Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 525: Dr. Benjy Epstein

Episode Date: September 3, 2022

Dr. Benjy Epstein, psychologist, author, one of Duncan's favorite people on earth, and his rabbi, re-joins the DTFH! You can learn more about Benjy on his site, DrBenjy.com. You can also check out The Goal is Soul! Be sure to read Benjy's book too, Living in the Presence: A Jewish Mindfulness Guide to Everyday Life, available everywhere fine books are sold! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: DraftKings - Use promo code DUNCAN at sign-up and bet $5 on ANY football game to get $200 INSTANTLY! ZipRecruiter - Try for FREE at ZipRecruiter.com/Duncan Herb Stomp - Use code DUNC15 at checkout to receive 15% OFF your first order! If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/LA/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA(select parishes)/MI/NH/NJ/ NY/OR/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. New customer offer void in NH/OR/ONT-CA. $200 in Free bets: New customers only. Valid 1 per new customer. Min. $5 deposit. Min $5 wager. $200 issued as eight (8) $25 free bets. Ends 9/19/22 @ 8pm. Early Win: 1 Early Win Token issued per eligible game. Opt in req. Token expires at start of eligible game. Min moneyline bet $1. Wagering limits apply. Wagers placed on both sides of moneyline will void bet. Ends 1/8/23 @ 8pm ET. See terms at sportsbook dot draftkings dot com slash football terms.

You're gonna love this house, Sergeant Riley. Just look at these high ceilings. The upstairs is even better. You can read the Constitution from your window. Upstairs? I don't see any stairs. Just strap on this harness and climb right up. Up this rock climbing wall.

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Kind of like Hell's Kitchen, but for morticians. And they were so turned on by my ability to French kiss that they agreed to give the DTFH an exclusive sneak peak of the next season of Forever Home. And here it is. Previously on Forever Home, Mortician Master Darius Weiss made history. For the first time ever, the morticians will be all stars.

By inviting back 16 all-star morticians with the greatest prize ever on the line. One of you will become the head mortician at the brand new Forever Home Mortuary in Las Vegas. A new Forever Home Mortuary on the Vegas trip? You can roll the dice that I'm going to be the head mortician there.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas especially if you die in a bury there. I know if I win, you'll take my back. Stop singing. What these contestants don't know is that they aren't on Forever Home but are subjects in America's favorite government experiment show, Bohemian Grove.

Eleven of the planet's top evil scientists have been assembled on an island in Florida and paired with eleven death row prisoners whose memories have been erased and replaced with artificial ones. They think they're contestants on a game show about celebrity morticians and have no idea they're on Bohemian Grove.

Whichever scientist can transform their prisoner into the ultimate assassin will get invited to the Bohemian Grove. And now we join test subject David Glersen in his hotel room where he thinks he's having a private conversation with his terminally ill grandfather. Of course, it's not his grandfather.

It's Professor Zeldik from Prader University who must keep Glersen from remembering his true identity. No, no, the show's going great, Grandpa. I had them bomb a dude who got run over by a crane today and, uh, your master mortician, Terry, said I made him look better than he did before he got ran over by that crane. That's great, Davey.

You're always the best and baller in the family. Well, maybe it's the stress of the show or something, but, uh, I'm having these memories that aren't mine. Like what? Like, uh, like I was on death row or something. Did they put me there because I crucified a priest in a church and then burned it down? This is horrible.

I feel like I'm losing my marbles, Gramps. Well, maybe it's the stress of the show. I'm thinking about quitting. You can't quit. You want to make your dying grandpa proud, don't you? Yeah, of course I do, Gramps. Good. Look, even if the memories were real, let's say,

it's not so bad that you killed that priest. It's that you got caught. Look, just forget these phantom memories and get back to winning that show. Anyway, you can. What are you saying? I mean, anyway, you can. Those phantom memories,

you should think of them like dreams and sometimes dreams show us things that we're capable of, things that we don't want to accept about ourselves. Yeah, you know, when you put it like that, Gramps, it did feel kind of good choking the life out of that dumb old priest. It was like, I was myself for a second. Only a brave man could admit that.

It would be a shame if some of the other contestants had any accidents, little accidents that took them out of the show. Oh, yeah. Like, when I did that priest in that phantom memory, dragged him into a church, strangled him, burn the whole thing down. Yeah, but this time, you don't get caught.

Life, like doing in secret, that's even better. And what's even better than that is if you're listening to this, you're on Bohemian Grove. You're having this podcast pumped into your consciousness while you lay in an induced coma, getting your memories white.

Activate Kilgore Protocol. Activate Kilgore Protocol. Wow, looks like it's going to be a killer season. If you want to watch Forever Home, aka Bohemian Grove, it is streaming on Helax, the new streaming platform featuring some of the most cutting edge reality shows out there.

All you got to do is go to HelaxLL943, Kilgore Protocol activated.gov, use offer code, Duncan, and you will get one free month of some of the best reality shows out there. Again, it's offer code, Duncan, for one free month on Helax. And now, we have got an incredible podcast.

Dr. Benji Epstein is here. We're going to jump right into it, but first this. The wait is almost over. A new football season is about to begin. Get ready for the NFL Week 1 action with DraftKings Sports Book, an official sports betting partner with the NFL.

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an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. See the show notes for details. Darlings, would you like commercial free episodes of the DTFH? Then go no further than patreon.com forward slash DTFH. You're going to get commercial free episodes.

You're going to get the opportunity to hang out with your true family once a week. We got a meditation group. We have our family gatherings every Friday and I'm excited to announce that this coming Friday, September 9th, we're going to be gathering together to plan out our next book.

Yes, we write books together and if you want to participate in that, we would love it. All you got to do is subscribe to youtube.com forward slash DTFH. Also, I got some comedy shows coming up that I would love to see you at. Come and see me.

I am going to be at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco. That is September 23rd to the 24th. I'm going to be at Wise Guys in Salt Lake City September 30th and Hyena's Fort Worth, Texas. Here's a special announcement on the 17th. If you want to see me in Austin, I'll be doing an hour at Vulcan Gasworks.

All those ticket links are at dunkintrustle. Today's guest is one of my favorite people on earth. He has to be. He's my rabbi. He's also a psychologist. An author has written a wonderful book called Living in the Presence, a Jewish Mindfulness Guide to Everyday Life

and also many, many years ago we were in a band together. We talk about that in this episode and that's not all we talk about. We talk about how deep Judaism is. I mean, maybe it's impossible to talk about how deep it is, but I always have Buddhists on. I always have spiritualists on or comedians on,

but I don't give the Jews enough DTFH time and that is doing everyone a disservice, especially me. If you're not familiar with Judaism, this is going to blow your mind. Want to talk about the Kabbalah? It's in this episode. Want to talk about the tree of life?

It's in this episode. Want to talk about the time, space continuum and the way the divine breathes life into it? It's in this episode. Everybody strap in and welcome back to the DTFH. Dr. Ben Epstein. www.B kay. and don't forget to,

go find a link to our channel www.B Anyway, Arina Makashar, with the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast www.DunkinTrussellFamilyHour.com We just bound ourselves through this service of this podcast to all the righteous people in our generation and to all the righteous who are no longer in the living with us

but all attached in the vortex of life who reside in the earth and specifically our Tzadik, our Rabbi, the foundation of the world, the flowing brook, the source of wisdom, Rabbi Nachman bin Phega, Nachman the son of Phega, may their merit be a meritorious for us and for all of Israel in the world, amen.

Cool, I love that. We started strong, we started strong. Y'all go so deep. It is wild. The language itself is so beautiful. You know what it sounds a little like and I'm sure the reason it sounds like that is because it was intentional,

but we've been rewatching Game of Thrones and they speak High Valerian is what it's called. High Valerian. And that's definitely what it sounds like. It sounds so close to that that I have no question but whoever formulated that language was Jewish and could speak Hebrew and just took that. And speak to dragons.

Yeah, well, yeah. My wife is definitely a Khaleesi, that's for sure. She's it, I think, I don't know. Well, here's something that I heard from someone on the Patreon, my friend Valo. He told me, and I don't know where he got the data from, but I found it to be so beautiful that the name of God, Yahweh, Yahweh, is actually,

why, how do you spell it? There's no vowels in it. The English doesn't do it justice, but it's Yud, Hey, Vav, and Hey. Those are the four Hebrew letters that make up God's name and we could spend a lifetime on it. We could spend a lifetime on it. Well, let's start.

He was telling me that, and I don't know where he got the data from, but it represents, it's the sound of breathing, that it's the exhalation and the inhalation. Have you heard this before? I've definitely seen this, you know, the Yud, because the Hey makes it like an H sound, and there are people who are doing Abulafian meditations

with the different, and they're taking the letters and the way they, I'm not a linguist, the way we vowelize letters in Hebrew, they're like little dots, and the dots are the movements. These are the tenuot, the movements, and the quesufim, the longings, and so you'll take the Yud, the Y sound, and you'll do it with an ah, yah,

and then each letter like that, and focusing on a different part of the body, and then an e, and each one of those vowels is also connected to a Kabbalistic sphere, is connected to loving kindness, or severity, or beauty and splendor, and all the other different ones. It's, yeah, taking it down. So is the tree of, no, not taking it down,

I was making a gesture, thinking of like the tree of life. So is the tree of life somehow encapsulated in that name? Are we allowed to talk about midnight gospel, and the fact that you were going to animate me as a corned beef sandwich with earlocks, and that sort of thing? Yeah. Yeah, I would. Can that still happen?

Can that still happen? No. Sadly, at least not as the midnight gospel. Have we processed this? Is this something that needs to be processed, or you've moved on, you're living in the moment, and it's just like, because people are broken hearted. Yeah.

Well, I'm sorry about that. You know, I was bummed, but I knew, like, I mean, you know, you know if it's not happening again before they tell you it's not gonna happen. So I have plenty of time to sort of go through all the phases of grief, the stages of grief, mixed in with the gratitude that they let me make it, mixed in with, like, you know, a kind of pining over,

like, man, I really wanted to get more into that world, and there was more of a story. But yeah, I mean, I'm sorry people are broken hearted about it. I think we all just have to be grateful that they let us make it. I mean, like, getting a show like that made is impossible. Like, the fact that they let us do it is just wild that they would be like, oh, yeah, sure, let's make this weird psychedelic, mystical, rambling thing.

They let us do it. So that's to me, I'm happy with that. I remember when you tried to introduce, or you didn't try when you introduced it on Joe, and Joe Rogan, and, you know, he's just looking at it, like, how did you get them to green like this? I know, it's Pendleton. They wanted to work with Pendleton.

He got us through the door. Yeah, so the name of God, this name of God, is, it's a map and a sound. It's the map, it's the sound, it's the building block. It's everything that every single Kabbalistic intention is going back to. And there's so many permutations, and there's so many combinations,

and there's so many different systems of, you know, coming from, well, let's, coming from the czar, which is the hidden wisdom, the esoteric wisdom, which was, you know, that's the first book, and then there was a sage in the 1500, oh, God, I hope nobody's listening to this, who knows what they're talking about, 1500, 1600s, who also formulated a system from that.

So there's Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, and it's good to say names of the righteous. So we're just saying Shimon Satzadikim here, names of the righteous. It's just going to bring lots of good things here. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai wrote the czar, and then the Ari, the Rabbi Yitzchak Luria and Sfat in the mid-1500s, systemized it, categorized it,

cataloged it, excuse me, and created the Tree of Life, that system that you're familiar with, and then that was subsequently explicated more on a more accessible level by the Baal Shem Tov, who makes it more about, instead of focusing on what's going on in the spiritual realms, more how it transposes onto ourselves and our body, and how we can, as above so below, and so how we're really, you know,

the way the system works is we have a real input and what we do matters, and so the Kabbalistic spheres can be mapped onto our bodies, and that sort of thing. So that's Malkuth, how do you say it? Malkuth, Keith, Keith there, the crown? We're going to say it OG. We're going to say Kesser, Kesser, it makes it so much easier.

Kesser, because you're going to do the more Eastern European pronunciation, so it doesn't do the, it changes it again. Kesser, yes, we just said Kesser on a podcast. Kesser is the crown. Kesser is the crown, then there's the wisdom. Kesser represents heaven, that's like, if we're going to talk about just the heaven and earth,

I mean in the Taoist sense, or the idea of light, or the Buddhist sense, heaven and earth, Kesser is heaven, Malkuth is earth, and this is the way heaven and earth talk to each other. And then there's the connection between Tfer, Splendor and Mahut, or Yasod and Mahut, which is the foundation, and you'll see the different body parts are so in line with them,

and we're actually coming, I was just thinking, I mean, we connected, our relationship started in that cover band, in the Fergus Blanders cover band. Fergus Blanders, yeah, I remember that. The Red Hot Chili Blanders, the Red Hot Chili Blanders. Yeah, right. You know what, it was so thrilling to find out you were also a fan of Fergus Blanders,

because you never run, a lot of people have never heard of him, so it's really cool. You never even heard of him, and now the mad rush right now to be googling this, and if you guys find out the Red Hot Chili Blanders band. Yeah, it's out there. It's out there too, it's all out there, and it's part of the multiverse.

I like to think Fergus Blanders is out there somewhere, that he did, he will say, he's probably dead, but I don't like to imagine. If Elvis could still make it through that, then for sure Fergus Blanders is. Right. You really believe he might still be alive, because I just feel like, you know,

sometimes I like to pretend Elvis is alive. Why not? Yeah, I know he's. But there's still, you know, maybe not, maybe not, but it would be nice. You could still talk to him sometime, no? No one even knows how old he is, so I mean, it's theoretical that he could,

he seemed timeless in the sense that every picture that you can find out there, he seems old. He's the same, he's just, he doesn't age, he's the secret of Elvis. That's what it seems like. But I'm going to tell you how our relationship, you know, because the band didn't work out, and then you sort of drifted,

and how we really rekindled it is that. I didn't drift. He keeps saying I drifted, I didn't drift. Why do you always say I drifted? You're always right there. I'm okay, okay, I got busy, okay, I got busy. It was, I couldn't keep, I'll be honest with you. I couldn't bear the heartbreak of having his words

come out of my mouth and knowing that probably he's gone. So that's why it was hurting too much. And the thing you're calling a drift was my own grief. It was me just trying to get to a place where I could accept the fact that I probably will never see him live. Right? And what we need to appreciate is that he did exist. You know, that it did happen.

It's similar to the way you want to approach the gospel. It's just like, we just have to appreciate the fact that we were in the presence of something. Right. Just, just some, just any exposure to it's like, and we want more, we're so, we're so clingy. It's just like, just appreciate the fact that you got to hear Fergus, you know?

Some people can't hear Fergus. Now, this is, you know, to connect to what we were talking to you before, the Tree of Life and Fergus Blanders. I, you, you just gave me some new information about that. Somehow I assumed that the, that system, the Tree of Life, had existed for thousands of years. I didn't know that it was created in the 1500s, so that there was a time, just like there was a time

before the existence of Fergus Blanders, where no one had heard it, where he wasn't born yet, where maybe his grandfathers were great, great, great grandfathers were around, but similarly, the Tree of Life, the components that would eventually become the Tree of Life were floating out there, but the connection, the thing that connected all of them hadn't happened yet. That's fascinating to me.

I thought we were talking about something that goes all the way back. Well, it depends on which, in which camp you want to be a part of. You want to be in part of the camp that's, you know, more academic and says, okay, this is, this is nice, but, you know, we could probably trace this too, or you're in the, the, the side, the right side of history, where it's just like, this started from the beginning.

This is all from the beginning, and you could take the text of the Bible, which is, you know, if you, you know, see it as coming from, from the hand of the divine, the mouth of the divine, and saying this was part of the esoteric wisdom that came down from Moses and Sinai, and it was passed from, you know, the oral tradition until it was finally put together during that medieval period.

But, you know, the people who, the people who are making the pilgrimages to the, to the, to the, to the graves and, and studying it and believing in the, the holiness of the words, don't see it as being this sort of, you know, academic type of thing where there's, but the, I mean, the, the, the, the language of the Zohar, the language for Mim Shem Bar Chai is, it's, it's not coming from a, a, a typical state of consciousness.

It's, it's, you know, as we, as we would say, it's like, it's, it's beyond. It's, it's, it's really not, you know, there, it's, it's, it's not coming from, from, you know, just having a cup of coffee here. Okay. Let's talk about that. I'm really interested in what you just said. I'm not the right guy for this. I told you, I'm the hack. I'm a hack for you. I, we need to find you a cabalist who will come on the show.

No, you are, what are you talking about? You have been in the course. I'm your rabbi. I'm your rabbi. That's right. I'm your rabbi. By the way, I'm my, I'm my, on my, on my, on my, on my website, on my website, which I have because of you. Cause you're like, how can people reach you? And I said they can't. And somebody's like, that's, that's messed up. So he made me, he made me a website. My buddy Zev made me a website. Part of my bio, if you don't

mind is in addition to my private practice, I lead mindfulness and psychedelic integration, excuse me, seminars and sessions for trippy.vc, reppering here. He received my, I received my, the certificate in Academy of Psychotherapy from Reconcious Medical with my buddy and partner, Dr. Mark Bronstein. And I also, he also has the distinct privilege of being Duncan Trussell's rabbi. Yeah, that's true. That's my website bio. That's literally like come work with

me because it's true. I'm all in. I'm all in. A tremendous thank you to zip recruiter for supporting this episode of the DTFH. If you're running a business, you know, it is terrifying to try to hire people as they say, the vampire only goes where they're invited. And if you're not careful, you can end up with a vampire of pulsating Nosferatu taking up space in your dream. You don't want that to happen. Also, it's hard to find qualified candidates. It

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within the first day. This is why zip recruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2 satisfaction ratings. It's January 1st, 2022 right now to try zip recruiter for free. My dear listeners can go to ziprecruiter.com slash Duncan that ziprecruiter.com d-u-n-c-a-n ziprecruiter.com slash Duncan zip recruiter the smartest way to hire. Thanks zip recruiter. So this, the thing you're talking about, I'm curious from

the Kabbalistic perspective or the Jewish perspective. If there's one of the cool things about Judaism is there's so many names for things that if you you've probably experienced but you don't you never thought, oh, that could go into a word. So when I'm reading, sometimes when I'm reading like some Tibetan Buddhist scripture or even like a good translation of the Gospels, regardless of my belief in the reality of what they're saying, the way that they're saying it, the way the

words have been assembled points to this elevated consciousness that you definitely don't get from drinking coffee. Like it doesn't matter if you or maybe you do really good coffee. But the when you're when you're reading it, like for me, this has always been like a good sign that I've kind of pushed through to a deeper part of the scripture is when I start recognizing the consciousness behind what behind the words. And I'm wondering, is there a word for that? Or is

there an idea about how consciousness itself can get wrapped up in the writing that somehow the writing acts as a medium or a vessel for the consciousness that wrote it, even if that even if it's being translated. What is that? I think so. Isn't there some sort of unconscious way of just doing that when you're when you're when you're just writing and I don't remember the exact word for it, but there is that there's definitely a phenomena where a person can be

get into that state through the writing. But I don't know if that was the meaning these were recorded conversations. These were they were they were taking they were taking mystical journeys through the fields and just seeing whatever came up because ultimately what comes up in all of these things. And I think this what were the intentionality comes from is there's different levels of understanding the scriptures. There's the basic verses, the homiletic version and there's

the you know, the hints, there are illusions to it and then there's this idea of so which is the secret there's there's a secret code to everything and you're reading the Bible and it's like that's great and then you read some commentary says everything that you're reading right now is the name of God. That's why the way that you the way that you read this the book the way that you write the book there there are rules for all of these things because this is something that we believe

is an ability to tap into an altered state of consciousness of really accessing divinity. I mean, I could get up and get it for you but like literally every single word in the Bible is code. It's a code for and and and the people who lived in the Bible they existed and there's also a different level what we're talking about you know what what Jacob represents what Rachel represents what Leah his wife represents and all these different stories that happen in the Bible. Yes they

happened. What happened in the garden? You know we're talking about a cataclysmic event of of which shattered everyone's consciousness and we're all suffering because of that. That's the trauma that we're all trying to heal from and so yes was there some sort of something happened there but it also happened on on on so many different levels and it's still impacting us today and so what we try to do is really live with the here and now of whatever the Torah whatever the Bible is

saying and it can't be a story that happened thousands of years ago. Meaning it's even in last week last week's you know weekly portion that the you know you know if you're going to temple you're going to synagogue you're reading the the that week's Torah portion it says you know and now what does God ask from you and what does God ask him and it goes continues says but you know and then my friend my teacher of Judah Michelle the chief rabbi of the world teaches you know you know what God's

asking from you is right now the atah is the Hebrew word for right now so God is asking for you what's God asking for you he's just asking for you to be mindful to be present and this is where which is part of where I see my very small part in the mission is you know you think of mindfulness and who are your teachers you know they're beautiful people they're amazing and it's Sylvia and and and and Sharon and and Ram Dass and and Tara Brock and they're you know and it's just like Nick

turn Dave I forgot you know I'm a little bit actually I didn't forget I probably consciously forgot him because I'm like he has his meditation field well again you know Joe's got you know Mark Zuckerberg and Aaron Rodgers and you get cornfield and Benji Epstein so like take that for your experience you know I will take a Mark Zuckerberg too please well we can meditate actually I actually just finished Jack cornfield's course with Tara Brock and I got my teacher certificate yeah except

for the fact that now I can't do my hundred hours with David I'm like I can't keep buying I can't keep spending money on degrees I just need to meditate we got to talk about our meditation practice I've I've got a teaching for you but in terms of of these code words you know it's all coming back the present moment what does God want from you what does God want and also and but these teachers I'm sorry to interrupt these teachers are are you know they're so focused on the

Buddha studies like let's find it in in in Judaism and and I'm and I'm really starting to have people are just so open to to you know seeing it in their own tradition it's like whatever you're doing right now with the right intention with with faith with what we talked about last time with the vacuit with that connectivity knowing precisely and fully that at this very moment God's infinite light is contracting itself to where we are right now it's happening right now in this moment and

what we're now experiencing and allowing ourselves to feel is God's presence in us right now and we become the temple we become the temple and we brought God into this moment and and if you're rushing through whatever you're doing if you're trying to get through it it means you're denying God's presence right there in the moment and it's just a wow it's like let's be here now and let's make space for for the divinity that's residing it or creating or or and and innovating that moment

the the okay the the a lot there the one thing that you're bringing up I think is really important and and I'm just realizing it is how you can accidentally become less of a spiritualist and more of an archaeologist so that because you are looking at whatever the scripture is you may be reading regardless of the tradition it comes from and thinking this is old I'm reading something really old accidentally under the surface you're also thinking therefore

not alive therefore not happening now these events that are being talked about or this being who is writing them down or the being they're referring to is dead and that if you're doing that that's another way of cutting crimping up the hose so to speak because where the magic really happens is when somehow you break through and you get those glimpses of like wait how is this not wait this is happening now like nothing has changed no we're we are there experiencing it in a

first person way so that the moment I'm able to do that I go from being a bystander to a participant you know and and that's that you know what I mean and that's no it's like you're either watching the game you're what and this is the LeBava Terebi made this oh you know what I had a dream I had a dream where I sent you a biography of his remind me to send you a copy of that it's gonna blow your mind talk about like you know again I think I saw that that name Crowley

Bob but they just came out with a book of his stories of the people and I'm gonna send you one about the LeBava Terebi ah this is why I'm put on the planet this is why I'm here but you know if you're if you're a spectator it's just like that's not gonna do it that's not and there are people who don't even think about it they're not thinking about it and they go through their days I don't know how I don't know how and God bless them but like that's not the way I'm gonna go

through life that's not the consciousness that I want to that's not the relationship that God wants from me God wanted to be animated and if you think about it in the garden did not get it in the garden there were two trees and there's there's a there's a discussion about what it might be the same tree but if you read the scripture carefully there's one tree that was called the tree of knowledge good and evil and then there was the tree of life and you know what else is

called the tree of life in the verse it says is a tree of life to those who hold on to it that's also referred to the Torah the Torah is is analogized analogize excuse me English you know as as the tree of life because that's the and the Torah is what how God chose to include himself he that's that's the story that he's telling and he's always telling and he's constantly telling that story there's a story and there's a there's a book and there's a

writer and they're all you know there and then you have Thoreau who's telling you that you know everything that's happened past present future it's sublime it's true he says but all of these times and places I don't have the exact quote are here and now now and here and he says God is culminating in the can I look it up can I look up that quote yeah yeah please because this is what we're talking about and and hold on yeah okay in eternity there's indeed

something true and sublime but all these times and places and occasions are now in here God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages wow right we have to we have to be living with God right now if that's how we because if it was something that happened if it was a story that happened a long time ago and and we talk about and we're going to talk about the Baal Shem Tov who is the person who really took these

Kabbalistic ideas and he really brought them to the masses can I tell you a story yes this is this is the Baal Shem Tov story and we're all living in a Baal Shem Tov story we're all living in some mystical story whether or not we're aware of it we just want to know are we if we're awake to it then we realize we're all part of some what are the chances of this I'm not I'm sorry the ADHD is strong right now what are the chances of this happening I just want to again take that moment

to breathe and just just you know today I dropped my kid off to first grade how your kids doing great thank you for asking yeah they're they're both in school now both in school both in school now what a what a what a blessing preschool preschool so saying so so when's the when's your oldest going to be going to first grade or kindergarten we do kindergarten so kindergarten and then you don't you don't have first grade after first I mean it's like meaning I think we're going to

that's going to be through I think we're talking two years two years right so you got two years to just prepare yourself mentally for this because I was hit with a ton of bricks that I'm sending my kid to a school where he will probably because this is what schools do remove all of his love of learning and curiosity and just you know fill his head with you know wrote facts and things like that but I'm hoping that won't happen but there was this feeling and I was walking and

somebody stopped by he's like you ever hear this expression called the Ichijo Ichi or something Ichigo Ichi and he and I was like no he's like it's it's this Japanese concept that is translated as you know for this time only and it's it's you're supposed to just treasure the unrepeatable nature of a moment right this this and they do it during the tea service and it's just like wait one second I saw the translation was one lifetime one meeting and it's just like

every single moment and this this is a one lifetime one meeting type of thing so I just want to again all glory wait there's it I'm going to look at all glory say all glory what all glory to the midnight gospel gods the gospel the the gospels is that God's when they're referring to the gospels no there's just one God that's the thing but again when you say there's one God here's here's our prayer for the day Shema Israel Adonai Elohim Adonai Echad right

that doesn't mean that there's one God as opposed to your many God's it's all one it's really connecting to the one and that's where we're all trying to get to and the name that reflects the one is is this this Yudhei bovenhei which if you take it has the Hebrew words for it past future and present the Yudhei bovenhei can be combined into Hovey Haya which is past and yeah which again is the same letters which is will be and then the Hovey is so all of it and we

are our dualistic minds can't comprehend that but no right but but but we I choose and I and I affirm and I believe and this is what I'm consciously working on through through through doing psychedelic assisted therapy through doing meditation through through through prayer to really access that and and and you know otherwise what else are we doing what else because we're coming back about well I want to tell my story I might I might throw you

out wait I wait no you're not but I need to clarify it ball shim how do you say it again ball shim tov ball shim tov ball shim tov ball shim tov ball shim tov who is founder of Hasidu Hasidu you see you see Jews who are dressed a certain way so they're they're the progenitor they're their followers of that certain movement but I mean we're all we're all students of the ball shim tov he's he's he's okay so he's he's he's

he's in the God I'm so so terrible with the history but you know late 1700s early you know mid 1700s early 1800s okay and and the state of Judaism is completely dire and despair there's been a there's been false messiahs there's been the the the just pogroms pogroms for many many thousands of years you know since the exile of the temple and we were you know we're we're we're we've got a lot of of collective trauma we've

got a lot of that epigenetic trauma it's it's it's yeah you I can't even it's the story is it's so bloody it's so bloody it's so bloody incomparably brutal so ball shim tov and he ball shim tov just came and he and he was a one of these there are many ball shim tov I mean literally means master of the good name and he yeah right and he came to just literally teach people that they can meet God where they are and it doesn't it doesn't

belong to the oligarchy who can read and write and who can actually study the dialectics of Talmud it's like you could be the simple tailor and the stories and I'm going to send you another amazing book called I can't remember the name by Elie Wiesel it's called wow I'm going to it doesn't matter who just tells these beautiful stories where he brings these Hasidic personalities alive and you're watching miracle workers but they're not

interested in doing miracles they're interested in showing the common folk how beloved they are and how and how dear they are to God and how and how beloved their services yeah because but now what you're saying may not seem that spectacular and the in the sense that this the the the hierarchized priest class right idea that used to be like legislated because of people like ball shim tov it has been it was like it was revolutionary it was

revolutionary at them and he was put and they were put into excommunication there was there was again not a civil war in terms of violence there was a here here and there but like they were communities like they would not marry into each other and then they were saying that they were heretics and they were saying but the test of time has shown that this is what's kept you know a lot of people in the faith and there are people who don't connect to it and

that's fine but if you don't know a certain it's a wordless song which is called the nighun n i g g u n a nighun which is just something soulful and haunting and there's some beautiful music I've buddies named Zusha anyone listening to just just have their minds completely blown about how you can connect to God through wordless song and just how the simple person isn't so simple and to just be simple you know who's the most simple God he's the most

simple he's not he's not complicated he's because again when you're complicated then you've got layers and you've got pieces and you've got a sort of meld things together it's just like God is just unity and when you're complicated the the the the more complicated a system is the more likely it is to break so you know you get it you get a thing with lots of parts it's probably going to something will malfunction so if you're going to you could

if you want to associate breakability with complexity and if we're talking about an unbreakable thing then it would be the most simple thing that's a beautiful elemental explanation I'm take that's such a beautiful way to explain you know the ultimate simplicity which is something we strive for because again in this day and age we're we're we're cultivating personas in online and how we are with certain people and it's just like you want to

get back that beginner's mind that innocence of the child where he's just like yeah he's going to speak his mind you're like oh right how do you like it he's like it tastes terrible it's like thank you thank you it's like it's really good like no this is gross give me something else like thank you for that so refreshing and so honest and so and again you can't hurt people's feelings but if you're saying it from a beautiful place and that's coming

because they love themselves this is what I'm working on therapy you know what the oldest said to me once daddy your lip your lip stinks when I had breath I didn't know yeah if your wife had said that to you how personally would it would be World War three she has said it to me and she's like I'm getting you her yeah I've got these halitosis things that don't work but I'm just like hey you know what your breath stinks but your kid says and you're

just like and like saying I love you so much these like daddy I just want to go to sleep right now Abba can you stop talking and I'm like yes of course yes of course no but all we want for our kids and this is one that's amazing all we want for our kids for them to unconditionally radically love themselves I'm thinking about this as it goes to first grade I'm like please just don't lose that because everyone who I'm seeing in therapy and this is where you know this is

where we're speaking the language of just love yourself you know and it's like it's getting either harder or or people are just struggling with it and my wife got blessed her is one of the one percenters and meaning she's one of the people who just like yeah I love myself like why don't get it what are people coming to therapy for you know of course you love yourself and I'm like yeah and she's it's not narcissism it's not she's just you make you

mess up like oops I made a mistake I'm really sorry move on like well you know I think an important distinction between narcissistic traits and actual loving of oneself is that the narcissist clings to one to itself the narcissist is trying to cling to some identity and amplify that identity to the world because they think they are that and and to deconstruct that or for that to not be anymore I think for a narcissist is death whereas there isn't a

loving oneself is it's not clingy you're not it doesn't mean pushing yourself out into the world as much as surrender I think it's more of a surrender quality than a clinging quality you're you're not attached to it but but I'm saying name Karol Ibala if you said did he love himself did he love himself he loved himself like there was unconditional radical and when you mess up when the Dalai Lama messes up when my when my when my one of my

rabbis messes up the laughter that comes from it the just the absolute joy of when they when they sort of do a faux paw of just like this laugh and they laugh it off because hey what are we taking so seriously here and and just to have that it's like well you messed up and like your whole self worth is tied up into whether or not you get this deal or whether or not this person and this is like it's it's not not a big deal it's not a big deal yeah where you you

just do that's part of the thing is that is the failure and the failure is you know again to go back and I think having kids is a great way to connect to this is when you when they when when your child you make some mistake or something you know it's like hopefully you're not holding whatever that thing is against the child at all you're just like you're new this is your brand new you don't know you're learning what's the big you're going to learn you're

going to keep trying but like and and I think the other thing you said earlier is important I want to put it in italics the connection between simplicity and God or simplicity and and awakening or however you want to put it awakening is that when some when something that's simple tells you something when it when something that's that that that loves itself or is so in in the universe and so in the moment that the concept of not loving themselves hasn't

even appeared yet they can say anything and it doesn't have that jagged edge that people who have disconnected and are like really condensed in an identity has as someone who was good at like pulling the shank out and stabbing someone you know what I mean that is not coming from a simple place it's coming from complexity and all the insecurity the other thing that it must go along with complexity is insecurity insecurity if you have if you're in a complex if your

defense mechanisms are complex you're going to be naturally nervous because there's so many areas that could collapse or be invaded there's too many systems in place you're going to feel insecure and insecure people tend to be mean and defensive defensive and triggered and and and they get off on it they're getting off on this I've seen people who just like need to be righteous and indignation the righteous indignation morally and it's like you don't want to look at

yourself you'd rather just rage you'd rather just you know brew haha or something it's just like take a deep breath and say what's really upsetting you right now and there are people who get upset there's a way you're not you're not going to be passive and you get let people roll over you and but you're also not getting caught up in things that don't really matter like how are you getting involved in this and it's just like or your insecurities such that you want to just focus on

anywhere external rather than actually look at your inner life and look at what's going on and what's really true right now. Thank you Herb Stomp for supporting the DTFH Herb Stomp it's the only place to grab top quality Kratom Kava blue lotus along with hundreds of ethnobotanicals and herbal remedies Herb Stomp has been sourcing only the purest ethnobotanicals for over 10 years Herb Stomp remains a top choice for

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What's bothering? You know the ultimate example of this is the hoarder like a hoarder. Guilty, guilty. That you're not, you're, no, we're talking like the show. Oh yeah, yeah. You know what I'm, you show that, but they don't want, they don't want to look, they don't want to admit

when you're trying to point out to them, hey, you know what? You don't need a room full of cat litter boxes. You don't need this much cat litter. You don't need, you got no one needs this. This is enough cat litter for a hundred years, for a hundred cats. You can get rid of like half the cat litter.

They will be like, no, you don't get it. I got this cat litter at a discount. I'm not getting rid of this cat litter. It's a great deal. You don't get it. You're gonna lose it. I could resell it. You don't understand what that banana,

that rotting banana peel in the box of old fruit means to me that I had that banana peel on my birthday a few years ago. It's a complex, hoarding is not simple. Not at all. It's complex and the, many of us are inner hoarders. At least the hoarder, you can't say, no, that's not there.

The hoarder has to admit there is a room full of newspapers mixed in with cars, mixed in with toy train tracks and a few piles of white peas. They have to admit it's there. A person can pretend it's not there. You can lie and you can lie to yourself. There's no room like that inside of me, but my point is this,

if you are in a hoarder's house, if you're a hoarder, their house is fucking, they catch on fire all the time. You know what I mean? It's bad news. That's the problem. There's no space. The kindling is, you know,

you don't want to live near a hoarder because you're likely out of getting your house on fire. Similarly, an inner hoarder, they catch on fire all the time. They have these blazes that they are always constantly trying to put out. You know what I mean? So simplicity is you doing the thing to yourself

that they do on that show, hoarders, which is unloading all the shit if you can. It's harder, though, inside than a house. The hard part about it is you're going to really have to confront all that kitty litter. And you're going to have to confront the fact that you behaved in ways, or you did things that were completely antithetical

to what you valued, to what you really wanted. And it's a scary thing. I was talking to a client recently and just saying that, like, you know, he couldn't understand why a person behaved this way. And this person sounded like they had a personality disorder. Like, they were really struggling. They were suffering.

And he couldn't even be comprehend. You know, how could she have turned that on me? How could she have turned that back on me after she did something wrong? Because I said that person, if they ever feel the slightest tinge of uncomfortability or judgment or blame, they'll believe that they will implode.

They will literally, and they were going to set up this boundary for if you go anywhere near there, and they know they're doing it also. They know that they're doing something to push people away when all they want is to just connect and really have a deep, meaningful, emotional connection. And it's fascinating and it's tragic.

But the alternative is, and this is the time of the year, you know, as we go on to Rosh Hashanah, which again, I was thinking about how we connected. And after the band, and we sort of didn't drift, but we didn't really maintain the connection, is I saw this unbelievable quote that said,

maybe you're not healing because you're trying to be who you were before the trauma. That person doesn't exist anymore because there's a new you trying to be born. Breathe life into that. And I enclosed a gif of Clancy, and I don't know if you remember, you better remember, Clancy to get out of whatever universe he was in.

You know what he was blowing? I do. What was he blowing? He was blowing the hunting horn that was hanging over my father's bed when he died. You just destroyed the myth for every single Jewish person in the world because you know what we thought that he was blowing?

Hold on. I know exactly what you're bringing out. You know what I'm bringing out? A kazoo. I'm just kidding. Yeah, well, it's just a horn from a different animal. It's just a horn from a different animal. But this is blown on Rosh Hashanah.

This is the horn that's blown on the Jewish New Year, and we talked about this offline, where we talked about how it's this belief of the New Year, is that this isn't a continuation. This is a brand new, and the services that we do on the High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah, which means New Year, Rosh is the head, means where the kessar is,

and again, what we're doing on Rosh Hashanah, according to the Kabbalahs, which is synonymous with the word kessar, for God to once again reincarnate the world in this form. We are, again, believing that we're instilling that desire, and we do that through blowing this ram's horn, and the ram's horn is, again, this worldless prayer, and it's the manifestation of what?

Of breath, of breath, through our breath. Listen, don't, just so everyone knows, I was aware of that as well. I just didn't have one of those, but I did have a hunting horn, and I understood the mystical symbolism, not just of what that horn meant to me, but also, and to my dad,

and also what it meant to all the traditions that have an aspect of that, like the Hare Krishna's blow a conch shell, and that's the most intense thing when they're blowing it during a puja ceremony, and also that you are combining life with death. Blowing into a bone is blowing life into a dead thing, which represents, I think, what you're talking about with Rosh.

How do you say it? Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah. Yeah, you're describing, even the word itself, Rosh Hashanah, it's like an outflow. It sounds like you are blowing it out, like making it, blowing up the balloon again, putting air back in, restarting, and that we get to do that because we have,

that's the other thing I love about the Book of Genesis story is the breath is, you know, the divine breath is placed into Adam, right? Yeah, that's it, that's what we're doing, because Rosh Hashanah is actually not the day that God created the world according to tradition, it's the day that He created man. Man was created on the sixth day,

and you see these rabbis in the Talmud arguing about when God created the world, and they have disagreements, and there's so many metaphysical layers about this, and they end up saying that they're both right. One was in divine wisdom, one was in divine actualization, but the Rosh Hashanah is not commemorating

the day that God created the world. We say He created the world, but what it actually means is He created man on that day. So let's talk about that. Sorry, go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, knock on the myth, I said we have a lot to talk about, we've got to tell a Baal Shem To story.

I want to get to that Baal Shem To story, but I want to talk about this. With the Shofar, when Clancy blows it, it's like again, we become that new person, and the way that, we talked about that brokenness, how a person needs to confront that brokenness in order to get whole, and it's not to ignore that brokenness,

and that's sort of like, you know, a lot of what I'm thinking about right now is Rabbi Nachman and the Arizal who we talked about, they talk about the intention for this month as we build up that liminal space of the end of the year going to the beginning of the year, and Rabbi Nachman says that a person has to be an expert in running and returning,

or the Zohar would say going up and going down, and I'm thinking to myself, that's the practice of toggling, right? Yes. And it's just like, again, not meaning I'm taking it in and I'm doing it out and saying a person has to, Rabbi Nachman says a person has to be an expert when he's doing that,

because that is how a person comes back to who they really are. That's how a person does tshuvah, which again, tshuvah means return, which again, is classically translated as repentance, but it's again, it's the mindfulness myth of just returning to what? Returning to essence.

But no, this is for you, Rabbi Duncan. This is for you. The word tshuvah is made up of the letters taf, shin, vav, vet, hey, which is again, at the end, if you remember the word hey, the letter hey, yud, hey, vav, and hey. Tashuv means to return.

What are you returning? You're tashuving, you're returning the hey. You're putting that hey back into the name of God. You are unifying God's name by you returning to yourself. If you want to connect to God, you got to connect to your soul. I have to blow your mind once it, once it, once a cast.

Wow! My mind is the dead horn. And you just blew it. The... Hey. Wow. Should we prepare for that? That is so cool.

I felt, I felt, I felt inspired. But if you listen to those samas here, just a little bit more, this is called the tekiah. Tekiah. It's one simple blast. Straight, simple, no movement, oscillation. The next sounds are either...

There's again an argument about how it's supposed to sound. We sort of, but it's supposed to be some sort of either a three short notes, the sort of blasts called a shvarim, which means brokenness. And then there's the just outright balling, just the brokenness of the trua, which is also means connectivity and friendship,

but it's... And then it ends once again with the tekiah, the simple, uncomplicated sound. And that's what Killance is doing, and that's what we're all doing. You start off life with that simple, straight sound. You're good. Your essence is good.

And then, guess what? You break up. You break down. You break apart. You're out of the garden. Things go to, you're out of the garden. Things go to pieces. You know, stuff happens.

And, you know, sometimes it's just like a little bit of a sob, a whale, like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And then there's just this unfettered, uncontrolled, just you just broke down. And you say, I can't get back, right? But you don't have to get back to that old person. You don't have to hoard that person. You get back to that simple sound.

You get back to that tekiah and your essence, and that's what we're trying to return to. And that's why you can hear the sound of a dead animal, and you could be balling. Imagine a Martian coming down and saying, like, okay, what's going on here? I don't know. You're blowing a ram's horn.

That's how you're coordinating the king. He said, there's no greater coordination of the king. There's no greater way that we can be, and that's all we're doing on Rosh Hashanah. We're just crowning you king. We want you to be king. We want to be servants. And you can't do it without us.

That's the crazy piece that we, you talk about being empowered. Even in the Hebrew language, there's dictatorship with there's mem shala. And then there's melucha, which is, again, you hear the word malchut. We're building up the kingship. We're building it up.

And the cabalists are doing it through the names, and they're into, and it's happening anyway. It's just whether or not you're aware of it. Meaning, what am I doing by it? It's like, well, I'm tapping into it, and I'm accessing more of this awareness and knowledge. But again, it's just that inculcation, inculcating that brokenness and not divorcing it

and bringing it in. Oh, it's so deep. It's so deep. And I love how everything is a map in Judaism. Everything is like a hole on it and is representing the cycle. We're going through the holographic principle. The part contains the hole.

You cannot look at that piece and not see the all in it. If you're missing the all in it, then you've, like you said, you've cut it off. Okay. So if the breath that is resonating the horn represents the divine, then you separate those two things and you just have the horn.

It's dead, lifeless, and you have some breath that has no mode of expression. Right? It's just, it's not, it's not forming into time space. So the two things when they combine, regardless of the horn itself, the lifelessness. This is, I think, when they talk about karma, maybe. You can say, that's the material,

that's just the stuff, the stuff. But the breath of God part, you hear in Buddhism fundamental goodness. Fundamental goodness. This is always, it's always there. If you're hearing anything, in other words, if you're experiencing humanity, if you're around,

the thing that's resonating you, whether you can understand it or not, is perfect, simple, no matter what. And the way that it's being expressed through you can seem like chaotic and like, all kinds of weird ways of expressing that thing, but it's still, what's making it come into life

is this eternal simplicity, right? That's the idea. And then you have equanimity. And this is the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov of Shiviti, Adonai, Yudhe Vavinhe, again, Linnegdi Tamid. And Shiviti means I place God in front of me. So you'll see that people have mandalas. People have the, hold on one second.

Can you see this? You see that there? Yeah. I mean, that's something you'll see in synagogues. You'll see this is the letter- What is it? What is that? This is the letter Yudhe.

Oh, this is the letter Hey. This is the letter Vavinhe. This is the letter Hey. This is exactly- Wait, let me describe what I'm looking at. Everyone I'm seeing is- Hold on a second. I want to, good luck with this one.

Here we go. It's definitely a mandala. It's rectangular. It's one, you have circular ones too? Yeah. One, two, three. I can't see the entire- The shape doesn't matter as much.

I'll send you a picture. Each side is three. It looks like, what is that? One, two, three. I can't tell if it, okay. It's two, one, two. You could spend hours. You could spend hours.

There's a menorah. There's a menorah that has a chapter of zoms on it. And so again, that's what you're supposed to be visualizing as you say it. You can see different permutations of the Yudhe, Vavinhe. But anyway, I'll give you a more simple one again. Why this is on my desk, you know? Because we like to have fun here. Here's another one for you.

This will be a little bit more simple. It says the word Shibiti means a place. And then it's the Yudhe, Vavinhe. And then it says it has the Yud and then the Aleph. And Aleph is the name of Mahut. So this is the Chetrogrammatan. It's the Yudhe, Vavinhe. But the name of Mahut is mixed in it.

And so you're trying to see is how God is enlivening, is breathing life into the Mahut. So you combine them together. So usually I place God in front of me and just see it as like a visualization, a meditation. What he says is Shiviti also means it's equal. Praise, blame, it's all equal to me. Why is it equal to me? Because Yudhe, Vavinhe is in front of me always. If I see whatever I'm seeing right now is Yudhe, Vavinhe, the traffic, the traffic jam,

the most mystical experience of the world, you know, after the ecstasy, the laundry. Meaning there's no difference. There's no difference. And we struggle with that. I struggle with that because I like Ramdas, you know, it's like it's just a drug experience. I'm like, yeah, but it was, I felt like I was clicking at a higher level there. That during that meditation I was clicking. When I'm driving the car, when I'm tying my shoes and Judaism really tries to,

because people feel it's very regimented. There's so many laws, so many rules. It's like it's just to create awareness. We've sort of lost the forest and the trees. But if you take a step back and realize that everything is supposed to connect us. And what can you give God? God's got a lot of palaces and spheres and angels and doorways and castles. You know what he doesn't have?

This. What? He doesn't have, he doesn't have this planet. He's, he's, he's, you know, what if God was one of us, you know, wandering around. And you're seeing, you know, maybe it's everyone you look at is God in drag. But we just, we, we, we don't want to believe that. But the, the, the, what the, what the, what the Baal Shem Tov was teaching, what the Baal Shem Tov really, you know, review is just like,

if you're not seeing God and everything you're doing, you know, and all God wants is to, it's his Nistava, you know, to have a Dira betachton him. We think he wants to be up there. He's, he's fine up there. Imagine taking that dead, you know, that ram's horn. Imagine taking that, that person on the street. Imagine taking that food that you put in your mouth and, and, and, and raising it up and, and elevating it to something that is divine service.

Only do that. It's incredible. But, but it's, you don't, you don't really need to raise it up, right? It's already raised up in the sense that, in our consciousness, in our consciousness, for ourselves to begin, but that's what we can give him. That's, that's, that's the pleasure that you can give to God. Ah, that's okay. Right.

You need something to do. Here's the thing to do. And, and this, and this going away and coming back that you're talking about that, that cycle is like long form of that, right? You're talking about each year, we're going to go away and come back. But in every single moment, in even to get back to the breath, you're, you're looking at a going away, the exhalation and a coming back and inhalation as though the message was like, you know, that movie Memento where he's got shit painted all over the wall.

It's painted in your, the main thing keeping you alive is this very cycle, which goes back to the possibility that that name is the sound of your breath. The sound of your breath. That's what's giving it to you. That's, and that's, and that's. Your breath is the scripture. It's the map. And this is, you know, the word for soul and Judaism.

Nishama also means breath. Nishima. Wow. Nishima, Nishama. Yeah. I was saying that I think that that's, that's the breath connection. And again, we're doing it and we're seeing it. And it's running and returning, you know, running, you know, sometimes you feel so close to

the divine and sometimes you're returning. Sometimes you feel so far removed and you feel so bereft of God's. And it's like, you're in, right there in that moment, if you're tapping in your, your, you can never leave God's presence. And so we, we make this arbitrary, well, does it matter what I do? Of course it matters what you do because you don't want to create that, you know, quote, unquote, demon, or you want to build that, that angel. They talk about that karma we're talking about.

Just, you know, that, that Hashqacha Pratid of just like our actions that have reverberations. They, it matters. What you say matters, you know? Because if you know that your words actually matter, you would never speak poorly about somebody. Of course we wouldn't kill somebody, but we're not killing people because it's illegal. We're not killing people because we believe in, like you said, that fundamental goodness. And so we have to work in, especially during this time of year when we're going to be crowning God as king, is this is the time of chuva.

This is the season of, of returning, of returning that hay and, and returning that hay to God's name, which we can only do through empathy and compassion and love of ourselves and others. You know, the, the, the month that we're in right now is called elul. And the Ari teaches us is a, an acronym. Is alif elul is ani, ay, lamid is lido di. I'm not doing a great job explaining this because it's Hebrew and I apologize to those who I'm not doing this well. I love it. Vido di li.

I'm to my beloved and my beloved is to me. It's like, I would never left. I never left and you never left. And this is like, we've been here all along and we've been sort of playing this hide and seek game. It's just like, we don't have to play this game, but we have to stop. Like you said, we have to stop already. I didn't drift. We didn't drift.

We never, I never went anywhere. You could, there's nowhere you could possibly go. It's like, it's like, you don't love me, mom. And it's just like, there's no way I could stop loving you. Right? There's no way I could stop loving you. And, and we're just, we're in this dance. Yeah.

This shivisi-al-don island that you saw me, this, this place in God for me and this equanimity and this going and giving in this, and this receiving and, and returning and, and going up and going down. And it's just like, it's just this dance where if we recognize that it's all part of one united whole, you know, again, if, if you only heard that, then you would, you know, then you're, you're, you're a righteous individual, but you're not somebody who's, who's, you know, who's gone through the process. And, and again, I think there are Bodhisattvas and there's Tzadikim who come in and they're here to just, just get us right on the path. But we don't have to look at them and be like, oh, well, I should be like that or I need to be.

That's like, no, no, no. The Talmud says in the place where those who are Baalei Chuvah, masters of this returning, masters of returning the hey, where they stand, the righteous, the gurus, the, the, the Tzadikim, they, they have no place there. They can't be there because they just, they can't. They're just like, that's not their, that's not their job. And it's not your job to be the Bodhisattva. Now again, it could be to tap into that, but not, you know, in your own, in your own way to believe in your unique way and your unique greatness and your unique individuality and how God can't do it without you.

And we struggle with it because we don't feel special. We say that. Okay, let's decom, let's decom, I want to decom, I want to make, Decomplexify. By the way, this was supposed to happen for everybody. Everyone should know that this was supposed to happen in Burning Man, but I pulled out. So I apologize about that. But we're next year, next year.

And I pulled out. Well, I didn't pull out, which is why I couldn't burn. There you go. And I'll explain it to you. Well, the, the, the, the, the. Thank God you didn't. Yeah. More hashtag more Duncan.

Thank God. Thank you. I, but, but that's brings me to what I was in an attempt to, even though I don't think it needs to be Decomplexify. Cause you so beautifully described it. I'm just thinking in the beginning, you were talking about the experience of dropping your kid off at kindergarten. And you know, you're going to see, you're going to pick them pick them up after school. Oh, sure. But it's, but, but so that cycle is still going to happen in, in one of these books I was reading about raising kids.

It talks about how toddlers, what they, the cycle of a toddler is they'll hang out with the parent for a second. Then they'll go out to explore. And then they come back and they'll hug you for a second. And then they go out again. Attachment, attachment theory one on one. That's it. And that is the respiratory cycle of parenting that going out and coming back. Right.

It's the same thing. And, and, and it's in just because you made the kids doesn't mean like you don't need them. I mean, every time they come back and hug you and like, and when they get older and start like hugging you and then saying, I love you. Those are the greatest moments. Those are the moments of ecstasy. Those are the highest moments. So if, as above so below, then this returning the crown or the running back to God, this must be adding of the hay. Right.

It's like God, I don't know how, if God, how God feels or what that is. I know how I feel. Right. If, as above so below, it must be this. Okay. I didn't lose you. You're here. You came back.

Okay. Okay. And I love you. It's no big deal. And I was always here. And I was always in the room. I was in the room. You didn't lose me.

You didn't lose me. You didn't lose me. You know, just I lost. Again, you lose yourself for a minute and then you find yourself. It's like someone's like, oh, I lost myself. I think that's okay. You're here now. And that's okay.

That's it. You're here now. This is something that I know from listening to you and, and, and dovening and praying with you and, and just like we love our kids to death. And we also know that loving our kids to death means that's going to bring suffering. It's just, if you like, if you want to understand love, if you want to understand suffering, you know, they have to go together. This is the only one way because the ultimate suffering is to lose the thing that you love

most and everything else you could be fine with. I'm fine with everything, but like, you know, you were talking, I think with Jack about, about, you know, if God forbid somebody did something to your kid and we don't even want to, our brains, we're not even going to allow our brains to go there. You're like, I could talk about love and kindness, but like I will rip you limb to limb. And even, and it's just like we have this, it's, it's, it's more, it's, it's deeper than, than, than, than, than, than, than, you know, animalistic. It's, it's so much more primal.

And yet we also know intuitively as, as people on the path and people who are struggling on the path and losing the path, but never leaving the path and recognizing that, you know, it's straight, it's going to get straight at the end, you know, by some incarnation, it's going to be straight in the beginning and straight at the end, you know, it's going to hurt like hell. Yeah. It's, and, and you talked about it so poignantly. And I think for so many people, it opened up a real language, you know, when you talked

about your mom and you were talking about how, you know, even bringing it up in the book, it brought up something for you as you're writing the book and we're going to write a beautiful book on parenting. Just kidding. Is that the name of the book? No, the book is, the book is, the book is, don't pull out, don't pull out, just kidding. Just kidding. No, but it's, it's, it's this, the fact that you still felt it is, is because you'll never

stop feeling it and you never want to stop feeling it because it's, that's, that's how people, we're still, they're still here. We can, we connect, we believe that we can connect to people even more possibly when they're not in this physical plane and, and there's just this, this, this sadness, which is, you know, this, it's, it's, it, we don't allow our minds to go there, but when we do that, you know, and then we can really connect to the suffering of the world and that's the also part of this, of this ability to do that. Again, the only people who can teach, you know, are the ones who understand suffering

and, and you're somebody who is, is a real, you're, you're a person, you tell me if you can hear this. Do you feel this about yourself that people gravitate towards you as a person that they, that they love being in your presence? Uh, no, you know what, I'm not going to go there because to me, I try, like, I, I would love that. That sounds wonderful. My feeling with it is, uh, I, I don't want to, if that is happening, that's great.

And I'm hot. That makes me happy, but I don't want to think about it because I'm too not, I'm too my, the blowing of my horn. Yeah. I don't want, I don't want to do my own horn. I don't want to blow the thing. No, because we're, there's that, because we don't, we don't love ourselves enough. It's, we don't love ourselves enough because, I, I, right.

I'm too complex. There's too many things going on for me to accept anything like that. And, and, and, and I'm okay with that right now in, in, in the, uh, but the conversations like this, you know, I, you know, I guess the reason you're seeing some like stammering here is because to me in the, you know, if we're going to use the analogy of blowing a horn. Yes, please. There's a big difference between tooting your own horn and, and I'm like, there you

go. But that's, but that's a tank of gas. That's a tank of gas. That'll fill you up for a tank of gas till you need the next one, till the next person will be like, okay, I need you to blow and the, and the, and the, you need, you need, you need to do a bigger horn or, or, or more blowing. But at the end of the day, if it's, if you're, if you're not able to do it, if you're not able to do it yourself, if you're not able to give it to yourself, which is really this

is the, this is the month of compassion where we're really, and, and even in the astrological, um, I believe the astrological sign for this month right now is the virgin because we're getting back to our pristine essence and that takes a boatload of compassion, compassion for the people who've wronged us, compassion for the things that we've done wrong and compassion for God. You know, he also needs this, he again, not using the gender specific just to make it clear again, there is no pronoun for God. You know, this, this, this loving and compassionate being also is suffering and that's the, the

suffering of the Shreena and that's the suffering of Mahut because it's, it's just, you know, when we're, when we're not living with awareness, when we're living with ignorance, it, it, it also pains him. It creates, it creates pain, divine pain. And so, you know, the sort of like, you know, field of dreams, I imagine like, heal his pain. It's like, heal your pain and you're going to be healing his divine pain. And again, you can only help the suffering of others.

If you've really learned how to suffer yourself, if you've really learned how to accept your own suffering, because then you start to see the ubiquity, not the ubiquity, the, the, the, the, what's the opposite of ubiquity, the, the, the universality of suffering. It's like, oh, my suffering is different than yours. I understand suffering and this is, and I could have compassion for you. Like I have compassion for myself and we can, we can, pain is inevitable, right? Suffering is optional. Yeah.

So you blow your horn, blow your horn. This is the month of the virgin, the month of blowing your own horn. Right. Well, you, can you, why don't we close? Thank you so much. Why don't we close on you resonating, blowing the horn again for us? I think it's a beautiful, can I, can I tell that story? Can I tell that story?

Do we have time for a story? Oh yeah. Tell the story and then let's blow the horn. It's, it's, it's, it's something my, my friend Joey or my friend, Matt, I forget which one, just shared this story about, and it's a Baal Shem Tov story, but it's about where a living Sadiq right now, one of the, one of the rabbis, one of the, one of the gurus, he told a story of his grandfather, who was also a righteous individual who dreamed that he saw the Baal Shem Tov, right?

The master of the good name, revolutionary change the world. Remind me, I got to send you a copy of that, that book of the rabbi, just to see what, how it's Sadiq lives. It's just, they're not, they're not like us, but they're like us. And they see, they see, they see the good in us in like, so in this dream, right? So this, this, this, this grandfather, he's telling the story. He sees the Baal, he sees the Baal Shem Tov and they're both standing on this majestic mountain and you want to picture this scene of these two, you know,

beautiful saintly individuals, radiant, basking, glowing and they're looking over this huge abyss and the Baal Shem Tov says to him, you want to see what it means to really serve God. You're imagining this, right? Your eyes closed. You know what, you can see this huge precipice, they're, they're, they're standing over this huge precipice and it's just this valley and it's like, he says, you want to know how to serve God, what it really means.

Can I teach you how a person is really supposed to serve God? And even before the person who was dreaming could answer the Baal Shem Tov, the Holy Baal Shem Tov just free dives right off the cliff. He just jumps right off. And this other person, this, this Sadik who's having the dream is just watching an abject horror as like his, his guru just throws himself off the side of this, this, this cliff and, and he's just watching him and he sees, he hits the ground and he shatters into a million pieces.

He shatters into a, in a myriad of pieces, like a vase. Just a picture of this, right? Just go with the Baal Shem Tov has just shattered into a million pieces and the guy doesn't know what to do. And he runs down and he gets to the bottom and he's like, okay, like, you know, maybe this, and when he gets there, every piece he finds, he picks up, he starts to pick up the broken shards and every single piece he finds is an exact replica of the Holy Baal Shem Tov.

Right in that sliver contains the whole, contains the whole. And it's just like, we think we're so broken. And we realize that that brokenness, that brokenness is all, all going to be part of that unified oneness. And we want it to be, we want it to be less complicated when we see that in that darkness, in that difficulty, in that suffering, in that struggle, there is also, and there's nothing more whole than the broken heart, says the rabbi of Kotsk, Menachem and others, there's nothing more whole.

And he's, there's the students asked and they said, why does it say in the, in, in the Shema prayer? Why does it say to put the words on your heart? Why does it say in your heart? He says, because your heart's stone, he says, you pray with grace and with divine love and with a little bit of luck, you know, that, that stone is going to melt. So when it does, when it turns into that heart of flesh, right, those words that you've been placing on your heart, they'll just fall right in.

They'll just be right in, you know, and that's all we're trying to do is, is take that brokenness, take it, that brokenness. And, and again, there's nothing more whole than that broken heart. Um, I just saw this amazing poem that said, um, it's called, uh, it's called, it's called last fragment or late fragment. Again, it's thinking about the fragmented pieces. And did you get what you wanted out of life even so? And that even so is just like, you think about your even so.

And did you get what you wanted out of life even so I did? And what was it you wanted to call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on this earth? No, even with that, even so, even with those fragments, those pieces, that regret, the should've, could've, would've, this another year coming into this, this being, and it's like, I don't want it to be the same. It's like, it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be. Stop trying to blow life into that person.

You're not that person from before the trauma or from before you started hoarding those, those Katie litters. Breathe life into that new person. You're not who you think you are, right? Ram Dass 101. You're not who you think you are, right? Anyway, I love you. I really, I love you so much.

You're, you're a beautiful. Thank you, Ben. Saad, for you are, you are a being of light and compassion. You have, you have, you have real radiance. You have glow. I, I, I, I wear t-shirts with you on it. I wear t-shirts. Because.

Well, wait till our next podcast. I'm going to have. Amen. No, can we, can we do it in person? We would have so, if we could do a live podcast, I'm telling you, we'd have like three people, including my mom. She would love this. You know.

I've always wanted to come to Israel. You? It's something I've always wanted to do. Duncan, Duncan, Duncan. Again, ain't d'Avara homemade before now, Ratzon. You know what? Ratzon is that highest sphere because Ratzon comes even before it's that before there's even a plan.

There's something that's there, that kernel of, of ineffabilic. Where did that come from? I don't know. It's Ratzon. It's my will. You come. Who knows? You come to, to Israel.

Messiah. I don't mean, I'm not saying he won't come. I'm not saying animals won't attack you, but I'm not, not saying, you know what? I don't think the Messiah will be the thing that induces the birth of the Messiah if I come to Israel. But I do think we would have a pretty awesome podcast there and lots of fun. Thousands of people live podcasts in Israel.

Tell me what you need me to do to make it. I'm calling Nicole right after this. She's getting a copy of this. And yeah, let's figure it out. I think that would be real to do a live DTF age in Israel. I would, that would be a dream come true. Say the word. Your wish is my command.

As you wish. We're going to blow the shofar. I'm going to plug my, my t-shirt company that doesn't exist. And we're going to, we're going to have wish each other. We're going to wish each other. Okay. Tiva vechatima tovah. All right.

So again, it's just, uh, let's this, this is the intention for also the ram's horn is, and again, this is going to be in the parenting book. Don't wake your kids up with a ram's horn. It's a terrible move. Terrible. My daughter might never speak to me again. Love you, Hadasa. But, um, we're taking a deep breath.

This, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Maimonides, who was the irrationalist did not study or may not have access to the access to the Kabbalah, but he's certainly somebody who keeps things rational. Says, you know why we blow a horn? It's because the Torah says to the Bible says to, he's like, but if I would have to give an illusion to it, it's because it's a reminder that it's time to wake up all of our service, all of our practice has to be a practice of waking up. All we're trying to do is wake up out of our ignorance and just connect to the

divinity within and around. And so my blessing to us as, as, as soul brothers is, uh, is let's wake up, wake up from not, not from coffee, but from something a lot stronger and a lot more simple. Yeah. Wow. So much love. One love, not so much so there was no AI.

We didn't talk about AI. We didn't talk about aliens. We didn't talk about Gnostic Christians. We didn't, we have, we have so much, so much to cover. So much psychedelics. Well, again, but this is, this is the Ichigo Ichi of just like, you know, I just appreciating the fact that this is happening, that we live in a time where we have the technology to just, you know, see each other.

How are we connected? And we're like, we're connected on a level. That's just like, I was on, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was on another podcast on the Be Here Now Network with Madison Margot and she's wonderful. And it's just like, I'm connected to Ramdas and I'm connected to, to, to Duncan Trussell and we're all like, there's one degree of separation to all of us.

We're all connected. Let's share, let's love, let's be connected. Let's really see the good in one another and, you know, really feel proud of where we come from, our heritage and see how the perennial wisdoms all complement one another. You do you, I do me and we all come together and just say Shalom, you know, Wow. And I, and I, and you know, I, I.

And you know, I, I, and I, I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I. And if you I don't love me, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and Echad. dot com. That's your t-shirt. Company the girl is sold dot?

It doesn't exist yet. But I have a landing page, which is again, the guy who made my website, because he's like, you have to have a website. I was like, that's great. Let's make t-shirts. Next thing I know the, girl is sold dot, CEO top secret project. You heard about a first, sign up your emails. Do you want to be, part of, can if I send, if I ever make a t-shirt, will

you wear it for like a second? Are you kidding? Of course. And I want that. Tell me, tell people where they can find you. This is my rabbi. Everybody. You can see why I will not be your rabbi.

I am only Duncan Trussell's rabbi. It says it on my website, drbenji.com. I'm doing a lot. I'm going to do, start doing some mindfulness courses online and selling t-shirts at the goal of so dot co and doing some good work in psychedelic assisted therapy. I'm doing some bougie group, uh, ketamine, um, uh, sessions with my, with my colleague, Dr.

Mark Bronstein and slowly, but surely, um, really working to heal people. Again, it's, it's the integration. It's the integration after the ecstasy, the laundry, but really providing space for people to heal myself and others. Um, so reach out and touch someone and, um, and, uh, yeah, I love you. The goal is soul. Love you. All the links you need to find.

Dr. Benji will be at delkatrussell.com. If you forgot those links, thank you. You got to come back sooner than a year. It's ridiculous. I dropped the ball. I dropped the ball. You would never do this sooner.

You were always here. You were always there. You were always there. You never drifted. Thank you for this. Howdy, Krishna. Thank you. I love you.

I love you. Goal is soul. That was Dr. Ben Epstein. Everybody head over to drbenji.com and you can connect him, check out his book, Living in the Presence, a Jewish mindfulness guide to everyday life. A big thank you to our esteemed sponsors.

And thank you for listening. I love you so much. Howdy, Krishna. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JC Penney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style, dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and

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