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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcast,

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Speaker 1: out of body experiences, the scientific search for extraterrestrial life,

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Speaker 1: and biblical prophecies which may have foretold our current state

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Speaker 1: of global turmoil. So head on over to Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast a m dot com and sign up for Coast

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Speaker 1: Insider to catch up on what you may have missed

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Speaker 1: from Coast to Coast. Now here's a highlight from Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast AM on iHeart Radio and welcome back Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast. George Norri with you, John Hog with us.

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Speaker 1: We'll get to your calls in just a second. I

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Speaker 1: just have one more area to talk with John about.

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Speaker 1: And he's writing a book about the late celebrity chef

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Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain. And well, you sparked my interest, John, because

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Speaker 1: it sounds like you had a very similar situation what

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Speaker 1: happened I did. It's really a tale of two suicides, uh,

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Speaker 1: and both of us committed suicide. The reason I am

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Speaker 1: speaking to you is because my experience with suicide was

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Speaker 1: a spiritual suicide rather than the usual what I call

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Speaker 1: mundane suicide that most people encounter. UM basically, in the

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Speaker 1: mundane suicide, I contend that you end up with your

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Speaker 1: pain destroying the body mind that your that your mystery

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Speaker 1: of soul is living in. But in the suicide that

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Speaker 1: happened to me, rather than the one that I was

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Speaker 1: indeed mundanely going to do. I saw my misery and

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Speaker 1: my pain commits suicide, and I remained. And so this

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Speaker 1: is one of my most intimate autobiographical tales of the

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Speaker 1: whole other dimensions of my life. Of all these years,

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Speaker 1: I've never known this. Oh yeah, I was. I was.

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Speaker 1: I was walking through a golf course in San Pedro, California.

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Speaker 1: I just come back from India, and I was still

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Speaker 1: in the tender opening, kind of broke out of my

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Speaker 1: shell of many lives being with my my teacher in

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Speaker 1: India for the first time. And when I came back

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Speaker 1: in the world, the world that was not a place

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Speaker 1: that supported this kind of individual flowering. And I was

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Speaker 1: having a very bad day. And so I was walking

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Speaker 1: down this beautiful, beautiful golf course adjacent to the trailer

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Speaker 1: park that I lived in overlooking Santa Catalina Island and

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Speaker 1: San Pedro Cliffs, And as I was walking, it just

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Speaker 1: dawned on me and says, I could just keep walking

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Speaker 1: beyond these cliffs and plummet down three feet into the rocks.

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Speaker 1: And I was going to do it because suddenly I

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Speaker 1: had this amazing, unexpected experience of life and death suddenly

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Speaker 1: being very tangible and clear. I got to see how

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Speaker 1: they're really one, They're really there are a play of complimentaries,

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Speaker 1: or in our fear, there are a play of terror

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Speaker 1: and opposites. But what it was happening to me this feeling.

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Speaker 1: Was tried to describe it, but it's beyond words, really

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Speaker 1: beyond belief. Indeed, it was like, um, it was descending

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Speaker 1: on me, vaster than myself. And I thought, okay, this

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Speaker 1: is happening because I have made the decision to throw

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Speaker 1: myself walk over this cliff. If I turn away from this,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to lose this amazing experience that's overtaking me,

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Speaker 1: this mystery of life meeting death. So I saw this

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Speaker 1: little eucalyptus tree and I sat up against and I said, okay,

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Speaker 1: before I throw myself over, I just want to feel

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Speaker 1: this and take this with me over the edge. And

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Speaker 1: so I sat there, just going inside and feeling it.

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Speaker 1: And at some point I felt this electrical energy just

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Speaker 1: rise up out of the ground, through the roots of

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Speaker 1: the tree and throw me forward, face down into the

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Speaker 1: crab grass us, where I just began sobbing and sobbing,

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Speaker 1: and suddenly all of that, all of that, all of that,

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Speaker 1: otherwise I wouldn't be telling this, not at all. And

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Speaker 1: and and there was this moment, after I cried it

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Speaker 1: all out, I turned and there was the little eucalyptus

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Speaker 1: tree and it was just shivering its leaves in the

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Speaker 1: Santa Ana wind. And it was just this moment where

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Speaker 1: I realized the sky, the earth, the tree, existence, love me,

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Speaker 1: existence sees everything that's created out of it as a

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Speaker 1: phenomenal creation, rising and falling as something absolutely integral significant.

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Speaker 1: And I had this feeling that so much of what

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Speaker 1: society does to make us feel insignificant when you go in,

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Speaker 1: even at that moment of life meeting death, insignificant becomes insignificant.

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Speaker 1: I It's so the story is really it's it's a

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Speaker 1: jump from what I usually write about. It's a whole

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Speaker 1: other level of talking about these things that I haven't

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Speaker 1: done since I did this Messiah's book back Sometimes my

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Speaker 1: these books, you see, I I don't write these books.

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Speaker 1: They write. They used me to write themselves. And I

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Speaker 1: had no idea until Anthony Bourdain died how deeply he

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Speaker 1: his his suicide, how much he was loved, and how

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Speaker 1: many many people were shocked in the story. I talked

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Speaker 1: about the moment that inspired me to write this book.

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Speaker 1: I'm in a cashier's line and there's this old lady

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Speaker 1: and she's doing something looks like she's never done before.

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Speaker 1: She's pulled actually a magazine out of the rack and

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Speaker 1: looks at it and it's the People magazine of Anthony Bourdain.

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Speaker 1: And I watched how she touched his cheek on the picture,

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Speaker 1: and the way she did it was so intimate and beautiful,

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Speaker 1: and that's when I realized, Yeah, I love him just

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Speaker 1: as much, and I think I think I understand what

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Speaker 1: he was going through. He was not a man to

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Speaker 1: believe in fairy tales and imaginary stuff, and that Santa

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Speaker 1: Claus is going to save him from his sins and

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Speaker 1: all that. It's and and and and people like that

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Speaker 1: when they die, and I always feel well there's a

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Speaker 1: person that has the potential to become an awakened one.

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Speaker 1: And as I have been in my private life, which

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Speaker 1: I'm sharing more and more now in this period, especially

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Speaker 1: now when there's so much turmoil, when there's so much um,

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Speaker 1: angst and polarity, my inner life now as a meditator

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Speaker 1: is now coming more and more into my work because

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Speaker 1: it is this still point, this center of silence and

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Speaker 1: peace in the cyclone of life that's becoming stronger and stronger.

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Speaker 1: That is what I can share with all of you

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Speaker 1: is meditation. The science of self observation is what what

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Speaker 1: More and more I always thought my my work would

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Speaker 1: evolve more and more in. It's still prophetic, but it's

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Speaker 1: going to have more of my own authority through my

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Speaker 1: own experiences. Good for you, John. Listen to more Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast a m every weeknight at one a m.

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Speaker 1: Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot com

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Speaker 1: for more