S.2 Ep.1: The Unmasking of Identity

The first episode of Season 2 dives directly into the topics of universal truth and the root of human suffering/conflict. Join us as we discuss the turbulence of our potential awakening, the importance of each unifying insight throughout the process, and the very real possibility of a world beyond belief. We also share a few details about our new ambitious project.

Join us for live group discussions every week on Patreon!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
hello and welcome to season two episode one of dualistic unity i am andrew and i am playing
the necessary counterpart ray i am i am hardly convinced that i am andrew this week that identity
has been melting away and we're just chatting for a while getting into just the role identity

(00:21):
plays directly with all of our fears anxieties worries and suffering and i was talking about how
just as the weeks go by and and my idea of myself my identity begins to get questioned more and
more and almost feels like it's it's melting away melting into the doing and the being at

(00:43):
which i am doing here now which i am here now as that happens as that identity begins to melt away
so do my fears and worries and anxieties and sufferings and as my idea of myself starts
to get built back up in certain situations those fears worries anxieties come with it as i remember

(01:05):
it's identity that's all it is that is the root as i remember that begins to melt away as i pull
that root i rip the root of that weed out of the ground all that suffering anxiety fear begins to
fall away as well and identity is the root and i think that is something i would love to talk

(01:25):
about a lot on this episode because it hit me like a ton of [ __ ] bricks this weekend and i have not
been able to get over it and it's really cool well and it changes the game right and it changes the
trap or at least that's how i tend to look at it right because when we tend to be dwelling on our
doubt our fear and everything else we tend to look for a resolution to the doubt and the fear

(01:49):
and so we get caught thinking about our thought and it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper but
what i've done over the years is just go i'm thinking about myself again and stop
right then and there and it just gives me a moment of clarity and in that moment of clarity
that identity that that illusion no longer makes sense but that's really what it is it's it's the

(02:12):
la the loss of clarity we'll get tense we'll get stressed we'll get afraid and in that moment we'll
we'll drop our energy and in that in that we'll try and buoy our energy up by holding on to a
fiction of ourselves somebody was asking me about this recently and i was saying that every once in
a while i'll reach for the fiction of god out of habit and it's because i i was raised catholic i

(02:37):
was raised with the idea of god and i know as soon as i i'm i'm stressed as soon as i'm starting to
worry about the future i'm thinking too much about what's to come things like that i'll start talking
to this invisible entity that's that's ultimately just it's still self-dialogue but it's almost like
i'm projecting the idea that reality is listening to me and somehow guiding me along and it's very

(02:59):
comforting but what it does do is take me out out of the state of mind where i can actually do more
with my life or the state of mind where i can see things clearly because i'm not being responsible
right so it always just comes back to i'm thinking about an illusion again and in that we see other
options certainly yeah i feel that almost it reminded me of when with my old morning routine

(03:24):
i used to go through like gratitude affirmations even and that idea of you know like you mentioned
praying to god or you know reality just projecting what you're saying or being grateful for things
that only reinforce your [ __ ] identity and anytime you're reinforcing your identity you are

(03:47):
reinforcing that root in the ground that is the root of all of your fears worries and suffering
so it blows my mind that it's like this includes gratitude this thing and you said you said it
in past episodes and it hit me like i didn't understand at the time like i kind of did

(04:07):
and i understood how that sort of process isn't necessary but i didn't understand the idea
that it reinforced the identity which is the root of all of that fear and suffering without you
i made a instagram story about this today i asked have you ever had a fear worry

(04:28):
anxious feeling and just thought that had something to do with anything outside of
the idea of you and i've gotten about i don't know 10 or 15 responses and a lot of them are
no no that's a good point no actually i haven't there were a few people one uh one
that i wanted to mention was uh someone said climate change and i i thought to myself like

(04:54):
on the surface it seems like it doesn't have to do with you but at the same time
it still kind of does even if it's not the idea of you directly it's still
the idea of you know your offspring or your children like having a good world for your
greater great grandchildren something like that still comes back to to you and someone else said

(05:15):
other people suffering in the world and to me i've said this before but i think you know that comes
back to how you feel it doesn't make you feel good that there are other people suffering so
even though it's not a bad thing at all it's not selfish at all to help people who are suffering it
still comes back to the fiction of you it has to right because that's that's the core of our life

(05:42):
right anybody who says my life is not all about me is is lying to themselves right because it has
to be it has to be and if it's not then there's there's a consequence to that too when you start
living for other people when you start living for the fiction of other people and you're not honest
with yourself about the fact that you're doing that for your own interests right because we can
say well i care about other people it's like right because that makes you feel good about yourself

(06:06):
right so there is there's still that selfishness there and that's okay there's nothing wrong with
that so long as you continue that into realizing everybody else is you in which case you're always
taking care of yourself so you're always taking care of everybody else right but yeah it's um
it's just a matter of perspective right it's just a matter of getting out of the way and

(06:27):
i find it interesting what you were saying there about it reinforces the illusion of i
opinion is by far the biggest danger with that and it's something i've wrestled with for years
um it's so easy to have an opinion about every experience that we have
but opinion reinforces our identity if we take it too seriously like you can have an opinion and be

(06:49):
willing to challenge it be willing to question it even willing to to ignore it completely and try
something new or you can hold on to it and then it just keeps painting you into a corner right but
i think this as soon as you've got that eye in there right you're putting yourself in a box
and as soon as you put yourself in a box you're closing doors and limiting possibilities again

(07:09):
so yeah that's why it's so important to just keep questioning stuff but
questioning yourself try things more than once because you're a different person each time
yeah yeah i have i have a few friends that come to mind that are incredibly stubborn people
and they have certain opinions that are basically their personality it comes down to that and they

(07:30):
will not no matter what kind of argument what kind of facts you throw at them they will just refuse
to believe it not even one of my friends my friend who's like a big bitcoin maxie bitcoin maximalist
doesn't have any any other crypto besides bitcoin almost doesn't even have any other investments
than bitcoin but i put on my story uh it was a q a and someone asked uh i'm new to crypto what would

(07:57):
you recommend and i said like buy some bitcoin because quite frankly nobody knows what coins are
going to be around in you know 10 5 10 15 years but odds are bitcoin likely will be of all of them
the highest likelihood is probably bitcoin and he my friend responded to my story and he was like
when did you become so bearish like what do you mean if you think it there's a chance it could

(08:21):
be gone in 10 to 15 years bitcoin's gonna outlive all of us and all of our generations for you know
ten of our generations at least and i was like yo yo pump the brakes man like i am very bullish on
bitcoin but you aren't five to ten years in the future right now like there isn't a 100

(08:43):
chance there's still a chance that it isn't it's very small i think but there's still
a chance like and it was it was so funny but yeah it's it's interesting how much some people
identify with certain opinions and and it can be kind of funny but at the same time it can be very
dangerous because you have some something that you always always always always have to defend

(09:08):
no matter what and i can't imagine how exhausting that must be it's exhausting it i mean just just
even even just that or it's like you know bitcoin could fail one day what what do you mean it's
like i have to i have to convince myself and more importantly i have to convince you that that's not
going to happen right because otherwise now i'm victim to uncertainty and doubt again and i can't

(09:30):
have that and so it's it's really it can become its own religion like anything else right because
that's all certainty is i mean at the end of the day we come up with fictions that make us feel a
little bit better and then we hold on to them long enough we teach them to the people around us and
poof you have a religion right and it's just it's just a coping mechanism it's like we i was
saying this to my wife the other day it's like we have this this collective trauma and we keep

(09:56):
grabbing for this life preserver that's faulty right we keep holding on to our identity of our
identity and our idea of ourself to try and keep us buoyed but it keeps failing us and so
instead of just learning to swim instead of just learning to live in that uncertainty to have faith
in ourselves to go with the flow as it were as opposed to fighting the water as alan watts said
right we keep just we're resorting back to this this old tool that was taught to our parents and

(10:21):
our parents parents and and dominated the world for the longest time which was egotism the idea
that your idea of yourself is the measure of your value and worth and that that in itself is the
core of our problems you're right it's it's the absolute uh reason that we have so much division
because if i didn't hold on to my idea of myself so tightly i wouldn't have any reason to really

(10:47):
judge you or to fear you because you were just another opportunity to learn more about myself
yeah yeah certainly and i've been posting since that whole idea hit me that you know beliefs
reinforce identity which is more or less the root of most if not all of your fear worry anxiety

(11:10):
suffering that's why i've been posting about it trying to get other people's opinions to see like
do people have fears that don't have to do with me their idea of themselves and
i have some people close to me who are still very much not happy about my sky daddy posts and

(11:31):
it was a little bit of an annoying time dealing with that because they will send me messages about
how concerned they are with me and how they know i'm just trying to help people but they feel like
my message is aggressive and comes across as angry and my response after many back and forths was

(11:56):
i would like for you to watch my videos for me first of all my opinion i'm not
angry when i'm posting these i actually think they're kind of funny and i'm trying to be kind
of humorous with them they may come across as aggressive and angry if you strongly identify
with the beliefs that you have that i'm questioning i think that's more so where it's

(12:18):
coming from so that being said i would like for you to re-watch my videos and pretend for a second
that you don't believe in god and you may actually find them to be a little bit funny and i am trying
to explain how there's a bigger picture to all of this and with my posts like they make a lot

(12:39):
of people very uncomfortable as you can see if you go through the comment sections but
part of it is promoting a way of living beyond belief and it's not like i'm just saying
you know it's silly to believe in sky daddy like i'm saying that and then you know we
have this podcast and patreon and all of these resources and workshops with you know probably

(13:01):
getting close to hundreds of hours of content for people to go to when they realize that belief
isn't soothing them to the degree that they had hoped and there is another way
to live their lives that we are discussing every single [ __ ] week so there's a way so
part of it is a promotion and every time i make a video like that i'm like if you were intrigued

(13:24):
at all by this i have a podcast it's called dual security i think you'd really enjoy it and
that's it so like i always get messages from people like hey this isn't you know it's not nice
it's not you know it's aggressive you seem very angry and i keep having to reinforce them like i
am more at peace than i've ever been in my entire life i'm happier than i've ever been my entire

(13:47):
life like why don't you believe me when i say that but anyway well and i find it interesting because
you're giving them or rather the video that you've made and their response is all the
evidence they really need as to what the danger is behind their belief like the whole reason

(14:09):
that they're getting defensive is the conflict that goes with their identity and their belief
if they didn't identify if they didn't need that certainty if they didn't hold on to that
fiction so hard they wouldn't be so defensive they wouldn't feel so offended or attacked because they
wouldn't they wouldn't have such thin skin right so they're actually in the middle of what could be

(14:33):
the moment that they decide to walk away from their prison and they just choose their prison
right and that that's the point is that if they can just see that which is what i often say like
you're upset because of what we're saying what we're talking about here is the reason that you're

(14:54):
upset not not what i'm saying but the way you see it that's it and that's because of what you hold
on to you don't have to do that you can repent you can you know follow god as it were you can
let go of all of that but they don't even see what they're doing right the it's like when somebody's
like oh well that's a belief and that's all they ever say to you it's oh that's a belief oh you

(15:16):
believe that there's nothing to believe that's still a belief from blah blah and it's because
that's all they know how to see that's all they can do to them everything is a belief if you
don't believe something there's nothing right all there is is that action that reinforces i
right and that's the point that becomes our whole world i and the fiction around it and as long

(15:40):
as we're in that we can't see the world we can't see each other we can't see what is we can't have
a connection to god or anything else we lack ears to hear right and so in letting
go of that idea of i or at least questioning it not holding on to it so tightly because
admittedly like i like rey i like this character i've really enjoyed knowing the experience of

(16:01):
this character there's nothing wrong with that but when i take it so seriously that i start
measuring rey's value according to my assumptions of other people there's there's a danger there
right and it changes how i interact with those people it changes my relationships with
those people you were saying how life feels more effortless when you're out of the way
well as you practice that you start to talk to other people in that state you start to realize

(16:25):
that every conversation is very much a dance between you and everybody else and the less
you're thinking about yourself the more you're you have sensitivity to that dance the more you can do
with that conversation and so when i see like um a murmuration a flock of birds and perfect formation
just doing a snap turn my immediate thought is how little are they thinking about themselves they're

(16:50):
a perfect flow together right and that that to me that's the entire point of this it's not about
talking to god it's about being in alignment to actually feel the flow with one another
and to mold that flow together as a part of it that's what all of this is supposed to be
about it's not about belief and just feeling better it's such a shame to settle for that

(17:14):
yeah it is such a shame and that idea of flow was something that i really kind of dove into
on saturday when and i have i haven't mentioned this yet but i took um five grams of mushrooms on
saturday and it was it was quite the trip and that morning saturday morning i sent you that video

(17:35):
the ted talk of um adam grant talking about flow and how it's like there's sort of like a better
way to live than just holding on to like being optimistic about things and and i saw that when i
when i watched the videos like oh that optimism similar to gratitude is reliance on thought
as opposed to flow being doing things without the perception of yourself and i actually wrote down

(18:02):
while i was tripping something like this spectrum of flow versus fear and flow being zero self and
fear being like you know 100 self when you are very afraid it is like you are it is all me like
you can't even see anything else except for your identity when you are flowing when you are doing

(18:25):
you are fully immersed in the doing you are the doing there is no self to even be concerned about
to even fear whatsoever so when you are in that flow state that is like peak alignment
with what is it's like you mentioned with alan watts saying being in the river versus you know
fears like swimming against the river thinking you can get away from it and completely resisting

(18:49):
everything whereas flow is the easiest thing you can ever do it's perfect alignment there
is and there is no you to be had it's almost like you know the flow of the river is going
say 10 miles per hour and when you're flowing with the river you are going the exact speed of
the river versus when you're going against it it's like you're going i don't know 2 2 miles per hour

(19:12):
in the other direction and it's like when you are going any any speed besides that 10 miles per hour
there is some semblance of view and the more you're going against it the more you there
is so that spectrum of fear versus flow i just found to be very interesting and it all it is is
no self all self and that's it i'd rather serve in heaven than ruin hell or reign in hell right like

(19:37):
that that said is that it's service at the end of the day you're you're just allowing yourself to
be part of the flow to be part of the whole and you're acting as a part of it i had said this
in a video recently that you know loving your god really just means being aware that everything is
god that's really all it is because in doing that in in being aware of that maintaining awareness of

(19:59):
that which is always just cropping off the fiction of you every time it pops up and it takes root
that in itself creates a different action it creates a different ripple in the world it creates
a different way of dealing with everybody because you're no longer seeing them as something to
present or something you fight against or something that might try and take away from
you you're not fighting the river right that's the whole thing you're just part of it oh how

(20:23):
can i help you how can i help you and it's it's just because i have nothing to lose why wouldn't i
right and so it's a different way of thinking and one that at the moment is totally foreign
to us i mean we have no idea how to interact that way we're learning in small pockets you see more
and more people coming together and trying to to help one another because they can but often

(20:46):
we don't do that until things have gotten so bad that we don't have a choice
and we have to almost start to develop this longer term vision you know in the same way that uh
indigenous tribes tend to think in terms of seven generations into the future before they make any
decision about how what's going to happen on on their land in their tribe and what what they're

(21:06):
going to change they think about how is this going to work out seven generations down the road
that that's a long vision like you start thinking about that you make your choices with a lot more
care and that's something that we have to kind of adopt not seven generations because of course i'm
not one for for structure and and rules and whatnot but just the idea of looking beyond

(21:28):
the immediate gratification to how things will play out down the road not ideally because i
mean it's one thing to cherry-pick facts and go oh it'd be great it's another thing to look at
everything in honesty and go right but sometimes we're going to be a little lazy sometimes we're
going to be a little irresponsible sometimes we're going to be a little selfish and so we should make

(21:48):
choices keeping those considerations in mind which is very much what we were talking about
in terms of the the audience and the community that we're building on discord here around our
dualistic unity podcast is that in season two we're going to be focusing on this a lot
encouraging this conversation encouraging dialogue around the awareness of what is the awareness that

(22:10):
our identity is not the truth and building ripples and encouraging ripples that embody that insight
so community gardens fighting for social justice uh helping people who might need the help or just
getting on their feet anything really that you can think of that comes from a place of empathy

(22:30):
where it's just the action that seems right to you because you recognize yourself in someone
else that is the point of building this community that's all it is we don't want to have a community
that follows us we want to have a community that leads each other because in leading each
other each of us takes personal accountability and responsibility for our impact on the whole

(22:53):
and when we do that everything starts to change slowly at first but it spreads like wildfire
yeah yeah certainly no it's definitely very exciting with all that i wanted to go back to
one of your points about god and like just the whole idea that this was something else i was

(23:14):
thinking about but if we couldn't think there wouldn't be any idea of god like thinking
creates god so when you're thinking about or i keep saying things about like when you're
you know thinking about the act of doing and doing things and being in that state of flow there is no
idea of god sky daddy doesn't exist when you are fully immersed in the doing in god itself here and

(23:42):
now there's no idea of a higher power there is no idea of you know a judgmental old white dude
sitting up in the sky it's just there is no idea of god without thought like thought god requires
thought the idea of god requires thought it's like it's so crazy there wouldn't be no god if

(24:04):
like animals don't have a god because they can't think they're just experiencing life
here and now i mean at least as far as i know they can't think maybe i mean they have some
semblance of awareness and whatnot and you know needs and desires but yeah without our ability
to think and just going back to doing and that lack of identity without identity without thought

(24:29):
strictly with you know doing being in that state of flow being in alignment with life there is no
idea of god to be had you have to think in order to believe in god you have to think
in order to have any beliefs whatsoever quite frankly beliefs require thought as well so like
our whole thing talking about like living a life beyond belief and

(24:55):
connecting it with this idea of not needing thought even for things like gratitude and
optimism it's like it's all connected and you cannot have a belief without the ability to
think and so if you don't need to rely on that anymore there are no beliefs to be had
yeah and without conceptual division what remains is unity yeah that's that's the thing

(25:22):
almost all of our our culture relies on conceptual division whether it be by associate
as socioeconomic status or color or religion or or nation it doesn't matter we just keep
dividing lines and then we divide them in between inside the hierarchy where you know and you have a
company that's separate from another company and one person's the president one person's ceo and

(25:43):
one one person is the accountant blah blah blah each one has a different role underneath somebody
else and our whole our whole system relies on identification categorization separation and we
just take it so seriously that we forget it was just meant to facilitate getting the job done
right like that's all this was meant to be all of this this conceptual stuff was just meant to make

(26:05):
it easier to go hey you other part of me can you go and do this while i this part of me go and do
that like it was just meant to make communication easier and then we started taking it seriously and
like well no you're this role and i'm this role and this role is more valuable than that role it's
like right but if that goal didn't exist and this role wouldn't exist and this is the whole thing

(26:26):
we're all tied together all of it we're all equally valuable in that we're all equally
part of the whole and so it's just keeping that in mind it's just keeping that in mind but we can't
keep that in mind while we're committed to ourselves that's what keeps kicking us in
the ass like we keep coming back with this idea of compassion right this is what i was saying

(26:47):
before compassion is another one like gratitude right i'm being compassionate really that sounds
kind of selfish and that's what krishnamurti was saying is there is no forgiveness and compassion
most people don't like that expression but it's true because it's all about you who are you to

(27:07):
forgive anybody who are you to have a standard who are you to say what somebody else should
be doing if you're hurt then that's on you to deal with right but there's no forgiveness and
compassion you know real compassion is not having an issue accepting who they are right and that's
it that's not forgiveness that that has nothing to do with you looking down from on high and saying

(27:29):
it's okay you're good enough now i've forgiven you it's not about that at all it's just about
recognizing the equality that's always been there the uncertainty that we all have that's it
yeah it's it's pretty wild how often our egos come in in so many different situations including
things like compassion or you know selflessness like i am selfless i and it's like you said you

(27:57):
yourself is selfless you know how much of an oxymoron that is and the other thing i
was thinking about that a lot more sense was how much when you've talked about um ego deaths and
how hilarious it is when someone says you know i killed my ego or i have had an ego death and i am

(28:17):
egoless and it's like you said i like four or five times like there is clearly an ego there because
you just confirmed that through the use of i and there's nothing wrong with having an ego it's
required for communication if there were no egos there would be no
illusion of duality whatsoever so you can't have an ego death you can have situations where

(28:44):
your sense of self is reduced to the point that you almost forget that you are separate and that
that is just experiencing unity here and now but it is not a continuous thing as long as you are
saying that it's something that happened to you because if there was an ego death there is no

(29:06):
you so and same with the idea of enlightenment you know people like to probably a lot of people
compare you know an ego death with experiencing enlightenment same thing with enlightenment if
you experience enlightenment what you is there to experience enlightenment if you understand there
is no you and there is only unity and there is complete non-duality and this is all an illusion

(29:27):
of duality what you is left to be enlightened you know what you is there to have an ego death you
had an ego death there is no you it's an oxymoron you can't have one and the other at the same time
yeah well that's it and this is what this is that short circuit that we get right like
we think enlightenment is something i have to achieve and in there is the riddle i

(29:53):
right actually enlightenment is something i can never achieve all that can cease is
the illusion of i right and that that is you know the enlightenment that is
the illumination of what's actually happening in the world right it is oh
it's not about me like it's not about this idea of me at all all of that is just me

(30:13):
you know sticking to my conceptual mumbo jumbo for the sake of getting some idea
that i know what's happening right it's like you were saying in your post and the problem isn't you
know that you don't know what's happening is that you think you should know what's happening it's
like how are you expected to how can you possibly expect to know everything that's happening and

(30:35):
even considering just the limitations of our form right we don't take in all the the bands of light
that are here all the waves of sound that are here all of the the types of odor that are here
we don't even take in like half of that not even a fragment of it so all we're ever doing is guessing
what's going on that's all we're ever doing and so taking that too seriously you have to ask

(30:57):
yourself well why why would we take ourselves so seriously if we know we're so limited
the answer is need that's it and this society is reinforced into us that we should know you
know by the time we're 18 years old we should know what we're doing for the rest of our lives

(31:18):
it's like what the [ __ ] kind of backwards ass thinking is that to think that 18 now i mean i'm
only 26 like i still feel super young but like now 18 to me that's you know eight years younger than
me that seems very young when i was 18 i felt like you know super grown up adult like i certainly

(31:40):
wasn't but to think even at 30 or 40 like also what is the fun in having things figured out
like it's impossible and that's the other thing is like when the identity of yourself is reinforced
it only leads to suffering and fear and thinking that i should have things i should have me figured

(32:03):
out you know i should know myself by now it's like you [ __ ] can't so it's unfortunate that
our society pushes this so hard to know yourself and know what you're doing with your life know
what your career should be and it brews up all of this anxiety for kids at the end of high school

(32:23):
you know they need to know what they're doing with the next step of their life they need to know
what college they're going to towards the end of college they need to know what job they're getting
you know they start in the workforce they need to know what career they should have for the
rest of their life you know getting into their late 20s early 30s they need to know you know
who they're going to be with for the rest of their life they need to know how many kids they

(32:45):
want to have and it's like why can't we just settle on understanding that we can never know
and then that whole world of fear and anxiety and suffering that is self-perpetuated by ourselves
individually and our society as a whole goes away when we settle on understanding that i don't know

(33:07):
rather than settling on answers and thinking that we should know because we can't so thinking that
we should is only going to create this friction that leads to worry and anxiety and depression
and all of these things that are so prevalent in our society these days right but if i'm not

(33:28):
happy how can i get happy if i'm not trying to satisfy myself and and that's that's the catch
and i i was stuck in it for years i mean you start thinking to yourself like oh i deserve better
it's like it's not that you're wrong right it's just that deserve is is a fiction kind of like

(33:51):
fair right and it goes along with the idea of i like it's not that you deserve or don't
deserve anything what can you do right what options are in front of you what can you see
right how much clarity do you have at any given moment where you can you can establish different
directions it's not about deserving or being fair that just reinforces the idea of i and it's almost

(34:14):
like we will settle if if we have the realization that we can't ever be certain about the future
at least we can try to be certain about the future by being certain about who we think we are and
what we're capable of so it's like we're not even trying to be certain about what's going to happen
to us we're certain about what we're what we're capable of doing we're not capable of doing so

(34:36):
we've settled for even a lower form of certainty just to reinforce the idea of
i like it it becomes a catch and this is why it's like when people will say well i i know i deserve
better it's like you don't actually the question is are you willing to go and find out
are you willing to find out whether you can get to better whether you can change direction

(34:59):
you know because you can sit here and think about what you deserve you can sit here thinking about
real what reality is going to give you or not give you or you can try and look at things differently
and find a different direction right it's just like being in a maze if you're just going to
sit there and say i deserve to get out of the maze you're never going to find your way up
yeah it's like we'd rather feel comfortable knowing what we can't

(35:22):
do than being uncertain thinking we might be able to or be uncertain about what we can do
or can't do and not just not knowing and being okay sitting here and now in that infinite field
of possibilities that is the here and now always rather than being sure and when you're able to

(35:42):
question those things that you're so sure about yourself and those ideas about yourself that
have been you know molded into you that have been conditioned into you that have been you
know that you have told yourself for years and years and years realizing that they are never
the truth no matter how much you think no matter how much proof you think you have they never are

(36:05):
the truth they never can be so realizing that you know while it may seem more comfortable
to be certain about you know your flaws and what you can't do it it isn't and long term it only
leads to and perpetuates that feeling of suffering and that idea of who you are that identity which

(36:27):
is solidified and reaffirmed by all the beliefs that you have about yourself and who you are
and the things that you believe in only reinforces that identity which as we started off this podcast
that identity is the root of all of it all of the thoughts and perceptions and beliefs that you have

(36:50):
about yourself reinforce that identity that is what makes up that identity at the end of the
day like those ideas those stories reinforce that identity so as soon as you start questioning them
and picking them apart one by one you're picking apart that root that is the root of your suffering
so rather than telling yourself a new story or you know going through even like affirmations

(37:15):
that are so popular like instead of focusing on those to just try and like you know contradict
in this like never-ending battle of the perception of yourself that will go on and on for eternity
until you've suffered so much you don't even know which way is up instead of focusing on reaffirming

(37:36):
your identity in a positive light just question all of it and rip that [ __ ] out of the ground
and then there is nothing left to suffer rather than fighting this battle every single day you
can pull the route and realize there's nothing left to be suffering there is nothing left

(37:57):
to be anxious about and that is where you know the excitement of the here and now and and
enjoyment of what is and enthusiasm for what is and being the doing being the
action that you are doing here and now that is always happening here and now that you are
here and now that is what you will be rather than holding onto this identity that comes with you

(38:24):
every step of the way through every doing that you do you are all of a sudden just the doing
itself and that idea of you has melted away has subsided has disintegrated into the doing and
all of a sudden there is no division and that is non-duality that is unity yeah and there's

(38:45):
just the practice of that which which i've said before is ultimately what you're trying to do
in martial arts but it's very helpful to remember that if you find yourself thinking about yourself
you know you're losing energy you know that you're feeling low and and that's definitely something
that's helped me so just bring yourself back to the present and i know andrew had mentioned

(39:06):
this in a video recently where uh he was saying just focus on your senses because your senses
are always in the present they're always now right how you feel what you smell what you hear
that's all happening now your interpretation your thoughts about those things are a different thing
right so before you get to the stage of interpretation before you get to the stage of
opinion about what it is you're feeling just focus on the feeling focus as deeply into it as you can

(39:31):
just whatever it is let the thoughts subside and what you'll find is when you're done doing that
you will have a feeling of being a little bit refreshed you will have a feeling of at least
feeling a little bit more clear like there's less weight on you and it's because ultimately you
decide to take the weight off just for a second it's really just attention moment to moment to

(39:52):
moment we take off weight and put on weight just moment to moment all the time just by thinking
about things like if i have a habitual thought about myself when i'm in a certain situation
and then i end up in that situation all that habitual thought comes back i'm bringing my
old me this is why people have problems when they move away from their home from their parents place

(40:12):
become a different person and then years later go back to see their parents and immediately go
back into the old habits that they had when they lived with their parents and it's because they're
bringing that old person who they were in that house back into their reality they're thinking
about themselves that way again and so all those old habits start popping up again that's how quick
it happens that's how easy it is right and this is why relationships can be very dangerous too

(40:36):
because in romantic relationships we tend to bring the last person we were
in the previous relationship with us if we haven't been working on ourselves in between
right so it's always just important to remember that as soon as you're thinking about yourself
you're thinking about something that came from the past you're thinking about an illusion
you're thinking about limitations you're thinking about a division that isn't there

(40:59):
it's not there and and the more you can just let that go the more you will start to actually be
able to hear people and i think that that is something as a salesman that i learned
when i was very young i remember we were doing an exercise in this sales class and the exercise was
you know if you're talking to somebody and they say you know i have 26 cows and five of them die

(41:23):
how many cows do i have left and so everybody's like well 21. you know 21 cows he's like no listen
to it again you know i have 26 cows and five of them die and he was saying 26 cows so it's 15 was
the answer right but because he was saying it's so fast because you're making an assumption you get

(41:43):
the wrong message out of it right and this was the whole point of listening don't make assumptions
don't try to get to the end of the conversation don't try to it's all about being present and so
the less you're thinking about yourself the less you're trying to validate yourself or justify
yourself or or compare yourself the more you're able to actually hear people when what they're
saying and more importantly why they're saying it because you'll recognize why you would say that

(42:06):
it changes communication entirely it really does and it's all about just getting out of the way
i can't i can't tell you how funny i find it how many courses i took in being confident
or public speaking or anything like that years later to realize
all i had to do was just allow myself to fail a few times and i would have found my way

(42:27):
yeah it is crazy how much you know reading and learning people try to do
about these things when you know action is the irreplaceable thing that it comes down to
really like there's so many situations where and even for me you know with with content and you

(42:48):
know like doing podcast episodes i didn't really i have i actually have never really i follow a
few accounts on tick tock that are like you know tips for creators stuff like that but for the most
part like i didn't do any you know research going into content creating or doing a podcast it's like
very limited amount of time spent in that and just doing things and you learn not only so

(43:15):
much more from just doing but so much faster like it happens so much faster it happens without you
trying to learn it's just doing and it almost happens naturally with you without you even having
to go back and like analyze what you have done in the past and going back to uh you discussing

(43:37):
you know with your sales role just being you know letting go of that sort of idea of yourself and
being more present when i first you know early on and understanding even just like before i even
knew what the present moment was you know one of the first books i read was the power of now
by eckhart tolle and that helped me just realize that oh [ __ ] like it really is

(43:59):
the only thing like i've spent my entire life worrying about everything besides right now and
when i brought that into conversations all of a sudden conversations were so much easier to have
because i didn't realize it at the time but there was no me in the way of the conversation so i

(44:22):
used to you know have conversations and i would be thinking about myself like how is the other person
perceiving what i am saying are they enjoying what i'm saying and all these things and as soon as i
started to just like be more immersed fully in the conversation realizing that that conversation
here and now is the only thing happening ever like right now that's it that's it like any thoughts

(44:47):
in my head are all about something outside of that and my thoughts about myself are all
you know what is this person going to think about me after the conversation or something like that
and as soon as i started you know without me knowing it getting myself out of the way
those conversations were so much more seamless and fluid and it's sort of been that way more so in

(45:09):
terms of just like communication and conversation and it really just comes down to there being less
me involved in the act itself you know i am having a conversation i am the act of having
a conversation that conversation is not happening without me i am that conversation happening here

(45:33):
and now and that's just you existing without this idea of you and perception of yourself
yeah and then intelligence acts like that's that's the funniest part about it is it's that we we
spend so much time trying to think to ourselves this is going to go well i'm going to do well i'm
going to talk to this person i'm going to be fine they're not going to think anything wrong about

(45:55):
me i'm going to word this perfectly and then of course if it doesn't go perfectly then we worry
about ourselves and we think about ourselves and we do all that and that's where our intelligence
goes it goes towards where we point it and we point it at a fiction and so it just continues
to process information about that fiction whereas if we were to get out of the way and allow it to
process the information that's happening in the environment and in the situation we're in
we have a different outcome right and so this is ultimately what discover transcendence was

(46:21):
all about and to any of our listeners who haven't watched discover transcendence
it was a video i made i think three or four years ago where i tried to wrap up three of
the cognitive behaviors that are natural to us as human beings that tend to get in our way when
we're trying to establish a sense of clarity and so it's about 48 minutes long and it goes
through a number of things we do such as habit and cognitive dissonance and protecting our identity

(46:46):
and the entire point of that video was grace was to eventually get to a point where you question
these mechanisms enough where you find yourself in a state where you're not thinking about yourself
you're having the experience that you're having right now which leads to the realization of what
is the recognition of reality and the awesome potential that lies within the experience that

(47:09):
we all tend to disregard as just being a physical human experience there's so much more in that
and of course that leads us to the recognition or rather the um the experience of it of what
people have referred to as god or allah or the dao or enlightenment or anything like that
and so very much in the process of letting all this go we are allowing ourselves to see

(47:32):
what's there which is what's leading us to the next project that we're going to
be working on here on dualistic unity and i wanted to bring this up quickly because
it's the first project where we are actively going to be fundraising we are doing a second
part to discover transcendence called beyond transcendence where we are going to be exploring
exactly what the reality of god or enlightenment is once we get past the illusion of the self what

(47:58):
it is religion has been trying to communicate and how it's been distorted over time what the
actual reality is that's available to all of us when we surrender our our illusion of ourselves
and the need to believe and so we're going to be making a movie about that and it's going to be
very involved we're going to have some great clips a couple of interviews in there i know andrew's

(48:19):
going to be on the ground doing some stuff it's going to be a lot of fun we're going to be working
on it over the next four to six months and so if you would like to see how that goes if you'd
like to see our collective effort to challenge belief and everything that's built around belief
then definitely join us on patreon we would love for you to be a part of this movement

(48:39):
certainly yeah that's i'm very excited for that because it's just it's going to be so involved in
other areas than us just you know talking on zoom once a week it's gonna it's gonna bring so many
other parts in and so many other people in and you know it'll be yeah i'm very excited about it

(49:00):
just to see some of the insights and some of the discussions that are had through that experience
it's going to be a great conversation because we we tend to talk about religion and belief
and spirituality and all of that and i've had numerous people say well why don't you identify
as spiritual and i don't identify as spiritual because to me that's that's another division

(49:22):
that's fictitious it doesn't it doesn't exist kind of like saying you know the mind-body relationship
there's no real division between the mind and the body so it's kind of one of those conversations
you don't really need to have right they're the same thing they're one and the same and
so spirituality to me is just separating the physical into another layer and there is no

(49:44):
separation i mean the fact is is that my internal is my external they're tied together right so
we're just going to continue exploring that as deeply as it goes and we're going to get into the
the meat and bones of what it is that's been lost in religion and what i mean is that religion was
meant to bind us together we've talked about this before the etymology of religion is to

(50:05):
bind together but all it does is divide and it's because we get caught up in ourselves and this
idea of ourselves and i find it so interesting that in so many religions there is the symbolism
for that right like the toltecs called it i think matote or something like that basically
they looked at it as a parasite within the mind that fed on our energy that's actually how they

(50:26):
described it right in the bible they talk about it as the devil right so all of these symbolisms
for our ego for our identity for the illusion that gets put up when when we invest in this fiction
just having that conversation in a way that doesn't involve worshiping a concept

(50:47):
or having to adhere to a certain discipline or having to identify with a certain group
being able to actually work towards the reality in the same way that we're talking about how thinking
is a distorted form of intelligence belief is a distorted form of existence right and that's what
beyond transcendence is going to be about is moving past this idea of transcendence past this

(51:10):
idea of god past this idea of enlightenment to the actual realization of what it means
and that it's possible for us here and now it doesn't require you to go
to a monastery it doesn't require you to to pray or or use a rosary it doesn't require you
to follow monks into the mountains it doesn't require you to do any of this

(51:30):
it's something that's possible here and now all the time so long as you are willing to have
humility and faith and question the certainty that goes along with your fiction that's it
yeah yeah and it really comes down to like that true freedom and i just
thought while you were saying that like the idea that accessories aren't necessary to living a life

(51:54):
beyond belief you know it it's almost like it's so freeing and even myself like having
you know not been religious for a while now but even going beyond the need to meditate
every day or you know write down manifestations and whatnot it was like those were still things

(52:16):
crutches that i was relying on and now it's like i exist day to day and all i need is myself and
i recently told ray about uh one of my accounts that has a lot of my cryptocurrency got hacked
and someone tried to transfer a lot of money and it was a very strange experience for me because

(52:36):
while it was you know would have been a bummer if it happened it wasn't like this incredibly
jarring thing to myself because and when i i've kind of understood that i'm not you know tied to
the money that i have as much but it was i was able to see it more clearly and i just

(52:57):
remembered that i still have me you know and that's all i need that is my experience and
that's all i'll ever need so no matter what gets taken it's like living without as much identity
there isn't as much to desire and there isn't nearly as much to lose like there isn't

(53:19):
things you're afraid of losing and i was thinking about this with the idea of gratitude as well the
moment you are grateful you are afraid and it it may be difficult for people and i'm sure if i got
a debate with someone they would refute that and say something like oh i'm i can be grateful but

(53:41):
you know i'm i'm not afraid i'm not afraid of losing those things i'm grateful for i'm just
grateful for them and there's nothing wrong with that like there's nothing wrong with that and
that's what people go back to like there's nothing wrong with believing in god there's nothing wrong
with being grateful blah blah it's like okay if you want to hold on to that like i'm not gonna
like you know force you to stop thinking that i can't do that but to think that you can be

(54:05):
grateful for something and not simultaneously be afraid is kind of a bit of a oxymoron
like as you are grateful for it you have to be afraid of losing it to a degree
and so you don't have to be grateful for these things because being grateful is reinforcing

(54:26):
that identity of yourself which is the root of all of your suffering fears worries depression anxiety
all of it so even something that like every single help self-help guru out there says is you
know that's the peak that's the tip of the iceberg that's the peak of the mountain gratitude is like

(54:49):
even that reinforces your identity which is the root of all of your suffering
yeah absolutely well and the argument's simple right it's like you know i'm grateful for this
okay let me take that away how do you feel said let's just let me take it away well my
gratitude's gone exactly why you would be afraid if you were grateful because it's something that

(55:13):
can end with something being taken away so your state of being is immediately based on an external
it's not based on on you just being you know in a state of mind right now like
i've said before that i have no reason to be happy and i don't want any right i just choose to be
because i can because it's available it's just a matter of of allowing myself to be in the state

(55:38):
of mind where that is what's expressed and and typically that just comes from me not investing
in so many concepts that put me in conflict with my reality and and that's really all that is is
having opinions about things people you know even what's going on in the world
it can inform your decisions to some degree but it can also put you in a box to the point where

(56:00):
nothing's ever okay because it's not the way you would do it and so opinion can be super dangerous
that way and then this is the thing that i really try to avoid well even just with with
this podcast for example or with making videos on tick tock it's like you were saying you know
what's wrong with it nothing there's nothing wrong with anything that you're doing

(56:21):
nothing you can do anything you want everything is permitted
the question is are you are you good with that like if i were to say there's an option where
you didn't have to suffer or feel so defensive if i was to say there's an option where you didn't
have to protect an idea of yourself because it was always under fire wouldn't that be something
you'd want to talk about and that is really the crux of all of this right like people will say

(56:48):
oh well you know jesus said this and this and this and this it's like okay how are you feeling today
we could talk about jesus we can talk about the bible we can talk about interpretation we can
compare scripture and all of that the real question really just comes down to
do you feel connected do you feel like you're part of the whole do you feel like you

(57:12):
are one with reality that you are not disconnected because that's all the realization of god is
right and the existence of hell is feeling absolutely disconnected it's like you said
right fear just the over commitment to i that is hell because the more committed to i i am the more
walls i have right and then just becomes a prison where it gets tighter and tighter and tighter and

(57:35):
as as i start to reinvest in the idea of me to get out of that prison it just keeps getting tighter
and tighter and until we see that until we have that cognitive leap where we go oh my god like i'm
actually just thinking about myself we're stuck we're stuck thinking about ourselves trying to get
out of thinking about ourselves it's one of those things where it's like you just have to surrender

(57:57):
there's no logical step to that leap of faith you actually just have to go i'm not what i think i am
ever and then just deal with reality with that in mind that's it it'll make more sense
as you go but at first it's super difficult because you don't have any sense of control
all the things you used to think about in order to make yourself feel certain are gone

(58:20):
they're gone and so you just have to continue moving forward and what happens is after a while
you start to instead of trying to build an idea of yourself or confidence you discover self-efficacy
you discover that through stumbling enough times you get better at walking through failing enough
times you get better at succeeding and your brain continues to refine everything that it does it

(58:40):
does not require you to analyze your progress in fact analyzing your progress like we said multiple
times about the archer just splits your attention actually makes it harder for you to progress
yeah wow that actually makes a lot more sense to me for that idea i've talked before about how i've

(59:01):
always thought of confidence or not always but you know the last year or so of confidence being an
action more than a feeling that's kind of like the exact thing you're just saying right and so
it's not even like everyone thinks confidence is a feeling like you have confidence so then
you're able to do things but i've even said like i've thought of analogies about you know action

(59:24):
despite how you feel and confidence being just this building and every action you take no matter
how afraid you are is a brick that you're adding to the building and all it is is just action upon
action upon action upon action upon action and then all of a sudden it's not even like yeah
you get to a feeling of confidence if you want to call it that but it's just like you've just done

(59:46):
it so many times that there is no thing to not be confident about again like with these podcasts
i've never really been you know uncomfortable on our podcast maybe like the first one a little bit
just because it was like uncertain a little bit but like just doing you know i've done 30 of my
own episodes i've been the guest on a number and it's not like i've been trying to gain confidence

(01:00:11):
as i go it's just i've done it so many times that i can't even think of something to be afraid of
and fear is typically kind of the other end of the spectrum of like you know a lot of confidence in
people's head it's like they're either confident or they're afraid and so it's it's not even that
you feel super confident it's just you don't have anything to be afraid of so all that's left is

(01:00:36):
yeah why wouldn't i do that and um the other thing you're talking about with you know
believers and or at least this is how where i was taking it was the believer like believers
in fiction they talk about how you know you know god helps people and belief helps people
and you know i've had people i was talking to recently just saying things like you know you

(01:01:00):
don't know that everyone's fear and worries are rooted in their identity it's like well what else
is it rooted in and i was like name me something didn't get a response to that message but
um when people talk about you know that and that belief and it's like how do you know
all these people are worried and anxious and i'm like because i get hundreds of dms every single

(01:01:23):
week of people talking about i get hundreds of comments every week on my videos i have a lot
of people like most of the stuff i post about is this type of stuff like dealing with these types
of things this for me is just like a new clear understanding of that and how identity is this
root so questioning beliefs is a massive part of that so that is why i am posting these things and

(01:01:48):
people who say things like you know i feel better believing in god and it's like
you're still [ __ ] afraid of death though like you're still afraid of death don't tell
me that god's soothing your fear of death don't tell me that thinking you're going to heaven is
losing your fear of death because i know it's not because i know you're so afraid i know you still
like fear a lot of things i know you're still worried all the time and it all comes back to your

(01:02:10):
idea of yourself and so say all you want about how god's helping everyone but everyone's still super
depressed super anxious super afraid including and certainly not limited to believers like
if not you know being the most of them it's like god isn't actually helping anything it just makes

(01:02:32):
them feel a little bit good sometimes but they still have all of those fears and they might have
even more fears and more traumas from thinking they're going to like burn in health for eternity
or some crazy ass [ __ ] like that yeah absolutely and it's interesting because
they'll say well there's a benefit to religion and there have been numerous peer-reviewed

(01:02:54):
studies showing that in religious communities there are benefits within the community such as
community is support and empathy being there for one another but that's because you you
identify in the same way as the people within that community the people outside of that community
is the problem the people who don't identify the same way the people who don't share that religion

(01:03:17):
you can't express that same empathy in that community to somebody who identifies differently
it becomes very difficult to do so right and that that's it that's the problem with religion
is that it's more divisive than it is unifying but i find it very interesting that often you'll
you'll hear people cite that study or those studies and say look religion obviously has a

(01:03:39):
benefit it's like no no no community has a benefit empathy has a benefit right human interaction
has a benefit sure religion is facilitating those things but only within a small group
so if we can get rid of the small group then we can just facilitate those things
for their own sake in which case will continue to benefit religion's not the cornerstone of

(01:04:01):
that right if anything it's the governor on that it's the thing that's limiting how effective that
we could be with one another and and so yeah i always find it very interesting we cherry pick
right we cherry pick it's like no no look there's proof what i'm doing is right right again how do
you feel right like how is your day going do you feel connected or do you have to run back

(01:04:23):
to church on sunday just to make sure that you're all caught up with with sky daddy just in case you
get hit by a car or something and and that's it is that they will tell you a great many things
people tell themselves a lot of things i spent years telling myself things it
doesn't make them true and i always find it very interesting because i i've had that conversation
i often have that conversation it's like well how do you know that's true for everybody

(01:04:46):
because it's the crux of the observer and the observed relationship i right that is the crux
of it for everybody everybody at least who's human let's just keep it simple right there's an
eye there and as long as that's the case then we're all going through the same experience
in different iterations and different variations sure but the under the underlying uh environment

(01:05:09):
or the underlying situation is the same i perceive myself as divided from reality right and
so i invest in this fiction of me that's that's universal people may not like it they may not want
to admit it they may not want to look at it but that's because then they wouldn't be able to judge
you right they would have to actually look at it and start questioning themselves instead they're

(01:05:32):
going to go no that's not possible you're just making assumptions you're you're um you're being
arrogant right you think you know everything and it's like actually i don't i've just
questioned myself into oblivion and this is what remains so question yourself and let's see what
happens for you because i would love to have that conversation but typically at that point they've

(01:05:52):
they've run away and said you know we'll just agree to disagree and and that's the end of the
conversation it's like okay so this isn't about faith it's not about god it's not about connecting
to anything it's not actually genuine it's just about fitting in and feeling a little less afraid
yeah it's crazy how many comments i get about my delivery on those videos you know like

(01:06:19):
oh you're so condescending you're so arrogant it's like they don't actually talk about i've even
i've even commented back to people who are like this is so arrogant and condescending i can't even
you know watch it again this is like beyond belief i'm respond like wow that's quite a bit about

(01:06:39):
my character do you have anything to say about the video and they're like no i can't even i'm
not even going to bother commenting on this like what are you doing here like you just come back to
my delivery and it's like you know you seem angry you seem agitated you seem very aggressive in the

(01:06:59):
things that you're saying like i'm really not i don't mean to be i need to be kind of funny and i
am you know poking some fun here but i don't think there's anything wrong with that considering the
damage that has been done through beliefs like this i think a little bit of fun poking maybe
you know not necessary but it can happen and uh yeah i mean it's just so interesting how people

(01:07:27):
just come back to they don't even bother talking to you about the message it's like it just comes
back to you and and your identity because you are questioning their identity which they are you know
so afraid of losing and it's like them standing on that wobbly chair and you're just like kicking

(01:07:47):
one of the legs like pretty hard and they're like you know wobbling shaking and you're kicking it
harder and they're like you're condescending and aggressive and and why are you doing that and then
you know they just refuse to realize that it's the chair under them that's the issue and the
crux of the issue and their identity as the crux of the issue it has nothing to do with you

(01:08:12):
it's like you could just get off the chair right we could just have a talk that but that's it it's
and this is exactly why i've changed how i talk to people over the years like i said when i was
a little younger than you it was oh yeah i want to talk about this with everybody now it's um if you

(01:08:32):
come to me cool we'll talk right but i'm not going to chase you i'm not going to try and convince you
i'm not going to do anything because either you are questioning or you're not and if you're not
this isn't going to go anywhere i can't make you question you can lead a horse to water right but
you can't make a drink it's exactly the point is that you have to recognize where there are people

(01:08:55):
who just aren't aren't in that place where they can go down that road yet which doesn't mean that
they won't be at some point but your participation in that conversation is just going to make them
go farther away to some degree because they're they're just looking at you you are threatening
me right and that's something i said one of your commenters said you know it's like you

(01:09:16):
know i was a fan of yours and still you until you started uh [ __ ] all over my beliefs it's like
he's not though he's talking about belief as a whole not yours specifically i don't know
what you believe right i'm just talking about the nature of belief but that that's not that's not a

(01:09:37):
common conversation that's why they always go well scripture because they know how to deal with that
right but as soon as you start going ah hold on belief not what you believe but belief as a whole
let's talk about that they don't know what to do with that because that's not a conversation
our society has and if they do have it it becomes atheism right which is unfortunately

(01:09:59):
still a belief and it's still a form of identification it's still reinforcing i
right like that's the whole thing where atheists are actually closer to the recognition of god to
some degree because at least they're not passing responsibility off but they're still perceiving a
separation based on their over commitment to their own identity right and so it caught they

(01:10:20):
catches them and it stops them from having that insight right so it's kind of funny that atheists
are closer to god in not believing in god but believers have an idea of god and that's what
stops them from recognizing it it's just it's always the same thing it's always me at the
end of the day it's the eye perceiving the division that causes the distortion

(01:10:45):
yeah it's yeah it's that that understanding that anything that reinforces that identity will lead
to you know the reinforcement that is the root of the fear and the suffering and as you're able
to question those things it's not necessarily i mean for some people i'm sure it's something that
happens kind of overnight it's like oh my god i have been everything has been coming back to

(01:11:11):
me everything is run through me and without me there is nothing to fear anymore and it just comes
back you know the process if you want to call it a process even it's just you know questioning as
they come up and it it isn't just you know it's not like an ego death like people want to box
it up and make it this simple thing like i have achieved enlightenment i have had an ego death

(01:11:36):
it's like it's a constant thing and it's yeah you have an ego death like you've said until someone
comes over and kicks you in the front of the shin and then you're like ah [ __ ] that hurts me
you know and and all of a sudden you know there's that ego again so it's something that which isn't
again an ego is not a bad thing we've almost labeled it as you know and it's funny how it

(01:12:00):
was only until i started listening to jim carrey talk about the ego is as like the sense of self as
opposed to you know someone who has a big ego just like thinks highly of themselves it's like kind of
the two different definitions i guess of it but the ego itself is just the sense of self which is

(01:12:20):
a requirement to experience this illusion of duality like it's it's a tool that can be utilized
in a great way for you to experience this you know illusion of duality without you don't have
to take it super seriously but in order for you to experience this dualistic illusion there has to be

(01:12:45):
an ego involved but it doesn't have to run you and when you get caught up in thinking
that it is who you are as opposed to using it as a tool that is where all the fear
depression anxiety stems from is thinking that it is who you are as opposed to just a sort of

(01:13:07):
character tool that you can utilize to have this experience yeah absolutely well it comes down to
like we identify with it rather than just looking at what it is
right i was i made a video the other day about uh channelers just how channelers often know that
they're just talking to themself but they also know that you're not going to pay for that service

(01:13:31):
and so they they say they're talking to source so they say they're talking to some entity or
something like that and that's the case you're and i encourage anybody who doubts that to
contact that channeler not letting them know that you're you're doubtful and then just talk to them
about your realizations about unity consciousness and and whether they understand that as well and

(01:13:52):
almost all the time they'll come back and go yeah we understand that that's that's the case you
know but we had we got to make it more simple for people basically they say we have to dumb it down
for people and that that you know it drives me nuts to some degree because it's not necessary
and it causes more distortion and harm but more importantly it's because the the show

(01:14:14):
that's put on in channeling perpetuates your responsibility because it's putting
the responsibility of those insights externally and it's teaching other people that if they do
that those insights are available if you just find an entity that's insightful it'll help you
instead of just teaching you they're all within you all the time and so somebody had commented

(01:14:35):
like you know well what's the harm in this and they said aside from perpetuating irresponsibility
you know that's pretty much it it's not that there's anything wrong it's not
bad because they're all you've already assumed it's bad it's not that it's bad it's just that it
perpetuates irresponsibility which always brings conflict and suffering in the in the long run
and the person responded so you've judged it as bad as it's like looking at your responsibility

(01:15:01):
for what it is is not a judgment on somebody who's being irresponsible we have to be able to look
at the action without identifying with the action like it is what it is whether it's good or bad is
something else so i responded to the person saying no that's your perception of your responsibility
as bad that was your immediate response when i said your responsibility maybe you should think

(01:15:22):
about that why did you assume this reflected on you in a bad way because you obviously know you
know which is why you don't like that it's being brought up right and that's what i mean like we
lie to ourselves all the time and you can watch how close to the truth you're getting

(01:15:43):
by how quickly people run away from you right so just after after a certain point
you don't even have to go out espousing any truths you don't have to go out trying to teach
anybody anything just be the insights or or be the person that your insights have led you to become
allow it to interact with the world through you allow yourself to be whatever it is that you are

(01:16:06):
and and you will you will marvel at exactly how much sense faith actually makes it's so funny
that people want to have faith in something and an end result right like earlier you were saying
you almost lost a bunch of money in crypto and you're like i'm not i'm not panicking about this
it is what it is and i know some people are going to say well andrew has no responsibilities he has

(01:16:27):
you know he has no no children he has no wife relying on him well i do i have a wife and i
have a child and i have a new cat and there's a gecko upstairs and there are things that i have
to worry about but i don't and what i mean is that my house could burn to burn to the ground
today i could lose my job and everything else i still know i'm gonna roll with whatever happens
next because i've always rolled with whatever happens next that's the best i can do i don't

(01:16:53):
have to feel certain about how that's going to go or where that's going to go because that's all
you know at best speculation but i know that given a chance to come up with a solution to a problem i
typically do and it's because i don't tell myself i can't i don't tell myself other people would do
it better right i don't tell myself a story that hinders my intelligence and that is all the faith

(01:17:18):
i need just faith in my ability to be reality in action that's constantly what we are it's
just that we distort it and that's what limits our possibilities and it makes it harder for us to get
up when we fall just remember that you don't have to judge yourself for falling in order to get up
yeah that's that's a big one for me don't judge your judgments and yeah like a situation like

(01:17:41):
that where say for example you lose a bunch of money like if you're able to you know take a
step back and just see things as they are without distortion of me and that it was you know your
money that you lost or something like if you're able to see that say you lose a bunch of money
whether you have a bunch of kids or you don't you have a bunch of responsibilities or you don't like

(01:18:05):
is there a benefit to freaking out say you lose a bunch of money and it's not coming back you know
what is what is the benefit in that situation of freaking out it's only going to prolong
the difficulty in dealing with the situation at hand that's all that it does and it's almost like
some people probably can't even you know if we tell people that they can't even necessarily

(01:18:32):
rationalize or comprehend like how you could do that how you could lose a bunch of money
and not freak out but like that's the only approach it doesn't mean
it's you know necessarily super easy i don't want to say it's difficult because by saying
that it's difficult it may be more difficult for you if you believe that it's difficult but
you know it for most people there have been times where this happens and they just lose their

(01:18:58):
lose their [ __ ] like they go crazy but when you take a rational approach like a
3 000 foot view at it there's no benefit and it's only going to prolong your suffering it's
only going to prolong your ability to get back to you know normality or you know whatever you
want to call that but it just you know dwelling on anything whatsoever any thing that happened

(01:19:22):
ever whether it's you lose a bunch of money or you know you have a presentation and it doesn't
go as well as you would have liked like there is no benefit to dwelling on that just keep moving
forward you know you make a video that flops or something like there is just make a new video
you could just remake that video again learn what you learned from it and just make a new one that's

(01:19:45):
you know with what you've learned from that situation and keep moving forward you know
somebody hacks your coinbase account take better precautions to make it a little bit more secure
like throw in some more two-factor authentications andrew like jesus christ like toss it on your
treasure or something like don't keep so much money in coinbase that's a third-party entity like

(01:20:08):
you know it's just like learn from it take what you will from it but the dwelling
is completely completely unnecessary yeah you don't have to judge yourself to learn in fact
it makes it harder to do so i used to tell that to my daughter like you can feel guilty
or you can learn but you can't do both right like it's very difficult to change yourself when you're

(01:20:31):
telling yourself that you have something that that you deserve to feel guilty you're telling yourself
a story and you're putting yourself in a box where that's what you're going to experience you don't
have to dwell on your guilt to learn from it you can realize what you've done you can recognize
all the factors that led to it and maybe where the selfishness came in or where the distortion

(01:20:51):
or the toxicity came in and adapt but as long as you're telling yourself that you are a worse
person for making that mistake or that you have less value because you didn't do that perfectly
you're just going to continue to repeat the cycle because ultimately it's that fiction of yourself
that's stopping you from having the clarity to do that thing differently right and it's always
the same thing i i again i'm always mystified by how how many years i spent trying to better myself

(01:21:19):
not realizing that the self i was trying to better was the reason i was having so many problems
that that that one was tricky for me because i always wanted to be a better person i didn't
allow myself to be the person that i was which was ultimately my best person right i just had
to let it form over time but we have these expectations like oh well i'm going to be

(01:21:43):
perfect as soon as i surrender yeah you're going to be perfectly imperfect because perfect and
imperfect are concepts they don't exist right it's all just an idea so you are going to organically
grow and adapt just like anything else you know it's kind of like earlier you were talking about
you know how we'll we'll kind of go through a lesson go through a lesson go through a lesson

(01:22:05):
it just gets clearer and clearer and clearer until all of a sudden it's effortless we're just we've
learned that insight we're not thinking about it anymore that's exactly what our synapses do
right when our synapses are forming when we're learning a new skill they like brush past one
another and then they'll start to connect a little bit and that becomes a little bit easier and as we
do it over and over again they become just a solid connection in the same way as we repeat a habit

(01:22:26):
it becomes a little bit easier a little bit easier and all of a sudden boom it's like it was it was
effortless and it's because we've gone through that pathway often enough that it's it's familiar
right well it's the same with abandoning yourself it's the same with abandoning your identity it's
just practice it's just practice and priority and the priority has to be i'm just done making myself

(01:22:50):
suffer that's it because as soon as you're you can admit that you are contributing to your suffering
you will start to get some clarity as to how right but as long as you have
opinions about your suffering it's very very difficult to see how you're contributing to it

(01:23:10):
yeah damn yeah so with something like because the whole idea of you know bettering yourself
and you know maximizing your potential is a major part of our society right now do you
think the idea of you know maximizing your potential is another thing that reinforces

(01:23:35):
that identity something like gratitude or optimism or any belief system is like
striving to reach your full potential or i guess i guess really striving for anything is striving
as you're striving you are reinforcing your identity like your idea of yourself

(01:23:59):
is only being reinforced through striving but to play like devil's advocate i feel like there are
people out there who kind of have that mentality and don't necessarily
or i don't know maybe they do but it seems like they don't have a ton of suffering that goes

(01:24:20):
along with it or anxiety like a lot of times it does but i don't know like do you think
there are cases where people have a very strong identity but it's just in such a positive
you know light that they don't have as much suffering as someone who has a strong identity

(01:24:43):
that is in a negative light if that makes sense i i think that it cuts both ways i mean the more
committed you are to your identity obviously the more in conflict you're going to be with reality
you could surround yourself with yes men right like like we were talking about donald trump
and his environment is consistently pruned so nobody disagrees with him right but

(01:25:08):
then you could say well isn't he happy well no because he consistently has to make sure
nobody's going to disagree with him like you imagine the amount of relationships that get
burnt you imagine the amount of opportunities that get lost the amount of insights that get
you know glossed over just because he he has the ability to just consistently pad
his identity and reinforce it and nothing can get in that's going to contradict that that's

(01:25:33):
a terrifying place to be right it might seem like it's super comfortable but it's so easy to break
like you're living in an egg and and so yeah no it's always a prison it may seem comfortable
and some people will actually put on the show like this is awesome look at me but they still
go through those moments of doubt they still have those moments of defensiveness i mean

(01:25:56):
god i don't even know who it was there was a singer in the states recently and somebody
accidentally called him usher or something like that and he just lost his [ __ ] and went like
started attacking the person from mistaking him or for deliberately calling him another artist
it's like how sensitive are you like exactly how fragile are you like and and that's what i

(01:26:18):
mean is that that person many people have assumed well he's famous he's rich obviously he's happy
his ego is working for him until somebody calls him the wrong name and then he just falls apart
right so it's it's always a danger it's always a danger because it's not real
right and you can avoid reality for a long time and you might even avoid it all the way up to

(01:26:41):
your death but at death you're going to come back to the reality you can't take any of it with you
including your idea of yourself so you're going to be terrified right so yeah no it never leads
to a state of happiness there's always something underlying you can distract yourself though you
can run from it you can you can put on a pretty good show for a long time but it's insidious it
creeps in underneath the surface yeah yeah i feel like we see that all the time with

(01:27:07):
celebrities and just like i don't know celebrity freakouts and obviously
you know they're just caught in a tough spot with the paparazzi whatever but it's so interesting and
something i was thinking about on saturday and one of the videos i filmed was the idea that
as you sort of like achieve more in the eyes of the world your standards for you know

(01:27:32):
happiness or fulfillment or satisfaction come with you so it's almost like you're going
like you're achieving more but you're not going anywhere like that barometer keeps moving with you
so there's an equal chance of you know happiness and anger frustration you know fear as you go

(01:27:58):
up or dissatisfaction and one of the things i was talking about i don't know if you're familiar with
dan bilzerian he's kind of like r or he's older he's like i don't know 40 but he's kind of like
this generation's hugh hefner sort of like has this kind of crazy lifestyle a ton of
girls all around him and i've listened to a few of his interviews and he's actually like

(01:28:19):
a pretty intriguing guy and he talks very openly and candidly about this idea of how like he
it takes way more for him to feel happy because along the way the idea of himself has come with
him his identity has come with him so even though it's way easier for him to get certain things that

(01:28:41):
he wants like go on crazy vacations like do crazy things like have all these girls around him like
his standards are higher so it's the same sort of satisfaction dissatisfaction same
uh possibility of those things happening just at a higher level but internally

(01:29:01):
it he says it's no different than it was 10 years ago when he was in college no one knew who he was
and he was like trying to do fun stuff like it's the same exact feelings and people don't think
like that they don't realize that they're just striving for more a new barometer a new

(01:29:22):
level of achievement in the eyes of the world not realizing that that barometer that standard comes
with them every step of the way as long as they still have that idea of themselves as long as
they still have that identity it's always going to follow them and those feelings feel exactly
the same way that feeling you know when you have say ten thousand dollars in the bank and you have

(01:29:46):
a project and you make thirty thousand dollars is the same as if you have a hundred thousand dollars
in the bank and you have a project that you get three hundred thousand dollars like those feelings
are the same and the impact on your life because your lifestyles are different are probably gonna
be similar to people just don't i feel like people almost never think about that sort

(01:30:06):
of barometer coming with them and it's like it seems obvious when you think about it but it's
not that common i guess to understand and like i almost never hear people talk about it very much
it's uncomfortable right and it's funny somebody was asking this about discover transcendence

(01:30:26):
and they wrote it down how does committing to transcendence contradict society's primary primary
motivators right and then that's it is that if i can't be happy by changing my environment in other
words if i can't achieve a situation where i've become a happy person then it's on me to be happy
right now i don't think about that right i it's so much easier if i can just change my environment

(01:30:54):
and that's the problem with the law of attraction thing it's so tragic for that reason is that you
know it's like i just want to bring this this into my reality this situation this money this job
this blah blah blah because then i'll be happy it's like nope you won't you'll still be you
you will still have the same choice between getting out of your way or trying to get control

(01:31:14):
and trying to feel certain it's always going to be the same it doesn't matter what the situation
is you're always in the same situation in terms of you're either in reality or you're in your fiction
or in conflict which comes with your fiction that's it it doesn't matter what the situation
is right what matters is whether or not somebody's going to rock your boat whether or not somebody's

(01:31:35):
actually going to question you and and so that's why it's so important as you grow up over time
to give yourself opportunities to be questioned to be challenged so that way you can continue to grow
don't hide in a box trying not to be offended by people because that's that's how you know you're
putting yourself into blocks right as soon as you're scared of somebody questioning your ideas

(01:31:57):
and your beliefs that's when you know that you're you're getting farther and farther from the truth
you shouldn't be afraid if you're free right like if you're free
there's nothing to tear you down because you're not using anything to hold yourself up
right that's it so embrace the questioning and embrace the discomfort

(01:32:19):
yeah i think yeah that's one of the biggest things in realizing that you know you are not
who you think you are you are not who you have been conditioned into believing that you are as
there's less to fear there's i mean without that there is nothing to fear and there is nothing to
desire and understanding that you are you know the universal awareness experiencing itself

(01:32:44):
the universe experiencing itself however you want to label it as this awareness
here and now you are all as the present like there isn't like what could you possibly lose
what could you possibly gain you're everything like there is nothing more to gain and there
is it's impossible to lose anything so there is no and that's all that fear and desire are

(01:33:07):
at the end of the day and and when i realized that it you know changed my life completely and
to a point that you know there isn't really much to fear as long as i am existing in that which
i always am but you know you get caught up in the distortion and identity and that is where
fear and desire comes in it happens all the time i'm not going to say that it's a 24 7 existence

(01:33:33):
for me but you know living in an illusion of duality there is going to be identity that
comes in and as you you know catch yourself that's all you can do is you can you know remember that
you are not this idea of yourself you are not who you've been conditioned to believe
that you are you are you know beyond your perceptions and beliefs and ideas and thoughts and

(01:33:57):
you are simply you know the awareness of it all and that you know there's there's no fear left
there's nothing left to fear in that state there's nothing to defend right that's the thing is that
you're not afraid to fail you're not afraid to try because it doesn't identify your value at all

(01:34:19):
and on that note because we're going into season two and because a big part of season two
is encouraging the spreading of this news and as i was saying to andrew earlier before this
podcast started so many people have been expressing to me that it's very difficult
to focus on on all of the positive in their life sometimes because of how

(01:34:42):
solid the narrative of the negative tends to be in terms of the media and the news and everything
else you know this is going wrong this is going wrong so on and so forth it can be very difficult
to focus on how we are in fact changing as a consciousness when we see people stressing
about the economy or people stressing about you know corrupt governments or things like that
and so what we'd like to encourage this season is for anybody who's listening to this anybody

(01:35:07):
who's an audience member even if you're not an audience member and you happen to watch this
if you manage to question yourself where you would normally stop yourself from experiencing
something or you would normally stop yourself from questioning something or normally you
would get defensive and you decide not to and you just want to take a quick moment and record that
that minor success that minor victory we want to hear about it we want to hear about the steps

(01:35:31):
that you're taking to free yourself from your illusion and your fiction so we would love for
you to make a video and hashtag it with dualistic unity so that way we can continue to share that
with the other members of our audience because right now on discord we have a growing community
and that community has been supporting one another for the last two weeks in their own
journeys people go on they talk about what they're going through the other members of the community

(01:35:55):
share their own stories and their own insights and we're really building a a group of people
who are growing individually and collectively as a result and so we would like to continue to promote
that we want to share your story with them we want to share their stories with you so by all means
join us on discord join us on patreon but most importantly if you're on social media tick tock

(01:36:17):
or instagram and you have an insight or you do something for somebody else because it's unifying
and you want to share that with us with the hashtag dualistic unity we'd love to hear from you
yeah i'm excited to see just that whole community begin to grow and and all of this like i'm
very excited as much as we talk about you know not having goals and thinking about the future

(01:36:41):
it is you know exciting along this path as we are here now you know doing it being a part of it
it is exciting to kind of feel it happening as we go and then feeling you know the momentum
build that we've seen you know the last few weeks especially i think you know we we got up to what

(01:37:05):
subscribers on youtube like in the last couple days from like 200 to 214 in like i don't know two
or three days and discord is now getting close to 50 and that community is always discussing things
and it's super exciting to just have that there you know every day check in on the discussions
being have and it all centers around the same sorts of topics all the time and i think it'll be

(01:37:30):
a very beneficial community to a lot of people as we you know as you mentioned grow individually and
collectively together and it's it's very very cool to see and i think what uh are we getting close
to two hours here almost i'm just gonna i've got uh one more announcement just because uh what you

(01:37:51):
were saying is exactly the point we don't we don't really have an end goal in this it's just that
our environment our society our culture as a whole is very much geared towards not facilitating this
conversation about identity and all of its trappings and so all we're doing is trying to
create more opportunities for that conversation to happen more venues for that conversation to

(01:38:15):
happen and more more places where people can get together and have that conversation because
it's in that conversation that things are really going to to spread and grow and that's really it
we don't know where it's going to go from there we don't know how those ripples are going to manifest
in terms of changing the world it's just about making the ripples happen because we're already
doing it so why not make an environment where other people can feel comfortable doing the same

(01:38:39):
now with that all in mind as we go through season two and as we start coming together more and more
we're also going to be coming together to support unifying projects um projects like community
gardens projects that are in favor of social justice problems or projects that are in favor of
helping the environment or just creating unifying change and we're going to be trying to support

(01:39:00):
them um through various different means we'll talk about that more as season two progresses um
and we're going to be coming up with more more ways to basically pool our resources
and our collective insights in order to just create change in the world around us
even if you are at home and you have a bunch of friends and you you are organizing something such
as a community cleanup we would love to hear about that we might be able to help in some way so this

(01:39:25):
is the season really to reach out contact us and let us know what we can do to help you as you grow
yeah yeah it's it's a fun thing to be a part of and every i feel like every episode is you know
rejuvenating and exciting and it's so funny how we don't go into any of these episodes with any

(01:39:45):
expectations or any plans or any guidelines or any outline whatsoever you start chatting and then you
know we we try and slip in the intro and then just continue on the conversation and all of a sudden
you know two hours later here we are but yeah i'm i couldn't be more excited for season two and
wants to come with round tables more live shows it's gonna keep us busy for sure but it's all

(01:40:10):
very exciting stuff yeah absolutely no i'm i'm fully committed it's um i've been doing this for
20 years it's my passion in life it's uh when i'm not doing what i need to do this is what i'm doing
right and even when i'm doing what i need to do this is what i'm doing so it's just
it's just a natural thing to do and i'm very excited to have everybody on board just wanted

(01:40:31):
to mention as well that we talked for about a half hour before this podcast episode started
um most of that conversation will be posted to patreon uh probably within the next few days so
definitely don't miss that thank you everybody for listening to this very first episode of season two
as always it's been a lot of fun and we're looking forward to seeing you next week

(01:40:51):
looking forward to it bye everyone