Know Your True Nature & Unlock Your Purpose in 2025 (Know Thyself Best Moments)

hey guys welcome back to the podcast this past year has been amazing beautiful growth filled also challenges and pretty weird and wild I'm sure full spectrum for many of you this episode is actually going to be different it's going to be a compilation stimets from this whole past Year's worth of conversation 15 selected best moments hard to choose because there were so many great ones but if you haven't seen some of the episodes from this past year today's episode will be a good touch point a portal into that whole conversation with that guest um that

I think you might find interesting as well as maybe reminders from previously loved episodes from 2024 one tool that I also want to share with you guys is that I'm going to link down in the description my year of end review journal prompts for 2024 Reflections and 2025 intentions these questions can help guide you into extracting the lessons from this past year and then also get really intentional with the change that you wish to see both internally and outside of yourself in the world in 2025 so the link for that will be down in the

description alongside a 5 to 10 minute questionnaire for those who feel called to check out um and give feedback for us here at no self for expanding a lot this next year and um yeah I just want to stay connected with you guys and so any feedback constructive criticism things that you've loved that we've been doing to do more of we'd love to hear and get that feedback from you that's it for me I hope you enjoy these 2024 15 selected moments from the [Music] podcast so let's start with a very simple understanding your personality

is made up of how you think how you act and how you feel so the present personality who's listening to this podcast has created the present personal reality called their life not their mother not their ex you know they're responsible for creating their life and if they think the same way they act the same way and they feel the same way they're the same personality and of course they'll have the same personal reality and I think most people try to create a new personal reality as the same personality and it doesn't work we literally have

to become someone else so then if the majority of our thoughts are the same thoughts based on Memories We have of experiences in our life the moment we start remembering our problems we're thinking in the past right so those those those memories have a feeling or an emotion associated with them so the moment you think about your problems and you feel unhappy not only is your brain in the past now the body's in the past so it's that thought and that feeling it's the image or memory and the emotion it's the stimulus and response that's

immediately conditioning the body to memorize that emotion now the body is literally living in the past because it's so objective it doesn't know the difference between a real life experience that's creating that emotion and the emotion that person is fabricating by thought alone so to the body it's in the past experience 24 hours a day okay so now the body physiologically is now in the past so then the hormones of stress create the emotions of anger and aggression and frustration and impatience and competition uh and hatefulness fear anxiet worry insecurity Envy jealousy uh guilt unworthiness

shame suffering those are all derived from the hormones of stress turns out when that response switches on when we perceive a threat or a danger in our outer world the response from whatever condition in the outer World gives the body an arousal and so then if you keep doing that you keep giving the body A Rush of energy the body becomes dependent on its external world to feel something so the arousal from your coworker from your ex from traffic from the news some something in your outer environment is producing that kind of addictive Rush of

energy then people begin to use the problems and conditions in their life to reaffirm their addiction to that emotion they need the bad job they need the bad relationship and they become addicted to the life that they don't even like and so an addiction is something you think you can't stop or an addiction is something you know that is not good for you and you do it anyway so people are unconscious to the fact that the arousal from the stress hormones is knocking their brain and body out of homeostasis it's knocking it out of balance

the majority of the time so we can actually think about our problems and create the same physiological response as if we were being chased by a predator so what was once very adaptive becomes very maladaptive so you turn on that response you can't turn it off now you're headed for disease because stress is when the body's knocked out of balance and there's no opportunity for the body to return back to balance in order that inbalance becomes the new balance and that's when we head for some type of disease or imbalance in our bodies so then

those emotions that we feel tend to drive our behaviors and we behave as if we're in the past and if those emotions are just really chemical records from past experiences then we probably more than likely remember the past instead of remember the future so 95% of who we are becomes you know an an automatic set of programs in our personality so if we really teach a person how to think differently how to act differently and how to feel differently give him new information have them learn that information have them teach that information back to somebody

so it's wired in their brain have them understand exact actly what they're doing and why they're doing it so the how gets easier remind themselves enough time to install the circuitry so that they have neurons and circuits in place to make a different choice to do a different thing create a different experience and feel a different emotion could if you change your personality would your biology change the answer is 100% absolutely yes and we can do it in seven days now a person with a dissociative disorder or multiple personality disorder had traumas in their life

as most of them from childhood and the way they cope with the constant abuse was that they would just dissociate from this world and and go to another world and they would live in that world and create a different character than the character that's being abused or molested or whatever and so each one of those different personalities just like creating a new personal reality takes seven days they're they've they've been doing that for so long that the Myriad of personalities of thinking differently behaving differently and feeling differently produces immediate biological changes where the person is

allergic to peanuts in one and one personality and not in the other so in a sense that speaks the human potential because that's exactly what we're doing when we see people heal from chronic health conditions I asked them where is the disease where did the disease go and 100% of the time they say it's in the old person it's in the old I'm no longer that person I'm somebody else like so so of course the disease would exist in a different person I it's a different physiology so teaching the a person uh after years of

years of thinking acting and feeling the same way running those programs teaching a person how to become so conscious of their unconscious thoughts so aware of the defaulting habits and behaviors and to notice when they start feeling different emotions that you got to catch yourself from from going unconscious and returning back to that person for them to unlearn and relearn to break the habit of being themselves and reinvent a new self so now if you take the let's say the average American what is what is the ultimate red pill that would change their perception if

they take that red pill that they wake up to the illusion of how they've been living what would that red pill be well right now the easiest one is is just falling in love and science has recognized why let's give a reason as to why we play programs okay let's start off very simple basic fact the the human brain is a computer it's not like a computer it's actually a far better computer than humans have ever created but it is a computer and still has the same functions and basic operation procedures to it when the

old days when we would buy a computer uh you go home and you push start and it boots up and then I say okay let's do something you go oh no I can't do anything I go well you got a brand new computer uh the point is no first you have to put programs in the computer and then you can access the computer via the keyboard which is the creative part of the computer the brain of a human has uh two parts to it there's we say the Mind everybody the mind like there's one mind

I go well that's the problem right away there are two minds they're interdependent and they have totally different functions the uh latest evolution of the mind is right behind your forehead it's called Uh the conscious mind that's the prefrontal cortex part of the brain lobe right be back here that's the seed of Consciousness that's a seed of your spirituality in fact uh and I said well 90% of the brain back here is called the subconscious mind I go okay so what's the difference the conscious mind is creative the subconscious mind is programs just habits hard

drive okay now the issue about this is that with the conscious mind we can be creative and everything we want but the conscious mind does two things and one of them is look out your eyes like the windshield of a vehicle and with wishes and desires the conscious mind will take us on the road to where we want to go but the conscious mind can think I guess what's the problem I go well thinking is not looking out thinking is looking in so the moment you start thinking your conscious mind's not paying attention to the

world outside here I go yeah but what if you're driving the car and you start thinking I go well almost everybody does it anyway I go uh that's kind of interesting because uh you some point you get so caught up in your head thinking and then you look out the windshield and realize you haven't paid attention to the road for the last number of minutes but hey you're still on the road everything seems to be running okay and I go no problem because the subconscious is autopilot in other words when the conscious mind is busy

the subconscious programs take over uh you know how to drive a car program things that you know how to do walk talk drive the car do your job these become habits habits are no thinking habits are just push the button play the program so the idea about that is well that's really cool because that makes our life a lot easier than trying to focus on everything in the world when you can just push the button you can walk without thinking about walking okay so there's a great benefit to the subconscious the this well the problem

that comes up with the subconscious is is if you're thinking you're not looking out the window you're not paying attention to what's going on and the subconscious steps in and takes over and I go what's the point I go well we don't see our subconscious programs we don't see them because they're playing while we're thinking and I go what's the problem I go well 60% or more of the programs are disempowering self-sabotaging or limiting beliefs so I go what does that mean I go the moment you start thinking you start playing a program but if

you have a dysfunctional program do you see it I go no because it's automatic the problem is everybody else sees it and they're going to respond to your program they're not responding to your conscious mind they're responding to The Habit you acquired so the problem about that is we are unaware and here's the here's the number 95% of the day is the average amount of thinking a person is involved with which then translates simply to 95% of the day you're running your life with programs that you don't even see but uh it becomes problematic because

when things aren't working the tendency of an individual is well I have great wishes to be happy successful loving and de all these things and if it's not working there's a tendency then to consider yourself the victim and then blame everything around you as why your life's not running right and the fact was no you were the one that was running the program they were just responding so it takes us it says wait we are responsible for the life we are living and and the issue about that is well what are your programs because they're

running your life I go ah you don't know what your basic programs are I go why because the programming of the subconscious started well three months before you were born and it's continuous for seven years your brain in that 7-year period is running at a lower vibration when you put wires on a person's head EEG uh the vibration is called Theta which is just below Consciousness Consciousness is a higher Vibe Alpha and then even higher beta and gamma you're running at Theta and I go well Theta is imagination I go yeah that's what characterizes kids

they live in the real world the imaginary world at the same time I I always talk about oh that great tea party you pour nothing into a cup you drink nothing and that was the best tea you ever had in your life or a child riding on a broom uh because in the child's mind Theta is Imagination the broom is a horse I mean to the kid it's really is so if the mother says give me the Broom the child's like not understanding what she's talking about because it's no longer a broom in that state

of a child it's now really a horse in their imagination the problem Theta is hypnosis and I go oh so you're in a state of hypnosis for almost seven years I go why well the answer is simple and he goes how many rules does it take to be a member of a family how how many rules does it take to be a member of a community thousands I said well how are you going to teach an infant they can't read a book they can't sit in a classroom so nature took care of it nature said

first s years hypnosis download observe those around you your mother your father your siblings your community in observing them you're actually downloading Behavior but other people's behavior so it becomes interesting is because we get the foundation of the rules uh by observing others Now problem is uh if the people you're observing are not living in harmony but then by definition you've downloaded disharmony as well H and so all of a sudden it says well these are the programs I go yeah 95% of the day that's that's where your life is coming from do you know

these programs so I ask people tell me what program you got before you were born well obviously I don't know well wait wait wait you were programmed a whole year from zero to one what programs did you get no no from one to two another all year I don't know those programs they go the biggest problem is most of the fundamental programs that operate our life were downloaded before we were conscious and we have no awareness of what those programs are but we're running them 95% of the day so I stand back and go wait

a minute your life is a print out of your programs so the idea is this all you have to do is right now is just look at your life and go the things you like that come into your life well they come in because you have programs to acknowledge those things but this is the one the things that you desire and you want but you struggle you work hard you put a lot of effort into it I'm sweating over it I'm going to make this happen I'm working really hard to make it happen go why

you working so hard and the answer is inevitably that destination you're SE seeking that destination is not supported by your program and then you're trying to override the program very very difficult to do and so basically it says well wait we are programmed I go yep that's the foundation of the Matrix all of us are programmed we're running these programs 95% of the time we do not see these programs we only see the consequence of these programs so if you don't mind I I I'll use an example that I've been using since 1980 because there's

not a better one yet and that is you have a friend and you know your friend's behavior and you happen to know your friend's parent and then one day you see your friend has the same behavior as their parent which get you hey Bill you're just like your dad back away from bill because I know exactly what Bill's going to say and you know it if you've ever said it and Bill's going to say how can you compare me to my dad I'm nothing like my dad but everybody else sees that Bill's like his dad

who's the one that doesn't see it bill I go why not because when he's playing the programs he downloaded from his dad he's the one that doesn't see it everybody else sees it so all of a sudden it says your life is not being controlled by your wishes and desires while you're running the program and you run the program 95% of the day because that's the amount of time you're thinking so are you creating the life you want I go not necessarily at all as a matter of fact you're creating the life you've been programmed

to create 1991 scientists made a discovery that shocked the medical community for sure and the scientific community in general what they found was a neural network inside the human heart they found about 40,000 specialized cells they're called sensory neurites they're like neurons brain but they're not in the brain they're in the heart they think independently of the human brain they feel independently of the human brain they sense they remember independently of the human brain so right there I've just said a big piece of information that affects all of us and here's why we all have

had trauma in our lives every one of us but our trauma is perceived differently through the filters of our life experience so your trauma might have devastated you when you were three years old and then you tell me about it and I'll say huh what's a big deal you know my trauma at my father left our home when I was 10 and it traumatized me because it said something about safety in the world and not feeling safe and I I still deal with that I'm still healing that and I might say it to you and

you would say what's the big deal you my dad left and hey you know piece of cake the point is our trauma is individualized it's personalized it's Unique but every every one of us has it when we have trauma it's registered in multiple places and if you attempt to heal that trauma only through thinking and talking about it from the mind it can help and I think it's a good thing to do but many people say wow I've done that and I feel incomplete now we know why because the the talking or the therapies may

not have addressed the thinking and the memory independent in the heart the heart has a very different language it doesn't always work with the words so this is one of the the amazing things that we're finding out about the the human heart when I was in school back in the 50s 1950s and 60s it's a mindblower to me but to say that but when I was in school in the 50s and 60s I was taught that the um the heart is the master organ in the body number one and it's a pump we all know

it pumps really well but you can build a machine to do that here's what the new discoveries are showing now is that the heart the brain's important I'm sorry did I say heart the brain's the master organ in the body the brain is the master organ that's what we were taught but the brain receives the instructions that tell it what to do from the heart the heart sends those instructions based on the way we feel about the world around us and those perceptions are all through the filters of our experience so all of a sudden

the heart becomes front and center because we now know the heart is telling the brain how to regulate the body number one number two the heart this neural network is key in what we call Heart intelligence the last episode this podcast we talked about how memory information our Divinity our imagination our creativity our Innovation our intuition are all information in the field that we tune to rather than that information actually residing in these cells in these neurons you know scientists have they've looked at the neurons and they're saying where's the memory where's the memory well

the memory is not in the neurons the neurons are the antenna they are soft antenna a biological antenna that is in resonance they tune based upon our feelings and our demands when we say I'm going to learn Spanish that's a demand to the body to build the antenna to tune to the place in the field where Spanish as a language lives where millions of other people tune in as well so all of a sudden that the heart takes on a whole new significance in the scientific World it parallels our most ancient and cherished spiritual Traditions

who've always said that the the heart is is the seat of the Soul as my my brother Gary zukov wrote a book called that my spiritual Brother Gary uh that the heart is the seed of the soul the heart is is probably one of the least understood organs in this respect and one of the biggest mysteries is that on a particular day in the womb of our mother in one moment in time there's a clump of cells that are there and in the next instant something happens and the first heartbeat begins and scientists do not

know what triggers that first heartbeat there are theories talk about ion potentials across cell walls and you know things like that if you ask our indigenous ancestors when I was with the monks and the nuns in Tibet when I'm with my Native American friends I'm with my katua friends or my Amara friends and lake tiaka and Peru they all my Yucatan friends the shamans in the in the Yucatan and the Maya Traditions you all say the same thing the first beat of the heart is the moment that our soul comes into our bodies our soul

is part of but it's separate from it's a part of us that is Ageless timeless it is the Divine that is in that field it's when when the resonance between the cells and the heart and that neural network come into phase if you want to think of it that way with this part of the field so the ability to self-regulate our own biology is a stunning a stunning ability we're trying to build Ai and smart computer systems that can diagnose and repair and heal themselves and we can't do that with software right now but if

you think of us as an engineered biology we have the programs the the soft Pro we are literally a soft technology so we're not a hard technology of silicon chips and wires and uh you know software running through printed circuits we're neurons we're we're more than that we are neurons we're cell membranes we are ion potentials moving across cell walls with the ability to self regulate ourselves we are so good at it that we take it for granted and that is a stunning capability and it is where our highest levels of Mastery come from now

the next level of this is once we embrace the neural network in the heart now you say okay we've got two neural networks we have a neural network in the brain we all know about now we have one in the heart one of the highest forms of of Mastery and one of the deepest places for our healing we're the only form of life that we know of today with the ability to do what I'm going to describe we can harmonize the neural network in the brain and the neural network and the Heart two separate organs

become one powerful potent system in what is called heart brain coherence and the ability to do it it's very very simple uh there's an organization here in Northern California well there in Northern California uh The Institute of heart math they are a pioneering research organization and the power of the human heart in unconventional ways Beyond just being a pump I've known them almost since their Inception I'm not their employee I've worked with them We Tour together we fundraise together we do webinars together they're dear dear brothers and sisters and they're really good people and and

they've given me permission as an independent researcher to share uh and talk about their work so I just want to acknowledge that uh they've developed three very very simple steps that allow us to harmonize the the heart and the Brain very easily based on the ancient and the indigenous Traditions it's a shift in focus a shift in breath and a shift in feeling a shift in focus from the world out there into the heart number one number two slower breathing and when we slow our breathing and there's um there is a little bit of science

to this when we exhale for a period of time longer than we inhale we trigger the parasympathetic nervous system it's the relaxation response so it doesn't make any difference what the times are it's just that the release needs to be longer the inhale so if you're inhaling for a count of four and then you release for a count of six something that simple that's step number two and then step number three is while the focus is in the heart while we're breathing slower from our heart to focus a feeling and this is something no other

form of life can do we're invited to have a feeling because we choose to have the feeling rather than relying on the world around us to give us a reason for the feeling now you think about that most people if you say Okay a positive feeling so let's say the feeling is a feeling of gratitude many people will say well I'm waiting for something to be grateful for we're the only form of life that can initiate that takes practice but we can initiate it at will on demand when we change the way we feel we're

actually Shifting the chemistry in our bodies in many many ways over 1,300 positive biochemical responses in the body from shifting from our mind into our heart number one breathing slower number two and feeling a positive feeling such as gratitude that works pretty much for everyone once we accomplish that coherence that can be an end unto itself or it can be the Launchpad for deeper states of Spiritual Awakening and and development and healing in health physiological healing and health just from three minutes of that process the immune system is is strengthened and scientific evidence shows this

the Sia first level immune response in in the lining of the mouth uh is strengthened more than many antibi ICS can do this is what the researchers found we awaken the longevity enzymes we trigger the healing of the telr uh there's an enzyme called teleras that is awakened from this process we actually relieve stress Andre on a molecular level so many people are stressed in ways they don't even know so we all know about emotional stress bad relationship traffic on the 405 freeway you know we know about that when we eat foods that are cooked

in oils that have been exposed to high heat for example that is a stress to the body and the body has to work to compensate for that we drink water that has impurities of the wrong pH our body has to work to compensate for that pollutants in the air we're exposed to this stuff all the time so those are levels of stress we may not even be aware of and this coherence actually relieves that stress it heals all the way down to the molecular level and what the research has shown is 3 minutes a minimum

of 3 minutes will increase the DHEA levels over 100% which is the precursor to every other hormone in the body male and female both increase that DHEA without taking any supplements or changing a diet or anything uh and you decrease the cortisol levels the stress hormones by about 23% after only 3 minutes and that those effects will last up to six hours if you know barring some Black Swan event that comes into your life the the effects will linger for for up to six hours after only three minutes of doing this this is how powerful

we are so the implications of the ability to self-regulate our own biology they run deep in terms of divinity those are the ability to heal our own bodies that is a Godlike ability that the Ancients talked about about in the literature we have it at our fingertips we've been conditioned away from it led to feel helpless and Powerless that we need intervention and and sometimes we do and there we have technology for that and I'm happy that that technology is there when it reaches that point the point is to honor the gift of this body

this Temple as we talked about in the last podcast to the point where you don't need that kind of intervention because you are maintaining through the ability to self-regulate all all of these things so this is really put science into a place there's a beautiful place where science and spirituality come together even though a lot of scientists don't like it and a lot of spiritual spirituality or or people that follow spirituality they don't like it either they like to think that the spirituality somehow supersedes the science and the scientists like to think that they're more

modern but here's what happens when we drop those judgments and we allow the two great ways of knowing the science of 300 years and the spirituality of 5,000 years those are two forms of knowledge when we allow that knowledge to honor and serve us we then create a wisdom that's greater than any piece of knowledge can be and I think this is what gives us the evolutionary Edge right now that many of our ancestors didn't have they didn't have the science so that we can successfully navigate and Triumph and transcend the challenges that we see

in our lives now that other Generations haven't had we now have this at our fingertips the ability to self-regulate our biology through the changes how do you discern I suppose what materialist was say you could boil down to biochemical kind of reactions when you're using the word spiritual do you ever refer to metaphysical non-material realities um because I know so much of your work has been bringing forth what feel like metaphysical experiences into understandable brain chemistry and under and kind of Bridging the the gap between the two oh that's such a magnificent point so we

certainly track the neuroc corelates in our brain of transcendent relationship we can certainly point on the MRI machine and say okay whether I live in China the us or Brazil the same neuroc corelates run when I am in a deep Transcendent connection to the force of life there's one force of life and there's one human port hole that does not mean that all of spirituality can be boiled down to the brain I am by no means a biological reductionist that merely means body mind and soul in the monist view of the human we are soul

we are mind we are body there is at once a neurotrace as there is a phenomenological experience as I would say there is ontologically in the structure of being the stuff of Consciousness or spirit all at once all at once now in the awakened brain in my book I spend the first 2third pointing out our natural spiritual nature the capacity through which we can perceive and receive trans sent and awareness but the final third is this dedicated to this very exciting emerging science done by generally extremely rigorous scientists on the foundational nature of Consciousness running

in us through us and Among Us where suddenly we can stop borrowing the 20th century somewhat reductionist view of the brain as a maker of thoughts right like a Ford motor Factory the brain somehow produces thoughts or toast ERS or something like that instead to the brain being an antenna or a conduit of Consciousness that opens up the possibility that we are both emanations of Consciousness like Rays from the sun we are in relationship to Consciousness receiving perceiving contributing back there's a dialectic going on um but that's very very far to your point from radical

materialism or biological reductionism I think it's important to point out that the best clinical science can say is that spirituality is not a belief it is an inborn human seed of perception we are born to perceive into the spiritual reality and that's where clinical science stops and then we can pivot and say how does the brain what is our evidence that the brain is connected beyond the brain in the Box beyond the atomist ick limits of the skull and there there's a Cascade of magnificent research going on May sure one of my favorit AUD please

yeah perhaps my favorite study is really a foundational founding study of what we now call postmaterial psychology postmaterial meaning a consciousness-based psychology it was done by actor Hoff actor Hoff invited a traditional indigenous healer to be in one MRI machine the patient was down the hall and in some cases across the street in a second MRI machine as the traditional healer started to do his or her work a consistent pattern came up on the fmri machine tracking blood flow within an instant the same pattern came up on the MRI screen of the patient implying one

thing Consciousness in two places the material footprint is what shows up on the MRI but how do I understand that one thing Consciousness healing Consciousness I would say spirit in two places well there's several explanations but one of them is that there's a send and receive between the Healer and the patient at a distance that the brain is a form of an antenna or conduit but I think that it's very d dous for the new Consciousness based science to make the same mistake as the materialist science of the 20th century which is really to claim

radical anthropocentrism that we are in the center sending Consciousness back and forth from when does Consciousness come well no one really answers that but it's kind of suggested that we make Consciousness or we're you know we're the king and the queen it seems to me that if we're really on a search that we shouldn't feel nervous or somehow out of fashion to step out of the outdated Vogue of radical anthropocentrism and let's build a science built around source that there's a source of Consciousness I say God you use your word yeah the most breathtaking finding

that I've seen in 30 years as a scientist is this when we look at people who through suffering difficulty have awakened so you know there's a lovely body of science that shows that very often struggle suffering depression is the early phase of an Awakening two sides of one door of you as you have so eloquently shared yes that the yearning and the struggle and the existential emptiness actually reveals that our vessel and capacity has become more capacious and now feels like a half empty vessel we are on a W so the yearning the existential frustration

doesn't mean we're off the path it means we're on the path a knock at the door bang at the door for a more deepened connection with God Spirit Consciousness that is I think the majority of forms of human suffering there are some where there's a biological depression there's a piece broken and we fix it with medication but most of the time and I'm not against medication but medication alone is insufficient most of the time there is an emergence that first presents itself the ignition is is struggle it's developmental depression when we take this journey and

we awaken what we find is that we've cultivated a path a spiritual response to suffering that is forever more there for us we can always get back if we invite people to come in this time not to the the MRI machine but the EEG machine that captures energy given off the back of the head how we're using the brain brain waves what we find is that people to recover people to move through despair through an Awakening give off high amplitude Alpha specific wavelength High amplitude Alpha goes by another name in another field it's schuman's resonance

the constituent wavelength of nature from the Earth's crust up 1 mile all the way around the earth which means the spiritually engaged brain vibrates at the wavelength of all life of nature creation so the kingdom Eden was not long ago and far away it's here now and it is a choice to enter through our seed of being and we readily then have available to the felt Oneness is mirrored by the Oneness of wavelength that to me is the most beautiful finding in science so powerful and there is a there's a part in in this book

um the awakened brain that I really love so this was advice Howard Thurman that you quoted gave to someone who is struggling to make a decision and desperate for guidance and Thurman wrote a letter his handwritten response said you're like a little boy under the Christmas tree who has so many gifts he doesn't know which one to open first the main thing is you must wait and listen for the sound of the genuine which is within you when you hear it that will be your voice and that will be the voice of God and it

feels like when you're in those moments of depression despair um where you're speaking to Awakening is the other side of the door the making space for silence to discover that which is genuine within you to emerge is uh it's it's our primary task is to make space and see what's trying to emerge from within us I would actually love to just jump straight to your kind of Awakening experience that you had that really was the pivot the shift from being a materialist scientist into exploring Consciousness in a much more fundamental way so could you walk

us through your experience at that moment yeah I need to give you perhaps a little bit of background because uh uh I'm a physicist and therefore I uh study how physical reality works and with a sense that uh that that's all there is and that's really much pretty much what uh science today is telling us about the reality and I had I had accepted that that must be true and um I was also expecting that if I did everything right quote unquote whatever that means I should be happy and uh that did not turn out

that way in fact I did everything right you know according to the book but I was not happy and I was pretending to be happy and it was only because I realized that I was pretending to be happy and I have learned being an entrepreneur I had learned to take responsibility for what happened in my life that I put my foot down I said no I must understand why I'm not happy in those days I was studying Consciousness but I was working on neuron networks I was studying books in uh neuroscience and I wanted to

understand how come they were conscious you know the neuroscientists don't tell us how we're conscious they explain you know they explain how we work by electrical signals and biochemical signals in the brain and I didn't see how I could possibly get Sensations and feelings what philosophers called qualia out of electrical signals and so I was really curious being a scientist and being also a technologist I wanted to understand how I could program a computer to be conscious and the more I thought the more impossible it was because there was there is nothing in physics that

tells you how to convert electrical signals or be bits in a computer into Sensations and feelings so the core was what are Sensations and feelings which is how we experience life and so it was in this climate where I was unhappy which is also a problem of Consciousness I wanted to understand what Consciousness is and It Happened One Night 1990 was Christmas holidays was ke up in the SAS you know Taho uh with my family and uh one night I wake up midnight was thirsty went to get a glass of water then I went back

to bed you know just uh waiting to fall asleep again and all of a sudden out of my chest this beam of energy you know white scintillating light is love but is a love that was 10,000 times 50,000 time who knows stronger than anything that I've ever experienced is coming from me and my Consciousness is in this Rush of energy and is love joy in peace peace I've never had felt that peace I was always trying to get somewhere I was never happy where I was but this was this is me that's home this is

me I am that I I am this instead of that this that comes out of me and then this energy all of a sudden is everywhere in this white cting light my Consciousness is in that light and so now I am observing myself so I'm the Observer of myself this energy because this love was there this joy and this peace was there as well and then a thought forms wow a thought but I already got what the thought was trying to say the thought was oh this stuff is what everything is made of but these

are symbols what before that thought there was the understanding that he thought expressed and then that was the end of it my my body was vibrating you know like like the cells of my body were you know were resonating with what was going on so Body Mind emotions and the connection with everything was all in this holistic experience so I was one observing itself with my point of view that's what I'm saying now but at that time I had exactly the sense without the words to say what I just said at that point I wanted

then to connect what I knew about physics into a theory that would connect the interiority and the exteriority physics only describes what what's what you can measure in the space and time but what you can feel is that in space and time cannot possibly be in space and time so where is it and so that was the journey where I dedicated myself 100% I decided to that's it that's what I want to do for the rest of my life you unite physics and spirituality into a seamless hole where you can no longer tell the boundaries

between one and the other I'm curious do you think that there are levels of fundamental reality that are simply inconceivable to the human mind and understanding like we wouldn't expect a monkey to understand quantum mechanics or entanglement or have even the uh Baseline ingredients to be able to have semblance of anything regarding quantum mechanics are there things that you think that are simply beyond the capacity of the human mind to understand and deeper levels of reality that that's I I do I think that the human mind uh has great capacities and fundamental limitations and when

spiritual Traditions tell us to set aside the human mind now and then spend time on meditation and put the the human mind apart you you be of course then when you try to reconceptualize what you experienced you can only reconceptualize it inside the human mind that's that's the tool you've got but in fact you infinitely transcend the human mind so so you aren't the human mind you when you talk to me through these avatars we're having to use the human mind and therefore all of a sudden the bandwidth goes down to a straw the little

tiny straw of of information that goes back and forth but you and I are in fact the infinite intelligent looking at itself through this particular little straw so yeah the human mind has this incredibly write that down but but but you are not the human mind you transcend infinitely the human mind but as long as you're in the Avatar you can only have a human mind appreciation of that Transcendence there seems to be various uh enlightened beings masters of meditation that have emotionally embraced it what they would say is close to 100% where they have

literally no fear of the body CU they clearly have the perception that it is not THB where if somebody comes up to you God forbid on the street and puts a gun to your head I'd be scared scared to death right it seems like in the metaphysical practices and and the contemplative Sciences you can arrive at the place experientially emotionally where you truly perceive the source of that which you are and therefore that which you are not does not have the grip over you which is interesting because it require it requires both the rigorous science

and logic to be able to explore these things and explain it with the limited capacity we have for language with language and then the contemplative practices that allow us to arrive there experientially to become closer in uh intimate and become one with that which we truthfully are I I I completely agree and I think that there are spiritual Masters who who are there like Carta for example I suspect um it truly doesn't fear death and and and and so and I intellectually I think that well this is interesting think to think about it this way

think about a video game in which you jump into the video game and you could be in the game identified with the Avatar that's me so if it's a shoot them up game and you you think you are your avatar you're going to be scared to death and you're going to be really alert and and and and suppose that I mean I I'm I'm Navy sealed or something like I'm trying to get you ready so I I'm putting you in this game I so I want to somehow drug you so that when you get in

the simulation you think it's real because I want you to be scared to death and I want you to learn how to fight in that thing so I'm going to make you identify so here's a drug that makes you identified with your avatar in this VR game and and boy you really you and then well slowly let you disidentify from that Avatar and that's what I think is going on here is we're in this emotionally I'm still identified with the Avatar but part of me is recognize oh Don that's just an avatar it's not you

but the emotional part of me is still plugged into to you are an avatar the meditation process is slowly waking me up to the truth that an avatar is just an avatar relax yeah just relax it's just your avatar you are the infinite intelligence of which this whole simulation is a trivial little game that you is it's no effort for you whatever it's it's literally nothing and all the wealth and all the possessions you could possibly have you could be the richest man on earth n it's nothing it's absolutely nothing it's just a little game

in you and and you could make a billion other much better games than that so that's but see emotionally I'm still it's very very interesting to know that I am the infinite intelligence I've woken up a little bit but not completely so I'm still halfway between identifying with the Avatar and halfway dis disidentifying with the Avatar and I agree that there are spiritual Masters who have completely disidentified and I would love to disidentify cuz I it's it's no fun to be afraid yeah I find it so interesting how I think largely like around the time

of the Vienna Circle and the like 19th 20th century there was kind of this big divorce between the simultaneous contemplative practices and metaphysical practices alongside the scientific Explorations and like most people don't understand to the degree in which Newton himself had just as much exploration into Alchemy than than the sciences and it makes sense that they're kind of they're one and the same in the source and then they're there's the experiential side and then there's the logical side there's the particle there's the wave you know there's two ways to come at something from the top

down from the bottom up you know and in the way that it's processed yeah if the possibility you know of Consciousness being fundamental is real it really does line up with a lot of Eastern wisdom Traditions yes around the illusion of free will self and that there is a more fundamental aspect of being that is the witness and awareness of any arising and passing away phenomena and contents in our experience yeah that gives rise to a true sense of Freedom yeah and so as the show is the know thyself podcast we really like to explore

how this is a um the what what is the most fundamental aspect in nature of ourselves which feels as you know I have many experiences and i' love to hear some of yours where where you experience and taste such a depth of Stillness whereas there is the absence of experience but there is still Consciousness floating and AV void it seems well and what's interesting is if Consciousness is fundamental it actually makes sense that spending more time investigating that firsters experience would give you would enable you to have some insights or give you some direct understanding

or knowledge um in a way that our current way of understanding the world through science has not been able to and I'm very interested in in that crossover as well yeah so when you when you say like sense of self what are you referring to as most people kind of operate with that notion and then we can kind of start to see the ucer nature of it and come back into what's more fundamental yeah yeah I do always when I talk about the illusion of self I do like to start with what I'm not calling

an illusion um yeah because I think it's less confusing that way in terms of a self um there are human beings there are animals there are you know all of the things that we we see in the world and we can call them the things we call them and that's very useful they you know we can point to a wave and know exactly what we're talking about um and actually a wave is a much better analogy for the experience of self um than something like a chair or a rock and that's because a wave is

a phenomenon in nature that is ever changing and it's very clear to us and we can see it that doesn't stop us from labeling waves waves we know a wave when we see it we can say a lot of things about how how waves behave and what they do and it's a clear phenomenon in nature and the same is true of the human mind and the way the brain works is it is an Ever evolving Ever Changing um series of um phenomena and So that obviously exists we can talk talk about it we can talk

about our biographical selves and how we went from babies to our current states you know all these things are are phenomena and nature that we can talk about we can talk about decision making also when I talk about Free Will being an illusion there's an element of it being an illusion but in terms of decision-making in nature that is absolutely a process that takes place and our brains are very good at at executing that process the illusion comes in the experience we all have and myself included you know I've had the experience of dropping this

illusion but most of the time I walk around with this sense that there's a solid self that's not change there's part of me that's not changing that's the same me when I was two that I am now and I talk we talk about things that way and you can see that it's an illusion when you start to investigate it a little more closely and think okay where where is this unchanging solid self that's moving through time um and you realize that you you think of it as kind of being inside your body somewhere it's not

the same as your brain it's in your brain or maybe near your brain or there's no real way to describe it because it's inaccurate it's an inaccurate way of of viewing things um but it's this very persistant intuition and and sense of being an unchanging solid um entity that that moves through time when in fact what the experience of self um is is a new a new experience in every moment we're constantly changing who I was and my experience as a 2-year-old um are extra I mean so so different from the experiences I have now

that you and I are our experiences right now probably more similar than mine were with my 2-year-old self um and that there are a lot of processes in the brain that make us blind to these changes and to the fact that um I'm not in my body I'm not in my brain I you know and we even use the language my brain my body as if I stand outside of those things um and so it creates this feeling that we are separate from the physical world somehow that I'm that it's not that I am my

brain and these experiences are arising um as a result of the physical structure that I am but that there's some entity in there um that takes ownership of of of my body and my brain and everything else and this is where the illusion of Free Will comes in it's it feels that this self can make decisions that are somehow separate from the physical world and separate from the laws of cause and effect when in actuality our brains are these these waves and the processes keep moving and there's no stopping there's no stopping the river um

it's it's an unfolding through time that Consciousness um likely is um in in some sense the canvas on which it all plays out um rather than the thing driving it or the subject of it I really love that analogy of um the sense of self being like waves in the ocean because we can see that they're still connected and yet there's a more essential nature of ones being which would be like the ocean yes and we can see under fmri machines uh through psychedelic use and advanced meditators the reduction in activity in the default mode

Network which goes hand inand with this uh loss of an experience of a solid self yes so any thoughts you want to share there as well yeah so you're right I mean we're still at the infancy of our our understanding of what's going on in the brain but um clearly many many people throughout history um have had the experience can train through meditation to have the experience or through psychedelics it's a very common experience of this illusion of self dropping away and and no longer experiencing it um for a period of time and as someone

who has this experience regularly and knows many people who who do it it in no way affects your conscious awareness you are just as conscious as you were before and so this this sense that um the conscious that our Consciousness kind of is the self is kind of the intuition that we come in with is clearly not the case and so the thing that's interesting about correlating this with something that the brain is doing is is one we can see that the brain in most circumstances is kind of generating this experience of self and it

doesn't necessarily need to be generated um we can have a full experience of being human beings and and not have that experience generated um but also that when people have this experience it's an extremely positive terms for the most part um feeling a sense of Oneness feeling a visceral sense of the interconnected nature of things as we were talking about before um that even though there's not a visual representation of it there's actually a way to be in the world where you in feel intimately connected to the air and the the water and other human

beings and sound waves and everything else that we're immersed in I mean there's almost an experience of feeling like a like um a flexible web you know rather than being a a a self moving mov around in inside something other in the deeper examination of our fundamental longing for happiness which you pick a person randomly off the street and you ask them do they want to be happy everyone's going to say yes right yeah and the eye that wants to be happy many of us have different perceptions on but we tend to feel it is

this kind of locust of thoughts and emotions localized in our head and we have this identity personality structure in which we engage the world with and it's through the perception of that separate self that happiness is perceived to be gained through the possessions and gain of exterior material possessions and an arrangement of relationships something happening a certain way outside of us yes and you're inviting the perspective to realize the source of who you are which is happiness and I often think of this metaphor of like a lighthouse Illuminating a beach in many ways it has

been said that what we are looking for is the place we are looking from and a lighthouse that's Illuminating is almost like looking for its own light failing to recognize that it is the source of its own illumination and and so as we start to peel back the layers of our preconceived notions of self to see who we are more fundamentally that field of awareness that we can tap into I would love for you to reflect on that and start to guide us with the direct experience of that because I think it uh non-duality can

be seen as a philosophically dense topic of exploration but it's also very simple and the immediacy of direct experience one can come into contact with it so what say you yes okay so there's one physical space in the universe there are not numerous physical spaces there's just one vast boundless physical space in the universe that seems to be contained within numerous buildings or within numerous rooms and each of those rooms like the room we're sitting in now um lends a quality to the space the space seems to as soon as the the building is is

put up the building seems to limit put a boundary around a certain portion of of space and the space then seems to share the qualities of the building large small dark light SP and and and so on the space never actually becomes limited the space in this room is not actually limited by the Four Walls of this room if we were to take a sample of the space inside the room and investigate it and we were to take a sample of the the vast space outside the room they would be identical now imagine that the

space were aware that and if we ask the space in this room describe yourself it would look around and it would say I'm small I'm dark I'm cozy I'm full of objects and and it's not describing itself it's describing the The Walls Within which it seems to be contained but if we said to it no don't tell us about the walls and the objects and the people look tell us about yourself we want to know about the nature of yourself the space would so to speak look at itself taste itself become aware of itself and

if if it were then to describe its quality it would never say I'm small I'm dark I'm limited it would just say I am vast I Am Without Limits I am boundless the space hasn't become boundless as a result of doing this it it was always that it just mistaken the ident divide itself with the Four Walls Within which it seems to be contained and just one clear look at itself liberate it not from its limitations that it it was never Limited in the first place it liberated it from the belief that it was limited

so instead of this face now feeling feeling I am I'm confined I'm limited I'm a fragment I need something I'm incomplete and so on this Bas now feels I'm I'm I'm whole I'm I'm perfect I'm complete I need nothing okay that's the analogy so let's go back to our to our experience try to make yeah contact with this in in our experience leave the analogy of this vast bandless space go go to the analogy of being consider one being whole W Without Borders um unlimited infinite a single being like like the single space and then

and now consider the single being and temporarily enclosed within the within the body mind and um mixed with the the content of our experience by content of our experience I mean thoughts and feelings Sensations on the inside and perceptions of the world on the outside so our sense of our self is a mixture of of the fundamental being or being aware or awareness itself plus the contents of exper erience so I would suggest that our being is like the space it's fundamentally unlimited and this is easy to check in one's experience we we could perhaps

go there later it's it's easy to check in one's experience that one's being is is Without Limits it has no it has no shape no size no gender no color no no Age and and and so on but in in each of us our being our essential self is is mixed with our experience with our thoughts feelings Sensations and perceptions so we don't experience ourself as as this complete inherently peaceful whole being we experience oursel as a being that is limited temporary finite and therefore lacking because we're a fragment we we feel incomplete this mixture

of infinite being plus the contents of experience makes for a a finite being like the space in this room seems to be a finite space so although infinite being is is is whole it it lacks nothing so it's it the common name for the absence of the sense of lack is is happiness it's com it's complete it seeks nothing it needs nothing it's in a state of equilibrium sufficiency plenitude but when our sense of ourself the fact of being or awareness itself is is mixed with the content of experience mixed with our thought thoughts and

feelings it seems to acquire limits I no longer feel that I am this inherently free inherently peaceful unconditionally unconditionally fulfilled being or or awareness I feel that I am a temporary finite self that is made part partly of of being or awareness and partly of the content of experience that the body and the mind and so we feel we're a fragment and as a fragment we feel I'm missing something so this sense of missing something and theend and longing to find something is is the core feeling of the separate self that we seem to be

it's the it's the one feeling that defines the the Apparently separate self this feeling I'm inm complete I lack something and therefore in response to that feeling of lack all separate selves all apparently temporary finite selves are motivated by one thing to to be completed to be whole again because because in the memory deep in the memory deep in the hearts of All Temporary fin nightelves that there is this memory of of of our of our essential nature this memory of our eternity this memory of our innate happiness but but it's been it's been veiled

our innate happiness has been veiled by the content of experience and therefore everyone is longing now to begin with in life we we try to relieve this longing through the acquisition of objects substances activities relationships and and and and so on and what for many people I I suspect for many of your listeners when most people at least many people that they they they've been failed often enough by the world the world has has failed to produce the happiness they seek often enough they begin to suspect that happiness can't be found in the conventional world

and then we start on a great spiritual search we Rebrand the search for happiness in the world that the search for enlightenment but it's just the same thing it's just it's just a rebranding of the same longing for for something only now what we're longing for is a little bit more more refined and the objects or activities in which we seek it are a little bit more refined than the objects and activities that we used to seek it in the world it's no longer substances and and and so it's um meditation practices and and teachers

and and teachings and traditions and and disciplines and and so on but they're all in effect um activities of the mind that we engage in for a one a soul purpose bringing to an end this longing this existential longing that lives in each of our hearts We Now call it the longing for enlightenment for in a religious tradition we call it the longing for God but it's all the longing for for something something that's going to put an end to this this unbearable longing the dissolution of a separate self yes so the the most if

not all the I would say all the great spiritual and religious traditions in one way or another say that what we really what we're really seeking is not an object however refined and Noble that object maybe it it's it's within oursel and for this reason all the the religious and spiritual Traditions have elaborated numerous different Pathways basically to to to come back to the recognition of the nature of our being because when we recognize the the nature of our being we we like like the space in this room recognizing its essential nature it it recognized

that it is already free it is already whole it is already perfect it is already complete and it is that recognition that brings to an end this unbearable longing so that that is why in in one way or another all the religious spiritual Traditions say know thyself it's only that self- knowledge that will um put an end to to this to this longing for people that don't know what is the meaning crisis and can you share some stats and some context for just how bad it currently is on the planet right now so when people

talk about whether or not their lives are meaningful they're using meaning as a metaphor it's like the meaning of a sentence sentences are meaningful you like if I say that doesn't mean anything to you right uh but if I say there's a cat on the mat that means something no what what what goes into that if we if we if we slowly unpack the metaphor we can get a sense of what people are gesturing to with the metaphor so think about how all the words cohere together they cohere together right they make sense together and

what they do is they connect you to the world with the possibility of Truth it could be true that the cat is on the mat and then you're connected to reality so there's this coherence there's connectedness and the sentence signifies the world to you in a certain way makes the world significant to you in a certain way now if you look at all the work in in and I do cuz um in the psychology of meaning in life not the meaning of life the meaning of of life is some metaphysical proposal we're talking about a

cognitive psychological phenomena the meaning in life this is what people are talking about when they say even though my life has been filled with frustration and failure and betrayal and guilt and shame I still want to keep going because my life is Meaningful okay and and we can maybe talk a little bit later about it's not the same thing as subjec of well-being or Mastery of one's environment so if you take a look at the four there's four features of meaning in life one is coherence what people mean is there's something like the structure of

their experience that's like the coherence of a sentence well what does that mean well it co coherence is the opposite of absurdity absurdity is when you have two perspectives that are clashing so that one undermines the other so here we are you and I we're in this this little perspective we're here on the and we're doing all this stuff and it's also so meaningful and then I get you to zoom out to the entire universe the cosmic perspective and from that perspective our little lives could seem insignificant right we they could seem absurd there's a

clash now before that gets too dark realize that we have a way of dealing with potential absurdity between perspectives and reconciling it with an Insight so we already have a sense of humor that's what humor is humor is when there's a clash between perspectives and then you get an Insight that reconciles it so just to hold that out so people don't IM because when I sometimes say that that's kind of a dark thing to say okay so you want that the next is right when I said the cat is on the map it oriented you

it made you look in a particular direction gave you a focus so the the next factor is called purpose but the problem I don't like that term because our our culture is all about purpose and we think of purpose as some end goal state of something we have to have some status some power I got to get to got to fulfill my purpose the problem with that is if you and I I realized this in high school and I went around writing there is no purpose because I realized even then before I saw any of

this research that doesn't work because if you never get it your life was meaningless and once you get it and once you've got your thing your purpose then your life becomes meaningless so don't think about purpose that way think about it as orientation you need a North star something that orients you helps you consistently Focus helps you navigate and track through reality and narrate and keep track of how you're tracking through reality it's an orientation that allows you to narrate and navigate that's what you need the next is significance like the sentence it has to

right things have to be sign you have to have a lot of significance things have you have to have things that seem very real deep not ephemeral superficial to you okay and then finally and turns out most importantly is mattering mattering matters the most mattering is a sense of being uh connected to something I'm going to put in scare quotes because it's another metaphor we have to unpack something bigger than yourself but this goes back to what I pointed out about Plato we want to be connected to something that's really real so this these are

the three questions to ask yourself to see if you have mattering what do you want to exist even if you don't what do you want to exist even if you don't that's right got it how really real is it mhm is it not virtual not ephemeral not superficial how how how much of it how connected are you how much do you matter to it and how much of a difference does it make to you MH how significant so mattering and significant are turning out to actually be two sides of the same the same connectedness I

use the ancient word religio for that sense of connectedness so I'm basically asking you do you have relio is it connected to something that's really real and so much so that you care about it beyond your egocentric concerns those are the three questions now a prototypical answer that people give and it's a right one is well my kids and you know Elizabeth olfield like these your the kids are sacred in that sense sacred is something you wouldn't exchange no matter how much money somebody was willing to give you for it okay so well do you

want your kids to exist when you don't well yeah that's the whole project of course I want them to exist when I and I'm trying to make the world a better place for them so when I'm not here they will flourish right are they really real well if you aspire to being a good parent they're way more important than you and they're really real I mean having a child is one of the best ways to turn the arrow of egocentrism out to something other than yourself you're let you you come to this Stark realization I

wow that being is more important than me right and if I and if I don't live that that child will die right it like I remember that having those moments and they're almost terrifying right and then do I matter to my kids I long to matter to my kids I long to make a difference in their life and they're super significant to me and so right kids are a typical answer of that um now here's one thing and then I'll shut up so you can reply right when you have a kid all the measures of

subjective well-being that sort of I feel really good about myself the thing that shows up in beer commercials and I feel really good I'm good I'm happy I'm good yeah yeah yeah that all of that goes away when you have a kid you're sleep deprived you're not eating it's like being in a shipwreck uh you're wet all the time for some reason right uh there's alarms going off that's the kid crying the person you thought loved you most in the world your partner doesn't like you anymore right and you're getting sick all the time why

do people do it the subjective well-being is collapsing their finances are going down kids are wickedly expensive so those are the two things were supposed to be wealth and subjective well-being they collapse what goes up that more than compensates for the collapse in wealth and subjective well-being meaning in life and that's what's at risk in the meaning crisis so many people on the planet are like bystanders to their life and they basically live as a reaction to circumstances or situations people places and events to consciously and we're at the stage of our unfoldment where we

must consciously participate in our own unfolding we have what I you know we're made in the image and likeness of God what that means to me I mean God is formless it's a presence it's a love it's Beauty it's not like a man somewhere but what that means to be made in the image and like this it means you have the capacity to think independent of circumstances so you actually can pull your attention away from circumstances and have a new thought an inspiration so to consciously participate in your own unfolding means that you can actually

um participate in this evolutionary urge that's within you and set it free and become better versions of yourself you don't have to wait for a circumstance to change or another person to change or you don't have to wait for a government to change you can actually participate in your own unfolding and that's where we are as a species to participate at that level rather than to wait to see what's going to happen it feels like more now than ever Society pulls us into a slumber cuz we have so much more comfort and convenience than ever

before which is beautiful would you say that there's more things you have to guard yourself now to be able to really be in the participation of paying attention to how your life wants to unfold in that way yeah it's a it's a combination one there's a lot of distractions you know the world is full of distractions and also I believe we on the verge of of more Awakening it's happening now so on one level it's more difficult because of distractions but on another level it's easier because you have more and more people that are articulating

some way shape form or another that you can participate in your own growth I mean you go back 30 40 years ago uh you talk some of the things I was teaching was woo woo now it's science you know so so because of that vibrational foot of so many people participating meditation life visioning yoga Chiang you know so many different things that that's creating a um a vibrational footprint for more people to to come into that frequency so in one level it's difficult because of the crisis we're facing on another level it's easier because there's

so many more people involved now how do you see the process then of us habituating into our smallness if there's this infinite light within us that wants to express exess creatively in service to the world but we have these ideologies dogmas belief that shrink us down into a mold that is conforming to society or fits the economic machine but that you know holds that light in uh how do you see that happening and how do we guard ourselves from from that continuing to happen I think when you look at um the propaganda you look at

the media which is like nefarious hypnotism the whole media and this is with all governments pretty much is to shrink people into being cons consumers pretty much and to fit into a mold that can be controlled so once you know it and you see it you see it operating that it has less power over you but people unconsciously like to conform they they don't they don't want to be outliers you see so they'll conform into a kind of a group think about a particular thing you know Nations will think alike you know for two degree

and now we're in great polarization which I think is kind of good for the evolution of this species but um so we have nefarious hypnotism that's trying to get to habituate us into those smaller versions of oursel but once an individual establish an intention and their main attention intention is to become I want to grow I want to be a greater version of myself I want to contribute to the planet when an individual establishes that kind of intention they become available to inspiration they become available to guidance they become available to wisdom from their soul

that comes in in a language and in a way that they can understand and begin to act upon now interestingly enough most people come through that door through a crisis of some kind you know many people come through it like inside they'll have an aha moment a sator oh my God you know but many people uh come through it because they're sick and tired of their life you know and then they become available but you you are correct people become uh habituated to their limited self habits are good if in fact it's a habit for

transformation but just runof-the-mill habits keep people small yeah I remember one of the first impactful audios that I listened to was by Earl Nightingale which is The Strangest Secret that talks about how the opposite of Courage is not cowardice but Conformity and living in a society where it's so easy to conform and it's painful to stand out in many different ways it's upon us more now than ever to happen have an intention and vision for our life and I really love how you speak to that intention deficit disorder that absolutely well that's where many people

live people will wake up in the morning and they really don't have an intention you know they're just going to react to whatever is going on at the office whatever's going on with traffic whatever's going on but without an intention you know you're just kind of being buffered around by the world so most people I like to use the word most but in this case so many people walking asleep that have an intention deficit disorder and until a crisis happens then they say well I should have had a V8 I should have been doing something

else but yeah we want to establish an intentional life you know you want you want to wake up with intention you want to be specific about your intention you know whether it's the healing of your body whether it's what gift you're going to give to the planet how can I activate the gifts that are within me and share them you have to have an intention above and beyond consumerism and and just buying stuff that's going to be in the landfill in 10 20 years now anyway is be the soul has such infinite capacities and we

want to set that free and uh it's the only way to fly for Bliss and joy and ecstasy actually yeah it's kind of interesting to flip it on its head when so much of us and I fall pray to this at times to like live in a future-based proposition thinking that when I get something or if I get something then I'll be happy one day you know or it'll it there's going to be some sort of experience or sensation or feeling of joy that is going to be lasting once something happens right and it's just

so so much so the opposite right so can you speak about flipping it on its head that if you can embody the uh the energy and emotion in vibration and feel attuned to that that is the that is the pull that is the magnet that is going to draw it to you that that is the inner work you're not going to be happy when you establish the joy and the happiness now is the frequency you live in that and then two things happen that which you're holding for can manifest but generally speaking it's generally bigger

than what you're holding in in the field because it's beyond your present Paradigm so it's beyond your the imaginal realm your you're your holding because there's more good that we can't even see because we can only see from the Paradigm we're living in so if I if I hold a state of gratitude and Thanksgiving now I degree of Happiness degree of Joy then outside where all the blessings are all the good is outside of my Paradigm I get to be shocked and surprised by the opportunities that show up for me so but you're right so

many people live you know when I get this when I get that I'll be happy uh you're happy for a minute you know you get a new car you're happy until the smell changes you know I'm saying it's all temp it's counterfeit temporary happiness but you can actually sit and actually strike the Mystic cord of memory or imagination and feel a degree of Happiness a degree of joy you can feel that frequency and then train yourself to hang in there you know while you're doing what you're called to do in the world and then that

vibration will reveal itself as doors opening it will reveal itself as blessings and gifts and things of that particular nature it's all vibration you see so it's not you're not just attracting something to you you're actually in resonance with it and then that field of resonance allows for radiation to take place you're radiant and then there's emergence so it goes attraction resonance radiation emergence the law of attraction is a is a uh um linguistic convenience for resonance and so if you hold the resonant tone you start to radiate so you're not attracting you're actually radiating

the answer vibrationally and then after then something emerges you become a condition for the emergence of good the same way that that if you plant a seed in the ground and the conditions are right the seed doesn't attract a rose bush the rose bush emerges from the seed so in the same way we have infinite potential infinite possibilities within us and as the right condition happens then the next level of us emerges from that it's it's already here it's not out there it's here it's right here it emerges from us and people will say oh

you you attracted some good stuff yeah but it was in here it just became visible you see it's me becoming more me and then because I'm living in this dimension of time and space it condenses itself and shows up it's form you see slowed down vibration yeah it feels like there's so much power in the Detachment from that preference because I think the Western mind can really love to latch on to what we're talking about here as a tactic to get things instead of if I source and realize that I am you know the source

of my own joy and happiness and kindness and Grace and inv viive these virtues then I've I've become successful in that way because it doesn't really matter I guess what what the external circumstance an Es are as much because you've you've anchored that within your own being yeah it's just easy to to view it as a tactic to get things versus like no you you got what you want which is the feeling behind the thing in the first place right and then the things will show up right but they may be better than what you

even imagine that's what I always it'll be legitimate like there's legitimate needs and there just things that we want right and there's nothing wrong with that it's not you know it's not not going to go to hell because you want things you know such but but you don't get fluttered with with illegitimate needs it's not necessary you know have the best of whatever you can get and and but your happiness as you said is already here you see and this has been proven by many people who've been in dire situations and they had an attitude

of Joy even though they were in horrific situations and then when they got out of that horrific situation they realize they determined their own attitude and and that carry them further in life it feels like the desires or dreams that we have can only be recombination of our past memories so like you know if I had a certain car I want a really nice car or if I had an experience of certain you know circumstances happen it's always informing what our dreams possibly are and I just really love the understanding of if you're going to

live in the surprise and Mystery of Life in the beauty and joy of how it's going to unfold then it has to unfold greater than you could imagine absolutely you reenchant the imagination so it doesn't get in your way but you but the the the the really great stuff is beyond your imagination when I look at a lot of the things I've had the privilege of being a part of for the last number of years none of those things are on my vision board all the stuff some of the great things I've had an opportunity

and the great people I've had an opportunity to work with it wasn't I didn't I didn't imagine that but it came as an outp picturing of who I was and the gift I wanted to share and how I wanted to be in the world I look back on it say wow that was really beautiful that was fantastic but I didn't even know that existed you know I didn't even know I could hang out with the dolly llama or something you know what I mean and we kick it and work with them three or four or

five times you know or calls me and say I need you to be an aspen can you come today okay sure you know I mean that was never a part of you know a vision board but it was a part of my life you know yeah this it's some good stuff here so the um you were saying something about the uh being affected by your past experience you know and we want to live in a place where we're catching ideas from the ideas sphere but that's also within us this is why I teach people to

to ask what is it that's trying to emerge through Us in the vision process just ask and then your spiritual faculty would get ignited and the universe answers every question you ask but you you and you'll start to get parts of yourself that want to be set free you'll you'll hear it differently you'll hear it with your awareness you know and you can trust it you can you can trust your soul hardwired into me is this idea this false idea that that my value and my uh deservedness to be loved is inextricably linked to my

ability to produce or achieve right and I will be my own harshest critic like I have a drive to do better and do more and all of these things but what's behind that what is the wound that lives underneath that that's creating that propulsion and I think it's a lack of self-acceptance and this false idol which is that the opinion of strangers and the Val external validations um get mistaken for love and there's a sense of of inherent unlovability for for who I am just as a human being that is overcome only through achievement and

accomplishment and that delusion can be a powerful motor that can get you to achieve things in the world but ultimately at some point um you realize like that that is separating you not only from other people but from a compassionate relationship with yourself so I'm very active and trying to cultivate self-love and it feels indulgent it feels undeserved it feel you know it's like the only way that you overcome that is through actions on behalf of yourself to honor that right so as uncomfortable as it is to say like I'm really proud of the fact

that I have amazing relationships with my kids and that I've been in a loving marriage for we've been together for coming up on like 24 years at this point like I'm really proud of that and it was a lot of work um but I deserve it because I worked hard for it and I am deserving of receiving their love as well which I probably couldn't say out loud like not that long ago because it felt indulgent or or unearned you know yeah and you sharing that it both feels like an acknowledgement and also reminder to

yourself yeah it's a practice Yeah because you have to overcome that default setting or that wiring through contrary action especially in a society and culture that often celebrates the most high Achievers being fueled by that not enoughness that we were talking to and so it's like and and anything and and the self-love is is uh is an antagonist to that like what would happen if I love myself and I muted that motor then my whole life would collapse so it's very threatening and confronting because it's our wounds that we that we um misinterpret as superpowers

and a distrust of the greater superpower that um resides on the other side of overcoming those Character defects or those wounds or those traumas I feel like as you start to awaken to more of your true nature and you start to tap into the intelligence of your heart you start to find regulation in your nervous system at a baseline level like you start to find more ease in your system there is a whole different place in from which you're you're manifesting your reality in terms of your Career Success your finances your relationship everything and I

would just love for you to speak to that how the more we tap into the heart and as we go kind of up through these stages of you know stages of Consciousness essentially uh the place in which we attract things people places and opportunities radically changes so it's funny like when you go on a hike right Andre just imagine all any of us going on a hike or a walk you can only see what you can see right so at the bottom of the hike you see the parking lot or you see kind of like

the little shrubs I'm thinking about in California where we live and then then as you start to go along the Walk The View changes right this is sort of like I think about the Awakening the heart and the five heart stages your perceptions of life radically change so it's like you're living in a different reality and so because you're in a different reality because you are different you also start to change your life so I'll give you more concrete example when I think about the periods when I was in the dark heart I think about

how hard life seened and the only little lift I could get would be you know I used to drink quite heavily and have these partying times I also think about the relationships that I was in um because there was so much fear I chose really nice but really safe guys that loved me a lot more than I loved them because there was a fear of Abandonment from my childhood so I didn't want to be you know abandoned so the fear predominated so that's what I was creating in my life and it was also so just

um you could just see there's limitations in my work and what I was creating and then when a lot of my life to be honest was in the propelled heart you know perfectionism always needing to be number one in the class and always needing to get more and more and the planning and everything and then it's like there's so little peace at this stage for most of us it's like these little ups and downs the dope and mean rushes like oh look how many people loved this post or this thing did really well but then

there's the big downs we let the UPS in we let the Downs in like oh like this didn't do as well as I wanted or you know this person didn't ask me out a second date on you know whatever Bumble or whatever dating app you're on um and so the relationships I chose in that stage were fitting into the plan like my ex right we knew the same people we went to the same events it was like all so you know fun and fancy it just kind of fit in but there wasn't that deep connection

there was this still trying to fill there wasn't that fulfillment right and so um we see it in our lives play out and so as we start to go into the steady heart and beyond your life really does radically change in a way that you can't see yet from the earlier Fields um another thing I think maybe we may mention before we go into the other heart Fields is the um the Heartfield can I show you here in the book Onre we still have the um the galley here so this was one of the first

ways I started to learn about the power of the heart and um you know for anyone struggling we start to realize we put it on screen yeah there is um even right now when we're sitting there's a Taurus field coming out of the heart and it's going beyond our skin where we think we end 8 to 10 feet and it's going out and around and it's 100 times stronger than the brain so what's really amazing about this heart Awakening work and we talk about coherence it means your person personal field becomes more harmonious and strong

this literally means Andre from a scientific perspective that you become more magnetic so it means people start to come to you like hey you know what are you up to you're just I don't know how can I help you I want to be part of what you're doing you know just things naturally start to come more coincidence synchronicities synchronicities I talk about the you know when I was in a clear heart Moment In the book I talk about how I ran into deepo Chopra on the street after he had reviewed one of my books but

I had never met him in person and from that one meeting we met for coffee we decided to write a book together which later became a New York Times bestseller these are things that the mind can't plan energy doesn't lie so when you're in the dark heart and the propelled heart and you're just feeling like you're hustling all the time and that you can't quite get to that success that you want you're not meeting the right partner you really want a family you really want love you start to work on this incredible heart resonance this

intelligence inside of you and then all of a sudden things start to shift and change on the outside and this has been my personal experience this has been the experience of all the people I've been bringing this to it's so amazing Andre because again the perception from the dark and the propelled heart is like got to work harder more you know self-help books more motivational talks like just more stuff versus oh there's this energy that I can start to work with inside of me I love the dawa saying the master does not nothing yet leaves

nothing undone and it's one of my favorite texts yeah and it's it's really arriving at that place as you start to race through through these different stages you do experience more coincidence synchronicity bumping into people on the street and you go from The Logical intellectual planning of your whole life to uh really allowing yourself to be surprised by something greater than you could dream of and that's a really beautiful place to be because your perceptions change as your heart awakens your thought change and that also means incredible creativity and incredible this creative power awakens which

leads you to inspired action so it's not that you sit back and you're like oh my heart's awakened everything's going to come to me what it does mean is that you start to do things in a very different way you don't have to go about the same arduous uphill like the mind is very step by step I have to do this then I'm going to be promoted to this stage or I have to go on 50 dates statistically before I meet my partner whatever is the heart is nonlinear and dynamic there is a force that

comes through so the other thing Andre in our culture in the Western World in general there's this idea of like you know this is where a lot of the you know motivational thinking talks and programs comes from which can be helpful for some people but it's often like I have to awaken you know me like you know the movies like The U the Diehard movies it's like I have the power I woke up like I can save the planet or like I can save the building it's like me my power whereas The Awakening heart starts

to realize more and more the clear heart that there's a power moving through me right the da is like allowing this force to move through you so it's nonspecific and it's not personal there's more ego in it like oh I'm so awakened I'm so enlighten me me me versus we're all in this this is moving through me that heart field that I show do it's like oh I'm tapping into a different energy field so it's not like oh I'm the source of these Miracles and synchronicities it's that we're operating at a different frequency where things

like that tend to happen for anyone who chooses to operate at that frequency so we can all tap in and that's what's really exciting about this work as well we all at different points in our life and we surely know people that set out to become an actor and it's not working out or they're looking for this relationship and they're really driving and it's not working out and whatever the thing is we're trying to go after that we want right um and it's not working out I want to reflect on that just a little bit

more because it's tough when things aren't working out the way we want it we want things to work out how we want them to that's part of the problem um and the Trust In The Unknown in the uncertainty is a beautiful place to arrive to often difficult to to work our way through um and and I think in the face of that uncertainty it it can be tough to navigate when is it time to double down or when is the time to let go in the process of going after what I want to go after

and I think the place we're coming from when we ask those questions and formed that decision a lot and when we're actually in the in place of surrender and we've let go our ego egoic imperative of of what we what we say we want from life and then we're like okay but then there's still a part of us that kind of expects it I feel like in the depth of the expectation of what's going to come in can something new be born out of that experience right but when we say we've surrendered and let go

and then you're like okay but like now that I've surrendered like where is that thing see that it's like this fake surrender and there's real surrender right fake surrender is like and we've all done this right let just bust I've done it we've all done it we all do it in some ways but this can just bust yourself forever right surrender is like when you say okay I know I need to let this relationship go as an example I know I need to let this thing go and you know there let it go so that

it comes back to you so I'm going to I'm going to let this go but I really like so that so that they come back to me so there still is this part of you that is attached to some version of an outcome that is still based on your identity whatever you manifest and create from your sense of ego identity will be limited because the ego is conditioned from past experience so it it doesn't see the totality of life so fake surrender is when you say okay I I'll surrender so in order that so that

I can get the gold so that XYZ happens so there still is a kind of attachment or limited expectation in the surrender fake surrender real surrender is different real surrender is when you you know you know that something needs to shift you know that if you're honest yes it's terrifying yes it's scary but I need to let this go like if I'm honest if I put money concerns aside if I put what people will say aside if I put everything aside in my soul yes I need to let go if you feel that real surrender

is the willingness to follow that impulse to follow that directive without any future projection analysis of what might or what may not happen when you surrender well if I Surrender maybe this way if I Surrender maybe it's like I know I need to let go this is the guidance I'm given and if I'm honest and don't BS myself yes let go true and real surrender is the willingness to follow that without any projection into the future of any possibility because what I have found is whatever you project into the future will likely be a projection

of your ego mind and that creates a certain limitation on the on the on the flow of the infinite intelligence and many of us we are because we can only see so much with the ego perception and now we set our goals and then we get attached to the goals based on our limited ego perception I'm going to Manifest this it's going to be that it's going to be that if I Surrender that but many of us don't realize that we are trying to manifest peanuts I really want this peanut Andre I want this peanut

this Peanut's amazing I'm going to visualize this peanut give me this peanut you open my pineal gland and see this Peanut the PE it's going to be the peanut we don't realize it's still a freaking peanut and maybe like we're so attached to what we think should be and how we think things should be this little peanut the peanut could be a relationship the peanut could be a career the peanut could be a business partner the peanut could be you know the way you think your career is going to go when life is actually trying

to bless you with so much grace give you a peanut factory and buff a buffet right of a peanut factory or a buffet but we're not open to the buffet because we're so attached to the freaking peanut because the peanut is all that we know and all that we believe so look I'm not saying it's not helpful to set a goal set the goal all I'm saying is move from goal setting to Soul setting have a shift open to the deeper impulse align with that deeper impulse set the goal that feels most authentic Go 100%

go all in with the vision go all in surrender isn't just well I just sit back lay on the beach meditate all day and it's just going to show up on my doorstep that's not how it happens right you go all in with what you feel is most true this is what's most true this is what lights me up this is what sets me on fire and it's not because my parents want it or my my friends want it or the religion want it it's just the this is what is my truth in my soul

go all in on that but don't attach to the outcome and don't attach to the pathway and don't attach to how you think it's going to manifest and how you think it's going to look because sometimes the goal that we have which is based on our current level of Consciousness in a given moment the goal that we have is sometimes really the cosmic carrot that that takes us on a journey the real purpose of a goal is not simply for the manifestation of the goal the real purpose of a goal and the process of manifestation

is not simply for the manifestation itself the real purpose of a goal and manifestation is for the process and the journey that the pursuit of the goal takes you on who you're becoming in that who you're going to be forced to evolve into the lessons that you're going to be forced to learn and who you're going to become in the process of the Journey of that goal that is the real purpose The evolutionary purpose of the goal so you can say any real real goal any I don't say good goal but any real goal will

take you on a journey and force you to evolve beyond your current level of Consciousness and any real goal that you are guided to do when you're following your soul most of the time you will have no idea how the hell you're going to manifest it because it will be beyond your current ego's capacity of manifestation and so many times here's what I found we we we we ask ourselves this bigger question okay what is life seeking to express through me and then maybe we're giving the guidance and many times the intuition that we're given

intuition which is the unconditioned energy of our beingness that flows through us in into conscious awareness right this intuitive energy the energy of intelligence often does not make sense to your conscious mind it is what do that go here go to Brazil do that launch a podcast what that why I'm not qualified what and so what happens is the mind the ego kicks in and starts to like question like what do you mean and how is this going to happen and and and when and how and so the ego starts kicking in trying to understand

this intuitive Guidance with logic and that that over an analysis to try to understand it which is really a strategy to try to have some control ends up blocking the true flow from happening fully and so what I would really encourage is that when you feel this flow when you feel this intuitive nudging you don't have to know where you're going you don't have to know anything but if you simply say yes to the most authentic impulse and you take a step and you follow it and then you go all in as I've been saying

without attachment to the outcome you will find that life will guide you and life will reveal to you exactly what you need for your higher Soul's growth and evolution in the process of living life as young says until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate yes yes exactly he says until until you meet the the unconscious will meet you on the outside and the events of your life until you meet it on the inside and you will call it fate it'll meet you on the outside in

the events of your life and you will call it Fate In other words you'll always think shit's happening to you instead of realizing you're actually generating this by being unconscious and so that's when I say the pain teacher comes to wake you up right and that it's really important to examine where our Neurosis are because those are the kind of the doorways into perceiving what our behavioral compensations are because of the psychic stress that we haven't fully dealt with that's the pain teacher so the the you know the pain teacher is really the soul saying

You must take responsibility for what you're creating because ultimately you're God embodied and you have all that power in you I mean for a lot of people well that's hard to comprehend but when you look at what we can create when we're really living to our potential I mean we have examples all around us Mozart Da Vinci Michelangelo all you know you know we all know when we're watching an actor or a musician that's in Soul we feel it like you know because you cannot tell the difference between who the person is and who they're

acting you know when you see uh a great singer on stage for which I you know could give many names but some of the ones that come to me are people like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder or Carol King or you know I'm showing you how old I am now um you know Michael Jackson I mean you you know there's no question that that that was a man who who expressed himself from his soul cuz it moves you so deeply because you're seeing the potential that lives in you not realizing that is in you you

project it onto somebody else and when you think of all the great Geniuses you know like look we got airplanes from human beings having these ideas we've got everything around us Steve Jobs and the cell phone I mean whoever you want to attribute that you Tesla I mean the list is so long these are people that were in sold they were in their genius and and My Philosophy and in my experience every single soul carries a piece of the grand puzzle that is important for helping us realize our potential and realize who and what we

really are and to the degree you transcend those structur stages of Consciousness and do not include them you limit the likelihood of ever finding the genius within yourself and coming to know thyself because you are dropping aspects of perception that are absolutely necessary to perceive wholeness and your Genius is an expression of wholeness it's an expression of the Divine it's expression of the entire Cosmos in fact none of us could be here without the entire Cosmos when people tell me they're alone and they feel isolated I'm like you you you you really need to spend

some time asking yourself what did it take to create you and what does it take to sustain you you breathe 25,900 breaths a day it came from outside of you you drink water you have to it came from outside of you and that water is all over the universe and it's probably been around for millions and millions of years you're You're Made Of about 100 trillion cells depending on Whose book you read 50 to 100 trillion and each one of them is made of 100 trillion atoms and somehow it's all dancing and those atoms have

been around for billions of years you eat food that comes from outside you without which you wouldn't exist every cell in your body based on science turns over every year so the Andre here is a completely different Andre physically than he was a year ago and you say okay where' that come from well it came from the periodic table let's say where did that come from well some of it came from the earth some of it came from the Sun most people believe that the Earth came out of the sun you said where the where

did the elements there come from well they came from other stars where does that end it goes through the whole universe so when you track back what you are as a physical body you it takes the entire universe to create every one of us and we're constantly breathing each other we're we're we're we're breathing air you know there's scientific evaluations saying you probably have X number of molecules from the Buddha in you right now and atoms I mean like we are all each other and we're all the whole the whole thing is playing this beautiful

game of individuality because each one of us is carrying a piece of the puzzle that is absolutely essential and if we don't engage that process of cultivating our genius then we walk around feeling empty all the time we walk around feeling hungry we walk around feeling that we don't fit in or that we're unwanted or we're unneeded or we're not valued and all of that is the pain teacher saying hey you're looking in the wrong place quit doing what everybody else wants you to do quit doing what you think you have to do for money

because who cares about all your money if it's not filling you with love you're going to spend all that money trying to medicate the pain teacher and so I think the pain teacher is the soul coming to say you're moving in the wrong direction it's kind of like a GPS if you're with the wrong person in relationship the GPS starts buzzing you're you're going right when you should be going left if you're doing what you're doing for money but it's not making you happy the GPS is wrong direction it's going to cause pain if you're

drinking more coffee or doing more drugs then you can integrate and use effect effectively the GPS goes off and the Soul says hey I'm one of the realities of being who and what we are as an expression of the Divine we have to take responsibility for what we create God's got nobody to blame and so neither do we and so the the Paradox of it all is that we have this built-in guidance system and unfortunately unfortunately a lot of religious teachings um knock knock your awareness of that system out and so you get caught in

shame and guilt and sin and all this stuff and not realize that a lot of what you're feeling is just the heart saying you're going in the wrong direction and so ultimately I think back to your first question is we're all here to create together as a family as a human family and we're here to create Beauty good truth and we're here to give the genius of ourselves to each other because every time I pass my genius on to you or your Genius on to me we each carry a little bit more genius and when

I get to experience Andre's genius or Zack Bush's genius or Ken Wilbur's genius or Houston Smith's genius or an amazing chemist genius or you know um Bruce lipton's Genius of epigenetics every time all of a sudden I I see more and more and I see more of myself and I feel more amazed by all these people and more connected to them and I see the genius of the Animal Kingdom and The Genius of the birds and and all of a sudden I progressively go oh my God this is a freaking Miracle this is this is

absolutely mind-bogglingly beautiful and stunning but to the degree that we transcend without including we cannot see the genius in ourselves and we can't see the genius in each other and so we keep creating more and more of what we don't want which ultimately just leads to you know as roomie says the function of a broken heart is to let your love pour out so the question is how broken do we have to get to get the love to pour out when legitimate spiritual teachings is a path to making love every day and to the degree

that you live a life like obviously you love what you're doing your whole environment is saturated with this is me and this is who I am and this is why I'm here I mean it's it's pouring through the walls right if I put you in someone else's studio and said now do your thing you would feel like you're wearing the wrong underwear or the wrong shoes you like I can't this is not a reflection of my being right your your environment is the physical manifestation of your mind I am sitting inside of your mind and

it's beautiful and that's see that's what we give to each other this balance between talent and work ethic what's the balance between the two and finding success in your creative expression um I'm I'm a great believer that work is everything yeah you know um particularly for for a writer because your writer has a has a long career you know you can be 70 years old 80 years old still working you know um and uh uh you know I've said this before that like for 30 years well now people tell me that I have talent but

for 30 years they told me I was a bum you know and I was a bum because I hadn't learned how to do it you know I didn't have the confidence I hadn't found a voice or anything like that so work I think is you have to have obviously you have to have some talent but work is 90% of it I think you can get better that's the good news you know no matter how bad a first draft is the ninth draft can be really good or no matter how bad you were when you're 26

when you're 46 you could be really good you know where you look back at what you wrote at 206 this is dog [ __ ] you know but I'm not doing that anymore I've learned and I can do better so um the the good news for anybody that's struggling I think is that work does pay off you can get better um you can learn more you can improve yeah to me it feels very sad of you know there's that one quote of like the richest place on Earth is the graveyard all the people's die dreams

you know that that weren't expressed that go there and I want to speak a little bit more into resistance with the capital r and its manifestations because part of that creative expression unlocking and you know being surprised by yourself one of the struggles I find you know personally sometimes and often you know with a lot of people in the creative process is because we live in a world of infinite distractions procrastination is very easy and so I would just love for you to share as you know how how to overcome procrastination as you know resistance

to just putting her butt in the seat and writing or whatever people's Creative Expressions are because I don't know how many people listening to the show right now are writers but we all use our Creative Energy in some capacity right well you know the like the whole subject matter of the war of art my book The War of art is about uh what I call resistance with the capital r which is that uh that voice in our head that tells us you know we're not good enough our idea isn't good enough we're too old we're

too young we're too fat we're too thin we went to school too blah blah blah uh and the other aspect of that is procrastination the susceptibility to distraction going down rabbit holes and you know clickbait and stuff like that and other things like perfectionism where we'll spend all day working on on one paragraph instead of moving forward and there's a million ways that our our our our ego will sabotage us you know and to me job one of any creative person is to is to acknowledge that that is you know there is an enemy and

the enemy is you you know the enemy is me it's in it's in us it's there the minute we wake up in the morning it's a dragon we have to slay every morning before we even sit down to work work is that's easy compared with uh like in the war of art it says something like there's a secret that real writers know that WN toe writers don't know and the secret is this it's the writing is not the hard part what's hard is sitting down to write and I believe that completely if you and what

we all have to do in our own way and everybody does it differently is find some way to slay this Dragon every morning to to be able to work obviously if you can't work you can't do anything but um the first step to that in my opinion is recognizing that there is this negative Force you know you sit down at the blank page and it radiates off that blank page right you know let's go to the beach you know let's smoke a joint let's whatever right something that that the resistance is always trying to stop

us from doing our work so if we can believe that accept it feel it inside us then we can overcome it we can dismiss it and just say well [ __ ] I'm just going to sit down and do my work and it's to me it's like jumping into a cold pool it's hard when you're standing on the edge but once you're in the water in other words once you start writing or dancing or doing whatever it is you're going to do then you know that fear goes away and fear is a huge part of

it too Andre right it's like fear of success fear of failure fear of destitution fear of embarrassing yourself fear of looking like an idiot and somehow we all have to get past that you know that I don't give a [ __ ] I'm going to do it anyway the pain when the pain of not doing the work becomes worse than the pain of doing the work then we'll actually sit down and do it yeah but the good news is once we start to do it immediately everything is okay what really separates creatives that are able

to find success which you can Define in any which way but if want of it to suain through your the creatives that make it there and don't is that Devotion to the whatever it takes mentality and like working through all those feelings of self-doubt and you know just I've seen with my artist friends who like maybe take a break of not having made music for a little bit they're doing their own thing and then they come back and like do I still got it you know like all these things that and so looking back on

those times where you've had those emotions I guess what wisdom any other thoughts you you have when those stuff when that stuff comes up now of yeah impostor syndrome and all these things I would say honestly just do everything else besides whatever it is that you're like tripping about so for me it was am I taking care of my body you know let's let's start there like what are you eating what time are you waking up what routines do you have is it going to be yoga today is it going to be kickbox and like

put something on your schedule wake up every single day with some kind of purpose to do something healthy for your body food workout stretching meditation whatever it is do something for your body every single day and once I started to get a routine back going with that it was like oh duh how could I forget that like I do better when I feel better it's just such a simple concept but um yeah if you focus on every single thing else then whatever you're worried about starts to figure itself out so it started with making sure

my body was good and then once I like had those checkins then it was all right now when it comes to writing like don't put the pressure on it being like a song all the time like what are your thoughts today how do you feel today what are what are you grateful for what are your goals where do you want to be in the next however many years like get back to writing just in general like being in a creative writing class like give yourself a prompt do something that isn't just like I need to

make a song cuz I need to turn in this album like leave that over there come back to it later uh so taking care of my body for sure um giving myself writing exercises for sure um and and just being in student mode overall just helped me like get rid of whatever that stress was during that time so if I needed to find a Master Class A Documentary um uh somebody else's album a music video it was just like get back into being a fan cuz you've been in the field for so long that it

seems like you forgot what it's like to like find something new that has nothing to do with you and to just appreciate it and feel excited about that so um those are like a couple of things for sure and I'm still in fan mode right now like the 3 years I feel like my curiosity just as far as other people has like gone back up which was really what got me going in the first place like I I remember doing my own thing and then discovering some of my favorite artists like I remember Frank Ocean

in the beginning I remember the weekend in the beginning and Jana Aiko and um James font Leroy and it was like all of these things that just excited me so much that I ran to work on my things it was like o that gives me such a good feeling I want to give that feeling to somebody else so being back in fan mode the last few years has been like the upside to like everything that I've been doing creatively like I've just been going to concerts and uh what was it day before yesterday I went

to a claro concert and I didn't hit anybody on the management side I didn't want to bother anybody I bought me a ticket on Ticket Master I put scarf over my head shades on my face hat down low I stood in the ga line outside scaned my ticket to get in and I just enjoyed the show by myself took myself there and just enjoyed myself in the crowd and watched the show from beginning to end and like moments like those just remind me of how I felt in the very beginning it was like don't you

ever like lose that feeling or let that feeling get away from you cuz it's nothing more pure than just like being in a space that's safe and everybody's like feeling the same thing and the music is beautiful and it's about someone else but you can relate to it and um yeah like I I need that you know in order to feel inspired and I think I forgot it for a bit but I'm back at the place where it's just like no I need to I need to be out here and I need to be outside

but not in that type of way like I want to go outside and like do something that just makes me feel good how have you come to change what you see like how you value yourself as a human being and also in relation to self-worth when the externalities of success you know fluctuate with your career when you have a number one and then you know there's downtime or like um how do you see yourself as a how do you value yourself and like how do you come into relation with selfworth well I definitely keep a

daily practice that is something that you know um I would advise to all the men out there and young men you know um keep a daily practice you know that allows you to tap in into the mental the physical and the spiritual you know um I do that with working out every day or dancing and moving my body or you know I'll do some breath work I think having a schedule has allowed me to um stay grounded and then also maturing maturing it really helped me uh understand that going slow is going fast you know

and being able to really be present in all of the moments because you know um I I was just telling my boy this when I got nominated for a Grammy you know it didn't even mean anything to me you know that's how much you know I was not present you know and I didn't like that I didn't like that I wanted to even though it was a nomination and you know it wasn't that I W won one but it just was that like I had so much on my mind at the time that I wasn't

even able to be present I didn't like that you know what I mean um so life has definitely showed me the importance of you know taking time for yourself you know enjoying your own company showing up and giving people you know what it is that you want within yourself the importance of that in the workplace and everywhere you go you know even the grocery store you know what I mean um just living in a way that's purposeful uh those ups and downs has gave me a great sense of value and I understand even with you

know um my music um all of the art that I share and and make myself available to that even in that you know I have purpose and it's not just about you know now we W number ones don't get me wrong you know what I'm saying but this season that I'm in in my you know entertainment experience I've arrived to the point to where you know now fans are coming up to me and people that have appreciated my music are telling me how my music has helped them you know through certain situations and you know

if I'm going to do anything then it's like that's the effect that I want you know that could be one person it could be a 100,000 people to arrive to that point to where it's like okay yeah the work is working you know um I'm doing exactly what I need to do being able to look at that being able to appreciate those down moments um as as we would call them down maybe we should call them Plateau you know what I'm saying because uh people people think that it's a up and down thing but it's

really a it's a rising thing you know what I mean and we just arrived to different plateaus you know maybe sometimes we have to go back you know to realize and recognize some lessons we may have like you know forgot because that's definitely what the Millennium tour was for me you know um sidebar you know when I went on the Millennium tour and I I speak about that in the book as well you know it wasn't something that I wanted to do you know but the universe propped this opportunity of for me to be able

to go back and remember you know and um that's what life is and I'm realizing that more and more a lot of the things that we are already innately in contact with we've always been in contact with you know we we just had to remember you know what I mean so life is a grand remembrance and I'm so you know happy to be in this position because I remember people would be like why is he so happy you know why why you know why is he dancing all of the time you know what I mean

and I just realize now like yo Joy was just inside of me you know and I it had to it had to move around it had to let loose you know I had to find out things it had to go through you know being disappointed it had to go through being feeling you know um betrayed and and you know that's what my journey was you know I'm saying and I'm happy to to be able to go through this experience because you know without that experience there's really there's no information there's no testimony as they say

there's no realizations you know you don't come to nothing you got to go through some things and life is just powerful like that and that's why it's important for platforms like you know yourself to know thyself to get to know who you are so you know who you want to be see [Music]