How To Be Spiritual But Not Ridiculous

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This week I discuss discernment: What it is, why it’s important, how it can prevent ridiculousness, why that matters, and how to increase our discernment. As part of this discussion, I explore the Yog-Vedantic theory of mind and specific practices that can help us be more discerning, including self study, kriya, classical Tantrik practices, having a teacher you can trust, spiritual community, working with sacred plants, meditation, and good old psychotherapy, including psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. 

The philosophy, cosmology and consciousness masters program I’m enrolled in at the California Institute of Integral Studies has the following goals:

1. To open our consciousness, through learning and imagination, to those creative and evolutionary energies suffusing the Earth, the Universe, and the deep psyche that will enable us to participate fully in the regeneration of human communities and their enveloping life systems.
2. To analyze the current devastation of planetary life and to strive to liberate ourselves and our communities from the underlying causes of alienation, consumerism, militarism, androcentrism, and unsustainable modes of life.
3. To draw from the deep wells of philosophical, spiritual, and religious wisdom together with other scholarly and scientific insights in order to bring forth a profound vision of a vibrant planetary era.

Other references from the episode:

• Joanna Macy’s Active Hope and The Spiral of the Work That Reconnects
• The full Daily Show / Jordan Klepper segment about MAGA + Gematria
• An example of a discerning analysis of someone like Jordan Peterson that fails to offer a positive ethos
• The podcast episode about gurus and a guru sex scandal 
• Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
• The Bhagavad Gita

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Episode Transcript

Jayadev Woodford (00:01):
Namaste. I am recording this at 11:11 because
it is a direct download fromsource, from my angels and light
beings.
Wait, what was I just saying?
Sorry, I don't know what cameover me, I think I've been
living in Los Angeles too long.

(00:27):
Anyways, I'm here to talk aboutdiscernment. And what that
means, why it's important, howto cultivate it, and how not to
be ridiculous.
So I'm recording this episodehere in Tulum. I'm in an
apartment that's in a coolneighborhood: La Veleta. But

(00:47):
it's actually in a verydeveloping neighborhood in the
sense that they're building alot of things right now. And so
I'm just laughing because behindme, they're building a building.
So there's a lot of hammeringgoing on. And that goes on all
day, every day. And then there'sa dog barking across the street
pretty much constantly. There heis. And there's a lot of road

(01:12):
noise. And there's these metalcollectors that go by and make
announcements. So I was tryingto find the perfect time to
record the podcast that wasrelatively quiet. But I think
I'm just gonna go for it andwe'll live with barking dogs and
hammering and whatnot. I didfigure out how to filter out the

(01:36):
pool filter noise. So these areall, you know, ridiculous
vacationing in Tulum problems.
So hopefully it sounds okay. Ijust want you to know I care a
lot about how the sounds for youmy listener, so anyways...

(02:05):
Welcome to Spiritual But NotRidiculous, a podcast that
explores the world ofspirituality from a grounded and
clear eyed perspective. I'm yourhost Jayadev yoga teacher, Vedic
Astrologer attorney andtechnologist.

(02:57):
Welcome to Season Two of thepodcast. Today, I wanted to talk
about discernment, what it is,why it's so important right now,
and how to cultivate it. Butfirst, a little update about me
and what's going on in my life.
Since the last episode, a whileback this year, I've enrolled in

(03:17):
a master's program at theCalifornia Institute of integral
Studies focusing on philosophy,cosmology and consciousness. So
it's a very cool program. I'mgoing to talk about it for a
minute. And I'm just so excitedabout what this means for the
podcast. First of all, it'sgonna, I think, generate a lot
of new ideas for episodes, newguests, new discussions, new

(03:38):
ideas, it's going to be amazing.
So that's, that's the big news,I guess, you know, I'm also kind
of moving right now. I'm inTulum, Mexico, but I'm also
moving to Venice, Venice Beachin California, in Los Angeles.
So that's happening. And, youknow, I think living in Los
Angeles for this past year hasalso gotten me thinking about

(03:59):
discernment for differentreasons. So we'll get into that.
But yeah, I'm also launchinglaunching a bunch of new
offerings. I talked about someof those at the beginning of the
episode. But you know, I've gotmy meditation course coming back
again in October, which is goingto be great — for four weeks, we
really, really dive into thedifferent aspects of meditation,

(04:22):
the mantra aspect, the kriyaaspect, that kind of thing. And
then I'm offering spiritualmentorship, which is a more
long-term program where we worktogether, on on your evolution
through your astrology and usingmeditation and kriya, and all
these other techniques. So youcan find all that on the
website, cosmic.diamonds. Andthen I'm also working on some

(04:44):
training modules in mantra andkriya, and I'm working on a
Dasha Mahavidya, classicalTantra wisdom, initiation that's
going to be really powerful. Solook for all that but you know,
with with school Yeah, I justwanted to give you a sense for
what is what I'm studying andwhat the ethos of the school is.

(05:08):
So this program, thisphilosophy, cosmology and
consciousness program isinspired in part by Alfred North
Whitehead's view of educationand the university context, that
the the function of theuniversity is to enable the
future to appear, first inthought, and then in action. And
so I love that that's kind ofthe starting point for this

(05:30):
program. And so all the facultyand students all sort of
subscribe to three fundamentalgoals within that. The first one
is to expand consciousnessthrough learning and
imagination, and, you know,different, different approaches.
It's a very sort of interactiveprogram in some ways. And the
second goal is to analyze thecurrent devastation of planetary

(05:54):
life, and to liberate ourselvesin our communities from the
underlying causes of thisdevastation. And so I love this
goal, because this is somethingI've been thinking about for
years and trying to find a wayin how I can best be of service
in this way. And so thisprogram, I think, will lead to a
lot of ideas in that area. Andso some of the causes that we're
already talking about in thecourse, and some of the courses

(06:15):
are include anthropocentrism,you know, like, sort of
prioritizing the human over thenonhuman, the patriarchy,
obviously, and capitalism, andthe kind of the tyranny of
reason that I've been talkingabout on the podcast as part of
it, you know, this sort ofmental ego, the way we think our
worldview, all that stuff iskind of feeding into our current

(06:37):
situation. So that's the secondgoal. The third goal of the
program is to draw from the deepwells of philosophical and
religious and spiritual wisdom,and scholarly and scientific
insights, to bring forth aprofound vision of a new
planetary era. And so as you cantell, this program is very

(06:57):
innovative and progressive andholistic, and I just couldn't be
more excited to be in it.
Just to give you a sense, forsome of the courses I'm taking
right now, I'm taking one calledCosmos and Psyche that's based
on the work of Rick Tarnas,primarily, and Stanislav Grof.
And this course examines sortof, you know, the connection
between the cosmos andindividual soul and how

(07:20):
archetypal astrology kind ofplays into that. And then I'm
also taking a course called TheGreat Turning, which looks at
our current situation, in termsof our crisis, and the kind of
it kind of breaks it down intothree grand narratives. There's
the Great Unraveling, which iskind of just a description of
you know, how we all feel like,things are getting worse in a

(07:43):
certain sense. And then theresponse to that, oftentimes, is
business as usual, which iswhere everyone just kind of
continues doing what they'redoing, you know, working at some
job making widgets, or whatever,because what else are you going
to do. And then there's thethird narrative, which is The
Great Turning, which is a phrasethat Joanna Macy has coined. And
this is, you know, the creation,basically, of like, life

(08:05):
sustaining societies, andcultures that are in harmony
with the longer term interestsof the wider Earth community.
And, you know, it's kind ofrelated to a concept that I've
been talking about on thepodcast a lot, which is this,
this kind of oncomingconsciousness or wisdom
revolution. So it's veryconnected in that way. And what

(08:25):
I love about this Great Turningis that we're reading a book
called Active Hope, where welearn that hope is not something
that you have as a result of thesituation around you, but
something that you can activelykind of put into the situation
around you, in a sense, and sothat that book is in part based
on this, this system that Joannaand others have developed,

(08:45):
called the spiral of the workthat reconnects and it's a four
stage spiral that goes aroundthrough these four stages
repeatedly. And this four stagesare coming from gratitude,
honoring our pain for the world,very important stuff, seeing
with new eyes, and going forth,and you know, being of service

(09:07):
or being relevant in the worldas a result of this product,
this ongoing process. So it's avery action- oriented course
very, there's a lot of exercisesand sort of reflection and that
kind of thing. So anyways, justto give you a sense for how
amazing and powerful and, andjust relevant this this program
and some of these courses are tome right now and I think, to all

(09:31):
of us really is how I feel.

(09:58):
Okay, so Let's talk aboutdiscernment. You know, I posted
an Instagram reel a few days agoabout this and how I was, I
wasn't sure that it was a topicthat people were interested in,
or you know that it would be toodry or something, but, but I
feel, I feel like it isinteresting for a lot of people,

(10:18):
and I got some good feedback.
And so I'm going to try to keepthis short. I know, I tend to go
long on these episodes, and partof my intention for season two
of the podcast is to haveshorter episodes. Ideally,
although I have a feeling thisepisode is probably going to be
about an hour or so so, so hangin, there's a lot of good
content here, hopefully, and Ithink you're gonna really like
it. So my intention of talkingabout discernment primarily,

(10:41):
today is to motivate you topractice or to think differently
about your practice, butperhaps, and maybe practice
more, you know, because myvision is to have discernment,
kind of sweep the planet, like apositive pandemic. Not that I'm
going to be the leader of that,or anything like that, but just

(11:01):
that I want to inspire some morepeople to think about it and
talk about it, and hopefully,increase the amount of
discernment that's out there inthe world. know, for me
personally, yoga and plantmedicine, are the two primary
ways that I've been able todevelop and refine my own
discernment. And I want to sharesome of those experiences here,

(11:25):
because I think they're relevantfor everyone. So let's talk
first about . . . Let's try todefine or explain what I mean by
discernment. On one level,discernment is simply being able
to see and understand andrecognize increasing values of
truth. Now, that's a littleabstract, right? So let's—how

(11:47):
else can we define it? Well,discernment can be a way of
being self aware enough to avoidprojecting ego distortions, onto
reality, onto situations ontopeople onto yourself. And it's
sort of knowing intuitively,that something is true, because
you are relatively free ofthings like craving and

(12:10):
aversion, or having strongpreferences. When you're in that
state, which is kind of thestate of yoga, then truth just
kind of shimmers in front ofyou. So basically, you're just
you're no longer projecting yourpersonal preferences onto
things. And so you can seethings more clearly as they are.
And so part of this process isbeing able to evaluate things

(12:33):
without being critical orjudgmental or dismissive. But
seeing that some things do havegreater values of truth. There's
no good or bad, there's no moreor less worthy, there's no, you
know, sort of positive, negativein a certain sense, there's just
more or less truth, right, Ithink we've seen this and we'll

(12:53):
explore some examples. But thisis what the kind of the idea I'm
getting, you know, it's it isit's a very nuanced way of
thinking, you know, it's notblack and white. So, we're gonna
have to be able to draw finedistinctions. For example,
between like, sacred geometryand numerology, which are valid
spiritual pursuits andapproaches. And then this thing

(13:15):
we see oftentimes of just seeingrepeating numbers, right, which
we'll get, we'll get into more,but you know, so it's just, it's
like, we're beingdiscriminating. We're being
discerning in a way that's stillallowing new information and
still allowing us to evolve.

(13:35):
Actually, I found an interestingdefinition in the dictionary.
One dictionary that I've seenhas this definition of
discernment in Christiancontexts, perception, in the
absence of judgment, with a viewto obtaining spiritual guidance
and understanding. So I thoughtthat was interesting, because
that's a pretty good definition.
So good job dictionary.

(13:59):
So why is discernment sonecessary? I feel like, it's
especially necessary right now,you know, but it's like, why am
I talking about it? You know,why do we care? Why does it
matter? And I feel like, onalmost every episode of the
podcast, I say something like,"this requires discernment or

(14:21):
discernment is reallyimportant," but I never really
unpack it, you know, so Ithought I'd finally take the
opportunity to talk aboutdiscernment.
First of all, I think if youlook around, you can see that
people everywhere are beingtaken in by misinformation and
lies. We're kind of likeswimming in a sea of
information. And a lot of it ismisinformation. And, you know,

(14:44):
as you can see, in our currentpolitical situation, or pretty
much anywhere, there's all thisdivision because because
everyone has their own set offacts, right. And it's like, I
feel like in that, so manypeople are not thinking
critically, they're just kind ofyou know, glomming on to one set
of facts and then just likeholding on as tightly as they
can, right? We see thisunfortunately too often with the

(15:07):
alt-right or the far right inthis country, in America. You've
got people like Alex Jones andInfowars, Newsmax, OAN, Fox
News, Tucker Carlson. And thenJordan Peterson and people like,
you know, in a kind of self helpworld, Qanon conspiracy
theories, all these things aresymptoms of this problem, you

(15:29):
have this lack of discernmentand this this misinformation
issue that we have. And yeah, Imean, I'm not trying to make it
political. But unfortunately,the political right in America
has made itself into the partyof fear, ignorance, aversion,
judgment, and authoritarianism.
You know, and I think all ofthese are, are the opposite of

(15:50):
discernment. In addition, I'vebeen watching a lot of YouTube
videos lately that sort ofsystematically debunk people
like Jordan Peterson, andthey're good examples of
discernment. And the ways thatdiscernment can come in, but
then the problem with thosevideos, and the problem with

(16:10):
that approach, is that they arestill coming from this, like,
pure reason. And they're lettingtheir discernment kind of
swallow itself, you know, sothey're, they're pointing, they
don't have a sort of overarchingethos, they're just kind of
deconstructing things, and thenthere's nothing left to really
hold on to. And so I hope inthis episode to offer you, you

(16:31):
know, not just a way ofdeconstructing things, but a
discernment that is spiritual,and that still offers some
evolution and positive sort ofqualities. Okay, so, you know,
not only do we see thismisinformation in the news and

(16:51):
in media, but during thepandemic, especially so many of
my friends, spiritual friends,spiritual teachers, were taken
in by conspiracy theories ofdifferent kinds. And, you know,
I watched this happen, and I wasa little surprised, because I
always assumed that people whoare sort of, especially
spiritual teachers are, youknow, discerning, and, of
course, everyone has their ownviewpoint. But I think

(17:14):
conspiracy theories are a goodexample of where discernment is
so necessary, and I'll talkabout that in a little bit. But
it's clear, it's clear to me asa society as a humanity, that we
need to develop the ability tothink for ourselves, you know,
it's not easy. It's not, we'renot taught how to do this, you
know, nobody, nobody teaches usthis in school, for example, I

(17:34):
think maybe if you go touniversity for journalism, or I
don't know, philosophy, or, youknow, law school, for sure
teaches you how to be how to bediscerning in certain ways. And,
you know, law school teaches youhow to sort of think like a
lawyer, which is what I learnedwhen I went to law school, and,
you know, definitely helped mebut but again, it's an example

(17:55):
of where there's a kind ofthinking, where the skepticism
and the criticism becomes likethe overarching kind of mental
model, you know, and you findyourself finding faults with
everything. And I certainlyfound myself doing that as a
lawyer. And that's part of why Ileft the law. And I felt like it

(18:18):
was like, it was polluting mymind this, this kind of part,
you know, finally parsingeverything and being overly
critical and judgmental, and allthat so. So it's hard. Nobody
teaches us how to be discerningin a healthy, balanced, holistic
way.
Okay, so. So combatingmisinformation and conspiracy

(18:42):
theories is one reason that isimportant to talk about. Another
reason is that it's the antidoteto being ridiculous, which is my
whole thing, right? So what do Imean by that? Basically, when I
say when I say ridiculous, I, Imostly mean spiritual bypassing,
spiritual materialism, that kindof thing. And, you know,

(19:03):
spiritual bypassing is where yousubscribe to certain spiritual
concepts, without embodyingthem, you know, it's all a
concept. It's all kind of mentalmodels, but but not no actual
integration. Or it's likeclinging on to the light very
tightly and only wanting to bein the light and not doing any
of the shadow work. You know,that's another form of

(19:25):
bypassing. It's looking at maybeit's like looking at spiritual
and going to spiritual places.
Like me right now, I'm in Tulum.
And, you know, just doing allthat because it's cool and
trendy, you know, like wearing awide brim hat and a flowing
shirt or whatever, you know, Imean, I'm wearing mala beads,
you know, am I am I beingridiculous? I mean, it all
depends on how you look at it,what your what your intention

(19:47):
is, you know, what the purposeis behind it, you know, all
these things, you know, the hatsand the whatever, it's only
ridiculous if there's nosubstance behind it, so
hopefully, the content of whatI'm saying? And hopefully the
shakti of it is, is all thatmatters, it shouldn't be how I

(20:09):
look or anything, you know. So,one way this manifests I see
this in Los Angeles quite a bit,is you see signs and portents
everywhere. This is part of thekind of spiritual bypassing, for
example, this repeating numbersthing, which I encounter quite a
bit in Los Angeles, people lovesaying, Oh, it's 11:11, or, you
know, the address is 2222. Thatmust mean something, you know,

(20:33):
and everything is sort of imbuedwith meaning, which is, which is
a nice intention and nice bhava,a nice way to be in the world,
you know, finding meaningeverywhere. But people see these
repeating numbers as likemessages from your angels and
light beings and all this stuffand from source. And I don't
know, I looked into it. I wascurious, I looked into it. And
there isn't really any, like,spiritual tradition underlying

(20:55):
these repeating numbers. Itseems like it's a late 20th
century phenomenon. Maybe itstarted with this psychic, Uri
Geller, but it's not clear. AndI don't know, I find it really
interesting and entertaining.
And of course, like, I think oneexplanation is that there's only
10 digits in our system. And soit's just very, very common for
them to repeat whether it's atime or an address or whatever,

(21:17):
like, it's a very common thing.
So yeah, actually, that remindsme of this app Gematria that the
MAGA people and the alt-rightpeople are really into now.
Actually, let's, let's justwatch this clip. This gives you
some sense of it.

Unknown (21:33):
Everything's coded and I've been learning Gematria. So
what's Gematria? Can I pull myphone out for a second? Sure.
Okay, so the call the gematria.
And it's a calculator.

Jordan Klepper (21:43):
Gematria is a mystic numeral logical key, and
an app which allows believers totype in words and get back
meaningful numbers

Unknown (21:51):
and type it in the calculator. You get these
numbers. And so MichaelJackson's last concert was this
is it comes to 113.

Jordan Klepper (21:58):
That means, do you I don't know what that
means.

Unknown (22:01):
So one through 13 means not true.

Jordan Klepper (22:05):
So Michael Jackson, that wasn't his last
concert. And he's alive. MichaelJackson. People were talking.
It's Bin laden still alive. Areyou doing math right now?

Unknown (22:18):
I'm trying to remember his real name. Tim. Osama.

Jordan Klepper (22:21):
Osama bin Laden.

Unknown (22:22):
Yeah, Tim. Tim. Someone forgot his last name. He's him
is not the most Saudi name. Andhe wasn't Saudi, from the CIA.

Jordan Klepper (22:31):
How does Maga and Trump fit into all this?

Unknown (22:34):
Well, Trump 88 Oh, me.
I was a Kennedy 88.

Jordan Klepper (22:39):
So they're the same person?

Unknown (22:41):
I don't know. That's what Gematria says

Jordan Klepper (22:44):
this. America is in a bad place.

Unknown (22:48):
146

Jordan Klepper (22:49):
What's 146 made?
Let's go Brandon one voice,right. That means go Brandon's
140. So let's go brands 146. Andso is America is in a bad place?

Unknown (23:00):
Yes. Let's go Brandon.
We want to connect those two.
Well, we are connected. That isconnected. It does feel
connected, that I think feelgood. Do you have goosebumps?
Yeah, I'm getting goose

Jayadev Woodford (23:12):
bumps. Yeah, so you can see me you can see
with with this woman, there's adesire, I think it's desire, you
know, to, to find some certaintyand of what feels like a very
uncertain world. You know, whatI was saying earlier about us
going through the greatunraveling, people are really
wanting to grasp on to some kindof explanation, some kind of

(23:34):
certainty. And that can comefrom any source, you know, and I
think it's also again, it'snuanced, because I think, for
example, critics of somethinglike astrology, might not see a
difference there. You know, youmight think, like, oh, people
who are into astrology are doingthe same thing. They're looking
for some kind of certainty in avery uncertain world, but it
doesn't, it's not real. Butactually, astrology is, and this

(23:56):
is where discernment comes in,in a different a different way.
Right? So critics of thesesystems, they need to understand
the system, they're criticizingfirst, you know, so anyways, I
get it, I get it.
Being spiritual, is a form ofkind of a form of rebellion in a
certain sense in our world, youknow, and so it means rejecting

(24:19):
the mainstream oftentimes, andrejecting societal conditioning
and rejecting the worldview ofyour parents, or whatever it is.
And so when you do that, you'renaturally needing to open
yourself up to alternativeviewpoints. And you start to
realize that all of these thingsthat are rejected by mainstream
society are actually valid. Andso then it becomes this kind of

(24:40):
like, another form of black andwhite thinking where like, well,
anything that's alternative mustbe true. You know, like anything
that's rejected must be truebecomes the litmus test. But
actually, it's another it'sanother place where you need to
exercise independent thinkingand critical thinking and
So what's the big deal? Why isit so important to not be
discernment.

(25:18):
ridiculous? Well, first of all,there's nothing wrong with being
ridiculous. There's nothingwrong with being any kind of
way. There's no bad people.
There's no lesser people, youknow, everyone's doing the best
they can. But I think it isimportant. I think there are
immense benefits to discernmentand not being ridiculous, in my
framing of it anyways. You know,first of all, it it's a, it's an

(25:41):
antidote to misinformation andconspiracy theories, like I've
already talked about, but, butalso, you know, it's a way of
avoiding spiritual bypass. Andthere's all sorts of reasons to
do that. And it's, once we getinto, like, other ways of being
and knowing, like, likeintuition, for example, it's an
important part of beingintuitive. Because if you're not

(26:01):
discerning, you will think thatyour desires are your intuition,
you know, so you'll, you'll,you'll say, like, oh, I need to
get a massage, you know, maybeyou just want to have a massage.
It's not an intuition. It's justa desire, you know. So, I think
when you start talking aboutyour intuition, you need to be

(26:22):
discerning when it comes tothese more subtle sort of ways
of knowing. Another example iswhen you start interpreting
astrology or tarot cards, ornumerology, it's so essential in
those practices to not beprojecting your desires or your
cravings and aversions orwhatnot, you're conditioning on

(26:45):
to what you're looking at right?
Rick Tarnas in his book, Cosmosand Psyche makes this point, as
you're practicing Astrology,it's so essential, you know,
because you're dealing witharchetypal forms and things that
are less precise. And so doingthis requires a self critical
awareness, of unconscioustendencies towards, for example,

(27:08):
narcissistic distortions, whererandom or peripheral events are
transformed into signs from anegocentric universe. Like, like
the repeating numbers I wastalking about. So we need
multiple faculties of cognition,you know, we need intuition, we
need empirical ways of beingrational ways of being

(27:29):
emotional, relational, andsymbolic. You know, there's so
many different ways, but when itcomes to moving in these
different areas, we still needto bring the discernment with
us. And so another way this canbe can be helpful is as we as we
go on the spiritual path, and welook for teachers, we look for
guides, you know, this will helpus to not sort of follow a false

(27:53):
guru or teacher withoutintegrity, or even in the worst
case to join a cult. I mean, youknow, you think about, like, how
do people how do people joincults, you know, how to how to
the people in Wild, WildCountry, you know, the Osho
cult? How did they end up inthat situation? Or even Bikram?
Um, you know, or any of thesecalled examples, you know, how

(28:14):
do people NXIVM, you know, isanother example, you see these
people who see the documentaryand you think, like, how do they
how are they so easily duped?
And, you know, I thinkobviously, the first thing is
they're receiving some benefit,you know, whether it's evolution
or some kind of transcendent,transcendent experience or
something like that. But theproblem is, they're getting
these benefits, but then they'renot questioning anything -

(28:35):
they're just kind ofsurrendering and trusting
completely, which is irrelevantat a certain point, but you need
to, it needs to be it needs tobe flavored with discernment.
There's a way that you can trusttoo much. I talked about this on
the episode about the guru sexscandal, a few episodes ago on

(28:55):
in episode eight. And howMariana Caplan talks about this,
you know, there's sort of like,there's a way of trusting that's
not complete, and more healthy.
Yeah. So this is another, youknow, it's a benefit of
discernment is is not joining acult basically. Or, you know,
like I was saying earlier, notfalling victim to conspiracy

(29:16):
theories. I mean, I get it, youknow, in terms of conspiracy
theories, when it seems like thewhole world has gone haywire.
It's easier to think that you'repowerless to change anything
than it is to try to takeaction. So I get the appeal of a
conspiracy theory. But if youthink that a global cabal is
drinking the blood of babies,and you know, secretly running

(29:38):
the world, then maybe you shouldtry to find some hard evidence
of that first, you know,another benefit of being
discerning is that youexperience less suffering, and
you'll experience more joy foryou and for everyone else, you
know, so it's like, if you're aspiritual materialist, there,
you're actually suffering morebecause even though it feels
like it's all love and love A,you know, there's this

(30:00):
unresolved kind of unexploredshadow, this is still there,
sort of leaking out in all yourinteractions and all your
experiences. And so thisenjoyment is very, you know,
very surface very superficialand very frail, you know, very
conditional, whereas when you'rediscerning, and you're kind of,
you're becoming more whole, thanyou're a lot more secure and

(30:21):
stable, and your, yourevolution, and, and your joy and
your fulfillment and happiness.
And you're authentic, thisauthentic state is then better
for everyone for the collective.
And then people take you moreseriously too. I mean, it's
important, you know, especiallybecause part of my mission is to
try to bring spirituality, like,to people who don't identify as

(30:43):
spiritual. And I think part ofthat is making us seem, as
spiritual people, like, seemmore level headed, you know,
and, and discerning. And so, youknow, when you're, when you're,
when you're discerning you,yeah, you don't turn people off,
you know, intelligent peoplearen't turned off. People want

(31:05):
to see that there's someintellect and some wisdom and
their spirituality, I think, andthat was the case for me. And
when you're just learning, youthen start to manifest in and
cultivate a more authentic andbeautiful spiritual community,
you know, your Sangha is moreauthentic and deep, as well. And

(31:26):
then you will you become moregrounded and secure and whole,
and yourself, and you evolvemore quickly. Not that there's
any hurry, there's no hurry toevolve. But you know, the more
you evolve, the more you reduceyour own suffering and the
suffering of others. So there'sso many benefits to being
discerning. And, you know,there's an argument we'll get

(31:47):
into this a little bit later.
But there's an argument thatbeing discerning is kind of,
like yoga, you know, yoga isdiscernment in a certain way.
And it's also called polishingthe mirror of our minds, it's
another way to put us know,another phrase you hear in
spiritual, you know, discussionsis polishing the mirror of our

(32:10):
minds, right, this is a good wayto think about it. Because we
can only perceive relativevalues of truth from our own
state of consciousness, right.
And so when the mirror of ourmind is smudged, you know, is
tarnished, then what it reflectsthe reality of the world that it
reflects is going to bedistorted. And so you know, if
what we see and hear andexperience is filtered by a

(32:31):
relatively dense state ofconsciousness, then almost
nothing is really seen or heardor understood, purely as it is.
I think we've all experiencedthis, right? So part of what I'm
talking about here is becominglike a spiritual scientist. This
is something I've talked aboutin earlier episodes. But it's
like we're examining all newinformation, all new theories

(32:54):
with a certain kind of certainkind of skepticism that's
tempered by a constantwillingness to have your
existing ideas and beliefschallenged. This is the kind of
discernment that I'm talkingabout. It's observing,
examining, testing and refining.
But of course, even scientistsoften fail at this crucial

(33:16):
aspect of keeping an open mind.
Because they become attached towhatever theory that they've
been propounding, or whatever itis, it's only it's only natural.
So you know, it's crucial to beself aware and to examine your
own beliefs as well. It's very,it's a very nuanced process. So
it's hard in terms of like, interms of science and empiricism,

(33:38):
you know, it's hard toobjectively measure your state
of discernment, right? It's avery subjective personal thing.
It's not like Asana, whereyou're working towards Scorpion
pose, and somebody else can say,like, Oh, your form is
fantastic. And, you know, itlooks great. You know, it's
like, only you really know. Imean, there's maybe there's ways

(33:59):
people can tell, you know, butit's like, how do you know, how
do you know if you're beingdiscerning? How do you know if
you're being more discerningthan not? Right? Well, there are
ways to tell. One is that you'reevolving without getting
sidetracked by toxic people ordeceptive people, gurus and all
that other stuff I was talkingabout earlier. And you feel more

(34:21):
confident about what you know,and what you believe is true.
It's not just blind faithanymore. It's like it's been
tested in the laboratory of yourown awareness, right, and your
own experience. So you feel moreself reliant, more confident,
more focused and clear. And thenyou fluctuate less. And again,

(34:41):
your spiritual community startsto become more sattvic, you
know, more elevated and you haveintegrity, you have spiritual
integrity, where what you sayand what you do are the same.
That's integrity, you becomevery consistent and your speech
and your action. Verytransparent. Very direct. but
also kind, you know, there'sstill kindness, there's still,

(35:01):
you know, elevated conversation.
There's still like lack ofjudgment. You're very accepting
of other people, you know. Soyou're not like going around
flaunting your discernment or,you know, brandishing your
discernment against people oranything like that. So you're
maintaining your compassion andyou're open heartedness.

(35:23):
Acceptance, loving awareness,you know, it's all there. I
think, I think a really good wayto test a level of discernment
is like, Do you have a sense ofhumor? You know, are you able to
laugh at yourself? You know,that really, that really shows a
level of security and your ownsort of knowledge and wisdom?
You're relaxed about it,basically. Yeah, you know, you

(35:47):
know, that you know, what, youknow, and you know, why, you
know, what, you know, and allthat, right. It's not just
because you heard it from someteacher. So you can joke about
it. You know, it's not again,it's not brittle. It's a very
solid wisdom. The wisdom that'sgenerated by discernment is
like, totally solid. But alsoadaptable, right? Maybe there's

(36:08):
not good language for it?

(36:30):
What is the process? How do webecome more discerning? I'll
start by summarizing briefly,and then we'll go into some of
the details. So it's this kindof self reinforcing spiral of
yoga that I like to talk about.
You know, it includesmeditation, meditation is a huge
part of cultivating discernment.

(36:52):
But also there's this idea ofconnecting the intellect and
refining the intellect thatcomes out of like Patanjali yoga
sutras and the Bhagavad Gita andthese ancient spiritual texts
from the vedantic tradition. Sowithin that there's split, yeah,
which we'll talk about, there'slike self study self awareness,
there's studying these ancienttexts can be a part of the

(37:14):
process. And having a teacherwho's wise, you know, a guru,
perhaps, perhaps, again, we'lltalk about complexities of that
in a minute. There's havingspiritual community as part of
the process. And then there's,you know, working with plant
medicine, potentially, or sacredplants. And a huge part in my
experience of becoming morediscerning is learning how to

(37:36):
feel your feelings. Because inyoga, we talk about how it's
basically like, the mind isactually the heart mind is like,
one unit, one atomic unit. Andthat's because every thought has
an emotional component. Andevery emotion has a thought
associated with it. So you know,we'll talk about this more, but
the more you're in touch withyour feelings, the more you're

(37:57):
letting them flow, the lessthey're being coming in and kind
of coloring your your thinkingand your discernment,
discernment. So we're movingaway from decisions that are
driven by unconscious emotions,you know, and so some of the
practices that can help withfeeling your feelings are these
kriyas that are part of thepractice, I teach, Elemental
Yoga, and plant medicine is veryhelpful in helping you feel your

(38:21):
feelings. And then traditionalpsychotherapy too is very, very
helpful in that way. So we'lltalk about those two, in a few
minutes. But yeah, we'll talkabout Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
for all the yoga teachers in theroom, the nature of the mind,
and how to release ourconditioning, samskaras, and
kleshas and all that. And yeah,I mean, one way to say this is

(38:46):
that the process is basicallyjust practicing what we call
like full spectrum, holisticyoga, right. So it's not just
Asana, but pranayama,meditation, kriya, and all the
different sort of styles ofyoga, so to speak to so it's not
just Raja Yoga, you know, it'snot just Asana, meditation, and
all that. But there's KarmaYoga, being of selfless service

(39:09):
in the world. There's bhaktiyoga, devotional yoga. There's
jñāna yoga, which is the yoga ofwisdom, which is a lot of a lot
of what we're talking abouttoday. This, this episode is
more on the jñāna yogatradition. And then classical
Tantra has a lot of practicesthat can help with discernment
as well, the, the ancienttantric Yogi's from 1,000 years

(39:30):
ago and Kashmir, thought longand hard about discernment and
have a lot had a lot to sayabout it.
Let's talk about the theory ofmind. It sounds a little bit
kind of boring, right? But it'skind of cool. And it's an
important sort of foundationalframework, I think, for this

(39:50):
discussion. So the first thingwe learn in yoga, of course,
hopefully you've all experiencedthis is that you're not your
mind, right? You're so much morethan your mind. And you still
identifying as the mind you stopidentifying as your thoughts,
right? So the mind is just onesort of part of you. It's like a
tool that you can use, but it'snot you, right? The larger

(40:10):
container is this citta, thispure consciousness that we are.
And, you know, as Krishna tellsArjuna, in the Bhagavad Gita,
because you have this mind,that's not you, but it's, it's
in the toolbox, you can actuallymask you can master the mind,
that's what yoga is essentiallyis mastering the mind. But you
can't be a master of the mind ifyou live entirely inside of the

(40:33):
mind, right. So part of theprocess is this, this, this
dis-identification, and thenthis this kind of expansive
experience of your larger self.
And so in the Bhagavad Gita,Krishna is talking about three
aspects of mind. There's Manas,buddhi, and ahamkara.
So Manas, in a Patanjali talksabout this, too. So Manas is

(40:58):
this, basically like the part ofthe mind, it's taking in
information from the sensoryorgans, right, it's if the
sponge of the mind it's it'staking information in. And then
as it's processed by the buddhi,the second part, this
information is then stored inshort and long term memory. And
so, the second piece of the mindis the buddhi, that is

(41:20):
discrimination, quality of themind or the discerning quality
of the mind. And so the buddhiis kind of the crux of what
we're talking about today, in acertain sense. And it comes from
the root Buddha, you know,which, which is the same route
where the word Buddha comesfrom. And so really, the Buddha,
you know, is he was called theBuddha because he was supremely

(41:41):
discerning, in a certain sense,you know, so, so the buddhi is
this kind of discerning functionof the mind. And so that's what
we're kind of focusing on today.
But the third part is theahamkara, the ego, part of the
mind, the sense of self, thekind of sense of the separate
self. And the ego is a crucialpart of this process, too. I
mean, it's a whole other topic,but you know, this is like this

(42:02):
kind of like, fictional in a waysense of yourself, that's kind
of an accumulation of all yourpast experiences and your
identity, and everything is allin this ahamkara. And it's,
oftentimes the ego is coloringthe booty, and the Manas, you
know, it's coloring, ourdiscernment, and our memories,

(42:23):
and it's coloring, the way wetake in information. So if our
ego is not refined, is notcorrected, then we can't see
clearly, we can't take things inon an unfiltered way, you know,
we can't, we can't truly bediscerning, right. For example,
if your identity, your egoidentity is like a white
supremacist, then you can bevery educated. And you can, you

(42:46):
know, you can be very discerningin a certain sense. But then
there's a certain unexamined setof set of assumptions that are
coming from this ego identitythat you haven't looked at,
right? And so this is creating,it's creating an obstruction to
truly being whole. So you know,in yoga, we refine the booty and
the Ankara. And that's whatwe'll talk about next. Okay, so

(43:10):
that's the theory of mind. Now,we'll get into the nature of the
mind the sense of like, thedifferent types of thoughts and
emotions and feelings andmemories, right, so. So as we
learn in Patanjali, Yoga Sutras,there are varieties, the second
sutra is yogash citta vrittinirodhaha. And what that means

(43:33):
is Yoga is the cessation ofmental modifications, or the
cessation of these vrittis. Sothese are just like, basically
thoughts or disturbances in themind. And so one way to look at
that as the Yoga is the quietingof the mind, right? But also, it
is the quieting of the mindprocess is happening by

(43:53):
addressing these varieties, acertain kind of routine. And so
there's a there's a kind ofrarity, called a samskara. That
is a big part of the problem ina certain way. So it's the
samskaras that we're workingwith in this refinement process
as we develop our discernment.
Now samskara is basically like amental impression that's stored

(44:16):
in the subtle body, you know,because the mind is actually a
part of this continuum, thesubtle body and he's samskaras
are like archetypal impressionson the on the mind. They're like
memories of the past that havebeen kind of unprocessed like
they're unnoticed by the, theawareness. And so they're,

(44:39):
they're, you know, kind ofbehind the scenes influencing
your discernment. They're,they're creating all these
impulses and trains of thoughtthat you're not in control of
and impressions that do not fitinto your sort of current view
of yourself. So the samskarasare very powerful and very

(45:02):
important to, to address. Sopart of yoga is making these
samskaras conscious and then wecan release them. And you can
see why these samskaras aremaking it so we can't discern
because of the there influencingour ability to do that from, you
know, the unconscious basically.
And then you know, our mind aswe start to release these

(45:26):
samskaras, our mind can thennaturally become more quiet and
still.
So that's samskaras; there's acertain kind of samskaara that
Patanjali talks about called aklesha. And so Patanjali
highlights these kleshas,because it's important to, you
know, that the more we can thinkabout them specifically in

(45:46):
certain categories, the easierit is to let them go in a
certain sense. So in sutra 2.3Patanjali says, Avidya asmita
raga dvesha abhiniveshahkleshaah. And so he's giving us
a list of five kleshas, or typesof samskaras. So the first one
is avidya, which is justignorance or lack of wisdom. And

(46:10):
this is a lot of what we'retalking about in terms of
discernment, and Patanjali talksabout how it's the root cause of
a lot of suffering this avidya,and through discernment, we can
start to, to let go of avidya.
And this, this ignorance in thiscontext can include confusing
the mind with the unconscious orsuffering with happiness, or,

(46:32):
you know, a guru as a, as ateacher, or the impermanent is
permanent, you know, it's allthese different ways that we
confuse things, right. And so,this is one type of klesha, the
one type of samskara that westart to, to directly address,
right, this is ignorance. Andthen the second and third klesha
are craving and aversion, youknow, raga and dvesha. So, you

(46:56):
can see how, with craving andaversion, you know, you are not
discerning, because you're like,oh, I don't like this. And so
I'm going to push it away, or,you know, I want that is I'm
going to bring it closer, butit's clouding your judgment,
because in the grand scheme, youshould not be doing that. Like,

(47:18):
this is why, you know, classicexample would be like, falling
into old patterns in terms ofromantic relationships, let's
say, you know, so you're, youknow, you're sort of falling
into these things to do desire,but you're forgetting that you
have this pattern, you know,that you need to address and
that sort of thing. So these areother places. And then asmita,

(47:38):
is the fourth klesha. And thisis identification with the ego,
which we already touched on, youknow, this, this ego, this
collection of like self images,that are kind of a fictional
thing, you know, so it's like,we don't want to be attached to
a story about ourselves. It'sthis contraction of our larger
being that we're, you know,wanting to let go, right? This

(48:00):
is related to the fifth klesha,which is Abhiniveśah. And this
is like clinging to our way oflife, essentially, you know,
it's, it's, like, holdingtightly to our current identity,
and so that when new situationspresent themselves, we don't see
them clearly. Because it'sunknown, you know, and we're
wanting to hold on to the, tothe known. And so that's another

(48:24):
version here, you know, so it'slike, when we go deep in yoga,
whether it's a kriya ormeditation, or what have you, or
plant medicine, then we burnthrough these kleshas, we burn
through these samskaras, and weprevent new ones from forming,
too. So this is the processwe're basically talking about in
more detail.

(48:47):
Just a couple more, a couplemore examples from the Yoga
Sutras that are helpful. Insutra 1.7 Patanjali talks about
this thing he calls basicallycorrecting the intellect. And he
says, This arises from, youknow, direct perception from the
state of yoga, and from reliablesources. And, you know, when he
says direct perception, I thinkpart of what he's getting at is

(49:09):
like, we're more conscious andaware of what we're exposing
ourselves to. So we want to inlife, we want to think about,
you know, the kinds ofinformation the kinds of people
the kinds of situations thatwe're exposing ourselves to,
because the things that weoccupy our mind and our
awareness most consistentlybecome our consciousness. And

(49:29):
so, you know, we don't want towatch a lot of reality TV
perhaps, or a lot of 24 hournews channels, that kind of
thing. Of course, you know, ifyou want to have guilty
pleasures, or you know, mindlessentertainment, that's fine, but
just be aware, I think of whatyou're exposing your awareness
to. And then the state of yoga,you know, your experience arises

(49:54):
directly out of your state ofconsciousness. So the more more
that we're practicing yoga, andhaving the experience of yoga,
you know, which is basicallyunity, the more we're starting
to have that experience that'scoloring our awareness. And
that's how helping us to correctthe intellect. And then, again,
reliable sources, he meansancient texts, rely on reliable

(50:14):
teachers with it with integrity,spiritual community, and that
kind of thing.
I guess the last thing I'll sayabout Patanjali, there's a lot
to say about Patanjali YogaSutras, one of the niyamas and
sutra, 2.32. And other sutras iswhat yeah, this is this is self
study. And here, he's telling usabout more about this, this new

(50:36):
Yama. And he's saying this isone of the limbs of yoga, right.
And without this ability tobasically turn our discernment
back onto ourselves, we can fallinto this trap of thinking that
we're discerning. But that'sactually an identity structure
that we're creating instead. Soit's very important to turn the

(50:56):
light of our awareness and ourdiscernment back onto ourselves.
There's no sometimes the onlyway to do this reliably, is to
have a teacher who can point youto where your blind spots are.
So let's talk about that in aminute. But the other ways we
can do this is through justcontemplation. Just you know,
reflection, self observationover time, you know, self

(51:19):
practice, that kind of thing.
It's this capacity to observeyourself, without judging or
analyzing without applaudingyourself, or critiquing
yourself, you're just observingjust neutral, the more you can
do that, I think the more youstart to develop your
discernment as well. It's a kindof self honesty. Because we want
to avoid not admitting things toourselves, we want to start

(51:42):
admitting things to ourselves,even if it hurts, right? Or it
might bruise the ego. And Ithink part of this process is
just like forgiving ourselves,and being soft with ourselves.
This is part of this process ofbeing self aware, I think. It's
like making space in our lives.

(52:06):
For just self acceptance, and,and self love. You know, I
talked about it when I teachmeditation, I talked about how,
in a way, meditation is justthis practice of fully accepting
yourself. You know, I thinkthat's, that's, I think, a big
part of the journey here.
Krishna talks about this in theBhagavad Gita, you know, he

(52:27):
talks about the benefits of, ofself study and and cultivating
this like Sattvic statebasically, you know, moving
beyond the ego. And so in theBhagavad Gita, in a sense,
Krishna is teaching Arjuna, howto master his mind. And
discernment is a huge part ofit.

(53:07):
In terms of gurus, it's a bigtopic. And again, I refer you to
Episode Eight of the podcast.
But I personally have immenselybenefited from the ways that
different teachers of mine havecorrected my intellect, you
know, have have helped me to seethe blind spots. And I really

(53:31):
feel like I wouldn't have seenthose things without that
person's help. So this is a it'sa huge asset, if you can find a
teacher that is wise and hasintegrity. I mean, there's no
replacing that really.
Yeah. I mean, in one sense, thisis the whole purpose of a guru

(53:53):
is to correct your intellect andto give you practices for doing
that. But yeah, there's risks,you know, you might have
somebody who's trapped in somekind of ego identity, or doesn't
have integrity or using studentsor taking advantage of people,
you know, all that stuff. Soit's complicated. But just to
give one example of like, asimple way, I think I've talked

(54:16):
about this before, but I was inIndia, I was living at the
ashram at one point, and I wastraining teachers and, and I had
this situation where I was, Iwas training some, some students
in a class setting. And someother teachers came in the room
and started practicing asana andkriya in the back of the room.
And it was very distracting, andvery disruptive. And so I, you

(54:39):
know, asked them to leave andeverything, but I went around
for a couple of days, sort ofwaiting for them to apologize,
and they never did you know, soI went to my teacher and I said,
when is it appropriate to expectan apology? And he kind of
laughed and he said, "Never."And I was like, oh, yeah, that
is true. And it's just funnybecause the role of a teacher is

(55:01):
almost like to point out thingsyou already kind of know, but
just need someone else to say.
So you know, if you can find ateacher, it's definitely hard.
It's in some ways it's likeharder than finding, finding a
good therapist. And that's whypeople like Terence McKenna, who
I know I've quoted extensivelyon the podcast, but you know,
Terence McKenna, at one pointsaid, "Follow plants, not
gurus." And I think there's,there's some wisdom in that. And

(55:25):
let's talk about plants then.
So, you know, some of my friendsthink that plants are the,
ultimately the best way tocultivate discernment, and I
don't disagree, I think,especially Ayahuasca or these
sacred plants that can be usedin a ceremonial setting, are

(55:46):
immensely helpful for forcultivating discernment. I mean,
they help you to see your ownblind spots to like a teacher
would, in my experience, and inthese ceremonies, you know,
like, your samskaras, arebubbling to the surface, and
you're releasing them,basically, you know, you see all
your conditioning, and you seeall these unprocessed thoughts
and emotions, and you're able tosort of face them in a way

(56:07):
that's in a container that'svery safe, and very healing.
And, as a result, ignorance andfear, and an indirect knowledge
are all burned away, and we getin touch with our emotional body
and our intuition, and we startto tune into our higher self and
we learn to listen, you know,and yeah, it's like a very
effective form of likesvadhyaya, or, yeah, burning

(56:31):
through these samskaras. And sowhat's happening, I think, is
that our higher self or, or thegrandmother, or the cosmos, or
spirit, or what have you,bringing all these unprocessed
samskaras to the surface, andyou're helping you to like
release or integrate them. Andthen the shaman or curandero,
the vegetalista is there, youknow, as part of the process,

(56:53):
too. So it's like, not just theplants, but it's like, it's the
shaman, it's the icaros thatthey're seeing the, it all works
together, to serve as a kind ofmirror, an intellect correction
device, in a more subtle way,like with the ego is especially
like, for example, it's like theideal form of a guru in a way
because you might be having anenergetic experience, and the,

(57:17):
the shamans are trained to pickup on that. So they'll, they'll
tune in, and they'll they'llsee, you know, in a sense that
you're having an experience ofreleasing something, and then
they'll sing an icaro that'sdesigned to, you know, maybe,
like exacerbate it, push it, youknow, intensify it and then get
it out. Right, and then tosoothe as well. So, for example,

(57:39):
I had the experience once whereI was dealing with some
childhood trauma. And the shamancame into the room and said,
"Hey, I was just singing thisicaro for metabolizing childhood
trauma, you know, would you liketo hear it?" You know? And I
said, "Yes," you know, and itwas like, Yeah, and it was so

(58:01):
perfect. And so it's like, yeah,it's like, in a way these
ceremonial, sacred plantexperiences can be like, like
working with a guru. But like,even better, right? Without all
the guru games. So plantmedicine, it's awesome.
And then, you know, and I thinklike I touched on before, the

(58:23):
spiritual community—Sangha is,it's like having a guru in a
certain way, in the sense thatit's, you know, you have people
who you trust and feel safewith, and they're all walking on
the path with you. And they cangently and gracefully call you
out, when you're deceivingyourself, they can point out
your blind spots. I mean, theymight, you know, individually,

(58:46):
they might not be as wise as socalled guru, but collectively, I
think they would be you know,and yeah, and a sangha, a
spiritual community is notfraught with all these power
dynamics, and sex scandals andall this stuff, right. And the
extent to which you might bemight be disappointed in one
person doesn't overwhelm yourwhole experience. So you want to

(59:06):
find spiritual community thatcan provide the right balance of
support, and the correction andintellect. A community where
people are honest and direct,but loving and nurturing and
caring, and, and practicing. Youwant a community where people
are practicing.
So it's been nice during thepandemic, to have more online

(59:27):
community where we can do thistogether. But it's also good, I
think, especially in thissituation, in terms of like
discernment. It can be good tobe together in person as well.
And I'm looking forward to doingthat more often. It's part of
why I moved to Los Angeles, youknow, I'm, I'm trying to
cultivate several differentcommunities and build community

(59:50):
in certain ways. And so, soyeah, I find increasingly that
community is one of the mostessential pieces to helping with
this process. And I touched onthis before about therapy,
traditional psychotherapy can beimmensely helpful for
cultivating discernment in thesense that that's another
another example where you'regetting sort of like unfiltered,

(01:00:12):
unbiased feedback. But it ishard to find a good therapist, I
got lucky in the past, and Iworked with a therapist for
years. And it was amazing andimmensely helpful. But, you
know, it's not always that easy.
And it's a very slow process. Itdoesn't offer any practices or
any experiential things that canhelp you kind of kind of move
through some scar or that kindof thing. Although we're in a

(01:00:35):
kind of very, you know, excitingtime of this renaissance of
entheogenic. You know,psychedelic assisted therapy.
So, definitely seek that out. Ihaven't tried that myself. But
maybe that's good. Another greatoption, I think it must be
right. And then in terms of justto bring it all back, you know,
in terms of yogic practices,again, meditation is one of the

(01:00:58):
most essential practices forcultivating discernment. It's a
process of going deeper intoyourself into into silence, into
a space where the mind canoftentimes be naturally
corrected, or maybe havesamskaras come up, you know, I
certainly have had meditationswhere things come up, I try for
like, maybe the whole time, youknow, that kind of thing. And so

(01:01:21):
that can be a setting where theintellect is naturally
corrected, you might start tosee you become more self aware
through meditation, and then,you know, thoughts that are
based on incorrect knowledge canbe let go of. So, you know,
meditation is another way ofbecoming more sattvic, you know,
and Krishna talks about how thesattvic state is a state of

(01:01:44):
being discerning. And, yeah, Imean, I'm offering again, I'm
offering my four week meditationcourse in October. So check that
out, I offer it a roughly onceevery season or at least three
times a year. So look for that,cosmic.diamond/meditate. And
then there are some amazinglypowerful tantric practices,
including, for example, there'sa Dasha mahavidya Matangi who,

(01:02:07):
her primary benefit or likeprimary yeah, like I said, he
is, is correcting the intellect,you know. And so, you know,
that's another another example.
I mean, I'm hoping to offer aDasha mahavidya tantric wisdom
goddess initiation later thisyear or next year. So look for
that, too. And I'll be sharingmore of that soon. But yeah,

(01:02:30):
there's there's thesevisualization and mantra
practices that come from ancientIndia. And then devotion I think
devotion and kind of a bhaktiyoga is very effective because
it's opening you up to theintelligence of the cosmos. You
know, part of this devotionalquality is like you're opening
yourself to other forms of sortof intelligence from nature.

(01:02:53):
And, you know, you're throughthat process, you're identifying
less with the mind exclusively.
And so, you know, examples ofdevotional practices can be
sacred rituals, puja, aarti.
These these other bhaktipractices, you know, Kirtan,
chanting the names of gods andgoddesses, you know, that kind
of thing. So, devotion veryeffective as well. And then,

(01:03:15):
there's a lot of kriyas in ourtradition that are great for
directing the intellect as well.
There's, for example, MahaShakti kriya, which is where
we're working with the threeprimary forms of Shakti, the
will, the wisdom and the action,kind of Shakti, very effective
for this Garuda kriya, wherewe're refining our intuition and
our intellect. There's dreampiercer kriya, where we're

(01:03:38):
piercing through our illusions,you know, and it goes on and on
from there, but kriya, veryeffective for cultivating
discernment, and also feelingour feelings, as we talked about
before. So, that's discernment.
And I know I went on for a whilethere, but hopefully, it was
useful and interesting.

(01:04:00):
You know, I just wanted tosummarize, I just, I just think
it's a it's a muscle that we canexercise. And I think people
don't like focus on it enough,or we don't talk about it
enough, specifically. And youknow, if you're lucky, it's a
byproduct of your your ownspiritual practices. But I think

(01:04:20):
there's a benefit to reallyfocusing on it as a practice. So
hopefully, this discussionprovided some sattvic food for
elevated thought and somemotivation to recommit to
certain practices. Or maybe itinspires you to go work with
plant medicine or to find atherapist who's offering sacred
Sacred plants as part of theirtherapeutic process. Or maybe

(01:04:44):
it's motivating you to findspiritual community or even to
seek out a teacher you know,they are out there, I believe
it. So, so yeah, so hopefully,you know, discernment can help
you become more solid andyourself more grounded in your
spirituality, and, ultimatelyless ridiculous So thank you for

(01:05:04):
listening. If you have anythoughts or comments about this,
please you know you can email [e-mail]. You can
message me on Instagram [e-mail]. You can join my
cosmic collective which is onthe website, cosmic.diamonds and
if you liked the podcast pleasereview it on Apple podcasts.

(01:05:25):
Thank you so much. Hari om. I'llsee you next time.