Mysticism, Awakening and Sacred Presence with Imogen Sita Webber

[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, well, Imogen, first of all, thank you for joining me again. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Thank you. Really lovely to be here. [00:00:06] Speaker A: For sure. So, yeah, I mean, even though we already had a talk, I already kind of know you. I'm just wondering, maybe for anybody that's new tuning in, can you give us a little introduction into who you are and what you do exactly? [00:00:21] Speaker B: I think you asked me that on the first time we met, and I think it's. I'm probably going to answer in a similar way in the fact that I find that question incredibly hard to answer even after doing this for, I don't know, almost 10 years now. I think, because what I do is often beyond the conceptual sort of graspable mind idea. But broadly speaking, I would call myself a contemplative or a mystic. And I mentor and support people. I work very much in the energetic realm, in the realm of presence and energy and meeting people in the mystery, in the ungraspable. In terms of my background and where I come from, I was born into a meditating family, Transcendental Meditation, specifically. So I wasn't an archetypal seeker. This is just sort of my life. And I think it was 2015 that I encountered a very strong shift in consciousness and sort of life changed from there, you could say. And it's been quite a journey since then. More than I expected, I think. I thought that would come with a sort of a doneness. And in some ways it kind of did. But in many ways it's been such a deep unfolding since then, even since we last met. You know, it feels like lifetimes ago in some sense of it. So. [00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, might have been. It's never over, it's never done. [00:02:17] Speaker B: No. [00:02:20] Speaker A: That's the beauty of it, right? That's the beauty of the journey is it's a never ending unfolding. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah. It's almost like life continuously has this way of wanting to sort of continuously open itself to deeper and deeper and more and more nuance and different expressions of existence. And to me, that is the most spectacular aspect of life. That it never tires of creation, that it never tires of. Of presenting us with different facets of existence. [00:03:00] Speaker A: Endless novelty. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And yet. So here's the paradox of it. You know, I live in paradox. Much, much of my sort of. Of teaching, if you could call it that, lives very much in. In the depth of paradox. And the paradox also is there is an unchanging aspect, there is a ground, there is a something that goes beyond. And prior to all of that too, which also is a complete mystery. And Completely wonderful to me as well. So, yes, it's constantly changing, but also it's not as well. Yeah. [00:03:37] Speaker A: Living in the mystery. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:39] Speaker A: Did you say something like that? [00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Live in the mystery. [00:03:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:03:43] Speaker A: Living this mystery. Live in the paradox. I feel you. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I find the more and more I go on in this life, the more and more that becomes really obvious and apparent, that we try as humans to try and sort of pin it down and create images and certainties and concepts and ideas, and it's so much in that realm, that nature of that realm. But the further I get down into all of this, I find the opposite to be true. And so the more and more I go, I haven't got a clue, actually. I really don't know. And that's okay. Like living in that mystery and that free fall in that unknown is. Is actually part of the biggest joys of life. [00:04:30] Speaker A: I think it's a free fall with no bottom. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Isn't that famous? I'm terrible at quotes, but Chogyong Trumper, I think, did that quote that there's that famous quote of maybe you recognize it? [00:04:47] Speaker A: That's the one I was kind of referencing. Yeah, it's. The good news is. No, sorry. The bad news is we're in a free fall. The good news is there's no bottom. [00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's one of my favorite quotes. I think it sums it up so well. And I think it's the fear that there is going to be a bottom that we're going to smash into that stops that sort of surrender, that letting go, that opening of the palm of life and recognizing I'm not in control, nor do I need to be in control. But it's like you encounter that fear that goes, no, if I let go, I'm gonna smash on the ground here. And so it's. It's. That to me is speaking. That's why you have to have both parts of that quote, both parts of that understanding in your own experience as well. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. This is powerful stuff. We're only five minutes in getting right to it. This is great. Let me ask you this one, though, because I don't think we talked about it much in the first one about you being born into a family that practices meditation. Now, if you believe in karma, that's very good. Karma. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:00] Speaker A: How did that aid you in your realizations into you becoming a mystic? [00:06:08] Speaker B: Well, it's. That's an impossible question to answer because I don't have an alternative view, so. But having said that, I do consider it to be Very lucky because my view of life was never from the point of view of the material as being what we've got. This is. Was always from the point of view of that ground of being, that mystery. Although that wasn't the language that I would have used. But I remember being. So I went to the Maharshi school in the UK from the age of about 13, but prior to that I was in a normal school in Wales. And I remember very distinctly that I had quite a different life view from my peers. And I think what that did for me was allow me to open up to, or rather beyond the norm. But more importantly, because I had the grounding of meditation from the age of five, whatever, I can never remember how old I was. I think I was about five. It meant that I had experience of consciousness, I had experience of the absolute. I have the experience so beyond understanding, which actually came a little bit later for me because I only turned up at the Maharshi school when I was 13. So the experience was innocent and first and foremost. And that to me was just such a beautiful way to start out in life. Now looking back, of course, it was just ordinary for me, so I wouldn't have ever described it this way when I was a child. But now looking back and also meeting with people and meeting with people who have children as well and talking about these kinds of things, I'm like, it really was a really the best kind of grounding in life that you could start out with, which is not from solid form, trying to undo that conditioning, but from the recognition of our eternal, essential ground of being. And then, you know, all of the concepts and the ideas on top of that. So it was, it was, I would say, a good thing. It had its challenges as well, you know, as. As all organizations do and all teachings and structures and all of that. So there was that aspect of it. And then, you know, family dynamics on top of all. I mean, you know, you. Normal stuff. Pretty tricky childhood, I would say. Not uneventful and a lot of trauma in there. Even though I had a grounding of meditation, which probably saved me, I would say, but also gave me some tools that I think I bypassed with as well. So mixed bag. The mixed bag, yeah. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Double edged sword in a way. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:23] Speaker A: I find this is just my opinion that the hardest part is getting exposed to the potentials of meditation, of yoga, of the dharma, of the spiritual path. Right. Just to know that it's possible. So that's why I think it's good karma. Even though you had the stuff that you Got to go through. We all do. It's the fact that you even had that potential from birth. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:50] Speaker A: That's cool. Because I had to figure it out myself. I was not born into a family. Most of us aren't. [00:09:54] Speaker B: No. [00:09:55] Speaker A: In the west that has any of this involved. So I had to kind of. Yeah, you had some my way into it. [00:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah, your eyes opened. You have to have your eyes opened to that. Whereas I always had my eyes opened to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have. My husband was the archetypal seeker. So I'm. We've had lots of conversations about the differences there of that and. And there are. You could say there are pros and cons to both sides of that. But it definitely has left me living life from, I would say a more open viewpoint and not quite so sort of stuck or stagnated on the idea of the material as being primary. [00:10:43] Speaker A: That's the big switch, right? [00:10:44] Speaker B: It is, it is, yeah. It's. It's consciousness first. [00:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the big 180. And then everything changes. [00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah. What brought that about for you? [00:10:56] Speaker A: That sort of just getting on this wavelength. [00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:00] Speaker A: It was just through, I think, a exhaustion of the material. Yeah, right. Of thinking that this is it, that's kind of what the world prescribes to you is like, this is it, this is what you got to do. Just materialism altogether. And I felt that it didn't add up. There was something lacking. There was. Because, you know, I came from a relatively well off family. I didn't have that much struggle. Right. In terms of materialism, but yet there was struggle within. So I'm like, there's something not adding up here. What's go. What's wrong? [00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:34] Speaker A: That just led me down the self development path, led me into modalities such as meditation and yoga. And then I realized what we just described as consciousness being primary through all of those modalities and practices along the way. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So. [00:11:51] Speaker A: And I think that's kind of the formula for all of us, for all people that aren't born into it. Born into the path in some way is being at odds, reaching a sort of breaking point with the world, with the prescription of the American dream or the UK dream, you know, something just not quite hitting the mark and then you have to, I guess, find the mark. Yeah, but it's tough when you don't know, as I said in the beginning, when you don't know that there is an alternative. Yeah, it's really tough. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah. It sort of reminds me of like where like the idea of we live in paradigms. Right. And when you're in the midst of a paradigm, you have no idea it's a paradigm. It's only when you get to the edges of that, either coming into a paradigm or finding yourself leaning out of a paradigm, that you go, oh, hang on a second. The. There. I found the boundaries of that. I found the limits of that. It is a. It is a container by which. Or a vessel by which I'm seeing life, a paradigmatic view of life. But the thing is, if you haven't been introduced to the fact that it is a paradigm, you're just living it. And so then the cracks begin to show, as they do with all paradigms. Paradigms are an overlay that eventually limits are found within that. And so where you haven't touched the ground that goes beyond any paradigm, I. E. I would call it the mystery beyond all thought, beyond all conceptions or ideas or conditionings or whatever you want to lump into that. There's where you go, oh, this is all paradigms. And we can play in the world of paradigms. But what I am is prior to all of that. [00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So the paradigms don't necessarily disappear. [00:13:42] Speaker B: No, they don't have to. They don't have to. This is the beauty. There's a sort of. There can be a subtle thing that I've encountered a lot of in my journey. This idea of it all has to disappear. And that says it. It. It's helpful at a stage to sort of. I don't know what language to use but reject. I'm not this, I'm not that. In fact, I think I have this vague memory. We touched on this last time we spoke of. Nettie. Nettie. But. It's like where. Where you need to discover what you are. You first need to see what you're not. But eventually that needs to be brought back in, into the fold and seen. Ah, no, this is just sort of layers of experience that overlay that fundamental reality. And that's fine. We can play within all of that. There's no. We are not diminished by parrot playing within the realm of relativity. It's just an aspect of the temporary arising of life. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Playing with the paradigms. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, do you think that is the destination? If you want to say there is a possible destination is a playful attitude with the multitude of identities that we partake in. The human experience, it helps. [00:15:13] Speaker B: In my experience, it helps. It helps because, you know, things can get so serious and so solid and so real and so certain and Actually, when you really feel the true lightness of life that underlies all of this, all I find there to be is the play of life. It doesn't mean that seriousness doesn't happen and. And harm and hurt and all the rest of the things that we're encountering in life in a very sort of real way, as felt in experience. But to. To see that it is the play, to be curious with that play. Oh, wow, I'm angry. What's going on here, in my experience at least, is. Is a really beautiful way of interacting with life. And of course, you can't sort of muscle your way into that, or you can try, but it's really about being so established in. In your heart, in your. In the depth of being, that it allows you to see that all that is being happening and the play of life is not something that is somehow out to get you and you've got to either get right or wrong. But actually is. Is life constantly revealing itself in different aspects, in different flavors and different fragrances. That's where it becomes playful. Not because we decided we' to be playful with it, but because that's the experience of it. [00:16:43] Speaker A: Well said. Yeah, that's part of the switch. That's part of the 180. Is the world's against me to the world is for me. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:51] Speaker A: I think that's just part of materialism. Innately, unconsciously, we have that the world is against us. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's very fragile, this sense of fragile and a lack of security and stability. It's because we're putting our sense of stability and our security in the inherently unstable, stable aspect of life and going, oh, God, this can be taken away. And it's like, yes, but that was always gonna be the way. Yeah, that was always the fact. So actually we're. We're tasting. We're touching on whether it's conscious or not. We're tasting the fragility of the changeable and that we can't put our sense of security and stability there. It is absolutely not the right place to put. And therefore it becomes very dangerous to do so. [00:17:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's because there's no integrity. [00:17:42] Speaker B: No, it's too changeable. It's too fickle, I would say. [00:17:50] Speaker A: You said one line. What was it? Tasting the fragility of the. What? [00:17:56] Speaker B: I don't know. People ask me to repeat back what I say all the time, but that's not speech for me, is not some. It's just flowing out. [00:18:06] Speaker A: So I just have to rewind the video. Everyone's Just gonna have to rewind it. Something about tasting the fragility of the material. Something like that. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds, it was good. [00:18:15] Speaker A: You're dropping a lot of good one liners in this one, that's for sure. Yeah. And I don't think there's any other way, to be honest with you. It's just you can taste the fragility as much as you want until you reach that breaking point that I spoke of, until it does collapse. And then you find out the only way to this so called peace, happiness, Satchitananda, is to taste the nectar, the sweet nectar of the immutable, of the unchanging of love, essentially. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, people use this word love so much and I feel like it's one of those words that is so misunderstood. So. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's probably the biggest word. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah, misunderstood. Yeah, it's. And it's so hard to define as well. We, again, we, we think of love in terms of object, of love. And actually love is the subject, Love is what we, we are, but not in the traditional sense of the word love. You know, we can use all sorts of words synonymously with love, but it's, it's a fragrance, it's a knowingness, it's a love of life, it's an, a sense of existence, the joy with life, the existence of life. You know, you said Satchatananda, there is, that's a, it's it. You cannot reduce it out of the equation. It's everything. It's at the basis of everything. [00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's the whole point of this experience, is to play, play in love. And. Yeah, love isn't the right word. We gotta come up with another one. [00:20:09] Speaker B: Well, in different languages, they have many. You know, in for instance, English, we have a million words for rain. It's. There's a storm outside my window. There's rain. We've got, we've got a million words for rain and not. We've only got one word for love. There are other languages that have many different words for love though. And I think that that's always sort of interesting to me to, to see that. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that is interesting because there are many different flavors to love. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah, there are. [00:20:40] Speaker A: How can you just say that? The one word that doesn't make any sense. [00:20:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:46] Speaker A: I mean it's really infinite. That's the thing is this love that we experience, that we are is ever evolving. So even if you, we were to create some new word right here, right now, there would always be new words to Put on it as this experience moves along. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Yes. This is why we're. [00:21:04] Speaker A: That's the beauty of it. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah, this is. I. I have a very ambivalent relationship with words. You know, I found my. This last year. I've been writing an awful lot. I've given a lot of time, dedicated a lot of time to words. And I both love words and also find them impossibly frustrating. Because no matter how many ways in which you point to this, it is always beyond words. And yet the words are the sort of breadcrumbs, if you would, to this. They. They hold a presence. They hold the wholeness of what is being pointed to in them. As long as you look beneath the words, you feel the transmission of what is being pointed to and where it is being pointed from. But, man, I struggle with words because it always feels like it's just outside of the realm of. Of truth. Because truth cannot be captured in the realm of words, not fully. And yet there's an impulse here to continually try. And I find that dance, like I say, I have a very ambivalent relationship with that dance. I love it, and I also hate it. [00:22:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the play. [00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [00:22:29] Speaker A: There's something peculiar in particular about someone's words, though, that has the understanding and realization within. Like somebody that holds a certain power that does transmit something that goes beyond the word. [00:22:46] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:47] Speaker A: You know, they call it Darshan or dharmic transmission in Eastern traditions. I think there's something to that. There's a certain flavor in someone's words that is realized that goes beyond words, as I said. [00:23:01] Speaker B: It does. There's the transmission, and, you know, you can feel it sometimes. You know, I've been asked this idea of, like, a book's good. Should I read books? And stuff like that. And I'm like, it depends where you're reading it from. If you're reading it to gather more information. It's the same with techniques and all of this or the whole search. If you're trying to gain something, you're trying to gather more, learn something, master something, you're missing what's actually being pointed to. If you go into it as a. Like I say, a signpost or breadcrumbs that are sort of really drawing you into yourself. You can read just even a sentence, and it brings you into that. I would take a natic state. That empty space, that inner stillness, that inner silence. It can draw you. Just even a single word can draw you into that. But you have to surrender. You have to let go. You have to not want to understand what is being spoken about, but feel what. What is being spoken of. Know what is being spoken of, not gain knowledge about it somehow. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's the tricky part is the knowledge only goes so far. [00:24:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:24:16] Speaker A: The knowledge brings you to the state of. No, knowledge of not knowing, actually. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:24:24] Speaker A: That's the free fall state. Not knowing. [00:24:26] Speaker B: It is. It, is. It. It brings you to the threshold, and there comes a point where you have to take that leap of faith beyond the threshold where you have to let go of all that you think you know and enter into that free fall. But the beauty of it is knowledge does bring you to that doorway. It. Well, I could say for some people. Some people, it takes them further away. And it just depends on the temperament, in my experience. Some people, it's. It's, you know, very useful. Other people, you know, to remain in that innocence is. Is a better space. Just depends on the temperament, I think. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah. It's hard to put in a cookie cutter general statement, oh, impossible. [00:25:09] Speaker B: All of this stuff is, though, you know, there's so many paths to the same experience. And I think for me, honoring that is really something we as a culture are not very good at because we want to universalize everything in terms of, oh, if this worked for me, this is how it must be, or if this worked for another, this is how it must be. And then we get into comparison. And yes, there may be some sort of pathways that work, or like, you follow a pathway for a while, let's say. But ultimately, awakening is not about being good at following paths. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the dance again, is honoring one's individual Dharma, but also honoring the paths and Dharma of people that came before us. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And again, that paradox is recognizing that it is both. And. And it's like, just because something leads you to a place doesn't mean that you then need to stay there. It's that true teachings lead you to yourself, not to being a good student. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Amen. Yep. That's what I always say. If a teacher or teaching isn't bringing you to, you run the other way. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Big red flags. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah. It's very impure. And we see that so much even nowadays. [00:26:44] Speaker B: But we want it as well. Like, as humans, we want someone to save us. We want someone to tell us, this is what you got to do. And there is. I think there is room for that. Like I said, I think that, you know, that paradox of, like, to follow a path is to surrender your sense of where I'm going and what I'm doing and how I get there. But also to never give over your sense of, let's say, sovereignty, about using these paths as a way of further coming to know yourself rather than abandoning yourself in the path. And that is a delicate dance. That's a really delicate dance. Not one that can be even judged from the outside, I'd say. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah, very true. It's a very thin line to toe, for sure. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Razor. Razor's edge all the way. [00:27:41] Speaker A: Amen. Amen to all of that. I'm just curious, are you writing any books? [00:27:49] Speaker B: Yes, an extraordinary stupid amount of books, actually, it seems. I've just. I've got two books I've released so far. Here they are. There's two. Two books released. One last. This one last year, which was poetry. [00:28:04] Speaker A: Sacred Threads in the Heart that Knows. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, this was. Sacred Threads is actually a collection of my writing on substack. I write a lot on substack. But yeah, I have a few books on the go and I'm just trusting that they're going to materialize in finished form when they're ready to. But yeah, I. Typically this year at least, I've dedicated my mornings to writing, which was a new one for me. I started this whole thing by writing, actually, before I ever met anyone or held any groups. I started with writing back in 2000. I think it was 16. I was on Twitter, actually, it started on Twitter when It was still 140 characters, and then sort of meeting people and groups and stuff took over. So I started a blog back then. And then I got. Obviously people started to hear about me and then I started meeting and that sort of took over my life for the last five years in a really beautiful way. But the writing definitely went to the back burner. And something about this time last year, actually, I felt this. I entered into a sort of a descent, I would say, which is part of my process. Apparently I find myself there quite frequently. But in that descent, what came out of it, the green shoots of that is writing is what I need to be doing right now. So I reorganized my life around that. And every morning for many hours, I sit in a sort of a meditative state with my computer because typing is easiest for me. I don't have to look, I just am able to touch type. So I just let what wants to flow and then I draw back into stillness, into silence. And then more comes. And then, yeah, this dance. I've been sort of trusting. And it's interesting because this is where I feel my true voice is sort of unleashed in a way where it's just coming from that stillness. It's an emanation. It's not even my voice at that point. It's just sort of an emanation of life flowing through. So I've been really enjoying that process. It's also feels a little bit like bleeding on the page sometimes, but. Yeah. [00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. It's a different way to utilize the word. So right now we're utilizing the word, but it's not as, like, surgical as writing. Well, I think we. We channel in a different way when we write. [00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I've. I've played with speech to writing and just typing or. And also physically writing. And each medium has a different way in which the words come, I find. Which is in itself quite fascinating. But. Yeah, so I'm. I'm just in that play at the moment, in that. Playing with that words. And like I said, I have a very ambivalent relationship with words because of it. But, yeah, it's been fun. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Can imagine. Yeah, it's very miraculous that we can utilize the word. Like, if you put into context just human history, most people didn't know how to read. Yeah, right. And the fact that we have the ability to read, we have the ability to write or type is something we take for granted. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Totally. Yeah. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Right. It's a power that we take for granted. [00:31:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And when you do actually form this relationship with the word stuff changes. I think it changes your consciousness. It changes your whole experience altogether. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Yes, it does. You know, it's interesting because that sparks something for me of. In the weeks after I had this shift in 2015, this. I mean, I'd had shifts before, but this. This, I would say an abiding shift. At the time, I was a bit of a nightmare for my husband because he. He'd sort of had this shift prior to me. And I remember sitting, you know, talking those weeks afterwards, and it was like my whole brain was being reorientated around words. It's like, what does consciousness mean? What does universe mean? What does. You know, all these words that had been built up into a thing in a certain state of consciousness now had to be sort of deconstructed and reconstituted with this new experiential knowingness. And so it's not the words were the same, but the experience and the knowingness of what they were pointing to was entirely different. So I had to go through this process of sort of like almost surgically unwinding those words. I don't know if you can. You can relate to this and have been through a similar thing yourself. But it's fascinating to me that words can hold such a power, but they can hold such a concept behind it, such a story that actually isn't congruent with the direct experience of what is being spoken of. And it's like, almost like there needs to be a realignment with what. What the actual truth of that word is, let's say. [00:33:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fascinating. I can't say I've ever had anything like that happen, but I know what you're talking about. I can grasp what you're talking about. Yeah. It's like a revisiting of the story. It's like you tell the story differently. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Totally. That's exactly it. Yes. Yeah, I think that's. There's an element of that in this journey somehow that you, like. Certainly that comports with my experience is that you have to. You almost revisit everything in light of this, you know, sidestep into a different view of life. You could say, you know, everything is the same and yet everything is utterly different. And it's. It's that process that I think takes time. I would argue it takes time to embody what is actually being lived, not from concepts and ideas and certain sort of ways of being needs to be undone and emerged in a, let's say, congruent way with truth and reality. [00:34:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you know, what it is. This is just coming off top of my head. Maybe this is what it is. I don't know. But for me, it's. We're using the same language. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Before realization, and after realization, we still. It's still English. So it's like, it the same. Right. You almost have to like. Yeah. You have to change the meaning of the dictionary that's in your head. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Exactly. That's exactly. And I. So I literally, you know, I'm not sure it's so literal with everyone, but for me, it was quite literal that I had to literally go, okay, but what do you mean by this? What is my. Like, how does. Like, you're saying this word. But my experience is different from my conception of this word now, so I have to sort of go, okay, am I picking what I think it is or reality? And actually see where there is a gap between that that now existed. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. You speak any other languages? [00:35:49] Speaker B: Not fluently, no. But I learned Welsh when I was child and also French. But no, I wouldn't say I speak any other languages. Yeah. [00:35:58] Speaker A: Us English people, we don't need to speak any other languages. [00:36:01] Speaker B: I know it's terrible. It's a real shame. [00:36:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm just going off the note of when you learn a different language, it must also change your consciousness drastically. Right? It has to. It must, like, shift it immensely in terms of, like, shifting meaning. [00:36:22] Speaker B: Yes. And how we think of things and. Yeah, I think it's you. I think you're hitting into a very important point. There is, like, where we've structured our life around a certain word and a certain meaning. We stop looking beyond that and we almost get lazy. I want to use the word lazy there, but it's not quite the right word. But it's like complacent. Yeah, that's the better word. Yeah. So we get complacent with. I know what that is. And actually, what is required in the spiritual endeavor is a continuous freshness with life. Not at all living on assumptions, but living in the raw, unfolding reality of nowness. And so as soon as we get complacent with life, we stop seeing the mystery of it. We stop seeing the radical, revealing nature of life. And we think, oh, I know this. And that's the worst thing that can happen on the spiritual search, I would say. And I see people, you know, I. I ask sometimes these. These, you know, they seem like tropes. You know, who are you? [00:37:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:37:41] Speaker B: And everyone's like, oh, I know the answer to that. And I'm like, no, no, no. I really want you to look. I don't want the answer. I don't care about the answer. Actually, it's about the looking. And it's. At that point, there's where you are in that innocent, radical rawness with life. You're no longer looking to your ideas of what life is. No. You're no longer looking to your concepts. You're no longer looking to your sort of assumptions, let's say, that have been untested. Even if you think you know the answer, it doesn't matter. Is not about the answer. It's about what that kind of question does to open you up to reality. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah. That's the basis of it. Right. Is continually explore who you are. I think that complacency, again, is built into materialism. Right. So I think a part of this liberation that we speak of in this realm, this freedom, is to just continually explore what you are, take chances. Sometimes it doesn't work out, that's for sure. [00:38:46] Speaker B: You look at nature, that's all that nature ever does. And it's not because, you know, like, you look at a tree and how it grows. It's constantly just reaching to find where the. The most sunlight is. It's not staying stagnant and going, right, well, I've got it now. I've got this branch and I'm. I'm good. I'm good to go. And there's something about the human mind that is. Again, I think it comes down to this. Where we derive our sense of self from. Where we derive it from a sense of solidity, of like, right, I've decided I know who I am now. In a material sense, life is constantly breaking that open and we're constantly trying to put the egg back together. And it's like, no, that's not who you are anyway. So it's asking of us to touch the unending expression of life that is not bound in the way that the mind wants to put boxes around everything and be certain of it. [00:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very well spoken. In terms of nature. Such a good image, how nature just keeps going. It just doesn't stop. I'm gonna remember that one. That's really good. Yeah. When you touch upon your true nature becomes very similar to nature itself. [00:40:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You feel the wildness, the spontaneousness, the. It's a. It's a responsiveness to life. Not a reactivity of trying to shut down and keep life a certain way. It's a responsiveness, it's a naturalness. It's a dance. Like, I love using the word dance because that is a word that closely comports with my experience of life. A dance with life. And so, you know, where we are living in our true nature, that's what we find is a continual dance with the relative, with the appearances, with the images of life. But they're not static. And there's. As soon as we want to hold down and pin down and anchor into a certain image of ourself or an image of life, this is where life comes and blasts that open and cracks it open and creates a sense of, oh, God, what's going on. But actually, if you never leave that sense of the dance of life, then there's a continual welcoming of that change and a living into it rather than avoiding of it. [00:41:18] Speaker A: I would say going in the. Oh, you're going with the flow. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Yeah, quite literally, yeah. [00:41:27] Speaker A: It's the dance between light and dark, yin and yang, Shiva and shakti. Yeah, that's it. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Yeah. The wholeness. You can't have one without the other. And where we try to pin down into one aspect of life, we're missing that. That dance has the wholeness there, right there. [00:41:50] Speaker A: And most importantly, we start to dance with each other. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes, very much so. [00:41:56] Speaker A: Rather than all the competition and this person's against me, it's like. No, it's actually more toward cooperation, ideally. I think also that's a possible destination as we all start to get along here in this thing we call life. Definitely a work in progress, but I think that's where this is going. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Yeah. I think, you know, where we are able to understand that every moment is a unique expression of this dance. No longer are we relatively comparing ourselves to another in that competitive nature, in that sense of, you know, I'm better, you're worse, this is good, this is bad. Instead, we're appreciating the differentiating expressions of consciousness arising and. Yeah, celebrating is the word. There to celebrate the infinite expressions of being and yet not separate from being itself. [00:42:57] Speaker A: Now that sounds like love. [00:42:59] Speaker B: There we go. We got back down to it. Yeah, totally. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a celebration. I like that. We celebrate each other. [00:43:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Rather than fight each other for our differences, we celebrate each other for our differences. [00:43:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Might sound corny, but it's the truth. It really is. [00:43:17] Speaker B: This is the thing with these corny. These sort of tropes or these corny, you know, these ideas, these, you know, Hallmark cards. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Cliches. [00:43:25] Speaker B: Cliches. That's the word, is. There's. There's a kernel of truth underneath all of it. You know, it gets said over and over again. Again, we come back to this thing of, like, the laziness of. Or the. What word did you use? Complacency. That sort of. The complacency of. Oh, that's just that, you know, it's so normal, it's so ordinary. But where you start to see the ex. The life as this ever fresh expression of itself, you don't see these things as. Oh, that's just this. You actually feel them. You meet them as they are without reference to past almost. And so you meet that expression and you meet it fully as it is in its own merit, so to speak. You find the reverence of life in its own merit rather than in comparison to yesterday or tomorrow or this person or that. [00:44:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's very, very well spoken. Again, there's no more comparison, right? Yeah, there's no, like. I mean, you ever heard that one? It's another cliche. Comparison is the thief of joy. [00:44:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. It's not that there's not differentiation, though, because I think some people think that, you know, like, when you get rid of Comparison, somehow it all flattens out. And actually I find that to be the opposite of what happens. It's comparison in terms of judgment. Good and bad, right and wrong, better, worse that that dissolves. And what it leaves in its wake is, is just the taste. It's almost like tasting the sweet, tasting the salty, tasting the sour. Not as a comparison to the other, but as the full flavor as it is. And that you get to taste that and you know, we all have that experience of when you taste a new foods and you, you have nothing to compare it to. You're just tasting it on its own merit. And therefore it's not good or bad, it's just what it is. [00:45:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I don't know what to say to that. It's very well spoken. It's like equanimity. There is no judgment, I think is another good word to say. There's a lack of judgment. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:45:51] Speaker A: There's no condemnation upon this life. Anything that happens in life. And again, especially other people, it's just. It's also not passivity. [00:46:02] Speaker B: No. [00:46:03] Speaker A: Yeah, passivity. [00:46:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:05] Speaker A: So one may think it's like you're just sitting back and just going with the flow, man. You know, hippie mindset. It's not really like that. [00:46:11] Speaker B: It's not that at all. That's such a misunderstanding that I encounter so much. It's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine I think actually is the sense of, you know, non doing as a passivity, instead of recognizing that it's going with the flow is not clenching on, grasping onto life in its certain form, but opening up to all that is, is the opposite of passivity. It's a total intimacy with what is. And that includes every possible expression of life there, from the most still, silent moment of existence to the most loud, vibrant expression of existence. It's to be with all of that. That's to me is equanimity. It's to be with what is. To not to neither push away or keep any expression of life, but to be open palmed with all of life with what is. And that's a very different experience than the mind's idea of I'm not doing or I'm passively being with what is. [00:47:24] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. It's when you're with the flow, actually I find more volition in my actions. There is more just power behind my actions. But it's like. Because they're not my actions. [00:47:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:41] Speaker A: The flow's actions. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Yes. There you go. Great. Yeah. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Right. Just going with the dao. Yeah. And Then there's just more gumption in everything that I do. It's like you do what is needed. You do what the flow yields for you. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Yeah. The flow of life, the grace of life. You. You're in that non personally. And this. This is again, para. Talk about paradoxes. There's the paradox is the more impersonal it's known, the more personal is flowing through. That's what I find at least. The more Imogen ness there is here, the more impersonal that scene, the more the scene that. That dance, that flavor of existence, that flavor of being expressing itself as what I call imogen, is less inhibited, is. Is more expressively itself. The more impersonal life is seen as. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like the more you surrender, the more power you get. You can have it all when you give it all up. [00:48:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. I've been. That particular one I've been really dancing with this week, actually. It's. It's interesting how that surrender is absolute. And it's not a one and done. It's a continual, continual, continual surrender. And the more I go along in life, the more I recognize that, you know, if I were to say the path that life has led me on is the path of surrender, and it's not the only way, but I think the closer into the mystery you get, the more the path looks like surrender. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Or devotion, would you say? [00:49:28] Speaker B: Same thing. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:31] Speaker B: But, yes, they can. They. To me, they're different fragrances or flavors of the same thing. So we can use. It's almost like a. If you look at it like a spider's web. Like each sort of line coming into the center point has its own fragrance, has its own way of being. You know, for some, it's more devotional. For some it's more, you know, emptiness of the mind. Some it's more surround, you know, but as we get closer and closer, we are surrendering to or letting go or letting be or. Or whatever word you want to use there. It doesn't matter. Into the heart of existence. It's like it pulls you in there and it's a letting go of any vestiges of. I'm doing this. [00:50:16] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a certain chapter in the Bhagavad Gita that Krishna describes that as. There's four different types of yogas, but he says bhakti is the most important one. I always remember that there are many different ways to the way. Yeah, we could say. But I think it all amounts to bhakti. It all amounts to surrender. [00:50:36] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And actually, interestingly, it's the one that we struggle with, particularly in the West, I would say the most, the utter devotion and surrender to the divine. And I think that's why, you know, I call myself a contemplative mystic if I had to put a label on it, because that's the description of that to me. And it's the thing that most people are afraid to touch because it's a complete annihilation. It's a complete annihilation of everything you think you know, everything you all reference point to certainty. But actually it's the very opposite of what the mind fears, which is literal annihilation. It's. It's what happens with that. Annihilation is the annihilation of the false image. The. Yeah, the false image. And what comes is the filling up of the divine. Yeah, yeah. It's an emptying out of the small self and a filling up of the big self is some language you could use. So it's the opposite of annihilation, actually, but it is a destructive annihilation of that which you never were to begin with. [00:52:01] Speaker A: That's the ego's worst nightmare. [00:52:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it is, it is, yeah. [00:52:09] Speaker A: And it seems like in order for the ego, did I. You have to devote yourself to something that is greater than yourself. [00:52:21] Speaker B: Yes, I love that. I love that. And I actually think it's why we're having a resurgence of religion is a tricky one. Because it's not just religion. We're having a resurgence, I think, in the world of people looking for God, again in a more pointed way. And of course there are many forms of that, you know, some better or worse, you could say. But what it's pointing to is that for me is the fact that we've gone so fully into the material as our, our sense of meaning, our sense of deriving our sense of self, that actually the counterpoint to that is now needing to going, okay, that doesn't work. As you pointed out in your own search. You know, it's like that there's something doesn't add up here. And so now we're having, I would say, a sort of a shift away from that in various forms of people looking for meaning and not the human sense of meaning. Oh, I've done this and I've, you know, made a difference in the world. But true meaning, meaning beyond a concept of meaning. Finding God, finding the self, finding our true nature. And I think that's why I see a resurgence in this in many ways, because I think people are going, oh, it's this isn't it. This doesn't do this. And. And there's something more. I can feel that there's something more. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I think we all feel that. [00:53:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:57] Speaker A: Deep down. [00:53:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:59] Speaker A: It's maybe shrouded. Yeah. We're all walking each other home, as Ram Dass would say. [00:54:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:54:06] Speaker A: But, yeah, there is this pull. It's a pull toward God. Yeah, yeah. Innately, I think it's in there for every single human being. [00:54:16] Speaker B: I agree. I agree. [00:54:20] Speaker A: But as I said in the beginning, it's tough to know where to look or how to look. That's the trickiest part, because that's, to. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Me, the mind trying to control the progress of this, trying to get it right, trying to control how that search looks. And in reality, you know, the search leads us to where it is not often. So the mind trying to control this search opens up, like, I would say seeking. It sort of the purpose of seeking. We go down this road. Oh, it's not there. Oh, we go down this. Okay, it's not there. Oh, and so it's the purpose of that. It's is the thinning of the mind sense of, I can control this. And actually an opening up of that devotional, that surrender, so that there's a dropping, a sinking, letting go that can happen to a remembrance of our nature because it's already here. It's just we're looking out there to go and get it. And that's the mind. That's that. That sense of, how do I do this? Where do I look, what, all of this. And actually, the answer is calling you home all the time anyway. We just need to listen. And so we have to go through the process of not listening and pouring more into a sense of our path and our seeking. And I've got to get this, and I got to go there and I got to do this, only to come back home to the recognition of this isn't about filling myself up with more stuff. This is about. And somehow how to do that. It's actually an emptying out. Yeah, I love this. [00:56:00] Speaker A: Less is more. [00:56:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I love this word kenosis. Like, to me, that's a really beautiful word. And emptying out of the small self to be filled up with the divine. So it's that. It's. How do you do that? It's like saying, how do you fall in love? Or how do you breathe? You know, it's like these things that just unnaturally, inherently happen to us. It's happening, you know, it's not a how if you're Asking how it's coming from the wrong place. It's coming from the mind wanting to have certainty, wanting to, you know, find a good footing by which it is still in control of this process which takes you so far. It's not to be completely diminished or dismissed. It's just. That's the issue that eventually that's the one that has to go. [00:56:48] Speaker A: Yep. Now, do you think spending time with others that just a little wiser than you, that may be further along the path per se, is one of the most valuable practices or something that someone can incorporate? [00:57:06] Speaker B: I would say there comes a point where actually it's the most important thing. Not because of the person you're sitting with, necessarily as a personal sense of, oh, it's them. But the way I would describe it is at a certain point where you filled your whole thing up with concepts and ideas and you've got you so far, there comes a point where you recognize, this is not something I'm going to do. This is about that surrender. And what happens when you sit, you keep the company of those that have recognized this themselves. It's not even about the words they say. It's about the energy that they embody and transmit. And I would use, you know, there's the idea of entrainment where, you know, energetically, that which is stronger, that which is weaker, entrains to the. The sense of that which is stronger. So what happens when you keep the company of. Of those that awake to the nature and they. They hold that fragrance, that vibration, that lightness of being, that center of gravity, you could call it. There's naturally the. [00:58:11] Speaker A: The. [00:58:12] Speaker B: There's a sort of an embodiment that starts to happen. A reorganizing of one's own system that moves towards that more. It's not the only way. But I would say, like, certainly for me, it was invaluably helpful to be in that sort of space, even if it's just meditating in silence or that kind of thing. Because what it does is it gets beyond the conceptual mind and just allows one to tune into that. It's almost like a radio transmitting a certain frequency. I mean, it's why I offer what I do, because I find that to be very helpful. [00:58:52] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. I feel it. I feel it from. You feel the gravity pulling me in. Yeah, it's real. Yeah, you're very poetic. I like the imagery that you paint in your words. Just giving you a little props here. Because the gravity thing that. Yeah, seriously, I mean that. The gravity thing resonated with Me, like, there is this pull with people that know, like that have this energy that have this resonance. You just feel. I mean, you feel in love with them. [00:59:23] Speaker B: It's contagious in some way, quite literally. And it's. It's. To me, it's like a. It's this spreading of that within. There's a. Like, I would say if you think of a candle and how it's most potent, right. Where it's lit, but there's this light that spreads. And for me, we are each that candle with that light. But where there's a very brightly burning candle, it's sort of. It can light that light for, you know, a very large area of life. [00:59:54] Speaker A: All it takes is one candle. [00:59:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I think, you know, that's the value there is to sit in the company of that is. It's not that, you know, someone is giving you something you don't have. I think there's a misunderstanding there. You know, it's really about a remembrance or revealing of that which you are that light that you already are. And so to tune into that. That frequency, to tune into that level of life, level of existence, is so much easier when you've got someone shining that light and you're able to. It's almost. I use the example of, like, I'm singing a C note. And it's not that I'm singing the C note for you. I'm singing the C note so that you can match your tone to that C note. And it's easier now. You can do it by yourself in your bathroom, sing your C note, whatever. And that's totally possible. But it's easier when you're in a choir, when you're in that space together becomes imminently more tangible, more real, more able to taste and feel in your system. [01:01:04] Speaker A: Yeah. It's just quite simply easier. [01:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:01:09] Speaker A: Such a good metaphor again, of tuning oneself. [01:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:13] Speaker A: Especially to anybody that plays any instruments. You know, it's so much easier to tune the guitar when you do hear what you're trying to tune to. [01:01:20] Speaker B: Yes. [01:01:21] Speaker A: Plain and simple. [01:01:22] Speaker B: Yes. And of course, if you have been used to tuning the guitar, you know, you become that for others as well. Like where you, like, say that you've got lots of instruments and you are able to tune that guitar really simply, and then others around you then use that ability. So that's. That's the role, I would say, of a. Let's say a guru or sage or someone who's awake. And whatever word you want to use there, it's. They they, they provide that anchor point, that ability to tune into that. [01:01:53] Speaker A: Now I think we should also mention though, that is fine line the toe, because we've all heard plenty of controversies with gurus. [01:01:59] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. And I'm, yeah, I'm very much, I've experienced those controversies myself and. [01:02:06] Speaker A: Oh, personally. [01:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh. And so we, again, for me the most important thing is to recognize that they don't have something you don't have. In the same way, it's not that you can't tune your guitar to the C note either. And so it's this thing of giving one's sovereignty to another, being beholden to another is a fine line between devotion and surrender. But not to them as a person. They are an embodiment of this light, this expression, an exemplar at the best side of it, let's say, where they haven't done their work fully, maybe there's still some things that need to be worked out there, but you know, they're still human, they're still expressions of the divine in its multiplicity, in its, in its form. So I think being able to, to not lose sight of that is really important to, not to loot, to recognize that the surrender is not to a person but to being itself. There's where it gets tricky, the idea to a person. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very tricky because there's some people that are very charismatic, very good looking and they're saying exactly what you want to say, but they might just want your money. [01:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:03:36] Speaker A: Or something like that. [01:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, there's all sorts of things that can happen there. Yeah, it's a tricky one. It's a tricky dance, that one. There's no right or wrong answer, you know, other than personal experience and how you never stray from listening to your body, listening to your intuition, you know, thoughts, mind, concepts. Less easy to grasp in terms of certainties there because the mind can, you know, give us all sorts of pros and cons and all the rest of it. But I think the body is a really, for me at least has been a really beautiful way of, of feeling where there's something off or not feeling so good and trusting that. [01:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, the body sends us messages, intuitive messages throughout the body. [01:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yes. [01:04:27] Speaker A: Huge aspect of the path. Signals. Yeah, it's a good word. [01:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:30] Speaker A: Is getting in touch with the signals of your body and being able to listen deep. That 100% totally more than all mind. Right. Part of that again, materialism. It's all mine, it's all up here. But no, no no. [01:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, the mind is too fickle. The mind's far too fickle for that. But there's this. The body, even the body can betray us in some ways, but it, for me, is a much, much, much better tool of listening to those signals that is there and learning how to trust the body. And it's. I guess what lets us down is the interpretation of it is. And so again, the mind. [01:05:15] Speaker A: Yes. Amen. I'd say intuition leads the way. [01:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. [01:05:21] Speaker A: We all know what intuition is. I think we all have intuition. [01:05:24] Speaker B: Oh, we all have intuition. That's. That's the. I would say our primary expression of life is intuitive. But we, as we go through our childhoods, we shut down that intuition. We get more and more filled up with ideas of how we should behave, how we should act. We start, we go against. We sort of abandon ourselves, you could say, of that intuitive knowingness, that signal of life that even goes beyond the body. And we get more and more into shoulds. And as we get more and more into shoulds, we actually turn off our trust, let's say, or diminish our trust or increase our mistrust of that intuitive knowingness that we all inherently carry within us. [01:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah, with the intuition, there's no shoulds. There's no should. There shouldn't. It's just. It's a different kind of intelligence. It's a different kind of judgment and discernment. [01:06:31] Speaker B: Totally. Totally. [01:06:34] Speaker A: It's very subtle. [01:06:35] Speaker B: It is. It's very quiet. And yet, interestingly, it's not weak or soft in its sense. It's just quiet. It doesn't shout at you until it needs to. Until you've ignored it so many times. And then life is. The intuitive feedback is like life bonking you on the head because you, you know, ignored all of those intuitive signals that are being presented. So, yeah, it's very quiet. Or rather it. It may be more nuanced. It's not quiet. It's. Compared to the mind, which is very loud and obvious. It speaks in a different language. And so most of us are very ill equipped to tune into that language because of all our conditioning of the mind. [01:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I never heard it put that way. It speaks in a different language. Yeah. And it's not words. [01:07:31] Speaker B: No, not at all. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Huh. I'm trying to put words on it right now. [01:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah, there we go. There's the mind. We're just. That's. That's. The mind does that. And it's not. It's beautiful that the mind does that, but actually, if you Sit into the feeling of that, the knowingness of that. There's where you regain your trust of it without trying to then go back out into the mind to try and understand it. It's like the. This is where the words come for me, and you say I'm poetic. The poetic words come from sitting with the direct, experiential, intuitive knowingness of reality. The words and the wisdom come from that, not the other way around. It's almost like you need to. It's like learning your. The palm of your hand, not because you're trying to understand it, but because you're sitting with it. So then the description of that becomes obvious. So that's how I relate to that language learning. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And that gets into the realm of poetry because poetry is a different way to utilize language. It's almost like another. It's like another code. Right. It's another way of you, like you're speaking English or whatever language you write poetry in, but it's something different. It's a different kind of meaning that's in those words. [01:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not a good poem. It's not literal. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's almost like a piece of music, you know, in the same way you listen to a piece of music and there's a fullness, a wholeness in the music, there's a transmission of that music that is not about the singular instrument. It's the same thing with poetry for me. It's not about the singular word. So when someone tries to dissect. Why did you use that word? I'm like, no, listen to the wholeness of the poem. There's where you feel the symphony. There's where you feel the wholeness of what is being pointed to and where it's being pointed from. So it's not about the words. It's about the. The words as a whole. The whole poem is what gives rise to the sense of what is being spoken about. So you can't dissect a poem. Poem. It's a fragrance. It's a. It's a. A song. It's a symphony. It's a poem. It. It. It doesn't break down into its parts. [01:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, if you just read one line or you listen to one, you know, one line of a song, it doesn't make any sense. If you just get one part of what that piece of artwork is, it won't make any sense. There's no context. The context is the whole. [01:10:15] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:10:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:16] Speaker B: The whole is. [01:10:17] Speaker A: That's why? There's power. Sorry, go ahead. [01:10:19] Speaker B: I was just gonna say the whole is larger than the sum of the parts. That's not me, by the way. [01:10:27] Speaker A: Oh, that. Who is that? [01:10:28] Speaker B: That's Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, I think. Or. I think it's been said all over the shot. [01:10:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:33] Speaker B: Didn't want to. I've heard something like that before for myself. [01:10:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So it's like when you have a good poem. Poetry, a song, it's like there's so much condensed meaning in whatever that piece of work is. Right. Getting back to the idea of meaning. There's just so much. Right. You can listen to a song one time, get a sense of meaning from it, and then listen to it 500 times, and you'll get a different meaning from it. On that 500th time, I love. That's the power and the majesty of the art form of poetry or song. They go hand in hand, poetry and song. [01:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:11:13] Speaker A: Which is art all together. There's just so much meaning in it. [01:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They create the creative expression. You know, even. It's funny, like, I even want to widen it out. You know, even a good mathematical equation or a meal or, you know, anything that is. Is an out. Outpouring of creativity, outpouring of creation that is coming forth. And it. It speaks to me of. Of the fact that we're constantly trying to put things in boxes in the mind, but actually, we miss the wholeness of it. We miss the outpouring of it. We miss the. The totality, the wholeness of that which is. Is coming forth that is so much beyond just what's being presented, the transmission. [01:12:03] Speaker A: I just. I get the image of. That's what this is all about. That's what we're trying to convey here, is we're trying to box it in with our words at this moment. Literally the whole. The magnificence of the whole. [01:12:17] Speaker B: Yes. [01:12:18] Speaker A: We're trying to, like, flavor it up and dance with our words here. [01:12:21] Speaker B: Yes. [01:12:22] Speaker A: But that is the essence of, I guess, a good talk and a good podcast. Maybe we did a good job. I think we did. A good Dharma talk does that. It takes the magnificence of the whole, the just glory of the wholeness, the holiness, and puts it in a meaningful format. [01:12:40] Speaker B: Yeah. It leaves an impression, you know, those things that really touch us. A song, a poem, a talk, a satsang, a meditation, whatever it is. What. It touches our heart in a way that is inexplicable. Inexplicable. [01:12:58] Speaker A: It. [01:12:58] Speaker B: It opens us up. It. We feel it in our being. We. It. It sort of resides there. It's sort of. It's almost like it infuses in our system and opens us up to a different world. And that's, to me, the best that can happen when we're sitting in a Dharma talk or. Or in the middle of an orchestra listening. You know, whatever it is, it opens you to that world. And again, it's that thing, you know, talking about sitting with teachers. It's the same thing. It opens you to that. That level, that layer, that paradigm, that view, that world of existence that maybe wasn't available in an obvious way to you. It's not that it fundamentally wasn't available. It's that where the attention was lived from and drawn to wasn't that. And then in a moment, you have this world opened up to you. You go, whoa, I didn't see. This was here. And it always was. It's just. It wasn't seemingly accessible because it hadn't yet sort of opened its fruits to you. [01:14:06] Speaker A: I got the image. Two images. This is just how I interpret people's words. It's through images. [01:14:12] Speaker B: I don't know. I love it. [01:14:14] Speaker A: I got like, a portal opening. Like, you step into a portal, it's a new world. But, you know, you don't go anywhere. You know what I mean? You don't go anywhere. It's just like. It's the portal, like, of right here. And also, you take the shades off, you take the glasses off. Yeah, you start to see again. You don't go anywhere. You just start to see differently. [01:14:33] Speaker B: This is it. It's. This is why. [01:14:34] Speaker A: Many different metaphors. [01:14:36] Speaker B: Totally. And this is why, you know, to say it's a journeyless journey. You know, the mind goes, hang on. How can that be? We can't have a journey that's journeyless. That does not make sense. But when you feel into a lot of what is being spoken about, whether it's an imagery like you've just shared or a wording or something we like, where we try not to understand it with the mind, but feel it, sense into it, experience it in a. In an experiential way, there's where we get the taste of it, the fragrance, what is being pointed to. And it's beyond words. And there's. There is, to me, where you touch the mystery of it all. It's not cap. It's not something that can be captured by words alone. And yet words themselves open that portal to that place. So there's again, another paradox. [01:15:27] Speaker A: You know what? I think that might be a good note to wrap it up at. [01:15:30] Speaker B: Okay. Very good. [01:15:33] Speaker A: Do you have anything else that you want to say? Anything. Any other words that you want to use to open the portal? [01:15:40] Speaker B: You know, silence or words doesn't matter. You can use endless. I always feel this. I can use endless words. So I'm endlessly wanting to use words to deepen and convey. Or silence doesn't matter. Both of those. Open that in us where we surrender to what is being pointed to. [01:16:05] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, Imogen, thank you for joining me today. [01:16:10] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:16:11] Speaker A: You're an awesome person. Very well spoken. You have such a nice voice, too. I don't know, maybe it's your accent, because I'm an American, but there's something about the tone of your voice that it's just soothing. It's very relaxing. It's very comforting. So, yeah, keep up the good work. [01:16:26] Speaker B: Thank you. You too. You too. Thank you. [01:16:29] Speaker A: But, yeah, peace and love to you and peace and love to everybody that listened to song Goodbye, y'. All.