Duncan Trussell Family Hour - PETE HOLMES!!!!

Episode Date: June 4, 2013

Pete Holmes returns to the DTFH!!!!

This episode is brought to you by my friends and patrons at Squarespace.com. Kingis Khan conquered the world with just a few catapults and some forces. Think what he could have done with a brand new website. He could have climbed into the core of the earth and gained access to the main control room and flown this son of a bitch back home. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, they say that after your soul leaves your body, you go through several levels of existence. These are known as the bardos. There's the bardo where you are ripped apart by demons. the bardo where you are ripped apart by demons. There's the bardo of hungry ghosts where you see these things with long necks trying to eat mountains. And there's the bardo of the shitty

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quickly going to read them. As annoying as that may be, I'll go fast. Asheville, Charleston, Durham, Richmond, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Hamden, Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cleveland, Ferndale, Toronto, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It starts March 30th, and it wraps up on May 1st. And then after that, I'm going to be doing podcasts at the Spring Retreat in Hawaii, the Ram Dass Spring Retreat. So if you want to come hang out in Hawaii with me, that's where I'm going to be. You can find all the information you need about that at ramdass.org. Much thanks to those of you who continue to use our Amazon portal, which is located in the comments section of any of these episodes.

If you're about to buy something on Amazon, please go through our portal. They'll give us a small percentage of whatever you buy, and it costs you nothing. We've also got t-shirts, stickers, posters in the shop. Sorry if I already mentioned that. All right, enough of this advertising bullshit. We're going to jump right into this episode. Today's guest is the host of the amazing podcast, You Made It Weird. I just got to spend a week with him at a Ram Dass retreat in Hawaii.

He's one of the coolest people ever. Everybody, please open your third eyes and spray as much astral jizz as you can right into the mouth of the very sweet Pete Holmes. Thank you so much for driving up here and doing the podcast. It's so great to see you. Great to see you. Great to be here. You don't have to thank. I've been looking forward to it. I'm so glad you wanted to do it.

I had three thoughts and they all started to come out. What three thoughts? Thanks for having me. Don wanted to do it. I had three thoughts and they all started to come out. What three thoughts? Thanks for having me. Don't worry about it. I've been looking forward to it. And I tried to say them all at once. What I mean is thanks for having me. Oh God, I've ruined everything.

I'm just so stoked. Whenever we sit down. Oh, I squeaked a chair. It doesn't matter. It's good. People are turning it off. They don't want to hear what we have to say. People might like it.

There's that new thing people are into called, I don't remember what it is. ASMR? Yeah. That wasn't it. Nobody's getting off on that. You know what my thing is? What? Getting measured.

Like if somebody's tailoring you, like the slip of the plastic tape. You'd think it would be getting touched, but it's just knowing that somebody is focusing so intently on your shoulder. Wow. Not the inseam. Inseam's amateur ship. Can you explain what it is? I don't really understand it. I just,

I've watched the videos. I will. It's this crackling, crunching thing. I remember, I don't know if I've talked about this on my own podcast. I remember when I was maybe 15, 14,

13, even one of those, the age where everybody's still kind of gay. You know what I mean? You don't know what you are. Yeah. But I knew for sure that I was, I definitely got the feeling that I was supposed to be straight. Right. Because that's just how it was the eighties, man. Sure. It's a different time. Yeah. But I remember I also went to a very, very, very hippie progressive grade school and I had more gay teachers than I had straight teachers. That's that's true.

So there was no like don't be gay from them. Right. And no direct don't be gay from my parents. But I got a little don't be gay from my church, certainly. And I remember thinking one of the few times in my life I was like, am I gay? And it was an ASMR thing because there was a kid in my class and the way he talked he had a very high i don't want to say girlish but he sounded like a girl remember when we were when we were little boys and everybody on the phone would call you ma'am because your balls never stopped for me

buddy really you don't get ma'am are you kidding i haven't gotten us if i'm in no one says listen to my voice you think when i'm calling someone someone's like yes sir i must be talking to a lumberjack i of course i i'm listening to it through earphones right now never would i think you were a lady well that's i think billy joel close joel sounds like a lady close your eyes close your eyes okay okay uh pretend to be like just like i don't, a Ramada that I'm calling. Okay, ready? Ding, ring, ring. Thank you for calling the Ramada Bridgeton, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?

Hey. Shit, I asked for your name. No, you didn't. It would blow the whole thing. Yeah. Okay, okay. We'll try it one more time. We'll try it one more time.

We'll try it one more time. Okay, ready? I won't get fancy with it. Okay, here we go. Hello, the Ramada this is dave hey can you send me to room service please i sure can ma'am chickens are the fish of the land uh yeah no i can see that. So you were... He had a very high voice.

He had a high voice. And he was talking, and it wasn't sexually arousing. And that's the kind of umami quality of ASMR, is that it is arousing. It's very titillating, but you don't want to jerk off. Does that make sense? Yeah. It has nothing to do with your dick. Right.

You're just kind of like why am i feeling kind of an orgasmy kind of feel i'm not i'm not very sensitive i watched some last night and i've kind of this is just a bag what about this? Oh, yeah. Or this. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I get it. Bob Ross painting is the ultimate everyman. Everyone

understands. Oh, yeah. There you go. Why is it so soothing for a pretty dry brush on a canvas? Why does that kind of tickle the base of your neck? Great explanation of it great and besides when you're you know when you're in i see i was raised by a psychologist yes and so i was given like your mom or your dad my mom psychologist so she's sort of at the time you know that like statistically little boys teens will like will like jerk off with each other sometimes.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And it has no – it doesn't mean you're gay or you're straight. It just means whatever. A bro job. Yeah, a bro job. You got a bro job. So that happens. So I remember my mom would like give me these books with like, look, it's okay if this has happened.

I think she thought I must have like jerked off with a kid which i never did yeah but i think she was trying to like or maybe she thought i was gay i don't know but yeah she was just sort of like so i my same thing super open-minded yeah no sense of like there being like uh anything wrong with it but but i was um you know at that time it that was people's minds right now i guess millennials as they're called if they knew how fucking homophobic the time that you and i came out of was it would blow their minds it would explode their brains it's shifted so much that people like look at listen to like eddie old eddie murphy jokes no i'm gonna go suck a dick i think i'm having not deja vu where it's kind of trippy and more fun i wish i were because that would be cool and i'd be

like maybe i lived in this house man that would be more cool i just think last time we talked uh recorded or not we talked about eddie murphy's how we were all kind of fine with that totally fine like and like i the word sissy was around like you don't really hear sissy anymore yeah like people would be like he's a sissy yeah and like that wasn't it wasn't bad to say that like i mean it was bad but no one would be like hey check it you were allowed to like it was not such a ridiculous thing to shove them or to verbally abuse them the the uh i say that like i shoved i just i yeah i didn't shove but not that i need to protect myself i would be honest if i shoved there was no shoving i've always been like a real uh kind of a sweet kid or was it a sweet kid but yeah there there could be shoving for sure shoving and there was

there was uh i'm trying to think of what else uh well there was like a general over fuck bill hicks you know you've ever seen bill the letterman set that he finally released that they wouldn't and even bill hicks was like clearly homophobic and yeah you know so so uh or at least the joke was you know i think we've talked about this before i think there's something really interesting going on in the uh i'm not trying to duncan trussell family hour this topic this is honestly just please do there's something going on with uh sexuality and the general unconscious mind or whatever, is that we have a lot of anger and we have a lot of confusion. And it's a really sore subject for most people.

Specifically, we've talked about our language, telling somebody to get fucked or fuck you. Like, you get fucked, you're the thing that receives, and I'm the dick and I give the fucking. And that's why I think we really, I'm not speaking for myself, it just seems like we don't like gay men. They're more threatening to us because they're being fucked. Whereas, you know, does that make sense?

Yeah. Like the man degrades himself to the woman's position of getting fucked. Wow. Of course that's not true. Like I'm not representing my own case here. Yeah, I get it. But we have a real problem with things that get fucked. Things that are adapted and change. And women are nothing if not adaptive.

They shed their ovaries. They're bleeding. They're literally in a flow and a cycle. Yeah. And they tend, I'm not saying all women, they tend to be more nurturing and understanding. And a lot of the relationships I know, I don't think it's just cultural. The woman tends to be better at like kind of finding a finesse in the life of the couple. And the guy tends to be more of the idiot that's just banging blocks into square holes and stuff like.

The woman is the elegant energy. Or, you know, guys can have that as well. That's the balance. You know, that is the elegant energy. Or guys can have that as well. That's the balance. That is the dream. And that's the balance. The dream is to have that inside yourself. That balance. Yeah, absolutely.

To have that in that if there were a house inside of you where the masculine you and the feminine you are hanging out, it would be nice if there was some kind of balance there. But for most people, there isn't. For most people, it's slanted one way or the other. I think that's really dangerous. I think it's very, I was just talking in therapy, I was actually quoting you when you blew my mind. And really, I like saying saved my life, you know, saved a portion of my life

in helping me look at my ego differently. I called my ego Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood. Okay. That's really what my ego looks like. And when we were in Maui, remember, I don't mind if people have heard this before. I've heard this before. I think people need to hear that as often as possible, is I was getting really hard on my Plainview, this tenacious, driven, the guy, the part of me that wants everything for himself and nothing for anyone

else. He's a real monster. You know what I mean? Yeah. Monster, you know, if you give him too much control of your life. So we were talking about feeding, feeding the plain view and you want to give them just enough to keep him, uh, able to protect you or help you, but you don't want them to take over. So the reason I brought that up was the idea that I find it very helpful to break my psychology down into many different avatars, many different kind of manifestations. One of them is plain view. One of them is a sort of childish Pete.

One of them is what we're calling a feminine energy Pete. I actually think I'm more feminine energy. Maybe not more. I don't know. But I know there's'm more feminine energy. Maybe not more. I don't know. But I know there's two sides to me. There's the plain view, and that's definitely this masculine kind of asshole. And then I really think there's a socially intelligent kind of tent-dwelling sweetie that likes gossiping and wearing fine silks. I don't understand.

I understand everything but the tent dwelling part. Well, that's a reference to Jacob and Esau, a Bible story that I read. And Jacob dwelt in tents. And Esau was red and hairy and was a good hunter. But they're twins. It's a great Bible story in Genesis. And Jacob, I relate very much to this, was smart and could relate. Obviously had a lot of social intelligence but wasn't a good

hunter this is me i can't fix your car and i can't right i tried to come you know i don't eat meat but my mom had a turkey and i was trying to carve it on thanksgiving for i couldn't do it like there were just bone joints that i was just like i don't know i need a youtube video you haven't done it a lot i haven't done it a lot certainly i could learn. But I related to that character of this guy who might not be physically stronger than his brother in the story, but had this sort of, I keep using the word finesse, an elegance. Yes, right. And a little bit of a, it's not manipulative, but he knew how to talk to people and know what they wanted and what they were feeling.

And if you can have that third position perspective on two people talking, I think that's why he gets the blessing from his father. So his father's going to bless the older brother because he was born first. Yes. But then Jacob came in, very Bible, very Shakespearean. Dad's going blind. Jacob goes in at the time of the blessing and convinces his father that he is Esau. Yeah.

And gets this blessing. Right. And that was a really, really, really big deal. Clever. He tricked his father that he is Esau. Yeah. He gets this blessing. Right. And that was a really, really, really big deal. Clever. He tricked his father. He was a trickster and he tricked his father, but his father was like, well, he did it. He tricked me and that's the blessing. I can't, I can't, you can't void those.

Only get one. So he gets it. And that's why people are telling stories about Jacob and people know Bible stories about Jacob. Not too many people know more than one story about Esau. If you were the idea that, that's right. Esau was the,

this is the story of the hunter gatherer versus the agrarian and the split that happened in human culture where people started planning food and some people wanted to hunt and the people who wanted to hunt for whatever reason and wander. And you know, it's really interesting how in the Bible, in the Old Testament particularly, there is something about the wandering life that seems to be unwanted. Because you have the wandering Jews,

and when they're wandering looking for their home they feel cursed you have these are the dwarves and lord of the rings dwarves and lord of the rings they're the jews right their home i just learned this my friend yoni just told me this he's like they lose their land they're always craving for their old rituals and their old place yeah people but they keep getting problems this is the Cain and Abel story, because when Cain killed Abel, he was sent east of Eden to the land of Nod, and his descendants were musicians. But again, the mark of Cain, the wandering life, you'll never have a home. You'll never have a home. And it's just interesting, isn't it, that this wandering sort of life, at least in the Bible, is looked at as a kind of, like, what is it, this dream of home? It's been something I've been thinking about quite a bit.

I know. I think about that, too. I thought about that on the ride up because at one point I got lost. And I went, where the fuck am I? Just kind of an overwhelming, I say this to you because I don't want you to feel bad, but the truth is it was just a flash. I was like, where am I? Right. Into your new house.

I thought I was going to Atwater. It's confusing. And then I just went, where could you be? Do you understand? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. This idea of home, people like romantic, like I say to Valerie, my girlfriend, I'm like,

you know, home is a person. It's not a place. Like we have a home, but like when I'm with her, I feel at home. And I really think that's, uh, you know, just a, a boiled down version of the feeling of when I'm with God or when I'm in communion with divine mother or whatever you want to call it, then you're at home. So it really is this sort of feeling rather than a place. So I'm curving up the, up the hill and I'm getting angry cause I'm far from my home where I shit and where my farts are in the couch and where my food is. And then I just remembered you're,

you're here. That's one of the things we, you and I talk about dreams a lot in a dream. You're never upset to be where you are, even if you're terrified. I mean in a nightmare maybe, but in a dream you're just kind of fascinated that you're there. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yes. But here, we're always robbing ourselves of the joy of the moment by going, I'll be happy when I get to Duncan's. Right. I'll be happy when we're doing the podcast.

Yeah. And even now, this is the hierarchy of needs that Ram Dass teaches about. He's like, oh, I'll be happy when I've done a good job. Yeah. And when Duncan tells me that was good. And then I'll be happy, not on the ride home. Cause then I'll be in transit. I'll be happy when I get home and I can eat. What am I going to fucking do?

This is that thing. We're robbing ourselves. We're lying to ourselves. It's the next thing that's going to get us. It's the next thing that's going to get us around us. Another example is like, I'll be happy when I watch TV. Okay.

Oh, now I need popcorn. Yeah. Now I need a drink. All right. Now I need ice cream. And he does this thing that I love. I really, I'll be happy when I watch TV. Okay. Oh, now I need popcorn. Yeah. Now I need a drink. All right. Now I need ice cream. And he does this thing that I love. I really, I told him this in Maui. I was like, this is one of your bits is that he goes, life is right. And the thing that I've been tripping out lately is this is all him. He says, the question isn't whether or not meeting your needs makes you happy. Cause it certainly does in the short term. says the question isn't whether or not meeting your needs makes you happy because it

certainly does in the short term but the question is whether or not not meeting your needs makes you any less happy you know what i'm saying so it's that sort of surrender of this idea and this illusion of culture and good living and we're trying to string together as many sipping tea on the porch moments as we can and minimize as sipping tea on the porch moments as we can. And minimize as many like overtime at the office moments as we can. When Ram Dass and all these enlightened people are trying to say, as Maharaji says, enjoy everything. That's one of his teachings. Enjoy everything.

Stop robbing yourself. You're lying to yourself that I'll be happier when I get to Duncan's. When could just be, and I was happy curving up some weird road in Pasadena. Well, now this, um, this, uh, concept that you're talking about here, this, which is talked about a bunch. I actually talked about in the intro of the podcast. I'm glad we're talking about it. I'm glad we're talking about it. The non-locality, the non-geographical locality of home.

It's really a curious thing because if you think about the phenomena of being in between, like what you're saying, classic example, always traffic, then you're dealing with a very specific form of suffering. And it reminds me a lot of the feeling of wanting to check your cell phone. So like if you have your cell phone in your pocket and you become aware, and it's a pulling. I love my cell phone too. We all love our cell phones. But it really is this tiny perfect manifestation materialization of the

right right constantly constant you you're the one that told me when you get a text they put you in a brain scan you get dopamine yeah so you're literally just being addicted to that to that but but you're you're so when you feel that gravity of your phone, or when you feel the gravity of this temporal planet that you've put yourself in the orbit of, which is this point in the future where, like you're saying, you get to relax, it's really curious to me that there's a tangible sense of being pulled.

You're – it's an unpleasant sensation. Like when you're in traffic, the point that you've created in the future after traffic, you can literally – you can feel it. You feel it. I've never heard that articulated, but absolutely. Pulling you. Yep. And it hurts. It hurts. It's suffering suffering it's suffering yeah and it's a very un it's not like hurts like

hellraiser where the chains with the fish hooks on them shoot out and you rip you to pieces yeah it's but it's somewhere in that spectrum of it feels physical it feels physical this is something i just heard on the way over i was listening to some ramidi because as i told you i'm a little bit pot hung over today so yes foggy i was trying to get into a good space for you and i was thinking this great ramdas quote he goes most of our emotions are in the service of our minds and and they're usually just there to scare us and put us back into a fearful place. Yeah. And I just think that's so interesting. If we can separate spirit, your true essence, your awareness, no matter what you believe, I think we can agree you are your awareness.

That's where you are. And if you can separate that from your mind and its agenda, you can realize when you're in traffic, it wants to kind of fuck with you. It wants, for better or worse, evolutionary, habitual. It wants to tell you when you get home and the keys hit the table, that's when you can feel good. Right. And I get it. I understand that.

Even as I say that, I'm like, yeah, keys on the table. That's a good feeling. But the truth is, where could you go? Where could you go? That goes back to the idea of a dream. Where could you go? where could you go that goes back to the idea of a dream where could you go i know it's kind of obvious and and sometimes it feels kind of light and fluffy and not very substantial to just be like the eternal now man that's all that exists that's where you are yeah but when you really can

i've likened it to holding your breath there's an awareness that arises even from being in traffic that can be very, very blissful because where can you go? Right. I'm haunted by my, my parents. I don't mean to shit on my parents, but like, I think we all have kind of kooky parents or at least we're aware of the idea

of kind of kooky older parents. Yes. They start getting in their ways and you see them really, their rational minds can start to really overtake. Yeah. You see that in old people. It's like, I want my tea a certain temperature. God damn it.

That's how I like it every morning. Sure. So you start to see that. So I really see in them, they'll be like, oh, we want to go to Rome. And I'm like, that old thing, wherever you go, there you are. Yeah. You can't go anywhere. You're already there.

Right. You're there. And I'm here. Right. And relax. It's okay. Yeah. You can't go anywhere. You're already there. Right. You're there. And I'm here. Right. And relax. It's okay. Yeah. That's what love is, is saying yes to it.

Yeah. Fear is saying, no, I shouldn't be in traffic. Right. The flight shouldn't be delayed. I'm supposed to be with my sweetheart. Damn it, it's her birthday. Yeah. You're here.

Surrender. But even better than surrender, say yes. That great Ram Dass story, I'm sure you know it. From being on the road, he was touring so much that he was really getting homesick. Remember? Yeah, tell it. And he walked into, I've always pictured a Howard Johnson because it's like the 70s. And he goes in and he's really bummed out because he wants to go home.

And then he had what we're talking about this realization where is home the what is not god where is not home right right and so he got up from his hotel room to reset himself left walked down the hallway went in the parking lot then came right back open the door to his hotel and went i'm home yeah just to kind of, that's where you are. In a dream, you never go, this would be better if, if, if. You just surrender. I think that's what makes dreams so dreamy. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Because you say yes to it. You just say yes. Right. Because you're fascinated. You know I love talking about dreams. That to to me is i think it's a huge key to

psychological spiritual understanding is because you're in a reality and every time i lucid dream this is my epiphany every single time i go this is exactly like reality so here i am i'll be data you understand i am i'm the source data yeah i lucid dream all the time and every time i do i can't believe that i look around and it looks exactly like reality so where is pete pete then is awareness and in that moment he's in this dream so that awareness can be transplanted to lots of different places yeah and then it helps you take this less seriously just when i was curving up the hill i got mad where the fuck am i and then i went it's a dream it's a dream right then you look to your right

and you got a gorgeous view relax this is very uncomfortable for people i think because they so much of life is built on this essentially you're talking about masturbation you're talking about this all tips yeah yeah yeah it's all tips you're talking about masturbation. You're talking about this. It's all tits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all tits. You're talking about, I'm going to jerk off. In traffic, I'm kind of jerking off, even though masturbation is pleasurable. But in traffic, you're sort of building up this energy form,

and then you're allowing yourself to release it when you get home. and then you're allowing yourself to release it when you get home. And so all of society is based 100% on people fooling themselves into thinking that this particular kind of orgasm, whatever you want to call it, can only happen from going to a concert, from getting the new car, from buying some brand new thing, from getting a specific meal. All of it is based.

Come later. Yeah. You can come later. Yeah, but right now you're miserable. And you're going to feel better as soon as you get this new phone you're gonna feel and so when you look at like i think uh zizek talks about this in his documentary on netflix have you ever seen zizek kind of it's kind of like should i watch it yeah check it out so i spell his name wrong it's actually pronounced zizek someone's forgive me guys i'm this is me you know i fuck up. No offense to the geniuses out there.

I'm going to say his fucking name wrong. I actually read in some, like, snotty article, like, the 10 intellectual mistakes you could really embarrass yourself. Say it in Zizek. I'll say fucking Zizek how I want to. He's a genius. And he's got a great documentary on Netflix. That's what I'll do today.

But he talks about this culture where if you look at like a Coke commercial and you see that it's not the Coke, man. It's the thing happening around the drinking of the Coke. It's a celebratory moment, an ultimate just incredible. They tie so much to drinking a fucking coke it's almost always at least partially sex i really think that is sexual i think all of it is trying to remind you of the idea of an orgasm coke it almost smells like cock as it sounds like cock if you want to get real weird i think candy bars are uh not necessarily made intentionally but i think the fact that they look like veiny dicks is sometimes used to the advantage sure

of the uh of the advertising certainly what everyone in the advertising agency snicker bars cracking through walls of chocolate and you're just like that's me yeah and it's trying to take you back to that place i'm interested that sometimes when you're jerking off one of the things that's turning you on is how turned on you are right because you're like i'm killing it's happening so it's trying to take you or during sex it's not just jerking off but sometimes you're like oh my god i'm so hard and that's part of sure the enjoyment watching all the physiological shit that's going down you also just feel like i've done it yeah i'm doing it and i am the snickers bar and i'm coming now but ramdas i'm just by the way if i say every time i'm quoting ramdas

and i'm quoting ramdas this will be a nine hour podcast so just assume that i'm quoting ramdas this whole time yeah but he talks about what if you lived in a in a realm where you were coming constantly the feeling of an orgasm the feeling of a coke the feeling of an orgasm, the feeling of a Coke, the feeling of a Snickers bar, the feeling of a new car feels good. That's fine. I understand that. Yeah. But what if you were in a place where that was just what normal? Yes. You're just always coming. He also how long before that gets old? How long before people start having podcasts talking about how to escape this reality? Because coming just feels like the baseline. Well, someone committed suicide. You can look it up.

There's a documentary about a woman who has a disorder where she has like a zillion orgasms a day. She's constantly coming. Oh, my God. And it was very painful, and she shot herself or hung herself. She couldn't live in that life because it was a form of seizure. Maybe it's like a kind of epilepsy or something. So, yeah, right. You don't want that that's a lie too it's the intermittent well it's this is the the the the the thing that's very i think incredibly scary for uh people when they start thinking about this is if if you're... Two pieces of this.

Number one, imagine this paranoid fantasy. Since the moment you were born into... If you live in any kind of Western part of the world where there's commercials on TV trying to sell you shit, then you have been exposed to the most high-powered form of conditioning that exists, which is the TV show that you're watching. Which you already have an affinity towards. Gets you nice and lubed up.

Yeah. Opens up, gets you relaxed, puts you in the perfect state for being conditioned. You're in that place you like to be. Perfect place. You're vulnerable. I'm in the 60s, Mad Men. Vulnerable. Talk about getting penetrated.

Yeah. Your legs are open. Yeah. The show lubes up your pussy. Yeah, that's right. You are ready to get fucked. Yep. As we say.

And then the commercial, you realize, is not about the product as much as a say. And then the commercial, you realize, is not about the product as much as a story. And the story, regardless of what the product is, is you are not happy as you could be. That's the story.

And you will be happy when this happens. But they don't say that. They show it. So you see, like, people drinking Coca-Cola as though they're drinking the blood of Christ and will have eternal life from now on. I've just discovered that planet Earth is a spaceship, that we are all infinite beings in a great ocean of truth, and God is real, and God loves us.

Cherry Coke. That's the thing. There's all these people, that's their reaction to this lifestyle of Coca-Cola or whatever the thing happens to be, the pharmaceutical commercials, heightened colors, a family, older people, enjoying a very stable home life. But again and again and again, the message is you could be happier. So when you realize how sinister that is, that from the moment you were born, if you're a TV watcher and have been around television, you've been in your most vulnerable state being shown a version of life that is based on an absolute lie, which is that you will be happy when,

rather than you can be happy no matter what. And in fact, the more of this shit that you get, the more you're going to be confused. It doesn't matter if you're in traffic. It doesn't matter if you're at home. It doesn't matter if you're anywhere at all, because inside of you is the Garden of Eden. And so you never hear that. But maybe that's the truth. And if that's the truth, then anyone trying to teach children or adults or anybody a different version of that story has to be a liar. And who is Satan? Pete Holmes?

Well, the father of lies. I thought you were saying I was Satan. Yeah, no, the liar, yeah. So then you see, when you're watching these commercials, or you're around any single person who's telling you, you need me to be happy.

You need me to be happy. If I'm not in your life, you're not going to be happy anymore. If you're around anyone who's I'm not in your life, you're not going to be happy anymore. If you're around anyone who's giving you that bullshit, or if you're giving anyone that bullshit, you'll be sorry when I'm gone. You're going to cry all day long, cut your wrists and blow your brains. Any kind of bullshit like that, you have become a disciple of Satan. Because the only message really can be, you can feel good no matter what, on a level that you've never imagined if the only way you've been letting yourself feel good are in these intermittent moments where you've decided that reality is lined up perfectly

around you in just the right way for you to be cozy. Right. That's the porch. That's iced tea on the porch. If only I could be on the porch drinking iced tea sort of thing. That I'll be happy. And I want to string as many of those together as possible. If only. And then the iced tea's got to have six handcrafted ice cubes.

How many times, though, do we have to hear the story? How many times do we have to do the field research to buy the thing and realize that it doesn't do anything a lot a lot and that's i think that's what we're partially here to do we're i think we're here to continually forget our divinity remember our divinity forget remember forget remember and as ramdas would say there's no glitch in the system and the suffering and the and the lies and all that i think are part of it but extricating yourself from that is also part of it yeah i mean that's the it's it's really i mean it's on one level it's it is a real adventure and it's lots of fun right on another level it's a it's it's a, it's a really... It's a drag?

I mean, this is such a rudimentary way to say it. But if suddenly a door opened up in reality right now, and the creator of this simulation that we exist in, in whatever form or multitudes of forms the thing happens to be, emerged set and gave us a chance to talk in the back of your head you're gonna be looking at him or her or it in the same way you kind of look at obama right like a lot of good about you but you accidentally killed a bunch of kids didn't you that's what you say to god that's what I think about Obama. And with God, I'm going to be thinking like, okay, I get it.

You put me in a fucking lava pit of suffering. You know, it's funny that you say that. You were talking about Genesis stories. And it took me, I'm 36, and I probably read this a couple years ago. So it took me 33, 34 years before I read Joseph Campbell's interpretation of the Garden of Eden. And it blew my mind. And it's in the Power of Myth, the book. I don't know if it's in the series, but it's in the book and it's amazing. It's in the first half. That's all I can say. And that's all I remember. But it talks about, you know, the typical Christian interpretation

of the Garden of Eden is there we were with God and everything was perfect. And then we sinned, we ate from the tree of knowledge and then we were kicked out. Yeah. Joseph Campbell interprets it completely differently. And it speaks to you and your angst towards God, which I understand, which I actually think is a mislabeling of your yearning towards union with the beloved. Absolutely.

That is the pain that we're all experiencing constantly. That is something that Rob Bell and I were talking. It's like everybody's suffering. Everybody's suffering. So suffer for something that you love. Suffer to create something you love. You're not going to get rid of your suffering necessarily. Maybe you will.

Maybe you'll become. Although Maharaji said his life was full of suffering as well. He said he would pray for suffering. Yeah, everybody. That's right. Because we're not here to not suffer. Sure. And we're also not here to all agree.

But anyway. You know what? Can I just say something real quick? Yeah. If you go to somebody's party and one of the first things they say is, guys, we're not here to not suffer. You're going to think, well, maybe this isn't the best fucking party then. Yeah. Yeah.

I know what you mean. I'm humanizing a super. I hear that. I'm humanizing things. Keep going. I'm sorry. No, but no. This is a big epiphany for me.

I sat down with this pastor. I was doing his podcast and I asked him is a perfect world where everyone believes in Christ. And he said, yes. I was like, I don't think that's what we're here to do. I don't think we came here to all agree to all. We came here for diversity.

Every story, star Wars, Lord of the Rings. We're going around and finding the other the different the exotic the novel yes so we're not just here to not suffer and not have as you're saying children killed i don't want to get too specific but you said that about yeah but anyway joseph campbell talking about the garden of eden instead of it being like we fucked up we were with god and then we fucked up he looks at the garden of eden as the

pre-birth place and that's a pretty easy buy for me i'm like there we are the garden of eden this place that stop looking for it on earth you're not understanding right you know what i mean it's where we were one with god yes we were completely we didn't know uh duality we didn't know man woman we didn't know naked clothed we didn't know man-woman. We didn't know naked clothed. We didn't know bad tree, good trees. We knew that one. Yeah. That was our one thing.

But then we ate from the apple and then we were not kicked out of paradise. I know it's harsher here than in the pre-birthplace, certainly. But it includes the human in the decision to become incarnate. It's you saying, I was part of it. I wasn't kicked here. I chose to eat from the apple. And I didn't come to hell. I came to the place where through suffering, through duality, through pain,

I can learn more than I could about God in that place and this place. And then afterwards, we'll about God in that place, in this place. And then afterwards we'll go back to that place and we'll, I don't want to talk about it, but hopefully we can just float around. Well, yeah, I hope it involves some form of floating. But do you understand that? That's you coming, that's you Duncan coming here to see what traffic feels like. Yeah. It's like a, it's like your suffering is the vessel that holds your bliss like you need this perimeter or something to experience it or

you know i've heard you know i think jack cornfield on one of the episodes was talking about how if you want the great thing this is that like right now it's so it's so dumb to put it in the form of paying for a ticket but right now this is the this is the part where right now it's so, it's so dumb to put it in the form of paying for a ticket. But right now this is the, this is the part where you're, you have to have this part to, to experience the great vastness for some reason, the way it works is you need this.

And I get it. You know, I don't want to sound like some sulky little shit. Cause I really do get it. I love, I love it. It's just I do love existence and I'm so happy to be alive.

But I remember being young and being like, why didn't God, because this was when I was young and I was kind of right over the plate Christian. I was like, why didn't God start life in heaven? So that's a good question.

I felt it when I smoked DMT. Why did you kick us out of here? Yeah. Yeah. Why can't we be in the dome, right? All the time? Yes. Yeah. That's what I thought was like, wait. Yeah. Because I'm, you know, you're making contact in some way. And it's this incredibly beautiful, pre-creative state of pure potentiality and it's alive and it seems to love you but in my mind there was a little bit of like well i guess you just get to hang out here all the time huh right i'll just head back you're like a you're like some seal some seal in the polluted waters well you temporarily got picked up by as ramdas would say you don't get to stay at the wedding banquet because your garments aren't pure enough. That's a, that's a Christ's parable about going to the wedding and feast and being kicked out because you weren't

dressed properly. Right. So in the, in his interpretation, that's, that's an idea of purity and stuff and trying to be like a Maharaji and staying in that place all the time, even though you're in this forum. But I get it. I want you to know that i get yeah i uh feel that and that's what i'm saying that i think we can't talk enough or offer solidarity enough towards the yearning that we're all feeling to be in one and to be in oneness it's heartbreak but it's it's it's heartbreak i've said this before but we were yanked from something far worse than a vagina you know what i mean you were born and you were taken from your mother but that was just the beginning of you being yanked from the garden yanked from the pre-birth place yeah yanked from oneness and put into an illusion of separateness it's a wonder

we're not all crying constantly babies are that's why babies are crying i think i actually thought about that last night and i was like i really do think there's something to it and the only way to calm the baby is to like overwhelm it with love so it will calm down and yeah it's the when you see a baby crying and you wonder why the baby's crying it's because it's experienced the great heartbreak of the universe yeah and and and this heartbreak this this is this brokenheartedness this innate human state dukkha i think and is what they call it in buddhism it's so interesting how there's nothing worse than to get your heart broken in real life you You know, it's like how many suicides, how many songs about it, how many tragic, tragic heartbreak stories are there.

And it's like this is the downgraded version. It's like what you're saying. It's like if you think the heartbreak, any heartbreak you're experiencing in this human incarnation is an infinitesimal. It's a minnow bite and you have a shark scar. You're gushing blood from a shark bite and the minnow is, you're like, oh, Julie left. And there's the gate around the Garden of Eden. And this is why they talk about how they set two angels at the gate and there is this impenetrable wall around the Garden of Eden.

I think that impenetrable wall is that feeling of heartbreak that you come into contact with if you're being truly honest about your situation in life, if you're being really, really completely honest with what's going down here, which is that this too you will be separated from. This separation that you have theoretically experienced from the great mother, this separation continues and continues and continues and continues until you let yourself be completely and absolutely brokenhearted, sobbing like a child. And this is why when they talk about the mystics, the way that it's explained is that you must want this reunification at the level that you want to breathe. You must want this reunification at the level that you, a billion times more than you've ever wanted anyone to text you.

And it's that level of heartbreak that you have to experience. And theoretically, in the great teachings that I've heard, that's when you get scooped up again. And that's when you finally get to come home. But man, what a long journey. I know. And maybe it's maybe it's just the mood we're in today. But I understand that the weight of that Ram Dass, we should if you took a shot every time I said Ram Dass, you'd be dead. But Ram Dass talks about a quote from one of his teachers. And he says, you're in school, you might want to take the

curriculum. Have you heard that? Yeah. So it's just like, instead of resisting it, it's us in traffic. We're doing it again. It's all tits. And what I mean by that, it's all tits is even enlightenment is tits. You're a tip man. Yeah. Or it could be pussy or whatever you want, but it's this idea. I was thinking last night we smoked dope and i was coming down and it was actually great i was closing my eyes and just watching visions like just really it's a practice we could talk about that if you want there's a real practice and it is love and it's not i'm not talking about taking psychedelics i'm talking about watching the back of your eyes yeah and when you start to see something incredible you need to remain calm or it goes away it's a real

it's a sliver of what i think it might be like to die is to not get overwhelmed by the bardo is just a little rehearsal is psychedelics a little rehearsal is smoking too much weed and going to bed watching the back of your eyes you can see some of the most glorious. I was at the bottom of a space shuttle taking off, but I couldn't see the shuttle. All I saw was the smoke going to an impossible blue Aqua planet. And the sky was like every star. It was amazing. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

And it came after I even challenged my brain. I was like, what could I see? Cause I was feeling despondent. I was like, what could you show me? And it went, how about this bitch? And I was like what could i see right because i was feeling despondent i was like what could you show me yeah it went how about this bitch and i was like but then i panic and it and it goes away but anyway what was i saying take the curriculum don't resist watching oh it's all tits so one of the visions that i had and it feels very lsd or mushrooms or whatever is i was like

this is a trip the people that i know sh et cetera, that smoke a lot of DMT, he's public about that. He's like, I could see you smoking something and coming here and learning equally profound lessons about the base nature of awareness. Right. And one of the things that's so trippy that we just don't even, talking about it's all tits, it's all the other thing, even enlightenment. There's a sect of it's all the other thing even enlightenment

uh there's a sect of buddhism that calls enlightenment the final disappointment isn't that great because you just keep chasing tits and i was thinking i saw bob barker it was old it was pre-jew carry it was bob barker on the price is Right. And I was like, they literally, we love setting up the game. Yeah. Stuff and you'll be happy. Yeah. And then we literally set up game shows where we have poor people play silly, very psychedelic, trippy, plinko games. And then we pull back a curtain and say, we're going to give you a kitchen set.

And then you jump up and dance because it's all just the carousel of bullshit yes but then bob barker was like and behind this curtain we have enlightenment it was just another thing it's i'm still the beggar sitting on the box of gold asking for spare change i don't want enlightenment i I am enlightened. And I'm in my own fucking way because I keep waiting for something to save me. Right. When the guru is what's looking out of my eyes right now. Right. When self, God, and guru are one. I don't need Bob motherfucking Barker to say, and behind this one is Buddha, is Maharaji, is Christ.

You've won a Buddha. Coming out of a spaceship and saying you're one of us we love you you did it good job so we just need to relax and take the curriculum and take the suffering again you're right about the party but the pain i think is one of those things that we didn't if we're going with this thought experiment of the pre-birth place being a pain-free zone, because you are, you and God were blue paint and it just got blurred into one pile of blue paint. Yeah.

And you're like, fuck, I'm blue paint. Yeah. You also weren't suffering. And I think we ate the apple to come here, to meet people, to be people that don't believe in God.

Right. To sell, to learn from a monster, To learn from a monster, to learn from a thief, to be a thief, to watch starvation, and to experience loss. We're all in a thing that ends poorly.

You know what I mean? And I think you've said this to me. This is one of the things you said the first time I did your podcast. You're like, you wouldn't put a quarter in a video game that lasted forever. No. How long is this one?

Well, it's like 100 years sometimes. You're like, you're really good. Yeah. No, I love it, man. And you know what? No matter what, even if there is no after this or before this, and even if there is no after this or before this and even if there is no intentionality even if it's not a university where you're being taught some grand curriculum it's still this is what's going down right and you gotta accept it well that's love that's saying yes to what is that's it this is uh i'm sorry we're in cosmic traffic cosmic suffering because traffic. You and I are suffering because we're waiting. I'll just speak for myself.

I'm suffering because I'm waiting to arrive somewhere. We're not walking each other home. We're driving each other home in shit traffic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, Saraswati Marcus said that, Raghu's wife said, the bridge between suffering and grace is surrender. And that the moment you just accept it, here's what's happening, man.

I don't care what your expectations were. There's no fucking, to quote Morrissey, there's no heavenly choir, not for you and not for me. We tried and we failed. We tried and we failed. We tried and we failed. No matter what it is. When you just accept, okay, you know what? My brain constructed a version of reality where everything was going to be the goddamn Macy's Day parade.

There was going to be some form of constant, never-ending, Tom Bombadil-levellevel Tolkien-esque communion with nature, domesticity, and love in my life. But guess what? That's not what's happening. You're in a job you might not like. You're in a fucking relationship that might be weird. You're in a house that you wish you weren't in. It's got bedbugs and fleas.

You're in a car that breaks down all the time. You're in a body that sometimes gets sick and will definitely get incredibly ill to the point that it's going to die. This is what's really happening. That's right. And the moment you just let go into that, it's quite nice. You're taking your agenda out of it. Take your agenda out because that's what's torturing you.

It's not the fucking bed bugs torturing you. That's why in the world, not out of the world. That's the idea. I'm a fierce player around us as i'm still playing at maharaji would get angry he wanted things he wanted the bread to be delivered to the blah blahs and yeah you fucked up and he yells at you yeah but in it but not of it because when we become of it and when we really start going this is me i'm pete i'm a personality and you will love me. You will love what I do and I will give myself comfort. When we let go of that, that's where you get these Kung Fu mystics, you realize you are torturing yourself with your expectation of how things should be. You are tormenting yourself. That's the lash that you're using to whip yourself.

Right. Like David Bowie does, right? And I'm not very familiar with him. But it was interesting to me that everybody was like, oh, no. And I get it. It's sad. Anybody dying is sad yeah this is this isn't like some comedic perspective where i don't give a shit sure i do give a shit clearly an amazing artist and i've appreciated some of his work but i wasn't like

a die-hard fan so but like people are like oh he's gone i'm like we're all gone we're all gone you know what i mean like we did this exercise in maui where val and i sat across from each other and they had us repeat these things about just like me this person's in a body just like me this person has pain just like me this person is afraid just like me and this person will die just like me and val and i are weeping just like a gorgeous weep this is another one of those heavyweights that when we're told that the car and the new ipad and all this shit is going to save you when that's an agenda that's a story we are to be saved file me under to be saved yeah right and all these things and the right relationship

and the right blow job is all going to get me there yeah that's your agenda and it breaks your heart and it doesn't work, but it's a spinning plate and it's a lie that we're all agreeing. As Ram Dass says, I won't mess with your ego if you don't mess with mine. Just keep, let me stay in this dream. It's good in here.

I want to eat chocolate and I want to take a meaningful bowel movement in the morning. And that's going to be me. When you realize you are not filed under to be saved you know what i mean i just saw anomalisa and it really broke my heart because i was like charlie stop waiting for someone to save you is what i wanted to say to charlie the guy who wrote it i was like come on man give me something that says and then i realized this wasn't going to save me and then i realized i didn't need to be saved in the first place get Get the fuck out of my face.

I'm sorry. That movie was gorgeous and maybe I'll change my opinion on it but I was like, I don't need another thing telling me the heartbreak of there is no thing.

There is no thing that's going to save you. Right. You walk upon yourself as a path and knock upon yourself as a door and what you reveal

to yourself shall be revealed do yourself a favor the shit that is the shit this is the daniel johnston quote do yourself a favor become your own savior have you ever heard that it's a great song but this is the um uh yeah man i love what you're saying it's's so good. And this is another. I'm talking to myself, by the way. We should just call this fucking podcast Ram Dass Quotes. But that's what it's devolved in. I don't know why people aren't as obsessed with Ram Dass as you are.

I think they will be. I think it's just people aren't aware that there exists this wonderful form of spirituality that's so perfectly articulated by such a genius. But this is another thing he says. When you're sitting at the puja table, for those of you who don't know what a puja table is, it's you just construct a little table in your house and you put on it pictures of beings that inspire you, maybe pictures of beings that don't inspire you, that you feel animosity towards. Right, to work on that.

And you work on it. But he says, you're sitting in front of the puja table. This isn't be here now. And, oh, you're feeling despair. And you think to yourself, oh, man, this is a great flavor of despair, isn't it? Do people even get out of this kind of despair? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. great flavor of despair isn't it oh yeah i think people even get out of this kind of despair i don't know yeah yeah yeah and you realize there's something there's something delicious in it

there's something uh something that's really quite satisfying in it and that you're actually enjoying it and this thing that you're you're so beautifully talking about is is eventually when you're done eating despair sandwiches you realize that there's a lot of other types of food at the buffet and that you get to pick which one you want to eat and that you don't have to be in the role of the person waiting for the hand of god to come from the sky and lift you into paradise. This is getting in touch with your own sliver of divinity. Of being like, my awareness is the same as my dog's awareness is the same as a plant's awareness. Alan Watts talks about rocks even having a low level of awareness.

Because if you bang them together, they make a noise sort of thing. And that's their way of being like, you who I'm here sort of thing he's like that's even a type of intelligence but like the despair of being uh so sad and i don't know if people get out of things like this it's the identifying with it as opposed to eckhart tolle when he like woke up or whatever you want to call it was like broke out of it i can't i what did he say i can't stand to be with myself any longer he's like who when you're feeling sad and this works this works i'm an anxious person and when you're anxious you go who is observing the anxiety right that's you right watch the anxiety go shit that is i have this philosophy in my life where I go good episode. The episodes

of your life are where shit goes weird or unplanned. You don't want to watch a TV show where everything goes fine. That's entourage. Nobody wants that. You want to watch a show with twists and turns and conflict. And so when I'm having a day where I was driving to Irvine, I've got a flat tire. I was already going to be late. I'm going to miss the show. And, you know, that sounds kind of not a big deal, but I'm like, it's not just a show. It's a lot of money that I'm going to lose. Right. I need that money for my rent or whatever it is.

So it's feeling dire. And then you just, when you say yes to even that, you can go, good episode. And motherfucker, I'm not telling you the story of the time i drove to irvine and didn't get a flat tire i'm telling you the one about the time i got a flat that's awesome it's a poor story dude i want to tell you yeah the other day yeah i was driving to irvine and i got there and i got there and you know what happened i pulled into a gas station i don't even know where i was and i saw this woman that I know.

I was in the middle of, it might as well have been nowhere. It was somewhere between here and Irvine. I don't know anyone in that area. And I saw this woman I know named Guru. Her name's Guru. Right. Get, come on. Yeah.

Her name is Guru. She gave me a ride. Right. It was unbelievable. And she was a huge fan. I got her tickets to the show. Everybody won. She had a story of the time she and I, And she was a huge fan. I got her tickets to the show. Everybody won. She had a story of the time she and I, and we had a nice conversation.

She's a lovely woman. I see her all the time. But she happened to be at the gas station that I pulled in. I'm not talking about serendipities and everything is a meaning. I'm saying everything happens and I'm giving it a meaning. I'm saying yes to it. I wasn't resisting. This is what you're talking about there, that specific form of miracle,

audacious miracle, and really kind of cheesy miracle, is, you know, in Bhakti Yoga, there's a lot of different books about Krishna and the different ways that Krishna likes to interact with his friends. And one of these books is called the Srimad Bhagavatam. And it's really a cool book. But it's really fascinating because they say God can interact with you as your child. God can interact with you as your friend. God can interact with you as your guru. God can interact with you as your lover. So to me, I've noticed in miracles in particular, and what happened to you as far as I'm concerned

as a form of miracle, is you will quite often find woven into a miracle a very specific kind of sense of humor. And from that, you can extrapolate the personality of if you want to allow yourself the wonderful fantasy that these miracles are being delivered to you as a form of playfulness from some super intelligence in the way that when you're on mushrooms you're like this thing is fucking with me yes yes and it's cute it's cute it's specific it's like in the way i know your sense of humor yeah it's i know mushrooms is sense of humor right and i think mushroom sense of humor is the sense of humor of the transcendent truth.

And when you realize that its sense of humor is kind of cheesy. Yeah. It's funny, but it's really kind of goofy. Well, Terrence McKenna talked about it being almost like a Groucho Marx shtick. Yeah. And he was talking to the mushroom. He was tripping his balls off. There's another way to say that.

And he was talking to the mushroom. He was tripping his balls off. There's another way to say that. And he asked it something about where it lives or something. And what was it? It made some stupid joke like, hey, when you're a mushroom, you travel light or something like that. Like a dad joke. Yeah.

That's it. That's it. That's it. Which is kind of fascinating when you consider that God is always referred to as the Father. Right. And then you realize that these miracles have a dad sense of humor woven into it, which is like, oh, yeah, someone named Guru is going to take you to your show. Yeah. It's cheesy.

It's like someone writing it. They're like, okay, so listen, let's do this. It was almost too much. We're going to do a script about Pete, and we know Pete is on a spiritual journey journey and he's going to learn a lesson when his car breaks down. And the moment he surrenders, imagine this in a writer's room. Yeah, bad pitch. If we were in a writer's room and I'm like, dude, what if the person who picks you up,

their name's Guru? Yeah. That's a flat line in a writer's room. No one's going to laugh. There's going to be a crinkling of paper. This isn't for the Hallmark Channel. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

Get out of here. Dude. Or stop. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Get out of here. Dude. Or stop. You know what, Duncan? I think you're getting too stoned in the writer's room. Don't smoke before you come to work. You're getting too stoned. Yeah.

It seems like something someone super stoned would conceive. Yeah. Or it seems like something a child would conceive. That's the other quality of it. It's a childlike, audacious cheesiness that gets attached to these kind of miracles that are happening. And when you let yourself believe that this is a super intelligence delivering these messages to you and that the super intelligence has a childlike sense of humor.

Right. Whoa. That's amazing. That's fucking wild. But I think it wants, I think whatever it is, wants us to go back to that place. Yes. We took mushrooms on Christmas Eve, Al and I, and we ended up in one of the bedrooms that has, it was a child's bedroom before we,

and we didn't change anything. So there's still this light that's made out of like paper flowers that projects paper flowers everywhere. You know, the shadow. And then on the ceiling were stars and moons and stuff. And we just laid in there like babies. It was so safe and simple yeah and we we were just overwhelmed with this feeling of like this is here you know what i mean like oh my god it was

and i turned on the water and i put my hand in the water and i was like it's warm and val came over it was it just felt kind of like the sort of thing that would also have a silly sense of humor because it was just like be babies, babies, feel that feeling you felt when you were a baby and you knew your mom, God was downstairs and it'll be up in a minute to get you up and feed you. But for now, just lie there and know that everything's okay. And here's,

here's, I'm going to share two mushroom epiphanies with you. Please. One was, I said to Val, I was like, I love you, but what's wild is it loves you. Because what mushrooms for me does is it really solidifies this idea that there's a breathing, living presence everywhere. Yeah. And what's so great about these substances is you take them and everything that you believed is real and you

don't just know it you become it that's that idea of it's not knowledge it's wisdom so you're living in it and you're like and you're seeing it so instead of thinking like i think everything's kind of alive man you're seeing the walls breathe you're watching a tree glisten and move and it looks like it's handing you something. Everything's real. So when I said to Val I love you, but it loves you. She knew. And then this one's a little bit cheesier, but it

was such an epiphany for me was I always say I'm stuck in here. I go, I'm stuck in here. I can't help that. I love the oft-used metaphor that we're the light. We're the slideshow and we're the light and the slides in between the light and the wall is my personality is my intellect is my clan is my country is my education all that's just kind of like slides that they're all shining

through all of those but i'm the light but so i'm always like i'm stuck in here i'm sorry i can't help it i'm on your podcast i'm talking a lot i'm sorry i'm stuck in here. I'm sorry. I can't help it. I'm on your podcast. I'm talking a lot. I'm sorry. I'm stuck in here. I don't surrender to it, but I just know me pretty well. I'm with me all the time. But then I was like, I'm stuck. Am I stuck? And the experience said to me, your body isn't trapping you in.

It's hugging you. And again, that sounds so saccharine or something. It's not even a teaching that I'm proud to share or I don't want to engrave it in anything but when you felt it it was Han Solo in the Force Awakens going it's all real you know what I mean like you're going shit the Force is real and your body isn't

holding you down it wants you here it wants you to go through this little ride. It's all a big hug, man. And you didn't, it really is fascinating when you realize that. And then you start getting into the question of, well, who's being hugged and who's doing the hugging. Right. And who's downstairs. Yeah. And it was Valerie. Yeah. You know what I mean? We're both babies on the bed and we're having the shared experience. And I'm like, I know here and she's there but when you're on mushrooms it feels very much that you're just like no it's here and i'm wearing the clothes i don't mean literally my clothes i mean my body

i'm wearing the clothes of pete holmes and i play the part of pete holmes and it is that thing you're talking about is so wild man and and that i can remember the last big mushroom trip i had which may very well be the last mushroom trip i have how much did you take oh man it wasn't a huge i you know i'm very reactive to those things, but I was high. I was so very high. And, but what happened was at some point in the trip, I started, I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I forgot something. What was it? Okay. Wait, I'm remembering now. I'm remembering this thing that I've been doing. Oh, wait.

Oh, I'm a human being. Oh, I've been doing this human being thing. Oh, whoa. I'm doing a human being thing right now. And what I was prior to coming back into myself, I have no idea, man. That's where it gets wild because there's a veil where whatever I was back there, I don't know. But when I finally came back to myself, it was a quick feeling of like, hold on, hold on. I've been doing this thing. I do something.

Oh, shit. I do human. I do a human thing. Oh, I'm human. Right, right, right. Fuck. God damn it, I'm human. Right, right, right. Fuck. Goddammit, I'm human. Rami D told a story of having an experience where he said for three hours on LSD, everything stopped existing.

Like, he was in the void. Yeah. And he wasn't afraid. It's kind of like I was saying, and you close your eyes, if you can love the experience and continually say yes to the experience and yield and surrender and all that stuff, he went into the abyss. And he was not. And time was not and the

earth was not he couldn't even fully explain it and then he said he took it in this little room him and tim leary would go in this little room that you had to climb down a ladder oh yeah yeah and he said there was a woman staying there with them that he didn't know very well but when he climbed up she uh she's kind of like screamed and started touching his feet and crying oh yeah and he said that later she said when he came up all she saw was light so this person isn't even tripping so like pure light came up wow and so she and it freaked him out because he didn't even know her and he had come back to his error code yikes yeah well this is a there's a um uh i i the tibetan tibetan buddhism there's a i think it's tibetan buddhism it's called zhog chin d-z-o-g-c-h-e-n zhog chin anyone this this

has been explained to me a little bit the concept is and i love it i don't care if people don't believe it because it's fucking cool yeah the concept is that awakened beings when they die like if you're fully awakened you transform into rainbow light and dissipate it's really nuts yeah but i've heard that told many times like when i think it was when ramana maharishi, the light thing, when George Harrison died. Rainbows, rainbows, rainbows, rainbows. And it is. And I'll tell you, man, one time I volunteered at a hospice.

And if I told you this story, boy, oh, boy, I volunteered at a hospice not knowing what the fuck I was getting into. I was just like, I'll sit with dying people. And so I volunteered at the hospice i'll sit with dying people and uh so i volunteer with the hospital sat with some dying people uh it's not always sitting with dying people like at one time and it was not like i was not the main person i was like you know lowest rung volunteer just going there if they need me some people need you need you pick up like you know food or whatever for them and just bring it over and not come in which would be weird because you pick up like you know food or whatever for them and just bring it over and not come in which would be weird because you'd bring like a bag of food to a door and leave it

there and on the other side of the door you'd hear people screaming in pain from whatever was killing them but um uh or once there was this woman i don't she was an actress she always she was this beautiful actress i wish i knew her name has pictures, all these old school black and white pictures of herself all over the wall of her house in Santa Monica. She's laying in bed, oxygen. I wish I knew her. I wouldn't know her name. But they were saying she was a famous actress. I can't remember her name.

Or semi, whatever. So I'm standing next to her bed and I say to her, I don't know what I'm doing. This is years ago. I don't know what I'm doing now. but I was like, how are you doing? And she looks at me and goes, how does it look? But, but, but then, uh, uh, the, the light thing, man, the last person I sat with was a woman who had Alzheimer's disease. And man, that was intense. I would go and sit with her. I sat with her a few times. And I saw her degrade from being able to walk to being on oxygen. But she would sit next to me and just lean her head against me. And once

she took me into her room and showed, she couldn't talk, but she was just pointing to pictures of her kids because, you know, that was important to her. But when she was finally dying, I was sitting with her. And you could see her physical body struggle against what was happening. So she was on oxygen, and she would let go. She would surrender this thing that we're talking about. And every time she did that, there were flowers in the room. And I remember every time she let go, the flowers seemed to start glowing.

Like everything in the room brightened up. Everything got just this. It was beautiful. Like a light was just filling the room brightened up. Everything got just this. It was beautiful. Like a light was just filling the room. And then when the resistance would come, it would go and would go back in and was completely exactly the way it was before. I saw this happen like three times, this kind of strange respiration where her soul or whatever was anyway, man. So there's something to the concept of us as a light body being imprisoned or constricted or held or hugged inside the light bulb, this flesh light bulb.

It's right. Line up with the light, not the bulb. That's a Joseph Campbell thing too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, something that trips me out lately is around us talking about reincarnation was saying,

if you light a candle with another candle, is it the same flame? That one's been tripping me out lately. Whoa. So this candle's going out and we light a second one. Is it the same flame? Whoa. You're welcome. That one will bake your noodle.

I do want to say, though, talking about all this surrender, right? So we're saying when you're in traffic, when you're dying, when you're realizing the car isn't the answer, why don't we wake up? And the truth is, is we don't want to. Yes. And the truth is that I don't want to. Me either. Because we are addicted to the highs and lows of the game. That's it. The rushes of the game.

And that's what Ram Dass talks about. We let go of it incrementally but the truth is i you know i think we both know this i love being me i love the thrill somebody just asked me like what oh we were at fucking cafe gratitude and they were like what makes you happy and i was like you know what's crazy is for all this stuff and i love meditating and mushrooms is certainly my definite number one answer that's my happiest makes you happy and i was like you know what's crazy is for all this stuff and i love meditating and mushrooms is certainly my definite number one answer that's my happiest but in life in this trip when um judd apatow agreed to direct my pilot that was wow it was ecstasy you feel fuck yeah

you feel and that's when i'm in those moments when you get this rush. And it really is similar to a Kundalini sort of feeling. Yeah. It's just Christmas Eve inside of you. It's the Fourth of July. And you're like, that's why you resist. You don't want to be nobody. Right. You want to be somebody. Yeah. And you don't want to be everybody. You want to be you. Yeah. And you want love given to you.

And I even think on a certain level, you want heartbreak. There have been days where I'm like, she dumped me and I want to eat ice cream and have a scotch and be sad. And we're addicted to the rush. Yeah. And we don't want to give up our possessions. And we don't want to follow Jesus. And we don't want to follow Jesus and we don't want to leave our families. Talk about, I think it's my favorite Bible verse and it used to be the most confusing

one. It would be one that I would jump over was that I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword and to turn brother against brother and a man against his family. What are we talking about? We're talking about the price you pay. You lose. Buddha left his wife and child. Yeah. Pete has more conflict with his parents than he ever has. Right. Because he's a fucking weirdo new agey guy. They don't say that.

They love me very much. But you start to feel what the price of freedom. Selflessness. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't want to be selfless. You love being you. And you don't want to be selfless you love being you and and you yeah you don't want to let go we are in our terrible twos you know like my i have the

most beautiful perfect nephew of all time and this kid man he's two and he's the sweetest boy but he's in his terrible twos which means he's learning that he can he can like uh not hurt things he's learning he can keep things for himself yes you know so uh it's so cute because like he wants to keep things and no matter what it is he'll say mine this is mine and they say that kids and when they get to like four late threes or fours they start learning to share again and suddenly they turn into they can they can't i mean i don't know obviously some people never learn to share but the kids they'll turn to these very sweet beautiful beings because suddenly they start sharing with other kids and it's a really cool thing to watch something go from a constricted state of

this is mine to, okay, this is for everyone. And that's where we're at. And what you're talking about is that's it, right? It's like we've got to figure out a way to not just give up our toys, but to give up our lives. Everything must be relinquished. All must be given to this hilarious sweetie that's been playing with us. Yeah, right. We've got to do it. That seems to be it, right? Right, right,

right. Yeah, no, that is it. And it's not easy. No, it's not easy to let go. We really we don't we love our specialness. But the great thing is, Rami D coming in again, but you don't we we love our specialness but the great thing is rami d coming in again but you don't you have to be somebody before you can be nobody right and it's not a flaw in the system we're born we probably in that early stages we are feeling some of that interconnectedness i do think babies are kind of in a trippy place yeah Yeah. And then we remember our separateness and we, and we forge our identities and that's where feeding the plain view comes in very handy. And that's where the Yeti picks you up and protects you.

Right. And he takes you places and you learn, uh, it's almost Pavlovian. You learn, uh, do this, be exceptional and you will get exceptional things.

You like first class, you like hot French Sundays, you like blow jobs yes do you want a vip area at bonnaroo yes i don't know who you are but i love your awesome yeah okay well remember the correlation your somebody-ness got you this blow right and you go got it and your stupid brain it's not stupid it just knows cause and effect it goes the more special i am the more michael jackson i am the more private jets i get right and that's not me i i don't fly private jets but you understand what i'm saying sure then we think though that's again everything's tits

everything's tits you want the tit you want the tit yeah be special be special be special and what we're saying is you can suck your own tit and you can you can be in traffic and quiet yourself and wake up it's not the price is right bob barker doesn't have the answer behind the curtain yeah you need to laugh at what am i doing in this studio audience right i can't believe they called my name i can't believe i'm playing this game but there's a a lightness and a joy that's available to surrender if we have the courage to surrender, which is very hard. It's very hard. I don't get too much affirmation to surrender. I get it from, what do they call it, Darshan with you?

You know what I mean? Likewise. I definitely get it from you. I get it from Ram Dass. I don't get it. My Siddhi is my intellect. Right. That's something Rami D. helped me.

Siddhi is, for those of you who don't know, that's a kind of like, I don't want to say magical, but it's a sort of supernatural, I don't want to say supernatural either. How would you describe Siddhi for people? A Siddhi would be reading somebody's mind right you're right the thing that i like about using your intellect as a city it's a very base city everybody has it but you can sharpen it and use it and that's what ramdas does that's he's great at metaphor right he's great at performance he's great at writing so that's his city and then i realized i was like, that's one of mine. It doesn't have to be prophecy. Yeah. I happen to have, I can get my spirit off through ideas and that's not everybody.

Some people need a symphony. I happen to get off on conversation and that sort of stuff. Um, but you get those glimpses, but I get, it's like I've said this before, but they say that going for a run is the same as having a cocktail. And to that I say, I don't have a bottle of jogging in my freezer.

You know what I mean? So it's the same thing. I know that the spirit is rich and vital. But I am addicted to winnable games. I'm addicted to small, instant gratification. And I will take the lesbian porn jerk-off cocktail before I'll take the go sit in your room and tap on your face and try and align this bullshit

and get your spine straight. I don't have a jog in my freezer. I do have vodka. You know what I'm saying? Yep. So it's hard. And that's why it takes practice. And that's why we need to remember

what we're working for. And this is something I came here wanting to tell you. I don't think you're going to like it. It's very short. Why, why do we want enlightenment? Why do we want freedom? And what does it even feel like? I think I had this epiphany recently. To me, it's an epiphany. Again, it goes to dreaming. I always have the dream that I'm in high school and I'm always in the same. It's a dream high school. I have dream landscapes and I go back to them. You do too. Yes.

Whether or not you remember them is a different thing. No, I do. But there's cities and places. I have a New York that doesn't exist. Yep. I know where the subway is. I know where my apartment is. Yep.

I know where the restaurants and the grocery stores are. Wow. They're places. And I also know my high school. So I'm back in my high school and I, it's always the same. And everybody I think can relate to this. And that's, what's important is you have the dream that it's finals and you've been skipping all year. That one class. For me, it's like social studies or math. And what am I going to do? Geez, I'm going to fucking fail. I can't fail. I need to get notes. I need to find out. Maybe I'll go

to the class. Maybe I'll skip whatever you're panicking. You're panicking. You're panicking. For me, it happens lucidly, but anyone can relate when it happens lucidly is I realize I'm dreaming while I'm still dreaming. And then you go, I don't need this. I don't, I don't have to go. There is no class. Right. This is all just baloney. Yeah. This is is all nothing i don't need this book anymore i'm not in high school anymore this is all fake and it's this relief i'm gonna sneeze perfect timing i know right relief that washes over you and it feels like putting down two suitcases filled with bricks. And that's what I think enlightenment is. When you wake up from a dream and you go, I'm not in high school anymore.

Yeah. And you realize there is no test. You don't need this, these notes anymore. It's actual joy. It's actual bliss. It's actual relief. And these are things we feel in our nervous systems and in our hearts. But that's why I'm enlightenment. That's why I continue to toy with the idea that whatever happens, real Bhagavad Gita stuff, whatever happens, I'm still here. And that whatever happens in front of me is the lesson that I'm to learn. And what am I going to get from it? And was it in my narrative or was it not in how I intended things to go? It doesn't matter. There is no test. I don't need

this class anymore. I'm going to fly away. When Ram Dass took mushrooms for the first time, you know this, he went and shoveled his parents' wall. Yes. Because there was a snowstorm and he was feeling a lot for his parents. It's like four in the morning. They open the window and they go, what are you doing, you goddamn idiot? And he just smiled at them and kept shoveling snow. And he heard a voice in his head say, right on, baby, shovel snow. There is no test. There is no 4 a.m.

There is no good or bad time to shovel snow. It's all baloney. It's all, I won't look at the elephant in the room if you don't look at the elephant in the room. And when we start to wake up, we go, there's an elephant in the room. And it's all i won't look at the elephant in the room if you don't look at the elephant in the room and when we start to wake up we go there's an elephant in the room and it's so funny and it's so vibrant it's so alive and it's juiced and right on baby shovel snow it's okay you're okay you don't need the ipad to tell you you're okay that's what it feels like i'm not in high school i'm not in high school it gives me the chills i'm not there anymore right that's a make feels like. I'm not in high school. I'm not in high school. It gives me the chills.

I'm not there anymore. Right. That's a make-believe thing. Yeah. You say 3 o'clock it ends and 8 a.m. it starts and I have to finals and grades. It's all bullshit. My teacher, my class, it's all nonsense.

And you can play it. You can be the student. But you also can know it's all right. And don't forget to suck the elephant's tit. The final disappointment. Isn't that good? David Nickton. So cool.

David Nickton told me that. I love it. I love it so much, man. Enlightenment is the final disappointment. It's not. I can't. That is what I think I'm taking away from this. Is that is not what's behind the curtain. Enlightenment is the final disappointment. It's not, I can't, that is what I think I'm taking away from this, is that is not what's behind the curtain.

Enlightenment, you're there. We need to surrender the idea that something is going to save us because every great master that does the work says, you're already saved. You're okay. Yeah. I feel like all of these teachings, all this unconditional love can be boiled down to,

you're okay. And here's one to throw out too. Don't forget this one, which I love to think. This thing that we were talking about, the unspeakable enlightenment state. Here's one to think about. You might not be able to understand what it is at all.

And anything that you think it is, is wrong. And your mind can't understand what it is at all. And anything that you think it is is wrong. And your mind can't comprehend what it is because your mind just isn't able to get around that corner. Because we're talking about a singularity. And it's like this thing you don't know. That's right. Mother of novelty. Here's another crazy concept. Imagine this one, Pete.

And I hope I'm not keeping it too long. We've gone over. This is what I'm doing today. So cool. So here's another crazy concept. Imagine this one, Pete. And I hope I'm not keeping it too long. We've gone over. So cool. So here's another crazy concept. I have had a vision of God while I was stoned. Happened a long time ago in traffic, actually driving back from the gym. I'd eaten too much marijuana. Shouldn't have been driving. I was in my car, and suddenly I had this vision of this being that was constantly dying and constantly resurrecting itself.

And every time it resurrected itself, it was a million times more beautiful, a million times more beautiful, a million times more beautiful. And it was doing this in the moments between moments. It was doing it so quickly. It was this constant, never-ending super spiral moving in the direction of absolute perfection. But the direction it was moving in was also perfecting itself. And so we were looking at this thing that to even talk about what it is, is to prognosticate. It's to talk about the future. Don't yank it. Don't try to lasso the moon. I say this all the time. Leave the transcendent

where it belongs. Transcend it. Your mind isn't, we can use the mind like a city, like a power to help us get rid of it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because the place where all of this stuff makes sense is a mindless place. It's not, it's a non-dual place. It's a transcended space. It's a trans-rational space. What does that all mean? So I just did a talk the other day at a little seminar thing and it was about public speaking. And my friend asked me to come and I did it. I talked about standup and I talked about the principles of standup. I didn't lecture. They were asking questions and I did it. I talked about stand-up and I talked about the principles of stand-up. I didn't lecture. They were asking questions and I kind of answered some things.

And I talked about one thing I talked about was posture. And when you fold your arms, you can look scared. And people like to feel comfortable. So they want you to look comfortable. Basic stuff. Then I did a set that night and I realized that I might have been crossing my arms. That I wasn't even following my own advice. And I wondered, because some of the people that were at the seminar with the show, what they might have been crossing my arms, that I wasn't even following my own advice. And I wondered, because some of the people

that were at the seminar with the show, what they might have thought of that. And no one asked me, but my response was, I don't think about any of this stuff. You know what I'm saying? You become wisdom. You have knowledge. You become wisdom.

So when we're trying to get into our heart place outside of our minds, then these things have a shot. They're not going to make sense. It's not going to make sense. Your pot vision shouldn't make sense. Right. It shouldn't fucking thank God for that stuff. Because this agony that you and I are feeling about reality, I feel it all the time. And I talk about this too.

So forgive me if I've said this to you before. But the despair of like, what, am I going to touch things? Am I going to touch a table? Am I going to breathe air? Am I going to eat something? Are we going to laugh? Are we going to remember it? At night, am I going to go to bed?

What the fuck is this cycle that I'm stuck in? It's horseshit. I don't like it. Yeah. But what were we talking about before that? Because that just sounds like despair. Oh, but that's the brain place and getting into that, transcending this and going to the place where things don't make sense.

Thank fucking God for God. Thank God for the unwinnable game. Yeah. You can light a cigarette. You can drink a drink. You can jerk off. These are winnable games. But I am dying for one one thank god it's so challenging

thank god it's so desperate at times thank god it's so joyful at times i'm tired of amazon one click i'm tired of ice cream sample and i'll take that one these these things that just rush our systems and we get them and we go, check, check, check, sex, check, money, check. Uncheckable box. Unwinnable. Can't find it. Can't touch it. But you can merge into it, leaving your brain behind. What a counterintuitive.

It is counterintuitive. My thing lately is I think if you ask the great masters at some point you have to surrender your intellect to really get into that space to merge into oneness i think the answer is a fucking course yeah a ridiculous notion growing up uh evangelical we were all like you don't have to check your brain at the door this stuff does check out look josephus wrote about christ at the same time and there are these coins that have ca. And that's what he's talking about. And the Herodium was when he said you can move a mountain. Yeah.

Herod was moved. Who fucking cares? I don't. We need to even surrender that. That. Ultimately, everything. All toys must be shared. All toys must be shared.

Mine. My faith makes sense. It checks out. My God has this many followers. And I know. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Thorn in your leg. Use another thorn to get that thorn out and then drop both thorns. What I want is less, not more. I'm using these teachings, these ideas and these thoughts so I can realize that as passionate as about this one, I used to be passionate about another one. And guess what?

Something's going to replace this. And ultimately, I'd like to go where Ram Dass went, which is just, it's all play. It's all a dance. It's all okay. Don't you see? You guys think you're in high school. Pete Holmes.

Hare Krishna, my friend. What a beautiful way to close it. Thank you. Thanks for being on the show. Oh, thank you, man. All right, that's it, pals. Big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. You can go to squarespace.com and use offer code Duncan to get 10% off your first order.

Thanks to all of you who use the Amazon portal, who donate, and who listen. I love all of you. Don't forget to let your cat sleep on your chest tonight. Hare Krishna.