speaker-0: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump, the weekly show in which we talk with people who have had a spiritual awakening. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest this time is Michael Baxter, whom we will also refer to as Bax or Michael, but not Mike. And ⁓ Michael is unique among my guests so far for several reasons, one of which is that he doesn't really claim to have had a spiritual awakening. He he says he's had some glimpses and he I think he he's gonna be able to talk about them very eloquently. ⁓ but maybe they're not stabilized, but that's okay because the reason I want him to have Mike on, or Michael on, is that he I consider him to be something of a an Advaita scholar. If you know what Advaita means, it means non duality. And ⁓ there's a whole school of thought which d deals with that topic and and Michael is very eloquent on that point, writing things, prose, poetry, composing songs, ⁓ which one of which he might sing for us tonight, all sorts of things. So I felt that this might be a very interesting discussion. And it might be a little bit more systematic than some of ⁓ the interviews we've done so far, which have been just kind of free-flowing, spontaneous, extemporaneous, because ⁓ Michael has developed some fairly detailed points, and he's so accustomed to talking about this stuff that he has a a fairly clear structure in mind of how he'd like to lay it out. But at the same time, it won't be a lecture. We'll have plenty of give and take and questions and answers and and so on to make it lively for you. So ⁓ perhaps what we often do on this show is have people start by just sort of getting a little bit of a biographical sketch of themselves, you know, what what their background is, their just personal details of their life that they consider relevant, ⁓ how that pertains to spirituality or you know, consciousness awakening and so on. So go for it.

speaker-1: All right. ⁓ well a little bit of background. I was born in Seattle. I was raised on the West Coast and of course I came to Fairfield with everybody else in the late 70s and ⁓ was here for quite a while. I was I was an administrator at MIU or MUM now.

speaker-0: University of Management.

speaker-1: And I was ⁓ a student and ⁓ also ⁓ a businessman in town here. But for the last ⁓ let's say twelve years I've been living in Coralville, Iowa with my wife, who's a wonderful Arabic lady named Intassar. ⁓ she's also a blind lady and she's you know, she's wonderful. ⁓ I always ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah she's and that she's into belly dancing. So

speaker-1: Right, right. She is a blind belly dancer from Baghdad. Actually her her ⁓ her blood is Palestinian, but she and she was raised in Baghdad. She moved here when she was ⁓ seventeen, I think, to have her eyes checked out, but there's not much they could do. It's it's a progressive loss of vision. But I always ⁓ think of myself as having really just three interests in in life. She's the first one, and I love her with all my heart. And the second one is just sort of self discovery stuff. And the third one is music. I I love to sing. Well I should say I love to sing along. So if there's time at the end today maybe sing one song.

speaker-0: Yeah. I have plenty time. Yeah. So excuse me. So I understand that ⁓ you know you had you've had some health issues ⁓ and that that ⁓ actually has some relevance or significance with regard to your spiritual development. I mean, you've been a meditator for decades, right? You learned to meditate when you were probably a teenager or twenties or something like that. And then at a certain stage you got leukemia.

speaker-1: Right. That's right. I got ⁓ myelog myeloginous leukemia, which is means it's in the bone marrow. And that was in ninety four that that was diagnosed. and ⁓ at that point they gave me ⁓ three to five years to live and there was no real cure. But I took ⁓ I took chemo shots every day for ten years. ⁓ And ⁓ you know, so I you know, I I lasted quite well with with those. And then they they came up, they discovered a a wonder drug, you know, just almost a poster child for wonder drugs. It's ⁓ four little pills that I take every day now. And ⁓ technically chemo, but the side effects are not bad. Basically I'm just tired. I get cranky in the evening, so if I bite your head off

speaker-0: I'll I'll ask very non probing

speaker-1: Yeah, be very careful. so yeah, it's an interesting thing. I wouldn't say that you know th that that getting sick made me think about mortality and ⁓ so much as as I would think that, you know, I was actually starting to wake up. And as we know from you know Ma Maurishi's teachings, ⁓ the TM teaching ⁓ the mind likes to be able to match a reason to an experience. Right. And so ⁓ given that I I was sort of ⁓ awakening and still am wakening, ⁓ you know, it was just kind of a nice match that I should have some kind of serious illness. But yet I don't think one really caused the other.

speaker-0: No. Although one ma one thing Marcia always said, which some people found discouraging, was that in order to really be enlightened or whatever term we want to use, the nervous system has to be functioning, you know, perfectly or free of stress. And yet there are so many examples which belie that. I mean so many people who've been alcoholics and then have had this profound awakening or drug addicts or who have or have had some serious disease and have been awakened in spite of it. ⁓ and you know, both ancient and modern there are examples of that. So did you feel that your your disease, your illness and the drugs you had to take were in any way an impediment to inner development?

speaker-1: And ⁓ you know, I'm sort of saving ⁓ that part of what I wanna say for a little bit later, but but in general, I don't think there's any connection whatsoever between, you know, a fact and fiction, between ⁓ between that which is real and that which is Maya or illusion. and and if anything, the illusion would have to be downstream from the truth. And so there's no way that it could flow back upstream and and affect you know, no condition of the fiction could ever restrict or affect the fact. That would be my take on that.

speaker-0: Well, as a matter of fact, actually, you know, like ⁓ many spiritual authorities and books, you can take any one thing Maharshi said and find something pretty much the opposite that he also said. And I remember him saying that, you know, you could actually transcend or, you know, take take any of the five senses and arrive at the be ⁓ at being or the self or whatever. And presumably through having that experience repeatedly have that become a stable and permanent reality, even though you might be you know, very handicapped in certain respects and obviously you're not. So yeah. So how would you like to lay this out? I mean you have a whole structure here a lot. I don't want to interfere with it by jumping ahead or anything.

speaker-1: I think that that's right. Well please interrupt me enough to keep this from being pedantic. But ⁓ out of necessity I have created a system ⁓ the graphic and you know, text, ⁓ words, ideas and pictures which I did over the years to help me understand what what was what's been happening to me.

speaker-0: And I'm glad you phrased it that way because I you know, I do wanna ⁓ put this in terms of your personal experience and not just sort of an abstract cosmology that you've developed, but how does this relate to you? How did you come up with this stuff? Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, I'm not ⁓ I'm not claiming that this this is truth, you know. I I don't think there is such a thing as a relative. It it works and it's so I'll I'll I'll show you what I have here. Good. ⁓ I'm gonna sh show this diagram here. I call this the cycle of self-knowledge. And You'll probably right away see that there's this big sort of egg-shaped cycle. And underneath that there's a very dark triangle. In this schematic, the dark triangle is the self, and the the egg-shaped cycle is ⁓ the relative world. The idea being that we move through different milestone experiences ⁓ in the relative world. ⁓ sometimes passing quite close to the self ⁓ and sometimes not so close. And ⁓ I found in my case that that just trying to populate this map with some of my experiences has helped me to put them in the context, put them in a common context you could say.

speaker-0: May I interject a question here? ⁓ I think some teachers would say that how can you not be close to the self? You know, what what can take you away or or at at any to any distance from that which is everywhere?

speaker-1: Well this is actually ⁓ you're bringing out really one of my personal favorite points, but ⁓

speaker-0: Getting ahead of ourselves.

speaker-1: Not well, I'm going to ⁓ let me make this point, Rick, but I won't ⁓ spend a lot of time on it. I think that really ⁓ different regions of this schematic require a slightly different dialect or slightly different language. So obviously at the top where for now let's say that we're far away from the self, ⁓ the reality is that people are d different. I'm not you and I'm not the self. Right. But as you're moving towards Towards the self, you know, that is called into question. You know, is there really a difference between us? As you're passing the self, there's really no experience of the world. So

speaker-0: Let's ⁓ let's define the term self a little bit. Very good. You know, because most people if you say, ⁓ what is your self? Well I'm five foot I'm five foot eight and I weigh hundred and forty pounds and I you know my skin color is such and such. That's my and I go to school and you know, so let's define what we mean by self.

speaker-1: Okay. ⁓ I'm gonna cop out on that one. Here's the way I would define self. Ever since ancient times, ⁓ let me set this graphic down. Ever since ancient times, people have said, know thyself. Right. And we've all accepted that this is a valid statement, it's a valid ⁓ goal. And so, you know, rather than try to nail it down,

speaker-0: Sure, they can show us again now.

speaker-1: I would suggest that we just accept that this whatever the self is, that knowing it is a valid quest.

speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ but I think we need to make clear that when we refer to knowing it, we're alluding to something which is not commonly known. Otherwise what's all the fuss about it? And if if we're just going to define self in terms of our likes and our dislikes and our job and our family and our possessions and our preferences and our physical appearance, then what's to know? We all know that.

speaker-1: Let me give three synonyms for self that I'll propose. Truth, reality, and being. self is defined, let's say, as that which is true. self is defined as that which is real. And being is ⁓ from the perspective of a a living person, ⁓ if he is in touch with his being. then he is in touch with his self. So for now maybe that's good enough.

speaker-0: So let's kind of like at this point establish that the s self in the term that we're in the way we're using it refers not to s maybe the common definition, but to something that is often ⁓ overlooked and that that would be perhaps a more fundamental, essential level of reality that is you know very ⁓ worthy of being discovered. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good.

speaker-1: So here's here's here's kind of my story then and it's also the story of what I call the three laws of self-knowledge, ⁓ which you'll see are something that I stumbled upon, but they're also ⁓ for example something that Chankara from ⁓ was it eighth century India ⁓ upon which the TM tradition is based, the teachings of Shankara, ⁓ the chankra ⁓ also ⁓ verbalized quite beautifully. So ⁓ as I said in I guess it was about ninety four I got leukemia and by

speaker-0: By that time you'd already been meditating for twenty years or something.

speaker-1: Something like that. twenty, twenty five. And ⁓ then in ninety eight, I had run out of options. The drug we weren't sure if the drug was working, but the cancer was progressing and they had proposed I don't know if you know what a a bone marrow ⁓ Transplanting it's extremely invasive. Yeah. And they had said ⁓ my doctors had told me that now's the time, you know, I should do that. And I thought about it a long and hard and decided that I wouldn't do it. ⁓ no matter what. I'd rather spend my time, you know, just getting ready to die. Right. And so ⁓ that was all in fine and as long as it was theoretical, you know. As long as it was still at some distance. I was actually a a car Hard carrying member of, you know, two or three right to die societies like ⁓ Hemlock Society and and I actually had you know the bag that you put over your head and I had the checklist, take this drug and then do the bag and then you know. So I was actually going through my checklist and ⁓ ⁓ really trying to prepare myself to take my life before th before I couldn't take my life. Right. And things got so so bad. I was on two chemos at that time. I was also on some kind of a psychological medicine that wasn't working and I had ⁓ just unbelievable ⁓ depression and anxiety symptoms. And the short story is that I I became, you know, acutely suicidal. And ⁓ I I think I had about one hour left on this earth. I had full intention to just take care of things.

speaker-0: And you probably had a fairly certain belief that, you know, d the death of your body wasn't gonna be the death of you, but or

speaker-1: Well, not really. No. No, ⁓ no. I mean I wasn't at peace. I wasn't ⁓ calm. Uhhuh. I was c just completely freaked out, but I was in such physical, emotional, psychological distress that that I didn't feel ⁓ the symptoms alone were just killing me. Right. And so ⁓ my best friend called out of nowhere and said, I'm getting this kind of strange feeling, what's up? And I I said, I don't think I have an hour left. And he said, Promise me you'll call your doctor and check yourself in. So I So did that and ⁓ spent a month in the psychiatric unit, ⁓ University Hospital in Iowa City, and I was ⁓ what they would call an affective flatliner, meaning I had zero capacity to register emotion. I was just in a walking coma, so to speak, for about a month. So it hit me really hard.

speaker-0: And this is both because of the stress of the disease and also the side effects of the drugs I

speaker-1: Yeah, all of the above. The the drugs, the fear. Right. ⁓ Yeah, it was just, you know, it really came to a head. And ⁓ okay, so I had a I had a breakdown. I had a major depressive episode in ninety eight. ⁓ but my wife pulled me through that.

speaker-0: Everything you've been through. ⁓ I didn't know you were meditated. ⁓ you were married that Yeah. At that point. When did you get married?

speaker-1: Yeah. Well that's the thing, Rick. We always go by the day we met because that's the day our lives changed. Right. So we met in ninety three. ⁓ good. And you know, so she she definitely pulled me through. She's a very strong, wonderful person. ⁓ now, flash forward to ⁓ a couple of years, two or three years later, I was having some kind of a surgery. Now I happen to ⁓ have an allergy to general anesthetics. If you give me the wrong anesthetic, I won't wake up. So ⁓ my body tends to interpret anesthetic agents differently than most people. So what happened to me in this in this surgery was that I I seemed to be alert and talking all the way through the surgery.

speaker-0: Even though you're supposed to be unconscious.

speaker-1: They yeah, they gave me enough to knock me out, but it didn't knock me all the way out. I was talking they felt that I was just comfortable and but I wasn't experiencing anything. And then in the recovery room That's right which

speaker-0: You mean you didn't know you were talking and told you afterwards?

speaker-1: If you if you think about it, that right there tells you that the person can function just fine without I mean I was making sense apparently. you can do just fine without memory or actual experience, you know. ⁓ but then in the recovery room, ⁓ I sort of woke up, just in the typical meaning of the word. Coming out of your yes, I just woke up and the most ⁓ amazing sequence happened which was that I suddenly felt like, ⁓ I'm back and I could see that there's me, there's the world, and I'm talking, I'm in the middle of a point. And then there was this this sadness, like, ⁓ Now I'm now I have to make sense, you know, now I have to be responsible, not look like a fool. So I better figure out what I'm saying and you know now it now the burden is on me to not look foolish since I'm back. And but it but ⁓ for some reason ⁓ right before jumping back in and taking the reins and being responsible, I said, Where was I before? A and s metaphorically, so to speak, I you know, whipped my head around somehow and and looked back. And I I won't tell you that I saw anything at that time I didn't. But I did realize that the that the world, including me, ⁓ had come out of nothing. And that was just as as obvious as could be. ⁓ now let me go ahead and show something on this diagram. Sure. In terms of this diagram, let me move my water bottle.

speaker-0: ⁓ Right.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ in terms of this diagram, I would say that ⁓ can I point with my

speaker-0: You can point but people probably aren't gonna be seeing you pointing, so you have to explain what you're pointing at.

speaker-1: I believe what happened was that I noticed when the world kicked back in. But I noticed that the world and my personality ⁓ along with it kicked back in.

speaker-0: Right. Which is represented by the big arrow on the right above the little Buddha guy, right? Yeah. Okay.

speaker-1: And so that was a major shock because ⁓ the way I described it to my friend is that is that I had seen I had seen the imposter take the stage. ⁓ huh. That's the way it struck me. Right. I had seen that this is this this is a lie. This is not real. And it was quite an obvious thing. Right. Okay, so so I ⁓ later came to think of that as the the second law. of self-knowledge, which is simply that the world isn't. The world is not real. The world lacks existence. The world doesn't exist.

speaker-0: It's interesting, you're you're ⁓ one of three people I can think of that came out of a near death surgery type experience and had a spiritual awakening upon coming out that that more or less changed their whole perspective once and for all. But ⁓ d so I didn't mean to interrupt your full thought, but it's it's not a it's it's it happens, you know. So the first law again, self experience directly, second law.

speaker-1: Those are ⁓ different. Yeah. I'm sorry. ⁓ the ⁓ now Shankara ⁓ twelve hundred years ago, his second law, and I we'll come back to his first law, but his second law is that the world is not real. And what I experience is the world lacks existence. You might see it, right? It might be for functional purposes real, and yet it lacks that crucial attribute of existence. It simply doesn't exist.

speaker-0: At least not in any ultimate sense. Yeah. I mean it yeah. It appears real enough. If I punch you in the nose you feel it, but on some level nothing's happening.

speaker-1: Yes. It lacks the true commodity. Right. It's it does you know, it may have reality and yet it lacks existence. ⁓ and you know, just as obvious as as could be, all the things that I noticed o over the years ⁓ came in the midst of of some kind of action. ⁓ none of them ⁓ happened in quiet meditation. There there seemed at least in my case to be some value of contrast. Yeah. ⁓ to s you know, to see the white spot on the blackboard or the black spot on the So ⁓ that's you know, that's the first part ⁓ of my experience and that now go ahead, Rick, if you want to.

speaker-0: Yeah. Well I was just gonna say, ⁓ so ⁓ as you're coming out of your surgery, out of your anesthesia, and you had this realization that the world lacks existence, ⁓ was it just sort of like an ex the type of experience we might have when we're waking up from sleep and we remember a dream and we maybe have an insight, but then when we get back into the nitty gritty of our day, we forget all that. It's just a memory. So d I mean did the did the ex the ⁓ concreten of the world somehow impinge upon you again and make you forget that that subtle i insight you had had

speaker-1: Yeah. But that's a really good example about sleep because I think ⁓ this cycle, this diagram, one one thing that's been useful to me is that it's it seems to be exactly the same pattern ⁓ which which works at different scales. Works at this sort of, you know, grand scale of seeking. It works at the scale of the daily cycle where we talk about sleeping and dreaming. And and later, you know, I I'm gonna suggest that it works at the scale of one individual thought. so now the next so this took this is halfway. This is halfway to a glimpse of self. Because what I had done is I had glimpsed that the world isn't. Right. But I hadn't glimpsed that which is. So now the next thing ⁓ I you know ⁓ you can you can check with my wife on this one. I was absolutely obsessed by that for whatever it was, three, four, five years. Yeah, because it was crystal clear. Yeah. And then

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ on Mother's Day of 2005, the other shoe dropped and I saw that which is real. ⁓ It was a busy day and I was we were in our house and I was in the kitchen washing dishes and looking out the window. And I quite suddenly became aware that I was not looking at, you know, the yard and the sky. Rather I was actually looking at solid existence. That that's what can be seen. You know, you can only see what's really there. Right. And something that's not there, you you can't see it. So I mean I could still perceive the yard in the sky, but it was it was ⁓ absolutely clear that they collectively as a as a single unit lacked existence. And more importantly, that there was ⁓ there was existence per se, there was this abstract commodity of existence, the most abstract thing, which was present in its most infinitely condensed form. Extremely dense. Yeah, just, you know, that and it was it took maybe a second, ⁓ but when you see, you know, when you see something that solid, that real, ⁓ there's no, you know, there was no negotiating with with that experience.

speaker-0: But it'd be fair to say as an an example that let's say you had a lot of a bunch of clay and you took the and you were a good sculptor and you took that clay and you made a little scene out of it with people and trees and cars and houses and dogs and and all kinds of things and you looked at it, ⁓ you'd you'd see all those things you had made, but at the same time you'd see it's all clay. I'm see all I'm really seeing here is a bunch of clay. Was it sort of like that in which you you were looking at the yard and the trees and everything out the window, but but you were really seeing kind of the essential constituent of w of which everything is made? ⁓

speaker-1: Not exactly. Although, you know, that's what I thought it would be like. Uh-huh. But it was more like I understood well, like right now I'm looking at this room, I feel that it has a depth to it. Right. ⁓ but I suddenly became to feel that no, this is just projected on the side. of a screen made out of diamond, you know, of a screen which is truly solid ⁓ compared to which nothing you can project on to it is at all solid. ⁓ so it wasn't that the that the shapes were made out of this substance. I think that's actually yet to come. I think that would be Shankar's third statement. Okay. but for now it was a complete denial of ⁓ all the shape. They're still perceived, yet they lacked any kind of ⁓ substantial reality. They lacked they lacked existence.

speaker-0: But you were seeing but you said you felt like you were seeing or sensing existence. And the shapes were sort of secondary or something.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, that's it. They were you could say flat up against something that's finally real. Yeah. And ⁓ you know, it lasted for a couple hours. I mean it was ⁓ and it wasn't ⁓ the kind of thing where you, you know, start laughing hysterically or grab people and shake nothing. I mean I was serving tea and we there was three mothers, three grandmothers and about ten kids and I was the only male so I was, you know, a very busy guy that day. And I I just carried on with my duties and at the end of the day I told my wife that you know something nice had happened. but it was ⁓ it was ⁓ it was and is the basic core experience of actually recognizing a a glimpse of that which is real. And so it was ⁓ it was certainly that. And what ⁓ what ⁓ Shankara said ⁓ is his first ⁓ law of self knowledge, he didn't call it law of self knowledge, but I'm calling it that, is that Brahman is real. The way I put it ⁓ when I wrote in my journal that day is that the self is. Right. You know, so ⁓ until then all I had is that world isn't, and now I had self is. You know, and and these two things were very different. Yeah. And to me they're still very different. So self is, truly is, and in the world i isn't. ⁓ that's clear as can be, right?

speaker-0: No, it's it makes sense to me. And ⁓ so and these experiences were about five years apart from one another or something. And ⁓ would you say that and and so that and that was about five years ago that you had experience number two. ⁓ so are these just pleasant memories or did somehow having had these two experiences shift your perspective on things?

speaker-1: Something like that. Definitely shifted. ⁓ and actually sees his bedroom around him and then goes back to sleep. And now he's trying to convince his dream buddies that they're not real. The dream landscape isn't real. He's seen the real, you know. And his buddies are saying, either you're you're wrong, which you probably are, or you're right. And if that's true, why would you waste your time time trying to convince us, you know, so it's kind of a lose lose ⁓ situation. but yes it restructured it restructured me and I became I began my obsession with solidness as the measure of reality. This is something very very powerful and very specific. that what the self is, is that its solidness, its density, its its dense existence per se. And this is by the way, ⁓ also ⁓ Ramana Maharshi's favorite way of describing the self is that it's an it's a dense mass of self knowledge or of existence. And I have been ⁓ basically ⁓ a Ramana student or scholar for the last ten or fifteen years. Just I've I've I've identified my ten favorite books by him and about him. which ⁓ I read over and over and over and just so Ramana has been ⁓ you know just a wonderful just a just a wonderful person to study for me. And and this is his favorite way of describing the self is in terms of its solidness. And so I have been ⁓ I I would have to say fairly fanatical about this this angle that ⁓ truth, reality, being, existence, self is exactly equal to solidness. And so now an interesting question is if solidness is the measure of reality, what does it mean to be solid? You know, we ha we can start with physical objects and they appear to be solid, but the scientists say they're not. So there there's this quest for solidness. And one thing that I that I noticed ⁓ over the last five years is that The memory of of ⁓ anything in the world is different from that thing itself. You know, the the memory of this pen is different from this pen. But the memory of the self is identical to the self itself, only in the case of the self.

speaker-0: There's about three thoughts in my head that I want to pursue here with you. f first of all, we won't lose the track of this conversation, but you don't seem depressed anymore. I mean you were on the verge of ⁓ okay. But you're on the you're on the verge of is that what did it? I you're on the verge of suicide ten years ago and you're deeply depressed and now you're not. Is that Zoloft or is is there some kind of more spiritual reason for this?

speaker-1: I'm on Zolov for one thing. I'm not going to credit ⁓ spirituality with any improvement in my personality. ⁓ and my nature still is to be depressed. For one thing, I you know, I scare myself by looking so ⁓ so hard into these things. You know, I just look so hard with such intensity that I scare myself and and my wife saves me like

speaker-0: Gekhartolle would say would say, Who is this self you're scaring? Well sure.

speaker-1: And and I would respect that language. ⁓

speaker-0: And do like when he said, you know, I can't live with myself and then he had the thought, wait a minute, if I can't live with myself, there must be two of me. So who is this self I cannot live with? you know and then he woke up the next morning enlightened.

speaker-1: Yeah, ⁓ i you know, I can I I appreciate that. Yeah. Yet for me it seems to be instead of one big cycle ⁓ like a career of seeking. Right. It's there seems to be this shorter cycle. Right. And there are there are places well, ⁓ I'm gonna hold this graphic up again. There is a a small circle towards the bottom ⁓ on the seeking side, the left side, but before passing the self and and getting a glimpse of the self, which is the experience of the void. This is the experience when seeking is has been done and has come to its fruition, which is that seeking is now seen to be invalid. You know, we have s seeked our way out of seeking. Right. And ⁓ so there is the void experience and but what's happens to me is that I pass that point many times a day. Yeah, I get depressed about a thousand times a day, you know, but then I get out of it or my wife pulls me out of it or the world pulls me out of it.

speaker-0: So maybe you know you're I mean, different people proceed in different ways and you you might just be pr s you know, processing little chunks of this as you go along.

speaker-1: Maybe I'm a rapid cycling bipolar, I don't know. But ⁓ well, you know, it's probably happening on multiple scales. But tha that's what I notice is that ⁓ no ⁓ depression comes and goes ⁓ definitely as part of the

speaker-0: You know, one thing I think that's definitely in your favor is that you're very honest. I mean, you know, you're not you don't seem to be trying to convince yourself of anything other than what you're actually experiencing. And ⁓ I think that's a real asset for somebody who's seeking truth. You know, 'cause I mean we can people can drink themselves into all sorts of states. You know.

speaker-1: Wow. Well, ⁓ yeah. And when when when this is one of the great things about having a glimpse of the self is that huge, you know, shiploads of of affectation and mood making are now not needed. You know, I mean it just it just doesn't matter, you know, ⁓ ⁓ and I'm not even saying I'm I'm above mood making, you know, I'd I'll do it like anyone else. But there's just no connection between actually seeing something real and then my relative personality, which is just like it always was. ⁓ it has not been benefited in any way.

speaker-0: I couldn't say that. I mean, you know, I'm I'm s still a schmuck in many ways, but ⁓

speaker-1: I think more so maybe.

speaker-0: But I d maybe it's just simple maturation which would be taking place anyway as we age, but boy, you know, when I look back at the way I was young ⁓ before I learned to meditate, before I got on this whole spiritual path and you know, just the ch how radically I changed within the first couple of years after embarking on that. And then maybe the changes haven't been con so contrasting ever since, but still at any time I can sort of see a a steady evolution. You know, I can think back to five years ago and I cringe to think of, you know, what I might have said or done then and I don't seem to be so inclined to say or do that now. You know, there seems to be some kind of impact f of all this sp and I I should hope so. I mean that that that's a whole nother discussion and it's something that I've pondered a lot myself is that how tight is the correlation between spiritual development and such things as ethics and

speaker-1: I mean if if what you find out about the illusion is that it doesn't exist then you know that kinda cuts the legs off. I mean I'm speaking for me at least now, Rick, is that for me that you know that cuts the legs off in other words, ⁓ something which doesn't exist can't really be said to benefit from something which does exist.

speaker-0: Yeah, but you know, remember Carlos Castaneda had this little exercise that he was given by Don Juan to try to see his hands in his dream. Right. And I I did it actually after I'd read those books. And ⁓ but you know, the implication well I don't know what the implication was, but it it's an analogy for, you know, actually being able to to change the the that ⁓ change the dream. ⁓ And

speaker-1: I tried that for years. Don't get me started. I I hate the secret about changing the dream because that will keep you interested in the dream.

speaker-0: Yeah, but on the other hand, ⁓ the attitude that you have no control over the dream can lead to cop out situations in which you excuse all kinds of inappropriate behavior as being totally beyond my control. I mean, I don't have any decisions to make here, you know, I'm just guy ⁓ it's just all on ⁓ on automatic and there's no doer and you know, no decision maker and therefore pardon me while I pick your pocket, you know.

speaker-1: Well, ⁓ let's save that that that debate for maybe there'll be a part two.

speaker-0: ⁓ sure, any time. But You want to get back to Solidness? You want to talk more about solidness?

speaker-1: Well so solidness, you know, ⁓ you know ⁓ it ⁓ it just was so obvious to me, it's all I can say. that solidness is the same as existence, it's the same as self, it's the same as reality, that truth final solidness is is that. And ⁓ this is why I would say that the ⁓ new age approach, now forgive me if I lump some things together and generalize, but the new age approach, including ⁓ including lots of things, tends to go, in my opinion, only halfway to the original mess message of Shankara. Let me don't let me lose that, ⁓ Rick, but ⁓ I should tell you I was actually ⁓ released from MIU faculty because because of this because of this but but what what it was is that I was I was researching what Shankara said and trying to compare and see how much of what Shankara had said was evident in the curriculum.

speaker-0: Thinking too much outside the box.

speaker-1: ⁓ on campus. And ⁓ w obviously what Shankar said had a lot to do with this sort of ultimate, you know, truth, self, whatever. And yet what we find a lot ⁓ these days is has to do with consciousness. And consciousness is usually conceived of as something, you know, I'm generalizing, but light, energetic, you know, positive, blissful, very thin and viscous and fluid, lively, it's life, you know, it's mind, it's and these are

speaker-0: Blissful.

speaker-1: These are all the things that I saw don't exist. contrast that to you know deep, dark density, which is infinitely solid, which is not lively, which never moves, which never takes shape, which never does anything, which has no liveliness to it. so what I'm getting at is that in my opinion, ⁓ the so-called New Age ⁓ message takes us only halfway back to what Shankar was telling. And I know my brother, he's ⁓ a born-again Christian, and I have a lot of respect for my my brother's views. We've had a lot of good discussions, and I'm hoping my brother will watch at least part of this interview. But Well he's in California. But ⁓ my brother

speaker-0: I'll have him on if he claims to hook it. Yeah.

speaker-1: My brother Tony ⁓ he asked me, he said, You know, Mike, you you got into your your meditation and so on and now you're out of it. So what I see is that you stepped into something and then you stepped back out. I said, No, Tony, I stepped into something and then I decided that that didn't go far enough. So I continued in the same direction and I took one more step. And that's what I'm trying ⁓ to say here is that ⁓ there is one more step which ⁓ we usually don't get to in in a lot of the things that we read and hear and talk about these days. It's that step which is not that, you know, you can change the dream or, you the fluidity of consciousness or you can improve. You know, I don't want to improve the dream. I I want to wake up. So there's the ⁓ there's there's part two, so to speak.

speaker-0: Yeah. My personal orientation is and I I may be maybe I'm ⁓ more elementary in my or you know, with this, but I definitely wanna wake up to whatever extent I can wake up fully if possible. But at the same time, you know, I don't my I'd rather have a good dream than a bad dream. You know? I mean if I hit my thumb with a hammer I I much I prefer that much less to not having hit my thumb with a hammer, you know.

speaker-1: If you hit your thumb with the hammer, you're let's talk about a dream where you experience that kind of pain. You're likely to wake up. Whereas if instead of hitting your thumb with the hammer you in your dream you have ambrosia and bliss, you're not as likely to wake up.

speaker-0: That's a good point. ⁓ you have a point there, which is that ⁓ and yeah, I really sort of feel like the universe is structured for our maximum evolution and that doesn't mean all all butterflies and

speaker-1: Well now it's my turn. What universe? You know, if you can say who or who's the one

speaker-0: You know don't you feel there's some kind of intelligence going on here?

speaker-1: No. Really? No. Neither on the side of the self nor on the side of the non self. Who needs it?

speaker-0: Alright, we have we have a few points to unpack here. I don't want to lose this the the ⁓ we'll come back to this one. I don't want to lose the solidness thing. Okay. ⁓ but I definitely want to come back to the intelligence thing. Okay. in terms of solidness, I I like that term and I like the your use of it and the fact that you use it and and ⁓ and I've had some really solid experiences myself at at times. and it makes the most sense to me. by considering that, you know, that which is real, being, or whatever you wish to call it, isn't ⁓ particulate. You know, it it doesn't it doesn't sort of exist. It doesn't exist in greater concentration here than here. you know, ⁓ it it's universally right. It's universally omnipresent, all pervading, whatever you want call it. And so there's this kind of solid

speaker-1: It's not made up of pieces.

speaker-0: mass that is Yeah, it doesn't have sort of more dense areas and more what appears to be dense is actually on that level no more dense than what appears to be spacious.

speaker-1: This formlessness. Yes, and all of the above, spaciousness, apparent density, totally doesn't exist. ⁓ there there was there's this little poem that I that I wrote that I I like a lot. See if I can remember. It says something like Standing on my own shoulders, I see the vast terrain I have created, boundless, endless. fathomless is the sheer extent to which I exist and this world does not. So in this, like right now I'm getting goosebumps, you know, because this is this is my ⁓ sort of bliss either by picking up not only that self exists, but to what depth upon depth it does exist. And not only that that ⁓ the world doesn't exist, but to what far extreme it doesn't exist. And therefore between the two, how absolutely unconnected they are.

speaker-0: You know, in my experience, paradox is very important. ⁓ and what I mean by that is that I can be, let's say, at a concert, really enjoying it and you know, and and not with no thought on the level of the concert that it doesn't exist. Why would I go if it didn't exist it? I I paid my money, I went to the concert, I'm enjoying it, you know? But on the sa at the same time as I'm watching that concert, it's very clear to me that nothing is happening. You know, that that you know, it doesn't exist as you say. ⁓ that that it's just We could use the term silence, but th there's a l a level both, you know, within me and within everything, which, you know, there's no demarcation between those two things, that nothing is happening. But I tend to give kind of you know, render under Caesar what is Caesar's, to to give credence to the level of a concert as well as to the level that nothing is happening. And ⁓ you know, I mean you say you love your wife, I'm sure you do. You don't

speaker-1: Sure.

speaker-0: It's not predominant in your experience, nor would you ever want it to be that she doesn't exist. No, but you love her.

speaker-1: She doesn't exist. Exactly. I mean why should that mess things up? Just f just the mere fact that she doesn't exist, you know. I mean it's a technicality. She definitely does not exist. Mm-hmm. But so what? Yeah. I mean

speaker-0: Well a a very handy phrase that Marjorie used to use is that ⁓ knowledge is different in different states of consciousness. Or sometimes he said reality is different in different states of consciousness. And and he would give talks in which he said just what you're saying, that nothing exists, that nothing ever happened, and so on and so forth. And then the next breath he'd be talking about all kinds of levels of

speaker-1: And then and as you said, honesty. You know, I I prefer to assume that everyone is honestly describing their experience as they move, you know, through different points of the cycle. So and all you can really do is describe. Even if you're prescribing, really all you're doing is describing what seems true to you at that point. So speaking for myself, I seem to move through the different ⁓ points on the cycle. Each one demands its own language. But here it's obvious that you and I are not one in the same. Here it's obvious that we are. Here it's obvious that we don't exist. So each each region of the cycle demands its own dialect. And yet and yet as I move through them experientially, all I'm doing is trying to honestly describe you know what is obvious to me at that point. And so

speaker-0: But wouldn't it be fair to say that you know it's not sort of you're not moving into the less real and the more real as you move around this cycle, but that in the larger context, all those points on the cycle are contained within a greater wholeness and are, you know, ⁓ harmonized or subsumed or or you know They exist perfectly well despite the the paradoxical the the paradox between the

speaker-1: I'll tell you what Shankara one thing he said about that. he said that ⁓ well first the way I I like to put it, Rick, is that even on e even on that floating island which is the Mirage The laws of nature. You know it's tempting to think that all right, at least there's consistent laws within the mirage. There are not. The the laws of nature are not even consistent. Within the boundaries of the Mirage. And this is what Chakra said: that ⁓ the world is in constant change, and there are no laws governing that change. That basic essentially there there are there is no such thing. You can't expect consistent laws within the boundaries of that which doesn't exist.

speaker-0: Seem pretty consistent to me. I mean it could sit here for the next ten years dropping this pen and every time I do that it's gonna drop. Now there's a you know, s physicists will tell us that there's a ⁓ a infinitesimally small but nonetheless real possibility that when I let go of this it's gonna go up instead of down. But there are, you know, pretty well understood laws that that explain why it goes down instead of up.

speaker-1: I you know, I would beg to differ on that.

speaker-0: I mean if you're sitting here with a physicist.

speaker-1: Well, yeah, and he'd be t speaking his language. You know, we're all again, we're all being honest, so it's hard it's hard to find fault ⁓ at least from my point of view, assuming that each person is honestly describing what he sees in front of him. ⁓ but you know, when I was dreaming last night and I was taking a shower and suddenly there was an elephant in the shower, what I had all right, the shape was there's an elephant in the shower. Right. But the feeling was, yeah, this works. ⁓ So you know, what's deeper than the shape is the feeling. And the feeling that there's consistency in this physical world is ⁓ is perhaps more temptingly consistent than the activity itself. In other words, what what if I was gonna admit to anything, I'd admit that there's a consistent feeling that things are always making sense. And yet who's you know, so what?

speaker-0: Yeah, wasn't it Lao Tzu who said that something like he he dreamed he was a butterfly and now he doesn't know whether he's he's a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who was dreaming he's man?

speaker-1: ⁓ you know, I just love that that thing that Chakra said. You know, he really he really ⁓ that was so helpful to me when I I came across that, that basically within the illusion there there are no ⁓ laws governing change. It's you just can't expect consistency within th something that doesn't exist. But you know, that's again, that's a debate for the top half of the diagram and

speaker-0: Yeah. 'Cause I mean, you know, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein and some other pretty smart guys would might beg to differ with you.

speaker-1: I was a a chemist and a physicist in my, you know, mm undergrad days too and s so you know it's very fascinating. I love that stuff. Yeah. But well ⁓ just to just to sort of finish the ⁓ the life story part of the thing here. ⁓ Okay. ⁓ so where I'm at

speaker-0: We'll back to intelligence a little bit later. Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ now after five years of you know obsession with solidness is that I am I feel that I'm I'm I'm beginning to let's say get over this glimpse of self. Now I'm not denying th there can be no you know denying, you know, the my mind can't judge that. part of what that did is that it showed that there's no mind. And But I'm starting to fill fill in the gap and and Shankara put it beautifully. His third law, so l let's review. You know, he said the first law was that Brahman is real, the second law is that the world is not real. Now Shankara's third law, what I think of as the third part of his Mahabhakya, is that Brahman is the world. So this is so ⁓ amazing. And what I what c you know what came to me out of necessity over the years, ⁓ what I had to come up with to make sense, was that I ⁓ for me at least, I inserted a little optional phrase before that, which it now I'll tell you the whole thing. That because The world isn't. Self and world are identical. Only having rejected the existence of the world, only having seen that it's not real enough to have earned its own category, it's not in competition with the self. Only because it's been completely denied. Now I see that there's nothing but self. I see it at least logically. And working backwards from that point, I see there's this gradual ⁓ filling in of the gap. Finally, what you s proposed earlier, that there you know, ⁓ if all there is is reality, why why should we continue to call parts of our world or our world per se unreal? So I think that is the You know, the third the third piece and that's what I'm working on now. Yeah.

speaker-0: This is some people like to say, you know Brah the word Brahman by the way means great. It's from a Sanskrit word meaning great and and it's sometimes ⁓ defined as wholeness or the self. And ⁓ you know, some people like to say, well, you know, this is Brahman showing up as a pen, this is Brahman showing up as Michael, this is Brahman showing up as a table, and so on and so forth. This is what this is what Brahman looks like now. You know, I don't know. It's sometim some people find that as a helpful mnemonic or something.

speaker-1: Or in this case a self. I mean I I I'm working on that. You know, I try not to ⁓ I try not to manufacture experiences, you know, or ⁓ so it I've never ⁓ before could I honestly, you know, look at one of these objects in the world and say, ⁓ yeah, this is the self. Right. ⁓ the most I could do would be to say I've seen the self and this ain't it. But

speaker-0: But it is it, because the world is Brahmana.

speaker-1: Yes. And it's only Brahman because it doesn't exist. We can't get to the world as Brahman without passing through the world doesn't exist. You have to pass through that first. And that's so that that's kinda where I'm at. ⁓

speaker-0: I I'm kind of reminded of a story of Shankara, which I'm sure you're familiar with, where he was going to visit some king or something, and the the king wanted to test to see whether he was really all he was cracked up to be. So as he was approaching the the the palace, the the king had a wild elephant released and it started charging toward Shankara and Shankara promptly scampered up a tree. And the king said, Ha, you know, if you're so enlightened, why'd you climb the tree? And he said, The illusory elephant c chased the illusory me the illusory tree Sure. You know, which which kind of says that you ⁓ you know, you can say the world isn't real and so on, but you behave completely as though it were your you know your shape. ⁓

speaker-1: Yes. You're yeah, this shape, you know, as I say, this shape is is still fearful. ⁓ you know, this personality ⁓ has not really changed. Yeah.

speaker-0: Now, I may be wrong and I you know, I'm no guru or expert or master or anything else or you know, I'm I'm a I'm really a seeker like yourself, but I have a feeling that you may eventually give the reality of the world more credence than you do now. I think this may be a phase. And that why don't you extend the thought?

speaker-1: That's what I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. Well, a as I said it a minute ago, but I think I I want to earn that, you know, and I can't ⁓ honestly say that the world is real until I have paid some dues. And the first dues is I have to see what reality is. And this and the second two is I have to see that this world does not meet that criteria. Right. Now take that to its extreme. This world so ⁓ so wholeheartedly fails to meet the criteria of reality that it's ⁓ that that there's no second thing

speaker-0: I see.

speaker-1: There's self, there's reality, and there's no second thing which we can call unreality. So if there's no second thing then everything is is real. But but I have to get there honestly.

speaker-0: So you're just kind of squeezing every drop of of you know gumption that that you can out of each stage that you're going through.

speaker-1: That's a good way to put it. You know, that's that's my ⁓ you know, I'm what can I say? Yeah sort of obsessive in that way.

speaker-0: ⁓ I'm obsessive too. ⁓ I i if if I had to choose one adjective about myself it would be that I think. and I I suppose we're maybe we're what we're learning how to do is turn ⁓ obsessiveness to our advantage and

speaker-1: I hope. I hope it's possible. ⁓

speaker-0: I wanted to get back to the the theme of intelligence and and kind of segue it into this conversation. ⁓ because, you know, you made comments about there being no laws governing the universe and and things like that. But, you know And you have more scientific background than I do. ⁓ but whenever I look at, you know, Nova program or, you know, one of these nature shows or or something where it's showing the the vastness of the universe or the the complexity of the cell, you know, how a cell functions or how an how a a fetus grows, you know, and and ⁓ so many things, anything you look at, it's like your jaw drops with ⁓ w with awe at the the vast intelligence that that is functioning in every minute particle of creation. You know? And you can say the creation never happened and and nothing exists and all, but ⁓ you know, fine, y you know, maybe there's no ultimate reality to all this, but insofar as it appears to exist as a play, as a display, it's it's ⁓ extraordinarily, infinitely, incomprehensibly ⁓ you know, creative and intricate and marvelous. I mean, you know, human man, for all of his intelligence, you know, couldn't create a housefly. I mean, we could create some pretty cool machines that do some pretty cool stuff, but if we had to create a housefly that was as small that could do and see and and everything a housefly does and function as it does and reproduce itself and all that stuff, you know, we'd never do it. So and if you analyze the housefly, you know, look at the way its eye is structured, for instance, or its digestive tract or anything else there There's like this amazing creativity to it. And that to me s you know hints at God. I mean it hints at at there being some some divine intelligence who is maybe entertaining himself and you know maybe the whole thing is is just a play which has no ultimate reality. But it it's ⁓ there there's something going on, you know, that bears ⁓ th that deserves tremendous respect and and scrutiny and and ⁓ and deserves understanding if we're really if we're really seeking ultimate truth, I think.

speaker-1: Well I I don't know what to say. I mean it's beautiful what the way you put it. ⁓ and you know I'm I'm capable of admiring such things myself. ⁓ but try to say this you know in a different way. Okay. it's like no higher number law of self knowledge can ever change a lower number law of self-knowledge. Well there's there's a first law, second law, third law. So in in my

speaker-0: Mm and what do you mean by higher number, lower number? Wouldn't hurt to reiterate those as we go.

speaker-1: In in my ⁓ you know, ⁓ that day, Mother's Day of O five, when I, you know, I had this glimpse of self, I ran downstairs and wrote in my journal and I wrote ⁓ Self Is, World Isn't and then I had something else which wasn't fully developed, so I'm not won't go into that. Now what did Chakra say? He said, Brahman is real, world is not real, Brahman is the world. Mm-hmm. So having now if you if you start with Brahman as the world, it doesn't change the lower numbered law number two, which says that the world doesn't exist. And it doesn't change law number one, which says that Brahman does exist. So we you know we have to that can never change for me. I I don't think it can ever change that insight that ⁓ self infinitely does exist and world infinitely does not exist. Now without changing, now I can embrace the third one. that they're the that self and world are actually the same because there's no two things here. There's not two things here. But I will never I will never be able to well I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna go ahead and say never. Okay. I'll I'll I wouldn't I will never I wouldn't I will never believe that this world exists. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Never say never. ⁓

speaker-1: I will never believe that this world, no matter how far I get into embracing Chakra's third law, I will never forget that this world does not exist.

speaker-0: Huh. Well I can't ⁓ deny anybody's experience or anybody's belief. ⁓ but ⁓ I wouldn't necessarily place a lot of money on this. I I'm not a betting man. I just ⁓ you know there's a there's a reason that never say never is a is a kind of a catchphrase in you know in these days.

speaker-1: All right. How much you want to bet? I always one of my ⁓ little rules of backstroke dynamics is that you know I'd rather make a type two error than a type one error. Type one error is that you you never c you never make a claim that turns out to be unsubstantiated. Uh-huh. Type two error is that you failed to make a claim that that was actually true. Uh-huh. And I would or in my language, you know, I'd rather be ⁓ how did I used to put it? You know, I'd rather be too bold than than too afraid, you know. So I would rather err on the side of having hav having made this this kind of a statement. Yeah.

speaker-0: Well, you know, I mean, it again comes down to knowledge is different in different states of consciousness, I think, and and because, you know, there is a level on which and it may not be it's not the ultimate level, but there is a level on which the world does exist and is real for people. And you can say that fine, they're j they're they're not they're somewhat deluded to the extent they think it's real, because ultimately it isn't. ⁓ but, you know, if the world is Brahmin, then There's all kinds of cool stuff happening or appearing to happen within Brahman and there's all sorts of intricate, fascinating you know, dramas going on and law ⁓ laws of nature and and all kinds of interesting stuff that Brahman has somehow managed to contain within itself.

speaker-1: I think my problem is that, you know, I'm a I'm a natural born contrarian. You know. If you tell me a movie's great, there's no way I'm gonna enjoy it.

speaker-0: Did you see Avatar? ⁓ it's great.

speaker-1: I haven't seen it yet. But don't tell me that. you know when I first came to ⁓ MIU in the seventies, y you're right, there's that logo, that tree, and it says Knowledge is structured in consciousness. And I'm no graphic artist, but I rid redid it to say confusion on a higher plane. I mean, what can I say? I'm just a I'm just a troublemaker.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's okay. ⁓ me too. ⁓ but you know, I'm sorry, what

speaker-1: Well I just wanna tell you this this is kind of my last ⁓

speaker-0: Let me say something before I lose it 'cause it's kinda subtle here. ⁓ and that is that I think being a contrarian is a perfectly valid path, you know, the netty neti sort of approach. ⁓ but it may be that for you a stage will dawn in which being ⁓ whatever the opposite of contrarian is will be ⁓ useful. ⁓ s all inclusive. You know? Because that's what Brahman is said to be. And if you want to realize yourself as Brahman, it might be useful to be completely inclusive. Not n so n you know rather than the attitude not this, not this, the attitude this too, this too.

speaker-1: If I get to that point it's gonna be kicking and screaming. And then it'll you know, for me then it will have passed all my tests. ⁓ That'll be something that I'll proudly embrace. But from my side I will resist it. Because as you said, I wanna squeeze I wanna take each step and own it.

speaker-0: Why? Every little truth, you know. But doesn't resistance, I mean, itself isn't isn't doesn't that by definition impede progress? Right? It's true. I mean

speaker-1: Some progress should be impeded. Or we could do something with our hands. Well I just took them all, you know. I mean so ⁓

speaker-0: T ⁓ teacher. So you're kind of rooting out that that history and

speaker-1: Maybe maybe it's like the Sterling days, you know. Something that I'm trying to

speaker-0: Yeah, I I didn't go through that, but I saw guys sitting around smoking cigars and riding through town on motorcycles.

speaker-1: Almost almost killed us. the last thing I had, you know, prepared to talk about was what I call the life cycle of a thought and the three keys to know thyself. Okay. We talked about the three laws. Right.

speaker-0: So let's go through it.

speaker-1: of w of self-knowledge. So these are the three keys to know thyself. And so now I'm gonna hold up ⁓ this second graphic and let's put it on the clipboard. What what ⁓ what you'll see is that this is the same original graphic, but now it is specifically in terms of a very small scale. The cycle has taken on the size of one single thought. I see. And so it shows I which for me is something very useful, the life cycle of a thought, how a thought gets started, comes out of nowhere, you know, it flourishes and projects itself as the world around us. And then ⁓ there's this impulse to seek its origin, and we seek and at some point seeking disappears too, the thought disappears. And then there is there is no experience, but there is a transit very close to the self. Now after passing the self it's possible to retroactively exper have what we call an experience of the self. So there's a difference between the the s actually the self and and Yeah.

speaker-0: So are you suggesting that every thought goes through this cycle or does some thoughts just sort of dissipate? ⁓

speaker-1: All all I would propose that all thoughts go through this cycle. Yes, in general. And it's not so ⁓ hard to picture because y we can simplify it. We can say that just as at the heart of every ⁓ red blood cell there's a fast vibrating atom of iron in in hemoglobin. Right. Every molecule of hemoglobin.

speaker-0: Person. Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ illusory. just as we can say that every molecule of of ⁓ red blood has this atom of iron vibrating at its core, just like that, every thought we have has the feeling of ironess vibrating at its core. At its core. So Well, we've just we've we've just talked about thoughts in a generic way, you know, imagination thoughts, ⁓ creative thoughts, psychotic thoughts, genius thoughts. All of these thoughts, they may be different in the content and their applicability and their so-called relative ranking, but they all function in the same way. They're all extrapolations of this feeling that I'm here. So so it's now we're just talking about the I thought, that the I thought sprouts out of nowhere, matures, extrapolates into the world experience, and then and then waxes again, or would it be, wanes again. And there's a finally there's a despairing moment and then it's gone and then comes a glimpse of self. So

speaker-0: So when you say I thought you were referring to the individual I, the sense of individual self. And ⁓ is this something you're saying that happens ⁓ on a long term scale or many times a day or what?

speaker-1: Yeah. Uh-huh. O all of the above, Rick, I would say so many different scales, kinda like a fractal, you know, you keep looking into it and there it is again. I mean, definitely let's take the scale of ⁓ a career of seeking, let's say one lifetime. Well, I've been telling you how I've been populating this map ⁓ over the years, you know, to help myself understand. So there's that scale. Now here's the scale of the ⁓ twenty four hour day. This is kinda like waking. This is kinda like dreaming. This is kinda like sleep. Now here's kinda like lucid dreaming. See so there's a scale that lasts twenty four hours. No, I'm just suggesting that there is a scale which last it's the it's on the Planck scale of one thought. ⁓

speaker-0: And what is the practicality or significance of this particular understanding?

speaker-1: It helps me to it helps me to put ⁓ my experiences in in the context of something that's happening again and again so that I can feel good about my odds of experiencing it again. Let me clarify that. it'll help if I just go ahead and say what I think some of these what I call the three keys to know thyself. The first key is that the self is solid. And denser than diamond. The first key is itself is solid. Now, this is a lot. You know, back when we started with know thyself, ⁓ it's it's tempting to go in so many different directions. But if we can just start with know thyself and take this one step that self is solid, self is solidness. Solidness is self. They're the same. So that's a big thing. That's the first key. And here on the scale of a thought, ⁓ we pass the very close to the self with every thought. As every thought waxes and flourishes and wanes, we then pass very close to the self and we have the then the opportunity to hopefully experience this solid self.

speaker-0: Marsha used to say that there is a gap between thoughts and that the self can be glimpsed in that gap. That's that's that's yeah, and that if ⁓ you know, a more evolved nervous system or whatever didn't have as many thoughts going on all all the time, so the gaps were more evident and maybe wider, so to speak.

speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah. Well the second key is that the self can be glimpsed. Well this is this is saying a lot because it's one thing to talk about a solid self, but so what? You know, but here comes this idea that it can be glimpsed. Now think about it, if you glimpse something eternal, doesn't matter how short the glimpse is. It's like saying if you introduce a pinprick into the side of a balloon, it doesn't matter how big that pinprick is, you're gonna bring down

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: That balloon. Right. That that illusory shape that's keeping the inside from the outside. So the second key is that the self can be glimpsed as often as we have a thought. And this is something encouraging for me because it's not like, ⁓ I have to wait years, you know, it could happen anytime. And the third ⁓ key to know thyself is that the self is glimpsed at the very beginning of each thought.

speaker-0: If you can just sort of catch it there. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. And so doesn't this take us all the way back to my first few experiences in the surgery when I glimpsed that the world isn't and I tried to turn around. You can only look back and see the self. Because stepping into the the darkness of of sleep you can't see anything, but stepping out of it you can. So you can only look back to see the self. And that that's very much what happened with me over a period of years. Same pattern at a different scale.

speaker-0: Let me tell you something about my experience that this reminds me of and see if it resonates with you as well. Maybe you have the same experience. ⁓ and I've said this before on this show, but ⁓ what what I experience ⁓ is that the more contrasting the situation I'm in, the more obvious ⁓ the self is to me. Like and one of my favorites is running through an airport, you know, because airports are so chaotic, especially these days. I mean air travel is just nuts. And you know, trying To catch a connecting flight, you know, and you're tired, you're you're racing for your connecting flight, you may or may not make it, you're out you're running along, you're out of breath, your lungs are burning. And you know, I'm describing an experience that I had last year. And yet, in the midst of all that, the predominant experience is silence. The predominant experience is that you know there's just this perfect stillness that not all this craziness cannot perturb. And ⁓ and there's even you know and it's not only kind of inside in some way, it's in the environment as well. ⁓ there there's chaos in the environment, but at the very same time it's all there's perfect silence in the environment. And and that's my experience. And the more you know, contrasting and airports like that are about the craziest places, the the most contrasting experience I ever run around run into in my the course of my life. but it's there also, you know, when I get up in the morning and and the house is quiet and I'm just walking around doing my morning things. It's just not so obvious. But if I look, if I t if I care to, you know, just check, sure, there it is. To me, my understanding, that's the self. And, you know, the the ultimate state of enlightenment may whatever that may be, may be a lot more clear that silence or whatever you want to call it maybe be a lot more predominant, but it's it's that very s there it's not going to be some totally new element that comes in. That that whatever we're we're going to experience in the you know, when things are as clear as they can be, we're already experiencing it. Maybe just not as clearly. But it's there. It's identifiable within our experience right now and at every moment.

speaker-1: Gotta be. Yeah. I mean if you and I go to the ⁓ to the movies, we see th Avatar. Before the movie starts we're looking at the screen. Right. While the movie's playing, we're looking at the screen. Mm-hmm. When the movie's over, we're looking at the screen. You it's gotta be a

speaker-0: Exactly. And we we you know we get into we get into the movie and we may forget about the screen 'cause we don't care about the screen. We're we're we're interested in the movie, that's what we're there for. But if we chose to in the middle of the movie we could look and sure enough I see the screen there. Yeah. And I and ⁓ so you know, I think that's a kind of a useful little hint or l little trick because, you know, it it sort of

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: eliminates the notion that you know self realization is some kind of far off alien thing that I haven't even begun to experience or realize. It's it's not far off. It's right here, right now, very familiar, very intimate, and we're already experiencing it to a great degree of clarity. Cr clarity can increase. I I used the example last week that, you know, you maybe you're walking down a road and you see a tree and you know, you you know it's a tree. And ⁓ you don't know what kind of tree or anything else. Maybe it's a little foggy out, but you know it's a tree and Not a horse is a phrase that Marshe once used. ⁓ now some kind of Arbologist or something might come along and see the tree and say, ⁓ that's a such and such, and he'd know the Latin name and he could tell you he could lecture for hours all about the tree. You're both seeing the same tree though. You know, one guy has maybe greater authority, greater clarity about it, but you're both seeing the same tree. And I I think that there's something in that for us. here with regard to this whole idea of knowing the self and knowing enlightenment and or and you know, it's like okay, you had some some glimpses five years ago, ten years ago, but whatever you had in those glimpses, you're living it. You know, you're living it now. ⁓ you know, it just may not be as predominant in your awareness as it was when when you first had the glimpse, but I don't I don't think you could lose it.

speaker-1: Well it's you know, it's so f so great to talk about because ⁓ you know, it's equally fun to to agree and to disagree. You know, we we could we could take the point of view that there's no such thing as enlightenment because that means that there's some person who is enlightened and

speaker-0: shouldn't mean that if we really understand the term. It's not something you get.

speaker-1: Or or even that I mean, is there a was was r was Ramana Maharshi enlightened? Was he an enlightened man? Is there such a thing as an enlightened man?

speaker-0: Well, you run into semantic problems, you know, because of the nature of what enlightenment is. It's not something that a man gets, it's something it's it's the reality, you know. Yeah.

speaker-1: So it's the the the ⁓ the protagonist of the story is the self. ⁓ it's not the the man, you know. But yeah.

speaker-0: And so, you know, all I mean, words y y if you think about it, you know, if we'd sat here for this this hour or two discussing the color red, to and trying to describe it perhaps to your wife, you know, who let's pretend that she had never been able to see. Now she kind of probably has a memory of what red is like, but if she had never been able to see, we could talk till we're blue in the face or red in the face. And we would never be able to convey the concept, even though it's such a simple one. And a person who can see knows what red is. So, you know, we're talking about an experiential thing here, and if we're going to talk about it we need to use words. Otherwise we could just Sit there.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Right. See how many hits that gets on YouTube. But So we have to use words, but and and so it's you know, and and No word can encapsulate any experience, whether it's the taste of a lemon or the c color of an apple or or anything else, but we do our best. And so I mean a word like enlightenment is just a pointer and it has connotations and some may maybe it's better not even to use the word because there's so man so much baggage around it these days. So we we try to use words like awakening or you know, self realization or whatever. But I think if we if we define our words with a little bit of care and attention then we can at least still talk.

speaker-1: Well, you know, it it's it's it's great, you know.

speaker-0: Right. And you know another point, I mean I I'm doing too much talking here, but another I think a real critical issue is the whole issue of doubt. And you know, on the one hand, you don't wanna be kind of all cocksure and and talk yourself into something that you're not having. And it's good that experiences can sort of withstand the test of s skepticism and scrutiny and questioning. But on the on the other hand, the mind has is a very habitual machine and it can get into habit patterns of doubting and questioning. And it can actually I think undermine our ⁓ you know our our ability to have the this experience that we're talking about to grasp it. You know, y the mind can just keep jumping in and say, nah this couldn't be it, now this couldn't be it. I'm waiting for something better.

speaker-1: Could be. Yeah. Well, you know, w there's one nice side effect was it just talking about it is kind of enlivening, you know, it feels good.

speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. I always come away from this evening high as a kite. Can't sleep. And then I go to another thing after this or we talk about it for another hour and a half. I sleep okay. I I'm a good sleeper.

speaker-1: How do you sleep?

speaker-0: I get up early. I our our cat is ⁓ like an alarm clock. ⁓ okay. She she won't let me sleep past seven.

speaker-1: Plus I know you're quite a yogi, you do a lot of

speaker-0: I do my I do that every morning, yeah. Asanas and and all. And meditate and stuff. But Have you ever had the have you ever had the experience of witnessing sleep that's sometimes talked about in in spiritual circles as being a symptom of of awakening? Sporadically here and there? Yeah. Have you ever had the experience that someone or something wakes you up? Maybe your wife wakes you up because you're snoring, and when she does, you you say, But I was already awake.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. It has to be. Yeah. I mean it doesn't make sense. If you say the alarm clock woke you up, well how could it wake you up if you weren't there first? You know, you had to be there for it to wake you up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ⁓ we you know, e even in this ⁓

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: outline here. You know we had to work at it backwards, but of course the fact has to come first. Right. and and that's the way it is in the spiritual literature too. Like for example in the in the Ramayana, you know, Ramana says I want to hear ⁓ not Ramana, Rama says, I want to hear the truth. He's talking to his teacher Vashishta. Vashishta. I I insist on the truth. And you know, he means it. And Vashishta says, I will tell you the truth, but first I have to tell you the half truth. ⁓ huh. You know, you ha you have to. Yeah. I mean and this this here started with ⁓ the second law, you know, which is the half truth.

speaker-0: Yeah. There's an analogy Marsh used to use where a man's standing in the middle of a big mud puddle and he wants to get out. And he says, How do I get out of this mud puddle? And and you call from the edge of the mud puddle, take a step. He said, But you're asking me to put my foot in the mud again. I said, Yeah, but you just take a step, okay. Now take another one. ⁓ huh. You know, and keep doing that and at a certain point you're gonna be out of the mud puddle. So, you know, there there are a lot of teachers who sort of emphasis who sort of de emphasize or devalue the idea of a a sequential incremental path, you know, steps of teaching, stages of consciousness, degrees of awakening, and so on. But ⁓ I think and and for maybe for them and for some people that's not necessary or relevant, but I think for a great many people it is and you know that's that's why I s it's one more sense in which I one more way in which I use the the sense of being inclusive, you know. It's like like your brother, he's a he is a fundamentalist Christian, you say, Great, you know, this is perfect, just right for him. Yeah. And and if and if until it isn't, you know, if there's a stage at which is no longer right for him, fine. Maybe he'll have a little trauma and he'll get onto something else and that'll be just right for him. But I'm Jesus all the way.

speaker-1: Just kidding, Tony. Yeah. Yeah.

speaker-0: What is there anything we haven't covered? I mean I'm sure.

speaker-1: ⁓ gosh. Is there anything we have covered? no, I think it's a good it's enough.

speaker-0: Good. Well undoubtedly you're gonna have some more major awakenings. I mean I can see it coming, you know, you're gonna be doing something or other, cutting the grass and there's gonna be there's gotta be something so we'll have to have a a sequel to this at some point.

speaker-1: Yeah, if only to you know, if only to take different points of view.

speaker-0: Yeah. Next time round I'll say that the the world does exist and you can argue that it does. Right.

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean i you just can't figure it out in words. I mean ⁓ You know, I know how I feel about my wife, you know, and ⁓ The fact that she doesn't exist, you know, doesn't change that.

speaker-0: Right. You ever tell her she doesn't exist? Especially if she's on your case about something. ⁓

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. No, no, she have a whole ⁓ sort of poetic language that that I use where she represents the world and I represent, you know, the silence. Right. And well, one small poem in that ⁓ flavor would be that, you know, every day at this time or Every time at this point on the cycle of self-knowledge I ask you, would you rather be everything or actually exist? And as always, you chose the former and I chose the latter.

speaker-0: She chose to be everything and you chose to actually exist.

speaker-1: Yeah. So, you know, she's she's everything, yet she doesn't exist. And I'm nothing, yet I exist. And there's you know, there's just a beauty for me, there's a beauty in that kind of language.

speaker-0: And together you make a completeness. Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his white could eat no lean. Okay. You know that poem. Well, that's beautiful. Maybe that's a good note to end on. So this has been Buddha at the gas pump. My guest this week has been Michael Baxter. My name is Rick Archer.

speaker-1: Hang on. Don't say that. Yeah.

speaker-0: ⁓ Stay tuned for the titles at the end of this show, where you'll see links to a blog, ⁓ podcasts, all kinds of discussion group, all kinds of interesting things. And I want to recommend another show that's similar to this that I was listening I've been listening to for the last few days. It's called the Urban Guru Cafe. You can find that on iTunes and you can also find it on the web, the Urban Guru Cafe. It's produced in Australia, and ⁓ it's interviews like this, interspersed with music. actually they keep going back and forth between people talking and all kinds of cool cuts of music but you might enjoy it. So until next week ⁓ thank you for watching and have a good week.