Duncan Trussell Family Hour - David Silver and Raghu Markus

Episode Date: July 24, 2013

The two brilliant hosts of the Mindrolling (mindrollingpodcast.com) podcast join the DTFH.

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It's me, Duncan Trussell reporting in to you from the time space continuum that I am currently trapped inside of. I hope you guys are doing great. I'll start off with an apology. I'm sorry I didn't put a podcast out last week. I don't really have any valid excuse for not doing it outside of the fact that I was celebrating last week because I received the results of my first CAT scan since I got cancer and man I've been kind of secretly freaking out over this CAT scan because it would be

the thing that revealed whether or not all the radiation I got for a month worked on my lymph nodes and so it's very scary. It's very scary to think about that not working and cancer is obviously not exactly the most wonderful thing to be ruminating over or to have inside your body. For like three months my mind was just going crazy and I finally had to go in to get my CT scan which is not a fun experience. You go in and they inject you with this stuff that makes your mouth taste like you've been licking the bottom of a radiator and then they roll you through this stargate tunnel

and this pre-recorded doctor's voice gives you commands while you're laying on this table with strange chemicals rolling through your body being sucked into an HR Giger style machine that is scanning the insides of your body to find out if death is growing inside of you. This British voice comes on and goes, hold your breath, hold your breath, hold, hold, hold, breathe and breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. I feel like you're trapped in some British serial killer's basement being run through some diabolical machine he uses to torture the idiots that he managed to lure into his

buggy. It's no fun and then I made the mistake of asking the technician if everything was okay on the scan which is really stupid. You should never do that because not only has the technician been instructed to not reveal anything that he might see on the scan, the odds are he doesn't even know what he's looking for. If you've ever looked at a CT scan, all it looks like is a black and white x-ray of a bag of sausage.

How do you identify anything in that? But I asked the technician if he thought everything was okay and he did this quick thing where he looked away from me and then looked back at me and so that made me think that he had identified a problem and so for the next four days I was in a paranoid state fluctuating between panic and nostalgia and I worried and worried and worried and then I found out that everything's fine. The test came back, the radiation worked, Western Medicine triumphed and thank you to every single one of you that sent prayers my way and positive energy my way and amazing

emails and letters my way because I'm certain that that helped in the healing process and it's amazing that anyone takes the time to do that sort of thing. So thank you so much for that. Now it's time for mail back. I'm so depressed from your latest podcast labeled The Craftsman. It is clear to your loyal listeners that have gotten to know your personality by downloading every episode you make available that you are clearly kissing the asses of those two losers who sniveled their way up Chelsea Lately's ass.

I'm not disappointed in their ability attitudes about being low grade comedians because I do not care about them. I'm disappointed in you falling in step with them, virtually selling your soul so that they would like you and ask you to be on Chelsea Lately's shame. I think I like the cancer in depressed Duncan. I hope you still live in your soul somewhere hidden by this money grubbing replacement that was censoring the word blowjob. The fuck, man?

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We also have a Minecraft server, which I invite you to go on. I haven't been on there in a while, but I'm going to go back to it tonight. So, there you go. Those are the ads. Today's guests for the Ducket Trussell Family Hour podcast are two really fascinating people who have their own podcast called the Mind Rolling podcast, which you can listen to at mindrolling.com. David Silver has a million fascinating credits, the least of which is that he produced the video biography of Timothy Leary. The most of which is that he gives the best hugs of anybody that I've ever met in my life.

Super wonderful human, and he is friends with Raghu Marcus, who is the person who hooked up the podcast that I did recently with Ramdas. And Raghu Marcus was fortunate enough in this incarnation to come across Neem Karali Baba, also known as Maharaji, who is the same guru that Ramdas ran into and the same guru that Krishna Das ran into and a great many other fortunate people. I'm generally very, very, very skeptical about gurus as I think any intelligent person should be, I think every once in a while, truly enlightened, advanced being emerges into the time space continuum and this particular fellow, Neem Karali Baba, was one of those people, or who knows,

something outside of words, but everyone who comes across them has a different way of articulating their experience with a man. Some people do it through music, some people do it through teaching, but it's always this, you could always see how profoundly impacted these people were by being around somebody like that. Raghu Marcus runs the Love Serve Remember Foundation, which is Ramdas' foundation, and you can find out more about that by going to Ramdas.org. And while you're there, you can pre-order Ramdas' new book, which I'm really looking forward to, Polishing the Mirror. Ramdas is the author of Be Here Now, Gris for the Mill, Still Here, and a lot of other great books,

so we're all really looking forward to this book coming out. So go subscribe to the Mind Rolling Podcast, go to Ramdas.org, but before you do that, please open your heart to the part of the universe that is currently masquerading as Raghu Marcus and David Silver. P.S., this was recorded on Skype, so forgive the sound quality. Bye. Welcome! Welcome to you. That you are with us.

Shake hands to know you do you do. Welcome to you. It's the Duncan Trussell family. Welcome back to the Duncan Trussell family, our podcast, the host of one of my favorite podcasts, the Mind Rolling podcast, David and Ragu. Welcome, Hari Krishna. How are you guys doing? Great.

Doing great. Great to be with you again. Yeah, it sure is. The magic of technology. Yeah, and how's your day been so far, Duncan? It's been a great day. This has been a good day. I just finished editing a part.

It's productive. Whenever I'm productive, I'm always much happier than otherwise. Right. Right. I really, I feel the same way. I don't know why that is. You should feel good just like lying on the ground. But you know.

What? Well, I mean, why should you make any difference whether you're working or not? You know, it's like, but it makes you feel better when you're working. Yeah, well, you've been lying on the ground a lot. I see. He goes out there in the backyard and he lies down. Yeah. It's I'm commuting with, with the, you know, inevitability of the aliens coming to this

planet before we completely destroy it. Do you now, speaking of aliens, I've got a lot to talk with you guys. Yeah. I have a ton to talk with you guys about. And I guess we might as well just start off on a super paranoid note because you, you, you both are, you both went through the sixties. You saw the protests. You saw that all the various movements that sprouted up.

I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of you were members of the weather underground. What? No, we're not. No, I, but I have to say, somebody once lent me a car from a commune in Vermont for six months. I had this car done. And it was a blue Buick station wagon, rather haggard looking car. And I later found out it belonged to Bernadine Dorn, who was the chief woman in the, in the

weather underground. And on the back, on the back, it had a bumper sticker saying Nixon Agnew. So it was never stopped or ever. You're right. No, Rago and I were not exactly bomb throwers, but please continue. Well, okay. I know you guys weren't bomb throwers. And this is something that we've discussed before and I can't remember which, whether

it's on your podcast or my podcast, but I want to ask you guys what you think about this news that's come out that is all of our emails, all of our texts, pretty much every bit of digital communication happening in the United States is being filed away. And recorded this. It's, it's identical to if in the 40s or the 50s or the 60s, they'd been taking every piece of handwritten mail and Xeroxing it and putting it in the filing cabinet in case they need to do investigate you. What do you guys think about this?

You want to go first? Yeah, it's horrible. It's horrible because it's just, it's just reflective of a paranoid, just a paranoid mentality. Okay. There are terrorists in the world. That's what we call them. But, you know, in the United States, you know, 99.999% recurring are not terrorists.

We're not saying anything. But we, you know, this country is only this country because of free speech, in my opinion, actually. I know I can get it. It's intelligence. I know there's spies. There's this and that. But as long as we continue totally respecting this divisive paranoid sort of system, it'll

just keep going on. So, you know, I'm not surprised at all to do this, but I think it sucks. I've assumed since the 60s that they are doing it in one way or another and always had in the forefront of my brain that it's absolutely transparent as far as they're concerned. They can get anything they want, anytime they want. And it is, you know, and it wasn't us and them situation in the 60s and that hasn't changed at all. The most disastrous thing for me in the whole thing is that, you know, whatever vestiges

of hope about Obama we might have had, boy, those are gone. Right. Yeah. That's for sure. He's definitely, he's just, he's, well, that's the, you know, that's the thing that every pod head has been saying forever, which is, you know, it doesn't matter who you vote for. You're basically voting for a concierge who works for the bankers and they all are going to have the exact same agenda regardless of the, you know, what their personalities are.

Yeah. I think that word concierge really fits Duncan. I mean, it's, you know, everybody has this naive kind of hope thing when Obama gunned a stunning their Chicago giving us speech and whenever it was January 2009 and everybody had a swelling of the heart, oh God, African-American running this country, liberal blah, blah, blah. But you're right concierge time. Someone else is pulling strings here. There's no question about that.

On the other hand, this is happening and we are living here and things are so extreme these days that it gives, it's all, you know, food for turning to transformation, whatever our reactions are, whatever social action that we might take and more of us need to be doing, whatever it is, if we don't consider it in that light, then we are just really at the whim of government, business, cabals, whatever. So you mean you analyze the political playing field and your reactions to it and through that you use that as part of your spiritual life? Yeah, it's nothing but, I mean, I am, you know, like what I just said about Obama, I

guess that's thrown out, you know, now that all of this has come to light, you know, he's just obviously at the, you know, beckon call and he's a concierge, as you said. And I'm, so I, you know, anger, I start to get angry about that and then I start to see what that, where is that coming from in me and, you know, what difference do I have going on that he has? He's obviously a decent guy. He's just being tossed about, you know, he has seemingly good morals and it's just misguided. So he's misguided.

So I'm misguided and lots of stuff too. In other words, I've just got to examine my own shit before I throw it at somebody else. And all of this certainly brings up tremendous polarization. So it's not yet, it's an opportunity to look inside myself and I take that alongside of also, you know, I, when, when the petition comes around about this, of course I'm for it. And of course, you know, I will participate in any way I can, including, you know, talking to you right now.

Yeah. Well, yeah, that's so far the only way that I've thought of, you know, doing any kind of activism is just using this medium to sort of get the information out there. But just because there's a, I've had conversations with several of my friends and I think in the beginning when I was thinking about it, I actually was thinking, well, whatever, who cares? It's nothing I can do about it and I really, anything that I, that most people maybe would want to hide.

I've yapped about it on podcasts for years. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, you know, in a way that's a better condition to be at least in anger than like blatant anger. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't make me angry. It just kind of makes me understand that, that, you know, we got to be, as Narago says,

I agree with him, you know, don't, don't, don't dredge out of yourself the same kind of crap that you think they're doing. Cause then the whole thing will never stop. It'll just never stop. Right. Right. Now that, that's right. Cause since my naive thinking of like, oh, whatever, I have been getting increasingly,

I don't know. I would call it angry and paranoid and I've just sort of found myself being magnetized towards the television and then getting immensely frustrated with CNN and Fox news and the way that the media is handling this. When you see these pundits that they're putting on in their interview style, then you begin to feel like you're watching Chinese state television where they, you know, they're, they're actually giving, they're actually giving an audience to these withered old men who are suggesting that whistleblowers should be executed in a serious way and, and, and

the reporter instead of reacting as in any good reporter would, which is like, are you, are you serious? What, what are we now then? Then what are we? If you want to execute, you want to execute somebody for following their conscience and revealing to their country that this breach of the constitution is happening. Well, what are we? That's not, that's not, I don't know.

Maybe we've never been this like the country that you hear so many people sentimentally talking about. Maybe it's never been like that. But I guess I, I just wasn't around during Vietnam. So I didn't get a chance to see the, the drag. I don't think the dragon's ever really revealed itself to such a degree as it is right now or has been revealed. Well, the, you know, the quantum leaping technology has given these agencies the power that they

didn't have at the time of Vietnam. I mean, there's a lot of paranoia about you, obviously, you know, and it was awful. It was awful time in a way for people. But now they have this thing that every day it gets 10 times more powerful. Look at what we can do with a laptop. You're going to begin to imagine what they're doing with these huge mainframes in, in Virginia and Washington, you know? So I'm not surprised at all by this.

And yet what you said before Duncan really interested me in is like, who cares? I've said everything in any case. I have nothing to hide. And of course, that's kind of a good attitude in a way, because what's the point of getting an old, you know, bent out of shape and ruining your day, you know, when you can, as Roger said before, you know, if, if there's action to be done, do it. The rest of the time, you're going to live your life and not have this sort of burning anger that I see on Facebook all the time.

You know, people just crazed angry about this stuff. I understand them, but obviously it doesn't work to just have, you know, point counterpoint anger, more anger. Well, this is the, this is, this is why I wanted to talk with you guys about this, because I think this is a curious predicament that people who are spiritual or people who have taken up a meditative practice find themselves in sometimes, which is sometimes I just wonder if this idea that we're all one thing is, and we've talked about this before, maybe I'm just hoping that we can come up with something that makes sense in light of

this new thing that's happening. It's kind of like, okay, here I am. You know, do you know how an anaconda kills people the actual way that it works? No, it's really horrifying. An anaconda, when it wraps itself around a being, what it does is every time the being exhales, it tightens. So every time you breathe air out, it tightens a little bit, making it so that eventually you can't breathe back in, essentially.

And that's how you suffocate. And so if you kind of look at the history of what's been happening over the last, I don't know, probably since Bush and his, the illegal wars, what you see is this kind of very precise tightening that's happening a little bit at a time. And it seems like every time they're doing it, it's like a test, you know, like, let's, let's see what they do if we put insane security checkpoints in the airports. Nothing. Oh, look, they didn't do anything.

Okay. Well, now let's see what happens if they find out that we're monitoring every single piece of communication that they send digitally, right? And then nothing, nothing. Well, then what's next? And what's next after that? And what's next after that? Eventually you get to a point where you're like, holy shit, I'm being suffocated by an

Anaconda, but it's too late. It's too late because you're, you're, you're in a train going to some camp and that sounds so paranoid and sane, but historically it's happens all the time. Look at what happened in Iran. Look at what happened in Germany. Look at what this is a, this is like a built in. And it seems like this is when societies go bad, it starts off like this. When do you do, when, so that attitude of like, yeah, what can, you know, I'm just

being paranoid and you know, it's, I'll just go to my meditation or just go to my yoga class or just go jogging or just whatever the thing is at some point, I don't know if that's the right thing to do anymore. I don't get you. What do you mean? What is the right thing to do? Well, I don't know. That's the problem.

I mean, that's why I mentioned the weather underground or that's why I mentioned like the radical, when do you become, when do you radicalize? When do you like do what they're doing in Turkey? When does it become like Occupy Wall Street, but even more? I mean, at what point do you recognize that these people are not the same people as us, that these are more like occupiers than they are like a government? Well, the, you know, how far you want to get into, as you say, the paranoia of that is, you know, there's many, many levels that you can get into that.

And then that's just, that is, and it's not a matter of being spiritual. So what do you do if you're spiritual? It's all spiritual. It's all part, we're all contributing. So in my mind, you know, if they're the people that, you know, initiated Occupy Wall Street, and if that should escalate into it, into what? Into a more violent situation after the, you know, and the violence starts from the authorities, the police that are told to do this.

Does it start there? Is it, you know, is it your Dharma? Meaning, you know, is it what it is that you're supposed to be doing in this life to be leading that particular charge and then encountering what you encounter? Perhaps. But, you know, you, you are doing something. I mean, I guess I have a hard time with the conspiracy stuff, you know. I'm not saying it's, it could or couldn't be there.

But if I live in that kind of a world, then my whole world is schizophrenic. My whole insides are schizophrenic. And I think I'd like to, to do something right around me. Or, you know, you're doing it on this podcast. You are making people aware. And you are, you know, suggesting things that are very, very dark eventualities that are, you know, of course, anything is possible. This, you know, according to the Hindus, we are in the age of destruction.

So, but I think you got to step back because violence, I mean, that is the destruction inside yourself and the destruction for other people. That's not karma I would want to live with personally. No, me either. I certainly wouldn't want to live with that. And I, you know, I just, I just wonder, it's just one of those things. Historically, when you look at the rise of totalitarian governments, they don't just spring up on a, on a, on a Wednesday and suddenly there's a tyrant.

You know, if usually when there's freedom and Iran, I think is a perfect model for that. You know, you have a, they were very liberal and educated. And then the fundamentalists rose to power and then things escalate towards the end of the thing. And then there's a, everything completely shifts, but there's a slow progression. And I just wonder, look, I am, I'm not, I can promise you one thing that is not going to happen is you will not find me marching around a government building, wearing a gas mask and shaking my fist at the, whatever the power structure happens to be. It's just, I'm, I'm so dismayed by this, that it has created a kind of turbulence inside of me.

And that's the other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about, which, and I think to go back to what you were saying, Raghu, about how we have to use everything for, you know, as part of this path or spiritual growth. I went to the Ram Dass retreat with you and I had several weeks of being in this blissful state, but that's pretty much faded away. And that's gone. Hey, that's gone and dead. Yeah, it's gone, man. Now I'm laying in bed in a paranoid fit, like some kind of PCP addict, writhing around, watching Anderson Cooper with my hands clenched into my sheets, muttering weird paranoid shit to my friends, saying we should be like the weather underground. It's only been two weeks, three weeks, maybe. Oh my God, help you, help you,

help us. Yeah. Well, you know, anything that's an experience ain't gonna last. So, but there is something that always does last. It's just maybe a little further buried underneath each one of us. And so you look at this shit. And if you're, if your vantage point, I think your vantage point has become slightly different, I would say. I mean, all of our vantage points do get different. That's really what we're talking about. So, you know, when we're, we're looking at all of this stuff and just absolutely, you know, getting embroiled into the light of the fear paranoia darkness. I mean, you know, we love it. And you, you know, I think you, that's something that has to be worked on in terms of seeing how indulgent we are about all of these experiences and emotions.

And we're just indulging in them. You know, I mean, even the good ones, where, you know, you wanted to hold on to that feeling, you know, the whole, you know, as long as you could on the way back. And it's, of course, none of that's possible. But there is something else operating that, again, it's awareness. You're talking about a lot of very difficult things. And, and way beyond that for people out there is, is giving a shit about, you know, their emails and phone records. It's, what about the job that you can't get anymore? You know, what about the oppression that comes to so many people who had to switch over out of, you know, really good jobs into, into service jobs, you know, and, and how do you support, you know, that's,

that's more, even more visceral stuff, you know, but it's part and parcel of the same thing. You got to deal with it inside yourself. And you cannot just get run roughshod by, by all of your, you know, your thoughts and attachments and reactions and anger and, you know, jealousy. I mean, maybe that's just what they want in a way, because they know they can control that. You know, the police went into, into the main square in Turkey this morning and just, just absolutely, you know, took care of it. And we've seen this happen a lot. And it's going to happen more. And you wouldn't go there. And I wouldn't do that either. But I just want to say, you know, the genies out of the bottle, because the internet and the rest of the platforms we all use now,

all over the world, everywhere, including those countries, was not there during the rise of Nazism. It was not there during Stalin. And I just would rather look at it, and I'm not a Polly Anish person, you know, Duncan, but I'd rather look at it like that, because I know they're just from my Facebook feed and other feeds, Google Plus and so forth. People are really on this. And until they just stop the internet, I mean, if they do that, well, then okay, we're just going to have to farm and have little farms and do that. But as long as we have an expression place, I've seen a lot of stuff on the internet, which is angry, yes. I've also seen a lot of stuff, which is really to the point. Here's the thing about Monsanto. Here's the thing

about the military industrial company, blah, blah, blah, every single day. And some of it might be a little bit paranoid, but a lot of it is based on facts. I mean, a lot of people get linked to the New York Times, Washington Post, to salon, to progressive press, to all this other stuff that's out there. And they're all looking at it and going, wow, this is bothering me. A lot of people are very, very pissed off about this NSA surveillance deal. You know, 30 years ago, we knew about it, but we couldn't even say one word. So I got to look at that as progress. I got it. I got it. Because if I don't, then, you know, then it is, it is the foothills of the Himalayas forever. Because otherwise, you can't live in the society. I really don't, honestly, I'm not kidding you, Duncan. I do think

it's not quite the same as before because it's all out there. We know what's going on in Istanbul. We know what's going on. And we don't know what's going on in Tibet because theirs is real. They've stopped it. Chinese, forget it. No internet, no cameras, no nothing. That's horrible. I mean, but, you know, we're talking about it here. And I don't think this is much happening. You know, honestly, you know, sorry, I'm done. No, no, you just, I think it's better than it used to be thing, Duncan. I really do. I think people are more aware of how shitty it is. But you know, let me say something about just where you can back off and, and you can be, you know, up, let's, let's put ourselves up at the top of the mountain in terms of time and space. And you

look at something like this horror that's going on in Tibet and they're dismantling the, the temples and the jokung in, in Alasa. I mean, it's just beyond, and this has been going on since 1959. This, this horror and, and this horror to them is way worse than our horror, I gotta say. Okay. Right now. And everything you've been describing, I don't care the conspiracy theories, nothing. They take another look from way on high time and space. How, I mean, we talked the other day. We had a Buddhist on our podcast named David Nicktern, a really wonderful guy. He's actually Christian Doss's record producer as well. And, and he, he was saying, you know, in the last three weeks, I saw Rinpoche this, I saw Rinpoche that, I saw Rinpoche there, one after the other, this

country and the West is full of Buddhist Dharma teachings and the, and the Buddhists, you know, in my little opinion, have, have certainly have the most righteous view what reality is. They really do. And these people are all over here accessible, like you cannot believe that are changing, transform, you know, people are being transformed and they have been, you know, since we started meeting them in the late sixties. Wow. Wow. That's kind of funny. And that doesn't discount this horror and that we should do, you know, whatever we could do about that. And certainly, you know, following Robert Thurman's lead and petitioning and Tibet House and all of it. But at the same time, the other thing is true. We have no real idea of what's going on. And,

and, and we are living through, we are living our human karma by virtue of the horrible activities that are going on in this planet right now. But you can never forget that there is a reality that we just are not, you know, it's just not, none of our business, our business is to get ourselves straight so we can help whoever we can around us in, in whichever way, if it's more people due to this kind of a podcast than fabulous. So I think that's a pretty good example of what I would mean. Yeah, and also the, there's, I'm sorry, I'm getting some feedback. Are you guys wearing headphones or I'm coming through? Okay, that's better. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. I'm sorry, I got some feedback there. There, I want to talk about this and, and like,

I've been thinking about it in terms of the double helix and DNA and how there's like a, seems to be a helix formation in society, which is that every single good thing seems to have a mirror horror that's happening. So for example, the equipment used to podcast to try to get out whatever information you're trying to get out has within it these components that are comprised of what's called conflict minerals, which are minerals that are mined in horrific conditions by oftentimes kids. And so for this technology, this technology is built on the backs of suffering and clothes that you wear, you look at these Indonesian warehouses that collapse on the workers. And if you eat meat, the meat that you eat is coming from this animals undergoing the most

horrific suffering you can imagine, the fuel that you use in your car to get from point A to point B is polluting the planet. And this existence, this, this helix seems to have existed. This, this intertwining of pain and pleasure seems to have existed forever. It's not a brand new thing. It's just more amplified now. So what I'm trying to get at here is what is the answer to that dissonance? And I think of the Bhagavad Gita verse where Krishna talks about how I've already killed everybody. I'm eating the world. I've consumed the whole thing, which is I think what you were talking about, Raghu, if you look at it from the long term, how many religions that will never even be spoken again have been devoured by Genghis Khan? How many conquerors have wiped out completely?

God knows how many philosophies. So how do we deal with the cognitive dissonance of the implicit suffering that exists in the world? How do we allow ourselves to enjoy our lives when we know that our lives have been built on the backs of the suffering? Well, that's the question of the century, or maybe of the millennium, actually. We were talking before about Koltan, which goes into every cell phone and so forth to make it small. You're right. It's people mining knee-deep in filthy waters to sort of like, it was like gold, where they mined for gold in the 19th century, getting a little piece. You know, your vision is obviously completely clear and all that. But, you know, apart from the helix, there's also waves. Now, Raghu referred before to the

Kalayuga and the various yugas, which are, you know, hundreds of thousands of years long, where the original Vedic pronouncements about that are that there are certain waveforms in the history of humankind on the planet. And I'll tell you, it's not a thing that I think about rationally, but I believe it. And that means that you do your best. I'm just echoing my friend here, and you too. You do the best you can, and don't let it pollute you. And maybe not by that new cell phone, and maybe not have a cell phone at all at a certain point. But while you need it to transmit truths about some of the iniquities, then there is some redemption there. But after all, you know, if you believe the Buddhist canon and a lot of others, reincarnation is part of the deal,

a great wheel of life. So maybe we'll come back at a time which is worse or better, whatever. There's a there's a book called The Aquarian Gospel of Christ, Edgar Cayce. Do you know Edgar Cayce? I do. But can you can you talk about him a little bit in case people listening don't? Sure. Yeah. So he was from the south, and he was like a psychic. He was like part of the theosophist, I think, right, which around the turn of the early 1900s, Madame Blavatsky, and so on and so forth, came to the fore. And, you know, it would appear to be today probably looking at it kind of a very astrally oriented philosophy, you know, with ascended masters and all of this kind of stuff. So I think Edgar Cayce comes from that tradition

or sideways from it a little bit, but he wrote some books. And he had this Institute somewhere in the south, developing these kind of psychic abilities, etc. etc. The book he wrote is pretty amazing. I actually read it in India. I haven't even seen it since. But anyhow, in the book, there's one great story that addresses this best to me. People come to Christ and say, how could there be a divine being, a God? How could there be with the kind of suffering that is this, the deprivation, killing, sickness, disease? How could there be this? And Christ says, if you cannot see all of a person's past lives and future lives, you have no way of understanding reality. Okay, I got you. So, I mean, and I've said this before, we have no way to understand. We

our job is to get ourselves straight so that we can. You can go and talk about, you know, join forces with Bono, right, who's doing stuff in Africa to address just some of these things that we're talking about. Other celebrities are trying to, you know, do this kind of thing. Or non-celebrities or foundations. I mean, you can get out there and do something, you know. Can you stop having a cell phone and a computer and all of that? Not. You probably can't do that, you know. The karma has already blossomed that way. And the suffering that's going on to create these products that you are using, you know, it's not conceivable at this point that that's going to work. But it is conceivable that you can try and do something about it first inside yourself.

I mean, it just goes back to that. We have no idea why the suffering of the people that who are suffering in the third world countries around this kind of stuff from factories and so on, and mines and so on. We have no idea what they're, you know, what is supposed to happen for them. And, you know, and we can't, you know, and this is not retribution. It's karma isn't like that. But we, all I can say is it's a mystery and we don't have any idea about it except for one thing. We can give a shit and we can't help each other. That we know. So, you know, his holiness of Dalai Lama is the perfect example of this. Is he not? Yeah, I think there's, yes, I think he's a great example. And I think that you're a great example. And David is and Ram Dass is. And I think that,

you know, when you get to cross paths with people like that, it definitely has an impact on your own subjective ecosystem. And I know that there's parts of my consciousness that are as filthy and polluted and agonizing as some third world mine in the sense that certain parts of my mind, if I let myself get into too much, then I'm definitely, you know, will find myself in a kind of down period, which I don't feel depressed right now. I'm actually pretty happy. But I've got to say, I do notice that there is a seems to be a direct correlation to my own internal disequilibrium and the amount that I find myself magnetized to whatever particular horror story happens to be being bugled by the media. And so I know what you mean by saying

that if you just keep going back to yourself, all the other stuff seems to work out. It's just there's a part of my mind that has also been moved by the writings of Camus and the writings of socialists who say, no, don't don't let yourself fall prey to unprovable ideas like reincarnation. Don't try to solve the equation with imaginary or unprovable numbers, the equation of suffering, because those will lead to that can lead you to a place of an action instead face them. And again, I'm just saying this is one part of my consciousness, but they might say face the truth. The truth is that we exist in a time period where greedy people have subjugated the masses and created a living situation that is hellish for a large percentage of people on the planet. And the only

answer is direct action against these people. And if you want to work on yourself, do it by direct protested action, which I would never do. So I don't know why I mentioned that. Again, honestly, you know, I would just like to figure out a way to get back to that way that I felt when I was sitting in Ram Dass's house. Well, you know, the even the Buddhist payment children says that the human body spirit is subject to weather, internal weather. And that, you know, we have moods just like we have a rainy day and we have a sunny day. No matter how much you're ready, all she says when you meditate, you become more aware of and Carl Jung, the great psychologist, one of the reasons he broke with Freud, there are many,

one was that he believed that everybody did have a shadow and should have a shadow within them. Freud said the subconscious was sort of like a big mess. Jung and my to my manager said, we've got a shadow, just like you said, Duncan, there's parts of us that are polluted. And as long as we know that and we can work towards not being kind of either avoiding it or embracing it and allow, okay, I'm going to become a murderer. No, but just knowing that, you know, the murders that go on, we're doing them. We're a body politic. We're all one, actually. And so, how do you deal with it? You have to do something. I mean, the Buddhist monks who are taking action as we now know in Tibet, we don't even know what they're doing, they're taking action. You know,

people said to me, how come Buddhist monks who are meditators and all about peace and interpeace would do some of the things they have to do? Well, they have to do, it's their karma, and they're doing them. What can we do? Well, we do what we can, but I don't believe that being passive is really a correlation of being inner, of balancing the inner world. I think we were all saying, John Lennon said it so many years ago, that, you know, don't talk to you, but don't carry pictures of Chairman Mao, you know, it won't get you anywhere, anyhow, basically, gotta work on your mind instead and actually not your mind, but your heart. And so it's kind of a simultaneous thing, I think. I don't think the two things are separate, but I do think it's the issue of the

shadow and the correlation you made before between your own personal moods and some of the happenings on the planet. That's very deep. I mean, like they used to say in the 60s, man, dude, that is deep. I never said that in the 60s. Hell, you're talking about maybe far out. People said it. No, they said, that's deep, man. And they did. Well, I, you know, one of the, as I keep going back to that, to the meditation retreat, Ragu, the thing that keeps popping into my head more and more and more is swimming in the swimming pool with Ram Dass and Roshi. And, you know, how, like, I mean, it sounds so simple, but it's like looking at, seeing how Ram Dass is just enjoying his swimming pool, you know, like where I'm, my,

my head is a million different places in that situation, particularly, but any swimming pool that I go to, you know? Yeah. Any swimming pool I go to, my mind is really, you know, a lot around, are those kids pissing in this pool or what? Exactly. About paranoia. That's like, yeah. What are they doing in this pool? You know, and should I be in it? So I, I'm with you there. Exactly. And I think that is what we're talking about. We're talking about that on the macro. I'm saying in the micro, it's like, not only is, is a huge part of my mind, like, my God, the reptilians are looking at all my emails. They know what pornography I might look at. They know every single thing about me in a small way. When I get in a swimming pool on a beautiful

day and I'm there with my girlfriend, it's a wonderful day. And I, I have a beer and it's blue skies and the winds blowing through my friends palm trees. All I'm thinking about is, my God, look at you. You're fat and hairy and dying. And, and, and that is, I've, I've been thinking of this as, uh, as, um, haunted mansion syndrome. It's like here you have that what's worse than having a haunted mansion. It's like here you have this beautiful, wonderful place for whatever reason you've gotten a mansion. And yet the thing is filled with poltergeists howling around and, um, and, and, and, and, and, and so that, that's, uh, that's the thing that I keep going back to is how do I get rid of all these ghosts flow,

floating around in my mind so that I could actually enjoy this swimming pool because and I'll stop this weird rant. If I was a third world person working in a mine up to my waist and filth chipping away so somebody could have an iPhone. And I heard that there were honkies who are miserable in their swimming pools who couldn't even enjoy the pool. That would really be it. You're right. That would be it. I mean, I have advice for you. Please. Oh God. Please. Two and me. Stop paying so much attention to yourself. Boom. You always do it, Ragu. Shut up already. You got to say, okay, it's enough. It's not if only or that easy, man. I want to do that. Like I look at, you know,

you said, I really think I can gauge a person's spiritual advancement by how comfortable they are at a swimming pool. But you know what? You know what? You, you, you're brilliance as a comedian and your brilliance on these podcasts is because of that mind of yours that reaches into so many different directions and so many variations and colors of thoughts and thought forms and phenomena that, you know, it's, it's a, it's a blessing for all of us to have that. And it's fun and it's entertaining. But yeah, for you, if I was you, I'd go, okay, can't really get too far into believing any shit that I come up with. Can I now? But I guess, you know, it's true. No, it's true. But, but it's true. It's just, I love that. I love what,

I love that, you know, stop paying attention to yourself. I think that's the, I think that's the essence of it, isn't it? I mean, that's the, it's also, the whole, the whole Buddhist thing is, you know, the whole thing. Okay. One major thing is how to get rid of self-interest or how to deal with self-interest. Just look at it every day. When you, from the moment you get it up, is what Krishna talks about this, right? You know, it's the, it's the story of me. I need to take a shit, then I got to do, and then, oh, I'm hungry. Oh, I need my, I mean, it's me, me, me all day long. What are they doing with my email? Holy shit. What if they find this, you know, on and on. And by the way, this shit has been going on since the dawn of man, okay, from Genghis Khan to Nixon to,

so whatever, it's all been going on. It all will always go on. There are periods that are where people are more connected with each other and less prone to harming each other. But basically, this seems to be the, the grist for the mill, you know, and I don't want to be nonchalant because you're, one thing you're absolutely right about people that more than ever, with, especially with the destruction of the environment, absolutely need to make offerings, even if it's just to the person next door going, why don't you think a little bit, here's a, here's Al Gore's book. I heard, by the way, Al Gore's book, the future is something we should all be reading. Have you heard about that? I haven't heard about it, but I'll order it. Yeah, the future.

Someone told us the other day in one of our podcasts that the vision that's in this thing is brilliant. So we're all going to get that. Let's get that and we're going to read it. Then let's do a podcast around it. Sounds great. Yeah. So anyhow, that's enough pontificating. Do you have something fun to talk about? No, I love pontificating. And that's, that, and no, that's great. You're, you're right. It's, I'm being selfish. I'm a selfish jerk and I'm just stuck in my stupid self. That's exactly right. This means that I need to be like, I just need to be, you know, it's the, what Maharajee says, which is something that keeps popping into my head all the time is, what is it? Bhoji over Bhajan? Right? Is that it? Bhoji. No, Bhoji. But no, no, it's not over.

He used to say to us when we'd, we'd like, okay, you're going to go to somebody's house and there would be like 20, 30 of us, you know, like 20 odd year olds and to eat, they're going to feed you. And then he would come over and then they would say, okay, get him going singing. You know, it's like we were the act, you know, they brought in an act and, you know, hey, it's Westerners can sing Hindu shit. Unbelievable. Get him going. We want to be entertained. And he would say, no, food first, then singing prayers, chanting food first. So Bhojan before Bhajan is the thing. That's it. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I think that's the, I think that's the ticket right there, man. That's the, that is what you guys consistently bring me back to is that, which is just forget

about yourself, figure out a way to get food to people and everything else works out from that. Everything else works out. It's that state of just letting yourself, I don't know what you call it, but anytime I land there, I'm always much better. And so yeah, that's, that's it. That's the ticket. I mean, you know, that's all, and it's all simplistic in one way and another way, not when he, of course, said something like that. It was, you know, incredibly powerfully delivered inside, you know, the deepest part of yourself. But no, yes, you do stop thinking so much about ourselves. It's a great thing. Start thinking about people around us, you know, the Buddhist concept of meta loving kindness towards everybody. I mean, that, that is, is one thing that will bring us

into harmony and balance. But at the same time, it's not that you stop thinking about what is going on with, you know, the military industrial complex, the way that the government is no longer able. It's non functional anymore because of, you know, the power structure. I mean, it's not that you stop thinking about this stuff and, and, and whatever you can do to better inform anybody around you, that's a positive step. But if it's done in anger and polarization, we've said this a million times on ours and your podcasts, it's just not going to work at all. So I think you've got to get simple and stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about people around you and what you can do and what offerings you can make. And,

you know, God knows Duncan, you're doing it here. And at the same time, you're talking about your inner turmoil about how to deal with this shit. And we need to discuss that more, you know, amongst ourselves. We've been asking people to write to us and talk to, oh, we have a terrific thing. I want to give you a, how about a positive something? Yes, please. Yeah, we did something and we found a little quote and we wanted to, if that's what you're talking about. Yes. Yes. We, we did a, we just did a podcast earlier, and it was around technology and what good it can do and the way that it, we, we all can get fairly alienated by virtue of non-human contact, right? Yes. And this is something by someone named Simone Weir, while I'm not sure who that is.

I think a French author of some repute. Uh-huh. You ready? Yeah. Attention. And that means giving attention to people. Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Just giving somebody your time and space. Listening, just being there totally. I mean, I have the, you know, I'm the worst, you know, and, and I have the attention deficit disorder, but we all have a bit of that or a lot of that. But isn't that attention, just giving somebody your attention is the most generous act that you can make. You know, how about starting with that kind of social action? Love it. I love it. That's great. No, that's exactly it. And what a, it's so easy to apply that because God knows there's so many times when you're sitting there and you're just thinking like,

God, am I getting the worst ear beating of my life today? Why is this person so mad at my eardrums that they're just pounding them with his nonsense? Well, there are times though that people do that. And then you may have good course. You just say, look, I really got to get a plane. But I mean, the attention, the invisible people we all encounter all the time, everywhere, everywhere, all the time, gas station, grocery stores, everything, all invisible. Now we can't, you know, we can't just like live, like have them all come and live with us or anything. But there is a much more, much more humane way of looking at the world. I mean,

Roger was talking about before about self cherishing that the, the Buddhists talk about, you know, that's the expression they use is like, oh, I know. Well, in the 60s and 70s, it was all Jane Fonda and, you know, let's cherish ourselves as much as possible. And I am woman and so forth, which is good. And people should have self respect and everything. But they grew into the sort of me generation thing. And now it's, I hopefully the waveform is going back. And it's that thing of just trying to help people, even if you've got no spiritual path, nothing, you don't believe in reincarnation, Buddha, Shmoda, you just can be a decent person on the planet. And actually it works. You know, I mean, we all know it does. And the problem with this kind

of talking is it always sounds like Sunday morning Christian television. And I don't remind me of Jerry. Well, he's no longer going to tell you guys that this does not remind me of Sunday morning Christian television. You know about it. I love Sunday morning Christian television. It's one of my favorite things to get stoned and watch televangelists. Yeah, I used to do that too. But hey, you know what I really love that you just said that I love the term invisible people. And I know exactly what you mean. And it's like in the invisible man, you know, they would throw paint on an invisible man. And suddenly you see this form. And it's that's what attention is doing when you're giving real attention to someone. All these things come out of the background that are

living human beings and they know it. They they know when they're being seen, like when suddenly you cross paths with someone that you might normally ignore. And that's pretty much for me everyone except three people. And then when you pull yourself out of that stupid selfish state, and you're actually just there and you see them that people people love that. And you know when you're invisible, like how often are you walking through a crowd and no one's seeing you. But you're you it's a it's a numbing feeling that can be the most numbing feeling and especially when you're new to a city and you're wandering around. And you know, that's a fucked up feeling man. Yeah, that's a beautiful spiritual practice just giving attention to people just.

Yeah. And I love the word, you know, generosity. I mean, that immediately connects with because whenever you're giving like that, you stop thinking about yourself for a minute, you know, it's it's and that is how beneficial is that. Well, now I'm excited about going now I'm excited about running my errands. This is what you've you guys have done for me. Exactly. Now, you just put that into practice. What is Ramda saying? I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness. And but you don't necessarily tell the clerk that you know, don't you know, don't don't spill the beans. Just it's like an experiment. And God hope you nothing bad happens to you. I was beaten. I was beaten by a clerk who just I was the hipster that broke the camel's back.

You lying white guy. I want to be invisible. I don't need your attention, you freak. Let me bag my groceries in peace. No, I don't. Well, that's what happens if you make a show. We're not talking about going out there and psychically molesting people. We're just saying get doing that thing where you're like, oh, I know that you're a human being and I'm a human being. I recognize that you're a human and you know what? It doesn't just work for people. It works for animals. They know when you recognize them as non robots, because some people see an animal and they just think they're a robot or like a leaf blowing in the wind, like a dog. When you look at the dog and see and look at the dog in the same way, look at yourself like we're just both beings.

You happen to have gotten a dog incarnation. I haven't gotten a human incarnation. They see that and it makes them feel good and safe around you. Well, that's the case with everybody who you may meet and it may be people like you've been to India. So India is a good example because any kind of crazy bullshit that can happen to you there, it's chaos and anarchy. So you can be confronted with, you know, you can be swept up in a march and you know, that gets weird or I was like in a Muslim Hindu riot once in Benar. It's more than once and I had to hide somewhere, you know, and so you never know what's going to happen there. And a lot of times, you know, how many times you've been confronted with people begging for money or something and

how many changes do you go through? Like, okay, driver, keep that car going to kind of throw the money out the window. I mean, people do that or you're at a light. No, don't, don't roll that window down. Then suddenly six urchins are there. Yeah, it's like zombies, like hands, into your car. And then you go through every change under the sun. I mean, and I've told this story, hopefully, people forget this shit, you know, but I was on a train once. And I went off and got myself some bananas, came back on the train and a leper had gone on, gotten on there. And, and he, he put out his hands and his hands, he had no, you know, below his knuckles, there was nothing, you know, and eaten away by the leprosy and bandages everywhere. I mean, it was

like for me just to be there, never mind, you know, get balanced at all or anything. I was completely fucked. I was no way I was so hyper, you know, fear and I'm going to catch it, you can't imagine. And then so I didn't have any money or I gladly would have, you know, given him some money. So he looked at the banana. So I gave him a banana. And you know, I gave it to him and he could barely hold on to it. And then he looks at me like, are you out of your mind? I can't peel this banana. You're gonna have to peel the banana. So I had to take the banana back. And in the peeling and the giving of it, the rest of that shit went away. In that, as soon as I started to do that, my mind and every, you know, everything that was holding on to for dear life

just washed away in that moment. And he just contacted me. It was, it was a big experience actually because it was also I, I am firmly ensconced in reincarnation. This is, I am living through this and I will finish this karma off and move on. I mean, I'm not, nothing was spoken, but that's what I got when he, he looked at me like I was, you know, poor guy, you know, so caught in his shit. And I gave him the, it got washed away. So, you know, I love it. That's the, I think we should close on that story. Okay. All right. Peel the banana for your, for the leper in your heart. Go out there and I'm going, I'm going right now. I'm going to run errands and I swear to God, always man. I think, are you my

guru? I'll go all this time. You are my guru. I love you guys. I got to go. Thank you so much. I'm going to have links to the mind rolling and all your stuff. Micah Booter is running out of juice. So I have to stop this. I make sure I save it. Okay. Okay. This has been the Duncan Trussell family hour podcast. If you like us, why not give us a nice review at iTunes. Now, I'm going to play a song from a artist I just discovered named Kurt Vile and I love him so much. This is from his album, Slow Talkers. Rather, the song is called Slow Talkers and it's from his album, Constant Hitmaker, which is available on iTunes. And I recommend the entire album because it is amazingly good and unique. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye.

Talks to me way too slow. I lose track of what they say before they walk away. I told you once before ain't gonna say no more. Next time you come close with an inquisitive suit, I'll consider myself mute. You're on my mind most time when fear does not overflow. When the cranial cup runneth over with things I despise over and over my chalice of skin, bones and blood pouring forth like the flood. Everyone I know talks to me way too slow. I lose track of what they say before they walk away.