WEBVTT - Finding Peace in Turbulent Times 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:24.116 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show 0:00:24.156 --> 0:00:27.836 where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:28.276 --> 0:00:32.396 I'm Noah Feldman. Today our show is just a little 0:00:32.436 --> 0:00:36.196 bit different because we're going to explore a story behind 0:00:36.236 --> 0:00:38.836 the story in the news. But the story in the 0:00:38.876 --> 0:00:43.916 news is just the basic idea of crisis. In recent weeks, 0:00:43.916 --> 0:00:46.716 the United States has felt like a nation in crisis, 0:00:47.316 --> 0:00:50.876 and then that national crisis is repeated out at the 0:00:50.956 --> 0:00:55.396 individual level for hundreds or thousands, or maybe even millions 0:00:55.396 --> 0:00:59.356 of people, each of whom is struggling with the core 0:00:59.476 --> 0:01:03.676 questions of how to live, to talk about crises, and 0:01:03.916 --> 0:01:07.876 how we can draw on the resources of spirituality to 0:01:07.916 --> 0:01:13.516 address them. I'm joined today by Professor Michael Alexander. Professor 0:01:13.556 --> 0:01:17.396 Alexander is a professor of Religious Studies at the University 0:01:17.396 --> 0:01:21.836 of California, Riverside, and he's the author of an extraordinary 0:01:21.956 --> 0:01:26.756 new book called Making Peace with the Universe, Personal Crisis 0:01:27.116 --> 0:01:30.876 and Spiritual Healing. I've known Mickey since we were graduate 0:01:30.916 --> 0:01:33.996 students together, and I had the pleasure and the privilege 0:01:34.076 --> 0:01:37.396 of hearing him talk through and work on the ideas 0:01:37.436 --> 0:01:41.316 that went into this book for years. When the book 0:01:41.436 --> 0:01:47.316 finally emerged. It moved me tremendously. It's written accessibly, it's 0:01:47.316 --> 0:01:50.676 written beautifully, and it's written in a way that can 0:01:50.716 --> 0:01:55.396 affect the reader at an individual, personal level. In other words, 0:01:55.716 --> 0:02:04.476 it's nothing like an academic book usually is. Mickey, Thank 0:02:04.516 --> 0:02:06.316 you so much for being here for me. This is 0:02:06.356 --> 0:02:09.836 like the culmination of a little dream to get you 0:02:09.996 --> 0:02:13.156 onto this podcast to talk about this amazing book and 0:02:13.196 --> 0:02:15.356 making peace with the universe. So first of all, just 0:02:15.436 --> 0:02:17.756 thank you for doing it, and thank you for being here. Yes, 0:02:17.836 --> 0:02:19.876 you've been involved with this for a long time. I 0:02:19.996 --> 0:02:22.996 cried on your shoulder many nights trying to figure this 0:02:23.036 --> 0:02:25.316 thing out, and it's great to finally see it in 0:02:25.356 --> 0:02:30.356 the world. Your book starts with a crisis, and then 0:02:30.396 --> 0:02:32.476 it's going to give us more people's crises, but it 0:02:32.556 --> 0:02:36.436 starts with a crisis of your own, and the crisis 0:02:36.476 --> 0:02:40.036 takes place on Sardinia, which you call a playground for 0:02:40.116 --> 0:02:42.756 Europe's richest people, which is not the obvious place for 0:02:42.796 --> 0:02:46.916 a crisis. But maybe start, if you would, by telling 0:02:46.956 --> 0:02:50.796 the listeners what that crisis was, because that will help 0:02:50.836 --> 0:02:55.196 us understand why you wrote the book. The original inspiration 0:02:55.276 --> 0:02:57.956 for the book is older than the crisis. I've been 0:02:57.996 --> 0:03:02.476 teaching religion and religious studies now for twenty years and 0:03:02.716 --> 0:03:06.316 have been studying it professionally for thirty. And I got 0:03:06.356 --> 0:03:09.676 my first job at the University of Oklahoma in nineteen 0:03:09.756 --> 0:03:13.436 ninety nine, having moved there from the East Coast. And 0:03:13.676 --> 0:03:16.236 I turned on the radio and I heard this song, 0:03:16.436 --> 0:03:18.836 a country song that I'd never heard before, because I'd 0:03:18.836 --> 0:03:21.596 never really listened to country music before. And it was 0:03:21.716 --> 0:03:25.796 by this supergroup called the Highwaymen, and it had Willie 0:03:25.796 --> 0:03:30.236 Nelson and cut Johnny Cash. The song is about the 0:03:30.316 --> 0:03:34.036 spirit of adventure. The first verse is sung by Willie 0:03:34.076 --> 0:03:36.356 Nelson and it's about a pirate on the seas, and 0:03:36.356 --> 0:03:39.236 the second verse is about some kind of other adventurer. 0:03:39.476 --> 0:03:41.436 And I got in my head that someday I would 0:03:41.436 --> 0:03:44.836 like to write a book about the spirit of spiritual adventure. 0:03:45.036 --> 0:03:49.276 And it just sat there for ten years, and then 0:03:49.956 --> 0:03:53.356 I came to my own crisis. As it were, I 0:03:53.396 --> 0:03:57.476 was having family trouble. It was nothing exceptional, in fact, 0:03:57.516 --> 0:04:01.636 it was just sort of very typical domestic chaos. But 0:04:02.196 --> 0:04:05.876 I did wonder, after all these years of studying about 0:04:05.876 --> 0:04:07.556 the care of the soul, how come I wasn't able 0:04:07.596 --> 0:04:09.876 to sort of take care of my own. And at 0:04:09.876 --> 0:04:12.356 that exact moment, I was called upon by a good 0:04:12.396 --> 0:04:15.436 friend who was getting married on the island of Stardenia, 0:04:15.556 --> 0:04:19.356 to say some words at his wedding. And I didn't 0:04:19.356 --> 0:04:22.396 have anything to say. I was on the airplane, I 0:04:22.396 --> 0:04:24.836 had a yellow pad in front of me that was 0:04:24.876 --> 0:04:28.636 completely empty of any notes to say about the reality 0:04:28.716 --> 0:04:33.036 of marriage. And off I went to try to say 0:04:33.076 --> 0:04:36.516 something to these people. While I myself was contemplating getting 0:04:36.516 --> 0:04:40.716 out of my own up on the dais, a verse 0:04:40.756 --> 0:04:44.116 from the Upanishads returned to me, and that's what I 0:04:44.156 --> 0:04:48.436 talked about. And the verse is a fascinating verse from 0:04:48.436 --> 0:04:52.436 the Kathopanishad, which is a very old text roughly the 0:04:52.836 --> 0:04:55.876 period of the Hebrew Bible, and it's the story about 0:04:55.916 --> 0:04:58.676 a person who was given a favor or a gift 0:04:58.716 --> 0:05:01.996 by the gods. They're given the opportunity to ask death 0:05:02.716 --> 0:05:06.516 any question that you could possibly think of, and so 0:05:06.876 --> 0:05:09.876 the person who's given the gift thinks through what would 0:05:09.876 --> 0:05:11.476 you ask of death? What would you ask of the 0:05:11.596 --> 0:05:14.356 entity that has seen the course of every life and 0:05:14.676 --> 0:05:17.076 knows what a life amounts to? And he asks the 0:05:17.196 --> 0:05:21.236 question essentially, is there anything in life that is ever 0:05:21.356 --> 0:05:24.356 feels like you amounted to anything? Is there anything that's 0:05:24.396 --> 0:05:30.676 worth doing? That's the question. Death responds with a verse 0:05:30.876 --> 0:05:35.236 which is very terse or succinct, and the verse is 0:05:35.916 --> 0:05:38.756 there is a path of pleasure and there is a 0:05:38.756 --> 0:05:43.596 path of joy. Both attract the soul or a person. 0:05:44.156 --> 0:05:47.436 Those who seek joy come to find it, and those 0:05:47.476 --> 0:05:51.236 who seek pleasure never come to the end. That's the 0:05:51.356 --> 0:05:53.076 verse that I quoted for him, and then said a 0:05:53.076 --> 0:05:55.556 little couple of words about it, and then got off 0:05:55.596 --> 0:05:59.396 the dais and was completely mortified that I'd said something 0:05:59.436 --> 0:06:04.956 inscrutable and meaningless at my friend's wedding. But afterwards people 0:06:04.996 --> 0:06:08.116 came up to me and we talked about it, and 0:06:08.556 --> 0:06:11.596 I reali that I needed to look more at the 0:06:11.676 --> 0:06:15.156 classic sources that for so long I had treated as 0:06:15.156 --> 0:06:21.596 a scholar but had not treated for my own journey, essentially, 0:06:21.676 --> 0:06:24.236 and so I made on the island of Stardiny, I 0:06:24.276 --> 0:06:26.796 made this kind of pact with myself to put all 0:06:26.836 --> 0:06:29.796 my other research on hold, and to start to relook 0:06:29.956 --> 0:06:34.516 at all the verses and aphorisms and myths and rituals, 0:06:34.596 --> 0:06:36.516 everything that I'd ever looked at as though I was 0:06:36.956 --> 0:06:39.796 kind of a zookeeper at the zoo watching other people, 0:06:40.196 --> 0:06:43.196 and I realized that in fact I was I needed 0:06:43.236 --> 0:06:46.516 to help myself, and so that began this journey, which 0:06:46.516 --> 0:06:48.356 turned out it would be a ten year journey in 0:06:48.356 --> 0:06:51.236 which I had started to very deeply look into those sources. 0:06:51.636 --> 0:06:55.316 Not as an academic, although it's academically solid and actually 0:06:55.356 --> 0:06:59.756 all accurate, but really for me, there's something about being 0:06:59.756 --> 0:07:04.116 an academic that kind of splits us into two parts. 0:07:04.716 --> 0:07:07.396 Even if we study something that's about the human condition, 0:07:07.716 --> 0:07:09.596 like you do, you say, a religious study, what could 0:07:09.596 --> 0:07:11.676 be more fundamentally about the human condition or about the 0:07:11.716 --> 0:07:15.436 relationship of the human to the divine, We nevertheless get 0:07:15.516 --> 0:07:23.516 so trained in thinking about history, sociology, philosophy, anthropology that 0:07:23.636 --> 0:07:26.596 we tend to split what we're studying apart from our 0:07:26.636 --> 0:07:31.196 actual individual daily lives. And I think, in some ways 0:07:31.236 --> 0:07:33.676 what's so fascinating to me about your whole project here 0:07:33.676 --> 0:07:35.996 and about the book that came out of it, is 0:07:35.996 --> 0:07:41.076 that standing there in Sardinia, you had the realization that 0:07:41.236 --> 0:07:44.196 there's no point in doing all of this scholarship and 0:07:44.236 --> 0:07:47.876 study about the human condition if we can't turn it 0:07:47.956 --> 0:07:50.996 to ourselves and apply it to ourselves. And I think 0:07:51.036 --> 0:07:53.476 a lot of academics response to that would be no, no, 0:07:53.556 --> 0:07:56.356 don't don't go there and make you step back. It's 0:07:56.396 --> 0:07:59.436 too hard and it'll be too hard to be objective. 0:08:00.756 --> 0:08:03.876 Why did you in that moment think no, I gotta 0:08:03.916 --> 0:08:05.396 take it the other way. I've got to do the 0:08:05.436 --> 0:08:07.796 thing that actually non academics imagine we're all doing all 0:08:07.796 --> 0:08:09.916 the time, namely, if we're looking for the answers to 0:08:09.956 --> 0:08:12.396 the world's questions, try to look for those answers to 0:08:12.596 --> 0:08:16.196 use them for ourselves. Well, I can't answer the question 0:08:16.236 --> 0:08:18.516 in the arena of the law or in the arena 0:08:18.596 --> 0:08:21.836 of medicine, where somebody can potentially die on the operating 0:08:21.836 --> 0:08:24.436 table as a result of kind of a method that 0:08:24.756 --> 0:08:28.516 is unorthodox. But I think I'm liberated by the fact 0:08:28.516 --> 0:08:31.916 that it is religious studies and that if somebody should 0:08:31.956 --> 0:08:34.596 fail one of my classes, nobody dies on the operating table. 0:08:34.716 --> 0:08:37.316 Besides the marital aspect of it. I did have kind 0:08:37.316 --> 0:08:41.236 of a crisis regarding what am I doing teaching religion, 0:08:41.516 --> 0:08:43.956 because so much of it, as you're well aware from 0:08:43.996 --> 0:08:47.076 your own work, is you know, just the crassest justifications 0:08:47.116 --> 0:08:50.636 of nationalism and sexism and racism, and so I would 0:08:50.636 --> 0:08:52.756 be standing up in front of my students sort of thinking, 0:08:52.796 --> 0:08:55.996 what is the value here? Why are we studying all 0:08:55.996 --> 0:08:59.276 of this old stuff? And it became clear to me 0:08:59.396 --> 0:09:02.356 that for myself it was the value of it was 0:09:02.396 --> 0:09:06.436 in the arena of therapy, personal therapy. And that's actually 0:09:06.716 --> 0:09:09.796 I came to the insight in reading and teaching all 0:09:09.836 --> 0:09:13.516 these confessions confessional literature for so many years. I realized 0:09:13.556 --> 0:09:16.916 that most of the great confessions, from Augustine down to 0:09:16.996 --> 0:09:19.756 the present, to Tulstoy or whoever else, had been the 0:09:19.796 --> 0:09:22.756 result of somebody having a personal freak out in their lives. 0:09:22.836 --> 0:09:26.716 And because religion had been the form for therapy before 0:09:26.876 --> 0:09:29.996 there was modern therapy, people turned to it when they 0:09:29.996 --> 0:09:31.876 had nowhere else to turn to, when they needed to 0:09:31.916 --> 0:09:35.956 take one step forward. And I just realized that all 0:09:35.956 --> 0:09:40.356 of these confessions were, in fact, case histories of spiritual therapy, 0:09:40.396 --> 0:09:44.716 as it were. But I came to that realization actually 0:09:44.756 --> 0:09:46.636 as somebody who was seeking. In other words, when I 0:09:46.676 --> 0:09:49.556 was reading Augustine, I wanted to figure out how he'd 0:09:49.796 --> 0:09:52.236 figured out his life so I could figure out my life. 0:09:52.276 --> 0:09:55.636 When I read Tulstoy's Confessions, I was doing the same thing. 0:09:55.956 --> 0:09:58.476 I stopped reading it as a third person and I 0:09:58.516 --> 0:10:01.676 started reading the stuff as though it were self helped literature, 0:10:01.796 --> 0:10:05.036 because I think that's what it was the fastest growing 0:10:05.116 --> 0:10:09.036 category of quote unquote religious affiliation in the United States. 0:10:09.116 --> 0:10:12.276 Its people who say, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. And 0:10:12.316 --> 0:10:14.956 it really strikes me that your book is partly about 0:10:14.996 --> 0:10:17.596 how there's really no difference between those things. I mean, 0:10:17.676 --> 0:10:22.596 in the end, the religious traditions were all designed from 0:10:22.596 --> 0:10:25.756 the beginning to address spirituality, and the people you write 0:10:25.756 --> 0:10:28.956 about in your book are on spiritual journeys. I mean, 0:10:28.996 --> 0:10:32.676 what we have is people tend to associate with religion 0:10:32.716 --> 0:10:36.236 the institutionalism of it, and that's not why your book 0:10:36.316 --> 0:10:37.956 is about at all. And that's not what the book 0:10:38.036 --> 0:10:40.116 is about at all. And I felt liberated and sort 0:10:40.156 --> 0:10:43.676 of going to the spiritual because there were precedents, and 0:10:43.716 --> 0:10:47.356 the greatest precedent was actually the founder of American psychology 0:10:47.356 --> 0:10:50.836 and the founder of American religious studies, William James, who 0:10:50.916 --> 0:10:53.676 himself had gone through a tough marriage and he was 0:10:53.756 --> 0:10:56.956 in his late thirties early forties, had never published a book. 0:10:56.956 --> 0:11:00.196 He was up at Harvard near your offices, sucking down 0:11:00.276 --> 0:11:03.556 nitrous oxide canisters in his office and calling it research. 0:11:03.636 --> 0:11:06.636 He was in a bad way, and he started to 0:11:07.196 --> 0:11:10.716 return to some of the spiritual masters that he had 0:11:10.756 --> 0:11:13.996 read about it in his youth more seriously, and the 0:11:14.076 --> 0:11:16.836 result of that work was The Varieties of Religious Experience, 0:11:16.876 --> 0:11:19.916 which you published in the early part of the twentieth century, 0:11:19.916 --> 0:11:22.636 and it really turned his life around. So he makes 0:11:22.676 --> 0:11:26.916 a distinction about religion as an institutional function and religion 0:11:26.956 --> 0:11:29.476 as a person or private function. And I think a 0:11:29.516 --> 0:11:31.236 lot of my colleagues have a lot of problem with 0:11:31.316 --> 0:11:34.276 putting those blinders on it, and I do too, because 0:11:34.676 --> 0:11:37.036 I think that if you're missing the nationalism and the 0:11:37.076 --> 0:11:39.596 sexism and the racism and all of that, you're missing 0:11:39.996 --> 0:11:43.796 a lot about how religion functions. Nevertheless, I still felt 0:11:43.796 --> 0:11:46.676 this spiritual curiosity, and I felt that there was this 0:11:46.836 --> 0:11:52.316 essential thing driving people to either religion or spirituality that 0:11:52.476 --> 0:11:55.836 was not simply them getting pushed around by power politics. 0:11:56.436 --> 0:11:59.676 That was people looking for something, and I was looking 0:11:59.716 --> 0:12:04.476 for something. Let's turn now make you too the thing 0:12:04.516 --> 0:12:07.836 you found. And of course this is part of why 0:12:07.876 --> 0:12:10.716 people should read the book. But I'd like for listeners 0:12:10.716 --> 0:12:15.396 to get a flavor of your core observation, the thing 0:12:15.436 --> 0:12:20.036 you found in the different spiritual traditions that you explored, 0:12:20.916 --> 0:12:23.996 each of which, in one way or another, picks up 0:12:24.476 --> 0:12:27.636 on the idea that you began with, the idea that 0:12:27.676 --> 0:12:31.436 there's a path of joy and a path of pleasure, 0:12:31.516 --> 0:12:34.036 and you can find the path of joy, but the 0:12:34.036 --> 0:12:39.156 path of pleasure has no end. That insight simply rang 0:12:39.436 --> 0:12:42.196 true to me, meaning that when I thought about my 0:12:42.236 --> 0:12:44.996 own life and instances of pleasure, I thought about all 0:12:44.996 --> 0:12:48.476 the conquests of Saturday night, that Sunday morning receded into 0:12:48.556 --> 0:12:52.156 darkness and blackness, and you know, all the times that 0:12:52.196 --> 0:12:54.716 I was on an internet browser, you know, in four 0:12:54.756 --> 0:12:57.076 hours later getting up and asking myself what kind of 0:12:57.076 --> 0:13:00.036 a black hole was I just down? In other words, 0:13:00.076 --> 0:13:03.316 there it felt like a path with no end. And 0:13:03.356 --> 0:13:06.276 then I thought about other episodes in my life in 0:13:06.316 --> 0:13:10.956 which they seemed edifying, the episodes that I would call joyful, 0:13:10.996 --> 0:13:13.396 and even the words seemed old fashioned to make joy, 0:13:13.476 --> 0:13:16.276 who even uses it? But the episodes that I would 0:13:16.356 --> 0:13:19.636 use as joyful or think about as joyful had a 0:13:19.716 --> 0:13:21.836 kind of edifying aspect to it. And I use the 0:13:21.876 --> 0:13:24.676 word edifice building up. It meant that after you did 0:13:24.796 --> 0:13:27.836 that behavior, you felt like you built yourself up, like 0:13:27.876 --> 0:13:30.556 there was something left standing after you had done it, 0:13:30.756 --> 0:13:33.916 which was so different from pursuits of pleasure, where they 0:13:33.956 --> 0:13:38.036 almost receded while you're doing it, if not just shortly thereafter. 0:13:38.596 --> 0:13:41.076 And I started to think about what's the mechanism by 0:13:41.116 --> 0:13:44.916 which joys are created. Both of these are flavors of happiness. 0:13:44.956 --> 0:13:47.676 They're also deeply related to one another. One can enjoy 0:13:48.196 --> 0:13:53.036 pleasures in a joyful aspect, even something as basic as 0:13:53.076 --> 0:13:57.036 sexual relations done within the context of a meaningful relationship, 0:13:57.356 --> 0:13:59.836 it doesn't feel empty. It feels like something has been 0:13:59.996 --> 0:14:02.996 edified by the act. So I wanted to get to 0:14:03.036 --> 0:14:07.596 the mechanism of what that was, what transposes pleasures into joys? 0:14:08.236 --> 0:14:11.356 And sometimes when pleasures aren't available, how do you have 0:14:11.436 --> 0:14:14.036 joys even in the worst and hardest of circumstances, as 0:14:14.076 --> 0:14:16.676 we all sometimes have to do. It's not just about 0:14:16.756 --> 0:14:20.396 chasing pleasures. Sometimes you're alone with your best friend in 0:14:20.396 --> 0:14:24.436 a hospital gurney and they're passing away, and so those 0:14:24.516 --> 0:14:28.396 moments that have these intense feelings of connection that are 0:14:28.556 --> 0:14:32.316 not necessarily related to pleasures but sort of give you 0:14:32.356 --> 0:14:35.516 a kind of they throw you into a spiritual mood. 0:14:36.116 --> 0:14:39.556 I wanted to find out how that happened, and I 0:14:39.676 --> 0:14:42.556 read the sources, and it was pretty clear to me 0:14:42.596 --> 0:14:45.356 that the obvious statement that we talked about before was 0:14:45.596 --> 0:14:48.516 the mechanism that made all those things happen, which is 0:14:48.556 --> 0:14:50.876 that religion was the forum, or is the forum in 0:14:50.876 --> 0:14:53.916 which people thinking about the weight of the world. And 0:14:54.156 --> 0:14:56.436 when I gave myself over to the fact that the 0:14:56.476 --> 0:15:00.156 world has weight and meaning at all, that's when the 0:15:00.236 --> 0:15:04.916 joy started to arise. What I heard you saying was 0:15:04.956 --> 0:15:08.436 that when you feel the weight of the world on you, 0:15:09.636 --> 0:15:13.116 that the key thing to be able to do is 0:15:13.196 --> 0:15:18.316 to embrace the idea that the world has meaning, and 0:15:18.436 --> 0:15:21.836 by doing that, you're able to give what you call 0:15:21.916 --> 0:15:26.276 in the book, giving your assent to the universe instead 0:15:26.276 --> 0:15:30.276 of fighting back against it, to be at peace with 0:15:30.356 --> 0:15:33.116 the weight that the world has on you. And so 0:15:33.156 --> 0:15:34.596 what I wanted to ask you about that because that 0:15:34.876 --> 0:15:37.156 feels to me like it's very close to the heart 0:15:37.876 --> 0:15:40.916 of your proposal in the book, very close to what 0:15:40.916 --> 0:15:45.076 you've derived from these religious traditions. For me, sometimes when 0:15:45.116 --> 0:15:48.476 I'm feeling that weight, the weight of the world, that's 0:15:48.476 --> 0:15:51.516 exactly when it's hardest to believe that the world does 0:15:51.556 --> 0:15:53.836 have meaning. But I heard you to be saying the 0:15:53.916 --> 0:15:56.876 key is acknowledged that the world has meaning. But for 0:15:56.956 --> 0:15:59.476 me at least, that's often the hardest part. So what's 0:15:59.476 --> 0:16:02.356 the trick, as it were? How does one move from 0:16:02.436 --> 0:16:05.836 feeling the weight of the world to thinking, well, the 0:16:05.836 --> 0:16:08.796 weight of the world does have meaning, and through that meaning, 0:16:08.836 --> 0:16:12.876 I give my assent to the universe. Weight and gravity 0:16:12.876 --> 0:16:15.276 are a metaphor that I use, the reason being that 0:16:15.316 --> 0:16:17.916 there's no language that can really pin it down. I 0:16:17.956 --> 0:16:20.956 avoid the word meaning because I'm not sure that joyful 0:16:21.636 --> 0:16:26.036 moments necessarily have meaning. In other words, I just remember 0:16:26.476 --> 0:16:28.836 when my kids were young, there was an episode in 0:16:28.876 --> 0:16:30.796 which my youngest, who might have been three or four 0:16:30.836 --> 0:16:33.756 at the time, took a piece of saran wrap and 0:16:33.836 --> 0:16:36.276 pulled it over the toilet bowl as a trap for 0:16:36.316 --> 0:16:38.876 the next person who would use the toilet, and when 0:16:38.916 --> 0:16:41.796 I saw it, I felt joy. Now, I don't know 0:16:41.796 --> 0:16:45.356 what the meaning of the situation was, but I don't 0:16:45.396 --> 0:16:47.796 think it had significance beyond the fact that the little 0:16:47.836 --> 0:16:50.596 kid was playing a trick. And yet there was something 0:16:50.716 --> 0:16:53.236 that about the act that made the world feel like 0:16:53.276 --> 0:16:56.156 it was revolving on well oiled hinges, that I was 0:16:56.276 --> 0:17:00.236 at one with a universe that was okay. Sometimes that 0:17:00.316 --> 0:17:05.076 occurs in very hard circumstances. I used the word gravitoss 0:17:05.196 --> 0:17:09.636 or gravity, because the idea of it is that things 0:17:09.716 --> 0:17:12.116 feel like they have weight. I mean, things feel like 0:17:12.236 --> 0:17:15.236 people are born and people die, and these things matter, 0:17:15.556 --> 0:17:18.956 and that when I fall into the trap of thinking 0:17:18.956 --> 0:17:21.596 that these things don't matter, that's usually when my own 0:17:21.716 --> 0:17:26.436 pain and agonies are actually exacerbated and are the worst. 0:17:26.796 --> 0:17:29.036 In other words, if one went ahead and tried to 0:17:29.116 --> 0:17:32.756 do something about those difficulties in the world and embrace 0:17:32.836 --> 0:17:35.996 them as important or everything about it the world is important, 0:17:36.436 --> 0:17:39.476 that's when the joys came. So it seemed to me 0:17:39.516 --> 0:17:43.156 it was emotion. It was an emotional response as opposed 0:17:43.196 --> 0:17:49.036 to an intellectual one, meaning that recognizing just the reality 0:17:49.076 --> 0:17:51.436 that I feel that the world and things in't matter, 0:17:52.116 --> 0:17:56.676 started to feel good. Why do you think that your 0:17:56.756 --> 0:17:59.796 kids prank had this effect on you? I mean it's 0:17:59.796 --> 0:18:02.236 almost like a zen cohon of you know, the surround 0:18:02.316 --> 0:18:04.676 rap or for the toilet pull seed. You know, part 0:18:04.716 --> 0:18:07.796 of me wants to try to analyze it symbolically and 0:18:08.356 --> 0:18:12.476 think that it's about out death and that it's about transparency, 0:18:12.556 --> 0:18:14.596 and you know, but this is clearly the wrong way 0:18:14.596 --> 0:18:17.476 to go about thinking of this story. The question is 0:18:17.516 --> 0:18:20.076 why did it do this for you? Why did it 0:18:20.116 --> 0:18:24.516 give you that feeling of the world having wait in 0:18:24.556 --> 0:18:27.716 a good way? I think because I saw my kid, 0:18:27.716 --> 0:18:30.676 who was two or three years old, participating in joy 0:18:30.716 --> 0:18:34.476 and laughter, and it was a kind of pleasure at 0:18:34.476 --> 0:18:37.116 the fact of watching a young kid come into themselves 0:18:37.156 --> 0:18:39.516 and grow old and watch their intellect developed to the 0:18:39.516 --> 0:18:41.396 point that they were ready to set a trap like that. 0:18:41.476 --> 0:18:44.676 It was watching the world turn the way it's supposed to, 0:18:44.756 --> 0:18:47.836 as it were. Something that I find really hard in 0:18:47.876 --> 0:18:52.476 the context of spiritual growth is making the move from 0:18:52.516 --> 0:18:58.316 the isolated experience like you're describing, where you have that 0:18:58.396 --> 0:19:01.596 feeling of connection, you have that feeling of the world 0:19:01.636 --> 0:19:06.436 doing what it's supposed to do and mattering, and then 0:19:07.076 --> 0:19:12.276 translating that into a dane feeling of well being. Sometimes 0:19:12.276 --> 0:19:15.236 I feel very lucky and I am able to experience 0:19:15.916 --> 0:19:19.476 a moment of what you're calling joy, a moment of connection. 0:19:20.476 --> 0:19:22.876 Yet I still find it difficult to, as it were, 0:19:23.596 --> 0:19:28.076 regularize that sentiment or make it feel good over time. 0:19:28.676 --> 0:19:31.556 What are the traditions that you've studied, in the examples 0:19:31.556 --> 0:19:32.756 that you've studied, and we're going to turn to some 0:19:32.836 --> 0:19:35.196 of those examples in a moment, What do they say 0:19:35.236 --> 0:19:39.356 about that, about that move from a moment of recognition 0:19:39.876 --> 0:19:42.636 to actually being able to live well and in peace 0:19:42.676 --> 0:19:45.876 with the universe over time. First of all, it's always 0:19:45.916 --> 0:19:48.316 moment by moment, and you always slip an in and 0:19:48.356 --> 0:19:51.756 out of it. There's always a tension with seeing a 0:19:51.796 --> 0:19:55.516 meaningless universe in which you only want to run away 0:19:55.556 --> 0:20:00.076 from the problems of it. So it's simple to recognize, 0:20:00.236 --> 0:20:03.396 but it's never easy to do. A regiment of prayer 0:20:03.556 --> 0:20:07.476 is a means by which basically all the traditions remind 0:20:07.516 --> 0:20:09.796 a person to sort of think about how the world 0:20:09.836 --> 0:20:12.636 is turning. There are greater holidays and lesser holidays, but 0:20:12.716 --> 0:20:17.076 typically most traditions really advocate taking a break every couple 0:20:17.076 --> 0:20:19.836 of hours, and for things that you do regularly, such 0:20:19.876 --> 0:20:22.636 as wash your hands or take a meal, in which 0:20:22.676 --> 0:20:26.956 it's the time to stop and basically say I appreciate this. 0:20:27.116 --> 0:20:30.956 I know the alternative it throws you back into a 0:20:30.996 --> 0:20:35.836 position of gratitude and also of responsibility, by which I 0:20:35.876 --> 0:20:38.316 mean when you recognize the way to the world, you 0:20:38.356 --> 0:20:41.676 realize that your job is to pay it forward. The 0:20:41.676 --> 0:20:44.516 metaphor that I like so much about gravity is that 0:20:44.556 --> 0:20:47.756 it's not about you, it's about something else. It's about 0:20:47.796 --> 0:20:52.196 throwing in your chips with some function or power that 0:20:52.436 --> 0:20:55.636 is not of just about poor me. And the amazing 0:20:55.796 --> 0:21:01.356 and ironic aspect of doing it is that almost as 0:21:01.356 --> 0:21:04.276 soon as you stop thinking about poor me and throw 0:21:04.516 --> 0:21:08.876 one's focus to things that are more important than me, 0:21:09.476 --> 0:21:13.556 your own therapy or my own therapy was achieved almost instantly. 0:21:14.196 --> 0:21:18.196 A lot of my own self pity really came exactly 0:21:18.236 --> 0:21:21.276 from that poor me, poor me. Not that I don't 0:21:21.316 --> 0:21:23.476 have my own problems, or that other people don't have very, 0:21:23.556 --> 0:21:27.916 very substantial problems, but paying it forward is a pretty 0:21:27.956 --> 0:21:32.676 substantial way of digging oneself out of that hole. And 0:21:32.716 --> 0:21:35.196 I think that the religions really do try to offer 0:21:35.596 --> 0:21:50.396 ritualized opportunities to do that. We'll be right back, Michael. 0:21:50.556 --> 0:21:54.396 In your book, you've got amazing chapters which are sort 0:21:54.396 --> 0:21:59.356 of spiritual biographies in miniature of figures who had crises 0:21:59.716 --> 0:22:01.916 and engaged with them. They're all amazing, But I want 0:22:01.916 --> 0:22:05.076 to ask you about two in particular one because it 0:22:05.196 --> 0:22:07.156 was the one that I maybe knew the most about 0:22:07.196 --> 0:22:09.476 to begin with, and I was fascinated by to it, 0:22:09.716 --> 0:22:11.516 and the other because it was the one I knew 0:22:11.556 --> 0:22:13.956 nothing about. So the one I knew a little bit 0:22:13.956 --> 0:22:18.516 about was the story of the great Muslim philosopher and 0:22:18.596 --> 0:22:21.996 critic of philosophy of Mohammad al Hazali. I wonder if 0:22:22.036 --> 0:22:26.316 you'd start with his tale and what it was about 0:22:26.396 --> 0:22:30.076 his experience that resonated for you. I came across a 0:22:30.236 --> 0:22:35.196 title of his I didn't know anything about him, and 0:22:35.316 --> 0:22:38.156 the title was The Alchemy of Happiness. It was written 0:22:38.156 --> 0:22:41.236 in Persian. It was a Persian pressus of a larger 0:22:41.316 --> 0:22:44.236 Arabic work that he had been working on for a 0:22:44.316 --> 0:22:46.596 long time. And I didn't know anything about any of them. 0:22:47.036 --> 0:22:49.476 And so I started digging in into who is Ghazzali 0:22:49.756 --> 0:22:53.076 and what is the Alchemy of Happiness? And I happened 0:22:53.116 --> 0:22:57.276 upon his autobiography, his amazing confession and autobiography The Deliverance 0:22:57.796 --> 0:23:01.636 from Error, And as I read it to be perfectly honest, 0:23:01.676 --> 0:23:04.116 I thought a lot about you because you and I 0:23:04.156 --> 0:23:06.836 go back a long time. I was in graduate school 0:23:06.836 --> 0:23:09.756 with you when you were in law school, and Gazzali 0:23:09.916 --> 0:23:12.236 was a lawyer. He was the top lawyer for the 0:23:12.276 --> 0:23:16.076 sultan in a period in which the sultan ran everything 0:23:16.196 --> 0:23:19.556 practically from India to Turkey, and he had a really 0:23:19.596 --> 0:23:21.796 good job. He was the top of the law profession. 0:23:21.916 --> 0:23:24.356 The things that he said and the ink strokes of 0:23:24.396 --> 0:23:27.996 his pen really changed lives, hundreds of them, thousands of them. 0:23:28.436 --> 0:23:31.116