Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 353: Raghu Markus

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

Raghu Markus, host of the Mindrolling podcast and spiritual teacher, rejoins the DTFH to talk about the new Ram Dass movie, Becoming Nobody! Learn more about Ram Dass' new movie, Becoming Nobody. This episode is brought to you by the new Earwolf podcast, Get Rich Nick. Click here to learn more! This episode is also brought to you by Shudder (use code DUNCAN to get a FREE 30 day trial!).

You've been making better decisions for your busy family for years, and now little by little you're making decisions for yourself, like snacking a little better, going a little further, sleeping a little deeper. We're here to make that journey easier and even more rewarding with Acme's new Sincerely Health Platform featuring nutrition plans, prescription reminders, and more. Sign up in the Acme Mobile app to earn up to $25 in grocery rewards. Visit AcmeMarkets.com slash help for more details. What exactly goes on at a semen research facility?

Fisting, hand job, blow job, stuff like that. Sorry about my baby. What happens when a conspiracy theory turns out to be a conspiracy fact? On this episode of American Whispers, we explore a scandal that is shaking DC to its very core. What connects? Country singer Daryl Clint, the French braids, and a secretive Christian cult whose members are some of our nation's most powerful politicians. You're listening to American Whispers. American Whispers has been partially supported by the National Library Association and the Foundation of Mining Wizards.

We're also proudly supported by the Association of Crow's Milk Farmers of America. So while he's coming to serve you, you'll probably have to get out of bed. You're gonna have to get out of bed. This goes out to all the Whee Trimmers up there busting ass on somebody's farm. Those beautiful flowers that we all take for granted. They don't come easy cause trimming's fucking hard. Whee Trimmers of the planet, we salute you. Your efforts are not in vain.

We are really, really high. I may be stoned but I'm not too stoned to thank them. Up there sleeping in tents covered in dogs. Hey Whee Trimmers, you're not forgotten. Thanks for helping us talk to God. The song you just heard was the last song ever sung by Daryl Clint and the French Braids. Rising American country singers who were found drowned in a vat of human semen in a semen research facility. What happened to these two young geniuses?

We'll explore this today on American Whispers. Hey pals, good news. We've got an excellent new podcast on the horizon. Ear Wolf presents Get Rich Nick. Post Nick Turner and Nick Vaterok try everything under the sun to make money now fast today. Including horse racing, lemonade stands, donating plasma, trivia nights, task rabbit and all the other crazy shit that's out there if you find yourself in a pinch and need money ASAP. I listened to an episode and it's very funny and it actually covers something I experienced when I was growing up in Asheville, North Carolina, washing dishes in chilies.

I'd run out of money and I needed money for food that day so I went to donate blood and I made the foolish mistake of being honest with them when they asked if I'd eaten. And I said to them, well, that's why I'm here so I can get money for food. And they're like, you can't give blood if you're hungry. So I just went to Fudruckers in order to bun, which is what I figured out you could do to get a salad for like 50 cents. It's a great podcast. If you've ever been in the situation or if you've ever wondered about this stuff, you should definitely check it out. They interview fellow comedians and specialists like Henry Zabrowski and the podcast on the left, Matt Kershyn from Probably Science, J.J. Cochle from Fashionfully Late and many others.

It's going to be a great podcast and you should go subscribe to it right now. Subscribe to Get Rich Nick in your podcast app. We're back with American Whispers. I journeyed to Tennessee to visit American research industries, a controversial semen research facility located in the heart of the Glangac Mountains. Three armed guards walked with me to a massive vat of bubbling semen where I was met by Dr. Tipton Gould. I couldn't help but notice there was no safety rail around the vat of semen. Nothing stood between me and what appeared to be an ocean of come. Dr. Gould seemed proud of this massive amount of semen and somehow excited by my obvious fear.

What exactly goes on at a semen research facility? Fisting, hand jobs, blow jobs, stuff like that. Sorry about my baby. You don't feel weird taking a child into a place like this? No, this is a very supportive work environment. How many gallons of semen are in that vat? It's enough to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. What exactly do you do with all this semen? Well, we research it.

Were you there on the day that Daryl Clint and the French braids died in this vat of semen? Yes. And why were they at a semen research facility anyway? Doesn't seem like a likely place for country singers to show up. You need to leave. You need to leave right now. You don't have any idea why they were there? This interview is over. Does it have anything to do with their song about Ted Cruz buying semen, buying vats of semen from research? Security!

Get off of me! Get off of me! I love horror movies. I could go on and on and on about how much I love horror movies. Or you could listen to last week's episode with Rob Schraub where we nerd out over various horror titles and horror writers and the creators of horror movies. But if you're a horror movie fan and you long for those days when you would go to some obscure video store that smelled like cat shit to the back where the horror section is, where you would look through tapes that had cigarette burns and weird stains on their covers, then long no more because Shutter has curated a selection of some of the most amazing, dark, thrilling, obscure horror movies available online. It's worth every penny of the $6 a month subscription because you don't have to dig around to try to find some kind of amazingly freaked out weird shit. It's been done for you by the brilliant horror movie fans who are clearly working at Shutter.

If you're a fan of Fangoria Magazine and Deep Horror then Shutter is definitely for you. Or if you just want to dive into an awesome selection of great horror movies, you gotta subscribe. They're incredible and they've got Mandy right now which we talked about last week with the episode with Rob Schraub. That's with Nicholas Cage. They've got a lot of great titles right now. Stan Lee's Lucky Man, Horror Noir which is one of their awesome original documentaries because they make original content. Thank God. They've got Creepshow coming out soon that Rob Schraub directed an episode of and they just have an incredible amount of great movies and collections including an entire Dario Argento collection,

horror comedies and classic slashers. Check them out. Definitely subscribe to them. You can try Shutter free for 30 days by going to Shutter.com and use promo code Duncan. That's S-H-U-D-D-E-R. Shutter. To try Shutter for 30 days go to Shutter.com and use promo code Duncan. That's S-H-U-D-D-E-R.

Subscribe! Hello pals. It's me Duncan and this is the Duncan Dressel Family, our podcast. If you want to find out what happened in that Seaman Research Facility, you're going to have to listen to an upcoming special series, American Whispers, which has not released yet. Rugger Marcus is back with us in this episode of DTFH. If you like the DTFH, why don't you give us a nice rating on iTunes and subscribe or subscribe to our Patreon located at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. You'll get commercial free episodes of the DTFH along with a lot of other stuff including an extra hour long episode every month. We also have a shop located at DuncanDressel.com with beautiful t-shirts, posters and a variety of amazing accoutrements that you can decorate your geodesic dome with.

Now, without further ado, it's great to welcome back today's guest. He's one of my best friends on the planet. Also, one of my teachers, Rugger Marcus was lucky enough to be one of the people who got to meet Neem Crowley Baba. A great Indian saint, an awakened being in India. He also helps run the Love Server Member Foundation, which is Ram Das' foundation, and they just released an amazing movie that's coming out in theaters about Ram Das and his teachings. You can find out where that film is showing at becomingnobody.com. He's also the host of a fantastic podcast exploring spirituality and consciousness called Mind Rolling, all the links you need to find Raghu will be at DuncanDressel.com. Now, please welcome back to the DuncanDressel Family Hour Podcast, Raghu Marcus.

It's the DuncanDressel Family Hour Podcast. Well, when I went to India and I had my Hindu guru, all he talked about was Christ because he said that the same energy was the energy of service, love, devotion to mankind. So they were like, you know, a little spark happened because... That's cool. You know, that's their thing. It's good to make the connection, bridging that symbol into something more familiar. Yeah, and that, I guess, was exactly what Maharaj was doing. He was connecting up the dots for us, you know, coming from Judeo-Christian.

And he never, he never considered the Jews and Christians. I mean, I'm putting words in the mouth, but... What? The dogs. Sorry. Well, leave him alone. He's okay. It's so beautiful.

Yeah, there wasn't, there wasn't Jews and Christians. There was only, basically Jews because Christ was Jewish. Right. So he never said a word about anything but them as a one. Yes. Rather than distinctly two, which was tough for us because a bunch of us were Jewish that when we went there, you know, so it's kind of weird. You know, I'm actually reading this fantastic book by Tolstoy.

Oh. And it's his essay on Christianity, but specifically he was something called a Christian anarchist. You ever heard of this before? No. So his premise is you cannot say that you're Christian and go to war. You can't. The two don't work at all together and not, and because armies according to Tolstoy are actually there to protect the government more than they are to protect the people.

Yeah. So Christian, you are also implicitly anti-government because you're anti-violence and governments depend on violence to exist. This is what he says in this book? Yes. Yes. So Christianity for him is the most subversive, the most anarchic religion and in there, and that the great, insane evil that's happened in the world is that somehow governments have

convinced people that it's actually a Christian thing to go to war. Onward Christian soldiers, you know, that bullshit. So that's what I love about Christianity. And then when a huge part of it is that kind of, I guess you could say it's an acknowledgement of there being different people, the parable of the good Samaritan, you know, this idea of there being, there are in Christianity's distinctions between women and men. They're like, you know, antiquated ideas like that. There's rabbis, priests, he does acknowledge these classes and yet what's got him nailed

up there was that he was saying, at least my interpretation is he was saying there is a thing that transcends all of these classes and genders and selves and that is instantly accessible and has no need for a middle man, which I think got him in a lot of trouble because the whole thing that we're in right now depends on there being top of the pyramid people, people in between the people at the top, the bridge keepers between the people at the top of the pyramid, then the bridge keepers of the bridge keepers. And then you're, you know, who had then you. Yeah.

But, you know, there's two planes around that concept of the middle person, right? Everything that you just mentioned, all the different levels of kind of protect the religion are there. Yeah. Right. And they're vast and they're nothing but nothing to do with transcending one's own miserable little self and getting into a place where you're actually are all and here's a giant leap.

You're actually less of a somebody and more of a nobody. Right. See? Do you like that? Yeah. So, but the, what book is this from? It's, I'll have to send you the name of it. It's the name is deceptive or I just haven't gotten far enough in the book to get to the,

but it's a very political book. It's a political book. It's called, I could look it up right now. It's called, he's written another book on the Gospels that I want to check out. Really? I never, I didn't either. You know, I'm listening to the autobiography of Gandhi and Gandhi mentions this book as being one of the main, one of a huge influence.

That's how you got to it through a Gandhi book. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Because Gandhi's talking about reading this book and let me find, it's a, All right. Well, you're looking that up. I'll, I'll mention just my little self serving commercial.

Okay. Which is the movie from Ram Dass called becoming nobody, which is why I made that mention of the somebody nests that the Christian church is trying to protect big time versus the nobody which is Christ, which is the real thing, which, and that why it's a nobody is just that he had no other interest, but to serve people and love them. He had no self interest whatsoever. So he's the Zenith, Zenith of a nobody. And in the movie, actually, and Ram Dass talks about Neem Karoli Baba as his, his interactions

with him and so on and so forth. He finally, he couldn't find a place where he could actually put a name on what that thing is. Right. You have all of these, you know, spiritual Nirvana enlightenment, all that stuff, but it's too intellectual. It didn't mean anything. And in the end, you know what he said?

He said, he really wasn't anybody. He really wasn't anybody. Yeah. And that's the whole premise of this movie becoming nobody, which has opened this weekend as we talk. Yeah. September 2019. You put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that thing.

Yeah. This has been more than, it took four years to put this together with Jamie Kato, who's the director and co-producer with me. But I've been with Ram Dass a long, long time. Yeah. You know, I met him when I was a DJ in Montreal. Yeah. Way back in the day.

And here, actually, this is the example I give when some people say, well, what is nobody? What do you mean, becoming nobody? Who's a nobody? You know, you've got to act in this world. Yeah. You've got an ego. You know, hopefully you do it righteously and not taking advantage of people all the time. But what are you talking about?

And I said, well, you know, here's my best example. Aside from talking about it in a completely free being is basically a nobody, because that little self is completely gone. But that's tough to understand. It was tough to understand when I actually experienced it, when I went to India. And suddenly there was this thing in front of me that I couldn't relate with like I was used to relating with everybody in my entire life. Can you go into that a little bit, because I've heard you all talk about this, and it's

very strange. And it's sometimes I think I understand it. And sometimes I'm completely perplexed by this description of your interaction with him. Okay. So we first meet, you and I. Yeah. And we met under good circumstances in terms of, you know, you had been into spirituality

and Ram Dass and all that. And you were trying to, you were suggesting to me to start a podcast. Yes, that's right. Yeah. So we met. And then when we finally physically met, we had some basis for of a friendship for sure. Yes. But then there was, I'm looking in those eyes, you're looking in my eyes.

And you're probably thinking, it's this guy real. I mean, all this bullshit that I'm listening to, you know, and I'm thinking, what does this guy want out of this game? Right. I mean, I'm being gross at the subtlest of levels. Sure. We are doing that with, we are jockeying with each other. Okay.

And when I met Ram Dass in that first moment, when I said, wow, I heard the talk they sent me into the radio station because they wanted me to promote it. And I ran over to the house where he was because I heard those words and I was like, wow, this is everything I've been waiting to hear for so long. You'd never heard of him before. No, I never heard. They said, you want to promote Ram Dass? I go, I don't know what that is.

And they went, you know, Tim Leary and Richard Alpert. I went, oh, yeah, absolutely. Send me a tape. I want to hear what he said. Yeah. And that's what, boom, bang, I went over to the house. He opens the door. The people he was with were not home in the moment.

And he just did what we are doing right now, just completely eye contact, very close up. He had these big blue eyes. And suddenly there wasn't anybody, but there wasn't anything going on but caring for me. My little me. There was nothing. There was just this, it was like being in a pool of really wonderful, like a hot tub, you know, and you just kind of relax and, okay, it's okay. I'm just here, you know, and I just let go in that moment.

He was able to put all of his thing, Ram Dass, Ness, Richard Alpert, Ness aside. He, in that moment, he had achieved that. Let's put it that way. It's certainly an achievement. It's a realization. It's of some sort. Don't they call it a city? Isn't that considered a city?

No, no, no. Somebody told me it was that it's this, that thing he's doing, whatever that is, which I would love to talk about, and it is like some form of radiance or it's a, it's a, it's a. Well, wait. Now, let's not mix up Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba. That's a different Neem Karoli Baba is a different thing. We can get to that.

But I knew, but it sounds like Ram Dass, there was some similarity in that moment in the sense that you had. Yes. Walked into an energy field that, yeah, but there was still an interaction of some sort, like certainly from my side with him. And I was happy that he was completely accepting me as, as I was in that moment. He didn't know my history or anything. I was happy and I was showing that happiness.

And there was still some back and forthness going on, although not much from his side. But the point is that he was able to just step out of that mask, of that identity, of that role, Ram Dass-ness in that moment, because he had had droves of people were coming to him now. And this is, this is the talks that made up be here now that, of course, his most famous book. So what happened to me next was trust, okay? I deeply trusted him.

And that trust led me to go to India. I mean, it was so powerful. Of course, I want to, like, who is this man that you're talking about in India that affected you like this? And he wouldn't tell me who it was and he wouldn't tell me where to go. He said, all right, you're going to come to India, write me at American Express. And when I find him, I'll, I'll see, I'll see. I went to India on that basis, okay?

Wow. Because, I mean, obviously somewhere deep inside of me, I knew that it was the right thing to do. And so when I got there, and then the encounter with that being the first thing, first of all, it was, there was the woohoo stuff, you know, you, oh my God, I've known every all lifetimes, you know, I mean, and that's my interpretation of a feeling that I had. Which was more, oh shit, I know you. It was like that.

That was exactly, oh wait, I know you. And then it was, oh, that's what Ram Dass was all about, okay? Whatever I got, I can, it's coming from this source, right? He was just opening himself up. And the last thing was what we're talking about. There just wasn't any bouncing back and forth with this thing. It wasn't, it was not so human, okay? And of course he had a personality and as time went on, you know, he did all kinds of

nutball things, you know, and just as a human personality that, except he had nothing to do with that thing, you could easily tell that behind that was a vast kind of space that was pervasively loving, okay? Just that. I mean, it was simple. You knew that. And yet the other thing, that personality thing, that was fun. And so it was a great abject lesson in, and in this movie, Ram Dass talks about it.

He says, it's much more fun to look at your incarnation non-judgmentally, lovingly letting it be and just not being involved. And so this man, there was no involvement and you knew that beyond any kind of intellectual thing. And I had, and it's a, you know, it's a bit unnerving, okay? It's unnerving too, because also the pervasiveness of that field of, of love, which is a shit word, love, you know, undefended heart is my favorite term. Where?

Who said that? Me. That's really good. Well, yeah, that is such a big part of defining yourself as the way you defend it. Yeah, exactly. And that too. How many claws? Are you a porcupine?

Do you have a little dagger under your belt? What's your defense technique? So yeah. And that is a thing I'm just learning now, which I find fascinating is this undefended heart concept being attributed with the, that's a warrior is, um, hold on, let's just pause for one second. Who cares about a little barking? It's okay.

I have barking on every point. Okay. Here we go. Well, yeah, the, the, so the association of this undefended heart or this supreme vulnerability with a warrior, that a warrior is someone whose heart has become completely open to the reality of existence itself, which is on one level heartbreaking. Uh, and, but you have to go through the heartbreak to get to that love part. You don't get to have the love before, right?

You have to feel that the, the, whatever you want to call it, there's heartbreak, there's delight, there's ecstasy, there's agony, it's, it's, you know, the hundred thousand beautiful visions and the hundred thousand horrible, right? Right. But I think I understand what you're saying when you say the undefended heart, it's just letting that truly be as it is right now with whoever you're with and you're not trying to paint it, cover it, mask it. And that is an incredibly vulnerable position to be in.

It is untenable for a lot of people. But it's only untenable if you're coming from the place that we identify all of us, which is our mind, ego, the I, I'm going to do this, I'm thinking that, whatever, from if it's coming from that place, you're lost. We are lost. And that's what becoming nobody really means. It means you realize this and you're going to, okay, I just want to get my identification out of that story, that me, into something that's a little bit more universal.

It's not just me. I know I'm connected to certainly the people that are around me and my friends and loved ones and families and coworkers and so on. And then I, I kind of, I kind of get that, yeah, I think I'll go for it because it's too painful to come from this other place and you're judging myself and just the kinds of things we do to ourselves, which is way worse than anybody can do to us from the outside. Right. So you start to do that process and what do you do?

It's like, you're the best example. How? How many times when we first met, meditation, no, I'm not really good at that, you know, you know, all these thoughts are coming all the time and I keep following them and it drives me crazy and then it's boring as hell also, you know, it's just, and now all the way to what, five years later or something still bored, you're still bored, but, but, but here you are working with David Nick turn and it's wonderful. And, and yes, and, and it is, and I think that's kind of a really exciting.

And that this is one of the possibilities and an incarnation is that you can't, this is what's so wonderful and joyful about which any of these paths is that you enter into them initially with some skepticism, some, maybe some massive skepticism, I rolls and fuck this hippie shit or it's a bunch of bullshit or here we go again with these, this nonsense, but I'm going to, well, let's just see what it is. Like, I don't know, we'll just see. And then something does start changing in a way that's different from like the normal way things might change in your life.

And for me, it's always kind of like this sense of like, oh, holy shit, what this thing is that we're in is so vast and so for me, unknowable that it's like realizing, my God, I'm still in an egg. There were like, our identities are like eggs or something or like, we're gestating inside this like psychic shell called us. And then that shell breaks one way or the other. It dies, it gets cracked open, it gets transformed. And then the implication being in the same way, like you see a little egg and then you

see the bird. It's that big a difference. And I think when you run into a person like Neem Karli Baba, you're seeing this bird. You're seeing this hatched thing that is speaking for this vastness and then being kind enough to translate for you this vastness in a way that makes it workable. But to me, this is what's so cool about your story with Ram Dass. I think about is, sorry, I'm rambling a little bit here, but I was talking to a friend of mine and he was saying that he was out on a date and he and his date were having

a conversation about how they didn't think they were going to have children. And they, they laughed and it gave you like toasted that, right? Then I said to him, I did that toast. I know that toast. I know that thing with my mind where I thought, I'll never have children. And then I met Aaron and it was like dipping my toe into one of those raging rivers and you think it's not that powerful and it just sucks you in. And that's what happened to you.

It seems like with Ram Dass, you got CD. Exactly. But to me, that's what's so cool about being alive is that you can one day you're just going through your life. You're at a radio station, you're into sports, you're fucking cool. You're going to see amazing shows. I'm guessing you were taking some acid back then, just having a cool life. And then the next thing you know, you're being sucked into India, into this crazy,

crazy experience that to this day you think about every single day. You got pulled out to see, man. Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah. And you know, I was really miserable before that. I mean, as a teenager and into my, well, this all happened to me in my early 20s. So up to that point, it was awful. I mean, family was a tyrannical father and a mother who wasn't well and,

you know, upwardly middle class, upwardly mobile kind of lifestyle in Montreal, which was freezing and it was killing me every day. Yeah, I was pretty miserable. Were you angry? I was really angry, miserable. Yeah. And you and I have talked about that as being sort of the hallmark of what we're dealing with centrally on a day to day basis.

Yeah. Many people are. And that's, that's why. So the flip got switched. Yeah. As soon as I met him and then I knew, okay, Christian's ass, it says it best. After I met Ramdas, I knew this shit was real. Yeah.

Because somebody was actually living it. Yeah. Right. So then I had great confidence. I could let go a little bit. I'm just going to follow this, you know, and that's what, that's intuition, right? That's a huge ass thing. Intuition.

Yes. Intuition can lead to real trust in the deepest part of what's going on with us. Yeah. And it can really help us. It's a fork in the road of depending on that I, that story we tell ourselves about who we are, what we like, what we don't like, all of it. That, you know, everyone gets that little sudden switch and a big gush comes and you're like, like you said with Aaron, right?

You knew totally in that moment that was going to happen. Yeah. You may have fought it a little bit more, but, you know, you knew and it happened. Yeah. And so. Yeah, right. You connected really, it's, to me, it's a big deal because, as I said, connecting with intuition starts to lessen the dependence you have on the me.

Okay, I'm going to get this right. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. If I don't do that, then I'm going to, you know, right. And suddenly there's a little shift over to take a breath here. Cause I, yeah, I have a real, it's about feeling. Suddenly you're getting more inside of feeling and less inside of intellect.

Is do you, this is, I think one of the problems I have with intuition is when is it intuition? When is it impulsiveness? When is it intuition? When is it laziness? When is it intuition? When is it reactivity? Very good.

Very good. I'm thinking, I'm just thinking about myself because I think the exact same stuff. This is bullshit. You're fucking projecting to get what you think you want. Oh, I mean, I just went through, you know, we were discussing before we got live, a major transition and, um, and I said to you, in the deepest part of myself, I really feel like I've done the right thing. Yeah.

And at the same time, I'm still having lots of guilt, recrimination, all that stuff. But I, you know, I could have done something different in this situation. And yet in the deepest part of me, so trust, I really, I trust that deeper part of me and I'm allowing that I have this stuff going on, negative thoughts going on and I'm, I embrace them the best I can. And, uh, and then I, I'm trusting in the universe is going to take care. It takes care of us. Whatever you want to call it, the guru, you want to call it the universal

intelligence, uh, the boundless undefended heart guy, gal, whatever it is. Yes. There's not a thing. It's beyond, you know, it's not, uh, it's absolutely non-dual. It is nothing you can talk about. It is ineffable, whatever you want to call, but we'd like callings, you know, it's nice to call something. So I've got the unbounded, undefended heart wisdom.

I love that intelligence. Yeah. Wisdom, intelligence, vulnerability. So just, you got to, you know, you end up, what are you going to do? You want to trust more of that, which you do get on a daily basis. There's many different things that happen in life that really support your, who you are as a kind, compassionate, loving, giving a shit about other people being, I mean, all the time.

Do you want to trust that? Or do you want to trust, you know, the eye that, uh, you know, in the movie, Ram Dass says, when is what you want enough? Right. I was just talking, it was so funny. I was just talking to a friend of mine and he, um, he was saying that to me, not about me, but about him. Cause you know, he's like doing great.

And he's, he's in his mind. It has occurred to him. Okay. When, what do I'm, what am I looking for here? I've gotten so much more than what any, most people will ever see on the planet. And yet there's still the drive. There's still the ambition. There's still the like, um, thing that many of us feel, even though you can just

be sitting in the wreckage of your life caused by workaholism or whatever. And you haven't gotten around the corner to the thing. You keep turning the corner of success. And every time you turn it, you realize there's a, it's further down. It's further down. And then this, this, I don't know what you would call it. This whole, it's, I do know what you call it. It's the heart path and the crazy little experiments you can do in this kind of

intuition, which I know, well, it's, you, you're, for me, it means like having to initially construct a kind of, I guess you could say crutch, build a temporary trellis or place that I can, well, it's like the baby. The baby needs, like right now we have things where the baby can push up on. You know, the baby has to, he, he's learning how to like push up. So we need things at his level so we could pull up and push up on it. And so some of this toy, one of his great toys, it's also a thing for him to push up on, it's a temporary thing.

He'll be walking soon enough, but this temporary intermediary device is really good. So I have to build that for myself because, so I have been thinking a lot about the Rondas movie, particularly the, and what we talk about all the time becoming nobody. I think that's a little bit of a confusing way to describe it. But for me, it's like, okay, wait a second. This is a very mundane example, but I'm at the gym.

I'm a drug and you're on the treadmill. And I'm thinking about myself and I'm like, yeah, I want to get in shape. That's going to be really good. That's going to be good for the family. Me getting in shape, I'll be a healthy dad. I can throw the baby up. That's good. I'll be me.

And then obviously I realized like, fuck, you're so self obsessed better than getting in really good shape, even though that's great, would be expanding the scope of my identity to encapsulate the baby and my wife so that we're an organism consisting of these three things. And then so it's an interesting thing when you sort of like, if you're getting in shape, you, I've been taught and I believe it, that it's a good thing to visualize yourself in a healthier form. So when you're exercising, it's okay to think about yourself in a healthier

form and be happy that you're moving towards that healthier form. It's a good thing to do. Similarly, if you expand your consciousness out to include your community, it's a really fun thing to do the identical experiment, but with that community, whoever it may be, your family, your friends and visualize them achieving better health, higher levels of happiness, joy, and thinking of it, not as though they're doing that, but it's you doing that. If you get healthy and I'm sick, half of us is sick.

If, you know, and that is a really trippy, trippy, trippy, trippy thing for lifetime members of club selfish. You know, because it's trippy, it's humbling, it's scary, because it's like, no, I can't, you cannot do this exercise and simultaneously when, because the game involves other people. And if you're winning there, if you have a game where there's one winner and you're, you're playing that game with your two separate versions of yourself that you're pretending aren't you, you're going to lose every time.

Yeah. Yeah. This is exactly the definition, actually, of what becoming nobody really means. It's it's like a coming out party. You just described a coming out party where you expand outside of this little me guy. Yeah. And even just a prayer at the end, you get up in the morning. I'm thank you for another day for me to breathe and and do my thing. You know, this is this is a wonderful thing. And may all beings be happy.

May all beings be peaceful. Just just even that, that just starts a process where you're the interconnectivity that that happens by virtue of the the impulse. There's an impulse. And that's why Ramdas coming back from India. I asked him this not long ago. I said, when you left, you were like he named Corolli. Bob said, do not talk about me when you go to America.

Go back specifically. And what did he do? That's all he did. Yeah. That's all he did. I said, so wait, I don't get it. He told you not to to talk about him and everything. That's all you did. What? And you know what he said?

I I brought back this jewel and I could not stop myself from sharing it. Right. That impulse, which you were just talking about, suddenly you start thinking of others. That impulse is powerful, really powerful. And it is the the leverage because you have intention with it. Right. I mean, you start to realize, OK, if I'm doing, you know, as soon as I do this, as soon as I offer just even in a prayer, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful.

As soon as I do that, I'm stopped thinking about, OK, I got to get I got to get over the bank today. And, you know, you stop that because you're you're filling yourself with an altruistic acting on an altruistic impulse. Yeah. And that's really who we are. So I know it's a screwy thing. It's another thing in the movie where the director, Jamie, says, I don't understand. I mean, you come into this world, you're somebody.

And, you know, you got to act like that and do stuff. You know, what are we talking about being a being a nobody? You know, or this is why you're here. Yeah. So there is. And that's a truth. You know, there is a delicate place. You do. It's not like you don't have an ego all of a sudden. That is not real. Yeah. It's a matter, first of all, the basic thing.

And one would say the most transforming thing is you no longer are interacting with it with attachment, preferences or attachment. OK, that's what a name, Karoli Baba is, he's no longer act. So, OK, that's that's all. That's a big shot. Of course, La Masuria does would say, no, that's enlightenment now. And we're here now. That's a reality. OK. You know, that's a non dual jump for me. But but the truth is that impulse is really who we are.

And once you start having that intention, that's a day to day practice. And you see your motivations for selfishness. Yeah. On a moment to moment basis. And really, there's nothing to do with, wow, that's far out. Great. Yeah. Look at that thought. That's amazing. I mean, I'm like, you know, on a day to day basis, again, in the movie, Jamie says, because Ramdas talks about I see everything, everything going through me through Maharaj's third eye or through his being.

Right. I see. And then when I go left of center, I hear this. You know, and Jamie said, yeah, well, my Maharaj, she's more like a psychiatric nurse dealing with a sex maniac. And, you know, this and that and the other. So there's a fine line between, no, you are not. Ego is there and it's useful. We cannot operate without it. Well, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about preference.

And because I've been on a real mental preference kick, I've been thinking about it a lot. That for the line of that third patriarch was in the first line in it. Just I read it once. It totally went over my head. I'm like, whatever, just some Buddhist shit. Then went back and was like, oh, wow. This is something you have to think about for you.

You can chew on. You can. This is a doggy toy that your mind can chew on for your whole life. Which is great ways. Easy for he who holds no preference. And so I'm talking to my friend about this specifically preference. And you know, this is a favorite thing of Ramdas is to the third Zen third Zen page. I got it from one of the retreats. Oh, you did.

And I have an album of him reading it. But the great ways easy for he holds no preference. My so we're talking about this because I had to create this insane thing happen. I think it was because I took like really strong marijuana drops before I went to bed. But I woke up in the morning and for a second, I can't. It's so weird to say it. It's hard to explain, but it was like I was laying underneath my preferences for a second. There was no preference.

There was no it was the best. It was like being able to fly or something because it's like I am absolutely fine. Right here. It was and then there I am back into myself. Do you have any more of that tincture? Yes, I do. When this is over, I'll have some. OK. OK, but the.

My friend said. And it's a really a astute and. Smart point to make. And I was hoping you could address it because I think when people hear this stuff, becoming nobody, they really think, fuck that, man, I want to be somebody. But my friend said, if I have no preference, then I am nothing. I become nothing. If I have no preference, then I'm just what am I a sponge?

What would I become at that point? You know, and I understood what he meant by that, you know, from one POV. It almost sounds like you would be a vegetable or you would be like a unionist, artless, culturalist thing. Just some sort of blob. You'd be like Peter Sellers in Being There. Is that the name of the movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. He was just whatever would in the moment needed by anybody else.

Yes, he would be like that. OK, here's the answer. The answer. Let's hear it. Bullshit, but. It reminds me of a friend of mine who lives in Maui and works with Ramdas. We had a retreat at that retreat. You were there. Maybe you weren't there. No, it was last the last December retreat.

It was the baby. There was the baby deal. Yeah, Joseph Goldstein and Jack and Sharon. Yeah. So anyhow, after the retreat, my friend, Matthew was driving him around. He didn't have a car. And so he thought, wow, OK, Joseph, one of the wisest people we know. He goes, I got to ask him a question.

Joseph, if there's one thing, one piece of advice, you could give someone like me, a young person on the path. What would it be? And Joseph turned to him, looked them in the eye and went. Stop clinging. Hmm. OK. And that's the answer to that question of if I have no preferences, it has nothing to do with the preferences.

It is to do with the clinging to the preferences. OK, you we have preferences all day long. It doesn't matter. It's just the attachment. Oh, that's good. Yeah, because the preference. OK, yeah, preference is the impulse. Clinging is the reaction.

Is that what it is? Clinging is preferences, preferences. OK, I mean, the most simplistic way. This, whatever it may be, is going to be unpleasant. So I don't want to engage. I'm not going to engage with that over here, though, is going to be real pleasant. I want to engage over there.

So it's not so much what you do either way. It's more the clinging, the interactive clinging with that thing. Right. OK. If you choose and you and then you choose the, for instance, if you choose the more desirable, whatever it is, then you find out very quickly. Holy shit, this is empty as poop. You know, what? Oh, why did I go?

You just told me a story like that about an hour and a half ago. Yeah. Right. You went into something and it was like, now it happens all the time. Even the even the thing is no matter what, that's there. Yeah. That sense of discomfort or yeah. Fundamental with the thing or with the thing you were avoiding. Turns out to be it wasn't that bad or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

So eventually the the impulse of clinging gets cut right away. Yes. And so yes, it doesn't. You're you're not you're open to whatever happens in the moment and more of the right thing, the right action takes place at that time. I have always thought that the shit you hear about people being able to levitate. This is what they're talking about because. Preference and clinging. It there's this gravitational field to preference.

It I don't I don't think many people realize just how painful preference can be. How incredibly uncomfortable a person's day is because they have so many preferences in their shoe, so to speak. They're walking around with like a never ending. List of what's going on around them that is bad. Yeah, bad or good. You're also good.

It's just that alone. That's a lot of brain energy processing all that bullshit. But then on top of that, you start desperately trying to rearrange phenomena and just to try to get it in just the right pattern. And then when you finally rearrange the phenomena, 10 years have passed. I don't know, 15 years have passed. You know what I mean, you get the phenomenon perfectly arranged. Sorry about that.

You ought to put Fox out. I was petting him and he yipped at me. You you get things you get things perfectly arranged. You've got your 401k. You the horses are being taken care of now. You've got the thing and you fix the thing and now are this and you're doing it. And then you just die. And the whole time you've been waiting for this beautiful

moment of preference alignment where you're like, OK, wait. Now, the people with the horses and the thing, they're not waiting for anything. I mean, you went way over to a place where unfortunately, what were many people, of course, aren't conscious preferences don't make any sense at all preference or no preference. We're not there. OK, we're chasing happiness and that's what we're doing. OK, when you get super unhappy at some point, chasing that shit is OK.

There's something else. There's got to be something else. OK, so we're already talking about you've made a turn and you're realizing that you might want to be better aligned with some other part of yourself, not this thing that's chasing bullshit all the time. So but back to preferences in the highest state of an enlightened person being there's no preferences. OK, we are looking.

I mean, you mean there's no clinging or there's no preference. No, there's no clinging and there's completely no clinging. So there's no even going one way or another. There's only here and now. Yeah, right. OK, there's no projection. There's no fear. Oh, that thing. I don't want to go there. Oh, I want to go there. There's none of that going on. That's the highest level for the Ram Dass set of thing in the movie

that I really have been thinking about is super interesting, which is. You begin to realize that when you don't get what you want, it's good. It's when you get what you want that. And this is the concept, I think, of Samsara and Nirvana being wrapped up together or that no matter where you're landing, if you really are in that place, you'll notice that it seems to be an ecstatic quality to every single moment, regardless of whether you're your needs or your preferences are being met.

And that completely decimates the game because the game is to get your preferences met. That's the whole game. And if suddenly not getting your preferences met creates almost equal sense of delight. Well, that's where the yes, that's that's all great and true. But what I got from that when he says, you know, sometimes when you don't get what you want is way better

than, you know, getting what you want. Now, I got the feeling from it because I've also heard stories of him getting his tooth, his cat getting like. I heard him talk about getting some kind of having dental work done without numbing it because he was into this. He was like experiencing pain. Oh, he was exploring pain. Yeah, right.

He was like getting into like this is for me. That's I'm no I'm not doing that ever. But this is like the cold shower thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just say, yeah, it's the same kind of thing. But I'm saying what I get out of that is part of it's it becomes part not getting what you want. You suddenly have a perspective.

You are now working on, as we said, we've turned the corner. We're working on a different from a different vantage point that we are going to not believe our thoughts and our stories and our eye and the little me that we have experienced. Maybe it's who psychedelics. Maybe it's through just an intuition, whatever it is. There's something else going on. Yeah. OK.

And we want to be aligned more with that something else because we don't even know what the hell that is. Yeah. So in so doing, we get with teachers like Ramdas, this movie, what it represents. Yeah. And we start to understand, OK, there's an actual methodology to this. We can do something for ourselves, at least little humans. We think we can. But and we do, which is OK. There is I'm going to identify

through breath in the center of my chest. I'm going to move out of my head and just breathe in and focus in the center of my chest, take three breaths and immediately you feel something, a little warm, something and you just feel bigger and more spacious. And from that place. You look at the stuff that you know, sometimes when I don't get what I want is way better

because you start to see all of the places where we're stuck in the preferences and the clinging and so on. But you're seeing it from a place where you're not bashing yourself of the head because I'm a shithead. You know, all I want to do is go, you know, smoke pot all day. And no, I don't want to take that ride around the block, you know, whatever. Yeah. So that's the big thing is the turn to start. OK, there is a way to identify

with something other than this bullshit I've been living with. Yeah, this isn't like you're building an imaginary place. This is you finding the place where your soul resides or your heart or whatever you want to call it. I get it. Yeah, I get that because if you try to. Do the other way, which is to look at the mind with the perspective of the mind. Yeah, it's difficult.

Yeah, the Gyan yoga, you know, it is a yoga using the mind to transcend the mind. Yeah, very difficult in what we are supposed to be in now, called the Kali Yuga, the age of destruction. Yeah, no destruction going on now. Let's deny that. Yeah. Yeah. So we seem to be there. And then they, you know, the Easter, you know, the Hindu thing in India, they basically say the way in these kinds of times

is through the heart, through heart wisdom, not through Gyan, not through the intellect. So and, you know, we love, by the way, in this in the West, we love the mind and the intellect is our master. Look what it's done for us. Look at the way we communicate now digitally and look, you know, gone into space. I mean, we are incredible, but we're missing that one ingredient because there's fear,

because opening the heart, certainly you're open a can of worms. Right. Yeah. Time because it's so powerful. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, and it's so like if you it sounds like a cheesy thing to say, but the heart has such wisdom and is so the heart is instantaneously. Brilliant. It doesn't have to squeeze its brow. It that place you're talking about, it just is the way it's responding to everything.

It's perfect. It can't really fuck up that little exercise. We just take three breaths into the center of your chest and rest your consciousness there and then suddenly, no matter what, even in the midst of this podcast, you know, I felt myself. Me too. This is just an expansion of some sort, you know, little opening spacious. Those are words that I would use. You it's available all the time.

And then you start, wow, that's real. Wow. I'm going to trust that a little bit. Maybe I'll go there more. And then on a day to day basis, you do that. And that goes back to the very beginning when you were talking about. Just connecting with more than my, you know, the gym story, right? I'm going to connect with more than just my little self in this moment. You know, and that gives you an ability to do that.

How come you just told me about that? How long have I known you? I'm always like, well, what do I? Yeah, I've always asking you for some technique. And never asked me. No, you went off with David Nectar and doing the Buddha stuff. You're doing fine. But you've never did that. Just breathe into your heart three times.

What do you think Ram does has been doing all these years with this loving awareness stuff? Come on, Ragu, thank you so much. Congratulations on the movie. Where can people see it? Oh, the movie. OK, so if you go to it's becoming nobody. And if you go to becomingnobody.com, right, you will be able to see the trailer.

All we have some incredible press actually today as we're speaking. New York Times story on Ramdas in the magazine section. So that's really cool. It says, by the way, the title is Ramdas is ready to die. What? So I'm talking to him yesterday on the phone, right? On Skype, actually, we skyped yesterday. And I said, yeah, the movie is great.

Everybody's happy to see it. He says, and I said, great and wonderful stories in the Times and the LA Times. He goes, yeah, I hear I'm dead. I said, well, that's true. But he said, I guess I'll have to stay alive a little bit longer to prove that. So, yeah, and becomingnobody.com.

So you can see all that press and you can see the trailer. But the best thing is you can actually find a theater because it's not opening like it's Star Wars, right? But it's opening, you know, it'll be in about 50 theaters, you know, 30 odd, five cities, something like that, as we go through the end of 2019. And you'll be able to find a theater. If you can't find a theater, then what we're doing is whoever wants to bring it into their community,

there's a way to do that. So you go to becomingnobody.com and you go to info or info at Ramdas.org. Just send a note of your inch. Actually, when you sign up on becomingnobody.com, you can put a place that says, check, I'm interested in bringing this to my community. And that's a big thing about what we want to do as we go into the future with this is get it into educational colleges and high schools and all that. And because it's really great as it gives a wonderful

the idea that you can change your perspective from from the me, me, somebody. I got a cling to that thing into somebody that gives a shit about other people is doing some service. And it's like that time that you went down to in LA, right? You bought a bunch of food. You remember that story? The very psychedelic. Because I'd seen a YouTube clip of these people saying,

just get backpacks and film with stuff that you would want if you were not living along the streets. And so you get your put them on the trunk of your car and you're driving. And then but you're thinking, like, all right, I'm going to give these away. And that is the you enter into a different dimension. It's almost like the circuitry. It's almost like you're running different energy through your body or something. Like everything changes.

Everything becomes dreamlike and magical because most of the time. We are serving ourselves. We're driving to go get food. We're driving to get money to get more food. We're driving to get food. We're driving to get weed. We're going to go running. But the moment you really are truly purely doing and it's bad and something about doing it for people you'll you don't know.

Adds an extra level of weirdness. If your whole life has been running this one program, it really fucks with the simulator. Yeah, the simulator that you've been if the character you're playing is selfish. Yeah. So it's cool. Yeah. And it is real and it's a beautiful thing. I think it is a probably a big relief for some people to get this like intuition that there is a possibility

of not forever being a blistered, chafed ass. And I say that from my heart. Yeah. Yeah. And at the same time, the moment that you conceive of, I'm going to get with some people and we're going to go feed some people down, you know, in the poor parts of the city and so on. And then you actually start to do it. And then every moment you're quite aware of your self interest in the I'm yes, I'm a good guy.

And yeah, so it's beautiful. That's where, you know, you get to see unvarnished your real motivations. And and the only thing that's necessary in the moment that you see all that, it's not necessary to go, you are a shithead. OK, which is what we all do. It's laugh. Yeah. Wow. Look at that. That's interesting.

How does the mind? How does that come in? Where the what is that? You know, yeah, like you you're carrying the backpack in your mind. You're having a fantasy of being like the Gandhi of L.A. or something. You're like, oh, my God, I hope. But hold the glory. Your mind's spitting out shit like, oh, maybe this will be one of those things when secretly films on their phone and then people will see you doing a good act

or people see. Yeah. The mind is, yeah, it's because that's the way it reacts to the world. Yeah. And some people don't want to do good shit because they've so overanalyzed themselves that they've realized the only reason I'd be doing that is because I want to seem good. Right. And then in the moment, and that's, you know, and that's all. That's still somebody who is believes in their thoughts. OK, that's who I am.

I'm that shithead who would only be doing this because it would, you know, I have a lot of money and it substantiates. OK, I feel a little bit better. That's the only reason I'm doing it. But in the reality of it is that when you actually do it and in the act of doing it, especially once you're interacting with another human being, that goes out the window. You are not that you are not you are not the self serving, blah, blah, blah.

You are somebody that gives a shit because we all do. Yeah. And also when you're giving food to a hungry person. At least it didn't happen to me. They're not like, I want to take this. Food is backpack filled with things I need right now. But what's your motivation here? Are you doing this out of pure selflessness? And if you're not, then go and come back and give it to me when you're selfless.

And people just need help. Yeah. And that's the bottom line. That's the bottom line. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Roger. Yeah. Becomingnobody.com. Go there. And we are all trying to become less of that little me. And that's really what this is about. So it's a great movie.

Y'all go see it. All right. Thanks, Duncan. Thank you. Thank you. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, J.C. Penney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions. Wedding season two. We do it all in style.

Dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and Jay Farrar. Oh, and thereabouts for kids. Super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in-store. And we're never short on options at jcp.com. All dressed up everywhere to go.

J.C. Penney. Meet the Bedroom Suite by Thuma. The foundation for the perfect staycation. Time spent at home is the ultimate luxury. And Thuma makes it easy to stay in with lifestyle-enhancing pieces like the bed, the dresser, and the nightstand. To get $25 towards the bed, go to Thuma.co.

That's T-H-U-M-A-DOT-C-O to receive $25 off your purchase of the bed. Shop the bed at Thuma.co.