Speaker 1: We're all going to die, We're all going to experience pain,
Speaker 1: We're all going to suffer. What we have to do
Speaker 1: with humanity is decrease that suffering that we can control.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Rain Wilson, best known
Speaker 1: for his Emmy nominated role as Dwight Shrut on NBC's
Speaker 1: The Office. Wilson also voiced the Alien Villain and Monsters
Speaker 1: Versus Aliens and starting the police procedural Backstrom. But today
Speaker 1: He's equally well known for the philosophy website he founded
Speaker 1: called Soul Pancake, which creates media about life's big questions,
Speaker 1: including a New York Times best selling book of the
Speaker 1: same name. He just released a memoir called The Bassoon King,
Speaker 1: My Life in Art, Faith and Idiocy. Hey everybody, it's
Speaker 1: Eric And before we get started, I wanted to let
Speaker 1: everyone know that there is space in the one you
Speaker 1: Feed coaching program. This is about the time of year
Speaker 1: that everybody starts realizing that their resolutions are the goals
Speaker 1: they set for the You're aren't working out so great.
Speaker 1: So if you meet that description, go to one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash coaching to learn more about the
Speaker 1: program and I would love to work with you. And
Speaker 1: now for the interview with Rain Wilson. Hi, Rain, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Thanks for having me on your show.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to get you on. Obviously, I loved
Speaker 1: your character Dwight on The Office, which is where I
Speaker 1: got to know you. But as I explored some of
Speaker 1: your other work, Sole Pancake and your latest book, The
Speaker 1: Bassoon King, I'm excited to explore those great Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems that way. It seems like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: alignment here, yep. So our podcast is called The One
Speaker 1: You Feed, and it's based on the parable of two Wolves,
Speaker 1: where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and
Speaker 1: he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops, he
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. I love the parable, um, one of
Speaker 1: my very favorites. I spent a lot of years in
Speaker 1: my life feeding the wrong wolf, and that really dragged
Speaker 1: me down and I wasted a good decade or more.
Speaker 1: And also, um, you know, the parable goes right to
Speaker 1: the center of spiritual discourse since the dawn of man.
Speaker 1: Not to sound too pretentious, but really it has to
Speaker 1: do with ourself overcoming ourselves. Because it's truly not. These
Speaker 1: wolves are a part of us. They're not something outside
Speaker 1: of us, or something even inside of us. They're They're
Speaker 1: a part of us. And there is a part of
Speaker 1: me that is ego driven that wants uh athletes, status,
Speaker 1: material comfort, praise, power, um. And I want to do
Speaker 1: all of that effortlessly and not have to work for
Speaker 1: any of it, and have everything that I ever want
Speaker 1: to be given to me. And So when I've been
Speaker 1: in that pursuit of myself, of the ego, um, the
Speaker 1: illusion of self. Rather I should say, I've been just
Speaker 1: really unhappy, um, just by and large unhappy, destructive behaviors
Speaker 1: and haven't contributed positively to either the world or it's
Speaker 1: my own spiritual growth. You talk about spirituality a lot, um,
Speaker 1: you're you've formed the hang on a second dog. Sorry
Speaker 1: you can, I don't know if you can hear that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if we have dogs barking in the background, it's fine
Speaker 1: because there's I think it's New Morning Bob Dylan's album
Speaker 1: from seventy four year dog sparking in the background because
Speaker 1: he's recording hitting What's Back New York. So you talk
Speaker 1: about spirituality a lot, you've formed the new media company
Speaker 1: Soul Pancake that you know, to really focus on. I
Speaker 1: think the tagline is to chew on life's big questions.
Speaker 1: What does the word spirituality mean to you? It's obviously
Speaker 1: much maligned in today's world, So help help me understand
Speaker 1: what that word means in your life. Thanks. I think
Speaker 1: that it is much maligned. Um. It's been maligned by
Speaker 1: either being associated with um kind of born again uh
Speaker 1: religious kind of fundamentalism UM, or kind of associated with
Speaker 1: what something that really kind of turns my stomach, which
Speaker 1: is just kind of a really soft, vague, New age
Speaker 1: kind of hippy to be kind of very general kind
Speaker 1: of feeling that that doesn't really have any specificity to it,
Speaker 1: something having to do with crystals and yoga pants and
Speaker 1: incense and stuff like that. And so it turns a
Speaker 1: lot of people off for that. But for me, spirituality
Speaker 1: is a huge part of just who we are as
Speaker 1: a human being, different aspects of us, and the spiritual
Speaker 1: is part of that aspect. I say in the book, Um,
Speaker 1: there's a little analogy a chemical that I'm really kind
Speaker 1: of proud of Eric the and that is spirituality is
Speaker 1: everything that we don't have in common with monkeys. So
Speaker 1: we have a ton of stuff in common with monkeys.
Speaker 1: You know. We like to groom ourselves, like to collect
Speaker 1: shiny objects, we like social status. We'd like to eat,
Speaker 1: we like to poop, we like to fornicate. But spirituality
Speaker 1: is really anything that is not that. So anything having
Speaker 1: to do with self improvement, altruism, creation of art um,
Speaker 1: trying to improve the world, make ourselves better, the world better,
Speaker 1: being of service, an act of selflessness, all of these things,
Speaker 1: an appreciation of beauty, pondering our existence, being still, meditating, praying, devotion,
Speaker 1: all of these aspects that make us separate from monkeys.
Speaker 1: To me, I would classify as spirituality. Yep, that's a
Speaker 1: great way to put it. I really like that. I
Speaker 1: think I often talk about spirituality being the recognition that
Speaker 1: it's not the you know that there's an inner life,
Speaker 1: there's something that happens inside of us beyond just what's
Speaker 1: out there. But I like your I like your definition
Speaker 1: a little bit better. I think. So. I have heard
Speaker 1: you talk about happiness. You're not a huge fan of
Speaker 1: the word happiness, um, but you say something that I
Speaker 1: really like, and I think it's something we focus on
Speaker 1: here a lot. But you say, happiness is not an
Speaker 1: if then proposition. Can you expound on that a little bit? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. The way I'll put it in terms
Speaker 1: of a personal story, I talk about this in my
Speaker 1: book That Soon, And for myself, UM, my entire dream
Speaker 1: was to have a beautiful girlfriend and wife, UM and
Speaker 1: to be living in New York and being a professional actor.
Speaker 1: And that's my dream, and that's what I had wanted
Speaker 1: since I was a teenager. I worked super hard for it.
Speaker 1: I went to acting training school and paid my dues
Speaker 1: and etcetera. And I found myself in New York City
Speaker 1: with my now wife. We've been together twenty five years,
Speaker 1: and I was working professionally as an actor, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't happy, and it didn't make any sense to me
Speaker 1: because I kind of felt like culturally and societally, I
Speaker 1: was given this proposition, which was, if you do X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z, and you work hard for it and
Speaker 1: you arrive at Z, then you will be happy. You're
Speaker 1: not going to be happy now, not gonna happy in
Speaker 1: high school. You had me happy working hard in college.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna happy early on in your career. But
Speaker 1: once you get to that point, then you're going to
Speaker 1: be happy, and I wasn't. I was more unhappy than ever,
Speaker 1: even though I was working as a professional actor, and
Speaker 1: it was beyond my wildest dreams. So this started. It
Speaker 1: launched kind of a long spiritical journey for me through
Speaker 1: my life, artistic journey and spiritual journey. But but really
Speaker 1: one of the things that I have discovered in my
Speaker 1: life and then looking at her, you know, the bigger
Speaker 1: picture is that happiness is not an if done proposition,
Speaker 1: and happiness is not something around the corner. It's not
Speaker 1: around the band, it's not over the hill. It's not
Speaker 1: something that you will eventually arrive at. It's a false
Speaker 1: dichotomy to think that I'm going to put in this terrible, grueling,
Speaker 1: horrible time so that I could be happy once I
Speaker 1: made k a year and I have a wife, or
Speaker 1: have kids, or live in this certain neighborhood or have
Speaker 1: achieved a certain status. So happiness is really to be
Speaker 1: found along the journey. And yes, I don't really like
Speaker 1: the word happiness because I think to me, it has
Speaker 1: to connotations of it's not lasting, like I'll feel a
Speaker 1: lot of emotions through the day. Happiness is something that
Speaker 1: I'll feel through the day. Maybe four times for about
Speaker 1: eight seconds. But I do feel a deep, richer contentment,
Speaker 1: which I prefer to happiness, and sometimes I feel a
Speaker 1: joyfulness or gratitude for much longer periods of time. If
Speaker 1: I hadn't stay in gratitude, then I can kind of
Speaker 1: align myself with a kind of a deeper, richer joy
Speaker 1: um happiness I associate with cotton candy and Loller coasters
Speaker 1: and video games and like a quick short attention span
Speaker 1: births or seeing uh, someone you haven't seen in a
Speaker 1: long time, running into woman at the Starbucks and giving
Speaker 1: him a hug, and you know, you might feel that
Speaker 1: nice happiness for a minute and a half and then
Speaker 1: it goes. But I'm talking about something a little bit deeper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what's so challenging is that idea of if
Speaker 1: I get this, then I'll be happy is such an illusion,
Speaker 1: and yet it is one of the most persistent illusions
Speaker 1: there is, because I think for a lot of time
Speaker 1: in my life I would I would say, well, if
Speaker 1: I get this, then I'll be happy, and then I
Speaker 1: would get it and I wouldn't be happy. And instead
Speaker 1: of questioning the entire thought process behind that, what I
Speaker 1: would do is just assume that it's the next thing. Well,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't this job, then it must be the
Speaker 1: next job, and and that just goes on and on
Speaker 1: and on. So how for you are you able to
Speaker 1: break that illusion or is it really one that you
Speaker 1: kind of just like I do, have to keep kind
Speaker 1: of hacking away at I wish I had some magic bullet.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of things that I do in my
Speaker 1: day that helped me. So gratitude helps me a lot.
Speaker 1: Staying in glatitude because I had a tendency to get
Speaker 1: very native and cynical quickly. Prior and meditation as a
Speaker 1: daily part of my day is super important and it
Speaker 1: helps align me with what's true and importance and in
Speaker 1: my face tradition as a member of the faith. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's something that we look at called a fofold moral purpose,
Speaker 1: and that is to make myself a better person and
Speaker 1: to also try and make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: We often think about um moral purpose in terms of
Speaker 1: one or the other, but I really believe that all
Speaker 1: human beings have this obligation to try and improve themselves.
Speaker 1: I try and make myself work on my character defects,
Speaker 1: work on things that pulled me back my selfishness and patience,
Speaker 1: my my pride um and to become more honest and
Speaker 1: kind and humble and compassionate and at the same time
Speaker 1: to look at you know, what's my what's my greater
Speaker 1: purpose in the world. Um. And when I'm in a
Speaker 1: line that on both of those things, that I feel
Speaker 1: a great deal of kind of purpose and contentment, contentment
Speaker 1: and richness in my life. And I think that service
Speaker 1: is a big part of that. I think that they
Speaker 1: are talking about happiness. I think the most satisfying feeling
Speaker 1: one can get sometimes is being a service to other people.
Speaker 1: And it's not something that comes naturally to me. I there,
Speaker 1: we are narcissistic and you know, want to just serve
Speaker 1: myself in my career and my you know, my pocketbook
Speaker 1: and my self esteem. So but it's something that I've
Speaker 1: worked on. Yeah, And I'd like to come back to
Speaker 1: the High Faith in a little bit more detail later
Speaker 1: in the conversation. I want to explore this theme in
Speaker 1: a slightly different way because you talk about you've been
Speaker 1: very successful professionally, Um, You're you have some ambition in
Speaker 1: that regard. You talk about the ambition to become a
Speaker 1: better person. The ambition to improve the world in a
Speaker 1: positive way, and yet at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of spiritual teachings are about kind of being accepting, of,
Speaker 1: grateful for and happy with what we have in the moment.
Speaker 1: And I'm always interested in that balance of I want
Speaker 1: the world to be a better place, I want to
Speaker 1: be a better person, and I'm okay with the way
Speaker 1: things are. I'm content in the present moment. How does
Speaker 1: that contradiction play out in you That's a great question. Um,
Speaker 1: I haven't really thought of it in those terms before,
Speaker 1: you know, I just think that because I believe in God,
Speaker 1: and I believe in a higher power, and I believe
Speaker 1: that God has a plan for me and for every
Speaker 1: person and wants us to achieve everything that we can
Speaker 1: achieve our our maximum potential. Every person is given a potential.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a different potential, and our kind of our
Speaker 1: job on this planet is to lise to our highest potential,
Speaker 1: whatever that is. That doesn't necessarily mean, you know, being
Speaker 1: a celebrity or making a millionaire, or being achieving greatness
Speaker 1: on this or winning awards or anything like that could
Speaker 1: just be in one's life, and so acceptance in the
Speaker 1: spiritual tradition is a tricky thing because oftentimes, like for instance,
Speaker 1: in the caste system of the Hinduism um the lowest
Speaker 1: cast which is like half a billion people, they're taught, well,
Speaker 1: this is your law in life, this is what you inherited,
Speaker 1: and so you should just accept it and be a
Speaker 1: humble service in that lot of life, and maybe in
Speaker 1: your next life you'll come out ahead or be farther.
Speaker 1: And even in the Christian tradition early on, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, lower caste people and lower level people
Speaker 1: are are meant to be that way, and it's God's will.
Speaker 1: So just you're serving God's will by being a peasant
Speaker 1: or a surf or a slave or what have you.
Speaker 1: I think it can be used in a in a
Speaker 1: negative sense. I think we can all improve ourselves and
Speaker 1: we can always improve the world. Um, And there's but
Speaker 1: it's a tricky balance. I see what you mean about
Speaker 1: accepting you are given circumstances and where we are and
Speaker 1: the difficulties of life, realities of life, and at the
Speaker 1: same time striving to make things better. Yeah, it's certainly
Speaker 1: one that I wrestle with trying to strike that. I
Speaker 1: guess it's one of those paradoxes that they talk about
Speaker 1: in spirituality all the time, that there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a paradox there, and becoming comfortable with those is useful.
Speaker 1: And here's the rest of the interview with Rain Wilson.
Speaker 1: You say that um, I heard you say wants something
Speaker 1: to the extent of that Cynicism is the disease that
Speaker 1: robs people the gift of life. You know how easy
Speaker 1: it is for us to be negative, sarcastic and cynical
Speaker 1: than it is to be hopeful. This is something else
Speaker 1: that I've learned. Cynicis it comes very easily to me, sarcasm, negativity.
Speaker 1: It always has. And I had a great acting teacher
Speaker 1: in Andre Gregory. He's one of the great theater directors
Speaker 1: and teachers and philosophers of all time. Is the subject
Speaker 1: of that movie My Dinner with Andre, and he talked
Speaker 1: about how one of the biggest battles for any young person.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer young, but at the time I was
Speaker 1: is cynicism and that society wants you cynical. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know that the bravest act that one can have
Speaker 1: in life is to be positive and uplifting and hopeful
Speaker 1: and and that really stuck with me because I saw
Speaker 1: so many of my friends sinking into cynicism and despair
Speaker 1: and it's such an easy fallback position to kind of
Speaker 1: to know better about things and to be sure they're
Speaker 1: all not going to work out and all it's the
Speaker 1: pile of ship and what's the use? And it's very
Speaker 1: easy to be that way, and it's certainly on the
Speaker 1: internet everything to read is just in that in that position.
Speaker 1: So I attempted to try and um, fight that tendency
Speaker 1: to try and be more positive and uplifting and speak
Speaker 1: about my faith and speak about hope and speak about
Speaker 1: universal education and and international development. And that's what we do.
Speaker 1: And so pancake, Um, I'm attempting to be brave by
Speaker 1: being positive. I think it is easier to be cynical.
Speaker 1: Irony is such a big, big thing seems to be
Speaker 1: these days. But but being hopeful and positive is I
Speaker 1: think a harder to do. And like you said, I
Speaker 1: think there is a social risk to it. There is.
Speaker 1: It's um, you get made fun of a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: people really don't know what to think about me. And
Speaker 1: here I am this comedy character actor. We're looking dude
Speaker 1: and at the same time, my faith is very important
Speaker 1: to me, and and service, spirituality, positive impactful media, and
Speaker 1: so I participate in that. So people don't know what
Speaker 1: to think, because especially in the world of Hollywood m
Speaker 1: and in comedy, in Hollywood, it's the most cynical place
Speaker 1: on earth, and no one shares their feelings or their hearts,
Speaker 1: or their struggles or wanting to make the world a
Speaker 1: better place, or talks about faith or devotion or God
Speaker 1: or any of that stuff. So it's uh real. The
Speaker 1: community here in Los Angeles have no idea what to
Speaker 1: do with me. You know. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I read your book that I was struck by was
Speaker 1: even in the midst of having success, how many rejections
Speaker 1: or things that don't go the way you want occur? Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you tell this sort of story after story
Speaker 1: of of a you have a minor success, you're playing
Speaker 1: Hamlet uh at school, and then when it comes for
Speaker 1: auditions to for more of a professional career, you know,
Speaker 1: no one, no one reaches out to you. You get
Speaker 1: cast into a movie, and then you get cut out
Speaker 1: of the movie. You are very successful as Dwight, and
Speaker 1: then maybe the next spot that you have isn't so successful.
Speaker 1: It seems like that is a theme that we all
Speaker 1: wrestle with, and I think it goes back to some
Speaker 1: of that of if I get to ex point, then
Speaker 1: I'll be happy. But what I think is really fascinating
Speaker 1: about it is for most of us we do look
Speaker 1: to that like if I got that one big thing,
Speaker 1: like if you know you're being is that one big
Speaker 1: thing that you know? Everybody looks for that one big break.
Speaker 1: But I think what's so fascinating is even after that,
Speaker 1: life just still goes on as it always does and
Speaker 1: can still hurt and be challenging in all the same ways. Absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a constant struggle. I think even if you looked
Speaker 1: at people who you know from the outside, they looked
Speaker 1: like they've got it made, you know, Brad Pitt or
Speaker 1: something right that I'm sure Brad Pitt has its struggles
Speaker 1: and he's like, why am I not as respected as
Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio, you know? And and why was my casting
Speaker 1: the new Coen Brothers movie or whatever it is? Who
Speaker 1: knows what that is? But you know, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: and it's been That was one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: wrote the book. One of the central lessons that I
Speaker 1: wanted to dig into in the book was about to
Speaker 1: really share my failures and my learning experiences as I
Speaker 1: went through those failures. For instance, thing you referred to,
Speaker 1: there's a chapter called I Bombed on Broadway where I
Speaker 1: got my first Broadway play and I thought, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is it. I'm gonna get a Tony nomination, I'll get
Speaker 1: a new agent. Casting agents will be calling me in
Speaker 1: to put me in movies, and my whole life's going
Speaker 1: to change. Well, I sucked. I got stuck in the role.
Speaker 1: I stunk, and I got bad reviews. And but coming
Speaker 1: out of it and I and I had a horrible
Speaker 1: time doing it. I was in terrible, excruciating pain. I
Speaker 1: knew I was bad. I was weeping on the phone
Speaker 1: to my wife and h But when I finished it,
Speaker 1: I felt really free because I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to do that again. I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: be this false idea of what I think an actor is,
Speaker 1: or what a Broadway actor is or theater actor. I
Speaker 1: just have to be myself. And so ultimately I never
Speaker 1: would have gotten Dwight. I never would have played Dwight
Speaker 1: had I not gone through sheer hell, you know, in
Speaker 1: my first bad Way play. And I think that's how
Speaker 1: life experiences can work, is that you, uh, you learn
Speaker 1: by going through the fire and hopefully come out the
Speaker 1: other side, um wiser and when you look back on it.
Speaker 1: I suggest everyone to write a memoir because it's a
Speaker 1: it's fascinating what you learn as you're writing it and
Speaker 1: kind of looking back on your life. It's it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: But even now, you know, yes, I'm well known for
Speaker 1: Plains White. I tried to do another TV show, Backs
Speaker 1: from which bombed, done a bunch of movies which bombs,
Speaker 1: and people don't really know what to do with me
Speaker 1: as an actor or how to cast me. So I
Speaker 1: do a lot of little indie films that I think
Speaker 1: are really smart and cool. None of them have really
Speaker 1: hit yet. Um now I'm going to go do a play,
Speaker 1: and I wrote this book, and I'll do other pursuits.
Speaker 1: But it's, uh, you know, it's I have my own
Speaker 1: challenges right now. Now, you know, I have the perspective
Speaker 1: to know, like, look, I've got a lot of money
Speaker 1: in the bank, and you know, people know who I am.
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky and I'm very I'm super grateful for
Speaker 1: what I have, but that being said, I still have
Speaker 1: my challenges professionally, artistically, spiritually moving forward. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: there's so many There's so many points in in what
Speaker 1: you made there. I think one of them is exactly
Speaker 1: what you said, like, there are far more actors out there,
Speaker 1: countless the vast majority of them would be thrilled to
Speaker 1: be in the place that you're in, And yet you
Speaker 1: can always find somebody that's a little bit further ahead wherever,
Speaker 1: wherever you are in life. And and I think it's
Speaker 1: I just I really like that lesson of because I
Speaker 1: think so many of us have this idea that we're
Speaker 1: going to get to a certain point and then it's
Speaker 1: like it's over, life becomes easy, everything is perfect. And
Speaker 1: it's just my experience has never been that way, and
Speaker 1: the experience of people I know who have been successful
Speaker 1: has not been that way. And then the second piece
Speaker 1: of it is sort of I was just talking a
Speaker 1: little bit, but that idea. I think it was Teddy
Speaker 1: Roosevelt who said that comparison is the thief of joy. Right.
Speaker 1: If you've got Brad Pitt comparing himself to Leonardo DiCaprio, right,
Speaker 1: you can always find somebody to sort of look up
Speaker 1: to or say I wish I had what that person has,
Speaker 1: and you can always find someone to look down on
Speaker 1: and go, well, I'm better than that person. But there's
Speaker 1: never a connection. There's never a connection with other humans,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things that you talk about
Speaker 1: in your book is being. One of the key ways
Speaker 1: to derive satisfaction out of life is the connection that
Speaker 1: we make with other people. Absolutely well said, very well said.
Speaker 1: Really nothing to add to that, And again, that connection
Speaker 1: that make is something that monkeys don't do. You know,
Speaker 1: they have a certain measure of connection in terms of
Speaker 1: their social hierarchy, but connection with community, a larger sense
Speaker 1: of purpose and belonging is part of spiritu reality exactly.
Speaker 1: Let's talk now a little bit about your faith, the
Speaker 1: Behidh faith. I think I said that correct, right, If
Speaker 1: you did so, tell us some key things about the
Speaker 1: Behigh faith. Maybe you know just the short two minute
Speaker 1: version where it came from. You know, a couple of
Speaker 1: the key beliefs. I'll give your you can you can
Speaker 1: go three, you can go three minutes, No, I'll do no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do two, two minutes and ten seconds. Here
Speaker 1: we go. So the High Faith basically believes that there
Speaker 1: is only one God, that all humans have always worshiped
Speaker 1: this one God. You might be called Allah or God
Speaker 1: or yah Away or Jehovah or the Great Spirit or whatever,
Speaker 1: but there's one God. And that how God makes himself
Speaker 1: or herself or it'sself known to humanity are through these
Speaker 1: divine features that come down every five thousand years or so.
Speaker 1: And so God's message to humanity is gradually unraveling, is
Speaker 1: gradually unfold through these divine teachers. And we know their
Speaker 1: names as Krishna and the Buddha, and Moses and Abraham
Speaker 1: and Zoroaster and Jesus and Muhammad h that they essentially
Speaker 1: when you look at the essence of their message, it's
Speaker 1: the same. It's one of love and unit detachment from
Speaker 1: the material world, service to others. The Golden rule is
Speaker 1: prevalent in every single faith tradition. And behind our followers
Speaker 1: of a man named Blah, and that name means the
Speaker 1: Glory of God who behinds believed that Paula, who is
Speaker 1: a real human being, lived in Iran in Persia in
Speaker 1: the eight hundreds. We believe that Paula is the turn
Speaker 1: of the Spirit of Christ, that he's the fulfillment of
Speaker 1: these divine teachers, he's the latest divine messenger or teacher
Speaker 1: or prophet or manifestation of God for this day and age,
Speaker 1: and that he brings a message of love and unity
Speaker 1: peace for all of humanity. And that's essentially. And then
Speaker 1: there's a lot of social teachings like the harmony of
Speaker 1: science and religion, the equality of men and women, universal education,
Speaker 1: the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, fighting for
Speaker 1: social justice as a special act. And this is about
Speaker 1: a million behind all of the world. There are a
Speaker 1: few things that caught me right away. One was sort
Speaker 1: of all races equal, men and women equal, um, you know,
Speaker 1: having to honor both science and religion. A couple of
Speaker 1: others that I thought were very struck me was one
Speaker 1: is there's no priests or whatever you know, reverence, call
Speaker 1: it what you want in the faith. Tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit more about that. Yeah. So when Bahawilah came,
Speaker 1: he spent his whole life being tortured and persecuted and
Speaker 1: jailed and sent some land to land, from jail to jail, exiled.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason this was is he taught
Speaker 1: that there's no need for any clergy anymore. We don't
Speaker 1: need a class of people, um who have gone to
Speaker 1: a certain amount of schooling to be able to be
Speaker 1: intermediaries between humanity and God. That the bid faith is
Speaker 1: very democratic, so there's no clergy. Um. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a twelve step meeting. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: inmates are running the asylum. You know, it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, elected positions and without anyone who
Speaker 1: has any kind of higher status at all, which is
Speaker 1: super important for me. I think there are some brilliant
Speaker 1: and beautiful and effective clergy people being one of them, UM,
Speaker 1: but uh, we could feel the damage that the clergy
Speaker 1: and the power of clergy has done humanity and to
Speaker 1: faith traditions throughout history. One of the things I think
Speaker 1: is interesting when you talk about um that the idea
Speaker 1: that God sends these people periodically to just things is
Speaker 1: I'm always struck by how many other people there are
Speaker 1: who may not be given that designation, that are teaching
Speaker 1: truth and wisdom and guidance all the time. Kind of
Speaker 1: all around us. There's so much wisdom coming out of
Speaker 1: human beings. I'm always sort of thinking about, like is
Speaker 1: it really just these few individuals that we name, is
Speaker 1: these great spiritual teachers or is it sort of a
Speaker 1: almost constant flowing forth of wisdom and Um, I guess
Speaker 1: wisdom would be the word I would use. I think
Speaker 1: that that's very true. And I think that that good divine,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, whatever you want to call it, is
Speaker 1: always speaking to very wise individuals who are sharing that.
Speaker 1: I mean, whether it's Eckartole or Fema children, or the
Speaker 1: pope or the Dali Lama or whoever you want to
Speaker 1: turn to, or people even on a on a smaller
Speaker 1: level that we've been inspired by. UM. Certainly wisdom speaks
Speaker 1: to all people in the high tradition, in the high
Speaker 1: way looking at things, these special divine teachers looking there,
Speaker 1: specifically at Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, the Buddha, Krishna. That
Speaker 1: these they have a very special higher station. And you
Speaker 1: can see that whole civilizations have been created based on
Speaker 1: their message, based on a book, but based on their teachings.
Speaker 1: So they are, according to behinds, they have a kind
Speaker 1: of higher station than a regular wise person. But that's
Speaker 1: not to say that the divine doesn't speak through UM.
Speaker 1: Lots of incredibly wise and affective people, and some of
Speaker 1: the I'm reading Thomas Burton right now. I love Thomas Burton.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a Catholic monk, and but he speaks
Speaker 1: to me so deeply. I spend every morning reading um
Speaker 1: reading his work. Yeah, he's great. You actually had a
Speaker 1: quote in your book from him. You were talking about
Speaker 1: how he said that he described himself as loving God
Speaker 1: and yet hating him, born to love him, living instead
Speaker 1: in fear and hopeless self contradictory hungers, which is such
Speaker 1: a great phrase. Yeah. I was reading The Seventh Story
Speaker 1: Mountain by Merdin while I was writing my book and
Speaker 1: really touched by that. But his battles between faith and
Speaker 1: you surrender to a spiritual path, which he ultimately did
Speaker 1: and the world benefited from it. Um. But I read
Speaker 1: there's a beautiful book he wrote called New Seeds of Contemplation.
Speaker 1: You know, even the Catholic who really studied the Eastern tradition,
Speaker 1: so it's very well versed in Buddhism and to that
Speaker 1: and Buddhism, Suism and and Sikhism and all the more
Speaker 1: bistical uh Eastern states and wrote about them and wrote
Speaker 1: in a Catholic way uh. But also he was like
Speaker 1: a Buddhist Catholic, I don't know, a bath like a Buddhist,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but just fantastic and a great poet
Speaker 1: as well. So a question for you about your faith
Speaker 1: you bring up on soul pancake, you know, chewing on
Speaker 1: life's hard questions. Here's one that that I wrestle with
Speaker 1: because I am I would I think I'm, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty spiritual in the sense of I'm really trying to
Speaker 1: play to the higher things in life. But the concept
Speaker 1: of a God that has a plan, I always get stuck,
Speaker 1: and I get stuck when I look at all the
Speaker 1: awful things that happen in the world. And I know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of classic responses to that, but I'd
Speaker 1: be curious, from a bi high perspective, how did the
Speaker 1: Bhaigh answer the question of wealth, God's all loving and
Speaker 1: has a plan, how do we account for just the
Speaker 1: horrid things that happened in this world? Well, I think
Speaker 1: there's two parts of that question. I thinks a great question.
Speaker 1: That's one of my very favorites. I don't have answers.
Speaker 1: I guess I would just have in my in my
Speaker 1: very limited perspective, I would say there's two parts of that.
Speaker 1: One is so a divine teacher like Jesus comes along
Speaker 1: with a beautiful, pure message, and he sends his When
Speaker 1: his death, he's got a handful of apostles and he
Speaker 1: sends them far and wide and says, you know, preach
Speaker 1: my gospel. And the early on in Christianity, it was
Speaker 1: the first time in human history where people came together
Speaker 1: under in an open tent, where there were Roman centurions
Speaker 1: and Jews and Samaritans and slaves and women and uh in,
Speaker 1: regular workers and rich merchants, all praying together, acknowledging the
Speaker 1: vividity of the Christ and the Fatherhood, and this spreads
Speaker 1: our wide. Slaves became Christian. That's why they were thrown
Speaker 1: in front of the lions, because it was his faith
Speaker 1: of the slaves and the lower classes and the upper class.
Speaker 1: Roman didn't like it. But then Constantine becomes a Christian
Speaker 1: and it's even more. But then it has, you know,
Speaker 1: a few hundred years into it, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it really gets collopted by the priests um and the administration,
Speaker 1: and Christianity loses its purity. And this happens with all
Speaker 1: the faith traditions so they lose their essential message and
Speaker 1: it gets mired down in the muck of humanity. And
Speaker 1: so to look at these faith traditions and and and
Speaker 1: it's it's so hard because they do they cause so
Speaker 1: much disunity and pain in the world when you look
Speaker 1: at them by and large. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the essential teacher and the message, and you look at
Speaker 1: maybe the first few hundred years of the of the
Speaker 1: faith tradition um, you can see what a what a
Speaker 1: glorious effect it has on and changing the uh the
Speaker 1: spiritual evolution that humanity. I believe that God wants the
Speaker 1: spiritual evolution of humanity and that it is it is
Speaker 1: his plan that we either evolve spiritually or we die,
Speaker 1: we destroy our planet or blow our planet up. You know,
Speaker 1: the second part of your question has to do with suffering.
Speaker 1: Why is it suffering? Why all of a sudden would
Speaker 1: there be an earthquake in Haiti and you know three
Speaker 1: or four thousand people die in a matter of a
Speaker 1: minute and a half. You know, what what is that about?
Speaker 1: But you know, when you look, when you take a
Speaker 1: step back and you look at at life, and you
Speaker 1: see that suffering is a part of life and death
Speaker 1: is a part of life. Either they're not. These are
Speaker 1: not nasty, horrible, bad, terrible things. They hurt and they suck,
Speaker 1: but it's a part of this material plane that we
Speaker 1: live on. We're all going to die, We're all going
Speaker 1: to experience pain, We're all going to suffer to some
Speaker 1: larger extent, some to a lesser extent. What we have
Speaker 1: to do is humanity is decrease that suffering that we
Speaker 1: can control. We can outlaw slavery and child labor. We
Speaker 1: can bring women up to a standard of of equality
Speaker 1: with men. We can get rid of racial prejudice, and
Speaker 1: classism and and and the and the economic disparity that
Speaker 1: that holds you a billion, two billion people down. We
Speaker 1: can change these things and reduce suffering greatly. And links
Speaker 1: are spiritual acts in doing that, myself and and too
Speaker 1: and two behind. Are there still gonna be earthquakes? Is
Speaker 1: there's still going to be cancers? Absolutely, It's unfortunate, but
Speaker 1: it's part of this world. Because if you believe that
Speaker 1: there are more spiritual worlds after this one, this is
Speaker 1: our material plane and our eternal self, our soul, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. We move into another plane
Speaker 1: of existence that is harmonious and beautiful. There's not a
Speaker 1: heaven and a hell. We just we continue on our
Speaker 1: spiritual journey towards meeting the Creator. Then, you know, losing,
Speaker 1: having pain or death or suffering in this world is
Speaker 1: isn't seen as such a necessarily such a terrible thing. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I went on a little rant. There, No, no, it's good,
Speaker 1: that's good. It's it's something I'm I wrestle with a lot,
Speaker 1: that idea of why are things the way they are?
Speaker 1: And and if you know, I think it's another paradox.
Speaker 1: There's that old Buddhist there's a Buddhist temple apparently where
Speaker 1: when you approach it it's got confusion as a guardian
Speaker 1: on one side and paradox and the other. And those
Speaker 1: are considered the guardians of truth, which seems pretty apt
Speaker 1: to me when I look at try and sort these
Speaker 1: things out. One of the things that hides talk about
Speaker 1: that you talk about in your book, and I really
Speaker 1: like it, is that you talk about morality in the
Speaker 1: Behidh faith is a bit different than morality and other
Speaker 1: faith traditions. Can you explain that a little bit morality
Speaker 1: is something that's that's a tough one. People don't like
Speaker 1: to really hear about morality because it has such a
Speaker 1: terrible history. You know, of sin, it's it's incorporated with sin.
Speaker 1: It's equated with sin, and it's people telling you what
Speaker 1: to do and what's good and bad. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't anoint yourself with water from left to
Speaker 1: right as opposed to right to left, then you're going
Speaker 1: to guide hell or whatever. You know, all kinds of
Speaker 1: different aspects of morality that people find distasteful, but um
Speaker 1: from a high perspective morality. The word sin, by the way,
Speaker 1: is um uh. It comes from the Greek. If it's
Speaker 1: a marchea, I'm forgetting it. I need, I need to
Speaker 1: look it up. And it's it's fun though it's a
Speaker 1: word of it's an archery term to miss the mark.
Speaker 1: So to sin is to miss the mark. And I
Speaker 1: really love that idea. So if you take hell out
Speaker 1: of the equation, there's not a fiery pit we're going
Speaker 1: to burn for all eternity. The morality is simply trying
Speaker 1: to be a better person and actually helps us and
Speaker 1: guidance and protects us from ourselves. Behides, don't drink or
Speaker 1: use drugs. Um there's not any judgment about that. There
Speaker 1: are some behinds who do probably you know, no, no comment,
Speaker 1: but there's not any judgment about that. It's just simply
Speaker 1: as a protection to ourselves because um, oftentimes alcohol and
Speaker 1: drugs can lead us down some really bad paths and
Speaker 1: can dull the spirit and dull the mind and dull
Speaker 1: the heart and dull the progress of the soul. So
Speaker 1: from my perspective, we all live in morality. There are
Speaker 1: things we will and won't do. You know, Hitler was
Speaker 1: a vegetarian and didn't want to hurt animals. Um you know,
Speaker 1: did these other horrible things. We don't have a series
Speaker 1: of rights and length Where do we get that from there?
Speaker 1: We're just gonna get it from society. You know, when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, smoking top was only the really
Speaker 1: bad kids did that, and the people know it. Now
Speaker 1: everyone doesn't. It's on every corner. It's not a good thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not going to comment on at
Speaker 1: it's like. But why are we deciding a morality? What
Speaker 1: kind of what society at large is determining to be
Speaker 1: what is right and what's wrong? You know? Um uh
Speaker 1: in the hind fate moral guidelines are there as that
Speaker 1: as a protection from yourself and a protection in your
Speaker 1: life to help your soul grow and flourish. And that's
Speaker 1: really all it is. And if you miss it, you sin.
Speaker 1: It's Smartia. You've missed the mark, and you try again,
Speaker 1: like an archer to get closer to the target, and
Speaker 1: you try and just do better next time. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love that concept of morality. The Buddhists talk about things
Speaker 1: as being skillful or unskillful actions. I also really love
Speaker 1: that that interpretation. It's funny because we do this parable
Speaker 1: and they talk about a good and a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which sounds very moral, and it's not really the way
Speaker 1: it's intended. But to talk about a skillful or unskillful
Speaker 1: wolf sort of takes the teeth out of the out
Speaker 1: of the parable, so to speak. But I would say,
Speaker 1: I would go farther. I would say it is moral.
Speaker 1: It is more like, why can't we be moral? Why
Speaker 1: can't we decide what is good and what is that
Speaker 1: and what is right and what is wrong? But we do.
Speaker 1: We do. We put down to other people know, but
Speaker 1: we make those decisions all the time about what is
Speaker 1: and what is not acceptable for us. And we all
Speaker 1: need to go on that journey, our spiritual journey of
Speaker 1: deciding what's right and wrong and um, what feeds us
Speaker 1: and what doesn't feed us? And um I think more
Speaker 1: the word morality in it. By the way, read the
Speaker 1: writing I know you have, and you read the writings
Speaker 1: of the Buddha and study Buddhism. You know, you talk
Speaker 1: about the the eightfold path. You know, there's a ton
Speaker 1: of moral writings of the Buddha. We don't like to
Speaker 1: go into that so much, you know in Western in
Speaker 1: the West, we like to pick and choose our Buddhism.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's kind of a smart disport of Buddhism,
Speaker 1: but not really diving into the writings of the Buddha
Speaker 1: himself and the saides tradition of Buddhism. Um. But there's
Speaker 1: a ton about morality in the right of um. You know,
Speaker 1: of right action. You know, right action is is a
Speaker 1: huge part of Buddhism, and that determined that there's wrong action. Yep.
Speaker 1: And there's the basic precepts which sound very similar to
Speaker 1: you know, some of them behind no drinking, you know,
Speaker 1: no drugs again because of the reasons you mentioned, the
Speaker 1: distance at places it's us from our our true selves
Speaker 1: you know, no no killing, no murder. Those are all
Speaker 1: generally pretty pretty solid ideas. Jack Cornfield has this joke
Speaker 1: about you know they talk about right right work or
Speaker 1: right vocation. He's like, Oh, it's hard to be spiritual
Speaker 1: after a day of selling guns and drugs. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's well blued. Well put, we're getting near
Speaker 1: the end of the time. But just a couple of
Speaker 1: last small things. One of the things that you talk
Speaker 1: about that I really love and I've always I've always
Speaker 1: felt as a fundamental truth, but never here articulated very often,
Speaker 1: is the idea that when you create some thing, you
Speaker 1: are emulating the creator that you are. You are doing
Speaker 1: sort of what is it the heart of the energy
Speaker 1: that drives the universe. Yeah, I I stumbled in this
Speaker 1: when I had left my faith for a long time.
Speaker 1: I left the behind faith and I was on my
Speaker 1: long kind of spiritual journey which I talked about in
Speaker 1: the Bassoon King um I. When I came back to
Speaker 1: the explorings of the High Faith, I found all these
Speaker 1: quotes that talked about how the act of being an
Speaker 1: artist is also the act of the spirituality. It's an
Speaker 1: act of devotion, and I dug deeper and realized like, yes,
Speaker 1: God is the creator. Here's this blank endless of an
Speaker 1: empty space, and then there's a big bang and there's
Speaker 1: all of this incredible beauty with its own set of rules.
Speaker 1: And what greater emulation, what greater um devotion to the
Speaker 1: creative force of the universe than to create our selves.
Speaker 1: There's a blank piece of paper and we make a
Speaker 1: beautiful picture, and we write a beautiful poem where there's
Speaker 1: there's silence and stillness, and we create a beautiful song
Speaker 1: in that. And Uh. That is one of the teachings
Speaker 1: of the by faith that I find most beautiful is
Speaker 1: that um art is synonymous with devotion. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: the same as prayer. Um the creation is the same
Speaker 1: as prayer. And I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that concept. And I think for me that is
Speaker 1: one of the ways a lot of times, spirituality, a
Speaker 1: lot of these things can be very much a head
Speaker 1: concept for me. They happened in my head. But creation
Speaker 1: for me is an absolute like I get the I
Speaker 1: don't know if you want to call it the heart
Speaker 1: sense of it, the experienced sense of it, but it's
Speaker 1: a real experience to me of feeling more in touch
Speaker 1: with the divine or the timeless or the all powerful.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of the places that I feel it
Speaker 1: more than just sort of think about it or uh,
Speaker 1: strive towards it. Go with that. That all means the
Speaker 1: last question I'll ask you. And I just thought this
Speaker 1: was really interesting because I've been thinking about this lately.
Speaker 1: I phrased it a little bit differently. I've been I've
Speaker 1: been contemplating what if we took one percent of the
Speaker 1: time that Americans spend on football, just one percent, and
Speaker 1: spend it on something else. And you say, if one
Speaker 1: on the energy that our country spent on entertainment, we're
Speaker 1: focused on service to the planet and or humanity, we
Speaker 1: could make an incredible difference in the world and be
Speaker 1: remembered as the greatest, most altruistic culture that the Earth
Speaker 1: has ever produced. I wrote that you did that sounds
Speaker 1: pretty good. I think that should be your your your
Speaker 1: your next campaign, because it is staggering when you think
Speaker 1: about that. Like, I just did some rough I don't
Speaker 1: remember how I did the numbers, but I was like, well,
Speaker 1: which one percent? I'm not, you know, not trying to
Speaker 1: be like a fuddy duddy right, and take everybody's fun away. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not like you have to devote all of your life,
Speaker 1: you know, just give one percent of the time that
Speaker 1: you spend on that stuff. And the numbers are staggering,
Speaker 1: the amount of volunteer work that would happen. It it's
Speaker 1: it truly is to your point, it would be transformative
Speaker 1: in the most unbelievable way. Right, Yeah, absolutely, You spent
Speaker 1: a hundred hours a year watching football. If you spent
Speaker 1: one hour being a service to other people and spent
Speaker 1: that one hour not watching the Cleveland Browns game, if
Speaker 1: everyone did that, we would be a great shape. Now
Speaker 1: that it's it's kind of hypocritical coming from me, a
Speaker 1: TV actor in a media company that makes YouTube videos,
Speaker 1: you know, saying, hey, then less time and entertainment, Um,
Speaker 1: how do joke about that in the book. But uh,
Speaker 1: it's but I'm talking about. All I'm talking about is less.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about I think entertainment is great. That
Speaker 1: I think lightless entertainment can be great, and comedy is
Speaker 1: great and looking at your phone is is great and
Speaker 1: that's all and that's all good. But it's just it's
Speaker 1: just a perspective. I think our culture like ancient Rome
Speaker 1: right out. We want diversion, and we want to be
Speaker 1: diverted and entertained all the time. Like children. My son
Speaker 1: is eleven, and he would just love there to always
Speaker 1: be a video game or something or a movie playing.
Speaker 1: He would just be so happy if that was always
Speaker 1: the case. So we just have to slow him down
Speaker 1: and limit the screen time and have him read and
Speaker 1: go outside. And I think humanity is in the same
Speaker 1: in the same states, Like humanity just needs a little
Speaker 1: less screen time. I agree, It's something I personally try
Speaker 1: and do and uh, and sometimes I am more successful
Speaker 1: than others. But I definitely notice a difference in the
Speaker 1: quality of my life when I am not gazing at
Speaker 1: some screen all the time. I think about my consumption
Speaker 1: to creation ratio is a big one for me. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm just you know, even if that creation
Speaker 1: is just assimilation, right, it doesn't have to be like painting.
Speaker 1: But like I just mindlessly gobble all this information all
Speaker 1: the time, all this stimulus, but very little of it
Speaker 1: comes into me and transforms me. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think we had a guest on who said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you spent for every hour you spent reading, if
Speaker 1: you spend an hour assimilating that. You would be a
Speaker 1: different person in six months. I mean you would, just
Speaker 1: you know, because that's where the growth happens. It's taking
Speaker 1: these ideas, you know, the great Soul Pancake videos as
Speaker 1: a great example, instead of watching fifteen of them, you know,
Speaker 1: like take the gratitude one you guys did. If you
Speaker 1: if we all took that and did something with it,
Speaker 1: that's where so much power would come. Yes, indeed, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. It it means a lot for us
Speaker 1: to get you on, and I've really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed your latest book will have links to
Speaker 1: it in the show notes, as well as the other
Speaker 1: places people can find you out there, and links to
Speaker 1: Soul Pancake and all that great stuff. So thanks so much,
Speaker 1: rain Well, thanks for doing this this great podcast and
Speaker 1: for talking about these big questions and ideas and the
Speaker 1: stuff a lot of people are afraid to you can
Speaker 1: get into. I really admire that and appreciate it so much,
Speaker 1: and it's really a pleasure having a conversation with your
Speaker 1: great Thanks so much. Okay, thanks all right, y'all can
Speaker 1: learn more about Rain Wilson and this podcast at one
Speaker 1: you Feed, dot Net Slash Wilson