the kitchen, which is quite

01:13:01.860 --> 01:13:07.580
high stakes, high intensity space.

01:13:07.580 --> 01:13:13.140
And so I was forced into a rhythm that was not my own. I was forced into walking quickly,

01:13:13.140 --> 01:13:17.500
carrying heavy plates, putting things on the table super quickly when 100 people were waiting

01:13:17.500 --> 01:13:24.180
in line and, you know, forced into a pace of existing that is not my natural state.

01:13:24.180 --> 01:13:30.900
And what I found wonderful to witness was that there is, again, from the outside people

01:13:30.900 --> 01:13:35.140
can see as, "Oh my God, she's so stressed and, you know, she's walking quickly." But

01:13:36.180 --> 01:13:58.980
to

01:13:58.980 --> 01:14:02.740
in the mind that says, "Okay, that needs to happen, and then don't forget that, and not

01:14:02.740 --> 01:14:05.620
quick enough, and look at all these people, oh my goodness, they're waiting, they're slow,"

01:14:05.620 --> 01:14:11.460
and to just meet the moment with what the moment means of being to be that vessel.

01:14:11.460 --> 01:14:14.780
And sometimes it requires a high speed, and it's really interesting to see how that can

01:14:14.780 --> 01:14:21.060
happen without the sort of feeling overwhelmed by that speed, which then becomes stress,

01:14:21.060 --> 01:14:26.300
to just be in flow with the rhythm and the situation, if that makes sense.

01:14:26.300 --> 01:14:34.060
Oh yeah, I don't think that being spiritual means talking slowly, moving slowly, and acting

01:14:34.060 --> 01:14:36.380
kind of like a happy zombie.

01:14:36.380 --> 01:14:41.540
I think you could be very dynamically active, like you were just describing, and be in a

01:14:41.540 --> 01:14:43.260
very still state within.

01:14:43.260 --> 01:14:46.660
You could be a professional tennis player, or actress for that matter.

01:14:46.660 --> 01:14:51.660
Although actress is a little weird because you have to take on all these other personalities

01:14:51.660 --> 01:14:57.860
and do stuff that you're not inclined to do, you know, sometimes I imagine that's probably

01:14:57.860 --> 01:14:59.620
why you got away from it.

01:14:59.620 --> 01:15:08.260
Although I would say with any sports, any art forms, you know, they describe it as flow.

01:15:08.260 --> 01:15:14.580
You enter a state of acute awareness and profound consciousness where the mind has dissipated.

01:15:14.580 --> 01:15:21.540
is no, you're just absolutely enthralled in the act of it as an extension of the self,

01:15:21.540 --> 01:15:28.820
as an extension of being. In fact, there is a quality of being that infuses the doing so much

01:15:28.820 --> 01:15:36.420
that one really becomes the sort of manifested and incarnated version of the other. So when you do

01:15:36.420 --> 01:15:41.220
enter that state of flow then, wonderful, you're free of the mind, you're liberated, you're just

01:15:41.220 --> 01:15:44.420
one with the present mind. And that's where I am.

01:15:44.420 --> 01:15:50.740
I guess. Yeah, that sounds interesting. I know there are some actors and actresses who are very

01:15:50.740 --> 01:15:56.900
spiritual people. They practice meditation and stuff. I wonder if acting could be conducive to

01:15:56.900 --> 01:16:02.900
evolution, certainly if it's your dharma to do it. But also just by virtue of the fact that you do

01:16:02.900 --> 01:16:10.340
have to take on all these different persona, I wonder if that can make you somehow more flexible

01:16:10.340 --> 01:16:14.420
or less attached to the persona with which you were born,

01:16:14.420 --> 01:16:18.020
kind of enhance the witnessing quality.

01:16:18.020 --> 01:16:22.100
It's a fascinating conversation.

01:16:22.100 --> 01:16:25.940
We speak about it quite a lot with an actor friend of mine.

01:16:25.940 --> 01:16:30.660
And I mentioned him because the approach is acting

01:16:30.660 --> 01:16:32.500
from a place of absolute love and abundance.

01:16:32.500 --> 01:16:35.300
I know that he was meant to be an artist, storyteller,

01:16:35.300 --> 01:16:36.980
whether it's actor or something else.

01:16:36.980 --> 01:16:42.260
He is meant to use his being in this way in this lifetime.

01:16:42.260 --> 01:16:45.460
I approached it from, as we've determined,

01:16:45.460 --> 01:16:50.020
a running away from myself, don't want to be myself, so I'll be anybody else.

01:16:50.020 --> 01:16:53.380
I approach it from the attention of lack and fear

01:16:53.380 --> 01:16:58.260
and not the profound disillusion and disbelief that I am not good enough

01:16:58.260 --> 01:17:02.340
just being you. So I think it really depends

01:17:02.340 --> 01:17:06.420
on the platform upon which you build your house. You know, is the foundation

01:17:06.420 --> 01:17:13.380
sturdy and is the foundation authentic and just love, you know. And if that's the case,

01:17:13.380 --> 01:17:19.780
then wonderful because that means that by incarnating other beings, by allowing the

01:17:19.780 --> 01:17:24.740
boundaries of yourself to become more flexible because less identifying with you and your story,

01:17:24.740 --> 01:17:31.460
the story of me, what you do is that you let compassion in, in a beautifully experiential

01:17:31.460 --> 01:17:35.860
and in this whole way you quite literally allow yourself to become someone else and live in

01:17:35.860 --> 01:17:44.740
their shoes with their set of fears and releases in habitual patterns and and you if if done right

01:17:44.740 --> 01:17:49.140
and if honored you cultivate a tremendous amount of compassion for that other person because you

01:17:49.140 --> 01:17:53.780
can't be a good actor if you're not um if you're judging your character that's that's just not

01:17:53.780 --> 01:18:00.260
possible so it invites um a deep sense of love and kindness in the presence of embodying someone else

01:18:00.900 --> 01:18:04.660
Could you imagine yourself ever going back to it with this whole new orientation?

01:18:04.660 --> 01:18:11.300
Who knows? I feel no desire. Yeah, no, that's it. That's perfectly

01:18:11.300 --> 01:18:18.100
totally natural, appropriate. Perhaps you have friends or family who are urging you to do so,

01:18:18.100 --> 01:18:24.260
but I totally respect your whatever moves you, you know. I think you'll make the right choices.

01:18:24.260 --> 01:18:30.340
I think it's hard to unlearn what you've learned and don't know what you know.

01:18:30.340 --> 01:18:36.020
It would feel for now like squeezing myself into a box that's very tiny and narrow in which I could barely breathe

01:18:36.020 --> 01:18:44.260
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

01:18:44.260 --> 01:18:48.020
um with your body as a as a tool and

01:18:48.020 --> 01:18:52.500
And when you are um given the opportunity to

01:18:52.500 --> 01:18:56.900
Perform mitty mitty gritty roles, you know, the complex drama

01:18:57.380 --> 01:19:01.300
Are highly psychological ones that everyone sort of craves for

01:19:01.300 --> 01:19:06.660
Then it's it's painful because you exist in a in a lower state of vibration of um

01:19:06.660 --> 01:19:12.020
Whatever the world requires of you, which is, you know pain anger grief. I mean it is the

01:19:12.020 --> 01:19:14.420
You're not in a state of homeostasis

01:19:14.420 --> 01:19:15.700
You're not in a state of

01:19:15.700 --> 01:19:21.380
Inner peace and balance because you have to embody the truth of that lived moment for that character and that is painful

01:19:21.380 --> 01:19:26.020
yeah, i'm thinking that movie with glenn close and michael douglas were

01:19:26.820 --> 01:19:32.180
Who is it called I forget but anyway, she had to play this really horrific, you know crazy person

01:19:32.180 --> 01:19:38.340
I should think that having to act that way hours on end would enliven those qualities in you to some extent

01:19:38.340 --> 01:19:42.340
I think I think if you don't take care of yourself

01:19:42.340 --> 01:19:44.980
during before after does

01:19:44.980 --> 01:19:50.580
It can damage. I mean i've i've heard quite a few stories of people who really have been damaged

01:19:51.460 --> 01:19:55.860
Short term and long term by certain rules because you just give everything of you in it. So

01:19:55.860 --> 01:20:03.620
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

01:20:03.620 --> 01:20:05.700
Yeah

01:20:05.700 --> 01:20:06.900
interesting

01:20:06.900 --> 01:20:11.560
Um another question came in this one is from brent elkholm in australia

01:20:11.560 --> 01:20:18.420
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?

01:20:20.580 --> 01:20:22.820
I think calling it shadow self makes it so

01:20:22.820 --> 01:20:25.860
Heightened and scary

01:20:25.860 --> 01:20:33.460
In my view which is very personal there is no shadow self there is no separate entity that lives within you that is

01:20:33.460 --> 01:20:35.700
Causing your suffering

01:20:35.700 --> 01:20:37.060
um

01:20:37.060 --> 01:20:38.260
people

01:20:38.260 --> 01:20:41.300
Do treat the mind and thoughts as a as a

01:20:41.300 --> 01:20:47.140
As a separate entity rather than a process and I don't think that's helpful

01:20:47.140 --> 01:20:49.140
I think

01:20:49.140 --> 01:20:55.780
what is causing most people suffering is their relationship with the mind, is their relationship with thinking.

01:20:55.780 --> 01:21:00.500
Maybe not for everyone, but I do believe that it can be boiled down to that.

01:21:00.500 --> 01:21:04.180
What is the relationship that you entertain with your mind, with thinking?

01:21:04.180 --> 01:21:12.900
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,

01:21:12.900 --> 01:21:15.780
it will become very clear what the mind does

01:21:16.340 --> 01:21:20.740
and how the mind identifies with certain traits, how the mind identifies with the past, with the

01:21:20.740 --> 01:21:25.220
future, what happened to you, the story of me, how I can't get through the story of me, the story

01:21:25.220 --> 01:21:30.260
of me is defining me, it was my past that I'm bringing into the present, it will define my

01:21:30.260 --> 01:21:37.620
future, then our relationship with the mind is what causes our suffering. In other words, there is a

01:21:37.620 --> 01:21:44.260
huge difference between an event and our mind's commentary and relationship to the event.

01:21:45.060 --> 01:21:50.260
An event is an event. What the mind makes of the event is what sticks, is what creates

01:21:50.260 --> 01:21:53.460
unpleasant memories and traumas and all these things.

01:21:53.460 --> 01:22:01.540
The process of identifying with the truth that the mind builds, the story of me, is what causes suffering.

01:22:01.540 --> 01:22:05.940
There is nothing to do

01:22:05.940 --> 01:22:09.380
to actively pursue

01:22:09.380 --> 01:22:12.260
in order to

01:22:12.500 --> 01:22:16.180
kill the mind. There's no point in trying to achieve that, it would be a mistake.

01:22:16.180 --> 01:22:23.300
The first step is to recognize the mind for what it is, is to invite spaciousness within,

01:22:23.300 --> 01:22:31.060
like we spoke about earlier, is to realize that there is within you bits of data circulating all

01:22:31.060 --> 01:22:36.180
the time that the mind makes personal, that thinks about the past, about the future, about you, about

01:22:36.180 --> 01:22:40.660
the contours of your identity, where you come from, and what's painful, and reliving what's painful,

01:22:41.700 --> 01:22:46.900
reinforcing your sense of self constantly, the mind, thoughts, and if you can create

01:22:46.900 --> 01:22:52.980
spaciousness within, if you can start just through pure observation, not by doing anything,

01:22:52.980 --> 01:23:00.500
to recognize that you are not the mind. You are the witness observing the mind.

01:23:00.500 --> 01:23:04.340
You are not the mind, you are not the thoughts, you are not the emotions attached to the thoughts.

01:23:05.140 --> 01:23:08.980
Emotions just being thoughts incarnated into the body really.

01:23:08.980 --> 01:23:12.820
There is a sense of spaciousness between who you really are

01:23:12.820 --> 01:23:15.540
and the mind.

01:23:15.540 --> 01:23:20.740
I find that going about it this way makes it less personal.

01:23:20.740 --> 01:23:24.980
There is not a separate self that is on a vendetta against you called the

01:23:24.980 --> 01:23:27.300
shadowed self that is trying to ruin your life.

01:23:27.300 --> 01:23:33.940
It is just a process that we are addicted to,

01:23:33.940 --> 01:23:41.540
that is causing the suffering. And that process is not who you are. You're the person witnessing

01:23:41.540 --> 01:23:50.340
that process and observing it from a place of distance. And it is inviting that spaciousness

01:23:50.340 --> 01:23:56.420
within between that process, thinking dysfunctional, addictive patterns of thinking,

01:23:56.420 --> 01:24:02.180
and who you really are that is going to get, alleviate the anxiety that comes with just

01:24:02.180 --> 01:24:08.980
being human and being alive. And that is not something that requires any doing per se,

01:24:08.980 --> 01:24:13.860
it is just a state of pure observation. If you can start observing your thoughts and

01:24:13.860 --> 01:24:18.420
observing the rhythm of your mind, it will become so clear that you are not the mind.

01:24:18.420 --> 01:24:22.500
It will become so clear that you are the instance, ever silent, ever non-judging,

01:24:22.500 --> 01:24:30.340
never commenting, always just observing purely and stillly the mind. You're the thing observing it.

01:24:30.340 --> 01:24:36.180
and the more distance is invited within, the more you carry focusing on that stillness and that

01:24:36.180 --> 01:24:41.860
spaciousness within, the less weight, the less importance, the less gravitas you will give to

01:24:41.860 --> 01:24:48.900
the space that mind and thoughts occupy. You will see it for what it is. It is actually impersonal

01:24:48.900 --> 01:24:54.820
bits of data moving through you and the mind holds on to it and grabs it and tries to make it personal

01:24:55.860 --> 01:25:03.460
mind is a pattern-making and meaning-making machine, but it certainly feels personal,

01:25:03.460 --> 01:25:09.300
I know it does, but you're not the story of me that the mind is trying to paint of you,

01:25:09.300 --> 01:25:17.700
you are the truth witnessing it. And to invite that spaciousness within is the first step

01:25:17.700 --> 01:25:22.980
towards a sense of stillness because of separation between who you really are and this

01:25:24.500 --> 01:25:29.620
constant and permanent change happening. If you can see that who you really are

01:25:29.620 --> 01:25:38.020
cannot be wounded by the impact of your thoughts and feelings, then you will come to realize that

01:25:38.020 --> 01:25:44.180
there is an innate peace that was always there but it was just veiled by the movements and the

01:25:44.180 --> 01:25:51.940
addiction of the mind and the suffering it causes. There is no peace to find, you are that peace,

01:25:51.940 --> 01:25:58.860
It has just veiled. It's been veiled by layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of conditioning created by the mind.

01:25:58.860 --> 01:26:09.260
It did and there's a kind of a prescription description thing going on here where in your own case

01:26:09.260 --> 01:26:12.020
you didn't really try to

01:26:12.020 --> 01:26:17.460
inculcate the state that from which you now function you went on a retreat and

01:26:18.060 --> 01:26:23.720
You know you did this long meditation and something flipped and your whole orientation shifted quite

01:26:23.720 --> 01:26:30.460
Spontaneously and stayed shifted you didn't try to maintain the shifted state. It just kind of stuck and

01:26:30.460 --> 01:26:35.600
So but a lot of people listening won't have that experience and they will be

01:26:35.600 --> 01:26:40.780
governed by those layers and layers of conditioning you just described so

01:26:40.780 --> 01:26:46.340
What can we prescribe for them that will enable them to?

01:26:47.300 --> 01:26:53.220
eventually get to the point, get to the state you've just described, and

01:26:53.220 --> 01:26:58.060
they shouldn't expect to get to it overnight or next weekend or

01:26:58.060 --> 01:27:04.020
something. It might take a while to develop. What would you have them do?

01:27:04.020 --> 01:27:08.940
Literally what I just said. So if you can take five minutes out of your busy day to

01:27:08.940 --> 01:27:16.900
sit, close your eyes, and focus on breath, and realize that there is

01:27:17.940 --> 01:27:24.580
focus on just breathing in and out. You will not be able to move through two, three, four,

01:27:24.580 --> 01:27:29.780
five breaths without the mind interacting, without the mind commenting on the present moment,

01:27:29.780 --> 01:27:34.420
without the mind having an opinion about what's going on. This sucks, this doesn't work, this is

01:27:34.420 --> 01:27:39.060
stupid breath, who cares? Or I can't do it, I'm not good enough, look at me, I'll never be able

01:27:39.060 --> 01:27:48.260
to this, this and that. The mind commenting on the present moment. If you can get to a stage

01:27:48.260 --> 01:27:54.740
where it becomes crystal clear that what is causing you pain is not the present moment,

01:27:54.740 --> 01:28:00.980
99.9% of the time it is not the present moment. It is what the mind has to say about the present

01:28:00.980 --> 01:28:08.420
moment. The commentary associated to the event, that is what's causing you pain. If you can get

01:28:08.420 --> 01:28:16.100
to a state where this becomes evident, this becomes just incarnated in your being because

01:28:16.100 --> 01:28:23.860
it becomes so clear, then you... 70% of the work is done. I mean, I'm inventing a percentage here,

01:28:23.860 --> 01:28:33.300
but you know what I mean. That is the biggest leap. The biggest leap is just the lived truth

01:28:33.300 --> 01:28:39.620
of experiencing the separation between, which by the way is always there, we just don't see it,

01:28:39.620 --> 01:28:46.740
but the lived separation between who you truly are and the motions of the mind. If you can,

01:28:46.740 --> 01:28:52.100
on an experiential level, understand that what is causing suffering is not the event,

01:28:52.100 --> 01:28:59.940
but what the mind has to say about the event, then you have won. That is it, because that is

01:28:59.940 --> 01:29:07.220
in itself a shift in paradigm. That is you shifting the model of your reality and by doing so you are

01:29:07.220 --> 01:29:12.420
inviting a new logic, a new way of approaching the present moment every single time and then

01:29:12.420 --> 01:29:17.860
it just becomes a habit. It becomes reinforcing that experience and making it second nature which

01:29:17.860 --> 01:29:22.820
is just a matter of repetition but you have created a new model of understanding the present moment

01:29:22.820 --> 01:29:28.820
for yourself. If you're at a bus stop waiting for the bus and you just missed it and the sun is

01:29:29.860 --> 01:29:33.540
raining, it doesn't matter. You're wearing a blazer or you're not. You're cold or you're warm,

01:29:33.540 --> 01:29:40.420
it doesn't matter. These are just neutral events, sensations fleeting temporarily through your body.

01:29:40.420 --> 01:29:45.300
If the mind tells you, "Of course you missed the bus because it's new, because you're so unlucky

01:29:45.300 --> 01:29:50.580
and you missed the bus and it's Monday and I'm going to be late," what is causing unhappiness?

01:29:50.580 --> 01:29:58.740
The commentary of the mind. If you train yourself, I don't like train because it implies resistance,

01:29:58.740 --> 01:30:06.060
If you invite that truth back again and again and again and again on a daily basis, you

01:30:06.060 --> 01:30:09.340
will invite a new way of looking at reality in yourself.

01:30:09.340 --> 01:30:14.340
And you will see reality for what it is, not for what the mind would like you to see it

01:30:14.340 --> 01:30:16.420
for.

01:30:16.420 --> 01:30:20.420
Not the reality you want it to be, the reality that is.

01:30:20.420 --> 01:30:28.260
And if you do that, repeatedly, without scolding yourself, without being impatient, without

01:30:28.260 --> 01:30:34.020
thinking that this is stupid and it takes too much time. Just seeing things and seeing what

01:30:34.020 --> 01:30:38.820
the mind has to say about things. Always going back to that truth. Things what the mind has to

01:30:38.820 --> 01:30:44.820
say about it. Which one is causing suffering? The event, the commentary. The event, the commentary.

01:30:44.820 --> 01:30:49.140
What is causing the pain? How am I experiencing this pain? What am I hearing? What are the

01:30:49.140 --> 01:30:54.420
thoughts that come back and forth all the time? That come back on a circle. If you do that,

01:30:57.220 --> 01:31:01.620
you will enter a new dimension of being because if you do that you will realize that the only

01:31:01.620 --> 01:31:06.940
thing that is real is your experience of the present moment beyond the mind, above or deep

01:31:06.940 --> 01:31:13.300
well, it doesn't matter, then the mind. It is a mindless, in a way, experience of the

01:31:13.300 --> 01:31:19.460
self in the present moment. And that's why I didn't want to linger too much on that thing

01:31:19.460 --> 01:31:27.620
that happened because I again I think we tend to crystallize these events and sort of stamp

01:31:27.620 --> 01:31:34.340
of approval something amazing happened yay I've got it you know it's not it's simply not true

01:31:34.340 --> 01:31:40.500
yes something happened and maybe it deeply accelerated an understanding that would have

01:31:40.500 --> 01:31:46.260
taken longer but I do believe that whether it's fast-tracked or not the understanding of reality

01:31:46.260 --> 01:31:51.780
is the same. The coming home journey starts with understanding what you are not. You're

01:31:51.780 --> 01:31:55.460
not the mind, you're not the thoughts, you're not the feelings, you're not the body.

01:31:55.460 --> 01:32:01.780
Good. One key word in everything you just said, and it was all good stuff, but one key word is

01:32:01.780 --> 01:32:06.820
repetition. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers, in which he talked about

01:32:06.820 --> 01:32:12.580
several different people like the Beatles and Bill Gates and some others who spent 10,000 hours

01:32:12.580 --> 01:32:20.660
honing their craft, and that made them as good as they were. And that is true of an athlete,

01:32:20.660 --> 01:32:25.940
or an actress, or a mathematician, or any other thing that people do in life.

01:32:25.940 --> 01:32:34.100
And the same, in a sense, could be true of spirituality. I mean, people meditate for

01:32:34.100 --> 01:32:38.260
years and decades, or practice some kind of spiritual thing, and as they do so,

01:32:38.820 --> 01:32:43.060
the neurophysiology actually restructures itself. They've done studies in which, you know, they

01:32:43.060 --> 01:32:48.420
find long-term meditators have thicker prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus is this way and all

01:32:48.420 --> 01:32:54.340
kinds of things like that. The brain actually changes and it doesn't change instantly. It

01:32:54.340 --> 01:33:01.380
takes time. In the case of somebody like you, you might have had predisposition or proclivity for a

01:33:01.380 --> 01:33:08.560
a sudden shift, but most people don't have sudden and abiding shifts.

01:33:08.560 --> 01:33:11.200
Some people are "oozers" as a friend of mine says.

01:33:11.200 --> 01:33:15.820
They ooze slowly into whatever they develop.

01:33:15.820 --> 01:33:21.720
But nonetheless, I think that slow and steady wins the race, so to speak.

01:33:21.720 --> 01:33:26.340
If you find some kind of, like what you just said, the five-minute thing, or some form

01:33:26.340 --> 01:33:31.260
of meditation, or something that seems to work for you, and then just do it regularly.

01:33:31.260 --> 01:33:38.780
It says that in the Yoga Sutras also, it says through persistent practice over a long time,

01:33:38.780 --> 01:33:39.780
samadhi is attained.

01:33:39.780 --> 01:33:43.900
I don't know exactly how the verse goes, but something like that.

01:33:43.900 --> 01:33:53.180
So as with everything in life, eating healthy, exercising, learning a skill, make spiritual

01:33:53.180 --> 01:33:57.360
development a priority and a part of your daily routine, whatever else your daily routine

01:33:57.360 --> 01:34:02.660
might involve, and it will bear fruit.

01:34:02.660 --> 01:34:04.720
And can I just add to that as well?

01:34:04.720 --> 01:34:07.400
I absolutely agree with everything you said.

01:34:07.400 --> 01:34:11.440
I also think it's, again, it's very personal.

01:34:11.440 --> 01:34:16.640
It does tend to rub me the wrong way when I hear, you know, and I think the intention

01:34:16.640 --> 01:34:21.520
is pure, but people talk of the spiritual path, the spiritual journey, and that implies time

01:34:21.520 --> 01:34:26.540
and space and a distance between where you are now and what you're trying to accomplish

01:34:26.540 --> 01:34:29.620
or achieve or discover or unfold.

01:34:29.620 --> 01:34:31.620
I really don't think that's helpful.

01:34:31.620 --> 01:34:33.420
At least in the spiritual realm,

01:34:33.420 --> 01:34:35.620
you start with a destination.

01:34:35.620 --> 01:34:37.140
The destination is the journey

01:34:37.140 --> 01:34:38.540
and you have already arrived.

01:34:38.540 --> 01:34:40.860
Breaking news, everyone, you are it.

01:34:40.860 --> 01:34:43.600
There is nothing outside of you right here, right now

01:34:43.600 --> 01:34:46.180
that will add onto the realization of your true nature

01:34:46.180 --> 01:34:47.420
that you are seeking.

01:34:47.420 --> 01:34:49.140
You are it.

01:34:49.140 --> 01:34:50.860
So then, wonderful, let's go on a journey,

01:34:50.860 --> 01:34:53.060
but with the premise and remembrance

01:34:53.060 --> 01:34:54.520
that you are the destination.

01:34:54.520 --> 01:34:55.700
There is nothing outside of you

01:34:55.700 --> 01:35:02.420
will fill any illusionary void within. That is not true. Nothing needs to be added to the absolute

01:35:02.420 --> 01:35:08.660
being that you are for you to realize your true nature. What needs to be done is actually things

01:35:08.660 --> 01:35:14.580
need to be removed. The onion needs to be peeled off. The layers need to be removed slowly and

01:35:14.580 --> 01:35:19.140
gently. For some people, layers are removed at once and it's brutal. For some people,

01:35:19.140 --> 01:35:25.380
layers are removed slowly and gently, that doesn't matter. The truth is the diamond is within,

01:35:25.380 --> 01:35:30.580
behind the layers, and whether we remove them slowly or rapidly, they're being removed by

01:35:30.580 --> 01:35:38.180
the work of inner awareness, the spiritual curiosity that you infuse in your daily life.

01:35:38.180 --> 01:35:46.180
But you are the destination. Yes, enlightenment, awakening, great,

01:35:47.460 --> 01:35:51.620
doesn't matter ultimately, I don't know. We're here to remember our true nature.

01:35:51.620 --> 01:35:56.580
That's it. That's what it is. I mean that's what that word is supposed to represent.

01:35:56.580 --> 01:36:04.260
And I think, and then who is excluded then from their true nature? Nobody. Exactly.

01:36:04.260 --> 01:36:09.220
That includes the psychotic and Adolf Hitler and all kinds of baddies.

01:36:11.140 --> 01:36:18.980
which, yeah, everyone has the same true nature, a tiger, a turtle, whatever, but you know,

01:36:18.980 --> 01:36:26.260
there, as you've said, as we've discussed, there are many degrees of occlusion or obscuration

01:36:26.260 --> 01:36:31.300
and that have to be removed and sometimes people have quick breakthroughs, sometimes it takes

01:36:31.300 --> 01:36:39.060
decades, but I had a teacher who used to say the goal is all along the path, which is what you just

01:36:39.060 --> 01:36:45.460
said. So it's there, but then we don't want to make the mistake of like some of these neo-advaita

01:36:45.460 --> 01:36:51.060
people who say, "You're already enlightened, don't do anything, you know, just accept that and you're

01:36:51.060 --> 01:36:56.740
done. Don't do practices because it will only reinforce the notion of a practicer." I think

01:36:56.740 --> 01:37:06.660
that kind of advice is not useful. But on the other hand, you know, we don't want to just sort of

01:37:07.860 --> 01:37:14.660
moan and groan and long for some glorious future while passing over the present because again

01:37:14.660 --> 01:37:23.220
what we are is here now and it's just a matter of perhaps realizing it more and more fully.

01:37:23.220 --> 01:37:29.220
There's already water in the well but you just have to draw it up and to take advantage of it.

01:37:33.300 --> 01:37:39.300
Okay, so incidentally at any point during this conversation, if you have some thought to

01:37:39.300 --> 01:37:42.260
talk about something and I'm not asking you a question, then just bring it up.

01:37:42.260 --> 01:37:53.780
Have you ever experienced, well since your awakening, have you ever had like outbursts of

01:37:53.780 --> 01:38:01.300
anger or depression or you know kind of things like that that you might once have experienced

01:38:01.300 --> 01:38:05.300
years ago, but do they ever kind of bubble up? And if so, what do you do?

01:38:05.300 --> 01:38:07.540
No.

01:38:07.540 --> 01:38:10.340
Good. They just don't bubble up.

01:38:10.340 --> 01:38:16.660
No. I've experienced sadness. I've experienced grief, anger.

01:38:16.660 --> 01:38:21.860
I remember hearing you talk about experiencing profound sadness about world suffering.

01:38:21.860 --> 01:38:25.140
So it's not like you're sad about yourself. You're sad about the world.

01:38:25.140 --> 01:38:30.420
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I can experience and witness, you know, moments of weeping

01:38:30.420 --> 01:38:33.860
and seeing the destruction that we inflict upon ourselves.

01:38:33.860 --> 01:38:37.620
But then the sadness is not personalized

01:38:37.620 --> 01:38:41.820
and therefore doesn't become a different quality of anger

01:38:41.820 --> 01:38:43.540
or something.

01:38:43.540 --> 01:38:47.620
It is just the observation of us running into the wall,

01:38:47.620 --> 01:38:50.540
essentially, and the sadness that comes with it.

01:38:50.540 --> 01:38:53.380
Losing my dog, my grandmother, in the space of a few days,

01:38:53.380 --> 01:38:56.580
these things that create sadness.

01:38:56.580 --> 01:39:00.100
But there is constantly the container is peace

01:39:00.100 --> 01:39:07.060
And within that container is experience thoughtful nations objects of perceptions more less present

01:39:07.060 --> 01:39:13.940
But it doesn't remove the container of peace that has to just never left. And so yeah, everything is experienced in the background

01:39:13.940 --> 01:39:17.140
Nice very nice

01:39:17.140 --> 01:39:20.500
um, so there's this thing called city voices and

01:39:20.500 --> 01:39:25.140
I understand you're affiliated with that in some way you you participate you you

01:39:25.860 --> 01:39:27.860
Help people who come

01:39:27.860 --> 01:39:30.660
To you through city voices. Is that correct?

01:39:30.660 --> 01:39:37.060
Yes, I met uh, the one who damn pray, uh, who is the director of city voices. Um,

01:39:37.060 --> 01:39:41.940
I don't remember when um before I went to my retreat in one day

01:39:41.940 --> 01:39:43.860
um

01:39:43.860 --> 01:39:48.420
and uh, he has created a spirit charity groups and Saturdays where

01:39:48.420 --> 01:39:53.060
My purpose is with him and then something called friendship squad, which is um

01:39:53.620 --> 01:39:59.300
sort of initiative that helps people who deal with loneliness, mental health issues, sadness, grief,

01:39:59.300 --> 01:40:06.260
depression and all these things to just have a shoulder to cry on or a friend to go back to when

01:40:06.260 --> 01:40:11.540
they are experiencing distress on their own. And it's been wonderful.

01:40:11.540 --> 01:40:15.620
So people have zoom conversations with you or something through that?

01:40:15.620 --> 01:40:19.060
Yeah, text or phone rather. Yeah.

01:40:19.060 --> 01:40:19.380
Okay.

01:40:20.020 --> 01:40:25.860
Yeah, and then on Saturdays we do the the sprayer charity groups with either a person who's being interviewed someone who

01:40:25.860 --> 01:40:32.900
Was invited to join or just us where we hold meditation spaces and discussions on pretty much everything you and I talk about

01:40:32.900 --> 01:40:36.900
Good. Well, it may sound like i'm concluding this interview, but i'm not but um

01:40:36.900 --> 01:40:43.060
But anyway, if if someone wants to get in touch with you, is that the best way to do it through city voices?

01:40:43.060 --> 01:40:48.900
I guess so. I mean any other way do you you probably don't want to put your email address out there or something

01:40:48.900 --> 01:40:55.340
You just get a ton of emails, but not website or anything, right? I don't know

01:40:55.340 --> 01:40:58.100
I don't have social media and I don't have a website but maybe

01:40:58.100 --> 01:41:03.040
Well, yeah, city voices would be down for a city voices would be a good way

01:41:03.040 --> 01:41:09.900
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

01:41:09.900 --> 01:41:11.700
So we won't finish that

01:41:11.700 --> 01:41:18.660
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?

01:41:18.660 --> 01:41:24.380
or sometimes they're just real spiritual seekers and have they ever had a shift

01:41:24.380 --> 01:41:34.700
or an awakening working with you? I think both, yes. I've experienced people

01:41:34.700 --> 01:41:38.940
suffering in some way or another, yes absolutely, because Dan has created a

01:41:38.940 --> 01:41:45.380
container of absolute safety and care so people feel free to join knowing that

01:41:45.380 --> 01:41:51.460
They are not the only ones in pain suffering and there is a collective sort of them output of compassion. I

01:41:51.460 --> 01:41:57.200
My goodness would I not claim that anyone

01:41:57.200 --> 01:42:06.260
You've been a catalyst somehow talking to somebody

01:42:06.260 --> 01:42:08.700
Here's the thing

01:42:08.700 --> 01:42:11.660
I think we have so much more impact than we do in

01:42:12.100 --> 01:42:16.260
general a friend used to tell me that when I was doing acting and you know

01:42:16.260 --> 01:42:19.660
complaining being upset about we don't have any auditions and nothing's

01:42:19.660 --> 01:42:24.140
happening and he told me something I will never forget which is 90% of

01:42:24.140 --> 01:42:29.260
progress of growth of impact is invisible it is all happening

01:42:29.260 --> 01:42:35.620
behind the curtain so we you by holding the space me by by choosing to be here

01:42:35.620 --> 01:42:40.220
and sharing the space with you people by answering and asking questions and I'll

01:42:40.220 --> 01:42:42.220
I'll just add that what I

01:42:42.220 --> 01:42:46.380
Again going back to the sense of without going into neo

01:42:46.380 --> 01:42:53.740
Whatever the the truth the absolute truth that you are the destination you've arrived. You're it's fine. Yes

01:42:53.740 --> 01:42:56.220
um

01:42:56.220 --> 01:43:02.380
It is always um wonderfully mind-blowing how little it takes for someone to

01:43:04.380 --> 01:43:06.380
Recognize that yeah

01:43:06.380 --> 01:43:11.760
Because that's what it is. The truth is not new the truth is ancient. It's a recognition

01:43:11.760 --> 01:43:17.740
It's it's a remembering and so because it lives within them. It takes very very little to sort of um,

01:43:17.740 --> 01:43:19.340
um

01:43:19.340 --> 01:43:20.540
somehow

01:43:20.540 --> 01:43:24.460
Trigger or invite that realization and it's different for every person

01:43:24.460 --> 01:43:30.780
everyone carries very individual baggage and are more or less resistance more or less inclined to

01:43:30.780 --> 01:43:32.940
um

01:43:32.940 --> 01:43:39.740
To to something different and new that will challenge them and their worldview and sometimes there is such a thing as divine timing sometimes

01:43:39.740 --> 01:43:42.220
You will someone will just not have it

01:43:42.220 --> 01:43:44.780
Um, they were just not interested

01:43:44.780 --> 01:43:47.660
and and it also very much sort of

01:43:47.660 --> 01:43:52.140
Has to do somehow with the quality of their suffering, you know, but um

01:43:52.140 --> 01:43:55.740
I I'm always incredibly

01:43:55.740 --> 01:43:59.340
Humbled and more of how little it takes for someone to remember true

01:43:59.820 --> 01:44:05.900
of who they are and how to get there. And then again it's a matter of showing up again and again

01:44:05.900 --> 01:44:11.340
and again to that truth to water the seed with something pure and honest because if it took you

01:44:11.340 --> 01:44:17.980
60 years to get to that state of absolute suffering and dread and anguish then it might take

01:44:17.980 --> 01:44:23.580
a bit more than two weeks to reverse all of that momentum, right, that sort of energetic

01:44:23.580 --> 01:44:29.020
karma that's been set into place. But it takes very little and whether it's me or somebody else

01:44:29.020 --> 01:44:33.580
It really it doesn't matter. It's them. It's it's the return home their remembrance and

01:44:33.580 --> 01:44:39.040
sometimes the then the pieces are set in the perfect way and everything is sort of

01:44:39.040 --> 01:44:44.980
Orchestrated in a way that is ideal for someone to remember that right within and sometimes it takes a bit more

01:44:44.980 --> 01:44:47.060
discussion

01:44:47.060 --> 01:44:48.860
conversing

01:44:48.860 --> 01:44:55.660
Back in court, but it's them. It's it's them. Yeah. Yeah, there's an encouraging verse in the Gita says

01:44:56.500 --> 01:45:02.880
No effort is lost and no obstacle exists even a little of this Dharma removes great fear

01:45:02.880 --> 01:45:12.420
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?

01:45:12.420 --> 01:45:17.360
Sitting up there talking to a group of people that kind of thing

01:45:17.360 --> 01:45:22.580
You're good at it. I mean you speak very well, and you're deeply insightful

01:45:24.220 --> 01:45:29.180
First of all, I did I truly don't know okay. I don't I don't think I want to know I think

01:45:29.180 --> 01:45:32.660
I'm still in there. I want to be of service

01:45:32.660 --> 01:45:38.820
There's one thing that has sort of shaped itself and that is an absolute suit of

01:45:38.820 --> 01:45:43.660
extension of the truth I go with is that I I

01:45:43.660 --> 01:45:47.140
Want to be of service and and I think

01:45:47.140 --> 01:45:53.900
When you live it the law becomes so clear, you know gift first you receive after

01:45:53.900 --> 01:46:03.900
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.

01:46:03.900 --> 01:46:09.900
You give because that's what we're here to do. We're here to give, whatever that looks like.

01:46:09.900 --> 01:46:19.900
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.

01:46:19.900 --> 01:46:28.300
I believe it's whatever, you know, consciousness incarnate in through me does.

01:46:28.300 --> 01:46:32.620
I don't believe I do the little self. So it will come from a place of stillness

01:46:32.620 --> 01:46:38.620
within whenever it's ready to, you know, be born into the world. But I don't know.

01:46:38.620 --> 01:46:43.580
That's a good answer and I think that's the right motivation, you know. I mean

01:46:43.580 --> 01:46:48.100
I've heard of people, you know, being overheard at spiritual retreats. "I can't

01:46:48.100 --> 01:46:54.380
wait to get awakened so I can quit my day job and become a spiritual teacher, you know?

01:46:54.380 --> 01:46:55.380
And wrong motivation!

01:46:55.380 --> 01:46:56.380
So…

01:46:56.380 --> 01:47:01.540
I think, I also think that is running in the opposite direction of awakening, so…

01:47:01.540 --> 01:47:02.540
Right.

01:47:02.540 --> 01:47:03.540
It's ego-based, yeah.

01:47:03.540 --> 01:47:04.540
Yeah.

01:47:04.540 --> 01:47:10.780
No, I totally, I love that answer, that, you know, we want to be of service.

01:47:10.780 --> 01:47:15.340
God make me an instrument of thy peace, to quote St. Francis.

01:47:15.340 --> 01:47:18.680
You know that prayer of St. Francis, all those lovely things where there is anger, let me

01:47:18.680 --> 01:47:20.860
sow peace and all that stuff.

01:47:20.860 --> 01:47:23.780
Because really that's what a spiritual teacher is.

01:47:23.780 --> 01:47:27.880
It's not you giving people stuff, you're just a conduit.

01:47:27.880 --> 01:47:33.560
You know, you're just a channel or a, you know, a conduit, that's a good word, for some

01:47:33.560 --> 01:47:36.360
higher wisdom that we couldn't possibly own.

01:47:36.360 --> 01:47:37.360
Absolutely.

01:47:37.360 --> 01:47:42.120
I loved what you said about birds.

01:47:42.120 --> 01:47:50.620
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.

01:47:50.620 --> 01:48:00.120
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.

01:48:00.120 --> 01:48:05.620
It made me think of geese, in which there seems to be a leader, because there's one goose out in front.

01:48:05.620 --> 01:48:08.920
But actually they take turns because it's hard to be the lead goose.

01:48:08.920 --> 01:48:15.880
He has to sort of break the wind resistance and the others take advantage of that by forming this V formation.

01:48:15.880 --> 01:48:19.840
But they trade off so that they can all get have it a little bit easier.

01:48:19.840 --> 01:48:25.180
So even with it and then there's that whole fascinating thing about murmurations of starlings.

01:48:25.180 --> 01:48:31.660
You've probably seen videos of those which each starling can only see seven birds around it at most.

01:48:31.820 --> 01:48:36.860
But the whole thing moves in these beautiful patterns. I don't know. What do you make of that? It's

01:48:36.860 --> 01:48:42.380
It's a it's a quasi perfect illustration for

01:48:42.380 --> 01:48:44.340
What then?

01:48:44.340 --> 01:48:50.360
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

01:48:50.360 --> 01:48:53.440
There is no it's a it's a bottom-up phenomenon. There is no leader

01:48:53.440 --> 01:49:00.860
Yeah, there is there is just a unifying field of conscious movement that inhabits all of these, you know

01:49:01.340 --> 01:49:08.700
with this collective momentum. I do profoundly believe that we've reached a stage in evolution

01:49:08.700 --> 01:49:13.500
and that's a personal opinion, so take it or leave it, it's not worth much, but

01:49:13.500 --> 01:49:23.180
we can't get by with one Jesus, one Buddha. We need more. We can't get by with one awakened

01:49:23.180 --> 01:49:28.460
leader anymore. We have reached a state of urgency in the post-sara revolution collectively where

01:49:28.460 --> 01:49:36.460
We need to awaken together. It needs to happen together collectively. We need to utilize with skillful authenticity and integrity the movement of

01:49:36.460 --> 01:49:43.420
The motion and the power of waking up together. It happens together and it just doesn't happen. Um

01:49:43.420 --> 01:49:48.940
and so I think that's why what you do and other people do is so skillful and so beautiful because it is

01:49:48.940 --> 01:49:53.660
inviting this this energetic sort of uh signature and vibration to

01:49:53.660 --> 01:49:56.300
to to heighten to

01:49:56.300 --> 01:49:58.380
to elevate, you know, um

01:49:58.380 --> 01:50:04.700
It's not meant to be an individual phenomenon, it's not meant to be an individual process

01:50:04.700 --> 01:50:05.700
and event.

01:50:05.700 --> 01:50:10.940
It is the awakening, true awakening has to be collective.

01:50:10.940 --> 01:50:11.940
Yeah.

01:50:11.940 --> 01:50:15.580
Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh saying the next Buddha may be the

01:50:15.580 --> 01:50:16.580
Sangha.

01:50:16.580 --> 01:50:17.580
Oh, yeah.

01:50:17.580 --> 01:50:22.140
You know, not like there's going to be some individual savior, but it's like, it's a collective

01:50:22.140 --> 01:50:23.140
phenomenon now.

01:50:23.140 --> 01:50:24.140
Yeah.

01:50:24.140 --> 01:50:25.140
Yeah.

01:50:25.140 --> 01:50:30.620
And that was one of my motivations actually for starting this was that, you know, I was

01:50:30.620 --> 01:50:36.020
talking with people who had been meditating for ages and they, you know, and some people

01:50:36.020 --> 01:50:41.260
were getting awakened, but the rest of the people were skeptical of that because they

01:50:41.260 --> 01:50:47.300
kind of envisioned awakening as some supernatural or super normal or, you know, kind of like

01:50:47.300 --> 01:50:50.180
Jesus or Superman or something like that.

01:50:50.180 --> 01:50:53.100
And they thought, "Wow, this guy thinks he's had an awakening.

01:50:53.100 --> 01:50:54.100
He must be deluded."

01:50:54.100 --> 01:50:58.260
It couldn't happen to him, couldn't happen to me.

01:50:58.260 --> 01:51:02.940
And I thought, no, it's happening, and I want to just show people that it's happening to

01:51:02.940 --> 01:51:03.940
people like them.

01:51:03.940 --> 01:51:11.100
And so the whole theme of Bath Gap from the beginning has been conversations with ordinary

01:51:11.100 --> 01:51:12.940
spiritually awakening people.

01:51:12.940 --> 01:51:17.580
Who would add the gas pump, you know, some guy pumping gas next to you.

01:51:17.580 --> 01:51:18.580
And that's what I like about it.

01:51:18.580 --> 01:51:20.820
That's what I like about what you're doing.

01:51:20.820 --> 01:51:27.780
awakened. It is a process. It is a continuation. It is not something that is open-ended. It

01:51:27.780 --> 01:51:32.980
is not something that has an end. Because it lives beyond space and time. It is a state

01:51:32.980 --> 01:51:37.820
of absolute being. It doesn't respond to the law of space and time. So there is no end

01:51:37.820 --> 01:51:42.340
in space and time of "I declare freely today that I am enlightened." And from then on,

01:51:42.340 --> 01:51:47.060
there will be no furthering of the enlightened. No. It is a continuing process of deepening

01:51:47.060 --> 01:51:51.380
constantly. And I think again that is a way of looking at it that might be a bit

01:51:51.380 --> 01:51:56.100
more... well first of all I believe honest and skillful in how people relate to

01:51:56.100 --> 01:52:01.220
this strange seemingly exotic although it's not process that awakening is to

01:52:01.220 --> 01:52:06.660
wake up to your true nature that is right here right now. Which

01:52:06.660 --> 01:52:11.940
layers are we going to impure for you to realize who you truly are? Yeah. But when

01:52:11.940 --> 01:52:18.020
you realize who you truly are, that the work, I believe, carries on. Although it's not painful,

01:52:18.020 --> 01:52:23.580
but the momentum of awakening carries on and takes different shapes throughout the cycles

01:52:23.580 --> 01:52:26.020
of life for different people.

01:52:26.020 --> 01:52:32.020
Yeah. The tagline of Batgap used to be "interviews with spiritually awakened people," and we

01:52:32.020 --> 01:52:37.700
changed it to "awakening" for that very reason. And I often quote St. Teresa of Avila, who

01:52:37.700 --> 01:52:39.980
said, "It appears that God himself is on the journey."

01:52:39.980 --> 01:52:40.980
Yeah.

01:52:40.980 --> 01:52:41.980
Wow, that's beautiful.

01:52:41.980 --> 01:52:42.980
Yeah.

01:52:42.980 --> 01:52:45.980
And there was this wonderful woman named Peace Pilgrim.

01:52:45.980 --> 01:52:48.980
I don't know if you've ever heard of Peace Pilgrim, but there's a little book about her.

01:52:48.980 --> 01:52:52.980
She just walked around the United States for years with no possessions, nothing but the

01:52:52.980 --> 01:52:57.980
shirt on her back which said Peace Pilgrim on it, and people would just take care of

01:52:57.980 --> 01:53:00.980
her, and she was just at the mercy of nature.

01:53:00.980 --> 01:53:06.980
But she had this little chart in her book which was that the pace of evolution is kind

01:53:06.980 --> 01:53:11.940
is kind of maybe gradual for a while, but once evolution, once awakening has happened, it

01:53:11.940 --> 01:53:18.740
kind of goes like a hockey stick and accelerates, goes up much more quickly, which would stand

01:53:18.740 --> 01:53:24.120
to reason because you're not interfering with it anymore, you know? You're not throwing

01:53:24.120 --> 01:53:30.580
monkey wrenches in the works. You're allowing nature to do it, and nature is much more powerful

01:53:30.580 --> 01:53:33.620
than our individuality.

01:53:33.620 --> 01:53:39.300
which is something we didn't touch upon, but is absolutely huge for another time.

01:53:39.300 --> 01:53:47.060
But surrender, the role of surrender in that process/destination of coming home to yourself,

01:53:47.060 --> 01:53:48.060
to your true nature.

01:53:48.060 --> 01:53:49.740
Yeah, very good.

01:53:49.740 --> 01:53:56.540
And what I wanted to add as well, in terms of awakening and these things, is I don't

01:53:56.540 --> 01:53:57.540
have the answer.

01:53:57.540 --> 01:54:04.260
a rhetorical question but how many people in a group of a million let's say, how many people

01:54:04.260 --> 01:54:09.700
actually do need to awaken for the dynamic of the entire group to change? What is the percentage?

01:54:09.700 --> 01:54:15.940
And I do think it's way less than you think. So we're what seven, eight billion of us now,

01:54:15.940 --> 01:54:22.500
how many would it actually take to change the course of our civilization and to steer it in

01:54:22.500 --> 01:54:27.620
a different direction, through awakened minds, through another compassion and everything

01:54:27.620 --> 01:54:32.100
that comes from that state. I do think it's way less than we think it is.

01:54:32.100 --> 01:54:39.860
In the heart, 1% of the cells are called pacemaker cells and they emit electrical signals that

01:54:39.860 --> 01:54:46.260
regulate the beating of the other 99% of the heart. And in a laser, if the square root of 1%

01:54:46.820 --> 01:54:50.580
of the photons align with each other and become coherent,

01:54:50.580 --> 01:54:54.740
the rest of the photons entrain with them and the whole thing becomes as if a

01:54:54.740 --> 01:54:58.260
one coherent beam of light. So there are examples from nature about small

01:54:58.260 --> 01:55:02.900
percentages having a big effect on the whole.

01:55:02.900 --> 01:55:06.260
One percent it is then. Or even the square root of one percent.

01:55:06.260 --> 01:55:12.580
Who knows? Okay, final question. If you could

01:55:12.580 --> 01:55:20.180
Talk to Emeline from 10 years ago who was depressed and suicidal and all that stuff.

01:55:20.180 --> 01:55:23.300
What would you like to tell her?

01:55:23.300 --> 01:55:28.260
I would tell her that it's perfectly safe just to be herself.

01:55:28.260 --> 01:55:29.900
Perfectly safe just to be herself?

01:55:29.900 --> 01:55:30.900
Yes.

01:55:30.900 --> 01:55:35.300
And do you think that would have shifted her experience a lot to have heard that from her

01:55:35.300 --> 01:55:37.060
future self?

01:55:38.100 --> 01:55:46.500
I, she, needed to go through. Suffering is still at the level of consciousness where

01:55:46.500 --> 01:55:51.380
the catalyst for awakening. So it's one thing to understand something intellectually,

01:55:51.380 --> 01:55:57.460
um, it's different to inhabit that truth experientially. You know, I heard people say

01:55:57.460 --> 01:56:03.540
that in the past and I was just like, oh my goodness, ridiculous, but I, grateful would be

01:56:04.580 --> 01:56:09.860
It's not that I'm grateful for my suffering. That implies a sort of binary system with

01:56:09.860 --> 01:56:21.500
good and bad. I see suffering as an absolutely necessary and paradoxically, even if it isn't,

01:56:21.500 --> 01:56:28.060
divine chapter of coming home to myself. I see now the absolute necessity of suffering

01:56:28.060 --> 01:56:36.060
the way I did. I wish maybe I would have understood the nature of surrender earlier on because

01:56:36.060 --> 01:56:42.740
I maybe would have needed to suffer a bit less. But it just happened the way it happened.

01:56:42.740 --> 01:56:48.620
And I responded to what happened at the level of consciousness I was at. I didn't know

01:56:48.620 --> 01:56:55.180
any better. But there's a quote by one of my favorite plays by Edward Albee in The Zoo

01:56:55.180 --> 01:57:02.020
new story. 14 page play, it's really sort of nothing but it's absolutely beautiful.

01:57:02.020 --> 01:57:06.420
And one of the characters, Jerry, says something, he has a long, long mug and he starts by saying,

01:57:06.420 --> 01:57:10.660
"I'm going to tell you the story of how sometimes it's necessary to travel a long

01:57:10.660 --> 01:57:16.140
distance out of your own way in order to come back a short distance correctly." And that's

01:57:16.140 --> 01:57:22.700
it. It's a movement of expansion and coming home. And one can only happen if the other

01:57:22.700 --> 01:57:29.180
of the prior wanted place. So a long distance, but then you come back a short distance correctly.

01:57:29.180 --> 01:57:35.820
Very nice. All right. Well, thank you so much, Emeline. I've really enjoyed getting to know

01:57:35.820 --> 01:57:41.900
you a little bit and having this conversation. I'm sure the people who watch this will really enjoy

01:57:41.900 --> 01:57:47.260
it. And as I mentioned in the beginning, if they currently, if they want to get in touch with you,

01:57:47.260 --> 01:57:52.380
they can do that through City Voices, and I'll provide a link to that. And if new things open

01:57:52.380 --> 01:57:55.820
up in the future, like if you get a website or anything, just let me know and I'll add that to

01:57:55.820 --> 01:58:05.580
your page on batgap.com. Take care and stay in touch and thank you for letting me interview you

01:58:05.580 --> 01:58:10.300
and thanks to those who've been listening and watching for doing so. Thank you for having me.

01:58:10.300 --> 01:58:12.300
Thanks so much.

01:58:12.300 --> 01:58:37.300
[Music]