Know Thyself - E161 - Pete Holmes: Life is a Cosmic Joke - Finding God, Wonder & Freedom in the Unknown

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Comedian and spiritual seeker Pete Holmes joins us for a conversation that weaves together humor, mysticism, and the search for truth. Pete opens up about his journey from growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household to having life-altering psychedelic experiences that redefined his understanding of God and religion. Together, they explore what it means to move beyond belief into direct experience, why we can never truly be separate from the divine, and how comedy can serve as both healing and revelation.Try Pique Life tea and save 20% for life & get a free frother:https://www.piquelife.com/KnowThyselfStart your free trial with Wix:https://bit.ly/3SXG2qKAndrés Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list___________0:00 Intro 2:46 Asking the Deeper Questions in Life6:27 From Fundamentalist Christian to Psychedelic Experience 11:29 Reinterpreting Religion through the Lens of the Mystical17:10 The Prodigal Son: Reclaiming Our Birthright22:02 Go From Belief to Direct Experience26:50 His Experience on the George Janko Podcast28:41 Ad: PiqueLife30:05 How His Understanding of God Has Changed34:45 Mental Exercise for Experience the “I am”40:36 We Can Never Be Separate from God45:10 Existential Comedy & Wondering at Life’s Mysteries55:28 Ad: Wix56:30 Balancing Being Spiritual & Being Human1:00:05 Lessons from Psychedelic Experiences 1:07:12 The Power & Responsibility of Comedy1:18:27 Are Comedians Traumatized?1:23:03 Future of Comedy in a Changing World1:32:40 Conclusion___________Episode Resources: https://www.instagram.com/peteholmes/https://www.youtube.com/@peteholmeshttps://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/https://www.youtube.com/@knowthyselfpodcasthttps://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com

Spirituality will never not be compelling to me because it's asking what doesn't change, what is consistent, it's your knowing. What makes being a comedian so wonderful you're supposed to say the unsayable? I think one of the things we're doing with art, with conversation, with everything, is recognizing that we are in this really strange situation. We do really lack perspective. Well, that goes back to what is this. How would you articulate your evolution of understanding God?

I was a fundamentalist Christian. But what happened was I had an experience. What I like to say now is I believe in God, but I don't think God exists. The idea of God somewhere else, something else that you can find is absurd. There's nothing missing here. That's the good news. It's all right here. It was nowhere to go. You can't become what you already are. And that's step one. And step two is to investigate the nature of that knowing. And when you explore your own nature, you don't need to be tripping for it to be remarkable. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Know Theirself podcast. Our guest today,

is a stand-up comedian, an author, a writer, a speaker, a podcaster. He is somebody that is known for his wit and his charm online as a comedian for many, many years, but underneath the laughter is a seeker that is really profound. He is in abundance of both humor and wisdom. And I love how palatable he makes exploring the existential questions of life and what it means to be human. Pete Holmes, thanks for being here, man. Thank you. What a nice intro. Yeah.

It was off the dome. Yes. Nice job. I'm looking for a prompter. That was really well done. Thanks for having me. I told you, Andre, that I saw, well, when you reached out, I was very excited because I watched Rupert Spira on this podcast. And I already told you off mic, I think you did a really great job. So I am very happy to be here. Thanks. That means a lot coming from somebody who loves Rupert Spira. Well, yeah. Yeah, no. A compliment from someone who is really into Rupert because we're watching with a for the lens. We're like, please get, nudge him into the good stuff

and you really did. He always has the good stuff. But you know what to me. Of course, yeah. Man, it's, I've been looking forward to having this conversation because I think I've just seen snippets and you see it come in and out,

both through your stand-up, through your podcast, through appearances on other shows, you have a great way of articulating the ridiculousness of the human experience and infusing non-dual wisdom and so much throughout it. And I think a good place to start

would just be asking, like when or what sparked your first kind of interest and curiosity into really contemplating the human experience deeper? Because I think for the vast majority of the human population, that is an under-examined area of life. Totally. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned author.

I sometimes forget that I wrote a book. I did. And in that book, I talk about being a what is this kid. And that just, I think everybody's a what is this kid to meaning like what is reality. And I just held on to it a little bit longer. I think that's something because I want to to be grateful to my parents for, because they sent me to a Quaker school and like Quaker summer camp. And it wasn't that they were overtly spiritual. They weren't. But there was a lot of silence and there was a lot of encouraging of being childlike. So I think I had a lot of room to like stretch.

My thing was always that like, what is this instinct? Mine was always like, what is fire? Like, I never got someone to tell me what fire was in a way that was even remotely satisfying. And I didn't even think that was unique. I kind of thought everybody was going, what is fire? Really, fire was just a choice, but it could be anything. What is a plant? It's the old contemplation. Why should anything exist?

But I really feel like I had that naturally. And I think it came, this could be wrong, but I think it came because I was a very vivid dreamer. I still am, but that was always like a gift to me, was every night you'd go to bed and, let's say you dream about a table and you're touching the table, then you wake up and you realize it wasn't real. I didn't quite formulate it as like, well, then how do I know this is real? That's how I would say it now. But I think because I had a rich dream life, every night I was getting this like clue as to

like, well, what is the mind and what is reality and how are they related? and it came out as what is fire. And no grown-up I knew really had a good answer. Science would say, you know, it's a combustion of this. But like it's just naming other unknowable things. That's not disparaging. It's just kind of like, I don't know, it's putting a vocabulary to it. But like that painting, this is not a pipe.

It's like, it's not fire. You know, it's not what we're talking about. We're talking about something ineffable kind of. We can break it down, but we'll never really get to its essence. So I had that and the rich dream life. And then my mom introduced me to what I would, we didn't call ourselves a fundamentalist church, but it was kind of fundamental in the sense that it was a literal interpretation of the Bible church. And I got really into that for a long time.

And even though I don't practice that anymore, I'm really grateful that I kind of had that experience. Even leaving it was a valuable experience. Yeah, the contrast of it because it's interesting you mentioned. And, like, I feel, I mean, most kids come into this life with that innate sense of curiosity and wonder and by habit of the culture that we live in. And we just love to label things. And it's useful, obviously, to have models. I was going to say, it's not useful to say what is fire. It's considered navel gazing or it's considered like a waste of time.

Right. It's fire. It'll burn you. Let's move on. That's like the mentality we need to build a bridge. But it's not the mentality that we need to like understand. the nature of reality, which is, as you know, it's just not very valued. Yeah, so that topped-down way of processing and labeling things to say, okay, I identify that tree or that bird by that name and

then I know it. That goes hand in hand coincidentally with, I think, your transition out of the Christian faith, because it sounds like through your own spiritual inquiry and just looking inwards, you made this distinction between beliefs and models of reality versus direct experience. and I'm just curious how that deepened. Well, yeah, you hit it right on the head. In fact, we just jumped to a great part of my story, which is a great part. But catch us up a little bit. I will, if you want, but like you really just nailed it in a really great way.

Because my real bullet points here, I was like a fundamentalist Christian in my own experience. That's what I would have called myself. It's literal. This is what's happening. Heaven, hell, angry God, all that sort of stuff. and then I got married and I thought I was doing everything right and then my wife left me and that really turned me upside down. But what really got interesting was I took mushrooms,

like so many of these stories, I took mushrooms at a music festival that I was performing at. And I remember like Reggie Watts was there and Amy Schumer was there and my friend Jamie Lee and I were hanging out and somebody gave us this mushroom chocolate. And I remember Amy Schumer said, it's like weed but stronger. And then I remember when it kicked in being like, no, it's not.

Like, what are you? How much weed are you smoking? Like, just because it was so much stronger and more undeniable of an experience. But I also remember being really grateful to her because if she had said, like, you're going to see gnomes or whatever, which I didn't really, but people kind of turned into Tolkien kind of style people. Let's put it this way. I would never do a psychedelic at a music festival.

now. But my first time I did. And I'm glad that I thought it was going to be no big deal. And it ultimately wasn't a huge deal. It was a pretty small dose. But what happened was my experience. I had an experience. Instead of talking about other people's experience, finally something was happening to me. I'm not saying you have to do psychedelics to do this, but like I remember, you know, laying on my side on a, it's a cliche, like on the grass. And it was like twilight and looking at this tree. And, you know, the tree's breathing and I'm breathing. And we're like, I'm sinking up with this tree.

Like, real unitive. I didn't know the term unit of consciousness. But I was like, oh, oh, God, I could cry. It's like, I'm the tree. I'm the grass. I'm the sky. And also those like little jokes that mushrooms like to make where it's like the sky looked like the unfurling of a backdrop of a bad play.

You know, just like this little wink of like, look, it's a show. It's a show. and I was just having something that I wouldn't until years later consider to be a religious experience. I was just having a nice experience. But the more I thought about it and the more I tried to process it, and more importantly, the more I realized I couldn't process it, and I couldn't even really think about it, that I realized that there was an aspect to reality that is, I love this word of,

I'm using it for the second time here, ineffable, you can't talk about it, meaning it's transcendent. It softened me to the potential that the religious texts and the stories that I had been told weren't literally true, but were true in a different way. And then I found Joseph Campbell, and then others later down the line

that embraced his approach that like there's some truths that are so big they can only be told with lies. Now I can say that to you, and that's kind of fun. there are truths that are so big they can only be told the lies. Fine. But until you have an experience that you can't talk about, it's kind of hard to know what you're talking about when you say you can't talk about it. But now I'm like, oh, I have to lie to you to tell you what that experience was

like. And then I was like, oh, maybe that's what all spiritual texts are. Then I found like Richard Rour who says, metaphor is the only language we have to speak of God. This is a Franciscan in a robe. He's got the official seal of approval. I'm not even Catholic, but from the Catholic Church. And he's saying we can only talk about these things indirectly. And because of my personal experience, I was like, I know what they're talking about. I had a touchstone to go like, there are things you can't talk about. And it happened to me.

But then, and we'll get to this later, I imagine, you start going like, well, that knowing that was so psychedelic and strange is the same knowing that I know you. And I can practice that inquiry, driving up your windy road, driving back on my way home. It's always there. And when you explore your own nature, you don't need to be tripping for it to be remarkable. That's what Rupert says. There's nothing mundane. It's like once you recognize what seeing is or begin to start to understand what seeing is, nothing is mundane. So waiting at the DMV can become the same.

kind of experience is laying on the side looking at a tree and breathing. So to walk us back a little bit because you now have the contrast of leaving organized religion, but being able to reinterpret really profound stories and myths throughout time and different religions through the lens of the mystical. Because in reality, it's like, okay, some dude hundreds or thousands of years ago had a profound experience of life and was able to articulate that. And whatever way it got distorted and profited from and in different ways we could kind of talk around it, that experience is on offer for all of us. And when you think of it from that lens and then you can go back and reinterpret a lot of these, you know, the Garden of Eden and the Burning of the Bush and the Prodigal Son, which I know you love talking about.

It reframes it in a big way where I feel like a lot of people who leave organized religion shame it, hate it, like push it. a corner, but then you get to reinterpret a lot of these Gnostic texts and it reawakens the beauty of it, I feel like. I actually think that's the greatest joy of my life. That's nothing excites me. I'm a little bit over it now because it's normal now. But when I first started to discover that it was there, there's something about that reclaiming something that was given to you.

And it was sort of given to me in what I would consider a broken form, meaning it was repurposed to be shameful or scary or I always think of Meister Eckhart said it's a lie any talk of God that does not comfort you. I think that's beautiful. So here are these stories. The prodigal son was told to me as like a horror story or like Adam Eve is like this terrible thing. And when you start peeling back your own understanding and then going back, it's really satisfying. Because, you know, Richard Rohr has a book that's called Order. disorder, reorder, and that is the pattern of life. Order. I was told that, like, I do this and this and this, and I'll go to heaven. Disorder. Oh, my wife left me. God's not looking out for me. We're in chaos.

Maybe there isn't anything going on here. It's disorder. And then the third step is reorder. That's also, you could say that's Easter. That's resurrection. It's death, resurrection, but so many people don't resurrect. And I understand. It's hard to. And I'm going to mix the metaphor even more. there's this rabbinical teaching that both Rob Bell and I love where it says any old donkey can tear down a barn or a shed. But it takes a special donkey to build a shed, which I think is funny because I picture a donkey building a shed with a hoof, which is very silly. But like, it's really easy to tear something down and go, my faith was bullshit. Oh, you think there's an old man on the sky? That's really kind of delicious.

It's like smoking. It's like you seem cool, you don't care, you're not a, you're nobody's fool, you know. Righteousness feels great. It's great. And you're looking down on this organized, start shirt, khaki thing, and you get to be like bullshit. It's so fucking cool. But the rebuilding is so much sweeter, and it's not for anybody else. It's just for you.

And when you look at, like, you mentioned the Garden of Eden, I was just thinking about the Garden of Eden. I think it was maybe today where I was like, how brilliant is it, that they were in the garden, which is a metaphor. This is like a 5,000-year-old story that people are maybe older, but like people are in unity of consciousness. They're one with God. They're in the same place as God. And then they decide to eat from the tree of good and evil, which I really like because

it has our choosing in it. Like we would like to see what it's like to know good from bad, right from left, up from down, male from female, whatever it is. So we eat and then we're kicked out. That's a great way to explain the whole situation. It's like we could have just stayed there, but nothing was happening. So we chose to sacrifice that heaven state to be in a place of yes and no. And as soon as you have yes, you have no. And if you have pain, you have pleasure, both the other way. And I was like, that's brilliant. And the prodigal son is brilliant, brilliant story. And I, and I, It makes me sad to think that I might not have ever had these teachers, like Rob Bell, like Richard Rohr, that helped me go back and go.

It was right there the whole time. You know what I mean? Because, like, those stories from your youth, it's like the first cut is the deepest. So if you just dismiss it, you're missing a really delectable meal. Like, if you can get it back and now on your, not on your terms, but in a way that resonates, it's really powerful. It puts the human experience in context also when you can relate that to your own human journey like you did through divorce, through rejoicing to the reorder of your life. Yes. It makes you realize you're right on track.

I'm very ordered disorder, reorder. Chelsea and I were just talking about how the reorder party of your life can sometimes be the most boring because you're very like, I feel so much more steady than I did. But I'm grateful for the disorder. And I'm grateful for the order, although that was a little traumatic. Yeah, that part of us that identifies chaos with familiarity and excitement. Like it's a new form of excitement, you know, one with less maybe moving parts around or. Yeah. But I'm curious.

So walk us through that process. And I love how you speak about the prodigal son. And if you're not tired of speaking to it, I think this is a perfect moment to kind of walk us through that. It's generous of you. I think it's all right there. And there's actually a twist that I was just thinking about that I think you'll enjoy, because I enjoy it, and we like the same sort of stuff. But the prodigal son, the story of the prodigal son is the end of the sermon on the mount.

As a comedian, I like to say it's Jesus's closer. It's like the big finish. It's also, I don't always say this, but like if you're into this sort of thing, historically, it's the most verifiably said by Jesus, if that means anything. to you. That's kind of fun. They're like, we had the most evidence that this is something Jesus of Nazareth said. But we all know the story, and I like to point out that, you know, there's a son. It's not a king, but like we like to say it's a king. It's like a fancy dad. And the son says, give me my inheritance, which I think is what we're all doing. It's like,

give me consciousness, give me life, and I'm going to go and make a big mess of it. And the loving father says, here it is. Here's your inheritance early. The son leaves. And he squanders it, which is kind of like the first half of your life, it could be your whole life. It doesn't say that he gets sex work or drugs or alcohol, but it kind of feels like he does. He spends all of his money, wastes all of his money, squanders, and that he's working with the pigs because he has nothing. And as I always point out, working with the pigs is a Jewish person that would be like the lowest of the low in the culture. You're working with an unclean animal. And then this is the part that I like to say, like, in the traditional understanding of Christianity that I grew up in, which is atonement theory, which is that Jesus dies for your sin.

So this guy is a sinner, meaning he's forgotten who he is. He's lost and he's broken and he's destitute. There needs to be like a Jesus character that comes and finds the guy and says, look, your father's a tyrant. He's going to be really upset with you. Obviously, you've wasted the... this gift that he gave you. Look at you. He's going to hate you. He's going to want to kill you. But let him kill me. I'll walk you home and we'll let him kill me. Because we both know he's going to have to kill somebody. That's just how he is. But I'll walk you home and then we'll throw me in front of your father. He can kill me, quench his bloodlust, and then he'll begrudgingly allow you back into the kingdom. That would be the story of Atonement Theory. That's what I was told,

which is that, you know, the blood of Jesus washed me. I was miserable. God hates me, you know, sinner in the hand of an angry God. He wants to dump me in the fire like a spider that won't stop biting him. That's actually in that sermon, by the way, that idea. That's what I was raised with. But it was right there in front of me. All the prodigal son does is he remembers who his dad is,

that his dad has many bedrooms and he's his dad. He loves me. What am I doing? He just kind of recognizes his identity. I am my father's son. He'll let me at least work in his house. So he walks back, and the key part is, before he's even gotten all the way to the house,

the father runs out and meets up. He won't even wait. He can't wait because he loves his son so much. And then the punchline is, and this has a very interesting non-dual kind of hidden twist, I think. The father says, I am always with you and everything I have is yours. The son's like, I'm sorry, you left. He goes, what are you talking about?

I'm always with you and everything I have is yours. I'm like, well, that's funny that he says, I am always with you and everything I have is yours. The I am is always, the I am was as with him when he was with the pigs, as when he was in his father's house. There's nowhere you can go that's away from yourself, the I am, which is a beautiful, like, what does he mean? I'm always with you?

He was just not with him. He's like, no, I'm always with you. That's Jesus trying to say, you can't leave balance. there's nowhere to go. You can't become what you already are. He was always and already the man's son when he was there or when he was back. And that's life.

Life is an inheritance of forgetting and a remembering. We start from the oneness, we hang out with the pigs and forget ourselves, and then we return back to our father, aka recognizing the kingdom of heaven is within us and always was, always will be. Precisely. And it's not an error.

Like the father doesn't give the inheritance like, all right like there are other myths like that like you're gonna regret it he just gives it to him that's life God also in the story of the garden of Eden could have not put the tree of good and evil in the

garden but he did and we ate it in the same way that the sun left we elect to do it we're like co-conspirators in the idea that we want to go and swim in this craziness but actually never having left what would you say to somebody that's wrestling with this this understanding of feeling like they've been indoctrinated in something where there's all these beliefs they haven't really fully signed up for and yet there is fear locking them in in so many different ways because i've experienced this with different friend groups growing up and i have a lot of compassion for it i don't feel like it's upon me to change anyone's idea about anything i think we're all on our own journeys um but what have you found like really moves the needle for

from taking somebody from belief to direct experience because we live in a belief-heavy culture. Yeah, right. Like what group do you belong to? Well, I mean, for me, it was psychedelics. That's not what I'm recommending. There's a couple, this isn't be here now. There's a couple different approaches.

Obviously, Rondas would say one of them is psychedelics. One of them is taking other people's word for it. Like, when I say Meister Eckhart, that's important to me. This is like a 1300s mystic. wrote some of the most beautiful stuff. And when he says, it's a lie, any talk of God that does not comfort you. If you can lock into that, this person that devoted their life to God and they're reporting back, they're having a mystical experience and they're reporting back, there's that comfort.

There's also just like, I think you have, we all have a certain level of what Father Boyle calls the mystical lens. Like you can look at things and go, you know, know, they told me to be afraid of this or they told me God is like this, it just doesn't resonate with me. It doesn't line up with my experience. Like the angry dad who wants to murder us, I think has a lot more to do with psychology than it does with theology, right? It's like, that's the 90s dad that's drunk and scary and we're afraid of him and we're still afraid of him. But that has to do with a childhood wound and we can start to recognize that. I said,

I had this to George Shanko, we were talking about George Shanko off the air, that I think there's a certain amount of, you need to learn how to recognize your inner compass and go, that sounds like truth to me. It feels like coming home. It feels familiar. And the example I give is sometimes online they'll say, they'll do a challenge where they're like draw Shrek from memory and people will try and draw Shrek. And they're awful. They're so bad, which is so weird that we know what Shrek. looks like, but we can't draw him. And we can look at a thousand wrong Shrecks and go, these are all awful to the point where they're funny. Then you see the right Shrek. And even though you couldn't draw it, what's going on there? You have a memory, you have a recollection that you can't picture. Well, yeah. And that's how I think it is with God, believe it or not. I think there's something that you might not be able to articulate or draw, but there's an intuitive knowing when you see Shrek, you know it. And when I hear it's a lie. And he's a lie. talk of God that does not come for you, I go, that's correct. And when I hear God is a loving

father, but he can't wait to kick you in a furnace because you accidentally pick the wrong religion, I go, that's not track. I really think there is something in us. Because it is us. Does it sound like you? We're getting ahead of ourselves. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos, different tools, different models. different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. What it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do.

So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. I think we're right on time. Oh, really? Yeah, for the show, I think. Yeah, man, I think all these, like, so many of these concepts are useful than to go beyond the concepts entirely. And when we get stuck in the models of reality and the beliefs around reality and what are ideas of what God is as a substitute for the real thing, which is the direct experience, which we can have viscerally internally in this present moment. Yeah, it's just, it creates unnecessary barrier.

Yeah. Have you heard that saying it's like, when given the. choice between the journey or the destination, the ego will always choose the journey. The metaphor that Rupert uses is the moth and the flame, and the moth wants the flame, which is divine union, but it also knows it will be annihilated if it goes into the flame. And that's sort of the predicament we're in. And there's also, Trunkpah Rimpichet said, Enlightenment is the ego's ultimate disappointment or its final disappointment.

So there is a sort of like, shh, don't talk about that. We don't want to get to that. We would rather keep wandering around like the Israelites or whoever, anybody on a long journey would rather go on the journey than reach the destination because then it seems like the party's over. Of course it's not, but it seems like it is.

You mentioned we were chatting about George Janko, who's a friend and you went on his podcast, and it was like a clashing of understanding, kind of speaking from direct experience versus through what the Bible teaches, essentially. And why I actually liked it is because it highlighted and it showed that contrast. Yeah.

You know, even though maybe there was rub in the conflict, there was still respect and you guys were amicable. I think we loved each other the whole time, but it was like, it was hard for me because it was like talking to, and I don't mean this in a condescending way, it was like talking to another version of myself. You know what you mean? So it was more personal than just kind of disagreeing with somebody.

I actually felt like I was talking to another time in my life. So it was frustrating for me because I really wanted, maybe, I don't know, maybe on an ego level, I don't know, for him to be like, I get it, you're right, you know, like it's hard to surrender those. But out of love, like I was like, I don't, I remember, and I don't know if I don't know if George is this way, but I remember being very tight on so many things. And I think I even said that in that conversation that like the metric that I have is how spacious you are and how like free you are, not how correct you are, but I can get caught up and wanting someone to understand what I'm saying. I replayed it quite a bit in my head after. Yeah. So I'm glad you liked it. Yeah.

I haven't talked to many people about it. I think it's important to have those conversations where you disagree and see what comes of it, even though it's not the most fond or doesn't feel the most productive in the moment. You know, it's, I think it does support people who are in that own contemplation and let people decide for their own path where, you know, what to make of it. Hey, y'all, I want to talk about tea for a second because tea is more than just a normal drink. It's a ritual for me. And after trying so many different brands, I find myself continually coming back to and drinking on the show, the ones from peak life, especially. their puer tea it's wild harvested which means it comes from ancient tea trees and it's fermented

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Just head to peaklife.com slash know-liself to get yours, or you can see all of our partner deals at know-liselfpodcast.com slash partners. Back to the show. How would you articulate your evolution of understanding God? Like, of course, we spoke to how futile it is to try to describe the ineffable. Yeah. But if you were to put it into words now. But it's also the most intimate thing in the world.

It's, I remember it was Krishna Das who said, it's what's looking at your eyes right now. Or it's not what the eye can see. It's that whereby the eye can say. So it's the act of it. Or Paul said. we live and move and have our being in Christ, right? So Christ meaning awareness. So it's simultaneously, and this is straight Rupert Spira, it's impersonal, which means ultimate reality does not know subject to objects. So it's not somewhere watching this podcast like other people might be.

That's kind of a lonely thing when you consider that God doesn't really know about us. but it's, that's how I understand it now. It's, you can't stand apart from us. So it's impersonal, but it's intimate. It couldn't be closer to us. So what I like to say now is I believe in God, but I don't think God exists. Like, I don't think you can go somewhere and find something and stand apart from God and go, there is God.

I knew you existed. God would point back at you and go, there's Andre, I knew you exist. I don't think that's how it works. The metaphor that I like which Rupert uses, I think Ramon Amar she uses, is the screen that we live and move and have our being like characters in a movie and God, for lack of a better word, is the screen, is the knowing screen that we are on. So it kind of works in a couple different levels. The screen doesn't know what's happening in the movie. The screen isn't affected or changed. changed by what's happening in the movie. So that can be a little lonely.

There's a mourning when you consider that you've sort of lost that traditional, help me find a parking spot relationship. But then you also realize, like, what are you talking about? It's all you. There's only screen. So the metaphor that I really love that Rupert uses is the actor, John Smith, who's playing King Lear, and he gets, and John Smith's ultimate reality is the one knowing. But he dresses in King Lear.

clothes and he does the play kinglier, but he gets so lost in it that he forgets that he's John Smith. And backstage, he's still upset about his wife and the war with France and all. This is all rupert. Then somebody comes back and says, why are you miserable? And he's like, I'm upset about the war in France. He's like, no, you forgot who you are. So God is sort of impersonal, but also it's what's active. It's what's giving this life. It couldn't be closer. All those stories that you hear about people that leave their homes and go on journeys around the world looking for enlightenment and then somebody says it's back or looking for gold, let's say it's not usually enlightenment. They go, go back to your house and look in the basement.

There's a million stories like that. Go back to where you were and you realize what you're looking with is what you're looking for. So the idea of God somewhere else, something else that you can find is absurd. That with which you're looking is the thing. And that's step one. Then step two is to investigate the nature of that knowing. And it's like the space, this is also a Rupert metaphor, it's like the space in this room. It's transparent. It's at peace. There's no agitation. There's no lack. So it's happy. It's not happy in the sense that you feel happy. It's happy in the sense that there's no lack. So you realize that there's this background that's always, with you, that's at peace, and that's happy. And in that, these other, like, ink and water appears,

you're mad at your dad or you're stuck in traffic. But the background of it is your true nature, and you can dip and retreat into that at any moment. That becomes the mystical experience. That's not just a belief. That's me when I'm going to hit traffic on the way home. That's me and traffic on the way home going, there's nothing missing here. There's nothing missing here. That's the good news. It's all right here. There was nowhere to go.

You can't become what you already are. You can't go on a journey looking for what you already always were. You are always the sun. That's good news. It's the great news. It's great news. Yeah, because it invites, it's something that is immediately verifiable within everybody's experience, too. That's right.

Like when you speak to the background awareness, which, knows any experience is happening that is the same within you, that is the same within me, and the same within everybody listening right now. You can check in on that and verify that. So is that what you're referring to when you mention God, that same place that is within you that is within us? Yeah, God, guru, and self. We're not a big guru culture, but God and self. Now, we don't go around and say, I am God. That's just, that's kind of just a ridiculous way to phrase it. But you say the eye with which I look at God is the same. that looks at me. There's only one eye. I and the father are one. You know, that experience,

so interesting to think, like, and I did, like, Jesus was one with God, but somehow there's a perimeter around me. Like, I'm somehow sustaining myself apart from God. Rupert's always really funny with that. He's like, that's actually blasphemy. It's to say, I am somehow self-sustaining, and someday I'll merge back with God. It's like you're saturated in it right now. is one of my favorite ways to kind of explore it, and this is what Rupert is so good at, is it's the most obvious hidden thing in the world. And it takes, for me, it's taken a lot of repetition

to go like, what do you mean? I like the empty room. I'm like this room, the space in this room, it's the same space as outer space. And when these walls are demolished, the space will be the same. That's like the death of the room. But what are you talking about?

It just reunited, even though it was never separate from the rest of the space. But it'll have the appearance of a death and a rebirth. I like looking at the quality of this room and knowing that I'm like that space. But one of the ways that I like to play with that, and this can freak people out, but I find it to be quite comforting. As you know, I can hear your voice. It works better with your eyes close. I can hear my own voice. It's so funny.

And then you say something. What up, Pete? Okay. So that appeared in the same place that my own voice appeared. I know that's so obvious. I really resent that you have to be stoned or on drugs for this to be interesting. It's so interesting. My voice has a different quality because it's sort of muffled because it's in my voice.

And then I hear you and I kind of, based on the volume, my brain makes the story that you're over there. But even like then we get into feelings. Like let's say I'm feeling anxious. I'm not, but let's say I am. I'm feeling that. In the same kind of naked, spacious, aware field comes a feeling. Let's say it's excitement. I'm excited to be talking to you.

That emerges in the same space-like field. The sound of my voice, the sound of your voice, the feeling of excitement. Then I could touch my legs. That feeling, that sensation appears in the same space-like place, that your voice, my voice, and a feeling appeared, then we can bring in a thought. I can sing happy birthday in my head. So now I have happy birthday playing.

I hear your voice. I hear my voice. Feel the feeling. I feel the excitement. It's all appearing in the same borderless, boundaryless, space-like field, for lack of a better. And then you realize everything is kind of a story, meaning like if I hear a bird,

It also appears in that, but it's distant. So I'll go, it's way over there. It actually occurred within me. It was literally within me. And you start going like, when you can really dip into like, what we're doing when we do this is playing with, where is this thing we call awareness? And what is it?

Is there a boundary to it? Is there a place where it stops and it's not on the other side of it? That's a good one. when I hear a bird, it sounds like it's far away, but it actually couldn't have been closer to me. It's made of me. The sound of a bird is made of the knowing of it, which is what I am. And then you go over and over and over with meditations like that, and you start to realize, okay, there isn't something somewhere else, somebody else called God.

The whole thing lives and moves in this one knowing. and like, you know, cups of water in the ocean, or maybe it's better to say waves on the ocean, we all have the illusion, the play. My daughter's name is Lila, which means the play of the universe, the play of the universe is, I'll pretend to be this one,

you pretend to be that one. You can be something for me to love or to forgive, or you can be something we can make art, or we could learn, or we could, whatever, we could nothing, we could do nothing, whatever you want. But like, we're going to play. There's a bird talker lyric where one wind distracted by our different sails.

So we're all these different sailboats, but we're all propelled by the same wind. And then you start to realize when Jesus said, I and the father are one. He wasn't saying Jesus Christ of Nazareth is one with the father. He said, I and the father are one. I think that's very deliberate. I. And when I say I, it's the same eye, because it's the only eye. because if there were multiple eyes, now we're dividing God,

and that's actually blasphemy, as opposed to people say you shouldn't talk that way. That's blasphemous. I'm like, it's actually blasphemous the other way. It helps, again, put into context this human journey. The Vedic understanding is like the one becomes two for the joy of becoming one again. And I think in my conversation with Rupert,

we talked about how suffering is the cost of admission for the illusion of separation, for this dance of play, for the lila to occur, There needs to be this perception of separation of subject and object of me and you. And it's how oneness gets to differentiate and experience itself through many different eyes. And the suffering comes in identifying with our separate form and thinking that's actually who we are. And so I think that practice, which is, again, immediately verifiable and implementable through anybody who's listening right now to check in with that is powerful. Yeah, your body appears in that field of awareness.

What you mean by your body is something you see and feel. And when you're not looking at it, the perception of it goes away, obviously this starts to feel a little childish. Well, you realize when you say your body, you're talking about like an amorphic, it's like clouds of perception. And it appears in that field. And that field is what you actually are. And that's not just wishful thinking.

You can really explore that. This is why we love body swap comedies. This is why we love all that sci-fi stuff. We know, intuitively know, that when Rupert says, one of the things he does is close your eyes and act like you're a newborn baby, but you haven't even opened your eyes. And he goes, tell me about yourself. You wouldn't have any concept of body, gender, nationality, humanness, but you would know that you are. And that's the only true thing. That's the only knowable thing.

You're reducible. Is I am. Yes, as I am. Yeah, that's good stuff, right? Yeah, yeah, that's great. I love how we just dove right into the deep end off the bat. But if we want to go on the path of self-realization and have the experience where we become self-realized,

how other could it start with first getting acquainted with the experience of our own consciousness and spending time and just hanging out and just call it whatever you want, whether it's meditation or contemplation, but you sit with your eyes closed and go inwards and just hang out. And your ability to articulate it or,

formulated is not what we're talking about. I like talking about it. It's helpful when you're on a podcast, too, talk about it. If you look at somebody with special needs or somebody that doesn't never learn how to read or whatever it might be, this is the most ubiquitous, this is the most generous outpouring. It's like you're already the guy's son. It's just your birthright. It's the only thing that's happening.

You can't not be it. You can forget that you're at. That's the game. That's the friction or the tension, is the knowing can be veiled. I wrote this in my book. I said there's nothing you can do to increase or decrease the infinite love of God. But there are things you can do that will increase or decrease your awareness of that love. That's how I articulated it then.

Now I would say, like, you can't ever not be whole complete. you could say a child of God, you could say the one I am, whatever, but you can veil your, you can get lost in the story of experience. And so you can forget and you can remove that veil. And it's the only game in town. Yeah. Take it from someone who's done, and I'm grateful, I've done a lot of extraordinary things in my life.

I've been to the tops of a lot of interesting show business mountains. And it's like Ramda says, you eat ice cream, you want water. Now you want a nap. Now you want coffee. Now you want a book. Now you're bored. You watch a movie. Now you want sex.

You know what I mean? It never ends. You know what I mean? Spirituality will never not be compelling to me because it's asking what doesn't change. What is consistent? What is actually always with you and everything you has is yours? It's your knowing. And what is the nature of that knowing, peace and happiness?

So it's not just to go, I know the meaning of life. It's so later when I'm in traffic, I will go, there's nothing missing here. What in this moment is lacking nothing, nothing. One of the byproducts of this recognition, which I think comes up when we speak about it, is laughter. Because there's something inherently comical about this play and recognizing how we forget and we pretend it doesn't exist in this recognition. and in many ways I feel like I feel like I've heard someone say that in some context, comedians are like the shamans of modern culture because they're able to speak to directly what's most important in a way that's diffusing of the seriousness of it.

And I love how you bring humor into all this. And you speak to the ridiculousness of our human predicament and where we find ourselves on the spinning mudball. And yeah, it just it eases the edges around it all. I know what you're saying. I don't know about shaman. Here's what I know. I know that we put shackles on our pastors. And I say that with great love for some of my best friends are clergy. That's actually true. But I think we have this expectation when you sort of Mickey Mouseify them. They're not allowed to be doubtful. They're not allowed to be angry. They're not allowed to be horny. They're not allowed to have a bad day. they're just supposed to be the mascots of the church. And really the church in the West is a lot of times, and it does a lot of great things.

I'm just saying a lot of times we get a little lost in the niceness of it all. Be nice. As Richard Rohr points out, the word nice isn't in the New Testament. It doesn't say the word nice, but we somehow turned it into like smiling and always being cordial. And so I don't, I feel bad for pastors.

is I wish they could say, I don't believe today, or I'm feeling doubt or this or that. It's just not what we expect. What makes being a comedian so wonderful is you, first of all, you'd be expected to say, I have doubts. You're supposed to say the unsayable thing or the naughty thing. But then you can also say, and like what I try to do with my jokes about the meaning of life

is use the same tools that we have as comedians, but in the sort of, I don't want to say in defense of God, but like let's look at the other way. Everybody's talking about how there is no God. Let's look at the other way with the same kind of wicked approach, you know, mischievous approach. But we have no shackles. We're allowed to say and do whatever we want. I think that's a pretty powerful position. Unfortunately, so many comedians just use that to say the same like five things,

which is like isn't sex great, isn't food great, isn't winning great, that sort of stuff. But you can, there are outliers that do very interesting things. And I don't mean me. I mean people that I admire. Was it a conscious decision or just kind of the only option for you when you wanted to start infusing a lot of these inquiries and existential, you know, contemplations into your comedy? Yeah, you know, it started happening because I did my podcast. When I started doing, you made it weird. I was like slowly letting out that I was curious about God.

coming out the spiritual closet. Yeah, I really was like every episode, I was like, did we lose all of our listenership? Because I said this or this. And it didn't happen. Like people were, because it was authentic. It wasn't just being in a religion to be a good boy. I was like actually earnestly seeking.

And I think people could tell that. So then I was like, okay, people want to hear about this. So then I started doing it in my stand-up very slowly. But I also noticed that like when I look at the older, as I often do. I'm just kidding. But a clip will come through my feed or something. And like I had a joke about dreaming.

And I was like, explain to an alien that doesn't sleep what sleep is. And I was like, I could explain food. I'm like, well, I need energy. So I eat food that has energy so I can use the energy. And the aliens like, okay. I'm like, but that's not all at night. Regardless of how much energy I've eaten, I just got to shut it down. for like eight, nine, sometimes 12 hours,

I just lay still in the dark. He's like, well, that sounds boring. And I go, no, my brain plays movies that I'm in. So that was the joke. And then I'm like, even though that's not a spiritual joke, that is like a, what's going on here? Like, what is reality? Every night I dream a whole other reality.

That would be so weird to an alien. So like, let's talk about it as something strange. So I see these sort of inklings towards those maybe philosophical questions. but then when I did I'm not for everyone or everybody on Netflix

that was the first time that I did like all that efforting had led to that joke it's called God or Nothing and that one took a lot I really think that might be the joke of my career

I'm like I think that's it I think I did it which is great which joke specifically was it because I say I go, some people think God created the universe. Some people think nothing created the universe. I go, which is the funniest guess?

And I go, and then nothing people make fun of the God people. They say God doesn't exist. And I go, yeah, maybe. But you know what definitely doesn't exist? Nothing. That's the defining characteristic of nothing, is that it doesn't exist. So what are we talking about?

You're either talking about nothing, something you can't see, touch, say,'s photograph, and science can't prove, created the universe, or God, something you can't see touch, taste, photograph,

and science can't prove created the universe. But if you're nothing, if one of the things your nothing does is spontaneously erupt into everything, that's a pretty goddamn

magical fucking nothing, you guys. And then ask them nothing, people, what happens when you die? They'll tell you, you go into nothing. And I'm like,

you mean you merge back with your creator? That's heaven, bitch. So that joke, took years to get right. It was so hard to figure. There were all these,

I used to tell the prodigal son story in the Joe. Like it was like fumbling around in the dark. I had no idea. But when I came to the like idea that it is funny that the sound argument that defeats the God argument is the nothing argument, I was like, oh, well, let's just hold those up. And I'm not, and I'm not talking about,

I'm not even defending every idea of God. I'm just saying like both of these are a mystery. They're both words for a mystery. They're both words for a mystery. And nothing is just as much as a God as my God, because my God is no thing. So we're talking about the same thing. It wasn't like the God people are right

and the nothing people are wrong. It's like we're actually saying the exact same thing. An unknowable, unseeable, something did something. So why are we fighting? I know why we're fighting, though, because a lot of people say, you know, the old man in this guy hates gay people. So, yeah, I also don't like that gun. Yeah, man.

It's so fascinating when you hold, it's essentially holding up a mirror to culture, to your audience. And when you get to see firsthand how two seemingly disparate things are actually speaking about it, about the same thing in two ways, falling short, both equally. Totally. Well, that's something I'm very passionate about is I'm like, I have way more in common with an atheist than I would, like, a really ardent believer. And that's what I'm trying to do with that joke is really say, like, we're all in the same conundrum.

We're soaking in the same mystery. We all woke up in something we don't understand. But we all have to, like, I think one of the. the things we're doing with our, with conversation, with everything is going like, recognizing that we are in this really strange situation. And it deserves, we should be, we should be working together, not dividing ourselves into the God people and the science people. We do really lack perspective how weird it is.

Well, that goes back to what is this. The other choice when you go, what is fire and you're like, I just don't understand is not not science, it's actually the middle people that just go, they said it's fire, it's fire, of course it's fire, what else would it be? And you dry up and you lose it. But I think wonder is a very powerful lubricant. Yeah, when we lack that perspective and, you know, speak to it in your specials of what happens just when you zoom out and you get to see all of these, you know, all of these humans that really look like ants from their perspective of, of outer space with all these different opinions and beliefs on what reality is.

It's, again, one of those mirrors that help you reflect back to the audience, the ridiculousness of our own ideologies. Totally. Yeah. And that, like, zooming out to the planet is like a nice kind of materialist way of going, like, don't forget we're part of this, like, huge thing. And we don't know what's going on. What I like about non-duality is when I was a Christian, like, you know,

I still love Christ. but I'm just saying when I was in the church, I would be like, well, if there are aliens on another planet, did an alien Jesus come and die for their alien sins? Like I needed that to happen. Otherwise, like, those aliens are going to hell, I guess. What I like about, everything I like about non-duality, but like, even if there are aliens, the eye with which they know their experience is the only eye there is. It kind of cover, it doesn't kind of cover everything. It covers everything. It covers everything. if it exists and if it knows it exists, it's this one thing playing peekaboo with itself in all these different ways. I really like that. I haven't, but if you smoke DMT

and you met a fucking dragon with microchip limbs and all that sort of stuff, if that is a real entity, it's still made of the only eye there is. It kind of covers everything. It doesn't kind of cover everything. It covers everything.

Yeah. And I like that. Instead of needing a microchip winged dragon Jesus to do. eye for that guy. That's quite the visual. We can make that. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa,

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If you're ready to create your own website, then go to the link in description or wicks.com. That's wicks.com to start building your website today. Thank you, Wix, for sponsoring our show. Link in description. You know, you mentioned it's fascinating that psychedelics is one of your first early direct experiences of seeing that you are really fundamentally connected in a way that we lack the perception of more overtly beforehand. And I think that can be a powerful doorway for people.

And then you go on your path. Non-duality, for many people, is seen as sort of the last kind of like realization onto reality. But yeah, we still come back and we have as a human experience. And I'm curious for your own journey, like, once somebody understands the non-dual perspective, whatever that means, understands it, like gets intimate with it in their own personal life.

We still have a life to live and we still have our characterological stuff. And so I'm curious as like on your, human journey with a wife and kid and how has like shadow work how is healing human trauma coincided with the awareness of non-duality yeah it's a great question i i deal with all of that i i don't it informs like my therapy like i do parts work therapy and and i'm actually in the process of doing some pretty heavy therapy and unpacking all of those things drama feelings the past all that stuff. So that's part of it. I am not like, I can spiritually bypass when is desired. Like, sometimes it's not just nice. It's like the top of the mountain to go like, I have no parents.

Jesus actually says that in the Bible. They found them and they're like, what are you doing? Your parents have been looking for you. And Jesus is like, these are my parents. And I'm like, that's hardcore. Can you imagine? Your parents are like, where the hell have you been? I'm like, I don't have parents. That is so badass. So I can do that, and I do spend most of my time doing that because I don't know, that's what I'm feeling. But then I do spend a lot of time, obviously, playing the character of Pete. I notice that people are pretty good at forgiving other people, but I really work on forgiving myself.

Like I can say, like, Andre, if you got really mad at Chelsea, I'd be like, okay, yeah, Andre, he belongs. lungs and they're having their thing and maybe I didn't like it, but like I can allow that. But then if I do something bad, like if I was rude to Chelsea, I'd be like, I'm such a piece of shit, you know, like, no, we're all lawfully unfolding and we all have our baggage and we all have our mental illness or whatever you want to call. We all have our blind spots. We all have our shadow. And like, when I'm doing my therapy, it's really powerful to stand and as naked awareness and look sort of dispassionately at Pete. It helps me heal to be like, okay, sure, that's not who I really am.

But I sure I'm losing a lot of sleep, not being that guy. I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, let's work on that. So I do work on myself a lot. And the thing my wife and I talk about probably the most is our feelings and why we're feeling them. So there's a lot of human experience. The human experience is often very messy.

And I think having the awareness of the space that holds all the weather of our emotions and things is invaluable. And yet I've heard you speak to this phrase of accept that you are accepted in the process where we forget. What does that mean to you? Well, that's Richard Rohrer, except that you are accepted. He says the whole journey is to accept that you are accepted. And that's the prodigal son too, to just remember that you were always and forever were the guy's son. there's nothing you can do to not be that guy's son. It's so powerful, especially as somebody who has a child, to evoke that image.

There's a lot of, in Jesus' teachings, talking about father, sons, mother's daughters, that sort of thing, because you understand. My daughter punches me in the balls all the time. Like, she thinks it's the funniest thing in the world. And if I'm being honest, I also think it's funny. And it hurts so much. She's like a frat brother or something. She just punches me.

She's older now. So she doesn't do it as much. But before she really understood, she just thought it was a funny thing. That's that love, right? That's that like, you're mine. That's it. Forever. Has having a kid directly helped you make space for your own humanity?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's somebody that I have to, not have to, but somebody that exercises my patience. That's a good way to put it. But you love them so much that you do, I think, get an inkling. It's a real gift. My understanding of God, who often, as everyone knows, is, you know, a father or a mother or something like that, the source of somebody. And my daughter seems to be the source of me.

Obviously, we have all these similarities. That love is so intense. I've experienced, you know, while we've been talking, I've been like, it wasn't a until I did ketamine that I really had some very intense, non-dual things. Mushrooms, I've since I've done, you know, this past year. And mushrooms to me is, I know I'm not quite answering your question, but it came up. Mushrooms to me is showing off, like the universe just wants to show off and just go like, don't forget, ta-da!

And it just wants to make you laugh and cry. And you're just so humbled by how beautiful and amazing everything. thing is. And then ketamine is like, someone just turns the lights off and like it's just empty, but it's you. And when I go into that space, if any part of me is still there, it does feel kind of like a father. And you go, do you love Pete? Like, I know you're everything, but do you love Pete? And I was like, it's like, ask, it's the most absurd question in the world asking love if it loves you. But to have that experience, and it's similar to my daughter. It'd be like my daughter saying, do you love me, is the most absurd thing in the world?

She could even say, do you love my imaginary friend, the dinosaur? And I'd be like, I do, and I mean it. Like, I really do, because it's you, it's in your mind. I love it. So when I asked, I mean, after having this non-dual sort of understanding of God doesn't know subject to object, so it doesn't know Pete, and that was kind of lonely. And I was like, but do you love Pete? It was like asking the ocean, would you get this wet?

Would you get this wet? Would you get this wet? It's like, all I do is get things wet. I am wet. I am wetness. Like, what do you talk? It's all I can do. You say clip it?

Clip it. All I can do is make things wet. And that, by the way, go, no, don't you do it. It goes back to like the joke of it. It's funny to think that there are millions and billions of things asking God if it loves you. That's a joke. That's a funny joke. And you can get into that space when you're on ketamine or not, but just laughing.

What kind of setting was that? Like, is it assisted psychotherapy or is it solo journey? It was assisted in a informal way. I didn't go through like a foundation or something, but it was with somebody who was familiar with. it and they were with me and guided me through it. And it's really hard to talk about, but it is like Val was there. Your wife? Yeah, she doesn't do it, but she was there.

And I was like, at one point I was really seeing how all of reality is, like, there's a frame rate to reality. Yeah. I looked at both to you to see if I understand it. There's a frame rate. Huh? Even if you just look at that door, there's still a... Yeah, like 24 frames a second on a video camera.

Exactly. But even if you're looking at the back of your eyes, there's still a passage of what feels like time, even looking at something static. And I was what somebody told me as a K-hole. I was in a place where all of that went away. I was looking at darkness. But then, and this isn't going to make any sense,

it was as if someone had taken a big piece of black like thick poster board and they put it between me and the camera so it was like shh-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-h right?

You know when you watch like Monty Python or something that have like photographs and they're like animate them? Anyway, so it wasn't in the frame rate. It was this darkness and this stillness and I came back

and I said to Val, I go, I just saw the stillest thing I've ever seen. Meaning we've never seen anything still. Everything has visual static, those millions of little dots that you see. Everything has that frame rate that we're talking about. It's all being built, even a still thing. I saw nothing. And what was great was,

even in nothing, I am. Even in nothing, I'm still there. And so the I amness was like, look, I'll show you, you can remove everything. As it says in the Old Testament, you go to the heavens, I am there, or you are there. I go to the depths, you are there. It's like, you can't, I'll shut the thing down and show you that you are not linked to this experience. It's you're separate from it. And it was really beautiful. That is not what you asked, but that is what came up. I think those reference points, whether they're induced psychedelically or not, even though it doesn't really carry that in my experience like that does not carry over to day-to-day life, the reference point does. As a reference, it's really nice. No, you're absolutely right. The next day, even, it's just a memory.

but then when I read things and we talk about, I don't know, the void or something, you have a better understanding of what it's talking about. It can inform it, but you're absolutely right. I'm actually not that psychedelically prone. It's a sometimes food for me. But I do it when I go, I'll say to my friend, I'm like, I forgot my baptism. And then we'll do it again. Just a little refuel.

Yeah. We spoke to how you love to explore and implement these different psychological and existential questions into your work. But what role as a comedian do you feel like you have the unique opportunity to fulfill? And what do comedians have the ability to do for society? I mean, I think we're really seeing what comedians can do to society when you see what podcasting is done. And that's not coded. I'm not dragging anybody. I'm just seeing it's a real cultural influence.

It's not just nightclub, you know, cats and nightclubs smoking cigarettes and talking about their mother-in-laws anymore. It's like, it's a big part of culture. When I'm performing, I try to remember, like, what we've been talking about. I'm just performing for myself. It's just, it's just, Rob Bell has this story when he saw Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. They were speaking with him on the same, like, panel. and so Desmond Tutu's walking up to Dalai Lama and he's like, what are these two holy people going to do?

Like they're friends, what are they going to do? And they got right up to each other and he's like, oh, they're going to hug. And they didn't hug. They started tickling each other. And that's what I think comedy can do is just we can get real close and just tickle each other. And like, create a space together

where we're, I don't want to say in agreement, but we're all having the same experience. We're all laughing the same direction is a really powerful thing. People like doing projects together. It's one of the things that I think AI will be challenging because it's not actually the result. We actually like doing things together.

Like maybe AI in six months we'll be able to make this conversation in this video. But it's not the point. The point wasn't the video. It wasn't just the video. It was me coming here and parking and coming in and drink coffee and sitting with you. So, like, comedy is similar. We're building a show together.

The performer and the audience should merge into something called the show. So it shouldn't just be about my ego and, oh, I got you all to laugh. That's what makes a heckler so offensive is because they're saying, like, I'm not in the group. Like, fuck you. Like, you've broken the spell. But when everybody gets together, and I'm not just saying this because we're on this show, I think there is something very unitive happening. It's like you become one entity.

And then Rupert would say when you're laughing, you're forgetting yourself. So you're kind of having that naked experience. That's not unique to comedy that's the same as imagining rock climbers, surfers, certainly, sex, music, good art, good conversation. you can kind of vanish. Conversation is tricky, but like silence, a sunrise, you can vanish. But I also think when you're laughing, you're not really there. And I think that's actually the addiction to it, is you're spending time in this.

Let's put it this way. Rondas used to say, if your car care careens off a cliff, you're probably not horny while you're flying through the air, right? So when you're laughing, you're probably not worrying about your gas bill. So so much can't come with you on that. experience. So it happens inside of you. There's this combustion between the setup and the punchline and it happens inside of you. And on that journey, nothing you brought in with you can come. It doesn't fit through the gate. So you're naked internally. You're naked and you're free very briefly. So there's that. Then I do think human beings are very suggestible.

obviously. That's why advertising works. And there's a really, like, I'm a big priming person. Priming is, you know, what priming is? Like, so you're priming or state? It's similar to self-priming. So you're doing self-priming. Do you self-prime? You self-prime, bro? A little bit. Yeah, I think definitely before these podcasts. What I'm talking about is specifically, so Tony Robbins says like priming. And that's where you think of three memories and three goals. That, that is priming. That's self-priming. you can also prime other people. And what's a trip is, both you and Chelsea, if I say kindness or patience or gentleness,

you are more likely to be kind, gentle, and patient. It's crazy. So I've said this a million times, so forgive me if it sounds canned. But they did this experiment where they took two groups, always two groups, and they go down the hallway and in this room there's magnetic poetry, and they make poems and then they leave. So everybody thinks, oh, it's a test on like, what kind of poem do I make? But it wasn't.

All good science is a trick. The test was group one got a certain set of words and group two got a certain set of words. And what they were actually measuring was how quickly or how slowly you left the room, because of a long hallway to the room. And the people that got the words like rapid, swift, rushed, walked fast or faster than the people in the second group, which got words like lethargic, slow, thoughtful. they walk slower. That's priming.

That's incredible. There's also another example that I like is this guy would come up to you in a park and he'd hand you his coffee because he needs to tie his shoe. Do you know this one? Yeah, yeah. And then it ties shoe and then it'd take it back. And sometimes the coffee was warm and sometimes the coffee was cold. And if the coffee was warm, they'd come up to the person five minutes later and say,

tell me about that person. That's the test. And they didn't even know they were being studied. And if the coffee was warm, they would say he seemed like a warm person. He seemed like a nice guy. And if it was cold, they were like, I don't know, he seemed kind of cold. It was the coffee. That's also a type of priming.

So as much as I will, and I will, defend comedians not only right, but sort of, it's our job to be wicked sometimes and say devilish things to delight people. I'm also aware that there's a real opportunity, let's say, to foster other types of energies. And even if it's just joy, it doesn't need to be preachy, like you should donate to this cause that I like. It could or believe this thing that I believe. But it can just be gentleness or it can be in an attitude that you have towards the audience and openness of generosity. If somebody says like something and you're like, fuck you, that's a mess. The big, powerful person that was under lights with a loud voice, so the alpha was attacked and he was cruel. Got it.

You know, that's a message. Or the alpha with the loud voice and the lights that was higher than everybody was patient. That's also, we don't need to, like, think about this or burden ourselves with these. But there is an opportunity to go, like, we're so susceptible that we think a cup of coffee as a person. well maybe we should talk about, you know, how it's fucking dumb to be mean to gay people or whatever it might be. That's an opportunity. Not just in comedy, it's an opportunity in the next conversation you have. And the right conversations that I have when I talk to my mom and she's getting old and the good ones are,

and I'm not doing this to manipulate her. I'll call her and tell her how brave she is and how much I love her. but love is you, I like, I cherish you or like, proud of you or, um, you're important to me. I care about your well-being. These are spells that we cast on each other, but stand-ups can also do that. So the example I often give is the stand-up that says don't drink and drive, but hey, they can't catch us all, which is a standard joke is actually kind of a dangerous, not just kind of, it is a dangerous joke.

I don't drink anymore, but when I drank if the comedian, the alpha on stage, higher, louder, brighter than everybody says they can't catch us all. Am I more likely to drive drunk? A fucking course. So there's a, let's not get paranoid. We can still be fun. But there is something going on where it's like, like I swear in my comedy,

but I still think the comedy I do is beautiful, let's say. And then I'll see people that do clean comedy, meaning they don't swear. but the underlying message and I'm not thinking of anybody in particular, by the way. For example, Nate Bargatsy comes up if you say, I'm not talking about Nate, I love Nate, I'm not talking about anybody in particular.

See somebody at the club, they're not swearing, but if you look at what they're saying underneath it, you're saying it's okay to hit women. Like I've seen this, like right under the surface. You didn't say fuck shit, but right there you just said it's okay to hit women. Isn't that dirty? Or you can say a joke,

where you say all those words and the message is positive. Maybe bleep when I say God. It's a mystery what those words were. Leave a comment with your best guest. The Madamy Holmes bike for brain health supporting Baycrest returns on May 31st for its fifth anniversary with a new start and finish at the Aga Khan Museum. Join thousands of cyclists as we take over the DVP

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An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity. you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. You'll get flagged on YouTube if you get it right. It's the end of both of our careers. It is fascinating how you really, you can recognize how you're planting seeds for better or worse with all of our work, but when you're on a stage and you have the ability to

to get people in a moment where laughter is cracking them up to that moment of, like, lessening their identifications and opening up for different contemplation. It's a safe space in many ways because people feel disarmed when they're laughing. Does that responsibility weigh on you at all? No, it's very, it's very... Because it's easy to get, like, too intense about it all, too, you know? No, it's paranoia. You can get paranoid.

You wouldn't say anything to anybody. and then you realize the choice and no choice is still a choice, and then you're just freaking out. I don't know, man. Like, I'm a big believer in letting it happen without being too lofty. It's like the jokes show up. They just show up. Like, you're hanging out.

Somebody says something. You say something. Something happens. They just show up. And you really are sort of in service of it. So there might even be a joke that doesn't adhere to what I'm saying. But you're like, but it's what showed up. here we are.

Because you could argue, I think the drunk driving one, I wouldn't do that if that showed up. But you're so much less involved than you think you are. The more you do it, once you build up your comedian persona, then you really do just wait for it. You know, you get an Amazon package and you don't even remember what it was. That's what it is like to write a joke. You're just opening it and you're like, oh, tweezers. You know, like, so you just show up for it, then you try it, then the crowd tells you if it's right. You're really just an intermediary to the whole process.

How do you think, because I and a buddy of yours, Rain Wilson, we've also had on the show, and we talked about this too, and how it's pretty pervasive throughout the comedic scene and different comedians through Robin Williams, from so many different people who laughter and comedy was a way to behaviorally compensate for a lot of deep wounds. and you see a lot of comedians are deeply traumatized, but it's also what made them so good at what they do. And of course, it does not have to be from that place. But I'm curious the difference in how you see laughter coming from a place of trauma versus not. It's an interesting question. You know, Robin Williams always said he was the exception that he had a good childhood. And I always, if you were with us, I would be like, are you sure?

Not that you weren't traumatized, but like all of us were screaming naked babies. You know what you mean? Like everybody, nobody gets in here clean and easy. It's always weird. Nobody had a spotless junior high experience. Like there's just no way. So it always stood out to me that Robin Williams was like, I wasn't. and I had a happy childhood.

I'm like, I believe, you know, cumulatively, you did, but everyone has these spots. They're unavoidable. I think at the beginning, when I was starting out, I was much more of a please laugh at me, so I will be in control, a reality, that I will control how you're laughing at me instead of laughing at me, like, in a shameful way.

I forget who said it might have been Mark Maronies. It's like comedians become comedians to control how people laugh at them because there's bad laughing at us that hurt our feelings. And then we're like, well, I'm going to change that. And that's a good feeling. And then there's even like my household growing up didn't get along. So I learned how to be like a showman. That became like my strategy to keep things copacetic.

So like here's like an alcohol-infused situation. And then I just started doing it in clubs. Like here's an alcohol-infused situation. Maybe they don't even want to like. laugh and I'm going to turn them, damn it. And then I'll feel safe. I'll actually feel safe and good about myself. And that's lessened as I've done this more and more.

That being said, I don't mind if I'm doing a joke and I'm like, oh, I'm working something out psychologically with this. Like, this is coming from trauma. I don't mind. I'm like, great. Yeah. But so much more of my earlier stuff was more that way. and now I'm just feeling a little bit more clean, not clean, but less agenda.

I'm not going like, is this okay? I'm going like, do we like this? Instead of like, please tell me I'm all right. Don't get me wrong. When you do poorly, you still sometimes feel like sometimes at the end of a weekend I do five shows and I'll go to bed and I'll just dream that I'm back in church and I'm on stage. just happened. I'm on at the pulpit and then the police come in and arrest me. So I still have like shame and all of these things are still at play. I just think they're steering the ship a

little bit less than they used to. All that to say, if trauma gets you making lots and lots of people happy, what a great thing to do with your trauma, you know? So we'll take it however we can get it. I love it, man. Yeah. Like if you if you're a philanthropist out of guilt, who fucking cares? If you're a leukemia ward in a hospital, who cares? Just send the check. You know what I mean? Like, we need all the help we can get. We need all the laughter we can get. And pain, I think pain is turning it into a joke. People should be so lucky. It's a wonderful therapy to take something. Like my wife left me and I made a TV show about it. So I'm reenacting scenes inspired by things that really happened. I was like, this would cost me so much money.

in therapy? If they were like, let's do a role play and we'll build a set that looked like your old house and like you can talk to this actress that's gonna say things that your wife would have said and like that would have been therapy

but instead that was my job that's a privilege. That's really cool. This is a good way to look at it because I think some people might look at it as just a reliving of... Yes, it wasn't free. Yeah, it wasn't free.

It wasn't easy. That's so good man. What do you have coming up like what do you foresee the next five, ten years for you in terms of what you want to do with comedy and... That's a good question. Yeah.

You know, I think we're all... It's a big topic. I think we're all waiting to see what's happening with artificial intelligence. I'm simultaneously fascinated by it and also sort of like threatened by it. I'm not talking about mass extinction or anything. I'm just like... I'm open to the idea... that in five years or so,

the thought of waiting for something, waiting for anything, will be preposterous. Like, right now, the model is you wait for me to come up with jokes that I might then tour and come to a city near you, and then you can come and watch me. I'm not saying that'll go away, but I do think that it's possible

that my daughter will grow up in a world where the thought that we used to wait for Saturday Night, Saturday Night Live, to hear the jokes is going to be... We're already kind of there. Twitter is already... Here's the jokes. But I think we might just have AI companions, like another species that is just with us.

You tell us the kind of stuff you like. Like Netflix, even Netflix, it'll seem so stupid. Like that you used to watch the show and then it might guess that you would like the show. I'm talking about an intelligence that would know you, so thoroughly that it would know exactly how to make you laugh while it's happening. So it would sit next to you while you watched the Super Bowl, and it would make the jokes that you used to wait for Saturday Night.

It would just make them. Or it would just, like people are already doing it, chatting with chat GPT on long car rides. Instead of, I still think podcasts and things like podcasts, and I think stand-up and things like stand-up will still exist. I just think there will also be another thing that is just kind of like mainlining it all the time. Because I was just shooting a movie last week and, you know, you guys have your setup here

and it's nice and streamlined. But like we had to, it was five pages of me talking, but we had to shoot every character, singles of every character that was listening to me talking, took 12 hours. Then we turned around on me. So we're like setting up the lights for some guy just going like, I was like, wow, I don't mind it because I'm used to it. But I think my daughter will go like, what?

Like, just have the thing make it. Like, yeah, and it can already do it. Like, just give me a shot of that guy listening. So I don't know. And I'm okay with not knowing. if things stay recognizable, which I have an intuition that they will amidst all the change,

they'll still be like a current in between, I would like to keep doing stand-up because I think the live experience potentially will become even more valuable. For sure, yeah, then person stuff. And precious. I sometimes say this on stage. You think you're here to hear the new jokes.

We're actually here to be together. It's like the end of Avatar. We're just here to have your elbows next to someone else's elbow laughing in the same direction. It's a really nourishing experience. And I don't ever want to not do that. I think that's really, of all the things like my podcast has changed, you know, evolved and all the things that I've done. And TV shows come and go, but I've never not done stand-up. And I'm proud of that.

And I think that's the thing. I'm the best at. So I think I'll keep doing stand-up. I'm curious if I'll keep doing the podcast, and I'd like to write and create things, but it'll be interesting to see what those things are. I'll say this, because I'm interested in your take. I've had a lot of ideas for shows about spirituality,

and I'm like, I don't know. The test is would I watch it, right? So you take a show and it's set in a set, in a seminary, let's say. I wouldn't watch it. If there was a new show, guy in a seminary, I'd be like, they're probably going to get it all wrong.

Like, it's impossible to please the wide spectrum of spiritual beliefs out there. So I'm always like, I don't know if there's a way to do this type of conversation as a show, but I'm always like keeping my feelers out. Do you want to? And I'm not even sure if I want to. Now that I'm 46, that's a much. bigger question for me. Yeah.

When you're in your 20s, you're like, what can I do? Yeah. What will they let me do? And now I'm like, I don't know if I want to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear that. I don't know if that needs to exist or if it's just me wanting to be on a TV show. Well, it's interesting to see how our skill set and our knowledge and our experience culminates

into some sort of offering. And for you, that's been your stand-up and comedy and podcasts and a lot of different things. and I've always noticed in my personal life when there's like an itch of like an area or an aspect that I feel like I really want to create that I'm not creating kind of gnaws at you a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's an interesting question for you

to see if you're getting that cut fulfilled in the different avenues you're currently doing. Are you having enough those conversations in your podcast currently? Are you, you know, infusing that enough in your stand-up where you feel good about it? Seems like you are, but, you know. Right.

No, you just said it. I love that because I am waiting for the things, that gets you out of bed, like you wake up at 3 a.m. and you have to write it down. And I still have those, but I wanted to come from that place. I want to stay receptive

and be like, oh, that's the thing I'm supposed to do. But in the meantime, being a father is so, it's just so much of my life. And I wouldn't change that. But like, it's such a different game from just kind of like being bored

and just wishing. In your 20s, just, you know, throwing shit at the wall. And, like, when they're like, you're going to go to New York for four months to shoot this show and it's going to be like 14-hour days. You're like, great. And now I would be like, huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Decisions have a lot more gravity. Yeah. Well, that's one of the best things about being a parent, especially, like, as a comedian, I'm not saying it's narcissistic. But I'm saying there's a lot of me. And then when you have a baby, it's really healthy to go like, it is not about me anymore. And even the comedy changes are like we're doing it for the audience.

And I don't know. I could imagine it would be immensely clarifying when making those decisions. If I'm going to spend time away from my family doing something, that it really has to be epic. That's exactly right. Yeah. What I will say is that in getting to prepare for this podcast, get more familiar with your work. I see you come most alive when you talk about what we've talked about in this podcast. Yeah, it's true.

You know, you love and have loved speaking directly to these. I do. And I think the world always can use more people doing what makes them come fully alive, you know? I really, I appreciate that. That's really caring. I appreciate that. Because I'm like, I don't know if I would like to write another book and maybe. We'll see.

because I got that Shrek thing. You know, I do think, like, even as we're talking about these things, I'm like, when you, it was so generous of you to be like, oh, I know you like talking about the prodigal son. I'm like, oh, yeah. So there are kind of like the skeleton of another book. But sometimes I go like, and this isn't false humility. I'm like, but you could just read Rupert.

Like, just read him. It's different, though. I know, I know. I know. And he wouldn't agree with that either. Yeah. That's ridiculous. But, like, yeah.

there's a value, people have to hear it in different ways. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I think we're all bridges to different people in different ways, you know, and you make stuff palatable and accessible in a way that maybe someone like Rupert or me or Chelsea or anybody, you know, who's doing this work in different ways, can't. Well, that's what I've noticed is there's more people like, no matter who you are, there's more people exactly like you than you've ever dreamt of.

Because I was like, oh, evangelical divorced when I was 20, married first girl I ever knew. That's the dead mushrooms and found. this and I found Ram Dass. And there's so many clones of me. I meet them all over the country. And they say the same thing. They're like, I got married and I was 22. My wife led me when I was 20.

And then I found mushrooms. And I found Ram Dass. And I'm like, what? So like the universality and being very specific. Yeah. So maybe I will. I would like to. I will say like a lot of these stories and like people's path.

Like your life story might rhyme with how they've lived. didn't come to different realizations too, but your way, like, what's unique is our perspective and our take on things, you know? And so it's like somebody else would explain it completely differently than you. And I think you have, it's inherently valuable, the difference of perspective. So if you have a book that you end up writing around this, I'm stoked. Oh, I appreciate that. I'll have you back on. Then I'll come back on it. I'll plug it. It'll be like, you told me to do this. Then it flops. I'll be like, you told me to do this.

No, sometimes I think about that. I'm like, why am I? not just doing that because then I'd be at home. You know what I mean? Like I do go out and try and sell TV shows and movies and stuff. I'm like, I could just do what I'm, what I love to do. And that would be at my house. So we'll see. I feel you on that.

I love doing this here because it's also at my house and we get to be a hermit. The best. Yeah, I like it. Not for everyone though. But yeah. Was this conversation weird enough for you? It was, yeah. What am I looking at?

Who is this guy? Artists, Autumn Sky, painted it. It's an original. It's called the Gift of the Magi. Oh, nice. And he's kind of holding a bowl of frankincense and myrrh. It's actually burned into the painting, which is really cool. It's like an offering.

It's like a gift, which is what I strive for this podcast to be. And so I saw it, and I just resonated with it. Yeah, it's trippy. Yeah. I like it, though. And they were actually talked about it on the podcast. Really? Yeah.

Oh, nice. Oh, I assumed everybody else. Yeah. That's very cool. the geometry at the top that just immediately rings true. That looks like Shrek to me.

Draw it. No, I can't, though. Dude, this conversation has been awesome. Is there anything else alive that you feel like you haven't spoken to you that you'd like to? It's funny, I just did my own podcast today

and that's what I said. I was like, are you good? Is there anything you hoped we talked about that we didn't talk about? And no, I feel great. Well, man, again. I've said it, but I really appreciate your understanding and articulation around all these aspects of the human journey.

And I think our audience will agree. It's just super refreshing and keep on making everybody laugh along the way. Thanks, man. Yeah. I'm really grateful you had me on. Appreciate it. Yeah. This is fun.

Everybody, thank you for tuning into this episode of the Knowles Health podcast. Let us know what you think those swear words were earlier. No, let us know. You know, you have to bleep of it. People can guess. It'll be the weirdest comments of all the time. You have to pixelate my mouth, too. I have a big job to do.

It's okay. We got editing teams on it. Thanks for coming on this ride. Until next time, be well.