The One You Feed - Kamla Kapur on Transformative Powers in Life

Episode Date: March 3, 2020

Kamla Kapur is an award winning author, poet and playwright. She was born and raised in India and studied in the United States. Kamla now divides her time between living in the remote Indian Himalayas and in San Diego, California with her husband. She holds a Master’s Degree in Literature from Kent State University in Ohio and she studied Creative Writing at the University of Iowa. Kamla was on the faculty of Grossmont College in San Diego for 18 years and her stories, poems, and plays have been published in many prestigious Indian and American journals. In this episode, she and Eric use her new book, Rumi: Tales of the Spirit: A Journey to Healing the Heart, as a jumping off point to discuss the transformative powers we experience through various life experiences.If you are interested in learning more about how to integrate and embody spiritual principles into the moments of your daily life, Eric teaches people how to do just that in his 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program. Click here to learn more.Need help with completing your goals in 2020? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Kamla Kapur and I discuss Transformative Powers in Life and…Her book, Rumi: Tales of the Spirit: A Journey to Healing the HeartThe deep wound to Rumi’s heart that transformed him and brought forth his treasured body of work that we now know and loveHow suffering can be our greatest tutor and guide in lifeThe idea of expansion and contraction in our livesThat when your heart breaks, it breaks open How suffering can open us up to being more aware and connected to our higher selvesThat those who transform as a result of their suffering are open to a different way of thinking as a result of the difficult things that happen to themThe transformative powers of hope, joy, and loveRumi’s stories of characters embracing sufferingHow all suffering has the power to awaken usThe transformative power of sufferingThe transformative power of acceptanceHow Rumi says, “When the candle of your youth dims, you have to light the candle of the spirit.” Actively ascending to our agingThe awe and wonder of existence and the mystery of life that we as humans can perceiveKamla Kapur Links:kamlakkapur.comTwitterInstagramFacebookIf you enjoyed this conversation with Kamla Kapur on Transformative Powers in Life, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Stephen MitchellMary O’MalleySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our suffering can be our greatest tutor and our greatest guide. 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. 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 reallynoreally.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. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid.

Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that will resonate with your experiences, Decisions Decisions is going to be your go-to

source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections. Tune in and join the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Kamla Kapoor, an award-winning Indian-born American author, poet, and playwright. She holds a master's degree in literature from Kent State University in Ohio and studied creative writing at the University of Iowa. Kamla was on the faculty of Grossmont College in San Diego for 18 years, and her stories, poems, and plays have been published in prestigious American and Indian journals.

Her new book is Rumi, Tales of the Spirit, A Journey to Healing the Heart. Hi, Kamla. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Eric. I'm glad to talk with you. Yes, I am looking forward to it also. Your latest book is called Rumi, Tales of the Spirit, A Journey to Healing the Heart. And we will get into that book and a lot of your wisdom here in a minute. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her grandson.

And she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandmother and he says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, I think that that parable is, if you had to summarize how to go about living and how to go about thinking in a way that enhances the quality of your life,

then that parable is a little nutshell of wisdom. And I think that for a couple of reasons, the obvious one is that there is a battle going on between us, between us, between almost every individual, between what the West might call the good and the evil forces, and that we can have a say in who wins in that battle. There's obviously a wolf that is fearful and not very kind and not very nice, not very aware. And then there is the wolf that, if we feed it, becomes the opposite of the bad wolf. I want to say two things about it. The first one is that the parable places the responsibility for living with the good wolf squarely in our laps, in the lap of the individual. It's up to you which one you're going to feed in order to help it to grow, because when you feed something, it grows. So that is very important. And the other part that I think is very important is that there are always these two wolves.

You can't kill off one wolf. The grandmother doesn't advise her grandson to kill off one wolf, because you can't. These are the two forces of life, if you want to call them yin and yang or good and evil. And I would also like to add another point to this is that the bad wolf that is fearful and doubtful and not very kind and is, you know, has a lot of vices, is absolutely necessary for the good wolf to become what the good wolf becomes if we feed it. So it's like Rumi would say, he would say, you know, we have to harness the power of the demons inside us so that they can hew stones for our palace. Now, that's a very complicated idea. But what it basically says is that it is our negative side.

It is our bad and fearful and vulnerable and very human side that has a role to play in what we become. Right. And I like that part about the parable, too, where it doesn't really say anything about having to harm the bad wolf or harness the bad wolf or anything. I think it sort of just says, hey, you're going to need to put a little more attention over here. Exactly. And it's attention, it's awareness, it's consciousness. If you're not even aware that this is going on inside you, then you can't even begin to remedy it because most of us go through our lives with a sort of a default mode of thinking, just being unawarely caught up in our passions and our emotions without reflecting upon them. Right. So let's start off by you telling us who Rumi is. I think a lot of people have probably heard the name. A lot of people know him as a poet, but he was more than a poet. But give us a little sketch of who he is. Rumi was born in the 13th century in Persia, what is now called Iran. And then he moved to Turkey,

where he spent most of his life. And he was just an ordinary human being till he, just like you and me and going about business as usual, till he met a wandering minstrel called Shamsuddin or Shams for short, and who really ignited the spiritual spark in him. But a few years after they met, Shams was killed. And some people say, you know, he was killed by his jealous disciples because there was such a love between them. Or some say it was his son who killed him. It was his son who killed him. But the effect of Shams' death delivered a deep wound to Rumi's heart, and a transformative wound, a wound that heals in the long run.

So it is said that when somebody asked him to write down the poetry that he was reciting or the stories he was telling, that he wrote the Matnavi, which are six volumes, very dense volumes, not only of poetry, but prose and lectures and parables and discourses on the right way of thinking. This is what has endured. His writing, I believe it just poured out of him. And so we are left with this wonderful work of art and spirituality combined, which helps us to navigate our day-to-day lives. So I hope that gives you some idea of who Rumi was. Before he became a poet, he was, you know, studying law, he was into jurisprudence, and just a teacher. He was just going about his life till this particular event. And that's why I say in my book as well, that our suffering can be our greatest tutor and our greatest guide, because it's like, you know, it's like plants. If you prune a plant in one direction, I'm sure a tree hurts. But it teaches the tree which direction to grow in. It's like teaching us to feed the good wolf. Right. And so with Rumi, what religion would he be considered to be,

what tradition would he be considered to be part of? considered to be, what tradition would he be considered to be part of? Well, this is a very interesting question. Rumi is very obviously from the Sufi tradition of Islam, and the Sufi tradition of Islam is like the mystical version of Islam, just like in Christianity, we have the Bible, and then we have the Gnostic Gospels, which are far more mystical. But I also want to qualify that even though he comes from the Islamic tradition, the guides and the gurus that I admire say the same thing over and over and over again, that we're all made of the same light. We are all made of the same stuff. And the current divisions and probably even ancient divisions, political, religious divisions in our times and in history are deeply flawed because the thinking behind them are deeply flawed in the sense that, you know, a Jewish person will think of God as Jewish, a Hindu person will think of God as

Hindu, and an Islamic person is Islamic. But really, if we're all creatures and brothers and sisters of the one God, then we are co-sanguine. We share the same blood, we share the same spirit. And so even though it comes from the Islamic tradition, the message is not confined just to Islam or to Sufi mysticism. Right. You know, my experience is you read any of these traditions deeply enough and you start to say well boy this all sounds pretty pretty similar doesn't it sort of sounds like the same message just delivered in slightly different cultural contexts and you know the slight sort of um what would be the word for it the slight warping that happens by filtering

through a human lens but but when you boil it all down there's an awful lot of similarity it, the slight warping that happens by filtering through a human lens. But when you boil it all down, there's an awful lot of similarity. It's the root. If you think about the roots of all religion are the same, and it's the human urge to connect with something higher than us, and not just higher and beyond us, but something that is within us. It's not just out there. It's something we can connect with through our journey inward. And that's another thing that is similar to almost all traditions. And it doesn't mean that God is only inside us, but is pervasive inside and outside us. If you're all made of the same stuff, then the same thing is filtering through all of us, no matter which religion you turn to.

But you have to really go to the root of it and practice what you learn. Yes. You say in the book that the thesis or rather the hope of this book is that we can and must turn from being closed to being open, from contraction to expansion, from isolation to connection, taking the first steps towards wisdom, happiness, and joy. And I love that. I have been thinking an awful lot lately about that very idea of expansion versus contraction, right? We've had a spiritual teacher on Adyashanti who said to me once, ego is just a contraction, right? And I've been thinking about this idea a lot, this contraction to expansion that James Hollis, the psychotherapist, often just asks a question when trying to evaluate a decision. Is this going to expand your life or contract it? So I love that idea so much. Tell me a little bit more about it from your perspective. wolf because, you know, in order to be greedy or unkind or fearful, you're basically, you know,

thinking from a very egocentric and a very personal point of view. And it's not an aware point of view. So when you open out, and this opening out, by the way, happens a great deal, you know, say, when your heart breaks, for example, I mean, what happens to your heart when it breaks, it cracks open. And it hurts, of course, it hurts. But it also opens out, it opens out to receive others, to receive love, to receive kindness, to give it and to receive it. So, to live in an open way is to live in a vulnerable way, to take away that ego skin that separates us from others. It's like King Lear, you know, when he really is down and out, and here's this really autocratic king whose nose has been rubbed to the ground. When he finally gets there, his heart is open. He can live in a hovel with a crazy madman and love him. It's like in Rumi's stories, you know, all these stories are about characters who begin off being very closed.

And then by living through their experience, you see how suffering opens them up to being more aware and connecting with their higher selves. What I see with suffering is for some people, suffering opens them up, they transform it in beautiful ways, right? And they grow from it. And then there are other people who seem to be embittered or broken by suffering. And I'm kind of curious, I ask this to a lot of guests, but I'm curious from your perspective, what is the difference in the people who are able to use suffering to turn it into right that some people, a lot of people, get very embittered by their experiences and stay in that bitterness. Now, you know, I think the difference between the two is either you're happy being unhappy, or you want to do everything in your power to get out of it, you know, to not realize that there is

a different way of being and a different way of thinking around about the same issue, you know, that horrible thing happened to me and now I don't want to trust anybody anymore or that horrible thing happened to me and I'm going to learn from that experience and move on and not live without trusting people because to live without trust and hope is not a good life. So I would also qualify that, you know, if we didn't have people who were embittered by their experiences, we would have no room in us for compassion. So those of us who can transform, those of us who can, you know, transcend negative experiences and learn from them must have compassion because if there is hope for the people who are embittered, it is compassion for them.

Although you can't always reach them, but those that we can reach in our lives, the only truly transformative power in life is love. And Rumi says that over and over again, you know, and it's very sad that there are so many people who don't know how to live with hope and joy. And I think ultimately, the answer is unknowable. The Hindu philosophy might say it's karma. It's how you lived in your previous life. But we don't know that. Maybe in your previous life, you fed the dark wolf more. And now it's time for you to learn what to feed in yourself. But I don't really have the answer for that, Eric. And it is one of the greatest mysteries of life. Because, you know, there are people who can transcend and there are

people who live happy, joyful lives. And there are people who can't do that. And all I can do is hope that something will turn them. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No 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 gonna drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. God 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, 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. 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. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts,

to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Mull, who writes our Business Week buying power column. Very few companies who go viral are like totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed

to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Certain people have tried to study resilience, and resilience is what we might say is the ability to take a really bad experience and come through it stronger and better, they often talk about the idea of being able to find a coherent narrative out of it. And that's why I think the work that Rumi does, that you're continuing, of telling stories. Stories that show, hey, look how this person took suffering and transformed it. Look how this person did it. And it sets up a narrative that allows us to try and, I think, frame our own experience in that way. I know in my own life, being able to turn a lot of the things

that have happened to me, having a coherent narrative that shows those as growth experiences, shows those as things that propelled me forward versus things that brought me down really transforms my relationship to them. And so I think story is a really powerful way to do that. Right on. And all the stories of Rumi's stories that I've retold in this book and the other one that I wrote before that, I sectioned off in grouped stories under different titles, like, you know, one of the ones in this book is Embrace Suffering. And there are four stories under that about characters who embraced their suffering, who saw the good in their suffering, and how they did it. It's exactly what you were saying. And stories are also more powerful because when you're reading a story, you relive it.

You enter the story and you go through these experiences with a character and then come out, hopefully, on the other side with a nugget of gold, with a gem. Okay, aha, I can do this too. I can apply this to my own life. And then the second section is pray. And I deeply believe in the power of pray because a prayer, what is prayer, but a dialogue with our higher selves. And the dialogue is productive in itself because by, you know, having like just exploring the other side, and you can come to a conclusion that, well, if I'm this way, then I'm not going to be a happy person. But if I'm another way, there is another way of thinking. And it all boils down to perspective, you know.

The perspective we have is how our life ends up being. So if it's a contracted perspective, then we're going to live a contracted life. And the third part of this book is surrender to the cosmic will. And that which is, you know, a lot of us get stuck with our bad experiences because we don't know how to accept that which has already happened and that which we cannot change. finding what you call a coherent narrative in it, you know, by looking back, looking back and saying, okay, did anything good come off that and making a list of it, you know, practical things. Do you have a story you could summarize from the book that might talk about suffering? Yes, several. Actually, there is the very first story called We Never Know Why is about this guy who gets, you know, he's sleeping peacefully. And suddenly he's woken up very rudely by somebody

who's whipping him and beating him and punching him. And he doesn't know what's going on. And this stranger just keeps hitting him and saying, run, run. And this guy is running. He said, what the hell is life all about? You know, why am I suffering? Like, what have I done to this guy? And then the stranger makes him eat all these apples, stuff his mouth with apples. And then he makes him drink at a fountain and he drinks and he drinks and he vomits up ultimately. And what does he see in his vomit?

But a black snake breathing in it. So he's really shocked and he looks at the stranger who says, I was walking by you. I saw you sleeping with your mouth open. I saw the black snake slithering into your mouth, and I wanted to save you. So he said, why didn't you just tell me that there was a black snake in me and you're trying to get it out? And I would have borne my suffering better. But the stranger says, if I told you, you would have died of fright. So in this story, the last sentence is, Emmer, who's the central character, fell at the feet of the stranger and said, oh, blessed is the hour you saw me. Blessed is the suffering you inflicted to awaken me. And all suffering has a power to awaken us. And all four of the stories under this section talk about the transformative power of suffering. And, you know, it's very important to remember this. And it's not always possible to remember it.

If you're human, we forget. Sometimes the black wolf predominates in us. I don't think you ever get to the point where the black wolf is vanquished and just the good wolf lives you. The trick is to remember when you're suffering, for example, which is not always possible to do, that this suffering, like all my other sufferings, will bear good fruit. Right. I think the thing that's so interesting when we have these discussions about suffering and how it can be transformed and how it can bring all these beautiful things forward, all that is true. And yet, when you're

suffering, you are suffering. That's the part of the story that gets lost, is that the suffering is real. You're going to be through that. I often think about that idea. People say, well, when one door closes, another opens. And I often joke, yes, but nobody mentions the long, dark hallway in between. And that's kind of what the suffering is. And I think we can use it to transform us, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt like hell. Exactly. And I think that the two go hand in hand. And that's what these stories are about. They're very human people who suffer, you know.

And when they're suffering, there's a wonderful story of Rumi's under the praise section about this musician called Jalaluddin, who's a depressive, you know, and he comes to him and says, you know, what are you mumbling in your beard for? Is there anybody who says, here I am, when you pray to Allah, you know? And he says, no, I never heard he has to go through horrific experiences to realize that he's crying out to God and God saying, here I am, is the same thing, you know. And from my own life, I know that if I remember to pray when I'm really suffering intensely. Because what prayer does is it reminds you that there is another way to think. For example, whenever I'm going through really hard times, and that's what the third section is about, I remind myself or try to remind myself or try to remind myself most of the time that this is the cosmic will. This is what is happening now. I can't change it. All I can do is accept it. And the accepting of it transforms it.

Yeah. I was sort of touched in the book when you were talking about this acceptance and the challenge of this, you mentioned that it's challenging to get old, that accepting getting old is challenging. It's very challenging. I turned 71 this year. And, you know, my health is not what it used to be. My stamina, my intellectual acuity is not what it used to be. But, you know, as soon as I find myself worrying about it or bitching about it, it just gets worse. But I was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, and there's really no cure to it. I just have to accept it. And sometimes my legs burn, and like today, they're burning. And I just say, oh, you've got to just put up with it and do what you can, you know, spray them with all the sprays you've got and rub them or whatever, but you got to live with it.

If you don't live with it, there's a wonderful story, another Rumi story, it's about a woman who, you know, who doesn't like getting older at all and how she tries, it's called the Witch of Kabul, and she tries to lure this young man, you know, the tremendous suffering that causes, her inability to realize. And Rumi's quote from that is that when the candle of your youth dims, you have to light the candle of the spirit. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No 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. Brian Cranston is with us today. 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. 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. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers.

Markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts, to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Mull, who writes our Business Week Buying Power column. Very few companies who go viral are like totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter.

Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. You say in the book, if I don't actively assent to my aging, I am surrendering to despair and constant complaining, to being an unhappy and old that the, the hag part makes me laugh, but, but it's so true. Like if I don't surrender to this, then I'm surrendering to, like you said, despair and constant complaint. I thought that was just a beautiful way to say it. Yes. You know, you

surrender to one thing or the other, you know, so which one are you going to surrender to? Which one are you going to feed? I keep coming back to your parable. And to assent to your life, the way it is exactly the way it is exactly the way it turned out exactly the arc of your story. What didn't happen? What happened? The dreams unfulfilled or the ambitions unfulfilled, or the ambitions unfulfilled, or how much you achieved or did not achieve. You know, unless you say yes to it and embrace it fully, you're going to be unhappy. Yeah. I want to go back to something you said just a couple minutes ago, and I may not get this exactly right, but you said that one of the characters in the story realized that crying out to God was the same as hearing God?

You're crying out to God, and God saying, here I am, is the same thing. Let me give you my own example. If I'm suffering intensely, and I I remember to pray and I remember to just turn towards this higher power in myself and say, could you help me, please? You know, or say, could you help me accept this because I can't change it? Or if I can change it, could you help me to change it, please? The process of here I am to help you starts, you know. I firmly believe in the power of prayer, like I said earlier, because as soon as you start praying, you've got a different perspective. You're not mired in your suffering. You're doing something about it.

You're asking for help. You have recourse. So to turn towards that which helps us to overcome our suffering, which we fall into periodically because our lives are not linear. We never get to the point where we are totally enlightened. Our life is circular, and it's like a spiral. Our lives are not linear. We never get to the point where we are totally enlightened. Our life is circular. And it's like a spiral.

And if you want to think of the axis of the spiral as suffering or as God, then you're always moving either close to or moving further away from it. You're revolving around it all the time. And some of these things are periodic. Some of these are tied to, you know, the atmosphere or the environment or the, you know, the way the stars are aligned or whatever. We're connected to the vaster life that we inhabit. We are not just isolated creatures living our own little lives. We're connected to everything there is. We're connected to nature.

We're connected to the sky. We are connected to God, if you want to call that energy God or nature or love. Rumi's other word for God is love. So that's why I said to remember, to remember. That is the trick because when we're suffering, we forget. Yeah. You say at one point in the book, I thought this was a great way to say it. Briefly, the examined life means that we not only think, but we also think about our thinking. And that's a little bit of what you're describing here. It's

remembering to sort of look at our thoughts from a different perspective. the examined life, you've developed techniques by now, like breathing or meditation or stretching or going out for a walk. All of these are very important because, you know, the physical and the mental and the psychic are on a continuum. You know, then you remember that you have to do all these things. And the first step is recognition you're not in a good place. And the second step is to watch what you are doing to not be in that good place. You know, sometimes you're either not accepting what's going on or you're not embracing it or you want something else instead of what you're getting or you're, you know, mired in your desires for this or that, this, that and the other. And so, yes, what you said is true.

So I think we're nearing the end of our time here. But I want to hit on something that you say in the book, I'll just read this paragraph, because I think it ties us back to the wolves also. And you say, the ultimate marriage, the holy union we are told repeatedly by our guides, especially the preeminent psychologist Carl Jung, takes place in the temple of our souls. It is the marriage between our lower and higher selves, between human and God. The goal of this marriage is not perfection, but wholeness. The human and the divine together form a whole. Well, that kind of says it. And I don't think I could add to that. And perhaps just to say that this, you know, just like, all our guides say is to live beyond pleasure and pain, is to live beyond suffering and joy. It's to be in a place where you expect to do both

and yet have cultivated the perspective where you know that this is going to pass, and everything, whether it's good or bad, is going to pass. And you arrive at that axis around which you've been revolving all your life. You know, to have hope for this marriage is a wonderful hope to have. And to strive towards the marriage is something we can do. The responsibility for it is ours. Right. I love that idea of the marriage between our higher and lower selves, between human and God. I've often heard people describe humans or a spiritual description is like, we're part animal, we're part God, right? And we're sort

of in the middle. We're sort of stuck in the middle there. And we try and live out both those to the best of our ability. Yes. And we're not stuck in the middle. We're sort of joined by these two, if you'd like to think that way. That's a better way to say it. Yes. Yes. And to live at this node where we are joined. And there's something else in between animal and God, Yes, yes. to evolve because it's ultimately all about our own personal evolution, which, by the way, I firmly believe raises the evolution and consciousness of the planet. That's our responsibility as human beings. All the sages, Socrates says it, know thyself. And the unexamined life is not worth

living. And the other element that we haven't even touched on is awe, you know. I mean, just think about the world you live in. Think about the mystery. It's not just you. Look outside in the garden. Look at the plants. Look at the sky. look at the sun. And it's like Einstein says, you know, the person who doesn't feel all at this existence that we're here at this point in this time and this body is like a snuffed out candle. So we don't want to be snuffed out candles. We want to do everything in our power to stay connected to the wonder of existence. inside my body right now is so unbelievably complex. I mean, there is so much happening every second, boom, boom. I mean, trillions of chemical reactions. It's just staggering what all is going on right as I sit here and talk to you that I'm not even doing any of it.

It's just happening. And the fact that we have all our limbs, we've got fingers, you know, I mean, really, if you start counting your blessings from your toe upwards and how many things are working, that's one of the ways I think when I worry about or think about or suffer about getting older, you know. Look at how many things are working for Christ, you know. I mean, give thanks. for Christ, you know. I mean, give thanks, give, you know, that's another very, very important message that all the guides and the gurus give us. Gratitude is the ultimate alchemy. As soon as you say, hey, thank you that I'm alive today, you know, that I'm breathing the very basic level and then count all the other blessings. That's one way to not stay stuck in bitterness and in suffering and in the contracted state.

Yes, gratefulness is an expanding state for sure. If we can get ourselves there, it's the outflowing. Well, thank you, Kamla, so much for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed this conversation. And we'll have links in the show notes to your book and how people can find you online. So again, thanks so much. I really enjoyed the book. And I really enjoyed getting to talk with you. Thanks, Eric. I was happy to be interviewed by you. I'm looking forward to hearing both of us talk.

Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. 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 woulden. 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 love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.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. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF, and me, Mandy B, as we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability and authenticity, we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that will resonate

with your experiences, Decisions Decisions is going to be your go-to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections. Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.