Know Thyself - E14 - I Spent 6 Days in Complete Darkness

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

André shares his experience of 6 days in total darkness. Darkness retreats have been used for spiritual purposes across many ancient cultures. They can be an incredible way to tap into your inner stillness, and drop deeper into a state of awareness. Today, André sits down with Scott, owner of Sky Cave Retreats, to unpack his time in the dark - and why it is so valuable for others to experience.   ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 2:11 Why Darkness? 12:03 Logistics of Creating a dark space 18:09 History of dark retreats  23:40 Psychedelic visuals  25:43 10 days in darkness  30:31 Relativity  38:04 Solitude & Seeking Discomfort  44:54 Deepest Insights  1:00:14 Conclusion ___________   Sky Cave Retreats:    Scott Berman, co-owner of Sky Cave Retreats, has spent over two years in self-guided solo retreats fasting and meditating in the wilderness, over a year at various Goenka Vipassana Centers sitting and serving, and has also done extensive formal retreats with various spiritual teachers and adepts across many different lineages & traditions.   He has done over 70 days in the dark in multiple solo dark retreats, and facilitated over 200 dark retreats with his partner.   Nestled in the Cascade-Siskiyou Wilderness in Ashland, Oregon, Sky Cave Retreats offers a safe space for you to experience total darkness.     https://www.skycaveretreats.com   ___________   Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg   Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927     André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/   Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Going in the darkness coming out, I became so much more sensitive to the most simple things, whether it was the birds chirping, the breeze of wind, the sensation of sunlight hitting my skin, the feeling of breath in my lungs, the pure bliss of just being is the best felt experience that you can have. And once you're sensitive, you're not going to be able to really experience that. This, for me, feels like an energetic rewiring of how you experience reality. Hello, beautiful beings. Welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast for every single week. We get the honor of sitting down with a dear friend, a brilliant mind, a open heart, somebody that can help us realize and live a more liberated human experience. Today's episode is going to be a very interesting one because about four months ago, I went and embarked on a darkness retreat. Essentially for six days and six nights, I submerged myself. into a bunker, a cave of sorts and completely withdrew my senses. There was no sight, no light, no sound, and it was a very transformative experience. I know that might sound crazy

to whoever is listening to this. And maybe has never heard of these things before, but we're going to be diving into what it is, why you would want to do that, why I wanted to do that, all the insights that I got from that experience. And we're going to be doing it in beautiful conversation today with the dear friend Scott from Sky Cave Retreats, who's here to join. me today. So first off, Scott, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited for this conversation, man. Yeah, me too. There were so many beautiful insights that came from this time that I up at Sky Cave Retreats in Ashton, Oregon, this beautiful retreat center that you're building and these incredible bunkers in the earth that you meticulously created. They're like the Hyatt of

these dark, dark cave retreats. And so before we dive into everything with like the insights that I kind of got and some questions that I want to ask you. I just want to give people context as to what the heck a dark retreat is, why somebody would want to do that, how that logistically works, what are the potential benefits from something like this and go from there. So I guess first off, I first heard about, you know, submerging yourself in darkness from a friend Aubrey, Marcus, who, you know, he's made a documentary on his darkness experience a couple years back when I believe he went over to Europe and did a four or five days in complete dark. And ever since I heard that and I got exposed to that as a possible reality of something that you could do,

I'm somebody that loves diving into the depths of my own consciousness, whether that's doing Vipasa meditation retreats, just withdrawing myself into nature and doing solo silence sits, my morning practice, all these different things. And the darkness retreat and shutting your senses off completely for the first time in your life for that extended amount of time It sounded like a completely foreign, wild, psychedelic, perhaps experience that I was really curious to embark on. And so I did a bunch of research. I looked at different options in different countries.

There was a lot in South America over in Asia. And you were the only one that I could find in the States that, you know, it was like had seemingly decent infrastructure that could host something like this. And so I reached out and there was an availability earlier in. I believe in March, about four months ago when I came out and did it. And since then, a lot more people have also been doing it blue came, Sky. Cohen's went, Amar from yesterday, and that crew came out. And now you're really booked out for a while now.

And yeah, so before we kind of go into my experience, for a lot of people, like I said, it's going to sound very foreign and like a crazy idea. Why would you want to completely withdraw your senses and withdraw from the world and completely isolate yourself without light, without sound, right? Because these are kind of bunkers in the earth in that way. Why would somebody want to do something like this? Let's start there. Well, I think there's a couple of reasons why people would want to do it.

At the core, it would be to know thyself. Yeah. Ultimately, to find that space within us that is unchanging. And to go into a space where the external reality is unchanged. It provides us with a vehicle and a reflection to see that within. And so we enter into a space where there's pretty much zero sensory input outside of like maybe the 20 minutes that one eats throughout a 24-hour period, maybe a bath, moving around the room. But for most of the time, 95% of the time, there's zero sensory input.

And so that ultimately turns somebody within and connects them with that. more space within. Yeah. I think some people who come, their maybe foremost desires not necessarily to know themselves. It may be to rest. It may be to unwind, to unplug.

And ultimately, that space just brings us into the eternal. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautifully put. I think some, you know, unless you're willingly going in there, right, which is going to be the case,

a lot of people for a lot of people probably sounds morbid. Like, why would you want to completely, you know, disappear from the world? Some people might sound nice, right? It's like we live these lives that are very busy, filled with so much sensory input, especially in today's age with technology and social media, and it can become a very noisy and busy place. I love yoga really is a science of self-realization, right?

And Pratihara, which is the fifth limb of yoga, is withdrawal of the senses. A lot of people know yoga as just the asana, practice of just going and doing these different postures and bending and breaking your body. But there's there's eight limbs of yoga, right? One is sense withdrawal. So for me, these times where I have withdrawn from my sense, the sensory input and from the external world has really refined my consciousness to know myself at a deeper place like you spoke to the immovable, unchangeable, unchangeable place within yourself and identifying with that instead of just the noise in our head and thoughts and emotions which we're so accustomed to creates i find a beautiful space from you know from which

you can operate and be so much more effective in your life i think doing something like a dark retreat or you know there are many many different forms to know thyself right this is just one and it's a very unique one that you can't really replicate i think in other ways sure really does give you access to knowing yourself and getting touch of this place that is always there and the permanent space within yourself. And so it's been beautifully transformative for myself. And thank you for holding an incredible space and container and creating a place for people to come experience it and its deaths.

Yeah, it's an honor to be with people while they're in there and to ultimately be sitting at their feet when they emerge from the dark and get to receive their like living wisdom. Like people emerge and we've all heard like be here now and be present and but it's a whole other thing when you live it moment after moment for day after day. There's no escaping the reality that all that exists is right now. You're in a space where nothing is going to come to deliver you to freedom, to bring you happiness. And so you ultimately really get intimate with what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for that will come to make you happy? That's going to bring you joy.

And so you're in this space where you see all of your desires. And not that there's anything wrong with that. Even desires to connect with loved ones, everything wholesome, righteous desires, but all of them arise that keep us from just really wanting to be right here. From like boredom to regrets to anger to all the different. things that just keep us from really resting here. And when people go in and they're like, can you share any wisdom or tips or practices and techniques? I'm like, all there really is is to just rest, to just simply rest in the simplicity of being. And not to try to get somewhere. Some people come and their goal, their reason to going in is they want to connect with their higher self. They want some

kind of clarity and insight and all these different things. And ultimately, on some level, that's not really up to us for that to happen. There's just like a resting into being and then it arises. I think most people come into finding that space, some longer than others, where they're just simply resting. And there's some people come to find the busyness of meditation and yoga and the practices that the subtlety of why they're doing them like is it to change how we're currently feeling because we want to feel differently or is it really because it's just this a joyous expression and a play and that subtlety becomes really clear in the dark when you when the nuances and the subtlety has just become all bubble to the surface yeah and they do that very

much so, right? Because you're in a complete infinite void of nothingness for however long you're in there. Some people three days, five days, 30 days, 60 days, years will get into that. Some people go in for extended periods of times, which is wild. For me, five, six days, it's wild, man. The level of sensitivity that you're able to garner in such a short amount of time because, let's face it, nobody has really, nobody does this. Nobody goes and retreats from the world. completely where there's like no sight and no sound. And it's your, it's like a magnifying glass becomes available to your internal processes because it's so much louder because that's really all there is. There's nothing to distract yourself with. And you have so much more energy that's

available because the inner mechanism of creating the reality which we see and here is no longer required for our bodies to do that. What do you feel like is the biggest contrast you see when people first go in and when they first come out? Like where they're at. Energetically where they're at within themselves. The spaciousness. They've slowed down. There's like a rest.

There's like they've totally disarmed and let down. And I think that's an interesting thing that happens. A lot of people who come out and particularly women say that they've never really felt so safe before. Finally entered a space where nothing is going. to get you. You don't have to protect yourself from anything. You can totally just be vulnerable and not be concerned that someone or something's going to take advantage of you. So like at a core level, survival is met. Your meals are brought to you and you don't need to do anything but be. And so what happens in that when we rest at that core level of feeling safe and being able to be

vulnerable. And so that that openness that people step into and then when they emerge, that spaciousness that they carry with them. Yeah. I felt that experientially for sure within myself. So before we keep diving into all the gems that really come from giving yourself the opportunity of doing something like this, let's talk about the logistics of it. Because most people hear this and they don't realize how much goes into it. First of all, in creating the infrastructure to be able actually to be in a completely sealed room. You think you can just lock yourself in your bedroom. It's kind of complicated.

There's ventilation to worry about. There is really like blocking out all the light and logistically kind of like how it works. So let's go into really how that works. I think that would be interesting for people. So you have a beautiful space up in Ashton, Oregon, where you're just nestled in such in the luscious nature and epic views of all these trees and hills and mountains. And it's a truly expansive place. and we'll throw up some B-roll on screen right now for people, if you guys are watching on YouTube,

to kind of see the bunker that you've created, these little Hobbit caves that feel like. Yes, if you want to go into kind of like, how does the flow work, one, how do you eat, how do you navigate in complete darkness, and we can go from there. Yeah, cool. So these Hobbit caves are pretty, they're dug into the hillside and then bermed up, completely buried. It's just the door that you see. and you walk in and you walk down some steps and you come into a little 600 square foot room

where there's a 2,000 pound masonry stove where in the wintertime we can stoke just once a day and it keeps it in the low 70s in there or hotter if people want it and then there's a pass-through box with where we have a door put in food and then on the other end there's another door and people can receive their food and there's some ventilation in the bathroom so you walk back through into the room and there's a bed, bathtub, foam roller, yoga mat, space to roll around, and then a little bathroom, toilet, sink. And there's some ventilation in the bathroom. There's a vent on the floor and there's a vent between the two rooms above the food pass-through box.

And there's a fan and it's constantly sucking air and drawing in fresh air. Yeah. It's an epic setup, right? And so what, I mean, speaking from my experience, right, you're in there for five, six days. if you decide to go in for that long. And for me, we've become accustomed to becoming human doings and not human beings. So we're so used to waking up and doing our things for the day, whether it's our work or our practices or our meals or our community events or whatever it is. And in there, there's nothing to do.

There's literally all you have to do is just be, right? Because you have 24 hours in a day, maybe an hour or two of that. you're going to do some yoga, roll out, do your meditation practices. You could extend that if you wanted to. There's a bathtub in there, which is super nice that you can do indulgent once a day in a warm bath, which is really nice because you're like in the womb. And that takes us to a whole other level of just like being in your essence. And yeah, the bathroom, the bed area.

And then you have the 20 plus hours remaining of the day to simply just be. And so for me, I found myself just like. lying down a lot. And being with myself, I, once a day you would come in and bring food through the past through door and that would contain meals for the next day as well. And it's pretty light, you know, soup, salad doesn't require much, you know, it's not like you're doing heavy construction work in there, you know, exercising a lot or even, you know, being able to see things. It's like your energy, you know, requirement is much, much lower. So food was beautiful. And then, yeah, like I said, lay down a lot.

I had a journal with me, which you can't really journal too well when you can't see. But I was able to kind of feel where I was it, where was that. And I was still able to have legible notes for when I came out of the darkness. But yeah, I had a lot of beautiful insights that came through. And for you and your experience, you know, you've done, you know, longer periods of dark retreats. Right. So like, is it similar for you when you've been in there in terms of what you do? Yeah, I spend the majority of my time laying down.

I'm probably in bed like 22 hours of probably get up to take a bath and drink some water and eat a little food and that's about it. And probably of those 22 hours in bed, probably 18 hours a day laying down. For me at this point, the darkness provides an opportunity to totally disarm myself to let go of all the striving, completing, doing, seeking and just lay down. and surrender and rest and have an opportunity to to just be and explore how soft can I be. Yeah. There's been a real evolution for me in the dark, in solitude in general, but then also in the dark where in some of my earlier dark retreats, there was a subtle striving to feel my heart in a certain way, to feel certain things that I,

had imagined and idealized is when I've finally arrived, this is how I'll feel from different books I've read or things I've heard. And it took a while and reflections from friends to realize that these things that I was grasping onto was just another desire. But it was so righteous within me. It's like, this is a spiritual desire. This is what happens when you've arrived. And to start to include all things. And that like whatever is arising is, just what's arising. Yeah. It's like the final gate, you know, it's like even the spiritual desire to be anywhere other than where you're at. It's still a barrier in itself to full presence. The eye that wants enlightenment is the barrier to enlightenment. Yeah. And so it's a beautifully

profound and unique vehicle and opportunity, this darkness to completely withdraw the senses and just being your essence and presence like we talked about. This, even though it sounds and it is more new to Western culture, has a history that is very rich in various different tribes with the Kogi tribe and also in Asia. So if you want to speak a little bit to how this has been a practice for various spiritual tribes and for a while. Yeah, the Kogi's in Colombia, in Greece, in Egypt, all throughout Asia and India and Tibet.

And as far as I know, traditionally, the practitioners were preparing for years before they went into the dark. The kogis being different, they went in at birth. But throughout India and China and Tibet, that they're preparing for a long time. And when they'd go in, there was a thread with their teacher. So there wasn't like nowadays in our modern resurgence. Our timeline moves a lot quicker than it did back then, where people are just jumping into the dark, maybe without much. practice or background. As per back then, where there was a lot of cultivation before someone went in.

And when we first created the dark rooms, I imagined the audience was people who had spent a lot of time in solitude was kind of a little bit more prepared to go into the darkness. And as things have evolved and there's been hundreds of people who have come through, I've been blown away at how powerful and transformational it's been for people who haven't had that experience. It's their first retreat. It's their first time ever spending time alone. And three days, the insights and the transformation that they have is just blown my mind. For me to see that actually the audience that this is applicable for and beneficial for is way bigger than I first thought.

Yeah, it's, I mean, the Kogi tried in, in particular, like they, you know, go in at birth, right? The mamos or the mamas for the spiritual shamans, I guess that they're cultivating that are kind of chosen through divination. Sometimes up to seven years in and out, but I think mostly in darkness and preparation. That sounds probably for most inhumane, to be honest, and pretty wild, right? It's just a completely different way of operating life, though. Right. Yeah, they spend their first seven years in darkness. My understanding is they do get, they go out in the moonlight and stars sometimes, but no sun for the first seven years and a lot of that in total darkness. Wild. With their birth mom in the beginning and the elders. So wild. Yeah. It's just like insane. Most people would think like that's just, that's so crazy. Yeah. So we've had a few kids come in into the dark. Well, there was a 12 year old who heard the story.

of some people who emerged from the dark, and he wanted to go in himself. He went in for 24 hours. And then I brought my six-year-old son in, and we spent like 14 hours in the dark one night. And it's just interesting being with youth in there that they still have a lot of space between their thoughts. Their minds aren't moving as fast as ours. They're not as linear as us. And so I could see how if that's a practice, that's really woven in at that young age, that one doesn't lose that connection with the eternal, that space between their thoughts and having a capacity to really rest in there at will. Yeah. No, I think it's powerful. It seems like, and with the Kogi tried, it's like they're tapping into and getting more familiar with the reality within than the reality without.

There's this quote that I want to read from the, Radiant Sutras, which I think is a beautiful, it fits beautifully here. It says, whenever any of the senses is impaired, it becomes a gateway to infinity, whether by deprivation, injury, or age, obstruction of the senses invites awareness of soul. The mind can no longer take the world for granted. Attention spirals inward and touches and touches the clistening emptiness, the reality behind appearance. And especially I could only imagine as a youth being cultivating that awareness of self first because we are often in the West especially is just complete opposite. You know,

we are very externally focused achievement oriented individuals and you know it creates consumerist human beings. Totally. And I think that coming back into a space where you're touching, like we spoke to earlier, that impermanence within, you become less at well to the suffering that the world can create. And you become just a much more free individual because you've touched that within yourself. So it's beautiful. Yeah.

I think the achievement piece where it's like that's what motivates most of us. And the world's like, how can I achieve? What is progress? And then you're in the dark. And you get to reflect on that in a whole other way. What is achievement? What is progress in this space where you can't do anything? And so achievement and progress is you explore through the essence of your being. Yeah. It was my experience really going into the dark and coming out. It was, it felt very psychedelic. for the first time ever not getting sensory input in light from the external world I had some light visuals

some people have more psychedelic visuals and endogenous DMT releases right I'm very fascinated to see the research that comes out from physiologically what's happening at that standpoint when you deprive yourself of of you know senses but primarily light and you're not seeing anything what happens to your melatonin release and what happens to the different, you know, your circadian rhythm.

And yeah, what have you kind of found in that relate, and people's psychedelic experiences that they maybe had? And then also like what's happening on a physiological standpoint. Of the few hundred people who have come, I'd say very few of them have visuals and visions. It's a smaller, maybe four or five, six people. I've had like full-blown visions. I'd say a lot of people see like glowing orbs or like,

and stuff. And a couple people have had full-on auditory hallucinations for a while. But it's pretty, I'd say it's minimal. And whatever, it hasn't seemed to be an effect of how long people have gone in. Some people have, people have had auditory hallucinations has happened like a couple days in. And so I don't know what causes it. I've done multiple 10 days and I usually don't have much.

visuals, there's not much of a sensational experience internally, but not. It's not like manifested outwardly. Yeah. And in terms of like research, we recently just got an EEG machine and there's a movement to start collecting data and do research to see what's happening on a neurochemical level. It could be so fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, because it's new in terms of it's researching for like scientific purposes. Totally. Amazing. You've done multiple 10 days out of your last 10 day. I'm just curious if you want to share a little bit about your experience because you, it's like you stack these on top of each other.

And like you kind of said told me before you feel like you pick up where you leave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the darkness becomes just like a friend. And that relationship like an old friend when you return, you pick up just where you left off. And then the relationship goes deeper and deeper as you have more time and intimate connection and communion.

And I've seen it deepen in how I orient in the dark and the levels of peeling away the subtle desires that I have, like how I want to experience my heart or feel in a certain way and seeing that those are just other subtle barriers from just simply being with what is. And that's why at this point I just spend the majority of my time just laying down and just simply, resting. Now, this last time I went in, I have found in the past that the first two or three days for me can be challenging. Once I'm done sleeping, I tend to sleep for the first 48 hours. Everyone being different. Some people don't have like an extended sleep. Some people will sleep for the first day or two days. And for me, I tend to sleep for the first two days. I'll get up, drink some water, go back to And once I'm done sleeping, in the past I've had that kind of uncomfortable anxious moment,

like when plant medicine's coming on. There's that window of where just resting is not fulfilling. And yet I'm in the space. And so there's some, yeah, there's some anxiousness. This last dark retreat, I was curious if I explored entering a new way, if that wouldn't be a thing. And so the way I oriented this last time was simply welcoming whatever was present. And there wasn't like a waiting until this meditation and resting becomes fulfilling. There was just a bringing it all in. I did find that that dropped me in more quickly to just that space where it becomes enjoyable and fulfilling just to simply be. It's beautiful when you touch that place within yourself, right?

because that is freedom. There's no longer there's this inner struggle to continually be somewhere, something other than exactly who and what you are and where you are right now. That, to me, is, it's like the beautiful fruit of the spiritual process of like actually getting to experience that as a living reality within yourself. And it takes doing the work in these various different ways, especially if we're living in this Western world where we're so conditioned to be the opposite of it. Yeah, the like we spoke to earlier, just the realizing that we're human beings again and not human doings is a profound experiential shift that you can't get from other forms of quote unquote personal development.

This for me feels like an energetic rewiring of how you experience reality. And I think that in our pursuit of becoming more a lot in life, we think we have to do certain things. things and really coming back into presence and realizing our beingness and coming into identity with that sets you up and makes you become available to grace in ways that you can't comprehend but as a felt reality and things that can unfold for me I feel like we go in these big kind of seven year cycles prior to during this darkness retreat I felt like I was going through another one I went and did a week Baba Spundana program at Sad Guru's Ashram and Tennessee right before I went into the darkness for six days. And that was a beautiful, it was

essentially a cultivation of the ability to pay attention and cultivating presence and many different things that I'll probably dive into another time on a different podcast. But that as a preface going into the darkness, I wanted to take these like two, three weeks out of my life to really, you know, I felt, I mean, I knew the podcast was going to be coming out, ended a long relationship right after that. There's a lot of things energetically shifting in my life. And I think it's so important that we all take that time out to really sink in our own frequency, in our own energy. And then whatever we go out and do from that place is going to be so much more effective,

not because one thing led to a next, but there's this exponential growth factor when you come back into your own nature, like nature's frequency. Somehow, like I said, grace becomes available to you. and life provides whatever it's needed for your next evolution. I'd really love to talk about relativity because it's like it is such a foreign experience going in there where you have nothing to relate to. And I didn't realize how profound the whole experience was until really I stepped out. It felt very psychedelic when I put a blindfold out, put a blindfold on. I walked out and kind of you guided me.

And then I'm sitting on this rock and I open my blindfold out and it was so bright and I slowly open my eyes. And suddenly the display of the world turns back on. And it was very much like, you know, you have a television and it's turned off and you just turn it on. And I was just living within the operating system and living within the presence and like the inner reality. and then the external reality display turns back on. And for my brain, it felt like an overload of stimulus where everything was moving in the mountains and the trees and everything.

It felt like a psychedelic experience for sure. And, you know, I became emotional, just like how grateful I am for life. And I think that we go through life so often diminishing our sensitivity to life that it becomes hard to enjoy life. And going in the darkness coming out, I became, you know, so much more sensitive to the most simple things, whether it was the birds chirping,

the breeze of wind, the sensation of sunlight hitting my skin, the feeling of breath in my lungs, the pure bliss of just being is one of the best felt experience that you can have. And unless you're sensitive, you're not going to be able to really experience that. And so relativity and how we're such these, we become these externally stimulated and responsive, related human beings to where we know ourselves in the reflection of others. And it's such a powerful place to come back into knowing yourself by knowing yourself and not just through the mirrors and reflections of others, which is valuable in its own way. but if we're just living our life by how people tell us who we are and what we are and how we're operating, we're not going to be able to, I think, find our true essence and allow that to come online. So taking that time out in the darkness is an amazing catalyst and really a way to get in it quickly.

Like, you know, viphas and long silent meditation retreats are beautiful for the amount of time you're in stillness. but going in complete darkness is just like, yeah, it's just like it on steroids. Yeah, there's something about finding your own way. Like, I mean, I love Vapasna. And I think that in a retreat in the light, like if I were to go off into the mountains or have the Vapasna, I think in the Vapasna, I'm going to drop in more quickly because there's that container and you're going in right away. But there's something about when one goes into solitude and specifically into the darkness,

that you find your own way. And there's a certain empowerment that comes when there wasn't a teacher. And there wasn't even a teaching. It's like you had to connect within yourself and get clear that like you want to be happy. And if I want to be happy and I'm in this space with limited options to be happy,

you start to explore, well, what can I do or how can I be to be happy? And from there, you drop in. And that is this catalyst to these unique spaces that most of us have never touched before. And maybe we've done it for like 10 minutes in our house or like on a long car ride and all the, our phone's not working or something. And so we don't have any options. But like to actually do it moment after moment for days, you really get familiar with this space inside that is already complete and already whole.

And for me, that's why I love going back. time after time because I get to spend more time in this space that is complete, that is whole, that doesn't need external validation or congratulations or anything that I've arrived and to get more familiar and more established in that. So in my day to day, when I forget and then I remember, I return to the depths of that space. And I remember the first time I emerged from solitude in 2007, I had spent six months in the mountains in Baja. At that time in my life, I was not focused on resting. I was focused on ecstatic bliss. And so I spent eight, ten hours a day for almost six months screaming and shaking. And just when I'd get tired, I'd jump in the cold water and do it again,

shake and scream and sing at the top of my lungs. And I wanted to, I wanted the peak expression. And I wanted to feel what does it feel to feel supreme does it feel to feel radiant and i'd sat in the sun for 10 hours every day just feeling what the sun felt like and at least how i could feel it through me and when i emerged after that it was actually in tapanga uh almost 15 years ago and it was a it was the Panga Day and I started, I was dancing and there was people watching me and feeding back, validating my bliss. And I remember in that moment realizing how easy it was to sustain that expression when others were reflecting it back to me and how challenging it was to do it alone when I was just. And at a certain point years later, I came to see that it was, it was. It was,

wasn't the most sustainable to be clinging to ecstatic bliss all the time in the way that I was, especially because it wasn't, there wasn't a space for it. I mean, I would waltz down the streets in L.A. totally barefoot singing and praising God at the top of my lungs, but at a certain point, the cops getting called on me multiple times for some crazy guy just running loose in the streets. Yeah, I realized that it was, well, one, I wasn't able to connect with many people, nor did I really cared to. I just wanted ecstatic bliss, but it evolved, fortunately. But anyway, there was that moment of realizing that it's easier to sustain those states with others and the benefit of having others to reflect that. And yet the challenge of really being honest of where we're at

when we're alone. Because when we're alone, there's no one else. There's no feedback loop. There's relativity is gone. And so like where we're at is where we're at is where we're at. And there's no support which has its benefits to really lean in more to ourselves so that we ultimately source all that we need and all that we want from within. It's powerful. That's the place to be. Be fully self-sourced. I mean, we spoke to it, but like living a life seeking external validation and getting self-worth from the external. journal will never leave you feeling truly fulfilled.

Sure. So it feels like, and the darkness in particular is I feel a more advanced practice that takes some time to build up to and having some sort of meditation practice to be centered in yourself to know that like I can handle myself being alone. For some weird reason in this culture and society, a lot of people are really just afraid of being alone with themselves. And that means you're probably in bad company, you know. It's like who you become in your thoughts. And it's like there's a there's a monster that you're constantly living with if you're afraid to be alone.

And that realization alone is powerful because it can be the impetus for realizing that you don't want it to be that way. And so the darkness in particular is an opportunity like we talked about earlier, how a lot of things will start to come up, right? When you put away the senses, then all that remains is what you currently. have and these syncaras, right, these scars that we create through the memories that we've, and, you know, the experience that we have, the memories that we've created, create our personality and our persona. And when you're quiet, your mind starts bringing things up to the surface.

It's really beautiful because there's nothing you actually have to do. You just have to be. And then whatever is unprocessed that you suppressed or repressed will start to come to the surface in bubble and then you get to witness it and it'll leave and maybe it'll come through an emotion a thought movement could be many different things there's another quote i want to read from carly young which i think is uh is powerful one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious the later procedure however is disagreeable and therefore not popular it's not pretty it's not sexy to do the the dark shadow work yeah it's not not comfortable. I mean, it can be, but it's like that's the medicine in the dark is being with

discomfort like we've never been with discomfort before. The moment we get uncomfortable in our day to day, we pick up our phone, we go grab food, we go for a walk, even wholesome things of chatting with a friend or being in nature, anything that we may do to not allow ourselves to rest in discomfort. So now you're thrown into the dark. Nothing's coming to save you. and you're uncomfortable. And what I've seen is that's been the thing that takes people into this new space. All of a sudden they have this discomfort that they can't escape. And they feel safe, which is really important so that they can, I mean, a lot of times when we feel uncomfortable in life, we also don't feel safe.

Because it's the fact that we feel unsafe is why we feel uncomfortable. And so now we're in a space where we feel uncomfortable, what we feel uncomfortable, what we're, feel safe, which is really not something that we ever experience. Yeah, it's a big rewiring. Yeah, and so now feeling uncomfortable but feeling safe, there's a new exploration there. And there's a willingness and a desire to be with it, which allows people, gives them the momentum to rest into it. And through resting into that discomfort, I've seen a lot of people come through it and

find a space where they can allow the discomfort and they connect with this. the space that's underneath it, that's around it, the space that can hold it. And they just, yeah, have these amazing transformations where they feel space within themselves that they've never felt before. And people who, for the first time in their life, experienced stillness, which just totally blows my mind because it took me years in meditation to have little blips of the space between thoughts. And people come and the darkness just ushers them into stillness.

And they get to rest in that just eternal peace. And that being a thing where when people ask like how many days should I go into the dark. And at this point, we recommend like three to five days. Because what we've seen is when everyone has their own sweet spot. And yet when somebody goes beyond it and it starts to get uncomfortable, which it does for everybody. and some people think that they're very well prepared and it won't get uncomfortable, but they come to find that it does. When it gets uncomfortable and the mind goes to conceptualize how much time they have in there, they're like,

whoa, I can't do this for another four or five days, but I'm going to stay in and they lean out and there's a coping. And we're always coping in our life with overwhelm. And for some people, they don't even realize that that's what they're doing in there because they may still be doing their meditation and their yoga and all their people. practices, but there was this leaning out, and now there's the doing things to alter how they're feeling, to numb themselves and create space. And on the flip side, when somebody hits their sweet spot, and it's like, whoa, it's really challenging, uncomfortable, but I only have two more days, there's three more days, I can do this. And then there's a leaning in, and then they really allow themselves to feel the discomfort and accept themselves at a profoundly new level. Yeah. So I feel like

real transformation becomes available to you in that space. And the more you grow on your spiritual path, I think that there's this turning point, which is really important. And it's when you start to chase discomfort almost. Not necessarily chase. Maybe that's not the right word, but you start to seek that out more because you realize,

the more you have a taste for reality, the more you have a distaste for unreality or what's not true. And so the more that you expose yourself, to truth, to stillness, which sometimes takes discomfort to get to, then you realize that's actually much, much more beautiful place to exist in. And you start to desire that over the comfort of daily living, which you realize creates discomfort down the road. But if you can accept and bring forth discomfort in many different ways that can express, then there's a different level of comfort that becomes available. And it's not a comfort that is going to be self-sacrificial on the

road. So it's a, it's a beautiful turning point for me that's happened in my life. And I'm sure that people start to experience and seek things out like darkness or streets where, you know, it can be perceived as a bit more of an extreme way of knowing yourself. And it's not fully necessary. Maybe it's not for everybody's path, but it is a very unique experience that can't be replicated in other ways. Totally. Yeah, it's, it's a unique. It's a worthy experience to just feel what it's like to be in a space that's unchanging. Yeah. Yeah. And so what did you find while you were in there that were some of your deepest insights? I think that one of the most powerful things that we can do in life is cultivate the power of our attention and how we're

paying attention and what we're paying attention to. In my view, it's like our spiritual currency. It's like it's what we're doing with our time is paying attention. And in the darkness, you're paying attention to what's happening inside because you really have no other option. So there were so many different insights that came up throughout the whole, the whole journey. But the realization to, we spoke to a little bit earlier of self-sourcing all of these things from validation to worth to, and you know, now I'm speaking to attention and how we operate with our consciousness every single day. It energetically, outside of the thoughts that I had and like, oh, this is a beautiful insight that I'm thinking of energetically, I felt like it just rewired

me in a way to pay deeper attention as a foundational thing in my living reality. So like I said, it wasn't, it's not one nugget of wisdom that is the most impactful, but it was the energetic resonance in like the cleansing of my perception and my lens on reality that I think creates and will create the most transformation has outside of, you know, the past few months coming out of it. So yeah, there's been many insights, but really learning to cultivate that. And it's kind of not as much a cultivation as I will say as a disqualification.

as I will say as a dissolution of the self that is frantic and noisy within yourself to realize the inherent freedom and peace that exists within myself in each moment energetically brought me into that place as a stronger frequency to hold throughout my day. So that was a powerful one for sure. Another one I think is stepping into

this light of content creation and being in front of cameras and Mike Smoor there can be this inclination nation to want to study, be well read. A lot of these things are valuable, but like to fill your mind with things that are valuable and that you can regurgitate and that sounds smart. And what I've come to realize and was a nugget in the darkness is that it's much more important and much more valuable to empty your mind than to fill it.

Because the more you're in touch with that stillness within yourself, you become available to the place that has the answers and the truth of anything that you're going through. in life. And so it doesn't require knowing the quote unquote right answer for a problem or a situation in your life, but you're in a place where you'll be able to figure it out. And so it's kind of throwing yourself, Terrence McKenna has that quote of like throwing yourself into the abyss and realizing it's a feather bed. And it's a practice of trusting that every time you throw yourself into the unknown, whether it's a big podcast that I'm going to do or an edge in my business or in my personal relationships or doing the spiritual work within myself that I can trust in knowing

that I, the identity that I'm cultivating within myself as life is going to take care of me. And that deeper trust that's cultivated, I think is a really beautiful insight. Another one was like most people would think, what the heck are you doing for five days, six days? It sounds so boring and mundane, which, you know, it's pretty mundane in there. Yeah. Yeah, very much so is. But boredom was a really interesting one because you have nothing to do, right? We spoke to like how valuable that can be, but the sensation of boredom can arise when it's like you're so used to watching a YouTube video, then eating a meal, then meeting up with a friend, then watching a movie, then like so much stimulus constantly day in, day out. And if you come straight from that way of operating into the darkness, it's a very sarcastic. contrast.

I would definitely recommend for most people to like ease your way into it, do something as preparatory to getting in there. But how important the, the feeling of boredom is to arise. In my view, I think the death of boredom is the death of innovation because it's in the space where you're not stimulated where things organically can arise within you in terms of new insights for your life, in terms of innovations for things you want to create. and getting to a place in the darkness, I realize that boredom is simply a failure to pay attention.

And boredom really operates within the mind of wishing that you were somewhere else other than you're at right now. You're boredom, you're comparing what you're doing right now to what you could be doing instead of just being. And so energetically rewiring yourself to just be and that be okay and that be enough and find fullness in that moment is a really powerful switch energetically to have. And so it requires that feeling of boredom being in there with doing nothing. And realizing that for me that it wasn't going to be a forever experience. I was going to, there is safety and comfort in knowing that it was going to be over in five, you know, six days and that I would still get to live my life and love, you know, get to taste

all the flavors of life and live and love and laugh. to greater degree is because I was able to touch the space within myself to cleanse and create, you know, create that level of sensitivity again. It feels like forever, though. Like when you, when discomfort arises, like when we have pain in our life, it's like we want to avoid it at all cost because it feels like it's, it feels like it's going to last forever. And there was someone who was in the dark a few months ago. And the thing that as we were chatting while she was in the dark and I was on the other side,

and exploring, I was asking her questions, and we were exploring what was, what she was coming up against. And she got clear that, like, that pain and the discomfort that she was feeling, that she's been feeling throughout for the last few years, but really rose to the surface was that she was afraid that if she accepted it, it would last forever. And there was that moment when she got clear that, like, that was the thing that was keeping her from just, resting with it. And when I came up the next day, she had just totally just entered an entirely new space. And she was, so she hadn't felt gratitude in years. She said, I know we always practice gratitude and she says, but I like, I feel it where she actually accepted the discomfort. And I

asked her, I was like, well, what if, what if it does last forever? You can either still resist it, or you can rest with it. And it's always easier said than done. But in that space where it's like your choices become really clear. In our day to day, we have millions of choices. But in the dark, our choices are very minimal. And so you really get to see what your options are. And then get clear on what you're choosing and why. Yeah.

It was such a powerful reset for me, man. The amount of gratitude I felt when coming out was so immense and so great. Like I said, my level of sensitivity was so much there to where it was the simplest of things that I could become so grateful for and also just like in the darkness reflecting on different people in my life and how far I've come like I think for people especially type A's that are always trying to achieve and create things in life. The things we prayed for and wished for five, 10 years ago that are in our experience now, we forget that we have what we have right now because we're so focused on the proverbial carrot at the end of the stick of what we're trying

to get and what's next. What's at the end of everything that's next is death. So it's like the process, the journey is so cliche, but it's really tapping into the gratitude of what we have and the simplest of things and the most mundane things in our life that we can truly find fulfillment. It's not in these big aha achievements where, all right, you sold your company for $100 million or you had the big, whatever your big idea of the end of your biggest achievement is, that's a moment and it'll feel great for a little bit of time, but then there's the next moment.

Yeah, and I think that's an inch of when when some people come, one of the questions I'll ask is like who what's your inspiration and like and why? Because we all create these, we idealize our inspirations of like, yeah, that person sold their company for $100 million. Like, but do you think that they're actually feel complete whole and fulfilled? Right. Or are they then, you know, chasing the next thing and like discomfort's present for everyone it's really like where do we rest when discomfort's present where do we rest it all all the time it's powerful and it's something that a lot of people unfortunately will have to experience before they take in the advice of you know it's like a lot of people need to go and make all the money get famous whatever it is to realize that it's

not it's not where it's at and right yeah i mean what chaser dive into your deepest desire and just go full tilt until it's replaced by another desire and there's no there's no skipping ahead and there's no like there's no fast track and so there's i think the darkness provides for people that clarity of like what is what is your deepest desire there was somebody who came last year and he was going to do eight days in the dark and on the fourth day he was like i'm ready i'm going to leave and he was so happy and he came out of the dark and he's like you know what when i come home from work I go straight to my room to meditate and I have my wife and my kid. And I realized that like spirituality really isn't that important to me.

And that I've been using it subtly as an escape from my family and from these other things in my life. And he was so happy. He was like it's not that important to me. I want to go home and go be with my family. And so there was that like he got clear that what his, his desire was more to like be with his family than to what he's. saw was escape through his kind of pseudo desire for spirituality that allowed him to bypass other things. So that that beauty of like for some people, it's, it's getting clear that this is more important than that and then just being able to follow through with where joy arises.

Yeah. It's powerful. I, and I've been fortunate to be around a lot of successful, externally successful individuals. I was just talking to a buddy who sold his company for half a billion dollars a couple weeks ago. And the amount of work that he's done the past couple years has been really beautiful to a lot of people just go on to the next thing of creating the next thing. But in everybody's case is different. Everybody's story is different. But why I named this podcast know thyself and why I feel like this is the most important work to be doing is because it's that. It's, I think, until you really start having the self-inquiry and doing this work,

You're not going to be able to enjoy whatever type of thing that you get at the end of your desire, no matter what it is. And you can go desire hunting all day long, but it's going to be exhausting. And it's not going to leave you to feeling true fulfillment in your life. So it's a balance, right? We get to be in the world. We get to create. And it's beautiful to be able to take and find times in your life where you can withdraw your senses, come back into your beingness and find fulfillment in that. And then you'll just be able to experience everything from a much more heightened state.

Yeah, there's that balance. Ram Dass had a story about the Baba who would sit in the cave and was feeling really holy and thought he was really advanced and he came down into the marketplace and someone bumped into him and he just like lashed out in anger. And so there's that like, I mean, when I used to sit up in the mountains and just feel totally elevated and then now that I've come back down into life with responsibilities with family and business and work, it's like, wow, it's a lot easy. to sit up in the mountains and just live in that space and a whole other thing to be in the world and witness my clinging and my grasping and disappointments and all the things that just arise fortunately there is that that knowingness and that space that I return to but I also get caught up in all the things of the world so there's more things to work with to and there's uh to have a stronger connection to that space within when we're in the face of all our clinging and graspings and everything. Yeah, it's integration of that path that I love.

I think Naval has a quote, it's much easier to attain material possessions than renunciate them. So it's beautiful that you have the background of doing that work. And then now you're in the world, creating the things, building business, dealing with responsibility on a big scale. And if you're able to hold it in that sense of self throughout that,

then it's like, the sky's the limit. You get to create and you get to, be a human being and doing. You get to taste all the flavors of the world. You get to self-realize and self-actualized. And holding that balance is something not a whole lot of people are able to do at once. A lot of people are doing it in different phases of their life where they're focused externally

on building the business or doing whatever the thing is and then go on a spiritual path. But to be able to create spaciousness to where you can hold both is a really beautiful place if you're able to get to. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I mean, I do want to run off to the hills quite often. But just maybe little small snippets at a time.

We have that Kiva. So it's like the one of the dark retreats we built is there's a roof hatch on the ground. You climb down a ladder 12 feet. And it's just an 8 by 8 room. And so I'll get to go in there once or twice a week for just a couple hours just to dip into the infinite. Yeah. And unplug. Yeah.

I think it's so supportive also just to be in Earth. Like you could do it at a dark room above ground, but there's something about. being in the earth, like surrounded by soil that just energetically, like, gives your nervous system a deep rest. Yeah. And the quiet that it brings. Like it's being, adding another element into that unchanging reality where there is no sound. Well, well, we did touch on a lot. We've been going down this rabbit hole, which I've been absolutely loving. Yeah, is there something in particular that you feel like you want to, that we haven't touched on yet? You want to bring forth? I think we kind of, yeah, meandered through most of the big things.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, it's, for me, it feels like that experience was radically transformative. And I could see myself doing another one in a couple years, maybe for a longer period of time or something. For people that are interested in looking to this further, I mean, you're booked out for a while now, right? Yeah, we're out until pretty much July. 2023. And so now we're this spring, there's the plan to build more. We'll have probably by spring. We'll have 800 acres out there and the intentions to build seven more Hobbit Caves. Yeah. So good. I can't wait to

see the journey of the expansion of all that you're creating. Yeah. What you guys have going on there is so special. And I just want to say thank you for creating that space. Like I said, this is like one of the only ones they found in the states where you can really do it. And you have such a beautiful infrastructure that all ready and see where it's growing and the amount of people that you're supporting is is really beautiful. So thank you for doing this work first within yourself and then creating systems for other people to experience it. Thanks for being a part of it. Yeah, man. It's such a pleasure. Where can people get in touch with you, Skyfcave retreats? Yeah, skyvreats.com, Instagram. Yeah. Cool. Amazing, man. Thank you so much. Wow. Yeah, it's tough to put into words,

really how transformative the darkness can be. And I hope that for everybody that's been listening today, you get to got, you got a little glimpse of some of the nuggets of wisdom that have come through us in our experiences. And regardless if this is something that you want to explore in your path, we touched on a lot of things that can be really transformative, regardless of where you're at in your journey of the realization of boredom, of emptying your mind instead of filling it of being instead of doing of withdrawing your senses to find a greater level of gratitude and sensitivity in your life. These are all things that can really be supportive towards when on their spiritual path. And so for whoever's listening to this or watching this on YouTube,

thank you for doing the work. Thank you for being on this path. Thank you for tuning into the No-Lyself podcast. Every Tuesday, get to sit down and have one of these conversations with I cherish so much in my life. If you haven't already checked out YouTube, the YouTube Clips channel where we cut up short pieces of content from these long episodes, please do check that out. And yeah, check us out on social, SkyKat retreats for Scott and everything that you have going on and know they sell on Andrew Dukum on Instagram. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Until next time, be able.