Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Transcendence - Become Your Ultimate Self | Consciousness Expert, Dr. Tony Nader

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Tony Nader, a medical doctor trained at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a PhD in neuroscience.Tony is a globally recognized expert in the science of consciousness and human development. His training includes internal medicine, psychiatry, and neurology. He’s the successor to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the head of the Transcendental Meditation organization globally. Tony was appointed assistant director of clinical research at MIT, and was a clinical research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He’s conducted research in neurochemistry and neuroendocrinology; the relationship between diet, age, behavior, mood, seasonal influences, and hormonal activity; and the role of neurotransmitter precursors in medicine.In his new book, One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness: Simple Answers to the Big Questions in Life, Tony comprehensively examines what scientists call the “hard” problem of, What is consciousness? And that sets the tone for this conversation – Tony expands on his understanding of the relationship between mind and body, consciousness, and physiology and the furthest reaches of human potential._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And if you're new here, welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I'm a sports and performance psychologist. I am flat out fortunate enough to work with some of the most extraordinary thinkers and doers across the planet. And the impetus of this podcast was to celebrate how they work, to celebrate their psychology. We wanted to pull back the curtain and explore how they've committed to mastering both their craft and their minds. Now you recognize, all humans recognize that our minds can be one of our greatest assets. And if you want to learn more about how you can train your mind, this is just a quick little reminder here to check out the online psychological training course

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So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. All right. This week's conversation is with Dr. Tony Nader. This is a remarkable conversation. He is special. He's a medical doctor trained at Harvard University and MIT with a PhD in neuroscience. So Tony is globally recognized as an expert in the science of consciousness and human development. His training includes internal medicine, psychiatry, and neurology. He's a successor to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the head of the Transcendental Meditation Organization

globally. He's got a deep understanding of the internal body and how that works with psychology. And then he takes it much further. So in his new book, One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness, Simple Answers to the Big Questions in Life, he takes a comprehensive look and examination of what scientists call the hard problem of what is consciousness. And so that sets the tone for this conversation. I really hope that you let this wash over you, that you answer some of the hard questions for yourself and use the pause button. When we get into questions or even some terms that you're unfamiliar with, like hit the pause button and answer first.

Like, how would I answer this? Because it doesn't mean that there is, because he says it or I say anyone says it, that it is the absolute golden definition that must be adhered to. We are wrestling with beautiful concepts and they're hard. And so it's why it's considered one of the hard questions and the hard problems in science. I really hope you enjoy this. I know I said that, but I really hope that you enjoy exploring. That's really what this is about. Explore, discover, figure out how to map that into your own life, and then take those steps to apply best practices for you to be your very best

so that you can be there for other people in the same very way. Now with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with the beautiful mind of Dr. Tony Nader. Dr. Nader, how are you? Fine, thank you. I'm better now with you. Looking forward to some great, great discussion. Well, that's two of us. And first of all, I just want to start with a compliment, is that I have deeply enjoyed your work. And maybe more importantly than enjoyed, I find comfort in the way that you wrestle with hard problems. And it is evident that you work from a place of gratitude and kindness and compassion, depth of knowledge, and with scientific rigor. And so right out of the chute, I am so excited to have this conversation with you.

And so thank you for your body of work that you've shared with the world. Thank you for having me. Thank you for all you're doing. It's absolutely on top of the world, fascinating intellectually, but also very useful for the people. And very grateful you described me the way you do. I hope I can come up to the expectations. Okay, good. So let's start with just a little bit of background. And then what I hope we'll do is to level set with some definitions, and then we'll wrestle with those definitions, if you will, in the second part. So where did you grow up? And what was it like growing up? I grew up in Lebanon, the country of Lebanon, a small country in the Middle East,

which had at the time when I was growing up an absolutely what I thought heavenly environment. We had skiing, we had the ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the mountains, fruits, flowers, everything in nature that is inspiring in beauty and in generosity of nature's gifts with the sun and the seasons and a life in which I was comfortable and had all the things I needed to have in order to grow up and learn and expect life to be absolutely beautiful and on top of all that one can expect. And then something happened and it blew up as an explosion of civil strife between different people. And it became just the complete opposite to what I have known. And so that is in a summary, my, you know, past my original few years in life, up to university time, you know, when I learned to become a medical doctor. And I have a French background. So I'm also French,

but also Lebanese. So dual nationality, and immigrated to the U.S. where I learned and studied there. So that's in general kind of the highlights. How old were you when your country erupted? I was 17, 17, 18, you know, just waiting to go to pre-medical school. And then it just erupted. And the most devastating experience one could imagine. Did you experience the traumatic events of war? Or were they... Absolutely, because...

Except you did. Yes, because I was studying to be a medical doctor out of vocation. It was a family vocation. And as a medical doctor, I also happened to be in the wrong side of town, because the city Beirut was divided into what they used to call the Christian side and the Muslim side. And the American University of Beirut, where I was, happened to be in the Muslim side. My background was the Christian side. So I was constantly a little bit under danger, particularly that some of my relatives were leaders in the side that is the Christian side. And therefore, my name was known and I could at any time be exposed to danger. And my life was constantly, I had to watch out. I couldn't walk out into the streets.

I had to go to underground to go to the hospital. At the same time, I was seeing all these catastrophic situations of injury and people suffering and children under tremendous strain and stress. And it made me ask big questions about life, the real big questions. I was asking myself before, but now it became not just the philosophical ideas and kind of philosophical thinking or spiritual undertaking, but really an existential reality that I had to face. Why are people killing each other? What is going on in the minds and the hearts and the feelings of individuals and the groups who controls them? What's the purpose of it all?

Where are we going? What can we do to make it better? And I think that your life has been wrestling with those questions from a young age. And normally, I don't hear people having the clarity that you do of some of those difficult questions coming through medical school. So, you know, so what was the parent, like, I understand I'm making light of it, but still at the same time, like you've got this other component to yourself or this other quality to yourself, the path of wisdom, the path of enlightenment. And so how did you work to deepen your understandings? And there's a person that became important in your life. Maybe you can

talk about that person, but at the same time, the path that you've taken. Medicine has a professional side of treating disease, understanding the physiology, understanding disease, understanding mind, body, even connection to some extent, and treating, finding the solutions. And so it's a vocation of healing and health. But at the same time, for me, it was a path of understanding how does our body work to influence our desires, our decision making. So in a sense, I was a seeker, even in studying medicine, it was for me, of course, a way to be contributing to society and a vocation of healing and health. But at the same time, I was trying to understand how the physiology works, because I thought that physiology is everything. The body, the materials construct of our body creates our brain. Our brain works in a certain way. It creates our awareness, our mind. And then we make decisions based on our mind and our understanding of the environment system and its building blocks and all of that,

we could actually understand a lot about humans and their behavior and what they can achieve. So in that sense, it was helpful, but helpful to actually go beyond it in a sense and find something completely different. So the solution was not where I thought it was. Okay. And so this is really helpful because you started with the material and moved into, I don't want to say the immaterial, but moved into the next set of questions, which is how does what we cannot see impact what we can see? And so can we start with some definitions? And I don't want to make light of any of the questions I'm going to ask. And my hope is that we can have some clarity and then we'll wrestle with it later in the conversation. But if we start with the individual,

I've heard in your teachings that you've shared a first principle is that we all want to be the best we can. We want to use the best of ourselves wherever we are. So can we just start with this question, which is a beautiful first principle, by the way, which is what does it mean to be one's best? To be one's best is to be able to achieve one's goals and desires in life and have a meaning in our life so that there is meaning in what we do and not becoming like a football of situations and circumstances where we are happy if something comes out in the outside. We're not happy if something happens that is not according to our thinking. And therefore, our moods, our feelings are subject to change based on circumstances and situations. And situations and circumstances are changing

all the time. That is the nature of life. That is the nature of the relative. And therefore, if we are established in our awareness with the outer values only, we're not anchored in that self that can be something very beautiful. So achieving the highest value of the self, I think starts by defining what the self is. So what is our self? We associate our self with a name, with a profession, with a look, with a nationality, and all of that. And to a large extent, of course, they are also our self. We cannot ignore that. But there is something much more profound that I've came to discover and understand. And that is the inner self, which sometimes we don't have contact with. We don't have, we don't associate our self with that inner self. And that is what I discovered through

the techniques that I have learned, in particular, Transcendental Meditation. And that is to go beyond the outer values and find within some very peaceful part of our reality. And it's not just peaceful, it's also the source of our thinking, the source of our creativity, and find the dimension of what ourself is, that's beyond just the surface definitions. And ultimately, this establishes, anchors us in something more stable, and therefore gives us a platform for action, which is much more stable in itself and not subject to the changes as much. Of course, we are, you know, compassionate, we are sensitive to the outside, It's not that we lose connection and we become aloof. But at the same time, we have to be well-centered within ourselves. And within that value, we can then achieve. So what allows us to achieve most is clarity, stability, strength within, creativity, and ability to see, that's part of what the self is,

the bigger self. Yeah. So how does that relate? Best self and self and true self. And I'm asking, I use those words and those phrases. And can you talk a little bit about true self? True self, I would write with a big S. And that is what we call the ultimate self. The ultimate self. The ultimate self takes us to the ultimate reality of what life is about, to where things come from. What is the true nature of not my personal inner individual self, but the true nature of everything.

And this takes us to considerations, if we like, in physics, but also in mind-body and, you know, even spirituality to deal with consciousness, what is awareness, and all of these points. So there is a self, which is a unified field of being, that itself manifests as all the different multiplicity and variety in life and in nature, and it includes the entire universe, not just individual human beings, but also all that there is. And that is the reality that manifests as many from one reality manifest at many. So that can actually be experienced, but one has to transcend, which means go beyond the other aspects of the self, the other realizations or connectedness of the mind and of the self to go beyond,

which means to transcend the surface value. We can say, let's call it like the self or the mind is like an ocean, active on its surface with waves on its surface, and quieter as you go deeper into its true reality. If we are on the surface of the mind, we are like on the waves and we experience the waves and we think that this is all there is and our mind is there. And if one acknowledges oneself or associates oneself with one of the waves, then that's the wave and you ride the wave and that's it.

Now, if you leave the wave a little and look inside and dive, you will find that there is deeper value. And the deeper you go, the more settled it is and the more connected it is till you reach the bottom of the ocean where it's completely quiet and silenced. But that is what supports all the surface values of the waves on the surface. So the apparent self, the self we usually associate ourself with, is like the wave, and the true self is like the depths of the ocean, or if you like, the entire ocean, which takes the wave also into consideration, but it doesn't ignore the source of the wave. So these are kind of analogy maybe to make it a little bit more accessible visually. Finding Mastery is brought to you by

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felixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20 off yeah awesome yeah super it's actually quite clear to me and if i play it back um there's a set of processes to know yourself right and then um there is a set of practices to help you be your best self and then there are also um trends and transcendental practices to help you understand your true self does that sound close to being right absolutely right just on the on the money okay okay good so let's let's get over to the you know the hard problem of consciousness which is at the center of much of your work here and in understanding, it's a hard problem in science

because we've reached some of the limits of the scientific experience to be able to describe what it is like for the subject, for you and me to experience something, anything. And so it's as if there is a gap between the mind and the physical world and the experience of the person experiencing it. Now, I'm oversimplifying the hard problem of consciousness, but can you start with two things? What is consciousness? And then why is it hard for, maybe it's not hard for you, but why is it hard in general for most people? It's quite hard, actually, not to define consciousness, but to see where it comes from. Right. So, consciousness is not like a substance because you can't, you know, touch it through your senses, but it's the window through which we see everything,

we experience everything. So consciousness is simply the ability to be aware, to be conscious, and also to be conscious that we are conscious. So there is that self-reflective reality, which is almost a higher state of awareness, of consciousness. So we can, you know, the scientists can define it in two, there is two broad things is to experience something, and to think about something. So the actual experience is part of detecting something. So you can have a robot that learns to detect a color because it can be taught to detect the frequency of light. And it says, well, it detects a frequency and you program it to say, well, that frequency of light, you're going to say this is red. So you send that frequency of light to the robot

and the machine and it detects the frequency like our eyes and then it goes to its software and the software associates that frequency with red and the robot has learned to say this is red. And so you show this to the robot and the robot say, this is red. Now that is the experience. Now does the robot think, does the machine think about the red and experiences the red and the redness of the red as a personal experience and is aware that it is experiencing it, this is where the consciousness on a different level comes. That is the consciousness of thought, of having thought about it, of experiencing. For example, what is it to experience love?

What is it to experience pain? What is it to experience joy? And scientists have called this qualia, whatever, it's a name, the qualia, which means those experiences that are subjective and personal and are not just experiential on the system like we have just, you know, defined. So consciousness has all these layers, but the highest layer is that subjective part, which is a big question. Where does it come from? How can a material system like our physiology work in such a way that we are aware and aware that we are aware and feel things and feel their qualities and their qualia and their nuances and have emotions about them and like that. So

this is a gap. There is a gap here between the material physical and this mental quality of experience and thought. And it is, there is nothing yet that has solved that problem. So, you know, when, when, when Chalmers was the philosopher who coined the term, the hard problem, they find it, he said, there is the easy problem and there is the hard problem. The easy problem is not so easy at all in sense, but it just gives you an idea. It's like one day we know we will understand how the brain gets red and says it is red. Or, you know, the steps that it takes, you know, the frequency hits the retina, retina goes to the, this nerve and that nerve, and then it goes this, and then it associates with that. And then there is memory and it compares to memory. And then the person says it is red. So that is the easy

problem. One day we're going to discover all the steps that it takes and what happens, even when we feel love, what happens happens what are all the steps but the hard problem is that how does this translate into an individual personal subjective feeling and thought about it and be being conscious about it so that is the gap between the material and the non-material, which is that subjective part. And, you know, this is, I'm tempted to dip down into like what comes first, the chicken or the egg matter or consciousness, but let's pause that for just a moment. And then can you talk about individual consciousness and then collective consciousness?

Yeah. Individual consciousness is like what we consider usually consciousness, which is we are conscious of love. We're conscious of red. Our consciousness takes, in fact, the way I call it is takes colors. So it's consciousness when the consciousness is colored with red, it just says red when it's colored with love, it feels love, you experience love. And, you know, before even we get to collective consciousness, in the definition of consciousness, if we want to understand it, simply imagine if one, you know, all our listeners would imagine if they don't have consciousness.

That's the way to really also sometimes appreciate what consciousness is. And suppose you're in anesthesia or in coma or, you know, even in deep sleep, even though deep sleep has its own consciousness, but you're not there. So without consciousness, you cannot experience anything, you cannot plan anything, you cannot understand anything, you cannot, you know, live or share or wonder about the universe and what is there. So that is why consciousness is so important and so primary. We can come back to that. Now, this concept of collective consciousness is, we can say like, if you have a brain which made out of trillions of neurons, and if you imagine that each neuron, each cell of the nervous system, imagine that it has its own consciousness, as if it has its own awareness at some level. And this is just imagine, even though

one says, oh, why do you know, maybe the neuron doesn't have, it's just a mechanical thing. Independent of that, just for the analogy, you have these neurons, imagine they have individual consciousness, their individual consciousness will be very limited, because they will see only whatever comes to them as an experience of light or sound or smell or whatever, or memory or whatever. So that's the one neuron doesn't even it, doesn't recognize it as a memory, but it just reacts to it in a special way. Now, the collection of those neurons, they create our consciousness as humans. So the consciousness of our human reality, our consciousness, we can say is the collective consciousness of all the neurons in our nervous

system. Because each one contributes something, each one experiences something. And all of these somethings come together to create a picture which is bigger than the picture of the individual cells or the individual neurons or the individual parts of the nervous system. So it's the togetherness, the integrated togetherness of not just the nervous system, but the whole physiology that creates our consciousness as we experience it. And that integrated wholeness is what we call collective consciousness. Now, we can make a step further and say, assume we as individuals in society are not so disconnected from each other. And therefore, when there is some news,

when there is some interaction, when there is something happens, it spreads around and it creates changes in our own individual consciousness, individual physiology. But if we put all the group together, they will have a collective consciousness. They will have a collective awareness. As individuals, they might not be aware of the collective awareness, but actually it exists and it actually influences individual behavior in society. So, this is how you see like mass actions and people, you know, becoming like sometimes mass creative thinking or mass hysteria or whatever, you know, it happens. And that is based on the collective consciousness of society. And if there is stress and strain in society and the individuals of a society are stressed and strained, their collective consciousness is a stressed and

strained collective consciousness. And that collective consciousness influences the individuals in society so that a weaker individual or an individual who is not anchored in themselves, they are subject to this collective consciousness. Therefore, their behavior is going to be very much influenced. So if it's a stressed collective consciousness, and some weaker individuals or individuals who are not holding on to their inner strengths and inner self, as we defined, those are likely to have problems or not to be able to act properly, and even to commit crime and create issues and problems, get into accidents or whatever, you know, that dictates. So, this is where there is an individual to collective consciousness

interaction and also responsibility. This is where leadership pays dividends and the leadership of media for the collective consciousness influences the leadership inside of cultures of family and business and regions of the world where leadership can influence in many respects collective consciousness. And it is still independent of good leadership or bad leadership if we want to put those labels on it, effective, enlightened, maybe is more a powerful descriptor of leadership. But independent of that is still our responsibility to increase our awareness. And then from our awareness, invest in the quote unquote, right actions, right thoughts. And so I sound very Buddhist when I say that,

but I also want to be very practical when I say that. And so, I'll pause there, but you likely have a reflection on that. It's absolutely beautiful what you said, of course, you know, to have a green forest, you need green trees. So, to have a peaceful society, you need peaceful individuals. So the responsibility also starts with the individual. We have to improve our awareness, our consciousness, if we want to improve the collective consciousness. And we have studies on that. We have research that this paradigm has come as a thinking idea, but we have pursued it in terms of actual research to see if it works.

And repeatedly it has worked. Repeatedly it has shown that when you improve the individual consciousness and you don't need to change the entire society, there is a phenomenon in physics and in nature, which is an entrainment where a small number of elements, when they get coherent together, they can get the entire group to move in the right direction. You know, we know this in the laser beam. You know, your laser,

you know, you can open tunnels through laser. You can, you know, go through mountains with a laser or you can burn things through laser. And laser is not different than regular light on its frequency level, just regular light. What's the difference? The difference is the individual waves of light are coherent. Whereas in usual light, the individual rays are going in all directions. Fine, they create light, but they don't create laser. Now, if you take a small percentage of light waves or rays and make them coherent, which means they go up together, they go down together, like a wave, and that creates an entrainment situation where the other waves come together.

And that's how you create the laser. And now the laser is capable of powerful things. So coherence is very important. And coherence can be created from a small number of people getting coherent. And that can attract the others naturally. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery

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that behavioral, the critical mass for behavioral change happens around one in five. So I don't know if you are familiar with that finding or if you've got other findings, but one in five people has enough to create some movement inside of a culture. Are you familiar with that were actually even requiring much less than that. We discovered that even 1% practicing those techniques can have this effect. But on different aspects of nature, yes, this one in five or 20%. Would you like to tell us a little more? I'd like to hear more about that. Like the one in five. What we found for creating change in environments for, let's call it culture. And culture is a fancy word for how relationships work inside of an organization. And so the quality of relationships is really what a culture is. And we found that

when we have 20%, one in five, that the culture becomes durable. It becomes attuned to the virtues that we're working to attune to. And so there certainly can be the outlier, the strong individual that pulls away from culture. And then we definitely, so that's where the one in five or the 20% has showed up to actually be strong enough to metabolize or to work with or to be resilient with the one strong kind of opposing cultural attribute functions, which is the person that's pulling away from the culture is all I'm trying to say there. And so we found that in sport, that the one in five seems to be pretty strong indicator of good culture. And so that being said, I'm wondering if you could share some of your research on when people on the coherence

side of things, when people meditate together, this changes we see in collective consciousness. Can you point to some of that research and those findings? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, based on this, like the 2080 is very interesting. It makes me think of, you know, changes. If they happen on the surface of the ocean, you will need much more percentage or proportion to create the effect. But if you can act from the depths of the ocean, you can move more waves and create a bigger effect. So what we have done is use those individuals who transcend. You said you

wanted us to define also transcendence. Maybe if it's okay, I can go to that. Please do that. So to transcend is a term that means to go beyond, just simply that. And transcendental meditation is a technique of the mind that allows us to go beyond the surface of the ocean that we just described, the waves. And therefore, we go into the depths of things. And we reach to the bottom of the ocean where we can act from a level that is much more powerful.

If we like an analogy, we can say, you know, take it from physics, for example. What are things made of on the surface? They're made out of molecules. Molecules are made out of atoms. You look into the atoms, they're made out of elementary particles. Elementary particles have been discovered to be excitations of fields. So we used to have electric field, magnetic field, this field, that field. And scientists started to discover that actually these fields are more and more unified as you go deeper and deeper into nature.

For example, we never talk about electricity and magnetism as separate things. They are separate phenomena, but the field is the electromagnetic field. It's one field that appears sometimes at magnetism, sometimes as electricity. And this is pure physics. Now, physicists kept looking deeper into what makes life, what makes nature, what makes the physical. And they kept going deeper into fields and fields, and now they have theories of what is called a unified field, which is the ultimate research in physics looking to define and discover that there is actually, and that's what they contemplate, even though there are theories about it, the whole thing is not fully yet discovered, but most scientists believe there must be a unified field.

So one field from which all the other fields come, and then all these fields in their excitations, they create the appearance of elementary particles. The elementary particles, they come together, they form what we call the atoms. The atoms, they come together, they create molecules. In our body, molecules come together to create cells. Cells come together to create organs. Organs come together to create a physiology

and then a human body and a human mind and all of that. That is the idea from science, as if this is how it happens. In any case, the deeper you go in nature, the more you have access to something that is non-local, which means the action is not just here because again, that's a consideration of quantum field theory and quantum mechanics. Maybe we don't need to go into whatever you like us to talk about. No, no. You know, I love this. I, a mutual friend of ours, Deepak Chopra was on finding mastery and I,

I'm not going to share his email, but his email is very clever. I'm not sure if you have his email, but it's a nod to being non-local. And so, you know, it's a very clever, very insightful idea is that we are non-local. You know, we are not just here and it's complicated. And so if I could pause where you're going and just get one point of clarity, which is we talked about from the unifying field, moving up eventually to the physical human experience, and then you added on top of it consciousness. And that surprised me hearing that from you, that we're moving from the body to consciousness.

And so I want to make sure I'm hearing that correctly from you. You heard it correctly, but I didn't say it correctly. You're saying that there's a traditional understanding in science, but you're saying that that is limited or maybe even directionally wrong. Yeah, incomplete and to my mind, completely wrong. Directionally wrong? Well, that the mind comes out of that is the wrong connection. And it's good you pointed this out. So the actual mistake in expressing it is helpful

because it will help us to put the emphasis on reality so the unified field is what becomes all the different values and then scientists or physicalists if you like people who believe that everything is physical or materialist, that everything is material, then they say that out of this emerges the mind. But that's where physics goes. Now, I was going to bring a point which is different than this, but we'll come back to that. And the point is that the deeper you go, the deeper you go, the more power you have.

You know, on the outer value, you have mechanical power, but if you go to the atom, you have the atomic power because it's much more there. And if you go even deeper, you have the non-local effect of this quantum field effects and entanglements, which is a phenomenon of connectedness, which is on the deeper level beyond time and space, and all of these phenomena of non-locality, which means you look at the atom, it's fine, you think it's localized, but it's just there because you're observing it this way. If you actually look at the physics of it, you find that it has possibility to be anywhere, and it's actually a wave, It's not a physical concentrated thing.

And so when you go to that level, you have new reality that on the classical level, you don't appreciate. That is one thing. Now, that is what we are doing when we are addressing the question that we are addressing, and that is the 1% effect, to go back to where we were and keep our listeners in tune with our strain of logic. So your question was, tell us about your effect. We talked about 20, 80%, and I said 1%. So you want to know how does it work? So what I'm trying to say is if you work on the surface, you might find that the equation requires a certain percentage, which requires much more. I can't help it.

I'm laughing here because I love where you're going. You're like, listen, Mike, stop working on the surface. You don't need so many people. You don't need 20%. Like go deeper. And when you go deeper, you get the alignment of the 1%. And then that upspring changes individual consciousness at scale. It's wonderful. I couldn't have said it better. Thank, that was so good. Okay. All right. All right. So transcendence is being aware. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're saying transcendence is, it's awareness, but it's, you had a different way that you described it. Well, transcendence actually is to go beyond.

To go beyond what? To go beyond specific thoughts. And this is what people don't imagine unless you experience it. Because you think when I'm aware, I'm always aware of something. So I'm aware of a thought. I'm aware of a flower. I'm aware of my friend. I'm aware of a feeling. I am aware of something. Always I'm aware of something.

And transcendence is to be aware of awareness, to be aware of what we call pure consciousness. It's like you have a screen and on that screen there is a movie going on. And so you forget the screen, you're now taken by the movie. And all that there is, is the movie, the movie, the movie, the movie. Now, if the movie fades away, fades away, fades away, and suddenly you have the screen. On the screen, you have no individual awareness of any aspect of specificity, which means a picture, a flower, a person, a thought, a feeling. It's just consciousness by itself. That's why we call it pure awareness. We call it pure consciousness. So ultimate transcending, because we can say, I can go beyond this level, beyond

this level, beyond this level. So there are levels of transcending, But the ultimate transcending is to go to pure consciousness, pure being. And that is the experience that happens with transcendental meditation. You go within and you find this pure consciousness, this pure being in which you are aware, but aware of nothing specific. You're not asleep. You're fully awake. You're even more alert, but there is nothing, no content of specificity in the awareness. And that is really transcendence. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth.

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the unified field that the physicists and scientists are looking for. It is consciousness. It is pure consciousness. And that means the stuff of life, the ultimate stuff of life is actually consciousness. So consciousness is not an emergent quality. And again, I'm glad that we did this little interaction where you corrected my expression, really, because you're sharp and you see through it. And, you know, oh, wait a minute, here you're telling me consciousness is emerging there. That's not what I thought you were going to talk about. And indeed, you know, people think it's an emergent quality. That's a term very much used in the science of consciousness

and the discussion, whether consciousness suddenly appears because of the complexity of the nervous system and how it works, or consciousness is something more primary. And what we're saying now is that consciousness is the stuff of life, is actually the unified field. And it is the vibrations, reverberations, and dynamics of consciousness that creates all the appearances that we see. That's a different topic. That's what I discuss in my book on Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness in great detail. So to see what is the mechanics, it's not enough to talk about it. You have to show in a convincing way the mechanics by which consciousness appears as different values. And if we get into the practical, so this is, by the way, as a note, it is refreshing

that you've taken this step and to take this position and to have a sense of not just the spiritual philosophical opining, but also having the connection to science, you know, and the rigor of science in this hard problem of science, the hard problem of consciousness. And so this is where I've appreciated your approach deeply. And for me, intuitively, it aligns. And so I have never understood the emergent property of consciousness. It does not make sense to me. But then what's hard for me is to discern if that is because of my upbringing, if it was because of my instilled worldviews that I'm working to examine and maybe discard some of those worldviews and upgrade others. So it's hard to discern for me if that is part of the reason I never attuned

to the emergent property of consciousness is because it was part of an earlier worldview, or if it's actually something that is experiential. And I'm closer to it being experiential, meaning that when I get quiet and I find a sense of stillness and silence that call that my awareness of my consciousness or of consciousness, that it feels like there's a unifying field between all of us, that that is true for all, that we all have this ability to be conscious. And I even think that, I don't know, my loving dog has consciousness. And I think that that's for a later conversation maybe. And so I'm not sure if trees have consciousness. I'm not sure if like some animals do, or I don't know. I haven't

gotten into that. I'd be curious about your take on it, but I don't want to get lost in that. Actually. I, I, I'm much interested at this point to say, what are some best practices to increase one's awareness? And I, I think I know where you're going to go, but I want to get into the weeds of, of those practices. And then why is consciousness so important for leaders and for business leaders and family leaders and political leaders? And then the third part I want to talk to you about is we are in a condition, a global condition, but certainly in the United States, if I can speak to my individual experience here, is that stress is at an all-time high in my life for most people I know. So I want to talk about

all three of those. And so can you talk about the practice, why it's important for leadership, and then its relationship to high stress that we're in now. The practice, you know, everything we do influences our awareness. I want to say this first so that we don't appear to be just saying that's the only way to do it and all of that. Everything we do influences our awareness. Whatever we put our attention on grows stronger in our life. So if you see something good and helpful and happy and nice and inspiring, it impacts you and it packs your awareness, your vision. You're not the same when you come out of a talk that is inspiring, that gives you light and knowledge, rather than coming out of a situation

where there is stress and fear and pain. So our vision, you know, we can say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. It really depends on also the filters that we have and that grow. So what we need is to clean up the filters in a sense. So everything we do has an impact. Even if you eat the wrong food, it has an impact on the way your physiology works, your nervous system. If you have a cold, you know, you feel miserable, you wonder you're ever going to be the same again. And then you come out and you wake up and you open your eyes and you see you have a consciousness comes back when you recover. So there is a very deep and profound interaction

between mind and body, because ultimately, as we will come to the conclusion, they are the same, they are all consciousness. But let's keep this for a minute on the side. But what is the ultimate, if you know, if we describe our paradigm of reality the way we just described it, going to the unified field and saying that everything is consciousness, if the unified field of physics is actually consciousness, what is the ultimate way to kind of make best out of everything is to go to the fort which controls the territory. It's to go to the president of a company which controls the functioning of the company. It's to go to the highest first rather than second. So the best thing one can do is go to the unified field because all the laws of nature that manage the universe

and maintain it in whatever order and maintain things happening as they do, come from that field, come from that aspect of reality. So the best thing one can do is to transcend. Go beyond the surface, go to the self, anchor your ship in the ocean, in the bottom of the ocean, and then no matter how big the waves are on the surface, you are solidly strong and established in stability and strength. Now, that's not the only reason, stability. Thoughts that come to us are the basis of our action.

We think we act, the body acts, so you have to use the body and all of that. Of course the body acts. And through the action we get achievement. Fine, of course, the body acts. And through the action, we get achievement. Fine. Of course, it's through the action. But how do we do our action? It comes from our thoughts. So we think, then we act. Except if we are automated, then we are not, you know, then we are just reacting to things. And then a machine can do it we don't need anything and that's it's a different story but if we want to create a better life for ourselves fulfill our desires create something that is progressive and growing and helpful for ourselves and others we have to have proper thought this is planning and thinking now where does the thought come from? It comes from the inner self. It comes from

ourselves. And in our paradigm and what we're proposing and what we have seen scientifically, it comes from that field. So the more people go deep within themselves, the more they are in touch with the source of thought, the source of creativity and the source of intelligence, which brings us back to this big self that we talked about, the true self, that source of creativity, and the source of intelligence, which brings us back to this big self that we talked about, the true self, that is in fact the self of everything and the self of everyone. And from that platform, this is, we said, the non-local level that can act, you know, in a way that takes into consideration the entire field of reality. And so we are established in a place which is the source of creativity, the source of intelligence,

the source of coherence, the source of all that there is. So the technique is go to the self and experience that. Now, what happens when you go to the self is not just some philosophical, inspirational, nice idea, but the fact that you are aligning yourself with the source of intelligence, with this unified field. And as the ocean gets quieter and quieter when you dive deeper and deeper, the mind gets settled more and more as you dive deeper and deeper, the mind gets settled more and more as

you dive within. And since mind and body are intimately connected, the body settles down. So the body gains deep rest. And this stress is so profound that it can get rid of your stresses. So that brings us to the point of stress that you have mentioned, that is a great problem in society. And the stresses, how are they usually relieved? Through rest. How do we get rid of stress? If you have pain in the muscle or you have some stress fatigue, you don't like try to pull it out of the muscle, you rest. And the body has the ability to heal itself because it can get rid of this abnormal functioning by healing itself. The deeper you give it rest, the deeper the stresses are released. And the more deep the

stresses are released, the better your physiology functions and the clearer is your mind. And therefore, you not only access that field of creativity and intelligence, which is your true self, so you're going back home, going back to your cell, but also you get cleaned up, you get cleared up from those filters that damage your perception and don't allow you to see broadly. Also, your consciousness expands. Under stress, and let me talk physiologically a little bit, under stress, we have a built-in mechanism for fight or flight response. And that is because, you know, developing in the jungle or whatever, the most important thing for the physiology is to deal with immediate danger.

So we used to have tigers jump on us, elephants around the corner. Now they don't exist, but we have translated this into a noise from a car, you know, somebody, bad news in the television, somebody's, you know, plane crashed or something happened. This, you know, we internalize as human, as a social being, we internalize and we, our system thinks, oh, that's the stress of the jungle. And therefore, it gets into that fight or flight response. What does the flight or flight response do? It favors the part of the nervous system that deal with fight or flight, which means it distributes the blood to the muscles, it constricts the eyes, it raises cortisol for, again, inflammation, adrenaline goes up. Why? Because you have to fight or run away.

Otherwise, you succumb to danger. But what is the cost of that? The cost of that is your upper part of the nervous system, which is your cortex, which is the part in which you have inspiration, thinking of the future, anticipation of the future, enjoying music, enjoying the world, have a broad comprehension, being able to see the beauty of life and experience it is actually not favored. And here we're talking physically. And we have research that shows that the blood actually is shunted towards the inner part and it's not distributed in the upper parts, which deal with these higher values. As a result, your awareness, your consciousness is narrowed. So consciousness can be narrow or can be broad, since we're talking about consciousness.

Under stress, consciousness becomes very narrow. In the 1970s, there was Eastern Airline flight flying from JFK to Miami. And there were three pilots, an engineer and two pilots. And then when they arrived almost near the Everglades, they found that there was a little bulb that was not functioning properly. And so they got all three of them, you know, one had to go down to check it out and all the things about this bulb, the bulb, the bulb,

what happened to the bulb and all of that. And they forgot that the autopilot wasn't anymore activated. And unfortunately they crashed. And, you know, probably you're aware of this. I don't know if you do. But their focus on a small, little, tiny point because of stress made them forget the broad comprehension, the field awareness. And that's why the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, installed later training for pilots for what they call situational

awareness. It's like, don't get, you know, bogged down with some small thing and forget to fly the plane. This is something that unfortunately happens to people in their lives. They focus on a small thing, they lose broad comprehension. And how many people crash their plane, crash the life that they have because of a small thing? You said this that time, I said this this time, I did this this time, you did this that time. And you get this idea fixed, this fixed idea. It's like looking at the bulb and forgetting to fly the plane, forgetting to fly your life, to take it to those amazing possibilities that it offers us because you are focused on this little tiny thing.

And that is physiological also. It's not just some kind of intellectual thing. The physiology responds to stress this way. That narrows our awareness. We lose the broad comprehension and we crash our lives this way, that narrows our awareness, we lose the broad comprehension, and we crash our lives this way. So that is a very important aspect. Broad awareness, broad comprehension is not just a term for philosophy and understanding. It means how many factors in life are we able to take into consideration when we are as leaders or as

individuals facing a situation? The leader, more than anyone else, because you asked this part of the question, needs broad comprehension. So what they need is to step back away. And the leaders know this, the great leaders of companies and societies, when they have many factors, they know they have to take a step back. But that step back can be on just a conscious intellectual level, trying to analyze things, but can also be on a much more profound level, which is to transcend, which is to go inside and go to the ultimate stepping back. And stepping back here doesn't mean running away. It means broadening awareness, broadening consciousness, and that transcendence starts to become more and more established in your life. Not only during this few minutes of

transcendental meditation, morning and evening, but it starts being established on a regular basis, even when you are actually dynamically attentive to the outside and taking care of the outside. The inside is the ocean of consciousness, always established there. And I take this opportunity to come back to a point you asked, and that is the ocean of consciousness always established there. And I take this opportunity to come back to a point you asked, and that is the difference between transcendence and cosmic consciousness, pure consciousness and cosmic consciousness. We differentiate it this way.

Pure consciousness is what you experience during transcendental meditation, during the transcending process. You experience pure consciousness. If pure consciousness remains with you all the time, even when you are active, that's what we call cosmic consciousness. So that's kind of a higher level of consciousness, if you like. But it comes from regular practice where that quality starts to be established within you. And then you live life on that platform you live life on that continuous platform um so i i'm i love what you're doing here

and so you're stringing together some very esoteric words and making it very concrete. And one of the offers that sport and certainly elite sport provides is this concept of the importance of training and front-loading the training prior to the stressor, the competition, if you will. And the front-loading makes it so much easier when we build the capabilities. I'm sorry, when we build the abilities. And then we also have the capability of accessing those skills, whether they're physical or psychological or technical skills, to access those skills and to express them under duress. And that is why in the language that you and I are talking about is that meditation is one of the front-loading skills. And when you front With that enhanced awareness, we can choose and respond, hopefully eloquently and gracefully respond to the external world as opposed to

being whipped around or football in your earliest analogy of the world around us. So are there more than four of those broad sweeping categories that we're trying to increase awareness of? I think you summarized them well, of course. And if you are there, and not just taken by one of them, and you are transcendent, and that's, you know, a question I want to ask you is your experience with the athletes, you know, do they have when they are actually, for example, a tennis champion, do they have to think of the elements of the movement or they have just to watch it and let it happen? Which one is more effective? The least effective is thinking about technique and thinking about doing.

We know that that type of digital thinking like like a clock is digital click click click click is problematic to getting to the the the sweeping stitching linking of the unfolding moment which is more of an analog you know like type of experience of a clock it's there's a sweeping nature to it and so ultimately what we're trying to help athletes do more often is to be completely present with the present. I'm sorry, be completely present with the unfolding, unfolding, unknown moment, and they actually relish in it, and they love it, because that is where creativity is expressed. It's where high performance is experienced. It's also in this conversation where wisdom is revealed. It's where all things that are beautiful are experienced as well. They end up learning how to

be fully present with the unfolding unfolding and then make the right choices based on the information that's coming in and based on their understanding of their available resources for this particular moment. And when they can line those two things up in a challenging, exciting way, which is, I love this challenge and I have the skills for this challenge. Then that is where athletes find themselves into this state, the scientific term called flow state. And again, it's the being attuned to the unfolding, unpredictable present moment. And yeah, so that, so in many respects, that is a training ground for some of the things that you and I are talking about, which is being fully present.

And matter of fact, Dr. Nader, I'd like to share with you, I think you'll appreciate that the reason Finding Mastery, the company of Finding Mastery, the workings of what we're doing with corporations essentially is, is to help people live in the present moment more often. And that's, that is our purpose. And the reason that is, is because, you know, it'll, it'll allow us to work with a relationship with ourself and then our relationships with others and then our relationship with mother nature and our relationship with machines.

And all of those need tender care for them to nourish and grow. And so the keyhole, if you will, is the present moment. And our understanding from both science and application is that we can train our minds to be in the present moment. And transcendental meditation and other forms of mindfulness have been materially important also the the science of psychology and then if I could just make a slight pivot because I love where you went with leaders and so when leaders can pull back and when they pull back to get the big picture when they have larger awareness it's enhanced when they go down deep you know know, to the giving

a nod to your analogy of the ocean and the title of your book, when they go deep, they have more available possibilities. So when they pull back, they have more options. And so a big part of leadership is having more variability and options so that they can choose rather than having a limited set of options to choose from. And so here's the slight pivot I would love to go with you, is that there's two things that I work to, three that I want to talk about. One is the practice of mindfulness, and I would like to get very concrete with you there. Two is psychological frameworks.

You can call it a worldview. You can call it the way you understand yourself and how you explain events in life. And then also psychological skills, which are like being calm and being confident. Those are trainable skills now the reason i bring those three up is because this process of knowing who you are self-discovery if you will and developing a world view a psychological framework are i'm not sure how to put them in a hierarchy uh you know, relative to mindfulness and meditation, but asking and answering the hard problems in life, you know, the big questions, if you will,

it's materially important. And I know that this is a big part of your research as well. So how do you rank order? And maybe that's the wrong way to think about it, but how do you rank order the practice ofdiscovery or the big questions in life to develop frameworks, worldviews? Yeah, this is, of course, this is a question which has been posed throughout time and more and more recently kind of discussed. I take, for example, Maslow, who, you know, a great psychologist, and then he put the hierarchy of needs, and he put actually drew it in a, like a pyramid or a triangle. And he, you know, when he started off, he said, okay, humans, basically, first, they need their basic survival things. You need to eat. You need to maintain your physiology.

If you don't have that, you cannot go to the higher level. You don't have time. It's like if you're worried about whether you'll get your food today or not, how can you think of philosophy and worldview and all that? It's not a deal. Then above that, you know, he started to put things like aesthetic needs. You want beautiful things. You want to hear nice music.

You want this, you want that. And then higher motivations and higher motivations. And at the end, he put on top transcendence. And, you know, this is, he built it up as the hierarchy of motivation, the motivational things and all of that. Towards the end of his life, he actually started to say, well, it's no more something that happens in sequence. And actually, he was believing that transcendence can be primary and important. And this is really where, if you ask me to highlight these values, they all are part of what we need to do. It's important to know how to behave socially.

It's important to have our physical needs fulfilled. It's important to learn how to differentiate ourselves, to have ethics and to have politeness and to have social behavior, you know, all of these things. And it can go towards like how you deal with your own mind intellectually, you know, take your time, step back, don is go to the highest first, which means if you want your basic needs, transcend, which seems like ridiculous. How? What do you mean? It's like this is something I get after I hear the music, enjoy aesthetics and this and that, if you were to go with the Maslow's hierarchy of needs and motivation. But if you are stuck with your stress on even the most basic needs, then your brain isn't using its full potential. Then you're using much less than what you can do, even to just achieve your first goal, which is to get your food.

So what I'll tell you is, get off that stress, open up your awareness, transcend, and then you can actually achieve naturally and spontaneously. You open your awareness to a bigger potential. You use your brain, which is sitting there and that you are not using. Why? Because you are under stress. And when you are under stress, your, you know, your blood flow doesn't go to the cortex. It goes to the amygdala and goes to the limbic system where you have to deal with stress and it is a fight or flight response. And your vision is narrow, just like, you know, the guys in the plane, unfortunately looking at that bulb narrow, just like, you know, the guys in the plane, unfortunately, looking at that bulb, which kind of, you know, made them feel this is the end of

the world. So this is this is like begs the question about top down or bottom up. And so from a bottom up standpoint, meaning the brain and physiology driving the mind or and or consciousness or top down, which is the mind can shape and influence the brain and physiology. And so, of course, there's an interaction between the two. And what I hear you saying is, hey, go to the top down approach and practice or develop practices of the mind so that you can become more aware, become more consciousness, touch pure consciousness, and then act with cosmic consciousness. We got it.

Okay, we're there. Amazing. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, good. Okay, so- Keep saying these things. So then the next step though, the most logical question is just double click, if you will, on transcendental meditation. step though, the most logical question is just double click, if you will, on Transcendental

Meditation. For those that are not familiar with it, there are so many different types of meditation. And I was introduced 25 years ago to Zazen meditation and I found great meaningful practices for Zazen traditions, Soto in particular. And so can you talk about Transcendental Meditation, what the practice is? And I know that it's a big part of your life. And so can you talk about a transcendental meditation, what the practice is? And I know that it's a big part of your life work. So can you talk about your practice and what maybe a starter package would look like for people that are just wanting to be exposed to it? It's a very simple technique. When one thinks about these higher states of cosmic consciousness and going to the unified field, most people will react by saying, oh, I can't even keep my mind focused. Thoughts come and go and it's hard.

And, you know, there even has been a tradition of believing that in order to get to the transcendental state, you have to go through stages. For example, there is in Patanjali Yoga Sutras, there is the Ashtanga Yoga, which are the eight limbs of yoga, where it requires that you have certain disciplines and certain practices, and then you learn to focus and this and that. And then ultimately you lead to that transcendence, which, you know, in initiation Sanskrit terms, it is called Samadhi or Nirvana or Satori in Japanese, you know, that state of pure being. And people have thought you have to go through these stages in order to reach that. And so that's very difficult. It's not for me. I better do small things, breathing exercise and all of that, which is of course also fine. But what we have is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who came from that Vedic tradition of yoga. So this technique is not an invention of today. It comes from the

very ancient tradition of the yoga system, but it's considered the highest yoga, which is the yoga of the mind, rather than just the physical yoga of exercises and postures and pranayama breathing exercises. And he said, go to the highest first, we go back to the same thing. And the nature of life is to grow. And we don't have to force anything. So we use the nature of the mind, which is always in search for more and more and more naturally. However, the mind always searches for more through the senses looking outside. We want more beautiful things to hear. We want more knowledge, more love, more wealth, more power. This is okay, natural. It's part of life and life's flow towards more

and more and more. But we're always looking for more outside. And outside will never give us the ultimate fulfillment because we will want everything. You see billionaires, you hear a story like they have $10 billion, they feel miserable because they want $20 billion. They have $20 billion, they don't feel so good. It's better, my friend, he has $30 billion. And if we are like $190 billion, and then the market goes down and we become at 100 million. My God, I lost half of my worth. I'm depressed. I'm this and that. That is all just as an example, not to ridicule or make little of anything. They are wonderful, creative people and they deserve whatever they do. But just to show that the human nature is never satisfied with even more and more

on the outside. What we have, we want more than the most, and more than the most is within us. It's the unified field. It's pure consciousness. It is the source of all this richness and wealth and intelligence and creativity. And this is where we are. This is know thyself. So that is what it means. Know thy true self with a big S. And that is the reality that ultimately, when we reach it, we have that fulfillment. So what is the technique?

Technique is you sit comfortably in a chair, you close the eyes, and you allow the mind to settle down. You don't have to force it. It is not contemplation, so it's not a procedure where you analyze the thoughts or you manipulate the thoughts. It's not focusing, which means it's not concentration. So there is no contemplation, no focusing, no even monitoring of what is happening and forcing it to go anywhere, which is, you know, usually in mindfulness, trying to shift the attention here and there. This technique is so natural that children from five years old do it. So you sit,

close the eyes, and then you learn the technique, which allows the mind to settle down, remaining awake in a non-directed way. And for that, we use a sound which has no meaning. People know these terms like mantra. It has really no meaning. People try to say, oh, it has a meaning or it doesn't have a meaning. It means this. It really has no meaning. If you try to associate it with meaning, you stay on the surface. So the technique is based on simple, innocent, allowing the mind to settle down. And settling down, usually you might not be remaining awake. And this technique, it allows you to remain awake in a non-directed way. And that's why the mind remaining awake and being attracted naturally by the unified field, being attracted naturally by that which has more than the most,

which is our consciousness, which our self, which has all the energy, all the intelligence, all the creativity. So what more do you want? Just give the direction to the mind, and the mind settles down. As it settles down, the mind rests down the mind rests the body rests but we remain awake since the deep rest is there there will be stresses that are released there will be different things that can happen and the teacher guides you through all of these and what to do in a spontaneous simple way and then within three four days you've learned the technique three four days two hours a day that's all one hour two hours a day. That's all one hour, two hours a day. And now we have even an app that can follow you up.

The personal instruction is with the teacher. And at least you have one meeting with the teacher and you can continue with your teacher or you can continue with the app that guides you through the steps and gives you the explanation of how to do it. So there is no change in lifestyle, no concentration, no contemplation, no nothing. You just sit easily in a chair comfortably and you practice 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening. And that balance between diving in and coming out into activity gives you the you know the balance that ultimately leads to

cosmic consciousness so we usually say we draw the arrow back in order for us to shoot the arrow to the front or we take you know step back in order to run and jump or we can say what the tree has to send its roots deep in the earth for it to grow bigger outside. So this technique of going into the self is a technique also for action, because you prepare yourself with deep rest for dynamic action on the outside. I love it. So, I mean, you describe it with great concreteness. And so, thank you. And do you, in your app, do you help people develop a mantra? Or do you, is there a consistent mantra?

It's given personally during the personal training. And then how to use it and the different aspects that might happen because you don't know what happens. I have thoughts, I fall asleep, I scratch, I decide that, what do I do? When do I do it? Can I do it this way, that way? What happens if, what happens if? All of these are taken care of afterwards. I love it. Dr. Nader, thank you for your brilliance and your compassion in entertaining the questions that I give you. They're not easy questions. So thank you for your time and your expertise.

And I want to support people to go check out your book. And was there a reason that you did not do a print version? It's coming. You know, it's Penguin Random House that took it, and they wanted to do it quickly. And they said, take two years to take it into actual print. I said, let's put it already quickly as soon as possible. The time was ready for it. And it talks, among other things, about the things we discussed and also the ultimate solution to the heart problem, which is the fact that consciousness is all there is ultimately. And it explains how consciousness actually manifests as matter rather than the other way around. So that is the secret solution.

But I say it from the beginning in the book. The question is, how is that possible? How consciousness can appear as matter? And that's a big question that has not been solved before. And I hope the readers will find that it is solved to their satisfaction. I love it. That's awesome. Okay, so Dr. Nader, thank you for your time. Thank you for your wisdom and sharing your enlightened leadership on this hard problem, this hard question of life. So thank you again. Thank you, Dr. Gervais. I can't believe time has passed. It was such a joy and I look forward to

hopefully meeting you in person or doing something more than you. Brilliant. And then if you, last question, if you were to sit with somebody that was a master of craft, somebody that was truly masterful, who would you want to sit with? Well, I'm enjoying sitting with you. Very kind. Thank you. Me not included. I'd like to sit with Ray Dalio. You will wonder why. It's because he actually meditates. He enjoys it. it for his success. And others, you know, who have come out in public and are very big leaders and realize the importance. Scorsese is one of them, for example, and they made a tape together and see how they are masterful in what they do and see how they can support a large group to create a true change

and influence in society so that their wealth or any other person of success can actually use and try this technology to make a difference in society, create peace and happiness and lack of conflict among nations, because we've done the studies repeatedly and they've proven to be right. It is not, you know, it's not yet the connection in the mind of the people why and how it can work. And that's one of the reasons they don't make the step to actually support on a large scale these differences. And that's why I'm writing the book. And I wrote that book to show the difference and the reasons and the logic. That's why we've done research. So we were waiting for all the great people and the great minds and the wealthy and those who are successful to take a small part of their possibilities,

very tiny part, which is not even a daily fluctuation in the stock market for them, and make a big difference for society. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support

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