On Purpose with Jay Shetty - MADONNA: For the First Time Ever
Episode Date: September 29, 2025How do you find peace daily? What keeps you going in hard times? Today, Jay sits down with Madonna for a rare and intimate conversation that goes beyond her iconic career into the spiritual foundation... that has carried her through life’s greatest challenges. For nearly 30 years, Madonna has walked a spiritual path that has shaped her resilience, fueled her creativity, and defined her sense of purpose. Madonna opens up about what first drew her to seek deeper meaning, the practices that became her lifeline, and why she believes spirituality has been the true key to her strength, longevity, and fulfillment. Together, Jay and Madonna dive into themes of transformation, the search for meaning in suffering, the freedom that comes with radical acceptance, and the power of forgiveness to heal our deepest wounds. Madonna shares the moments that tested her most, from loss and betrayal to near-death experiences, and how each challenge became an opening for growth when she chose to see it through the lens of purpose rather than punishment. In the second half of the conversation, Jay and Madonna are joined by her longtime Kabbalah teacher, Eitan, for a powerful exploration of spiritual wisdom in action. They discuss why our struggles and inner battles are essential for growth, and how to reframe challenges as opportunities to reveal greater light. Eitan offers practical tools, from pausing and embracing discomfort to practicing “certainty beyond logic,” to help us find strength in life’s most difficult moments. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Build a Spiritual Practice How to Find Meaning in Suffering How to Escape the Victim Mentality How to Practice Radical Acceptance How to Forgive and Let Go How to Manifest with Consciousness How to Teach Kids Spiritual Awareness How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others How to Discover Your Soul’s Purpose Every one of us will face moments of doubt, loss, or uncertainty, but those moments are not the end of our story, they are invitations to grow into something greater. The challenges we experience are not punishments but lessons, guiding us back to our true selves. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast Explore the deep spiritual study of Kabbalah with Madonna’s new course, ‘The Mystical Studies of the Zohar’ together with her teacher Eitan Yardeni at www.kabbalah.com What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:44 Beginning a Spiritual Journey 02:41 Choosing Your Spiritual Path 08:26 Breath, Yoga, and Inner Peace 17:40 Do You Need Spirituality to Be Successful? 20:29 Channeling Art Through Spirit 24:56 Transcending Trauma and Pain 27:56 Life Beyond Money and Material Success 30:30 Motherhood as a Spiritual Calling 33:07 The Gift of Being Different 35:54 Teaching Kids Spiritual Awareness 40:37 Showing Up Through the Struggle 42:37 Facing the Enemy Within 48:54 Escaping the Victim Mentality 50:23 How We Abandon Ourselves 54:36 Breaking Free From Self-Pity 56:16 Manifestation with Consciousness 01:01:24 Finding Strength in Community 01:05:53 The Weight of Words and Actions 01:08:57 Letting Go of Hate and Grudges 01:19:44 The Wisdom of Kabbalah 01:21:40 How Madonna Discovered Kabbalah 01:27:25 Unlocking the Secrets of Life Through Spirituality 01:30:55 The Inner Battle With Toxic Thoughts 01:38:02 A Mother’s Deepest Fear 01:40:09 Learning to Accept Help 01:42:02 Freeing Yourself from Harsh Judgment 01:46:31 Four Steps to Inner Strength 01:53:13 Practicing Trust Beyond Logic 01:56:35 Finding Lessons In Life’s Pain 02:02:12 Releasing the Need to Control 02:04:06 Raising Spiritually Grounded Children 02:07:08 Why Overgiving Hurts Kids 02:10:01 The Dangers of Instant Gratification 02:12:06 What Is Your Soul’s Purpose? Episode Resources: Madonna | Website Madonna | Instagram Madonna | Facebook Madonna | YouTube Madonna | X Madonna | FlickrSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is an I-Heart podcast.
If you don't have a spiritual life,
you're never going to stop and ask any questions.
You're just going to plow through life.
And you're going to see everything that happens to you as just a random event.
I don't believe that anything is random.
I think everything that happens to us is meant to happen to us to teach us some kind of a lesson.
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty.
The one, the only.
Jay Shetty.
Madonna, welcome to On Purpose. I am so grateful to be here with you today. Thank you for the
honor and the opportunity. Thank you for happy me. I'm really, really happy to be with you after
lots of FaceTime calls. Yeah. And discussions about this conversation. We're finding to finally be
in person. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I wanted to start off by asking you don't do a lot of interviews.
We don't see you doing interviews, maybe even for the last nine, ten years, or give or take.
what's your intention for being here today why now why today well in the past i've usually done
interviews to promote my work whether that's music or a tour or film um but today i would like
to talk about my spiritual life and a spiritual path that i've been on for over 28 years this
wisdom has helped me navigate the opposite downs of life, for lack of a better expression.
People ask me a lot through the years, like, what is the reason you're still saying?
What is the reason you keep going?
Why have you not fallen by the wayside like other people?
Definitely a lot of my peers who are no longer with us, like what would you say is the key?
and I would say that is my spiritual life.
I absolutely would not be where I am or who I am
if I did not have that.
It's helped me enormously, as I said,
navigate the ups and downs of life.
So I feel like I would like to share that with people.
So that's really the point of I'm not here to promote a product
or I don't want anyone to buy anything.
I just, I want to share something with people that has pretty much saved my life.
That sounds dramatic, but it's true.
Yeah, it seems like it's something that's extremely meaningful to you
and a deep part of your life that often I feel you don't get to share in other spaces.
So even though it's been a part of your life for nearly three decades,
maybe you haven't shared parts of it before,
what would your life look like if you didn't find it?
I would believe that the physical world is all there is.
I would believe all the illusions.
And that would be my downfall.
And that is most people's downfall.
What does spirituality mean to you?
Because I think that word itself means so many things to so many people.
Well, yes.
I mean, a spiritual life or a spiritual path could mean a lot of things.
I know that you have a spiritual path.
And for me, it's not really about who's is the best.
or, you know, it's whatever works for you.
I've been studying Kabbalah for 29 years.
So since 1996, yeah.
It's a long time.
It's a long time.
And I'm not a frivolous person.
I don't suffer fools gladly.
If something, if I think there's something false about it or corrupt or not authentic,
I wouldn't have stuck around for so long.
I've had the same teacher for all this time.
I feel almost like it's my responsibility to share with people
because I feel like people need guidance.
People need enlightenment.
And for me, a spiritual life is having an internal life
because you know this, I'm sure.
You know, if we get caught up in the belief system
that our value in the world is based on people loving us
or other people's approval or how much money you have
or how many fabulous outfits you have
or how many followers you have on Instagram.
Those things don't make us happy.
Those things don't bring us peace.
So having an internal life and being able to look internally
and having some kind of practice,
whatever that might look like, your prayer, your meditations,
that the time you take out of every day to stop and take stock,
like contemplate, we live in a very busy chaotic world.
Lots of noise, lots of distraction.
I mean, how many times have you heard people say,
oh, you know, social media and like all the, you know,
people can't walk down the street without listening to music.
Everybody has to be visually stimulated all the time.
Like, there is no peace.
There's no quiet.
We're not comfortable.
being quiet with ourselves and looking inward and asking ourselves, why am I here?
What am I doing?
Or what is my intention and a specific choice I'm making right now, whether it's about my work
or the way I'm raising my children, decisions that I make about everything, really.
I have to ask myself.
And if you don't have a spiritual life, you're never going to stop and ask any questions.
You're just going to plow through life.
and you're going to see everything that happens to you as just a random event.
And I don't believe that anything is random.
I think everything that happens to us is meant to happen to us to teach us some kind of a lesson.
But the question is, are you aware enough?
Are you awake enough?
Are you interested enough to find out what that reason is?
Like, why did this happen to me?
What is my lesson?
I don't want to go through life
seeing everything that happens to me as random
but I also don't want to go through life as a victim
and I've had a pretty challenging life
and it's easy to fall into the trap
of feeling sorry for yourself or like being a victim
or you know why isn't this happening to other people
why is it happening to me?
Why don't I have what that person has?
I'm sure you know the expression comparison
is the killer of joy so you know it's like
you've got to get out of that game
you have to have a spiritual life.
You just have to.
You're reminding me of something beautiful that I came across called the third space theory.
Have you heard of it?
It's this idea that as humans, around 50 years ago, we had three spaces.
So we had work, we had home, and then you had a temple, a synagogue, a church, a community center, or a third space.
And the point of that third space, it's kind of what you're saying.
was a place that you could look back at work and home
and you could reflect on your life,
you could take stock, you could introspect.
But as time's gone on, what's happened is we lost that third space.
We stopped going to temple, church, community, whatever it may be.
A place of self-reflection.
And we ended up with working home.
And then after the pandemic, we lost work.
And so now we're in one space,
and we don't have a different vantage point to where we are.
anymore, which is what I think you're saying.
Go back on even one more step that, to me, is like a prison.
If you remove the spiritual life, spiritual practice, you remove the workplace, then you're
in the home, and then removed once more from home is you're looking at your phone, which
is even takes you out of home.
It's a great point, yeah.
So, like, where are you?
You're nowhere.
We're living in the virtual world.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're living in the virtual world, not even in the material world.
Yes, but a virtual, and a virtual world is not a bad world, but if you don't have consciousness, there's really no point to living.
Yeah, it's, yeah, so it's, it's interesting to think about that because I feel like everyone can relate to the idea that if we all had, we need physical spaces to sometimes make us do internal things.
Yes, I mean, some kind of ritualistic behavior has to happen.
What have been your rituals?
I'm intrigued.
I'm curious, what are your spiritual practices and rituals that have been so supportive and
emblematic of your journey that have kept you going at the times, as you said, there were so
many times you could give up or things could go wrong, or you kept pushing and they kept
you locked. What were they? What are they? Well, one really important thing is studying,
making time every week to sit down and study. I mean, you can study the bottom. The
Bible, you can study the poetry of Cahil Gibran, or you can study the Vedas, you know.
And you did that, right? You actually studied different traditions on your...
I mean, to be honest, before I discovered Kabbalah, I was looking for answers.
Why do you think that was? Why were you looking for answers?
Because I had everything that people would assume would give you happiness.
I had successful career, I had fame, fortune, monetary things, physical things, but I wasn't happy.
And I naturally sought out, well, when I was a dancer, I had a roommate.
She was a Buddhist, and she would get up and chant every day.
And so I was very intrigued by that.
Like nothing bothered her, you know what I mean?
Everything bothers me.
Everything bothers me.
I'm, you know, I'm a Leo.
I'm Italian.
I'm very dramatic.
I wouldn't say she was peaceful all the time,
but I was just struck by her confidence
and her knowingness that everything was happening for a reason.
She never got upset about things.
And this is in the beginning of my career
when I was living in New York and I was broke
and a lot of crazy things happened to me.
It's really scary, traumatic things.
And I would always ask her, her name is Marianna, I would always say,
why are you, like, never upset?
So I attributed that to her spiritual life, but it didn't speak to me.
And then later on, I started practicing yoga, Ashtanga yoga,
and my teacher, Eddie Stern, he still has a...
Love Eddie, he's great.
You know, Eddie?
Yeah, he's amazing.
I got quite caught up and competitive about, like, first series,
second, series, third series.
But one thing I noticed is that a lot of people would come into his,
his practice, his studio where he taught, and they wouldn't even do the poses.
They would just go and sit in front of the statue of Ganesh or light candles or prayer.
And I realized, and Eddie pointed it out to me because sometimes I would have injuries,
or I would be traveling, and I couldn't practice yoga.
And he'd say, look, are you breathing?
And I'd say yes.
And he said, you're practicing yoga.
So I realized that I was too, still too caught up in the physical poses.
He's like, no, you don't understand.
You're missing the whole point.
The poses are just something that you do to breathe through, to calm your nervous system down, and to bring you back to your center.
And that really spoke to me.
There was a big, now it was a painting on the wall of the yoga studio.
It says desire and detachment.
And I said, what does that mean?
And he said, well, of course, we want all the.
beautiful things in life. We want all the pleasures. We want all the happiness. We want
it all. There's nothing wrong with that. You can't be attached to it. Because then if you're
attached to it and you don't have it, what's going to happen to you? So I studied that for a while
and I studied Sanskrit. I had a teacher and, you know, I learned that the vibrations of the
letters, you know, had a calming effect on your nervous system and centered you and placed you
firmly rooted in the earth and all of that made sense to me but then again nothing happens by accident
but i was pregnant with my daughter lola my oldest daughter and i suddenly realized i was living in
i i suddenly realized i'm going to be responsible for another human being what am i going to teach
her i'm just i'm like a meteor like making my way through the you know the on this planet like
you know I have great survival instincts I have a great work ethic yes I'm very ambitious all of those
things but I was never like I was just knocking him down you know what I mean and not like looking
back like I'm going to be somebody because that's you know that's why I came to New York in the first
place I will never go back to the nobody life I had when I was a child growing up so
I definitely was fueled by an inner drive,
but I would not say that I was spiritual or conscious.
When I was pregnant, I suddenly realized I knew nothing.
And I was a slave or a victim of other people's opinions of me.
And I didn't have really, even though it looks like and looked like I was confident,
brave
audacious
whatever
you know
I
deep down inside
I was not
so
I was at a
dinner party
while you were pregnant
yeah
I was at a
dinner party
at my friends
in L.A
and there was a
woman sitting
next to me
and I knew her
vaguely
she's a costume
designer
she was a costume designer
her husband's a director
and she said
oh you should
come with me to class
And I said, what class?
I'm open to classes, by the way.
I love being a student.
So what's the class all about?
She said, there's a teacher there.
It's something called Kabbalah.
It's next to a synagogue.
And I was like, wait, so he's Jewish?
And she said, yeah, but it doesn't have anything to do with being Jewish.
It's just a belief system, not a belief system, like a philosophy about life that, you know,
you could learn a lot from.
And I said, okay, I'll go.
So I did.
And that's how I met my teacher.
And I literally would sit in the back of class for years.
Mostly men were in the class at the time.
But everything that he said seemed to make so much sense to me
and gave me courage to be who I am and who I meant to be
and made me actually think about intention and a real sense of purpose.
because my sense of purpose can't just be
I want to be rich and famous
or I want to be popular
or I want to sell a lot of records
because none of that lasts
but it wasn't until I went to class
that I actually started thinking about those things
so I just kept going
and here I am today
but you know motherhood
or being a parent is really what
made me start asking questions
that I most likely I should have asked them
sooner but I didn't
because I was just caught up in my self.
I love that story for so many reasons.
One of them being that my journey to my spirituality
had certain similarities in that,
not that I was pregnant,
so definitely not that one,
but I had a friend and friends
who were starting to get interested in spirituality,
and they invited me to hear a monk speak.
And I'd seen monks while I was growing up,
but I'd never really engaged with one
or really understood what they did or meant.
And I'm so glad I said yes to going along.
And I was very young.
I was 18, 19 years old.
I wasn't even seeking.
I was open and I was curious.
And to be honest, I was doing what everyone else was doing at that time
when you were 18, 19, 19 year old kid, like, you know, experimenting.
Experimenting and doing everything else under the sun.
But I'm so glad I went because now looking back,
I find that after meeting the monks that I met,
it gave my life a compass at a very early age that I'm so grateful for because it changed the
entire trajectory of my life. I can't imagine what I would have ended up doing in the same way as
you did. And it sounds dramatic, but it's true that without the group of friends that invited
me to go along and meet my teachers, who'd become my future teachers, I can't imagine what
life could be like. And are those teachers still your teachers? Yes, absolutely, still since that
time so it's been nearly 20 years now that that's meaningful yeah very meaningful and are your friends
that came with you still also studying or one of those one of those yes absolutely one of those friends
was my best man in my wedding and he studies under the same teachers still this day that's cool
yeah what about the woman who took me to class no okay no she doesn't stick with it are you still
in touch with her at all or not yes i am sometimes yeah yeah it's it's amazing to hear that you
had this ambition and this drive to become successful and at the same time there was this spiritual
calling that was almost happening simultaneously how did you reconcile the two when to the external
lie they could look very opposite how did you actually see them like look weird you mean not weird in
the sense of i think a lot of people assume that spirituality and success don't go together a lot of people
would think that's absurd those are narrow-minded people i mean you
need to be spiritual to be successful. Success is having a spiritual life, period. It's interesting
because I had this boyfriend some time ago and after we broke up, we saw each other years later
and I was telling him about Kabbal. He's like, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense because you grew up
as a Catholic. I know how religious your mother was. And I was like, no, no, that's not what it is
at all. It's got nothing to do with religion. Everybody has to find
the path that speaks to them and resonates with them.
But I do think it's important to have one.
And I dare say if you didn't have a spiritual path,
you wouldn't be as successful as you are today.
I will make that assumption in your work,
in your marriage, in your friendships, all your relationships.
It honestly, it sounds like a really, like a cliche,
your spiritual life even.
It's like the reason, but it's just got a bad rap.
You know, you like 100% can have a spiritual life and be successful.
I wouldn't be here if I didn't have one.
Let's talk about how your spiritual life has impacted your different roles because you played so many roles in life.
And let's start with artists because that's what the majority of our viewers and our audience will connect with you on.
Your spiritual life has directly impacted your art.
When did you feel it was first introduced to your art?
How was it introduced?
How would you use it to inspire your art?
About a year after I started studying, I made my Ray of Light album.
And that is 100% influenced by my study, my spiritual practice.
Like a door opened for me.
And I suddenly, and maybe I was spiritual without knowing it unconsciously.
And some things happen, I mean, often things would happen
where I would have visions or I would get ideas.
and I would manifest them.
And if you're too busy, just sit for a moment and think, wow, that's so amazing what just
happened.
I channeled that.
Like, you don't actually know that you're tapping into another dimension until you start
paying attention to the idea that there is more to life than you and I sitting in this room
on a chair.
Like, if you believe in energy and you believe in universal laws and you believe in quantum physics,
like the possibilities are endless and miracles the idea of miracles is is not a foreign concept
it's not a lucky strike you know what I mean it definitely affected my work I became conscious
of the fact that I was and am I am channeling light that's what I'm doing it I don't own it
it's not mine I am a vessel for it I'm a vessel for this light wit
in turn, my goal is to share with other people.
Now, I can do that through my work.
I can do that through my music.
I can do that through my relationships with people.
I can do that as a friend.
I can do that as a mother, as a parent.
So you realize that it informs every part of your life.
But the one really important thing,
well, one of the many important things that my teacher taught me
was that I am not the owner of my talent.
I am the manager
as long as you keep that consciousness
and you're aware
people who run to say
I did that
that was my idea
I mean
you created an opportunity
for yourself
by allowing yourself to be a vessel
for this
call it what you like
magic
I think it's magic
I think when you channel
artistic ideas and you have creative visions
it's magic
And when you think it, overthink it, or you start thinking about how much of that you own, you stop it.
That's why a lot of, I would say, this is my observation, that a lot of people have these great kind of meteoric careers, and they rise up, and they take the world by storm, and they influence the masses, and then they just, something happens, and they can't handle.
the light and they're not even aware of it and it in a way they fly too close to the light
and it burns them yeah that's that and i would say that's really true about my many of my peers that
i had i was lucky enough to know them um whether that's prince or michael jackson or or um
jean michel basquiat the painter like these are like people who had just were
channeling light.
Channeling, but I also don't think they understood
the concept of what they were channeling
and that there has to be some kind of restriction,
there has to be some kind of filament,
there has to be, you know, like people like to take drugs, right?
Why? Because it makes, they're actually channeling light
where they're, you know, tripping on acid.
But it's light with no restriction.
and then that's what kills you or burns you out.
That was never your path to the life.
Oh, no, no, no.
No, thank God, because everybody was being around me.
What kept you away from it when everyone else was doing it?
The universe.
God, honestly, people ask me that all the time
because I grew up when I came to New York, when I was broke,
and I had no friends, nowhere to live, nothing really.
what protected me from, you know, I was held up at gunpoint, I was robbed, like, I was
raped, like all these horrendous things happened to me, but I just feel like I've always had
a guardian angel. It just, it took me a minute to figure out that, how blessed I was, and that
the universe was protecting me and looking out for me.
Was that a realization that came after? Because, I mean, when you're talking about it?
After what?
Well, when you talk about the events of, I mean, getting raped, being held at gunpoint,
these are extremely traumatic, stressful.
I mean, the most extreme tragic events people could go through in their life, the realization
you're sharing today, how long, talk to me about the journey of having that experience
and then getting to the realization you just mentioned because I'm assuming it's not immediate.
No.
And what's through that arc?
Well, first, there's just my determination that I think I was so, I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York City, I was like, whatever happens to me is better than what my life was.
So I'm sticking around.
I'm not going back.
But you see, the worst things that happened to you are the best things that happen to you.
Because if that had, if my childhood hadn't been what it had been, if I hadn't lost my mother, if I hadn't had.
had all of these challenges as a child, I would have thought of my home as a place of comfort
and I would have gone back. But I didn't, so that's what kept me going. And then, you know,
there are challenges in my career, even though I was very successful. I went through many
periods of time where the press was speeding up on me. I was demonized. What kept me going?
I don't know. Like I said, guardian angels, but again, I wasn't conscious of it until I was
pregnant, then I started to see, like, everything started to, like, come into focus for me.
But it's not, I make it sound like it's an easy thing, like, studying, like, the more you know,
the harder everything is. And the more enlightened you try to become, the more conscious you try
to become, the more tests you have, the more, you know, it's like, why? Like, like, the more
you know, the more you realize you don't know, and the more you aspire to become.
conscious, the more you feel like everyone's trying to drag you down and take you out of it
and convince you that it's not true or, you know, the tests.
Yeah.
And, you know, life is a test, let's face it.
Yeah.
I was thinking about, as you were saying that a bit earlier of managing that balance between
recognizing you are a manager of the light and you are not the light itself.
I was thinking of this story about Marcus Aurelius
where he was followed around the Roman town square by an assistant
and the assistant's only job was to whisper in his ear,
you're just a man, you're just a man.
Because people would praise him
and people would shower him with accolades and compliments
and the assistant would remind him and it said that that was done
so that he could always remain grounded.
I can imagine for you to not fall into the trap
of believing you're the light
is extremely difficult
when you're one of the best-selling artists of all time
when you, like you said, you name the company
there's only the Beatles, yourself, Michael Jackson,
that sit in this esteemed group of individuals
who've achieved incredible things.
How did you hold on to that beautiful belief
that you're not the light
and you're a manager of the light
when anyone else could easily believe
they were. By continuing to have a spiritual practice, a spiritual life, by continuing to study,
like always pulls you back to center. Were you able to keep it up when you were like on tour
or when you're building you album? Absolutely. Wow. I drove everyone crazy. My manager's like,
why can't we have shows on this night? Or why are you late? Because I'm praying. Like what?
You know what I mean?
People who are only focused on, absolutely, pray before every show,
but people who are focused on making money are definitely not focused on spiritual life.
You have to have your feet in both worlds.
You literally wouldn't do a show on a day because that was your study day.
Yeah.
Or I would be late.
Yeah.
I get a lot of shit for being late.
Walk me through.
Honestly, it's really hard to balance being a parent, having work, having a spiritual life.
You're constantly juggling.
There's not a lot of time to rest.
And if people don't recognize that, then they're just going to look at you in a very 1% superficial way and go, you're late.
It's like, but you don't understand what I was doing before I became late.
I want to talk about how spirituality affected you, your role as a mother.
Obviously, you said that becoming a mother yourself is actually what even began that
enlightenment. It kind of began that journey. It felt like a responsibility. It felt like a moment of
change how is well my mother died after giving birth to all my brothers and sisters so literally like
the year after my youngest sister was born my mother died so i i always equated motherhood with death so
and i also equated it with i could see she was not happy i could see she wasn't living the life
she wanted to live i equated it with death i or i equated it with no freedom or i equated
with no life except taking care of other people.
And so when I came to New York and I started my career, I was like, no, this is not
for me.
I don't want to be a mother.
I don't want that.
I wasn't saying it out loud, but I was thinking of that.
Like, why would I give all of this up?
I worked so hard for it.
Well, one day I found that I was pregnant, and I had been running away from it for so long.
And I wouldn't say I was in a stable relationship, but I loved her father.
So I wasn't really thinking it through, but I was like, okay, this happened to me.
So it's meant to happen to me.
So, but honestly, what, what the hell am I going to teach my daughter?
Like, how am I going to guide her?
I've just been living this, you know, completely selfish life, really, that, you know, turned out good
in many ways, but in reality, I was doing everything for my own self. And I also kind of thought,
well, you know, okay, I'm pregnant it. So I'm going to be a mother. So I'll figure it out. I'll
work it out. But honestly, I was scared shitless. And I wasn't in a traditional relationship. And
once again, like, this is the story of my life. I keep binding myself in unconventional or
untraditional or unusual or unfamiliar places and I have to keep adjusting and I say that I would say
that that is also the reason that I am still here and still going and have the strength to fight
things or to survive because being too comfortable in life I would say is the downfall of a lot of
people who started off taking chances, taking risks.
Is that something success does to you, do you think, where in the beginning you take risks
and you get out for you?
I feel like that happens to other people, not me.
I think I've always felt like an outsider in life.
I felt like an outsider growing up in Michigan.
I felt like an outsider when I came to New York.
I felt like an outsider when I moved to L.A.
and had my Hollywood life.
you know, I always felt like I did when I was in high school.
I don't fit in.
And not fitting in is what saves you.
And that, you know, studying Kabbalah.
Nobody else was interested in it, not my friend group.
And if I would speak about it to people, they'd be like, oh, that's really interesting.
Having a spiritual life isn't necessarily going to make you popular.
But if you're a conscious person searching for truth, then it's going to be interesting.
Like I'm interested in your spiritual path, your spiritual life.
I want to know what you do, what it does for you.
I want to know how you do it because I'm curious.
And curiosity and being an outsider and those are the things that actually save you
even though it's not supported in our society.
Like to think outside the box, to take the road less traveled by,
to not be so concerned with approval, public approval.
And now we live in a world where everyone follows algorithms,
and algorithms are the opposite of taking chances.
They are the opposite of being unique.
They're the opposite of spiritual life.
They're the opposite of consciousness.
That's why artificial intelligence cannot duplicate consciousness.
it can duplicate doing things
following formulas
but it can't duplicate consciousness
so now have we gotten really off the same
I love it there
it's great to be in your stream of consciousness
and on that point I'll get back
but I often get asked the question right now
when I'm on panels of
do I ever believe that AI will have a soul
and my response is always
I just hope that the people
who are building AI have a soul
because ultimately it's becoming a reflection of whatever's inside of us.
But I digress.
Going back to how, gone, you're going to say something.
No, you're right.
Yep.
The people who make it.
But are they?
Yeah, that's the most important part.
That's the scariest part.
Yeah, the intention and the purity.
Intention and consciousness.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just repeat that like a mantra.
Consciousness is everything.
Consciousness is everything.
But a lot of people don't even know what that is.
When you became a mom and you're trying to teach your children about, I guess, I'm assuming you wanted to pass some of these teachings on.
Yeah.
I mean, they grew up learning it and studying it, studying or listening to me, study with my teachers or listening to other people.
And they would bounce back and forth between thinking it was silly or something weird that mom does.
But I see that it has impacted all of them.
What makes you see that?
work? Because they study. Not all of them, but I feel like my children who have a spiritual
life are happier than the ones who do not. But obviously they could start at any time. It could happen
I'm not, you know, there's no coercion and spirituality. It's like if you, either it speaks to you
or it doesn't. Yeah, I remember my dad was trying to get us to do things for so long and you've rejected
it so hard because. Yes, well, that's the other thing. Children always reject their, their
parents, the path they follow, their belief systems, they think it's stupid, and then they
come back around a little bit.
Totally.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's that famous quote that says, the day you realize your parents were right,
your kids are telling you that you're wrong.
And I think it's an often common experience that people have.
Yeah.
How did Kabbalah impact your, and your spiritual practice impact your role as a daughter?
Because like you said, you lost your mother when you were five.
To a certain extent, I resented my father growing up because I felt like he wasn't present for us emotionally.
He did have a lot of responsibilities, and he's a deeply Catholic person, but I felt like he followed his spiritual path, or he followed Catholicism because that's how he was raised.
That's how it was done.
When I was growing up, if I wanted to ask a question about why do we do this, why are we genuflecting, why are we receiving the body and blood of Christ?
Why is, my father didn't have an answer.
He'd just say, that's what is written.
And what drew me to Kabbalah was that I could ask questions, and there were answers.
And questions were invited, which is the opposite of how it was brought up.
So I looked at my father as kind of like a religious robot, you know what I mean?
Not that he's not a good person, but I didn't want to be a robot.
and especially having a spiritual life,
I started to see my father as a human being
and see that he was a human that made mistakes
and that he did the best with what he was taught,
what he was given.
When those cylinders start clicking in your head,
you start to have a lot more compassion,
not just for your parents,
but for all people who don't see life the way you see it
that you don't agree with, it brought me to a place where I could have more compassion for him.
I mean, that seems like a really big gift to have the understanding.
And I could agree, I think spiritual context creates so much compassion when you are able to zoom out
and look at someone's life.
Like, I remember the moment I really had compassion for my dad was when I visited the home he grew up in,
which was this room, I mean, I can't even compare it to this.
His home was like probably just from here to here, like his entire home.
And they shared a bathroom with 20, 30, and families.
Yeah.
And we went outside.
I was nine years old.
We're in India and there's cockroaches around us in Pune.
There's cockroaches around his home.
There's bats in the, you know, and it's just like, and inside.
And I was nine years old.
and I couldn't believe that, you know, that's where my dad grew up.
And it was almost like something clicked where I was like,
unless I saw that, I wouldn't have had that experience
because it was always easier to assume that their life.
Yeah, well, that's the thing.
Like I say to my kids all the time, like, you're judging me by the chapter you arrived in.
Like, this is not how my life has been.
And it's really hard for kids to see that.
Yeah.
Yeah, going there was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.
because it's what you're saying.
I was able to go to a previous chapter in someone's life.
And even though my childhood, we weren't well to do
or we didn't have anything, but we didn't have a lot.
Going to see that, I was like, oh gosh,
my life is a million times better than this.
And having that context was huge for me.
I want to hear about how you were able to apply these principles
in the difficulty of the big things you're talking about
because whether it's reconnecting with our parents,
it's, whether it's recovering from being raped, whether it's dealing with these challenges
you've dealt with, as you said, it doesn't happen overnight, it's not easy, it is the level
of study and work.
But talk to me about the emotional journey of shifting from a victim to whatever you would
call this on the other side, because it would be very natural for anyone to feel that way.
I want to hear about the emotional journey and the spiritual journey you went on, what
some of the steps or stages that you saw that if anyone who's listening or watching can
recognize and potentially relate to you. The first thing is you're suffering all the time. If you don't
have a spiritual life, like you're just suffering all the time. And you really think that whatever
is happening to is like something that's never going to end. And you drew the wrong card.
That's how you feel, yeah. That's how I used to think. And even now, since I've been studying,
There's been times where I've been really challenged and really suffered in certain situations.
And I, if I didn't have a spiritual life, I don't know how I wanted, you know, there were moments in my life where I wanted to cut my arms off.
I wanted, I actually contemplated suicide.
And that probably sounds really weird coming from me because I'm not that, I'm not emo, you know what I mean?
But I was like, I can't take this pain anymore.
but as soon as you understand that what's happening to you is a challenge that you are
karmically meant to experience and learn from and evolve to a higher level of consciousness
then you can look at that event that experience as a lesson and not punishment
what pain at the time pushed you to that place of potentially wanting to take your own life
I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not in the blame game.
That's the thing.
I used to be that way.
And, uh, I used to always want to seek revenge, you know, somebody did, to be wrong.
Um, or I would pronounce loudly, oh, well, you know, they'll get their own karma.
Well, whatever, you know what I mean?
And even knowing about karma doesn't mean you're a grown up.
It doesn't mean you're not being a victim.
But I would say probably one of the most painful moments in my life
where I honestly couldn't see the forest for the trees
was when I went through a custody battle with my son.
And I, you know, even though my marriage didn't work out,
I mean, a lot of people's marriages don't work out.
They marry their own people.
They're not aligned.
They're not meant for each other.
someone trying to take my child away from me was like they might as well just kill me
that's really how I was thinking and I was on tour at the time so I had to go on stage every night
I would just be lying on the floor in my dressing room sobbing I really thought it was like
it was the end of the world I couldn't take it I just couldn't take it um but thank God I don't
feel that way anymore. And I had to keep, you know, studying, like continuing my studies and continuing
on my spiritual path, like, helped me to understand that, you know, the enemy is within.
Talk to me about that. You know, lots of people do lots of bad things and make a lot of bad
choices or make choices that cause other people pain, suffering, or chaos or whatever. But at the
end of the day, I needed to learn some lessons. And I can see that with a benefit of hindsight,
but I couldn't see it at the time. And also, I was abandoned as a child by my own mother. And
so losing a child, it was like life repeating itself. I couldn't accept it. And so it caused
me a lot of suffering. And not being able to accept things causes all of us a lot of suffering.
So, yes, and now, you know, I'm happy to say that I'm really good friends with my son.
But I couldn't see it then.
I really thought it was the end of the world.
So, you know, thank God I had a spiritual life.
Was the lesson radical acceptance?
Yeah, exactly.
It took me a long time, actually, several years.
radical acceptance is just accepting that what is happening to you
is meant to happen to you and that you're going to be okay
I mean it's not an instant thing there's no such thing as an instant thing
there's no way we're going to escape suffering even if we grow up with wealth and
privilege and you know it didn't grow up in a small room you know our challenges and our
suffering is going to come to us in a different way I can give
you another example of radical acceptance, and that is, and this is something that my teacher
shared with me. About a year and a half ago, I was rehearsing for my tour, a tour, and I got
a bacterial infection, and I, one minute I was alive and dancing around, and the next
minute, I was in the ICU unit of a hospital, and I woke up from being unconscious for four
days. I got out of the hospital. They took me off of, you know, the ventilator, I started to
breathe on my own. And I had something, it's called sepsis, and it's like, it can kill you.
Yeah, that's really bad. And everybody recovers at a different rate. And so, you know, I've always
seen myself as superwoman. So I was like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to, this is going to, I'm going to
kick this. I'm going to be good. I'm getting back into rehearsals. And I had no strength. I had no
energy. I couldn't get out of bed and I didn't know when it was going to end. And I used to
talk to my teacher all the time. And he's like, the sooner you accept what's happening to you
and that you don't know when it's going to end, the sooner is going to end. That made so much
sense to me. And of course it did. But I mean, I've heard some people never recover from it,
completely never recover and have their like full health again so again it's the same idea
same concept like if you sit around feeling sorry for yourself or what woe is me or poor me or
this is like I don't accept it I will not accept it well then you're just going to be swimming and
suffering you're reminding me of something I read in a it's not a spiritual book but it has a similar
message. It's called Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. And he talks in this book about how when soldiers
were out at war, a lot of them wanted to believe they'd be back by Christmas. And there were the
others that accepted that they had no idea when they were going to get home. And he talks about
how that those who accepted that they had no idea when they were going to get home were actually
happier and were able to endure what they were going through a lot easier.
then those who hoped they'd get back on Christmas and then didn't.
Yes, it's like the Victor Frankel book.
Yes, same concept.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's such, it's, when I hear it from those really extreme scenarios,
you're like, wow, if Victor Frankel can think that, you know, in the experience that he had,
you go, okay, well, and Edith Eager with the gift.
And you go, wow, like, yeah, if you can have that experience there, then there must be some truth to that.
Because how could you accept that when you were going through the worst?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's really, really tough.
Going back to your experience of that, what would you say, because you mentioned karma there
and this idea of choices we make and lessons we need to learn, and karma almost being this
experience of learning the lessons, how do you see karma, how do you define karma from your
learnings and studies and let's stop there and then i'll ask the second question after that
my personal understanding is that our souls choose the lives that we are born into
the circumstances we are born into that our souls are perfect but then we're born into a life
which is one challenge after after after the next and that we our journey is to
navigate and to like see that each challenge that happens to us is our
karmic destiny it's energy it's the law of it's quantum physics it's cause and
effect whatever's happening to me that might be uncomfortable is obviously meant to
happen to me to teach me a lesson and if I don't learn that lesson at that point
I'm gonna it's going to come up again and again and again until I learn it
and accept that it's a lesson, not a punishment.
So that's how you get out of victim mentality also.
What was the lesson that kept repeating for you
and took you a bit longer than you would have liked to learn?
What was the one that kept showing up?
Betrayal or abandonment.
Sometimes they go hand in hand.
But it really kept me.
I saw a lot of people, or I felt and experienced that I was constantly being either abandoned or betrayed.
So that kept me in a state sometimes often, like feeling sorry for myself.
I was stuck in a place of blaming others and not taking responsibilities for, well, how did I bring this upon myself?
Or why asking the question, well, why is this happening to me over and over again?
I need to learn something.
I think everybody, if they think about it,
what is the thing that always comes back to you?
Like, for everybody it's something different, obviously.
I think the abandonment thing was the greatest lesson to,
that I could teach me, that I could stop being destroyed by it
or paralyzed by it, was to think of all,
Like, how am I not showing up for other people?
How am I abandoning other people?
How am I abandoning myself?
How long have I been not listening to myself?
My inner truth, my inner voice, yes.
And we all say goodbye to our inner selves at some point or another
until something wakes us up.
Push has to come to shove for everybody.
There's just no way to escape it.
So that's something that is a concept that you have to get your head around.
There's no running away from being tested.
There's no running away from experiencing pain, suffering, whether it's physical or emotional.
I mean, and that obviously that takes life experience and living and, you know, going,
everything's going well for me.
I'm so happy.
Everything's great.
Oh, no.
this is like this is a failure people are writing negative shit about me like you know or this
relationship ended or this person cheated on me or this you know like all these things that
happened to you rejection like and then you go and you go no I'm not happy if you're going to go
life like being a slave to these like ups and downs you're just going to be like I don't know
how you can last, obviously. I mean, it's obvious to me. I don't know if it's obvious to you or
anybody who's watching this, but I don't know how we can maintain our sanity. And especially now,
I mean, when people lived simpler lives and we didn't see what was going on in the world,
and we didn't, like, we weren't so connected like we are because of technology and the internet,
whatever um it's hard not to get like anxious or start blaming or taking sides or feeling you know
what i'm saying yeah i loved i loved what you said this one line will stay with me for a long time
i really really thought it was beautiful you said we all say goodbye to our inner selves at some
point and and that really landed because that's why it feels like
We're coming home to ourselves when you, and I think everyone who's listening or watching,
can, if they've started their spiritual journey, they've started their reconnection journey,
they know what that feeling's like where it's like, yeah, wait, when I left myself,
and now I'm coming back to myself.
Yes, I always say, what was I thinking before I was thinking?
Right.
I don't even know.
So, I was just thinking about myself.
but ironically and paradoxically when you're just thinking about yourself and consume with yourself
you're actually not connected to yourself at all you know what I mean yeah when so how did how does it
change now when you go through betrayal or you go through rejection or any of those things that
you talked about how do you process it differently now with your spiritual practices than you
did before what's the different experience you have of it well I spend less time feeling
sorry for myself, being a victim, blaming, and more time thinking, okay, why did this happen
to me? What's the lesson? I mean, I go to that sooner than I did before. What's the difference
between self-blame and accountability? Because I feel a lot of people fall into the trap of,
now you don't go and blame other people, but you blame yourself and you go, I messed up, I should have
chosen right, I should have done this. Okay, well, self-reflection and acknowledging and being accountable
for your behavior is not the same as feeling guilty.
That feeling guilty is just you're consumed with your ego.
Shaming yourself.
Yeah.
So you're not going to get anywhere with that.
It just stops any kind of growth from happening.
It's pretty amazing to say that you can speed up to that point of asking yourself
that question of what can I learn from this.
I mean, that's the ultimate question.
Yeah.
And believe me, it's not something that stays with me all the time.
It's like sometimes I forget.
And I'm like, I'm doing this again.
I'm doing it again.
I'm falling back into a familiar pattern, yeah.
But if you don't know, then you're not, like, it's important to know, again, not beat up on yourself.
Well, okay, I made a mistake.
What can I learn from it?
Swallow your pride.
Tell your ego to shut up, basically.
You mentioned the word manifesting earlier and channeling and being a vessel.
and I wanted to ask you because manifesting becomes very popular in the world today as a concept.
It's at least out there. People understand the word. Now when people would look at your career,
they would assume you've manifested incredible amounts of success for yourself,
incredible amounts of wins and all the rest of it. Talk to us about your process of manifestation.
What is it actually look like? If you're manifesting things and you're not
conscious that it's a gift from the universe, from the light, from the creator, whatever you
want to call it.
If you're not aware of that and you're not conscious, then, okay, you invented something.
Great.
You created this thing that now is selling billions, but everything becomes finite when
you're not manifesting with the consciousness that you are...
channeling something you don't own it so that's a big thing that's the key part yeah sure so
whatever if i have a successful show if i have successful if anything happens to me successfully
like it's perceived as a success in the outside world i just say you know that's i i how blessed am i i manifested that
with the help of God.
I didn't do it on my own.
I do nothing on my own.
And if you think you're manifesting on your own,
you're like an ostrich with your head in the sand,
and there will be an end to whatever you're manifesting.
So if someone desires something,
they've got to recognize that it's not their hand.
It's something that they're willing to become.
I mean, it requires work to be conscious. It requires work to see that you're channeling something
and being a vessel for something. So you do have your part in it, but you're not on your own. That's the
point. And a lot of us feel like I'm going to do this. When I do this, I'll get this. And when I get
this, then I will be this person. Right. But that's desire for selfish reasons. You know,
manifesting success is whenever you want something for the sake of sharing when you want something
just for yourself like I'll be happy when I have 10 Bugatti's and a mansion in every major city
and I'm the brand ambassador of Louis Vuitton no offense to Louis Vuitton just throwing that out there
but you know what I mean like those things like really make people happy but it's it's short-lived
And sooner or later, everybody comes to that realization anyways.
It's just whether it's sooner or later.
And these are the things.
I talk about this in our studies.
Let's get back to why I'm here,
and my intention is to share my spiritual life with people.
We talk about in our studies,
we talk about manifesting,
and we talk about being a channel.
And, you know, I share in one of the studies I talk about,
writing my first song, for example, and how I taught myself how to play the drums,
and then my friend, my boyfriend at the time, was in a band, and he taught me how to play
guitar, like just simple chords. And when nobody was around, I would start playing with all
the instruments and start without thinking, without any, like, I'm going to be this or I'm going
to be that. Let me just, I just sat down and wrote a song for the first time. And I was very
conscious at that moment after it happened, where did that come from? How did that happen? I didn't grow up
with musicians. I didn't grow up with songwriters. I didn't have a goal to be that. Where did it
come from? And so when you start like opening your eyes to that, where did, how did that happen? Where did
that come from. Then you see
you see the
possibilities, you see the magic
of the universe of life
and you see
that, you know, that was
a gift. Some
angels showed up in my room
and, you know,
what am I going to do with that gift?
So these moments
happen to you throughout life. They happen to everybody.
Whether you're saving someone's
life or
or you have this incredible idea for some
life-saving invention, you know what I mean?
We're all blessed with those moments
and it's really, the important thing
is to acknowledge where that came from.
That's really manifesting.
I love that.
That's my favorite explanation
and manifestation I've ever heard.
Truly, it really is because
I think what often happens
in substitute of what you said is
we have an idea and then we try and manufacture that set of inputs and outputs again to get that
again and then it doesn't work and then we're confused because like wait a minute last time I did this
and did this and did this and I got this and now I'm trying to do it again and then you get stuck
because now you think you can't do it but the reality is that's just a very functional way
of looking at something that's far beyond input, output, and manufacturing.
You can't manufacture to manifest.
It doesn't make sense.
Nope.
Yeah, I really, really like that.
I really, really appreciate that definition.
And I think that's going to help a lot of people because I think the way it's being talked
about right now is just being, be clear about your goals and be really clear about what you want.
I mean, that's important, too.
Say out loud what you want out of life.
that is important
but you're in a partnership
that's really what's important to remember
and we become our environments as well
so we want to surround ourselves with people
with like-minded individuals
and if you are around people
who also are attaining
to reach a higher level of consciousness
or want to know the deeper meanings
of life or want to look inward and
figure out what their
karmic destiny is or even take into consideration the idea of karma i mean you need that also because
if you don't have that support system then you can also fall back into the trap of recreating formulas
that work or um trying to capture some magical moment and make it magic again and that's just our ego
taking over and telling us you know i did that i did that i can do it again yeah yeah and you
can't.
One of my favorite ways of thinking about it,
especially when you said it's a partnership,
is when we look at the universe,
everything's always serving.
So the sun's providing light and heat.
waters obviously giving us life oxygen exists trees are giving us shade and fruits and flowers and so in order
to really be in partnership with the universe one has to want to serve because everything is designed
to serve and give and everything's designed to give and serve and provide and so when we're not
serving we're actually acting against the universe yeah because everything in the universe is designed
simply to give where we're wired for generosity but educated for greed and when that juxtaposition comes
up against itself it just creates friction it's like we all feel better when we do something for
someone else absolutely we all feel more joy when you take care of someone in need more than if you
did it for yourself and the science and the research backs up as well this isn't some woo-woo spiritual
idea no it's absolutely the truth but it's amazing how our conditioning and education is so the opposite
it that we all believe that every man for himself yeah yeah yeah that's the statement no how much
unconditioning does it take for us to lose the every man for himself mindset what does that look like
in your spiritual practice and journey especially and not fall back into that trap you mean to continue
to have a spiritual life spiritual practice to study i love how simple it is to stop every you know
whether every day, once a week, people don't have some kind of ritualistic moment in their
life. Like I said, whether it's every day or a few times a week, like what's going to stop you?
You know what I mean? You have to have that moment where you're thinking about what you've done,
thinking about what you'd like to do, thinking about what, you know, have I capitalized on
the opportunities that have come my way, not monetarily, spiritually.
Like, what did I do to help someone?
What have I done for others?
I mean, that's really the only way you can be successful in life.
What were you trying to channel when you were creating in your music
and what were you trying to do to help people?
Well, in the beginning, I just wanted to be somebody.
I just wanted to be somebody.
like I wanted to have a voice.
I wanted to make a difference in the world,
but I wasn't clear about what that meant.
Now I'm clear about what it means.
What is it?
What does it mean today?
That everything I say has weight and gravity
and that words are powerful
and actions are powerful.
And I always ask myself,
why am I doing this?
Why is this song important to me?
Why is this performance important to me?
Why is this conversation we're having right now
important to me that's really the difference is like having intention and consciousness we're
really like I'm repeating myself over and over again I can't think of other words that capture that
but self-awareness self-awareness doesn't really do it because self-awareness kind of implies like
selfishness you know what I mean a day at the spa not that that's not something to be enjoyed
I could I could use a day at the spa right now yeah sure my roof
has been leaking for a month.
Yeah.
I want to go to the spot.
That's okay.
But that's not going to bring me lasting happiness.
Well, I think that's the reality of it, right?
Like when you look at your experience, there's this, everyone's experience is this paradox where
it's like you have the highest highs, the lowest lows.
You have a life that, of course, you need everyday self-care, but there's also what is lasting
happiness and these bigger questions.
We all live in this world, but we're not of this world.
it's almost like everything that it makes more sense
to recognize it's both and as opposed to either or.
Well, you have to live in the paradox.
Yeah.
It's like the greatest amount of light
is where there's darkness
and you can reveal the most amount of light
when you're in a dark room, you turn on the light.
When you're in a room that's already light,
there's no effort made.
So should we look for darkness?
You know what I mean?
Should we, but no, but when we are in that space where we're feeling dark, where we're feeling an absence of light, an absence of hope, an absence of inspiration, of vision, then you have to, those are the moments, the challenging moments where you have to say to yourself, this is my opportunity to bring light to a dark place.
You know, spiritual wisdom is not helpful when everything's going your way.
it's helpful when you're challenged
and when you're happy
it's helpful to remember
that at any given time
in any moment
it could be gone
so don't take it for granted
have humility be grateful
when things are going your way
and when you're being tested
also be grateful
that's a hard one that was a hard one for me
it still is
but I'm glad that I know what I know
one of the key aspects of this beautiful study series that you've created is we've talked about some of the themes today we've talked about karma there's manifestation there's desire there's all of these themes that exist and one of the big ones that really stood out to me was forgiveness because you know when i listen to you today and i even watched the studies that you created that i'm hoping our audience will go and watch and appreciate and
learn from as well, you've conquered and continue to try to conquer some really difficult emotions,
like really, really difficult things. And I feel like forgiveness for us in the world today is
probably one of the hardest things for us, whether we've been betrayed, whether we've been
lied to, whether we've been exploited, whether we've been taken advantage of. And we always hear
the age-old phrase of forgiveness is for you, it's not for them, and you hear these things. But
it's...
Right, wait, who says that?
It's, I mean, it's common
like verbiage that exists
in the world at least
of this idea that, you know,
don't hold on to grudges.
Well, you shouldn't.
We shouldn't.
And it is ultimately
liberating for us to forgive,
but obviously the world
benefits from our
empathy,
our ability to forgive.
Talk to us about that conditioning.
Well, I'm a fighter.
You know,
if somebody messes with me,
they're going to get it.
And you've always been like that.
Yes.
But, you know, when things happen to you and there's not a tangible enemy that you can, like, put your finger on, like, what are you going to do?
You have to lean into radical exceptions.
But, you know, there's things, you know, there are things that have happened to me in my life that I just thought, I will never, I will never forgive this person.
I will never.
Now, I just don't, I don't want to have those feelings anymore because there's.
really, it's a prison and it's poison to not be able to forgive and to live in a state of like
holding a grudge or hating someone or wanting them to suffer. It's like a kind of poison.
It's like a kind of cancer. That's why it's important to find a way to forgive even people
that you perceive as your biggest enemies. For a really long time, it was my brother who died recently.
because I think the hardest ones are the people that you feel like you're the, like,
you're the closest to, they're your greatest ally, and they turn on you.
The people that hurt you the most are the people that you love the most.
And when life doesn't go the way that you expected it to go, that you suddenly, this pain
is unbearable and that you think what's going to save you is to think vengeful thoughts
or to never forgive.
Like that's going to give you some kind of power, magical power.
it doesn't just weighs you down and eats away at you and is poisonous so having to forgive my
brother knowing that I had to forgive my brother was you know it's like your ego downsers around it
like yeah yeah yeah I'll get to it I'll get to calling him up or talking to him or being his friend
or helping him but eventually I did and I know I'm being mysterious if someone you
you love deeply betrays you and does something that shows that they have no consciousness
in that moment that they made that choice to do that. It's really, it's a bitter pill for me to
swallow. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that lots of people feel this way.
I'd agree. For my brother, I didn't speak to him for, you know, for years, years and
years and it was him being ill and reaching out to me and saying I need your help and me's having that
moment like am I going to help my enemy you know that's how it fell yeah and I just did and I ended up
and I felt so relieved and it was such a load off my back such a weight that was removed that was
moved baggage that I could put down to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding
his hand, even if he was dying and saying, I love you and I forgive you. That was really
important. And that was another thing that I realized when I woke up in the hospital,
forgiveness, that word came to my mind. Like, I have to forgive people because I was there.
I was almost there on the other side. And I had a conscious moment. And my mother,
appeared to me, and she said, do you want to come with me? And I said, no. My assistant was in the
room with me, but I was still unconscious, but she heard me say no. And then when I did eventually
wake up, I realized that the no was about me needing to forgive and make good with people
that I still held grudges against.
So, and interestingly, I wrote a song about him.
I'm working on new music, and I wrote a song called Fragile, which is about my brother.
And then I wrote another song, and this is, again, just channeling.
It's called Forgive Yourself.
But the repeating phrase, the chorus of the song, is if you can't forgive me, forgive yourself,
which is something we all have to do.
We have to forgive others, but we also have to.
to figure of ourselves and stop beating up on ourselves about things, choices we've made in
the past that haven't worked out for ourselves or other people.
Taking responsibility, again, we come back to that concept also, or that idea of being
countable and being responsible. Taking responsibility, that's a very big lesson that I learned
studying Kabbala is that I am responsible. I am responsible. And every, and I believe in personal
accountability, personal karma, and I believe in global karma, like a lot of the things that
are happening in the world is as a result of our selfishness as people, as humans, as a society.
We are responsible. You can't just sit in your room or your house or the safety of your home
and go, those people are, you know, they deserve it, whatever. To be aware and conscious that
you're contributed in
in some way
shape or form.
And at the same time
if we have
collectively and consciously
evolved to a higher
state of consciousness, we
can change the world.
That also sounds like a cliche,
but make the world a better place.
Tip the balance, so to speak.
But that's why I'm here.
And that's why I'm talking to you.
And that's why I made these
this is why I documented my studies with my teacher
because I really believe that this wisdom can help other people
in a very practical way, not in an esoteric way
and that's why I'm here.
Thank you for sharing that
and that journey you went on of forgiveness
because, yeah, for you to be that honest and vulnerable
and explain that that was someone that you felt
was an enemy at that point,
but the relief you felt from helping someone it,
I mean, that's like, you know,
I'm thinking about the people that are listening and watching right now
and the experience that they're having
where they're really struggling to forgive themselves or forgive someone else
and looking at it from the point of view of what would that look like
if you never got that opportunity.
I know so many people who regret the last thing they said to their parents
or the last thing they said to a loved one or whoever it may be.
And it seems that vengeance and spite doesn't seem to heal the soul.
Well, harsh words and harsh behavior is energy, and you can never take it back.
But you can change your destiny, your karmic destiny.
And one of those ways is to forgive others and forgive yourself.
Madonna, you've been so gracious with your time, your energy and vulnerability and vulnerable.
vulnerability today. I feel like I've learned so much about you. I've very grateful to get. And you said
you repeated yourself, but I'd honestly say that I enjoyed that because it shows to me the good
training is good repetition. And so if you have the same, if you have a similar mindset towards
something, it's not, in the material world, we look at. Well, you only get good at something if you do it a
lot. Yeah. In the material world, we know that, but we often look at repeating as, I have heard that
before I know that, but actually the thing we think we know the most is the thing we need to hear
more often. And when I think about the Gita or the Vedas, you're the soul, not the body, is the
most repeated lesson. It's the first lesson, but the most repeated. You're the soul, your consciousness,
not the body, is repeated more than any other teaching, even though it's the most obvious
and it's the first teaching. Very obvious, but so look how attached we are to physicality.
Exactly. So you need to repeat it. But I was thinking that this might be a perfect time because you've been referencing in this conversation. You've referenced your teachers so many times. And we're fortunate enough today to actually have the opportunity to invite him on to the show. And if you're open to, I think this may be the perfect time. Should we do it? Yeah. Let's do it. Perfect.
Hey, Tan, I'm so grateful that we actually get to speak to you.
Madonna's been talking about you the whole interview.
And I want our audience to know, of course, you were sitting in on our conversation as well.
And so you have context of everything we talked about.
And of course, you have 29 years of context of everything Madonna shared with us over the last couple of hours.
But thank you so much for doing this and thank you for being here.
Thank you for having the honor of being here and being part of really sharing this.
teachings. Yeah, well, I was sharing with you earlier that my vision when I started my platform
was to make wisdom go viral, especially ancient wisdom. And so this is truly my heart's work.
And so thank you for the opportunity back. I want to dive in because we've heard about Madonna's
journey and her journey to Kabbalah. But I would love to hear how you came to it because I'm assuming
everyone has their own spiritual journey of awakening or connecting. And I'm sure many of our listeners
is today either on their spiritual journey,
one to start one, but I'd love to hear,
how did you come to this practice yourself?
I started in a young age.
I grew up in Israel, in a non-religious family.
And from a young age, I was asking question about life.
I think it came from the depth of my soul.
It's beyond because someone taught me or anything.
And when I was 17, my brother introduced me
to Kabbalah. I went to the Kabbalah Center and I met my teacher for many years, the Rav Berg.
And after hearing one hour of a lesson of how the universe began and why are we here, it resonated
in such a deep level, literally I couldn't sleep for three nights. And I felt I'm home.
I felt I'm reconnecting to really my purpose, what life is about.
And it took a few years, and by the age of 21, I knew that's my mission in life.
So basically, in the last 40 years, that's what I'm doing all day long.
Student and a teacher in the last 40 years.
That's beautiful.
Like I was saying earlier, I felt like I came to my work when I was 18.
And so I'm a couple of decades behind you in my journey.
But that idea of discovering something early and it resonating so strongly with your heart
and committing your life to it, what was it like when you first met Madonna?
What was that first interaction?
Like from your vantage point in your perspective, tell us about it.
I don't think she knows, but when Madonna's friend, which started with me,
called me and told me,
I'm bringing Madonna to a class tonight.
40 people.
So I told her,
you know, I never saw a picture of Madonna.
I heard their name.
So.
Cute.
So don't worry, she'll sit in the back with me.
So that's actually the first time.
So you had no idea what she looked like.
No, I didn't have a clue.
In those days, I was pretty.
Naive.
you were plugged in yeah it was totally in mission and i didn't i heard the name madonna but
he didn't actually recognize and then did you connect that evening was that way that evening actually
we set we did that evening actually we set in the conference room because we set it in vents it
will meet and madonna was very suspicious of me i can relate to that yeah i can relate to that
What's the agenda here?
What's happening?
But listen, she had many students.
But one of the amazing qualities of Madonna is perseverance, tenacities, in the ups and downs.
And trust me, I've experienced and seen a lot of ups and downs.
but I always say
when you
constantly nurturing your soul
your soul will guide you
our soul is the part within us
which knows all the
answers that connected
to the higher force
24-7
it is our body
our logic our ego
the layers in our
hearts that's blocking us to see and to feel the truth when you just agree with some spiritual
concept and once in a while learning so wow it's amazing i love it it's not enough you need to nurture
the soul yeah that that light of the soul and that wisdom of the soul and that intuition that come from
the soul will channel back its energy to your life because the source of all protection
And the source of all true joy come from the soul.
So she has that an amazing and amazing attribute of tenacity and perseverance.
Not giving up.
Not giving up, no matter what.
One of the reasons I like going there is because it was like it was the only place where people didn't bother me about who I was.
I literally sat in the back of a room with folding chairs.
as I said there was mostly men
and no one said a word to me
no one bothered me no one said
oh my god aren't you Madonna
can I have your autograph for like whatever
like I just felt like I could be anonymous there
was that the first time you'd experience that
in your career at that time?
Well for a long time yeah
so with a large group of people and
strangers so I liked the anonymity
of just being a student
and going there and learning
and it had nothing to do with my career
or work or yeah
So that was inviting.
So I wanted to go back.
And then I would always bring my notebook and take notes.
And I have a zillion journals from all of my classes and studies.
And I love to be a student and learn.
And I was learning so much.
And I also was so, what I loved so much about cabal and studying cabal,
it was how in tune it was with science and quantum physics.
And, you know, it wasn't just.
just because, you know what I mean?
Everything made sense to me.
And I could see how, you know, even the idea of, you know, how the world was created or the beginning of life, the idea of, you know, Genesis, for instance, or the idea of Adam and Eve, I learned that nothing in life can be taken literally.
You have to study the deeper meanings of everything.
and that is true for a spiritual practice
as well as science
as well as everything we do in life
you can't judge a book by its cover
you can't take things literally
and I was like oh like when I was growing up
as a Catholic I would always say to my father
why do we have to you know
why do we have to address this to church
why does the you know like
you know wear a hat cover your hat
what like there was no explanation for anything
and that really bugged me
so if you can't find a reason
if you can't explain something to me
I'm not interested
so he did explain things to me
and they all everything made sense
nothing was silly
what we do study when we study
Kabbalah is the
we study the Zohar
and within the
Zohar is everything
about life, about medicine
about science
about nature
about relationships
and that was really comforting to me
to see that's what helped me see
life is not a series of random events
Eton you mentioned I mean as I'm listening to Madonna speak about this as well
you mentioned that obviously you know this tradition is 4,000 years old
how first book that was written but it was before it was before
right right yeah so it's put into right
Yeah, it was put into the technology of books 4,000 years ago.
How did it come to be?
Like, tell us a bit about the history of it
so that we get some context of the tradition.
Actually, the first book that was ever written in Kabbalah
was three pages long.
It's called The Book of Formation
that was written by Abram de Patriot.
And it's reading in such a coded way
and will not get any understand
the secret of life and the wise of life.
At three pages.
Three pages.
That's cool.
Yes.
It's a lot of commentary, but yes, three pages.
And then the main book of Kabbalah,
after many Kabbalist teaching from one to another,
was the book of the Zohar,
or the book of splendor that was revealed 2,000 years ago.
And the Zohar is actually the codified the Torah,
decodified the Bible.
and helping us to understand the Bible is not a book of stories or laws or religiosity or dogma.
It's the secrets of life are hidden there.
And the Zohar, the main book of which we have it today translated to English and to other languages,
it's actually helping us to understand that everything in this,
this world as a purpose and a reason.
And if you're asking what really Kabbalah is about,
Kabbalah is about understanding the whys of life of the universe
and why I'm here and what is my purpose
and why are we struggling and what is the journey of our soul
and where we came from.
And if the creator is such an infinite force of good and love
how come we all struggling, either with pain, with doubts, with negativity, with selfishness?
So that is the main book of Kabbalah, and of course was many Kabbalists throughout history
since then that were able to bring Kabbalah down to us.
And in 1970, that's when the Kabbalah Center started, which is open.
the gates and the doors of Kabbalah to all mankind.
You're talking about the whys of life and the questions and the seeking.
Do you remember one of the first questions that Madonna inquired about or one of the first things that Madonna inquired about or one of the first things.
that she was grappling with.
What do you remember?
I don't even remember.
Yeah.
So I just, I don't remember in what specific context?
There was 29 years.
Also, I didn't study with him like this.
Like, I was just a student in the back of a class.
It took a while for us to, like, have one-on-one conversations.
It took a year or two until we started to meet regularly once a week as well.
right as well yeah well so but i think one of the one of the things that i remember speaking
to madonna and this is a struggles that everybody have so we get there's a higher power
call it god call it the light call it ain't off endless energy of love of giving that is
beyond time and space and it's within us okay
So why there's evil?
Forget about outside, even inside.
Why do we have constantly destructive forces within each one of us?
There's a constant chatter.
You wake up and gravity pulls you down.
Why?
A lot of people study today how to overcome that negative force,
but why there is a negative force?
within us so one of the one of the basic understanding we're talking about it's it's understanding
that the greatest gift the greatest gift the creator gave us is the opportunity to overcome
the opponent within because when you overcome you become co-creator the reason why we don't
experience enough peace, enough light, enough fulfillment, it's very simple.
Like attracts like, you want to experience the light, be like the light, be a being of sharing.
But part of what the light is about is a creator.
So the gift to overcome negativity within is the gift of being the creator.
Imagine you were given everything.
You're born with talents.
You're born with love.
you are born with just helping people all day long
that's your natural tendency
no negative force tried to pull you down
no selfishness
do you think you really
will be able to actually experience
and appreciate the force of the creator
the force of love the force of light
the force of true fulfillment
the answer is no
so while
sometime
we'll upset
why I have this particular negative voice in my mind.
And why do I have to struggle with abandonment issue?
And why do I have to struggle with moments of sadness?
At a moment you realize one second,
this is the greatest gift to create or give you.
It doesn't mean you right away know how to overcome it.
Maybe we'll share some tools how to do it.
But the fact that you accept the greatest gift in this world,
is the gift of overcoming.
And it doesn't mean it has to be with suffering.
Actually, it doesn't mean.
But the fact that you accept that opponent within you,
it actually was created by the light, by the universe,
by the force of good to help us to grow.
Imagine you bring, spoke about soccer a little bit before.
Imagine you bring your kid to play soccer
and you bring them in front of a goal
and with the ball and say,
now score.
Will it be fun?
No, he needs an opponent.
He needs a goalie.
He needs to overcome something.
Without overcoming anything,
will never have a sense of true fulfillment.
And we're not talking about overcoming
the external challenges,
which is part of life.
but recognizing the unique challenges
each one of us needs to overcome.
We call it karma.
We call it Kabbalistically Tikun.
Each one of us have a unique areas of transformation.
And everything that life presenting to us
is to present these opportunities of overcoming.
And as a result, allow my soul to shine,
my gifts to shine,
my true purpose to shine.
that's beautiful i love hearing that it's uh it's so interesting to hear how that which we believe
to be the obstacle is actually the path and it reminds me of and i know madonna you studied
the gita as well origin's dilemma in the first chapter so origin's a warrior he's an archer to be specific
and he's in the middle of a battlefield.
And on one side is his brothers,
and on the other side is his cousins.
So it's all family,
the opposing side and his side.
And he's on his chariot in the middle of the battlefield,
and he's talking to God.
And God is serving him as his charioteer.
And what he's expressing to God is his doubt,
his anxiety, and his insecurity.
And that's how it begins.
It begins from a place of doubt.
doubt, stress, fear, pressure, which is what engages him to ask the question.
And it's so interesting that we often think that doubt and anxiety are the problem,
but often they are the seed of where the question comes from and why we even look up or look
around and question what's happening in our lives.
And it's almost like doubt is the direction and anxiety is beautiful.
Right?
Like there's, it's similar, isn't it?
Well, something has to wake you up,
whether you need some kind of pressure.
Whether you're standing in front of a goal
or you're, you know, trying to win a war.
Well, your pressure was becoming a mom.
Yes.
It's, yes, it was, you know,
and coming to terms with, you know,
is also, you know, is my life as a,
as in my career, as, you know,
as an entertainer is going to change?
is it going to be over?
Like I said, I associate
motherhood with death. So it's
like, what's going to happen to me?
Like, I needed to be
rooted somewhere and I needed to have
certainty, but you can't have certainty
unless you start with doubt.
Exactly. Like she mentioned before,
Madonna mentioned before,
that the greatest light
hiding
beyond the greatest
perception of darkness.
So if darkness manifests itself as fear or the unknown or the uncertainty or the doubt
or the weakness, so one of the practices is actually ability to pause and allow yourself
to feel it for a second because there's a great light hidden there.
Yeah.
What did you help?
What do you remember helping or what advice would you have given to Madonna at that time
to help her connect the dots?
I think the phrase that she's repeated a few times in this conversation
of seeing motherhood as death is such a strong statement
that it makes so much sense from your experience
when you connect the dots.
How did you encourage her to reflect on that association?
Yeah, we didn't necessarily speak about that concept,
but about other challenges and fears and perceived pain.
Abandonment, we talked about that.
abandonment absolutely I think also you don't want to love or be in love or be attached feel
attachment because then you could get hurt so that was a big issue for me like I'm good
on my own like as a warrior surviving like don't with me I don't need help I don't need any help
like I'm good but then you need help and then it's hard like to say it and say I I I
I'm doubting myself.
I'm, I'm, I don't feel like a warrior.
Yeah, that's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the greatest
archer of his time, yet his bow is slipping from his hands because he's like, I
can't shoot an arrow and he's the best.
And that, that feeling of, I think we all have that, like, you, you so beautifully talked
about it at this idea that we've been given so many gifts.
We have so many talents, and I think a lot of our audience today, in the world, people have forgotten the gifts that they have.
And then we often get into this feeling of low self-esteem.
You know, we don't feel worthy.
We don't feel we have a purpose.
And I feel like that's where the world is today.
A lot of people who are listening and watching today probably feel like they don't have something to offer.
Or maybe they know kind of what they have to offer, but they don't feel confident enough.
what would your teachings and some of your guidance say to those kind of people who are sitting there thinking
I kind of you know I don't have that confidence in myself I don't I don't really know what I'm going to do
and they're feeling stuck I think like madonna mentioned she felt weak she didn't feel her personality
of being a warrior so there's a big difference between personality
and soul strength.
Talk to us about the difference.
Yeah.
What's the difference between personalities?
So Madonna always been a warrior.
That's her personality.
That's part of her gifts,
but it's not necessarily mean
that she'll channel a warrior's attributes
in a soulful way.
But we identify with that.
I'm a warrior.
When I'm a warrior, I'm strong.
When I'm strong, I'm happy.
When I'm strong, I'm meaningful.
When I'm strong, I matter.
And when suddenly you go through a situation
that threaten that ability to be a warrior,
to be strong, to be independent,
suddenly you feel fear and emptiness.
And what I would recommend,
what I would share with Madonna,
I would recommend anybody.
In order to find your strength,
start with the challenges of today
it's not about finding my purpose in the future
and let's break it down to simple
that's a great point is such a great point it's brilliant
simple four steps how do I handle a challenge today
so step number one
I just wanted before you dive into the steps that is beautiful
I absolutely love that mindset
I think it's such a great
I hope everyone who's listening
and watching right now
it's such great advice
because we're so fixated
on finding, discovering
looking for the answer
in some point in the future
and it just keeps feeling postponed
and further away
and I love what you're saying
is that the challenge in front of you
right now is the purpose
Exactly
It's a beautiful
How do you connect the light
with the energy
with your soul
with the blessing that's available
in this very moment?
Oh, good.
Sorry, yeah.
And that will lead to other blessings.
That will open doors.
That will attract clarity.
We face a challenge.
All of us, it can be challenge at work.
It can be a challenge at home.
It can be just, I start to compare myself to someone else, and it triggers lack.
All of us, doesn't matter how spiritual we are, and doesn't matter how successful
Will have at least 100 times a day, lack will be triggered.
Fear today.
Even today.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Every day.
It's like the comparison game.
At least 100 times a day.
I mean, that's what social media is for, really, to make you feel bad about yourself.
Unless you recognize that that is an illusion.
That's not reality.
Oh, this is an opportunity.
Right.
an opportunity for me to not engage.
Exactly.
And to actually find light in the moment.
Just actually to conquer your fear in that moment
or to conquer your repetitive behavior of,
oh my God, I wish I had that.
Oh my God, I wish I was that person.
Oh my God, I wish that my life was like that person's life.
Like if only I had dot, dot, dot, dot.
You know, it's like to stop yourself in that moment
and conquer that moment, which is I'm good enough.
I'm everything that I need.
I am
I embody it
I just have to reveal it
but that's a really hard one
I think especially for women
you know
because we are a condition to like want to aspire
to be this beautiful
or this great of a mother
or you know this great of a homemaker
or this great of a you know
it's a test every day to not judge yourself
and to not
like feel like you're lacking
in some way, like you say.
And when I say my prayers, part of my prayer is that I rise above my limitations and that I
rise above my nature and that I don't get sucked into the vortex of lack, which can come
in so many different forms.
And tune in to, you really have to be consciously like going, like your head is a radio
dial, like going, like, no, I'm not.
That's not me.
You know what I mean?
It's a constant conversation you're having with yourself.
Yeah.
So true.
So that's a really relatable problem.
And it requires work and it requires paying attention and being aware.
And we also get caught up in, you know, we live in a world.
It's just distraction, right?
So easy to get distracted.
It doesn't mean you're not supposed to have fun.
Like right now, I really want to have fun.
But not that you're not fun.
Oh, we're not having a fun? I think we're having fun.
But yeah, it's just, we live in a world of distraction, so it's so easy to get pulled off
the track of, you know, what am I doing? What am I doing right now? What am I doing to myself?
Like, I'm already there. I got caught, you know what I mean? By the seed of doubt and self-judgment
and comparing and I'm not good enough. Therefore, I'm going to be in a bad mood.
or I'm going to shout at my child or, you know what I mean?
It's like, it takes so many different forms.
And like the greatest thing in the world is to be able to stop yourself before that happens.
But it does require constant vigilance.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's amazing to hear you say that you still feel that way.
Yeah.
That's helpful and validating for all of us.
That's part of the path of transformation.
Sorry, back to the tool, yes.
So really because without what is lack is the illusion that there's no force of good,
you are not protected, you are not loved, you are alone, you're sad, you're disconnected.
And the practice to overcome that, not just in meditation throughout the day,
which is very powerful step number one as you face the challenge before you get as the reactive
process of lack and negative thoughts tell yourself say these words pause what an opportunity
I don't know why it's an opportunity but I know every moment of lack it's a gift from
the universe to help me to reveal greater light and a blessing in my life.
Step number two, don't fix it yet.
Embrace what is.
Embrace the difficult feelings.
Because in order to find light in darkness, you need to be there with courage a little
bit in darkness.
We want to fix right away.
We want to get rid of what bothers us.
to get rid of the fear, we want to get rid of the insecurities. We can't stand it. We don't like
the discomfort. And how do we want to get rid of it by being reactive, by blaming, by judging
ourselves, by jumping after opportunity for insignifications, by being self-destructive?
Pause, embrace. It's okay. And part of the reason of
studies developing trust it's okay embrace first what is and then go to the next level when you say
embrace do you mean to meet it positively in that to me as it is to allow it yeah to allow it because
sit in it yeah allow it not because i want to stay there because that's part of the process
yeah of revealing the great light of my soul yeah it almost feels that often what happens is
is because we've tried to go to the light so much,
sorry, it often feels that because we've tried to go to the light so much,
we don't know how to sit in the darkness.
Exactly.
We want to go to the good so quickly.
We don't know how to sit in the bad.
And that's when you develop strength.
And there's a concept Kabbalistic.
The discomfort.
Yeah.
There's a concept Kabbalistically called certainty beyond logic.
Explain that.
Which means I'm trusting, even though I don't feel it.
and it doesn't make sense
that actually I'm led towards anything positive
but I'm trusting beyond logic
that this experience is for my best
even if I'm guilty and feeling horrible
about mistakes that I've done
it's okay
you're going to get to the part of learning the lesson
don't fix it don't erase it
certainty beyond logic
So the part of embrace, see, allow.
And then you're ready to the next step,
which is telling yourself,
because our belief system tells us,
it's a moment of darkness, there's no light here,
there's no good here.
There's no light here.
There's no light here.
So you need to tell yourself,
all the light that I need is within me now.
Just tell yourself.
Tell yourself, it doesn't make sense.
Logic doesn't agree.
The heart doesn't agree, but that's the job of this world
to allow the thoughts, the stream of energy that come from the soul
to influence gradually the mind and the heart and the body.
And again and again, again, tell yourself,
all the light that need is within me in mouth.
I'm certain to be on logic.
It's for my best.
and then
show me the way
the light, the universe,
when you feel less reactive
because usually
when we experience lack
we're reactive
we want to get rid of the lack
we want to get rid of the fact
and that's what's caused
think what's caused evil behavior
between people
not knowing how to handle
moments of lack that's where it starts
so forget about others
let's start with ourselves
and sometimes we'll fix the lack
because someone will tell us
wow, you're an amazing person
I love you so much
and now we feel good
and I fixed it
I forgot about my lack
I forgot about my insecurity
actually I am amazing
are you
developing true muscles
and skills to find the light within
or you want to be attached to the external
energy that will
fix you
it will never work
And of course, when you in that place, actions of giving, even if it doesn't make sense, calling someone, adding value to someone, being kind to someone, also help you to shift your energy towards the vibration of the soul, towards a vibration of the light.
But we all need to go through this test.
you know some people would call it mental illness but we all have that mental struggle
we all have that mental struggle yeah in feelings and in our mind so it's a it's actually
it's a it's a daily practice to transform it's a daily practice and when you have the courage
and you study enough depth that support the understanding that the light is never gone.
Yeah.
It's my perception.
I see the light.
I don't see the light.
That is causing me to feel the light is disappear and I'm small and I'm not enough and I'm
not capable and I'm not confident.
Yeah.
That really resonates very strongly because I feel like when you're first,
reading this new script you don't believe it and that's why as you're saying the regular study is
almost like reading a script consistently a new script because we're already reading the old script
of I'm not good enough I'm not capable enough I don't belong whatever it may be but the one line
that I really loved that resonated with me which I want to ask you about madonna is the trust beyond
logic because I think that's the phase that most of us give up because we're living in a logical
functional material world where if a train's not coming you would leave the station but here the
trust beyond logic is now I'm still going to wait here or I'm going to act in a certain way or
I'm going to change these behaviors Madonna when did you have to practice trust beyond logic
in your life the most where have you seen? I mean every challenge I've ever had once I became aware
that I had the power to do that and like making you
art creation is that's nothing to do with being logical doesn't have anything to do with the
logical part of your brain you can't measure it you can't predict it you can't control it you
have to allow it um so i would say that challenger is like happening on a daily basis
Like even now, like I told you my, you know, there's a pipe that burst in the middle of my house and it's like creating havoc and all, I was so excited to come to London to be in my house in London and everything's gone wrong. And I'm like, okay, so there has to be a reason for it. I can't just sit here and like be angry or upset. Like there's a illogical wisdom to.
everything that's happening.
If that's not being attached to material things, then that could be an option.
If that's because all these things are broken, I need to spend more time doing something
else.
It's more important than that's, you know what I mean?
There's always a reason for something.
And you can't logically figure it out.
Like, I wish that I could have seen 10 years ahead that my son was going to be my best
friend. I was trying to make logical sense of everything. You know what I mean? So I wish that I
could knew then what I know now. So there's always, and there's big struggles and little
struggles. Like, you can't logically explain things. Like, especially, like, I always use art as a, as
an example, because I can tell you that 99% of the time when I'm,
writing lyrics or singing a melody, I'm not thinking about it. That's logic. If I think
it's gone or it doesn't come to me.
And based on that, as Madonna said, she waited 10 years to see that experience of, you know, her son becoming her best friend.
I think a lot of people wonder how is the reason revealed or received?
How do we know?
Because like you said, it's trust beyond logic.
And logic is like, if I do this, then this will happen.
And this is like, my pipes are burst.
If I call the guy, he'll come and fix it.
Right.
Like, that's the kind of way our brain works.
When we're trusting beyond logic, it could take 10 years to receive a reason.
It could take 20 years.
It could take 50 years to really have a revelation on something.
How is it often revealed or received when it's not based on logic?
Does that make sense?
Yes, it makes sense.
What you're asking, number one, is when things don't go your way.
And, of course, sometimes...
We need to do practical action to make things better and to fix things,
but sometimes it's out of our control.
Things don't go our way,
like the situation with the experience that Madonna shared.
So certainty beyond logic is that the struggle that I'm going through
is for my best,
but doesn't allow me to be self-destructural.
because if I want to speed up the process that I see the light at the end of the tunnel,
I need to strengthen and we need friends, you need teachings, you need the right support,
to actually trust the universe loves you and it's for the good, as difficult it is.
But then you need to ask a second question.
When you're ready, when you're not as reactive, what's my lesson?
lesson. Why is it in my movie? And sometime, the answer is simple. Every time we experience
rejection. What is rejection? Things don't go our way. It purifies us. Because our mind
and our heart is so attached to happiness is when this will happen, which is not necessarily
the big picture happiness, what really good for me.
Yeah.
So when you actually realize that actually that's a purification process and you open
and you allow it to happen because all of us are not aligned with the true desire of the universe,
if it would be aligned, we would be joyful every second and we will be giving unconditionally
every second and we'll think all day long how can I add value to others and because we are not there
and that's part of the gift of life gradual transformation we need moments of rejection but when you
question you said hmm where am I too attached what's my lesson what do I need to let go
that will support to speed up the process of seeing the light because every fruit in order to become
sweet
and ripe
is very sour
as a process
actually the botanist
would say that more sour
the fruit in the process
sweeter at the end
it's so easy to throw
the sour fruit and to say it's a bad
fruit
but if you're able to
allow this process
and you need a lot of spiritual strength
because culture, society, our body, our mind is prone to react
and to decide it's bad, that constant conversation in our mind,
it's good, it's bad, I'm good, I'm bad.
It's that reactive conversation we have within us
that actually prolonging the process.
So actually faster we embrace.
certainty biologic fasting we're asking question because at the beginning you cannot ask because
you're in pain yeah so you just try to at least trust and embrace and embrace and and beg something
and asking her but when you're ready to ask what's my lessons because very often we are so
touched we spoke about forgiveness to what's wrong with them and we forget that the true purpose
of life is my own transformation and elevation
while I'm interacting with other people.
So when the conversation is no longer about
that good, that bad, how did they do it?
And you bring it back to you, how can I elevate?
How can I become better?
How can I transform between me and my soul,
between me and my perfected self?
That's when you inject the energy,
then things, the light will be shown faster.
Yeah, that's the question.
That's the accelerator.
We want the pain to go away quicker.
Exactly.
But that question is, and sitting with that question,
is the thing that actually speeds it up.
What are you trying to work on right now, Madonna,
that you're working on in your studies?
I know you get together regularly,
people are going to be able to watch your studies as well that you do together.
What's something that you're trying to work on right now that seems very fresh as a challenge,
something to overcome, as you said?
The lessons that I learn and study are more applicable to things that are challenging me
on a regular basis, which would be, you know, my children.
They're always challenging me in one way or another.
and that's a big like it's such a big lesson for me to like let go of expectations and
stop trying to control the outcome and over worrying and you know I'm just like some days I
wake up on this I'm just relieved that they're all okay you know what I mean it's like and I
always say to people when you're when you have that many kids you're you're um you're not really a parent
you're a manager you know what I mean yeah and by the way she has amazing kids
and spiritual kids,
and because of her tremendous effort to infuse,
not just with the teachings,
with their behavior, consciousness,
sometimes you don't see it right away,
but we see kids of the kid
that actually they're coming around
in the own unique way.
So...
And also infuriating me.
What kind of things triggering me?
I mean, I have to stop thinking
that, you know,
my way of doing things
or my way of approaching life
or my way of being an artist
is going to be somebody else's
or my kid's way of doing it.
Everybody has their own journey
and it's taken me a long time
to accept that.
And to let go of control.
Why is that so hard as a parent?
Because I feel like so many parents
would be able to relate to that right now
where we subconsciously
or consciously are projecting,
living through our children,
wanting them to be successful or in not like not even in a not like I want them to be rich
and famous I just want them to be happy I want them to be authentic I want them to not
compare themselves to other people not worry about what people think of them because they're
my children like we're you know fearing judgment um letting that go
helping them to see their own unique gifts.
It's a constant battle because also you don't want to come off
as somebody who's trying to control the situation all the time either.
My weekly studies with Aiton or my daily prayers or whatever
are often about, you know,
I don't want my children to do specific things.
I want them to realize what they were put on this earth to do.
I want them to elevate to their highest level of consciousness
and how can I help that?
That's it, but it's still hard not to be bothered by things.
Things.
Yeah, I think that's a very relatable challenge for parents.
Yeah.
It's a real one.
And I guess when you ask that question then,
what is the lesson in this,
applying a ton's process, what do you often come up with?
Trying to control all the outcomes in life and not getting the outcome you wanted
is what makes you suffer.
So if that lesson keeps coming back to me, then I guess I haven't learned it yet.
And children are a perfect teacher for that because they're never going to do
what you want them to do, the way that you want them to do it.
you know just get them from here to there without hurting themselves or anybody else you know what i mean
yeah because they too have to overcome exactly yeah you know i didn't i grew up with very little
and that so i have a huge desire and then of course you give your children all the things you
wanted to have and then you realize that's killing their desire and so you know it's like it's just
you're just constantly going oh shit oh shit okay I'm not okay not just be counterintuitive
just say nothing that's that's a big one for me say nothing but I'm getting good at it
I'm just really getting good at it I appreciate you walking us through that thought process because
I think you've summed it up that's exactly what we want to do we want to take away someone's
pain or the pain we thought they're going to have because of the pain we had and then you
provide something only to create a new pain and for them to never have the pain that you had but
have a completely different version of it, and we do it for everyone we love.
And I was going to ask you a time, like, what do you do when you don't like the answer?
That question is so important, like, what is the lesson I need to learn?
But a lot of us subconsciously may not like the answer we get, and that's where we have
to keep learning it again.
What happens when you don't like the truth that you're experiencing?
So I think part of true spiritual transformation is craving truth.
I want to know really what's my lesson because what's the other option?
More pain until I'm going to learn the lesson.
So the reason why we're not listening to the voice that tell me, let go of control,
or for kids, one of the biggest mistakes.
parents do, is overgiving to kids, which in cabalistic terminology, we call it bread of shame,
when you give to someone something without working for it, without earning, you're actually
hurting them. And the parent might know, I'm overgiving, and it's not healthy for them,
but I'll feel guilty to say no. And I'll be popular if I say yes. Exactly. So here is the test.
guilty of saying no
versus long-term pain
for the kid and for yourself.
So actually pause and ask that question
that will help you to get closer
to the truth and be less in denial
and a fork, short-term, long-term.
Saying yes just to fix the pain,
to give them what they want,
to let them play with the phone,
or say no.
and it's difficult and they feel bad and they're blaming you but you're doing it from place of love
because yes because what's driving us true desire to share in a long term yeah if that's my true
and that's the truth am i really coming from true desire to share for a long term sharing not just
temporary fix.
Yeah.
And when I'm coming from that place,
only blessings.
You're planting a seed of light,
a seed of blessing,
a seed of miracles.
When you're coming from another place,
pretending to be good or nice or kind
only because you cannot handle
the temporary pain,
you're planting a seed of chaos,
which chaos also has intelligent
to teach your lessons,
but in a longer path.
Yeah, I mean, I can relate to that as a kid because I'm not a parent,
but it was almost like during your teens,
you just think everything your parents say is wrong.
And then in my 20s, I was like so grateful for the discipline and the rules
and the, you know, I was only allowed to play video games for like X amount of time
or whatever it was.
And all of a sudden everything my parents did, I was like, oh, wow,
there was actually a lot of good in it.
But during my teenage years, you know, I obviously didn't agree with anything they said.
And there's such a reality, too, that feeling of the long-term point that you're making,
that long-term you realize, oh, yeah, I'm glad you actually didn't just let me eat rubbish.
Or I'm really glad you didn't just let me waste hours playing video games.
I'm really glad that you didn't do X, Y, Z, or whatever it may be.
And so it's hard, though, because the parent or the person, this could be romance,
it could be in any relationship, but you've got to be unpopular in the moment.
Absolutely.
You have to put aside your ego.
And you have to go to that discomfort.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which applies at work.
It applies everywhere.
In anything.
Yeah.
Especially in the culture today, when everything can be so instant app and ordering food and getting what you want and watching any program and in your phone.
So that instant culture preventing a child or an individual to go to a real process.
of going through discomfort
or earning the light
as we're going
saying cabalistically
and people don't understand
they can be bright
how come I'm depressed
depression very often
it's a consequence
of insangification
not willing
to go through difficult process
so hard
so hard
we don't want to go through the difficult process
and we don't want anyone we love to go through a difficult process,
although that is the only process that's going to benefit us.
But we're going to anyway, so.
Absolutely.
I have one last question to ask both of you.
What is your soul's purpose?
Why do you think you're here?
And what personally was the becoming or the overcoming that you went through
to really receive that soul's purpose that you're living by?
What was it that birthed that idea within you?
My soul's purpose is to reveal light in the world.
To whatever I do, whatever that's being a parent or being an artist,
being a friend, being a leader.
Yeah.
We are here to receive for the sake of sharing.
So I have a huge desire.
I have many desires.
This is not a belief system or philosophy that's about, no offense,
being a monk and going up in the mountains and meditating for hours and hours.
I want it all.
But I want it for the sake of sharing, not to keep it for myself.
Etta?
He wants more followers on Instagram.
The personal relationship.
between me and the light, between me and the creator.
I know that I don't want anything less
than connecting while I'm in this physical world
to the soul that was given to me
and it means total transformation,
total desire to receive for the sake of sharing,
certainty be on logic until it becomes second nature.
That's in a personal level.
But one of the ways to achieve it is to connect with our purpose of sharing.
So I know in my gut, in my soul, and it was beyond, knowing it was beyond logic,
that that's what I came to do in this world, which is to spread, to be a teacher for the teachings of Kabbalah while I'm studying.
One of them is about being to perfectionist spiritually, you know, taking spiritual lessons.
to an imbalanced place,
something is wrong with me.
So, and I know, as long as we're in this world,
and if we're truly not settling for less,
and that's a message for everybody,
I want to say, never settle for less.
Wherever you are, this is just the beginning
comparing to your next level potential.
So those challenges were necessary
to help me to evolve to work.
at today. And of course, this is just the beginning. What's that?
Donaitan, thank you so much for your time and energy. I've, again, learned so much from
both of you today. And I really can't wait for people to watch the studies. I hope that
it gives spiritual seekers a opportunity to ask better questions, deeper questions, and
begins their quest for overcoming and becoming whatever their soul's purpose truly.
is. And I'm so grateful that you're both living yours, truly. And I'm really, again, thankful for
the opportunity to have learned so much from both of you today. Thank you so much. Our honor.
Thank you. Thank you. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to
build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most
creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success and the secret to genuinely
loving what you do. If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's
episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist,
if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough
for other people to see it. This is an IHeart podcast.