Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Doctor Robert Solano, thank you for joining me today.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Thank you.
I'm honored and thrilled to be here.
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Honored to have you.
So, yeah, getting this thing started, would you be able to give us a little bit about your background and anything else that you want to tell us about?
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to.
So, you know, it's so hard to, like, summarize a lifetime worth of experiences in a few minutes, but I'll. I'll give you the quick background, and then we can dive into the details. So I recently retired this past year after serving in the army for 21 years. I was a helicopter pilot, deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan a few times, and then switched over to contracting and program management, developing artificial intelligence for the army and different weapon systems like that.
And then after I retired from the Army, I decided to pivot right really hard and start a psychedelic mushroom church called Heart Space Church.
And I live in Phoenix, Arizona, with my wife and kids.
And really, I'm here to serve the world. I found plant medicines along my journey, helped me heal from trauma and stuff that I was going through due to my military experience, due to my personal experience, due to divorce, alcohol addiction, you name it.
And plant medicines and spirituality helped me get through all that. And so I'm really here to help other people along the way as well.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Well, thank you for sharing.
So how would you explain what exactly plant medicine has done for you? I know that's another big question, but how would you summarize that?
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Plant medicine.
And, you know, we.
We use these terms like plant medicines. Plant medicines are a very wide category. I consider cacao, chocolate, plant medicine. I consider even certain herbal teas plant medicine.
But typically, when we use the term plant medicine in this context, we're really referring to psychedelics. And so for those that may not really know what we're talking about, when I'm talking about plant medicines, I'm usually talking about psychedelics and usually talking about psilocybin, mushrooms in particular. Although there's other medicines out there. You know, marijuana is a plant medicine, and there's other psychedelics that are not plant medicines. So what has that helped me? It's helped me connect with God, plain and simple, and experience and feel God in a deeply profound way that I have never experienced in any other way in my entire life.
And experiencing that opens up so many doors.
It's helped me through addiction. It's helped me through major life decisions like deciding to marry my wife. It's helped me through career moves. It's helped me be healthier, lose weight, and Just show up with greater purpose and love in the world.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Powerful. Yeah. I mean, that is the door of all doors. Once you open up the door to God, that's it.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: You're good.
Very powerful, man.
Yeah, I feel the same way, too. I asked that question to a lot of people. You know, I speak to a lot of people that are into psychedelics and plant medicine, and they never just said plainly, open me up to God. So I appreciate that answer because I feel the same way, too. I was before magic mushrooms and other psychedelics. I was a ardent atheist, a militant atheist, you could say. Very rational, very skeptical of anything. If you talked about God, I think you're an idiot. I would just be like, well, you're crazy. Right? If I saw you wearing that collar right now.
What? Come on, man. What's up with that?
Then, you know, I started to dive into myself, dive into the psychedelia world. And I was like, wait a second, maybe these godly people are onto something. Yeah, I understand now. And it's because it brings it into your own experience, right? It brings it into yourself. You start to see and garner faith inwardly rather than some kind of outward blind faith from somebody else telling you how it is.
You start to feel God yourself.
And that's the big switch.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: A question for you. When you were this militant atheist, how would you describe what you believed in? If anything?
[00:04:50] Speaker A: It had to do with being able to prove it. So that's like the number one thing that atheists say. Militant atheists say it's like, well, you can't prove God, right? Show me God. And you can't in a rational way, in like, a mathematical proof, right? You can't scientifically prove God.
So that's what I would.
That would be like the main argument. I'm like, you can't. What are you gonna. What are you guys talking about? This sounds like all fairy tales, right? It was pretty much the opposite of faith, like zero faith. Right. There was no actual faith in my life. It was all based upon the paradigm, which is the Western paradigm essentially, of seeing is believing.
I didn't see it at all. There was nothing to see.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: So I didn't believe.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I.
I heard someone speak. Maybe this is Pete Holmes or someone like that.
I love Pete Holmes, by the way. He's a great comedian.
But he, you know, his argument is that there is no such thing as atheist, right? Because even if you're an. Even if you're an atheist, you are saying that, hey, there's some unknown that we can't prove.
Well, that unknown.
My word for the unknown is God. Your word is unknown. But at the end of the day, we still kind of believe in almost the same thing. We have different approaches. But even atheists, they believe that there's something that they don't understand.
And I believe that there's something I don't understand also. And there's common ground there.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Exactly. I like to say. Actually. Excuse me, sorry. I like to say that atheists are halfway there because.
You know what I'm saying? Because it's like, it's better than having blind faith. It's better than dogma. So the first step to realizing really what God's all about is atheism.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Right. That's what it was for me.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I.
I am not the biggest fan of organized religion, which sounds weird because I'm wearing, like, a clergy collar, but I really don't like organized religion because I think organized religion too often says, this is it. We know everything.
You need to follow us because we know everything.
And, like, I love your outlook. Like, no, like, we need to have that atheist mindset that there's things that we don't know.
And I think when you develop a spiritual belief, practice around that, that there's things you don't know, and then you have a spiritual belief to try to explore that, I think that's really, like, the power of spirituality, which sometimes I think some of the major religions get wrong.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah, very well spoken.
I think the problem is the mind, the ego mind is not okay with not knowing.
Yeah, right. That's the huge pill that you have to swallow in the spiritual path. The real spiritual path is being okay with the mystery and sitting with the mystery. Because ultimately, that's what I would say God is if I were to explain it using these mouth noises is the ultimate mystery. Yeah, right.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: So it's not necessarily like, when you start to believe in God, you figure it all out. I got to figure it out. You know, I believe in God now. I'm no longer an atheist. I got it. We're good. No, it's actually being okay with not knowing.
Right.
So that's a tough one, because we all want stability. We all want to be safe, essentially. And that dogma provides safety. Even if it's an illusion of safety. It's still some sort of safety. Right. It's some sort of, like, parachute. We're all in a free fall. It's some sort of parachute. But the problem is the parachute has holes in it.
So it's not really gonna save you.
Yeah, man.
The thing is too, is we're using the same terms as the fundamentalist Christians or whoever else.
We're using God.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: We're saying Jesus and things of that nature. So it's tough when people that don't know any better, they tune into conversations like this. They're like, oh, there they go again.
So I understand.
I. I kind of get that. Like, I get why people would be skeptical because we're using the same terminology.
But it's almost like our job, I think, is to take the power back, is to really show people what God is.
And expanding into different vocabulary, we could say with God. You know what I'm saying by that? So, like, associate God with other things than the previous iterations of blind faith.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I.
I agree with that completely. And I want to, you know, one of my teachers, I have two teachers that I love the most, Jesus and Ram Dass.
And one of my goals not just is to reshape our conversation around God, but it's also, like, reshape our conversation around Jesus as well. Right. Because I have, you know, again, people might see me in this clergy caller thinking, oh, he's like a die hard, you know, Jesus Christ, savior, miracles, all that stuff.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Jesus freak.
Yeah.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: And I want to, I want to like, show people. No, like, Jesus's message at the end of the day is to love everyone.
That's it. Like, that's it. And you don't have to believe in the miracles. You don't have to believe that he was resurrected. You don't have to believe that, like, any of that stuff.
If you believe that loving everyone is the highest calling that we can do, then that's all his message at the end of the day was really about.
And I think so many people have kind of pushed that teaching away because of all the other baggage that has come along with the teachings of Jesus Christ over the past 2,000 years.
And I'd love for us to, as a society, like, let's shed some of that baggage and unnecessary dogma and let's just get back to the core teachings of love one another.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Amen, brother. Yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: I like to say, don't let Christians ruin Jesus's teaching for you.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
Because it is unfortunate that we've twisted it over thousands and thousands of years.
Yeah. Twisted his words that are so simple. His teaching, his message is so simple that you just explained, just love everybody. That's it.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Don't overcomplicate it.
It's that simple.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:11:34] Speaker A: I had another point. Hold on. Let me take a second here. Go ahead. I got, like, a notebook in my head. Maybe I should actually get a notebook. I thought about that. Sometimes I lose my.
I lost it. I don't know.
Well, let me ask you this one.
Were you into Jesus at all before, and then you just rediscovered what he was teaching or just all of a sudden you found Jesus?
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah. This goes in. This is where it gets interesting.
I. I grew up in the Catholic faith. I went to Catholic elementary school, Catholic high school. I was an altar boy. I did confirmation.
My first marriage was in the Catholic Church.
And along the way, like many people in my mid-20s, I kind of started realizing that it was all a scam.
And I traveled to Spain and I learned about the persecution against the Jews and the Muslims that Queen Elizabeth was doing at the time and back in the 1400s, 1500s.
And I started seeing all these
[00:12:50] Speaker A: bad
[00:12:51] Speaker B: things coming out of Christianity, and I started seeing leaders, political leaders that weaponize Christianity. And I think you see that today.
And it just made me question the whole belief in it. And I turned away from the Catholic faith in my 20s.
I was still really spiritual. I still believe that there was some type of God and, you know, some reason why we should do good in the world. But I didn't necessarily subscribe to the Christian doctrine anymore.
And I explored Buddhism and Hinduism a little bit as well.
And then really, like about a year ago, when I started practicing these medicines, psilocybin and some other psychedelics, I would meditate, listen to teachings of Ram Dass, try to invoke some of his teachings, like, be here now. And I'm the spirit of loving awareness.
And every time I entered the medicine, Jesus would show up every time in some way or another, to the point where I got really frustrated. And I was like, why does this artifact from my youth keep showing up over and over and over again in the medicine?
And eventually that led me back to the Bible, really focusing on just the Gospels and not focusing on the Acts of the Apostles or anything else, really just focusing on the Gospels and really focusing on what did Jesus actually say?
[00:14:34] Speaker A: The red letters.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: The red letters. I'm not.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: The red letters in some Bibles are Jesus's actual words.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Yeah. No, my Bible doesn't have them in red.
Okay.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Mine does.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Okay. I should get.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I surprised you never heard that before, the red letters.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Oh, I haven't. Okay.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Maybe it's in the older Bibles. I know in mine, it's a King James, all the red letters are the quotes of Jesus. It's kind of nice, actually.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's cool.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Sorry throw you off.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: No, no, but that's, I mean, but that's it. That's like that, that was my focus. It was like, what did Jesus actually say? And not, not what did Paul, you know, you know, Paul on his road and what did he say to the Corinthians and all that stuff. But what did Jesus actually say?
And we can. And there's. When you really get into historical Jesus, you can.
The book of John you figure out is actually a different interpretation than the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke. But besides all that.
Anyway, all that to say Jesus's lessons kept coming up in my journeys and it just kept bringing me back to his core teachings of love one another.
And what I realized, what really shocked me is I had believed in non duality. So when I turned away from the Christian faith, I had a mystical experience about 10 years ago that changed everything.
It showed me about non duality, which is the belief that we're all one. And this illusion that we're separate is just that it's an illusion, but really we're all one and our souls are eternal.
And when I read Jesus's words and when people ask Jesus, they say, hey, where can we find you? And he says, like, I've been with you so long. Don't you know? I'm in my father, My father is in me, and I am in you.
And that struck me because I had never understood before that Jesus was preaching non duality.
Right. Like when people are looking for Jesus, Jesus tells us in the Bible, he says, I am in you. I am one with the Father, I am one with you. We are all one.
And that blew my mind. It completely blew my mind that the same non duality and principles that Jesus was teaching, or the same ones that Ram Dass were teaching.
And then I saw the whole Christian faith as a gift. And I saw that my Catholic upbringing was a gift. And all the, you know, all the ceremony and the approach to community, it was all a beautiful gift.
And I felt called to.
Like we were talking about, let's not abandon that, but let's try to take that and evolve it into something more beautiful.
And so that's, you know, I don't worship Jesus. He's my teacher.
And I wear this collar because I am a servant to the world. And this was a uniform that to me felt like a uniform of a servant. Right?
Yeah, Long answer, but that's kind of.
That's how I kind of Found.
Found Jesus and why I, you know, preach his message among other messages.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that.
It's the same message that all the sages have been saying.
Some may say it in one way that resonates with you and some may not. But I think if it is a pure teaching coming from a purely God realized individual, it will sound just like Jesus's words. It will sound just like Ram Dass's words. It will sound like any being that knows God. Yeah, right. And yeah, I guess that's the beauty of truth.
The beauty of truth is the truth is one and the wise call it by many names.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Hallelujah, man.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah, That's what I'm trying to unveil.
My whole project in life is showing people that is that.
How do I put this? Is that, you know, in the purest of pure hearts of the sage, the saint, the spiritualist.
Is that message of love, essentially?
Yeah, that's it.
And you don't have to over complicate it.
Just keep it simple.
Just like Jesus, just like Ram Dass. That's what I think I resonate with, with both Jesus and Ram Dass is they're very simple, very relatable.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Do you feel like you have a relationship? I know this may sound a little strange, but do you feel like you have some sort of relationship with both of those beings?
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Yes, one of my beliefs, or you can say it's like a way of looking at the world.
Let me back. Let me tell a story first. So when I was in Afghanistan during my last deployment, I had witnessed my friends burned to death in a helicopter crash.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
We lost 11 soldiers, four from my aviation company, three Navy SEALs and four Afghan commandos.
And I watched the helicopter burn on the Predator UAV feed on the tv.
Very difficult time, worst time in my military career.
But it couldn't prepare me for what came after, which was a month later, my wife asked for a divorce.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: And so at a very difficult time in my life, I had experienced ptsd, experienced divorce, and found myself in graduate school in Atlanta shortly after that, just drinking my sorrows away and partying to try to cope with the pain.
And around that time I met a girl.
We went to a music festival.
And at the music festival I had a gummy. And maybe it was thc. Maybe there's something else in there. There's also alcohol involved, Red Bull, exhaustion, three days of partying. So I don't. There was lots of factors that went into the set and setting of this experience.
But that night, I had my first mystical experience.
And the night started by me holding my girlfriend's hand and not knowing if I was Robert or if I was her.
I couldn't discern which one of us I was. And that was really my first time feeling any type of oneness with something other than myself.
And then as night progressed, I felt oneness with the whole entire crowd, all like 20,000 people. And I couldn't tell who I was in this crowd.
And then eventually, I felt one with the whole world.
And not only that, but as this experience happened, I felt like I had lived my life from birth to death and felt all the happiness, all the joy, all the sorrow, all the pain, all the love.
And then when I died, I lived my girlfriend's life from birth to death. And then I died, and I lived your life from birth to death. And I lived all lives of every human that's ever lived and ever will live, including the life of Mother Earth, the life of the solar system, and that changed everything.
And so, to answer your question, what I realized in that experience is that we think that we are individual souls. Like, we think there's two souls on this call right now. You're one and I'm one. What I realized is we're actually the same soul. And right now my soul is in this vehicle known as Robert, and your soul is in this vehicle known as Gary. But it's really the same soul. And somewhere along the lines, I'm going to experience your life, and you're going to experience my life.
And so do I have a connection with Jesus and Ram Dass?
Yes, because when I am in that state of oneness, I realize that me and Jesus are the same person, and me and Ram Dass are the same person, and me and you are the same person.
And realizing that oneness connects me with them on a very deep level.
I don't always remember that. I don't always live in that place, but when I do remember, it's really, really powerful. And when I see strangers in the street and I remember that, I remember that strangers I meet in the street are also Jesus and Ram Dass and the people that I love dearly as well. Does that make sense?
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Of course. Yeah. Beautiful.
Wow.
That's the message right there.
Yeah.
Wow, man. Okay.
That was good.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Long answer to your question, but that was good, man.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: That was beautiful. I wasn't ready for that one. Let me take a sip of tea here.
Now, would you say that is.
That's the goal, per se, of the Spiritual path is being able to see like that at all times. Is that why we do what we do with the plant medicines, the modalities, the yoga, whatever it is, is to be able to see through God's eyes.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Ram Dass used to talk about living in two polarities.
And for me, one of my goals is to try to live in both places at once.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: On one hand, live with this understanding of my own divine nature, but on the other hand, live in this human experience and enjoy life and enjoy my children and enjoy being Robert Solano to the fullest possible way, including my own sense of ego and own sense of individuality and being able to hold those two things at once and maybe sometimes going back and forth between the two, depending on the context. Maybe there's some times where I'm like, okay, I want to do my sacrament of communion, which is the medicine, and I want to meditate and be one with nature and I want to, you know, I'm going to spend today being the divine right oneness with everything.
But then the next day I'm going to come back to my life and I'm going to just be a dad and get angry sometimes and get happy sometimes and just live this beautiful human experience.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: That's the middle way. Yeah, Ram Dass speaks about that a lot.
There's. Sometimes he is Ram Dass, you know, he has to be the holy man. And then sometimes he's, you know, he's in the midst of the human struggle. Human fertility. That's the case for all of us. I feel that that is the destination per se, is being able to weigh those seeming polar opposites of our being.
The holiness and the human. We're somewhere between angel and animal.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yep.
So Pete Holmes, who's also a student of Ram Dass, who I mentioned earlier, he is, he has this quote where he's like, if you feel like you're divine, like, just go spend the weekend with your in laws or your parents and you know, you get, you get brought back to reality real quick.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Exactly.
That is, that's the line that we tow. Man 100. Because if you're too holy, you're trying to be fake holy, as Ramda says, or phony holy.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Then you're just going to be unrelatable. Nobody's gonna like you. You're not even gonna like yourself. It's just gonna be this act. Right.
And then on the other side of the coin, if you're too, like, hedonistic, if you're too human, you're too animalistic, it can be dangerous. Right. You can do things that are irresponsible and just suffer, essentially. But you can suffer from both sides of being imbalanced on either side of the spectrum. So, yeah, the true sage sits somewhere in the middle. And, yeah, work in progress over here on my end too, for sure.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: What are some of your practices? How do you.
When you know, when you want to experience one or the other, what do you do to get in different mind states?
[00:28:04] Speaker A: That's an interesting question. Well, music is very grounding. I mean, it depends on what the song is. Music is an umbrella term. But, like, if I really want to. I know this sounds funny, but if I really want to, like, bring myself back to Earth, I'll listen to some hip hop, you know, listen to some rock or something. Something like Rajasic, you could say. Like something maybe even Tomasic, you know, something like something that isn't holy, we could say. I mean, everything's holy. But you know what I'm getting at.
So music.
I'll just be honest. Being with women, just being honest, that kind of brings me back, you know? Brings you. Brings you down back to Earth.
Yeah. Sensual pleasure, you could say, like, what if I'm a little too out there? Like I'm trying to be too holy, too angelic? We could say get more into the senses, you know, get more into the delights of life. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with indulging a little bit. You know, a good meal. Yeah. Physical exercise, too, does that as well. But then, yeah, if I want to, say disconnect from the hedonism a little bit, then I would say yoga, meditation, magic mushrooms.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Even cannabis.
Yeah. So it's just as we said before, knowing what you need depend upon the circumstance.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the play.
Same with you.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I practice our sacrament usually once or twice a week. So our sacrament of communion at Heartspace Church is cacao and psilocybin.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: That's different.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I know lots of people. Lemon tech, mushrooms. But I.
I don't know, I just kind of.
Again, this is a tangent, but when I was trying to figure out how to serve our sacraments, particularly how I was trying to figure out how to serve the sacrament of psilocybin, I was looking at different options, and I eventually came to cacao.
And what I really love is the Aztecs used to call psilocybin the flesh of the gods.
And I read somewhere along the way that cacao was the blood of the God.
And so I thought it was so poetic.
A poetic evolution of, again, Christian faith is when we serve cacao and psilocybin, we're serving the blood and the flesh of God, so to speak. And it helps connect with the God that's inside of you.
You know, cacao is a heart opener. It's a stimulant. And so, yeah, so that's our sacrament.
Usually I'll do a small dose, go and go internal, and meditate for about an hour with music playing blindfolded. And then I'll go for a hike in nature for two or three hours.
And doing that once a week is just such a profound spiritual practice for me.
And then other, you know, meditating besides that is also really important.
And, you know, one of the practices, I don't think I've ever shared this with anyone actually, because I just started this, like, two months ago, is I started practicing the Sabbath in a kind of unique way where every Sunday, anyone in my house is not allowed to do any work.
I am the only one that's allowed to do work on Sunday because I'm the Lord of my house, and no one except the Lord is supposed to work on Sunday.
And so I just bend over backwards.
Taking care of the kids, cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, anything my wife needs, anything the kids needs.
It's just a day of complete and utter servitude towards my family and any guests we have.
And that has been one of the most deeply profound spiritual practices I've started the past few months where I just completely put my ego to the side and say, okay, today is not about Robert. Today is about serving other people.
And when I think of Ram Dass, you know, the name Ram Dass literally means God's servant.
You know, Jesus preached over and over again about servitude.
And so Sunday is my day to, like, fully embody that as much as I possibly can.
And then getting back into, like, experiencing, you know, sensual things at the end of Sunday, the way I break the Sabbath is I have, like, a big dinner, pasta, you know, something really nice and a few glasses of wine.
And it's like, you know, it's like indulging in the human humanness of life is like my reward at the end of being a servant for the entire day.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: That's beautiful.
Yeah, I like that. Is we use the delights of life, the seeming vices, we could say of the hedonists, as a reward. We don't repress any of that stuff.
We.
Yeah, we kind of work with it. As in we consciously choose when to indulge Right. Rather than being at the whim of our vices.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: They're not vices anymore. When you choose to consciously indulge, they're more so. Just rewards, as you said. They're more so.
Yeah. A deepening into the whole experience. That's the thing. That's very tantric, actually.
So. Yeah, that's beautiful, man. I do the same thing. You know, we're very similar.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I see it now.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Let me ask you this one, because this has kind of been in the background of the conversation the whole time, is Ram Dass.
How would you explain who Ram Dass was maybe to somebody that has no idea? Now I know who Ram Dass is. I'm just curious how you explain that to somebody who has no clue.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think for me, we can go into his actual life. But who Ram Dass was towards the end was a spiritual leader who really brought lots of Hindu traditions and philosophies to the West.
Right. He was a.
He grew up. His. His name was originally Richard Albert. He was a professor at Harvard with another gentleman named Timothy Leary in the. In the 50s, into the 60s.
And while at Harvard, he started experimenting with LSD and psilocybin. And really him and Timothy Leary created this movement of psychedelics in America.
Eventually, Timothy Leary and him went different paths. Timothy Leary really dove into the hippie culture and he had the motto of tune in or turn on. Tune in, drop out.
He was part of the anti culture. Nixon hated him. Nixon called him Public enemy number one.
And then Ram Dass went a different path and he went to India.
And he went to India to figure out how to stay in an enlightened state. And so when he was here in the States, they were doing psychedelics almost every day, definitely every weekend. But there are periods where they were doing lots of psychedelics because they felt like psychedelics elevated them to this divine state.
But whenever the medicine wore off, they kind of came back down to reality. And he struggled with going up and down and up and down. And so he sought the spiritual path to figure out how he can stay in that state, that elevated state, potentially without medicine.
And that led him to meet his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, that led him to study Hinduism.
And he brought many of those teachings back to the west in a very relatable, approachable, common sense way that appealed to so many spiritual seekers.
And he changed his name to Ram Dass, which means God's servant. And his teacher gave him only two commandments, which were love everyone and tell the truth.
And that's what he embodied is love, ever loving everyone and telling the truth. And he just.
Yeah, that's kind of good summary.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: You know what's funny too, is Neem Karoli Baba would say, don't talk about me when you go to America.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah. He didn't want. He didn't want people seeking him out. Or, you know, sometimes when they would seek him out, he would just kick them out and turn them away.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: Yeah, Very interesting, too. Jesus would say the same thing when he performed a miracle.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Right. He would say, don't tell anybody.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: I think there's once or twice where he said, like, don't tell anyone. I don't remember exactly the context.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
Mm.
And that's a pivotal part of understanding Ram Dass is his relationship to his guru. Because that state that he was seeking through psychedelics, he found in Neem Karoli Baba. And he devoted his life to this person because it was proof. It was more proof than he needed. And, yeah, that's like. That's faith, you know, that's true faith.
To understand that story will instill you with faith. It's the same thing with Jesus. It's the same thing. It really is. It's the same story. The more you understand the story between Jesus's disciples and Jesus, Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba, the more you'll understand what faith really means. And the more you understand what faith really means, the more you get instilled with faith.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: 100%, right?
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: And there's.
I. You know, I struggled.
I struggled to, like, understand the relationship with a guru because, you know, I love Ram Dass for a long time, but I never.
His love for Neem Karoli Baba just never made sense to me like that. That was the one thing I couldn't understand.
You know, Ram Dass would say that Neem Karoli Baba performed miracles and that Neem Karoli Baba knew what Ram Dass was thinking, like, all the time. So Ram Dass, the first night he met him or the night before, he was thinking about his mother, staring at the stars.
And the day he met him, Neem Karoli Baba told him, oh, you were staring at the stars last night thinking about your mother.
And Ram Dass would think, wait, how can you possibly know that I was thinking about my mother?
And he had all these other examples of that where Neem Karoli Baba seemed to have, I don't know, ESP or something, where he always knew Ram Dass
[00:39:37] Speaker A: thoughts And he knew that she died from a spleen. He, like, pointed at the spleen, supposedly.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yep, yep, yep.
And I thought, okay, well, again, like, that's the same reason that disciples believed in Jesus is because they felt like Jesus performed miracles.
And so I think it's very similar analogies.
But I always wonder, well, if I never meet anyone that performs miracles, will I ever find a guru or.
Who's my guru?
And one of the interesting things when I was doing ayahuasca last month in Peru is on my last night in the medicine, I experienced my wife as my guru.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: And it was. Yeah, it was really. It was beautiful. It was really magical.
And I think that what I experienced in the medicine is this version of my, like, this version of my wife that was Christ consciousness.
And realizing that surrendering to her love is what gives me strength and resurrects me over and over and over again from whatever darkness I'm going through.
It was magical. It was beautiful. So all this to say, one, I hope everyone finds a guru.
And two, the other big teachings again, of Jesus and Ram Dass.
Ram Dass would say, like, I'm going to butcher this, but Neem Karoli Baba was his guru, but really it just showed him that he was his own guru.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: And there's like, there's a non. Duality that you eventually experience where you.
Yes. There's this external person that you fall in love with and.
And dedicate your life to, but eventually that love for your guru just shows you the guru that's inside yourself.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Exactly. Well spoken. Yeah. That's the true guru, the satguru that the outward guru brings us to. Yeah, ideally.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: That's so powerful with your wife, man.
Yeah.
And that's the thing. The guru has many shapes and sizes in many different ways that it shows us the sad guru within.
Maybe another person, maybe your lover, or maybe the story of Ram Dass, maybe the Bible. Literally. It's hard to say.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
There's many ways, many paths.
[00:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I like to say, though, go with whatever brings you closest to that essence of unconditional love. That's your guru.
Yeah.
And that's tricky because we use the word love and it's similar to the word God has a lot of baggage.
So love, colloquially we know as human sentimentality. And that might not necessarily mean unconditional love. So that's another tricky line to tow. For some of us it is like you, but for a lot of us it's not, to be honest. So that might not. Not everybody's wife is their guru, is my point.
So you're very lucky to realize that in that regard. That's very beautiful, man. Maybe someday I will find my Mary Magdalene in that way.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: I hope so. It's beautiful when you do. And it doesn't happen on the day of your wedding either.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: Like, I wrote a book a while ago called Alpha how to Build a Powerful Marriage. And what I've learned is, you know, I used to think that, okay, like, when you get married, you say, I do.
Like, that's it.
And what I've realized is that.
That love is a continuous evolution that continues to happen your whole entire life, and that requires constant investment.
Because, honestly, the way I love Zyra today is not the way I loved her when we first got married. And yes, yes, I loved her deeply when we first got married, but now I love her in such a more profound and deep and nuanced way. After being together for nine years.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: Oh, I was going to ask how long? Nine years.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's the miracle of love, right? Is it never ends. And that may sound very cheesy, but it's the truth. It's constantly evolving. And maybe, just maybe, that love was before you even met, before this lifetime, my friend. And then also after this lifetime.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, yes, again, going back to my first mystical experience where I realized that there's.
There's only one soul that's been moving through all of our lives and this whole universe since the beginning of time to the end of time, which is infinite, by the way. There is no beginning. There is no end.
And one of the deeply profound things I realized is the love between me and Zyra is it's the only love that has ever existed and ever will exist.
And when you. You know I'm a little bit of a nerd, right?
All of the heavy metals that exist in the universe, all the gold, platinum, steel, it's all born when two neutron stars collide.
So the whole reason we have life on Earth is because two neutron stars, which are extremely dense, a tablespoon weighs 2 tons of this matter.
But these two stars collide and give birth to life in the universe.
And one of the ways I look at the love between me and Zyra is we are those neutron stars.
Like, we are just a reincarnation of the neutron stars that gave birth to the universe of Adam and Eve, or whatever you think the first humans were of Ram Dass and Neem, Karoli Baba, of Jesus and his disciples.
Like, it's just the same love that keeps Reincarnating over and over and over again. So to answer your question, did our love exist before this life?
Yes, it did, in my opinion, because it existed.
Like our love is the love that gave birth to all things.
That's my humble way of looking at it. Or maybe not so humble way of looking at our marriage.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Well, hallelujah to that, man. Our love is what gave birth to all things.
[00:47:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:12] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
I knew this was gonna be a good one.
I didn't know it was gonna be this good.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: And, like, I think it's also important to say too, like, but everyone else has that same potential for love, right? So it's not just like, I just don't own it. It's not just me and not you. It's like, no, like, everyone has that. Everyone is that same reincarnation of that love and has that potential and that power as well.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: The power of love.
What a world it would be, huh, if we all loved each other.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Again there. I think we actually do, deep down. So deep down, the secret is we're all in love with each other.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: We just don't talk about it, but deep down we're secretly all in love with each other.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: That's part of the beauty, is like, we don't really bring it up, you know, we don't really. We don't really talk about it that much.
But for the most part, it's a complicated relationship, that's for sure. But deep down, I think we're all in love.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: I think so. Especially when you get to.
I think when you really see a person, when you kind of look past this meat package and you see the divine soul in them in some form or another, I think you can't help but love that person.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: Exactly.
That's the thing, is.
Yeah. You can't try. Right. It's just effortless. It just comes forth. Love is natural. It's the most natural thing in the world, in the universe, is to be love. Literally, just to be love.
So, yeah, it's like we're just coming back.
Coming back home, baby.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Ram Dass coming home. Right? That's what he would say, too.
[00:49:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: We're all just walking each other home. Yep.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
Yeah.
And the beauty of this love that is God is it has infinite novelty. That's the play here, right? That's Shiva and Shakti, essentially. That's the dance, the ever evolving dance of love between each other.
So what I'm getting at is like, your love between you and your wife is novel. It's never happened before.
Even though it's the same love that created the universe, the same exact love between Jesus and his disciples, the Neem Karoli Baba and so forth, it's still your love. Right. Even though you said it's not yours. Right. Not in terms of an ownership, like you don't own it, but it's your specific flavor of that love that could only happen between you and your wife.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: And that's the beauty of it, is that it's. It's. It's. How do I put this? It's all the same, but unique at the same time. You know, it's all the same love, but it's uniquely yours at the same time. It's hard to convey in words, but I think you know what I'm getting at.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's again, it's like those two polarities, and it's.
It's being able to hold both concepts in your mind at the same time. That, yeah, it's all the same, but yet it's unique. And there's.
There's never been anything like this, and there never will be anything like this.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Right. And it's just beauty, man.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: It's just holding them both at the same time. And understanding when thinking one way is more appropriate than the other. Or sometimes thinking both at the same time.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
That's truly the miracle. That's the gospel. That's the good news.
And that's essentially what Jesus was getting at when he said, believe in me and you'll have eternal life. He wasn't saying me, the guy. He was believing this love.
Right. You become this love that he was, and you will go forth through time, evolving as love. Yeah, that's immortality.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: Yeah. His way. Not him, but his way.
[00:51:34] Speaker A: The way. Mm.
And that's what he meant by follow me. It's not like, you know, follow me on Instagram, bow down, following. It's literally follow in his footsteps, and you see what he sees, feel what he feels, and you'll be free. The truth shall set you free.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:51:55] Speaker A: Oh, man. Okay.
This is good.
You're an awesome guy. I'm glad you came on here, man.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm glad you found me on YouTube.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: It's all through the algorithm. The good graces of the algorithm, man. Seriously,
[00:52:14] Speaker B: What does community look like for you? Like, where? So you're doing these podcasts. You're growing followers.
Mm. How?
I'm curious, because one of the things I struggle with is, you know, I just started my church six months ago, and I'm trying To understand what, you know, what does our church community look like? How do I best support the community?
So I'm just curious, like, what does. What does your community look like, and what does it look like in the future?
[00:52:40] Speaker A: That's a good question. And I'm going to be 100 real with you. I don't think I'm the best person to ask because I don't actually have, like, a dedicated community that I talk to. Like, I got people in my comment section, I got subscribers, but I wouldn't say I have a relationship with them, but I have touch base with people that have communities.
And let me see if I can glean something from that.
What does it look like to me?
I'm not even gonna try and answer that. I'm just gonna be real because I don't know myself, because if I knew, I'd probably create one. Like, I legitimately. A lot of people have discords and things of that nature where they meet and, you know, chop stuff up. My community is literally what I'm doing right now with you. Like, I have a community of.
I don't know how to explain it, I guess, just guess. My podcast guests are my community at this point. But yes, I have people that also watch at the same time, so you could say they're part of it, but maybe this is a fault of mine. I don't really connect with them so much. Maybe as much as I should or as much as other people do.
I just do what I do. I don't really have time for it, to be honest with you. You know what I mean?
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:52] Speaker A: Only so much time in the day, so I just do what I do on here, and then sometimes I reply to some comments, and that's my community. But let me try and answer that question. What does it look like? I would say just you have to have similar values, similar wavelengths, similar lineages. I would say, too. Like, you have to, you know, you have to understand where this is all coming from for.
For that community. It's almost like your community is a continuation of previous communities quite potentially, you know, that's the essence of the church some way.
So have that similarity and then just meet regularly, you know, have regular meetings where you just talk and just be there for each other. I think it's that simple to just simply talk about how you're feeling, talk about stuff that isn't normally talked about, and keep it at that.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Sounds good, right? Yeah.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Do you think.
Do you think it's similar for you? What do you do at your church? Let Me ask you that question?
[00:54:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
First off, my church is small.
I should have told you. I'm kind of a big deal. We have eight church members worldwide right now.
[00:55:02] Speaker A: Nice.
Jesus had 12.
[00:55:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm two thirds of the way there.
No, we're starting small because we really just started this year. It's only been a few months, but yeah, I struggle with trying to think of like, okay, how do I best.
How do I best support the community?
What do they need? What do they want?
And how can I pull them all together? Right. So there's lots of people that, that want different things, but it's like, okay, instead of just supporting all these people one on one, how can I create a community that supports each other so that I am not the only focal point? But rather there's more kind of cross network and cross support going on in the community.
And I haven't figured that out yet. I still.
That's still a work in progress right now.
In the future, I'll probably be doing more events, I think, like doing full moon hikes and doing solstice celebrations and having a WhatsApp group or signal group.
I think that's the challenge that I'm working through right now.
I feel you is building that cross support between the community members.
[00:56:32] Speaker A: That's cool. I like that.
Discord is very useful for that. I'd recommend discord if you don't have one.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Okay. I do have a. I do not. I have a Discord account. I do not have a. A group discord.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's what the kids are using nowadays, at least for non local communities.
[00:56:48] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:56:49] Speaker A: Yeah, but if it's local, then it's different. You don't really need a discord. Yeah, that's tricky line to toe because I feel like every community is organized and somewhat situated around one figure. So the key is to not be.
It's. Okay, how do I phrase this? The key is to be the guy. Like you have to be the leader. There's nothing wrong with being a leader. But also don't take that messiah complex, the guru complex.
So I think that is also. That's why I actually, I'm gonna be honest with you again. That's why I don't really want to start a community because with great power comes great responsibility. And I feel like I'm not mature enough for that. Just, you know, 100% real. I think I would see people and I already feel it, you know, I already. Because I'm getting a sense of popularity. I already feel it in myself. I got to check my ego. So if I had, like, an actual community where I was in charge of more things, I think it would throw my ego out of control and become a little imbalanced. So I think that's why I haven't started anything.
I just don't feel the need. And I'm not mature enough, but at least I'm mature enough to realize that I'm not mature enough. Yeah.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: That's wisdom.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So maybe someday. But that is the tricky line to toe is like, you have to be the leader, but also at the same time, keep the leadership or the membership decentralized.
Yeah. And we've seen a lot of bad examples of that in the 20th century, that's for sure.
[00:58:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:14] Speaker A: So learn from that.
That's all I got to say.
All right. I don't think you'd have any power trips, though. You seem like a good dude.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: You know, I.
It's.
I wish that were the case, but I also know human nature, and the more. The more power you accumulate, the more difficult it becomes. Right. And I think.
[00:58:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:40] Speaker B: You know, I think, like I said, right now, our church is small. I only have eight members. So it's like, there's not a lot of power to be had, although there is some. And I think it's. It's. I think it's something that you just always need to be careful of, and I think it's important to surround yourself. Right. So I'm a. Our church is a nonprofit, so we have a board. And so what I try to do is have board members that will keep me in check and tell me the truth when I need to be told the truth.
[00:59:10] Speaker A: I like that. So sort of democracy in that way.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep.
[00:59:17] Speaker A: And I think one doesn't understand power until they have it. So we can talk about it now, but until you have thousands of people clamoring at your words and your presence, you won't understand that.
[00:59:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: So it's like, at one hand, I understand why people get susceptible to that, but on the other hand, it's not okay.
You know, Like, I can see where it all comes from, but it's still not okay. But going back on that point, that's why I haven't started anything. I used to be a yoga teacher. Oh, I used to. Yeah. Like physical, in person yoga. And I was starting to get pretty popular, I'm not gonna lie. And I didn't like it.
Isn't that strange? I didn't like the popularity and people coming up to me after class and saying, gary, that was Great.
I appreciated it for sure. But there was something in me that said, this is happening too fast.
This isn't good. I don't like this. All these beautiful women coming to me and saying how much they like my class. I'm like, okay, I see where this is going. So I stopped teaching yoga because of that. Because I'm like, this isn't, I can't, I can't do this. I know I could easily go back and teach classes. I have the skills and the know how and the clout, we could say. But it's a rocky road for Gary at this point. I don't really want to do that, so I just wanted to share that with you. You know, it's, I felt it. I think power is tempting to, to everybody, especially as a man. When you have power, that's, that's like the highest temptress of all influence and power. We can see that, you know, in, in our world, in today's world, how much power corrupts.
[01:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, there's, you see politicians getting booted for doing things, and you see other politicians that are waging war, right?
[01:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: We live in this, we live in this culture where power and dominance are the key currencies of our politics.
[01:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
And see, the true power that Jesus was showing us is completely opposite to that kind of power, to the power of influencing others and.
Yeah. The power of getting people to do stuff for you.
Right.
That's not true power. True power is Jesus's word. Essentially. It's the power of God, the power of love, man.
That's power beyond the colloquial sense of power, you know, and that's why they killed him. That's why the powers that be killed Jesus, because he was showing the masses true power that supersedes the popular meaning or understanding of what power is.
Yeah, That's a huge part of Jesus's story, right, Is that he was killed. Obviously it's the cross that he was killed for his words and he went to his grave or he resurrected with that meaning, with that essence, like he didn't falter from his word.
That's true power, man. That's true faith.
[01:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, it's funny, like, I, I, I use the story of Santa Claus as an analogy. And we teach our children that this miracle happens, right? Like there's this guy in a red suit that comes down chimneys and delivers presents, and if we're good, bad, naughty, list all that stuff.
And then once you realize that the miracle is fake, you realize the miracle is fake, but yet we still carry this myth as adults. Even though we know that the miracles were fake, we realize that there's more powerful teachings in the lesson behind just the myths. And the teachings are giving gifts, being good, all that stuff.
And I think with Jesus, lots of people initially believe in Jesus because of the miracles that they've been told. Oh, he resurrected on the third day. Oh, a star appeared over his manger.
Oh, he raised Lazarus from the dead.
For me, Jesus power is not in those miracles.
And whether those miracles happened or not doesn't make a difference to me.
His power, one of the most beautiful things he did, is on the cross after he was persecuted.
His final words were forgive them.
His final words were love, even after he had been through hell.
And that, to me, is even more powerful than his resurrection. Whether it happened or not is up to debate.
But showing love after you've been tortured is.
That's a superpower.
[01:04:33] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That is the teaching of Jesus is, despite the world just throwing shit at you, you love them no matter what, you love the world.
That's the true symbolism of the cross, is the forgive them, Father, for they do not know.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: And that's love.
Yeah, that's. That's the true meaning of Jesus's word, man. And I'm glad you brought that up, because that was the point that I forgot earlier in the conversation. Okay. That you don't need to believe in the miracles. That is what dogma says. You must believe and have faith that he rose and, you know, he healed the blind and stuff like that. That's cool. But you. You're missing the point.
If that's what you're focusing on, you just have to focus on exactly what you just described. It's. That is literally, could you forgive and love the people that put you on the cross?
That's the test.
[01:05:37] Speaker B: It is. I hope I never get put to that test.
You know, but we get put to that test every day. Every day. Right. And it's.
You know, my wife is an immigration attorney, and so we're very. You know, we are very aware of what's going on with ICE right now and with the Trump administration. And we know so many people that, like, have animosity towards Trump and animosity towards ICE or on the other side, people have animosity towards immigrants because they hear stories about immigrants killing people.
And I think, like, that's how we are tested every single day.
It's like, if you're a Democrat, do you love and forgive Trump? Or if you're a Republican. Do you love and forgive immigrants or, you know, you name.
You name the argument. Yeah, but it's.
Can you show up with love for the people that you have the most strong negative feelings about?
It's hard. It's hard. But that's what we're called to do.
[01:06:52] Speaker A: Yep. That's the path, my friend.
And as you said, we're all going to have to bear our own cross.
I think that's another meaning of Jesus life and sacrifices.
He endured that.
That just humiliation, torture.
I can't endure my own suffering. Right. If he can love through that, you're saying I can't love through my own struggle.
[01:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:26] Speaker A: That's a huge.
That's the lesson right there.
That's the sacrifice. It's like, of course. And I think that's the meaning of, like, he died for your sins.
Like, he was the perfect man. Supposedly. He was this loving being and the world killed him. The Romans killed him, and he still loved them no matter what. So what's stopping you?
What's stopping you?
You're probably not going to endure any.
Any more of a struggle than Jesus did. So there's nothing stopping you from loving your enemies.
[01:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I think for me, one of the first steps is, I think so many people think Jesus or Ram Dass or Buddha or whoever is this holy person.
And I can never be like this holy person.
And what I want people to realize is, yes, you can.
You can be just as holy and just as divine as Jesus or Ram Dass or Buddha or Muhammad. You, like, you have that potential.
And just as Jesus said, like, Jesus is inside of you. Right. And where's heaven? Heaven is in your midst, like accepting your fate, accepting your calling, I think is the first step in just showing up, more loving in the world.
[01:09:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, is we all become our own Buddha, we all become our own Jesus, and we serve all in our own way.
And that's exactly what Jesus in Buddha and whoever else the servant was wants for us is for you to find your dharma and find out how to serve in your own unique way.
[01:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:21] Speaker A: What's that quote that Jesus said? People? I don't. This is not verbatim, but people after me will perform works greater than I.
[01:09:28] Speaker B: Yes. Sounds. I think so. I'm not sure.
[01:09:30] Speaker A: Something like that. Right?
[01:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:32] Speaker A: That's the essence is he wanted us to be greater than him.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:09:39] Speaker A: That's it.
So.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. Man, this is good.
I don't know where to go from here, to be honest with you, man.
Let me take a second.
[01:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah, wherever you want.
Yeah.
Let's see. Is there more to talk, more to talk about? Psychedelics, Psychedelics, Military, anywhere you want to go. Yeah, I'm here for you.
[01:10:18] Speaker A: No, thanks, man.
Well, Just let me take a second here. I don't know why I'm speechless. This is just such a. It's such a powerful talk.
I also might have ate a little mushrooms before this. Just saying.
Just a little something wet the whistle. You know what I'm saying?
[01:10:41] Speaker B: I was going to. I'm doing a hike tomorrow, so I'm saving mine for tomorrow.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: Time and place. I'm a little more experienced at this, so.
But right now, it might be hidden.
Hold on, let me just take a second here. Come back into podcast mode.
[01:11:04] Speaker B: Well,
[01:11:07] Speaker A: would you say it all comes. We might have already talked about this, but would you say all of it comes down to being the servant is somehow finding your own special flavor of servitude, like your own Buddhahood is not just the realization, Right. It's not just the understanding, the internal understanding. It's also taking that.
That wavelength and that understanding into the world.
[01:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah, here's. So my journey.
I told you Jesus kept showing up in my journeys, right? And in different ways. But the first few times, the ways he showed up is I would experience all these layers of reality, and the core takeaway was not only was I Jesus, but I am even greater than Jesus, and I'm even greater than Ram Dass, and I'm destined for so many more things than they were.
[01:12:11] Speaker A: Right?
[01:12:14] Speaker B: And that really upset me because it sounded so arrogant and it sounded like the messianic messiah complex.
[01:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Sound like some heresy, man.
[01:12:29] Speaker B: Heresy, right. It's like, no, I'm not Jesus. There's no way I can be Jesus. Like, that's absurd.
Also realizing again that everyone else has that same potential, too. So not just me, but everyone else, which is an important part, because I think too many people think, oh, I'm Jesus and no one else is Jesus. No, that's.
That's dangerous. That's when you need to be locked away or run for presidency, one of those two.
But for me, realizing, oh, yes, Christ in some form or another is within side of me and is within side everyone else.
But I pushed that away for a long time because it didn't make any sense and it didn't fit in with my traditional norms of thinking that only Jesus is Christ and no one else is Christ.
When I eventually accepted that.
And Alex and Alison Gray are famous artists in this Space. And I was in ceremony at their temple in upstate New York. Beautiful temple. I recommend everyone visit if you ever are in upstate New York.
But I had this realization that I finally accepted that, okay, like, I will accept that.
You know, Jesus in the Bible says, I am in you.
So what does that mean, to have Jesus in me?
And to cut to the chase, what I realized is by really accepting my own divinity and fully trying to embody that as much as I can, the more I embodied that, the more I show up as a servant to the world, and the more I get out of my own ego.
Right? Because if you're divine, why do you care about making money?
As an example, if you're like, did Jesus worry about making money or profit? Like, no. Like, all this shit that we carry in our human lives kind of disappears when you step into your own divinity and you really show up. For me, I show up as a servant more when I realize that that's hard. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to explain that.
Another way of looking at it is there's a Jewish proverb that says something to the fact of the world was created for my sake.
And the reason is because we are the descendants of Adam. And whether you believe Adam was the first man or not, whatever you believe.
But if you think that God made the world for Adam, right?
When this world was created, there was only one person, Adam. And God made this whole entire world just for that one person, which is a huge gift. I mean, imagine how much love God had to make this world for one man.
But what does that mean for Adam?
It meant Adam was the steward of the world. Adam was the servant of the world. And he had this responsibility to take care of all of the animals and all of the plants.
And with great power comes great responsibility, is what I'm trying to say.
And the more you love yourself, the more you realize that you are divine, the more you realize your overwhelming responsibility to serve humankind, to serve the world, and to show up lovingly every single day.
[01:16:39] Speaker A: Amen.
Raw, Ram Dass.
[01:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:16:46] Speaker A: Yep.
Well, hey, man, I think that's a really good note to wrap this up at.
[01:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:16:54] Speaker A: Do you have anything else you want to say, though, before we stop recording?
[01:16:58] Speaker B: If you're interested in church, you can visit the website. It's Heartspace Church. We are based in Phoenix, Arizona, although I do hang out in Atlanta pretty frequently.
And again, you know, if you ever want to come out for a hike, we do hiking in Sedona, hiking in Phoenix.
We'll do summer solstice events and things like that.
Or just shoot me a note, anyone that's listening.
I'm always interested in connecting or you can follow me on social media.
Robertslanophd is my handle on most of the accounts. TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.
And thank you, Gary. This was a pleasure. I really enjoyed getting to know you a little bit.
[01:17:45] Speaker A: Thank you. This was wonderful.
This was very profound.
You're an awesome guy. Keep up the great work and I think your community will grow to more than, what is it, eight people, nine people right now.
[01:17:58] Speaker B: Eight people.
[01:17:59] Speaker A: Eight people. Yeah. I think it's gonna be in the hundreds and the thousands soon. So keep on keeping on, man. Seriously, you're a great guy and I'm glad the algorithm sent me your way. So that's it.
Thank you.
[01:18:11] Speaker B: Thanks, Gary. Thank you.
[01:18:13] Speaker A: Peace and love, everybody.
Bye.
