Speaker 1: Don't let go of that steering wheel, and don't spill
Speaker 1: your dinner down your shirt. I want you, guys, to
Speaker 1: contain your excitement. But it's your friend Chris again from
Speaker 1: the One You Feed podcast, and I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: you that thanks to the reoccurring love from iTunes and
Speaker 1: a recent mention in Oprah magazine, the One You Feed
Speaker 1: podcast has a lot of new fans, so I want
Speaker 1: to welcome all of you, and there's so many great
Speaker 1: episodes coming up soon. I just wanted to remind you
Speaker 1: to subscribe, and if you have any friends or loved
Speaker 1: ones you think might benefit from or just simply enjoy
Speaker 1: the podcast discussions about habits, meditation, depression, happiness, psychology, the
Speaker 1: list goes on and on, will be sure and recommend
Speaker 1: that they subscribe to the podcast as well. Shouldn't I
Speaker 1: have learned this in Sunday School? Why am I learning
Speaker 1: this from the road manager for a C d C.
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
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guests on this episode is Pete Holmes.
Speaker 1: He's an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster, and
Speaker 1: in this episode, Pete and Eric discussed his book Comedy
Speaker 1: Sex God. Hi. Pete, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. I'm excited to have you on. We're
Speaker 1: going to discuss your book, Comedy Sex God, as well
Speaker 1: as some of the things I've heard you say on
Speaker 1: your podcast. But before we do that, let's start like
Speaker 1: we always do, with the parable. There is a grandfather
Speaker 1: who's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and she looks up at her
Speaker 1: grandfather and she says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. What's funny. I knew that you were gonna
Speaker 1: ask me that, but I hadn't thought about it until
Speaker 1: just now. But I was just driving in my car.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how I would never get a
Speaker 1: bumper sticker, because there's no way that I feel all
Speaker 1: of the time. If that makes sense, it's it's the
Speaker 1: same reason I wouldn't want to get a tattoo. There's
Speaker 1: so many pizza as. I'm sure there's so many erics.
Speaker 1: There's just so many of us in there um to
Speaker 1: sort of add on to the parable. A lot of
Speaker 1: the art that I enjoy, and certainly the art that
Speaker 1: I try to make, is trying to honor the idea
Speaker 1: that there are so many of us in there. And
Speaker 1: I think it's preposterous when people speak with such authority
Speaker 1: on who they are or even how they feel, without
Speaker 1: acknowledging that it's just who they are in the moment
Speaker 1: or how they feel in the moment. But I was
Speaker 1: literally just thinking that, Like I was once tempted to
Speaker 1: get the bumper sticker, don't believe everything you think, right,
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's fine, but I don't always
Speaker 1: feel that way, and I don't want to be the
Speaker 1: car that represents that idiom, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: What if I cut somebody off or something like, then
Speaker 1: they're embittered towards that perspective, because I was driving poorly
Speaker 1: that day, because as much as I'd like to be
Speaker 1: a person who drives courteously, sometimes I'm not, Like I
Speaker 1: like to delete those files from my memory so I
Speaker 1: can feel good about myself. But the truth is that
Speaker 1: sometimes I make bad choices on the road, and I
Speaker 1: don't want a beautiful thought like that staple to my
Speaker 1: bad behavior. So I was just kind of thinking about that.
Speaker 1: And I was also just talking to somebody just this
Speaker 1: morning about the way that the brain works. And there's
Speaker 1: the oldest part of our brain, which is the lizard brain,
Speaker 1: which is what's responsible for eating, killing, and mating. And
Speaker 1: then there's the newest part of our brain, which is
Speaker 1: unique to humans. A smarter person would know what these
Speaker 1: parts are called, or somebody with a better memory maybe,
Speaker 1: But that's the part that's responsible for like communal thinking
Speaker 1: and spirituality and uh not just like should I eat it,
Speaker 1: have sex with it, or kill it, but it goes
Speaker 1: is it good for the community to take this or
Speaker 1: to save it, or to nerve trip, or to grow it,
Speaker 1: or to harvest it, all these things, So this parable
Speaker 1: is is very wise and it's it's certainly worthy of
Speaker 1: having a podcast as you do, because they're clearly are
Speaker 1: literally different impulses coming from the same brain. So that's
Speaker 1: what that means to me is even when it comes
Speaker 1: to something like alcohol or um pornography or binge eating,
Speaker 1: just eating a whole bag of Doritos or something, it's
Speaker 1: very helpful for me to consider that those things are
Speaker 1: coming from my brain stem that's very scared sort of
Speaker 1: um fearful horde mentality part of me that was installed
Speaker 1: to keep us alive. It's it's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why we evolved and stuff. But it just sort of
Speaker 1: wants to light up the pleasure centers as much as
Speaker 1: it can. But um, it's not a thoughtful part. It's
Speaker 1: not a wise part. It's not the best part of humanity.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of like the base part of humanity,
Speaker 1: and that is the bad wool for whatever. Although I'm
Speaker 1: sure I can't be the first person that takes issue
Speaker 1: with bad and good in that parable. No, you're not.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes we need simple language like that, so
Speaker 1: another part of me is okay with it. So that
Speaker 1: is the bad part, and the good part definitely needs
Speaker 1: conscious attention. That's why I think it's so interesting that
Speaker 1: something like compassion meditation works. Just taking a moment to
Speaker 1: consider the people that you love or the people that
Speaker 1: you forgive, or the people that have loved or forgiven you,
Speaker 1: and how that can broaden your scope and the way
Speaker 1: that you behave in the world and the world that
Speaker 1: you live in, literally the way that you perceive the world.
Speaker 1: That's how I take that. I mean, we can, especially
Speaker 1: these days, have pretty much any food delivered, We can
Speaker 1: have any sexual fantasy acted out in front of us
Speaker 1: on a computer. We can drink and weed is legal
Speaker 1: so many places. We can we can stimulate our pleasure centers,
Speaker 1: but that is not the point of life. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's it's really a passion of mine to try and
Speaker 1: point out that that's a fool's errand is to try
Speaker 1: and just be on a beech eating ice cream. Is
Speaker 1: an example I've used before because I was on a
Speaker 1: beach eating ice cream, and you think, like, that's it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you've done it. You're in Hawaii, you're eating
Speaker 1: an ice cream Sunday. But that is not what life is.
Speaker 1: This is me paraphrasing Rhamda's basically is you finished the
Speaker 1: ice cream, and now you want water. And then you
Speaker 1: have the water, and then you have to go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, and then you go to the bathroom, and
Speaker 1: then your board and you watch TV and then you're tired,
Speaker 1: and then you sleep and you wake up and you're groggy,
Speaker 1: and you have coffee and your perky but now you
Speaker 1: need food. It's this endless, hedonic, mind numbing treadmill that
Speaker 1: is not what life is. Life is the fundamental, unchanging,
Speaker 1: unborn energy that's observing those changes in you. But so
Speaker 1: many of us have lost sight of the joy and
Speaker 1: the bliss and the equanimity of being that we get
Speaker 1: really obsessed with just lighting up our pleasure centers and
Speaker 1: doing stuff which is stupid. You just do it and
Speaker 1: then you die one day and you go, well that
Speaker 1: was fun, I guess right. And the problem is the
Speaker 1: more we light up those pleasure centers in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, the less we're able to appreciate even those
Speaker 1: smaller things. I was having to talk with his zen
Speaker 1: teacher earlier today and we were talking about how being
Speaker 1: able to find some pleasure, enjoyment, value, and oneness in
Speaker 1: every day is really important. But that comes by looking
Speaker 1: at really ordinary things. But pleasure centers don't focus on
Speaker 1: ordinary things typically. That's exactly right. They turned the volume
Speaker 1: down on ordinary things. I recently, well not that recently,
Speaker 1: it's been a couple of years, but UM stopped looking
Speaker 1: at pornography, and I noticed that the scintillating and I
Speaker 1: don't just mean sexually, just the vibrancy of everyday life
Speaker 1: got turned up, UM extremely high. And that is the
Speaker 1: bat like stopping pornography because it's bad is not appealing.
Speaker 1: Stopping any sort of disruption because it's bad doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It's willpower. It's what Richard Gord calls willpower Christianity. It's stupid.
Speaker 1: It's like an ego trip, and it's beating yourself up,
Speaker 1: but stopping something like pornography because it brings the juice
Speaker 1: back to your life that is compelling. And the more
Speaker 1: we get addicted to whatever it might be that um
Speaker 1: lights up those centers, the more we're dulled to what
Speaker 1: I think Christ was referring to as the kingdom of
Speaker 1: heaven being here, the fullness of life, the eternal moment
Speaker 1: being here, and now that gets turned down, the more
Speaker 1: you just sort of rubbed the fun parts. I'm not
Speaker 1: even being crude. I just mean in your brain to
Speaker 1: rubbing those parts, just like here's the sugar one, here's
Speaker 1: the booze one, here's the weed one, here's the movie one.
Speaker 1: Just constantly doing that, and that's what so many of
Speaker 1: us are doing because that's what's being offered to us,
Speaker 1: when really, as maybe this en person was saying, finding
Speaker 1: the immediacy and the joy in traffic or in a
Speaker 1: delayed flight or in a bad meal, a date that
Speaker 1: isn't clicking, if you can still get in touch with
Speaker 1: the light inside of you, with your base consciousness, that's
Speaker 1: where the only joy worth pursuing rests. That's not to
Speaker 1: say that I don't try and achieve things and make
Speaker 1: things and have relationships. But all of the things that
Speaker 1: I make achieve in the relationships that I have, hopefully
Speaker 1: or in the service of me becoming more in tune
Speaker 1: with what it is that I really am and what
Speaker 1: it is we really are. Yeah, let's pivot for a second,
Speaker 1: although not very far, because you come from a sort
Speaker 1: of I don't know if you'd use the word born
Speaker 1: again Christian, but certainly evangelical Christian background, and you've really
Speaker 1: grown a long way out of that. In your new book,
Speaker 1: you say something that I really like, and you are
Speaker 1: talking about sin, and you spent a lot of your
Speaker 1: life being obsessed, as you were saying earlier, with things
Speaker 1: being bad. Don't do that because it's bad. Don't do
Speaker 1: that because God will be mad, God will pull his
Speaker 1: love away. But ultimately that's transformed to you to a
Speaker 1: point where you look at it as sin isn't a
Speaker 1: bad thing, it's about being unconscious, that's right. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's Kartole says that sin is unconsciousness. I can't remember
Speaker 1: if I say it in the book, but the way
Speaker 1: that I look at it now is that it's just
Speaker 1: static on the radio it's something that's disrupting your connection
Speaker 1: and your connection to consciousness, which is God, which is
Speaker 1: life itself. So sins, whether they be stealing from your neighbor,
Speaker 1: or being jealous or petty or lying, these are things
Speaker 1: that have been reduced to like euro upsetting a god
Speaker 1: who's gonna torch you for those things later. I actually
Speaker 1: think it can happen a lot more immediately that you're
Speaker 1: you're sort of you're only hurting yourself basically, and when
Speaker 1: you start to, as Romdust says it, when you start
Speaker 1: to clean up your game, you notice that you can
Speaker 1: lean into that connection that's available to you here and now,
Speaker 1: as opposed to waiting until you die, which was what
Speaker 1: I was taught. So sin used to make my skin crawl,
Speaker 1: And now when I think about sin, I just think
Speaker 1: of it as static on the radio. You just want
Speaker 1: the signal to be coming in clean, because that's where
Speaker 1: the juice and the life and the vitality and the
Speaker 1: excitement and the joy and the equanimity and the peace are.
Speaker 1: It's not so much um for it's not at all
Speaker 1: for an afterlife reward or even to be perceived as
Speaker 1: a good person. It's just it's something that pays out immediately, right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I love that idea. Static on the radio is a
Speaker 1: is a really good way to think of It makes
Speaker 1: me think of a song by a guy named Jim White,
Speaker 1: who's really an amazing musician. He's written another hilarious song
Speaker 1: I think you would appreciate called God was drunk when
Speaker 1: he made Me, but he deeply spiritual artist beautiful, but
Speaker 1: static on the radio. Yeah, I've always heard of it
Speaker 1: as you know, sin missing the mark. I think that's
Speaker 1: a literal finishing. Yeah, I missing the more. I like that.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you a question. You you referenced
Speaker 1: a minute ago. You use these words, but I want
Speaker 1: to kind of bring them up. And it's the tension
Speaker 1: between being and doing. You're somebody who does a lot, right,
Speaker 1: You've got a podcast, you've got HBO specials, you go
Speaker 1: on tour, you create and produce a lot, and yet
Speaker 1: being is also really important for you. And I'm curious
Speaker 1: how in your own life you look at how to
Speaker 1: sort of balance those two things, or how to integrate
Speaker 1: those two things. Maybe it's a different way to look
Speaker 1: at it, but I'm interested in that tension for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. It's a lifelong question. I suppose
Speaker 1: Ron Does wrote a book about meditation. I forget what
Speaker 1: it's called. It has the word meditation in the title,
Speaker 1: but they are all these quotes in it. It's more
Speaker 1: of a handbook than it is necessarily like an original work.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of quotes in there, and one of
Speaker 1: them that I like, and I'm badly paraphrasing it is
Speaker 1: there like when there's a task to do, doing the
Speaker 1: task is one tenth of the task, and maintaining your
Speaker 1: center is nine tenths of the task. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I think that's right on. So that's why I was
Speaker 1: trying to be careful when I was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: against doing things. I'm an achiever. I come alive when
Speaker 1: I achieve. I've tried to clean up psychologically why it
Speaker 1: feels so good for me to achieve. It used to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more egocentric and a little bit
Speaker 1: more selfish, but I still enjoy it. I still like
Speaker 1: making things. I believe that the creative energy behind everything
Speaker 1: that we call God is creative and therefore creating a
Speaker 1: sort of mirroring creation and mirroring the Creator. I think
Speaker 1: it can be really beautiful. But that being said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to keep quoting around us so much. She's
Speaker 1: on my mind today. You know knowledge, but you are wise.
Speaker 1: So I think that's such a key thing is you
Speaker 1: can know a lot of facts, you can know a
Speaker 1: lot of theology. It's sort of like comedy. You can
Speaker 1: understand why some thing is funny and how to write
Speaker 1: a joke or how to write a script, but like,
Speaker 1: you have to be funny. That's that's actually the advice
Speaker 1: that round Us gave me about comedy was like, just
Speaker 1: be funny. Don't do funny, be funny. And I actually
Speaker 1: think that's why people enjoy the live shows when they
Speaker 1: when they do, is because I'm trying to be something
Speaker 1: with them. We're trying to create something together. It's also
Speaker 1: similar to love making. I suppose, like people can know
Speaker 1: what the mechanics of sex are, but like the nuance
Speaker 1: of being present in that act is what makes it
Speaker 1: truly can make it truly wonderful and divine. So I
Speaker 1: think we're very obsessed with doing and achieving and letting
Speaker 1: people see what we're doing. You know, you can't go
Speaker 1: to the beach without instagramming it, so people can validate
Speaker 1: that you were at the beach and that you look
Speaker 1: so happy. But I mean, everybody knows that actually being
Speaker 1: happy at the beach, or they should know, is so
Speaker 1: much more important than if a thousand people like a
Speaker 1: photo of you looking like you were happy at the beat.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure most people do know that a lot
Speaker 1: of time anymore. No, I don't think they do. And
Speaker 1: I know maybe we sound like old men, but we
Speaker 1: were just on the beach a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: and my wife and I we're doing our best without judgment.
Speaker 1: I mean to look watch this young woman who, for
Speaker 1: maybe no exaggeration, thirty minutes kept getting up and then
Speaker 1: going back to a blanket, getting up, going back to
Speaker 1: a blanket thirty minutes um because she was taking a
Speaker 1: photo with the timer of herself, and we just watched
Speaker 1: her with a mix of you know, fascination. There was
Speaker 1: some judgment there, if I'm being honest, and also humor,
Speaker 1: just like, look at what we've become is you know,
Speaker 1: she was trying maybe I'll turn my butt out, maybe
Speaker 1: I'll kneel, maybe I'll mess my hair up, and then
Speaker 1: watching her go back and then clearly not like the photo,
Speaker 1: and then do it again, like should make a displeasure face,
Speaker 1: And I was like, it doesn't even matter. Like you know,
Speaker 1: in the eighties, that would have been the most embarrassing
Speaker 1: thing you could have done. That would have drawn a
Speaker 1: crowd if someone was doing that. But now so much
Speaker 1: of reality is just doing life. It's non resistance, basically,
Speaker 1: is is trying to see the value and the juice
Speaker 1: and the life in everything. That's why I was saying
Speaker 1: traffic or a delayed flight, most people are waiting. They're
Speaker 1: postponing their happiness, they're postponing their equanimity until things are
Speaker 1: going their way. But you know this the spiritual practices
Speaker 1: trying to have that non resistance. The way that I
Speaker 1: phrase it in the book is is no matter what's happening,
Speaker 1: you say yes, thank you to it. I think, yes
Speaker 1: thank you is it's for me personally. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite mantras. It's obviously it's an English it's not esoteric,
Speaker 1: it's not strange. But when when you are suffering, your brain,
Speaker 1: your lizard brain, has absolutely no idea what to do.
Speaker 1: When you don't participate with the misery, and you just
Speaker 1: say yes, thank you, this too, this too will be
Speaker 1: the sacrifice that I make to hopefully being on a
Speaker 1: higher state. Even this discomfort, even this pain, even this frustration,
Speaker 1: even this depression, whatever it might be, you sort of
Speaker 1: sacrifice it through. You don't hold on to it. I
Speaker 1: literally picture myself as as like a cosmic tube and
Speaker 1: I'm feeling this angst and I pass it through and
Speaker 1: I go this too. I'll put this on the on
Speaker 1: the serving tray for the universe as well, and I
Speaker 1: go there, I am a human being really feeling torment
Speaker 1: right now, and I say thank you to this as well,
Speaker 1: not just ice cream on the beach because it's melting
Speaker 1: and and your lactose intolerant, you know, it's not it's
Speaker 1: not working. Just just being here and saying yes to
Speaker 1: this right now, no matter what you're doing, is the
Speaker 1: kingdom of heaven, as far as I can tell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that is in some ways the deepest teaching
Speaker 1: is to say, you know, I love that, yes, thanks.
Speaker 1: How to allow everything to be exactly the way it is?
Speaker 1: And the moments in my life that have blown my
Speaker 1: head off are when I somehow managed to truly wander
Speaker 1: into that neighborhood where I just kept saying yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: for the life of me. I still, you know, I
Speaker 1: can only find my way back there occasionally, but it
Speaker 1: is by somehow just truly letting go. And it's also
Speaker 1: this is Sharon Salizburg says, it's the return. We all
Speaker 1: lose it. That's important to point out. We all lose it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you even have to fake it. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'll be touring around and I'll be doing press
Speaker 1: or something, and sometimes you have to get up really
Speaker 1: early for some morning show or something, and so it's
Speaker 1: like four thirty and you went to bed at twelve
Speaker 1: the night before and you're so exhausted. This sounds a
Speaker 1: little Tony Robbins. I don't mean it to be like
Speaker 1: kind of sounding like just just get psyched, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't mean that. I just mean even in that
Speaker 1: time when I'm not feeling it, it can be even
Speaker 1: more powerful. And that's my point. As you're saying yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, even to your not believing in the power
Speaker 1: of yes, thank you, You're like, I am a person
Speaker 1: not even believing that this will help me, And I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for even that. Ja Krishna Murty, who was a
Speaker 1: great um Indian saint, he never really gave teachings until
Speaker 1: the end of his life. And I heard this from Macartole,
Speaker 1: but he said, do you want to know my secret?
Speaker 1: And all of these followers were like, yeah, we want
Speaker 1: to know your secret. We've been following you for forty
Speaker 1: years waiting for you to give us a teaching And
Speaker 1: he said, my secret is I don't mind what happens.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's kind of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: That's what I think Jesus is saying when he says,
Speaker 1: look at the birds of the air, they're not worried
Speaker 1: about what they're gonna eat or what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: I know, human beings obviously have to do some planning,
Speaker 1: but there's a way to plan and be present while
Speaker 1: you're planning. Just plan while you're planning, and stop planning
Speaker 1: when you're not planning. Easier said than done. But I
Speaker 1: mean there's something to non resistance. But your ego, for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, loves to exist. And when I say your ego,
Speaker 1: I mean the story of you. I mean your likes,
Speaker 1: your dislikes, where you're from, your sports teams, your favorite foods,
Speaker 1: all of these thoughts that build this mosaic that you
Speaker 1: think is you, and that mosaic wants you for some reason,
Speaker 1: wants you to think that that is you, so it
Speaker 1: sort of possesses you, um, and it's always trying to
Speaker 1: trick you. One of the techniques that it does is
Speaker 1: it tries to keep you upset, because when you're upset,
Speaker 1: you exist. Like that's what I see when people are
Speaker 1: fighting about some asinine garbage, you know. I was just
Speaker 1: at a baggage claim and and the bags were coming around,
Speaker 1: and then they started coming out on the other side,
Speaker 1: and this guy was like, now I got to go
Speaker 1: to the other side. I was like, it's a carousel.
Speaker 1: They go around, like you can just stand where you are,
Speaker 1: But what's going on there? That's the ego going like,
Speaker 1: get mad. Now they're coming out on the other side.
Speaker 1: Because when you mad, when you're mad, you're Gary. And
Speaker 1: when you're Gary, you exist. And that's what the ego wants.
Speaker 1: It wants to be real, and it wants to convince
Speaker 1: you that you're real, and it wants to convince you
Speaker 1: that you do need that next thing, or you need
Speaker 1: the new iPhone, or you need the new maybe that
Speaker 1: new movie or that new book that's gonna get you
Speaker 1: where you need to be. Uh, it was Moogie. I
Speaker 1: think that said, given the choice between the journey and
Speaker 1: the destination, the ego will always choose the journey. And
Speaker 1: that's why we're constantly postponing. Maybe not full enlightenment, but
Speaker 1: just a taste. How about just a taste. Can we
Speaker 1: just have a taste. Can we just have a moment? Literally,
Speaker 1: just a moment. Let's not even time it. Can you
Speaker 1: just see what it feels like. Try to stop thinking
Speaker 1: and stop believing your thoughts, and stop believing the story
Speaker 1: just for a moment and be nothing and be free
Speaker 1: and be spacious. But we'll always go Maybe if I
Speaker 1: read that book, then I'll be free, even though and
Speaker 1: I do this too, even though I know the book
Speaker 1: is just gonna say what I already know, and I
Speaker 1: was gonna say what the last one said. And at
Speaker 1: a certain point, I think this is drunk parimpach is
Speaker 1: like at a certain point you have to stop reading
Speaker 1: the menu and just eat the meal. It's like my
Speaker 1: friend Michael Younger said, it's not the feather that makes
Speaker 1: Dumbo fly. You know, at a certain point he loses
Speaker 1: the feather and you can still fly. At a certain point,
Speaker 1: we need to put these things down and go I
Speaker 1: am it. I am it. What's looking at your eyes
Speaker 1: is ultimate reality, is ultimate truth, is the indwelling of God,
Speaker 1: is the spirit of God. You are it. Being can
Speaker 1: only recognize being. God is being, and you are being
Speaker 1: noticing being. That's a little I'm not saying you're God.
Speaker 1: I'm saying you have the indwelling of God. And when
Speaker 1: you rest there all of those things that I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: New iPhone, new movie, new book, They're all fine. You
Speaker 1: can do it. You just don't get lost in it
Speaker 1: as much. It's not static on the radio. It's just
Speaker 1: a dance you're doing. It's just play. It's just passing show.
Speaker 1: I think it was Caper that that said I walk
Speaker 1: through the marketplace, but I'm not a purchaser. You can
Speaker 1: do it. That's what means. When he's in the world,
Speaker 1: not of the world, you can still do it. I
Speaker 1: love movies, I love books. I have the new iPhone,
Speaker 1: but like I'm not as lost as I used to
Speaker 1: be in thinking. Boy, when people see that I have
Speaker 1: the new iPhone, they'll know that I'm a fancy show
Speaker 1: biz guy. They'll probably think that I'm I'm doing well,
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to use the new iPhone to
Speaker 1: take a picture of me at the beach, and then
Speaker 1: they'll really know that I'm a special guy that goes
Speaker 1: to the beach. I don't know that stuff becomes less important, right.
Speaker 1: I'd rather read a spiritual book than sit down and
Speaker 1: do a spiritual practice because it's hard. The brain just
Speaker 1: sort of takes over, and I know how to do that.
Speaker 1: I can read and I get a taste of what
Speaker 1: that pieces like versus when I'm just sort of running wild,
Speaker 1: but actually stopping and spending some of the time in
Speaker 1: trying to be is hard. It's these minds and these egos.
Speaker 1: They have a momentum at this point. So yes, thank
Speaker 1: you as a great phrase for sort of bringing yourself back.
Speaker 1: Do you have any others for when you're kind of
Speaker 1: lost in ego and in self to help bring you
Speaker 1: back to a deeper place. Yeah. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: I wanted to say that because I'm like you, and
Speaker 1: I love reading. I even love writing about this stuff.
Speaker 1: I've sort of come to identify that as part of
Speaker 1: the practice. Meaning I'm not a great for whatever that means.
Speaker 1: I'm not a great meditator. I do like meditating, it
Speaker 1: just so happens I meditated this morning. Sure, great. See
Speaker 1: that's sometimes that's the full benefit is getting to tell
Speaker 1: someone you did it. Hey, I meditated this point. So
Speaker 1: that's my point is it's like sometimes it's what Ramda
Speaker 1: tell me about karma yoga meaning using your life karma
Speaker 1: just meaning the happenings of your life as your yoga,
Speaker 1: not stretching, but as your practice. So my friend again
Speaker 1: Michael Gunger, who wrote an incredible book called This Which
Speaker 1: Really Changed My Life, which talks about a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff, he was like, I don't really meditate, but
Speaker 1: I'm practicing all the time. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: I relate more to that is that, like, what is
Speaker 1: this moment have to tell me about the fundamental nature
Speaker 1: of the universe? And Ramdass also says, you know, the
Speaker 1: next teaching is always exactly right where you are, so
Speaker 1: whereas I can hear maybe I'm wrong, but I can
Speaker 1: hear you doing something that I do too, which is like, boy,
Speaker 1: instead of just reading this stuff, maybe I should just
Speaker 1: go on a contemplative walk or or meditate or whatever.
Speaker 1: But that's sort of the yes, thank you of it.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, this is what's happening, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to do this consciously you and for better or worse
Speaker 1: the mind. I think it's called yana yoga. Using the
Speaker 1: mind to beat the mind. That's that's sort of my jam.
Speaker 1: I like it. I I don't uh enjoy as much
Speaker 1: disavowing the mind directly. I like sort of using the
Speaker 1: mind to diffuse itself. So the more that I study,
Speaker 1: the more that I talk about it too, and the
Speaker 1: more that I write about it, that sort of has
Speaker 1: become a bigger part of my practice than just stillness.
Speaker 1: My life can Your life can have plenty of stillness.
Speaker 1: Just being on a plane and hearing the symphony of
Speaker 1: the present moment can be a very profound practice. It's
Speaker 1: just not as direct or as noticeable as sitting on
Speaker 1: a cushion with your eyes closed, which obviously is wonderful
Speaker 1: as well. But I just wanted to offer that just
Speaker 1: in case it made you feel better, because it makes
Speaker 1: me feel better. It is an interesting thing that I
Speaker 1: am challenged with is that I mean, zen, which is
Speaker 1: where I primarily study, is very much about Hey, like,
Speaker 1: intellectual ideas just won't get you there. That said, what
Speaker 1: I've always really appreciated about the Hindu faith is how
Speaker 1: they do talk about there are different ways to this
Speaker 1: ultimate reality. And you know, for some people it's it's
Speaker 1: like you said, it's love. Some people its service, some
Speaker 1: people it's the mind. I really like that idea of
Speaker 1: there being different ways to the same place depending on
Speaker 1: your temperament, right, yeah, you know, depending how you're wired,
Speaker 1: and for better worse. I enjoy reading about it. I
Speaker 1: really enjoy listening to talks about it, and that I'll
Speaker 1: bring me there, I'm happy to say over years, it
Speaker 1: really does sort of infuse into your life and and
Speaker 1: become a program that's just running in the background, um
Speaker 1: all the time. And then when I do meditate, it
Speaker 1: is deeper. But that's just because my life is more
Speaker 1: still and that stillness came from a lot of study
Speaker 1: and that changed the way that I look at the
Speaker 1: world and made it a more contemplative mindset, which which
Speaker 1: is just saying yesterday everything, by the way. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty quick, maybe not full explanation of
Speaker 1: what contemplation is. But Richard Ror says, if you can
Speaker 1: allow anything, it will convert you. If you look at
Speaker 1: a rock and completely allow the rock, it will convert you.
Speaker 1: Because why should anything exist? But you're saying a deep,
Speaker 1: profound yes to a rock. He also says something really
Speaker 1: beautiful where he's like people all run around claiming that
Speaker 1: they love Jesus, but it's like, try loving a tree
Speaker 1: first before you before you jump right to the King
Speaker 1: of kings. Can you love as I just said, a
Speaker 1: delayed flight? Can you love that we're so fast to
Speaker 1: just be like I've done it? I love Christ really
Speaker 1: how like I get that you maybe you do in
Speaker 1: your way. But there's there's a ways to deepen our
Speaker 1: love and there's ways to give it more fullness. And
Speaker 1: the ways that I've found that are trying to love everything,
Speaker 1: love literally everything. I couldn't agree more. I've been doing
Speaker 1: this this other approach. There's a Zen saying that I
Speaker 1: won't get it right. But you know that something like
Speaker 1: zen in motion is a million times more valuable than zen.
Speaker 1: You know, sitting on a cushion, right, It's that idea
Speaker 1: of like how do you bring it into the world.
Speaker 1: And there's this idea in Zen. It's called samo. It's
Speaker 1: called work practice. So if you go on a Zen
Speaker 1: retreat or you live in a monastery, you're going to
Speaker 1: meditate part of the time, but then part of your
Speaker 1: day is you're going to do basic manual labor. And
Speaker 1: the goal is you do it with your whole heart,
Speaker 1: your whole presence, everything, and that SAMO is seen as
Speaker 1: a bridge. It's a way to go from all right,
Speaker 1: I when I sit down and close my eyes, I
Speaker 1: can keep these ideas in mind, and when I'm going
Speaker 1: a hundred miles an hour, I lose them. But this samo,
Speaker 1: this work practice, these simpler things tick not On would
Speaker 1: talk about washing the dishes. When you're washing the dishes,
Speaker 1: wash dishes, those are a bridge. They're a way to
Speaker 1: sort of a bridge the sitting down and then we
Speaker 1: get so busy we forget kind of thing. And I've
Speaker 1: really been exploring different parts of my life as al
Speaker 1: move is a way to to try and bring that
Speaker 1: consciousness more into all the parts of my life, because
Speaker 1: I do think that's ultimately where life gets transformed. Meditating
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes a day is a great practice and
Speaker 1: it's important, but there's still twenty three and a half
Speaker 1: other hours, and so how do we bring it into
Speaker 1: more and more of the day so it actually has
Speaker 1: a chance to transform is at a deeper level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right on. And that's what I would
Speaker 1: call karma yoga. That's the idea. And you know a
Speaker 1: cartole is on that tip two where it's like when
Speaker 1: you do things not as a means to an end uh,
Speaker 1: and this will change your life today if you'd like
Speaker 1: it to. I hate brushing my teeth. I just I
Speaker 1: don't like that. I'm in a meat suit that requires
Speaker 1: me to. As my friend Chris there says, polish the
Speaker 1: bones people can see. He has this great joke about that.
Speaker 1: But I was like, so, I don't like brushing my teeth.
Speaker 1: I'm a grown man. I don't feel like I should
Speaker 1: have to do it if I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: But if I can get into that space, which sometimes
Speaker 1: I can, where you're really being present and watching just
Speaker 1: this bulbous you know, dab of toothpaste coming out of
Speaker 1: this tube with your pressure onto these bristles, and you
Speaker 1: smell the spearmint, and you feel the warm water and
Speaker 1: and you feel them just on the tooth that you're brushing.
Speaker 1: Not thinking well, I have to do this part, then
Speaker 1: I have to do that part. Then I'll rend, then
Speaker 1: I can go to bed. Then I'll be happy if
Speaker 1: you can. Just as ticking on would say, just brush
Speaker 1: your teeth. When you're brushing your teeth, and this is
Speaker 1: the key to love, by the way, too, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to share this, even though it might sound like a brag. Eric,
Speaker 1: as I called you, I was running late to this,
Speaker 1: So I was running late and I came in and
Speaker 1: I caught myself just kissing Val and sort of rushing
Speaker 1: to the back, and then I was like, fuck that ship.
Speaker 1: I stopped. And we do this all the time. That's
Speaker 1: and that's why I'm sharing it. I think people would
Speaker 1: get value out of it. Just kind of we just
Speaker 1: stared at each other. We just gazed at each other,
Speaker 1: just lovingly gazed at each other for what seven seconds?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. When you're really looking at somebody,
Speaker 1: those seconds count. It doesn't have to be very long,
Speaker 1: and you're just taking a moment. Two look when you're
Speaker 1: looking at Val, look at Val, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And you're giving someone witness and you're giving them respect. Literally,
Speaker 1: that's what Richard Roy Tommy respect. Your re looking you're
Speaker 1: looking again. So the first time I was looking at her,
Speaker 1: I was expecting her. Then I respected her you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, and you just have that moment of
Speaker 1: love because I knew she was going to leave after this,
Speaker 1: when I'm done with this, she's gonna be out running
Speaker 1: errands or whatever. And that was my moment. And I
Speaker 1: do that with my daughter, and I do that with
Speaker 1: the friends of mine that are comfortable with that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. You're just taking a moment to be mindful
Speaker 1: and in that moment, that's my meditation, which is another
Speaker 1: practice I encourage if you, not just you, Eric, but
Speaker 1: the people that are listening. If you have somebody that
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable with just adding a time or for chimes,
Speaker 1: something gentle uh, for like three or four minutes and
Speaker 1: just gazing at their eyes. There's no way your ego
Speaker 1: can survive that. The first thirty seconds it'll be so
Speaker 1: uncomfortable to your ego it'll take off and then you're
Speaker 1: just being looking at being, your just consciousness looking at itself.
Speaker 1: And it's trippy. Even if you've never done a psychedelic
Speaker 1: if you stare at somebody and just kind of breathe
Speaker 1: mindfully while you do it, you're not thinking about how
Speaker 1: you love them, You're not thinking about how special they are.
Speaker 1: You don't have to think anything. You can just compassionately
Speaker 1: gaze at someone. You'll have a mild and sometimes not
Speaker 1: so mild, hallucinogenic experience in my in my experience, um
Speaker 1: because the brain, the part of your brain that constructs reality,
Speaker 1: doesn't really know what to do right, and their face
Speaker 1: is going to change. Um. I write about that in
Speaker 1: my book Ramdas. His face turned into my father's face,
Speaker 1: turned into him as a kid. But when I do
Speaker 1: with val obviously the juice with ram Das is a
Speaker 1: little bit special. I would say the intensity is is,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot higher. But with Valor or my friends,
Speaker 1: it gets trippy. Man. So I sometimes catch myself always
Speaker 1: telling people to try, you know, if they're open to it,
Speaker 1: or if they want to, if they feel the desire
Speaker 1: to try psychedelics. But then I'm like, you don't have
Speaker 1: to at all. You can just stare at someone for
Speaker 1: four minutes. Unfortunately, in our society people are more likely
Speaker 1: to take a pill or something because staring at someone
Speaker 1: is so weird. But it's there, it's there for the taking.
Speaker 1: There was a crazy scientific study about that where they
Speaker 1: put people together who didn't know each other and had
Speaker 1: them stare at each other like that, and some crazy
Speaker 1: proportion of them fell in love with each other. It
Speaker 1: brought this intimacy that was just so so strong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen it where they have Darren Brown, he did
Speaker 1: that thing on Netflix. It was a he had a
Speaker 1: guy who was very very anti immigrant um staring with
Speaker 1: a illegal Mexican American immigrant and they just, uh, they
Speaker 1: didn't tell them anything. They just had them look at
Speaker 1: each other for five minutes or so and at the
Speaker 1: end they're both crying and hugging each other. It's a
Speaker 1: profound thing. But that's my point. And you know, Jack
Speaker 1: Cornfield had us do that. I was just at the
Speaker 1: Ruhm Dust retreat. He had us to do that, and
Speaker 1: everybody's blown away. And he said something that was very profound.
Speaker 1: He was like, you know, you don't have to go
Speaker 1: to India because that's what I'm saying. The ego would
Speaker 1: rather say, when I go to India, you know, when
Speaker 1: I go to the ashram, when I go to the monastery,
Speaker 1: then I'll be spiritual. And the heart keeps saying. The
Speaker 1: part of you that's saying then I'll be spiritual is
Speaker 1: spirit you know, the part of you that's noticing you saying,
Speaker 1: then I'll be spiritual. Is spirit It couldn't be any closer.
Speaker 1: It's what you are. I like to say. I believe
Speaker 1: it's a paraphrase of Richard Rora. I'm not sure so
Speaker 1: much of what I say as a paraphrase of Richard
Speaker 1: ror But he said God doesn't love you. You are
Speaker 1: God's love. It's a very different perspective. It goes back
Speaker 1: to what we were saying of like I've earned it.
Speaker 1: You know, God was my father figure, just like my
Speaker 1: real dad who who is a great dad. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he did this more than normal. If I do well,
Speaker 1: he likes me. If I do bad, he might be
Speaker 1: frustrated or whatever. Uh, it's it's so much more liberal.
Speaker 1: I actually think God's love is so liberal it would
Speaker 1: offend any ego. It's it's too much for anybody's ego
Speaker 1: to even consider. When you consider the loving Yes, that's
Speaker 1: what love is. It's a yes. It's this undulating yes
Speaker 1: animates everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not as pleasing as would like it to be.
Speaker 1: We wanted to be, you know, Captain and Mary reco
Speaker 1: beating the bad guy but the truth is, the whole
Speaker 1: thing is one thing. It's lawful, it's unfolding, it's figuring
Speaker 1: itself out, it's playing. There's no flaw in the system.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get out of my pay grade here,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying suffering itself is in the plan. It's
Speaker 1: in the plan. As I was preparing for this interview,
Speaker 1: I was also learning about something I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with something called process theology by Alfred North Whitehead.
Speaker 1: It's basically what you're saying. First, it says there aren't
Speaker 1: things in the universe. There's just verbs, there's being, there's becoming,
Speaker 1: you know, and and it sort of says that like
Speaker 1: God is sort of a novelty junkie. Like that's what
Speaker 1: God is doing, always trying to sort of hold the
Speaker 1: balance between chaos and stability to produce the most novelty.
Speaker 1: But when you said earlier this idea of creation, when
Speaker 1: we're creating, it can feel like we are in touch
Speaker 1: with the energy of the universe, because that feels very
Speaker 1: fundamental to the energy of the universe for me, like
Speaker 1: the universe just seems to want to be and create
Speaker 1: and make and grow. Yeah, well, that's in Michael Guger's
Speaker 1: book He's Like, which is called This Again. He sort
Speaker 1: of likens the universe to a child being thrown up
Speaker 1: in the sky by its father, going again again again.
Speaker 1: And what's weird is you see this quality and human beings,
Speaker 1: even the horrible bits, were sort of fascinated with all
Speaker 1: of it. We're sort of endlessly intrigued with figuring out
Speaker 1: the limits of ourselves. And obviously there's morning and we
Speaker 1: and compassion and love and kindness and service is the
Speaker 1: point of life, that's the one you feed, right, but
Speaker 1: every bit of it. Look look at our fascination with
Speaker 1: you know, murder documentaries, all these things. Like my point
Speaker 1: is is like, as a thought experiment, I've been thinking
Speaker 1: what my heaven would be, and you know, one of
Speaker 1: the heavens would be just kind of god mode in
Speaker 1: this universe, meaning I can swipe to any time, any place, past, present, future,
Speaker 1: and I can experience what it feels like to be anything.
Speaker 1: Meaning I could feel what it feels like to be
Speaker 1: a field of wheat or the ocean. I mean, imagine
Speaker 1: how much time you would spend just being the ocean.
Speaker 1: I think that would be pretty incredible, or the cosmos
Speaker 1: or sad or what it would feel like to be Trump,
Speaker 1: or what it would feel like to be a neglected housewife.
Speaker 1: I wanted all. When I'm in that place, I want
Speaker 1: it all. Given enough time, if it's eternal, there's not
Speaker 1: a situation that I wouldn't want to slip into and
Speaker 1: just go WHOA, That's what that was. That's what that was.
Speaker 1: That's what that was. And again I don't want I
Speaker 1: don't want to sound like a nihilist or somebody. That's
Speaker 1: just like, we need to work to bring peace, we
Speaker 1: need to work to bring compassion. And I can have
Speaker 1: a part of me, not Pete necessarily, but my base
Speaker 1: still consciousness can understand given eternal time and eternal possibilities,
Speaker 1: infinite possibilities, there isn't a game that I wouldn't play.
Speaker 1: Think about that. That's in Michael Gunger's book. If you
Speaker 1: were infinite, what game wouldn't you play? And that's actually
Speaker 1: pretty trippy because it actually includes even the things that
Speaker 1: I've dismissed as ridiculous. Because I said that to Michael,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, that means that there is a
Speaker 1: heaven where we are all just in robes with wings.
Speaker 1: You know even if that's so silly, I'm like, if
Speaker 1: I have an infinite time and infinite everything and infinite possibilities,
Speaker 1: then that will be one too. We'll play that game too.
Speaker 1: Which one wouldn't we play? Would play them all, would
Speaker 1: play them all? I love that idea. I agree with
Speaker 1: you too. If I could have like one superpower, I
Speaker 1: think that's the one. I would have to be able
Speaker 1: to inhabit anything and see what it's like. And I
Speaker 1: think it points to a really useful tool. And we
Speaker 1: talk about like how do I say yes to this
Speaker 1: moment or how do I inhabit I think curiosity is
Speaker 1: like one of the most potent tools we have, Like
Speaker 1: what's this like? If we can become curious about what
Speaker 1: a state is like? Now, again, there only are states
Speaker 1: that we usually can experience, but curiosity for me is
Speaker 1: a great way to move from my small, contracted, emotionally
Speaker 1: suffering self to a broader perspective. What's this actually like?
Speaker 1: That's right, Well, if God is creative, then God is
Speaker 1: certainly curious, which is interesting because you know, growing up,
Speaker 1: I used to like to play those games like if
Speaker 1: God's all knowing, right, I guess if you had to
Speaker 1: put it in those terms, I think God is outside
Speaker 1: of time. The concept of God, which we can't possibly
Speaker 1: house on our brains, is obviously outside of time. So
Speaker 1: there's not necessarily a deficit in this energy um. But
Speaker 1: if we were to make it linear, I would be like,
Speaker 1: God is finding out. God is figuring. God his relationship,
Speaker 1: God his adventure. God is pain, God his pleasure. God
Speaker 1: is loneliness, God is ecstasy. And that is the best superpower,
Speaker 1: that is the one that we seem to have chosen.
Speaker 1: We've we've decided, as Alan Watts would say, to play
Speaker 1: hide and seek with ourselves. I'm going to pretend to
Speaker 1: be this comedian in in Hollywood, and you'll pretend to
Speaker 1: be a podcast host. And you right now, Eric, you
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be you, and I know
Speaker 1: what it's like to be me. So we can we
Speaker 1: do it one at a time right now. But the
Speaker 1: whole thing is dipping in and out of everything. So
Speaker 1: it knows what a field of wheat feels like, it
Speaker 1: knows what a mother whale feels like, it knows what
Speaker 1: a star feels like, it knows what a black hole
Speaker 1: feels like. That is what I think is going on here. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that makes me think of another phrase that you've
Speaker 1: used that I wanted to ask about, which is when
Speaker 1: in doubt, zoom out, because I think this is such
Speaker 1: a really powerful little phrase to use spiritually and you know,
Speaker 1: even on a more wrote emotional basis. Yeah, you asked
Speaker 1: earlier what the little mantras I have are, and that's
Speaker 1: certainly one of them. Let me think of something I
Speaker 1: was frustrated at recently. It was probably something travel related, like, um,
Speaker 1: we're at the airport. They didn't print a boarding past
Speaker 1: for our baby, so we didn't have one, so they
Speaker 1: were stopping us at the gate, right, And and that
Speaker 1: that can be frustrating because you're already back all these
Speaker 1: bags and a baby and stuff, right, and now they're
Speaker 1: stopping you. And it's easy to get caught in that
Speaker 1: moment and be frustrated. But when you zoom out, So
Speaker 1: when in doubt zoom out, you're zooming out and looking
Speaker 1: at the planet and you're like, there's two smaller than
Speaker 1: ants on this rock and they're mad about getting on
Speaker 1: a tube to go to another part. Like nothing makes sense, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing is valid when you look at the whole, Like
Speaker 1: your little story that's the Indian idea. That's it's the
Speaker 1: passing show. It's it's My daughter's name is Lelo, which
Speaker 1: means the play of the universe. It's all play. And
Speaker 1: it actually goes back to what I was saying. The
Speaker 1: task is one tenth and maintaining your center is nine tenths.
Speaker 1: So in that element of karma yoga, getting my daughter,
Speaker 1: which we did, it was no problem. On the plane
Speaker 1: is one tenthse me not getting lost in the illusion
Speaker 1: is nine tempts. It's so much more important for me
Speaker 1: to go like we are on a planet and some
Speaker 1: of us forget, like the concept of infinity is not
Speaker 1: just in holy books. It's it's around us. It's where
Speaker 1: we're swimming, it's where we're floating, it's what's happening around us.
Speaker 1: It's expanding infinity, which is a paradox, and that is
Speaker 1: a paradox confirmed by science. We are in a paradox
Speaker 1: expanding infinity. And that when you consider it makes your
Speaker 1: delayed flight or your traffic, or even your heartbreak or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. I'm not saying it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, give yourself the gift of looking at it
Speaker 1: from a cosmic perspective, and not in a sad way,
Speaker 1: not unlike who cares I'm going to die. I'm just
Speaker 1: an ant on a rock in the freeway. Let it
Speaker 1: liberate you and go. Even though my story is small
Speaker 1: and doesn't deserve my full attention, what I am is
Speaker 1: what I'm looking at when I zoom out. You are home.
Speaker 1: You are born into this world. That's an Alan Watts quote.
Speaker 1: You don't come in to this world. You actually come
Speaker 1: out of this world, just like an apple comes off
Speaker 1: a tree. You were born home. You're not a visitor here,
Speaker 1: so you are being and your story is not the point.
Speaker 1: The ice cream on the beach isn't the point. Your
Speaker 1: frustration isn't the point. Look at everything that's happening and
Speaker 1: know that you are a dignified, inherent part of it.
Speaker 1: And that's a peaceful thought. That is I love that perspective.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere in the book you quote this dismayed me. Laugh.
Speaker 1: Lots of parts of the book made me laugh. It
Speaker 1: is a it's a great book, listeners. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny, it's deep, it's profound. But you're talking about
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell and you're talking about this idea that God
Speaker 1: is a metaphor for a mystery that transcends all categories
Speaker 1: of human thought, which is one of my favorite quotes.
Speaker 1: But then you go on to quote something that the
Speaker 1: road manager for a C d C told you, which
Speaker 1: it makes me laugh that this is where you heard it. Um,
Speaker 1: God is the name of the blanket we throw over
Speaker 1: the mystery to give it shape. And when I've read
Speaker 1: that or said this on stage, it gets a big
Speaker 1: laugh as I go, shouldn't I have learned this in
Speaker 1: Sunday School? Why am I learning this from the road
Speaker 1: manager for a C d C. The idea that God
Speaker 1: is without a concept. God is beyond language, as Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbell said, God is a mystery that's beyond the categories
Speaker 1: of even being a non being. It's it's beyond language.
Speaker 1: It's not something you can know, it's it's that by
Speaker 1: which you know anything. That which does the knowing is
Speaker 1: the peace of God that's inside of you right now,
Speaker 1: that that does the hearing. This is the Upanishad. Is
Speaker 1: not that which the eye can see, but that whereby
Speaker 1: the I can see know this to be Brahma, the
Speaker 1: eternal right, No, that to be God. So it's the
Speaker 1: mechanism by which you can hear me, not what you
Speaker 1: can hear. The mechanism that is hearing, that is eternal,
Speaker 1: That is God. But as Richard Rory says, we can't
Speaker 1: fall in love with an energy. You can try, maybe
Speaker 1: you can, but most of us need a symbol. So
Speaker 1: God created man, Man returns the favor, Man closes the
Speaker 1: circle and makes God. I'm not saying God doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: I'm saying the symbols that we have pointing to God
Speaker 1: aren't God. Their their road signs pointing to a destination.
Speaker 1: And as Richard r says, we're also busy worshiping the
Speaker 1: road signs instead of going to where the signs are
Speaker 1: pointing um and experiencing where the signs are pointing, and
Speaker 1: becoming one and feeling and intuiting where the signs are pointing.
Speaker 1: You can't necessarily know it to write it down, but
Speaker 1: you can quiet down to a point where you where
Speaker 1: your boundary sort of disappears and you become one with it. Right.
Speaker 1: That's that's the only game in town. Nailing it down.
Speaker 1: It's it's not gonna happen. That was a line at
Speaker 1: a joke I cut from the book. I was like,
Speaker 1: you can try and nail your God down, but it
Speaker 1: has a tendency to die and resurrect on you, like
Speaker 1: it's gonna go Like you can't do it. Your ego
Speaker 1: wants to know and know that it right. You can't
Speaker 1: know that. You know, but you can't experience that. That's
Speaker 1: the good news. You can experience it and you can
Speaker 1: be it. But when it comes to explaining it, it's
Speaker 1: always going to be um, it's gonna come up short.
Speaker 1: But the idea that God is a blanket we put
Speaker 1: over a mystery to give it shape. Now we have
Speaker 1: something to talk about. Now you and I can meet
Speaker 1: and we can talk about God. And unfortunately people can
Speaker 1: abuse God. People can rape and kill and and control
Speaker 1: and suppress and shame and embarrass and humiliate and restrict
Speaker 1: people in the name of this thing. But what we're
Speaker 1: trying to do, it sounds like, is we're trying to
Speaker 1: say what we're talking about is a metaphor for a mystery,
Speaker 1: and we all can agree on a mystery. We don't
Speaker 1: have to debate the existence of a mystery because we
Speaker 1: are steeping in a mystery. And if God is not
Speaker 1: a being, but God is being, itself. We don't have
Speaker 1: to debate the existence of God because here we are,
Speaker 1: we are being, so we we can we can skip
Speaker 1: the part where we go do you believe in this symbol?
Speaker 1: Or do you believe in this symbol? Do you believe
Speaker 1: in this blanket? Or do you believe in this blanket?
Speaker 1: As Zachartley says, no one can own the concept of being.
Speaker 1: It's it's a freer way to discuss God. And you know,
Speaker 1: doing my podcast for four hundred some episodes, no one
Speaker 1: wants to talk about God for the most part, but
Speaker 1: everybody wants to talk about being. If you if you
Speaker 1: can change the vocabulary slightly and just be like, what
Speaker 1: are we doing here? How are you experiencing being? In
Speaker 1: that one? Because I'm in this one, and and and
Speaker 1: we're all a little bit confused, we're all a little
Speaker 1: bit lonely, we can all get a little bit scared.
Speaker 1: We need to we need to come together and figure
Speaker 1: it out. And uh, we don't ever need to agree
Speaker 1: on a blanket, but it's nice to agree that there
Speaker 1: is something to put the blanket on. Yeah. Agree. I
Speaker 1: think those are ways of talking about these things that
Speaker 1: are so much more inclusive and just easy to it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a bigger tent. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: been quoting Z things all episode, which I don't normally do.
Speaker 1: But there's a Zen saying like if you're trying to
Speaker 1: control a cow, like give it a bigger pasture. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a similar idea, like, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: big tent that everybody can find their way into and
Speaker 1: and hopefully have a discussion. Another metaphor for God that
Speaker 1: I know you you love Richard Rore. We've had him
Speaker 1: on the show a couple of times. From his latest book,
Speaker 1: he said, anything that draws you out of yourself in
Speaker 1: a positive way for all practical purposes is operating as
Speaker 1: God for you at that moment. And that has been
Speaker 1: so powerful for me as an idea, and this idea
Speaker 1: that expansion versus contraction feeling like for me as a
Speaker 1: very simple feeling metaphor for where am I. If everything
Speaker 1: feels like it's contracting and closing down, I'm usually moving
Speaker 1: away from God, if we want to use that word.
Speaker 1: And as I open and expand, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: moving towards God. It's a I feel it very viscerally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Well, Richard is a big Thomas Briton fan,
Speaker 1: and they're both very good at pointing people away from
Speaker 1: what Merton called the false self or the small self
Speaker 1: and to your real self. I make this point in
Speaker 1: the book that everybody always says that the most important
Speaker 1: question you can ask is who am I? And I
Speaker 1: always took that to me and like, no, your preferences, um, no,
Speaker 1: your favorite films, No, your favorite car, no, your favorite clothes.
Speaker 1: So when you die, and this is the joke I
Speaker 1: make in the book, you can be satisfied, like everyone
Speaker 1: knew how I took my coffee, Like that's who you were?
Speaker 1: Like that is that is such a lie? That is
Speaker 1: that's such a disappointing interpretation of what is the most
Speaker 1: important question, which is who am I? But it's not
Speaker 1: who are your thoughts? That's why I was tempted with
Speaker 1: that bumper sticker, don't believe everything you think? Right, that's
Speaker 1: a that is a good bumper sticker. But I'd rather
Speaker 1: just say it on podcasts than have it on my car.
Speaker 1: But like who is observing? You ask the question, and
Speaker 1: that's the real you. And anything that draws as you
Speaker 1: away from the construct and from the story and if
Speaker 1: we want to use kind of stellations language or crazy
Speaker 1: language or bold language, you can say the lie, the
Speaker 1: lie that you feel it like a burden, like bags
Speaker 1: you have to carry who you're supposed to be, who
Speaker 1: you're expected to be, who you want to be, even evolutionarily,
Speaker 1: I want to be nice, so people give me resources
Speaker 1: and give me love and food, and I keep my job.
Speaker 1: It's the story that we have to perpetuate, and we
Speaker 1: all perpetuate. And some stories are helpful, you know, being
Speaker 1: kind or whatever, but behind them there's always the unborn,
Speaker 1: never born, never dies, impartial witness, which is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to draw people to in the book, not just
Speaker 1: because it's a fun thought experiment, or it's not because
Speaker 1: it's a fun belief. That's sort of the point of
Speaker 1: the book is, I don't really give a crap what
Speaker 1: you believe. Like my whole life, it was what do
Speaker 1: you believe? What do you believe? Now I'm like, who
Speaker 1: is it that does the believing? Who is watching you
Speaker 1: believe this? When I was a kid, when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, I was a Republican, I was this, I
Speaker 1: was that whatever, And now I'm more liberal. Okay, So
Speaker 1: who watched the change. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the only game in town, right What didn't change?
Speaker 1: What didn't change? That question is such a powerful question.
Speaker 1: What stays the same? You know? What stays the same?
Speaker 1: And that's the end dwelling of God. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: we say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Speaker 1: I would change it to say Christ is the same yesterday,
Speaker 1: today and forever. I don't just me personally. We will
Speaker 1: never know if this is true or not. I like
Speaker 1: to think that Christ, Jesus was fully human and that
Speaker 1: he did change, that he did grow, that he did
Speaker 1: learn um that, you know, That's just how that story
Speaker 1: has the most juiced for me. Was that he evolved,
Speaker 1: that he changed and grew and learned because that's what
Speaker 1: it is to be human. And then he made the
Speaker 1: swap to Christ. He became realized, he realized that the
Speaker 1: whole time he wasn't sweet baby Is of Nazareth learning
Speaker 1: carpentry or learning how to speak Aramaic. You know, he
Speaker 1: was the witness and the witnesses, the witnesses, the witness.
Speaker 1: My witness is your witness. Mine is just in this
Speaker 1: one and yours isn't that one? And that one's in
Speaker 1: a bird and that one's in a stone, like different
Speaker 1: levels of consciousness. I've come to realize that people are
Speaker 1: either interested in talking about molecules or they're not. But
Speaker 1: when you realize that science is sort of backing the
Speaker 1: idea that everything is just made of these tiny little bits,
Speaker 1: you see that everything really is one thing, that it
Speaker 1: is really just television static. And this pattern of television
Speaker 1: static thinks it's pete, but really the television static that's
Speaker 1: making me is the television static making the desk and
Speaker 1: the computer and the microphone, and it's making you, and
Speaker 1: it's making my dog, and it's making my baby. And
Speaker 1: it is one thing. And that's what christ consciousness is.
Speaker 1: And that's why he says, what you do for the
Speaker 1: least of these, you do for me. He's saying there's
Speaker 1: no one in the other vote, as Romness would say,
Speaker 1: it's just us. It's just us right right here, I
Speaker 1: go with another Zen phrase, But I love the Zen phrase.
Speaker 1: It says not one, but not too. It's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are separate, Yes I am not you, and yet
Speaker 1: we're also not too. You know, we're not one, but
Speaker 1: we're not too. I love that idea, and I guess
Speaker 1: it kind of comes back to uh, and this maybe
Speaker 1: is a place for us to kind of wrap up
Speaker 1: with something else that you quote Joseph Campbell saying, which
Speaker 1: I think is a is a nice analogy or a metaphor,
Speaker 1: which is when the lightbulb stops identifying with the bulb
Speaker 1: and starts identifying with the light. Yeah. I love that
Speaker 1: because we should. I'm a believer in my own path
Speaker 1: that we should honor our incarnation. That's what Romnas would say,
Speaker 1: honor your incarnation. It's like we can get a little
Speaker 1: bit lost and pushing away my pet nous, right, and
Speaker 1: now I enjoy my pet nous. I'm just less attached
Speaker 1: to it, which is what freedom is. That's being so Richard.
Speaker 1: Richard Ror is so good at showing us that mystical
Speaker 1: Christianity has been saying what a lot of people think
Speaker 1: is so new a g the whole time, that the
Speaker 1: whole idea of being fully human and fully God isn't
Speaker 1: just a pledge for Christ for us to just go like, wow,
Speaker 1: there was one guy who did it, and uh, and
Speaker 1: our job is to make sure other people believe that
Speaker 1: he did it. And the point that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make in the book is go and do. Likewise, when
Speaker 1: I grew up, that would have sounded like blasphemy. Um.
Speaker 1: I do have humility. Richard Or says, the most important
Speaker 1: things you can have in spirituality or humility and patience.
Speaker 1: And another mantra that I use every day is I
Speaker 1: am willing, meaning when I have a bad thought, like
Speaker 1: a small minded thought, if I'm judging, if I'm being nasty. Um,
Speaker 1: I just say I am willing because sometimes I just
Speaker 1: need I need intercession. I need something bigger than me
Speaker 1: to help me with that. But my willingness and my
Speaker 1: patients and my melity, I think are the ingredients that
Speaker 1: hopefully can lead to change other than alongside my me
Speaker 1: trying my damnedest. But let's be honest, me trying my
Speaker 1: damnedest doesn't really work. I sometimes just need um, patients
Speaker 1: and humility. Um. But that being said, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's blasphemy at all. I think Jesus was saying, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's let's do this. You know, he's he's trying to
Speaker 1: wake you up to the idea of not one not
Speaker 1: to You can play the story of Jesus, but you
Speaker 1: should know that you're the Christ and you can play
Speaker 1: the story of Eric and I can play the story Pete.
Speaker 1: It's all fine. We don't have to be renunciates. We
Speaker 1: can we can play the game. But, as Alan Watt says,
Speaker 1: when it's all done, we're going to take off our
Speaker 1: masks and we're going to go backstage and we're gonna
Speaker 1: love the hero for being a good hero. We're gonna
Speaker 1: love the villain for being a good villain, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna say what a really, it was just a show,
Speaker 1: right right? Well, I think that is a great place
Speaker 1: for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to come on. It's been a real
Speaker 1: pleasure talking with you. My pleasure. I love this talk.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes, if what you just heard was helpful
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