Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 486: Nikki Walton

Episode Date: January 8, 2022

Nikki Walton, best-selling author and NAACP award winner, joins the DTFH! Check out Nikki's new podcast on the Be Here Now network, New Growth! You can learn more about Nikki on CurlyNikki.com, and you can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Feals - Visit feals.com/duncan and get 50% off and FREE shipping on your first order. ExpressVPN - Visit expressVPN.com/duncan and get an extra 3 months FREE when you buy a 1 year package. Shudder - Use promo code DUNCAN for a FREE 30 Day Trial!

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And we're back. Folks, this is an incredible podcast today with an incredible person. Nikki Walton is a best-selling author who's won the NAACP Image Award. You've seen her in Forbes and Teen Vogue and she just started

a new podcast on the Be Here Now Network, which you should definitely check out, called New Growth. We had a wonderful conversation about her amazing spiritual discipline and what it's like to have a podcast

where every single day you are sharing your spiritual journey and practice with the planet. I hope you'll check out her website, CurlyNikki.com definitely follow her on Instagram, but first listen to her here. Everybody, welcome to the DTFH

Nikki Walton. Nikki, welcome to the DTFH. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this ever since it was scheduled.

Yes. You know, I know you as a spiritual teacher and so I was surprised as I was researching you that actually have

you help people with their hair. That was a previous incarnation as Ramdas would say and not too long ago I worked with Dr. Eyes on Air for many, many episodes helping people embrace their natural hair. I started in 08

because I hated my hair, started a website it went viral and helped black women like find their freedom through loving their hair and their skin and it started with my own self-hate. So I've been on like a journey for a long time and it started without her beauty then it went to inner beauty. I'm also a psychotherapist

and now it's kind of transcended both. It's like transcending the self entirely. Well, I want to talk about to me and Ramdas has talked about and I don't remember which lecture it was from but I remember him talking about when he started his hair started thinning

how much it flipped him out. Hair is important. I've got a bald spot. Oh, do I ever? And it, you know, so how do, like how, first of all what did you not like about your hair?

What problems are you having with your hair? So I'm a black woman and I grew up in the United States where highly textured hair is not seen as beautiful or professional it's not appropriate and even the people around me, my own family members because they were trying to

love me and help me were like you got to straighten your hair, get into the best schools, you know to get those jobs, you got to straighten your hair and I never had a relaxer. So my parents wouldn't allow the chemicals which two, three, four-year-olds were getting back in the day when I was, you know, grew up in the 80s

and there were girls my age, my cousins had relaxers chemicals, like lie relaxers in their hair. Mine was straightened with a pressing comb but that's still very, it's harsh. It breaks your hair off, it burns your scalp it burns your ears, it's a whole thing you know, it was a part

of my journey, a necessary part of my journey to be able to come to terms with hey, my hair doesn't grow this way naturally and I have to find a way to be okay with it the way it actually does grow out of my scalp. It's not a mistake that it's curly, it's not a mistake that it's super wavy let me work with it because up until

18, all I knew how to do was keep it straight. I didn't know how to like help it grow and flourish. I just knew how to not get it wet and like how to stay out of humidity and not to get in like convertibles or I didn't learn how to swim because of my hair. You know to this day I still don't exercise a lot just probably

out of habit from not wanting to sweat not wanting to sweat my hair out you know but yeah it's like that was a huge part, huge part of my life growing up and the catalyst I believe for the present spiritual journey that I've been on for all these years. It look you know I

totally see that. You know people reach out to me sometimes saying their hair is thinning and they're just you know they don't know what to do. Obviously it's a different reason for loathing your hair. I'm graying now though now I'm graying and I'm 38

and I'm probably like 50 or 60 percent gray. My family goes gray by like 30. That's a new thing. Are you coloring your hair? I henna. I've been henning my hair since I was 24 for the thickening and like the smoothing and gloriousness that the henna provides

there but now I see like right now I have roots I'm looking at them you know I can see them. I would like to henna but I just with the kids and with my schedule I don't get time. So it is a new thing I do henna when I get time and I have not accepted the gray. My mother

never dyed her hair. She is her hair silver and it's stunning and her face is young and it's a cool look. I will do it if I could go all white immediately like storm that would be dope but if I have to do that in between I don't think I can I don't think I can do it. Oh I know

look I've got this gray I hate it I want to You were distinguished. Thank you. You know my wife will say that it's different from anything and I get what she said but still like once people have seen

the gray and then you die. Yeah. What are you doing? You're not fully gone. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

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thank you ExpressVPN what do you think is the part of us that gets so upset about things like our hair going gray? the part of us that we have to see through the part of us that again started me on this journey

which I've never felt comfortable in my own skin I've never felt a part of any group of any I've always had a million friends but I've always felt on the outside of everything people look like they're just having so much fun

and get it and they got their stuff together and they love life and they're fully invested and I've always been like I'm watching life I'm watching Nikki and the further I got into my practice the more I learned I have been

there is this place that's always witnessing and I think I've identified more with that than with this body this ego that doesn't like her graying hair and her new fine lines under her eyes I think that I've always identified with the witness of that more

which is why I'm weird I've always been weird and I'm just embracing it now you know that's I just never would have thought of you as an outsider absolutely is it that we're all outsiders looking at each other being like gosh

you're on the inside I'm on the outside is it even possible to be on the inside are we witnessing people putting on a very sophisticated show there's a part of me

that felt like I was different all of this time but now I know it's all me so it's the first we're all on the outside watching, witnessing and when you are aware that you're the witness seeing

it's like there's a light on here and there's a light on there and when you meet people where the light isn't fully on and on at all you're the catalyst for that light you're like lighting their flame and then it's like oh I'm not different I'm you too

no one has their shit together no one does and it's like leaning into that leaning into the fear leaning into that discomfort that social awkwardness is what helps you see that it isn't actually not real

only love is here you pray to God I pray to God when I am scared and when I am feeling pretty centered I just rest as that love I rest

as that God as that love so when you're scared you're differentiating when I'm scared off of my throne, off of my center out of the witnessing position being nicky

then I'm like God help me get through this looking at my Maharajie picture what do I need to do next give me a sign that kind of thing versus when I know that I'm the witness when I'm feeling love and I'm being loved

there's no words necessary I don't look for signs I don't need confirmation I don't need to pray with words it's just a listening it's feeling that love and then write actions spring from there yes

so it's both for me some days I'm like I am is God and then that's it I always know something's off when I'm consulting the tarot card on Instagram too

on IG just swiping through waiting for it to refresh I'm like yeah I need to log off and go sit can you talk a little bit about how you practice mindfulness while simultaneously having a presence

on the internet yeah I actually checked out of the internet for many years so 2013 was the height of my success with the curly, nicky, curly hair stuff and I was on I was on like today's show and Steve Harvey

and you know Dr. Eyes and Harper Collins bestselling book and like all of these accolades and husband and house and nice car and healthy kid and big diamond like all the things in America you're supposed to have is supposed to make you happy and I was not happy at all and I'm also like I said

I'm a licensed psychotherapist so I'm aware something is amiss, something is wrong you should be content but I was always waiting on something else to come along to make me happy and I was waiting for the internet even before Instagram got big I was a blogger

so 2008, 2009 I'm posting lots of content every single day my child's life from like before she was even conceived all the way up until you know four or five years in people, my internet aunties you know sending diapers to my house

and my PO box it was intense every birthday party I was not there I wasn't there there was something dope to happen so I could have something to write about to have something to take a picture of and I could feel I'm like none of this is not real this is not good

and I knew I'm like I've got to do different stuff and I called Tracy Ellis Ross weeping into the phone crying and she's like you got to read better books better than the law of attraction books and I'm like okay cool and so she sent me down a path of

like non-duality like 600, 1,000 books later and Ram Dass was one of the first people I found and actually ended back up at that teaching as well but today maintaining a presence is it's not what it used to be

and I am not good at it because most of the time if I have a moment I choose to not log in and post a picture I probably haven't posted a picture in months but I will post some content sometimes I just it's challenging to walk that line

to give enough of myself where people feel connected but to not over give where I'm thrown off center and looking at likes and you know wondering what people are thinking as opposed to staying in the knowing that they are me and I am them

oh yeah that that feeling I don't know I'm sure you know what I'm talking about the gross feeling where you want to post something but you don't really have anything interesting you want to say but

it's kind of like you're like I need it's been so long yeah I hate that feeling because I could I'll start formulating some clever bullshit and then it's like the whole time what am I doing

this is not inspired this is neediness exactly the most recent post I did was I just came back from the retreat and it was powerful and half the people I met there

were there because of you and this beautiful show I mean seriously I just started asking people how did you hear about it and your name would come up and retop about you and I have some questions about your chancing your Hare Krishna days I need to hear more about that because I got to share about mine oh great

we need to chat about that that has to happen right in like in a minute but yeah I just I posted because I felt it necessary but it was also kind of inspired just to remind people that wherever you go

you know there you are so whether it's you know Maui or back here in Florida because people kept saying Nicky are you going to be sad when it's time to go are you going to cry on the last day and a few years ago I probably would have been really sad like oh I have to leave this love behind but now I'm like I'm in

where of this I am this love on the plane I am this in the car in the Uber on the way home I am this at home with my kids yelling you know it's all the same and it's dope and there's a really big permission slip to fill it when you're surrounded by people that are practicing and you know trying to be this love in their daily lives

for everyone but we can be that no matter where we are yes that is right and may I add that okay I follow a lot of Instagram spiritual Instagram accounts that run the gamut

of the world religions and also New Age stuff and some of them are so cloying but I follow them just because I want I like to see that the weird like a picture of the Buddha with something that

the Buddha never said like you know work hard get revenge whatever they're putting but I have to say your account has been really inspiring to me I love when you post I love when you I love the

energy you're putting out there and I think that as you're so good at simplifying these things in a very accessible way which is what I loved about Ram Dass so thank you for your account because to me

there hasn't been anything on it that I've seen where I'm like really you know so I hope you I hope you do continue to find the balance but don't please don't don't leave us I know you know with this dude daily show that I'm doing it's every single day I record

Monday through Sunday and I edit myself and so when I'm done with that which is like 4 a.m. until noon every day Monday through Sunday by that time I don't even want to promote the show on Instagram I'm like I'm just hoping that it promotes itself on Apple

it's taxing but it's my practice like I chant I meditate I chant and then I go right into recording from that love and then I edit and it's like a puzzle because it's like 30 minutes of content that I cut down to 5 minutes and then I'm

exhausted and then I have to switch to doing other things like you know job you know I work from home gig and being a mom it's a lot it's a lot going on so after when we're just only because it's going to be boring for us to talk about now but we've got to talk about some

delegating you can't don't I used to edit my own podcast I used to do that I have a wonderful editor Aaron and he does it's just that the amount of time it takes so intimate though Duncan I want I try to give it to someone but it's like

I know what I don't want on there I know what needs to be on there and I know like I need to whittle it down to the essence of the message without all of my shit in there right speaking of which I talked to KD Krishnadas during the retreat and I'm like hey this love practice has been great

it's been many years now and it's never gone it's always or I can always turn to peace to love to God whatever you want to call it the I am presence source the vortex whatever you want to call it I can it's right there I said but all my shit still here too I'm like so tell me

will that lesson will that decrease and he's like it's not yours and I'm like I do that and you've read that but it was powerful to hear that in that moment you know like whatever your fears or your anxieties

you know they're not yours reclaiming them and then trying to figure out how to let go of them we just let go and let them whoa whoa he Krishnadas cut right through he just

yeah he said things to me that are like that that I probably thought about every day since he said it so tell me about your experience with the

Channing Heart Krishna with the Mahamantra yes so 2020 let's say March April Ragu you know him you hear now on that work we had a really dope conversation and he's like hey you should start a podcast with us and I'm like you know I don't even really know what podcasts are

but I've got some friends that are very spiritual I'd love to chat with them on air so let's let's do it and so he sent me a Mala that I later found out had the thread from Maharajis Blanket and so I had chanted Ram before in years past and I just started doing that again

during the day nothing formal just chanting you know while I'd be walking or while I'd be with the kids you know on my treadmill I don't do that anymore because that's not who I am as a person but just like generally whenever like just in life whenever I could remember I'd be chanting Ram and then I started listening to Krishna Das

so by like July 2020 he replaced all of my music like every other musician was replaced and it was just Kyrton music all day all night period my kids hated and they kind of love it but they mostly hated so it was

let's say October November I am watching some documentary about Ram Das Maharajis and Amazon Prime recommends the Hari Krishna documentary and I watch it and I had never heard of the Hari Krishna movement in my life and I did research

more later and I'm not an organized religion or group kind of person so I could never be a part of it but I liked the strictness of like the regimen like you chant 16 rounds and you don't eat meat and you don't drink caffeine and you don't drink alcohol and you don't

you know have relationships if you're not in it to like produce kids and I'm like that's very I needed all of those things in my life and I employed them November 28 2020 and I started chanting 16 rounds that morning and

I live on the water and out back there's always dolphins but that morning after I chanted which took forever to do Hari Krishna mantra on every beat 108 beats 16 times around so it took me like about almost two hours so when I went out on the dock this dolphin a baby one came

up like swam under me and looked up at me they never interact like that so I'm like oh that's a sign right and so then the next night I had a dream my first in I've only had two dreams where Neem Karoli Baba was featured in it and this was the first one and he was like laying across my

desk like it was like a tuck it and he's looking at Prabhupada which is the guru for Hari Krishna in that mantra and so Prabhupada is chanting and he's completely unaware of me it's like he's in another dimension I can see him but he can't see me but Maharaj Ji

Neem Karoli Baba can see me and he's smiling at me and he keeps looking at him and then looking back at me smiling and so I remember waking up the next day and I messaged Krishna Das and I'm like does that mean that's my mantra is that it and he's like yeah you know they love the Hari Krishna mantra

it's a great one so that I've been chanting it I get up at 5 a.m. for my sanity I have two kids you know and I care for my parents and it's it's a lot and from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. I'm Nikki or Curly Nikki but between 5 and 7 a.m. I can just be

and that's the time that I started practicing and that within a month my whole life started changing and by like three or four months in everything was different my new podcast was born and it's my life is amazing and very center

and it's like when I'm chanting it's like a contract it makes the silence so clear like you can always be aware of silence you can hear my voice right now you know you can hear your thoughts you can hear ambient sounds but there's a silence that none of that can touch and so when I'm chanting

when I'm aware of this chanting happening it's very easy to hear the silence and then the silence is very easy to fill the love so it's just like a really easy gateway in and I can stay in while I'm chanting and sometimes become aware of the chanter

of the chanting itself and not be the chanter and then it's just love there you know for brief periods it's just pure love and then it's back to Nikki doing the chanting but it's changed everything I mean physically too not just you know spiritually there's a lot of differences in my life

materially everything is different the work the responsibilities that I have every day they've all shifted and this has become my work like this practice has become my work today's episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by Shutter I

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code Duncan to stream your first 30 days of Shutter for free Shutter.com code Duncan to stream your first 30 days of Shutter everything is different the work, the responsibilities that I have every day they've all shifted and this has become my work

like this practice has become my work it's very powerful and that's one of the things I love about it is that when I first started becoming interested in it I remember the devotees would say look just chant

see what happens if nothing happens well then nothing happened what did you lose a few hours or something of your life who cares but chant and see what happens and then you start chanting and then what you're just

things like baby dolphins come and swim up to you things like that start happening but something better than that starts happening as I recall because I haven't been chanting regularly I get scared I chant it so much I got a little scared of it or something

like something about it tell me I want the like story of how you heard about it how you got started and some of the stuff that was happening internally and externally so I've had I would say I had a legitimate

mystical experience like a real life changing experience and it happened at the Hari Krishna temple in Laguna beach my brother had been hanging out there and I went to see him and so then I just started going there and I love the

smell of the temple and the deities and my brother's teacher there and I already loved the Bhagavad Gita so it was amazing to see a place where the Bhagavad Gita was sort of the Bible even though obviously

I have other texts that go deeper than that but so I just started going there eating the food, hanging out there are such loving people because they're all chanting too and so even though

it is a very strict and disciplined practice if you want it to be if you want to go as deep as you want with it in fact that was one of Prabhupada's bits of advice was go deeper is what he would say

but yeah so it was Jamaas to me which is the appearance day of Krishna and I was sitting in the temple watching this like little boy with a peacock feather

waving it in front of the deities they're pouring milk on the deities and I can't explain what happened other than I mean it was the most powerful psychedelic event of my life it was suddenly this realization of like oh this is real

like this is not like this isn't some academic oh this is a symbol set and it represents the potential in humans and oh it's not a metaphor this is some kind of intelligence interacting

with embodied humans via this is the way it shows up and so I remember my the first thing my mind thought was it's like this is a UFO in the sense of like

this is advanced technology like this is so advanced that you most people can't even see it they just see statues but it's just what you're talking about that moment I hear exactly what you're saying I can feel what you're saying yeah and that and ever since

I mean that changed me that I've been altered permanent I mean I I chant Hare Krishna to this day I'll never stop wow so it's like greasy statues we hear Hare Krishna mantra but there's something deeper that's actually there you know you can you saw through it for a moment

yeah yeah because the because humans naturally I mean the way that Hare Krishna's talk about it is you know because we are part of Krishna we have qualities that

are within Krishna and one of those qualities is we want to be in control and part of being in control is when you get around something infinitely greater than you what do you want to do you want will reduce it so you get around something like wow look at these superstitious people with their

incense and bells and oh isn't this so it's beautiful and primitive and you know you know wow how quaint or something like that right you know and yet there's something attractive about it and that's what it's designed to do that's the compassion part

of it is it's designed to play with a human nervous system away we're like you know I'll come back I'll come back and maybe chant a little bit and you know it'll be fun it'll be interesting a little you know a thing I do what and then

you start chanting and then the dreams come and there's the baby dolphin and then you're and then people magazine and then a whole bunch of like breakfast club like just crazy stuff like I wasn't seeking those things

yeah right yeah exactly yeah it's the yeah it's I'll never understand it I love that you can't write Krishna though that's 16 rounds a day is that's in the morning I do for it right and oh you want to hear something really bizarre yeah one so I try

to kick it up to 64 because that's what probably I'd recommend it initially and we were like what we as a people Americans are like we can't do 64 rounds or you have to live life and he's like alright 32 you're like can't do that and he's like alright at least 16 so that's how we got to 16 so I tried

to kick it up to 64 and it was a Sunday at about 2pm and I just decided hey kids let's go to the park I never leave the house that late in the evening like that's late for me like with two kids by myself in the hot sun in Florida I'm like let's get dressed

let's go to the park so we go to the park and it's a sandy park and within like an hour of being there my kids playing with this other kid really sweet little girl and her mom is looking at me and I have got my Mala and I'm chanting in my right hand and she walks up she's like are you with us

I'm like nooo what's up like who is us and she's like oh we're here it was like two or three hundred Hare Krishna's chanting on the beach that day and I missed it I was at home chanting because I mean I'm not a part you know I didn't know I had no idea

we were in Clearwater Beach chanting that day from all over Florida like all over the US I guess and so we talked for like two hours my kids are ready to go just chatting it was beautiful and again like such a clear sign you know like

keep chanting keep chanting because for me is a really good permission slip to keep me in that love to keep me as that oh my god yeah I you're so funny because just a few days ago I was like oh I gotta find my beads I don't know where they're at I've misplaced them somewhere

but so how have you started going to the temple or have you no you know I'm such I told you I'm such a loner and they invited me to some event that was happening around Thanksgiving but again I have the

kids and I wasn't able to go my first experience with like public chanting was in Maui with the Rambas and it was appropriate that felt very appropriate because I was you know locked down 2020 when I got into this we couldn't go anywhere we couldn't do anything so this was

my first experience with that and it was amazing it was so gorgeous I had it it was fantastic oh I'm excited for you but in you have some deities at your house yeah my family everybody thinks I'm so weird so I've got I was raised Catholic

and so I have a meditating Jesus right by my bed and I have a Krishna that was sent here at the end of last year like December I think it was December 11th 2020 when that arrived and I have several

Buddhas I have a couple of Hanuman somebody from the Ram Dass organization Steve who I love sent me one that was made from the same wood as the one that they have there at Hanuman Mall and sent me some of the you know like the shavings from the the actual

that they have there on site and I was there actually in July and Maui too when they were finishing up the temple so that was really cool and just recently I was on Etsy trying to find something some kind of paraphernalia related to Ram Dass or name Karoli Baba and I couldn't

find anything that I liked so I wrote this guy who was selling t-shirts that had name Karoli Baba on it and I'm like hey do you make statues of him they were like no but if you send me a picture I'll get one made and he did in a month and then he took it to a temple there in Delhi

and like sent me pictures of it and then sent it out to 10 pounds and it got here while I was in Maui and so usually because this is all so strange you know like with my parents who were also their Catholic you know I'm like hey dad there's a package

just got there from India and I won't be back for about a week but I really want you to open it and make sure that it's in one piece you know and before I would have never had him open that box but he did and he sent pictures and you know he's like oh it's great I'll keep it in here with me and keep it safe until you get back so

it's just yeah I don't know what it is it's like to have the pictures and the statues everywhere it's like oh it's a reminder everywhere I turn only love is real you know if I'm stressed out or I'm moving too fast because I've got four things I've overbooked myself

you know on my schedule and I bump into a picture of Ram Dass smiling at me and I'm like that's right what am I doing you know it just kind of snaps me back into it you know seeing Jesus meditating you know right by the bed just like that you can feel that presence that peace and I

didn't think there were any answers in Christianity I didn't find the mystics the Christian mystics until the end of my search and I'm going to Italy next week actually to do a silent retreat at St. Francis of Assisi's home you know church there what

and it's they they were talking about the same love everybody is talking about this everybody this is it like you find this in your meditation or in your prayer and then you practice filling it before you take a step before you take a breath before you send an email before

you get on Instagram while you're scrolling Instagram you don't stop filling it and so like my Christian friends I'm like that holy ghost you feel on Sunday that makes you want to dance and sing and jump feel that when you're at work you don't have to jump around but feel that that liveliness in your body

you know fill that while you were with your children don't just fill it for an hour my friends that do yoga don't just feel peace when you're on the mat that peace take it with you practice filling it on the subway you know like that's it that's the whole that's the end

it's the path and it's the destination and once you have it that's it you got to use it you got to fill it well you got I mean that's the hard part isn't it yeah I forget it all the time I mean that you're making me remember and this is why one of the things Prabhupada advised

is the devotees are always supposed to be talking and hanging out together this is part of the tradition is because there is an acknowledgement of how easy it is to forget how incredibly easy it is to forget and how absurd it would be

that it's easier to remember some embarrassing political drama happening on the world stage than it is to remember the transcendent reality that has been here

was here before there was a planet exactly exactly no it's I made it in 20 I was with my grandmother when she took her last breaths at the end of 2015 and I had already been practicing this love I didn't know it had a name until the top of 2016 when I found Joel Goldsmith

he was a Christian mystic even though he was Jewish and he shared practicing the presence of God which was a teaching that came from brother Lawrence which was a monk from France that lived in the 1600s and he would not wash a dish until he

was filling God not thinking about God you know not reciting a scripture from memory but filling him filling it whatever you want to call it actually being in contact with it being in contact with it that's it and then

living his whole life that way so 2016 I started setting alarms that would go off once in once a minute for two hours and every time that chime went off I would shift out of being aware of the world and back into being aware of the word aware of God aware

of love and I would forget you know because after like the 50th chime you're now like you don't even hear it anymore but then I'd reset it and I'd reset that intention and I'd get up in the morning and I'd say can I hold love all the way to the bathroom can I hold love throughout the whole shower

can I hold love the whole time I'm making tea and you can't you forget because you're you trying to hold love and that's the problem you're actually love so if you can just be the love there is no forgetting it there's no coming and going or leaving it you just

be that but we don't want to let go of ourselves I know I saw a meme yesterday on Instagram was an octopus and he was holding on to like all these different objects and he had one of his arms loose he's like yeah he's like I'm doing I'm letting go and I'm like that's me

that's me I don't know I can't I don't have any answers all I have is this love and I practice it 24 seven and it's been carrying me it's been carrying me yeah no it's I I try to remember this

and then you're trying and you know it's and I think that again this is sort of part of the at least my own personal bullshit is that I want to be in control yeah so if I'm going to let if I'm going to let go

I want to be in control of letting go if I'm going to reunify with the transcendent well I want to be the one doing the reunification I don't want to and I and I don't think people like me

egoists like the truth of the matter is no you're going to be helped you know what I mean it's going to it's not a one-way conversation and you know so I think that like

part of it is asking for help yeah trying not to get to that point in life where you're asking and you know needing to beg for it and not just being able to

say it's everything is good everything's gravy but you know it'd be nice if you can show me the way show me the way you know put me in your service you know like show me what to do next without your life needing to be crumbling and my life has done that to me you know a couple

of times or it's like nothing is working and now I see it as grace as fierce grace like there's nowhere else to go but deeper inside and every single time that happened I came out on the other side beautifully you know less of me came out on that other

side you know it's just thinned out and it's it's good the the very confusing one of the there are many confusing things the hard christians say one of them is like when something when a catastrophe happens in your life they call it the mercy of

Krishna yeah because it's unhinging you from the world I recently and I share this on the podcast I was with my son at night like 8pm walking up the steps getting ready for bed and I had my Mala in my right hand chanting as usual hard Christian in my head

and something snapped like inside of my head like on my right side it felt like an electrical zap I'd never felt anything like it before I still haven't to this day this was like about a month and I grabbed my head with that hand my right hand where the Mala was also and I said ouch loud enough for

him to be worried he ran on up the steps to go find my parents I made it to the top of the steps but I felt nauseous and I felt just a little dizzy and warm and flushed and I don't know if that was anxiety because my mind was like was that

like you know precursor to a stroke was it like a little stroke like was it some type of aneurysm so my mind is like worst case scenarioing and I'm scared but as I pull my hand down from my head I can see that Mala and it was like my thread to the truth and I immediately went

back to chanting and remembering only love is here you know and back to Hare Krishna and so my parents are like taking my vital signs as they have all of that stuff in the house and we go to the ER but the whole way on my way to the ER I'm chanting at the ER with the nurses with the doctors

chanting cat scan I don't have my Mala in my hand but I'm chanting out of the cat scan Mala back in hand chanting it carried me through that experience and there was they didn't find anything and I don't know what it was and neither do they but it was beautiful to have that anchoring the fear

was there but love was louder it was loud and that was dope and you had that and that's part of this practice that you know it's that I think that's why they call it a practice is because there's if you have any the smallest

bit of intelligence you know you're on a planet where incredibly horrible things happen all the time in a body that's certain to die exactly surrounded by other people that are certain to die this is not a stable situation to live

so even if things are going great for you right now it can't stay like that permanently so the practice is building this kind of temple or a place that you can find yourself in regardless of

external circumstances that's powerful a temple so that no matter where you are it's sacred it's holy even if you're in an ER you know to have that practice going that was it showed me that I can practice in

very uncertain circumstances there was a pull to be thinking and googling symptoms you know don't do that I know and I'm like chant louder that's what you do they say you try to chant louder you get louder than Maya get louder

than the illusion you know so you can see through it and the community too they all go together and supposedly they ask Buddha what's the most important thing is it the Dharma

or is it the Sangha or is it you know you and he said it's the community it's the community is the most important thing and people forget that or in Christianity what do they say they say the church

is the body of Christ and you know that's all of these things by the way I think one of the problems is if you're a secularist or if you're recovering Christian or someone who was born into some weird shit then you

you don't want to hear anything about it but if you can separate yourself enough from whatever your encounter with it was and think about some of these ideas that this the church is the when they say the church is the body of Christ

they're not meaning it in any other way than literally and so to imagine that some being has sort of hasn't turned into a butterfly from being a caterpillar but has

turned into groups of people gathering together singing about love and the cocoon was it being crucified right that is so psychedelic and so wild

and you know similarly with Vaishnava Bhakti Yoga to imagine that one of the ways that the divine is growing into this world is through a sound right how is that possible

it's impossible to believe in fact you shouldn't believe it if you hear it for the first time why would you believe it it doesn't even sound preposterous it sounds insane they literally said

the sound Hare Krishna is the form God has taken in this life for us so when you're chanting the present God is present in that moment while you're chanting and feeling that

I feel love and I chant to that love and I don't know what that love looks like I just know how it feels I chant to it, I sing to it I pray to it and it carries me it's not that one of the wild

experiences I've had with it is in a delightful experience it's not what you think it is so it's like wait this is indescribably different from what I conjured up in my head about what God must be like and of course

because the idea here is we are limited in our capacity at this current stage of our evolutionary process as we grow into whatever it is we're growing into into the universe so you wouldn't be able to necessarily

summon up the well Bhagavan, the most everything the most beautiful, most famous most loving, most you wouldn't be able to summon that up in your mind because you're not the most of those things as much as we like to believe it so when you encounter it

it's not going to look like what you thought it would look like at all you couldn't imagine it when I went back home in 2019 it was around Christmas time and I was there for midnight mass

and I went back to my church I grew up in after a long time and the priest who I grew up with since I was 7 was there and his form is melting but there was such a glow about him and there was only 8 people in the church because that's how religion is today

and I remember him looking around and saying like turn the lights down and I want you all to meditate with me and come into the presence of the Christ within and I'm looking around like when did this all start or was I just not able to hear that when I was there at the time

so I sit there and I close my eyes and I'm focused on the Christ within and the true Christianity is finding that within yourself and so when church was over I went up to him thinking that he wouldn't even recognize me and he's like hey Nikki how are you I'm like I'm great

when did you start filling the presence of Christ of God within you and he's like oh Nikki too long too long to recall he just kind of shoes me away and goes and continues to talk to the other congregants like it was nothing and I'm like he's

he's like what are you doing in that church and I wasn't able to see it because I wasn't there that's what I believe I can see that from now I can see that and I missed it I was bored out of my mind at church I like the music sometimes

I like the fellowship sometimes but I didn't like anything else I felt dry I love this this idea of blindness is so cool and you know Paul Saul of Tarsus witnesses Jesus and then is made blind

it like goes blind but what do you think that means was that like an acknowledgement like was it that he just he he nothing really changed but he realized I've been blind

my entire life completely blind to this other reality that's awesome and it's it's gorgeous now and I try to live my life

like I'm blind they tell you to do that in the Yoga Vasistha in the Ashtavakra Gita like although I see I see nothing so the things that the eyes report knowing what's actually there

which is the kingdom which is the Christ I see the furniture feeling love where I see stop that's my practice and the chanting helps keep me there you know feeling when I'm feeling love I am that love so I'm automatically

there and even though I see a Niki and I see a Duncan and I see furniture and I see outdoors only love is here and I can't see that love in fact I can it's manifesting as all of this you know but I feel that love more

but I'm in the constant communion with God behind the scene knowing that it's appearing as the scene and shortly you know later it's going to be appearing as a car you know going to pick up kids it'll be appearing as a kitchen

you know it just like rearranges but it's always just this love this formless boundless field we get stuck and we think we're these forms and we're watching we're witnessing that is it you know that

can you tell me again where it says to imagine that you're blind it's in it's a hundred percent in the Ashtabakura Gita and I'd have to find the chapter for you and it won't take long what is that book I have so do you know um do you know Muji yes I mean I know

of him okay well that's one of his favorite books um uh name Karoli Baba that's one of his favorite books it's a very powerful very powerful book and it's short and it punches like it will cut your head off

just every line is like that like although the sage sees just like you and me he sees nothing he sees nothing he sees stuff but he knows that it's empty you know it's like that simultaneous awareness of being Duncan and being

love and like being aware of yourself as being love being aware of yourself as being beyond that body while having the experience of having a body that's that's what we're doing seeing the body knowing it's not you knowing that everything you see is you or nothing is you

you can go either way everything is me or nothing is me but it can't just be this is me this body is me that's the only way not to be everything can be you that's love nothing is you that's you know enlightenment that's pure I like the everything in the beginning

for me I did nothing like it's easy for me to kind of pull out of the scene and see it from like an impersonal standpoint but that love is so beautiful and that love for me is I'm not just Nikki I'm everything everyone and everyone I meet is me not me

Nikki but me as this I am this presence that's looking out of your eyes and mine and my kids and your kids and everyone the okay so this is what I love to love about the Ram Dass retreats I'm sorry miss the last one but the so Ram Dass would always have

someone representing the Bakhti Yoga side and then someone representing the emptiness side and then let them you know sort of deal with each other so the conversations like Ragu has with Roshi Joan Halifax

they're so funny because you know not that Roshi Joan Halifax is like she's all love she is all love because if both it goes to the same place it's just different ways of conceptualizing it maybe but I remember once Ragu's saying to her

I think she was talking about a Buddhist topic something about emptiness non-dualism I can't recall the exact content of what she's saying but I remember Ragu saying well if that means I'm separated from Maharaj then

I don't want it I want to keep doing this over and over and over and over again forever and it's beautiful it's it's it's beautiful and the you know and the so what the Hare Krishna say about that is and again this is where I think

organized religion does get problematic because some Hare Krishna's really are not quite fond of the Buddhists which are they're not fond of anyone yeah yeah exactly my avatis is what the word is and but

the ideas okay so there's Goloka Vrindavan right and that's where Krishna lives that's the eternal heaven or whatever you want to call it that place has a radiance it's so powerful because this is where God

Vishnu takes the form of Krishna and plays forever and so that place is so incredibly powerful that the field surrounding it is called the Brahma Jyoti this is the emptiness that people tune into

so the idea is if you have found the empty part of it or that you've you recognize okay this is a veil or whatever you want to call it then yes that's right but that's just like the effulgence of the thing if you go deeper in

then suddenly you find oh no it has a personality yep and the personality whether you like it or not whether it makes sense to you or not the personality is a blue-skinned cowherd boy who is eternally

frolicking in this beautiful garden of Eden style planet with his associates and it doesn't matter if you think that's ridiculous if you don't it doesn't matter if you think it's fairy tales it doesn't matter

that's the way it is and so that's where that's where Christians present it and you know you start chanting skeptically however, devotedly whatever you start chanting and all of a sudden

you're like wait I think this is true it's so absurd though it's so impossible and yet and yet it's true but it's not the I mean I think that's the you know though

and only because most people I know don't know much about bhakti yoga but do you know about the rasa-lila a little I'd like to hear it from you okay thank you

so the rasa-lila and any of my deep bhakti yoga friends if I'm screwing this up feel free to send me corrective messages I'll fix it after the fact um so the rasa-lila

uh the gopis the the story goes these women living in Vrindavan they hear the playing of a flute and they leave their home they leave the way it's described

as they leave the lamp burning to go out into the clearing because they've heard Krishna's flute and he there's a hundred native them who gather around him and he makes love to all of them but it's not like some

like it's not he becomes each of their perfect ideal perfect lover and so this I think is supposed to represent um that this is the this is the compassion of the divine is that

and I think it's interesting because you know once you start recognizing how much you're participating in the creation of your own reality and then once you realize that wait it's not just a it doesn't seem to be a one-way street it's in my participation something else seems to be dancing with me too

and the more you're tuning into the love field that you're talking about then the more you see the love field and then you realize this entire thing is some kind of love letter from God to me and so in that way you become one of the gopis you know not not just

like physically having sex with God which would be incredible but at every single level with all of your senses with your entire experience of life and just what you're saying now instead of it just being you know your house or whatever

you it's it's God and you're in the presence of God or the temple like you said a temple yeah yeah yeah I like it how do you work oh I know I like though how you said how they left their

lamps burning and that makes me think of that inner light you know always on like keeping that on because that's another practice whenever I try to stay aware I move slower the way I would move if I was holding a candle that I didn't want to go out you know and I think that's why Eckhart Tolle moved so slow I think

I heard him say in a talk once that you know he is deliberate about his movements because he's staying aware as this as the now you know that's so cool right move like you're holding a candle yeah I used to be an altar girl you know and I think about like how

you didn't want it to blow out because that would suck you know so moving slower shielding it and when I'm moving a little slower even when I need to hurry you know moving just a little bit slower it helps me stay aware as this love helps me keep some attention there helps

me hold that thread oh my god you know that tip famous tichnoton story I must be related to what I just said because I could fill his quote coming but I couldn't I couldn't grasp it someone running late to one of his

events have you heard this this was okay and well I know someone's because they say that the retreat someone's going to was late to go hear him talk and they're rushing to go hear him talk in there they pass

this monk walking really slowly and they turn and look and it's tichnoton that is excellent I've never heard that yeah just like very slowly walking to this thing he's very late for

and it's amazing listen I think walking slowly is so important and you know one of the signs of trauma is that you walk really fast that is I guess I can see that

and not allowing yourself to rest you know to relax not allowing yourself to relax that's a thing that I'm just now getting to see for myself like not feeling guilty when I'm doing nothing

oh god I want to be able to do that yeah that guilt always be like needing to be busy because if you stop being busy then there's that guilt creeps in you know they used to have to have in factories

people who were foremen they were really scary and they would if you stopped working or if you slowed down they would beat you but somehow that foreman is like they've managed to make this thing

even if you work from home some invisible thing is always behind you like what are you doing you're failing you're going to take a lunch break how do you stay competitive you're going to eat like that's crazy

that's been my latest challenge like being able to after I'm done with all that stuff from 4am until noon taking a moment to actually eat because there's been times where I don't remember to eat until like 3 or 4 and it's not okay because by that time I have a headache

so just like getting out ahead of that and taking care of this vessel too while doing all the other things yeah you know I'm so inspired by you

I'm going to start chanting again after this conversation just because it's just bringing me back to that feeling I can feel it it changes like the whole quality of course during the time

when you're chanting but the whole rest of the quality of your day changes and then you keep it going because now it's stuck in your head and because you're full of that there's no room for the other stuff about you know needing to be super busy for that to be like a good productive day instead of

taking some time for yourself when you have that chant still going on you're aware of that place in you where the chant is always happening there's no room for I'm not good enough or this needs to get done so I can feel good about myself or you know I'm not a good mom or whatever

those things are that come up there's no room for them when that chant and when they do come up you can see through them that's just a thought they don't stick to you you can easily you don't even have to let them go you just see them kind of

let them pass and you stay as that ocean of love and that's it but when I'm not chanting and that thought comes I gotta think about that thought it feels real it feels true and then back you're pinned again

you know it's very rare for someone to just take up the regulative principles and start chanting like you are that is a very rare thing most people don't do that I'm at a gorgeous famous Kyrton singer from John-Avi do you know her Harrison

she was born into the Hare Krishna movement and she has an album with Willow Smith and when we got I interviewed her on my podcast for Be Here Now Network that's called New Growth and when we were off air she's like where did you come from

how did this happen she wanted the details the ones that I shared publicly with you about the dream and how I got started I care about people just deciding I'm gonna give up meat and I had given up meat over the years but I always end up eating meat again

even though it didn't feel completely right and I don't have any real why's of why I don't my son is always like mom doesn't like meat I'm like I do, I like meat a lot I like wamp chops but I don't eat them anymore I don't have the desire and it doesn't feel like I'm missing anything

I like a glass of wine on the beach I live on the beach now without needing to have a glass of wine in my hand it feels good because I choose this so I'm again so full of the mantra so full of love that I don't need any of the other things anymore

it doesn't feel like a sacrifice like I'm missing something that's the difference that's one of the gifts it gives you I remember that the loosening of the addictive stuff the more you chant though it's not like you're quitting

you just aren't thinking about it anymore I mean it's grabbing your mind it's like designed to completely shift your attention at every level I mean that's what the temple that's what the temple is is the place where you can be fully absorbed

so your smell your visual field your ears your feelings because you're holding the mala you know so it's like every one of your sense organs is being drawn in

to this reality or not really drawn in but you are it's helping you recover from a brutal kind of existential amnesia which is you have forgotten your relationship with God

that's so gorgeous you should put that like get that transcribed and I'll wear it on the t-shirt I didn't invent that that's from I know that you just said it in a way that was way more relatable than I've read the books I've read some of them

at least and that was really clear what you just said you gotta go to Vrindavan I have to go to all these places when I told Ragu everybody I'm like don't y'all go back over there without me I'm coming too because I don't want to go by myself

I travel by myself a lot but to hit all those places on one trip I think what's so fascinating you know only just because of like my on and off relationship with Hare Krishna's it's just astounding to hear someone who is adhering

to these things and who isn't going to any of these temples not that you need to and also I think it's super important you already know this anyone listening bhakti yoga is not limited to the international society for Krishna consciousness that's like the way

Christianity has all these churches there's a lot of different types of bhakti yoga out there the Vaishnaiva bhakti yoga is what we're talking about in particular but the Hare Krishna's aren't the only community that practices that it's just the only one that I ever

encountered it's the one that I came across that said here's some rules and I needed them I fast twice a month it's coming up I think tomorrow I don't even know how to pronounce it is it don't ask me I'm the I'm a

devotee at Jason I'm just lucky enough to have made contact with him at all I just got lucky I stumbled into them but we have to connect to you have you had Rodinath Swami on your podcast yet? no but I actually DM'd them and they had agreed to it and then we kind of

lost touch and I DM'd again and haven't heard back so I'd love to absolutely that guy he will make you cry just sitting he he I was someone I was lucky someone knew him and like I got to spend like 30 minutes with him and I'm sitting with him

and you know unassuming just a very sweet person but he starts telling a story about Krishna and I think my question was well why does Krishna show up as a baby you know because that's one of the ways God appears as a baby

and he started telling a story of Krishna as a baby and my friend and I we just were we we couldn't help it tears are just like flowing to her cheeks because you know you're around them when they tell the stories it's different than if you read it

it really is I cried a lot at that round boss retreat you did? yes and like at times I don't even know why I was crying I think Mirabai you know Mirabai star she came up to me at dinner and I'm having a very nonchalant conversation with some people and she comes up and she's like

Nikki how are you and I started bawling at dinner and you know we talked a little bit more but it was moments like that just like cleansing you know being around these people that have just been completely like

swimming in this love being this love for years you know for so long to be in their presence and to share with them what I'm sharing with you and it was just it was great I was happy to be a part of it oh wow we're so

lucky you're hanging out with us now I mean how cool is that I hope you keep coming to them I can come to them I'll be at the next one because we're moving back west oh really? yes where are you right now? I'm in the mountains of North Carolina and Asheville North Carolina I've been to Asheville

and Silva and I lived in Raleigh and Chapel Hill for a while oh wow but you're on the west coast now? no I'm in Florida so I'm right near Tampa Clearwater Beach it's like 30 minutes from Tampa how you liking it?

well I just got here right before the pandemic so I don't know much about anything but it's like a barrier island and it's very touristy but it's very slow and I like that because I can just like walk and mind my business and not really be bothered by too many folks

it's nice Nikki thank you so much can you everyone's going to want to reach out to you can you let people know where they can find you? absolutely so please tune into my daily show it's Monday through Sunday

on Apple iTunes it's on Spotify everywhere you get your podcast it's called Good Mornings with Curly Nikki I'm also on Instagram at Curly Nikki a little less so but I'm going to do better now thanks to you Duncan I'll share some writings on something as I feel motivated

but the podcast that's my practice my private practice made public every day Monday through Sunday all the links you need to find Nikki will be at DuncanTrestle.com if you can't remember that Nikki thank you so much for being here thank you

that was Nikki Walden everybody you can find her at CurlyNikki.com a big thank you to all of our sponsors and thank you all for listening I'll see you next week until then Hare Krishna we are family

we are family never short on options at JCP.com all dressed up everywhere to go JCPenney