January 9, 2025 • 56 mins
Air Date - 09 January 2025
“Everyone wants to be free and happy. But many of us feel unhappy, constricted, confused and we seem to have little or no control over the external events which shape our lives.”
The words of my guest this week on Vox Novus, Gilbert Mane, who shares that there are “Seven Steps” to achieving what “Everyone Wants.” Gilbert Mane, from Sydney, Australia, was a lawyer, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and a writer. In 1975, Gilbert discovered a school of practical wisdom. In 2012, he delivered a TEDx talk on Education and Unity. Gilbert has also authored three thriller-adventure novels; and with his wife is a keen ballroom dancer.
His website is https://gilbertmane.com/, and he joined me this week to share his path and book, 7 Steps to Freedom: A Systematic Guide to What Everyone Wants.
#GilbertMane #VoxNovus #VictorFuhrman #NewThought #Lifestyle #Metaphysics #Paranormal #Spirituality #Interviews
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“Everyone wants to be free and happy. But many of us feel unhappy, constricted, confused and we seem to have little or no control over the external events which shape our lives.”
The words of my guest this week on Vox Novus, Gilbert Mane, who shares that there are “Seven Steps” to achieving what “Everyone Wants.” Gilbert Mane, from Sydney, Australia, was a lawyer, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and a writer. In 1975, Gilbert discovered a school of practical wisdom. In 2012, he delivered a TEDx talk on Education and Unity. Gilbert has also authored three thriller-adventure novels; and with his wife is a keen ballroom dancer.
His website is https://gilbertmane.com/, and he joined me this week to share his path and book, 7 Steps to Freedom: A Systematic Guide to What Everyone Wants.
#GilbertMane #VoxNovus #VictorFuhrman #NewThought #Lifestyle #Metaphysics #Paranormal #Spirituality #Interviews
Visit the Vox Novus Show Page https://omtimes.com/iom/shows/vox-novus/
Connect with Victor Fuhrman at http://victorthevoice.com/
Subscribe to our Newsletter https://omtimes.com/subscribe-omtimes-magazine/
Connect with OMTimes on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Omtimes.Magazine/ and OMTimes Radio https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousRadiowebtv.OMTimes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OmTimes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omtimes/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2798417/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/omtimes/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension,
Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to
(00:28):
Vox Novus, the New Voice. Everyone wants to be free
and happy, but many of us feel unhappy, constricted, confused,
and we seem to have little or no control over
the external events which shape our lives. Those are the
(00:50):
words of my guests this week on Box Novus, Gilbert Maine,
who shares that there are seven steps to achieving what
everyone wants. Gilbert Maine from Sydney, Australia, was a lawyer,
a teacher and is an entrepreneur and a writer. In
nineteen seventy five, Gilbert discovered a school of Practical Wisdom.
(01:11):
In twenty twelve he delivered a Tedex talk on education
and unity. Gilbert has also authored three thriller adventure novels,
and with his wife Sarah, is a keen ballroom dancer.
His website is gilbertmain dot com and he joins me
this week to share his path and book Seven Steps
(01:33):
to Freedom, a systematic guide to what everyone wants please
join me in welcoming to Vox Novis Gilbert Maine. Welcome Gilbert,
Hi Victor, how are you. I'm wonderful, Thank you Sara,
and I hope the same with you. I had the
wonderful opportunity of interviewing your wife, Sarah about a year ago,
and she suggested that you reach out to me because
(01:55):
you have a lot to share also, so thank you
so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Gilbert. Please share with our listeners your early path and
how it led to you being head master in an
independent primary school in Australia.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Ah huh, Well, I grew up in a Jewish family.
We weren't particularly religious. Sort of Jewish adjacent would probably
be the best description, but you know, we were proud
of being Jewish and went along to synagogue occasionally, but
there was no spirituality as such in the home. But
I had my own personal spiritual journey and it really
(02:34):
was very personal because there was no there was sort
of direct interventions from outside. I had spiritual experiences when
I was very young. When I was ten, I was
seeing a looking at a tree when I was sitting
at a bus stop on my way to school, and
suddenly I was limitless and universal, and it seemed to
come somehow rather through that tree, and forever after, as
(02:58):
I said at that bus stop, I watched that tree,
waiting for that door to open again, and of course
it never did. And then I was in one I
was fourteen. One of the teachers at school said to me, look,
there's a chap coming to Sydney to give a talk.
Maybe you'd be interested. I have still to this day,
(03:18):
have no idea why she picked me. But I went
into town, sat in a Sydney town hall and it
was Krishnamurti and I remember what I was thinking at
the time. I can't remember what he said, but I
just remember thinking, gosh, there are people in the world
who know how things work, they know what's going on.
(03:39):
They know why we do things we don't want to do,
why we don't do things we do want to do,
which really bugged me. Why did that happen? Why did
you just say things that you knew you shouldn't say,
And why did you remain silent when you should speak up?
How come? Why was that? Why is that a thing?
And life went on and one day my brother said
(04:01):
to me, I, look, there's this school of human development,
it's called the School of Practical Philosophy in Sydney, and
I'm going along. I think you should go too, So
I joined. And the minute I walked through the di
virtue of the minute I walked through the door, the
min I've heard the first words from the tutor's mouth,
I thought, Ah, this is it. I'm home. I've discovered
(04:22):
the thing I've been looking for my whole life. And
I was there for forty years from that day on.
I became a tutor. But in the meantime, I'd gone
to university, did a law degree, did a couple of
law degrees, became a solicitor, which a lawyer. And I
don't know if you've ever done this, Victor, but I
(04:43):
got up every single morning to go to my job
with a lead brick in my stomach of deep, dark
black depression. Because to say I hated it would be
putting it very mildly. It was just I was just
in such so totally in the wrong place, and I
just you know, I was young, I didn't know quite
(05:04):
what to do, and I stuck out it for ten
or twelve years. But in the meantime, I'm going along
to this school of Practical Philosophy. I'm studying the wisdom
of the ancients and the moderns, and learning to meditate
and engaging in activities and focused attention and all these
sorts of things that were making my life so much
(05:26):
better in one way, while I was in this sort
of downward trajectory with my working life in another. And
then I got married, and so there's family to look after.
And then one day the people in the School of Philosophy,
the School Practical Philosophy, had started a day school and
the school for children for young children in elementary school.
(05:50):
You'd call it an independent school. And it had the
normal curriculum basically, you know, the maths of science, the
English and the grammar and the spelling, timestables. But also
it had elements in the day for children to practice
being present, being mindful, had practical wisdom and virtue, how
(06:12):
to be kind, how to be tolerant, how to be courageous.
And the children really really flourished under this regime. But
in the meantime they needed a tame lawyer to be
on the board of governors. So that was me, and
I was on the board of governors of the School
for several years, and after three or four or five years,
(06:37):
it's probably fair to say that it was not flourishing.
There was still only about fourteen, fifteen, twenty twenty five
children in the school. There wasn't really attracting enrollment. The
people running it were all mothers. They're all busy, they
had families, and as it grew slowly the responsibilities grew,
the government, the government, regulation, local councils, building, there were
(07:01):
things that need to be dealt with. So one day,
completely out of the blue, they turned to me, the
people on the board and the involved with the school,
said to me, would you like to be the head master?
Because they felt they needed just someone who had, in
a weird way, no skin in the game, in other words,
no children at the school, they didn't have a dog
(07:24):
in the fight, and someone independent and someone who could
just have the time and energy to build the school up.
And I talked to my wife about it, because it's
a big change, and we decided that this is one
of those open doors that you need to You've got
a choice in life. You either step through. There's a
(07:45):
tide in the affairs of men which you've taken it.
The flood leads on to fortune and this was one
of them. So I said yes, and I began learning
on the job. I became the head master of the school.
This was in nineteen eighty nine when the school had
I think thirty five children, and it was really my
job was to maintain the principles upon which the school
(08:08):
was founded and to build it up into a significant
educational academic institution.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And you did that for thirty years. I did wonderful.
And what were some of the classes that you introduced.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
There, Well, we had Sanskrit. It was one of the
basic subjects that needed to be taught in the school
because the English in the tradition of independent schooling in
the English speaking world based from England is the grammar school,
and that's all based on languages, classical language. So we
(08:45):
introduced Sanskrit for every child from five. We had children
from the age of five to the age of twelve,
so they all had to have a weekly several weekly
sanscrit lessons. Then we also introduced Latin. Latin was compulsory,
but I taught Latin and I used to have some
like twenty six year olds turn up at eight o'clock
(09:08):
in the morning before school for my Latin class, and
we had other things where the children all had to
sing good music. The principles upon which the school's based
there were two principles. Only give the children the best materials,
the best curriculum, and have it taught by the best people.
(09:30):
So that's a very simple way of putting a you know,
it became very complex and involved. But the best materials
are well Shakespeare for English, Mozart for music, sandscript for language,
basic mathematics for maths. So it's not that hard actually
to pick the best curriculum. And then you can do
(09:53):
all the other stuff too. It doesn't exclude fun play
and interesting books and other things that children want to do,
but you'd have to have the best stuff there as well.
And then the best people are people who know themselves,
are connected to some sort of spiritual center in themselves
and can pass that on to the children, and as well,
(10:17):
basically skillful teachers. They can get it across, they can
understand an individual child's needs, they can respond to them,
and they can get the curriculum, get through the curriculum
in a state in a given time. They're organized. Those
are the best people, and as headmaster of a virtuoso staff.
(10:37):
It made my job incredibly easy in one way. In
some ways it wasn't that easy in others.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
In twenty twelve, you gave a ten X talk on
education and unity. What were some of the points that
you shared and have these been adapted into school systems.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, they've certainly came out of our school and well,
it's actually interesting when I'll take the last bit first,
the answer is no. I find this extraordinary. We were
a The education system in Australia is this. Two thirds
of children go to public schools and one third of
children don't. Of the children who don't, two thirds go
(11:18):
to Catholic schools and one third go to other independent,
non government schools. So non government education in Australia is big.
The third of all children. It's hundreds of thousands of
children go to non government schools. It's fully funded, not
fully funded, it's generously funded by the government. There's a
(11:38):
story there too, but there it is. And we have
freedom to teach what we want to teach. And we
started our school in nineteen eighty five, a few years
before I became headmaster, with this unusual curriculum Sanskrit, Latin, Mozart,
Shakespeare and the results. There's a national testing system in
(12:01):
Australia called napland and there are league tables. They're not
meant to be, but they get published. And our school,
John Collett School, that's what it was called, was in
the top ten primary schools in Australia consistently every single year.
Now there's seven six hundred give or take primary schools
(12:23):
in Australia, so we're in the top ten and we're
with very very eminent, very well credentialed schools. Were in
that group, and nobody ever came to me to say,
what are you doing? How can we do what you do?
And I always found that extraordinary, that the lack of
(12:48):
the complete lack of interest in a system that was
clearly working in an obscure, small elementary school in the
top right hand corner of Sydney. It's to me that's
very strange. But so no. So the answer is I
gave this Ted talk and those people who are interested
(13:11):
loved it, and others became deeply incurious about it. But
some of the points I made in that Ted talk
were one of the main ones is this everybody or
human beings have a physical body. Obviously they have a
mind with which they think, they have, a heart with
which they feel, and a spirit with which they exist
or be or whatever that's their true self. Their indwelling isiness.
(13:37):
And you need food, exercise, and rest for each of
those for call them bodies. So you need good food,
you know, good nutritious physical food. You need to run
around and exercise and go to the gym. And you
need when the time's are right, you need to have
some sleep. You need to rest. So what about the mind,
(13:59):
what about the heart, what about the spirit? You need
the same for each of those levels. And I made
that point in the Ted talk. And the other thing
I spoke about was what is education? What is it actually?
And you need a teacher, you need a pupil. You
(14:19):
need something that's going to be communicated, call that knowledge.
And you need the process. You need the flow between
those three other things. So there's really four entities, the teacher,
the pupil, the knowledge, and the discourse, the conversation, the interaction,
and all three, all four rather need to be present
(14:43):
and aware and willing at the point where the education
is going to happen. The teacher is absent, the pupils dreaming,
the knowledge is non existent and there's no interaction, well,
nothing's going to happen. But if all four are available,
then miracles happen. And that is really the miracle of education,
(15:06):
that knowledge can pass from one human being to another
and both can grow from that process. And I made
the point in the talk that when I stood in
the classroom in front of children, I wasn't always the teacher,
and they weren't always the pupil. I learned from them
and they learned from me, and the communication flowed very freely.
(15:32):
And it was a wonderful experience to walk into a
classroom and to learn from the children, but also just
from the things that would pop into your mind while
you were in front of a class of willing, eager,
interested young learners.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Absolutely, how did your experiences at all of the teachings
you received inspire your book Seven Steps to Freedom, A
Systematic Guide to what everyone wants?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, basically, I was in the school of practical philosophy.
I received enormous help, wonderful wisdom. It was showered upon
us from for you know, obviously there were fees involved,
but not much. For what you paid and what you
got it was a very very very good deal and
(16:27):
I just felt such incredible gratitude for everything I had received.
And I was a teacher, that was my profession, that
was my vocation, and I just felt the need to
give back. So I wanted to put it all encapsulated.
And there were certain reasons why I put it in
a book, because I was actually tutoring in the in
the adult school and also teaching a weekly philosophy class
(16:50):
to children in the in the day school. But I
wanted to put it in a book because I was
part of my tutoring jobs in the in the philosophy school,
was in the introductory group, and many of the students
would say to me, look, this is all very wonderful
the night, but I sort of forget and it sort
of slips my mind during the week between classes. Is
(17:11):
there some book core rhyma or introductory text that I
can have and refer to to remind me of what's
being said in the class? And basically the answer is no.
And I looked around, and you know, there are plenty
of books, there's tons, but they were totally on the topic.
So I thought, well, look, if no one else is
(17:33):
going to do it, I might write one, and so
I did, and I sat down. I tried to put
together as much of the wisdom in a very practical,
very simple, very accessible, and I hope entertaining way that
so that anyone can pick it up and either read
a cover to cover if that's what they want to do,
(17:55):
or dip into it and pick out practical exercises that
will help them overcome habits and connect with the deeper
inner self and make their life basically better.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
In this context, how do you define the word freedom?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh? Well, yes, that's interesting because you know, you look
around the world now and everyone's everyone seems to be
very angry. I don't know why, but they just seem
to be. It seems to be a default position. They
kind of get off on it. They enjoy being angry.
That's my sort of feeling. I don't want to be.
I don't want to read into other people's motives. As
(18:36):
I say, I have a hard enough job living my
own life, let alone trying to live someone else's. But
and I thought, well, what's what why? And usually it's
because of externals. Something's going on, some politician turns up
on the television and suddenly they're angry. Someone says something
that triggers them, and they're angry and they're upset, and
(18:56):
they're you know, everything's going wrong. And so the response
for most people is to try and change the world.
In other words, vote that politician out, or you know,
change the systems at the university or in their family
or whatever. And as I've said before, this is a
job with the future. It's never gonna it's not going
(19:17):
to happen. It just is not going to happen. So
unless you just like working for no reward and no result,
then my advice is to stop and to look within
and look at the thing that is triggered. So if
someone says something and you get upset, well why and
you can sort of tell it's you. The problem is you,
(19:41):
mostly because two people can be standing next shoulder to
shoulder and the same thing can happen to them and
one will get upset and now one won't. So it's
not an objective truth that the thing that was said
was upsetting on an objective level, it was upsetting to you.
So you are the field upon which you need to
(20:02):
begin work. And freedom is stepping free of your own limitations, habits, responses, reactions, requirements, judgments, criticisms, whatever,
and going free. And in fact, that's how I would
define the word, well, define how i'd use the word forgiveness,
(20:27):
and forgiveness we think is letting people off the hook
for something rotten that they've done. But forgiveness is really
giving something else for whatever you're getting, and returning love
for hatred, returning compassion for misery, whatever, And it's stepping
free of your own limited, constricting responses to life.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
You begin Seven Steps to Freedom with a chapter entitled
why should you read this book? And the first subheading
is the problem what you were just talking about is
that the problem?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That's the problem. The problem is we want to be
free and we're not. We want to be happy and
it's fleeting. We want to be rich and we never
have enough, you know, written or not just rich with
a bank account, although that's part of it, but you know,
rich in friends, rich in love, rich in experiences. We
never seem to have what we want to have, and
(21:25):
that is the problem. The problem is so the either one.
That's life. That's the way it is. You know, you struggle,
you're born, you struggle, you die. It's not a particularly
happy story. And it then certainly doesn't have a happy ending,
or there's an alternative story where you're born, you learn,
(21:47):
you go through ups and downs, and you grow and
you grow in freedom, and you grow in love and
you grow in happiness, and you pass on in a
state of grace. And I would love for the wisdom
that I received to be part of someone else's journey
(22:09):
where they've found every day they're just a bit better,
a bit happier, a bit freer than they were the
day before.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Absolutely, you had mentioned the word forgiveness, which I teach
is very important, forgiveness of self and forgiveness of others.
Why is that important?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Well, I mean consider the alternative. You know this. I
can't remember who said it, but resentment and anger is
like drinking poison and waiting for the other guy to die. Yes,
it's it's not a it's not a it's not a
good way of living to carry around. In another way,
(22:49):
another person said to me, look, someone did something. Maybe
they mentioned something to I think with someone I was tutoring.
I don't know. Anyway, they said someone's something to them
that was hurtful and they felt, you know, they were
they were upset and angry, and they then they just
stewed on it. They thought about it over and over
(23:11):
and over again, and they suddenly woke up and said,
this guy did this to me once. I have done
it to myself a hundred times since then. Who's worse? Right?
I have repeated what was said over and over and
over and over to myself, and it makes me feel
worse and worse and worse and worse. If you had
(23:32):
a method that allowed you to just basically slough off
that particular burden, to untie the chains that bind and
to step free, I mean, wouldn't you take it? Wouldn't you?
And it costs you nothing and it and the benefit
is amazing. And this is forgiveness, and forgiveness is there's
(23:54):
also justice. If someone's done something underward and they need
to learn a lesson, there's no we're not saying don't
do that, you know some people for their benefit. I
used to have to punish children for infractions, and I
used to have to do it. I used to have
to make very very sure that I wasn't cross or
(24:17):
angry with the child for being for having stepped out
of line. I would I didn't. I needed to be
able to, as it were, punish or discipline the children
with love. I used to have love in my heart
because otherwise it's just a practical thing. One I'm going
to have I'm gonna have a terrible day. And two
it's not going to work. The energy that flows the
(24:41):
learning experiences it were, is not going to be effective
because the child's not going to be learning what I
want them to learn, which is to basically step free
of whatever it is that they cause them to do
the thing they do. So there is justice and it
does need to be meeted out in full measure. But
at the same time, there is forgiveness, where you give
(25:01):
something else for the thing you received. You receive anger
or resentment or hatred, and you give back love and openness,
freedom and compassion and compassion.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
My guest is Gilbert Maine. We're talking about his book
Seven Steps to Freedom, a systematic guide to what everyone wants. Gilbert,
please share with our listeners where they can get your
books and find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well. I have a website Gilbert Maine Gilbert m A
and e dot com and on it is access to
all my writing. I've written this book Seven Steps Practical
Wisdom and Freedom and I've also written three novels which
are those who like them love them. There are their
(25:48):
thrillers and with a slight paranormal. There are a few
easter eggs in it for people who know what to
look for in relation to self awareness. But I was
very conscious that you don't want to rut attract, you know,
they just meant to be fun. You meant to get
on an airplane in Sydney with one of my books,
and you meant to finish up by the time you
(26:09):
reach New York or London, and you can give it
to your best friend.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Wonderful. And I assume all your books are available also
on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Wonderful. We'll be back with more of Gilbert after these
words on the own Times Radio network.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
The cutting edge of Conscious Radio Home Times Radio IOMFM.
Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
providers of positivity, wellness and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
their net proceeds are final to support worldwide charity initiatives
via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment to creating community
(26:46):
and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on
a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Back on Box Novus, my guest this week is Gilbert
Main talking about his book Seven Steps to Freedom, A
systematic guide to what Everyone Wants. Gilbert, the next subheading
in your first chapter is our inner world? What takes
place there and why? May this be a part of
(27:16):
the problem.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yes, Well, the limiting beliefs that we have are one
of the main problems that we have. And isn't it
is in the inner world? The limiting factors in our life. Well,
obviously we can have physical constructions, financial constrictions, of course,
but a lot of these are very much based on
our belief system. Now, the matrix with which we see
(27:40):
the world is how in fact we create our own world.
So take a take a simple one. Let's say you
have the belief I am a failure, and you may
not even know you have that belief. It may be subconscious,
and by definition subconscious means it's below the level of
your consciousness. You are not in fact conscious of it.
But it's there. How it got there, Why it's there,
(28:05):
That's another that's a story for people. Must be to
a certain extent a little bit above my pay grade,
but there it is. There's an idea, Oh, I'm not worthy,
or I don't deserve success or something. These are negative,
these negative sentences that run in the mind. The ego
does this to us. Well, it's very difficult to succeed
(28:28):
if you've got the idea that I am a failure.
You just have to and it becomes much much harder.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Me.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You can succeed, but it's incredibly hard work because you're
working against yourself at the same time. So this in
the world does need addressing, and you need techniques and
systems and effective systems for somehow getting in there, getting
down there, or sending down messages that counter or dissolve
(28:56):
the negative ones. And the good news is that such
techniques are readily available. The wise and I use that
term to mean great master teachers of mankind throughout the ages,
and we know who they are, the Buddha, Jesus, the
Krishna who punishads, the Bible, all of these works. It's
(29:18):
so readily available these days. It's one of these miracles
that no one seems to see as miraculous that up
until very recently, very recently in history, there was people
had no access to these works at all. And now
they're available at the click of a mouse or on
your you can carry them around in your pocket on
(29:41):
your iPhone. It's astonishing. There's too much information almost, it's
there's so much about you don't even know where to start.
But you use systems of meditation, of mindfulness, of focus,
of being in the present, being in the now this
and you let contciousness do the work for you. In
(30:02):
a sense. This is where the seven steps to freedom
are kind of wonderful. Really, there's only two that you
really have to worry about, which is step one and two,
and then all the rest get taken care for you
if you stick at it. But what that means is
that consciousness itself takes the journey and into your inner
(30:24):
heart of your being and begins to tidy up all
of these negative self talk that we have going on
that we're often not even aware of.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You had mentioned all of the great works in all
of the faiths and religions and belief systems around the world.
When I was in the Interfaith Seminary in the nineteen nineties,
I learned that there is an iteration of the Golden
rule in virtually every faith around the world. Do unto
others as you'd have them doing to you love thy
neighbor as thyself. If everybody did that, what a world
(30:58):
this would be.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, I mean it's like physics. It just you know, rocks.
If you let a rock go in India and in
Colombia and in Sydney, it's still going to fall down.
The laws of physics don't change because you're somewhere else.
It's it's just the way it is. And one of
these laws of human human being human is something like
(31:23):
the golden rule that you the more you give, the
more you get. It's a funny thing. One of the
things in the school of practical philosophy they used to
say is give what you lack. Give what you think
you lack. And you think, oh, yeah, that sounds nice.
But then you really think about and you think, oh
that's crazy because you can't give it, you lack it,
you don't have it. How can you give what you lack?
(31:44):
But they said, well do it anyway, just you know,
don't think, don't overthink this one. But if you lack love,
you lack friendship, say, for example, you want more friends,
well be friendly. That's not hard.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You you think you lack money, well find someone who
needs it, needs a few dollars and hand it out.
Be you know, give what you lack, give what you
think you lack, and it's it's another version of the
Golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them,
do unto you as you would have it. Have it
be down unto you. One of the formulations of this
(32:21):
in the tatorial or punished is learn and teach. You
you learn something and then you go out and you
teach it. In other words, you receive some wisdom and
you immediately go out and you find someone who needs
a little wisdom in their life, and you spread.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It around absolutely. And after our inner world comes the
state of the world, and with the lack and the
discussion we just had, it's not in the greatest of states,
is it.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I mean it's look, to be honest with you, it's
actually a lot better than it people think it is.
You know, you just take you know, I mean, you
can be very very cold about this, but it's true.
Child poverty statistics show that fewer children go a bit
hungry in absolute terms, not just in relative terms, than
they did. You know one hundred years ago, you'd take
(33:13):
in Australian context, for example, our Native people, the Aboriginal
people in their health. There is a disparity which needs
addressing and injustices that need overcoming, for sure. But if
you compare the way everybody lived one hundred years ago
(33:33):
to now or one hundred and fifty years ago, we're
limitlessly better off. And even though there are obviously wars
going on, there are much fewer than there used to be.
I mean that, I think people are going to look
back on the twentieth century and wonder how anybody survived. Right,
It's the Depression, World War One, World War two, the Holocaust,
(33:55):
the Communists, the Gulags. You know, twentieth century a very
very The headline, the headline of the twentyth items of
the twentieth century are very bad. But underneath, people were
toiling away looking for truth, looking for wisdom, looking for
(34:18):
looking for a way out, looking for freedom. They're believing
there must be another way. And so the world is
in a parlors state in many ways, and the way
to overcome it is to overcome it in yourself. I
mean it doesn't mean you don't join causes or political
(34:39):
arties if that's your thing, for sure, but at the
same time, you can't overcome hatred with hatred. You don't
put out a fire with petrol.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Absolutely, and this leads to the next subheading, questions. I
remember two songs that touched my life in this regard
question by Justin Heyward of the Moody Blues and Question
by Manfred Man's Band. I remember the Moody Blues question.
When I first heard it, I was seventeen. It came
out in nineteen seventy, and when I heard it, I
(35:09):
started crying and it sort of became a personal anthem
to me. And the last stanza says, if we could
see what if you could see what it's done to
me to lose the love I knew, could safely lead
me to the land that I once knew to learn
as we grow old, the secrets of our soul. And
(35:30):
then the Manford Man lyrics as written by Chris Slade,
turning the key. I sat and spoke to those inside
of me. They answered my questions with questions, and they
set me to stand on the brink where the sun
and the moon were as brothers, and all that was
left was to think. They answered my questions with questions,
(35:52):
and they pointed me into the night, and the power
that bore me had left me alone to figure out
which way was right. What are the questions that arise
as we contemplate all of the issues that you bring
to us.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, there's two very very fundamental questions, which is the
first one is who am I? I mean, there's a
simple question, and I can take a lifetime to answer
that one. And another one is where am I? And
the third one is we talked about this before we began,
(36:28):
which is the sense of the idea of purpose. Why
am I? Is the question why am I? Meaning? What
is my purpose? Why am I here? What am I
meant to be doing? And that's those are three. So
take those three questions who am I? Where am I?
And what am I meant to be doing? And now,
you know, go off and have a nice life, you know,
(36:51):
spend your time answering those questions. The part of the
problem with the living now is that it's too much clutter,
too much noise, too much interference, as it were with
a radio channel, and people just don't have the time
and space to even know that those questions are important,
(37:12):
or to know how to go about answering them and
to know why you should answer them. You ask some
people and they just think, well, why bother you? Might
you just get a job, you get a family, you
make sure your kids are okay, and you know, and
you finally, as I say, you struggle into your coughin
at the end and hope that something nice is put
(37:32):
on your headstone. Well, you know, okay, it didn't sound
very purposeful. So the question who am I? Is a
good one? You know. You start with that, you begin
to ask questions like am I my body? Because a
lot of people say, yeah, yeah, I'm basically my body
and I am a bunch of physical processes. There's no
(37:53):
evidence for that, of course, but you know, you have
a if I said to you, think of your mother,
and there's a picture of your mother in your mind,
and some neuroscientists has little wires poking into your brain
and he says, oh, yes, some cortex somewhere, some lobe
somewhere else. He's been excited, and that's why you're thinking
of your mother. And you think there was zero evidence
(38:13):
for those two things being related in any way whatsoever,
except they happened at the same time. So you know,
it's not an answer. You know, you have and the
love of your mother. Well, you know, don't get me
started on that. Where does that come from?
Speaker 3 (38:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Who am I? Am I? My body? Am I? My thoughts?
Am I? My feelings? Am I this sense of self
that lives somewhere mysterious behind my eyes, when in my
chest region or whatever. That's a good question to begin
to consider. And then where am I? Well, hopefully in
(38:50):
the present moment, but usually not in my mind and
my heart go dancing off doing a polka around the
universe and thinking resentfully or nostalgically about the past or
anxiously or hopefully about the future, and very very rarely
sitting in the present moment. And then the third question,
what's my purpose? Why am I here? Well, it's you know,
(39:16):
that's that's again an incredibly fruitful line of inquiry. Of course,
you're here to make sure you're healthy and happy and
you know, fit and ready and educated, et cetera. But
what about the others in your life? What about your spouse,
your partner, your children, your family, your friends, your nation,
your religion, whatever. There's purposes come at every level.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
And all of these hint at what you call the solution.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
M M.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, Well, that's the that's in a way, the easy one.
The solution to this is to find a teacher, basically,
to find a path, to find someone who can answer
those questions, who am I where? And what's my purpose?
And how can I? How can I? How should I live?
What should I do? So the solution to all of
(40:07):
this is to find someone who can set you on
the set you on the path to answers for satisfactory
answers that lead to freedom and happiness and fulfillment. And
it's not just your freedom, happiness and fulfillment. This is
one of the reasons I'm so passionate about it was
because I started on this path because I wanted to
(40:28):
know what was going on. Basically, I'm a kind of
a thinky kind of guy, and I wanted to know
how do how does everything work? And it frustrated me
that I didn't know. And I had this really abiding
sense that there were people out there who did know,
and I just couldn't find them. I didn't know where
they were. And then when I finally did come across them,
I was very happy. It was it was kind of
(40:51):
an existential sort of bliss. I wanted to sort of
hug myself to you know, and congratulate myself. But then
what I began to notice was people around me began
to notice changes, and then people around me began to change.
It was it was interesting to see this, the practical effect,
(41:12):
the radiating It wasn't me. I'm not such, you know,
I'm not this saintly fellow walking around touching everyone with
my goodness. It was just the simple fact of going
free of darkness began to shed light.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
What was the original source of the seven steps?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Well, that comes from a an Indian holy book book
of wisdom called the Yoga Vasishta, and in it, the
prince rama Is his teachers are Vasishta. He's a sage,
and he asks vasishtr He says, well, what are the
(41:55):
what are the ways to freedom? What's the way to
self knowledge? To freedom to self awareness? And vasis basically well,
he doesn't say it quite like this, but it feels
like he's saying, well, look, that's an easy one. These
are there are seven steps, and these are the seven steps.
He lays them out, one after the other.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
And in addition to that tradition, there's an iteration of
these steps found in many spiritual traditions. Please share a couple.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Well, the one I put in my book is in
the Bible of the famous seven Days of Creation, which
I found astonishing. Really, I was just meditating one night
in my philosophy group. I was in the middle of
writing the book. And you'll be shocked to hear this, Victor,
I know, but I was. My mind was not totally
(42:42):
focused on the mantra. I hope you were sitting down
for that one. As I say to people when they
want to take up meditation, I said, look, meditation is great.
It's only the first thirty years that are the hardest.
So I'm meditating and my mind has drifted off to
(43:02):
what I'm really thinking about, which is my book. And
because the creative process is very powerful, it's a very
vibrant thing, and you've got to you've got to honor it.
But anyway, I'm meditating, and I've got the seven steps
in my mind. The first step is not to give
the game away. The first step is the aha moment.
The wise man comes to you, someone who knows something
(43:24):
and says, look, they make a suggestion about your life.
They say, look, you should probably take a few minutes
out every day, just to be still peaceful at present.
Why don't you do that? Why don't you sit down
in a chair. Make sure no one's going to interrupt you,
turn off your phone, make sure the kids are fine,
and everything's not going to know. You've got space, and
you sit down for a minute and you connect with
(43:46):
your physical body, which is always in the present moment,
your touch, your smell, taste, site, let the mind settle.
The mind will downs about a bit and maybe a lot,
but it'll settle, But well it at least give it
a go and do that twice a day, maybe three
times if you're really keen for a minute or two,
no more, and you go, yeah, I need a bit
(44:09):
of space in my life. I think I'll try that.
You've done step one. Haven't actually sat down the chair.
You've just heard something good and you've said, uh huh,
that sounds good. Little light's gone on inside you.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
My guest is Gilbert Maine. His book is entitled Seven
Steps to Freedom, A Systematic Guide to what Everyone wants.
We'll be back with more after these words on the
Own Times Radio network.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
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Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
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Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone
(44:55):
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Speaker 1 (45:04):
Back on Vox Novus, My guest this week is Gilbert Maine.
We're discussing his book Seven Steps to Freedom, a systematic
guide to what everyone wants. Gilbert, what are some of
the pitfalls that we encounter as we begin to practice
the seven Steps?
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Oh. One of the main ones is forgetfulness. We just
forget to do it. There's too much going on in
our lives. Another one is habits. There's the pool of
habit is very strong. It's much stronger than we think
because we're normally going with it. As soon as we
start to try and go against it, the habits will
(45:46):
basically go to the cupboard and get out the baseball
bat and start beating us over the head with it.
We need to be gentle with ourselves and work on them.
And another one is to a certain extent you are
going against that's the way the world expects you to
go other people's expectations. I don't really talk about this
(46:06):
a lot in my book, but it is true that
if you're going to start being someone other than who
you are, the people around you also have their habits,
and part of those habits are their expectations of you.
And again, you don't want to make another problem out
of this. It's just what it is. You have to
work with it.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
I'm going to ask you to share a little bit
about each of the steps in our remaining time. You
had started with the first step, which you call good impulse.
Just give our listeners a remembrance of that.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, that's the aha moment. Someone says something to you
that makes sense about how your life can be better
and you go, yeah, that sounds good. I might try that,
And that's it. You've done step one.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
That's the good impulse. The second step is true inquiry.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, because now you need to find out what it
is that they are actually saying. And true inquiry means
they've said it, you've understood it with your head. Now
you have to understand it with your part and your being.
So in other words, you have to do it. Someone
says as I was saying in the previous segment, sit
down in a chair and become president and give your
(47:17):
attention to the present moment and allow your mind to
become still. And that sounds good, you know, that sounds
like a practical thing to do it, and takes a
minute or two every morning and maybe in the afternoon.
I could do that. I don't need any special equipment,
doesn't cost me anything, and the payoff, according to this
wise person I've met, is that my mind will be
(47:38):
clearer and my life will be better. So now you
actually go and get a chair and sit in a
room and close the door and make sure you're not disturbed,
and you give it a go. That's step two. You
put it into practice, and.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
The third step is refinement of the mind.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Please explain, well, this is what we've been talking about.
These habits, these intonations, these self limiting beliefs you have,
they're all held in what in the larger sense of
the mind, the mind heart nexus. There's an emotional kicker
to most of them. And by coming into the present moment,
(48:15):
say and giving your attention, maybe meditating, maybe practicing some
mindfulness and yoga. What if you stick at it and
you do need to stick out. It does take a
little time, but not a lot of time, but some
and to a certain extent, depends on you. It's input
and output. You will find that the mind begins to clear.
(48:36):
You'll just have more space, there will be more awareness,
you will be you'll be effectively more awake. And that
is what the wires call tunnel manas are is the
name for this level, and that is the thinning of
the mind, and it means the mind becomes clear. So
(48:56):
when thinning, it's like the fog begins to clear out.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
And the fourth step is a state of clarity.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, well, this is a big step between three and four.
I explain why in my book most people, certainly I did,
and I'm not sure about you, Victor on your spiritual path,
but you circle through steps one, two and three over
and over and over again because there's a lot to learn.
And you know, sitting down the chair and practicing mindfulness, okay,
(49:26):
that's one thing. And what about a system of mantra meditation,
that's another one. What about charitable giving and looking at
other people as if they were your family rather than
as an enemy. That's a good practice, and there's a
lot to be getting on with and a lot of
it is all of it. It really is lovely and
very nourishing, and you circle through one, two, and three,
(49:50):
and the mind is clearer and clearer, and you're more
and more awake. Things are becoming falling into line with you.
Things don't come quite as surprisingly and negatively as they
did in the past. You can handle them, you're stronger.
And then but you still need help, you still need guidance,
You still fail, you still make mistakes, you still forget,
(50:12):
and you still need to work. You need to put
in some oomph. And then at a certain point you
and you can't really time this, and you're not doing
it yourself. It just happens you sort of. It's almost
like emerging from a jungle, from a forest into a clearing,
and now you're not you don't need the machete to
(50:34):
cut your way through anymore. You're suddenly in this space
where there's a platform below which it's difficult to fall.
That's how I've described and how I experienced myself, where
you just ask someone else you're you're different, your habits
are different. Now some of those negative beliefs have really gone,
and you're no longer worried by them. You in fact,
(50:56):
in a funny way, you almost forget that you ever
had them. It's strange phenomenon about level four is that
you are now. You are obviously who you are, but
in very fundamental ways, you're someone else.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
And the fifth step is insight and detachment.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Yeah, now, when we get to the top levels, these
are these are the ones that people experience when they're
ten years old sitting on a bus stop waiting to
go to school and they look at a tree, and
when their first child's born, when they hear a snatch
of music that inspires them. When I don't know something
in nature or just something who knows it can be anything.
(51:38):
These are the top experiences, and they come and go.
They're sort of like Christmas presents. You know, you don't
know surprise, secret stand to Christmas presents. You know where
they've come from, I don't know who gave them to you,
and when they go, when they're snatched away, so you
don't know how to get back to them. But asang
Sakti is the fifth level, it's detachment. It's you. You
(52:02):
detach in a good way in that things don't affect you,
but there's full of you're full of love for everything.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
And the sixth step is non awareness of separate objects.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Yeah, so this is where you just don't see differences.
Everyone's every person is part of your family. Everywhere you
are is where is your home. Every thought that comes
through your mind, even the negative ones, they're just consciousness.
Everything is in this. You don't see apples and pears.
(52:38):
You see fruit, for example. You don't see different people.
You just see brothers and sisters. It's like it's it's
a wonderful way to live where you know you will
pick up I mean it's I mean see, it's a
very practical thing, like you're in a I was on
a on an aeroplane once and there was a young
(53:00):
with a baby on her lap, flying in those days
when you could do that, and the baby was, you know,
doing what babies do, and she was apologizing to me.
I said, oh god, I said, please don't add me
to your list of problems. He said, add me to
your list of solutions. I'm here for you. You know,
I'm part of team you. You're a young mother. You've
(53:21):
got enough to worry about. You know that you you
don't want you know, we don't know each other. So
I'm not your enemy, and we just had a lovely time.
You know. I picked up this, you know thing, toys
that have fell on the floor and all that sort
of thing. And then and then the thing is, at
the end of the journey, we didn't need to swap
telephone numbers. I don't know, never knew her name, and
(53:43):
I'll probably never meet her again. But it's the natural
human response at level six is to happily join in
with whatever needs to be done, because everyone is part
of your, part of you.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
There are words in part of Africa and the word
is Ubuntu and the translation is I am because we are.
The seventh step is the full realization of unity.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah, this is why when people can get very funny
about this one, because it is obviously the highest plane
of limitless unity. But at the same time, most people
have experiences of this. This is what I say the
if you talk to people, people normally don't talk about
these experiences, but if you open the conversation, most people
I talked to say, oh, yes, when I was six,
(54:33):
I was on a swing and my mother gave me
a push and I suddenly felt limitlessly at one with everything.
And that is to really are. It's not even this
in a way, it's paradoxical. It's not a state, it's
not a step. You're always there. I can't actually remember
the wording of the poem, but it's the one where
(54:54):
ts Eliot says, you take the journey, and when you
get to the end, you realize you've at the beginning
and you've never left. It's that sort of place because
in the end, you just are who you are, and
you've never actually been someone else. He're always you. But
it's that turia. You just simply know that to be
a fact.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
You live it. My guest, Gilbert May and his book
Seven Steps to Freedom, a systematic guide to what everyone wants. Gilbert,
please one more time share with our listeners where they
can get your books and find out more about you.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Sure. My website is Gilbert Main one word Gilbert M
A and e dot com and on it is all
my writings. I have Seven Steps, obviously, my book on
practical wisdom, and three exciting, thrilling novels that will make
your life just a little bit better for reading them
(55:51):
and make my life a lot better for buying them.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Gilbert, thank you so much for joining us and sharing
your wisdom. Thank you, Victim, and thank you for joining
us on Vox Novus. I'm Victor la Voice Furman. Have
a wonderful week.
Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension,
Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to
(00:28):
Vox Novus, the New Voice. Everyone wants to be free
and happy, but many of us feel unhappy, constricted, confused,
and we seem to have little or no control over
the external events which shape our lives. Those are the
(00:50):
words of my guests this week on Box Novus, Gilbert Maine,
who shares that there are seven steps to achieving what
everyone wants. Gilbert Maine from Sydney, Australia, was a lawyer,
a teacher and is an entrepreneur and a writer. In
nineteen seventy five, Gilbert discovered a school of Practical Wisdom.
(01:11):
In twenty twelve he delivered a Tedex talk on education
and unity. Gilbert has also authored three thriller adventure novels,
and with his wife Sarah, is a keen ballroom dancer.
His website is gilbertmain dot com and he joins me
this week to share his path and book Seven Steps
(01:33):
to Freedom, a systematic guide to what everyone wants please
join me in welcoming to Vox Novis Gilbert Maine. Welcome Gilbert,
Hi Victor, how are you. I'm wonderful, Thank you Sara,
and I hope the same with you. I had the
wonderful opportunity of interviewing your wife, Sarah about a year ago,
and she suggested that you reach out to me because
(01:55):
you have a lot to share also, so thank you
so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Gilbert. Please share with our listeners your early path and
how it led to you being head master in an
independent primary school in Australia.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Ah huh, Well, I grew up in a Jewish family.
We weren't particularly religious. Sort of Jewish adjacent would probably
be the best description, but you know, we were proud
of being Jewish and went along to synagogue occasionally, but
there was no spirituality as such in the home. But
I had my own personal spiritual journey and it really
(02:34):
was very personal because there was no there was sort
of direct interventions from outside. I had spiritual experiences when
I was very young. When I was ten, I was
seeing a looking at a tree when I was sitting
at a bus stop on my way to school, and
suddenly I was limitless and universal, and it seemed to
come somehow rather through that tree, and forever after, as
(02:58):
I said at that bus stop, I watched that tree,
waiting for that door to open again, and of course
it never did. And then I was in one I
was fourteen. One of the teachers at school said to me, look,
there's a chap coming to Sydney to give a talk.
Maybe you'd be interested. I have still to this day,
(03:18):
have no idea why she picked me. But I went
into town, sat in a Sydney town hall and it
was Krishnamurti and I remember what I was thinking at
the time. I can't remember what he said, but I
just remember thinking, gosh, there are people in the world
who know how things work, they know what's going on.
(03:39):
They know why we do things we don't want to do,
why we don't do things we do want to do,
which really bugged me. Why did that happen? Why did
you just say things that you knew you shouldn't say,
And why did you remain silent when you should speak up?
How come? Why was that? Why is that a thing?
And life went on and one day my brother said
(04:01):
to me, I, look, there's this school of human development,
it's called the School of Practical Philosophy in Sydney, and
I'm going along. I think you should go too, So
I joined. And the minute I walked through the di
virtue of the minute I walked through the door, the
min I've heard the first words from the tutor's mouth,
I thought, Ah, this is it. I'm home. I've discovered
(04:22):
the thing I've been looking for my whole life. And
I was there for forty years from that day on.
I became a tutor. But in the meantime, I'd gone
to university, did a law degree, did a couple of
law degrees, became a solicitor, which a lawyer. And I
don't know if you've ever done this, Victor, but I
(04:43):
got up every single morning to go to my job
with a lead brick in my stomach of deep, dark
black depression. Because to say I hated it would be
putting it very mildly. It was just I was just
in such so totally in the wrong place, and I
just you know, I was young, I didn't know quite
(05:04):
what to do, and I stuck out it for ten
or twelve years. But in the meantime, I'm going along
to this school of Practical Philosophy. I'm studying the wisdom
of the ancients and the moderns, and learning to meditate
and engaging in activities and focused attention and all these
sorts of things that were making my life so much
(05:26):
better in one way, while I was in this sort
of downward trajectory with my working life in another. And
then I got married, and so there's family to look after.
And then one day the people in the School of Philosophy,
the School Practical Philosophy, had started a day school and
the school for children for young children in elementary school.
(05:50):
You'd call it an independent school. And it had the
normal curriculum basically, you know, the maths of science, the
English and the grammar and the spelling, timestables. But also
it had elements in the day for children to practice
being present, being mindful, had practical wisdom and virtue, how
(06:12):
to be kind, how to be tolerant, how to be courageous.
And the children really really flourished under this regime. But
in the meantime they needed a tame lawyer to be
on the board of governors. So that was me, and
I was on the board of governors of the School
for several years, and after three or four or five years,
(06:37):
it's probably fair to say that it was not flourishing.
There was still only about fourteen, fifteen, twenty twenty five
children in the school. There wasn't really attracting enrollment. The
people running it were all mothers. They're all busy, they
had families, and as it grew slowly the responsibilities grew,
the government, the government, regulation, local councils, building, there were
(07:01):
things that need to be dealt with. So one day,
completely out of the blue, they turned to me, the
people on the board and the involved with the school,
said to me, would you like to be the head master?
Because they felt they needed just someone who had, in
a weird way, no skin in the game, in other words,
no children at the school, they didn't have a dog
(07:24):
in the fight, and someone independent and someone who could
just have the time and energy to build the school up.
And I talked to my wife about it, because it's
a big change, and we decided that this is one
of those open doors that you need to You've got
a choice in life. You either step through. There's a
(07:45):
tide in the affairs of men which you've taken it.
The flood leads on to fortune and this was one
of them. So I said yes, and I began learning
on the job. I became the head master of the school.
This was in nineteen eighty nine when the school had
I think thirty five children, and it was really my
job was to maintain the principles upon which the school
(08:08):
was founded and to build it up into a significant
educational academic institution.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And you did that for thirty years. I did wonderful.
And what were some of the classes that you introduced.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
There, Well, we had Sanskrit. It was one of the
basic subjects that needed to be taught in the school
because the English in the tradition of independent schooling in
the English speaking world based from England is the grammar school,
and that's all based on languages, classical language. So we
(08:45):
introduced Sanskrit for every child from five. We had children
from the age of five to the age of twelve,
so they all had to have a weekly several weekly
sanscrit lessons. Then we also introduced Latin. Latin was compulsory,
but I taught Latin and I used to have some
like twenty six year olds turn up at eight o'clock
(09:08):
in the morning before school for my Latin class, and
we had other things where the children all had to
sing good music. The principles upon which the school's based
there were two principles. Only give the children the best materials,
the best curriculum, and have it taught by the best people.
(09:30):
So that's a very simple way of putting a you know,
it became very complex and involved. But the best materials
are well Shakespeare for English, Mozart for music, sandscript for language,
basic mathematics for maths. So it's not that hard actually
to pick the best curriculum. And then you can do
(09:53):
all the other stuff too. It doesn't exclude fun play
and interesting books and other things that children want to do,
but you'd have to have the best stuff there as well.
And then the best people are people who know themselves,
are connected to some sort of spiritual center in themselves
and can pass that on to the children, and as well,
(10:17):
basically skillful teachers. They can get it across, they can
understand an individual child's needs, they can respond to them,
and they can get the curriculum, get through the curriculum
in a state in a given time. They're organized. Those
are the best people, and as headmaster of a virtuoso staff.
(10:37):
It made my job incredibly easy in one way. In
some ways it wasn't that easy in others.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
In twenty twelve, you gave a ten X talk on
education and unity. What were some of the points that
you shared and have these been adapted into school systems.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Well, they've certainly came out of our school and well,
it's actually interesting when I'll take the last bit first,
the answer is no. I find this extraordinary. We were
a The education system in Australia is this. Two thirds
of children go to public schools and one third of
children don't. Of the children who don't, two thirds go
(11:18):
to Catholic schools and one third go to other independent,
non government schools. So non government education in Australia is big.
The third of all children. It's hundreds of thousands of
children go to non government schools. It's fully funded, not
fully funded, it's generously funded by the government. There's a
(11:38):
story there too, but there it is. And we have
freedom to teach what we want to teach. And we
started our school in nineteen eighty five, a few years
before I became headmaster, with this unusual curriculum Sanskrit, Latin, Mozart,
Shakespeare and the results. There's a national testing system in
(12:01):
Australia called napland and there are league tables. They're not
meant to be, but they get published. And our school,
John Collett School, that's what it was called, was in
the top ten primary schools in Australia consistently every single year.
Now there's seven six hundred give or take primary schools
(12:23):
in Australia, so we're in the top ten and we're
with very very eminent, very well credentialed schools. Were in
that group, and nobody ever came to me to say,
what are you doing? How can we do what you do?
And I always found that extraordinary, that the lack of
(12:48):
the complete lack of interest in a system that was
clearly working in an obscure, small elementary school in the
top right hand corner of Sydney. It's to me that's
very strange. But so no. So the answer is I
gave this Ted talk and those people who are interested
(13:11):
loved it, and others became deeply incurious about it. But
some of the points I made in that Ted talk
were one of the main ones is this everybody or
human beings have a physical body. Obviously they have a
mind with which they think, they have, a heart with
which they feel, and a spirit with which they exist
or be or whatever that's their true self. Their indwelling isiness.
(13:37):
And you need food, exercise, and rest for each of
those for call them bodies. So you need good food,
you know, good nutritious physical food. You need to run
around and exercise and go to the gym. And you
need when the time's are right, you need to have
some sleep. You need to rest. So what about the mind,
(13:59):
what about the heart, what about the spirit? You need
the same for each of those levels. And I made
that point in the Ted talk. And the other thing
I spoke about was what is education? What is it actually?
And you need a teacher, you need a pupil. You
(14:19):
need something that's going to be communicated, call that knowledge.
And you need the process. You need the flow between
those three other things. So there's really four entities, the teacher,
the pupil, the knowledge, and the discourse, the conversation, the interaction,
and all three, all four rather need to be present
(14:43):
and aware and willing at the point where the education
is going to happen. The teacher is absent, the pupils dreaming,
the knowledge is non existent and there's no interaction, well,
nothing's going to happen. But if all four are available,
then miracles happen. And that is really the miracle of education,
(15:06):
that knowledge can pass from one human being to another
and both can grow from that process. And I made
the point in the talk that when I stood in
the classroom in front of children, I wasn't always the teacher,
and they weren't always the pupil. I learned from them
and they learned from me, and the communication flowed very freely.
(15:32):
And it was a wonderful experience to walk into a
classroom and to learn from the children, but also just
from the things that would pop into your mind while
you were in front of a class of willing, eager,
interested young learners.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Absolutely, how did your experiences at all of the teachings
you received inspire your book Seven Steps to Freedom, A
Systematic Guide to what everyone wants?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, basically, I was in the school of practical philosophy.
I received enormous help, wonderful wisdom. It was showered upon
us from for you know, obviously there were fees involved,
but not much. For what you paid and what you
got it was a very very very good deal and
(16:27):
I just felt such incredible gratitude for everything I had received.
And I was a teacher, that was my profession, that
was my vocation, and I just felt the need to
give back. So I wanted to put it all encapsulated.
And there were certain reasons why I put it in
a book, because I was actually tutoring in the in
the adult school and also teaching a weekly philosophy class
(16:50):
to children in the in the day school. But I
wanted to put it in a book because I was
part of my tutoring jobs in the in the philosophy school,
was in the introductory group, and many of the students
would say to me, look, this is all very wonderful
the night, but I sort of forget and it sort
of slips my mind during the week between classes. Is
(17:11):
there some book core rhyma or introductory text that I
can have and refer to to remind me of what's
being said in the class? And basically the answer is no.
And I looked around, and you know, there are plenty
of books, there's tons, but they were totally on the topic.
So I thought, well, look, if no one else is
(17:33):
going to do it, I might write one, and so
I did, and I sat down. I tried to put
together as much of the wisdom in a very practical,
very simple, very accessible, and I hope entertaining way that
so that anyone can pick it up and either read
a cover to cover if that's what they want to do,
(17:55):
or dip into it and pick out practical exercises that
will help them overcome habits and connect with the deeper
inner self and make their life basically better.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
In this context, how do you define the word freedom?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh? Well, yes, that's interesting because you know, you look
around the world now and everyone's everyone seems to be
very angry. I don't know why, but they just seem
to be. It seems to be a default position. They
kind of get off on it. They enjoy being angry.
That's my sort of feeling. I don't want to be.
I don't want to read into other people's motives. As
(18:36):
I say, I have a hard enough job living my
own life, let alone trying to live someone else's. But
and I thought, well, what's what why? And usually it's
because of externals. Something's going on, some politician turns up
on the television and suddenly they're angry. Someone says something
that triggers them, and they're angry and they're upset, and
(18:56):
they're you know, everything's going wrong. And so the response
for most people is to try and change the world.
In other words, vote that politician out, or you know,
change the systems at the university or in their family
or whatever. And as I've said before, this is a
job with the future. It's never gonna it's not going
(19:17):
to happen. It just is not going to happen. So
unless you just like working for no reward and no result,
then my advice is to stop and to look within
and look at the thing that is triggered. So if
someone says something and you get upset, well why and
you can sort of tell it's you. The problem is you,
(19:41):
mostly because two people can be standing next shoulder to
shoulder and the same thing can happen to them and
one will get upset and now one won't. So it's
not an objective truth that the thing that was said
was upsetting on an objective level, it was upsetting to you.
So you are the field upon which you need to
(20:02):
begin work. And freedom is stepping free of your own limitations, habits, responses, reactions, requirements, judgments, criticisms, whatever,
and going free. And in fact, that's how I would
define the word, well, define how i'd use the word forgiveness,
(20:27):
and forgiveness we think is letting people off the hook
for something rotten that they've done. But forgiveness is really
giving something else for whatever you're getting, and returning love
for hatred, returning compassion for misery, whatever, And it's stepping
free of your own limited, constricting responses to life.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
You begin Seven Steps to Freedom with a chapter entitled
why should you read this book? And the first subheading
is the problem what you were just talking about is
that the problem?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That's the problem. The problem is we want to be
free and we're not. We want to be happy and
it's fleeting. We want to be rich and we never
have enough, you know, written or not just rich with
a bank account, although that's part of it, but you know,
rich in friends, rich in love, rich in experiences. We
never seem to have what we want to have, and
(21:25):
that is the problem. The problem is so the either one.
That's life. That's the way it is. You know, you struggle,
you're born, you struggle, you die. It's not a particularly
happy story. And it then certainly doesn't have a happy ending,
or there's an alternative story where you're born, you learn,
(21:47):
you go through ups and downs, and you grow and
you grow in freedom, and you grow in love and
you grow in happiness, and you pass on in a
state of grace. And I would love for the wisdom
that I received to be part of someone else's journey
(22:09):
where they've found every day they're just a bit better,
a bit happier, a bit freer than they were the
day before.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Absolutely, you had mentioned the word forgiveness, which I teach
is very important, forgiveness of self and forgiveness of others.
Why is that important?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Well, I mean consider the alternative. You know this. I
can't remember who said it, but resentment and anger is
like drinking poison and waiting for the other guy to die. Yes,
it's it's not a it's not a it's not a
good way of living to carry around. In another way,
(22:49):
another person said to me, look, someone did something. Maybe
they mentioned something to I think with someone I was tutoring.
I don't know. Anyway, they said someone's something to them
that was hurtful and they felt, you know, they were
they were upset and angry, and they then they just
stewed on it. They thought about it over and over
(23:11):
and over again, and they suddenly woke up and said,
this guy did this to me once. I have done
it to myself a hundred times since then. Who's worse? Right?
I have repeated what was said over and over and
over and over to myself, and it makes me feel
worse and worse and worse and worse. If you had
(23:32):
a method that allowed you to just basically slough off
that particular burden, to untie the chains that bind and
to step free, I mean, wouldn't you take it? Wouldn't you?
And it costs you nothing and it and the benefit
is amazing. And this is forgiveness, and forgiveness is there's
(23:54):
also justice. If someone's done something underward and they need
to learn a lesson, there's no we're not saying don't
do that, you know some people for their benefit. I
used to have to punish children for infractions, and I
used to have to do it. I used to have
to make very very sure that I wasn't cross or
(24:17):
angry with the child for being for having stepped out
of line. I would I didn't. I needed to be
able to, as it were, punish or discipline the children
with love. I used to have love in my heart
because otherwise it's just a practical thing. One I'm going
to have I'm gonna have a terrible day. And two
it's not going to work. The energy that flows the
(24:41):
learning experiences it were, is not going to be effective
because the child's not going to be learning what I
want them to learn, which is to basically step free
of whatever it is that they cause them to do
the thing they do. So there is justice and it
does need to be meeted out in full measure. But
at the same time, there is forgiveness, where you give
(25:01):
something else for the thing you received. You receive anger
or resentment or hatred, and you give back love and openness,
freedom and compassion and compassion.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
My guest is Gilbert Maine. We're talking about his book
Seven Steps to Freedom, a systematic guide to what everyone wants. Gilbert,
please share with our listeners where they can get your
books and find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well. I have a website Gilbert Maine Gilbert m A
and e dot com and on it is access to
all my writing. I've written this book Seven Steps Practical
Wisdom and Freedom and I've also written three novels which
are those who like them love them. There are their
(25:48):
thrillers and with a slight paranormal. There are a few
easter eggs in it for people who know what to
look for in relation to self awareness. But I was
very conscious that you don't want to rut attract, you know,
they just meant to be fun. You meant to get
on an airplane in Sydney with one of my books,
and you meant to finish up by the time you
(26:09):
reach New York or London, and you can give it
to your best friend.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Wonderful. And I assume all your books are available also
on Amazon.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Wonderful. We'll be back with more of Gilbert after these
words on the own Times Radio network.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
The cutting edge of Conscious Radio Home Times Radio IOMFM.
Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
providers of positivity, wellness and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
their net proceeds are final to support worldwide charity initiatives
via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment to creating community
(26:46):
and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on
a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Back on Box Novus, my guest this week is Gilbert
Main talking about his book Seven Steps to Freedom, A
systematic guide to what Everyone Wants. Gilbert, the next subheading
in your first chapter is our inner world? What takes
place there and why? May this be a part of
(27:16):
the problem.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yes, Well, the limiting beliefs that we have are one
of the main problems that we have. And isn't it
is in the inner world? The limiting factors in our life. Well,
obviously we can have physical constructions, financial constrictions, of course,
but a lot of these are very much based on
our belief system. Now, the matrix with which we see
(27:40):
the world is how in fact we create our own world.
So take a take a simple one. Let's say you
have the belief I am a failure, and you may
not even know you have that belief. It may be subconscious,
and by definition subconscious means it's below the level of
your consciousness. You are not in fact conscious of it.
But it's there. How it got there, Why it's there,
(28:05):
That's another that's a story for people. Must be to
a certain extent a little bit above my pay grade,
but there it is. There's an idea, Oh, I'm not worthy,
or I don't deserve success or something. These are negative,
these negative sentences that run in the mind. The ego
does this to us. Well, it's very difficult to succeed
(28:28):
if you've got the idea that I am a failure.
You just have to and it becomes much much harder.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Me.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You can succeed, but it's incredibly hard work because you're
working against yourself at the same time. So this in
the world does need addressing, and you need techniques and
systems and effective systems for somehow getting in there, getting
down there, or sending down messages that counter or dissolve
(28:56):
the negative ones. And the good news is that such
techniques are readily available. The wise and I use that
term to mean great master teachers of mankind throughout the ages,
and we know who they are, the Buddha, Jesus, the
Krishna who punishads, the Bible, all of these works. It's
(29:18):
so readily available these days. It's one of these miracles
that no one seems to see as miraculous that up
until very recently, very recently in history, there was people
had no access to these works at all. And now
they're available at the click of a mouse or on
your you can carry them around in your pocket on
(29:41):
your iPhone. It's astonishing. There's too much information almost, it's
there's so much about you don't even know where to start.
But you use systems of meditation, of mindfulness, of focus,
of being in the present, being in the now this
and you let contciousness do the work for you. In
(30:02):
a sense. This is where the seven steps to freedom
are kind of wonderful. Really, there's only two that you
really have to worry about, which is step one and two,
and then all the rest get taken care for you
if you stick at it. But what that means is
that consciousness itself takes the journey and into your inner
(30:24):
heart of your being and begins to tidy up all
of these negative self talk that we have going on
that we're often not even aware of.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You had mentioned all of the great works in all
of the faiths and religions and belief systems around the world.
When I was in the Interfaith Seminary in the nineteen nineties,
I learned that there is an iteration of the Golden
rule in virtually every faith around the world. Do unto
others as you'd have them doing to you love thy
neighbor as thyself. If everybody did that, what a world
(30:58):
this would be.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, I mean it's like physics. It just you know, rocks.
If you let a rock go in India and in
Colombia and in Sydney, it's still going to fall down.
The laws of physics don't change because you're somewhere else.
It's it's just the way it is. And one of
these laws of human human being human is something like
(31:23):
the golden rule that you the more you give, the
more you get. It's a funny thing. One of the
things in the school of practical philosophy they used to
say is give what you lack. Give what you think
you lack. And you think, oh, yeah, that sounds nice.
But then you really think about and you think, oh
that's crazy because you can't give it, you lack it,
you don't have it. How can you give what you lack?
(31:44):
But they said, well do it anyway, just you know,
don't think, don't overthink this one. But if you lack love,
you lack friendship, say, for example, you want more friends,
well be friendly. That's not hard.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
You know.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
You you think you lack money, well find someone who
needs it, needs a few dollars and hand it out.
Be you know, give what you lack, give what you
think you lack, and it's it's another version of the
Golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them,
do unto you as you would have it. Have it
be down unto you. One of the formulations of this
(32:21):
in the tatorial or punished is learn and teach. You
you learn something and then you go out and you
teach it. In other words, you receive some wisdom and
you immediately go out and you find someone who needs
a little wisdom in their life, and you spread.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
It around absolutely. And after our inner world comes the
state of the world, and with the lack and the
discussion we just had, it's not in the greatest of states,
is it.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I mean it's look, to be honest with you, it's
actually a lot better than it people think it is.
You know, you just take you know, I mean, you
can be very very cold about this, but it's true.
Child poverty statistics show that fewer children go a bit
hungry in absolute terms, not just in relative terms, than
they did. You know one hundred years ago, you'd take
(33:13):
in Australian context, for example, our Native people, the Aboriginal
people in their health. There is a disparity which needs
addressing and injustices that need overcoming, for sure. But if
you compare the way everybody lived one hundred years ago
(33:33):
to now or one hundred and fifty years ago, we're
limitlessly better off. And even though there are obviously wars
going on, there are much fewer than there used to be.
I mean that, I think people are going to look
back on the twentieth century and wonder how anybody survived. Right,
It's the Depression, World War One, World War two, the Holocaust,
(33:55):
the Communists, the Gulags. You know, twentieth century a very
very The headline, the headline of the twentyth items of
the twentieth century are very bad. But underneath, people were
toiling away looking for truth, looking for wisdom, looking for
(34:18):
looking for a way out, looking for freedom. They're believing
there must be another way. And so the world is
in a parlors state in many ways, and the way
to overcome it is to overcome it in yourself. I
mean it doesn't mean you don't join causes or political
(34:39):
arties if that's your thing, for sure, but at the
same time, you can't overcome hatred with hatred. You don't
put out a fire with petrol.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Absolutely, and this leads to the next subheading, questions. I
remember two songs that touched my life in this regard
question by Justin Heyward of the Moody Blues and Question
by Manfred Man's Band. I remember the Moody Blues question.
When I first heard it, I was seventeen. It came
out in nineteen seventy, and when I heard it, I
(35:09):
started crying and it sort of became a personal anthem
to me. And the last stanza says, if we could
see what if you could see what it's done to
me to lose the love I knew, could safely lead
me to the land that I once knew to learn
as we grow old, the secrets of our soul. And
(35:30):
then the Manford Man lyrics as written by Chris Slade,
turning the key. I sat and spoke to those inside
of me. They answered my questions with questions, and they
set me to stand on the brink where the sun
and the moon were as brothers, and all that was
left was to think. They answered my questions with questions,
(35:52):
and they pointed me into the night, and the power
that bore me had left me alone to figure out
which way was right. What are the questions that arise
as we contemplate all of the issues that you bring
to us.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, there's two very very fundamental questions, which is the
first one is who am I? I mean, there's a
simple question, and I can take a lifetime to answer
that one. And another one is where am I? And
the third one is we talked about this before we began,
(36:28):
which is the sense of the idea of purpose. Why
am I? Is the question why am I? Meaning? What
is my purpose? Why am I here? What am I
meant to be doing? And that's those are three. So
take those three questions who am I? Where am I?
And what am I meant to be doing? And now,
you know, go off and have a nice life, you know,
(36:51):
spend your time answering those questions. The part of the
problem with the living now is that it's too much clutter,
too much noise, too much interference, as it were with
a radio channel, and people just don't have the time
and space to even know that those questions are important,
(37:12):
or to know how to go about answering them and
to know why you should answer them. You ask some
people and they just think, well, why bother you? Might
you just get a job, you get a family, you
make sure your kids are okay, and you know, and
you finally, as I say, you struggle into your coughin
at the end and hope that something nice is put
(37:32):
on your headstone. Well, you know, okay, it didn't sound
very purposeful. So the question who am I? Is a
good one? You know. You start with that, you begin
to ask questions like am I my body? Because a
lot of people say, yeah, yeah, I'm basically my body
and I am a bunch of physical processes. There's no
(37:53):
evidence for that, of course, but you know, you have
a if I said to you, think of your mother,
and there's a picture of your mother in your mind,
and some neuroscientists has little wires poking into your brain
and he says, oh, yes, some cortex somewhere, some lobe
somewhere else. He's been excited, and that's why you're thinking
of your mother. And you think there was zero evidence
(38:13):
for those two things being related in any way whatsoever,
except they happened at the same time. So you know,
it's not an answer. You know, you have and the
love of your mother. Well, you know, don't get me
started on that. Where does that come from?
Speaker 3 (38:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Who am I? Am I? My body? Am I? My thoughts?
Am I? My feelings? Am I this sense of self
that lives somewhere mysterious behind my eyes, when in my
chest region or whatever. That's a good question to begin
to consider. And then where am I? Well, hopefully in
(38:50):
the present moment, but usually not in my mind and
my heart go dancing off doing a polka around the
universe and thinking resentfully or nostalgically about the past or
anxiously or hopefully about the future, and very very rarely
sitting in the present moment. And then the third question,
what's my purpose? Why am I here? Well, it's you know,
(39:16):
that's that's again an incredibly fruitful line of inquiry. Of course,
you're here to make sure you're healthy and happy and
you know, fit and ready and educated, et cetera. But
what about the others in your life? What about your spouse,
your partner, your children, your family, your friends, your nation,
your religion, whatever. There's purposes come at every level.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
And all of these hint at what you call the solution.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
M M.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, Well, that's the that's in a way, the easy one.
The solution to this is to find a teacher, basically,
to find a path, to find someone who can answer
those questions, who am I where? And what's my purpose?
And how can I? How can I? How should I live?
What should I do? So the solution to all of
(40:07):
this is to find someone who can set you on
the set you on the path to answers for satisfactory
answers that lead to freedom and happiness and fulfillment. And
it's not just your freedom, happiness and fulfillment. This is
one of the reasons I'm so passionate about it was
because I started on this path because I wanted to
(40:28):
know what was going on. Basically, I'm a kind of
a thinky kind of guy, and I wanted to know
how do how does everything work? And it frustrated me
that I didn't know. And I had this really abiding
sense that there were people out there who did know,
and I just couldn't find them. I didn't know where
they were. And then when I finally did come across them,
I was very happy. It was it was kind of
(40:51):
an existential sort of bliss. I wanted to sort of
hug myself to you know, and congratulate myself. But then
what I began to notice was people around me began
to notice changes, and then people around me began to change.
It was it was interesting to see this, the practical effect,
(41:12):
the radiating It wasn't me. I'm not such, you know,
I'm not this saintly fellow walking around touching everyone with
my goodness. It was just the simple fact of going
free of darkness began to shed light.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
What was the original source of the seven steps?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Well, that comes from a an Indian holy book book
of wisdom called the Yoga Vasishta, and in it, the
prince rama Is his teachers are Vasishta. He's a sage,
and he asks vasishtr He says, well, what are the
(41:55):
what are the ways to freedom? What's the way to
self knowledge? To freedom to self awareness? And vasis basically well,
he doesn't say it quite like this, but it feels
like he's saying, well, look, that's an easy one. These
are there are seven steps, and these are the seven steps.
He lays them out, one after the other.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
And in addition to that tradition, there's an iteration of
these steps found in many spiritual traditions. Please share a couple.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Well, the one I put in my book is in
the Bible of the famous seven Days of Creation, which
I found astonishing. Really, I was just meditating one night
in my philosophy group. I was in the middle of
writing the book. And you'll be shocked to hear this, Victor,
I know, but I was. My mind was not totally
(42:42):
focused on the mantra. I hope you were sitting down
for that one. As I say to people when they
want to take up meditation, I said, look, meditation is great.
It's only the first thirty years that are the hardest.
So I'm meditating and my mind has drifted off to
(43:02):
what I'm really thinking about, which is my book. And
because the creative process is very powerful, it's a very
vibrant thing, and you've got to you've got to honor it.
But anyway, I'm meditating, and I've got the seven steps
in my mind. The first step is not to give
the game away. The first step is the aha moment.
The wise man comes to you, someone who knows something
(43:24):
and says, look, they make a suggestion about your life.
They say, look, you should probably take a few minutes
out every day, just to be still peaceful at present.
Why don't you do that? Why don't you sit down
in a chair. Make sure no one's going to interrupt you,
turn off your phone, make sure the kids are fine,
and everything's not going to know. You've got space, and
you sit down for a minute and you connect with
(43:46):
your physical body, which is always in the present moment,
your touch, your smell, taste, site, let the mind settle.
The mind will downs about a bit and maybe a lot,
but it'll settle, But well it at least give it
a go and do that twice a day, maybe three
times if you're really keen for a minute or two,
no more, and you go, yeah, I need a bit
(44:09):
of space in my life. I think I'll try that.
You've done step one. Haven't actually sat down the chair.
You've just heard something good and you've said, uh huh,
that sounds good. Little light's gone on inside you.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
My guest is Gilbert Maine. His book is entitled Seven
Steps to Freedom, A Systematic Guide to what Everyone wants.
We'll be back with more after these words on the
Own Times Radio network.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
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Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
to bring help to communities with little or no Oh.
Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone
(44:55):
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Speaker 1 (45:04):
Back on Vox Novus, My guest this week is Gilbert Maine.
We're discussing his book Seven Steps to Freedom, a systematic
guide to what everyone wants. Gilbert, what are some of
the pitfalls that we encounter as we begin to practice
the seven Steps?
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Oh. One of the main ones is forgetfulness. We just
forget to do it. There's too much going on in
our lives. Another one is habits. There's the pool of
habit is very strong. It's much stronger than we think
because we're normally going with it. As soon as we
start to try and go against it, the habits will
(45:46):
basically go to the cupboard and get out the baseball
bat and start beating us over the head with it.
We need to be gentle with ourselves and work on them.
And another one is to a certain extent you are
going against that's the way the world expects you to
go other people's expectations. I don't really talk about this
(46:06):
a lot in my book, but it is true that
if you're going to start being someone other than who
you are, the people around you also have their habits,
and part of those habits are their expectations of you.
And again, you don't want to make another problem out
of this. It's just what it is. You have to
work with it.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
I'm going to ask you to share a little bit
about each of the steps in our remaining time. You
had started with the first step, which you call good impulse.
Just give our listeners a remembrance of that.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, that's the aha moment. Someone says something to you
that makes sense about how your life can be better
and you go, yeah, that sounds good. I might try that,
And that's it. You've done step one.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
That's the good impulse. The second step is true inquiry.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, because now you need to find out what it
is that they are actually saying. And true inquiry means
they've said it, you've understood it with your head. Now
you have to understand it with your part and your being.
So in other words, you have to do it. Someone
says as I was saying in the previous segment, sit
down in a chair and become president and give your
(47:17):
attention to the present moment and allow your mind to
become still. And that sounds good, you know, that sounds
like a practical thing to do it, and takes a
minute or two every morning and maybe in the afternoon.
I could do that. I don't need any special equipment,
doesn't cost me anything, and the payoff, according to this
wise person I've met, is that my mind will be
(47:38):
clearer and my life will be better. So now you
actually go and get a chair and sit in a
room and close the door and make sure you're not disturbed,
and you give it a go. That's step two. You
put it into practice, and.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
The third step is refinement of the mind.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
Please explain, well, this is what we've been talking about.
These habits, these intonations, these self limiting beliefs you have,
they're all held in what in the larger sense of
the mind, the mind heart nexus. There's an emotional kicker
to most of them. And by coming into the present moment,
(48:15):
say and giving your attention, maybe meditating, maybe practicing some
mindfulness and yoga. What if you stick at it and
you do need to stick out. It does take a
little time, but not a lot of time, but some
and to a certain extent, depends on you. It's input
and output. You will find that the mind begins to clear.
(48:36):
You'll just have more space, there will be more awareness,
you will be you'll be effectively more awake. And that
is what the wires call tunnel manas are is the
name for this level, and that is the thinning of
the mind, and it means the mind becomes clear. So
(48:56):
when thinning, it's like the fog begins to clear out.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
And the fourth step is a state of clarity.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, well, this is a big step between three and four.
I explain why in my book most people, certainly I did,
and I'm not sure about you, Victor on your spiritual path,
but you circle through steps one, two and three over
and over and over again because there's a lot to learn.
And you know, sitting down the chair and practicing mindfulness, okay,
(49:26):
that's one thing. And what about a system of mantra meditation,
that's another one. What about charitable giving and looking at
other people as if they were your family rather than
as an enemy. That's a good practice, and there's a
lot to be getting on with and a lot of
it is all of it. It really is lovely and
very nourishing, and you circle through one, two, and three,
(49:50):
and the mind is clearer and clearer, and you're more
and more awake. Things are becoming falling into line with you.
Things don't come quite as surprisingly and negatively as they
did in the past. You can handle them, you're stronger.
And then but you still need help, you still need guidance,
You still fail, you still make mistakes, you still forget,
(50:12):
and you still need to work. You need to put
in some oomph. And then at a certain point you
and you can't really time this, and you're not doing
it yourself. It just happens you sort of. It's almost
like emerging from a jungle, from a forest into a clearing,
and now you're not you don't need the machete to
(50:34):
cut your way through anymore. You're suddenly in this space
where there's a platform below which it's difficult to fall.
That's how I've described and how I experienced myself, where
you just ask someone else you're you're different, your habits
are different. Now some of those negative beliefs have really gone,
and you're no longer worried by them. You in fact,
(50:56):
in a funny way, you almost forget that you ever
had them. It's strange phenomenon about level four is that
you are now. You are obviously who you are, but
in very fundamental ways, you're someone else.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
And the fifth step is insight and detachment.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Yeah, now, when we get to the top levels, these
are these are the ones that people experience when they're
ten years old sitting on a bus stop waiting to
go to school and they look at a tree, and
when their first child's born, when they hear a snatch
of music that inspires them. When I don't know something
in nature or just something who knows it can be anything.
(51:38):
These are the top experiences, and they come and go.
They're sort of like Christmas presents. You know, you don't
know surprise, secret stand to Christmas presents. You know where
they've come from, I don't know who gave them to you,
and when they go, when they're snatched away, so you
don't know how to get back to them. But asang
Sakti is the fifth level, it's detachment. It's you. You
(52:02):
detach in a good way in that things don't affect you,
but there's full of you're full of love for everything.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
And the sixth step is non awareness of separate objects.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Yeah, so this is where you just don't see differences.
Everyone's every person is part of your family. Everywhere you
are is where is your home. Every thought that comes
through your mind, even the negative ones, they're just consciousness.
Everything is in this. You don't see apples and pears.
(52:38):
You see fruit, for example. You don't see different people.
You just see brothers and sisters. It's like it's it's
a wonderful way to live where you know you will
pick up I mean it's I mean see, it's a
very practical thing, like you're in a I was on
a on an aeroplane once and there was a young
(53:00):
with a baby on her lap, flying in those days
when you could do that, and the baby was, you know,
doing what babies do, and she was apologizing to me.
I said, oh god, I said, please don't add me
to your list of problems. He said, add me to
your list of solutions. I'm here for you. You know,
I'm part of team you. You're a young mother. You've
(53:21):
got enough to worry about. You know that you you
don't want you know, we don't know each other. So
I'm not your enemy, and we just had a lovely time.
You know. I picked up this, you know thing, toys
that have fell on the floor and all that sort
of thing. And then and then the thing is, at
the end of the journey, we didn't need to swap
telephone numbers. I don't know, never knew her name, and
(53:43):
I'll probably never meet her again. But it's the natural
human response at level six is to happily join in
with whatever needs to be done, because everyone is part
of your, part of you.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
There are words in part of Africa and the word
is Ubuntu and the translation is I am because we are.
The seventh step is the full realization of unity.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah, this is why when people can get very funny
about this one, because it is obviously the highest plane
of limitless unity. But at the same time, most people
have experiences of this. This is what I say the
if you talk to people, people normally don't talk about
these experiences, but if you open the conversation, most people
I talked to say, oh, yes, when I was six,
(54:33):
I was on a swing and my mother gave me
a push and I suddenly felt limitlessly at one with everything.
And that is to really are. It's not even this
in a way, it's paradoxical. It's not a state, it's
not a step. You're always there. I can't actually remember
the wording of the poem, but it's the one where
(54:54):
ts Eliot says, you take the journey, and when you
get to the end, you realize you've at the beginning
and you've never left. It's that sort of place because
in the end, you just are who you are, and
you've never actually been someone else. He're always you. But
it's that turia. You just simply know that to be
a fact.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
You live it. My guest, Gilbert May and his book
Seven Steps to Freedom, a systematic guide to what everyone wants. Gilbert,
please one more time share with our listeners where they
can get your books and find out more about you.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Sure. My website is Gilbert Main one word Gilbert M
A and e dot com and on it is all
my writings. I have Seven Steps, obviously, my book on
practical wisdom, and three exciting, thrilling novels that will make
your life just a little bit better for reading them
(55:51):
and make my life a lot better for buying them.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Gilbert, thank you so much for joining us and sharing
your wisdom. Thank you, Victim, and thank you for joining
us on Vox Novus. I'm Victor la Voice Furman. Have
a wonderful week.
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