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Don't. Worry about changing the world.

3:25

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3:27

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3:29

world's dramatically. How can we transcend

3:31

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3:35

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Sat around to as my friend

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rock and a half hour otherwise

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known as Bread Raise The guy

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3:59

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4:03

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4:06

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4:08

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4:10

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4:12

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4:14

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4:17

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4:19

the details of which unfold in his

4:21

new fantastic memoir, From Punk to Monk.

4:23

I can do all the things I've

4:25

always done, but in a different way,

4:28

and I tell you, that different mindset

4:30

changes everything. Let's

4:56

do it, man. So good to see you. I'm

4:58

delighted to have you back here. Congratulations

5:00

on the new book. Thank you. So much to

5:02

catch up on. There's a lot going on in your life these

5:04

days. A lot going on. A lot going on in

5:06

your life. Full appreciation for all that you

5:08

do. So many of our listeners

5:11

on our podcast talk about ritual

5:14

and the transformational effect that you've

5:16

had. You know, I really think

5:18

that a lot of the ways

5:20

we transform is what we put into our

5:22

ears on our downtime. And

5:25

to have communities of

5:28

uplifting podcasts

5:31

really transforms culture. Yeah,

5:33

cool. And you're doing it. Yeah, you are as

5:35

well. I mean, you do it every day, right?

5:37

We do it every day. A daily podcast. We

5:39

do a daily podcast. It has some – I

5:42

have to skip some days because of traveling, but

5:44

I have done it on mountains

5:46

in Nepal. I've done it on cross-country

5:48

drives where we just pull over and I do it from my

5:50

iPhone. So it's not as

5:52

refined as this beautiful studio, which I would like to

5:55

get to one day. We get

5:57

points for we're trying our best to be every day. It's

6:00

pretty cool. I can't imagine doing it every

6:02

day. But I think there is something to

6:05

your point around the power of podcasts, like

6:07

the intentionality of that form

6:09

of media. It's not a passive media,

6:11

you have to seek it out. So

6:13

anybody who ends up listening to

6:15

your show or to this show, it's

6:18

a different connection with what is being

6:20

transmitted than just what's on TV in

6:22

the background or what's on your radio,

6:25

where you're a passive consumer

6:27

of it, as opposed to somebody who's seeking

6:29

it out for a reason. Sure,

6:31

the senses always want engagement. That's like

6:33

a principle within the yoga system. The

6:35

senses always wanna be engaged, but how

6:38

will they be engaged? What are you

6:40

gonna feed the tongue and the ears

6:42

and the eyes? And so

6:44

if there's something uplifting, something liberating,

6:46

something grounding, then it's

6:49

a good thing. Or confronting or challenging.

6:51

Or challenging or making you ask those

6:53

scary questions. Who wants

6:55

that? Nobody wants that. You

6:58

are here at a very auspicious time for

7:01

me personally, because I'm on the

7:03

precipice of traveling to India for the very first time

7:05

at the end of this week. And

7:07

I've never been. Wow, what are you gonna

7:10

do? Why are you going? The catalyst, the

7:12

impetus is that I got

7:14

invited by Arthur Brooks,

7:16

who's a guest of this show, a

7:18

professor at Harvard, who's taking

7:20

a small group to Dharamsala to visit

7:22

with the Dalai Lama. That's right. So

7:24

I'm gonna do that. And

7:26

my wife and I are gonna go to Jaipur

7:29

and travel around. So you're the

7:31

perfect person to help me figure out how

7:34

to best embrace this experience

7:36

that I'm about to have, given the

7:38

many pilgrimages that you've made. You

7:40

know, I went to India in 1988 for the first time as

7:43

a pilgrim, and I was 22. So

7:46

India pre-internet, pre-cell

7:49

phone, pre-digital television,

7:52

was almost like you're going to another planet. If

7:55

your intention, and I think yours and

7:57

your wife's are, is something like substantial.

8:00

The. Universe will arrange that you find that.

8:03

But. India has always historically been a

8:05

great place for spiritual seekers. In.

8:08

My love of spiritual paths. I was

8:10

found like there's a negative wisdom here.

8:12

There's a pearl of wisdom there. There's

8:15

a pearl of wisdom here. I find

8:17

that the baby culture is the thread

8:19

that ties all these pearls together. Like

8:22

if you want to understand self improvement,

8:24

self better mince. Metaphysics. In.

8:27

L Mindfulness calming the

8:29

mind. Looking. Inside.

8:32

Everything from die at health to

8:34

life on other planets to seeing

8:37

beings. C C Spiritual beings and

8:39

animals and plants in the earth

8:41

itself. In. The

8:43

is that thread that ties all these. Mysteries

8:45

together it's I got a as

8:47

a treasure chest and of spirits

8:50

or goodies that you can just

8:52

uncover. And it's all there.

8:54

and I. I've found so much joy

8:56

in going there and I remember a

8:58

prayer. When. I was

9:00

twenty two that. One day I

9:02

want to take people here to experience

9:04

that. And so let's burn my annual

9:07

joys. I take people on yeah talk

9:09

images. Not as tourists, not as backpackers,

9:11

But to. Find some spirits

9:14

all or. Transformational.

9:17

Experience. And.

9:20

If a person wants it, they get they

9:22

get it and it's not like a conversion

9:24

thing. the of the yoga system isn't about.

9:27

Not. Converting a person aka your your this

9:29

number to turn you into this you

9:31

wearing this set of religious clothing number

9:33

one Either where this set of religious

9:35

clothing it's more of. It's.

9:38

Here to remind you of what

9:40

Yardy are. Month cover, what we

9:42

are. Everybody's a spiritual. Been, everybody's

9:44

a spiritual being met forgotten. Now

9:46

I think I'm an Italian, American

9:49

New Yorker and that's just that's

9:51

that's a temporary truth. It's not

9:53

an eternal truth. And.

9:55

when we see everybody like that

9:57

when we find everybody's commonality That's

10:01

the magic of living in harmony in this

10:03

world. What do we have in

10:05

common instead of finding how are we so different?

10:08

That is where the world is leaning into right

10:10

now. How are we different? How is he different

10:12

from me? Why do I not like this person?

10:14

How about what we have deeply in common? And

10:17

that's what you get on a pilgrimage. Well,

10:20

there's the distinction between traveling there

10:22

as a tourist, traveling there as

10:24

a pilgrim, quote unquote, pilgrim. So

10:26

I'm interested in that distinction. But

10:29

more broadly, the great

10:32

differences between the culture

10:34

of India and the culture of America with respect

10:36

to how we think about identity. I mean, you

10:39

touched on it. Like we love

10:41

to craft these stories about who we

10:43

are. I'm a podcaster, I'm an author,

10:45

I'm an athlete. These things, these labels

10:47

that we attach that become stories, stories

10:50

that inform a very calcified sense of

10:52

who we are, what we're capable of,

10:55

all at the cost of understanding

10:57

that we are all spiritual beings

10:59

having a human experience, that we

11:01

are one, that we are united

11:03

in that. And that spiritual

11:05

essence isn't just something that

11:08

unites us as humans, but all living

11:11

things, all things. And

11:13

this is something that because of

11:15

the sort of pressures or

11:19

incentivizations, the whole structure of

11:21

Western modern society kind

11:24

of pushes us away from. Sure,

11:28

it makes you latch up. I

11:31

have an identity with a small I,

11:33

a lowercase I. That's I'm

11:36

Ray Capo, I'm Raghunath. I'm a yoga

11:38

teacher or singer of a punk band.

11:41

And that's a real identity for

11:43

a moment in time. But the

11:45

message behind the teachings of the Vedas

11:47

is, okay, but

11:50

there's a real you too. There's a real you

11:52

too, and that real you is the

11:54

way you have to start to craft your

11:56

mind to see everybody and not just every

11:59

human. That every animal every

12:01

plant the planet itself higher

12:03

beings and ultimately God or how you

12:06

perceive a higher power and When

12:09

you have that type of vision and that's something you

12:12

sort of got to work for because we're caught in

12:14

the world of friends And enemies we're

12:16

caught in a world of differences We're

12:18

caught in a world of you know Extracting

12:20

the soul out of a animal or

12:23

out of the forest and just seeing them as

12:25

commodities and when you

12:27

live in that world that depersonalizes

12:31

The personhood in

12:33

a horse and a cow and a plant in

12:35

a forest You've lived in

12:37

a really sort of a me first

12:40

and I me and mine world. Mm-hmm, and

12:42

it gets ugly quick And

12:45

what is it about India that unravels

12:47

that not I think it's

12:49

really sort of the disseminating truths

12:52

that have been passed down since You

12:54

know before recorded time

12:57

which is that very wide gate inclusive

13:02

idea of spirituality which

13:04

is Not

13:07

gonna protest Christmas look at these

13:09

Christians trying to understand God You're

13:11

not gonna protest a 12-step program.

13:13

You're not gonna protest, you

13:16

know We want to rally behind people on their

13:18

spiritual path You know when I

13:20

was doing the band thing late in years later

13:22

in shelter and we had

13:24

a message of Bhakti of connecting to

13:26

your spiritual self and I got

13:28

a letter in the mail from a kid who's like Thanks

13:32

to your message. I Became

13:34

a Greek Orthodox monk. Hmm.

13:37

I didn't look at them Oh, man,

13:39

the Greek Orthodox got him to me.

13:41

That's a win to have anybody connect

13:44

with their spiritual self where there's where

13:46

they're seeing their temporary self

13:48

or the ego driven self as secondary

13:53

That's a great thing and it's great because one

13:55

it's gonna give them a little bit more peace

13:57

in this world You need

13:59

to because the way the material world

14:02

is designed, it starts

14:05

to wreck the small eye

14:07

identity. You know, I just went through a very tough

14:10

split up after a long marriage

14:12

and it was like I

14:14

saw myself, I'm a family man, I'm

14:18

married, I have children. It was sort of

14:20

devastating to my secondary identity,

14:22

which is you can

14:25

take a type of pride in what

14:27

you are in this world. Like a bad thing, like I'm

14:29

a criminal or I'm a drug dealer. It's like I'm a

14:31

family man, that's like a good thing. But

14:33

the way the material world, it just

14:35

keeps pruning at your secondary

14:38

identities to make

14:40

you ultimately understand what your real identity is.

14:42

And throughout the whole thing, if you

14:45

can work through it, and Radhana Swamy, who

14:47

is one of my mentors who you had on your show,

14:50

he just said you go through this

14:53

without resentment, without

14:55

spite, and without revenge.

14:58

Which are very common things which draw

15:00

up when you're heated and you're frustrated

15:03

or you feel hurt. You

15:06

want to get the spite, you want

15:08

to dig for revenge, you want to

15:10

say like this isn't fair, it's not

15:12

fair, why me or why did this

15:14

happen to me? And you start getting

15:16

that other mantra going through your head, this is

15:18

happening for me. Start

15:21

to reframe your identity. The

15:23

universe, God, Krishna, however you want to

15:25

perceive your higher power, is

15:27

bringing you back to a more subtle but

15:30

more real identity. And the subtle

15:32

is actually the solid. I'm

15:35

sure you could look back at times, you

15:38

know, when you were with had a girlfriend for

15:40

two years and text each

15:42

other every day, I love you, and

15:44

some have previous marriages, and it seemed

15:46

like this is forever. And then

15:48

you look back 20 years later,

15:50

five years later, ten years later, it

15:52

almost seems like a dream. Like

15:56

matter of fact my dream last night was

15:58

even more clear than what happened 10

16:01

years ago in that deep interwoven

16:03

relationship. And so you start

16:06

to realize, okay, I get it. This

16:08

whole damn world is dreamlike because

16:11

it just fades into these memories. And

16:15

so what is the real? And

16:17

that's sort of what that Vedic culture,

16:20

that yogic Bhakti culture brings

16:22

you to. Identify yourself as a

16:24

spiritual being. That's never going to change. And

16:26

people come into your life

16:29

and I can't possess them. I

16:32

can't possess my kids. I try to.

16:34

I can't possess my spouse. I can't

16:36

possess my house. I can't possess my

16:38

wealth. It will just come into me

16:41

and then go away from me. Come back

16:43

greater. Come back less. And it leaves you

16:45

just sort of like all

16:48

I can do is take what I have and use

16:50

it in a good way and love the people that

16:52

I'm with, but don't think you're

16:54

going to ever possess anything. It's

16:57

all going to get pruned. And

16:59

I use the pruning example because if you

17:02

don't know anything about gardening, when they're

17:04

loping down the lilacs, you're

17:06

thinking, what are they doing? They're killing these good

17:09

trees or lop in the roses or lop in

17:11

the berries. It's not

17:13

to destroy the garden. It's

17:15

to enhance the growth of the garden. It's

17:18

to enhance the fruit production. It's

17:20

to enhance the flowers and the scent. And

17:23

so this is what the material world is designed.

17:25

And when you see it like that, which

17:28

is hard, I'm not saying I'm above

17:30

all this. It's hard. I had first

17:33

time in my life anxiety attacks and the

17:35

breakup of my family unit. Definitely

17:38

not saying I'm above anything, but I

17:40

will say to have that perspective

17:42

like, okay,

17:44

this is for me. It

17:47

gave me some type of banister to hold

17:49

on to when the

17:51

sinkhole of the material world just fell out

17:53

underneath your feet. Yeah. The

17:56

ballast, like when everything gets stripped away,

17:58

what's left? the

18:00

support of having a spiritual connection

18:02

or a sense of transcendent meaning

18:04

in one's life, you're

18:06

gonna feel lost. And it's interesting that

18:09

amidst this process of you having to

18:12

grapple with non-attachment

18:15

and the impermanence of things with all

18:17

the work that you've done and all

18:19

the talks that you've given that

18:22

God or your higher power

18:24

or the world just hurls

18:26

at you, this very

18:28

relatable real world problem that a lot

18:30

of people go through and

18:32

you have to go through your own struggle

18:35

with it, just like anybody else. So we

18:37

talk about the fact that we are spiritual

18:39

beings, but the other aspect

18:41

of that clause is we're having a human experience.

18:44

We're still in human form and

18:46

we're prone to all of those frailties and

18:49

emotions and things that come up. And yes,

18:51

it's here for your evolution, but I'm sure

18:54

that didn't make it feel any easier and

18:56

perhaps even made you angrier. Haven't

18:58

I done enough work and now I have to do

19:00

this, but as humans, what are we attaching to that

19:03

make us feel safe, that make

19:05

us feel like our lives have meaning, it's

19:07

our relationship to other people, it's

19:09

our membership in certain groups and it's the

19:11

identities that we craft. And even

19:13

when you've done all this work to kind of transcend

19:15

that to some level, this idea of being a

19:17

family man, when that gets threatened, you're like, well,

19:19

why this? This is a good

19:22

thing. Let this be the good

19:24

thing. I'm being good. Yeah,

19:26

that was beautiful. Your

19:28

work and what we were talking about earlier,

19:31

outside the story of my book, one of

19:33

my big takeaways was after writing it was

19:37

what we do on a regular basis starts

19:40

to create us. You know, that

19:42

with running or with working out or doing yoga or

19:44

doing martial arts, what we do on a regular basis

19:46

starts to create the fabric of our

19:48

being and our thoughts. And so

19:50

one reason why I started our podcast

19:53

was really not for anybody else but

19:55

me, because I had a

19:57

group of all my students who...

20:00

to hear this philosophy and then

20:02

I thought, you know what, the

20:04

very teaching say, the way

20:06

to transform is to

20:08

hear truth on a regular basis, hear wisdom on

20:10

a regular basis. So people do it reading

20:13

the big book, reading the

20:15

Bible or reading Vedic teachings or reading

20:17

the Bhagavad Gita, cultures do it around

20:19

the world. But hearing your podcast, anything

20:22

that's going to deliver some type of

20:25

direction, appropriate stepping in this world,

20:27

appropriate movement in this world, appropriate

20:30

thought process in this world, if

20:33

I can hear something on a regular basis,

20:35

so I really started my podcast really for

20:37

me, so I'd have some accountability, so I'd

20:39

have to show up on a regular basis.

20:41

I think the success of the ritual podcast,

20:43

if you don't mind me saying, is

20:47

you're not preaching

20:49

to us. You're sharing

20:51

your experience in the struggle of

20:54

the human meat puppet that we're in

20:57

and the mind that goes with that

20:59

meat puppet and how to deal with

21:02

the gain, the loss, the success,

21:04

the failures, the betrayals, the love,

21:06

yet still staying on a path.

21:08

And I think that vulnerability permits

21:11

other people to now to

21:13

drop the bravado and also be vulnerable as well.

21:15

And I think that's why we're so attracted to

21:18

your podcast. Well, I think one thing we share

21:20

in common is that we don't

21:22

preach. I think people might misjudge you and

21:24

think that you're in this preacher form, but

21:26

that's not really what you're doing. I mean,

21:28

I really try to avoid giving

21:31

people advice or telling people what they should or

21:33

they shouldn't do. I share my experience. That's something

21:35

I've learned in recovery. That's a

21:37

core principle. I'm not here to take

21:40

your inventory or judge your life choices.

21:42

I'm here to share my experience and

21:45

I'll have interesting people on and I'll probe

21:47

their minds. But I never looked

21:49

a camera and say, don't do this or do

21:51

this. I think you have

21:53

that same sensibility in the way that

21:55

you share your experiences and the wisdom

21:58

of the people that you've been. spent

22:00

time with, but like, what is

22:02

the mission that you're on? Like, how do you

22:04

articulate it? We

22:06

all have some different karma,

22:09

you know, in this world to affect ourselves

22:12

and our universe around you. And some

22:14

people have very big universes, they're big

22:17

influencers, so to speak. Or

22:19

they have an influence in a small

22:21

way, everyone has some influence, because they

22:23

are energy going out. Even

22:25

we think, well, I'm not that influential, you are

22:27

a certain degree. And sometimes you are to maybe

22:31

three people, and that one person that you're

22:33

influencing will reach tens of thousands of people.

22:35

You know, there's been people that have touched

22:38

my life deeply, that

22:40

don't have much influence in this world. But

22:43

then I took what they said, and I

22:45

wrote a song about it. And you know,

22:47

tens of thousands of people got into animal

22:49

rights or something. So we never know how

22:52

much influence we have. But the focus

22:55

always goes back to us, how can

22:57

I change? Don't worry

22:59

about changing the world. Worry about

23:02

changing these things within me. And

23:04

you will shift the world dramatically, whether

23:07

you even realize it or not. And if I

23:09

zoom out of my own life, we'll see actually,

23:12

there is a change there. So my biggest

23:14

responsibility is, how am I going to react?

23:16

How am I going to treat myself? How am I going to treat other

23:18

people? Can I walk

23:20

with integrity, even though I'm coming from

23:23

maybe a dented can background

23:25

where I'm a little broken myself?

23:27

We're a little broken in this

23:29

material world. Sometimes we've come from

23:31

broken families, or sometimes we've come

23:33

in from some dysfunctional, traumatic past.

23:36

Can I piece myself together? And can

23:39

there be some hero's journey through it

23:41

all? And sometimes I deal with

23:43

people and I too, I don't like to

23:45

give unsolicited advice. But if a

23:47

person comes to me like, here's what I'm struggling

23:49

with. This is all the marks

23:52

I had against me as I grew up and

23:54

abandoned parents or I was homeless or, you know,

23:57

I was traumatized as a child. What

24:00

do I do with that? I suffer from self-loathing.

24:03

If you fall into one of these categories,

24:05

you've got to understand it. You're climb out

24:07

of that. You're recovery

24:10

out of that. You're recognizing

24:12

yourself to being, I'm a

24:14

spiritual being, and

24:16

whatever happened is the past. How

24:19

I move forward is going

24:21

to start to set an example, and it's going

24:23

to be a very beautiful, major

24:26

motion picture or a novel that

24:29

people are going to read and they're going to

24:31

be inspired, and you're going to

24:33

affect people that went through the same hell you

24:35

went through. You can't make some of that past

24:37

go away, but you can show

24:39

how to move in this world. You

24:42

know, with dignity and grace, having

24:45

had that done to you, having had

24:47

what happened, happened to you, and can you

24:50

move forward, that is going to be an

24:52

example, a shining example for a lot of

24:54

people. You live

24:56

that life, you write that book, or

24:59

you just tell your story. If you've

25:01

been to a 12-step program where people tell

25:03

their story, that's the most encouraging thing out

25:06

there. You realize

25:08

all of those stories have a three-act

25:10

structure to them, and they are all

25:12

mini-heroes journeys in their own right. We

25:14

all have the opportunity to embark on

25:16

our version of that. Even

25:20

if that arc is very small, it

25:23

can be meaningful in the transformation

25:25

of that singular life. I

25:28

think fundamentally, at its core, that's

25:30

about whatever has happened to you,

25:32

kind of owning that as a

25:35

lever or an opportunity to grow

25:37

or evolve. If your life is

25:39

lacking meaning or purpose, it

25:42

can be found through that ownership and

25:44

deciding that you're going to walk that path and

25:46

say, well, here's what happened to me. How can

25:48

I grow? How can I evolve? Then how

25:50

can I share my experience with others? I

25:53

like that that's a big part of recovery. It's a

25:55

big part of Bocte as well. We're

25:59

not just taking We're taking care of ourself. We're

26:02

taking care of ourself and then we're just extending

26:04

hands. And that's part of

26:06

our own healing, if I can

26:08

now help somebody else. So your initial question

26:10

was, what do you see as your mission?

26:12

It's really just to keep my

26:14

own head on straight and then

26:17

extend a hand and give love and don't try

26:19

to be possessive. And sometimes you do give a

26:21

lot of love and you'll get betrayal, and

26:24

that's okay. And sometimes

26:26

I've had to live with, man, I

26:28

give so much love to that person. And

26:30

that's almost part of the life

26:32

lesson too. Like, well, why were you given that love?

26:35

Did you want something in return? It's

26:38

like the universe is conspiring to teach us

26:40

how to be lovers again. Not

26:42

like the most basic type of love,

26:45

like a 17-year-old kid going, I love

26:47

her. I love to get with her.

26:49

Which is not love at all. It's

26:51

misusing this very, very high conception

26:53

of love. You just

26:56

want to consume that person. You're

26:58

looking at that person like a lion loves

27:00

a lamb. You're not looking at the highest

27:02

form of love, which is, how

27:04

can I give this person care for this

27:07

person and nurture this person and not really

27:09

expect anything back? Yeah, in

27:11

the most non-transactional way. And

27:14

I feel like that's one of my lessons

27:16

right now. I'm going through right now. It's a tough one. It's

27:20

a tough one. But

27:22

the other piece to this in

27:25

your story and what you just related is something I

27:27

think is very powerful, which is the

27:29

power of one, the power of the individual. Like, there's

27:31

great agency in that. Because

27:34

when you look at your story,

27:37

you're somebody who basically has

27:39

always been this rebel within

27:41

rebellious scenes. Like,

27:43

you were a rebel even in the punk movement.

27:47

To be a straight-edge, hardcore

27:49

punk in the broader punk

27:51

movement was somewhat rebellious. And

27:53

then to once again, within

27:55

that, become like this spiritual

27:58

punk rocker to talk about, not like

28:00

God and all the like within the

28:02

punk movement. Also, that might be the

28:05

most transgressive thing yet until

28:07

I kind of own that and then in turn, see

28:09

how that ripples out and

28:11

creates consequential change. It

28:15

was just a guy. Yeah,

28:17

I was just sort of like raising the bar for

28:19

myself because I was a spokesperson. It

28:22

had a ripple effect outward and there was an artist, it

28:25

was a songwriter and therefore the songs go out into

28:27

the ether. I got into

28:29

clean living at a young age. I don't

28:31

even know why, I was just attracted to

28:33

it. And then Ian McKay

28:35

from Modern Threat coined that

28:38

phrase and then I just sort

28:40

of ran with that phrase and it became like

28:42

a culture of clean

28:44

living, animal rights, positive

28:47

thinking, which was

28:49

the early 80s punk scene

28:51

was getting a bag

28:53

of airplane glue and snuffing it

28:55

and smoking with angel dust. And

28:58

it was like depressing and

29:00

sad and I watched young people run away

29:02

from home and die. And

29:04

so it created a bubble because

29:07

in the early 80s, everything was corporate rock

29:09

and roll. So we

29:11

were bound and I write about this in my book,

29:14

but going from Connecticut suburb to

29:16

hanging out in the Lower East Side of New

29:18

York in the early 80s when New York was

29:21

a completely lawless, serpico

29:23

time of life where

29:25

the cops were corrupt and there was

29:27

violence everywhere and you're hanging around this

29:30

dingy Lower East Side. You're

29:32

taking your life into your hands, but you're connected

29:34

with everybody, not just punks. We

29:36

were just connected by freak-dom. Any

29:38

freak out there, we'd all congregate

29:41

on the Lower East Side and

29:44

anything out of the norm was

29:46

like freak-dom and you learn to live. Truthfully,

29:49

it was a lesson that the world could use right now.

29:52

We learned just to live and tolerate

29:54

everybody because we're all felt like outcasts.

29:57

I wondered off your initial question. Yeah, no, well,

29:59

it's just the... power of the individual to affect

30:01

change. But I think, when you

30:03

were sharing that story, I was thinking about the

30:05

forward that Moby wrote to your book and

30:08

he's somebody who has a similar

30:10

backstory, Connecticut kid, then

30:12

he was like squatting and these places on

30:14

the Lower East Side and Soho and Tribeca,

30:16

et cetera, when the scene was happening. Have

30:18

you had him on the show? I have,

30:20

a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

30:22

know Moby. But the interesting reflection that

30:25

he had was that, and you

30:27

would share it before the podcast, oh, you're out

30:29

in the world and you meet lawyers and all

30:31

different kinds of professional people who

30:33

have some connection to that scene and were part

30:35

of it back in the day, but they go

30:37

on and they build lives within

30:39

the construct of the Western world. Like

30:42

this crossroads. Yeah, like tell that story,

30:45

like tall the chef and the owner of

30:48

crossroads, you see him at dinner last night.

30:50

Went out to dinner last night and tall

30:53

the owner of crossroads was great, incredible

30:57

vegan restaurant in Los Angeles and they opened

30:59

one in Calabasas, so we went there. And

31:02

I don't really know him that well, but I met him

31:04

once before and he just, she just

31:06

said, he just took me around the restaurant and

31:09

then just said, and introduced me to, I

31:12

think his lawyer and said, this is Ray.

31:14

He is the reason why this restaurant exists.

31:17

And I was like, I don't know what you're

31:20

talking about, but he's a kid somewhere in America.

31:22

I don't know where he was from, truthfully, but

31:25

they got a record and they get inspired. They

31:27

changed the trajectory of their life. And I never

31:30

like wrote a song for him, but

31:32

it's just when you internalize something and

31:34

it changes you in a deep way,

31:36

positive or negative, it

31:38

goes out into the universe and you have

31:41

a ripple effect. And what he's doing is

31:43

creating a culture of

31:46

clean diet, refined

31:48

eating where people can come and

31:50

have these incredible meals and

31:52

promote a cruelty-free lifestyle. And it

31:54

was very impressed. And the thing

31:57

is, they get it at this.

32:00

young age. It really doesn't matter what age, but for

32:02

a lot of these kids in the music scene was

32:04

at a young age, changed

32:06

the whole trajectory of their life. And

32:09

whenever we've had, and I'm sure for yourself

32:11

as well and myself, when we're on a

32:13

speeding train going south and someone pulls a

32:15

lever, now that train's now going north, and

32:18

we start to feel like, wow, I was on a

32:20

runaway train to hell on earth. And

32:23

we start to develop a lot of gratitude towards

32:26

the people in our life. And I could just tell

32:28

by the way he spoke with such

32:31

soft humility. He

32:33

doesn't have to be humble. He's got very successful restaurants.

32:35

He's doing great things, but he was just so humble

32:38

and grateful. It was so sweet to

32:40

have that exchange with him. The

32:43

writing of the book, too, and I'm sure

32:45

the writing of your book, too, you start

32:47

to realize how so many people have been

32:49

sent to you as

32:51

messengers, as deliverers of truth, saying that

32:53

sometimes they were handing me a message

32:55

and I just looked away,

32:57

but they've always been there. There's always been

33:00

sort of lighthouses

33:02

or guides

33:05

or messengers that have come,

33:07

and at different times we

33:09

just take them. I was just meditating on that this

33:11

morning. I was like, if

33:13

I was to fully embrace everything that's

33:16

been offered to me right now, I

33:18

would be a whole different person.

33:20

I'm only taking as much as

33:22

I want because I have some

33:24

plan B, perhaps. So

33:27

yeah, we can fully embrace, and maybe it

33:29

takes sort of lifetimes of heaven and hell

33:31

on earth to fully embrace

33:33

100% light

33:36

instead of darkness.

33:46

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33:48

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33:50

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33:52

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36:56

is something about looking in

36:58

the rearview mirror and trying to make

37:00

sense of one's life and

37:03

all the things that have happened along the way

37:05

to deliver you to this place. And

37:07

I think your book speaks to this idea

37:10

that when you do that rigorously, you will

37:12

see how people arrive right at the right

37:14

moment. Right at the right moment, right? To

37:17

create these formative experiences for your growth

37:19

and benefit. And

37:21

within that, you can't help but

37:23

see a spirituality that God is

37:25

showing up for you. Sure.

37:29

And sometimes you can see that just

37:31

in meeting a person. And

37:34

I know people who are just spiritually involved, they

37:36

can look at your face and they can just tell

37:38

the person, like I've had

37:40

to make some certain choices in my life,

37:42

and I would consult with a guru or

37:44

a teacher, and they say, let

37:47

me see a picture of them. And

37:49

just through seeing a person's face, they can see

37:51

the karma of a person. That

37:53

may sound otherworldly or not,

37:56

but I've seen that happen. through

38:00

good astrologers that I've had that

38:03

study, you know, geoteach, you know,

38:05

Vedic astrology, where they say, yep,

38:07

this person, no matter what you give them in

38:10

this lifetime, they can only

38:12

get this far. They're going to have to go

38:14

around a couple more times. Yeah. And then certain

38:16

people are very, they have, you know, some, you

38:18

know, moksha yoga in their chart where they're so

38:20

accessible to this as well. That doesn't mean you

38:22

should stop extending your

38:24

hand because life is

38:27

eternal. It just, it doesn't

38:29

end. I was listening to your Tommy ribs podcast and

38:31

he was sharing a lot of that stuff

38:33

as well. Yeah. It just keeps

38:36

going. We don't go away. And we,

38:38

we, we choose right

38:40

in this moment, am I going to

38:42

evolve today or devolve today? And

38:44

I'm going to choose it by what I

38:46

put in my mouth and when I put

38:49

in my ears and when I put in

38:51

my eyes and how I behave and how

38:53

I treat other people and how I treat

38:55

myself, it's not like I joined a religion.

38:57

Now I'm saved. It's not that black and

38:59

white, according to Vedic teachings, it's a moment

39:01

to moment choice of light over

39:03

darkness, truth over illusion,

39:06

you know, however you want to

39:08

word it. To

39:10

bring it back to the thing that

39:13

I wanted to raise with you, which

39:15

is what Moby reflected in the forward

39:17

was this idea that so

39:20

many people from that scene that you

39:22

two were both part of like ended

39:24

up like going into the world like

39:26

tall, like they become professionals, whatever, but

39:29

life instead made you dig

39:32

even deeper. Like you decided not

39:34

to go that route. You become

39:36

more disciplined and more invested in

39:38

those formative principles that were at

39:40

the core of that scene

39:42

all the way back when you were a

39:44

kid. Sure. Yeah. And I don't know why. You

39:46

know, you don't know why

39:49

sometimes you get, I

39:51

meet people like who listen to our

39:53

podcast and just be like, you know,

39:55

I'm 55 years old and

39:57

I need to live a different

39:59

life now. I've worked a corporate life

40:01

and now I want a spiritual life. You

40:03

don't know when that thing is going to click. Sometimes

40:06

a midlife crisis is like, what am I doing with

40:08

my life? What am I doing here?

40:10

Okay, I have kids, I've raised a family. Now

40:14

what? We do this. I've checked

40:16

off the bucket list, I've been to Aruba,

40:18

I've been to Cancun. Now what? It's like

40:20

I want some substance. And sometimes you

40:22

get it at a young age and I've met people younger

40:25

than me who are just spiritually

40:27

focused at 11. I

40:30

can't believe it. And then for

40:32

me it was just like a loud calling like at 22. And

40:36

so I don't know why. It's some

40:38

karmic thing meets some

40:41

mercy. You meet someone who touches your heart

40:44

and then you realize, oh,

40:46

that's an option. I

40:49

can be like that. I thought this was

40:51

normal. There's a higher version of normal. But

40:54

I think the biggest catalyst for

40:56

change in anybody is

40:58

to associate with people who have

41:01

a high caliber of what normal

41:03

is, a refined, high vibe. This

41:05

is normal. And then by getting

41:08

around people, and that's why I think pilgrimage is so important

41:10

because you search out people like

41:12

that who live this type

41:15

of life and you're like, wow, that

41:17

is an option. I could add some of

41:19

that to my life. And I think

41:21

there is something innate in the living

41:23

entity, in the living being that

41:25

is always sort of tapping us on the

41:28

shoulder. Hey, it's time to upgrade. Just so

41:30

you get that thing that drops down on

41:32

your computer. Time to download the new operating system

41:34

and you're sort of like, remind me later. Never

41:37

see this message again. It's never at a

41:39

convenient time. And upgrading is never

41:42

at a convenient time. How to upgrade my life is

41:44

never at a convenient time. But

41:47

you got to do it or you hit that. Never

41:49

see this message again. And then you

41:52

just figure it out in your next life or your

41:54

next life and your next life. And

41:57

for people who think, well, next

41:59

life. life? What the hell are you

42:01

talking about? Guess what? We've had next lives

42:04

within this life. I can look

42:06

back 20 years ago, I was in

42:08

a different house, a different part of

42:10

the country, had a different career, different

42:12

circle of friends, a different partner. I've

42:16

had many next lives, past

42:18

lives in this life. So

42:20

if people can't believe,

42:22

and I get it, all

42:24

I see is this life. If you can't

42:26

believe in some afterlife or some previous life,

42:29

think about the many lives we've had

42:31

in this life. Think about the many

42:34

incarnations we've had, both

42:36

physically. I remember

42:39

when I was a raw foodist, I was like a

42:41

buck 50 and wet with a

42:43

crystal in my pocket, or I had a different body

42:45

when I was doing jiu-jitsu every day. I've

42:48

had different physical frames within this

42:50

life. With that physical

42:52

frame comes a different type of mind

42:55

or different type of intelligence. I've reincarnated,

42:57

so to speak, that mind. Think

42:59

about your 17-year-old intelligence, your 17-year-old

43:02

ego, your 17-year-old mind.

43:05

It was a completely different mind.

43:07

Everything and that physical and that

43:09

subtle physical is constantly in flux.

43:12

I'm just witnessing and choosing. It's

43:16

in the refinement of my

43:18

choices that I create my next body,

43:21

meaning even tomorrow, what my body is

43:23

tomorrow. What is

43:25

bhakti yoga? When you talk

43:28

about yoga in the West,

43:30

we think it conjures up

43:32

a certain image, a very

43:34

lululemon-oriented lifestyle. Maybe share

43:36

a little bit about the

43:38

origins of yoga, how we

43:41

should think about it, and what is

43:44

specific or particular about this

43:46

bhakti yoga strain of

43:48

yoga consciousness. In

43:51

Vedic culture, Vedic

43:53

culture is a way of settling the mind so

43:55

we can focus on our spiritual self and

43:59

ultimately soar. within

44:02

Bhakti. Bhakti is a way of the

44:05

spirit soul connecting with source.

44:07

Who would you say a sorcerer? That's

44:09

what a sorcerer is, isn't it? Spirit soul

44:11

connecting with source and there's

44:13

a process to doing it and when

44:16

we think of yoga we think about physical practice

44:18

and it's important to take care of your body

44:20

but if I'm taking care of my body merely

44:24

to like endorse my ego which is the reason why

44:26

a lot of people go to the gym. There's a

44:28

line between I'm taking care of my body because I

44:30

don't want to be a couch potato.

44:33

You get a certain type of good feeling

44:35

of showing up on a regular basis to

44:37

you know exercise or

44:39

to breathe or going to the sauna but there can

44:41

be a certain point where

44:43

you're doing this to cement

44:45

yourself tighter to the

44:47

body. So in a spiritual

44:50

paradigm the body is

44:52

a gift. It's not you,

44:54

it's a gift that you have and if you were to

44:56

lend me your bicycle and I gave

44:58

it back to you trashed I wouldn't be a

45:00

good friend. So our body should be

45:02

taken care of but within the

45:04

yoga system the emphasis

45:07

for the teacher should be always encouraging

45:09

you to see yourself underneath the body

45:11

and the mind and

45:13

in Bhakti we use certain practices

45:15

to reconnect to source and to

45:18

see myself as a

45:20

spiritual being and the kind of

45:22

practices we use are mantra meditation,

45:24

japa which is Indian rosary where

45:27

you're chanting divine sound, ritual

45:30

which can be worship of spiritual

45:33

forms of deity. It's

45:35

through kirtam, through singing which

45:37

is basically your singing and

45:40

calling divinity into your life and

45:43

even dancing and

45:45

it's interesting because things like

45:47

singing and dancing it's like

45:50

you can't figure them out like you can't

45:52

try to like put that under some type

45:55

it bring it into the lab and try

45:57

to figure out what is but there's something

45:59

transformative. about singing and dancing

46:02

that when we do

46:04

kirtan, which is call

46:07

and response chanting of sacred

46:09

sounds or sonic meditation,

46:13

you can see a transformation happen in

46:15

people. And people will share their experience.

46:17

They'll, I don't know what

46:20

happened, but I just started crying. And

46:22

it has a, I call it a scrubbing

46:25

bubbles effect. Remember that commercial for scrubbing bubbles?

46:27

And you can just spray it on and

46:29

it cleans your bathtub. But the scrubbing bubbles

46:31

on the consciousness, they say. The

46:34

idea is it's a pure soul theology

46:36

that you're not born simple. You're

46:38

not born broken

46:41

or dented. You're actually pure. But

46:44

for lifetimes of

46:46

bad choices, that's

46:49

the sun of the soul gets

46:51

covered in the same way a

46:53

window of your old barn gets covered

46:55

by dirt and dust and

46:58

grime. So the munchers have a scrubbing

47:00

effect on the consciousness, scrubbing

47:02

effect on the heart, scrubbing effect

47:04

on the mind, not to recreate

47:07

you, but to uncover you.

47:10

So more than like preaching

47:12

a religion, this

47:14

is something you could do in the privacy of your own

47:16

home. You know, like religion, I get that, makes sense. So

47:19

religion takes people sometimes in crazy

47:21

ways. In the privacy of your

47:23

home, you can sit, we

47:26

use Hare Krishna Maha mantra, or Maha means

47:28

like a great, like a Mahatma Maha mantra,

47:31

where you chant on mala's or beads, and

47:34

you chant as if you're

47:36

calling divinity into your life. The sounds

47:38

have effect. And that's a huge part

47:41

of all spiritual culture,

47:43

especially from the East. The sounds

47:45

we hear have the greatest

47:48

effect of transformation. I

47:50

think it's safe to say you can analyze that.

47:53

You can hear, there

47:55

can be sounds. We can listen

47:57

to YouTube or CNN or Fox.

48:00

that makes us like angry. After

48:02

you turn off that, I'm angry now at the world.

48:05

I'm angry at this enemy. Then there's sounds

48:09

that sort of uplift us. I

48:12

always like to start like an interview and

48:15

this isn't like forced or manipulative.

48:17

This is genuine. I meditate on

48:19

appreciating the person that I'm with.

48:22

And so sounds of appreciation,

48:25

of glorification of another person. That's something we

48:27

don't learn in high school. In high school,

48:29

I learned how to take everybody down, cut

48:31

people down, cut them down to size, make

48:34

myself look better. But there's spiritual

48:36

sounds where you start to appreciate

48:38

another person, appreciate your parents. If

48:40

you walk through that world of

48:42

gratitude, of appreciating, of not complaining,

48:45

that changes your landscape. So

48:48

there's positive and negative sounds and then

48:50

there's actually transcendental sounds. And

48:52

the entire Vedic system deals with a refined

48:56

sound. Actually,

49:00

in Bhakti Yoga, we use this one to

49:03

actually transcend the body. These mantras to transcend

49:05

the body and to connect with source. The

49:08

very basic ones I said were like

49:10

negative sounds, like gossip, positive sounds, appreciation.

49:13

But the whole Vedic culture uses

49:15

all these other interesting sounds. There's

49:17

mantras you can chant for abundance,

49:19

mantras you can chant for progeny.

49:23

I was taking a handful of students to this one

49:25

temple where I knew one of

49:27

the priests and he was a young

49:30

man from this seminal succession of priests. And

49:33

he said, Raghunath, if any of your ladies wanna

49:36

get pregnant, my older brother can help.

49:39

And I was just laughing to myself, all

49:41

the women were like, what? But

49:44

the idea was that, yeah, they

49:46

just know mantras and yajas to

49:48

perform. That if you have a problem, sometime

49:51

women have a hard time having a

49:53

baby, there's different movements. We can help

49:55

with that. It's fascinating that over many

49:57

centuries, this culture has changed. figured

50:00

out certain sounds that have

50:02

a variety of impacts on

50:05

the human vessel's ability to connect

50:07

with the divine and how they

50:09

determined that. And not just the

50:11

divine, that wasn't a divine, that

50:13

was reaching out to higher beings,

50:15

to the devas, to, you know,

50:17

just for some material benefit,

50:19

like having a child, like having a

50:22

child. And that's a whole other fact

50:24

that of Indian understanding

50:26

of devas and devis or

50:28

higher beings for giving

50:31

you material prosperity. In bhakti, we're

50:33

not asking for stuff. You

50:36

know, we don't pray to Vishnu or to Krishna

50:38

for what we want. We

50:41

pray for, give me what we need,

50:43

which is a very scary prayer sometimes.

50:45

Give me what I need, because sometimes

50:48

what I need is not what I want.

50:51

Sometimes I have to pray, help free

50:53

me for my desires.

50:58

My desires can cause me lots of

51:00

trouble. Sure. But yoga fundamentally

51:02

means to yoke, right?

51:04

It is this idea of how

51:06

do we take this human form

51:08

and connect it with something transcendent.

51:12

And these practices and all these

51:15

different traditions, the bhakti tradition that

51:17

you just shared are really about

51:19

preparing the body or orienting the

51:21

body into a state in

51:23

which it becomes more receptive

51:25

to that. Sure. And it creates a

51:28

new mind. That's what's happening.

51:30

The gross things that we do initially,

51:32

okay, you know what, I'm

51:35

getting, this is what I tell my kids, there

51:37

is no good that can come from

51:39

alcohol. There's no good. There's

51:42

no good. I have certain ones that I

51:44

say on a regular basis, like my mom used to say things

51:46

to me on a regular basis. And thank

51:48

God she did because they stuck with me. Like

51:51

never take drugs. That

51:53

was my old broken mother just like putting

51:55

that in my ear thousands of times. Usually

51:58

that ends up creating the opposite. it

52:00

affects. Sometimes it

52:03

does. I always say

52:05

no good is going to come from alcohol. Your highest

52:08

self is not going to come from that. You don't need it.

52:10

And if you say, well, no, it doesn't affect me. Hey, you

52:13

should see what you're going to be like without it.

52:15

You can be able to do much more. And some

52:17

people say, well, it's not a big deal. I just

52:19

have a glass of wine with dinner. And some people,

52:21

a glass of wine with dinner doesn't hurt them. But

52:25

it might hurt a person that looks up to you

52:28

that can't have one glass of wine.

52:30

Because some people can't have one glass

52:32

of wine. They need seven glasses of

52:34

wine with their dinner. They can't be

52:36

normal in the world. They have

52:38

to be extreme because that's somehow I'm

52:41

wired to be a little extreme myself. Just

52:44

the idea of, you know, yoking

52:46

the body, connecting the human

52:49

vessel to something more divine

52:52

and self transcendent. What I was saying earlier,

52:54

what we do on a regular basis creates

52:56

us and our morning rituals.

52:59

And I'm sure you have a whole set of

53:01

morning rituals, but our morning rituals creates us as

53:03

well. And in Bhakti, there's a

53:05

real emphasis on morning rituals. And

53:08

they're slightly different towards the person. And

53:11

then if you start getting a taste for them, because like

53:13

some people like say, okay, I got to run every day.

53:15

You're like, what the hell? I can't run. I'm going to

53:17

wake up and run. But after a

53:19

while you get it's like a taste for it. Like now

53:21

I want to run. I'm eager to do it. So

53:24

in Bhakti, there's morning rituals. And

53:27

when you get a taste for doing it for five minutes for

53:29

10 minutes for 15 minutes, or sit

53:31

there for two hours of, you know, concentrated

53:33

focused meditation, when you get a taste for

53:36

it, then it starts to bleed into your

53:38

evening rituals, then you want evening rituals, you

53:40

don't want to wind down. You know, my

53:42

father used to wind down, you know,

53:45

with hard liquor. You know,

53:47

he had seven kids. He was

53:50

a school teacher. And that's how we would wind down

53:52

sit in the dark and just drink alcohol.

53:55

God bless him. Yeah. And God

53:57

bless my father. He's a great

53:59

guy, actually. But we

54:01

want to take those morning rituals and we want to add

54:04

an evening ritual as well. And then

54:06

what's happened is you sandwiched in your day. And

54:09

then everything you've done in the morning and the

54:11

evening start to

54:14

happen in the course of your thoughts in the day.

54:17

And they affect how you're going to move throughout the

54:19

day. I think it's safe to say in my life

54:21

that if I start off with

54:23

the strong morning rituals, that's

54:26

changing the way I treat everybody,

54:28

treat myself, the words that come

54:30

out of my mouth. If I

54:32

start off bad for some reason or

54:34

another, it's affected me

54:36

all day long. So what is that morning ritual? The

54:38

good one or the bad one? The good one. Oh,

54:40

the good one for myself? Yeah. The

54:43

good one for myself. I'm showing you my abbreviated one

54:45

today. My abbreviated one was we

54:48

woke up from

54:50

traveling and we

54:52

basically got here, had an hour to take a break, and

54:54

then we went to dinner last night. But I wanted to

54:56

have some peace of mind. Now,

54:59

when I get back, I'm going to take a red eye

55:02

tonight and I'm going to play a show tomorrow night. So

55:05

I've got to be like, okay, I've got to take care

55:07

of this body because I can't work like I used to

55:09

work when I was even 38 or something

55:11

like that. So

55:14

this morning I just sat in a

55:16

focused place for 32 minutes

55:19

and just chanted on Joppa. Actually,

55:22

at first I sat in bed and prayed

55:25

to previous teachers,

55:28

teachers that I've never met but I've read their works.

55:31

And I prayed for them to give

55:34

me some type of intelligence to

55:36

sort of work through my body in the

55:38

same way they've changed me that I can

55:40

say something that can lift up

55:42

somebody else. So there was a, I'd

55:45

say about 20 minutes of that. And

55:48

Joppa are the prayer beads that you're- This

55:50

is like an Indian rosary, which is like

55:52

a refined type of just like focused, where

55:55

it's not just like you're clearing

55:57

the mind. You're actually inviting spiritual

55:59

sound. on inviting spiritual God

56:03

into your heart and to asking for

56:05

direction in the course of

56:07

the day. And then I

56:09

did a pranayama for 12 minutes.

56:13

And then I did as cold as a

56:15

California shower can be. So

56:19

it's sort of- And then I did like before that I

56:21

did 15 handstands. There you go. That

56:24

was my breath work, cold shower. This is

56:27

like very much an ancient version of a

56:29

very modern, you know, of the moment protocol.

56:31

All these guys, whether it's like Superman or

56:33

Joe Rogan or they're all talking about these

56:36

stuff that I learned in the ashram. We

56:38

take cold baths every morning, intermittent

56:40

fasting, the stuff we did in

56:43

the ashram. The thing is now

56:45

they're really into the science about it. And I

56:47

appreciate that, but I just sort of, I

56:49

don't know why, but I just had faith in

56:52

these yogis from ancient traditions. I

56:55

had an interest in metaphysics and

56:58

mystics and hermits and saints.

57:00

So I would read these books as an 18 year old about

57:03

the life of yogis and autobiography

57:05

of a yogi and Swami Rama

57:07

and Swami Prabhupada and their lifestyle

57:09

and their life. And I thought,

57:12

oh, I could do that. I could try that.

57:14

I could pump a little bit of that into my

57:16

life. But now, you know, here he

57:19

is 40 years later and these two things are

57:21

actually in the conversation because

57:23

I think truth is universal. I don't

57:25

think any religion or any country has

57:27

a monopoly on God or has a

57:30

monopoly on truth or has

57:32

a monopoly on wisdom. It's all there

57:34

and it will go back to this,

57:38

I'm not a body. I'm gonna sit

57:40

in this cold water. The yogis of ancient times

57:42

would sit in the Ganges in the winter when

57:44

it's freezing. Not

57:48

for the health benefits

57:50

or the inflammatory, gets rid of inflammation and

57:52

stuff like that. It does all that too,

57:54

just like your yoga practice. It

57:56

has a very positive effect on the body.

57:59

Would it really? does like sitting

58:01

in a cold plunge is you

58:03

start to understand I'm not

58:05

these sensations. I'm not

58:08

my mind. I can make this miserable

58:10

by going, it's so cold! I

58:13

can give meaning to the experience or

58:16

I can just notice a

58:18

sensation and that's

58:20

I can take outside of that experiment

58:22

into my world. Oh this is happening

58:24

to me. Oh my heart was

58:27

broken. Oh I got so much good

58:29

fortune here. Oh this person betrayed me

58:32

and I can just say this is happening

58:34

to me. What am I going

58:37

to add to this? Am I going to

58:39

add some meaning to this or do I

58:41

just see this these are things are just

58:43

coming and going. Yeah yeah yeah well there's

58:45

all these on-ramps to receptivity to all these

58:48

practices and currently science

58:50

and all the kind of studies

58:52

around sauna and cold plunge and

58:54

fasting and all of that connect

58:57

with a lot of people who

58:59

have no relationship to anything beyond

59:01

you know the kind of immediate

59:03

material world right but there isn't

59:05

a good thing. I don't want to.

59:07

It's fine. But I see them as like portals

59:10

of entry that set

59:12

people in motion on a path towards

59:14

the possibility of a higher state

59:16

of awareness and when you look at any

59:19

religious tradition they

59:22

all have these strains of you

59:24

know renunciant practices and

59:27

asceticism that are really

59:29

about getting outside your comfort

59:31

zone or interrupting the pattern of your

59:33

life so that you can be more

59:35

present and you can connect with something

59:38

bigger than yourself whether it's a cold plunge or

59:40

a fast or silent

59:43

meditation like these are all uncomfortable

59:45

practices right but they're all oriented

59:47

around developing a greater

59:50

spiritual receptivity. A greater spiritual

59:52

receptivity or just to separate

59:55

yourself from your you know

59:57

conditioning and your mind. I

59:59

mean Nothing separates you

1:00:01

more from the mind than choosing not to

1:00:03

eat for a week. Right. And

1:00:05

when your mind is saying, okay, it's time to eat, it's time

1:00:08

to eat, and then you're getting some sensation and then you realize,

1:00:10

I don't need to eat. I don't even

1:00:12

need to eat to feel like I'm in peak

1:00:14

performance right now. Have you

1:00:16

ever run on a fast? I have. Yeah.

1:00:19

Yeah. I mean, you realize you can do

1:00:21

much more than you think, which is empowering.

1:00:24

And also it connects

1:00:26

you with the power of discipline to

1:00:29

change your life. And you're somebody for

1:00:31

whom discipline goes way back, whether it's

1:00:33

the straight edge lifestyle as a kid,

1:00:36

or like martial arts and

1:00:38

jiu-jitsu. I mean, you were doing all

1:00:40

of that with Eddie Bravo and

1:00:43

Joe Rogan, like way, way back

1:00:45

in the day, and realizing like,

1:00:47

oh, this thing that you do that

1:00:49

requires that level of discipline and

1:00:51

focus plays out or translates

1:00:53

into the spiritual realm as well with

1:00:55

these morning rituals and the way that

1:00:57

you kind of approach your

1:01:00

daily life. So talk a little bit

1:01:02

about how discipline spills over into the

1:01:05

bhakti yoga lifestyle and how that

1:01:07

can be a vehicle for growth

1:01:10

and evolution. You

1:01:12

touched on jiu-jitsu, and I was thinking one of the

1:01:14

beautiful parts of jiu-jitsu

1:01:17

or just grappling on a

1:01:19

regular basis with people with all

1:01:21

different body sizes, you

1:01:23

know, I'm not that big. So sometimes a big

1:01:25

guy just laying on top and

1:01:28

he's sweating and stinking on top of you. You

1:01:31

don't fight out of rage. You

1:01:33

fight like, if you see like great

1:01:35

jiu-jitsu fighters, they're moving slow

1:01:38

and methodically. It's not something

1:01:41

when you think of these guys just raging

1:01:43

on each other, like road rage. It's actually,

1:01:45

it's like a mindfulness. It

1:01:47

can't describe it anyway. You're actually mindfully,

1:01:50

like a warrior would be training.

1:01:52

And that's a huge difference. Because

1:01:55

once you act out of rage

1:01:57

or out of, you know, in the yogic system,

1:01:59

they call it, Rajas or Rajaguna, it

1:02:01

means you're acting with like a

1:02:04

passion or of It's

1:02:06

not done with a clarity of intelligence.

1:02:08

Just done without intelligence behind it almost

1:02:10

the intelligence is locked up so

1:02:13

if you can do it in a very calm mind and

1:02:15

that's why a breathing practice or

1:02:17

a pranayama practice which I've had for a long time

1:02:19

is It gets

1:02:22

you in that place No Matter

1:02:25

where you are even in great terms of

1:02:27

stress even even in a physical fight If

1:02:29

you practice yoga on a regular basis every day

1:02:31

and you're practicing deep breathing while you're doing that

1:02:34

Follows you through the course of the day what we do

1:02:36

in those rituals It follows

1:02:38

you through the course of the day just saying

1:02:40

I saying early with our thoughts Your

1:02:43

question was the relationship between discipline

1:02:46

and spiritual growth. Yeah,

1:02:49

first of all, there's a feeling of any

1:02:52

type of discipline you get you feel a type of

1:02:56

integrity that comes with showing up on a

1:02:58

regular basis and Integrity

1:03:01

or lack of integrity affects the mind

1:03:04

You try to tell a kid to you know,

1:03:06

be a good kid and get out there and

1:03:08

don't be depressed Hey,

1:03:11

if you're not doing integrity driven

1:03:13

acts, mmm Of course, your

1:03:15

mind is gonna be sad. Of course, there's gonna

1:03:17

be self-loathing. We can't forget

1:03:19

the initial thing if you

1:03:21

want some self-worth you got to act in a worthy

1:03:23

way and this

1:03:25

is a problem with you know, raising teenagers

1:03:27

is Kids

1:03:30

get addicted to things and

1:03:32

get addicted to habits that aren't

1:03:34

worthy and therefore there's a lot

1:03:37

of self-loathing There's suicide in in teenagers

1:03:39

and adults. So integrity is

1:03:41

not the goal in our spiritual life, but integrity

1:03:43

is a Foundation and

1:03:46

so and it's hard because culture is

1:03:49

is luring you away from integrity

1:03:51

every minute It's like interest only

1:03:53

zero down, you know, how close

1:03:56

can we get to and I

1:03:58

guess one Christian and how

1:04:00

close can I get to sin without sinning?

1:04:02

You know what I mean? It's like we're

1:04:05

always getting tempted to the edge and

1:04:08

culture will do that to us and then

1:04:10

chastise us for crossing that line immediately for

1:04:13

crossing that line. But we've created a whole

1:04:15

culture that is trying to throw us off

1:04:17

the tracks. And so

1:04:19

it is extra difficult. And back to

1:04:21

that thing where if you associate with

1:04:24

people or a community, which

1:04:26

you have here, and which we're trying to

1:04:28

create with our podcast and our people, is

1:04:31

community that lifts us as well.

1:04:34

And the community emboldens

1:04:36

you when you're weak. And

1:04:39

then you lift them when one of their, they

1:04:42

use the analogy of a twig, easy to snap a

1:04:45

twig, hard to snap 50 twigs. So

1:04:49

we're weak, we're fallible, and

1:04:51

we want to be around people that lift us

1:04:53

higher. And I think that that's

1:04:55

an important premise in what we're doing. And

1:04:59

to recognize that

1:05:01

we are frail and we are weak and

1:05:03

we need positive uplifting people as

1:05:06

friends within our community.

1:05:09

And all this stuff, the integrity, the

1:05:11

community, that helps

1:05:13

us get to our next level of, okay, now

1:05:15

they're not gonna do the work for you. They're

1:05:18

just gonna be there as an environment. And

1:05:22

in that environment, then our own spiritual life

1:05:24

can grow. And that's sort of like a

1:05:26

one-on-one thing, God. I can give my kids

1:05:28

the facility, I can give them the appropriate

1:05:30

household, I can give them the

1:05:32

appropriate foods, and hey, you guys don't watch

1:05:34

that media, don't consume that stuff. But ultimately,

1:05:37

everyone's gonna fly their own plane. There's

1:05:40

no 12-step program or Catholic Church

1:05:42

or anything that's gonna save you. They're

1:05:45

just gonna provide an environment for you

1:05:47

or an ashram. I've seen people

1:05:49

come to an ashram and do all types of

1:05:51

nonsense, or live a duplicitous

1:05:53

life where they have a

1:05:56

public presentation and a private

1:05:58

life as well. And really, that

1:06:00

spiritual growth that comes from your you

1:06:03

just opting in to I'm

1:06:05

going to be my authentic self today. I

1:06:12

really believe we're here to evolve to

1:06:14

grow and that our purpose is to

1:06:16

unlock and unleash our best most actualized

1:06:19

versions of ourselves on the world. And

1:06:22

it is in this spirit that

1:06:25

I am super proud to announce

1:06:27

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1:06:29

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1:06:51

Amanda DeCadine. My hope is that

1:06:53

this network and all its offerings

1:06:56

will serve as a wellspring of

1:06:58

inspiration fueling your journey of growth

1:07:00

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1:07:03

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voicingchange.media. We're

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brought to you today by Brain F. Out. You

1:07:16

know that thing when you have a bunch of

1:07:18

intense work that you just have to do but

1:07:21

the mind doesn't really want to do it. You're

1:07:24

telling it, come on, focus. But

1:07:26

it keeps getting distracted or agitated

1:07:28

by nonsense and you go through

1:07:30

this painful sort of mini war

1:07:33

to rein it in, to settle

1:07:35

it down and just concentrate

1:07:37

on the whole. Wouldn't it be

1:07:39

great if there was something that would ease or eliminate

1:07:41

this process? I don't know, like something

1:07:44

you put in your brain through your ears?

1:07:46

That would be great. And

1:07:49

the good news is that it

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does exist. It's called Brain.fm, which

1:07:53

is this sonic platform

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that leverages science to

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create tunes specifically. specifically

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crafted to optimize brain performance

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for a specific task. Tunes

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that contain patterns that shift your

1:08:08

brain state with something even more

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effective than fineural beats called neural

1:08:12

entrainment so that you can more

1:08:14

easily focus on that thing or

1:08:17

lure you into the sleep that

1:08:19

persistently leads you. Personally,

1:08:21

I notice it the most when I sit down

1:08:23

to write. Typically this experience

1:08:25

floods me with anxiety and a

1:08:28

near lethal dose of the big

1:08:30

R resistance that Steven Pressfield talks

1:08:32

about but now I pop on

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the headphones, I dial

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up brain.fm, click

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the focus feature and the

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process becomes I mean look writing is

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still hard but now it

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and you can get it at brain.fm slash

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richroll. I bet you'll love it just

1:09:04

as much as I do. One

1:09:15

of the things that trips

1:09:18

me up or one of my weaknesses, I mean

1:09:20

I consider myself a pretty disciplined person but

1:09:23

all of the noticeable growth in

1:09:25

my life is really the result

1:09:27

of pain or being backed into

1:09:29

a corner in which you know, I had no other

1:09:31

choice and I'm in a situation right now probably

1:09:34

somewhat analogous to you

1:09:36

know how you're interfacing

1:09:39

with life where things are really good.

1:09:42

My kids are doing great. I've got this

1:09:44

thing here that's very fulfilling. It feels

1:09:46

meaningful. I know that other

1:09:48

people out in the world get meaning from

1:09:51

it and I

1:09:54

love it and I get up in the

1:09:56

morning excited to do it, but

1:09:58

on some level I'm

1:10:01

stuck. There's

1:10:03

no impetus to continue to grow. Fundamentally,

1:10:06

I know I'm here to grow, to evolve,

1:10:09

but it's very difficult to

1:10:12

do that when you're

1:10:14

not being pressured to do it. You were

1:10:16

talking about how the community can make you

1:10:18

stronger, it can hold you accountable as well,

1:10:21

or as a mirror to show you

1:10:24

where you still require

1:10:27

some level of evolution. And

1:10:29

this is like a conversation that I'm always in with

1:10:31

my wife, right? Who's a

1:10:33

much more spiritually committed person than I

1:10:35

am. I still have my ego rooted

1:10:38

in the material world in ways that

1:10:41

I'm working on, but I find my

1:10:43

ambition or my proclivity

1:10:48

to care too much about what random

1:10:52

people I've never met think about what I'm

1:10:54

doing influenced me in ways that

1:10:56

I really don't like. Yeah,

1:11:00

it's amazing how with

1:11:02

all the validation, we get one rogue

1:11:05

comment on a social media

1:11:07

like, oh, it hurts so

1:11:09

much. I've gotten better

1:11:12

at it, but yeah, it's a thing.

1:11:14

And so as much as

1:11:16

I can sit here and say, oh, this

1:11:18

podcast is an act of save and I'm

1:11:20

here, and there is that aspect

1:11:22

of it, but these things are not binary. I

1:11:26

can identify where my ego comes into play here in

1:11:28

ways that I know need some work

1:11:30

and some redress. So how

1:11:33

do you think about ego and ambition as

1:11:35

somebody who has lived the monk life,

1:11:37

but isn't a renunciant,

1:11:39

you're in the world and you're doing things

1:11:42

and creating experiences

1:11:44

for people and in some ways

1:11:46

very much straddled between these

1:11:48

two worlds. Yeah, first

1:11:50

of all, I wanna address your humility

1:11:55

or you just being genuine. When

1:11:58

you're in it, it's hard to notice it. But the

1:12:00

fact that you're showing up on a regular basis, it's

1:12:03

like the hands of a clock. It doesn't appear

1:12:05

like you're changing because it's just me doing

1:12:07

it again. But you're changing.

1:12:09

I bet if you look five years ago at

1:12:11

yourself, you're a whole different person today. And

1:12:15

I think the ego is also not an on-off

1:12:17

switch as well. I'm going to turn off my ego now

1:12:19

and I'm going to... But the

1:12:21

more of that external ego identifies

1:12:23

with the genuine self. There's a

1:12:25

real self that wants to serve

1:12:27

divinity and other living beings. Once

1:12:30

that's in line, that's the perfection

1:12:32

of the ego in this world. We're not going to

1:12:34

abolish the ego. We wouldn't exist. But

1:12:37

when the ego exists within serving God,

1:12:40

serving the divine, whatever you want to call your higher power,

1:12:42

or in serving humanity, and I'm going

1:12:45

to make it wider than humanity, all

1:12:47

living entities, then that's a beautiful place

1:12:49

to be. It

1:12:52

might appear like,

1:12:54

okay, you've got all this and

1:12:56

you've got everything's are going

1:12:59

well, etc. like that. That's okay. You

1:13:01

don't have to kill your family and

1:13:04

move to a cave to get

1:13:06

rid of your ego. That's not going to work. You

1:13:08

have to love. And you love

1:13:10

and you don't understand because

1:13:12

everything is going good. And I think for most

1:13:14

people, I don't think for you, most

1:13:16

people, good karma can ruin their life. Good

1:13:20

karma could make them think, yeah, the material world is a

1:13:22

great place. What's bad

1:13:24

with the material world? I'm getting all my desires

1:13:26

met. And it becomes a

1:13:28

stunt to their growth. It becomes a

1:13:31

stunt. And I generally, I always say,

1:13:34

give it time. Reversals

1:13:36

happen. Sure. These things are

1:13:38

all very impermanent. I think you do

1:13:40

this too. You cultivate exactly what you

1:13:42

just said. These things are impermanent. And

1:13:45

so when the reversal happens, which

1:13:47

it inevitably does. You're

1:13:50

a little bit more prepared

1:13:53

and it becomes more of a lesson

1:13:55

and less of a bitterness in

1:13:57

the same way we use that example. He's

1:14:00

not cutting down my garden. He's not cutting down your

1:14:02

garden. He's enhancing the growth right

1:14:04

now. I had the

1:14:06

beautiful opportunity. One

1:14:08

of my students, who

1:14:10

I was very close to and lived locally,

1:14:13

got cancer and wasn't sure.

1:14:18

And he didn't get through it,

1:14:20

so to speak, physically, but

1:14:23

spiritually it got through it. And I had the

1:14:25

ability to witness him slowly

1:14:27

letting go of his attachments

1:14:30

and he was just attached to God. I

1:14:32

grew through so much of his

1:14:35

experience. I had to be his sort

1:14:38

of life coach, death coach, eternality

1:14:40

coach. And I never thought I could do

1:14:42

such a thing. I was always a little

1:14:44

freaked out about what happens about friend-eyes. And he was a

1:14:46

young man, married with kids, and

1:14:49

good looking. And when I would go

1:14:51

away, he would assist. He

1:14:53

would sub my classes for me as a yoga

1:14:55

teacher and got everything

1:14:58

right, so to speak. And to

1:15:00

be with him and to

1:15:02

watch him grow through

1:15:05

that process was so beautiful to

1:15:07

witness that it

1:15:10

inspired faith in me. That

1:15:12

things do reverse sometimes on a

1:15:14

dime. And what we're

1:15:16

doing on a regular basis is preparing

1:15:18

us for that. And we

1:15:20

understand that actually there is no loss. There

1:15:23

is no loss. There's just gain. Your

1:15:27

loss or that bitterness or that

1:15:29

why me-ness or that victimhood, that's

1:15:32

gonna plague everybody in this universe. Everybody

1:15:34

gets that. Once you sign up for

1:15:37

a material body, you're gonna get that.

1:15:39

Are you gonna run with that? Are

1:15:42

you gonna relinquish that and see my

1:15:44

life as blessed? And those who have opted in

1:15:46

to see my life as blessed, they

1:15:49

live a blessed life because they're seeing those blessings

1:15:51

happen at any moment. And those are the people

1:15:53

I want in my life. Have

1:15:55

you seen people go from being

1:15:58

victim? mindset

1:16:00

oriented to having that

1:16:02

sense of being blessed in the way that

1:16:04

you just described. Like, can you make that

1:16:07

leap? Are some

1:16:09

people just wired to be pessimistic and, you

1:16:12

know, woe is me and bad things happen to

1:16:15

me and it's never going to

1:16:17

change to that place

1:16:19

of gratitude and understanding. I

1:16:22

think we are wired certain ways with

1:16:25

good attitudes and bad attitudes. And

1:16:28

by inviting people into our lives,

1:16:33

just like people every time they turn on the Rich Roll

1:16:35

podcast, they're inviting you into their life. They're inviting your guests

1:16:38

into their life. So by inviting

1:16:40

people into our lives, it

1:16:42

sort of opens maybe a different door that was

1:16:44

bolted shut. So I think it's

1:16:47

important to be like really, really careful who

1:16:49

we invite into our life, because some people

1:16:51

are like creating real problems in

1:16:53

our life. And we're inviting them randomly

1:16:55

by whatever I tune into my podcast

1:16:57

or my radio. And we're inviting that

1:16:59

into our life. We're inviting lyrics of

1:17:01

songs into our life. We're inviting media

1:17:03

or movies and attitudes that go with

1:17:05

those movies, you know, the characters,

1:17:07

the archetypes of these movies. And like, I

1:17:10

like that guy. That guy's cool and tough.

1:17:12

I want to be like that guy. We're

1:17:15

inviting that into our life. And so as

1:17:18

we refine ourselves in our

1:17:20

spiritual practice, we're very refined, just like

1:17:22

people are refined with, you know, checking

1:17:24

ingredients. Does this have gluten? Does this

1:17:26

have refined sugar, high fructose corn

1:17:29

syrup? You get very refined about like,

1:17:32

what am I putting in my ears today? What am I putting

1:17:34

my mind today? What am I putting my thoughts today? And

1:17:36

I have seen people who've done

1:17:38

a little, they've taken a little in and

1:17:40

it's changed them. And in this

1:17:43

particular case, this friend, student

1:17:45

of mine who, who

1:17:47

left his body, he fought it. And

1:17:50

when I say fought, I mean, had some bitterness,

1:17:53

but every time I'd see

1:17:55

him, he'd go with, he'd

1:17:57

be in a good spirits and we'd sing together. It

1:18:00

was part of our practice. We'd sing together and

1:18:02

we'd read together. And there was

1:18:04

one time I came in and he was broken. And

1:18:08

he just started crying to me.

1:18:10

And he said, Raghunath,

1:18:18

why would God do this to me? I've

1:18:20

got two little girls. And

1:18:25

Raghunath, the guy who has the answer for

1:18:28

everything, I

1:18:30

just said, let's read.

1:18:33

And maybe we'll get an answer. Ever do

1:18:35

one of those things? Let's read. And the

1:18:37

answer is there. And this

1:18:39

is the beauty of Bhakti, actually. It's

1:18:42

not just us

1:18:45

reaching up. It's

1:18:48

also energy reaching towards

1:18:51

you. It's not like we're just

1:18:53

desperate, reaching, hey, God help me. It's a

1:18:55

higher power, a source, reaching out to you,

1:18:58

embracing you. So this is what we read.

1:19:01

We opened up. It was the

1:19:03

purport of this book, the Srimad Bhagavatam. It

1:19:06

said, for a person practicing Bhakti,

1:19:09

there is no bad karma. Because that's

1:19:11

what he first said, why is my karma so bad?

1:19:13

This has happened to me. He said,

1:19:15

for a person practicing Bhakti, there is no bad karma.

1:19:18

But if it's seen that

1:19:20

there is some reversal in their life,

1:19:23

you can't get more of a reversal than you get

1:19:25

cancer and you're going to lose everything that you've worked

1:19:27

for. If they were seen there's

1:19:30

some reversal in their life, that

1:19:32

is Lord Krishna accelerating

1:19:35

their spiritual practice. And

1:19:38

I witnessed this guy accelerate his spirit. I

1:19:40

go, and we looked at each other like,

1:19:42

wow, this isn't

1:19:44

bad karma. See, in a

1:19:46

material concept, we look at our astrological chart. This

1:19:48

is good. Oh, I have a malefic planet here.

1:19:51

Like right now, I'm going into like the Saturn period,

1:19:54

but it's a strong Saturn. So you know, you

1:19:56

can wear a particular gem and you can counter

1:19:58

out a malefic planet. This is a

1:20:00

whole weird, it's your

1:20:03

human compulsion to make judgment

1:20:05

calls and

1:20:07

value statements about things that happen.

1:20:09

Like things happen, they are neither

1:20:11

good nor bad until we decide they

1:20:14

are so, right? And we create a

1:20:16

narrative around that and to like liberate

1:20:18

yourself from even making that judgment

1:20:20

call and the relief of being

1:20:23

delivered this message right at the right time when

1:20:25

it was needed most that like, this is an

1:20:28

acceleration of your growth. Whenever there's

1:20:30

comfort in that obviously. And

1:20:32

it is that thing, and I've noticed it many

1:20:34

times in my life and

1:20:37

with so many of the people that I

1:20:39

know in the recovery community, it's that idea

1:20:41

that like the higher power is always there.

1:20:44

The more receptive you are to it, the more

1:20:46

open you are to it, you

1:20:49

will begin to notice it showing up in your

1:20:51

life in the ways that are

1:20:53

needed to accelerate that growth in

1:20:55

that evolution, but it's a subtle

1:20:58

attention. It's a subtle, like sometimes

1:21:00

it's a whisper. Yeah. When

1:21:03

the mind is still- You don't get clobbered if you

1:21:05

keep ignoring it at some point, right? Sure. Yeah,

1:21:07

it's a whisper, sometimes it's allowed. Sometimes it's not

1:21:09

a whisper. Sometimes it's real loud, like no more

1:21:11

of this, no more of this.

1:21:14

Like the universe just says, this part of your life

1:21:16

is over. If you don't see

1:21:18

that as God's hands, the universe

1:21:20

is hand. I keep saying the

1:21:22

universe, but there was a G word at

1:21:24

one time, I couldn't say the word God. I think

1:21:26

people are just shifting a lot. Well, it's an interesting

1:21:28

time. Like we are in this, we

1:21:30

live in a secular, Western,

1:21:33

Democratic Republic, where

1:21:35

religious and spiritual institutions for the

1:21:37

most part are on the wane

1:21:40

due to the higher priority that

1:21:42

we have given higher

1:21:44

institutions of learning and

1:21:47

science as a vehicle for

1:21:49

all knowledge. The path

1:21:51

to total understanding is through science. Like

1:21:53

that is sort of the

1:21:56

kind of primary operating agreement

1:21:59

or, you know. operating system

1:22:01

of our culture. Meanwhile,

1:22:03

so many people have had negative

1:22:06

bad experiences with religious institutions and

1:22:08

spiritual traditions due to

1:22:10

the fallibility of human beings and what

1:22:13

happens when we organize around ideas and

1:22:15

create institutions. And so we're

1:22:17

bereft of spiritual connection. And you come

1:22:20

along as somebody who has a powerful

1:22:22

voice because of your musical background, you're

1:22:24

able to connect with people in

1:22:27

a way that other leaders of

1:22:29

spiritual traditions perhaps are

1:22:31

less capable. With that comes

1:22:33

a responsibility. But it's also

1:22:35

interesting because it comes in this package of

1:22:38

Krishna consciousness, right? And I know as a

1:22:40

kid, what it was like when I saw

1:22:42

the Hare Krishna's at the airport or congregating

1:22:44

in the park with the weird tufts of

1:22:46

hair and the things and banging that, you

1:22:48

know, and you're like, I

1:22:50

don't know what to make of that, but like there wasn't anything

1:22:52

inside of me that was like, I wanna go hang out with

1:22:54

them. I wanna belong to that. I was like, did

1:22:57

they let them out of the mental

1:22:59

institution? What is going on, right? What

1:23:01

about the street? Yeah, so as

1:23:03

a messenger, as this vehicle

1:23:06

for spiritual awareness and

1:23:09

this also awareness that you have of this

1:23:11

position that you hold amidst

1:23:14

a culture that prioritizes things

1:23:16

that are orthogonal to spiritual growth,

1:23:18

like how do you connect with

1:23:20

people for whom the idea

1:23:23

of anything spiritual is met with

1:23:26

a sort of cringe worthy repulsion.

1:23:30

You must write a lot because when

1:23:33

you speak, it's like you're reading from a

1:23:35

book. You're buying time to answer the question.

1:23:37

That's what you're doing. I

1:23:41

find that there is a desire

1:23:43

for spirituality in this like secular

1:23:46

world. And people do get to this point

1:23:48

where they realize there is

1:23:50

a limit of science and there's things

1:23:53

that we can't know and people have

1:23:55

had experiences that are like,

1:23:57

this is beyond rational. Yet

1:23:59

I've had this. experience. And

1:24:01

I think it's also important

1:24:04

to conclude

1:24:07

that just

1:24:09

because we've been dealt counterfeit

1:24:13

bills and

1:24:15

every time we mess around with them we get in

1:24:17

trouble. The cops comment this is not a real hundred

1:24:20

dollar bill. I've been dealt counterfeits

1:24:22

and I've been prosecuted every time I've

1:24:24

used count- just because I've been dealt

1:24:26

counterfeit hundred dollar bills doesn't mean there's

1:24:28

not a real hundred dollar bill. Just

1:24:30

because I've heard there's corruption

1:24:32

here and this priest did that and that guy's

1:24:34

a pedophile and this was a this

1:24:36

guy was misled and this guy started a cult and

1:24:39

this guy was not sincere.

1:24:41

That doesn't mean there's not

1:24:43

a genuine spirituality just

1:24:46

because either people have done it wrong

1:24:48

or people have been duplicitous or

1:24:50

an organization was

1:24:53

tweaked or broken.

1:24:55

That doesn't mean there's not a

1:24:59

genuine spiritual truth. That's living.

1:25:02

That's living and alive and affecting both

1:25:04

you and I right now. Again,

1:25:06

no ashram, no church,

1:25:08

no synagogue, no mosque owns it.

1:25:12

You know spiritual truth is for

1:25:14

all people of all times it stands the

1:25:16

test of time and it's sort of the

1:25:18

gold standard of like how we want to

1:25:21

move in this world and even if

1:25:23

everything was like wiped out somehow there

1:25:25

would still be light there that people

1:25:27

would magnetically move towards like a true

1:25:29

north. You know I've had to meet

1:25:31

with it in different circles. In

1:25:33

the yoga community it was pretty easy. You want

1:25:36

to learn yoga? I'm gonna teach you the whole

1:25:38

thing of yoga here. You came to my workshop

1:25:40

this is the origin of the yoga system. In

1:25:42

a punk scene it was a little bit more

1:25:44

difficult because you're dealing with you know atheists and

1:25:46

how dare you bring God to the punk scene.

1:25:48

This is a scene where we do it you

1:25:50

know there are no rules and then I just

1:25:52

have to say well if there are no rules

1:25:54

then I can do whatever I want. Some

1:25:57

people will say that music was founded

1:26:00

It's a glorification of higher powers,

1:26:02

so I'm just putting got back

1:26:04

into music Words you've artificially taken

1:26:07

spirituality out of music and made

1:26:09

it's political or complaining and sensor

1:26:11

And that was my argument with

1:26:14

The Point Community when my my

1:26:16

second bands shelter started. When we're

1:26:19

all monks. As like

1:26:21

if it's a half, there are no

1:26:23

rules. That's your monster That there are

1:26:25

no rules. Well okay than welcome for

1:26:27

embrace Me. And if there are gonna

1:26:29

be some rewriting of some of those

1:26:31

roles, You're. One of the oh

1:26:34

geez, why shouldn't you have a little

1:26:36

bit of are you know Latitude Suicides

1:26:38

moves. I landed him in London and

1:26:40

a guy who went to a couple

1:26:42

shows and as lots of opinions a

1:26:44

abuse at argument still have a you

1:26:46

know what I can do whatever I

1:26:48

want. I grew up in the music

1:26:50

you were listening to so if he

1:26:52

does anybody can it ever was Gonna

1:26:54

say the rules are yeah but I

1:26:56

love that idea of God or the

1:26:58

Divine being the origin story of music

1:27:00

itself right? Yet wasn't music crafted in

1:27:02

the beginning? To connect us to

1:27:04

something bigger And there is

1:27:06

that's magical unknown that happens

1:27:08

when you hear music that

1:27:10

brings us together and allows

1:27:12

us to have some kind

1:27:15

of transcendent experience. Yes, and

1:27:17

being a quote performer so

1:27:19

to speak in a band.

1:27:22

I. Have this great experience Anything emissions my

1:27:24

book but to share and again because

1:27:26

was. It. Was a powerful ever

1:27:29

have someone say one things He and

1:27:31

his changes everything in your life Selma

1:27:33

one when I first would go visit

1:27:35

an Os from. There. Was

1:27:37

one mentor of mine. We have very

1:27:39

spiritual conversations every morning and go to

1:27:41

the Us from seven am and in

1:27:43

the mornings singing and then we have

1:27:45

breakfast together and it was just it's

1:27:47

I wish I had all these questions

1:27:49

and answers recorded because it was was

1:27:51

a real spirits or dialectic back and

1:27:53

forth every day and then one day

1:27:55

he asked me a question. What?

1:27:58

Kind of bit hard as you qatar. I.

1:28:02

Thought well as a first time ever. ask

1:28:04

me like a regular question. Op

1:28:07

not materialize and I said will. He.

1:28:09

Plays a Gibson Les Paul a while

1:28:11

you ask he said so. I just

1:28:13

curious because I used to play the

1:28:15

guitar but I don't anymore Because it's

1:28:17

it's Maya meeting. It's like illusion. I

1:28:19

said wait a second when you mean

1:28:21

it's Maya. You always told me that.

1:28:24

You don't give up what you do. You take what

1:28:26

you do and use it in the spirits away. He

1:28:29

said but for me it was guitar was

1:28:31

Maya and I said wait a second x

1:28:34

he this he told me and I have

1:28:36

read in the bhagavad gita that we don't

1:28:38

like Arjuna doesn't give up his who is

1:28:40

fighting t just in service. He don't give

1:28:42

up what you do. That's the whole essence

1:28:45

of the bhagavad gita here. He.

1:28:47

Said yes. but for me the guitar was Maya

1:28:49

and I I wouldn't let him off the

1:28:51

hook on this. And he

1:28:53

said okay. Next time you're on

1:28:55

stage, see if you're doing This does

1:28:58

serve God. Or.

1:29:00

To be God. Of. Because I

1:29:02

argued well you told me I should do music

1:29:04

as a service. As we say I see if

1:29:06

you do to deserve gotta be got an immediate

1:29:09

I was a was like was one of those

1:29:11

some. Was

1:29:13

that movie a Six cents is. With

1:29:16

everything like I see dead people for

1:29:18

such I ask everything changes that the

1:29:20

and move on. everyone's industry has been

1:29:22

dead at all times of like oh

1:29:24

my god my whole life. I've.

1:29:26

Just tried to be God. Whether

1:29:28

it's performance, weather's of friendship, whether it's

1:29:30

s you know, released without a woman

1:29:32

with I've just tried to use whatever

1:29:35

I got to manipulate the universe to

1:29:37

worship me. It was like my first

1:29:39

step out of my ego and I

1:29:41

was like. That statement changed

1:29:43

everything. my life. Am I doing this

1:29:46

to serve? gonna be God And it

1:29:48

was an ongoing seem? In.

1:29:50

My life Because once you see

1:29:52

yourself as part of something bigger.

1:29:56

And. Not trying to. Have

1:29:59

used the center. Yeah. You'll

1:30:01

lose a manipulative edge. You don't wanna

1:30:03

be a manipulator. You want to be

1:30:05

a person that extends your hand, extends

1:30:07

your love the people. And I could

1:30:09

still be onstage doing what I do

1:30:11

but in a whole different frame of

1:30:13

mind. I could still be to relationship

1:30:15

with the person I guess to raise

1:30:17

kids. I can do all the things

1:30:19

I've always done but in this in

1:30:21

a different way and I tell you

1:30:23

that different mindset changes. Everything.

1:30:26

It's. All in your relationship

1:30:28

to it. The Gibson

1:30:30

is Maya or tool

1:30:32

depending upon. What's. Going

1:30:34

on in your soul rights and it's

1:30:36

not an on off switch. The same

1:30:39

can be said for this microphone sitting

1:30:41

in front of me some days on

1:30:43

catch myself too much in my ego

1:30:45

or. Looking at all that.

1:30:47

The metrics and thinking of plotting

1:30:49

and thinking about how I'm going

1:30:52

to do this or that. But

1:30:54

fundamentally. I. Always

1:30:56

have to return to. This is an active

1:30:58

service Like how can I be of service

1:31:00

and this is when I was referring to

1:31:02

earlier and like it's an ongoing thing that

1:31:05

I have to always try to develop some

1:31:07

hyper vigilance around and catch myself as a

1:31:09

colleague is it is a commercial pursued and

1:31:11

all the stuff and all other every you

1:31:14

know everything that goes into it is another

1:31:16

version of you getting up on stage. Are.

1:31:19

You doing this to glorify the self? Where

1:31:22

are you doing this as an act? Service

1:31:24

to others and you'll know what you're doing.

1:31:27

When. The performances over. Because

1:31:30

when the performance is over and that had

1:31:32

an experience to perform in front of thousands

1:31:34

of people. And if I

1:31:36

did it in the mood of i'm the Center

1:31:38

when I got off stage. There

1:31:41

be a love. You no

1:31:43

longer importance. and you'll wanna

1:31:45

like seek out importance and that's why i

1:31:47

can understand how people move right to drugs

1:31:49

move right to in l a reckless sex

1:31:51

with anything to keep the dope a mean

1:31:53

flowing but if you do it in the

1:31:55

mood of service when you come up that

1:31:58

stays in of had that experience to Because

1:32:00

again, it's not an off switch. It's a moment

1:32:02

to moment check in with reality. You get off

1:32:04

stage and you're completely peaceful. No matter

1:32:06

how active and crazy and jumping and kicking and

1:32:08

stage diving you were doing, you come off like

1:32:10

a sage. I also wanted

1:32:12

to address that this person who

1:32:15

said I gave up my guitar playing

1:32:17

because for him it was Maya. I

1:32:21

thought it took a type of maturity for

1:32:23

him to realize there are certain things

1:32:26

we just can't do. We just choose, you

1:32:28

know what, this is too

1:32:31

overwhelming for me and I'm just

1:32:33

not going to go there. I'm not going to try to push

1:32:35

it through it. There are certain things like if

1:32:37

you're addicted to gambling, you just don't go to Vegas. You

1:32:40

just draw a line and say I'm not going to hang it

1:32:42

in Vegas. I'm not going to look at succulents in Vegas. I'm

1:32:44

not going to go to a good vegan restaurant in Vegas. I'm

1:32:47

not going to go to a hike in the

1:32:49

desert. You rationalize it. Yeah, ways to rationalize it

1:32:51

because to have that foresight

1:32:53

that there are people, places and things

1:32:56

that are massive first

1:32:58

dominoes that are going to knock over and

1:33:00

they're going to take me down the dark

1:33:02

tunnel. It's going to have that

1:33:04

insight. I'm thinking about something that

1:33:07

just came up in the news the other day which

1:33:09

is this news story

1:33:11

that seemed to like really create

1:33:13

a lot of energy which was

1:33:15

this story about Steve O. He

1:33:18

relates this story about how Bill Maher invited

1:33:20

him on his podcast and Steve

1:33:22

said, hey, listen, if I do it, can

1:33:24

you just not smoke pot? Well, I'm sitting

1:33:26

across from you because I'm coming up on 16

1:33:29

years of sobriety and Bill

1:33:31

Maher's team said, no, that's a deal breaker

1:33:33

because that's part of what he does or

1:33:35

whatever and it created this news cycle and

1:33:37

there was a contingent of people

1:33:39

who were claiming that

1:33:41

Steve was just being difficult

1:33:44

or something like that like, oh, can he

1:33:46

just show up and do this? But I

1:33:48

think it's a great show of strength for

1:33:50

him to say, my sobriety is the most

1:33:52

important thing. I'm not going

1:33:55

to put myself in a position where

1:33:57

that would be threatened unnecessarily. It's a

1:33:59

different version. of the Gibson story to

1:34:01

say, this is just something I can't do,

1:34:03

or I'm going to take a precautionary

1:34:05

measure to not put myself in a position

1:34:08

where I'm going to threaten that

1:34:10

spiritual connection that's keeping me on this

1:34:12

path that is the most important thing

1:34:14

for me. It is

1:34:16

active bravery, and it can come off like

1:34:19

ego. I don't go where there's these toxic

1:34:21

things. I'm

1:34:23

sure if a person's been through some type

1:34:25

of recovery or rehab or 12-step program, they're

1:34:27

not going in with that attitude. They're going

1:34:29

with, this is my boundary. I've created this

1:34:31

boundary with my sponsor. I've created this boundary

1:34:33

for my own personal accountability. I know it

1:34:36

might be not the best choice for my

1:34:38

career, but this is what I'm going to

1:34:40

do. That's incredibly brave. I

1:34:42

don't know the intention, but I always give the people

1:34:44

the benefit of the doubt, and

1:34:46

I've had to do that myself with certain things. I

1:34:48

just don't go there. I just don't do that. I

1:34:50

don't put myself in a very compromised situation,

1:34:53

not because I don't trust you, but

1:34:55

there's human foibles and triggers that

1:34:58

I suffer with, and I'm not going to go

1:35:00

there. But ultimately, those

1:35:02

guardrails and those boundaries create more freedom than

1:35:04

restriction. I think there's this idea that if

1:35:06

you do that, you're going to be living

1:35:08

your life within a very narrow lane. But

1:35:11

by doing that, you open yourself up to

1:35:13

a wider variety of

1:35:15

experiences than you would have otherwise.

1:35:18

Yeah. They say you

1:35:20

get a ding on your car by hitting

1:35:22

that guardrail, but it could save

1:35:24

you from the greatest catastrophe from going over

1:35:27

the side. I

1:35:29

think there are people who are 20 years sober.

1:35:34

They don't need a tight leash because they're not

1:35:36

triggered anymore. If you're 20

1:35:38

years sober from heroin and someone

1:35:40

offers you heroin, there's a space between

1:35:43

stimulus and response. Would you like heroin?

1:35:47

You have to think. There's more space now.

1:35:49

I can think, well, last time I did that,

1:35:51

I lost my family. I lost my job. I lost my fortune.

1:35:55

No, I'm not going to thank you for offering. No,

1:35:57

I don't do that. I don't do that. But in

1:35:59

a very. new recovery

1:36:02

state of your life. Hey, do you

1:36:04

want heroin? There's no space between stimulants. Yes,

1:36:06

I do. Well, I thought you don't do it

1:36:09

anymore. I know, but if you got it, I'll

1:36:11

take it. Yeah. So yeah, I think we're trying

1:36:13

to and the yoga system has that to get

1:36:15

our consciousness, no matter what path of yoga you're

1:36:17

on, to get your consciousness to a point of

1:36:19

sattva guna or this consciousness where

1:36:21

there is stimulus and

1:36:24

then there's a space before response comes right

1:36:26

in. No, I know

1:36:28

that's my pattern. I'm

1:36:31

not going to choose that pattern anymore. It

1:36:33

never served me. That helps everybody.

1:36:36

That adage of or that notion

1:36:38

of are you serving

1:36:41

the ego? Are you

1:36:43

serving the self or are you serving God is

1:36:46

a recurring theme throughout the book and

1:36:48

it shows up in the epilogue with

1:36:50

this crazy beautiful story that you

1:36:53

share about this dentist that you sit next to

1:36:55

on the way to India. Can you

1:36:58

tell that story? It was a good story.

1:37:00

It was a real story. It was sort of

1:37:02

afterwards after I was married. My daughter, me and

1:37:04

my daughter on our way to India. I like

1:37:07

to talk to people. My job

1:37:09

today is getting out of the way. I'm

1:37:14

just getting out of the way. I apologize.

1:37:16

The floor is yours. No, it's good. That's why

1:37:18

you're here. And I like to talk to anybody.

1:37:21

I don't care if a person's famous or I

1:37:23

just like to talk to people and

1:37:25

I like to talk to people on planes because it's sort

1:37:29

of almost like free therapy. You can just talk

1:37:31

and they can share with you. And so

1:37:34

I especially like Indians because Indians

1:37:36

have a generally an interesting story

1:37:38

of how they got to the

1:37:40

United States. And because

1:37:42

I'm a fan of the Bhagavad Gita and Vedic

1:37:44

culture, I always like to pick their brain and see

1:37:47

where they're at and then I tell my story. So

1:37:49

I I was sitting on an

1:37:51

aisle and across the aisle was

1:37:54

a collegiate, you

1:37:56

know, dressed in, I can't remember, you pen

1:37:59

or something, outfit. He's probably 24

1:38:01

years old or something. And

1:38:04

we started talking. I said, where are you going now? We're going

1:38:06

to India. And we started talking about his parents. I said, did

1:38:08

he grow up in America? He goes, yeah, I grew up in

1:38:10

America. My parents came over

1:38:12

and they lived a very, very difficult life and

1:38:14

they struggled to put me and my brother to

1:38:17

college. And I go to the University of

1:38:19

Pennsylvania now. My brother's a dentist and I

1:38:21

just graduated. I'm going to be a dentist. I

1:38:24

said, oh, that's great. He

1:38:26

said something like, my brother was a dentist. And

1:38:28

I said, oh, what do you mean he

1:38:30

was a dentist? And we were sort of

1:38:33

happily engaged and his face sort of shifted.

1:38:35

I said, what do you mean he was a dentist? He

1:38:37

goes, well, that's why we're going to

1:38:39

India right now. My brother has become a sannyas.

1:38:43

And sannyas means it's a stage of life where

1:38:45

you give up material

1:38:47

life. You give up your

1:38:49

material identity. And it

1:38:51

generally happens traditionally when

1:38:54

you're elderly because you

1:38:56

realize like I'm not of this world. There's a

1:38:58

whole system in India for this stage

1:39:00

where I'm not of this world. I'm

1:39:02

with God. I've been training myself from childhood.

1:39:04

Then I got involved in material activities. I

1:39:06

had kids, drove the kids to soccer, et

1:39:08

cetera. But now I'm an old man or

1:39:11

old lady and now it's just me and

1:39:13

God. And so

1:39:15

his brother was doing it at like 26, which

1:39:17

is young things.

1:39:19

They happen in traditions all over the world.

1:39:23

And I started feeling

1:39:25

for the parents because

1:39:28

I'm a parent. And at the

1:39:30

same time, I want my kids to be spiritual, but what I

1:39:32

want my kid to leave me. And

1:39:34

so all these emotions started flooding through. Right. Because

1:39:37

part of it is you're renouncing

1:39:39

your like status and place

1:39:41

in the Western world, but you're also cutting

1:39:43

yourself off from your family, right? It's a

1:39:45

goodbye. It's a goodbye. And his particular tradition,

1:39:49

he said, we're going to India

1:39:51

to wish him well, but we'll never

1:39:53

see him again. I was

1:39:55

getting all my fatherly buttons, which is

1:39:57

my small identity. Again, I'm a

1:39:59

dad. I started going, oh,

1:40:01

I said, how do you feel about that? Were

1:40:04

you close to him? He said, yeah, we were very close. I

1:40:07

said, are you upset? He goes, I was upset.

1:40:10

And then he started sort of lecturing me in

1:40:12

a sort of a beautiful noble way. I

1:40:14

didn't quote, look spiritual. He didn't know that

1:40:17

I was on a spiritual path myself. But

1:40:19

he said, you know, in my culture, we

1:40:22

believe there is good and great. And

1:40:25

so to be a good dentist and to be responsible,

1:40:27

that's a good thing. But to find

1:40:29

your spiritual calling, that's a great thing. So

1:40:32

I had to sacrifice good for

1:40:35

his greatness. And

1:40:37

now I've decided to move back in with my

1:40:39

parents. I was living in my own apartment, move

1:40:42

back and I'm gonna take care of my parents because

1:40:45

they took care of me when I was vulnerable. He

1:40:47

goes, this is another thing I don't like about your culture. Even though I

1:40:49

grew up here, he goes, you neglect your parents