Sense of Soul - Unlocking the Secrets of Spiritual Enlightenment in 5 Minutes or Less

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

Today Sense of Soul Podcast is dropping a special bonus episode from one of the Ethereal Network podcasts, The Skeptic Metaphysicians. One of our all-time favorite interviews! Can you imagine what it would be like to learn how to meditate from the Dalai Lama? Or see miracles performed by Sai Baba? What about becoming friends with Ram Dass?  Well it just so happens that our next guest did just that. All of that! He’s spent time with some of the top names in the metaphysical and spiritual field….names like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and even the late Mother Theresa.  And he’s offering us a roadmap of sorts to the fastest and easiest ways to awaken.  If you’ve been looking for knowledge, you’ve come to the right place. Discover the Roadmap to Enlightenment with Jonathan’s wonderfully entertaining and inspirational stories.  You will learn: 1. Uncovering new spiritual methods and techniques to achieve enlightenment in about 5 minutes 2. Experience life-changing encounters with renowned spiritual teachers.  3. Understanding what the spiritual masters were really like 4. The world’s most powerful mantra  And so much more! "We're all really walking each other home. Since I've been lucky enough to speak to people that have a lot of wisdom, I try to pass it on, and we're all learning from each other, hopefully."  -- Jonathan Robinson Resources: Jonathan’s Book The Enlightenment Project: How I Went From Depressed to Blessed, and You Can Too https://www.amazon.com/Enlightenment-Project-Went-Depressed-Blessed/dp/B0B8Q3XYQK  Other episodes you'll enjoy: How to Raise Your Vibrations for Happiness and Success https://www.skepticmetaphysician.com/how-to-raise-your-vibrations-for-happiness  The Essential Guide to Spiritual Awakenings https://www.skepticmetaphysician.com/the-essential-guide-to-spiritual-awakenings-amirah-hall  She Left Everything Behind for a Spiritual Awakening https://www.skepticmetaphysician.com/she-left-everything-behind-for-a-spiritual-awakening  ABOUT OUR GUEST:  Jonathan Robinson is a psychotherapist, best-selling author of 14 books, and a professional speaker from Northern California. He has reached over 200 million people around the world with his practical methods, and his work has been translated into 47 languages. Mr. Robinson has made numerous appearances on the Oprah show and CNN, as well as other national TV talk shows.  Jonathan’s most recent book is called The Enlightenment Project: How I Went From Depressed to Blessed, and You Can Too. In it, he shares the best methods, stories, and ideas he’s learned from interviewing 100 spiritual teachers ranging from Deepak Chopra and the Dalai Lama to the late Mother Teresa, Wayne Dyer, and Ram Dass.  As a professional speaker, Mr. Robinson is known for providing his audiences with immediately useful and powerful information, presented in an entertaining and motivating manner. Jonathan is the co-host of the podcast Awareness Explorers, visit his website www.TheEnlightenmentProject.net.  On his site, you can download a free ebook on the easiest and quickest ways to awaken.  Guest Info: Websites:  https://www.TheEnlightenmentProject.net & https://www.awarenessexplorers.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.robinson.9615  Connect With the Skeptic Metaphysicians: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skepticmetaphysician_podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcBaf4lhzharlTVxa6Vm9mg Twitter: https://twitter.com/WillRodriguezFl Website: https://www.skepticmetaphysician.com  Like the show? We'd love to hear your thoughts! Please rate/review the show here:  https://lovethepodcast.com/SkepticMetaphysicians Learn more about the Ethereal Network and discover other amazing podcast! https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/ethereal-network

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world. Sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes,

monthly circles and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, I'm dropping a special bonus episode from the Skeptic Metaphysicians. Enjoy. Karen. Yes. Can you imagine what it would be like to learn how to meditate from the Dalai Lama? Oh my God, that would be amazing. Right?

That's like a dream. Right? Now, what about seeing miracles performed by Sai Baba? Another dream. Or even becoming Now, what about seeing miracles performed by Sai Baba? Another dream. Or even becoming friends with Ram Dass. Wow. Well, it just so happens that our next guest did just that. All of that. And lots more.

He has spent some time with some of the top names of the metaphysical and spiritual field. Names like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and even the late Mother Teresa. And he's agreed to talk to us. I don't know why, but he has somehow. And the best part is he's offering today a roadmap of sorts to the fastest and easiest ways to awaken. If you've been looking for knowledge, then you have come to the right place because this show is about to drop some serious wisdom on you. Welcome to the Skeptic Metaphysicians. My name is Will. And I'm Karen. And unlike Mulder and Scully, we both want to believe. So we've embarked on a journey of discovery. We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world. We've thrown ourselves into

weird and wonderful experiences. I even joined a coven of witches. And wait, you joined a coven? Yup, all in the interest of finding something Anything! that will prove that there's something beyond this physical, three-dimensional world we all live in. This is The Skeptic Metaphysicians. Today's story is about a boy and a fence. There once was a little boy who had a very bad temper. His father decided to hand him a bag of nails and said that every time the boy lost his temper,

he had to hammer a nail into the fence. On the first day, the boy hammered 37 nails into that fence. Well, the boy gradually began to control his temper because he hated nailing those nails into the fence. Well, over the next few weeks, the number of nails he was hammering into the fence slowly decreased. He discovered it was easier to control his temper than to hammer those dumb nails into that fence. Well, finally, the day came when the boy did not lose his temper at all. Well, he ran and told his father the news and the father suggested that the boy should now pull out a nail every day he kept his temper under control. Well, the boy was very excited to do this one. So days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all of the

nails were gone. Well, the father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. And he said, you've done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. That fence will never ever be the same again. See, when you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say, I'm sorry. The wound will always still be there. Well, if you haven't figured it out, the moral of the story is to control your anger and not say things to people in the heat of the moment that you may later regret.

Unfortunately, some things in life, you're just not able to take back. Today's special guest has so many credits to his name. Karen, I'm kind of super intimidated right now. Yeah, I can't even talk. Apparently, I'm not the only one. Well, his name is Jonathan Robinson. He's a psychotherapist.

He's a best-selling author of 14 books and a professional speaker. He's reached over 200 million people around the world, and he's been translated into 47 languages. And that is just scratching the surface. Now, wait, you're sure we're not being pranked? This isn't just some dude pretending to be him? Oh, no. Believe me, he has made numerous appearances on The Oprah Show.

Oh, my God, you're killing me. And on CNN and lots of other national TV talk shows. His most recent book is called The Enlightenment Project, How It Went from Depressed to Blessed and You Can Too. And he shares the best methods, stories, and ideas

he's learned from interviewing a hundred of the very top spiritual teachers like I just mentioned. Can we just start talking to him now, please? Nope, nope,

because one more thing I got to say, he's also the co-host of the Smash Hit Podcast Awareness Explorers, a show that I personally have been listening to for quite a while, so I could not be more thrilled to welcome this amazing guest to the show. Jonathan, we have no words. Thank you for coming on. Well, thank you, Will and Karen, for that fun introduction. I mean, how do you hold yourself so humbly when you've done so many amazing things and experiences?

I would lose my mind. Well, you know, luckily, I'm very aware of all my faults, which helps. But hanging out with people who are more spiritual than you or have more bliss and love is very humbling as well. Oh, no doubt. No doubt. I'm sure it must kind of come off, like rub off on you though a little bit, right? You've been surrounded by some of the best, most incredibly awakened, enlightened masters. I mean, the Dalai Lama, that's like a dream. Oh my God. I can't even imagine what that would be like. What was that like? Well, he is very much like a five-year-old kid. He's very playful, has a great sense of humor, and then he has all the wisdom of the Dalai Lama. So that was a little

bit intimidating, but ends up his sense of humor is so good that we just laughed a lot. Oh, God, I've heard that. He was very generous with his time with me and answered a lot of questions. And it was interesting because he also was very interested in any negative feedback I could give him. And I've noticed that about real sincere spiritual seekers and leaders that they want to know the truth. They don't want people bowing down to them. That doesn't do them any good. They want to know the truth. They don't want people bowing down to them. That doesn't do them any good. They want to know what they could work on to be a very human being. And that's one of the reasons why I like to hang out with these people is that some of it did rub off. And I did learn some stuff about myself.

I mean, you just say that like anybody could hang out with them. I just like hanging out with these people. I like hanging out with these people too. I would love to hang out with them. Well, a quick story. You know, Ram Dass, I wanted to interview him for a book back in the 90s. And I kept pursuing him, writing letters, phone calls, everything. Finally, after like a year of this, he calls me up and says, you know, I'm Ram Dass.

And I know you've been pursuing me for an interview for a long time. And I just want to know if you're on a mission from God or a complete lunatic. That sounds exactly like Ram Dass. Exactly. So I convinced him I was on a mission from God, so he did the interview. Oh, that's fantastic. So, okay, what you're saying is a trick to getting high-valued guests on this show is to stalk them. Exactly, exactly.

Or be on a mission from God, one or the other. Right. I mean, I think they kind of go hand in hand sometimes. It depends on the stalking. I had a stalker once, no mission from God. Yeah, that would be the lunatic type of stalking. We're talking mission from God, Blues Brothers type of stalking. Exactly. mission from God, Blues Brothers types of stalking. Well, you've had such opportunities that the normal human on this planet doesn't usually get. And you have graciously written them down in a book that people can have access to it right now. We're going to talk a lot about that, but let's fast forward all the way to the end, really fast. We'll come back again,

but the fast forward all the way to the end. What is the number one way to awaken spiritually in your estimation? Well, the number one way is actually very specific to you. So probably everybody listening to your show has found some time in their life where they felt very awake or a lot of love or peace or bliss. Maybe they were watching a sunset. Maybe they were petting their dog. Maybe they were meditating. And when you have that experience, I would suggest trying to figure out every detail you can about. What does it feel like in my body? Where do I feel it? What's helping my mind to slow down? You know, A lot of the people that I interviewed didn't use the normal spiritual methods. They used methods that they had created that helped to open their heart and quiet their

mind. So the best method is the one that works for you and has led in the past to you being open-hearted, loving, and peaceful. So is this something that you have to actively work towards? So you're talking about methods and what method works best for you, or can it just happen to people? It does occasionally happen to people, just like occasionally people win the lottery. But most people who earn a lot of money actually go to a job every day. And I do have my five favorite methods for awakening in under two minutes of effort on my website, theenlightenmentproject.net. And, you know, I have an audio with those five methods and an e-book that I give away for free because the methods are getting better.

You know, a lot of people are using methods from 2000 years ago, and those don't work so well nowadays. Most people don't use a computer from even 20 years ago. Why are they using spiritual methods from 2000 years ago? So in the last five years, a lot of methods have been invented that really are like power tools for quieting the mind and opening the heart. And I think when more people know those approaches that they'll just get a lot better results.

Well, we're definitely going to add a link to that website on our show notes. So if you're interested in getting those five ways to awaken quickly, then just go to skepticmanifestation.com, go to his episode page, and you will see the links there. I'm really interested in hearing some of these stories that you have of awakening. But before we do that, spiritual awakening, sometimes we've spoken to people that have had very messy, difficult awakenings. People are saying that it is like a rebirth. And we all know birth is always messy and difficult and challenging. So we've heard stories of people completely almost losing their minds, leaving their jobs, leaving their families and trying to get in getting a grip because they thought they were going crazy. Is this something that we should expect as we become more enlightened or is there a gentler way to go into that good night. Well, you know, the media likes the dramatic stories like Eckhart Tolle or Byron Katie,

who both awakened very suddenly. But 99.8% of people awaken very slowly, like you and I, and there it's much easier to integrate. You know, sometimes there's, you know, a challenge like, you know, you're not as triggered. My wife, when she saw that I was no longer triggerable, it bothered her for a little bit. Like, I can't get you upset, you know? This is a problem. You can't press your buttons.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, sometimes there's little challenges like that. But mostly, you know, awakening is about finding a place of inner peace, love and joy inside you more and more consistently until it's there all the time. And that doesn't cause that many problems unless you can't go to your job or something because of it. And I know I had one awakening where for like two weeks, I really could not get out of a state of bliss and figure out how to, how to get to my car. But you know, that those things tend to pass pretty quickly for better or worse. I don't know. Two weeks seems like an awful long time to not find your car.

Bliss for two weeks sounds wonderful. It does. I don't think I've achieved that for more than like four seconds. Two minutes? It was nice. It was nice. Yeah. I bet.

But, you know, I think a lot of people can find this peace and bliss for a minute here, a minute there throughout their day. And then it just becomes more part of your life. And it's not that noticeable because you just think, well, everything's kind of good. You get used to it. Yeah. So then I guess we should define it for those that are listening who maybe aren't completely on board with these. When can you say that you are now spiritually enlightened or is it a goalpost? It is a goalpost, meaning that there's levels of it. And there's even different types of enlightenment. Some are very love-oriented, some are very peace-oriented, and some are

very joy-oriented. So those are actually three different experiences. But my definition of enlightenment is when your identity kind of tips from being a personality and an ego to being an awareness or a presence of love or a presence of peace. And you're no longer so much identified with what your character does. You know, I get very amused watching Jonathan. He sometimes does really stupid things, but I'm not so much Jonathan. I'm more like the presence that's watching it. Okay. That's interesting. So you suddenly become someone that is watching you from a distance, almost like your personality takes a back seat and is along for the ride watching your true self, your higher self actually exist. Yeah.

That's one type of enlightenment. Another type is more like where you're just a, a presence of love. Have you ever felt that where, you know, maybe you just fell in love with somebody and, and you're in love with everybody, you know,

the whole world is smiling at you. Well, imagine that experience all the time. And that's another type of enlightenment. Seems like you might get into trouble. It can get complicated. It can get complicated. You have to, you have to, you have to make sure you don't take your old model of having sex with the people you love because that would involve everybody.

That's a whole different type of enlightenment. Yeah. That would be skeptic. My position is after dark. Hey's a whole different type of enlightenment. Yeah, that would be skeptic metaphysicians after dark. Hey, spinoff show. Hey. All right. So you've mentioned three different types of spiritual enlightenment. Can you choose which ones you're striving for?

Is this something that, you know, roll the dice and nope, you get joy and whoop, you get love? How does that work? Well, there are different methods that tend to lead to different ones, but a little bit to roll the dice. But there's now a science of how to tune it. So I kind of awakened to a more peaceful type of enlightenment. And now I'm trying to tune it to more of a loving type of enlightenment. And there's methods that can help you do that. Wow, I love that. So, when did you start along this path? Well, I was blessed to have a very miserable childhood. Oh, my gosh. I love your optimism.

Yeah. Well, looking back, I had a stepfather who used to beat me up a lot and a lot of violence and a lot of difficulty in my childhood. So I kind of had my midlife crisis around age 12. And I got into meditating and hypnosis so that I wouldn't kill myself at that time. And later I got into psychedelics and I realized, wow, there's a whole world outside of my normal mind resistance to the crap I was going through. And I just decided I was going to spend as much of my life as possible figuring out how to get back there. And at first it was slow going, but as I said, the methods are getting better and better. And one of the reasons I wrote the Enlightenment Project is I felt a responsibility to get out the best ideas, kind of like the greatest hits right now, so that other people didn't have to spend 40 frigging years interviewing 100 people.

Yeah, but if you can interview 100 people, the 100 people you interviewed are the ones to interview. Yeah, it was fun. Can you give us an example of some of the things that you would suggest people do? I know meditation obviously is, everyone says meditation is the way in, but what can someone do to help jumpstart their awakening? Well, I'll give a couple methods. One of them involves a little bit of a funny story. When I interviewed a lot of these teachers, a lot of them said that love is, of course, a doorway,

but so is gratitude. Well, I'm too lazy to keep a gratitude journal. And I figured maybe I could use my laziness to help humanity. So when a friend of mine told me that he got a magical mantra from his guru that helped him to feel gratitude all the time, I said, well, what's that mantra? I want to know what that is. So he told me that I had to go to India to get it directly from the guru. So I reluctantly booked a flight to India. Either of you been to India?

Not yet. Karen's been dying to go to India for a long time. Well, it's a long way away. And once you get there, there's a lot of pollution, a lot of difficulty. Yeah. So I take a rickshaw through polluted streets for three hours. And then I get to the guru and I have to wait four hours to talk to him. Finally get a chance to talk to this guy.

And he says, I asked him for the gratitude mantra. And he says, ah, yes. In his Indian accent, my mantra is the most powerful mantra on earth. And he leans into whispering my ears. I'm not even breathing. I want to get every syllable just right, you know. And he says, whenever possible, repeat these words. The mantra I give you are the words, thank you. I look at him like, you got to be kidding me. I say it. So I tell him, that's it? I traveled 20,000 miles again. Thank you, that's it?

And he goes, he looks at me sternly. He said, no, no. That's it. And he goes, he looks at me sternly. He said, no, no, that's it is the mantra you have been using. That makes you feel like you never have enough. My mantra is thank you. Not that's it. That's it. We'll take you nowhere. I love that. So I look at him and I say, well, thanks for nothing. And he says, thanks for nothing is not the mantra. You must say it from your heart many times a day. So when you eat good food, say thank you. When you see your child or the sunset or the pet, say thank you from your heart, and soon you'll feel gratitude for everything. Well, the strange thing is, is that this method, as stupid as it sounds, actually works,

because you and I live better than billionaires lived 30 years ago. You know, we're talking across the country immediately for free. And people are getting this information that I spent 40 years gathering basically for free. But if you don't feel the gratitude in your heart and take a moment to say thank you to creation, well, you can miss it all. So the methods that work the best are ones that take like 10 seconds that you can do in life that if you do them enough, they actually switch your consciousness from that's it to thank you so much, creation. I love that story. So great. And after investing all that money and time to fly, well, you're going to at least try it.

I'm going to say thank you all day long. Exactly. It developed a momentum because you get into a taxi with the air conditioning. Well, it's 105 in India. Thank you for the air conditioning. You get to the hotel. There's a Western toilet. Thank you.

I open up my computer and I Skypepe my wife this is a bunch of years ago and i'm saying thank you for my wife thank you for my computer thank you for skype thank you that i'm talking across the planet for free instantaneously and tears rolled down my face and she said that must have been some mantra. And I said, you have no idea. I love that story. I love it. I love it. I'm amazed that it's already how long it's already time for a break. It's already time for a break, believe it or not. But we've got so much more to talk to Jonathan about when we come back. We're going to talk a little bit more about spiritual awakening, but we're also going to talk about what some of these personalities that he interviewed are like. So stay with us. We'll be right back on The Skeptic Metaphysicians.

Welcome back to The Skeptic Metaphysicians. We are talking to Jonathan Robbins, and he has interviewed the top of the top of gurus in the metaphysical and spiritual space. He knows all there is to know about spiritual awakenings and enlightenment. We have been talking to him now for enough time to know that we got a lot to learn. Jonathan, before the break, you told us this wonderful story about the thank you mantra that's going to become now my new one. So thank you for that. And that's a great way to pursue a spiritual awakening is by using that mantra. And sure enough, when you say, when you live in gratitude, it's been proven that your vibrational levels tend to raise tremendously when you are living in gratitude. And that's really what we're trying to do when

we're trying to awaken, right? we want to raise our vibrations to the point where eventually we get to the point where we ascend whatever that means right yeah and and gratitude is one way another method that i like is um called the luster love method and you make a list of everybody you've ever loved even if it was like a fourth grade teacher that you really appreciate or loved. And when I made that list, it was like 50 people. And then you spend a minute thinking about each person or animal that you've loved and what you loved about them. Well, you do this 50 times, you're spending like an hour bathing yourself in love in that vibration. And it becomes just part of your day that you're bathed in love.

And that actually can help you to stay in love. And if you stay in love long enough, well, you're pretty enlightened. You know, gosh, that makes so much sense because everybody knows those people that are, you know, whether it's a friend or relative, that's always just kind of negative. And everything they talk about is negative. And they just become this negative person. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess, I mean, it's one of those things you don't think about.

Well, let me just think about love. I never would have thought about that. But that's the perfect solution. So that's why I put a lot of these newer techniques that have really just been invented in the last 20 years into the book. And your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find the method that works the best for you. And it really echoes the mission of our show, Karen, that we explore all these different paths,

specifically because everyone has a very individual path. And the explorations that we're doing is giving our audience a way to explore all of them without leaving the comfort of their homes and seeing what resonates to them with the hopes of you cobbling your own path forward and being okay knowing that your path is not the same path as everybody else. That's the biggest takeaway for the past two years we've been doing the show for me. Now, let's get personal for a second. When I meditate sometimes, I do a lot of guided meditations. I know on your show, Awareness Explorers, you do meditation at the end of the

show sometimes too, and it's some great meditations. I meditate every day, and every day is a different meditation because I am a Gemini, and I can't stay stuck in the same kind of meditation, right? So I like trying a lot of different ones. Sometimes I'll hit on one that talks about breathing through your heart. And the act of breathing through my heart sometimes opens it up so wide that that feeling of love that you're talking about completely overwhelms me for an extended period of time, which is incredible. But sometimes it gets a little hard to handle, right? And then all of a sudden you got the crash of, you're back home on earth. And suddenly the dog is barking, the kid is crying,

the horns are blowing outside, sirens are going. How do you maintain these feelings? Well, you know, if you think of a human hand, it's very useful because of two things. You can close the hand and you can open it. And you can do both in a second. Well, opening your hand is like opening your heart. It's great.

It's very useful. Closing your hand is like closing your heart. Well, a hand that's just closed is a club. It's not very useful. But the fact that you can open and close it at will is very useful. So I work with people, I'm a psychotherapist, and both in my practice and with myself, getting better at opening my heart in under five seconds and getting better at closing my heart in under five seconds. Because if you don't know how to sometimes close your heart, you can get overwhelmed with people's suffering. And therefore, you want to get good at both of them and learn the precise things that you're already doing, whether it be on drugs or in meditation or whatever that allow you to do both of those

activities. Karen can really use that tip. How to close the heart. I get overwhelmed. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's tough sometimes. You just feel it. You feel everyone's feelings and it's, oh, it's so hard. And it's a nice ability to have, not that you would use it that much, but in order to handle the amount of stimulation, the average person now gets exposed to like 2,000 advertisements a day. Well, 100 years ago, that was two advertisements a day. That's a lot for the human energy field to handle, and you have to learn how to protect yourself as well as how to open to love. And if they don't go together, it's like one wing of a plane being strong and the other one being weak. Well, that plane's going to go around circles and

might crash. Spiraling down. Absolutely. So then how does someone go about closing themselves off without the fear of closing themselves off for good. Well, if you get, how confident are you at tying your shoes? Pretty good. I bet you're pretty confident. He can macrame those babies. Yeah. You know, when your shoes untied, you don't worry, am I ever going to be able to tie my shoes again?

You know, because you've done it a bunch, you're pretty good at. So if you're in a situation where you have to kind of close down a little bit, I know a lot of different specific ways to open up in 10 seconds or less. So I know that I don't have to worry about it. Fair point. Out of all these incredible people that you've had the chance to get to know and to interview, who has given you the most impactful lesson? Great question. Well, I knew Ram Dass for a long time, and I would occasionally write letters to him,

and he would give me good guidance. A lot of these people, even though they're very busy, I saw that they were all very kind. And it helped me to want to be kinder, you know, that we prioritize people over money or other things. But Ram Dass, we'd always have a great time together. He would give me spot on advice. Wayne Dyer was another person that really went way beyond the call of duty to be helpful to me. And, you know, I could say many others too, but those are two that really surprised me. And Oprah as well. You know, I got on her show a bunch and I was just awed by her level of kindness towards me.

And it made me want to be a kinder person. There's definitely something special about people like that. Their souls are worn so much on the outside. You can really feel it. You can see it. Anytime you saw Wayne Dyer speak or Ram Dass or even Oprah speak, you can feel the genuine care for the other soul. It's astounding to me how much they cared for everybody. It makes perfect sense.

Now, you also spoke with the late Mother Teresa. What was that like? Well, that was a funny story. Most of the interviews I did were in person. But in 1993, I believe, I was doing a book where I was interviewing people. And I didn't have the money to go to India. And there was no internet. So I went to the library and found, is there any organization she's part of? And she was part of an organization called the Sisters of Charity.

So I find a number for the Sisters of Charity and I call that number. Now calling any place in India and having somebody pick up was like calling the space station, having an astronaut pick up. So, I call this number and a woman answers and I say, I'm Jonathan. Do you know anybody who might know Mother Teresa or any way I could get hold of her? And the woman says, yes, this is Ma. And I say, Ma, can you help me with this? I'd really love to interview her. And she says, yes, this is Ma. At that moment, I realized this woman sounds like Mother Teresa.

I said, are you Mother Teresa? And she said, yes, how can I help you? I just started crying. Of course. And the first question I had for her was, why'd you pick up the phone? You know, so she says, I don't normally pick up the phone, but it was ringing when I walked by. And, you know, that's the type of grace that can happen. So she, she did a wonderful interview and then wrote me a nice couple letters. Wow.

And, you know, of course, I still have those letters. And it just shows, you know, when you're trying to do something for other people, humanity, I think we do get help. Wow. And Jonathan, I got, I gotta say you are, you make me laugh so much in such a great way because you also are unbelievably humble and super kind and loving and, and just the, the genuineness of your first question. Why did you pick up the phone? That I love that.

Cause that's perfectly human thing to say, but you don't think about saying that to Mother Teresa. Well, I like something Ram Dass said, which is we're all really walking each other home. And, you know, since I've been lucky enough to speak to people that have a lot of wisdom. I try to pass it on and we're all learning from each other, hopefully. I think more and more of us are starting to learn from each other and turning it around and teaching others as we go. I'm hoping that eventually we get to a critical mass where then suddenly the us's will outnumber the them's. Although I hate that us and them thing,

right? It's not really that we are all one. It's just that right now there's so much strife and so much division in the world that you can't help but feel like a Hatfield versus McCoy is when it comes to something like this. What can somebody do when you're on a path like this? And yet you're seeing all this junk, all this garbage happening in the world around you.

How do you get beyond it to, to the point where you can actually be okay, knowing that it's going to be okay. Well, we don't know if it's going to be okay. It could go. No, no,

no, no, Jonathan. That's not, no, we're going to, it's going to be okay. It's going to be,

well, we're manifesting our own reality, right? I have a refrigerator magnet on my refrigerator that is a quote from the Buddha that says, do not look for peace in the world. It is not there. Look for peace within. And, you know, we can't control the events in the world, but we can find peace within. And, you know, we can't control the events in the world, but we can find peace within that is within our ability. And if you find peace within,

well, you will have peace. And also, I think when you have peace, it's contagious, meaning you're going to affect your family, your friends. Most of the people I know are having a fantastic time. But I'm also a psychotherapist, so I get to see that it's a crap show out there, or you turn on the news. But in my world, it's really good. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. I also volunteer in prisons. I teach there so i think wow you know when i asked a lot of these people what's the meaning and purpose of life and they all said the same thing and uh for 14.95 your listeners can find out what that is no i'm joking with you well look at the time we gotta go

but wait there's, there's more. There's more. Yeah. No, the meaning and purpose of life that everybody agreed was that we're supposed to find peace and love within. And then if and when we accomplish that to some extent, that we go out and help people and help the world. But most people are trying to skip step one and go to step two, and that leads to burnout. That's such a great point. Now, have you ever come across someone that gets angry that you're so peaceful?

For example, if all this crap show that's going on outside our windows is happening and you find peace within, and suddenly that stuff doesn't trouble you as much because you've got inner peace people outside might be like do you not care at all like aren't you supposed to help us overthrow all this garbage uh how do you respond to people like that well i tell them that i am volunteering and helping in the way i can i have you know books podcasts volunteer in prisons,

and other things I do. But since that person's in front of me, and I think the step one is for people to find peace, I then empathize with their anger. You know, there's a bumper sticker, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. But take that outrage and turn it into something useful. And being angry does not help the world. Being peaceful and loving helps the world. So I might try to help that person in that moment feel like, yes, it is hard out there. And if you could put more energy in investing in your own peace and love, then not only would you have more peace, but you might be able to help the world as well. That's a good point. In fact, the anger is part of the problem. The reason why the crap shows out there is because so many people

are angry instead of looking inside and finding inner peace. I think it's a great answer. Emotions are so contagious. It reminds me of that video we were just watching, Will, with the guy at the bus stop who just starts laughing. Yes. Little by little. There's like 20 people at the bus stop and he's just laughing to himself. And within two minutes, everybody at the bus stop is laughing. And there's no reason why.

They're just laughing. I love that video so much. Yeah. Yeah. It's very contagious. I think anger is the same way. You know, you're just angry and bitter. And next thing you know, that guy's, you know, pissing you and you're mad at them, and they're mad at the next guy.

So just really kind of trying to rein that in or control which emotion that you focus on or emit is part of the key. We're all transmitters in some way. Yeah, transmitters and receivers at the same time. Some of us more than others, I guess, receivers. Now, speaking of incredible gurus, what miracles did you see Sai Baba perform? I'm unbelievably curious. Well, I'm an amateur magician, so I know how magicians can do stuff. So I was curious as to whether he could really manifest things out of thin air. So the first day I'm at his ashram, he stops in front of me. There's like 30,000 people there, but he stops in front of me.

He puts his hand six inches from my face and starts manifesting all this ash. Well, being I'm a magician, I know how magicians could do that. So I'm looking for like a false thumb or false fingers or other tricks, and I can't see anything. Well, Sai Baba didn't really know much English, but he manifests like two cupfuls of ash. I'm being inundated. And then he looks at me and he says, satisfied magic men?

That's awesome. That was pretty good. That wasn't bad. Wow. That is awesome. Oh my gosh. I could talk to you, Jonathan. Oh, my gosh. I could talk to you, Jonathan. Literally, I could talk to you all night long.

I think this is my favorite. Well, I have an appointment in seven hours, so we'll have to limit it to 945 here. Oh, my gosh. The people that you work with must just love you. I mean, I can't imagine. I'm entertaining. I do get a lot of people who, you know, one of the reasons I write books is I say, well, read the book, you know, you'll hear more stories. And

but, you know, I just feel so blessed. And I think the thing that really helped me the most was a willingness to get help from people who knew more than me. And I'm still doing that. You know, and everybody knows more than you in some area. So that gives a lot of room for us to learn from each other. You know, Adyashanti, when I asked him what spirituality was to him, he said it's constant learning and constant discovery. I think that's a good definition. Absolutely. If you didn't live in California, didn't live in Virginia, I would ask you if you're accepting new patients, because I can only imagine what a great therapist you must be. In fact, I very, very, very firmly believe in therapy. And I was lucky enough to have a

therapist that was in the same space. She started me meditating. So your patients are unbelievably lucky to have you. So thank you. Thank you for your, for your service. Yeah. Thank you. And you know,

there's a lot of good new tools for people to awaken to love. There's, you know, I, I, my master's thesis was on the therapeutic effects of MDMA, better known as ecstasy, on PTSD. And then two weeks later, they made it illegal.

Mwah, mwah. Yeah, right. But that's going to be legal this year. It's going through third stage FDA trials. There's more interest in psychedelics. Hopefully people use such things responsibly. There's psychotherapy. There's all these new spiritual methods. So I think if somebody is really interested in finding more peace and love within that it's easier than ever. And you don't have to spend 10 years in a monastery. You can read a book, watch a YouTube clip, listen to your podcasts, and it's now possible. I think that's great because we need

it more than ever. Absolutely. And with a lot of the people that we've interviewed, kind of one of the themes is meditation is key. It's kind of the gateway. And you have studied with the masters. I mean, there are so many people that can't meditate or struggle to really be able to clear their minds and get to that space. Is there any little tip you could give someone that's struggling with that to kind of help them? Absolutely.

An analogy I use is that personally, I don't like broccoli, but I love potato chips. Well, they're both food, but if you only had broccoli, you'd say I hate food. Well, it's the same thing with meditation. There's literally on my website, awarenessexplorers.com, in the navigation bar, I have meditations. There's 100 free guided meditations for most of the spiritual leaders of the world and people can try those out some of them are going to be like broccoli and some of them are going to be like haagen-dazs ice cream like wow this is amazing that's free right you know so um i would say try different types of meditation until you find one that you actually really enjoy.

I think I might have found my new favorite website, Karen. I think we both might have. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Jonathan, this has been unbelievable. And I know we say that a lot. We've been unbelievably lucky to get the chance to talk to so many amazing people. You are right up there at the top.

This has been such a wonderful conversation in so many different ways. I would love to be your friend, right? Forget recurring guests. I just want to be your friend. Please. Well, there's that stalking, Will. He said that's the way to go. So I'm on there.

30 letters and phone calls should do it. Jonathan, get ready because they're coming. No, but truly, I would love to have you back on the show because you touched a little bit on the MDMA, and I've heard you talk about it on Awareness Explorers before, and I found it fascinating. In fact, I broached the topic a little bit with Karen and she just shut it down. So I would love to have you and us have a conversation about the benefits of MDMA and specifically maybe breaking down that objection that maybe it's a crutch. And we'll do a little tease for our next episode with you. Be glad to do that.

There's a lot behind that. And I just, as you mentioned, I did a recent podcast on it and I actually train it. I do, people go to mdmatraining.net and find out a lot about what I do. So, you know, but you got to find the tool that works for you and use it responsibly. The key. Yeah. Cause I mean, not just MDMA, but they're found that LSD is really helpful for folks with PTSD. Suddenly, all the tools that were taboo now are kind of coming back in vogue because they're finding that there's serious benefits behind them. As long as you do responsibly.

I've heard you speaking about microdosing, for example, things like that. So it doesn't mean you go on this massive trip, right? You don't- Going on a bender. So of all the people that you've spoken to, is there someone that surprised you in a way that you didn't expect? Take that as you will. There were several, but I'll tell one story.

I was visiting a famous guru in India that I'd heard about, but I didn't really know anything about him. So when I got to his ashram, it was actually his house. And I opened the door and he's in front of like 30 people in his living room. And he points to me and says, sit here. I'm like, I'm all, you know, what's this about? So his name was Papaji. Anyways, so he gets up close to me and he says, who are you? And I didn't know this protocol. So I said, I'm Jonathan from the United States. And he and everybody in the room starts laughing. I think, well, that was the wrong answer. So then he said, no, who are you really? And I went through like, well, I'm a

writer or I'm a husband or I'm a spiritual seeker. And he keeps shaking his head no. Finally, I looked him in the eye and there were like beams of light coming out of his eyes. I just got kind of transfixed like, wow, I've never seen that before. And as I'm looking silently in his eyes, a wave of intense love came over me. It was almost like getting hit by a wave. And I started sobbing in his lap. And he said something that still hits me today. And that was, this love that you're feeling now, that's who you really are. And your job in life is to never forget that.

And, you know, even when I see people I don't like, I know somewhere in there, there's the divine love is moving, created them they are that underneath all that personality and our job is to get back there 100 and i can tell that it's really hitting karen hard because once again waterworks are in and no but it makes perfect sense karen i even started tearing up that that story is incredibly moving because it incredibly moving because that's what we're all striving for. Right. Absolutely. Jonathan, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us and share of the wisdom that you carry around with you all the time. What an incredible burden to have to carry that heavy load with you. Thanks for unloading some of that with us. Oh, well, thank you for letting me unload it. It was so hard. Now I feel so light. I appreciate it. I almost feel like a therapist now. How much joy are you? How much joy are you? You know, you share everything in such a joyful way. And that is such a great way for people to learn. So I just, I can't wait for our listeners to hear you and hear this conversation and

check you out on their website and hopefully have you back. Definitely. We're going to tie in all of the links to our website, skepticmetaphysician.com. You can get in contact with Jonathan through there. Also, we're going to add a link to Awareness Explorers, which is the podcast that he does with his partner. And it is really, it's one of my favorite shows. I listen to it literally every time it comes out. It's one of the ones I listen to right away because I really love it. So thank you, Jonathan. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything

that you want to make sure that you leave our audience with? Joy and peace is possible, even in a world i couldn't couldn't have said it better myself so thank you so much for coming on the show and we'll see you again soon i hope so it was really a great pleasure to meet both of you woohoo it's time to celebrate again yep you guessed it it's five star review time we got another five-star review. We're so excited. We needed to share it with you as well.

This time it's from Nancy Farroko. I don't know if I said that last name correctly. So Nancy, I'm so sorry. Forgive me if I got your name wrong, but we appreciate you writing a review for the show. Last thing I want to do is butcher your name. Not my intent. I'm so sorry. I hope you will forgive me. Anyway, this was another five-star review. The subject

line was thank you. And she goes on to say, I am so glad I found this podcast. I love all the topics you've covered. Most of my friends would not be into these topics. So I listen while I am painting. Well, thanks so much for letting us know how you consume our show. Really appreciate the fact that you took the time to write us a review. And this one, folks, came through our website. So she went to skepticmetaphysician.com. That's exactly what you could do as well. If you are so inclined, go to skepticmetaphysician.com, leave us a review there. You could also go to Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and leave us reviews there as well. We love, love feedback, especially

constructive feedback, because then we can grow the show better. And that has always been our goal. So thank you again, Nancy, for leaving us a review. Really super appreciated. If you'd like to hear your review read on the air, you heard it. SkepticMetaphysician.com, Apple Podcasts, or Podchaser. Thanks for coming along on this journey of discovery with us. We'd love to continue our conversation with you on our website at SkepticMetaphysician.com or on Facebook and Instagram under Skeptic Metaphysician Podcast. If you know someone who would benefit from hearing the messages we're sharing on the show, do them and us a favor and share the show with them. It will help get the word out about us,

and it may just change someone's life for the better. And if you're listening to this on the radio and you missed something, well, not to worry. All of our shows, including this one, can be found at skepticmetaphysician.com, where you can also watch the videos or even send us an email or voicemail directly from the site. We absolutely love feedback and would appreciate hearing from you. I hope you've enjoyed this episode as much as we have. That's all for now. We'll see you on the next episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians. Until then, take care.