Transcription
You touched on letting go of thoughts there, and I know that you've, you know, you've meditated for two decades, or, yeah, I think it's two decades, you told me. And, and, and I know you started out, it was just started out as a stress reduction tool to help you sleep, but then it's gone much deeper to that. And I could tell when you were talking about touching into that, you know, that infinite being, that infinite intelligence, that that's coming from an experiential place.
And so, um, just in terms of the how of of getting in touch with this, to to be it rather than to think it, um, what would, what would your advice be then for people to to perhaps, uh, um, apart from, you know, being as kind as they can to to everyone else, to love thy neighbor as that wise fellow Jesus said, um, uh, you know, apart from that, in terms of, okay, let's call it a practice, how would you advise people tap into this?
Well, what I would suggest is that there are really good spiritual teachers who can, can, can give good advice. I can say a little bit, but then I would, I'll just mention a couple spiritual teachers. I, I wouldn't take what I say too seriously because I'm, I'm, I'm just a scientist that I do a little bit of this, but there are some spiritual teachers that I really trust.
But what I do is I, I, I sit, um, comfortably, and, um, it helps to fill your body, to fill your, just to fill your hands, to feel your legs, just to allow attention to go into your body, maybe to allow attention to go into how you breathe. But it, by doing that, you're taking attention away from thoughts. It, it's, it's, it's very difficult to be attending to your body and thinking at the same time. So that's just a, a easy tool to get you to let, to to let go of thoughts.
And then fight nothing. The key thing is to relax and fight nothing. And, you know, always just gently return back to silence. If thoughts come up, you look at them, you smile at them, you don't, and, and you'll find yourself getting caught with them, and, and they're important, and, and they'll keep you for 10, 15 minutes. And all of a sudden, oh well. And then you, then you beat yourself up, oh, I'm stupid, I can't do this thing. All, all you just watch all that, and, and you learn to laugh at it. And, and so, but that, but Rob, I'm still doing that after 20 years. So, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, a spiritual, um, slowpoke.
Um, for, but, you know, Rupert Spira, that I had the conversation with, I mean, he's a wonderful spiritual teacher, and Eckhart Tolle, I mean, they're wonderful spiritual teachers, and they have wonderful talks. I mean, I listen to Eckhart a lot, for example. Yeah. And, and, and Rupert, they, they will, they much better than me can give you practical tools. And even just listening to them is a meditative thing. Speaking, I'm speaking as a scientist, I still have a lot of thoughts going on in my head. I may not be bringing people into presence where these guys are actually bringing. They will just by listening to them, they're bringing you into this presence of just being without about concepts because they're, they're there when they're talking. And so that, that invite you to go there with them.
So I, that's my take is spiritual teachers like Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle and others. Listen to their tapes, spend time with them. And then be very, very kind to yourself. Don't judge yourself in any way. Just sit there, let go of thoughts, and then as they come back, smile, let go again, smile, let go again. And after 20 years, I'm still smiling and letting go. They, they, they don't let go easy. And, and that, that over time starts to help you not be so judgmental of others and of yourself. I'm very judgmental of myself and, and, and of others. And we see this in our politics in the United States. It's not just we have different views on these issues, it's, it's very personal. Yeah. And, and this helps to let, it's fine to have different issues, different views on issues. It's not fine to vilify other people, yeah, based on political differences. That, that, that is very painful to yourself because as Jesus said, to the extent that you judge others, in some sense, you're judging yourself. Don't judge, lest you be judged. Well, who you're going to be judging yourself? If you judge others harshly, then know that that's what you're doing to yourself, and you're causing yourself incredible pain that's unnecessary.
So, but to the extent that you give yourself, then you learn that person whose politics I disagree with completely, I, I can't judge them either. I, I, they have their views, they are what they are. And learning to not be harsh in judgment of yourself or so that all becomes part of this whole letting. You might say, how could letting go of concepts lead to all that? But it does. It leads to just realizing you're not any particular view, and any judgments you have of yourself or others are just judgments, they're, they're not the truth. And ultimately, what another person, what their limitations are, is not what they truly are. That's just the limitation of their avatar. And that's how the one is learning a little bit more about itself. May not like that other avatar, but that is you learning about yourself in a different form. Yeah, even if it's a politician that you completely dislike, that's you learning about yourself in a different form. Yeah.
Okay, beautifully put. And, and just a quick addendum, we've mentioned the word, we've mentioned Jesus a couple of times, and, uh, we're taking him, I think it's fair to say, out of the religious context, without, with all the religious trappings. And, you know, no, he, I'm sure, I'm confident you agree, he's a normal guy who just happened to see this clearly, as so many other people through history, Buddha, whoever it may be, U, you know, down to some of the people you mentioned. It's just about seeing this, this thing that science is increasingly pointing towards clearly. Nothing more than that. Nothing more. No more woo woo than that, right?
That's right. Um, Jesus was infinitely intelligent, but so are you, because we, we are all the same being. Yeah, the same, the same one. And, and, and Jesus spoke it very, very clearly. But I think a lot of it got mistranslated.