Chris Curran and Sahaj Marg Heartfulness Meditation
Ascension Workers
Chris Curran and Sahaj Marg Heartfulness Meditation
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For a deeper look, Chris recommends the book “The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners” by Jack Hawley, available on Amazon (US) here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RCLT0M
Next Episode: Spiritual Truths with Chris Curran & Mike Waskosky
here
Hello everyone. I'm Mike, Wisconsin. And this is Ascension workers
live. And this is a show where I'm kind
of trying to interview people who are very dedicated to
the path of Ascension the path of spiritual growth path of
Awakening others.
And I thought really great person interview for this
for the first interview would be my friend Chris Kern. Let
me get you on the screen here Chris unmute. Hi Mike.
I'm doing well. How are you doing? My brother? I'm doing
good. Yeah, it's been a challenging this past
year having a baby now with
Not having as much time but I feel
like you know, I'm gradually getting back into a more
consistent meditation path and it feels like the baby
itself became a meditation, you know of sorts
to focus on life in a different way.
But yeah, we can get into meditation later. Definitely.
so maybe to start with
I could I could just I could just share I could share that Chris
and I have been you know, locally living
in Colorado Springs. We've attended meetup groups and he chrysostomia
group. I hosted me a group we've been to each other's groups
and appreciate what we're doing. And it's it's a very
fantastic subject. We get into later too the group
group energy it potentials with groups and the Chris
also has done many awesome things with his life and including
training under a legitimate Guru
in India Guru is probably not the right word, but
we can get into that too.
So I'd like a brief background Chris of how you
got into the spiritual path and what that's
led to.
Yeah, sure. I got in through lots of misery
probably like everyone else here who's here. So I want to say hi
to Anne-Marie Debbie James Layla
Lisa Lewis Trish Victoria
and everybody who's here. Happy to
meet you happy to be here. Definitely.
Ask questions and you know, this isn't obviously all about
me. It's it's a conversation. So, please
so please chime in but
Yeah, but basically by the time I was 31 years
old, I had run my entire life into the
ground. I had no money. I had no place to live I
had no car.
Like literally I'm not this isn't exaggeration and
I was lucky enough. I had a friend who let me literally sleep
in his basement, which was not heated.
There was no heat in this basement and I stayed there over
a cold winter. So I don't know if you've ever tried to
sleep in a place that's literally like 30 or
20 degrees.
It's weird anyway.
at that point in my life I had
this idea
and I was like, you know what? I'm smarter than this like I
know.
I know I'm intelligent enough to
not get myself into this tragic situation.
So that's when I sort of had a wake-up call for myself.
Like you know what I have to start living properly. I
have to start doing the right things and then so I
basically I got my act together and part of that was
beginning of meditation practice, which I did in
2003
And it just came up came about naturally.
I wanted to start meditation and I looked up online and I
saw that it's the different types of meditation
and I found one a method called Raja
yoga.
Which is one of the four main branches of yoga and Raja.
Yoga is
is
It's the king of all yoga. That's what Raja means and
also it's there's no it's not physical at all.
It's just mental. It's just basically meditation and a
cleaning process. So and then I looked up if there's
someone near me who taught this method and there was 20 20
minutes away.
and I called this person and I said I'd like to start meditation and
he said fine come to my house and
from the moment. I walked up to his house and knocked on the door and he
opened the door. He said welcome. I literally felt.
At home and I and and I'm so
lucky. I had a local.
Facilitator to help me get started with meditation
because as you know, Mike meditate people have
so many misconceptions about meditation. It's insane and
it it's so much simpler than everyone thinks.
So anyway, that's how I first got started. I
don't want to go through my entire 20 years
since then before, you know, yeah.
So well eventually you're interested in this path
this particular path this led
you to seek out the source of this path in India. Is that how it went.
So when I met the local facilitator and I started practicing.
He gave me a book and the book was written
by the master and and Guru is
a totally okay word guru just means teacher by the way.
And so so I started reading about
the practice. How do you do the practice? It's very it was very simple. It
still is very simple and the you know,
the master had
written several books and he gave speeches which they
transcribed into books. There's a lot of books.
So I just started reading the first book that my facilitator
gave me and then I realized that there's a a master
or a guru and
You know and I wasn't put off by that but a lot of people are
right A lot of people are like, oh, I don't need a master and
and look all it is.
It's a teacher. It's somebody who
knows a lot of stuff that you don't know that's all and
and a true Master just wants to teach you. It's not
it's not master enslave right?
You're not signing up to be a slave you're
signing up to be a student. And what does Any teacher
want more than anything. They want their student to
surpass them.
Right, so that's it. But if you do find
a guru who is asking you for money who does want
to control you and who does want to whatever else
beware because there are people
like that too. But so you, you know got to find a good teacher. That's
that's what that's all about. So, yeah, so then
it was a about a year and a half after I started I took
my first trip to India in 2004 and that was
well, as far as the spiritual practice was concerned that was
eye-opening, but even just going to
India and seeing that culture was just
mind-blowing. Yeah.
So this Guru is charging. Is this
the guy named parthosarthy Roger? Yeah
part this art the Raja gopalachari. His
son is Wikipedia known as chargie. Yep.
and so the
surgery was a student
under Babaji this guy. Yep, and then
chargie took babuji's teaching
and created so hard marges that already say
that yes sahaj Marg that was created by babuji
in 1945 as it says right there on
the first couple lines. Yeah. We started in 1945 by
Babaji and charaji met Babaji
and I believe 1967
So and then he trained under Babaji and then Babaji passed
away in 1983.
and then charge he took over the role as
the master and charge he passed away
in 2014, and he was
succeeded by
kamlesh where they call him dodgy, I think.
I've
Since about 20 this just means like he's the CEO of the
organization which is teaching the meditation practice, basically.
Yes, although there are a part
of the spiritual practice is.
One of the main parts of this practice that we're talking about which by the
way, I'm not really plugged in so much anymore ever since I
moved to Colorado. There's no one here who practices
So I mean I still meditate obviously but but
one of the methods of that system, which is very interesting is
called pranauti and Prana everyone.
You might know you might have heard the word Prana right? It's
like energy spiritual energy or whatever. I don't like horse. Yeah
life force. Well pranauti is
where the master you can meditate with the master and he can sort
of Infuse into you.
Higher spiritual States like he can Infuse
into you.
spiritual states that
You you might not even be ready for.
100% And so that way he can sort of give you a taste
of the next step and then help you grow up to that.
And then once you get there, then he'll give you a taste of the next step and
it's really something to be felt. I mean you can't really talk about it.
Well, do you think it's something that it's felt in small ways when we meditate in
groups. Do we do we tune into each other's vibration that
way too.
Yes group meditation. Yes, obviously there's this cumulative effect
which can be felt. I mean that's what happens in our meetups
and your meetups do yeah, it's amazing. It's almost as though
like even if my mind is prone to
wander. I feel this deep soothing piece that sort
of pervades my Consciousness as we get going into the
meditation and I know it's not for me. I know it's Unique to this group. And
so it feels as though there's some kind of like magnetic pull
to go deeper into the meditation. That's just
coming from the fact that we're around people who are doing the same
practice.
yeah, and and developing the sensitivity for that
is really important too because
Spirituality is so deep. And it's
so subtle too, right the deeper states are more subtle. So.
To to experience them and to learn from them.
You have to really
bring your mental activity down and you have to it takes practice.
It takes months and years. This isn't like a couple days.
But yeah, but the master with this transmission they call
it Trent. The pranauti is called transmission. That's something
else. I mean the group the group thing.
is there yes, but also that pranauti is
something else and again, it's hard to explain but
when you sit
I mean I've had so many different experiences that
I literally can't even explain. I mean I could tell you okay, I sat
down and I was just gone or I sat down and I just I
went somewhere or
it you know what I mean like but what does that mean? Right so you have
to do it yourself? So yeah, definitely. Yeah. It's
that what the law of one describes the mind as being.
like
and having a inner geometry or inner geography
even and that there as you open
the door you begin you begin going into that?
geography the geometry which is like
It's almost as though there's there's thoughts that have.
Like deeper subconscious roots, and and the feeling
of getting to that root is beyond words because it's you're literally
like the words are on the surface and then the feelings are pursuing
deeper down. So, you know
feeling your way into a meditation might be one description of
the process I guess but feelings are feelings can
be like even like chemic chemical
based but then there's feelings that seem to be of the mind that are not
related to the chemistry of our body if that makes any sense.
For sure, and and one of the things that happens too is when you
meditate sometimes when you sit down and meditate with other people or
the master and or the master.
You don't feel anything too much different, but after
45 or 55
minutes and you come out of it.
You open your eyes and and that's when you're like what like,
you know what I mean like it just there you you're
traveling somewhere. You're something's happening. You don't
really know but it's it's could be kind of pleasurable maybe not
but then at the end you you when you
open your eyes and then you get that contrast right
of
oh now I'm back here in this place and
I so then then you realize that you were in a different
place, right?
Yeah, I mean it's it's almost as though some powerful
meditations can make you like a different person even
afterward because you feel like you you're losing something by
exiting the meditation and trying to return your normal life. Whereas that
that space and meditation would be so nice to hold on to it. It's
almost like a painful to break away from meditation. Sometimes
I feel that way in your group in my group. It's like I don't
want it. I don't want the meditation to end. I don't want to end. Yeah.
Yeah, and it just gives your gives your life more perspective.
I mean
when you when you you know.
encounter some small annoyance
If you've been meditating for months and years something small that's
annoying. Okay? Yeah, it's annoying but it's just something like
like you you get better at
not giving your attention to small annoying things.
So yeah.
And it feels as though that's not really it's not
part of our culture, but I do wonder about
the culture of India and it seems as though people are prioritizing. Well,
I don't really know if there's pros
and cons to the different aspects of the culture. I don't know if the the people
in India have become more jaded to
certain kinds of meditation practices
or whatever because it's just part of their culture so much did what
was it like getting in that culture? What
what's surprised you about their culture that is different than ours.
Uh, well mostly the standard of
live. Well, so the most obvious is
the standard of living. I mean, they it in in
the USA.
we are so
what would you call it? Rich spoiled?
I mean, we live like kings in this country, even
if you're poor.
Yeah, but over there now some
people in India have money and they live like we
live in the US but a lot of people don't so.
What happens is?
that culture
values the fundamentals more
you know here in the in the US especially Today We
complain about everything we whine we
you know it we're just little spoiled
brats for real like for real and and if you
ever spoke into anyone from any other country in
the world, they all know this
and because it's true.
But over in India and a lot of the Eastern countries that
are poor they don't have all the luxuries. So
they're they're not up on this big pedestal. They actually
still
For the most part understand how important family is
and how important it is to have a teacher.
Just to find a teacher and and even
just food and shelter like these things are important.
We just take it all for granted and then we complain about
whatever we can about everything basically. Yeah.
So yeah, it's fascinating here, you
know people increasingly complain about every single
kind of church that they go to and they're really they're very few
churches that they're actually meditating in those churches. Hey,
there might be brief windows in
some Christian churches where they give you some time to reflect and
process, but normally there's somebody praying the same time that kind
of guiding and meditation and yeah,
but as meditation very Central and
most
Eastern religions would you say yeah, so
I was gonna get to that yet. So in India, the
concept of meditation is widely known it's
just part of the culture.
You know because even the way they think of their lives, you know,
you have your childhood.
And that goes up to a certain age. Then you have your householder.
Uh stage of life where you you know
have a home have kids have a you know family and
then the last part of life is where you
dedicate to your spiritual practice. That's why they you hear
a lot of older people. They just go into the
Himalayas and they just disappear into the mountains and that's it.
So they just the way they
conceive of a human life is different, but that
doesn't mean that every Indian person or every Eastern
person is a spiritual person who's meditating and
stuff it because they're not all
meditating. It doesn't mean that if they are meditating that they're
taking it seriously because they're not all taking it seriously, right?
So it's the same.
the same
things we go through they go through in within their
own culture. But but there is
a definitely sort of like a built-in reverence
for spirituality and for these teachings
that's there and also rep
not only for spirituality and these teachings and gurus but
also for
Just dealing with other people. I mean part of part of
the the way Indian culture works is if
they have a guest in their house, they treat
them like God.
That's how they look at it. They will invite you in sit
down. They'll give you Food they'll get it's almost they literally
treat you.
Like God or the guru because that's
just their culture. That's how they're trained to treat
other people. And again, I'm
not saying please don't take anything I'm saying
like, oh America's the worst and India is
the best. No, it's not like that. It's just we're just discussing differences and
there are good and bad in both places, right? Yeah. So
it is interesting though that like,
it's I guess I would call it
materialism here. There's more materialism here that people are almost
able to tune out the idea that it would matter if they're
attending or trying to find a spiritual teacher
because of the fact that they I don't know that they play
place their faith and their own life that they built for themselves, which is very
often, you know, based around trying to become more wealthy trying
to have status or something. It seems
like we're valuing that but I assume they're still a lot
of value on status and I mean India has the caste system, right?
That's completely other system of
A segmenting people into different boxes,
but I but it's interesting that being being
aware that there are people who are
on a higher spiritual level might be a part of the indoctrination
from Earth that
there are different kinds of classes and people I guess I don't know if that's part of
the reverence process. That's might not be a very clean way
to have reverence though. If you're putting it another people versus in God
or something like that.
Right. Yeah the cat system. I believe
over the last let's say 60 years
has.
Like almost everything in eastern culture. It's becoming
westernized right?
So everything is yeah. I mean the
the newer Generations I don't maybe they
don't.
Respected as much or you know,
because like you said it's a caste system. If you're of a certain cast you
can't you can only marry someone you know
what I mean? Like you can't do this, you can't go to
there's just all these rules and you know,
maybe a hundred 200 300 years ago. It was helpful and maybe
today it's helpful, but I think because of
the globalization everything is becoming more westernized, which
yeah, I was gonna say it's like the internet maybe
an equalizer too. I mean, I see so many people who are you know,
the developers in India now that it's like
they're on the same level as me. In fact that they're taking they're taking
the same jobs, but at the same time, I wonder if there's like
dating sites in India, or you still have to select a cast in the
dating site. I don't know. Yeah interestingly. But
yeah, I mean as soon as you have a dating site, then you're open
to interact with all people and you can obviously marry
anybody if you choose to I soon it's not
like a law against it is there.
I don't think there's a law I think it's well, I think all families.
handle it differently because in India
they still do the whole they still do the Dowry system
where the
What is it the woman's family?
Has to give a lot of money.
To the the husband. Yeah, something
like that, I think.
yeah, and that can kind of starts off the
it probably gives a good boost. I guess, you know to the
family. Yeah. Yeah to help that new family start their life
for sure. Yeah.
so
how many people would you say are part of like a temple in
India? Is it like a high percentage of people that attend services
or
I don't really know. You know, I didn't so so I was
part of the spiritual practice which is in the
big picture. It's a small spiritual practice, but you know Hinduism is
still the main religion of India and that's
huge and there's temples everywhere and you know a lot
of I think.
Probably most Indians are are following Hinduism.
And again, it's just like any other
religion where some of the people follow it.
Religiously with their heart but most
of them probably don't so I think it's the same thing there but
Hinduism is the the big religion in India.
And I eventually wanted to get in more to what what
your current Ambitions are with the idea of starting
something that could be like a true retreat center. And you
know, I we're talking recently about the ashrams in
India and I just fascinates me endlessly that there's a
place you could literally just go and you can become a devotee and
you can stay there and that's just a part of the culture that if
if you want to make like spirituality your profession you
can go and you can serve in that in that capacity without having
to send in a resume and apply and be selected
amongst the pool of applicants to work at the church or something. You're you're literally
just allowed in if you're if you're serious student,
is that how it works?
I believe some places are like that. And and
yeah, I think the the general idea is that you would go there and
Give service mean you're gonna work you you might be
able to live in the ashram and practice but you're also going to work right?
So you kind of have to contribute to the the
ecosystem and I think that's how in general.
That's how they work. Yeah. Yeah, it excites
me the idea that there are many people in this country here kind of craving that
that way of living more and more. I don't
know if you call that nomadic lifestyle or something, but I
know people are are craving the ability to you know,
yeah have some kind of freedom from our seeming
enslavement in our in our
Boston world right now that is forcing us into
conventional jobs that you know working for big companies
that are becoming increasingly monopolized around their industry so that
they're profiting more and there's kind of a less the connection to the
to the Earth and to the natural way of doing things. So yeah
people are talking about Desiring Healing Centers Retreat centers
and and making that more part of their life
if they can and and so tell me
about
Ambitions, what would you like to achieve and like
You know, we could we could maybe start with.
How you began your Ambitions for starting the pause your
life groups and Retreats that you were doing in on the
East Coast. I believe is that when you got back from India, you
started those meetings.
Um, yeah. Well I had been practicing for about 10
years and I had been doing a lot of public meetings
where I would I actually became a facilitator
in the sahaj Marg.
Organization, so I was became like a local teacher just
like the guy I went to see first. I became one
of those guys which was really cool. I was able to serve that
way and of course I didn't you know, there was no money involved. I didn't
get paid. I just I was volunteering to help
other people get started and I was doing that and sometimes we would
have these public meetings where you know, okay, we're
gonna tell you what is sahaj Marg what is the practice and
all this stuff and people would come to
these meetings because they were slightly interested but
a lot of people at first, they're not
ready to join, you know an official practice
like
Because they don't know what it is even my mom when I first started meditating
and at first time I went to India.
Literally, my mom asked me so.
Does that mean now you're a Hindu and I
was like, oh like I had to explain everything to her
but look people don't know and so
they they don't know. So anyway, the point is I was giving these public meetings
and people just didn't know what to think of it. So that's
when I conceived of the idea of you
know, what we should have a group.
That is really simple.
And it's just we're gonna hit the pause button.
We're going to meditate a little and we're just gonna
talk about certain spiritual topics a little bit just a
little bit and
I thought that would be better for just the average
person who's not ready to commit to some practice. And so
we did so in 2013. We started pause
your life and we started having meetings
and it worked out and then as soon as we got to Colorado Springs here
in 2015, we started a group here and that's where
you and I met of course Mike and and people
just love it. I mean
it's so it's the simplest thing you can imagine, but that's
what we need. We just need a break.
Just need a break. Yeah, it's a great format for for group
meetings and I can encourage people to maybe contact you and
get get more details. If they'd like to host their own pause your
life group or something very similar because it's it's kind of
a perfect template and it's basically starts with, you
know, the introduction and then pretty close pretty
soon. We well we do the the universe release.
We release our burdens you want to
describe that.
oh, yeah the universe box so
I'm sure everyone watching has heard, you
know.
The little vignette of you know, this young spiritual
aspirant goes to the master and the
master.
Is pouring him tea and the master just
keeps pouring the tea and the the kids the
Young Young Person's cup overflows and it goes on to his lap
and young kid jumps up says what are you doing? And the
master says your cup is too full
come back when you're cup is empty.
and the whole idea is that
we have all these ideas and thoughts and preconceptions and
habits and we're so full of stuff.
That there's not room for anything new. It's just no room.
So the first thing in spirituality is to release
Things become empty Let It Go
and
again, this is also a practice. It doesn't just happen in
one second.
So the first part of our meeting is always.
This releasing exercise so we have this little box with a
with a hole in the top and we pass
out paper.
And a little clipboards and we we have
people write down anything that's bothering them anything
that's worrying them any chips on
their shoulder any negativity anything and you
just write you don't think about it. You just write for maybe three
four minutes and then we take turns depositing our
pieces of paper into the universe
box and the idea is that
At least for the duration of our meeting you're you're handing
over.
all this stuff
to the universe to take care of meaning you don't have to take care
of it anymore. You don't have to worry about it. Give it over to
God or the universe.
Because I think God in the universe can handle it. So you
offload that and then you can just be a human being
so this sort of releasing this sort
of emptying is actually
it's a very fundamental step and I
don't know Mike you could probably attest to this. You can
feel it in our meetings after we all offload everything.
You probably recognize that I always ask people. How
do you feel now?
And everyone's just looking at their face. They don't
even say anything. They just they're smiling. They're like, you could
just feel it. There's so much lighter and
It's wonderful. Yeah, and I appreciate the part of the
ritual that you ask us to see it in others see the lightness and
others as they deposit their I feel like it's kind
of a group meditation already beginning at that moment when we're
all together kind of saying we intentionally release all these
things and I feel like that's kind of like the perfect entry into the meditation because
I think if I just sit down and try to meditate a lot
of times like everything's going been going on in my data starts coming in
randomly, but you're asking us to like intentionally, like look
at those things. That might be what what's overwhelming your
mind right now and just release those and
then go into the meditation. I think that's it. That's a
good way to think of it.
Yeah, it really works. And by the way anyone watching or listening
you can do this yourself at home. You can even just sit down. You
don't even need a box or nothing just sit down and say you
know what? I'm releasing everything.
and just
You know Lord or God or the universe, please take
everything away and and then just sit there and and
you'll feel it.
Yeah.
And then and then we do the short meditation and then we just
go straight into a spiritual discussion. But the
meditation part of it is basically a based on
this sahaj Marge practice, right?
Pretty much. Yes, so I we named
it lightness meditation, but it is
a very similar.
method of meditation and really it's just simply
you get sit comfortably.
and obviously close your eyes and you
imagine that there's a divine
lightness
in your heart
And you don't need to see the light. It's not like a physical thing. You need
to see but you just have the idea that there's Divine Light
in my heart and then you let go.
And letting go is important because meditation is
a passive activity. You're not
actually doing anything. This is one of the things people don't
understand.
It's because initially it's not easy to be passive
like because people sit there like what am I
supposed to do? Tell me what to do. I'll do it, but it's like no don't do anything and
they're like
Well, what do I do? So
being passive is a all it's such
a big part of meditation and and then
you just passive and if you have some thoughts.
Just okay fine. Let him drift by don't worry
about it. Thoughts are just normal. They're just happening who
cares and you just let the thoughts go.
and you know
You ignore them, basically?
And then more thoughts might come fine. You just keep ignoring them.
So one of the ways to think about meditation is
the practice of ignoring thoughts.
And so but if you ignore enough thoughts what
happens is
all these thoughts are coming out of you.
And so after a while there's not much left inside you you're much
clearer or cleaner and then you're gonna meditate then
when you're meditating you have fewer thoughts and then fewer thoughts and
then the the gap between thoughts starts becoming
one second or three seconds or
five seconds.
And then that's when you start to.
That's when actual meditation begins and so
it's a really simple method.
But it's you just have to be passive. You have to ignore your thoughts
and you also have to
You know one thing I can't stand is when people say, oh I'm
not able to meditate.
I've tried it. I can't do it.
You're wrong because you can meditate you are
meditating because the reason they think they can't meditate
because they're having thoughts.
Thoughts are normal who said thoughts are bad.
Whoever told you that you had to be thoughtless during
meditation. Seriously, whoever told us that.
anyone anyone no one it's so
it's it's meditation is a practice almost
like lifting weights. It's not the end goal.
It's it's a practice like lifting weights that
helps us become what we need to become so
that we can keep walking the path. Yeah, and
we could get into more of the mechanics of this because
I know that
Like the law of one books talk about coming back
to the new mind as being the like the
the core archetype of Consciousness is the mind
which has no biases and has no attachments. And
this is like the heart of the magician what they call a magician
archetype. So it's as though all of
All of the seeking all the everything that we're doing originally started
with basically an empty mind and it's like coming
back to the empty mind is kind of like the the
hardest thing to do but it's also like the the source
of creating something new from the present
moment because I feel like you know for me saying that
I have to ignore my thoughts can become like a war
with myself if I really want to hold on to something for
some reason like I need to I need to understand how I feel about this.
I need to process this energy. I need to go through these things and
sometimes that can be productive if I'm doing it very deliberately. That's
like contemplation. I'm deliberately getting
it to the thoughts which maybe can resolve themselves. But
at the same time I also know that there is no Freedom
if I'm if I'm stuck in
the past if I'm stuck in something or the future usually these these
thoughts that I'm holding on to relate to the past to the future and I'm
not realizing the present moment is the, you know
moment of infinite potential if I allow other things to
go and I create the Level Playing Field for
Mind to kind of to kind of you know, choose a
new energy A New Path and I feel like this this practice
of just focusing on the heart the heart the heart
alone, you know can can free us if we if we
unblock our hearts. We're we're free to love the
universe and have gratitude instead of being stuck in a lack
of gratitude that would
Like the lower chakra energies, right? We're
chakras ever. I mean that's maybe a side note, but
we're chakras ever a part of the teachings that you received.
What Babaji said is? Yes the chakras
are there but he said the heart chakra.
Actually encompasses all the other chakras. So
the heart he his teaching is
that the heart is the connection to divinity.
It's not the mind. It's not the body. It's not
the third eye. It's it's the heart because
the heart is the only thing you can't
live without we can take your brain out of
your skull and you're still be living we can cut off your
arms your legs we can.
We can do a lot of things to you.
But one thing you can't live without is your heart.
And so the heart is the connection to Divinity. That's
like the
I was gonna say fractal but that might take some explanation. But the point
is it's all about the heart. That's why we meditate on the heart
because when you meditate on the heart
it it takes care of all the other chakras.
by just by doing that so
And plus the heart is, you know, even in our own lives we
know.
The heart is so important. I mean
when you have when you have a family or your parents
or whoever loves you, I mean
Do you love them because they're intelligent or because
you ask him a math
problem and they give you the correct answer. No, you
love them because of their heart. You can feel the heart same with
your wife or your husband or whoever it's the
heart life is all about the heart and and
so
in the west especially but in all over
the globe, we're letting our intellect and
our mind have too much power and it's
it's messing things up. It's met it's
it's
It's not we're not
valuing the heart as we should We're valuing The Head
and the intellect and that's actually a big problem. Yeah. Yeah,
and and to me it's almost like the difference between
the left brain and right brain or the rational
mind and the intuitive mind is that we're kind of cutting off
our intuition a little bit too when we when we get lost in our
thoughts and distracted by the world. We're missing.
The deeper the deeper aspect of ourselves, which is pulling us maybe or
guiding us and I feel like that's kind of coming from the heart
when I'm being guided.
Absolutely.
so
so you've been doing these pause your life meditations for for
quite a while and you started doing them online too. People can join
those now, right?
Yeah, we stream twice a week
Thursday nights and Sunday mornings. Well, depending on where you
are in the world. But yeah, yeah definitely get that shared on essential
Works TV for people to find the links to that
and join in the meditations.
Yeah, I we like streaming the meditations and here's
the thing.
Well, okay.
There's no intro the stream starts. I mean
there's a 10-minute countdown, but then then it's I just
waved to the camera and then we literally meditate there's
no talking and then we meditate and then at the
end we ring there's a bell that rings and then
after the meditation I do a very
short reading from a from a book.
Very short and that's it. So it's it's really
easy for people to
Put it in their calendars like okay Thursday nights and
Sunday mornings. We're gonna meditate and then you just tune into
the stream and you don't no one can see you no
one can hear you but you can see me and my
wife on the screen and then you can just meditate with us until you
hear the Bell. It's just really handy and
easy and so I would
encourage anyone if you're thinking about meditating
if you're just sitting at home, and it's hard to
meditate by yourself, especially in the beginning meditate with
us. We're happy to meditate with you. Yep, the group energy definitely
seems to still work over the Internet when we're intending to
meditate together.
Yeah, because distance that doesn't really matter
with meditation, right?
so maybe I'm still curious a little bit about the
What you experienced with chargie in India? And what
was there like a regimen for daily
activity that that they that they gave
to students? Yeah. Yeah. So the
core practice itself is very simple.
It has three parts.
So you have the morning meditation which is when it's
basically first thing in the morning when you wake up, you should
meditate.
And beginners can meditate for a half an hour?
And once you get a little more experience, you
can go up to an hour, but not more than an hour.
And so there's the morning meditation and then there's the second
part. Is that what we call the evening cleaning?
Which is after your after your days work is
done, right?
Then you sit down and what it's not a meditation.
It's a cleaning. It's it's all like a self cleaning.
And you sit down and you imagine that all of the Impressions that
you've taken in that day are
leaving you.
Out of your back like in the form of smoke or
vapor. So like just imagine that everything.
everything that's been input into your Consciousness and that day
is now leaving and therefore you're clean again,
you're
You you're not holding anything.
and then that's really important to do the daily cleaning
because
It's easy. I mean think of it in terms of
if you're of your bathroom if you cleaned your bathroom every day,
it'd be as easy. Right you just it would
take you five seconds.
But let's say you don't clean your bathroom for a year.
Well now that's gonna take you like.
An hour, maybe not an hour, but you know what? I mean? Yeah, maybe
whatever. So the idea is if we clean
ourselves every day a little bit.
then we don't accumulate any of these some scars
or Karma and you just you're
clean and then you just
yeah, so the cleaning is that very important part and
then the third part is a night prayer meditation, which is basically
at bedtime. It's a very short prayer and
then you meditate on it for
Maybe five minutes. It's not long and it's just sort
of.
To remind yourself before bed.
Of what you're doing, you know that of what the goal is.
You know Oneness with God and it just to sort of refocus you
before you go to bed. And then so those are the three elements
of the practice. So
yeah, when I when we go to India or even at home or
wherever you are or even if you're in an ashram, you still do the practice.
Every day that's that's the idea.
So the cleaning is just visualization. And
is there anything that you were you have to do with the visualization
or be taught to properly do
the visualization? Yeah, so it's it's kind of
visible visualization but it's not really the the
active or the key element of the cleaning
is your will.
because when you use your will
it's just done. So if you start the cleaning and you say okay all
my days impressions are leaving me.
And in their place the sacred current of
the Divine is filling my heart.
If if you have that thought with a
hundred percent of your will behind it.
It's done.
It's already done and then you just got to sit there and let it go so.
so the will will
Is important and it's not well, it's different than
willpower. Like oh I want to lose 10 pounds, but oh
there's a cookie. Oh, I'm gonna eat the cookie.
Oh, I didn't have the willpower to stick to my diet. Oh, oops,
it's not that kind of will that's that's a weak
will
but will itself is is
an amazing spiritual power that we all have.
But most of us are wheels very weak.
So when you start you can sort of develop that will
and it works I mean
When you think that okay, the cleaning is done.
It's actually done and then you just got to sit there for 20 minutes.
Let it happen and but it's already done.
Yeah, so so it is like the belief
is going deeper and deeper into your mind. I suppose the understanding
or awareness. And do you think it does
it get better over time as is just your your awareness
of yourself increases does you awareness of
your own energies that you're holding on to increase as you do this practice
more?
yeah, yeah it does and
With the meditation in the cleaning though, you everything becomes
more clear and simple?
So it's not like something you have to argue with yourself about like
oh did I use enough willpower? I don't know did I did
but like that chatter and that
doubt.
It goes away. So I mean Babaji his
famous quote is doubt poisons the
will
So you can't have any doubt?
You know like like when some like when I got married
for instance.
When I got married.
I said this is gonna be my wife. That's it done.
There was I'm gonna be that's it. It's
over it's done. I'm not gonna like six months later like
oh is this marriage going? Well, should I
leave like no not it was done done for
Life done.
And it was really done and it's still done.
So our will is very powerful. It's and that's
just one of our
faculties as a human being that we we very
often a lot of people Overlook it.
Because we're too confused and we're
too busy that the all day long. We never
calm down and say wow. We have a will we have an intellect.
We you know what? I mean. We we have powerful faculties as
humans. Yeah, but we never talk about rare. We
rarely talk about it or develop them.
And that's really the difference but the master.
His will is so developed? It's it's absolute.
Yeah, the law of one books talk about single pointedness of
will being the important factor and I
I think I also compared this to the quote of Jesus
where he says if then I be single the whole body will be
full of light.
So I assume that the singleness of the eye is the
singleness of focus and attention and will I assume
that you know, our minds right now
are usually scattered in different directions and and the
meditation practice also seems to be a way of cutting out
the like it's almost like multiple streams
running. It's like you want to get those stream down into one stream and then
you can kind of point that stream with more
Firepower at the intended objective which is
clearing yourself and getting getting more
clean, I guess.
Yes, and you bring up a wonderful analogy that charged you
used. He said think of a mighty River.
think of the power of a mighty River
Now think of that Mighty River going down
toward the ocean and it starts to.
Splinter into all these different tribute smaller tributaries.
And by the time it gets to the ocean each little
tributary is isn't it has almost no
power at all. So all the power of that River has
just been
I don't know what not diluted but
it's not there anymore because it's so fragmented
across the million different little streams. There's no power.
But when when it's one Mighty River you can
move mountains. I mean, yeah.
Yeah.
And I also think that that's like where when multiple
people are meditating together. It's like the rivers are converging too
and we have a larger stream to work with.
Yeah, totally.
so
you you did this practice in India for how long?
Well, I didn't I mean I I visited India.
Nine or ten times over a 10 year period but
I mean I was living in the US so I was doing my practice every
day and but I did visit India many times
I did I even traveled with charge you for two months at one
point. I was with him traveling to Dubai and
to a lot of Northern India Calcutta luck
now.
a lot of different places in India, which was really
pretty cool. It was I
mean
what an opportunity?
You know, so is it is that what he was always doing
was traveling around? Yeah.
And you just kind of do doing Special teaching. How
did how did you manage to set up his base when he would move?
Did he just have a lot of opportunities to rent places or
how did that no, actually so in throughout India
the mission the organization of the
practice does have a lot of different ashrams in all
different cities and stuff. So he would basically go visit his different ashrams
and different centers. I see and yeah.
And so you bet you met your wife probably to
ask about that, but you met your wife along this journey, or how did
that happen? Yeah, so so we met in New Jersey
and we met through the practice so she would
come to this we would both go to the same Sunday satsang the
Sunday meditation. And so that's where I met
her.
and
yeah, and then so we met and then at one point we
there was like an ashram in Upstate New York, very small
ashram. It was actually somebody's private property. They donated it.
so we would have
you know.
weekend
programs at this ashram right small, you know, 15 20
30 people but we my wife
and I before she was my wife. We we made
a it was a weekend kids program.
So we designed a program for the kids, you know, real simple stuff, you
know, not not meditation or anything like that because
you're kind of not supposed to start meditating until you're
pretty much an adult.
Because your brain isn't really formed and and plus
you don't really understand what you're doing or even why you're doing
it. So, but anyway, we co-facilitated a program
for the kids and that worked out really well and
Yeah, so that's how we met. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I
mean it it feels like she has very deep appreciation of
the Hindu culture.
Would you say she's she's seen how
all it's operated. And when did she come to the
United States? Which was she born in India?
She was born in India in Chennai and she came in the late
90s. I think 98 or 99.
And I met her I think well, I started the practice
in 2003 and I think I met her in 2004.
and so yeah, I mean she obviously
what you know grew up and lived.
Most of her life in India before that so she knows how the Indian
culture.
is and
Yeah, but you know for her too. I mean, I don't want to
speak for her but pretty much.
She hit her own Rock Bottom. Whatever that was, right, so.
so I I
I've tried to talk to a lot of people about spirituality
and one thing I've noticed is if they
haven't hit rock bottom or they're not near Rock Bottom. They're
not really that interested.
It's just you're not interested. Why would you be interested? Everything's going
well. I'm making a lot of money. I'm going on vacations and
I I've just bought a new car and like why should I
meditate and that's a good question. But guess what when you
lose your car and you lose your house and you lose your
spouse or you lose everything and then you have nothing and you sit around
and that's when you go.
Oh, yeah.
Now I get now I understand.
That yeah, why spirituality and then?
If you have some guts, that's when you start practicing. Yeah. Yeah,
it feels like it's kind
of a matter of recognizing and I know people sometimes
they they come very wealthy and they find spiritual practice
through the fact that money isn't doing it for them anymore and
they can't buy their happiness anymore. So they realize they
have to find something that's better than the
outward seeking and they have to go inward finally. Yeah, I
can happen on I assume it can happen.
Just when people get the end get to the end of a particular
kind of seeking that is not not a spiritual
seeking.
right, but on the on the
The well, well on the wealthy people side though.
Don't forget what Jesus said.
It's what did he say? It's harder for
cam camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
get into the kingdom of heaven.
Something like that's it. Yeah, that's it. Because if
you have all that money, you just keep distracting yourself.
You're like, oh the reason I'm not happy is because I
don't own that new car. So I'm gonna get the car then
I'm gonna be happy and divine and then you get the car and
you drive around for 45 minutes and you park the car
and you walk in the house and you're like
All right what now? So it's just an
endless. Yeah, and it happens with relationships too. I know some
people feel like they just need the perfect partner. They just haven't found that
perfect partner yet. But it seems like the universe is always giving you the
perfect partner to mirror back to you some aspect of your identity. That
is I don't know people can develop faith in that
but I feel like I've seen it, you know to even just from every roommate I've
ever had felt like they're a similar level of
maturity that I had to break through. I had to understand why is
it that we're triggering each other in this particular relationship and
like that's that's the core of spiritual growth
is is mirroring process. It seems
like when you're in a relationship with someone understanding yourself better
through that other person why why is that you have
the emotions you have when you're around them?
right
So but yeah relationships. I feel like can be
one way that people kind of seek outwardly but you
know, ideally a good partner will.
Vote teach you to focus inwardly again, too.
That would be you know, it's important thing. I think in any partner to have some
shared in interest in meditation and spiritual spiritual growth
at the same time.
Yeah, my wife and I I met
my wife the same day. I met Chris. Did you know that
I met her the exact same day. I met you you both attended
the same meeting and I believe September of 2017. So
it's very
interesting. Yeah.
But yeah, wait what meeting?
It was the ET disclosure and contact discussion meeting and
2017 that did you attended. Okay?
Do why did you attend that meeting?
well
Yeah, I mean, I don't remember specifically but I mean I'm interested in
the ET topics for sure like I back in
in the early 90s even before I
was in even before I started meditation and spiritual practice.
I
in fact, I think I was 19. I was working at TCBY.
And I don't know how but I got the came
across the book communion by Whitley strieber.
and
I mean to this day, I don't know if it's real or not. It
doesn't matter right? It doesn't really matter. But anyway, I read the book and I was like
man.
Like, you know, you know what you know why it struck
me because in high school I had read several books
right for school. But but this was
the first book I read and then the light bulb went
off. I was like this is why people read books because you're
interested you want that information like it's not
because a teacher's telling you have to like you want it and so that was
like a light bulb and then it just went from
there I got into
secrets of power
What's it what's that guy's name? He's working with the the government
when they were doing remote viewing. I forget his name. He
wrote a bunch of books.
And go Swan. Yeah, Ingo
Swan and yeah. Yeah, so it's funny. I
had a similar experience where but I mean I've read
books when I was a kid, but they're like fiction. I didn't realize that there were
nonfictional topics that were way beyond what I've
been taught so far. It's like just having a little window into the
awareness. It was Steven Greer is disclosure project in his
books. I started reading his books. He had meditation discussed in
his books. He even had it like a meditation at the end that he was encouraging people
to do and
And so I started meditating just from Stephen Greer alone.
But but it was the little window into the
world of alternative information of alternative
ways of looking at things that you realize you have
to go to books for a lot of this information. It's not
it's not out there on the TV on any particular Channel. You're not
going to find it on the TV and on the internet. It was it's still
on the internet hard to hard to know how to enter into some
of these paths unless you have the right terms to search for you don't know where to
where to start with.
And even libraries and bookstores don't even really have a huge
great selection of what's out there. I did
want to ask you do feel like there are like core.
Vedic or Hindu texts that are worth
learning worth reading
probably the one I most recommend is because
it's the one that charaji most recommended. He said
out of all the Indian literature. He said the bhagavad-gita is
the the most by far the most spiritual text
because
it covers that exact conundrum that we're
all in.
You know in the Bhagavad Gita you have Arjuna who's the
warrior?
And he's going to war and on
the other side of the battlefield is a lot of people he knows even some
of his own family members.
His old teacher his a lot of people he knows
and he's he's asking Lord, Krishna.
How can I how are you expecting me to go and fight those
and kill those people?
And Lord Krishna is like well, this is your Dharma. You're
a warrior. This is what you this is
what?
This is your life. You got to do it.
And our Junior anyway, and so the the whole
Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between Krishna and
Arjuna.
And Krishna keeps giving him deeper secrets
to the universe and why he should do it and or not
exactly why you should do it. But he's he walks
him through all these Concepts and it's it's it's fascinating and
the reason I love it so much
is because
It's also very practical. I mean there's certain things in life.
You don't want to do but you kind of have to or you
think you have to.
But then maybe you have to but then you're trying to get out of
it and it's like well should you get out of it?
It's so deep. It's such a
and there's there's a
there's a translate there. Okay. So a lot
of people have translated the bugavad-gita and I've read a bunch
of them and
I've read four or five that are not good translations meaning
I'll read it and I just it.
Somehow it something got Lost in Translation. It doesn't read very
well, but I have found especially one
version.
which is a
the Bhagavad Gita a walkthrough for westerners, which is this
guy. I think he's from the US he would go
every year to ashrams in India and over like
a 14 year period I think he translated himself the
whole Gita with the help of his Indian friends and
any and the whole reason he wanted to do it is to put it in
language that let's say a Westerner.
would could understand and actually get the message
and
He did an amazing job. I mean this this version of
the Gita is so good. And it's it really for
me. I I was able to understand a lot
of it. I could have that in the notes. Of course.
What's the name of it?
or the authors the the Bhagavad Gita a walkthrough
for westerners, Jack Hawley h a
w l e y
Yeah, put that in the notes below. Yeah, that's that's sounds great. I mean
it was blowing my mind when I first was listening to it
on audiobook. It's like that's that's in there religion. How can
it's like I thought I had to go to the metaphysics section
to read to hear about those Concepts reincarnation and
everything. I don't know how much they they had.
They have a thorough of appreciation of the the
metaphysical laws it seems and that there's
actually
And just in the same way that there's physicalized there's metaphysical laws
that shape our a reality and certainly,
you know, I know there's many different
traditions of beliefs around reincarnation and and some
people think it's even a distraction to focus on because of the
importance of focusing on you know, the present moment and not
getting lost in the idea of identity being outside of yourself. It's
the core inner identity that seems to make the
difference but I think also that just the awareness of what's
really important can show you why something like fighting a
war is really just an outward illusion. It's another layer
of Illusion that we become attached to and we
become attached to the bodies the physical forms the manifestations that's
like a stage everyone's a player on the stage and
we're it's like each person is like a finger that is
part attached to the hand, you know, and we're playing out
different roles for different reasons. We give ourselves very clear roles and
responsibilities. We take on the role of parent or the
role of having a particular job and we accept
and we honor these roles these are these are not like things that
are
to be seen as bad because we attached ourselves to
them. It's like the attachments are part of you know our way
through through life to some degree, but the the inner
self is what we have to keep his
liberated from the attachments, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's so deep. And by the way, I just thought of this.
What might be cool if anybody wants to you could
almost.
I don't know if it could be like a book club or book discussion where
we read the we read that bhagavad-gita and
discuss it like you do with the law of one, right? Yeah. I
definitely agree that that's something I've been thinking about
with other books too having a study a study
of session because you know, I think a lot of people they
they Overlook the importance of study
and and the importance of getting deep into the East text
that are almost like multi-dimensional and they're like
You can you can get so much out of it. When you look at it on a different
day. Even you like you're in a different mood on particular
day. You read you read some spiritual text. You'll see a different
see a different angle that you've never seen before on that same same
set of words. So that's what makes the translation
process. So important is that you have to kind of capture some of
the mystery in the in the meanings, I guess.
Yeah, and one thing I've when I read text like this
like because some people will read the Gita and they'll come across a
concept that is so far into us as westerners.
And they just dismiss it. Whereas I
kind of think to myself like
meaning I accept the fact that I have
no idea what this means or I accept the
fact that on the surface. I do not agree with that.
but I don't but then I don't just dismiss it and and
say I know better I I try to
look into it and see what am I missing because there's a
reason
it's in the Gita for instance. There's a reason this
is being said and it's my ignorance.
That's why I don't understand it. It's not the book.
That's wrong. Right? It's me. It's I I need to learn so
I take it as a
An opportunity to to figure it out
like what what it what does that mean?
Right and there's a lot of that in that book. It's pretty very deep.
Very deep. Yeah. Yeah it take some humility. And I think that's
the same with with any situation in life when you're initially you're
confronted with something you don't understand or so,
you can't understand someone's energy. I think understanding and
love and forgiveness. I'll go together, you know as your understanding you're
beginning to be able to take in a bigger
scope of reality that that person
is representing or that book. Is that teaching
so
what other books and authors do you feel have been like
the most profound to you?
Um, wow, I would love I'd love to be in front of my bookshelf right
now.
I actually just I don't know why again and maybe there's something
to this but I grabbed this one before we started this little
it's a little book.
Called Silent Power by Stuart. Wild it's literally it
not only is it small right? It's
fits in the palm of my hand, but it's also very short.
Well, it's a hundred pages, but they're tiny.
But anyway, I remember reading this and I
loved it and I've read it a couple times. Yeah, there's
a lot of books. I mean the the Dow Te Ching as well. I
have the whatever definitive translation of that.
It's very good.
yeah, I yeah, I
Maybe I should I could probably hear. Yeah. Sure. I I
love the course of Miracles and law of one books, of course. And of course
the Miracles I keep coming back to it's like that seems to be one of the more.
Intricate and deep philosophy teachings that
originally kind of I know I know I was only
getting like 10% out of it when I was reading it the
first time back like 10 years ago, but as I read
it now, it's like everything is just clicking in this way that
it's like a other worldly intelligence that I it's hard
hard to put put words on how they how they
phrase things. I've never heard a course Miracles teacher kind
of phrase things the exact same way without without quoting it
because it's it's almost like it's reversing thinking from
being like a lot of times we think
of like,
Forgiveness and openness as being
like a weakness and and our society is teaching
a strength is like control strength is control but flipping things
on its head kind of reveals. The exact opposite is
the truth that if you want if you want to gain and strengthen this
world, you have to gain in your your acceptance of
the world as it is and and honesty with
the world as it is and and that's something that's that keeps keeps
hitting me is is, you know, just just
being like the free flowing river is kind of like the secret
to to happiness. Not the not the
controlling aspect of life, but the with the acceptance
aspects
Yeah, and that reminds me of a thought I had recently by the
way everyone watching in the chat here. Maybe if you can put
your whatever books you're reading or your favorite books,
too. I would love to to read that but recent but
just
Within the past few days. I had this thought that let's say
you meet someone.
And they're very vulgar and they're yelling at you. And you
know, I think of like political people yelling and screaming
at each other.
But let's say you meet someone and they start yelling and screaming
at you.
And and this is for me, but this is
just my thought to so I can improve myself, but I would
love to.
be able to
look at that person and experience that person and 95%
of what I
feel about that person should be that they're a Divine
being there's love in their heart and what what
a what a chance to be alive in the you know
in the physical world, you know to be born as a human being and
like and love and respect and then
the five percent is like the annoying political thing they
said and and but so what I'm saying is I
I'm still learning and I'm trying to like
to accept people to that degree. I mean
almost like a saint would right like but because that's what I
that's how I want to take people because that's
how I that's what I really think they are.
It's just a habit for me to get upset or
to argue back. Right like it's just the bad habit. So I'm
trying to
Clean, you know, I'm not trying I'm whatever you don't you
know what I mean? Yeah, they call it an exercise in them and the
love one books to see other selves as creators. See
the selfless Creator. The other selves is the creator. It's an exercise. It's
a it's a habit. It's a practice you have to work on and it's
it's almost it's also like it's the
it's it's a long journey. Also when you when you
see something other than the infinite Creator when
you see someone else, you know, we're seeing limitation on all
the different levels that that person is representing to us and mirroring
back to us, but getting getting to the core of it
like
It's it's a long journey and I see it as the
same thing as you know, opening the heart and accessing higher intelligence.
You know, they'll love one says that the the heart is the springboard
to infinite intelligence. So it's like we're we're using
that Foundation of willingness to be open-hearted as
a way to perceive the intelligence of
God through that experience. I think so. Yeah, it's definitely
important to
Make that a discipline, I think right.
Trish says the book of Light by Daniel proc
The book of light I haven't heard of that one.
All right.
Oh and Victoria.
Which one?
Michael oh
Fayoba prophecy the golden plan. I think
it's called to you about oh something like that. Yeah, that's
very interesting too. I I have to
I have to dig into that one a little bit more because I was one of the most fantastic stories
of contact he going off to another planet and having
incredible experiences of teaching and
Yeah, the number of fascinating books out.
There is just it's just it's just incredible what
people have experienced that you don't hear about
unless you've digging really deep into some of these subjects.
So
What what is it that you're trying to achieve in
your life time now? Do do you have a plan or
do you just trusting the universe right now?
Oh.
So I'll give you my ultimate Future Vision.
is to have a large area of land and
to have
a retreat center or and maybe even more than a retreat
center. I don't know but
Yeah to be to have a large piece
of land.
Where people can come and and have
a retreat.
you know disconnect from society and and all that and then also on
that land also be more self-sufficient right
because right if the if the
sits the fan
You know, you need water you need food and right.
So anyway, that's what that's
like my dream and my vision.
I
don't know how to make that happen and
I'm not.
typically
like some people who want to achieve big goals, they just
become so single focused and they just talk to
everyone about it and they ask people like if
I let's say I need
20 million dollars to buy this land and build this thing.
If I was like a robot I learned this from a great sales trainer. If
I was like a robot I could just go around saying can you
please give me 20 million dollars for this Retreat Center? No. Okay.
Can you please give me 20 million dot? Can you please
give me 20 million dollar like if literally if you ask enough
people
Eventually, someone's gonna say yes, and but but here's the
thing. That's not really my
Personality like to go. I'm not like
that's not me. I'm more of an engineer right?
I'm an audio engineer. I'm a little technical geek
kind of a thing like I you know what? I
mean? That's my
Thing. So anyway, yeah, that's my I've had a
hard time asking for money too for things but I know that like as I as
I get more active in helping people, it's like
we were forming connections and I know there's people who talking about
this Vision this kind of goal to
get more kind of sustainable communities
built up in many different ways. So it
seems like an inevitability that we're all kind of moving this these sorts
of directions that we're gonna work together more to make these things happen because
right now yeah, I don't know what what could
happen on this planet, but I feel like people are still going in the
wrong direction to to a large degree in terms of the chaos,
and the
Lack of peace. I guess maybe piece is a good Benchmark just to
say Society might be going in the wrong direction right now, and we want
to find more peace and not less piece through our building up
of our of our Ambitions, I guess.
so
I want to add one thing one one of the things.
Like that's my dream to have the a lot
of land and a retreat center.
And that's great.
But on the other hand.
Spiritually speaking. I can't be tied to
that dream.
right
because I have to be okay if that dream never happens.
Because this is just the physical world and it's okay. It's
a good thought. It's a good dream. But okay if it doesn't happen does that
is that bad? No, it just is what it is.
So that's the weird thing about like
people who are very worldly and ambitious and their
go-getters they can get stuff done,
which is great.
But if people like us or, you know
people trying to learn to be more
In the Oneness and and spiritual whatever
you want to call it like.
Does it really matter? Does it really matter if I
get the retreat center or not? You know what I mean? And in
the big picture. No, it doesn't matter. So it's kind of
a weird place to be in like this would be great, but it's not
necessary. So I I that's why maybe
that's why I've been a little apprehensive to like make it my
official goal and go talk to people like
I don't know. Yeah, it goals are an interesting.
You know dichotomy.
Or it's it's like I definitely have felt sometimes
goals are helpful to set a deadline. But then if I make
the deadlines too important, then I become stressed out about the deadlines and
and they kind of overtake my my state of
Peace completely even though you know, I can
make them in all all the best intentions. They they can
be completely.
Taking me in the wrong direction went by the time they get close, you know.
Thanks, Debbie. What did
you say? She said she looked not being attached to
the outcome. Yeah. Yeah, so you have done Retreats already
though. You've started hosting retreats in
the past. Yeah, we've done we've done three or four weekend Retreats,
which is great. Yeah. They've
been really good. It's it's almost like a version
of our Meetup but overall weekend and
Yeah.
They've been good but it's hard, you know because it costs money and then
it's it's I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's
yeah, I maybe it's worth experimenting more with
Groups here in Colorado and I think I think I have an
intention to help other people get started with different kinds of Retreats. And
now there's an interesting potentials that I be
careful what I say, but it's fascinating
that now as of last November we have legalized psilocybin.
We have legalized mescaline. We
have legalized DMT for for
personal use and sharing and growing the
plants. It's weird to have
plants that are illegal to
to grow and to share that that's just a
strange strange world. We live
in I guess but that now there's kind of natural Liberation. I
think people are ready for
Kind of getting back to Nature and the plants are seen
as a medicine and the shamanic cultures that people are increasingly increasingly.
I'm finding people, you know
that have the story of going to down to South American getting
some shamanic training and I know even that's kind of become
a weird industry in business with around Ayahuasca. But even
the Native Americans in this culture, you know have the cactus and they have
their own ways of doing ceremonies and it's kind of a universal thing
that the Western cultures have kind of lost that we
can actually, you know, modify our Consciousness a little bit and in
my mind, you know helps you just like meditation, you know,
it's like Adele can almost be like a force meditation to look
a little bit deeper into the subconscious mind and clean up
some of the junk that you didn't know is was you were holding
on to even though you're you know every day where it's like a heavy weight.
We're caring on to sometimes with some of the baggage and they
just don't notice until we
Do have some kind of retreat or way to get away from that
from that baggage for a time to to look at it from a
different angle.
And I suppose even sometimes it's like when people get into a
serious car accident or something and they're in the hospital even that is like a
little bit of a retreat for their for them that they have to take a
meditation and and look at things differently. As long as they're not
too many Pharmaceuticals, I guess. Yeah.
Yeah.
some some
some people say that even
When when people get sick that's Nature's way
of saying no, no sit down, you know, you're
not going anywhere for three four days. Just sit down
lay down.
You know, that's like Nature's way of putting on the brakes
and saying stop right very interesting. Yeah.
Pause your life.
So yeah, true. Trish is patiently impatiently waiting
for spring to plant. Yeah, my wife's upstairs doing like
planting. She has the little seedlings of
what she say. I think it was onions or something and we have
these she has these grow lamps inside the house, you know
a little stuff to get ready to plant. So it's really
nice. She really loves that. I love it, too, but
I mean
I help a little but she does most of it but yeah.
Yeah, people can feel free to ask questions now. I think we're gone a little
over an hour here. So anyone who wants to jump into
the conversation where we can we can get more ideas and
feedback here for continuing the discussions.
And I I could share that I was you know, thinking of doing
more kinds of content with Chris here in the future we could
talk about so many different kinds of things going on. You know,
I think that it's valuable for people to have
some processing of the the
craziness of the world and some some
ability to recognize the freedom that
has always possible in the midst of that craziness and it
certainly seems like, you know, the Dark Night of the soul is the most
significant example of that but some degree we
each have, you know for reading the news and we get triggered we have like many
Dark Nights of the Soul every day too that we have to
have to recognize we don't need that energy. We can kind of
step away from that that energy and some I
have some friends who are like I don't I don't want to see anything at all
anything related to the news. I just want to block that out of my life and
they can is usually Universal people have
like
Wonderful time when they when they are very disciplined
about blocking that that out but at the same time we're kind
of engaged in a culture where you can't you can't block
it out. Everyone's talking about certain things depending on
your work environment and your home environment the the
subjects tend to come up and even with family like
people have to deal with family members with different belief systems. You know,
I had one friend who had to like, you know lie about
who they voted for to their to their family. It's like,
how do we get to this point in our society where you
know, the family bonds are less important
than the spirit the political beliefs, basically
By the way, that's the Gita what you just
described. I don't want to be involved politically, but I
kind of have to be at least a little involved politically. So
let that
that is that what the gita's about? How do you handle that?
How do because the and the answer is you should
be involved in politics to whatever degree you
should be but it shouldn't affect you at all. Like it
should you should it should be like you're you know
what I mean? Like you should say what you need to say. You should
vote how you want to vote and but it should never
affect your heart
Which is easier said than done.
Yeah, by the way, I wrote
so I've been getting into songwriting over the
last year and a half. I mean, I've always been a musician. I've
always been in bands. I've been I'm an audio engineer with
a lot of album credits and I've worked on a lot of albums, and
I'm so I've done a lot of engineering I've done a lot of drumming.
I've done a lot of arranging but one thing I've never done really is
writing lyrics and trying to write.
Songs in terms of lyrics and so I've been writing I
bet there's a local group here. I've been meeting with and it's just been
You know just to try to learn a craft is so, you
know a craft that is so close to everything. I
love it's really fascinating. I
mean there's a there's a local group here in town. Where
these guys have been meeting for 30 years now, they're
old guys, but their songwriters and
like
I'm just being like such a student
to them. I'm just trying to absorb everything because
I want to learn and it's so funny. They feel that and now
they're they're helping me right. So anyway, I've been
writing a bunch of lyrics and stuff and last night I wrote.
Something that I think is
pretty interesting. It's not it doesn't sound it sounds more like
poetry now because it was more I just kind of did it quick.
But it might be relevant to what
it's it. Kind of is relevant to what we're talking about.
So, I don't know if you would want me to to read that.
If you guys want to hear that, let me know. Let us
know in the chat.
Yeah, we're flexible we
I want or we could save it for next time. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, I also realized it's
like oh my gosh that I hope to
see more poetry. Now that people can write a poem just with a few prompts to
chat GPT.
All right. The whole world is Gonna Change now? I
think it's amazing. All right, Layla says, yes, but
Debbie says yeah next time so maybe we'll do it next time. Yeah, right.
Yeah sweet. Yeah encourages to plan a
little bit more around that sharing.
Yeah, I've benefited from
many kinds of songs
Christian songs and yeah other
creative creative songs. It's kind of like music has a way
of putting, you know altered state on its own, you know.
And I suppose that that can be useful and also.
Unhelpful if people are stuck in a state that they
can't get out of in the music is reinforcing that state. I don't
know if that's happening at all. But
The other so many great kinds of peaceful music to get people into
a better State. I mean, you know, I've wondered since
I was a kid about, you know, the effect of rock music and
rap music and it's like is there a different kinds of music that that is
putting people into aggressive State? I
don't know if aggression is the right word for it though, but something just maybe
to some degree I feel like when you become experiencing that
that aggressive state that the song is representing it's almost
like you're working through that energy and it's no longer. It's no
longer something that you're bothered by anymore. It's like you become
immune to it in some way. You're you're immune is a
immunized to the energy of the song when you see once you've
heard it enough times, I guess interesting. Yeah, because when
I was young when I was a teenager, I was really into like
like heavy music like heavy metal.
And but I but you know, I was never like
a murderer or a serial killer like, you know what I mean,
but so that what you just said makes sense. It's like you you it's
it's an energy that you sort of have to work through, but it
doesn't mean that.
You're gonna it doesn't mean you have to use it
the wrong way or the right way. But so you kind of have a choice. Yeah.
Yeah, go ahead and read it for us. Go ahead
and read the song that you oh, yeah, you want to hear it? Yeah, okay.
All right, so it's called.
wishing for an answer
wishing for an answer
the full moon my only companion.
I looked far out over the ocean.
wishing for an answer
I walked on creaky boards.
I felt the mist from the crashing waves below.
Pulled up my hood.
Sat with my head down.
Breathing to the rhythm of the waves.
asking for an answer
families nearby are having nice dinners.
I've never felt more lonely.
At the end of the pier at the end of my rope.
I'm asking you to reach down and soothe me.
I'm on the pier, but I'm lost at sea.
I'd be frightened to death if you weren't here
with me.
Just for a minute. I wish I could forget myself.
Thankfully this night has allowed me
to be alone with you.
and your study heartbeat
a big ship far offshore
a shooting star intrigues me more
perfect time to wish for an answer
the future is shrouded in darkness.
But you promised light my every step.
each day going forward
your warm hands calm my fears.
Maybe there's no need after all.
to wish for an answer
At one point I felt the answer cannot be far away.
Then suddenly I heard these words as clear as
day.
my little one
if you're quiet, you can hear me.
If you close your eyes I am there.
Whenever you're alone, I will find you.
Anytime anywhere.
I love you from the inside out.
Never give up and never doubt.
Relaxed child you are safe.
I have you in the palm of my hand.
Instantly overwhelmed with gratitude.
My tears fell into the sea.
I sat there for at least an hour in reverence.
blessed with this miraculous reminder
of what I always knew in my heart was true.
I walked off that Pier a new man.
Climbed down some rocks and walked in
the sand.
Everything changed from that night forward.
More quiet time and more eyes closed.
I learned to flow.
more and more things fell into place
now for me the two best things in life.
Are the answer I got.
And the smile on your face.
Very nice. That's awesome.
I I like I like and and songs that
are written like that that there's always an
opportunity to kind of
Interchange the idea of God for the idea of the lover.
You know that there's there's the same same energy
there that that you're you're
seeking this completion through that energy.
Yeah, that reminds me. I the there was one.
Person from France who was also I met
in India at the ashram.
and we were talking about this and he basically said
that
you can almost listen to any love song and think about
it in terms of either loving God or loving the
master.
I mean unless it's really specific, you know.
like
Whatever, but but if it's more just general
Love Like Love Like There's a love between two
things like you can always yeah, it's so cool that you
can take it many different ways. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks,
Debbie.
Thanks Trish.
So do you so I know that.
We're talking about many different subjects and paths. Do
you feel like
they're there really isn't any One path
that everyone has to find their own path.
to spiritual growth to practice
Yeah, definitely because it's not.
The path is not outside of you.
It's you know, what what that meditation
practice I was doing for years.
Was that really outside of myself?
No, it was so so.
This is the thing about human consciousness.
We don't understand it.
We don't know where it begins and ends.
We confuse it with physical things.
and so
yeah, I believe there are different paths and
And some of those paths go the wrong way too, right?
There's there's bad. There's dark paths good whatever and
we're all going like this sort of.
So yeah, I mean it's it's everything is individual right?
There's no.
You there's nothing Universal in terms of like a
path or something, right? Literally every person's path
is different. So
yeah, yeah, I guess it's interesting
though that I feel like the the
most consistently useful thing people can do is meditate
though. So it's almost like
you know finding some path that includes meditation is
is the easier way to
to navigate this world because without meditation it's like
you're just you're just piling on all of the the junk
more and more without without working back down
through it more to the core of what's guess what would
be the simpler path which is directly accessing God within
you or accessing, you know, the inner Inner Voice
or something like that.
Yeah meditation is just very fundamental. However
Take me when I was I don't know 27.
Or 23 I had to keep going
down.
to hit the bottom
So if you told me to meditate when I was 25, I wouldn't I
wasn't gonna do it.
Because I had to go down, right?
And only after I went down then I can
come up and meditation can help.
It's very interesting.
Yeah.
yeah, the other many kinds of seeking in this world that
I you couldn't say that. They're they're inappropriate because
they're all leading.
Down the path and the path has to eventually reconverge with
I guess you're you're intended path for Incarnation
or the antenna path of the higher self.
Was there any principle of a higher self or in a
higher aspect that was part of the self and and you're
studies?
Yeah, so the in you know in Master's teaching
it's basically that each human
being started off as a part
of God.
And then slowly.
It the individual soul started to
separate from God.
And then the individual soul.
At some point realized it was
separate from God.
And then it had thoughts and feelings
and then a body and now you have me and you
and all of us here in the chat.
so
we're still part of the the essence of us
is still part of God, but we've added all these layers.
and so
it you know, theoretically speaking the whole spiritual practice
is you're just trying to remove these layers, you know.
and we're also undergoing the
fruits or the
the karma
of our actions right if you you know
if you drank
a bottle of Jack Daniels right now in about
15 minutes
We know what's gonna happen. Why because that's what
happens you it's cause and
effect. It's it's very simple. So we it each
of us in our past. We've had a lot of
causes that caused me to be here.
And that's fine.
Because you know, we're just the universe experiencing itself.
But if we want to go back we have
to we have to
Clean out those causes release them until there's
nothing until there's no.
you know Babaji described it as like a cocoon around our
soul, you know, we've we've we've
We've intertwined we've covered up ourselves the
the light in our heart has been covered up.
And now we're sitting here arguing. Is there really light in
my heart and all that? Well, of course there is but we don't
why don't you see it then well because you covered it up, what did
Jesus say don't don't hide your lamp under
a bushel or something? Yeah.
Yeah Let It Shine for everyone to see yeah. Yeah,
so but we don't know how to let it shine because
we're so covered. But but this is the spiritual practice.
Let's release it. Let's shine and then
therefore
the goal of the spiritual practice in terms of
what Babaji and chargie taught was that?
In this life, we can really clean out everything and offload
everything and therefore at the moment of death.
We merge back with the divine.
And we're not Reborn.
but
if you don't release everything if you take all this stuff with
you.
Then you have to be reborn until you
let it go.
That's why Babaji said you can be a good man.
You can do good things. You can earn money give to charity. You
can be a good man. Well, you're gonna be reborn as a good man.
But being reborn is a good man is not the goal.
The goal is to merge back to go home.
You know, it's theoretical part of the journey. Yeah. Yeah. It's
almost like
I assume that there's a strong desire to return when
we when we see an opportunity for resolving our
Our Karma, I guess our baggage when we're
in between incarnations is the
way I understand from The Rock context is that we're you know,
we're actively kind of like outlining what is what is the
most potentially useful Incarnation for us to
have the experiences that let us drop off these things that we've
been holding on to our attached to but which is also seems
to be connected to other people too because it's like, you know, we incarnate
with families who are kind of like equally caring
each other's baggage when we're when we're choosing
this kind of relationship where we know that person's gonna trigger us.
We know we're going to trigger the other person and we're gonna we're gonna keep on budding
heads in this particular way until we
both kind of are done with it. And it
seems like we're kind of doing this together also and
I assume that's kind of you know,
Just a part of life that we're part of these societies and we
chose to be particular parents that will give a particular kinds of experiences and
get us enmeshed in the same energies that we were wanting to work through.
so
I guess it's fascinating that the people in India might actually
understand that a little bit that they they feel like
there's a there's a reason to their reincarnation I
guess.
right
It reminds me of a story that one of Lord krishna's
devotees. I think his name was Narada.
he was in India and he was walking and he's
basically a saint to think of
Nara as a saint and he
he came across a very spiritual man.
A man who's been practicing spirituality for
lifetimes and very seriously.
practicing and
the the spiritual man asked Narada. How
many more lifetimes do I have left?
And Narada said to
and the spiritual man was
crushed he was angry he was
Frustrated after all this practice. I still have two
lives left.
So Naruto keeps walking. He comes across this guy
who's looked like a crazy person. He's just like singing and
whatever and and this guy asked Nara how
many lifetimes do I have left?
And Narada says you see that tree as many
leaves around that tree. That's how many lifetimes you have left.
And the guy said really?
Wonderful. I love it and he's just that that and in
that moment Narada liberated him.
He was done.
because of his attitude
Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah, it seems like
yeah, that's a trend in our and our culture that
people are frustrated by their.
by their existence and not not seeing it as opportunities
for growth and you know, it seems
like this gets back into the the heart of what meditation is
doing is freeing us from the perceptions that there's something
wrong with the present moment when the present present moment is where
we're completely liberated with we
choose to allow it to to be that
Yeah, do you feel like there is a path to you know,
instantaneous Liberation. Was that ever taught
in your schools of thought?
um
I think what Babaji said is that it is possible.
But that sort of comes down to like Grace or
whatever. You want to call it. Like that's a that's a special thing. So
like in the story, I just told it was Narada who
bestowed that on the guy?
He didn't happen just all on its own. So
there's always a chance from what
I understood.
Yeah, I don't really know much else besides that.
Yeah, I've talked to several people who have experiences that
are like experiences that are very profound
like infinite intelligence. Just just knowing everything
whenever just instant knowledge of whatever they want
to know. It's completely state of Peace complete surrender
and then
That may last for a few days a few
hours a few days few weeks. I've heard this from different
people the similar experience that will last and
then they'll start having thoughts of themselves again, we'll start
thinking in terms of their their Identity or
have fear come in and then and then it's over
and then they have to go back to their normal way of doing things but it's like
an integration process after that. I don't know if these are gifts
from the Divine that come to these people that they have
this experience for the short period of time to show them what's possible.
And I I I've had you know,
very very small snapshots that I feel like I've had in
dream states and maybe in meditation just small
Windows to something that's unspeakable.
And I know that my whole life is like just like a
small drop at an ocean compared to the ocean of
our true identity, which we're always able to tap into
if we
If we are single pointed enough, I guess in our
will to pursue that that awareness.
But yeah, I guess it's not really the right thing to be focused on
either because I think we could become overly focused on
a shortcut and there are people who teach what
they call the direct path now and that it's almost
like the idea is that there's a shortcut which is the direct path and we have
to be continuously looking for that the shortcut all the
time, but I think that the shortcut is always whatever we're currently
experiencing if we're just willing to find find it
there.
and and not fight it I guess not fight it as being
not right path for us.
Yeah, I love that idea. And I I think I've heard it from you too. The
idea that
whatever you need to progress spiritually. Well at
every moment life is giving
you that experience every moment.
That's to me that's fascinating.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's like mind-blown.
Yeah, like every everything is so engineered around our our metaphysical
Journey too. It's like, you know,
we the synchronicities that we experience the strange coincidences the
way things unfold it's like the universe is always kind of
telling telling us that this is this is divinely planned right now
and we kind of we kind of down downgrade our
experiences to say this is just another day. This is just everything
I always experience, you know.
right
It's very interesting.
Yeah, there's obviously the famous quote about I
don't know where it came from that chopping wood
and carrying water is what you do before and
after Enlightenment at the same same Journey.
hmm
So I but I assume that the Masters will have a
different perspective as they're doing their their services. They have a
different perspective on everyone around them and on their reality as they
engage in what would seem to be
the mundane experiences of Life they maybe they see it differently.
but that makes sense to say
yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, they probably see it all in
terms of Dharma right Dharma means your duty
right? That means like what are you supposed to do? Like if
you have a house like you said you got a chop wood and carry water or
if you have a child you have to take care of the child like these are not
I mean
In reality, these aren't optional things. I think a lot
of people in the west now, whatever weirdness.
You know people who are not spiritually connected or religious at
all. They think they can just do anything and everything's fine and
it's like well you can do anything but there's a
price.
For a lot of that.
but I what I like is that
I mean the mainly Babaji and charge you really just would meditate
with people right? They're just
it they're using their whatever they have
to have people sit down and meditate and
also, you know, give them transmission and clean them
and
So they're they're actually doing spiritual work, right?
They're cleaning people.
Like that's one thing to master does and not only does he transmit a
higher Essence into you, but just as
you clean yourself every evening in the practice the
master can clean you even more.
I mean, I we in fact as a as a prefect as someone
who's been trained to give one-on-one individual sittings.
That's what I've been trained to do
is to sit with people one-on-one for 30 40 minutes.
And there's a cleaning aspect to what I do.
There's a transmission aspect and it's not what I do though. It's
it's the master coming through me right? I'm just a conduit.
So is that what you're doing your visualizing? Are you reaching
out to the master and calling them on them or how
does it happen?
Well, the one shortcut is you just it's not you sitting
there. It's the master sitting there I see and then
then that's where the wheel comes in because when you're cleaning someone
in front of you, you know, there's these.
Were taught how to there's a there's a concept of reading the
condition.
Right so we can read the condition of the
person sitting in front of us and that we can see where there
might be more.
some scarra or not, and we see which maybe which part of
the heart needs to be cleaned more and we can use our will which
is really the Masters will
To clean things and then we also use the Masters will
for the transmission. So it's it's a
remarkable system. I mean when I was in New Jersey I was
giving
15 or 20 sittings a week
almost every evening what two or three people would come to our house
for one-on-one. I would sit with each one for 30 40 minutes and give
them a sitting.
so if anyone local here in Colorado Springs if you
want a sitting
Then this is sort of what I was I was actually
hinting at when when you were here the other day remember what
I took member what I said.
To Elizabeth. Yeah. Yeah. She asked about it later too. She
wasn't sure exactly what what that was. Well, I didn't want
to yeah, it was yeah. Anyway that I totally it
totally makes more sense now, so I'm gonna
come back over and get that clear.
Yes, please. Yeah Be Wondering. Yeah. Yeah, so
it's it's interesting that it's a
I think it's also connected to what the
law of one calls the
invoking the magical personality. There's different
phrases for the same kind of principle where you're basically
setting your separate identity aside,
you're allowing that aspect of the self which
you see as God to come in and be you for that
moment and then you're and then you're allowing the miracle to
happen. That's not from you. It's from the Divine that you're
able to see that happen.
precisely
neck and by the way, you can sort of have that attitude and regular life,
too. Yeah when you walk into the store to buy some bread.
You can actually think that it's the master walking
through the aisle.
To get the bread. Yeah like yeah.
Yeah, it's a funny thing with pride and humility that like people
will people will.
Try to build up themselves and see
I have the very spiritual person who's doing
this thing now and then the process you're just putting kicking
the goalpost further, you know, you're kicking the can down
the road when you're saying this concept of the separate identity that
I've built for myself is the one who is God who's super awesome and
doing all these things and and you have
to kind of set that aside to have this experience of
emptiness. I don't know if emptiness of the
self is the right way of looking at it, but you're becoming filled
in some way with something that is completely Beyond you and
using your Incarnation using your vehicle
your physical vehicle for a Time.
For that purpose, I guess right and what you just said
is the exact reason why the Masters say
that you need to have a physical Master because if
you like me, let's say I was you
know, giving these, you know giving these sittings and
I'm you know it it's I start to
develop an ego.
The physical Master can see that and
he then he it then he would correct me right
because I can't see that myself. I mean I can see a
little but not everything but the physical Master can see
all this guy I'm training him
to do the spiritual work and now is his ego is
getting inflated and now that so the physical Master is the
one who can
take you down a notch right when he needs to right.
Yeah, and to the great people can
see that as being Jesus. I guess it's not not impossible
to have a guru that is dead. And certainly
I've had some experiences, you know from I've
heavily researched and even
really Baba and I just love everything about need Crowley Bob
his life and and it's like people can't even
Write a book that contains all the stories because you don't you don't know
who has all the stories. There's so many different scattered people with different stories about
him because he was just appearing in different places
as he would apparently by locate to
help people, but I feel like you know,
it's it's the same principle where if I
can
If I can surrender to the guru on some sense and feel
his energy I can I can kind of tap into.
Awareness of something that's beyond me that's harder to
very hard to describe. But but
I feel like he was teaching people that that you
should you should see me as as the father see me
as the the one who's got it taken
care of you could hand all of your concerns over to me and he would tell people
look at my picture go come to my picture on. Hey my
picture on the wall come to my picture and give everything to me through the
picture and I will take care of it.
So it seems like it's like he realized that
or the aspect of himself, which is
divine realized that that's what everyone is needing is to is to
see God to a large enough degree that it's a
doorway that they can go through and have access to that.
I guess.
Liberation through that that kind of awareness
Yeah Mueller and I just watched that you you that documentary on
YouTube that you recommended. We watched it like that day.
That night that you guys were here. We literally watched it that night and it
was yeah, I didn't know about him. But and I'll
tell you the one thing that
sort of
impressed me the most
I mean I use the word impressed Loosely because
it's not impressed. It's
anyway
He didn't have a teaching.
right zero
that that is interesting.
Or it was a different teaching for everybody who came to him, you know
different kind of teaching right but it wasn't like a practice
and there weren't ashrams and not yeah,
it was yeah.
Yeah, it's it's very funny hearing ROM Doss
the stories to listen to many of ROM dossel's lectures being
with name Crowley Baba and it's almost
like ramdas knew that it's anger was
such an issue that that that's why the guru
had to push his buttons and all these different ways and it's
like that was the teaching was to push his buttons, right? Because he
was capable of recognizing that's the guru was doing and stepping out
of that. I guess. That's great. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you so much. Wonderful
to hang out with you today.
Yeah, this is fun fun conversation.
Did we see anyone else have any questions or anything come up?
Well, we can keep talking about gurus and things. I know
there's a saying God Guru and sell for one.
And that's kind of been.
The way I've tried to see it with.
you know as we were describing the the seemingly separate
entity who is the guru the master it is
is also you and if you can't see that being is also you
it's and it's harder to understand their role, I guess
as
Teaching you the nature of the self I guess.
Is self-realization a concept that that was
used much in your teacher.
practice
Uh, yeah realization is a concept that's a very
high concept. I think it's just below merger.
The ultimate goal being merger, which is you merged with the Divine
then you're you're gone.
Realization is is definitely way up there
though self-realization.
Thanks Trish. Yeah, this was great, right?
I've been having a ball. I hope I'm not.
You know.
I hope yeah, I'm glad you guys like it.
Yeah.
I even read my song that I wrote last night you guys like that so
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm hoping to share this on, you know more platforms YouTube
and get more.
I'm still getting started with essential Works TV here and
podcasting in general and you've been you had a
podcast for a long time called The Mystic show, right? How many years did you
do that for?
Yeah, well, I still have it. I started it in.
2013
and I still have it. I I but I only put out I don't put out
episodes very much anymore. But I'm open to putting out more episodes
It's just that.
you know things run their course and you know, you have there's
high points and low points and
So what what was the process of doing
that show where you did you find
a lot of different spiritual teachers through that or was it?
Everyone you came across you liked what they had to say.
Yeah, actually, no, it wasn't it's not a show where I
I mean, I did interview a handful of people including the
author of the biology of belief.
a resliptin Bruce Lipton, which was a great episode but no
I started that show just it was
like a monologue really I just wanted to
Talk about a lot of these spiritual Concepts like I'd be reading a book
and I'd be like, hey, it'd be great. You know, here's a concept. Let me
just talk about it on the show.
So that's really what it was. That's really what it
still is. I I didn't want it to be an interview
show because
It I mean I'm not against interviews, but I didn't.
I didn't want it to be that so it wasn't.
Yeah, I think there's a time and place for everything. Yeah, and I'm
hoping to have a lot of interviews on this platform and also
a lot of teachings.
So yeah, I I love that you have this you have
this totally foreign experience
to a lot of people of staying in India and staying did
you stay in many different ashrams? And you say
the quality of living was was the hardest thing to adapt to but were
there things that were pleasantly surprising about the culture.
Oh to people. I mean just the the
heart the heart of the people is just
it's so different in in America.
You can walk anywhere. You can even meet people and people
say hi and but it's there's the a
lot of times the heart's not in it, but somehow
in India that there's just
It just more heart in individual
things. It's hard to explain but
yeah, and and
yeah, it really opened my eyes the whole experience. I mean
and me and my wife talk about this all the time that because you
know, we'll see, you know on the news or
somewhere that all these young people or complaining and
you know.
you know arguing and you know, and and me and
my wife are often say
they should go to India for two months go live in India for two
months. Then you come back here and I guarantee you're not
going to be arguing about this stupid nonsense.
Because we we just don't know.
We just don't know there's no perspective.
so yeah, if any like
I encourage everyone and anyone to
go for these.
Experiences and and you got to go with your heart. If
your heart says to do it then do it if your heart says,
no, maybe not India, maybe go somewhere else whatever follow your
heart, but
The more the different experiences you can have it's
just perspective. You know, it it's it's you
start to see the same thing from different angles and
and then you then you get a better idea of
what that thing actually is.
Instead of just having one Viewpoint and you don't
know any other Viewpoint, right? Yeah.
yeah, I I certainly feel like
Western culture is is
it's hard to break out of the the box if
you don't have anything to kind of shake you up a little bit, but it
does feel like you know, I was raised to watch a lot
of television and I've got all these different programming from
that. It's like literally called programming, you know, and and I
don't know if the fact that we have more TV and our
culture or more more media more access
to these kinds of things more expectation that we spend our
times engaged in these things that were kind of like more
dumb down or brainwashed and held back in some ways. But but
it does seem like disconnecting yourself from the culture
seems to be one of the one of the easiest ways to get
back to a more peaceful style of
spirituality at least maybe just
temporarily even or continuously like like with
Retreats I guess would be
one way of doing it.
Do you feel like you have any any way that you need to disconnect?
um
You mean read like recently like now? Yeah. Yeah. I mean
I
I think it was two years ago or three years ago. I
It was sort I did it sort of for business but sort
of for a break. I went on a just a retreat by myself. I actually
rented a cabin here in
Colorado and I went there for I think I spent four days
by myself.
and I took
a bunch of books
You know a lot of good spiritual books, but also
some business books because I was sort I wanted to reflect on
what I was doing with my business and sort of plan out the whole
year. I did this right around New Year's right just before New Year's
or something like that. So
I just needed to be by myself for four days.
and
Just sit and think I mean, it sounds so
silly. But like when's the last time?
You sat you just were able to just sit and
think.
you know, what was a
it was either Henry Ford or someone like that. He says thinking is
the most important work there is
and think and thinking is hard.
It's hard to think that's why so few people do it.
So I went for four days and I did it and of course I'd meditated and
I did all that too. It was great. So I always love
doing that. I haven't
So charaji was born
in 1927. So in 2027 for
his hundredth year birth anniversary. We
were planning to go to India.
And we are going to go to the the ashram they built they
have a new ashram in a different place that I've never been to yet. And so
we are planning that because we you know
We still have some family in India too. So that's that's probably
the big one. But again, that's 20 that's four years from now.
But hopefully in the meantime.
Locally here in Colorado. We can maybe organize
a retreat, you know, and yeah.
you know, even with with airbnbs and stuff, like maybe
it doesn't have to be that expensive and but I
don't know so I love to work with you
on that and if everyone watching if you are in
This area or wherever you are.
you know happy to
talk about Retreats and try to plan them and you
know, we've had it I know you've had experience I've had experience. So if anybody
watching this is like
If you would like to organize a retreat and you need a little
help or assistance or some input, I mean just Reach Out.
Definitely. Yeah, I feel like this is a good direction to be going into create more
templates and more teachings around
around this and also offering the opportunities for
experience of some of this.
yeah, and one thing I forgot to mention that we
we do the pause your life meetups my wife and I do it
and we and and but I had a friend.
I told him about the pause your life meetups and he said oh, that sounds
great. I'd love to do something like that. I said
I'll give out. I'll teach you the format. I'll give you everything I
and so he was in Canada.
Ontario Canada, he started his own
little chapter of pleasure life.
And he did it for like three four years. He does. He he
stopped because you know, everything has its life cycle and stuff.
But but he really did it and he we gave him the
handouts for the readings. We told him how to make the universe box
and we explained everything and the meditation technique and
he loved it and he he ran a local group. So
again, if you're watching this and you would and you
want to do something like this just reach out we can help. Would
you like to share your email address?
Sure some other way you can decide. Yeah,
no emails. Good. Let me look up the
the pause your life
It's a website still too, right pause your life.org. Is
that the website? That's true pause your life.org. There's a contact page
you can you can send me a
You can I have a recommended. I've been trying to encourage people to post their
own meetup groups for a long time too, because it's like, you know,
a lot of people they go on meetup.com and they feel
like there's nothing here. There's nothing here I give up.
There's nobody there's nobody but if you start something you'll find
the people who are like humans. It's you just
have to do it.
Yeah, and there's no pressure. So my email is pause your life at PM
dot me.
Pause your life at PM dot me.
Yeah that you can always get in touch with me and pause. Your life.org is
the website.
And I'm also doing a bunch of stuff with fractal crisps.
The name fractal Chris I'm streaming the meditations there. Also.
I'm because I create fractals. I love fractals and
I'm creating a lot of fractal art. So on Instagram and Twitter
and stuff you can find fractal Chris. And anyway, yeah,
I mean always feel free to reach out. I mean,
we're all
the way I feel about
a group and a community like this is we all have our heart
in the right place. And so always it's just
a matter of like
Practical Solutions so, you know, I mean
Mike how I ask you about stuff. I'm like Hey, how do you do this
or how did you do that? Like and you ask me so we all can ask
each other. So feel free to just reach out. That's
that's sort of why we're here, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So this has been a really great two-hour session. Would
you like to close us
with your your normal closing for
the prayer? All the universal prayer?
Sure.
Yeah. All right. So again, this is a
so typically
in spiritual practice we
everything we do is for our own.
benefit
but this Universal prayer that we can do now is
for the benefit of
all human beings and everyone in the whole universe
and that so and it's like a
like a 30 second meditation we can do so
so why don't you sit just sit comfortable
probably where you are and and just close your eyes
and let go and I will
Say the universal prayer and then we'll meditate for
30 seconds and and then I will.
Stop it after about 30 seconds. So, okay, let's begin.
all brothers and sisters
Are being filled with love and devotion?
and real faith
Is growing stronger in them?
All right, we can end it there. Thank you everyone.
Thank you Chris. Thank you. Everyone beautiful.
Hello everyone. I'm Mike, Wisconsin. And this is Ascension workers
live. And this is a show where I'm kind
of trying to interview people who are very dedicated to
the path of Ascension the path of spiritual growth path of
Awakening others.
And I thought really great person interview for this
for the first interview would be my friend Chris Kern. Let
me get you on the screen here Chris unmute. Hi Mike.
I'm doing well. How are you doing? My brother? I'm doing
good. Yeah, it's been a challenging this past
year having a baby now with
Not having as much time but I feel
like you know, I'm gradually getting back into a more
consistent meditation path and it feels like the baby
itself became a meditation, you know of sorts
to focus on life in a different way.
But yeah, we can get into meditation later. Definitely.
so maybe to start with
I could I could just I could just share I could share that Chris
and I have been you know, locally living
in Colorado Springs. We've attended meetup groups and he chrysostomia
group. I hosted me a group we've been to each other's groups
and appreciate what we're doing. And it's it's a very
fantastic subject. We get into later too the group
group energy it potentials with groups and the Chris
also has done many awesome things with his life and including
training under a legitimate Guru
in India Guru is probably not the right word, but
we can get into that too.
So I'd like a brief background Chris of how you
got into the spiritual path and what that's
led to.
Yeah, sure. I got in through lots of misery
probably like everyone else here who's here. So I want to say hi
to Anne-Marie Debbie James Layla
Lisa Lewis Trish Victoria
and everybody who's here. Happy to
meet you happy to be here. Definitely.
Ask questions and you know, this isn't obviously all about
me. It's it's a conversation. So, please
so please chime in but
Yeah, but basically by the time I was 31 years
old, I had run my entire life into the
ground. I had no money. I had no place to live I
had no car.
Like literally I'm not this isn't exaggeration and
I was lucky enough. I had a friend who let me literally sleep
in his basement, which was not heated.
There was no heat in this basement and I stayed there over
a cold winter. So I don't know if you've ever tried to
sleep in a place that's literally like 30 or
20 degrees.
It's weird anyway.
at that point in my life I had
this idea
and I was like, you know what? I'm smarter than this like I
know.
I know I'm intelligent enough to
not get myself into this tragic situation.
So that's when I sort of had a wake-up call for myself.
Like you know what I have to start living properly. I
have to start doing the right things and then so I
basically I got my act together and part of that was
beginning of meditation practice, which I did in
2003
And it just came up came about naturally.
I wanted to start meditation and I looked up online and I
saw that it's the different types of meditation
and I found one a method called Raja
yoga.
Which is one of the four main branches of yoga and Raja.
Yoga is
is
It's the king of all yoga. That's what Raja means and
also it's there's no it's not physical at all.
It's just mental. It's just basically meditation and a
cleaning process. So and then I looked up if there's
someone near me who taught this method and there was 20 20
minutes away.
and I called this person and I said I'd like to start meditation and
he said fine come to my house and
from the moment. I walked up to his house and knocked on the door and he
opened the door. He said welcome. I literally felt.
At home and I and and I'm so
lucky. I had a local.
Facilitator to help me get started with meditation
because as you know, Mike meditate people have
so many misconceptions about meditation. It's insane and
it it's so much simpler than everyone thinks.
So anyway, that's how I first got started. I
don't want to go through my entire 20 years
since then before, you know, yeah.
So well eventually you're interested in this path
this particular path this led
you to seek out the source of this path in India. Is that how it went.
So when I met the local facilitator and I started practicing.
He gave me a book and the book was written
by the master and and Guru is
a totally okay word guru just means teacher by the way.
And so so I started reading about
the practice. How do you do the practice? It's very it was very simple. It
still is very simple and the you know,
the master had
written several books and he gave speeches which they
transcribed into books. There's a lot of books.
So I just started reading the first book that my facilitator
gave me and then I realized that there's a a master
or a guru and
You know and I wasn't put off by that but a lot of people are
right A lot of people are like, oh, I don't need a master and
and look all it is.
It's a teacher. It's somebody who
knows a lot of stuff that you don't know that's all and
and a true Master just wants to teach you. It's not
it's not master enslave right?
You're not signing up to be a slave you're
signing up to be a student. And what does Any teacher
want more than anything. They want their student to
surpass them.
Right, so that's it. But if you do find
a guru who is asking you for money who does want
to control you and who does want to whatever else
beware because there are people
like that too. But so you, you know got to find a good teacher. That's
that's what that's all about. So, yeah, so then
it was a about a year and a half after I started I took
my first trip to India in 2004 and that was
well, as far as the spiritual practice was concerned that was
eye-opening, but even just going to
India and seeing that culture was just
mind-blowing. Yeah.
So this Guru is charging. Is this
the guy named parthosarthy Roger? Yeah
part this art the Raja gopalachari. His
son is Wikipedia known as chargie. Yep.
and so the
surgery was a student
under Babaji this guy. Yep, and then
chargie took babuji's teaching
and created so hard marges that already say
that yes sahaj Marg that was created by babuji
in 1945 as it says right there on
the first couple lines. Yeah. We started in 1945 by
Babaji and charaji met Babaji
and I believe 1967
So and then he trained under Babaji and then Babaji passed
away in 1983.
and then charge he took over the role as
the master and charge he passed away
in 2014, and he was
succeeded by
kamlesh where they call him dodgy, I think.
I've
Since about 20 this just means like he's the CEO of the
organization which is teaching the meditation practice, basically.
Yes, although there are a part
of the spiritual practice is.
One of the main parts of this practice that we're talking about which by the
way, I'm not really plugged in so much anymore ever since I
moved to Colorado. There's no one here who practices
So I mean I still meditate obviously but but
one of the methods of that system, which is very interesting is
called pranauti and Prana everyone.
You might know you might have heard the word Prana right? It's
like energy spiritual energy or whatever. I don't like horse. Yeah
life force. Well pranauti is
where the master you can meditate with the master and he can sort
of Infuse into you.
Higher spiritual States like he can Infuse
into you.
spiritual states that
You you might not even be ready for.
100% And so that way he can sort of give you a taste
of the next step and then help you grow up to that.
And then once you get there, then he'll give you a taste of the next step and
it's really something to be felt. I mean you can't really talk about it.
Well, do you think it's something that it's felt in small ways when we meditate in
groups. Do we do we tune into each other's vibration that
way too.
Yes group meditation. Yes, obviously there's this cumulative effect
which can be felt. I mean that's what happens in our meetups
and your meetups do yeah, it's amazing. It's almost as though
like even if my mind is prone to
wander. I feel this deep soothing piece that sort
of pervades my Consciousness as we get going into the
meditation and I know it's not for me. I know it's Unique to this group. And
so it feels as though there's some kind of like magnetic pull
to go deeper into the meditation. That's just
coming from the fact that we're around people who are doing the same
practice.
yeah, and and developing the sensitivity for that
is really important too because
Spirituality is so deep. And it's
so subtle too, right the deeper states are more subtle. So.
To to experience them and to learn from them.
You have to really
bring your mental activity down and you have to it takes practice.
It takes months and years. This isn't like a couple days.
But yeah, but the master with this transmission they call
it Trent. The pranauti is called transmission. That's something
else. I mean the group the group thing.
is there yes, but also that pranauti is
something else and again, it's hard to explain but
when you sit
I mean I've had so many different experiences that
I literally can't even explain. I mean I could tell you okay, I sat
down and I was just gone or I sat down and I just I
went somewhere or
it you know what I mean like but what does that mean? Right so you have
to do it yourself? So yeah, definitely. Yeah. It's
that what the law of one describes the mind as being.
like
and having a inner geometry or inner geography
even and that there as you open
the door you begin you begin going into that?
geography the geometry which is like
It's almost as though there's there's thoughts that have.
Like deeper subconscious roots, and and the feeling
of getting to that root is beyond words because it's you're literally
like the words are on the surface and then the feelings are pursuing
deeper down. So, you know
feeling your way into a meditation might be one description of
the process I guess but feelings are feelings can
be like even like chemic chemical
based but then there's feelings that seem to be of the mind that are not
related to the chemistry of our body if that makes any sense.
For sure, and and one of the things that happens too is when you
meditate sometimes when you sit down and meditate with other people or
the master and or the master.
You don't feel anything too much different, but after
45 or 55
minutes and you come out of it.
You open your eyes and and that's when you're like what like,
you know what I mean like it just there you you're
traveling somewhere. You're something's happening. You don't
really know but it's it's could be kind of pleasurable maybe not
but then at the end you you when you
open your eyes and then you get that contrast right
of
oh now I'm back here in this place and
I so then then you realize that you were in a different
place, right?
Yeah, I mean it's it's almost as though some powerful
meditations can make you like a different person even
afterward because you feel like you you're losing something by
exiting the meditation and trying to return your normal life. Whereas that
that space and meditation would be so nice to hold on to it. It's
almost like a painful to break away from meditation. Sometimes
I feel that way in your group in my group. It's like I don't
want it. I don't want the meditation to end. I don't want to end. Yeah.
Yeah, and it just gives your gives your life more perspective.
I mean
when you when you you know.
encounter some small annoyance
If you've been meditating for months and years something small that's
annoying. Okay? Yeah, it's annoying but it's just something like
like you you get better at
not giving your attention to small annoying things.
So yeah.
And it feels as though that's not really it's not
part of our culture, but I do wonder about
the culture of India and it seems as though people are prioritizing. Well,
I don't really know if there's pros
and cons to the different aspects of the culture. I don't know if the the people
in India have become more jaded to
certain kinds of meditation practices
or whatever because it's just part of their culture so much did what
was it like getting in that culture? What
what's surprised you about their culture that is different than ours.
Uh, well mostly the standard of
live. Well, so the most obvious is
the standard of living. I mean, they it in in
the USA.
we are so
what would you call it? Rich spoiled?
I mean, we live like kings in this country, even
if you're poor.
Yeah, but over there now some
people in India have money and they live like we
live in the US but a lot of people don't so.
What happens is?
that culture
values the fundamentals more
you know here in the in the US especially Today We
complain about everything we whine we
you know it we're just little spoiled
brats for real like for real and and if you
ever spoke into anyone from any other country in
the world, they all know this
and because it's true.
But over in India and a lot of the Eastern countries that
are poor they don't have all the luxuries. So
they're they're not up on this big pedestal. They actually
still
For the most part understand how important family is
and how important it is to have a teacher.
Just to find a teacher and and even
just food and shelter like these things are important.
We just take it all for granted and then we complain about
whatever we can about everything basically. Yeah.
So yeah, it's fascinating here, you
know people increasingly complain about every single
kind of church that they go to and they're really they're very few
churches that they're actually meditating in those churches. Hey,
there might be brief windows in
some Christian churches where they give you some time to reflect and
process, but normally there's somebody praying the same time that kind
of guiding and meditation and yeah,
but as meditation very Central and
most
Eastern religions would you say yeah, so
I was gonna get to that yet. So in India, the
concept of meditation is widely known it's
just part of the culture.
You know because even the way they think of their lives, you know,
you have your childhood.
And that goes up to a certain age. Then you have your householder.
Uh stage of life where you you know
have a home have kids have a you know family and
then the last part of life is where you
dedicate to your spiritual practice. That's why they you hear
a lot of older people. They just go into the
Himalayas and they just disappear into the mountains and that's it.
So they just the way they
conceive of a human life is different, but that
doesn't mean that every Indian person or every Eastern
person is a spiritual person who's meditating and
stuff it because they're not all
meditating. It doesn't mean that if they are meditating that they're
taking it seriously because they're not all taking it seriously, right?
So it's the same.
the same
things we go through they go through in within their
own culture. But but there is
a definitely sort of like a built-in reverence
for spirituality and for these teachings
that's there and also rep
not only for spirituality and these teachings and gurus but
also for
Just dealing with other people. I mean part of part of
the the way Indian culture works is if
they have a guest in their house, they treat
them like God.
That's how they look at it. They will invite you in sit
down. They'll give you Food they'll get it's almost they literally
treat you.
Like God or the guru because that's
just their culture. That's how they're trained to treat
other people. And again, I'm
not saying please don't take anything I'm saying
like, oh America's the worst and India is
the best. No, it's not like that. It's just we're just discussing differences and
there are good and bad in both places, right? Yeah. So
it is interesting though that like,
it's I guess I would call it
materialism here. There's more materialism here that people are almost
able to tune out the idea that it would matter if they're
attending or trying to find a spiritual teacher
because of the fact that they I don't know that they play
place their faith and their own life that they built for themselves, which is very
often, you know, based around trying to become more wealthy trying
to have status or something. It seems
like we're valuing that but I assume they're still a lot
of value on status and I mean India has the caste system, right?
That's completely other system of
A segmenting people into different boxes,
but I but it's interesting that being being
aware that there are people who are
on a higher spiritual level might be a part of the indoctrination
from Earth that
there are different kinds of classes and people I guess I don't know if that's part of
the reverence process. That's might not be a very clean way
to have reverence though. If you're putting it another people versus in God
or something like that.
Right. Yeah the cat system. I believe
over the last let's say 60 years
has.
Like almost everything in eastern culture. It's becoming
westernized right?
So everything is yeah. I mean the
the newer Generations I don't maybe they
don't.
Respected as much or you know,
because like you said it's a caste system. If you're of a certain cast you
can't you can only marry someone you know
what I mean? Like you can't do this, you can't go to
there's just all these rules and you know,
maybe a hundred 200 300 years ago. It was helpful and maybe
today it's helpful, but I think because of
the globalization everything is becoming more westernized, which
yeah, I was gonna say it's like the internet maybe
an equalizer too. I mean, I see so many people who are you know,
the developers in India now that it's like
they're on the same level as me. In fact that they're taking they're taking
the same jobs, but at the same time, I wonder if there's like
dating sites in India, or you still have to select a cast in the
dating site. I don't know. Yeah interestingly. But
yeah, I mean as soon as you have a dating site, then you're open
to interact with all people and you can obviously marry
anybody if you choose to I soon it's not
like a law against it is there.
I don't think there's a law I think it's well, I think all families.
handle it differently because in India
they still do the whole they still do the Dowry system
where the
What is it the woman's family?
Has to give a lot of money.
To the the husband. Yeah, something
like that, I think.
yeah, and that can kind of starts off the
it probably gives a good boost. I guess, you know to the
family. Yeah. Yeah to help that new family start their life
for sure. Yeah.
so
how many people would you say are part of like a temple in
India? Is it like a high percentage of people that attend services
or
I don't really know. You know, I didn't so so I was
part of the spiritual practice which is in the
big picture. It's a small spiritual practice, but you know Hinduism is
still the main religion of India and that's
huge and there's temples everywhere and you know a lot
of I think.
Probably most Indians are are following Hinduism.
And again, it's just like any other
religion where some of the people follow it.
Religiously with their heart but most
of them probably don't so I think it's the same thing there but
Hinduism is the the big religion in India.
And I eventually wanted to get in more to what what
your current Ambitions are with the idea of starting
something that could be like a true retreat center. And you
know, I we're talking recently about the ashrams in
India and I just fascinates me endlessly that there's a
place you could literally just go and you can become a devotee and
you can stay there and that's just a part of the culture that if
if you want to make like spirituality your profession you
can go and you can serve in that in that capacity without having
to send in a resume and apply and be selected
amongst the pool of applicants to work at the church or something. You're you're literally
just allowed in if you're if you're serious student,
is that how it works?
I believe some places are like that. And and
yeah, I think the the general idea is that you would go there and
Give service mean you're gonna work you you might be
able to live in the ashram and practice but you're also going to work right?
So you kind of have to contribute to the the
ecosystem and I think that's how in general.
That's how they work. Yeah. Yeah, it excites
me the idea that there are many people in this country here kind of craving that
that way of living more and more. I don't
know if you call that nomadic lifestyle or something, but I
know people are are craving the ability to you know,
yeah have some kind of freedom from our seeming
enslavement in our in our
Boston world right now that is forcing us into
conventional jobs that you know working for big companies
that are becoming increasingly monopolized around their industry so that
they're profiting more and there's kind of a less the connection to the
to the Earth and to the natural way of doing things. So yeah
people are talking about Desiring Healing Centers Retreat centers
and and making that more part of their life
if they can and and so tell me
about
Ambitions, what would you like to achieve and like
You know, we could we could maybe start with.
How you began your Ambitions for starting the pause your
life groups and Retreats that you were doing in on the
East Coast. I believe is that when you got back from India, you
started those meetings.
Um, yeah. Well I had been practicing for about 10
years and I had been doing a lot of public meetings
where I would I actually became a facilitator
in the sahaj Marg.
Organization, so I was became like a local teacher just
like the guy I went to see first. I became one
of those guys which was really cool. I was able to serve that
way and of course I didn't you know, there was no money involved. I didn't
get paid. I just I was volunteering to help
other people get started and I was doing that and sometimes we would
have these public meetings where you know, okay, we're
gonna tell you what is sahaj Marg what is the practice and
all this stuff and people would come to
these meetings because they were slightly interested but
a lot of people at first, they're not
ready to join, you know an official practice
like
Because they don't know what it is even my mom when I first started meditating
and at first time I went to India.
Literally, my mom asked me so.
Does that mean now you're a Hindu and I
was like, oh like I had to explain everything to her
but look people don't know and so
they they don't know. So anyway, the point is I was giving these public meetings
and people just didn't know what to think of it. So that's
when I conceived of the idea of you
know, what we should have a group.
That is really simple.
And it's just we're gonna hit the pause button.
We're going to meditate a little and we're just gonna
talk about certain spiritual topics a little bit just a
little bit and
I thought that would be better for just the average
person who's not ready to commit to some practice. And so
we did so in 2013. We started pause
your life and we started having meetings
and it worked out and then as soon as we got to Colorado Springs here
in 2015, we started a group here and that's where
you and I met of course Mike and and people
just love it. I mean
it's so it's the simplest thing you can imagine, but that's
what we need. We just need a break.
Just need a break. Yeah, it's a great format for for group
meetings and I can encourage people to maybe contact you and
get get more details. If they'd like to host their own pause your
life group or something very similar because it's it's kind of
a perfect template and it's basically starts with, you
know, the introduction and then pretty close pretty
soon. We well we do the the universe release.
We release our burdens you want to
describe that.
oh, yeah the universe box so
I'm sure everyone watching has heard, you
know.
The little vignette of you know, this young spiritual
aspirant goes to the master and the
master.
Is pouring him tea and the master just
keeps pouring the tea and the the kids the
Young Young Person's cup overflows and it goes on to his lap
and young kid jumps up says what are you doing? And the
master says your cup is too full
come back when you're cup is empty.
and the whole idea is that
we have all these ideas and thoughts and preconceptions and
habits and we're so full of stuff.
That there's not room for anything new. It's just no room.
So the first thing in spirituality is to release
Things become empty Let It Go
and
again, this is also a practice. It doesn't just happen in
one second.
So the first part of our meeting is always.
This releasing exercise so we have this little box with a
with a hole in the top and we pass
out paper.
And a little clipboards and we we have
people write down anything that's bothering them anything
that's worrying them any chips on
their shoulder any negativity anything and you
just write you don't think about it. You just write for maybe three
four minutes and then we take turns depositing our
pieces of paper into the universe
box and the idea is that
At least for the duration of our meeting you're you're handing
over.
all this stuff
to the universe to take care of meaning you don't have to take care
of it anymore. You don't have to worry about it. Give it over to
God or the universe.
Because I think God in the universe can handle it. So you
offload that and then you can just be a human being
so this sort of releasing this sort
of emptying is actually
it's a very fundamental step and I
don't know Mike you could probably attest to this. You can
feel it in our meetings after we all offload everything.
You probably recognize that I always ask people. How
do you feel now?
And everyone's just looking at their face. They don't
even say anything. They just they're smiling. They're like, you could
just feel it. There's so much lighter and
It's wonderful. Yeah, and I appreciate the part of the
ritual that you ask us to see it in others see the lightness and
others as they deposit their I feel like it's kind
of a group meditation already beginning at that moment when we're
all together kind of saying we intentionally release all these
things and I feel like that's kind of like the perfect entry into the meditation because
I think if I just sit down and try to meditate a lot
of times like everything's going been going on in my data starts coming in
randomly, but you're asking us to like intentionally, like look
at those things. That might be what what's overwhelming your
mind right now and just release those and
then go into the meditation. I think that's it. That's a
good way to think of it.
Yeah, it really works. And by the way anyone watching or listening
you can do this yourself at home. You can even just sit down. You
don't even need a box or nothing just sit down and say you
know what? I'm releasing everything.
and just
You know Lord or God or the universe, please take
everything away and and then just sit there and and
you'll feel it.
Yeah.
And then and then we do the short meditation and then we just
go straight into a spiritual discussion. But the
meditation part of it is basically a based on
this sahaj Marge practice, right?
Pretty much. Yes, so I we named
it lightness meditation, but it is
a very similar.
method of meditation and really it's just simply
you get sit comfortably.
and obviously close your eyes and you
imagine that there's a divine
lightness
in your heart
And you don't need to see the light. It's not like a physical thing. You need
to see but you just have the idea that there's Divine Light
in my heart and then you let go.
And letting go is important because meditation is
a passive activity. You're not
actually doing anything. This is one of the things people don't
understand.
It's because initially it's not easy to be passive
like because people sit there like what am I
supposed to do? Tell me what to do. I'll do it, but it's like no don't do anything and
they're like
Well, what do I do? So
being passive is a all it's such
a big part of meditation and and then
you just passive and if you have some thoughts.
Just okay fine. Let him drift by don't worry
about it. Thoughts are just normal. They're just happening who
cares and you just let the thoughts go.
and you know
You ignore them, basically?
And then more thoughts might come fine. You just keep ignoring them.
So one of the ways to think about meditation is
the practice of ignoring thoughts.
And so but if you ignore enough thoughts what
happens is
all these thoughts are coming out of you.
And so after a while there's not much left inside you you're much
clearer or cleaner and then you're gonna meditate then
when you're meditating you have fewer thoughts and then fewer thoughts and
then the the gap between thoughts starts becoming
one second or three seconds or
five seconds.
And then that's when you start to.
That's when actual meditation begins and so
it's a really simple method.
But it's you just have to be passive. You have to ignore your thoughts
and you also have to
You know one thing I can't stand is when people say, oh I'm
not able to meditate.
I've tried it. I can't do it.
You're wrong because you can meditate you are
meditating because the reason they think they can't meditate
because they're having thoughts.
Thoughts are normal who said thoughts are bad.
Whoever told you that you had to be thoughtless during
meditation. Seriously, whoever told us that.
anyone anyone no one it's so
it's it's meditation is a practice almost
like lifting weights. It's not the end goal.
It's it's a practice like lifting weights that
helps us become what we need to become so
that we can keep walking the path. Yeah, and
we could get into more of the mechanics of this because
I know that
Like the law of one books talk about coming back
to the new mind as being the like the
the core archetype of Consciousness is the mind
which has no biases and has no attachments. And
this is like the heart of the magician what they call a magician
archetype. So it's as though all of
All of the seeking all the everything that we're doing originally started
with basically an empty mind and it's like coming
back to the empty mind is kind of like the the
hardest thing to do but it's also like the the source
of creating something new from the present
moment because I feel like you know for me saying that
I have to ignore my thoughts can become like a war
with myself if I really want to hold on to something for
some reason like I need to I need to understand how I feel about this.
I need to process this energy. I need to go through these things and
sometimes that can be productive if I'm doing it very deliberately. That's
like contemplation. I'm deliberately getting
it to the thoughts which maybe can resolve themselves. But
at the same time I also know that there is no Freedom
if I'm if I'm stuck in
the past if I'm stuck in something or the future usually these these
thoughts that I'm holding on to relate to the past to the future and I'm
not realizing the present moment is the, you know
moment of infinite potential if I allow other things to
go and I create the Level Playing Field for
Mind to kind of to kind of you know, choose a
new energy A New Path and I feel like this this practice
of just focusing on the heart the heart the heart
alone, you know can can free us if we if we
unblock our hearts. We're we're free to love the
universe and have gratitude instead of being stuck in a lack
of gratitude that would
Like the lower chakra energies, right? We're
chakras ever. I mean that's maybe a side note, but
we're chakras ever a part of the teachings that you received.
What Babaji said is? Yes the chakras
are there but he said the heart chakra.
Actually encompasses all the other chakras. So
the heart he his teaching is
that the heart is the connection to divinity.
It's not the mind. It's not the body. It's not
the third eye. It's it's the heart because
the heart is the only thing you can't
live without we can take your brain out of
your skull and you're still be living we can cut off your
arms your legs we can.
We can do a lot of things to you.
But one thing you can't live without is your heart.
And so the heart is the connection to Divinity. That's
like the
I was gonna say fractal but that might take some explanation. But the point
is it's all about the heart. That's why we meditate on the heart
because when you meditate on the heart
it it takes care of all the other chakras.
by just by doing that so
And plus the heart is, you know, even in our own lives we
know.
The heart is so important. I mean
when you have when you have a family or your parents
or whoever loves you, I mean
Do you love them because they're intelligent or because
you ask him a math
problem and they give you the correct answer. No, you
love them because of their heart. You can feel the heart same with
your wife or your husband or whoever it's the
heart life is all about the heart and and
so
in the west especially but in all over
the globe, we're letting our intellect and
our mind have too much power and it's
it's messing things up. It's met it's
it's
It's not we're not
valuing the heart as we should We're valuing The Head
and the intellect and that's actually a big problem. Yeah. Yeah,
and and to me it's almost like the difference between
the left brain and right brain or the rational
mind and the intuitive mind is that we're kind of cutting off
our intuition a little bit too when we when we get lost in our
thoughts and distracted by the world. We're missing.
The deeper the deeper aspect of ourselves, which is pulling us maybe or
guiding us and I feel like that's kind of coming from the heart
when I'm being guided.
Absolutely.
so
so you've been doing these pause your life meditations for for
quite a while and you started doing them online too. People can join
those now, right?
Yeah, we stream twice a week
Thursday nights and Sunday mornings. Well, depending on where you
are in the world. But yeah, yeah definitely get that shared on essential
Works TV for people to find the links to that
and join in the meditations.
Yeah, I we like streaming the meditations and here's
the thing.
Well, okay.
There's no intro the stream starts. I mean
there's a 10-minute countdown, but then then it's I just
waved to the camera and then we literally meditate there's
no talking and then we meditate and then at the
end we ring there's a bell that rings and then
after the meditation I do a very
short reading from a from a book.
Very short and that's it. So it's it's really
easy for people to
Put it in their calendars like okay Thursday nights and
Sunday mornings. We're gonna meditate and then you just tune into
the stream and you don't no one can see you no
one can hear you but you can see me and my
wife on the screen and then you can just meditate with us until you
hear the Bell. It's just really handy and
easy and so I would
encourage anyone if you're thinking about meditating
if you're just sitting at home, and it's hard to
meditate by yourself, especially in the beginning meditate with
us. We're happy to meditate with you. Yep, the group energy definitely
seems to still work over the Internet when we're intending to
meditate together.
Yeah, because distance that doesn't really matter
with meditation, right?
so maybe I'm still curious a little bit about the
What you experienced with chargie in India? And what
was there like a regimen for daily
activity that that they that they gave
to students? Yeah. Yeah. So the
core practice itself is very simple.
It has three parts.
So you have the morning meditation which is when it's
basically first thing in the morning when you wake up, you should
meditate.
And beginners can meditate for a half an hour?
And once you get a little more experience, you
can go up to an hour, but not more than an hour.
And so there's the morning meditation and then there's the second
part. Is that what we call the evening cleaning?
Which is after your after your days work is
done, right?
Then you sit down and what it's not a meditation.
It's a cleaning. It's it's all like a self cleaning.
And you sit down and you imagine that all of the Impressions that
you've taken in that day are
leaving you.
Out of your back like in the form of smoke or
vapor. So like just imagine that everything.
everything that's been input into your Consciousness and that day
is now leaving and therefore you're clean again,
you're
You you're not holding anything.
and then that's really important to do the daily cleaning
because
It's easy. I mean think of it in terms of
if you're of your bathroom if you cleaned your bathroom every day,
it'd be as easy. Right you just it would
take you five seconds.
But let's say you don't clean your bathroom for a year.
Well now that's gonna take you like.
An hour, maybe not an hour, but you know what? I mean? Yeah, maybe
whatever. So the idea is if we clean
ourselves every day a little bit.
then we don't accumulate any of these some scars
or Karma and you just you're
clean and then you just
yeah, so the cleaning is that very important part and
then the third part is a night prayer meditation, which is basically
at bedtime. It's a very short prayer and
then you meditate on it for
Maybe five minutes. It's not long and it's just sort
of.
To remind yourself before bed.
Of what you're doing, you know that of what the goal is.
You know Oneness with God and it just to sort of refocus you
before you go to bed. And then so those are the three elements
of the practice. So
yeah, when I when we go to India or even at home or
wherever you are or even if you're in an ashram, you still do the practice.
Every day that's that's the idea.
So the cleaning is just visualization. And
is there anything that you were you have to do with the visualization
or be taught to properly do
the visualization? Yeah, so it's it's kind of
visible visualization but it's not really the the
active or the key element of the cleaning
is your will.
because when you use your will
it's just done. So if you start the cleaning and you say okay all
my days impressions are leaving me.
And in their place the sacred current of
the Divine is filling my heart.
If if you have that thought with a
hundred percent of your will behind it.
It's done.
It's already done and then you just got to sit there and let it go so.
so the will will
Is important and it's not well, it's different than
willpower. Like oh I want to lose 10 pounds, but oh
there's a cookie. Oh, I'm gonna eat the cookie.
Oh, I didn't have the willpower to stick to my diet. Oh, oops,
it's not that kind of will that's that's a weak
will
but will itself is is
an amazing spiritual power that we all have.
But most of us are wheels very weak.
So when you start you can sort of develop that will
and it works I mean
When you think that okay, the cleaning is done.
It's actually done and then you just got to sit there for 20 minutes.
Let it happen and but it's already done.
Yeah, so so it is like the belief
is going deeper and deeper into your mind. I suppose the understanding
or awareness. And do you think it does
it get better over time as is just your your awareness
of yourself increases does you awareness of
your own energies that you're holding on to increase as you do this practice
more?
yeah, yeah it does and
With the meditation in the cleaning though, you everything becomes
more clear and simple?
So it's not like something you have to argue with yourself about like
oh did I use enough willpower? I don't know did I did
but like that chatter and that
doubt.
It goes away. So I mean Babaji his
famous quote is doubt poisons the
will
So you can't have any doubt?
You know like like when some like when I got married
for instance.
When I got married.
I said this is gonna be my wife. That's it done.
There was I'm gonna be that's it. It's
over it's done. I'm not gonna like six months later like
oh is this marriage going? Well, should I
leave like no not it was done done for
Life done.
And it was really done and it's still done.
So our will is very powerful. It's and that's
just one of our
faculties as a human being that we we very
often a lot of people Overlook it.
Because we're too confused and we're
too busy that the all day long. We never
calm down and say wow. We have a will we have an intellect.
We you know what? I mean. We we have powerful faculties as
humans. Yeah, but we never talk about rare. We
rarely talk about it or develop them.
And that's really the difference but the master.
His will is so developed? It's it's absolute.
Yeah, the law of one books talk about single pointedness of
will being the important factor and I
I think I also compared this to the quote of Jesus
where he says if then I be single the whole body will be
full of light.
So I assume that the singleness of the eye is the
singleness of focus and attention and will I assume
that you know, our minds right now
are usually scattered in different directions and and the
meditation practice also seems to be a way of cutting out
the like it's almost like multiple streams
running. It's like you want to get those stream down into one stream and then
you can kind of point that stream with more
Firepower at the intended objective which is
clearing yourself and getting getting more
clean, I guess.
Yes, and you bring up a wonderful analogy that charged you
used. He said think of a mighty River.
think of the power of a mighty River
Now think of that Mighty River going down
toward the ocean and it starts to.
Splinter into all these different tribute smaller tributaries.
And by the time it gets to the ocean each little
tributary is isn't it has almost no
power at all. So all the power of that River has
just been
I don't know what not diluted but
it's not there anymore because it's so fragmented
across the million different little streams. There's no power.
But when when it's one Mighty River you can
move mountains. I mean, yeah.
Yeah.
And I also think that that's like where when multiple
people are meditating together. It's like the rivers are converging too
and we have a larger stream to work with.
Yeah, totally.
so
you you did this practice in India for how long?
Well, I didn't I mean I I visited India.
Nine or ten times over a 10 year period but
I mean I was living in the US so I was doing my practice every
day and but I did visit India many times
I did I even traveled with charge you for two months at one
point. I was with him traveling to Dubai and
to a lot of Northern India Calcutta luck
now.
a lot of different places in India, which was really
pretty cool. It was I
mean
what an opportunity?
You know, so is it is that what he was always doing
was traveling around? Yeah.
And you just kind of do doing Special teaching. How
did how did you manage to set up his base when he would move?
Did he just have a lot of opportunities to rent places or
how did that no, actually so in throughout India
the mission the organization of the
practice does have a lot of different ashrams in all
different cities and stuff. So he would basically go visit his different ashrams
and different centers. I see and yeah.
And so you bet you met your wife probably to
ask about that, but you met your wife along this journey, or how did
that happen? Yeah, so so we met in New Jersey
and we met through the practice so she would
come to this we would both go to the same Sunday satsang the
Sunday meditation. And so that's where I met
her.
and
yeah, and then so we met and then at one point we
there was like an ashram in Upstate New York, very small
ashram. It was actually somebody's private property. They donated it.
so we would have
you know.
weekend
programs at this ashram right small, you know, 15 20
30 people but we my wife
and I before she was my wife. We we made
a it was a weekend kids program.
So we designed a program for the kids, you know, real simple stuff, you
know, not not meditation or anything like that because
you're kind of not supposed to start meditating until you're
pretty much an adult.
Because your brain isn't really formed and and plus
you don't really understand what you're doing or even why you're doing
it. So, but anyway, we co-facilitated a program
for the kids and that worked out really well and
Yeah, so that's how we met. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, I
mean it it feels like she has very deep appreciation of
the Hindu culture.
Would you say she's she's seen how
all it's operated. And when did she come to the
United States? Which was she born in India?
She was born in India in Chennai and she came in the late
90s. I think 98 or 99.
And I met her I think well, I started the practice
in 2003 and I think I met her in 2004.
and so yeah, I mean she obviously
what you know grew up and lived.
Most of her life in India before that so she knows how the Indian
culture.
is and
Yeah, but you know for her too. I mean, I don't want to
speak for her but pretty much.
She hit her own Rock Bottom. Whatever that was, right, so.
so I I
I've tried to talk to a lot of people about spirituality
and one thing I've noticed is if they
haven't hit rock bottom or they're not near Rock Bottom. They're
not really that interested.
It's just you're not interested. Why would you be interested? Everything's going
well. I'm making a lot of money. I'm going on vacations and
I I've just bought a new car and like why should I
meditate and that's a good question. But guess what when you
lose your car and you lose your house and you lose your
spouse or you lose everything and then you have nothing and you sit around
and that's when you go.
Oh, yeah.
Now I get now I understand.
That yeah, why spirituality and then?
If you have some guts, that's when you start practicing. Yeah. Yeah,
it feels like it's kind
of a matter of recognizing and I know people sometimes
they they come very wealthy and they find spiritual practice
through the fact that money isn't doing it for them anymore and
they can't buy their happiness anymore. So they realize they
have to find something that's better than the
outward seeking and they have to go inward finally. Yeah, I
can happen on I assume it can happen.
Just when people get the end get to the end of a particular
kind of seeking that is not not a spiritual
seeking.
right, but on the on the
The well, well on the wealthy people side though.
Don't forget what Jesus said.
It's what did he say? It's harder for
cam camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
get into the kingdom of heaven.
Something like that's it. Yeah, that's it. Because if
you have all that money, you just keep distracting yourself.
You're like, oh the reason I'm not happy is because I
don't own that new car. So I'm gonna get the car then
I'm gonna be happy and divine and then you get the car and
you drive around for 45 minutes and you park the car
and you walk in the house and you're like
All right what now? So it's just an
endless. Yeah, and it happens with relationships too. I know some
people feel like they just need the perfect partner. They just haven't found that
perfect partner yet. But it seems like the universe is always giving you the
perfect partner to mirror back to you some aspect of your identity. That
is I don't know people can develop faith in that
but I feel like I've seen it, you know to even just from every roommate I've
ever had felt like they're a similar level of
maturity that I had to break through. I had to understand why is
it that we're triggering each other in this particular relationship and
like that's that's the core of spiritual growth
is is mirroring process. It seems
like when you're in a relationship with someone understanding yourself better
through that other person why why is that you have
the emotions you have when you're around them?
right
So but yeah relationships. I feel like can be
one way that people kind of seek outwardly but you
know, ideally a good partner will.
Vote teach you to focus inwardly again, too.
That would be you know, it's important thing. I think in any partner to have some
shared in interest in meditation and spiritual spiritual growth
at the same time.
Yeah, my wife and I I met
my wife the same day. I met Chris. Did you know that
I met her the exact same day. I met you you both attended
the same meeting and I believe September of 2017. So
it's very
interesting. Yeah.
But yeah, wait what meeting?
It was the ET disclosure and contact discussion meeting and
2017 that did you attended. Okay?
Do why did you attend that meeting?
well
Yeah, I mean, I don't remember specifically but I mean I'm interested in
the ET topics for sure like I back in
in the early 90s even before I
was in even before I started meditation and spiritual practice.
I
in fact, I think I was 19. I was working at TCBY.
And I don't know how but I got the came
across the book communion by Whitley strieber.
and
I mean to this day, I don't know if it's real or not. It
doesn't matter right? It doesn't really matter. But anyway, I read the book and I was like
man.
Like, you know, you know what you know why it struck
me because in high school I had read several books
right for school. But but this was
the first book I read and then the light bulb went
off. I was like this is why people read books because you're
interested you want that information like it's not
because a teacher's telling you have to like you want it and so that was
like a light bulb and then it just went from
there I got into
secrets of power
What's it what's that guy's name? He's working with the the government
when they were doing remote viewing. I forget his name. He
wrote a bunch of books.
And go Swan. Yeah, Ingo
Swan and yeah. Yeah, so it's funny. I
had a similar experience where but I mean I've read
books when I was a kid, but they're like fiction. I didn't realize that there were
nonfictional topics that were way beyond what I've
been taught so far. It's like just having a little window into the
awareness. It was Steven Greer is disclosure project in his
books. I started reading his books. He had meditation discussed in
his books. He even had it like a meditation at the end that he was encouraging people
to do and
And so I started meditating just from Stephen Greer alone.
But but it was the little window into the
world of alternative information of alternative
ways of looking at things that you realize you have
to go to books for a lot of this information. It's not
it's not out there on the TV on any particular Channel. You're not
going to find it on the TV and on the internet. It was it's still
on the internet hard to hard to know how to enter into some
of these paths unless you have the right terms to search for you don't know where to
where to start with.
And even libraries and bookstores don't even really have a huge
great selection of what's out there. I did
want to ask you do feel like there are like core.
Vedic or Hindu texts that are worth
learning worth reading
probably the one I most recommend is because
it's the one that charaji most recommended. He said
out of all the Indian literature. He said the bhagavad-gita is
the the most by far the most spiritual text
because
it covers that exact conundrum that we're
all in.
You know in the Bhagavad Gita you have Arjuna who's the
warrior?
And he's going to war and on
the other side of the battlefield is a lot of people he knows even some
of his own family members.
His old teacher his a lot of people he knows
and he's he's asking Lord, Krishna.
How can I how are you expecting me to go and fight those
and kill those people?
And Lord Krishna is like well, this is your Dharma. You're
a warrior. This is what you this is
what?
This is your life. You got to do it.
And our Junior anyway, and so the the whole
Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between Krishna and
Arjuna.
And Krishna keeps giving him deeper secrets
to the universe and why he should do it and or not
exactly why you should do it. But he's he walks
him through all these Concepts and it's it's it's fascinating and
the reason I love it so much
is because
It's also very practical. I mean there's certain things in life.
You don't want to do but you kind of have to or you
think you have to.
But then maybe you have to but then you're trying to get out of
it and it's like well should you get out of it?
It's so deep. It's such a
and there's there's a
there's a translate there. Okay. So a lot
of people have translated the bugavad-gita and I've read a bunch
of them and
I've read four or five that are not good translations meaning
I'll read it and I just it.
Somehow it something got Lost in Translation. It doesn't read very
well, but I have found especially one
version.
which is a
the Bhagavad Gita a walkthrough for westerners, which is this
guy. I think he's from the US he would go
every year to ashrams in India and over like
a 14 year period I think he translated himself the
whole Gita with the help of his Indian friends and
any and the whole reason he wanted to do it is to put it in
language that let's say a Westerner.
would could understand and actually get the message
and
He did an amazing job. I mean this this version of
the Gita is so good. And it's it really for
me. I I was able to understand a lot
of it. I could have that in the notes. Of course.
What's the name of it?
or the authors the the Bhagavad Gita a walkthrough
for westerners, Jack Hawley h a
w l e y
Yeah, put that in the notes below. Yeah, that's that's sounds great. I mean
it was blowing my mind when I first was listening to it
on audiobook. It's like that's that's in there religion. How can
it's like I thought I had to go to the metaphysics section
to read to hear about those Concepts reincarnation and
everything. I don't know how much they they had.
They have a thorough of appreciation of the the
metaphysical laws it seems and that there's
actually
And just in the same way that there's physicalized there's metaphysical laws
that shape our a reality and certainly,
you know, I know there's many different
traditions of beliefs around reincarnation and and some
people think it's even a distraction to focus on because of the
importance of focusing on you know, the present moment and not
getting lost in the idea of identity being outside of yourself. It's
the core inner identity that seems to make the
difference but I think also that just the awareness of what's
really important can show you why something like fighting a
war is really just an outward illusion. It's another layer
of Illusion that we become attached to and we
become attached to the bodies the physical forms the manifestations that's
like a stage everyone's a player on the stage and
we're it's like each person is like a finger that is
part attached to the hand, you know, and we're playing out
different roles for different reasons. We give ourselves very clear roles and
responsibilities. We take on the role of parent or the
role of having a particular job and we accept
and we honor these roles these are these are not like things that
are
to be seen as bad because we attached ourselves to
them. It's like the attachments are part of you know our way
through through life to some degree, but the the inner
self is what we have to keep his
liberated from the attachments, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's so deep. And by the way, I just thought of this.
What might be cool if anybody wants to you could
almost.
I don't know if it could be like a book club or book discussion where
we read the we read that bhagavad-gita and
discuss it like you do with the law of one, right? Yeah. I
definitely agree that that's something I've been thinking about
with other books too having a study a study
of session because you know, I think a lot of people they
they Overlook the importance of study
and and the importance of getting deep into the East text
that are almost like multi-dimensional and they're like
You can you can get so much out of it. When you look at it on a different
day. Even you like you're in a different mood on particular
day. You read you read some spiritual text. You'll see a different
see a different angle that you've never seen before on that same same
set of words. So that's what makes the translation
process. So important is that you have to kind of capture some of
the mystery in the in the meanings, I guess.
Yeah, and one thing I've when I read text like this
like because some people will read the Gita and they'll come across a
concept that is so far into us as westerners.
And they just dismiss it. Whereas I
kind of think to myself like
meaning I accept the fact that I have
no idea what this means or I accept the
fact that on the surface. I do not agree with that.
but I don't but then I don't just dismiss it and and
say I know better I I try to
look into it and see what am I missing because there's a
reason
it's in the Gita for instance. There's a reason this
is being said and it's my ignorance.
That's why I don't understand it. It's not the book.
That's wrong. Right? It's me. It's I I need to learn so
I take it as a
An opportunity to to figure it out
like what what it what does that mean?
Right and there's a lot of that in that book. It's pretty very deep.
Very deep. Yeah. Yeah it take some humility. And I think that's
the same with with any situation in life when you're initially you're
confronted with something you don't understand or so,
you can't understand someone's energy. I think understanding and
love and forgiveness. I'll go together, you know as your understanding you're
beginning to be able to take in a bigger
scope of reality that that person
is representing or that book. Is that teaching
so
what other books and authors do you feel have been like
the most profound to you?
Um, wow, I would love I'd love to be in front of my bookshelf right
now.
I actually just I don't know why again and maybe there's something
to this but I grabbed this one before we started this little
it's a little book.
Called Silent Power by Stuart. Wild it's literally it
not only is it small right? It's
fits in the palm of my hand, but it's also very short.
Well, it's a hundred pages, but they're tiny.
But anyway, I remember reading this and I
loved it and I've read it a couple times. Yeah, there's
a lot of books. I mean the the Dow Te Ching as well. I
have the whatever definitive translation of that.
It's very good.
yeah, I yeah, I
Maybe I should I could probably hear. Yeah. Sure. I I
love the course of Miracles and law of one books, of course. And of course
the Miracles I keep coming back to it's like that seems to be one of the more.
Intricate and deep philosophy teachings that
originally kind of I know I know I was only
getting like 10% out of it when I was reading it the
first time back like 10 years ago, but as I read
it now, it's like everything is just clicking in this way that
it's like a other worldly intelligence that I it's hard
hard to put put words on how they how they
phrase things. I've never heard a course Miracles teacher kind
of phrase things the exact same way without without quoting it
because it's it's almost like it's reversing thinking from
being like a lot of times we think
of like,
Forgiveness and openness as being
like a weakness and and our society is teaching
a strength is like control strength is control but flipping things
on its head kind of reveals. The exact opposite is
the truth that if you want if you want to gain and strengthen this
world, you have to gain in your your acceptance of
the world as it is and and honesty with
the world as it is and and that's something that's that keeps keeps
hitting me is is, you know, just just
being like the free flowing river is kind of like the secret
to to happiness. Not the not the
controlling aspect of life, but the with the acceptance
aspects
Yeah, and that reminds me of a thought I had recently by the
way everyone watching in the chat here. Maybe if you can put
your whatever books you're reading or your favorite books,
too. I would love to to read that but recent but
just
Within the past few days. I had this thought that let's say
you meet someone.
And they're very vulgar and they're yelling at you. And you
know, I think of like political people yelling and screaming
at each other.
But let's say you meet someone and they start yelling and screaming
at you.
And and this is for me, but this is
just my thought to so I can improve myself, but I would
love to.
be able to
look at that person and experience that person and 95%
of what I
feel about that person should be that they're a Divine
being there's love in their heart and what what
a what a chance to be alive in the you know
in the physical world, you know to be born as a human being and
like and love and respect and then
the five percent is like the annoying political thing they
said and and but so what I'm saying is I
I'm still learning and I'm trying to like
to accept people to that degree. I mean
almost like a saint would right like but because that's what I
that's how I want to take people because that's
how I that's what I really think they are.
It's just a habit for me to get upset or
to argue back. Right like it's just the bad habit. So I'm
trying to
Clean, you know, I'm not trying I'm whatever you don't you
know what I mean? Yeah, they call it an exercise in them and the
love one books to see other selves as creators. See
the selfless Creator. The other selves is the creator. It's an exercise. It's
a it's a habit. It's a practice you have to work on and it's
it's almost it's also like it's the
it's it's a long journey. Also when you when you
see something other than the infinite Creator when
you see someone else, you know, we're seeing limitation on all
the different levels that that person is representing to us and mirroring
back to us, but getting getting to the core of it
like
It's it's a long journey and I see it as the
same thing as you know, opening the heart and accessing higher intelligence.
You know, they'll love one says that the the heart is the springboard
to infinite intelligence. So it's like we're we're using
that Foundation of willingness to be open-hearted as
a way to perceive the intelligence of
God through that experience. I think so. Yeah, it's definitely
important to
Make that a discipline, I think right.
Trish says the book of Light by Daniel proc
The book of light I haven't heard of that one.
All right.
Oh and Victoria.
Which one?
Michael oh
Fayoba prophecy the golden plan. I think
it's called to you about oh something like that. Yeah, that's
very interesting too. I I have to
I have to dig into that one a little bit more because I was one of the most fantastic stories
of contact he going off to another planet and having
incredible experiences of teaching and
Yeah, the number of fascinating books out.
There is just it's just it's just incredible what
people have experienced that you don't hear about
unless you've digging really deep into some of these subjects.
So
What what is it that you're trying to achieve in
your life time now? Do do you have a plan or
do you just trusting the universe right now?
Oh.
So I'll give you my ultimate Future Vision.
is to have a large area of land and
to have
a retreat center or and maybe even more than a retreat
center. I don't know but
Yeah to be to have a large piece
of land.
Where people can come and and have
a retreat.
you know disconnect from society and and all that and then also on
that land also be more self-sufficient right
because right if the if the
sits the fan
You know, you need water you need food and right.
So anyway, that's what that's
like my dream and my vision.
I
don't know how to make that happen and
I'm not.
typically
like some people who want to achieve big goals, they just
become so single focused and they just talk to
everyone about it and they ask people like if
I let's say I need
20 million dollars to buy this land and build this thing.
If I was like a robot I learned this from a great sales trainer. If
I was like a robot I could just go around saying can you
please give me 20 million dollars for this Retreat Center? No. Okay.
Can you please give me 20 million dot? Can you please
give me 20 million dollar like if literally if you ask enough
people
Eventually, someone's gonna say yes, and but but here's the
thing. That's not really my
Personality like to go. I'm not like
that's not me. I'm more of an engineer right?
I'm an audio engineer. I'm a little technical geek
kind of a thing like I you know what? I
mean? That's my
Thing. So anyway, yeah, that's my I've had a
hard time asking for money too for things but I know that like as I as
I get more active in helping people, it's like
we were forming connections and I know there's people who talking about
this Vision this kind of goal to
get more kind of sustainable communities
built up in many different ways. So it
seems like an inevitability that we're all kind of moving this these sorts
of directions that we're gonna work together more to make these things happen because
right now yeah, I don't know what what could
happen on this planet, but I feel like people are still going in the
wrong direction to to a large degree in terms of the chaos,
and the
Lack of peace. I guess maybe piece is a good Benchmark just to
say Society might be going in the wrong direction right now, and we want
to find more peace and not less piece through our building up
of our of our Ambitions, I guess.
so
I want to add one thing one one of the things.
Like that's my dream to have the a lot
of land and a retreat center.
And that's great.
But on the other hand.
Spiritually speaking. I can't be tied to
that dream.
right
because I have to be okay if that dream never happens.
Because this is just the physical world and it's okay. It's
a good thought. It's a good dream. But okay if it doesn't happen does that
is that bad? No, it just is what it is.
So that's the weird thing about like
people who are very worldly and ambitious and their
go-getters they can get stuff done,
which is great.
But if people like us or, you know
people trying to learn to be more
In the Oneness and and spiritual whatever
you want to call it like.
Does it really matter? Does it really matter if I
get the retreat center or not? You know what I mean? And in
the big picture. No, it doesn't matter. So it's kind of
a weird place to be in like this would be great, but it's not
necessary. So I I that's why maybe
that's why I've been a little apprehensive to like make it my
official goal and go talk to people like
I don't know. Yeah, it goals are an interesting.
You know dichotomy.
Or it's it's like I definitely have felt sometimes
goals are helpful to set a deadline. But then if I make
the deadlines too important, then I become stressed out about the deadlines and
and they kind of overtake my my state of
Peace completely even though you know, I can
make them in all all the best intentions. They they can
be completely.
Taking me in the wrong direction went by the time they get close, you know.
Thanks, Debbie. What did
you say? She said she looked not being attached to
the outcome. Yeah. Yeah, so you have done Retreats already
though. You've started hosting retreats in
the past. Yeah, we've done we've done three or four weekend Retreats,
which is great. Yeah. They've
been really good. It's it's almost like a version
of our Meetup but overall weekend and
Yeah.
They've been good but it's hard, you know because it costs money and then
it's it's I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's
yeah, I maybe it's worth experimenting more with
Groups here in Colorado and I think I think I have an
intention to help other people get started with different kinds of Retreats. And
now there's an interesting potentials that I be
careful what I say, but it's fascinating
that now as of last November we have legalized psilocybin.
We have legalized mescaline. We
have legalized DMT for for
personal use and sharing and growing the
plants. It's weird to have
plants that are illegal to
to grow and to share that that's just a
strange strange world. We live
in I guess but that now there's kind of natural Liberation. I
think people are ready for
Kind of getting back to Nature and the plants are seen
as a medicine and the shamanic cultures that people are increasingly increasingly.
I'm finding people, you know
that have the story of going to down to South American getting
some shamanic training and I know even that's kind of become
a weird industry in business with around Ayahuasca. But even
the Native Americans in this culture, you know have the cactus and they have
their own ways of doing ceremonies and it's kind of a universal thing
that the Western cultures have kind of lost that we
can actually, you know, modify our Consciousness a little bit and in
my mind, you know helps you just like meditation, you know,
it's like Adele can almost be like a force meditation to look
a little bit deeper into the subconscious mind and clean up
some of the junk that you didn't know is was you were holding
on to even though you're you know every day where it's like a heavy weight.
We're caring on to sometimes with some of the baggage and they
just don't notice until we
Do have some kind of retreat or way to get away from that
from that baggage for a time to to look at it from a
different angle.
And I suppose even sometimes it's like when people get into a
serious car accident or something and they're in the hospital even that is like a
little bit of a retreat for their for them that they have to take a
meditation and and look at things differently. As long as they're not
too many Pharmaceuticals, I guess. Yeah.
Yeah.
some some
some people say that even
When when people get sick that's Nature's way
of saying no, no sit down, you know, you're
not going anywhere for three four days. Just sit down
lay down.
You know, that's like Nature's way of putting on the brakes
and saying stop right very interesting. Yeah.
Pause your life.
So yeah, true. Trish is patiently impatiently waiting
for spring to plant. Yeah, my wife's upstairs doing like
planting. She has the little seedlings of
what she say. I think it was onions or something and we have
these she has these grow lamps inside the house, you know
a little stuff to get ready to plant. So it's really
nice. She really loves that. I love it, too, but
I mean
I help a little but she does most of it but yeah.
Yeah, people can feel free to ask questions now. I think we're gone a little
over an hour here. So anyone who wants to jump into
the conversation where we can we can get more ideas and
feedback here for continuing the discussions.
And I I could share that I was you know, thinking of doing
more kinds of content with Chris here in the future we could
talk about so many different kinds of things going on. You know,
I think that it's valuable for people to have
some processing of the the
craziness of the world and some some
ability to recognize the freedom that
has always possible in the midst of that craziness and it
certainly seems like, you know, the Dark Night of the soul is the most
significant example of that but some degree we
each have, you know for reading the news and we get triggered we have like many
Dark Nights of the Soul every day too that we have to
have to recognize we don't need that energy. We can kind of
step away from that that energy and some I
have some friends who are like I don't I don't want to see anything at all
anything related to the news. I just want to block that out of my life and
they can is usually Universal people have
like
Wonderful time when they when they are very disciplined
about blocking that that out but at the same time we're kind
of engaged in a culture where you can't you can't block
it out. Everyone's talking about certain things depending on
your work environment and your home environment the the
subjects tend to come up and even with family like
people have to deal with family members with different belief systems. You know,
I had one friend who had to like, you know lie about
who they voted for to their to their family. It's like,
how do we get to this point in our society where you
know, the family bonds are less important
than the spirit the political beliefs, basically
By the way, that's the Gita what you just
described. I don't want to be involved politically, but I
kind of have to be at least a little involved politically. So
let that
that is that what the gita's about? How do you handle that?
How do because the and the answer is you should
be involved in politics to whatever degree you
should be but it shouldn't affect you at all. Like it
should you should it should be like you're you know
what I mean? Like you should say what you need to say. You should
vote how you want to vote and but it should never
affect your heart
Which is easier said than done.
Yeah, by the way, I wrote
so I've been getting into songwriting over the
last year and a half. I mean, I've always been a musician. I've
always been in bands. I've been I'm an audio engineer with
a lot of album credits and I've worked on a lot of albums, and
I'm so I've done a lot of engineering I've done a lot of drumming.
I've done a lot of arranging but one thing I've never done really is
writing lyrics and trying to write.
Songs in terms of lyrics and so I've been writing I
bet there's a local group here. I've been meeting with and it's just been
You know just to try to learn a craft is so, you
know a craft that is so close to everything. I
love it's really fascinating. I
mean there's a there's a local group here in town. Where
these guys have been meeting for 30 years now, they're
old guys, but their songwriters and
like
I'm just being like such a student
to them. I'm just trying to absorb everything because
I want to learn and it's so funny. They feel that and now
they're they're helping me right. So anyway, I've been
writing a bunch of lyrics and stuff and last night I wrote.
Something that I think is
pretty interesting. It's not it doesn't sound it sounds more like
poetry now because it was more I just kind of did it quick.
But it might be relevant to what
it's it. Kind of is relevant to what we're talking about.
So, I don't know if you would want me to to read that.
If you guys want to hear that, let me know. Let us
know in the chat.
Yeah, we're flexible we
I want or we could save it for next time. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, I also realized it's
like oh my gosh that I hope to
see more poetry. Now that people can write a poem just with a few prompts to
chat GPT.
All right. The whole world is Gonna Change now? I
think it's amazing. All right, Layla says, yes, but
Debbie says yeah next time so maybe we'll do it next time. Yeah, right.
Yeah sweet. Yeah encourages to plan a
little bit more around that sharing.
Yeah, I've benefited from
many kinds of songs
Christian songs and yeah other
creative creative songs. It's kind of like music has a way
of putting, you know altered state on its own, you know.
And I suppose that that can be useful and also.
Unhelpful if people are stuck in a state that they
can't get out of in the music is reinforcing that state. I don't
know if that's happening at all. But
The other so many great kinds of peaceful music to get people into
a better State. I mean, you know, I've wondered since
I was a kid about, you know, the effect of rock music and
rap music and it's like is there a different kinds of music that that is
putting people into aggressive State? I
don't know if aggression is the right word for it though, but something just maybe
to some degree I feel like when you become experiencing that
that aggressive state that the song is representing it's almost
like you're working through that energy and it's no longer. It's no
longer something that you're bothered by anymore. It's like you become
immune to it in some way. You're you're immune is a
immunized to the energy of the song when you see once you've
heard it enough times, I guess interesting. Yeah, because when
I was young when I was a teenager, I was really into like
like heavy music like heavy metal.
And but I but you know, I was never like
a murderer or a serial killer like, you know what I mean,
but so that what you just said makes sense. It's like you you it's
it's an energy that you sort of have to work through, but it
doesn't mean that.
You're gonna it doesn't mean you have to use it
the wrong way or the right way. But so you kind of have a choice. Yeah.
Yeah, go ahead and read it for us. Go ahead
and read the song that you oh, yeah, you want to hear it? Yeah, okay.
All right, so it's called.
wishing for an answer
wishing for an answer
the full moon my only companion.
I looked far out over the ocean.
wishing for an answer
I walked on creaky boards.
I felt the mist from the crashing waves below.
Pulled up my hood.
Sat with my head down.
Breathing to the rhythm of the waves.
asking for an answer
families nearby are having nice dinners.
I've never felt more lonely.
At the end of the pier at the end of my rope.
I'm asking you to reach down and soothe me.
I'm on the pier, but I'm lost at sea.
I'd be frightened to death if you weren't here
with me.
Just for a minute. I wish I could forget myself.
Thankfully this night has allowed me
to be alone with you.
and your study heartbeat
a big ship far offshore
a shooting star intrigues me more
perfect time to wish for an answer
the future is shrouded in darkness.
But you promised light my every step.
each day going forward
your warm hands calm my fears.
Maybe there's no need after all.
to wish for an answer
At one point I felt the answer cannot be far away.
Then suddenly I heard these words as clear as
day.
my little one
if you're quiet, you can hear me.
If you close your eyes I am there.
Whenever you're alone, I will find you.
Anytime anywhere.
I love you from the inside out.
Never give up and never doubt.
Relaxed child you are safe.
I have you in the palm of my hand.
Instantly overwhelmed with gratitude.
My tears fell into the sea.
I sat there for at least an hour in reverence.
blessed with this miraculous reminder
of what I always knew in my heart was true.
I walked off that Pier a new man.
Climbed down some rocks and walked in
the sand.
Everything changed from that night forward.
More quiet time and more eyes closed.
I learned to flow.
more and more things fell into place
now for me the two best things in life.
Are the answer I got.
And the smile on your face.
Very nice. That's awesome.
I I like I like and and songs that
are written like that that there's always an
opportunity to kind of
Interchange the idea of God for the idea of the lover.
You know that there's there's the same same energy
there that that you're you're
seeking this completion through that energy.
Yeah, that reminds me. I the there was one.
Person from France who was also I met
in India at the ashram.
and we were talking about this and he basically said
that
you can almost listen to any love song and think about
it in terms of either loving God or loving the
master.
I mean unless it's really specific, you know.
like
Whatever, but but if it's more just general
Love Like Love Like There's a love between two
things like you can always yeah, it's so cool that you
can take it many different ways. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks,
Debbie.
Thanks Trish.
So do you so I know that.
We're talking about many different subjects and paths. Do
you feel like
they're there really isn't any One path
that everyone has to find their own path.
to spiritual growth to practice
Yeah, definitely because it's not.
The path is not outside of you.
It's you know, what what that meditation
practice I was doing for years.
Was that really outside of myself?
No, it was so so.
This is the thing about human consciousness.
We don't understand it.
We don't know where it begins and ends.
We confuse it with physical things.
and so
yeah, I believe there are different paths and
And some of those paths go the wrong way too, right?
There's there's bad. There's dark paths good whatever and
we're all going like this sort of.
So yeah, I mean it's it's everything is individual right?
There's no.
You there's nothing Universal in terms of like a
path or something, right? Literally every person's path
is different. So
yeah, yeah, I guess it's interesting
though that I feel like the the
most consistently useful thing people can do is meditate
though. So it's almost like
you know finding some path that includes meditation is
is the easier way to
to navigate this world because without meditation it's like
you're just you're just piling on all of the the junk
more and more without without working back down
through it more to the core of what's guess what would
be the simpler path which is directly accessing God within
you or accessing, you know, the inner Inner Voice
or something like that.
Yeah meditation is just very fundamental. However
Take me when I was I don't know 27.
Or 23 I had to keep going
down.
to hit the bottom
So if you told me to meditate when I was 25, I wouldn't I
wasn't gonna do it.
Because I had to go down, right?
And only after I went down then I can
come up and meditation can help.
It's very interesting.
Yeah.
yeah, the other many kinds of seeking in this world that
I you couldn't say that. They're they're inappropriate because
they're all leading.
Down the path and the path has to eventually reconverge with
I guess you're you're intended path for Incarnation
or the antenna path of the higher self.
Was there any principle of a higher self or in a
higher aspect that was part of the self and and you're
studies?
Yeah, so the in you know in Master's teaching
it's basically that each human
being started off as a part
of God.
And then slowly.
It the individual soul started to
separate from God.
And then the individual soul.
At some point realized it was
separate from God.
And then it had thoughts and feelings
and then a body and now you have me and you
and all of us here in the chat.
so
we're still part of the the essence of us
is still part of God, but we've added all these layers.
and so
it you know, theoretically speaking the whole spiritual practice
is you're just trying to remove these layers, you know.
and we're also undergoing the
fruits or the
the karma
of our actions right if you you know
if you drank
a bottle of Jack Daniels right now in about
15 minutes
We know what's gonna happen. Why because that's what
happens you it's cause and
effect. It's it's very simple. So we it each
of us in our past. We've had a lot of
causes that caused me to be here.
And that's fine.
Because you know, we're just the universe experiencing itself.
But if we want to go back we have
to we have to
Clean out those causes release them until there's
nothing until there's no.
you know Babaji described it as like a cocoon around our
soul, you know, we've we've we've
We've intertwined we've covered up ourselves the
the light in our heart has been covered up.
And now we're sitting here arguing. Is there really light in
my heart and all that? Well, of course there is but we don't
why don't you see it then well because you covered it up, what did
Jesus say don't don't hide your lamp under
a bushel or something? Yeah.
Yeah Let It Shine for everyone to see yeah. Yeah,
so but we don't know how to let it shine because
we're so covered. But but this is the spiritual practice.
Let's release it. Let's shine and then
therefore
the goal of the spiritual practice in terms of
what Babaji and chargie taught was that?
In this life, we can really clean out everything and offload
everything and therefore at the moment of death.
We merge back with the divine.
And we're not Reborn.
but
if you don't release everything if you take all this stuff with
you.
Then you have to be reborn until you
let it go.
That's why Babaji said you can be a good man.
You can do good things. You can earn money give to charity. You
can be a good man. Well, you're gonna be reborn as a good man.
But being reborn is a good man is not the goal.
The goal is to merge back to go home.
You know, it's theoretical part of the journey. Yeah. Yeah. It's
almost like
I assume that there's a strong desire to return when
we when we see an opportunity for resolving our
Our Karma, I guess our baggage when we're
in between incarnations is the
way I understand from The Rock context is that we're you know,
we're actively kind of like outlining what is what is the
most potentially useful Incarnation for us to
have the experiences that let us drop off these things that we've
been holding on to our attached to but which is also seems
to be connected to other people too because it's like, you know, we incarnate
with families who are kind of like equally caring
each other's baggage when we're when we're choosing
this kind of relationship where we know that person's gonna trigger us.
We know we're going to trigger the other person and we're gonna we're gonna keep on budding
heads in this particular way until we
both kind of are done with it. And it
seems like we're kind of doing this together also and
I assume that's kind of you know,
Just a part of life that we're part of these societies and we
chose to be particular parents that will give a particular kinds of experiences and
get us enmeshed in the same energies that we were wanting to work through.
so
I guess it's fascinating that the people in India might actually
understand that a little bit that they they feel like
there's a there's a reason to their reincarnation I
guess.
right
It reminds me of a story that one of Lord krishna's
devotees. I think his name was Narada.
he was in India and he was walking and he's
basically a saint to think of
Nara as a saint and he
he came across a very spiritual man.
A man who's been practicing spirituality for
lifetimes and very seriously.
practicing and
the the spiritual man asked Narada. How
many more lifetimes do I have left?
And Narada said to
and the spiritual man was
crushed he was angry he was
Frustrated after all this practice. I still have two
lives left.
So Naruto keeps walking. He comes across this guy
who's looked like a crazy person. He's just like singing and
whatever and and this guy asked Nara how
many lifetimes do I have left?
And Narada says you see that tree as many
leaves around that tree. That's how many lifetimes you have left.
And the guy said really?
Wonderful. I love it and he's just that that and in
that moment Narada liberated him.
He was done.
because of his attitude
Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah, it seems like
yeah, that's a trend in our and our culture that
people are frustrated by their.
by their existence and not not seeing it as opportunities
for growth and you know, it seems
like this gets back into the the heart of what meditation is
doing is freeing us from the perceptions that there's something
wrong with the present moment when the present present moment is where
we're completely liberated with we
choose to allow it to to be that
Yeah, do you feel like there is a path to you know,
instantaneous Liberation. Was that ever taught
in your schools of thought?
um
I think what Babaji said is that it is possible.
But that sort of comes down to like Grace or
whatever. You want to call it. Like that's a that's a special thing. So
like in the story, I just told it was Narada who
bestowed that on the guy?
He didn't happen just all on its own. So
there's always a chance from what
I understood.
Yeah, I don't really know much else besides that.
Yeah, I've talked to several people who have experiences that
are like experiences that are very profound
like infinite intelligence. Just just knowing everything
whenever just instant knowledge of whatever they want
to know. It's completely state of Peace complete surrender
and then
That may last for a few days a few
hours a few days few weeks. I've heard this from different
people the similar experience that will last and
then they'll start having thoughts of themselves again, we'll start
thinking in terms of their their Identity or
have fear come in and then and then it's over
and then they have to go back to their normal way of doing things but it's like
an integration process after that. I don't know if these are gifts
from the Divine that come to these people that they have
this experience for the short period of time to show them what's possible.
And I I I've had you know,
very very small snapshots that I feel like I've had in
dream states and maybe in meditation just small
Windows to something that's unspeakable.
And I know that my whole life is like just like a
small drop at an ocean compared to the ocean of
our true identity, which we're always able to tap into
if we
If we are single pointed enough, I guess in our
will to pursue that that awareness.
But yeah, I guess it's not really the right thing to be focused on
either because I think we could become overly focused on
a shortcut and there are people who teach what
they call the direct path now and that it's almost
like the idea is that there's a shortcut which is the direct path and we have
to be continuously looking for that the shortcut all the
time, but I think that the shortcut is always whatever we're currently
experiencing if we're just willing to find find it
there.
and and not fight it I guess not fight it as being
not right path for us.
Yeah, I love that idea. And I I think I've heard it from you too. The
idea that
whatever you need to progress spiritually. Well at
every moment life is giving
you that experience every moment.
That's to me that's fascinating.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's like mind-blown.
Yeah, like every everything is so engineered around our our metaphysical
Journey too. It's like, you know,
we the synchronicities that we experience the strange coincidences the
way things unfold it's like the universe is always kind of
telling telling us that this is this is divinely planned right now
and we kind of we kind of down downgrade our
experiences to say this is just another day. This is just everything
I always experience, you know.
right
It's very interesting.
Yeah, there's obviously the famous quote about I
don't know where it came from that chopping wood
and carrying water is what you do before and
after Enlightenment at the same same Journey.
hmm
So I but I assume that the Masters will have a
different perspective as they're doing their their services. They have a
different perspective on everyone around them and on their reality as they
engage in what would seem to be
the mundane experiences of Life they maybe they see it differently.
but that makes sense to say
yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, they probably see it all in
terms of Dharma right Dharma means your duty
right? That means like what are you supposed to do? Like if
you have a house like you said you got a chop wood and carry water or
if you have a child you have to take care of the child like these are not
I mean
In reality, these aren't optional things. I think a lot
of people in the west now, whatever weirdness.
You know people who are not spiritually connected or religious at
all. They think they can just do anything and everything's fine and
it's like well you can do anything but there's a
price.
For a lot of that.
but I what I like is that
I mean the mainly Babaji and charge you really just would meditate
with people right? They're just
it they're using their whatever they have
to have people sit down and meditate and
also, you know, give them transmission and clean them
and
So they're they're actually doing spiritual work, right?
They're cleaning people.
Like that's one thing to master does and not only does he transmit a
higher Essence into you, but just as
you clean yourself every evening in the practice the
master can clean you even more.
I mean, I we in fact as a as a prefect as someone
who's been trained to give one-on-one individual sittings.
That's what I've been trained to do
is to sit with people one-on-one for 30 40 minutes.
And there's a cleaning aspect to what I do.
There's a transmission aspect and it's not what I do though. It's
it's the master coming through me right? I'm just a conduit.
So is that what you're doing your visualizing? Are you reaching
out to the master and calling them on them or how
does it happen?
Well, the one shortcut is you just it's not you sitting
there. It's the master sitting there I see and then
then that's where the wheel comes in because when you're cleaning someone
in front of you, you know, there's these.
Were taught how to there's a there's a concept of reading the
condition.
Right so we can read the condition of the
person sitting in front of us and that we can see where there
might be more.
some scarra or not, and we see which maybe which part of
the heart needs to be cleaned more and we can use our will which
is really the Masters will
To clean things and then we also use the Masters will
for the transmission. So it's it's a
remarkable system. I mean when I was in New Jersey I was
giving
15 or 20 sittings a week
almost every evening what two or three people would come to our house
for one-on-one. I would sit with each one for 30 40 minutes and give
them a sitting.
so if anyone local here in Colorado Springs if you
want a sitting
Then this is sort of what I was I was actually
hinting at when when you were here the other day remember what
I took member what I said.
To Elizabeth. Yeah. Yeah. She asked about it later too. She
wasn't sure exactly what what that was. Well, I didn't want
to yeah, it was yeah. Anyway that I totally it
totally makes more sense now, so I'm gonna
come back over and get that clear.
Yes, please. Yeah Be Wondering. Yeah. Yeah, so
it's it's interesting that it's a
I think it's also connected to what the
law of one calls the
invoking the magical personality. There's different
phrases for the same kind of principle where you're basically
setting your separate identity aside,
you're allowing that aspect of the self which
you see as God to come in and be you for that
moment and then you're and then you're allowing the miracle to
happen. That's not from you. It's from the Divine that you're
able to see that happen.
precisely
neck and by the way, you can sort of have that attitude and regular life,
too. Yeah when you walk into the store to buy some bread.
You can actually think that it's the master walking
through the aisle.
To get the bread. Yeah like yeah.
Yeah, it's a funny thing with pride and humility that like people
will people will.
Try to build up themselves and see
I have the very spiritual person who's doing
this thing now and then the process you're just putting kicking
the goalpost further, you know, you're kicking the can down
the road when you're saying this concept of the separate identity that
I've built for myself is the one who is God who's super awesome and
doing all these things and and you have
to kind of set that aside to have this experience of
emptiness. I don't know if emptiness of the
self is the right way of looking at it, but you're becoming filled
in some way with something that is completely Beyond you and
using your Incarnation using your vehicle
your physical vehicle for a Time.
For that purpose, I guess right and what you just said
is the exact reason why the Masters say
that you need to have a physical Master because if
you like me, let's say I was you
know, giving these, you know giving these sittings and
I'm you know it it's I start to
develop an ego.
The physical Master can see that and
he then he it then he would correct me right
because I can't see that myself. I mean I can see a
little but not everything but the physical Master can see
all this guy I'm training him
to do the spiritual work and now is his ego is
getting inflated and now that so the physical Master is the
one who can
take you down a notch right when he needs to right.
Yeah, and to the great people can
see that as being Jesus. I guess it's not not impossible
to have a guru that is dead. And certainly
I've had some experiences, you know from I've
heavily researched and even
really Baba and I just love everything about need Crowley Bob
his life and and it's like people can't even
Write a book that contains all the stories because you don't you don't know
who has all the stories. There's so many different scattered people with different stories about
him because he was just appearing in different places
as he would apparently by locate to
help people, but I feel like you know,
it's it's the same principle where if I
can
If I can surrender to the guru on some sense and feel
his energy I can I can kind of tap into.
Awareness of something that's beyond me that's harder to
very hard to describe. But but
I feel like he was teaching people that that you
should you should see me as as the father see me
as the the one who's got it taken
care of you could hand all of your concerns over to me and he would tell people
look at my picture go come to my picture on. Hey my
picture on the wall come to my picture and give everything to me through the
picture and I will take care of it.
So it seems like it's like he realized that
or the aspect of himself, which is
divine realized that that's what everyone is needing is to is to
see God to a large enough degree that it's a
doorway that they can go through and have access to that.
I guess.
Liberation through that that kind of awareness
Yeah Mueller and I just watched that you you that documentary on
YouTube that you recommended. We watched it like that day.
That night that you guys were here. We literally watched it that night and it
was yeah, I didn't know about him. But and I'll
tell you the one thing that
sort of
impressed me the most
I mean I use the word impressed Loosely because
it's not impressed. It's
anyway
He didn't have a teaching.
right zero
that that is interesting.
Or it was a different teaching for everybody who came to him, you know
different kind of teaching right but it wasn't like a practice
and there weren't ashrams and not yeah,
it was yeah.
Yeah, it's it's very funny hearing ROM Doss
the stories to listen to many of ROM dossel's lectures being
with name Crowley Baba and it's almost
like ramdas knew that it's anger was
such an issue that that that's why the guru
had to push his buttons and all these different ways and it's
like that was the teaching was to push his buttons, right? Because he
was capable of recognizing that's the guru was doing and stepping out
of that. I guess. That's great. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you so much. Wonderful
to hang out with you today.
Yeah, this is fun fun conversation.
Did we see anyone else have any questions or anything come up?
Well, we can keep talking about gurus and things. I know
there's a saying God Guru and sell for one.
And that's kind of been.
The way I've tried to see it with.
you know as we were describing the the seemingly separate
entity who is the guru the master it is
is also you and if you can't see that being is also you
it's and it's harder to understand their role, I guess
as
Teaching you the nature of the self I guess.
Is self-realization a concept that that was
used much in your teacher.
practice
Uh, yeah realization is a concept that's a very
high concept. I think it's just below merger.
The ultimate goal being merger, which is you merged with the Divine
then you're you're gone.
Realization is is definitely way up there
though self-realization.
Thanks Trish. Yeah, this was great, right?
I've been having a ball. I hope I'm not.
You know.
I hope yeah, I'm glad you guys like it.
Yeah.
I even read my song that I wrote last night you guys like that so
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm hoping to share this on, you know more platforms YouTube
and get more.
I'm still getting started with essential Works TV here and
podcasting in general and you've been you had a
podcast for a long time called The Mystic show, right? How many years did you
do that for?
Yeah, well, I still have it. I started it in.
2013
and I still have it. I I but I only put out I don't put out
episodes very much anymore. But I'm open to putting out more episodes
It's just that.
you know things run their course and you know, you have there's
high points and low points and
So what what was the process of doing
that show where you did you find
a lot of different spiritual teachers through that or was it?
Everyone you came across you liked what they had to say.
Yeah, actually, no, it wasn't it's not a show where I
I mean, I did interview a handful of people including the
author of the biology of belief.
a resliptin Bruce Lipton, which was a great episode but no
I started that show just it was
like a monologue really I just wanted to
Talk about a lot of these spiritual Concepts like I'd be reading a book
and I'd be like, hey, it'd be great. You know, here's a concept. Let me
just talk about it on the show.
So that's really what it was. That's really what it
still is. I I didn't want it to be an interview
show because
It I mean I'm not against interviews, but I didn't.
I didn't want it to be that so it wasn't.
Yeah, I think there's a time and place for everything. Yeah, and I'm
hoping to have a lot of interviews on this platform and also
a lot of teachings.
So yeah, I I love that you have this you have
this totally foreign experience
to a lot of people of staying in India and staying did
you stay in many different ashrams? And you say
the quality of living was was the hardest thing to adapt to but were
there things that were pleasantly surprising about the culture.
Oh to people. I mean just the the
heart the heart of the people is just
it's so different in in America.
You can walk anywhere. You can even meet people and people
say hi and but it's there's the a
lot of times the heart's not in it, but somehow
in India that there's just
It just more heart in individual
things. It's hard to explain but
yeah, and and
yeah, it really opened my eyes the whole experience. I mean
and me and my wife talk about this all the time that because you
know, we'll see, you know on the news or
somewhere that all these young people or complaining and
you know.
you know arguing and you know, and and me and
my wife are often say
they should go to India for two months go live in India for two
months. Then you come back here and I guarantee you're not
going to be arguing about this stupid nonsense.
Because we we just don't know.
We just don't know there's no perspective.
so yeah, if any like
I encourage everyone and anyone to
go for these.
Experiences and and you got to go with your heart. If
your heart says to do it then do it if your heart says,
no, maybe not India, maybe go somewhere else whatever follow your
heart, but
The more the different experiences you can have it's
just perspective. You know, it it's it's you
start to see the same thing from different angles and
and then you then you get a better idea of
what that thing actually is.
Instead of just having one Viewpoint and you don't
know any other Viewpoint, right? Yeah.
yeah, I I certainly feel like
Western culture is is
it's hard to break out of the the box if
you don't have anything to kind of shake you up a little bit, but it
does feel like you know, I was raised to watch a lot
of television and I've got all these different programming from
that. It's like literally called programming, you know, and and I
don't know if the fact that we have more TV and our
culture or more more media more access
to these kinds of things more expectation that we spend our
times engaged in these things that were kind of like more
dumb down or brainwashed and held back in some ways. But but
it does seem like disconnecting yourself from the culture
seems to be one of the one of the easiest ways to get
back to a more peaceful style of
spirituality at least maybe just
temporarily even or continuously like like with
Retreats I guess would be
one way of doing it.
Do you feel like you have any any way that you need to disconnect?
um
You mean read like recently like now? Yeah. Yeah. I mean
I
I think it was two years ago or three years ago. I
It was sort I did it sort of for business but sort
of for a break. I went on a just a retreat by myself. I actually
rented a cabin here in
Colorado and I went there for I think I spent four days
by myself.
and I took
a bunch of books
You know a lot of good spiritual books, but also
some business books because I was sort I wanted to reflect on
what I was doing with my business and sort of plan out the whole
year. I did this right around New Year's right just before New Year's
or something like that. So
I just needed to be by myself for four days.
and
Just sit and think I mean, it sounds so
silly. But like when's the last time?
You sat you just were able to just sit and
think.
you know, what was a
it was either Henry Ford or someone like that. He says thinking is
the most important work there is
and think and thinking is hard.
It's hard to think that's why so few people do it.
So I went for four days and I did it and of course I'd meditated and
I did all that too. It was great. So I always love
doing that. I haven't
So charaji was born
in 1927. So in 2027 for
his hundredth year birth anniversary. We
were planning to go to India.
And we are going to go to the the ashram they built they
have a new ashram in a different place that I've never been to yet. And so
we are planning that because we you know
We still have some family in India too. So that's that's probably
the big one. But again, that's 20 that's four years from now.
But hopefully in the meantime.
Locally here in Colorado. We can maybe organize
a retreat, you know, and yeah.
you know, even with with airbnbs and stuff, like maybe
it doesn't have to be that expensive and but I
don't know so I love to work with you
on that and if everyone watching if you are in
This area or wherever you are.
you know happy to
talk about Retreats and try to plan them and you
know, we've had it I know you've had experience I've had experience. So if anybody
watching this is like
If you would like to organize a retreat and you need a little
help or assistance or some input, I mean just Reach Out.
Definitely. Yeah, I feel like this is a good direction to be going into create more
templates and more teachings around
around this and also offering the opportunities for
experience of some of this.
yeah, and one thing I forgot to mention that we
we do the pause your life meetups my wife and I do it
and we and and but I had a friend.
I told him about the pause your life meetups and he said oh, that sounds
great. I'd love to do something like that. I said
I'll give out. I'll teach you the format. I'll give you everything I
and so he was in Canada.
Ontario Canada, he started his own
little chapter of pleasure life.
And he did it for like three four years. He does. He he
stopped because you know, everything has its life cycle and stuff.
But but he really did it and he we gave him the
handouts for the readings. We told him how to make the universe box
and we explained everything and the meditation technique and
he loved it and he he ran a local group. So
again, if you're watching this and you would and you
want to do something like this just reach out we can help. Would
you like to share your email address?
Sure some other way you can decide. Yeah,
no emails. Good. Let me look up the
the pause your life
It's a website still too, right pause your life.org. Is
that the website? That's true pause your life.org. There's a contact page
you can you can send me a
You can I have a recommended. I've been trying to encourage people to post their
own meetup groups for a long time too, because it's like, you know,
a lot of people they go on meetup.com and they feel
like there's nothing here. There's nothing here I give up.
There's nobody there's nobody but if you start something you'll find
the people who are like humans. It's you just
have to do it.
Yeah, and there's no pressure. So my email is pause your life at PM
dot me.
Pause your life at PM dot me.
Yeah that you can always get in touch with me and pause. Your life.org is
the website.
And I'm also doing a bunch of stuff with fractal crisps.
The name fractal Chris I'm streaming the meditations there. Also.
I'm because I create fractals. I love fractals and
I'm creating a lot of fractal art. So on Instagram and Twitter
and stuff you can find fractal Chris. And anyway, yeah,
I mean always feel free to reach out. I mean,
we're all
the way I feel about
a group and a community like this is we all have our heart
in the right place. And so always it's just
a matter of like
Practical Solutions so, you know, I mean
Mike how I ask you about stuff. I'm like Hey, how do you do this
or how did you do that? Like and you ask me so we all can ask
each other. So feel free to just reach out. That's
that's sort of why we're here, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So this has been a really great two-hour session. Would
you like to close us
with your your normal closing for
the prayer? All the universal prayer?
Sure.
Yeah. All right. So again, this is a
so typically
in spiritual practice we
everything we do is for our own.
benefit
but this Universal prayer that we can do now is
for the benefit of
all human beings and everyone in the whole universe
and that so and it's like a
like a 30 second meditation we can do so
so why don't you sit just sit comfortable
probably where you are and and just close your eyes
and let go and I will
Say the universal prayer and then we'll meditate for
30 seconds and and then I will.
Stop it after about 30 seconds. So, okay, let's begin.
all brothers and sisters
Are being filled with love and devotion?
and real faith
Is growing stronger in them?
All right, we can end it there. Thank you everyone.
Thank you Chris. Thank you. Everyone beautiful.
People: Chris Curran, Mike Waskosky
Topics: Cleansing, Meditation, Spirituality
I loved this, too, Carrie! I had a big smile on my face the whole time and loved the wonderful energy Chris brings. Thank you Chris and Mike, for this lovely discussion and topic!
Thank you Debbie – it was wonderful to be with everyone!
Loved this thank you both!
Thank you Carrie, I enjoyed it so much!