This Podcast Could Get Me Cancelled – Tantra Guru on the Matrix, God and the Illusion of Free Will

So you married your babysitter. How did that happen?

Well, so my parents and her parents were in the same esoteric spiritual community. And so when I was born, they, when I came home from the hospital, she was 12. And so she was, she babysat me the day, you know, the day I got home from the hospital, as I was, as my parents and her parents were in group meetings late into the night with my grandmother. She would take care of me. And then we lost, we lost touch. I mean, I was a baby. And then 20, 21 years later, she came to a family, a family Thanksgiving. And because we were still friends, actually. Do you want the whole? I want the whole. The whole story? Okay. She came because she was dating my uncle.

Okay. [laughter] So my uncle. Yeah. So my uncle came to, came to Thanksgiving and brought her. And I met her, and she was the girlfriend of my uncle. She was part of the, I didn't remember her, um, but she was part of the, the family and, and part of the community for many decades. And so she was just another person there. She was really cool and, and we all hung out and there was no thought about any sort of connection. And then my uncle lived in Arizona. We were in Colorado. She lived in Colorado, in Denver. So my uncle would ask me to, or he said, you know, if you want to hang out with her, she's, she'd be kind of nice for me because then there's nobody, you know, she's not going out with other guys or whatever. [laughter] So I was bored at college because I had been at boarding school for four years and so the whole dorm life party thing was already kind of old for me. So I would go up with friends and we would hang out and go out with her and, and her friends and just all hang out. And it was super, like, there was, I had no, no idea of of trying to engage with her in a romantic relationship sense because I was hanging out with my, my uncle's girlfriend. And then he broke up with her some months later, and we kept on, I kept on going up there and hanging out. And now it was a different. Actually, even then it wasn't. She came down for, I was in a play in, in college. A play? A play, like a drama, you know, like a theater. The theater? Yeah. Theater production. Exactly. And I was, I, and this other woman, we were the leads, and we kissed at some point in the, in the production. And she, Emily, was my ex-wife's name. My ex-wife's name is Emily. Came down and she watched it. And when we got home, she's like, "Oh, I felt a little jealous when you were." And I was like, it changed the whole dynamics. That one comment was like, "Oh, really? Hadn't [clears throat] even thought about it before then because she was a partner in a law firm. She was 12, 13 years older than I was. She had just been dating my uncle. Like, there was just totally no thought, no chance of that ever happening. And then that started building and, and within probably a couple months, we would start going on dates, kind of just the two of us. And eventually, it, uh, we, we became partners and we were together for six years. We got married, actually, and then divorced about two years after we got married. We were together for five years before getting married.

So, yeah, I married my, my babysitter.

How is the relationship to your uncle nowadays, or how was it like freshly into the relationship nowadays?

It was a, my relationship with him was amazing because of that. He actually, he feels really guilty because he sees her as, kind of a difficult time in his life. And he said he was, he was just, he was happy that there was an easy transition for her and that there wasn't any anger or anything. And then he's like, "But I'm sorry that it turned into something hard for you." And I, I don't see it that way. So, but he still feels kind of guilty about, um, I guess, I don't know, not, not stopping it or something.

Why did you get divorced, if you don't mind me asking?

Um, why did we get divorced? Um, I wanted more time. She worked a lot. She was very much invested in her career, which I knew. And, and I, I just, I tried to make things easier on us as far as time constraints. And I quit my job and started help, doing everything around the house and became a house husband. And, and she realized, she said, you know what, actually, I, I don't want that. I, I, I like coming home and doing the laundry on the weekends and just kind of, it's part of my ritual. And she just, she wanted to work. And she wanted to, which I actually didn't mind. But the problem for me was just the loss of connection. And I realized later that she was, I, I have speculation of why she was moving away. I think it was our age difference. And I think that she started to feel, she had the fear that I was, that I was going to not be interested in her. And I also, we had, we had totally both agreed not to have kids. But then within six months of our separation, she was pregnant and had kids. So, I think that she didn't speak to me about that, but I think that that was part of the part of what was happening is that she wanted to have, she, something in her changed. And, and I just wasn't the right person for that. [clears throat] Um, our financial situation depended on her mostly. And if she took time off, that would have been difficult. So, and there, and maybe other situations as well. But, um, I wanted to be closer. And we also had an agreement that if things weren't going well, that we would just drop everything and go work at a beach bar in Aruba or something. And I said, "All right, let's do it." Like, I'm, I'm hitting the button. And she said, "Oh, that was just a dream. That was just like bullshit." Like, that was not a dream. We, we were very clear about that. And I was very serious about it because for me, the relationship is more important than all the other stuff. And she said, "You know, I like my life. I like my comforts. I like having, I don't want to be working 10-hour shifts in a bar on a beach somewhere. I'm, I'm not in that place anymore." So, there were a number of different factors, but we just, she decided. And then the day before, there's a 90-day waiting period in Colorado. [clears throat] for divorce. And on the 88th day, [clears throat] nowadays? I think so. I think so. I don't know. It's been 20 years. Um, on the 88th or 89th day, she called me and said, "Is this the right thing? Because I kind of feel like I'm losing my soulmate." And I was, it was hard, but I realized, you know, we haven't done anything to change it, so why will it be any different? We didn't, you know, this is the first time hearing this. And if you're really, if you're ready to invest and shift things. And she said, "No, I guess not. I just, I'm just sad." So, yeah, so we went through it with it. But she was, she still is a very important part of my life. And, uh, yeah, I, she always will be.

How's your relationship with her nowadays?

Non-existent. Um, she, I, some, one of the very shameful or guilty, I guess, shameful parts of my, one of the shameful, um, experiences or things that I did. I was so heartbroken and was so missing. She left for a weekend to go figure out if she wanted to stay with me. She came back and decided not to. And, and I also found out that she was not honest about a health condition that that kept us from being intimate. Um, she had a, she said that she had an issue with her, um, ovaries or or something. And it wasn't as much as she said it was. And that was keeping us, she, she used that as an excuse not to be intimate, not to have sex. And, and she said that she was feeling this for quite a while. It had been six months and already she was feeling kind of moving apart. But for me, the softness and intimacy was really, really important. And so I set up a camera and I took video of her just getting into bed at night when we were already separated, living in the same house but separated. So they were, they were secret. I mean, they were, um, without her consent, without her knowledge. And I just wanted that. That was my favorite time was us just getting into bed and being quiet together and not even making love, just having that because we were so busy and there was so much going on. But that was one of the few times in our day that we had just together without phones, without cooking, without anything. So I, I took video of that time of her getting into bed. And she found it, and she felt super, um, she was angry. She was, uh, a lot of things and really saw it as a deep betrayal, which I legally understand. And she cut off communication other than the financial stuff because we still had some financial agreements after the divorce that we had to continue. And so she, she was very professional and she could deal with that stuff. And so we would talk about that and she would just keep it at that. That was hard. That was super hard. The guilt and the loss of connection and all of that. Then, um, over the years, we had some connection. And then once the agreements were done, we had some, some payment things. And because we had a house together and we had different things together, and once that was all done, there were a couple years we didn't speak at all. And then, and then I got an email from her saying, "Hey, you know, I see a bunch of yoga places around Denver and I think of you when I see them." And I, that was big, huge for me. I was like, "Wow, that's, it's just so nice to at least have that." And then we had a couple exchanges and we were going to meet when I was back in the US. And I wrote to her. We talked in November and she said, "Listen, after the holidays, holidays are crazy. After the holidays, go get in touch and we'll have coffee." And I never heard from her again.

That was last year?

No, that was six, seven years ago. Um, but it was okay. I had what I needed, just softness and, and closure in the sense of just some main interaction. And she moved on and she has a totally different life. And this life is completely different than the life we were living. I mean, we were flying all over, uh, the world and, and taking weekends in Aspen and driving the Audis, you know, two Audis and a big house and [clears throat] just a totally different life. So I didn't, there was not really much interaction or overlap. But just to have that, she was a very important part of my life. I felt again, uh, with her, I had was quite numb and quite shut down. And the connection with her was really inspiring, really, I lived again. So I owe her. I mean, I, I appreciate her for that, for waking me up, kind of. Well, that was probably the fastest dive into deep talk I've, I've ever had.

That's all kind of how I. I really appreciate your, your vulnerability, your openness. You, letting me in, see into you. Um, so you were, you got married in your early 20s when you were still in college, or was this after graduation?

Uh, after I graduated. I was with her while I was in college. That was also crazy. I, I was commuting back and forth to a very residential college. Everybody lived on campus, but senior year, I guess, I moved in with her an hour away in Denver and would drive her Audi up and down [laughter] up and down to college every day. It was totally bizarre.

And then you said you quit your job. Was this at the Federal Reserve Bank or in the wine company?

Uh, I quit. Oh, so I quit my job when I was selling wine for, for to go to work at the house, to be at the house. I quit my job at the wine company. So I was, I was a regional manager for Colorado and Utah with a, with a huge, not huge, but middle-size, about a billion dollar wine, wine conglomerate.

I went to work at the Federal Reserve straight out of college. They kind of recruited me out of college.

And then you got divorced in, what age were you? Like 27?

26.

26. You had just quit your very profitable job selling wine, making money.

No, I mean, it was, it was, it was good money at the time, you know, and but compared to what she was making, it was very little. So, it was kind of our like play money or spending money.

Yeah.

Um, but it was a job that usually took till you were 35, 40 to get because I had a friend, I still have, he's probably my closest friend, one of my closest friends that I met. He was the buyer at the largest liquor store, wine store in the US. And so he influenced the entire market, the wine market. So companies would go in and say, "Who do you want working for you?" And one of these companies went in twice, actually. He always, he's like, "Dude, you owe me at least 10% of your salary." So two companies went in and said, "Hey, Sean, you know, who do you want calling on you? Who do you want to rep for us?" And so they asked him who he wanted to work with. And twice he said me, first for a distributor and then for a supplier.

Yeah. And then you went after the divorce, you went to Germany to play soccer there.

Yeah, I went. My, my coach in college is German. And he had connections in Fryberg. Actually, I had already been there because we went on a tour through Germany with the team. And so I had already been to Fryberg and played with the team and knew the place. And so he made a phone call and they said, "Sure, he can come practice with us and we'll see." And it's just super small team, very low in the league structures, but it was whole for six months. I went and just hung out in Fryberg and practiced with the team. And then they, they said, "Okay, we'll, we'll take you on." And by that time, I realized it was pretty much the same as the US, the structure, just kind of everybody working and buying cars and houses and TVs and same sort of thing. So I, before taking, before saying yes to joining the team officially, I, I decided to go to Thailand.

So you were in your late 20s, had worked for the Federal Reserve Bank and a wine company making good money.

Yeah.

Getting divorced at the age of 26, 27.

Yeah.

And then went on to play soccer in Germany and at some point you left everything behind. Left behind a life that our society conditions us, when indoctrinates us, is like a successful life. It sounds pretty epic. And then you went to Thailand. Why? What happened?

So, uh, yeah, I, I went. I was in Germany during the World Cup, uh, when 2006 World Cup. And I had a friend from the US who worked for a company that put on large events and around the world, World Cups, Super Bowl, um, these sort of like F1 races, they would put on parties around those events for Adidas or Gillette or whatever. So this friend said, "Hey, listen. We have part of the budget is for local help. We won't fly you over. We won't give you a place to stay, but we'll give you, you know, it's for local people that we need there, um, to give, to give a salary and then you can." So I said, "Sure, I'll come up." I came up from Fryberg to Berlin, stayed in a hostel. Stayed in a hostel. And I was a driver, right? So local. But with now, at that time, it was GPS. I don't think we had like Google Maps, everything, but we did have GPS. So I didn't, and everybody spoke English. So I didn't really need to speak German. And I didn't need to know the where to go because the maps were there. So I was a driver for either people in a compressor, uh, Mercedes or stuff in a box van. So every night I would drive into the hostel in this compressor Mercedes. [laughter] We're just thinking, what are going on? And there I met, uh, a woman who worked in the company. She was one of the, she was also, she was actually organizing more of a managerial situation. And I met her and we had kind of a fling. And we're still actually close friends today. And she, and I, I guess I was already planning to go to Thailand. But, um.

To do what?

To find myself.

Right. To, I mean, to just take a bunch of books and like actual physical books, backpack full of heavy books, and figure out all this spiritual, neospiritual, self-help, new age books, and just try and figure out what life was about and what I was going to go back to. Because the idea was just kind of do a round the world trip and end up back there and do something.

Why did you pick Thailand? Not Australia? Like.

Yeah, Thailand. I had three people in my life, totally different people, totally different interests and backgrounds, suggest Thailand to me in a matter of three weeks. And one was there for partying, one was there for meditation and yoga, one was there for sightseeing, beautiful snorkeling, everything. I thought, "Wow, awesome. That's cool." And it was all like synchronistic.

So I thought, "Cool, Thailand. Let's go." And she had always, the woman that I met in Berlin had always wanted to go to Thailand or had already been or something and really liked it. And said, "If you go, I'll go. I'll go for a while." She had some vacation right after the World Cup, so right after this event. And so we went together. And she stayed for two weeks. And she changed my course of where I was going to go because I decided, we decided not to go to this totally isolated place that I was going to go and just with grass hut and hole in the ground to go to the bathroom and just sit on the beach and bleed and figure out what's going on. And she said, "I'd like a little bit more." I said, "Cool." So I'll go there for two weeks to Koh Phangan. And, and I also, we went to the TAT, the Thailand, uh, the Tourist Authority of Thailand, which is supposed to be the kind of quasi governmental thing. And they totally cheated. They totally lied to me. Oh yeah, super quiet. It's really a great quiet place and blah, blah, blah to go to Koh Phangan. So we ended up going though. And that's where I met Shanmuka. And actually, my friend, she was into yoga and she saw this little sign for yoga on the dirt main road of this little town, Thong Nai Pan, which is on the back side of Koh Phangan. And so she went and she, we had been talking a lot about philosophy and what I was doing and what I wanted and how I saw the world. And she came and she went to the yoga class, talked to him, Shanmuka, a little bit, and came back and said, "I think you would really enjoy talking with this guy." So I talked with him and ended up staying on there. And that was 10 years.

So, 10 years in Koh Phangan, or was it?

No, 10 years with him. Yeah. So we went, Koh Phangan, 3 months. We went to North India. And it was too cold and it was too, just not the right situation. So we went back to Koh Phangan for another eight or nine months. And then we came to South India. So almost a year in, in Koh Phangan.

And then you started getting into Tantra. You started devoting your life to Tantra.

Yeah. It was a system. I told you I had all these books and I was just trying to put together. The analogy I now have is kind of like taking all kinds of different parts from cars and putting together and it kind of, it's like a Frankenstein car, like it works, but it's not all integrated. And then I saw this system through Shanmuka of of Tantra and it had all, all the aspects integrated. So it was everything worked together, the physical with the asanas and the mental, mental with the philosophy, and the kind of spiritual, emotional with the kriyas, and all of it was, was integrated. So it made a lot of sense to me. And I had wanted that. I, I [clears throat] grew up in this esoteric community and that was always behind, you know, always at the, at the base of my reality. Even if I was playing soccer or selling wine or working at the Federal Reserve, the major perspective, the most influential perspective of my life was this spiritual perspective of oneness, pretty much. And now here's a system that is like ratified and, and very detailed, which was also important. I had an economics degree and a physics focus and a chemistry focus, and I liked having a logical foundation and I wanted that. So this had all of these pieces. It had nonlinear but absolutely rational and structured, and it was everything that I wanted. So I thought, okay, I'll spend three months, was the first, the first dedication that I, I made to it. And then by a couple weeks, even a couple months into it, I realized that I want to do more. So I went home, I flew back to the States, organized everything, banks and whatnot, and, and made it so that I could come back. And then I came back and I, I had no idea what, how long that was going to be, but it was open-ended. I had, I wanted to do this.

So you've started dedicating your life to Tantra like 20 years ago.

Yeah. Uh, I mean, I, through our training, the last four weeks, I've got an impression, started getting, well, or gaining knowledge about the system. But how would you describe Tantra to the audience watching, listening to this podcast? An audience that, similarly to me, similarly like, like to most people, that when they hear the word Tantra, obviously most often connected, associated with Neo-Tantra, this over-sexualized, like this very sexualized practice. So how, how would you, to a complete beginner, to a complete newbie, how would you describe like, what's Tantra?

You'll get a different answer from everybody. And I have asked that question. So some people will say it's the Tantras, right? So if it's a text, that it's called Tantra Shastra, Tantra or something. Um, I, and then another person will say, there were no texts, it's an oral tradition. The texts are [ __ ] It's not [ __ ] but they were, just kind of a standardized, which is non-tantric. And then some people say it's the essence of the philos, of these orthodox philosophies. It's the esoteric side of the orthodox philosophies. Tantra is a perspective of life, or there are many Tantras also. There are many different, it's like Christianity. There's many different types of Christianity. For me, Tantra is a perspective on life. Tantra is a, an understanding, systematic approach in one sense to understanding this reality. And it is the esoteric, the underlying. I've always used to say it's kind of like the understanding the, the engine and the transmission and the, all the stuff underneath the car, underneath the hood that you're not seeing. You're not, you're seeing the steering wheel and the shifter and the turn signals, everything. But what's going on behind all of that? What's actually making the thing go? And that's what Tantra is, is what's behind what we see here. Kind of like physics, but a, a non, a conscious, non-inert perspective that there is life, that it's all vibrant and it's all consciousness expressing itself. And so how it's describing how that, how that works.

What makes Tantra not superior, but more appealing to you compared to other philosophies, whether it's Buddhism, Christianity, shamanism, whatever religion, whatever philosophy? I mean, you have quite broad knowledge. You might not be a master of, you not, you don't, you didn't study contemplative religions, but you have a broad knowledge from what I've seen and heard from you. So what's like, why Tantra for you?

What I see, how I see it also from, introduced by Shanmuka, is there is an esoteric aspect to all of these. Everything you mentioned, there's even specifically Tantric Buddhism. There's the esoteric aspect of Christianity, of Islam. They all have the same perspectives. So, my interest is more in the esoteric side. It's not in any one specifically. I have more knowledge, I have more access here. There's more access to the Tantric esoteric perspectives, perspective of Hinduism or Vedic. But I, and I also met Shanmuka, and that's what he was teaching. He's also written on on Buddhism. So, could I've gone through there? But Buddhism for me, in a general sense, Buddhism is more about the emptiness. And Vedic Tantra is more about the fullness. Which the Vedic, the Tantric Buddhists are also with about the fullness. But this one I had more access to through Shanmuka and the texts. And I'm very much about the fullness, the play. There's a lot of focus of play and bliss, ananda, and the expression of this soul. And that's always very appealing to me. It, I, I want to play. And this was a system of like hardcore validation, systematic approach to intense play.

We like the style of Tantra you teach here, we practice here is nondual Tantra, which Shanmuka learned. You told us the story that he found a maid in the near of Chennai, uh, his teacher. So he was first taught it by his grandparents, and it was their kind of family, this, this perspective. And then went deeper with his teacher, um, a woman older than he, in Chennai. She didn't really have, she wasn't, she didn't put herself out there as a teacher, but she was cultured from young in this perspective and was sharing to only a few people, but people who were really, really dedicated to it. So she was not, yeah. So he, he learned it from her. Or he furthered his knowledge and depth with her.

And why did you stay with him for 10 years, and why did you eventually leave?

I stayed because it was fascinating and I was seeing myself. I, there were many times I wanted to go, many, many times. I mean, it was [ __ ] It was horrible and it was amazing and it was sad and it was happy and it was all the things. What kept me there for so long was that I had no other, no other options that made sense to me. I had tried what, as you exactly as you said, I had everything that the West was promising me by 25, 26. I mean, my wife and I together made a lot of money. We had everything. We didn't have a private jet and a private island and all this stuff, but I could see, we had similar, you know, we were flying first class, business class everywhere. We, we had incredible homes and all the luxuries. And I still wasn't happy. So I, I thought, all right, if this even gives me a 10% chance at being alive, of living, of optimizing. Also, I had this background from my grandmother and my parents of the, the value of knowing yourself, especially in a spiritual sense. And I wanted that. So, I persevered and I endured a lot. And, and I, I appreciate everything that Shanmuka did [clears throat] for me. Um, I, I know that he had, he had to have a great care for me to be together for 10 years. And the, the care and the, the energy that he showed to me. And I was, it was fascinating going in and finding all of this stuff. I mean, the, the most rich traveling and exploring I've ever done is inside. And the most horrendous, right, and terrifying and excruciating. But wow, alive. And, and then I don't know, uh, I mean, I don't know really what happened where when things changed or if they changed or if I just saw or what happened. But what I interpreted Shan sharing and teaching and what I saw happening in life were not aligned anymore. Mhm.

And it, it didn't, it didn't seem that. I also had an experience with my grandmother, the teacher, of not really walking the talk. And many people and that I knew personally or that I saw in public or whatever. And for me, that was super important to actually do what you're saying because why? Why? I mean, unless you're making a lot of money and that's what your interest is, why not do what you say? If it really means something to you, then do it. And if it doesn't mean something to you, then say something different. And so for me, doing it, saying it, and doing it are super important. And so when I saw that not happening, when I knew for sure, I had a big trust issue. So with Shanmuka, there was a sadhana, a practice of trusting. And so I just trusted at some point after a couple years, I said, "All right, if I don't just let go and trust, I'm going to be scanning and and holding back forever, and there's no point in being here. Either leave or trust."

Right? And I don't suggest that to anybody else. It's just for me, I, I knew that it was a waste of time.

I mean, the recommendation of the mantra, either leave or trust, sounds like a very legit and helpful approach to general life.

Right? I mean, otherwise you're just kind of hanging out in limbo. Like, dive in or dive out, right? And so I thought, [ __ ] it, I have no other options. I've seen this for two years. What he was doing with me made sense. He's a super smart guy. And I thought, yeah, let's do this. So I, so I dove in. And I told myself, until I absolutely cannot trust on the really important stuff. There were a lot of stuff. And I think he intentionally lied to me many times over the years so that I would not worry about these little insignificant things.

But you said, but you said, but you said, "Dude, relax. Life is okay. You're good. Look around you. We're all right." He would say, like, "Okay, we're [clears throat] going to move tomorrow. We're going to go to Rishikesh because that's where all the yoga is and we can blah, blah. Okay, cool. Go pack. No, don't pack yet. We'll pack in the morning." And then in the [snorts] morning, get breakfast. "We're not going to Rishikesh." Okay. So, I, but I learned.

Why? What did you do with that?

I think to get me, to get me flexible. And there will be disappointment and people will change their mind and all these things will be happening. And I got to the point where I didn't worry about the little stuff, right? Okay. So, I chill and see what's actually happening. So he actually, he wanted you to surrender to whatever.

I don't even think he wanted me to surrender to anything. I think he wanted me to just relax because it was like, oh, I wanted to hold on to every little thing that everybody said. Dude, you're going to [ __ ] be miserable like this, right? Relax. See what happens. Now, people say they're going to show up. I believe them when they show up, right? I believe that. And I don't judge them for it. I don't, anything. I know [ __ ] comes up. I know life changes. Whatever. And so here, especially in India, people will say they're going to come and maybe they do, maybe they don't. Maybe they're on time, maybe they're late. I know that they're going to be there when they're there. And I don't plan my day around it. If I, you know, I'll plan other things. I'll do whatever. I don't drink all the water if the water is coming. I don't pour it out, you know, make sure I've got a little because the guy might not show up with the, with the water. Whatever it is, I, I plan around the fact that it may not happen.

Not out of fear, but just out of, things happen. Right? Here and now is what is going on. I appreciated that. I saw that me relaxing and him teaching me to trust, met trust, not these little micro trust and betrayals and you betrayed me and all this stuff. That's not going to work in this, in this, especially in this stuff. You've got to be strong on your own. You can't hold on to these little, these little things. You've got to build this for yourself. And that was, he was a master at that. Whether he meant to or not, he, I know he meant, he said, "Do not follow me. I'm not your guru. I'm not your teacher. I'm not your mentor. I'm not your role model. I'm your automated librarian, right? And the automated librarian brings you the resources and you integrate them." And now I know all the things that were going on and blah, blah, blah. Probably that's one of the reasons, but also because it makes me strong. And when I, when everything fell apart, I had something that was mine. I didn't depend on him. And he made sure that that was the case, by pushing, sometimes pushing me away, even. So I had to have it. And lying, doing these little micro lies and all these things, or you know, lie, whatever it was.

Um, and saying, you know, I'd say, "But you said." He said, "No, I didn't. I never said that." But how do you trust a person that keeps breaking their?

Promises? That keeps lying to you?

It was again, like I said, little ones versus big ones. The big ones, food was there. Safety was there. I was learning. I was growing. I was becoming stronger. I was getting all the things that in real life I needed. The little things that I was holding on to and making a big deal about, he was breaking, right? So I, in realities, like the Vijnana, do what brings you to reality. So telling, telling the truth versus not telling the truth, you know, it says you can do all the pujas or no pujas. You can, you can be an ascetic or you can accumulate everything. It's not about, it's duality or non-duality. It's not about the thing in and of itself. Are you getting to reality? And he was bringing me to reality. That's what I, that's where I, that's what I eventually saw. And it was hard. And those were times when I was like, [ __ ] this, this guy's not truthful, blah, blah, blah, I'm leaving. But then I thought, where am I going to go? What am I going to do? What's better? It's this, at least better than what I thought. And he's not making me do anything really seriously or or not giving me something or whatever. They're actually little things that my ego is getting really pissed off about or my sense of justice or whatever. And so I became much more flowy, much more relaxed and seeing people in situations. And it helps in relationships.

Yeah. I was about to ask, do you follow this approach in relationships as well? Like.

I try to.

Letting people get away with small lies.

Um, my relation, my personal relationships are really difficult because I, I have in the past had a very, very different approach in kind of teaching and life and everybody else than the people that get close to me, that I let close into my inner circle. And I have this almost unrealistic expectation of them and dependence on them and all sorts of, um, interact, like, um, attachment activation stuff and all of these things. So, no, I, I, I often don't let those things. But I, what I would like to look at and what I would, what I am now endeavoring to do in my personal life is to do that. Is to look and see, listen, was this an intentional? He was, he had a different role. He was, I think intentionally doing these things.

Like a coach with a.

Benefit. Yes.

Long-term benefit.

Yes. And, and that was an agreement I made with him.

Right. That was consensual. If somebody doesn't show up on time, a partner of mine, if somebody for some reason says something different than, you know, I would still like to relax and have the trust that this person loves me, that they are here for me, that they're not doing this intentionally. And if they are, look at it. Yeah, for sure. Seriously, why are you doing this? Right? What, what is going on here? And what actually I would like to do is make my decisions with more time and care and slowness and patience around that person. So that once I also, like Sean, it took me years to really make that decision, but take time before diving in and seeing who is this person. And then once I know who they are, and that's what I like, and that meets my needs, then yes, absolutely don't mind the little things because I know in their heart that they work together, they care about me. I mean, that they're, they're with me and they, they have that. I think that I do that with students because I don't have a dependence on them. And I make sure that I don't have that dependence. That's a very important part of my relationship with, with students, is that I can support them because they are there without some of these skills and they're building those skills. So I can't expect them to have those skills, or I don't, I don't want to expect them to have those skills before they have the time to build them. And when they have sufficiently built them, then I will hold them to that. Not for me, but for them, so that they don't back down on the skills that they actually now do have. Right? But in a personal relationship, I miss that often. And, and, and I think rightly so, is that I expect, I have an expectation that we will support each other. And that's not the case in the same way with a student.

Speaking of student-teacher relationship, it's funny. Um, I remember you shared a few times that you had this two, three day rule about yourself of leaving.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What was that like?

Um, I would be ready to go. Absolutely. [ __ ] this place. [ __ ] all of this stuff. Um, this is, I don't, sometimes it was, I can't do it, or he's, he's wrong, or I'm wrong, or something. It wasn't ever, it wasn't one way. Sometimes it just said, "Yeah, I think it's amazing, but I'm not strong enough. I can't do this. I can't drop all this stuff. I can't survive without these, without these little ego crutches or whatever." And sometimes it was like, "This guy's crazy and he's lying to me." I would use these things as justification. And I would be ready, almost not maybe not really bags packed, but quite ready to go.

Mh.

And then I would think, "Where do I go?" All right, give it two days. This two-day rule. Eventually, I had a two-day rule. I would just think, okay, push the two-day rule button and then just stop thinking about it and see if in two days I still wanted to go, that I still really truly wanted to go, and and I didn't see any benefit in staying or enough benefit in staying, then I would go. And I never ended up going, but I used that two-day rule many, many times. Many times.

Yeah. Funnily enough, I was actually about to leave in the first 48 hours, too. I didn't, I haven't told you about that yet, but, um, yeah. And I was wondering about why, like, what the factors were. And.

I mean, like, I came here with an infected wound, which was really bothering me. And after having been to the hospital twice in Kovalam, um, and in Varkala, it was [ __ ] horrible going to an Indian hospital. And they were just like, giving me antibiotics. They didn't even look at the wound. I was like, "Please, guys, can you just look at this [ __ ] wound?" And they, they really didn't care. And I was, I was struggling with this wound for like three weeks.

Yeah. And, um, yeah, at some point I was really thinking about, you know, just going back to Europe to a proper healthcare system or, I don't know, to, or Singapore would have been around more or less around the corner too. But so there was, there was my infected wound. And then, coming here, the, the journey from Tondram to Kovalam, which was rather unfortunate with my tuk-tuk driver. And I was just super, super stressed. And then I couldn't find the [ __ ] gate. I was walking around for two hours. My SIM stopped working. And it was just, it was a, it was a drama. Um, and then when I came here, I didn't really, I wasn't feeling comfortable at first, due to the setting, like, uh, the holiday homes around here and my room. And I also, I kind of sensed some of dark aura around you. Uh, I, I really don't know where this is coming from. Maybe it was your arresting [ __ ] face.

Yeah, I don't know.

But it was all these factors playing into it. And then there was also the emotional struggles I was carrying with me, like intense, intense homesickness to South Africa. Like I've never felt homesick before. I told you about that.

It was really, you know, it was a cocktail of inner struggles. And I remember talking to my girlfriend on FaceTime, I think it was on Monday night, after 24 hours. And I was like, "I'm, I might actually leave tomorrow morning and go to, um, Sguru Ashram, two hours from here, or go to this like reforestation project on the west, on the east coast." Um, but somehow, I say it, I, I don't know. I don't know why. And I was also wondering if it's like, kind of like an ego protection.

Like my subconsciousness sensing, anticipating what's awaiting me.

That's the black cloud.

Yeah. Right. And, uh, similarly to, to my recession three years ago, which was like, yeah, sure, I told you about it, one of the most disrupting, retraumatizing experiences of my life.

Right.

Um, but yeah, I did end up staying, which I'm, very, very grateful for, because this, after four weeks, this has already been a life-changing experience. And now, coming to what I've learned, it was like, in the first few days that I, from the substance, from the things you started teaching us, I wrote down three like core principles, three key learnings, or rather core principles I got from the Tantric philosophy you're teaching, which was one, that all of this is a, is a game. It's a, it's a dream, Shakti is, yeah, dreaming all of this. Broken down super simplistically. And based on this premise that we are all living in a dream, this means that there's no right and wrong.

Right? Because, you know, you, you told us the analogy that when we wake up in the morning from our dreams, we're having in the night, like whatever happens, whether I, you know, I get killed in a dream, or I rape someone, or I don't know, I don't do a mass shooting, which doesn't happen often. Uh, but, but I had dreams like these, um, but I don't wake up in the morning and I might, I might think like, "Oh, this, this was crazy [ __ ] I have no [ __ ] clue what my subconsciousness is processing there." But that was wild. I might say this, but I would never say this dream was wrong. All right. Yeah. So that, um, that was probably the thing I most struggled with. I mean, you, you, we had some, not debates, but I had quite a few questions about that, about, well, the me as a cultural Christian, we've grown up with the philosophy of, you know, right and wrong. And I also find it personally a valuable or virtuous thing to strive for morals and idealism, like many of us do. And Tantra kind of disrupts all of this.

Mhm.

We talked a lot about, you know, all these quote unquote bad things happen in the world, people getting killed, people getting raped, and you, your stand, your perspective, your Tantric perspective was kind of like that it's.

Okay, or it's not wrong, at least.

Uh, correct me if I'm wrong. So, that was like the second core principle. And then the third one, which might be even more provocative to most people out there than the second one, is that I'm God.

You're God. I'm God. We are all the absolute.

And yeah, I would just love to have you elaborating on that because I, you know, you're more competent, more you have more knowledge about that. I would I would love to yeah get get this perspective out into the world because um yes I did struggle and every now and then I still do struggle debate with myself about certain tantric perspectives but I could al also already see that it really helped me in dealing with certain experiences certain yeah memories um yeah experiences that I I made among in life that were were tough were very very painful whether it was whether it's the violence I experienced in my childhood or being abandoned by my dad or the abortions and especially with the latter one I was that's probably the most difficult the most painful experience of my life and what makes it even more difficult more painful to deal with is are my moralistic, my idealistic standards without presenting me in a certain um. But yeah, this this this battle with my mind with the regret my mind kept bringing up in the last few years really was and is still really tough to deal with and yet um yeah I found found a perspective to that kind of helps me releasing or maybe more accepting these things.

So yeah, I just I would just love to hear you sharing more about these principles from your perspective and also because I I wasn't the only one struggling with these things. So yeah, the way the way you live them and the way you teach them, what you experience with them.

All three?

Yeah. Yeah. Love to.

Yeah. Well, these are this is amazing. It's really nice to hear you share disabilities three because that's Yeah, these are great. Um, this is a dream. This is a dream. Often is considered not real, right? Oh, it's just a dream. If you wake up from something hard and you go talk to your parents about it as a little kid when you're first learning about life and they say, "Oh, sweetheart, it's just a dream. It's just a dream." Means it's not real, right? You don't have to worry about it because it's not real. That's not what I mean by dream. Not that it's not real. We are living this life through our senses. Even if you look at oh back to David Hume and then modern modern physiology, psychology, neurology, we're living this world. We're living this life not directly. We have synaptic interfaces that there's actually a gap between our seeing or touching our smelling or tasting that is communication neurobiological chemical communications. So we're not actually seeing, touching, tasting directly any of these things. All that process is going on in our head.

So it comes down to we don't see the world as it is but as we are.

Yes. So we are we are interpreting.

Yeah.

Right. So nothing is directly happening. And then the tantras will say that not only are we not that we are interpreting but that this is a that we are projecting this reality or more accurately that that everything is happening together. There's actually no separation because everything is emerging simultaneously. The observed and the observer are in a direct relationship concurrent relationship at the same time and time is also a created reality. So all of this is in one sense synthetic, right? It's determinate, it's determined, it's dependent, I should say, it's dependent on the absolute consciousness experiencing choosing to have these experiences just like our dreams are our superconscious mind, subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, choosing to have these experiences and you are living them, right? So this is a choice of the absolute to have all these experiences. She's omni omnipresent or omnisient. She knows everything. So she makes, she, he, it, whatever you, however you want to say it, the absolute just by definition of being absolute knows everything. So she's choosing to have this reality just like we are choosing to have just like we are choosing to have a dream. Choosing to have a dream. So in that way, this is a choice of an experience that the absolute is having as us. And when there's absolute, then we are part of that. So then the same thing means there's no there's no possibility of right and wrong. There's no possibility of right and wrong. She, there's only one reality and that one reality is choosing. So how could that one reality choose something wrong? And who is to determine that wrong and right? If she's the one choosing and doing, then it was right for her or it's what she wanted, right?

If I may interrupt you there. If I'm if I'm God?

Mhm.

Then I'm omni, how do you call it, omnipotent, only powerful as well.

Yeah.

So then I, that would mean to me that I'm in the position to judge what's right and wrong.

If you say it's wrong, but then why would you do something that's wrong? You can say it's wrong, but you're the one who did the wrong thing. So does that actually mean anything? Does that have validity as wrongness? You can choose. I'm gonna have a wrong experience. But it was by your choice. Yeah. So it's right, you know, it was it was what you wanted.

Yeah. So if it was truly wrong, my perspective, I wouldn't have done it in the first place.

Right. Right. So this gets into semantics. So maybe there are better words, but there's there's nothing that is intrinsically maybe good and bad. There's nothing intrinsically bad. There's nothing that I I don't not want it to be. She doesn't have this. Anything that is was in her swatantra, in her potential, and out of, as Christopher Wallace says in Tonto Illuminated, out of her self-love, she must express all of those potentials because they are her. So if she didn't express them, that would be a self-negation or withholding of her own potentials, and she has no reason to withhold her own potentials because she loves herself. It's her bliss. Everything is her play because again, she gets to choose. There's nobody telling her what to do. No mom, no dad, no boss, no police, no nothing outside of her telling her what to do. She creates all those things as playground. So there's no more right and wrong. And it's a dream because it's her creating her reality as her, just as all the things in your dream, all of the people, all of the objects, they're all you creating yourself in these different forms. So she's creating herself in all of these different forms. And it's only her, just as every character in your dream, you know, is you. That's why it's a beautiful analogy because when you wake up, you don't think, "Oh, that [ __ ]"

Yeah.

I mean, maybe, but it's like, "Oh, I'm a mother." You know, like I got to look into myself. And she knows, she doesn't need to look into why did I create that character in my dream? Because she's omniscient. She knows everything, right? So she knows why she did it. And then she veiled herself. She set up the whole dominoes. Then she forgot, and then she started the dominoes just to see, wow, amazing, what would happen with this infinitely complex dominoes arena that she has set up? And then she even forgets so that it's even more, it would be even fun if you had set it all up and started it. It would be fun if you had set it up and started it, but if you, if you had set it all up and then forgot, just like a little kid bringing a little kid in and say, "Okay, now watch." And he did this, and it had all these, you know, and fireworks and everything, it set off. How how fantastic, right? That's what she's doing.

Like the meme I shared this morning, did you see it?

I didn't see. You know, it's an alien smoking a bong and when it wakes up, it realizes it was in this trip all the time, you know, and uh.

It was like waking up out of this trip from the bong and realizing, whoa, that was a crazy trip, like afterlife, you know, when we die, we wake up as well. Oh.

Okay. Yes. Yes. Yeah. For sure. For sure. I mean, this is why this is why psychedelics are are changed kind of the face of of modern spirituality and all of this.

Yeah. Because we see that this could all, this is all so just this little tiny, like if you take acid, this little tiny thing can change everything. Our perception is so um malleable, I would even say. So it's just, it's I don't think it's so limited in one, it's so prescribed and so easy to let that limitation go, just this little thing. So we are limiting it, right? We chose to limit it. She, as we chose to limit it, because we have to have limitations to see a you versus everything else. That was a choice so that she could play. So she, as me, she could play with she, with she, as you. She had to limit this so that we could have this interaction and and play and discover, discover ourselves. Even though she knows herself, it's so much fun to rediscover. And she has the ability, have the ability to neuralize ourselves, forget everything and start again because it's so much fun.

Like a narcotic.

Like a narcotic. I mean, sure, without the, that's why I say the the shiovasa is the best trip that I've been on because it's it actually makes me more healthy, more energized. It doesn't have this unsustainable side that a lot of drugs have that you have to, you know, you have to wait for a while to to continue the next time you do. MDMA has to be three months later because the serotonin drop and all these after after effects. This this doesn't have any downsides, right? But it is absolutely, absolutely. It's the only drug that I've taken, and I've tried a lot of medicines and whatever, just to see because all my students were saying, "Hey, wow, this is amazing. This will get you here. This will get you to the same place." And I thought, "Let's try out." If I could just give everybody a tablet or something and skip the 10 years that I had at that time been doing this stuff and the 20 years that I've been doing it now, for sure I would. Why not, right? But I, and so I went around and I tried all those things and I did high doses of whatever I could get in a safe environment. I knew the set and the setting and the people that it was coming from and all of that stuff. When when somebody I trusted offered me those experiences and opportunities, I took them because I wanted to see what was out there for fun and to be able to offer my perspective to people who were coming to ask me. And there is no, I kept taking like more and more to try and see like, when can I turn this whole thing off, like just to have a really like get out of my head because my mind runs. It's so strong and it's so insistent. This is the only thing that I have really gotten out out. And I'm not sleeping, right? I am, I for a while, even in chioasana, it would be like a dream state. There would be a lot of subconscious stuff going now. There's no space. There's no time. And the only, as the even the texts talk about, the only experience I have of it is when I come out of it. But it's the remnants, those moments just coming out of it are so just bliss. And I know that that was coming from, like they use the example of, I know I was crying because I had I have tears on my face, but I don't remember it because I was asleep, right? This is not sleep. This is in a different subliminal kind of another fourth state kind of. And it's just, it is absolutely life-changing because I know what's underlying all of this, and it's sublime.

The timeless, spaceless reality is not empty. This is where the sat ananda, right? The suchness, the the space in one sense, the chit, and the ananda. When you take away the space, when you take away the the chit, the mind aspect, and all that's filling the space, everything, the ananda is still there.

It's the morning mantra we keep practicing.

Yeah, it's in there. And um, and that's bliss. And it, there is no void. It is full of just bliss, nothing else. But it is this unspeakable, unescribable bliss.

Yeah, I I can only confirm this. I had the most intense, the most psychedelic shavas shavas here ever. Like I remember already in the first week I told S about it. I was like laying there in Shabbassa and actually just waiting to get out of it to get some lunch and then [snorts] all of a sudden I was like out and I I remember this curtain kind of like falling onto me slowly and then I was just gone for I don't know like 20 minutes in this realm.

Yeah. And then another time it was after a few days after our walk, I think in the second week, and we talked a bit about internal family systems and how I could better deal with these different parts of me, this like hyperactive, hyperprotective mind. And I didn't tell you about this, but this one Shabbassa, I I kind of met this protective guy, this protective partified. And you know, I started talking to him. And I've never had something like this before. You know, I work with internal family systems and try to like consciously, intentionally and created these personas myself more or less. But during the Shabbasa, I it just happened. It just happened. And then also few days ago when you instructed this toist um smiling, smiling meditation, I was also, I shared this yesterday. I was like, kind of a little bit mad at you almost for taking away my shavasana and I was like, "Boo, come on, I just wanted to relax." And you kept telling me to smile all over my all over my body. And then when you, when we got into the final shavasa, I just felt sensed this golden rain dropping onto me and I felt pure bliss. And it, it was holding, it was keep going for the whole evening. And ever since, like for three days, I keep experiencing this state, like subtly, state of bliss, which is an incredible, incredible feeling. And I've I've only known this before from very, very deep meditations. But the premise um for those for the state like this post intra and post-meditation state was well, like very long meditations, up to like an hour, two hours of edipasha, you know, after five days. And from psychedelics. And then also this psychedelic afterglow lasted for to three days and got weaker and weaker. And here I get to experience like the most accessible gates to get into the state. So, yeah, there's I I would have 10 more questions to to dive even deeper, but I would love to touch on one of my favorite most favorite debates which is around free will.

Because from this perspective, and we we already had quite a few yeah contemplations about it, but this perspective includes that we don't have a free will, right? And you know, personally, I can admit that or like egoically, I still like to think that I do have a free will, like most people out there. And the most powerful question on how to challenge the non-free will thing is that I just think for myself that, you know, if she's omnipotent and she wants to experience the whole show, the whole game, then why would she limit herself by, you know, having everything planned out?

Yeah, she wants to have the experience of free will. That's why you have it. You have the experience of free will. I do too, for sure. She wants to have all of the things. She wants to be have the experience of being separate. But she's, it's like you have the experience of separation in your dreams, but you know all those things are you. But you exper you create a synthetic environment where you are many characters in your sleep dreams. Same same thing, just on a on a sequential level rather than an object object level. She separates herself and has this sense sense of separation as beings, sense of of choices that could go either way. This is fortunately now we have this kind of metaverse um concept in physics that everything will be will be done. So it's already chosen because every possibility is happening, right? And time is relative in physics, and in the tantras, time is artificial. So choice is choices by time and space, which are both in the tatwas, in the structure of how all this happens, that she has to create space and causality, which then creates or time. She creates time and then she creates causality. Cause which needs space for there to be sequence and and causes and locations for birth karmic realities. It has to have space. So she creates the environment for choices to exist, right? For there to be somewhere to go, some thing to think in a moment. I have to, I have to, the choice is a choice I make now and a result I make in time. So she creates time. So choice is not inherent in our in the structure, in the fabric of reality, cosmic reality, past this karmic five elements, space here. Five element space. Yes, we have choice. That's why she created nati causality and kala. I don't know if it's kala or kala. Um, it's I think it's kala is the time. She created it in order to have the experience of free will. But she also knows everything and she had to limit her her knowledge in vidya from an a knowing of a being to knowing certain things. If I know the pole, it means I have to separate it. It's now separate from just shaki, just shiva. It is me. Everything is just meanness. Well, now my meanness has characteristics, and I have to define those characteristics. All of this is the same sort of thing as as choice. She created all of these synthetically in order to play with that. And absolutely, she plays with choice because we apparently have a choice to drink this cup or leave it there, right? Now. And so there are things that are happening or not happening. And the options are there. But just like knowledge of separating, I'm separating that as a sensation. I sense that. I have the appearance of that. But really, even quantum physics will say that this is all just a mass, and when we look at things, it it brings it into a form. Same thing with choice, is it's all there. There was no choice, or there is every choice, and when we focus on it, then we have the appearance, the the experience of of choice. But she knows everything. So she has to limit that knowing to say, I don't want to. Why would I want to plan everything out? It's not, she didn't plan. She already knows. It's planning is something that you have to endeavor to do. You have to spend time doing. She just knows everything. It's like it's like a somebody who can tell the future. I don't know how they do it, but I imagine some of them, it's just they just see it. They don't have to think about it. They don't have to build it. They don't have to go ask, you know, mythical creatures. It just, it appears in front of them. She knows everything. So, she had to limit that knowing in order to play with the not knowing. And she can do that because she can do anything. So, she thought this will be fun. So, she gave herself choice for fun. And so, there is choice for sure. There's the appearance of choice for fun. Just like you, there's an appearance of you separate from me for fun, for this conversation.

Does that?

Yeah, totally. I mean, it's it's backed up by science nowadays as well, which makes it yeah, even more potent, powerful, valid for me. I mean, if we listen to people like Dr. or Robert Aolski or St. Harris. And speaking of which, speaking of science, what why do you think, why do you feel, why do you experience the tantric philosophy as truth?

Um, why, why do we live in this? Why do you believe that we live in this non-duality?

It makes sense to me because of my logic. I needed the logic of it, and it logically makes the most sense of anything else. And that logic accords with my experience. It makes sense, and I feel, it feels the feeling, and the thought thoughts and ideas match. And if that weren't the case, then it wouldn't be so strong for me. But I have the sense, I've had a uni, you know, unity experiences or or this sensation that everything is playful, and it can be, everything is creda or leela, uh, the play or the dance, the celebration. And I have that, I have had those experiences, and I think we all have, right? Like it's the collective agreement when we look at all religions and, you know, people who have experienced, who've been in near-death experiences. So there's a lot of evidence, yeah, for it over the last thousand of years and millions, if not billions of people.

Yeah.

Yeah. We are, I mean, also like you say, neurologically set up for connection and happiness, and everything that we're doing is giving us some some measure, some some by somebody's by some definition, um, happiness or or uh, I don't can't think of the right word right now, but some benefit, right? Every choice that we make is some sort of, if you want to look at it kind of chemically, some sort of neurological benefit.

Reward.

Reward, something, but, you know, some sort of stimulus that drives us to do that. And that may not be look like happiness, but we're never doing anything that actually we don't doesn't come out of some sort of clumsy self-love, right? Maybe clumsy, maybe skillful, but it's always out of something that's going to help us by what we think will help us in the situation that we find ourselves in, right? And so there is this bliss. And this is a system of bliss. This is a system of play. It's a systematic approach to something that I absolutely experience and believe and have outside um approval or validation of. And and it's it's clever. It's super clever. And just reading it is fun and inspirational, inspiring of like, wow, we as a human race, a divine expression, whatever you want to say, is really clever and it's fun and it and it's alive in me when I read these texts, even though they're super complex, everything, but there's just really beautiful, clever, insightful things that just make a lot of sense to me. And I've been culturing my intellect and my skepticism. Both my parents are lawyers, so I've been like questioning everything my whole life. And it answers all the questions. And that's why at some point I was telling Maluka, I have to stop questioning because it's just going to be a burden. Same with this. I didn't ever have to stop questioning the text or anything because they they lay it out in in sequence and logic, and it's just beautiful. So I thought, you know what, this is fun, it's beautiful. It's it's been around a long time. A lot of people have looked at it, criticized it, um, critiqued it, and and it has stood up to those those critiques and it and mine. So I thought, nice, why continue to ask to check it and ask questions? Just dive now and and so I did. It met all the criteria that I had. And that was a very big deal for Shanuk also. He he did not give it to me easy. I had to build it. It had to make sense to me. He just gave it to me. He didn't try and force it on me. He didn't try and convince me of it. I in one sense, he would even take it back. He didn't give me resources. So I had to ask for it. I had to build it, and then it was mine. And and it's, yeah, it's something that when you build it, when you struggle with it, when one struggles with it and really gets in the mud with it, it's beautiful and it's there. It's you find the rocks under the mud, and you can stand because it's substantial. But it doesn't give it to you easy. You don't give it to yourself easy. It's actually very simple. It's super simple stuff. But I think the title, if I write a book, will be "Simple Is Not Easy." It's one of my favorite favorite sayings. Simple does not necessarily mean easy. It's super simple. Everything is the absolute playing. Now live it, right? Everything is the absolute plane. So there's no more disappointment, or your disappointment is also the absolute. So it's like, you don't get angry at yourself for being disappointed, or you do, and then you, you know, it's this whole mind trip. Uh, but it's really simple. Everything is the absolute flame as and with herself only, in as and with herself only.

I just mentioned near-death experiences, and I remember you telling us or touching on a near-death experience you had in South Africa with a certain illness.

Yeah. And I was wondering, how did that, what parallels did you experience in regards of your tantric and psychedelic experiences there?

In South Africa? Or um, my experience with the sickness and my experiences with with psychedelics in general? Or only in South Africa?

No, in general.

I have had really good trips. Um, I've never had, I've never, the only time that I really got scared on LSD was it was so good that I got quite terrified, and it almost brought me into a bad trip thinking, "I'm never going to not be able to do this. I'm going to have to be on LSD all the time because it's so good."

And that's what Ron does was striving for, right?

Yeah. Having that experience without being on.

So I got, but I was pretty, I was pretty worried that time. I was, it almost sent me into a really bad space because I was like, [ __ ] I'm gonna be an addict, and what is my family going to think about? And I didn't, you know, you don't become an addict of LSD, but I, I was just like, whatever, whatever you call it, I'm gonna have to be on this all the time because this is so much more interesting. It wore off. I mean, it started, I realized, okay, I'm I'm going to be all right. But I've had really good trips. Um, and I only did psyched a couple times before coming here, and then I didn't do for a long time. The whole time that I was with Shamuka, he was not a fan of anything. Did he ever take something?

I don't, I don't think so. Um, but certainly not when I was around. There was never, I was never looked down upon. Then after that, I was in such a good space that I could manage whatever I didn't really even need to manage. It was just fun. And everything that I did, being sick, my my first near-death experience was in my mom's bedroom. So I don't remember that, but I was, she was pregnant with me, six months pregnant with me when she got hit by a car and had a full near-death experience with me inside of her. That's the only real near-death experience I could even kind of claim to have. But the experience that I you're refer.

Yeah. What What do you think when you look back at this experience and your as a fetus in your mom's belly? Do you have, do you think this had any impact on you?

I think it must have, but I don't know. I don't have any, I don't have any memories. I haven't had any flashbacks. I've never had any any relationship with it other than my mom telling me about it and telling me about how impactful it was for her. But no, I I don't have any. I imagine, I mean, all the things were going through me that were going through her, whatever chronically, chemically, neurotransmitter, blah, blah, blah.

How does she look back?

I did. It changed her life. It it gave her a very different perspective of life. Then her father also induced her into a near-death experience with the CO2 um therapy, and then she worked with Ken Ring, who is uh, um, works with near-death experience survivors or experiencers and wrote a book about it. And she traveled with him and and helped with some of his work. So it was a, it was very, it's a substantial part of her life of seeing something kind of more more than what we get here, just in the kind of flatland normal life. Um, but it's, I actually having this question in this conversation, I would like to ask her more about it to know more about how it affected her life. I look forward to that, actually.

Yeah. Next time we do a podcast with the two of you.

Absolutely. She's great. She's great. She takes a little while to warm up, but if we can, if we could get her consent to secretly videotape her, [laughter] then you would get an amazing. I did a a recording with her, and she was very, she was a judge for many years, and so she also did a lot of Stragifian work. She, so she is very, she can like really lock it down. I was like, "Mom, you know, you don't have." She's like, "Okay, all right." But it takes authent or um, organically she can.

No, we take plasters. [laughter] Yeah, she, she's great, actually. Um, but I will ask her about that.

But this, do you want to go on to this um in South Africa?

Yeah.

So I got, as I told you, I got super sick with some some indigenous virus.

Yeah. Some exotic South African flu or something. So just body pain and and feverish and just knocked out. So tired, but couldn't really sleep, you know, this whole. And it was like, wow, what an amazing experience this body gives because it was just full on. Everything was alive and it was fascinating, just like, this is so cool, actually. It really is like a psychedelic trip because it was even like mind, it was changing the way that I thought and saw and everything. It was really.

You have specific examples?

I don't really remember. I do have an example of a next stage, and I thought, this is so cool, like this tantric experience, and I'm like, close to death with this thing, and and I'm so okay with it. Like it's so amazing to see this too, as the absolute playing. And and then it got worse because I thought, this is, you know, this is going to be the peak of it because it's really bad, and I'm really sick, and I'm really close to death. And all, then somehow, I don't even know how it could get worse, but it got worse, and I got more close to, you know, I don't know how it wasn't probably very, but then I was scared. And it was really cool, kind of in the moment, but more in retrospect to to see that I still had this fear of death. And it was, and then I was like, wow, I my my speech, the example is specific, my speech, I didn't have access to certain words. I couldn't access a whole section of my lexicon, which was bizarre to not be, I mean, I lose words sometimes, but it was like I just, it just wasn't there. And I had the echo of knowing that something was there, but not knowing what it was. Very, very bizarre. It was like overheating or something.

Well, it sounds a bit like a ketamine trip.

Uh, my, I've only had ketamine a couple times, and it definitely was not looking like this. I, yeah. And and it was it was interesting to me because I had until that time, time, and even from then, never had a point where I was really afraid of death. I've been close, and I've been like, "Okay, cool. I'm good with it. I'm as much as I." But knowing from that experience, I know when it really comes to the actual point of it, there may be something more there. Mhm. So I continue to prepare myself for that, um, in the sense of really live. My biggest thing about death is when I can celebrate and not be afraid of death, I have more capacity to live because I'm not trying to stop that from happening, which is stopping some experience in life. And the more that I get okay with that, and there are, there are definitely, I find myself getting nervous about maintaining the school. That's probably the biggest one. I have some commitments to people that are really important to me. Um, but, you know, these ideas of who cares. And I was telling you all, like, I've got this amazing, my mom again, she's like, "Come home. If anything happens, you always have a place here." And that is so beautiful for me because then I can actually be here. It's like not being afraid of death. You know, I'm not afraid of this place dying. So I can actually be here with students and not worry about them liking me, not worrying about them about trying to manipulate or manicure their experience, but just give what makes sense to me, how I've seen it. And if it disturbs people, it disturbs people. But I don't want to change it because I'm trying to save the school or get them to be happy so that they promote me or whatever, right? This is very important for me that I have this non-fear of school death or personal, you know, ego death, or whatever these things are. So the relationship with death and this experience, this kind of psychedelic going into another other dimensions and the fear and all this stuff is really valuable um material for me to play with. And that's what a lot of these guys do. And that's why there's these meditations in the cemeteries or in in the burning gaps so that you can go and see death. It's also symbolic of dissolution, but but always in these texts, the symbolism is also as the macro, also the micro. They they are realities as well. And I've sat in the guts for hours in Varnasi and just watched the bodies bubble and squirt and everything as they got boiled inside. I mean, it's fascinating stuff to really see, like, this is what's going to happen. None of us get out of here alive. This is what's gonna h. What did I do before? This is it. Something that I'm. And not even I need to do something good or bad, but did I have fun? This is what's going to happen no matter what. So, was it worth it? Like, was it, it always is worth it. And it, it's only her having fun. But in this sensation of choice, in this perception of choice, am I perceiving? And those choices have already been made. And those are clues of what choices have already been made. If you're asking those questions, you've already made those choices about exploring another aspect of yourself and getting deeper in and [ __ ] playing this game in a in all the ways are worthwhile. Sitting on the couch, eating chips, watching a movie for the rest of your life, getting up and going to pump gas at your job so you can pay the rent and pay the cable bill, the Netflix bill is just as much, just as worthwhile as what I'm doing here and what you're doing here in my mind. But we see there's this script that we have written for ourselves and these choices that we have already made for ourselves. So it's kind of like discovering what choices, it's like watching a movie. You know the movie's already been made, right? But you still watch it wondering, what did these writers, you know, what was, how clever did it get?

Yeah. Did it change this like experience in South Africa? Did it change your life drastically? Or?

Yeah, but you were already deep onto the tantric path.

Yeah, I was so deep that I thought I wasn't afraid of death. And it showed me I was scared. And I, other times I'd be scared and I'd be like, "Wow, I'm scared. What a cool experience." I was [ __ ] scared and I wasn't thinking this is a cool experience. So in that moment, can I still, I'm building so that if that moment, if that moment, whatever moments come, I can remember, I am the absolute playing this game. And I've had a lot of experiences since then that were far less dramatic, and I've not remembered daily. But that one is like, all right, even when, because of often when big things come up, then all my tools come in, and I've like, everything's set. I'm good. It's little things that will sneak in, and I forget to use, you know, the big guns on this little tiny thing. I don't need to do that. It's fine. And then it becomes the thing that crawls under my skin. The big things, usually I'm good. But this was really big, and it was, it was, it was, I I remember it. It stays there as a reminder of, stick with it. You're not, you're not done in the sense of, you know, not ashamed thing, but this is a continuous game, and and keep playing with it.

How do you deal with all the knowledge, all the the knowledge you've gained, and the wisdom you are embodying to me? Um, how do you, I keep meaning this, asking you this question because it's very prevalent to me. Um, so the first question is, how do you deal with, if you perceive it the same way I do, with intellectual superiority? And the second question associated with that, the next level, if you want, so it's like, how do you avoid the falling into the trap of the guru fallacy? And by that, I mean, you know, all we've seen so many gurus out there who well ended up abusing their power, whether it's a Bikram, whether it's a Shamuka, if I'm allowed to say that, or an Osho. And you're obviously in a very powerful position. You are working with people's subconsciousness. You are leading them into trance. So what's, how do you deal with it?

I give a lot of reverence and respect to Sean Chamoka for this. He was very good about keeping me humble. Or he'd say, "You know what? You're not God. You're not changing these people's lives."

You're not God.

Yeah. I mean, he would say that, but um, we had, you know, I've gotten more into this um, baby, he wasn't, he, I think he was probably, I don't know now. I don't know when I was in it, I had reasons where I thought I knew why he was doing certain things, then when I saw what was happening now, it kind of I question everything. I don't know if what his intentions were, but I know what happened. I know what the results were. And it doesn't matter what his intentions were. He he just said, you know what, go in there, you're not going to save anybody. You're not, it's their job to do all this stuff. Which also helped to me so that I didn't take responsibility for their like the transfer and stuff, all this from Yung and and also the the guru ship of, you know, I'm here to save your soul. First of all, tantra, there's no saving. Nobody's broken. Everybody is the absolute playing exactly what they want to play, even if it's the crippled cat, you know, whatever she, it's a dream. It's like somebody who's crippled in your dream, you don't wake up and say, "Oh my god, I hope they got to the doctor." Right? You made them [ __ ] so that you could have that experience. She's making herself [ __ ] so she could have that experience. And she, as you, can have the experience feeling sorry or feeling as karma or whatever experience. So I don't see anybody as broken. The philosophy helps with this Buddh thing very well. Um, intellectual superiority again, she's the absolute choosing to have some sort. And I don't think the intellect is really that is not helpful at all. I've seen how unhelpful it is. So people who are not intellectual, I'm like, jealous, kind of [laughter]. Can I hang out with you more? Ignorance is a bliss.

Yeah, teach me, please teach me, you know, and and literally, seriously, like I have spent time with people to teach me how not to be as intellectual. I do not think that it's a, I don't think that it's a big deal. I don't, I think that it is a hindrance. It helped me to get to the point where I could learn enough to let go of it, to to satiate my mind, to prove to myself, this is, see, look, it, I don't help you. I can prove to to you that I don't help you. And that was helpful. So when I see somebody intellectualizing, um, I I think, well, you know, if I can help you get out of that, that's great. And somebody who's, I guess, somebody who's kind of fighting with me intellectually, I will then, I don't actually get into that. If there's a student who has an issue and they're trying to intellectually do it, if they're arguing with me, I'm not really, as you saw, like I will ask them like, "Are you trying to prove something to me? Are you trying to convince me, or you're asking a question?" Because I would like it, I would, I'm not interested in proving anything to you. You're probably not going to convince me, and and I'm open to that if that's what you want to do, but let's have that conversation. And if you want to ask a question, please ask it directly, um, so that we can, so I can give you what you want. But anyway,

one of my favorite situations in this training this week too, when Gustavo bringing something up, I don't know about whether it was about free will or the rape discussion. Yeah. And he was very, very passionate about it and keep going in circles about his perspective. And at some point, you just, you just reacted with, "Okay, that's fine." [laughter]

Yeah, I don't have to convince you. It's, if if you're convinced about your own perspective, and it helps you, makes your life, makes you feel more h, more he, happy, then just use it.

Yeah, because it's all a dream. I mean, that's another thing is my authority as a human being, your authority as a human being. We both have human authority. What's real for you is real, as real as what's real for me. And my reality is cannot be more real for you. I no matter how much I want to make it your reality. I can impose it on you, but we've seen that happen in individuals and mass societies, and it it doesn't work, right? You have an authority, and you have the only thing that I know of that absolutely cannot with nuclear blast or whatever be open from the outside is the mind. So, I'm not going to convince you with my intellect or my guruhip or whatever. You've got to, you've got to accept it, look at it, see if it makes sense for you. And yes, there's manipulation and all these things that happen and blah, blah, blah. But at some point, on a karmic level, we all decided to have this game. And a lot of people will say, "Whoa, this is [ __ ] dangerous. Now you're getting into dangerous stuff." So this is like even more than me saying I'm God for me, and the free will thing. The real controversial thing is I have no responsibility.

Because I'm you. We made a script in this dream to play out this game. And if I manipulate you, if I take advantage of you, if I, if I, you know, get it to where I can sexually whatever with you, the system says, the philosophy says, what makes sense to me also says, you made this choice. You made this choice. We made this choice in a dream to have this experience. And wow, that gives you a lot of license. Or the spiritual bypassing, or all this stuff is super dangerous. If you live in a fear reality that this is not the absolute plane, absolutely. And this is where I'm saying everything is her playing is super simple. This is the sort of thing that's really not easy for a lot of people, myself included, to really actualize, right? So this becomes very tricky.

for people. It lets me not become I. I don't see myself as a guru that can that has anything other than I have information. I can support you. Shamuka was very good about this with me. I have information. I can support you. But you have it's for you. Initiation was information for him. There was no bucket of water. There was no nothing. There was no taka on your forehead. Nothing like that. Initiation was information. And the same thing in the chuka in Parachushika in in abavagupta's work. There's nowhere to go. There's no liberation. It's only recognition, recognizing, re-understanding that you are the absolute already. And so how can you be manipulated? How can you be how can you be any inferior to me? How can I be superior? How can any of this stuff happen that she didn't want to happen? Yes, she has those experiences for sure and they are traumatic and I'm not taking that away, but it can be super salvic. It can be really um um helpful for people who've been through some of these traumatic experiences if they can look at this without being re-traumatized, triggered, seeing as not or interpreting as not being seen and not validated. And I'm not that's not my intention. The intention is you are the absolute. Yes, you chose to have that really super intense experience. But you now have the ability to respond. Responsibility is not a bad thing. It's the ability to respond to your environment internal and external. And that's what tantra I see is giving your ability to respond. Turned around responsibility. Yeah. Which is a heavy thing for a lot of people because they want to be victims. They've been cultured to be victims in this modern time so that they somebody can tell them what to do. That's been cultured by the somebody who wants to tell them what to do.

>> And Tantra is saying that's somebody and you are fine and it's all good, but do you want to? You made a choice in your script already before you were born to participate. So you either will or you won't. And it's not a choice you can make, but it's a choice that you can perceive to make. So you play with it.

>> Yeah. What I found helpful is to have faith to that we the absolute is still striving for goodness inherently which like I see the cause in you know we're still all alive mankind is still living and there have been countless opportunities in the past where we could have all killed ourselves look at World War II. But yet we we are still alive and despite all the seemingly negativity in our today's world, wars, anger and stuff. Factually, we we live in the most prosperous times ever, right? And yeah, that kind of helps at least me in having Yeah. And in believing that we as humankind still strive for some sort of goodness, some sort of idealism. I mean like Christianity has been running the world for the last thousand years. And this philosophy made us grow up with certain with certain values, with certain virtues, I'd say, which are which tend to be quote unquote positive, like love your neighbor. Um, so and to take it on a on a micro level, on a personal level, it's similar to what I've experienced, what some people experience, like all the [ __ ] all the traumas we've experienced in our past made most of the people eventually grow and become make them let them become the the person they are today. So there's um it seems to me like that there's an inherent striving for iteration.

>> This you're skeptical.

>> Yeah, I'm not skeptical. It just doesn't make sense with the system that I know. There's no striving. She already if she were striving, she would already be there. She can do anything. If she wanted to get somewhere, she'd be there. If she wanted world peace, it would be done.

>> Well, then the fun of playing a game will be lost.

>> So, it's the fun of playing the game. And it's not a game. You You have perspective of this is the most prosperous by what matrix, right? By your matrix? By a matrix that somebody gave to you that you accepted. This is a dream. According to this perspective, this is a dream. There, we're not going towards goodness. We're not going towards anything. She's not going towards anything. It's a cycle.

>> It will all dissolve and then remamorphosize and dissolve and remeetamorphicize over and over and over again. It's not going anywhere. It's just for the game. So there's no good. There's no I mean love thy neighbor, all of these things. There's a lot of examples of the opposites, right? These are systems that are talking about expressing bliss, ananda, satan, right? That there is this joy, there is joy, there is celebration, but everything is that celebration. And I I wouldn't there's a lot of people who would say we're going downhill and some people say we're flat and some people say whatever. And to say that Christianity has been running the world for a thousand years, there's a lot of people who would say absolutely not. Sure. Maybe because America in the last hundred years, maybe hundred years because America is primarily even though it's non-secular,

>> >> it is kind of Christian. Yeah,

>> >> maybe you could say the last hundred years financially and militarily a Christianesque influence is there, but I think past that you're stretching.

>> >> right? So there's a lot of assumptions in what you say and again that's your you will live from that reality and that is your reality and I have no desire. You came here to ask me these things and I will give you my impression on it and you will mix you there's no way you're going to just take my stuff. You cannot get rid of everything that you've already had. If you're going to mix and how much you mix in is going to be your choice into the pot. And how much it dilutes the other things and overrides or how much it just augments them up to you. And that's the I don't have a opinion about that. I think that what you've already shared is fun for me because it's like cool, we can continue to have a conversation. You know, there's one more person on the planet that I can talk to about this stuff, which is which is nice because there's not a lot.

>> >> Yeah.

>> >> Right. And I don't think that there is I don't think we are good and we're striving for I think there is no good. There is her playing in a dream and it's all blissful. That for me is way more powerful than some people are generally good.

>> Everybody is the absolute enjoying and playing with themselves as everybody else. And so every rape and every birthday party and every you know family vacation and every mass shooting are all her playing with and as herself to just experience all the possibilities that she has without any judgment that they're good or bad. They are they're having lots of experiences and she is actualizing all of her potentials that had to be there. And how do we know they had to be there? Because they're happening. They can't happen without this absolute foundation. absolute kalpa the the foundation from which everything comes they they wouldn't exist they're they're dependent origination they depend on the absoluteness of their own self to arise we all right so she and that absoluteness that nikalpa is blissful so we don't I don't need proof of these you know Christianity or is I mean every every philosophy is towards bliss and love and brotherly love and all these things because an because of this an principle. And so I don't need proof of it in the newspapers or in trends or in historical documentation. There's no logical way that it couldn't be because there's an absolute that has create that has metamorphosized as all of this reality and it does so on its own celebration of itself and that I define is defined as bliss. It only has it's only one. If there's only one, you don't do anything you don't want to do. And you can make the whole circus, the whole sandbox, the whole carnival. You can make whatever you whatever games, whatever rides, whatever you want to make. And you just make that's what you did. And some of them are hangman stations. Some of them are little kid birthday stations. Some of them are mass shooting stations. And you go in and you play the mass shooting game. And then you go in and you play the little kid birthday game. And then you go in and you play the make love game. These are stations that she set up for herself to have all the experiences and they're all blissful. They're all good.

>> Maybe to attempt to break it down. I usually don't ask this question, but I find it quite interesting asking it. Okay.

>> Asking you. So inspired by Tim Ferriss and Steven Bartler, two of biggest podcasters, uh they like to ask the question towards the end of the podcast. If you had a billboard spread out all over the world, places like New York City, Tokyo, Berlin, Copanhagen,

>> >> um,

>> >> what would you what would you write on that billboard? What would be your message to mankind?

>> Wow. Something about If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. Something

>> >> something about like, hey, like

>> >> that's [ __ ] profound. [laughter]

>> >> If you're happy and you know it, text me, you know, put [laughter] put a make a website and like sign up here. Hi. I mean, they're so like, hey, do you want to play? Is there anybody who really wants to [ __ ] play and they and people say, "Wow, this philosophy is going to make killers and blah blah blah." Um, maybe, but when you really for a while, but it's just like the Alan Watts thing or as Christopher Wallace says in his book, if you can play all this stuff, if you can do whatever you want in a dream, Alan Watts says, you can have these dreams over every night. You go into this dream state and you do whatever you want over and over and everything, everything, everything, eventually you're going to dream this dream. You're going to you're going to forget that you could dream. Forget that you're doing all this stuff and and live without the ability because knowing how to do all this stuff, the sides, the supernatural powers is actually not as fun as not knowing. And so you veil yourself and you neuralize yourself and you go out and you and you experience, right? So if if you're killing, if you're all these things, eventually I don't know, maybe I haven't done it, but I think that it's eventually there's this like, hey, I I think we can just play and and and cook cook food together and make love and and go for walks and travel and do all these and just, you know, let's go on field trips. And so, who wants to play, right? If you're happy and you know it, click here. Um, if you really want to play and you can accommodate other human beings and you can you can listen and you can share and you're vulnerable and you that kind of play, that kind of happy. If you really know yourself and you love yourself and you know you're the absolute playing here, let's get in touch. And that's what I'm doing here. I'm I'm trying to kind of build it, right? Like, hey, there's not a lot of this information. I haven't seen a lot of this information out there. And if there maybe I would also put on the billboard like hey if you are really you know your [ __ ] please call because I'll come there you know I'm not interested in doing all this stuff and putting it all together. I would love and just support we all support each other right I have no interest in doing this [ __ ] on my own and being the big teacher and all this stuff. Actually, there's so much projection. There's so much all this stuff that I don't get to often really people don't see me and I don't get to just hang out with the person that I see, but they see as something, a teacher, blah blah blah, a guru or whatever.

>> >> I I'm not interested. I just want to hang out and play and have I don't even know conversations about how how the no good and no bad. I have a friend,

>> >> she was here last year, she and her partner, and we talk about all this stuff and like the ramifications of it and how it what about this? Oh my god, I never even thought about that. Like what would what does no good and bad mean here? And how does it look in in sexuality? How does it look in in power dynamics of of governing a a society or whatever? Like how do we law all like how how do we play with all of this stuff,

>> >> right? That's fascinating for me. And to just but first we have to get to the no good no bad

>> >> in G&B she said you know she writes like okay in G&B and then she goes off with this assuming no good no bad now we can play with this. When we really can get to there's no good no bad what does the world look like? And just that is like enlightenment you know like just accepting it not even being able not living it or anything just accepting that yes that makes sense now how do we play with it I saw this really this nice it's kind of associated with this I was just telling you guys about the the spectrum of enlightenment and there is no enlightenment except for acknowledging remembering this no good no bad remembering that you're the absolute and there isn't so there's the spectrum is you go from not enlightened to medium enlightened which is you remember all this stuff before and after an event and then fully enlightened is you remember all this stuff no good no bad I'm the absolute while it's happening in the middle of it right and that's where like okay where are the people who really want to play in this and we can be in the middle of the [ __ ] and remember that I and that's why that experience in South Africa was so valid was so lifechanging for me and and illuminating for me because I realized I still have in the really like when it really gets down to I still have that right and that fear and I don't know if it would happen again now that's that's six seven years later And having seen it also seeing it is, as G.I. Joe says, knowing is half the battle. The old cartoon. So just knowing it, then it starts to organically deal with itself. And that's what we do here a lot is just point stuff out. I just point it out and you will organically deal with yourself and put the pearl around the piece of sand, right? That's what I would put probably. It's just like, hey, let's play because I am not I was thinking like, you know, click here if you want to give me money, but I don't really care about money. I don't really care and and I don't need to teach anybody. I don't need to heal anybody. I don't I don't The one thing that this does is there's nothing to do that you should or shouldn't do. But then I'm hungry, so I will go eat. I'm tired, so I will go sleep. And so what is organically arising is the desire to play and to play with people. I'm a very social being, but I'm also a very sensitive

>> >> and sometimes fragile being. So to to play with the people that can play in this in this environment and I'm I'm really tough actually if I know that somebody knows this and they're you know poking me in like conversations like the questions that you're asking I I know where you're coming from and it's fun for me. Um, so yeah probably the billboard would be like yeah if you're really happy and you know it you know [snorts] click here.

>> >> I'll take it. I think this is the perfect wisdom bomb to end with your clap your hands.

>> >> Clap your hands. And I mean we could we could probably go on for another few hours, but we

>> >> yeah, we'll leave it for a second part hopefully. Maybe maybe with your mom.

>> >> That would be great. I would love it.

>> >> If uh you guys from the audience have any questions, any unanswered questions, please drop them in the comments. I think Whitney would be happy to engage with

>> >> Yeah, this is a big This is as I told you, like I'm now kind of ready to get out because there's this brings a lot. It opens up a lot of a lot of [ __ ] And um, yeah, I'm I want to play I want to play in the world. And so I invite I I'm not really interested in convincing, fighting, arguing. So I probably won't respond to much of that. But if you if you really if this is fascinating for you as it is for me and you would like if you if you would like the perspectives that I have accumulated over my lifetime, if that adds value to something and we could play and have a conversation, I'm super happy. That would be very fun to engage. And then I'll plug the school of like come here and do it here is the way that I have found to really dive into it and and to play with it.

>> >> Yeah, I would love to see you getting out into the world and getting to debate quote unquote with people like George Peterson or Sam Harris. I think that that would be very very valuable for the people out there.

>> >> Yeah, I I would love to have these conversations um as fun. Again, sure I don't want to convince anybody, but I just want to go and have a conversation with somebody with people who are curious.

>> >> As as this friend I was talking to about her big thing is curiosity, right? I'm curious and I love to share this stuff and I would love also perspectives that challenge it and um and give other perspectives because I'm I say I have this claim about myself that I'm that I'm curious and I want if there's more things perspectives that make more sense, I want them. Um, and so we'll see if that's true or not if [laughter] I fight for my for what I've built over these years. But I would love to. Yeah. Other opportunities to go to speak to um go around the world to share in person the system, the philosophy, the yoga retreats, workshops, anything.

>> >> Yeah. I'll share any information about the school links, contact details in the description.

>> >> Yeah.

>> >> And yeah, let's let's get you out out there.

>> >> Yeah. Let's go play. This is uh it's uh it's super fun and and the world is wild right now. So, let's see. Let's see if I'm ready for it.

>> >> That being said, dude, I genuinely appreciate it. It was uh means a lot to me really. And uh yeah, I'm curious about where this is going to go.

>> >> Me, too. Me, too. But it's all been planned, right? It's all been scripted.

>> >> Well, yeah. So, we can just relax.

>> >> Yeah. We get to Yeah. We get to sit back and watch our own our own movie unfold.

>> >> And I look forward to it. And I I look forward to continuing to stay in contact with this stuff and just in general and personal personal.

>> >> Epic. Cool. Thank you.

>> >> Absolutely. For sure.