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32. Ancient Wisdom and Conscious Materialism
56 Plays2 years ago
In this week’s episode, we discuss ancient wisdom. We also discuss why this type of wisdom has been exploding in popularity as of late, which leads into a discussion about how to be a conscious participant in a materialist world.
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Music By Nathan Willis RIP
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Transcript
Introduction and Ancient Wisdom
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pursuit of Infinity. In this week's episode we discuss ancient wisdom. As you'll hear I've been listening to a translation of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and as I expected it's full of wondrous wisdom. It's hard to believe that a Roman emperor who ruled thousands of years ago was writing such inspiring and compassionate insight.
Why Ancient Wisdom Now?
00:00:21
Speaker
We also discuss why this type of wisdom has been exploding in popularity as of late, which leads into a discussion about how to be a conscious participant in a materialistic world. But before we get to it, if you like what we do and you want to support the show, we really appreciate a follow or a sub as well as a five star rating and maybe even some kind words of encouragement in the form of a review.
00:00:43
Speaker
These things really help us to expand our reach and credibility, which is much appreciated.
Support and Engagement
00:00:48
Speaker
If you really want to show us some next level love, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash pursuit of infinity, where you can donate as little as $2 a month to support what we do.
00:01:00
Speaker
Check us out on YouTube. The channel is up and all of our episodes are there. So if you prefer some visuals and to put some faces to the names, subscribe and keep up with us there. Also run Instagram at pursuit of infinity pods. So give us a follow and reach out. And without further delay, thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Ancient vs Modern Introspection
00:01:44
Speaker
I've been listening to Marcus Aurelius's meditations and something interesting occurred to me and that's similar to meditations and other stoic books and stoic podcasts and ancient wisdom seems to be becoming more and more prominent now.
00:02:10
Speaker
So my question to you is, why do you think people from this day and age in 2022 are looking so far into the past for knowledge and wisdom to make sense of the current world? That's a good question. Yeah, first I'll just say it is pretty wild that things that were written
00:02:36
Speaker
you know, thousands of years ago are resonating, you know, with our society right now more than ever. As to why that is, I mean, it's interesting. I think in a lot of ways,
00:02:51
Speaker
past eras of humans may have been a little more advanced than we are now in certain aspects. Like, for instance, today, our culture is, as far as we know, the most superior technologically. We have all these gadgets and just insane technology compared to what we know in the last thousands of years. So I think if you look at
00:03:18
Speaker
Our culture now, we're always so engaged in something, it's strange, we're passively engaged with our technology and we're always locked into something.
Leaders and Wisdom
00:03:33
Speaker
We have a short attention span, we're always watching something on the phone or the television, whatever. The point is,
00:03:43
Speaker
By doing that, we haven't done what I think a lot of advanced cultures in the past have done, which is introspect. So people had a lot more time to look within in those times. I think that's why you have
00:03:59
Speaker
so much like um ancient wisdom that is just completely would resonate today it's like they captured the human condition because as human beings i don't think we've really changed that much it's just the circumstances that have changed so we have to remember the things that we have forgotten as a as a culture um because if you think about it the average person today
00:04:26
Speaker
they don't spend much time in silence. That's why meditation is so hard for people. It's crazy. When you think about it, even just taking a shit, if you go to the bathroom and you forget your phone, you're like, oh no, it's a tragedy. You know what I mean? Just to spend 10 minutes with yourself. And when you think to people of the past,
00:04:52
Speaker
they were faced with those type of situations all the time. And that's not even that far back. When we were kids, we didn't have a phone in the bathroom. But that's just like one small example of how our culture today, we don't really look within to find answers. And I think that's something really important that people did in the past. There wasn't such a widespread source of information to get all the answers externally. So you had to
00:05:21
Speaker
um, come to your own conclusion by independently finding the answers. And so that's like the bittersweet relationship I think that we have with technology now. And if you look at Marcus Aurelius, he was a Roman emperor. He was a leader and we don't have any leaders in our society that are wise and carry any sort of deep wisdom.
00:05:49
Speaker
Do you think you could look to Mr. Joseph Biden for advice on how to contemplate living and dying or matters of the heart or anything, uh, that's related to the, again, like you said, the human condition, like these leaders that we've put into place now, I think directly reflect the culture in which we live. And that's a culture that's void of wisdom.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I think that's right. I mean, the leaders we have are just a reflection of ourselves as a people. And we won't have a leader that's so wise because it's not something that is even valued in our culture right now. It's interesting. Like Trump is a good example that Trump got elected, I think is very telling of our society.
00:06:45
Speaker
As a people, and especially like American culture, we value success, power, money. Those are the things that everybody is kind of aiming at and trying to achieve. And Trump is like a character of those things. He just puts his name up in big gold letters.
00:07:05
Speaker
you know, talks about being a billionaire and all this stuff. So I think that's all we're going to get until there's like a monumental shift in our priorities as a culture. It's difficult because if part of me wants to be optimistic and think, you know, sometimes soon that shift is going to be happening. But if you look at like the children today, it's,
00:07:31
Speaker
The way they're coming up is very strange with the technology and just very different from what we encountered as kids. So part of me wants to be optimistic, but part of me that is trying to think logically sees this situation kind of getting worse.
Technology's Impact on Youth
00:07:56
Speaker
And I think in order for the big paradigm shift to happen in our culture, we might have to go through something horrific first. I look at the way that kids are growing up now and I do agree it's weird. It's definitely way different.
00:08:13
Speaker
But is that a necessary barometer to base good or bad off of? Um, it's really hard to say when you're looking at a generation that has a trajectory that is mysterious to you, whether or not it's going to end up positively or negatively. And what I like to look back on, and this is something that I learned early from Terrence McKenna.
00:08:35
Speaker
He would say that if you look at what's happening and you can see it in like Steven Pinker's work as well, like we are moving toward positivity and inclusivity more and more as the generations go on. You see at one point we didn't let women vote.
00:08:55
Speaker
you know, black people weren't free. And now, you know, we are continuously becoming more and more humanitarian, which to me indicates like the right direction. Yeah, I
Cultural Shift Toward Wisdom
00:09:08
Speaker
agree. And I don't mean to say that it's going to be negative. Mainly what I was getting at is it doesn't seem that if I had to just project, predict the trajectory that
00:09:23
Speaker
will lead to the substance of those ancient wisdoms that we're talking about. So that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. I'm just seeing it in a way that maybe those types of things aren't rewarded as much as maybe they used to be. So they're not valued as much.
00:09:46
Speaker
But at the same time, I'm not saying it's all going to just go away because ancient wisdom that we're talking about are timeless. So it will always speak to the human condition. But the human condition is changing rapidly as far as our environment, entertainment, and culture, all that stuff.
00:10:08
Speaker
So I don't think that it's necessarily leading to something negative.
Tech and Wisdom Balance
00:10:12
Speaker
I don't think that at all, but it just seems a little bit off the path. So do you think that the rise in the interest of ancient wisdom coinciding also with the rise of interest in psychedelics can get us to a place where we are positioning ourselves to become more wise as a culture and as a society?
00:10:38
Speaker
I think ideally, yes, if that was the case, if we really as a culture grabbed onto those things like psychedelics and ancient wisdoms, and that's me thinking optimistically, I start to think of the opposing force that's so powerful.
00:11:02
Speaker
It's easy for me in my own mind and my perspective to see everything going great if people do what I think they should do, which is take psychedelics and read ancient knowledge and do everything that I'm doing for myself. So it's easy to project that on everybody else and say, if they all do this, everything is going to be great. But what I see more when I step out of myself is
00:11:30
Speaker
a more powerful influence that is capturing a large majority of people more than psychedelics or these ancient wisdoms. So I think that the answer will lie within the technology. Everything is going to be driven by the technology and especially if the more that AI is integrated into our everyday lives.
00:11:58
Speaker
really who knows where it's going to go. But either way, the ancient wisdom of meditations and other things like that will always be relevant for us, I think, till the end of humanity.
00:12:18
Speaker
That's the great thing about it. It transcends cultures and time periods. So it's always valued. I think we're valuing it now because like I said, it's not something we're getting, but with the internet and technology, you can seek it and then you have it at your fingertips, which is great.
00:12:37
Speaker
But I think that as a culture, we are kind of starving for it because we're so void of it. Our entertainment is very kind of dull, flashy colors, money, nothing too deep that makes you think about yourself. What it seems like entertainment today is used to get you out of yourself.
00:13:02
Speaker
So you don't have to think and I don't think that's how it has to be. I think entertainment and culture and its role could be kind of changed to something that incorporates yourself with it rather than getting out of yourself and just observing and forgetting about your life for a while.
00:13:22
Speaker
You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. That seems to be the dichotomy that we're dealing with here is like you have more access to ancient knowledge and, uh, the answers potentially to the problems of the human condition, but then you have this entertainment system that just breeds the exact opposite.
00:13:42
Speaker
But that is, I think overall probably a good thing because it, it's, it further feeds that hunger that you were talking about for these types of things. And there's a reason why reality TV is not pertinent to the human condition and timeless. Whereas like Marcus Aurelius as meditations or the Tibetan book of the dead is timeless.
00:14:04
Speaker
Because these are things that we were going to, we are going to keep coming back to, um, as the current state of entertainment fizzles out and becomes something different based off of the current trends that advertising and, uh, product sales are driving. It seems that beneath the surface, the foundation of the human condition will always be, uh, more readily available within ancient traditions and wisdom texts.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, religions as well. I totally agree with that. And I just find it interesting that culturally we just seem to be strengthened so far from that. And what I don't, not necessarily worries me, but what makes me, you know, question the future is, you know, the next generation coming up. It's hard to imagine
00:15:00
Speaker
what it might look like in like 30 years when the babies today will be the adults running the country. I think that the part that worries me most is, kind of goes back to the example that I mentioned before about not having your phone on the toilet.
00:15:22
Speaker
It seems like we're getting into an area where we don't want to be human, meaning you never want to sit with yourself and just fully experience what it is to be human. And with technology, it makes it really easy to not have to do that.
00:15:41
Speaker
this generation of kids coming up, it's going to be like they never lived, like literally never lived without this stuff. So they don't even know what it's like to spend time with themselves. And then, I mean, a lot of people predict that, you know, things like Neuralink are going to be popular. Like we're going to actually incorporate the technology with our bodies. So you literally cannot be without this stuff. And, you know, that might bring something beautiful and amazing.
00:16:11
Speaker
But I think that it's very important to kind of keep a safe distance from technology and really just try to experience the primal nature of yourself. And connecting yourself with nature is a huge part of being a human in more ways than one.
00:16:38
Speaker
You can go to a beach and you can have a good time on the beach and, you know, whatever, but there's a deeper connection. I think that nature has with us in that we are it. And by severing our connection with nature and replacing that with technology that just further takes us away from it. I think that's a big problem. But what I'm hoping is that, like you said, technology is like neural link.
Nature, Health, and Wisdom
00:17:02
Speaker
Um, and maybe even, um, as we were sort of touching on earlier, the, the farther away we sort of get subconsciously driven from nature as a result of technology. Hopefully that creates a, a desire and a stronger hunger in us to explore nature and explore some of these wisdom traditions and psychedelics. And again, man, the bigger psychedelics get
00:17:32
Speaker
The more the message of the beauty of the mystery and the connection to nature and the connection to all of us as one is going to be driven home for people and
00:17:51
Speaker
Even if something bad sort of leads to something good, it's almost like the argument in the very beginning when Trump became president, people were, people who hated Trump were saying, Oh, Trump is going to eventually, it's going to be a good thing because he's going to show us what we don't want in office.
00:18:09
Speaker
You know, things didn't really go according to that plan. I think things have just been nuclear since then. It's just been a massive explosion of our political system in all ways, from all sides. But that's neither here nor there. I guess my point being, the farther away we get from these fundamental aspects of what it means to be human, I'm hoping drives us toward them more, or at least creates more of a hunger in us for them.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think that will happen and is happening. More people are starting to meditate again. I think that's part of it. That's something that we're seeking. But our connection with nature, that worries me as well because
00:19:00
Speaker
Like I keep thinking about kids now I mean when I think when I was a kid I would be outside all the time in nature we would go in the woods you know we were outside until we weren't allowed to be basically and You see kids today aren't really doing that in a lot of areas of course You know there's exceptions some kids do you know still go outside all the time, but there's a large you know
00:19:26
Speaker
a large portion of the population of kids that mainly stay inside and they don't go out and play with their friends as much and it's kind of evident that what this is causing a lot of
00:19:41
Speaker
A lot of mental disorders and kids, I think, they're not as socially trained. There's just so many issues that come along with it. We need the vitamin D during this whole COVID thing. You've seen one of the biggest correlations between people who have died from COVID.
00:20:04
Speaker
was they were vitamin D deficient. And we just take pills now, we take the vitamin D capsules and think we're going to be fine. We keep trying to replace the things that is naturally given to us. Same thing with people are now getting into this grounding where you put your bare feet onto the ground for
00:20:28
Speaker
periods throughout the day and it's supposed to be healthy, sun gazing, staring at the sun, things like this. It's just nature screaming back at us, you know? It's that we are it and that we have to remember that and we have to get in touch with that part of ourselves because it's showing in our health. It really is like as a culture. It's interesting, like nowadays,
00:20:57
Speaker
We don't have a problem with people starving like we had in, you know, thousands of years up until now, you know, hunger, famine, people starving to death was a huge problem.
Mental Health and Natural Solutions
00:21:08
Speaker
Now our problem is we're eating too much. We're consuming too much and people are dying from having too much of the thing that we've been craving for thousands of years, you know, just spending our lives searching for food. Well, now people have it and they're eating themselves to death.
00:21:25
Speaker
and they're staying inside and they're not having, you know, the proper vitamin D and getting in the sun. So these are the things that worry me about what I see as, you know, a society where we're kind of headed. Um, I think that with technology, we're going to keep trying to replace the things that nature gives us to like substitute. Like, like I mentioned with like vitamin D capsules, um,
00:21:52
Speaker
If we just acknowledged the role of nature in our health and in our mental and physical health, and we kind of got back to that, I think we wouldn't need all these different supplements. And it seems now that there's
00:22:10
Speaker
basically a pill for everything. And we think that we can overcome our symptoms by just putting something into our body that is supposedly a cure, but I don't think that that's the answer at all. I think that
00:22:28
Speaker
We have to overcome these issues on a more individual level and I think that people can figure it out for themselves and not just take the pill that's working for everybody else. You mentioned mental health and just taking a pill to fix everything.
00:22:49
Speaker
And that like, this is exactly where this chemical imbalance model comes from. Uh, when it comes to, uh, anybody having mental ailments, if you suffer from depression and anxiety or any sort of mental ailment, you know, the common theory now.
00:23:08
Speaker
If that is agreed upon by most medical professionals is that you have a chemical imbalance in your brain. And if we just add the perfect cocktail of pills, then that chemical imbalance will be corrected. But in reality, what's happening is millions of people are going to their doctors and their
00:23:28
Speaker
They're complaining of mental illness, essentially, and they're being given a medication that creates a chemical imbalance in their brain. Your brain is a perfectly working machine in terms of its neurochemistry.
00:23:43
Speaker
Um, there's all, I mean, of course there's going to be certain circumstances where, uh, there are defects in the system because where there is organic material, there's always defects within those systems. But for the most part, if you're introducing a psychotropic drug into your system, you are throwing off the chemical balance of your brain and creating an imbalance. And what that does is it creates lifelong patients.
00:24:11
Speaker
who can't live without the medication because they don't have the background knowledge to understand that these medications are meant to be taken to get you past a certain threshold and then weaned off of, um, along with the knowledge of how to better yourself and better your life in a direction that's going to be positive for your mental health.
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, and it's really unfortunate this narrative that is being perpetuated now when it comes to things like depression and other mental disorders where you're being told by doctors that you have a medical problem that is, you know, they use words like it's chemical in your brain and they imply that it's something that needs to be remedied by a pill or it's something that you have. Like I have depression.
00:25:06
Speaker
and meaning I'm going to live with depression my whole life. Whereas if you take, I believe that what you believe kind of creates your reality. If you believe that you have depression and it's a permanent thing that you need to take a pill to get rid of, that's how you're gonna live.
Minimalism and Self-Awareness
00:25:29
Speaker
And I don't think telling people that is helpful either.
00:25:35
Speaker
Rather than understanding that as a human being, you will be depressed. Not that you have depression, but at points in your life, you will feel depressed. And there are things that you can do to not feel depressed that don't involve changing the chemistry in your brain. I think a huge part of people's mental health is what they're putting in their bodies.
00:26:02
Speaker
If your body isn't healthy, your mind isn't healthy. That's what I've learned myself when I was overweight like two years ago and I was eating bad, I was drinking, I was doing everything wrong for my body and my mental health deteriorated so quickly. And it's interesting because once I got myself together, thanks to psychedelics actually,
00:26:30
Speaker
I started to exercise and I started eating healthy. As soon as my body started to heal, the mental clarity was insane. It was like night and day. I was the person who thought that I have depression. It's genetic. I have to have it. It's in my genes.
00:26:56
Speaker
I have anxiety that's genetic too. I'm looking up my family tree and seeing this stuff and convincing myself that it's a part of me that will define my behavior.
00:27:08
Speaker
And I'm thinking, you know, I went through the thought process of, okay, what, what anti-depressant should I go on? You know, I never went on them, but I was having these thoughts. I was like, okay, so I think I'm going to need, uh, some type of Benzo for when I have panic attack, you know, like a Xanax or something like just.
00:27:31
Speaker
just thinking up cocktails in my head to try to get rid of this feeling and not realizing that I was depressed because I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see. It's as simple as that. Depression is a tool. It's a tool for you to let you know that there's something that you have to change.
00:27:53
Speaker
Or if depression didn't exist in people, they would just, you know, eat themselves to death. And it's that feeling that motivates change. So I think that it's important to recognize that I'm speaking for myself that I wasn't, I didn't have depression. I was depressed because of a multitude of things.
00:28:18
Speaker
And a big one that I don't think people recognize enough is the diet. You know, you look at the food you're eating and if you pick up a box of anything and look at the ingredients, you won't be able to pronounce half the stuff. So I went and made a switch to eating organic and just trying to eat everything natural and exercising. And it changed my mental state like night and day.
00:28:48
Speaker
I haven't felt depressed in such a long time and I'm so thankful for that. And it's interesting because I have this gratitude for my mental health and even just feeling into that gratitude makes it feel even better. Like it just feeds itself. But I think a lot of people that if you're suffering from any type of mental health, like disorder,
00:29:18
Speaker
I'd say ask yourself what you're eating first. Start eating better, get a six-pack, and then see if you're depressed. I mean, I think a lot of people wouldn't feel as depressed if they had a six-pack and they were eating right and all this. And that's not a six-pack of beer. That's a six-pack of belly muscles.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah, moving around is such a big deal. If you just get up and walk, put yourself in nature, get yourself in a position where your heart rate is, is increasing, where your blood is moving through your body more.
00:29:58
Speaker
That is, it's everything along with diet, you know, uh, you don't have to run a mile every day or, you know, lift a bunch of weights. As long as you just kind of like move around and eat sort of healthy. That's where your, your journey begins, you know, and along with the chemical imbalance theory, what you see is motivations that guide
Advertising's Influence
00:30:25
Speaker
The way our culture moves when it comes to mental health and when it comes to eating is based off of profit motive. It's all profit. All the advertising that we see every single day has a larger effect on us than we really believe.
00:30:42
Speaker
I mean, ask yourself, why is Facebook free? Why is all social media free? And also why is Mark Zuckerberg a multi-billionaire? It's because of advertising, radio, internet, YouTube, podcasts, all these things that are free, even free to play video games now are all based on like after consumption purchase.
00:31:09
Speaker
because we are being influenced by the advertising that is surrounding us. Uh, I watched this movie recently. I think it was made in the eighties. I've watched it a few times in my life, but I watched it again recently. It's called they live. Um, it's like a really corny action movie where, uh, it's rowdy, rowdy Piper. He plays the main character and essentially he finds these glasses and when he, they're sunglasses. And when he puts them on, um, he can see,
00:31:38
Speaker
What all of the ads around him and all of the signage on, uh, stores and newsstands, like what they really are trying to push to you. So there's like a big sign that is like, uh, you know, a sign for like a honeymoon getaway. And when he puts the glasses on, it says like obey, you know, and all of these like different phrases that essentially say like.
00:32:00
Speaker
um, you know, feed into this consume. And these are the like subconscious subliminal motivating factors that are driving us to do pretty much all of the things that we do because our lives are based off of working and buying things. That's pretty much what American life is or Westernized life is. Yeah. And it's that way.
00:32:24
Speaker
for almost all of us. Hearing you say that, I can relate to it totally because I've felt that kind of controlled by advertisements and just consumption. I've felt that way for most of my life.
00:32:46
Speaker
I'm just grateful that I don't feel that way right now, which I think that there is a big push in like a counterculture trying to kind of push against this, people that are recognizing it. What I've noticed is
00:33:07
Speaker
A total lifestyle change is needed basically to counteract this. What's worked for me and what I've clung on to is kind of a minimalist, naturalist lifestyle. This is where I think exercise is really important too because instead of putting your time into working to get money to buy something, now a more rewarding
00:33:37
Speaker
feeling is investing your time in yourself, in your body.
Minimalism vs Materialism
00:33:42
Speaker
So exercising, it helps with your brain chemistry, it helps you feel good, it helps you look good, and you don't have to consume anything to
00:33:54
Speaker
to start on this endeavor of exercise. And I've noticed it's way easier to be disinterested in material things when you realize how plentiful your own body is with things that can reward you.
00:34:15
Speaker
So luckily, I kind of see through the matrix in a sense. I don't find myself wanting many things anymore. I tried to become content with what I have exactly where I am at the moment, rather than looking at others and wanting what they have.
00:34:38
Speaker
And it can be hard, you know, jealousy is such a powerful force in so many people's lives and drives them to do, you know, almost everything they do a lot of times. I felt that way in my life.
00:34:52
Speaker
But I think expanding your consciousness and raising your level of awareness is, is the move to counteract those types of feelings because now I'm more aware of my body. Um, I'm more aware of, you know, the things outside of my body as well, like the advertisements and you know, the quote unquote matrix.
00:35:16
Speaker
So I think the more that you become aware of yourself, which is where meditation comes in and psychedelics, you become more aware of yourself and then you can kind of look past the material things in life and realize the beauty that you have within and the beauty and everything around you. This is the importance of expanding consciousness and raising your awareness.
00:35:46
Speaker
Material things aren't really needed when you can look at the world in a more open-minded way. It's very interesting that the change that I've had in my life over like the last year or two being completely consumed by negative energy and jealousy of others and wanting things that I don't have to now realizing that I have so much already
00:36:16
Speaker
And keeping that mindset will just bring me more. I'm guilty of loving material goods too. You know, I've got a sweet Apple watch. I love this microphone that I have. It's nice. Um, but I, I got to a point where I'm not consumed by what I have.
00:36:41
Speaker
or don't have and I'm, I don't value my life based off of what I have or what I don't have. I just like to have cool shit. And like, I'm okay with that. You know, I, I don't have an attachment to
00:36:55
Speaker
having it, and I don't have an attachment to not having it. So I can just sort of sit in the middle and I can enjoy the society that I live in, which happens to be capitalistic. I can enjoy this type of society while also being detached enough from it to not need any of it. I think it's important to be able to enjoy what is provided for you and what you can have and what you work for.
00:37:24
Speaker
But also understanding that if you didn't have it, if it was all, if that technology and all these nice things were all taken away, it wouldn't affect like my mental wellbeing at all because I can, I can exist without it. And this is a point that it was actually brought up in.
00:37:42
Speaker
uh, in meditations by Marcus Aurelius that I've been listening to, uh, in the beginning of book one, he starts to talk about all the people he appreciates. So the people that are in his life that he's learned from and things like that. And the one person he's talking about, he describes this exact scenario where, you know, you are. Uh, able to enjoy the abundance of life, but you don't define yourself based off of it. And if you know that you, that when you lose all of it, or if you lose all of it, that you can still be content within yourself.
00:38:11
Speaker
That's so important. Yeah, and that kind of reminded me of the Buddha when you said that, because the Buddha had it all.
Technology Usage
00:38:21
Speaker
He had everything, and it took him getting rid of it, like leaving his life of wealth to really discover what it is to be happy. And I think that that might be the case for a lot of people.
00:38:39
Speaker
because we're talking about technology and all this stuff and there's a lot of benefits from it. The information that we have access to is just incredible. But I feel like the way that a lot of people are using technology is actually
00:38:57
Speaker
leading to these negative mental health effects. Like when you look to kids using social media, it leads to a lot of depression and teen suicide and all these horrible things. And it's interesting to watch because this technology is so new, we don't really know how to handle it yet. And it seems like
00:39:24
Speaker
our technology is moving faster than our growth as human beings. Our consciousness needs to rise to match the level of technology we're dealing with. Because if you put this technology in the hands of, say, the Buddha or somebody that is enlightened
00:39:46
Speaker
You know, who knows what can be done with it. But when you put this technology in the hands of people who are, you know, consumed with material items and consumed with themselves and already depressed, it seems like it will just add to those feelings.
00:40:02
Speaker
Well, the thing is, it's our responsibility as humans to learn how to use our technology responsibly. You know, we have this weird notion within our society that like, everything is going to be okay, man, because, you know, you know, a mother president and mother country and mother, uh, Apple and mother Samsung, they're all going to take care of us. They're all going to give us everything we need. And we don't have to work very hard for it because it's all going to be given to us.
00:40:31
Speaker
And I think that's a really detrimental attitude to have because you're learning to become dependent on things that are sort of transient and will dissolve right in front of your eyes in two seconds. Imagine what would happen if.
00:40:48
Speaker
The American electrical grid went down or even if just the internet went down, we would be fucked. A lot of the world would be in a lot of trouble because we've become so dependent.
00:41:03
Speaker
on our technology in a way that we're not using it responsibly. We're not using it to enhance our baseline level of wisdom and life.
Consciousness and Culture
00:41:14
Speaker
We're using it as a crutch, as a tool to replace, like we were saying earlier, to replace the things that nature gives us and the things that we give ourselves.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if electricity went out, if the grid got fried, I mean, in a week you would see society start falling apart. Yeah, it's interesting how reliant we've become on things that are outside of our control. One thing we talk quite a bit about on here is whether or not consciousness is fundamental.
00:41:52
Speaker
And I mean, it's an age old argument that, you know, we could have for eons, but it seems that the culture that we live in right now pushes the space time model as being fundamental. And to me, what that says is that the inner world is not real, but the outer world, the material physical world is real.
00:42:19
Speaker
And that definitely coincides with what we were just talking about with materialism, with advertising, with purchasing, you know, with consumerism, with all of this. So it's no surprise to me that the pervasive model in our culture is the physicalist paradigm that says, space-time is fundamental. All the things outside here, this is real. All the things inside your brain, not so much. Yeah. It's, it's like a perfect storm.
00:42:48
Speaker
We were indoctrinated with this worldview from such a young age that it's no longer become just like a worldview to us. It's what reality is. And up until recent years, that's the way I took it. I thought,
00:43:06
Speaker
that we had it figured out as a species. They were like, this is what it is. And it wasn't something that I even questioned. This was my reality. It's a physical reality. And like you said, external, real, internal, not so real.
00:43:26
Speaker
It's interesting to watch because it's like you see that one idea and you watch it grow into the culture that we have now. And you could trace it back and it makes total sense. It makes me wonder what it might look like if a society had the opposite view. Not saying either is even right or wrong, but what kind of society that would breed.
00:43:51
Speaker
We were indoctrinated with a viewpoint that the physical world is nothing but an idea and you know the whole idealism that you know mind is the fundamental. Aspect of reality the substance of reality being mind and when you think about that the culture that would breed would be pretty wild i think.
00:44:14
Speaker
I was listening to a podcast today with Lex Friedman and Annika Harris, and Annika Harris brought this up, but she said that it seems that it might be legitimate to say that we started from the correct paradigm in order to discover the new paradigm of consciousness being fundamental.
00:44:33
Speaker
Because like you said, if you think about where we would be right now, if we started with the consciousness being fundamental view of reality, who knows where we were, where we would be. But if you look at it right now, you can see.
00:44:49
Speaker
The negative effects on people that this type of society is having and you can see people being driven more and more toward going inside going to retreats and all this stuff, uh, psychedelics becoming so huge and all of this, uh, this spirituality and.
00:45:08
Speaker
inner reflection becoming so much more prominent in our lives, you can see it. And I think it is caused by all of the depression, all the anxiety, all the bullshit that this physicalist paradigm has given us. So I think maybe starting from the position that we're in, it might be like the best way to go because we're able to sort of slowly discover something that, uh, is like fundamentally under like the foundation. It makes me wonder if, um,
00:45:40
Speaker
If ancient cultures in the past had already went through this and have known this before, because if you look at like ancient Egypt or better yet, just if a culture did have the worldview of
00:45:56
Speaker
consciousness being fundamental, you wouldn't need so much material items and things. This one guy that I've listened to, Matthias DiStefano, he was on Aubrey Marcus' podcast and this is a man that claims to
00:46:15
Speaker
remember his past lives and things like this. And a lot of the things he says resonates with me. And what he said about chem, which would be like ancient Egypt right before what we consider the Old Kingdom, I think, like right after the flood, so about like 12,000 years ago, that they were living in a totally different paradigm, not what we're living in now.
00:46:42
Speaker
And I think that according to his memories that they may have had a completely different understanding of reality and they had technology.
00:46:54
Speaker
But their technology wasn't external like we think of technology today. He said that they viewed themselves as the technology and they mastered mind and that allowed them to do incredible things. And with this, they lived in a whole different paradigm and it makes you think what is possible if the collective consciousness believes in
Science and Consciousness
00:47:22
Speaker
consciousness being fundamental. If we were indoctrinated into that mode of thinking and we thought of ourselves as the technology rather than externally building the technology, what type of things human beings would be capable of?
00:47:43
Speaker
I mean, I don't know. I think a lot of things could be possible. I've experienced so much wild shit in the last couple of years from psychedelic trips to breath work, meditation, and especially in dream states as well. It just makes me think that, you know, the power of, of your mind is, is key. You know, consciousness is key to understanding reality. And it's interesting.
00:48:12
Speaker
that our current model of reality, the materialist, physicalist model, we've been driving at this thing for so long in our culture, and our science has kind of hit a dead end with it. And that's why I think with Donald Hoffman saying that
00:48:33
Speaker
space-time is doomed. That's what he says, right? I think that's true. So it's interesting that when you look at our scientists today, materialist scientists, they call consciousness, it's referred to as the hard problem of consciousness. It's something that has been ignored
00:48:54
Speaker
for hundreds of years in Western culture. It's been ignored and just looked at as a problem, which is crazy when, in my view, that it's the main thing to be looked at rather than just pushing it aside and saying, ah, we'll work that out later. It's not important. Everything works aside from the consciousness aspect of it. I think it's interesting because it's got to be looked at
00:49:24
Speaker
intensively rather than push to the side and consider a problem. And you ask what would a culture be like if they started from a consciousness, inner work type of mentality as opposed to a physicalist one and look no further than the Amazon. You have cultures that are indigenous now
00:49:47
Speaker
Uh, that are and have been for the past thousand or more years, uh, mapping the conscious world and, and, uh, the world of mind. While we were over here working with bombs and airplanes and material stuff, you know, they were mapping the world that we're going to have to eventually adopt into our lives. And if you ask them down on the Amazon, um,
00:50:14
Speaker
You know, especially the, uh, the Shipibo tribes, the ayahuasca shaman who, uh, who traverse, you know, the realms of infinity, they'll tell you what our problem is. It's pretty much what we've been saying this entire podcast, which is that we've been.
00:50:35
Speaker
blinded and hypnotized by material goods. We have severed our connection to nature and our, and to ourselves.
00:50:45
Speaker
Um, and they would also, uh, say that if we don't get our act together, that we're going to quote unquote, bring the whole house of cards down on the entire planet. And man, America, China, Russia, like we're flirting with nuclear war. Like what is happening here? Like we really are about to blow up, you know, or bring down the entire house of cards on everyone.
00:51:14
Speaker
Yep, and that might be what has to happen. We might need another great reset. I mean, whatever happens is what needs to happen, you know? But it makes me think when you mention the Amazon, so do you think that they have it, quote unquote, right?
00:51:34
Speaker
I don't think anyone has it right. I think humans were, the only thing we can have right. Is, um, the direction in which we're moving, you know, I do think that there is sort of like, it might not be so two sided as to say one direction's wrong. One direction is right. But you can definitely see and sense what is a more.
00:51:59
Speaker
Uh, fruitful direction for society, for nature, for a symbiotic living, happiness, joy, fulfillment. And you can also see a side where that's not so much valued. And those types of things are pushed to the side in favor of.
00:52:19
Speaker
constant consumerism, hating the other group, creating out groups to not associate yourself with in order to give context to your own shallow views of what you think reality and society should be. And that's something that psychedelics really helped to teach me was that you need all of the people, you need everything. The more perspectives you have,
00:52:48
Speaker
As a society, or you know what, let's say as a species, the more says the more perspectives that we have surrounding us only informs and strengthens our own perspective because it gives it more context to exist within, which is a, it gives it a broader range of information to cover.
00:53:08
Speaker
If I am surrounded by people who have either my view or just one opposing view that's opposite, then all I'm doing is I'm creating a context for negativity that's based in me hating the other side.
00:53:26
Speaker
And what that does is it just makes my position more volatile. It makes it farther on the spectrum to one side as opposed to understanding and being complacent with the middle path. And I just think that's not good for anyone's perspective. I think we need to broaden our ideas of what other perspectives can offer us.
00:53:55
Speaker
That's why it's important to hold the perspective of no perspective almost. Not no perspective, but it's interesting because
00:54:09
Speaker
As people, it seems that we identify with that perspective. That's where you get these tribal groups attacking each other. I found it important to raise my awareness, my self-awareness, so I can understand what I truly am, that I am not the perspective.
Consciousness as Technology
00:54:30
Speaker
I can't identify with that. So a lot of people, what I see them doing is
00:54:37
Speaker
taking on an ideology and then identifying themselves with it. So if you attack the idea, they think that you're attacking them. So what I've been trying to do is just respect everybody's perspective and try to absorb it, but not identify with it. So not claim it as my own, but bring it into myself and understand it.
00:55:09
Speaker
And I think that's an important thing for people to do. I feel like the more you become aware of yourself and your true nature, the easier it is to do that. And then as a species, we could be aligned with that perspective of no perspective and kind of work toward a common goal rather than fighting amongst each other so much. I think the key is
00:55:39
Speaker
Love man, and it really is though. Um actual love selflessness We're so self-absorbed and We don't even know what we are. We don't know who we are. So it's going to cause problems, of course but if more people and myself obviously included what I'm trying to do is kind of become that selfless ideal
00:56:09
Speaker
and try to put others before yourself not because it'll make you feel good, but because they are yourself, if that makes sense.
00:56:21
Speaker
to recognize yourself as one with everything, not just every person, but everything, every idea, every perspective, recognize yourself with that and not cling to an ideology. Um, I think that would be interesting to see if a whole culture could kind of adopt that mode of thinking and see what it leads to, to kind of,
00:56:52
Speaker
bring it all together, have that idea of consciousness being fundamental, and instead of working towards consumerism, money, and all these things, focus on yourself, on self-awareness, on looking at yourself as the technology and everyone around you as yourself.
00:57:21
Speaker
I don't know.
Individual Growth Beyond Systems
00:57:22
Speaker
I think it would be interesting to see what kind of roots would come from that type of idea. Amen, brother. In terms of directionality, like we were talking about before, that seems to be in what I would say is like the right direction.
00:57:41
Speaker
You know, we might not have the map perfectly. Um, we might not know exactly what we're supposed to do and say, I'm doing the right thing, but at least the direction seems to be positive because it's based off of things that again, we go back to what we were talking about earlier. They're these, these ideas that you're speaking on are based off of the. The foundation of the human condition, which is where all of these wisdom texts cover.
00:58:12
Speaker
And it's kind of hard to talk about this stuff because a lot of it contradicts itself in a way because we're talking about not necessarily how we think people should act, but it kind of comes off that way. But see, that's why for me, I'm...
00:58:31
Speaker
kind of like a radical individualist because I don't think there's any way that you can create a system that will be perfect and like one system for all these people to follow. I don't think that works. So in my belief, if all I can do
00:58:53
Speaker
All I'll ever be able to do is go within myself and learn from myself, you know, learn more about what I actually am and what reality really is. And I think that's all you can do. And then hope that others are doing something similar, um, and then let everything fall where it may. Uh, but as far as setting up a system and telling people, I think that's one of the big issues.
00:59:21
Speaker
Telling people things never really works. It has to be self-discovered. That's how it works with me at least. I don't respond well to authority or someone telling me the way it is. I want to discover it for myself and then I can own it as myself. I'm not a fan of just faith-based beliefs or appealing to authority.
00:59:48
Speaker
that when you truly discover something on your own and you've had the responsibility of finding it yourself, then you can really own it and live it. You could be the thing. Because even if it's something you're just told, even if you think you fully believe it,
01:00:09
Speaker
There's still some subconscious part of you that knows you aren't it, that you didn't fully discover that and know it as all truth. So I think the key, in my opinion, would be raise consciousness. That's basically it. The more aware you've become, especially of yourself,
01:00:30
Speaker
The more selfless you can become and then at my opinion would minimize violence and hopefully we wouldn't blow up the planet like it looks like we're doing now. Yeah. It seems that when you put all of the answers in a system and you look to that system to be.
01:00:50
Speaker
your caretaker, then again, like you said, you know, it's only gonna end in demise because systems themselves inherently just can't get this right. I think that's the most true thing.
01:01:06
Speaker
ever. And it's one of our biggest problems because look at our world. I mean, we think about the earth in terms of the lines on the map. We don't think of the earth as like the guy in mind, the home of all human and animal and plant and fungal life. We base
01:01:31
Speaker
Even the physical world that we look at on the map and the map is based off of.
01:01:39
Speaker
basically just cultural territories. That's all it is. And each of these cultural territories think that they're doing things the right way and have their own issues with the way that the other cultural territories are doing things. So you can just see inherently, this is just a system that doesn't work. And I mean, it brings to mind like the conspiracy of like a one world government. And, but even that is a system. And when you look to a system to dictate what you do and what your values are and who you are.
01:02:10
Speaker
you're not going to find anything.
Deprogramming Societal Norms
01:02:12
Speaker
And it just seems that we've been indoctrinated into this way of thinking of this very systems way of thinking. Like we've been prioritizing the left side of the brain, the logical thinking and kind of pushing aside the intuition and the feeling aspect of ourselves. Um, especially just us in, you know, Western culture,
01:02:39
Speaker
We look at things in such a strange way that we believe to be true, like the way reality is, but it's really just the way we were taught. Like when you were just talking there, I can envision in my head, like what the world looks like. And I can see the lines on the map and I can see the different areas and then all the things that my mind attaches to those areas.
01:03:03
Speaker
And it's very like systematic and it's really not true either. A lot of things when you really start to break it down and really analyze the thoughts. But it's just, I think that what I found worked for me is kind of deprogramming my mind and trying to work out a new way of thinking, a way of thinking that I design rather than one that was given to me. And I think.
01:03:30
Speaker
that more people doing that would lead to more happiness, I guess you'd say. I don't want to say a better society because I don't know what it takes to make a proper society, but people are feeling unfulfilled and there's a lot of these mental health issues.
01:03:51
Speaker
I think it's a lot deeper than even what we mentioned, just diet and exercise and these types of things. I think it could boil down to a very fundamental part of ourselves where we're living in a reality and a lot of us aren't even questioning it and the things that we believe to be true about it.
01:04:11
Speaker
We didn't discover ourselves. There's like a need for discovery. And like deep inside that the mystery of life and the mystery of existence, it like burns inside of everyone, I think. And it's kind of just been dampered and put out because we've been given the answers and you've adopted those answers and identified with them. And it's just a paradigm shifting moment.
01:04:42
Speaker
when you come to realize that those answers that you were given aren't actually
Psychedelics and New Perspectives
01:04:48
Speaker
it. It's not actually the truth. It's just a way of thinking that you've adopted and it's a fun process to try to invent your own way of looking at things and your own way of thinking.
01:05:03
Speaker
And now I look at the world through different eyes, completely different eyes than the way I used to see things.
01:05:14
Speaker
It's easy to, I've noticed that you could feel even a little cynical or get some negative feelings from this, but I feel less cynical than I used to. And I've recognized that a lot of my dissatisfaction and anger and sadness really came from living in a reality that I was told is one way.
01:05:42
Speaker
and now kind of discovering that it was never that way to begin with. Um, and it is what you make it basically. And what seems to happen when you feel into that type of philosophy of life is things get a little less anxious and you realize that in a sense, everything is going to be okay in the system that we currently live under.
01:06:12
Speaker
uh, we're under constant stress and constant anxiety. And it's like a constant state of like being under attack, it feels like. And that's what I felt for my whole life until I started down what seems to me to be the, the right path, you know, this, this middle way or something like that. Um, and.
01:06:34
Speaker
One of the things I learned from psychedelics that was always so prominent was this overwhelming feeling that like, it's okay. Everything is going to be okay.
01:06:46
Speaker
Terence McKenna has this awesome quote where he says, uh, like the plants are in charge, you know, and they really do give that, that vibe when you're under the influence of mushrooms specifically that, you know, don't worry, like we got everything under control. Like you're doing okay. You're doing just fine. Just relax. Everything's going to be all right. And yeah, you say like relieving anxiety. It's a huge thing for me with, you know,
01:07:13
Speaker
this new way of thinking and through the help of psychedelics, it's like in our culture, we have such a fear of death. Like it's so huge. And when you really sit and think about it, it's funny because we largely let our fear of death run our lives. And we don't even know what death is as a culture. It's like, we don't, we kind of just fear it.
01:07:41
Speaker
Um, with psychedelics, that allowed me to change my view on death too. And that is one of the main things that alleviated a lot of my anxiety. Cause I don't know about you, but for me, I was one of those people that would think about death too much, I think. Um, and it just caused anxiety in myself, just the thought of dying. And with my worldview at that time, dying seemed
01:08:09
Speaker
like horrible because in my mind, I was living in a physical reality. There was nothing that's going to happen. How could nothing happen? Like it just would lead me down a spiral of just negativity and fear. And then, you know, I take a psychedelic and
01:08:29
Speaker
I'm still that person that had those thoughts. So under the psychedelic trip, I go right to death. And I, and then you're faced with a journey and you have to go through the process of death and you can fight it and live in that fear while you're in your, your psychedelic trip. And I've learned, you know, the hard way, but the best way to surrender to the fear and surrender to death. And in those experiences,
01:08:58
Speaker
I've learned that death isn't at all what I thought it was and it's beyond language or beyond what we can talk about here. That it isn't something that has to be feared though. Psychedelics revealed so much to me about what life and death is and what my experience is going through it.
Life, Death, and Continuity
01:09:22
Speaker
So that helped with, you know, 99% of my anxiety that I deal, what I, that I used to deal with. And now I don't really have that same anxiousness. Think about what death means in our society. Like you said, or recontextualize or redefine death for you. What death means to most people is like.
01:09:45
Speaker
You know, I'm not going to get to see like the next season of the show I want or like, uh, I'm not going to see the people that I love. I'm not going to be able to eat food anymore. I'm not going to be able to enjoy TV. I'm not going to get to see where technology goes. I'm not going to get to see who the next president is going to be. It's all based off of these external things because we define.
01:10:07
Speaker
uh, the ceasing of living as the ceasing of existing in our external reality because that's the only reality we think exists. But when you have an experience that shows you that there's something there beneath the surface, something that exists beyond what you consider, uh, the physical world.
01:10:33
Speaker
Then you can recontextualize and re appreciate what death can potentially mean. And it doesn't alleviate the fear completely because I am still afraid of death. I still have that survival mode in me that would do most anything to not die, but.
01:10:53
Speaker
the baseline fear that you're speaking of, of death, this existential angst and anxiety that we have revolving around death is now greatly diminished. And that doesn't just go for my death. It goes for the death of the people around me and the things around me. Again, it's like a, it's, it's this basic Buddhist teaching of
01:11:17
Speaker
attachment and attachment causes suffering. And if you can alleviate yourself of attachment, then you can begin down what they call the eightfold path, which is what alleviates, uh, you know, your attachment to things, which will alleviate your suffering.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, as a human being, I obviously do have fear of death, but not in the anxious way that I used to have it. Like if somebody came here and was going to kill me, I would do everything I could to defend myself and whatnot. It's not like I walk around floating on a cloud, not caring at all what happens. It's more like, um,
01:12:01
Speaker
There were so many unanswered questions about death. There was so much association with sadness, being alone, fear, pain, darkness, all those things I associate with death. And then I have an experience that could change that all in an infinite moment. Like you mentioned how everything we see or everything we think is based off of this external reality.
01:12:29
Speaker
but then to have an experience where you're plucked out of that place. But you're still there at the same time, interestingly enough. But you're plucked out of an area and now you're existing in a place with no time, no space. You're just purely being. It's an infinite moment. It's like the eternity of the present.
01:12:56
Speaker
And then when you can see existence through that lens, you can realize that every end is also a beginning. Time doesn't exist in a linear fashion. Like you think of the way we conventionally think of time, you think of like, uh, one dot at the left end, one dot at the right end and a line going through them and they meet. So just one horizontal line. And I would say that it's more accurately a circle.
01:13:25
Speaker
So there's one point at the top and that's the beginning and the end. So time is always existing and there's no, there's no end point or no like beginning. It's one circle and it's all happening at that same time. So I don't have the feeling of dread when I think of.
01:13:46
Speaker
you know, an experience of death. I think that it might be, and most likely will be, a very beautiful rebirth, in a sense. And at least for a moment, probably getting an experience of your true self and what, like Ramdha said, it's like taking off a tight shoe. And I think that makes a lot of sense to me now.
01:14:16
Speaker
And I have to thank psychedelics for that because if it weren't for my psychedelic experiences and some, I was listening to somebody saying all this right now, I would be thinking, yeah, that's all nice and good, but fuck death. I'm still terrified. And I don't think there's any way to get over that. At least there wasn't for me until I had these experiences of like transcendental states, um, experiencing myself outside of time and space and
01:14:46
Speaker
in a whole different reality. It really assures you 1000% that there's far more to reality and existence than what we've been taught and what we just believe based on this realm.
01:17:39
Speaker
you