Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 548: RamDev Dale Borglum

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

RamDev Dale Borglum, contemporary of Ram Dass and executive director of the Living Dying Project, re-joins the DTFH! RamDev is hosting a new round of workshops for the Living/Dying Project running from January-March! Click here for more details. You can learn more about RamDev and The Living/Dying Project on their website, LivingDying.org, or through their podcast, Healing at the Edge. You can also follow them on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Hello Fresh - Visit HelloFresh.com/21Duncan and use code 21DUNCAN at checkout for 21 FREE MEALS + Free Shipping! MyBookie - Use code DUNCAN and deposit $50 or more to receive a FREE Instant Cash Bonus!

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. I'm dirty little angel. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Greetings to you, my friends. It is I.D. Trucelle. I'm about to head to the airport to go to Madison, Wisconsin,

where you could see me at Comedy on State. But I'm leaving you with this wonderful conversation with Ramdev. Ramdev was in India with Ramdas and Neem Kohli Baba in the entire Ramdas crew. I love Ramdev. He reminds me of Ramdas. And I love our conversations.

This one in particular was incredibly scintillating. We talked about tawntric sex. Lots of other stuff too, but tawntric sex. There's more to the spirituality stuff than just meditating. And some people feel a little uncomfortable talking about it. But Ramdev, he really opened up. If you want to hear some interesting stories

about the old days with Ramdas and Neem Kohli Baba, or you're just interested in extending your orgasms, then this is the episode for you. If you don't want commercials in the DTFH, do you know all you have to do is go to patreon.com for a slash DTFH and subscribe. You'll get commercial free episodes. We also have a weekly meditation group.

We get together every Friday. And it's lots of fun. I hope you'll subscribe. And now, everybody, welcome back to the DTFH Ramdev. Welcome back to the DTFH. It's so nice to see you. It's great to be back with you. And I send our greetings.

Defence clients, V себя 개인 crawl, wealth gatherer. It's great to be back, Duncan. It was nice seeing you. You're getting in the city, that was fun. It was so great seeing you and getting to hang out with you in the green room.

You know, I'll tell you, it was a wonderful balance because the show after my Satanist friends showed up. So, like, we had this wonderful... I balanced out the Satanist guy, basically.

Well, lady. Yeah, so it was this... My friend William, who features for me, was like, oh, cool, you're getting a nice buffet of spiritual traditions here. But it was wonderful to see you. And it meant a lot to me that you came to the show. So did you get any feedback

about you and me talking about tontric orgasms last time? Well, you know what? I don't remember getting specific feedback about that. I know people loved our podcast and I know that I personally loved the podcast. And just actually the other day,

I was thinking about, well, I was trying to remember what you were saying about tontric orgasms and I couldn't remember. So I'm like, you know what? I guess I'll just masturbate the old way. Well, I'm not sure there's an old way and a new way, but I hear what you're saying.

So I've been thinking about I'm going to be on the podcast again with Duncan, who's so nice connecting with him and what would I like to bring up? And I really started thinking about you a lot and how

I also played a podcast with you and Jack, how you were trying to be a good meditator and a good student and things like that. And to me, it seems like there's really different ways of approaching spiritual practice and a lot of people approach it from

things just aren't good enough. I've got to improve, I've got to fix things. There's a sense of it in adequacy. God is outside of me. God is up there. I'm down here. Practice is hard. I'm not very good at it. And there's another way of practicing of abundance.

I'm blessed already that it's just letting go of these obscurations that lead me to believe that I'm messed up. But underneath all that is this whole Duncan, this whole Rom-Dave Dale and that's kind of the tontric view.

Now, tontric can be kind of dangerous if you just jump in there. We were chatting before the podcast started and I was saying that chamomile tea and whiskey are just as much God and you said this great line about

whiskey causes asymmetrical love handles. It makes me an asshole. Chamomile tea gives me a night where I kind of calm down. It's wonderful in front of the fire. But the point is that if you do some of this other stuff

first, if you do some meditating and some compassion work, then you can start letting go of all these judgments and dive into that it's all divine, that it's all good stuff, that like Buddha's not outside, Maharaj is not

up there in heaven. I remember Maharaj saying those Westerners, they don't understand, they think I'm this body. It's like who we really are and even Vipassana meditation or mindfulness practice is based on the notion

underneath it all that you don't have to try to figure it out or improve anything but just by being present you'll move toward wholeness. So this kid you were talking about from the battle buddies

who's having his young friends die as part of his foundation of supporting young people with cancer that even even the difficulty that he's going through because he loves people and they're dying

that's his practice that I don't say this to too many people but here I'm going to say it to like thousands of people is that suffering is only suffering Ramdas even said suffering is grace

so that cancer doesn't cause suffering resistance to cancer causes suffering your friend dying doesn't cause suffering resistance to your friend dying causes suffering and of course you're going to resist having your friend die but if

we don't know why we're suffering it's a lot harder work with it if you really get that you're suffering because you're pushing away your life or you're grasping at the good stuff then it's a lot easier to work with it like so like in Tibetan Buddhism they have a slogan

drive all blames into oneself and that means not that you're blaming yourself but you're not blaming the environment you're not blaming Trump you're not blaming the traffic you're not blaming the weather for how you're feeling right two people can be caught

in exactly the same traffic jam and they're both going to an equally important meeting that's really crucial to their well-being and they're both going to be equally late and one person is tearing their hair around saying why the heck is this happening to me

this is fucked up I can't believe this is happening to me and the other person saying well there's nothing I can do about this I really want to be there on time but it looks like I'm not going to be able to be there I might as well play some music yeah well yes yes I mean I want to talk about the

Lo Zhang drive all blames into oneself a little bit more I'm glad you brought it up you know I the Lo Zhang sayings that you know I jump from one to the next they're wonderful some stick in your head then you forget the other ones and then that one has actually been on my mind quite a bit

and I want to talk to your enemies that's always a good one that's a good one don't do things with a twist I like that abandon all hopes of fruition really love that one but the drive all blames into oneself so this I want to talk about because

I think this is another of those potentially confusing translations I don't know what the Tibetan for blame is necessarily but I do know

that out here in the west we associate blame blaming oneself with the opposite of self-care blame myself is to hurt myself there's shame associated with blame there's like you know so

and also but Duncan I don't think it's saying I mean I think it's a really bad translation and I haven't come up with a better one but it's not saying blame yourself it's saying the way you're blaming outside you bring that back into yourself yes

you reclaim the blame and take responsibility for here's what I'm feeling reclaim the blame is like that is an amazing there you go reclaim the blame and I understand this I get it as someone

who has experimented with that particular saying the relief that's the paradoxical relief that comes from no longer like trying to find the serpent in the whatever your particular

guard may be realizing the serpents in you not out there that nobody's trying to hurt you in the way you thought they were and that this is something you've been dealing with not just for this life for multiple lifetimes my god it's like beginning

to wake up from a nightmare but this the the second part of the problem that I have with that saying not problem but confusion about it is that it is but it is kind

of easy it feel okay don't do things with a twist and drive all blames into oneself if I express to a partner or friend or anything like that I recognize that I have fucked up for a

long time and that I can't expect the people around me to suddenly believe that that angry fiery awful aggressive thing that pops out from time to time is gone I understand why

you are like I get it we can't expect other people to like just believe us when we feel like we've made some progress or something but and so but so it the whole drive all blames in oneself what if you what if you

you try that but some part of but also you are kind of annoying you know what I mean the external you this person that what you know and then I start feeling dishonest then I start feeling like ooh I don't think I've fully driven

all blame into myself do you know what I'm saying I do but I don't know I mean it seems like I don't know how to say this without being crass here but for you to drive all blames into yourself that doesn't require your friends

to do that they can still blame you if that's what's going on in them I mean it's like you're doing your practice your life is your practice and your wife or your friends practices their life is their practice so you're just doing the best you can

and maybe you've been an asshole I mean I was just dealing with me being not the best partner and having to take responsibility for that but it seems to me that if

to the extent you drive the blames into yourself then your heart is opening and at least in the future you're going to be a better human being yes right it's like what's done is done there's another thing in Buddhism about

becoming hopeless which really drives people crazy but it's not the future isn't going to be better you feel hopeless that this moment is going to be better than it is because it's exactly the fucking way that it is

it can't be any different than the way it is so that like you're completely hopeless that this moment is going to be better it's this moment I love it and then we just surrender into that and that makes us going forward

the better more open hearted guy and then your friends can like the better dunk and come out the other end of the process Ramdev, I love oh please continue sorry like Maharaji said

it's better to trust in God than to try to figure everything out I want to thank Hello Fresh for supporting this episode of the DTFH with Hello Fresh you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep

skip trips to the grocery store and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy, fun and affordable that's why it's America's number one meal kit everything you want if you are looking for an easy

way to eat well and save money you can cut back on takeout and delivery and get started with Hello Fresh it's fast it's easy no more going to the grocery store to stock up on snacks no more going to the grocery store and enduring the weirdness

of grocery stores the bleeps the bloops the people the people here's the thing I've been using Hello Fresh forever we get it every single week and it's awesome if you're somebody who has yet to learn how to cook

if you are like me and you inevitably fuck up recipes by putting too much of something or not enough of something you're realizing you don't have some primary ingredient then Hello Fresh is for you not only will you suddenly be making

these delicious gourmet meals but also you'll remember the recipes you'll learn how to cook and when the inevitable electromagnetic pulse from the sun wipes out the power grid you will still

remember those recipes and that is going to give you a great cut in whatever survival community you end up living in go to hellofresh.com slash 21dunkin and use code 21dunkin for 21

free meals plus free shipping again it's hellofresh.com slash 21dunkin use code 21dunkin for 21 free meals plus free shipping that's insane

I'm not getting free meals because I've been using them forever take advantage of this can I get these free meals I want the free meals friends I'm telling you this is a delicious meal delivery service if you've been skeptical about

these things don't be it's awesome the recipes are incredible and the ingredients are great thank you hellofresh for supporting the DTFH it's better to trust in god than to try to figure everything out

okay all right so okay this I want to get to that point quickly so I love what you just said about the hopelessness thing now there was a show I did for Netflix called the Midnight Gospel and it went within this show there was an episode

the prison episode where Jason Louvre was the guest but as we're trying to like in the podcast with him I said this very thing how hopelessness is good like this whole sun will come out tomorrow bullshit it's like

what I was trying to articulate is what you actually I wish I'd done talk to you before we did that episode but what I was trying to articulate was just that when you have what you need hope kind of goes out the window you know you're not hoping for anything

because you're there you're here you're here thank you and it was a big discussion with the creators with the other creators because they're like it just sounds so grim it sounds so grim like

do you want to put that out there that you know hope isn't this hope, faith, charity these are the jewels of Christianity right like hope and to this day I still feel right

I still feel like I get tortured by my hope anytime I'm hoping I'm wanting I want wanting out of where I'm at right on I mean there's a lot of romanticism about religion and you know even

in this discussion we almost started out about compassion I mean about Tantra about Tantra in the beginning of spiritual practice there's the Ten Commandments there's the Christian and yoga there's the yamas than the knee yamas be a good boy, be a good girl

don't do the don't kill, don't lie don't steal, don't commit adultery don't do the things that create duality but as practice deepens and you go into the more mystical part of religion those rules fall away

and you trust your heart you're not stuck in your mind about all the rules you're not hoping you want to be a better boy you're saying okay I've done all this practice and what is my connection to God right now

how much am I being present and like Maharaj Ji said I'm always in communion with you what would it be like if we actually believed that I don't know if everybody knows

who we're talking about when we say Maharaj Ji do your people know Maharaj Ji Ramdas' Guru name Crowley Babu I don't know I'm sure some of them are like who is this is he a chef or something who is this he's a kind of Italian chef

Ramdas road be here now and part of it was the cook's book and Maharaj Ji was the chef he's cooking us all that's right I do think with the because

I've been studying Buddhism with David Nicktern he's a really great teacher really good with me especially in the beginning good lord did I want to jump into the tantric mystical stuff I didn't want to go through

any of the other bullshit get me to where I can levitate come hard and drink as much as I want and but but and I know we have many

theistic people listening I'm not non-theistic and so maybe it's a semantic argument I'm trying to bring up here do you think that this concept of emptiness or what do they call it there's a beautiful name for Aliyah

the great Aliyah is that God Aliyah is a friend of mine I don't know anybody else okay Aliyah Aliyah is somebody who actually screwed me

in a real estate deal oh well okay I know Aliyah Aliyah is a dad joke unforgivable dad joke but you know what I mean this idea of emptiness the concept of you know unit of consciousness or

non-dual reality does it do you think it equals God well now we're really going down a rabbit hole and I'm kind of a theist I've had a few experiences of God actually showing up in my bedroom

Hanuman showing up in my bedroom once and another couple of things have happened but it doesn't seem like it's reality in the same way that the microphone in front of me is reality right right so that so from a Buddhist perspective

it's more you're surrendering into this emptiness hopelessness and hopelessness leads to fearlessness leads to love let me see I lose all my good quotes but anyway there's this quote from Suzuki Roshi my first meditation teacher

where he was saying when we bow down to Buddha there's no Buddha just bowing that it's like a Buddhist and something outside that you're not bowing to some guy in an altar or some guy who's really wise it's just to act of bowing itself so that whether we're doing that to God

or whether we're doing that to Buddha or whether we're doing that to the Dharma it really is ultimately the same thing right so that emptiness pure consciousness is God or God is pure consciousness and

you know I mean when we're talking about people dying what survives death you probably maybe you believe something survives death I do but I'm not sure that Dale jumps into another body necessarily although like there's the 16th Dalai Lama

so that means there's the 15th and the 14th and there's this continuing thing happening I mean look I was just having a conversation about this with a friend and you know talking about the possibility of the great infinite endless deep slumber

I think Socrates and his apology talked about like look I'm going to drink the hemlock if you put me to sleep forever thank you if there's something after this I'm going to keep doing my thing so no matter what

it doesn't make any difference you've done nothing but except maybe like giving me the greatest thing of all time you know the nihilist dream of heaven is a non-continuation of consciousness it's what Dawkins said death is the

anesthesia that takes away the pain of life really nice I mean at some point you're like doesn't sound terrible I do love sleeping but the dreamless sleep so to speak but I do feel like that is as much

a version of heaven as golden streets and you know the angels flapping around I think it's a dream I don't know if that's really what happened so I do believe in continuation of how that works no idea

and honestly I don't care that's what I was just going to say I don't care at all either somebody asked the Buddha does reincarnation exist and he said well if it did exist how would you live your life and the guy thought of it and he said because I would run a really good next

birth I would meditate a lot and study the scriptures and be a really good human being and then the Buddha said well if reincarnation didn't exist and you just died what would you do and the guy thought about it and he said oh revered one

because I'd only have this one chance I would really meditate a lot and study the scriptures a lot and be a really good guy really I'm interested in what is practical for me and you wake up and suffer less and all the other beings around can suffer less not

all this theoretical I mean theoretical stuff is fun I used to be a scientist it's fun for the mind but really what I'm interested in is how can we wake up can we talk a little bit about that and a little bit about this you know the sort of

the process you know for me the whole thing started off as a kind of like you know a lark you ever heard that term before live action role playing game where you hear about the spiritual stuff and you're like sure I'll make believe with all these hippies that maybe this is real

and you kind of don't believe it at first or you or maybe the better way to put it is you don't want your heart broken by finding out it's not true so to protect your heart from being broken by realizing it's yet another scam in the world you just

kind of like at least me I took a cynical approach to it and then if you're lucky even though the larking all of a sudden something you're like wait something's changing here for real like there's something happening here that is

completely unique to my own experience of reality this is when you get beyond the Ten Commandments thing that you're talking about where for me that just means all of a sudden those moments where I would react to adversity with aggression

the moments have not gone anywhere the reaction does not and it's not like once I'm not a dick it's like over time you realize this is something softened me up here it's not happening like it used to and yet

you still have at least I still have inside of me like that burning angry cold like this like you know the suffering the flavor of my suffering is anger it's still in there it flashes out of the world

in my family it'll just all of a sudden it's on my face but I'm not articulating it as much as I was but it's now it's subtle levels subtle levels of it you know more refined ways of expressing aggression but it's still there so

do you what do you do with that like is this thing does it go away or you just kind of pissed off for your whole life but you don't react you know what I mean you have it in you but it doesn't come

and I don't mean suppressing either it's you know I tried suppressing it it did never work but you know what I mean there's this sense of like fuck I know it's I'm sorry for cursing I know it's in there and then

for me what goes along with that is like this never ending sense of like how long is this going to last like how long before I revert to that again and that makes me uneasy

so the thing about how long is it going to last has a lot to do with hope you hope it's going to end you hope it's going to end and the fact that you're not expressing it as much and it's happening not as frequently means that it's all down hill

from here it might be a really long hill you know we don't know about consciousness doesn't care how long it takes or how much it hurts but once you've really seen the truth you're crazy for that you're addicted to that

and there's some very in most of us some very deeply seated patterning some some scars that we have to keep looking at it again and again and again you're tired of looking at and you say screw this I'm just tired of being angry

I'm not suppressing it but it doesn't feel good it hurts other people you know and that your awareness and your open-heartedness is enough that there becomes a gap between the first

arrow and the second arrow that you know something happens to you and before you react you can just take a half a breath you can take out mind moment of trusting Maharaji trusting your own true self drive the blame into yourself and say okay you know I don't

have to do that anymore at the same time Ramdas had this line which I still don't know if it's true or not but he said if you're a son of a bitch when you get enlightened you'll be an enlightened son of a bitch you know I've quoted you on that from the last podcast at least 30 times it's one now one of my favorite quotes

of all time it really is like that and I love that so much because I think within the contemplation of these traditions you start having a fantasy of an enlightened you you know you think oh

an enlightened me drinks chamomile tea you know I don't know it takes herbal baths gives my wife more massages is like you know what I mean like spends lots of time outside is a may astounded by the beauty of the

leaf as it gently drifts through the automare you know and you invent this crazy version of yourself you never think to yourself well actually that isn't probably not really what you're going to be like you're probably going to kind of be like

you are now that I love it so much because but I wonder about it okay but when you're going back before about Buddhist emptiness is allowing emotions particularly difficult emotions to arise and not being identified with them

it's not the anger that causes suffering it's grasping on the anger cortisol has a like less than a 20 second life in your bloodstream so an emotion arises boom there's cortisol and if you don't react to it

it's gone but if you get angry about the anger or guilty about the anger then there's more cortisol in the cortisol on the cortisol and your adrenals are getting shot so here's here's this incredible study they did it just blows my mind and I'm just

shocked it isn't on the front page of the paper 30,000 people 3 groups of 10,000 people first group high stress they believe the stress was bad for you second group high stress they were taught you could be aware of the stress it's not necessarily bad for you

third group control group high stress first group died 48% more often than the second and third group but the second group did better than the control group that mindful stress is better for you than

high medium low stress control group so it's not the stress it's getting lost in the stress it's being there with whatever it is that's going on I've been meditating for 50 years Duncan I love this neurotic but I don't care so much anymore

right maybe I'm not a son of a bitch but if you're a neurotic Dale and you get enlightened you'll be an enlightened neurotic Dale kind of thing and there's emptiness around it

your mind is like the complete vast sky but because you think you're a you you put a window frame around it that's my sky and then into that chunk of sky that's your sky comes a cloud of anger yes or happiness

doesn't have to be bad but a cloud of anger if the cloud is big enough and the window frame is small enough all you see is the anger I am angry but if you through practice you expand your window frame that same anger comes and you see it's contextualized

in the blue sky and that it's moving it's going to be gone someday it's a very different experience to see the cloud in the context of the infinite sky versus it's all cloud it's a new year new you so give yourself a fresh start

with my bookie to earn or to make the games more exciting my bookie gives you the most for your money with a redesigned deposit bonus just use promo code Duncan on a deposit of $50 or more to receive a cash bonus instantly to your my bookie account

using this bonus is simple bet your deposit amount just once and you're ready to cash out it's no strings attached with my bookie you can bet on the NFL UFC or play for a share of big cash prizes in the weekly online blackjack tournaments

with so many brands to choose from you need a platform that makes it simple to bet and win like my bookie bet anything anytime anywhere with my bookie thank you my bookie

I want to talk to you about attachment to the sky I want to talk to you about the fleeting glimpses

when like the clouds part and you see the sky you get that feeling of being home you remember you're like again waking up from some awful nightmare it goes back to clouds and then you

feel at least I feel so I feel then I feel worried because it's like oh my god it the nightmare didn't end you just had you dreamed about some bullshit sky like within the nightmare

there was some sense of like oh and then you're attached to a dream now you're worshiping a false blue sky there and now you're just as attached you're attached to some nonsense do you know what I'm saying

I know what you're saying I mean there's even a term for it when you go more deeply into it it's called the stink of enlightenment that you've had these experiences of openness and you want that you're grasping at it you're trying to find it and hold onto it you can't hold onto it

it comes from non grasping and payment children has this line you're not the sky I mean you're not the weather you're the sky you're not the weather you're the sky but also you're the weather in my humble opinion

I mean that's the tantric view that even the anger even the clouds is who you are let me read a very short part of a poem by Rumi so in this poem there's this guy who's complaining to God that his prayers are never answered he never has anything back from God

and Rumi in God's voice says the longing you express is the return message the grief you cry out from draws you toward union your pure sadness that wants help is the secret

cup holy shit let me read that again the longing you express is the return message the grief you cry out from draws you toward union your pure sadness that wants

help is the secret cup so it's not that those things are impediments they're it it's all it it's all the beloved the beloved can only be everything it's like the longing is the tractor beam you think

the longing is coming out of you you don't realize the longing pulling you in and that is so wild that is so wild so the longing is good news good news that you have this aching rotten

you know like feeling of wanting your mommy or something and you can't find her in the mall you know good news because you have longing for something now that you didn't even know about and now

that's incredible news if you've just achieved longing you're there the longing is God's response he's saying here I am you want this and the longing itself is the knowledge that

that's the return message that's the secret cup that's drawing you toward union and once again it's frustratingly slow he said one of the qualities that is the main determiner of how quickly

we make progress on the spiritual path is how long you're bummed out when you fall down and get off the path like can you just get up and get on with it are you saying oh fuck me look what I've done what a lousy meditator I am and there's this guy

Shri Aurobindo who had a metaphor walking down the road and God knocked me over and I fell in the mud and I got up and I was shaking my fist at God saying why are you doing this to me and I got so mad at God and then I continued down the way

and God knocked me over again and I fell in the mud again and I got up and this time I didn't yell quite as much but I was really mad and then finally I got so far down the road that God knocked me over I just got up and started walking again at some point you should be like hey anyway you could stop knocking me over

please maybe we could just walk together what happened to footsteps in the sand aren't you supposed to be carrying me and then it's your footprints but yeah I love that I think that that yeah I know what you mean because the

one of the I think unnerving things about potential fruition or whatever you want to call it is that if you've been meditating for a while you do experience these tiny tiny glimpses I mean in the early days

of me doing this I would get so certain I'm like oh well there it is I guess I got enlightened and then and then you know the next day I'm just a monster and I'm paranoid I'm angry and it's like

and so then I started getting nervous if any of those things would appear in the meditation practice because I would think oh boy yeah you're getting here we go it just means some rotten version of you is on the way and you do know what I mean

it's like you it's at some point I don't know I started getting nervous about any of these things just in the sense of like look I don't want to get my heart broken here I don't want to get attached again to some idea that you know what this stuff is working and

I'm not going to keep hurting people around me with my untrained mind you know I'd rather just be a beast and just you know that's what I'm like you know then get these like little intermissions between beast moments

but would you rather really be a beast or would you rather be on the path to even though it's difficult once you've tasted that spaciousness Duncan you can turn away from it you'd like to but it's always going to be there it's like

once you've had acid life before acid is not possible it's gone forever that level of delusion is gone there's another level of reality that is at least not more real than

ordinary getting up and eating Cheerios and we know that that's there and that so what you're talking about is a stage where you're afraid that

you're going to get hold on to this stuff or it's not going to work out fall off the bike fall off the bike you remember I don't know I mean you remember when you learned to ride the bike and then it's like the first few days of bike riding are not exactly

like pleasurable because the terror that the thing's going to tip over it's scary as hell to be sure but once again those moments of freedom of your coasting down the street on your bike and the wind is in your hair and

all of a sudden you're moving in a way that you never did before it feels like so good there's an aliveness there that you can't really turn back from I have tested

I think that I mean I was listening to Pima Children this wonderful seminar she gave on Way of the Bodhisattva I've been listening to that and she was talking about how in Buddhism this invitation to really test it and I always took

that as a kind of intellectual analysis of the Four Noble Truths and she was like see if you can break it now try to fall off the bike try to not see it try try can you try to not see it

try to get it away try to blank your mind and get back to that place and I love that I never understood that's actually what it meant it was like is this breakable and I think that's a really joyful thing to hear

that potentially upon catching enough of a glimpse of the thing you really just might you might not have to like sink back into that level of the nightmare that's a really beautiful thing I'm happy to hear you say it

Ramdas and I and some other friends taught a course at Trungpa's Naropa Institute the first summer at Naropa and Trungpa's students were very wild they were having these like orgies and there was like young girls and major drinking

but what Trungpa told his students he says meditate a lot take care of your body and do whatever you want to do right so people would have these like wild Friday night parties and then Saturday was the all day meditation

and you're trying to meditate, not me but his students are trying to meditate with a major hangover didn't feel very good right and instead of saying in fact Maharaj never said to people don't do this, he said well if you do that

here's what might happen here's I'm like if you smoke a lot of dope it heats up the brain or if you do this but he would never say don't do that he would say just keep loving God and trusting God and do what you want to do

and it's all going to work itself out did you get invited to any of those orgies and wouldn't you like to know I would it was a kind of a weird time Duncan, it was

1974, right after Maharaj died so we were all kind of in a slight state of shock we thought he was immortal he was like the strongest thing he was stronger than Mount Everest and then he dropped his body

as they say so I mean are you answered the question already I did do this one thing Trunkba had a paper called unconscious drinking not unconscious drinking but unconscious drinking

and in the paper he said that if you stay really mindful and clear as you get drunk you won't get drunk in the same way and in fact one night he gave a talk brilliant that at the end of the talk I went outside of the auditorium

and the trees were glowing with consciousness but when he got that talking he'd had a carafe of sake next to him he'd been drinking all night he got up and he fell on his face but he was still so clear that the leaves were

glowing with consciousness so my girlfriend and I got a big bottle of sake and we said let's try this and we sat down we started meditating five or ten minutes we took a big slug of it and at the end of an hour I felt like I was on a psychedelic my mind was so crystal clear

I was so wide awake ego completely dissolved in sake and when I tried to get up to pee my body was totally inebriated yeah yeah I know what you mean you know this actually this is a reduction of what you're saying but I can remember in the old days

when I take acid and drink and you know the alcohol would not dilute the acid consciousness so like I can specifically remember drinking and drinking feeling as clear as a bell

and getting up and it's like oh wow I am hammered my legs are not still working but I'm clear because I was very good LSD we didn't have access to what y'all had access to when I was coming up like we didn't have the sandos and fuels or I can't

imagine what y'all had but every once in a while you would find some that wasn't terrible we had some good stuff round us one time he was cleaning out he started stuff in my garage in Santa Fe and he said hey here's a sheet of Ousley acid do you want it

I said oh sure but it was really old so I would give it to people and they had one or two experiences either nothing happened or it was the best trip of their whole life wow wow I guess it just depended on where

where the photons hit it I've heard that it's photo reactive so regardless for me I can remember when I was drinking I stopped drinking when I was drinking I can remember being quite excited

about this prospect of continuing my alcoholism and still being somehow working in my life and then it just didn't work

I couldn't do what he was recommending I couldn't mindfully drink I'd heard here's what you do drink but the moment you're not doing mindful drinking stop drinking but my problem was I wouldn't stop drinking

once you start there's no stopping that doesn't work out but I would do that's how I would get into it tonight this will be a mindful drinking night and then a couple of glasses of white in

it's like nonsense let's just drink and then I'd feel like garbage the next day but I'd love it I love what you're saying and I do agree with that I don't I actually

feel excited for people who can successfully drink because it's good for you you just sipped a glass of wine through the whole meal wow that's better than telekinesis

it's a major talent to have it's a talent that is but don't you think even though in Tantra there's also some aspect of know yourself don't trick yourself into thinking you're doing spiritual drinking

when you're blacking out or when you're having physical disruptions with your body that you're getting fat and you're getting puffed at that point you're like maybe Tantric drinking works for enlightened Tibetan masters

I'm not even sure it worked for Trungpa he probably died of liver disease but just as an example think about saying a mantra from the very first stage of practice we're saying a mantra of please God show up

I kind of know you exist I trust that I know people that believe you I don't feel it now please I'm invoking and then as you do that enough gradually hopefully the heart opens and

as you're saying say you're saying Ram and it's a love relationship with you and God it's like back and forth it's juicy it's great but when you get to the Tantric stage when you say Ram

the sound is God that just saying Ram is God that there is no distinction between God the sound Ram and you or me who's saying it so that each time you're saying the sound it's

God is there you know and so it could be the same thing with anger in the beginning you want anger to go away because it's messing up your life and then you're having more of a love relationship with anger there's a lot of juicy energy there

you can use it to be creative in my life this is maybe too personal but if if I don't I can either meditate a lot or have orgasms or do something deeply creative

I get angry because it's the same energy so it's got to go somewhere wow wow you just oh my God I never made the connection I know you probably have this

you go in you go in to write you go in to make whatever it is you're interested in making showing in with the impulse of I'm going to make something for whatever reason the cards the stars don't align and it just doesn't happen

it's very similar to and maybe this is being too vulgar blue balls it's like nothing nothing and then at the end of those days that is for sure rough evenings that is where I'm pissed

I feel grumpy because it's not that you're angry because you didn't make anything it's that that didn't get expressed it didn't get alchemized wow that's wild that's the coolest thing I've ever heard

let me read you a short poem from Hafiz know the nature of your beloved in his eyes your every thought, word and movement is always always beautiful wow so that was

what being around Maharaji was like that you were there I was there being very neurotic and yet he kept loving me no matter how neurotic I was why is that so heartbreaking to hear why is that hard why is that heartbreaking why is there an element of like heartbreak

in that idea why is there something about I think about being around that in the flesh and I feel this strange like broken hearted feeling or something this like I

unworthy or I don't deserve that or you made a mistake I don't know why you're around me or how did I get to be there that's what I felt when I was there a bunch of the time Ramdas tells all these stories like it seems like being around Maharaji was just

a love fest and there was great love but there was also the grace race and there was guilt and who gets the name first and who gets the mantra first and almost all of us brought a real lot of unworthiness to somebody who we

saw as completely pure and the embodiment of love and it was like very difficult not to think of him as so much greater than us and we were unworthy and carry a lot of our Judeo-Christian guilt

with us to India I remember one time I was at Maharaji's feet I got the prime spot where I had one of his feet and he was talking to people and I was rubbing his foot and I was saying my mantra and after a few minutes I thought boy

I'm so lucky I've got his foot and as soon as I started feeling I started pulling his foot away and I went back to saying my mantra and then he relaxed his foot and then after five more minutes I'm thinking oh look at how great I am I've got his foot and he started pulling his foot away again and it happened three times and as soon as I got involved in it

and as soon as I thought he's great and look what I've got he'd want to pull it away that's what I'm talking about right there that's what I'm talking about that's the weird dance it flies in the face of everything that you get taught

in leadership school the way that sophisticated aggression is lauded as a way to succeed in the world grabbing for a thing celebrating the victories and all that somehow is it repulsed?

I'm not talking about the physical foot I'm talking about the sky it's like longing for the sky brings more clouds or something this is the part where it gets so riding with your left hand if you're right handed

I'm getting so excited here this is great because a long time ago a lot of my knowledge came from Buddhism and I had what I think is a misunderstanding I'm not blaming Buddhism

but I thought that desire was bad desire caused suffering and I went to this other teacher a goofy kind of guy and he said there's good desire and there's bad desire desire for wholeness desire for God desire to be a more loving person

is a holy thing it's a good thing and it's coming out of attachment and hope and greed is a bad thing it's going to cause suffering so see which desire is causing suffering in your life

seeing which desire is leading you more deeply I mean in Tibetan Buddhism they say that compassion is a mixture of sadness and joy you're sad that you're sad that there's suffering but there's a joyfulness that your heart is open

there's a joy that transcends happiness and sadness so that you're able to be joyful even though children are dying of cancer and the planet's environment is screwed up by greed

and on and on and on you get both it's like if you're feeling sad you're saying that is not a sign that things have run amuck in your practice or your life it's not a sign that you're like still not there

it's actually a very good sign it doesn't have to be bad and if you're desiring this sky connection why are you being chased the same sort of resistance to that desire

that you might to other desires that's really beautiful you get to have that romance you don't have to be approved you get to experience the subtle difference the sometimes subtle difference

between attachment and preference ah right when are you acting from a place of tightness and preference and here's what life wants from me right now my body wants people want light

and when am I acting from this place of tightness and grasping there's a different feeling that it's hard to pay attention to because it means looking at our narcissism and our greed and all that kind of stuff yep

it's a different one thing makes me want to win you know like one involves aggression one is like I want to be right I want to win, I want to win this one the other one it's just like okay I'm not dying there's no hell to die on here

that's the idea it's very different definitely one involves cortisol more than the other that's what you're saying could you explain to me why you like martial arts so much

me? why do you think I like martial arts? mixed martial arts you're a fan of that oh right oh my god for a moment I'm like my friend you have made a terrible mistake I couldn't fight my poodle if I wanted to no no but you're a big fan of people beating each other up okay a big fan I wouldn't

my friend works with the UFC and so he has many times gotten me front row seats and I've gotten to watch it now the reason I like it for a lot of different reasons one reason that I like it is the athleticism it's insane like what these people are doing

and the pressure they're under and the way they're executing what they're doing is incredible the other thing that I later down the line is you realize generally they're not angry and after the fight they hug each other it's the craziest thing you've ever seen

when someone who looks like their face just got hit with a hammer is hugging the person BS way but like with love and respect and that's a pretty wild thing to see it's very interesting also it's cool to watch people beat each other up I'm sorry

so I'm suggesting there can be the mixed martial art of life of being Duncan or the martial art of being Duncan that it's like it's not like you're not into victory and accomplishment but it's coming from this place of openness and non grasping

got it gotcha you're so smart that's so cool I get it it's like the difference between a street fight and a UFC fight like it's so beautiful that's so cool that's so cool again some UFC fights are like street fights they hate each other and it's like really weird

when that happens but that's really cool it's like sort of engage like a professional fighter in your own reality and also the other thing is you meet them when I've been lucky enough to meet them they are the sweetest people

there's no like I don't know machismo or generally I mean you know they're generally like seem very lucid awake and they do have a similar vibe to when you run into someone who's been practicing for a long time like that clarity that's sort of like sparkly clarity

it's interesting well to do what they're doing and not get paralyzed and deeply injured as it takes a great deal of mindfulness and clarity and presence to think they have to be really great athletes to do what they're doing and not get hurt

I am so thrilled with the things that you've been teaching me it's the best and it always happens at exactly the right time I

I'm really kind of like and you know put something weird on you but whenever I'm chatting with you I feel like I'm with Ramdas it's like hanging getting to have the conversations I wish I'd gotten to have with Ramdas I really like my interactions with him

were never like I wish I'd had the chance but I feel like I'm getting him out I was lucky enough to live with him before he had the stroke and everything and he was a remarkable remarkable guy and he had his own stuff I mean he was going through it just like everybody

and I think the stroke is what really softened him and opened him and completed him in the end you know one of the joys of going to those retreats in meeting everyone in that community is the realization of like Ramdas

is just the most well known Ramdas there are countless Ramdas at those retreats you know they got the biggest spotlight and seeing that you know it's really like one of the sweetest things

and also seeing like and just like Ramdas had his own stuff it's not to say the other Ramdas aren't dealing with their own whatever it may be you know but that energy is so similar I mean this is for me how I feel like I have gotten to meet Maharaj

and all the you know microphone stuff we could probably you probably could guess like wild stuff aside the the that's how I really connect to the energy

is it's like there is an identical what did you call it the stink of enlightenment you all stink the same stink does have the same stink I think the stink of enlightenment is kind of a different thing the stink of enlightenment

and it's kind of really defiling your life but yeah I mean we all have I mean Maharaj he didn't have any successor really and everybody like he broke into a thousand pieces and we've all got a little piece or something dandelion he did a dandelion effect

and it worked and it's incredible because it reminds me when I okay so when I made a real connection with Christianity it's because I took acid went into my dorm room and started reading the book of John

and and I was drinking wine I remember I was drinking shitty college wine I'm reading the book of John I'm tripping and it occurred to me someone wrote this like whether the validity of this is aside like what mind

wrote these words in this order like what was the what was the consciousness of the person who wrote this down like and then it was like that was the you hear it the Christ consciousness an experience of Jesus like a feeling of the the the thing

connecting with Ram they're like oh it's in the thumb print it's this is the thumb print through a human consciousness that's what I feel like y'all are like you have this thumb print of this being that is just in you and one of the qualities

is you all have the most succinct way of bringing these very wild concepts down to earth in a way people like us can understand that's to me the if I had to look at the similarity regardless of lineage regardless of

Bakhti or non-dualist or Zen or Christian it's that it's that and that is a really incredible thing if I might let me say I do this professionally when I'm not talking to you and

there's this thing called the living dying project that I started with round us a long time ago that we felt that the place that where it was the biggest gap to consciousness in America was the encounter with life-threatening illness so Steve LaVine round us

and me started the conscious dying movement and I run this thing called the living dying project livingdying.org which isn't really not about dying it's about healing about how the way we live determines how we die and the fact we're going to die should hopefully determine

the way we're going to be living so if you go to our website there's like free a lot of free information the most complete site on the internet about conscious dying there's online workshops and there's support groups for people with illness and caregivers and grieving people and

we're having a speaker series where there's this woman Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo who spent 12 years in a cave in the Himalayas is going to she's not going to come she's in India but and she doesn't speak in public anymore but she's agreed to have

a conversation with me on January 21st so there's all that stuff come to our website and a lot of free great stuff. Friends all the links you need to find Ramadeva are going to be at dugatrustle.com and I hope you will

dive deeper with this amazing human thank you so much for your time today I really appreciate it thank you. I love being with you Duncan likewise. Ram Ram. Ram Ram. That was Ramdev everybody definitely check out the Living Dying Project. Other links you need to find Ramdev will be at

dugatrustle.com. Big thank you to Hello Fresh and my bookie give him a shot use those offer codes thank you so much for continuing to listen to the DTFH and I will see you next week until then Hare Krishna

everywhere to go JCPenney request three dollar breakfast deal to obtain discount not valid for other card of combo orders