Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I really enjoy your videos, man.
You're offering something to the world that I don't think anybody is offering in terms of your wealth of knowledge, what you dive into, how you dive into it, it's truly an art form, and I revere that in you. I'm not just saying that to get on your good side here in the beginning. I really mean that.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much. Yeah, that means a lot to me. Thank you for saying that.
Yeah. Well, we just. When.
When I first started teaching, you know, I wanted to teach for a long time, but I didn't feel like I was ready. I spent decades practicing before I ever felt like I was ready to teach.
And my first YouTube videos were terrible.
Like, they were.
They were. They were miserable. They were real bad. I was doing commentary on Julius Evila, and it was just terrible. My editing was bad.
The aesthetic was.
But then. Is it okay to cuss on this, by the way?
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, definitely.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Okay, good.
So my aesthetic was. And then I met Ashley, who everybody knows is Dahmervision, and I fell in love with her art because I come from the punk scene. Like, I grew up in the punk scene. I was in punk bands when I was a kid, trying to get away from the craziness of. Of my home life. And I would run off and, you know, go hang out with my band members, and we would raise all sorts of hell.
And I got a lot out of punk music. Huge influence on me.
So when I found Ashley's art, the Dahmervision stuff, that was the punkish I had seen in a long time, and it really. I loved it, and it revitalized something in me. And then I felt like I really need to fix my aesthetic.
So. So Ashley, she was working with me in the beginning of the school.
You know, I was. I was teaching her about tantra. She was already deeply familiar with. With yoga, but I was teaching her what I know. And then she was working on the aesthetic of the school, and then we. We fell in love, and then we started working together all the time. So, yeah, the. The aesthetic presentation of Ride the Tiger Yoga, all the editing of the videos, the graphics, the way things are organized, that comes from Dahmer vision. She's the. Yeah, she's the Shakti of this operation. And she. She does a lot more for Ride the Tiger than people realize. But, yeah, it's a. It's a 50, 50 split between us on the work that's. That goes into the school.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Well, shout out Ashley.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yes, definitely.
For sure.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you guys, I Don't want to get too cheesy here, but I'll just say you guys really seem like you are a great couple and you're in love from what I've seen. I don't really know you personally, but, like, I don't know, you seem like you just match each other in your energy as well.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah, we love each other very much. We went on.
We went on the road together after we met. So she was living across the United States, thousand miles away from me, and then I flew out to go see her, and then we went on the road together. We lived on the road for two years building the yoga school together.
And that was an. That was an incredible adventure. We've. We've lived all over the United States and Puerto Rico.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: That's the United States.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
Where we were at, though, was.
It was crazy because we weren't actually. We were living in a place called Vieques, which was a little island off the coast of the main island of Puerto Rico. And that place was. It was beautiful. They had black sand beaches there and nature reserves. But the nature reserves are nature reserves because there's a bunch of unexploded ordinance all over the island from when the Navy had control over it. So if you walk out into the nature reserve, you might blow yourself up.
Yeah. Wow.
But that was. That was quite a trip.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: All right, well, let me ask you this one, man.
So if you could explain what ride the Tiger yoga is all about, Right. What's your mission? What are you trying to teach? What are you trying to show the world with your platform?
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Okay, so that's a really good question.
Well, I'm trying to teach Dharma, or my idea of Dharma and my concept of Dharma is that everyone has something that they fall in love with that gives their life purpose, and that is the expression of Dharma. Now, that could mean that they fall in love with a universal expression of Dharma, which would be something like bringing your awareness to a shared God consciousness and then being absorbed into it, becoming part of that God consciousness, which is.
That's usually what people are expressing whenever they come to Tantric yoga.
They're trying to be one with God.
And then there are others who have a personal expression of Dharma.
By personal expression, I mean that it's an individuated form. So everyone is an artist in this cosmic symphony, which is something I've been talking about for a long time, but I didn't come up with that. I actually. I saw a video of Sun Ra. You familiar with Sun Ra, the jazz musician?
[00:06:10] Speaker A: No, I Don't think so.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Oh, he's great. You gotta look him up. But Sun Ra, yeah, he's amazing. But he was in the Afrofuturism, man. He was one of the first, first artists to really get heavy into Afro Futurism.
And they used to dress like an Egyptian like that.
It's great. But his music's incredible. Anyway, he was talking about consciousness and he said, every person on this planet is an instrument in this great cosmic orchestra. Or he called it an orchestra.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's great. And he said, you need to go play your music.
Just go play your music.
I mean, you're born with this instrument, your physical body that's linked to the subtle body.
And so you have this physical instrument that you can create art with.
So go do it.
Don't you know, you're all. Everyone is born a John Coltrane, but most people never pick up the saxophone.
And so I'm trying to get everybody to pick up the saxophone and start playing their instrument, whatever that might be.
And I don't even care if they play music that I don't personally like. Just the fact that they're adding contrast to this experience of consciousness is what I'm interested in.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: That's powerful stuff, man. Yeah.
So you're saying the act of falling in love and creation and artwork, it's all synonymous. It's all the same thing in some way.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the divine union.
So it's when you have that communication between Shakti, the active force, and Shiva, the inert force.
And you can love something from a place of emptiness, you have desirous attachment and emptiness at the same time. That's pure love.
It's not.
It's not something that is.
It's not something that is fundamentally compulsive.
We.
We understand our own consciousness so that we can actually give ourselves fully to something in a loving embrace.
You know, it's. There's a big difference between forcing something to love you and receiving love and embrace of love from a place of awareness and non dual attachment.
Because somebody can, you know, love Krispy Kreme doughnuts and eat them compulsively every day.
But it just becomes a habit at that point.
But if you can remove yourself from the consumption and then go back to those donuts after a year of restricting yourself, restricting your diet, and choose to indulge in the experience, that transforms the experience entirely. So that's what we do in Tantra. We try to reach a point where we are not so compelled, but we can make A conscious choice to engage with the things that we love.
And that transforms the experience.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it transforms it into a beautiful experience altogether.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: It's beauty. Right? Beauty that is tough to find in that conditionality.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Well, most people aren't using their instrument, you know.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: So that's the thing, is that you can.
Most people are on a track and they go from one place to the next and, you know, they eat dinner.
It's not like they're totally without awareness. Nobody's totally without awareness. There's always some degree of awareness present.
But most people on a track, and the problem is that they're not aware of that track, and they're not aware of how that track pulls them away from the things that they might otherwise love and embrace.
And most people are told that's the only way that it can be. It's just the real world, and you have to accept it for what it is.
And I'm here to tell everybody that it's not the only reality.
Your reality is deeply influenced by your perception. So if you can break from that track for just five minutes and see that you were on a track and you start walking in a different direction.
See, with the videos that Ashley and I make, we're trying to get people off the track for the length of the video so that they can become aware of something and then maybe go in a different direction. Now maybe they decide they like the track that they were on, but at least now they can make a decision to be on the track instead of just carry out a momentum that was set for them in childhood and was influenced by their parents, Karma. They're bearing their parents, karma, and their parents, parents, and on and so forth and so on.
And now we're trying to get people to take a moment to observe that track that goes back many, many generations and is now being expressed in their own life. If they can move off the track, they've done a monumental thing. They have burned generations of blood, Karma, in an instant.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Now, when would you say the tracks were established?
[00:12:22] Speaker B: I would say that the tracks are a permanent fixture of the cosmos. I would not say that.
I think the tracks are a fundamental aspect of reality. They play a very specific role.
The tracks that we experience are simply the streams of the natural order of things.
It's whatever binds us to a consistent mode of action.
So you're always on some kind of trouble track or path.
You're always on a path. But the question is, did you put yourself on that path or did somebody else put you on that path? And if somebody else put you on that path, what was their intention for putting you on that path? Is it for your interest or is it for their interests or both?
And unfortunately, most people in the world are walking a path that is mostly in the interest of someone else.
It's a very exploitative condition.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
So that's the big difference, right, is we start to live for ourselves rather than living for somebody else. This artwork that we paint is essentially just sovereignty. Right. We start to paint our own sovereignty
[00:13:48] Speaker B: from a liberated position.
And when people talk about liberation, that's really what they're getting at, is that you. You reach a point where you free yourself from whatever momentum was binding you, and you decide to either walk a different direction or stay on the same path. And that's the thing, too, you know, I'm not going to say that everybody in the world right now is on the wrong path, you know, just because they're not aware of the path.
That's not.
That's not the case. There's a lot of people who would. If they had awareness of their condition, more awareness of their condition, they'd be very happy doing what they're doing. But I would say that they would be even more happy than they were before because they could relate to that path with awareness of the self. There's more contrast in what they're doing. It's like I could. It's like that old thought experiment of an infinite cosmos where somewhere there's a chimpanzee typing out Ulysses or something like that, you know? And it's like people can do incredible things without awareness just by instinct over time.
But we're trying to get people to be more aware of the nature of the lower self so that they can reflect on it and enjoy it. That's what it means to be in this human condition, is that we have this incredible access. We're right at the center. If you were to chart this in terms of the chakras, humanity is very much within the realm of the Anahata.
We're in the. The place of these extremes, this relational point.
So we have equal access to the lower self as the higher self.
And most people, because we live in the Kali Yuga, they operate primarily from the lower self, and they do have access to the higher self. Everybody has a mind, everybody has a spirit, and they use it, but they just don't use it with much awareness. They don't use it with skillful means to the degree that they could. And we know this. I mean, the human brain, so much of the human brain potential remains unaccessed by most people because we just are bringing our awareness to the lower self, to the muladhara, svadasthana, manipura, so consistently so. That's why within yoga, we're always trying to get people to.
At first, just in the beginning, step away from your material concerns for a moment. Step away from your survival instinct, your raw survival instinct, and your emotions and your taste and concern for sensual pleasure. Just step back for a moment and reflect and enter into that space of detachment which begins at the vishudi, at the throat chakra.
Step away and then come back to it and see, okay, is this really what I want? Is this really what I enjoy?
Or am I just doing this because my parents taught me to do this?
Most people will find that there's a lot of things they're doing that their parents just taught them to do, and they never really questioned it.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: So that's the path. Right. Is we see outside of the conditioning, sort of transcend out of the human form.
Right.
Literally the right hand path. And then there is the descent back into the human form so that we can integrate the higher chakras with the lower chakras. And we dance that dance.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yes.
Well, at least that's my perspective. Yeah.
Yeah. Because I don't see any fundamental superiority of the higher self. Just because something is higher doesn't mean it's better.
I love Mozart, High European art, but I also love ACDC and the Insane Clown Possum.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Amen to that.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: I was listening to ICP before I got on this call, But. Yeah, there's no.
Physical experience is not inferior to spiritual experience or ethereal. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's just.
It's different colors that we can paint with.
Yeah, it really makes sense, too, whenever you think about. In terms of color. I mean, I love thinking about consciousness in terms of color because that's the chakra system.
So imagine if someone came to you, a spiritual leader came to you and said, listen, you all have been painting with reds and vermilions and yellows, but you also could mix in some of this blue, indigo and violet if you'd like, and see what happens. And. Okay, that's cool. Now we have. Now we're making stuff with blue, indigo and violet. But imagine if they then said, okay, we don't really need that red vermilion or yellow anymore. That's lower.
We don't. We don't need those colors.
No, I think we need access to all the colors.
And.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: And they all have their own equal value.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: That's such a good metaphor, man. In terms of color and also in terms of how you describe contrast, that makes a lot more sense when you say contrast now, because that's how color is created through contrasting colors.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
The theme of this whole conversation, man, it's artwork.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: And that's how I see people. I see everyone has their own expression, you know, literally, physically, we have different colored skin, you know?
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: And so there. I don't see any inherent superiority or inferiority of a particular color of skin, you know, and that's. So it's the same for any expression of consciousness. You know, there are people who have very simple, earthy expressions of consciousness. People have very ethereal expressions of consciousness, and they all have their own role to play. They're playing their own instrument in that orchestra, as Sun Ra would say.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Have you heard of the seven rays of light?
[00:20:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it has to do with that. What is that? Theosophy, I think, is very into that.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, this. This actually is kind of adjacent to the rainbow body concept within Tantric Buddhism, so. Which is the idea that there are certain Tantra masters that when they die, their body disappears into a rainbow, which displays mastery of consciousness. But the rainbow body really is just a metaphor for the various shades of consciousness that are within all of us.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: And so we all have our own light body or rainbow body that we express with varying degrees of these colors.
Somebody can be a very red person, and then they can have a lot of the Muladhara operating. Or somebody could be a very violet person and have a lot of the Sasha operating.
And you can break it down into very, you know, minute qualities of people. And not just people, but everything around us has an expression of. Of color.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Everything is light. Once you see that everything is light, you don't go back.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yes, yes, exactly. Like, here, I want to show you this. This is pretty cool, this mala.
So I don't know if you can see it very well, but this is.
Got a dragon on it. But this mala was made for me by one of my students.
Her name is Ray.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Hold it up a little further.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Here, let me.
So I'll show this to you. So this mala.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Uhhuh.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: It has jade wood and dragon's blood.
And. Oh, yeah, here.
Ashley's mala, too.
Ah. So these were both.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I like that.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Made by my student. Yeah, you like that one?
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a fan of violet purple.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's beautiful. Well, I was.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Ashley can come in if she wants to say what up. She can come on in.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah, Ashley, you're invited at any point in time to come on here if you want.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:22:46] Speaker B: There we go. That's all we. Anyone gets. That's all we're getting today.
But this Mala is a wonderful example of color in consciousness because Ray made this with reference to the Anahata. So all of these materials that comprises Mala are things that we relate to the Anahata.
And.
And so that's great. I really love that, that, you know, it's the same for. So Ashley's Mala are things that we relate to the Sahasra and the Ajna.
But whenever you can decode consciousness and understand it in terms of color or what other. Whatever system makes sense to you, I think the chakras are a really, really good system for most people to. To get into. But whenever you can start to decode consciousness and see it in terms of this rainbow of color, it's. It's amazing what opens up to you. The. The connections that you can draw between things. It brings you more into the cosmic design. And it's just a beautiful thing. Thing to witness.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
I like how you say decode, because I think that's what the path is. We're decoding ourselves and the cosmos. Same thing, really. But yeah, it's like we're. There's a secret and we're kind of. That's what I feel at least like there is a secret that I'm unveiling on the path every day that goes by. Right. I'm decoding it. I like that. I've never heard anyone say decoding.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a mystery.
And there's always new mysteries because even if you know somebody very well, you might look across the room and see them doing something and you're like, well, what the hell are they doing? What.
What is that? What are they reading? What are the. You know, what. What are they. What are they interested in today? You know, so there's always some mystery so long as we have separate some degree of separation from the things around us. Now that's the thing is that when you have. When you have perfect, total awareness of everything, if you had access to that, there would be no mystery.
And there's no fun. Yeah, no, no fun. There's no decoding anymore at that point because all. All things are just known immediately.
And so I think there's a lot of value in ignorance, But it has to be balanced with. With awareness. Ignorance and awareness. They.
There was in the movie True Stories, which is a talking heads movie, there's a scene where one of the characters is reflecting on memory and he's saying, you know, like, he's so happy that he forgets things because then he can come back to them and, you know, they could be new again.
And. Yeah, forgetfulness is a great gift of the cosmos because it's like, yeah, there's been even films I've seen a hundred times, I can still come back to them and notice little things that I may have forgotten. Oh, yeah, I remember this part. This part's good, you know, so, yeah, there's all the things that people within spiritual paths consider to be bad, you know, like ignorance. Ignorance is generally considered to be a bad thing within the realm of the esoteric.
It's actually a very important good thing when kept in balance. And awareness, which is generally considered good, can be a very, very bad thing when it strips you of the mystery completely.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Ignorance actually might be bliss.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: No, I get it. Especially from the standpoint of contrast, as you said. It's like we need a certain amount of ignorance in order to enjoy the mystery, to find beauty in the mystery.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: I. Sure.
I enjoy being a dumbass from time to time.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You gotta enjoy being ignorant, not like. Also don't yearn for ignorance either. Right. As you said, it's about the balance between ignorance and awareness.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, right.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: That's the play, that's the dance. And you can say that at a greater level too. Like we.
We.
This is the note of the golden thread of consciousness that we spoke of in the last conversation.
It's like we forget just enough to pick up where we left off in life after life after life. Right. And then once you recover that golden thread from forgetting it, it makes it so much more beautiful. You know what I'm getting at?
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Yes. And you can. You can experience that in your own life. You know, like, you can be around people that you really love and you know that you love them. And then you can go away for a couple of weeks or, you know, and then for whatever reason, and then you come back and you're like, oh, yeah, I. Yeah, I'm thinking about these qualities that I haven't thought about for a while because I've had, you know, ignorance of that person for a time.
And that. That is. That's. That is very important to. To do.
I have some questions for you if you don't. If you don't mind me asking for it. Yeah, asking you some questions, because I just. I want to know what you're into because you're interesting, dude. Like, this channel that you have is. Is amazing. The, the variety of people that you've been able to.
To compile on this channel and then just the types of questions you ask and the way that you direct these conversations.
It's just. There's something about the way you're doing it that's very interesting to me. So I just wanted to know some.
Some things, like what kind of music do you like?
[00:29:05] Speaker A: I think anything, honestly, I really like anything, but I really like. That's intense, you know, it's got to hit hard. The bass has got to be heavy, you know what I'm saying?
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's got to be intense.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: But I also, on the other side of the coin, like meditative music, you know, time and place for everything. It's all about the. It's got to have the right vibe. So whatever the right vibe, whatever the vibe is, I attune the music to, you know, whatever the situation is. I'm like a, you know, like a DJ in that regard.
I'm honestly more so into sound.
I like instrumentals in the production of stuff. So I'll listen to something just for like how it. How it sounds, if that makes sense.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: Do you feel like you can. You can alter your consciousness through sound?
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Oh, 100. Yeah.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Is this something. That's something you regularly do. You, you. You said you listen to meditation music, you know, so. Yeah, you. You alter your consciousness through sound. That's actually, that's. That's like the. The basis of tantric practice is mantra and, and alterations of consciousness through sound.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: So yeah, I do that regularly, like every day.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: I think you can learn a lot about the way someone's consciousness tends to operate if you. If you know what kind of music that they. That they like.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting. I really like all music, so it's hard to say, but I like stuff that is invigorating, you know, invigorating and also like psychedelic at the same time too. It's got to be trippy but also heavy at the same time. So trippy and heavy.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Trippy and heavy.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Those are probably kind of like Led Zeppelin.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: I love Led Zeppelin.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Yeah, like they're trippy and heavy.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I love hip hop.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Tool.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Oh, Tool. Yeah, tools. Tool's huge. With. I've met a lot of people who are into tool who are also into the esoteric.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. And Led Zeppelin.
Led Zeppelin. I mean, they were.
They were heavy into magic, so I've
[00:31:10] Speaker A: heard that was the Crowley Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: David Bowie was scared shitless of, why am I forgetting his name all of a sudden?
I can't believe I'm forgetting his name. But the guitar.
The guitar. Jimmy Page. Yeah. Scared was the Jimmy Page for a while. Super paranoid that Jimmy Page was cursing him with black magic. And he probably was.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: That's hilarious.
Wow.
Yeah, he probably was.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Yeah, he probably was.
Did you see the video we did about Kali Ma and hardcore hip hop?
I don't think so.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: No.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah, so I.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: A little about it.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: I love gangster rap.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: When I was a kid, I got into Easy, really Big, and nwa.
And then I just. I love it. Tupac, Ice Cube, all that shit. I love it so much. And you write.
I write country songs.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: I love. I love. Actually, one of the songs I wrote is on the Ride the Tiger page.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: But, yeah, I love. I love playing country music. That's. What. If I play music, I want to play country music also. I make all the music for the Ride the Tiger videos.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I like making electronic music, so I make all the music for the Ride the Tiger videos and a lot of the Dahmervision videos, too. I make the music for.
And that right now.
So Dahmer's working on her website, and it's been a great opportunity for me to.
To feed into some of my other artistic pursuits. So. I love to write. I love to write, like, prose and poetry and we're gonna bring the vehicle over here.
This is Malik. Hey, buddy. You gonna hang out back there? Okay.
Yeah, that's our. That's our White Rat, Moloch.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. One of our lawyers.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us, Molly.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah, he loves it, actually. He hates the camera. He hates attention, but his brother loves attention, so. Yeah. But I've been making music for that website, which I really. I love. I love making music, but I. We did that video on the connection between the frequency of Kali and hardcore hip hop because we. We discussed the. The Thuggie cult and the idea of the thug within hip hop culture and. And the connection to. A very raw expression of the Muladhara. So it's heavy. And we associate Kali with heaviness, with blood, with violence, with things that are very tamasic.
And.
And the frequency of hardcore rap is very much in the frequency of the.
The ferociousness of Kali.
So that's one of my favorite things that we've done. Yeah.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: When you say I tap in.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: Sorry, what was it?
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I tap into that energy when I. When I hear hip hop, like, the frequencies you could Say of those instrumentals that are produced especially in the 90s.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: There's something about that, like that, that I don't know what it is, what they're doing, but that vibe of the 90s is just.
Yeah, it's very ferocious.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's cool. It's heavy. Well, it's in the blood.
And when we say something's heavy, we're really saying that it's tamasic because it's earthy. You know, the muladhar is the heaviest point, consciousness in our body. It's where. When we're operating from the muladhara, that's when we feel most embodied.
So, you know, when. When my students are doing muladhara yoga, they get so heavy, they sometimes they. They like, sleep for three days straight.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: I've used music in my own meditative practice for many years, and it's been a very important thing to me. Like, I've told people the story about this one particular album by John Coltrane called Ascension, where I got trapped in a very, I guess, solipsistic condition for a period of time where I was. I was becoming very atheistic as well.
And playing around with the mind can do that to you from time to time.
But actually there's two records by John Coltrane, so Ascension was really important in being able to release my expressiveness again. But then also there's this record called the Love supreme, which is beautiful. And it's split into four parts. They're called psalms within the record. But basically, Coltrane was like a profound drug addict. Like, he was really hooked on heroin, bad.
And he went into his home and he.
He cut it cold turkey. So he quit heroin cold turkey. Not in a treatment center or anything like that, just in his. In his home.
And when he was doing this, he was practicing meditation and prayer and he was saying, God, please release me from this addiction. And if you do this, then I will devote the rest of my.
My art to showing the world what is divine.
And so he was able to kick his addiction. And then the next record he did was Love Supreme.
And the. The final song is actually.
It's a prayer that he wrote to God and the God that. So Coltrane was an ominous. Have you heard of omnism?
Yeah, I'm an ominous. So you're an ominous. Yeah, so Coltrane was an ominous. And he was. He was an ominous. Back before anyone really was.
Knew what that was, you know, but he.
So he.
He drew from all traditions. And his idea of God was the.
The omnis position of that There is. There is this one truth and many paths to this divine presence.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Isn't that such a great name? It's the Om.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Yeah. I love it.
I love it. It is perfect.
Yeah. It's almost as good as Tantra Nanda.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Almost.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: But the Omnis stuff, when I saw that, I was like, wow, Coltrane's really tapped in here. And then I listened to the record and that last. The ending of the record is his prayer, but he's not speaking his prayer. He's playing his prayer through the saxophone. So if you read the prayer along with that last track, you can hear it like, you can hear the words of the prayer coming through the saxophone.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: And it was a deep, transcendent experience for me that. That woke me back up to the spirit.
So I owe that to Coltrane.
And then Ascension is just this wild record where it's. Everybody's playing their own instrument in their own way. It's a big band and it's just a. A free jazz album. So they're playing whatever they want all together at once in a room, and they're just making it work. And that was a big thing that. That made me realize that record really solidified for me that what I want to do is just have everybody in a big band in the world playing their own instrument and doing what they want to do. And that if you just have that, something beautiful can come of it.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Wow.
That's beautiful.
Yeah, that's good, man.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Well, I owe it to Guru Coltrane.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: Shout out Guru Coltrane on that one.
Yeah.
In. Music is so human.
That's the thing. I think it's the highest form of art.
It's the. I don't know if highest is the right way to describe it, but it's the most, like, visceral form of art. There's something about music that painting a picture doesn't quite do that. You know, other.
Other modalities of art don't quite hit. Music hits our soul very instantaneously.
I think it's like.
Yeah, like someone that is in touch with music is just a sage, honestly. And they don't even have to be spiritual in that sense. But if you're really in touch with music, there's something very, very divine about who that person is.
Even if it is a gangster rapper.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah, especially.
Especially if it's a gangster rapper. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. Now, that stuff. And see a lot of people who are into spiritualism, they'll hear NWA or, you know, like, Tupac or Snoop Dogg or whatever, but they'll Hear that stuff, and they'll think that it's demonic and that they. They can't listen to it because it'll be a bad influence on them. But what they're really. What they're really tapping into is that it's of Shakti. It's Shakti music.
So it would be good for a lot of people who are very spiritual people to embrace those things, because they're embracing the mother whenever they hear that music, that ferocious sound.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
That's powerful stuff, man.
Yeah.
You got me thinking, I'm gonna drop a mixtape now.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Do it.
That would make me so happy if you would do that. I want you to release your music. You should.
All right, Matt, you need to.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: You know what's funny is I've always been apprehensive because there's been. I've only been on the path for the past few years, but I was into music before the spiritual path.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: So this kind of giving you a little more glimpse into who I am. I. I've been writing rap since eighth grade, to be honest with you. And sometimes it was just like, just have fun.
But I was still always writing something. I always loved rap and then got into the spiritual path somehow, five, six years ago. And I kind of shooed that away a little bit because I took that spiritualism idea of, oh, this isn't holy. This isn't of love and light, you know, easy.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: That's not really quite holy. Right. But it was still in me. It was always in me. I would still always find an excuse to listen to that, whether it's in the car or just, like, I'd hear the beat, and I'd be like, oh, this is fire. It'd be always, like, in there, you know, it's always in me, and it still is. And where am I going? This point in my story is like. I feel like I'm. I'm approaching that more so now in that integrated manner. And you're just, like, explaining it perfectly, like, synchronistically of, like, how I'm. I'm approaching this. Like, you're picking up something in me of. You said, embracing Shakti and showing people that even the darkness is divine.
Right.
And I feel like that's my place now. It's like I have to show people that even the darkness is divine. It's all divine. Beyond good and evil.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: So that's the path. Right. Is to ultimately see that all of this is divine.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Exactly. Yes. And you asked what the goal of ride the tiger is, and really, that is. That is actually a very fundamental thing, is that we're trying to show people that everything is divine, that the dark and dirty and scary and ugly things in this world are divine. Everything is divine. And you can find that divine spark in all experiences if you look for it. If you decode it.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Yeah, if you decode it.
Yeah, decode it.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Gotta decode.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: Don't let it code you. You gotta decode it.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Because it will if you don't.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: If you don't mind your consciousness, someone will mind it for you.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That's powerful stuff. Yeah.
That's the thing is there's no half measures, Right? Like, you have to kind of. You have to. You have to play your role or else you're gonna be played.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Yes, yes, certainly.
And more and more people are waking up to this now. So the. The fact that the spiritual life is not just about the spirit, it's also about the soil. It's about. You know, that's like when. When Sadhguru says, save our soil, like he's interested in the earth.
You know, if. If the spirit is all that matters and we have to, and it's the only thing that's holy, then there's no point in saving the soil or anything, really.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good point.
Yeah, man.
Yeah. I've noticed that from a lot of people that I speak to. They are in the descent somehow, one way or another, on the left hand path, Shakti, Kali is coming to light. In the times that we were in, we are amidst some changes that seem unprecedented.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: We certainly are. And it's a. It's a beautiful time to be alive. We are at a. We are at a revolutionary point in human development.
And. And it's been building for. For quite some time. Like, I've got.
The Beat book.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: Uhhuh.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: So a lot of people. I don't know. I don't know how many people know this or not, but the beat poetry movement is tantric. The. The founders of that movement practice Tantric Buddhism.
Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, you know, Allen Ginsberg was.
He studied with Shogyam Trunkba.
But that. So that stuff, the beat poet stuff. Okay. There has been a tantric revolution brewing in America at least since that time, but even before. But at least since that time, it's been a tantric revolution that has been an embrace of Shakti along with Shiva.
And so that's what you'll find in the Beats. And then the beats influence the hippies. And we know that the hippies were very much into yoga, very much into, you know, the New Age spirituality. And a lot of the New Age stuff was integration of Tantra directly. Timothy Leary bringing Tantric Buddhism into mainstream discussion as well. He did his commentary on the Book of the Dead.
And then you had the. The punk movement in the United States has had a strong connection to Tantra. I mean, there's even, like, Krishna core punk music, you know, so check that out. Yeah, yeah, the CRO mags. People should check out the CRO mags, because John Joseph as well. Anyone? I don't know? Have you heard of John Joseph?
[00:47:36] Speaker A: I don't think so.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: John Joseph was the lead singer for the CRO Mags, which was a great New York hardcore punk band back in the 80s.
And he was a Hare Krishna.
So he. He's not involved with Hari Krishna anymore, but he's still a practicing yogin.
And. Yeah, that's like his. His big influence in his life has been. Has been that. But that's a good example because his music is ferocious.
It's, like, all about street life. I mean, he was a street punk, literally. Like, he. He was homeless, living in New York city in the 80s, you know, in squats.
And.
And he.
Yeah, so that. That music is a perfect example of the raw embrace of the tamasic and the sattvic and the rajasic. All of it. All the colors combined.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: All the colors.
Yeah.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: And now we're the. We, you and myself and so many other people are heirs to the work of Jack Kerouac and Timothy Leary and John Joseph and HR from the Bad Brains and all these people who have advanced consciousness through their art. We are the heirs to that.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Momentum is building, that's for sure.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: Tim Leary is my guy. He's the one that got me started, actually.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: Timothy Leary is great, and he was way ahead of his time because he wrote a book called Chaos and Cyber Culture, where he. And actually David Burn, who was lead singer, the Talking Heads. Go back to the Talking Heads contributed to that. So did William S. Burroughs, one of the. My favorite author and one of the great beats. But he contributed to that book, Chaos and Cyber Culture. But that book was about transformation of consciousness within cyberspace.
So I'm working on a book right now.
It's almost finished. I'm editing it called Cyber Tantra, and it's about the use of tantric methods in interacting with artificial intelligence and cyberspace. And I've been doing some work. Yeah, I've been doing some work with one of my students on this for a While. And Ashley was onto this before me, like, because she was very influenced by Timothy Leary. So she actually introduced me to that book, chaos and cyber culture.
Oh, yeah, I'll ask him. Have you seen the Timothy Leary how to operate your brain?
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Yeah, a while ago.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, so good. It's great.
It's. It's amazing. But, yeah, Timothy Leary was. Was so, so far ahead of his time because he was talking about how the Internet would be a pathway towards this kind of tantric revolution that we are in the midst of now.
And you are deeply contributing to that with the work that you're doing. Every time you have one of these conversations, you're contributing to that revolution.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Just carrying the torch that Tim Leary was carrying himself.
I feel that.
Yeah, man.
And so are you. You are a great contribution to this whole thing, and I honor having you on and speaking to you, man. I really appreciate knowing you, just having you as a friend.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Well, same here, buddy.
Thank you for saying that. But, yeah, these. These conversations are great and. And it's an honor to be on your show, and I love the work that you're doing. So, yeah, big surprise, man.
Thank you.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think we can start to wrap it up, but that's it. The revolution will not be televised. But it might be on YouTube.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll stream it. We'll stream the revolution.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: We'll stream it
[00:51:49] Speaker B: in more ways than momentous times.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, man.
Do you have anything else you want to say, though, before we stop recording?
[00:52:00] Speaker B: Yeah, you know what? I always say that I want everybody to go have more fun. Go have more fun. And that's true. I want everybody to go have more fun. But today I'm going to say something a little bit more.
I'm going to say everyone here that's listening to this has art within them. They themselves are a work of art.
They are an instrument in a cosmic symphony.
And you've got to know your instrument and you've got to start playing, because it would be a damn shame to be born with this beautiful instrument and do nothing with it.
So I don't care what your art is, if it's, you know, making nails or playing guitar or, you know, driving a truck, it doesn't matter what it is. But everything is divine. Every activity is divine.
What I'm doing, being a teaching tantric yoga, is not more divine than a truck driver or somebody who, you know, a clown in the circus or whatever.
And it's just what I'm doing, what makes it divine is that I'm doing my Dharma. I'm playing my instrument, and I'm learning to play it well. So everyone needs to learn how to play their instrument well, wherever they're at, whatever instrument they were born with. And I hope that everyone goes and takes some time to get off whatever track they're on right now and see. See how they're playing their instrument.
Go learn your scales. It's the chakras. Goes right up your spine.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: Literally.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
Do, re, mi, fa, so latido.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: Amen.
Amen.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
Oh, that's great. Ash said, learn your scales, like reptile skills. Like the snake Kundalini shakti.
Oh, yeah.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Wonderful stuff, man. Well, Skyler, thank you for playing your instrument with us today. This is great. You're an awesome dude. I really. I'm not trying to flatter you too much, but I really revere you. I revere what you have to say.
I really think you're going to be popular in the future. And a lot of people, I mean, they already do resonate with you, but you just got away with words. I'm glad I found you early on, because I think you're. You're a special one. So that's all I got to say. Keep on keeping on.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: And.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. Peace and love.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: All right, best wishes.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Goodbye, everybody.
