Soul Boom - How to Know Thyself w/ Andre Duqum

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Andre Duqum (Know Thyself) joins us to unpack if everything you’re experiencing right now is happening inside your own mind. We explore consciousness, simulation theory, and the idea that separation is an illusion shaping human suffering. Let's unpack integrity, awareness, and how transforming your inner world may be the key to healing the chaos we see outside. SPONSORS 👇 Proton 👉 (protect your privacy for FREE!) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://proton.me/soulboom⁠ Tiny Souls 👉 (promo: SOULBOOM20 for 20% OFF!) https://tinysoulsmedia.com ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! IG: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

God to me is not a concept. It's an experience available to us every single moment. Essentially a matrix of mind. We live life as if we think, here I am, there you are, there's all this stuff and objects around me. And that at some point, unconscious material in our brain matter, which is kilograms, it's operating within time and space, it's inert, it's unconscious. at a certain level of complexity in our neuronal structure, it gives rise to an experience of itself. Why would something that is non-conscious become conscious of itself? Everything that we are perceiving right now is happening internally.

100% of human experience is happening internally right now. And even just to just pause there and just to think about that, that the experience of rain, the experience of my voice and my face, if you're watching this on video right now, is happening and generating, being generated within your own experience. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. A quick shout out to our sponsor, Proton. Go to Proton.m.m.m. to take control of your private and digital life.

enjoy the show. Andre, thanks for coming on Soul Boom. It is my pleasure, Rayne. You had me on your show maybe a year ago or so. Yeah, I loved it. It was one of my favorite conversations I've ever had in my life.

For those of you who don't know thyselfs, check out Know Thyself on YouTube with Andre Dukum. Clip that. There it is, right there. It's there. That's all you need. I feel like in some ways

were cut from the same cloth. Like neither of us profess to be gurus. You know what I mean? Like I don't know. I don't have answers. I have a few inklings. I have a few things I've learned along the way. But I don't do videos saying it's really important to remember this.

And you really should think about this. And neither do you, you're kind of like, hey, we're going to go on a journey together. I'm going to talk to these really wise people. You obviously have some insight. You obviously have some wisdom and a very. We'll see. And a strong internal compass. But what does the world need right now?

I've stripped down my phone to next to nothing. But I do have one news app that I cling to and read each day. And every day I open it up, my jaw drops. I cannot believe what I'm reading as we get closer and closer to more war, deeper, violence, more entrenched hate and othering. In this time of increased chaos and division, what does the world need right now? There's many ways we could go about it, but I feel like the world needs integrity. The world needs individuals with integrity. And integrity in a deeper sense, I think... Yeah, what does that mean to you? Integrity, if you were to look at a building and say it has

integrity. What would that mean to you? Structure, foundation, deep roots. You know, it kind of just aesthetically kind of makes sense. It serves its purpose. Serves its purpose. Yeah. Fills its original design. Deep functionality. Well structured. Yeah. We'll have longevity. Fits into the landscape. Yeah. So I would invite us to think of integrity from this perspective. Integrity's origin, integritas means wholeness, completeness,

divided. And so I think a lot of us think about integrity as sort of apparent external ethics, aligning what you say with what you do, right? An integrist individual is somebody who says something, they follow up and they do that. And amidst a sea of inconsistency, that is a monumental thing. And it's something that should be rewarded and it's something we need more of. Individuals who do what they say and say what they do. And to me, that is one lens of integrity. It's an interpersonal relationship dynamic level of integrity. But when we think about integrity in the way that you just describe maybe observing a building, there's all these other different dimensions of integrity. There is the mind, the body, the emotions, and the relationship, the interpersonal dynamics,

and certainly the systemic integrity, because any organism cannot be extricated from the system in which it's nested within. So we think about all these different levels of integrity to create a whole picture of what it means. I am personally and I have been most, I am passionate about all of them, right? What does it mean to create a body with integrity that is functionally sound, that is well, that is, you know, because you could do all the right things and interpersonal dynamics, but if you're not well within how the structure is set within yourself and how your body is functioning, then it's going to create chaos in some form. Integrity that I'm more so referring to now is going from what is behavioral integrity to more of ontological integrity. It's the integrity that spiritual individuals have

referred to for millennia. It's a level of undividedness within your own mind. What do you mean when you say ontological? To deal with the nature of being. So when Jesus says to look with lust in your eyes at a woman who is another man's wife is to have already committed adultery in your heart. okay that is a level of ontological integrity meaning you don't just align what you say and what you do but it's also your thought your emotion with your action and so to become an in tech like an integrous individual is to examine our mind and to examine our emotions and to examine our motivations and knowing thyself is essentially coming back into this level of integrity with with oneself so when it comes back to like when you ask, what do you feel like the world needs, right? For me, it comes

back to individuals having a connection with themselves. And in that, you recognize self as other. I think you can take many different contemplative practices and you arrive at this place where you recognize other people as an extension of yourself. The boundaries of which you exist, this individualistic self separate from the world, starts to dissolve. That boundary between self and other starts to dissolve. You could call that love. You could call that recognizing consciousness that exists beyond yourself. And so that's where it shifts from a set of external ethics, which you need to teach people, don't hurt other people. To don't hurt yourself becomes obvious. I don't need you to I don't need to teach you to not cut off your arm, right? Because why? It's a part of yourself.

Why would you hurt yourself? If you experience other people, as a part of yourself in the world and nature and other animals in life as a part of yourself, then I don't think you need to teach external ethics in the same way because it comes apparent to you that you wouldn't want to do that. For me, like those experiences where you have a sense of undividedness within yourself, where you experience self as other, are worth way more than having it taught to you. It's like the difference. I think we used the analogy when you came on my podcast of reading a menu versus

having a meal. You know, having the taste, the interior, the subjective experience of yourself beyond your own thoughts and emotions, which were so privy, which were so enamored by and compulsive with, we start to get access to a realm of existence that is way more vast, that experiences life and a way more connected nature. But what you're talking about with integrity here is taking your spiritual practice, and your connection to something greater than yourself, harnessing it into integrity so that you're putting it to work in your life, in your actions. You know, Abdul Baháh, from the Baha faith says, strive therefore that your actions may be beautiful prayers.

And I love this idea that prayers are not just something like, oh, God, can I have a new BMW or, you know, can you get me this raise at work or what have you? but that you act in a prayerful way with your interactions with people, with your children, with your family, but even people that are different than you. So having that integrity, I imagine, fuels kind of making the world a better place. I think we largely put so much emphasis on what we do and we don't examine so much the place we do it from. and in my view, the consciousness in which we do anything drastically affects the impact of what we're doing. And so we could come and sit and have a conversation and focus on the words we're saying and how it's being perceived. Or we could feel really connected to each other and have a conversation that's alive.

And those will fundamentally feel different. And we could take that into any arena of life. And so for me, it's when you ask like, what does the word? world need more of. It's that sense of connection, that lack of an experience of division. Yeah. And when that rables out, so what we do, how we carry ourselves in the workplace, the relationships, our romantic, how we build a family, how we, you know, everything. But if you build that integrity that you're talking about, then it allows connection, right? When you say, it's not like either, or it's not like you do this first and then you get this, but there's,

there's a process of like building your integrity and connecting outside. And that helps you build your integrity even more. And that helps you connect even more. And that helps. So there's a kind of a yin yang kind of force at work. Certainly. Yeah. I feel like it works both ways.

Like life relationships, they're the great mirror in which we're still revealed where we're still stuck in our life where we get the opportunity to put into practice what we preach, you know. Yeah. And then when we're alone and in solitude and we get to cultivate that practice of building self-awareness that has ripples out into when we go live our life outside of the meditation map, you know?

Yeah. Ticknathan says the only way out is in. And I think it's a from a Buddhist idea. What's your greatest spiritual struggle right now? I mean, I would need to make a stark, I guess, delineation from spiritual and not. I feel like my whole life is quote unquote a spiritual journey depending on how you wanted to find it. To me, I'm really exploring this passion for building a team and building a business that scales and doesn't sacrifice the seed of the intention for why I created what I created.

So that's more of a challenge. Yeah, it's more of a spiritual challenge to do that in community. And to be able to put your values and principles in practice through the relationships that you're cultivating. So for me, building a team of individuals who are aligned with what we're trying to share with the world and lead them is a great opportunity. It's also a great challenge. And it's something that requires me to put in practice my own contemplative practices and my meditation and the things that can continue to support me as the visionary who's helping lead a team stay true to that. Also, I want to go back to something that you said because, I love it. It really touched me to say, I view everything that I do in a way as spiritual,

so it's hard for me to separate that out or differentiate that. And I think that there was a minor little comment you said, but I think it's so, so important is I remember someone early on when I was kind of talking about spirituality more and more and I was still doing the office. someone said to me like, you find a disconnect between playing Dwight Shrewt and talking about spirituality with Oprah. And I did feel a disconnect. And it forced me to kind of go, well, wait a second. Maybe this is kind of a false internal reality that I've created where I play this goofball

paper salesman. And then I talk to Oprah about, you know, the meaning of life. What if it's all one? And this was a really revelatory moment for me of like, oh, it's all one. Like it's Western society that wants to put everything into boxes that wants to compartmentalize our journeys. Like here's my artistic journey. This is my financial journey.

This is my family journey. You know, this is my hobby of friends and fun journey. This is my spiritual journey. It's church on Sundays or it's my yoga class. meditation group or whatever, and that it's all this kind of separated thing. But it's like, if I am a spiritual being having a human experience, then it's all a spiritual journey. And buying a new car as part of my spiritual journey and negotiating traffic in L.A. and making calls to old friends and creating content and telling stories and making people laugh and having

conversations like this. It's all one. Isn't that also where kind of all of these conversations head toward? Certainly, yeah. For me, I think there's a big, just resonance in what you said about spirituality becomes an identity and costume that we can often wear. It's a part of our life. It's a thing we do instead of a presence we are and that we have connection to and can maintain awareness of. moment to moment. And I think that's something that I would say this past couple years has been something that I've personally been internally like paying attention to. Where is this need to perform? Where is what I'm saying being motivated by a subtle but dominant form of to seek validation in some form? The choices that I make in my wardrobe, in my language, and the people I decide to

have on and the way that we package episodes on YouTube, where is it really fundamentally coming from? And especially in a scene, I would say, which you could call like more of a spiritual scene on YouTube with rewarding clickbait new agey titles. You know, you could probably have on so many psychics and angelic people who speak to angels and channel all these different, you know, individuals that would probably perform very well. And not to say that, these aren't individuals that have genuine connection. It's not a value judgment either way. But I think there's a level of discernment of what's really going to be useful for people.

And it can quickly fall into, I'm doing something because it's rewarded and because of the way it's being perceived and set up the genuine, you know, sharing from inside of that makes sense. One of the reasons I think podcasts have just become so big and part of our kind of cultural currency. is that we're just having a conversation. You're someone I really respect, admire, am intrigued by. We get to kind of sit at this table and talk. And this is what humans have been doing for a couple hundred thousand years in caves, sat down and had conversation about life, the day, the elements, the hunt, you know, the seasons, the mythology.

And people like to listen to that. And so I think having an engaged kind of heartfelt human, wide-ranging conversation is one of the most human things there is. Agreed. What's one absolutely out-of-the-box surprising thing that you learned having these dozens and dozens of conversations? I would say some of the more mind-chattering conversations I've had have been consciousness researchers with consciousness researchers and people who explore simulation theory. Wow, tell me. I'm fascinated by that.

Yeah, I mean, I had just released an episode a couple of days ago with this guy, Yoshabak, who's a cognitive scientist, Donald Hoffman, Onica, and Sam Harris. again, lots of overlap with some different contemplative teachers like Rupert Spira and Mugi and Sald Guru and a lot of them say similar things about the nature of reality that we're currently operating within, which is essentially a matrix of mind. We live life as if we think, here I am, there you are, there's all this stuff and objects around me. Yeah.

This is real. Yep. Yeah. And the physicalist notion says that these things are objectively real. Thank you for hyping the Soul Boom mug available at Soulboom.com. Get the merch. And that we are separate from it, right? And that at some point, unconscious material in our brain matter, which is kilograms,

it's operating within time and space, it's inert, it's unconscious. at a certain level of complexity in our neuronal structure, it gives rise to an experience of itself, right? That's what the material's notion of consciousness is. We don't know how it happens, and it's particularly referred to as the hard problem of consciousness because why would something that is non-conscious become conscious of itself? There's many different theories we can go on for days exploring possible reasons why.

But when I've had conversations with consciousness researchers that explore consciousness potentially a more fundamental, constituent of the universe. It rewrites our paradigm completely, which is really like a two to 300 year old paradigm of materialism. In the grand scheme of the human era and epoch, it's what's one or two pages in the story of humanity. For long before that, we've actually come through the various different contemplative

practices and seeing consciousness much more fundamental. You go back to the oldest religions of Adveeta Vedanta, and they explore this quite eloquently. in a way that science is only now coming back to what the Vedas and Upanishads were talking about 10,000 years ago. That leading, cutting-edge scientists and researchers are starting to explore and developing compelling, compelling scientific theories around. So to me, it's like this, when you ask what's the most profound kind of thing that I've learned is sort of this bucket of different theories and insight into what can be quite destabilizing for a lot of people, to examine and think about how everything that we are perceiving right now is happening internally. 100% of human experience is happening internally right now. And even just to just pause there and just to think about that, that the experience of rain,

the experience of my voice and my face, if you're watching this on video right now, is happening and generating, being generated within your own experience. then this this hard set boundary of there you are and here I am kind of dissolves a little bit and that's just like the baby step into examining okay life is being simulated on some level and then you can go down deep into the rabbit hole yeah because simulation theory can work for a a total materialist and simulation theory can work for the most mystical mystic sitting cross-legged in the Himalayas, which is that this physical world has an illusory nature and that there is some kind of deeper reality that connects us intrinsically beyond. And there's an illusion of

separateness. Yeah. So to me, that illusion of separateness is like been a really big theme throughout a lot of the conversations and with a lot of these different consciousness researchers. And I try to explore it from any which angle because to me that is one of the quickest ends to be able to disabuse ourselves and disochant this notion of being a solid, separate self. And that is one of the many ways we can start to have a more connected experience of all of life around us. Yeah, we could, I mean, we can keep going down the rabbit hole if you want. But that to me is sort of the umbrella.

that is like, I think, most ground-shaking that is going to, especially over the next coming decades, going to be the next revolution and paradigm of science and physics and with consciousness. You know, we spend a lot of time thinking about the soul on this show and who we are, what makes us human, what belongs to us. But there's another part of our identity. Most of us never even think about protecting our digital life. Your email is basically the master key to everything now. I mean, it's got your travel plans, get your passwords, personal conversations, your bankers.

your bank accounts. And yet, most email providers treat email like a product. They scan messages, they track when you open emails, they build advertising profiles based on what you say and who you talk to. Proton was built to change that. It was created by scientists who believe that privacy should be the default online, not something you have to fight for. Today, more than 100 million people use proton products around the world. With Proton Mail, your emails are end-to-end encrypted. Only you can read them. Not advertisers, not data companies, not even Proton itself. No ads, no trackers, no scanning your messages to train AI models. Just email that actually belongs to you. And I love this feature. Proton even lets parents reserve an email address for their child for up to 15 years so they

can grow up with a clean digital identity that hasn't been tracked since birth. So if you want your online life to be a little more private and a little more human, learn more at proton.m.m. slash soul boom because you were born private and frankly it should stay that way. We spend a lot of time trying to fix ourselves as adults, therapy, meditation, podcasts, blink. But what if we just started earlier? That's why I was so happy to stumble upon Tiny Souls media. It's actually a collection of tools designed to help very small humans become decent,

large humans. They've built an app with hundreds of activities, songs, and short mindfulness exercises that teach kids things like patience, honesty, empathy. It's grounded in real developmental psychology and it's practical. If your kid is hitting, melting down, refusing to share, Tiny Souls gives you ways to actually work through that stuff in real time. They even have this great animated series called Zip and the Tiny Sprouts that reinforces those lessons.

So if you're a parent or educator and that resonates with you, visit Tiny Soulsmedia.com and use the code Soul Boom 20 to receive 20% off an annual subscription or products to give your child a strong, social, and emotional foundation from the start. Give your children a tiny soul, boom. Rain out. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit.

Play. Post. Taste. View. And enjoy. Via rail. Love the way. So I've got a couple of projects coming up this next year.

we're going to do a documentary on God, the notorious GOD. Yeah, you told me about this. Yeah. So any pointers? Any tips? Who should I speak to? And is there a point of view that you think I should examine? I mean, I think having a holistic approach would be really beneficial.

What does that mean? Meaning, which is something I know you'd probably already have awareness of, but the contemporary Western perception of spirituality is something that I'm sure you'll, approach, but quickly go deeper then, you know, and being able to explore what are the mystical traditions and, you know, some of the African traditions say, what do the indigenous cultures say about connection with the land and their experience of God? You could go to the cognitive scientists and explore, you know, I think being able to have many different perspectives, you get to get closer. It's like the blind man and the elephant, right? You get to touch all the

different parts of the elephant. One thinks it's the tail. One thinks it's the trunk. One thinks it's all this thing. And by having all these different perspectives, you get to get closer into what the thing is. So I'm sure you're going to interview God. We offered him an executive producer, but he wanted way too much. I was like, bro. He's like, I'm directing this bitch. Has your view of God changed since you started the podcast to now? Yeah, I would say it's evolved and it's deepened. How? I maybe had some more presumptions or beliefs about what quote-unquote God's spirituality,

consciousness is when I first started. I've increasingly, by getting to speak with more individuals, made this distinction between belief and knowing. Belief is often a poor substitute for knowing and experiential knowing. And so for me, I love theories. can get lost in philosophical debates and conversations so the cows come home. You know, it's very fun for me. And yet, God to me is not a concept.

It's an experience available to us every single moment. And so I would say for me, it's deepened a lot from theories and beliefs and opinions to holding a lot more loosely, understanding how much I am ignorant to. and finding that in the inherent, uncertain, and in permanent nature of reality, I can rest in my own being. I have practices that connect me with that. Increasingly, I'm dissolving the idea that this awareness comes to me in one moment of practice, but that living life is the practice and that through looking in another's eyes and through having a conversation or through reading a book or through folding the laundry, these are all plentiful opportunities to be able to recognize

your sense of awareness, the non-dual state that exists within your being. And so for me, I would say it's shifted from ideas to experience. Have you had an experience of the divine recently that you can share? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mark this experience as not being that. What I think you're asking more stutely is like transpersonal mystical experiences or like deep. Perhaps, yeah. Yeah.

But you're right. We're having a conversation about what it means to be a human being. And this can be its own experience of the divine at this table. Yeah, I think, you know, in Zen, they have this saying, water heats gradually and boils suddenly. And so when it comes to awakening to the true nature of your brain, being, you know, it is a gradual process of having, you know, maybe more heightened transpersonal experiences where you have a deep meditative experience. And then, you know, stacks up over time to

where it becomes a more integrated way of knowing and where the water boils and what spiritual teachers would refer to as enlightenment, you know, where that you've woken up to the narrative of Andre and Reign as a real construct. In some way, it is a story we are living through. And it is real in the aspect that we are engaging with each other and this is kind of what life is here to do. Like if one infinite consciousness is to take on the myriad of individual experiences, perhaps for the own experience of itself, then the experience of separation, which we talked about

earlier being an illusion, is a very important one. It is the illusion we're here to play. And I think of this analogy also of like when you're in the dream world and you become lucid in the dream, you still know you're in a dream, but you're aware that you're in the dream. Right? You're still in the dream, but you're aware that you're in the dream. And similarly on the path of awakening is you know that this reality is being simulated in many ways, that it is sort of a dream. It is a dream of sorts. And it's still here to be played.

And so, no, I took us on a little bit of a tangent there. No, I love it. But, yeah, I've had a myriad of what you could call transpersonal experiences or transcendent, yeah, mystical, beatific. Yeah, that are, I would say notably, like, I notice those experiences seem to have like a tale on them in terms of how they continue to impact the rest of your weeks, months, and years afterwards, and you don't always know in the moment.

But when I look back at like moments of real growth, those moments of deep, like a deep, non-dual state where there's no experience of self where you're meditating, you know, for 10 hours a day at a papasana or done like a darkness retreat and you like go into explore the nature of your consciousness at a really deep level, you'll have pockets that are quite, quite profound. One of the things I've been working on recently is just been having a bunch of a lot more anxiety, I've been going through a lot this year, a lot more kind of stuck in my head, more rumination. And it's really helped me to be reading some Zen Buddhism. And I was reading Jack Cornfeld writing this morning.

And he was talking about how acceptance of reality is bowing, as bowing to reality and how he was talking about how he was in his car and we can all, we've all experienced this. He was in his car and honking and he's late. Why is that guy driving that way? And he's like, and he's realizing his blood pressure was really high. And then he was like, wait, this is doing no good for me to be so upset. And we've all had this. But this is kind of a foundational kind of spiritual experience. And then he's like, I bow in acceptance. And there's something about the act of bowing that allowed a freedom. And you mentioned that at the very beginning.

Like when we know our spiritual reality, it allows us a freedom from the fetters of the world, from the mosquito bites of the world, you know, the vicissitudes from the car horns, you know, from the endless alerts on our phones. And I've just today I've been thinking about that, like just bowing in acceptance to the way, things are. It's really hard for me. I want things to work out the way I want them to work out. And if I don't want to, if I have certain feelings, I don't want to be having those feelings. I want those feelings to go away. Well, that doesn't work. You can't have like a lot of negative emotion inside and like try and shove it aside and like soldier on. There has to be that act

of bowing to those emotions and just a radical acceptance of them. for them to dissipate or not or to be incorporated or for you to learn to tolerate them at a deeper and deeper level? Any thoughts on that? Yeah, you know, I had a friend Richard Rudd on the podcast a while ago and he shared something that was great in regards to facing the innumerable challenges that we will in life, sort of thinking about it from the steps of allowing, accepting to embracing. Oh, that's great. So like accepting your nagging employee or embracing the trauma and horrible things that are

occurring on the planet right now seems like a large step for a lot of people. And allowing feels like a bit a bit easier to do. Yeah. You know, when it comes to our own emotional compulsiveness or the reality, reactions we have in traffic or like a lot of these things. Can we just like allow the experience to be there for a second? And that already diffuses a bit of the reactiveness that we carry moment to moment. It takes away this reactionary energy or starts to diffuse it a little bit and then moving into accepting where it's like you can actually start to invite it in a closer to your closer to your being.

And then embracing is when you fully reach intimacy with life. That's a level of ontological integrity. That's a level of freedom. That's a level of being undivided of whole, of embracing life where you're intimate with life. Otherwise, we're always engaging with life through our own mental dramas, right? We're never actually making contact fully with what's in front of us. Yeah. There's like kind of a pushing pull, push me pull you kind of thing with life. Yeah. Which is like quite sad to think about, like that we're living this life, which may very, well-being our one-shot, who knows, like, but it is a gift nonetheless. And to think that we are living it through a colored tinted lens without our own understanding, you know, we don't

actually see to the degree in which we're engaging through our own neuroses. It's a quite, it's a bummy feeling, at least for me. Yeah. So that's where, I mean, this kind of all kind comes back to examining those places, right? Examining those places where we have those inherent prejudices of life and where we are not okay with what is. And then starting to allow, accept, embrace that which we have resistance to. What about injustice? What about we see injustice? We embrace injustice? Or how do you navigate that? Someone might be listening right now and going, wait a minute. I see people in Minneapolis shooting people in the face. I'm not going to embrace that. that to change. Yeah, there's that quote, which I might slightly butcher, but the, I'm no longer

accepting that which I cannot change. I am changing with that, that which I cannot accept, you know? So what is that tension there, right? Of accepting what you, what all the atrocities in the world versus being an agent for change and changing those things you find unacceptable, right? to me, accepting and embracing what's in front of you and things that are happening does not mean you become a docile, inert person who does not act in the world. Because that wouldn't have integrity either. Exactly, right? So what does it mean to be an individual with integrity who I am simply, all this simply means is to not argue with reality. To not argue with what is.

And what would, what could a better place be internally? then that to actually take action that will actually produce effective change in the world. To be able to see clearly, to be able to be intimate with what is to, and that doesn't mean we don't take immense action in correcting the things that we see have, you know, our injustice. Like there's no shortage of things that are happening on the planet right now with great injustice. But losing connection with ourselves doesn't behoove anyone in that process. It's a great documentary, no greater love around Mother Chase's life. Oh, okay.

I heard about that one. I haven't seen it. I think you'd love it. And she was a woman who, you know, she was not without her troubles internally. And she had this fierce level of love. You know, I think we have this association with anger and indignation is sort of like things to transcend. And from a level of being connected with yourself, there is no emotion. that is not welcome at the table. There's not there is no force that is not that cannot

have a place within yourself to be a motivating factor towards whatever is necessary. Whatever is necessary in the moment has a corresponding emotional connection and landscape. And so for me I think like you I am very motivated to be an agent of conscious change in the world through the conversations that we have through the initiatives that we support, embracing, and accepting them doesn't mean we don't do anything in the face of them. It means we're actually more capable agents of change in the face of them in my perspective. I like that too because it allows us to see with a greater vision.

For instance, someone might be very upset at an act of violence here in the United States undertaken by a certain political party or faction or what have you. But what you're talking about with this kind of radical acceptance and even embracing it is like there is violence all over this planet. It's entrenched in human society. How can we change that? How can we inspire our way out of violence? How can we see past violence? How can we as a species on this planet live in peace?

You know, peace isn't just an absence of war. it's a way of being in the world. It's a way of being on the freeway. We keep coming back to the driving analogies. But I always say that, like, as long as people are, like, cutting each other off in traffic and, like, cheating and going around and diving. As long as that's happening, like, world peace is not possible, right? We have to really look at what makes us violent on an individual level and on a global level.

This isn't about like, oh, there's violence in Minneapolis here or there's violence in the capital here or there's, you know, there's violence in these riots here. This is about like, why do we still believe after all of these thousands of years that we can solve our problems with violence? Why do we still believe that? And what can we do to shift people's perspective to shift their consciousness around violence itself? I think you're on to something, right? This is good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, to me, it comes back to these are not two separate things, being able to be motivated by the atrocities we perceive in the world and do something that has tangible and real-time effects on those things.

To me, what we have most power over is addressing the internal war that we have within ourself. The greater jihad of Islam, which is that internal conflict. Yeah. Yeah. Where is the anger, the war, the resistance, the fear, where does all of that still persist within my own being? Ego. And to the degree we make space for and embrace all those aspects of self and then wake up to the nature of true self that's beyond it, I do truly think we become the most powerful, capable agents of change for the former. You know, for the individuals that have come, the sages and saints that have transcended self to a degree that have made space for that level of wholeness within their own being, they've been some of the most impactful individuals to ever grace the face of the planet, you know? So, again, I don't think it's in either or, but I do think here we are, ourselves, we're in here. This is our most immediate access to heal the division on the planet that we so radically want to change. Start here.

Start here. New merch. Soul Boom Spring has Soul Bloomed and so has our latest merch drop. Go to Soulboom.com slash store to see our fresh out of the blue designs on everything. Shirts, hoodies, hats, tote bags, mugs, bumper stickers, posters. You name it. We've got it. Unless we don't got it. These aren't just logos slapped on to stuff, folks. These designs actually reflect the vibe of our beautiful, spiritually curious, weird community, thought provoking, a little trippy, a little funny. Got a soulboom.com slash store right now. So you're talking about a transformation of the heart, a transformation of consciousness. That's where we start. If we want to kind of make the world, a more healed place.

What do you do? You pray, you meditate, you read, you listen to podcasts like this, you read the words of the great spiritual sages, you connect with nature. What else do you do? What do you do?

Yes, and I think you just answered it. Okay. Well, I do think it is important to understand that there's a lot of people out there that have a practice and a discipline for their bodies, right? They go to the gym a certain number of times a week,

or they play tennis at certain times a week, or basketball, or they, you know, they do their, even their dog walk or the time on their treadmill or what have you. Like, humans have no problem whatsoever. Understanding that physical fitness requires some discipline and some exertion. We can't just do it when you feel,

like it for a few minutes here and there. It's just not, it's not going to pay off. But we do have a kind of a harder time understanding that there can be a discipline or devotion to a spiritual practice, that there can be a practice of spirituality. What is your practice and what would you like it to be? And what would you suggest for the listener? If they want to undertake this kind of radical transformation of the internal machinery of their consciousness to become that, to strive for that greater integrity you've been talking about. I fully agree with the notion that because our physical body is more obvious to us and to see in others, that it would require work to get in shape.

We don't have the same level of attunement to the quality of our mind and what it's like to be there. There's no external physical thing we can see in others. We can see the outermost expression. of people's physical actions, right, which is that the root is closer into the mind and into the nature of ourselves. So if you want to live in an orange grove, you plant orange seeds. If you want to live in a bountiful garden, you would plant seeds that of that which you want to see bare fruit, right? And so when it comes to the nature of our mind, we know what it's like to be in here,

Right. We know the internal divisions. We know the tens of thousands of thoughts that we think on day, largely unconscious, habitual, and 95% of what we thought yesterday. You know, there is a program running in our psychology. And you can try to go on correcting all of these thoughts. You can also wake up to a level of awareness that is greater to and a bigger context in which these thoughts are existing. I like to think of it as, you go to the movies and the whole experience is set up for you to be totally engaged with the movie, right? The lights dim down, the speakers rise up, the screen is huge. It's like all that's in your field of awareness, right? That's why a lot of people go to the movies. They feel a lot of presence, like they're fully in it, right? It's different than watching a movie at home or you're on your phone. So that is what it's like to be totally enamored with your own thoughts and your own internal drama.

It's like you're going to the movies and you're really believing the story. And someone gets killed in the narrative, someone falls in love, you're going on the ride, right? You're at the whims of the external experience of what's happening. Awakening could be thought of as putting the content of your experience and a larger context of awareness. So imagine you take that same movie theater screen and you take it outside in a big grassy field where the sun is beating on your face, dogs are playing around, and it's like a few hundred feet away from you. All of the sudden, the screen, it's still there. The movie, it's still playing out. But it is not the dominant enchanting force it once was.

And so to, you know, pay attention to the quality of our mind means to move from the former to the latter. It means to examine how enchanted we are and reactionary we become to the phenomenon that's playing out in our external experience. To witness the movie that's playing. Yeah. It goes back to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. You just expand it on it for a modern audience. I love it. So from that place, though, imagine the level of freedom.

Things happen on the movie screen. You still have a deeply human experience. Yeah. It can touch you. It can excite you. You can be captivated by it. Yeah, you're still involved with it. You can also pause and watch the sunset outside.

Yeah. So to me, that is the direction of freedom. That is what it's like to be mentally fit in a sense where we have somebody's, we know what it looks like to be physically fit. To be mentally fit and to be energetically fit is to have this greater sense of awareness that you're tapped into. It's interesting. You don't say spiritual. Why don't you say spiritually fit? I mean, I think it can be a bit more big for people.

When I speak about awareness, that's more direct. Yeah, that resonates. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love when when they said to the Buddha, like, are you a. a man, no, are you a God, no, like, what are you? I'm awake. Like, the Buddha means the awakened one. Like, we want to be more awake. We want to have more awareness. Like, everyone can get behind that.

Because we know what it's like when we are at times of maximum awareness, where our wise-minded self is kind of running the show and we're able to see things with gratitude and wisdom and perspective. We've all been in that situation. And we would love to live our life in that way. So what are the tools that we can use to get us that? But I love that analogy. Yeah. You know, that's, if you want to say the goal, you could say it's a goal. But to have the experience of awareness that is a larger,

putting the content of your experience in that larger context of awareness is a waking up. You see how frequently things come in and out of your experience. Anything that is going to arise by nature has to fall away. This is the impermanent anita that the Buddhist and, you know, in Vapasana, they continue to refer to. Anitia, Anitia. One of my teachers, Goenka keeps saying, Anitja, Anitja. It is the impermanent nature.

And the more that you experience the ever-changing arising and falling away of apparent phenomena, the more we can what is referred to as Tanha, which is our clinging. We can cling less to the experience of life. and that is freedom, right? If you can be with all that is, then no longer are you subject to what's happening, whether it's in your favor or not. You can be with what is fully. And so for me, the cultivating of different practices goes back to that garden analogy. It's like, okay, we want to plant seeds that are going to bear fruit down our life that we feel

excited about. If we want to live in an orange grove, you plant orange seeds, what is the equivalent of that in a spiritual practice where you're culting? cultivating awareness. Well, like you mentioned, there are a multitude of different ways we can cultivate awareness. There are so many different contemplative practices. People find that connection through the arts, through extreme sports. But I would say that we spend so much of our day investing our time and energy into things that are dopaminergic pleasure. We take so much information, we have, we owe it to ourselves to at least investigate the nature of self an hour

a day. An hour a day. An hour a day is not that much time. We started the conversation and you were talking about where spirituality meets attention. Yeah. Can you bring it back around there? So if you're talking about an hour a day of your attention, where is your attention going? So I personally recommend strongly for people to find a contemplative practice and go to it at its death. Go to it at its depth. Perhaps at its, yeah.

Also at its death, where you then throw away the practice. But to me, it's having the immersive experience where you have a real teacher in person where you're not just winging it. You know, the meditation apps can be quite good for people starting out

and can be quite approachable. And I think any foot in the door is great. Like I think even saying an hour a day can be quite intimidating for people who are just trying to like slightly improve their life. Right. And a five to 10 minute practice can be great to kind of start there. But fundamentally, a lot of these contemplative practices are working with your attentional system, especially because we're such a visually dominant society. We were using our eyes a lot. and we are getting fed dopamine from what we're seeing and what we're interacting with

more so than any other culture that has ever operated. And so there are a few practices for sure in mindfulness practices and meditative techniques in Papasana, Trataka, which is like staring at a candle flame. There is a multitude of different practices that can support people develop their attentional system because our concentration largely as a society has gone so to shit like we can't pay attention to our own thoughts reading a book let alone even for 10 seconds at a time and so investing in yourself is giving yourself space I like to do it in the morning after a little bit of movement where I sit down and I have my own personal practice right and I think it's important for people

to follow what they feel most called to for me it's been different at different points, some form of meditation, some form of movement. And right now it's actually Japanese Zen tea ceremonies. Whoa. Yeah. So it's a bit different than a formal meditation practice. Are you taking a class on that somewhere? I took a chorus.

There's a beautiful ceremonial aspect of it, but it's also not rocket science. You're pouring tea. You're sitting and you're meditating. But you're consciously pouring tea. Every. Yeah. Every action, every movement of the spoon. of the tray of the liquid, you're in total presence.

Yeah. It has very profound effects carrying out through the rest of your day as you're meditating with your eyes open for a lot of it. So whatever resonates with people, but finding that practice and just saying yes to a practice and committing to it. There is something also to meditating with a group. You don't always have to do it, but I do think, and they have proven that it has more powerful effects on the brain to meditate with other people. So I do think that the meditation

apps and even a personal meditation practice, which is important, and you can't necessarily meditate with people every day, but there's a reason why the great meditators meditate in monasteries and in churches, because there is, again, that illusory nature of like, I'm different than you, where separate really drops away when you are in. a circle meditating. I agree. I agree. And it's also very inspiring to just have shared space with people with shared values. You know, people who are exploring similar inquiries. There's something, I think there's something really motivating and inspiring about that. And so so many different practices, right, that can support us on this path. I think that a lot of them are largely

pointing back to the path of self-realization. It's called self-realization, not self-acquisition, because you're realizing something that's already there. It's innate to yourself. And, you know, Srinas Arkatara Maharaj, I love you as this quote, we are looking for the house, never having left home. We are searching for the sense of home,

the sense of connection of wholeness in all of the external reality. And the contemplative practices and the sages would remind us that all of that exists within us. I am that. For me, like there's an extra layer that is necessary for my personal serenity and direction. And that is a layer of prayer on top of the contemplation. What does that look like for you? It's really pretty simple.

I think the most powerful prayer in any spiritual tradition is a surrender. the simplest and most powerful prayer there is is, thy will not mind be done. It's just thy will be done. And you could say that to the universe, to the stars, to nature, to the trees, to the wind. You know, you can just say that to consciousness itself. But I do think that in Western world,

we're very divided in terms of like, God is either, as I call him in Soul Boom, Sky Daddy. So there's kind of like, you know, please, daddy, don't be mad at me. And let me do the right thing. And that's a pretty, you know, kind of pedestrian elementary school view of how God might work. But we also like, we don't want anything bigger than us. You know, when we've recoiled against religion and what it did to us for eons, there's kind of like, fuck that.

I don't want to surrender to something larger than myself. I got this. I'm in Katrach. I don't need that. There's a, we get a prickly defensiveness around that act. But there is something in, there's in every religious tradition, every spiritual tradition, every devotional practice, every discipline, there's a, there's a sense of bowing, there's a sense of humility. There's a sense of bringing yourself back to center, to smallness. you know, one of the great spiritual analogies is that of the ocean and the waves.

You know, Bahá'u'llah and the Baha faith says, consider the ocean. And this is in every spiritual tradition. The ocean is two things. It is vast and all connected. There's only one ocean on the planet. And there are individual waves. And the individual waves rise up and for a brief period of time seem to have a kind of autonomy and fall back in into the, into the,

larger reality. But it's important for me, some people may feel differently, it's important for me to kind of have that practice. I talk about in Soul Boom, Annie Lamont, talking about the three kinds of prayers, help thanks, wow, thy will be done something where I am humbling myself before powers that are greater than me, even in a small way, in a way of thanks, in a way of gratitude. and a way of recognizing beauty. I'm fortunate. I have a nice view from my house and I can see like hills and some nice trees and there's some hummingbirds.

It makes it a lot easier, you know, than when you're in an inner city apartment, which I spent most of my life in. But part of that practice for me is the centering practice and the unifying practice of the contemplation, but then it's also the surrendering practice. And where I get out of whack is when I'm not surrendered. And when I think I have the illusion that I actually have the reins. I agree. And there's like we spoke to,

there's many different ways to have that realization. But I resonate deeply with just like that level of bowing and that humbling to a greater intelligence. Like we can always connect those dots looking backwards. And I think we often so want to know how our. life is playing out and desperately control the circumstances of how things are playing out, there's something incredibly liberating about feeling into a greater intelligence that is that is working beyond the scenes, you know, that is way more vast than our own thoughts could concur. You know, like our thoughts are only a recombination of past sensory input.

We are, yeah, all of our memory is informing what we even believe is possible in our life. having that prayer, having that deep humbling, just allows us to be open to what life wants of us and not just what we want of life. And it's been really powerful in my life too. Yeah. And I like what you just said because when I'm in that space, it feels like there's more possibility.

There's more openness. I actually am more greatly empowered by being in that place of surrender. I'm not, I'm not limited by it. How did you get started wanting to have these kind of conversations? Yeah, my path to podcasting in this sense is really a culmination of both my background and filmmaking and storytelling and podcast production and my own personal path of inquiry, spiritual inquiry, philosophical insight, studying various different wisdom traditions. And they kind of both had a baby, which is my podcast, know thyself. And I get to say,

to do one of what I feel like is the best job on the planet. I'm sure you agree is getting to sit down with brilliant individuals and have a couple hours of dedicated time, presence, attention. And it's such a gift. You know, I have a deep love for exploring the contemplative arts and the different ancient wisdom traditions and what they say about the time we currently live. And I think that genuine interest to seek, to know, to understand has resonated with our audience. So, So you've gotten to speak to some incredible teachers, some of which I want you to convince to come on my show. I love Rupert Spira. Spira?

Yep. He's amazing. Gabor Mote, I'm a huge fan. We've also had, both had Lisa Miller, Pete Holmes, Alex O'Connor, Joe Dispenza, some great, great teachers on the show. What have you learned from talking to these dozens and dozens of spiritual teachers? Is there, can you distill it down to a handful of spiritual gems for us? Listen to Rain's podcast. I wish I could give you the cookie cutter, the response that distills it all down perfectly.

The truth is that they've all sparked something unique within me, I would say. And the through line is the sort of golden thread that people are speaking about essentially. the same thing in a multitude of different ways. And that to me is a take home. That you can go down the deep trauma route, the psychological healing route, more of the mystical lens. And you can come to fundamental insights about what it is to be a human being and the nature of reality. And that, to me, speaks volumes, you know, because it takes away the pressure of needing to find the right path, but rather to find the path that speaks to you most and go to it at its time. depth. That's really well said because I kind of found it through the artistic path. I had a deep

interest in spirituality as I was being an artist, but it was thinking about spirituality through an artistic lens that opened up the world for me. Like if we think of God in the Baha'i faith, God is called the fashioner. One of the names for God is the fashioner and this idea that we have this creative impulse in us. We all do. You can be an accountant. You can be a school bus driver. It doesn't matter. We have a want to transcend and to create and to make something beautiful where there was

nothing before. And this is part of the artist's journey, the artist's way. Rick Rubin talks about it. Julia Cameron talks about it. And that speaks to my soul so much. But for other people, it can be through getting to know your body and fitness. Other people is getting to commune with nature. other people, it's kind of traditional indigenous paths.

It can be, you know, the more Taoist paths of Hinduism and Buddhism. It can be secular psychology that leads us towards knowing thyself. I agree. I agree. And it's so beautiful that there's a multitude of paths. Yeah. I think because they resonate to our own individual makeup uniquely. Yeah.

And as something as the Baha'i, you very, much so resonate with. You get to have all these beautiful contemplative practices and examine them at their Gnostic origins. And that's the beauty of podcasting as well as you get to have conversations with people for many different disciplines. Right. One of the central teachings of the Baha'i faith, as I think you know, is the individual investigation of truth. And you started off by talking about that, kind of said, like, oh, I saw as a teenager, I could take this path. and it would, you know, it could work out okay, but I wanted something more. And I think the individual investigation of truth is not just like deciding, oh, what religion

I want to belong to or don't want to belong to, but it's finding the truth of yourself beyond what your parents' definition of truth is. It's finding your definition of truth, learning from the great wisdom traditions and spiritual teachers that are out there. and it's also really challenging the cultural norms. And we've been touching that a lot. But I think one of the reasons that young people are in so much trouble with their mental health these days is there's kind of an acceptance of the way things are that I see being challenged a little bit. But like by Gen Z, it's not about making money. We realize that we're in a kind of an attention economy.

Where are we going to put our attention? You talk about that in terms of spirituality. Like where do you put your attention? So challenging what is delivered to us all the time. Like if I get more stuff, I'm going to be happy. If I get more dopamine hits, I'm going to be happy. If I get more status and more likes, I'm going to be happy. happy. If I feel more like connected online, I'm going to be more fulfilled. If I have more

financial resources, I'm going to be more fulfilled. A true act of being a spiritual revolutionary, I think, is challenging these kind of pillars of contemporary American materialist culture. And reclaiming our sovereignty like you spoke to of our attention. Like the reclamation of our life is the reclamation of our attention. And our attention is being fought for every day increasingly. I think of attention as our spiritual currency. It's what we're paying for. It's what we're paying with at any given moment. And what you're doing with your life at any given moment is what you're giving your attention to, right? And so in an economy and in a world that is fighting for our attention, what it means to become a sovereign individual is to become

very intentional with how we're placing and using our attention to what media outlets are we spending are time consuming, to what books are we reading, to what degree are we allowing the doom scroll to infiltrate our life, you know? What alerts are we allowing on our phone even? Yeah. So many young people keep all their alerts on. You see their phones and they're like, bleep, bloop, so much liked you. Someone liked your Google review, someone like this.

You got a new podcast. Like, how can you possibly live a serene life when your phone is like popcorn for your attention? Yeah. Yeah. And it's with that, like the understanding of needing to have boundaries. in life is not the same as spiritual teachers may have given guidance a thousand years ago, 100 years ago, 25 years ago, increasingly a decade ago.

You know, there's the opportunities to really set barriers and boundaries in our life so that we can not be beset by all these different factors externally. Some people might be watching right now and going like, hold on a second. You guys both have fairly successful YouTube channels. And YouTube is all about gaining the algorithm and, you know, what's the right headline and what's the right picture and like, you know, how many clicks can you get and, you know, how many subscribers can you get and whatnot? Are we part of the problem even though we are focusing on knowing ourselves? I would like to think that we're providing an alternative, you know, that there is soul food in a world of eye candy. And that to whatever degree we are pioneering our own lanes of media that can inspire.

You know, I've very so often been just motivated about contemplating the time in which we live. You know, the Buddha, the Jesus, the Krishna, they lived in a time where their message was spread at a relatively slow rate. Yeah. An extremely slow rate compared to what we have today. wandering from village to village, giving little lectures to a couple dozen people here and there. Yeah. So I see it as a great gift. The technology that we have, if we don't make use of it, the opportunity to be able to spread conversations and information and wisdom that can really uplift people, give them a sense of connection with themselves, empower them to live lives that are inspiring to them and people around them.

Then what is a great blessing would be our great curse if we don't make use of that opportunity. That is really well said, because this is something I struggled with when I had Soul Pancake before Soul Boom. Hey, we're making inspiring, uplifting content that's bringing people together. But are we part of the problem? Because we're surfing the same algorithms. But I think it's beautifully said that for content creators and storytellers, we have to embrace the platforms and the venues that are there. We have to try and reach people that are searching. What are some of the things?

that you've heard from listeners and viewers of Know Thyself? I think it's the attunement to not just what's being said, but the place it's being said from. Because insight, very much so, can be captured by egos in a way that's regurgitated to sound smart from the person who's saying it. And increasingly, I, when I'm thinking of who I want to have on the show, am looking for individuals that have a level of integration and embodiment within them, not searching for the hallmark of spirituality or the perfect, you know, example of what that looks like. But to me, it's that feeling of that resonance and not just what is being said.

To me, that feels most impactful. And then is that what the listeners and viewers respond to as well? It's what I think I'm probably most impacted from what they share is that because of the presence that they hold and the place from which they're speaking, that's what like really lands the impactfulness of it. And I think that's the difference between a true spiritual teacher, for example, somebody who's read a lot of books and is good at memorizing and sharing those things. Yeah.

Is the lived connection with that insight. It's a heart conversation. Yeah. We could go on and on and on, but I think this is good for now. Will you come back on soul boom? Yeah. sometime. Yeah, yeah. It's great. I haven't done many, really any podcast the past couple years intentionally. I just wanted to kind of keep doing my thing. I love my own podcast. And then this

year, next year, I'll start going on some shows here and there. And when you reached out, I was like, heck yeah, I love to. Love you, man. And love what you're doing here. I think that what you are as a beacon and a lighthouse by virtue of your being. And then also the conversations you have is you really needed on the planet, going back to what we talked about earlier. And And so I'm just, I'm a big champion for who you are and what you do. I am getting emotional right now. And that means a lot. And I really feel the same about you.

I think that you bring so much light and hope into the world with the conversations that you're having. And you could have gone in so many different directions. And the fact that you're choosing to, you know, have these deep wisdom conversations for a, for a young audience is just so powerful and meaningful. And just may the, you know, universe bless you for this road that you're taking. And I hope that our paths cross many times and we can work together in many ways. Thank you, man. Yeah, I've definitely felt the kindred spirit

in you. I really appreciate you. And it's such a, such a gift to be able to do what we do by virtue of getting to connect on this level and share what means most to us. So thank you, man. I appreciate you. And your support means the world. Thanks. The Soul Boom Podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast. and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.