The One You Feed - How to Navigate Your Spiritual Path Through Self-Inquiry with Adyashanti - Part 2

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

In Part 2 of the conversation with Adyashanti, we delve more into the world of spiritual exploration and and discuss how to navigate your spiritual path through self-inquiry. By embracing self-inquiry, individuals can uncover the illusions and patterns that hinder their spiritual growth and cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness and personal understanding. We also explore why it's so important to practice gratitude as well as strategies for building a meditation practice. In this episode, you will be able to: Understand how spiritual striving can get in the way of meaningful meditation practice Learn how to embrace the mystery of just being Practice strategies to build a sustainable meditation practice Investigate your relationship with failure and the expectations you have for yourself Realize the importance of practicing gratitude to enhance relationships and well being To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In case you're just recently joining us, or however long you've been a listener of the show, you may not realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this part two episode with Adi Ashanti. Admittedly, there's a significant part of me that's still a four or five-year-old little boy, which isn't uncommon for men. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.

And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Wolf. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden. And together our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor. What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly We are back for part two of this two-part series, so thank you.

I'm going to change gears a little bit for a second before we go into how sometimes the seeking and the spiritual practice that's focused on results stands in the way of us finding what we're seeking. But I first have to start with, in a recent conversation I heard you, you described that part of your gratitude practice is that you make up silly songs that you sing to your wife. And so I'm wondering whether we're any chance of us getting a silly song. I know listeners everywhere are like, I want to hear one of these songs. You could probably release a record of them, is all I'm saying. Oh yeah, a record that

only one person's going to listen to. The reason I'm closing my eyes now, people can't see that, but I'm trying to rack my brain because they're just totally spontaneous for the most part. I can't see that, but I'm trying to rack my brain because they're just totally spontaneous for the most part. I can't remember anything at the moment. But I mean, they're really what they are, Eric, is they're just, they're like little moments where I'm just expressing gratitude. Yeah.

Like just how wonderful I think Mutti is and how mysterious. Because I've spent, well, we've been married 23 years now, 23 and a half years now. And I would say over those 23 years, 23 and a half years, our relationship has become more of a mystery to me rather than less. It's just more of a mystery, the depth of that connection and what that is and what's that based on. And because I'd never, I don't mean to blow it up into something more or less than it is, but I'd never really seen it before. I'd never heard about it. I'd never read about it. Still haven't to this day. I'm sure other people experience, but just, there's just a way of a depth of connection that's just super, super profound and more mysterious now to me after 23 years than ever. And I grew up with my mom singing songs. She used to wake me up every

morning singing songs to me. And so I think I just sort of... And they were often goofy and silly and fun. And I think I just sort of picked that up. And it's just sort of a way of expressing happiness and gratitude. I've often told Lupe, sometimes I'll ask her, I say, this must just be insufferable. I mean, because sometimes I can make up 20 songs in a day i mean you know really literally like or more and they're just little short little things but i think god if i was on the receiving end of this i mean it would

be cute for a while but good lord but she just keeps assuring me that it's okay so i kept doing 20 years of it yeah no when i read when i heard that it just okay, so I kept doing it. After 20 years of it. No, when I heard that, I smiled for a couple hours about that. It's just such a genuine, just sort of fun. It's a way of playing. Sweet way of playing. Yes. It's a way of playing.

Admittedly, there's a significant part of me that's still a four- or five-year- which isn't uncommon for men women know that you know there's part there's a part of us that sort of doesn't grow up but um and sometimes that's not so good but i think there's a part of it that can be just a sort of innocence yeah and it does feel i do when i'm singing those songs, you know, I feel like I'm five years old. Yeah. It comes from that same place. It's play and it's fun and yet it's also serious because in the sense that they're all ways of saying I love you. And I just don't think that we can express that too often to one another, you know. You know, it's interesting i think that playfulness is something that i have really in the last i think i had it a lot when i was younger and then it kind of went away and i've really over the last few years really started to think about like uh-huh how do i do how

do i do that like how do i play and have fun? Yeah, that that is, you know, that isn't something that's serious. And it's, it's been, I think it's a big part of for me has been something I'm, I'm continuing to try and work with and, you know, to lighten up. It's nice that you can start to rediscover that a little bit. You know, I think so much of it is just a a willingness for us human beings to just sort of be silly silly and happy and just like let that like kids do right they just let it out and they're not that concerned about how someone's going to see what they're going to think about it and how it's going to be received and all that. But, you know, it seems to me that, like I said, people generally like, you know, when you express appreciation or gratitude or

love or just the fact that you're having a wonderful time. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I think a lot of it just comes from that sense of just a willingness to be silly and to be seen as silly. It was sort of big when my son was little Veggie Tales. Veggie Tales. They've got a segment called Silly Songs with Larry, who's the cucumber. If you ever want to have just a few minutes of silly fun, I would look up the Hairbrush song. Yeah? Yeah. Oh, he's hysterical. It's just, they are silly fun, I would look up the Hairbrush song. Yeah? Yeah. Oh, he's hysterical.

It's just, they are silly songs. I'm going to look for it. They are so fun. Yeah, I'll put them on occasionally as just complete lighthearted silliness. All right. Well, I think we really need that also now. We always have, but I think we really need that because our world is just so increasingly serious. And for good reason. I get it. We're dealing, you know, our world is just so increasingly serious. And for good reason.

Like, I get it. We're dealing with some serious, serious challenges. But, you know, we can, if we lose touch with our innocence, man, all of our seriousness in the world isn't going to serve us, save us from the wisdom we lose when we lose connection with that. Yeah. With that innocence. We wrapped up part one by saying we were going to talk a little bit about this sense of how our spiritual striving can get in the way. And you talk a lot about meditation, and you teach meditation in a different way than a lot of people do. And I'm just going to read something you wrote. You say,

there's an unspoken, sometimes unacknowledged agenda that you carry into meditation, whether that be to get rid of certain feelings or to achieve other feelings or to awaken, right? And if you're not careful, that agenda will become your meditation. Meditation is the relinquishing of agenda. Yeah. It's nice and easy and simple to write that down. Yeah. To read it.

It's like, okay, I'll sit down and release agenda. And it's not usually quite that simple. It can be simple. But I think a lot of it comes back to preconceived ideas of what a spiritual practice is and I mean I know this because I did everything I teach people not to do I have a PhD in seeking I drove myself literally half crazy

seeking and striving and I even have a respect for that because sometimes like that's all we can do no matter what somebody says. As my teacher says, sometimes you just have your dance to dance, and you've got to dance it all the way out, which was her way of saying authenticity at the end of the day rules. You've got to be authentic. So sometimes you're just seeking, and you're wanting, and you're struggling, and you're wanting and you're struggling and you're striving and you hear that might not be the best way to go about it. But sometimes, man, that just

might be what you need to do. You just might need to burn that out of your system. Like that's what I did. I don't teach it because mostly it burns people out rather than burns the trait out of their system. But to simplify, in terms of spiritual depth, because there's a million reasons that people can meditate, especially in terms of awakening or enlightenment or something, I think meditation, for instance, is a way of engaging with the mystery of being. The mystery of being. Like you sit down, and before we even think about how do I do this, what am I supposed to be doing, where is my mind supposed to be, all that kind of stuff.

The moment that you sit down and you realize, I don't even know who I am that's sitting here. you sit down and you realize, like, I don't even know who I am that's sitting here. At that moment, I can remember the moment I had that realization, right? I just, I don't know who's seeking. I don't know who's striving. I don't know who wants enlightenment. I don't know why I want it. I don't know the guy that's sitting on this darn cushion that's pushing so hard to make something happen. I don't even know what that is. And for some stroke of luck or fate or something, that became, hit me as a curiosity, like, wow, I'm a mystery unto myself. And I can remember the first time I really realized that.

I can remember the first time I really realized that. And the first time I was like, I don't know who I am. And that became more interesting than trying to find out who I am. I was like, wow, what's it like not to know? What is it really like right now not to know? I know what it's like to struggle to try to know, but what's it like to not know? And to just sort of, it's the first time I kind of just let myself sort of ease back into that felt sense of the mystery of being and not try to solve it or change it, but just explore it. Like, what is that like? What is my experience of being when I don't have any idea who and what I am? And I didn't have teachings of who are you and all that kind of stuff. Like, that wasn't part of the spiritual culture that I, so I came to all that kind of by myself.

But, so, this is all sort of a long way of saying, I think spiritual practice can also be entered into as a way of experientially connecting and exploring the mystery of being. And we start with the mystery of being right through the doorway of, I don't know. I don't know who I am. I don't know what God is. I don't know what enlightenment is. I don't know what awakening is. I don't know what life is. I don't know what enlightenment is. I don't know what awakening is. I don't know what life is. I don't know any of this stuff, really. And can I just stop, like, right in the middle of that? And if we can stop in the middle of that, just for a moment,

we realize it's not so bad. Actually, it's pretty cool. Like, it doesn't mean we want to stay in a state of ignorance forever, but just the mystery of being is pretty amazing itself. Just like, man, that is wild. But we're taught we just have to immediately solve it. You know, it goes into that either-or thinking. Either I'm confused or I'm clear, or I'm awake or I'm asleep, or I'm this or I'm that. And there's this, but our life is lived in the middle ground.

Those two polar opposites, those are just sort of conceptual. The rest is where it's at. Right. And I think spirituality is an experiential encounter with the unknown. And yes, that within that, there is an innate draw to come to a deeper

state of clarity or awakening or whatever we want to call that. But we actually come to that most efficiently by just diving into the mystery of being rather than trying to solve it. It's kind of like meditation. I remember I did a meditation with people a few years ago, and I said, so we're going to sit down, and just imagine that you had no idea what meditation was. None at all. And you're going to sit here, and we're all going to meditate, but you don't know what meditation is, and you don't know how to go about it, and you don't know how to do it. do it. And everyone just looked at me like, you've got to be kidding. I said, just try it. And so we'd sit down and be quiet. And I said, so imagine you don't even know what it is to meditate. And therefore, you don't know how to go about doing it. You don't know the first thing about it. Just imagine that. Imagine you were to enter into this that simply. And I said, just sit with that for a moment. And immediately you can feel in the whole room.

What's happening in the whole room is meditation is happening. All of a sudden, everything goes quiet. Because nobody knows what they're supposed to be doing, what meditation is supposed to be, what the right state they're trying to achieve doing, what meditation is supposed to be, what the right state they're trying to achieve is, how they're going about that. We suspended all that. And then so then the mind is in a state of openness and receptivity.

It's not asserting or denying anything. And that's actually meditation. You know, because I grew up dyslexic. It's sort of a dyslexic, upside-down, backwards way of coming to meditation. Do you know what I mean? And it's amazing that, not that I would suggest people do that all the time, but who knows? Maybe it would be a good idea. But it was sort of a way of trying to show people that meditation is when we enter into the mystery of being and what does that mean? Like, okay, here's what it means. Here's how we do it.

The mystery means you don't know how to do it and you don't know what it is. Now just stop with that. And then in retrospect, then it's like, did you notice that your mind is really quiet? Yeah. Did you notice how stable and grounded and calm? Yeah. That's meditation. But I don't know how to do it again.

That's the whole point. Right. You know, when I have followed, you know, you've got the book True Meditation, and I mean, you basically talk about meditation is about listening and letting go of agenda and just being. And what I found is sometimes that is remarkably profound. Sometimes it is. And sometimes I'm like, how is this any different than what happens all day long in my brain? Yeah. Right. I just sit there and I'm like, well, this just feels like what it feels like to be in the world. Like, so, so on a, on a slightly more practical level. Right. So I'm going to sit, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to basically allow everything to be exactly the

way it is. Yeah. And the way it is, is runaway terrain. And I know that, you know, and I've got all these quotes here from you that I pulled from the book and this idea of like, well, if you don't think thoughts are a problem, they're not a problem. Yeah. Right? But that thinking runs pretty deep. It runs very deep. Especially in spiritual aspects.

Right. And so what would you recommend for, okay, sometimes I sit down and I experience and I try and do nothing. Yeah. Aspirants. Right. And so what would you recommend for, okay, sometimes I sit down and I experience and I try and do nothing. Yeah. Right? Which is essentially, to strip it down is sort of what we're talking about. Oh, if you, anytime you actually achieve totally doing nothing, you're in the deepest state of meditation possible. Yeah. possible. Yeah. And I have had some mind-blowing experiences when I somehow managed to get to a point where I just let completely go. Yeah. And boom. Yeah. And so the profoundness is personally, you know, has been deeply and transformative for me.

I get where you're going here. So I'm going to go on retreat, right? We're going to go on retreat, and I'm going to sit there for six hours a day or so and meditate. And I'm going to give you some specific guidance about meditation beyond what I've given so far. All right. Because basically what we've been doing here is a sort of, I think of it as setting the foundation of meditation. Okay. Beyond what I've given so far. All right. Because basically what we've been doing here is a sort of, I think of it as setting the foundation of meditation. This isn't all of it, right? If it was just like, you don't know what it is, you don't know how to do it, you don't know why you're doing it. Okay, kid, go at it. Have a good time. Yeah, most people are going to spin

their wheels and get nowhere and think about yesterday's breakfast and whatever. So, so far, what we've done is sort of, I'm trying to sort of set sort of a good attitude to start with meditation, right? It's sort of an orientation, a feeling, cognitive orientation. Okay, so once you get that background, then you get down to the nitty gritty. Like, okay, but that's great, but maybe I need a little more help than that. Like, okay, but that's great, but maybe I need a little more help than that. So sometimes, like you said, that can be, just that can be mind-blowingly revelatory. And some days, you're just endlessly thinking about silly and stupid things, right?

And not the fun kind. Right, not the fun kind, yeah, yeah. It's not silly songs with Larry or Adya. Right, maybe even some really painful things. Right. Right. Really, really painful things. So, okay.

So then this is kind of, we're embracing, I think meditation is a sort of, ultimately it's saying we're embracing a paradox. And that's not easy for a human being to do, to really embrace a sort of paradox. Yeah, the foundation is letting everything be as it is, trying not to control things, trying to let go. All those things that kind of egos kind of can't do. They try. They're sincere, but they find it really hard to do. So then, okay, then you can introduce a little bit of technique to start to give some orientation on top of that foundation. The reason I emphasize the foundation is because often it's like upside down.

It's all technique, all trying to do it right, all trying to, you know, as if it was some sort of mathematical equation you're supposed to perfect or something. But then we kind of come into something more that's more balanced. And then I'll go like, okay, how do I do this though? Like you said, some days it works for me and some days it just, I'm just in a sort of state of mental or maybe even emotional chaos. Okay. Well, start by listening to the quiet spaces inside. There's noise. Okay. Let the noise be the noise. Leave it alone, in other words. Stop trying to control the noise. That's kind of revolutionary. Okay. I've stopped trying to control my mind, but it's still all over the place. Okay. So we've just laid the foundation. To whatever extent's possible, let go of trying to control your mind.

Okay, now, but there's, and then there's another step. Okay, now, see if when you're not trying to control your mind, then you can start to hear the quiet spaces inside. That your mind is actually happening. Every thought is happening within a space of quietness. If you're focused on trying to get your mind to stop, you'll never notice that your mind is arising in quietness. So, start to notice the quietness. Okay. Then someone might raise their hand. Well, that sounds really good, Adya, but I can't really do that. I keep getting taken away like every half second by my mind. Okay, then we'll add just a little bit more structure, right? So we're going to add a little more structure. Okay, maybe give your mind something to do or your attention something to do other than focusing on

thoughts. And also maybe something that's more concrete than listening to the quiet inside, because maybe that's too tough on a given day. That's just not working for you. Okay, how about feeling your breath in your belly? Just feel it. And just make that the rest your attention on your breath. Just that. Okay, so I can rest my attention on my thoughts, or I can rest my attention on your breath. Just that. Okay. So I can rest my attention on my thoughts or I can rest my attention on my breath. Okay. And then someone will raise their hand. That was great,

Adi. We just did a 30-minute meditation of resting my attention on the breath and the quiet spaces inside. And yet I got lost in my mind about 500 times in 30 minutes, right? What do I do? Okay. Okay. So, every time you get lost, kindly, kindly, kindly, gently, just encourage your mind, your attention, mind, your attention, back to your breath, or back to the quiet spaces, or listening. Just come into a state of listening. But I still get lost a hundred times. All right, you get lost. But the important thing is, when you're lost, there's going to be a moment when you recognize you're lost in your mind. That moment's super super significant because you don't all of a sudden go, my God, I've been thinking about yesterday's breakfast. It just occurs, right?

It's not something you did. You just realize, I was thinking about yesterday's breakfast. So that moment, this is incredibly important for meditators because right here is where most meditators make a critical mistake. They get upset. They get disappointed. They maybe judge themselves like,

God, I'm doing nothing but getting lost. And they get sort of judgmental. When you do that, you're literally conditioning your brain that every time you become a bit more conscious, every time you come out of your narrative for a moment, you're just going to judge yourself. So you're conditioning yourself, every time I come out of my narrative,

it's a negative experience. It's a negative, critical, upset experience. Are you conditioning yourself to come out of your narrative very often? No. If someone's going to yell at you and berate you every time you get lost in your mind, how often are you going to... You're setting yourself up to stay lost. So that's why I often put a lot of emphasis on, yeah, it can be frustrating for a while if you get lost in your mind over and over and over and over.

But each of those moments to bring the attention back in the most benign way possible. You are going to be exercising your humility, right? Because you're going to encounter failure over and over and over, and you're going to see your relationship with failure, right? And so meditation, it also connects with life, because part of life is failure, but only over and over. Not exclusively, fortunately. So meditation starts to show us our relationship with failure.

Things not going the way we want when they want them to go otherwise. Okay, how are you going to be with that? Are you going to get all upset? Are you going to judge yourself and shame yourself? What you're going to be... And then maybe you can start to turn that little piece of conditioning around. Where you go, oh, lucky am I. Somehow I came out of my being lost in my narrative.

Hmm. Jeez. Thanks, universe, for gifting me with not being lost, the coming out of my little dream there. Because I could have been in a dream forever. Right. And a lot of people are. They never get out of it, seemingly, for a minute.

Yep. And there you are They never get out of it, seemingly, for a minute. And there you are. You popped out of it. What are you going to do about that? Yeah, I often think of it like, and it was someone else who said, like if you can celebrate that moment because you woke up. Yeah. That moment of like I was off wondering, wait, instead of, oh, I was off wondering what's wrong with me, it's like that moment you woke up.

Right. And it's almost, if you can invert that from, oh, darn it, I did it again, to, oh, good, I caught myself. Right. I've started sending a couple of text messages after each podcast listener with positive reminders about what's discussed and invitations to apply the wisdom to your life. It's free and listeners have told me that these texts really help to pull them out of autopilot and reconnect them with what's important. When you get a text from me during your day-to-day life, it's one more thing that helps you further bridge that gap between what you know and what you do. Positive messages when you need them, from me to you. So if you'd like to hear

from me a few times a week via text, go to oneufeed.net slash text and sign up for free. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk

gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us tonight.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really, No Really. Yeah? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcasts. This was said in the 20 years that I studied meditation about how important it was to come back kindly. I think I needed almost even beyond like, come back non-judgmentally. I think I needed almost like, no, celebrate that moment. Sure. If you're going that next step. My nature

of judging myself for wandering off was so strong. There was a time many years ago when that phenomena would happen and each time I would realize I'd been lost in my mind, I would just say thank you inside. Just that little moment of gratitude, like, thank you. Gee, I came out of this, and I don't know how I came out of it, but I came out of it. Right. Jeez, whatever it is that helped me come out of it, thank you. Gee, I came out of this, and I don't know how I came out of it, but I came out of it. Right. Jeez, whatever it is that helped me come out of it, thank you. And, you know, sometimes that feels authentic and real, and sometimes it feels phony, you know?

Yeah. But, okay, sometimes it feels phony, but you're turning around a conditioned pattern. Right. And that's the important thing. So I think I really like the way you emphasize sometimes you almost have to go a little over the top and the appreciation part because you're you're just turning around a pattern right you know and i think it's useful i like to talk about this stuff also in a bigger sense like i said when that happens you are encountering your

relationship with failure. And that's not just a meditative thing. That's a life thing. It's a pretty good idea to start to bring some intention to your relationship with that, because that's going to be really impactful on your life. And then meditation isn't just about meditating. Well, it's like, And then meditation isn't just about meditating well. It's like, man, I am encountering life attitudes, and I'm encountering them in such a way that I can start to turn those attitudes around in a way that can actually work for me rather than hinder me at every turn. Yeah, you had a line that I really liked.

You said, you could boil all of spirituality down to the art and practice of listening to nothing. And then this next part I loved, and trusting in the difficulty. Love that idea of trusting in the difficulty, like it's okay. Yeah. And I think that's what you're speaking to here. It's your relationship to failure. It's your relationship to difficulty. It's okay.

Yeah. Because there's a part of, we're talking about meditation a lot, but since we are, there's limitations to this idea. But meditation is this very intimate act, right? But if you looked at meditation almost more like practicing an instrument, like, you know, when you start to learn an instrument, you're screwing up right and left. It's not a pretty thing, right? You're making mistakes learn an instrument, you're screwing up right and left. It's not a pretty thing, right? You're making mistakes over and over and you're having to do these really redundant exercises.

And basically, you are reconditioning yourself, right? Your fingers or your breath or, you know, all sorts of things. But since there's an instrument between you and your efforts, it's a little less intimate than when you're meditating. There's no instrument. You are the instrument. So it's easier to kind of get more self-critical, right? But if you saw it almost like I'm learning how to play this thing and it's called my mind and my attention. And, you know, just like I would learn how to play a trumpet or a guitar or something.

And it's really important. The patterns that I'm setting now are significant. They're really important. They're more important than an instrument because, you know, at least at the end of the day you can put your trumpet down or your guitar down, but you can't put your mind down. Unfortunately, sometimes. So, I just like to mention this because I think the more we start to look at meditation as sort of this metaphor for life,

and that it shows us our attitude towards all sorts of things in life, towards success, towards failure, towards disappointment, towards the heart opening. People can have these extraordinary heart openings. And for one person, that's revelatory and beautiful. And for someone else, that's scary and frightening. And it reminds them of all the ways that intimacy can hurt them. And however that unfolds, it's like, okay, this isn't just about meditation. This is about your life. This is about intimate encounters that you're going to have in life and what your relationship is when you feel open and vulnerable. And it's important to see how your system relates

to that and realize that those are changeable. It's not set in stone. Maybe you get a little frightened or you feel a little insecure when your heart opens. But sometimes something like meditation can be a safe place in which you can experiment with changing your relationship with that. Like, okay, it feels a little weird when my heart opens. It feels lovely and i feel more connected but there's this sort of strange ominous danger sort of signal i'm i'm getting and it's like okay well meditation is a pretty safe thing can you just experience a little bit of that anxiety or

fear you have with openness and vulnerability um after all you're sitting in a cushion in a room, probably nothing's going to happen to you, right? But anyway, it's just the way I think making these connections to life is really important. Otherwise, our spiritual practices, whether the meditation or anything else, remain this limited thing that's sort of my little spiritual life. I think it's important to say, whatever practice I'm doing in spirituality, how does this connect with my everyday world? And if it doesn't connect, I got to re-examine it because it needs to connect. Right. And that sort of takes us back to kind of where we started with this idea of,

And that sort of takes us back to kind of where we started with this idea of, you know, this important question. What's really important? How do I take some deeper realization or deeper thing and how do I embody that into my life? Well, that becomes the thing, isn't it? Because we have these revelatory moments and they can remain private, closeted little moments of revelation that can be transformative and beautiful. Or we can even see that as an end. Like, oh, I had the experience that's written in the book. Okay, great. I accomplished something.

Or we can also see that as a sort of new beginning. Like, okay, that experience is a nice, pleasant experience of freedom and well-being and release and all sorts of things. But what does that show me from that perspective? What's meaningful and valuable? From a revelatory perspective, what's valuable in life? Is greed, hatred, and getting everything I can get valuable? Is love, is greed, hatred, and getting everything I can get valuable, is love, connectedness, like what becomes valuable and what becomes meaningful.

And I think that's what we often don't ask ourselves because we're so focused on the experience. And for a while, that's fine. But we fail often to see that from that experience, But we fail often to see that from that experience, an awakened perspective values different things in life than our conditioned mind values. It has a different life orientation than our egos have. And just to start to go, what is that? What is that? What is that? And what would it mean for me to act on that, on those values that come from my own revelation today?

Because I like to bring this back to something that's very pragmatic. Okay, you had a state of interconnectedness in all things, and it was revelatory, and something about you may never be the same, right? Okay, but what does interconnectedness and all things and it was revelatory and something about you may never be the same right okay but what does interconnectedness mean when you come home and you're just strung out and tired from a long hard day's work and you had a lot of challenges and your four-year-old kid comes jumping on your lap and wants your soul attention and you're just exhausted and you'd really like to just have a you know those those moments to yourself and okay what is that from the perspective of your your own spiritual insight what does it value at that moment about that four-year-old that's your attention? What becomes important? Yeah, you're tired and you're wrung out

and you'll need to take care of yourself and get some rest, but at that moment, what does it value? I think if we miss that, those kind of questions, there can be this lack of connection between our own more revelatory experiences of being and our actual human experience of being. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

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You said earlier, servants of truth, right? How do I be true to and serve what I have realized? Yeah, right. Instead of again and again and again. Yeah. The great and flawed spiritual master, Shrumpa, wrote a book called Spiritual Materialism. Right.

And it kind of comes down to that. If we keep viewing spirituality as sort of collecting more and greater and grander experiences, it can become a form of spiritual materialism. To start out by wanting revelation and a deeper sense of connectedness or awakening as an experience, fine. That's part of how the impulse moves. But it's tricky, you know, because fine that's part of how the impulse moves but it's tricky you know because as you i'm sure experienced you know some of these revelatory experiences are they're about the most pleasant things you can experience which makes them about the most highly addictive experiences yeah and as a former you know heroin addict i'm familiar with chasing the high right it's an

interesting relationship i imagine that's where, even though you probably wouldn't want to recreate the road you took to get the wisdom, but that may be the place where your past experience, as hard one as it was, was, man, just chasing the high isn't a way to a great, happy, successful life.

Right. Addiction can teach us that. Yeah. But, you know, those people that aren't, haven't been addicted to substances, we can fool ourselves into thinking we're not addicts. And there you are just endlessly chasing the next spiritual experience, but hopefully higher and higher and higher. And it's like, what is the difference between you then and a heroin addict?

And is there that big a difference? Like, maybe not. And so that's the balance, of course. It was like we have these pleasant, we have these experiences, they're revelatory, they're life-changing, and if we simply view them as experiences, then we can become sort of addicted to having those. Which, again, circles us kind of back to, at least for me,

the way out of a lot of that was to what am I in service to? That's it. Right? If what I'm in service to and what I'm focused on and I spend all my attention is me and how I feel, I mean, that was the big revelation in me when I got sober. And I remember it was in the AA Big Book. It basically said, selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of our problem.

And there can be a judgment to that that can rub the wrong way. But when I really— But as a statement, it's very true, isn't it? Right, right. And when I realized... But as a statement, it's very true, isn't it? Right, right. And when I realized, like, that was it. The whole thing was all oriented towards how am I feeling. And that when I realized that the surest way out of that, for me, was to start to really try and care about others. What am I serving?

others? What am I serving? It's a paradigm that has helped me with things like spiritual practice and retreat and all that is how, like, this experience, I'm going because, of course, I want the experience of peacefulness and all that. But how will that perhaps allow me to come back out of that and serve better and be better able to help the people I trust. Like, you know, I think both those things are going on at the same time. It's a reciprocal thing, isn't it? You dive into the well of being so that you can reemerge with something deeper and more beautiful to offer. And I think that gets to your point. And I think it's a really important point, especially in modern day spirituality, where for a lot of people, it's sort of been cut off from its traditional roots. And part of that's like really great, right? It's freed itself from the bonds of religious dogmatism. And so, okay, that's really good.

But there's another side to that too, right? Some of those, almost all those traditions that I knew of, they all had a heavy element of service. Right. Which, yeah, can become laden with judgment and shame or trying to be a saint or all that kind of stuff. It can be. But if you just take the service part,

like no mistake that all these traditions realize there is something extremely important about service, right? About serving that which we love. And I think the importance of that is no greater for an addict and no less for somebody that doesn't think they're an addict. That's what gets us out of the loop of having our life endlessly oriented towards the next experience. the next experience. That's why I said at the beginning when we were talking that it's more important to have ourselves oriented around something like meaning than mere happiness. Right. Because, of course, like I say, meaning then, the way I'm using it, doesn't mean necessarily

something you can philosophically state to your friends very coherently. It's not something like that, but meaning, like when you're in service and it's coming from a true place in you, that's a meaningful experience, right? All of a sudden your life feels like, to me, meaning means is those moments when you feel like things have lined up, you're at the right place at the right time doing the right thing. And so often when we're in real service, those things all line up. We feel like we're in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. It just feels like that. And I think that's the element that modern spirituality needs

I think that's the element that modern spirituality needs to sort of have reinvigorated, but without the shame, the blame, and all that kind of stuff that can come as the old baggage. But I think that's... Otherwise, what are we doing? We're just chasing experiences. Right. Right? It's a self-centered narcissistic pursuit unless it has some sense of the welfare of all beings. You know?

Yeah. And how can we not have a sense of that when we really experience the unity of existence? Yes. Right? Right. And that is the perspective to, you know, when I've had that perspective, like really the connection and the true unity, it's astounding how natural the idea of caring about and taking care of and serving others, it feels almost inevitable. It just flows out of you, doesn't it?

Yeah. and serving others, it feels almost inevitable. It just flows out of you, doesn't it? Yeah. And then there's other times where it's a little harder role, so to speak. I've had a lot of people mentioning that. They usually mention it in forms of a question when I teach on what we're talking about. And they'll say, but Adya, I've had these moments, these times, often in the wake of some big insight or awakening where, like, what you're talking about just happened.

And it was spontaneous. And I didn't have to exercise intention or bring thought to it. It just was like, it was like breathing. And what you're saying is sort of bringing, like, this intention and it seems more heavy-handed and da-da-da-da-da-da. You know, all that kind of stuff. You're not saying that to me, but it just brought this to mind. and it's sort of bringing like this intention it doesn't feel quite that natural, right? And so, a lot of the people that have had those experiences, what they will communicate, what they want, is they're hoping to have an experience that's big enough and complete enough and total enough so all this will happen without any intention forever.

Amen. And hey, man, if you can come to that, good for you. Like, great. Okay? But that's not a very reasonable thing to shoot at. That's not a very good ultimate aim. Like, if that's what ends up happening, great. And I think the more we are residing in the truth

of our being, it does happen more naturally, more spontaneously with less or little or sometimes no intention at all. But if that's all we shoot for, I think we're not actually taking responsibility for what we've realized. That's another sort of old-fashioned idea. What would it mean to actually take responsibility for my own revelations? If they show me connectedness, what would it mean for me to step up to the plate and take responsibility for my own experience of connectedness and unity, whether I feel it or I don't. Because then you're outside of the realm of the addict again, right? It's not whether I feel

it or not. It's I'm acting on what I've seen and what I know to be true. And I'm taking the responsibility to step up and do that. And when happens spontaneously great but when it doesn't that doesn't mean that you're simply left trying to chase the experience it leans no no no no no you don't have to wait for the experience you can step up like right now and and sometimes if you're quote-unquote lucky the stepping up up, you know, it's the saying I, you know, listeners have got to be tired of, which is sometimes you can't think your way into right action. You have to act your way into right thinking. That's a great way to put that. Sometimes stepping up into service, right, then brings. That's right. It opens the door.

It opens the door for the feeling to follow. Sometimes, right? Yeah. But yeah. Right. for the feeling to follow. Sometimes, right? Yeah. Sometimes it does, but yeah. Right. When we're engaged in right action, that it always, it will, whether we're suffused with this sense of well-being,

but underneath it, I think, when we're really engaged in right action, there's something about it that feels right. Right and connected and aligned. And sometimes you're completely suffused with that experience and sometimes it's a little less obvious. Yep. But it does feel aligned.

We talked about my girlfriend's mom and the Alzheimer's, and we often reflect on we're living according to our values yeah and that there's something underneath that feels right it's a deeper kind of rightness the surface feels like oh my you know like but the deeper is like okay and as somebody who has lived outside of my values plenty of times i know that the you know you can live outside your value and things on the surface feel good, but if you look a little deeper, you're like, oh, this is kind of the inverse of that. That is. I'm so glad you mentioned that too. And I think your girlfriend and you dealing with her mother's illness is a great, great example. It's not easy every day. It's probably not even easy most hours of the day.

And yet you're doing it because I like the word you use, because it aligns with your values, right? With values that are inherent in your own depth. And there's something about that, that even when it's not easy, it feels right. that's kind of what I'm orient trying to get at when I talk about meaning yeah right it's hard to define what that is but you know it when you when you experience it yeah and I think that's that's certainly something more noble to aim at then how do I feel at every moment? Like, well, yeah, but maybe your girlfriend's mother, she has Alzheimer's and hey, maybe I don't feel good at this moment. Maybe it's really challenging for this moment. But fortunately, you have something in your back pocket, right? You

have what's true and right for you, whether you feel great about it or you don't feel great about it. And I think at the end of the day, like you get to the end of that day and that day has meaning and it has value and you know it. Nobody has to tell you you've done the right thing because you feel it. Even if you fall in the bed you know completely exhausted and you know yeah well you've been a parent you know that probably with raising children too as my mom said yeah raising kids and she loved being a mother she says it's not a picnic every day right some days it's it's super super super difficult but since there's a higher calling there's a higher sense of well-being too. Yep.

There's something that transcends feeling. Yep. Well, I think that is a perfect place for us to wrap up. So thank you so much again for agreeing to come on for yet another time and spending so much time with us. It's been my pleasure. Nice to chat with you, Eric. Nice to be with you, Eric. Nice to be with you again, too. If what you just heard was helpful to you,

please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.