July 10, 2024 • 49 mins
Tracking Wisdom
Episode 9
Conduits of Light, Choosing Love Over Fear
Recorded - 10/03/22
DESCRIPTION
The latest installment of the Tracking Wisdom Podcast presents a compelling discourse on Neale Donald Walsch's *Conversations with God*, a text that has garnered significant attention since its publication. Hosts Ryan and Peter embark on a critical examination of the book, articulating their initial hesitations regarding its narrative style, which they find somewhat contrived. However, as they engage with its substantive content, they uncover profound insights that resonate deeply with their personal and philosophical beliefs about spirituality and divinity.
The conversation delves into the complexities of Walsch's assertions, juxtaposing them with the commercial aspects that have emerged alongside the book's success. Both hosts grapple with the implications of engaging with a text that has become a cornerstone of contemporary spiritual discourse while simultaneously recognizing the potential pitfalls associated with its commodification. They explore the themes of authenticity and the skepticism that often accompanies discussions of spiritual literature, particularly in light of the book's popularity and its implications for those who may approach its teachings without prior exposure to spiritual or philosophical frameworks.
Moreover, Ryan and Peter engage in a rich exploration of the parallels between *Conversations with God* and various religious traditions, particularly Buddhism. They highlight the universal truths that permeate Walsch's work, suggesting that the messages contained within resonate with core teachings found across diverse spiritual landscapes. This analysis prompts a broader inquiry into the nature of truth in spiritual literature, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own beliefs and the ways in which they interpret and integrate these teachings into their lives. The podcast episode serves as an invitation to engage with the complexities of spiritual exploration and the importance of discernment when encountering profound ideas.
Takeaways:
- The podcast emphasizes that foreign views and interpretations should not be perceived as official advice or organizational positions.
- Listeners are reminded that the content presented is intended solely for informational and entertainment purposes.
- The discussion revolves around the profound impact of the book 'Conversations with God' and its resonance with listeners.
- We delve into the complex feelings surrounding the book, particularly its portrayal of spirituality and the potential for exploitation.
- The speakers express skepticism regarding the book's commercial success and its implications for spiritual authenticity.
- We conclude that while exploring spiritual content, one must remain critical and discerning of the sources and messages presented.
Episode Resources
- Clip from show "Community": Season 1 Episode 9 Debate - Annie and Jeff win the debate against City college! As Jeff is drafted to help lead Greendale's debate team against the all-powerful City College, the team must provide winning evidence that humankind is evil at their core while their competitors must prove humans are truly good.
- Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue by: Neale Donald Walsch
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign views, interpretationsand opinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution.
They are for informational andentertainment purposes only.
Now join Ryan and Peter foranother episode of the Tracking Wisdom
(00:20):
Podcast.
You started reading the bookConversations with God.
Yeah.
About halfway through, it hadsome resonance, which, to be honest,
I'm a little surprised about.
I'm glad.
Yeah.
So the first couple pages,like, where he's just telling the
(00:41):
story kind of, you know, I waslike, it's kind of hokey, you know,
but as soon as he got intocontent and kind of this, the statements,
I was, I was hooked.
I was like, oh, yeah, this is,this is really good stuff.
Nice.
Now I have kind of thiscomplicated feeling about it as,
(01:03):
as a book, you know, or as a,as a company.
Sure.
Right.
Because now it's a whole, it'sa whole industry.
Yeah.
Kind of thing.
And so, I mean, I think thecontent is valuable.
There's a question of how muchvalue do you put on the medium of
(01:25):
the message?
Right, right.
It's like, oh, is this, whatis it, what it purports to be?
Right.
Like what it purports to beisn't really relevant to the content.
Right.
And the content is just ideasthat you either, you know, think,
well, these sound like reallygood ideas or not.
Kind of like the Bible.
(01:46):
Plenty of people read theBible and don't say, plenty of people
value the Bible and don't say,this is the word of God put onto
paper.
Right.
You don't have to have thatliteral belief in order to get value
out of the content.
Yeah.
And that's why I feel about this.
Yeah.
The alignment is, you know,you find the alignment surprising.
(02:10):
It's actually trivial becauseso much of it is recognizable as
parallel to Buddhism.
Sure.
You know, or if you wereskeptical, you would say derived
from Buddhism.
And this is, this is part ofthe kind of complicated feelings.
Right.
And of course I read theWikipedia article which is, you know,
(02:31):
who knows what, you know, howhelpful that is.
But it kind of kind of goesdown through, you know, all of the
parallels in other writings,whether they're religious or philosophical,
non religious writings, which,you know, the comment is, well, he,
he references the, all thesethings that come up in other places
(02:53):
and he doesn't, he doesn'tacknowledge them or reference them.
It's like, well, I'm not surethat's really relevant because he's
not saying these are my ideas.
Right.
That's the thing.
So, you know, I mean, if you,if you, like, you could view the
whole thing as kind of adramatization, a fictional way of
presenting philosophical ideas.
(03:15):
Yeah.
Which has been done elsewhere,you know, for other.
For other things as well.
So, I mean, even the power ofmyth, like that was kind of the core
idea behind that, is puttingstory and narrative behind the idea
and the behaviors.
Yeah.
But.
But as a book, of course, it'sfully attributed.
I mean, it's written by ascholar who is.
(03:37):
Right.
You know.
Yeah, that's so.
So by and large, I found itmade me feel very good.
And, you know, if you.
If you subscribe to the notionthat something that resonates with
your heart is true, then Ithink it's great.
Then there's the Westernskeptical part, which says, you know,
(04:01):
which is actually addressed in there.
It's like you don't believethings that make you feel good, you
know, and that's true.
And that's true in my ownpath, my own studies, that, you know,
people reject what makes themfeel good.
They're suspicious of it.
We're trained to be suspiciousof things that make you feel good
because people deceive you bytelling you things that make you
(04:22):
feel good.
So telling you what you wantto hear.
So, you know, that's a bigquestion in experiencing a book like
this is, oh, is he justtelling me what I want to hear?
Sure.
Right.
So I'm a little.
I have very complicatedfeelings about it, so I'm, like,
a little skeptical about it.
I'm a little concerned about,like, who takes this on.
(04:42):
Sure.
You know, if someone has,like, no background and they just
come to this as, say, theirfirst religious or spiritual reading,
and I'm sure it happens.
And I'm a little.
I'm a little concerned becauseit does definitely have a.
I don't.
I don't want to say cultish feel.
(05:03):
Cultish.
Only in the sense that there'sthis individual who's putting it
forth, and then, you know, which.
And he addresses this.
But the fact is he made money,and then he did more, and he made
more money, and he's like, youknow, so it.
It's basically this dichotomyof being a spiritual idealist versus
(05:25):
being a pragmatic skeptic.
Right.
And they're pretty muchindirect opposition on this kind
of thing.
Right.
So it's hard.
It's just this.
So it makes this just verycomplicated response.
Right.
So I've got definitely.
Definitely have.
You know, it's almost like anangel devil like that or.
(05:45):
Or Spock and McCoy, whatever.
You know, there's like theseopposite voices.
One saying, oh, this is, youknow, this is truly wonderful.
The other is like, oh, this isvery illogical.
You know, it's like, anyway,all right, enough for me.
That's interesting.
I, I agree with you.
I mean, obviously there's anytime you have anyone putting out
(06:07):
the.
Essentially.
So I guess as an intro to theaudience that the book Conversations
with God, it did become athree part book.
But we're currently.
You're reading the first book.
The information in the firstbook seemed to resonate with me more
(06:27):
cleanly than the subsequenttwo books.
And basically it's a story ora testimony of just kind of a regular
guy, American, you know,middle aged man.
This was written back in the,in the 1990s.
And he was kind of facing anumber of challenges in his life.
(06:52):
He was losing his job and itsounded like he had a marriage or
two that were falling apart.
And so he was feeling kind ofat a low point in his life.
And he had been brought up inCatholicism, I think, or some Christian
faith, but wasn't reallypracticing at all or anything.
So this is intended to bepresented, I guess, similar to what
(07:16):
we're doing in that it wasn'tan academic type of presentation
or even, you know, insinuatingthat there was academic and scholarly
information in here, butbasically was him.
He was at his wit's end and hewas kind of calling out to God and
something just called him tograb a piece of paper and a pen and
(07:39):
just start writing downquestions and found he was being
inspired with the answers.
So we should say, which Ithought was interesting, that he
had a long history of writingout his conflicts.
So whenever he was angry atsomeone, he would write to them without
(07:59):
intending and sharing it.
But he would, he wouldresolve, he would do his internal
work by writing it out onlegal pads.
And so this was completelyconsistent with that.
And he said, instead ofwriting to the people I was upset
at, I decided to write to theultimate, you know, person who was
responsible for, for this.
And, and so that, and thatmade the difference because for the
(08:23):
first time he got a responsein his head.
He stopped writing in hishand, stayed there.
And then something came to himand he wrote it, which was the quote,
response from God.
I mean, so, yeah, I mean, soessentially it's a book that I guess,
for lack of better terms, isbasically him channeling the thoughts
(08:45):
and responses that he wasgetting from God.
But God as kind of similar towhat we've been describing, what
we think God is, you know, thekind of central consciousness, ultimate
reality kind of thing.
(09:06):
So, yeah, so I am obviouslyaware of some of those complicated
feelings.
And while I feel like I'm.
I guess I'm in the school ofwhat resonates with me, I feel like
has truth and what doesn't, Ijust reject.
And those two things couldcome from the same person.
(09:26):
You know, there's things thatI'm just like, that's right, right.
And then there's things thatresonate with me.
And even in the book, to yourpoint, and I don't know if you've
gotten here, but basically hewas like.
He even said, you know, whatif this is all just coming from my
head?
And the answer is basically,what's the difference?
Right.
That was early on.
You're already tied into this consciousness.
(09:47):
You're just kind of likeopening your awareness to be able
to remember it.
I mean, if.
If we believe in the inherentdivinity of man, which is something
that's come up repeatedly, andI think we agree on that, that everyone,
everyone is connected todivinity directly, then.
Right.
(10:07):
There's no reason that thisshouldn't happen.
Right.
I will say that I thought youdid because you talked about.
I think in our first episode,you introduced Conversations of God
as your.
As your basic kind of thoughtstructure and you did a great job.
It's like, oh, yeah, this is,this is exactly what you know.
Right?
(10:28):
Yeah.
In fact.
Well, anyway, I think.
I think in.
In many ways better than I mayhave done with Buddhism.
Oh, I think you just have alittle self consciousness about it.
I do, I certainly do.
Which was another topic I was.
That was the other thing wewere going to talk about today.
Yeah, Well, I mean, I thinkthat that's.
(10:49):
I have found value in.
In hearing your understandingof Buddhism.
You know, although there was one.
I.
That is interesting.
I have some comments aboutthat lead to that last thing, but
the point I was, I guess,gonna make is it sounds crazy.
So I'm hesitant and skeptical.
(11:10):
I do not.
While the book resonatedstrongly with me, I am hesitant to
freely market for it.
Right, right, exactly.
And though I thought it wasinteresting, your comment about who
might potentially come acrossthis information.
And while I agree with thesentiment, I don't find much difference
(11:34):
than them coming across theBook of Mormon or the Bible or anything.
I mean, that's kind of whatall of these are purporting to be.
You know, there's just astronger institution behind some
of the other ones, but they'veall made money.
I mean, that's, that's thething is that the only reason.
And then this is this.
(11:54):
I'm not presenting this as arational argument.
It's just a thought process,which is.
It's more suspect because it'stied to an individual, and.
And therefore, it's anindividual who profits from any expansion
of it.
(12:15):
So that's the.
And not to.
Not to say that.
Actually, it's kind ofinteresting maybe to compare it to
Dianetics, because this ismuch, much better written than Dianetics.
Like, I could not get throughtwo chapters of Dianetics just because
of the bad, bad, bad writing.
(12:36):
What is that?
I don't know.
Dianetics.
Oh, Scientology.
Oh, L.
Ron Hubbard.
Okay.
Which is weird because.
Because L.
Ron Hubbard was a writer byprofession, and so it's like, how
could he.
Anyway, that's a whole nother thing.
So, I mean, apparently he justchurned this thing out.
Whereas Conversations withGod, it's not.
(12:59):
Well, first of all, it's notas grandiose as Dianetics.
Right.
And it's quite.
It's quite entertaining.
I mean, I would.
I would recommend it as afictional read.
You know, don't, you know,just say, oh, this is a, you know,
book that someone createdabout what if this happened?
Right.
You know, and just say, oh,it's a dramatization.
And read it and you'll enjoyit from it.
(13:21):
Yeah, well, I mean, it'sentertaining, for one thing.
So the voice of God in hereis, as he repeatedly says, is pretty
flip.
And, yeah, so it's.
It's an entertaining read witha lot of kind of good, heartfelt
ideas in it.
If you don't want to get into the.
(13:43):
Is he channeling?
Is he a modern mystic?
Is he a modern prophet, youknow, of God and whatnot?
And to be fair, he addressesthat right away.
He seems to.
Now, if we stop, if we go backand say, okay, this is totally nonfiction.
This is his literal experience.
He kind of interacts with thisvoice that's coming to him, and he's
(14:04):
very skeptical.
He's like, wait a second, thisseems crazy.
And, you know, the voice islike, why is it crazy?
And so he throws up all thesearguments about why he's not comfortable
with it.
And.
And the voice of God on paperjust says, yeah, don't worry about
it.
So I did read on a website.
Oh, so apparently there's a movie.
(14:27):
Oh, yeah, you gotta look.
You gotta look.
You do some Googling on this.
On this.
Because there are many, manybooks now, more than just four.
Yeah, there.
I see that.
When I was looking for that One.
Yeah.
There are at least eight.
Okay.
Of, you know, in strictlyconversations with God.
And then it's, like, reallybuilt out from there.
(14:47):
And I think he's got more thanone website.
Okay.
He's got.
So it really seems to have been.
I didn't follow links oranything, but it seems like he's.
It's built into quite aindustry, and it's.
You know, it's translated into37 languages or something.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
And apparently he's traveledall over the world, so one of the
(15:07):
details I read was that thismight have been an interview.
I think he said in aninterview that when he wrote the
questions on the legal pad tobegin with, he then heard a voice
over his shoulder, and heturned to look to see who was there,
and there was no one there.
And then he sat, and in thebook, he says his hand was frozen
(15:30):
as if held by an unseen force.
Right.
And then he had ideas comeinto his head, and he put them down
on the paper, and that's theway it was working.
So he doesn't describe it asif his hand is being operated.
Right.
Right.
But he did.
He did make the statement heldas by an.
As if by an unseen force,which I thought was kind of definitely
(15:52):
leaned towards that.
Right.
And then he kind of abandoned that.
And from then on, I mean, I.
I think we should probablycome back to this in more detail.
Right.
We can.
I think.
I mean, I don't know that we.
We can discuss how it would beformatted, you know, like, what kind
of format we would do, whetherit would be, like, going through
(16:12):
the whole book or if there was.
Like I've mentioned before, infact, we talked about a little bit
where it gets to the TenCommitments versus the Ten Commandments.
And that, like, that idearesonated specifically with me.
And so I don't know if maybewe want to pick some key ideas out
of it that really resonatewith us, that we want to converse
(16:35):
about versus going through,like, not a page.
By page, you know, like, no, Idid not want.
I did not want to go throughit the way we did Power of Myth.
I wanted to pick outhighlights that we wanted to talk
about, and especially thething that I had resistance to.
I'm really curious.
(16:55):
Yeah.
Because I'm really receptiveto most of the ideas, and then some
of the stuff I just find confusing.
Sure.
So, I mean, I think the book'sversion of Trinity is very interesting,
and I think we should probablyhave an extended conversation about
that.
You know, Having a lot ofBuddhist background, I come to a
(17:17):
lot of the content and say,oh, that's.
I don't say it comes fromBuddhism, but I say it's very consistent
with Buddhism.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, well, or.
Or even that's.
Oh, that's a Buddhist idea.
Like, that's a Buddhistconcept, too.
Not saying that he stole it from.
And which is unsurprisinggiven our central thesis that all
religions contain elements,core elements that serve.
(17:40):
That serve us, and thatthey're just.
They have different accretionsaround them and they're presented
in different ways and, youknow, but there's certain core things
that are shared.
And so I think you're going tosee that here as well.
Some.
Yeah, well, I.
I guess I'm glad to hear yousay that because that was kind of
my feeling when we startedtalking and you started sharing these
(18:03):
Buddhist ideas and.
And this was kind of my centerof worldview.
But not because of the book,but because the ideas that the book
presents are consistent withkind of how I think it is.
And then when you startedtalking about the Buddhist stuff,
which I had virtually nobackground previously on.
(18:26):
I was seeing so manyalignments and similarities between
those concepts that.
And I think in the book, notonly did I find the consistency in
Buddhism, but I seem to drawthe consistency even with Christianity
and other, you know, religion.
And finding that core kind ofelement in the.
(18:50):
In the undertone, you know,and seeing.
Okay, I can see how these twoteachings may have started in a very
similar.
Like, from a similar path, butdue to the accretion and everything
maybe diverged some.
So.
Yeah.
And I.
I guess I wasn't sure how you would.
If you would be able toovercome the whole conversation with
(19:10):
God thing.
And it seems like you're okayto move beyond it and try and.
Yeah, I mean, what you canfrom it, it doesn't.
It certainly didn't put me offreading the book.
Right.
You know, it was like I said,like the first page or two.
I was like, this is kind ofhokey, but as soon as you start getting
the ideas, the ideas grabbedme and I was like, oh, well, this
is interesting.
What else does he say?
(19:31):
Know.
So, yeah, I'm looking forward.
I'm looking forward tofinishing it.
Yeah, I think we should comeback and definitely some core concepts
that would be goodconversation, extended conversation,
and then whatever we see as,like, gems that stood out to us being
meaningful or significant.
(19:54):
So there's something I readyesterday that just keeps on coming,
popping up in my Head as we'retalking about this.
And I really can't see the.
I think there might have beena connection early on, but I don't
know what it is anymore.
But apparently the Dalai Lama.
This was attributed to theDalai Lama that he believes that
(20:14):
the inherent state of man is kindness.
And he says, and this hasnothing to do with Buddha, Dharma.
Like, if he was not a Buddhistbut was studying what he knows, he
would come to this conclusion.
And it's pretty simple.
Which is basically how what hecalls affection, you know, altruism,
(20:41):
relationships, connection,kindness are physiologically good
for humans.
And the absence of thosethings is deadly.
You know, I mean, at a.
At an early age, right.
You can kill a child by takingcare of it physically and not providing
(21:06):
any emotional support.
And so that's.
I.
I just thought that was a verystark and interesting observation
because it goes against ourcritical voices, our cynical voices,
(21:33):
our skeptical voices.
So.
And I think that's why I wastalking about it, because I was saying
I have this cynical, skepticalthing, saying, well, you know, it's
just a manipulation that.
The fact is that living from aposition of suspicion, which really
(21:54):
equates to fear, puts you in astate of stress which is physically
harmful to you, shortens your life.
Like, it's just obviously abad thing to do.
And yet a lot of our cultureis about that, versus being more
(22:25):
open, being more altruistic,being more generous in.
Generous in your spirit,generous in your attitude.
Not in terms of giving thingsaway, but in terms of, you know,
can I allow this?
Can I accept this?
(22:45):
So, I mean, obviously, this isthe kind of thing that's touched
on in here, but I had.
I just saw this attributed tothe Dalai Lama yesterday, and I thought
it really struck me kind of asin context of this.
I mean, by itself, I thinkit's very interesting observation.
(23:06):
Yeah.
It's kind of.
It's.
It's kind of proof oh, man isinherently good.
Right.
He must be, because he'sevolved, that I'm like, otherwise,
we'd all die.
Right.
That's a good point.
If people were really.
You know.
And part of his.
(23:29):
He frequently says thingslike, you know, think about your
mother and your mother,everything your mother did for you
and how kind and blah, blah, blah.
And again, in our modernsociety, you think about dysfunctional
families and abuse, and you'relike, well, but what about people
who aren't like that?
(23:49):
And we know that that happens, but.
Right.
The fact is that although thathappens and it's a problem and it's
A very serious problem forpeople who experience it.
(24:09):
To think that that's what theworld like, that that's what the
world is like, is irrationalbecause the species could never have
proliferated if that's whatpeople were like.
Or even if, even if, like.
Oh well, now that we're at 8billion people now, that's what people
(24:31):
is like, are like.
Like.
No, because people would bedying a lot more like the.
Anyway, just a, just a thought.
Trying to make the argumentthat here that we should be positive.
Well, not.
Yes, kind.
Yes.
For, for our own sake and forothers sakes, but just we should,
(24:58):
we should be optimistic thatwhen we say we should be kind, we're
really not going against thegrain or swimming upstream.
Yeah.
In terms of humanity, in termsof our culture, maybe.
Yeah.
But our culture does notrepresent, you know, as great as
(25:20):
America is, it doesn'trepresent the world.
And as much as our media isdominant, even media doesn't represent
humanity right at the core.
So anyway.
Yeah, no, I mean it.
Blowing some sunshine there, I guess.
No.
(25:40):
So the past.
I told you a couple sessionsago about my August and how phenomenally
blissful it was and wanting toget back to that, you know, and I've
(26:06):
been really trying to thinkabout what happened or what was going
on in August because there wasagain a number of things that went
on that could have contributedand probably did to some degree contribute
to the satisfaction or youknow, the, the bliss.
(26:29):
And I have happened across Iguess some new, I don't know again
also in the 90s, which isweird, I don't know what happened
in the 90s or if these thingsare like kind of like piggybacked
(26:52):
off each other or what.
And I'm also again kind oftaking the open minded perspective
to just receive theinformation and kind of see what
sticks with the things that,that resonate.
And I think that when I lookat what it purports to be and you
(27:16):
know, any associations it mayhave with like business or whatever,
I'm resistant and hesitant anddon't like want to share it.
But the information has beenlike mind blowing.
Not mind blowing as far aslike, I've never heard this kind
(27:37):
of thing, but mind blowing inits consistency with ideas here,
ideas I've heard elsewhere.
And that I guess I mentionedthat with the near death experience
idea as well is when I startto see those consistencies in abstract
places that are unconnected,it starts to make me feel like there's
(27:59):
more to this than, than just the.
At face value, you know, soit's the way of mastery.
It was books, but I'mlistening to it just on YouTube as
narrated and their channelingsof Jesus, which, you know, take it
or leave it, whatever.
(28:20):
That's not the important pieceto me.
And I guess even in themessaging, it's not important in
messaging, you know, the, themessage is, you know, Jesus as a
man is not the important thing.
(28:42):
The Christ mind, the universalmind that is available to all of
us is really what it wasgetting to.
Good.
And again, it, it aligns verystrongly with kind of conversations
with God and some of theBuddhist stuff we talked about.
(29:04):
So.
But the idea that a key ideabehind it has been the egoic mind
being what suppresses our, ourdivine mind or spirit mind and creates
(29:26):
the fear.
And that that was all bychoice in, in us to experience the
separation of God similar towhat is talked about in conversations
with God.
Again, not the importantpiece, but the important piece being
that in order to achieve theenlightenment and achieve heaven
(29:47):
on earth, achieve thoseblissful states, it is the, the genuine
commitment internally andemotionally, not just like trying
to trick your mind saying, oh,now I believe this and this is what
I'm doing.
You know, that at the core ofyour being, to forego the connections
(30:07):
of value and judgment that weput on events, materials, things
about us not being tied to theoutcome kind of thing, but really
more being part of the processof creation and to be a conduit or
(30:29):
a conduit is the word they usethen that.
Actually I'll speak to that ina second of kind of the, the divine
Spirit, the divine light,which is love, to shine that forth
onto the world through your,through everything you do.
It's not about what you do,it's about doing what you do with
(30:52):
love.
Being in the moment similar tomindfulness and, and loving.
What is it?
Loving kindness.
I mean, these are allrecurring themes that we've, that
we've heard in a number of areas.
And just hearing it again in adifferent format has helped me to,
(31:14):
I think, rekindle, rekindle acommitment to trying to clear my
egoic mind of ties, of fear,of inadequacy or lack or, you know,
I don't want to do thisbecause I won't get this type of,
(31:36):
you know, a tit for tat kindof mentality, which is the egoic
mind.
And that was something that Ivery specifically committed to in
August because we were goingto the lake with my in laws, which
I have not had the best, Ihave not presented my best self frequently
(31:57):
in that situation.
And I committed to myself, Ibelieve, through a desire to present
love to my wife, to herfamily, to support this get together
and not be that adversary, notbe the one that everybody's worried
about walking on eggshells ormaking a decision because Ryan's
(32:18):
going to be upset.
I did not want that.
It was like, whatever happens,whatever we do, I'm fine with it.
I do not want to be that.
I just want to be here tosupport you guys.
And that was a verbal andmental decision that I made in early
August, which led to anamazing time at the lake, spending
(32:40):
a lot of time with my niecesand nephews, which I don't see them
ever.
And I think that was a secondpiece of it.
And I'll try and get to thatas well.
But the point was, I thinkthat a big part of my amazing August
was making this distinct anddeliberate commitment to whatever
(33:01):
I'm doing now, I'm only goingto be doing it from a place of love.
And then it led on to ouranniversary and doing this big anniversary
thing, which is not somethingI'm inclined to do usually, which
was amazing.
And then what happened?
Well, I think, number one, Iwasn't fully aware that potentially
that was what was causing this bliss.
(33:23):
School started all those theworld chatter and the hubbub got
back into swing and I gotdistracted again, I guess.
And so now I'm really tryingto recommit myself to not having
those attachments and justtrying to present my best loving
(33:43):
self to myself, my family,everyone around me.
And I'm hopeful.
And I mean, I can already feelyou feel better when you release
that tension, whether or notthe things that are causing that
frustration are still present.
When you can let it go, whenyou can forgive.
And we talked about this lastweek, forgiveness is for you, you
know, so that you can let itgo, move on.
(34:07):
And ironically, we've alsobeen talking about the Ten Commandments,
and I was helping teach themiddle school kids the past couple
of weeks.
And that was also somethingthat came up when it came to, you
know, not coveting things andbeing gracious and grateful for what
you have, not living from apoint and feeling of lack.
(34:31):
So two things I had mentioned.
Number one, the kids.
So during that time was alsothe vacation church camp.
And I helped out one day and was.
I found happiness in beingaround these kids, whether it's my
nieces and nephews and mykids, when we're out playing, swimming,
(34:51):
you know, at the, at the lake,or the kids in the Christian education
program that my.
That my wife has been teachingthe innocence and the wonder and
the, you know, inquiring mind.
And it really.
I think being around that kindof energy has been really uplifting
(35:14):
to me as well.
And the conduit thing hit melike a ton of bricks because I actually
use that word and that termand that idea literally in a presentation
to the congregation years ago about.
What was it?
(35:35):
I don't know if it was a.
It wasn't a mission moment.
What was the other.
They do these in duringservice, like a mission moment where
somebody comes up and talksabout their mission thing.
It might have been.
It was something.
What was it?
Wherever the pledges go,whatever that's called.
And I don't know why I'mdrawing a blank on it.
But the point was I wassupposed to present on this, and
(35:58):
I didn't want to talk about money.
Like, everybody always gets upthere and talks about money.
So what I did was I got upthere and I wanted to talk about
sharing our time and talent,or our talent in particular.
And the.
The speech or whatever went on.
And the core idea behind itwas that were all given talent, tools,
(36:27):
talent and their work.
We can use them, but they'rebasically, we are the conduit for
God's talent.
Right?
And that was the word that I used.
So when I started hearing thisconduit being brought up again and
again, I was like, whoa,that's kind of crazy.
That.
That.
And of course, it could alsobe just ironic, you know, and.
(36:51):
But when I see thosesynchronicities, they perk my ear
up, you know?
So that's been the past coupleof weeks, what I've been kind of
doing.
I've gone through, I don'tknow, probably almost 10 hours of
this stuff, and it's beenpretty good.
I liked it.
And it's trying to bring meback around to hopefully, you know,
(37:15):
really committing to the.
Coming from a place of love.
So 10 hours of intentionalcommitment to.
10 hours of listening to thechannelings of Jesus through this
mastery stuff.
Okay?
And remembering, you know,that I did make an honest commitment
(37:35):
before.
And I am able to let thesethings go and not have them eat away
at me.
And I don't have to choose togo down, you know, and it's not that
I don't feel fire in my bellyanymore, but when that fire starts
to come up, I kind.
I'm taking that intentionalmoment to say, what am I afraid of
(37:58):
now?
I'm creating this frustration.
What can I do about it?
And in most circumstances, I'mable to kind of get that feeling
away pretty quickly.
Not 100% and interestinglyenough, I guess in the car today,
and I don't know the accuracyof this number, but the number is
really kind of unimportant.
(38:18):
Was saying something like wemake 35,000 decisions a day or something
like that.
And of course, they're minutedecisions, but in that we have 35,000
chances a day to choose to actin love.
And even if 20,000 of them, wemake a fearful choice, that's still
(38:38):
a large number of love that wecan do.
And making incrementalprogress to kind of tip that balance
gets us forward, we don't haveto beat ourselves up.
That, oh, this I've been doingso well, but this time I did the
wrong thing and I'm such aterrible person.
That's not going to help anything.
Yeah, a lot, A lot there.
(39:01):
I mean, just.
Just around the last thing yousaid in terms of, you know, the number
of the number of opportunitiesand what the number.
What are the opportunitiesthat you take?
The intent to practice, theintent to make the choice of love
is really key.
(39:22):
Basically, it's the mainchoice that you don't want to tie
to the outcome.
Right, Right.
So we.
So in conversations of God andlots of other places, there's the
idea of how you make a choiceversus what the outcome is.
And because essentially wecan't control outcomes, that's kind
(39:45):
of a rule.
And so the intent to say, outof my 30,000, you know, well, I want
all 30,000 to be good choicesis fine.
Doesn't mean that you have to succeed.
Having the intent is good enough.
And this goes back tobasically all religiosity.
(40:07):
Right.
Having a model, havingguidelines that this is what I want,
this is how I want to be.
It doesn't mean you have to be perfect.
Having the intent counts ahuge amount.
And.
And this has actually come upa lot in.
In the teachings that I'vebeen doing recently.
(40:30):
So Buddhist trainings offorgiveness and.
And loving kindness thatspecifically in.
All right, so I'll attributethis specifically to Tower Brak,
although it's not unique toher, but that is where I read it.
And she's, you know, givingguidance in forgiveness practice.
And of course, when you arefaced with, you know, a terrible
(40:55):
injury, a terrible wrong,you're not going to just be able
to read, oh, I should be forgiving.
Oh, that's great.
Now let me be forgiving.
And so, you know, her guidanceis when you hit one, that's that
difficult that you can't evensay, just say the words, I forgive
you.
Say, I intend to forgive you.
And setting up that intentstarts to create the pathways.
(41:19):
And another thing that I wasgoing to say is neurons that fire
together wire together, whichis, you know, in a way, the neurological
neurobiological correlate ofpractice makes perfect.
So the more you give youropportunity, the more you, you give
yourself opportunity to feel athing, the more you will tend to
(41:41):
towards that thing.
Actually, I think that goesback to Buddha too.
Is something like what youthink you become.
Where your focus is, is whereyou go.
All that kind of stuff.
I can't go.
You prompted me to write downa number of things, but they're more,
they don't tie back to exactlywhat you were saying.
(42:01):
So one thing was, oh, the ideaof inherent goodness.
And which also comes up in, inconversations with God.
I think God says, essentially,why do you guys keep on choosing
not to love now the kind ofthe opposing fact.
So I made the comment aboutthe Dalai Lama's observation, but
(42:25):
then there's also ourevolutionary negativity bias.
Right.
So I had said, you know, oh,our culture teaches us to be skeptical
and fearful.
And that's true, but a littlesuperficial because, and we've talked
about this before, we knowthat human brains have negativity
bias, which is very, verysurvival oriented.
(42:47):
The problem being that we'renot dealing with tigers in our environment
anymore.
And that's, that's the problemis that we have culturally outgrown
our evolutionary wiring fordefensiveness and sensitivity to
danger and negativity.
And so just to be realistic,when we try to do these things, it's
(43:11):
not just a cultural bias to negativity.
It's not just a cultural biasto criticism and cynicism and skepticism
and suspicion.
There's a very realneurological correlate to perceive
danger.
And you know, again, this issomething we've talked about many,
many times, but in a slightlydifferent context.
(43:33):
Now we're talking about theinherent goodness of man and how
God wants us to be happy.
And God is giving us theopportunity and telling us here,
here it is.
Do you, do you want to do itor not?
All to say it's not our fault.
So in terms of cwg,Conversations with God, I don't think
(43:53):
the acronym is any shorterthan Conversations with God, actually,
in writing it shorter.
Well, I did notice that was missing.
That was kind of a missingpiece of the discussion.
And so.
Which is what.
Why we keep doing it.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
And I Mean, I think.
I think that's a veryimportant and powerful fact and a
(44:14):
very.
A very verifiable fact thateverybody can verify in their own
experience, and everybody canverify by going to reference work
and, you know, authoritativesources like, yes, this is a real
thing.
We know it scientifically, weknow it experientially.
(44:35):
And so in terms of the book,to me, it's kind of a glaring omission
where.
And they just kind of gloss over.
It's like, oh, you mean wecould have been happy all this time?
Yeah.
Well, why weren't we, you know.
Oh, well, you just choose not to.
Like, well, no, you know, it's.
It's not that we just choosenot to.
It's that we have a realphysiological orientation not to.
(45:00):
And so this is an interestingcontradiction to me because I'm saying
two different things thatpeople are physiologically good at
the same time.
They're physiologicallyfearful, right?
Yes.
I mean.
Well, I mean that we have abiological defense mechanism that
has been fortified overhowever long we've been on the earth.
(45:22):
So I think that evolutionaryneurobiologists would say that the
defensiveness goes deeper thanthe altruism.
Like, I think we know altruismis more recent acquirement, but it
doesn't mean that it's real.
I mean, it's so important tous that we die without it.
And yet that's the strugglethat we have.
All right, Right.
(45:42):
We have this deep, deepevolutionary defense that is negative
by definition.
And then we have this modernneocortex which needs altruism.
Like reptiles don't needaffection to survive, but primates
do.
So that's the.
That's the catch 22.
That's the struggle.
(46:03):
And I think.
So I guess in a way I'm kindof being reductionist.
I'm saying, oh, it's just biology.
Right.
But I think it's important.
I mean, I think it's someimportant knowledge to have.
While we're struggling to saythere is biological evidence that
we are good, there's alsobiological evidence that it's not
our fault when we're not good.
(46:24):
The thing is, the sameneocortex that gives us this need
for altruism, gives us theability to choose, and that's where
we have to live, which isexactly what you've been talking
about.
There we go.
There's a connection is the.
The nature of the choice andbeing realistic that we have a deep,
deep opposing neurobiology to this.
(46:47):
So it's not easy.
It's not easy.
But it doesn't mean that it'snot natural.
And that's the, that's theother argument that people try to
make is that it's not naturalis that man is inherently bad.
Right, right.
You know, the philosophicargument, I'm thinking, I'm picturing
in my head right now the, theTV show community where.
Oh, you don't know the TV show community?
(47:08):
Okay, well, you have to goback, you have to look that up.
That is a great show.
Okay.
It's a farcical comedy.
And there's an episode wheretwo main characters oppose each other
on the debate team.
And the final challenge is oneside has to prove man is bad and
one side has to prove man is good.
So that's just a comedic lookat, at the issue.
(47:32):
But yes, I mean, I think thatthe reason that that's a debate and
the reason that peopledisagree about it is because the
biological underpinning of thereason is that there are structures
and processes supporting bothsides of that.
And the negative process is older.
I was going to say stronger.
(47:52):
It's older, which means it'smore ingrained.
But it's not stronger.
It's just habit.
It's more developed.
And the positive aspect needsour work in order to be developed,
to be as strong as it can be.
It's not that it's weaker,it's that it needs development in
order to be strong.
(48:12):
Just like a child is weak andneeds to go through growth in order
to be strong.
And if the child doesn't haveopposition, gravity, you know, gravity
and stress, it won't grow up strong.
Right.
So going back to the intent,when you're starting, the intent's
enough because you're weak.
I mean, your, your positiveaspect is potentially less developed
(48:36):
than your negative aspect.
Depending on your, on yourexperience, your, your negative wiring
may be an 800 pound gorilla.
And so you may really have togradually put yourself through a
strength building program toget the positive aspect up to par
with that and able to oppose it.
(48:56):
The good news is that thatanalogy is that metaphor is an empty
metaphor because it's not awar, as they say in conversations
with God.
It's not a war.
And you don't need tooverpower the 800 pound gorilla.
You just need to learn toforgive it.
And there's the magic.
And that's where everythingfalls apart in terms of all this
(49:19):
metaphor.
All my talk about biology, Ithink, because it takes practice,
but once you hit that moment,there can be this magical falling
away of the negative.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom Podcast.
Join us next time as wecontinue the discussion.
(49:42):
Don't forget to follow us onFacebook, Instagram and YouTube,
and visit www.eth-studio.comfor more information and.
Foreign views, interpretationsand opinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution.
They are for informational andentertainment purposes only.
Now join Ryan and Peter foranother episode of the Tracking Wisdom
(00:20):
Podcast.
You started reading the bookConversations with God.
Yeah.
About halfway through, it hadsome resonance, which, to be honest,
I'm a little surprised about.
I'm glad.
Yeah.
So the first couple pages,like, where he's just telling the
(00:41):
story kind of, you know, I waslike, it's kind of hokey, you know,
but as soon as he got intocontent and kind of this, the statements,
I was, I was hooked.
I was like, oh, yeah, this is,this is really good stuff.
Nice.
Now I have kind of thiscomplicated feeling about it as,
(01:03):
as a book, you know, or as a,as a company.
Sure.
Right.
Because now it's a whole, it'sa whole industry.
Yeah.
Kind of thing.
And so, I mean, I think thecontent is valuable.
There's a question of how muchvalue do you put on the medium of
(01:25):
the message?
Right, right.
It's like, oh, is this, whatis it, what it purports to be?
Right.
Like what it purports to beisn't really relevant to the content.
Right.
And the content is just ideasthat you either, you know, think,
well, these sound like reallygood ideas or not.
Kind of like the Bible.
(01:46):
Plenty of people read theBible and don't say, plenty of people
value the Bible and don't say,this is the word of God put onto
paper.
Right.
You don't have to have thatliteral belief in order to get value
out of the content.
Yeah.
And that's why I feel about this.
Yeah.
The alignment is, you know,you find the alignment surprising.
(02:10):
It's actually trivial becauseso much of it is recognizable as
parallel to Buddhism.
Sure.
You know, or if you wereskeptical, you would say derived
from Buddhism.
And this is, this is part ofthe kind of complicated feelings.
Right.
And of course I read theWikipedia article which is, you know,
(02:31):
who knows what, you know, howhelpful that is.
But it kind of kind of goesdown through, you know, all of the
parallels in other writings,whether they're religious or philosophical,
non religious writings, which,you know, the comment is, well, he,
he references the, all thesethings that come up in other places
(02:53):
and he doesn't, he doesn'tacknowledge them or reference them.
It's like, well, I'm not surethat's really relevant because he's
not saying these are my ideas.
Right.
That's the thing.
So, you know, I mean, if you,if you, like, you could view the
whole thing as kind of adramatization, a fictional way of
presenting philosophical ideas.
(03:15):
Yeah.
Which has been done elsewhere,you know, for other.
For other things as well.
So, I mean, even the power ofmyth, like that was kind of the core
idea behind that, is puttingstory and narrative behind the idea
and the behaviors.
Yeah.
But.
But as a book, of course, it'sfully attributed.
I mean, it's written by ascholar who is.
(03:37):
Right.
You know.
Yeah, that's so.
So by and large, I found itmade me feel very good.
And, you know, if you.
If you subscribe to the notionthat something that resonates with
your heart is true, then Ithink it's great.
Then there's the Westernskeptical part, which says, you know,
(04:01):
which is actually addressed in there.
It's like you don't believethings that make you feel good, you
know, and that's true.
And that's true in my ownpath, my own studies, that, you know,
people reject what makes themfeel good.
They're suspicious of it.
We're trained to be suspiciousof things that make you feel good
because people deceive you bytelling you things that make you
(04:22):
feel good.
So telling you what you wantto hear.
So, you know, that's a bigquestion in experiencing a book like
this is, oh, is he justtelling me what I want to hear?
Sure.
Right.
So I'm a little.
I have very complicatedfeelings about it, so I'm, like,
a little skeptical about it.
I'm a little concerned about,like, who takes this on.
(04:42):
Sure.
You know, if someone has,like, no background and they just
come to this as, say, theirfirst religious or spiritual reading,
and I'm sure it happens.
And I'm a little.
I'm a little concerned becauseit does definitely have a.
I don't.
I don't want to say cultish feel.
(05:03):
Cultish.
Only in the sense that there'sthis individual who's putting it
forth, and then, you know, which.
And he addresses this.
But the fact is he made money,and then he did more, and he made
more money, and he's like, youknow, so it.
It's basically this dichotomyof being a spiritual idealist versus
(05:25):
being a pragmatic skeptic.
Right.
And they're pretty muchindirect opposition on this kind
of thing.
Right.
So it's hard.
It's just this.
So it makes this just verycomplicated response.
Right.
So I've got definitely.
Definitely have.
You know, it's almost like anangel devil like that or.
(05:45):
Or Spock and McCoy, whatever.
You know, there's like theseopposite voices.
One saying, oh, this is, youknow, this is truly wonderful.
The other is like, oh, this isvery illogical.
You know, it's like, anyway,all right, enough for me.
That's interesting.
I, I agree with you.
I mean, obviously there's anytime you have anyone putting out
(06:07):
the.
Essentially.
So I guess as an intro to theaudience that the book Conversations
with God, it did become athree part book.
But we're currently.
You're reading the first book.
The information in the firstbook seemed to resonate with me more
(06:27):
cleanly than the subsequenttwo books.
And basically it's a story ora testimony of just kind of a regular
guy, American, you know,middle aged man.
This was written back in the,in the 1990s.
And he was kind of facing anumber of challenges in his life.
(06:52):
He was losing his job and itsounded like he had a marriage or
two that were falling apart.
And so he was feeling kind ofat a low point in his life.
And he had been brought up inCatholicism, I think, or some Christian
faith, but wasn't reallypracticing at all or anything.
So this is intended to bepresented, I guess, similar to what
(07:16):
we're doing in that it wasn'tan academic type of presentation
or even, you know, insinuatingthat there was academic and scholarly
information in here, butbasically was him.
He was at his wit's end and hewas kind of calling out to God and
something just called him tograb a piece of paper and a pen and
(07:39):
just start writing downquestions and found he was being
inspired with the answers.
So we should say, which Ithought was interesting, that he
had a long history of writingout his conflicts.
So whenever he was angry atsomeone, he would write to them without
(07:59):
intending and sharing it.
But he would, he wouldresolve, he would do his internal
work by writing it out onlegal pads.
And so this was completelyconsistent with that.
And he said, instead ofwriting to the people I was upset
at, I decided to write to theultimate, you know, person who was
responsible for, for this.
And, and so that, and thatmade the difference because for the
(08:23):
first time he got a responsein his head.
He stopped writing in hishand, stayed there.
And then something came to himand he wrote it, which was the quote,
response from God.
I mean, so, yeah, I mean, soessentially it's a book that I guess,
for lack of better terms, isbasically him channeling the thoughts
(08:45):
and responses that he wasgetting from God.
But God as kind of similar towhat we've been describing, what
we think God is, you know, thekind of central consciousness, ultimate
reality kind of thing.
(09:06):
So, yeah, so I am obviouslyaware of some of those complicated
feelings.
And while I feel like I'm.
I guess I'm in the school ofwhat resonates with me, I feel like
has truth and what doesn't, Ijust reject.
And those two things couldcome from the same person.
(09:26):
You know, there's things thatI'm just like, that's right, right.
And then there's things thatresonate with me.
And even in the book, to yourpoint, and I don't know if you've
gotten here, but basically hewas like.
He even said, you know, whatif this is all just coming from my
head?
And the answer is basically,what's the difference?
Right.
That was early on.
You're already tied into this consciousness.
(09:47):
You're just kind of likeopening your awareness to be able
to remember it.
I mean, if.
If we believe in the inherentdivinity of man, which is something
that's come up repeatedly, andI think we agree on that, that everyone,
everyone is connected todivinity directly, then.
Right.
(10:07):
There's no reason that thisshouldn't happen.
Right.
I will say that I thought youdid because you talked about.
I think in our first episode,you introduced Conversations of God
as your.
As your basic kind of thoughtstructure and you did a great job.
It's like, oh, yeah, this is,this is exactly what you know.
Right?
(10:28):
Yeah.
In fact.
Well, anyway, I think.
I think in.
In many ways better than I mayhave done with Buddhism.
Oh, I think you just have alittle self consciousness about it.
I do, I certainly do.
Which was another topic I was.
That was the other thing wewere going to talk about today.
Yeah, Well, I mean, I thinkthat that's.
(10:49):
I have found value in.
In hearing your understandingof Buddhism.
You know, although there was one.
I.
That is interesting.
I have some comments aboutthat lead to that last thing, but
the point I was, I guess,gonna make is it sounds crazy.
So I'm hesitant and skeptical.
(11:10):
I do not.
While the book resonatedstrongly with me, I am hesitant to
freely market for it.
Right, right, exactly.
And though I thought it wasinteresting, your comment about who
might potentially come acrossthis information.
And while I agree with thesentiment, I don't find much difference
(11:34):
than them coming across theBook of Mormon or the Bible or anything.
I mean, that's kind of whatall of these are purporting to be.
You know, there's just astronger institution behind some
of the other ones, but they'veall made money.
I mean, that's, that's thething is that the only reason.
And then this is this.
(11:54):
I'm not presenting this as arational argument.
It's just a thought process,which is.
It's more suspect because it'stied to an individual, and.
And therefore, it's anindividual who profits from any expansion
of it.
(12:15):
So that's the.
And not to.
Not to say that.
Actually, it's kind ofinteresting maybe to compare it to
Dianetics, because this ismuch, much better written than Dianetics.
Like, I could not get throughtwo chapters of Dianetics just because
of the bad, bad, bad writing.
(12:36):
What is that?
I don't know.
Dianetics.
Oh, Scientology.
Oh, L.
Ron Hubbard.
Okay.
Which is weird because.
Because L.
Ron Hubbard was a writer byprofession, and so it's like, how
could he.
Anyway, that's a whole nother thing.
So, I mean, apparently he justchurned this thing out.
Whereas Conversations withGod, it's not.
(12:59):
Well, first of all, it's notas grandiose as Dianetics.
Right.
And it's quite.
It's quite entertaining.
I mean, I would.
I would recommend it as afictional read.
You know, don't, you know,just say, oh, this is a, you know,
book that someone createdabout what if this happened?
Right.
You know, and just say, oh,it's a dramatization.
And read it and you'll enjoyit from it.
(13:21):
Yeah, well, I mean, it'sentertaining, for one thing.
So the voice of God in hereis, as he repeatedly says, is pretty
flip.
And, yeah, so it's.
It's an entertaining read witha lot of kind of good, heartfelt
ideas in it.
If you don't want to get into the.
(13:43):
Is he channeling?
Is he a modern mystic?
Is he a modern prophet, youknow, of God and whatnot?
And to be fair, he addressesthat right away.
He seems to.
Now, if we stop, if we go backand say, okay, this is totally nonfiction.
This is his literal experience.
He kind of interacts with thisvoice that's coming to him, and he's
(14:04):
very skeptical.
He's like, wait a second, thisseems crazy.
And, you know, the voice islike, why is it crazy?
And so he throws up all thesearguments about why he's not comfortable
with it.
And.
And the voice of God on paperjust says, yeah, don't worry about
it.
So I did read on a website.
Oh, so apparently there's a movie.
(14:27):
Oh, yeah, you gotta look.
You gotta look.
You do some Googling on this.
On this.
Because there are many, manybooks now, more than just four.
Yeah, there.
I see that.
When I was looking for that One.
Yeah.
There are at least eight.
Okay.
Of, you know, in strictlyconversations with God.
And then it's, like, reallybuilt out from there.
(14:47):
And I think he's got more thanone website.
Okay.
He's got.
So it really seems to have been.
I didn't follow links oranything, but it seems like he's.
It's built into quite aindustry, and it's.
You know, it's translated into37 languages or something.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
And apparently he's traveledall over the world, so one of the
(15:07):
details I read was that thismight have been an interview.
I think he said in aninterview that when he wrote the
questions on the legal pad tobegin with, he then heard a voice
over his shoulder, and heturned to look to see who was there,
and there was no one there.
And then he sat, and in thebook, he says his hand was frozen
(15:30):
as if held by an unseen force.
Right.
And then he had ideas comeinto his head, and he put them down
on the paper, and that's theway it was working.
So he doesn't describe it asif his hand is being operated.
Right.
Right.
But he did.
He did make the statement heldas by an.
As if by an unseen force,which I thought was kind of definitely
(15:52):
leaned towards that.
Right.
And then he kind of abandoned that.
And from then on, I mean, I.
I think we should probablycome back to this in more detail.
Right.
We can.
I think.
I mean, I don't know that we.
We can discuss how it would beformatted, you know, like, what kind
of format we would do, whetherit would be, like, going through
(16:12):
the whole book or if there was.
Like I've mentioned before, infact, we talked about a little bit
where it gets to the TenCommitments versus the Ten Commandments.
And that, like, that idearesonated specifically with me.
And so I don't know if maybewe want to pick some key ideas out
of it that really resonatewith us, that we want to converse
(16:35):
about versus going through,like, not a page.
By page, you know, like, no, Idid not want.
I did not want to go throughit the way we did Power of Myth.
I wanted to pick outhighlights that we wanted to talk
about, and especially thething that I had resistance to.
I'm really curious.
(16:55):
Yeah.
Because I'm really receptiveto most of the ideas, and then some
of the stuff I just find confusing.
Sure.
So, I mean, I think the book'sversion of Trinity is very interesting,
and I think we should probablyhave an extended conversation about
that.
You know, Having a lot ofBuddhist background, I come to a
(17:17):
lot of the content and say,oh, that's.
I don't say it comes fromBuddhism, but I say it's very consistent
with Buddhism.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, well, or.
Or even that's.
Oh, that's a Buddhist idea.
Like, that's a Buddhistconcept, too.
Not saying that he stole it from.
And which is unsurprisinggiven our central thesis that all
religions contain elements,core elements that serve.
(17:40):
That serve us, and thatthey're just.
They have different accretionsaround them and they're presented
in different ways and, youknow, but there's certain core things
that are shared.
And so I think you're going tosee that here as well.
Some.
Yeah, well, I.
I guess I'm glad to hear yousay that because that was kind of
my feeling when we startedtalking and you started sharing these
(18:03):
Buddhist ideas and.
And this was kind of my centerof worldview.
But not because of the book,but because the ideas that the book
presents are consistent withkind of how I think it is.
And then when you startedtalking about the Buddhist stuff,
which I had virtually nobackground previously on.
(18:26):
I was seeing so manyalignments and similarities between
those concepts that.
And I think in the book, notonly did I find the consistency in
Buddhism, but I seem to drawthe consistency even with Christianity
and other, you know, religion.
And finding that core kind ofelement in the.
(18:50):
In the undertone, you know,and seeing.
Okay, I can see how these twoteachings may have started in a very
similar.
Like, from a similar path, butdue to the accretion and everything
maybe diverged some.
So.
Yeah.
And I.
I guess I wasn't sure how you would.
If you would be able toovercome the whole conversation with
(19:10):
God thing.
And it seems like you're okayto move beyond it and try and.
Yeah, I mean, what you canfrom it, it doesn't.
It certainly didn't put me offreading the book.
Right.
You know, it was like I said,like the first page or two.
I was like, this is kind ofhokey, but as soon as you start getting
the ideas, the ideas grabbedme and I was like, oh, well, this
is interesting.
What else does he say?
(19:31):
Know.
So, yeah, I'm looking forward.
I'm looking forward tofinishing it.
Yeah, I think we should comeback and definitely some core concepts
that would be goodconversation, extended conversation,
and then whatever we see as,like, gems that stood out to us being
meaningful or significant.
(19:54):
So there's something I readyesterday that just keeps on coming,
popping up in my Head as we'retalking about this.
And I really can't see the.
I think there might have beena connection early on, but I don't
know what it is anymore.
But apparently the Dalai Lama.
This was attributed to theDalai Lama that he believes that
(20:14):
the inherent state of man is kindness.
And he says, and this hasnothing to do with Buddha, Dharma.
Like, if he was not a Buddhistbut was studying what he knows, he
would come to this conclusion.
And it's pretty simple.
Which is basically how what hecalls affection, you know, altruism,
(20:41):
relationships, connection,kindness are physiologically good
for humans.
And the absence of thosethings is deadly.
You know, I mean, at a.
At an early age, right.
You can kill a child by takingcare of it physically and not providing
(21:06):
any emotional support.
And so that's.
I.
I just thought that was a verystark and interesting observation
because it goes against ourcritical voices, our cynical voices,
(21:33):
our skeptical voices.
So.
And I think that's why I wastalking about it, because I was saying
I have this cynical, skepticalthing, saying, well, you know, it's
just a manipulation that.
The fact is that living from aposition of suspicion, which really
(21:54):
equates to fear, puts you in astate of stress which is physically
harmful to you, shortens your life.
Like, it's just obviously abad thing to do.
And yet a lot of our cultureis about that, versus being more
(22:25):
open, being more altruistic,being more generous in.
Generous in your spirit,generous in your attitude.
Not in terms of giving thingsaway, but in terms of, you know,
can I allow this?
Can I accept this?
(22:45):
So, I mean, obviously, this isthe kind of thing that's touched
on in here, but I had.
I just saw this attributed tothe Dalai Lama yesterday, and I thought
it really struck me kind of asin context of this.
I mean, by itself, I thinkit's very interesting observation.
(23:06):
Yeah.
It's kind of.
It's.
It's kind of proof oh, man isinherently good.
Right.
He must be, because he'sevolved, that I'm like, otherwise,
we'd all die.
Right.
That's a good point.
If people were really.
You know.
And part of his.
(23:29):
He frequently says thingslike, you know, think about your
mother and your mother,everything your mother did for you
and how kind and blah, blah, blah.
And again, in our modernsociety, you think about dysfunctional
families and abuse, and you'relike, well, but what about people
who aren't like that?
(23:49):
And we know that that happens, but.
Right.
The fact is that although thathappens and it's a problem and it's
A very serious problem forpeople who experience it.
(24:09):
To think that that's what theworld like, that that's what the
world is like, is irrationalbecause the species could never have
proliferated if that's whatpeople were like.
Or even if, even if, like.
Oh well, now that we're at 8billion people now, that's what people
(24:31):
is like, are like.
Like.
No, because people would bedying a lot more like the.
Anyway, just a, just a thought.
Trying to make the argumentthat here that we should be positive.
Well, not.
Yes, kind.
Yes.
For, for our own sake and forothers sakes, but just we should,
(24:58):
we should be optimistic thatwhen we say we should be kind, we're
really not going against thegrain or swimming upstream.
Yeah.
In terms of humanity, in termsof our culture, maybe.
Yeah.
But our culture does notrepresent, you know, as great as
(25:20):
America is, it doesn'trepresent the world.
And as much as our media isdominant, even media doesn't represent
humanity right at the core.
So anyway.
Yeah, no, I mean it.
Blowing some sunshine there, I guess.
No.
(25:40):
So the past.
I told you a couple sessionsago about my August and how phenomenally
blissful it was and wanting toget back to that, you know, and I've
(26:06):
been really trying to thinkabout what happened or what was going
on in August because there wasagain a number of things that went
on that could have contributedand probably did to some degree contribute
to the satisfaction or youknow, the, the bliss.
(26:29):
And I have happened across Iguess some new, I don't know again
also in the 90s, which isweird, I don't know what happened
in the 90s or if these thingsare like kind of like piggybacked
(26:52):
off each other or what.
And I'm also again kind oftaking the open minded perspective
to just receive theinformation and kind of see what
sticks with the things that,that resonate.
And I think that when I lookat what it purports to be and you
(27:16):
know, any associations it mayhave with like business or whatever,
I'm resistant and hesitant anddon't like want to share it.
But the information has beenlike mind blowing.
Not mind blowing as far aslike, I've never heard this kind
(27:37):
of thing, but mind blowing inits consistency with ideas here,
ideas I've heard elsewhere.
And that I guess I mentionedthat with the near death experience
idea as well is when I startto see those consistencies in abstract
places that are unconnected,it starts to make me feel like there's
(27:59):
more to this than, than just the.
At face value, you know, soit's the way of mastery.
It was books, but I'mlistening to it just on YouTube as
narrated and their channelingsof Jesus, which, you know, take it
or leave it, whatever.
(28:20):
That's not the important pieceto me.
And I guess even in themessaging, it's not important in
messaging, you know, the, themessage is, you know, Jesus as a
man is not the important thing.
(28:42):
The Christ mind, the universalmind that is available to all of
us is really what it wasgetting to.
Good.
And again, it, it aligns verystrongly with kind of conversations
with God and some of theBuddhist stuff we talked about.
(29:04):
So.
But the idea that a key ideabehind it has been the egoic mind
being what suppresses our, ourdivine mind or spirit mind and creates
(29:26):
the fear.
And that that was all bychoice in, in us to experience the
separation of God similar towhat is talked about in conversations
with God.
Again, not the importantpiece, but the important piece being
that in order to achieve theenlightenment and achieve heaven
(29:47):
on earth, achieve thoseblissful states, it is the, the genuine
commitment internally andemotionally, not just like trying
to trick your mind saying, oh,now I believe this and this is what
I'm doing.
You know, that at the core ofyour being, to forego the connections
(30:07):
of value and judgment that weput on events, materials, things
about us not being tied to theoutcome kind of thing, but really
more being part of the processof creation and to be a conduit or
(30:29):
a conduit is the word they usethen that.
Actually I'll speak to that ina second of kind of the, the divine
Spirit, the divine light,which is love, to shine that forth
onto the world through your,through everything you do.
It's not about what you do,it's about doing what you do with
(30:52):
love.
Being in the moment similar tomindfulness and, and loving.
What is it?
Loving kindness.
I mean, these are allrecurring themes that we've, that
we've heard in a number of areas.
And just hearing it again in adifferent format has helped me to,
(31:14):
I think, rekindle, rekindle acommitment to trying to clear my
egoic mind of ties, of fear,of inadequacy or lack or, you know,
I don't want to do thisbecause I won't get this type of,
(31:36):
you know, a tit for tat kindof mentality, which is the egoic
mind.
And that was something that Ivery specifically committed to in
August because we were goingto the lake with my in laws, which
I have not had the best, Ihave not presented my best self frequently
(31:57):
in that situation.
And I committed to myself, Ibelieve, through a desire to present
love to my wife, to herfamily, to support this get together
and not be that adversary, notbe the one that everybody's worried
about walking on eggshells ormaking a decision because Ryan's
(32:18):
going to be upset.
I did not want that.
It was like, whatever happens,whatever we do, I'm fine with it.
I do not want to be that.
I just want to be here tosupport you guys.
And that was a verbal andmental decision that I made in early
August, which led to anamazing time at the lake, spending
(32:40):
a lot of time with my niecesand nephews, which I don't see them
ever.
And I think that was a secondpiece of it.
And I'll try and get to thatas well.
But the point was, I thinkthat a big part of my amazing August
was making this distinct anddeliberate commitment to whatever
(33:01):
I'm doing now, I'm only goingto be doing it from a place of love.
And then it led on to ouranniversary and doing this big anniversary
thing, which is not somethingI'm inclined to do usually, which
was amazing.
And then what happened?
Well, I think, number one, Iwasn't fully aware that potentially
that was what was causing this bliss.
(33:23):
School started all those theworld chatter and the hubbub got
back into swing and I gotdistracted again, I guess.
And so now I'm really tryingto recommit myself to not having
those attachments and justtrying to present my best loving
(33:43):
self to myself, my family,everyone around me.
And I'm hopeful.
And I mean, I can already feelyou feel better when you release
that tension, whether or notthe things that are causing that
frustration are still present.
When you can let it go, whenyou can forgive.
And we talked about this lastweek, forgiveness is for you, you
know, so that you can let itgo, move on.
(34:07):
And ironically, we've alsobeen talking about the Ten Commandments,
and I was helping teach themiddle school kids the past couple
of weeks.
And that was also somethingthat came up when it came to, you
know, not coveting things andbeing gracious and grateful for what
you have, not living from apoint and feeling of lack.
(34:31):
So two things I had mentioned.
Number one, the kids.
So during that time was alsothe vacation church camp.
And I helped out one day and was.
I found happiness in beingaround these kids, whether it's my
nieces and nephews and mykids, when we're out playing, swimming,
(34:51):
you know, at the, at the lake,or the kids in the Christian education
program that my.
That my wife has been teachingthe innocence and the wonder and
the, you know, inquiring mind.
And it really.
I think being around that kindof energy has been really uplifting
(35:14):
to me as well.
And the conduit thing hit melike a ton of bricks because I actually
use that word and that termand that idea literally in a presentation
to the congregation years ago about.
What was it?
(35:35):
I don't know if it was a.
It wasn't a mission moment.
What was the other.
They do these in duringservice, like a mission moment where
somebody comes up and talksabout their mission thing.
It might have been.
It was something.
What was it?
Wherever the pledges go,whatever that's called.
And I don't know why I'mdrawing a blank on it.
But the point was I wassupposed to present on this, and
(35:58):
I didn't want to talk about money.
Like, everybody always gets upthere and talks about money.
So what I did was I got upthere and I wanted to talk about
sharing our time and talent,or our talent in particular.
And the.
The speech or whatever went on.
And the core idea behind itwas that were all given talent, tools,
(36:27):
talent and their work.
We can use them, but they'rebasically, we are the conduit for
God's talent.
Right?
And that was the word that I used.
So when I started hearing thisconduit being brought up again and
again, I was like, whoa,that's kind of crazy.
That.
That.
And of course, it could alsobe just ironic, you know, and.
(36:51):
But when I see thosesynchronicities, they perk my ear
up, you know?
So that's been the past coupleof weeks, what I've been kind of
doing.
I've gone through, I don'tknow, probably almost 10 hours of
this stuff, and it's beenpretty good.
I liked it.
And it's trying to bring meback around to hopefully, you know,
(37:15):
really committing to the.
Coming from a place of love.
So 10 hours of intentionalcommitment to.
10 hours of listening to thechannelings of Jesus through this
mastery stuff.
Okay?
And remembering, you know,that I did make an honest commitment
(37:35):
before.
And I am able to let thesethings go and not have them eat away
at me.
And I don't have to choose togo down, you know, and it's not that
I don't feel fire in my bellyanymore, but when that fire starts
to come up, I kind.
I'm taking that intentionalmoment to say, what am I afraid of
(37:58):
now?
I'm creating this frustration.
What can I do about it?
And in most circumstances, I'mable to kind of get that feeling
away pretty quickly.
Not 100% and interestinglyenough, I guess in the car today,
and I don't know the accuracyof this number, but the number is
really kind of unimportant.
(38:18):
Was saying something like wemake 35,000 decisions a day or something
like that.
And of course, they're minutedecisions, but in that we have 35,000
chances a day to choose to actin love.
And even if 20,000 of them, wemake a fearful choice, that's still
(38:38):
a large number of love that wecan do.
And making incrementalprogress to kind of tip that balance
gets us forward, we don't haveto beat ourselves up.
That, oh, this I've been doingso well, but this time I did the
wrong thing and I'm such aterrible person.
That's not going to help anything.
Yeah, a lot, A lot there.
(39:01):
I mean, just.
Just around the last thing yousaid in terms of, you know, the number
of the number of opportunitiesand what the number.
What are the opportunitiesthat you take?
The intent to practice, theintent to make the choice of love
is really key.
(39:22):
Basically, it's the mainchoice that you don't want to tie
to the outcome.
Right, Right.
So we.
So in conversations of God andlots of other places, there's the
idea of how you make a choiceversus what the outcome is.
And because essentially wecan't control outcomes, that's kind
(39:45):
of a rule.
And so the intent to say, outof my 30,000, you know, well, I want
all 30,000 to be good choicesis fine.
Doesn't mean that you have to succeed.
Having the intent is good enough.
And this goes back tobasically all religiosity.
(40:07):
Right.
Having a model, havingguidelines that this is what I want,
this is how I want to be.
It doesn't mean you have to be perfect.
Having the intent counts ahuge amount.
And.
And this has actually come upa lot in.
In the teachings that I'vebeen doing recently.
(40:30):
So Buddhist trainings offorgiveness and.
And loving kindness thatspecifically in.
All right, so I'll attributethis specifically to Tower Brak,
although it's not unique toher, but that is where I read it.
And she's, you know, givingguidance in forgiveness practice.
And of course, when you arefaced with, you know, a terrible
(40:55):
injury, a terrible wrong,you're not going to just be able
to read, oh, I should be forgiving.
Oh, that's great.
Now let me be forgiving.
And so, you know, her guidanceis when you hit one, that's that
difficult that you can't evensay, just say the words, I forgive
you.
Say, I intend to forgive you.
And setting up that intentstarts to create the pathways.
(41:19):
And another thing that I wasgoing to say is neurons that fire
together wire together, whichis, you know, in a way, the neurological
neurobiological correlate ofpractice makes perfect.
So the more you give youropportunity, the more you, you give
yourself opportunity to feel athing, the more you will tend to
(41:41):
towards that thing.
Actually, I think that goesback to Buddha too.
Is something like what youthink you become.
Where your focus is, is whereyou go.
All that kind of stuff.
I can't go.
You prompted me to write downa number of things, but they're more,
they don't tie back to exactlywhat you were saying.
(42:01):
So one thing was, oh, the ideaof inherent goodness.
And which also comes up in, inconversations with God.
I think God says, essentially,why do you guys keep on choosing
not to love now the kind ofthe opposing fact.
So I made the comment aboutthe Dalai Lama's observation, but
(42:25):
then there's also ourevolutionary negativity bias.
Right.
So I had said, you know, oh,our culture teaches us to be skeptical
and fearful.
And that's true, but a littlesuperficial because, and we've talked
about this before, we knowthat human brains have negativity
bias, which is very, verysurvival oriented.
(42:47):
The problem being that we'renot dealing with tigers in our environment
anymore.
And that's, that's the problemis that we have culturally outgrown
our evolutionary wiring fordefensiveness and sensitivity to
danger and negativity.
And so just to be realistic,when we try to do these things, it's
(43:11):
not just a cultural bias to negativity.
It's not just a cultural biasto criticism and cynicism and skepticism
and suspicion.
There's a very realneurological correlate to perceive
danger.
And you know, again, this issomething we've talked about many,
many times, but in a slightlydifferent context.
(43:33):
Now we're talking about theinherent goodness of man and how
God wants us to be happy.
And God is giving us theopportunity and telling us here,
here it is.
Do you, do you want to do itor not?
All to say it's not our fault.
So in terms of cwg,Conversations with God, I don't think
(43:53):
the acronym is any shorterthan Conversations with God, actually,
in writing it shorter.
Well, I did notice that was missing.
That was kind of a missingpiece of the discussion.
And so.
Which is what.
Why we keep doing it.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
And I Mean, I think.
I think that's a veryimportant and powerful fact and a
(44:14):
very.
A very verifiable fact thateverybody can verify in their own
experience, and everybody canverify by going to reference work
and, you know, authoritativesources like, yes, this is a real
thing.
We know it scientifically, weknow it experientially.
(44:35):
And so in terms of the book,to me, it's kind of a glaring omission
where.
And they just kind of gloss over.
It's like, oh, you mean wecould have been happy all this time?
Yeah.
Well, why weren't we, you know.
Oh, well, you just choose not to.
Like, well, no, you know, it's.
It's not that we just choosenot to.
It's that we have a realphysiological orientation not to.
(45:00):
And so this is an interestingcontradiction to me because I'm saying
two different things thatpeople are physiologically good at
the same time.
They're physiologicallyfearful, right?
Yes.
I mean.
Well, I mean that we have abiological defense mechanism that
has been fortified overhowever long we've been on the earth.
(45:22):
So I think that evolutionaryneurobiologists would say that the
defensiveness goes deeper thanthe altruism.
Like, I think we know altruismis more recent acquirement, but it
doesn't mean that it's real.
I mean, it's so important tous that we die without it.
And yet that's the strugglethat we have.
All right, Right.
(45:42):
We have this deep, deepevolutionary defense that is negative
by definition.
And then we have this modernneocortex which needs altruism.
Like reptiles don't needaffection to survive, but primates
do.
So that's the.
That's the catch 22.
That's the struggle.
(46:03):
And I think.
So I guess in a way I'm kindof being reductionist.
I'm saying, oh, it's just biology.
Right.
But I think it's important.
I mean, I think it's someimportant knowledge to have.
While we're struggling to saythere is biological evidence that
we are good, there's alsobiological evidence that it's not
our fault when we're not good.
(46:24):
The thing is, the sameneocortex that gives us this need
for altruism, gives us theability to choose, and that's where
we have to live, which isexactly what you've been talking
about.
There we go.
There's a connection is the.
The nature of the choice andbeing realistic that we have a deep,
deep opposing neurobiology to this.
(46:47):
So it's not easy.
It's not easy.
But it doesn't mean that it'snot natural.
And that's the, that's theother argument that people try to
make is that it's not naturalis that man is inherently bad.
Right, right.
You know, the philosophicargument, I'm thinking, I'm picturing
in my head right now the, theTV show community where.
Oh, you don't know the TV show community?
(47:08):
Okay, well, you have to goback, you have to look that up.
That is a great show.
Okay.
It's a farcical comedy.
And there's an episode wheretwo main characters oppose each other
on the debate team.
And the final challenge is oneside has to prove man is bad and
one side has to prove man is good.
So that's just a comedic lookat, at the issue.
(47:32):
But yes, I mean, I think thatthe reason that that's a debate and
the reason that peopledisagree about it is because the
biological underpinning of thereason is that there are structures
and processes supporting bothsides of that.
And the negative process is older.
I was going to say stronger.
(47:52):
It's older, which means it'smore ingrained.
But it's not stronger.
It's just habit.
It's more developed.
And the positive aspect needsour work in order to be developed,
to be as strong as it can be.
It's not that it's weaker,it's that it needs development in
order to be strong.
(48:12):
Just like a child is weak andneeds to go through growth in order
to be strong.
And if the child doesn't haveopposition, gravity, you know, gravity
and stress, it won't grow up strong.
Right.
So going back to the intent,when you're starting, the intent's
enough because you're weak.
I mean, your, your positiveaspect is potentially less developed
(48:36):
than your negative aspect.
Depending on your, on yourexperience, your, your negative wiring
may be an 800 pound gorilla.
And so you may really have togradually put yourself through a
strength building program toget the positive aspect up to par
with that and able to oppose it.
(48:56):
The good news is that thatanalogy is that metaphor is an empty
metaphor because it's not awar, as they say in conversations
with God.
It's not a war.
And you don't need tooverpower the 800 pound gorilla.
You just need to learn toforgive it.
And there's the magic.
And that's where everythingfalls apart in terms of all this
(49:19):
metaphor.
All my talk about biology, Ithink, because it takes practice,
but once you hit that moment,there can be this magical falling
away of the negative.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom Podcast.
Join us next time as wecontinue the discussion.
(49:42):
Don't forget to follow us onFacebook, Instagram and YouTube,
and visit www.eth-studio.comfor more information and.
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