June 5, 2025 • 46 mins
Tracking Wisdom
Episode 27
Revisiting Our Core Thesis on Spiritual Teachings
Recorded - 04/19/25
The fundamental thesis of this episode centers on the exploration of perennial wisdom, a concept which posits that all spiritual teachings share an underlying truth that transcends time and culture. We delve into the origins of our inquiry, tracing back to our initial motivations for this podcast, as well as our encounters with various philosophical and scientific perspectives, including Donald Hoffman's interface theory and the insights of Joseph Campbell. Throughout our discourse, we elucidate the core elements of perennial wisdom, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all existence and the illusory nature of the ego. We also reflect on our personal journeys of awakening and how these experiences resonate with the broader teachings we discuss. Ultimately, we invite our listeners to recognize the pervasive nature of this wisdom in diverse contexts, fostering a deeper understanding of its significance in our shared human experience.
Takeaways
- The concept of perennial wisdom highlights the interconnectedness of all spiritual teachings, revealing a central truth that transcends cultural and institutional boundaries.
- We explored various philosophies and scientific theories, such as Donald Hoffman's interface theory and Ian McGilchrist's split brain theory, to deepen our understanding of perennial wisdom.
- The journey of awakening is not solely about the teachings but rather the experiential recognition of universal truths that resonate across different traditions.
- The distinction between ego and true self is crucial, as it underscores the illusionary nature of the ego while pointing to an underlying, authentic self that embodies compassion and wisdom.
- Our cultural context often obscures the awareness of perennial wisdom, leading to a disconnection from the fundamental truths that are inherently present within us all.
- We are committed to exploring how the principles of perennial wisdom manifest in various realms, including psychology, theology, and the arts, as we continue our discourse.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
Good morning, everybody, andwelcome back to another episode of
(00:26):
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.I'm Ryan.
I'm Peter.
And today, round two, since Iforgot to press record, we are discussing
sort of a throwback orcallback to our original thesis.
When we first started thisepisode, this show, this project
about three years ago, we hada thesis that all spiritual teachings
(00:52):
had an underlying message, anunderlying truth that, that infused
through all of them andthrough institutionalization and
the siloed nature of eithergeographical and otherwise. These
teachings would, at least thiswas the thesis, would veer off track
(01:13):
from the original coreteaching, but that the fundamental
nature of that teaching wasstill evident and relevant within
the teachings. And when thatstarted, that was a concept that
I believed in, I recognized.But I had never heard of the term
perennial philosophy, which isa term and a book. Was that the name
(01:37):
of the book?
That's the name of the book byAldous Huxley.
And that was something I wasunaware of until we investigated
and were learning about DonaldHoffman. And he had some discussions
with Rupert Spira. And Rupertbrought up the. This idea of the
perennial philosophy. And thatwas the first exposure I had had
(01:57):
to it. Peter has had the book.Peter bought the book, but never
really read it. I knew thetitle had awareness of this as a
thing. And so in the pursuitof. Well, we went through our project
and we were investigating lotsof different avenues and forms of
(02:19):
different philosophies andsciences ranging from Donald Hoffman
and his interface theory,that's interface theory of perception,
okay, to Ian McGilchrist andhis split brain theory and Carlo
Rovelli. So we investigatedand explored scientific pursuits
(02:43):
and different spiritual andtheological pursuits, ranging from
Geoffrey Martin and hisfinders and the fundamental well
being to even Joseph Campbelland the power of myth and how that
idea of cultural mythology andthe teachings behind that infuse
(03:06):
culture. And we've recognizedit even in media, in certain things.
I mean, we mentioned Star warseven recently amongst us, but have
brought up where thisperennial philosophy has presented
itself. And I prefer the termperennial wisdom, the original term
(03:28):
perennial philosophy and theconcept behind it, from what I understand
was specifically pointed atreligion. And what we've observed
over this exploration is thatthe perennial wisdom that is inherent,
the underlying fundamentaltruth, if you wanted to call it that,
(03:50):
is evident everywhere. Andthat's been really interesting to
us. To recognize that. And Iwanted to spend some time today reconnecting
with that original thesis.Reconnecting and regrounding the
show in the exploration of.And the recognition. It's not going
(04:11):
to change the show per se inthat we will continue to explore
all these varieties ofphilosophy and teaching, science
and psychology and theologyand spirituality and all these different
avenues, but to maybe reorienttowards recognizing this perennial
(04:33):
wisdom in all of itsmanifestations. Think that about.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's.It's what we've. It's what we've
been learning. It's making thelesson that we've learned explicit.
And Campbell actually pointedin Power of Myth, it's really pointing
at the perennial wisdom, buthe doesn't use the term. And we recognized
it when he talked about it.Like, yeah, that's. That's what we're
(04:55):
talking about. This centralthing that runs through like all
different cultures andperspectives. What I call the baby
in the bathwater. And then youhad introduced the idea of kind of
cultural accretions that buildup around these central teachings.
Like there's one teacher whosees the truth and then he gets followers,
(05:17):
and then all these practicesstart to build up around that central
truth and it gets sometimes obscured.
Right.
And then we also talked aboutthe difference in teachers of they
don't always know or theydon't always focus on the central
truth. And sometimes theyfocus on the trappings and the methods
(05:39):
and stuff like that, and theylose sight of this perennial wisdom,
which is what we're interested in.
Right. So I guess to beexplicit about what the core elements
of the perennial wisdom reallyare is number one, there's an underlying
one oneness or interconnectionof all things like that that seems
to be pretty core. A prettycore element to. To the philosophy
(06:03):
that the teaching is that allthings are interconnected and that
there is generally fundamentaloneness among all things. The next
is that the ego is an illusionand that there is an underlying true
self, which kind of points toyou're not quite. You're not what
(06:23):
you think you are, which Iguess is kind of an.
Abstract concept, but I'm theidea of true nature.
Right.
I guess a comment I want tomake is that because we've. We've
talked about. I mean, this.This journey has been. Become a lot
about our mutual awakeningjourney, which we didn't. When we
(06:44):
started, we had no idea thatwe were on a way like that. We were
getting on an awakening path.And we started learning about awakening,
starting with Jeffrey Martinsand then from. From different people.
And then recognizing that theperennial wisdom. I guess the point
I want to make is notparticularly a teaching. Right. That's
(07:07):
not the point of it.
Correct.
The point is that it's adescription of this common human
experience of awakening. Onceyou have an awakening experience
and you start to move downthat path and explore it, these elements
that Ryan's describing are thethings that you recognize. It's just.
They become apparent, whichhas been our experience. And, you
(07:31):
know, Ryan has a lot of timessaid, oh, now I recognize, like,
that's what I've been feeling,you know, And I'm kind of coming
at it from a differentdirection where I've read about these
things and I've starting tohave the experience. Like, oh, now
I'm. Now, like, that's whatthey're talking about. So, yeah,
(07:51):
that's been an interestingpartnership because of that.
Yes.
That dichotomy.
I believe one of the episodesyou mentioned, the. You pointed out,
interestingly that we were,like. I think you're saying, like,
we were on, like, the samepath. We were through the woods,
basically. Like, our pathswere kind of parallel and we could
(08:12):
see each other, but we werestill kind of coming from different.
Right.
Trailheads.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Iactually. Speaking of experience,
I just had. And I'm. Iactually might jump ahead of your
notes a little. That's fun. Ijust did a je. Last Thursday, and
I was very surprised at theend. To what. What did I describe?
(08:36):
I think I was, like, looking.When I opened my eyes, I looked out
the window and I saw the tree.I saw trees and buds. I saw these
things. I didn't have names,like, in that state. I was like,
wow, I'm seeing these things,and I have a sense of nonsense, is
what I said. And I'm seeingthese things, and they don't have
(08:57):
names, they're just there. AndI was actually laughing when I said
it because it was very weird.
Yeah.
And it sounds weird, butthat's an experience that I've heard
described, but I've never hadit. And so Thursday I had it. I was
like, oh, wow, look at that.That's. Oh, yeah. It's really very
much like, oh. Or a sense ofrecognizing something that you've
(09:21):
heard about or justrecognizing something that you've
never heard about is anotherkind of flavor of it. You have this
very strange experience, butit's like there's a sense of recognition
as opposed to weirdness. It's. Anyway.
Yeah. And it's beyond theintellectual it's that experiential
piece of it.
(09:41):
Yeah.
For the audience, GAE is groupawareness exercise.
Yeah. It's a form of groupmeditation that is taught by Jeffrey
Martin and others. But yeah.So just to bring it back around to
where you were is that thereare writings about perennial. The
perennial philosophy or aboutperennial wisdom. But we're interested
(10:03):
in it not as teaching, but asreflecting experience and. And then
being able to recognize whencertain people are describing their
experiences this way. And yousaid Tony Robbins. Yeah, Robbins
had done that.
Yes.
And. And I think I've. I'vereferenced, like, art, some different
(10:25):
forms of art. I mean, peoplehear it in classical music. You know,
that's like. This piecetransports me in this way. And often
it's hard to describe, but Ithink that what we're talking about
is it's a connection to thismutual experience where the artist
(10:46):
has touched this in some wayand is expressing it. And the artist
may not know that. The artistmay not identify it as an awakening
experience. And certainly theaudience often does not identify
it as that. But what I'mpostulating is that the reason that
it's moving and the reasonthat it's universal is because that's
(11:09):
what it is. It is touchingthis experience of awakening in some
way and making it accessibleto people who don't formally recognize
awakening or aren't thinkingabout it or don't have language around
it.
Anyway, so that's a greatpoint. And I've noticed or recognized
(11:30):
art in myself. Now, I'm not aprofessional artist. I'm not connecting
with an audience in that way.But the. And in fact, I've written
on this as well, the activityof art and creativity connects me
in a way to this underlyinguniversality, which I framed it more
(11:51):
like meditation ormindfulness, meaning that the activity
of being creative and in thatmoment was a practice of mindfulness
that helped me to connect or.Helps me to connect.
Yeah. This is interestingbecause a friend of mine, a classmate
of mine from the teachingprogram, actually has a plan to teach
(12:11):
art as mindfulness. And weasked her about it in a group, and
she gave this, like. She juststarted talking. Oh, this here's
what I'm thinking about. Andwe were all just like, wow, it was
really interesting. So there'sdefinitely something there.
Yeah.
Saying, yeah, and there arepeople who. Who do teach that. So
(12:32):
I think I interrupted yourlist of elements, but. Yeah, so I
interrupted the list ofelements because I wanted to make
the point that we're notinterested in presenting a teaching.
Correct.
Right. We're interested in,like, oh, we found this description
of stuff that we've beenlooking for and we've been looking
(12:53):
at and we've been experiencingand we've been finding in different
places. And now we'vediscovered that, yeah, there are
people who talk about this ina formal way and give it a label
and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Which doesn't make it morereal, but it makes it easy to talk
about in a way.
Yeah, that's a good point. Ihave found it interesting. I will
(13:14):
get back to the list. You madea great point, and I like the way
you phrase it. As far as we'renot looking at this as a teaching,
but really more anillustration of a fundamental essence
and maybe some of what I'mexperiencing and I suppose you as
well. I just don't want tospeak for you. Is that what's the
(13:39):
idea that, you know, whenyou're looking for something, you
find it kind of thing? Not ina. I don't think in a. A bias way.
A cognitive, perceptual bias.Yeah. What. Whatever the term is.
Yeah.
You all know what I'm talkingabout. But that the awareness of
it makes it more evident, Iguess. I think the. The generic cliche
(14:06):
kind of look thought is, youknow, you buy a car and then all
of a sudden you see your careverywhere kind of thing. Just because
your perception is reorientedto a certain characteristic, not
that that characteristic isbeing forced or manipulated, but
that you are tuned into itsexistence. And what I found interesting
(14:28):
and also conflicting in how Ifeel about it is how prevalent I
have seen this wisdom, and yetit's not taught as that fundamental
essence. And I just don'tthink people know or see it that
way.
Yeah. So this makes me thinkof another experience around this.
(14:54):
What you're describing, thisseeing it everywhere and recognize
it. And there's a differencebetween. It's funny, we can't remember
this word. I think it'sperceptual bias. I don't think that's
the word, but okay.
It is a bias. I know that.
Right. It's like seeing youkeep on seeing something that you.
When you focus on something,you keep on seeing it, but there's
(15:16):
a difference between readingit and recognizing it, which is what
I used to do. So coming from aChristian upbringing.
Confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias. Thank you.
Goodness. I know that.
Yeah.
Sorry to interrupt.
Sure. You know, coming from aChristian upbringing and then moving
(15:39):
into interest in Buddhistteachings, I found myself like, oh,
well, Buddha already saidthis. Right, Right. And there's this.
This kind of attribution. Oh,well, so who said this first kind
of attitude of recognitionwhere you start recognizing, but
it becomes kind of anattribution contest. But there's
(16:02):
this. What we're talking aboutis an internal recognition of. An
experiential recognition of,oh, he's talking about what I experienced
as opposed to he's talkingabout what I saw. Someone else said.
Right.
And I think it's a very key distinction.
It is. I also think that, youknow, that that has been the nature
of those observations. Buddha.Right. Buddha didn't make it or come
(16:28):
up with it or conceive of it.Buddha recognized that fundamental
essence, taught about it maybethousands of years before another.
But that doesn't make thatexperience of it any less real when
somebody else recognizes it.
Exactly. Well, and to yourpoint, Tony Robbins didn't invent
this stuff. Right, Right. Infact, none of them. Nobody invents
(16:51):
this.
Right.
Because it's essential. It'sessential to human experience. What
teachers do is they recognizeit for themselves and then they package
their own experience andexpress it in terms of their own
experience. And then peoplesay, oh, he invented this, he invented
that. It's like, well, he hadthe experience, he's describing experience.
(17:14):
Or he, you know, decided toteach in a particular way. But, you
know, I think really it comesdown to experience. I don't think
that Jesus taught in theparticular way because he thought,
let me figure out how to teachthis. I think he expressed it the
way he expressed it because ofhis conditioning. Meaning, his context.
(17:39):
Yep.
Right. And his life contextand his cultural, cultural and historical
context and all that. Andthat's what each teacher does.
Right.
And the problem that we'vealways struggled with, which is kind
of the whole point of ourconversation, is the problem of people.
This attribution.
(17:59):
Right.
Contest. Right. This is theright way. This is what this guy
said is the truth. Thisteacher has the truth, you know,
meaning that these otherteachers don't have the truth.
Right.
And that's what we're tryingto tear down, which is like, no,
everybody has the truth. Youhave the truth. You don't need. You
(18:21):
don't essentially need ateacher to tell you the truth. You
just have to stop beingdistracted by everything that your
culture and history tells you.Conditioning, all your conditioning.
I mean, and this is anotherthing we've talked about is how.
How our culture devaluesawakening, devalues mystic experience,
(18:43):
and literally tells us, oh,you're just imagining that.
Right.
And now there's a. Thecontrary Thing which is. I can sell
it to you. You need this. AndI can sell it to you.
Which you talked about in oneof our recent episodes. Yeah.
So. Yeah. So this. Anyway, Ijust. Just to make the point that
(19:07):
it's an essential humanexperience. It's not something that
someone owns. It's notsomething that someone has to tell
you. It can be helpful to beexposed to it intellectually and
become curious about it andbegin exploring it. And that, you
know, can. Can be helpful, butit's not necessary. I'm. Some people,
it just comes to them by themselves.
(19:29):
Right.
So.
And it can be distracting if,you know, presented in a way that
is pulling the focus away fromthe true essence.
Well, it's. It's two thingsalso. If you have the experience
without having the context forthe experience, that can be distracting.
And that can make you thinkyou're crazy.
Yep.
(19:49):
Which is a thing that happens.
Yes. People met people.
That's right. Oh, my goodness.We have.
They're very uncomfortablewith the experience because.
Am I intellectually, they.
They have a hard timereconciling the experience.
Well, it's countercultural.
Right.
It's like it's. This iscontrary to what I've been taught
growing up. So in that sense,it's helpful to have some orientation
(20:16):
just to help it be morecomfortable or help you make sense
of it. And that's what a lotof what we're trying to do too. Right.
It's trying to help peoplemake sense of. If you are having
this. If you are seeing thisstuff, it's really normal.
Yeah.
It's just.
Okay.
It's just that we're told it'snot normal.
Even in the sciences, though.That was really interesting to me.
(20:39):
Is that because our culture'stheology tends to be science, and
not to say science istheocratic, but that the industry
and the mindset around it canbecome dogmatic. And yet even in
the sciences, we're seeingevidence of this kind of thing. They
(21:00):
haven't fully becomemainstream. You know, Donald Hoffman
had presented his theory, Ithink he said, like 10 years ago
or more. You know, we'retalking decades. Ish. And still these
things aren't in themainstream. And we have quantum sciences
and quantum mechanics thatoperates in our society, even, you
(21:24):
know, the quantum computing.And this is. This is science that
is mainstream, but it's stilltaught in Newtonian mechanisms.
Right. Well, so, like, we allcarry quantum technology in our cell
phones. Like, we couldn't havesmartphones. We couldn't have this
level of micro. Microcircuitry without applied quantum
(21:48):
mechanics.
Right.
Which freaks me out. Like,this is something I learned when
we're going through Hoffman's stuff.
Yeah.
But nobody. It's not thatnobody understands it. Look, nobody
understands, but it's kind of.I mean, I. I think what I'm saying
is people, like the people whodo understand it don't explore the
(22:10):
implications of it always.Right, right. It's like I'm just
a technician. I'm just doingthis because it works.
Right.
You know, or, you know, morethan a technician, like a theoretical
someone, like, with a deepunderstanding of it. And it's like,
let me do these calculationsand stuff so that we can make this
work without necessarily doingwhat Carlo Rovelli did. And so like
(22:35):
really thinking about theimplications of this and how these
discoveries were made and howsense is made of these kind of nonsensical
things. And then you canexploit them and use them to achieve
effects, and yet you just kindof ignore the magical nature of it.
(22:58):
Like, the magical in the senseof this defies logic. Right, Right.
It defies what we know of. Itdefies Newtonian physics.
Right.
Which is what we call thelogical world. Because when you get
into quantum stuff, it's notlogical. It makes mathematical sense.
This is. And now we're. We'reveering off to like getting over
(23:20):
our heads stuff. Right. Butour understanding is it makes mathematical
sense.
It is observable.
And it is observable, but itdoesn't make logical sense.
Which is weird in the way weunderstand the material world.
Right, right. Because it's atthat boundary of math and I guess
there's a boundary betweenmathematics. I don't know.
(23:44):
Okay, so just to kind of touchback to the core elements of the
perennial wisdom, I have acouple of things here, but the intercon.
The interconnectedness andoneness, which we kind of just talked
about at length, thisrecognition that there is a. Again
(24:05):
talking about ego versus trueself and what we've talked about
with it, that there's thisconditioned self. I mean, would you.
Would it be fair to. To equatethe ego with the condition mind?
That's kind of how I feel likemakes the most sense, but that there
is this again underlyingnature, which to me points back to
(24:28):
the oneness and theinterconnectedness. But even in abstract
of oneness, the idea thatthere is a fundamental self that
is separate or different fromthe egoic mind, compassion and right
action, meaning the primacy oflove and that love as wisdom in motion,
(24:50):
the idea of presence and theneternal moment. The now and then.
I did have inner work andtransformation, which I think is
actually separate from theperennial wisdom insofar as it's
not a fundamental nature, butit is a nature of, or an element
of the experience of thefundamental essence. So those are
(25:14):
the. The core elements that Iput down. I don't know if you have
anything you would like to addto that.
Well, did you touch onpresence and surrender and flow?
I mean, I did, but if you havesomething. Not extensively, I guess.
I mean, there are. There arekind of paradoxes in all of this.
And my own experience is thatawakening introduces paradox and
(25:40):
awakening makes paradox. Okay.Which is to say that that's. That's
how that relates to the ideaof stepping beyond the conceptual
mind or the rational mind.Because the rational mind is the
thing that objects to paradox.
Right.
It's like, well, this cannotexist. It's a paradox, which means
(26:01):
that it cannot exist. That'swhat. That's the meaning of it. And
the rational mind is locked todefinitions and, you know, binary
answers. And it rejects. Itrejects. And. And then the experiential
moment says, but this is theway it is. This is actually happening
right now. Both of thesecontrary things are existing in my
(26:24):
experience right now.
Yeah.
And so the sense oftransformation, I mean, it can. Inner
work. What do I want to sayabout that? I mean, that's the general.
It's the bell curve. That'sthe middle of the bell curve. Right.
And as with all humanexperiences, their human experience,
I think, occurs on a bellcurve. And there are people who live
(26:46):
in the tails.
Yeah.
And so kind of saying, thereare always exceptions. I mean, so
some of this stuff isabsolute. Absolutely. And. But things
like inner work are notnecessarily right because some people
just have. I think it'spossible. I think it's possible to
have complete transformationwithout inner work. It's exceptionally
(27:09):
rare. I can't name any. Well,I mean, I know the Buddha definitely
had inner work. I'm wonderingif Jesus had inner work.
There's a lot of time that'sabsent from the documents. It's hard
to say.
Yeah. I mean, so I'm thinkingabout the Passion, which was a transformative
(27:30):
time. And maybe that's partthat. That's kind of sucks, like
get crucified. But I mean. ButI mean, there's definitely kind of
that description of him. He'sgoing through a change. Right, Right.
I mean, he's calling. He's.He's rejecting God and saying, or,
(27:53):
you've forsaken me. I mean,it's definitely stuff that he hasn't
done before.
Right. On the prayer and the Gethsemane.
Right. You know, let this passfrom me. And.
Yeah, so there's definitelywrangling going on.
Right, Exactly. And so, youknow, we're just naming these two
major teachers and figures oftraditions that kind of illustrate
(28:19):
that aspect of. Of inner workand transformation. But I think it's
also possible for people. Imean, I think Eckhart Tolle is. I
think.
I don't know his history.
I think his history was, I wassitting on a bench and I woke up
kind of thing. Like he was, Ithink, a common thing with modern
(28:40):
mystics and modern enlightenedbeings. Often, they, quote, hit rock
bottom. So I think that's trueof Eckhart Tolle, and I think that's
true of Byron Katie. But atthe same time, I guess what I'm saying
is the inner work isn'tintentional always that. Maybe that's
the difference. Maybe italways happens. Yeah, it always happens.
(29:01):
Like life puts you through hell.
Yeah.
Because that's what happens.Like I said, and I think we talked
about this. This is anotherepisode where we talked about not
having a struggle. Right,right. And like, oh, all these great
teachers have these struggles.You know, Tony Robbins started out
with nothing, and da, da, da.And so. So, for instance, with Tony
(29:22):
Robbins, I think the innerworker was apparent, and that's what
he teaches, is this is how youdo it. Because I did this. Whereas
Byron, Katie teaches. This iswhat. I had an awakening. This is
what came to me. I don't know.At least that's my understanding
of it. Like, she hit rockbottom and then she just woke up.
(29:45):
And then the work, what shecalls the work is these. The series
of questions to ask, ofquestioning the way you question
your thoughts came to herafterwards. Like, it's not like,
oh, I decided to start askingmyself these questions, and I know
I worked on it for a coupleyears, and then I got healthier.
Right.
You know, so I guess that'swhat I. So when I saw, you know,
(30:09):
inner work, I wanted toexplore that a little bit. Like,
what does that mean? But Ithink for most people. For most people,
it's a. It's a. It's a journeyof effort. It's a part of the question
myself. Yeah. I mean, not always.
Yeah.
I'm hearing the words comingin my. Out of my mouth, and I'm like,
but that's not what I wastaught. Like, you know, you know,
(30:33):
in. In some Buddhist traditionor in meditation traditions, some,
like, oh, there's no effort.
Right.
You know. Well, again, this isparadox. That's why I'm. That's why
I'm getting stuck, because I'mtrying to talk about this, and I'm
real. Well, what about this?Well, it's paradoxical.
Well, and inner work doesn'tnecessarily mean effort. I mean,
(30:54):
I. This kind of goes back to.
That's what we were talkingabout with Katie and Tolle. It's
like they had the work forcedon them by their circumstance and
their internal process.
So maybe internal work isinner transformation.
I think. Yeah. I mean, yoursystem may be working.
(31:14):
Right.
Without you, or you may chooseto do the work. I guess that's the
point is like, you may chooseto or you may not have a choice.
Right.
But the work is getting done.I guess that's. That's. That's what
I was trying to resolve when Isaw that. And then. Yeah. Presence,
surrender and flow. Well, andthis goes back to art and creation
(31:37):
because, I mean, commoncharacteristic of the experience
of awakening is surrender. Andthat is. And flow and kind of ease
and non doing and just thingshappening. And that's also a common
(31:59):
description of creativeprocess. Right, Right. It's. There's
no choice. There's no doing.This is happening through me. So
I. I don't know. I just wantedto point that out as well. Kind of
the whole point of the episodeis what we're saying. Right. It's
like how we recognize thesethings in different contexts.
(32:20):
Right.
But they're the same thing.
Exactly.
Right. That creative flow oflike, oh, this is just happening
through me. That is acharacteristic of experiencing this
ultimate truth or true self orawakening or all these versions of
it. All right, I'm gonna stop.
(32:44):
So one of the things. I'm notgonna go into it because we're kind
of pressing time. But onething that came up for me that spawned
the idea of this episode thatthen kind of morphed into reconnecting
with our original the was. Iwas reading the Meditations, Marcus
Aurelius. And in book four inparticular, there was about eight
(33:09):
or nine different passagesthat really stuck out to me as like,
highlighting the perennialwisdom. And that was kind of a light
bulb in my head again. It'snot like it was a new thing, but
it was like, here it is againkind of thing. And so I wanted to
bring it to the group. And Iwould say, read it. Read book 4,
(33:31):
passages 1, 4, 20, 24, 29, 39,45 and 48 are the ones that I really
pulled out as things thathighlighted this one, I think I would
like to touch on passage one,which is the mind is fire. It had
(33:52):
this metaphorical descriptionof how the fire consumes everything
but keeps burning. And so theidea of the fire as like, challenge.
So this kind of points back towhat we had discussed before with
(34:12):
struggle. Right. Strugglebeing a catalyst for growth. And
here it talks about wheneverit's in agreement with nature. The
ruling power within us takes aflexible approach to circumstances,
always adapting itself easilyto both practicality and the given
event. It has no favoredmaterial for its work, but sets out
(34:37):
on its objects in aconditional way, turning any obstacle
into material for its own use.It's like a fire mastering whatever
falls into it. A small flamewould be extinguished, but a bright
fire rapidly claims as its ownall that it's heaped on it, devours
(35:00):
it all and leaps up yet higherin consequence. So what? That when
I read that, it immediatelyjogged this idea of struggle being
the fuel and catalyst forgrowth. So that was an example of
one of the passages that stuckout to me. There was a number of
them. They all have differentflavors and essences. All of them,
(35:21):
to me, kind of pointed tothese core elements of the perennial
wisdom. And before. So I alsohad one question. It wasn't a question.
It's a question I'm posing toyou. It was an idea that came to
me in contemplating this wholeepisode and the meditations and all
(35:44):
of that was this idea thatawakening is the experience of perennial
wisdom, and enlightenment isthe embodiment of perennial wisdom.
And that kind of just poppedin my head as kind of referencing
conceptually what these are inrelation to the perennial wisdom.
(36:06):
And so I wanted to post thatto you and see how you feel about
that or if you have any.
Yeah, I mean, this. Thisterminology around awakening continues
to be a significant challengethat I'm not yet comfortable with
because I used. Okay, so a bigpart of the problem is that different
(36:29):
traditions co op these wordsin different ways. That's a. That's
a significant problem. So ifyou use the word, then someone from
one tradition will say, oh, Iknow what you're talking about. That's
this. And someone from anothertradition will say, oh, I know what
you're talking about. It'sthis, you know, and so that's part
of it. And then the otherthing is kind of the question of
(36:52):
the ultimate. Because we agreethat we're awakening beings and we
recognize in each other andwe've talked to other people and
we are confident in ourawakening. It's not like, I think
maybe I'm starting to wake.It's like, no, we're awakening. But
are we enlightened?
(37:13):
Right.
And we think like, yeah, we'renot enlightened, and what's the difference?
And. And then I. I came acrosssomething that talked about liberation.
Oh, liberation. That's whatenlightenment is, liberation. But
what does that mean?
Right.
Ooh. Actually, we could jumpon a call this afternoon and ask
that question. Yeah. So whenyou ask something like that, I don't
(37:37):
know, it's so, you know, tofind the words for this stuff, it's
very hard. And I don't feellike I have an experience of liberation,
enlightenment that I can.Well, yeah, I mean, in a way, I think
that maybe. Okay, myexperience of awakening, which is
(38:02):
very, very clear, is. This isso tricky. The experience of it is
transient. The awakening isnot transient. It's there always.
But it's very, very easy toturn away from it, to get distracted
from it, to not be able to seeit because of conditioning, because
(38:24):
I'm upset, blah, blah, blah.I'm tired. And so, you know, our
idealization is, oh, there's atime or place or person or experience
where it's no longertransient. Right, Right. There's
just this permanent experienceof that oneness, that flow, that
(38:46):
freedom, that ease. All thisstuff is just permanent and you never
disturbed. And we have thisconcept, but I don't know. I don't
know whether it really exists.I guess that's what I'm saying, because
that's. That. That's what Iwould call enlightenment or liberation.
And yet, you know, I always goback to the Buddhist story, the Buddhist
(39:12):
tradition, and, you know, thestories of Buddhist Buddha having
tea with Mara or Mara'sshowing up. And so the point is that
Buddha was enlightened. Imean, he had said long, like years
previously, I am awakened. Iam fully enlightened. And yet he
(39:32):
was still dealing with Mara,which is conditioning, which is negative
thoughts and emotions. So he'swelcoming. He has a really good relationship
with Mara. But Mars not absent.
Right.
So that makes me think, oh,well, then there is no absence of
Mara. There's no absence ofMara. There's just like, oh, there's
(39:52):
anger, there's irritation,there's fear. Yeah, okay. You know,
and it's just thatrelationship. So I don't know. That's
why I'm. I don't know what tosay about enlightenment. I guess
that. I guess that's my ideais that it's just developing that
(40:13):
warm, healthy relationshipWith Mara. Okay. All right. Sorry.
I'm just kind of talking thisout. I'm kind of teaching myself
honestly at the moment. So inmy experience, when, like this other
day when I. Last Thursday,when I said, oh, I had this deep
experience, when you're seeingthings that way, you're seeing all
(40:35):
the conditioning, and it'sstill there. It's not like, oh, I'm
free of my conditioning. I'mnot gonna get angry anymore. It's
like, no, I'm gonna get angry.It's okay. And there's just this.
I wanted to comment when youtalked about the ego versus the true
self, right? And that they'reseparate, but they're not because
(40:58):
the self includes the ego.Like, that's the nature of the self.
And this is going to the splitbrain stuff, right? Left hemisphere,
right hemisphere, the leftside. The rational side rejects the
right side and says, like,yeah, this imagination, this is imaginary.
It's. It's stupid. It's notrational. It's. It's not real. I'm.
(41:19):
I'm the verbal side.Everything I tell you is true. Anything
I don't tell you is not truebecause it can't be expressed in
words. So it's not valid. Andthe right side of the brain says,
it's okay, I accept you. And Ihave my experience, and I experience
oneness and I experience allthis, and I experience your verbal
(41:39):
ability as being valuable andblah, blah, blah. And so that's my
experience of that. It's not.It's really hard to say. It's not
separate. It's not separate.It's this. It's. It's this other
thing. This doesn't make anysense. Because if you're in the rational
(42:01):
state, if you're in a rationalstate, you can imagine this non rational,
magical way of being, but it'simaginary because you're. You're
thinking and it's imaginary.And if you're in an awakening experience,
it's not imaginary. It'spresent and absolute. And it's also
(42:24):
not rejecting the rational.And so I don't know how to describe
it. It's separate. It'sdifferent. It's different, but it's
not separate. How's thatdifferent? But it's not separate
because this awakeningexperience that's so different is
not separate from anything,right? That's the characteristic
of it. It's all inclusive,which is the characteristic.
(42:47):
Of fundamental nature, right?In itself, right?
So anyway, I hope I'm notconfusing anyone because I'm confusing,
like, I'm just Trying to talkout of my present experience of confusion.
Talking about is confusing.Being in it is the opposite of confusing.
(43:07):
It's really clear. It's reallylike. And you just laugh and like,
wow, everything's okay. It'slike, okay, you know, this idea of.
This idea of right and wrongdichotomy and you gotta choose this
and choose that and this is.This is good and that's bad. It's
all just, just laughable. Imean, yeah, it's. Anyway, sorry.
(43:35):
Well, I hope you enjoyed thisepisode of Tracking Wisdom podcast
and this conversation and thismusing on the perennial Wisdom. We've
enjoyed this exploration overthe past few years. I think we look
forward to continuing toexplore this and find it.
(43:58):
And thank you for being with us.
Absolutely. So that'll do itfor today. Next episode. I do want
to go into the PerennialWisdom a little bit deeper and a
little bit more academic, Isuppose, insofar as there's two schools
(44:20):
of thought, two perspectivesor two philosophies around perennialism
itself. And I thought theywere very interesting. They come
from. They have their uniqueessences. And I think that both bringing
awareness to what they. How,what they present, and also giving
our take on the two differentavenues will be interesting. I think
(44:45):
that we each. This is myassumption. Or from what I. I think
we each land just shy oneither side of this spectrum, but
I think by and large, we kindof embrace a blend hybrid of both.
So anyways, that'll be on thenext one. Thank you for joining us.
Until next time, stay open,stay curious and keep tracking wisdom.
(45:16):
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com
for more information andcontent. Yeah, I'm just kind of sinking
(45:45):
in a little because it wasinteresting. Yeah, it's interesting
how I got back to that directexperience. I know I'm reconnecting
with my session last Thursday,which was after this session with
(46:11):
Clea.
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
Good morning, everybody, andwelcome back to another episode of
(00:26):
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.I'm Ryan.
I'm Peter.
And today, round two, since Iforgot to press record, we are discussing
sort of a throwback orcallback to our original thesis.
When we first started thisepisode, this show, this project
about three years ago, we hada thesis that all spiritual teachings
(00:52):
had an underlying message, anunderlying truth that, that infused
through all of them andthrough institutionalization and
the siloed nature of eithergeographical and otherwise. These
teachings would, at least thiswas the thesis, would veer off track
(01:13):
from the original coreteaching, but that the fundamental
nature of that teaching wasstill evident and relevant within
the teachings. And when thatstarted, that was a concept that
I believed in, I recognized.But I had never heard of the term
perennial philosophy, which isa term and a book. Was that the name
(01:37):
of the book?
That's the name of the book byAldous Huxley.
And that was something I wasunaware of until we investigated
and were learning about DonaldHoffman. And he had some discussions
with Rupert Spira. And Rupertbrought up the. This idea of the
perennial philosophy. And thatwas the first exposure I had had
(01:57):
to it. Peter has had the book.Peter bought the book, but never
really read it. I knew thetitle had awareness of this as a
thing. And so in the pursuitof. Well, we went through our project
and we were investigating lotsof different avenues and forms of
(02:19):
different philosophies andsciences ranging from Donald Hoffman
and his interface theory,that's interface theory of perception,
okay, to Ian McGilchrist andhis split brain theory and Carlo
Rovelli. So we investigatedand explored scientific pursuits
(02:43):
and different spiritual andtheological pursuits, ranging from
Geoffrey Martin and hisfinders and the fundamental well
being to even Joseph Campbelland the power of myth and how that
idea of cultural mythology andthe teachings behind that infuse
(03:06):
culture. And we've recognizedit even in media, in certain things.
I mean, we mentioned Star warseven recently amongst us, but have
brought up where thisperennial philosophy has presented
itself. And I prefer the termperennial wisdom, the original term
(03:28):
perennial philosophy and theconcept behind it, from what I understand
was specifically pointed atreligion. And what we've observed
over this exploration is thatthe perennial wisdom that is inherent,
the underlying fundamentaltruth, if you wanted to call it that,
(03:50):
is evident everywhere. Andthat's been really interesting to
us. To recognize that. And Iwanted to spend some time today reconnecting
with that original thesis.Reconnecting and regrounding the
show in the exploration of.And the recognition. It's not going
(04:11):
to change the show per se inthat we will continue to explore
all these varieties ofphilosophy and teaching, science
and psychology and theologyand spirituality and all these different
avenues, but to maybe reorienttowards recognizing this perennial
(04:33):
wisdom in all of itsmanifestations. Think that about.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's.It's what we've. It's what we've
been learning. It's making thelesson that we've learned explicit.
And Campbell actually pointedin Power of Myth, it's really pointing
at the perennial wisdom, buthe doesn't use the term. And we recognized
it when he talked about it.Like, yeah, that's. That's what we're
(04:55):
talking about. This centralthing that runs through like all
different cultures andperspectives. What I call the baby
in the bathwater. And then youhad introduced the idea of kind of
cultural accretions that buildup around these central teachings.
Like there's one teacher whosees the truth and then he gets followers,
(05:17):
and then all these practicesstart to build up around that central
truth and it gets sometimes obscured.
Right.
And then we also talked aboutthe difference in teachers of they
don't always know or theydon't always focus on the central
truth. And sometimes theyfocus on the trappings and the methods
(05:39):
and stuff like that, and theylose sight of this perennial wisdom,
which is what we're interested in.
Right. So I guess to beexplicit about what the core elements
of the perennial wisdom reallyare is number one, there's an underlying
one oneness or interconnectionof all things like that that seems
to be pretty core. A prettycore element to. To the philosophy
(06:03):
that the teaching is that allthings are interconnected and that
there is generally fundamentaloneness among all things. The next
is that the ego is an illusionand that there is an underlying true
self, which kind of points toyou're not quite. You're not what
(06:23):
you think you are, which Iguess is kind of an.
Abstract concept, but I'm theidea of true nature.
Right.
I guess a comment I want tomake is that because we've. We've
talked about. I mean, this.This journey has been. Become a lot
about our mutual awakeningjourney, which we didn't. When we
(06:44):
started, we had no idea thatwe were on a way like that. We were
getting on an awakening path.And we started learning about awakening,
starting with Jeffrey Martinsand then from. From different people.
And then recognizing that theperennial wisdom. I guess the point
I want to make is notparticularly a teaching. Right. That's
(07:07):
not the point of it.
Correct.
The point is that it's adescription of this common human
experience of awakening. Onceyou have an awakening experience
and you start to move downthat path and explore it, these elements
that Ryan's describing are thethings that you recognize. It's just.
They become apparent, whichhas been our experience. And, you
(07:31):
know, Ryan has a lot of timessaid, oh, now I recognize, like,
that's what I've been feeling,you know, And I'm kind of coming
at it from a differentdirection where I've read about these
things and I've starting tohave the experience. Like, oh, now
I'm. Now, like, that's whatthey're talking about. So, yeah,
(07:51):
that's been an interestingpartnership because of that.
Yes.
That dichotomy.
I believe one of the episodesyou mentioned, the. You pointed out,
interestingly that we were,like. I think you're saying, like,
we were on, like, the samepath. We were through the woods,
basically. Like, our pathswere kind of parallel and we could
(08:12):
see each other, but we werestill kind of coming from different.
Right.
Trailheads.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Iactually. Speaking of experience,
I just had. And I'm. Iactually might jump ahead of your
notes a little. That's fun. Ijust did a je. Last Thursday, and
I was very surprised at theend. To what. What did I describe?
(08:36):
I think I was, like, looking.When I opened my eyes, I looked out
the window and I saw the tree.I saw trees and buds. I saw these
things. I didn't have names,like, in that state. I was like,
wow, I'm seeing these things,and I have a sense of nonsense, is
what I said. And I'm seeingthese things, and they don't have
(08:57):
names, they're just there. AndI was actually laughing when I said
it because it was very weird.
Yeah.
And it sounds weird, butthat's an experience that I've heard
described, but I've never hadit. And so Thursday I had it. I was
like, oh, wow, look at that.That's. Oh, yeah. It's really very
much like, oh. Or a sense ofrecognizing something that you've
(09:21):
heard about or justrecognizing something that you've
never heard about is anotherkind of flavor of it. You have this
very strange experience, butit's like there's a sense of recognition
as opposed to weirdness. It's. Anyway.
Yeah. And it's beyond theintellectual it's that experiential
piece of it.
(09:41):
Yeah.
For the audience, GAE is groupawareness exercise.
Yeah. It's a form of groupmeditation that is taught by Jeffrey
Martin and others. But yeah.So just to bring it back around to
where you were is that thereare writings about perennial. The
perennial philosophy or aboutperennial wisdom. But we're interested
(10:03):
in it not as teaching, but asreflecting experience and. And then
being able to recognize whencertain people are describing their
experiences this way. And yousaid Tony Robbins. Yeah, Robbins
had done that.
Yes.
And. And I think I've. I'vereferenced, like, art, some different
(10:25):
forms of art. I mean, peoplehear it in classical music. You know,
that's like. This piecetransports me in this way. And often
it's hard to describe, but Ithink that what we're talking about
is it's a connection to thismutual experience where the artist
(10:46):
has touched this in some wayand is expressing it. And the artist
may not know that. The artistmay not identify it as an awakening
experience. And certainly theaudience often does not identify
it as that. But what I'mpostulating is that the reason that
it's moving and the reasonthat it's universal is because that's
(11:09):
what it is. It is touchingthis experience of awakening in some
way and making it accessibleto people who don't formally recognize
awakening or aren't thinkingabout it or don't have language around
it.
Anyway, so that's a greatpoint. And I've noticed or recognized
(11:30):
art in myself. Now, I'm not aprofessional artist. I'm not connecting
with an audience in that way.But the. And in fact, I've written
on this as well, the activityof art and creativity connects me
in a way to this underlyinguniversality, which I framed it more
(11:51):
like meditation ormindfulness, meaning that the activity
of being creative and in thatmoment was a practice of mindfulness
that helped me to connect or.Helps me to connect.
Yeah. This is interestingbecause a friend of mine, a classmate
of mine from the teachingprogram, actually has a plan to teach
(12:11):
art as mindfulness. And weasked her about it in a group, and
she gave this, like. She juststarted talking. Oh, this here's
what I'm thinking about. Andwe were all just like, wow, it was
really interesting. So there'sdefinitely something there.
Yeah.
Saying, yeah, and there arepeople who. Who do teach that. So
(12:32):
I think I interrupted yourlist of elements, but. Yeah, so I
interrupted the list ofelements because I wanted to make
the point that we're notinterested in presenting a teaching.
Correct.
Right. We're interested in,like, oh, we found this description
of stuff that we've beenlooking for and we've been looking
(12:53):
at and we've been experiencingand we've been finding in different
places. And now we'vediscovered that, yeah, there are
people who talk about this ina formal way and give it a label
and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Which doesn't make it morereal, but it makes it easy to talk
about in a way.
Yeah, that's a good point. Ihave found it interesting. I will
(13:14):
get back to the list. You madea great point, and I like the way
you phrase it. As far as we'renot looking at this as a teaching,
but really more anillustration of a fundamental essence
and maybe some of what I'mexperiencing and I suppose you as
well. I just don't want tospeak for you. Is that what's the
(13:39):
idea that, you know, whenyou're looking for something, you
find it kind of thing? Not ina. I don't think in a. A bias way.
A cognitive, perceptual bias.Yeah. What. Whatever the term is.
Yeah.
You all know what I'm talkingabout. But that the awareness of
it makes it more evident, Iguess. I think the. The generic cliche
(14:06):
kind of look thought is, youknow, you buy a car and then all
of a sudden you see your careverywhere kind of thing. Just because
your perception is reorientedto a certain characteristic, not
that that characteristic isbeing forced or manipulated, but
that you are tuned into itsexistence. And what I found interesting
(14:28):
and also conflicting in how Ifeel about it is how prevalent I
have seen this wisdom, and yetit's not taught as that fundamental
essence. And I just don'tthink people know or see it that
way.
Yeah. So this makes me thinkof another experience around this.
(14:54):
What you're describing, thisseeing it everywhere and recognize
it. And there's a differencebetween. It's funny, we can't remember
this word. I think it'sperceptual bias. I don't think that's
the word, but okay.
It is a bias. I know that.
Right. It's like seeing youkeep on seeing something that you.
When you focus on something,you keep on seeing it, but there's
(15:16):
a difference between readingit and recognizing it, which is what
I used to do. So coming from aChristian upbringing.
Confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias. Thank you.
Goodness. I know that.
Yeah.
Sorry to interrupt.
Sure. You know, coming from aChristian upbringing and then moving
(15:39):
into interest in Buddhistteachings, I found myself like, oh,
well, Buddha already saidthis. Right, Right. And there's this.
This kind of attribution. Oh,well, so who said this first kind
of attitude of recognitionwhere you start recognizing, but
it becomes kind of anattribution contest. But there's
(16:02):
this. What we're talking aboutis an internal recognition of. An
experiential recognition of,oh, he's talking about what I experienced
as opposed to he's talkingabout what I saw. Someone else said.
Right.
And I think it's a very key distinction.
It is. I also think that, youknow, that that has been the nature
of those observations. Buddha.Right. Buddha didn't make it or come
(16:28):
up with it or conceive of it.Buddha recognized that fundamental
essence, taught about it maybethousands of years before another.
But that doesn't make thatexperience of it any less real when
somebody else recognizes it.
Exactly. Well, and to yourpoint, Tony Robbins didn't invent
this stuff. Right, Right. Infact, none of them. Nobody invents
(16:51):
this.
Right.
Because it's essential. It'sessential to human experience. What
teachers do is they recognizeit for themselves and then they package
their own experience andexpress it in terms of their own
experience. And then peoplesay, oh, he invented this, he invented
that. It's like, well, he hadthe experience, he's describing experience.
(17:14):
Or he, you know, decided toteach in a particular way. But, you
know, I think really it comesdown to experience. I don't think
that Jesus taught in theparticular way because he thought,
let me figure out how to teachthis. I think he expressed it the
way he expressed it because ofhis conditioning. Meaning, his context.
(17:39):
Yep.
Right. And his life contextand his cultural, cultural and historical
context and all that. Andthat's what each teacher does.
Right.
And the problem that we'vealways struggled with, which is kind
of the whole point of ourconversation, is the problem of people.
This attribution.
(17:59):
Right.
Contest. Right. This is theright way. This is what this guy
said is the truth. Thisteacher has the truth, you know,
meaning that these otherteachers don't have the truth.
Right.
And that's what we're tryingto tear down, which is like, no,
everybody has the truth. Youhave the truth. You don't need. You
(18:21):
don't essentially need ateacher to tell you the truth. You
just have to stop beingdistracted by everything that your
culture and history tells you.Conditioning, all your conditioning.
I mean, and this is anotherthing we've talked about is how.
How our culture devaluesawakening, devalues mystic experience,
(18:43):
and literally tells us, oh,you're just imagining that.
Right.
And now there's a. Thecontrary Thing which is. I can sell
it to you. You need this. AndI can sell it to you.
Which you talked about in oneof our recent episodes. Yeah.
So. Yeah. So this. Anyway, Ijust. Just to make the point that
(19:07):
it's an essential humanexperience. It's not something that
someone owns. It's notsomething that someone has to tell
you. It can be helpful to beexposed to it intellectually and
become curious about it andbegin exploring it. And that, you
know, can. Can be helpful, butit's not necessary. I'm. Some people,
it just comes to them by themselves.
(19:29):
Right.
So.
And it can be distracting if,you know, presented in a way that
is pulling the focus away fromthe true essence.
Well, it's. It's two thingsalso. If you have the experience
without having the context forthe experience, that can be distracting.
And that can make you thinkyou're crazy.
Yep.
(19:49):
Which is a thing that happens.
Yes. People met people.
That's right. Oh, my goodness.We have.
They're very uncomfortablewith the experience because.
Am I intellectually, they.
They have a hard timereconciling the experience.
Well, it's countercultural.
Right.
It's like it's. This iscontrary to what I've been taught
growing up. So in that sense,it's helpful to have some orientation
(20:16):
just to help it be morecomfortable or help you make sense
of it. And that's what a lotof what we're trying to do too. Right.
It's trying to help peoplemake sense of. If you are having
this. If you are seeing thisstuff, it's really normal.
Yeah.
It's just.
Okay.
It's just that we're told it'snot normal.
Even in the sciences, though.That was really interesting to me.
(20:39):
Is that because our culture'stheology tends to be science, and
not to say science istheocratic, but that the industry
and the mindset around it canbecome dogmatic. And yet even in
the sciences, we're seeingevidence of this kind of thing. They
(21:00):
haven't fully becomemainstream. You know, Donald Hoffman
had presented his theory, Ithink he said, like 10 years ago
or more. You know, we'retalking decades. Ish. And still these
things aren't in themainstream. And we have quantum sciences
and quantum mechanics thatoperates in our society, even, you
(21:24):
know, the quantum computing.And this is. This is science that
is mainstream, but it's stilltaught in Newtonian mechanisms.
Right. Well, so, like, we allcarry quantum technology in our cell
phones. Like, we couldn't havesmartphones. We couldn't have this
level of micro. Microcircuitry without applied quantum
(21:48):
mechanics.
Right.
Which freaks me out. Like,this is something I learned when
we're going through Hoffman's stuff.
Yeah.
But nobody. It's not thatnobody understands it. Look, nobody
understands, but it's kind of.I mean, I. I think what I'm saying
is people, like the people whodo understand it don't explore the
(22:10):
implications of it always.Right, right. It's like I'm just
a technician. I'm just doingthis because it works.
Right.
You know, or, you know, morethan a technician, like a theoretical
someone, like, with a deepunderstanding of it. And it's like,
let me do these calculationsand stuff so that we can make this
work without necessarily doingwhat Carlo Rovelli did. And so like
(22:35):
really thinking about theimplications of this and how these
discoveries were made and howsense is made of these kind of nonsensical
things. And then you canexploit them and use them to achieve
effects, and yet you just kindof ignore the magical nature of it.
(22:58):
Like, the magical in the senseof this defies logic. Right, Right.
It defies what we know of. Itdefies Newtonian physics.
Right.
Which is what we call thelogical world. Because when you get
into quantum stuff, it's notlogical. It makes mathematical sense.
This is. And now we're. We'reveering off to like getting over
(23:20):
our heads stuff. Right. Butour understanding is it makes mathematical
sense.
It is observable.
And it is observable, but itdoesn't make logical sense.
Which is weird in the way weunderstand the material world.
Right, right. Because it's atthat boundary of math and I guess
there's a boundary betweenmathematics. I don't know.
(23:44):
Okay, so just to kind of touchback to the core elements of the
perennial wisdom, I have acouple of things here, but the intercon.
The interconnectedness andoneness, which we kind of just talked
about at length, thisrecognition that there is a. Again
(24:05):
talking about ego versus trueself and what we've talked about
with it, that there's thisconditioned self. I mean, would you.
Would it be fair to. To equatethe ego with the condition mind?
That's kind of how I feel likemakes the most sense, but that there
is this again underlyingnature, which to me points back to
(24:28):
the oneness and theinterconnectedness. But even in abstract
of oneness, the idea thatthere is a fundamental self that
is separate or different fromthe egoic mind, compassion and right
action, meaning the primacy oflove and that love as wisdom in motion,
(24:50):
the idea of presence and theneternal moment. The now and then.
I did have inner work andtransformation, which I think is
actually separate from theperennial wisdom insofar as it's
not a fundamental nature, butit is a nature of, or an element
of the experience of thefundamental essence. So those are
(25:14):
the. The core elements that Iput down. I don't know if you have
anything you would like to addto that.
Well, did you touch onpresence and surrender and flow?
I mean, I did, but if you havesomething. Not extensively, I guess.
I mean, there are. There arekind of paradoxes in all of this.
And my own experience is thatawakening introduces paradox and
(25:40):
awakening makes paradox. Okay.Which is to say that that's. That's
how that relates to the ideaof stepping beyond the conceptual
mind or the rational mind.Because the rational mind is the
thing that objects to paradox.
Right.
It's like, well, this cannotexist. It's a paradox, which means
(26:01):
that it cannot exist. That'swhat. That's the meaning of it. And
the rational mind is locked todefinitions and, you know, binary
answers. And it rejects. Itrejects. And. And then the experiential
moment says, but this is theway it is. This is actually happening
right now. Both of thesecontrary things are existing in my
(26:24):
experience right now.
Yeah.
And so the sense oftransformation, I mean, it can. Inner
work. What do I want to sayabout that? I mean, that's the general.
It's the bell curve. That'sthe middle of the bell curve. Right.
And as with all humanexperiences, their human experience,
I think, occurs on a bellcurve. And there are people who live
(26:46):
in the tails.
Yeah.
And so kind of saying, thereare always exceptions. I mean, so
some of this stuff isabsolute. Absolutely. And. But things
like inner work are notnecessarily right because some people
just have. I think it'spossible. I think it's possible to
have complete transformationwithout inner work. It's exceptionally
(27:09):
rare. I can't name any. Well,I mean, I know the Buddha definitely
had inner work. I'm wonderingif Jesus had inner work.
There's a lot of time that'sabsent from the documents. It's hard
to say.
Yeah. I mean, so I'm thinkingabout the Passion, which was a transformative
(27:30):
time. And maybe that's partthat. That's kind of sucks, like
get crucified. But I mean. ButI mean, there's definitely kind of
that description of him. He'sgoing through a change. Right, Right.
I mean, he's calling. He's.He's rejecting God and saying, or,
(27:53):
you've forsaken me. I mean,it's definitely stuff that he hasn't
done before.
Right. On the prayer and the Gethsemane.
Right. You know, let this passfrom me. And.
Yeah, so there's definitelywrangling going on.
Right, Exactly. And so, youknow, we're just naming these two
major teachers and figures oftraditions that kind of illustrate
(28:19):
that aspect of. Of inner workand transformation. But I think it's
also possible for people. Imean, I think Eckhart Tolle is. I
think.
I don't know his history.
I think his history was, I wassitting on a bench and I woke up
kind of thing. Like he was, Ithink, a common thing with modern
(28:40):
mystics and modern enlightenedbeings. Often, they, quote, hit rock
bottom. So I think that's trueof Eckhart Tolle, and I think that's
true of Byron Katie. But atthe same time, I guess what I'm saying
is the inner work isn'tintentional always that. Maybe that's
the difference. Maybe italways happens. Yeah, it always happens.
(29:01):
Like life puts you through hell.
Yeah.
Because that's what happens.Like I said, and I think we talked
about this. This is anotherepisode where we talked about not
having a struggle. Right,right. And like, oh, all these great
teachers have these struggles.You know, Tony Robbins started out
with nothing, and da, da, da.And so. So, for instance, with Tony
(29:22):
Robbins, I think the innerworker was apparent, and that's what
he teaches, is this is how youdo it. Because I did this. Whereas
Byron, Katie teaches. This iswhat. I had an awakening. This is
what came to me. I don't know.At least that's my understanding
of it. Like, she hit rockbottom and then she just woke up.
(29:45):
And then the work, what shecalls the work is these. The series
of questions to ask, ofquestioning the way you question
your thoughts came to herafterwards. Like, it's not like,
oh, I decided to start askingmyself these questions, and I know
I worked on it for a coupleyears, and then I got healthier.
Right.
You know, so I guess that'swhat I. So when I saw, you know,
(30:09):
inner work, I wanted toexplore that a little bit. Like,
what does that mean? But Ithink for most people. For most people,
it's a. It's a. It's a journeyof effort. It's a part of the question
myself. Yeah. I mean, not always.
Yeah.
I'm hearing the words comingin my. Out of my mouth, and I'm like,
but that's not what I wastaught. Like, you know, you know,
(30:33):
in. In some Buddhist traditionor in meditation traditions, some,
like, oh, there's no effort.
Right.
You know. Well, again, this isparadox. That's why I'm. That's why
I'm getting stuck, because I'mtrying to talk about this, and I'm
real. Well, what about this?Well, it's paradoxical.
Well, and inner work doesn'tnecessarily mean effort. I mean,
(30:54):
I. This kind of goes back to.
That's what we were talkingabout with Katie and Tolle. It's
like they had the work forcedon them by their circumstance and
their internal process.
So maybe internal work isinner transformation.
I think. Yeah. I mean, yoursystem may be working.
(31:14):
Right.
Without you, or you may chooseto do the work. I guess that's the
point is like, you may chooseto or you may not have a choice.
Right.
But the work is getting done.I guess that's. That's. That's what
I was trying to resolve when Isaw that. And then. Yeah. Presence,
surrender and flow. Well, andthis goes back to art and creation
(31:37):
because, I mean, commoncharacteristic of the experience
of awakening is surrender. Andthat is. And flow and kind of ease
and non doing and just thingshappening. And that's also a common
(31:59):
description of creativeprocess. Right, Right. It's. There's
no choice. There's no doing.This is happening through me. So
I. I don't know. I just wantedto point that out as well. Kind of
the whole point of the episodeis what we're saying. Right. It's
like how we recognize thesethings in different contexts.
(32:20):
Right.
But they're the same thing.
Exactly.
Right. That creative flow oflike, oh, this is just happening
through me. That is acharacteristic of experiencing this
ultimate truth or true self orawakening or all these versions of
it. All right, I'm gonna stop.
(32:44):
So one of the things. I'm notgonna go into it because we're kind
of pressing time. But onething that came up for me that spawned
the idea of this episode thatthen kind of morphed into reconnecting
with our original the was. Iwas reading the Meditations, Marcus
Aurelius. And in book four inparticular, there was about eight
(33:09):
or nine different passagesthat really stuck out to me as like,
highlighting the perennialwisdom. And that was kind of a light
bulb in my head again. It'snot like it was a new thing, but
it was like, here it is againkind of thing. And so I wanted to
bring it to the group. And Iwould say, read it. Read book 4,
(33:31):
passages 1, 4, 20, 24, 29, 39,45 and 48 are the ones that I really
pulled out as things thathighlighted this one, I think I would
like to touch on passage one,which is the mind is fire. It had
(33:52):
this metaphorical descriptionof how the fire consumes everything
but keeps burning. And so theidea of the fire as like, challenge.
So this kind of points back towhat we had discussed before with
(34:12):
struggle. Right. Strugglebeing a catalyst for growth. And
here it talks about wheneverit's in agreement with nature. The
ruling power within us takes aflexible approach to circumstances,
always adapting itself easilyto both practicality and the given
event. It has no favoredmaterial for its work, but sets out
(34:37):
on its objects in aconditional way, turning any obstacle
into material for its own use.It's like a fire mastering whatever
falls into it. A small flamewould be extinguished, but a bright
fire rapidly claims as its ownall that it's heaped on it, devours
(35:00):
it all and leaps up yet higherin consequence. So what? That when
I read that, it immediatelyjogged this idea of struggle being
the fuel and catalyst forgrowth. So that was an example of
one of the passages that stuckout to me. There was a number of
them. They all have differentflavors and essences. All of them,
(35:21):
to me, kind of pointed tothese core elements of the perennial
wisdom. And before. So I alsohad one question. It wasn't a question.
It's a question I'm posing toyou. It was an idea that came to
me in contemplating this wholeepisode and the meditations and all
(35:44):
of that was this idea thatawakening is the experience of perennial
wisdom, and enlightenment isthe embodiment of perennial wisdom.
And that kind of just poppedin my head as kind of referencing
conceptually what these are inrelation to the perennial wisdom.
(36:06):
And so I wanted to post thatto you and see how you feel about
that or if you have any.
Yeah, I mean, this. Thisterminology around awakening continues
to be a significant challengethat I'm not yet comfortable with
because I used. Okay, so a bigpart of the problem is that different
(36:29):
traditions co op these wordsin different ways. That's a. That's
a significant problem. So ifyou use the word, then someone from
one tradition will say, oh, Iknow what you're talking about. That's
this. And someone from anothertradition will say, oh, I know what
you're talking about. It'sthis, you know, and so that's part
of it. And then the otherthing is kind of the question of
(36:52):
the ultimate. Because we agreethat we're awakening beings and we
recognize in each other andwe've talked to other people and
we are confident in ourawakening. It's not like, I think
maybe I'm starting to wake.It's like, no, we're awakening. But
are we enlightened?
(37:13):
Right.
And we think like, yeah, we'renot enlightened, and what's the difference?
And. And then I. I came acrosssomething that talked about liberation.
Oh, liberation. That's whatenlightenment is, liberation. But
what does that mean?
Right.
Ooh. Actually, we could jumpon a call this afternoon and ask
that question. Yeah. So whenyou ask something like that, I don't
(37:37):
know, it's so, you know, tofind the words for this stuff, it's
very hard. And I don't feellike I have an experience of liberation,
enlightenment that I can.Well, yeah, I mean, in a way, I think
that maybe. Okay, myexperience of awakening, which is
(38:02):
very, very clear, is. This isso tricky. The experience of it is
transient. The awakening isnot transient. It's there always.
But it's very, very easy toturn away from it, to get distracted
from it, to not be able to seeit because of conditioning, because
(38:24):
I'm upset, blah, blah, blah.I'm tired. And so, you know, our
idealization is, oh, there's atime or place or person or experience
where it's no longertransient. Right, Right. There's
just this permanent experienceof that oneness, that flow, that
(38:46):
freedom, that ease. All thisstuff is just permanent and you never
disturbed. And we have thisconcept, but I don't know. I don't
know whether it really exists.I guess that's what I'm saying, because
that's. That. That's what Iwould call enlightenment or liberation.
And yet, you know, I always goback to the Buddhist story, the Buddhist
(39:12):
tradition, and, you know, thestories of Buddhist Buddha having
tea with Mara or Mara'sshowing up. And so the point is that
Buddha was enlightened. Imean, he had said long, like years
previously, I am awakened. Iam fully enlightened. And yet he
(39:32):
was still dealing with Mara,which is conditioning, which is negative
thoughts and emotions. So he'swelcoming. He has a really good relationship
with Mara. But Mars not absent.
Right.
So that makes me think, oh,well, then there is no absence of
Mara. There's no absence ofMara. There's just like, oh, there's
(39:52):
anger, there's irritation,there's fear. Yeah, okay. You know,
and it's just thatrelationship. So I don't know. That's
why I'm. I don't know what tosay about enlightenment. I guess
that. I guess that's my ideais that it's just developing that
(40:13):
warm, healthy relationshipWith Mara. Okay. All right. Sorry.
I'm just kind of talking thisout. I'm kind of teaching myself
honestly at the moment. So inmy experience, when, like this other
day when I. Last Thursday,when I said, oh, I had this deep
experience, when you're seeingthings that way, you're seeing all
(40:35):
the conditioning, and it'sstill there. It's not like, oh, I'm
free of my conditioning. I'mnot gonna get angry anymore. It's
like, no, I'm gonna get angry.It's okay. And there's just this.
I wanted to comment when youtalked about the ego versus the true
self, right? And that they'reseparate, but they're not because
(40:58):
the self includes the ego.Like, that's the nature of the self.
And this is going to the splitbrain stuff, right? Left hemisphere,
right hemisphere, the leftside. The rational side rejects the
right side and says, like,yeah, this imagination, this is imaginary.
It's. It's stupid. It's notrational. It's. It's not real. I'm.
(41:19):
I'm the verbal side.Everything I tell you is true. Anything
I don't tell you is not truebecause it can't be expressed in
words. So it's not valid. Andthe right side of the brain says,
it's okay, I accept you. And Ihave my experience, and I experience
oneness and I experience allthis, and I experience your verbal
(41:39):
ability as being valuable andblah, blah, blah. And so that's my
experience of that. It's not.It's really hard to say. It's not
separate. It's not separate.It's this. It's. It's this other
thing. This doesn't make anysense. Because if you're in the rational
(42:01):
state, if you're in a rationalstate, you can imagine this non rational,
magical way of being, but it'simaginary because you're. You're
thinking and it's imaginary.And if you're in an awakening experience,
it's not imaginary. It'spresent and absolute. And it's also
(42:24):
not rejecting the rational.And so I don't know how to describe
it. It's separate. It'sdifferent. It's different, but it's
not separate. How's thatdifferent? But it's not separate
because this awakeningexperience that's so different is
not separate from anything,right? That's the characteristic
of it. It's all inclusive,which is the characteristic.
(42:47):
Of fundamental nature, right?In itself, right?
So anyway, I hope I'm notconfusing anyone because I'm confusing,
like, I'm just Trying to talkout of my present experience of confusion.
Talking about is confusing.Being in it is the opposite of confusing.
(43:07):
It's really clear. It's reallylike. And you just laugh and like,
wow, everything's okay. It'slike, okay, you know, this idea of.
This idea of right and wrongdichotomy and you gotta choose this
and choose that and this is.This is good and that's bad. It's
all just, just laughable. Imean, yeah, it's. Anyway, sorry.
(43:35):
Well, I hope you enjoyed thisepisode of Tracking Wisdom podcast
and this conversation and thismusing on the perennial Wisdom. We've
enjoyed this exploration overthe past few years. I think we look
forward to continuing toexplore this and find it.
(43:58):
And thank you for being with us.
Absolutely. So that'll do itfor today. Next episode. I do want
to go into the PerennialWisdom a little bit deeper and a
little bit more academic, Isuppose, insofar as there's two schools
(44:20):
of thought, two perspectivesor two philosophies around perennialism
itself. And I thought theywere very interesting. They come
from. They have their uniqueessences. And I think that both bringing
awareness to what they. How,what they present, and also giving
our take on the two differentavenues will be interesting. I think
(44:45):
that we each. This is myassumption. Or from what I. I think
we each land just shy oneither side of this spectrum, but
I think by and large, we kindof embrace a blend hybrid of both.
So anyways, that'll be on thenext one. Thank you for joining us.
Until next time, stay open,stay curious and keep tracking wisdom.
(45:16):
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com
for more information andcontent. Yeah, I'm just kind of sinking
(45:45):
in a little because it wasinteresting. Yeah, it's interesting
how I got back to that directexperience. I know I'm reconnecting
with my session last Thursday,which was after this session with
(46:11):
Clea.
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