Speaker 1: Who pulls it off moment by moment every day. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are some zen masters who do, but for
Speaker 1: most of us, you know, we're just trying to make
Speaker 1: it through the day. Welcome to the one you feed
Speaker 1: throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think, ring true, and yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Ralph White, a co founder of the
Speaker 1: New York Open Center, America's leading urban institution of holistic
Speaker 1: learning and where his current role as creative director. He
Speaker 1: currently hosts a program on the w b AI FM
Speaker 1: radio in New York City, where he has interviewed many
Speaker 1: of the major figures in the holistic world and numerous
Speaker 1: scholars in the fields of multicultural mysticism and ecology. Ralph
Speaker 1: has recognized and honored as a guiding force of the
Speaker 1: annual Gathering of Holistic Centers, which draws leaders from many
Speaker 1: of the major holistic institutions throughout the world to discuss trends, developments, challenges,
Speaker 1: and successes in the worldwide consciousness movement. His latest book
Speaker 1: is The Jeweled Highway, on the Quest for a life
Speaker 1: of Meaning. Here's the interview. Hi, Ralph, welcome to the show. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you all right, I'm glad to be here. I
Speaker 1: am excited to get you on and talk about your
Speaker 1: latest book called The Jeweled Highway, and it's really a
Speaker 1: recollection of your spiritual journey kind of up to date.
Speaker 1: So we'll jump into that in more detail in a minute.
Speaker 1: But let's start where we normally start, which is with
Speaker 1: the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson
Speaker 1: and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops
Speaker 1: and he thinks about it for a second, and he
Speaker 1: looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. First of all, it
Speaker 1: it tells us sudden true that we do have a
Speaker 1: shadow as well as a light side within ourselves. I
Speaker 1: think that's important for us all to recognize. Um. And secondly,
Speaker 1: should I say um? You know I was thinking about
Speaker 1: this parable. I was thinking of a great song by
Speaker 1: Don Henley about anger and jealousy. If you keep carrying
Speaker 1: on that anger, it will eat you up inside. I
Speaker 1: think we've got to get down to the heart of
Speaker 1: the matter. But my will gets weak and my thoughts
Speaker 1: seem to scatter. But I think it's about forgiveness, even
Speaker 1: if you don't love me anymore, to go to the
Speaker 1: end of that stanza in the song, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of truth in that. I think that even when
Speaker 1: we've been through very difficult in disturbing and maybe unjustified experiences.
Speaker 1: It is a question of how we give greater attention
Speaker 1: to the better angels of our nature, and we do
Speaker 1: seek to focus on love, compassion, forgiveness, while not pretending
Speaker 1: that we are devoid of shadows that were As called
Speaker 1: Young taught us many decades ago, we all have a
Speaker 1: shadow on that dark side is going to be there,
Speaker 1: and it's going to come out even more if we
Speaker 1: try to repress it. We need to acknowledge that. But
Speaker 1: I think yes, we have to give our primary focus
Speaker 1: to the things of beauty that exist within our psyche.
Speaker 1: So whether that is love of nature, love of others,
Speaker 1: but in general, compassion, wisdom, everything that's great spiritual traditions
Speaker 1: have taught us. You spent your early years in Wales
Speaker 1: on the coast, beautiful natural scenery, and you you grew
Speaker 1: up there until your teenage years, where you moved to Northerton, England,
Speaker 1: into a town that felt really claustrophobic and limited and dirty.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that lifted you out of
Speaker 1: that at the time, one of the things that helped
Speaker 1: you get a sense that there was a bigger world
Speaker 1: out there was music. Yeah, absolutely, well, this was the sixties,
Speaker 1: you know, in the early mid sixties in the north
Speaker 1: of England, in a town called Huddersfield, about eighty miles
Speaker 1: down the road from Liverpool. So of course the saving
Speaker 1: grace and we were a place of exquisite beauty like
Speaker 1: the Irish Sea coast of Wales to one of those
Speaker 1: grimy northern industrial towns, which is where the Industrial Revolution began,
Speaker 1: or one of the places where it began, that was
Speaker 1: covered in soot grime, the world's oldest and most some
Speaker 1: of the most disturbed working class. Um. The great consolation
Speaker 1: was the music because of course when I was fourteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, the Beatles came barreling out of Liverpool
Speaker 1: and then you had the Mersey beat. You had all
Speaker 1: that great rock and roll. That was the saving grace.
Speaker 1: When people asked me what got me through my teenagers,
Speaker 1: I always say it was rock and roll and beer.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot else up there in that in
Speaker 1: that rather, it seemed to me god forsaken part of
Speaker 1: the world. But the music was sensational. Yeah, the vitality,
Speaker 1: the exuberance, uh, just the dynamism of it all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the silver lining to spending one's teenages and
Speaker 1: then auth of England in the only mid sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think that music, any kind of music, rock, music, whatever,
Speaker 1: and we've explored this on the show before, is really
Speaker 1: a form of spirituality in its own right, and that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of what I get out of
Speaker 1: a spiritual life I also can get out of music.
Speaker 1: I was trying to convince somebody earlier that watching live
Speaker 1: killers videos on YouTube was in my meditation for the day,
Speaker 1: which I don't think I quite sold anybody on. But
Speaker 1: there's a similar comfort and consolation there. And it it
Speaker 1: seems how often you quote music in your book and
Speaker 1: different things, that it's still a deep part of your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I didn't really plan to include
Speaker 1: all those lyrics in the book. I just found it
Speaker 1: as I was recalling different parts of my life, all
Speaker 1: the music of the time came barreling forth, and I
Speaker 1: do you know, those lyrics suggest edit in a psyche
Speaker 1: is unlike trying to memorize poetry. All those lyrics from
Speaker 1: pop and rock and blues song that's my my personal orientation.
Speaker 1: They're just in there, and their music has been there
Speaker 1: at some of the most significant transitional points in my life,
Speaker 1: and especially should we say, in the late sixties early seventies,
Speaker 1: when there was a massive explosion of psychedelic music, and
Speaker 1: many of the great musicians are called, starting with Beatles,
Speaker 1: began to sing about spiritual experience and mystical experience, which
Speaker 1: is phenomenal. I mean, what what other art form has
Speaker 1: gone from singing I love you and yes it's true
Speaker 1: and you know I do, and that kind of thing
Speaker 1: to actually singing about profound mystical experience. So I think
Speaker 1: that was a massive transition. But I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think even music that is not overthly um spiritual,
Speaker 1: it's in the actual sound itself. I was just reading
Speaker 1: that in Shakespeare his in his plays, he always uses music,
Speaker 1: or not always, but he often uses music as the
Speaker 1: symbol of harmony. And it was certainly enormously nourishing and
Speaker 1: vitalizing to my soul growing up. Um, not to mention fun, vital,
Speaker 1: sexy and wild, all of the above. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think music is profound. It's it's the very least. It's
Speaker 1: it's therapeutic, and it's uplifting and it's vitalizing. Certainly, rock
Speaker 1: and rolls exactly now your career has largely been focused
Speaker 1: on building uh spiritual retreat centers for lack of a
Speaker 1: lack of a better word. You originally were very involved
Speaker 1: in OMEGA when that started up, and then the last
Speaker 1: period of your career was in building the Open Center
Speaker 1: in New York City and you were really trying to
Speaker 1: understand what it takes, you know, how could you bring
Speaker 1: these spiritual ideas right into the heart of the big city.
Speaker 1: And I'm really curious what have you learned from that
Speaker 1: that people can take away for how they keep a
Speaker 1: spiritual focus in their life day to day, whether it
Speaker 1: be suburban or urban areas where they're living. But how
Speaker 1: do we take this out of the occasional retreat center
Speaker 1: and back into our lives more consistently, Because I think
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of people listening to the show
Speaker 1: are are looking for input on. Yeah, that's a good question,
Speaker 1: because I'm actually speaking at the first Queen's Book Festival
Speaker 1: this coming Sunday, and they're asking more or less the
Speaker 1: same question, you know, which actually never been asked before me,
Speaker 1: which is, how do you retain your centeredness so you're
Speaker 1: calm or do you remain in your heart while you're
Speaker 1: in a place as demanding and as frenzied as New
Speaker 1: York City, And well, what have I learned from doing
Speaker 1: the Open Center? I mean, the first thing I should
Speaker 1: say is that when we started the New York Open Center,
Speaker 1: which is New York's and has been New York's leading
Speaker 1: central holistic learning for the last thirty two with thirty
Speaker 1: three years, you know, the conventional wisdom was that that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff would never work in New York, that
Speaker 1: maybe California, you know, maybe Hawaii, possibly Colorado, but that
Speaker 1: the New York was the real world. So it's certainly
Speaker 1: shown me that notions that there are parts of the
Speaker 1: planet that are too difficult to crime ridden, um, too
Speaker 1: caught up in the mayhem of life, that those places
Speaker 1: are unreceptive to a deeper spirituality and a more holistic worldview,
Speaker 1: that's certainly not true. New York is is filled with
Speaker 1: people who creative, interesting, deep and are connected to profound
Speaker 1: spiritual questions and are interested in spiritual practices um. And
Speaker 1: you know, of course all multiple different forms of therapy, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So I think that's worth bearing in mind, first of all,
Speaker 1: that we're not alone in this, even if we feel
Speaker 1: that there's a tiny mine alority, even I can say
Speaker 1: that with the whatever it is. Something like three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people have come to the Open Center over the
Speaker 1: last three decades. Um there's a whole community of people
Speaker 1: out there and people. I think the more people can
Speaker 1: meet with people of like mind, I've always felt that's
Speaker 1: one of the significant roles of these holistic learning centers
Speaker 1: like Omega, like the Open Center, like Findhorn up there
Speaker 1: in the north of Scotland where I was for three
Speaker 1: years in the seventies. They all serve the purpose, or
Speaker 1: one of the purposes they serve, is to bring together
Speaker 1: people of like mind where you can meet immediately and
Speaker 1: have that sense that these are people on my wavelength.
Speaker 1: These are people who speak my language. Even if you're
Speaker 1: the only person in your family and your workplace who
Speaker 1: has these more spiritual and holistic interests and values. So
Speaker 1: I would say that you know, and I mean what
Speaker 1: else you know? For me, I've got I'm a nature lever.
Speaker 1: That's why it was difficult for me to move to
Speaker 1: the industrial north of England when I was young, and
Speaker 1: it's difficult for me to live in New York. So
Speaker 1: for me, I have to have that contact with nature. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm fortunate to live in somewhere with a balcony
Speaker 1: with the sky, with a little park outside the balcony.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's it's I have to have a
Speaker 1: spiritual practice. I noticed in my my meditative practice each morning,
Speaker 1: my attempt to attune to nature. Um, my cultivate. I
Speaker 1: think I think we all need to cultivate community. You know.
Speaker 1: That's one of the first lessons of positive psychology is
Speaker 1: that happiness is not so much an individual thing. It
Speaker 1: grows out of the network of friends, family, colleagues that
Speaker 1: we have. So I think having a supportive community around
Speaker 1: you is just as important as having a practice that
Speaker 1: can give you some kind of perspective on your day
Speaker 1: to day life. So those are the thoughts that occurred
Speaker 1: to me. Excellent. Yeah, I think that that idea of
Speaker 1: community keeps coming up. You know. I think that most
Speaker 1: at least what I had, you know, the spirituality that
Speaker 1: I had imbued over a bunch of years, really focused
Speaker 1: on that inward journey. Um. But that community was such
Speaker 1: a key part of It's so funny that I didn't
Speaker 1: recognize it because I would say, you know, probably the
Speaker 1: first ten years of me being more for like, you know,
Speaker 1: the word spiritual, we could debate what that really means,
Speaker 1: but more focused on interior life. Came right in the
Speaker 1: midst of a great community, which was a twelve step community,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even recognize it was so baked into it.
Speaker 1: I don't think I recognized how important it was until
Speaker 1: later when I sort of stepped back from it and went, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was there the whole time. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people, when we step onto
Speaker 1: this path of the individualtion as young called it, or
Speaker 1: planning out who we are connecting to our deeper spiritual selves,
Speaker 1: it has to be an individual journey, you know. It's
Speaker 1: in a sense we're separating ourselves from the conditioning we
Speaker 1: might have received from family, or from school, or from
Speaker 1: society around us in general. So for me, certainly it
Speaker 1: was when I was in my adventures in my younger days,
Speaker 1: checking to Machu Picchu and this kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: it was a very individualized, isolated path and it needed
Speaker 1: to be. I think I needed to find my own self.
Speaker 1: But then once you come to some sense of who
Speaker 1: you might be, and as I say in my book,
Speaker 1: that you know, the insight that came to me when
Speaker 1: I was living in Colombia and Bogata was I'm here
Speaker 1: on this d to the greatest service I can give
Speaker 1: the world in the greatest way I can actually find
Speaker 1: fulfillment myself is to just being myself and acting out
Speaker 1: of authenticity. I think. But I think once you've come
Speaker 1: to an awareness like that, then why yeah, why not
Speaker 1: build community? I mean, I think all the cultures that
Speaker 1: show the highest levels of happiness and well being have
Speaker 1: have a strong measure of community in them. So yes,
Speaker 1: I I feel myself extremely grateful to have a very
Speaker 1: strong worldwide community of friends. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's just the regular person getting down going down
Speaker 1: the bar to his pals that we might sink a
Speaker 1: few beers with, or whether it's something more family or
Speaker 1: in it, or whether it's a more directly spiritual community
Speaker 1: like a zen community. I think they're always of sharing
Speaker 1: warmth and nourishing each other and of experiencing joyant this world.
Speaker 1: You the early days of the Omega Center, you programmed
Speaker 1: what they did with their programs. Were you started the
Speaker 1: Open Center. Um, you know, there's a lot of ambition
Speaker 1: in that and one of the things I'm always interested
Speaker 1: about with people I have on the show is how
Speaker 1: they balance ambition and striving and sort of the idea
Speaker 1: that comes through some spiritual practice about improving ourselves. So
Speaker 1: how do you balance that aspect of ourselves with also
Speaker 1: being able to be present to the moment, to be
Speaker 1: grateful for what we have. This seems to be a
Speaker 1: paradox there that's sitting kind of right in the middle
Speaker 1: of that life is you know, there's this desire to
Speaker 1: move forward, and yet part of the path is also
Speaker 1: just being happy where you are. Yeah, well that's true,
Speaker 1: isn't it. We do live with that kind of paradox
Speaker 1: that we want to just be in the present with
Speaker 1: our open hearts and to have that mystical sense at
Speaker 1: the universe is unfolding as it should, you know, is
Speaker 1: that that perspective of unity. On the other hand, when
Speaker 1: we come into more the binary and dualistic world of
Speaker 1: good and evil, we can see that change needs to
Speaker 1: take place in our culture. And so yeah, when I
Speaker 1: came to New York thirty three years ago, it was
Speaker 1: with a very specific intention, which was to create and
Speaker 1: build from scratch this place, the Open Center, and mean
Speaker 1: it seemed like a somewhat quixotic idea, but it was
Speaker 1: also clear that, you know, arguably the world's most influential
Speaker 1: city really needed a major focal point for this new,
Speaker 1: more holistic and ecological worldview. So it wasn't for me
Speaker 1: so much of a parsonal ambition. It was more sense, Look,
Speaker 1: this is a job to be done. So I mean
Speaker 1: I poured myself into it heart and soul, and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess it was a pretty NonStop exercise for those
Speaker 1: first five years, in service or in commitment, or in
Speaker 1: some kind of dedication. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: New York is fun city. I mean I was young,
Speaker 1: I was in my early mid thirties. I want to
Speaker 1: have fun. I've always been a strong advocate and enjoyer
Speaker 1: of fun. So um, I mean, if you're going to
Speaker 1: be in a retreat somewhere, that's another story. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're going to choose to live in a contemplative
Speaker 1: life and a retreat setting, I certainly honor that. But
Speaker 1: in my particular destiny to come to New York and
Speaker 1: create the Open Center involved imbibing of the joys of
Speaker 1: living in the city. And so whether that's culture, the arts, music, romance,
Speaker 1: whatever it might have been, I sought to drink that
Speaker 1: to the full. I mean, I didn't know when I
Speaker 1: began that I would be in New York as long
Speaker 1: as I have been at that point in my life.
Speaker 1: I've never lived anywhere since childhood for longer than three
Speaker 1: or four years. So I wanted to drink it to
Speaker 1: the drags and taste it to the fall and get
Speaker 1: that big time New York experience. So it's the balance,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I don't there's any easy answers. We seek
Speaker 1: to be contemplative and serene and calm and centered on
Speaker 1: loving in our day to day lives. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we want to jump into life and grab the bull
Speaker 1: by the horns. Um. And when you inevitably do that,
Speaker 1: you know you get out there a bit, You take
Speaker 1: a few risks, you step into some worlds that you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with. It's going to get a little rambunctious.
Speaker 1: It may be difficult, but I don't regret pouring myself
Speaker 1: into life because it's too precious to allow it to
Speaker 1: pass by without seeking to have the most passionate experience
Speaker 1: of each passing moment that you possibly can. This is
Speaker 1: a question you asked yourself in your youth. How could
Speaker 1: any honest and perceptive person accept the existence of some
Speaker 1: kind of higher presence when the whole twentieth century had
Speaker 1: been a massive accumulation of evidence that life was meaningless,
Speaker 1: filled with gratuitous horror and random death. And I'm curious
Speaker 1: how you did over time? You know, how you reconcile
Speaker 1: that today, what your view is, How you how you
Speaker 1: tied all these things together for yourself? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I grew up with some notion of God
Speaker 1: that came from the Church of England, And you know,
Speaker 1: it was some notion of some guy with a long
Speaker 1: white beard sitting on a throne saying, after death you've
Speaker 1: been good or bad, you're gonna sit on a cloud
Speaker 1: and play a heart for eternity, which always struck me
Speaker 1: as a horrible thought, or you're gonna, you know, have
Speaker 1: a more hellish post life existence. And as a result,
Speaker 1: if you have that kind of conception of divinity, um,
Speaker 1: you're going to ask yourself, how could I remember writing
Speaker 1: an essay on this in the philosophy course course when
Speaker 1: I was at university. How could a how can the
Speaker 1: existence of evil in this world be reconciled with with
Speaker 1: the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent God. And it
Speaker 1: really can't be in a lot of ways that if
Speaker 1: you going to take that old style view of the divine.
Speaker 1: I mean, now, yes, I grew up. My grandfather was
Speaker 1: in the trenches of the Psalm was Mustard Gas there,
Speaker 1: although he survived, like my father was in the thick
Speaker 1: of the Second World warm all the way from Normandy
Speaker 1: to the Nazi surrender. So and I just grew up
Speaker 1: with a strong awareness of the horrors of the wars,
Speaker 1: with the Holocaust, with Stalin's crimes, etcetera. And I yeah,
Speaker 1: I asked myself, how could there possibly be some deeper,
Speaker 1: more spiritual reality? And as a as a teenager, there
Speaker 1: just wasn't much evidence for that. So I was a
Speaker 1: kind of angry teenage existentialist, I would say. So, I
Speaker 1: really I didn't grow up with a lot of faith.
Speaker 1: Should we say that there is a deeper order to
Speaker 1: the universe? I really have to set off on that journey,
Speaker 1: that quest, that quest for meaning. Could we actually be
Speaker 1: living in a meaningful world? And that took me from
Speaker 1: through many things, you know, it took me through those
Speaker 1: to cultural explorations in the early seventies in California and
Speaker 1: in South America. Um, you know, I think those those
Speaker 1: years for me were crucial. Between twenty one or twenty
Speaker 1: two and twenties six, say, between graduate school and finned Horn,
Speaker 1: that's where I really explored and journeyed into other worlds,
Speaker 1: had many different explorations of consciousness in nature and spiritual
Speaker 1: practices in other ways. And um, I actually had the experience. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, there's a sense of humility, you know
Speaker 1: when you spent all those nights under those vast style skies,
Speaker 1: whether it's in the Andes at twelve thousand feet or
Speaker 1: whether it's in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico,
Speaker 1: do you have that sense of the tininess of the
Speaker 1: human experience that here we are. We think we have
Speaker 1: figured out the nature of the world. That scientific materialism,
Speaker 1: should we say, is is the most astute handle on reality.
Speaker 1: And then you gaze at those night skies for weeks
Speaker 1: or months on end, and you think we're just as
Speaker 1: speck in this vast universe where some of those tiniest
Speaker 1: little lights, perceptible lights are not just stars or suns
Speaker 1: or even galaxies, they're galaxies of galaxies. You know, this
Speaker 1: is an infinitely huge universe I have had. I had
Speaker 1: certain spiritual experiences that showed me that, as Dante would
Speaker 1: have said, that love is the very motor energy of
Speaker 1: the cars mass. So I, through my own personal spiritual search,
Speaker 1: my travels, my journeys inwardly and outwardly, I personally had
Speaker 1: to come to a living spiritual experience, an experience of noses,
Speaker 1: should we say, of spiritual knowledge. I'm not somebody oriented
Speaker 1: towards faith and dogma and that kind of thing that
Speaker 1: really didn't speak to me at all. I'm I'm somebody
Speaker 1: who needed a personal experience of it. And that's what
Speaker 1: I experienced in those journeys and adventures in my in
Speaker 1: the first half of my twenties, so that I came
Speaker 1: to that point where I really saw that, yes, we
Speaker 1: there is there's a spark of divinity within each of us,
Speaker 1: just as there is divinity within the cosmos. And that
Speaker 1: is our challenge is spiritual beings to connect the divine
Speaker 1: spark within our hearts with the divine element within the cosmos,
Speaker 1: the micro consum and the macro consum. So you know,
Speaker 1: once I came to that that's what gave me an
Speaker 1: insight that, okay, I've arrived at that inner conviction I
Speaker 1: was probably before that really clarified itself for me in
Speaker 1: a firm way, and then the question becomes, well, what
Speaker 1: do you do about it? So that's what led me
Speaker 1: to places like Finton, because fint On, the Echo Village
Speaker 1: alternative community up in the north of Scotland, saw itself
Speaker 1: as a center of demonstration. You know, it was intent
Speaker 1: upon demo straight into the world that it is possible
Speaker 1: to live in harmony, broadly speaking with each other and
Speaker 1: with nature, that this is not just some fantasy or
Speaker 1: some spiritual dream, that there really can be an alternative
Speaker 1: to this hyper competitive, capitalist, materialist world that we grow
Speaker 1: up in. And then the more you know, the more
Speaker 1: you develop a community of people who shared those values
Speaker 1: and have come to it independently, not receiving some set
Speaker 1: of dogma um, the more it becomes strengthening. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think of Fenton itself started in nineteen six two
Speaker 1: three broke people on a windswept trailer park and an
Speaker 1: obscure part of northern Scotland, and how the founders had
Speaker 1: the intuitive insight that it would become an internationally recognized
Speaker 1: center of light, as they called it, and that in
Speaker 1: turn would become part of a network of light and
Speaker 1: are a network of conscious centers all over the old
Speaker 1: and that has certainly come to pass. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was amazed to see that both CNN and MSNBC did
Speaker 1: pieces on Fentol last week, because it has probably the
Speaker 1: lowest carbon footprint of anywhere on the Earth. But it
Speaker 1: was amazing to see the mainstream media, fifty odd years
Speaker 1: after fent Home was founded, actually responding with incredible respect
Speaker 1: and appreciation. So I think it's a question of taking
Speaker 1: that inner journey, engaging in those mystical spiritual practices, being
Speaker 1: in places of beauty and nature, solitude, mystical inspiration, reading
Speaker 1: the kind of books that they came to me, and
Speaker 1: as I as I described in the book, and it
Speaker 1: was funny the way books would just come to me
Speaker 1: in my early twenties, after my experiences in the deserts
Speaker 1: of New Mexico and Arizona and um. So I think
Speaker 1: there's reading, there's the study, there's the practice, and then
Speaker 1: there's the community of people with these shared insights, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's the way you do it,
Speaker 1: or at least you try to do it and face it. Look,
Speaker 1: you know we who pulls it off moment by moment
Speaker 1: every day. I'm sure there areesome zen masters who do.
Speaker 1: But for most of us, you know, we're just trying
Speaker 1: to make it through the day. Your book was interesting.
Speaker 1: It opened a couple of doors for me that I've
Speaker 1: not had a chance to explore. But you name a man,
Speaker 1: as you think, you know, potentially the greatest, you know,
Speaker 1: spiritual teacher that there's been that by and large, nobody
Speaker 1: really talks about, certainly not in that context, and that's
Speaker 1: Rudolf Steiner. He's mostly known for the Waldorf style of education,
Speaker 1: which my son participated in as a as a preschooler.
Speaker 1: But but you talk about him as way beyond that.
Speaker 1: So can you share with me some sort of practical
Speaker 1: or tangible or thing that we could understand, the thing
Speaker 1: that you learned from Rudolf Steiner that might act as
Speaker 1: a teaser for us to explore more. Good question. Well,
Speaker 1: I I would say about Steina that he's one of
Speaker 1: the great spiritual figures of the of the West of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, probably certainly one of the utmost outstanding
Speaker 1: um spiritual philosophers. And if you remember that line from
Speaker 1: the Bible, by that fruit shill you know them. You
Speaker 1: look at the incredible fruits that he left behind in
Speaker 1: terms of he was saying, in terms of World of Education,
Speaker 1: by dynamic Agriculture, ced the Camphill Villagers and sun A Hue,
Speaker 1: I think, really, without question, the greatest holistic legacy of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. So then you know the heat. But
Speaker 1: all of that just came out of the last five
Speaker 1: or six years of his life, I mean, the other
Speaker 1: between nineteen o one and nineteen nine. It was all
Speaker 1: about the deeper esoteric spiritual philosophy, the nature of reality
Speaker 1: that he personally felt that his most important mission was
Speaker 1: to return to the world a correct and scrupulous understanding
Speaker 1: of calmer and reincarnation. And yet, as you're saying, most
Speaker 1: people don't read Steiner for that today. It's more the
Speaker 1: practical legacies like World of Education, pydynamic agriculture. But if
Speaker 1: I were thinking, now, what could I say that would
Speaker 1: give people a hint? Well, you know, he wrote, it's
Speaker 1: hard to pick out one thing because his works he
Speaker 1: gave over six thousand lectures, and his life compiled into
Speaker 1: about three and fifty different volumes. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: treasure trove of esoteric wisdom. It us require. What I
Speaker 1: would say is when you pick up a book by
Speaker 1: Steiner and you really have to follow your intuition about
Speaker 1: what is the best book to begin with. For me,
Speaker 1: it was The Tension between East and West, which I
Speaker 1: read when I was in Hawaii, because I thought that
Speaker 1: would be a good place to read a book with
Speaker 1: a title like that. But you know, when you get
Speaker 1: into these things, you realize what is it. It's just
Speaker 1: you know, we're living in an infinitely deeper universe than
Speaker 1: we think we are. But as I say to people
Speaker 1: when I'm speaking about Steiner, I've I've been into it
Speaker 1: for thirty years. I feel I have penetrated into it
Speaker 1: inches deep, and it is oceans deep. Um. I think
Speaker 1: we're living in a vast, beautiful, incredibly moving cosmos that
Speaker 1: we only just glimpse the true dimensions of in moments
Speaker 1: of spiritual lucidity. And um, I think it's just worth
Speaker 1: it whether we consider what Rudol Steiner would tell us
Speaker 1: about what happens each night in dreamless sleep and how
Speaker 1: that relates to karma. I think the whole picture that
Speaker 1: Rudol Standard gives us of the journey of the soul
Speaker 1: between death and rebirth is extremely beautiful. I've been doing
Speaker 1: these conferences on the Art of Dying for the last
Speaker 1: twenty years, and I always try to make sure that
Speaker 1: some of Steiner's research on the journey of the soul
Speaker 1: between death and rebirth is represented at those events, because
Speaker 1: for me, it's the deepest materials spoken on death in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. So if you have those kinds of questions,
Speaker 1: what could there be a larger mega picture? I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say Steiner has the biggest mind that I've
Speaker 1: come across in the twentieth century, and also a very
Speaker 1: beautiful and pure heart that was never the faintest hint
Speaker 1: of scandal from the many people who knew him before
Speaker 1: he died in n So I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: think what I've learned is the vast and all inspiring
Speaker 1: um nature and spectrum of the human experience, and how
Speaker 1: we have an enormous amount to learn and the more
Speaker 1: we can stay here. Here's one very practical thing. Rudolf
Speaker 1: Steiner would say that what we want to cultivate towards
Speaker 1: life in general or even people that we disagree with
Speaker 1: is an attitude of reverence and veneration, because if you
Speaker 1: developed the critical spirited kill, he would say, it kills
Speaker 1: our capacity to see the spiritual within others. So he
Speaker 1: recommends as a practice that when we're listening to people,
Speaker 1: even if it's somebody we radically disagree with them. In
Speaker 1: this political season, we have no shortage of that um.
Speaker 1: Then try to put us into our prejudices aside, you know,
Speaker 1: the the usual reaction of that stupid so and so,
Speaker 1: you know, which is what I tend to do. Put
Speaker 1: our attentions in our heart and try to was the
Speaker 1: heart as an organ of cognition as a vehicle for knowing,
Speaker 1: and enter through your heart into the heart of another
Speaker 1: and try to just live into their reality for a
Speaker 1: little while. I know when I first thought I would
Speaker 1: do this, and I can't do that, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: just turn into a raving idiot. I'll lose my own
Speaker 1: my own judgment in these matters. Of course, nothing of
Speaker 1: the sort happened. I think that's how we expand the
Speaker 1: circle of compassion. As Martin Luther King would say that
Speaker 1: Obama likes to quote that, and I think that's how
Speaker 1: we do it on an individual basis is to try
Speaker 1: to put that judgmental, angry, accusatory side of ourselves and
Speaker 1: try to use the organ the heart as an organ
Speaker 1: of knowing, of cognition. So yeah, I think that's what
Speaker 1: i'd say about Rudoslana. I really encourage our listeners to
Speaker 1: don't be put off by the language. You know, you
Speaker 1: just have to persevere a bit um. But the spiritual
Speaker 1: rewards You're just reading Steiner is a meditation. It's not
Speaker 1: going to be a quick read. I love to read
Speaker 1: Steiner after thirty ideas, the sentences are just meditations in
Speaker 1: themselves that are literally mind expanding. So yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: great thing. I want to wrote an article about Son
Speaker 1: called rudolfs Son and Neglected Spiritual Genius, and I think
Speaker 1: over the course of the coming centuries we will gain
Speaker 1: a deeper and deeper appreciation for him, just as when
Speaker 1: he died in twenty five. There are only two World
Speaker 1: off schools in the world. Now there's over a thousand,
Speaker 1: and they're spreading like wildfire and China of all places,
Speaker 1: literally hundreds of new ones helping each Wow, that's very interesting, Well, Ralph,
Speaker 1: I think that's a great place for us to go
Speaker 1: ahead and wrap up. I think that message that you
Speaker 1: left us there with from Rudolf Steiner is particularly apt
Speaker 1: in this political season and in this world of ours today.
Speaker 1: So thanks so much for coming on. I enjoyed the book,
Speaker 1: and I'll have links on the show notes to where
Speaker 1: people can buy the book, where they can find your
Speaker 1: webs site where they can learn more about the Open Center,
Speaker 1: and a link to some of Rudolf Steiner's stuff. Also, yes,
Speaker 1: could I just mentioned one other thing I've done this
Speaker 1: this twenty one year series of conferences on the Western
Speaker 1: esoteric tradition um. It began with one in the alchemical
Speaker 1: world of Renaissance Bohemia, the period referred to as the
Speaker 1: Rosicrucian Enlightenment back in and but we're going to do
Speaker 1: one in a month's time, or so called an Esoteric
Speaker 1: Quest for the Mysteries of the North in Iceland. So
Speaker 1: if anybody, if any of our listeners are interested in that,
Speaker 1: they might want to check out the website Esoteric quest
Speaker 1: dot org because it lists all the all the conferences
Speaker 1: and quests we've done over the last twenty pless years,
Speaker 1: and I've found those to be great sauces of joy
Speaker 1: and inspiration. For me, it's one because you're with all
Speaker 1: the emphasis upon yoga and Buddhism and shamanism, which I support.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. But it's wonderful to remember too that in
Speaker 1: the Western ess attire tradition we have in a sense
Speaker 1: of the European indigenous spiritual path, and it's filled with
Speaker 1: beauty and amazement. Excellent, wonderful. Yes, thanks for mentioning that.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to that website also. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure to talk to you, Eric. I
Speaker 1: wish you all the best with your show, and thank
Speaker 1: you Ralph, and take care and we'll talk again. I'm sure, alright,
Speaker 1: all the very best, Okay bye. You can learn more
Speaker 1: about Ralph White and have this podcast add one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Ralph