The One You Feed - Philip Goldberg on Perspectives and Spiritual Practices

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Philip Goldberg is a skilled public speaker, meditation teacher, and an ordained Interfaith Minister. He also leads tours to India and cohosts the popular podcast, “Spirit Matters Talk.”In this episode, Eric and Philip discuss his book, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and CourageBut 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, Philip Goldberg and I Discuss Perspectives, Spiritual Practices, and …His book, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and CourageHow a spiritual practice gives us a foundation for managing life’s challengesHis experience of seeking equanimity over the yearsThe importance of practicing meditation dailyIncorporating practices before meditation, such as movement or yoga posePractices for after meditation when you’re in a deeper, quieter placeLearning to pay attention and shift our thoughts from the extremesHow resilience comes from regularly practicing these approachesSpiritual perspective expands your view from a bigger placeScientific perspective of finding the awe and vastness of time and spaceHistorical perspective of looking at world conditions throughout historyPerspective from asking what we can learn from this experiencePerspective of human interconnectednessPhilip Goldberg Links:Philip’s WebsiteTwitterFacebookInstagramCaviar is a food delivery app that brings premium local restaurants to your door. Get $10 off any order of $20 or more, by entering “FEED” at checkout. Download caviar the app today!Relief band is the #1 FDA-cleared 100% drug-free anti-nausea wristband that has been clinically proven to relieve and effectively prevent nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness, anxiety, migraines, hangovers, morning sickness, chemotherapy, and so much more. Go to www.reliefband.com and use promo code WOLF for 20% off plus free shipping and a 30-day money-back guarantee.Best Fiends: Engage your brain and play a game of puzzles with Best Fiends. Download for free on the Apple App Store or Google Play.   If you enjoyed this conversation with Philip Goldberg on Perspectives and Spiritual Practices, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Benjamin ShalvaGreg MarcusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spiritful practice doesn't drive out negative traits. It doesn't immunize us like a vaccine from the difficulties of life. 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 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. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Philip Goldberg. He's a skilled public speaker, meditation teacher, and ordained interfaith minister. He also leads tours to India and co-hosts the popular podcast, Spirit Matters. Today, Philip and Eric discuss his book, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times, Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity,

and Courage. Hi, Philip. Welcome to the show. Good to be with you, Eric. We're going to be discussing your book, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times, Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage, which we can all use more of. But before we get to that, we're going to start like we always do with the parable. And in the parable, there is a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter, and he 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 granddaughter stops and she thinks about

it for a second. She looks up at her grandfather. She says, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather 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 only first heard that parable a few years ago, but it's in a sense, without my knowing it, been a major guide. The wisdom in the parables guided me most of my adult life. And as a young man, when I was searching for answers to what life is all about and all that, and I discovered the spiritual teachings that came to us from the East, something grounded me that still guides me, guides how I write and what I write, and the most recent book especially.

And that is that feeding the good wolf, the foundation of that, it's not just a matter of paying attention and favoring the good traits within us, because we all have both wolves, obviously. It's a matter of creating a foundation where the voice of the good wolf is more likely to arise, and where you're more alert to that side of you and less prone to letting the bad, the other stuff, the other wolf take over. like whatever psychotherapeutic modalities you favor, create a groundwork, a foundation for being able to favor the good wolf, being able to hear that voice, being able also to recognize the sound of the bad wolf when it's leading you in the wrong direction. And there's a certain capacity of the mind and the heart to hear those

voices, to pay attention to them, to be aware enough to guide them, and to create a foundation where the probability, the odds of the guidance from the good wolf arises in your life. And that's why I take a very practical approach to the spiritual life and to life in general, by creating, you know, a sort of foundation and practice to just improve the odds in that way. Yeah, I think that's a big part of what we talk about on this show a lot is exactly that it's that laying that foundation so that yeah, we've got a better chance of feeding the good wolf or I love what you're saying feeding the good wolf. Or I love what you're saying, hearing the good wolf's voice. There's a couple things that you say about

spiritual practice that I really liked. And one of them is you said, I've learned the hard way that spiritual practice is not like a pesticide that destroys or drives away the pesky aspects of life. It's more like an immune booster or a sturdy garment that keeps us dry and warm in a blizzard. to be fed, crying out to be fed. And it's not a question of destroying the wolf or caging it somewhere so it never arises. It's going to arise. It's going to demand to be fed, but we don't have to do the feeding. We want to be able to recognize when it demands to be fed and not mistake it for the good wolf, not be misguided in that way. And spiritual practice does that. It doesn't drive out negative traits. It doesn't immunize us like a vaccine from the difficulties of life and the challenges of being a human being,

which is the kind of fantasy many of us get into when we first embark on spiritual life. And we hear the promise of joy and bliss and all these good things that are, in fact, possible and attainable. And we do experience along the way. But we think the bad stuff and the challenges and the stress and the upsets will disappear. No, there's no guarantee of that. We're all human. And I've looked into the lives of all the great teachers, spiritual teachers in history, and they all had their challenges. They were all human beings as well as great, elevated, enlightened souls. And they had their challenges, and so will we. People will disappoint us. People will die. We'll get sick. We'll get old. We'll have ups and downs in our careers, and you know,

all that stuff, and so how we handle it. The spiritual practice gives us a foundation for managing these things, for keeping them at bay, and for not only handling them more effectively, but to not have inner peace and our solidity, our spiritual civility upset even in the midst of those things. That's what I meant in that metaphor. You mentioned studying lots of spiritual teachers. You know, you did a biography on Yogananda. You wrote a book called American Veda, which looks at, you know, I did a biography on Yogananda, you wrote a book called American Veda, which looks at, you know, a lot of the Indian culture and a lot of the gurus there. I guess what I'd love to ask you is, assuming everything you just said is true, which is that, you know, no matter where we get, we still have the vicissitudes of

life that weigh in on us. In what ways is somebody that we would look at as sort of an elevated spiritual teacher or a guru, in what way are they experiencing the vicissitudes of life differently? Yeah, that's a great question. We can only go by what they say, since we're not them. And I don't know how you experience life inwardly. I can only imagine based on my experience. So based on my experience, being with such people, hearing them, reading the literature, but also in my own life, I've been meditating for, you know, I give away my age, but 50 plus years every day. And I know the difference between when I do and when I don't and what life was like before and what it was like after and what it was like a year after I started my spiritual practices and what it was like 10 years after. So I could see the progress. And one of the things I noticed, and it's very clearly delineated in the

yogic literature, is in the Bhagavad Gita, there's a passage that hit me the very first time I read it a long, long time ago. And I said, I want that. It talks about having equanimity, essentially inner stability, inner peace in pleasure and pain, in victory and defeat, in gain and loss. Because you're going to have those losses. You're going to have defeats. You're going to have pain. There's going to be ups and downs. It acknowledges that because you're human. But it says you can have equanimity even in the midst of that. Well, of course, I expected that to happen permanently early on in my path, and I was disappointed that I would still get upset and angry and, you know, despair and all that. But less and less over time, I noticed over time two things. One, I handle those things better. I don't get quite as lost in them. I

maintain some equanimity. And when I lose it, I recover more quickly. And there's a lot of research on meditative practices, mindfulness practices that validate that obligation. So when I imagine someone like Yogananda or, you know, Jesus, Buddha, whatever, when I imagine them in the midst of upset, I just take my own experience to the highest degree. And I say, that's probably what they're experiencing. One of the things I learned researching Yogananda's life, and I've seen it in many others, but, you know, I wrote a full biography of him so I can speak more clearly about it. And he left behind a lot of written evidence of this. He got upset. He got angry. He was worried about money, you know, and he was running an organization and he had to deal with

disappointing people, and people who were trying to bring him down, and all kinds of stuff, and the Great Depression. So he experienced life's ups and downs. But you could sense a good-naturedness and some sense of being deeply involved in all that stuff, and trying to solve problems and deal with it, at the same time being a bit removed, having the awareness inside that this is all a game, but I have to play it, and I'm going to play it well. That's the kind of challenge we all face, you know, is to have that spiritual remove of, you know, being in the what they say, being in the world, but not of it, and sustaining your own peace, but without disengaging from the world and being complacent.

That's one of the challenges, you know, if you're not living in a cave. And I always tell people, even if you're in a cave, you'll probably get annoyed by the monk in the next cave. probably get annoyed by the monk in the next cave. So even though we're already eternal beings at one with the divine and our inner bliss, we have to awaken to that and we have to realize that. And part of that is removing the obstacles as in opening the curtains to let the sun in or cleaning the glass on the window. So you actually see the sun, which is always there. Practice does those things. That's why all the great masters invented this incredible repertoire of spiritual practices. So to say you don't need to practice,

just sort of snap out of it, well, that may happen. It's known to have happened to people. But if you look at it, that sudden awakening and realization of, well, I've always been here. Why was I doing all this seeking and practicing? Well, maybe if you hadn't done all that seeking and practicing, this moment of awakening would not have happened. 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 baffling questions like... We got the answer.

We talk with the scientists 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. Let's turn our attention now a little bit to spiritual practice. There's a couple things that I wanted to hit on that you talked about. And one is, you that we can do before and after meditation that give us more of the benefit of that. And so I was wondering if we could just talk a little bit about why is that a helpful idea? Okay. And what are some things we can do?

First, let me say that the centerpiece of my book, if there is one, is the value of regular practice, what in yoga circles they would say is daily sadhana. And the centerpiece of that to me, and in the yogic literature, is a deep meditation that puts you in touch with the deepest part of yourself. And there, as you said, many forms of meditation. But the repertoire or the inventory that I recommend people develop would entail also having available practices to do prior to meditation and some to do as you come out of meditation. Prior to meditation, the classic formula in the yogic literature and in yoga circles would be to do something physical. So classically, that's what the postures, the stretching and bending we associate with yoga, but it's really just

one small part of yoga, what's called asanas, postures. Those are meant in this context to sort of prime the body, the central nervous system, essentially. It's a calming thing. It removes the grosser physical layers of stress and tension and sort of settles the nervous system a bit. In classic terms, what would then follow from a period of these physical asana stretching practices would be breathing practices, what are called pranayama. You know, each category, there's hundreds of choices. And the breathing practices,

of course, are also physical, but more subtle than stretching and bending. So you're seated, your eyes may be closed. And so what you're doing essentially is going from the gross physical level to a subtler level and then to the subtlest level in meditation. The value of doing those preparatory actions is you begin meditation from a deeper, calmer place. Begin meditation from a deeper, calmer place. You're primed. It's pregame warm-ups. It's batting practice.

It's stretching. It's all the routines the guys do before they enter the batting box and all that. I'm mentioning the yoga asanas and breathing, but there's many other things that people might do. They might do some strengthening exercises, you know, for the body. They might do prayer, depending on your spiritual orientation. But that essential movement from something physical to something less physical to inward meditation is the direction these things take. and they set you up for a deeper experience of meditation. Then on the other end, assuming you meditate for, you know, 15 minutes, half hour, whatever you do, when the time is up, you're in a deeper, more settled place.

And it's very important to not just spring up. It's very jarring to the system to come from a deep meditation and just suddenly, you know, come out very quickly and start doing stuff and making noise and all that. So as an interlude, coming out practices make the transition more smooth. And the other aspect of that is doing whatever you do, and I'll mention a few things, from that deep level of quiet that you've established in meditation makes these subsequent practices more powerful. So that's when people might do some chanting or prayer in a low voice or silently or, you know, murmur some chants. Some people put on a recording of chants and chant along or sacred music of the tradition that they're part of or recite a prayer, recite a prayer, either a spontaneous prayer that comes from that deep place, or a traditional prayer from whatever spiritual tradition they're from. Awesome.

I love that. Thank you. Yeah, I have found for myself that it took me a lot of years before, I don't know if I just missed people suggesting that, I'm not quite sure, but I just sat down, meditated, it was cold, right? Like sit down, pay attention to your breath, get right in, you know, and then done, get right up. And I've really found the benefit of, you know, kind of what you said, a little bit of movement ahead of time. You know, I've heard somebody else refer to them as like meditation on ramps. I do some movement,

some breathing. And then afterwards I'm practiced primarily in the Zen tradition now. And when we're done, we do a little bit of chanting. We have some vows, which we could say are prayers, right? You know, we're setting our intention for who do we want to be moving forward. I'm glad to hear that about Zen teachers, because I was with some people who must have misunderstood something. And it was a bunch of people from different paths and one time the zen guy was leading the meditation and clanged a bell really loud when it was time to end and then just started talking and i'm in there you know my habit is like i take some time before i'm even ready you know and they were out of it and i thought either they weren't very deep or, you know, there's some value in it in their tradition.

But it was jarring. Yeah. You're lucky he didn't hit you with a stick. It was not a Zendo and I was not a devotee. So that would have been impolite. Would have been very impolite. I thought that your section in the book about perception was incredibly well done. Oh, thank you. I really thought there was a lot of really practical value in working with perception. And I thought you did a nice job of framing up and avoiding a dichotomy that I often see,

right? And the dichotomy or the extremes I often see, or some people are like the power of positive thinking, only think about unicorns, love and roses, right? Or other people who say, you know what, doing anything to change, you know, your view and not look at the harsh reality of life is bad, right? And I, as a middle way kind of guy, find both those extremes to be off-putting. I'm with you. Yeah, and I thought your book did a really nice job

of laying that out. And I wanna start by reading a small thing that you wrote as a way to get us into this discussion. And you basically are talking about, look, perception, the way we see the world is incredibly important. And the thoughts that we have are really important. And you say, so here's a key question. Do you cede control of these thought shifts to propagandists, advertisers, entertainers, and random events,

or do you take charge? You can't always control your circumstances, of course, but you can change the way you perceive and evaluate them. And so I think that sets us up for, look, some intentional cultivation of our internal thought processes is pretty important. And this comes back to your parable, because in a sense, by paying attention to the content of thought and exerting some control or some mastery. You're feeding the good wolf because the bad wolf is in there saying, feed me, feed me, feed me. And, you know, we could think of that as negative thoughts or, you know, the devil on the shoulder instead of the angel on the other shoulder. But it's also, to get back to your good point about moderation, if you go to the other extreme and reject what we think of as negative thoughts or disturbing thoughts, first of all, it's going to require a

level of vigilance that can drive you nuts because, you know, there's negative stuff in the world. And some of those, what we think of as negative thinking are actually very useful because, you know, we have negative thoughts. What we think of as negative thoughts, fear, worry, anger, all that. Some of that is the defense mechanism. It's warning us that that has to be paid attention to. You wouldn't want to be facing some kind of danger and feel something in you that's fearful and say, oh, you know, just look at the sunset and then be overwhelmed by

whatever danger there is. And we've seen this in this last year. There were, you know, positive thinking people denying COVID as a reality. And, you know, where did that get us? It's going to go away. It's just a climate change. Oh, no, it's, you know, just God's work. It's nothing. No, some things need to be attended to. And so

it's not negative thinking to be alert to danger. On the other hand, if we feed those wolves too much, we get stress-related disorders. We get mired in worry and fear and anxiety and miss the good stuff, forget to feed the good wolf, and life is miserable. So there's a way to monitor and shift so that you guard against the overreaction and then overwhelming negativity, but you don't deny reality. So, for example, all the spiritual teachings warn us about anger and fear because they're poisonous. So if you start to feel them and the thought is, I'm so pissed, I can't stand that person, I hate that person, that's not useful. Maybe the initial impulse is like telling you something. Okay, then what do you do? Do you wallow in that?

Or do you say, okay, that's a relationship that needs to be attended to. And can I look at that person with compassion and understanding and at the same time protect myself if, you know, the person is having a bad influence or whatever, and handle it with grace and dignity. That's shifting the same situation to a more positive place and a practical place. Oh, I'm worried about, you know, losing my job. And you can wallow in that and be miserable in it and all that. Or you can say, okay, I'm being warned. There's something going on here.

How can I protect myself? What can I do that's positive? What can I do to remedy the situation? Instead of I'm worried and things are terrible, it becomes I'm going to fix this. Yeah. In regard to fear, for example, you say a better approach would be to shift from fear, I'm terrified by this, to the thoughts that reflect the feeling of concern. This is a troubling situation that needs attention. And I love this next line. Concern is calmer than fear. It is more compassion centered.

It makes us attentive and open to solutions, whereas excessive fear can distort perception and rattle the mind. I love that because it's not, there's no problem here. It's, there is a problem here, but I'm going to shift just this little bit from fear to this matters to me. Yes. And now that I'm in a place, this matters to me and I will attend to it. Concern is calmer than fear.

You know, my experience is a lot of this working with thoughts and emotions skillfully is how do we turn the emotional volume down enough without denying it, but how do we turn it down enough so that those wiser parts of us have a chance to actually do something. And that brings us back to a value of regular spiritual practice, you know, cultivate that quality of being able to have equanimity in the midst of stuff. And that comes in time. You can attend to that. But regular spiritual practice will cultivate the capacity for doing exactly what you said in the midst of it, having the clarity of mind and the presence to be able to make that shift with clarity and effectiveness and not get overwhelmed. The resilience comes from bouncing back, gives you that capacity. Okay, oh, I was so upset today, I could barely drive

home, but I've recovered. Now let me look at this clearly, take a positive approach, see what I can do about it, and come from a higher place. That's in the yoga world, pratipaksha bhavana, shifting from the negative to its opposite. But the opposite doesn't mean denial. I lead a program called Spiritual Habits, and one of the spiritual habits is the basic idea, we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are, right? So it's all about perception. And so, you know, we always are seeing the world through some perspective. We can't not, right? You might argue that enlightenment is actually the point where you get above all perspective, but nonetheless, but you can't

fake that. That's exactly it. You can't fake it. So knowing we're taking a certain perspective, what I think is helpful is how do we develop flexibility of perspective? How do we develop the ability to say, let me try this perspective on like glasses. Oh, I've got glasses that help me see up close. I've got glasses that help me see far away. But I love that you talk through a few different ways of taking perspective. We just walk through a couple. One look out the window, you have a certain perspective and you might see signs of danger. You might see things of beauty. But being on the ground floor, I grew up in New York, so I think of life in an apartment building. Being on the ground floor is a bigger perspective than if you're just peeking through a window from the basement. But if you go up to the next story and the next story, and then you go to the roof, I remember as a little kid growing up in an apartment building and going up to the roof.

And it was only a four or five story building. But the view from the roof, my God, you could see the trees on the streets nearby and you could see all the people and you could see blocks away and all that. It's a bigger view and it's not only a grander view and an elevated view, it's strategically a better view for evaluating circumstances and, you know, figuring out what to do. That's why there are fortresses and castles on hilltops, so you can see your enemies coming from a long distance away. You know, the outposts were on towers, not ground level. So that, by analogy, is taking the spiritual perspective, the cosmic view, so to speak, is climbing up to have a bigger view. It doesn't mean you only see the beauty of the landscape and not the marauders and the difficulties. It means you could see it all, and you see it from a bigger place. But you have to be careful of that, too, because people sometimes do that,

and they think, I'm going to take the spiritual perspective. And the spiritual perspective is, say, it's all God's will, so I'm just going to surrender to what is. That can make you complacent. Maybe God's will is for you to take some action now. Or in Eastern terms, they'll say, oh, it's just karma. Everything is karma. And, you know, whatever's happening is meant to be and let go and let God, all these cliches have value. But if you apply them in a cavalier way, you can become indifferent or complacent and become a victim of circumstance instead of taking charge. And so I remember somebody saying to me in the midst of some social circumstances of people suffering and all that, am I saying, well, maybe we can do something about it?

And I say, well, it's their karma. 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. Bryan 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 person says, so, you know, we just have to let them pay off their karma. And I said, well, but what's the karma you are going to now obtain from being indifferent instead of compassionate, from feeding the wolf of indifference instead of the wolf of compassion and empathy? So you have to be careful when taking the God's eye view, so to speak. And it's a little arrogant to think we know. It's like being on the second floor and saying, well, I know the view from the roof is this. Well, you're not there. So be careful. What you said there too, is that's what I have found with that idea of karma or, you know, there's another metaphor I've heard in Indian spirituality of, you know,

it's all just a game, you know, and, you know, it's just God playing, you know, a game with himself. And I'm like, well, that may or may not be true. And there's all this suffering, real suffering right here. Both are true. Exactly. I feel like if we get lost in one or the other, and that's why I was saying, I think what's important to develop is flexibility of perspective. Let me be able to go up to the God's eye view and let me see, what does it look like from up there? Let me just at least take that into consideration. But now let me look through this perspective. And you've got some other great ones. You talk about a saint's eye perspective. Imagining what your favorite person, spiritual being, you know, and that's a good thing. I was interviewing somebody the other day for my podcast, and they were talking

about the value of having a sort of spiritual role model, somebody you really look up to. It could be somebody alive. It could be a figure from history. And, of course, you know, in Christian circles, this is very common. That's sort of what would Jesus do? And I have a Buddhist friend who wrote a book, you know, what would Buddha do? And in Buddhist circles, there's this notion of going through life as if Buddha was walking next to you. You don't want to let him down. You don't want to, you know, do something dumb and, you know, careless and selfish and all that. Just, you know, imagine he's walking with you and you can ask yourself what that exemplar would do.

You could ask yourself what that exemplar would wish you to do. It's a good thing to do. But this notion, to come back a minute to this notion that it's all a play and it's all God's, they call that lila, God's play. I did this biography of Yogananda, and he used to do that all the time. We're just the actors in God's play and all that. But you have to play those roles that you're assigned impeccably as if it really matters. Because in the worldly sense, it does.

It does matter. In the cosmic sense, you know, there's a metaphor or story in all the many stories of Krishna, where there's such heavy rains in the village, everything is terrible and it's going to be flooded. So Krishna lifts the mountain. And so all the villagers can go onto the mountain like it's a giant umbrella. But he has them all hold up sticks so they're helping out. And they have the feeling that they're helping out. And so we have to hold up our sticks. That's a great metaphor. Another perspective that you suggest perhaps somebody might look at would be the scientific perspective.

You know, just zooming out to the vastness of the known universe. Yeah. And I have secular friends who think all my spiritual stuff is superstition. I say, well, it's okay. Take the scientific perspective. You go out at night to the desert or a mountaintop and look up at the stars, and people will say, oh, it's awe, it's wonder, you know, the universe is so vast and all that. And I said, that's a spiritual experience.

You know, you can come at it from science. I have a friend who's a pastor who early in his life wanted to be an astronomer. The astronomy interest led him to become a minister because in his view, he was observing the wondrous quality of creation and therefore loved the creator. So you can come at this from many, many different perspectives. And if you take that perspective of the vastness of time and the vastness of space and realize Earth is just this little speck in the universe, and we're just little specks on the speck, there's a perspective there. But it doesn't mean it's meaningless. You know, it's a meaningful speck. We have to act as if it is meaningful. And you could take the scientific perspective on racism.

You could take the scientific perspective on climate change and still act from a spiritual place, you know, to make your contribution to these things. Those are shifts in perspective that are important so we don't get bogged down in our little worries. There's a thing in the Jewish tradition where you're advised to keep a note in each of your pockets, your left pocket, your right pocket. And one note says, you are an insignificant little speck in this vastness of the universe. And the other one says this entire universe was meant for your presence. So you have both of these things that you have to hold.

I love that. That is a great one. And then the last perspective that you talk about is taking a historical perspective. Great one. And then the last perspective that you talk about is taking a historical perspective. Yeah. And that's especially on issues that confront us as a society. Like just now, you know, we've been through COVID. Having the perspective of knowing what happened 100 years ago during the Spanish flu influenza epidemic. People then were advised to wear masks and to isolate. That helps. That gives you perspective. Looking at world conditions from the perspective of the wars of the 20th century, for example, looking at the current situation of racism from the perspective of, you know, the history of slavery, the history of the civil rights movement. These are all terribly important. And just in our personal lives, just looking at our current situation in the context of our own personal history or our family history,

they broaden the perspective and allow us to see things a little bit more clearly. Yeah, yeah. I love that idea. I think the other perspective, which maybe interweaves among the ones you've talked about, but the perspective I often find helpful is the interconnected human perspective. What I mean by that is whatever I'm going through, countless other humans have gone through it, are going through it, will go through it. It is part of being human. Yes. And I'll add two things to that. The people we most admire in the world and envy,

they also go through it and have gone through it. And in the case of most of us and most people listening, other people not only are going through what I'm going through, in many cases, in most of the world, they're going through it worse, harder. And so during the pandemic, you know, especially in the times when we were isolated and it was this, you know, real concern about exposing ourselves to the virus, I was thinking about people in India. I'm thinking of them now as we come out of it here. I'm thinking of people I know in India. I go to India often. It's difficult there.

It's very hard there. Conditions are much worse. And I think of all the people as we celebrate and people go back to baseball games and concerts and stuff. There are people still grieving their loved ones and people in other parts of the world, you know, still getting sick and dying. And a lot of what we're talking about is, you know, having the ability to hold what appear to be contradictory thoughts at the same time, you know, paradox, living with paradox, as Rumi said, live at the heart of paradox, living with paradox, as Rumi said, live at the heart of paradox, to be able to hold real grounded perception of reality

and at the same time have an elevated perspective, being able to handle the challenges of life and also take a positive approach that it will be better. I can make it better. Life is ultimately here to enjoy and to give us growth and perspective. Just one more thing about this. The other perspective is what can I learn from this? That perspective of we're all students in this earthly curriculum and we all are in independent study. We all have our own lessons to learn.

So anytime things are really difficult and challenging, part of the perspective I try to take is, okay, what is this teaching? What is the right lesson to draw from this that will make things better tomorrow? That's another really powerful one. Well, Philip, you and I are at the end of our time here. I have absolutely loved this. We're going to continue in the post-show conversation briefly, where we are going to talk about a couple other perspective shifts. And then we're going to talk about a couple of other important things on the spiritual path, mainly art and humor. Ah. So we're going to do that in the post-show conversation. Listeners, if you'd like access to the post-show conversation, ad-free episodes, a special weekly episode I call A Teaching Song and a Poem, and lots of other benefits,

go to oneufeed.net slash join. Philip, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a really fun conversation for me. It was a great pleasure. Thanks for having me, Eric. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support.

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