Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Exploring Spirituality & Personal Growth With Josh Leonard | The Christian Reeve Podcast #349

Transcript

Exploring Spirituality & Personal Growth With Josh Leonard | The Christian Reeve Podcast #349 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Christian
• 0:03
  Reef Podcast. This one is particularly long
• 0:06
  overdue. We have the amazing Josh Leonard
• 0:10
  back on the show, who you may or may not know has his own
• 0:13
  podcast, The Pursuit of Infinity podcast.
• 0:17
  I don't know if I've really spent enough time plugging that.
• 0:20
  It's a great show, has some fantastic guests.
• 0:24
  It's been going for a while now. But before we get into that, how
• 0:28
  you doing, Josh? You're right.
• 0:30
  I'm doing well, man. How are you?
• 0:31
  I'm alive. I'm alive.
• 0:33
  That's as good as it's going to get for now.
• 0:36
  You know, it is, it's it's like a, what's that old expression?
• 0:40
  Life imitating our imitating life, whatever the fuck it is.
• 0:45
  You know what I mean? Yeah, there's, there's a song on
• 0:47
  my album called Just Existing. And I wrote that song like five
• 0:54
  years ago. I want to say.
• 0:56
  I'd say it's like even more relatable now than it was then.
• 1:03
  And I'm like, that's not good. That's just rude.
• 1:06
  That's how you know you have a good song now.
• 1:10
  Maybe, I don't know. Transcends time itself.
• 1:15
  Christian. But the wrong reasons though,
• 1:17
  man. That's, that's not what you
• 1:18
  want. Anyway, this isn't about me,
• 1:22
  man. Let's talk about the podcast for
• 1:25
  a little bit. So how Long's how Long's it been
• 1:28
  going now? A.
• 1:30
  Few years, I think it was 2022. I started it in January.
• 1:35
  Yeah, what's, what's the schedule like?
• 1:38
  Because I, I see every now and again an episode gets dropped.
• 1:41
  So like, are you guys just a lot busier?
• 1:43
  So you do it with your brother. Yeah, I mean, the, the schedule
• 1:46
  used to be a lot more consistent, but it just as, you
• 1:50
  know, it's super time consuming and with, you know, just normal
• 1:56
  life, my work and my job and all that stuff, it it gets a little
• 2:00
  difficult to maintain that weekly episode drop.
• 2:04
  But, you know, I do my best. I got a, you know, I have, I
• 2:07
  have a bunch of interviews in the log that haven't been
• 2:10
  released yet. So I'm just steadily working on,
• 2:13
  you know, trying to get those out too from, you know, months
• 2:16
  ago. And yeah, you know, me and my
• 2:19
  brother have to record an episode soon because usually
• 2:21
  what we do is I do an episode with him and then an episode the
• 2:26
  next with a guest. And I think I have two guests in
• 2:30
  a row this time. So it's it's about time me and
• 2:32
  my brother get back into it. Why'd you do your podcast?
• 2:35
  It's a great question. Well, I can kind of say the
• 2:39
  origination of the podcast was. So I'm very into psychedelics.
• 2:43
  If anybody has listened to you and I in the past, and I took
• 2:47
  this course and it was called Navigating Psychedelics for
• 2:51
  Clinicians and therapists just so I can get, you know, a better
• 2:55
  handle on, you know, the actual like the care of someone else
• 3:00
  during the experience of a psychedelic.
• 3:02
  Just it's always good to research harm reduction and, you
• 3:07
  know, try to make the most of these experiences.
• 3:09
  So that's why I took this course.
• 3:10
  And at the end of it, there was what they called an integration
• 3:13
  project, where we were tasked as the students to create some sort
• 3:18
  of a, a project, a plan, a piece of art, like anything really,
• 3:23
  that integrates what we learned through the course.
• 3:27
  You know, some people created music, other people created
• 3:31
  physical art, somebody applied for a job.
• 3:35
  You know, with psychedelics, you know, it could really be
• 3:38
  anything. Yeah, for real.
• 3:40
  Yep, yeah, they they applied for a job with, it's called MAPS,
• 3:43
  the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
• 3:47
  Studies, which they do research into MDMA and a bunch of other
• 3:51
  psychedelic substances. So this guy like applied for a
• 3:54
  job through them. I thought you meant like, like,
• 3:57
  like went through the whole process, like rocked up to the
• 4:00
  job interview and he's just like out of his mind on psychedelics.
• 4:03
  Like, like, why are you here? I'm like, that's a good
• 4:07
  question. That why?
• 4:09
  Why are we here? Try to interview for a job under
• 4:13
  the influence of psychedelics. Oh, you know, it's been done.
• 4:16
  I mean, to be fair, it would get you through those dumb fuck
• 4:19
  questions. Like I've been sort of on and
• 4:21
  off applying for jobs, trying to, I don't know, make my shit a
• 4:27
  little bit more bearable through artists struggling.
• 4:31
  You know the deal. But anyway I get tired of stupid
• 4:34
  questions like why do you want this job?
• 4:39
  Like mother fucker I need money, I'm broke.
• 4:42
  Expect you to lie. You have to lie your way through
• 4:44
  an interview if you want. To do that though, it's Everyone
• 4:47
  knows you're lying. Yep.
• 4:49
  You know the interviewer knows you're lying, you know you're
• 4:51
  lying, everyone in the room knows you're lying.
• 4:53
  I would argue integrity is fucking more important than hey
• 4:59
  there, I'm, I don't know, Mr. Rogers, and I'm perfect for your
• 5:05
  little job and organization. Like that's not a normal human
• 5:07
  being. If I was running a company,
• 5:09
  right? And there was a guy who rolled
• 5:11
  up to the interview and was like, oh, I I'm in love with
• 5:16
  work. I love to, I'm born to work.
• 5:19
  I'd be like, get the fuck out of here, you psychopath.
• 5:22
  Right? Like I don't.
• 5:23
  Be in an office somewhere. Like, come on.
• 5:26
  I want to hear you say, all right, look, I work 9:00 to 5:00
• 5:30
  and then soon as I'm off, you know, whatever, I go fishing,
• 5:33
  hiking, I see my wife and kids, whatever, I'm like, great,
• 5:36
  brilliant. That's what I want to hear.
• 5:38
  I'd if you're obsessed with work, then you have problems.
• 5:42
  There's nothing wrong with being passionate about work, to be
• 5:44
  clear, But if you just live and breathe work and that's all you
• 5:49
  do, you know, and you see it in workplaces as well, it always
• 5:52
  becomes this big problem where it soaks into it because there's
• 5:57
  that one. It'll always be like a higher up
• 5:58
  manager who has this expectation of like, oh, you're leaving,
• 6:03
  It's 5:00, you're leaving. Yeah, motherfucker, I'm paid
• 6:06
  till five. What do you mean?
• 6:10
  I actually had this happen real in in a job I started back in
• 6:15
  Europe. There was a manager.
• 6:16
  He said that to me and I was like, yeah, did I get the end
• 6:20
  time wrong? 5:00 yeah.
• 6:22
  Like, and she was like, oh, OK, yeah, we just stay around and
• 6:25
  stick around. And I'm thinking, boy, you can
• 6:28
  do that if you want, but because.
• 6:31
  And it's that whole pressure thing, isn't it?
• 6:33
  It's like you can't leave till I leave, you know, it's power trip
• 6:38
  bullshit. And I just, I don't play that,
• 6:40
  you know, I think the whole This is why I don't work in corporate
• 6:43
  all jobs try it. But it's it's it's very easy to
• 6:47
  get sucked up in that and forget yourself, you know, remember,
• 6:49
  you can always quit. You could always say no.
• 6:53
  And a lot of the time that's all work is, isn't it?
• 6:56
  It's just grandstanding and, you know, learning that you have to
• 7:01
  have balls and, and just turning around and saying like, no, not
• 7:05
  doing that, not doing that, not doing that, no, no.
• 7:11
  And if you say yes one time, then you create the precedents
• 7:15
  that like, you're going to be like, that becomes part of the
• 7:18
  expectation then. And that's a problem because
• 7:21
  sometimes you might want to go above and beyond.
• 7:23
  Sometimes you might want to earn that raise or whatever it may
• 7:26
  be, but the problem is when you begin to create the expectation
• 7:30
  for yourself that you're going to work overtime when you're
• 7:32
  going to do the things that they want you to do, it's, you know,
• 7:35
  it's tough. Worst job you've ever had?
• 7:38
  Dude, I've only had two jobs. I I started my first job out of
• 7:44
  high school. Like the day after I graduated
• 7:48
  high school, I started my first job at a car dealership.
• 7:51
  I stayed there for 11 years while I worked my way through
• 7:55
  college and then. Well done.
• 7:58
  Yeah, a few days, a few days after I graduated college, I was
• 8:01
  offered a random job, a corporate job, and I'm still
• 8:06
  there. So only two jobs all?
• 8:08
  Right, fair. Well, I mean, you seem happy and
• 8:10
  that's the key in, you know, in any case, I always say card in
• 8:15
  the ship. Huh, That must have that must
• 8:17
  have been a bit crazy. Yeah, it was awesome, though.
• 8:20
  It's like, so I, I started off in the Recon department just
• 8:24
  like detailing cars. So I learned how to clean cars
• 8:26
  and, you know, work with cars and all that stuff.
• 8:29
  And then I moved from there to being like on the lots and like,
• 8:33
  you know, supervising the lot crew and, you know, checking in
• 8:36
  cars off of truckloads and stuff.
• 8:38
  It was mindless work. But you know, it's interesting
• 8:41
  when you're, when you're working in like the dirt and the, the
• 8:44
  grime and you're making no money and everybody around you is in
• 8:48
  the same position. You make like the best of
• 8:51
  friends, like my, my best friends.
• 8:52
  I, I've made, you know, at that job and I left that job in 2019
• 8:57
  and I still have, you know, great friends from that
• 8:59
  position. Because it's like when you're in
• 9:00
  the dirt with somebody, you create a different kind of bond
• 9:03
  than when you're like dressed up in an office with people.
• 9:06
  It's a different type of thing. And then, you know, on the
• 9:08
  weekends you're going out drinking with these people.
• 9:10
  And it's, it was, it was great times.
• 9:13
  I don't regret a second of it. I like to call it in the
• 9:16
  trenches. Yeah.
• 9:17
  Like I was talking to someone at work the other day who works a
• 9:21
  different. So like one of the jobs I do is
• 9:25
  like hotel, right? So we've got like the night
• 9:27
  team, the morning team and like the Knights team, right?
• 9:32
  And the Knights team famously are like always fighting each
• 9:36
  other. And it's like, and basically one
• 9:39
  of them is complaining to me and there's someone else from my
• 9:44
  team there and it's like the handover period.
• 9:46
  So like they come in late and then there's like a crossover of
• 9:49
  an hour and then we go home, right?
• 9:51
  So they're complaining about what it's like at the nights and
• 9:54
  I'm sitting listening to this. It's stuff I've heard a million
• 9:56
  times. And I'm like, look, y'all need
• 9:58
  to figure this out. You need to sit down and just
• 10:01
  figure it out. And then she keeps going on and
• 10:03
  I'm like, listen, this is how I see it, right?
• 10:08
  You're you're in trenches, right?
• 10:10
  That's what custom service is. You're in the trenches and
• 10:13
  you're constantly being fired at.
• 10:15
  Why would you then turn and start firing at your own
• 10:17
  soldiers? Do you know what I mean?
• 10:20
  Insanity. And like I could see the other
• 10:22
  woman that works on my team just look at me and just start
• 10:24
  laughing. Like it's like, you know what
• 10:27
  I'm saying though, like. I think that's common in the
• 10:30
  night crew people too, because you got to like think they're,
• 10:33
  especially if you're just starting out, you have to adjust
• 10:36
  to sleeping during the day and being up at night.
• 10:39
  That's got to be difficult. I feel like that has to be just
• 10:41
  a bit depressing. Yeah, no, you're right.
• 10:45
  But they have the benefit of it being like dead, like there's no
• 10:49
  one around. You get that.
• 10:50
  The fewer people, obviously at the weekend you're probably
• 10:53
  going to have a few more, but a lot of the time it's dead.
• 10:56
  So it's like, OK, who wants to clean this department?
• 10:59
  Who wants to do the floor walks? Who wants to do this that and
• 11:02
  you know, it's it's kind of like people apparently don't want to
• 11:06
  do jobs. It's very like, I don't want to
• 11:09
  do that. I don't want to do that.
• 11:10
  I don't want to do that. And for the most part, I think
• 11:14
  in a job you kind of have to just do as you're told.
• 11:17
  I said to my boss when he came in the new hotel manager, I've
• 11:21
  had three in the time I've worked at this place.
• 11:24
  I remember just giggling with him about it like this.
• 11:26
  This is crazy, but I was like, we were having our like 5 minute
• 11:30
  convert of like, OK, this is what I want, this is what you
• 11:33
  want. OK, great.
• 11:34
  You know, I like to be upfront about shit like that, you know,
• 11:36
  just no bollocks. Just get to the point, right?
• 11:40
  And I think over the years people have appreciated that.
• 11:43
  And I've I've gotten what I want because I don't, I don't
• 11:46
  bullshit people. I don't try to like hamstring
• 11:49
  them. You know, sometimes I think if,
• 11:51
  if I put forward an idea, it might sound a bit like an
• 11:54
  ultimatum, but it's more kind of like a, OK, this is what I want.
• 11:57
  If you can't give it to me, I'll leave.
• 11:59
  But like shake hands, walk, you know, no, no problems, no
• 12:03
  unprofessionalism. No, Oh, I can't be asked for the
• 12:06
  last two weeks on my contract kind of bullshit.
• 12:07
  Like be professional. But you're, you know, you're
• 12:11
  allowed to. And I said, I said this like
• 12:13
  you're allowed to turn around and, and say, oh, I, I'm not
• 12:16
  really good at this. I'd prefer not to do this, but
• 12:20
  you don't turn around and say like, I'm not doing this.
• 12:23
  You know, you get asked to do something and it's your boss.
• 12:26
  Do it. Do it to the best of your
• 12:27
  ability. You know, I always tell people
• 12:30
  that I work with people that work for that.
• 12:32
  Look, if you put me here, yeah, I won't like it, but that's
• 12:36
  neither here nor there. But it it will slow things down.
• 12:40
  I won't be good at it. That no amount of training me to
• 12:42
  do this thing will make me good at it.
• 12:46
  The thing I always I pushed against is don't put me in this
• 12:48
  restaurant. I've done out of cart
• 12:50
  restaurants before. I suck at restaurants.
• 12:53
  Leave me on the bar, leave me on reception, leave me on like
• 12:55
  anything else. But just, you know, But every
• 12:58
  time I've been asked to come there and help, I do it, you
• 13:01
  know, and I guess I try to look at it more from a business
• 13:05
  perspective of what's going to be more efficient, what's going
• 13:07
  to not slow things down, you know, because I know putting me
• 13:10
  there will slow things down. Yes.
• 13:12
  It's like Paul Heyman always says, like accentuate the
• 13:16
  strengths, hide the weaknesses. You know, we've already got
• 13:20
  things running against us. Might as well try to push out
• 13:24
  the best of what we've got kind of thing.
• 13:27
  But anyway, I digress. Sorry, this is just, I don't
• 13:29
  know, so easy talking with you. I was, I was looking forward to
• 13:33
  just just shooting shit with you.
• 13:36
  I really feel like we could just talk about anything, to be
• 13:38
  honest. But we are here to talk about
• 13:40
  spirituality, I guess. I guess it's kind of like
• 13:44
  finishing off what we started last time.
• 13:47
  The last show was it in December.
• 13:52
  Maybe it was either December or late November.
• 13:55
  Wow, wow. OK, Yeah, well, we we tried,
• 13:59
  guys. Just things come up, you know,
• 14:02
  grateful that you're back here, man.
• 14:03
  Thank you so much. So the questions I've got, I've
• 14:06
  got a couple for you that I had saved and then a bunch of
• 14:10
  questions from Vilma. Shout out to Vilma.
• 14:12
  I love you. And yeah, I don't know, just
• 14:15
  anywhere you want to take it as well, dude, if there's anything
• 14:18
  you want to sort of discuss, but let's just pop into something
• 14:21
  interesting. So in your opinion, why do
• 14:24
  people take spirituality so seriously, especially now?
• 14:30
  Well, it changes lives. When people begin their
• 14:35
  spiritual path, they see the changes in not just their like
• 14:42
  their life as they present themselves, but also in the way
• 14:46
  that their mind works, the way that you contemplate things, the
• 14:49
  way you think about things, your perspective it it.
• 14:54
  I feel like spirituality is the most effective perspective shift
• 14:59
  that a person can involve themselves with.
• 15:01
  If you're having, you know, issues with life, issues with
• 15:05
  jobs, like we were just talking about with relationships, with
• 15:08
  yourself, confidence, everything, every single mental
• 15:12
  aspect of life, for some reason it changes when you when you
• 15:18
  start to take spirituality seriously.
• 15:22
  And also, I think a lot of it is because in like the, you know,
• 15:26
  Western developed world, we're sort of taught that spirituality
• 15:30
  is one thing. And then when you sort of
• 15:33
  discover what it means for yourself, it becomes something
• 15:38
  far greater and deeper than what you ever thought or, or were
• 15:43
  told that it was. And it sort of, especially for
• 15:47
  me, it, it redefines not just myself and who I am, but what
• 15:52
  the world is and really what the purpose of life is.
• 15:57
  So I, I think that's, that's why people start taking it pretty
• 16:00
  seriously when they begin down this path.
• 16:03
  So what are people missing then? You say that there's this one
• 16:05
  particular idea of what spirituality is what.
• 16:09
  What is it that people are missing?
• 16:10
  What, at its core, is spirituality?
• 16:14
  To me, what they're missing is in the normal spiritual
• 16:19
  nomenclature that we're taught through religions, we're taught
• 16:23
  to look externally for someone to sort of tell us what
• 16:27
  spirituality is. We're looking to a priest, we're
• 16:31
  looking to a church, we're looking to some sort of
• 16:34
  authority figure to let us in. You know, like they're the
• 16:38
  gateway to God or whatever. When in reality, you realize
• 16:43
  that it's actually within you and yourself.
• 16:46
  I think that's the biggest thing that people are missing.
• 16:49
  And that's what really shifts the, you know, the effectiveness
• 16:53
  of like the spiritual path quote, UN quote.
• 16:56
  There is something to it, like I've tried to sort of tap into
• 16:59
  something over the years, but I feel like a lot of the time I'm
• 17:04
  I'm struggling with just what's going on.
• 17:07
  You know, it's hard to, to get into that mindset, but like,
• 17:11
  I'll give you an example. Like I was managing A cloak room
• 17:13
  the other day and I found that there was periods of time where
• 17:18
  I was just on my own, like there's nothing going on.
• 17:21
  So I was like, I'm going to meditate, you know, and I've
• 17:27
  been in a lot of pain. I'm still in a lot of pain.
• 17:29
  So I'll probably try this after we're done today.
• 17:32
  But I never really know if I'm doing it properly.
• 17:37
  But I, I just closed my eyes, I concentrated on my breathing,
• 17:41
  you know, all the things they tell you you're supposed to do.
• 17:45
  And at one point I remember like opening my eyes and I felt very
• 17:49
  calm, like kind of how I used to feel when I was training.
• 17:53
  And I, I was done with the whole exercise and I'd, I'd been in
• 18:00
  the sauna and I was drying off and just sitting down and
• 18:03
  relaxing. Like it kind of felt like that.
• 18:05
  And I was like, oh, oh, I did that.
• 18:09
  Wow. What is that?
• 18:12
  Can you speak to meditation? Do you, I, I'm guessing you, you
• 18:16
  try it from time to time. Like what?
• 18:17
  What can it give you? What?
• 18:19
  What's the important significance of meditation
• 18:21
  within the realm of spirituality?
• 18:25
  Yeah, this is a great topic. First of all, you're not doing
• 18:29
  it wrong. There's no way to do it wrong.
• 18:33
  I think that's a a pitfall. A lot of people think like when
• 18:37
  they start to meditate, you're like, am I doing this right?
• 18:38
  Am I doing it wrong? And like you're doing it right.
• 18:41
  If you're like, if you close your eyes and people always say
• 18:45
  focus on your breath, that's a great method because it forces
• 18:49
  you to sort of like come in to yourself as opposed to like
• 18:55
  think about things. And what I think the essence of
• 18:59
  meditation is it's like when, when you're when you can observe
• 19:02
  your thoughts and you can disconnect yourself from them.
• 19:07
  So you see a thought arise and then instead of getting caught
• 19:10
  in like the loop of that thought and where it takes you, you
• 19:13
  realize, oh, wait, like I'm thinking about this thing.
• 19:16
  And then you come back to yourself, back to your breath.
• 19:19
  That's the essence of meditation.
• 19:21
  It's essentially just not allowing yourself to get caught
• 19:24
  in a trail of a particular thought.
• 19:28
  I mean you. So if if you're doing that,
• 19:29
  you're doing it right, in my opinion.
• 19:31
  And I think that the purpose of meditation, people think that
• 19:35
  like you're supposed to meditate and then all of a sudden you're
• 19:39
  going to feel great, like your life is going to change that
• 19:42
  you're going to get up after you're done and you're going to
• 19:44
  be like this enlightened being floating on planet earth and
• 19:47
  lights pouring out of your your head.
• 19:48
  You know what I mean? That that's not necessarily what
• 19:51
  it's about. Like for me, it's it's about
• 19:55
  connecting with the the thing that lies beneath who you think
• 20:02
  you are. Because I think one of the main.
• 20:05
  Questions of spirituality is who am I?
• 20:08
  What am I like, what is this thing that I'm doing here?
• 20:11
  And then when you start to ask yourself that during meditation,
• 20:15
  you can realize that they're like, who's asking the question?
• 20:20
  Who is thinking about the thoughts?
• 20:24
  And then you don't you, you kind of transition from identifying
• 20:29
  yourself as the thoughts that you have and your preferences
• 20:33
  as, as a person to identifying as the witness of those
• 20:37
  thoughts, because we often identify ourselves as the
• 20:41
  thoughts and our preferences that are going on in my head.
• 20:43
  You know, like I am, you know, Josh, this, this thing that
• 20:48
  people call Josh, I am, you know, the, you know, merchant
• 20:54
  support manager for this particular, you know, company
• 20:57
  that I work for. You know, I am the person who
• 21:00
  likes this type of book and this type of music.
• 21:02
  And but when you realize that like you are not defined by your
• 21:08
  preferences, I think that is a, that that's a big, a big thing
• 21:12
  when you can separate yourself from who you think you are.
• 21:16
  I mean, that's sort of getting down like a more advanced, like
• 21:18
  philosophical, you know, interpretation of like what you
• 21:21
  are. And you know, what meditation
• 21:24
  can give you. But I think at its core, when
• 21:27
  you can identify with the witness, like who's asking the
• 21:29
  question? Who is identify who's, who's
• 21:31
  witnessing the thoughts that are coming in and then going out and
• 21:35
  who, who's asking the question? Who is saying, you know who, who
• 21:42
  is disconnecting from the thought?
• 21:45
  You know, like when when a thought comes in your head while
• 21:47
  you're meditating and you don't allow yourself to go down that
• 21:51
  thought route, Like who is it? What is it that is able to like
• 21:56
  who, what are you resting into that allows you to disconnect
• 22:02
  yourself from who you think you are?
• 22:06
  And then that's just like, to me, that's like the essence of,
• 22:10
  of like understanding the mystery, you know, like that's
• 22:13
  what I consider it. God, whatever you want to call
• 22:15
  it, to me it's it's a grand mystery.
• 22:17
  Who knows, man, who knows? I've been wrestling with those
• 22:20
  questions probably my whole life think, 'cause yeah, we've said
• 22:25
  this on previous conversations with each other, that, you know,
• 22:28
  you're living 2 lives, essentially the life in this,
• 22:35
  whatever this is. And then your spiritual life,
• 22:40
  you know that I feel like, sad as it sounds, not enough time
• 22:45
  really gets devoted to the spiritual life because too much
• 22:48
  of it is clouded in, in dealing with this.
• 22:51
  Like I know that with me, like I struggle because it's just too
• 22:56
  much trying to survive rather than like trying to thrive.
• 23:02
  But just, I don't know, it's the demands of life, isn't it?
• 23:09
  But certainly your attitude towards things can help.
• 23:13
  In my in my 30s so far, I think a big lesson I've learned is to
• 23:16
  just let loads of things go. Even if things stress you out,
• 23:20
  just try let a lot more go than you did before.
• 23:24
  And if it comes across like you don't give a fuck, you're
• 23:28
  probably on to something there. I I'm kind of scared at how much
• 23:34
  I don't give a fuck about things.
• 23:38
  Apparently not giving a fuck about things.
• 23:40
  I, I, I like to say it, it's more like, again, like how I
• 23:43
  said being attached to your preferences.
• 23:45
  Like if I'm attached to the way that I think things should be
• 23:49
  OK, that's going to cause me pain and cause me suffering.
• 23:53
  Not because of the thing that's happening, but because I'm
• 23:55
  attaching myself to how I think that thing should be.
• 23:59
  And when you can separate yourself from your preferences
• 24:02
  of how you think things should be, then you become more
• 24:06
  responsive to situations as opposed to reactive, if that
• 24:10
  makes sense. OK, what about if your life
• 24:13
  doesn't look anything like how you want it to look and you've
• 24:17
  been working a good portion of your life to try and create this
• 24:22
  life that you want, but you're you're not leading the life that
• 24:25
  you want, what then? Well, I mean, there's definitely
• 24:29
  room for having goals, wanting to, you know, be better and do
• 24:34
  better. I think some people get they,
• 24:37
  they misinterpret this type of thing as like, you shouldn't
• 24:41
  care about where your life is going.
• 24:43
  Like you shouldn't have these goals and these preferences as
• 24:47
  to, you know, what you want your life to be like.
• 24:49
  But I think what you, what, what I tend to think about it is like
• 24:56
  the spiritual nature of reality helps me to be the type of
• 25:03
  person that is going to more successfully follow the path
• 25:08
  that I want my life to be like. And it sort of changes the,
• 25:13
  your, your preferences as well. But these things are not
• 25:17
  mutually exclusive. The spiritual path and having
• 25:22
  sort of a spiritual philosophy helps, I think, with whatever
• 25:27
  goals you have in the physical world, you know, because it, it
• 25:30
  kind of creates context, you know what I mean?
• 25:34
  Yeah, I get what you're saying. It's almost like you're more
• 25:37
  well equipped to deal with things because you put that time
• 25:40
  in to try and understand that thing that maybe it was
• 25:43
  previously untapped. I mean, certainly when I look at
• 25:48
  how I used to deal with things years ago and how I deal with
• 25:50
  them now, like it's by no means perfect, but the mindset has
• 25:55
  changed. And I think a lot of that is to
• 25:57
  do with age and experience, but also choices, what you let go,
• 26:04
  what you choose to focus your energy and time and effort on.
• 26:08
  I think an interesting one for me is as I get older, you know,
• 26:15
  people I end up working with are younger, right?
• 26:17
  And, you know, they're fresh of energy, but they're also very
• 26:20
  naive because they're young, because they don't know yet, you
• 26:24
  know? And I don't come in bulldozing
• 26:27
  being like, wait till this happens because that's just,
• 26:30
  that sucks, man. But you try to throw ideas every
• 26:33
  now and again, be like, oh, what about this or, you know, I
• 26:38
  learned this. Maybe this will help, be
• 26:39
  helpful, you know, And sometimes people are like, yeah, yeah, OK.
• 26:43
  Or other times people are like, oh, wow.
• 26:46
  Or sometimes people are like, OK, I'll take that on board.
• 26:49
  But it's interesting because I remember that feeling of being
• 26:54
  presented these ideas at a young age.
• 26:56
  And when you're younger, you're more likely to take risks and
• 27:00
  you're more kind of gung ho with it all.
• 27:04
  But I think as as you get older, you're more measured and you
• 27:07
  take time to consider things. And you know, maybe you take
• 27:12
  less risks doesn't mean you don't take risks, but you're
• 27:14
  more calculated with it and, and how to approach it and stuff.
• 27:18
  And I think a big thing I've learned is that you, you try to
• 27:23
  approach things with this idea of like, whatever happens, I'll
• 27:27
  figure it out. Even if I don't know what I'm
• 27:28
  doing, I'll figure it out somehow, some way.
• 27:34
  I mean, what's are you? Yeah, man.
• 27:37
  And that's kind of what I mean by being responsive as opposed
• 27:40
  to being reactive. When something happens in your
• 27:43
  life and you have like a an emotional reaction to that
• 27:49
  thing. A lot of times that emotional
• 27:51
  reaction, especially if we're talking about something
• 27:53
  traumatic, something that doesn't go the way that you want
• 27:55
  it to go, having an emotional reaction to that is allowing the
• 27:59
  situation to dictate how you are feeling both internally and then
• 28:03
  how you respond externally. But being responsive to
• 28:06
  something is, you know, you're centered within yourself and you
• 28:11
  decide how you were going to respond to the situation with
• 28:14
  the spiritual mental foundation of being centered within
• 28:18
  yourself as opposed to again, allowing some situation that's
• 28:23
  external to you that you maybe are more than likely can't
• 28:26
  control. You know, dictating how you are
• 28:29
  feeling and how you are reacting to a situation.
• 28:31
  And that's not easy. Like none of this is easy.
• 28:34
  None of this thing that I'm talking about here, like I have
• 28:37
  mastered or like I do or you know what I mean?
• 28:39
  Like I'm, I'm just as flawed as everybody else.
• 28:41
  I just, I just try, you know? I brought you here as the a
• 28:45
  format like the foremost expert on spirituality and and now
• 28:49
  you're saying it's all a lie. There's no such thing as
• 28:52
  enlightenment. We're all, we're all just.
• 28:55
  We're all just running around this planet trying to figure it
• 28:57
  out. Sorry.
• 28:59
  You know, I was, I was, I was in the supermarket earlier and I
• 29:06
  was being honest. This is just how it seems to me.
• 29:08
  I feel like I'm in a fucking simulation in a video game or
• 29:12
  like in the Matrix or something. And you know, I always used to
• 29:15
  laugh at shit like that in the past.
• 29:16
  But like, Oh yeah, OK, rule in the Matrix.
• 29:19
  But like, when I see how people act now, it's literally like
• 29:23
  everyone's a fucking MPC. And like, I have, I struggled to
• 29:27
  find the like real human beings. Like, they're there.
• 29:31
  And like, like, for instance, that there's this dude wandering
• 29:34
  around that works at the supermarket that's cool as shit.
• 29:36
  Like he's really built. He's got long ginger hair.
• 29:39
  He wears a hat and he's just got good vibes.
• 29:41
  Like at Christmas he was wearing like a Christmas hat.
• 29:44
  And I was like, nice hat dude. He was like, thanks.
• 29:48
  Is this like this guy exudes cool.
• 29:51
  And then like, everyone else is just like a zombie, you know?
• 29:55
  And I'm like, fuck is wrong with you?
• 29:57
  Wake up that film. It might as well be a
• 30:01
  documentary at this point. We're, we're all like, we're all
• 30:04
  on rails, You know, do you ever play like the arcade does this
• 30:07
  game called House of the Dead where you like, you hold the gun
• 30:11
  and you shoot the zombies, but you don't actually move like the
• 30:14
  game takes you where you have to go.
• 30:17
  They, they call that like an on rails game and that's like what
• 30:19
  life is, but just sort of all on rails.
• 30:22
  We're all on this sort of autopilot mode.
• 30:25
  But sometimes, you know, we like, I think it's important to
• 30:29
  realize that you're on autopilot.
• 30:31
  You realize that you're on rails and then you can, you can more
• 30:34
  effectively, you know, take out the zombies.
• 30:36
  And sometimes if you're lucky and if you work real hard, you
• 30:39
  can pop yourself off the rails and go your own direction.
• 30:42
  But that's kind of what it reminded me of what you said
• 30:45
  there. Yeah, I mean, I, I think you've,
• 30:47
  you're on to something there. But it's, I, I think the whole
• 30:50
  self-awareness thing not happening.
• 30:53
  I mean, if you don't realise, then you're, you're part of it,
• 30:58
  you know, and you don't see it like, you know, like I was in
• 31:01
  the lift earlier and I didn't have my phone on me.
• 31:04
  I'm just waiting. And this guy is just like, I was
• 31:07
  just watching him on the phone just like, like dude, like he's
• 31:10
  just like like this with the phone.
• 31:12
  I was just thinking like, he's a machine obsessed with the
• 31:18
  machine, and that's all it is. There's no substance there.
• 31:23
  There's no human there. There's no spirit there.
• 31:27
  We live in a time where everyone is obsessed with AI and people
• 31:30
  are having their fun and going crazy with it, right?
• 31:33
  But in many ways, some people are theorizing it's the death of
• 31:37
  the artist. And, you know, I refuse to
• 31:39
  accept that as an artist myself. I think from this moment to the
• 31:45
  day I die, I'll always be an artist and I don't care.
• 31:49
  I'll scream it off the rooftops, even if everyone tells me to
• 31:52
  shut up. But like AOI will not kill dead.
• 31:56
  What has existed for thousands and thousands of years.
• 31:59
  Art is often the speech of of those who are unheard the the
• 32:04
  dying words from a dying man who never got to really live the
• 32:07
  life the way he wanted to live it.
• 32:09
  And you know, it's, it's, it's pure heart and soul.
• 32:15
  And you can't create that with a computer program, you know, and
• 32:21
  I don't know, I don't want to get into a big discussion about
• 32:24
  AI with you, but I just, I think it's.
• 32:26
  I do like the topic. Maybe we'll book my other friend
• 32:30
  of a show, yes? Let's do it.
• 32:32
  I will say this though, you can't deny that it comes at a
• 32:37
  very coincidental time. You know, a time when there was
• 32:42
  supposed to be a lot of spirituality and people waking
• 32:45
  up and everything. And now you bring in this new, I
• 32:48
  almost feel like it was brought in deliberately to kind of quash
• 32:53
  all of that to be like, oh, people are waking up.
• 32:56
  Let's take give them something that will completely shut them
• 32:58
  down and make them mindless drones, you know, because
• 33:02
  there's no thinking, there's no brains activated working, doing
• 33:07
  anything. Now, I'm not saying everything
• 33:09
  created with AI is completely useless.
• 33:14
  I use it a little bit with the podcast just for little things.
• 33:18
  I think it's great as a tool, but it's being used to replace
• 33:22
  everything to generate art. I just, I feel like it's
• 33:27
  unacceptable. I, I really do.
• 33:30
  I, I feel like it's cheating. It's not real.
• 33:34
  It's and it most importantly, it's soulless.
• 33:38
  And through all the progress we might have been making in the 20
• 33:42
  tens from a sort of a spiritual perspective, feel like those
• 33:46
  days are dying now. Now increasingly we're getting
• 33:50
  more and more divided and everything is becoming a lot
• 33:52
  more robotic. And it's, I don't know, like I
• 33:57
  see a lot of people on social media, like pining for the past
• 34:00
  and I get it, you know, like, have you ever heard of Fruitiger
• 34:05
  Arrow? I don't.
• 34:07
  Think so? No.
• 34:08
  Maybe I'm not pronouncing it correctly.
• 34:10
  It's like early 2000s aesthetic, if you remember like early days
• 34:14
  of Windows XP and like how everything was kind of
• 34:18
  futuristic vibes like old flip phones and shit.
• 34:20
  Like just kind of like this idea of a space age vibe, but very
• 34:26
  colorful, very fluorescent colours.
• 34:28
  Like, you know, just fun, colourful, full of life, but
• 34:34
  futuristic. And that died somewhere in the
• 34:37
  2000s. And that whole vision of the the
• 34:41
  future, what we could have had is, is gone.
• 34:44
  And we've got this kind of cold, almost dystopian future now more
• 34:50
  in line with like a Black Mirror episode than than an actual
• 34:54
  wanted future. Like, it's why I can't watch
• 34:56
  that show. People like, oh, you should
• 34:58
  watch this show. It's great.
• 34:59
  I'm like, I got through like three seasons and I was like,
• 35:02
  this is just a documentary. This is not, this is not
• 35:06
  fiction. This is just either here's
• 35:09
  what's going on now or here's what's going to happen next.
• 35:12
  I'm like, no, please God, no. It's it's crazy.
• 35:18
  The first two seasons are fantastic, as long as you got
• 35:20
  through those, you don't need to worry about the other ones, but.
• 35:22
  Even just getting through the first episode is brutal.
• 35:25
  Man I felt sick to my stomach. There was an episode in the
• 35:28
  second season, I won't say too much, but there's like A twist
• 35:33
  and a horrible reveal about this kid.
• 35:36
  Like I said, kid, he's like 19 or something, right?
• 35:39
  Face off in the woods. That sound familiar?
• 35:42
  Yeah, I won't say anymore. Is it the one with Jon Hamm dude
• 35:48
  from Mad Men? No, they cabin or whatever.
• 35:51
  No, they started getting like big celebs much later on.
• 35:54
  This is like the earlier days, Season 2.
• 35:58
  Maybe they had some celebs then. I don't know.
• 35:59
  I feel like that's not happening in Season 3 onwards because you
• 36:02
  had, like, Bryce Dallas Howard in that.
• 36:04
  The last episode I watched was with her, and it's basically
• 36:06
  Instagram meets social credit system.
• 36:09
  And I was like, that one. No, thank you.
• 36:11
  Yeah, Yeah. But it was spot on.
• 36:15
  But that episode in the second season, there's a bank robbery
• 36:18
  involved. There's a face off in the woods.
• 36:21
  There's a horrible, horrible twist.
• 36:24
  And I was so traumatized. I remember sitting there with
• 36:26
  one of my younger brothers. I just turned and looked to him.
• 36:29
  We looked at each other, and I just hugged him.
• 36:30
  I was like, oh, my God. Like, we're both just
• 36:34
  traumatized. Just like, oh, my God.
• 36:42
  Shout out to Charlie Brooker, man.
• 36:44
  He knows how to make a series that's impactful, meaningful.
• 36:48
  Yeah, I guess you could say it's entertaining.
• 36:50
  It is. But I think it's far more
• 36:52
  thought provoking than it ever is entertaining because it
• 36:55
  really just gets you thinking about society and just the mess
• 37:01
  that we're in. Like he even took some time off
• 37:04
  actually from doing it because he felt like society was just
• 37:08
  too doomed and he just needed like some time.
• 37:12
  And I was like, I get it man. If you immerse yourself into
• 37:17
  like, dystopian future stories, I could definitely see why you
• 37:21
  would. You could get a little bit
• 37:22
  depressed. I have to take a step back.
• 37:25
  Well, it's like when I I look at everything in society now, it's
• 37:28
  almost like in a similar to what way to like how Attenborough
• 37:33
  looks at nature. I'm like, oh, fascinating TikTok
• 37:36
  creator. Oh, what are they doing?
• 37:39
  But then I start looking at their lives and remembering, Oh,
• 37:43
  these aren't animals in the wild.
• 37:44
  This is human beings, real people, not playing personas.
• 37:49
  They're real people and they're either ignoring the consequences
• 37:56
  or chasing the almighty dollar or something.
• 37:59
  And they're just this. You can see the depression, you
• 38:02
  can see the hard times, you can see things playing out in real
• 38:07
  time. And it's devastating, you know,
• 38:12
  But it's by choice. It's by design.
• 38:14
  They, they, they wish it, they want it.
• 38:16
  They don't care about the repercussions.
• 38:18
  I can't for the life of me think, why?
• 38:20
  Why is that? Why do they want that?
• 38:25
  What am I missing? I don't know.
• 38:28
  I see crazy things like certain places in the world that often
• 38:35
  attract like influencers, right? And you've got like entire
• 38:39
  streets full to the brim with these influencers who just have
• 38:44
  their camera setups and everything.
• 38:46
  And it's like they're just hounding people on the street.
• 38:48
  And like, don't get me wrong, not all of them are, you know,
• 38:51
  bad. Some of them are doing some real
• 38:52
  awesome stuff, but a lot of them are just trying to make a quick
• 38:55
  bark or trying to hop on this wagon or whatever.
• 38:59
  I I don't know, I think it kind of just adds to this dystopian
• 39:04
  world that we're living in. Even when I walk through the
• 39:07
  streets of Manchester, I see people constantly filming,
• 39:10
  constantly doing things. And it's like, whatever happened
• 39:12
  to just being in the moment? Like today, I'm going to a gig
• 39:17
  tonight, right? It's a band that's actually
• 39:18
  appeared on my podcast, and they finally are coming up north.
• 39:23
  And I was like, wow, I have to be there.
• 39:26
  Yeah. Oh, my God.
• 39:26
  It's a free gig. Sick.
• 39:28
  Let's go. And, you know, I'll probably
• 39:31
  clip, like, maybe one small clip of them.
• 39:35
  Just see, I got, like, a clip. And then that'll be it.
• 39:37
  I won't touch my phone. I'll just be in it.
• 39:40
  But you see people with gigs these days, people walking down
• 39:43
  the street, you know, everyone's just on their phone and it's the
• 39:46
  same old boring rhetoric. Honestly, it's it's kind, it's
• 39:52
  kind of concerning. And bringing it back to the our
• 39:54
  conversation about spirituality, I'm I'm sure.
• 39:57
  Which city are you in right now? I'm in Allentown in
• 40:00
  Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, that's right,
• 40:02
  yeah. So what are you seeing over
• 40:05
  there in the States, like in Pennsylvania, you're walking
• 40:09
  around. When you're walking, it's it's
• 40:10
  yeah, it's a Sunday. You're walking around.
• 40:12
  You know, you're the missus. What are you seeing as you walk
• 40:16
  down the street? I mean, very much the same thing
• 40:19
  that, you know, you're talking about.
• 40:22
  And to bring it back to Attenborough and nature, you
• 40:25
  know, I think often times it's really easy to get lost in the
• 40:29
  fact that like, we are this apex, you know, human, we are
• 40:33
  different than every other animal.
• 40:34
  And we definitely are like, we are exceptionally different than
• 40:39
  every other animal on this earth in lots of ways, but we're also
• 40:45
  just the same as them. You ever see a show?
• 40:48
  It's on Netflix called Chimp Empire.
• 40:51
  No. Sounds amazing, yeah.
• 40:53
  So essentially what it is like there's these guys who spent
• 40:56
  like 1020 years like in the jungle and they were observing
• 41:02
  like a, a tribe of, of chimps and what happened?
• 41:06
  Like they, they would, they would stay just outside the
• 41:09
  border of the territory of these chimps.
• 41:12
  So the chimps got really used to them and just ignored them.
• 41:15
  So they were basically allowed to just observe for years and
• 41:21
  years what these chimps were doing and how their hierarchies
• 41:24
  worked. And they do like the exact same
• 41:27
  thing that we do, you know. So we still have 1 foot in the
• 41:31
  primate door. And I think we have to realize
• 41:35
  that about ourselves, you know, when it comes to the phones and
• 41:37
  when it comes to all the distractions, we, we are just
• 41:41
  like part primate, you know, and we are very susceptible to
• 41:46
  distractions, very susceptible to manipulation.
• 41:51
  You know, we're in, in the, in the developed nations of the
• 41:54
  world, you know, where, you know, especially in America, you
• 41:57
  know, we have this American dream.
• 41:58
  You know, you come here and you just dedicate your whole life to
• 42:02
  working. And then you can get a house and
• 42:04
  you can get a car and you can go to the grocery store and there's
• 42:07
  a million different selections of cereal and all types of, you
• 42:11
  know, and that is a distraction. It's a distraction to get people
• 42:15
  to to come here and not just people to come here, but it's a
• 42:18
  distraction for people who are already here to sacrifice 8
• 42:23
  hours or more of their day to working toward keeping the
• 42:27
  system going so that, you know, it can continue to evolve and
• 42:32
  roll and people can continue to make money.
• 42:34
  And, you know, the corporations can exist and the power
• 42:36
  structures can continue to, you know, you know, reign supreme
• 42:39
  over the people. You know, it's We are very
• 42:42
  susceptible to distractions that help us to both survive and also
• 42:50
  realize luxury in our lives. The American Dream is an
• 42:53
  interesting one because I think from what I've seen from
• 42:57
  consuming history and media over the last, let's say, 200 years
• 43:01
  of American history, seems to me as though the conventional.
• 43:08
  Actually, let me put it a better way, the American Dream is not
• 43:12
  available to everyone. It still exists.
• 43:15
  Every now and again you hear a story.
• 43:18
  The best one I can think is so random, but there's a
• 43:21
  professional wrestler called Rusev.
• 43:24
  He's from Bulgaria and I think he's been in the States since
• 43:29
  the early 20 tens. I might be wrong on that.
• 43:33
  Anyway, I think he's a American citizen now.
• 43:37
  I don't know. I can't remember exactly, but I
• 43:39
  know that he's still living and working there.
• 43:41
  And he has been, you know, well, I guess it's like 15 odd years
• 43:44
  now, give or take. And I remember when him speaking
• 43:48
  about his experiences, it very much sounded like the American
• 43:51
  dream, the way he kind of mapped it out and and said like, you
• 43:54
  know, I came here with nothing and built his career up and I've
• 43:58
  got all this and I'm like, OK, right.
• 44:00
  So it does exist on some level. But then you hear the endless
• 44:05
  stories of not just people coming over from other
• 44:08
  countries, but, you know, people born and raised in the States as
• 44:13
  well, and how everyone's struggling to make ends meet.
• 44:16
  And, you know, Healthcare is just crazy.
• 44:20
  And, and I mean, everyone that I know that used to want to travel
• 44:25
  to the States always says the same thing now, which is, oh, I
• 44:28
  don't know, man, I wouldn't want to go there now.
• 44:29
  It's not very safe. It's this, that and the other.
• 44:33
  And I, I know what they mean. You know, I think it's crazy
• 44:36
  that, OK, I don't want to get like too political here, but I
• 44:40
  just swallow it while we're on it.
• 44:42
  Like the whole school shootings thing is, is to me, it's as
• 44:49
  crazy as far as like normalization as it was when I
• 44:54
  remember the Iraq War started and how in the very beginning
• 44:59
  you'd see all the news reports and they'd take each and every
• 45:02
  single thing that happened. Like it was the most important
• 45:06
  news ever. And then within a year, like car
• 45:10
  bombing was, was like as routine as as like, oh, like the wet,
• 45:15
  the, the news. Also the weather, like, oh,
• 45:18
  today it'll be sunny, you know, like it was, it was as bland as
• 45:21
  that. And I always remember thinking
• 45:23
  like, that's crazy. What do you mean?
• 45:24
  Like a car got bombed, some people died.
• 45:28
  But and yeah, that's a comment on the news and how they present
• 45:32
  things and stuff. I know that, but it's, it's the
• 45:36
  same thing that happens all the time.
• 45:38
  And it happened with the school shootings thing.
• 45:40
  Now it's just a part of American culture, which is crazy to to
• 45:44
  say because what do you mean? It's not culture?
• 45:47
  It's but it, it happens. Now it's, if you're in a school
• 45:51
  in, in America, you have to expect that there's a big chance
• 45:56
  that someone might come in and do that.
• 45:59
  And I know through friends I know in America and just reading
• 46:02
  about things online as well. I tend to, to what my friends
• 46:05
  say though, because it's like, if you live in there, you know
• 46:08
  better than some fucking news articles like, you know what I
• 46:10
  mean, whatever. But the vibe I always seem to
• 46:13
  get from from what they say is that like there's protocol in
• 46:17
  place for stuff like that and it's just standard now.
• 46:22
  And just, you know, here's what to do in the event of this,
• 46:25
  here's where to hide, here's how to try and survive, etcetera,
• 46:28
  etcetera, etcetera. And I'm not saying it's like
• 46:31
  anything new, like it just jumped on the scene.
• 46:34
  But as we know, the, the frequency of these shootings
• 46:39
  happening has increased exponentially in the last 10
• 46:44
  years. And that, you know, there's
• 46:45
  various reasons for that, obviously, but you know, it
• 46:49
  shows you like the, the, the light where we're at in society,
• 46:55
  you know, and a lot of people just say like, oh, it's just
• 46:58
  because of guns, you ban guns. That solves the problem.
• 47:00
  I'm not so sure about that. You know, like I, I certainly it
• 47:04
  might help, but I mean, this is a whole other discussion in of
• 47:09
  itself. But there's so many things that
• 47:12
  like America is contending with, the UK is contending with right
• 47:16
  now, the whole world is contending with.
• 47:18
  And I'm really not that surprised within the wider
• 47:22
  context of, of why people are shutting down, why people are
• 47:25
  depressed, why there's so much going on now.
• 47:29
  And it it's like, maybe this is the end of the world, not
• 47:34
  necessarily going out with a Big Bang or, or, you know, some big
• 47:40
  catastrophe. Maybe it just it just slowly
• 47:43
  dies and that's the end of civilization.
• 47:48
  So with all of that stuff I just said, it's what say you, Josh?
• 47:53
  I, I will say one thing like before I go into, so I, I do
• 47:56
  love my country and I do think America is the best place in the
• 47:59
  world. I think it is the best place for
• 48:02
  opportunity for people to do what they want to do.
• 48:08
  You know, I, I believe this is the best place and I'm, I'm very
• 48:12
  happy to be here. I I love this country and I I do
• 48:16
  like talking politics too. So maybe our next episode could
• 48:18
  be politics and AI. We could, we could still get a
• 48:21
  bit. I just, I think I'm, I'm a fence
• 48:23
  sitter. People get pissed off by that,
• 48:25
  but you know, I do, I do come down.
• 48:29
  I make it known where I sit on certain issues.
• 48:31
  I had, I had to do it from the States a while back and we had a
• 48:34
  big discussion on politics. And yeah, he pushed me.
• 48:38
  Part of me, I made note of the fact that he was trying to do
• 48:41
  that. That's what he does.
• 48:42
  But he did it in a fun way. He wasn't, he wasn't
• 48:44
  disrespectful by any means. And he's an intelligent guy.
• 48:48
  And, and I said, let you know, I will come out on certain issues
• 48:52
  and say that and sometimes. But like, the whole point of
• 48:55
  being in the middle is that you have some stuff that's left,
• 49:00
  have some stuff that's right. The problem is in both of our
• 49:04
  nations right now, you get forced to pick a side.
• 49:08
  Less so in the UK, but definitely in America.
• 49:12
  It's almost like you have to. And if you don't like, it's
• 49:16
  almost like a crime. And I'm like, what do you mean
• 49:18
  like it? First of all, it should be a
• 49:19
  personal preference, whether or not you even talk about it.
• 49:22
  Secondly, if you do believe a certain thing, does that mean
• 49:27
  it's all the way? I mean, I, I don't know any, I
• 49:31
  know a lot of people that are into politics that don't
• 49:33
  necessarily agree with like everything their party comes out
• 49:36
  with. Because I mean, it almost goes
• 49:38
  back to the identity of what we were saying before.
• 49:40
  Just because you believe a certain thing doesn't mean that
• 49:42
  you are that thing. You know what I mean?
• 49:44
  I think people forget that with with politics and they say like
• 49:48
  a party manifesto, like there's a bunch of ideas generated by a
• 49:52
  lot of people and even politicians within their own
• 49:56
  party will argue over things. That's what the Senate exists
• 50:00
  for. Correct me if I'm wrong but like
• 50:04
  people argue over things and you know.
• 50:07
  The the Senate exists to take money from special interests,
• 50:10
  but that's neither here nor there.
• 50:12
  I mean, the structure of the American government is flawed,
• 50:16
  but I mean, just ultimately like to bring it back.
• 50:20
  Like I, I really do think that the whole problem that you're
• 50:24
  explaining here is a spiritual problem like our, our culture,
• 50:29
  both mine and, and yours, all of the, you know, European nations,
• 50:34
  I think the Western world, we have a diseased culture and that
• 50:40
  begins and ends with spirituality, man.
• 50:42
  I think that's what causes all of it.
• 50:44
  How do we have a disease culture?
• 50:46
  What do you mean by that statement?
• 50:48
  I think our value systems are completely skewed.
• 50:50
  We've been, you know, we've been deterred from what's important
• 50:55
  in life toward indulging in distractions.
• 51:01
  You know, I tend to align myself with like the non dual teachings
• 51:06
  of reality and philosophy. And what that teaches is is, you
• 51:11
  know, ultimately what we are is peace.
• 51:13
  You know, what we are is something that exists beyond the
• 51:17
  physical, something that exists beyond who we think we are and
• 51:20
  that exists beyond the chase for happiness and the avoidance of
• 51:25
  pain. And we get caught in that loop,
• 51:27
  I think too dramatically in cultures like ours, you know,
• 51:32
  again, you know, where we are obsessed with avoiding pain and
• 51:37
  we are obsessed with seeking out happiness.
• 51:40
  And those two things, they, they're impermanent.
• 51:44
  They don't, they don't actually last.
• 51:46
  You know, pain doesn't last when you, when, when you're in pain.
• 51:52
  I mean, generally, in a general sense, pain ends.
• 51:56
  You stub your toe, it hurts for a little while, but then it goes
• 51:59
  away. And even more so with happiness.
• 52:03
  You seek something that makes you happy, and then that
• 52:06
  happiness slowly fades. And what that does is like a
• 52:09
  cyclical thing where like you're just, you're in this cycle of
• 52:15
  avoiding pain and seeking happiness.
• 52:18
  And those two emotional states, they're distractions from what's
• 52:21
  real anyway, which is who you are, the peace within your,
• 52:24
  yourself, your, your true nature.
• 52:27
  And again, I think these distractions are we're, we're
• 52:30
  just getting caught in them too fiercely.
• 52:33
  Let's jump into Vilma's questions and see what she
• 52:37
  wanted to ask you. So I feel like she always has
• 52:39
  some interesting. For pockets and stuff.
• 52:42
  When your energy feels off, what's the first thing you do to
• 52:47
  reset it? Man, well, first I noticed that
• 52:51
  I'm feeling sorry for myself. That's a big thing because
• 52:55
  that's what we all do when we're in pain, we feel, we start to
• 52:58
  feel sorry for ourselves. And then I, I stop in my tracks
• 53:02
  and I'm like, OK, stop feeling sorry for yourself 1st.
• 53:06
  And like just I, I think one of the biggest tools that we have
• 53:11
  is our breath, like you were saying with meditation and, and
• 53:14
  you don't have to meditate to do it.
• 53:16
  Just breathe for a second, you know, and center yourself back
• 53:20
  to who you are, to what you know is real.
• 53:22
  And I always I reference my spiritual experiences and what I
• 53:29
  know spirit to be and that helps me to center back into myself.
• 53:35
  And again, as I had mentioned before, instead of being
• 53:37
  reactive to whatever the situation is and whatever
• 53:40
  emotional content is coming up from it, I then try to try is
• 53:45
  the keyword here. I try to be more responsive to
• 53:50
  that as opposed to reactive. And what that means a lot of
• 53:54
  times is separating myself from the emotions that whatever the
• 53:58
  situation brings up. And again, trying to, because
• 54:01
  there is no such thing as like not feeling emotion.
• 54:04
  Like, you're going to feel the emotion, of course, but what
• 54:08
  matters is what comes next after you feel that emotion.
• 54:12
  What moment in your life made you feel like there's more than
• 54:15
  just the physical world? Well, man, my psychedelic
• 54:19
  experiences too. My, my, my transcendent
• 54:22
  experiences. You know which.
• 54:25
  Man, I, I'll, I'll interject as well.
• 54:26
  We covered this in quite a lot of detail in Josh's first
• 54:32
  appearance on my podcast and we've done a bunch of shows
• 54:35
  together. So if you're enjoying this and
• 54:38
  you want to kind of see our history together and I, I
• 54:42
  appeared on your show I think once at least remember correctly
• 54:46
  today. Twice, yeah, I believe twice,
• 54:48
  yeah. Yeah, got that.
• 54:50
  Thank you for that. But yeah, we we talked all sorts
• 54:52
  of things. But that very first episode I
• 54:54
  think is a really good insight into Josh's experience, who he
• 55:01
  is as a person, if that's not already coming across right now.
• 55:05
  And that, yeah, that specific experience which just sounded
• 55:08
  beautiful and was very thought provoking.
• 55:12
  But yeah, so as you were saying, that was kind of for you the
• 55:16
  first time. It was more than just the
• 55:18
  physical world then. Yeah, there have.
• 55:20
  There have been many of them. And, you know, aside from that,
• 55:25
  you know, being with the people that I love, you know,
• 55:29
  witnessing my dog, that's a big one, really big one.
• 55:33
  Witnessing an animal that celebrates everything.
• 55:38
  You know, I leave the room for 30 seconds and I come back and
• 55:42
  he's pumped. He's celebrating, you know, dogs
• 55:45
  they are, they celebrate every moment.
• 55:48
  And I think we have a lot to learn about appreciation of
• 55:52
  every of every second of every day that we can gain from just
• 55:56
  observing dogs. Be fair though, when you don't
• 55:59
  have to pay rent and you just sit around all day and you get
• 56:03
  like fed whenever you want. Like it's probably very easy to
• 56:06
  not have to worry about life's problems.
• 56:08
  I mean, what's the biggest problem a dog has?
• 56:10
  Well, I mean, they, they have their own set of problems.
• 56:13
  You know, I think of like, I mean, I think of the children,
• 56:17
  you know, like children don't pay rent.
• 56:19
  Children don't have problems. But when you're like, if you
• 56:22
  think back to when you were a kid, like think back to when you
• 56:25
  were in like middle school or something, you know, when you're
• 56:28
  like 1314, you know, the, the little problems that you have
• 56:34
  when you were younger, they seemed gargantuan because it's
• 56:38
  always just a matter of perspective, you know?
• 56:40
  So from a dogs perspective, it might be a big problem if they
• 56:44
  don't get to pee right on time and they don't get fed right on
• 56:48
  time, it might be a big problem for them.
• 56:49
  Or if you leave the house for a day or so or for a few hours,
• 56:54
  you know, they're, they're just distraught.
• 56:56
  That's the worst thing that can happen.
• 56:58
  Or a storm is outside or something, or fireworks.
• 57:01
  Like it's all a matter to me of, of perspective, you know, like
• 57:04
  these problems seem huge to a dog, just the way that my
• 57:08
  problems seem huge to me or my problems when I was a teenager
• 57:12
  seemed huge at the time. No, I appreciate what you're
• 57:15
  saying and I don't mean to demean like or let try and
• 57:19
  lessen how they perceive things or, or, or or whatnot.
• 57:24
  I guess I'm trying to do it tongue in cheek, but it was to
• 57:26
  say that like, you know, they're not having to contend with these
• 57:30
  things. Therefore it's much easier for
• 57:32
  them to live in the moment and be happy because that's all they
• 57:37
  really know. However, you know, you raise a
• 57:39
  good point. You know, who are they and how
• 57:41
  do they exist when they're on their own and and you go away
• 57:45
  and it like we, we know this, we know what happens, especially
• 57:49
  with dogs, cats too, they get depressed.
• 57:53
  They don't really understand. They think you're going to come
• 57:56
  back and you don't. And the longer it takes, the
• 57:59
  more they're like, I don't, I don't understand.
• 58:04
  Seems to be that there's like varying levels of intelligence.
• 58:08
  So some dogs and cats and whatever understand.
• 58:11
  Oh, the human will come back, but after a certain amount of
• 58:13
  time, we'll go back to the time thing in a second.
• 58:16
  But some of them just genuinely don't.
• 58:20
  And they think that every day, every day that you do that
• 58:22
  you're you've abandoned and Oh my God, they've come back.
• 58:25
  Oh my God. And you know, they're just
• 58:28
  obsessed with you because they don't want you to leave, which
• 58:30
  is fucking heartbreak again. But I get it, you know, maybe
• 58:34
  they just don't know like because, you know, it's not like
• 58:37
  you can explain it to them. You could try, I guess, but I
• 58:40
  don't know if they'd really necessarily get it.
• 58:45
  Now, the time issue, I think that's a really good point.
• 58:48
  I've noticed, yeah, dogs, cats are very punctual about when
• 58:53
  they get fed, when there's a walk time, stuff like that.
• 58:59
  I don't know if that if it's just they have their own clock
• 59:03
  or if it's more just kind of they get used to a schedule.
• 59:07
  I guess that it would make sense because, you know, we have
• 59:09
  sleeping patterns. We can train our bodies.
• 59:11
  I think it stands to reason that animals can do the same thing.
• 59:17
  And I think it also stands to reason that like dogs, cats,
• 59:20
  etcetera, all have varying levels of intelligence, just
• 59:23
  like human beings. Some human beings, super
• 59:25
  intelligent, some in human beings, fucking morons, and some
• 59:29
  are in the middle. You know, I think, you know, we
• 59:34
  can be really great in one area and not so in another area.
• 59:36
  And you again, you see that with animals too.
• 59:38
  You know, they might have a really great sense of smell, but
• 59:40
  no spatial awareness, you know, just whatever.
• 59:46
  I, I, I'm right there with you. And the whole energy debate
• 59:48
  thing. I think it's amazing, especially
• 59:51
  with dogs. But then cats are interesting
• 59:53
  too because they've got that calming energy.
• 59:55
  I feel more, I feel like I'm more in common with cats.
• 59:58
  I love dogs because I love their energy.
• 1:00:00
  Every time I see a dog I get really excited and they're like
• 1:00:05
  just, I'm definitely going to have dogs when I'm older.
• 1:00:10
  But I like cats because cats are just chill.
• 1:00:13
  You know, and I think that's why cats like me as well, because
• 1:00:15
  I'm not like running around crazy.
• 1:00:17
  I'm like and the cat's like. Oh yes, I I also too like to.
• 1:00:23
  There's nothing quite as comforting as a cat's purr.
• 1:00:26
  You know, cat laying on you or something and purring.
• 1:00:29
  It's like just great. Love it.
• 1:00:32
  It's got healing properties as well, apparently.
• 1:00:34
  Yeah, if they do that, it actually heals you, apparently.
• 1:00:38
  Do you think our thoughts create energy around us, or does our
• 1:00:41
  energy shape our thoughts first? Oh, interesting.
• 1:00:47
  Well, you know, not to like cop out, but I think it's a paradox.
• 1:00:51
  I'd, I'd say both. And then I also would think
• 1:00:54
  like. So when I, when I think of this
• 1:00:57
  question, I think my definition of energy could be different
• 1:01:03
  than someone else's definition of, of energy.
• 1:01:05
  Energy is such like an arbitrary word that we use to convey
• 1:01:09
  something that is unspeakable. You know, it's something that we
• 1:01:13
  can only feel and experience. So I do believe in the existence
• 1:01:17
  of what we call energy. And I feel that you can feel
• 1:01:23
  somebody else's emotional state based off of the energy that
• 1:01:27
  they're exuding when it comes to your own thoughts.
• 1:01:31
  I, I for sure believe that they exist or I think they, they
• 1:01:36
  emerge out of your state of energy more so than they create
• 1:01:43
  your state of energy, if that makes sense.
• 1:01:45
  I think the energy that you exude based off of your thoughts
• 1:01:51
  and your emotions can affect somebody else's like field of
• 1:01:54
  energy. But I think ultimately it
• 1:01:58
  resides within you and within your like.
• 1:02:01
  It comes from your your state of emotion, your state of of mind,
• 1:02:08
  of awareness. What daily practice makes you
• 1:02:10
  feel most connected to existence, Like you're part of
• 1:02:14
  something bigger than just yourself?
• 1:02:15
  I think gratitude is a huge one. Just having gratitude again,
• 1:02:20
  like looking into my dog's eyes and just seeing, you know, like
• 1:02:23
  he's having gratitude for him being alive.
• 1:02:25
  You know, just hugging my fiance and just being so grateful that
• 1:02:28
  she's in my life and that, you know, I'm alive here.
• 1:02:31
  Breathing, you know, again, that I'm in America.
• 1:02:33
  I'm so lucky, you know, I could be in Gaza right now just
• 1:02:37
  getting, you know, annihilated by bombs.
• 1:02:41
  I could be in, you know, any other place in the world where
• 1:02:44
  things are just not as easy and luxurious as being here.
• 1:02:49
  So yes, I think gratitude is the biggest one and that can be
• 1:02:54
  practiced anytime, you know, whenever I'm feeling, you know,
• 1:02:57
  kind of to go back to one of the other questions of, you know,
• 1:03:00
  what I kind of do when I feel not so aligned is just sit,
• 1:03:06
  breathe and be and be grateful. Because I think gratitude is one
• 1:03:10
  of the biggest things that we ignore, you know, because we're
• 1:03:13
  we're kind of taught to like appreciate, of course, but then
• 1:03:17
  to move on right away. You know, it's this quick hit
• 1:03:20
  culture, you know, of like Instagram scrolling, you know,
• 1:03:23
  you see one reel and then you have your emotional thought and
• 1:03:26
  then you go to the next one, go to the next one, go to the next
• 1:03:28
  one. It's like slot machine mentality
• 1:03:29
  of life. But I think just kind of being
• 1:03:33
  present and grateful changes everything.
• 1:03:36
  It can change your emotional state in an instant.
• 1:03:38
  Do you think we choose the people we meet or does the
• 1:03:42
  universe send them to us because we always meet them in every
• 1:03:46
  single life? Such a cool question.
• 1:03:50
  I do tend to believe in like the concept of soul mates, not in
• 1:04:00
  the way that like there's like you just have one soulmate and
• 1:04:03
  it's like the person that you're romantically involved with.
• 1:04:06
  I do think that there's that. But I think that soulmates
• 1:04:12
  manifest in reality throughout each incarnation.
• 1:04:15
  And this sort of goes back to like I have like this
• 1:04:18
  philosophical belief in sort of like a reincarnation, rebirth
• 1:04:22
  sort of philosophy that like the Buddhist layout or the Hindus
• 1:04:26
  layout. I have a little more of a
• 1:04:28
  nuanced way of thinking about it than than them.
• 1:04:32
  Just because I'm an American and I'm, you know, have my own
• 1:04:35
  thoughts. I know that I'm wrong.
• 1:04:38
  That's number one, because nobody can be be correct in this
• 1:04:41
  because there's no way of knowing.
• 1:04:42
  But I do believe that throughout each incarnation that a person
• 1:04:48
  has, there are a specific, like amount of quote UN quote souls
• 1:04:55
  that manifest themselves as people in each of your lives.
• 1:04:59
  And what they're meant to do is to teach you something.
• 1:05:04
  Because ultimately, I do kind of believe that the meaning of life
• 1:05:07
  is to understand and to learn. And I think that other people
• 1:05:12
  are in one way they are vehicles for that learning.
• 1:05:19
  I'll throw my two cents on this as well.
• 1:05:22
  I think I, I think it, it does happen.
• 1:05:27
  I think we do meet people that we've met before.
• 1:05:32
  There's been people I've met over the years.
• 1:05:34
  It's interesting. Well, I clicked with them
• 1:05:37
  instantly and some of them became friends for a time,
• 1:05:41
  others didn't. The ones that didn't like
• 1:05:46
  there's these potential love interests.
• 1:05:48
  I, I remember one time I was, I was shooting film in Estonia and
• 1:05:53
  there was this woman on the production and she was married
• 1:05:56
  woman in the 40s or something. And we were just chatting and
• 1:06:02
  hitting it off, but not flirting or anything.
• 1:06:04
  Like I mean, I knew she was married and stuff.
• 1:06:07
  I wasn't trying to hit on her or anything, but it was
• 1:06:10
  interesting. Like I can't remember if it was
• 1:06:12
  said or implied or if we spoke about it exactly in these words,
• 1:06:16
  but it was kind of said that like in another lifetime, we
• 1:06:20
  were probably married or connected in some way.
• 1:06:23
  You could just feel it. You just knew, you know, I was
• 1:06:27
  like, I know you know, in this life, but I know you.
• 1:06:31
  I know your energy. And like, that comes all down to
• 1:06:34
  belief. For anyone who doesn't believe
• 1:06:37
  in this, it feels crazy. But then I I ask you this, if,
• 1:06:42
  if it's so crazy, have you ever had an experience where you felt
• 1:06:46
  like you knew someone or your energy was immediately shunted,
• 1:06:52
  changed off because of the influence of someone else?
• 1:06:56
  I've walked into rooms before and someone's energy has been
• 1:06:59
  off and it affected me. I just knew that they were bad
• 1:07:01
  news. I could just feel it.
• 1:07:04
  And there's no rational reason for that.
• 1:07:06
  There's no logical scientifical reason for that.
• 1:07:09
  But something was off. Some things, I think, lead you
• 1:07:12
  to believe there's more at work than maybe we know, than we
• 1:07:16
  realize. I don't know.
• 1:07:18
  Do you think our desires are guiding us towards our real
• 1:07:22
  purpose or sometimes distracting us?
• 1:07:24
  I'm sorry, can you repeat the question I you cut out for a
• 1:07:27
  second? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:29
  So do you think our desires are guiding us towards our real
• 1:07:33
  purpose or sometimes distracting us?
• 1:07:37
  I think mostly they're distracting us because our,
• 1:07:40
  again, you know, I think our desires are linked to our
• 1:07:43
  preferences. And when we identify too deeply
• 1:07:48
  with those desires and with those preferences, it separates
• 1:07:51
  ourselves from ourselves and from what's real, I think
• 1:07:55
  because again, like, you know, desires are generally, you know,
• 1:07:58
  can be broken down into avoiding pain and seeking out happiness
• 1:08:04
  because what do you desire ultimately?
• 1:08:06
  You know, like if I'm desiring a particular food, you know, say
• 1:08:11
  I'm hungry and I'm, I'm desiring, you know, pizza, I'm
• 1:08:14
  desiring that pizza because I know that I'm going to be happy
• 1:08:17
  and satisfied when I get the taste of that pizza.
• 1:08:20
  You know what I mean? These are preferences.
• 1:08:22
  These are things that exist externally from ourselves that
• 1:08:24
  if we identify too much with, they become distractions.
• 1:08:30
  So yeah, that's what I think. That's a fascinating way of
• 1:08:34
  looking at it, almost like the kind of the needs versus desires
• 1:08:37
  argument. And I, I thought about this a
• 1:08:42
  lot. If things would work out for me,
• 1:08:44
  would I truly be happy? And when I look at like what I
• 1:08:47
  want versus what I need, I mean, I don't need a lot to be happy,
• 1:08:52
  but I know that the things that I'm struggling with are things
• 1:08:56
  that I hate. I want to remove those things
• 1:08:59
  from my life and replace them with things I love.
• 1:09:02
  That to me seems very straightforward.
• 1:09:05
  In reality, it's not because it involves finding work and a
• 1:09:09
  lifestyle that would permit me to live as I wish to live and to
• 1:09:14
  create as I wish to create. But I know what you're saying
• 1:09:18
  because I think people misunderstood me over the years
• 1:09:20
  of my goals, that they think I want to be like famous or super
• 1:09:23
  rich or whatever. And it's like, no, I don't care
• 1:09:26
  about fame. I'd like to be secure.
• 1:09:29
  Like who wouldn't? But more so like just able to do
• 1:09:34
  what I need to do than anything else.
• 1:09:37
  You know, I think with me, like things like customer service
• 1:09:40
  kind of bring out the worst in me.
• 1:09:43
  They push me beyond my limits. And you find yourself kind of
• 1:09:46
  just exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally
• 1:09:50
  afterwards, you know, there's you just got nothing left.
• 1:09:53
  Like I've been running on reserves for like a year and a
• 1:09:55
  half now. It's bad.
• 1:10:00
  I mean, you've exhausted all options and you've gone through
• 1:10:02
  all the emotional circles. I guess you get to a point where
• 1:10:07
  of clarity where you're kind of you're just here, you're just
• 1:10:11
  trying, but you you've got nothing left really.
• 1:10:16
  No, it's interesting, you know, people ask how are you?
• 1:10:20
  I don't really know how to respond to that question, if I'm
• 1:10:23
  honest. I say very bad.
• 1:10:26
  And then it starts going into solution mode.
• 1:10:28
  Well, have you tried this? Have you tried this?
• 1:10:30
  Have you tried this? And I'm like, yeah, none of that
• 1:10:34
  worked or I wouldn't do that because it may be miserable or,
• 1:10:38
  you know, it's the same old stuff and people are trying to
• 1:10:41
  help. I get it.
• 1:10:42
  But maybe they don't see the whole journey.
• 1:10:44
  I don't know. It's, it's not their journey to,
• 1:10:46
  to get to figure out or solve, but it's, you know, it's
• 1:10:49
  interesting watching the journeys of everyone else and
• 1:10:53
  then looking at your own journey and wondering, is there light at
• 1:10:56
  the end of that tunnel? Where does it, where, where is
• 1:10:59
  it? How long am I going to be on
• 1:11:02
  this journey? Am I going to make it?
• 1:11:05
  That's something I think about a lot is if I stay on this train
• 1:11:09
  long enough, will I make it to my destination?
• 1:11:13
  Or am I just going to kind of derail and and not make it, you
• 1:11:18
  know? Reminds me of earlier when I was
• 1:11:21
  saying, you know, we're on rails, like we're ultimately all
• 1:11:25
  going towards something, you know, we're on our way and we're
• 1:11:28
  going to end up somewhere. That's funny.
• 1:11:31
  Just you just reminded me of there's this, you know, this
• 1:11:34
  Eminem lyric. It's a very subtle lyric in one
• 1:11:37
  of his earlier songs. And he says, you know, I got
• 1:11:40
  problems. Everybody on my blocks got them,
• 1:11:42
  you know, And it kind of makes me realize and identify as like,
• 1:11:46
  you know, we all do have problems and everybody has
• 1:11:51
  problems. Everybody is like their own
• 1:11:53
  individual like universe of loves and desires and problems.
• 1:11:59
  And it's super interesting to sort of try to put yourself in
• 1:12:03
  somebody else's shoes and you bring up like getting into
• 1:12:07
  solution mode. You know, if somebody asks you
• 1:12:09
  how you're doing, you're like, I'm just not doing good, man.
• 1:12:12
  And they're just, you know, they go right into solution mode.
• 1:12:14
  Like have you tried this? Have you tried that?
• 1:12:17
  And this is where I like if I ask or if somebody says that to
• 1:12:20
  me, like if I just say, you know, have you tried again being
• 1:12:23
  grateful, you know, have you tried the gratitude thing?
• 1:12:27
  Because the solution aspect of it always comes from a, from a,
• 1:12:32
  a position of like, we're going to try to get rid of your
• 1:12:34
  problems. You know, the solution is to get
• 1:12:36
  rid of your problems. But in reality, that's not
• 1:12:39
  always a solution. You know, if you're stuck in a
• 1:12:42
  situation where you're working a shitty job that you hate, but
• 1:12:45
  you have to pay your bills, like, is someone just going to
• 1:12:48
  be like, oh, the way to do that is quit your job and do this.
• 1:12:50
  And like, that's not helpful, you know?
• 1:12:52
  But I think the only thing that you can do to make yourself at
• 1:12:56
  least feel better in the situation that you're in and to,
• 1:12:58
  again, approach it in a more responsive way is to just to
• 1:13:01
  sort of be grateful for the things that are in your life
• 1:13:05
  that you can be grateful for. Because I think a lot of times
• 1:13:08
  what we do is we, we focus so heavily on again, like our
• 1:13:12
  preferences on what we think the world should be like and how we
• 1:13:16
  want our lives to be. We we focus so heavily on that,
• 1:13:21
  that it takes away our attention from the things in life that are
• 1:13:25
  good and that we do need to appreciate and be grateful for,
• 1:13:29
  you know? What I tend to do is the old
• 1:13:33
  cliche live in the moment thing. Yeah.
• 1:13:35
  So whatever I'm doing in the moment, I make that my complete
• 1:13:41
  and utter focus. You know, like, for instance,
• 1:13:46
  we're doing this lovely podcast right now.
• 1:13:48
  We happen to come across this topic, you know, we'll move on
• 1:13:51
  to the next topic and so on. It'll come up and I, I'll give
• 1:13:55
  it, it's time for as long as it needs to be spoken and then I'll
• 1:13:59
  move on. I think if you reflect too much
• 1:14:01
  on this stuff, like you mentioned earlier, it can break
• 1:14:04
  you down, it can destroy you. I try not to run away from my
• 1:14:08
  problems. If people ask me about them, I
• 1:14:11
  will talk about them, but I always, especially in live
• 1:14:14
  streams when people have asked me, I'll always find like
• 1:14:17
  there's a a wall. There's like a moment where it's
• 1:14:20
  like, OK, we've talked enough now time to move on.
• 1:14:24
  You know, because it's it becomes dwelling, it becomes
• 1:14:29
  self-serving. It's it's not problem is a
• 1:14:32
  problem. You know, it's no matter talking
• 1:14:35
  about it is going to change it. And this whole living in the
• 1:14:39
  moment thing, I mean, I've practiced the whole gratitude
• 1:14:41
  thing and it does work. I remember my ex's father.
• 1:14:46
  I've told this story before. I'm a cop during the Soviet era.
• 1:14:52
  We were sat across the dinner table from each other and we're
• 1:14:55
  eating and I was full. I couldn't really eat much that
• 1:15:01
  night. And he was like, aren't you
• 1:15:03
  going to eat? I was like, oh, I'm just not
• 1:15:06
  that hungry. And he's like, you should eat.
• 1:15:09
  Never know when your next meal is coming.
• 1:15:10
  And it just hit me like a train because I knew that this was a
• 1:15:15
  man. Like when he says something like
• 1:15:17
  that, you knew that he had gone without food for long periods of
• 1:15:22
  time. And like every time he got food
• 1:15:24
  was was like a blessing. And he wasn't a religious man or
• 1:15:27
  anything. He just had seen some shit,
• 1:15:29
  experienced the worst of life, and now I've been there, man.
• 1:15:34
  I've been in positions even recently where it's just like no
• 1:15:38
  food, nothing going on. You're struggling to make ends
• 1:15:41
  meet and things get better, then they get worse, then they get
• 1:15:45
  better, then they get worse, and that's life.
• 1:15:50
  Having a matter of perspective does help things, I think.
• 1:15:56
  It doesn't change the problems, but you know, you are always
• 1:16:01
  able to control your reaction to things.
• 1:16:03
  It's the one blessing of free will, I guess, is your ability
• 1:16:07
  to be able to do that. And I look at things like
• 1:16:12
  bringing it back to living in the moment, right?
• 1:16:15
  I think your attitude for the most part, it can work against
• 1:16:20
  you if you carry yourself in a manner like everything is
• 1:16:24
  terrible, life is terrible or it sucks.
• 1:16:27
  It sucks, worries me. People just won't like you.
• 1:16:30
  People would just find you like just boring.
• 1:16:34
  And I've said, I've said this in live streams when people come
• 1:16:36
  in, they're like, oh, all you do is complain.
• 1:16:38
  I'm like, you've been here 5 minutes.
• 1:16:41
  Were you here the last three times?
• 1:16:45
  I I streamed where you hear the whole hour?
• 1:16:47
  No, you had five minutes of like a 2 hour conversation, you know,
• 1:16:52
  and the five minutes is a quick reflection.
• 1:16:55
  It's not the, it's not life. Like I always choose to
• 1:16:59
  compartmentalize my problems and put them in a box.
• 1:17:02
  Like when I go out this evening, I'm not going to be thinking
• 1:17:04
  about my problems. I'm going to be going out and
• 1:17:06
  watching a kick ass band. Then I come home.
• 1:17:09
  Maybe then I'll think about my problems.
• 1:17:10
  I don't know, hopefully I won't. But you know, it's like, you
• 1:17:15
  know what I'm saying, right? Like you, just I want to spend
• 1:17:17
  my energy on on more enjoyable shit than worrying about things
• 1:17:22
  going wrong because there'll always be problems.
• 1:17:26
  There'll always be things going wrong.
• 1:17:28
  Everyone has problems. Like you said.
• 1:17:30
  I think that's why people come to my live streams a lot of the
• 1:17:34
  time is because they're all experiencing some stuff.
• 1:17:39
  Like some of them I know we're experiencing some really tough
• 1:17:42
  times and they come to my stream and they get a bit of humour,
• 1:17:45
  they get maybe some sarcasm. I'm getting much more sarcastic
• 1:17:49
  as I get older. That's a good coping mechanism,
• 1:17:51
  sarcasm. I feel humour, dark humour,
• 1:17:54
  especially if you can laugh at your problems.
• 1:17:57
  I know therapists have a field day with that but I don't care
• 1:18:01
  man. It's you know therapy is too
• 1:18:03
  expensive. Y'all don't care.
• 1:18:05
  You get paid by the hour and dark jokes make everything
• 1:18:09
  better. It's just the way it works.
• 1:18:14
  I'm with you man, and I know I'll say one more thing on this
• 1:18:16
  again, just like any chance I get to to plug my psychedelic
• 1:18:20
  experiences I'll do. Hell yeah, no.
• 1:18:23
  But man, I just having the experience and this is like not
• 1:18:27
  the sound too like born again Christian, but like having the
• 1:18:31
  experience of like connecting with what we would call God,
• 1:18:38
  being able to reflect back on that.
• 1:18:41
  That's not another thing that works along with gratitude that
• 1:18:45
  comes with the gratitude is, is knowing, just knowing that that
• 1:18:48
  thing exists, you know, knowing that God is real or whatever you
• 1:18:54
  want to call it. It just being able to reflect on
• 1:18:57
  that thought. Just it changes everything.
• 1:18:59
  That's just that's how powerful it can be.
• 1:19:02
  Hold up a second. I know essentially what you're
• 1:19:05
  saying is, you know, you're like me, agnostic, don't necessarily
• 1:19:09
  believe one way or another, but you kind of saying like during
• 1:19:12
  that experience you maybe question the existence of God.
• 1:19:15
  Not questioned. It's it's it's shown to you that
• 1:19:19
  this is a real thing. Like without a, without a doubt
• 1:19:23
  there's. No doubt, but back back up a
• 1:19:25
  second. Are you saying that when you had
• 1:19:27
  your experience that it showed you that God is real or exists?
• 1:19:34
  Absolutely. But it also redefined what God
• 1:19:38
  is, because we're always told that God is like some dude in
• 1:19:42
  the sky with a big beard who's judging you for all of your
• 1:19:45
  actions, and then you know he's going to ultimately judge
• 1:19:47
  whether or not you get to go to the good place or the bad place.
• 1:19:50
  That is not God to me. What I was shown was that God
• 1:19:55
  and like the reason I use God as the word is because it's the
• 1:19:58
  only word in the English language that can convey what it
• 1:20:02
  is that we're speaking about this like transcendent other,
• 1:20:07
  you know, this mystical transcendent intelligence.
• 1:20:11
  But it yes, it was shown to me that without a without a doubt,
• 1:20:14
  if there's anything that I believe to be true in my life,
• 1:20:17
  it is that there is. That thing, you can call it God.
• 1:20:21
  I'll call it God just because it's the word that we all know
• 1:20:24
  it as. But 100% I'm more sure about
• 1:20:27
  that than anything in my life. What made you so sure?
• 1:20:32
  Being able to experience it because you can.
• 1:20:36
  It's what they call ineffable. You know, you can describe
• 1:20:39
  certain things to people. Like, imagine this, I, I like to
• 1:20:45
  compare it to sex. OK, imagine if someone told you
• 1:20:48
  about what sex was, but you never had it.
• 1:20:51
  You'd never know it. You'd never, you would have this
• 1:20:54
  like arbitrary idea of what it might be like you'd, you would,
• 1:20:58
  you'd reflect back on the words people told you about it and
• 1:21:01
  you'd form an opinion on what you think it might be.
• 1:21:03
  And then maybe your opinion would get really, really strong
• 1:21:05
  and you'd be, and you'd start telling other people what you
• 1:21:07
  thought it was. But unless you actually have it,
• 1:21:10
  unless you have the experience of it, you have no idea of what
• 1:21:14
  it is. And that is what God is to me.
• 1:21:18
  It is something to experience. It's something to to be, not to
• 1:21:25
  know. Now that's interesting.
• 1:21:28
  State of consciousness maybe? Because you feel it in you like
• 1:21:33
  it. It's it's not something again,
• 1:21:35
  that is external from you. It is something that is arising
• 1:21:38
  from you, from it. It, it exists within you and it
• 1:21:43
  feels when you connect with it, it feels more real than this
• 1:21:50
  reality is like when I look externally at the walls around
• 1:21:53
  me and whatever, it's more real than that.
• 1:21:56
  It's real on a deeper level than what we currently define as
• 1:22:00
  reality, which is why I call it God.
• 1:22:03
  It's a transcendent. It's not a place.
• 1:22:06
  It's almost like it's a transcendent reality that is
• 1:22:09
  here right now. It's in, through and all around
• 1:22:13
  everything. It doesn't exist somewhere
• 1:22:15
  externally. It's not a place you go.
• 1:22:18
  It's something that you remember.
• 1:22:21
  Even it feels familiar. It's almost like the people call
• 1:22:25
  it source. I like that word for it.
• 1:22:27
  Source. It's like the source of all
• 1:22:28
  things, Source of you, yourself, of soul, of life, of nature.
• 1:22:33
  It's, it's very hard to describe, but that's because
• 1:22:38
  it's, it's impossible to put into words.
• 1:22:41
  It's only understandable through direct experience.
• 1:22:45
  My, my, my brother, he always has this, he has this quote.
• 1:22:48
  He says experience is king. And I I love that.
• 1:22:50
  Have you experienced the concept of God more than once then?
• 1:22:57
  Yes, many times. It's was every.
• 1:22:59
  Time the same, similar. The essence of it is similar,
• 1:23:05
  but a lot it, it's, it's different, but it's also the
• 1:23:08
  same. It presents itself differently
• 1:23:10
  each time, but it's a recreative experience.
• 1:23:14
  It's, it's the reason why I take psychedelics.
• 1:23:18
  You know, I never got into psychedelics for fun.
• 1:23:23
  I never, you know, went to a party and took mushrooms and was
• 1:23:27
  like, yeah, this is awesome. And like, that was never, ever
• 1:23:29
  my intention. Not not once.
• 1:23:32
  I've only ever taken psychedelics with the intention
• 1:23:35
  of connecting with myself and with the transcendent God or
• 1:23:39
  whatever you want to call it, because that was my introduction
• 1:23:42
  to the substance. I never, I don't have an
• 1:23:44
  interest in drugs. I mean, full disclaimer, I like
• 1:23:47
  marijuana, but who doesn't? But I don't do drugs.
• 1:23:51
  I've never done cocaine or any opiates or any.
• 1:23:53
  I've never done drugs. I just don't have an interest in
• 1:23:56
  that. But I do have an interest in
• 1:23:58
  understanding and learning and spirituality and philosophy.
• 1:24:02
  And through my studies, I came across, you know, people who
• 1:24:06
  have used these substances, you know, to achieve just that and,
• 1:24:10
  you know, ancient cultures over thousands of years who have done
• 1:24:13
  it. And then I decided to sort of
• 1:24:15
  break my preconceived notions of what these things were.
• 1:24:19
  And instead of labeling them as drugs in the same category as
• 1:24:22
  the rest of them, I thought maybe these are Sacramento
• 1:24:25
  substances that can be used in, you know, a more responsible
• 1:24:28
  way. And it turns out they can be.
• 1:24:30
  And they have been for thousands of years.
• 1:24:32
  In each of these instances where you felt like you had an
• 1:24:34
  experience or an encounter with God, did you, did they talk to
• 1:24:43
  you? Was there a conversation or a
• 1:24:48
  dialogue and understanding anything like that?
• 1:24:51
  Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it is a direct
• 1:24:56
  experience of merging with a, a, like a, a level of consciousness
• 1:25:01
  that exists beyond words. And then sometimes it sort of
• 1:25:07
  comes down to your level and manifests itself in like a
• 1:25:12
  dialogue like you said. I had one experience.
• 1:25:16
  It was really, really cool. It was on.
• 1:25:17
  Like it wasn't on an insanely high dose, but it was a pretty
• 1:25:20
  high dose where I, you know, a lot of times what happens in the
• 1:25:24
  beginning is like this anxiety comes up and you start to get
• 1:25:27
  like scared and the alarm bells in your mind start going off
• 1:25:30
  because of your default mode network and your consciousness
• 1:25:33
  are shifting. So it's like a panicky feeling,
• 1:25:37
  at least for me. And then when you get through
• 1:25:39
  that and you sort of breakthrough into like the
• 1:25:42
  experience for what it is at its quote, UN quote peak.
• 1:25:45
  The one time it came to me as like this dialogue where it was
• 1:25:49
  just like I connected with this universal mind.
• 1:25:52
  And it was like it like said to me in plain English, like it in
• 1:25:56
  like in my mind, you know, you can ask me anything like I am
• 1:26:00
  this ultra intelligence of the universe, like ask me a question
• 1:26:03
  like he, that's what you're here for, right to learn.
• 1:26:05
  So ask me anything. And it's very gesturey.
• 1:26:08
  It's very, very like playful. And I would ask it a question
• 1:26:12
  and it would be like, that's too human of a question.
• 1:26:14
  Like I can't, I can't answer that in in English for you, But
• 1:26:19
  let me give you this. And it like gave me this
• 1:26:21
  experience, this feeling of being the answer to the
• 1:26:25
  question. And that was an answer like that
• 1:26:29
  was the answer that I needed as in an experience that existed
• 1:26:35
  beyond the words that could like, give me this human answer
• 1:26:40
  that I was, that I was seeking. And it happened over and over.
• 1:26:43
  I'd be like, OK, oh, that's awesome.
• 1:26:45
  And I was like, OK, so then what about this question?
• 1:26:47
  And it would wink at me and say, Nope, can't give you that answer
• 1:26:49
  in English. But here's this experience.
• 1:26:51
  And it gave me like a, you know, an experience that felt like it
• 1:26:56
  would lasted in eternity, but it was like a minute.
• 1:26:58
  That's not another thing about time.
• 1:26:59
  It's very interesting. But I hope that answered the
• 1:27:02
  question. So the with those experiences,
• 1:27:05
  did you walk away with an actual answer when you were like awake
• 1:27:10
  or like what? Yes and no.
• 1:27:15
  I walk away with a recontextualization of what the
• 1:27:20
  question is, where it's coming from, and why I'm asking it.
• 1:27:23
  This a lot of times goes back to the preferences because I'll ask
• 1:27:28
  a question and the reason I ask that question is because I want
• 1:27:31
  to know. I have a preference as to
• 1:27:33
  whether or not I know a particular thing, whether or not
• 1:27:36
  I have knowledge in a particular topic.
• 1:27:38
  And that the the contextualization of the
• 1:27:43
  experience of having an answer as opposed to like knowing it in
• 1:27:46
  the way that my brain wants to. Sometimes it's all the answer
• 1:27:50
  that I that I need, you know, it gives me then the foundation to
• 1:27:55
  build an answer in my everyday life that satisfies like my need
• 1:28:01
  to quote UN quote know in English, if that makes sense.
• 1:28:03
  Do you think intuition is a quiet voice or a feeling in the
• 1:28:08
  body? And how can we tell the
• 1:28:10
  difference from fear? I think both they're all they're
• 1:28:15
  intertwined. The, the, the, the deep knowing
• 1:28:20
  of intuition. I think it's intertwined with
• 1:28:22
  the body. This goes back to like a brain
• 1:28:24
  body connection. Me personally, I feel a lot of
• 1:28:30
  intuition in my like my gut. I don't know if it's because I
• 1:28:33
  so I have Crohn's disease. I've been suffering from that
• 1:28:37
  since Oh man I'm 36 now. I was 17 when I was diagnosed.
• 1:28:41
  So long time. How are you 36 now?
• 1:28:44
  Yeah, good. Yeah.
• 1:28:47
  And so I feel a lot of emotional and intuition and intuitional
• 1:28:55
  content in my stomach. Some people feel it in their
• 1:28:59
  extremities or their bones or whatever.
• 1:29:00
  And I, I, I feel like that's, there's a brain body connection
• 1:29:05
  there. I think the the intuition
• 1:29:07
  intuition is both brain and body for sure.
• 1:29:10
  Oh, you'll like this question. Thank you so much for these.
• 1:29:13
  Vilma. If your highest self visited you
• 1:29:17
  today, what do you think they would tell you to stop doing?
• 1:29:23
  Man, what a great question. I mean, my highest self, I
• 1:29:27
  believe everybody's highest self is always with them.
• 1:29:30
  It's, you know, just a thought away again, I you know,
• 1:29:33
  identifying yourself with the witness is a way to connect to
• 1:29:36
  your higher self. What?
• 1:29:39
  Do you mean when you said the witness?
• 1:29:41
  The the witness of your, of your own thoughts when you meditate
• 1:29:45
  and you see your, your thoughts come in and you ask yourself
• 1:29:50
  like, so who's thinking about that thought?
• 1:29:53
  And then you got that thought trail away.
• 1:29:56
  That's sort of a way of identifying with your higher
• 1:29:58
  self. Resting into pure peace, I think
• 1:30:02
  is a way of identifying with your higher self.
• 1:30:06
  And I don't necessarily, I don't know if I would say that it
• 1:30:11
  would tell me to stop doing something.
• 1:30:13
  I think it would. It would tell me to approach
• 1:30:18
  things from a perspective of love and whatever that means.
• 1:30:24
  If I'm doing something in my life that is not approached from
• 1:30:28
  the perspective and foundation of love, then stop doing that
• 1:30:32
  thing, no matter what it is and what I think it would probably
• 1:30:36
  be right now, if I would have put like a human thing on it, it
• 1:30:39
  would be eating better more than likely.
• 1:30:41
  Especially when I have freaking Crohn's disease.
• 1:30:43
  I should be eating like way, way better, taking care of my body.
• 1:30:48
  You know, I do exercise quite a bit.
• 1:30:50
  I can't now because I freaking injured my arm a little bit.
• 1:30:53
  But taking care of my body, eating better would probably be
• 1:30:57
  the biggest like human thing it would tell me to do.
• 1:31:00
  What has spirituality taught you about life?
• 1:31:04
  Oh man, everything I would say. Fair enough.
• 1:31:08
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:31:09
  You. Contextualized and redefined
• 1:31:11
  every every molecule of life. Like everything, every single
• 1:31:18
  thing that I thought I knew and that I thought was real
• 1:31:22
  annihilated. And I was able to build myself
• 1:31:25
  up back from a different foundation.
• 1:31:28
  It's like we, you know, it's like you grow up and you know,
• 1:31:32
  you're taught language and you're taught to put words onto
• 1:31:35
  things. And, you know, I see a bird
• 1:31:36
  outside and that's a Robin or that's an eagle.
• 1:31:39
  And you know, like you, you put words onto things and then you
• 1:31:42
  sort of have ownership of them. You know, you can move on after
• 1:31:46
  that, after you define things. But when like, so my, my
• 1:31:51
  spiritual experiences have broken all of that down to the
• 1:31:55
  very foundation of who I think I am.
• 1:31:57
  It's broken language down. It's everything I used to be
• 1:32:01
  really, really like attached to science.
• 1:32:05
  And these experiences put science in a little box for me,
• 1:32:09
  taped it up, wrote Earth on it and threw it in a closet.
• 1:32:12
  You know, like this is just a very small aspect of what
• 1:32:16
  reality actually is. And like foundationally for me,
• 1:32:20
  like my whole belief system was based off of science and how the
• 1:32:23
  world works, you know, so that was a huge one that it just, it
• 1:32:27
  just took that all apart. And when your whole world view
• 1:32:30
  is shattered and taken apart, you have to build back up from
• 1:32:34
  the foundation that is then created.
• 1:32:36
  And that's one of the main benefits I think of psychedelics
• 1:32:39
  is it shatters your whole reality.
• 1:32:42
  Now, some people that destabilizes them and they have
• 1:32:44
  issues. That's a real thing that not
• 1:32:48
  enough people talk about. But when your entire reality is
• 1:32:52
  shattered and then you're forced to then build upon you, you
• 1:32:57
  build yourself back up based upon the foundation of the, you
• 1:33:02
  know, of the lessons that the psychedelic and that of God
• 1:33:05
  teaches you. It redefines every aspect of
• 1:33:09
  life. And it it did that for me.
• 1:33:11
  So, final thoughts for today, let's go for your mind.
• 1:33:16
  Gratitude, man, I'm really grateful that you and I were
• 1:33:20
  able to, you know, have this conversation and I really
• 1:33:24
  appreciate you having me on dude.
• 1:33:28
  I just I love talking about this stuff.
• 1:33:31
  It's, it's made all the difference in my life.
• 1:33:35
  And I see that there is this renaissance of, you know,
• 1:33:39
  philosophical belief based in, you know, the lessons of
• 1:33:42
  psychedelics that people are beginning to catch on to.
• 1:33:45
  It's becoming huge. And, you know, kind of talking
• 1:33:49
  about AI and technology too. I, I think that the Renaissance
• 1:33:53
  of technology and AI happening at the same time as psychedelics
• 1:33:56
  is not a coincidence. I, I think that they're, they're
• 1:34:01
  related. I think that technological
• 1:34:05
  advancement and spiritual advancement are both two sides
• 1:34:09
  of the same coin. And we in the Western world have
• 1:34:14
  ignored one side of that coin in favor of the other for too long.
• 1:34:19
  And I think that the resurgence of both of these things are like
• 1:34:24
  they're, they're merging. I I, I see a, a, a merger of,
• 1:34:28
  you know, ancient plant philosophy in nature with the
• 1:34:33
  technological prowess of, you know, the Western mind.
• 1:34:36
  It's always a pleasure having you on the show, Josh.
• 1:34:38
  We've spoken about it a little bit, but it does remind me a lot
• 1:34:41
  of the first time we ever had a conversation six years ago now.
• 1:34:45
  But it's pretty incredible. I implore everyone to go check
• 1:34:51
  out that first show. It's 100 and something AE
• 1:34:55
  something. I don't know exactly what
• 1:34:57
  episode. Always a pleasure.
• 1:35:01
  I hope we have many more in the future.
• 1:35:04
  Please go out of your way to check out the Pursuit of
• 1:35:06
  Infinity podcast. If you liked what we spoke about
• 1:35:09
  today, you'll, you'll see Josh and his brother interview a
• 1:35:13
  range of different people all around the world in this kind of
• 1:35:18
  sphere and gauging their mindset and, and insight and everything.
• 1:35:25
  But yeah, always a pleasure, man.
• 1:35:26
  Thank you so much for for being on the show.
• 1:35:29
  Thank you Christian, it's truly my pleasure.
• 1:35:32
  To all the listeners of the Christian Reef Podcast, as
• 1:35:34
  always, be safe, be well, and I'll see you in the next one.