0:00

Hey

0:00

everyone, I just wanted to give

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you a heads up on two events that are upcoming with Jason.

0:05

The first is his online 200-hour

0:07

training. So you can take this training if you're

0:10

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0:12

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0:16

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0:19

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and join the waitlist at jasonyoga.com.

0:25

We will let you

0:27

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available and we will send you a discount

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then the second event is Jason will be back

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13th through 18th and he

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module two of his hybrid teacher training.

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So if you want to get those details

0:53

go to jasonyoga.com slash

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London.

0:57

Okay, enjoy the episode. Hey

0:59

everyone, I'm Andrea

1:01

Ferretti and this is Yogaland.

1:04

Today is a very special episode. It's two parts.

1:06

The second part is

1:08

a replay of a former episode I

1:12

did with Sally Kempton all about the

1:15

ego. I have done three interviews with Sally

1:17

over the years. I

1:19

went back and listened to them and the ego

1:21

was my favorite. So I wanted to

1:23

re-play it. And then the first

1:26

part of the interview is with Caitlin Quiskart. Caitlin

1:28

and I worked together when

1:31

she was editor-in-chief at Yoga Journal. She knew

1:33

Sally very well. She actually tells the story

1:37

of when she first met Sally when she was 16 years

1:40

old and in her punk rock phase. And

1:42

she

1:42

was a huge fan of Sally. She was a huge fan of

1:44

Sally and she was a big fan of Caitlin.

1:59

passed away on July

2:01

10th of this year and Caitlin

2:04

and I wanted to get together and

2:06

both reflect on Sally and

2:08

our times with her and just share

2:11

a little bit more of her with the world

2:13

as a way to honor her. It

2:16

was really so special

2:18

to talk to Caitlin.

2:19

I learned some more things about Sally

2:22

that I hadn't known, stories

2:25

that Caitlin shared with me and it

2:27

just reinforced for

2:29

me how

2:32

powerful and magical one person's

2:34

life can be and how

2:36

important it is for us to be

2:39

present for each other and to show up

2:41

for each other. That's what Sally did

2:43

for all of us time and time and

2:46

time again as she guided

2:48

us into our hearts and as she guided

2:50

us deeply in

2:51

meditation. So enjoy

2:54

the interview with Caitlin and the

2:56

follow-up interview with Sally.

2:59

So you mentioned in your email

3:01

that you had meditated with

3:03

her at her home. So

3:06

when was that?

3:09

Oh, such a good question. It was,

3:12

I want to say 2018. Okay.

3:14

Wow. Or

3:16

maybe 2019. One of those years.

3:19

And I can't recall how it went

3:23

transpired exactly, but she invited

3:25

me to come for the weekend

3:28

to her home and I

3:31

arrived on, I want to say,

3:33

a Friday afternoon and stayed through Sunday

3:36

morning and it was

3:40

a spectacular experience in many

3:42

ways. Absolutely. And

3:45

part of what made it

3:48

so unique and fantastic

3:51

was the special combination that is

3:53

Sally, which was

3:56

on the one hand, a genuinely

3:58

welcoming friend. friendly,

4:01

like the friendship part of Sally and

4:03

the very human, let's get dinner

4:05

and let's gossip about

4:07

something about the politics

4:10

of the news of the day. He was such a girl.

4:12

Yeah. Yeah. She connected so

4:14

well. Yeah. And

4:16

then on the other, this like

4:18

deep, she, both

4:20

mornings that I was there, we meditated together

4:23

and in the second morning she,

4:25

she

4:28

offered me a different kind of practice

4:31

and we can talk about that in a minute.

4:33

That was just so, ended

4:37

up being a really transformative experience

4:40

for me. Yeah. I

4:42

just had this funny memory of Sally that I

4:44

wanted to, I actually think

4:46

it was a memory with you, of you and I

4:48

chuckling about Sally that I kind of wanted

4:50

to bring up. I can just remember this one time

4:53

you

4:53

and I talking and

4:56

you said something like, you know, whenever

4:59

I talked to Sally, I, I'm just struck

5:01

by the fact that she

5:03

is

5:05

in a relationship with herself and

5:08

it is her favorite relationship and

5:11

it is, it is, it's like, I

5:13

don't want to say it's like a romantic relationship because

5:16

it wasn't romancing herself, but

5:18

what everybody else was seeking from

5:20

a partner, Sally

5:22

was just in this like deep

5:24

dance of it within herself and her meditation

5:27

practice. So whenever you would say to Sally,

5:29

one of us would say like, how are you? The

5:32

answer was just so layered

5:35

and rich and internal

5:37

and it was always about

5:40

that deep relationship with herself.

5:43

Do you remember us talking about that? I

5:46

don't know if I remember that exactly, but I,

5:48

I totally, um, like

5:50

it sounds familiar. Yes. Yeah. And,

5:53

and I would say from my standpoint today, I

5:55

would say with the big S self somewhere

5:58

since her passing, I would say, I, I, I, I, the

6:00

read something or the video, the beautiful

6:02

video that's on her website that where

6:04

she tells the story of her life. She

6:07

talks about living in love.

6:10

And that feels

6:12

so Sally to me, like that she

6:15

was able to drop into a space

6:17

of love of herself

6:20

of the big S self of love

6:23

itself. Right.

6:25

And, and

6:28

therefore her life was incredibly rich

6:30

in this way that is, I mean,

6:34

I guess it's really the representation

6:37

of consciousness and

6:39

consciousness as love in a really

6:42

textured experience.

6:45

Totally. She's, I

6:47

think about her and I just think, and

6:50

I bet you can relate to this too, because you and I are

6:53

totally of the same ilk of having

6:55

grown up in academic families,

6:58

high pressure families. We both went

7:00

to one of the seven sisters colleges. So we had

7:02

this like feminist background, high

7:04

pressure background. And so for me,

7:06

I

7:07

marvel at like, she

7:09

was so soothing to me and such

7:13

a, like what you just described

7:16

about her was just such a beautiful soothing

7:18

part of her presence. And yet

7:21

she was a fierce feminist.

7:24

And so I could relate to that too.

7:26

I didn't feel like I had to become

7:29

something else to,

7:31

to be spiritual, which was a huge

7:34

relief to me. I

7:36

love, so I would say that she was fearless

7:39

as a word. I would definitely, that

7:42

I think of her, with the word

7:44

fearless that you just said. When

7:48

you think about the choices that

7:50

she made in her life, like how

7:53

radical it was to drop

7:56

out of the society

7:58

that she, I mean, came

8:00

from a high pressure society, right? Her dad

8:02

was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. She was on

8:04

track to be a breakout

8:07

star. She had all this opportunity

8:10

just right in front of her already.

8:14

And she would use the word drop

8:17

out because she is a girl of the 60s.

8:19

She dropped out to

8:21

drop in to

8:23

something that she found so much more

8:26

valuable, but it was a really,

8:28

really radical choice. And

8:30

I love

8:34

that choice. And I think it was a very

8:36

radical choice to drop out and become a

8:38

monk in a Hindu tradition and

8:41

to wear the orange robes,

8:44

to follow a male master

8:47

as a feminist. All, you

8:49

know, so many things that,

8:51

and to give up her individual

8:54

freedom, because to be a

8:57

monk in a tradition is to be

8:59

obedient to the tradition. Maybe not to

9:01

the person, like not to, like

9:04

in theory, yes, to the guru, but I would say that

9:06

Sally would say obedient to the tradition.

9:09

To make all those choices were incredibly

9:11

radical and then equally radical to

9:13

make the choice in her 50s. To

9:16

leave

9:18

and start a completely new life out

9:20

in the world. I mean, so powerful.

9:22

Just a powerful example.

9:26

I've been thinking about the leaving a lot

9:28

lately because I think

9:30

while at Yoga Journal,

9:34

I thought about her

9:37

entering the ashram a lot, but I only

9:39

in her passing have I has a dandami,

9:42

how courageous and

9:44

challenging it must have been on many

9:47

levels to leave. And I

9:49

never asked her about it. And I don't know

9:53

what she went through at

9:55

all in that, in that leaving,

9:57

but like everything

9:59

I've been through, else, she seemed

10:01

to just take it in stride.

10:03

I think probably she didn't

10:06

take it in. I mean, I think it was probably

10:08

a pretty big challenge.

10:12

I think that she

10:14

had a lot to navigate

10:17

because there's the leaving of the organization.

10:21

And what is yours? Just think

10:23

about it from like an IP perspective. What is

10:25

yours to teach

10:27

versus what is the organization's

10:30

IP, if you will? What

10:35

are the personal dynamics

10:37

around...

10:39

Because it is a guru-based organization,

10:41

and after Mooftinanda died,

10:44

that became the primary

10:46

spiritual leader of the organization. I

10:48

would say that Sally

10:50

is a person of such high integrity

10:53

that whatever it

10:55

was that took for her to

10:57

leave just on those pragmatic issues,

11:00

she wasn't going to share that with the world.

11:02

So I don't know that much about any of that. Then

11:05

there's just the

11:08

who are you in a world that you

11:10

have not lived in for such

11:12

a long time? How do you make a living? Who

11:16

are your friends and people and

11:20

the way that she has spoken about it publicly

11:23

is that

11:24

it was intuitively the next thing

11:26

she needed for her own personal growth

11:29

and development. And that's part

11:31

of her

11:32

fearlessness is leaning in to

11:34

what she intuited. She

11:37

was an incredibly intuitive person, right?

11:39

So what did she into it as what

11:41

she needed? And then

11:43

really, I don't

11:44

know,

11:48

not second guessing herself and being

11:50

okay with the fact that it was going to be challenging.

11:53

Right, right. No, I think

11:56

you hit on what I was trying

11:59

to... form, which is that

12:02

sense of intuition and just

12:04

that she navigated whatever challenges

12:07

came up because she just knew that that

12:10

was the next part of her path. It was

12:12

amazing. And

12:15

I'm just so grateful that she did that

12:18

because I would have

12:20

never been exposed to her

12:22

otherwise. And

12:25

she completely had such a huge

12:27

impact on my life. Do

12:29

you remember when we went to LA to that

12:32

weekend workshop of hers? And do you

12:34

remember? I do. I

12:36

can't remember. We must have flown. We didn't

12:38

drive. But I think the flight arrived late.

12:41

So the workshop started on like a Friday afternoon or

12:43

Friday evening and we got to the studio

12:46

and everybody was doing the invocation

12:49

chant like just as we got there. And

12:51

we were just so happy. We sat

12:53

down and we just felt so... It was

12:55

like, oh, we've arrived. It

12:58

was so nice.

13:00

I do remember that. It was

13:02

really great. And I think it was also

13:04

like a sign of our

13:06

commitment to... It

13:09

wasn't a yoga journal project that we

13:11

were doing something. We were both just

13:13

so into Sally that

13:14

we're like, let's go to this. She's

13:16

coming. She's teaching. Let's

13:18

go. And then I also... Yeah.

13:21

During that weekend, it was just such a lovely

13:23

part of her is that she

13:26

bridged the world of being a teacher

13:29

and being a real genuine

13:32

teacher who could hold space and would

13:34

hold space and was

13:36

a serious guide and then

13:38

could also then

13:40

be your friend. And so I

13:42

remember during that weekend, you

13:45

and I... And there were a few

13:48

other people too. I can't remember who it was. Let me

13:50

go to a tea house. We

13:52

went to a tea house on Melrose. We

13:54

just hung out with her and it

13:56

was just like a girlfriend's

13:59

tea. She was just so,

14:01

she was so funny.

14:03

I mean, that's one of the things that I appreciated

14:06

about her so much. She was, she had such

14:08

a good sense of humor and saw

14:10

the humor in things

14:13

and was just so easy to hang

14:15

out with.

14:17

You know, she said at one point, again,

14:20

in something that I've refreshed my memory on since

14:23

her passing, she said that when

14:26

everything is stripped away, because in

14:28

her many years of ashram living,

14:31

there is nothing but the

14:34

big S self of meditation

14:37

and the world that she, you

14:39

know, she didn't say the world, the plane

14:42

that she could drop into or

14:44

elevate into and then the

14:46

small S self of your personality. And she's

14:48

like, that's all that's left is your

14:51

sort of like your nature as a human being

14:56

that is not your choice and

14:59

your egoless, you know,

15:01

connection with

15:03

what she would say is like

15:05

the love that is the thread of

15:08

the whole universe.

15:11

And you could really feel it with her that she was both

15:13

of those things. Because there's nothing

15:15

like the experience of meditating

15:18

with Sally, like the soothing quality

15:20

of her voice, the minute that you hear

15:23

it. And, you know, one of the great gifts

15:25

I think about Sally is

15:27

that not only did she devote her

15:30

entire adult life to these

15:33

studies and practices and really

15:35

not only become expert in communicating

15:38

them and helping us all access

15:41

the practices, but also

15:43

in transmitting this ability to

15:46

go deep

15:48

so that in

15:50

her presence, you could just access

15:52

it. I mean, that's really true. It's,

15:54

she... For

16:00

me, I had done quite

16:02

a bit of meditating before I meditated with her. It

16:05

was never the same quality of depth

16:08

and dropping in and it was never the same

16:10

quality of joy.

16:13

She just loved it so

16:15

much. She just, and so

16:17

it all came through, like you said, in her

16:19

transmission and in her language and like

16:22

her painting the picture of things and

16:24

the stories. And so

16:26

you just,

16:27

you just fell in love with it. It actually

16:29

felt really pleasurable, which

16:32

was so different for me. It had felt

16:34

up until that point, like a chore

16:36

to kind of like mark off of my to-do list, like,

16:39

okay, do my internal cleansing

16:41

of my annoying, stupid mind. Clear

16:47

it all out. Cause it's really annoying. And

16:50

with her, it was just like this art form.

16:53

It

16:53

was just, it was just art and beauty

16:56

and love.

16:58

Oh, there's just so many directions to go with

17:00

Sally. My

17:02

experience when I went to her house, I will say,

17:05

was that girlfriend energy. It

17:08

was really like, let's go out to dinner one

17:10

day and let's meditate the next hour

17:13

or whatever. Yeah. The last morning

17:14

that I was there, she's like, let's

17:17

do this practice. Just like, let's get

17:19

a cocktail. You know, let's go get a mani-pedi.

17:23

Let's do this practice together. And

17:25

she was so excited about it. And,

17:28

and I was so completely

17:30

delighted that whatever it was,

17:33

I was game to try. And,

17:35

um,

17:36

and so she invited me to do

17:39

a practice where we were gazing

17:41

in each other's direction, but not

17:44

necessarily at each other, but breathing

17:46

in, um, it's something close

17:50

to this. I'm pretty sure

17:52

it was breathing

17:53

in or taking in the

17:56

space behind the other person's face,

17:58

like. But

18:01

almost like where the where when you think about the

18:03

witness practice where you are

18:06

behind yourself coming looking at yourself

18:08

from behind. It's like that kind of space

18:10

from behind them to behind you. And

18:14

if I had a really,

18:16

really profound experience,

18:18

because in a way I was staring

18:20

at her in those taking in the

18:22

behind her. Right. And

18:28

I saw her face as as something

18:30

mask like and changing, you

18:32

know, like

18:34

changed into some other

18:37

visually significant things for me. Anyway,

18:40

and at a certain point I just couldn't do the practicing

18:42

anymore I was so I had

18:45

to close my eyes or my eyes involuntarily

18:47

closed and I was.

18:50

I had just a radical experience

18:53

of energy of what

18:55

we call Shakti or

18:57

Kundalini, the coiled energy

18:59

spiritual energy of the spine at

19:01

the base of the spine that represents

19:04

our spiritual

19:06

freedom, as it moves up

19:09

the spine, and it

19:12

was like I was tingly

19:15

and once he was out of my body

19:17

because it was very in body but it was like my whole

19:19

body felt a little bit electrified. And

19:22

I had this profound sensation

19:24

that

19:26

my heart was growing larger

19:29

and larger like physically

19:31

it felt to

19:33

the point that at one

19:36

moment in the meditation, my ribcage

19:40

had expanded, or so it felt like,

19:42

like a cartoon of someone busting through

19:45

prison

19:45

bars, you know where they just go.

19:50

And that that experience was so

19:53

so profound and so I wrote

19:55

it, I mean I read it in my journal.

19:58

I do recall it took me a really long time. long time when the

20:00

meditation timer went off, I

20:03

couldn't immediately come

20:05

back. And that was like, I was supposed to get off

20:07

the cushion and drive home and it was just like,

20:09

took me a long time to be ready to go.

20:12

And I probably sat in traffic as a result

20:14

or something.

20:15

But I wrote it all out and I wrote

20:18

it to her in an email saying

20:20

like, wow, like I couldn't even talk

20:22

to you about it in the moment, but here's

20:24

what happened. And ever since

20:26

then, I had for a

20:28

long period after

20:31

that, I just dropped into meditation. Like,

20:33

no, there was no barrier

20:35

to meditating on my own. I

20:37

was kind of craving like, Oh, I can't

20:39

like, sadly, can't wait to get back to that experience.

20:42

But not it wasn't like I was attached

20:44

to that dramatic experience. It was more that

20:47

there was just this incredible

20:50

resonance with

20:52

consciousness that

20:55

felt appealing to rest

20:57

in. Anyway, wrote her an email all

20:59

about it, described it to her

21:01

in detail, and was really like so grateful

21:04

for

21:06

the transformation I felt I received

21:08

in her presence. And

21:11

she

21:12

very much depersonalized it and

21:14

said, isn't it amazing,

21:15

like, that

21:18

you had this if you consider going

21:20

way back to when you're

21:21

16, you were

21:24

introduced to

21:26

the Kundalini awakening, like

21:28

that is what the Guru is, right is

21:31

like a transmission

21:33

of the awakening of your Kundalini. And so like,

21:36

how interesting that we never know,

21:39

like, what causes

21:41

the next experience

21:44

or the next layer of experience,

21:46

etc. But she made me

21:49

she was like, delighted,

21:51

and not taking any personal ownership,

21:53

seeing it more as the evolving

21:57

mystery of Vishwakti. Interesting.

22:01

And when you say that, not surprising. Yeah.

22:04

Because she was a very mature

22:07

teacher. Right.

22:10

Yeah. And

22:12

not particularly interested in the

22:14

exact experience. Do you know what I mean? Like she wasn't

22:16

disinterested in my experience, but she...

22:19

I'm sure she's had plenty of her own experiences

22:22

and heard

22:24

hundreds, if not thousands of people's experiences.

22:27

And it's just like, yeah. Right? Right.

22:30

Right. For you, you were like, wait a minute. Like

22:32

I was like, Dr. Seuss, like

22:34

my heart was bursting. And

22:36

she's like, oh yeah, okay. Oh,

22:39

that one. Yeah.

22:42

And it wasn't like she was not

22:45

interested, but you know what I mean? Like not interested,

22:47

not interested. Like very happy for me, but

22:49

it was also very much like, well,

22:52

that's interesting. Part of the, yeah,

22:54

just part of the normal experience

22:56

of meditation and consciousness and

22:59

awakening. I also want to talk

23:01

though about maybe you want to talk

23:04

about our

23:05

individual but common

23:08

experience of

23:10

being held by Sally. I

23:13

was going to ask you about that. I wrote about

23:15

it in my sub-stack.

23:18

But I would love it if you would share

23:20

a little bit about your experience of that. Because it's

23:22

just really beautiful.

23:26

Yeah, it was much earlier. So

23:29

let's say

23:31

going back around 17 years

23:35

ago, so whatever year that was,

23:37

it was when I was probably still

23:39

editing Sally and talking with her a lot

23:42

because I was editing the column. And

23:44

I was going through a really

23:47

difficult divorce and

23:50

we made a plan to talk on a Sunday afternoon.

23:52

And I don't think it was necessarily

23:54

work related. I think it was like, oh, I'm having

23:56

a hard time. And she's like, why don't we talk?

23:59

And I was home alone

24:02

and I was really anguished

24:07

about the divorce. And if I'm

24:10

in hindsight, this very fearful

24:12

about what everything

24:15

that was going on and what the implications

24:18

would be for my relationship

24:20

with my daughter, for where I lived, for

24:22

my identity as a not a

24:24

married person, a divorced person, my

24:27

finance is like, where am I going to live?

24:30

Probably that whole constellation of

24:32

things that are common to someone

24:34

going through a divorce. But in the exact

24:36

moment, that's not how I experienced it. I

24:39

just was a ball of anxiety

24:42

and pain and

24:44

anger. And she asked me,

24:46

I

24:47

was crying, I remember, like

24:50

let's call it 10 minutes into the call or

24:52

something. And we were talking and I was

24:54

crying and she said, tell me how

24:56

you're feeling. And I just I

24:59

had nothing to say. I was like, I don't know. I

25:01

don't know. I don't know. And she

25:04

kept asking and I kept saying, I don't know,

25:06

because I couldn't.

25:08

I probably was so anxious

25:10

that I actually couldn't put words or

25:13

any kind of boundaries on

25:15

it. It was just too big and too overwhelming

25:17

and too scary. And so when

25:19

she realized that I wasn't going to be able to articulate

25:22

and she wasn't going

25:22

to be able to help me in

25:25

like kind of like on a human plane, she

25:29

said, okay, well, let's just

25:31

sit quietly.

25:33

And she might have given me a little instruction

25:36

about some kind of meditative instruction.

25:38

I don't recall. But what I do recall

25:40

is that we just sat on the phone

25:43

for an entire hour in

25:46

which she said nothing. And

25:48

I said nothing. I probably sobbed a little bit.

25:51

Yeah. And she transmitted in that

25:54

that time. The

25:57

most pure form of.

26:00

unconditional love, like, like

26:02

the real mother bear, you're okay,

26:06

everything's going to be okay, whatever it is

26:08

that's going

26:08

on is okay.

26:11

I'm holding you in this

26:13

love, this sweetness, this acceptance

26:17

of all that is, that

26:20

was, to this day, like

26:22

the most radical experience of

26:24

unconditional love that

26:28

I can imagine, you know,

26:30

and that she did it

26:32

over the phone, like, that

26:34

I felt it

26:36

so profoundly, and that

26:38

she

26:40

was clearly so present, you know, she,

26:43

she,

26:43

I'm sure she just was meditating, you

26:46

know, in now that I think about it, right?

26:48

But at the time, it just felt like she was just with

26:50

me. Right.

26:52

And I think that's one of the things that is so

26:55

been so remarkable in my, my relationship

26:58

with Sally is that I have felt,

27:00

perhaps starting with that moment,

27:03

she is,

27:05

and I say is in the present, because

27:07

my experience is very much that she's, she

27:09

still is in the present,

27:12

a source of unconditional love that is

27:15

unconditional and impersonal, like,

27:17

she,

27:20

Sally loved me Caitlin as individuals.

27:23

But she

27:24

also transmitted or I don't

27:27

even I don't

27:28

have the vocabulary for it. But she,

27:31

she admitted a

27:33

quality of impersonal,

27:35

unconditional love, like this is the

27:38

universal love, you're part

27:40

of it, I'm part of it. And I have a

27:42

way or it has a way

27:44

of living through me that allows you to feel it

27:47

that has nothing to do with

27:48

our personalities. Right.

27:50

Right. And whether

27:52

I like you or not, or anything else.

27:56

It's, it's just here. Totally.

27:58

Yeah. Two things.

28:01

I was listening to an old podcast that the two of

28:03

us did together, Sally and I, and

28:07

it was about ego. I actually think I might attach

28:09

it to this conversation at the end of our

28:12

conversation. It

28:14

was a great conversation, but what

28:17

stood out to me was this moment where

28:19

she talked about that there's

28:22

just benevolent energy

28:24

all around you all the time and

28:27

it's about accessing it. Sally

28:30

was so respectful of the

28:33

spectrum of religious experience

28:36

and she was a student of all different

28:38

religions.

28:39

I know that

28:41

she didn't say this in the podcast, but she

28:43

would have said, for

28:45

some people that might be angels, for

28:48

her, it was the deities. It was

28:50

the goddesses. I've been

28:52

thinking about that a lot since her passing

28:54

because I've been feeling like, yeah,

28:57

she's here. If I ever doubt that

29:00

there's benevolent

29:04

energy around me, all I have to think about

29:06

is Sally.

29:07

So that was one thing I thought of when you

29:09

were talking about that. And then the other thing I've thought

29:11

of a lot about since her passing and

29:14

hearing your story reminds me

29:16

of it. And then thinking of a very

29:18

similar story that I have with her of being

29:20

on the phone

29:22

with her and her

29:24

just transmitting to me, it's

29:27

going to be okay-ness when I

29:29

really didn't feel like anything was okay.

29:33

Just we all talk about how

29:36

important presence is. It's

29:38

so important to be present. It's important to be, you don't want

29:41

to miss out on your life. But

29:43

she was the first person with whom I experienced

29:46

how healing another

29:49

person's presence could be

29:51

with nothing else added to it.

29:53

And your story describes that, right?

29:56

She didn't fill the space with advice.

29:59

She didn't fill it with, you

30:01

know, little one-liners about

30:03

how it was going to be okay. She didn't even

30:06

fill it with a meditation in that moment.

30:09

She just was

30:11

present with you and her

30:14

presence was healing.

30:18

And that has been a... I've been trying

30:20

to think about that so much recently

30:23

since she passed. We just

30:26

underestimate how

30:29

important we are to each other

30:31

and how

30:33

we could just... Yeah. So

30:37

it makes me think of her

30:40

name that was given to her of Smami Duryananda,

30:43

which when

30:45

that choice was made, her

30:48

feeling as

30:50

reported was... As

30:52

she reported it was that

30:55

she related more to being...

30:57

To Saraswati, the goddess

31:00

of learning and knowledge

31:03

and wisdom, studying, right? Like

31:06

that because she was such an intellectual. But

31:09

Durga as the mother energy

31:12

is actually...

31:14

Whether it was who Sally was when she was

31:16

named Duryananda or what she became,

31:18

I have no idea. But

31:20

for someone who was not a mother herself, she

31:23

has like the feeling, the

31:25

kind of iconic feeling of holding

31:28

baby to

31:29

bosom and being

31:31

the source of all, of

31:33

all love, of life. That

31:37

was the kind of energy

31:39

she transmitted in her presence. Her

31:43

healing presence was like the healing presence

31:45

of the great mother, right? Absolutely.

31:48

Not to say that it was just

31:50

maternal because that

31:52

would diminish it in some way, but in

31:55

this sort of platonic ideal of mother

31:57

love, that's what it felt like to be in her

31:59

presence. present. Yeah.

32:02

Yes, absolutely. I

32:05

mean, it always

32:07

did strike me as amazing that she wasn't

32:09

a mother herself and yet, and

32:12

I think

32:13

in some ways because of that, she could

32:15

be a mother to all.

32:19

It was just like her

32:21

dharma was, I

32:22

don't want to say bigger.

32:24

I'm a mother and I think it's huge and big

32:27

enough and enough, right? But just broader

32:30

to be that

32:34

mother to all. And you're right. It's,

32:36

I've been listening to her meditations from her

32:39

awakening Shakti book, which are just, they're all

32:41

just the different meditations on the goddesses.

32:44

And I've been listening to

32:44

Durga over and over and over

32:47

again. And it is, it does encapsulate

32:49

her because she says Durga was the

32:52

mother to all, but she was a warrior,

32:55

right?

32:56

She had that fierce,

32:59

sharp, incisive spirit.

33:01

And that was Sally. And

33:05

I'm really grateful to her for it.

33:06

And just for, I'm just

33:09

so grateful to her that she shared her

33:11

gifts with all of us and

33:14

grateful that we got to know her

33:16

so well. Grateful to you for giving me her

33:19

call. And after you, when you passed

33:21

it on to me, I remember that. I remember

33:23

you coming to my house in Arizona. I can't remember why

33:25

we were both in Arizona, but when

33:28

my parents lived in Arizona, you came over. We

33:30

went because we had a photo shoot.

33:33

Oh, right. Right. Right. And

33:36

I don't know. So we stayed at your parents. Right.

33:38

And that was right when you were handing the column over to me

33:41

and you spent like a really good

33:43

amount of time helping me through the first

33:45

column and helping me see my way through it.

33:48

It was so nice that you did that because it

33:50

gave me the confidence to take

33:53

it on. And it actually helps

33:55

me see things in a completely different

33:58

light.

34:00

So, yeah, thank you. You're

34:03

welcome. We were so privileged.

34:06

Yeah, we were. We

34:08

were. Well,

34:11

thank you so much. I'm so glad to have

34:14

the opportunity also to just commune

34:17

with all that Sally introduced

34:20

us to, and

34:22

she feels so present to me. So I'm

34:24

glad. I'm also glad to be

34:26

in the company of others who feel her presence.

34:29

Me too. Me too. Yeah.

34:32

Thank you.

34:33

Thanks for being here. Today,

34:37

I have one of my all-time favorite

34:39

teachers back on the show, Sally Kempton, and

34:42

we are going to talk about ego.

34:44

I think this topic came up for me because I have

34:47

been talking to Jason's teacher

34:50

trainees about Instagram and just helping them

34:52

to optimize their strategy and

34:54

plan their calendar. And I've really

34:57

just been trying to encourage them to put themselves

34:59

out there. And by the way, shameless plug, if

35:01

you're interested, I'm going to try to do this workshop online

35:04

soon to let me know if you're interested.

35:07

So as I was doing this encouraging

35:10

talk, I of course started to think

35:12

of the shadow sides of social media too, and

35:14

just how it can be really hard to,

35:16

how addictive it can be and how I

35:19

find that when I'm feeling really addicted, it

35:21

feels like my ego is addicted, just

35:23

to sort of like basis most

35:27

instant gratification oriented part of me

35:29

is addicted. So I went right

35:31

to Sally because she has so much of the yoga tradition

35:34

embedded in her being and

35:37

in her intellect. And

35:39

this conversation did not disappoint.

35:43

I definitely have found that,

35:45

you know, we talk a lot about one way

35:48

to grapple with the ego is to

35:51

know that its tendency

35:53

is to want to identify itself

35:55

with roles with achievement

35:57

with, you know, your job or your

36:00

beauty or these things that are really fleeting

36:04

and that the yoga

36:06

tradition suggests identifying

36:09

with awareness. And

36:12

I love this and I feel that

36:15

I got to that place of identifying

36:18

with awareness and accessing

36:20

it and feeling like I was so much bigger

36:23

than how I was identifying with myself through

36:25

meditation. And I'm just really, really curious as

36:27

to whether or not this makes sense

36:29

to you and whether or

36:31

not you feel it in your yoga

36:34

asana practice. Obviously you can

36:36

feel it in your asana practice. It's just a lot harder

36:38

for me. So I'm curious if you feel it in

36:40

your asana practice or if you feel it

36:42

have felt it more in meditation, which

36:45

practice has helped you to access that

36:48

feeling. I

36:49

hope that makes sense.

36:51

Okay, enjoy this interview.

36:54

I feel like, you know, and this is

36:56

definitely the world that I live in, but

36:59

much of the world is being taken over by

37:01

social media. And it's ironic

37:04

that social media has spurred this

37:06

conversation I'm having with you today because I actually

37:08

talk to Jason's students a lot about what

37:11

I think that there are many benefits

37:13

to social media. And

37:15

I've experienced them, you know, just with the podcast

37:17

itself. Like that's how I advertise the podcast and

37:19

it's free. And I've connected with a

37:22

lot of listeners and it's really sweet. And there are lots

37:24

of wonderful things about it. But having said that,

37:26

I just find it such a to

37:28

be so curious. And I

37:30

guess I just I just wanted to talk

37:33

to you about it in terms of the

37:35

health of our egos. Because

37:37

I think of it as like the

37:40

part of me, I mean, obviously,

37:42

we need our ego for survival. It's

37:44

part of our personality. And it's part of how we

37:47

set boundaries and it's how we follow

37:50

through on our day to day life

37:52

and our beliefs. But at

37:54

the same time, I often think of it as like a needy

37:56

child, you know, it need like it thrives

37:59

on

37:59

adoration and instant gratification.

38:04

And those are all the things that, those are sort of like the shadow

38:06

sides to social media. It

38:08

just feeds that so much, even if you

38:11

are like a fairly healthy person. So

38:14

that's why I'm interested in this topic just right

38:16

now. And also I'm interested in it because I think it

38:18

is, can be

38:19

a little bit confusing. Well, it's

38:21

taught different ways in the yogic

38:24

teachings. And so I wanted to kind of ask

38:26

you about that. So I guess as a starting

38:28

place, I

38:30

kind of shared what I, how I

38:32

think of the ego in terms of a definition.

38:34

I'm wondering, you know, how you define the

38:36

ego and its purpose and then

38:39

how you approach it

38:41

from your perspective in

38:43

yoga. Okay. First of all, I

38:45

agree with you that in the yoga

38:48

definition of ego, which is the one I basically

38:50

subscribe to,

38:51

is that the ego is obviously an

38:54

extremely significant part of our psychic

38:56

mechanism, their psychic instrument, if

38:59

for no other reason than it keeps us from, you know,

39:01

believing that what Joe says

39:04

is coming out of our mouth. Yeah. So,

39:07

you know, ego helps keep boundaries. It helps. It

39:09

actually is really good for self-preservation.

39:11

There is a story. This is

39:14

like a wild story that it's, it's

39:16

what's coming to mind. So I'll share it.

39:18

You know, the great Saint Ramakrishna,

39:20

we used to go into these very intense samadhi

39:23

states, states of deep meditation. And

39:25

he, he would worry that he, he

39:27

wouldn't come out of it, that he would just stay

39:29

there and leave his body. So

39:32

he would cede

39:33

into his mind a particular physical

39:36

desire that his, you

39:38

know, for his own ego gratification, that would

39:41

bring him out of meditation, which

39:43

might be something very simple, like I want to eat this,

39:46

or I want to finish that conversation,

39:48

or I want to smoke a pipe.

39:51

His theory is that, that

39:53

we actually need our sense of individuality

39:56

in order to go on walking around and

39:58

living our lives.

39:59

doing anything for ourselves. If we didn't

40:02

have ego, right, we'd be without spine,

40:04

so

40:07

to speak. The ego provides not

40:10

only boundaries, but also

40:12

can be the reason that we do good

40:14

things,

40:17

as the reason we do bad things. So it's kind of a

40:19

neutral, the ego. And like

40:22

everything, it's like we need it. So

40:25

then the question is, how do we hold

40:27

that mechanism that

40:29

says, this is me and that's not,

40:32

or this is good for me and that's not? How

40:34

do we hold it in a way that's healthy

40:37

and doesn't run over other people

40:39

and actually takes us in a positive direction?

40:41

So I would say part

40:44

of what I think you're talking about is what we

40:47

could call, for want of a better word, negative

40:50

ego, right? Or the painful

40:52

suffering, the motivation, ego.

40:54

And of course, we tend

40:57

to believe in our society that people

40:59

with big egos are loud and confident.

41:03

A lot of the time, right, people with big egos

41:06

are scared and narcissistic

41:08

and feel bad about themselves and have

41:10

to get validation constantly from outside.

41:13

And I think that's the thing,

41:15

that's the part of us that social media

41:17

can feed,

41:18

especially when we grow up with it from such

41:21

an early age.

41:23

Right. Yeah. I'll just interject quickly.

41:26

Like when I speak to students about

41:28

social media, I feel like I

41:30

get the most feedback that it

41:33

really makes them feel bad from the

41:35

younger

41:37

students. And I think that's because

41:40

it is like such a part and parcel of

41:42

their life and that a lot of them hasn't

41:44

developed yet. You know, even in young adulthood,

41:46

you're still developing and growing and

41:49

kind of solidifying yourself. I feel

41:51

like especially in your twenties. And so,

41:53

yeah, it's an added

41:56

pressure and it feels like sometimes it feels like

41:58

a burden. look at my daughter

42:00

and think,

42:02

you know, she's not exposed to it yet, but

42:04

she's gonna be. How do we handle

42:06

that? I don't interact with

42:08

a lot of preteens and,

42:11

you know, what do you call them? Tweens.

42:14

But the younger kids I know are totally,

42:18

you know, are getting into social media at about the

42:20

age of eight, unless they go

42:22

to a Montessori school where they don't use

42:24

it. Right, right, right.

42:26

And let's face it, we can't always

42:28

send our kids to Montessori schools.

42:31

This is the question, and I

42:33

don't know how to answer it because I don't

42:35

have enough

42:36

experience with that demographic.

42:39

But it seems to me that part

42:42

of what we could do, or what we can do, or what we

42:44

need to do is to begin to create

42:46

an understanding of what kind of

42:49

social media posts actually make

42:51

us feel bad, try

42:54

to avoid them, you know, like

42:55

try to change our language, especially girls,

42:58

I think,

42:59

can do this. I don't, you know, I think

43:01

the

43:02

sense of humor of the young masculine

43:04

has, you know, easier time dealing with aggression,

43:07

perhaps, than girls

43:09

do. Right. As

43:10

a 12 year old was subject

43:13

to a major mean girls attack

43:15

when I was in the seventh grade, I

43:17

would say it scarred me for years.

43:19

Yeah. And, you know, as you know, those

43:22

things are really, really, really painful.

43:24

So

43:25

now we can do it on social media. Right.

43:27

And that means that

43:30

means people don't even have to be our friends

43:33

to hurt us and make us feel betrayed.

43:36

So what kind of training do

43:38

kids need to be able to

43:40

resist it? And a lot of it

43:42

has to do with the

43:45

messages that they get, you

43:47

know, or that they're able to find

43:49

for themselves about other sources of

43:51

self worth. Yeah, it's interesting.

43:53

I think the other thing like that

43:55

concerns me for younger people

43:57

is that the role models.

43:59

that they're looking up to,

44:02

well, first of all, the standards of beauty become

44:04

so warped. And

44:08

I worry about the constant exposure

44:10

to unrealistic ideals for

44:12

girls. At the same time, I mean, just

44:14

as you were talking, I remembered a conversation I had with

44:16

Jason recently where he said, I always

44:19

try to tell people that

44:21

social media is a form of media, just

44:23

like TV, just like movies, just like any

44:26

of those things. And so you can turn it off.

44:29

And so maybe educating people that

44:31

even though it is person to person,

44:33

which is different than TV, right? That was

44:36

like a network. And, you know,

44:38

apparently that might be going away. But even

44:40

though it's person to person, it's still

44:42

a form of media. It's still not absolute

44:45

reality.

44:47

Absolutely. And I think

44:49

that that people, we do

44:51

have to have some form of Sabbath for

44:54

social media. That itself

44:56

might even help.

44:58

As I think about it, I think, so what resources

45:00

do we have for transforming our attitudes?

45:03

And I do think one of them is that there

45:05

is now so much attention being paid to

45:08

the problems that social media causes. And

45:10

it's being paid not because adults,

45:13

you know, are trying to impose standards

45:15

on young people. It's because kids

45:18

themselves are complaining about it. Right. Right. Right.

45:20

Right. And I find this generation is

45:22

unbelievably conscious.

45:24

I mean, more

45:26

conscious really than any generation I've seen,

45:29

including mine. They are

45:31

so savvy,

45:33

I know, about emotional issues. I

45:35

think it would be really interesting to

45:37

do a kind of yogic training about

45:39

how to look at social media to

45:42

understanding Jason's point that

45:44

it's just media, you know, that it's it's

45:46

something that's happening in the virtual world. And

45:49

to to begin to discover your

45:52

own strategy for interacting

45:54

safely on social media,

45:56

I think people need to develop skills, you

45:59

know, like, like,

45:59

not to put your, you know, those old

46:02

pictures of the coconut, you throw

46:04

the coconut at somebody's face. So

46:07

many people on

46:08

Instagram and Twitter and

46:10

Facebook, just it's like they put their head

46:13

in the hole so that people can throw

46:15

coconuts at it.

46:18

I think it's really important that we

46:20

learn to understand, to mediate

46:23

our impulses towards sharing

46:25

things that are first of all going to get us

46:28

ridiculed. And secondly, that

46:30

are going to cause

46:32

problems for us later and somehow

46:36

use our social media accounts really

46:39

to interact with our

46:41

buddies and

46:44

not this so-called, you

46:46

know, this big public that makes us feel

46:48

like we could be Beyonce. Yeah.

46:52

Yeah. As long as

46:54

people are making reputations

46:56

for themselves on Instagram and

46:59

YouTube and succeeding at it, other

47:01

people are going to want to do it.

47:03

Right. So then if that's what

47:06

you're, if that's how you want to roll, then

47:08

you actually need

47:10

to understand, you know, that there

47:12

are, I don't want to use the word rules, but there

47:14

are skill sets that

47:16

you shouldn't, you just should not enter this

47:18

game without mastering some of the skill sets.

47:21

And one of them, one of the skill sets that

47:23

you need, if you're going to be a public person is

47:26

an ability not to be completely

47:29

emotionally overturned by criticism.

47:32

You have to have a goal. So in

47:34

other words, you have to know that

47:36

you're posting

47:37

for a particular reason that people

47:39

might criticize you, but because

47:42

your goal is not something to get people to

47:44

like you, your goal

47:46

is, is to make a point or

47:49

to stand up for something.

47:51

You know what I mean? Or yes, completely.

47:53

Yeah. Then it's a whole different

47:56

story. Yeah. I mean, I've

47:58

posted about my past experience.

47:59

with depression a couple

48:03

times on social media because I've done related podcasts.

48:06

And I've been, you know, people

48:08

have said to me like it was so courageous of you, and

48:11

I appreciate that feedback. But

48:13

it's funny, it doesn't feel, it

48:15

doesn't feel courageous of me

48:17

to talk about it on social media because the reason I'm doing

48:20

it is to help

48:22

other people. And so, and that's

48:24

the reason I ever started writing in my

48:27

whole life in the first place was

48:29

just to share stories because

48:31

growing up for me, the way

48:34

that I learned best was by learning someone

48:36

else's personal story or hearing

48:38

about someone who had been through something. Like that's

48:40

just how I related

48:42

best to the world. So

48:44

for me, it feels like a really natural

48:46

extension of what I've always been doing. And

48:48

I think that's why I

48:50

don't have like

48:52

a lot of discomfort around it. But

48:55

I do notice, just get like circling

48:57

back, I do notice my addiction to

48:59

it. I notice, I notice

49:02

just that zap of instant gratification

49:05

slash validation. And yeah,

49:08

just like kind of going back

49:10

to thinking about the ego,

49:13

I guess I

49:15

want to talk about how

49:17

to help people understand,

49:19

you know, use

49:21

yoga to understand how to have

49:24

a healthy ego and how

49:26

to keep it in check as well. You

49:28

know? Yeah. So

49:31

I think a couple of things.

49:34

I love what you said about doing about

49:36

posting about on social media to help

49:39

people. Because I actually feel

49:41

that that attitude, certainly for

49:43

me as a teacher and writer,

49:46

that this understanding that

49:48

your goal is to serve others, and

49:50

that therefore you choose

49:52

what you say with

49:55

that in mind. And I think that's a big deal.

49:57

You know, it's, it's a very

50:00

different writing with the goal

50:02

of what will serve others, what

50:04

will help others in their evolution than

50:07

with the goal of how can I say this in

50:09

the coolest, cutest, most shocking and

50:11

interesting way, which is not

50:14

great to say it in an interesting way. That

50:16

is one of the, I

50:17

would say, best ways to

50:19

keep the ego in check, to just keep asking how

50:22

does this serve, am I saying?

50:26

And then to take the feedback that you

50:28

receive, this

50:30

is the other thing, now I'm talking about things

50:32

that have helped me.

50:34

There's this one sentence that I

50:36

started saying to myself in my late 20s

50:39

and it was this, I'm in training,

50:41

I'm learning,

50:43

I'm in training, I'm learning. And

50:47

so when I messed up, you know, when I

50:49

made mistakes, which was and continues

50:51

to be often, I find that if I

50:53

remember, okay, I'm

50:55

on this earth plane to learn

50:57

how to live, I just made

50:59

a mistake and the only mistake I

51:01

could make right now

51:03

would be to beat myself up about it.

51:05

And instead what I'm going to do is

51:08

ask myself, okay, so what did I learn from

51:10

this mistake? And

51:12

that really changed my

51:14

low self-esteem issue.

51:17

And I would also

51:19

say in terms of keeping the ego in check, you

51:21

know, one of the ways we can tell that our

51:24

ego is in full

51:27

self-destructive mode

51:31

is when somebody accuses us of something

51:33

that we didn't do or makes an

51:35

assumption about us that we think isn't true. And

51:37

there's this little voice that speaks

51:40

up and says, no, that's not true, that's not me.

51:46

That self-justifying voice or that, you know,

51:49

you misunderstood me, voice,

51:50

is part of what ego does. And

51:54

so one of the ways we can learn to see when

51:57

we're identified, when

51:58

we're ego-ed,

51:59

identified is

52:01

by the emotion that comes up when

52:03

we're falsely accused or misunderstood

52:05

or when something unfair happens.

52:08

So, what I was thinking when you were saying that is just

52:10

to kind of talk through it a little bit. So,

52:12

it's like those moments where you're feeling really

52:15

defensive or like you said, misunderstood.

52:19

If your ego is sort of at the

52:22

helm, it's like your

52:24

sense of self feels threatened. Right.

52:27

Right. Your sense of identity feels threatened. Right.

52:30

Right. Right. Because

52:32

you're identifying that particular aspect. You

52:35

know, for instance, if somebody says, you

52:37

know, you're a terrible, you know, baseball

52:39

player, I'm going to say and whatever,

52:42

because I'm a terrible baseball player. Right.

52:46

If someone says I'm not identified

52:48

with being a baseball player,

52:49

but if someone says you're a terrible writer,

52:52

that hurts me. Because

52:55

my ego is identified with being a writer. And

52:59

here's the way, if you don't mind

53:01

my self aggrandizing for

53:03

a minute, one of the ways that I know

53:05

that my practice, you

53:07

know, I'm letting go of the ego has

53:09

borne fruit to some extent

53:12

is that although people

53:14

still do accuse me of being a terrible writer, I crazy

53:18

by the way.

53:21

It's just, you know, how like this. But

53:24

I learned how to take it with a grain

53:26

of salt, which is a which is

53:28

something that one develops

53:31

within a work. You know, you can

53:33

you actually find a way to say, OK,

53:35

this person thinks I'm not good

53:38

at the thing. I'm,

53:39

you know, not good at my job, not good at my

53:42

not good as a parent. This person

53:44

doesn't like me. You know, all

53:47

those things. And you can start

53:49

to say to yourself, OK, that

53:52

sometimes using Byron Katie's questions,

53:55

which are, I think, really helpful. Is that really

53:57

true? Mm hmm. Is that really,

53:59

really true?

53:59

And then if you remember her next

54:02

question is, and who

54:04

would I be if I didn't believe this idea?

54:07

Who would I be if I didn't believe this? And those just

54:09

doing a little inquiry

54:11

with your emotional reactions to things

54:14

will help show you

54:15

some of the ways in which our ego messes

54:18

with us.

54:19

You know, it's, I mean,

54:21

if the person who says you're

54:24

terrible at your job happens to be your boss,

54:26

that's a problem. Right,

54:28

it's a logistical problem. It's a logistical problem

54:30

that might affect your life. If someone

54:33

who has no real effect on

54:35

your choices in life, you

54:38

know, for instance, someone on your social media feed

54:40

critiques you, it probably doesn't

54:43

have an effect on your life. Right. So

54:46

you can dismiss it. But

54:48

I would love to know, I would love to unpack

54:51

this a little bit because you mentioned, you know,

54:53

having done this

54:55

inner work and spiritual work for a long time has

54:57

made it easier. Yeah, I love if you could

54:59

just explain what

55:01

that process is, what that inner

55:04

feeling process is, if someone did, who

55:06

you respected and

55:09

said they just really didn't like something

55:11

that you recently wrote.

55:12

What do you think is the difference now versus

55:15

let's say like in your 20s

55:17

with being able to manage that more

55:19

easily? The big difference

55:22

is that when I'm in my 20s, every

55:24

time I failed, I would feel, okay,

55:27

that's it. And I'll

55:29

never do this again. I'm just, I

55:32

am a failure.

55:33

Now, when somebody critiques

55:35

something I've done,

55:36

I listen and I often,

55:39

I often learn something, you know,

55:41

so

55:42

because I

55:43

really don't believe that I am a writer.

55:46

The thing that has made the difference

55:49

is really identifying with awareness

55:51

or identifying

55:52

with love in the heart. You

55:54

know, they were identifying with something in yourself

55:57

and awareness,

55:59

you know, the awareness.

55:59

that is present to your

56:02

thoughts and your experience, awareness

56:05

is an aspect of yourself

56:07

that once you've discovered it, once you've

56:09

had a felt sense of it,

56:10

it's always present. So

56:13

when you're having a bad time, when

56:16

your ego is smarting, is really

56:18

hurting, which is a very

56:21

normal

56:21

human experience, I would never critique

56:23

anybody for having, having

56:26

suffering because they've been rejected

56:29

or disapproved of.

56:30

But if you have learned to identify

56:32

with awareness as your deepest self,

56:35

then you have an automatic perspective. Okay,

56:38

this is a part of me, a part of

56:40

my life that isn't working right now, but

56:43

it

56:43

doesn't impact who I really am,

56:45

which is awareness. Taking

56:48

that perspective, if you do it intelligently,

56:51

not using it as an excuse for not dealing

56:54

with your issues in daily life,

56:56

identifying that way, learning to identify

56:59

that way, coming back to it again and

57:01

again, not only helps

57:03

you stay a little bit immune

57:05

to the slings and arrows

57:07

of other people's meanness,

57:10

but it also gives you access

57:12

to the resource that awareness

57:14

is because your awareness is

57:17

so much smarter than your ego,

57:19

so much smarter than your mind, so much smarter

57:21

than anybody else's mind, right?

57:23

When you really know that your awareness

57:26

that you are awareness, you

57:29

actually can tune into your own

57:31

awareness and ask the question, okay,

57:34

what's the right thing for me to

57:36

say or do now? And you'll get

57:39

an answer that comes from someplace

57:41

so much

57:42

more intelligent than

57:44

your ordinary self, that

57:46

it's stunning. And this very

57:48

practice of, okay,

57:51

I am awareness, okay, awareness,

57:54

can you give me a sort of a spontaneous way

57:56

of dealing with this situation that

57:58

my limited self.

57:59

is in and then practice

58:02

following the intuition that emerges, you

58:05

are going to have, you know,

58:08

you will have begun to train yourself to

58:10

move through the seams of reality with

58:12

a much deeper skill than

58:14

if you're relying on, you

58:16

know, your self-identified ego.

58:18

Yeah, yeah. That

58:21

was so well said and so much there.

58:23

I read something before

58:25

this interview that said, your

58:28

ego, it's kind of like when you over identify

58:31

with your ego, it's kind of like putting

58:33

on a pair of glasses and thinking that you're the

58:35

glasses.

58:36

Beautiful. Yeah, it's kind of

58:38

like it's yeah and so I guess

58:40

I

58:44

finding it so interesting right now. I've never

58:46

quite thought of it this way that we

58:49

kind of, if we even

58:51

have awareness of the awareness, right?

58:54

Like, I mean, I feel like before I came to yoga, I didn't even have

58:56

that.

58:57

And then once it kind of turns on, ignites,

59:00

you just have access to it. It

59:03

doesn't go away. It's this lovely thing. But

59:05

it's almost like,

59:07

do you feel like it's almost like we're toggling

59:09

in life? Yeah,

59:12

yeah. Well, there

59:14

is a point and, you know, and when you're, I

59:17

mean, if you think about when you are having a really good

59:19

day or you're in the zone, you

59:21

know, when you're, you're moving effortlessly

59:23

from one thing to another, without that

59:25

part of you that's going, I don't want to do this,

59:28

or maybe I won't make the bus, you know, that

59:30

when you're in a sort of spontaneous flow,

59:33

then you have a moment of

59:35

realizing what it is to be guided by that,

59:37

that deep intelligence. And but

59:40

most of the rest of the time, we are toggling, you

59:42

know, you're like, you're trying to,

59:44

you're trying to take care of your responsibilities.

59:47

Yeah.

59:48

And you are writing that story and submitting

59:50

it on time, because you are a writer and you need to

59:52

get paid because you need to survive

59:54

and like, yeah, all of that stuff. Yeah.

59:57

And you know, you need to get along with the people around.

59:59

you and you need to compromise and know when

1:00:02

not to compromise. I mean, there's, you

1:00:03

know, a million, you know, issues

1:00:06

that come up in life that actually we

1:00:08

need, we need what we would call healthy

1:00:10

ego boundaries to navigate.

1:00:13

Right. I mean, it's

1:00:14

really important to know

1:00:16

to be able to discern, for instance,

1:00:18

between what's in my stuff and what's another

1:00:21

person's stuff.

1:00:22

Right. Because if it's your

1:00:24

stuff, then you need

1:00:26

to do emotional work. If it's the other person's

1:00:28

stuff, you need to go, you

1:00:31

know, as we sometimes say, and in

1:00:33

my Indian based tradition, we need to go

1:00:35

Swaha, let it go.

1:00:38

But most, most of the time, because, so

1:00:41

because we tend to be so codependent,

1:00:43

you know, our whole culture is so codependent,

1:00:45

we tend to not be able to tell the difference,

1:00:48

you know, between what's our emotional

1:00:50

charge and what somebody else's emotional

1:00:53

charge is being projected onto us. So,

1:00:56

so just learning to get a felt

1:00:58

sense

1:00:59

of how it feels inside your body

1:01:02

when feelings

1:01:03

are hurt or when,

1:01:05

or when your ego is doing one

1:01:07

of its numbers. That's really,

1:01:09

really important. Instead

1:01:11

of just going from trigger to trigger,

1:01:13

right, which I feel like I did

1:01:15

for so much of my early life, like,

1:01:18

I was always such a thinker and like,

1:01:21

just, yeah, I felt like trigger to trigger and

1:01:23

rumination to rumination. Yeah,

1:01:26

yeah. And also one of the things

1:01:28

that meditation and yoga do

1:01:31

for us is, is increase our ability

1:01:34

to stay with uncomfortable feelings,

1:01:37

right? Because we can't

1:01:39

really meditate seriously

1:01:42

over time without confronting a lot

1:01:44

of uncomfortable feelings. And the same is

1:01:46

true in us in a practice.

1:01:48

So, so, and, and

1:01:51

again, I think you would agree that some

1:01:53

of the internal muscles we develop

1:01:56

in, if we really pursue our yoga practice

1:01:59

seriously is, is the ability

1:02:01

to actually remain with something that

1:02:03

we don't understand or that is confusing or that

1:02:05

is painful.

1:02:06

And to discern the difference between the

1:02:09

pain of growth and

1:02:11

the pain that means that we're

1:02:13

being injured. I

1:02:15

mean, there's so much discernment gets

1:02:17

taught to us. You know,

1:02:20

if we really do our practice in it, of

1:02:23

course it translates into daily life.

1:02:26

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1:02:28

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1:02:31

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1:02:34

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1:02:44

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and give080! So

1:02:55

for someone who is just starting

1:02:58

out, what is a

1:03:01

good practice for,

1:03:03

you know, developing

1:03:05

that awareness of awareness? Well,

1:03:09

the great classic practice, and it's the one I

1:03:11

come back to again and again, is

1:03:13

to ask yourself, okay, what

1:03:16

is it that knows I'm having this feeling? You

1:03:19

know, and then tuning into the

1:03:22

other part of your inner

1:03:24

world, of your inner consciousness. You

1:03:26

know, there's a part of you that's feeling the emotion,

1:03:28

and then there's a part of you that's watching it, that

1:03:31

knows it's happening. If you keep

1:03:33

asking that question, okay, what knows

1:03:35

I'm having this feeling? And then

1:03:38

identifying with that, even for

1:03:40

a fraction of a second, it's going to change

1:03:42

your perspective on your emotions.

1:03:45

Another thing that I find

1:03:48

really works, aside from those Byron

1:03:50

Cady questions, which I think are genius,

1:03:53

you know, is this really true? What makes

1:03:55

me think it's really true? Is it always true?

1:03:57

Or what would my experience be if I wasn't

1:03:59

having this?

1:03:59

having this emotion, sometimes

1:04:02

just reminding yourself that you would feel

1:04:04

a lot better if you could let go

1:04:06

of a thought or if you could let go of a

1:04:08

feeling. Sometimes that alone is enough.

1:04:11

Right, right, right, right.

1:04:13

That actually leads me back to what I was just

1:04:15

trying to dig up, which

1:04:17

is the concept of non-attachment, which I

1:04:19

think is another concept

1:04:22

in yoga that

1:04:23

we misunderstand and that we feel,

1:04:24

I feel like it gets

1:04:27

subverted a lot into people, you

1:04:30

know, expecting yogis to

1:04:32

just be able to let go so easily and

1:04:35

not be attached to things and,

1:04:37

you know, not even have emotions

1:04:40

almost or people can put that pressure

1:04:42

on themselves. And I

1:04:45

guess the way that I think about it

1:04:47

is like, and I'm just wondering what you

1:04:49

think is you can't

1:04:52

just let go of something until

1:04:54

you know there's something to let go into. And

1:04:57

that's that foundation

1:04:59

of awareness that you're talking about. Like

1:05:02

once you know that you are more

1:05:04

than just your quirks and

1:05:08

your personality and the size of your nose and

1:05:10

like the size of your thighs and your

1:05:12

wrinkles and all of those things

1:05:15

and your intellect, once you know that you're

1:05:17

more than those, that you're more than those

1:05:19

things,

1:05:21

the practice of letting something go

1:05:23

can feel

1:05:25

more grounded and

1:05:27

more supported and safer. And

1:05:30

like it just makes more sense. It

1:05:33

does. And I also

1:05:35

think we need to have had a couple of positive

1:05:37

experiences of having let

1:05:39

something go and having just feeling

1:05:42

more relaxed, more at peace, love,

1:05:45

you know, I mean, if you, if your only

1:05:47

experiences of letting go have been of having

1:05:49

something that you really cared about rested

1:05:51

away from you by a stronger force

1:05:55

and don't haven't had any positive experience

1:05:58

of that or haven't. known

1:06:00

how to look for the positive experience,

1:06:02

because often that's the issue. Then

1:06:04

it's very hard to let go because

1:06:07

you only see the downside, right? You

1:06:09

feel like you're losing. And I

1:06:12

do think

1:06:13

that there really is no substitute for

1:06:16

self-inquiry. For

1:06:18

instance, in a moment when letting

1:06:21

go happens, and I'm just

1:06:23

thinking of starting in childhood,

1:06:26

right? I just saw, I was just

1:06:28

traveling with a kid on a plane

1:06:30

and we watched The Boss Baby,

1:06:32

which you might have seen. Actually

1:06:35

very cute cartoon

1:06:37

music. So he has watched

1:06:39

that. It's hilarious. Yeah, it's

1:06:43

all about what happens when you get a baby brother

1:06:45

or sister and how the baby takes

1:06:48

away all your parents' attention.

1:06:51

And this is a big thing.

1:06:53

I mean, speaking as someone who had a younger brother

1:06:55

born when I was too young to

1:06:57

realize that I was

1:07:00

not being cut out of the family. So

1:07:03

learning to let go is something

1:07:05

that I think we may

1:07:07

or may not develop

1:07:10

positively in childhood. And

1:07:12

if we've had a lot of difficult experiences

1:07:15

of letting go and having it be

1:07:17

a big loss, we might have to train

1:07:19

ourselves by actually

1:07:22

testing out situations in which

1:07:24

letting go can lead to something

1:07:26

positive. And I'm thinking

1:07:28

of one example that everyone has,

1:07:31

I think. When you get a bad cold

1:07:33

and you have to stay in bed and you

1:07:35

have to miss something that you wanted to do, you

1:07:40

can practice letting go in that situation

1:07:42

and then feel what's

1:07:44

good about letting go,

1:07:46

and then start to experience

1:07:48

the self-sense of how

1:07:50

letting go can be a relief. And

1:07:53

the other side of it, which

1:07:57

we also need to mention, is that some people

1:07:59

yogi, some yogis

1:08:01

are so addicted to letting go that

1:08:04

we'll just let go of everything. Totally.

1:08:07

Yes. And then a friend of mine

1:08:09

wrote a play called Zen Boyfriends about

1:08:12

guys who are just, when you suggest

1:08:15

that the relationship might go better, if

1:08:17

they spent more time with you, they would

1:08:19

say whatever. Right. I'm

1:08:21

totally detached from this relationship. So that's

1:08:24

not the way to go either. Right.

1:08:27

And that is like sometimes a common pendulum

1:08:30

swing that, you know, people come back

1:08:32

from. But yeah, that's like the

1:08:34

gross misinterpretation of

1:08:38

letting go.

1:08:39

Well, you know, T.S. Eliot's great statement,

1:08:41

teach me to care and not to care.

1:08:44

It's pretty much it. You know,

1:08:47

like, how do we really give

1:08:49

our fullness and then

1:08:51

let it go? I mean, that's the call

1:08:54

of human life. Totally. I think

1:08:57

also for me, like,

1:08:59

letting go, if it's not supported

1:09:01

in some way, it can feel like I'm

1:09:04

faking it. And, you know, there is that expression

1:09:06

fake it till you make it. And there are situations

1:09:09

where fake it till you make it, I think is not a bad

1:09:11

idea. But it can

1:09:13

be so incredibly painful to fake

1:09:16

something only to have it

1:09:19

come up again in some other way.

1:09:21

Right. Right. To

1:09:24

think you've let it go to convince yourself you've let it go

1:09:26

to and really, you've just kind of like

1:09:28

stuffed it down. And it's going to come out

1:09:30

in some other way.

1:09:32

You mean that particular incident? Yeah.

1:09:34

I think the thing is the thing that

1:09:36

makes it complicated, of course, is that

1:09:39

when something has charge for you, for

1:09:42

me, for all beings, it's almost

1:09:45

always because it's triggering something

1:09:47

quite old. And

1:09:49

if you can't find the thing that's being

1:09:51

triggered, then it's very

1:09:54

hard to pluck it out.

1:09:56

It's very hard to let go of it because you can't

1:09:58

let go of the mood. You know,

1:10:00

you're letting go of one of the twigs. So

1:10:05

you're absolutely right that fake it

1:10:07

till you make it letting go, which

1:10:09

can turn into, okay, it's okay with me

1:10:11

if you go out with 20

1:10:13

other women. Right. Or dating,

1:10:15

but it really isn't. And

1:10:19

one day the full horror of

1:10:21

what you're allowing in your true

1:10:23

emotional response is going to

1:10:25

come up in a huge blow

1:10:27

up or blow out. It's again a question

1:10:30

of knowing what are appropriate boundaries

1:10:32

and knowing what situations you

1:10:35

are worth getting into and what situations

1:10:38

you have to take a stand on. You know?

1:10:40

Yeah. That's a life skill.

1:10:43

You don't, most of us have to learn it.

1:10:45

What was that phrase you used to say in your twenties?

1:10:47

I'm practicing or I'm in training. I'm

1:10:49

in training. I'm in training. That is

1:10:51

so good. I like that a lot. The first

1:10:53

thing that came up for me

1:10:55

while we were talking that helped

1:10:57

me long ago start

1:10:59

to think about the ego differently

1:11:01

was just the phrase in

1:11:03

success or failure. I am the same. And

1:11:05

I don't know where that came from. I don't know if that's

1:11:08

like a well-known phrase in Buddhism or,

1:11:11

but just that idea that, I mean,

1:11:13

first of all, for someone who's a perfectionist

1:11:16

or like super achievement oriented, I

1:11:18

actually see this in my daughter.

1:11:21

I think if you are afraid of

1:11:23

failure, you won't even try. So

1:11:26

it's helpful on that level in success or failure.

1:11:28

I'm the same. And then it's helpful if

1:11:30

you failed. And then it's helpful if you're successful

1:11:33

too, in just kind of having

1:11:35

that steady hum behind

1:11:38

all of the

1:11:39

parts of your ego

1:11:41

that are in the material world.

1:11:44

That is great. That's brilliant.

1:11:46

What I've noticed is that you have to do it in success

1:11:48

as well. Yeah.

1:11:51

Because I think for many of us, at least

1:11:53

this is my experience, I can live

1:11:55

with success. I mean, I've

1:11:57

learned that

1:11:58

to keep patting myself.

1:11:59

on the back, you know, 40 times, oh my God,

1:12:02

you gave such a good close over. So, oh, isn't that

1:12:04

great? But I

1:12:06

have, I have historically had a really hard

1:12:09

time letting go of failure.

1:12:10

In that book Buddha's

1:12:13

Brain, they say that, it's a wonderful

1:12:15

phrase, we're Teflon for positive

1:12:17

experiences. Yep. Right. And

1:12:19

Velcro negative. So, so our

1:12:22

failures, you know, become

1:12:24

loom so large in us that,

1:12:27

and I actually think that finding a way to

1:12:29

assimilate failure without,

1:12:32

you know, just stuffing it somewhere where

1:12:34

it becomes part of our backpack and,

1:12:37

you know, comes up as a fear. Next

1:12:39

time we take a risk and learning

1:12:41

how to assimilate our failures is, is

1:12:44

I think one of the most important aspects

1:12:46

of, you know, healthy ego.

1:12:49

I mean, one of the yogic techniques for assimilating

1:12:51

failure that again, I

1:12:54

think is really helpful is to

1:12:56

actually offer it, you know, to say,

1:12:58

okay,

1:12:59

here's a situation I didn't

1:13:01

do as well as I wanted to,

1:13:04

or I did my best and it didn't work

1:13:06

out.

1:13:06

You actually imagine it,

1:13:08

imagine it as an object in your hands

1:13:12

and just make a gesture of

1:13:14

offering with your open hands, offer it to the universe,

1:13:16

offer it to goddess, you know,

1:13:18

offer it to the eternal teacher,

1:13:21

but actually make it, make

1:13:24

it an offering. And again,

1:13:26

it's, it's one of those yoga techniques that you

1:13:28

don't, you don't see why offering

1:13:30

your failures would work to

1:13:32

free you from the sense of failure, but it really

1:13:35

does. I bet it does. That

1:13:37

sounds so nice. It sounds so

1:13:39

nice.

1:13:41

Yeah, because when let's,

1:13:44

when we think about it, like when you failed, presumably you've

1:13:46

then taken all the steps

1:13:48

you can take to make sure that hasn't happened again.

1:13:50

But like you said, you

1:13:53

still have, there's probably still

1:13:55

some emotion lodged in there or just energy.

1:13:58

like

1:14:00

just like that negative stagnant energy

1:14:03

lodged in there. So that's just like a nice

1:14:05

energetic thing you

1:14:07

can do with that. You know, I

1:14:09

would add one more thing, Andrea, which I

1:14:12

mean, many of us are motivated to be

1:14:14

better people by our ego. You

1:14:18

know, in other words, you want to think of yourself

1:14:20

as somebody who's kind. So

1:14:23

you behave kindly even when you you know,

1:14:25

you know, when you don't feel like it. So

1:14:28

and in the same way, you want to consider yourself

1:14:30

a person, you

1:14:30

know, who helps people who need help.

1:14:33

You go out of your way, you know, it's inconvenient.

1:14:36

And it's not a pure compassion and impulse or

1:14:38

a pure impulse of kindness. It has

1:14:40

to do with how you hold yourself,

1:14:43

you know, how you want to be,

1:14:45

which is in which is often, you

1:14:48

know, an egoic position.

1:14:50

So and yet, to me,

1:14:53

using your ego to inspire

1:14:55

you to be a better person or to

1:14:58

inspire you to, you know, to

1:15:01

make a little extra effort in your, you

1:15:03

know, in your work life to spend more

1:15:05

time with your kids because you want to see yourself

1:15:08

as a good parent.

1:15:09

I mean, those are ways in which

1:15:12

we can use the ego to sort of improve the world

1:15:14

around us. You know,

1:15:16

you know, one way to understand the ego is

1:15:18

how can we use it positively? That's

1:15:21

so great. Yeah, I appreciate

1:15:23

that so much. I don't think that's I've ever

1:15:26

heard it talked about in that way. And of course,

1:15:28

it makes total sense. Like we sometimes

1:15:31

we behave politely because it reflects

1:15:33

well on our ego, you know, I'd like it reflects well

1:15:35

on us. And so that's not such a bad

1:15:37

thing all the time. Well,

1:15:39

no, really, it's it's how we maintain

1:15:41

a civilized. Right, right, right,

1:15:43

right, right. Yeah. So that goes back to what

1:15:45

you said in the very beginning, which is like it's

1:15:47

part of our self preservation. Yeah.

1:15:49

Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

1:15:53

Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Sally.

1:15:56

This time just flew by. But

1:15:58

it was just incredibly helpful.

1:15:59

And you know, I could always talk to you about these things all

1:16:02

day. So thanks for talking to me. My

1:16:05

pleasure, Andrea, and I love

1:16:07

your work. So may

1:16:09

it continue to unfold. Thank

1:16:11

you. Thanks so much. Thanks

1:16:15

so much for listening. I will put all sorts

1:16:17

of links that honor Sally on my show

1:16:19

notes page, which you can find at yogalandpodcast.com

1:16:24

slash episode 305. So

1:16:27

I'll put links to her books, Awakening

1:16:29

Shakti, Meditation for the Love

1:16:31

of It. I will also put links

1:16:34

to her website where there's a 30 minute

1:16:37

video that you can watch about Sally's

1:16:39

life that she recorded years

1:16:41

ago for GLOW. There's

1:16:43

also

1:16:44

her celebration of life ceremony

1:16:47

is on the Sally Kempton website.

1:16:50

I will put a link to how you

1:16:52

can purchase and download her audio

1:16:55

meditations from Sounds True.

1:16:59

And I will put a link to the past episodes

1:17:02

and a link to my essay about

1:17:04

her on Substack. All kinds

1:17:06

of ways to continue to learn from and access

1:17:10

Sally's wisdom and her heart. Okay,

1:17:12

everyone. Thanks so much for listening. If you

1:17:14

enjoyed this episode, please share it widely and

1:17:17

let me know what you think. And you can always

1:17:19

join my Substack and let me know what you think there too.

1:17:21

It's yogaland.substack.com. All

1:17:24

right, lots of love until next week. Enjoy

1:17:26

your practice.