Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 612: Raghu Markus

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Raghu Markus, co-founder of the Love Serve Remember Foundation, and lifelong friend of Ram Dass, re-joins the DTFH! Duncan and Raghu collaborated on an audiobook! You can listen to The Movie of Me t...o the Movie of We on Audible right now! Raghu also hosts the podcasts Mindrolling and Ram Dass Here and Now, available everywhere you like to listen. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg and Duncan Trussell. This episode is brought to you by: VIIA - Use code DUNCAN at checkout for 15% Off your first order and a FREE sample pack of Dreams THC + CBN! This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self. AG1 - Visit DrinkAG1.com/Duncan for a FREE 1-year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase!

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 You are listening in the closed day. He's doing gun. He's through self-harm. You have a jab a walk me son That was Jabberwock by DJ Francois of the Seventh Legion of the Infernal Warlords of the Dark Bubble that Shall Not Pop. A lot of people think, oh, well, but I disagree. They're pretty powerful warlords. This is the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. You are a sentient being, a constellation of cells, excuse me, a constellation of cells, a constellation of subatomic particles, atoms, neutrons, neutrinos, quarks, gluons, and a million other things we haven't quantified yet all foaming together in this wonderful moment of self-awareness, which is why you're probably going to enjoy this conversation with Raghu Marcus. Raghu Marcus is one of the people who helps run the Love, Serve, Remember Foundation, which is Ram Dass's foundation. If you're not aware of Ram Dass, you should check out, I guess, his most famous book,
Starting point is 00:01:37 Be Here Now. He's got millions of others. I've actually started re-listening to Experiments in Truth, which is available on Audible. And it's sort of an autobiography, I guess you could say. It starts with his journey into the psychedelic realm before anybody knew what that was, and then his journey into the spiritual realm when he traveled to India because he was being frustrated about the fact that he kept coming down. And not just that. into the spiritual realm when he traveled to India because he was being frustrated about the fact that he kept coming down. And not just that, he was a brilliant intellectual Harvard professor.
Starting point is 00:02:13 And like any psychologist in those days, they were very curious about what psychedelics were doing to human consciousness. And he wanted to know if there were any maps out there for the states of consciousness made available by the variety of weird psychedelics he and many of his associates were taking. So Raghu also traveled to India.
Starting point is 00:02:41 It was lifelong friends with Ram Dass. They shared Neem Krolli Baba as their guru. They're both lucky enough along with a lot of other people in the Ram Dass community to get to hang out with this wild being. And I am lucky because I get to hang out with people who hung out with this being. And I know it sounds weird when you say being,
Starting point is 00:03:04 but something about these people, even though they're very human, they're not aliens, there's something otherworldly about them or extra-worldly, not in the sense of worldly as in being decadent, hedonistic, selfish, but in the sense as being almost a mouthpiece for the universe itself. And the Earth is part of the universe. I'm already rambling too much. I don't need to ramble much more. The conversation you're about to hear is very personal. One of the things that I try to do whenever I'm having a kind of formal conversation with people like Raghu is just present to them exactly what's going on with me, with people like Raghu is just present to them exactly what's going on with me and not try to put too much lipstick on the fish because I've noticed that with Raghu,
Starting point is 00:03:51 Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Trudy Goodman, Krishna Das, all the other people that hopefully I've introduced you to via this podcast, they have a knack for alchemizing my neurosis into something that is at least slightly more bearable. So this is a wonderful spiritual conversation with one of my teachers and best friends in the world. Before we jump into it, very quickly, I got some shows coming up. You can find all these shows at Duncan Trussell dot com
Starting point is 00:04:26 I'm gonna be in San Francisco not this weekend, but I'm gonna be in wise guys Las Vegas April 26 and 27th and you can catch me at Cobbs comedy club May 3rd and May 4th Then I'm headed over to the Milwaukee improv May 9th through the 11th. Catch a little break. Then I'm back at one of my favorite clubs on planet Earth, Helium, in Portland. That's May 30th and 31st and June 1st. There's lots more dates coming up. You can find all of them at dunkintrustle.com. If you want commercial-free episodes of the DTFH, you can subscribe at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. And the final plug here is that Raghu and I, for a long time, we basically recorded an audio book. I guess you could call it an extended podcast. It's called The Movie of Me to the Movie of We.
Starting point is 00:05:22 And you can find that on Audible audible and if you like this conversation definitely grab the audible because the entire audible is a combination of us talking mixed in with some other spiritual teachers and insights that we've gotten from them so that's the movie of me to the movie of we can find that on audible now everybody welcome to the DTFH Raghu Marcus. Welcome to you. It's the Duncan Trustful Family. It's the Duncan Trustful Family. Raghu, it's great to see you. Always great to be here, Duncan.
Starting point is 00:06:16 I have something I want to talk about with you that I think you, more than most people I know are probably aware of. And I don't think it gets brought up enough when people are having conversations about spirituality or the path or whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. The trajectory of awakening. I wanna talk about this, your thoughts on how circuitous this stuff can be.
Starting point is 00:06:50 thoughts on how circuitous this stuff can be. Because I, you know, I am in between periods of having a stable practice. I just went through probably the longest period of daily meditation, twice a day, you know, listening to great audio books on Buddhism and was really experiencing that reality that happens when you have a daily practice. Like suddenly everything's organized, I'm clean, I'm not losing my keys as much, my wallet is much, but relationship with Aaron is better, relationship with the kids is better. And then with the kids is better. And then as an experiment, I thought, what happens if I just don't do this for one day?
Starting point is 00:07:31 So I stopped. You know, I've been listening to this Buddhist stuff and they're always like, you know, don't get attached to your practice. You should stop that sometimes too. And now I can't get back into it. It's so frustrating. And not just that, but it's like watching
Starting point is 00:07:46 this old incarnation appear again. I'm messier. I'm a little more confused, a little more, I don't know, sort of just lost than I was. So what are your thoughts on this aspect of the spiritual path? We're fuck-ups. Period. That's fuck ups. Period.
Starting point is 00:08:07 That's all you gotta know. I've lost my keys. I got my regular practice. I lost my...I spent maybe, I don't know, too much time looking for a very special mailbox key for the foundation.
Starting point is 00:08:23 There's only one of them in existence. So that was really frustrating. Then you and I had a podcast with Sharon Salzberg. I completely screwed that up. You were right and you're usually wrong. So when you thought you were right, I thought, no, he's wrong because he's always wrong about the timings of shit.
Starting point is 00:08:42 So yeah, I wandered into that zone myself. Oh, God. I mean, that's it? We're fuck-ups? That's it? You just say, well, I'm a fuck-up. Well, as Jack would say, we're human, so it's okay. It's okay, but, and you know, my, it's not okay.
Starting point is 00:09:01 In the sense that you're, if you were some singular individual and you didn't have a family, you didn't have a foundation you were running, then it would be okay. But when you start realizing how much you're impacting the people around you by some lack of attention on the basics, the basics that we've all heard
Starting point is 00:09:24 from people like Sharon Salzberg, from people like Jack Kornfield, Rochy Joan Halifax, Ram Dass, that you actually are not just hurting yourself, but by proxy, they have to deal with the neurotic, worried, anxious, unstable version of you. Worried anxious Unstable version of you. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I Hate you know Cheap plugs are gonna happen, but there's nothing I can do about it. Okay last night I did a Dharma thing with a talk online to kick off our
Starting point is 00:10:01 Reimagined the life and teachings of Ram Dass. Yeah. So I started going through it. So you know how many perspectives Ram Dass brought up over his lifetime. I mean it really covered all the bases. So you know, there's there's the one that is so wonderfully embraced by his story of the space suit. We wear a space suit, we are completely uncomfortable in it, but we are comfortable with the story we tell ourselves. So you know, here we are in this spacesuit until the moment comes when a different perspective lands and those of us that get that should be very, very grateful for that fact.
Starting point is 00:10:58 So it's the peekaboo thing. Psychedelic say you get it. You just get enough of a view so that things start to open up right and you realize wow there is a way that's to get out of this you just you know just to get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles in the classic Ram Dass stuff and then it goes on to oh next stages you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and then you get out of this pain of being in that spacesuit right which with all of your identities and roles and all the classic Ram Dass stuff. And then it goes on to, oh, next stage is you actually maybe do a little bit of practice and a little blue sky comes through the clouds of the bullshit that we encounter on a daily basis. Little blue sky, you know, and then it goes all the way to, wow, Ram Dass' loving awareness where we're not judging ourselves, right? And if we're not judging ourselves, we probably have a better chance of not judging the people around us. So just to point to and in answer to this dilemma of falling off the wagon,
Starting point is 00:12:02 or just feeling like, okay, now I'm screwed up, I can't get back into the flow. I got out of the flow because I was just screwing around with it, but I can't get back into it. When you look at all of these different perspectives, like the first one, the spacesuit, which is really, we're talking about survival. So all we are is defense mechanisms to make sure
Starting point is 00:12:24 that our shit is surrounded by a moat and we're going to protect ourselves and everything we believe in, the family, the friends, our little cut of society. So we're going to protect all that. of society, so we're going to protect all that. So then we graduate to these other spaces that allow us to see more clearly what it is that is the potential of our lives, which in the East would be called getting with our Dharma. Ram Dass talked a lot about, listen, the karma that you have that presents all these different situation is perfect to really let you combine into the Dharma that you are. But here's, here's the point. And it's my,
Starting point is 00:13:19 when you mentioned, you know, falling off the wagon, meditation wagon, whatever. I just, I thought of this. It's not, you know, it's not sequential. Okay, I saw that we're not just this body with this reactive bullshit defense mechanism survival instinct. We realize that and we've moved on. But in fact, all of these things are happening at the same time. And you're going to fall in, you're going to fall out, there'll be a new perspective. Without falling off the wagons, so to speak, you can't get the wisdom that's needed to open up these vistas much further as you
Starting point is 00:14:08 said you know you may have a wake up again you did oh gee we did an ayahuasca session and some stuff came out that I really started to understand some of this trauma that my life is based on you know every step of the way, it opens up a little further. And that can only happen by stepping back in the shit. Well, OK, let's talk about stepping in shit, because this is, you know, making stuff. I'm familiar with the way form of creating stuff now. Like, I understand that when I am completely blocked and no ideas are coming to me and I don't feel inspired that that is just part of the
Starting point is 00:14:51 waveform that if you can endure it an idea will pop into your head at some random moment and then suddenly you're back on the wagon making stuff and it's a joy. And it's painful in between moments of inspiration, but with the spiritual stuff, it seems to be the same kind of wave form. It doesn't seem very different at all. The difference being that getting back into your shit or falling off the wagon or whatever you wanna call it, it's more painful.
Starting point is 00:15:25 Like, it's the worst. Like once you have that glimpse or one and then you stabilize the glimpse and you start experiencing the stuff you've only been reading about but haven't experienced, it becomes such a joy and then when it's like you lose it, it's for me it's just so brutal. Like and yet that's not enough to get me back on the cushion. That's not enough to get me back to where I was for some reason, almost like I'm enjoying wallowing
Starting point is 00:15:58 in the shit or something. Enjoying the- Yeah, we love it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely, 100%. I mean mean it's the way we beat ourselves up that's really the key and by the way you you just put spirituality into one kind of bucket and then artistic inspiration into another bucket right you know and then you have another bucket is what we've
Starting point is 00:16:26 been discussing, stepping in the shit, falling off the wagon. To me, in my experience, there's only one thing going on, which is the nature of consciousness, which is the opening up from inside out into my world, world your world there's nothing else and that inspiration that in terms of the creative process stems from that from from our deepest nature right and yeah so I like to think of it as just there's only one bucket and in that, we're mucking around. We're problematic because we're not free. And we're human.
Starting point is 00:17:12 And we're going to screw up. We're going to make mistakes. And in that, you really do find a deeper part of yourself through pain and suffering. I mean, as Ram Dass said, I'm not looking for it, but when it's there, I realize that that's my, as he called it, grist for the mill. So-
Starting point is 00:17:34 Grist for the mill. But you know, you're saying something truthful too, human, which is every time it happens, as you get further along the way, you just are like, oh my God, I can't get back now, and I'm like enjoying just wallowing and whatever. And we can wallow for quite a while, and it's okay. It's the, when we're judging it,
Starting point is 00:18:00 which you seem to be doing, I'm doing, then we have a very difficult time to surrender into that deeper place because we're judging ourselves. It's very difficult what we do. It really is. It's something else. Well, it's not just me judging me. It's like, Aaron fell off a horse,
Starting point is 00:18:26 Yeah. Brokerist. Oh, God, yeah. And I love her. I care for her, but I got pissed. Like, why are you on a horse? What are you doing? And like, so suddenly my ability to like be the person
Starting point is 00:18:43 that I would love to be, this open, compassionate, servant being. It was being completely overridden by just selfish irritation, annoyance, fear. Like what if it had stomped your fucking head in or something like that, you know? And so I'm not the only one judging me. Somebody who's just broken their wrist and is realizing that the person tending to them is annoyed is going to say, justifiably, I think what Aaron said,
Starting point is 00:19:12 which is like, what, where's your Buddhist bullshit? Who is this? What is this? You know, and, and, and it's, it's, I'm making it sound a little funnier than it actually was. But the, um, but the, but the, you know, that, that's the other part of it. I don't know why the algorithm has started on Instagram giving me fundamentalist Christian reels, which are just a lot of the time just almost unbearable, but one popped up where some Christian is saying, if people hate you because you love Jesus, that's fine. But if people don't like Jesus because of the way you're acting as a Christian, now that's a problem.
Starting point is 00:19:59 And so that's where you sort of get into the deeper levels of Buddhism, which is if you are announcing to people that this is your path, and then you're not meeting like the standards, you don't agree with that. You can throw people, you make it seem like bullshit, you make it seem like, you know, you make it seem like a hobby or something when you get into the shit. And this is why sometimes I scratch my chin, though I obviously love Ram Dass. And I love the self-compassion, self, the kindness to the self. Sometimes I think, but maybe sometimes that isn't the answer. Maybe sometimes the answer is,
Starting point is 00:20:40 is this more important than frivolity, than enjoying being in the shed or saying, oh, this is part of my path. Actually, you owe it to like yourself and all sentient beings to take care of that dip in the waveform as quickly as possible. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by VIA. 420 is just around the corner. Luckily with VIA, you can celebrate the right way. VIA's hemp products are the Swiss army knife of wellness. Need to chill out after a long day?
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Starting point is 00:23:46 I'm telling you, definitely cut it in half, depending on what your tolerance is. Head to viahemp.com and use the code Duncan to receive 15% off plus one free sample of their Sleepy Dreams gummies. It's 21 plus, it's viahemp.com, use code DUNCAN at checkout. Maybe sometimes the answer is, is this more important than frivolity, than enjoying being in the shed or saying, oh, this is part of my path?
Starting point is 00:24:37 Actually, you owe it to yourself and all sentient beings to take care of that dip in the waveform as quickly as possible. Yeah, I mean, God, we really kill ourselves. It's unbelievable. We really do. And that, you know, you can never forget that, the human part, you know you can never forget that the human part
Starting point is 00:25:05 You know it's it's it's we can operate on more than one plane of consciousness at the same time absolutely 100% and you're You are absolute you're beating yourself to death over over What seems to be this new reality. It changed. You had a reality where you spent all of this time really creating a habitual pattern that was really productive for you, which was meditation schedule, whatever you were doing.
Starting point is 00:25:40 And then suddenly, wait a minute, what's this? And you just let it go. And now this is perfect, really. I mean, now you've let it go, and then you're realizing what the results are by letting that go. So there is a something involved with the reality of mindfulness, of practice.
Starting point is 00:26:03 I mean, it's real. It allows one to really touch the deeper part of ourselves from which we have this, as Ram Dass said, the loving awareness perspective. And then you can look at this and go, wow, this is really great. This is great. I think, in fact, I think I'll wallow a little bit more.
Starting point is 00:26:26 I mean, I do it, you know, watching basketball, you know, I'll, boy, there's another game I can watch that game too. It's just part of our nature. And it has to be loved. It really does because otherwise, what are you doing? You're just sitting around second guessing absolutely everything in your life, you know? Well, that part. So that part, that's where to me, it gets really interesting and scary. Because this is, I was just
Starting point is 00:26:59 talking to my friend about this. If you ever heard of that, if you've ever heard the term slave morality, about this. If you ever heard of that, if you've ever heard the term slave morality, slave morality. I don't think so. Tell me. So slave morality would be tricking yourself into thinking you're a good person when really you're kind of a coward. In other words, you believe because you're adhering to some societal norms
Starting point is 00:27:26 that you're good. But the reason you're adhering to the societal norms is not because you're good, it's because you don't want to get caught. And so you've tricked yourself into thinking you're a good person. We really, you're just afraid of consequence. You're afraid of getting arrested. You're afraid of whatever it may. Maybe you're afraid of the guilt that might come from behaving in a way that doesn't match default reality's view of what a good person is. And so this is where the spiritual audio Ram Dass talks about and what you're talking about. It starts veering away from slave morality. It starts veering away from that because a big part of slave morality is that you police yourself.
Starting point is 00:28:08 That, and that policing. Why is it slave morality? Well, I don't get it, explain it to me. Why is it called slave morality? Yeah. Well, it's called slave morality because it puts you in a sort of underdog cowering position where you, instead of fully being yourself, you're
Starting point is 00:28:27 being sort of some version of yourself that is wrapped up in chains that are all of the ideas that you haven't really explored regarding right from wrong. And another reason it's called slave morality is because those ideas happen to be the ideas that if you wanted there to be like a non-questioning working class, if you wanted like, in other words, like people who, a lot of the people who they call the global elites or the super wealthy, they don't follow the same systems
Starting point is 00:29:08 of morality or ethics. And they don't, and you know, the gen pop is usually astounded when we find out that this person or that person did some awful thing. Oh my God, can you believe it? But yeah, that's totally normal because they're not adhering to societal norms. They're outside of it now.
Starting point is 00:29:29 Realm of the gods or whatever, you know? This is for people supporting a family. This is for people maintaining a job. And so that stuff gets baked into you from a very young age and that creates the situation of deploring oneself for breaking some rules or ideas that that you've never even explored. And so when you're talking about this stuff where it gets scary for me and I think for most people is there's an invitation in what you're saying to maybe see what happens
Starting point is 00:30:02 if you don't police yourself in the way that you have been. Maybe you don't need to penalize yourself and torture yourself because you have behaved in this way or that way. What happens if you give the police in your head a week off? Now what are you without the encumbrance of the moral, ethical systems that you place on yourself. And with spirituality, it's very easy to look at those guidelines, apply them to oneself, and then forget to apply the other thing which is in those guidelines, which is, you have to
Starting point is 00:30:45 be compassionate with yourself about this stuff you've got to let yourself go off go off the path you have to let yourself and not just let yourself but when you do go off the path like what you're saying stop flogging yourself mentally when it happens there's something I guess in me that's afraid that if I back off of myself, then I will only spiral. You'll be running naked in the streets. That, that, exactly. Like how much is permissible then? How much, like if we can wallow in our own shit,
Starting point is 00:31:19 then how much can I? There's piles of shit I have yet to wallow in. How far can I burrow down into my like karmic desire self and it's still permissible? Or is it all permissible? Is it all permissible? Is it all just part of the path? This is all, you know,
Starting point is 00:31:38 this is pretty much mental construct though. I mean, these are thoughts and ideas about what we believe we should be or what we should not be, how we interact with society, how we interact from career point of view. This is all mental construct as far as I can see the reality is in the whole purpose spirituality is it's not a thing it's a there's a reality to us being born into this body this incarnation, and you know, you study Buddhism from here to forever. The reality is getting deeper into what they call true nature. That is our purpose.
Starting point is 00:32:38 And what is part of that? that is is this most simplistic stuff which is just being kind to people being compassionate being kind to yourself and compassionate to yourself but it's whenever we get involved with the construct of I want I am well and yours is a simple case I stopped the regular meditation practice and now I can't get back into it because I'm kind of feeling just fine, you know, but you're not feeling fine because we're going through a whole thing here about how you're not feeling fine. So you're not going to feel fine for a while. Maybe maybe not.
Starting point is 00:33:23 Maybe tonight it will be different. But the reality is that something deeper will happen through this experience of in this most simplistic way. And, and as, as you started out to say is with the very beginning of this podcast. Is it is there a sequential program here in terms of getting free? And I say it's not sequential at all. It all takes place at one time or another. Hodgepodge, because we're human. And we are going to stop meditating, thinking wonder what happened if I just stopped meditating you know because my life is pretty even now I've got a lot of sounds like you had a lot of balance basically yeah and now you're feeling imbalance and totally to feel
Starting point is 00:34:17 that is to get deeper into what real balance is you can can't do it without some not very fun stuff happening. I mean, for many people, of course, wake up when really severe stuff happens, that leads to an awakening, or obviously, through the usual methodology of ethnogens, et cetera, psychedelics. So, it always goes back to it's okay cause we're human.
Starting point is 00:34:50 Right. Okay. And as far as, as thinking that we are really backtracking related to the, the norms that we morality norms to the norms that we morality norms that we set up for ourselves backtrack you can't because once you realize I mean especially with with a psychedelic you know once you realize the interconnected nature of everything which is so prominent in everyone's experience at one point or another. Once you realize that, then you can't backtrack because you can't keep
Starting point is 00:35:33 fucking people. You can't do it. You can't keep manipulate. It's our book. I'm going to plug it. The movie of me to the movie of we, okay? Yeah. You just absolutely want to be able to be kinder, more compassionate, more generous, period. And once that happens, we fall off all the time of that brass ring, shall we say? But the reality is it's perfect to fall off. Perfect. Why is that so much more difficult to hear than, you're a bad boy!
Starting point is 00:36:14 Why is it somehow more difficult to hear that? I don't, I don't, that's what's so weird about the instruction. You know, to hear that, is it because we're suddenly confronted with our own self-harm? Is it because suddenly we're confronted with our own violence and suddenly you just realize like, you're the one at war with yourself here. Like that's the last war.
Starting point is 00:36:44 Like if you could finally stop that, even if stopping it means, yeah, you're gonna be a slob for a little while, you're gonna get addicted to video games, yeah, you're gonna, whatever. But that would be better maybe than to be all tight and self and judging yourself, trying to adhere to some fantastical notion
Starting point is 00:37:05 of what an enlightened being would look like, then that would be better to be whatever you happen to be at some given time than to be crucifying yourself on an imaginary construct. Why is that so hard? Why is that so hard to accept for For me why am I like this? Wait you know I would have to get paid a lot more money God I mean listen I can say the same thing you're saying
Starting point is 00:37:44 Exactly in it, you exactly from my own experience. What happened to me the other day? My, okay, my housekeeper decided to accidentally unplug the power supply to the TV just before Golden State Warriors were gonna play. Okay. Wow. And so I couldn't find, I have a setup where you can't really reach behind damn TV.
Starting point is 00:38:13 This is the worst thing that could have happened. And I'm there with my partner with Katrina and screaming epithets and just like, I'm gonna fire right now I think I'll call her right now yeah just completely lost anyhow obviously it got settled I found the input and then I did what you're doing now I cannot believe that I'm reacting over some technology bullshit that and blaming somebody else.
Starting point is 00:38:49 Of course she did do it, but still and it was like it's like a setback and I felt really bad. Yes. You know, I've decades of this stuff I've been doing. Yes. Oh, I have a better example. Okay. This is been doing. Yes. Oh, I have a better example. Okay. This is even better.
Starting point is 00:39:06 Yeah. I'm in India and I'm with, we'll have to give some context here, a saint named Siddhima who was very close to Neem Karoli Baba and was like our Indian mother for decades. I'm just incredibly, you know, she was close to Krishnadas, close to me, and close to the people that were there in the beginning with Ramdas. So anyhow, someone said, oh she's sitting with people, go on in. So I go in and Krishnadas was already there and he was on the right-hand side, not closer to her, I was in the back of the group of people and she's carrying on this conversation with
Starting point is 00:39:50 Krishna Das and I and not even hello. No, I didn't get nothing. And I'm sitting there going, I can't believe fucking Krishna Das is taking all the all these just absorbing the attention and the energy and everything what what you know and I'm having this and then the next thing the next thought was holy god after all these years you're still going through the fucking jealousy with Krish. Yeah, you know in this situation and as soon as I had that thought, this is of course the beauty of being around, you know a
Starting point is 00:40:32 free being as soon as I had that thought she goes Raghu and points at me. Yeah, oh god, okay. You see that's the your idea goes back to okay. I'm a human God, okay. See that's the, you're identifying. It goes back to, okay, I'm a human fuck up like everybody else, even though I've had these decades, you know. I have a couple more decades on you, but it's the same thing. That's why I think the crux of this is these things happen, you know, we get into our survival jealous mode and then
Starting point is 00:41:06 you know, we it's like going through a buzz saw and it hurts more each time. I want to thank BetterHelp for supporting this episode of the DTFH. How's your social battery right now? Are you bursting with energy or do you feel like somebody just put a slow leak in the balloon of your heart and you're just kind of fizzling out like some sad beach ball abandoned on some beautiful beach yet completely alone slowly shriveling down shrinking down into a pile of formerly joyful brightly colored plastic it can be easy to ignore our social battery and spread ourselves thin, especially with social gatherings
Starting point is 00:42:09 picking up after the winter. What's the right amount of socializing for you and how do you recharge? Maybe you thrive around people or maybe like me, you would like to burrow into a deep, dark, womb-like hole where you could play video games for the next 34,000 years and never see a person again. This is why we need therapy. Therapy can give you the self-awareness to build a social life that doesn't drain your battery and maybe makes it so you don't feel like
Starting point is 00:42:38 you have to go pure mole and burrow away from humanity. I love therapy. It helped me so much. I think it's one of the greatest things out there that people can do. I love psychedelics. Psychedelics have done a lot for me. Meditation has done a lot for me, but therapy, holy shit. There's a reason this stuff is around.
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Starting point is 00:43:29 Thank you, BetterHelp. These things happen, you know, we get into our survival jealous mode and then, you know, we it's like going through a buzz saw and it hurts more each time. That is it. See that's I'm so glad you said that. Because that is the thing I'm noticing, where it's like, if I'm stuck trying to invent some dumb song about a diaper that analyzes your urine so it can feed you like better stuff on TikTok,
Starting point is 00:44:18 that sucks, but I'm not, you know, I'm not like, I'm not like, I'm not killing myself over that. But this is every time it happens. It does feel worse. It does feel. And then I get worried because I think, well, what is this situation? Is it a split personality? Am I accidentally bifurcating my identity into the part of me that is in,
Starting point is 00:44:46 what I think, it might sound cheesy, but I think you could call it almost a romance. When it follows the same pattern of a romance, when you know, there's somebody, you're at a party, you notice somebody, and you think maybe they notice you, but you're not sure, and then if you're me, you you're like there's no way that person is interested me and then but then you run into the person again and you talk and then suddenly you start realizing I think they oh my god I think there's something here and it's the same
Starting point is 00:45:18 thing with meditation it's the same thing with seeing this other place is it when you see it and you stabilize it, which takes forever just to get to the point where when you see it, you don't go, holy fuck, I saw it. And then you don't see it anymore. When you see it and then you stabilize it, so you start getting more of a sense of what it might be,
Starting point is 00:45:40 then how do you not fall in love with that? Now you're in love with it and you want it because it's all you would want in the world. It's better than anything in the world. And so you just want it. And for me, even as I'm like, you know, I got in this great practice of every night, washing whatever dishes were left, cleaning the kitchen.
Starting point is 00:45:59 And as I'm feeling happy as I'm doing that, but I just started thinking it's gonna go away. You're not gonna keep this up. And it's the same fucking feeling of like I'm gonna lose this person. There's no way I'm holding onto this. And so then you get, even when the midst of it, you get this sense of sadness.
Starting point is 00:46:19 Cause you're like, I can't stabilize it this long. Like for sure, based on the past, based on the way my karma seems to be or the way I habitually do this stuff, I am sure as shit in a matter of time gonna be laying in bed with fucking cups all around me and cereal bowls, smelling like shit, looking at fucking Drudge Report.
Starting point is 00:46:41 You know what I mean? Like, I don't deserve her. And then it's gone, and then it hurts. It's like hurts, hurts. Because also the other reason it hurts is when you study Buddhism long enough, they nail into your mind, you're gonna fucking die. Remember that, you're gonna die.
Starting point is 00:47:01 So there's no guarantee that when you die, you're gonna be in a meditative space. You might die. So this, so it hurts. And I don't think this gets brought up. I don't, this is, when I think of all the spiritual lectures I've heard, when I think of all the teachings that I've heard, where is the conversation about the burn? Where is the conversation about the burn of going back into your old life? And also, is it good to create this split
Starting point is 00:47:35 personality between the sacred you and the depraved you? impermanence, it's called Anitya. Yeah. You know, that's one of the realizations through practice that the Buddhists emphasize extraordinarily, don't they? Yeah. Impermanence. And so you can count on it.
Starting point is 00:47:59 You can count on it that whatever it is that you're enjoying isn't going to last. You can count on it whatever it is that you're enjoying isn't going to last, you can count on it whatever it is that you're completely horrified about, that's not going to last either. So conceptually it's right on impermanence, it's right on. But this is again intellectual, right? Right? We think about these things and when you're up, when you know rubber meets the road, you react. Like I reacted to my television being unplugged and I had something that I really needed to watch in that moment and you're reacting to this sudden loss of what seemed to be a beautiful, habitual pattern that you created, which by the way is what is primarily what we
Starting point is 00:48:54 need to do. Neat, meaning if you want to be a little happier, if you want to be a little bit more balanced, have more equilibrium in your life, then you tend to want to do these kinds of things which support that. So now we're, you know, we're, I'm back to square one with reacting to a ridiculous goddamn thing. And you're, you're square one, dropping something and feeling guilty about it. Yeah. Well, the reason I feel guilty about it is because,
Starting point is 00:49:28 like, okay, so my mom dies of breast cancer, and I have all kinds of guilt about the way I was then. And- What, then you were terrific, what do you mean? No, well, I don't think there's any way, back then especially, I just, you know, I don't think there's any way back then especially I just you know, I So I Just feel guilt. I wish I'd been there more. I went on the road. I shouldn't have yeah. Okay. I got all okay
Starting point is 00:49:55 So here's Aaron laid up. I have to go on the road to do shows I'm only thinking about myself. I'm like, I'm gonna be, there's no way, I'm gonna be freaked out on stage, I'm gonna be exhausted, I have so much to do. Just, I'm not proud of this at all. I mean, this is why I'm bringing it up with you. It's really fucked with my head. Because it's an echo.
Starting point is 00:50:21 Like, Aaron, thank God, is just, is a broken wrist. It's not like, you know, some terminal prognosis though. You know, I think the pain she was feeling maybe made her wish it was. And yet here I am again, perfect opportunity to serve somebody who's sick. And all I'm doing is thinking about my own sleep, my own inconvenience, my own
Starting point is 00:50:49 just, you know, blaming. Why did you do it? It was making her so fucking happy, riding horses, and yet here I am. Oh, why would you do something that made you happy? Like all of it. And, you know, so I think the disturbing thing about this or seeing the kind of karmic patterns in your own life is you realize like, even though you think you've purified yourself to some degree, you think that when that opportunity arises again, you will have learned from your mistakes and you won't sink back into self-cherishing.
Starting point is 00:51:28 And yet, fuck! There it was! Like on Price is Right! You lost! You keep getting on the Price is Right! And you keep guessing the wrong fucking thing on the Price is Right, and finally you get back on and you've guessed the wrong thing again and then it's like how long Raghu how long do we have to do these loops and and it's scary because I I'm now I'm thinking oh it's like you lifetimes hundreds more hundreds more of these fucking echoes. And there's something in that that is not spiritual feeling or pleasant or like, oh, yes, this is part of the journey.
Starting point is 00:52:14 Just more like, fuck this. This sucks. It's like, how many times is my tire going to blow out? How many times am I going gonna be on the interstate? You know, with a bull? Well, you know the wonderful story of Milarepa and Marpa. How many times does he blow that house down? He had to rebuild it.
Starting point is 00:52:36 That analogy is exactly what you're talking about. I'll take that. I'll take that. For folks who don't know, Which one was the sorcerer? Not Miller Epa. What's his name? The other one. Marpa Marpa was the sorcerer or was it Miller Epa?
Starting point is 00:52:52 Miller Epa was the sorcerer. So Miller Epa. Guru Marpa is the guru. Yeah. So Miller Epa is a sorcerer. And if you don't think there's still sorcerers, you just need to, like, I don't know, read art of the deal or like, sorcery is business.
Starting point is 00:53:14 Like, you know, it's when you use your city. Action and result. Yeah, but it's doing like kind of, like, it's exploiting people. But in this this case we'll just say he was a sorcerer, use magic or whatever. He kills people somehow even though he's killed people which by the way this is a recurring theme in Buddhism. Another serial killer was one of the devotees of the Buddha. He still gets lucky enough to wind up with this great teacher. And to purify all the shitty karma you get,
Starting point is 00:53:51 I think he killed his family. This is a fucked dude. I don't know about that. Something awful. It wasn't just like he turned someone into a frog. He, not a great, he wasn't great. And so what was it he had to build? His teacher's like build a-
Starting point is 00:54:06 I would see what he is, build a house and I'll let you know whether or not I will take you on once you build a house. He'd build a house, he'd go, Marpa'd go over, no, no, sorry. Knocks it down. Destroy this house, start again. He had to destroy the house himself.
Starting point is 00:54:26 Yeah, so he's gotta not just build the house, he's gotta do the demolition of that house that he built and he made him do this countless times. And then finally he took him on as a student. But at least in that situation, you still have this great teacher who's paying attention to you, giving you some instruction, even though probably the fourth or fifth iteration of this freaking house he built, he's like, I know he's knocking it down.
Starting point is 00:54:56 But in that case, you have this direct contact with a living teacher. In the case of what I think a lot of us are going through, we might have contact through like, Love, Serve, Remember Foundation, through the classes, through the retreats, through whoever our own spiritual community is, the books, the audibles, whatever, but there isn't the direct contact that you had, that Ram Dass had. There isn't that. So the demolition, the self the self demolition of this bullshit spiritual house that we're all doing It's it feels a little more like it's happening in the void Because there's no like brilliant enlightened being coming around being like I just tried to build it one more time
Starting point is 00:55:39 age-old questions, isn't it? Yeah, but Well, I mean you're a good example. You connected with that being which we can't really have a name for it, except the one I like to use is a being that no longer the duality is gone. The way that we are split inside ourselves that we understand and which is what you're talking about, good Duncan and shitty Duncan, right? The way that, and that's how we relate with ourselves. We absolutely judge every bullshit thing that we do,
Starting point is 00:56:24 every bad motivation, all self-interest, self-cherishing. We judge it all. And here we are. I know. Here we are. And the fact is, you can't open up and become free of the stuff that makes us so unhappy unless you have the obstacles which was what Marpa was doing with Miller up you know
Starting point is 00:56:55 now that I think about it I'm being a dick saying I don't have that I'm sitting here talking to you bitching about I don't have anyone telling me to start building a house again I'm not that, but you have the somebody. But you represent a community that is that for me. I mean, I know that you don't let people put that on you. And I think that's a beautiful thing. But you do represent this community that is that as a community. you know, in different,
Starting point is 00:57:26 they'll tell you different ways about rebuilding the house and they'll, they may be, maybe have different opinions cosmologically about what that house is supposed to be. But the general thing behind that, our community is that the patients, the paramedas are all there. They're infinitely patient. They're infinitely compassionate. They're infinitely compassionate I mean, I mean as a community, I mean, none of us are as the individual but as the community that Sometimes yeah. Yeah sometimes. Yeah sometimes but listen This really does boil down to
Starting point is 00:58:35 Not being happy with who we are in the moment. I want to thank AG1 for supporting the DTFH. You know, if you know me or you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you probably know I don't pay enough attention to things that I pour into my slurping hole, AKA my mouth. I'll just eat, drink anything. That's probably why I have type two diabetes. And so, you know, when you get older, you gotta start revising the idea that your mouth is some kind of portal through which you can pour anything
Starting point is 00:59:04 and it'll be instantly purified. You need good stuff, good food, and most importantly, good vitamins. Now, I'm no vitamin expert, but my wife is, and she has given AG1 the Aaron Trussell seal of approval, and she is the ultimate vitamin snob. She scrutinized the ingredients and she said, oh this is actually really good. And that's because AG1 conducts relentless testing to set the standard for purity and potency. AG1 is constantly searching for how to do things better. At 52 iterations of their formula and counting, their team is always trying to find better ways to source, test, and aim to find the best quality ingredients available. It's tested for 950 contaminants and banned substances, while the
Starting point is 00:59:55 industry standard typically only tests for 10 and it's easy. That's the main thing. Look, I am someone who, when I was in high school, used to huff whippets. So it's not like, though I am happy that AG1 is pure and clean, that unfortunately has never been on the top of my list of what I'm consuming. For me, what I love about it is it's simple. I just pour this stuff in a nice cold glass of water. It tastes great.
Starting point is 01:00:26 I slurp it back. And then the real important part is it immediately makes me feel better. I know it's got a million incredible ingredients in it, adaptogens. I still don't know what that is. All the basic vitamins that you need. But the main thing is when I drink it, I just feel better.
Starting point is 01:00:43 I have more energy. It helps me wake up. You know just slurping back cold brew to wake up is maybe not the best health choice but when I drink some AG1 and then drink my cold brew it kind of balances things out. It's really powerful, it makes me feel really good and now that I know that I have diabetes I can't I can't mess around anymore. So this is the stuff I like to drink before I go to the gym and it really does like, it helps. You know, they are not making this claim, but like if I had too much fun the night before, it really seems to help me with that too. And again, that's not their claim. That's just something I've noticed. Subjective experience.
Starting point is 01:01:23 So if you want to replace your multivitamin and more, start with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3, K2, and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription at drinkag1.com forward slash duncan. That Thanks, AG1. This really does boil down to not being happy with who we are in the moment. Yeah. Right? And just, it's just, the human part of us is okay. It's what I realized when I first met Ram Dass and he he was all, you know, his talks truthful about his fallibility and so on. I love that because
Starting point is 01:02:33 it allowed me to go, Oh, okay, I don't have to kill myself. Am I still killing myself? Let me tell you Duncan, as big time as you are now going through what you're describing in this podcast, I'm right there with you. Yeah. You know, and I'm, you know, I did this couple of things happen the last couple of days. We had a satsang here the other day, you know, in Ojai where the foundation is based, and you know, just food and kirtan and all that. And this, this person from Israel actually was going through a terrible divorce and he came over and he had found Ram Dass talks and me introducing or me on mind rolling, whatever. And he wrote me a note. I'll talk about this. I had to sit there through this. It was a note to me that he read that he had written about how
Starting point is 01:03:27 he had been basically saved by the reality of meeting Ram Dass. And it was touching. I did a thing last night where I did a Dharma thing to introduce that life and teachings of Ram Das course. And I got all this other feedback, you know, that was all of that. Oh, wow, we're really thankful to you and all this stuff. And I say to you that I'm doing what you did. The human part of me is, are you crazy? Out of your mind? I still got all of this polarization inside myself.
Starting point is 01:04:15 And that's what you're speaking to when you say there's the good dunk and the bad. It's the polarization inside ourselves, which is why we are polarized as a country big time. Right? Yeah is just because of It's happening inside ourselves, right? And that's the thing that we really have to address and the only way it gets addressed is walking backwards It's fucking up. This is the only way it gets addressed Otherwise, you're you're in a you know, a gilded castle or something. Everything's perfect. I got my twice a day, I got this, meditate, whatever it is. You got it all down. Nothing's gonna happen unless that thing, you know, unless Marpas has just shattered that house. Just take it apart. Take it apart.
Starting point is 01:05:01 Try again. And that's a good analogy for our lives of moving through all of these difficult, difficult situations and back to for me the backtracking. That was really bad. And this happened a few days ago. This this idiotic thing with technology, which gets me all the time, by the way. I'm a sucker. I'll tell you my version of that. So I go to do these shows in Springfield that I've been freaking out about. Amazing club, super great crowds, nothing to worry about. So then I'm like sitting, you know, in between shows having a blast. Now I'm like, God damn it. You had nothing to worry about. The whole time you're thinking about yourself,
Starting point is 01:05:45 you should have been excited you're getting to do these shows. Then I'm in between shows. I have not been saying goodbye to people because we got the baby. I don't wanna get sick, don't wanna get the baby sick, but there's somebody standing there who clearly wanted to talk to me.
Starting point is 01:06:00 And sometimes you get good at seeing people who have something they've gotta say. So at first first I'm like I can't talk and then I told him like go get that guy I know he had something to tell me. They got this guy very sweet man. His son I think three weeks two two weeks before, died in a motorcycle accident. Yeah, like just the worst, you know, and we're both dads. You don't have to be a dad to understand how fucked that is, but when you're a dad, it's just like, what the fuck? And then, and again, like the context here
Starting point is 01:06:41 is that I've just completely in my own mind, like failed, like I've, you. Like I've been thinking about like, I'm gonna make these like refuge vows and I'm gonna do it and go, the whole thing went out the window. And so this guy starts telling me about how, cause he's listening to conversations with us, when I'm interviewing like cornfield or whatever,
Starting point is 01:07:05 been listening to the podcast for a long time, that he'd been sort of estranged from his son, but the last weeks, like, you know, he was applying all this stuff and being in the moment with his son and like the last conversation they had was him saying, I love you. And his son saying, you're my best friend. And it's like the whole time I'm just thinking like, oh, I'm glad the shit helped you, man. It's like, I'm a fucking asshole. You know what I mean? The sense of being a charlatan,
Starting point is 01:07:39 the sense of hypocrisy, the sense of like, I don't remember the conversations you're telling me. I'm listening to him because it's like, Jesus, I need to remember that. I don't remember saying that. So you know what I mean? That's the, that's where it gets really intense and frustrating because it's not just that you're sort of letting yourself down. You feel like, fuck, I'm, there's no way I can adhere.
Starting point is 01:08:10 There's no way I'm going to be as enlightened as this dad who was talking to me, who instead of avoiding looking at his son's body, because of conversations we've had was there with the body who, you know what I mean? It embraced, it was trying to embrace the grief as much as trying to be there. And I literally am like Barely able to handle my wife's broken wrist You know what I mean? Like that's what I'm saying. I could that's where it gets I love talking to you because you can go way further than I Intervene so much about yourself
Starting point is 01:08:44 It's great. That makes me feel better. Oh, thanks! Thanks, Raghu! Oh, God. Maybe that'll be what I teach. How to beat the shit out of yourself when you fail as a spiritual person. Maybe that's my contribution to that. Yeah, yeah. It's a follow-up to the movie of me. We've done it, though. That's the reality. We have done it. We have... I mean, your situation and mine... Just look.
Starting point is 01:09:13 I mean, we both went through very similar things. We're both judging what our projection is of who we should be in this world. And meanwhile, what's happening is happening. People are opening up as a result of whatever interactions we have, like with every one of us. It doesn't have to be a public figure, podcast, comedian, none of it. I mean, you are meeting people every day and whatever it is that's in you that is generous is being shared.
Starting point is 01:09:50 Just that simple fact. So the killing of ourselves because we feel we're not fulfilling the projection of what a Dharmic being is, is fun. You know, we've got to being is, is fun. You know, we gotta think of it as fun. Okay, there's no other way to look at it. I mean, it's just fun. It is fun, I guess you're right.
Starting point is 01:10:15 There is some kind of sport to it, I guess. There is something sort of vaguely comedic about it even. Is that, it's like like I guess the question is who do we think we are like yeah exactly we think we are grandiose ideas we have of ourselves that yeah we shouldn't fall back under any circumstances right and this is it yeah it's the same thing this guy's talking to you. Of course, he's in, you know, this is a tragic situation of one's son dying in a violent accident. And he's telling you this, you know,
Starting point is 01:10:53 and I'm sitting there listening to someone praise me and I'm going, this is bullshit. Yeah. Same kind of a thing, you know, except it's how much you pay attention to those thoughts. Right. It's how much you pay attention to those thoughts. Right. It's how much you pay attention. Right.
Starting point is 01:11:08 I mean, we do this and it is human and one level and the other level. That's why a great teacher like Ram Dass came along and said, Hey, this sense of seriousness about me. Yeah. Take a look at that. Right. Okay, why do you have such a tremendous sense of seriousness about you and your life?
Starting point is 01:11:34 You know? Right. How about taking it a little bit more lightly and then you stop beating yourself to death every time you fall back. Yeah. I think that that's a reality. Thank you. I mean, I'm so glad that I have you. I mean, I'm lucky I get to like, I have $500 an hour for I know you've gone
Starting point is 01:11:53 up on your rate. Yeah, I know. Because things got tougher and I'm I fall back myself. I need to take some of that money and go to my therapist. I know you got to take all this shit we all the letters you get and all the things that go to my therapist. I know you got to take all this shit. We all the letters you get and all the things and go to your therapist with this. They could tell you it's okay. I mean, maybe that's it. Maybe that's the song. Maybe that's all we're doing
Starting point is 01:12:12 is just telling each other it's okay. It's okay. Hey, let's go to the key to everything. What did Thich Nhat Hanh, the great Vietnamese Buddhist monk who died a few years ago. The next Buddha is the Sangha, Satsang. And that is what you and I are doing, and sharing it with your constituency. And that's what we're doing. That's all we can do is share with each other, you know?
Starting point is 01:12:41 And this is extraordinary support and we understand that we're all going through the same thing. You're looking at me like, okay, you've been doing this a few more decades than I have and I'm looking at you going, you know, it doesn't make any difference. It's not sequential at all. You know, we're gonna go back into these modes of defense mechanisms and protect everything we wrote about or we wrote we recorded on the movie of me is Israel. You know, I know. I mean, and I think that maybe if there isn't what's good about this is it's like this is at least in my experience more what it looks like, you know, what it looks like. It's not, in the retreats and stuff,
Starting point is 01:13:29 the conversations you get into, and the sort of meandering nature of those conversations that inevitably leads to some synchronicity where you're like, what the fuck? It's uncontrollable. Maybe that's why it sucks too, is it's like, you know, of all the things you would wanna control, it would be your relationship with the divine consciousness.
Starting point is 01:13:53 Of all the phone numbers you would want to work whenever you wanted to call that number, that would be the one. And yet that is the one that is so impossible to control. Jesus on the cross said, father, why have you forsaken me? Like that's the, I guess. Yeah, that's what happens when you're human
Starting point is 01:14:18 is you just got a bad wifi connection to the ultimate. You know what happened to me? I mean, I know we're almost done here but what happened to me, it just just came up, I had a really bad tooth problem, went to the dentist, anyhow they ultimately they put me on nitrous gas which always gets me into a psychedelic something. And I did, and then suddenly, Neem Kurali Bhava was in front of me, and I'm seeing him and feeling him in that presence. It's like Ram Dass when he sat down in front of him
Starting point is 01:15:01 for the first time, and he knew that he knew everything about him because he had talked to him about his mother's passing and exactly what happened, Spleen and all that stuff. And then he started, he's sitting there thinking all this bullshit in his head and going, oh my God, he knows that, he knows this stuff and I'm just a really bad person. I was having the same thing in the dentist chair, okay, and this is a couple of years ago, maybe. And what I heard was it absolutely doesn't matter whatever you think about yourself or whatever you think in relation to your world has anything to do with your relation
Starting point is 01:15:48 with the divine. Wow, that's so wild. So I felt so free. That's so good. I'm not a shithead. Okay, it's great. But do you know, did I fall back? Yeah. And so I, you know, we have to give ourselves the,
Starting point is 01:16:07 the permission to fall back. And you know, that's what's difficult, very difficult. Permission to fall back granted. I'll take it. Thank you, Ragu. I'm sorry I've emotionally dumped on you this whole episode. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 01:16:23 No, it's perfect. I've been intentionally avoiding conversations with people like you because I feel like such a piece of shit that it's like I don't even want to talk anymore like I'm just gonna get just gonna go Nietzsche and I'm gonna start reading Nietzsche. I'm gonna put a little soft? Jean-Paul soft? Yeah, nausea baby, that's all there is, nausea! Hey, can, you know, I plug... Yeah, of course. Reimagine the Life and Teachings of Ram Dass, which starts starting this week, but it's still open for registration everybody, just go to Ram Dass dot org.org slash slash reimagined and
Starting point is 01:17:06 you'll be taken through and you'll see what's entailed and it's a it's a big there's a I listen to one of the talks in there I listen to all of them but the first one is Ram Dass going through into India and it describes in D with Bhagavan Das right yeah surfer from Laguna Beach and it described he describes in D with bug of on dust right yeah surfer from Laguna Beach and it described he describes in detail going into he was in Banaras I believe and walking barefoot because he was trying to be like a you know a mendicant a sadhu yeah and he describes in detail avoiding the piles of shit, human, animal, and then the worst was, you know,
Starting point is 01:17:47 how they eat this betel nut stuff with tobacco, and it's like a red juice that they spit out, so he's dancing between shit and betel juice. That alone just, I was, oh God. That's so cool. I didn't even know that existed, that lecture. That's so cool, because most of us have like the sort of like the main hits and like that, that, that, whatever
Starting point is 01:18:11 that experience was with him and Bhagavan Das, I always wondered about the details of that. What that must have been like. Yeah. Like you think be here now is a, you know, the iconic iconic phrase, we actually trademarked it okay the foundation and the reality was Ram Dass just kept going on about his past experiences with acid and Millbrook and Leary and finally Bhagavan Das was looking out the window he turned back to him says oh for God's sakes can you just
Starting point is 01:18:41 shut up and be here now? That's how it happened. I know, I know. And that was the perfect, that really ate it, Ram Dass. I know that, that was such a slap down and we've all had it. If you've been around any spiritual people, people like that or people who are, I don't wanna use hierarchy here,
Starting point is 01:19:00 but they do not feed your ego. And God damn you want them to. You want them to be like, wow, you, oh, you are amazing. And they won't do it. And it burns. It burns, like you and City Mods, it burns. Yeah, and you know, I needed that. And just like, Millarappa needed Marpa
Starting point is 01:19:24 to destroy that house how many times? How many times? Well, my friend, back to building my dumb old house again. Yeah, okay. I gotta start again, find some rocks, figure it out, but I really appreciate your time. And folks, obviously take this, what about the retreat? Is that already sold out for Hawaii?
Starting point is 01:19:45 Is that too soon to mention that? The retreat in Boone is not sold out. It's a wonderful retreat in Boone, North Carolina, which you can find on romdos.org. And it is still available in the most beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. It's really lovely. In Hawaii.
Starting point is 01:20:03 But Duncan, you are coming to Maui this year to teach the rosary. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, I'm going to be there this year. I can't wait. I'm so excited. It sucks. Later. Okay, Raghu. You are the best. Thank you so much. Thank you. Love it. Thank you. That was Raghu Marcus. Don't forget you can find our book The Thank you. Hare Krishna. Love it. Thank you. Brahma. That was Raghu Marcus. Don't forget, you can find our book, The Movie of Me to the Movie of We on Audible. Come see my live shows.
Starting point is 01:20:31 Big thank you to our sponsors. And if you want to start seeing video versions of the DDFH, I've slowly started uploading those on my YouTube channel, which is YouTube Duncan Trussell. So subscribe over there if you want to see the entirety of the Stephen Armstrong interview that I did with the misinformation expert that is at my YouTube channel, which is Duncan Trussell on YouTube. Alright everybody, I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna.

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