speaker-0: Intuition was as normal a sense as sight and taste and hearing. It's just a refined survival instinct. There's nothing amazing about it. It's a s it's a sense that we have forgotten how to use. It's easy to reactivate it. What's hard is for people to believe that they can do it.

speaker-1: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is a ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. We're in our seventeenth season now. My beard was brown when I started this.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: If you're new to this, welcome. The entire collection is organized in various ways on batgap.com, which is a little bit easier to explore than the YouTube channel. So go there if you want to check out different ways of exploring the interviews. And you'll also notice if you're there that there's a PayPal button on every page. That's how we support this. If you appreciate it and feel like helping to support it, click on the PayPal button. My guest today is Karen Shanley. And Rather than read her bio, we're just gonna start talking and let the biographical information come out as we talk. So welcome Karen.

speaker-0: Thanks, Rick. Yeah. ⁓ so my biological information is similar to my biographical information. I might be a little atypical from most of you guests in that my beginning is not rooted in trauma. No dark night of the soul story to share. But I was given an incredible gimme, what I call a gimme when life just gives you gifts. And that is that I was what I say called born remembering. And what that means is I came in with the lights already on. I already knew that there was energy around everything and through everything and that there was this oneness. And even from my earliest memories, I knew that I was part of this oneness. Even at that age, understood there was no parts. It's just all this oneness. So I always had that knowing, which I think is a huge advantage, because I never had to go looking for it. And I never had to wrestle with the understanding of what is this and what does it mean. What I did have to wrestle with is I quickly realized I think my first memory of this at the age of four was why doesn't everybody else remember? Why can I know these things? And everybody else seems to be living in the same but kind of a parallel world. Another thing that was really fortunate was that I had a really good family. My parents treated me as though I was completely normal. Everybody in our family was something. My older brother was generous. My older sister was kind. I was the one who spoke to dead people and knew the future. And my younger brother was funny. So we all had our I mean it was just normal. That's who we were in the family. And it was a great gift to me because I was allowed to have this experience without somebody telling me I was wrong. It didn't exist. You need to have your head examined. It was, okay, you're just seeing more than we are. That's okay. It wasn't really until I got into school that I realized that maybe I wasn't as normal as they were convinced me. But the big change came when I was eleven. We moved into a 350 year old house. on top of an aquifer and it had the h horse hair ⁓ and plaster walls. So it was like being inside a huge orgon box.

speaker-1: Three hundred and fifty years old, did you say?

speaker-0: Sixteen eighty five. Yep, one of the oldest houses in the country. In Connecticut. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it was quite a trip because I always had a sense of what other people were feeling, but I wasn't having like massive experiences. It was just sort of this undercurrent of I was aware of I was aware. We moved here and all of a sudden it's like, wow, I'm getting caught in

speaker-1: In New York State? Wow, I didn't realize they went back that far.

speaker-0: time warps in multiple dimensions. I'm having daily experiences. So it was a lot.

speaker-1: So were the souls of all the inhabitants of that house kinda hanging around?

speaker-0: Yeah. And it got to be a lot. It's not like there was a lot of people around telling me this is what's happening to you. This is why it's happening to you. This is how you handle it. You're only a kid, but you'll be okay just hang in there. So eventually my father's friend actually had gone to see a psychic and he told my father, You should send her to talk to this guy, he can help her. Yeah, we're talking very regular conservative people here. So I went to this person and he was really talented and he very much helped me understand what was happening to me and gave me some tools to deal with it. So it became more manageable. But at the same time, also realizing that life is not what it seems and the the script that I was given that were all given at birth wasn't really working for me. The whole cultural thing of Who you are, what your story is, what your religion is, where you fit into society, what you should value, became very clear to me that was not what it was for me. And one of the first things that took a hit in my life, I was raised a strict Catholic, again, 11 years old, big ear. Told my father, I'm not going to church anymore, which as a devout Catholic wasn't something he really wanted to hear. And I'm thinking, ⁓ boy, I'm really important now. And his reaction really floored me. Obviously. kind of came out of the left field for him and he said, Okay, so tell me why. So we had a really long conversation about my views, why it wasn't working for me. The obvious one for an eleven year old is how can somebody be punished for eternity for something they do wrong? Just nope, not that's not a religion I want to belong to, not a God I can get behind. And then he blew my mind at the end of it. He said, Okay, you don't have to go anymore. And it was an amazing gift to give me that it was okay to question authority. It was okay to question his authority. And it was okay to think deeply about things. And and that that I should think deeply. So that was sort of the beginning of me asking big life questions. It's also the time of my what I call my first awakening experience. I was sitting on my bed reading a book and all of a sudden the room disappears and I Flying through space at a velocity that's indescribable. It's so fast. I'm like, ⁓ my god, I'm gonna just blow apart. And I did blow apart into what I call the nothing place. And I called it that because there was nothing there, but it was everything. And obviously to use language to describe something nondual is always kind of a fool's errand. But it was what I later came to learn is this idea of enlightenment that this feeling of peace and bliss and love Even though I wasn't there, there was all knowing, there was all understanding, there was all joy, there was all peace. And I can't describe it because there's nothing there to describe. When I came out of that, I remember being so depressed and sad. It was almost like a death experience. Like I want to stay there. And so that really set me on a path of I need to understand what this is. I need to understand what this no thing thing is and ⁓ it was also the time where what I call my inner teacher showed up. I've been a compulsive writer since I could write and I would start writing in my journal and I would hear this voice talk to me. And by this time I'm so used to weird things happening. I don't even think anything about it. Okay, great. Here's you know another voice. But what was interesting about it to me was there was nothing distinguishable about it. No gender, no age, no accent. It wasn't like I could say Here's Buddha, here's Jesus, here's nothing, no identifiable quality. And yet it had this profound wisdom. So it started communicating and I and I would just tran write down what it was saying. And then I would say, What about this? And it would answer. And we'd go on and what about this? And it would answer. And so I have literally shelves full of notebooks full of those conversations from over the years, because it's always stayed with me since then. And I think of it as the ground of consciousness, having had the know thing place thing, which to me is enlightenment, awakening, whatever you want call it. And then having access to this profound wisdom and knowing, I understood that that wasn't it. That wasn't permanent enlightenment. I, you know, I visited the country, but I didn't have permanent residence yet. I was, you know, something I still got to work on. From there, it became something that I thought, okay. If this is something that I can share with other people ⁓ so that they can begin having this experience, I'm interested in doing that. So in my twenties, I realized this was gonna be my walk. This is what I wanted to do. We were talking about my start with transcendental meditation. And by this time people kind of knew what my deal was. So all these people would come to me and want to know stuff and I would tell them stuff. And they would tell more people and they would want to come and know stuff. And so I it wound up being my profession. I wound up being an intuitive consultant for twenty-five years and booked eighteen months out in advance. You know, did the whole fifteen minutes of fame cable TV radio show. And I got to a point where I was driving down to one of my offices. I had an office in New York City, and I remember stopping the car and saying to myself, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. So I called my secretary and said, cancel all my appointments. I'm done. And I haven't done a private session since then. And the catalyst for me was really seeing that I wasn't helping people. They were using me as a cheat sheet. Everybody wants a quick answer without having to do the work. All it was doing was making people dependent on me. They weren't learning how to do this for themselves. It put them in a weird waiting mode. They were, you know, waiting for whatever predictions I might have made. I don't see time as a clock, I see it as distance. So for me, when I see something, it's like and you know this 'cause you're kind of in the plains, it's like being in the plains driving up to the Grand Canyon. Tell me how far it is before you're gonna get there. ⁓ a couple hours and you're still driving two days later. So that's often how it is with time for me. It's a spatial thing, it's not a clock thing. And then eventually they'd call back and if they you know, if they're happy, an another appointment. If they're not happy, I would get the plan. It was like, nah, this is not that's not what I want for myself. And I took that time to really go inward and spent a lot of time in deep study and practice. And I found that silence was something that I craved intensely. And that actually helped expand a lot of my understanding of things. And as life would have it, I had an Indian friend who we would have these deep conversations and ⁓ he'd tell me about his guru and I would be thinking, I need to go to India. How am I gonna get him to let me meet his guru? I know I have a a standing appointment with this guy. I gotta get over there. And it took a while 'cause it wasn't something I d wasn't gonna say to him, I'm coming to India. When can you make room for me? Although now I realize I could have done that. So eventually he invited me to go on a grand tour of India with him. For anybody who knows Indians, this is normal for them. I have never met such generous people in my whole life. He wouldn't let me pay for a thing. So I'm thinking, this is great. India's amazing, but I really want to get to Mount Abu, which is where his guru was. So we finally get there. And as soon as I walk in the room, I have this electric zap. It took me my whole life to get here, and you're what I've been waiting for. Still get emotional about it. And it was like, okay, we're off to the races. I'm here. This is great. We're gonna get to do all of these things. So the first question he asked me is, What do you want? Not what do you need? What brings you here? All the little nice things. So I'm very serious. This is a Shiva guy. Very intense. What do you want? And I'm thinking, I felt like I was a dear on the headlights. So I do the usual, you know, I want what everybody wants. I want the world to be a better place. I want to be a better person in it. So in his broken English, he basically says, you're dismissed. And it's like, ⁓ my God, I've come all this way. I've spent my whole life to meet this man. I was devastated. How can you dismiss me? And I truly was heartbroken. And so he says to a monk, tell her to come back tomorrow with the right answers. So I spent the whole night figuring out what's he looking for? The answer. What is the answer? And you're gonna think it's obvious when I tell you. But for me it was like, what am I supposed to want? What is everybody supposed to want? And I'd fill up this notebook with what I thought I was supposed to want. Well, that wasn't it. Rip it out, crumble it. By the morning, the whole floor was a rug of crumbled papers. But I had my answer. So I go back to meet him. What do you want? I want enlightenment. I want permanent enlightenment. He said, Good, we can begin. So he sends me up to the mountain. It's like, okay, there's a no breather here. It's like, okay, you passed that gauntlet. Go up to the top of the mountain in the temple. I'm giving really the brief notes of this because we're very involved. I want you to put your hands on the Shivalan in the temple, and then I want you to go into my cave because he lived in a cave, and I want you to light the two ⁓ meditation candles and the incense. And I Mar's thinking, first of all, nobody has ever been allowed to light these candles except him. He was so shocked he actually called down to the bottom of the mountain to Make sure Guji really wanted me to do this. So I do that. And, you know, I put my hands on the lingam, and there's this crazy experience. Okay, not unusual for me, but really intense. Go into the cave, ⁓ sit down to meditate. Everybody's getting settled, close around us. I see this thing start to move around the side of the cave. And I have a cobra sitting in front of my face this far away with its hood extended. And I thought, I guess I've come to India to die. There was no fear. And anybody who's had those kind of intense experiences knows how time slows. And so just me and this cobra face to face and s and I'm I almost feel hypnotized by it. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. So close I could count the scales on its head. And then somebody came in the cave, there's a noise, and it's gone. And thinking, okay, so All in a day's work, go back down to the mountain, think that we're good, we're done for the day. Nope, come back. Here's test number two. When you put your hands on the lingam, what happened? Told them what happened. Now I have no experience with Hinduism. I n actually

speaker-1: Did happen. You said it was some kind of fire out thing, but you gonna tell us?

speaker-0: Yeah. I'd no knowledge of Hinduism, so I can't say there was n no preconceived ideas. Come to find out later this is a big deal. A column of energy shot up into the sky and down through the center of the earth as far as ⁓ I didn't know that. Cause this is, you know, normal what a good says. So he says, What did it say? I'm thinking that's really interesting because everything talks to me. I've never had somebody ask me what did it say? The assumption that it said something to me, which it it did. So I told him that. So and then that I can't share. So then he talks about the cave. And I tell him ⁓ about the cobra. And he says, Did it have five heads or one? And I'm thinking, There's a f five-headed cobra. The one I saw only had one head. Only had one head. And he said, ⁓ that's my cobra. Okay, good. And he said, What did it say to you? And I spent several years with him from that point on and this was a conversation that came in the the next visit because at the time I was so taken aback. I wasn't processing anything. I was just stopped in time. So when I went back the next time he said, What did the cobra say to you? It's like, Okay, you remembered that. It's been months, and that's an interesting place to start. No, hello, how are you? Any of that. So I told him it gave me strength and took away my fear. And Umang was there and Umg's laughing. He says, Yeah, it scared the fear right out of you. I said, It absolutely did. I have been fearless ever since. He said, Good. Gave me rude rock speeds, which apparently most of the time you gotta wait seven years to get that. And he just said, Okay, you have what it takes. Let's get started. And that began my relationship with him. And what was amazing about it is that He is from the Juna Akara sect, which is a a tantra shaiva sect, and it's a really intense sect. It's not particularly well known. And again, didn't know any of this. And it didn't matter. It's not something that ever came up. And I never would have thought to ask him, ⁓ by the way, what lineage are you? He would have laughed me right out of the cape. Like you're a white girl. Don't be asking about lineages. But he was not a teacher in the in the sense. He didn't have an ashram. He wasn't teaching on a regular basis. Also, I'm I know it's karmic. There was just a bond between the two of us. And we were just picking up where we left off. And so I yeah. I had this glorious experience of spending hours upon hours alone with this man, teaching through direct transmission and through what I'll call mystical experiences. He would

speaker-1: In your past life.

speaker-0: look at me like the cobra did and I would sort of just know what he wanted me to do and then he'd send me up the mountain and I I'm telling, I got so fit. I've never been so fit in my whole life. Here's another experience. I go back down and he'd tell me to show him what happened. I and it so this went on for years.

speaker-1: Really? You were actually there for years or you mean in installments, ⁓ back and forth?

speaker-0: It wasn't I didn't live there for several years. I made twelve trips over six years and I'd stay quite a while when I was there, but just the gift of getting to spend all that time alone with them. I didn't know enough at the time and I'm glad I didn't know enough at the time that any of this was unusual or how lucky I was. I mean I knew I was lucky, but I didn't know how lucky. I know now. So for me, it was like I'm going to see this being that I love with all my heart that just fills me with so much joy. I I get to learn, I get to have these experiences, I get to be fully seen by another being. And and I think that's one of the things for people who have unusual abilities is there can be a kind of loneliness that comes with it because it's not you know, not everybody else is having that experience. He could do better and then some. no matter what I could come up with, you know, his life experiences. And I'm actually working on a documentary about him now. Just an incredible, incredible life. He actually was the firstborn son of the king of Nepal. This was at the turn of the twentieth century. They gave him away to a monk who ran the Pashapati, I always say this wrong. Thank you. To protect him because they were afraid

speaker-1: Pashupani Mat.

speaker-0: for his life. So that's how he started his path. And then he wound up in ⁓ Mount Abu, which is in Rajasthan in northern India, lived in a cave in silence for 17 years, came down, he was told he had a saintist who would visit him, finally said, Okay, you're done, go down. It's time for you to share what you know. So he he went from where his cave was at the top of the mountain, lower down the top of the mountain. On the way down, he was attacked by a tiger and he killed it with his bare hands. This is a not a big guy. If he's five feet and a hundred pounds soaking wet, not a big guy. But he'd be happy to show you the scars on his legs and his hands and to him I'm thinking, ⁓ my god, what a terrible thing. And he's like he didn't say these words, but in effect This was the greatest gift because for a Shiva guy having a tiger skin to sit on was monumental and part of where he sees his power emanating from. And ⁓ you know, there's another funny story where he sent me up the mountain and I knew it had something to do with a tiger. And I'm thinking to go G don't send me a tiger because it will wing. I will not be sitting on a tiger skin. It will be sitting on me. And of course, I'm here, so yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ Yeah.

speaker-0: But just incredible story after story of his life experiences, who he was, what he knew, what his abilities were, how he looked at life. He considered me eventually, you know, he would tell everybody because as you know, still India's a fairly patriarchal society. And ⁓ there was a lot of people who were not happy that he was spending this time with me. He would just tell them, She's my daughter, go away. And I came to feel that way, that he was my adopted father. And not adopted. He's my spiritual father. And this is also something I didn't know. Nobody told me how to have a guru. It's not part of Western culture. So I didn't know there's etiquette to this. I'm just being me, thinking like in the West, if you have a teacher, they want you to ask questions. They want you to engage in all of this. And so that was one of the things that he really kind of quickly put me in my place is. That's kind of rude. You kinda don't do that. So I remember one night, one evening we were sitting out looking out over the plains of Rajasthan, and by this time I could speak pidgin Hindi and he was pretty good at Pidgin English and I was complaining to him that, you know, he had it easier on his mountaintop and that I want to come and live on the mountaintop. I find the world I live in really overwhelming. He said, Well, too bad for you. The mountaintop is not your deal this lifetime. And I remember just feeling crushed. And so he talked to me about mountain dwellers, what he called mountain dwellers and plains dwellers, that and it's not that one is better than the other. It's not hierarchical. They're just different. And that's what I was saying to him is you get to do one thing. Everybody supports you. I know your life isn't easy. I know you have challenges, but you have nothing else to do. You get to do this one job. And I'm jealous. ⁓ you know, I'm down in the plains with bombs going off everywhere, trying to remember and keep whatever threads of awareness I have. And he said, But that is also valuable, you know, that's what you came to do this time. He explained that the challenge is not being a plains dweller. It's that we attach suffering to being a planes dweller. I attach it's hard being a plains dweller. And he says it's only hard if you attach suffering to it. It's just another experience. And so it was a real reset for me in thinking about my life and what I'm doing here. And that I had spent a really intense period of time thinking I want to be permanently in Mount Abu, which was not realistic. And then making peace with that. That's not my journey. But I found it interesting because a lot of what we kind of shared, talked, transmitted was this idea of one of the things that he hoped I would be able to do for him is that he felt that a lot of people from the West would go over there and they would want to ha have some experience or be given something or taught something and that they didn't have the cultural background or the language to fully grasp what he was trying to share. You know, in India, spirituality is just baked in, you know, temples everywhere, it's part of the you know, their morning ⁓ meditation and their whole life. And that's not the case in the West, in that there when you're dealing with non dual language for a Westerner, not only are you trying to understand a really difficult concept, you're trying to understand it through another culture's language, which complicates it even further. So he had a way of simplifying everything and how he would explain it. And one of the things that he kept saying to me is that there's a prejudice against people who access spirituality through intuition. These are his words. That's silliness. The doorway doesn't matter. What matters is that you walk through it and that you keep walking. He felt that one of what he wanted me to do was help people remember their intuition to wake up so that they could use that. as a doorway because only through direct experience can you really know. You know, trying to understand language for something so abstract, not a lot of people are going to make that leap. But if you give somebody that direct experience, which is really easy to do, it doesn't take long. I've never had anybody not be able to do it. Then they say, ⁓ the light bulb goes up. I understand now. That doesn't mean they get instant permanent enlightenment. I still don't have instant permanent enlightenment. But it gives them a way in to grasp the language so that they can then begin to go deeper and explore those philosophies and those belief structures and continue to have those aha experiences. So that's pretty much my work these days is is writing and teaching and helping people to have these kinds of experiences. That's me in a nutshell. In a very good nutshell.

speaker-1: Yeah, the coconut.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: So I'm I'm curious about this born awake thing. I want to talk more about that. Did you realize when you came out of the womb that you were awake or did you remember when you were eleven that you had been born awake? So we'll get into that. Do you have any past life memories? About the inner teacher and the the notion of dependency. I I find that a lot of my most popular interviews are with channelers, psychics, and healers. And and they also like I don't even like to interview the Neo Advaita people, but sometimes I'm encouraged to, but you know, who those are the people who say you're already enlightened, you don't need to do practices, you know, you just realize you're already enlightened and go on with your life and there is no life because there is no you and yada yada. I think they like that 'cause it's sort of like

speaker-0: If you're not enlightened, that's just gobbledygook.

speaker-1: Right. Kind of McDonald's version of enlightenment. Another point I want to discuss with you is this guy was a hundred and twenty years old, and ⁓ that's pretty darn old. I wouldn't mind getting that old myself. We'll see how it goes. But I wonder if that's verifiable or whatever, although that's kind of a minor point. You mentioned that I'm not fully enlightened, and I'm glad to hear that because I don't think there is any such thing. We can talk about that. The mountains plains thing, the idea of Dharma. You probably know that Gita verse, because one can perform at one's own dharma, though lesser in merit, is better than the dharma of another. You actually evolve more quickly in your own dharma than you would if you tried to be a ⁓ mountain dwelling monk or something like that. And then I'm c I'm just a little bit curious about your husband. Is he into all this stuff or does ⁓ he just kinda give you plenty of slack like your parents did? You wanna like pick any one of those?

speaker-0: I came in remembering. I never not remember remembering.

speaker-1: But when you're like a newborn, day one, you don't have language, you you're kind of still really out there. Do you actually recollect being a newborn and thinking to yourself, Hey, here I am and I'm o I'm s I'm already awake?

speaker-0: There is some part of me that has impressions that far back. And I think it's that part of me that is connected to the all that is. So now as a baby, I can't say as soon as I popped out of the room, ⁓ I remember. But I have an awareness that it has always been present. I don't know anything different.

speaker-1: You know my friend Harry Alto I've interviewed three times? He says a similar thing. He says around the age of four he is is his earliest memories, but there was never a time when he wasn't awake. He was on some meditation course in his early twenties and he's and everybody was going on about bliss and all that stuff and he said, What is this? Am I experiencing that? And he he had an experience of losing it for fifteen minutes. And then, ⁓ my God, is this how people live all the time? And then he snapped out of it and he's been witnessing sleep for sixty years. hasn't lost consciousness all that time. That kind of thing. So sometimes, you know, people come in really already cooked.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think so. My deal is that everybody's born remembering, but culture takes it away from us. We are taught out of it. We are taught to lose the connection.

speaker-1: I think you even said in something I was reviewing that everyone is born enlightened and that kind of begs the question of what enl what we mean by enlightenment because by definition you're not supposed to get born if you're enlightened.

speaker-0: Enlightenment is all there is and we are within the all that is. And again, I it's it's so hard to use language because I'm using dual language to speak about non dual stuff. The way I talk about it is what perspective are we talking from it? Are we talking about it from the God perspective, the all that is perspective? Are we talking about it from I'm a human being, me mine and I am in a separate body? Those conversations are entirely different and they pretty much don't really meet. So from that, all that is perspective, and this is where the neo advice drive people crazy is everybody's enlightened. That's true. Again, I'm going to say from that God perspective, don't get hung up, please people don't get hung up in the word God. From that all that is perspective, it's true. But it doesn't mean anything here. It's like people asking me, well, do you believe in free will and destiny? It's like, which side are you asking me from? From the God perspective, there's no free will. It's a mathematical equation, it's running. It's there. I could not know your future if there was free will. You know, now the people come back at me that, well, you don't know everything, thank God. But from the human perspective, all we can do is act as though we have free will. It doesn't matter whether we do or we don't. We're gonna act as though we do.

speaker-1: No, if you feel like you do, then you're obligated to exercise it. Absolutely. You know, otherwise it can become a a weird thing where you do whatever you want and claim that it's destiny or something.

speaker-0: Well and that's another thing, the whole thing about ethics and spirituality. And people say, Well, then why do you do anything that you do? Why aren't you robbing banks or hurting people? And the answer is because I experience reality as them. I'm hurting myself. So why would I do that? That's stupid. So it becomes self governing. Spirituality from the sense of wholeness rather than I'm gonna get what I can get and the heck with you

speaker-1: This thing you're saying about on some level we're already enlightened. Yeah, on some level there's no universe. I mean, you read the Ashtavakra Gita or the Manduka Upanishad, they're all talking like that. But you know, go ahead and test that by stepping in front of a bus or something.

speaker-0: Absolutely. In this space it doesn't make sense to have that conversation. We are not consciously living that reality. So somebody could say that's true, great. But how is that applicable here? Which is to your point it's not.

speaker-1: You learn TM when you're college. One of Marishi's favorite phrases was knowledge is different in different states of consciousness. And similarly, reality is different at different levels of creation. We live in a multidimensional universe and he he would often say, speaking of tigers, he would often say you you can't shoot the tiger of the waking state with the gun of the dream state or vice versa.

speaker-0: Right. Yeah, and I I I completely agree with that. And that's why these conversations are always challenging, because we're flipping back and forth between n dual and non dual and I'm guilty of that all the time. And then somebody say, Well, okay, what side of your mouth are you talking out of now? 'Cause it's a different answer.

speaker-1: There's a nice saying in India that when the mangoes are ripe the branches bend down so that people can easily pick them. So, you know, you meet people at the level that is relevant to their experience.

speaker-0: Yeah, I feel like I'm teaching in a one room schoolhouse and I've gotta find a way to reach everybody in a way that is useful to them.

speaker-1: Yep. One more analogy and then we'll I'll talk more about the analogy of a man standing on a mountaintop, shouting about the a description of what he sees on the mountaintop. It might be inspiring to people who haven't climbed the mountain yet, but it's not very useful because it doesn't provide any instructions for getting to where he's standing.

speaker-0: Right. That's my feeling. If I can't show you how to do it, I'm wasting time talking about it. Yeah.

speaker-1: Do you have any clear memories of past lives?

speaker-0: Lots, yeah.

speaker-1: Which are probably relevant to what you've been doing in this life, right?

speaker-0: A lot of them are. A of them have nothing to do with that. What I find interesting is often in traveling to places I'll remember I used to live there. So a lot of best life memories pop up through travel. Some of ⁓ I just know because the thread has run through so many recent lives. It's just part of my waking consciousness.

speaker-1: Yeah. And ⁓ we talked about dependency relying on psychics or healers or channelers or whatever versus more self sufficiency. Do you impart some kind of practice that a person can do on a regular basis to continue to progress?

speaker-0: There are lots of really available, accessible, simple ways that people can do all of this. It's almost so simple that people say, ⁓ that can't be it. That's too simple.

speaker-1: Like give us some for instances.

speaker-0: Sit outside for an hour every day. Because our senses are so clogged with modern noise and distraction, we don't hear what we're hearing, we don't see what we're seeing, we don't smell what we're smelling, and so on. So just sitting outside without any distraction, because you're gonna get bored, you're gonna start noticing things, you're gonna start looking around, you're gonna notice ⁓ what birds are flying where, you're gonna notice weather patterns. One of the easiest senses to regain is the ability to tell weather without needing a weatherman. All of those kinds of things. Yeah. So for example, a a real simple one that right now I'm looking at a window to help people begin to see energy patterns, to begin to see that this energy is in and through around everything, all of us, all the time, that to begin moving towards this feeling of oneness, even if the oneness in the beginning is intellectual.

speaker-1: Quote Bob Dylan.

speaker-0: is if you look out over if you can see a ⁓ you know, a tree line and you sort of tilt your head back a little bit and squint your eyes and look over just over the top of the ridge of the tree lines, it won't take long before you'll see like a light around the tops of the trees, the energy of the trees. And then you'll start seeing how that energy moves. The more you get used to seeing it, you can almost say it's like seeing oars, but often with trees there's not color the way there is around people. Everything has that energy field around it and it is visible. You can see it with your physical eyes. This is not some special gift. It's just training your eyes to do that.

speaker-1: What's the benefit of doing that?

speaker-0: Because then you'll see everything's connected. We see a tree and we think it's a tree, but now we see it's connected to this tree, connected this and so on. That there's no end to where that energy connects. It's everywhere. And so it's just a mental shift of we think we're separate but we're really not. There's a glue that holds everything together and is in and through everything. From there it's a matter of sitting down again outside, pick an object. I remember the first time this happened to me, I don't know why, but it was a blade of grass. I was just sort of sitting outside meditating and all of a sudden I was photosynthesis because grass is photosynthesis. So by focusing on something on wanting to experience what that is by seeing the energy around it and connecting those energies. And I know this sounds woo-woo, but truly in classes I can have people having this experience in fifteen minutes with no previous experience with this. You will feel yourself being drawn into it. People say, well, that's just your imagination. It may start off as imagination. It may start off as you thinking, I'm a piece of grass and this is what I think a piece of grass would be like. But then when you have that full blown experience, there's no question about what that experience is. And any shift out of the physical body helps loosen the grip on this is all there is reality. And I feel like that's important for people to begin understanding the non dual perspective of this is all a movie screen.

speaker-1: And you teach classes online and maybe sometimes in person, like in retreats or something?

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, I have ⁓ both. Yeah.

speaker-1: Good, we can talk about that more later. How do you define the word enlightenment? If you even like to use that word. I tend to avoid it myself. But ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓

speaker-1: Like I presume this hundred and twenty year old guy you would say, ⁓ yeah, he was definitely enlightened. He was yeah. Right. And so what was it about him, aside from the things you've told us, that convinced you of that? I mean, I often quote Saint Teresa as having said that it appears that God himself is on the journey. So yeah, I feel like everybody is a work in progress, no matter how highly evolved they are, because there's always higher strata in this creation. Let me put it this way, and this will give you something to to work from. And that is do you think there's a danger in assuming one is enlightened in some kind of final way, both to oneself and to one's students if one has students?

speaker-0: If somebody is fully enlightened, they have no issue. They're not full of questions. They're not guessing. It is their full experience. They're an embodiment of what enlightenment is. And again, I hate all these words because they don't do it justice. If it's coming from an ego place and somebody says, I'm enlightened because I had an enlightenment experience, to me it's important to differentiate those two things. Lots of people can have awakening experiences or enlightenment experiences. And it can come through long preparation, through meditation and practices and so on. It can be a spontaneous event. What typically happens is that people are going to fall back out of them because it's a top heavy spiritual place. They don't have the deep roots yet to completely have it permanently. I know you like Shlami Sarva Priananda. And if he's not claiming enlightenment yet, I don't think anybody deserves to claim it's

speaker-1: I I mean I've heard him say it I wouldn't tell you if I were, you know, he he just won't say it.

speaker-0: You know, then that's something that I find interesting too, is that enlightened people protect that. Very few are willing to say, Yep, over here, cue up, let me show you how to get there. Very few people have come with that task to say, Yes, I'm claiming this and I'm gonna share this wealth of knowledge around Krishna and you know, the people that are considered enlightened. I just feel like there's a lot of ego stuff around it that gets In the way it's not a competition. I know there's a deep hunger. I know serious spiritual people, what else do they want? That's it. But I feel like the more grasping towards it, the more we chase it away. And I lost the original question.

speaker-1: Well we're playing with what enlightenment actually is. I can think of a number of famous gurus who don't try to disavow anyone of the notion that they are enlightened. They project that image and there's a whole facade and very often when you get to know more about them you realise that mm there's kind of like the wizard of Oz there's a guy behind the curtain that's different from the great Oz on the screen. That's one of the things I was alluding to with the question about the dangers of proclaiming oneself to be in enlightened or trying to project that aura and it can also be very dangerous for the students because they relinquish their own discernment, b assuming that this guy r or woman or whatever knows the truth and if he's saying something weird, I better doubt myself before I doubt him.

speaker-0: That's one of the criticisms about intuition too is that anything where somebody has experiences and from those experiences decide that they have it all or know it all without having the proper foundation and it's coming from a place of ego has to do more harm than not because the impetus for sharing I'm just gonna say it, I'm not gonna think my words is wrong. I mean that's the wrong reason to

speaker-1: Strong motivation, yeah.

speaker-0: Thank you. Wrong motivation. But if somebody has a hungry ego, it's a huge motivation. So they're gonna do everything they can to protect that and perpetuate that and create a closed system so that y you need me, don't listen to anybody else. I'm the only one who can save you and all the things that that type of personality might get snagged into.

speaker-1: Yeah, and you wonder whether they even doubt themselves. They they they get so into the whole trip that ⁓ you know, what do they think in their quiet moments? ⁓ you know, when they're doing things very often behind the scenes that are so at odds with the public persona.

speaker-0: I'm gonna say it's one of two things. Either they're fully delusional and they believe it, or in their quiet moments they know, I hope I don't get caught.

speaker-1: Yeah. Maybe sometimes some of each. Anyway, it's w it's one of those head scratchers that I've been working on for

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. I mean that my definition of a in everybody has to decide for themselves, a good teacher. And do they have integrity? Are they living their beliefs? Do you feel stronger after spending time in their presence? Are they encouraging you to keep autonomy? And this was one of the things with Gucci. He would never tell you to stay, but he would also never tell you to go. You're here, you're here, get what you want, go when you want. He wasn't into I you know, I'm gonna do something for you. It was the flow. And I think that's a good teacher. They're not they're not trying to collect students.

speaker-1: When you ⁓ well, you still I'm sure have your intuition that you've had all your life, do you ever have doubts or is it always clear as a bell?

speaker-0: If it's something that affects a loved one or myself personally, I always doubt it because then it's mixed with my own personal hopes and wants and wishes. And it it depends. There's some times where it drops out of the sky in my head with a bang and then it's like, ⁓ okay, that one's set. And other times it's kinda n not as strong a signal. It's like, ⁓ okay, maybe that one's not either I don't fully see it yet or it isn't fully set in this reality yet. But you know, and people ask me that and I've I've learned over the years I can't even say things casually to my friends because they take everything I say as serious. Like I'm I'm making a prediction. So I try to say nothing anymore. But you know, people say, you know, make a prediction and I say I'll make you two predictions you can take to the bank right now. One, good things will happen. Two, bad things will happen. We can't live our lives based on what's coming down the pike. You know, are are you know, are we in this crazy time moment in time where it looks really dark? Absolutely. Is it game over? Who knows? Or I'm not gonna say. But the point is, I try to live my life as though this moment is my last moment. There is no next. And for me it's presence, being in the present. It and I find if I can As much as I can do that, I'm a happier, h happier, healthier person. When I was younger I was ⁓ didn't have the maturity yet. And I would want to try to control things and I would want to try to control my future and and all it did was make me worry and anxious. And now I don't anymore. Whatever shows up, great. If it doesn't show up, okay. Something else will show up. There's always something here in this present. And that's what I'm interested in because that gives me the most information. That's where My senses are awake, that's where, you know, reality is happening. So I you know I I have students and clients from years ago still begging me to do readings and I I just won't because for me it's like at some point you gotta take the training wheels off the bike, guys. You gotta go live your life. This is hurting you. All you're doing is it's creating a waiting. You're waiting for something to happen rather than living your life as though it's full of possibilities. ⁓ and I feel like that's damaging.

speaker-1: Yeah. Do you tend to see life as like a play of the divine and that there's this this vast intelligence orchestrating everything and so you can just kind of like you say, live in the moment and just watch with fascination as things unfold and you play your part in the in this grand play.

speaker-0: You asked me about my husband and that's how he lives his life. Yeah, it's amazing. And we actually met, I was talking at a conference and he was a reporter ⁓ covering the conference and you know, he drew the straw for my ⁓ session. So he is not typical in that he said the reason why I married him is because he's the only person who treats me like I'm normal and doesn't care that I have these wild and crazy experiences.

speaker-1: Well, that's pretty cool.

speaker-0: He loves hearing about him. He's very interested. He's deeply spiritual in his own way. And he is very much somebody who's always had the ability to live in the present. That's something I've struggled with on and off throughout my life because again, one of the things that is true of most intuitive people, if somebody has a really active intuition, I'm gonna say it's because there's some part of them that doesn't feel safe in their environment and they're on hyper red alert. They have a need to know. Because what triggers intuition is the need to know. Yeah, sometimes it drops out of the sky on your head and you know. But more often than not, there's a hypervigilance that goes along with it because that person is a warrior and they're trying to you know

speaker-1: You have an active intuition. Is this are you describing yourself here? ⁓ when you were younger, okay. Even now though, I pr you probably have an active intuition and

speaker-0: When I was younger, yeah. I do. But it's it's just there now. It's just it's just there. It's not something I'm looking for. It's not something that I have a need to know. And I always laugh. People Well, you can turn it off. It's like, Great, show me how. I haven't tried my whole life. Nothing's worked so far. But I you know, I do have a personality and I know you have dogs. ⁓ you know, we have dogs here. We have my husband is a King Charles Cavalier and I'm an Australian Shepherd. My job is to protect everybody and keep everybody safe. So that part when I was younger was the part that was needed to know, plan ahead, see, you know, around corners and all that kind of stuff.

speaker-1: Okay. Regarding your intuition, I know you don't want to dwell on that too much psychic stuff, but just out of curiosity, do you ever or have you ever had situations where you're like going through a supermarket checkout line and you think, Ooh, this lady has cancer and she doesn't know it or she's gonna have a car accident or something like that and then what do you do with that? Now nothing, just you it's not your place to intervene.

speaker-0: Nothing. I'm trying to think, did I ever say something to a stranger?

speaker-1: Yeah, like buckle your seatbelt or you know whatever.

speaker-0: I did say something once and I lied about it. I was a mother with a child that had an illness and I knew what the illness was. So I said, ⁓ don't mind me, but you know, I'm a MT and ⁓ I just noticed this about your kid. You might want to take them to a doctor and get ⁓ checked out. ⁓ I think that's the only time I've done it.

speaker-1: Well that was a good lie to tell. You know, 'cause you can't you can't say I'm a psychic and I saw this

speaker-0: Actually am I am a trained DMT. That wasn't why I was telling But yeah, no, I couldn't live if I felt it was my responsibility to tell everybody.

speaker-1: There you go. Yeah. My last ⁓ interview guest was a guy named Jonathan Ashford and he had had a profound near death experience and came back completely changed and all kinds of intuitive gifts and he he you know, he says he often foresees things like the LA wildfires, he knew those were gonna happen and other things and he's reluctant to talk about most of ⁓ but he he you know, he kinda sees things that might happen to the society in general over the next year or years. Do you see that stuff like that? And if so, I presume you're not you don't want to talk about it either. ⁓ But if you did it would be cool.

speaker-0: No. I I think all it w would do is, you know, it goes back to the the two predictions, good things will happen and bad things will happen. I what I would say to people is And again, I'm gonna say this comes from my EMT training is be prepared. Have some reserved food, have some ⁓ basic ⁓ first aid, have some water, have a plan. If anything were to happen, where would you go? If you want family to meet up, where would you meet up? And hope you never need it.

speaker-1: Yeah. I was with a spiritual teacher one time and people were talking about the phase transition that society might be facing in the coming years and th they were it was getting a little scary and someone said, Well, how can we survive this? And he said, Hold on to the self.

speaker-0: Yeah. And you know what if you don't if you don't survive it, you don't

speaker-1: Yeah, you'll be s you'll be fine wherever you're and wherever you end up.

speaker-0: Yeah, you get to go to anything all that is. It's not a bad movie press. It's and I guess that's the other thing that I can thank Uji for is he completely removed the fear of death from me. ⁓ and not that I ever had a great fear of it, but it's completely gone because whatever we're going to ⁓ is a is a great place. And and I've had near death experience. So I I know aside from what he said, it it's a great and again I'm gonna use dual language. It's a great Place. P I don't know. Yeah, people are afraid of dying 'cause they're afraid of the unknown. But that's it. They're really afraid of the unknown and losing what's here. Yeah.

speaker-1: One thing you said about your guru is that your association with him completely shattered your assumptions about what spirituality actually is. What had you thought it is and then how what do you now think it is compared with that because of your interactions with him?

speaker-0: This might s sound a little funny. I I just need to think about a minute. Or I'll just say it and then you can help me clean up the mess after. ⁓ I thought it was more intellectual and more hierarchical. And maybe that comes from my Catholic background is nobody has you know y you need an intermediary that you can't get there on your own. You can't talk who do you think you are?

speaker-1: 'Cause they drill that into in the Catholic Church, yeah, right.

speaker-0: Right. And so I I felt more ⁓ it it took some of my agency away where I felt like I didn't have a right or I hadn't paid my dues. Or ⁓ you know, why did I get to have these experiences? I have, I haven't done anything for them. And so it became that sort of Christian guilt thing. And Gucci knocked that right out of me too. It's you know, you know, that's ridiculous. ⁓ there are many reasons why somebody is ready or not ready. And it it's not a judgment. It's, you know, we get into this measurement of who's better, who's higher, who's all of those things. And you know, that's that's the ego thing. And his thing was, you know, it's like, you know, we we tell ourselves stories about who we are and we get attached to that story. And we string all these stories together on a beaded necklace and here, this is who I am. And his feeling is no cut the Necklace, let the beads fall, don't pick up again. Be in the experience. It's not about who you are, it's about what is the experience. So for me, he took the hierarchy out of it. Obviously, I had deep respect for him. But we sat together, and this is the other thing. I mean, you know, ⁓ th the this is not a guy who typically hangs out with women ⁓ in private for a long period of time. So that was really not. typical for him. So he broke so many rules of his sect by what he did with me. That in itself was a teaching of it th that those are guardrails. Yeah, you want to pay attention to ⁓ But if something else comes along that's outside of that guardrail and that's there for you, then that's what you do. And that's what he did. He held nothing back from me. So I don't know if I answered the question or not.

speaker-1: No, I think he did. Of course he had the advantage of being a hundred and twenty years old and and not thirty. So

speaker-0: Yeah, I actually tried to find his age because that was my thought. I as much as I felt an immediate connection to him, India loves to tell a good story. So it's like I I, you know, need to do some of my own checking here to see what's what and There you can't find anything. There is no history. Yeah, and Umang says it's because his mother destroyed all the records. They would leave no records because if there were any records left somebody would find them and they would find Guaji and that would be the end of Guaji. So there are no records.

speaker-1: That's good, I mean. 'Cause he would have been the successor to the throne or something, right? His fa f and so they didn't want him around. Okay. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, so they ⁓ they took him off the map. But according to him, that's from the horse's mouth, these are his own words. And he has memories of his mother coming to the temple to see him when he was little and she would always give him a coin. And he asked his I I'm trying to think I can't think of his guru's name. But he would ask his guru who that woman was, why would she keep coming to see him? And he told him, That's your mother.

speaker-1: One of your themes is why Eastern spirituality is often a struggle for Westerners. ⁓ the cultural mismatch, you know, the pitfalls of importing practices wholesale. And maybe we can consider that and what a more effective bridge between cultures might be. Go ahead. I I could elaborate on the question, but I think you got it.

speaker-0: Yeah, I do. And and I I'm as guilty of this as anybody who's deeply interested in the spiritual is as a westerner I knew that the East knows. And so I thought, Well, I'm just gonna jump to the front of the line because they know. So I'm ⁓ that's where I'm gonna go and you know, the and then it will be bestowed upon me. And then I got there and it was and I am, you know, I've done a lot of travelling in my life, so it's not like it and It was shocking per se, but there were significant cultural differences that I never would have guessed if I hadn't spent all that time that I spent there. And this is something where pe we read spiritual books, ⁓ Eastern spiritual books, whether it's Buddhism Vedanta or some other form, Zen. And often those books I mean, those books are written by highly knowledgeable people, often sharing this knowledge with other highly knowledgeable people. They're like the PhD monks or whatever. As though that we're gonna be able to digest and understand that level of depth of their knowledge without training. You know, they they get taken from A to Z and then and we're trying to jump in like element of P and think that we're we're gonna have enough to fully grasp what they're talking about. So ⁓ I I know from my students who who will use me as a translator and say I read this book and he's saying this and I don't understand it. And some of it is I try not to use Hindi or ⁓ Sanskrit language when I speak because I know I can know what that word means, but it's not gonna mean anything to somebody who doesn't have that connection. So I wanna translate into English To the best of my understanding, what that means, and use English frameworks. You know, so it's it's like somebody who's having an intuitive experience comes to me and they feel, wow, I'm having all these experiences, and does that mean I'm special? And my answer is think of it as though you found a lost sock under your bed. Would you be thinking I found my very special sock. I'm a very special person for having a very special sock. Or would you think I found the match for that other single? I can wear this again. So it's not about being special, it's about functionality. I found it again. Good, let's keep going. So it has more to do with that kind of practicality and groundedness. It's this idea that again, not letting ego get wrapped into up in it that somehow makes me special when It's an ability that we're all born with, but we are again, it's taught out of us. Culture teaches it out of us. Religion teaches us out of us. You know, we go back a few hundred years, several hundred years, at the beginning of time, intuition was as normal a sense as ⁓ sight and taste and hearing. It's just a refined survival instinct. There's nothing amazing about it. It's a sense that we have forgotten how to use. It's easy to reactivate it. What's hard is for people to believe that they can do it.

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean there's a certain cultural norm in terms of the common level of people's abilities. I mean another thing is telepathy. There might be cultures in the future on other planets which are totally telepathic. You evolve out of even having vocal cords 'cause you don't need them anymore.

speaker-0: Yeah, and I I think at the beginning of civilization that would have been more true, that ability to have telepathic communication.

speaker-1: They say that, the Kalahari Bushmen and people can like telepathically communicate with each other across distances and know where the animals are and that kind of thing.

speaker-0: Absolutely. So I think it's just something that we have accepted that we don't have that ability. And it's like, okay, who told you that? Why do you think you don't have that ability? Have have you ever tried to use it? But there's so much misunderstanding about it that it gets in the way, that it's seen as weird or bad or you know, only special people can do it.

speaker-1: Back when you and I learned to meditate in the seventies, even learning to meditate was a weird thing. Or practicing yoga or whatever, you know.

speaker-0: Yeah, I was not admitting to my friends that I was ⁓ meditating. It was not cool yet.

speaker-1: And that's become kind of a cultural norm. A question came in from someone here, Prochy Dixit in Torrance, California. Do you feel people that are open and sensitive to the super information system, she calls it, are looked at with doubtful eyes. I am Indian born and brought up first twenty two years in India, yet I'm afraid to open up the discussion in public. This is just what we're talking about right now.

speaker-0: Yeah, there is still a stigma in this country. I completely understand why she would think twice about opening up. This is what's great about the internet and podcasts like yours is we all get to kind of find each other. We know we're coming from all over the world who are having shared experiences that are quote unquote not normal in the larger culture. And yet we know we're not crazy. So we come together and find other like minded people and hopefully this gives her a sense of she's okay, there's nothing wrong with her. The question is, what does she want to do with that information? Is she comfortable with that information?

speaker-1: Yeah. She lives in Torrance, California. I'm sure there are plenty of kindred spirits out there. Yeah. Yeah, you can go to the Hindu temple or go to meditation groups and you find your tribe. That's it, your tribe. Yeah. Okay. We're kinda talking about these spiritual concepts and how the Indian and Buddhist cultures are kinda like the Inuit, you know, with their thirty words for snow. They have all these fine nuanced delineations between different qualities of consciousness and all they have specific words for all those things and they've been talking about them for five thousand years. Here in the West it's really rather primitive by comparison. I mean any words, Sanskrit words or English words, if you're going to use ⁓ you have to make sure that the people who you're interacting with have the same definition as you do, otherwise you're just talking past each other.

speaker-0: That's a great analogy.

speaker-1: So words like enlightenment and so on. If you're gonna use it, you really have to define it. There are lots of handy words in the Indian lexicon, Brahman and Atman and Purusha and all these different things, but you really have to define ⁓ So maybe some of those words have corollaries in the English language or maybe you know, these days we use a lot of ⁓ anyway, like karma or even guru, your golf guru and so on.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: My friend Phil Goldberg wrote a cool book called American Veda about the influx of Indian wisdom into Western culture over the course of the past several centuries actually.

speaker-0: Yeah. And I think how fortunate for us that they've done this. And I also know that the beginning path for a lot of people can be confusing and overwhelming. And all I can say is if you stick with it and as you're saying, Rick, you know, find groups, find your tribe where you can have these conversations. My feeling is I feel like we're all on this walk together. We're on all on this walk through time. And some parts are steeper and rockier than others and some are great. And wherever you are, my feeling is I don't know it all. Well, you know, I know what my experiences are. I try to share as openly and honestly as accurately as I can. So I'm gonna stick a hand out to the person behind me and say, Here, come on, come on up, go ahead of me. ⁓ and the person up ahead's gonna stick a hand back and pull that person up ahead again. So I feel like we're all trying to find our way through this walk through time.

speaker-1: Yep, you're kind of echoing round us here, we're all walking each other home.

speaker-0: Yeah, I love that.

speaker-1: It is a lifelong endeavor. think it's important for people to understand that. You're not gonna take some ayahuasca journey this weekend and and be done with it. And in fact if you take ⁓ every weekend you're gonna be regressing. But I think of it as not even a lifelong journey, a life's long you know, multiple life long journey. But that's not a problem. It's not like there's some kind of goal that you're gonna be miserable until you reach. The goal is all along the path.

speaker-0: That because you've been spending your life

speaker-1: Doing that.

speaker-0: But for somebody starting out who is still very much in that pain state, who the motivator is to remove the pain, not bec not an acceptance of this is a lifetime's journey. Their catalyst has an urgency that maybe yours and mine doesn't have anymore in the same way. And so for that person, that's where it gets tricky and where there's more of a danger of

speaker-1: Did have, you know.

speaker-0: grasping of this looks shiny and new or this looks good or this teacher is promising me that and there isn't the the experience yet to discern to know what's gonna help you and maybe what's gonna hurt you. And so that's where I would say somewhat go go by feelings if you've done a lot of work and you're clear on your feelings, but t to to really find those people, whether it's through the internet or wherever, who they're doing good work. They've been around forever. There there's no bad reviews about ⁓ there's no scandals. Those are the people that you want to be following and and

speaker-1: Yeah, that's really important. Yeah. There's some nice quotes about this. I mean, Jesus said, Seek and you shall find, knock on the door shall be opened and the Gita says no effort is lost and no obstacle exists. Even a little of this dharma removes great fear. So you take a step and gen and if it's if it's a step in the right direction, there's probably going to be some positive feedback. So take another step, you know? And

speaker-0: I'm sure you know the story of the Chinese farmer.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. You wanna tell it?

speaker-0: Yeah. So ⁓ there's a Chinese farmer and his horse runs off and the neighbors say What bad luck and he says, Perhaps. ⁓ you know, every version is a little bit different. And then the next day the horse comes back with a herd and the people say, ⁓ what good luck and he says, Perhaps ⁓ and then the ⁓ son rides one of the horses and falls and breaks his arm and the neighbors say Terrible love. Army comes and the son doesn't have to go to war because he's got a broken arm. Great love. So I I look at life this way, perhaps. It's all leading, it's all is and it's all teaching us, and we're growing from all of it. And if we can get away from this is good or this is bad, or you know, this terrible thing happened to me. People who get attached to all of their pain and suffering, ⁓ or people who define themselves by you know, certain cultural what are norms today that really Is not the way either. It all just is. So th for a person starting out who is feeling impatient, is in pain, is grasping, ⁓ vulnerable. To that person I say, take three deep breaths, do your research, talk to other people. Don't dive in head first. ⁓ you could be diving in the shallow end and crack your skull open. So ⁓ it because it is such a broad subject. And it's like, you know, going to the supermarket. It's all there and it's you know, a lot of it's good, but you know, some of it's spoiled. So just do your due diligence before you you jump in.

speaker-1: Yeah. It's it's a good warning. You probably heard about the Association for Spiritual Integrity that I'm helped to establish. And it was established out of the motivation to help people culture a greater sense of discernment regarding spiritual teachers, whether they meet certain criteria, you know, and because a lot of people just don't have that ⁓

speaker-0: I love that word. Yeah.

speaker-1: They they haven't been around the block enough times and you know, they might see a a certain type of behavior in a teacher and think, Well, I don't know about that. Maybe that's normal and but th there are certain things ⁓ many teachers have done and are doing that aren't normal and and they should be a red flag. I mean you should hightail out of there if you see those things.

speaker-0: Absolutely. And and that's also a question I get a lot is do I need a teacher to reach enlightenment? And ⁓ the answer to quote Sarapriananda is yes and no. No, you can have an enlightenment experience without a teacher. And yes, you need a teacher for full enlightenment. That there's whether that teacher is a book, a person you meet on the road, ⁓ a formal teacher, in order to have stabilized enlightenment. My belief is it requires a teacher. ⁓ just having experiences is great, but to make it a permanent way of being, I believe, requires a teacher.

speaker-1: Yeah. I don't know if that's an absolute, maybe it is

speaker-0: Yeah, it may not be. You know, but I think if in the in the way I mean it, in that you know, teacher not in the traditional sense that it could be anything. But i there's something that happens that shows that student, that person something that opens up the floodgates.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. It could also be a regular practice. There's a verse in the Yoga Sutras about the importance of long sustained regular practice in order to really reach this stuff ⁓ in a in an in an abiding way. Yeah. And and again, I mean I I get emails from people saying, Well, I I went to this workshop or I I you know, had this insight and it was great, but it didn't last. And you know, so it's like like anything. I mean, by being a a great violinist or tennis player or Or anything, y you you gotta stick to it and it it rewires your neurophysiology, you know, neuroplasticity and becomes second nature after a while.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, and then that's the other thing with people, ⁓ the story I'm not I know you're also familiar with is if you want to heat hit water you gotta dig a deep well. Mm-hmm. Go shopping around everywhere. ⁓ let me try a little bit of this. I'll Zen is the flavor of this week and something else is the flavor next week. You'll get a lot of interesting knowledge, but in terms of spiritual depth, if you're if you're serious about moving towards ⁓ awakening. You gotta dig a deep well.

speaker-1: Yeah. And my variation on that story is sometimes you could use a number of tools to dig one well. You know, because you can get locked into something that you know you might be enriched by having a little bit more variety.

speaker-0: Yes, very true. Well, it's like this saying, you know, if you're ⁓ if you're stuck, if you're so focused on something that you just you get stuck and you can't move past that if you're working on trying to solve a problem. Sometimes going away from the problem gives all of a sudden you spontaneously get the answer. Sometimes, you know, visiting another way can open up this, as you say, tool can give you the tool to unlock something deeper where you are. ⁓ I think where The difference for me is if somebody's gonna be a water bug, you're gonna be you know, you'll have lots of interesting knowledge, but in terms of going deep, skimming across the surface is and I don't feel is enough to really get there.

speaker-1: Yeah. I know you won't you don't like Sanskrit terms much, but something I learned from Swami Sarapyananda, which is traditional advaita knowledge, is that there are three main components of on the spiritual path. There's Shravana, Manana, and Nidyas Nididasana. And Shravana is do you know these? You could talk about this if you n you know the terms. Otherwise I can do it.

speaker-0: Link at the moment.

speaker-1: Okay, so Shravana is like just like listening to this interview right now. People are doing Shravana, they're hearing some interesting ideas. Manana is like really pondering those ideas over time, you know, not just kind of you know, you know you don't get it in one flash. Just really dwelling and contemplating what it really means. Not only our conversation, but ⁓ you know, a profound book, the Bible or the Upanishads or whatever. Then Nididhyasana is Doing some kind of practice that makes those ideas experiential and not just conceptual.

speaker-0: Yeah. And I that's I very much also think those three components are are needed up to really set it in the body so it becomes experiential. And and also setting up a a lifestyle that supports all of this so that you're not off ⁓ I can't I'm not gonna gonna come up with an example 'cause I don't wanna be insulting

speaker-1: You're not out at the dis disco every night until midnight.

speaker-0: Yeah, you're not out at that's a new she's not out of the bit far me that I'm coming along with

speaker-1: Maybe disco is probably a nineties thing, I don't know, but whatever they do these days.

speaker-0: Dating is but I I wanna go back to something that you said about people doing ayahuasca or or drugs. I guess ketamine is the big thing now and ⁓ DMT and all of these other things. ⁓ and I get the attraction to them and I n I do I can't say from experience, but they I you know, when when I was in college back when drugs were a thing, ⁓ I had an experience where people would give me drugs and I didn't know they were giving me drugs and they're waiting for me to start tripping out and I'm like, Okay and I'm not tripping out and there's they're losing their minds.

speaker-1: Kinda like name Caroli Baba.

speaker-0: Yeah, and that's what it was for me, is this is my normal reality. This I you know, it doesn't look any different to me. So it's not doing anything to me. The point is that I think there everybody's looking for a way to speed up the experience and I I that's where I worry that the speed speed it up experience doesn't gives you the top heavy spirituality, but it doesn't give you the deep roots. And so I I don't know that there's a shortcut. that I could say to somebody, do this and you're set I think in terms of drugs or some experience, I think it has to be a lifetime of

speaker-1: Yeah. Alan Watts regarding drugs said when when you get the message hang up the phone. And ⁓ Carlos Castaneda's teacher ⁓ you know, h describ well, if he even existed, ⁓ Castaneda may have just fabricated the whole stories, but you know, it's like, okay, I'm gonna give you this to just sort of break a hole in the wall, but after but long term they'll do damage. But I I have a friend actually who I spoke with the other day who used to behave very

speaker-0: Exactly.

speaker-1: unpleasantly. I I don't want to go into specifics, but he was obviously had an alcohol problem. And ⁓ and at a certain point he changed so much, Irene said, Wow, what happened to him? He he's like a night and day difference. So I had a conversation with him the other day and he said, you know, yeah, I was drinking all day long. and then I did a guided high dose psilocybin trip completely changed me. Well you know, I I just snapped right out of that behavior. And I don't do that anymore. So sometimes it can be real a really you know, useful tool like that. But obviously every weekend I shouldn't bad idea.

speaker-0: Generalizations, but yes, ⁓ I do know that having those type of experiences, whether drug induced or otherwise, can change our behavior, help us realize something we didn't know before, where we begin living and behaving differently. So it can. But I think in terms of thinking, I'm I'm thinking of one person in particular who's all over YouTube proclaiming them the values of DMT. It's like okay, great, you're having all these experiences and you're saying b blah blah, but w you know, w what is it really doing for you other than the phenomenological experience? Right. So that's where I think issue is for somebody who ⁓ does ⁓ a mushrooms or something where they they have ⁓ an un it unlocks something in them that gives them a deeper spiritual understanding and that informs their life. Wow, good on you. ⁓ but somebody is just in it for the thrill and excitement, I think it's eventually going to catch up with them.

speaker-1: Yep, yep. It and it it can damage the subtle body according to some authorities. And yeah. There was a story about Papaji coming to Ramana Maharshi and cla you know, t telling Maharshi Ramana Maharshi about well, you know, he was playing with Krishna and dancing and with Krishna and stuff and Ramana Maharshi said, Is he here now? so I I'm I'm full of Gita verses but there's one that the unreal has no being, the the real never ceases to be. Yeah. So intermittent experiences c can be fun, but they aren't the ultimate enchilada.

speaker-0: think it's if I if I think about what what is the draw to that is that people want something to break them out of the normal reality because it they they don't know how else to get out of it. And so it can seem ⁓ adventure seeking, but I I really feel like there's a spiritual desperation under it. I know there's got to be something more than this. I know there's something more than this. I just don't know what it is. And having a breakthrough experience can give them proof, can give them peace of mind of okay, this isn't all there is. And I think for some people that's incredibly important.

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean that's what I got out of drugs. If I got one valuable thing out of it during my s you know, when I was seventeen, eighteen years old, it was there's a lot more to the world than meets the eye, you know. And you really have to change your perspective rather than just trying to change the world and you know, that kinda got me going.

speaker-0: You know, and that's something too, you're bringing up teenage years, because I feel like we have there's moments throughout our lives where we're given opportunities to again remember or wake up. And I feel like our our teenage years, I feel like we grew up knowing something's missing, that we're being sold a bill of goods that isn't really it. Culture wants us to want these things, but there's some part of us that's saying, Yeah, n I don't think so. And I think those teenage years, ⁓ the so called Rebellion years is really the first spiritual awakening that we're given. There's something more, I don't know what it is, I know it's not this. And so the seeking begins. And if it for those who are going to wind up realizing that the seeking is about a spiritual seeking, it's not about experiences or whatever, that's where the seed gets planted. And it's what I call the seeker of seed. Once you Get that secret seed, you're done for. You are you can never not be on this spiritual path. It takes on a life of its own.

speaker-1: It's true, you can't forget it. You get Yeah. Which is good. Yeah. Yeah. I was just on this point about doing ayahuasca or something rather to h get a kick in the pants. You know, it can be it can serve that purpose. It can also be perhaps a mixed blessing, a little risky. But an another thing, I've I've talked to a number of people who went on some spiritual r retreat where they were just meditating more and had a big breakthrough which never faded again. They you know, it was like that's what they that was their breakthrough thing. And those c but then on the other hand, those can also be dangerous. They a lot of times people get thrown into some Vipassana retreat where they're going from zero to fourteen hours of meditation a day and they they have psychotic breaks. So all this stuff has to be kind of like taken with a safety first attitude.

speaker-0: Yeah, definitely. What's interesting too, and I I know this from listening to many of your guests, ⁓ and from my students, when somebody has an experience like that, it doesn't matter how many years ago, when you see them talking about it, they are right back there living that experience in that moment. There's an intensity and crispness about it that never fades. And that's the thing about breakthrough experiences. ⁓ The the thing that's so amazing is there is this hyper reality, there is this other reality, there is this expanded reality, and once you touch that, it leaves a permanent imprint on you.

speaker-1: Yeah, you can never forget it. Well you can, but it's gonna poke its little head up again sooner or later. You were saying earlier I said, What about some kind of practice? And you said, Go sit outside and look at the trees for an hour. I can I could hear half the audience saying, I don't have time to go sit and look at the trees for an hour. You know, what should I do that could fit into my routine?

speaker-0: What can fit in w I I find that interesting, ⁓ the resistance ⁓ and the ⁓ i I don't have time for that. How much time do you spend scrolling on your phone? How much time do you w spend watching TV? How much time do you spend on the internet? So I I feel that it it's it's about the choices we're willing to make and how important it is. And I think some of it is to I know this I I think people are so used to going from their box houses to their box cars to their box offices to their box phones that people don't know what to do when they're not in a box anymore. It feels almost there could be almost a weird kind of anxiety because it doesn't feel normal or right because we're so out of tune with nature. And it's not like I'm tiptoeing through the tulips every day or running barefoot, you know, everywhere. But I I feel that it's important. It's vitally important. I'm not going to underplay it to me. It is vitally important or clearing senses. Are there other ways to do it? Yeah, you can spend a ton of time in meditation. You could go to retreats and have somebody create that structure for you.

speaker-1: Yeah. Even twenty minutes of meditation. Yeah, it's it yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, it doesn't have to be extreme. But I think from a more practical level, you know, do what you're doing while you're doing it. When you're eating, eat. When you're sleeping, sleep, don't have your food ⁓ phone with you. When you're ⁓ whatever practice you're doing, do that without multitasking. I think if we could get away from multitasking that would be

speaker-1: I am so guilty. I I'm always listening to something while I wash the dishes or whatever.

speaker-0: Yeah. I also know you're a big person for for listening to stuff when you're out walking in the woods.

speaker-1: Yeah, I do that for like an hour and a half every morning listening to stuff or talking to people.

speaker-0: Is that good enough? Yeah, that's good enough because even though you're listening, you're taking something in, you're also seeing nature. You're also breathing in fresh air. You're also experiencing, you know, all the benefits that that nature and the vibration of standing on the earth

speaker-1: Getting a good workout.

speaker-0: I I mean I I've gotten you don't have to be extreme. I sometimes I speak as though extreme is the only way to do it. I and I think for go at the pace that works for you. Yeah. You know what works what what I'm willing to do may not be what somebody else feels able to do as you said, you know, give me something that I could do. And ⁓ it can be as simple as a a simple ⁓ breath meditation. It could be ⁓ spend ⁓ you know, r read positive. material, ⁓ read a chapter in a book a day, take a class, do anything that surrounds your life energy with this thing that you are saying is important to you.

speaker-1: Yeah, that to which you give your attention grows stronger in your life. I think it might have been Gandhi or it might have been somebody else who said, I knew I had a really busy day coming up today, so I meditated two hours this morning instead of one hour.

speaker-0: Yeah. I'm a firm believer in that. That the more grasp you can be before you start the day, ⁓ the easier nothing you won't the chances of being rattled are much smaller.

speaker-1: Yep. If you're gonna shoot an arrow, you gotta pull it back on the bow first before letting go. Don't just

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and other thing is too is to hang out with other like minded people. I think it's really valuable to have that support. You know, I I married my best friend who completely supports what I do and and my kids and all the rest of it. So I have that support system and it's huge. So if you don't have that, seek it out, that really matters.

speaker-1: Yeah. It is really important. That it and it actually says that in all the scriptures. It says, you know, you gotta f hang out with spiritual people if you wanna be a spiritual person. You know.

speaker-0: Yeah. And the other thing about I what I love about hanging out with spiritual people is if you don't feel like talking, they're not gonna misinterpret silence as you're mad at them or you don't like them. They're gonna say, ⁓ she doesn't feel like talking today. So there's the there's a a base a baseline understanding where you can fully be yourself and not feel like you have to explain yourself all the time and that's that's a relief too.

speaker-1: Yeah. And of course this doesn't mean that you shouldn't go hang out with your family at Thanksgiving or whatever and even though they're not i in the least bit interested in this stuff. You know, you can when in Rome do as the Romans or whatever.

speaker-0: Exactly. It's you can make a stand internally and I think sometimes that's important. But you don't have to beat other people over the head with it.

speaker-1: Yeah. This is all pretty common sense stuff we're saying here, but a lot of times people get tripped up by not doing the things we're saying. ⁓ it's worth repeating maybe.

speaker-0: ⁓ one w one in and and this is something that's come up more recently and my students says along these same lines that ⁓ I just wanted to touch on is the whole ⁓ transgender thing and a feeling of it's hard to find that community and how does that tie into spirituality and does it and I have a lot of parents who are reaching out to me concerned about their kids and and ⁓ all the people who are going through that process and they know in themselves what they need to do and then again that our our culture is a is not really set up to allow that. ⁓ I I really do see it as the beginning of I think mo and let me I'd be interested to know if you feel this way too. I feel most spiritual people don't identify as a gender. They're just a person. They don't there's not necessarily a s strong I'm a he or I'm a she. It's more of I'm a person. And I I feel that on that spiritual level, the deeper into spirituality we go, mm I I'm not gonna say it's gender neutralizing, it's just a gender non issue. It just n it doesn't matter. And I don't mean that in a way at all that is dismissing ⁓ dismissive. But I feel that tr transgender some transgender people are going through that experience, maybe without the language for it, that it's not so much about ⁓ Sex sexuality, yes, it is about spiritually progressing to a point where you have a physical body, but that's not your identity. And so whatever ⁓ gender that body is, is not your identity. And if it's not your identity, if you don't have that spiritual underpinning, then what is your identity? Because our culture says, Well, you're either this or you're that and I I feel that that ⁓ this spiritual war can help those people some of those people understand that progression towards the body is an it.

speaker-1: Yeah. My experience is kind of multidimensional. I feel like more predominantly and fundamentally I'm not a body of any gender. you know, and when this body dies, i it it's not gonna be the end to ⁓ w ⁓ my true nature. And ⁓ you know, as a body, I I have a male body, ⁓ and I don't feel like this opening into universal consciousness makes me sort of gender fluid, although it might might do for some people. But it's it's a very different orientation than just being locked into the into the feeling or experience that this is me, you know, and it has a certain gender and and it has a certain lifespan and when it dies that's the end of me. I mean, that's a very scary way to live your life.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's how most of the world lives. Yeah. So ⁓ yeah. So I I just I feel that's something that happens naturally on ⁓ someone on a spiritual path. Is and and that's ⁓ my point too, or maybe ⁓ differ a little bit from some practices, is I don't feel that you necessarily want to use deprivation because it's a rebound effect with

speaker-1: You mean like celibacy or what kind of deprivation?

speaker-0: That it's much ⁓ kinder and more permanent to grow through. I don't need this anymore. I've experienced, I'm done with it, I don't need it. I move on. So when I was younger it was my identity well no, that's not true. I never identified with my my body was always just t t carrying my consciousness around. But an awareness at that time that n that was my gender and the longer I move forward it's like you. just not I don't identify at all with it on any level. So I've I feel that when we are given the time and the kindness to grow through rather than to give up, you know, giving up sometimes can accelerate the process. But for the average person to say, I'm just when I'm done with this, I'm gonna be done with it. I don't need to fight it. I don't need to ⁓ reject it. I can just let myself go through it.

speaker-1: Yeah. Well, you know, the Buddha talked about the middle way, and I'm not a expert in Buddhism, but my understanding of that is to be to live a balanced life, not ⁓ go to any ⁓ any either extreme and and he he tried that, you know, before he mellowed out and became the Buddha. But ⁓ if you deprive yourself of something very beyond your the natural ability to do so, you're probably gonna have a rubber band effect where you snap back in the other direction. I've seen it happen many times. I went through whole fasting phase at one point, thinking that that was gonna purify my body quickly and I s had a lot of, you know, real strong food urges for a long time when I finished that phase. And ⁓ on the other hand, indulging in things without any restraint whatsoever ca can be very unhealthy and can just deepen impressions and attachments and desires. So I think there's in fact that again a Gita verse it says this yoga is not for him who eats too much or too little, sleeps too much or too little, is too active or too inactive. It's like balance, you know, balance in life.

speaker-0: Yeah, and I ⁓ I completely agree with that. I think what I'm speaking to more is the person who beats himself up because they can't do something yet. Right. So they it becomes a form of self punishment. It's like that defeats the purpose. It's it's just let it go and you know, try again now. And if it comes up again, try again now again. ⁓ so more of just can we all just be a little kinder to ourselves. Be a good thing.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. S shifting gears slightly here, ⁓ in my notes I have something here about the it's all an illusion, let it go problem and why it doesn't land for most Westerners. And I bring that up because I do run into it fairly often of people are again getting caught up in Neo Advaita and dismissing the world as illusory and actually losing interest in in things, becoming ⁓ nihilistic and perhaps losing interest in family and employment and so on because they've drilled it into their heads that the world is an illusion. There's a lady I interviewed a few years ago named Jessica Eve, w w who kind of focuses on this topic and her I think her website is called The Glorious Beaufand. ⁓ So is there anything you would like to c comment about that?

speaker-0: Yeah, I'm a both ander too.

speaker-1: Uh-huh.

speaker-0: I I think This is again where big concepts don't translate. ⁓ yes, this is all an illusion from the God perspective. From the human perspective, this is my reality. I live this every day. How you know, it's like how how can you see the screen when the movie's playing? So this is where I feel there's a real challenge for ⁓ people on this side of the pond is I I'm in the middle of movie. So you can tell me all you want about the screen. I'm not seeing any screen. I hear you use the word screen. I know you know what you mean, but it it it doesn't compute. So I feel there's gotta be a way to break it down, and and they do break it down really well. So it's it's you know, I'm generalizing here of course. But the whole idea of ⁓ trying to get a Western mind to really wrap its brain around that is ⁓ is kind of mild to Torture, I think.

speaker-1: Yeah. I think it might be there's I think there's a couple ways of dealing with this concept of things are an illusion. Maybe the monk's way is, yeah, the world is totally illusion and you want to be a monk, so just don't get interested in it at all, stay in your cave, if that's your dharma, if that's y if that's how you're wired. But for the for the majority of us, I think a useful way of applying that concept is that there's a lot more to the world than meets the eye. Yeah. So as we see it now It is kind of a illusion 'cause we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. We're only seeing a superficial representation of what's actually going on. And like you were saying with the trees and seeing the aura of the trees and all, you could expand your perceptual capabilities to see a much richer, fuller, more divine reality of what appears to be mund the mundane world.

speaker-0: Guess that's what it is for me because I feel like if you can give somebody an experience rather than more words, that helps them get it faster. Yeah. But in terms of a body experience, I have no idea what you're talking about. So by giving somebody a direct experience, now I know. It's like your friend with the ashwagandha. ⁓ now I know. So there's ⁓ the I'm always looking for how do I give somebody a direct experience? And then there's no need for more words because they get it.

speaker-1: Yeah. I I think that's the key to it all. It comes back to the same theme we've touched upon a number of times is you gotta find something that will give you a direct experience. And hopefully an abiding one. Not again, not just a flash in the pan that Yeah. And and a and in a healthy way, 'cause it you know, if you take psychedelics every weekend or something, you're gonna have an experience, but it's going in the long run you're going to set yourself back, I think.

speaker-0: I agree. And I think what's key that we haven't really touched on yet is along with the spiritual path, the best favor we can do for ourselves is to get mentally healthy. Yeah. Because then we're not dealing with ego, then we're not dealing with, you know, other stuck places and when we haven't experienced we're more likely to put it in the right context and rather than use it to define us, we use it as a a a way of greater and deeper understanding. So along with spiritual growth, we gotta really ⁓ clean up our emotional and and mental selves to be able to sustain anything over time.

speaker-1: Yeah. And on this point I s I I sometimes ponder, are nutty people attracted to spirituality or does spirituality make you nutty? So maybe it's a little bit of both, because ⁓ it can destabilize you, yeah, intense spiritual practice. And is I've certainly gone through such phases. But also I think a lot of times people are sort of d desperate nutty people are attracted to it in the hope of some kind of salvation. So how would you recommend becoming more mentally healthy, whatever condition you may be in at the moment?

speaker-0: friendship in ⁓ psychword and ⁓ it was like the pike piper. Everybody flocked to me because they could all know that I could see what they were experiencing. That I knew they weren't crazy in the way they were being labeled crazy, that they were just in a splintered multidimensional state. And so it became like a hall of mirrors. They didn't know how to get out of where they were or describe where they were or deal with where they were and so that was something that was easy for For me to see to say, Okay, take a left here, go down that hallway, you know, go through that crack glass and you'll be out and I'm I'm grossly simplifying it, but just in the idea that ⁓ Yes, psychotic people can be drawn to this for that reason because they know what they know. They don't understand what they know, but they know what they know. And so they're looking for somebody to help them understand what's happening to them. Sometimes it's a metabolic thing or whatever it is. I mean there are ⁓ millions of reasons what causes somebody to be like that. And so can spirituality help heal that? I think it can. It's like you saying tools to dig a deep well. I don't think there's one tool. I think we gotta have a whole toolbox and use the right tool for the right job. Then it all makes sense and comes together.

speaker-1: Yeah. A number of topics that we're touching on here could be the focus of a two hour conversation in and of themselves. There's a a new friend of mine named Mark Vicente who's making a documentary called The Narcissist Playbook, I think that's what he's calling it. It's about how prevalent narcissism is in spiritual circles and how narcissistic personalities are often drawn to step into the role of spiritual teacher because it really gratifies that. a flaw in their personality and exacerbates it, you know, because of all the attention they get, so that's a whole topic. His hope in making this film is to make spiritual seekers in general more aware of this syndrome so that they don't fall prey to the wiles of a of a narcissistic teacher.

speaker-0: Yeah, there's landmines everywhere. But with due diligence and writing books like that which are important. I'm actually not even looking at the teacher. You know what I'm looking at? Who else is in the room? Are they nutty? Yeah, students. But are they nutty? Are they kinda whole and healthy and living vital lives or are

speaker-1: mean the people around a teacher. In other words, the milieu or the the atmosphere that

speaker-0: Who are attracted to this teacher. Right. Are they living healthy whole lives, ⁓ relatively speaking? If they are, okay, I might stick around. Are they claiming to be the second coming or backbiting or whatever goes on in in you know, you put a group of people together. Maybe I'll keep looking. So it's not just looking at the teacher, it's looking at who the teacher attracts. A healthy person isn't gonna stay long with a narcissist. They just won't have patience for that nonsense.

speaker-1: Yeah. Okay, well we've covered a lot and it's really fun talking to you. We could probably keep on going, I'm sure we could. But is there anything we haven't touched upon that you want to bring up or at least you want to say in closing?

speaker-0: Two thoughts. If people are having intuitive experiences and they don't have anybody around them in their immediate environment that can help them understand it, it's incredibly valuable to find someone, a teacher, a s someone who can help you navigate what you're going through. You know, I talk about the holy shit phase of spirituality where you start having all these experiences and they can be really wild and They can some of them can be scary if you don't know what's happening or why or you know, starting to open up intuitively and all of a sudden you hear voices talking to you and you don't know if you're losing your mind or ⁓ you know, you turn around a corner and there's a person there, but there's nobody there. And so all of these things by finding somebody who can help you understand what those experiences are, can help ground you in that ability so that the ability doesn't become a detractor or a distractor to your spiritual path, but can become an accelerant, which is what it's meant to be.

speaker-1: And you are one such somebody, right? You do stuff you could actually help a person in the way you're describing.

speaker-0: Yeah, if I did private sessions, which I don't anymore.

speaker-1: Well even in in groups, I bet you you could.

speaker-0: Absolutely. And to your point, finding a practice that you can sustain, to break it down into bite sized pieces so that you want to stay with it. The worst thing somebody can do is decide they're gonna run a marathon when it when it can't even jog a quarter of a mile. Start where you are, make it realistic. Get the support you need, grow strongly, grow deep roots. ⁓ and then when you start getting a big canopy tree over top, you're not gonna topple over because you don't have a root system to sustain it. So for me it's all about the in as you were saying, the entire journey, the lifetimes journey and how can we support that so that we can do it in a healthy, sustainable way.

speaker-1: Yeah, I'm remembering that one spiritual teacher was asked What is the best spiritual practice for me? And she answered The one you'll do regularly.

speaker-0: Absolutely. My husband is not a visual person. So for me to teach him intuition to see visually, I've been with him forever and he still can't do it. It's not his thing. He is a very verbal person, so for him it's words. So wherever your strength is, dig in there, make head road there, and don't try to be what you're not. I'm not an actual musician. So maybe I'm not gonna pick up an instrument and say g that's gonna be my way through. I am a natural artist, so maybe that's gonna be my way through. Pick your innate abilities. Use your innate abilities to your strength and ⁓ walk through the door that way. Once you get in, there's all kinds of s ⁓ things along the way to help keep you going. The point is to just find your way through, find your way through the doorway and then it's gravy from there, I think.

speaker-1: Great. All right. Well tell us ⁓ what you offer. Do you have Zoom meetings, do you have retreats and etc?

speaker-0: I do. I do retweets. I have a monthly Zoom talk where everything is fair game, it's Q and A. I start with a topic just because of people don't know what they want to talk about. I o I'm never at a loss. And then just through my writing on my website at the moment.

speaker-1: Good. And so I will link to your website from your page on Batgap. I presume that on your website it has all the information about the meetings and everything. And probably you have some email list that people can get on to be notified of things. And they can find that on your website. Good. Well thanks, Karen. I've really enjoyed this. You know, I I didn't prepare for this interview as much as I do for many of them. Just because I kinda checked you out a little bit and I thought I'm not gonna have a problem with this lady

speaker-0: Yes.

speaker-1: We're gonna have a very easy conversation.

speaker-0: Yeah, me too. So thank you for having me.

speaker-1: You're welcome and and thanks to those who have been listening or watching and we'll see ya for the next one. And if you want to know what the next one is, there's an upcoming interviews page on batgap.coms where you can see what we've got scheduled and it has a link to the live stream version of that particular interview. And it also it's handy if you subscribe to the channel because then YouTube will kinda give you little notifications when something new is going on. When there is a a live stream thing you can click a little thing on YouTube to Be sure to be notified of it when the time comes. So anyway, see you all next time.