Duncan Trussell Family Hour - CHRIS GROSSO

Episode Date: July 19, 2016

Author and teacher Chris Grosso (everything mind, the indie spiritualist) joins the DTFH and we get spiritual!   THIS EPISODE BROUGHT TO YOU BY CASPER.COM go to CASPER.COM and use offer code familyhour to get $50 off of your first order.

The DTFH is a proud member of the Ferro Audio Podcast Collective. Go to ferroaudio.com and jam some new podcasts into your brain pudding. Alright, let's do it! Friends, we did it! We now exist in the dawning age of augmented reality. I don't know if you're paying attention to the Pokemon craze, or if you're playing Pokemon, but all over the news nearly every single day is a new disturbance caused by augmented reality.

From stampeds in Central Park, to muggings at Pokemon training centers, whatever they're called, to people falling off of cliffs, or witnessing yet another disruption brought to us by the sweet emergent technology which is growing through our minds into reality. And it's a beautiful thing to watch, not the disturbances, but this new flower growing on the tree of technology. Augmented reality is cool, especially when you consider that the particular type of augmented reality that we're witnessing with Pokemon cannot exist prior to us escaping the gravity well of planet earth and getting global positioning satellites to float around the planet.

You don't get Pokemon Go without super advanced satellites orbiting your planet. That is a prerequisite for Pokemon Go to exist in the way that it currently does. So our escape from the gravity well of planet earth is partially responsible for the emergent technology we're calling augmented reality. And it's only going to get weirder, man. People in the Holocaust Museum are complaining because they don't want people looking for Pokemon Go creatures at the Holocaust Museum because it's supposed to be a place of sadness. They don't want people looking for Pokemon phantoms next to the piles of hair or old

shoes at the Holocaust Museum. It just doesn't mix. But there's another disturbance, a fascinating disturbance, which is this kind of augmented reality pollution. Augmented reality ending up in places that augmented reality shouldn't, and we're going to witness more and more and more of that. Augmented reality is a technological mycelium growing from the substrate that is GPS coordinates. The next phase of this process is going to be the emergence of augmented reality glasses

that don't make us look like Jordy LaForge from Star Trek The New Generation, something fashionable and innocuous that we can wear so that we can see our Pokemon without having to stare into our phones. That's the next phase. Once that happens, augmented reality will be anywhere, just the same way that you can spin through radio stations and listen to different types of music. You are going to be able to spin through varying fields of data, populating your particular GPS coordinates, and that data is going to be created by whatever artist or corporation

that you choose to tune into. That's the next step. There's going to be Starbucks augmented reality that perhaps transforms the world into a nice shade of Starbucks green. There's going to be the Pepsi augmented reality universe where you could replace the moon with a massive Pepsi bottle. There's going to be the augmented reality of CNN where as you walk down the street wearing your brand new augmented reality visor, you can be constantly reminded of the never ending

string of violent deaths that are inevitably the result of a planet with a growing population. You can pick, you will be the maestro of a symphony of augmented reality applications all joining together to create whatever reality it is that you want to live inside of. Yes, friends, soon technology is going to manifest a truth that the mystics have known for millennia, which is that you decide what reality you live in. There's a phenomenon, and forgive me if I've spoken about this on the podcast before, but when you're studying psychology, there's a phenomenon that corporations understand, which is that people tend to forget where information came from, but they remember the information.

On a billboard, you might see some ridiculous fact that in some way or another helps you rationalize consuming whatever the product happens to be. I think it's Michelob Ultra, Miller Lite Ultra. There was for a time, there probably still are, they would show these billboards with just incredibly in shape people, like it's spin classes, and then in front of that a bottle of Michelob Ultra. The implication, the information being transmitted is that drinking Michelob Ultra makes you healthier.

Now, this is a tiny little augmented reality program that gets planted into your brain in the same way that a fly lands on a turd and shits eggs onto the turd, corporations swarm onto your brain and they shit their corporate egg paradigms into your consciousness. These eggs hatch in the form of outlooks on the world. These outlooks are very similar to the augmented reality applications that we're going to be running through our AR advisors that we're all going to be wearing in the next few months. We don't even realize it, but so much of what we think is right and wrong, what we think makes up a successful person versus a non-successful person, what we think a healthy person is

versus an unhealthy person, these ideas have not been placed in our brain by our own ability to discern what is real and what is not real, but they've been placed into our brain by governments and corporations who want to control the pattern of life of the majority of people. I think part of the spiritual path is peeling these layers back. And today's guest, Chris Grosso is a teacher who in a very pragmatic and honest way teaches how to start turning off the neurological augmented reality software that we are confusing for reality. So that's a long-winded way of saying I've got a great podcast for you today, friends,

and we're going to jump right into it, but first, some quick business. Today's episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Casper.com, and I can unironically jump from talking about corporations laying eggs into your consciousness to a Casper commercial because I'm not trying to trick you into buying a mattress. I sleep on a Casper mattress. Every single night I lay my hairy balding body down upon a sweet, soft Casper mattress and drift into the arms of the Sandman. I'm not trying to fool you.

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good mattress is I sleep on it. I sleep on a Casper mattress. I don't like going out into the world. I especially don't like the fucking pressure that comes from going into a goddamn mattress store because who knows? What I just read, I don't really understand. I don't know the difference. I don't know about memory foams and latex.

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But in the meantime, give them a shot. They sponsored this podcast and I hope you'll give them a try. Casper.com forward slash family hour, offer code family hour. We're also brought to you by Amazon.com. Once I've been revising my podcast studio, which I've been actively doing for the last six days in a kind of obsessive, non-sleeping way, I've truly learned the glories of Amazon.com. Instead of having to drive to chain stores, which I will admit I have done over the last few days, I've also been able to order stuff on Amazon.

It comes the next day. Friends, there's no need for you to leave your house and it's a great way for you to support this podcast while avoiding the howling world. All you got to do is go through the portal, locate in the comments section of any of these episodes. The next time you're going to buy something through Amazon, whatever it may be, you may ask, well, what are you going to buy on Amazon next Duncan? And I'll tell you, I'm going to buy a GTX 1080 graphics card.

That's the next step. I don't think I really need it, but now that I've gotten sucked into the horrific cyclone that is building a functioning streaming podcast studio, it seems like the final jewel in the crown of this strange conduit that I'm creating. I hope you'll give it a shot. Go through our portal, located in any comments section, bookmark the portal, anything you buy on Amazon, they give us a small percentage of it and it costs you nothing. Much thanks to those of you who continue to donate to the podcast.

I am very grateful for this completely unnecessary offering, but I really do appreciate it. So thank you. We also have t-shirts, posters, stickers and mugs located at the shop at DuncanTrustle.com. And we have a wonderful forum. If you want to go deeper into the DTFH community, give the forum a shot. There's always a lot of really cool conversations happening there and I would love for you to add to them. All right, pals, that's the intro.

Let's get right into this episode. Today's guest is an author who has written the indie spiritualists along with a great book, Everything Mind. He's a public speaker. He's also got a fantastic podcast on the Be Here Now Network called the Indie Spiritualist Podcast. If you like this conversation with Chris, you can go to his website, theindiespiritualist.com and find out everything you need to know about this wonderful human being.

Now everybody, please welcome to the DuncanTrustle family hour podcast, Chris Grosso. Chris Grosso, welcome to the DuncanTrustle family hour podcast. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real honor to be here with you, my friend. Thank you. If you had to define spirituality, how would you define it? Yeah, that's a tricky question.

I like that we're diving right into it though. So spirituality, honestly, at the end of the day is obviously just a word. To me, in my own experience, it's really about peeling away layers. It can be loud and violent at times. It can be very soft and beautiful at times. It's light and dark. It's a real stripping away process. So that's what it is, really questioning absolutely every belief I have.

Why do I have it? Who in fact is it that believes this? I mean, really going down the rabbit hole full speed ahead. So that's in a nutshell, that's what it is. I think with a lot of people, myself included, in the beginning of the journey, we tend to kind of spiritualize our egos, you know, so we adopt this new lifestyle and these new words and perhaps we'll wear mallas and do all these sorts of things. And it's not that there's anything at all wrong with any of that.

Chogyam Chonkha wrote the book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, that really deals wonderfully with that. But at some point, I believe we need to start looking deeper than that and really, like I said, peeling away the layers, going deeper, so rather than spiritualizing our egos, stripping away, peeling away the ego self and going deeper. So that's my two cents on it. So what's underneath, if you're stripping away and you're stripping away bits of your ego, what's underneath all that?

That's the question right there. And essentially that, inevitably, I believe if you're doing that search, it's going to lead you to what's known as non-duality, teachings of non-dualism, where there is literally just life. You could say life is lifeing, life is unfolding. And it looks like there's all these different manifestations happening in the world. I'm Chris, you're Duncan, and we're talking on this podcast through microphones, so on and so forth.

But the deeper you go, you begin to see that these are just labels and concepts and stories and they're being experienced through these filters that have been ingrained in us since about roughly two years old when we were able to begin, where we became cognizant of things. And so it's been conditioned in us from a very, very early age. And so we begin to actually see the map rather than directly experiencing the terrain itself. So we're taught, for example, what an apple is, or we're given the name, I, like this is yours, you, my book, my pencil, so on and so forth. And we begin to really believe in these ideas and concepts.

Or we begin to look at an apple, and instead of seeing that there is this fruit, and even fruit is just another label, but we have these labels. And so we're seeing the labels rather than having the direct experience of what is there in front of us. So that to me is what is underneath when we begin to really explore that, and you go deeper and deeper. It's not an intellectual experience whatsoever. It's one of direct, it begins with direct looking, and then it inevitably results if

you follow it far enough down of direct seeing. So it's, you know, in the lineage of people like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj and, you know, the self-inquiry asking who am I, things of that nature, and just continuing the going. Who is Nisargadatta Maharaj? He was another Indian teacher of non-duality, similar to Ramana Maharshi, whereas Ramana did self-inquiry, and Nisargadatta did a lot of the pointing out same thing, direct experiencing, thinking about the complete utter oneness, the totality of all things that have arisen.

In Hinduism you hear the teaching of seeing the one in the many, or recognizing the many as the one. You know, so that was something that he would talk about as well as Ramana, and cutting through this illusion of separation of all this duality. And it's not to say that, you know, so you see through it, and it doesn't mean like all of a sudden you're in this complete state of abiding non-dual awareness, so that does become the case for many people, but it's a process, you know, you see, and you have the direct experience, and then from there you continue, and sometimes you might come

back to this sense of vying, separate self, and you get caught up in that, but then you just bring yourself back and on, you know, back and forth, back and forth. It's kind of like, for example, Santa Claus, you know when we're kids, most of us believed in Santa Claus, we were taught Santa was real, and then inevitably at some point you see through the illusion that there is no Santa Claus, and once you see through that illusion, once you learn the truth, you can never go back to, you know, believing that Santa really truly does exist, you know better, you've seen through it. So once you have this experience of seeing through the false, separate self, there is

no way you can go back. You can get lost again back in the mind, in the story, but it's, you've seen through it, you know now in a way that is completely undeniable. But you, but as opposed to Santa Claus, which that is a sad day, when you figure out that there's no Santa Claus, because then you realize your parents are goddamn wires, there's another, this is a, to put it mildly, this is a million times that, in the sense that you're not just giving up some imaginary, gift-giving, garishly dressed, bearded, weirdo, you're giving up your entire universe, and that what goes along with that is the theoretical reorganization

of all your relationships, all your friendships, your job, your girlfriend or boyfriend, or it seems like what you're talking about is such a radical shift that it's beyond terrifying. And it feels like if you're in a group, which I would imagine most people aren't hanging out, unless they have incredibly good karma, they're not hanging out with groups who are experiencing unitive consciousness all the time. They're hanging out with people that they develop friendships with over many, many years, and those friendships probably weren't based on some spiritual pursuit. So how does this work for somebody who wants to maintain the life that they have while

experiencing or seeking this beautiful state of consciousness that you're describing? Well the thing is, is that it's such a subtle shift in perception, you know, people have this misperception, a lot of people do at least, of enlightenment, has this big event, you know, bells go off, there's angels singing, light everywhere, bliss rapture, all of this. And I would not say that that is the experience, at least as far as what I've, you know, glimpsed of it myself. It is a very subtle shift, one in which it's so simple, literally, all that there is to do in that moment is kind of laugh at the simplicity, it's like, oh, here it is.

You know, I'm married, I have a stepdaughter, I still go to the movies and I like punk rock music and hip-hop and watch The Simpsons and laugh at dumb shit all the time and, you know, I'm a big fan of inappropriate humor. So none of that changes, you know, I still am who I am, however, what shifts is that you see through the illusion of I, the story of Chris, and you recognize that it really is a story, that's all that it is, it's a story, and in seeing through that story there is a significant reduction in unnecessary suffering. It's not that pain doesn't still arise, it's not that feelings still don't get hurt, these

things still happen, but there is, there's less of a stickiness, I guess we could call it. So these emotions come up, but you're not attaching this personal story to them anymore, and it's not a means of aversion by any means, it's literally, you just see, okay, you see through the story that comes along with the experience, maybe you'll still get caught up in it sometimes. I had things that still come up, and like I said, I'm not in the state of complete abiding non-dual awareness, you know, I've had glimpses and I've, you know, seen through the illusion

of self, it's wonderful, and now I, like many other people are in this process of it just kind of working itself out, it's a natural effortless thing that's happening. What do you mean a natural effortless thing? So you mentioned karma before, and I absolutely believe in karma, and I believe that, you know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Christian Dost said it great when I talked to him once, he's like, maybe it'll happen this lifetime, maybe not, maybe it won't be a thousand lifetimes, who the fuck cares? You know, he's like, it just happens, it is what it is, so just go about your life, do

what you can do, and so I guess, you know, saying what you can do. At that point right there, as much as I love that, because I love procrastinating, and I love, you know, like, I, for example, as far as like, I gotta start exercising, man, I gotta start exercising again, it's been too long, I fucked up my back, but now I'm, I can exercise again, I'm just not doing it. So if, and I know comparing some kind of awakening of the self, or escaping the cycle of rebirth, or whatever, to getting in shape, maybe it's not a fair comparison, but there is something too similar to it, in the sense that there is something called a practice, and these

people that you originally cited in the beginning, they had a real hardcore practice. At least I, Ramana, I know a little bit about, and that guy, he looks like he just climbed out of a interdimensional portal or something, like he is there, man, and he had a real practice, and so at what point does that, and that comes a lot, I know Ramadas talks about this as well, he talks about the, he says, how long have we been reincarnating, and he describes the dove with his scarf and its beak flying over the peaks of the homolias, and every, every hundred years the silk scarf touches the peak, and the amount of time it would take to wear that down into a valley, this is how long we've been reincarnating here,

therefore no rush, you don't have to rush, you just let it unfold, and as it unfolds, and I love all that, but when does that become an excuse rather than a tool to, of calming, when does that become, alright, well today, you know what, I'm unfolding on my own timeline, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sit down and meditate today, and I'm not gonna stop smoking, and I'm not gonna stop drinking, and I'm not gonna stop eating shitty food, because you know, I'm just kind of, and I'm not gonna stop being a dick to my friends, and I'm not gonna stop being, I'm just unfolding right now, man, when does it become an excuse? I think it, it can be an excuse at any time, what I think is important for us is to, it's

like the Buddha taught, you know, he taught the middle path, not too loose, not too tight, and if we're going it on our own, which some people do, and that's okay, if they have the discipline, then they can certainly do that, but for people like, you know, you said you're procrastinator, and at times I certainly can be too, so it's been very important for me to have teachers in my life, and have, you know, the support of a sangha, or a satsang, I know you've talked in the past about connecting with Ragu, and he has a bit of a teacher role in your life, you know, so we have people that we're, in a sense, accountable to, that can help us stay on track, and at times, if they feel called to, can call us on our shit,

and, you know, if they see that we're, we are procrastinating, you know, or not doing what we should be doing, you know, they can give us a gentle nudge, or it can be more of like a Zen teacher that hits you with a stick, you know, so, but really, we have to be honest with ourselves in the process, we know if we take a look when we're procrastinating, when we're bullshitting, and when we're not, you know, I believe each of us has the capacity to know that, so you do what you do, you show up, you, if you feel called to meditate, you work with meditation, if you feel called to do mantra, you work with mantra, you know, whatever, yoga, there's no shortage of different paths and practices, but what I was talking

about at the beginning is the very interesting thing is it's right here, this thing that we are looking for is literally, it's in front of us at every moment, like Ram Dass said, we hear now, it is right here, it's a raw experience of hearing, you know, we hear, we see, we touch, these experiences are happening right now, they're all here, we just, who is looking at it, through what lens are we seeing it, you know, is there the story attached to it, or are we actually seeing the experience right here directly in this moment, so for example, Duncan, if I ask you to close your eyes for a second and then open them, when your eyes open, is it you, Duncan, that is doing the looking, that is happening through

your eyes, or is happening just naturally, or I'm sorry, is looking, is seeing just naturally happening when you open your eyes, right, and that's what I'm saying, that's what I mean when I say it's effortless, it is literally, there's nothing we can do, it's happening, that is life in this moment, when we hear sounds, when we hear a car driving by outside, are we, is there some independent agent within us that is making that happening hearing, or is that happening, just literally happening, or I'm sorry, is that hearing happening of its own accord, it's just happening, so that's what I mean by effortless, it's always happening right here, it's just a matter of that, like I said, that subtle shift in experience, and

then the deeper you go with it, you realize there really is no separate doer, there is no separate agent, and that's what, and you know, we've talked about Ram Das and some of the Hindu mystics, but all of the great wisdom traditions point to this in their own language, whether it's emptiness taught in Buddhism, or Christ consciousness from the mystic schools of Christianity, you know, they come back to this place of no self, of literally the unitive one. You are, you're working on a book right now called These Beautiful Wounds, and this is a book about a relapse that you had.

Yeah. Now, I'd like to talk about this a little bit from this perspective, because one thing that I've noticed is that I'll be in what I would consider to be the flow state, and I'll feel very connected to that Christ consciousness, or the unit of consciousness, or I'll feel like I've been experiencing it to some degree, some small degree, and then I'll get enough, like in an argument with someone, like I just recently got in an argument with someone in my family, and I can feel that place as I'm texting shitty things, you know, like you're watching yourself go through some awful habitual pattern, and yet still underneath it, you're

like, wait, who is this person texting? Why am I doing this? What is the point? It seems like when you relapsed and went back into these old behavior patterns, did you still feel inside of you some trace of this unit of consciousness or everything mind that you had reached or that had unfolded inside of you during your spiritual journey, or was that completely gone? And if you did feel it, how come you couldn't jump right back into it?

Yeah, it was completely gone. Absolutely. So the direct seeing that has happened in my own life happened well after that relapse that I wrote about. I had certainly had plenty of experiences prior to that of those aha moments, seeing through the illusion, but they were just glimpses. They weren't real experiences that stuck, but they were wonderful. It's like when you take a substance, for example, and it helps you see.

That's great. In my case, no, I was completely in the story of Chris, even though on the intellectual level I understood the teachings of non-duality had had these glimpses and so on and so forth. But I got sucked right back into it. It was after I'd been sober for a little over four years at that point, which isn't really that long. For some people, it might seem like a long time and for others, not so much. But here's the interesting thing that I experienced after that relapse.

First of all, I was no stranger to relapse. I was stuck in a very vicious cycle for many years of my life of getting clean. And then I'd be clean for about a year or so, give or take, be working with meditations and visiting various sanghas. But I'm still introverted by nature, something I've worked on, but I would isolate a lot. I would end up just living alone in an apartment, sinking back into a horrible depression, which you and I have talked about how terrible depression can be. And then I would inevitably go back to drinking and using other drugs.

And it was a cycle and on and on it went. And so I had this experience of waking up in a jail cell after a blackout drunk years ago, and that was a real rock bottom for me because it was the first time I was literally ready to die in my life. Even though I'd attempted suicide a couple of times before that, they were more cry for help attempts. I mean, serious enough to land me in psych hospitals each time. But I still, there was a glimmer of hope within me that, you know, all right, you can come

back from this. But this time I was not, I didn't want to come back. I really wanted to die. So I ended up going back into a detox and into another rehab and in that rehab, I had a wonderful clinician and he helped a number of things happened. But you know, all these things that happened helped kind of pull me off my pity pod and pick me back up again and I found that resolved to live and be of service. So over the four years, I really was very dedicated to truly going into these raw places

within myself, you know, the places where the wounds were and beginning to work with them and really explore them and do the very uncomfortable sifting through the wreckage of my past that I wasn't really willing to do all of those years prior to that. Now still though, through those four years, I ended up relapsing again. My wife and I were on the verge of divorce. I'd been sick for about a month with bronchitis. I mean, I'm not saying this as an excuse. I'm just trying to let listeners know where I was at.

It was like a perfect storm of just being in a really shitty place. I was living in Canada. When you say sifting through the wreckage of your past, do you mean all the way back to your childhood or what do you mean by that? Sure. My childhood work is more what I've been doing, you know, after the relapse. Prior to that, what I meant, and thanks for asking so I can clarify, more of the years of active addiction, you know, just the shitty things people do when they're caught in the

disease. No, I didn't get to the place where I was robbing anyone or things of that nature, but still you do shitty things. You know, when you're drunk every day, you treat people shitty. You are very selfish things of that nature. So there's a lot of guilt and shame that I had to face and really look at and work through a lot of it that I had repressed and just shoved down and, you know, it become like young would call shadow material.

So having to begin to look at that and make the darkness lighter, bring it to consciousness. So how do you do that? I mean, do you, do you, when, when you dredge up one of these awful things that, that you did as an addict, what's worse is like, what if you did these things when you weren't an addict? Let me give you an example of something I feel shitty about. Just one little pixel of things. If I'm going to go dredging up stuff from my past once I, when I was in high school,

I bought a guinea pig that gave birth to a lot of other guinea pigs. And I just didn't, I don't feel like I took good care of those guinea pigs. Like, and it's a little thing. But now when I look back, I think, what a fucking asshole, man, these poor creatures completely dependent on you. And you really didn't, you didn't give them what they needed. Like, I don't, they didn't die, ended up giving them away. But man, what a fucking asshole.

And I think about that. What, how, what do you do other than just look back and think, well, I guess I was a fucking asshole. So it's interesting because I've only done this work through the context of, of recovery, of looking, you know, an NA or AA or a Refuge Recovery, which is Noah Levine's Buddhist program. They have a set of, a series of questions and steps and you work through them with what's called a sponsor or a mentor in Refuge Recovery. And you go through these various questions and you look at these different actions and

behaviors and then you sift down into the root cause of those actions and behaviors. Why was I doing what I was doing? Looking at fear, things of that nature. And then what you do is you make amends when applicable and what that means is making amends asking for forgiveness unless asking for forgiveness would cause more harm to the other person. So if it's more of a selfish thing, like if you really fucked someone over in a really bad way and you know that even trying to assert yourself back into that person's life just to make an honest apology, no matter how sincere it is, that's just going to bring up a lot

of stuff for that person and probably end up hurting them more than helping them. Or what if the person's dead? Or if they're, so if they're dead, yeah, that's another one. And that actually happens quite a bit that, and in that case, that's what in the recovery fellowship they would call making a living amends. So if there's something you cannot go back and do and change, then you do something today in the world, an active service where in a way, sure, it's kind of just like cleaning your conscience.

But if you're doing it from a sincere way of recognizing, look, I fucked up in the past. I cannot go back and change that. Like, I can't go back and change the way that, you know, I handled those guinea pigs, you know, or if I didn't give them enough attention, then what can someone or what can you do today, you know, to right that wrong? And I don't know, I don't have the answer for that, but that's a way of approaching it. You know, like, so what's done is done. We know we can't change the past, but what can I do today?

That's really cool and active service. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's how I would approach it. Okay, cool. So you had been dredging up your past for four years, going into the many catastrophes that were surrounding you as an addict. Yeah. And you have bronchitis.

Oh, right, right. And I only mentioned that because bronchitis is no big deal. But what sucks is I'm, I'm not a great sleeper a lot of the time as it is. And with bronchitis, I was sleeping like maybe two hours a night. So anyways, this is going on for like a month. I'm really sick. My wife and I are in this really bad place, arguing a lot. Um, she's having a hard time in her life outside of our relationship.

I'm having my struggles and it gets to a point where we're questioning whether we're going to go on or not. And one thing led to another. And, oh, and the other thing, like I was saying is I, I was living and I live in Canada now at this point, but I had moved from the U S to Canada. So I'm in a new area. I've been here for about a year, but you know, I'm on the road quite a bit, uh, doing various events.

And so I, you're public speaking right now. Right. Yeah. So I'm doing that, um, doing different events of that nature. I'm getting, you're in the predicament of people coming up to you to teach them. Yeah. And you're thinking, I just yelled at my wife, uh, last night or yeah. Now that, that's a funny feeling, right?

How do you, how were you dealing with that dissonance coming from people coming to you, probably people saying your, your book, this is when this is when the indie spiritualists had come out, right? So how are you dealing with people coming up to you and saying, you know, your book changed my life. It's helping me wake up and you're thinking, well, great. Cause my marriage is falling apart and, um, whatever's in that book, it's not actualizing in my life experience.

Yeah. Well, so what's always been extremely important for me in both of my books and anytime I do a public speaking event or whatever I'm doing is to be completely transparent in what I'm going through. And that's why you look at either of the books that I've written. And one of the first things I try to make clear is that, look, I'm not this like enlightened teacher that has all the answers that lives perfect. I'm very clear about here are the ways I have fucked up in my life.

Here are the ways that I still continue to fuck up here are things that I've found that helped here are things that, you know, I haven't really helped, um, always with the goal of hoping to help others possibly avoid some of the potential pitfalls that I went through. That's the active service that I'm most interested in kind of laying myself out as a case study in a way and, and being very transparent while doing that, you know, not trying to gloss any of it over, being very real and completely honest in what I'm going through.

And that's why I'm actually writing this third book that, that recounts that whole experience and very vividly and candidly, uh, about what's going on. And, and, and here's how it played out. And here's how I pulled myself through it. But what I was saying about the thing that was different with this, that was not different with the other relapses was that every other relapse I had experienced earlier in my life, every one of them was bare minimum two months, often more than that.

And it was just this terrible spiral that would continue on and on, and it would only end one of two ways. Every single time it would either end with me waking up in a jail cell or with me in an emergency room, one or the other. That was it. This time it lasted less than a week. I drank four times during the course of that week and it ended with me realizing, shit, man, I actually love myself enough today to not go all the way

back down that road to where I know it's going to take me. If I don't stop right now, things are not great in my life. Things are not great with my wife, but I care enough about myself today to not go back to that dark place. And so I ended up going back to Connecticut and staying with family. My wife and I separated for several months, take some time apart. I knew I needed to get my head straight. So I didn't end up back in an emergency room.

I didn't end up back in a detox. Um, I didn't have to go through rehab and that to me speaks volumes to what those four years of sincere, you know, dedication to working with the practices did in my life, because never prior to that point, did I give a shit, give enough of a shit about myself to care. Cause once I would pick up for anyone to go back that's in recovery to drinking or using drugs, they have to be in a pretty bad place. And any real care or concern for yourself at that point is pretty much out the window.

You're in what they would call a case of the fuck it's like fuck it, whatever, man. And like I said, for me, I would just be off and running with that. And until I got to a point where I could no longer even function in that relapse, like, you know, I could, or it's not that I couldn't function. It was that, you know, I was behind bars or whatever the case may be. But this time that, you know, as much as it pains me that I went through that and my wife had to go through that as well. We both have come out so much stronger because of that.

It has opened my ass to so many ways and places that I was still stuck in my life. And I'm not saying this to encourage anyone who is in recovery, go out and relapse. You'll learn all this great shit about yourself. Cause I can't tell you how many people I know that have died, you know, from relapsing and only relapsing once, let alone numerous times that I have. But I am so grateful for the opportunity or opportunities that arose for me introspectively to see the places that I still had a lot of work to do in my life. And I still today still have a lot of work to do in my life.

There's still shit that's there, you know, it's life. It's, it's part of being human. It's what we signed up for and it is what it is. No, I love it, man. I like your approach because something that I find very cloying when I went in some spiritual books, uh, I don't know if you've ever encountered this, but you read some spiritual books and especially autobiographies or biographies, whatever, the first chapter is quite often just a list of like little mini

miracles that have happened in the person's life or, you know, it predilections they had as a child that were auspicious in this sort of like all of these like basic signs that seem to point in the direction that this person is some form of Messiah or prophet. So I don't know if you, if you've ever encountered that, but it's quite annoying to me when a spiritual teacher from the very beginning seems like some blessed lamb that has just, uh, climbed out of a rainbow and is singing some glorious song of light to the world.

You're like, who gives a fuck? You were already fine. No one, like what, what work did you do? You have the great karma or blah, blah, blah. And now you get to be this awakened being like Jesus, you know, Jesus isn't, I love the story of Jesus, but from the mythological perspective, the idea of this virgin birth pops out of a virgin pussy, comes into a world where he's immediately, if you read the, some of the, the scriptures that didn't make it in,

he's bringing birds back to life. He's, you know, six in the temple teaching the scriptures to the rabbis. Okay. Well, who fucking cares? You're already, you're a trust fund kid, essentially. Your dad's God, you're a trust fund kid. You can walk on water. Great. Oh, love your neighbors yourself. Okay. Teach me to walk through walls, walk on water, manufacture food out of my hands, turn water into wine, and then I'll be a nice guy. But until then, please, I don't think you're the person you should be teaching me.

But when I hear a person like you, Jesus who has gone into the pit and instead of it being like, yeah, I'd gotten a spirituality and, uh, I started meditating, I started working on myself and wow, everything became perfect. Hearing from you saying, well, my, which relapse was this fourth? Oh no, the very last one was Christ, probably like my 10th. My 10th relapse didn't land me in jail. That to me sums up why the spiritual path is worth something.

And that's a realistic, I think that's a very realistic, articulation of what it will give you. And, and it's not romantic. And you know what? Maybe it won't, it maybe it doesn't sell as many books because definitely doesn't, but fuck it. That's not why I'm writing it. You know, the promise there is not as glorious as astral projection, seeing Auras being able to have some form of telepathy or somehow healing everyone around you with blasts of sweet astral love.

The promise there is that shitty repetitive fucking cycle that keeps happening in your life, that thing, that thorn in your side, the, the Fisher King wound is it sometimes called that stupid repetitive burn that keeps happening, that pit you keep going down into again and again and again. The next time you go into that pit, you might not stay there as long and that to me is real. So I love it, man. I think it's really cool. The, what you're teaching and your transparency,

it's really grating to, in a lot of ways, to hear these perfect people sing their perfect songs, you know, it is. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. And that's a big inspiration of why I do what I do because obviously that, that does sell a lot of books and that's a big market and it's a big business. And right on, man, it is what it is. But there are so many people that I've met, you know, through the years that are looking for something more that just can't relate to

it. They see through the kind of fluff, the, you know, the softness of it and they want something that's more raw, that's more direct, that is more believable based on their own life circumstances and what they've been through. And, you know, and that's kind of, I guess, where my odd little piece fits in. And, and it's honestly, I got this word, I know it's kind of cliche, but it sincerely is humbling, man. Like when I'm able to go in and speak at like

an art college to kids that like I'm looking back at my own 18 year old self that was very night or very jaded towards the idea of religion and spirituality and anything remotely close to either one of those, but to be able to go in and definitely not always, but sometimes, you know, get through to people in a way, you know, because it's not being presented as light and fluffy, but as something that, you know, it's real and it's not going to make your life perfect. I don't make any kind of bullshit promises to people,

but it can help you navigate the storm better. There's no doubt about that. And, you know, that this, my life is one of many that is a living testament in the world today to that. And that's what I have to offer, you know, and sometimes even trying to like teach something isn't appropriate. I'm going in next month, I go in periodically to a teen rehab center when I'm back in the States. And these are kids ages 13 through 19 that not just drugs and alcohol,

but suicide attempts, self-cutting, depression, things of that nature. And, you know, sometimes the best course of action with some of these kids is to just be there with them and for them to know that, you know what, they're not alone that other people have gone through what they have, or maybe not exactly, but gone through similar to what they have gone through. And that someone else is out there who is on the other side of it today, at least that can sit there and bear a loving witness to the pain that they are

experiencing in that moment. Sometimes that's, you know, all that's needed. So I'm, I, you know, it's been a, it's been a rough road, definitely not as rough as many others, but I have a lot of gratitude for what I've gone through because it does allow me to show up in those ways and be of whatever little service that I can be today. It makes me think though, uh, maybe some of the people listening, what about people who rather than having slipped into hardcore drug addiction or

just dealing with the, you know, normal shittiness of life, you know, like that relationships, not working out jobs, you know, maybe unemployment or what, what, something, do you feel like it's harder to connect with those people? Because your system, your spiritual system has been based in, 12 step programs. Yeah, not at all.

Actually, the interesting thing is that, well, first of all, when I write, I write and I, and I say, or when I do a, a speaking engagement, one of the first things I say is, look, a lot of my story, most of my story, the pain and suffering is based on my experience with drug and alcohol addiction. However, I invite you, whether it's the reader, the listener, the person, the audience, whomever it may be to use that as a light to shine on whatever it is that you are going through, in your own life, or have gone through whatever experiences of pain and suffering

you've gone through and then take whatever I say and just look at it through that lens, use whatever your experience is because we all have pain and suffering, you know, we all experience fear and hurt. That's the core of, of what I'm trying to get through, get to not just drugs and alcohol. Um, I was interviewing, I don't know if you're familiar with it. He's a, uh, Trappist monk. His name is Father Thomas Keating. I've heard of him. Yeah. Great Christian mystic, wonderful teacher in his 80s and, uh, mid 80s or so.

And I was interviewing him several years ago and I mentioned to him that I was in recovery from drugs and alcohol. And he kind of laughed at me. Uh, it was a, it was a playful, harmless laugh. He's like, well, I'm in recovery too, but I'm in recovery from the human condition. Wow. Oh, and it's like, it was like, yeah, like a light went off. It's like, duh, you know, and that's where it realized that was before I'd written into spiritualist. And that's where it helped me to recognize that even though the, the lens of pain and suffering, um, that, you know,

I've experienced is mostly through drugs and alcohol. It doesn't mean that, you know, I can't still convey that and help others work with whatever pain that they're going through. And so I've gotten a lot of really great, uh, correspondence from people who've read the books or come to a workshop or speaking engagement. I did that have no, uh, experience with drugs and alcohol and took a lot away from it and whatever it is

that they were going through or people have read it who don't have struggles with drugs or alcohol, but, um, have a family member that did and it helped them to understand what they're going through a bit more. And I think what helps is particularly in the books, it's not just about addiction and recovery. You know, there's so much that's about straight up spirituality and spiritual teachings and, uh, and, you know, different practices and things of that nature.

Yeah. I didn't, I, when I've, I, your books don't have too much of that stuff in it, which is great because yeah, it would definitely separate you from a lot of people who maybe don't understand those symbols as well. One, uh, what I do love about your books is that they're filled with great quotes, which is something that, um, I really like about Jack Kornfield and Romdass's and Alan Watts is these are

quote harvesters and, you know, and there's something so cool about going out into all these different spiritual paths and gathering together, all these amazing quotes and then just compacting them into this sort of explosive bomb of information. That's it. You know, cause that one quote can change your course completely. Just one simple Meister Eckhart quote, which you quote, you, you quote him a lot. How did you get into him? Um,

God, who led me to Meister Eckhart? I, I want, man, I'm trying to think back. I mean, uh, he was one of the earlier people I started reading. Um, I almost want to say it was through maybe Buddhism. And I don't know that it was a specific Buddhist teacher, but reading about the teachings of impermanence and then learning about no self and emptiness. Um, and I always like to just personally, I like to look at things from different vantage points and, uh,

I don't, I honestly don't recall what it was exactly that led me to Meister Eckhart. Maybe it was Thomas Merton's writings. Uh, I'm not sure, but, you know, I started reading his stuff and, you know, the way he talks about God, but in such a way that it completely was, uh, in sync with the Buddhist teachings on emptiness, it was very beautiful. Um, and so, and I, I like to quote him because here he is a Christian mystic and he talks about things like loving God as God is a not God. You know, not two, it is one. And, um,

he was an extremely controversial, uh, figure in the, in the Christian, uh, what's the word history, I guess, uh, because of statements like that, but these are statements that are coming from. Did he get kicked out or something or, or he got, uh, what's the word excommunicated? He, honestly, I don't know. He probably did. It would not surprise me for a second. If he did, I was interviewing a few days ago, another wonderful Christian contemplative, his name's Matthew Fox,

who was, uh, kicked out of the church from, uh, it was Cardinal Radsinger at the time he came and went on to be the last pope, I believe the 16th pope, if I could be wrong on that, but, uh, you know, and he was a big, um, fan of Eckhart's and Thomas Merton as well. And so you have these people that are, you know, they start out in a specific tradition, but they start to see through the dogma of the tradition and have that direct experience that, you know,

we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation and start to see through some of the holes that are in the stories and the teachings. And it's like, wait a minute, you know, and then they start speaking from direct experience, which does not often match up with what some of the texts are saying. And when you have a very rigid system in place, you know, and it starts to question that, then what are those people going to do? And that's what ends up, or that's when, you know,

people like Matthew Fox are, uh, kicked out and possibly, Meister Eckhart, if he was, which now I'm going to have to go look that up as soon as we get off this conversation. I'm looking it up right now. I'm pretty sure I was just going to look up some quotes just for people out there. Maybe you aren't familiar with Meister Eckhart and I, you know, if you want to, to me, if you really want to glimpse into how incredibly psychedelic Christianity can

be, um, cause a lot of people, man, I gotta tell you, I was, uh, there's somebody I follow on Twitter who is a right wing Trump supporting homophobic, um, uh, fundamentalist. And I follow him. I accidentally, he was a troll and I accidentally followed him cause he was just saying some shitty thing to me and I was going to mute him, but I accidentally followed him. And, uh, then I realized, oh my God, this is the best.

Cause he's always tweeting clips of this fundamentalist preacher who is just gotta be one of the most vile humans on, on planet earth. His sermons are, you know, he gives the kind of sermon like with the Orlando shooting, he gives the kind of sermon where he's like, that's what's supposed to happen cause homosexuals or God despises them. So it gives you what, to me, when I watch that, it gives me a really intense empathy for hardcore activist atheists who are raised in that kind of environment.

Cause when you see that, you're like, yeah, of course, how you, the only reaction an intelligent person could have to being boiled psychologically in that gooey poison for their entire childhood is either to come out of it. A, um, proselytizing bigot or to come out of it, uh, an, uh, an atheist who's rejecting all of this as a form of survival and to redeem themselves. So anyway, I get it. But anyway, for, um, folks who want to get introduced to a whole different form of Christianity, Meister Eckhart is the way to go.

Like here's, I'm just, I pulled up like Meister Eckhart quotes. Um, here's a good one. There exists only the present instant and now, which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only now as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. Oh, that is good. Yeah, it's really good.

It's really good. And, and, and it, you know, where, you know, my introduction to Meister Eckhart, what's that, uh, Jacob's ladder. Oh, you remember his chiropractor and Jacob's ladder, uh, was an angel and, or seems like he was an angel. And one of the things he says is he's cracking his back. If you haven't seen Jacob's ladder, definitely watch that before you read Meister Eckhart.

It's way more interesting, but he were entertaining at least both cool. But as he's cracking his back, uh, one of the things he says is the part of a man's soul that burns in hell is the part that clings to life, which is another fantastic Eckhart quote. Um, but so anyway, we've gotten off, I've gotten off course a little bit. I mean, it didn't mean to start rambling about Meister Eckhart. Um, I wanted to ask you when you are speaking and you get in front of a group of people, do you have like a set talk that you give?

Or do you, are you, do you mix it up? Are you always revising it? Like when you see Jack cornfield talk or pretty much by now, cause of the Ramdas retreats, I've seen a lot of these, uh, these teachers speak. You're always, oh shit, they've got jokes in the same way. Comedians have bits. They have spiritual bits. Do you have that?

Not really. So what I do is, you know, yes, I will look at like, what's the event I'm doing or who's the group I'm working with. And that might, um, you know, shift the way, like I kind of mentally prepare when I walk into it. And actually, I don't even know what mentally prepare means to be honest. Now that I'm saying it, um, but, um, I, I like to be aware of the group I'm going into speak to, but really the only thing I do when I prepare is, you know,

yes, there are a number of practices that I found very beneficial, whether it's you know, simple mindfulness practice or, you know, whatever it may be. And I will generally try to offer at least a couple of things, time depending. And again, depending on what the event is, um, but really, and, and of course, I'll share a little bit just about my story, a brief kind of recap, because I find that doing that helps kind of lay out this, um, this foundation of vulnerability right from the bat. And I find that in most cases, when I do that, it makes for a really, uh, wonderful

experience for everyone. It's, it becomes kind of a safe environment in which people are willing to get a little, uh, raw and vulnerable in, in sharing and their experiences. But outside of that, not really, man. Like, so, you know, there's probably the little staples of, of just a little bit about me and a few practices, but other than that, um, it, I like to let it fold as net unfold as naturally as I can every time. And I tell people right from the beginning, like if at any time I'm talking,

if you have a question or a comment, please don't wait. There's not a specific Q and a time. Just throw your hand up and we'll get into it right in the moment. And that can be tricky, you know, cause sometimes you open yourself up to, uh, well, you really don't know where the day is going to go. And I remember I was doing an event actually last year and a friend of mine was at it and he was, uh, we were driving together afterwards. And, uh, this one guy just, uh, it wasn't that he was like disagreeing

with what I was saying, but he just kind of kept, he was, he was a pretty a born again Christian, not full on fundamental, but kept bringing everything back to Jesus and Jesus as the way. And, you know, so I'm going, you know, discussing that with him and my friend was like, dude, I don't know how you do it. Like I just wanted to punch that guy in the fucking mouth, but like, you know, you somehow were able to, to keep your composure. And so things like that do happen sometimes.

And, uh, and I have to be aware of that because then you also don't want someone to kind of hold the group in the event hostage, uh, but that's just the way I like to do it, man. And, and let it, let it unfold how it will be there with the difficult though, because yeah, you've got to think about the whole group. And if you've got someone spouting off constantly, you do have to figure out a, this is the problem. You know, man, this is the, I think probably one of the problems that, um,

what, cause it's really fun for me to watch some of these teachers at the Barondas retreats deal with some of the inevitable weirdness that pops up. And cause they have to have tricks to deal with this stuff. This, they've been doing this for their whole lives. They go give talks and teachings and teach people the different, different methods. And so in any group of people who consider themselves to be spiritual seekers, there's going to be a couple of people at least who just want to talk. And, you know, so they'll, they'll ask a 15 minute question.

That's not a question. And it's a really uncomfortable thing for the audience to deal with. And it's interesting to watch the teachers navigate this. I'm fascinated with it, man. I'm fascinated with the whole process. I'm fascinated with the, the, um, this is something that God, my friend, Emil and I talk about sometimes is like Alan Watts, for example, or even Ramdas, like when I, you know, when I'm watching Ramdas in, in, it's some of these

talks and you're, you're looking and you're thinking, Oh, he's on tour. He goes on tour, just like a comedian does. Um, uh, which means he's got to negotiate deals, right? Like it means that he's got to get on the phone with somebody who's like, okay, we want you for an hour at this university and we're going to give you a hundred dollars. And he's got to be like, no fucking way, man. That's well under my rate. I make, but then they're like, okay, Mr.

spirituality, how do you, uh, what do you want us to pay you? So this is something I'm really interested in is the collision of capitalism and spirituality, that place where the two inevitably have to come together in the West. How do you deal with that, man? How do you deal with writing books, selling books, working out book deals, going to give talks, negotiating rates for talks? How do you deal with the unpleasantness of living in the marketplace while having

a job as a spiritual teacher? It is hands down the worst part of, of this whole experience. No doubt about it. It's when I feel very uncomfortable. Uh, I feel really, I feel gross when, when money has to be discussed. You know, I come up from a very DIY do it yourself, uh, punk rock hardcore music ethics, like, you know, put out your own music. If a label's not going to do things of that nature, sell it for a couple of

dollars. It's just about getting the music and the message out there. Then like becoming huge and making tons of money. And those ethics were really deeply instilled in me and are still here to this day. So for me, when Indie spiritualist first came out, which was published by Atria, which is a subdivision of Simon and Schuster, first of all, seeing that on the book was really fucking weird for me because, you know, Simon Schuster's huge. And it's like, Jesus Christ.

You know, it's so part of me feels like, oh, you're a sellout now. And anyways, I navigated that because. You know, it, they're, they have a great distribution. It's going to help get it out to people. Cool. Um, so that end of things, luckily, I don't have anything to do with, you know, when the books come out, just, you know, as a comedian, if they're doing a CD or a band's doing an album, if you're signed to a label, uh, that's out of your hands.

I have a literary agent. They, they deal with that end of negotiating literary agent prior to writing the Indie spiritualists or yes. Yeah. I, I very luckily someone, um, who was represented by this agent. It got, uh, she'd read some of my stuff online on a webpage and she wanted to introduce me to her agent and, uh, I wasn't even looking for it. It was so weird, man.

I wasn't looking to write a book or anything. It just happened. Literally, it just, it just kind of happened. So you got a book deal. Yeah. When I wasn't looking for one, it was very, very weird. Wow. Cool.

Yeah. It is, it's, it's cool, but it's, it's still like, at times I try to wrap my head around it, um, but then when it comes time to go do these live events, it's like, yeah, some people like expect you to do them for free, which, you know, I'll be honest, if this was like four years ago before I was married and had a step daughter, um, if it wasn't an inconvenience, cool, man, like still to this day, I'll volunteer my time when I can and go in and speak in like detoxes or hospitals and things of that nature.

Cause just giving back is very important to me. That, that is honestly first and foremost being of service. However, yeah, man, now I'm married. I have a stepdaughter, like got to put food on the table. Her birthday is this Sunday. I need to buy, you know, presents for her. But luckily, you know, my wife and I live a very simple life or not materialistic and not that there's anything wrong with things.

We just naturally aren't really into, you know, having a lot of stuff. I think we'd rather more than anything travel, um, which obviously that can be expensive too. But so when it comes time to like do these events, I don't have a booking agent. So here's the other weird thing is nine out of 10 events I do are not ones that I actively sought. They are people that came to me, um, because maybe they read my book or saw

me at another event I did and asked if I would come do their event. And they'll, you know, tell me what their terms are. And if it's something that I can do, then I do it. And if it's something that I can't, I let them know that I can't, but I'll tell you like, I'm not out there. There are some speakers that, and, and this is a fact and I won't name names, but there's two speakers I know of. And this was a couple of years ago, uh, to do a 40 minute talk.

They wanted $40,000 for 40 minute talk. And it's like, these are spiritual quote unquote spiritual, you know, teachers. It's like, Jesus, man, like talk about living above your means. I mean, when is enough enough? Uh, so $40,000 for 40 minutes, you better be curing fucking every disease of everyone in the room. Seriously, that's what I'm saying. And, and you know, they're not, but it's, man, it's, and that's, it's hard

because you look and, and so much of the, the popular spiritual circuit really is about marketing and branding and business. And, and again, at the end of the day, I get it. You've got to put food on the table. But, but how much food, you know, to what extent? And so that's why, you know, Maharaji and Ram Das and the whole love server member foundation has always been, since I first became interested in spirituality, so important to me because, you know, these are very

heart centered people that are doing sincerely heart centered work. And sure, man, they have the two retreats that, um, you know, can for some people be pricey, but they also do scholarships and things of that nature. And, um, you know, and, and Ram Das, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't that long ago, right? Where I remember Wayne Dyer was trying to help him raise funds, uh, because, you know, he wasn't taking any money for the books and the work he was doing. So, you know, there's an authenticity to it.

There resonates for me. So that's, that's it, man. I try to find the balance, but yeah, I don't have a booking agent. So I have to have those conversations and, and I don't like them. But like I said, man, it's not about the money. So as long as like it's worth my time, which, uh, you know, everyone has a different, I guess, dollar amount that they consider that. But, uh, you know, what I mean is worth like traveling to say California

from Ottawa, like as long as it can offset the, the costs and the travel and the food and I still get some money back from it, from a family. Cool, man. You know, that's, that's what it's about for me. Yeah. Yeah. That I get that from you. It's, it's great.

I mean, I, though I do hope one day that you start making $40,000 for 40 minutes. Do you, why not? Like it's funny to me that they, they're, they're picking 40 minutes. It's, it's like, you can't even do an hour. Like you have to, you can only do 40 minutes. You know, it's a, it's funny. There's, um, yeah, it's a really funny side of Western spirituality. I think it's also interesting that people do think that spiritual teachers

should not be paid because in every other level of society, like if I want to learn guitar lessons in my guitar teachers, like I'm going, it's $100 an hour. I'm not going to be like, but you're giving the gift of music. Right. I know, I hear you, but if a person is, is teaching an authentic method for in some way reducing a lifetime of suffering, even if it's by a small percentage, people are like, are you fucking shitting me? You're charging for tickets.

How could you be doing that? When, when it's like, man, this is the, this is the world that we're existing in right now. There is no way around, there's no way around it. I mean, I guess I, that I could think of, I guess you could pass around a collections plate. You know, once I went to a, there's a church I like to go to in Los Angeles called Agape from time, like when I'm really, really, really down, that's one,

one of my tricks to try to get out of a depression is I'll go, I'll, I'll drag myself into there and sit in the back and try to soak it in because it's a really beautiful place and that message is always very positive and sweet. But I took someone there once and they were pissed because there's a fucking ATM in there and I get it. It's aesthetically not pleasing at all. But man, this is like a humongous fucking church. And you know what I mean?

Like, and you come to, they, they don't charge tickets. They want, they pass around a bowl that you old school throw dough in and I don't know, man, I thought, yeah, I do understand on one level while that, why that's an embarrassment, but then on another level, it, people are going to want to give some money to this thing because it's a very sweet, powerful thing. But I don't know. It's a really interesting aspect of spirituality in the West. And I think it was like that in the East too.

I think even in the East teachers were being paid, right? I, I don't know, man. I mean, there were the monks that would have their alms bowls and go around and that's how they would live off the generosity of, uh, you know, the areas they were living in at the time, but I don't know for how long that lasted. And, uh, I don't know, man, to be honest, I, I, and I've never been over there to this day, so I'm not sure what the scene is, but, uh, it's a, it's a fine line to me when you, when, when you're talking about the way that you,

you, these talks come to you, which is, they just sort of come to you the way your book happened, the agent just came to you. The book deal just came to you. Don't you find that one thing that goes along with any kind of working on the self or the spiritual path, do you find that what goes along with that as a kind of a feeling of being carried by something or moved by something bigger than you, that stuff just starts appearing in front of you, that there's very little effort involved in getting to that stuff.

Yeah. I, you know, and here's where things get interesting because you do hear it like talk like that. And for a cynical person, they can be like, Oh, here they go, you know, talking about that, that, you know, kind of nice bullshit. Um, but no, quite literally at times, absolutely. And when I say quite literally, there's an experience and I read about this in the new book I'm working on where, uh, I was back in Connecticut.

I'd probably only been back for like about a week and a half, maybe two weeks and I was out for a jog and I was, you know, those two weeks were horrible. Not only was I sick, you know, from drinking again, but, um, I was just really depressed, not knowing what was going to happen with my wife and I. And so I get out for a run and, and I'm, I don't know, maybe a couple of miles into it and all of a sudden as I'm running, I, there's an experience that I'm not even running anymore. And this is different than the one you and I have talked about.

Um, I have a lot of interesting experience, a little more outrunning, but, um, it was as if like I was being carried, like you said, and it was this full body feeling of just, um, it was a very gentle, like being held. That's how I was writing about it and being held and carried. And, uh, and again, like tears kind of started welling up in my eyes. And all I could think to do as I was running was kind of silently whisper, thank you, thank you, thank you. And that went on for maybe like three minutes or so.

And then the experience passed, but to me, it was just kind of like a reminder, like, you know, you're, you're taking care of, you're okay. Like everything's going to be okay. And, and I get, man, for some people who hear that they can, you know, just really be cynical towards it. I, I totally get that. But when you have these direct experiences that are completely undeniable, then, then you know, and no matter what anyone else says, it doesn't matter what

anyone else says, cause you know firsthand. And so, you know, that just to go back to what we were saying in the beginning, if anyone's still listening, who was turned off by, you know, that talk about direct experience, the most important thing I hope people take away from any of that that I said was that it's not about believing anything. It's not about believing what I said or not believing. It's about finding out for yourself. Is it true?

What is true? Having that direct experience. So, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what is true? People can help point you in that direction. Books are great for that. Teachers are great for that. But you are the only one that can do the work and have that experience. So question it all, go in and look and look and look.

But look, man, I think it's okay. Listen, don't apologize for reporting in on the miracles because whatever they may be, if they're happening, they're happening and you have to report in. And if people can't accept it, well, that's not your fault. I, I've been guilty of that a million times or sort of pad any kind of paranormal experience I've had with a kind of like, look, I know. This maybe was this or that, but eventually when it starts happening with enough frequency, you have, you just have to think, well, okay, this is one,

one of the other aspects of a spiritual path is there does seem to be a presence that comes to you from time to time and creates one of the most incredible feelings of elevation, of spirit, far more than any kind of psychedelic and offer to the point where, you know, I, I actually, um, I don't know if you read this or not, but the core of the sun is so dense that time moves slower in the core of the sun. Have you heard this? No shit.

No, I have not. Yeah, it's insane. So the, the core of the sun is two years younger than the exterior of the sun. Uh, because inside the sun time is moving differently than outside the sun. So if that is happening just with this, just with the sun, just with the thing that gives all life on the planet, but if that can happen in the universe, something so bizarre that time itself bends as it moves through the core of a thing, then perhaps when you start opening yourself up to the possibility that

what some of these people are saying from Meister Eckhart to Merton to Buddha to any of them, if you just open yourself up to, to Rumi, if you open yourself up to the idea that this could be real, what they're saying, Rumi isn't insane. He's not a Sufi who lost his fucking mind and was sniffing glue and started writing these poems about an intense love affair he was having with the universe. If you just open 5% of your mind to the possibility, that's real. He really was in that experience. Then, then that's one way to start down the path, I think, and just 2%, even just

2% open your mind to the possibility. But if the sun is bending time, then I think the saint or the enlightened being in, in, in the same way, they're bending reality or reality bends around them. There's actually, and I've quoted it, um, uh, on this podcast before Martin Luther King says something along the lines of the, the universe arcs in the direction of justice and, and, or something, he says it far more, he says it way better than I did, but the, um, so in the same way, or in the way that, like, when light hits a prism, it rainbow light comes out in the same way.

I think the reason you hear stories of miracles surrounding awakened beings is because the flow of the universe, when it gets around them, it bends towards the miraculous and stuff just starts happening around them in, in, and it happens in front of people and people say, Oh my fucking God, this is a miracle. So to go back and just contradict everything about, I said, about the annoying version of Jesus, when I think about the version of Jesus I like to believe in, then I, this is a being who is so, who has woken up so much that it's not as though he thinks I'm going to turn this water into wine.

It's just that kind of stuff happens around him. He, you know, he doesn't do it. It just happens in the same way that in some parts of the world, it tends to rain. And so I think if you set out on this path, even just a little bit, then you'll, you maybe won't experience your wine turning into water, but damned, if you're not going to start experiencing some pretty extreme coincidences that blow your mind over and over again, tiny little things at first, maybe, but wow, it does happen. Can you talk a little bit about that?

I don't, sorry for the long question. Do you, have you, have you experienced the miraculous in this way? Have you ever experienced? Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, like you said, the books just kind of come into me and then the events that, that was something else.

But let me, I think I've shared both of these stories with you, but they're two, I'll just share them quick. Maharajie stories, because you want to talk about miraculous or you want to experience miraculous happening, start hanging out, you know, with Maharajie and his crew for a bit. Yeah. It's, it's going to happen. So first story really quick is I was interviewing Ram Das, um, I don't know,

three, four years ago and it was right around the time polishing the mirror came out and afterwards we were just chatting a little bit. Um, and I introduced him to my wife and, uh, cause she was there and, um, so anyways, the whole time, not the whole time, but it was shortly before Indie spirituals came out and in the back of my mind, it's like, oh my God, I would love for Ram Das to write an endorsement for this book. You know, like I would love it, love it, love it. But, you know, I'm not going to ask him.

You know, I know he's very busy. He's older of course now and he's got a lot going on. So at the, right towards the end of the, uh, the interview, he says to me, he's like, uh, cause he'd asked before we talked, you know, a little bit about myself. And I mentioned that, you know, writing and the sign. He said, well, why don't you send me a copy of your book? I'd like to look at it and offer it to Ashabad, which is a means of blessing. And I, I was just like, holy shit.

You know, and then he says after that he goes and that he points up to this guy and he goes, and that just came through from the big guy. And I was like, you know, like really, and it just like, after we got off the Skype call, I just sat there for a few minutes, like looking at this picture of Maharaj you like, you dirty rascal, you know, cause I know, like there, there's no way that that wasn't some Maharajy doing right there. Um, and then the other one, which is funny directly involves you. And I was telling you about this one, uh, last time we spoke, which last year I had

emailed you and was, you know, wanted you to come on and do my podcast. And I sent a few different emails and two different addresses, never heard back. Didn't think much of it after that. Fast forward till a few months ago, or several months ago at this point now, and I saw on my Facebook feed, a picture pop up, uh, of the spring retreat in Maui that you were part of. And, you know, there's a picture of all these people that we're going to be there. And I saw a picture of you and we had never had any interaction at that point.

And I was like, Oh man, that guy, there he is. He would, you know, too good to like respond and come do my podcast. And, um, you know, and so then like I look up and there's a picture of Maharajy hanging on my wall and it's not like there's any cosmic incident. I just remember like glancing at it. And then I walked away a couple of hours later, literally like two hours later, I get an email from Ragu Marcus, who for anyone who doesn't know, you know, the head of the love server member foundation, and he tells me about this

event that he's putting together in New York city in a, no, I don't know. It's like a month or so. And he goes, uh, or he says, call me. So I call him and, and he's talking to me about it. Sounds cool. And he's like, you ever heard of Duncan Trussell? And I was like, Oh, yeah. I know, that ass.

No, I wasn't thinking that, um, but he said it. And I, and immediately I was like, oh man, it was kind of like Twilight zone. And he goes, well, I would like for you to do a conversation with him while you're there, like a live podcast. And this was just two hours, you know, after I saw that picture that had popped up on my feet of you. And, uh, and it was like, wow, man, you know, so those are just like two very basic, like miraculous, I guess you could call them miraculous, just really, uh,

beyond a shadow of a doubt. There was no coincidence happening. Well, that is a cool thing that, yeah, I've noticed that too, man, where you end up, there's somebody that you've been trying to avoid, but it feels like out of some terrible intentional thing you're brought together to, you know, to realize that whatever you thought you were angry about, you were wrong. And PS, sorry for not emailing you back. It's a plague.

I'm plagued. I'm, I, I've got to say, I'm, it's like, no, I, I don't even have an excuse. I don't return emails and it's, there's no, it's not malicious. I don't think it's malicious. Maybe I need to go deeper in and look, but, but it feels just like a kind of like, uh, from since when I was a kid, Chris, I, uh, I, I don't want to blame it on my past, but my, my beautiful Anne Isabel, she would make us write letters cause we'd stay with her in the summer and she'd make us write letters

home and it was a very sweet thing to do, but we have to use, I don't know if you remember what it was like when you're very young to write with a pencil, but it fucking sucked and like, if you made misspelling, she'd make you redo it. And I feel like ever since then I've had just this sense of like procrastination when it comes to writing back. So it goes like this, I receive the email, I read the email. I'll think, Oh, that's nice. What am I going to say back?

You know what? I'll figure out what to say after some coffee and then I'll get a coffee or whatever, and then the coffee will turn into like surfing the internet. And then I'll forget about the email and then more emails have come in and then a few days later of like, fuck man, you got to write that guy back. And then y'all think, yeah, but now it's weird because a few days have passed. So if I write him back, I'm, it's going to seem weird. That's the stupid cycle.

I got to get out of it. I apologize. I'm so glad that we connected. Yeah. So let me say just two quick things. One, I've thus learned if I need to get in touch with you, I just text you now, which you've probably noticed. No more email.

I just cut right to the chase. That's right. I respond to text and you do, you respond to text, but two, I think that speaks volumes because here I am in my mind, like thinking like, you know, you seem like a really cool down to earth guy before that. And then in my mind, it's like, oh man, here's this guy who is like too big to respond to emails. And then we, we meet up in New York city.

We have breakfast. And I mean, even before that immediately when I met you in the hotel lobby, like I could feel it right away. Like you're a solid guy, like a really down to earth good dude. And we had a really nice breakfast. And then that conversation and it just speaks volumes to you, like what the mind can do when we start creating these stories around what we think is happening, whereas it's completely the opposite of what is actually happening.

So I'm, yeah, man, I'm psyched that we've connected. And I consider you a good friend already. Like, yeah, and it's meant it's a, it's, I think that the work that you're doing out there is really important. And, uh, I'm glad that, that you're, that you're doing okay now. And that you're not, that you're, to me, it's the, what the transparency is so precious and so important because this is an age of transparency. This is an age of transparency.

And if you're, we're just so sick of the fucking politicians and the, um, you know, like now everyone's so, thanks to podcasts, I think partially thanks to podcasts, mostly thanks to the internet, all of these personas that we're, you know, you see, whether it's a late night talk show host or a politician or even, you know, one of these like executives at Apple giving a speech, it's, it seems like the thing they're putting on is, is becoming increasingly cloying, increasingly grating, uh, because we're all getting used to this new version of con connecting with each other through the

internet, you know, and, uh, so it's really cool that you're fearlessly talking about, um, every little bit of your life for people to, to connect you. That's where you're going to help people the most, I think. Yeah. Thanks, man. And I feel like that is where most of the connection happens, you know, when people read the books or come to an event, whatever, uh, and, and that's what I love, you know, is it's a very real, authentic connection.

And the fact that it's so important for me to always be accessible to people to respond to every email I get, but I mean, it's important to me because, you know, people are really makes you a saint. As far as I'm concerned, but dude, I get it. Like I know how hard is sometimes half my day is spent doing the, those kind of admin tasks, you know, responding, but, you know, people take the time and a lot of the time we're pouring their guts out or, you know, someone just committed suicide or they've just come out of like jail or whatever.

And, you know, they're writing from a really raw place. And if someone just committed suicide, they're writing from a very, very raw place. I meant they have a friend or family member that just comes to say, or they're writing to me from the other side. No, but it's so, you know, like anyways, it's just, it's important for me, yes, to, to connect in that really what I consider a very real, authentic place. And, and I feel like that's the foundation upon which honest healing can begin. You know what?

You've inspired me, Chris, to make up for the guinea pigs. I'm going to start responding to emails, man. I'm going to try to do it for a month. Just I'm going to respond to every email that I get. Oh, I don't know. Here's the thing, man. Every email you respond to, you cannot say that motherfucker, Chris. He made me do this.

It's his fault. You can't start to hold a resentment against me. I already do. I'm already mad at you. I don't want to do it, man. It's emails. It's your right though. You were right.

I like you, Chris. You're a cool guy, man. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and for your books and for inspiring me in a real way. You know, I think that's what a good teacher does. It's not like you're inspiring me to try to do some lofty thing, but just from a little bit of time talking with you, just a real basic thing that I'm fucking up on. It makes me want to work a little harder there.

And I think that's, that's what you give to people. So thanks for that. And thank you for spending this time with me. Thank you, man. That's cool as shit. I appreciate it. Where can people find you? Uh, my website in the indie spirituals.com and from there, all, you know, Facebook

and Twitter and Instagram are all linked up off of there. Great. Beautiful. All right. I really appreciate it, Chris. And I hope you'll come back on the show eventually. Absolutely, man. Thank you.

It was a real pleasure having this chat with you. Thanks. That was Chris Grosso, everybody. All the links you need to find Chris Grosso will be in the comment section. Of this episode at Duncan trussell.com much thanks to Casper.com for sponsoring this episode. If you are interested in getting a new mattress, go to Casper.com forward slash family hour and use code family hour to get $50 off a brand new mattress.

If you like this podcast, do me a favor, bookmark the Amazon portal and subscribe to us on iTunes, give us a nice rating and give yourself a nice rating. And subscribe to yourself and unsubscribe from the demoniac augmented reality applications that you're inadvertently projecting onto the infinite field of love that we call reality. I'll see you guys soon. Hare Krishna.