Daniel Schmidt - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

[Music] welcome to Buddha at the gas pump Buddha at the gas pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people I've done over 500 of them now and if this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones please go to bat capcom be ATG AP and look at the past interviews menu and the sub menus under that you'll find all the previous ones archived in various ways this program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers so if you appreciate it and would like to support it in any amount large or small there's a paypal paypal button on every page of the site my guest today is Daniel Schmitt Daniel is the creator of the award-winning film inner world's outer worlds let me just show you the cover of that film there it is inner worlds outer worlds as well as the ongoing samadhi series and he's also the founder of the awaken the world initiative whose purpose it is to bring the ancient teachings of Samadhi back to the world for free in as many languages as possible we'll be defining Samadhi in a few minutes Dan's approach combines self inquiry with traditional forms of meditation so that participants have the opportunity to simultaneously realize their transcendent nature and to purify themselves of conditioned patterns the pathless path is to realize an ever deepening development process within the self structure and to simultaneously realize what is always already beyond the cell structure Samadhi is when the world that is constantly changing merges or unites with the changeless it's a good definition so welcome Daniel mmm thanks for having me yeah you know over the years I've kind of glimpse to your movies online and thought well those would be very interesting to watch but I think I'll wait until I interview this guy which I'm sure I eventually will and then I'll just you know totally immerse myself in them and that's what I've done over the past week watching just about all of the movies I just mentioned which are a marvelous creation I mean the amount of creativity and ingenuity that went into their creation is amazing I'd like them in the course of our conversation let's talk about how you did them and where you got all the ideas for doing them and and so on kids and hopefully this conversation will inspire others to watch them if they haven't done so already it's and you're doing more so you know stay tuned everybody so how'd you get interested in all this stuff to begin with hmm so I guess all this stuff you mean meditation has a whole spiritual stick yeah so you know I I grew up as a Catholic you know so to me I I rebelled against every everything in the religious world I didn't really know anything about meditation yoga I'm actually thought it was complete nonsense and and I I was just kind of going about my life and well actually I should back up like when I was when I was a really young child I was having experiences of sort of you know I could loose a dream and travel at night and stuff like that and I was I was very connected to you know the other levels or other realms but that got shut down at a certain point I kind of had to protect myself at a certain point and just kind of intuitively closed it off because um you know my family thought I was being really weird and and you know they they thought maybe I had schizophrenia or something and I knew like just for self-preservation I had to shut it down so so you don't like these little people were in my room last night or whatever things like that and they were just things like that yeah well and in like um yeah like I would literally see angels on both my sister's beds and stuff like that but but also you know as as I was going through puberty when when energy started awakening I was having like a Kundalini kind of awakening experience but I had absolutely no idea what that was or how to manage it or so um like very anything as those couldn't many things I mean what was how do you know that's what it was no yeah well isn't it was in retrospect now I know and that's what it was but at the time like the actual subjective experience was um you know I would get this this feeling that there was there was like an intelligence inside my body basically and and it was accompanied by like my ego structure at that time you know which was very undeveloped was terrified it was like this this sort of visceral fear would come over my body as I was I was lying in bed waiting to go to sleep and I would know when this this energy is coming on it was like something some intelligence inside and I could feel like an energy moving up the back of the head and the crown and and I would actually get sort of taken over by this energy like it felt like something moving my body around and and it was I looked like the the deepest sense of mortal terror from the self structures point of view so my family would my dad would find me you know curled up in a fetal position screaming or you know one time I I went into their bedroom and and I had this profound sense of what what this world was and what this life was and and I got on top of them in the middle of the night it's like like 2:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the morning and screaming you're already dead you know just terrified them they thought you know I was some kind of a fixer so this kid or something so Wow and and and so I you know and as this went on you know I was very sensitive to people's reaction to it as well so I realized this is not this is not going well I need to basically shut this step on whatever is going on so and so when that happened when I when I shot it down and I'm not sure how I did that I just I kind of willed with ego to shut it down so I lost that that childlike capacity to to explore in my dreams and you know I used to be able to fly and all that kind of stuff and and and I would have these amazing encounters so all of that disappeared at that time as well and I just became like a normal kid like I guess people who knew we may not say that but but compared to play normal two quick observations here one is I'm sure you've heard that Kundalini experts say that Kundalini can have awoken in previous lives and then we die and when we are reborn it's already awake and it just kind of resume Zitz process yeah so there's that I totally agree with that and and it to me that there's something that was happening that you know it's it's like this this pattern of awareness you know like somehow there the whole experience was accompanied by you know this this way of perceiving my inner world that um it's it's like my consciousness would just start to get locked into the inner world and and observing inner energy in a certain way and I didn't learn that but it was like it came with me somehow it was like a switch got turned on and and it yeah it was that pattern was just there yeah yeah they're just picking up where you where you left off yes and then another thing I'm sure you've heard is that um you know when the energy rises like that the ego can feel threatened because it faces this dissolution you have like stories like Suzanne Suzanne Siegel in collision with the infinite if you've ever read that book where there's just object terror because everything you know yourself to be is is being dissolved and if you don't know what's going on it can be real scary yeah yeah the terror that I experienced was was like you know I can't explain how palpable it was it was it was like primordial terror it wasn't it wasn't like you know even even if somebody had come up to me with a gun you know and put it to my head it wasn't it wasn't a logical terror it was more just this blind irrational and palpable sense of death and of losing myself at that time well the word primordial is very apt there's a line in the apologizer said certainly all fear is born of duality so it's like the very initial sprouting of duality from the Unified Field gives it births fear at that primordial level and it's kind of like and like with crossing you know playing breaking the sound barrier when we sort of reverse the process and again traverse that primordial level back to unity we can experience that that root fear that it's primordial the most primordial thing there is yeah yeah and I've only I think only in my adult life revisited that fear once and that was actually at my first 10 days of passing a retreat and and I had that that energy sort of awoke again and and at that time I went to see the teacher there and told them about it and they they said you know just just go back observe the breath and you know don't worry about it but when it awakened there though it was it was interesting like it was it was more I actually felt almost like a coldness in the room it was so large but then you know the same energy now when I experienced it you know it's its blissful now because because my consciousness isn't inhabiting it and so you know it's it really it's like the ego just gets used to letting go or dying or whatever you want to call that and you know so that very same sensation is you know it's if we if it's contracted then it's fear but if it's not contracted it's it's just freedom it's bliss actually well you know what FDR said in his second inaugural of Jesse's the only thing we have to fear is fear itself and you know I think there's several I think there's several factors which can determine how fearful it's going to be one is how quickly it happens if it's you know if you just a whole bunch all at once that can be rather traumatic otherwise it can just be a very gradual incremental process and you don't notice much happening and you just kind of ease through it and then another is whether you understand what's going on you know because if like Suzanne Siegel you have no idea what's happening you can be you can be fighting against something which could actually be blissful if you were to relax into it we have with understanding yeah and especially in our society we have we have you know when things like that happened to a little kid for example you know I think the the psych wards are filled with people they you know you just get medicated in our system where you you know people don't know how to deal with this whereas you know in in an indigenous culture or some of the shamanic cultures you know they may see that as a as a sign that you know you're ready for some spiritual training or you know but um yeah and of course I mean you mentioned Catholicism there I think have there have been adepts and and you know mystics and in the Christian tradition who would have understood very well what you're talking about because they went counselor a st. John yeah that's our kind of soul you know all that yeah I've come full circle with Christianity my in my own path I really have come to see I'm actually one of one of my biggest influences my teacher Nico is he uses a lot of Christian language and you know and I I actually a big part of the next film is you know seeing that the one perennial truth in all of these traditions and I'm particularly drawn to the teachings of John of the Cross you mentioned st. Teresa might Meister Eckhart and st. Francis I think all of these these you know experiences and awakenings that they're having and you know it's just Christian language but it's it's the same as in every tradition I think I should put you in touch with a couple of people nearby star who wrote who did translations of Saint John of the Cross and and my friend Dana Sawyer who was friends with Aldous Huxley and Houston Smith and wrote biographies of them both they they could probably be helpful to your project wonderful yeah yeah I mean I didn't right now I'm in that sort of taking in mode like just gathering and synthesizing and exploring all of it so they're you know it'd be a perfect time because things are German right now great right okay so you got past the fear phase he clamped it down yeah I stuffed it yeah teenager yeah so I really you know I got into philosophy I went to school for philosophy at Western and then I actually went to law school and um yeah you you had mentioned before the interview started about how sometimes you know it seems like your entire life is you know it's at one point it might seem like a series of random events but then later on you see that you're being prepared for something and it really seems like that and like even my year of law school I thought it was complete waste of time at the time because it was totally not what I wanted to do which can be helpful I mean learning exactly what you don't want to do is is is a teaching but but now like working with these these films there is a legal aspect and deal with contracts and all that stuff and in the philosophy is is part of it and you know and my path led me and I always I always was creating music my mom was a music teacher so I learned music when I was a little kid so I got into creating music for my friends films that I had friends in film school and so I I was exploring music all along the way and that that sort of took me into the television and film world and formed a company with some friends and we were we were delivering a series for a Discovery Channel and we we were just young you know just doing what people do I was I was just trying to add caught it was cool you know and I wanted to make money I was completely embedded in the matrix I was like you know totally you know playing video games you know drinking lime coolers and up until 3:00 in the morning and you know just abusing my body didn't know how to feed myself or you know take care of this this vessel so you know after years of that I'm whatever spirit is in me or whatever however you want to say it you know something rebelled and and just hammered me and and I developed an autoimmune there's just overnight basically an autoimmune disorder and type one diabetes rheumatoid arthritis like just got hammered and and I was forced to try and figure it figure out how to survive or how to get through this and I basically had to let go of everything let go of my relationships my you know everything moved out of Toronto into a little place in the middle of nowhere to heal was close to nature and and you know so that was the beginning and during that time you know my mind really was the the diabetes what was the biggest problem because my I just I was doing everything backwards everything wrong like I was I was doing I thought maybe I had a parasite so I was doing these cleanses was doing some cleanse where and I'm like drinking you know like lemonade with honey and stuff like that yeah and and so like the it took me several years to actually get the diagnosis of diabetes so so for a couple of years it was like my blood was boiling it was it was excruciating and I couldn't sleep so um so my mind was was going and worrying and fear and and I was losing huge amounts of weight I went from like 160 pounds down to like 120 and I was at one point I was like a skeleton and so I was worried and I desperately just wanted to get some sleep actually and had a friend who was he had that afterglow from coming back from a past no retreat and said he said you know why don't you do that I he could he was very intuitive and he could tell a lot of my issues were my mind you know like my mind was just pathological at that point and so um I figured I have nothing to lose and I I saw it it benefited him and and I I went to the pasta retreat with no idea what it was night literally hadn't even read their website so I just went on his advice so I had had true beginner's mind like totally ignorant of anything that was happening there and which was which was good so it was SN Goenka doing the teaching on the screen and and I just I just kind of surrendered I just thought okay I'm gonna go with it he was it was very adamant you know just follow the technique and everything so I did and and I I had you know excruciating pain in my body like the rheumatoid arthritis was down like deep into my bones and I can I was sitting there like trying to meditate and and mind going crazy and I'd be collapsing and pain and sitting up collapsing and and it was like you know pushed me 100% like beyond what what I could handle and and something gave way I guess in in that like I was I was determined I almost left actually after the first day and second day and you know a couple people talked me through it and luckily I stuck with it I don't know why like something something in me you know just grace or something I don't know but I'm not sure why I was so determined to do it that the something gave way and I you know I I see like some people with meditation you know I've studied a little bit of air Vita and they talk about the doshas and body type and I'm very Vata so my my tendency is I seem to realize States or realize you know energy awakenings and things very quickly but I lose them just as quickly so so at that retreat I had a Samadhi experience what I would now call a savikalpa samadhi experience where i like i was so in my body in the energy you know doing this body scan and my awareness merged with my energy field which connected me to all of it is basically so during this experience I was I was walking around you know literally feeling the energy of the universe flowing through me and you know I'd walk outside at night and and literally the the consciousness of the stars were me looking back at myself I could myself in everything and and it was you know it was everything I ever wanted it was it was like total completion and and perfection you know I just wanted to stay there forever and of course my ego was not prepared for this experience at all so you know like every every state you know this it it passed and and my ego was desperate like to you know how do I get back there how do I hang on to this and the more I would grasp out it the more quickly it started to go away and I think you know I was in that state from you know less than 24 hours it wasn't wasn't that long and so then by the time I went to bed that night I fell asleep and then woke up and it was completely gone and and so the next day I experienced absolute loss you know I went from being everything to being this little insect creature again and and it was the I think the only time in my life I actually just wanted to not exist you know I just I I was was desperate like to get that experience back and and now I you know looking back at it I realized you know what was missing was I you know I was I was walking around in that state you know and I was sure I was I was exactly like Jesus or I was exactly like the board I like this was that you know this is the state and but you know I was identified with that character I thought I thought Dan this Dan structure was it right so so I hadn't realized Praja or you know the the truth of what we are and you know so so I I hadn't full on identification so it was many years later that I I started to you know delve into Zen and self inquiry non non dual teachings and then I had a different kind of Samadhi like the the nirvikalpa samadhi where you realize form and emptiness as one there's there's kind of a collapse of this this duality and I real you realize it's all you know it's there there's nothing to be attached to and the challenge over over time is to let these states come and go to encompass them with an equanimity and with consciousness yeah Ken Wilber talks about states and stages you know states are all kinds of things that we can get temporarily it stages or more permanent abiding conditions that can eventually arise and yeah um natural that's a beautiful distinction I think that's that's exactly it so to me I I distinguish between you know awakening which which is you know you it's in the moment it's now and then there's this enlightenment process that is this this continuous development process and and it's like we rewire ourselves and we you know we we create sort of a cura fide vessel to contain that that awareness so that it doesn't come and go and for me you know I'm still I'm still working on the development process and you know I've had many awakening experiences now in my my life and even doing long sits there's their little awakenings all the time happening and every once in a while there's you know the complete cessation of you know the verdes or the whirlpool of the mind but but to live in that state is this you know I believe what the the yogic traditions are talking about you know the growing the inner Lotus you know the chakras all of that we wire ourselves to create this sort of unconditioned self structure that supports awakening so that the awareness can just kind of shine through but you know so it's it is a paradox like I talked about you know like exactly what you said actually I'm like states of Samadhi and then there are the the stages of of actual living you know living life in a stage where that wiring has has reached you know a new level and and there's which with each level there's there is a change in consciousness and you know those traditions say when when the wiring is permanently at the crown you know the energy is moving from the root to the crown then that is it that's the you know and the depictions of the halos and and you know these these traditional images I think are conveying that as well mm-hmm I think it's an important point I mean there's a chance I could shoot a basket from 40 feet out or something like that you know but to do that consistently like Steph Curry or somebody takes a great deal of training and probably in the case of this example of a younger body but you know sometimes people in certain spiritual circles poopoo the idea of practice because they feel like it and it's a poopoo you know it's like they put it down because it because it implies they feel that it's going to only reinforce the sense of a practicer and they feel like well the reality is what it is so just realize that why should you have to beat around the bush and do something but I said well you could probably respond to thee to that contraction it's it's yeah it's very tricky like I one of my favorite teachers is Krishnamurti you know and he was it was very scornful traditional meditation because he saw how you know people doing these techniques it was you know a technique is just something conditioned you know it's it's something that we learn it's within the self structure and if we're if we're just repeating this thing you know people sitting on cushions you know doing these practices will never come to that cessation of you know the whirlpool of the mind if if we're engaging in these product so I totally agree with Krishnamurthy I agree with everything he's saying and the way but I also see that these these techniques have value like I see them I love the phrase a thorn to remove a thorn you know I think sometimes you know like the apana body scan technique is a great example like we teach that at the center along with many other different techniques and you know some of these techniques work for some people and you know others for other people but you know so we we can use these I think a good technique is one that is purifying the condition patterns like it's allowing whatever is in our unconscious you know these these little programs and sub programs and our unconscious or just running and we can't become free of them until we excavate you know we have to we basically stop responding to the craving and aversion or the preferences of the conditioned mind and when we stop you know these these you know that what they call samskaras or sin Cara's in in the Buddhist tradition you know start to come up to the surface and and we they they sort of bloom and and dive where if we just are not attached to them or don't respond to them so to me that process that like that is working within the framework of the body and and you know dealing with you know this these unconscious patterns which is purifying the vessel basically but but also I think you know what Krishnamurti says is is true like the the absolute awareness just is what it is it needs no perfecting it needs no development process so when you when you have these awakenings you know the paradox or the hard thing to grasp what the mind is that you know you you awaken and you realize it's the same awareness that was always there and and it's been ever present and changing and it's it's spotless and stainless you know but but it gets obscured over and over by the mind so we gets entangled with mind and that's not the game of Maya what we're playing here we we it's this whirlpool of the mind that just just snags us over and over so so to me you know the I the way I teach at the center is you know self inquiry and meditation simultaneously so so when we're when we're doing a technique you know if we're observing the breath or observing the third eye or whatever whatever doesn't really even matter so much as long as we're cultivating equanimity and concentration and freeing these shankara's and you know but you can also be aware of who is doing this practice at the same time so rather than you know just the mind running with this pattern you know or I love the the Zen story about the polishing the tile you know so we're not just polishing tiles at the Meditation Center but we're we're aware the story that you polished a tile or polish a brick you can polish for the rest of your life is never gonna become a mirror exactly so yeah I should maybe say the story for but yeah so there's there's a student who you know he's sitting in meditation and and that the Zen teacher comes and says what are you doing and and the student says on I'm meditating I want to become enlightened and the teacher picks up a stone tile and starts polishing it and and the student says you know what why are you polishing that tile and he says I want it to become a mirror you know I want to keep polishing it to become a mirror and and the student says well you can do that forever that's thought stones never becoming a mirror and and it's the same thing with our practice as well if it's just the mind doing some conditioned technique will never realize our true nature because you know in in these ancient traditions you know it it is a cessation of this whirlpool of the mind that is it allows you it's in not absolute stillness this that this unfathomable experience happens where it's not even an experience because there you know it's the collapse of experience and experience or so so you know to me that's probably the most important thing in meditation is to realize like we're you know these techniques are great like we we if we're moving from from gross mind that's you know full of thoughts to subtler mind subtler subtler subtler using a thorn to remove a thorn and then eventually we throw all the thorns away and just come to stillness and it and it's in that stillness that you know crutch now or you know I I sometimes say now I've heard other teachers say this like it's almost like it happens by accident but we make make ourselves accident prone by doing these these practices and techniques so and I know for me you know if I if I had never done the possible meditation and never done all the stuff I'm doing you know there's no way if I was just watching Netflix and you know you know I'm drinking beers and like coolers yeah it's not gonna happen right so um you know so we it's like we're cultivating this you know purifying this this vessel it you know and then you you know maybe there's an element of grace I don't know what it is what makes this happen but you know it can it can happen and I think all we can do as as limited ego structures is just prepare you know just cultivate the garden and but we don't control what grows in it yeah let me respond to a few of those points um firstly regarding grace you know there's that saying god helps those who help themselves and there's some there's some cool stories in various scriptures about the disciple or the student putting forth a certain amount of effort and then once he has done enough effort then the Guru or they can cover some our God or something rather just blesses him with grace and that you know accomplishes it then with regard to you know realizing that you're that you're all that enlightenment was always the natural condition once enlightenment has been attained it's like the Sun is always shining the Sun doesn't care whether there's clouds or not because the Sun is not obscured from its perspective it's not obscured by clouds but it makes a difference to the person on the ground so to speak whether this clouds and wind can help blow them away so when wind is like a technique and then you know once they're blown away then BOOM they're oh the Sun it's always been shining so there's that and then with regarding regarding Krishnamurti he was a good example because he spoke from his level of consciousness and his listeners listened from theirs and the Twain never really met you know he sat there instead of criticized techniques and people were with him for decades and ended up continuing to be frustrated because he had in a way of sort of conveying or enabling them to rise to the level of his experience so there's a saying in India when when when the mangoes are ripe and the branches bend down so that people can easily pick the fruit so there's something to be said for teaching in such a way that it meets the the student at the where where they're at and enables them to sort of begin to progress and regarding progress you know you've alluded to the notion that we're talking about something very physiological here all these some scars and impressions that we're talking about how if physiologist knew how to do it could be located in the neurophysiology as perhaps chemical or structural imbalances and so the reliefs are the working out of these sub scars is in neuro physiological process or transformation and it's been plenty of research to show that during different types of meditation there are significant physiological changes and also with with with long-term meditators and again in various traditions and practices there are significant changes that are abiding whether the person is meditating or not the brain itself is significantly restructured as can be seen from you know thickening of the frontal cortex and phase coherence between different parts of the brain in other words synchrony between the brainwaves and different parts of the brain the healing of functional wholes in brain functioning which are revealed by fMRI scans this is so we're really just through spiritual practice we're really transforming the physiology to make it a fit vehicle for living this higher state of consciousness whatever we want to call it and it was one final point I was gonna make oh yeah you're talking about polishing the brick and it was something you said there made me feel like well the measure of an effective practice should be how effectively it it enables the mind to settle into Samadhi yeah I've heard you allude to the the second verse of the Yoga Sutras yoga chitta vritti nirodha the the yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind okay so why would that be a good thing since the cessation of fluctuations of mind because then the next verse says then the seer is established in himself so it's like choppy water can't reflect the Sun very clearly still water can reflect it perfectly sometimes see these photos of still water and you it looks like the same scene above the lake and below the lake you know because the the trees or whatever being reflected perfectly so a still mind can allow myself to shine forth freely without obstruction or disturbance and so that's the purpose of that type of practice and so you could perhaps you know measure the worth of practices by how effectively they accomplish that and you could measure that physiologically as well as by subjective report so there you go there's some responses to what you said Wow wonderful it's it's some it actually seems like you're using so many examples that I use all the times you know it's it's I forgot that you were speaking actually so that's wonderful so yeah it's I think it's a wonderful use of science you know I think like if science can start to to really you know have objective measures for these things we can we can open so much up so quickly and you know there there are amazing things being done I know I was just checking out David vago is one who he's at Harvard he's doing studies with fMRI and doing I think he came to some conclusions on the default mode network which is you know just the basically when we're just being here you know what's going on in the mind like just are a kind of default processing in the mind and they've they found you know conclusively that you know meditation like meditators just have less going on there's there's less interruption happening just as your existing in the present moment so you know I think these these things are great just even just to get people excited about meditation and see and see that there is an objective value because you know really people like that to me is kind of my job with these these films as well is you know I can't convey really what happens in meditation there's there's nothing I can say or depict or use it use fractals or you know but but if I can get people curious about it you know I think science has it hasn't if there's an incredible possibility there for for science to get people curious to look within themselves yeah one example I've sometimes used is you know picture yourself working really hard you know like you're working these a 12-hour days or whatever 16-hour days and you're under a lot of pressure and you're all frazzled your mind is just crazy and you can't sleep properly and you're drinking a lot of coffee and you know in that state of mind and then you go on vacation and you're there a couple weeks just sort of lie the beach just relaxing and by the end of a couple weeks of vacation you just feel so mellow and so clear and then so kind of happy inside compared to the way it felt so contrast those two conditions now imagine that you could sit twice a day or whatever and enter into that state that you feel after two weeks of vacation you know for half an hour or an hour or whatever and then come back to your daily activity you would not only enjoy that hour or whatever where you sat but your daily activity it would carry over into your daily activity you would feel the influence of it throughout the day and if you were to do that on a regular basis the influence who would accumulate such that you could never get sort of so perturbed by things as you once did there was this a sort of a stable equanimity that would develop and again there would be a physiological reason for that as well as your sort of inner subjective experience yeah yeah absolutely I see my own you know if I look back 20 years ago when I when I started meditation and you know I I was full of anxiety and stress fear and all kinds of stuff and if I measure I think the only measure of of a meditation practice is you know like like the Buddha said you know it's about freedom from suffering or freedom from the self and you know if I just look back over my life I just have less suffering and you know to me that's that's the measure you know there are it's also opened up all these these other other worlds and and things like that so it's it's like you know I think the antenna starts to you know be able to receive you know from okay so you have an expanded experience of life so so you know so I guess there's two things there's there's freedom from you know freedom from suffering but then there's freedom too so you're free to explore all these other aspects of being as well so I guess it's it's kind of going in two directions we're we're it in some ways we're you know through this process and wiring where it's the self structure but but we're also realizing the emptiness of the self structure at all these levels as well imagine if you look back on your life you would say that a lot of the suffering you once experienced was self-inflicted and and you're now there's a sort of a skill in action your the Gita says Yoga was it yogah karmasu kaushalam yoga is skill in action there's a skill in action now which you conduct your life in such a way that you don't create messes for yourself you know you don't you don't inflict suffering on yourself yeah yeah and you know Krishnamurti spoke about like the collective ego you know as the problem like we on this planet are the suffering that we're experiencing is due to the collective ego and no identification with what whatever whatever we define ourselves as soon as we create a definition we create a limitation and we create another you know if I say I am this you know I'm I'm Christian I'm Jewish I'm Muslim I'm American whatever it is then you know because without label there's it means some people aren't that you know and and it creates this disconnect and you know I I love when he said you know the ego is inherently violent you know it's a violence it's a it's a cutting or a fragmentation of consciousness from itself yeah there's an interesting point you just made a minute ago which is that even though there's a sort of an emptying out taking place I remember your exact words at this at the same time almost ironically or paradoxically there is a sort of a fuller and freer expression of your uniqueness and of your individual yes because they are individuality I mean you see that in your own experience and in the lives of sort of people we might respect to seem to have achieved a high level of consciousness like the Dalai Lama or whoever there there's a sort of richness to their personalities you know if they're not just all plain vanilla sort of empty flat you know yeah colorless saps yeah this is sort of vibrancy and charisma and you know fascination that you what you feel in watching them function so it's kind of like it frees up what is beautiful within us not only in the sort of universal sense but even in terms of our individual qualities yeah yeah absolutely and I think the like in the Upanishads I love you know and some of these really ancient teachings and you know they they talk about all these different levels of existence and you know really we are living in this this limited reality on the level of the mind and the physical but there are these these other levels of you know the the energy like when somebody starts to tap into their Kundalini energy you see it in their face you see an aliveness I'm you see it shining from the eyes and you know and the Upanishads talk about these other higher levels like the coaches the pinyon Amaya kosha and and Maya kosha these are whole all realms of existence you know the we can experience in life and when we start making connections with them you know there's there's there's knowledge there's wisdom it's it stopping us into stuff that is is beyond just our self and our culture and you know it's there there is I believe you know I to me it's mysterious where where a lot of us comes from but you know I talked about Akasha in one of the films and you know this idea that that everything is mind you know that they're the first hermetic principle all the all is mind and you know even what we think of as deep space you know with the the millennium runs simulation we we now know that when you start to map out dark matter you know it looks exactly like a brain you know with complete with neurons and and everything so so it is all mind and and we can you know I I see it as you know this this whole energetic structure that we're inside of can be like an antenna and we can connect to those higher levels of mind and you know the Dharma and and you know these these ancient teachings I think every every every being who has you know made that connection they're sort of bringing in the same truths but in different ways and different expressions different unique truths based upon what you just said this would be a good time to ask a question that came in from Manuel and Vienna Austria he asks in an interview with Cheryl sits you were talking about higher levels of reality beyond the mental and physical level like the energetic level or the angelic realm his question is how can we be sure that altered states of reality experienced through meditation techniques or psychedelics are not just illusions made up by our own mind mm-hmm and I I think you know this is this entire game that we're playing here this entire universe and existence is all mine so we can't it's all you know I love chuan su there's the story about him at the dream of the butterfly and you know and it's so real he he was questioning seriously questioning you know am i a butterfly dreaming that I'm a man or a man dreaming that I'm a butterfly you know and this is the question and to me it's it's mysterious like as we as we go deeper you know into the meditation world and on the path and and you know to me like my experiences of the dream realms and you know like dreaming wake like as opposed to waking you know or you know these these sometimes we call them communications where we have these connections to the higher-self you know it's becoming more and more real seeming real like more solid and and but simultaneously it seems like this so-called real world is becoming a little more dreamlike a little more permeable and and and it's it's all it's sort of blending you know and but but the the awakeness that is at the center of it you know the awareness which is unchanging to me that is what we are that's the essence of what we are that's the truth and and you know this is my like in the Upanishads that I was describing like they they used the word Maya you know in the description of these things it is all Maya and you know they it's I'm thinking about the the Heart Sutra in Buddhism where he says um you know the awakening or the awakened one realized all the emptiness of all the levels I think he was talking with the five skandhas but you know it's the self structure basically I like all levels of self so when we we realize that it is it is illusion it's all illusion so you know so I've had I've had weird experiences of these different levels and you know some of them I wouldn't want to share because people think I'm insane at the beginning of the interview right when you were jumping on your parents yeah so I got the you know to me you know III see it all the same way right it's a play of form it's a play of consciousness and you know to me like my teacher nico he experienced he talks about the imaginal realm this is this is a term kind of coined by a writer named Henry Corbin he writes about the the higher worlds and that he doesn't an exhaustive study which is is fascinating Carl Jung actually his his active imagination a lot of his stuff is based on Henry Corbin's work and so so nico distinguishes between imaginal which is the the what's going on on the higher mind and imagination which is a project product of the lower mind and the way that we distinguish between the two in our subjective experience is that when things happen on the imaginal level there is an actual concrete energetic change you know like we can it these these these symbolic or these archetypal experiences that can be had you know interacting with with deities or netters or you know strange beings you know whatever whatever is happening there you know what to me there's there's some sort of symbolic thing playing out and and if if we can kind of dance with it or or play with it sometimes you know it we may face our fears we may face different aspects of ourselves and it can make huge shifts in our actual life and our actual energy so to me you know it I don't really care you know about real or unreal to me you know that distinction is just a distinction of the dualistic mind but but what what matters to me is you know if if I'm doing a pure investigation it's not I'm not just manufacturing something with my mind I mean you know when I when I work with Nikko you know he'll he'll say you know if you start thinking he'll kick you out you know so he'll he'll be like you know I just want you to report what's actually happening you know empirical investigation into what is actually happening and you know if you're if you're just observing reality as it is you know what you're perceiving through whatever faculty mind senses the organs of higher perception you know you you are just looking at what is and and then it can it can change your your subjective experience in life and it's exciting you know so so how whether we label it as you know real or unreal I think I think that's just you know that's just the mind playing its little game yeah with regard to Manuel's question about whether how do we know these things that people report angelic realms and what are made up by our own mind or not and the whole scientific enterprise started out as an attempt to circumvent the fal ability of human subjectivity in other words to try to determine what is objectively true regardless of our understanding or misunderstanding of it and there you know there's several methods which are employed in that which are you know repeatable experiment and empirical experience if someone says it comes up with a hypothesis and tests it and get some results that seem to confirm the hypothesis he then said ok all your other scientists tested also and see what you get and either and if they keep if they also keep confirming it then it sort of lends great and greater greater credibility to the hypothesis and if if they start poking holes in it then maybe he has to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better hypothesis but there's an attempt to understand how the universe actually works aside and because prior to that there were all kinds of kooky ideas about how the universe works and you know I mean jeez the earth is the center of the solar system Galileo developed a telescope which you know through which he could disprove that the the Catholic hierarchy refused to even look through his telescope because they said no that violates the Bible or so so no there's a I think we've we've made a lot of progress by through this method of understanding what's really happening as opposed to our subjective fantasies about what might be happening yeah definitely and I see I'm like Aldous Huxley's work on the perennial philosophy you know and and just my own understanding of you know these different traditions like you see at the root of it there is there is one sort of perennial teaching that is coming back you know there's these traditions they talk about chakras or the the sefirot or you know these they're these different different angles different languages to describe one thing so I think you know there is an you know I don't want to say objective truth but there you know to me like when Plato was speaking of the the realm of forms you know there there is a sort of form to the awakening process you know there's a form to you know whatever it is this the spiral that extends from our DNA to the galaxies you know there's there's an intelligence that's embedded there and and it's expressing in in different ways and we can we can see in these different traditions how they they are reflecting you know some of them are reflecting part of the evolution some of them are you know reflecting the higher levels and you know who knows how far goes but so to me I feel like my investigation you know with with these these films is to you know there there is sort of a form to to what is happening or a truth and you know I think I think science is about getting at that truth and I would love to see you know the convergence like in in the time of in the the Platonic period like Pythagoras I'm you know in his time there was just a search for knowledge and wisdom and you know now you know like back then you know music and mathematics and and you know searching the heavens for for knowledge it was all one endeavor and it wasn't we didn't have this this fragmentation that we have now and I'd love to see you know these these different fragmented aspects of science come together with with this genuine inquiry and you know and and at the same time not being said like in in philosophy I also you know you have philosophers like like Berkeley who you know we're you know to be is to perceive or or be perceived you know there there is a truth and not as well you know so we can we can use these empirical tools but at the end of the day you know what at what am I here you know I I'm mind senses you know an energy and this filter you know or what Huxley called the reducing valve you know it is our interface with with the outer and so so to me there's there's truth in both of those things and and you know I always approach it from the relative and absolute you know from the relative perspective you know we can we can go into you know these sort of objective you know worldly knowledge of the forms but then you know from a Samadhi point of view like when when you're in that place where there is no subject an object there's actual collapse of subject object duality then you know this whole investigation becomes just play basically yeah one thing I found inspiring about your films is the discussion well you quote Plato for instance you say there's a golden key that unifies all the mysteries of the universe the intelligence of the logos the mind of God the intelligence of the universe I I find that inspiring because a lot of people in spiritual circles seem to just talk about consciousness in kind of a plain vanila way without recognizing that the intelligence inherent with it you know I've interviewed someone recently who you know kept insisting there is no such thing as God and your brain creates the universe but then how do you account for the marvelous you know orderliness that we see displayed in the universe like you talked about Li patterns in one of your films of architecture are to take excuse me our typical patterns found at all levels of nature and here's a quote from Goethe that I picked up from money and movies beauty is the is a manifestation of the secret natural laws which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever so a close look at what's actually going on which science helps us do to me gives me goosebumps because it sort of shows that there's some profound level of intelligence and organizing power orchestrating every little particle of creation and and if we extrapolate throughout the whole universe you realize that wherever we were to look we would find it functioning there so what do they say about God God is supposed to be omniscient omnipotent and omnipresent that's exactly what I just described in terms of that omnipresent intelligence functioning at all levels from the vast to them to the ultra-microscopic and without an error in complete accordance with beautiful orderly laws which interestingly correspond with Mathematics week that's a whole nother topic but go ahead and respond to what I just said yeah well I actually I actually brought a little prop you talked about lis patterns and this this is a little something from the next film actually and you put it up against my shirt but it I don't know if you can see it but as I get free Branch thing yeah so this is this is called a Lichtenberg figure and it's very beautiful it's I don't know if it's showing up really well on the screen there lo but but basically what this is is they so they zapped this acrylic block with like a million volts of electricity or some huge amount of electricity and so so basically this this structure is the the path that the energy took in just at like a millisecond and you know so this this is one of the we patterns that were the branching patterns and you know when people get hit by lightning you'll sometimes see these these Lichtenberg figures on their body or you know but everything everything in nature is you know this the spiral that it extends through through all these different levels like the energy is moving in these these branching patterns and it's exactly what's happening in our mind you know so to me like the the path that energy took through our minds is is actually us you know like that that that energy is you know it's just the pathway of the mind is just the tendency for that energy to repeat again just like a river is being carved out so so it's it's you know when you when you see that you know and this is this is one Li pattern you know this is one aspect of this this primordial spiral we've just carved off and and started to look at it and you know so this this intelligence you know to me I have a profound sense of not knowing you know when it comes to you know what this is you know it's it's an awe actually at you know like when I'm to me like sometimes people you know they with these films there's a lot of information a lot of stuff and people are like how did you figure all that out and and I don't know I don't I truly don't know you know sometimes like you know when I when I was working in television you know we had it was very cookie cutter and and templates and the way I'm working now um you know I just meditate and information comes through and and I just start writing and and and then and then it gets filtered I work on like my partner Tonya is a huge part of the process as well because I I seem to be like just topped in to this information and just keeps coming and coming and coming and and it's mysterious I'm in awe I'm literally I'm like a little kid just like like you know of marveling at what's happening and and so so I'll be writing but for its there's sort of a Achieva Shakti aspect to the way we work so she you know she's she's very clear on on what will kind of connect with people or what what's touching her her heart so um so I'm getting all this stuff and and it just keeps going like I have hundreds and hundreds of pages that I just keep writing and if I go back and look at it it's like I've written the same thing over and over like ten times and and and I'll even do that on the films sometimes I'll recreate the same part so so it'll it seems like this endless sort of thing going on and then Tonya comes along and and somehow there's something operating through her where she she just sees you know she's kind of ruthless she like cuts through all the nonsense and she's like what what is really going to connect with people what's going to hit hit their heart and you know like you're you're going off into abstract land here but you know like I I have this tendency I'll do like a twenty minute section on buckminster fuller's vector equilibrium and and people will be like falling asleep and and she's like you're losing it you're losing everybody like you can't do that and so so she's she's like executive producer and and and and it literally I couldn't I couldn't be doing these films they would not be what they are without her and they would they were just sort of stagnating until she came along so um so um yeah so to answer your question like I think that you know if there's one thing I've learned on this path is the value of not knowing you know what like learning the the limitation of the egoic mind and you know it takes me back to the the platonic or the Socrates you know said the only thing I know is that I don't know and to me that's that's the truth like that's what meditation is teaching us is that you know when we when we stop you know the pattern this endless searching endless you know processing in in the lower mind that energy becomes free and and it can connect with with the higher realms and and so you know in the moment from the egoic perspective we don't know where we're we're suspending our knowing but then you know if we trust we if we just allow this connection to happen you know something something greater is is out there you know there is this world of forms there is a Dharma there is big mind whatever you want to call it and we can be like a little little node in that mind yeah it's easy because there's these these guys these days whom to whom they refer that that's the New Atheists you know Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens who died and one other whose name I forget at the moment but um when I hear and I like listening to them actually but when I do I think you dude you can't be both an atheist and a scientist you can be an agnostic and a scientist but if you insist that things are a certain way then you've shut down you know you're not you don't have a scientific attitude and there are all kinds of anomalies which challenge your your conviction and you must be not listening to them um so anyway I think language language is so divisive you know we like those labels like atheist or you know believer or whatever it is you know it it's we it limits us and it and it creates division and you know half the time you know I this was a big thing with with Buddhism I found one of my one of my biggest challenges was reconciling this you know the idea of anata you know no self with with the soul and it's like you have half the teachers talking about you know there is a soul and half of them are saying there's no self there is no soul but but when you really look at what their actual saying they're saying the same thing you know the knot is is you know realizing the the emptiness of the the self structure and but it's it's not nothing you know it's not it's not like a void or emptyness it's just a non-local consciousness that is everywhere omnipresent and you know and the the soul at you know in depending on on who's describing it you know if you look at the Upanishads and the sheaths of the soul you know like the phenomena of the soul all these different levels are obscuring the the essence of the the odd man from itself which is it has no form it has no place it has nothing it only it can only know itself or see itself through all these manifestations so so to me they're they're identical you know and and you know but they're but you look at history and and look at the descriptions and and it's you know it's like going head to head but I think when you look at the you know the the true mystics are all in agreement they're using different language but you know but then you know people who are not realizing it within themselves are you know they're they're holding on to an idea concept and I think even people who realize it with a fair degree of clarity experientially could have different takes on it a pair according to the flavor of their experience for instance in the Vedic knowledge there's a thing called Xu Nevada and another called poor Nevada and one refers to the sort of emptiness and the other to the fullness and it actually refers to the same thing and but perhaps you know different nervous systems depending on what which guna is predominant or which dosa or whatever could have the very same experience and it's interpreted differently and also in terms of other things like some you know person might have transcendent experience one-for-one bliss might be predominant for another the sense of vastness might be predominant for the for another the sense of emptiness might be predominant so it all depends on kind of the instrument through which that is experienced and if we grant if we have the generosity to sort of recognize that you know we're all basically talking about the same reality we're just you know like blind men and the elephant feeling it feeling different aspects of it then a lot of arguments can participate it mm-hmm oh and I think you know that the interesting thing is like they talk about the the John as in you know states of absorption as well into the one you know so um you know people will often sometimes have a you know a jhana experience and awakening like to me each each jhana each state of meditative absorption and I should maybe clarify what that word is it's it's like in the yogic tradition it's it's dianna or it also means chan in Chan Buddhism the word chan is it and and Zen is the same word as well so so people you know you can't you can at like when you get into meditation sometimes like you're a level of absorption will happening where it happened where the mind you know part of part of the minds operation will stop you know just one of one that some of the programming will stop and there'll be an increase in energy and it's it's an awakening experience and and there are many many different levels many different john as many states of absorption and and there there can be you know incredible blissful experiences there can be you know deep peace there can be you know and I've watched I've been fascinated you know with people who come to the meditation retreats because they're there's such a variety of experiences some people are experiencing their chakras and colors other people or you know they are seeing different beings and you know it's a whole cornucopia of experience but I think the where where it all converges you know like these these dramas you know they talk about the material jhanas which are to do with form and I think that's where we get these these ecstatic experiences and bliss and sat-chit-ananda and depending on how you how you use that word some people are referring to it in different ways but the the immaterial John is as you start getting into you know these experiences of total dissolution where you know you start to experience consciousness and everything and you start to experience emptiness and everything then you know you get to what they they call neither perception nor non-perception which is this essentially big big mind which is is sort of you know that's getting to that point is you know the self structure is it has basically become this this big mind or dissolved into a big mind the drop dissolves into the ocean and that's when the indescribable happens then we're you know it's not even a happening but something you know it's that's like the garden laying the groundwork for awakening to to happen and that thought awakening you know is so indescribable but but yet you know like the like in the Buddha said you know that realization is form you know all form is exactly emptiness emptiness is exactly form and and you know these this ultimate truth you know when you hear the Zen masters talking about it it's unmistakable if you've experienced it and and there's there's no difference in what they're saying but the problem is language like language is so slippery you know even even saying form is exactly emptiness emptiness is exactly form that's not it but you can't you can't describe it in words we'll never get a definition there's there's something that happens you know but it's not even a happening it's that's not even the right word because it's just you know it's like the black hole that I described in Samadhi part two you know there's an event or and beyond which we we cannot talk about this stuff so we can you know to me like in in the meditation centre what's exciting to me is not talking about this stuff and and you know trying to figure it all out but actually taking people through this stripping away you know going through the John as the the states of meditative absorption and and you know having a direct experience of this and to me that God is what's valuable so you know I'm I can hear myself with all these words and then it's like like I just want to slap myself thank you it's so you gonna have tone you do it yeah yeah she slaps me pretty good let's lock me right before that's actually good yes wake you up her advice to me before this was don't be an idiot yeah Irene serves that function very well over here keeping us in line make preventing us from acting like idiots um one thing that I find fascinating about all this is you know that we're talking about realms that are experienced by you know a relative fraction of the general population and you know it could be argued that the whole thing it doesn't even exist that nobody has these experiences they're the ER that your hallucinations or something like that you can imagine let's say like only at 1% of the population dreamed you know then the general consensus would be that there's no such thing as dreaming there's a few oddballs who talk about something that they think is dreaming but you know pretty much everyone experiences dreaming so even though it itself is in a kind of a loser ii experience we all agree that it happens so with regard to this stuff that we're talking about you know a pretty small percentage experience it and throughout history there has been a pretty small percentage but there's this historical record if people are experiencing it and there's a lot of concurrence a lot of agreement among all the various records from various parts of the world now you know perhaps what's going on these days is that that which has been a rarity is becoming a commonality that you know through the media through the kind of things you and I are doing through all the the proliferation of teachers and teachings which used to be kind of a you know secret hidden thing or that are now going public perhaps you know reach a time the next one to three hundred years where you know people would listen to a conversation like we're having and and think well these guys were really sort of you know beating around the bush I mean obviously everybody knows this stuff now you know I mean what's what's the big deal so like anything else it's there's a limitation in terms of how much concepts and words can do justice to experience I mean what can you say about the way an Apple tastes or the way of flower smells you know you really have to experience it yourself to know but if things become a common experience then you know people who have their senses intact can all agree upon the way a flower smells or looks or the way an apple tastes and it could get like that with spirituality it could become so predominant in the culture that it's it's an agreed-upon thing and and I think if such a time were to come we'll be living in a very different world than we are now yeah you know it's it's exciting I think you know even films like The Matrix you know they start to permeate the the collective unconscious and and you know if you talk to somebody about about living in the matrix now you know most people will have some concept of what that means yeah we're starting them may the force be with you it popularize the notion of a sort of ubiquitous field of energy or something that interconnects us all yeah yeah so I think there is a sort of acclimatization that that is happening for sure and I see you know just the Internet is an incredible thing like just being able to you know like years ago 20 years ago if I made a film and went through the normal film festival circuit I could maybe reach 15,000 people you know and now it's it's like millions can can can find out about this stuff and these ancient esoteric teachings that were we're taught you know only only by masters to students after 10 years of practice you know you can get them on Amazon for for 10 bucks now so it's it's it's an amazing time it's almost too much information out there it's a lot of these things I think get lost in the chaos and you know of what's what's out there and I think there's a danger with with meditation like it's I think it's wonderful what's happening with meditation like mindfulness going into the hospitals and schools and different things as well but but at what my hope is is that the you know the Samadhi aspect of it doesn't get lost you know in in this proliferation of meditation I think what is the next you know people go into because they want to lower their blood pressure and a couple years later I think there's more to this than lowering blood pressure you know and that yeah they start getting into the more profound aspects yeah yeah and and I think so too like there are many entry points and stepping stones and so that's why I think it's it's all fantastic I think it's it's really good and you know the the side benefits are you know very well known so um you know I think for me I got into you know I think the first kind of teaching I ever got was Deepak Chopra it was a some kind of guided meditation had music on in the background and and everything and it was at the time it was perfect it got he got me into you know looking inside myself and you know so it's it's all good I think there's there's a place for everything on this path yeah a question came in which I'm also asked now it's a little bit out of context of what we're talking about right now but well just do it it's from jean-francois in Paris he asks having watched both your Samadhi movies and greatly in them I wonder what is your view on the Kundalini process and it's linked to Samadhi the different degrees of Samadhi start to happen once energy reaches our ena chakra or the mockery point as described in some literature by John Harrigan who's been on that gap can one cultivate this phenomena to reach its full development and make it a positive one or is this something that just occurs naturally and spontaneously with spiritual practice mmm-hmm it's a great question so I think you know my understanding of Kundalini and you know a healthy kind of developmental process is that you know that the Shakti and Shiva have to kind of grow hand-in-hand and so you know if someone has kind of a you know that traumatic event or you know sometimes people have have you know experiences in life the will prematurely open up Kundalini and and that's when you start getting into like Kundalini syndrome and it's like Pandora's box basically it's very very difficult I met a lot of people who went when that energy is opened up and they don't have the consciousness to to encompass it and have an inhabited you know just like I did when I was a little kid um you know it can be terrifying it it can cause you know if the ego structure is just determined to do what it wants to do in your life and this energy is guiding you to do something else you'll get sick you'll get you know all messed up in all different ways digestive endocrine system everything you know there's all kinds of stuff written on that so so to me you know it the the the integrated way of you know it growing is to just you know live a conscious life you know that gets not separate from your life you know like all of this this wiring inside of us is you know like if you think about what the chakras are these these psychophysiological centers you know like you they talk about certain energies being you know like the the second chakra related to relationships you know your sexual center is being able to bring consciousness to that like you need in order to open these things up you need to go experience these things you need to to experience life you need to experience your power to manifest in the world you need to you know do things to push against your heart and open it up you know you need self-expression and and you know so living your life you know learning to play piano whatever it is you're creating wiring inside you that's all of the Nadi's it's all you know part of this this energetic growth that is happening so I personally I don't I don't agree with these practices you know designed to prematurely you know it's like I think I used talked about in the film it's like trying to force a flower to open you know you don't force your flower to open like explore life like live your life and and you will be wired and and if you're doing meditation as part of that you know like you you you grow these centers you free the energy like in Tantra I love the tantric approach you um you know you're you're you're not pushing any anything away you know my Christian upbringing like a lot of a lot of things were considered taboo or bad you know but in tantric approaches go into these things explore open up this energy but do it consciously and then you know you've you've learned to free the energy and the energy becomes available for the the higher levels the higher chakras so you go into your you know your sexuality you go into you know experiencing the sensual pleasures opening up the senses if they're if they're repressed you know and and you're just like you know I'm going to be a good little meditator and and and you know just push away all this this body stuff you know those those centers will be shut down and you'll never you never free that energy so you have to kind of go into life first and then you know you experience it and and you experience you know what causes suffering you experienced the you know the Maya aspect of it all as well and you know and experience the joy pleasure like this is this is life right this is the juice of life as well like the you know these these experiences to me are not you know they're not suffered from life so you know so um so you know but in in my experience like to have to get back to the question I guess you know every every Samadhi experience I've had has been accompanied by an energetic opening or an energetic almost like dying you know I remember my my Zen Center experience where it was the first time I really understood this whole system of no escape for the ego like you're locked in and you you can't move and something has to give way inside something else to literally die inside and you know or you get the hell out of there and but if you're you know they don't let you move so so um so the energy gives way and to me there's there's always a shift of energy or every every shift of consciousness is accompanied by a shift of energy and to me it's it's just common sense you know if your energy is going into the old conditioned pattern it's not available for um you know this this higher new experience so um and it you remain in that veil or you know the clouds in front of the Sun essentially what you just said about enjoying life I agree I mean life is here to enjoy but there's also something to be said for sensibility and moderation I mean the Buddha talked about the middle way and there are a lot of verses in the gita about you know this yoga is not for him who eats too much or too little or doesn't sleep enough or sleeps too much you know that kind of stuff so and there have been some gurus you know where the scene around them is basically just an ongoing orgy well kind of crazy stuff happening so what we've talked about earlier in the interview about culturing the nervous system and treating it as a you know the body is the temple of the soul as it says someplace in the Bible - treating it as a vehicle which can carry us to the other Shore you can damage that vehicle through all kinds of behaviors so yeah enjoy life but use a little common sense and maybe at the same time I I think um you know I I don't know if you have ever interviewed David data at all or no um no okay so he I heard uh yeah so I I heard a great story about him meeting his teacher and you know the teacher the first thing he did because he was he was like really kind of good you know meditator being you know all the Buddhist virtues and everything and the first thing the teacher did was you know sat him down with a case of beer and said we're gonna drink and and my teacher Nico is a little bit that way you know the way he sees it is you know the weight of freedom you see what condition patterns are running you know it's not about any any particular thing that you have to do or not do you know so for one person you know drinking beer might be their condition pattern right like they might be you know craving it and and they'd like to go unconscious you know so so for them to awaken it's to break that pattern obviously but they break that pattern by indulging in it I think alcohol I wouldn't they would beg to differ with you no no I'm not saying you break it by indulging so for that person that the path is to to stop it to cut it out I say no so but for another person who is like afraid of it you know and they're they're they're you know they're afraid to lose control their Freight or they're afraid to you know there there there their head is full of all kinds of virtuous ideas so there they're not there it's it's like oh my god I can't I can't do that you know so they're not they're not free right so so that so the particular thing that you're doing isn't it like it's what's going on in your head is it right like so the so becoming free is not about you know I I fell into this you know with with attachment to things you know at one point I was I was like going absolute minimalist with my my possessions and I had a grand piano and I I was like oh this it's such a you know it's such a big thing and and you know I want to have no attachments you know but then I realized like I was I was becoming attached to having no attachments so you know it was like the the piano wasn't the problem it was me it was my mind you know so so moderation balance there's no wrong no harm in being wealthy this and that you know just don't do things which damage your nervous system and that was one of my realizations what before I started to meditate because I was I've been taking drugs for about a year and I was you know been arrested a couple of times dropped out of high school so I'm sitting there one night on LSD reading of Zen book to study steady my mind and and I thought you know these guys are really serious and I'm kind of screwing around even I've been thinking about enlightenment for a year meanwhile taking drugs the whole time I thought if I continue on like this I could really do some damage and I'll have to live the rest of my life in a damaged nervous system I think might believe me my thought process wasn't this coherent as it is the moment as I'm explaining it but that was the idea I got so I thought that's it I'm gonna quit taking drugs and learn to meditate and hopefully things will improve in and they did yeah so I'm just cautioning a bit you know I mean I was standing on a grocery store yesterday waiting for Irene to come from a different part of the store I understand there happen to be looking at a case of beer on the floor because it had this interesting picture on that on the case and this friend of mine who walked up who's an awake and do it I mean he you know witnessed his sleep he's aware 24/7 and he said I bet you'd like a beer I said I had one about ten years ago after cutting the grass I was really hot one day a friend offered me one he said I happen pretty often you know I like to have peace of some pizza and a beer and so maybe I'm a little bit repressive but you know yeah alcoholics I have an aversion to the whole scene anyway but yeah yeah no I I totally I hear what you're saying and I agree and my tendency in the past was you know I even in meditation retreats I pride my nervous system just I'd be going in with guns blazing and and you know and trying to storm the gates of heaven as a thread yeah it doesn't work so yeah and you know with the beer examples maybe a bad example like for me I'm you know I don't drink beer just because it I don't appreciate the way yeah like it just doesn't you know it my body doesn't like it and and I don't I prefer to be more awake than then in that state but I was just kind of using that as an example to you know just to illustrate that you know the particular object is not it yeah there was a story about Shankara I doubt this is a true story but it illustrates the point he was walking along with some disciples and he was walking ahead of them and they saw him stop at something and drink it and then he kept walking and when they got up to it they said oh it's it's beer the way I heard the story of his beer and so that they drank some and they all kept walking and then they got to another thing and they saw Shankara stop and drink something and they got up to it and we're getting ready to drink it and they saw that it was molten glass you guy I wouldn't even elaborate on the point of the story people probably get something out of it yeah yeah ok let's talk about some other points you sent me bitter that look interesting I want to loop back to one just for a second that I continued to always find fascinating and and that is the the sort of intelligence of the universe which you illustrate so beautifully in your movies there's a saying by Brian Swim who's a cosmologists he says leave hydrogen alone for 13.7 billion years and you get giraffes and rose bushes and opera I love die yeah you've probably heard that before yeah and so the question is and they're actually materialists who say well the universe is random and meaningless and the only reason we have all this order and beauty and structure is that there are an infinite number of universes and we happen to look out and be in the one where randomly through through chance it everything just kind of came together but that doesn't make sense because we have the second law of thermodynamics in this universe in it and there's no reason in terms of that law why all this order should have arisen out of chaos and so again I'm fascinated and awed by the orderliness of that there arises out of you know hydrogen that gave us stars that ended up exploding that ended up creating heavier elements that ended up creating biological life eventually that ended up with us having this conversation it just thrills me and intrigues me why all of this should come out of apparent nothingness yeah yeah I think um for some reason I'm thinking of something that sri nisargadatta maharaj spoke about and he spoke about you know how when fluids come together and the I am appears you heard what that heard okay well yeah it's to me um you know when he says that what does he mean by that yeah what he means by that is you know there's this sort of self-organizing aspect to existence so he's I think he's talking he's talking about you know within the framework of this body you know to me I don't maybe I know I experience what feels maybe like cerebral cerebral spinal fluid no moving moving you know so with like a certain awakening experiences you feel that the energy is conducted the guy name is Mauro Zapatera who talks about that about that a lot if you google and cerebral spinal fluid he he speaks at the sand conference anyway continue Oh interesting okay I'll check that out so and yeah so you know and to me you know I would say even you know like energy comes together and the I am appears you know it depends how you frame it right like you like there are all these different different levels right like the physical there's this fluid aspect there's there's the pranic aspect you know there's a whatever whatever it is that is happening you know this this convergence happens and there's there's an intelligence there it's it's an intelligence so great that you know that consciousness comes into being in the sense of in the center of it you know and and the unfathomable thing is that you know in a Samadhi state everything is that like every atom you know there is an eye in every atom there there is you know at the center of everything of every star every every you know my cup on the table it's it's all that you know so so somehow this consciousness is at the center of it and you know in in the Upanishads they like you know with like we're so we're so enmeshed in this filtering but but when we go beyond the filter it becomes you know I don't want to say clear but it's um you know the Upanishads they say not that which the eye sees but that by which the eye can see you know not that which the ear hears you know so that by which the mind thinks that by which the eye sees you know what is that what is that hmm why should there be eyes and ears and cups and all this stuff what is that how does it how does all this come into being or into a parent existence at least yeah yeah and yogi had an interesting take on this he said that you know until the self is realized there's really not much talk about really understanding or appreciating what the world is because who is who understands it who appreciates it you don't even if the knower doesn't know it himself itself there's really no knowledge of any veracity but you said once once the self is realized then you know naturally one begins to appreciate the universe more appreciate the world more and one begins to have the desire to know how this came about one how who created all this what is that intelligence that gave rise to this this beautiful creation he said that that desire becomes more and more intense or more and more profound or deep or whatever and at a certain point that that creator whatever we wanted to find that as being reveals himself or itself to us and he said it's like an artist who keeps hearing there's this guy in this town who just loves my artwork you know and he keeps hearing this more and more and more finally he he thinks I'm gonna go meet this guy you know I'll go to him because I there are so few people who really appreciate my artwork I'd like to like to know this person yeah yeah that's I love what you said about the Maharishi I think it's it's such a true thing it's like we we can't you know I get like that the answer to the question can never come in the mind but we can we can be the answer we can literally become the answer so you know so there's no more questions when you are the answer you know it's only that the limited mind trying to figure it out and and there's you know it's like to me my the closest I've come to that is is it's like the the limited self is in a state of awe you know a state of just absolute awe of what what is coming out of nothing you know coming from from this unfathomable you know that an unfathomable intelligence that's so far beyond you know like to say that we're like a monkey watching it is not even you know we're it's it's just you know yeah it's it's it's mysterious and and remember that Einstein quote about all that you put in your movie generally I remember it's in there I can't remember exactly how it goes but yeah you know we're like little children you know trying to read this book in a foreign language you know and and you know that's that's it you know I have a it's it's a really amazing book by him a guy Alexander Lauder Wasser he's he's an expert in cymatics the book is filled with it's called water sound images and it's images of vibration and and when you when you look at these things like page after page after page you know he'll show he'll show like a gong you know vibrating the water and what it looks like it showed some of that in one of your movies yeah yeah yeah and like some of it you know like there's one I think it's a didgeridoo and it looks like you know some kind of Sanskrit language by Brady you know and and like just unfathomable complexity or rising out of just simple sounds you know and these interference patterns creating and creating this unimaginable complexity but but when you see these things you know and these are these are just simple sounds and and and you see the the complexity and the intelligence in it and then you think about how how much there isn't a human being you know you know like this is this is just a plate of water being vibrated by a note like there's so much more going on within us you know so it gets two levels of complexity that are just you know I'm comperable yeah and I think both the Vedas and the and physics would say that the whole universe arises out of vibration so you know this plate of water thing is just a little so you know home example but you know the the the whole the vedas themselves are supposed to be sort of vibrate vibratory impulses that reside in what is called archery the transcendental Akasha and that through self interaction somehow this this whole process where the universe it emerges and then eventually collapses and emerges again and physics has corresponding understandings in terms of something they call sequential spontaneous symmetry breaking where there is a sort of primordial harmony or wholeness which gets broken into more and more fragments at different more and more diverse and and specific laws of nature through the process and manifestation mm-hmm I had recently we invited a fellow who does AI boga retreats to the center and I had a sort of a teaching or an experience through through that I don't not sure if you're familiar with it it's an agent yeah the sort of like along the line of ayahuasca but has very different different properties and there's there's a real it's a it's an amazing meditation tool actually because there's there's a real kind of truth component to it where it shows you kind of the stuff you don't want to see about yourself and it showed me in a beautiful kind of vision visual experience but also energetically within my body and you know there were these these forms like the this this sort of ether and forms and just being birthed out of it over and over and over endlessly and and then I felt like I'm you know the the consciousness that I was was sort of dancing know you just do this little dance and then you dive back into the ether and another form is born and you not dot dives back in and and you know and it but it showed me you know there were some beings that they had a as they were diving back in they had a look of terror on their face you know they weren't they weren't just kind of going with this dance you know so it really showed that you know what we're doing our fears you know everything that we're resisting in this world we're not really dancing not dance for the most part you know we're we're you know life and life and death is just arising over and over and over and over but unless we're unless we're aligned with awareness we don't we don't see it as dance we're fearful of this little meet getting dissolved back in the primordial soup well that's the key point is being aligned with awareness yeah which of course words fail because you are awareness but somehow aligned with yourself or in tune with yourself or awake to yourself or whatever and and then when we say yourself it has an individual connotation but it's not really individual so you know you have to sort of take a leap of understanding when we use words because words are relative and limiting a couple of questions came in this is from res Abbasi from New York he says when you say live life doesn't that come with attachments the thing we are advised not to get sucked into how do you gauge if you're leaning too much into life itself or the objective world mm yeah I think we kind of talked you I think mentioned mid the middle the middle way the balance right so so it's it's just you know it's not it's not repressing anything denying anything that is you know like if I have if I have you know passions if I have something you know I don't want to close that down you know but I don't want to indulge it and and you know my teacher talks about the little bosses you know that are inside of us and you don't you don't want to feed those little bosses you know you don't want to be you know having these these autonomous patterns running in you that are ruling your life where you're you're grasping at things either so so the middle way is to you know realize it's it's like you know I I love the the old Buddha statues like the really old ones that you find in the ancient temples that have the the Nagas around them so yeah like yeah the the Buddha figure in the center and then you've got these these you know sometimes they're like the chakras the ones that potentially have you know the seven chakras or sometimes five but and you know but they're there at attention you know so um it's it's you know these these lower instincts these these you know the serpent analogy is is that you know there there are these lower forces that that have their own agenda right like they're there you know their cravings they're there these these little bosses that govern our line lives so we you know when we awaken as awareness you know the like in in those statues they're out attention they're you know the master is in the center and they're at attention so you don't you don't get rid of the nagas you don't you know that's you know you don't cut their heads off and and you know but you harness them they become you know the the lower you know the the devil is the angel you know that it's it's all one being right so so we have to learn to allow these things to co-exist inside of us if we're for pushing one part of ourselves away and you know we're fighting with ourselves we're fighting with our own what with what is inside of us so um you know so to me it's it's like we it's the marriage of that but Heaven and Hell has to happen inside through these you know there's a couple of Gita verses that I think address his question chapter 2 verse 45 says be without the three gunas which means transcend which means meditate which means going to Samadhi right and then three verses later it says established in yoga we could also say established in Samadhi reformed action so he's not just saying go fight this battle he's saying prepare yourself by getting established in the self getting established in Samadhi then do it and and the outcome will be completely different it's like if you want to shoot an arrow and you just put it on the bow and let go no you have to pull it back first yeah yeah exactly and I think yeah there's something there where you know like once you've realized your true nature you're not identified with the self then you can play with these things as well you know at the beginning there there is huge value to having no preference you know cutting like to because not having no preference is the stopping of the Britta's and stopping of this this endless cycle of craving and aversion but but then once you've realized the true self then your freedom free to play and and you have to be careful still you know like I've had you know I love my dance structure loves chocolate you know and you know I can eat chocolate and I you know that it tastes amazing and it produces a nice kind of heart feeling so you know why wouldn't I eat it but I have to keep there's a little boss that I have to keep an eye on that you know if I if he starts to get strong he'll eat too much and it'll start to hurt my liver and a little it's not good for me in in excess so so it's you know so we we get an understanding of these different parts of us that are in play and we we just we manage them it's like having a pet kind of like a you know you don't want to overfeed your pet you know but you don't want to starve your pet either now it's true of just about anything you know I mean mm-hmm little salt on your and your vegetables makes them taste better dump the whole salt shaker on and you've ruined them you know there's so many examples of things that are good in a certain proportion but too much of it is not good yeah the golden mean the middle way you know it's it's all this is how the yin and yang operate it's you know there and there there is you know there there is a wisdom that we can connect to that sort of guides us to me it's very connected to energy like when when for me you know I just feel when things are off you know I can just feel in my body that you know a certain situation is not right or a certain thing is is not good for me and you know the energy can be you know kind of like a the canary in the coalmine kind of thing you know and even relationships you know sometimes the energy like before before you know before I even know consciously the energy is already deciding things for me you know it's already moving in a particular direction the question came in we've kind of covered this one but maybe you can elaborate a bit now from Roderick Rodrigo and Lisbon Portugal who asks what was the process of writing the script of Samadhi hmm you know I didn't mention so well write a lot it came out of meditation thank ya so yeah to me there's you know they speak about I'm you know in in with music like there's the muse right there's there's a the there's a part of us and it's it's unfathomable like it's you know sometimes it's just you feel drawn if you feel like a channel sometimes or like you know you this is bigger than you and you don't you're just kind of going along for the ride you're an instrument of the divine or of something yeah much wiser and larger than yourself yeah yeah and you know and I'm even saying not you know I'm not I'm not a particularly good instrument I'm just normal that's and that's one thing I'd like to talk about a little bit maybe is that you know I don't know if I've really conveyed like I'm you know I talk about a lot of this this stuff that has happened to me it seems like extraordinary experiences but I'm a pretty normal regular person you know like I most of my life I was I was pretty embedded in the matrix and you know I feel truly like if I if you know just through meditation it's opened up this connection but you know for different people it can be art it can be music it can be whatever you know it could be you know a gift to to communicate with people in some way or to open your heart so you know these these channels are just you know they're they're they're I think it's like we have seeds of possibility within us and you know the bringing awareness you know and stopping the flow of energy into these conditioned fears and patterns and jobs and you know all this stuff it's like the stuff that we put all of our energy in life you know like you can bring that into alignment with these these seeds and grow them together potentially nice Rodrigo also wonders what your daily practice is um it's right now I would say like it changes because like right now I'm in the middle of a ten day retreat which we do so I'm doing a lot of meditation have obviously at that but 20 and I do about two hours every morning and sometimes what of seed and meditation so and you actually do it so so yeah when I when I meditate I mean so I basically for me meditation now it's really changed over the years so you know it's me it's it's um in terms of what Krishnamurti speaks about as choiceless awareness I think his his description of choiceless awareness is probably the best description of where I've ended up so for me it's there's no doing in the meditation whatsoever so there's there's um it's there's a penetrating into what the mind is already doing and then letting it go once like the problem the challenge like is most of what the mind is doing is unconscious so so we have to penetrate into the the layers of mind you know by being present single pointedly aware but there's no doing in that it's just being aware and and then you know mine patterns will become visible and then we can we can drop those patterns or they this sort of self drop once once they're conscious because that you realize you're doing it and then it's like why am i doing that so so your honor there's two hours go pretty smoothly is it enjoyable or are you sitting there kind of struggling for a couple hours it again depends you know like it's it's sound like the practice is to be a quantum Asst so it's you know things come and go and you know sometimes there's incredible bliss sometimes there's there's pain but for me like the practice has has changed a lot over the years like at the beginning there was definitely at the beginning of the practice there was a lot more pain and struggle and you know slogging through you shouldn't have the mind now like it like if I you know if I look at what's happening in my mind during the meditation there's a lot less mind activity a lot less Britta's and thought and and there I would say the actual droppings the cessations are more frequent now than before so we'll come to your Center and learn to meditate and do a retreat are you able to save them from a lot of the pain and struggle you went through because you've kind of learned things that enable you to teach them in such a way as to do it more effortlessly from the outset yes yes and no you know I think um you know there's anybody who comes like you're you're going to have to learn to surrender inside you're going to have to face your pain so you're you know you're you're going to have to learn to stop this process of craving and aversion and you know that when you're not reacting that's a that's a painful process for everyone you know people go through that they have awakenings and you know emotional releases and they want to leave they want they think this is hell you know they take their little strolls through hell you know and and but I think there are you know I see the value of if somebody has had previous experiences I think there is value in being able to speak about what's going on there there are certain traps certain pitfalls on the path I think people can end up with concepts in their mind about what meditation is and you know if those concepts aren't dispelled they can spend a lot of time just you know polishing tiles or with you know you know some one thing that often happens is people will you know they get some idea about and not over no self they go into almost like a stupor state you know where like a dull state and there are a lot of lot of pitfalls on the help to and how help to sort of dispel some of those notions yeah yeah that's that's really you know I see as my role you know at the center is to just share you know what what I've learned tonight I'm still constantly learning from people you know understanding how this all works and I feel like I'm still just at the beginning of my my understanding then it's a good attitude I think we should all do that and and people I'm sure aren't kissing your feet you know and and and you know I it really like I I try and set up the relationship but yeah as well as I can this this is one of the things tawnya slaps me with all the time because people people do come and they think you know that I'm something I said yeah some kind of teacher and and you know like to me I just want to be I just want to be free you know I don't want to be playing out some teacher archetype and if I am I'm not free if if somebody has that label on me you know they're not free and I'm not free and you know I truly see myself more as just you know I want to be in more like a friend relationship with someone you know just helping them on the spiritual path yeah question just came in from someone named Chitra in California she asked some meditation lately had been in different forms if I do choiceless awareness my mind is raising random thoughts which I am aware of and then I feel mantra or one pointedness helps that in other words I guess just mantras more helpful than random awareness or choiceless awareness what do you recommend for general people to do to make rapid progress hmm well though with the way we teach it at the center like we we kind of feel it out with every individual and every every group so kind of try and meet people where they're optimized it's oh yeah yeah yeah so you know there there are people who you know really get the non dual teachings and and that's you know what's going to help them at that particular point other times you know we have tons of different techniques like if the mind is racing you can you can you can start to you know really turn awareness towards thoughts themselves and and start to penetrate into that pattern so you can you can see you know thoughts are either visual auditory or sometimes they're both so you can you can start to observe these these different qualities of thinking and and you just start to see what whatever is going on you know any hindrance that's coming up you're kind of doing the same thing you're penetrating into the pattern in different ways seemed the movement of the pattern and and then you it's not like this this gross kind of thing that's just just overtaking you in consciousness but you can start to keep an eye on the movement you know and so there there are a lot of tools like that or you know they're they're passionate techniques of noting thoughts as well like starting to understand what's happening all of these these tools can be useful I think at certain points in the to to start to really bring awareness inside of the pattern and and and and start to break it up you know start to start to get a sense of the energy of it and the movement of it do you do some yoga there when I used to do long courses like you know six weeks six months we would break it up like we'd meditate for an hour or whatever and then you know do do 20 minutes of yoga postures and then meditate another hour and then do 20 minutes of yoga postures just so it's the kind of integrate yes and we do and we give it basically it's self-directed so we have an area in the zendo where people can do walking meditation between sets or they can they can stand up we do not every day but every second day we do like a yoga stretching kind of thing as well and you know for me like the way I teach at the center or the the structure that we've created there is very self-directed so if people are you know they're free to do what they want and as long as it's not during you know times where it's going to disturb other people but Tom crimeless no Fuhrman yeah like for me like the whole the whole yogic thing like I'm I did two years of hatha yoga which was helpful for me to be able to sit on a cushion comfortably and that's about it I'm not I don't really go into all the asanas and stuff like that it's not really part of what we're doing we do we teach it more as just kind of stretching for the body to prepare it for sitting basically and you know my my and yoga to me what what does that for different is different for different people like for me you know um I've tried different different types of yoga and where I've ended up actually it's completely changed over my lifetime at one at one point I was um you know I was doing more traditional yoga but now I feel like um Yoga is what what grounds me and brings me into my body and living on the property you know I work with wood we heat our buildings with would say John the dumb the chopping wood and and chainsaw I actually like to use a chainsaw you have to be incredibly present and grounded and and and it brings me right into my body so so I've you know my yoga is is chainsaw yoga and and it's it's um you know if I if I do a few hours of that and then I go sit like I'm it's it's amazing to me it it brings me because I I tend to be like my bata dosha I tend to be just ethereal and going off you know and to be here is is important for me whereas for other people it's about lightening up it's about the the opposite they want to be breaking up the pattern so you know somebody who is a different dosha they met they might you know a kundalini yoga class might be better because it's like creating all this upward moving energy and so um you know I think we try and try and meet people give them the tools that will work for them be careful with that chainsaw I sliced my leg open with one last year because I wasn't being mindful enough like like you just said you need to be mindful and and I would recommend wearing protective gear - yeah good advice yeah Paul from San Marcos California wants to know did your Vipassana experience heal your physical ailments uh yeah interesting like my first of all my idea of what healing is changed dramatically so at the beginning my um I just wanted to be able to go back and eat the copy foods that is eating my body and not not to me was what I thought healing was so so my idea of healing completely changed and I started to tune in to what my body actually wanted I'm not took many many years but yes like the for me in that Vipassana experience like the pancreas area you know when you do the body scan it was completely offline there was no sensation and then at a certain point after after quite a bit of meditation it started to wake up and and incredible pain you know and like it like a sword turning and for for hours and hours and hours and and eventually you know it would it wouldn't start to dissolve as I as I got into deeper states of absorption and the first moment when it got those retreats you know SN Goenka is always saying you know everything arises and passes away it's all impermanent and and even says you know you probably think your your pain is different you know yours is gonna last forever and and and I really did I really thought this one is never gonna go away because this is like a serious bodily you know problem and and it was it was quite amazing when it actually dissolved the first time and of course it came back and I had to dissolve it again man okay no no you type your type one diabetes and your arthritis are gone now yes yeah so I have I have no symptoms and I was told that I had to go on insulin for my the rest of my life and and I don't and I'm don't yeah yeah that's awesome so yeah yeah so I'm symptom free but if I went back to eating KFC and drinking live coolers I shouldn't say anything bad about can't see I think okay so here's one final question that Irene sent over to me I'll ask this and then then we'll just sort of wrap it up and have you tell us about you know how people can get in touch and what what they can do this one is again from res in New York City he wants to know I've heard that there are many paths to enlightenment but some point in the wrong direction even while speaking of enlightenment don't we need to exercise discretion in an age of the Internet mm-hmm absolutely yeah I think like skepticism for me I'm you know I I would say don't believe anything at all good like period you know I'm serious do not believe anything and find out within yourself whether Buddha said that you know you're quoting the Buddha there have you heard that quote yeah I think yeah do you know the quote basically it's just you know don't believe anything because somebody said it even if I say it the Buddha don't but check it out in your own experience and with your own reason and understanding yeah like I'm a total skeptic like I you know I hear about you know all these these different things and you know I don't disbelieve anything but I don't believe anything either I want to get it yeah verify and yeah see what's true and I wouldn't believe a word that's coming out of my mouth you know if I hadn't if I hadn't experienced it so you know check it out like do the meditation if there's one thing you know that will convey to someone I'd love to get you know high-level scientists in the room doing this type of meditation and you know like to me it this this is where it gets interesting you know and to see the nature of reality but find out use the body you use yourself as a laboratory I think that science and a scientific attitude has a lot to offer spirituality and I also think that spirituality has a lot to offer science because a lot the science is never going to be able to explore without the spiritual techniques and you know and the proper utilization of the ultimate scientific instrument which is our own mind and body yeah yeah so let's talk a little bit about the Samadhi Center I'm just gonna show the website on the screen here you have the Samadhi Center up there somewhere between out in the boonies somewhere between Toronto and Montreal looks like a beautiful place where we are on turn 1/6 and you tell me there's still half a foot of snow on the ground in the woods yeah details about that about the snow or vasila no not the snow but about the Samadhi Center and just you know like if people have booked I'm intrigued by listening to this interview what can they do both in terms of just visiting your website that firstly they can watch your movies which are online and free they can visit your website I think there's some meditation techniques they can learn from there if they want to go even further they can come to Canada right yeah yeah we do personal retreats so you can just come and do a self-directed retreat basically you'd be meditating with Tanya and I in the morning and we're available for instruction and then the the more formal retreats like the ten-day retreats our intensive meditation which you're basically doing meditation most of the day and you know it's broken up by by different things we use sound as well would you advise that someone who's never really done meditation come in cold and just plunge into something like that or do you sure yes Amanda does there be some kind of experience first building up no I I think I think any anyone sometimes having experience you know in people who are really holding on to techniques and traditions sometimes have a harder time because they have to let go of that first so I'd say anybody can do it and it's a it's an amazing way to get grounded in a meditation practice so I would say you know we encourage all levels and beginner to advanced great well I'll link to your website and I'll link to your films and everything and people can get in touch with you and watch the films and what have you got planned for the future with your reams and reams of notes what's gonna happen with that and so that the next film the working title is the pathless path and so part two we kind of left off by saying you know there's there's no way to the way there's no there's no how you know that the mind can can grasp you know so part three we're gonna tell you how yeah I always like paradox in contradiction yeah so you know so part three is going to be going into the perennial teaching you know really looking at what is happening in the different meditation traditions and contemplative traditions and trying to get to the essence of what is happening you know to to strip away the self structure so that the awareness can shine through wonderful well I think it's a it's a great service you're doing and I hope you do it for many many years to come obviously a lot of people are watching it and getting inspired and benefited by it so keep it up thank you thanks for the opportunity sure so um as anyone still watching realizes and knows I've been speaking with Daniel Schmitt who has made the inner worlds outer worlds and Samadhi Samadhi films and I'll be creating a page for him on bat gap which links to those things and to his website and everything else you can get in touch with Daniel next week I'll be interviewing Michael Pollan who wrote how to change your mind and Christopher Bosh who also wrote a book about psychedelics I think it's called diamonds from heaven it's a subtitle and I think that is going to be a fascinating discussion we'll be talking about psychedelics and what these to have experienced Michael is relatively new to it Chris Bosh spent 20 years taking quite high dosage LSD trips in an extremely controlled way he stopped doing that about 20 years ago but he did it for 20 years and so check it out well if you'd like to be notified of new interviews when they're posted sign up on beth capcom there's a little mailing list thing if you'd like to listen to these as an audio podcast there's a tab for that on the site and a number of other things just explore around and stay tuned doing hope to be doing this right Daniel for many years to come so thanks Daniel okay thanks Rick okay stay in touch you too bye-bye [Music]

Channel: BuddhaAtTheGasPump

Views: 53,753

Rating: 4.8848062 out of 5

Keywords: Kundalini, fear, meditation, soul, anatta, atman, Inner Worlds Outer Worlds, Samadhi, Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta

Id: NxAINV06U6w

Length: 139min 25sec (8365 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2019