Know Thyself - E49 - Richard Rudd: The Effortless Path To Enlightenment

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Richard Rudd, founder of the Gene Keys, joins the Know Thyself podcast again for a deeper dive into the Art of Contemplation. He reveals how to pay deeper attention, take more pauses, and see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Explaining that within the ‘normalcy’ of our lives is a profound stillness and peace waiting to be discovered.  He redefines what he calls ‘the spirituality of effort’, and explains that the path to enlightenment can be a gentle, playful, and blissful one.  He shares his practices for taking more pauses in life, tapping into your inner genius, and transforming your greatest shadows. He also gives his insights on the next stage of human evolution, and why he believes we are all moving towards a simpler life.  SPONSOR: https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself Code: KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off (Currently only ships to US & Canada) === TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Intro 3:11 Invocation of Holy Solace  5:44 The Art of Contemplation  8:18 Ordinary Life is Extraordinarily Profound  15:43 The Search for Purity: Don’t Be Afraid of the World  20:23 André Shares a Poem 22:02 Power of Paying Attention & Pausing 30:59 Transforming Shadow Patterns 37:02 Pivot: Unlocking Your Inner Genius  46:53 Caution of Rapture & The Superpower of Grace  56:02 Removing the Excess Noise - Healing the Shadow  1:02:28 Remembering Our Own Eternity within Mortality 1:06:30 Contemplating Death 1:14:12 The Next Stage of Humanity's Evolution  1:17:19 What Happens When We Die: The Unchanging Atom 1:20:59 Nirvana is Within Us  1:26:09 What’s Next for Richard  1:30:19 What’s Coming in 2027  1:38:05 The Dream Arc & Gene Keys  1:42:16 Conclusion ===  A teacher, mystic and award-winning poet, Richard Rudd’s inner journey began early in life as he experienced strange energies rushing throughout his body, culminating in a major spiritual experience at the age of 29. Emerging from what he calls ‘a field of limitless light’ that lasted 3 days and 3 nights, Richard was entrusted with a sacred teaching – the wisdom of the Gene Keys. A born explorer, Richard has studied with great teachers in the East, traveled through the Himalayas, the Pacific, the Americas and the Arctic. Earning a Master’s Degree in metaphysics and literature from Edinburgh University, he went on to work in the film industry in Australia, trained as a teacher of Chi Kung in Thailand and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on a small yacht. During this time he lived in Manhattan, Oregon and Hawaii before finally returning to the UK in 1998, where he met Marian his wife. Over the following years they had three children and moved to Devon in southern England. Throughout his adventures Richard has explored his love of writing and in 2006 he won the FISH international poetry award in Ireland. All Richard’s travels and studies coalesced into a synthesis in 2002 when he began to write and conceive the Gene Keys. It took seven years to write the book and understand its teachings and applications. Today Richard continues to expand the wisdom that he was gifted, remaining always a student of the Gene Keys while teaching all around the world. In 2019, Richard was named on the Watkins list of The 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Website: https://genekeys.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genekeys/  The Art of Contemplation: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Contemplation-Richard-Rudd/dp/0956975097/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=art+of+contemplation&qid=1560865235&s=gateway&sr=8-1 ___________ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/

When you come closer to awakening, it's as though you find diamonds in your pockets. We've inherited the spirituality of effort. You know, we can get overexcited by our potential and forget to keep creating space. You can end up trapped by the very pattern that you've been transforming. And actually, it's just there all the time. Awakening is just a series of softening. As we soften deeper and deeper into our heart, then all those higher centers start to open up. The genius comes out of the presence of our being.

It's sitting inside us. It's sitting in our DNA. And I think that's what contemplation unlocks. It doesn't matter so much what you do. If you didn't do anything, it wouldn't matter. Just the being is enough. It's enough. The gene keys and all my work came out of my own healing. So when you do this shadow work, you start to feel the breath of freedom again.

You'll probably end up serving others in some amazing way. Hello, beautiful beings. Welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast for every single week. We get the honor and privilege to sit down with a brilliant mind and open heart to learn more about ourselves in the world around us at deeper and deeper levels. My guest today is the founder of the Gene Keys and author as well of the art of contemplation. He is somebody that is really dedicated and devoted his life to supporting individuals on their spiritual awakening process.

And those texts, while they are profound, I don't even think begin to touch the deep well of wisdom that is the man, Richard Rudd. He, in my experience, is somebody that is so embodied in his gentle approach to being present to whoever he's in contact with and to sharing his own poetic wisdom through the many different facets of the diamond that he does. And so it's such an honor. It's been almost a year since I've been doing this podcast now. And he was actually the first individual that I sat down in my old studio with.

So to have him now in today's studio feels like a beautiful full circle moment. So Richard, such an honor. Thanks, Andro. It's lovely to be here, loving being back. It's been quite the past week. We've had some amazing events. We did the Jada Spenza one. And then you had a beautiful event with Blue and Zach Bush. So I'm so looking forward to diving deeper into the art of contemplation today.

And the path of our awakening process and how it can be a soft and gentle journey, really to that point. Before we begin, would you like to share an invocation that? yeah yeah i'd love to i'd love to and it's nice it's kind of intimate for me because this is an invocation i do in my morning contemplation every morning and um you know i wake up before dawn and i sit with my tea and i always do this invocation i kind of do it throughout my as i'm drinking my tea and and it kind of impregnates uh my morning session so yeah um it has some mudras that go with it that I won't do, but you can always look online and find them. But it's really simple and it's called the invocation of holy solace. May love pour through our souls, weaving us together

as one. May light flower in our hearts, lending us the grace to transform all fear. May warmth radiate our bellies, bringing prosperity to all. May purity shimmer in our bones, filling us with the light of the stars. May kindness resound in our voice, softening the way that lies ahead. May clarity shine through our mind as we lie in the arms of the infinite beloved. May solace abound in our lives, touching all who we meet, may solace abound in the world, bringing all beings into perfect union. Thank you. And that last one you say three times. So may solace abound in the world, bringing all beings into perfect union.

May solace abound in the world, bringing all beings into perfect union. So simple, beautiful practice that kind of creates a space in your life. for some grace. So beautiful. I think having a practice that you continue to come back to that reminds you to find the beauty within all life and to have these simple pointers and reminders, many of what you spoke to in terms of grace and truth and love and unity. Such a beautiful way to start your day. And it makes perfect sense that you are, who you are, and you do that because they go so hand in head and well together. So that's a great invitation as well. Amazing. So thank you for sharing that. The art of contemplation,

contemplation has been a beautiful, it's been something that I feel like I've carried within my own life. And most people, when they hear the word contemplation, they maybe wouldn't, they wouldn't sync it up with the same way that you use the word as more of a way of being in the world. And when people hear contemplation, they think maybe that they think about their life or ruminate about different things. And so how do you use the word and the art of contemplation? How does it really serve a purpose in your life? Yeah. Well, it's the secrets in the etymology of the word, contemplare, which literally means from the Latin, to come into the inner temple. So it's about coming into the inner temple of your inner being. And, you know, so that is a process that involves layers, which we can get into. But essentially, the outer layer is the mind. So using the mind to begin the process is actually the easiest for most people. and it's the most natural because the mind is when you close your eyes the mind is right there with all its antics and so that's where you begin and as you go deeper you start going beyond

the mind into the emotional body and emotional being and then you continue your contemplation goes deeper until it becomes truly physical you know you're actually you start going beyond the mind you come deep into the physical embodiment and into your DNA and into the structure of your being and that's where it gets really interesting yeah so yeah coming into the inner temple it's an it's an interior practice that involves and can include all other interior practices so it's a broad word um a very generous word a very very playful word it can include meditation it can you know which is more formal and it can include mindfulness and it can include yoga it can include sport. It includes movement, walking, anything. It can include life. Anything can be done in a

contemplated way. So it's very approachable and applicable for any modern human. It feels like to me, the more you imbibed this energy within yourself, that you can move from this reactionary energy to actually being responsive. And the reactionary energy is you're just at will to whatever external circumstance and the winds below you, really. You're not, you don't actually have true freedom, right but when you develop the faculty and the ability to truly respond within life you regain that power of choice and so how for you as you've developed this own gentle process of awakening when i read this book and i just feel into your own being and the work that you're doing in the world you so eloquently share it very poetically how you can your awakening journey coming back into truly

knowing yourself can be kind of opening like a flower it's a very gentle soft process i think it's very refreshing, especially for individuals that are continued to be fed the narrative for a modern society that if you want more, you have to be more, you have to get more, you have to go outside of yourself and it, you have to force it, you have to push it. Instead of it kind of springing and blossoming from within, it's a completely different way to view it. And so, yeah, how has this process from you gently, being kind with yourself, your own process of awakening, and then choosing to be able to respond with whatever comes in our life, has... allowed you to find more freedom. Yeah, I think you're right. You know, there's a lot out there.

We've inherited kind of the spirituality of effort quite powerfully from the Eastern traditions. And not all of them, but if you look at Zen or if you look at, you know, Buddhism, or if you look at some of the Vedic stuff, or the ritualistic side of, you know, many of those Eastern religions. and not so much the religions, but the spiritual paths, the Gnostic paths, the yogic paths. Even to degree the tantric paths, they involve a lot of intricacy and complexity and layers and levels and kind of knowledge and, you know, stuff. And I am more of a kind of steeped in the Taoist tradition, I guess, if I'm going over to the East. that's where my kind of favoured places. And the Taoist traditions are kind of, and I had Taoist teachers, and they're more rooted in this simplicity and non-effort.

And that doesn't, but it can also include effort. That's the thing. That's, like I said, with contemplation, it can include other things. So there may be times where you do make bursts of effort, but then you have to kind of rest in the integration or the pause, you know. So the spiritual path can be intense at times, but I think sometimes we try too hard. And actually it's just there all the time, the spiritual path. It's there.

You can live a completely ordinary life without any of the embellishments, without need to go to the Amazon jungle, without needing to do retreats or follow some great teachers or anything. It's actually just there all the time right in front of you, in your relationship. and it's, you know, in your home. So I live a very, for most, compared to most teachers that I've met, I live a very simple, humble life, ordinary life. And my spirituality has come through that life, you know, and it grows up in the cracks of that life.

And so that's what I know. It's all I know, actually. I mean, I have done some of the extreme things as well. That was part of my younger years. but I've found a tempo now that I'm very at home with and I feel very safe with. And I'd like to share that with people on a spiritual path. Like the safest path that I've ever found is ordinariness.

You know, your ordinariness is most of your life. Yes, you'll have peak experiences and extraordinary times and moments and visions. But then you've got to come back to. your ordinary life. So grow it there and you're really onto something. So I think that's where I, where my contemplated teaching has sort of come from. That realization that our life is really just filled with a series of what most people would perceive as mundane moments, you know, that you're doing your laundry, you're washing your dishes, you're going for a walk and it's, we do kind of get fed this narrative again that it's in the heightened state, the heightened experiences where you're,

you know, you're striving for this out-of-body experience or the heightened spiritual awakening, and yet the realization to come back into how can I be fully in each moment, whatever I do, and can that be a doorway into the divine? And I think that what you're speaking to here is realizing that your life in its ordinary state can feel extraordinary if you give it that attention. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely true. And, you know, I meet a lot of people in this path nowadays working with plant medicines for example and and i've worked with a few myself um and what i've realized for myself is that those are you know those are unnecessary for me um and and and it's a path for many people i acknowledge that but i also feel like sometimes i'd like to ask people who are on that

path? What if you never took another one again ever? Right? How would your path continue from this moment? And I think it's good to ask ourselves those questions, whatever path we're on. I mean, I should ask that question of myself. But I guess for me, it's ordinary life, so I can't not live an ordinary life. So that's where I find it. And I also feel like if you are, on one of those paths where you are exploring many different modalities, whether it's plant medicine or it's the passina or you're going on long retreats or darkroom retreats or times where you're really going deep into the intensity of the inner psyche and you're courageously journeying into the shadow and into the, you know, all of that. You need afterwards to have this integration.

So you need something that helps you integrate it. So I hope that the art of contemplation can be that for many people. Because it's a beautiful way of taking heightened experiences and just letting them percolate into your everyday life. It gives me, yeah, it just resonates with me personally on my own path so much because, you know, while for periods of time I have explored certain plant medicines and the various different modalities that are out there, I continually come back to the realization that the true awakening doesn't come from experience hunting.

It comes from being able to foster and allow your awareness and attention to be penetrative and to allow whatever, like even your breath by itself can be a source of immense pleasure and blissful contemplation. And so a lot of times we go through to, you know, earlier on in our path to like look for these various different modalities that can give us a awareness, but if you actually purify your system enough, then you become so sensitive that awareness isn't what you're lacking. You're very aware of what you need to integrate, what you can work through, and then your life just becomes a path of integration, because there's an abundance of awareness if you're sensitive enough to it. Yeah, absolutely. I think play is a really important aspect. You know, I think play is, it's a form of integration. You know,

integration is play in a way it's enhanced through play so play in a play is is about being in the world being in the body playing in the body but you know maybe you will eat something that's not perfectly good for you sometimes maybe you will foray into like ordinary life with ordinary people and you know what I mean and you'll just be among the world you know the things of the world the corrupt things that the the the toxins that you know because because you can't avoid them, the TV, all of it. Like, we can play in all of that. We have to live in all of that.

You know, we're here for that. Even though it may not be our taste, we can still, like, it's important to kind of, I think it was Christ that said, you know, when you're in someone's house, eat what they give you. You know, it's a really powerful teaching that. Like, don't say I'm a vegetarian. I can only eat vegan, whatever food. just eat what those local people give you because they're giving it to you from their heart

and it may not be good for you but like honor them by I mean I'm being you know it's not the case for everyone because if you have a thing you have a thing but you get what I'm saying it's like it's a symbol in a way like sample the world don't be afraid of the world

and you know you can take homeopathic doses of everything without being sullied. So purity is not what we often think of the heart. You know, purity of the body is one thing. You're never going to get this thing pure. I can tell you that. That's a long, long journey and you'll never get that.

Until you've died. So, yeah, but it's a beautiful path still. But I think it's important to have that perspective of play so that you can integrate, you know, your higher knowledge, wisdom, experiences into that every day. There's a lovely book someone gave me recently, and it was about, it's a Tibetan teaching, one of those great tamas that was downloaded by a llama. And in it, it lists the indicators of awakening in a very poetic way. And there's loads of them and the levels of awakening.

and I was reading it, I was really enjoying it. And one particular one I loved, it just said, you know, when you come closer to awakening, it's as though you find diamonds in your pockets. You know, it's like you put your hand and they were there all along, but you just, you were struggling to make ends meet and suddenly put your hands in and there with these dye and you're filled it. And you're like, wow, I didn't know. And that's how I feel about my ordinary life.

I feel like, oh my God. all these years, and I have been a searcher and an explorer and a quester for many, many decades, you know, I suddenly realized, oh my God, it's right here in the every day. And what an exciting discovery that is. Because now it means I don't need any of the trappings at all. It's like, unless I choose them. Yeah. So, yeah, that's the art of contemplation.

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to help you chill out. Everything is 100% organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, and delicioso. I love what this company stands for, how they believe in creating healthy minds through healthy habits, and how they donate monthly to mental health causes. To try them out, you can go to mudwhtr.com slash know thyself and use code know thyself for 15% off and they'll even throw in a free rechargeable frother. As always, everything is linked down in the description below. Back to the episode. I think I'll share this now just because last night I was finishing reading of the art of contemplation preparing for today. And I had a really deep meditation towards the end of the night. And then I kind of reached into my hands proverbially and found a diamond, you know, just like a poem that kind of came through

that I want to share it because it feel like. I'd love to hear it. Yeah, I feel like it really resonates to what you're speaking to and this whole energy. So I'll share that. We'll continue from there. Deep in the stillness of now lies the greatest gift to be found. It's in the acceptance of what is that you break what's kept you bound. When you find the quiet within,

an immeasurable treasure shines through. A glimpse into the eternal nature of this mystery called you. What we see is who is seeking, and so we look to others to be seen. But when you see the one who's seeking, you are freed from who you're being. A flower opens gently and has its cycles like the moon. When you let go of who you're not, you might just find yourself bloom. And so a more beautiful world may come, not by trying to change the tides, but by softening your gaze within and to begin seeing

with new eyes. Wow. That's really beautiful. Thank you for showing that. That's really sweet and filled with truth and kind of like one of those diamonds, you know, illumination. Yeah, and these diamonds become revealed to us as we start to pay honest attention to our inner world.

And I've just often tried in my practice as much as possible to really zoom out in my life and realize that I'm not paying honest, true attention and have that willingness to look within, then my life very much will pass me by. And so how is the power of paying attention to your own internal world been a powerful catalyst to you realizing your own gifts? Yeah, it's a foundation of the art of contemplation

is pausing. And so I put that out as a technique, right? It starts as a technique. And I know that people like techniques. but it's not called the technique of contemplation it's called the art of contemplation so you can begin with technique and then that technique as it becomes embedded in your life it then can become a custom you know so it then becomes a part of your your rituals of daily life and then eventually as you refine it even more because it's very creative it becomes an art you know the art of contemplation

it becomes like an aesthetic poetic way of moving through your life but it begins with that that ability to just stop right stop in your awareness you know to have breaks in your awareness you know transformation always occurs in those gaps always it's the same in in everything in life it's in the in the pauses and even if you look at nature you see that nature is constantly pausing. I'm always joking people about the flies. I may have even said that last time that the fly, you know, the fly lands on you and you brush it away and then it lands on you again and you brush it away and you're like, why is it keep landing on me? And it's giving, it's gifting you a pause. Because that's what it's trying to do. It's just wants to pause. It's teasing you. And life is constantly

teasing us to pause. And so we kind of have to get the joke a bit and listen and, and I call it harvest those pauses and that becomes a joyous thing to do and a pause can be very short can just be as short as an in breath and a sigh or it can be quite long you know it can be four weeks or a month or a year you know you can take a pause in your life that's really quite an extensive period of just I'm putting everything on hold and just going to drop into the inner space and see what happens and you can guarantee even a short pause something changes right so so if you can bring in your everyday life a few more short pauses um and then then everything changes because you're creating that spaciousness in the busy day of your life and and then transformation creeps in

but i want to just sort of make it clear what a pause is a pause can be you know, you can be driving. You know, we have this little app just coming out, the triple flame app. It's free on, you know, the app store. And it's really nice because every three hours at the three, six, nine, twelve, it bings you and it gives you three minutes of pausing. And you can be driving, right? So you can either pull over for three minutes or you just keep driving.

But for those three minutes, you just, you pause in the break of your pattern. what your mind's thinking about and you're just there. If you're driving, you're just, you're really aware for three minutes. You might be breathing. You might chant. You know, on the app, there's things you can, you can listen to me giving you a three-minute meditation. You can also extend it to five or ten minute ones.

So there's like a little guided things and then there's some oms that you can kind of join in. Or you can just go in the silence. And you might be like in the middle of a, you know, let's say, a game of tennis. And then you hear your thing, your pause app. How are you going to pause

and maintain that level of concentration? But you can. It actually creates a break and then for those three minutes you can be in a gamma wave. You know, you can be so alert of your every move.

So you're, you know, you can enhance your awareness, whatever you're doing. And that's what pausing is. And often, they are short, but they're beautiful. I mean, I begin my day with a pause, as I shared.

I sit there for 45 minutes and that's my, in the dawn light, and then that pause that I create, that vacuum, kind of shows me what my day is going to be. I can feel it. The day sort of drops into that space, and I can almost sense what kind of day is coming. And that gives me preparation at a deep, level for, you know, sometimes days are complex, right? You've got lots of commitments. You've got, you know it's going to be busy and crazy. But if you start with that space, you will handle that day with such kind of a plumb and poise and courtesy and, you know, you don't know what's going to

come at you. You don't know which surprises or shocks might arrive. So if you've found that, those pauses, you can handle things. Much better. It's like the difference between being lost in the thought, which is essentially like a dreamlike state, you're almost asleep, versus having these intentional or spontaneous pauses where you actually, like you spoke to last time, pump more time into your life almost because you're awake. When you're aware, you're awake. When you're lost in thought, you're asleep. And so the more that you're actually awake, the more that you're actually here to be witness of your life and it doesn't just pass by you totally yeah my favorite one is and it's and it's in the little app is a little meditation and it's soften the heart open the mind and um because it's so

pleasurable you can just just put your hand on your chest and you just focus for three minutes on softening your heart and and as each breath comes in you just soften you just create a softness here and you allow as the softness grows you allow your mind to open and they're there you know they're deeply connected. You know, as you soften and open the heart, the mind opens as well and clears. And it starts to tune to wisdom instead of just information, right? And when wisdom's there, everything gets easier. Because you're coming, you know, you're coming from a deep place of alignment with the life force, you know,

and alignment with the earth, with Gaia, with the Schumann resonance. you know, with the natural rhythm of life itself and all the creatures around you. And that's why I said, you know, look at the creatures, spend time in nature, if you can. Those are the best pauses by a river or the ocean or, you know, you can swim in the sea or whatever your rituals and things are. You know, find those things and love them and keep doing them. You know, so it might be a run or a swim or it could just be sitting quietly. My favorite is tea. You know, it's like making tea, little tea ceremonies, you know,

which you can also share with others and you create a pause between you. And then what amazing conversations can take place in those little circles of pausing, you know, because you've created a container. And that's really all it is, is coming into the temple. You create a container. You step into the circle. It can be three minutes. but those three minutes can

you know they can be like three days or three weeks they can eternity lives in those three minutes so if you keep dropping them into your everyday life it starts to kind of spread through the fiber of your being so it's kind of simple but magical I find also in that process when you give yourself time to tap into stillness and take those pauses

you can often become aware of unconscious tension you're holding on to. And so that's another beautiful, that's another beautiful thing that comes from a byproduct of you taking those pauses is you didn't realize that even if it's just as simple as your posture or like the shallowness of your breath or whatever it might be physically that you're holding on to. And then there's also times where maybe something bigger, a bigger chunk falls off, you know, and in this process of awakening, we see that as more of an unlearning process than it is a learning process. So we discover through unlearning. And so, I would love for you to touch on a little bit more about when you take these pauses, when you find stillness, whatever modality, right, you could be in a run, you could be in a meditation, you could be on a walk, you could be in various forms of activity or what somebody might look at and say it's inactivity. But it's what you're doing with your conscious awareness at the time of doing it, then you can be aware of the more subtle unconscious tensions you're holding within yourself, but then also the more gross, dense pieces that you need to unlearn.

Yeah, shadows. Yeah. Shadow patterns. Exactly. And as you know, my other work, Gene Keys is all about transforming shadow patterns, as many of us are doing that work in different ways. So, yeah, when you drop into a pause, that's often the first thing that you come to, like a pattern that's uncomfortable.

Like might be in your breath, might be in your mind. Often it's in our mind. You know, we see that the mind worrying about something or spinning around or. And when I start my mind. day like that, that's the first thing often I find. I sit there and I create this space and I'm looking into the landscape and I just give my mind permission to find itself. I just say, okay, what do you got? And I see like thoughts crossing my mind of like, well, I'm worrying about this and today I've got to do that and, you know, I haven't finished that and oh goodness

and there's all those things. So I let the mind do all that. I just say, go for it. you know make your lists do your things like and and then it sort of just gets bored of that after like five minutes and it starts to kind of come into a deeper place and it and it does this on its own because you've given it permission you know and it starts to sort of drift a little bit and maybe it then starts to focus in on the body a bit and then it starts to maybe come into the hands and if I'm doing tea for myself maybe it starts to focus the awareness and I start to actually look and notice the tea or the steam coming off the tea and I start to enjoy the aesthetic and then I maybe start to hear the birds a bit more because that mind has sort of flitted away

and then I'm I'm in the contemplative state and after doing this for a while it happens quite quickly and then like extraordinary things happen because you drop deeper and then the wisdom mind starts to come alive. And that's like, wow, that's like diamonds in your pockets. You sit there and a kind of deep, interconnective knowing drops into your higher mind maybe and comes through your heart. And, you know, that's extraordinary. And you start to, sometimes I'll be like, wow, I could follow that. There's a whole teaching in that. Like, wow, I should write that down. I should capture that. And I've learned sort of through the playfulness to let them go.

I just like, wow, there's a whole teaching I need to hang on to that and share it on a podcast or whatever. And now I just sort of let them go. And I think, well, if it's meant to stay, it'll stay in my memory and I'll kind of, it'll come back. And that's the beauty of like you don't even cling to the wisdom when it comes or the insights or the breakthroughs. because that's the next level of contemplation. Once the shadow's sort of being revealed or the discomfort has revealed itself, it starts to transmute inside us. It just happens when we create the space.

It's an alchemy. It doesn't happen fast sometimes. It depends. Like you said, sometimes they're big, like it's a big gnarly chunk of something really uncomfortable and really old. and if you're new to this, it could get a little intense sometimes. So you should go gently and be very, very patient with yourself. You know, I say that to people who are like new to interior practices. Just be really gentle and don't expect too much right away.

But what you'll find is that probably within a week or two, you will have had one insight. You know, I call it a pivot. Inside a pause is a pivot. So if you take 100 pauses, in one of those pauses, you might get a spontaneous pivot, right? You might get a little insight that suddenly comes from nowhere and drops in and a problem that you've been thinking of or a challenge that you've been working through or a difficult relationship discomfort or something in your health. Suddenly an insight comes in and it's just dropped in and it helps you on the journey with that thing, with that shadow. and because it gives you a kind of an answer, a resolution potentially,

you know, something you can actually do. So it might be like, you need to go and see that guy you met who does that thing. And it's just come through your intuition. And you're like, oh yeah, I'd forgotten about him. He does that thing to do with, you know, whatever it is, contemplation or the, or I need to listen to that or I need to read that book. And so you get your guidance from inside and you start to unlock it. And that's how we take care of ourselves because it's all written inside us.

As you know, you listen, the answers slowly come. And then they come thick and fast. And slowly, slowly those patterns and those difficulties on their own start to transform. You don't need to go to the Amazon jungle for that. You don't need to, I don't mean to be mean I'm going, but you don't need to go anywhere for that. You can be right in your own back garden. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's diamonds.

As you start to deepen, you become aware of what those diamonds are that come through. You find rhythmic kind of coherence with the natural law within. And I feel like when we do that, when we align ourselves to nature's energy, then whatever we need, whatever is meant for us, just comes to us because that's how nature works. That's what it needs. But when we hold on and we don't give and we resist and find resistance to that natural law, then it creates a barrier between us and our true selves being able to shine through. So as you deepen on this process, what do you feel like your true genius is? Like when we all deepen into this part of ourselves, gifts start to come online.

Things that uniquely are your own offering to the world that nobody else could bring forth unlike you because you're you and we're all one of one. And so what do you make of the term genius and how that becomes available to us and what that looks like as it becomes activated? That's great question, Andre. You know, it's a simple answer that I feel, which is the, that the genius comes out of the presence of our being. You know, so it becomes doing, but it's not doing.

You know, so it's so sinking into that being is our genius. It's where we find it. It's a state of being present. You know, I mean, we read all this stuff, right? We've heard it for years. All the teachers and teaching simple things like live in a moment, da-da-da-da. You know.

Right. I read all that stuff for years. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's nice. But like, I, yeah. I need something to help me get there. But actually, after the journeys, you've been on it for a while, you kind of start to realize those very simple truths, they're eternal. And they actually really resonate deeply.

So it's very encouraging those things, I mean, for me, those things are true. And so I kind of feel for me I've come full circle in my quest. And so a lot of the, yeah, a lot of the seeking has, died down and I'm now more into like the space of what's revealed from inside that genius. It's revealed. It's sitting inside us. It's sitting in our DNA. And I think if you give the space for it and the transformation starts to shift you, in that transformation, those gifts, those creative gifts emerge. Immense creativity lies inside us. And I think that's what contemplation unlocks huge creativity.

It's very creative. And then that creative force starts to come out and you're like, wow. And it's a kind of passion as well. We all have passion. And I think that's part of our genius. And finally, as that passion sort of emerges, you're like, wow, there's so much I could do.

And it starts to open up your heart and then you start having those feelings if I could do anything. I can save the world. I have gifts. And so probably, everything that you've ever learned or past jobs or past things or businesses that you've let go of or whatever it was in your past, things that you were good at, that you may be now left behind,

actually they might be a means or they might become part of what you can offer through this genius. So I always feel that like if you've studied something or if you've done something, it's for a reason. And it might come back and come in useful one day through the genius that you offer. So I don't know what, you know, in each person it's such a mystery, that sense of purpose, deep in a purpose. But for me, it doesn't matter so much what you do. It's just the being that, it's the being that really matters. If you didn't do anything, it wouldn't matter. Just the being is enough.

It's enough. You know, if we knew that, like, it's enough just to be here. and any doing you or achievement or anything you have it's just a bonus so if you're comfortable just with being everything's a bonus you know so that that's the genius for me the shift from you know i love how you talk about how your your purpose isn't something you do it's who you are it's who you be right well whatever you do in your life that shift of you know for individuals that have been on the path and have been partaking in contemplative practices and meditation or mindfulness

that have topped into moments or maybe extensive moments or periods of time where they really were immersed in the energy of who they truly are. And when I say that, as you go on this process, it's first a process of shedding all the layers of who you're not. You think your identity, your race, your cast,

your creed, the color of your skin, all these different things. The name that you were given when you were born, we have such a strong identification with all of these things that if we start to look at at a deeper level, we realize they can't be us, right? You don't say am hand or am leg, right? It's my hand, my leg, my mind.

So the person that's beneath these, as we start to touch into that space, and for those that haven't experienced this, I guess just trust us on this one and take it for face value, but then also start to experiment and explore and see if this is true and validate it within your own experience, when you touch that place that is really synonymous with your own being, your own genius, then its nature starts to become your nature, right? And so you start to feel into who am I beneath all the layers of identities that I've mistaken to be who I actually am. And you tap into that space and you realize what its qualities are.

Its qualities are abundant, generous, caring, loving, brilliant, creative, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent. Like these qualities then start to become your nature because you start to identify with that space within. And so it makes sense that as you start to tap into that space within yourself, then your natural genius starts to come online because the universe is a genius. Look at all the magnificent forms of creation that are around us. It's like, look at like a lizard or like random things on Nat Geo.

It's like, you created that? The universe is the most incredible creative force that is running beneath all of life. And then you start to become one with that current. Yeah, totally. And when I was talking about being as your genius, we're not here to just be, actually. But that's the ground of it. We are here to create. We're creators.

That's the human. You know, like a lizard is just here to be, right? It doesn't kind of paint a beautiful painting, right? But we have these hands and these eyes and these senses and this sense of aesthetic and this transformational process. So we are here out of that transformation to create something. And that is always, you know, I think that's been slightly missing from some of the Eastern approaches that we've inherited. Because they never really stressed creativity. And creativity is the greatest way of transforming any pattern into something beautiful.

You know, so you can take it any shadow difficulty in your life and through a creative process, you can make something absolutely exquisite from it. You know, so even the darkest, deepest grief can become a thing of great, a song or something of just deep beauty that will reach millions of people and touch their hearts and open them to their humanity. You know, that's really, you know, anyone listening to this, like, where is your, you? your creative passion and how, you know, because that's your outlet for the shadow if you can find it, you know, and follow it. And so you have to keep going in and finding the source and then follow the source and see where it leads you. And you won't have to wait. I mean, it comes to you anyway. It comes knocking at your door. Synchronicities just come knocking at your door. And the path

is laid out for you. So you do have to wait, but you don't have to, you know, you don't have to go hunting for your destiny. It does literally knock on your door. And you open it and it's often through a relationship. You know, in life, it's often people we meet that bring us the opportunities that then open doorways. And this is part of the interconnectivity of the higher states is that we're meant to create together. You know, yeah, you can create on your own and that's beautiful. But actually, when we start creating more together, that's when we can really start healing the world and kind of spreading the awakening even wider.

I think that's what's beginning to happen more now as well. So it's kind of exciting. Because we're being able to be so interconnected, right, in these relationships with all life's relationship to some degree, right? And so we're starting to be more connected through the digital space and bringing more into the physical space where we can actually share these ideas and see how the creative energy

and I already see it being orchestrated by a more magnificent intelligence that is moving through everybody to have these conversations, to create these meetings, to see how we can implement our ideas on a mass scale. And I see that unfolding. And as we see exponential technologies grow and the potential downside of a dystopic reality that could be upon us, on the flip side of that coin is also equally just impossible amounts of creativity that are available to us in solving solution and bringing solutions forward to solving problems.

that process of tapping deep within your own mind, right, chita, which is like the Sanskrit word of like the deep mind. That's one with what we're speaking to of this inner genius. You start to experience what can become like an unraveling and it's like this effortless effort. It doesn't mean you stop doing things. It doesn't mean you're working or you have some sort of career. You know, you have your relationships. Life moves on. It's just that who you are is transformed in the process of that. And you can bring that quality of effortlessness, of ease, of grace. in that process. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more there. And what the energy of grace is? What does that mean to you in your own life? How have you experienced grace? How does that become available to you on this process? Yeah. Okay. So there's two questions there in one, which like there's the, as the transformational energy starts to move through your life and into your heart and out into the world, your heart starts to really open. I mean, grace creates that.

Grace creates all of this. When you go into the inner space, that's what you're doing. You're creating a space for grace to land. And grace is like this, you know, it's that divine current that the first thing it does is it seeks out the darkness. It's like a serpent, you know, and it goes into the genome, and it goes down into your body. and it finds this precise little bit of shadow that's in your DNA.

Literally, this is actually an actual process I'm describing. And it ruptures that shadow if you keep your awareness on it. It might be a pain in your body. It might be a difficulty that you're trying to resolve, and it's just like deep discomfort. But your acceptance of it, your acceptance process, is that serpent going right into their course, of that wound and then biting it, you know, or putting its magical venom in and then

seeing that transformation occur, that's grace. Grace kind of goes straight to the wound, straight to the suffering that's most on the surface in us. So anyone that, if you don't know what to contemplate, it's right there. As soon as you close your eyes, the thing that's most painful is where the grace lies. So pay attention. And also I suggest that deep, grace brings deep patience with it and deep gentleness.

And you have to make friends with these patterns. And, you know, patience is absolutely essential. Like patience is part of love. You know, patience is the vanguard of love. That's one of the great teachers once said. And it's like, I love that. Yeah, because you have to kind of be there as though you have all eternity. Because that's the only way that that pattern is going to feel no threat.

You know, it's like an animal that's wounded. You know, if you approach it with absolute patience, if you're a horse whisper or something and you've got a wounded horse and it's completely traumatized, it will not let you come near. But if you just stand there in its space with your hands open and if you're willing to, if you're willing to. wait all day, all night, and another day and another night. The horse picks that up. It goes, there's no threat here. This is not a person that's trying to heal me. This is someone just creating a space of love. That horse will very quickly start to trust you and probably move towards you and soften. And it's, you know, I've seen that happen. And it's the same with us, with ourselves. we have to do that on ourselves,

create that spaciousness of deep, deep patience. And then out of that deep patience, your wounding starts to soften. And I've said before, I often say, like awakening is just a series of softening's. As we soften deeper and deeper into our heart, then all those higher centres start to open up. And that was the other part of your question,

And as that grows, we have to be a bit careful. There's a point where we have to be a bit careful, I feel, because we start to feel immortal, and we start to feel the power of the cities of these higher states, and they can run away with us. You know, we can get overexcited by our potential and forget to keep creating space. And I see it a lot now, particularly on this LA trip,

where people are really opening up their lives and opening up these fractal lines of possibility and collaboration and excitement and passion and creativity and healing and opening up centers of, you know, this and that and that are coming true. But in all of that, you've got to be so careful that you don't forget to contemplate. You don't forget to leave pauses.

You don't let it overwhelm you. Because otherwise you can, you can end up trapped by the very pattern that you've, that you've been transforming. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a, it's good for anyone listening to this who's experiencing that opening, that transcendent opening, like be careful. You know, it's like it can become, the rapture can possess you. And you have to remember to stay in the ordinary and to stay, you know, not to say yes to everything.

and really to build in more pauses, you know, and don't forget to be just here. A space for grace, by the way, is a great book title or something. But giving that level of patience and affording that to other people who are going through a difficult time is usually much easier for people than to give it to themselves, to give our own internal process, that patience and that space for grace. Do you think at a deep level beneath these shadow materials, it all kind of boils down to a fear of some kind, like a capital F fear, like a universal fear that is behind most of these shadow material. And then how does, in your experience, creating space for them

to unravel and however they might do so, then give you access to the higher energies. Because oftentimes it's backwards. We think we want to go higher in the energies, so we go higher in the energies. Often it's, no, go down and into the shit. and see what's holding you back from naturally arriving there authentically. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's why I was sharing recently at the Zach Bush event about the belly and going down, as you said, that way to heaven is down. And when I was learning about the chakras and all those things back in my 20s,

my instinct was just to keep on working down. You know, leave the higher centers alone. Don't go there. Just work in the basement. until it's clear and pure. And then you'll have done the work. And you won't have, you know, there's a danger in work in opening up the higher centers

when you haven't cleaned out the lower ones. You haven't done your shadow work. You know, then when that light comes in, it exacerbates that shadow. It creates a super shadow, actually. And that can become a problem in your system or in your psyche. It can become something that's really, really quite dangerous to your health or to your psychic health, you know, and we see that a lot, like people

who haven't, you know, haven't really attended to those complexes or patterns or inherited genetic, ancestral fears or whatever, and then they have an awakening of some form, and then it exacerbates the serpent. You know, it's not yet ready to awaken. So the safest is to keep on working in the belly to keep on clearing to keep on doing your laundry. And it may seem more boring, but it's the safest way to kind of create that opening up through your chest and then leave the higher centres to their own devices. You know, they open when they open. And I would never counsel anyone to do practices involving higher centers.

I just wouldn't. I would say, look, just, you know, I mean, maybe in a tradition, you know, where there's a pattern, you know, a pattern and a deep retreats and long meditation, you know, where it's established, like the Tibetans, you know. But otherwise, I would like be doing the laundry in the basement over and over and then everything else is just given to you. Everything else just comes. Yeah. So simple again. So it's interesting. right now, whether or not the audience can hear it,

there is a distant dog, howling repeatedly in the background. And it's very in alignment with what we're talking to here because in order for us to be able to truly listen to whatever our internal process is, we first have to remove the excess noise that we have stored within. And so I just love what you're talking to here.

Like the noise that's within is really our unresolved shadow material that's deep within these kind of first three centers. And so to be able to actually be able to have a quiet experience to be able to find stillness within, we kind of remove those barriers that are unconsciously keeping us tied to the noisy reality of our thought, our belief patterns, dogms that we hold, somebody else's narrative that we've taken onto our own belief and identity system. And so is there anything else that you want to talk to you on your own personal journey,

how you've removed some of that excess noise? And there we go from there. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's funny you said dogma. It's the dogma. I think, you know, for me, I get it comes back to like my life, my, you know, I've been married for 25 years, well, 20 years and I've been together with my wife for 25 years. So, you know, a deep, long, intimate relationship throws up just about everything that you have in you.

And then I've had children and that throws up just about everything. I mean, whatever you've got, that doesn't have to be your life. But whatever you have, it throws up everything. everything already. And, you know, it's your parents or it's your, you know, the trauma that you suffered as a child, or it's all in there. And I mean, I did this whole journey, the gene keys and all my work came out of my own healing, out of my own need, you know, and my own transformation. So it became something creative. So it's a good example in a way of how that creative transformation can become service back to others.

So when you do this shadow work and you sort of, I don't know if you ever complete it, but as it kind of starts to resolve more and more things inside you, you start to feel the breath of freedom again, you'll probably end up serving others through your insights

and through what you've discovered in some amazing way. And I love that that's how it works. And I think, you know, in Gene Keys, you have Shadow Gift City. And we've been kind of talking about Shadow and Gift, and we've mentioned City. But the city, which is the highest city is the Sanskrit word, obviously, like, highest gift inside us, the enlightened, the dawn of the enlightened being, our enlightened self.

That, you know, in the utter contemplation is the third. phase, which I call merging. So you have pausing, pivoting, merging. And merging is when the field itself kind of starts to, you start to dissolve into the field, the pattern that you've been working on or that's been transforming is now gone. And so you then experience a merging of your being with the background of life. So it's a heart-opening experience, and it's a mind-expanding experience, and it's magical.

It's very physical as well. Although contemplation may start with the mind, it ends up being just really physical. You really feel the epiphanies in your DNA, because something's being purged through you. Old memories, ancestral memories. When you've used up your own, you know you start diving into the collective wound

because that's in us as well and so it can seem unending you know in the beginning it can seem like am I ever going to feel better is this ever going to kind of clear is the dog ever going to stop whining and eventually like it does it does clear you know

start the clouds start to and the cities start to arrive. And I don't know, you have to kind of have faith about that. But all I can, all I know is that it works, it's worked for me. And I've seen it work in others. And I've certainly met people who are far beyond me. And I've been inspired by that. Yeah.

So those heightened states, you know, one day we may well live in them. but I think when we do we may do less it may be a different phase or evolution where we do become gardeners again and we do become simpler livers living on the earth and I think that that may be where we're heading

through this next phase you know after we go through this transformation I think we're moving back to a simpler existence interesting yeah maybe pick that back up yeah that level of beauty i think that the most impactful form of inspiration is meeting somebody who's kind of found their own inner illumination they found their own version of truly finding the

light within enlightenment if you want to call that but like somebody who's really authentically arrived there is actually so transforming to be in the presence of not just in the intellectualization of spiritual ideas and concepts right which can be fascinating but to actually be transformed, we truly have to be touched. And we can only be touched in a way. When we meet somebody that is authentically who they say they are, they've kind of found alignment within their thoughts, actions, and feelings. It's a powerful shift.

And then we can be inspired from that place, move into an area where we start to see the beauty that is in the very mundane things that we talked about earlier in everything. we can find beauty and everything when we start to see through new eyes right and we start to see from a different perspective and be who we are from a different energy and so how has beauty become revealed to you and it's many facets as you started to tap into these deeper energies yeah i think you know it's revealed everywhere it's especially revealed through relationships you know totally yeah and the more you you raise your frequency of your you know literally of your DNA as the

the more love you feel, then the more you start meeting people on that same level, you know, and you start falling in love. And that love starts to connect you into a field of, you know, dreams, really, fractal fields of interconnectivity. You start to feel there's this, this pulse is not just moving through me. It's moving through many people who are awakening simultaneously. And that starts to become really exciting. and enlivening.

And the spread of that love also, I don't know, it moves into all parts of your life. I mean, I live in a little village in England and with simple people around me. They're not spiritual beings in that sense. Some of them might be a bit religious and some of them probably aren't. But like, you just see the love of humanity. You see the goodness of humanity. And even the people who are struggling and suffering badly, you just start to feel that empathy everywhere. And that's where beauty is for me in that empathy of like, wow, just ordinary people living ordinary lives with the same patterns as me.

I know that pattern, you know, I know that person who's got cancer. Like I kind of, I know that fear that they're going through. I know that. Not that I've had cancer, but I know the fear. It's the same fear, fear of death. You know, it's ultimately, you're asked about fear. It's like all fears lead to the fear of death. And that's the core fear.

And it's just a purpose that's forgotten that we're eternal. That's it's all it is. It's like a tiny little thing that's just wrapped around this eternal seed of who we are. And when you get to that, when you kind of reawaken that little ember of eternity, that fear of death starts to just drop away. You're like, wow, I'm eternal. And you're like, I'll have to keep reminding yourself. I'm eternal. Am I eternal?

And I was like, wow, what I can do with that? And I don't mean even just, I don't know, I play with that concept. You know, I'm a lover of the concept of incarnation and reincarnation and fractal lines and algorithms of coming and going and beyond a single life. So seeing patterns that exist in whole epochs and, I've had some memories and revelations myself personally about things like that. So I kind of have some vague idea of how some of it works. And it's a fascinating realm to start seeing beyond the doors of death and exploring those things.

And yeah, I hope that people will explore them more. I think they will because as the memory starts coming back of beyond this life, you know there's a lot of juicy things to to rediscover and conversations and you know remembering as we meet each other yeah yeah so beauty back to beauty like I also find it in simplicity you know in the aesthetics of simplicity and it is our nature you know it is it is it is everywhere ultimately it's in that inner space of contemplation. I also feel very much so beauty that's revealed through the different relationships. Ultimately, they are the biggest mirrors, right, for us to see more of our true

selves and who we are and to enjoy the presence of another being or another friend. It's like the sweetest, the sweetest joy. I want to dive a little bit deeper here into actually how you perceive your own mortality, you know, because I think you shared beautifully about how it's really wrapped in a misunderstanding that we're not eternal. But for you, as you've been on this path, how has your own relationship with death been transformed? Yeah, I mean, obviously I've had friends who've died. And one in particular friend of mine, Rodrigo, who, you might have met him, I don't know, who ran the assemblage.

And as he was going through his dying process, he and I were having conversations, cosmic conversations. and I had a series of deep understandings about the gene keys, about my work with the gene keys. And I'd look to, you'll remember from the activation sequence like that unlocks your genius. And I had this series of revelations of through him, through my talks with him, as he got closer of a reversal of that sequence. I thought, wow, this is how you come in and then reversing it is how you go out.

And so I suddenly understood, like, as he was leaving, this process of compassionate closure, you know, how you finish a life, not just a life actually, but how you close anything, it could be a relationship, how you die in anything. It has the same sequence, you know, and in the middle is the dissolution of the ego. You have to go through that. And then there's your karmic legacy. What? If you're finishing a relationship, what's the legacy of, what?

What have you left here? What are the best things about this relationship that you've left? How can you remember it in the best way? And how can you tie off all those loose ends as best you can? Because it depends on the other person. Like, so that it ends in a compassionate way, if possible. And even like down to, like, often when relationships end, there's money problems and there's, you know,

could be custodian problems of children and all that. So you have to kind of think from a problem. point of view of like I'm dying what do I I don't want any loose ends left here I don't want to kind of I don't want to leave the other person resentful and and miserable and always feeling like I've won you know I want them to feel I'd rather they felt like they'd won you know and if you can I mean I if you can get past that that's even better but I don't I don't you don't want a hook left and you don't want any hooks left. So I practice this, not that I have relationships to end,

but they do inevitably end. And yes, I have had some that have ended, you know, unexpectedly. And I've wanted to tie up. You know, I've wanted to kind of finish things graciously as best as possible. So it's practice for death. Relationships and life are practice for death. And Rodrigo really taught me that as he was dying. and that you fall into the arms of the mother.

That's after the ego starts to go through its dissolution process. And again, in relationships, you will have to let your ego dissolve because there's going to be battles maybe sometimes. You're going to have to let it go. You're going to have to let things go that you don't want to let go. You might have to surrender a sense of rightness or justice sometimes and just get just to be clean, just to be free. And then when you're free, you're like, oh, wow.

that was really worth letting go of. And the ego is dissolved and then you're into the arms of the mother. You know, dissolved into the arms of the mother. And that was what Rodrigo did. You know, he surrendered at the end into the arms of the mother and this love. Often is the way when someone's dying consciously,

well, it is always the way that this beautiful grace comes and pours out and hits every single person that's involved with that being. And so it's beautiful seeing and my father dying as well it's beautiful seeing that you know how my intimacy with him increased after he died how weird is that i mean it was difficult to say for a while to people but because they i didn't want people to think i was in some kind of denial of my grief but that was what i felt still feel like my father is more accessible to me than he ever was when he

was alive you know because there's none of that patina of stuff in the way right it's just heart to heart and so people don't die you know they they and it's not that they just if i say they live on in my heart i don't mean that's like as a memory i actually mean they genuinely live on in my soul in my heart in the eternal part of my being that being is always going to be there it may not be my father in the next circle. Right. But it's an energy signature that I am eternally connected to and grateful to and so happy to see again.

Yeah. You know, when I see it again. Right. And yeah, so I think my death, my relationship to death has been all about love and relationships. And I mean, I see it now. Like I fall in love with people so easily. And I kind of feel, you know, and you do that and you feel that.

and you feel this like, oh, there's almost a bittersweet that comes with it because you know you're going to have to say goodbye to them again. And it's like, oh, God. But then there's such beauty in it as well. And you know that the forms are always changing. And the same with life and death. It's like the forms are changing. But, you know, we just, you know, the first breath and the last breath are a pair.

You know? Because they're the only lone breaths. All other breaths are pairs, right? Except for the first and the last, they're a pair. And so they kind of create this. The whole life is just between that in-breath and that out-breath. But then that out-breath is connected to the next in-breath. It's paired with the next life.

How can it not be? And it's not linear. It's just, it's flow. I mean, I had this awareness recently that death. is flow. Death is flow. That was a great sentence. Death is not this kind of, it's flow. It's, you flow right into the next stage. I mean, you might kind of come in with a shock, but you will flow through into the next, into the arms of the next mother, literally, into the arms of the great mother, but also the arms of the next mother. And when and how that is

is a mystery, which is another conversation. But, yeah. I love contemplating death. And I don't know, we'll see when I get there, like, what happens. Yeah, I think it's an awesome contemplation. I mean, that's why contemplation is amazing. Because you can drop anything into that space. So you can just say, right, I'm contemplating death. Or I'm contemplating someone I love or anything.

And then the wisdom starts to kind of penetrate it. So it becomes like this field of, you know, beautiful exploration. That's why I was saying, like, I think the next phase of our evolution, after this transition, which I think is going to be awful and chaotic and terrible and, you know, probably beautiful at times as well, because war and pain and always bring beauty as well in little gap in the pauses, you know. You see beauty, always in pain. but I think when it's through we're going to live we're going to all be contemplatives you know I think that people are going to kind of start to go inwards more and more

because there's so much beauty to be discovered on those inner realms so I think people are really going to doesn't mean we're all going to be sitting in caves meditating I think it means we're just going to have the understanding that the outside is the inside and that we're going to be mining beauty everywhere we go. And certain people might just come in on a life to mine one specific fractal of beauty. It might be the animal kingdom. Or it might be trees. Or it might be the ocean.

Or it might be one other person who you just fall utterly in love with. And you're meant to be together. And you become utterly absorbed in each other. company for like 50, 60, 100 more year. Because I think the lifespan will expand as well. So I think there's an immense beauty coming. And I think this art of contemplation is just preparing us for that blissful future. Because we'll be exploring bliss, the realms, layers, and nuances of bliss,

which is equivalent to the realms. and nuances of suffering. But they're just, they're different universes, right? And how do they connect? They connect through this kind of massive transition. How are you going to move from the universe of suffering to the universe of bliss is going to be a massive upheaval that allows us to make that transition?

So that's how I see life anyway, and death. What an answer. Yeah. So beautiful. I just, when you speak, I feel the infinite cosmic tapestry that's being woven by life and this, you know, how it's all interconnected from our first to our last breath. And so poetically, I love how you just put the interconnectedness of it all. And when you start to see that and start to see how a death is just the beginning for a new life and that we're all a part of that, then it releases a lot of that fear of, losing who you are, right?

Because you're not just a limited version of you that dies when your body goes. Which I think a lot of us, you know, can feel that on some level. And of course, it's a natural part, I think, of the journey of deepening that acceptance. Sorry, you've got to share something to you. It just came to me. It's part of your question. Like, the other day in a contemplation, I was, I read something that I had said, Because I've just created this book out, a friend of mine has edited, a book of all my YouTube videos over the last five or six years.

And I did do those out of my contemplations, but then, and then I forget them, right? So suddenly there's this beautiful book called Fragments of Light. And it's all my epiphanies and contemplations over the last five years. And I'd forgotten them all. So I was like opening it and going, wow, I'm reading it for the first time, as though, because I didn't know I'd said that. Anyway, one of them was about what was called the permanent atom, right? Which is from esoterics. And it's like the notion that there's one atom of our being that cannot be destroyed.

It's like it contains the soul, right? And it's the only atom that passes to the next, to the next, to the next, or whether it's going into another galaxy or wherever it's going and it's been alive forever and it will always remain alive forever. Anyway, I just loved that idea. And so I was contemplating the permanent atom. And what I saw was like it's the smallest thing in the universe. It's smaller than even those quarks and muons and things that quantum physicists postulate.

It's the smallest thing in the universe. It's infinitimally small. And I just love that idea that there's something that's so small that that's where it opens up. opens into eternity. So there's this part of us that, you know, has to pass through that, you know, when we have to drop everything to pass through that atom from one life to the next or from one realization to the next realization. And it's like a very narrow, tiny little neck.

I think it's why Christ said, you know, the eye of the needle and the camel. It's like that is the pathway between. memory of one life and the next or the memory or the forgetting when you come into the form and then the remembering when you come into the spirit again as this tiny tiny thing so you know worth contemplating and I remember Mother Julian this medieval mystics you know when she had this vision and and Christ put in her hand this this tiny thing it was tiny and and she saw this tiny like a chestnut she describes like a chestnut And she said, what is this?

And Christ said to her, that is everything that ever is and will ever be. And she was like, and she just held it in her hand, like this delicate little thing. And she just marveled at it. She was like, oh, my God, it's so delicate. It's like, oh my God, it's such a treasure. And it was like that. That was my contemplation. These are things you can't, you can only get there through myth, poem, you know,

some beautiful, numinous image. Yeah, because we're talking about things beyond anything. But anyway, thought I'd share that. Sorry, I interrupted you. No, that was so beautiful. I'm happy for that. That level of seeing the inherent interconnectedness with all life, again, as I was just sharing, it just creates,

alleviates so much of the tension and the suffering of the world of form. And then we get to play within the world of form. and without the deep attachment to thinking that it is us. And then I find the best things in life come to us when we're not attached to it, the outcome looking a certain way. You get to be surprised from the universal creative force that is coming through us. And what that looks like is just, it's a beautiful surprise. And it's much more fun to be surprised by life than to just get what we think we want every step of the way.

That would actually be a very boring existence. And isn't that why we forget? Because it's built in. We go, yeah, I'm going to forget before I land in this form. Because otherwise it's going to be really boring. I want to forget. Because I want to go through a process of remembering. Because that's exciting.

Layer by layer. Otherwise, if you had the omniscience, it's like you've seen the movie. Yeah. So why would you want to watch it again? Yeah. I want to watch one I haven't seen. It's like if we're just chilling in the realm of you, unity for all of eternity, start to ask what else is there, you know, and we fall into this

world of form and duality. And I think that if you look at what all of life is doing, it's in this constant state of evolution, right? And so it makes sense that we would incarnate into these bodies to forget who we are, to then see what else we can discover along the journey of remembering ourselves once again. And I think as we look at the macro scale of the whole species of billions of people doing this at once, the amount of new information that comes online and that process of evolution makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. We also have, you know, we've inherited an up-and-out philosophy slightly from the, again, from the mystics of the East. Bless them. Yeah. You know, this notion that Nirvana is like outside the form, you know, that we have to go up and up and sell it, and then we leave and then we leave this plane,

and that's the goal. The goal is to get out as quick as possible. Like, you can do it in this life. That's what they say. Like, you can do it in one life. If you meditate hard enough, you can be gone. You don't have to, you can leave this realm. And like, what?

I'm like, I don't want that. I'm like an adventurer. I'm like a celestial vagabond. I want to kind of, I want to, I want to be here and discover stuff. I want to see this place transform as well. You know, I, I want to bring some creativity here. and so, you know, I'm very suspicious of people that say this is my last life. And like, I don't think, I think if you say that, it isn't.

Interesting, yeah. I think if you said, oh, I really, really love it here. I so don't want to ever leave. Then that might be your last life. Because I think that's what you have to get to. You have to get to, like, loving it so totally. totally, you know, that you've kind of, you've loved yourself through it, you know, and then you've exhausted all life forms and possibilities.

You've been here so long, you've been, you know, you explored one quadrant of the cosmos in such depth that you're like, okay, I'm ready to move on to another quadrant somewhere else. Yeah. I love that a physicist, Roger Penrose, English physicist, looking at the background radiation, through these vast telescopes. They discovered some anomalies at the very edge of the universe, as far as they know, what they call the universe. And these anomalies are like no one quite knows what they are.

You know, they're almost like clouds, cosmic clouds of vast size. But they're kind of, they're made of dark matter, but they're there. And Roger Penrose said, he postulated, he's at the end, he's in his 80s now. So he's kind of gone into that poetic phase of his, you know, physicist. Physicism. And he said,

I wonder if they are the remnants of the last universe. Because you see back that far and you're looking at like time. You're looking back through time. And so he's saying, you know, it's a beautiful thing to hear a top physicist say, the remnants of the last universe left. And it just gave this, it suddenly opened up the whole of physics into that statement into, and it felt truth to me. It felt like, yeah, of course, you know, those are the dust of the last universe.

And so there's this notion of endless universes being created, you know, and being reborn in new iterations. And, yeah, I love that idea. It feels like it resonates with the eternal part of my vagabond nature. Yeah. Celestial Vagabond. I love that. Yeah. Put it on your business card. We have those anymore. Incredible. It's just, this whole conversation has been a beautiful tapestry and I've been loving all the different dimensions in which we've been going. As we start to move to transitioning into not podcasting, what the, is there anything else that you've been like really contemplating within your own personal practice or life that you'd like to share? I've been contemplating how I get out of this game in a way, not get out of it, but how I taper off. And I'm contemplating kind of...

And when you say this game. Yeah, I mean, you know, the Gene Keys, the wisdom. And like, I feel like as we approach, you know, year 2027, which is a big year in Gene Keys the world, because it's a transition period. I feel like there's a closing off of a phase for me, and I don't quite know what the phase beyond that looks like. And so I'm contemplating, like, how I wrap up my teachings. I do the last, you know, I'm writing my last big book now.

I know it's my last big book. Although I might write some kind of fun books that aren't, you know, they're a bit more mythic and from a different category, non-Genkeys. but so I'm kind of wrapping things up a little bit and I haven't really shared I'm going to share that with my team but I haven't really shared that with the world because I've laid out some large pieces of jigsaws

and there's a couple more left and so I'm kind of contemplating like how do I wrap this phase up in a bow and then move to a different phase in like five years and that's a really delightful contemplation And it's interesting because it's making me look at like business in a new way. And so that's an interesting contemplation because we design our businesses often,

well, we often don't design them. They just happen and they get bigger and bigger and bigger. So I'm kind of contemplating how do I design this business so that it stops in some way. Not that the gene keys stop, but that it kind of tapers off and then it becomes so simple that it doesn't need to keep growing. Right. So that, which is a really interesting contemplation. Like, it doesn't, I don't want it to keep growing. But I'd like the gene keys and the teachings to keep growing.

And I love people to keep expanding it. But I don't want to be doing this forever. Like, I'd like to kind of be free to travel the world and maybe talk to people like, you and not you know so anyway it's it's an interest you asked so i'm sharing like this is a really one of my edges at the moment um i want to be more available i kind of almost want to be this guy that says look come and see me and i'll serve you tea you know and i'll sit with you for a couple of hours and just be and i'll be your friend in that way um and i'll travel around just being and just having these lovely conversations and and the teaching side i kind of you know

i don't know there's a part of me that's just like ready to getting ready to embody it rather than have to teach it you know what i mean yeah these aren't really teachings in a way they're inspirations yeah yeah no it's beautiful i think that transition right like no matter what chapter of life we're in it has its season. It has its, you know, a transition at some point in what that looks like. And I see you as somebody very much so where your message is your life. Your life is your message. And that next evolution, I mean, just even picturing you being this individual traveling and being that for so many people. I mean, you already are. But, you know, devoting yourself more in that way is really beautiful.

And I find that your work has already found those that needed to find it. and it will continue to naturally find that unfoldment. As we start to wrap up here, this prophetic kind of state of 2027. And what message do you feel like is coming through you for those big wave surfers that are ready to really help lead and pioneer the way for a transcendent reality as we come upon a time in which there is going to be

a lot of motion in one direction or the other? Yeah, I mean, I said it the other day. It's like build relationships, build community, keep things light and simple, get yourself embroiled in too many complex things. Because we've got to live it. We've got to live the contemplative state so that we can absorb any crisis that comes, you know, and we have clarity of where to go, you know, and when to go. you know because we're going to need that and we're going to need to teach those who are younger who are coming in and create a space for them to you know because if they're going to inherit this very challenging time you know and they are us in a way you know we're some of us may come right back in and cycle back in and so we want to create you know places spaces communities where where these things are known you know, so that those people can kind of, they have somewhere to incarnate. You know, they can incarnate back into those communities. So while other ones are declining and falling away, and, you know, there are ones growing that have new principles and are bound together with, you know, higher philosophies and

deeper knowings and are embodied in this wisdom. So I think that that's like, we need to create that. fields. This is part of my mission with the gene keys, like create a field so that those future mothers, you know, who are going to give birth to these incredible children who are coming in, they have somewhere where they can be cared for, you know, and they can feel at home and they can feel recognized. Because I think, you know, as the mutation of this future human kind of comes online, those beings are going to feel different from us in some way. And they're going to need a space where they can feel recognized.

And it can't be the old paradigm systems. It's got to be something new and something light. So one can move easily if needed. It's like the way the Native Americans live. They can pick up a whole village in a few hours and move. And so in a way, we kind of need to have that essence. Not that we have to do that, but I think we need to be careful that we don't think

that we're laying down anything too solid in very volatile times. So I think there's a lightness, there's a playfulness, there's a sense of carrying on with our awakening, transformational work. We've got to do that. You can't not do that. And finding delight.

finding each other, you know, finding joy. I mean, it's the same as it's ever been, but perhaps we need to do it even more now. You know, and service, of course, service. Like, there's going to be a lot of suffering. There's going to be already massive migrants, you know. And, like, can we find ways to help those people in trouble? You know, like, I, that's something of really worthy contemplation.

How can we help those in suffering, you know, who live in different parts of the world? And is there something we can do or animals or creatures or whatever, you know, wherever our heart feels most drawn, like in the Gen Keys, we're developing programs in Uganda and stuff to, you know, based out of some of the Genkees' principles and the art of contemplation, to teach children to heal trauma and stuff like that. It's like just because we happen to know people who work in the world, schools in those areas.

And so you help in the tiny corner that you can help in. Or maybe it's a big corner. But that's, you know, then you feel like you're part of the solution as well as you do your inner work. And then something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still also exploring and stepping carefully forwards and like going, how are we going to,

what are we going to do next? I'm still also wondering that. Well, I think it's such a beautiful note to kind of wrap up on just that service to others and becoming a part of that flow, whatever that looks like and both how allowing your inner genius can express itself and whether you create something. For example, for you with the work that you've done and the text that you've created, that inherently is being a part of that flow. That is service to others. And then there's also like boots on the ground, you know, more tactually, you know, being places and doing things like that. but it can take many forms of expression. And I think the quickest way to get out of your own self-pity and self-struggle is to start giving in some form.

I mean, I'll end by just, I'd love to share. I look at my wife, right, who's a simple woman, right? Beautiful, I mean, sophisticated, but, like, lives a simple life. And she's a wildlife warden and a basket maker and works with her hands. And the way she impacts the world is, you know, is more than me in some way. She just rewilds the land around our garden, you know, and takes care of the, you know, the ants and the moths and the birds and the, you know, the vegetables. And is teaching me like this art of rewilding in terms of, you know, the other day a lettuce. appeared in the lawn, you know, like, she's like, look, there's a lettuce growing in the lawn.

You know, it just jumped there, you know, and everything's allowed to just jump and go and be where it wants. So it kind of looks higgledy-piggledy, if you know that word, a bit messy. Yeah. And, but it's abundant, you know, and it went from being like kind of more of a traditional garden to being this wild garden where more insects, more plants, more birds, more everything. And it's a tiny little corner of, of the world. but it's flourishing you know and that is as bigger impact as anyone is ever going to have you know if you can do it in a tiny corner you know who knows what you know what in that oasis of awakening that she's helped create like how how how how what impact that might have on the ecosystem

and on the people that come and go and myself and you know that's that's profound yeah yeah so it doesn't matter the scale doesn't matter. It's just you do it and you bring your love where you can. And you love it and you bring life. So beautiful. I often have made the analogy on the show that it doesn't matter necessarily what you do, but it's who you are while you do it, whether it's public speaking, podcasting or even basket weaving. And that your wife actually makes basket is a full circle moment for people that have been a long-time listener on the show. I love that. I would love to get a basket from her. a day. Okay, I'll talk to her. That's beautiful though. I love that. Thank you. That's such a beautiful

note to end on. And then as well, any final words is for anything that you have going on in the whole world of the Gene Keys and the Art of Contemplation, for those that have been tuning in, this book that is, I believe, 81 pages of beautiful reminders and pointers into what we've been diving into today. Check it out, the Art of Contemplation. We'll link everything down below, as we always do. And is there anything else you'd like to share with the things that you've gone on? Well, yeah, one thing is fun. Kind of a bit of fun is I'm putting out, I've put out with my friend Rosie Aronson, an amazing program called The Dreamark.

And it's about dreams and mastering dream realms. This is with the animal. Yeah, dream language and an animal codex with 192. I think it's the biggest kind of codex I've ever come across in terms of creatures. And they're kind of coded into the gene key. So it's kind of, it's a playful way of entering into. to a field of wisdom. And we're going to do an online, one of our virtual retreats in the autumn.

And so look out, check out the program, maybe even start it, because it's a big, you know, it's as big as the Gen Kee's Golden Path, if you know what I mean by that. So that's already a huge, you know, set of teachings. And it's taken us three years plus to create this dream arc. And it's, we call it the online program that gets. you offline and that's exactly what it does it triggers processes in your dream life and to get you out in nature it it's very provocative it invites you to stretch and do things you would probably not normally do in your life you know whether that's like you know going on a pilgrimage somewhere or

it invites you to to kind of stretch in lots of different ways so it's kind of playful and fun and it's got an oracular side built into it so you know two people will get the same experience it's magical. It enhances the right brain, intuitive. It really gives us a focus on intuition. You have to follow it intuitively. It's made up of symbols. So the choices you make in the program

are all based on your attraction to a field of symbols. You know, many of them are indigenous symbols. So you get seven symbols. Choose one. Click it. It leads to an invitation. And that invitation takes you somewhere in your life.

Love it. And so it's been built by a massive community of elders and indigenous people. And they're all built into the program online. So you can listen to them. You can write to them. You can and creatives and artists. And it's really rich. It's not like anything I've ever done.

But we're putting out a program later in the year. So anyone that's interested in a very creative dream level kind of wisdom field and a community that's growing around it, you might enjoy that one. Amazing. Yeah, and sign up to the Genekees Pulse. I don't know the Pulse. The Pulse.

Our Pulse, yeah. We call it the Pulse. Join the Pulse. It's like, it comes out every week, and it's not a newsletter. It's a love letter. And we put so much love into it. And every week you get the Genekee audio by me of the week.

Right. So this week, it's quintessence. you know and so there's a 25 minute little transmission of me reading quintessence or speaking what is quintessence and and then there's always a few other little videos that we link and stuff that here's what's going on to do so it's a way of staying connected into my world yeah and but we put a lot of love into it and we give a lot of beautiful you know sort of free things and yeah that's a great way of staying in touch with my world. Amazing.

Yeah, you can join it on the website, the Pulse, or when you get a pre-profile, you can tick that little box that you always untick because it's like, I don't want the newsletter. Actually tick that in this case, and you will get the Pulse, and it's not a newsletter. It's a love letter. It is a beautiful love letter. So we really put care into it. So a lovely way of staying in touch. Thank you, Richard, so much.

It, you know, part of what I love so much about this podcast, is the relationships like we're speaking to earlier that become the tapestry of our life and being able to foster those and cherish those and getting to meet you and get to know you more and more and like develop this beautiful friendship you know as just so lovely so I'm just so grateful for you in the work you're doing. I'm me with you I really am I think you're an incredible you know man doing what you're doing reaching many people in extraordinary ways so I want to really honor you for that thank you thank you means so much yeah So good. Well, thank you all for coming along on this journey of me doing my favorite thing,

which is this podcast, Know Thyself. Everything where you can find Richard and what he's got going on, will be linked down in the description below. And if you feel so called, it hit that subscribe button, join the family as we continue to know ourselves in the world around us at deeper and more profound levels every single week. All right, thank you so much. And until next time, it'll be well.