speaker-0: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pub. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest today is Bart Marshall. I've really enjoyed getting to know Bart over the past week, reading his book, which he didn't write actually. This is a this book is a ⁓ compilation of the Yoga Sutras, the Dhammapada, the Heart Sutra, the Ashtavakar Gita, the Faith Mind Sutra, and the Tao Te Ching, or however you pronounce that, in which Bart took numerous translations and compared them side by side in in the light of his own experience. and came up with the best translations he could and I hadn't read most of these so that was really interesting and those which I had read it was interesting to hear his take on them. Also listened to a bunch of his talks and so on. I think it's gonna be an interesting interview. So Bart I'll let you kind of introduce yourself rather than reading a canned bio 'cause peop people just get to know you in the course of the conversation. And as I've heard you tell it by most accounts it starts in Vietnam.

speaker-1: Well, it there was a near death experience in Vietnam which kind of took me from being ⁓ someone who just took life as it was. I had no questions, I had no spiritual leanings whatsoever, and ⁓ filled me with questions. So that was the beginning of what became a thirty seven year journey, ⁓ which ended in two thousand four and

speaker-0: No, you're going fast. Whoa, thirty-seven years.

speaker-1: I figure maybe we'll fill in the gaps later. Sometimes I'm not so sure how much the story helps, but I know I always used to love to hear ⁓ my teacher Richard Rose tell his stories but ⁓

speaker-0: People do, you know, it kinda makes it human. it's like if someone just gets up there and starts pontificating about, you know, the absolute and whatnot. It doesn't quite hit home for people as much as if they thought think, Jeez, you know, I was in Vietnam or I was in Iraq and and this happened to him and this happened to me and you know, maybe there's hope for me if things worked out pretty good for him.

speaker-1: I know. No, you're you're absolutely right. That is one of the main ⁓ advantages to telling your story is it's it can be inspirational. Or I know in my case, ⁓ it seems like no matter, you know, how much we dedicate ourselves to this path, we somehow never really think we're worthy of what it is we're going for. And it's only for these name brand guys that got religions named after ⁓ And you know, for somebody that's really special and has all these qualities that I certainly could never hope to attain. And then You hear some stories ⁓ from other people that it's happened to and you know, Yahoo's like me or whatever, and and you think, ⁓ my god, if it can happen to him, it really could happen to me. For God's sakes, the gun's loaded, you know, I'm really playing with something that could fruition and ⁓

speaker-0: Which was actually my motivation for starting this show. I mean some people may have heard me tell the story, but you know, I live in a town where several thousand people meditate out of a total population of ten thousand. And and there was a lot of people were having these, you know, really significant awakenings and some of them would tell their friends and their friends would shoot ⁓ down. They'd think, ⁓ you know, you're just so you're just Joe Schmoe. This couldn't be happening to you, and besides which you can't levitate, you know, so I don't believe it. And I was so I was seeing this disconnect. On the other hand there were people running around saying, ⁓ it'll never happen to me. And I thought, well, yeah, you know, it happened to Joe Schmoe. But so I thought I'd put a show together where these people could start telling their stories and their peers could see that people are waking up.

speaker-1: Yeah, and I and I think it has tremendous value. You know, for me, the most valuable thing that I think one of the most valuable things that happened to me was when close personal friends started waking up. And then it really was ⁓ my god, it really could happen to me. I knew this guy before, you know, I know him after. He's a regular guy. And, you know, it it really was ⁓ I think one of the things that really propelled me into what I call the final push. You know, I said, ⁓ this really could happen.

speaker-0: Yeah. So I guess a a key point that we're making here is it's good to know that it's possible. Because if if you're at least not convinced of that, then maybe you're not gonna put forth the effort required or take the steps necessary or, you know, just give up and

speaker-1: Right.

speaker-0: Live a so called ordinary life. But y you need to know there's some hope.

speaker-1: Yeah, I i I think that's one of the ingredients in this is ⁓ I think perhaps the most key ingredient is desire or having that intention or that that drive and that this is something that you really want. You have a single minded prayer that this be something that ⁓ happens in your life. But then if you don't have the confidence that it can happen, if you don't have the faith that it can happen, that prayer loses a lot of power.

speaker-0: What's the point in yearning and striving if there's no hope? In fact ⁓ you quoted your teacher Richard Rose as saying, extreme spiritual effort is our best shot at enlightenment.

speaker-1: Yeah, yes. I mean there really isn't in the final analysis an anyone that has this happen to them will turn around and tell you, nothing that I ever did worked and nothing that I ever did of my own made this happen in any way. ⁓ and yet statistics tell us that it uniformly and ⁓ almost always happens to people who do try very hard. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah. And Richard Rose also said, which is one of my favorite quotes, I didn't I don't know if he originated it, but you know, enlightenment may be an accident, but spiritual practice makes you accident prone.

speaker-1: Yes. There are ways to become more accident prone. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of along with that as he says there's no recipe for a lightning bolt.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, you know, there's the there's the old cloud analogy where the clouds are obscuring the sun, right? But the sun is always shining and from the perspective of the sun, w it doesn't matter one way or the other. I'm shining. But from the perspective of somebody on the other side of the clouds, the wind is important. You know, it helps to blow away the clouds. And although all that from in stretching the metaphor may be ultimately a thorn removing a thorn, it may be ultimately unreal and so on and so forth. It's it's very real to the person who hasn't had the realisation yet. And personally I think that these people who kind of sweep away the whole notion of making any kind of effort or doing any sort of practice and all are selling their listeners a bit short or misleading them.

speaker-1: Well, I I couldn't agree more and I I think effort is key. I did a little essay one time called Useless Effort Well Spent. What you end up doing isn't going to work, but if you don't do something, nothing's going to happen. There there's a a Zen saying that I ⁓ I probably will misquote, I'm sure, but it's something along the lines of you will not find this by looking, but if you do not look it will not find you.

speaker-0: It's good. You know, and Christ said, you know, knock on the door shall be open, seek and you shall find and all that. So, you know, it's kind of paradoxical and and I would almost contest the point that it wouldn't work or it doesn't work and so on. It's obviously the self is uncaused and you know, the self realizes itself by itself and so on and so forth. But so many different traditional sources, if we respect them, advocate doing things to

speaker-1: Exactly.

speaker-0: clear away the obstacles to make the likelihood of the self realizing itself by itself more probable.

speaker-1: Yes, exactly. And that is the right way to put it, I think. It's clearing away the obstacles. There's nothing nothing that can be added on to you. You can't become more and more spiritual. The path is subtractive. So you get rid of things that are in your way. And the things that you can't get rid of on your own make it your prayer or your request or your intention or whatever. Whatever your concept of a higher power is, you know, I c I'm not afraid of the word prayer, but some people don't like it. But You know, you make your prayer is whatever is in my way, please take it from me. And then be prepared for perhaps a rocky road. But if you have a single minded intention to know truth, then it doesn't matter what the path may turn out to be. You have to be prepared even for death. It it may kill you, it may ⁓ drive you crazy, it may make you homeless, you may lose every relationship and every friend in your life. But if you have a single minded purpose for truth, that prayer will be answered.

speaker-0: Yeah, I agree and there's a couple of points in there. I mean, one I'm not a I'm not much of a prayer, but I'm not afraid of the word either. And I'm also kind of fascinated with who or what it is we're praying to. When things do tend to start working out miraculously when that prayer or that intention is there. ⁓ it fascinates me th that there's this apparent intelligence governing the universe and that we can actually change the course of events in our life by appealing to it in some way and that it has our best interests in mind and so on and so forth. That that to me is intriguing.

speaker-1: The truth is ultimately the small self is praying to the large self. That which you are praying to is what you truly are. But for our purposes, while we live in duality and while we're seekers on the path, there's no harm in in dividing that into I and thou and praying to and it puts us in a proper relationship with where the power lies. You know, I of myself can do nothing. And the prayer that speaks that and the the posture that ⁓ submits to that says, You know, I cannot do this. I need you. You are all powerful and I will not mine and all that sort of thing. It is a even though ultimately it's it's you praying to you, the formula works.

speaker-0: Yeah. And the U you're praying to happens to contain the entire universe and govern all of its functioning ⁓ you know, ⁓ and ⁓ on every level and so on and so forth. So it's a pretty big U.

speaker-1: It it doesn't just contain the universe, it is the source of all that is.

speaker-0: Yeah, the source course and goal, the the complete the the essence, whatever.

speaker-1: Right. And it's you know, it's spontaneous manifestation and that's you spontaneously manifesting.

speaker-0: Yeah, so I I guess, you know, it's kinda fun to stop at certain points and say, Okay, what is the key point we're talking about here? I th I think it might the key point here might be the nugget point might be that it's you know, that there's a sort of a divine intelligence all pervading and you can pr restate this better than I and that that we are intimately and deeply one with that and that our intentions can elicit its It's support and cooperation.

speaker-1: Yes. It's coming into alignment with yourself. It's coming into alignment with that which you truly are. And this you know, this this little guy that, you know, thinks he's in control of things, you know, he's he's really headstrong and he thinks he knows what's right and he thinks he's got all these ideas and opinions and judgments and everything. And he's just not in alignment with that which truly is. And so the process is bringing that you know, getting removing the obstacles and coming into alignment with that which you truly are. And I just talk about, you know, staying in constant communication, you know, twenty four seven with whatever you conceive of as a higher power. It is you, but you you don't realize that and you can't say it's me until that is the fact of your existence, until you know that for sure beyond a shadow of a doubt. Otherwise the ego is gonna try to claim it. Yeah. And ⁓ that that's not gonna be helpful, obviously. So it's putting yourself in a subservient position to to that which you truly are. Saying I I of myself can do nothing. Help me. I had a friend who woke up and her final prayer, her final mantra that she repeated for a number of years, ⁓ actually I don't think it was years, it was in more like months, was, you know, please I want to go home. Please I want to go home. And that became a one pointed prayer from herself to herself, capital H and ⁓ lo and behold, it worked.

speaker-0: And there's a cart and the horse issue here because on the one hand, person might just start trying to browbeat themselves with a prayer like that or with an intention like that, but still have a lot of other things they need to attend to, I should think. But on the other hand, there are people who are, you know, kind of getting close to the goal. You know, you know, if you've ever done anything with horses, I haven't, but my wife used to ride horses and and and all and she'd remind me of this when we were on hikes and we were somehow walking very fast as we were going back to the campground. But she said, Boy, you know. This is like horses. When when they're getting close to home, they s they start to really go fast, you know, because they're eager. So it seems that at at a certain point that intention or that prayer becomes ⁓ kind of really ardent and and all consuming. And I I've talked to people who have said, you know, who've done things like said, I'm gonna sit on this rock and until I wake up, you know, and starve to death if necessary. So try that. twenty years before you're ready to wake up and you might have a problem. But the it does.

speaker-1: That's a lot of time under the Bodhi tree. There are things that are better suited for when you're first starting out. I mean, I think one of the things that a person needs to do if they are just beginning to be curious or beginning to be ⁓ dissatisfied with ⁓ what they think is true and maybe begin to spect isn't suspect isn't, is you start absorbing the teachings. You know, you read the books and you listen to the teachers and get a framework and that sort of thing. And

speaker-0: Right.

speaker-1: Along with that, do a lot of self inquiry. Turn that ray of projection that's manifesting the world back in on itself and look back at the looker. ⁓ what is it that's looking out on all of this? You know, and and turn that around and look right straight back in and ask the big questions and then the little questions about the character, you know, leave no stone unturned. You know, you don't want to be a mystery to yourself. The little guy doesn't want to be a mystery to himself, shouldn't be anyway. ⁓ because you can't drag around a a self-diluted character ⁓ and expect truth to happen. So ⁓ there's a lot of inquiry work that needs to go on as well. And then I think the third leg of the stool you might say is silence, you know, which meditation is very conducive to courting silence. But there's other ways too to approach that state of no thought where the mind, which is so active in self-inquiry, ⁓ the mind fighting it out with the mind, let's say, is in complete abeyance and there's no thought and there's silence and it is in that silence that ⁓ grace has the opportunity to take charge, let's say.

speaker-0: You know what, we're sort of getting into ⁓ Richard Rose's top ten tips for spirit for serious seekers here. And ⁓ it might be fun to run through these and we'll loop around and get back to your personal story, because ⁓ we don't necessarily need to do that in the beginning, but I think it would be fun to go back and then you know what happened in Vietnam and what you went through and everything. But since we're getting into this, let's let me read these out and you comment on each one a little bit. So here we go, Richard Rose's top ten tips for serious seekers. Ten, make a decision and carry it out. Commitment.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ Rose was ⁓ extraordinarily ⁓ vocal about the importance of commitment. And we touched on that a little bit by calling it desire and intention and that sort of thing. But ⁓ when you make a commitment to something and he used to have that Goethe quote about ⁓ you know, w which I will not be able to quote, but when you make a commitment, all sorts of unseen forces appear to help.

speaker-0: That's great.

speaker-1: And he had he had that framed and and ⁓ up in his house. But it that's that sense of ⁓ hey, if you if you go to the new world and burn your ships, you know, you're committed. And so if if you put yourself in that kind of a position where you don't give yourself weasel room, ⁓ truth or bust. And then whenever you come to a juncture where there's a decision to be made between your commitment and something else, you always choose in in favor of your commitment.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, Marsh used to call that the highest first. Yeah.

speaker-1: The highest first, exactly. I love that phrase. I hadn't heard that.

speaker-0: And ⁓ you you told the story of how Richard was out in a snowstorm on a horse and the horse threw him and he clung to the horse and was dragged for twenty minutes or something because he ha had made a commitment to br to that horse, I guess, and didn't want the horse to get lost in a snowstorm, so he just hung in there until the horse calmed down.

speaker-1: Right. Commitment was a commitment to Rose and it didn't matter whether it was for, you know, what we might call a higher purpose or a relatively prosaic or mundane purpose. If if Rose gave his word and and made a commitment, that was it. Then he would die rather than break his commitment. And in in this case it was a very serious snowstorm and he he said he had committed to the horse. You know, we're gonna go out in this and we're gonna try to round up the cattle and ⁓ you know, I'm not gonna leave you out there and we're both coming back or neither one of us is coming back. And that's just a horse. Yeah. You know, not just a horse, but I mean it's it's not a person, it's not your child, it's not your wife or anything. But he got his foot was stuck in the stirrup and he was dragged and his head cranking over rocks and stuff. And ⁓ but he hung on when he could have got off. He ⁓ could have look got loose, but he hung on and reined it back in and was eventually able to get both of ⁓ back to the barn. Wow.

speaker-0: W what about relative commitments? I mean a commitment to marriage, for instance. You know, fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. Would you apply this to relative commitments like or, you know, finishing your graduate degree or something, that you're just gonna hang in there for dear life no matter what? Or does this really apply to ⁓ the highest commitment, that to enlightenment, and that that might actually involve the abandonment of certain relative commitments if they are impeding it?

speaker-1: Well, I just a really good question and it was well phrased because yes, relative commitments in the context of your highest commitment, your highest first, I think you was what you phrased it, or your f ⁓ best first or first first or whatever. Highest first, thank you. You know, when it comes to to your highest first versus anything else, then your highest first takes precedence. And other things that you might call commitments, you know, a commitment to marriage, a commitment to certain friendships or something, you know, if you wanted to use that word, then they would fall by the wayside. ⁓ there's nothing can be allowed to get in the way of

speaker-0: I know when I first started meditating I pretty much just dropped all my druggie friends and spent the next several months just walking the dog and down to the beach every day, you know, just being by myself 'cause there was nobody constructive to hang around with and then you know, then new friends started s ⁓ s come ⁓ you know, coming along. But yeah, that was my commitment. I thought I'm not gonna make it if I keep hanging around with these guys. So

speaker-1: Right. Exact. Yeah. Yeah, there's ⁓ there's commitments and then there's you know, lesser commitments one might say. You know. And there's there's always gonna be choices, you know, and ⁓ you know, you choose and you choose in favor of your highest person.

speaker-0: I mean I I saw photos of you when you were younger with little children and all. ⁓ are you still with their mother or did did that that shifted at some point? Did that shift before or after your awakening? So somehow after your awakening it just it wasn't the proper fit anymore and there was some mutual agreement or something?

speaker-1: After after Well, in my particular case, my spiritual inclinations ⁓ were always ⁓ a problem in my marriage. And ⁓ after I woke up they became exacerbated because ⁓ my time was being taken up in various different things and whatnot. But it was a it was a mutual that hey, this really isn't making either one of us ⁓ happy anymore.

speaker-0: Okay. Number nine. Get your house in order. What's that?

speaker-1: Well, that has to do with on on every different level, ⁓ just kind of not having a lot of clutter in your life, both mental clutter and physical clutter. Being able to clear your Rose might say, clear your life so that you can think straight, so that you have the time and the ⁓ capacities to ⁓ think clearly about things and you're not, you know, dealing with mountains of unpaid bills or something, you know, get things cleared up so that you can focus on what's important.

speaker-0: As best you can. I mean you might have you might have three kids and they might have soccer practice and all kinds of things and you do have unpaid bills and you gotta do them and you're not just gonna walk away from the kids, right?

speaker-1: Yeah. No, no, no, not l no, not like that's getting organized about all the things. It's not dropping this wasn't in ⁓ recommending dropping things. It was just paying attention to what is in your life and and in your mind, you know, clearing your mind for the things that are important to think about. Yeah. You know, when he first started teaching it was in the late sixties and and he would say things like kids that used to come around here, they didn't know how to wipe their own noses and they wanted to jump into enlightenment. So there's some there's some things about just learning how to to take care of yourself and and take care of your life that are they're good they're obstacles. If you don't do it they're gonna be obstacles and we talked about clearing obstacles. So ⁓ that was another way of talking about clearing obstacles, one might say.

speaker-0: Yeah, we we Seekers were a pretty motley crew back in the late fifties. I mean, you were on some early TM courses, I know, and ⁓ some of the characters that would show up there were quite colorful. ⁓ okay, number eight, back away from untruth.

speaker-1: ⁓ I know. Touche. ⁓ I know, yeah. Well, that's that gets to the idea that the path is subtractive. So that we don't know what the truth is. We can't head for it. We can't posit what the truth is gonna look like or and I I think that's one of the mistakes that a lot of people make that are ⁓ hooked into ⁓ traditional religions or traditional paths, but there's a belief system associated with it. And y you're essentially telling grace, you're telling the divine, you're telling truth that I will accept you as long as you fit into this paradigm that I expect you to fit into. And ⁓ Grace goes, Yeah, right, I'm not, you know, forget that. So the process is not heading towards something that you believe in or heading towards some positing that you've done about what truth might look like. It's backing away from those things that are untrue and eventually say, It's the neti neti, not this, not this, not this, not this. until there's this core of things that you can't decide on your own that are untrue and those you have to you know ask take these from me. Yeah. ⁓ but that that's the path. It's a subtractive path.

speaker-0: Maybe that kind of relates to number seven which is doubt everything in the sense that if you're adamantly certain about s you know, certain assumptions and beliefs and ways of understanding things, then there's a rigidity which kind of can't let the truth in. But if you doubt everything or at least take everything with a grain of salt, you know, you don't have to totally doubt doesn't mean all utterly reject, because that's not doubt either, that's certainty. Right. It it just means sort of have this little bit of ambivalence in the way you balance your your thinking. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yes, absolutely. And and it's not it's not the rejection part. You n you neither accept nor reject because rejecting is saying, I know better. Yeah. I all I already know even though I don't know the truth, I already know better. So you you can't do that either. The doubt part is just leaving yourself wide open to whatever truth may be. Yeah and and not jumping into belief.

speaker-0: Yeah, there were a lot of verses like that in the Ashtavakra Gita, your your translation that I was just reading where it's like you're not you're not sort of on either side of the fence in terms of either accepting or rejecting. You're just w whatever is, you know, you're open to it. Yeah.

speaker-1: Right, exactly. And that's that's the paradigm into which truth will make its way.

speaker-0: We kinda covered number six and less you see if you want to say another word on it, which is keep your head on it. Extreme spiritual effort is is our best shot at enlightenment. Maybe ⁓ we could say stick tuativeness would be a good phrase here.

speaker-1: Yeah. I think that's just one of the things too. You don't have to have a special spot to sit down. You don't it's not a practice per se that that you have to do, but just in your daily life, when you get a chance, you know, think about it and just ⁓ do things which will keep your head on it. Keep you keep it in the foremost in your mind, whether that's ⁓ prayer, regular meditation, whatever, yeah, if you Don't do anything on this for a week or two weeks at a time and then you say, ⁓ yeah, I f I forgot to ⁓ look into the spiritual thing that I think I'm interested in. You just lose momentum and there's all sorts of you know, all sorts of things that are not gonna happen that would happen if you kept your head on it and just kept putting one foot in front of the other.

speaker-0: That to which you give your attention grows stronger in your life.

speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly.

speaker-0: Number five is look under every rock.

speaker-1: That just has to do, I think well not I think, I it has to do with don't be afraid of looking in all the corners. Don't prejudge. And it's about the it's sort of the flip side of doubt everything. Look at everything as potentially something that might hold the truth. So look over every under every rock. You never know which under which one ⁓ truth may be hiding. I know that you joked about I think probably before we were on the air about the the books that I have in the library and the thousands of books in my life, but ⁓ you know, I would be probably embarrassed at this point. Well, I don't get embarrassed, but it would be silly. Some of the things that I looked into, you know, seem pretty silly to me now, but being a fool for God is okay. ⁓ you look under every rock and look in every corner and listen to every teacher until they prove themselves not worthy of listening to. And ⁓ you just never know there's a cumulative effect that's gonna take place and ⁓ it's the part of the netty netty process. Nope, not this rock, nope, not this teacher, nope, not this book.

speaker-0: For some reason I have some words added on to this point which I think I might have copied and pasted from something else that that you wrote, which is eliminate teachings that emphasize enhancement, improvement, compassion for non existent people. And I I took exception to that. ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah, I can be a little bit inflammatory sometimes in the way I say things. Kind of toss a grenade over the fence and see what happens sometimes. But I used to give ⁓ you know, holds meetings every week, which I've I've backed away from or in recent last year. Yeah, there's so many people that just want to think that compassion is the path in some way. ⁓ and that by being a nicer person or having your good qualities and eliminating your bad qualities Th there's nothing wrong with that. It's wonderful. It will make you a nicer person. I'd I'd rather hang out with compassionate people and good people, but that's not a path to truth. And so I try to disabuse people of that notion that compassion is not a path. And it it can actually, you know, be a trap. It can make you make you trapped into being a really good person and you'll never get out of that. And the non existent people part is that's that's just something that's discovered when ⁓ when self is revealed, when truth ⁓ reveals itself, is that the world and you and everything in it, ⁓ has no substance whatsoever.

speaker-0: Okay, well here's my exception. And that is that these days I mean I've talked to people who are very much in this sort of vein of the world is an illusion and I don't care what happens to it. You know, I'm there was a there was there was an interchange at the Science Non-Duality Conference a couple years ago in which ⁓ a Buddhist teacher, David Loy, who's really into sort of finding practical applications, compassionate, you know, world helping applications of Buddhism, was debating another fellow who was up on the stage and saying, you know, shouldn't we be more concerned about environmental stuff? And the guy was saying, Pfft, world is like a grain of sand to me and I don't care what happens to it. That's kinda easy to say, you know, from a kind of a detached perspective, but most of the great spiritual teachers and saints and sages have apparently been very concerned about the world and very full of compassion for suffering people and have dedicated their lives to to not only awakening them spiritually but to even to housing and feeding and clothing and you know healing them, obviously Jesus being a famous case in point. So, yeah, granted, the world is an illusion ultimately, but the all or nothing approach in which we just sort of dismiss because we understand or experience ultimately that the world is illusion, therefore we don't engage in it in a compassionate way or or make efforts to improve it in various ways, doesn't quite resonate with me. And and I know what you're saying about well you know people getting into all kinds of self-improvement things and taking seminars and going to motivational speakers and all that. And I think that's all on a very superficial level. So what I'm kind of referring to is something deeper where the the full package is there of realization or seeking for it and at the same time not being an SOB in your personal life and doing all you can to sort of help others given whatever gifts and talents and inclinations you have in whatever way you can help them.

speaker-1: Right. And and I understand that completely. And there's nothing wrong with as a matter of fact, it's admirable to be doing compassionate things. You know, I was a hospice volunteer for six years and that sort of thing. And and there's nothing wrong with that. And and it's good and it's a good way to spend your time. But, you know, I have a limited amount of time that I'm willing to spend teaching. I essentially teach because I'm asked and ⁓ I I generally talk to people that are so far into this that they can't get out. I'm I'm not an evangelist. I'm not trying to convince people that they should be going for enlightenment or anything like that. People that generally that I talk to are people that they're stuck. They've already gotten so far in it that they ⁓ that they can't turn back. That that hot red ball is halfway down and it can't be swallowed and can't be regurgitated. And pick your metaphor, the only way forward is forward.

speaker-0: Right. Like like the plane that's let's run halfway across the ocean and it doesn't have enough fuel to go back.

speaker-1: You don't have enough fuel to go back. So okay, so okay, you're there. I'll talk to you now. Now, you also have a limited number of years on this earth. And if truth is the most important thing to you, then I'm gonna talk to you about things that will help you have truth ⁓ reveal itself to itself in your presence, let's say. Well one way of saying it. And not waste a lot of time on other things. There's nothing wrong with those other things. But compassion compassionate ac action and Some of these other things that are, you know, vegetarianism and I I don't know what all, you know, I mean the things that ⁓ go under the guise of spirituality, there's nothing wrong with those things. They're wonderful things. But I tend to focus on the things that I think ⁓ are the more direct path and say, Okay, look, once you once you wake up, do whatever you want. But if you wanna get if you wanna wake up as fast as possible, you have to make the highest and best use of your time. And you've only got a limited amount of time. You don't know if you're gonna die tomorrow. So let's talk about something that ha Can make that happen right now. And becoming a better person is not going to make that happen right now. There are things that can it can happen at any time to anyone, any place. There's no preparation necessary, there's no worthiness required, can't doesn't need to be earned in any way. There's no way that we anyone could ever be worthy of a gift like this. And so, what do you say to someone that will possibly create ⁓ an environment in which some this something spontaneously might happen. And so that's all that I'm up to, you know, and and sometimes I'm provocative in the way I say things. And if someone's leaning in a certain direction very strongly, I'm likely to try to kick the support structure for that out from under them.

speaker-0: Okay. ⁓ well, a little devil's advocate point here would be that ⁓ I've known some very selfish, narcissistic ⁓ spiritual seekers, you know. It's all about me. And I think that that has been an impediment to their their growth. They they've become so self-absorbed, I've seen them go on for decades being selfish and narcissistic. I've gone through phases like that myself. Hopefully I don't have too many remnants of those. But been there, been there, done that. And another thing is that, you know, seva is a traditional spiritual practice. which is supposed to be conducive to your ultimate realization. And some teachers say that, you know, you can sit on your butt for years meditating it ⁓ and not ha get too much out of it, but also you can th in some people at least that ⁓ you know dedicating yourself to the betterment of others can attenuate the ego to a great extent. In fact in fact Shankara said that, you know, not everyone is cut out for gyana yoga for the kind of like final realization. He said karma yoga or, you know, service in in a in a kind of a more relative sense, can actually purify you to the point where you're more capable of Jana Yoga. So there is some traditional argument for that.

speaker-1: I know. And I mean and I s I say I I make a joke sometimes, you know, about and sometimes people, you know, call me a Zen master or sometimes, you know, it it being a Zen master is easy. All you have to do is say the opposite of what someone th thinks, you know, they're they're doing, you know, just tell ⁓ to do the opposite. And you know, if somebody's if somebody's a a completely avid reader and they always got their face in a spiritual book, well tell them to stop reading. You know, you know, don't don't let other people's words get in someone hasn't cracked a book, I tell them to start reading. And if someone is a narcissist as you were describing, a narcissistic, self-absorbed person, you know, I would recommend and and I have recommended to a number of people to do some kind of service work like hospice.

speaker-0: Yeah, go work at an animal shelter or whatever.

speaker-1: Anything, anything to get to to cease that self absorption. It it it's not a good it's not self inquiry, it it's not self observation, it's just this this incestuous self absorption. And when you see someone in that situation, then you prescribe the opposite. Right.

speaker-0: Okay, good. That covers that point. All right. Number four. Retraverse the ray of projection. I understand what that means, but you go ahead and explain it.

speaker-1: Well well we touched on that a little bit earlier, and that is essentially ⁓ looking back at the looker. Creation, the world, ⁓ the illusion, we're using that word in this interview, and that's okay, is ⁓ is a projection. It's manifests, ⁓ it's projected from the source of all that is, which is you and the one awareness. And that ray of projection is focused outwards. To a an external, let's say, manifestation, which there is no internal or external, but it's what it appears to be an external manifestation. Now, retraversing the ray of projection is to turn 180, turn that looking, turn that projection 180 degrees right back into the looker and look back at what's projection. Look back into the light. You know, if you the projection metaphor, you would be you know a movie theater. Where the light is coming from behind you and it's casting this movie on a screen and you're totally absorbed in the screen. You're totally absorbed in the projection. But and the Plato's Cave analogy is wonderful here too. ⁓ turn around. Look back into the light, you know, not at what is being projected. Not that's this these ⁓ I don't want to call them false images, but they're images without substance that are being projected. Look back into the light from which they come. Which is you, which is that which you truly are. Yeah.

speaker-0: And I think that's what meditation does or should do. in fact the Gita talks about the how the senses, you know, are designed to direct direct the attention outwards and we and we turn them around like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs.

speaker-1: Exactly.

speaker-0: I think that you and I have both done a lot of meditation and probably have experienced that very thing in meditation where the the attention isn't is inner and outer is not is just metaphorical, it's not really inner and outer, but there's a sort of a a withdrawing of the senses from their objects and a and reabsorption back into the self or into into consciousness. ⁓ so how would you advocate or prescribe that a person do that?

speaker-1: I'm not sure how understood the whole question you're talking about, you know, just ⁓

speaker-0: the reabser the retraversing the ray of projection. ⁓ is that something one would s do in a meditative ⁓ state or s or is something one would try to do while driving a car or or functioning in the world or do you you dedicate certain portions of your day or you know, you try to do it every time you come to a stoplight or you know, what do you do?

speaker-1: Any of those things except while driving. You know, I would I would say ⁓ you know, if you're if you're do if you're in motion at a speed which could prove harmful ⁓ in a collision situation, then ⁓ you should focus on that and nothing else. ⁓ but most any other time you can and it doesn't it doesn't have to be meditation. You can just be in the midst of daily life. And, you know, as I'm sitting here now thinking about ⁓ describing it. I'm I'm actually doing what I'm about to say. I don't know if the words will come out right, but you know, what's in front of me, what's in front of my eyes is all the external images. But where my mind is, is on what might you might call the flat panel of the focus of where this, you know, the let's say the film of the eyes, this flat two D thing right here on which everything is painted, and then the mind can just step one step back from that. And so it's a mental exercise. you can do while your eyes are open, you can do with your eyes closed. ⁓

speaker-0: So it's a sort of a self referral thing, ⁓ rather than just blindly getting caught up in the external thing, there's a sort of a a curving back somewhat.

speaker-1: Is it? It it's a stepping back and i it's a stepping back visually as well as mentally. You can just pull your vision in. It's you know, if you've ever done any target shooting or something, they have this the wire that, you know, will bring the target back to you. You know, the target's way out there, you hit a button and it brings the target back to you so you can see whether you hit it or not. I see. So you can essentially just you can bring the world back to you in close and just bring it back closer this way and then flip it. It's all there's These are just thought experiments. It's all just kind of playing with it. Once you realize that it's possible to look, literally look at what's look inside, I'll use the word, in at what's looking out, you can start playing with your own ideas about how to do that. But that's who you truly are, is back here. I don't know if I should get into this now or not, but there's just those there's just one awareness. There's not a multiplicity of awarenesses. And that a and we all know where that one awareness is. It's always been there. We've just misidentified it as belonging to this little guy with a name. But it's God awareness. And it it has, for the sake of this purpose ⁓ this conversation, we'll say that it has a shape. And the shape is the single eye. It's this everything that we can see with the diameters, you know, Jesus said, if thine eye becomes single, thy whole body is light. And that is our constant experience. The single eye is full of light, and that light is full of color and texture and manifestation. But as we pull back in and not getting so focused, not getting so lost in the details of the external world, pull back in to be conscious of this clear single eye that is projecting everything, let's say, and rest there, rest our attention there. Something might happen. Then something might happen. Stop looking out and just let the attention rest here.

speaker-0: Good. I think we covered that pretty well. I I'm sure we'll touch on points related to that more as we go along. This next one, Life Gives You All the Coens You Need. I was listening to one of ⁓ your recordings and those satsongs you did, and there's someone with you named Deborah, I believe, and she was saying something about ⁓ you know, she doubt she doubts her thoughts, but she doesn't doubt all the circumstances that unfold in her life. Like if she gets a flat tire, it's not like, ⁓ crap, a flat tire, I'll be late to work. It's like Okay, what is this showing me? So life is giving her a kohen there. I don't know if that's the what if that's what she was trying to convey when she made that point, but y go ahead and ⁓ elaborate on that one. Life gives you all the koens you need.

speaker-1: Well, I'm really glad you mentioned Deborah Deborah Westmoreland is a an amazing teacher who I happen to be married to. And ⁓ we teach together now. We teach retreats and ⁓ it's a real joy and ⁓ good things seem to happen. And ⁓ she talks about ⁓ she's talked about that for a long time, about she doesn't trust her thoughts about anything. It's just whatever is appearing before her. Okay, I'll trust that. You know, in the interim. I know that that's, you know, a projection and illusion and what, but it's at least something that can be trusted. I cannot trust these ephemeral thoughts that pass through and are constantly changing. But for most people, thoughts have priority. We think that if we think it, it must be true. We must act on it. We must even if it changes in the next half hour, then we thought, ⁓ okay, now I know the truth. Now I know what I should act on. And we're jumping around, you know, like chickens with our heads cut off. you know, trying to follow and obey our thoughts and thinking that we have the right opinions and the right judgments and everything. And Deborah, you know, quite rightly says, No, look at what's right in front of you. Trust that. And the thing about life gives you all the koans you need, of course comes from the the formal Japanese Zen koans where you would have the you know, th things like the sound of one was the sound of one hand clapping or, you know, why did Barty D Bodhidharma go to the to the east and things like that. nonsense questions essentially that by pounding your head against them long enough, the mind stops, you know, which is the purpose of you know the Japanese formal koans is to stop the mind, not to find an answer. They don't have an answer. It's to stop purpose is to stop the mind. And so you know Rose says you don't need these kind of formal co-ands. Your life will give you all of those kind of problems that'll stop your mind that you can handle. And I often talk about your life, your particular life is your path. You don't need to go looking for any esoteric paths that have been followed by historical sages or anything like that. Your life is your path. And one way of talking about it would be to say that it is specifically designed to get your specific character to truth. And that by paying attention to what manifests in your life and following that is your quickest way to truth.

speaker-0: Yeah, that kind of harkens back to what we were talking about earlier about there being some sort of divine orchestration ⁓ in life, you know, that you can provoke with prayer or w with with intention. And the notion that every little leaf that falls is permeated with intelligence. There's intelligence you know, kind of intelligence governing the universe and things don't happen arbitrarily or capriciously or, you know, meaninglessly. Which is I I'm sure you would agree. It's is not to say you're supposed to analyze every little thing that happens, ⁓ what's the significance of this? ⁓ you know, this guy walked past me wearing a red shirt, what does that mean? I think we would agree that there's ⁓ that that would be a superficial way of treating this point.

speaker-1: Right. Yeah, that that became you become slavish. You don't want to become slavish to anything, you know, and it it just take everything and you know, chew on it and digest the part that works for you and the rest out. But, you know, there is this idea that and it's not just an idea, but ⁓ you know, one of the first things we need to ask ourselves, I think, is the universe have my best interests at heart? Is the universe on my side? You know, do i is it out to get me or is it out to help me? I mean and and that's a a nod towards it, some kind of a higher power, you know, that that there is some sort of help there. And I think most of us would agree, ⁓ certainly people that get onto the spiritual path, others may not, but that first does have our best interests at heart, even if sometimes it takes us over rocky roads and drags us over broken glass, that it's some there is some sort of reason for that. And if you Stay focused on that in your life and watch for that. It it doesn't even matter if you ultimately understand. It it's faith. It's capital F faith that all is well and all is well and all manner of things are well, no matter how the little guy thinks about it. ⁓ Bart still has all his preferences and desires that he had before he woke up, but now he just doesn't care if he ever gets his way or not. I'd I'd much rather he's even smart enough now to To be able to say, I'd much rather have what I'm supposed to have than what I think I want. And so, no, your preferences and desires are not always going to be fulfilled. And you could you could say, well, the universe is against me because I didn't get what I want. Well, how do you know what's good for you? You know what you want, but you don't know what what is proper in the in the long term of your life. And especially if you have a one pointed desire for something, and in this case, we're talking about enlightenment or truthing up or however we want to talk about it. If that's our long term desire, then we can't pick bones about what happens along the way. It is going to take us through some rocky paths and there are going to be some obstacles that are going to be removed and we are going to have some life changing events, you know, all in service of that highest first. Faith, I think, becomes very easy once you wake up, faith is natural. It's your natural state of being. You know, beforehand, you have to work at it a little bit.

speaker-0: Yeah. And what we're saying could sound a little glib to somebody whose child has been raped and kidnapped or, you know, killed or by a car or you know, it's terrible stuff happens to people and exactly we don't wanna sound heartless.

speaker-1: No, and and be quite honest, you know, I as I was a seeker during my seeking days and the idea that you had to be prepared for anything to happen in your life. If you make this commitment and you have this prayer for truth, ⁓ it has to be at all costs. I adopted that and I I've taught that and ⁓ and I prayed that with very fervent sincerity. And yet I had I had this caveat and I I th I was hoping I would get away with it. I said, but you know, talking to the divine. If you hurt my children, I'm out of here. Nothing good will happen. You know, if you want me to die an alcoholic in the gutter, then then hurt my children, but I will not serve you if you hurt my children. And so there are things that that, you know, we just d don't ever want to have happen in our lives. And if they do, you know, quite honestly, it can be ⁓ devastating to one's faith.

speaker-0: Yeah. And I mean you were saying earlier about you make this commitment and even if it means you go crazy or end up homeless or all the but ⁓ generally speaking, at least in my experience, things tend to go better in life once we make this commitment. It's not like all hell's gonna break loose. I mean yeah, things things may fall away, sure, but we shouldn't scare people into thinking that you know, it's just gonna be, you know who was that guy in the Bible that Joe was it Job who seriously tested by God?

speaker-1: Yeah. No, it's statistics show that it's not like that at all. You know, I think of course there's no formula and we d we have no idea what works. Nothing works, but what seems to be efficacious is to be prepared for the worst. But it is almost never asked. Yeah, as you say, it's almost always better. And if you lose a friendship or lose a relationship, you say, Well, you know what? It was time for that to go or something. You know, it it's not as bad as you you are saying that you're prepared. prepared for. You have to be you don't have to pay the price, you just have to be prepared to pay the price. That's a delicate line to walk because once you say that, then someone who listens say, Well, I'm not really prepared, but I'll say I'm prepared. And you can't do that. Yeah, you can't scam it. You know, yeah it has it has to be a total surrender to the commitment.

speaker-0: Yeah, we mean it. And wouldn't you say that ⁓ not everybody is in a position of making a total surrender. You surrender and commit and have faith to the extent the t of your capacity, and that capacity in most people is probably going to deepen as they go along. It's not an all or nothing from day one necessarily.

speaker-1: No, not at all. Not at all. And, you know, I think in in my case, for instance, I mentioned that, you know, I counted as thirty seven years from when I first, you know, was sort of shocked into ⁓ having questions until something happened. And I would only say that maybe the last two years, two or three, four years that if I stretch it, would I be able to say that I w wholeheartedly had a one pointed prayer. happening in your life and it's okay to pay attention to them and but everything is moving you towards that point where eventually nothing else will matter if you stick with this long enough. And at that point, that's when that happens.

speaker-0: And you just basically said it, but just to reiterate, so thirty-five years were necessary to bring you to the point where it could be whole wholehearted, but those thirty-five years weren't wasted. There was a progressive greater and greater preparedness taking place during those thirty-five years.

speaker-1: Right, a whole lot of obstacles and a whole lot of resistance had to be overcome. And one of the things that I sometimes say, and I think it's true, is that the whole spiritual path is removing our resistance to a gift that is constantly being offered. It's not that we're becoming more worthy. It's we're becoming able to accept what is always there. You know, Jesus said, you know, knock and it shall be open to you and and that's very true and It's a paradox and when you say one thing you can say the other. But it's also true that it's the divine, it's God that's knocking. And we have our hands and feet against the door saying, No, I'm not ready. I got some questions. I got things I need to do in life. I'm a little bit afraid. You know, what's it gonna be like if I let you in? And that's why it doesn't happen. It's not because we haven't done enough work, it's because our resistance is too great to the gift that wants to be given.

speaker-0: Okay, number two, make your whole life a prayer. We've kind of covered this, but any further things on that?

speaker-1: Well, you I don't think you can talk about it too much. So I'll I'll see what happens if I try to say something else. It just has to do with that one pointedness of intention. And since we're reading that from that talk I gave on Rose's ⁓ ten one liners that speak volumes, you know, ⁓ Rose you know, one of the things that he said was, if your whole life is a prayer, it will be answered answered instantly. And so if there's nothing else in the way, if you're not saying I want this and this. Or if everything in your life is saying, I only want this, then grace, the divine or whatever has a clear path to just come in right then. And there's there's no caveats.

speaker-0: And the final point is very interesting. I think we can go on about this for a little while, which is betweenness. And before you elaborate, I just want to relate it to the previous point, which is, you know, on the one hand prayer can be very specific and it can be self centered. I want a new car, you know, I want this or that or the other thing very specific, which may or may not be what you really need. What was it? Mick Jagger, you know, he said you can't always get what you want, but you get get what you need. ⁓ But this betweenness thing is interesting and it's a process I'll have you describe and Richard Rose actually used it in poker games to get ⁓ the cards he wanted dealt to him. And it it actually also relates to the Yoga Sutras and the whole process of sunyama, which we can talk about a little bit. But ⁓ go ahead and and riff on betweenness a little.

speaker-1: It's a really hard thing to riff on and it's a hard thing to understand and I wouldn't say that I ever really understood it for a long time, even though I was trying to understand it and trying to apply it. But it essentially I don't know if you I can encapsulate it or not, but it essentially is some small bit of leverage we have over that the little guy, let's say, the small self, some small bit of leverage that the little self has over making events turn in his or her favor. And this it has to do with holding your head in a certain way, right on an edge of neither caring nor not caring. And in Ashtravakravita, it talks of you know neither accepting nor rejecting. And there's lots of in all the ancient wisdom, there's references here and there, and you said in Yoga Sutras, which is quite true as well. And think if I had to just say a a couple of sentences about it, it would be it's the process of wanting something with one pointed intention, with great power. And not caring if you ever get it at the same time.

speaker-0: Which I think I think covers dharna and dyan in sanyama, those two aspects of it. And then the third one is samadhi. So actually being established in the self, wanting something and surrendering it, all kind of in this simultaneous balancing act.

speaker-1: Exactly. Exact yeah. And Rose apparently was able to do it for relatively mundane things like a hand to poker, you know. I've not able been been able to do that. I haven't really given it much practice to be honest with you. But I think what happened to me, and I only can say this in retrospect, but and Rose called it ultimate betweenness when it was applied to the spiritual path, you know, wanting truth more than anything and then not caring whether and surrendering whether you ever got it or not. And I think I stumbled into ultimate betweenness right before I woke up. And ⁓ I can identify ⁓ that state and only by being in that state can I ⁓ could I understand it. And ⁓ then since then I've tried to talk about it a little bit in ways that may be understandable without being in the state.

speaker-0: That takes care of our ten points. but since since we're talking about the Yoga Sutras, I read your translation of it or your compilation of other translations. And you know the ⁓ if for people who aren't familiar with the Yoga Sutras, there are four chapters in it. And the the third chapter is all about Siddhis it talks about practicing sunyama, which is this thing we just mentioned of Dharana Dhyam and Samadhi, you know, fixity of of of attention, surrender of attention and and pure consciousness. A lot of people write off the whole fourth the whole I guess it's the third chapter they say because of this one verse in three thirty eight it says, They are powers in worldly experience but obstacles to samadhi. And one thing I'm confused about in this is well why would Patanjali devote an entire chapter of a fourth chapter book to something that was y that you're really not supposed to pay any attention to? And and the second is samadhi is one of the three pillars of sunyima, so How are powers obstacles to samadhi if samadhi is an essential constituent of the the very process by which the cities are are performed? You have any idea on that?

speaker-1: Well, I don't pretend to be someone who can explain other people's works or writings, ⁓ even the ancients that I've, you know, ⁓ obviously have have translated and worked with quite extensively. I've tried to stay faithful to exactly what is recorded there and not interject my own ideas about that. But you bring up a very valid point. I think the takeaway for me in those passages is that Even though he's dedicated a whole chapter to the CDs and everything, and then one might question whether that was necessary or even desirable. I I think the essential point is that these let's call them worldly powers or things that you can do along the way are lesser amazements and you can get stuck there. You can and a lot of you know, at least historically, a lot of the yogis in India, you know, get stuck on various different CDs and that that's what their life is. You know, they they hit that cul de sac and you know, they sleep on a bed of nails the rest of their life or whatever. And that's not the point. And so Tangley, I think, was giving a nod towards a yes, you could do this, yes, you could do that. I can almost see him kind of being casual and giving a shoulder shrug. Yes, you can have all the powers you want, you can do this, you can become invisible and but if you want truth, don't get stuck there.

speaker-0: Maharshi's take on it, and I and for me the jury is out on this, you know, I I'm not saying saying because he said it it must be true, but hi his his take on it was that these things can actu I I I he would probably also have acknowledged that you could get stuck, but he was saying that they were they were being offered as actual practices to sort of integrate consciousness into various channels of of the physiology or in into into kind of enliven latent capabilities that again, one could easily get stuck. And people do, but that if if we want to really achieve some kind of complete holistic development, these abilities should be part and parcel of our our toolkit, the way Christ did all sorts of stuff, you know. I mean, ⁓ if you take the story literally, he was able you know, he was able to walk on water. How do you do that? You know, calm the ocean, multiply the loaves and fishes. And ⁓ it's kind of fascinating to consider because sometimes awakening is, in my opinion, dumbed down in terms of what might it might ultimately include. People begin to encounter some of this stuff or sometimes before or or after they awaken and perhaps, you know, fifty years from now as a culture we'll have a more complete understanding of what awakening is and all the various things that it may evoke in us or as we develop and that might need to be understood in a kind of responsible way and not just swept aside as as some kind of distraction or or impediment.

speaker-1: Well, I guess what I would start by saying is that all of those things, you know, however we characterize them, are a thing apart from awakening. They have nothing to do with truth or enlightenment. They're things that are done within the manifest world by the the residue of the character that remains after one wakes up. And and it doesn't really matter what you do after that. You you can have these spiritual powers or whatever. It doesn't really matter, but I think it's It's doing a disservice to lump them in with the idea of awakening or enlightenment, whatever we want to call it, because that is very simple. That is a very simple realization of it's that's just turning the facet of a jewel so that would suddenly out of nowhere and for no reason we you know, we've been looking for our glasses all these years and we find that we're wearing them. Yeah. And it's and it's this very subtle, it's not subtle, it's it's a sledgehammer, but it's it's so ordinary. It's ⁓ my God, yes. You know, it's this huge forehead slap kind of a thing that, ⁓ my God, I'm God. ⁓ my God, I'm the source of everything. You know, there's only one awareness and I am it. I am that. That's the whole thing. It has nothing to do with anything that the body might do afterwards. That's the whole thing about awakening. Now, once that happens, I think it's much easier if you wanted to pursue other things spiritually or otherwise, it becomes easier. the character's not in the way and it's a faster track to any of those other other things that you may want to do with ⁓ your remaining time on earth. But I personally don't see anything necessarily preferable about dedicating yourself to what we might these kind of CDs that Patangeli was ⁓ writing about versus ⁓ becoming a good gardener or or improving your golf game or something. Yeah. Yeah.

speaker-0: Golf game or something. Well, I guess one thing that seems to be going on in the spiritual community these days is that a lot of people are talking about embodiment. And a lot of people who maybe had ⁓ woke up some years ago are saying, Okay, that was great, but now how do I live this as a human being? And you know, there seem to be certain shortcomings in in relative life that need to be addressed. And ⁓ Adyashanti and A. H. Almost had this nice talk out at the Science and Non Duality Con conference and they were kind of both in agreement that in a way Awakening can be considered the beginning. That's when the the game really gets started. And of course, from the perspective of not having awakening, it seems like an end point, but from their perspective, having awake having awakened some years ago, they they're looking at it now as having really been the launch pad for further refinement and unfoldment and so on. And that's that seems to be becoming more and more relevant to people these days. And you know, there are a number of talks and panel discussions at the conference about that.

speaker-1: Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. You know, I I say you know, on the one hand, awakening is game over, but at the same time a new game begins. And I I think that it's not until that discovery of that which you truly are happens that spiritual work can really begin. And and you now are of use. You're now not in the way of whatever the divine wants to do. What hands but these does the divine have to work with? And you are now available. because you have no resistance to what's asked and ⁓ it nothing may be asked. But one thing that I'm can guarantee anyone that will be asked is that the remaining rough edges of the character are gonna be tested and burned. And ⁓ that life does not get easier after awakening. It gets funnier and and and you have no real attachment to how things go. I mean, yes, I'd I'd much rather be rich than poor, but if I'm supposed to be poor, then so be it. And it's not really until after awakening that you can say those kinds of things and from the heart and know that whatever happens, happens and that's the way it's supposed to be. And that you're you're now can be of service. Even though there's nothing really that needs to be served. You know, who's serving who? Who's teaching who? You know, we're all just dummies sitting in the dark saying, Are we dummies? ⁓ there there's nothing really to be done and yet something seems to be asked. You know, th there's there's a divine momentum that needs to be fulfilled in some way. And ⁓ until you get out of your own way, you can't really be of service to that. You're you just keep stumbling over things and get caught up in your underwear and you know, you're all about your little self. And ⁓ once that's gone, now something can really start to happen. But in conjunction with that, it it's not a free ride. It's not an easy ride necessarily. Things will be in conflict with maybe what your preferences are.

speaker-0: That's that was a nice little rap there. What was that phrase you used? A divine momentum. I like that phrase. I I I kind of sense and and resonate with people who describe that as really being the the governing, you know, o ultimate governing force that ⁓ that drives the universe and ⁓ you know, there's this sort of evolutionary momentum and the w like the universe is one big evolution machine. And as you just said, if if you have awakened then you become a much more potent servant of that force, much b potentially potent, but if you still got a lot of rough edges, they've they've gotta be smoothed off. I know there's you know, some people discuss th the idea of smoothing most of them off before awakening and c and others say, you know, well, you know cu 'cause it could be a pretty rough ride if you haven't done so, or you could actually be a a rather irresponsible jerk and yet have kind of a lot lot of influence on people and get caught up in your ego again if if the there hasn't been a A certain degree of refinement and purification before awakening.

speaker-1: Well, there's ⁓ a certain amount of that I think is probably good to to ⁓ become somewhat of a better person a along the way. There's no there's no harm in it. But I think there's also a danger in making that your path, trying to Yeah, tr you know, trying to polish the turd, you know, in instead of just see past it. There's some things I characterize it as ⁓ if there are things that are truly as

speaker-0: Yeah, as we discussed earlier, yeah.

speaker-1: things about your character that are truly in the way of your path, then certainly those need to be addressed. But these sort of extraneous, nice to have qualities that, you know, we'd all like to be super bard or super rick or whatever. You know, and the pursuit of that i isn't really in the service of of a awakening.

speaker-0: Yeah. Well, I guess one fi final thought on this point might be that once you're out of the way, I think you used that phrase, it's not really in your hands anymore in fr in terms of things getting smoothed out or not. I mean, have you found in your own experience and in observing others that once awakening has occurred, then nature or the divine or whatever is is gonna put you through the ringer ⁓ to whatever extent it wants to, in whatever ways it wants to, in order to make you a more fit ⁓ servant of of that evolutionary impulse.

speaker-1: It's gonna happen. It's gonna so I mean that that's I I can only speak for myself, but

speaker-0: So what ways were you put through the ringer?

speaker-1: I would say that there were stages, you know, and I I shouldn't say that it's ⁓ just gonna happen right off the w off the bat or anything, but because for maybe the first month I would say ⁓ literally nothing else was going on but the the joy of being. Literally lost in the joy of self. ⁓ and then gradually that honeymoon period gave way to life coming back in and ⁓ saying, Well things need to be attended to and you know, the momentum of Bart's character and Bart's life started coming back in. But really for the first year or so, there was no challenges to it. And I even had the thought, you know, a very conscious thought of I wonder how this holds up when life's not going as well as it's going for me right now. And lo and behold, you know, things started falling apart. And ⁓ you know, my parents both died within ⁓ six months of each other and, you know, my teacher died, Richard Rose died and There's other things in, you know, relationships and, you know, ⁓ friendships and different kinds of things in your life that were stable before became unstable. Okay, so it's time to let go. Things need to be streamlined. It's sort of one might say, you know, throwing the sandbags out of the hot air balloon or something. And so the life that you had going into it may not be the life that's suited to what the divine has in mind for you afterwards. So you need to be prepared for some ⁓ things to get thrown overboard.

speaker-0: So I'm kinda thinking the way this is going that, you know, maybe we won't go into great detail on your personal story because there's a lot of interesting stuff to talk about and you told that story on your interview with Conscious T V with Ian McNay and everything and on a number of other occasions, so people could also watch that. But just in a a real quick nutshell, you were in Vietnam, you got kind of knocked out by a mortar round and you went into this blackness and it made you realize that there was, you know, another dimension to life was sort of a near death experience and that kind of kick started your seeking and your seeking went on for many, many years and you you know, Richard Rose and then you venture I'm telling the story real fast here for you. Yeah. Thank you. Then then you flew over to to England and spent some time with Douglas Harding just a long weekend or something and on the plane on the way home you had an awakening. You had your awakening. So maybe let's pick it up from there, but We throw this word about so much, awakening, everybody's talking about their awakening. And I'm not entirely sure that everyone means the same thing or understands the same thing when they hear the word. So exactly what happened on that plane, and maybe we can fast forward to now and and what your moment to moment experience is as a quote unquote awakened person. And of course the person doesn't get awakened, I don't know if you can explain all that, but ⁓

speaker-1: Well there's a lot of territory there. Yeah, first of all I I think I'm tempted to say something about just the word awakening and awake or whatever. I I wish there was a better word. I mean enlightenment's not good either. Enlightenment kind of sounds like you've been knighted or something and awakening is I think it's it's been for I think it's some time in the past, you know, ten years ago or fifteen years ago or whatever, it had some power. But I I think it's just become so overused that it it means so many different things to so many different people, I think. And, you know, quite f quite honestly, there's a lot of people going out there saying they woke up and I'm not so sure. You know, I'm not I I I don't know what they're really talking about. You know, I'd listen try to listen to some people try to talk about it and I'm saying, well, you know, I mean from my perspective, if somebody says they're done, they're they're done. I got no questions for ⁓ you know, because, you know, I'm I'm not have no criteria that I'd try to you know, measure by for anybody. I say, ⁓ okay, well congratulations. You get to not be a seeker anymore. There's a lot of benefit in that. So

speaker-0: Although I must say I've met people who say they're done whom I feel maybe haven't quite even started, but

speaker-1: I I and I I couldn't agree more, but I'm not gonna quibble with them. Yeah. ⁓ okay, well you're done. Yeah, yeah. You don't need to talk to me then. You know, that's one less person I need to talk to. So ⁓ you know, I I I don't criticize or anything, but I think there is a lot of that out there now or you know, it's kind of so anyway, all all that to say that I'm not so sure what that word means anymore when you to even use it. But what happened on the plane to me, ⁓ there's a build up to it and I won't go through the story there. at the workshop or the other parts of it you've ⁓ touched on about the path. But on the plane itself, you know

speaker-0: There was one thing that y that happened to you though, just beforehand, ⁓ when you were with ⁓ Douglas Harding, as you were I guess in your last encounter with him or something, he very intensely said to you, simplify. Yes. And when you tell that story I kinda get the feeling there was some kind of a Shaktipot or something in in his doing that, some sort of He knocked something loose, you know. I it wasn't the word even so much as as it was the sort of the intensity of his in ⁓ of his ⁓ interaction with you and his intention that kinda jarred something at a deep level.

speaker-1: Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's only in retrospect that I can kind of go back and look at it and and make a statement about it like that. But Harding was such a ⁓ warm and personable person. I mean, he made me feel like ⁓ he even said, you know, I feel like ⁓ when I first met him, he said, I feel like I've known you my whole life and I think he did that with everybody, you know, and he he just was so warm, he made he just made you feel like, you know, you were his brother or his long lost son or something. And so we were in the midst of that kind of a goodbye. ⁓ And then he just sort of s stiffened up and in in this incredibly powerful voice for especially for a ninety-five year old man, you know, said And ⁓ you know, I took a couple of steps back and I that was liter I don't think I said anything else. You know, I went back to my room. We were in a an old ⁓ seminary there in ⁓ in Salisbury, England, and ⁓ I went back to my room and about a half hour later

speaker-0: Ha ha ha ha ha.

speaker-1: ⁓ erupted in a a huge uber surrender cry ⁓ that I think was very precipitous to what happened the next day.

speaker-0: Which was uncharacteristic of you, right? Yeah. You weren't like the weepy type.

speaker-1: really, not really. I mean I I'm you know, I'm I'm a fairly ⁓ sensitive guy, but you know, that was uncharacteristic. After it was over and for the rest of the day and evening I I even took some notes about it that I I was done. I I was no longer a seeker. I was actually felt apologetic to God or whoever. You know, I I felt like a real wretch that, you know, I'd been given this wonderful life and all I'd asked for was more and ⁓ I apologize for asking for a truth and enlightenment and said, I'm done, you know, don't worry about me. You're not gonna hear from me on this subject anymore and and ⁓ whatever this is is great. I I just am so grateful for what I already have and and ⁓ I don't care to have more. And I really think if nothing had happened the next day, ⁓ I would be living very happily with that as the final, you know, okay, it didn't happen, but I'm no longer looking. But then The next day that which was surrendered was given. And on the plane, my encapsulation of of what it was was being immersed in the truth of that that I am the source of all that is. Quite literally. There is nothing else going on in the universe except this awareness and this source that manifests all that is. And I am that. And ⁓ my little elevator speech, I guess you could say, was that, you know, for however many years I had always mistakenly identified this awareness as belonging to Bart and that everybody else that I saw in this externally manifested world had a similar awareness and that it was born with the body and would die with the body. But no, that was a a small but very powerful misconception that that awareness, which I've always known, is the only awareness. And it's God awareness. It doesn't belong to Bard or anybody else. It's the only awareness. And whatever is manifesting within that awareness, within that single eye of awareness, is all that is going on in the entire universe. Nothing else is happening.

speaker-0: And obviously you're using words and concepts to explain that to us, ⁓ b and you had already been familiar with such words and concepts having read a thousand books, but but ⁓ but what you're d doing here is trying to describe the actual experience. Yeah, you're not just philosophizing.

speaker-1: Yeah. No, no. I mean this was it was it was everything was self evident. I mean everything was absolutely self evident. There was all questions disappeared. Well i questions didn't disappear. The ⁓ possibility of having disappeared, everything was just one might say laid out before me as ⁓ absolutely self evident. And there was more weeping actually on the airplane. Fortunately there wasn't a there wasn't anybody anywhere near me, not just not sitting near me, but it was a fairly empty airplane, even though it was a big jumbo jet.

speaker-0: Yeah, these days you can't get away with that, so sorry for people who wake up on airplanes now, they're gonna just have to

speaker-1: I know. You're gonna have to deal with it. Yeah. The stewardess the stewardess kind of came by between episodes. You know, she never really came by when I was in the throes of anything, but it just seemed to wave in and out for me. It didn't happen all at once. It happened ⁓ it came and went over a period of I don't know how long. But

speaker-0: Why do you think you the weeping happened?

speaker-1: Well, it was just I think ⁓ one of the things that I wrote. I I just felt that I had been been it was it was love in the most extreme use of the word. You know, I I felt that I was had just been crushed to dust by love and blessings and there was nothing left. But but that was a literally, I mean it th talk about cliches, you know, God is love. I mean that that realizing that ⁓ you are God, that you are the source of all that is. The experience of that is excruciating, all encompassing, ⁓ a love beyond anything that language can ever touch. And ⁓ the body's response was weeping.

speaker-0: was it just on the plane or have did d did you go through a period and s maybe still go through a p where there's just ⁓ a tenderness, ⁓ an emotional tenderness which can give rise to tears. Like for instance, I have a friend who said that after he woke up he really couldn't go to public movie theaters because ⁓ he would cry so r readily, even in scenes where the other people weren't inclined to cry, but they would just touch him in a way that made him cry.

speaker-1: Yeah, no, I I really resonate with that. The the world becomes incredibly poignant. Just the general poignancy of existence ⁓ is so apparent and heart wrenching really. I someone I don't think I originated this, but I I I think someone else said it. But ⁓ you know, why after you wake up, be prepared to live with a broken heart. Not broken heart in the sense of a failed relationship or something, but in the sense that it's broken wide open. And totally vulnerable to everything. You have no defenses against anything anymore. You're you're absolutely undefended and everything gets in. You know, all of these emotions and all the poignancy of the world and and ⁓ talking about compassion earlier, it comes with the territory. You can't help but be empathetic and compassionate because everything gets in and everything is you. And so daily life is I wouldn't quite say it's a battle against tears, but tears are the feeling. that produces tears is much closer to the surface all the time.

speaker-0: And yet you're not weak, you're not overshadowed. It's it's not like you're in some kind of emotional mess. There's a kind of an oceanic foundation to it, is there not? Which well, you know, ⁓ the analogy Marchi always used to use is that a small pond can't really rise up in big big waves. It'll only stir up the mud at the bottom, but if it but the ocean can rise up in tidal waves 'cause it has the the depth and the capacity to do that.

speaker-1: No. Right. There's no ⁓ superficial emotional manifestations associated with it. You're totally functional and maybe even more so. You know, you could I could be feeling great compassion and empathy for someone and and then operate in a very normal or even ⁓ heightened way if there's a situation required. It it doesn't have anything to do with ⁓ being incapacitated by it. You're you'd be highly effective at the same time. So it it doesn't it's not the it's not like that.

speaker-0: Yeah. So that was what, two thousand six or something you said? Two thousand four. Two thousand four? Ten years ago. So we've we talked earlier about maybe awakening is just the beginning and ⁓ you know things really kick in after that. So what's been going on for the last ten years?

speaker-1: Well, I was going to a part of what I was doing as a seeker, I was going to weekly meetings ⁓ which were just some friends, ⁓ some close friends. We used to get together for dinner because you can't talk about this stuff ⁓ you know, in your normal job and that sort of thing. ⁓ and so when you find some fellows you you go out of your way to ⁓ create a situation where you can talk about this stuff and share some things. So we had a few friends and And then we got tired of going to dinners, ⁓ and having dinner every time. So we started meeting at somebody's house. And so there was this little group that we had. Someone else in the group, friend of mine, ⁓ woke up during the time that we were having these meetings. And that was one of my first ⁓ I mentioned earlier about when my friend started waking up at where I put my feet to the fire. And so when Bob woke up, yeah, that was part of the what was happening. And then sometime later, I think it was maybe four or five years later, that I woke up. And Bob had since left the group and moved to another town. And so when I woke up, there was this very small group that was already meeting once a week. And so essentially all I did was not stop going. But now I had this different perspective that I could bring to the table. So as I talked about that, you know, gradually the group grew and we got more people and it became known as my group or whatever. And next thing I knew, people were talking about me as a teacher and I just felt like it was something that sort of evolved. And I I it wasn't anything that I really wanted to get into necessarily. I I remember being so impressed and so ⁓ filled with admiration for how Rose conducted himself because he was so committed to this. He was the quintessential teacher was his whole life. And I assumed that when one woke up, that's what happened. It came with the package that you just had this compulsion to pass it on. And that didn't really happen for me. People sometimes call me the reluctant guru or something because it it you know, it wasn't something that I was naturally attracted to. But I I feel like it's one of these things when when you're asked, how can you say no? And so you do what you can do when you're asked to do it and that sort of thing. So For a lot of years until a year or two ago, ⁓ was doing these weekly meetings as well as some talks. You know, you've quoted from s we talked about some talks. I would do a tad in other places that I'd be invited. What is tat?

speaker-0: I kept hearing a reference to that.

speaker-1: stands for truth and transmission, which is the ⁓ group that Rose ⁓ left. ⁓ so they they're still in Yep, have four conferences a year, still a very viable group and ⁓ it's a foundation. Rose left a an organization that was hopefully going to continue his work after he was gone. And to a great degree Tad has and has been able to do that, although it's really difficult when as y as you know in in any group, you know, when the teacher goes, you know it's hard it's hard to hold things together.

speaker-0: They have little conferences or something.

speaker-1: Pat's doing a great job of that.

speaker-0: Where do they have those conferences?

speaker-1: Well they used to ⁓ have him at Rose's Farm ⁓ near Wheeling, West Virginia, but that farm has since ⁓ been inherited by his daughter and they no longer have them there. So they have alternate between two places. ⁓ one is ⁓ Penn Scenic View in ⁓ Pennsylvania and the other is Claremont, which is a mansion in northern Virginia.

speaker-0: Okay, just curious. All right, so you just gave us an answer to that question about what's been happening the the last ten years in terms of terms of your activity. But but in terms of your subjective experience and development ⁓ such as it may be, what's been going on in that realm?

speaker-1: terms of teaching. Well, I I think one way of encapsulating it would be to say that ⁓ Bart the character has been in a state of dissolution. Yes. ⁓ and that ⁓ events ⁓ in his life and events in my life have been conspiring to ⁓ thin that character more and more and more. And it's just it's a process of realizing that there is no doer. You know that, you feel that, and yet there's this momentum that keeps you thinking you need to do things.

speaker-0: More and more and more and more okay.

speaker-1: And you need to make decisions and you need to have opinions and you need to have preferences. And ⁓ the process is to disabuse you of that notion. No, you don't need to do any of that. Get out of the way even more. Those aspects of character that ⁓ still sort of insist upon itself in some way are circumstances of of life will ⁓ say no, you know, you don't need to be that way anymore. Take a break, relax.

speaker-0: So there's no doer and there's no essentially no Bart, but if if the Bart character stubs his toe on the bedstead in the middle of the night. Yeah, it's somehow the the pain is localized. It's not off on on on, you know, the moon someplace or something. No.

speaker-1: He he curses like out. no. As I often say, you know, n nothing really changes for the character in a lot of ways. You know, are the same preferences and desires are there. Things that make you angry, ⁓ still make you angry. It may make you may get angry a lot less and take more to perturb you or whatever, but you know, none of the wiring gets cut. You wouldn't want it to be. You don't become this, you know, ⁓ how would I characterize it? You don't become this, you know, generic ⁓ sage that is unmoved by anything or something, whatever we might imagine going in, you know, life is gonna be easy and I'll never be disturbed by anything again, or something like that. It's nothing like that. You know, all of those things are still in place the and all the wiring is still there. And you even I would say experience ⁓ emotional and other things probably more so because with the with the open heart, right. And so all of that's, you know

speaker-0: Yeah, like you said with the open heart.

speaker-1: And I mean if the occasion calls for anger, you know, you get angry as hell. And ⁓ you know, if if you get cut, you bleed and all of those sorts of things. So really on that level, nothing changes except that I think the whole process is towards dissolution. I don't think final dissolution happens while the body's alive because without some semblance of character remaining, ⁓ you can't interact with the world. So that has to be something of that. has to be in place and as long as the body lives. But I think the process after awakening, we'll go back to that word, the process after awakening is the dissolution and the thinning of that character to where it it becomes thinner and thinner and more vaporous.

speaker-0: You may have heard the term Laisha vidya, which means faint remains of ignorance, which is said like you just said is essential for any sort of living r th take place. There has to be some recognition of limitations and boundaries and objects and whatnot or else you you just be right. Some kind of amorphous blob that couldn't function.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. What wa what was that phrase again?

speaker-0: Laisha Vidya. You know how Avidya means ignorance? Yeah. ⁓ or a vid vidya means knowledge, avidya means ignorance, laisha vidya would mean faint remains of ignorance. Yeah. Speaking in terms of some utilitarian value, but what is the advantage of the thinning of the character? ⁓ why does nature conspire to continually thin the character more and more? Why is that the evolutionary direction that life seems to be going in?

speaker-1: Right. Okay. That's a n that's a good phrase. I don't know. I have no I have no answers to why questions and

speaker-0: But in terms of the utility of your l in your life, the the way your life is lived, you know, how is it let's say lived more artfully or skillfully or something, more f in in some way now versus ten years ago just after your awakening? If you were to snap back to ten years ago right now, what kind of contrast would you notice in terms of the way you function and interact with others and so on?

speaker-1: Well, that's interesting 'cause I'm ⁓ trying to snap back and one of the thing one of the things that happens upon awakening is that immediately everything, all past and future and present everything goes it becomes exactly the same. As soon as you you wake up, let's say, if you want to call it that, as soon as you wake up, everything is the way it's always been. So ⁓ it's always been this way. So when you talk about snapping back, I'm only dealing with memories of stories of Bart at a at another age or in another time. I can't connect with the feelings of that ⁓ time. What I can say about how it is now, I don't think there's just speaking for myself off the cuff right now, I I don't think there's any utility to it. It's it's just the way it is. I suppose, you know, if there was something that was more beneficial about being awake than not being awake, it would be imperturbability or you're not ⁓ constantly thinking that you need to be doing something. It it's actually a there's a loss that takes place. As Deborah my wife says, you know, the notion of a passionate life is lost. You know, ambition and yeah the desire to be a great something or another, or you know, to write with great fervor and things like that, that's a sacrifice. Those things leave. And so ⁓ it's a trade-off. You know, I'd have to say it's a trade-off. And I've you know, I say I'm not an evangelist for it. You know, if if just knowing the truth and just becoming the truth isn't enough for you, then probably this isn't a path you need to get into. You know, it's not really good for anything. That which you truly are could care less about waking up. As you said earlier, the the light is always shining. And the only benefit is to that the small self which maybe acqu acquire some sort of smoothness of life and well absence of fear is one. You you're no longer ⁓ afraid of anything. not in the I mean you still have the ⁓ flight or fight animal fear that can be, you know, the startle instinct and all those sorts of things. But the ⁓ recreational fear of imagining a ⁓ precarious future of some kind and and responding in the present as if it was the ver the ⁓ the truth, all of that is gone And you live in great faith, capital F faith. There is never any doubt of it, ⁓ that all is well. And you live you experience life as the source of all that is. It becomes laughable sometimes, you know, and ⁓ there's this closeness with this intimacy there's a great intimacy with what is. You're not removed from it anymore. You're not standing apart from it. That's of course The catchphrase is separation and that's what's gone is that sense of separation is no longer there. And so there's this great intimacy with all that is, rather than being just focused so much on the concerns of the character and worried about, you know, well what's gonna happen to the character and is he gonna get his way and is he gonna get hurt and you know, who does he need to get even with and all of those sorts of things. They're you know, all of that is gone. One of the biggest things that's gone is you You don't have to be a seeker anymore. And that's that's a that's a great unburdening.

speaker-0: Well, a lot of people over a lot of years have made a big fuss about this whole Enlightenment thing. You know, there's whole cultures dedicated to it and traditions and you know, you yourself have dedicated your life to it ⁓ to greater and greater degrees. So you don't wanna trivialize it and say, ⁓ you know, no big deal. It's ⁓ maybe it's of some value to the ⁓ to the individual. I mean from my perspective it's still the the h kind of the most significant thing one could be interested in in life or aspire to or ⁓ you know hope to quote unquote achieve. And like you were saying earlier, you found yourself d well, you f firstly you found yourself being a catalyst for others awakening. So if awakening is is a a worthwhile thing to have happen, then the fact that you're able to trigger it in others is good.

speaker-1: Right.

speaker-0: But also, as we were say saying earlier, if if there is this sort of divine momentum or whatever you called it that kind of ⁓ drives the universe, then it's it's no ⁓ small matter when someone actually fully comes on board as a servant of that that divine momentum. It's like, you know, hey boys, we've got a live one here, let's give ⁓ more juice.

speaker-1: Yeah. No, I I I absolutely agree. And as you say, I you know, I've dedicated most of my life to it and I don't mean to trivialize it in any way. For those that are have the tendency, I highly recommend it and go through it and see it through to the end. There's also some truth that old Sen saying is, ⁓ you know, better not to start, but if you start, better to finish. Because there's no penalty for not waking up. You don't go to hell or anything and You know, ⁓ that which truly is does not judge anything in the manifest universe. There is no right or wrong, there is no good or bad. You're not a bad person if you don't want to be enlightened. Or I look around in the in the world and and see what see the the personages that have manifested that what I I I think of them as avatars, people who were just born to be exactly what they were. You know, like Muhammad Ali is an avatar of boxing. I would no more try to mix

speaker-0: Clapton is a Avatar.

speaker-1: Exact exactly. You know, and and you just don't go around saying, ⁓ you're doing the wrong thing. You should really want truth at all costs or something.

speaker-0: In fact, people used to show up at Clapton concerts with signs saying Clapton is God.

speaker-1: Right, and he and they're and they're right. As is the person who is holding the sign.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, so we all have our dharmas.

speaker-1: Right, and as God, as the source of all that is, I see truth and beauty in everything. Yeah. In all in all of the suffering, in every manifestation that there is, in ⁓ the greatest achievements and the and the greatest failures. ⁓ everything is ⁓ woven of the same cloth, and that cloth is emptiness.

speaker-0: Would it be metaphysical speculation to surmise that there will come a time in the course of evolution at which Muhammad Ali will be, you know, on the doorstep of awakening as you've been in this lifetime and, you know, be keenly interested in it? Or wouldn't wouldn't you go there in terms of, you know, speculating the way the universe works?

speaker-1: Yeah, I I think the idea of reincarnation is very attractive to the character, to an individual who thinks he's a separate self and wants to continue in some way as a separate self beyond death and still be the same separate self with a different body and hopefully a better one that, you know, achieves more greatness in some way. ⁓ but I I don't think that and here I can't speak with authority on this, but that which you truly are could care less about things like that. It's something that appeals to the human mind. ⁓ I'm miserable now, but I'll I'll be better later in the next life. Or I'm miserable now, but when I die, I'll go to heaven. And I'm not saying believe or disbelieve any of that. I'm just saying mistrust those things that are attractive to the mind.

speaker-0: Yeah. But it also may be the way the universe works. I I ran into a friend the other day down at the hospital and his wife was, you know, not doing too well and and we got to talking about death and you know what what happens after you die and so on. I said, I don't believe in reincarnation. And I I didn't want to get into a debate with him ⁓ because he was also glo gloating over the recent Republican victory and I had my feelings about that. But but you know, I a afterwards I thought, well, you know, I might have said to him if I wanted to get into a discussion, it doesn't really matter what we believe, does it? I mean there's a certain mechanism. mechanics to the way nature functions, which does just fine whether or not we understand or agree with it. I mean gravity did its thing long before Sir Isaac Newton came along.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I mean, that which you truly are could care less what you the your character believes. Has no sway whatsoever except over the experience of the character. Those beliefs will define your life and will limit you and will be obstacles to truth. You know, once we were talking about earlier, neither accept nor direct ⁓ or or reject, believe or disbelief, you know, hold to that line of indifference about all things and doubt everything. Believe nothing and doubt everything. And that way you leave yourself open most vulnerable to grace.

speaker-0: When you say believe nothing and doubt everything, do you believe do you disbelieve and doubt in equal measure with regard to all things, or do you find that, you know, certain things are higher on your credibility scale than others?

speaker-1: There is nothing about the manifest world that's true. So as soon as you start talking about the different levels of story and the different possibilities of belief and the different concept structures that we weigh against each other and try to decide which has more or less possibility of being true, they're all equally true and they're all equally untrue. And I I think it's a fool's errand to spend a whole lot of time trying to sift through it when really what you want to do is just cut the Gordian knot and go straight for it. Go full speed for the place where all questions disappear. Don't spend a lot of time trying to answer all these thousands of questions. It's one of the things that I the Eastern religions ⁓ and traditions, you know, I love them to death and I did that book and and ⁓ they have great power and they've produced a lot of ⁓ people that have have discovered that which they truly are. But also some aspects of them can be very complex and convoluted and I think just invite people to get lost in them. rather than ⁓ cut through it all. You know, and Christianity's the same way. I my most recent book that's coming out soon is called Christ's Sutras and it compiles everything Jesus ever said from all sources and puts them into sermons, topic of sermons, 42 sermons. When you get Christianity out of the way, one thing I like to say about why I did that was to rescue Christ's words from Christianity. You know, w when you get the dogma out of the way and the complexity out of the way and just go straight for it. You know, Christ has beautiful teachings about non duality and enlightenment, but the church does not. You know, you have to really, really dig for it to get through a whole lot of crap before you get to where the nuggets are. So in that book I've tried to, you know, put Christ's teachings on the table in a very readable and and ⁓ digestible way. And I think that's the same with all traditions. You know, they just get so caught up in trying to explain things and make concepts out of things and that's that's just not the way to go.

speaker-0: Yeah. What you just said reminds me of something that the Buddha was reputed to have said, which is that, you know, if you're shot with an arrow, you don't sit there thinking, I wonder what kind of wood this is. And are are these duck feathers or chicken feathers? You know? It's like you just want to get the arrow out.

speaker-1: Yeah, exactly.

speaker-0: I wanna avoid getting us back into speculation land, but as Richard Rose got Alzheimer's and deteriorated in his ability to function, did you get the sense that his essential realization was progressively clouded and lost, or do you think that realization once achieved is untouchable by whatever happens to the body?

speaker-1: Well, realization isn't achieved and it doesn't happen. I know, I know, yeah, I know. No, no, I I'm not I wasn't picking up on your words 'cause I I I do that all the time. I guess it's hard to Right. Yeah We're stuck with language and and literally talking in words and writing everything obfuscate and they don't elucidate, you know, the they get in the way. But no, it didn't have it doesn't have anything to do with any of that. It was a it was a real conundrum for me ⁓ when it first happened because

speaker-0: Yeah, I know. Not talk in English.

speaker-1: Obviously I wasn't awake in the time and I thought, you know, how can ⁓ an enlightened man who often said or others live to live, I live to think. So a man an enlightened man who said he lived to think loses his mind. What does this mean? You know, what's

speaker-0: happening in his subjective experience as his mind is being lost. You know, this this awakening thing that we make such a big fuss of, is that being lost or is there some is that somehow untouched ⁓ in his deepest level of experience, even though his ability to c communicate or express it might be degrading?

speaker-1: It's untouched in his deepest level of experience. Not his deepest level of experience, but that which underlies all experience is untouched by anything that happens in the mind or the body. It's that solid ground of being is unmoved, indifferent to everything that that transpires on the surface of it.

speaker-0: And it always has been. I mean so would you say perhaps that let's put it this way, is a physical vehicle needed ⁓ for awakening to occur, such as happened with you, but once it has occurred, and again occurred is a bad word, but once once awakening has has taken place is it sort of ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: rock solid regardless of what happens to the physical vehicle thereafter. Well ⁓ we're talking about liberation essentially. Is liberation something which once pardon the word is achieved, is never lost regardless of what happens in the relative sphere.

speaker-1: The short answer is yes. I I would ⁓ yes. I would go back to the beginning of what you said before I forget it and we said is a physical vehicle needed for awakening and I would say a physical vehicle is necessary for ignorance and sleep. So because of this physical vehicle, which was I mean there's probably great reasons for it. I mean I

speaker-0: Are you sure about that? Okay.

speaker-1: Like I say, I don't answer why questions or speculate about ⁓ concepts and metaphysics and things like that. But what the character is really, really good at is experience. You know, the divine, the solid ground of being, that which you truly are, has no qualities, no capacities, no senses, no nothing. It just is. And so it needs, let us put it in these kinds of words. It needs physical vehicles in order to experience, in order to create, to manifest and to experience and enjoy. Deborah, my wife, talks about, you know, that life as a satellite. We're satellites sending back data and experience to the divine. You know, that's what we do.

speaker-0: Sense organs of the infinite, as my friend likes to say.

speaker-1: Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, that's what we do and that's what we're good at. But in order to really take it seriously and send back really juicy, dramatic tidbits of data and experience, we have to be ignorant of the true game. We have to be ignorant of what we're doing. So that we're really so caught up in it that it's just it's everything what seems to be appearing to us and we're interacting in such a way that that gives the divine really juicy stories or whatever.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's kinda like a movie wouldn't be very much fun if you were predominantly aware of the whole time that ⁓ it's just a movie, I don't care. It's like you really want to get into it.

speaker-1: Right. Right, exactly. And I like the there was a movie ⁓ called The Game with Michael Douglas that I really enjoy and I think has a lot of spiritual implications, especially the part where as long as he thought it was a game, he was indifferent and unmoved by what was happening. But at some point that turned and his brother said, No, it's no longer a game. You know, these guys are really out to get us out to get you and everything, and everything turned, then it got really serious for It it turned out it was still a game, but he didn't know that at that point. And so anyway, long way around to talk about something which I may have already forgot what the question was. But ⁓ the

speaker-0: Yeah, about liberation and whether it matters what happens to the body once it's achieved. So yeah.

speaker-1: Right. So the body is necessary to be asleep and d and to experience and all that sort of thing. And so at that

speaker-0: The body is also necessary for this divine consciousness to be a living reality in Yeah. You know, and there's all kinds of interesting po you talk about bringing data back. I mean there's all kinds of interesting possibilities for exact for experience once awakening is established that just aren't there beforehand.

speaker-1: Exactly. And so we can talk about that and we can say, yeah, so you wake up and now you're of more as we were talking about earlier, you're of more use to the divine and we might say higher ways or more more powerful structures opened up to you or something. But it's still interacting within an illusory manifestation. It's still not the truth itself. And so again, I don't want to trivialize it in any way, but as an enlightened teacher in an illusory world is really no more elevated than in acting as a basketball player in in an illusory world. These are just things that happen within manifestation. And the divine loves it all.

speaker-0: Yeah, you're just serving a different function. Yeah. Interesting. It's fun to play with this stuff. I for me anyway. Yeah, no. I mean it's it's fun to ponder these kinds of questions.

speaker-1: No, absolutely. Yeah. And that's one of the things that I noticed about I I was talking about ⁓ that initial honeymoon period when I I didn't read, I was just enjoyed being and all that sort of thing and just kind of spaced through life. But then as life kind of the memento of Bart's life came back, that's what started happening on this level of ⁓ spiritual work was the mind wanted to get engaged and try to think things through about it and to explain things. I know words aren't gonna do it, but if I was gonna really find the best words I could, what would they be? And you know, what about this and what about that? And so the mind starts getting engaged in it. And that's that's what we're talking about now, the stuff that the mind can do when it gets engaged in it. But we're still removed from the thing itself. But it it's it's great stuff and I love doing it. When when I teach, ⁓ you know, and ever when Deborah and I give our retreats and seminars and stuff, I really find it really enjoyable. I'm just in the moment talking to people who are really engaged in it, who really want to talk about this stuff. We do a lot of guided self-inquiry in a group setting and really get into people's ⁓ personal paths and that sort of thing. And I find that it's just you know, everything is engaged. My mind is engaged, my body's engaged, whatever you might call us, the spiritual component is fully engaged. And there's a silence that ground of being that's always there comes to the fore and becomes part of the manifestation, ⁓ because of that particular environment, something about it, the dynamics of that ⁓ interaction calls the energy into the fore. And so, you know, I I love doing it, you know, and what's going on.

speaker-0: I know you mean. It gets you firing on all cylinders. And that's very gratifying. Well, boy, I've ⁓ I've got all kinds of notes here and I I marked all kinds of passages in your book with a yellow marker and we could probably easily spend the next two hours, you know, me throwing out passages and you talking about ⁓ and probably also saying, I don't know, it's like I don't do commentary, I just but

speaker-1: Exactly. Exactly.

speaker-0: We've covered a lot of good stuff, I think. And given people an opportunity to get to know you and ⁓ get to know what you're all about. And you so you were just alluding to retreats that you and Deborah teach. Is that mostly in the Raleigh area or you travel around or what? Well

speaker-1: It that's an evolving thing. We just got back from doing one in Ireland and you know, we kinda go back and forth on how active we wanna be and how much of our life we want this to be. And I we're sort of settling in on a schedule where we would do anywhere from four to six a year. ⁓ maybe some of ⁓ rally somewhere else.

speaker-0: So if somebody invites you to Alaska or Costa Rica or some place and they say we have a pretty good sized group together, you come down.

speaker-1: Exactly. That's that gets to the idea of saying yes when asked. You you just get a feeling that ⁓ this this is the divine asking and so I'm gonna say yes. You know, this is the one that we need to do.

speaker-0: Well, you may experience the bat gap bump. People say there's quite a bump sometimes.

speaker-1: You guys have ⁓ doing great work and ⁓ I'm really impressed with your operation and it's b it's wonderful talking to you.

speaker-0: Well it's like you were just saying, you know, when when I do this I feel like I'm firing on all cylinders and it's just a a lot of fun and w and very fulfilling and seems very meaningful and valuable and useful and we get great feedback from people and the impact that it has on some people's lives is quite remarkable sometimes.

speaker-1: Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, it's I know that, you know, when I was seeking I was just turning over every rock and ⁓ there wasn't this kind of ⁓ material available then. And ⁓ I I just can't imagine how rich it must be to ⁓ have all this available now with the internet and with you and ⁓ conscious T V and all the resources there are now. It's amazing.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's really fun to be part of it. So I guess ⁓ I'll make a few wrap up points then. Been speaking with Bart Marshall, as you probably know by now. Bart has a website which I'll be linking to from Batgap.com and if you go there you'll be able to see what he's got o to offer. There's a a lot of ⁓ audio recordings there. You mentioned the satsangs that you used to do and and you can download those ⁓ off of his site. I've been listening to some. There's a lot of good stuff in them and that's all free. You probably have some kind of email newsletter people can sign up for to be notified of things. Thank you.

speaker-1: I've never been very good about you know the ⁓ promotional part. The the website is way back level and out of date. And I actually a friend is creating a better website for us now. We'll probably move things over there and get a lot more organized about this. We say, Well, if we're gonna do it, we we might as well be organized and have a fairly decent web presence. So sort of in transition along those lines. But yeah, that for the last year or so that ⁓ we were teaching, we were doing the weekly meetings. Yeah, they they were recorded and those are available on the site. Good.

speaker-0: All right. So ⁓ what's that website?

speaker-1: Self inquiry dot org

speaker-0: Okay, so no hyphens or anything's self inquiry.org. And and again I'll be linking to that from Batgap dot com from your page and I'll be linking to this book on Amazon so people know what to do. So if this is the first time you've listened to one of these, there are over two hundred and sixty of them now at Batgap dot com, B A T G A P which is an acronym for Buddha at the gas pump. So go there and there's a p past interviews menu, you drop that down, there's a bunch of different ways they're organized and there's a future interviews menu. There's a donate button which ⁓ there's no charge for any of this obviously, but I wouldn't be able to t invest the time I do in it if people weren't donating. ⁓ s so if you feel inclined to do that please do. there is a place to sign up to be notified by email each time a new interview is posted. You'll see that menu. This is also available as an audio podcast so there's a link with each interview to the iTunes page where you can subscribe to that. There's a discussion group that crops up around each interview and there's a link to each interview's discussion area with each one. So you'll know what to do. Explore and you'll find all this. So thanks for listening or watching. Next week I believe it's Tom Campbell who wrote My Big Toe and I've get been getting a lot of requests to interview him. In fact, even after he was scheduled, people are st still saying, Interview Tom Campbell. I Yeah, we're I'm going to do it scheduled. So that should be interesting. So thanks for listening. See you next time.