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34. The Consciousness You Hold Creates Your Reality
61 Plays2 years ago
In this week's episode we start by discussing spirituality and how we each define it. If you hadn’t guessed, psychedelics played a huge role our spiritual development, and redefined what the word can mean for us. To me the important part of this, was opening up to ideas that I had previously dismissed as fantasy or delusion. Some of these ideas have shaped what my current worldview is, which we get into in today’s discussion.
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Music By Nathan Willis RIP
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Transcript
Introduction & Audience Engagement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pursuit of Infinity. In this week's episode, Joe and I start by discussing spirituality and how we each define it. If you hadn't guessed, psychedelics played a huge role in our spiritual development and redefined what the word can mean for us. To me, the important part of this was opening up to ideas that I had previously dismissed as fantasy or delusion.
00:00:21
Speaker
Some of these ideas have shaped what my current worldview is, which we get into in today's discussion. But before we get to it, if you like what we do and you want to support the show, we really appreciate a follower sub as well as a five star rating and maybe even some kind of words of encouragement in the form of a review. These things really help us to expand our reach and credibility, which is so much appreciated.
00:00:43
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. Check us out on YouTube. The channel is up. 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.
00:01:03
Speaker
We're also on Instagram at Pursuit of Infinity Pod, so give us a follow and reach out because we would love to hear from
Spirituality Beyond Self
00:01:08
Speaker
you. And without further delay, thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoy this week's discussion.
00:01:38
Speaker
I talk a lot about the relative nature of reality. And this is pretty much a podcast about spirituality. And I was thinking about this earlier, like spirituality. And it's such a broad term. And it's, it's very, it's a very obvious, obviously, like relative term.
00:02:01
Speaker
It's so individualized for everyone. One person's idea of spirituality may be completely different than mine. So I wanted to ask you to start, what is spirituality to you? What does that big word mean? Oh man, I love it. To me, spirituality is
00:02:22
Speaker
the acknowledgement of something, whether it be, this is where you can define it, whether it be a system or an entity or a, you know, a book or a set of wisdom that exists beyond yourself. So anything that, or any practice that supports the acknowledgement that you are not like the center of the universe type of thing, that there's like something
00:02:51
Speaker
that exists beyond yourself, that is a quote unquote greater than you. And that to me comes in, like that can cover religion. It can cover even, even atheism to, to a degree, it can cover people who believe in the process of space and the cosmos. So I think that's a broad enough answer to kind of cover all forms.
Influences of Psychedelics on Beliefs
00:03:15
Speaker
How about you? What do you think it is?
00:03:18
Speaker
First off, I agree with what you said, but for me, spirituality is truth. They're almost synonymous terms.
00:03:28
Speaker
But I also agree it's something beyond yourself, like the acknowledgement of something beyond yourself, which is what I found to be true. Um, and I'm pretty sure you mean like when you're talking about yourself, meaning something beyond the ego. Exactly. Yeah. My mistake. I figured that's what you meant. Um, but I feel like, cause I never really, when I started along this path
00:03:53
Speaker
Um, I never really thought of myself as spiritual necessarily. Um, I found myself in a position of like, especially with psychedelics, finding a tool that can show me truth. And I was more perplexed with that. That's what kind of brought me in. It's like, wow, this can show me something completely different and give me an experience that is undeniably true to me. True as in.
00:04:21
Speaker
It's right there. It's happening. There's no denying it. And I think that kind of just led me into spirituality because that's a good word for what is true. You know, like the spirit, something, a higher self, something far beyond what I've thought my whole life is true. It's like a new
00:04:48
Speaker
new vision on life, a new truth. That's spirituality for me. But I wanted to ask you also, because like I mentioned, I wasn't necessarily a spiritual person and you're my brother, so I know mostly we weren't raised in any type of religion. We were mostly like atheistic and scientifically thinking. So what brought you anywhere near spirituality?
00:05:19
Speaker
I want to start by also saying along with the word truth, the word why, as in like the why. That is also I think synonymous with spirituality. And both the why and truth I think are like the same thing. But what brought me to spirituality was
Books & Psychedelics: Understanding Reality
00:05:39
Speaker
Terence McKenna, because he brought me to psychedelics. And, you know, when he would talk about psychedelics, he would talk about them as like a panacea of knowledge and access to reality. And to me.
00:05:55
Speaker
There's always like this little void that I felt because I was so invested in like the scientific framework that I would often try to expel my atheism like onto things. And that's not compatible. Like atheism isn't compatible with reality. And I realized that as I started to learn more about what the world is, what philosophy is, what the mind is,
00:06:25
Speaker
What really hit it home was starting to discover what we don't know. And when you realize that there's just so much that we don't and cannot know, you seek ulterior forms of information and McKenna and some of these other people that I would listen to would just go on and on about psychedelics and especially mushrooms and DMT.
00:06:51
Speaker
in how they can expand consciousness and they can expand your conception of what reality is. And I was reading this book called Biocentrism by Dr. Robert Lanza. Have you heard of this book? It sounds familiar, but I haven't read it or anything.
00:07:10
Speaker
It was the perfect segue into psychedelics and into this frame of thought, because it's a book that essentially presents a new scientific framework that's based on consciousness being fundamental. And it was the first time I'd ever heard or read anybody talking about consciousness being fundamental. So for me, when I heard Terrence McKenna and Alan Watts and all these spiritual people start to talk about the, uh, potential for psychedelics to expand consciousness, I thought, well,
00:07:40
Speaker
This has a lot to do with the things I'm reading in this book. And I read another book called Freedom from the Known by Krishnamurti. And after reading some of those things and listening to, again, Terence McKenna, the rubber met the road when I really
00:07:58
Speaker
experimented and took psychedelics.
Experiencing Divinity through Psychedelics
00:08:00
Speaker
And then when you have that feeling, it just, it validates everything that you've been reading and it makes you realize like, Oh, okay. Like this is what they're talking about. It's real and it's more real and it feels different than they said, or then I could possibly have interpreted it. And I think the foundational like bottom line here of this whole rant is that.
00:08:27
Speaker
When you expand your consciousness to a point where like the mushroom in my case helps you to feel what the divine is, so to speak, that's when everything changed because it was no longer something I was reading or listening to. It was experiential at that point. Yeah. It brought all those words to life and it is something like so hard to describe in words and those people that you named do so, such a good job at doing that.
00:08:57
Speaker
I like also the word knowledge that you said that's another one for me with spirituality and you also said what is and I think like spirituality is the is you know what is the is and just ising so they say like in Buddhist thought isness
00:09:17
Speaker
you know, is-ness. Teaching, teaching yourself how to be also, being, is-ness, all those things. And it sounds like so simplistic and almost novel, like, I don't know how to really describe it, but that is what spirituality is to me and it feels
00:09:38
Speaker
It feels with psychedelics having brought into my life, it's like that is a confirmation, as you said, of all the things that you've heard and things that maybe you've had glimpses of in your life. Like I've had a little taste of the divine in dreams sometimes. And then to have the psychedelic experience, it's overwhelmingly mind altering. Like it's so far out there.
00:10:09
Speaker
that it opens a gate that you could never close. You can't shut that gate once it's open. So it gave me an entirely different perspective on reality.
00:10:21
Speaker
And another
Time Perception & Psychedelics
00:10:22
Speaker
interesting point is that along with like giving you access to an experiential divinity, it addresses the questions of the universe, the large questions that we thought were unanswerable. It gives you the closest thing that you're ever going to get to a potential path forward to understanding those big questions and their potential answers. Yeah, it can, it can speak to you in something
00:10:52
Speaker
more profound and beyond language. I've talked about my DMT experience on here and when I got the message of this being or whatever it was that I was falling in this love
00:11:10
Speaker
I was just getting hit with love by this thing and it by the end of the trip it said I am you forever but it didn't say it in words it but it was a clear message and I can't describe how it said it and it did it in a way that when it said that
00:11:25
Speaker
I felt what forever was. So you can't get that experience any other way. So I felt, you know, being brought together with this thing. And I felt what eternity is like it was, it made me realize and this is another thing I've read, or I've heard people say and had a
00:11:45
Speaker
you know, somewhat of a grasp on that eternity is now, eternity is all that exists, you know, there's no time doesn't exist, that type of thing. And but in that moment, it was like a pure knowledge of and, like, pure isness of eternity, and realizing in that moment that this, this is what eternity is. And that's all that there actually is, just
00:12:08
Speaker
being in the eternal now. And that was something that, you know, I can say the three words, I am you forever or four words, but, uh, it doesn't, it can't, uh, give you the message that I was given by that, like those words are the only thing I have to bring out of it to tell other people about it. But what happened in the experience, the message, the knowledge that came with it was just so much bigger than anything I can imagine. And like you try to
00:12:38
Speaker
you know, put yourself back in that space or try to feel it. And you have just like a taste of it. It's almost like a dream. You know, it happened. You can remember it, but you can't experience it fully like you had in the moment.
Confronting Truths with Psychedelics
00:12:51
Speaker
And you bring up the timelessness of it or like the sense of like time not being what it is as we understand it in like a linear fashion. Like the first time that I was like really, really deep on a psychedelic experience. And I thought that.
00:13:09
Speaker
Like, I don't know, an hour and a half had gone by and it was only like 12 minutes or something. I was like, Oh my gosh. Like that, that, that notion that.
00:13:21
Speaker
time is almost defined in those situations by what you feel. And like the number measurement of time doesn't coincide with that. The fact that you can separate those two so dramatically was very weird to me very mind altering and it changes the I mean, it's these little things.
00:13:40
Speaker
Uh, and then as well as the huge experiences that just changed the way that your mind perceives what you think reality is, because we base reality off of time. Um, and events that coincide with a measurable limit of time. And again, when you can separate like what it feels like to be under the influence of something for 10 minutes and what it actually was.
00:14:05
Speaker
Um, or what it feels like to, to, to experience time longer than what it actually is. Like in this quote unquote physical reality that redefines what's possible. Yeah. And it's just, it's the relativity of the relativity of it all that is shown to you through the psychedelic like Einstein, you know, you said, well, time is relative. There's no such thing as like an absolute time. Like.
00:14:32
Speaker
But with the psychedelic, it's just shown to you so clearly in such a huge way. I forget what Einstein, he said something about time being relative by…
00:14:47
Speaker
how long five minutes feels when you're with the love of your life versus five minutes in hell or something, you know, whatever. And that's a way you can think about it and it's actually true. You think about the time or if you're doing something you enjoy versus just like driving in a car mindlessly, the time is different. You experience it differently. And I think psychedelics really show you that. One time when I was
00:15:12
Speaker
having a trip with some of my friends I was sitting on the floor across from a friend and we were like having a moment together like talking it felt this is my memory of the experience of sitting there talking with him and it felt like we were figuring it all out man like not like by talking about
00:15:36
Speaker
meaning of the universe or anything it was just our words were flowing so good to each other like we were talking about everything and i'm sitting there having this experience with him like i mean everything from our favorite foods to what water tastes like it just felt like we were communicating everything you can imagine and it felt like we were there for hours and hours and it was literally one minute one minute felt like
00:16:00
Speaker
hours and that blew my mind. It's just something that is weird. Like psychedelics to me are something that we experience all the time. It's just something we're always experiencing in reality, but the psychedelic shows us the extremes of it. It makes the truth more apparent.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, like that experience was just mind blowing. And I like to describe it as it shows you more and
Managing Intense Psychedelic Experiences
00:16:33
Speaker
more reality.
00:16:35
Speaker
with the dose, the higher the dose, you know? So it's like, how much, how much reality can you take? How much of what is real? If something was omniscient, if you got to speak with God or who, or whatever you believe, and it told you, it just gave you reality. It was teaching you what reality was. That's what I kind of describe it as. It's like the mushroom or the psychedelic with each passing moment. It's just giving you more and more reality. And
00:17:03
Speaker
at a certain point, like, at least for me, like I can't take it. It's just, it's so real. It's so raw and it's so beneath the surface, so under the veil that it's like too much. And, uh, I think Terence McKenna, he always had this little funny, uh, thing he used to say where he, it was something like, like that, where it's like, you know, it shows you, you know, everybody gets to a point, no, it was Alan Watts. I think it was where.
00:17:30
Speaker
Uh, you know, the psychedelic is just hammering you and it's good. You're going so deep. You're going so deep, so deep. And you get to a point where you're like, Oh, well, okay. And enough of that, you know, that's too far too deep. And I think every human has that, that wall that it's at where it becomes too, too much, too deep, too real. And it's almost like with each, like with more work that you do, you like extend the distance between you and that wall. So you can take more and you can.
00:17:59
Speaker
Handle more reality and handle more and more with each trip or each, you know, whatever it is that you do. Yeah, it's interesting though. It's, I totally agree. It's the good thing about doing the work outside, like the integration is that you usually, you know, you're more prepared for the next time and you can.
00:18:20
Speaker
push yourself a little more and you can handle reality better. Cause you already know a little bit, but it's crazy because it almost never gets easier though. It's interesting. You, you feel like you can handle more and you can, but you're still going to push that boundary. As long as you either took a high enough dose or if you're in the right mind space, if I'm of the opinion that of course you take higher doses, you're going to see just things that you can imagine.
00:18:49
Speaker
But even on a slightly lower dose, I'm not talking tiny, but if you're in the right meditative state, if you can really relax yourself and just lay with your eyes closed, listen to music, maybe not, whatever, you can go far with even lighter doses.
00:19:08
Speaker
But if you're going, if you're going to go, in my opinion, anytime you're over four grams, it's a wrap. You're going to see something or you're going to learn something about yourself or about reality and usually get at least at some point you're going to get to the spot where you're thinking, okay, all right, this is too much reality. For me, it's usually around the four gram mark because I can do an eighth.
00:19:32
Speaker
And usually just have a really good introspective experience, um, feel things that feel like divinity. Um, but I feel like right once you hit four grand, it's like, now I want to show you something that you don't know, or you know what I mean? Something a little more intense.
Religious Narratives & Psychedelics
00:19:51
Speaker
And those are the crazy thing is these, a lot of people would describe these experiences may be a bad trip because it goes too far, but these are the trips that you really remember.
00:20:01
Speaker
And these are the ones that will teach you the most, in my opinion. I had that experience one time when we took four grams and I was stuck in a loop. And for anybody who's done mushrooms and has been in one of these loops, I mean, I feel for you because this was rough.
00:20:25
Speaker
Like eternity was happening but not in a single moment in like just a loop and I was going through like this feeling of dying and that's basically what it was a feeling of dying and this felt like it was going to happen forever until I.
00:20:40
Speaker
decided to actually die. Like I had to die for it to end. And then what I did was I was so tormented. I was like, fuck it. I'm going to die here. That's the only way that's going to end. So that's when I let go. And then it was instant beauty. And just my body was all sudden filled with like ecstasy and love. And it was like, Oh, I can breathe again. And I wasn't in the loop. And it was just a huge lesson to me for
00:21:09
Speaker
taught me to be able to let go and just kind of let, I don't know, surrender maybe? Yes, that's the word. Um, it taught me how to surrender, just let go and surrender. And it's not the end of the world, basically. And I think that that's going to allow me to go a little further in my next trip. I know it's going to be hard, but
00:21:37
Speaker
You're always going to get to that point where you have to surrender and you're going to be holding on because we're so attached to what, what reality we think we know. We want to hold on to it. Yeah. It's like when you're there, when you're, when you're on that come up experience, like before you, uh, you peak and ultimately hopefully surrender, it's like all the alarms are going off in your, in your brain. It's like your brain is good. It is trying to convince you that you're dying essentially.
00:22:07
Speaker
And, you know, the first time you hear the alarms go off, you want to get out of the building as quickly as possible and as frantically as possible. So you begin to control and fight the experience. But hopefully as you progress in this work, you know, the alarms don't startle you as much because the alarms are going to go off. And from, for some people, they go off louder than others.
00:22:31
Speaker
But when they do go off, hopefully you're able to then tell yourself to surrender, train that, as Terence McKenna would say, train the hindbrain, train that fight or flight motivation to just be here now and be still. And then when you tell yourself that, you get, you know, sometimes when you tell yourself that and you get hit with just something unimaginably more intense than you thought could happen. And that's why it,
00:23:00
Speaker
isn't that easy to do sometimes like you can't when you're on a psychedelic you can't tell yourself that you're on a psychedelic you can't be like okay this isn't real I'm just on drugs right now that's not how it works because it is real the experience is real you're gonna have to go through it and
00:23:20
Speaker
trying to fight it and tell yourself like, oh, I'm just on drugs. That's the opposite of what you want to do because I've done that. And that usually just, uh, you know, pulls you into a black hole of dread.
00:23:32
Speaker
Um, so yeah, surrender is, is the, one of the biggest things I've learned. Cause that's a, in my opinion, that's a big lesson in life in general, because that's the thing with, especially with shrooms, in my opinion is they don't just teach you about just like the big questions of reality. It teaches you like life lessons. And it's interesting because.
00:24:00
Speaker
The things you learn about yourself, the life lessons, also usually apply to reality. It's like this symbiosis where it's like, it kind of just reassures and morphs the idea that you are reality.
Education & Psychedelic Research
00:24:14
Speaker
There's no separation. I think that's one of my favorite things about shrooms is it really, it's not all metaphysical. It's something that you can actually use to improve yourself.
00:24:28
Speaker
And at the same time, it does apply to the metaphysical usually.
00:24:33
Speaker
They're like myth makers. They, they create myths out of the deepest archetypes of your psychology. And that's why the hero's journey myth like maps onto a psychedelic experience, like almost perfectly, which is so cool. And you can bring those stories out of, of an experience and you can understand myth and understand those stories more for what they are supposed to mean. Like, uh, the Bible, for instance.
00:25:00
Speaker
I think is very much more understandable after you take psychedelics. Yeah, I might have talked about this a few weeks ago, but after psychedelics, I've had a whole new appreciation for religion. So when I was an atheist, I thought religion was just the dumbest thing in the world. And I thought it was evil and religion causes all the wars and it's just bad and you're dumb for following it and you shouldn't do this and blah, blah, blah. And that was me as an atheist, whereas now,
00:25:30
Speaker
I'm not an atheist at all. And though I don't follow a religion, I really respect them. And I feel a little bit of a connection towards each religion. There is some divinity in them. It's pointing at the divinity. But in using language and human articulation, it's just not possible to do. And I think, clearly, religions have been modified through the years to
00:25:58
Speaker
be used as control mechanisms, you know, it has to be what you make it basically. They're all pointing to the same thing. It goes right back to when you asked me earlier about what my definition of spirituality is. It's like every religion, every, you know, spiritual philosophy, like we're all pointing to the same thing from just a different perspective. I was thinking what, I wish they had a university for psychedelics. And that might sound like weird, but that would be
00:26:28
Speaker
a real Institute of learning, like a building where you go in with hardened people who are ready to test the boundaries of reality and push their minds to a place in safe environments, in environments catered to psychedelic experiences and like divine experiences. You know, think of the money they put into one university. Imagine to build a psychedelic university and the people that would go there and the art
00:26:57
Speaker
and ideas and creativity that would spawn from something like that. I'm just surprised that doesn't exist. I would love to do that. Nobody wants to do that.
Mapping the DMT Realm
00:27:11
Speaker
That's the thing. You'll get a group of really interesting people who are willing to put themselves through that and really test the boundaries of the mind and see what you can bring out of something like that. I was just thinking about that today. That would be the most amazing
00:27:26
Speaker
I think it would bring a lot of great ideas, great art, all that. Apparently these were a thing. They were called mystery schools. Or just temples even. A lot of the temples supposedly were used this way. I believe Dennis McKenna is creating one. It's called the McKenna Academy.
00:27:43
Speaker
of the Mckenna Academy of Natural Philosophy or something like that. And that's kind of his goal, is to make like a school for these alternative, you know, modes of thought. It seems obvious, right? I don't know. I mean, it seems obvious to do. Anybody who is taking psychedelics, quote unquote, seriously,
00:28:06
Speaker
You know the power that these things hold. I heard, it's pretty interesting, I heard that they, I forget where one of these research institutes or something, they're keeping people in the peak of a DMT experience for an hour. So they're giving them an IV drip of DMT and then holding them in the peak for an hour. I could not imagine that. And I guess what, this is the quote I heard that they are,
00:28:37
Speaker
mapping the DMT realm. I don't know what to think about that.
00:28:41
Speaker
This is called, uh, the DMT X program. Um, it's happening in Imperial college, which is in London. Um, and if actually, if you want to, anybody wants to know a little more about it and episode 13, I think I'm gonna, uh, I talked to Daniel McQueen. He is, uh, actually a part of this program. So we talk a little bit about, uh, just that aspect of it, which is like mapping the DMT world. Um, and the late great Kalindi E
00:29:09
Speaker
would talk about this as well, that they're creating like, quote unquote town squares for people to go into the DMT realm and like meet up or something, which is just strange to me. Yeah. I don't, this is what I want to ask you then. Do you think you can map the DMT realm?
Changing Perceptions & Legal Status
00:29:28
Speaker
I just don't see that as a possibility. So it feels to me like the DMT realm has some sort of a structure to it. So I think if something has a structure to it, you can map it in some sense. Like there's a consistency to maybe places you can go or entities you can see. And if that kind of consistency.
00:29:56
Speaker
to exist over time and over like multiple visits. I think that there is a way in which we can map it, but it's not going to be the same way that like you would go and map the empire state building. If you went inside it or something like that, it's not like a physical mapping, but I mean, that in itself is something that like.
00:30:18
Speaker
Just brings into question all of everything i've ever been taught you know that you have to break down your paradigm steven. Like begin to try to map something that's not physical it's not of this world yet some. To me it doesn't seem possible i think that it's worth doing and i think you could probably.
00:30:38
Speaker
Uh, find some structure and, but I think mapping is a strong word because it's, first off, it's infinite. You know, the, the, the amount of different experiences people have on DMT, it's crazy. It's like, this is another thing when people, some people go to the same place every time. Others people go to different places, but it's the same place. It's interesting. I just don't know if it could be mapped, but I think that's an awesome thing to do.
00:31:07
Speaker
And I'll be curious to, they'll be working on that forever. I'm sure that's the kind of research I want to see though. I don't really, I mean, of course, you know, you would love to see the clinical trials from maps and you see compass who was like, you know, uh, there's problems with compass as well with their, you know, patenting of a certain distribution methods for psilocybin and all of that. Yeah. The corporate model is so weak. It don't, we don't want that to poison psychedelics.
00:31:33
Speaker
No. Speaking of which, did you see in Colorado, they decriminalized psilocybin, DMT and a few other psychedelic plants. So yeah, I heard that because I was at work on break and one guy I work with, he's a really cool dude, but he's like 72. He's awesome. I heard him. He's looking at his phone. He starts laughing. He's like, Oh God, Colorado. And he's like laughing and saying, Oh, they're legalizing mushrooms. And he's laughing about I'm sitting there just like,
00:32:02
Speaker
I don't say anything but it was funny to see somebody. It's crazy because especially the older generation seems like the idea of psychedelics is changing now but people still have this goofy idea of what they are and you can't change their mind. It's impossible. It's something that has to be experienced for you to know the truth of it.
Critique of Drug Policies
00:32:28
Speaker
But yeah, it was funny watching this guy joke about it. I was like, man, if you only knew, just dose them up. When you know, you know. Yeah. It's amazing to start to see.
00:32:39
Speaker
Like the governments of our, of our world acknowledge that psychedelics are like not something that should be criminalized. And I mean, the scheduling of drugs in general, just the controlled substances act structurally is so flawed and so dumb. Just the way that each schedule is determined, like
00:33:04
Speaker
Um, I don't know. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. I mean, even the descriptions of each schedule, I don't think make much sense either because we don't have a comprehensive understanding of how to use drugs in a healthy way. Enough to like presume that we can put together this structure of schedules that tells us what we should and shouldn't use. It makes no sense. And mostly a lot of it is, um,
00:33:33
Speaker
the way they schedule a lot of it is like if it has a medical use. And almost all the drugs that they say doesn't have a medical use actually do. It's kind of crazy. But this is one of the things I love Graham Hancock for so much when he says, like, do we really live in a free society if we don't have control over our own consciousness? Like the one thing that is truly yours, the thing that
00:34:02
Speaker
dictates all of reality, your reality, you don't have the freedom to explore it. It's just mind blowing. It's not a free society if you can't do that, but you can drink alcohol no problem, which is, in my opinion, far more dangerous to your health, to others. People don't take shrooms and go and fist fight.
00:34:30
Speaker
They don't – hopefully don't drive cars. I'm sure some – that's the thing with – we're going to see some shady shit now with the legalization of psychedelics. There's going to be some people that are going to give it a bad name I'm sure. Hopefully that doesn't – they don't politicize those cases so much and try to make an argument to take them away again. So we don't know that might happen.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure there will be pushes some places to do it. I mean, the transition is going to be slow, although it's been kind of quick. But the, the medical model is, I don't think there's any way they can turn that back. You know, I mean, dude, they did though, because in the fifties, the studies on LSD and psilocybin were groundbreaking for mental health and they still shut it down. It's like, it could happen at any moment. Well, yeah, anything can. That's true. But, um, now I think.
Unregulated Drugs & Consequences
00:35:25
Speaker
The reason I think the cat's out the bag is because with the internet, there's so much information on it helping so many people and there's really no bad effects to the health. Your body is not going to be poisoned. Some people say it's poison. It completely syncs up with your brain in a symbiotic way. It's not poison. I'm talking about mushrooms, but probably all of them.
00:35:55
Speaker
Well, it depends. I mean, yeah. Oh, uh, Ibogaine is another one that they legalized. That one is touchy. I don't think Ibogaine should be used, uh, unless you're with like a traditional shaman because that is dangerous for you. It can be dangerous. Well that you can die from that, right? You can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole different, different than what the trypto means.
00:36:20
Speaker
You know anything about the Torah? I've heard about the Torah, yeah. I've heard descriptions. I would never take the Torah. That's like a straight disassociated. That's another gnarly one. That's not even a psychedelic really. I think it's more of just a pure hallucinogenic disassociative, like you said.
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a trip to mean it's not related to like, you know, DMT, psilocybin and LSD. Like they're all those three are pretty close and you know, you have some other ones too. Um, that's the three amigos right there. Yeah. That's the three amigos. Yo, that's the, the basic three. You start with those, you'd be good to go. But, um,
00:36:59
Speaker
I mean, dude, there's so many, like they call, they're calling them designer drugs. I mean, there are so many derivatives of like psilocybin, psilocin and DMT, like 4ACO, DMT, 2CB. There's just so many. It's, it's these research chemicals basically like in China.
00:37:15
Speaker
They have these labs like you can go online and this is why I think a lot of drug dealers are doing you can go online and with like Bitcoin or PayPal probably even you can go to these weird research chemical websites and I think this is what a lot of drug dealers are doing because you can get like fentanyl like a big bag of it for like.
00:37:36
Speaker
dirt cheap and it's just like fentanyl with one molecule changed or something and same with other popular substances. They just are constantly changing just like a molecule here, a molecule there and finding a loophole to sell it legally.
00:37:51
Speaker
ship it to Americans. That's what I think they might be doing, putting it in all the drugs and you know what I mean? You know, they say that's what's happening with these, uh, these psilocybin chocolate bars that are becoming so prevalent nowadays. They say that what's actually in those is for ACO DMT, which is a very close relative to silosan, which is what psilocybin breaks down into in your stomach when you're eating mushrooms. Um, and that's super interesting, uh, because supposedly, uh,
00:38:22
Speaker
You don't get nauseous with, uh, for ACO DMT. Like there's a few different, uh, like attributes to it, like physically, but it'll give you essentially the same experience as psilocybin. Years ago, before I've had, um, in this time I've already had, uh, mushroom experiences, but it was before I've taken them and like, uh, self exploration, spiritual manner. It was when I would just take them recreationally every once in a while with some friends.
00:38:52
Speaker
Um, but I took, uh, end balm. Oh, you took two five, I am. Oh, no. I didn't know what it really was. I know it looked like an acid tab and this person was selling it and they told me what it was, but I thought it might. I don't know what I thought, but I took that and that shit was very strange. It was, I knew it wasn't acid. You know what I mean?
00:39:19
Speaker
It was something else but that I don't know if that's kind of like one of those weird chemicals that are out there and who knows how many of those there are now like we mentioned the the three the big ones DMT psilocybin and LSD and those are a sure thing but now there's like thousands of psychedelics and they're just you know you don't know I mean I don't know that is one on the outside that I did take the end bomb or whatever
00:39:48
Speaker
That's what it is. Is that what? Yeah, I believe it's, it's called two five. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. And yeah, that wasn't, I wouldn't take that again. It didn't, I mean, I didn't know what I was getting myself into anyway, but that just, it felt dirty, you know, it didn't feel like mushrooms.
00:40:08
Speaker
It didn't have that symbiotic feeling with me. It just was a little more dissociative. I was watching the movie Cruel Intentions, that 90s movie you ever see that movie? I was stuck on the couch and it was the most evil thing I've ever seen. That movie is pretty dark actually.
00:40:30
Speaker
It was very cruel.
Legalization & Safety
00:40:32
Speaker
Its intentions were very cruel. And yeah, but it was the whole movie when I was watching it because I was supposed to like do it with friends and it was all bad. What happened was I was working third shift at the time and I just got out of work. So it was in the early morning and I got this stuff and I had taken Ambien too. So this is just a nightmare I'm putting myself into.
00:40:58
Speaker
And so I started like falling asleep after I took it and then I woke up and everybody was like, you know, going back to their own house. So I went home and this is hating me and I'm by myself. I ended up being stuck on the couch watching Cruel Intentions and it was just.
00:41:16
Speaker
horrible and like everything on the screen like all the people looked like they were sketched in like a real like dirty looking sketch like it was all cartoony it was horrible but um yeah i was stuck there i couldn't get up take the it was a dvd i couldn't take the dvd out um i was fucked but the thing is when the movie ended it wasn't an amazing experience
00:41:39
Speaker
That movie ends with the song, bittersweet symphony. And, and like, it was the culmination of this hell finally ending. And that song is so like uplifting. And I was like, that was amazing. But I learned my lesson not to take that and definitely not with Ambien. How long did that experience last for you? Uh, I would say.
00:42:02
Speaker
Was it as long as a typical acid shift? Yes. Yeah. It was like a typical length. And it's hard to say also because the ambient with it too, because like I kind of felt, and it was after a third shift working. I was working third shift. So it was after that. So maybe after like five, six hours, I was ready to sleep and I went to sleep, but it was, you know, it was about the same, I think. Yeah. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
00:42:27
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I hear a lot of, uh, people going to like festivals and they're getting acid, you know, whatever is on the tab is what's on the tab. A lot of times it's M bomb. Cause, uh, there's a lot of these little organizations that will go to festivals and they have like test kits.
00:42:43
Speaker
You can bring your drugs to them and they will test it for you, which is really nice I think that's starting to get pulled back a little bit. There's a lot of risk involved there But a lot of people have reported that they're just getting an end bomb as opposed to you know acid yeah well this person had gotten it like I think under the impression that they're gonna be selling acid to people and Just calling it end bomb and it's like but that's an actually not acid
00:43:08
Speaker
Looks like it, but it's not. Yeah. Um, yeah, this person didn't know what they were doing or what they were giving people, which is also kind of scary. And that's what happens when drugs are illegal kids. You have to get them from the streets and there's no regulation and you've no idea what you're getting. You don't know the dose. And that's, I don't think, I don't understand how people don't realize the problems with, you know, making drugs, all these drugs illegal.
00:43:32
Speaker
I think it's obvious. It's an obvious solution to legalize and regulate. There's like hundreds of thousands of people dying from fentanyl every year and it's not because these people – it's not on purpose. It's always accidental overdose because they don't know what they're getting.
00:43:50
Speaker
fentanyl itself was legal and people were you know educated on the dose and you could go somewhere and get the proper dose I bet the overdoses the numbers would be cut to like a quarter less way less I bet um it's like how many people do you hear about accidentally overdosing on Percocet it's like not many or like oxycodone people don't really overdose on that unless it's like a kid who doesn't know what they're doing still and
00:44:20
Speaker
Or if it's on purpose, if someone's trying to kill themselves and they take a bunch of pills. The biggest problem that people have a hard time grasping is actually allowing someone to go to a clinic and get like, you know, injected heroin. You know, people are like, no, you can't do that. But like, what's the alternative? Like that, that is, I think, a very good way to
00:44:44
Speaker
promote like healthy use of drugs. Cause the fact of the matter is as an adult, you can use drugs in a safe way. You just have to know how to do it, you know? And again, but it has to come from like a safe place. Like you said, if you're taking a prescription, you're probably not going to die from it. It happens, but.
00:45:00
Speaker
Because it's advertised as the strength, you know, the strength. Exactly. And that's why I have like a vision of what it should be, like a store, like everybody, I'm putting myself in the situation of, you know, being educated, like you educate the people at a young age, what the drugs are and what the dose is, like the same reason that we know how much to drink and how much not to drink. So if like, you know that 25 milligrams of heroin will kill you,
00:45:30
Speaker
Then you get like two milligrams. You know what I mean? So people are educated and know exactly what the dose is they're getting and that it's going to kill them if they take three of them. So they don't take three of them. And like you said, uh, you mentioned heroin and, you know,
00:45:46
Speaker
Now they want to close down these clinics where they give people free needles and let them like safe injecting sites. I think that's like a start still, you know, they don't know how pure the heroin is because dude, now there's like no such thing as heroin. No, you're right. It doesn't exist, especially not like in our, where we live around, like it's not a thing anymore. It's all fentanyl and probably my, what I think it is is probably these,
00:46:14
Speaker
Research chemicals because people can get it. It's so much cheaper and so much more powerful. So you buy heroin from somebody. You're not getting heroin. I bet 9 out of 10 times it's fentanyl now. Yeah. I mean I've heard that.
00:46:31
Speaker
These people are getting them with ones who are selling them over social media and over the internet. I heard that they are getting them from China as well. Like China is like making these like makeshift bullshit batches. Um, and then they'll get basically turned into pill form and.
00:46:49
Speaker
Since the dosage is so fucked up on what they're getting from China, like one pill, uh, or two or three different pills, like they're going to widely differ in dose. So people are taking what they think is like a half of a pill and I'm like, all right, I'll be fine. And then they're dying because of this. There's no regulation. They're getting them from a source that has no body to like.
00:47:12
Speaker
care about your wellbeing. These Chinese, man, they're doing it right. You know what they're doing. They're eroding us from the inside out. Exactly. That's where all these research chemical labs are. It's funny, you mentioned the pills. Years ago, I think this was right when the fentanyl was starting to be a thing.
00:47:33
Speaker
Um, I had a friend who would buy Xanax bars and he would get them out a good deal. And I don't know the details of it, but he got them from someone who quote unquote made them. They were like one of these research chemical pills or something. So they think it's Xanax. And you're right. The dough, it was supposed to be two milligrams, like a Xanax bar.
00:47:53
Speaker
And then I get this kid took him and he was like dying on the floor. It was fentanyl. It's like nothing close to fentanyl should be in a Xanax. You know what I mean? But that's the danger of this. You think you're taking a two milligram Xanax, which cannot kill you. It's impossible. And you take one of them.
00:48:14
Speaker
And next thing you know, you're about to die. That's sketchy business. And this is all coming from thinking that you're going to legalize drugs and it's going to help people somehow.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very touchy subject because it's so unpredictable in how any action that we take is going to turn out. Cause you want to say that all drugs should be legalized and just regulated, but you know, you can't really predict human behavior in a society that was built on the kind of drug education and drug laws that we have and how that can possibly transition to.
00:48:55
Speaker
Like a more responsible system that might, there might be like some growing pains there. I agree. And that's why I think it starts with education as the most important part of that. I think that's where it starts and kind of, you know, shape the public's mind about what drugs are and what you're doing and the whole consciousness aspect of it. And.
00:49:17
Speaker
kind of normalize it in a sense but not promote it. Because my thing is this, I think it should be legalized and regulated 100% because even though it's not
00:49:29
Speaker
legal and or regulated now it's illegal but everybody is still getting the drugs it's not stopping anybody from getting drugs you can get them on your phone now people just go on you know instagram or snapchat and you can get the drugs so easily any drugs you want except you don't know the dose and you know it's it's just fueling this whole
00:49:52
Speaker
fucking dark underground market online and it's just not good.
Mental Health Benefits
00:49:56
Speaker
I think education and regulation is the way to go. But like you said, I think it has to start from the bottom up. You can't just legalize it and throw it on the country. I think you have to shape the minds differently about how we approach drugs altogether.
00:50:13
Speaker
Well, maybe the beginning is legalizing cannabis psilocybin DMT. So people can understand like there is a responsible way to approach drugs, even drugs that you think are like terrible and poison, like.
00:50:30
Speaker
Because our propaganda in this country and around the world has made us believe that you're being poisoned when you eat these mushrooms or, you know, DMT is like so crazy. Like, why would you ever smoke that powder stuff? You know what I mean? Like, it just, it seems bad. Um, but. It's just perception, man. And it's, it's, it's been formed by propaganda. Yeah. And well, I think, especially like you said that the psychedelics, I think those are a no brainer to legalize. And I think.
00:50:59
Speaker
In reshaping our society, I think it could be used as an incredible tool because I think one thing we lack in this country, and not just the one thing, but a huge thing about it, and especially I noticed this in young men, there's no initiation process. There's no thing you have to overcome and then become a man.
00:51:22
Speaker
This has always happened in tribes and other cultures. There's like a point in your life where you had to overcome something or do a task, whatever, like the Spartans would throw their kids out into the woods and say, kill a wolf or something. But, you know, there's some initiation process and then you can overcome and then you're a man. You deserve it of the people around you. You're given respect and you're part of the community.
00:51:46
Speaker
And we have nothing like that, but just a simple reeducation and using like psilocybin or something like when you're 18 or whenever, when you hit a certain age, you're going to take this sacrament and have the experience to touch the divine. And then you're a man, and then you can have an understanding of reality. And then you're, you know,
00:52:05
Speaker
connected with your tribe and connected with people around you and have a shared experience that you can bond over. I think it could be used, any psychedelic could be used in a way like this. I mean, I'm sure they've done this in tribes and cultures throughout time. I think it's a perfect initiation, you know, sacrament for people.
00:52:27
Speaker
There's no better initiation I can think of. And yes, it has been used for thousands of years in other cultures, ayahuasca, particularly mushrooms. Those are the two that I can think of off, off the start. Um, peyote as well. Yeah. Peyote, I think is really nice too, because it really connects you. Well, hopefully anybody's doing masculine. It's not through peyote because peyote is like an endangered plant.
00:52:51
Speaker
Um, go get San Pedro, you can buy it at Home Depot or whatever. Um, but San Pedro, mescaline, uh, really helps to connect you with nature, which I think is a really effective way to have a right of passage. Yeah. Same, same with mushrooms too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Also you mentioned the connection with nature. I think that's an important thing as a society that we get back in touch with. Um, I mean, you see how we're operating now in America, just.
00:53:19
Speaker
killing all the nature, poisoning all the water, doing all this crazy shit. I think psychedelics could help change that. The mushroom will tell you to be with the nature and respect nature and you are the nature. I think there's so many ways that psychedelics can be used in restructuring our society.
00:53:44
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, they can restructure our society in many ways. The writer passage thing is just one aspect of it. Like, I mean, we were talking about for this whole podcast really has been, you know, the answers that you can get to seemingly unanswerable questions, you know, a sense of something larger than yourself.
00:54:06
Speaker
Um, you know, just a way to separate yourself from the systems that you were born into. All those things are just so valuable to the growth and development of a human.
Psychedelics & Human Empathy
00:54:17
Speaker
And we talk about the mental health issue in America. I mean, I guarantee you walk down the street, nine out of 10 people, they're going to say they have something wrong going on. Like everybody has a depression or anxiety, or if they don't, they're going to tell you about their trauma.
00:54:36
Speaker
Like everybody is carrying so much shit on their shoulders everywhere they go. And you know, they feel like there's no way out and they see this one narrow view of reality. Like this is what my reality is. I'm always going to be this way. There's no way out. And now with the research, it shows how incredible like psilocybin works with depression and anxiety and dealing with past traumas like ketamine is supposedly so good for dealing with traumas in your past.
00:55:05
Speaker
These things that have been overlooked for so long can be used as such an important tool to start healing a society that seems to be sick. I mean, if you really look at who we are, we are very sick and what we consume physically, what we eat and drink, and also just
00:55:26
Speaker
mentally what we consume. I think psychedelics are really good at telling you what you need to hear and that's why it helps people with depression, anxiety, and like in my case, just changing my life.
00:55:41
Speaker
It tells you what you need to hear to make the right move to change your trajectory that you're on because a lot of people will feel stuck and they're just going down and down downhill. And, you know, it could be one trip that just changes everything. And then the next day you've changed. Like you're shifted. A new reality is ahead of you.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah. If you keep carving out the same path in life, day after day, over and over and over again, and you get so stuck that it feels like there's no way to dig yourself out of that hole because you're just so deep in it. Psychedelics are.
00:56:21
Speaker
One of the only things that I've, I've come across that can blast you right out of that hole in a matter of minutes. Well, we'll say hours. Yeah. Cause I mean, we're told for the most part that, you know, you have depression and if you have depression, it's part of your.
00:56:39
Speaker
your ancestry, genetically who you are, and it can't be changed. So what we have to do now is make you commit to taking a pill for the rest of your life, to dull all your emotions, to not only dulls your sadness, it also dulls your like talking anti-depressants, they also dull your ability to feel like happiness and other emotions. It kind of just puts you
00:57:02
Speaker
on a, in like a lukewarm state. And it's funny because, well, it's not funny. It's just crazy that people are being fed this narrative. And I believe that, you know, the consciousness you hold is what creates your reality. So if you're telling yourself this narrative every day that you have depression and there's no way to cure it, then it's just gonna keep going deeper and deeper and you're going to get stuck in it.
00:57:31
Speaker
Whereas if you take a psychedelic and it can show you, not just tell you, it's not a narrative that's just being fed to you. It can show you that you are not the depression. You aren't depressed, but it's okay to be depressed sometimes. Sometimes on a mushroom trip, it'll give you a nice warm hug and let you know it'll be okay. You know, these things that people don't experience in their everyday lives can sometimes, it's not a cure all.
00:57:57
Speaker
But for me it worked and I know for a lot of other people it worked. It's pretty awesome that now we're finally starting to let this be acceptable in our society.
00:58:12
Speaker
And if it gets promoted properly and people are educated right about this, it could really change the trajectory of our culture. Hopefully we start making changes. It's never going to happen very quickly. I mean, I think we got to get a lot of the people in power to start taking these things or just elect people who are like-minded and have maybe taken them and know what their actual capabilities are.
00:58:39
Speaker
Yeah. And like you said, you know, as opposed to the taking a pill every day model, you don't have to have very many of these experiences for them to have a dramatic effect on your life.
00:58:52
Speaker
You know, there are a lot of people still in my life that think that I'm a druggy, that I'm crazy because of, you know, taking psychedelics. And when I tell them like, I only take them a handful of times a year, they're just like astounded like, Oh wait, what? That's not the normal, uh, activities of a person addicted to fungi or, you know, some kind of a drug. And I'm like, you've been exactly like, yeah, exactly. You know, you feel the pressure that people put on you, uh,
00:59:18
Speaker
That's completely unwarranted because it's not like that. You take them a few times a year if you do it responsibly and you can gain so much from that.
Addressing Societal Challenges
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah. It can change your life. And this is like, we're talking about all the ways that can change you in the physical ways, like your depression, the way you deal with life, but on top of it, and this is where I am. It's, it's just made life fun and it's given me.
00:59:44
Speaker
this sense of adventure again, that, you know, we can, we individually have the ability to investigate reality and seek truth. And it's not just the answers aren't just something you can write down on a piece of paper. It's an answer that will be ingrained into your soul and become a part of you. And then you can feel things that you've learned in a different way. And you can see reality in a different, a whole different mode, like
01:00:13
Speaker
If the Buddha was sitting right here in front of us, he would be seeing the same thing we're seeing. But in the same way, he wouldn't be because everything is recontextualized. It's not like you become enlightened and everything looks different. It's just that you have a different understanding of everything you're seeing and interacting with.
01:00:32
Speaker
So it's amazing the way you know having these experiences can shift your mind and help you see things in a different way that you know maybe it's not the way I was taught and the way I believed so wholeheartedly everything was. And they also brought in your curiosity like for me
01:00:53
Speaker
It made me curious and interested in so many other forms of philosophy. And it also helped me to be more receptive to those forms of philosophy, including, like you said earlier, religion. I was completely shut down in terms of like how I thought about religion. I wouldn't accept any religious dogma or ideology at all. I, like you said, I thought it was just for children.
01:01:18
Speaker
Which is crazy. It's ridiculous. Like it's so ego driven to, you know, to think that, and I can say that it's ego driven to think that because I was in that position and I know what it's like. And I understand now, uh, the motivations and the drivers that were deep inside my psyche that caused me to be like that.
01:01:36
Speaker
Um, you know, a need for approval, a need for external validation. That's why I would fight with people and try to prove my point and that I was right. And they were wrong. It's just, and psychedelics, they allow you to break free of like the systematic paradigms that keep you ingrained into that little tunnel that you were talking about earlier. And, you know, for me, it's gotten me interested in some of the, you know, uh, philosophies and concepts and ideas that have changed everything about the way I view life.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yep. Same here. Definitely gave me, like I mentioned, a sense of adventure and it's so important to learn about yourself. It teaches you about yourself.
01:02:19
Speaker
And the more you look inward and you understand all these little things you've been ignoring inside your own ego and your own perspective, you can learn about yourself, which allows you to understand others, you know? So when I don't get so bogged down in my perspectives as I used to and defend myself and when it comes to concepts, very like I don't try to defend myself as much when it comes to these things because you have to realize you know how you feel about it.
01:02:49
Speaker
the person you're talking to across from you feels that same way if not deeper in their perspective. They believe it as true and absolute as it is right. They're just not understanding the right way. They don't know what I know. But it goes both ways. The more you understand yourself, the more you can have this true empathy for others and really understand that what they're experiencing is the same thing. You can look at an individual
01:03:20
Speaker
and see what's behind the eyes. If they're coming across in a certain way, I really use this a lot now. Somebody almost hit me with their car the other day and I could have got pissed off and threw my cup at their car and this and that, but any negative action that comes out of somebody
01:03:42
Speaker
It's because they're hurting in some sense. Nobody ever commits these horrible acts unless you're like a pure psychopath, but you don't ever come across as angry and confrontational when you're in a happy, loving space. It just doesn't happen. So whenever somebody does something,
01:04:01
Speaker
I've learned that about myself. When you introspect, you realize when I'm feeling really good about myself and everything around me, I don't have to shit on anybody else. So when somebody shits on you, you have to realize that it's just them not feeling good about themselves. That sounds so corny, like something your parents would tell you. But if you can really feel that, it really helps in life for me.
01:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, these experiences give you the capacity for compassion and unconditional love. And I think that's what we need to progress and further our evolution. We're probably going to not last for very much longer because we're coming to a head, you know, we're.
01:04:48
Speaker
As world power starting to flirt with nuclear war, you know, we have this UFO UAP thing coming to a head. Like it just, it seems like there's, there's a point at which like we're going to hit soon. Like we're coming up to the precipice of the singularity or something like that. And, uh, the hope is that we can just sort of.
01:05:08
Speaker
absorb enough wisdom, love, and compassion to guide us towards something that can result in as little suffering as possible for as many people as possible. Yeah, it definitely feels like we're approaching some fork in the road.
01:05:25
Speaker
And unfortunately, looking at it from trying to step outside of it and look at it, it seems like we're going to walk along the path of, you know, AI, more technology, less nature, you know, there's kind of two ways you can go there. It doesn't seem like we're going to suddenly start to treat the planet better and, you know, maybe tone down on the technology. It doesn't seem like that's happening.
01:05:54
Speaker
What is probably going to happen is way more of this, you know, what we're already doing now. I feel like it's going to be probably way, way worse before it gets better, but it will get better. And the only thing that, you know, worries me is I don't know if I'll be alive to see the better part. You know, there's always the fear that we're approaching something like it just feels this way that we're approaching something really big and
01:06:21
Speaker
I feel like it just, the natural arc of this is that it's going to get worse before it gets better. When I think about how the meta system of, you know, this thing is possibly going to work out in my role in it.
Personal Growth & Responsibility
01:06:35
Speaker
I like to think of, uh, you know, the Jack cornfield quote, uh, he said, tend to the part of the garden that you can touch.
01:06:44
Speaker
That makes me feel a little better, you know, because what else can you do? Um, and when you start to think about, you know, like my role in the world and like my, my existential crisis, you know, that it feels like we're heading into, uh, you know, the abyss or whatever.
01:07:01
Speaker
I like to think of that because it just allows me to center myself back to what I am, what I can control, what makes me feel good. Um, I think Terrence McKenna, again, I bring him up too much, but, um, he said something like a guru isn't going to give you all the answers, you know, an ideology is not going to give you all the answers. What matters is direct experience. What matters is you, your friends, your family, you know,
01:07:31
Speaker
Essentially the parts of your life that you can touch. That's what you have to concern yourself with. And I guess the philosophy is if we all tend to our gardens in the best way that we possibly can, then collectively, you know, we will have grown into something that's worth fighting for or, you know, worth sticking around for.
01:07:49
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And it's the same thing as like, uh, Jordan Peterson. He's like, uh, if you can't clean your room, don't try to clean up the planet. You gotta make your bed where you end up in the hospital. You're living in hell. Yeah. I mean, but that's so true. It's like you have these people that are always angry at the world and trying to fix problems, but they never fix their own problems. They're the ones with the really messy room and the messed up head and whatever.
01:08:18
Speaker
And I know that because I was at that place. There was a point in my life where I was always angry at the world and not realizing that the world is a mirror. I'm just looking at a reflection. And, uh, but I'd love that quote because I really, I really resonate with it because I remember the times where I used to.
01:08:42
Speaker
I thought I had anxiety, which I now realize you don't have, or at least I didn't have anxiety. I was just anxious all the time because I was thinking about things that I couldn't touch. And now I can sit back and talk about this and talk about that. I'm thinking we're probably heading towards something horrible.
01:08:59
Speaker
but don't actually feel the emotions of the future because I'm perfect right now. And most of the times where I start to feel a negative emotion, I can put myself in the now and just realize like, wow, everything is perfect right here.
01:09:14
Speaker
You know, because most of the time I'm not in agonizing pain or, you know, not truly suffering. It's the real suffering that happens is usually just you in your own mind. And so it's just now I'm able to just put myself in the now. And even if I feel any type of anxiety or any type of negative emotion creeping in, I'll just sit there and do that 10 minute breath work. Like we just did a breath work before we started.
01:09:43
Speaker
And I'll do that, and it's crazy, because you just end up sitting there and then you realize how perfect you feel in the moment. Once you just empty your mind and just be in the now, it just kind of relieves everything around you. And if everything is perfect in this moment, and the only thing that exists is this moment, that means that it's all perfect. It always has been, always will be.
01:10:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:44
Speaker
you