Embracing the Mystery: Samadhi, Soma & The Path to Inner Freedom with Ishtar Howell

[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right. Ishtar. Yeah. Thank you for joining me today. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. [00:00:07] Speaker A: For sure. Man. I want to ask you this. Why the name Ishtar? [00:00:12] Speaker B: Well, I didn't pick it, but that doesn't mean I'm complaining about it. So I was essentially in a, what I used to call a benign cult. You know, I call it a monastic community or ashram or whatever. And it was built around this meditation practice that I learned called the Ishaya's Ascension or Ascension meditation. Anyways, I learned this thing three months after learning. At the time I was already sort of monastery shopping in a way. I was getting information from different centers and trying to see if I could find a place that fit very well. Anyways, I found myself three months after learning this thing in an ashram. And I wasn't really necessarily in it to get a, like a, like a name or most people were getting Sanskrit names. I didn't, oddly, I wasn't in it for that. I didn't, I didn't think I needed to have any kind of external signs or ceremonies or anything like that because like, yeah, what's the point? You know, it's, it's the work you're doing right now that that's real. But that said, you know, I don't know, it was 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe 5, maybe 4 months into, into my, my time there. I, I got the bug. I just got in a non rational way. I was like, I want to have myself a ceremony because, you know, you would fast for three days and be silent. The fasting was no problem for me because I was used to that already. But this being silent for a full three days, that was a good, that was a good challenge. And then you, the first thing you speak out after the three days are these vows essentially. And then at the end of the vows, typically somebody is given. Most of the people are getting Sanskrit names. Ishtar is not a Sanskrit name. [00:01:58] Speaker A: It's very interesting. [00:01:59] Speaker B: I was given a name that doesn't actually link back to the Babylonian goddess of damn near everything, which is I think the most common association. Not that I have. Again, actually, not that I have a problem with the goddess association, but I was named essentially after a character in the meditation founders, I don't know, visionary spiritual corpus. There was actually a weird synchronicity to this. I was named after. And it's gonna sound really funny. We're getting the biggest woo right off the bat. An 8 to 10 foot tall, humanoid, blue skinned, semi immortal, you know, almost like really more of an Archetypal character. I think of them as archetypes, not as actual beings in these books. Anyhow. The funny thing was though, and I didn't tell soul about this at the ashram because I didn't think it was important. But I had at age 6 and then at age 13, later at age 20, but at age 6 and age 13, I had these. The same dream which functioned as a night terror for me. There's nothing that should have made it a night terror really in the content it was. I basically would find myself standing in like a beautiful grassland, something that would look like Mongolia on a sunny day with greener grass, just like a step sort of grassland. And somehow I knew that I was about 8ft tall. How I knew this, I don't know. I wasn't comparing myself. I would look at the, in the dream because I looked at the grass and like that grass is six feet tall and I was like maybe two, three feet above it and okay, and I'm just standing here. And then apparently in this dream I was feeling intense grief. In fact, I would look at this beautiful sky and this beautiful planet and there was a sense of being all alone. And specifically that somehow everybody that I loved was either dead or had gone to another planet. And for some reason the grief to a 6 year old's psyche nervous system and then later a 13 year old psyche nervous system in my sleep was so intense that I would wake up to the sound of my own sort of blood curdling screams with the lights on in my bedroom. My mother, my father, and at one point my sister physically holding me. And sometimes it felt like holding me down because I felt like my body was somehow, you know, trying to, you know, go somewhere and leave. The first time I had it was the first time, the second time I had it. Somehow after seven years of a lot of life, I remembered the dream and I remember that I couldn't make it to the end. And in that second time at age 13, I was struggling to make it to the end of the dream, despite the pain, the emotional pain that I was experiencing. But I couldn't make it. And why this is connected to this character is I was once reading through these sort of visionary fiction books and the character that I was named after, Ishtar, that is apparently what happened to him. So it was a strange, the words in the books where he was alone on the planet and everyone that he had loved, he had either lost or had left him. And I was like, oh, okay, that's really, that's a strange Coincidence. Anyways, I just file it as sort of a strange coincidence or bordering on an interesting synchronicity. It turned out that that dream was somehow important though, because two years after I took the vows and received this name, Ishtar, I was in the middle of my meditation teacher training with the same outfit at the same place. I think I was about three, probably about three months into it, maybe two, three months into it. And the program during that time was 8, 10, 12, sometimes maybe more hours of closed eyed meditation a day, every day, which was wonderful. And the dream came back at age 20. So it was also again a little coincidence here. Seven year intervals here. The dream came back at age 20 and only this time I was able to go to the end. There was zero pain, there was zero trauma. It was clean as a whistle, through and through. And I knew that I made it to the end because it was almost like a film roll. It's like tick, tick, tick, tick. There it is. Never had it again. Never had that dream again. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Wow. What was at the end? [00:06:33] Speaker B: Nothing. Just me standing there in a field looking at the. No great climax. Just me standing there looking at the sky and the grasses just before. It's like the first two times I had the dream within the dream. It was as if the sky itself, big blue sky like Mongolia or Montana, as if the sky itself was made of grief and I was being suffocated by everything of the scene was literally keeping me from breathing because the grief was too intense. So the name Ishtar has ended up actually being wrapped up in something that was going on that was real and had affected me. Yeah. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Well, thank you for sharing that. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Sure. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, there's definitely some deep meaning in there. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:29] Speaker A: Some symbolism. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:31] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know what it is, but there's definitely something to it. [00:07:34] Speaker B: I mean, I also think it was in some kind of personal way. It was probably always going to be my destiny to have a lot of like funny and probably weird and out of the box things about me and my life that's just been a feature from the beginning. And so it was another one of those things to throw in the box. Another funny thing though. I had a friend here again, I'm forgetting all these stories. I had a friend who was at that same asram and well, most of my friends are much older than me because it was very unusual for an 18 year old to be doing this. Most of the people I knew had already had a career and kids and that stuff and were kind of on more on the back end, shall we say? And she had years before meeting me, when I was a high schooler in Wisconsin, Somebody had asked her, do you know where Ishtar is? At a meditation retreat in the same sort of practice. I don't remember if it was her or her friend. I think it was her, actually, who said, well, he's not here. And then she said, he's a high schooler in Wisconsin. When she told me that story, and I don't have any reason to believe that she was making that up or lying. I don't think so. She wasn't that type of person to have to do that. I was like, okay, well, there's another weird thing. Somehow this name would be attached to me. And unless there was another high schooler in Wisconsin in 1999 or 2000 when that conversation had happened. Whatever. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think so. You're probably the only one. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:11] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Can't imagine. Wow, okay. Cool stuff. Well, where are you at now then? Right? Why. Why are we having this conversation? What's your background? How would you describe yourself? [00:09:31] Speaker B: That's actually probably one of the toughest questions, you know, I could be asked. Asked. Right. [00:09:37] Speaker A: Right now it's the question of all questions. Who am I? [00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know. Oh, that. And I have things to say about. About that. People using that as a practice, trying to do it from their head. Vichara. I think people butcher it, actually, and shouldn't be doing it in that way, you know. And also, I don't like people who try not to. I do definitely have a personality. That's absolutely the case. I definitely have a sense, a sense of an individuated. I ness not walking around, unable to respond to someone calling my name or have conversation because, you know, we're so, you know, out somewhere so high like that. [00:10:18] Speaker A: I am holy. [00:10:19] Speaker B: It would probably be disingenuous if I called myself a normal person. I'm not saying better, just. I think I'm a weird person at base. But then again, I think pretty much everybody I know is actually weird. Like everybody I meet. If I can really get somebody down into their. Into their realness, I basically think I'm going to be excavating eccentricities if they're not already there on the surface. [00:10:42] Speaker A: They're all weird. [00:10:45] Speaker B: I think I came to this planet in general. This still holds true today, basically, for food, sex and enlightenment. And maybe in no particular order, but these are the definite draws. I love being here, even though my life has not always been Rosy. And there's a lot of things that would make a lot of things easier. Nevertheless, at the core in here, there's still very much a joy in almost everything, just doing almost everything. I think that was probably always the case and part of my personality, but it just got freed up just from having a lot of the extra tension taken off all that stuff. But if I'm asked, who am I? Funnily enough, maybe this is reflex action from meditation or whatever. When I'm actually asked that question, the first place I go is this big, vast everythingness. And so I was like, okay, well that's interesting. Not in some kind of, I don't know, out there sort of, you know, way, but actually in kind of a very normal way, like at a certain point of. And this, this does not require any near death experiences or shit like that, but just, just in doing meditation practice and being in the grocery store, being in conversation, there are so many little inflection points where I just kind of came to and realized, wow, this giant, vast, silent thing has basically been staring me in the face from within and without the entire time, the entire bloody time, as if all the molecules, if I could see molecules, as if all the molecules and atoms and. And whatever participles of my experience, whatever it's made out of, has actually been made of that with the capital T. And how wonderful. How absolutely wonderful. So, you know, also, why are we having this conversation? I'm very personable, which I used to get flack from that actually some of my monastic peers, like, why are you emailing all these people? You know, like, why are you reaching out to these people? Why are you talking out on. Yeah, I was like, I kind of like to, you know, I kind of. I've always enjoyed. Enjoy doing that maybe because also when I was very young, maybe six or seven maybe when the personality was starting to. To come in, I was very much like my Western astrological sign. I was acting Scorpio. A lot of it. I was. And I was very similar. And it's a very peculiar personality type, I have to say, in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. But I was somehow, I was acting accordingly. But part of that was I was extremely shy. So shy. I mean, and to me it felt a little, it felt crippling, it felt imprisoning. I could feel that fear was a massive component of it. Fear of being rejected, fear of being. I really had no reason to have these fears actually from my own, the life experience of this life. I had a really damn good family. And in all the ways I can imagine, but it was there. And. Oh, good heavens. I disliked and I loved a lot of the people who were around me who I found to be extremely outgoing and warm and more trusting. And I would look at them and say, like, you know what? Maybe. Maybe I could have. Maybe I could have some of that. Maybe I could find a way to try that one. Loosen up. Yeah, yeah. And. And I think they had a good influence on me. And. And so, you know, to this day, there's been sort of an outgoing, much more outgoing character than what I was when I would say, like, six or seven or eight or, you know, these things. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah, Same with me. If I were to reverse my life story and show myself what I'm doing now, say when I was, I don't know, say 10 to 15. I don't know, something around there, I'd be like, you were crazy, man. What are you doing having these conversations, these vulnerable conversations with strangers on the Internet? Yeah, I was very shy, didn't like to talk much. But I think some people are built that way, for sure, like this. Naturally introverted, but I think it was also out of fear of what the tribe thinks, you know, what other people will think of you. So, like, to protect yourself, you just stay silent. You know, I think that's a thing for a lot of us. It's just like, I don't want to have to deal with any kind of positive or negative judgment from the tribe depending upon how I express myself. So I'm just going to sit back and stay silent. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Good heavens. [00:15:48] Speaker A: I think that causes suffering. Yeah. [00:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Great deal. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Well, do you feel like going on your point of realizing that you are the entire thing? You are the thing itself. You are it the universe? Do you feel like in your expression, you have to express that fact? Almost spread the good word a little bit. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Oh, well. And one. One answer to that question would be, no, I don't think I have to. But, yes, I tend to do that, you know. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Do you enjoy it? [00:16:19] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if it's. I enjoy any expression that. That's sort of, you know, free and impromptu and, you know, is basically coming up from the wellspring of. Of. Of being or the heart and is, you know, just, you know. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then sometimes it don't feel like it. [00:16:40] Speaker A: So, you know, time and a place, right? [00:16:41] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Time and a place. But, you know, there's a funny thing. And I, you know, like that old statement that I think is sometimes ascribed to Lao Tzu, but I'm not Entirely. Sure. But they think that those who know don't say. Those who say don't know. And I always say, like, oh, that's a bunch of bullshit. I'm so glad the literalist interpretation of that is bullshit. I'm so glad that I have. I have in my own life, run into a lot of knowers who are happy to say a few things about it. And I'm very glad that they came into my life and I got to glean. Glean some things from. From them. [00:17:16] Speaker A: So. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. I've always. I've always had a sense that the life is like a play too. And that this is. This sense only intensified with spiritual practices. A sense of that maybe there's not a single predetermined golden thread. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:37] Speaker B: But that in any given moment there is some kind of purist movement or movement of the greatest happiness or least suffering or least friction. And that there is such a profound joy in, as we say, getting out of the way and letting those notes come through. And that joy, it's not bound up with any kind of sense of performance. It's just wonderful. It's just there. And so there's always been a sense of. In my heart, like wanting to make myself sufficiently available and loose and capable to, as we say, hit the notes or hit the marks on the stage of life and do it. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Very well spoken. Yeah, I like to say it's like a tuning. Like we tune ourself, tune our instrument to play along. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:50] Speaker A: Play along to the song of God, the Bhagavad Gita. Many different metaphors, but yeah, it's like get out of your own way, as you said. Get out of the way and into the way. You know, what's a better way to say it? Get out of your own way and into the way with a capital T and a capital W. Yeah. And then stuff is smoother. Right. It feels just like weight lifted off of one shoulders. [00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:13] Speaker A: It's like, yeah, less serious, less dense, malleable flow. Those are some words I'm associating with this essence that we're speaking on, but it's real. [00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I had. I had so many moments, but especially even in a early life near death experience in the days after that. I had no idea how afraid I had been. I had no idea how afraid, just at 13, with an easy life in the Midwest, at how afraid I had been for nothing. For nothing. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Dying or just in general. [00:19:50] Speaker B: No, just in general. Just walking around with a pile of fear and friction that was essentially really, of course, bundled up into whatever we want to say. The. The separate sense of self as the center point of living with no other deeper point. Anytime we're living. I mean, that is the root of suffering right there. I mean, obviously pain is natural, suffering's extracurricular. But of course, the root of suffering is to have that grasping, that grip. And of course, the funny thing is that often we walk around absolutely, absolutely oblivious to the fact that there's even a grip there, just because we're. We're living a world where nearly everyone is gripping in some way and it's going on. And. And that amazed me, actually, at that point. That. That was one of the. One of the little things that. That amazed me just how out of key I had gotten without even, you know, being in some kind of profoundly traumatic life. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think it's not our fault. I mean, you could say at an esoteric level, everything is our fault, depending on how you want to answer that question. You know, the Buddhist would say it is our fault, but we'll say, just this one life, it's not our fault. We are conditioned to be out of key from death. You know, so it's definitely like we're born into a world where it's against us, you know, like, it's not necessarily on our side. Like we. That grip that you. That you described is, is. How do I put this in a metaphorical sense? That grip on ourself. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:34] Speaker A: Is. Is fastened at a very early age. We could say. [00:21:38] Speaker B: And I'm so glad for it, looking back. And, and, you know, and of course that, you know, people used to tell me, you know, apparently we're on the other side of the journey or something that I was meeting as a teenager would be like, everything that's happening to you, everything that transpires is all divine. And I'd be like, it's a load of shit. You know, that. That's. No, I'm not gonna say that. That's not. Thank you for telling. Maybe I'd say that perhaps that's true. But, you know, for me, honestly, right now, no, we're not. We're not gonna. We're not. We're not gonna go. Years later. I'm like, you know, having. Having these profoundly deep unravelings of meltings in meditation again. I'm like, yeah, so and so is right. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:22:26] Speaker B: I. I think. I think I'm agreeing. I think I'm agreeing with them at this point. Yeah, there's the sense of, of like. One of the fun things about meditation practice for me has Always been that the time that the sense of time in one's lifetime or, you know, the time of the whole universe dissolving and having a sense of one sitting in the timeless. A timeless space, light free, everything melting, but then two also that timeless. I think of really as a wholeness as well. It feels like a wholeness. It's not just, for me, a neuter state. It's not just a. There's a very positive thing that comes in, but having a sense of. From meditation, this profound love just not only filling up this one moment, but every previous moment of my life and perhaps even future moments of the life and almost having a. It's not like the dialogue of the script of the previous life was not edited. It's still warts and all in the surface, but there's a sense of being able to live from the deepest level of those moments, even in retrospect, and filling them up from the. The witnessing presence, we'll call it. And that's just lovely. And obviously that's not something I was doing, you know, with my mind. It was something that I was almost more passively experiencing, just sitting there in quietude. So that's. Yeah. The reconciliation of everything. Yeah. [00:24:04] Speaker A: The divinity of everything. It's one thing to say, it's one thing to just hear it, but to know it and feel it, to truly believe it with every part of your being. [00:24:16] Speaker B: Oh, man, I like doing that when shit goes bad. I like it when having an especially bad thing. Like for instance, oh, now I'm just remembering, oh, I had a kidney stone. It was awful. And it's really painful. More painful than actually broken bones or other things that had in my life. My goodness. And being in that car, on the surface, swearing, you know, because. And then saying, okay, you know, how's that awareness going now, Mr. Meditation Teacher? You know, is this serving you in this? And I was like, okay, no, I'm feeling it. But still, fuck, you know, you know, or, you know, being on the side of the road with smoke coming out of the car hood. And it's always been fun to be sort of tested in those. In those ways to see if all these different levels can communicate with each other. [00:25:11] Speaker A: I think that's the path. Because just when you think you're the holy enlightened being, then God will throw you something, the universe will throw you something. Like, oh, you thought you knew it all. You thought you had it all figured out. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Here's your car breaking down. Just 15, 20 minutes ago, right before this call, I had this wasp in my sock and it bit me six times. [00:25:34] Speaker B: So. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Talk about a test. I don't know how it happened. And I was driving, too, so while I'm driving, all of a sudden I just feel this, like, shock wave go up my leg. I'm like, oh, what was that? And then it kept happening. I'm like, oh, what's. What the heck's going on? I thought it was, like, something with my nerves, right. I don't know. I just thought, like, there was something going on with my leg. And then it kept happening. And then I reached in my sock and felt this bug. I'm like, what? This spin. It was in there for probably. Probably like a good five, ten minutes of me just driving. It was biting me and. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Okay, well, that. That. Yeah. Okay. [00:26:02] Speaker A: I have no idea, man. It was in my sock, just biting me, driving. But point of my story is, like, that was a huge test, that's for sure. It still is right now. I still feel it. So, yeah. Can you see it in those moments when you're just driving and then all [00:26:15] Speaker B: of a sudden you have a wasp. Yeah. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Stuck in your sock or something to that? [00:26:18] Speaker B: That would be a better one. Yeah. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I guess the. The answer is, I guess if you do pass the test, you see that it is temporary. Like, your pain is temporary. So, like, with the. With that, like, subtle layer of seeing, and I did this actually. No, lie. With that subtle layer of seeing, you can still say, oh, but also have that, like, sit back, right. You're kind of sitting back at another degree, at another angle, saying, well, it'll pass. It'll all pass in time. You know, that's why we do the work. I think that's why we do the practices, because inevitably we're going to suffer in one way or the other. So it's like, can we honor the moment, be an excruciating pain, but have this, like, higher knowing, this inner knowing that that will also come to pass. And that's the good news, I guess, of our impermanence and of our temporary nature. Right. As in the pain. In the midst of the pain, we can see that essentially it doesn't exist. You know, it all comes and goes, just like anything else. Yeah. [00:27:21] Speaker B: We were talking about before the chat how our respective ages and the age 32 came up. And I was like, first I said, that was a good year. But then I remembered, oh, actually, no, that was a good year, but it was absolute shit year. And I'm very grateful for that shit year. I mean, not all of it, but it Was. It was a pretty rough thing that came to a certain point that my personal, you know, personal life, significant relationships, my work, everything at certain points seemed to be just going as wrong as it could all at once. It was a beautiful, beautiful gift because actually at the ashram I was so young. It's like 18 to 25. And I have to say that I don't think I quite had as much maybe suffering as a lot of my peers had. I'd lost a parent, but it was a good parent. She was a good person. So I had a lot of years, but I didn't have that much suffering. And so I think there were certain ways in which, as I was growing, there were certain kleshas or vashnas or these sorts of deep patterns that I could just sort of glide past. Not even in sort of like a nefarious spiritual bypassing way, but simply that there's just too much joy that would come in that would distract, you know, keep me from every. And at 32, there was no escape there. There was absolutely nothing. And so it actually really felt like having somebody dumping sewage or. Or like vomit on me emotionally all the time to that the only thing I could do. There was no wisdom in the head like that. There is no deeper seeing. There was only, like. I only have one refuge right now. I won't push any of this away. I'll feel it exactly as it is. I won't run from any experiences. But at the same time, I will also do my practice of relaxing into that big, vast silence. Not as an escape, but as this is how I'll kind of function. And that was. It turned out to be how wonderful because it was as if I was able to finally metabolize and feel profoundly deep fears. Fear structures that. That I had just been able to glide. Glide over with. With joy. And at the end of that process, then I started to have much more consistently, much more deeply, a sense of, we might say, unity with. With. With all things. There was a melting that happened. I won't give it a place in the body or whatever, but it felt as if it was more like something very deep and foundational down in the guts, down in the bone marrow. So, yeah, I think thank. Thank goodness for have situations. Was it Murphy's Law? Yeah. Right. Where anything that can go wrong will go wrong in such a comical way in such a prolonged period of time. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the thing too. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:30:29] Speaker A: Is we take those lessons with us. So it doesn't only help the. Whatever's going on in the Moment, whatever spurs the melting. But it's like once you're melted, you're melted. You know, you take that lesson with you for your whole life or maybe lifetimes ahead of you, you know. So, yeah, that's the whole path. It's the integration and the melting of that. We just continually melt more and more and more until I guess we let it all go and we're able to see it all literally as divine. Always, always and forever. Work in progress over here, though I [00:31:00] Speaker B: don't know about you, that's always a work in progress. I don't think there's. I don't. I really don't think there's any end to. To growth, to have. I think, like hitting the perfect. Hitting the perfect note. I think that perfect note just gets more perfect. And so there's. There's more room, I think, of the whole process. Also, my metaphors are often. Maybe I am a water sign. Scorpio are very watery. I think of the whole process is soaking, essentially. At first, you don't exactly know what you're soaking in. Then you discover what you're soaking in. Then it just soak deeper and deeper and deeper. Progressively, the mind soaks first quiets down, the heart soaks, opens up, the body soaks and fundamentally relaxes. And it's just like a soaking, soaking, soaking away of all these extracurricular tensions that we learn to put on. And I don't think there's much into the. I suppose maybe when your cells turn into deathless light and you can traipse around like Yogananda's Babaji, I suppose that you might be getting to the end of physical body soaking process. Should. Should Babaji exist in that way that Yogananda claims? But yeah, yeah, absolutely. Totally. Yeah, totally. [00:32:28] Speaker A: Soaking and yoking. [00:32:30] Speaker B: Soaking and yoking. [00:32:31] Speaker A: Yeah, very similar. Yeah, similar imagery. [00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:37] Speaker A: That's the beauty of it, though, right, is that it never ends. The journey never ends. It's a very big cliche. I understand that. But that's the beauty of the path, is that it's a pathless path. There. There is no path, but yet we still follow the path. You know what I'm getting at? [00:32:51] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. [00:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:55] Speaker B: A lot of going over the same territory constantly, but in a new way. A lot of hitting the same. The same thing. And, you know, probably would annoy people to have people say, like, I never heard the birds like that before, you know, and come back the next year. But that seems to be how it is. We seem to be sort of like, constructed like Onions or Russian dolls and. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:19] Speaker B: And you know, this frustrates some people when they're healing because I think that's a big, for most people that's going to be a large part of the process. And often people think, oh my God, I felt this thing that I thought I was done feeling it, you know, and you know, feeling it again and like, oh, don't, just don't, don't worry about it. You know, here it is, here it is. [00:33:44] Speaker A: Don't worry about it. Here it is. [00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, like that. [00:33:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I also like what you said about the perfect note. I don't think it's more perfect. Yeah. You know, and that's what makes it perfect, is that perfection never ends. You know what I'm saying? It's like that's what makes something so perfect is that there's no such thing as the perfected state. Perfection is an ever evolving, ever [00:34:11] Speaker B: is [00:34:11] Speaker A: an ever built state. You know, we are, we are just constantly creating what this perfection is. Right. There's something special about that. The novelty, I guess is another word that came up for me. The ever, ever renewed novelty. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:28] Speaker A: That I find that sounds like a [00:34:30] Speaker B: wonderful, a wonderful mashup of, of Yogananda and Terence McKenna in terms of phraseology right there. [00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:39] Speaker B: Well, one thing I'll put, I come out of a, at least a system that sort of maps around the experiences that I come out of is very much based on the road signs are made of samadhi, essentially the demarcation points in terms of. Well, the first demarcation point is, you know, because we're, I think, I think I'm saying this because we're sounding really gooey and I'm going to say, well, there are some, there are some razor blade. There are razor blade points that are actually practical things. And I mean, I think the first one that I experienced is the most universal experience for everybody that we don't know about. And it's samadhi itself, it is presence, it is turia. It is as a Christian, it's called the peace that passes all understanding. It is. And you know, that is the experience of having the contents of your mind, even if there are contents which there can be actually the contents of your mind quiet down to such a state where observer and the observed melt and there is a sense of lightness and nothingness and everythingness and really an experience that we really can't put words to because we're conditioned to think of ourselves in the world as just a series of nouns or a series of boxes that we have to sort of keep track of. And samadhi is the experience of boxlessness, pure boxlessness. Not even the absence of a box because that infers the box still. But the category hasn't even been created yet. A place that's always. At one point I referred to it. Oh, my God, it's. It's. That place is always awake. You know, it's. It's not. It's not me making anything. It's not like spiritual practice is like, I don't know, cranking up a battery of awakeness or some shit like that that isn't on all the time. It's rather more like pulling some leaves away from a. From a spring which is always running pure, clear water. It's always there. We just didn't know. And that is like the entry to the mysteries, really experientially, is to have those first flush experiences. I know some people say it's not an experience, but it's like, no, I'm not going to deal with that language. No, I just. Not to have that experience of like, what the fuck? This was here when I was three and when I was one and at that moment when I was nine and I was daydreaming and looking at the rain outside the classroom and. And when I was riding the bike with the sandwich in the basket, you know, one fine summer evening. My God, you know, I've known that place the whole time. [00:37:29] Speaker A: And stream. [00:37:30] Speaker B: It's a stream. And if one can get into that once, just one fucking time, just get it. Yeah, yeah. [00:37:38] Speaker A: You dip your toe in. Yeah, that's all it takes. [00:37:42] Speaker B: Your life. Your life is now. Has now been irrevocably changed. And so, yeah, once you see it, [00:37:50] Speaker A: you don't unsee it. [00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Even if you do unsee it for a while, even if you do it, if you. If you, you know, put up some great efforts to sort of unsee it, maybe. Maybe clog up the nervous system. There's some part. It's. It's. Yeah, it's. It's a different ballgame. Yeah, yeah, yep. And. And, and it's just then what. Touching it over and over again, going back, or as Patanjali said, as yoga sutras, like the repeated practice of. Now, that's a loose translation, by the way, but the repeated experience of samadhi or that or this, by the repeated of experience, we come to stabilize it or make it permanent. And basically a wonderful analogy that comes out of. Goes before them, but I'll say the transcendental Meditation, you know, body of teaching is, is to think of the mind as a piece of cloth and to think of this presence or this, now the stream, as, as like a dye and that essentially we are taking the mind and we are immersing it in this dye. And when we, when we go into it, it's lovely and deep. And when you pull it out, initially the cloth is almost the same color as the dye, but go back into lived experience where you still have your buttons that can be pushed and all this other bric. A brac and. And of course it gets, you know, faded, but something of the dye stays even if it's like this is the tiniest pigment is there. And so most of us have to do some kind of repeated immersion, you know, daily, you know, back in, until we may not even notice that we're having quote, unquote, spiritual practice for long periods of time. Because it's so damn subtle. Right. And then all of a sudden we have some contrasting thing happen. Like somebody breaks all the windows of a car, we arrive and we're not like freaking out, like, and then you're saying, well, why the fuck aren't I freaking out as I should be, you know, or some similar thing. And then we start to start to notice that some sort of change of our sort of basic context of awareness has occurred. Yeah. And. And so then that just seems to kind of that, that penetration, that saturation just seems to go on and wind its way and, you know, in whatever way it has to through the mind, body. We all have different biographies and different psyches and, you know, different woundings in different places. And so there seems to be some kind of capital I intelligence that, That I think guides the process of, of, of us sort of coming back into wholeness. Mind, you know, at the levels of mind, body, psyche. Yeah, so it does. [00:40:40] Speaker A: So I call that intuition. [00:40:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'll call it. Well, the body has, you know, self healing intelligence. Why can't the psyche have self healing? Right, Intelligence. Yeah, these. Yeah, exactly. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's part of the thing of once you see it, you don't unsee it. And once you feel your intuition, you don't unfeel that. You know, I mean, we all know what intuition is, but I think. I don't know. Once you have this like, relationship and you understand the power of it and you have faith in it in a way that faith never falters, you know, once you know the power of your intuitive intelligence, you also don't go back from that. Yeah, that's Just personally speaking, I agree, [00:41:23] Speaker B: though I have to say, like, biographically, I mean, my birth name's Thomas, by the way, so people used to give me. Call me Doubting Thomas, which I thought was like a badge of honor. And so, yeah, I think actually I was pretty good at having, like, really interesting crazy shit. Synchronicities happen and then afterwards. Yeah. But you know. Yeah, whatever. Could be this. And I'd have to. I had to have them really big to kind of like wallop me on the head and be like, well, no, you know, we. This is in fact all God got it at the same time. And, and, you know, materialist, reductionist ideas of reality. No, they don't do it. Yeah, this is some kind of, you know, consciousness holographic universe, you know, at play. [00:42:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's playing with itself. [00:42:09] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. I have some friends who really do not like the idea that we're sort of living in a God sock puppet universe. I forget. I think they have perfectly good bases for their. For their dislike of this, but I've never had a dislike of that. For some reason, it doesn't strike me. I. I don't have such an attachment of, oh, I need to have my free will, you know, I mean, you know, or put them up myself, you know, they're going to get pissed if they see that. Yes, yes. I have volition. I have a story, you know, you know, like, I'll it, you know, whatever. Get over yourself. [00:42:41] Speaker A: You know, we're just okay with being a sock poke. [00:42:44] Speaker B: Yeah, whatever. Yeah. If that's, if that's the objective reality, then I want, I want to know what, what is the. I'm fine with whatever the, the honest objective mapping turns out to be, but I actually, honestly, I think any mapping that we come up with at this level of reality, even the cleverest and most enlightened of us is probably going to. Going to not quite cut the mustard so I can sit back and that my. Also my friends probably who don't like the sock puppet idea, you know, probably be right in other ways or, you know, getting it. Getting another side of the elephant. I'm fine with that. Yeah. [00:43:20] Speaker A: Yeah. That's also part of the good news, though, is that we'll never actually figure it out. We can't just put it in some kind of eloquent sentence or some kind of mathematical proof that would be like, yep, I got it. Yeah, we got it. We got it all figured out here. [00:43:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And, yeah, I don't really know. For me, there's. There's not any Kind of there's no need. Maybe I never thought of myself as a practical person growing up, but I think I proved myself kind of to be because it's sort of like, okay, just, okay, let's be rid of the existential suffering. Let's have our identity somehow be strangely and also mundanely moored in this kind of silence field, and let's experience that silence love field everywhere. And what's the problem? Why do I need to. Why do I need to get into sort of heated arguments over how many angels can, you know, fit on the head of a. Head of a pin? But that's just my thing. Some people, like, they're maybe more designed to enjoy those arguments and play in those sandboxes. Knock on wood. Knock on bamboo, as it turns out to be. I can get in some of those myself. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I would think. I'm trying to, like, understand from their point of view, why would they not like being the sock puppet? I think it's because, yeah, they're holding on to something. Like you said, they're holding on. They're still holding on to, in a way that it's almost solipsistic like that. That they're God, that they don't want to surrender, that they have this essence of control, which we do. [00:44:54] Speaker B: I understand. [00:44:54] Speaker A: We do. But I think when you're the sock puppet, there's a huge. There's a huge essence of surrender that you have to deal with because it's like that means something else is something else is playing your role. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's. There's something inside the sock. [00:45:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I feel bad now because of a certain online friend who I think is extremely intelligent and also professional. Probably conscious I'm doing their argument a disservice a little, because I don't. Damn. I don't remember. I don't remember it. But, yeah, for many, it's exactly as you say. It's exactly as you say. For some of the others I've known who take umbrage at that, I think I always enjoyed the films. No, I didn't enjoy them. I like the films where Peter Sellers is playing a bunch of parts. And I like some of the Eddie Murphy films where he's playing, you know, a bunch of parts. But Peter Sellers was a actor and comedian. Died in 1980 or 1981. But, you know, great, great impersonator, amongst other things. But to me, when I would see those things, it would strike me as like, maybe reality's like that, you know, Maybe. Maybe this is a reality in which Peter Seller, it's Krishna or who met or whatever word you'd like to use. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. I was born out of certain experiences that I had over the years. I think would be very trippy if I was having these all the time. I'm not sure that's where this life wants to go. But there are experiences where it's not just non local, non locality, I think is a hallmark at a certain point of. Of, you know, what's going on with meditation. But it's not like trippy and woo. But it became trippy, woo, woo, non local, in which I was in this sort of core silence. But then from the silence, I found myself simultaneously in the chair in my classmates. This happened in high school for the first time. The desks around me, everybody in the hallway. It was the most blissful experience I'd ever had. I felt completely intimate at all points at the same time. And I had it for 30 minutes at that time because it was way too much for my nervous system to manage with a very much intact ego. Like a very neurotic mind that can only go into that space for so long. But it kind of got me going, like, perhaps this is a window into some sort of objective structure of the way the universe is actually kind of carrying itself on being created. That maybe I am actually. In fact, there was I perhaps tapping into a singular field that was playing all roles at the same time and reveling in it and reveling also in the interactions, which was also part of it. It was interesting. I'd be having conversations with people, and not only was I conscious of the words coming out of my mouth, I was them hearing the words. I was them thinking about their response or not thinking about their response and everything at once. And it was like, oh, this is. What a grand thing this is. There was like, people like Robert Monroe are going to say you were tuning into louche, but there was a sense of this kind of joyful, bubbly substance which seemed to be created by everything, you know, in this as, like a byproduct. Just as an aside, interesting. Later on, I. When I became more familiar with the rig Veda. And. And soma. In soma. Yeah. And. And so, yeah, there's, you know, there's a couple, you know, main interpretations of what SOMA is. I think they could actually both be true. I'm not trying to, you know, avoid fights here, but I think actually they could both be true that on one hand, soma is something that's exogenous, that you brew up and you drink, you know, And I also do think in general actually soma. Soma is thought to be quite ubiquitous. Ubiquitous found in almost anything. So we don't even just talk about correctly in like Ayurveda. We don't talk of just somas being, you know, this. It has to have, you know, magic mushrooms or something else and all brewed together to make it soma. No, there's somas and celery. You know, there's a certain amount of somas here. It actually sounds like DMT when you get down to it. You know, this, this ubiquitous element. But soma I also found to be endogenous. And I will die on that hill, that hill I will die on. And it was very interesting. And not just myself, but in many of the people I've known of one. One of the interesting experiences of soma is typically with meditators, not always, but typically in deep meditation when you're profoundly relaxed and you've been cruising in and out of like a some deep samadhi states for a while, you start to develop, even if you've eaten nothing, a really interesting sweet substance taste in your mouth dripping down from the roof of the mouth. Some people can actually pinpoint it coming from their soft palate. So this is where ideas of its association with the pineal gland are. The ice cream headache spot essentially get at. So for instance, one of my students on the last retreat we had in India saying like, this is weird, but it tastes like a really good version of Sprite. My saliva tastes like Sprite in some way. And I was like, that sounds about right. Now I've had that a few times myself, maybe just so I can say I've had it usually though what I think of my experience of soma was I would get into a meditation even after a couple minutes or less, when the body would go into really deep relaxation, there would be this bubbly joy coming out of my stomach and I just ran with it. I said like, oh, this is nice. I wasn't having anything dripping down my head at the time. And then I think it must be like a couple years later after having this for a while. I was, I think one of my teachers was talking about how Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of TM fame would say that, well, you know, the primary place where soma is formed in the body is in the stomach as a byproduct of digestion. And then when I heard that the light bulb went Off. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Oh. [00:51:29] Speaker B: Oh. Because it wasn't just like a subtle blissful thing that, where I could say like, oh, I'm just, I don't know, just feeling like a normal good. Which I, you know, I'm not gonna make it would. It would, it would be like orgasmic in that level of intensity which was not normal for me to just, you know, previous to that go around with like I have, I'm having a stomach orgasm. [00:51:49] Speaker A: Like. [00:51:49] Speaker B: No, that, that's so, so, so, yeah, I do think Soma's and endogenous as well and, and is, you know, if you, if you're having that regularly in your meditation, you're probably, you know, in a, in a good practice, you know that that's. Yeah, it's a, you know. Yeah, yeah. [00:52:09] Speaker A: I feel that I lean more toward. It's as you first described it as this sort of, what was it you said it was? This like joyous energy. [00:52:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:52:22] Speaker A: Just comes about. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:52:24] Speaker A: Not necessarily a physical thing. I think it could be, as you said, I agree with you how it could be. But when I read the Vedas and how they describe Soma, it's very poetic. It doesn't really seem like, as you said, oh, I'm going to mix up this and going to put some, you know, this many milligrams of Soma in and then we drink it. It's like, it's too poetic to be like instructions or to be actually something physical. I'm not saying it can't be. But if you actually do sit down and read the Vedas and see how they utilize Soma, literally, like utilize as how they write it. It's like it seems like something magical, you know, it does. [00:53:00] Speaker B: And I'm limited because I haven't read and the, the main chapter that I've been attached to is the, the ninth mandala or ninth chapter, the so called Soma mandala, the Rigveda. And so my scholarship isn't particularly comprehensive at this point beyond that. And I'm sort of shoehorned into, I think a couple versions that have a bias in that translation. So I have to put these out there because I'm trying to be honest here. But yeah, I'm kind of going in that direction as well, even trying to account for the bias and making it an endogenous substance. It doesn't. When, when I, when I actually read through the, the Sanskrit itself and I'm, you know, go through my dictionary and like, yeah, this is, this does. Why did those Brits, why did they interpret this in these like really old, you know, translations or the Germans or whoever was doing it. It makes a little sense. [00:53:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:58] Speaker B: Yeah. That's rare for me to find people reading the Vedas, so that's really cool that I don't really find many, many people enjoying them even. Even in the circles that I've. I've run in. In the slide. [00:54:10] Speaker A: I mean, it's not an easy read, that's for sure. And I haven't read it, like, front to back, but I've definitely dove into it enough to be. Soma is all over the Vedas. [00:54:17] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Yeah. [00:54:18] Speaker A: It's not just, like, one chapter. [00:54:19] Speaker B: That's just a nice mandala. [00:54:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all over the Vedas. I actually did this experiment the other day to test that to see. I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna open a random page. I don't even know which Veda it was from. I'm just gonna open a random page and see if they mentioned Soma. And it was all over the page. I'm gonna try it right now. [00:54:39] Speaker B: This is good. Yeah, go find it. [00:54:41] Speaker A: Yeah, get it. [00:54:41] Speaker B: Get it out. [00:54:44] Speaker A: I can't find it. Then we'll just. [00:54:45] Speaker B: I mean, I've got the Soma mandala on my shelf over there, so it's on every page, basically. [00:54:52] Speaker A: All right, this is what I got. [00:54:54] Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay, okay. [00:54:55] Speaker A: And it's probably obviously abbreviated. [00:54:57] Speaker B: Show me your. Your translation, and you know who's doing what. I'm very curious. Curious to know what. I can't quite see it. The Veda, single volume, unabridged. Ralph T. Griffith. [00:55:07] Speaker A: Cool. [00:55:08] Speaker B: Compiled. Thank you. Okay, I'll take a minute. [00:55:11] Speaker A: It's definitely. It's an intense read. It's not something you just sit down and read front to back. That's for sure. Because these are all songs and poems. You know, that's the thing you also have to take into context is why would they put this into music? Why would they sing about this essence? What are they singing about? You know? All right, so I'm gonna open up a random page. Here we go, everybody. [00:55:27] Speaker B: I'm not distracted. I'm looking for my copy. So you. You go and do it. [00:55:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, do your thing. [00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:31] Speaker A: Let's see. All right, [00:55:37] Speaker B: there it is. [00:55:37] Speaker A: I mean, hold on, let me see. This is too much. It's so thick. Like, look at this. It's like, what do I even pick on this page? [00:55:43] Speaker B: Well, you got to get your exercise some way, huh? Okay. Yeah. [00:55:50] Speaker A: Dude, I'm not even lying. The first sentence that I go to look at on this page. May we sweet singing sacrificers setting Soma mid gods in heaven give joy to Indra. Yeah. All essence of thine own and plants collected. All strength of Soma when poured out with story. So. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. Maybe that is something physical, so who knows? But it also could be poetic. That's the thing. So it's like. It's hard to say. It's like, are they actually collecting plants or is this just part of it? [00:56:18] Speaker B: And that might be something of the translator. There could be a different English word that's more appropriate than plants. [00:56:23] Speaker A: Exactly. So there's so many different criteria. But my point is, is soma is all over the Vedas, and I think it means something very deep and it's something akin to what you described it as. It's like this, this energy, the loosh or Lucia has a negative connotation. [00:56:37] Speaker B: It does, it does, but it shouldn't. It shouldn't. I think it should have a positive. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's this, like, essence is something that we create that goes beyond the physical sight. Something that is beyond is like beyond the five senses, you could say, like something that's created in that presence. Right. In that essence is that soma. [00:56:54] Speaker B: Gurdjieff and Monroe have everybody spooked about the moon and soma, and there should be some pushback. But actually, yeah, Soma, in my experience, has probably been one of the most present and beautiful and interesting transformative elements of. Of my. My path. It has been. It's not like Agni, which is its. Its, you know, counterpart. Equal, equal players. Soma and agni, water and fire. [00:57:23] Speaker A: I didn't know that. Is that how it's supposed to be? It's the opposite of. [00:57:25] Speaker B: So. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Agni is the fire. Soma is the water. Agni is the. Is the mountain. Soma is the valley. Agni is purification, and soma is restoration. And, and. And there. [00:57:37] Speaker A: I feel like that gives it a little more. When you, when you present its opposite like that, then that you can analyze what the meaning is, you know? [00:57:44] Speaker B: Yes. [00:57:44] Speaker A: A little bit more. [00:57:46] Speaker B: Yes. And if, say, if you go to, like in South India, I'm not. I'm not stumping for. For retreats here, actually. But if you're in South India, where we just were like in Tiruvannamalai, which is where Ramana Maharshi, you know, was set up for so many years, that is an agni place as anything. And in fact, little did I know. I didn't. I didn't know I had I was writing an article and doing some research for it, but my first experience of that Mount Arunachala says the psychic vision was like, good God, that mount, that thing is made of fire. And it wasn't even like fucking oven hot yet. Which it definitely happens down there. But it's like that is a fire mountain. That is a light mountain. And of course, then Ramana Maharshi is often associated as an incarnation of Skandha, the fiery war God, son of Shivan Parvati, who is, you know, South India. Everybody just loves Skandha, also known as Kartika or Murugan. So many other Yelo Malai, so many other names down there. But then you just, you travel over, you know, get a, get a taxi, three hours to Pondicherry on the water, on the ocean, and it's all soma and it's the joy, like even two towns, physical contrasts of the food is so good in Pondicherry. And yeah, there's different ways of. We all need different things at different measures. And most of us are going to need a certain proportion of agni like experiences and soma like experiences. And in balance, of course, they feed into each other because any kind of purification will lead into the beautiful capacity to have restoration and healing. And any kind of healing would lead to the capacity to undergo deeper purifications without being injured by them and to have things taken away. And you can see it in the. I'm sorry, I'm talking. So you got me excited. So, you know, if I'm, if I'm going. But you could, you could actually see it in the, in the. Mythically in the. As people are going to get mad at me for this. But in the, in the two. In the contrast between Skanda and Ganesha, the two sons of Shiva and Parvati, Skanda is definitely Mr. Agni, hot under the hood. And Ganesha is thankfully some of us. Ganesha doesn't have an eight pack. He's got like a one pack. You know, Ganesha loves sweets. Ganesha is, is getting by in a different way. Ganesha is, is a very much a soma filled character. And thus he ends up with two or three wives, depending on who's counting. And. And Skanda ends up a bachelor pumping iron in South India. So yeah, it's a wonderful, A wonderful thing. And it does transform perception. That's why later, because I wasn't into psychedelics, I was a weird, I had a weird puritanical streak in me. Was like, I didn't want to take aspirin as a kid, I was like, no, you know, we're not lean on these things. It must all be endemic right now. Everything should be found right now. I didn't know these things, but, like, experiencing Soma, my goodness, when it would get into the experience, there'd be this coding of silence. And then we would talk about Soma as like a literal molecule which allows the subtlest level of experience, the samadhi itself, to somehow be grafted into your very sort of, like, physical experience. We would talk about it. That was an endogenously created substance that when we're only in waking, sleeping and dreaming and not having a lot of samadhi, it tends to get eaten up in the body by the body's need to produce cortisol or epinephrine or adrenaline. And so when we're not doing fight or flight so much like we do, Soma can build up. And when soma builds up, that's for a lot of people when they start seeing, you know, having psychic stuff happen. Because so, at least in the. In the Soma mandala, it's talking about the purification of the. Often the five maidens, right. There's a lot of talk about. Or the ten maidens. And what. What those reference are. Are the. Are the senses. And so Soma's talking about, oh, great purifier, you know, purify the. The ten maidens or the five maidens or these. And that. And so there's this. This wonderful process of clarification that happens because we've, you know, we've basically gummed up all our telescopes, you know, all of our. All of our. We've really gummed them up by. By just, you know, pouring the suffering in and having no restoration ever. Insufficient. Insufficient Soma to. [01:02:29] Speaker A: Insufficient Soma. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. This is definitely having me explore Soma in a different way today. I never looked at it like that. And I never looked at it in terms of the balancing act between Soma and Indra. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Almost like ugly in this case. [01:02:46] Speaker A: But no, no problem, because Indra was in that passage that I just read. Yeah, that's why I got mixed up with it. But yeah, I never really saw that as, like, the two polar opposites, but I get it. It makes a lot of sense. Like, Soma is this cooling effect. [01:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Yeah. Soothing, Soothing. Cooling. Agni is burning. Burning and cleansing in that way. [01:03:11] Speaker A: Yeah, Both are needed. [01:03:12] Speaker B: Both are absolutely needed. [01:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just at an imbalance. I think the whole spiritual path is bringing a little balance to the Force in all of our own way. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. Wherever we are, wherever we happen to be. Yeah. [01:03:30] Speaker A: Oh, man, Good stuff. I'm gonna take a sip of tea here. Take a break. I don't even know where to go. This is good. Do you have any questions for him or anything? Like any, any place? [01:03:45] Speaker B: Oh, no, I just got lost in soma. I just got lost a little bit. [01:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's same. [01:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Oh, man. Lost in the soma sauce. [01:04:00] Speaker B: Yes. [01:04:01] Speaker A: That is a good name for sauce. If I was to create like a sauce, it'd be soma or some kind of drink. [01:04:05] Speaker B: You've just said it. Oh, I think it's already a drink at least. [01:04:09] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:09] Speaker B: For a while. I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, because Elvis Huxley ruined it already by naming. Naming the, the substance in Brave New World that people were getting distracted by Selma, you know, which I thought was, you know, a discredit. Al. This key very well knew about the, the vados. Yeah, right. [01:04:28] Speaker A: Because that's again, that's making it seem negative. [01:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I, I thought he should have done it, but whatever, you know. Yeah. I think in Portland, Oregon there was a kombucha brand called Soma. I don't know if they still exist. [01:04:41] Speaker A: Of course it's kombucha. [01:04:42] Speaker B: I think it was a kombucha brand. [01:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. [01:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:04:50] Speaker A: I feel it. [01:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:52] Speaker A: Might have something to do with plasma. I don't know. This is just my bro science mind thinking, but I think it might have something to do with plasma of the universe. [01:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:05:03] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:05:03] Speaker B: I don't. I don't really know either. The closest thing I found was in literature's sharing its qualities was dmt, but I don't think it's exactly dmt. I just. But it was so similar the way it's spoken of in, in the literature and also the way people experience. Like for instance, I remember years later I actually did dmt. I smoked it and like some good stuff apparently. And I'm not very good at smoking things, so, you know, maybe I could have had a more powerful experience if I was. I was better at that. I'm just not. It's not ever been a thing I've done. But that said, when I, you know, I had the experience, I'm like, you know, this is, this is basically a good deep meditation, visionary experience. Right. Right here. This is, this is like not so different than anything else with. With endogenously entered Soma experience. Soma fueled experiences. So I don't know. [01:06:03] Speaker A: But yeah, I know what you're saying. [01:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah. The idea that it's in, you know, like it's in broccoli, you know, it's in leaves and whatever, you know, it's in everything and, and you have to become disinhibited in some way in order to experience it. Now, of course, with, with Ayahuasca, it's through having what, that, that, that other plant that's. That's in there. That, that. See, my brain's gone right now. The, the. Someone on the Internet's going to be saying this. It's MOIA inhibitor, you idiot. But I totally forgot it. But it is. [01:06:36] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever. [01:06:37] Speaker B: Whatever. However it goes. But yeah, yeah. Anyway, metaphorically, it seems, it seems close. [01:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like it has a close association where. I don't know if it's a one to one thing where soma is literally the molecule of dmt, but maybe the molecule of DMT is what allows us to tap into soma and it's not just dmt. [01:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Soma could be a more fundamental level. Got it. Yeah, that, that's a. Yeah, that's a nice. [01:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:05] Speaker B: Way of look, thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. [01:07:08] Speaker A: It could also be both, as we said before, where they were using it in a. A sense where it is a physical thing, but it is also a state of mind that one can endogenously tap into. You know, this kind of like a higher, Higher consciousness. Yeah. Who knows? It's a mystery. That's kind of the beauty of the Vedas. [01:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:26] Speaker A: You have to decode the mystery yourself and see if it makes sense to yourself and all the other scripture as well. [01:07:31] Speaker B: I think in general, in general, it's very good to be sort of an experimentalist and an agnostic and to hold everything provisionally and not have to go around with too many turgid taxonomic systems in the head because invariably they're going to block you from. Actually, they're going to be a distractive element from being zapped by lightning in some way. [01:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, that's the joke of the path is ultimately I've done all of the I've done, and I imagine you have as well a laundry list of spiritual practices and modalities. And it's the path toward knowing thyself. Right. As we described in the beginning. But I don't feel like I know myself any better than I did in the beginning. If anything, I know less. Right. Knowing thyself is really just knowing that I'll never know thyself. It's the path of disintegration it's the path of nobody training. As Ram Dass says, we're becoming nobody. Right? That's the joke is that we'll never truly figure it out. But also again, as I said in the beginning, that we, we don't give up because of that. [01:08:47] Speaker B: Right? [01:08:47] Speaker A: It's not like, oh, it's. The path is futile, I'm going to just stop now. It's like, no, we still, we keep on going and revere that mystery, the ever deepening into the mystery. [01:08:56] Speaker B: And that said, you know, despite spouting just two minutes ago the virtues of a general agnosticism, I'll throw in a. I'll take the A off and throw the virtues of the Gnosticism, not the religion, but in this case, and that in terms of knowing the self, there are really refined strata of awareness. I'm not even necessarily talking about like pure, pure awareness that's just like really clean, but just hovering above that. I'll call it the witness. And not like some people try to experience the witnessing consciousness and they'll approach it mentally and I think often put themselves in more of a dissociative state. But there is that, that one that watching, that's watching from the transcendent. There is a space of awareness that is so far back there that the world can then be experienced in a very free way of just moving in a very clear way. And so there can be a real augmentation or increase, not simply in the clarity of knowing, oh fucking God. At the bottom of my mind. What I've been thought of as my mind is actually this fucking crazy, bigger than everything, infinite space, but that when I can be sort of resting more and more in that space, I can actually sort of see things as if they're kind of happening in slow motion or even see the architecture of one's psyche with some degree of clarity that wasn't had before because it was all, you know, knotted up. And then be able to kind of like, oh, maybe, maybe, yeah, move that over there a little bit, you know, or like, oh, loosen that a bit. And so, you know, those and other similar types of experiences that can come from having that. Like in Patanjali's yoga sutras, the first two chapters, or Padas column, a lot in those chapters is about the virtues of developing that, that sort of separation between vast, you know, unmanifest presence and everything else and being able to do that and, and so there, there is our beautiful gains to that as well. It's just some people don't feel like Completely despondent. You know, it's like, well what's the fucking point then? You know. You know, whatever. It's like there's well, any other quote unquote, gain is. Is like. Which is a funny word, right? Because it's like in some ways they're not gains because it is the diamond in your pocket that's been there the whole time. But that, that's a Wizard of Oz gain. You know, that's the whole point of wizard of Oz is that the lion was courageous the whole time, the scarecrow was smart and the tin man had a heart. They just had a. Needed some wizard, some pretend wizard to, you know, convince them at the end. But, but yeah, you know, there's. Yeah, there's that bliss, there's that joy. There's sometimes a sense of like, you know, inhabiting your body in a mature way. Because I'm not saying we become pre rational. Some people will. Bearings will be like, don't confuse pre and trans. Rationality. There is a sense of returning to that child, you know, returning to sort of the vastness and purity that was in that six year old and before for some of us, consciousness. You know, I love. It's fun sometimes running into babies, you know, out in the world. Every now and then you'll catch one, you know, and it's. And it gives you that sort of 10,000 mile stare. Or you could catch it looking at you from a very open Sahasrara, very open crown chakra. And, and I love catching them because then I like to throw it right back and, and say like, you know, hey, hey, hey, my friend. We haven't all, you know, we, we, we're not all like completely divorced from this. It'll be okay. [01:13:03] Speaker A: That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there is this like sometimes when you come across those kids, it's this, it's this expression of joy, wonder, confused amazement. [01:13:19] Speaker B: Right. [01:13:20] Speaker A: All in one. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of. When you come across a pure baby that just. Oh, what? Wow. [01:13:27] Speaker B: Oh my God. [01:13:28] Speaker A: They just, it's just. Yeah. So much awe. [01:13:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:32] Speaker A: Awe at the mystery. And it is coming back into that. I feel that 100 come back into that childlike nature to just revel at the mystery and then that leads to awe, just general awe at it all. 100%. Man. [01:13:46] Speaker B: I really knew I'd had some transformation because I was, you know, always the doubting Thomas. Always. Then once a doubting Thomas, always when it's funny actually during my meditation teacher training one day, you know, random day Two months in, I had the intuition I need to get out of my bunk room. We had like a little cave like room with no windows, you know, to the outside world. It was great. I got up and I was like, I got to go to the upstairs kitchen. So I just did. I walked into the upstairs kitchen and as soon as I walked in the kitchen, my sister and my brother in law were coming in the door unannounced, driving from two and a half hours away in Portland. So this is a strange thing to have us run into each other like that. And anyways, after that I came up and I was giving my sister a little tour of some parts of the building and she told me, oh my God, you are right now like you were when you were six. And that when I heard that I was like, okay, something that we've been doing has not been amiss because this person here has known me since I was born and tracked the entire development of. Of of life and the descent into ego at, you know, at 7, 6 and 7 and then, you know, kind of everything after that. And so yeah, interesting. There's like, there is a. You know, I don't think everybody's going to awaken into their own internal sage. I'm just a realist about that. You know, some of us, it's going to be a rough ride. But that said, just about everybody, everybody at their core is. Is this kind of like what. Where it's right. Like a sage in waiting. Everybody has this like spark that's there. This already, already awake spark of, of the. Of wholeness or whatever you want to call it. [01:15:41] Speaker A: The opportunity is always there for all of us. I feel that. [01:15:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. [01:15:46] Speaker A: Come back home. [01:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Yeah. [01:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:15:51] Speaker A: I think we'll get there someday. Maybe not this lifetime, but maybe in the next. Yuga. [01:15:56] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. [01:16:02] Speaker A: I mean, in some ways, like, yeah, we already are all there. But the differentiating factor is being able to recognize the waiting sage even though we all have the waiting sage. It's like the recognition of the waiting sage in the path essentially is what we're describing. [01:16:17] Speaker B: Yes, it does. [01:16:18] Speaker A: A pivotal part of the path. [01:16:20] Speaker B: Yes, it does. It doesn't help to be told. There's no ignorance in the end. You know, you have somebody who's is really into Vedanta and they'll kind of throw the end state as a another resp. I know you say, yeah, it's like, no, yeah, I had this friend when I think I was about 16 at the time, or 15 they had. I mean, I think they knew presence very well. But maybe the skillful means part wasn't quite there because they said, you know, you're already enlightened. And they gave me the eyes and they're trying to like, you know, transmit that to me in some way. And I kind of looked at them saying, darshan, yeah. You've been like, you've known me the past six months, right? You know, I don't think so. You know. Yeah, but I got what they're trying to do. But it's true. Like, this is one. It's a playapped. And it's actually funny, you might think of your own sort of separate self structure or mask. Something really strong and like an intractable problem. Whatever. Seems so, like to be the dominant force. But I have to say, and, and it's. It is so thin. It is really. It is really paper thin. It's. It's like there is. So it really actually takes an incredible amount of effort to, you know, to kind of, you know, kind of go with that. And so I do think that just like even a little bit, a little bit of, A lot, a little bit of like zeal or intensity or, you know, commitment from the heart goes a great long way in terms of changing the equation up. [01:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Zeal is a good word that I've never heard anybody use, but yeah, to have zeal in one's heart, to be free, essentially. [01:18:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:32] Speaker A: You need that. [01:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:34] Speaker A: It's like on the path. There's no half measures. [01:18:37] Speaker B: No. And. And, you know, I'll say this, and I was a very zealous person. I do think there's some real, real, real lazy people who've done very well also. But, but yeah, you know, that it should be there that, that some. Something in the heart, something. Something that's driving. And once people kind of find out what they really want and they're like, well, I mean, yeah, I do want food and I do want sex and I do want this and I do want people to love me. But. And you kind of like Aristotle has an exercise where you basically go down your list until you get to like, what is, what is it you actually want? Is the thing that you think these things are giving you, which, which invariably ends up in some kind of more simple concept like love, you know, or safety or something. And then once you get down to that and be like, oh, fuck. Oh fuck, now where do I go for that? You know, in, in a reliable way. Yeah. Then, then you'll Be pretty close to a. That organic zeal real, real soon. You know, we're not all as fast as the Buddha, you know, who's like enjoying life as a prince and everybody's got everything and, and then, you know, like old, you know, old age, sickness and death, you know, come into his life. He's like, oh, fuck, guess I had my eggs in the wrong basket. So I'm gonna, you know, make some changes. [01:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:50] Speaker B: Changes around here, you know. Yeah. [01:19:59] Speaker A: I think we all have the same opportunities as the Buddha. Maybe not the directly exact circumstances as the Buddha. [01:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:09] Speaker A: Right. But I think we're all facing old age, sickness and death. Yeah. We all get those reminders every day. And I think that's enough to instill the zeal. [01:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah, can be. Absolutely. Absolutely. [01:20:23] Speaker A: I guess as you said, it's just analyzing what you really want. What do you really want? Because a lot of us, and I'm guilty as charged, a lot of us do want other stuff before we become free. [01:20:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:35] Speaker A: Or at least maybe, maybe it's like. Or maybe a better way of putting is we think those other things that we want will make us free. Yeah, we. Right. It's the illusion of freedom in those things, in that person, in that next vice, whatever it is. Like, yeah, maybe this time I'll get it and then I'll be free. [01:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And sometimes you have to walk down a few of those cul de sacs because some of us, you know, like, we have the inelegant brick, brick wall path of learning and. And we just have to hit that brick wall and. And then we'll know and fine, it's cool. It's great. It took me like three, three and a half, which to me seems like a long time because I was kind of crazy Scorpio, but three and a half years to go from nde, you know, where like I'm have to have the ego sort of stripped off and experience the body, even though I had no words for any of it. And knowing that there was a way to get that a year later, I. E. Meditation took me from that point. Took me like three, three and a half years to really like go for it and to really commit, you know, as I was like, you know. But you know, I think those three and three and a half years probably had to be spent in that sort of dawdling, kind of half focused, non committed way as they needed to be and had a bunch of other things fulfilled, which allowed me, I think ultimately then to actually be able to commit and really, really go for It. So I also like, when I don't, like, ever, it's dispensing advice in a broad brush way because people are so different. [01:22:13] Speaker A: Right. [01:22:14] Speaker B: But, you know, I do think there's actually some merit in just going for life in general as much as you can and kind of a conscious way, like owning it, like, this is what I want, and not being internally dishonest about your motives. If you can do that and, you know, go through and. And, you know, be there. I. I generally think that, that sooner or later people who are doing that are going to find themselves on meditation mats, you know, or something. I think it's going in that direction if they can follow that path. [01:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. Because that's the only way that we learn is through experience. And if we experience, you know, the wall, as you said. [01:22:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:58] Speaker A: Enough times, then, yeah, we'll turn around and figure out a different way. [01:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And whether it's by the wall or the dessert, you know, at some point, even the dirt desserts would be like, I think there are finer pleasures that my palate is seeking now. I shall, you know, I shall endeavor to go there. That works just fine too. And I think I look back and I was probably more the dessert, the brick wall, if I'm looking back. I knew a lot of people who were. Got their zeal because their life was so. So that they're like, I gotta get away from that. I need to. I need to try to go get enlightened or something. And it wasn't quite like that. And my calculus is more like, oh, my God, sex was great. Oh, relationships are good. You know. Oh, basketball's great. Oh, you know, reading Emerson's great. Oh, you know. Yeah. Going, you know, astral projecting was fun. You know, let's. What's next? You know, and. [01:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Very tantric. [01:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always love that film yes man, although I know it's based on a book, but the film yes man with Jim Carrey and terence stamp from 2009, it's just lovely. [01:24:17] Speaker A: I'll check it out. [01:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a deeply spiritual film, especially in that, as you say, tantric way. But actually, I have. We've gone on a while. I could talk to you for a long time because I'm really enjoying, really enjoying this. [01:24:35] Speaker A: Gonna get going. Yeah. [01:24:36] Speaker B: I do have something coming. Coming. Coming up that I have to. [01:24:38] Speaker A: Oh, good, man. I feel you. Yeah, yeah. I think we can wrap it up. I mean, yeah, we talked about everything we need to talk about, but also, I think I can talk to you more. Moral of the story. I don't know. I'm trying to think. I like to end on, like, a good wrapping note. Everything's spiritual when it comes down to it. If you even want to use the word spiritual, it's like, even when you're not on the path, you're on the path. We're all on the path. Even if you know it or not. [01:25:02] Speaker B: Yes. [01:25:03] Speaker A: Even if you think you're not. [01:25:04] Speaker B: It's. [01:25:05] Speaker A: Even if you're not on the way, it's still the way. And that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of the way. That's the beauty of the path is you can't really mess it up. No matter how bad you think you messed it up, there's no messing this whole thing up. [01:25:19] Speaker B: I would tend to agree, and I would say run with that, because if you could go with that attitude, then you can play loose. And if you play a little bit looser and you're not so worried about fucking everything up, you will hit those notes and you will spot those synchronicities, and you will talk to that person on the bus when that impulse comes up and you're like, I should just start a conversation for no reason. And the dominoes will tend to become more frequent. I got this book out because, again, I rarely meet people who spend time actually reading the Vedas, and I was trying to find a good passage from the commentary on this particular rig. Veda copy, but I can't. Not. Not one that's short enough for one of these. End of podcast. Let's. Let's. Let's make this succinct. [01:26:15] Speaker A: Well, feel free afterwards to send me one later, and maybe I'll. I'll read it off. [01:26:19] Speaker B: Oh, that. [01:26:19] Speaker A: You have any, like, you know. [01:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that. That would be lovely. I. I think I can find. I can find that. Yeah. Yeah. [01:26:26] Speaker A: Cool. Well, this was an amazing conversation. You're an amazing human being. I thank you for coming on here, man. And, yeah, let's definitely tap in again. [01:26:34] Speaker B: I love that. Absolutely. It's fun talking to you. Yeah. [01:26:37] Speaker A: Cool. [01:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:39] Speaker A: All right, well, that's it, everybody. Unless you have something else to say, but I'm all good. [01:26:44] Speaker B: No, I'm always. I'm always stumped when I. When I have those. Unless. Yeah. At the end. Yeah. [01:26:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, beautiful. No, you ended on, like, the, you know, the dominoes, the domino effect, the serendipity, and the. The synchronicities. You know, if you follow that, you keep following those little breadcrumbs, and you just see the magic. You feel the magic more and more. And look out for that. [01:27:07] Speaker B: That's. That's the. One of the most wondrous, virtuous circles a person can. Can find themselves in. Absolutely. [01:27:14] Speaker A: That's the soma. That's the soma that we drink, brother. All right, Ishtar. Thank you, man. [01:27:19] Speaker B: Pleasure. [01:27:19] Speaker A: I wish you all the best. Until next time. [01:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks, Gary. [01:27:22] Speaker A: Peace and love, everybody.