TrueLife - Caste, Class, or Grass…Nobody rides for free - Ranga Padamanabahn

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Today we speak with Ranga Padamanabahn. It’s a freestyle conversation that talks about the art of meditation, psychedelic adventures, & metacignition ir thinking about thinking.

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast on Friday. We have the one and only Rongo with us. You've seen them before. You've seen his LinkedIn page. You've seen them on Sundays.

and you've seen a few of our discussions. Ranga, can you tell me, first off, how you're doing? And second off, what do you do in a crazy event? Let's fill people in on crazy events and what you can do. So how are you? What can we do? I'm good. I think...

I'm sorry. I think eventually that's the place I want to be within myself, being calm and being... The good we say is just to be calm and being okay without things are. The events are not always so favorable, right? It doesn't make you easily accept that, oh, it's going to be okay. So yeah, I had this incident this morning, as I was telling you before the live event started. So we had this great pioneerist foster drug that we were planning to transport from the shelter to our home. And we didn't know it was a two-people job.

So my partner, she went by herself. And she's so big, the dog, and she tried coming to the front seat. So it was quite dangerous to drive. So my partner pulled on the highway and she gave me a call saying she needs help. And I just got up. I just got up and at this schedule right at 11 o'clock. I'm going to go live with George. So the immediate thing is frustration.

Like you wouldn't find a better time to do it. Like this is something has to happen right before my thing to you know my thing you yeah something has to happen right So that's the part even though I know at that point That's not how I'm supposed to perceive it to take some time to understand the things are okay right Because it's as simple as shooting a message to you saying that I am gonna be a little late and It's it's simple and you're okay with that right? Yeah Maybe in sometimes situations are not that much favorable, but again, there is always a way to work around things. But yeah, once I drove to the place, we just had to do a bit of things with transferring her to the other car,

two people staying in the same car, dropping her back to the shelter, leaving one car in the highway. And that was the delay. But eventually, once things are happening, you start to realize it's not as big of a problem as you project it inside your head because when you're thinking about it it's too much too much to worry right yesterday i was reading this uh beautiful quotes of uh stryck philosophy so what it says the the title is worrying so what do science and storks have to tell about worrying right stryx always said so science talks about worrying in the sense of statistics so they say people imagine situations uh So many situations that around 3% come true and out of the 3% 1% not even 1%

0.5% turnout to be much worse, right? Or are as bad as you expected. So out of the 3% of your predicted thing, 2.5% of the times you expect to react in a much worseer things, much worse a way. But when it actually happens, it's not as bad. So eventually science is trying to say worrying is not helpful, which is what Stoich said in the sense that no amount of worrying can get you anywhere. Like you can keep thinking about it. You can keep the time goes by, but what's actually happening?

There are no action and nothing is, you're not going to change the situation anyway. Right. So yeah, it's just funny for me because I read these things and I see life to be very synchronous because it happens immediately. as if it's always happening, I just didn't look at that way, right? So things are always happening a particular way with a thousand different perceptions. So I definitely feel we have the power to see it in a very new and interesting way rather than a depressing and a sad way, I guess. Yeah. I think it comes down almost to awareness and perception.

Like we're not aware that like the, the moment you begin to get frustrated is the moment you should you should understand i don't have control of this and that's why you're frustrated but you never had control in the beginning so there's really you only had the appearance of control so there's really all that's really left to do is to have a good laugh when you start getting frustrated like well okay wait i'm being ridiculous here how could i even how could i even imagine that that's so crazy you know i think i was wondering too when you when you talk about like science and stoics and statistics, I often wonder if it's this idea of looking at numbers or trying to quantify things,

especially humans as a set of numbers. I think that that leads to frustration because we're not something that can be deduced to a number. We're not a unit of productivity. We're human beings. And I think that that is a level of contention between modern day society, productivity, profits, and lifestyle. What do you think about the almost dehumanization of people by looking at them like numbers or statistics?

It's definitely, again, there are two different, how do you say, perceptions to it, one for the greater good as humanity as such. So it's not an entirely a bad thing to see numbers and look at things. So it can be very helpful for designing newer systems to help people. So in that way, we are not dehumanized. We become as much as we are, we are just become part of a bigger hole, right? Okay. So just one.

Of course. Yeah. Okay. So that is one perception, right? But when it comes to the individual life, I don't think they should consider themselves as numbers. Just because in a bigger picture, when you see it from the space, we are this tiny little things, right? We can't even see ourselves.

Like, we can't see any living organisms as such. We do not have genes or mammoths to be viewed directly from, let's say, from the space. So everyone is gone to dust. Doesn't mean when we come back, we come back with the idea, oh, you're anyways dust, so I'm just going to run over you. We do not have the intention because relatively when then our perception changed and we come to see another human, we tend to see the part that is within us. I'm also a dust, right?

Just because I went to space and I saw you, there was this, I think, a series on Netflix where there were eight astronauts who were being interviewed, came back from space. Everyone had an enlightening perception to how things were. They all realized there are no boundaries and none of those things. These are just for construct, right? And in that construct, right, I believe having countries or let's say, according to that you need statistics and probability and so on. They're helpful tools. But it's like the person returning from space, when humans approach their life, their activities, their, how do you say,

how am I going to control my state of mind to this particular activity? They shouldn't think from the number point of view because at that point it's irrelevant because their subjective perception has changed to something else where it can't be driven by productivity or numbers. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's such a weird lens to see people through. And I think what you said about the individual seeing themselves that way and being part of a bigger hole is it's a beautiful way to look at it. And sometimes I wonder this, though.

Like I wonder, you know, we all, all of us who see each other as human beings. We have an unwritten rulebook. We have this code of conduct. We treat each other with respect. But every now and then someone steps outside of the boundaries in like, you know, racism or or classism or some sort of rigid boundary will show its head. And you'll see people blow up. I'm wondering if the corporate structure isn't doing that too. Like I watched this documentary on employees.

and productivity. And at Disney, at UPS, all these places, they give people an employee number. And then when people come in, they look at their employee number. And then there's a list of other numbers next to what that show their productivity. And I'm wondering, is that not the same as like a racial slur? Like if I come up and I say, this person's this, this, this and this. Like, that's just this crazy, mean label I put on them. And it's dehumanizing.

Is not a corporation giving an employee. an employee number, like a different kind of defamation or, you know, it's not, it's kind of racist in that you're, it's definitely classist, you know what I mean? I don't know. It's just, it gets me thinking it's this weird way of segregating people into different classes so that we can see them different. And there's, there's sometimes it's not bad to see that, but it's definitely something that is divisive. And it bothers me. What should we do about this wrong? What are the answers. You said a great thing about the carpet. Just before that, once again, so this is on live, right? I'm just going to let my talk to me know that. Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. It's, I think you

can go to YouTube and to the previous link and go to this podcasting. It'll be on that. Sorry about that. Um, apologies, my friend. I work at a manufacturing plant. I work at a extrusion plant. So my employee number is 1928, right? So I don't think it's bad to say that. Right. Right. So I am to that number and I do note we extrude aluminum from billets to different shapes and we have an hour to our press output, right? So I do have the output and at the end of a 10-hour shift, I have to go and hand it over to the supervisor. So So it's pretty much when you said about the corporate and productivity attached to that particular number, I only felt like, oh, this is happening exactly in my life, right? And is it bad? Again, there is, the question is how much are we letting ourselves be trapped in that idea that I am just the number or my output is this output, right? For example, my name, Ranga, your name, George. These are, These are made up names, right?

These could be numbers. It doesn't matter. You know, you have Elon Musk's son with, I don't know how you say that XAE, 12, right? It doesn't matter. It's more so that you're able to understand that person is being referred to, right? It's nothing more than that. So it's only when we get obsessed over the fact, wait, am I being limited to this? Right.

When we kind of lack self-confidence and kind of add this validation that people need to honor me, for who I am right so I feel like when we drop that and when we truly feel whole we do not people can call you whatever you want and it's like you understand oh this is this is what i mean to them right so one of the things i wanted to say about productivity in that matter is that even though as a press operator i note down the numbers and um i go give it and they make it a big deal as the oh you you you ran 10 000 kilogram today or you do 12 000 you know the other press operated and it's none of those because I might just putting the metal out and then there is a whole process that's going on a person has to stretch the metal send it to another machine where the three

people are spending their 10 hours cutting it and packing it and they all affect the productivity numbers so technically I do the least work right right but on the outside it's perceived as oh this person pushed more numbers today just because I'm noting down the numbers and giving because I have the machine that tells me what the numbers are, right? So when we start trying to understand the process at a deeper level or not just look at it from the outside, we will be able to get a better picture of why things are, why things exist in the first place. And I think this goes back to all superstitions and all cultures and traditions, right?

These were amazing things needed at a particular point in time for us to maybe survive or band together. At that point, let's say be more productive and stuff. But again, when it comes to the individual level, it cannot be the defining moment of your life. Right. It's as a collective humanity, it might be one thing. But in your life, it might be as simple as just when you, go to sleep, you're able to sleep properly, right? How bad are your nightmares or how much are you getting entailed in your dreams or how refreshed are you after how many hours of sleep? It

might come down to as small as that. And we do have sleep machines and stuff, but how many people are really going for it? Like, I don't know many people who go to that, right? But those are also numbers. You can make it, you can go for a productivity score then and say, oh, yeah, now I clock six and I feel refreshed as ever, right? We can do that. If we want to make it a competition, we can do that. But it's all about what are we trying to do. Right?

Right. Yeah. Okay, let me ask you this. And in a, in a, in, how would you define tradition? You want to explain a bit more about tradition and what, what it means to you? Let me tell you, let me tell you what I'm going for here. So I think that a tradition, I feel that a tradition is something that has some sort of sacred time to it. It's something that you participate in that people around you that you care for also participate in.

And it has meaning to the whole group. But, and when I say meaning, I mean, something that is powerful for you. A tradition is something that a group of people would do where everybody in that group benefits and it moves the group forward. And it may mean different things to people in that group, but it's still a powerful meaning to that. And the reason that I ask is that in our previous, podcast. One of the things that you had spoke about was the the wanting to help traditional

related problems. And that comes from our different cultures, have different traditions. And I think getting up and going to work here is a tradition. I'm wondering, can you use some of these techniques about, you know, what's in a name or what's in an employee number and getting to understand that those are just labels put on you? The same way you were able to explain the employee number and productivity can be changed by seeing yourself differently. Can you apply that same strategy to traditional problems of people in different countries? You know, do you know what I mean by that? Does that kind of make sense? 100%. I think it's all relevant when you start seeing, trying to see similarities or see them as

analogies, right? It comes down to the same level of trying to see as a collective thing and as an individual thing, right? One person doing something never becomes a tradition, right? That doesn't, the term is such a way that you can never become. If I do something, as much appealing as it might be, it's not a tradition, right? It has a thing that it's going to, let's say, inspire people or have more people. And for me, tradition. has turned out to be a bad term in my head relatively because of the fact that, you know, one person says this is working for him. The other, I truly believe the other person should not take it without questioning. Yeah. Yeah. So in traditions, I believe at least growing up,

traditions is used as a thing that it's our tradition. So you cannot break it. Right. Ah, okay. So it becomes limited. thing. So I think I messaged you last time after the podcast, right, how my distrant to litter was talking to my parents. So it seemed really off to me. I got angry. And my anger was the part that if you have stuff to say, talk to me. You know, I'm available. Yes. I'm right here. Say it to my face. Yeah. And talk so that you also have a chance to, you know, understand what's going on, right? Yeah.

But his reply, so after I said that, I think I can contact my parents. I'm like, do you understand English? Like, do I need to change languages? Right. And his reply was this. In our tradition, we do not talk to the younger people. We tell the old people, our parents, right, our guardians, whoever they are, and they will take care of it.

Right. So this is a tradition. So was it helpful at some point? Maybe it would have been definitely helpful, like thousands of years back. Right. In an age of information now, things are much different, right? Yes. And you see Western society where after 18 kids are made or grown up with the fact that

they're going to be independent. They're going to go on to become self-sufficient. Right? They're going to be more than that. They're going to take responsibility for their actions. Right. So one of the traditions that I have seen back home is the part where parents feel like when they give birth to their kids, it's like a lifetime role. So they do not let go of the role.

And so they are responsible, responsible, responsible not living their life and living their kids' life. Responsible meaning well, right? That's the part of love they understand. So they do not let them make mistakes. are they try to tell them and enforce this is going to lead to bad but the actual learning is going to happen

when one goes through the mistake yes so traditions as such as much as it can be good can be limiting to a person because they might live a fake good life it'll be good

you can see from the outside it will be so good but life does not happen for when you take the observer who is living through that, the question comes, what does it mean to you? Are you happy? Right. For for me, I think for the last three years, it's, I have had this belief since my psychedelic trip that one has to be in a state of peace. For me, happiness and peace, they are the, pleasure is something which you can go for, right? I'm not talking about pleasure. I'm talking about the inner state of happiness or joy or peace. And one has to be that before they

do anything. If you are an agitated state of mind. Yeah. Yeah, sure, things, that's what I'm saying. So let's say, let's go back to the morning episode, right? Like I took the car, went to her, did all that. I could have been angry throughout, right? It would have caused a different triple effect throughout the day or the next few weeks. And things would have still been done. Like the dog would have been written to the shelter. We would have come back to a perceiver. Let's say to you.

Oh, Ranga's made it home. His partner made it home. They're sitting here. So you wouldn't know the difference. But here it's fuck. She might be thinking, why is he angry at me? Why is there such a, you know, the bad tension in the mood? It's going to cause such ripple effects.

Yes. So the same thing, done with a different state of mind. it's going to be you're just honoring that present moment and letting it be letting it go and it doesn't happen easily you know there are so many times so many reasons to get easily frustrated right all you can do is remind yourself to be back and value what you truly want i think that's where are um so in traditions right i i i still am trying to follow with you. In traditions, I feel like the priority is given to something else, right?

It's not given to the inner peace. So it can be given to the method or the process that puts a person in a state of peace according to the outside world. But is it truly for the observer? Because if it is not working for a person like me, and I know at least a few people who are not following traditions, except for it is a complete. need, right? So if it is failing on little accounts, so is it really working?

And this is one thing I think Jordan Peterson mentioned in his podcast with Joe Rogan. It was very nice. You know, we need stability as well as chaos. So there are a group of people who create stability and there are a few so-called crazy people, really crazy people who go into the unknown, go into the chaos and do really crazy stuff. right and that becomes the culture for the next set of tradition next next generation or something right so that culture and tradition is nothing but i feel from that perspective is someone's pursuit to prussal moment awareness or someone's pursued to god so i feel like other people

try to copy it copying is not a bad thing copying is one of the most important ways of how humans learn right imitation is a great tool to learn it's it's to the part where why am i doing it again the questions have to come yeah you know you can you can be doubtful you can be is it really helping me is it really taking me to where i want to be what is because all along with traditions and culture as much as he said it's prisoning right so the let's say even the pursuit is for god these this god is not uh as much as it can be quoted as a universal an omnipotent god it's not it's a it's more of a father figure in the christian tradition are the 33 million figures in hindu tradition right that might be off of the number so a few years back

when i saw the amount of gods in hindu was the same as canadian population i was like nice so you became one of the gods then by moving to canada that's the part uh we we put gods in manifest form. Right? And you really can't explain God. It's like that that goes back to the previous question you said about science and measurement. We want to measure everything.

And when we try to put people into number or we dehumanizing them, this is one thing. One of the things we are, I think we are eventually trying to do is measure God. Yeah. That's another post which I saw. It was really funny. And just the method of measuring God is going to be so futile. It's not going to get us anywhere. So science in this aspect will not reach God as we know.

I think science is not. It seems to me science is almost another word for God. It's just this evolution of God. Like we have begun to worship, you know, this idea. The same way that we use God to explain things we don't understand. And now we just use the science. Well, we don't, here's the science of it. I mean, if you just change the, every time, if during the pandemic or during stuff,

instead of saying trust the science, we said trust God, it's still a matter of faith. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy to think about. And when we talk about measuring stuff, like, you know, I think it's fair to say or what I like to say this sometimes that the divine spark is within us, that we are God. And if it backs up what you say, if we're trying to measure God by productivity, we're measuring ourselves, then what does that make us God a little bit. But, you know, carry on.

I kind of butt into your stuff right there. But the idea that was it for that part of the conversation. Yeah. You can see that part where you said we are God, right? Yeah. But the question goes back. Why do we draw the line to what is God? You said science is God.

I say God is the framework and also everything within it. So everything is God. Yes, I agree. The word that comes out is God. So when you kind of say that and see it that way, it's like if everything is light, right, let's say there is no darkness. Everything is light. There is no use of the word light and darkness.

Right? So you don't need to necessarily use it. Because only when it, is there, you're going to say that is light. These are dual terms. So God is not duality. God is beyond duality. So you really cannot,

sometimes there is no point in talking about God. Because all the activities and manifest forms we do, it's just, it's a play. It's just play of this thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a, sometimes I believe it's an antiquated framework.

But then I think maybe I'm just antiquated. My thoughts are. But I really, and that's one thing that I see happening right now that gives me such excitement for the future is this emergence of a new spirituality. And I see it everywhere. I see it in the interdisinoplary. I always get that word wrong.

I see it in the interdisnipelary play of different subjects coming together. Like there's different sciences that are coming together. There's different types of work emerging as one type of work. And I see it as a move away from specialization into a move of integration. And that follows the same cycle as boom and bust, expand and contract. And that pattern is everywhere. And if you can notice that pattern on a macro scale, you can begin to notice inside yourself and everything around you.

And I see all, when I look at some of the religions I saw, like you said, there's 33 million gods in this one religion, and then there's Buddha, and there's Jesus and Muhammad, there's all these prophets and gods, and all of a sudden I'm beginning to see this new interdisciplinary faith come, and everyone's like, here's a church where you can go and you pray to all your gods. You know, and I had this thought today. In the United States, we have this, there's been this kind of struggle for a long time about the separation of church and state, and a lot of states, depending where you are or what you think, hey, there should be no religion in school. I'm almost thinking

there should be mandated spiritual time in school. And instead of having one God, hey, everybody has 20 minutes to have a spiritual time to pray. It doesn't have to be to Jesus. It doesn't have to be turning towards Mecca, but you should take 20 minutes to

get in touch with whatever higher being you decide is worth your 20 minutes. And if people wanted to, they could get up and explain what they're doing. I think that would go a long way to recreating a fundamental foundation for people to stand on when it comes to faith. And I think that this idea of specialization that has plagued us for so long is beginning to come back and integrate.

What do you think about this idea of specialization and integration, be it faith or be it science or be it psychedelics? What do you think? When you were saying that, I got this analogy, you can. can see that patterns not in just science, right? Just think of the economy as such, right? Everything was limited thousands of years back. So you have, that's why you have smaller, smaller groups exist, right? A state doesn't need exist. If it was, if the country was operating efficiently, a state doesn't need to exist. But we do understand the smaller it is,

if there is a person responsible for a smaller number of people, the process is more efficient, So now thousands of years back, these states were not as much connected, right? And then they got connected and they formed the country and it happened different, different parts. And now countries are connecting, right? The trade that's happening. So also the connection between people, right? Like you have websites like Omegel where you can just go and randomly, anyone who has internet

connection is going to, you're going to randomly connect to them. So this is one of those progress where we are reaching towards. the global unification. Yet the process we do, the work we do will always be specialized, I feel. We cannot think beyond just to understand that we are limited in the sense that you have this five senses and for you, reality is going to be within that, right? Within that of what the senses can perceive, right? sorry to sidetrack but one of the funniest things that

I read last year I think was you know back in those days people use the term when someone is acting crazy crazy is such a good word I can't even use it that way now but acting let's say irrational or not in the favor of like not calm right all they used to say is oh let him be let him come back to

his senses, right? I think it hit me when I was meditating that they had it right. We had to come back to our senses because that's where our reality lies, right? So this is the thing I was saying in the previous podcast of missing people when they're not there. I think it's an imaginative fixious mind, a part of her brain which is so detrimental to our life that we kind of think missing them is what we pay respect to our we are it really proves to us that oh i value that person but if we change our perception to being able to put the same amount of respect when people are actually there in your present it changes the whole game there is no point to miss right so going back to your topic of specialization so since we are limited beings and we have

these senses. We can always work on the things that we really are passionate about, right? Like, just go into it, go into it so much that you get lost in it. It might be such a tiny thing, you know, but it is leading to something that you're not going to comprehend. We will never be able to comprehend how life is going to get reshaped because of your specialization in something. Yeah, it's interesting to think. think when you say that it's it's almost like a huge ego to think you know what you're doing like if you're part of this bigger bigger schema if you're part of this bigger project and maybe a bigger intelligent is a right word if you're part of this bigger intelligence you can only know

or or even you have such a limited sight into into what you're doing i i want to try to explain what i just said by this experiment that i read i read there was a an experiment about subway systems. And they took the, they took a map of the United States and they showed the underground tunnels and how it went one way and how it went one way and how they built stuff. And they spoke about how, while it's much more efficient to have these tunnels going through and it helps a lot, it could have been done so much better.

And the experiment they did is they cut out a piece of agar, like a substrate you would grow mushrooms on. And then they cut it into the shape of Japan. And they inoculated the agar with the spores and they let the spores migrate through the agar. And when they looked at that, they go, look at that. That's a much more efficient way. You know what I mean? And I thought to myself like, whoa, like talk about intelligent design or talk about learning from stuff. You know, why aren't we paying more attention to experiments like that. Why don't we cut out the shape of the United

like if we wanted to do tunnels or set up infrastructure, why not do an experiment like that? On another similar type of experiment, I read a story about a president of a major university and they were, they had this brand new building and a

whole new quad air they were setting up and they finished all the buildings and it looked pristine and the contractor said, okay, where do you want the sidewalks? I don't want any sidewalks. I was like, what do you talking about. It's going to be, it's going to be a mess. And the guy's like, I want sidewalks, but I'm going to wait two semesters to see where the kids go. And so he let the kids traverse through the grass and go whatever they wanted. And sure enough, after two semesters, that's where

the sidewalks go, you know? That's quite interesting, yeah. Right, right. And I think that there's something to be said about that I was trying to get to the point of we don't thoroughly know what we're doing in the long run. We may have some long-term goals. We may have some ideas of what we want to accomplish. But ultimately, the work we're doing is going to put our future generations in a spot that we can't imagine. And so it's, I'm thankful that you brought that up because I haven't really thought about that. And I didn't think about those experiments in connecting it until you brought that part up. And it kind of relieved some tension from me. And I think it should relieve tension from other people like hey you don't have to worry about that exactly uh you i think you started

the sentence by saying um there is ego involved right that yes i think that is definitely true it's um have you watched love death and robots no i haven't on netflix those are beautiful 10 15 minute episodes okay and um i don't think i got the meaning of it until like maybe two weeks back when I was high, probably, oh, this guy loves death and robots. That's why it's love death robots. I thought it's love comma, death, comma, robots or something like that, right? But it just talks about mostly post-apocalyptic situations or how humans are making mistake.

But one of the things that they keep talking is how humans thought they were the pinnacle of creation, right? And that's a pretty, pretty much ego play. right because of ignorance of not knowing better that idea is that and because of that we do not look at things that can actually have the solution the sports you were talking about that's an amazing experiment i'll read about it it was quite interesting the sports have been here for they're older than us right and uh as i got told says like each cell of our body carries information much much more than what are teeny tiny tiny

conscious part can even comprehend, right? As simple as if you think about just do your body process, right? Everything is happening unconsciously, right? I think we talked about it. We eat. That's all we do. What else we do after that? Nothing. We go back to getting distracted with that. We live in this tiny part of wherever we are located, right? That too, I feel like we say here because of the brain or the eyes. Yeah. But we get limited to that, right? And that limits you.

You do not, you take things for granted because, oh, I know better. So why do I waste time looking at this? But if you're truly curious and you're experimenting with a lot of things, right? Not everything is going to be favorable. But there are so many information which you can take just by having this open-minded curiosity and I definitely believe two things about what you said people shouldn't know what they're doing in life I do not think if they know I really think it's it's very the primitive mindset where you definitely know what you cannot you simply cannot with seven billion humans alone

involved the interactions are so complex that each person doing something is navigating getting the world to somewhere else, there is no way you're supposed to know what you're doing. There are so many things that happen just off the moment, right? You said people can have a certain list of accomplishment. There are two things that happen. People accomplish that and feel that they are miserable or people respond to what present moment offers and are happy. Because I do not think with a long-term view.

of life, you're going to get so narrowed down. You're going to get so narrowed down. I think this was one more thing Jordan Peterson was saying, right? Like the interaction of the thing, as time goes by, you can guess what you're going to do maybe 10 minutes from now. Still talk to me, I hope so. If you're not bored, tomorrow, you're still having idea. If I ask you two weeks from now, you can tell me something.

But what's the probability it's going to happen? The probability becomes less, less, less. You go one month from now, the property is so low. And we're talking about years ahead. This was, I think, one of the questions I used to hate in interviews back in India, at least, is like, where do you see yourself in five years? I don't know, based on my drug consumption in a grave. I hope I do not go there, but you cannot tell.

This was so, you know, and at that point when the question is put forth before you, and you kind of feel like you don't know the answer to it, but you also feel like maybe you should know, right? So I feel like we have to spread awareness in that part to all the people that it's okay to not know. It's definitely, it's kind of so good to not know. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so relieving. As you said, you feel, what did you say? I think it felt relieving, right, for you? Yeah. Knowing that. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

you're not the weight of the show. World is not on your shoulders. None of those. You don't need to go out and save anything, do anything. All these ideas, as it happens, you start responding rather than making a plan for it. Because these plans are again made with past information, right? Yeah. For the last two weeks, I think every time I think about history, your word pops up his story.

Yeah, I'm telling you. it's right there. It was so funny. I couldn't think about history without, you know, thinking about our conversation, right? And this story, that limited perception of the past, even if you were able to pinpoint all the information of the past, it's going to be pointless. Right. But with this limited information of past, we tried to respond and, you know, make it better,

make it safe, make it comfortable. But we are trying to be proactive, but it doesn't. Call for it. That's the thing. Your whole job, your whole job for every single being on this planet is to be here now. That's the only thing you can do. Rest happens. Things just happen. It's magic. It's magic, you know. Yeah. Like, how do you, like, how do you grow your, you're growing your, how are you growing your hair right now? How are you doing it? You know, how are you growing, like, how are you growing your teeth? How have you figured out how to, pump your heart. How are you doing that? How are you growing your muscles? Like, you know, this is things that are just happening constantly and we have no concept of how we're doing it, but we're doing it right now. You know, and on the topic of history, like I, once I began, I started reading this amazing series by a, Anatoly Famanko. And in this book, he wrote a series of books

called history, science or fiction. And it really just began to just explode my mind because he started taking these classes, listen, if we look at history, one thing we know for sure, or one thing that is true enough is that eclipses happen on a regular basis. Let's start here. Look at this anomaly that happened in the Middle Ages where there's this thing called parameter D. And parameter D is this, it's this, it's this, series of eclipses that happen every like three years. Like how come parameter D didn't happen for 40 years, but it happens every three years?

This is clearly an error. It's not some sort of phenomenon that happened. This is a clerical air. And if this clerical air happened, might it be more possible that the history we've been told is all BS? You know? So like it's so irrefutable. You started looking at it.

You started looking at it. He started looking at all the evidence, and then he compiles all this other evidence. And, like, it just got me thinking, like, oh, his story. And then it became liberating to a point where when people ask you the question of where do you see yourself in five years ago, oh, he wants a story. He wants history. Okay, so then you can just make up a story. Like, well, that's a great question. Thank you for asking.

What I see in 10 years is me by this beach. And I have a, you know, you just start making up this crazy story. It doesn't have to be real. but the more engaging in your story, the more people want to believe it, and the more you draw them into your own history, which can be intoxicating and liberating, but almost a little bit dangerous,

you know, and all of a sudden you start getting good at telling stories and seeing people's eyes get big, oh, that's a great story, and then you start feeling this, getting all pumped up, you're like, yeah, listen to this story. And next thing you know,

you're living in your own story that's not even a real story. Yeah. That's crazy. You're talking about, a story for the future, right? I think that's one thing that's happening from the past also, right?

We get limited to a story. Yes. Right? We tend to if someone asked me who you are, I again believe I shouldn't be able to say anything. I can give you a few of the things that I do in my day, right? But what do I exactly

pinpoint and say this is, this entails my whole of the personality or this is me like you this makes, this defines me in such a way that you can predict my action pattern. Is that what you really want to hear from my mouth? So what question do we actually ask or what answer do we want to know when we ask people, tell me who you are, are, you know, again, all these questions I think goes back at the interview thing I was talking. But I think we're kind of focusing on the part that

comes with limited viewing of the world, right? Sure. And one of the things, the, the eclipse thing is, I wouldn't say complicated. It's a much more detailed thing, right? Just take a thing like flat earth. Right. Yeah. There are people who believe Earth is flat. Because, right, again, this is where I'm going to contradict myself or find this really

irony, ironical. As much as you're going to be limited to your senses, right? That's where the part comes. You have to truly live in the moment without having a thing. narration, right, without having that story, the side-tracking story that goes on. Because if you were going to live completely near senses and have a story along with it, you're going to be a flattered society. You're going to be part of the flattered society as well. Because to you, everything is going to be flasked and it's going to be like, yeah, we live in a flatter because

this person told me census is what you have to live in. But no, senses, yes, not the narration, right any thought that arises that's useless as much as it might seem as the subjective truth at that point i think it's noises that doesn't take us anywhere okay do you think that earlier i think in our last conversation you had mentioned a retreat that you went to where it was one where you don't speak you don't move do you think and then you would also mention like you're like gosh darn it george you know i would just be like ah just it's right here one time won't matter Do you think that those particular needs of the body to be scratched are the same as the thoughts that pop up in your head? Like, is it just noise?

Is it just a distraction? It's a great analogy. At that point, when you're meditating, yes, I believe so. Because at least in Vipasna, what I underwent was each time. So for me, Vipassana is about being with the sensations throughout the body from head to toe, right? and as you're scanning your body, each time I go to a particular part and some pain happens

or I'm uncomfortable, right? I feel like our memory is distributed throughout our body and like I have pain in my knee part of my childhood unlocks. Right? It's just, the timing is so coincidental. Maybe it's not relevant, but I would like to, you know, I'm having fun at it.

So I tend to put them together and like, yeah, it's a great point. distributed, right? And in that manner, of course, if thought is arising along with a sensation and that sensation could be an itch or something really good, right? That's what I think Goenka focuses on telling. It's not just one sensation that you're going to be trying to get and one you're pushing away, right? So if you're itching, you either, you each so that you temporarily feel the illusion of that itching getting better. But we all know by now, the more you age, you want to itch even more.

And at some point, you just reach that plateau of pleasure and it becomes horrible. I bite my nails. So my nails are kind of sharp at times, right? And the itching is not so enjoyable at times. Right. And thoughts, thoughts are kind of like that, right? Like it comes and it goes and it does. we have no idea where it originates what it's doing but seeing it as a seeing that thought as me right yes

i feel this like i so whatever is happening i i don't believe the external world i'm supposed to learn to the inner inner world but thoughts are happening in there so i have to listen to it right so all these conversations we are having right it's it's funny because every single thing can be taken in a negative light. You can say something that seems so good, right? And it could be taken in a completely different light. And you know, the current place where we are with religions and religious wars and stuff. So if you go back and see and talk to the people who first wrote this into books or add these so set of guides which turned into rules, you'd be, I'm not saying you don't know about that, but you'd be mind blown.

it'd be like, whoa, that seems to work. It seems so, you know, fail-proof method. But that's the part. We are so interesting things. We always find ways to fuck it up. It's true. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so interesting, like the evolution of thought. And my grandpa used to say, if you want a new idea, read a really old book. You know, and it's like, maybe there's something that happens. Like, there's something that happens when you write stuff down. but if we if we can agree that we have a living language and the words are always changing the same way we are always changing the same book that my grandfather read that i read can have two totally different meanings and two totally different outcomes and it's you know is that because the language is changing or is that because the people are changing i'm not sure but it's definitely changing society that way and it's our thoughts that are changing you know i and that gets me to the idea of our thought What's changing? So let me put it this way. So when you're sitting there and you're thinking, whether you're meditating, when you're

thinking about thinking, sometimes I find myself like, well, that was a strange thought. Like I'll be thinking about psychedelics and what it means to me. And then I'll be like, did I feed my cat? Like it just pops up and I'm heading like, why? Okay. Then I don't have to be like, why am I thinking about feed my cat when I was just trying to focus on psychedelics? And the conclusion I came to is because this.

That is the next thought in the chain of thinking. And as much as they seem random, as much as I think my feeding my cat has nothing to do with psychedelics, it's actually the next step in the progression of thought to get where I'm going. So there's something there. You have to go, oh, I know what it is. Because I see the way my cat is eating, and I was just thinking about the process of psychedelics,

and the way my cat is licking the bowl is the same path, I take when I'm thinking about the process of digesting information. That's what it was. You know, but I think there's something to be said. I think there's something to be said about, because I would get really caught up and I would be like, I'm not focusing.

I'm having these random thoughts, but those aren't, here's what I've learned to people that may have this same type of, I used to think it was unfocused. Maybe it's my ADHD, or maybe it's this all whatever label you want to put on there but i would like people that are listening to this to think it is it's connected the random thought isn't is not random it's the next thought the same way that a black belt does a punch a million times and you think you're doing the

same punch you're not you're doing a new one every time so too is the idea of the random thought that comes in a moment of focus it's not random it's the next step in progression to where you're going. So like I may have just rambled there for quite a bit, but I was just, it was beautiful. You said one important thing there. I think how does language having evolved from past years change, right? Yes. That's a change our thought as well. And that's, that's the interesting place where you see, right? Within you, the thought originates. It originates in a dimension. Yeah. That is beyond language. Yes. Right. So you can, you can call it feeling or an emotion or whatever you want or just name it thought right but

there is an interaction of your subconscious in taking that energy and making into words that you understand yeah right so how would it be different for a person who doesn't know how to speak what are his thoughts going to be because what of deaf people right the if you are asking them what their thoughts are be interesting in order to convey them there is a process is called thinking and then ask them what they're thinking, right? Wow, yeah. Yeah. So this interaction of subconscious with that energy field where thoughts originate,

how much is it useful? Why is it happening? There are so many things in our body that are happening because of, I forget the word. There are so many necessary activities and then some are maladaptive. it like people having chronic pain, chronic pain, right? Pain is necessary, but chronic pain is it, it's going to degrade your lifestyle, right? So that's just your brain as adapted into this practice of giving you pain, then it's not actually necessary.

There is nothing to actually fix, right? And for example, I don't know much about this, but the organ appendix, right? We do not need it anymore, I guess. I don't, or maybe that's just doctors that don't know. that's like junk DNA. We don't need that. Yeah, maybe,

right? Right. Yeah, so I have half and half mindset on that, so I don't want to touch on the topic. Yeah. I truly don't know. I don't want to discuss on it.

But you can live without it for sure. You know, I get, does that mean you don't need it? I, maybe. Yeah. So if it becomes a problem,

right, it's, I think it, what hernia comes or something and they remove it, right? So in that case, it's the idea that it's not going to affect your lifestyle, right? So it's a kind of an added thing. So you don't have to necessarily remove it, but you can just let it be. But you don't have to go on poking it.

So appendix is inside, so we don't do that. But thoughts we kind of do. Yeah. How much of our, again, it goes back to things that the same process that does digestion and breathing for us kind of takes over these things as well. So that's where we lose the fight. Right. That's where the whole fight is about.

And then that fight is lost, then you have all these thoughts become actions, right? And you have this is 21st century and we have a war happening and it's crazy. And people are, I found out a hedge fund who is going $1 billion, $2 billion shot against Europe because of the energy cost increasing. And you see, it's all about like, yeah, fuck you're a who cares. Like, I, my headstone is going to, right? It's crazy. It's that, right? That thought that comes, and, you know, that's what they say, it brings in money or it brings in things that people appreciate or you feel like you need it at that point.

And it becomes good thought. I had a great thought today. I had an amazing thought today. Is it though? I do not think thinking is that it's amazing as an activity. But when it translate to actions, I don't necessarily agree. Yes. Boys, I got a great one.

We're going to short Europe all in right now. These guys are going down, right? The hedge funds are so nuts like that. Yeah. It makes me think of brief, like our friend Kevin Holt does a huge class on breathwork. And, you know, right now, as I'm talking to you, I'm breathing and I'm not really being conscious of it. I know I'm doing it, but I'm not being conscious of it. However, if I choose to be conscious of it, I can, you know, I can do the breathwork like the Iceman or, I forgot his name, the Wim Hof technique.

Yeah. You know, and there's, if I've become conscious of my breathing, I can achieve different states of consciousness or I can see reality different. or I can feel great or I can make myself pass out. But the point is I can control my breathing if I become conscious of it. And I think the same is true with our thoughts. I think that if you allow your thoughts to run rampant, you can think all day and live your life and do your things. But if you become conscious of them, then you can,

you may not stop the thinking, but you can understand the process of thinking. One technique I use, you know, we speak about having crazy thoughts. Like, man, I should cut my dog's tongue out. Or I'm going to take this cat and throw it against the wall because I won't shut up. You can have those thoughts. And the way one technique I use is I see, metaphorically, I see this keying inside my head. And there's all these thoughts lined up.

And they're just standing and waiting in line. And some of them are impatient like, hey, man, talk to me right now. And so I sit in my head. and they're in line and I say, okay, come up here. And I put them on my lap and I listen to them. And sometimes I give them a little hug, a little kiss on the cheek. And I go, what do you got, man? Why, I hate this cat.

Okay. Anything else? No, I hate the cat. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. And then I bring up the next one, you know? And the next one's like, man, I want a burrito now. Okay, why? They taste good.

Okay, anything else? Nah, that's all I got. Okay, have a good one, you know? But if you think about your thoughts like that, you bring them in, sit them down, listen to them. Okay, that's ridiculous. Keep on moving. You know, or like, you know what? You should buy your wife some flowers today.

I like it. You're right. Okay, let's get on that. Put this guy, room two for this guy. You know what I mean? But, you know, if you can think about your thoughts like that, I think it really helps. And it's like structured breathing. It is being conscious of your breathing.

So too should you be conscious of your thoughts. And know that some are silly, some are awesome. And some are just standing in line and have nothing to say. But you can be conscious of them. I have a question, though, John. Sure. But you said, you want to buy your wife flowers and yeah, it's nice thought. I'm going to put you in room too.

What if that thought you add about judging this thought was also something that you have to overcome? Those are the guards that stand there with the axes. You know what I mean? Like, elaborate on that. Let me, let me, can you please tell me what do you mean about that? What if that thought too is something I'm judging? What do you mean? So I feel like as we go progress in our spiritual journey, we will get to a point of letting thoughts be without intervening them.

And they did not attack us or we don't feel attacked by them or we don't need to do anything with it. It's this mud water right is best settled when it's left alone. It used to it. The mud comes to the top. It's always. You leave it alone, it goes to the dawn. And you even have a pure water. You can drink it if you want.

So it's like that. In the beginning stages, as you're getting into the awakening process of realizing that I'm just, I've been going as an autonomous figure, right? Autonomous identity, just things are happening. And these thoughts come, I act and so on. Now you have identified these thoughts come, but I don't need to act. But we are still attacking it with another thought. right? Because anything that's happening in your head is going to be just thoughts because thoughts are words we have given but when you think about something it's a thought so when you say no this thought

again we are doing it on past experiences and so on let's say i want a milkshake and i say i don't want it because it's too much sugar or i added yesterday i need to give it a break this all again happens in a space where you're taking in past, you're taking information about sugar, you're taking in all these things are happening, you see, and it's happening so beautifully, so synchronously, it gives the feeling of I, oh, I have disidentified myself from the thought of ice cream, now I've said no, right? This, this, that was this interesting conversation my partner and I had. So when you're having this thought, right, how do you know you're processing it versus how you're suppressing it, right? The best thing is you, it's so open-ended, right? You can try anything.

The bad thing is you don't know until you try it. So you've got to try different methods. This is why another person cannot tell you how to work with your thoughts. They can share stories and stuff, they can be inspiring. But when it comes to our own figuring out what's happening within me, it's going to be such an individual journey. And it's like the world. We come in so open and it. Like this cloth, I don't need.

It's kind of an thing we have right now. That's all. And like the house and stuff, these are based on comfort. These are not the absolute truths that exist, right? Likewise, in the inner world, we come so open to it. We do not have tools. We do not have anything. But we have the power to make whatever tool we want.

We have the power to do whatever we want within our head. Right. So as a thought arises, mostly this was happening on cannabis because cannabis, I feel like it's a beautiful thing which increases thought that's such a, I don't know, just it makes it so beautiful. Right. and we got into this conversation. I feel like this thought came and I suppressed it.

It's good. You did something because now when you suppress, it's going to come back stronger as long as you're paying attention to it. You're still in that framework of understanding, oh, this thought still exists and it's coming. Because I, for one, cannot tell you how to process the thought, how I have processed my thought. Or sometimes I don't even know if I have processed my thought

because I do not seem to stop to ask that question because I feel like it's a waste of time as the reality is going by. For me, that's what I said. The priority is to be calm. And when you're not calm, it's basically because you have this preconceived notion of the world of events. Or you have a future expectations, right? These two are dragging you. I have a 11 o'clock appointment and I have a preconceived notion that I shouldn't be disturbed before my meeting.

Right. I need my clear space. So these two are dragging me. So these two are thoughts, right? To be able to drop them and go to that particular moment and do everything as a dance, right? Just part of the dance and let it be. Right. I can try to do it in different ways in my head.

But some things when you try to do, it is more like distraction. It's fine. I'll grab a cigarette and have a coffee on the way. Right. That's going to be a distraction. or I'm going to be like I'm going to she made me do this I'm going to do something else later right it's it's going to be some way of projection right so these these things are happening rather than that if we are focusing on our thought this is things and if it starts coming back up strong okay

the method I was using was not as good right so what else do I do I think that's where it kind of gets really tricky to fight thinking brain with thinking brain intellectual intellectually we failed. I at least believe intellectually we failed to process emotions, right? And that's where meditation comes. Meditation is basically what you said, right, you need a 20 minute thing as prayer. Basically, when I've meditated, I think I would have had two, three seconds of proper meditation in my life. after sitting for hours and hours probably two, three seconds of, ah, I see.

Like just like glimpses, micro seconds, and putting it up together to say two, three seconds. It's so difficult because mind is full of garbage. It's just, there is so much noise that's going around. So when you stop that and go there, it takes so much effort, right? But these are the things that have been there in religious texts. Prayer. Prayer has been there for, in all traditions for so long. But when I grew up, prayer became an external thing again.

I was told to pray before my exams. I was told to pray going to a temple, right? And they do this fire on a plate. They do this three times. Crap, these are externally appealing. These are fun. This was supposed to be a dance, right? One participated naturally.

You know, I think I was tripping once in acid. And I was just taking the lighter and doing this. I was loving the design. Yeah. And you know, you see the similarity. These are people who are just playing with fire in interesting ways, right? And now you see from outside, oh, that guy did the thing and they named it Puja. You do Puja.

Very good. Things are going to happen so good. But the purpose was that when you're doing it at that point, to truly come to that moment and realize it's fine. I do not need to worry. it became a bad thing in a way that, oh, it's okay. I have done this, they will take care. Someone will take care.

So the responsibility got out. Instead of having the responsibility within, the whole idea was to stop worrying and start facing. It became like, oh, I don't have to care. It's not my responsibility. I have prayed to the God. It's fine. You know, I used to, one of the funniest things that happened growing up was,

it was my first thing that got me into atheism thanks to my dad every time I scored really bad in my exams he used to score me he used to say why I was dumb I mean it was reasonable coming from an Indian parent that was expected right right and then luckily in my grade 11 I think that so I was really bad in subjects like language

history anything that didn't involve logical thinking and just, you know, we have the term mugging up, just reading all the text, putting it exactly on paper and you're able to score marks. That's where most of the education was in India, right? And so in grade 11, I think it was only science, physics, chemistry, math, English was there. I was still bad at it. And then computer science. Four of these five subjects were more logical, right? Because this doesn't involve you to believe stories. This involved you to interact with these even.

see these things, even though they are presented in the same way in books and stuff, you still got this intuitive feeling that, oh, there is something beautiful that's happening here. Let's say for me the first time the equations all matched like an integration or differentiation. It happened in such a beautiful thing. Wow, that's nice, right? So I got more interested and I scored well. So I thought I scored well.

I should say to my dad, let's see I finally did well. He said, Saraswadi, the god of books, made sure that you got really good marks. How come, dude? Ice score bad, I am bad. And, you know, they say the story is the God sat in a penknit and wrote the exam. See, these are things like so frustrating because I understand right now that they didn't know better. But you're putting these thoughts and kids, right, saying that when a good happens, it's like to God, when a bad happens, it's to you. So it creates a lot of self-esteem issues.

are of low self-confidence, right? So all these methods that we have, even though we talk about, and it seems like such a good tool, right? It fails to be applied practically. It turns out to be a compulsion at some point. We need complete revamping every, you know, it's like meditation or psychedelics, you know.

There's in meditation, your head is like the sponge, right? Yeah. And it collects all these dust and garbage. And at the night, you have to soak it in water and squeeze it out. Keep it fresh, right? We got to do that.

We got to keep it fresh. And the sooner we keep it fresh, the more peaceful we become. This is the same thing as how people can get carried away by emotions, right? Some emotions can be so dragging that they need two, three days to process. Death is one of those things where people, my dad has been battling this idea for 55 years now. He still has the story that his dad died younger, right? I do not agree with that because that changed the life in such a way that now we have to come to a point that to see it as a beautiful thing. One of the things I tell my dad is that he lost his dad when he was four years old.

Right. And so actually there was no conscious interaction with dad, right? But the societal terms that a father should know the dad, a dad is a father's hero. A dad son should make the father's soul rest in peace. So they do yearly anniversaries and since my dad is around 60 right now. So that's 55 years of anniversaries. That is real fear of death there, right? That's compulsion.

There's nothing more than compulsion there. So we do not talk freely about these topics. We are not honest. We are not revamping our idea of how in newer ways we can see. We are not cleaning out that sponge, right? but sponge is 55 year old now, how much dust can be lodged. So, and these are conversations

which I cannot have with my dad. That's my question. The defense card is so high. I talk normally. I just just, jolly say he's not interested. One thing you just, we'll give the phone to my mom or something and go away or not

entertain the conversation, right? Because the defense mechanism is there. Because the more I feel like anyone doesn't want to talk about something, I feel like work is needed on that area. If you're truly calm and happy and are okay with things, you'd be okay with talking about anything, anything. So because this vocal card is a gift, the way to put these complicated sentences, right,

and ways like, see, we are, it's almost an hour into the conversation. We are able to communicate. we are able to take this somewhere. As Jordan Peterson again says, that golden thread, the conversation goes along the line, right? And these are happening thanks to two people who are not, oh, I don't want to talk about that. That's a sensitive topic. What's a sensitive topic? Right.

There are no sensitive topics in this world. I do not think so. There are sensitive people because of not knowing the right mode of communication, the honest way. right and i think uh with respect to death there was this one thing i don't know if i we were talking about it but all these uh sanskrit slogas right i i think they all add the meaning to help you in that moment was so beautiful when you read it it's like the so-called tibetian book of the dead it's basically it's used for psychdilic trips right when you read it and you're having i i know a lot of people who say they read it before their first psychilic trip which is amazing right even though

you're not going to be able to correlate any of this. It's like, yeah, Book of the Dead was like this. My cyclic type was like this, right? There is no, the gap is there. But at least the point is that the communication has to happen, right? So instead of having this stigma around something, we have to work towards raising awareness for enough people to gain confidence to drop that stigma.

All we can do is raise awareness. That's all. Because the more you attack the person who is completely upholding the tradition or ideology as such a strong rooted defense mechanism that is, you will only do more damage than good. Right. So it's only people when they have started questioning a bit, you can provide information and just awareness to them. Like, this is the story of my life.

This is what I did. This is what I was thinking. I was God-fearing for so long. I'm not anymore. I was an atheist. I'm not an atheist anymore. It's just beautiful. I'm in a mind where it is what it is, right?

And you put that out there, people who have questioned, because they have their own sufferings and that has broken the outer shell and they are slowly getting to be so frustrated and ask those questions, they will use that point of awareness, right? Oh, it's not so bad, right? Only those people I feel like can be able to the other times. Yeah. Yeah.

This brings me back full circle. Okay. When we talk about relationships, when we talk about intellectualism versus meditation, and we talk about specifically conversations that we wish maybe our parents could have, that we see this thing lacking. Okay. Hold that particular set of ideas in your mind. And I'm going to switch over to this other thing.

but I want you to hold those in your mind. I've been trying to create a new strain of mushrooms. And the way you do that is by you put the, you inoculate the agar in a little jar, and then once the strain moves over, it creates a new little colony, then you take that colony, you put in another agar jar,

and then you find the strongest strain, you cut that one, and you do that seven times. And once you do that, you can create a new strain of potentially stronger and stronger mushroom. that's almost like a tradition. Like I took it from this, I took it from penis envy number seven

and now I'm creating penis NB Tom Brady or whatever, penis number eight, right? But it's a tradition. I've taken it from this one strain and I've taken a stronger strain and a stronger strain. And so in that way, the same way you can look back at your father and say, look, he taught me all these things.

He told me that first off, how come it's not me? when I'm doing awesome. How come it's the God doing awesome? But it's me when it's a problem. You know, it's in a way, is it fair to say that tradition that got your father to where he is?

You know, in a previous conversation, you're like, hey, we don't talk about it. It's sacred. You know what I mean? Like, it's the same, even though you don't apply those same rules of tradition to you, it is that tradition that made you have the courage to challenge that tradition now.

Like in a weird sort of way, are you the next evolution of that tradition? So wouldn't that almost make tradition good? Like, do you see where I'm going with this? It's, see, that's where I feel like there's nothing bad and good about any of these, right? Yes, yes. It's this question, right?

I ask, how are you? and you're going to give me an answer, right? How are you going to your beach? You're going to give me a different answer. How are you going to go to the beach in the next three years, right? And the answer changes. How are you going to go to the beach in the next three years when there are no more cars? Right.

Your answer keeps changing based on how much I continue, right? So what's basically changing is the amount of words that I'm adding. And in life, that is basically time. as time goes by evens do not have one such viewpoint it keeps changing

it keeps changing it's like the spiral it keeps rotating okay yeah so tradition no one is saying it's bad no one is saying it's good for this time frame

see if it's helpful to you see what it means to you if you need it yeah sure do it if you don't sure you don't need to what the point is it shouldn't nothing

should in this world should feel compulsive. Oh, I need to do this, right? I need to get this done. I should be doing this, right? That's the part where I feel like I got from Cyclics where do not do anything. And after that, I've lived three years. It's not like I killed myself.

Because my first interaction with my dad after Cyclics was like, oh, you're going to leave all these and go. And it's not that you're not doing anything in life. Because since I'm not talking about it doesn't mean even Eventually, there is going to be a set of actions that I did. I don't have to think about tomorrow.

But today, as the day goes by, if we'll finish call, I'll take maybe one more call or go out and do a bunch of stuff. I don't have to have plans for them, right? I don't need to be compulsively tied to my idea of my future. All these are derived from that expectations, right? With expectations will come a lot of disappointments. Yes. So I'm sorry, that was sidetracked. But to your question, yes, of course, traditions, in that sense, you can say, right, you will draw the bracket.

At this point, tradition is good. You go one back, maybe tradition is not good. You go even further and see the originating of tradition. You see it's extremely good. So it can go from good to bad to good to bad. It's just an event. It's based on observer, right? It's the quantum physics happening on a grand scale.

It's like, I choose. I think sometimes I think of tradition. as like the default mode network in our brain. Like it's, they're kind of rails. And it's good to have structure, especially for people. There's a lot of people. And probably if we're honest, at some point in time, we all need structure in order to build out a foundation, whether that's a traditional foundation or it's a new kind of like hipster kind of awesome foundation.

Those done before may work may not. But I mean, we know that there's rails there to fall back on if we need it. And maybe that is the role of tradition is to be a framework for people to build on. And I think that there's something really liberating and beautiful about moving past culture in tradition. And it can be scary, especially for a lot of people, it can be really scary to get way outside these lines. And there's a lot of criticisms of it. But ultimately, maybe that's just a sign of what stage people, people are at is, okay, I no longer need this. I guess if you, let's just take it right back to

Siddhartha. You know what I mean? Just go right back to Siddhartha. And now you're at a spot where you've, you've crossed the river, you've seen lust, and you're building this own, own world. But then I started thinking, well, you're just going to fall right back in. I don't know. It's so amazing and beautiful to me to try and comprehend the idea of culture and tradition. but I feel like no matter how far I get away from these ideas of tradition, that I'm still in it and I just don't understand it. Is that getting lost in like the Maya? Is that just getting lost in this world of language?

What do you think? Repeat that question again. I don't think I got completely what you said. There may not. Just the last part. Okay, that clap is it. You said tradition, right? tradition and culture is something we can fall back on.

It's a structure. Yeah. I agree. Right. Like, when you're having a, let's say. So right now to explore our consciousness and present moment of wellness, we as humans do all sorts of crazy things, right? Crazy here is a good word, by the way.

Yeah. Right. Mountain climbing, fast racing, boxing, anything that can get us close to death where there is nothing else we can do just but be so present right we put the situation in such a way that i can't think here you know you're holding onto your life you're not going to think that i have to pay my fido bill tomorrow shit no it's it's not going to come that's the beauty of being close to death right yeah that is that but now the couple who goes to mountain climbing every day or every week right now they have a kid right now i don't think they can take the same

risk. Maybe if they are okay with one of them raising them, one can still go and explore. But if they want both of them to raise together, they're going to sacrifice this event for some time because the kid is in such a vulnerable stage and it needs the right warmth and, you know, the growth period, right? And that's the same with cultures and traditions. Like this thing, the tri-tricycle, right? When you're young, right, first time you're driving, yeah, you need some kind of a support, let's say your dad is helping you or you're on a tricycle, right? All that is, I think I'm trying to say at that point is you can also drive without it, right? And you might be able to go a bit faster without it, right?

And it's up to you. Do you want to go fast? It's all up to that particular person who is doing it, do I want to do it? But most of the times it's not knowing better, right? Not knowing that removing the tricycle stand. I don't know what it's called the training wheels. The training wheels, yeah. Training wheels is going to be harmful because when we are standing and we see, right,

it's like the cycle is standing, right? With the training wheels, it's standing. And you listen to someone. You listen to someone that culture is like a training wheels and you remove the training wheels. You'd remove the training wheels, the cycle falls. And you think that's bad. Right?

Yeah, you need to put a stand before you remove the training wheels. Or you need to be in motion, right, to create the stability. So there are so many things that are happening. If you take a simple case as a cycle and training wheels, if you are able to think that we are interacting, we are 100,000 organisms interacting with each other, right? The result of the disc culture. So it's quite, it's quite an interesting thing.

It's really good. There are days where I feel it's really bad. There are days where I'm really angered. But I also feel like I'm going to convey this anger. And then I realize maybe it's not my place to convey the anger. There is no point. Maybe the anger is just a motivation to get me to sit near my mic and add this podcast, talk and tell. There is a way to maybe not have the training wheels.

It can help you. It can help you become more self-sufficient. right and one of the crazy things about this uncertain life is everyone we come in contact with we're going to lose them either we die first or we're going to lose them right so what kind of any kind of support structure that is not you is going to fall right so and that's fine too right because at that point when it falls you you're going to be carried by yourself yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a great way to look at it. Like when you,

it makes me think when I was teaching my daughter to write a bike, you know, we took off the training wheels. I'm like, all right, you ready for this? And we, on my house,

there's like a route on the sidewalk. And we start at point A, like right outside our house. You come down the gate and we start right here. And the kind of sidewalk rolls around, like rolls around this way. And, you know, so we're on the bike.

And I'm like, okay, let's go. And I got one hand on the seat and one hand on the, on the steering wheel. And she's going. She's pedaling. She's peddling and she's going.

And then I let go and I'm watching her and she falls. And she gets up and she's so pissed. She throws it down. I can't do it, Dad. Can't do it. This is ridiculous. Just super mad, right? And I'm listening.

I'm letting her go, mm-hmm, she's like, no, oh, mad. And I go, stop. What? I go, look where you started at. Look over there where you started at. And she had gone like 50 feet, you know?

And I'm like, see the fire hydrant? That's where you started at. Look where you are now. And I just see this look of like, oh, it picks up her bike. Let's go again. You know, but sometimes it's this matter of this level of frustration and falling is necessary because you've got to stop and, okay, stop. Look where you started at.

And then it's like, okay, I'm not stressed. I'm not mad. I'm not upset anymore. I did it, you know, and it's, it comes back to what you said about, you know, it's, you don't have to get back on the bike, but looking back to where you started gives you the fortitude and it gives you. the courage and it gives you the insight and the understanding of, look, oh, I've already been doing it. Like, okay, this is working. But sometimes you get so frustrated. You get so caught up with these

support structures that you don't realize how far you've come. And I never thought about like looking at family members, jobs, tradition, all these things as support structures, as training wheels. And when you take them off, it's difficult. But you're just, you're doing it already and they're going to come off eventually. That's really well put, man. I appreciate getting to that part of the conversation. That helps me look at my life and see things different that way. That's a great way to put it, man. And I think the total credit goes to you because sometimes I talk about these things and bias too much against it, right? And you're talking about how eventually, you know, that tradition is what made me fight it and kind of doesn't that make it good? And that's the

truth about pretty much anything, right? That's where we come, you can be truly peaceful. It's like, yeah, it's not such a horrible thing, right? You can help people when you see, if I see someone who's like compulsively, my story, friends who get emotionally manipulated by parents to, yeah, it's huge, marry or do all sorts of things. And, you know, at the point, you because the person at the point is not interested in talking to you. Right? So you feel this frustration. Oh, it's the tradition that, you know, made him do that.

And you understand. At some point, I think we should have that act, not attitude, we should have the idea that everything happens for good. Every single thing. As much as we might not be able to see it in that moment. It's necessary. It is necessary. Right.

It's so hard to figure that. Like, it's, that's so hard to comprehend because there's no, there's, there's no reason we can understand for it at the time. Like, why did my kid die? Why, damn it? You could rage in that. Why did someone I love, who, how dare this thing called God takes this thing from me? Like, at that moment, in the moment of tragedy, there's no answers. And there may be no answers in life.

but this gets this takes us back, Ranga, to the idea of in life that you have no control over the events, but you and you alone get to decide the meaning of that event in your life. And when you take responsibility for defining the meaning of that event, that's the moment the training wheels come off.

And it takes a tragedy. It takes a horrific event sometimes to rip those training wheels off. And that, I think, is the purpose of tragedy. I think the purpose of tragedy is for you to fall harder than you've ever fell in your life

into the pit. It seems bottomless. And you must lose everything. You must. You should lose all your support structures because you have to. Yeah, you have to fall. I think there were two things

where your statement got me reminded of. First thing is finding meaning, right? Yes. Victor Franklin, did you know what a man search for meaning? Yes. So that guy lost his whole family in the Nazi camp, I think. Right. Yes.

And, you know, seeing that right in front of your eyes, it shifts your perception, right? Yeah. You didn't go on to become traumatized or rewire the trauma and distributed. Rather, he processed it into say how you can find meaning in your suffering. I think that's what when it came to my moment when you said tragedy has to happen for you to That's what I feel like I also say when I say you need to be frustrated enough to question because if life seems good You're just frustrated with yourself because you're not truly at peace with what's happening

But you you can't complain because things are good like I have all these secure networks around me the structure is good like it's it's getting me day to day right at least whatever the world has conceived to be a comfort lifestyle or, you know, not a problematic lifestyle. And because of that, the frustration builds up, right? So I think that's where it comes.

The second thing was the Suzuki Zen, where they say, yes, the bad thing is we are falling. We are falling at such a rapid pace. The good thing is there is no ground. That's hilarious. Yeah.

So let the structures collapse because where are we going to truly fall, right? Yeah. If you're in an endless skydiving, yeah, you might as well have fun in it. You can do all crazy dances, you know, the sky. Slate within the head. Yeah. I got good news and bad news. The good news is there's medicine for everyone.

The bad news is the medicine doesn't work. It's fascinating to think of. And I, you know, I find myself sometimes like a. a madman, like, okay, just think about it from this angle. Like, if you really want to grow, if you really want to become the best person you should be, you should be seeking the most horrible, tragic events.

But then ask yourself, what kind of a lunatic seeks out horrible tragic events? You know, I find myself in this, I just start laughing sometimes. My wife's, I don't want to know. I don't want to know, George. I don't want to know. And I'm like, listen, we should be seeking out horrible things.

Get away from me. You know, no, listen, I'm going to tell you why we should be seeking these. out. Like, yeah. It's, and it just, it just brings me back to, you know, sometimes I'll see like a homeless person just laughing and I'm like, that guy gets it. Like, I gets it, man. Like, that guy's probably the smartest person on the planet right now, you know? Vice person, I'd say, yeah. Yeah. Yes. It's amazing to think about. Ranga, I, I, I love it, man. I could talk to you for another two and a half hours, but I have, I have to go to work, man, but it's so fun. I feel like I learned so much. And I, I really, I like. I like, I like,

the idea of pushing back on each other's ideas. And I feel like we're beginning to do that more and more with just. I think our, yeah, I think that our relationship is beginning to evolve to that point. And I, I forecast deeper and better conversations when we can have a good laugh and we can push each other in a direction that stretches our, our abilities to think more. So thank you for doing that and thank you for being part of my life and part of a conversation that I, I find fulfilling. And I hope other people that listen to this will feel fulfilling. So what are you, what do you have going on? Where can people find you?

And what are you excited about? Yeah, the last time I think you asked me this question, I said something. And my partner was to play after that point. Everything was so good, but you didn't mention about your future cyclical experiences. That's going to be the center point for the coming. You doubt it you not. So, yeah, I think that is one of the center points that we're going ahead experiences that way. And also, yes, as I said, probably we're going to have our first podcast on Monday.

Hopefully. Nice. Yes. And soon enough, we can reverse the tables and I'll see how hard it is to maybe have the right questions at that point and navigate. Because you seem to be doing it so smoothly. I don't see a point where you're like, yeah, I don't know what to ask. You know, it's very nice, right? And yeah, until then, I have my job to keep me surviving.

Yes. So, yeah, it's pretty limited number of things, but it does me very interested in the coming days. Let me ask you this before you go. Do you have a, like when you say your future cycle, psychedelic experience. Is there, you know, do you, sometimes I think I've been practicing with, sometimes I will go into it with an intention. I'll write in my journal. Here's the things that I've been thinking about. Here's the things that I've really been wanting to question. Sometimes I'll do it. I'll go into a detailed understanding of what I want to get out of it. And other times I'll just

be like, I'm going to smoke this huge joint and then eat all these mushrooms and just see where this thing goes, you know, and I'm on the fence as far as which one has a better outcome. You know, do you have intent? Do you not have intent? So I'm playing kind of with writing stuff down. Do you have a certain structure that you do before you go in? I would say that more as a ritual. I don't think mentally I have many things because I think after the first two, three experiences, Cygdilic was harsher when I add expectations. So it's just a personal thing. Because any kind of intention I have, it's just you want that. Fuck off.

I'm not going to give you that time. You know, you're subconsciously pinned on to that. Sometimes if the dose is not high enough, right? I feel like, you know, you reach that point of dose, the breakthrough dose or whatever, right? Right, right. You can't think anymore. You're not disappointed or anything. But if you're caught in the midway or if you're taking something more of an introspective drug like psilocybin.

and it can be harsher based on barrier and intentiousism. But it's just my personal thing, right? Yeah. For example, I can tell you something this similar attempt. And I was trying DMT wave. And I think the first time

I didn't take it properly. So I had a feeling that I wanted to do this, right? So it's like I read a lot more. I think the battery was not charged the first time as well. So I'm going to charge the battery this time at my part. I made her sit and it's like, I'm going to take five pups. They say five to ten is a good breakthrough dose, right?

So I'm going to do this five. Are you sure? You should do four, right? And I'm like, yeah. No, no, no. I'm going here. I'm going through the DMT tunnel, right? All these things.

I take one. I'm like, yep, your face is collapsing inwards, but I'm going to go for it. And then I take the second one. I drop it. I'm like, I'm gone. Yeah. At the point, even though I'm not like completely gone

because the way has very gradual doses, right? So I'm not, it was still a low dose. But at that point, I had the strongest intuition ever to drop it. And I was so happy at that point to drop it and just, we set back to see what's happening. Right. And yeah, that's it. For me, that makes me think as much as I have something of an intention. because our intentions are focused based on the problems we conceive with smaller mindsets or narrowed mindsets.

And for me, it's always broken out those barriers, right? So what I might even think as a problem ceases to exist in the second, right? Yeah. So wait, what was I, what was my intention? It takes like five seconds to like, oh, sometimes there is also this feeling, man, have I, too much suppressed emotions deep down that I've not even gone that maybe I need like I don't know tremendous amount of work because every time I'm just I'm just floating and I'm happy is there something wrong like does it because I yeah that's that's what I think so going forward I feel

like no intentions but I'm curious on because I got I met this friend recently at the past 90, gave me this book, Pekel. So, Alexander Shulkins. I got them both. Tico? Yeah. Phenomenal, man, both of them. Is that, okay, so is, is the, is that the one that has,

one of them is stories about trips? And then another one is like the actual, actual documentation. Like, I got a, like a, which one is, which one is, what is in that particular book? Peel, I think, starts with their stories, personal stories, Sharshahs and ants, and then goes on to the second part of the book which describes the journey with 179 fomps. That's mind-blowing.

And to think that I keep going back to two or three, I'm like, yeah, man, I am at some level seeking this comfort space, right? So maybe for the upcoming, I was like, I got interested with mal fumarate, methyl escaline. So, yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to it and trying to see there are known drugs and there are,

because I really appreciate the courage, these two ads and their group of friends. It's mind-blowing because before you take it, you have lots of hesitation, even with known drugs, I love acid like anything.

Yeah. But even before that, it's like, maybe not. Not today. Not that much? Can I find a reason? Yeah. Yeah.

And to not know something, it can be, frightening. Yeah. So, cheers to them and thanks for sending courage

my way. I feel a little bit more adventurous in that sense. Yeah. I'm so jealous. Like, there's so many

labs in Canada that makes such pristine quality grade. You can buy all the different, you know, dipped or, you know,

all the different fumarice, all the different salts. I always see all the labs and I'm like, man, I live in Hawaii. Like,

don't get me wrong. I love Hawaii. But, I can't buy any of that stuff from any of those labs, you know? Yeah. But yeah, I know that's... So a few years back, the first time I decided I'm not moving away from Canada was for a totally different reason, right? Right.

The open-minded society and so on. And then I now realized it's the mind exploring society or opportunity that they produce. The labs, as you said, it has blown my mind. Like, what do you want with express shipping? Yeah, all right here is like a menu. That takes like this. Yeah, and it's amazing. And you've got to be really grateful.

I think I found that to be really synchronous. Like getting to know and having this and meeting this new friend who is much more resourceful, right? Right. It's nice. It's happening. Things are happening. Yeah.

And same with your message. I'm sorry, I'm not going to hold you much, but your message popping up like three weeks back. I think it was July last thing. I was like, I've been saying podcast for seven months. Right. Who is this guy? Why is he stupid enough to call me?

Like, what have I done, right? And, you know, you have these things and it's like, I'm going to say yes. And it was a nice intro that you sent me the first time. Thank you. It was nice. It shows what you're, like, I feel like people when they're interested in consciousness, any kinds of states of mind are, it doesn't have to be with psychics. I feel like the moment you are open to consciousness, at least you are pushing yourself

to be much more open-minded than before. So, yes. Yeah. I feel like the mushrooms are bringing, like if you look at the way mycelium grows and it exchanges information between trees. Like I was just telling Paul this the other night. Like I really feel that the people that are brought into my life recently, like I've been taking a lot of mushrooms. And I feel like I'm growing towards people. Like this is a perfect segue into this. Like it feels like such an organic process of reaching out to.

some people and then them giving me feedback and then growing that connection, like the process of relationship has become so much more intriguing, fulfilling, and growth oriented. Like, it just, it just seems to me it's not, there's no coincidence. Like, this is the path. Like, I, it's amazing, man. I'm really, I'm just so thankful to get to talk to people like you and all these other people that are in my life. Like, I, it's so fulfilling.

I agree. It's so nice talking with you. When I sometimes look at the time, I'm like, wow, it just flows by. And it's so, you know, this is one of those things I feel like that you have to think about much. Again, this is one of those. Trip trips every, I think this is the third time I'm sitting with you. Three minutes, four minutes before the thing, it's like, I don't want to do this. I don't know.

I don't want to sit like, I don't want to talk. I don't have things to talk about. I don't know what to talk about, right? And that's where I think I forget. I completely forget that you don't need to know anything. Yeah. Half the time, I just listen to you and then just things pop up. I am just this sometimes joking way.

I'm the slave of this organism which is kind of communicating through me. Because that is no me involved in except for moving this and talking. It just happens so smoothly, right? Yeah. It's almost like we were talking about preparing for a trip. Like I can write all kinds of notes, you know, the same way I would write down stuff for a trip. But then I'm over here. Like, you know, it's just a better, like it's okay to have a scaffolding.

It's okay to have notes. And sometimes maybe you turn to them. Maybe you don't. But, you know, I think it's the notes just become thoughts that I've gotten out prior to the conversation. Sometimes they don't even end up in the conversation. But maybe that's, maybe that's room two. Maybe that's room two, you know. All right, Ranga.

I appreciate it, my friend. What a great time. What a great conversation. And I'm really looking forward to talking to you on Sunday. And I'll let you go for the day. I'm going to in the broadcast. But hang on one second until before you cut out, though. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Have a great afternoon. Hello. Okay. Let me pop that right here.