Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 429: Raghu Markus

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Raghu Markus, one of Duncan's best friends, grounding mechanism, and host of Mindrolling, re-joins the DTFH! Check out Raghu's podcast, Mindrolling, and visit the Love Serve Remember Foundation to learn more. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Mint Mobile - Visit MintMobile.com/Duncan and get premium wireless service for just $15 a month! Purple - Visit Purple.com/Duncan10 and use promo code DUNCAN10 for $200 Off any mattress order of $1500 or more! BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping.

Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Welcome, this is the Dunkin' Trestle Family Hour podcast. Big thank you to Heart Thongs, the metaphysical energy thong for supporting this episode of the DTFH. If you're having difficulty numbing down your heart, try a heart thong.

They come in all shapes and sizes and are all made of dehydrated demon hides. Guaranteed to keep you from feeling those pangs of compassion that really can ruin a person's day. Neither the DTFH or Dunkin' Trestle is responsible for any of the wild animal attacks that have been happening across the country. My dear loves, my heart, it's all mushy today. It's all open unexpectedly. Usually it like is sealed shut like an old crypt, a cursed sarcophagus down in the bottom of some decrepit shit pyramid in a dark alien landscape and some horrible dream that old sailor is having as his ship begins to sink into a stinking dead briny sea filled with skeleton sailors

mocking him as he breathes his last breaths. But today, I don't know, it just opened up unexpectedly. Somebody sent me a nice Instagram message about their dog they just lost and then I started thinking about Fox and my Chihuahua who I lost a few months ago and then just a classic grief meteor smashing into the unprotected imaginary heart planet that I spend a lot of time trying to cover up in various metaphysical energetic forms. Most of them metaphysical leather thongs. Did I just say that I wrap a metaphysical leather thong around my heart planet

to keep myself from getting shaken up by grief meteors? Yes. Which is why you should consider using a metaphysical heart thong from Jerry's Heart Thongs. Go to Jerry'sHeartThongs.com, use offer code Duncan791 and you in a dream will have a metaphysical heart thong delivered to you by a mermaid in an ocean of come. Today's guest is one of my best friends and I'm so lucky to have him as a friend because the truth is this thing, whatever you want to call it, spirituality, trying to be a better person, self transformation, almost every single way of describing

the process of maybe not being such a festering boil on the carapace of reality sounds cheesy. But however you want to put it, part of the thing is you get confused. You're supposed to get confused. That's part of it. It is confusing. I mean, this is confusing. This thing that we're in right now, it's confusing. Think of all the forms you're going to have to fill out over the next.

However many years you're going to be alive. Literally, a book, like a giant book of stupid forms, you're going to have to fill out and sign various stupid forms, forms to get into an overprotected dog park, forms to get out of traffic tickets, weird forms when someone you love dies. One of the most humiliating things the demiurge tosses our way is that after you lose someone you love, you're going to be filling out fucking forms. You thought this was going to be some mystical time of beautiful morning. No, you're going to fill out 600 different forms.

You're going to have to write, you're not going to have the right check for the undertaker form after form. The point is, it's confusing here. It's confusing. Human penises are shrinking because of pollution. There's just so much already happening just in the material level of this universe that it's going to confuse you, then add to that this weird idea of meditation or the possibility that you're not your body. Come on, it's bonkers beyond bonkers. You're not supposed to go at it alone.

This is why there's classes and all these different things, calculus, you want to learn to knit, you want to learn to solder, you're going to do better with someone around. The identical thing is true when it comes to whatever you want to call this thing. For me, it's like I just want to avoid as many embarrassing explosions of selfish anger as I can over the last half of my life. For me, that's why I need a spiritual community. One member of that community is today's guest, Ragu Marcus, though membership is open to everyone and you all are members, even if you don't know it. The point is, it's like you need a palette cleanser.

You need some kind of grounding mechanism. For the type of personality that I have, this grounding mechanism, it's not going to happen in the presence of somebody, a positivity fascist. It's not going to happen in the presence of somebody who thinks that any omission of verbal dismay is a bad sign. I'm talking about the spiritual hall monitors that if the moment you say something like, fuck this shitty bullshit fucking traffic, they'll be like, but the traffic teaches us that shit. That's not going to work for me, though I feel like I've inflicted that on people I love in weak moments.

The point is, it's nice to have people like Ragu who have this incredible authenticity that includes within it aspects that maybe you wouldn't say, that's definitely, that's some Dalai Lama stuff there. But also within the authenticity and the reality that you will hear in this conversation, something else comes out, something beautiful and sweet and full of love. And the Ram Dass community has as a nexus, this being that showed up called Nirm Kroli Baba. This was Ram Dass' guru and Ragu's guru and having met many people who actually met this person, it's interesting because you can kind of see this being spirit in all of them. And I feel like anytime I get a chance to have the kind of conversation you're about to hear with Ragu,

it's like I get a little brush with that person. And I need those kinds of brushes. I get emails from y'all, I got an email from somebody, forgive me if I'm calling you out, I didn't ask permission, but I got this lovely email, I'll change the drugs. I got this lovely email from someone who was smoking Garvarius Melvana Bex, this wild drug that is gathered from the pollen of cricket infested tulips. And in that state of being super high that happens to last the exact same amount of time as DMT, he encountered Nirm Kroli Baba.

And just so y'all know where I'm at, when I read a thing like that, I don't think, wow, that's really lovely, I think that's so wonderful. I think, what the fuck, why don't I ever get that experience? That's just where I'm at. So I need it, I love it anytime I get. Just the slightest fragrance of this wonderful being that had one of his incarnations in India. And I think now is existing within the connection between people like Raghu and Ramdas. And somehow in that connection, in that conversation, it's like, it just appears.

So enjoy this chat, if you like Raghu Marcus, you should check out his wonderful podcast, Mind Rolling. And you can also check out the Love, Serve, Remember Foundation's website, love-serve-remember.org, because Raghu is tirelessly planning all kinds of wonderful things via that network and via the Ramdas Foundation, the Love, Serve, Remember Foundation. So we're going to jump right into this conversation with dear Raghu. But first, this. 828-579-9529. That's my Mint Mobile number.

And I just want to thank Mint Mobile for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. Look, here's the thing, I don't advertise anything on this show that I don't use or like. And so I actually had to postpone a couple of Mint Mobile ads because I was moving and I didn't have a chance to test it out. But that number I just gave you, you can call me on my Mint Mobile phone and you should know that having activated my phone with Mint Mobile, it worked perfectly. And it happened really fast. My expectation was it was going to be maybe a grubby website or some kind of lame interface

or something that made me feel like I was being horn swoggled by oligarchs. But no, everything was flawless. It worked perfectly. And I tweeted the phone number and took a bunch of calls and not a single one dropped out. They were all crystal clear. So this is a wonderful option if you're looking for extra savings. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just 15 bucks a month. All plans come with unlimited talk and text plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

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go to mintmobile.com slash Duncan. That's mintmobile.com slash Duncan. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash Duncan. Sorry about the fire trucks. Some wild dogs have been roaming through Asheville and have been attacking people. I got an email at lavenderhour at gmail.com from a listener who was recently attacked by a wild raccoon. At the time, she was not a Patreon subscriber. And I got to tell you, she sent some pictures and this little fella ripped her up.

There were deep gashes and terrible claw marks and she had to get rabies shots. I'm not saying there's any connection between her not being a subscriber to patreon.com forward slash DTFH and these wild animal attacks. Because that would be almost like I was threatening my dear listeners or saying, you know, if you don't subscribe to the Patreon, there's probably an 80 to 90% chance of, especially this summer, the summer of blood, as they're calling it, a view getting attacked by a cute wild animal. Nothing larger than a raccoon, I would guess. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure because there's no connection. That's all I'm saying is there's zero connection between these wild animal attacks that have been happening with great abundance and people who have yet to subscribe to patreon.com forward slash DTFH. It is interesting though that the subscribers haven't haven't been getting attacked. So that's curious to me and I wonder what that means. Regardless, I hope you'll check it out at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. Subscribe. You can join us every Monday for our weekly meditation journey in a boredom.

And Friday we have our wonderful family gathering. We have a active community of brilliant, beautiful, mystical beings who are waiting to unfold and embrace you on our discord server. And also, once you subscribe, you'll have access to hours and hours and hours of extra DTFH content, including commercial free episodes of this podcast. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash DTFH. Okay, friends, without further ado, let's dive into this wonderful conversation with Ragu Marcus. He helps run the Love Server Member Foundation. It's Ram Dass' foundation.

He has a wonderful podcast called Mind Rolling, which even before you listen to this, just press pause and subscribe. He interviews people who live in caves. He has access to people who probably can teleport. And you should listen to these wonderful conversations he has with them on mind rolling. Also, all the links you need to find Ragu related content are going to be at dunkitrustle.com. And now welcome Ragu Marcus. Ragu Marcus It's the dunkitrustle film.

Everyone were back like we never left. Back with my departed soulmate who left me here in California, Duncan Trussell. Hello, everybody. Hi, Ragu. Good to see you. Sorry. Same here, man. Everyone left everybody this year, didn't we? That's what I realized in LA was I'm not seeing anyone. Everyone's zooming. What's the idea? Who cares? I could be on Mars. Wouldn't make much of a difference.

Yeah, right. That's true. Although hopefully we're heading in the right direction, but Polly Annish kind of maybe thinking. Aaron has given up in the sense of she's noticing that I've been saying every few months, I think this is the end of it. And she's like, come on, Duncan. You just keep saying that. Eventually you're going to be right. Eventually we will be right. All of us. But it won't be.

There is no back to normal. So because normal is gone. Well, that's to me that you mentioned that yesterday on the phone. But that's a funny thing to even talk about is like that idea are the normal before the pandemic wasn't normal. You know what I mean? When was it normal? Like at what point was worth things back to normal? You know, like you go back, some people say 2012, actually they were right. Because if you look at the world after 2012 and before 2012 to completely different worlds,

because prior to 2012, that's the, you know, the internet is in more of an embryonic phase. You trace that back to pre cell phone, you know, when answering machines were high tech. When was it normal? I'm saying is like, at what point was this normal? How do we go back to normal? Yeah, that is absolutely 100% true. You know, but I'm thinking though is for everybody out there, Duncan now has two small children. And I've got a couple of other friends, mutual to Duncan and I, that are part of the community that have either getting another one or already have a couple.

And every time I'm with, I was just with our friend John Fann at the other day. He's, you know, he's having a new baby coming along as well. And I said, I think I must have said something about the, yeah, there's no going back to the normal. What's the new normal? But really it led me to start thinking about the way in which you guys particularly need to nurture these children in a way that they're going to have a planet that is livable. Let's start there. And, and they're the hope.

Right. You are raising the hope for humanity. Wow. Right. That's cool. Yeah. Is it not true? A lot of pressure to put, you know what's so funny is I remember asking Ramdas about some, you know,

schmaltzy question about, how do I be a dad? And his response was, I'm having, you know, my son, I said something about my son. He's like, first of all, remember it's, that's the role that those are all roles, you know, son role, dad role. He was so good at breaking it down. And so, and that little bit of magic that you just cast there and that spell, we've created a role, haven't we, for my son, which is savior of the known world. And also we've created a pretty intense role for me, which is to some kind of like, I've got to like, tend to the messiah over here.

And, you know what I mean? Like, I've got to raise a messiah now, Ragu. Well, no, two of them know. Now, you know, you keep just referring to one, but there's two. Yes. I know. You know what? Yes.

Dune is still in, you know, the, yes. Yes. He's still beaming down and it's beautiful. But both of the, you know, I think maybe part of, part of the shift is figuring out ways to let our children be themselves outside of our expectation. It was hard enough. Fuck, my dad wanted me to play football. Now I'm going to want my kids to save the environment.

You know what I mean? Like, and football, I wasn't going to do. And certainly God knows the lot. If you really do want your children to be this thing or that thing, don't act like it. You know what I mean? They'll both end up being like lumberjacks. Yeah. No.

Okay. What I'm talking about, I'm talking about what I hear of spraying away the, what? You know what's so funny about this spray that I just sprayed is this was in the bathroom of our old house and you would spray after you poop. And now every time I sprayed, it just reminds me of poop because the two have paired in my mind. Yeah, right. That's great. No, what I'm talking about is the, what his holiness has said repeatedly, the Dalai Lama

over the years, over many, many years. And that is humanity will be saved by our mothers. Okay. He said, I am, as you see me, I am as I am as a result of my mother's loving compassion. And the more that that can be expressed as we go forward, then that is what's going to be, he didn't say saving grace, but that is what is going to be the deepest affection, affectation rather on our, on everything, the polarization, the planet, the discrepancy of rich and poor, all of it is by virtue of this development of compassion.

So that's really what I'm talking about. And that is really what is happening in your little sphere. And in the spheres of some of the other people that we're quite friendly with. So I think that, I mean, that is, look at him. It's obvious, right? He is an obvious example of the, of what got passed on to him by his mother, the compassionate, loving kindness. So, yeah, I think that's what we're talking about more than trying to groom somebody to

be the greatest environmentalist that ever lived. And no, it's just compassion, love, awareness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, yeah, I, I, so far, I have been attempting to, I just go back to like Chogyam Trumpa talking about the gift you, the best gift you can give your kids is to be fully in the moment with him.

So when I'm with Forrest, I try to stay off the phone and I try to just be, it's, and it doesn't work a lot of the time, you know, it's hard to be in the moment with a toddler, you know, because like, you got to keep them from killing themselves or you're running in front of a car. But it's also not hard because they invite you into that realm where the new, the realm of novelty, everything's new and it's beautiful. And, and from their perspective, the world is not fucked up. From their perspective, the, the, the world is perfect and, and wild and new.

And so, yeah, I, you know, for me, it's some kind of elemental practice as much as I can of being in the moment. And then also of like, trying to practice something Trudy Goodman told me when I was telling her, Aaron and I have been fighting and feeling really guilty about that, fighting in front of him, which happens, and especially during the pandemic, you know, it's just, but, but not trying to like make excuses for getting in fights in front of the kids. But Aaron and I discussed it. Should we hide fighting from him?

Should we have our disagreements like when they've gone to bed? And, but what Trudy said was, it's not the fighting. They need to see you make up. It's learning that conflict happens. Sometimes argument, sometimes, you know, uncomfortable. Sometimes not good arguments happen. But if they can see that resolution happens, then they're going to learn it's not the end of the world to get into conflict with somebody.

And it's not, and it's just part of being alive and living with people. Because I think that's one of the things that some people had to deal with the fact that their parents were miserable with each other, but we're never fighting. They didn't know what was wrong or what was going on and it was being hidden. You know what I mean? Whereas like seeing conflict and then it's hopeful resolution. I think that's something we can teach our kids. But, you know, again, for me, as far as any of the utopian bullshit aside,

it's one of the brilliant things Trump or Rinpoche said that I also hold close to my heart is whether you whatever your ism may be, you know, socialism, communism, whatever your particular utopian path forward to global harmony. If you really want to impact the planet, then find a way to be harmonious in your own house. And that to me was a summation of it all. The E equals MC squared of what I think a lot of the environmentalists who are rightfully upset and rightfully freaking out are looking for it, which is it's not enough to ask for the collective to do something. We need a pragmatic methodology that on the subjective level,

the individual can utilize in the moment and day to day, which is OK, you fucked up. You got in a fight. You got something you and your wife or your brother and your sister or whatever having disagreements. OK, that's the world. That's the world. You're just experiencing the world because that's what's happening on the macro. OK, well, that's great because that means you're like a little beaker. You're all the troubles of the world in this tiny little pixel.

Now, what can you do to harmonize this? And, you know, not to keep I'm going to stop this right now. But what I've noticed is there is it seems to be that trying to be right just doesn't seem to be a very good strategy when it comes to finding harmony. I know, I know. Righteousness is the is the is the last thing that goes. I mean, one of the last things that goes. My dear darlings, we live in the age of Kali Yuga, the age of disintegration and entropy, which means everything is getting way more uncomfortable than it was when our parents were sleeping soundly in their non pandemic world of comfort and safety. We don't have that anymore.

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Purple.com slash Duncan 10, promo code Duncan 10. Terms apply. Thank you, purple. I think I told you when we started chatting the other day that I had done a podcast with people who are deeply involved with environmental activism. They have a thing called full ecology. It's worth listening to, actually. But their thing was, and this goes along with everything in terms of the tradition that we come out of

through Ram Dass' lens, you've got to work inside yourself to think that you can add anything to any issue. They went on about this, and it really made sense about the way in which we are dealing with ourselves and the way in which we are relating with ourselves has so much to do with how we relate to the most simple of things, like what's going on in our very, very closed environment, and how are we just looking at everything that we do from moment to moment, the way we might ignore something, we ignore that inside ourselves. We are ignoring and not paying attention, and then we're ignoring and not paying attention outside ourselves. I loved it because it really was so holistic.

I think, and again, I have had some environmentalists on my podcast who are legitimately terrified, and so I understand people who work at NASA and understand the structure of carbon and the tragedy of that shape in relation to the planet and the kind of fear you can only get from deeply looking into a thing, and also the passion behind trying to get people to change in the real legitimate anger and frustration when you realize nobody's changing. I'm telling them exactly what is the culmination of not just my own lifetime of research, but the culmination of the lifetimes of so many different scientists.

Wasn't this why we wanted science? Isn't this why we wanted science so we could say, look, we have to change, and if we don't, you don't understand, but nobody's changing, and so why? What's the problem here? I think one of the problems is that in the messaging of, oh yeah, you don't even understand, and like right now, if we just stopped everything and one of us stopped emitting carbon, we're still fucked. See, that's part of the message. It's like, oh, now you don't understand.

Like, we're fucked. Like, we're fucked. So in that messaging, suddenly you feel completely disempowered, and humans are all about power. There's no point. So then at that point, we sink into nihilism or denial, and so nothing happens. So the idea is we've got to find a way on the subjective level for people to feel that their positive participation in the world is more than just pissing into the ocean.

And otherwise, forget it. There's nothing's going to happen. So I think that a lot of people are working on those fronts in a lot of different ways, which is we need to get people to actually really understand how powerful they are as an individual, and not in some bullshit way, but you just don't know. The problem is you really can't understand how deeply you're impacting things around you, which is something I've been very interested in lately. Studying quantum physics and the craziness that's happening on the quantum level of the universe,

but from an ecological perspective, it's a really interesting thing. Anyway, the point is I think what Ram Dass was so good at is he... Sorry for this tangent, but we are the quantum level of society. You're a quirk. I'm an electron. Aaron's a neutrino or whatever, but the point is we're all part of this beautiful supersymmetry called society, and we're witnessing the symmetry in the things that appear on the world stage, the big, the calving of the ice sheets, the wars, the appearance of demagogues or tyrants.

That's the supersymmetry, the manifestation of the collective and the negative, but the implication of that is that the opposite is also possible, and that's where you get a Ram Dass. That's where you get a Dalai Lama. That's where you get a Neem Krolibaba, which is that if there's these tyrant possibilities and war possibilities, then the opposite must also be true. That's part of the symmetry. And if it's not true, then we're doomed anyway. We're doomed because it's endless war forever until the environment collapses,

where there's a thing, it's opposite must exist. So my point is we have to find a way to engage people in an optimistic worldview that isn't delusional. And I think that what you and I have been discussing over now, it's going on to a couple, three years. This whole thing about the complete grasping and belief in the me that we live with on a day-to-day basis. I do think it's a really great way to start a conversation along the lines of what you have just mentioned. How do we help to create a space of optimism, subjective optimism, where we believe that there is a way to positively affect all of these different very difficult situations from the environment to the racial injustice to the inequities, economic inequities and all of it.

And I came across, and I think I told you this the other day, excuse me, I came across a talk by Krishnamurti who happens to live around the corner for me right now. I mean, his vibration, his Krishnamurti center here in Ojai. And this talk was with a, I don't know what denomination he was, he was a priest. They never said, there was nothing on the YouTube thing that suggested who he is or who he was, whatever. And we'll put up a link though with it in the show notes here so people can watch it themselves. But I did, there were some fabulous things that basically the whole thing started out with, is it possible to completely empty the mind of the me?

That was the premise, right? Is it possible? We can sort of pick this apart a little bit and add our own thing to it. Is there a process to rid the quote unquote me? And you know him, I mean people, if you don't, if you have not ever heard Krishnamurti or read any of his things, he was really a spiritual maverick in a way. He just, he put down all of it. And there's a, oh God, I guess I got to tell this story. Krishnamurti used to travel in the foothills of the Himalayas where Nim Karoli Baba was.

And where we spent a lot of time with him in a place called Kenchi. And so they knew each other. And one day he came to the ashram and our mentor, K. C. Tuari, who we're just finishing a wonderful documentary film on, called Brilliant Disguise, because he was really a powerful yogi, dressed as a school teacher, a headmaster of a school. So he happened to be there this one day that Krishnamurti came. And Maharaji said to Tuari, okay, I'm going to take him over to the river. You get on, you know, just get a little bit away, you know, but you'll be there.

So he sat on a rock and Krishnamurti and Maharaji sat down. Krishnamurti started regaling Nim Karoli Baba, Maharaji, saying, you're like a wandering mendicant, sadhu. What are you doing with all these ashrams? Look at all this attachment that you've created, like that. Not exactly those words, but pretty much. And you know what Maharaji said? You're right. You're absolutely right.

But it's the way I get my grub. That's how I get my grub, he said. And then you looked at Krishnamurti and he said, gee, don't you go around the world giving him talks and lectures? That's the way you get your grub, right? Yeah. So they had this phenomenal conversation, right? So Krishnamurti, who did not believe in gurus or anything like that, this was, you know, he was the bottom line.

He made Zen seem like a wild bhakti fest actually. Yeah. So what he said here is that there is no process to eliminate the me. Then he started to describe the me is everything that is going through that brain, is the me. And he said, so he gets into it a little bit further. And he says, if I say by me, and I'm going to throw that me out, it's still that me throwing the me out. So this is where he goes, you know, with, can the conscious mind examine the unconscious me and expose it? I pose that to you.

Can the conscious mind examine the unconscious? So awareness brings in the hall of the Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and awareness. Can it expose that? Can it? And you get a first crack at it. Well, the discussion of me is really interesting and it has popped up with some friends. Also, we're talking about the whole me thing. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, because, well, I was having a conversation with one of my friends. They were asking something along the lines of, I feel like I'm too afraid to jump into the abyss. And it reminded me of a question I asked Ram Dass in one of the retreats. I just put it in a different way, which is like, you seem like someone who jumped off the diving board. And I feel like I've camped out on the edge. And he got this big smile and he said, there's no diving board. Remember that? There's no jumping.

It's all a, you know, you're creating the structure. You're creating that in your head. And the abyss when we were laughing about it, because I was, you know, that saying like, when you look at the abyss, the abyss stares back. And I was thinking probably the abyss is looking at you thinking, fuck, look at that scary abyss. You know what I mean? That's a terrifying abyss. And like, so in the conversation of me, really, it's a kind of like sweet thing in the sense that you're excited to imagine that you're encumbered by this thing. Because if you are encumbered by the thing, well, it must be real, right?

And then if it's real, then I must have some solidity. And then if I have some solidity, I've got a me. You know, that's the whole separate me. Right. So no matter which way you go at it, which is the, I've got to get rid of my me or I'm going to be me. You know, both of these things, if the central premise is, well, what the fuck is the me? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to give you his explanation, his definition of the me.

Okay. The me is the entire conceptual ideation of oneself. It's the content of my, the entire content of my consciousness, thinking mind, emotions, feelings, all of it. In this sense is it's the entire content. And as long as the content of my consciousness remains, there will be separation between you and me. And that is the key. I mean, when I heard this, I was like, okay, that's the key of what you and I have been talking about in terms of what there's nothing that can happen in any way. And I mean just simple things like being happy.

Being able to be in a relationship, not just with a wife or husband, but in relationship to people, nothing can happen until this is transformed. And now it just, you know, and it doesn't happen. And I like what he said, that the idea that there's a process like that's how we've been talking, you know, when we've been putting together the ideas for the, from the movie of me to the movie of us, we've been talking as if there's a starting process and an ending. You know, there's an end, there's a beginning and an end. And what he's saying, which is really fascinating, it is not about process at all. It is about perspective. That's how he ends up with this thing.

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Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechoo.com promo code Duncan to receive your first month free. That's free erections on the DTFH, and we thank Blue Choo for sponsoring the podcast. I do think it's fun. I think that's one of the cool and infuriating things about Christian Emerty. He really does make himself out to be some kind of authority, and he seems so charismatic, but it's like, okay, that's just because you said that's what the meat was. Well, wait, no, no, no. I mean, we have our own experience. Is not your experience that the content, the story you tell yourself is content, the way in which you look at other people and project them to be one thing or another based on memories or whatever. That's all true.

It's kind of like Christian Emerty drawing a circle like in the sky. That's the sky. It's like, you know what I mean? I do feel like it's a funny, you know, this is from my own exploration of the me stuff. Playing around with Chogym Trumper Rinpoche, who there's another like wonderful encounter between Christian Emerty and Trumper Rinpoche where Christian Emerty is doing his like thing. And, you know, again, I'm not trying to take sides in something because both of these are like what I'm looking at. I'm like, so what is this where spirituality was in those days? Was this what it was like? Cage matches between spiritual superstars confronting each other over like this stuff? You know, even with even with like young Ramdas and Trumper Rinpoche, these two young spiritual stars, and it's like, what's going on here?

Like these confrontations between, you know, I'm going to go to Neem Karoli Baba and say you shouldn't be doing this thing. It's like, because of so many stories of this with Christian Emerty, I have a, though I do have a lot of respect for him, his intelligence, his intellect. I always get an empty feeling from him on a good way. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What do you like? Some kind of spiritual arm wrestler going around from ashram to ashram, trying to get like in some embarrassing ego competition with spiritual teachers. It's an embarrassment. And because of that, for someone who is so wrapped up in challenging me's with his me, it's hard for me to take anything he says. Okay, you got to get that. Yeah, but now that's exactly what this is about content of consciousness. Who cares where he's coming from? He, in my little belief system of advanced beings, et cetera, et cetera.

There's not, to me, that's not, you know, not at the level of one like a Neem Karoli Baba that was no longer living in subjective anything. I mean, because you can even see in this talk where the priest says kind of catches him, okay, so you're saying you should be doing this. You know, oh no, there's no doing anything. You know, he backs off and all of that. But you got to watch the Trump or Rinpoche one because Chokim Trump, I just sits there and like it's very quiet and just lets Christian Emerty do be Christian Emerty. And like it really seems to start rattling him because like he's like, his question to Trump or Rinpoche was something about why I had meditation to people's problems. What's this meditation thing? And so he's like, he like, it's just being very quiet and he's sitting there. He's not really answering the question, but he's in the moment with him and then it just rattles Christian Emerty because there's nothing to, he's looking for a fight. Yeah, but the, so anyway, so regardless, we're, you know, I'm creating a fake Christian Emerty and now I'm fighting with him.

So I'm doing the same thing. Yeah, right. You're just, yeah, you're right, isn't it? Yeah, it's like part of it. But, but, but let's, but I'm sorry. One of the things Trump or Rinpoche said that I love is confusion is on the continuum of enlightenment and so, or a condition of enlightenment. So in other words, the problem with the me circumference, however you want to draw it is that what is the me happening inside of? And so, you know, this, this is where I think the mirror starts running into some real trouble in the sense that the, the, the, regardless of whether you, your me is your Twitter bio or, you know, the, your recollection of how your memories or how you tend to act in any given moment, you're always thwarted by the sort of non continuity of the damn thing.

It doesn't, it's always changing. You're kind of making it up in the moment. That's the problem. And you're making it up. You're having to like, you're, you're adhering to some meanest thing. You know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? So it's like,

Absolutely. But at the same, well, he calls the me is the mischief of the world because it's in living in separation. It's, it only is in, it's in fear of losing stuff. It's in hope of gaining its preferences, its choices, it's looking at people by virtue of how is that going to help me or not help me at the most subtle levels. You know, so it is mischief. And what, what does he think? Like it's a mistake? No, but we're going to get there.

Okay. But I just wanted to kind of parse this a little bit. But just to say about Krishnamurti's, yes, he's a real brain. He's, you know, and he brings up stuff that's good to, good to go apart. I mean, it really is. He challenges everything. It's cool. Yeah.

But, you know, and the rest of it, who cares? You know, his thing about, you don't need to do practice, meditate, you know, coming onto Trump or Rinpoche, but I mean, Trump, Trump or Rinpoche, you know, is a highly, highly advanced being was, is whatever. Whatever. And I would be taking that kind of advice in terms of the ways in which he discussed, you know, what meditation really is, is moving into the gap, for instance, between thoughts. And that is the way in which one can transform this deep grasping onto the story we tell ourselves, the me. But one of the things so that he advice is probably not the right word for him because there's no advice. There's nothing. But being honest.

Otherwise, one tends to deceive oneself. So we did this whole thing with Ram Dass. My friend David Silver and I, who I started the mind rolling podcast with. Yes. And because I always felt like one of the biggest things I got from Ram Dass when I first met him and then all the way through the years was his ability for self honesty, not to bullshit himself. Yeah. That that was like, I got to say that's right at the top few, if I'm to say what I got from Ram Dass over all those years. That was right at the very top few.

Yeah. The ability to do that because there's so much fear around being on, which is why I wanted to do this, this whole journey with with you around the movie of me to the movie of us. And I've said this more than once to you. I was getting so sick of, you know, I had enough honesty, I thought, to see the sickness, the sickness, meaning the mischief that and I like that word mischief better than sickness in terms of the of the transparency of the motivations, which are so self interested and self cherishing and all of those great Buddhist terms. It just got to the point where got to do something. And in the doing of it between you and I over these last couple of years, probably more in the doing of it, we have come to be able to maybe offer something that allows us to be clear about how the effect of living in this kind of separate reality. Yeah. It's affecting us so deeply and it's affecting everything around us.

And so yeah, self honesty is a is a primary way in which we can really look at ourselves and not run away. Well, yeah. Yeah. I think that that looking at yourself self knowing that's the. Yeah. That's the start start of it. I mean, again, like not to keep beating up on Krishna Murthy, but come on. Yeah.

He's like the grumpy. He can take it. He's a. I'll run over to his center and after this, he just seemed every single thing. I'm sorry. All the Krishna Murthy fans out there. I don't. I remember it's just to me.

It's just like, I got to go with my instincts here. And I think the reason whenever you see whenever I like leave some encounter with Krishna Murthy, just thinking like, oh, no, thanks. It's versus Ramdas is because Krishna Murthy is of course, he's going to use the word mischief. He's like a get out of my yard kid person. You know what I mean? Mischief. Whereas Ramdas, he invites you to look at yourself like it's a flower. Look at all that karma.

Look at that and love it. It's not looking at yourself like, oh, this mischief here. Oh, this mistake of the universe. Oh, this aberration and the great cosmic everythingness that I am. Whereas Krishna Murthy is like, ah, the mischief of the world. Uh, get out of town, Krishna Murthy. No, thanks. I like the because, because let's, if we really are going to be honest, let's talk about,

if we really are, let's talk about that. Come on. Let's talk about that moment when you've lost control and you've become your worst you. Maybe it's in the moment. Maybe it's the repercussion afterwards when you find yourself sitting by yourself, feeling all of it. And I'm not saying the guilt or the shame, but also the righteousness and the power and all of it mixing together and the mournfulness and the sadness, but in that moment where

you weren't Ramdas or Krishna Murthy or whoever you imagine you might be in some incarnation, but we're actually you, you, you, you encounter truth. And when you're looking at it afterwards, you're not seeing it like, oh, that's who I want to be. But if you for a second don't judge it. You're like, this is my karma. This is who I am right now for real. And it's, it isn't right.

It's not good or it doesn't, it is mischievous or it doesn't fit into the idea of a harmonious world, but it's real. And that's where I'm at here, not whatever the fuck I thought I was, but no, this is you. This is me for real, this density, the anger, the, the, you know, the potential to cause untold pain to those around me, the potential to lose everything and all of it. Those moments, I think it's worth noting that that thing is very, very powerful and that thing is very, is not all bad.

In fact, I don't know if it's bad at all. It's just is, it just is. It just is. There's no bad or good. It just is. That's it. So when Krishna Murthy is applying mischief or terms like that to the damn thing, I think it, to me, it represents more of a bad mood than some like assessment of the thing.

And I don't think it's going to help anything. Yeah, but I think it, but to me, it's just tone. I mean, you who've been doing podcasts forever than me, when I learned this, when I was doing radio way back in the day, it's all about tone. And, you know, I can say, for instance, you know, when something goes awry and I see it and I can, I can say, gee, there's mischievous me happening again. I can say it in a way that it is a guilt, shame, judgmental and so on. Or I can say it in a way, and this is how the difference between Krishna Murthy, probably

what you're trying to say in Ram Dass is have a sense of humor about it. Yeah. Oh, there's that mischievous little guy again. He's just trying to hold on, et cetera, et cetera. So I really think it's in the tone. Now, where this comes round to is interesting because where he came around to it in this dialogue that you have with this priest was around perspective, that that was the entire game changer.

And it made me think, okay, so what are we talking about? We're talking about, you know, we've been using Ram Dass as our centerpiece here, somebody who was very much human and very much able to let go of the me in the moment. And you, when I first brought you to Ram Dass's house, I mean, you just were swimming in that. Yes. Where there was no necessity to be or not be anything and there was no judgment. There was nothing but just a spacious quality of a total acceptance. Yes.

And he was able to do that. But the perspective, so like I just mentioned this tonal thing around the word mischief. Tonally, it can be just a completely bullshit, judgmental asshole thing. Or tonally, it can be a humorous, spacious thing. Yeah. So what's the perspective? So the perspective and Ram Dass brought this out the last maybe 10 years he was in Maui. Right?

I think you were there for most of the last 10 years and loving awareness. Yeah. And that was the perspective he was saying you easily can take a few breaths into the center of your being, into the center of your chest and move that consciousness out of the me story, into the unity story. And from there, you can laugh about all of it and not take yourself so seriously, self serious. Yeah.

You don't aren't judging yourself or anybody else. You're not moving towards the preference to be comfy or pushing away the tough stuff in life. Your perspective is the key. And this is what he ended up saying this as well, Krishnamurti. I'm defending Krishnamurti now against you because you have defiled this extraordinary philosophical saint. That's what he did to everybody else.

You're allowed. He gave us all permission to do that. To me, the idea of unconditional positive regard, Carl Rogers, Rejarian therapy, because he couldn't, I think when Carl Rogers came up with the term unconditional positive regard, he knew he couldn't say love and be respected by academics, so he had to come up with another word. I don't know him. Carl Rogers, I'm okay.

You're okay. Rejarian? Oh yeah, I've heard that, but I don't know the name. One of the great stories that they told about Carl Rogers when I was in school was that it stuck with me. And it's what Ram Dass was so, that spaciousness that you're talking about, and it's what apparently Neem Karoli Baba did, and I guess you could say Ram Dass is a reflection of that spaciousness.

But some kid was about to get basically put into like a juvenile detention facility because he was misbehaving so much, but I think it was a very young kid. So it didn't make, it was like too young to be this like out of control and everyone had tried everything. And so Carl Rogers had them bring the kid to him, and this kid walks into his office, the way Rogers describes this kid, looking at him as like, this is a kid who's been to, God knows how many therapists already pissed off that he's got to go to another one, doesn't give a shit about any of this.

And sitting on Carl Rogers desk is like crayons and paper, and the kid says to him, I'm not something on the lines, I'm not going to fucking talk. And Carl Rogers said, Oh, you don't have to talk. And the kid just starts drawing for the whole hour. Carl Rogers just sits there trying to hold a space of unconditional positive regard for this poor kid who everybody was trying to change. Everybody was saying mischief, mischief, mischief, you better be better, you better be this or that. And suddenly he's in the presence of someone who's like, just do your thing as you

are right now. The kid comes back, same thing comes back, starts talking a little bit. And then as the story goes, the kid, all the teachers are like, what have you been doing? What he's a completely different person. And all that had happened was this genius was letting a child be themselves without with nothing. And it reminds me of this story. Ramdas tells about Neem Krolibaba where he, maybe it's transmitted in a look or something, but within the look is, when do you want to, when do you want to do this? You want to keep reincarnating forever?

That's okay. You can play the game for as long as you want. Or as you don't have to play it anymore, if you don't want to. I'm the thing that I'm the non-playing of the game, but however you want to do it. And within that spaciousness, that seems to be where the transformation happens. And from the quantum perspective, not to try to put into some pop science bullshit, it's really interesting the way the quantum level photons act as a particle and a wave simultaneously. And, but if you observe it, it pops into one or the other. But somehow the effect of observation forces it into either showing up as a particle, showing

up as a wave. My physicist friends out there, I'm sorry if I fucked it up, but I spent some time watching various versions of this thing, which I believe is called the double slit experiment where you shoot light through and there's a way to show it as a wave or a particle. But a superposition is the name for when something is these two seemingly completely different things simultaneously. And so in thinking about meditation, non-judgmental awareness, unconditional positive regard, I feel like it's that moment of allowing yourself to simultaneously be a me, the particle of identity, and the great ocean of everythingness. These two things somehow existing simultaneously, meaning that we're not in the act of some

demo crew trying to knock a building down anymore. It's just part of what we are. It's the particle. It's not mischievous. Is a particle of light mischievous? No, but it's not everything we are. We're also wait, wait, now come on. It's the mischievous part is I mean, not to harp on this, but the mischievous part is just the self interested part. Okay. It's the part of us that wants to protect our territory. It wants to take advantage in every way so that we can advance ourselves in whatever way that makes us feel more comfy, more powerful, all of that. So that's just that part. But you're absolutely right. This isn't about okay, we don't have that old me anymore. We're going to live in the undivided now and where we recognize where

the particles and the waves are one and we're not seeing them separate. That's not a reality. We are human. We have got to operate. It's part of our humaneness on a day to day basis. Boy, there's a great story. I don't know if I can tell this though and it fits, but basically it's the idea of you are a me. You've got the me. You became the separate me when you were given a name and then move forward and you've got all of the grasping, all of the terror of the causes and conditions that have made you whatever that me is. And then you start to wake up and you start to think, okay, wait, there is another possibility. You do that through psychedelics. You do it through hearing a talk of Ram Dass or anybody, you Alan Watts. You do it through meeting somebody. You do

it just, you and I, what we've been doing, the way in which we're sharing this creates the possibility and the new perspective. And once you have that, all that happens in my mind is there's a, a, a lessening of that grasping that makes you so, the feeling of separation is so powerful by the, by this grasping that you have no way of having a harmonious interaction with the environment, with your, with the people that you're in relation to, with your work, with any of it. And I think that that's what really needs to be understood. I mean, Krista Morty needs to be understood. He wouldn't like that. That's what comes about once we step on to a path of knowing that there is something beyond this Mimi land.

Yes. And, and, and, and like, there's a, so many different methods related around sort of loosening the grasping or loosening the, it's really more like a, I think grasping as a, it's more like a muscle spasm. It's like when you have a really bad leg cramp, except you're the universe having the leg cramp. And it's a little, it's painful. But again, for me, the, it is painful. You got, that's an important cramping is painful. I mean, I mean, suffering gets to the point where you can't, you can't stand it. Well, but then, but then also this is, this is, this is where we get into the really interesting addictive quality of, of it, like, or the subtle nuances of the thing, which is again, like suddenly your relationship.

So at first your relationship with yourself is, is naturally undifferentiated in the sense that you just think you're your mom, you're part of the ocean of isness. And then you begin to differentiate from your parents and suddenly you're a you and now you're going to, you want things your way. This is the toddler situation. And then this continues to like crystallize until you become an adult, which is just like a sort of neurological thumb print of various habituations that you've assembled as a, whatever you think you are. But the, the, the, what, what's been quite useful to me is not, well, first of all, what hasn't worked for me is the destructive approach, which a lot of people are into these days. God knows you get the emails

I do too, where people are like, I obliterated my ego on 3000 micrograms of LSD. My, and the language is always war language obliterated, smashed, demolished. And, and, you know, but, and so the language itself demonstrates, number one, the recognition of, Oh God, this thing called my me is causing so much pain that I want to go to fucking war with it. But then also it seems to be a little bit of ignorance in the sense like, wait, so you're going to try to relieve yourself of the pain of the me by blowing it up, by exploding it by, you know, dropping bombs on it. How's that going to work? So yeah, by the way, Ram does, he used to say, like he'd advise people, if you have dark thoughts, he first started out going, love them to death. And then a couple of years later,

he, you know, he's, it's too violent. That kind of, that leads you into something that is even further polarizing. Yeah. Well, again, we're a war culture. We've been 93% of American histories. We've been at war. So we're like Klingons, essentially in Star Trek. Like we know the way we understand the world is war and conquering and colonization. And so we take that approach against our own ourselves when we start having some recognition of our suffering. And, and, but yeah, anyway, the point is like the, that idea of confusion being a condition of enlightenment, I've always loved it. And I didn't understand it at first. I think I understand it a little more now, but I guess the way to, David Nick turn told me this funny joke, a funny spiritual joke,

and there's a lot of shitty spiritual jokes, I'll probably butcher it. But basically, I think a student is on one side of a river, his teachers on the other side of the river, and he yells to his teacher, I want to get to the other shore. And his teacher yells back, you are on the other shore. And it's, do you know what I mean? So it's like, where it gets addictive for the addiction to really work or the spiritual high thing to work, you have to create another shore. And now you've got the spiritual path. And now you're on a journey from this profane to the sacred. And within that journey, there's all these chances to get completely blasted. You know, because Oh my God, now you're having this cherished moment because

truly you've you're melting like a sugar cube into the ocean. But then all of a sudden, you're not anymore. And you're back down to your shitty self again. And then you're melting again and back. And now all you're doing is getting high. That's all you're doing is doing this weird form of spiritual bypass. It's called, I don't know if it's, I mean, like in one bypass in that it's, it's, it's just feeding the same ego that was being fed before there was a spiritual path in one's life. I'm referring to this thing that was discussed in this book, which I'll tell you right now. Yeah, it's called it's by hold on one second. It's called me over my audible here. Wonderful, wonderful Buddhist scripture called. Oh God, let me find it. It's one of the key Buddhist.

It's about Bodhichitta aspiration. Oh yeah, it's called Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva. Very wonderful. I mean, that's incredible. Wonderful. And he's talking about this Bodhichitta idea. And, uh, but he's mentioning all these different things you can do as someone who's waking up or however you want to put it or cultivating Bodhichitta, moving through the realms. And one of the things you can do is actually cultivate this compassion, loving awareness, mindfulness to a certain degree where you begin to experience all the awesome things that go along with it, which are, I think are best be described as little miracles all the time or little synchronicities or the relief that comes from, you know,

recognizing you're just in a bad dream and you're probably going to wake up soon. It's really quite nice. But there's a possibility here within even that of intentionally going back to sleep, putting yourself back to sleep because of the thrilling exhilaration of waking back up. You essentially turn yourself into this fucking yo-yo. It's true. I'm telling you, people do it all the time. And I, and I think part of the problem, so to speak, is that it might just be that this way that things are, all of the Eunice and all the meanness and all the confusion is just the way things are. It doesn't get better. It doesn't get worse. This is it. And people, that's intolerable. It's intolerable because the great dream

is there's this thing around the corner that once I do the chakra exercises and the purifications and the mantras and the thing and get the initiation and then get the thing and then get all that and then somewhere around the corner is great hope. But what if it is hopeless in the sense, no, you're there. Deal with that. Holy fuck. It can't be. You mean just this? No. Then I've just got to be me. Then I can't exert aggression against myself. So now what am I going to do? Wait, wait, let's, I like to think of this in practical terms as to that once the shift starts to happen, I've had a shift over many decades that I can, and I have noticed and that is really what I only think I am concerned about for myself and you and others that are around me

is moving in the perspective shifts without, I don't even know why. Yes, I do practices. Yes, I've been with incredible beings. Yes, starting with Ninkoro-Libama and ending there really and hanging out with Ram Dass as much as I did. But something happens and it's due to something that I was going to tell this story a little earlier, it's called grace. Yeah. And something happens. So, but the practical application of it is certainly I am not reactive the way that I was earlier in my life. Period. I am not and it has helped me with the anger issues that I've carried in this life. It has helped me with just being more open and I talk about that openness, that spaciousness, that self honesty, the way in which Ram Dass talks about loving

that quote unquote Christa Morti mischief. It's just a happening. Yeah. It is inevitable. It's an inevitable happening. Yeah. It is our human, the human reality is certainly this ego me, me thing and getting entrapped and you're saying, well, people fall asleep so they can wake up again because it's so much fun. They do. And maybe that's, I would say that people do a lot of psychedelics just for the experience that may be true. And retreats. Yeah. And retreats and whatever meditation core. But again, it's all in, I say it's tone when we talk about a word like mischief that we've been talking about. It's all in, it's an honest intention allows for transformation that I love, that I love the honest intention that I love. And that took me a long time to get to that one.

And I love it. And I think that that's if, if you were trying to find and saying, hold on to something, but to me, it seems more like a mnemonic device than anything, which is, you know, in all the like, you're describing, you're reading some beautiful Buddhist description of death as being like being in a blizzard and are like, they're like so dizzying and so lost. So, you know, I do like having a little, an intention like that that I can refer to when I've lost all reason or all like, wait, what was I even doing any of this for? What was I doing this for? I don't even know what any of this shit is. Just that little intention of like, okay, I'm going to try to be a little kinder today. Or it's like in Annie

Lamont's new book, I believe she put just trying to be a little God, I think her prayer was God, let me be a little, a little less of an asshole today. You know what I mean? But just some simple, simple, simple, simple thing like that. So that I have a thing. But then part of, to me, part of being less of an asshole, having really become adept in earlier years at beating myself up and hating myself and all the various methods I use to sort of hurt myself, it didn't achieve the goal of some kind of stable happiness. So, and if it did, I think we'd be living in a paradise world. In other words, like we, if we're going to go back to like, we need some subjective methodology for

improving our internal ecosystem, which maybe then we'll reflect into the world. I think the first step has got to be peace. We're like, in other words, we're calling an end to this war against the mischief person. The mischief man and I, maybe we're not going to get along for a while. And maybe the things the mischief man wants to do, like snort ketamine for the next 50 years straight. And what I need to do is a, what I need to do is a, is a father and a husband and a provider don't mix. And I'm going to be the one calling the shots in that regard. The father part, not the mischief man. Also, I understand why. And I know why that he wants to do that. I know why he likes it. And I, and I

understand why the addiction is there. And I, and I get it, but all I'm saying is the war mentality, even using the language of war to refer to ourselves, uh, is not useful. So to me, there's a big relief in what you're saying. The relief being, this is a process. Like you're not really quite in this, you might not be in control at all, but in that scares the shit out of the mischief man, because the mischief man wants to be in complete control of everything. But when you start recognizing, oh, wonderful. Like when I look back and think, wait, how do I even meet Raghu? Well, how did I get to end up at Ram Dass's house? Or why do I get to have pictures of Neem Karoli Baba all over my house now? Why do I get to have that? Or why did my child and the womb get to be in the presence

of Ram Dass or any of these things? Like when I look back and think, what was the right thing I did? Like what, what was the thing to deserve that? And when you, you know what I mean? And then when you realize, oh, I don't know that there was, or if there was, there wasn't, I, okay, here, this brings up the story that, that's my third time saying, gee, I don't know if I should tell this story. Well, it's not, I love your stories. No, no, you don't, you hate all those miracles story. Ah, that was earlier. That was earlier. Now you'll, okay, I'll give you a whole picture. I don't love them, but I like them. This isn't about that. This isn't about that. Well, this is a, this is a story that's been told many times, but it's so apropos to what you just

said, what we've been talking about, because everything we're talking about is in duality, right? Trying to fix, no, don't fix, Cristian Borti said, there's no fixing, there's no process, there's no nothing, there's just perspective that takes place. This is a conversation that Ramdas had with Neem Karoli Baba in Allahabad one day, many years ago, where Ramdas said, Maharaji, is it not true that karma and grace are the same? How could they be different? Action and grace. That's intense. And you know the story, but Maharajis, no? I don't remember. It's sorry to cut it off. That's good. I love people who have no memories anymore. I can tell the story and they'd act like they'd never heard it before. It's like so

refreshing. Anyhow, he said, Ramdas, I am not talking, this is not something I'm going to, I can talk about, even say it exactly like, this is not something that I'm going to talk about in public. And there wasn't anybody there except us, you know. So later in the day, in that day, Dada Mukherjee, the great, by his grace, get that book. You want to know anything about Neem Karoli Baba? That's the book. I just threw that in there because it's true. He came to Ramdas and said, Ramdas, Maharajee said to tell you that Ramdas and I understand each other quite well. So Ramdas thought, okay, it must be that they are and you couldn't talk about it and so on and so forth. Fast forward to not that long ago, maybe about eight years ago, I was in India with Siddhima

who was with Maharajee forever and is a saint in her own right. It was our Indian mother, just an extraordinary being. I asked her, I said, I told her that whole story and I said, what's the truth, Ma? And she said, it is true that they are one, but human minds cannot fathom that. You need to act as if they are not one until the other thing happens, which is ineffable and we can't talk about. We have no idea about where you lose complete subject to object and you are now just part of the universal divine presence, whatever the hell we want to call it. So in your case, how the hell did I end up in India? I'm saying the same thing as you. How did I end up in the pool with Ramdas? I was in terrible shape. You say, I was in terrible shape. How the hell

did I end up in looking in Ramdas' eyes and going, wow, I trust this guy. Period. And that pushed me to India. I had to meet whoever the hell it was that he trusted. I had to meet and I went and did that. How did that all happen? There is something going on that is not able to be understood by our minds. Well, yeah, it's something outside of time. We just, at one point, we don't try and figure it out. Actually, Maharajee said, stop trying to figure anything else. Don't try and figure it out. And we stop and at the moment we stop and surrender into the moment and the Buddhists have so much great terminology about being in the awareness moment, being trumpets between the gaps, in the gap between the thoughts,

rather, we suddenly trust that. And once we trust that, then that perspective that we've been talking about where we are not judging, we are coming from a place that Ramdas called loving awareness. We are not judging ourselves. We are not judging other people. We are not trying to change things. We are not trying to have preferences. We are not trying to push it away. That seems, we accept the fact that we are human. We have suffering. We have to, that little me, mischief, he's a sweet guy, actually. We're going to let him do his thing and just, you know, just like a little bit of loving will allow it to be less pernicious and we can be a little kinder. Love it. See, this thing, and I think it's really important to underline

what you just said and stick it in your heart because it's like the moment that you allow yourself this possibility of there being something more going on. It's really such a wonderful relief. And you know, because I, some of these moments happen in our family where all of a sudden, I don't know, like the other day, we're listening to Inya and Forest is like really listening to- Oh, don't make Forest listen to Inya. Come on. You monster demon, mischief man. No, give me a break. It was beautiful. My mom used to like it. I know, I just- She lives in a castle full of cats. You're going to judge her. She's the cool as cool as it gets. But like, we're sitting there listening to it, four seating dinner, Aaron's breastfeeding dune,

everyone's just in the moment and it's all love. But it's like something has come into the room. I don't know what it is. It's the only place you want to be. You never want to be out of that place. We're all feeling it. No one's going to say it in the moment. No one's going to be like, Oh, the transcendent has descended upon our house because it's outside of words. It's dirty even that. Yeah, exactly. Or like when after Ram Dass married, Aaron and I, and Krishna Das is playing music and everyone is chanting, happened, something came into the room. I don't know what that is. Same thing. But when it came into the room then, I remember thinking, well, that's just because I'm at Ram Dass' house,

or I don't know. They know what that is, but I'm not going to mention it because I don't want to mess it up. Little mischief. Yeah. Well, I say it out loud. But then, now I know a little bit more about what that was that came into the room. And I know it's not limited at Ram Dass' house. I know it's not limited to me being around my family or not being around my family, but also I know I can't make it happen. It doesn't seem to obey my desire for it, which is another thing I love that Ram Dass said, which is if you desire realization, that's just another desire. But there's intention and you've been fulfilling the intention for so many years now. That intention is sharing. You absolutely want

to share whatever has come to you that feels good or feels like enlightening or anything, all of the stuff. You have that wonderful crystal mind that loves to learn and assimilate stuff. And you have been sharing it on this, well, this is my darling, but on Duncan Trussell family hour for years and years. You're the only reason I'm sitting here doing this right now with you. No other reason. So you are doing it. And it's that intention that it's back to his holiness, the Dalai Lama's most simple, simple kindness is my only religion. That's all we got. That's all we got. That's all we got. And then, so there's nothing to do but share that. And the little mischief guy, we, Krishna Morty, we got to love him too. It's a talent of Aaron, but he's not.

We're going to love him. We're going to learn to love him. That's the purpose. That is the point of this podcast. Learn to love that. I think if we can do that, learn to love this thing and not bullshit love either, but love it unconditional, positive regard the way Carl Rogers love that kid or the way that Neem Karoli, or Mr. Rogers or Mr. Rogers. The real deal. But you know, if we all started doing that, my, I do, I do think that like we're getting the cart in front of the horse. If we think that the way to stopping environmental collapse is through going to war with ourselves. It's just not going to work because we're part of the earth too. And a house divided upon itself cannot stand. So we have to figure out a way to

stop the war inside. And then maybe from that, all the other stuff maybe absolutely one billion percent. And we're going to end this podcast on that note. Stop the war inside ourselves. You know, I did a podcast with a fantastic monk from the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition, Chung Lu. And he went on about that very thing. What happened to him is he was with in Plum Village with Thich Nhat Hanh for 17 years or something as a monk. He said, I was the best monk you could ever be doing everything exactly right. And he said, not nothing happened to me. Nothing. So I dropped my robes. He said, that's when it happened of its own. I was just too much of doing, doing, doing, doing. And he talked about while I was there as a monk for 17 years, all I had was a war

going on inside myself. Just what we were just talking about. And then once that left, then suddenly that realization came and that war started to evaporate. And that's what it's all about for all of us as far as I'm concerned. You're the best. I'm so lucky we're friends. I love you. You're the best. Never mind. We have a mutual admiration society. Thank you so much, Duncan. Anytime. This hang, I mean, you know, I don't even consider this a podcast. I mean, we do this by the way. I can't, folks out there, I can't tell you how many times we just get on the phone and we're just talking or whatever and it gets into an extended conversation and I go, well, this is the same thing as a pocket. We ought to record the damn thing whenever we get on.

I did the same thing with it when I'm having a great conversation. I'm like, let's monetize this. Yeah, right. But we're now, we're not going to, we're not going to get into ourselves and go, you cheap piece of shit. It's how we get our grub. It's how we get our grub. Yes, we lovely little mischief guy. That's what we'll call this little mischief. Little mischief man. Yeah. All right, Roger. Thank you for letting me be on the show again. We'll throw some stuff up everybody, you know, with show notes and links and yeah, be here now network. It's, we is happening. Okay, we'll see you later. Thank you. Big thank you to Ragu for coming out of the show. Check out his podcast,

Mind Rolling. All the links you need to find him will be at duckatrustle.com. A tremendous thank you to our wonderful sponsors, Mint Mobile, Purple, and of course, Bluetooth, all the offer codes are at duckatrustle.com. And a big thank you to you for listening. If you're sick of the commercials, go to patreon.com forward slash DTFH. And again, I am not saying it will protect you from these wild animal attacks. It's one of those can't confirm or deny situations, but check us out patreon.com forward slash DTFH and thank you for listening. I love y'all and I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna.

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