Know Thyself - E207 - Jim George: Stillness Expert: “How To Not Miss Your Life”

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Jim George is a stillness coach, former animator, and one of the first guests ever to appear on this podcast. He has spent nearly 50 years developing what he calls practical spirituality, a way of working with the mind that requires no doctrine, no dogma, and no special belief system. What it does require is the willingness to get quiet enough to see what is actually there. In this conversation, we return to the most essential territory: the cost of mental noise, the nature of the ego, and what it genuinely means to be present for your own life.What We Dive Into:1. The noise in the mind is not neutral. Every moment spent in a self-generated narrative about the past or future is a moment you were not actually there. At the end of a life of that, Jim says, there is a strange vacuum.2. The drive for status was not a character flaw. It was, quite literally, a matter of life and death for our ancestors. Understanding that gives you room to stop being run by it. When you see the mechanism clearly, competition can begin to evolve into something closer to cooperation, which Jim argues is the actual path forward for the species.3. Gratitude is not a feeling you perform. It is focused attention on what already is, and it shifts your neurochemistry from dopamine-driven wanting toward something more stable. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://www.im8health.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offerhttps://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyselfTry LMNT & get a free sample pack ___________00:00 Intro02:40 The Cost of Normalizing Internal Noise06:07 What the Noise Is Made Of: Limbic Survival and Chatter12:11 The Contrast Between Noise and Stillness14:52 Status as an Evolutionary Artifact24:16 Normalization and the Tiger in the Mind29:18 Pure Stillness vs. Stillishness32:37 The Ego Narrative and the Illusion of Separation40:14 Everything We Want Is an End to Seeking45:36 Simplicity, Dopamine, and the Holotropic Universe49:27 What Happens When Subject and Object Dissolve57:32 Stillness as Practice, Not Destination59:24 Self-Love vs. Realizing Self as Love1:02:08 How to Actually Do It: The Long, Short, and Micro Form1:08:38 The Gifts of Headlessness: Harding's List1:13:47 Physics, the Quantum Field, and the Non-Physical1:25:15 How Far the Self Can Expand1:37:08 Values Work: What's Actually Driving Your Behavior1:47:18 Finding Your Me-Shaped Hole in the Universe1:59:43 The Universe Conspires When You Commit2:08:31 Closing Message: Quiet Down and Bring It___________✨MORE FROM ↳Instagram: 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

Do you really need a narration? That chatter becomes normalized. The cost, in a nutshell, you're not there. At the end of a life of that, there's a kind of strange vacuum. I missed it. Most of the noise originates from the limbic effort to survive, and we'll go into that. But much of what we're responding to is no longer out there. It's in the mind, the cost of not.

Not letting this stuff quiet down is immense, which leads to our stillness practice. Shut up and just watch what happens. Otherwise, this idiot, this gym, is going to get in the way. I often say when you get quiet, what needs to be heard grows loud. When it's revealed what's actually important to you, it's shocking, horrifying, disappointing. You've been deceiving yourself as reductionist as a... that sounds, it's actually very liberating. The noise stops, and you begin to perceive what's actually there.

It's just here. What are you really doing with your body, your mind, your breath? So you just relax the body, breathe, and more importantly. Hey guys, Andre from the future here. I think you're going to absolutely love this podcast with Tim George. I am not in the studio right now, and that's because I forgot to record this. So I'm putting it in now. I just wanted to say that we have an amazing retreat upcoming next month, September 11th through the 13th in Los Angeles.

Three days in nature, six workshops, live music, shared meals, all of the in-between magic moments. I'm really excited to be with you. It's going to be 70 of us. And if you want to learn more information, just head to the link in the description or on screen. And I hope to see you there. I'm so excited. This is the first of many. Enjoy the episode with Jim George.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast. Our guest today is an ex-animator and stillness coach. Descriptions, I feel, often reduce people down into a set of words. But I've known this man as somebody who emanates stillness, love, compassion, and after a life filled with inquiry, wisdom. Jim George, thank you for being here. Andre, thank you. I absolutely love what you're doing from top to bottom and bottom up.

I genuinely do. It's an honor to be here. Thank you. It's truly an honor to have you. We just wrapped up a community call with the self-collective before this. And you gathered us all through a meditation and it was a beautiful conversation within everybody.

We'll leave a link if people want to get a snippet of that in the description. What a great group. It's cool to see and connect with everyone, you know? It is. Instead of these cameras in the room, you know, it's like it makes it more real. So I love getting to share that space. Yeah.

To set the framework, you know, you were one of the first podcast guests I ever had on the show. Way back one, almost four years ago now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this podcast and this format has opened my eyes up to so much. I try to return back to what's most essential, what I'm most curious about,

and what I feel like we'll serve people the most in their life. Yeah. I love the way that you describe practical spirituality, and I thought that we could start with just asking, what is the cost of normalizing a level of internal noise in our life? What does that cost us when we are preoccupied with the mental dramas and the noise, and that becomes just the way we live? first of all, thank you for asking that question.

It's an incredibly important question. The cost, in the nutshell, you're not there. You aren't in each present moment. And if we can look at a lifetime, especially a life well-lived, as a series of present moments, if you're not present for any of those moments, on most of them, you look back on it and realize there's a kind of strange vacuum.

I was in the past or the future, which is a construct in my own mind, and I missed what was right here. And I wish I could just bottle what it feels like to be in this room with you right now with undivided attention. There is no what are we doing afterwards, what happened before, it's just here. At the end of a life of that, you've literally wrung it dry, and it's like lying down at the end of a very, very fulfilling day and going to sleep. It's like death is like the most incredible gift. instead of spending a lifetime sort of

adversively referring to your own death, if at all. And so the cost of not being present, not letting this stuff quiet down is immense. And it impacts your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, and your spiritual health. but having said that, it's important to have the experience of not being present in order to fully appreciate what it is to be present. So we don't want to beat ourselves up and say, I'm not doing this perfectly.

You are. You're doing it perfectly. Just keep going. So if living present through your life allows you to arrive at your deathbed with a sense of completion, Yes. Not living your life present would then therefore mean you might live up until the point when you're about to die and feel a sense of remorse or regret. Yes. For not having been there truly to witness to your life. Yes.

What is that noise made up of? I'd like to suggest, remember everything that I'll say here is just a suggestion. I don't know. And words will fail us. I don't know anything. But I'd like to suggest that, our neurology has evolved to protect our bodies. It's not the other way around.

And when I say evolved, I'm talking about physical evolution now, not anything beyond the physical domain. And what our imperative is try, based on what you've experienced in the past, to predict the future. So you see that that task is fundamentally impossible to do, yet our neurology is dutifully saying, I'll do the best I can. So most of the noise either originates, stems from,

or is some kind of extension of the limbic effort to survive. So we have what we call valence and salience to experience. The valence is either positively valence or negatively valence. It's either something we want more of, we like it, or negative we don't, we want to avoid, salience, the degree to which we're experiencing, that, the intensity of it. And there becomes a kind of ongoing chatter. in the same form sensory-based information that we use to perceive the world. So it's very easy to confuse this sort of ongoing chatter with the act of perceiving what's there as best we can.

We'll go into that. And that chatter becomes normalized. If you think about it, do you really need a narration? Do you really need to say to yourself, gosh, this is nice sitting with Andre. It's fun watching how he sits comfortably in the chat. I can see that. I don't need to be chatting. So all of that is directly related to the limbic system, which is by definition, by

design the most urgent system in the body. It has to be. It's also the fastest. Our intellectual side, the conscious mind, slowest by definition. It's processing more information. So in a contest between the two, who do you think is going to win? So stillness is this marvelous way of being able to intercede without trying to chase a racehorse on a walker. Because our limbic system is operating in milliseconds, thousands of a second. This conscious mind is operating at 500 milliseconds. So you're going to trigger into this habitual behavior way before you catch it. But it's If you're in the practice of quieting things down, it just keeps happening, keeps happening, keeps happening. Triggers kind of get halfway up and then go right back down again.

So the benefit, as opposed to the cost of this noise, is the noise stops, and you begin to perceive what's actually there, which I would like to suggest can be and is often a psychedelic experience. actually being here. Why do you say psychedelic? The definition of expansion of the psyche, you know, expanding the scope of context, it is what they refer to when they talk about child mind, beginner's mind.

Children, infants are tripping. They have no priors to compare to, which is how we learn, We're always comparing. So they're basically tripping. They're sticking their feet in their mouth. They're tasting the air. It's when you get back to that, life is just a completely different experience.

So the cost of not doing that, living in a pre-programmed set of symbols that are easier to manipulate than reality, but they're not real. their maps on the territory. And the benefit to letting that stop by just quieting things down, never mind where you can go, just the benefit impacts your physical health, your mental health, emotional health. Just reboot the system, that's all. And you can leave it at that.

You don't have to explore any further than that, and we're good to go. So let's keep tripping, shall we? Please. What? The way that you kind of describe the functions of desire and our own imperative tied to our evolutionary limbic design. Yes. I heard you say once that status is an artifact of a behavioral strategy that was adopted by a species that was going extinct.

Yes. and so if we don't want to live our life just like a brutish animal that is trying to survive moment to moment, and we instead want to live in like the childlike state, how does one go about doing that and having that reference point of stillness? Yes. First, let me elaborate on what you said because you did such a beautiful job of consolidating that very dense idea. Our genetic forebears were beautifully designed to move through the canopy of the trees. Big long, extended forearms, beautifully levered and muscled to move effortlessly through the canopy.

Trees begin to recede because of climate change. They start dropping out of the trees because the, because the, the, imperative to find food, find water, they find themselves not particularly suited to be on the ground. So they're not very big, they're not very fast, they're not very strong, and as individuals, they're their snacks for larger, more powerful, faster, predator. And if they hadn't made a very important decision, we would in fact be extinct. We were down to like 10,000 individuals. That's not even enough for a healthy gene pool. Around the time that

bearing straight was walkable. The decision was to work together, to co-operate. And that species cooperated to such a degree that it took them from the lower third of the food chain all the way up to the apex species on earth, but it came at a cost. Your position in any group became a matter of life and death.

Because if the group decided you weren't worth having in the group, they'd throw you out. was in essence a death sentence, usually within a couple of weeks. So believe me, that's deeply encoded in our brain stems. So status has become very, very important. We could go on and on about status. I'm going to be careful not to open that can of worms. But so much of what we're doing that is status-related, remember, it's not status symbols, those symbols, represent status, it's an extrinsic force.

What does the group want me to be? Can I be more of that in order to get higher status? So what gives you status at the most happening club in L.A.? drops your status on that road to the ashram in India, but there is every bit as much status at that ashram. It's just different values driving it. So as we begin to decode this and realize, wow, so this status thing is related to my survival,

of course it's important to me. I'm not pretending it's not. But if I can understand that evolution hasn't stopped, it's still going on. we can create what's called an epigenetic phenomenon by letting this crude, as you beautifully put it, survival-based drive, which is competition, evolve into cooperation.

Cooperation, in the end, will change the course of our trajectory as a species. If you don't want to just survive but thrive, you have to take a different path than this very zero-sum game attitude. We also have to stop the phenomenon, left-brain phenomenon, of objectifying everyone and everything. It's what the left brain does. We don't catch it frequently. when you relate to people as an object with you as the subject, you are trying to manipulate the same area of the brain that causes the hand to do this.

You are trying to manipulate control to your own ends, other people, other things, the environment. It's a resource to be exploited. you lose your intrinsic sense of connection. Stillness just intercedes, quiets things down. It's not a doctrine. It's not a dogma.

It allows you to perceive directly. Oh, there's something much deeper going on here. People find this all the time in deep nature, a sense of awe. You think about a sense of awe. Like I'm just dumbstruck. What does that mean? This just shuts up.

And that's, in essence, what stillness is without the baseball bat to the face. You're just quieting it down. Does that make any sense? Absolutely. Okay. It can be shocking as you start to excavate and discover all of these memetic forces, the survival adaptations, behavioral compensation, all of these things we carry within us

because we are hardwired to survive. Yes. That is one component on an individual level that contributes to so much of the internal not drama and identification with thoughts and emotions and noise we carry through. Now, to zoom in on the individual level, why is it that we don't notice the fog that we are in,

the noise that we are in? Do you remember the now famous joke in David Foster Wallace's graduation speech. I'm going to butcher it. But in essence, two fish are swimming. Another fish, older fish,

swimming the other way. The older fish sees the younger fish. He says, hi, boys, how's the water? Keep swimming. They look around, and the one fish says to the other, what's water? So what makes that intriguing?

What is so typically David Foster Wallace about that, it's so deep and yet so right there for you to see. Consciousness itself is like water to fish. We have the capacity, but we really have to dig to get to a meta position because consciousness is the vehicle by which we are aware of anything.

And so you'll notice how quickly language just falls apart and fails when we get close to that sublime region of what actually is rather than our representations of it. So as we get in there, we begin to realize, wow, this has habituated this behavior of just parping on in our heads. It's not usually, it's not until things get so bad that we have to change something that we change, which is in itself a beautiful thing, even though it feels terrible. I can't stand this anymore.

I've got to do something. I don't know what that is. That opens a door. In its own way, that realization, that hitting bottom, is a moment of stillness. If you think in terms of oscillation and a momentary cessation

of all this noise, okay, I'm out. I'm not trying to do anything anymore. I give up. There's this moment of surrender. Then we start conjuring if we're not careful. I'm suggesting that the practice of stillness, quieting the mind, relaxing the body, disconnecting that loop of tension in the body, telling the brain something's wrong, the brain then scanning for all its experiences, the stress. are similar to this tension pattern, creating more thoughts that create more tension, you see that

loop. When that stops, I'm suggesting we don't have to do anything, just with respect, shut up and just watch what happens. It's not dogmatic at all. It's self-evident, self-affulgent, as they say. For anyone who's tuning into this conversation right now, I'm sure we all, in moments of our days and our lives, have, we are hyper vigilant to degrees we are unaware of, right? So this is the noise we're speaking to, the mental drama, the survival-based fear that we have. Yes.

And at a very basic level, the voice in our head that we've become identified with as a source of truth. Yes. Yeah. Now, anyone who wants to live a life well, lived where they can end up at their deathbed and say, I was present and witness to my life. Yes. Surely has to go on a journey of just examining this phenomenon that's playing out.

Now, you and your meditation sometimes have done this thing where like the noisy generator comes on in the background. Maybe we can put it in this episode. You know, it starts to, and maybe people have had this experience where they hear a fridge or an AC unit running, humming at that cycle. And then that moment when you snap, and it's stops. Yes. Yes. And that contrast of experience gives you insight into how noisy and disregulated you were prior. Yes. Now, I want to speak about that difference. And then what becomes available and what we use a term of spirituality. And I want to make it very practical and very easy to connect with for everybody listening right now. Yeah. So that contrast of experience between

noise and stillness. Yes. Let's stick into that a little bit. Good. So let's consider the phenomenon of normalization. We have evolved in such a way, and if you think about this in a kind of non-pejorative way, just look at this brilliant strategy.

This kept us alive in the face of some potentially terrifying counter biological circumstances. It's remarkable. So please don't hear me saying we shouldn't honor and respect these evolutionary tendencies. In the end, though, I'm suggesting that our environment

has changed faster than our capacity, our evolution, our ability, to change to keep up with it. So we're still responding to stimuli as if we're back on the Serengeti plane. Those stimuli have changed so fast and so radically that much of what we're responding to

is no longer out there. It's in here. They're representations. We get back to status. And status is, has a very important context in today's world because of social media. I'd like to suggest that the specter of losing status in an abstraction, which is what social media is, is enough to cause people to commit suicide. That's very serious.

I don't want to, in the least, sort of minimize that. It's very important. But understand, it's taking place in the mind. The tiger that we're running from is in the mind. And we're not even sure whether it's real or not, because it's so passive, it's so changing. This happens for a while, gets normalized, and as soon as it gets normalized, it's passe, and the next new thing comes along.

So how do you orient yourself? You're constantly scrambling. You used a beautiful clinical term, hypervigilant, or scanning for the next new thing. In an effort to be what? If we just stop there, why? Am I scanning for the next new thing to wear, the next way to pose, the next sort of fake life to post so that people think I'm what? Try if you can to remember the origin of the word brand.

It was a symbol burned into the rear end of a cow. To delineate belonging to someone who is either going to eat you or sell you to someone else who's going to eat you. So we have to be careful with this, am I a brand? Authentic living is the best way to demonstrate what you are. And it's getting harder and harder for people

who've normalized this other thing to feel that that's even possible anymore. I see it all the time. People are losing their capacity to do this. they're developing a fear of this. They want an intermediary media between them and the other person or the experience, and they've normalized that.

It takes courage to identify a normalized situation and do something about it if it's pathological. If it's not, I've normalized stillness. It is not normal because the average person doesn't do it. But I've intentionally normalized it. I've gotten still four or five times since we've begun talking. Otherwise, this idiot that's Jim is going to get in the way. We won't be able to answer your question.

Or we'll get off on some weird tangent because it'll make Jim look good. I'm glad Jim's down the road right now. I'm tired of it. So as we get still, what happens to our sense of self? I love that. So let me draw a distinction between what I call stillness, pure stillness, and what I call stillishness, which is great. But pure stillness, as I'm going to define it,

is a state of awareness with no perception of past. not even a split second ago, and no perception of future, not even a split second from now. And in one glorious stroke, that leaves us with now. Now is a very strange, wondrous phenomenon, because we have normalized abstracting ourselves, into a symbolic representation of something. Does that make sense? I want to be careful not to go too quickly. Crystal clear.

The abstraction of ourselves, the abstraction of what's happening, is something we can manipulate. They're symbols in our brain. So we have just normalized living in that abstraction. We don't realize it. The idea of ourselves. Yes.

And we flipped it at an unconscious level and are projecting that abstraction out on reality. And defending it. Yes. Defending it for our lives. What I'm suggesting is when you stop defending it, it'll fall away and who you are will come back. So we're in this strange past-future representation.

The minute you represent anything, you're in the past. So it's such a counterintuitive thing to just stop that. Stay here. Stay here. Stay here. I want to say,

oh, Andre was, did it, no. No. The word, the small mouth noise, Andre, is meaningless to me right now. But I'm, and you are really good at this. You can really feel this, can't you? So right now, There is no, uh, uh, history of Andre.

There is no, and Andre's probably going to say, I wonder if he thinks I'm, it's just Andre and Jim, without those names, without those words, it's not separate. There isn't a subject-object relationship. There's this deep hole. whole, complete, subjective experience. You don't want to have that while you're driving down the 405,

so we're navigating from state to state. Right. Very important to remember, we don't just stay parked in that. The goal isn't just to live in this metacognitive, but the adaptability between the state. That's right. That would be missing the point of the gift of being a human being. Yeah.

But we've forgotten our way. down into this very limited human existence. And I'm suggesting that the egoic narrative that is crucial for that experience begins with I, me, me, me, the center of the universe, I am separate and apart from, not a part of, apart from everyone and everything else. that's that subject object thing.

That's just the first sentence in a lifelong evolving narrative built on a fundamental untruth. But we have to do that in order to be human. Okay, periodically, wouldn't it be nice to be able to just up periscope and just,

oh, okay, this is a great thrill ride, but I'm really not dying. I'm on a roller coaster. Oh, okay. But if I know I'm on a roller coaster, it's not as thrilling. So forget again.

Drop down. But I like to think of it as a golden cord with a red velvet handle hanging just inside your periphery. I don't even know what it's for, but I pull it. Oh, I'm up here again. Practicing stillness

is making sure that cord stays there. There is no circumstance that will not be better if you are still. I've been doing this for almost 50 years. I've asked everyone, can you think of any experience where you're better off tense, closed off in the past and future? Hey, fam, a quick share from something I genuinely love. This is IM8.

I know it's very common to hear ads for so many different health products and supplements these days. actually sought these guys out to partner with and have been drinking their product for a while. I think they're doing something genuinely different. IM8 Daily Ultimate Essentials Pro contains 90 nutrient-rich ingredients in one drink. It replaces about 16 separate supplements, vitamins, minerals, probiotics, clinical doses of co-Q10 and MSM, even saffron extract for focus and mood. It's co-founded by David Beckham, built with Yale researchers, and it's NSF certified for sport so you know exactly what's going into your body. You just take one of these sashes,

you tear it, you pour it, you mix it. It tastes delicious and it's actually doing your body favors. If you want to try it out, go to IM8health.com slash know-they-self and use code know-thyself for an additional 10% off, welcome kit, and five free sachets. That's IM8health.com slash know-liself. I hope you enjoy. Back to the show. It's a really great question, I think, for us all to contemplate because I think oftentimes our nervous system is in this sympathetic state where we're under the presumption that being intense, being intense, tension within is ideal for coming conflict. Yes. And a great example of this.

It was like I was 18 back in Michigan. My friends and I were walking down the crosswalk on a street. My friend got hit by a car. Wow. And almost everyone is kind of. kind of lost their mind. And it was totally not useful to what the moment needed. Yes. I'm thankful for whatever reason I was able to take action into what was the necessary course of actions that were needed in the moment. Yeah. And if that wasn't there, who knows what

would have happened, you know? And so I think it's a really refreshing reminder that stillness will improve every single aspect of life and interpersonal dynamics. Yes. How much of suffering do you think an interpersonal relationship specifically are because we are living and relating to abstractions of each other. Your questions are stunning. They literally are. Suffering is one of the most important things

to pay attention to. It is the only thing that drove Siddhartha Gautama. I would suggest, and first let's borrow a page out of his book. So life itself, as he says, is suffering, though the translation's inaccurate. It's unsatisfactoriness, but what an ugly anglicized term. At one end of that unsatisfactoriness is what we call suffering.

So unsatisfactoryness, what does that even mean? If you just let that percolate, you will understand the dopamine cycle intrinsically knowing nothing about neurochemistry. I'm trying to get something and I can't be satisfied because the minute I get it, the dopamine dries up and now it's on to another thing that I don't have but want. So I'm constantly on this rat wheel.

I think in this culture, there are people who believe that's just life, and I just haven't found the right thing. But after how many decades of just running this wheel, stop it. There's got to be something off with this. Even neurochemically, you start getting into serotonin rather than dopamine. This is terribly truncated,

but it's more about what I have and appreciate than what I don't have and want. We need both. Dopamine versus serotonin. Yeah, but we're way out of balance on the dopamine side. Gratitude transforms your neurochemistry, transforms your life,

and all gratitude and appreciation really is focused attention on what is. I'm just hyper-aware of what. this gift. It's strangely non-possessive. It's strangely not objectifying. I'm just grateful, and it boils down to,

for a state that I'm in. If people could understand, it's not about the thing, it's about what the thing gives you, and ultimately, it's giving you a state. And your state of awareness is more important

than anything else in your world, bar none, because your state of awareness is how you know anything about your world. It's a filter on what's happening.

So would you say that what we say and declare that we want from any given experience of relationship or work is because the thing, the feeling state

we actually want behind it, we want a pleasant, pleasurable experience. That's fundamentally why we think we want anything. Yes. Would you agree with that? I would put it and do with clients. The only reason anyone does anything is to try, this is key, because they don't always succeed, try to feel

better than you do right now. If you feel as good as you think you can feel, you're not going to do anything. If you're trying to feel better, that is your motivation to do anything. So you're, you're right, we call that pleasure, but ironically, we get into Freud's definition. And I'm not real big on what's left to Freud's stuff, but there is something so elegant about his definition of pleasure, tension, reduction. It's a two-word definition that just perfectly says it, which leads to our stillness practice. Reduce the tension in your body and watch what happens. I've never met anyone who's reducing the tension.

I don't mean fighting it and thinking about all this stuff and building more tension. I mean just reducing tension and says, oh, this is a terrible feeling. I don't like this at all. I've never met anyone who does that. It's just, uh-huh. Wow. So tension is this signal to the brain. Something is wrong.

And it's a beautiful signal. Pay attention. But as we start letting that go, we realize all you have to do is get quiet enough to examine. Why do I want anything? What is it? Let's play a game with that because we do, in my work, we do a lot of work with what I call values. Anything that anyone finds important enough

to spend their time, their energy, their resources, their money, their life to have. Okay? There are a lot of qualifiers on that, but let's leave it at that. Pick something. Try not to be too aware. Pick anything that you want. Anything. Food. Food. Good. Good. Why do you want food? What will food allow you to have, feel?

Pleasure. Pleasantness. Pleasantness. Pleasantness. Notice, it's a state. What does feeling pleasant give you? See what we're doing? We're inducing.

We're going up to a more macro level. What does feeling pleasant give you? What does it allow you to have or feel? a lack of desire. Isn't that interesting? Let's put that in the positive, a lack of desire, okay?

You have just realized that what you're seeking is an end to seeking. And yet we're on this rat wheel thinking seeking is all that in a bag of chips. I just want to stop seeking. When I get what I say, think I want, momentarily there's this lack of seeking.

Ah, such pleasure. But we've normalized this to the point where we skip right over what we're looking for and jump right into the next thing we're seeking. Stillness slows things down so you can perceive them without necessarily cognating them. There's no rationale. Now there's no, well, yeah, I remember this from sociology, you know, 501. There it is, right in front of you. I stopped seeking and I experienced this pleasure.

I'm suddenly here, not there going after what it is I want but don't have. A quick share. If you've been feeling sluggish, you might not need more sleep or caffeine. you could just be dehydrated. And hydration is not just about drinking water. It's about having enough electrolytes that support your body to properly absorb that fluid. Element happens to contain a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium that helps regulate your appetite, curb your cravings, and improve your brain function. There's no sugar or artificial colors. I also love these 12-ounce sparkling cans. They're an easier way to get more hydrated

throughout the day as electrolytes are essential for nearly every biological function in your body. If you want to try them out, you can get a free eight-count sample pack of elements most popular flavors with any purchase. And if for any reason, it's just not your vibe, they will give you a full refund with no questions asked. You don't even have to send it back. That's how confident they are that you will love it. Drinklmnt.com slash know this help. I hope you enjoy. Back to the show. there is this internal belief and orientation that we often carry through life that to have an improved experience of life, I must acquire more things. Yes. Relationships, experiences, the house, the car. Yes. And why the definition of stillness and of examining what we truly want is so beautiful because it lets us stop trying?

I love that. It's exhausting. It's exhausting to always be under the notion that your ideal life is outside of you. Yeah. And it's freeing to say then, okay, if what I'm actually desiring and seeking is a lack of seeking. End of that. Yes. Yes.

Then perhaps what I want is not more stuff, but to let go. Isn't that strange and counterintuitive? and so true that the only sane response is what you just did. Laughter. Laughter. That's just like, whew, that's so elegant. It shivers the hemispheres as they're trying to grasp something that this can't be. It's almost like it can't be that simple, yet it is.

So absolutely. When you quiet things down, you begin to find echoes in this sort of wisdom tradition of any culture. Simplicity. What do we mean by that? I like to define simplicity as the elimination of the unessential. So what's essential? I've got to have food. How much?

Just enough. So the dopaminergic answer to how much is enough is always more. Well, the serotonergic response to how much is enough is, I think I'm good. End of seeking. Ah, good. So you see, we're not saying you shouldn't seek. The question is, have we taken it way out of balance, which leads us to the holotropic nature of the universe.

Seeking wholeness and balance always. We get too far out of balance, it will pull us back toward balance. So given enough time, given enough resources, whatever we're doing leads to this balance point. And in this dopaminergic world, the balance point is equated somehow with the middle of the road

with dead pigeons and white lines and no, balance. Balance is a strangely dynamic process. If you watch a good ballet or a good football game, anything, you'll see dynamic balance. Someone in perfect flow, centrifugal force,

centripetal force, gravitational force, in perfect balance, in motion. If you froze it, they drop and fall, but it's not frozen. If we don't let go and find that balance point, we keep ginning our way out of balance. Trust me, the universe will bring you back. This yin and yang,

this teeter-totter between order and chaos that we find ourselves. and is something I want to explore a bit more. When you look at the Gnostic origins of the various religions, even the Abrahamic ones, it boils down to an individual having a profound, perhaps prophetic experience of life, so much so that we remember their names thousands of years later.

And yet, when you look past the way that kings and empires have changed texts and controlled narratives throughout, time. You get back to the conception, inception and the genesis of these individuals' experience, you begin to see a similarity across the board from people of all walks of life in different places on the planet that bring into question what actually is spirituality. I love that. What is it that is essential within us that we are adding so many names to and languages for, fun and is what we do on this podcast and they always are going to be limiting

and describing. But do you feel then that, because you use the word holotropic, right? Coming into wholeness. And we throw... Incline toward. Turning toward. Yeah. So do you believe that as we experience

a diffused and more grand and vast sense of self? Yes. That when we taste that, not only can we see that more readily in other, but that's actually what we would use as a term God, when we see that and witness that in others, do you think that's what we are fundamentally referring to?

Again, this is such a beautiful question. I'd like to suggest, and forgive me if this steps on any toes, but as long as the human nervous system, let's call it our brain, is looking at everyone, and everything as an object. And we, each individual, the subject, the center of the universe, mind you. Nothing less, right? Number one, when the world revolves around you, it's a pretty small world. Number two, how else do you suppose we're going to describe God? It's this

other, and I'd like to suggest that human neurology is analogous in nature, that is, it learns by taking qualities and characteristics of something it thinks it understands and maps it onto things, events, people, that it doesn't know to understand to understand more about it, but always knows something more about it. it doesn't know it. So we have this problem. God, I'm suggesting that as long as we maintain one of the primary delusions of being human,

which is I, me, me, me, center of the universe, apart from, not a part of everyone and everything else, that includes whatever you want to call God. So our gods become, and I don't mean this in a pejority of way, I just am trying to get clear, an anthropomorphic projection of an objectified, subjective reality. How can it be anything but some weird human thing?

So rather than pick that apart, let's just look at that and say, what would happen if we stopped ginning up something that isn't true? Even for a split second, we get so quiet that the subject-object illusion just melts, just disintegrates into a massive wholeness, a subjective-execrates, a subjective experience that has no limit, has no beginning, no end, no human limits of any kind. And we begin to understand

you're no longer talking, you're not at the scope of context that says God's out there, I have to placate God, what does God think I'm telling you, I wrote it down, here it is, believe this, shut up. get quiet enough, and whatever, that thing that the word God, that no thing that the word God is attempting to fuzzily represent,

will reveal itself to you. You will not be able to put it into words if you can, it's not it, but it will be there. That's a promise. That's why I've devoted the rest of my life to this practice. Because if I can experience that, any idiot can experience that. And it's yours. It's our birthright.

But I don't think we would appreciate it if we hadn't forgotten our way down to not having it. If that makes any sense. Yeah, and the natural happening from that realization is just pure laughter. The only sane response. Yeah, the only sane response. Literally. Like we set up this, we, whatever, life, this illusion of separation for the experience of itself happens. And we need to forget ourselves and have this amnesia so we can remember ourselves.

And what a beautifully intelligently designed dance. And that evokes awe and wonder and gratitude. And notice if you can now these presuppositions in that last sentence. notice that we almost can't talk about it without imposing these limits again. Intelligently designed. You get, I have to, I have a concept that I do, that I make the thing. From the anthropometric perspective. Yes.

Instead of just, as the Germans call it, ichtekite isness. Just, this thing that they're exploring in theoretical physics, this quantum field of infinite potential, but it isn't physical in any way. So we, of course, turn that into some sort of dipolar, well, there's a physical world, then there's this weird other thing. Metaphysical? No, that's got some weird connotations. What do we call it?

Pre-physical? Well, that's got some temporal situations there that are a problem. can we just say it's not different that there's an aspect of you that is whole and complete and you're seeking to come home. And when you taste that, that little giggle, that little tickle,

that little, oh, just before it just blinks out and there's just, while you're living this life, though, understand, We're navigating from state to state because you can stay in these very meta, very esoteric states, missing the entire point. You become a nirvana junkie.

If you can live this thing fully and remember that in workout terms, the rep, come back to stillness. Then go ahead, get lost in it. Come back to stillness. Get lost, come back. You'll begin to realize, as this becomes a daily practice, you don't get so lost that it takes an hour or three days or a stillness retreat to get back.

This sine wave oscillation between pure stillness and pure just, I'm so lost in this thing. Oh, my God, that last post is the end of the world. Right? I got five comments that I'm not going to forget for the rest of my life. Boom, back again. I'm in a conversation with someone I love. And I realize, wow, I'm incapable of loving right now, and boom, now I am love. If love is a profound sense of wholeness and completeness, I'm right there. I'm literally laughing at this situation that was four seconds ago.

And then we live our lives, we get off here, ooh, bang, bang, bang, non-preferentially. I'm saying that oscillation is what a life well-lived is. And there is a commercialization of, and the wellness industry has become. I'm a trillion dollar industry on this perspective of subject and object. You know, when we talk about self-love, right, and what that looks like. As opposed to realizing yourself as love.

Perfect. Will you do me a favor? Will you just repeat that so you can hear it? This is an example of what I'm talking about. That just came out of your mouth. You're going to want to write that down. Yeah. we don't need more self-love.

We need to recognize self as love. Yes. I mean, we're done. I'm serious. That's brilliance coming through because your state is allowing it. The Andre that I've come to know and love recognizes what just happened. Some other Andre would say, yeah, aren't I? I've pretty well got this down.

I'm all that. and you feel the contraction in your heart, in your gut, as you attempt to puff this little limited thing up, and you can't because it's all constrained in a straight jacket. You just let go. That's wisdom that will come out of your own mouth. And for us to experience more of that insight and revelation that we talked a bit about this this,

this morning. Maybe we can even put in a little clip talking about this concept of revelation. That's right. Revelation, to reveal the gold mine that was right under your feet, but you were just too busy to notice it before. For something to be revealed, a removal of what was obstructing it must move away. Since revelation is an internal phenomena, what is obstructing must be mental. stillness is the means by which we create the necessary conditions for mental obstructions to fall away and revelation to occur salvation comes through revelation revelation revelation comes through stillness your salvation depends on your stillness it goes back into this externalization of acquisition as opposed to living

from an emptiness, like valuing emptiness and what that can create a wellspring of in your life. Yes. Now, the way that you speak about practical spirituality, because you talked about instead of chasing it off in retreats and advice and podcasts, here we are. I'm doing a retreat. You know, we do these things. Sure, sure. But the powerful reminder is that every moment of the day we have the opportunity to come back into that stillness. Now, to make this extremely actionable for people, what is it literally like in your internal experience when you recognize you're not still, you're lost in thought, emotion, and that reminder of coming back into stillness, and how can we as individuals find those opportunities in our day and what are you really doing with your body, your mind, your breath?

if you have the capacity to just look at the video of me as you were saying what you were saying, you'll see exactly what that is. You, thank you very much, reminded me. Because as you're saying what you're beginning to say, my instinct, having practiced this tens of thousands of times. And remember, by this, I mean a long form of stillness that if practiced, can become compressed into a shorter form because neurology is very associative. You don't need all the words. You just relax the body, breathe. Stop the story. How long does that take. It takes a long time if the goofball is talking about it and describing it and know and then

take another breath and blah, blah, blah. You let that go. That's what I call the short form, which is partially what I just did, but then there's what I call the microform, which is all of that practiced and practiced and practiced and then compressed into something that I want you to experience, now so that your listeners don't think I'm just talking. Feel the difference between this and this. Isn't that interesting? Now, it's not helping anybody. They said, what the hell is he talking about?

But that whole process compressed into a simple, just do it, is the thing I'm practicing between 150 and 200 times a day, always. We make things just for college life, like the Rosenmandal blackout curtains in gray. They say you can't put a price on sleep, but we did for the low low price of $49.99. Why are you in my room?

Shh, sleep. You have a big exam tomorrow. Shop back to school. And what you're doing there is in essence, would you say exerting will to push aside almost or to release tension? God, that's a great question. That's a beautiful question. I like to say it's the inverse or the converse.

I am not, I'm setting an intention, but I am not exerting will. I am the opposite. I'm surrendering it. It's just going away. Everything's just going away. The effort is in maintaining. this human construct, I'm surprised it doesn't fall apart more often in a kind of Truman show way. I'm surprised it doesn't just fall apart. I think it does. I think it's when we have these moments where it's like, oh, that's a weird coincidence.

You know, I'm thinking exactly what you're thinking. Of course, you are me. So maintaining this thing is where the effort is. You just learn to let go. The beauty is it's also, tied in with letting tension go, physical tension go. So all of it just goes, let go of tension in the body, breathe, let go, then release the narrative. Make no effort to see, make no effort at all. I practice this every day when I'm all finished.

I'll walk down on the boardwalk in Venice. because it's one of the most chaotic places I can think to try and do this. So it's great practice. And I just walk, and I do that. I do a walking, what I call walking still point meditation. And I'm just gone. It is walking. Somehow it doesn't fall over, but it's not, it's just.

and sometimes you'll get these amazing responses. I had one just night before last where I'm walking and I'm in this space. In comes a person who, in normal awareness, would be a severely impaired homeless person. a relatively young guy. I don't see that anymore. I just don't see it.

I look. This sort of noise-making thing just goes, ink, and smiles. And it was not the smile of some inebriated. It was just like, hi. And I'm like, hi. And as he's going by, he turns and he goes, hi.

And I'm thinking that, and it was like, yes, but it's not like, okay, stop and let's talk about what just happened. It happened. He felt that. He was lifted by that. I was lifted by that. It's like, who wins, who benefits? Co-Bene.

All of us. There's this beautiful book on Having No Head by Harding. I love that. He has quite a... articulate explanation of the byproducts of this realization, which I would love to just read the list out and see how they relate to your experience. Wow. So these are like bonuses of the recognition of the true self.

Wow. An enlivening of the senses. Absolutely. A complex of interrelated psychophysical changes including whole body alertness in place of the head. intermittent sort, as if one were poised through and through to run through the race of one's life. A reduction of stress, particularly in the region of the eyes and mouth and neck, as if one were at last letting them go. A progressive lowering of one's center of gravity, as if losing one's head were finding one's

heart and guts and feet, which are now rooted in the earth. a striking downward shift of one's breathing, as if it were a belly function, in fact, a general come down, as if all the good things one had vainly strained after in the heights were awaiting one in the depths. And balancing this descent, a general uplift, including a sense of exaltation,

as if one were perfectly straight-backed and as tall as the sky. An upsurge of creativity, rising energy, confidence, a new and childlike spontaneity and playfulness, and above all, a lightness, as if one were not so much gone with the wind as the wind itself. And finally, perhaps a calming of fears, a marked reduction of greed and anger, a smoothing out of personal relations, more capacity for selfless love, more joy. Who is this guy? He's like my hero. That's precisely what I'm talking about beautifully put. But every one of those things we

actually got into earlier. This is not a byproduct of some weird technique. It is your birthright. This is everyone's birthright. It's what they

are. If we can stop objectifying and realize that, then the journey changes from seeking something in a dopaminergic way, it's just kind of scraping the barnacles out of the way and realizing you're already there.

I'm suggesting we're all still. Yeah. This conversation I had with Ian McGilchrist on the podcast. Love him. Love him. Yeah, so good. He was talking about, yeah, right? He was in that chair, and we were chatting just about, you know,

fearing not that machines are going to become more like humans, but that humans will become more like machines. And the way that you described, the left hemispherical way of perceiving reality, which is a reduction of separate mechanistic parts that are complicated, as opposed to the right hemispheric complex interconnected web, is the direct reason why so much of us are viewing life as like a simulacor, a simulation.

It's something that is happening to us. and we're suffering because of it. Yes. And the way that you're describing what comes as a byproduct of stillness feels like much more in alignment with the right hemisphere and that creative energy.

And the way that you describe this contrast between absolute stillness and absolute fullness, the masculine and the feminine. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That it feels like it just maps on beautifully with that.

And when we talked about and used the word, practical spirituality. Yes. What is your definition of spirituality, if you have it? Here we go, back into the left hemisphere. Sure.

But it is useful because it's a word that's thrown around a lot. What do you literally mean? Let me use that word. So most people have a kind of, if nothing more than just a sense of a non-physical and if we need to climb into its origins and all that,

but we can. I just don't want to burden the conversation. A non-physical or beyond physical, which is all metaphysical means, but it's just gotten a bad rap. And the world that can be perceived directly by our senses, weighed, measured, that which,

starting with the Greeks, believed physicos with a K, that is what's real, as they put it. As they began to do work with this, our theoretical physicists, these poor guys,

their job is to study only that which is real, only that which can be measured, and they were very, very careful, incredibly rigorous using this scientific principle, using this peer review. If there's anything wrong with this theory, let her rip, egos be damned, we're looking for what's true.

the farther they dug into it, the more they realized that as you start going smaller and smaller and smaller, what appears to be is actually this strange world of, oh yeah, atoms. Okay, the atoms are sort of scattered. So the atoms are what's real. You can tap an atom if you could be small. small enough. Then they start exploring that. You get smaller and smaller. These atoms

break down into protons, neutrons, electrons, and they're just way far apart. There's just empty space in between. And I think it's helpful, even though

some people find it species. If you think about a typical proton in a hydrogen atom, as an orange in the middle of the 50-yard line on a football stadium, the electron that is orbiting it, a P on the rim of the stadium.

Everything else empty space. Ah, that's pretty mind-bending, but I can pick up the orange and tap it. Then they start climbing down into the proton, into the electron, and realize, wow, this thing's falling apart. It's fields of influence, dense,

I don't even know what. So they start talking about these fields. They talk about the physical vacuum. What happens when you take all of the material, the matter, out of the universe? Apparently, there's something left that's so powerful that a cubic centimeter of, it contains more energy, more potential energy, than all the physical matter in the

known universe. So you start getting into this strange world of, okay, do we still want to make this abstract, arbitrary break between physical and non-physical? If you want to function as a human being in a body, yeah. because the apparent reality that it's nothing but space isn't going to help you in your body if you run into a wall. You're not going through it. This is where the physicists have a tough time dealing with people who get a kind of foot in the door and then start talking about physics, because it's all scope of context. It's all relative. So that,

quantum mechanics doesn't really jib well with Newtonian Cartesian physics, doesn't jive with astrophysics. They don't work together. They fall apart. They're looking for a unified field theory that covers all of them, found it yet. So the question is, how do you want to live? So we come back to, okay, let's navigate from state to state,

state based on what we want to do. Right now I want to talk with you. I'm enjoying doing this. You and I can, we have, gone into expanded states where no words are necessary. Why wouldn't we do that all the time? Because there's something intrinsically delicious about putting a little distance in there and then batting these small mouse noises back and forth and going, ooh, ooh, yeah, that was nice. So let's stop beating ourselves up for not being there. There's no there there. We're navigating from state to state based on what we want.

I want to be lost so I can be found. I don't want to already be there. The fastest way to stop learning is say, I know. if that makes any sense i don't want to get too woo-woo no it doesn't it's not woo-woo you know i think it's quite fascinating that our apparent physical sensory reality which is very enchanting and as you use the term delicious to experience yes

um makes it seem it makes a hard case that it's all there is upon the apparent perception of it. Sure. And when you examine and you go into the quantum realm in the non-physical world like you do, just as anybody who's listening to this podcast right now are making use of these unseen forces that are transmitting the video and audio.

Yes, yes. We start to peel back our concrete notion of matter as all there is. And that to me, like just destabilize. this notion of the solidity of both a self and as what we perceive as all there is. Yes. Which opens up to this world to the metaphysical, the non-physical, the spiritual.

And when one explores that as the only way you could make intimate contact with it internally is by getting quiet. Right, right. Not as an abstracted thought process. Thank you. Then you start to encounter some weird stuff. And by weird,

what does weird mean? Weird relatives to the Newtonian, Cartesian. Relative, yes. Good for you. Yeah. And this intrinsically feels strange at that times, you know, because of how accustomed we are to reason and logic. Yes, being the way to know.

And it's okay. Yeah. But understand something. How many people do you know, including yourself, actually behave as if they believe the earth is round. No one behaves. You just walk and straight, look straight. Go two blocks this way and two blocks.

They don't say curve over this way and then curve that way and go this way because there's no such thing as left or right. There's no such thing as up and down. There's no such thing as north and south. You go five miles up, that all fall. away and we're on a wet rock hurtling around a virtually indistinguishable yellow dwarf star somewhere in some backwater galaxies like what good is that going to do me when I'm trying to figure out how to get a raise well if I can be there and then say does it help me to expand the scope of

context because problems are not solved, as Einstein said, at the scope of context, the level of the problem. So we explore, like we're doing today, very quickly a lot of people who say, yeah, that's just too fuzzy, that doesn't help me. Good. Come on back down. But as you get into your world of problems and drama and everything else, understand you're way micro now. You're way micro now. that's where problems exist. That's where the juju exists. The peace, the perspective, until you go all the way out to infinitely expanded, there's no drama. There's no problem. How many stories are built on that? What are we looking for? Human neurology is looking for a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So tell me the story of something that has no beginning. It has no beginning. middle and end. Okay, if you want to know what's happening, that's great. But if you say to yourself, tell me the story of the universe, you're going to get turtles, you're going to get river gods, you're going to get fish. Okay, but it's going to be a story. So you're getting into the real work.

Do I really want to know? I want the truth. And to quote, you know, Aaron Sorkin and a few good men, you want the truth, you can't handle the truth. Until you can, until you develop this ability to navigate scopes of context. That's what state change really is. Stillness, pure stillness, take it all the way out, reboot, and then with some kind of deep volition, say, this is what I want to experience now. I'm going to forget all that and go back to this football game is life and death. How do you enjoy a football game? I don't enjoy football games because it's like I don't care.

But the people walking down the street right next to me, it's like they're wearing the colors of their country. And it's how dare you. They're getting something from it. if we just stop looking at that in a pejorative way and look at that from this compassionate wholeness thing, it's like, yeah, good for you. So as one sits down or whatever they're doing and they start to get a bit still,

what starts as a dense, subjective experience of a bounderied body, a meat bag, a flesh suit, whatever you want to call it, the perception of self-stop, at the end of where my physical flesh and clothes meet the air and ground around me. The scope of context can shift to, okay, the boundaries of my perception of self expand to perhaps this room. Yes. And then it can keep going.

Yes. How far does it keep going? How far is there? Infinity. I'm suggesting that there is a neurological correlate to that, what's called the phenomenal self-image in a region of the brain, that maps your body. It's changing all the time.

And that ironically, you're talking about it ends at the skin. Good race car drivers develop what they call a smart ass. They're literally extending their sense of self into the vehicle. Their sense of self is in the suspension of that front right wheel. That's why they can do 250 miles an hour this close to the person next to them. And it's like, ooh, their body is there. I'm suggesting if they never got out of that race car, they'd think they were the race car. Same with the body.

You keep doing this discipline that you're doing, and thank you for doing it because it just makes it better for everybody. You step out of the car every once in a while, and you realize, wow, I'm not the car. Now I'm out of the car. I'm not the car. I am what? Well, I'm the body.

Step out of the vehicle. Step out of the vehicle. Step out of the vehicle. Step out of the vehicle. eye stops doing anything else. Aye. It's just eyeing. There's no verb.

And that's the universal subjective experience. And then it forgets its way into subject and object. That's what they call duality. And, you know, everybody's done all the reading about that. I won't bore you with that. So then does it track for you that an expanded scope of context is correlated with freedom and a limited scope of context is correlated with survival and suffering? Brilliant.

The more you like, the less you suffer. I like this feeling of excruciating pain on my 15th rap. I love that feeling. Why? Because it signifies something other than something's wrong. It signifies everything's right. That's crazy. My legs hurt right now. I'm thrilled. I could be thinking, oh, my God, I know people who've had the, you know, terminal illnesses, that same pain. I wonder if that means I'm going to, I'm now suffering. Instead, I'm ecstatic. I'm thinking, great workout.

Yes, same phenomenon, different state. And I'm asking, rather than some prescribed, this is how you need to do it, let that individuate itself in you and begin to discover the more stillness, the more options you have. The greater the scope of context, the more options. The more options, by definition, the more freedom. Freedom is restriction of options. If you have one option, do you have a choice?

If you have two options, do you have a choice? I'd like to suggest you have a dilemma. If you have three or more options, do you have a choice? Yeah. Do you have free? will. Whole other discussion, because that may not be what we're perceiving as freedom, choice. There may be too many things stacked up, and you've had some wonderful minds on your show that have explored that deeply. But the more we expand that scope of context, try to remember it's not some technique.

It's just scraping the stuff away so you can perceive it. It's right there for anyone to have. The immediate release of tension when one zooms out, just zoom out. Even intellectually can be contemplating the microscopic speck we are in a vast sea of galaxies is very humbling. and I appreciate the reminder you gave earlier with the importance of the dance between the two because it can easily slip into this bypassing and negation of the illusion we're here to play.

Right. Like you're in school, take the curriculum, what's up? You know, I'm not going to do my math homework. I'm going to sit here and stare out the window. Okay. But being an astute student in that school of life would then mean as your scope of context opens, the choices available to you increase,

and otherwise they won't even occur to you. Right. Right. That's insightful right there. If it's not occurring to you, if it's not breaking through the threshold of consciousness in subconscious, okay, it's water to the fish. I missed it.

What is that? I'm seeing stuff. going by, what's it going by in? What are you talking about? Water. What's water? Okay, you're doing this. I'm outside the little fish bowl or the stream or the river or the occasional fish that jumps out of the water and experiences something completely different. Toxic, you know, gulping for whatever it is they're trying to do, but it's not the medium of water. back into the water. And that's all we're doing.

Now, notice that we've taken stillness through its paces from a way of dealing with physiological anxiety and tension to intellectual impediments removed, great, into emotions regulated, not repressed or suppressed, regulated. We're practicing volitional state control.

I don't want to be in neutral all day. I am very excited right now talking with you. You can feel it. But you'll notice what happens because I just bring it right back again. Ah, okay. If I bring it right back again and say, what are you doing?

Take it back up again. I go right back up again. You felt that throughout this interview. But it's not like I snorted too much cocaine, I can't control it. I'm thrilled to do this with you. I'm trying to titrate that state, as they say, so I don't get too out of gamut with the rest of the audience

and just start sounding like I'm just prattling. I'm counting on you to keep bringing me back because we're really navigating fast. So as one is navigating that dynamic, there's something so much more worthwhile about living a life where you even have the capacity to truly pay attention. Yes.

And I've heard you speak to this. I sometimes refer to attention as our spiritual currency, which is why we pay it in any given moment with our life. That's right. And you said that the greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention.

And I think we've explored quite a bit the cost of not doing so and the gift of creating that capacity and that scope of context and awareness. Now, I'd like to explore a bit about what becomes available to you from that place. We spoke a bit about status earlier and how we are under this notion of what we think we want,

which has been inculcated through society, through programming, parenthood, the school system. As you get quiet, I often say when you get quiet, what needs to be heard grows loud. All sorts of things just bubble up to the surface. Yes. Insights about your work, your life, yourself, your relationships,

and what you deem is valuable and the behavior that's correlated to it can drastically change. Yes. Now, I want to examine that a bit more because we talked about status as this drive and this vigilance to fit in, as opposed to the status relative to the universe,

which is actually at one with it, and not opposed to it and the resistance to it. Yes. Isn't that ironic, we're trying to fit in by setting ourselves apart from so we can have more status. Isn't that almost sad?

Heartbreaking. We're trying to get deep connection, which we already are, we're trying to get that by pushing other people away and being special ourselves. You see what? an active futility that is,

but it's been normalized, so we just keep doing it more. And that's the definition of insanity. It's not working, but we keep doing it, expecting it to be different. So keep going, because you're really on to something there.

I love that. I think the, uh, what becomes available to you and what you deem valuable or worthwhile going after, obviously like, like we talked about, can drastically change.

And that's an important reminder because if we want to live a life that is not at odds with reality, that's worthwhile, that is in accordance with our true nature and what we actually have to give, that you shaped puzzle piece for the universe, so to speak. Then by getting quiet, we give space for all these things to come up. Now, in your experience, as you, you've lived decades of your life exploring the stillness. What sorts of things come up? Give me just like an overview of...

So you talked about what is important and what is behaviorally, what's correlating those two. The secondary work that we do after establishing stillness in the practice is values. what is important to you. That's vastly different than what are your ideals. I'm suggesting that what is actually important to you in my work with groups of people very frequently when it's revealed

what's actually important to you. It's shocking, horrifying, disappointing. I had one poor, beautiful young girl at the end of our first values workshop where we elicited values. And it's not what your ideals are. It's what's driving your behavior. When she elicited her values with a partner and she looked at what those values are based on her behavior, I asked at the end of that first two-hour session,

any questions so far? because we're just getting started. She raised her hand. She had tears coming out of her eye. I thought, oh, good. She said, I'm an asshole. And I said, no, you're not. Now you know where you are.

Because if you don't know where you are, you'll never get where you want to go. You've been deceiving yourself because you value feeling good about yourself more than you value the truth. You just made a shift. because nobody in this particular course it is going to continue in this course

if they value feeling good about themselves ahead of knowing what the score is in terms of their own values. So the correlation between values and behavior is causal and it's isomorphic. It's just one causes the other. The question is, have you examined, your values, and do you understand the relativity of these values? Do you understand that they're

operating almost entirely at an unconscious level? Do you understand these values are in a hierarchy from greater to lesser importance? Do you understand then that what you value is almost not important? What's important is how much do you value it? Because that, is always relative to some other value or values in your hierarchy. Once you get that piece, you have this incredible behavior-prediting tool. Because once you know the values that are driving behavior, you trace the behavior back to the values. You can predict future behavior in yourself and others,

and you can make decisions. Because every decision is a values-based. decision. The question is, are you aware of those values or not? Do you want to know? And values drive behavior. So as reductionist as that sound, it's actually very liberating. But when we work with values, we take the idea of right, wrong, good, and bad off the table. That I'm not advocating. You don't know the difference between right and wrong, good, and bad. But if you don't take the idea of right and wrong and good and bad off the table, no one, I certainly won't be, honest enough to accurately assess my values or anyone else's because I'm too busy trying

not to be wrong or trying to be bad. It doesn't matter. It's just what you value. So there's this strange ambivalence to any value when we get into it, which makes it so, wonderful to say, wow, this has been very important to me. There's nothing wrong with that. Do I want to keep that value at that level in my hierarchy? Because it is leading to this behavior that 10 minutes ago was a mystery to me. Why do I keep getting into these relationships? This doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense now. There's just a deep-seated undercurrent. and the reason again for this subconscious mind, we can't keep track of everything in conscious RAM. So we create habitual behaviors, we suppress or repress stuff we can't deal with, and it's just this repository of craziness. It's amazing to me that more people aren't just complete psychopaths.

I mean, it's a miracle. So the good news is, man, everybody's doing much better than you would imagine if you realize what's happening. We're dealing with this tiny little sliver of reality that we can deal with. Statistically, it's irrelevant. It's a rounding error. We're not picking up anything. We're trying to survive. We now realize I can do more than survive.

so evolution takes a turn now are we going to just survive or are we going to try to thrive this is where we are now do you think at any one of these evolutionary points in time that some Tyrannosaurus stood up and said you know what

I think this big thing is going out of favor I think I'm going to make myself small no we have that option though Yeah. We have the option to create what are called epigenetic factors. We do them volitionally. And there's a small but growing population out there that's taking the reins and doing just that.

That's why I tend to work bottom up from the individual up, because as that happens, you hit a certain inflection point and you just feel it. You feel it everywhere. It's magic. The way you described as your scope of context expands and the boundaries of yourself start to dissolve and get to recognize that and other people. The natural next step is typically one of service.

And ethical implications don't need to be externally imposed because... Exactly. They're intrinsic. Right. Yes. and so what starts as a deconstruction of who you thought you were and the subconscious values that were driving your behavior unbeknownst to you I think at some level we're always aware of them

but it becomes then a discovery of what's most essential to you good for you and values that correlate with that I feel like intrinsically connected with contributions towards the evolution, maturation, blossoming of all life around you. Yes. Does that map, and for anyone who's listening right now, is on that journey of self-discovery, as we all are, and they start to, and they want to continue to make space for discovering

what it is that I have the unique capacity to contribute towards the planet. Yes. What encouragement and insight would you share with people to continue to reveal that, refine that, and then offer that? It's a great question. It is one of the most courageous things that I can even imagine to take stock of your own individuality while at the same time understanding your universality.

This individuality has no owner's manual. There's no guidebook. It's one of a kind. The neurology that we're saddled with is analogous by nature. So it looks around and sees what it thinks it knows and then starts mapping that onto what it doesn't know. So maybe I need to be a fireman if I want to be a service.

Maybe I need to be a priest. Maybe I need to be a nurse. It's like, no, you don't. Stop that process, quiet things down, just feel more. feel what it is that you're drawn to do. What do you love? What lights you up?

I promise there's a correlation between that and why you're here. But be very careful with that because frequently it's tied into status. I do this and I get what I want from people. Instead of, I have tried for decades, dozens of times to stop drawing. Okay?

I can't. Now, when I was making a living doing it, making a living doing it, one of the best places you could possibly work to make a living at it, almost ruined drawing for me forever. Because that's not what I am that. I'm this thing over here.

This is when you were at Disney. Sure, and all the studio, and everything else. And I was just another one of a million people. Nothing special. So as you then let what it is that you've learned grinding like that, the grind wasn't the point, the learning was. Then you can leave that behind and understand everything.

You have thought, felt, said, and done is pointing to where you are, pointing to this. So there is nothing in my current life that I can remember doing, feeling, trying, that hasn't contributed to this. That's why I'm the luckiest guy on Earth. I've got these little silly cards that I'm doing. They're just daily reminders. But if I come in under the radar with a silly little cute drawing or something

and a little statement, but underneath it there's what we're talking about. And someone can get that in a morning when it's like, oh, God, how can I get through? Oh. Okay. Jim's version of this thing isn't, I want to be the most famous artist in the world. I want to be, you know, making cartoons for, who cared? This is my little corner of the universe. Everyone has that.

Everyone. I've never met anyone who doesn't, and a lot of the work I do with clients is helping them find that. Epic story of that, where a guy I met at the gym of all places, it's like we're in the locker room, and he goes, what do you do?

And I told him, I said, I help people get what they want. He goes, really? He says, do you have a card? And I said, well, yeah, sure. And we did that whole thing. And he shows up. He's a plumber.

He's looking for a better job. He is an AA elder, lost everything because of alcohol, dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps. He's a proud Marine. Lost it all. And by the way, I'm not breaching confidentiality.

He said, go ahead and tell this story. People need to hear it. And he came in looking for a fix of that. And I kept asking him during our first session. So what do you love? What lights you up? He says, I don't know. That's the problem.

We talked for a while and I say, so given that, what would you love? What would you do if you could do it anyways? I don't know. I don't know. Finally, he's getting pissed. And the last fatal time, I said, so, you know, what do you love? And he goes, okay.

And he spits this answer. I want to live in the woods in Connecticut. That's what I love. And I go, bingo. And he goes, bingo. And I said, yeah, we're on our way. Cut to six months later, he's putting up his house. house in the land that he bought in Connecticut, happiest guy on earth.

All the money he needs, the relationship he needs, everything, because he is doing something almost no one would want. It's his personal little John-shaped corner of the universe. He's a classic example, though. If I got in the way of that, I'd be trying to tell him, well, you know, you need to do that because you're a plumber. You need to, because you can take that. I've never met anyone who doesn't have that.

They may not currently have the courage to go after it and the patience to keep doing something that's a little unpleasant so they can get a foundational, you know, structure under the financial whatever. What's so inspiring about that story as an enough? for everyone who's navigating, finding what they feel like is their purpose their Dharma, is that once you do find it, there's

an effortless, naturalist experience to it that in the Gita they say, you know, you protect your Dharma, your Dharma protects you. And like you get what you need in that way. Yes. Which is fascinating, right? Like, what is it about when we are in a living alignment

with what we truly love the universe provides abundance for? What is that? Well, first of all, again, listen to the wisdom that comes out in that question. Because you're grasping and getting something that's deeper. There's something much bigger than this individual, and yet it's individuated. So this universe is literally saying to you all the time, when you get a piece of it and go for it, are you sure? and it's giving you every opportunity to bail out and go back to doing what you were doing before.

It has infinite amount of time. If you say, yes, I'm sure, all of a sudden it conspires to help you, and weird stuff drops in your world. That's where the surrender piece comes in. And again, tension, tendere, grasping, holding. That same place in the left brain is also what's trying to grasp ideas,

trying to grasp concepts. Same thing. Your buddy Ian McGilchrist, God love him. He has researched that down to the nanoparticle. My piece is just, how do we get there? That's the difference, because I love what he's done. So there's something much bigger trying to help.

In a way, take heart in the fact that it's not a goal. It's a process. And the process goes on forever. Don't try to be there. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not there. We're getting somewhere. if at the end of this podcast

we both sort of smugly sit back and say, well, we pretty much defined it, pretty much finished it, I think I'll just shoot myself because there's nothing more to... No, it's this ongoing thing. That's why the name of your podcast is so important.

All the way back to those early Greek roots. I mean, what does that even mean to know thyself? It's not know about thyself. So, yeah, you're tapping into this wholeness

and understanding this wholeness isn't fooled by whatever state you're in. It isn't delusional. It's holotropic. It's now.

It's got holographic time, not linear time. It just is. And we can either fight it, and best of luck with that, and suffer, or we can let go. But in a very productive way, not a passive way. Now, I will admit there are aspects of this that are very Western and specifically very American because of this notion of individuality.

There are cultures that are all about the communists, the, we're not individuals. That's covered in this as well, but for most of the people we're talking to, there is this sense of me as an individual. Why am I doing what I'm doing? And I haven't found my great, keep open. Stop looking in the same place, though,

because you're probably looking over there and this thing is looming, glowing behind you. It's like, oh, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. And again, just a note, I don't like bringing it back to me, but the whole time I was in animation, my office was always filled with people talking like this. Even when I was directing,

trying to get a project done, and here we sit. Having conversations like this that have nothing to do with the film. Yeah. It's fascinating to observe as you shut up and you quiet down and you get still.

What naturally comes your way? Good for you. Externally and internally. Yeah. You know, and that natural proclivity is intelligent. it's there for a reason. And, you know, I, before starting this podcast, you know, these inquiries, this Diologos we're

doing in the reflection, the logos is revealed in reflection and dialogue. Yes. It's something that I would do without getting paid, that it lights me up so much, that just gives me so much happiness and fulfillment. Yeah. There's almost nothing else I'd rather be doing, you know, outside of maybe music or, you know, a couple of things. But tell me when, not if.

Tell me when that music starts rounding the corner and becomes part of what you're doing here and isn't some marginalized thing because it's music, it's over here. No, it'll start to be subsumed into this bigger thing as this grows so it will come in. And you'll feel that. It won't be like the music you've been making.

The music that I make is nothing like what I used to do when I thought I wanted to be a musician. Nothing at all. In fact, I'm praying that it doesn't go back, not literally praying that it is in service to something infinitely greater than ego. Because so much of what music was was egoic and I didn't know it. It's so fun to explore and witness to these different forces and inspirations and loves coming together

and fitting this one-of-one unique contribution offering. And, you know, when in regards to music, for example, it's like who knows what it's mysterious, what shape is going to take in terms of what I'm building now, how they'll come together. And yet, it's really cool to examine the sheer variance of careers out there and how there are so many people

that completely made up a job that doesn't exist. Yes. Because it's a confluence and, like, it's a consilience of the two things that is so unique to them. Yes. And so I just, I think it's inspiring for anybody who's listening right now to know that it's a bottom-up phenomenon in the way that you, the fact that you don't know is the point.

And that's almost like a better clue that you're moving in the right direction. That's exactly right. Listen to that coming out of your mouth. I mean, that's, that's. brilliant. And no time in history has it been more opportune to be on that path. That is, I am not looking for a job.

Jobs are going to be increasingly hard to find. What I am looking for is the me-shaped hole in the universe that only I fit. Not the round hole, not the square hole. I fit this perfectly. No, I am. else fits it. You think you just fall into that? You have to work at that for a while, but you're also listening carefully for the help. This is the beauty. It isn't a passive, the term surrender in this context has been really misunderstood. It doesn't mean put your feet up on the couch and eat bonbons. It means do your best, but before you scramble,

Listen with your whole being, and it will come. That's a promise. And again, I'm living proof. Any idiot can do this if you just practice it. Practice it. I don't know how to put this more succinctly, but do you remember how many hours they say it takes to master something? Typically they say 10,000, right?

So I could go through the numbers with you, but I'll just cut to the chase. As of roughly this month, I've got 100,000 hours in drawing alone, just drawing. Why? Because I hate it? Because I'm trying to get status? Because I'm, no, I can't help myself. I love it. I took cadavers apart in college to learn the anatomy.

I mean, it's all of that weird thing. They didn't teach that in the school I went to. I had to go find it in another school. Well, that's motivation that comes intrinsically. You've done exactly the same thing, Andre. As you put it beautifully, I would do this if I wasn't being paid. That's your first criterion. Would I do this?

if I wasn't being paid at all. That's why you're good at this and getting better and better and better. And what is this? You're literally drawing wisdom not just out of somebody's brain, but out of their being, and then you're priming them

with triggers from other people that you've had this experience with and conversations that cannot be a repetition of anything, one of a kind in this moment, and you're recording them. And now watch as that starts to blossom into all kinds of secondary and tertiary effects of that, but the bottom line is you are at the fulcrum of that being yourself, wholly and completely.

That's why I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Because you could have dropped this. When we first started that podcast, I think we had this conversation. You're going to run up against some slamming doors. Just find the other one that's opening for you and just keep going. And you did. Yeah.

I can't tell you how proud I am of you. Thank you, man. And you're genuinely brilliant at this. Thank you. Thank you so much, man. I received that and I truly feel like it's not me and so many ways too. It's almost like it's kind of like that choiceless choice. It's just like nothing else would be as meaningful.

Yes. And I truly want to be of service. And so I try to get out of my own way as much as I can and doing what I hope is what you described and helping draw out wisdom and creating that environment and space for it. But I mean, it goes without being said, without being able to have this where I get to, I get to do this by virtue of someone like yourself being here, you know, being present. Sure. It's such a gift and it makes my life so fulfilling. And especially when I get to have these particularly deep and meaningful conversations. Yeah.

Where in the past, you know, over the past few years, of course, you have many different types of conversations. Sometimes I've had conversations because I thought either the audience would resonate with it or that it would do well. The more I'm like putting that aside to return back to what actually means the most to me and what I'm most lit up by. And I think that's felt hopefully in the conversation. But yeah, Jim, I mean, I know I've told you a bunch. Like who you are as a being is very beautiful. Oh, bless your heart. that you show up and the way that you hold with so much compassion for somebody's fullness

and the way that you really call forward and give reminders to their brilliance. It's encouraging, you know, because this path can get lonely at times. And you're a massive support in so many different ways. And the impact that you have, not that we could or even would want to quantify, is endless. You know, the ripple effects from whose impact. from you just connecting with me to the conversation of the people tuning into this and how it affects their family

and impacts their relationships. Yes. It's beautiful to think about. So thank you for living your life and being in your service. Thank you. Yeah. Try to remember something about being a service too.

It's like the flight attendant, you know, that nobody pays attention at the beginning of the flight. In case of sudden depressurization of the cabin, put your mask on first before your dependence, we tend to fall into this thing of if we're going to commit to being of service, then that means we shouldn't take care of ourselves anymore.

Remember that we've got to take care of ourselves in order to be of service. That can get out of hand if we're not authentic. Trust me, you're as authentic as they come. don't forget what makes this work. It's what you want to do. It's what you love. As soon as that finger goes in the wind,

I don't really want to do this, but if they want it, and I will invoke another podcaster who's in a completely different space, but in a way not. Who is one of the most successful podcasters in history right now? Think about it. Joe? Yeah.

Why? What is the single criterion for any podcast he does? Sincere fascination. I want to talk to this person. He didn't care who it is. It's some screwball he met on the street last night. I don't care what's your history. He didn't care.

It was a goof for him. anything but a goof. It's what he loves. I'm telling you you have those same qualities, not being Joe Rogan, but those same qualities. This is what you love, and it just radiates out of your podcast. Keep going.

Because there's going to be times. There'll always be times. Are you sure, the universal thing? Because 2,500 people said, well, I didn't like that one at all. Did you? If you did, put it up there. Yeah.

Okay? Yeah. And bless you for being who you are and where you are and what you're doing. This has been a joy. Yeah, so good. It really had. The time flies by. It's been, what, two hours now?

It feels like two minutes. Oh, my God. I'm glad I didn't look. Oh, man. It's been fun swimming in these waters. Oh, thank you, and thank you. Thank you for being here and putting up with this nonsense. I mean, thank you.

Do you have, if you had 60 seconds-ish, to share one final message with humanity, what feels alive for you? There's never been a better opportunity, and it has never been more important for each and every one of us to quiet down enough, remember who we actually are,

and bring it with everything you got. Even if that means I'm not even sure what this is, that lack of sureness is going to resonate with other people who aren't so sure either, but I kept going anyway. And then the flip side of that,

the fastest way to stop, stop learning is say I know. So keep that balance. I don't know. I'm wide open. I'd like to know. And not knowing frequently feels like falling. And we humans hate that.

Don't be fooled. You're on a wet rock. You know, falling goes away the minute you just leave planet Earth. Well, that scope of context will bring you right home. That is not belonging to some huge club. That is being you, universally you, and there's an infinite number of ways for that to manifest. Trust me, walk into a mini-mart.

The universe is becoming whole. Okay? So grateful for you, Jim. Right back at you. Thank you. And everybody who's tuned in to this episode of the Know They Self podcast, thank you for coming on this journey. with us too. And until next time, be well.