1 00:00:09,134 --> 00:00:11,479 Awakening 2 00:00:11,479 --> 00:00:15,265 is the next natural stage of human development. 3 00:00:15,497 --> 00:00:20,471 So awakening is simply to recognize the nature of our essential being. 4 00:00:20,564 --> 00:00:26,530 Is not some weird, mystical religious experience 5 00:00:26,530 --> 00:00:28,282 that's only available to the few. 6 00:00:28,282 --> 00:00:30,650 It's available to everyone. 7 00:00:30,165 --> 00:00:35,911 What we essentially are is already fully awake, fully aware. 8 00:00:35,911 --> 00:00:38,289 And it's totally unlimited. 9 00:00:38,289 --> 00:00:41,247 Your true nature is closer 10 00:00:41,416 --> 00:00:44,538 than the you that you think you are. 11 00:00:45,214 --> 00:00:48,840 Consciousness is the ultimate reality of the universe. 12 00:00:48,895 --> 00:00:53,544 The next step in science is to say that consciousness is fundamental. 13 00:00:53,792 --> 00:00:56,448 What is awakening anyway? 14 00:00:56,448 --> 00:01:00,954 Somebody explain that to me. 15 00:01:23,742 --> 00:01:26,211 What is awakening? 16 00:01:26,628 --> 00:01:32,196 Whether you call it the true self, the imminent self or "no self", 17 00:01:32,405 --> 00:01:37,225 or Buddha nature, Tao or Christ Consciousness, 18 00:01:37,406 --> 00:01:40,422 it really doesn't matter. 19 00:01:40,422 --> 00:01:45,098 In this film, we're going to refer to it as awareness. 20 00:01:45,230 --> 00:01:46,622 Awareness 21 00:01:46,622 --> 00:01:49,750 is not the property of any religion. 22 00:01:49,750 --> 00:01:53,163 Awakening or realizing awareness 23 00:01:53,175 --> 00:01:55,599 is like waking from a dream. 24 00:01:56,190 --> 00:01:58,440 The dream of your character 25 00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:00,907 in the play of life. 26 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:03,423 Through our characters, 27 00:02:03,423 --> 00:02:05,834 we experience the world 28 00:02:05,834 --> 00:02:10,130 in all of its beauty and its ugliness. 29 00:02:10,444 --> 00:02:14,467 We can call this experience of life and death duality. 30 00:02:15,197 --> 00:02:19,885 Around and around we go, fixated on the characters, 31 00:02:19,885 --> 00:02:22,498 thoughts and sensations. 32 00:02:22,618 --> 00:02:24,123 Good and bad. 33 00:02:24,123 --> 00:02:25,553 War and peace. 34 00:02:25,553 --> 00:02:27,397 Light and darkness. 35 00:02:27,397 --> 00:02:29,546 Birth and death. 36 00:02:30,016 --> 00:02:31,818 Until we wake up and find out 37 00:02:31,818 --> 00:02:34,904 we are not the character. 38 00:03:03,970 --> 00:03:06,458 In this film, we are extending an invitation 39 00:03:06,458 --> 00:03:10,068 for you to directly experience your true nature. 40 00:03:10,568 --> 00:03:14,652 To find out directly, not intellectually... 41 00:03:15,122 --> 00:03:16,791 Who are you? 42 00:03:17,530 --> 00:03:19,373 We will repeat this 43 00:03:19,373 --> 00:03:21,814 invitation in different ways. 44 00:03:22,535 --> 00:03:25,502 When inquiring into who you are, 45 00:03:25,983 --> 00:03:29,632 let everything be exactly as it is. 46 00:03:30,251 --> 00:03:34,319 Don't move the mind to make something happen 47 00:03:34,740 --> 00:03:38,211 or to find some answer on the level of mind. 48 00:03:38,681 --> 00:03:41,939 And yet, don't try to push away the mind. 49 00:03:42,616 --> 00:03:46,315 Simply intend to directly experience who you are. 50 00:03:47,399 --> 00:03:52,785 Letting the mind be a "don't know mind" 51 00:04:02,085 --> 00:04:08,806 Awakening is the answer to all of the world's problems on every level. 52 00:04:08,806 --> 00:04:13,569 All of the world's problems stem from a delusion. 53 00:04:13,696 --> 00:04:17,645 The fundamental delusion of the mind. 54 00:04:18,045 --> 00:04:21,965 And that delusion is that I am this limited character. 55 00:04:22,770 --> 00:04:25,702 When we're living from a small, separate self, 56 00:04:25,841 --> 00:04:29,917 there's always some kind of perpetual dissatisfaction. 57 00:04:30,122 --> 00:04:34,118 So this can be big dissatisfaction like trauma, 58 00:04:34,190 --> 00:04:38,081 or it can be just this background feeling... 59 00:04:38,085 --> 00:04:39,745 "something's not right. 60 00:04:39,745 --> 00:04:42,420 Something's wrong. I'm missing something." 61 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:47,875 Even when I have some pleasure, even when I achieve something in world, 62 00:04:47,875 --> 00:04:51,070 even when I have a good relationship, 63 00:04:51,070 --> 00:04:54,274 if I just have a pause or a moment, 64 00:04:54,929 --> 00:04:58,058 there's this dissatisfied feeling like 65 00:04:58,589 --> 00:05:02,233 I'm isolated or cut off from something. 66 00:05:02,251 --> 00:05:05,680 So this feeling, which it seems like 67 00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:09,434 most people have, can motivate us 68 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:13,479 to awaken from that small, separate self 69 00:05:13,479 --> 00:05:18,521 whose nature is a kind of separation anxiety. 70 00:05:18,681 --> 00:05:24,532 This limited character has a tendency to grasp for what it wants. 71 00:05:24,532 --> 00:05:28,058 It's just a collection of conditioned patterns 72 00:05:28,232 --> 00:05:33,265 of of craving what it wants or trying to push away what it doesn't want. 73 00:05:33,490 --> 00:05:37,628 It's this endless process of you can say a pleasure 74 00:05:37,628 --> 00:05:42,221 principle, you know, going after pleasure, avoiding pain. 75 00:05:42,450 --> 00:05:44,635 And if we believe we are this 76 00:05:44,927 --> 00:05:48,976 character, this conditioned pattern, 77 00:05:49,296 --> 00:05:52,935 then we suffer and we create suffering in the world. 78 00:05:53,275 --> 00:05:59,258 The world becomes a reflection of that egoic consciousness. 79 00:05:59,690 --> 00:06:02,215 The benefit of awakening 80 00:06:02,372 --> 00:06:05,232 is that you suffer less 81 00:06:05,232 --> 00:06:07,978 and the people around you suffer less. 82 00:06:08,076 --> 00:06:13,067 There's no doubt in my mind that my initial connection with 83 00:06:13,129 --> 00:06:18,527 my understanding of God was an awakening 84 00:06:18,527 --> 00:06:22,625 for me in my life, the biggest awakening that I've ever experienced. 85 00:06:22,735 --> 00:06:27,599 It was very much as if I had been asleep really for 50 years. 86 00:06:27,988 --> 00:06:32,690 Walking around like a robot, just doing the things that I was taught to do 87 00:06:32,980 --> 00:06:36,396 from the time I was a young man, you know, I had a formula down, 88 00:06:36,396 --> 00:06:42,157 get the girl, get the car, get a job, get the house, get a spouse. 89 00:06:42,157 --> 00:06:46,624 A formula that I thought was how I was supposed to work 90 00:06:46,685 --> 00:06:48,582 until I got to be around 53 years old. 91 00:06:48,582 --> 00:06:53,166 And I realized that while I had done most of those things and had become 92 00:06:53,496 --> 00:06:59,200 professionally successful to a degree, then I realized that 93 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:03,543 no matter who woke up somewhere around the age of 53, realizing 94 00:07:03,956 --> 00:07:06,620 none of this matters, 95 00:07:06,620 --> 00:07:08,668 none of this means anything. 96 00:07:08,668 --> 00:07:12,144 I was shocked to find how this literally meant, 97 00:07:12,306 --> 00:07:16,246 how pointless it all was. 98 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:32,279 When you stop following the script 99 00:07:32,279 --> 00:07:34,493 that has been laid out for your character. 100 00:07:35,225 --> 00:07:37,860 The one inherited from parents, society 101 00:07:37,917 --> 00:07:40,543 and biological conditioning, 102 00:07:40,903 --> 00:07:44,560 then new dimensions open up within the game. 103 00:07:45,377 --> 00:07:47,467 The path opens up, 104 00:07:47,957 --> 00:07:51,499 but it is not a path to reach some destination. 105 00:07:52,185 --> 00:07:54,917 It is a pathless path, 106 00:07:54,917 --> 00:07:57,727 a stripping away of illusion to arrive 107 00:07:57,727 --> 00:08:02,851 exactly where you are in the now. 108 00:08:10,198 --> 00:08:12,658 My name is Rupert Spira. 109 00:08:12,658 --> 00:08:15,161 I speak about the essential 110 00:08:15,620 --> 00:08:18,664 non-dual understanding that underlies 111 00:08:18,706 --> 00:08:22,835 all the great religious and spiritual traditions. 112 00:08:23,365 --> 00:08:28,277 And I write and lead guided meditations 113 00:08:28,277 --> 00:08:33,179 and have conversations whose purpose is to lead 114 00:08:33,513 --> 00:08:38,151 to an experiential recognition 115 00:08:38,267 --> 00:08:41,605 of this understanding. 116 00:08:42,396 --> 00:08:44,306 Understand that 117 00:08:44,306 --> 00:08:46,984 the peace and the happiness 118 00:08:46,984 --> 00:08:49,471 for which we all long 119 00:08:49,471 --> 00:08:52,856 above all else, can never, 120 00:08:52,856 --> 00:08:57,286 by definition be found in objective experience. 121 00:08:57,854 --> 00:09:00,718 It can never be provided by objects, substances, 122 00:09:00,718 --> 00:09:04,161 activities and relationships. 123 00:09:04,377 --> 00:09:06,235 I would suggest 124 00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:09,234 understanding that 125 00:09:09,234 --> 00:09:12,116 clearly and not spending the rest of one's life 126 00:09:12,116 --> 00:09:16,660 seeking fulfillment where it cannot be found. 127 00:09:16,810 --> 00:09:22,478 Anyone who is watching this movie is doing so precisely because they have 128 00:09:22,478 --> 00:09:27,049 either understood or at least intuited 129 00:09:27,049 --> 00:09:31,375 that the peace and happiness for which they long cannot be found 130 00:09:31,515 --> 00:09:35,116 in objective experience and have begun 131 00:09:35,226 --> 00:09:38,588 this investigation into their true nature. 132 00:09:38,977 --> 00:09:42,312 That is the most important investigation 133 00:09:42,749 --> 00:09:46,708 one can make, and it is the investigation upon 134 00:09:46,708 --> 00:09:51,733 which the depends our happiness. 135 00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:54,883 The biggest question of my life, of course, 136 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:59,882 which I believe is the question most people look at sooner or later, is 137 00:10:00,382 --> 00:10:02,995 "What is the point, actually?" 138 00:10:02,995 --> 00:10:05,579 "What is the point of life?" 139 00:10:05,731 --> 00:10:09,984 That, much to my surprise, I was told that the point of life 140 00:10:09,984 --> 00:10:14,907 had nothing to do with anything that I was doing. 141 00:10:15,448 --> 00:10:17,914 It wasn't about my job. 142 00:10:17,914 --> 00:10:20,439 It wasn't about my career. 143 00:10:20,439 --> 00:10:24,558 It wasn't about hardly anything in my physical life. 144 00:10:25,119 --> 00:10:28,419 Those were aspects of my life were not the point of life. 145 00:10:29,378 --> 00:10:32,640 The point of my life, as I have come to understand 146 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:35,717 it was for me to experience, 147 00:10:35,717 --> 00:10:39,023 express, demonstrate and fulfill 148 00:10:39,525 --> 00:10:42,836 my true identity, who I really am. 149 00:10:43,689 --> 00:10:45,811 I think that the biggest question 150 00:10:45,811 --> 00:10:49,353 that most people face is a question that hardly 151 00:10:49,353 --> 00:10:53,037 anyone ever asks themselves or ever answers. 152 00:10:53,810 --> 00:10:56,543 The biggest question of life, 153 00:10:56,543 --> 00:10:59,616 in my understanding, is "who am I?" 154 00:11:00,159 --> 00:11:03,120 Who am I? 155 00:11:04,997 --> 00:11:08,165 Am I simply a physical entity 156 00:11:08,265 --> 00:11:11,222 like a bird in the sky or fish in the sea? 157 00:11:11,313 --> 00:11:15,936 You know, perhaps more sophisticated, but just a physical entity. 158 00:11:16,276 --> 00:11:18,855 I'm born, I live, I die. 159 00:11:18,862 --> 00:11:21,715 That's the beginning and the end of it. 160 00:11:21,715 --> 00:11:24,821 Or is it possible, just possible 161 00:11:25,059 --> 00:11:27,228 that I'm more than that? 162 00:11:27,269 --> 00:11:30,388 Is it possible that I'm a spiritual entity 163 00:11:30,978 --> 00:11:33,780 simply having a physical experience? 164 00:11:39,209 --> 00:11:41,975 Every experience in your life 165 00:11:41,975 --> 00:11:45,650 has brought you to this one universal question. 166 00:11:46,249 --> 00:11:48,416 Who are you? 167 00:11:50,418 --> 00:11:55,614 Don't look for an answer with the mind. 168 00:11:56,930 --> 00:12:01,845 Let everything be exactly as it is. 169 00:12:04,793 --> 00:12:08,655 Who is aware of the mind? 170 00:12:11,496 --> 00:12:15,725 Feel everything that comes up. 171 00:12:17,317 --> 00:12:21,431 Who is aware of those feelings? 172 00:12:23,036 --> 00:12:26,900 Have a complete experience of everything that comes up 173 00:12:26,900 --> 00:12:31,146 as a result of your inquiry. 174 00:12:42,450 --> 00:12:44,699 I'm Donald Hoffman and I'm a professor 175 00:12:44,701 --> 00:12:48,418 emeritus of cognitive sciences at the University of California at Irvine. 176 00:12:48,618 --> 00:12:51,642 My work has been teaching students, although now I'm emeritus for 177 00:12:51,648 --> 00:12:54,199 I don't teach. And now I do research. 178 00:12:54,199 --> 00:12:58,613 I do research right now on consciousness, mathematical models 179 00:12:58,613 --> 00:13:02,655 of consciousness, and how physics and spacetime might arise 180 00:13:02,655 --> 00:13:07,978 from a theory of consciousness that's completely mathematically precise. 181 00:13:08,570 --> 00:13:11,094 My own journey has been 182 00:13:11,129 --> 00:13:14,469 both from the spiritual side and from the science side. 183 00:13:14,469 --> 00:13:19,792 So my my father was a minister, fundamentalist Christian minister. 184 00:13:19,921 --> 00:13:22,727 So I got that on Sundays 185 00:13:22,812 --> 00:13:26,436 and I got science at school and they conflicted, right? 186 00:13:26,486 --> 00:13:30,260 The stories I was getting were, contradictory. 187 00:13:30,260 --> 00:13:35,112 And so as a teenager, I realized I needed to figure things out for myself. 188 00:13:35,112 --> 00:13:37,843 And I decided the question I 189 00:13:37,843 --> 00:13:41,445 wanted to answer was, are we machines? 190 00:13:41,445 --> 00:13:43,624 Are people just machines or not? 191 00:13:43,624 --> 00:13:48,473 I mean, from the physical point of view, are we just be machines 192 00:13:48,494 --> 00:13:52,610 From a spiritual point of view, we wouldn't be machines. 193 00:13:52,155 --> 00:13:54,773 It wasn't precise enough to say what we would be. 194 00:13:54,773 --> 00:13:58,357 And so so I decided to ask the question 195 00:13:58,420 --> 00:14:00,929 scientifically, are we just machines? 196 00:14:00,929 --> 00:14:04,743 And the best way I thought to do that would be to study artificial intelligence. 197 00:14:04,743 --> 00:14:07,542 And so so I went to MIT 198 00:14:07,542 --> 00:14:12,041 and was in the artificial intelligence lab studying artificial intelligence 199 00:14:12,139 --> 00:14:15,605 and also in what's now the brain and cognitive science department, studying 200 00:14:15,605 --> 00:14:17,814 the human side of things. Because I wanted to do both. 201 00:14:17,814 --> 00:14:20,929 I wanted to see what can machines do and what is special, if anything, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 202 00:14:20,929 --> 00:14:24,280 about humans and human neuroscience. To answer that, 203 00:14:24,405 --> 00:14:28,367 that very question ar the spiritual traditions right? 204 00:14:28,367 --> 00:14:30,536 Or are we more than just machines 205 00:14:30,536 --> 00:14:33,914 or is the physical, scientific point of view right? 206 00:14:33,914 --> 00:14:35,291 And we are just machines. 207 00:14:35,291 --> 00:14:38,335 And consciousness is just an artifact 208 00:14:38,335 --> 00:14:42,756 of brain activity. 209 00:14:42,756 --> 00:14:48,095 The scientific materialist paradigm that has been predominant in the last century 210 00:14:48,679 --> 00:14:52,141 denies the existence of anything beyond the physical, 211 00:14:53,225 --> 00:14:54,476 anything that cannot be 212 00:14:54,476 --> 00:14:56,729 verified by the scientific method. 213 00:14:58,397 --> 00:15:00,774 Science is an impasse. 214 00:15:00,774 --> 00:15:05,195 It cannot move beyond the paradox that is fundamental to quantum physics, 215 00:15:05,529 --> 00:15:08,282 which brought it face to face with the observer, 216 00:15:09,074 --> 00:15:12,119 with consciousness itself. 217 00:15:12,119 --> 00:15:15,581 Likewise, religions are, for the most part, functioning 218 00:15:15,581 --> 00:15:18,792 only on the level of belief. 219 00:15:18,792 --> 00:15:23,714 They've lost their original purpose, which was to lead to direct experience, 220 00:15:23,923 --> 00:15:26,467 to the truth of who and what we are. 221 00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:30,638 The split between science and spirituality 222 00:15:30,930 --> 00:15:33,098 has rendered both impoverished. 223 00:15:34,141 --> 00:15:38,604 Religions and spiritual systems desperately need rigorous methods, 224 00:15:38,896 --> 00:15:42,608 which can be shown to create conditions for awakening to happen. 225 00:15:43,359 --> 00:15:46,028 And science desperately needs an openness 226 00:15:46,028 --> 00:15:49,156 to the possibility of something beyond the physical. 227 00:15:49,782 --> 00:15:52,993 It is not about giving up religion or science, 228 00:15:53,410 --> 00:15:57,831 but about going deeper, being willing to change ourselves 229 00:15:58,165 --> 00:16:01,585 so that we become a better tool for investigation. 230 00:16:02,378 --> 00:16:05,047 We are the ones doing the experiment, 231 00:16:05,506 --> 00:16:10,052 and the experiment itself. 232 00:16:10,052 --> 00:16:14,556 Religion has been the language and the container 233 00:16:14,765 --> 00:16:19,895 of these traditions of meditation, spirituality 234 00:16:20,437 --> 00:16:24,108 that have been written down and passed 235 00:16:24,108 --> 00:16:26,860 on through the generations. 236 00:16:27,236 --> 00:16:32,241 Certainly there is some language that is very literal, 237 00:16:32,241 --> 00:16:35,077 which divides religions and divides 238 00:16:35,494 --> 00:16:37,871 cultures when things are taken literally. 239 00:16:38,414 --> 00:16:42,793 But if you feel the spirit of religion, 240 00:16:44,044 --> 00:16:45,170 you can follow the 241 00:16:45,170 --> 00:16:49,425 thread back to authentic awakening. 242 00:16:49,425 --> 00:16:54,430 Anyone has the potential, whether they have belief or no belief, 243 00:16:54,847 --> 00:16:57,975 because awakening is inherent 244 00:16:57,975 --> 00:17:01,812 within our human consciousness, just by our human birth. 245 00:17:02,354 --> 00:17:05,607 So whatever you call it, and whenever language is used, 246 00:17:06,150 --> 00:17:09,611 there's certain principles that seem to be the same 247 00:17:09,945 --> 00:17:13,365 throughout these different religions 248 00:17:13,365 --> 00:17:16,035 and spiritualities and meditation traditions. 249 00:17:17,036 --> 00:17:19,872 When I was younger, this understanding 250 00:17:19,872 --> 00:17:24,543 was mainly available in the Eastern spiritual traditions. 251 00:17:24,543 --> 00:17:27,046 It was available in the Western 252 00:17:27,046 --> 00:17:31,300 traditions, but it was so disguised and codified 253 00:17:31,508 --> 00:17:34,845 in those traditions as to be almost inaccessible. 254 00:17:35,179 --> 00:17:38,974 So many people of my generation went physically 255 00:17:39,892 --> 00:17:44,563 or at least intellectually, to the East to find this understanding 256 00:17:44,897 --> 00:17:48,817 and Eastern culture by comparison with 257 00:17:49,318 --> 00:17:52,321 Western culture is exotic. 258 00:17:53,322 --> 00:17:58,452 And so this understanding acquired a flavor of the exotic 259 00:17:58,619 --> 00:18:02,331 from the cultures in which it was expressed. 260 00:18:02,831 --> 00:18:05,667 And many people, myself included 261 00:18:07,002 --> 00:18:08,921 thought as a result of this 262 00:18:08,921 --> 00:18:12,758 that there was something exotic about the non dual 263 00:18:12,758 --> 00:18:17,846 understanding; that it required some extra ordinary way of life, 264 00:18:17,846 --> 00:18:20,641 that you had to give up family life 265 00:18:20,849 --> 00:18:24,895 or grow your hair or get a special name or subscribe 266 00:18:24,895 --> 00:18:31,068 to some kind of teacher or or tradition or engage in strange practices. 267 00:18:31,068 --> 00:18:34,696 All these kind of things which had nothing to do 268 00:18:34,696 --> 00:18:38,158 with the core understanding. They were to do with the culture 269 00:18:38,158 --> 00:18:42,496 in which the understanding was expressed at a particular time. 270 00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:47,126 So now the understanding has been completely divested 271 00:18:47,334 --> 00:18:53,715 of the traditional cultural packaging in which many of us first heard about it. 272 00:18:53,882 --> 00:18:59,138 And now just the essential understanding is available 273 00:18:59,138 --> 00:19:02,808 in a way that enables us to carry on leading our lives 274 00:19:03,016 --> 00:19:07,062 exactly as they are. Family life, work life... 275 00:19:07,563 --> 00:19:12,734 it's not necessary to make any external changes in one's life. 276 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:16,155 The challenge we have on this planet 277 00:19:16,155 --> 00:19:18,407 is that we think there's more than one 278 00:19:19,366 --> 00:19:20,701 essence. 279 00:19:20,951 --> 00:19:22,536 So we live in a 280 00:19:22,995 --> 00:19:26,123 world of what I would call duality. 281 00:19:26,123 --> 00:19:28,333 There's male and female, black and white, 282 00:19:29,084 --> 00:19:34,006 big and small, fast and slow, up and down, here and there, before 283 00:19:34,006 --> 00:19:36,717 and after, but in fact, there's only one thing. 284 00:19:38,177 --> 00:19:42,389 All things are one thing. 285 00:19:42,389 --> 00:19:44,433 There is only one thing. 286 00:19:44,766 --> 00:19:47,686 So it turns out that when we look deeply at everything 287 00:19:47,686 --> 00:19:51,857 we see that here and there, big and small, fast and slow, up and down, left and right, 288 00:19:52,566 --> 00:19:57,696 male and female, are all the same thing, simply expressing 289 00:19:57,946 --> 00:20:01,992 different characteristics but in no way separate from each other. 290 00:20:02,701 --> 00:20:05,120 I believe that all of us 291 00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:07,915 are individuations 292 00:20:07,915 --> 00:20:09,374 of God. 293 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,461 I believe that God exists in, as, and 294 00:20:12,461 --> 00:20:18,050 through every human being and for that matter, every sentient 295 00:20:18,050 --> 00:20:21,094 being in the cosmos. 296 00:20:21,094 --> 00:20:24,473 So I see then that I am in relationship to God 297 00:20:25,515 --> 00:20:28,393 as a wave is to the ocean. 298 00:20:28,393 --> 00:20:31,063 A wave is no different from the ocean; it's 299 00:20:31,063 --> 00:20:35,317 simply an arising of the ocean in individual form. 300 00:20:36,151 --> 00:20:38,570 And when that individuation is complete, 301 00:20:39,279 --> 00:20:41,865 the wave recedes back into the ocean whence it came. 302 00:20:41,865 --> 00:20:45,160 To arise again on another day. 303 00:20:46,662 --> 00:20:51,375 So I believe that we are all individuations of divinity, 304 00:20:51,375 --> 00:20:53,669 and when we see everything as divine, 305 00:20:54,419 --> 00:20:57,047 we change our relationship with everything. 306 00:20:58,215 --> 00:21:00,425 And everything becomes 307 00:21:00,509 --> 00:21:02,594 different in our experience. 308 00:21:03,595 --> 00:21:16,525 That's how the world changes. 309 00:21:16,525 --> 00:21:20,404 Consciousness is the ultimate reality of the universe, 310 00:21:21,238 --> 00:21:26,368 so we might well ask if consciousness is the ultimate reality of the universe 311 00:21:26,368 --> 00:21:30,455 and everything, and everyone is obviously that, then how come 312 00:21:33,583 --> 00:21:37,629 the world appears to us as a multiplicity and diversity 313 00:21:38,213 --> 00:21:42,968 of discrete and independently existing people 314 00:21:42,968 --> 00:21:46,972 and animals and things all made out of stuff called matter. 315 00:21:46,972 --> 00:21:51,268 How can we reconcile this statement that consciousness 316 00:21:51,268 --> 00:21:54,187 is the ultimate reality of the universe when it appears 317 00:21:54,438 --> 00:21:57,941 as a multiplicity and diversity of objects made out of matter? 318 00:21:58,066 --> 00:22:02,362 So the the evidence that I'm using to suggest that consciousness 319 00:22:02,362 --> 00:22:03,196 is fundamental 320 00:22:04,656 --> 00:22:06,908 has many aspects to it. 321 00:22:06,908 --> 00:22:09,411 One is that physics itself 322 00:22:09,411 --> 00:22:12,581 says that space time isn't fundamental 323 00:22:12,581 --> 00:22:15,375 and evolutionary theory also agrees that spacetime 324 00:22:15,375 --> 00:22:17,878 and physical objects are not fundamental reality. 325 00:22:18,462 --> 00:22:23,800 Now, both of those theories tell us only that that spacetime is not fundamental. 326 00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:25,927 They don't tell us what is beyond spacetime. 327 00:22:26,595 --> 00:22:31,183 And so my argument is that what the physicists are finding 328 00:22:31,183 --> 00:22:34,019 beyond spacetime, they're finding mathematical structures, 329 00:22:34,644 --> 00:22:37,022 but what those are about 330 00:22:37,230 --> 00:22:40,901 is not really clear. What is this realm beyond space time about? 331 00:22:41,151 --> 00:22:45,238 And so I'm proposing that the realm beyond space time is about consciousness. 332 00:22:45,781 --> 00:22:48,742 And I would suggest that infinite consciousness has the ability 333 00:22:48,742 --> 00:22:53,955 to localize itself as numerous separate subjects of experience, 334 00:22:54,289 --> 00:22:58,627 that is, all sentient beings, all people or animals. 335 00:22:58,919 --> 00:23:03,423 Each of us are localizations of infinite consciousness, 336 00:23:03,423 --> 00:23:07,094 in infinite consciousness made only of infinite consciousness 337 00:23:07,719 --> 00:23:10,305 from whose perspective it views 338 00:23:10,305 --> 00:23:13,850 its own activity as the outside world. 339 00:23:14,851 --> 00:23:15,185 So what 340 00:23:15,185 --> 00:23:18,021 appears to us as a world made out of matter 341 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:23,360 from our localized perspectives, is from the point of view of reality, 342 00:23:23,568 --> 00:23:27,823 simply the activity of the one infinite consciousness. 343 00:23:28,031 --> 00:23:33,161 In other words, in the ultimate analysis, there are no discrete 344 00:23:33,161 --> 00:23:36,998 or independently existing things or people. 345 00:23:37,457 --> 00:23:40,419 There is one infinite, indivisible, whole. 346 00:23:41,211 --> 00:23:44,714 The unity of being that is only refracted 347 00:23:45,715 --> 00:23:49,094 into an apparent multiplicity and diversity of objects and things. 348 00:23:49,553 --> 00:23:53,306 When the one looks at its own activity 349 00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:55,934 through the perceiving faculties 350 00:23:56,351 --> 00:23:58,728 of the finite mind. 351 00:23:59,271 --> 00:24:00,856 If we are awake, 352 00:24:00,856 --> 00:24:04,693 we realize that there's one awareness 353 00:24:05,235 --> 00:24:09,072 that is disguised as all of these different beings on the planet, 354 00:24:09,698 --> 00:24:13,410 one awareness shining through everyone's eyes. 355 00:24:13,452 --> 00:24:17,747 Then we literally see ourselves in others. 356 00:24:18,081 --> 00:24:22,169 And that tendency to operate as an ego, 357 00:24:22,169 --> 00:24:26,006 the tendency to take for oneself 358 00:24:26,381 --> 00:24:30,677 falls away because we directly realize the truth. 359 00:24:31,261 --> 00:24:34,431 The truth is that we're all one consciousness. 360 00:24:35,765 --> 00:24:38,268 The experience of my spiritual self 361 00:24:39,519 --> 00:24:41,646 was only possible in the realm 362 00:24:41,646 --> 00:24:43,899 of the physical for a very good reason, 363 00:24:44,649 --> 00:24:48,820 because only in the realm of the physical was the opposite available. 364 00:24:49,738 --> 00:24:52,115 In other words, just use a simple example, 365 00:24:52,866 --> 00:24:55,619 if I wanted to experience myself, if I could speak 366 00:24:55,619 --> 00:24:57,829 metaphorically, as the light, 367 00:24:58,872 --> 00:25:02,375 I couldn't experience being the light if I was amidst the light, 368 00:25:02,918 --> 00:25:04,961 nothing else around me but the light, 369 00:25:05,420 --> 00:25:09,466 which is a perfect definition of the realm of the spiritual. 370 00:25:09,966 --> 00:25:13,762 So I would come to a realm which I call the realm of the physical, 371 00:25:13,929 --> 00:25:16,348 where there is something other than the light. 372 00:25:16,973 --> 00:25:19,601 Because if I want to experience myself as the light, 373 00:25:19,601 --> 00:25:22,979 not just know myself as that, but experience it, 374 00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:24,731 I could only do that 375 00:25:24,731 --> 00:25:28,401 where there was the opposite of the light, in this case, the darkness. 376 00:25:29,528 --> 00:25:30,904 So I brought 377 00:25:30,904 --> 00:25:36,201 this opportunity to the physical realm where the light and the dark exist 378 00:25:36,201 --> 00:25:40,288 simultaneously, and then in that outward 379 00:25:40,288 --> 00:25:44,543 expression of myself as the light, I could be who I really am. 380 00:25:45,335 --> 00:25:47,671 And this understanding suggests 381 00:25:47,671 --> 00:25:53,426 that behind our differences we are all the same, 382 00:25:53,593 --> 00:25:59,724 being not a similar being, but we are all literally one... the same being. 383 00:25:59,724 --> 00:26:04,646 And love is the felt experience 384 00:26:05,313 --> 00:26:08,316 of this oneness or shared being. 385 00:26:08,733 --> 00:26:14,281 It's a theorem of our theory that there is ultimately one consciousness. 386 00:26:15,699 --> 00:26:18,910 So we have this dynamics of many, many conscious agents. 387 00:26:18,910 --> 00:26:22,163 But the theory tells us that ultimately all those conscious agents 388 00:26:22,163 --> 00:26:26,084 are really just projections of a single one consciousness. 389 00:26:26,084 --> 00:26:27,711 The current 390 00:26:28,169 --> 00:26:29,963 paradigm in science 391 00:26:29,963 --> 00:26:32,549 has, and it has been for for centuries, 392 00:26:32,799 --> 00:26:36,386 is that space and time are the fundamental nature of reality. 393 00:26:36,428 --> 00:26:39,931 They're irreducible and they are the foundation of everything. 394 00:26:40,515 --> 00:26:43,643 And prior to Einstein, space and time were viewed as separate. 395 00:26:43,935 --> 00:26:47,647 Now, space and time together, a unified into spacetime are viewed 396 00:26:47,647 --> 00:26:49,524 as the fundamental nature of reality. 397 00:26:49,524 --> 00:26:51,818 And science has then assumed that 398 00:26:53,153 --> 00:26:53,862 spacetime 399 00:26:53,862 --> 00:26:56,990 and objects in spacetime are the foundational reality. 400 00:26:57,616 --> 00:27:00,243 And so, for example, when we talk about consciousness, 401 00:27:00,910 --> 00:27:06,082 consciousness itself then must be somehow a product of objects in space and time. 402 00:27:06,374 --> 00:27:10,837 In that physicalist framework space and time and physical objects 403 00:27:11,713 --> 00:27:15,008 without any consciousness are the fundamental reality. 404 00:27:15,008 --> 00:27:19,804 And consciousness comes later on in the evolution of the universe, right? 405 00:27:19,846 --> 00:27:21,514 So that the big bang, 406 00:27:21,514 --> 00:27:24,559 there was no consciousness, there was just spacetime and energy. 407 00:27:24,768 --> 00:27:26,978 The energy coalesced into massive particles 408 00:27:27,187 --> 00:27:30,982 and eventually life emerged after who knows how many millions or hundreds 409 00:27:30,982 --> 00:27:32,525 of millions or billions of years. 410 00:27:32,525 --> 00:27:35,987 Then after that consciousness came, even later. 411 00:27:37,197 --> 00:27:40,867 From that point of view, when you die, the physical complexity 412 00:27:40,867 --> 00:27:44,329 that gave rise to consciousness dissolves and so your consciousness dissolves. 413 00:27:44,329 --> 00:27:48,708 And so the physicalist framework really does eliminate consciousness 414 00:27:49,042 --> 00:27:51,127 as a fundamental thing, altogether 415 00:27:51,127 --> 00:27:54,381 and says that when your body dies, your consciousness goes with it. 416 00:27:56,216 --> 00:27:58,134 From this other point of view... 417 00:27:58,134 --> 00:28:01,638 what I've done with my colleagues, we have we used evolutionary theory 418 00:28:01,638 --> 00:28:03,139 to point out 419 00:28:03,139 --> 00:28:04,015 that it's 420 00:28:04,015 --> 00:28:07,811 an implication of evolutionary theory, that space and time is not fundamental, 421 00:28:07,811 --> 00:28:10,980 so the physicalist interpretation of evolution is wrong. 422 00:28:11,690 --> 00:28:14,734 The idea that that space and time and particles 423 00:28:14,734 --> 00:28:20,657 somehow have evolved due to human organisms 424 00:28:21,074 --> 00:28:24,369 is is the wrong framework or because space time itself is not fundamental. 425 00:28:24,577 --> 00:28:27,747 We're positing a dynamics beyond spacetime that's much richer. 426 00:28:27,747 --> 00:28:29,833 The dynamics of consciousness. 427 00:28:29,833 --> 00:28:32,168 What we do not do is throw away our old theories. 428 00:28:32,293 --> 00:28:34,337 When physicists say spacetime is doomed, 429 00:28:34,337 --> 00:28:38,133 that doesn't mean we no longer pay attention to Einstein. 430 00:28:38,133 --> 00:28:40,593 Absolutely not. We pay attention to Einstein. 431 00:28:40,802 --> 00:28:45,098 Any new theory beyond spacetime that the physicists come up with better project 432 00:28:45,098 --> 00:28:48,810 into space time and give us back Einstein and it better give us back quantum theory 433 00:28:48,852 --> 00:28:50,353 or you're wrong. 434 00:28:50,353 --> 00:28:52,313 All of our old theories 435 00:28:52,313 --> 00:28:56,109 are wonderful, wonderful friends and we're going to keep them 436 00:28:57,068 --> 00:28:59,320 as special cases of a deeper theory. 437 00:28:59,863 --> 00:29:02,323 So in our theory of consciousness, we have to do the same thing. 438 00:29:02,949 --> 00:29:05,076 We can't just propose anything we want. 439 00:29:05,076 --> 00:29:07,954 We have to have a theory of consciousness that projects and gives us back 440 00:29:07,954 --> 00:29:08,830 space time, 441 00:29:08,830 --> 00:29:12,417 and gives us back quantum theory, and gives us back special and general 442 00:29:12,417 --> 00:29:15,545 relativity, and gives us back evolution by natural selection. 443 00:29:15,837 --> 00:29:19,632 If we cannot do that in precise mathematical detail, 444 00:29:19,924 --> 00:29:21,593 then there's no reason for scientists 445 00:29:21,593 --> 00:29:24,137 to take our theory of consciousness seriously. 446 00:29:24,137 --> 00:29:28,600 It's as if infinite consciousness puts on a virtual reality headset. Infinite 447 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,312 consciousness puts on a a VR headset made of thinking and perceiving. 448 00:29:32,645 --> 00:29:36,983 And in doing so, the moment it puts on the VR headset, 449 00:29:37,233 --> 00:29:41,112 it localizes itself within its own activity. 450 00:29:41,529 --> 00:29:46,743 And through that headset it looks out through the perceiving 451 00:29:46,743 --> 00:29:50,789 faculties of a finite mind; seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. 452 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,418 And it fragments the unity of its own being 453 00:29:56,503 --> 00:29:59,339 and makes it appear as 10,000 things. 454 00:30:00,423 --> 00:30:02,467 What I'm suggesting is that 455 00:30:03,009 --> 00:30:07,806 there is very much more to to the universe than the finite mind. 456 00:30:07,806 --> 00:30:13,520 I'm not suggesting that the universe only appears in each of our finite minds. 457 00:30:14,020 --> 00:30:18,733 The universe exists outside of our finite mind, but inside consciousness. 458 00:30:19,067 --> 00:30:22,570 But it is the limitations of our finite mind 459 00:30:22,987 --> 00:30:26,199 that give the universe its appearance. 460 00:30:27,617 --> 00:30:31,955 So when we look out at the universe, we're seeing the reality 461 00:30:31,955 --> 00:30:35,667 that exists prior to its being perceived. 462 00:30:36,376 --> 00:30:40,421 But we are seeing it through the lens of our perceiving faculties, 463 00:30:41,881 --> 00:30:45,593 which gives it its appearance. 464 00:30:45,593 --> 00:30:50,640 So the idea of awakening in many spiritual traditions has been the idea 465 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,685 that what we have taken is reality 466 00:30:54,644 --> 00:30:57,605 objects in space and time, our physical bodies and so forth 467 00:30:58,898 --> 00:30:59,649 is not the 468 00:30:59,649 --> 00:31:02,527 final reality, that there is a much deeper reality, 469 00:31:02,819 --> 00:31:06,865 a reality of consciousness that transcends space and time and physical objects, 470 00:31:07,365 --> 00:31:10,034 and that we're not divorced from that reality. 471 00:31:10,034 --> 00:31:13,705 That reality is, in some sense, the essence of what we are. 472 00:31:14,038 --> 00:31:17,083 And so awakening is awakening from the illusion 473 00:31:17,083 --> 00:31:21,671 that I'm just a little body in space and time to the fact that I am 474 00:31:21,671 --> 00:31:24,966 in fact the author of everything I see inside of space and time. 475 00:31:24,966 --> 00:31:36,728 I create it on the fly as I look and perceive. 476 00:31:36,728 --> 00:31:41,441 One becomes awakened by recognizing that 477 00:31:42,483 --> 00:31:45,486 what we essentially are is already 478 00:31:45,945 --> 00:31:49,032 fully awake, fully aware, 479 00:31:49,032 --> 00:31:52,368 complete, whole, fulfilled at peace. 480 00:31:53,328 --> 00:31:55,330 It's like asking how does the 481 00:31:55,663 --> 00:31:59,000 sun become illuminated? 482 00:31:59,626 --> 00:32:01,377 Its nature is light. 483 00:32:01,377 --> 00:32:03,129 It is already fully illuminated. 484 00:32:03,129 --> 00:32:07,967 The nature of our essential being is already peace and happiness. 485 00:32:08,384 --> 00:32:11,846 It's not clear to us all, because our essential being is so 486 00:32:11,846 --> 00:32:15,975 thoroughly mixed with the content of experience that its innate 487 00:32:16,601 --> 00:32:19,938 Peace and happiness is dimmed by experience. 488 00:32:20,563 --> 00:32:25,193 And for that reason we think that our essential being needs to be enlightened. 489 00:32:25,193 --> 00:32:27,487 No essential being doesn't need to be enlightened 490 00:32:27,487 --> 00:32:31,366 any more than the sun needs to be lit up in the early morning. 491 00:32:32,533 --> 00:32:35,203 The sun's always shining with the same brightness. 492 00:32:35,203 --> 00:32:39,415 Our essential being is always shining with the same peace and joy. 493 00:32:39,749 --> 00:32:43,086 But that peace and joy are dimmed by the agitation 494 00:32:43,086 --> 00:32:45,797 and lack that characterizes our thoughts and feelings. 495 00:32:47,548 --> 00:32:50,551 There's no person that awakens. 496 00:32:51,177 --> 00:32:54,597 So the I that awakened 497 00:32:55,598 --> 00:32:57,642 I awakened from this Dan 498 00:32:57,642 --> 00:33:00,812 structure at a meditation center. 499 00:33:01,229 --> 00:33:03,314 It was a Zen center. 500 00:33:03,314 --> 00:33:05,984 We were doing a Zen sesshin 501 00:33:05,984 --> 00:33:09,529 which is a long period of intensive practice. 502 00:33:10,238 --> 00:33:15,118 So Zen is amazing for creating this container 503 00:33:15,493 --> 00:33:18,246 where there are these conditions of no escape. 504 00:33:18,663 --> 00:33:24,252 So the Dan character that had learned meditation, 505 00:33:24,252 --> 00:33:27,338 the Dan character had been doing all this meditation, 506 00:33:27,547 --> 00:33:29,841 this doer of meditation, 507 00:33:30,675 --> 00:33:33,094 realized that it couldn't awaken. 508 00:33:33,469 --> 00:33:36,597 It's like all the meditation tricks, 509 00:33:36,597 --> 00:33:41,894 all the practices that had been learned were of no use. 510 00:33:42,186 --> 00:33:45,565 It got to the point where that character 511 00:33:45,773 --> 00:33:48,359 who was trying to awaken, failed 512 00:33:49,027 --> 00:33:51,154 to awaken and had to fail. 513 00:33:51,487 --> 00:33:56,367 That the character that I had been living, the character that I've been playing 514 00:33:56,534 --> 00:34:01,330 all my life, had to let go or die and 515 00:34:02,457 --> 00:34:03,791 what was left? 516 00:34:03,791 --> 00:34:06,961 What was left when there was no doer 517 00:34:06,961 --> 00:34:10,214 when there was no meditator 518 00:34:10,214 --> 00:34:14,510 meditating or doing something called, meditation, 519 00:34:15,261 --> 00:34:18,723 what was left was my true nature 520 00:34:18,723 --> 00:34:21,059 or me... just me. 521 00:34:21,059 --> 00:34:25,480 When we awaken from this small, separate sense of self, it's 522 00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,775 not that we're killing the ego 523 00:34:28,816 --> 00:34:31,694 or we're fighting it. 524 00:34:32,153 --> 00:34:35,990 It's actually we're allowing it to semi retire 525 00:34:36,365 --> 00:34:39,035 from its job of ego identity 526 00:34:39,702 --> 00:34:42,455 and then relax to be part 527 00:34:42,455 --> 00:34:45,541 of our team, part of our consciousness. 528 00:34:46,417 --> 00:34:49,837 And this gives us a sense of freedom immediately 529 00:34:49,837 --> 00:34:53,633 that we're not looking at the world through a small lens, 530 00:34:53,633 --> 00:34:58,513 that we're we're open hearted and open minded in a way that's 531 00:34:59,931 --> 00:35:01,933 expansive and yet 532 00:35:02,683 --> 00:35:05,853 at the same time, more intimately connected. 533 00:35:05,978 --> 00:35:08,898 Enlightenment is not about becoming awakened. 534 00:35:09,565 --> 00:35:11,818 Nobody becomes awakened or enlightened. 535 00:35:11,818 --> 00:35:16,322 It's a recognition of the light, the light of pure knowing 536 00:35:17,281 --> 00:35:19,075 whose nature is peace and happiness 537 00:35:19,075 --> 00:35:21,327 that we always and already are. 538 00:35:25,873 --> 00:35:26,624 My name is Lisa 539 00:35:26,624 --> 00:35:30,044 Natoli, and I'm known as a spiritual teacher. 540 00:35:30,169 --> 00:35:34,298 I teach about healing and awakening and transformation. 541 00:35:34,298 --> 00:35:38,302 Awakening is the recognition of your true nature, 542 00:35:38,803 --> 00:35:44,142 and it's the realization of what you really are, which is consciousness. 543 00:35:44,517 --> 00:35:49,355 And consciousness is just one word for many words that people use 544 00:35:50,148 --> 00:35:55,027 for awareness, life, love, God, 545 00:35:56,529 --> 00:35:58,114 light. 546 00:35:58,573 --> 00:36:03,786 So waking up to the recognition that I'm not this body 547 00:36:04,203 --> 00:36:07,832 that I am, that which never dies and that which is never born, 548 00:36:08,666 --> 00:36:11,627 and the 549 00:36:11,627 --> 00:36:15,673 easiest way for me, that was a very difficult idea for me. 550 00:36:15,673 --> 00:36:18,759 I've been on a spiritual path since 1992. 551 00:36:19,677 --> 00:36:21,971 I started with A Course in Miracles. 552 00:36:21,971 --> 00:36:24,348 I always studied it religiously. 553 00:36:24,348 --> 00:36:28,603 I mean, I was someone who was so committed to knowing the 554 00:36:28,603 --> 00:36:33,858 Self, knowing God, waking up. I couldn't get it, 555 00:36:34,734 --> 00:36:37,069 because I was under the belief 556 00:36:37,069 --> 00:36:40,031 that awakening was something mystical, 557 00:36:40,406 --> 00:36:44,827 that something would happen, that something would occur, 558 00:36:45,703 --> 00:36:47,830 and it would be like Jesus 559 00:36:47,830 --> 00:36:51,250 or Buddha or all of these enlightened masters 560 00:36:52,460 --> 00:36:53,920 and it wasn't happening for me. 561 00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,339 I couldn't understand why. 562 00:36:56,505 --> 00:37:00,259 Why am I so committed 563 00:37:00,259 --> 00:37:05,806 and I'm having deep moments of peace and happiness and joy... and still struggling. 564 00:37:06,349 --> 00:37:09,518 I started to realize the simplicity 565 00:37:10,061 --> 00:37:12,313 of our true nature, which is awareness. 566 00:37:13,272 --> 00:37:18,402 So for someone who's listening to me right now, 567 00:37:18,945 --> 00:37:23,950 the awareness that's hearing this voice, that's what we are. 568 00:37:24,784 --> 00:37:28,955 And it doesn't have a location, it doesn't have a gender, 569 00:37:29,163 --> 00:37:31,958 it doesn't have a color, it doesn't have a body, 570 00:37:33,042 --> 00:37:35,211 and it's totally unlimited. 571 00:37:36,587 --> 00:37:39,840 So awakening is where we wake up 572 00:37:40,841 --> 00:37:42,635 to our true nature. 573 00:37:42,635 --> 00:37:47,598 We wake up to the realization that I am the awareness 574 00:37:47,974 --> 00:37:51,936 of this experience right now as I'm here. 575 00:37:53,020 --> 00:37:54,355 And it's so ordinary 576 00:37:54,355 --> 00:37:55,564 we miss it. 577 00:37:56,357 --> 00:37:59,151 We think it can't be that simple. 578 00:37:59,151 --> 00:38:00,987 The recognition of our true nature, 579 00:38:00,987 --> 00:38:03,239 it doesn't lead to happiness. 580 00:38:03,864 --> 00:38:07,118 It is happiness... the nature of being 581 00:38:07,576 --> 00:38:10,121 is happiness itself. 582 00:38:10,121 --> 00:38:13,582 So the recognition of our true nature is the experience 583 00:38:13,582 --> 00:38:20,381 of happiness. 584 00:38:20,381 --> 00:38:22,717 Who is aware in this moment? 585 00:38:24,635 --> 00:38:25,511 The mind will 586 00:38:25,511 --> 00:38:28,514 look for something, or try to complicate it. 587 00:38:29,765 --> 00:38:31,809 You already are 588 00:38:31,809 --> 00:38:36,731 that which the mind is looking for. 589 00:38:36,731 --> 00:38:38,858 The mind will always miss it. 590 00:38:39,650 --> 00:38:42,236 So don't look to the mind for an answer. 591 00:38:43,195 --> 00:38:45,281 Don't push away your thoughts 592 00:38:45,281 --> 00:38:49,535 and don't get caught in the thoughts. 593 00:38:49,535 --> 00:38:54,665 Simply let go of the interest or attachment to thoughts, ideas 594 00:38:55,124 --> 00:38:57,084 and beliefs. 595 00:38:57,793 --> 00:39:00,755 Intend to directly experience 596 00:39:00,755 --> 00:39:04,425 who you are. 597 00:39:04,425 --> 00:39:09,013 Don't try to negate the mind or to achieve some state. 598 00:39:10,139 --> 00:39:13,184 All doing, all manipulation, 599 00:39:13,184 --> 00:39:17,188 all movement is more controlling by the mind. 600 00:39:17,855 --> 00:39:27,823 Allow the mind to be as it is. 601 00:39:27,823 --> 00:39:31,869 Sometimes people can awaken just in day to day life. 602 00:39:31,869 --> 00:39:34,789 They don't necessarily need practice. 603 00:39:34,997 --> 00:39:39,752 So sometimes things will happen in life where there's an interrupt 604 00:39:39,752 --> 00:39:44,465 in the pattern of you. And there can be a spontaneous awakening. 605 00:39:44,965 --> 00:39:50,054 But if someone's life is just going on in a kind of robotic pattern 606 00:39:50,054 --> 00:39:52,431 or repetitive pattern, then 607 00:39:53,140 --> 00:39:55,976 some sort of intervention is necessary. 608 00:39:55,976 --> 00:40:02,483 if one is called to awakening and that interrupt in the pattern of you 609 00:40:02,691 --> 00:40:06,821 is sometimes called sadhana or spiritual practice. 610 00:40:07,071 --> 00:40:10,032 And these practices are always 611 00:40:10,991 --> 00:40:11,951 conditioned. 612 00:40:11,951 --> 00:40:14,954 Thet are something that we learn with the conditioned mind. 613 00:40:15,371 --> 00:40:19,291 So they can make it more likely for awakening to happen, 614 00:40:19,542 --> 00:40:23,170 sort of by loosening the bonds within the self structure. 615 00:40:23,629 --> 00:40:28,300 Sometimes they say that awakening happens by accident, 616 00:40:28,509 --> 00:40:31,512 but the practice makes you more accident prone. 617 00:40:32,304 --> 00:40:35,766 The techniques, the practices can be very useful 618 00:40:36,058 --> 00:40:38,561 to make you more accident prone. 619 00:40:38,561 --> 00:40:42,606 But then at a certain point have to be let go. 620 00:40:43,524 --> 00:40:47,736 Because if the mind is continuously doing some practice 621 00:40:47,736 --> 00:40:50,906 or some thing, then the mind has 622 00:40:50,906 --> 00:40:54,201 the reins, mind is in the driver's seat. 623 00:40:54,577 --> 00:40:58,456 So the practices are useful, very useful 624 00:40:58,456 --> 00:41:03,335 as steppingstones for making the self structure, 625 00:41:03,335 --> 00:41:07,631 you can say less dense or enlightening up the self structure 626 00:41:07,882 --> 00:41:11,093 so that it becomes more permeable 627 00:41:11,343 --> 00:41:15,639 to our true nature. 628 00:41:15,639 --> 00:41:19,935 The paradox with practice is that when you finally awaken, 629 00:41:20,311 --> 00:41:23,022 you realize that all of the practices 630 00:41:23,189 --> 00:41:25,566 were being done by the false self, 631 00:41:26,317 --> 00:41:30,237 the character in the VR game, and that YOU, 632 00:41:30,446 --> 00:41:35,075 the true self, was never bound. 633 00:41:35,075 --> 00:41:38,871 All you have to do is give up the preferences of the ego, 634 00:41:39,580 --> 00:41:43,834 to give up the fixation on things. 635 00:41:43,834 --> 00:41:48,714 Anything within the field of changing phenomena is not the true self, 636 00:41:49,632 --> 00:41:53,719 the you that you think you are, the you that you've always been 637 00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,388 identified with will never awaken 638 00:41:56,847 --> 00:41:59,475 you awaken from that character. 639 00:41:59,892 --> 00:42:04,104 You awaken from the delusion that you were this conditioned character. 640 00:42:04,396 --> 00:42:08,317 So when people come to these retreats, they think this 641 00:42:08,317 --> 00:42:12,196 "I" this little "me" is going to awaken, some great thing is going to happen. 642 00:42:12,488 --> 00:42:15,699 But at a certain point, that little me will never do it. 643 00:42:15,699 --> 00:42:17,743 It has to give up, it has to fail. 644 00:42:18,035 --> 00:42:20,079 And it's only in that failure 645 00:42:20,371 --> 00:42:26,418 we realize who we are, that we've always been aware, we've always been present. 646 00:42:26,710 --> 00:42:30,381 We just got hooked into this character and we believed 647 00:42:30,381 --> 00:42:42,851 we were that. 648 00:42:42,851 --> 00:42:48,774 I started my spiritual search in the classical Advaita Vedanta 649 00:42:49,775 --> 00:42:51,777 tradition, which was a devotional path 650 00:42:52,486 --> 00:42:56,198 that involved mantra meditation, 651 00:42:56,198 --> 00:43:00,160 which I practiced very diligently for 20 years. 652 00:43:00,578 --> 00:43:02,913 And mantra meditation involves 653 00:43:03,789 --> 00:43:07,209 focusing your attention on a sound 654 00:43:08,294 --> 00:43:10,546 and then gradually the sound fades. 655 00:43:11,088 --> 00:43:12,673 However, it was 656 00:43:12,923 --> 00:43:15,759 four really when I came in touch 657 00:43:15,759 --> 00:43:18,429 with the direct path that 658 00:43:19,597 --> 00:43:24,852 my spiritual searcg really reached its culmination. 659 00:43:25,227 --> 00:43:28,856 Because in this direct approach, 660 00:43:28,856 --> 00:43:32,943 we don't give our attention to any object, however 661 00:43:33,152 --> 00:43:37,197 subtle, for instance, a mantra, a sound, the breath, 662 00:43:37,656 --> 00:43:41,201 we allow our attention to sink inwards 663 00:43:41,201 --> 00:43:43,746 or backwards into its source. 664 00:43:45,164 --> 00:43:47,916 Let's use an analogy. 665 00:43:47,916 --> 00:43:51,670 Imagine that you are watching your life on a television screen. 666 00:43:52,046 --> 00:43:54,965 You are identified with the character on the screen. 667 00:43:56,258 --> 00:43:57,593 Day after day, 668 00:43:57,593 --> 00:44:01,722 year after year you are involved with the story of the character 669 00:44:02,264 --> 00:44:05,434 when suddenly you wake up out of the story 670 00:44:05,809 --> 00:44:09,104 to notice the screen on which the character appears 671 00:44:09,563 --> 00:44:13,275 and you realize you are not the character you've been watching. 672 00:44:14,109 --> 00:44:16,445 Objects can come and go on the screen. 673 00:44:17,446 --> 00:44:19,448 Characters come and go, 674 00:44:19,448 --> 00:44:21,825 but the screen remains unchanged. 675 00:44:22,785 --> 00:44:24,995 The character can get wet, 676 00:44:24,995 --> 00:44:29,500 but the screen does not get wet. The character can be disturbed, 677 00:44:30,042 --> 00:44:33,045 but the screen is not disturbed. 678 00:44:33,045 --> 00:44:36,382 Without the screen, the characters would not exist, 679 00:44:37,091 --> 00:44:39,134 yet screen goes unnoticed. 680 00:44:39,593 --> 00:44:42,554 The characters go about their scripted lives. 681 00:44:44,014 --> 00:44:46,016 Awareness is like the screen. 682 00:44:46,767 --> 00:44:49,603 It is like the space in which all thoughts, 683 00:44:49,770 --> 00:44:53,649 motions, all states of consciousness come and go. 684 00:44:54,942 --> 00:44:57,069 Thoughts, sensations 685 00:44:57,069 --> 00:45:02,157 and the entire outside world appear on the screen, constantly changing. 686 00:45:02,658 --> 00:45:06,995 But the screen does not change. 687 00:45:06,995 --> 00:45:12,918 It's the mind that changes states through the human experience. 688 00:45:13,293 --> 00:45:17,840 But there's something, that what you are, that remains. 689 00:45:18,257 --> 00:45:20,426 Something that is ever present, 690 00:45:20,968 --> 00:45:24,012 that is aware of those changing states 691 00:45:24,430 --> 00:45:28,058 and that is consciousness or our true nature. 692 00:45:28,642 --> 00:45:31,854 As long as there is attachment to a character on the screen, 693 00:45:32,438 --> 00:45:36,483 a sense that I am that character, then there will be suffering; 694 00:45:36,900 --> 00:45:39,486 maya the illusion of the self. 695 00:45:41,113 --> 00:45:43,282 Nothing you can do as the dream 696 00:45:43,282 --> 00:45:47,953 character will help to free you. Whether you follow the script 697 00:45:48,078 --> 00:45:51,665 in the drama of your life or rebel against the script, 698 00:45:51,790 --> 00:45:54,626 if you act from the point of view of the character, 699 00:45:54,877 --> 00:45:58,255 then you're caught in the illusion. 700 00:45:58,255 --> 00:45:59,798 To awaken, 701 00:45:59,798 --> 00:46:05,345 stop identifying with what appears on the screen. 702 00:46:05,345 --> 00:46:07,806 Recognize that it is all impermanent. 703 00:46:08,515 --> 00:46:12,936 Stop reacting to thoughts and treating the program as real. 704 00:46:13,687 --> 00:46:17,733 If I withdraw attention from the screen, turning awareness 705 00:46:17,733 --> 00:46:21,320 towards itself, an unfathomable thing happens. 706 00:46:22,154 --> 00:46:27,785 Awareness itself wakes up. 707 00:46:27,785 --> 00:46:30,037 This is not a happening. 708 00:46:30,037 --> 00:46:32,456 Happening is what happens on the screen. 709 00:46:33,791 --> 00:46:36,960 Awakening is just recognizing the screen 710 00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:38,962 that was always already there. 711 00:46:40,756 --> 00:46:42,925 Do not believe your next thought 712 00:46:44,134 --> 00:46:45,385 instead, 713 00:46:45,385 --> 00:47:00,192 turn awareness towards awareness itself. 714 00:47:00,192 --> 00:47:02,986 I have always been myself. 715 00:47:02,986 --> 00:47:06,740 My sense of my self runs throughout my life. 716 00:47:06,740 --> 00:47:09,785 It remains consistently present throughout my life. 717 00:47:11,078 --> 00:47:13,038 What is present in me now, 718 00:47:13,038 --> 00:47:15,999 that was present yesterday, last year, ten years ago, 719 00:47:15,999 --> 00:47:20,587 and when I was a two year old child? 720 00:47:20,587 --> 00:47:23,257 What is this essential "I" or self 721 00:47:24,174 --> 00:47:26,802 to whom all my experience happens? 722 00:47:28,095 --> 00:47:30,305 The recognition 723 00:47:30,305 --> 00:47:34,643 of the nature of that one is the great secret to life. 724 00:47:34,643 --> 00:47:37,187 It is the direct path to peace 725 00:47:37,187 --> 00:47:41,525 and happiness. It is not something that a person initiates. 726 00:47:43,151 --> 00:47:46,488 It's something that a person recognizes. 727 00:47:47,739 --> 00:47:49,449 To re-cognize. 728 00:47:49,449 --> 00:47:52,744 That is to know, again. 729 00:47:52,953 --> 00:47:55,539 What we've known from the beginning 730 00:47:55,539 --> 00:47:59,960 but is simply forgotten, or denied or failed to believe. 731 00:48:00,669 --> 00:48:03,255 So we cannot initiate closeness to God. 732 00:48:03,964 --> 00:48:08,969 We can simply recognize, to recognize that it's always been there 733 00:48:10,095 --> 00:48:12,347 and will always be there. 734 00:48:12,347 --> 00:48:16,643 It was only this direct pointing to awakening, 735 00:48:16,643 --> 00:48:21,356 this opening to what's already here that allowed me to find 736 00:48:22,858 --> 00:48:23,775 a new way of 737 00:48:23,775 --> 00:48:26,528 being- a new stage of development. 738 00:48:26,862 --> 00:48:33,201 Many people think it's a very impossible or out of reach goal 739 00:48:33,201 --> 00:48:38,040 to know the self, and my own 740 00:48:38,415 --> 00:48:42,127 sort of purpose as a teacher, just because of my own awakening, 741 00:48:42,127 --> 00:48:47,466 has really been wanting to make it very practical, very down to Earth. 742 00:48:47,466 --> 00:48:51,386 I love to teach people, it's available to everyone. 743 00:48:52,137 --> 00:48:55,891 If we believe and feel 744 00:48:56,058 --> 00:48:59,603 that we are a temporary, finite, separate self, 745 00:49:00,604 --> 00:49:02,773 we are, whether we know it or not, 746 00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,859 searching for peace and happiness. 747 00:49:05,859 --> 00:49:09,279 In other words, it's not possible to be a separate self, 748 00:49:09,529 --> 00:49:13,867 to feel oneself as a separate self and not be in search of happiness. 749 00:49:14,743 --> 00:49:16,954 So what is required 750 00:49:16,954 --> 00:49:21,083 in this case is to reorientate one's search for happiness, 751 00:49:21,083 --> 00:49:24,586 instead of seeking for happiness in the objective content of experience, 752 00:49:25,003 --> 00:49:27,631 to seek happiness in oneself. 753 00:49:27,631 --> 00:49:30,926 So the spiritual practice that is required 754 00:49:31,510 --> 00:49:36,014 is to direct one's attention or more accurately, 755 00:49:36,014 --> 00:49:40,268 to relax one's attention into its source, 756 00:49:41,603 --> 00:49:44,856 pure awareness, rather than directed towards 757 00:49:45,065 --> 00:49:48,568 an object substance activity or relationship, and so on. 758 00:49:49,236 --> 00:49:53,323 So the spiritual practice, if we can call it a practice, 759 00:49:53,615 --> 00:49:56,535 would be this relaxing 760 00:49:56,618 --> 00:50:00,247 of the attention, this subsidence of the attention 761 00:50:00,914 --> 00:50:04,126 into the heart of awareness, 762 00:50:04,376 --> 00:50:06,586 resting in being as being. 763 00:50:07,963 --> 00:50:08,880 Love. 764 00:50:09,881 --> 00:50:12,718 Pure love is my true self. 765 00:50:12,718 --> 00:50:15,095 It's my true nature. 766 00:50:15,095 --> 00:50:17,472 Pure love for everyone and everything, 767 00:50:18,473 --> 00:50:20,892 for every aspect of life. 768 00:50:20,892 --> 00:50:23,895 Even those things with which I disagree. 769 00:50:24,521 --> 00:50:28,775 For one who has recognized the nature of their being, they know their being 770 00:50:29,067 --> 00:50:32,654 as the the source of the peace 771 00:50:32,654 --> 00:50:35,115 and happiness for which they long. 772 00:50:36,616 --> 00:50:40,704 So the world no longer becomes the place 773 00:50:40,704 --> 00:50:45,375 in which they seek happiness, seek fulfillment. 774 00:50:45,375 --> 00:50:48,295 Doesn't mean to say that such a person no longer has desires, 775 00:50:48,837 --> 00:50:53,091 but the desires are not there to fulfill the sense of lack 776 00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:57,220 that is characteristic of the separate self. 777 00:50:57,971 --> 00:51:01,099 As such, a person has found the source of happiness 778 00:51:01,391 --> 00:51:06,563 within themselves and their desires come from that sense of happiness. 779 00:51:07,064 --> 00:51:09,232 They do not go towards it. 780 00:51:09,232 --> 00:51:11,860 For instance, in the realm of relationship, 781 00:51:11,860 --> 00:51:14,863 it makes a big difference to our relationships. 782 00:51:14,863 --> 00:51:16,740 We no longer seek an other 783 00:51:17,866 --> 00:51:21,620 to fulfill the needs of our self. 784 00:51:22,329 --> 00:51:24,581 We seek another to share 785 00:51:24,790 --> 00:51:27,667 the experience of happiness that we already have. 786 00:51:27,667 --> 00:51:31,338 And this relieves our our friends of the impossible burden 787 00:51:31,755 --> 00:51:35,759 of providing happiness for a voracious, 788 00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:38,845 unsatisfied self. 789 00:51:39,304 --> 00:51:42,474 Nothing occurs in my life 790 00:51:42,474 --> 00:51:46,269 that is has not brought me benefit or will not bring me benefit 791 00:51:46,645 --> 00:51:50,982 in the sense that every moment, every activity, every outcome 792 00:51:52,275 --> 00:51:54,528 moves me forward 793 00:51:54,528 --> 00:51:57,030 in the process of the evolution of my soul. 794 00:51:57,405 --> 00:52:00,200 And that's why I came here to the physical realm, 795 00:52:01,118 --> 00:52:09,793 to evolve. 796 00:52:10,377 --> 00:52:13,213 Remain open. 797 00:52:13,213 --> 00:52:15,757 Feel your inner aliveness, 798 00:52:15,757 --> 00:52:20,011 letting energy circulate freely. 799 00:52:20,011 --> 00:52:25,058 Don't try to make anything happen. 800 00:52:25,058 --> 00:52:27,602 Who is aware of that energy, 801 00:52:28,353 --> 00:52:35,569 that inner aliveness? 802 00:52:35,569 --> 00:52:39,823 Notice the mind's tendency to control and manipulate, 803 00:52:40,448 --> 00:52:42,909 to get involved. 804 00:52:43,869 --> 00:52:47,080 Without the use of your memory or language, 805 00:52:48,039 --> 00:52:50,876 Who are you? 806 00:52:51,459 --> 00:52:53,837 Beyond the mind and senses, 807 00:52:55,005 --> 00:52:57,382 who are you? 808 00:52:57,549 --> 00:53:17,444 Who is aware? 809 00:53:17,444 --> 00:53:20,739 Many people who are hearing these ideas for the first time, 810 00:53:20,739 --> 00:53:24,659 they've never even heard this idea of the self. 811 00:53:25,118 --> 00:53:28,121 In my mind, there's two different camps of people. 812 00:53:28,121 --> 00:53:32,334 There are those who are on a spiritual path and they have heard this idea. 813 00:53:32,334 --> 00:53:35,921 They're trying to reach the self, they're trying to be the self. 814 00:53:35,921 --> 00:53:37,923 They're seeking, they're searching. 815 00:53:38,215 --> 00:53:42,010 And then there's other people who have just been living their life. 816 00:53:42,010 --> 00:53:44,346 They've never heard of these ideas before. 817 00:53:44,387 --> 00:53:46,514 They've never heard of Know Thyself. 818 00:53:46,514 --> 00:53:50,435 Many people think know thyself means know the body, 819 00:53:50,435 --> 00:53:53,313 know yourself, be yourself, be authentic. 820 00:53:53,438 --> 00:53:59,027 What it really means, to know thyself is to know what you are, 821 00:53:59,027 --> 00:54:02,948 to know what you are in truth and to really know your true nature. 822 00:54:03,281 --> 00:54:06,576 The words know thySelf were carved 823 00:54:07,035 --> 00:54:11,039 on the entrance of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, and as such 824 00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:13,208 stand as an 825 00:54:13,208 --> 00:54:17,462 invitation that the dawn of Western civilization to humanity, 826 00:54:17,796 --> 00:54:22,133 suggesting that to know thySelf is really the foundation 827 00:54:22,634 --> 00:54:25,679 of all civilization. Why? 828 00:54:26,054 --> 00:54:31,142 Because our Self stands at the center of all our experience. 829 00:54:31,476 --> 00:54:36,398 Whatever we are experiencing, it is we who are experiencing it. 830 00:54:36,815 --> 00:54:39,734 Whatever we think and feel, our thoughts 831 00:54:39,734 --> 00:54:42,988 and feelings arise on behalf of our Self. 832 00:54:43,571 --> 00:54:47,993 Whatever activities and relationships we are engaged 833 00:54:47,993 --> 00:54:53,790 in, we engage those activities and relationships in service of our Self. 834 00:54:54,541 --> 00:54:58,837 So our Self stands at the center of our experience. 835 00:54:59,170 --> 00:55:04,509 So what could be more important than to know the nature of our Self, 836 00:55:05,302 --> 00:55:08,346 and would it be possible 837 00:55:08,596 --> 00:55:11,016 to know the nature of anything else 838 00:55:11,599 --> 00:55:15,937 if we do not first know the nature of that which knows it? 839 00:55:16,479 --> 00:55:18,940 I think awakening is 840 00:55:19,899 --> 00:55:22,402 about ending the nightmare 841 00:55:23,194 --> 00:55:26,740 and stepping into the dream. 842 00:55:26,740 --> 00:55:28,950 By that I mean 843 00:55:29,492 --> 00:55:32,871 we desert or finally abandon the nightmare of what 844 00:55:32,871 --> 00:55:37,959 we've been told about life, about God, and about ourselves. 845 00:55:37,959 --> 00:55:40,712 And we step into the dream of our grandest notion. 846 00:55:41,629 --> 00:55:45,258 I often ask, What do you think your life would be like 847 00:55:46,301 --> 00:55:49,679 if you found yourself stepping into the highest 848 00:55:49,679 --> 00:55:53,975 grandest, most wonderful thought you ever had about God, and about life 849 00:55:55,060 --> 00:55:56,686 and about yourself. 850 00:55:56,686 --> 00:56:02,233 So this recognition of our true nature is not only the recognition 851 00:56:02,233 --> 00:56:07,155 that brings our desire for happiness in the world to an end. 852 00:56:07,655 --> 00:56:10,658 It is also the recognition that enables us 853 00:56:10,658 --> 00:56:15,663 to live in a way that is consistent with the understanding 854 00:56:15,663 --> 00:56:20,794 that at the deepest level, everything and everyone, are one. 855 00:56:22,337 --> 00:56:23,505 This understanding would 856 00:56:23,505 --> 00:56:27,634 bring kindness, compassion, justice, 857 00:56:27,967 --> 00:56:32,222 tolerance, understanding into our society. 858 00:56:33,098 --> 00:56:35,266 Our society would be revolutionized 859 00:56:35,266 --> 00:56:37,477 by this understanding. 860 00:56:38,478 --> 00:56:41,689 As humanity lets go of ego based approaches, 861 00:56:42,065 --> 00:56:45,276 then science, religion, politics 862 00:56:45,527 --> 00:56:49,489 and economics start to reflect the perennial wisdom. 863 00:56:50,198 --> 00:56:53,118 Whether it is the native traditions who realize 864 00:56:53,118 --> 00:56:55,328 Great Spirit in all things, 865 00:56:56,121 --> 00:57:00,333 or the Egyptian/Kemetic traditions who describe the human 866 00:57:00,333 --> 00:57:03,711 evolutionary journey from the lowly scarab 867 00:57:04,045 --> 00:57:06,631 to the one source, 868 00:57:06,881 --> 00:57:08,383 or when we hear the words 869 00:57:08,383 --> 00:57:11,261 of the mystics of the Christian, Hindu, 870 00:57:11,594 --> 00:57:13,847 Muslim, or Buddhist traditions, 871 00:57:14,681 --> 00:57:19,060 or the teachings of Plato and Plotinus we find that 872 00:57:19,060 --> 00:57:24,816 those who have realized their true nature speak of groupings of conscious agents. 873 00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:28,611 Of course, they used the language of their culture 874 00:57:28,611 --> 00:57:32,407 and times to express the one perennial truth. 875 00:57:33,491 --> 00:57:34,659 Science is now 876 00:57:34,659 --> 00:57:38,830 starting to see not a world of unconscious particles 877 00:57:38,830 --> 00:57:41,916 and fields, but a universe made of 878 00:57:41,916 --> 00:57:44,711 conscious agents. 879 00:57:44,919 --> 00:57:48,631 Something new is emerging in the world of science. 880 00:57:49,674 --> 00:57:52,302 As Nikola Tesla said, 881 00:57:52,302 --> 00:57:57,140 the day science begins to study nonphysical phenomena, 882 00:57:57,140 --> 00:57:59,976 it will make more progress in one decade 883 00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:04,147 than in all the previous centuries of its existence. 884 00:58:06,024 --> 00:58:14,908 That day is today. 885 00:58:14,908 --> 00:58:18,161 Every time that we've had a mathematically precise advance 886 00:58:18,161 --> 00:58:21,623 in science, it has opened up new technologies 887 00:58:22,123 --> 00:58:25,668 that look like magic compared to what we had before. 888 00:58:25,919 --> 00:58:29,923 So my feeling is that this theory of conscious agents beyond spacetime 889 00:58:30,965 --> 00:58:33,426 will give us technologies 890 00:58:33,426 --> 00:58:35,553 that will be truly mind boggling. 891 00:58:36,012 --> 00:58:37,263 For example, 892 00:58:37,722 --> 00:58:41,476 right now, most of the galaxies that we see, 893 00:58:41,809 --> 00:58:44,145 I think 97% of the galaxies that we see, 894 00:58:44,437 --> 00:58:49,317 we can never go to. They are receding from us faster than the speed of light. 895 00:58:50,026 --> 00:58:52,403 So they're not moving through space faster than the speed of light. 896 00:58:52,403 --> 00:58:55,657 Space itself is expanding so quickly that they're 897 00:58:56,282 --> 00:58:58,785 moving away from us is greater than the speed of light. 898 00:58:58,785 --> 00:59:00,954 So we could never travel through space 899 00:59:00,954 --> 00:59:03,915 to go to 97% of the galaxies that we can see. 900 00:59:04,249 --> 00:59:07,085 So there's all this real estate out there that's waving at us and saying, hi, 901 00:59:07,085 --> 00:59:09,462 we're out here and you can never come to us. 902 00:59:09,462 --> 00:59:11,589 That's if you go through spacetime. 903 00:59:11,589 --> 00:59:14,717 But what if you realize that spacetime is just your headset? 904 00:59:15,301 --> 00:59:17,595 It's just the format of a game 905 00:59:18,513 --> 00:59:20,890 and you're not stuck inside the headset. 906 00:59:20,890 --> 00:59:26,104 You can play with the software that's running the game. 907 00:59:26,104 --> 00:59:30,191 So it's like someone who's like in Grand Theft Auto, you're a 908 00:59:30,191 --> 00:59:31,484 Wizard of Grand Theft Auto, 909 00:59:32,652 --> 00:59:33,403 so you know how to use the 910 00:59:33,403 --> 00:59:36,281 car and drive the roads and you can beat everybody in the game. 911 00:59:37,282 --> 00:59:40,577 But suppose you actually know the software that runs Grand Theft Auto. 912 00:59:40,577 --> 00:59:42,704 So you step outside of the Grand Theft Auto headset 913 00:59:43,121 --> 00:59:44,414 and you can play with the software. 914 00:59:44,414 --> 00:59:48,084 Well, you can take the gasoline out of the tank of the wizard. 915 00:59:48,084 --> 00:59:49,877 You can give them a flat tire. 916 00:59:49,877 --> 00:59:51,546 You can change the geometry of the roads. 917 00:59:51,546 --> 00:59:53,172 You can do whatever you want to. 918 00:59:53,172 --> 00:59:56,259 So once we understand our space time headset, 919 00:59:56,718 --> 00:59:59,679 we won't have to travel to the Andromeda Galaxy 920 01:00:00,555 --> 01:00:03,308 through space time, which would take us 2.4 million years. 921 01:00:03,683 --> 01:00:10,481 We can just go around space time. 922 01:00:10,481 --> 01:00:14,152 I see the world around me as stepping into 923 01:00:15,194 --> 01:00:15,820 a quieter 924 01:00:15,820 --> 01:00:19,699 expression and experience of what it means to be human 925 01:00:20,116 --> 01:00:22,619 and what it means to be an aspect of divinity. 926 01:00:23,578 --> 01:00:27,290 But I don't think that we have an endless amount of time. 927 01:00:27,290 --> 01:00:30,001 I get a sense that time is 928 01:00:30,001 --> 01:00:33,338 running out, that it's now or never time. 929 01:00:33,796 --> 01:00:35,965 I think we're on the right path. 930 01:00:35,965 --> 01:00:41,262 I have a sense of optimism that because of the kinds of opportunities 931 01:00:41,262 --> 01:00:43,389 that we see today in the world to communicate 932 01:00:44,515 --> 01:00:46,934 powerful and important ideas 933 01:00:46,934 --> 01:00:49,729 ways that we didn't have even a few years ago 934 01:00:50,897 --> 01:00:54,734 are creating the possibility that we can get to that place of critical 935 01:00:54,734 --> 01:00:57,820 mass, that we can reach critical mass 936 01:00:58,738 --> 01:01:01,240 before our time runs out. 937 01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:05,286 But we would be mistaken if we think we have an endless amount of time 938 01:01:06,788 --> 01:01:08,623 on this planet. 939 01:01:08,665 --> 01:01:10,958 When each individual 940 01:01:10,958 --> 01:01:14,337 disidentifies from their conditioned character, 941 01:01:14,921 --> 01:01:18,341 then they're no longer acting as an egoic entity. 942 01:01:18,883 --> 01:01:22,845 And that brings about a transformation on the planet. 943 01:01:23,346 --> 01:01:24,722 This brings a new Earth. 944 01:01:24,722 --> 01:01:28,017 Life as we know it right now on this planet, 945 01:01:28,976 --> 01:01:31,813 I think we need to make some changes and make them quickly, 946 01:01:32,563 --> 01:01:35,066 dramatically and radically 947 01:01:35,066 --> 01:01:37,694 if we want to see the tomorrow for which we've all dreamt. 948 01:01:38,194 --> 01:01:42,573 So, could this understanding become mainstream in our lifetime? 949 01:01:42,573 --> 01:01:43,866 Why not? 950 01:01:43,866 --> 01:01:48,371 Yes. The challenge we have right now is nothing is working, 951 01:01:49,163 --> 01:01:54,252 and the time has come for us to stand up and say that's true. 952 01:01:54,252 --> 01:01:56,337 Surely we can do better than this. 953 01:01:57,088 --> 01:01:58,339 Surely, 954 01:01:59,841 --> 01:02:02,260 we can expand our understanding of who we are 955 01:02:02,719 --> 01:02:07,306 and our expression of our true nature. 956 01:02:07,306 --> 01:02:08,433 We need to pay attention 957 01:02:09,434 --> 01:02:10,810 to our environment, 958 01:02:10,810 --> 01:02:13,312 to our politics, to our economics, 959 01:02:14,313 --> 01:02:17,525 and to our spiritual process on this planet. 960 01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:22,405 Because the problem in the world today is not a political problem. 961 01:02:23,322 --> 01:02:25,867 It's not an economic problem. 962 01:02:25,867 --> 01:02:28,995 It's not a social problem. 963 01:02:28,995 --> 01:02:33,166 It's a spiritual problem. 964 01:02:33,166 --> 01:02:35,168 It has to do with how committed we are 965 01:02:35,168 --> 01:02:41,215 with stepping into the highest spiritual truths. 966 01:02:41,215 --> 01:02:44,886 This is not New Age philosophy. 967 01:02:44,886 --> 01:02:47,096 These ideas have been around 968 01:02:47,096 --> 01:02:54,145 for thousands of years. 969 01:02:54,145 --> 01:02:57,398 The perennial wisdom has been expressed through 970 01:02:57,398 --> 01:03:01,861 countless traditions and cultures and like awareness 971 01:03:01,861 --> 01:03:05,656 itself, has always been hidden in plain view. 972 01:03:07,116 --> 01:03:08,743 In Christianity, 973 01:03:08,743 --> 01:03:12,038 the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas contains 974 01:03:12,038 --> 01:03:14,874 direct pointers to our true nature. 975 01:03:15,958 --> 01:03:20,838 The disciples asked Jesus, When will the kingdom come? 976 01:03:20,838 --> 01:03:24,383 Jesus said, It will not come by waiting for it. 977 01:03:25,051 --> 01:03:30,223 It will not be a matter of saying, Here it is, or there it is. 978 01:03:30,223 --> 01:03:33,559 Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out 979 01:03:33,559 --> 01:03:36,646 upon the earth and people do not see it. 980 01:03:38,397 --> 01:03:39,649 The Kingdom 981 01:03:39,649 --> 01:03:44,529 is not here or there. Awareness is not here or there. 982 01:03:45,238 --> 01:03:48,950 It is not fixed in time and space. 983 01:03:48,950 --> 01:03:51,494 If you are waiting for something to happen 984 01:03:52,036 --> 01:03:56,666 for some outward event or some state, some ascension, 985 01:03:57,083 --> 01:03:59,794 some healing or some energy, then 986 01:03:59,794 --> 01:04:02,839 your conditioned mind is still seeking. 987 01:04:03,256 --> 01:04:06,300 It is still mediating your experience 988 01:04:06,300 --> 01:04:07,969 of the now. 989 01:04:09,387 --> 01:04:11,973 in Buddhism they say samsara, 990 01:04:12,265 --> 01:04:15,309 the world of suffering and nirvana, 991 01:04:15,768 --> 01:04:20,231 the world of liberation are not two separate worlds. 992 01:04:21,065 --> 01:04:24,026 They are one and the same. 993 01:04:24,026 --> 01:04:26,654 We don't manipulate or change things 994 01:04:26,863 --> 01:04:29,740 to arrive at some mystical reality. 995 01:04:30,700 --> 01:04:35,413 When we awaken, the perfection of the world is revealed 996 01:04:35,872 --> 01:04:43,087 directly, as it is. 997 01:04:43,087 --> 01:04:48,551 Is it possible to simply be here and now in this moment, 998 01:04:48,551 --> 01:04:53,556 unmediated by that seeking mind? 999 01:04:53,556 --> 01:04:58,394 Is it possible to be okay with this moment as it is? 1000 01:05:01,439 --> 01:05:02,899 To simply be.