Tales of the Spirit: Chronicles of a Seeker’s Quest | Episode 113 with Snehan Born

(1) Tales of the Spirit: Chronicles of a Seeker's Quest | Episode 113 with Snehan Born - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSf34KlWW-0

Transcript:
(00:03) [Music] mentioned about feeling as if you've been on a spiritual path since childhood yeah I that's why I said birth yes because I came in uh you know I think people can sort of you know I want to talk about my story in a way that's receivable and when I say things that may sound fantastic I'd appreciate like just suspending the disbelief as it may be possible that this is real for me anyway and I have early memories of things like the baptism in the church and how that made me feel and then I remember questioning
(00:53) early and in Bible classes in in the church it was Episcopalian and they would send the kids off while the sermon went on and we would have Bible class and I was a little too precocious and I would ask questions I want to know what Trinity was what is that you know you don't you're too young to understand and I mean eventually I I realized that my young mind was saying no you just can't explain it to me I need to find out somewhere else that's why I say it that way because there was something that was
(01:26) looking looking looking and uh as soon as I got confirmed Episcopalian I left and I asked my mom if I could go to the synagogue with my Jewish friend from school because uh it was not happening there and that was interesting and I did that for a while I mean my mom was this was in Oklahoma mind you in the 50s Tulsa my mom was way ahead of her time and she eventually found her expression into Unitarian universal ISM we just right along the lines of Intero yoga e ecuminism and i attended some of those churches uh sermons in New
(02:11) York when I moved there but all along I mean even in grade school and high school then by the time I'm in high school I'm reading the existentialist writers like kir gard and Kofi schopenhauer and that's what I was interested in uh not that I could particularly understand it all but it was that was that was propelling a psychological aspect it wasn't satisfying the spiritual yearning uh particularly so I I went through all these books that my mom had on different religions I read through a lot of them trying to find out what they
(02:51) all were about and was like an encyclopedia of world religions these major books yeah and she set me on a good path because she allowed all this that's why I say ADI Guru she said I know you're going to go experience a lot of things in life just please remember moderation because I was already going to be influenced by the hippie area and what was happening musically and in rock and roll was where I was starting to find some inspiration actually The Beatles were a great inspiration spiritually all through those years the
(03:29) early years but there were all these other mixed messages coming in with that music you remember being confused about that no I remember being inspired by it because it was such a change in the times I was right on board with you know the I idealism of that hippie era I mean we really and I'm right past I was like what 12 or something when Woodstock happened I would have gone but I wasn't allowed you know so there that's the influence and uh yeah then eventually I mean if we want to just come up to here I started traveling was really good
(04:31) traveling around the world I got perspective from being way far away and uh and then I was talking to my sister one year year about you know some plans that she had coming up for travel and she said oh I don't know there's this thing with deot choer in India I've never been to India and I was like yeah we should go you should go I want to go let's go somehow I was right on board with it and then he kind of became my teacher for for about two or three years as I went through a lot of what he was
(05:05) offering uh in a couple of different modules there was that one there was another one in India and there was one time I went out to his place in La Hoya and you know I got to talk to him a little bit I actually will admit that I got my first Mantra which was a mantraa from him ayurvedically so he had done some research for the people that wanted it in this group and gave us a mantra which I started using for about 3 years before I came to change my careers and came to yoga and found my way to integral yoga and by then I was not looking for a
(05:46) guru see deepo wasn't my first spiritual teacher my first spiritual teacher after my mother was I forgot this part Terry Co Whitaker and she was like a televangelist of the new age before it was called the new age and she came on and she was a Christian minister in San Diego broadcasting on Sunday mornings when the Evangelist hours were in the mi
(06:14) ddle of that like 11:00 a.m. on Sunday and she was very very popular very put together very funny she had blonde hair she was gorgeous and very well spoken and funny kind of like gev represented these teachings were coming from India and Christianity so she was melding the things and we got some of that from her and then I got closer to her once she left her big organization and started doing what turned out to be the world's first kind of organized spiritual tours by these current spiritual teachers like everybody learned to do it pretty quickly but she was one of the
(06:53) first people to take a few people to the pyramids we went to Egypt and we went to to um Bali I went to Bali with her and then deepo but I asked Terry I said where's my Guru you know you had one or is mine and she gave me the standard answer you know which is when you're ready you find it and if not because the guru is external to take you to the internal work on that we all have can you find your way to the internal conscience that that means so she was saying you could like you don't need to wait for this aspect of of
(07:35) working on the internal if one doesn't have an external Guru in this lifetime as I was asking her where's mine if one doesn't find that it doesn't mean that you can't in this life time there and her answer to me was if you don't then you have this inside you know F if you can find your way there in other words trust it examine that can I and it made sense to me instantly I came away yeah yeah I stopped seeking the external for a long time until something happened yeah what happened I came here we used to come
(08:20) here for Guru pora every year we drive these FS down from New York with all these people in it losing my voice uh I have a tendency to get emotional too so don't let me go off the deep end um we would drive down here with fans of people from New York and one year we had like three there were so many people that would come and fill up this Hall uh and he of course was here and people would do these amazing things for it and I watched him and he come to New York and I would watch him I was watching you know I have eyes that see
(08:56) pretty well everything and so I'm watching this being and seeing okay here's actually a different kind of a teacher this everybody knows he looks like that yeah he's he's casting ideal for a guru he already looks the part that was not what I'm talking about it was you know seeing the glow seeing the way he looked at people how he made contact with the room full of people in a really sincere way it just wasn't done and then he would talk and he would talk in a very measure long you know you
(09:39) take those pauses we talked about and receive the question and then offer the answer that was going to be offered and stuff would flow so I watched all of that behavior and how people behaved and uh also it occurred to me that all of my other great teachers uh had these personalities that I came to know that were clear and his I mean clearly personality personality his personality was clear clear you know like I didn't see much I understood when he would do something that was like you know play ful or or even
(10:33) uh I was one of the fortunate ones to receive a reprimand from Guru once and I saw how he did that I had already seen how he did that and it would be really you know like uh Archer it would be well aimed it would take its Mark and uh then he would go back into the benign what energy that we could call emanating love and so the whole thing is probably emitting from Love and just another way to show love different aspect of love yes thank you so that was what happened and I watched him and for years people were going you should initiate you're so
(11:21) integral yoga and only a few years because it was in India when I got my intermediate training and he was over there that some metaphysical thing happened that clearly uh assuaged all of my fears and pointed the direction that now is the time and yes this is the person you know don't be afraid and that began that process of rubbing and scrubing me through personal through a relationship with them you're and you know it it played out it's still playing out especially now actually it's much better now I get the
(12:12) really strong hits in the beginning it was things like proning him I had to as a Westerner find a way to pronam because I wasn't going to do that and it wasn't just as a Westerner with a bunch of European ancestry I have Cherokee my great great grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee so I stand on this land and I'm not going to Bow but I learned and I gave myself the opportunity and it took me a long time to actually dund devat pram but once that happened then a whole another level of that came and then the real lesson
(12:49) about humility see I never had too much humility authentically because I didn't see examples that warranted it outside warranted it that weren't in my family outside of my mother there were there were instances with people of course people are people you know everybody has good and bad but like really admiring the Integrity of somebody when there was all this abuse around all the time yeah so I didn't have a lot of external examples and even these great teachers it was like you know there's this human aspect so I I
(13:26) was interested in Divinity and what that means and God I wanted like a yogi I want the experience I I can't be satisfied with just belief I also am not learning now that I can't really completely be satisfied by feeling God either that's is bakti for me it's bakti bakti takes me to God as a feeling and I'm here at the heart and that feels like all those Divine qualities are now emanating from me as a Feeling I think that's a human talking you know that's a limited so I don't know I want freedom
(14:10) Liberation I want all that and when I heard things like within this lifetime it's reasonable that's like shivananda yeah I'm not going to wait I want to try and you know I've had conversation with people are you serious and all that uh I've had a very good time I'm talking too much you told me not saw this much you're letting me and I'm not happy anyway yeah that's what I did was change the topic no I love that topic I mean you mentioned not being satisfied with uh with the level of feeling maybe
(14:50) you're saying uhhuh with Baki so so there's something beyond that all right beyond the maybe I'm Roger Yogi because as I explored all those religions and didn't find it all you know you go through these paths one is is sufficient I've met japa yogis that are you know they're on their way and that's all they do it's really perfectly quick way for a very certain kind of human you we might call it a certain kind of personality trait or whatever that takes you into whatever which one it is we understand
(15:27) that athletes go into ha the you know brainiacs going to Jana sorry I have them in my family so you're saying for you it's Baki yes is that what well I find myself in the baky path now I was never considered that that people always thought I was a ha Yogi and I thought that's ridiculous like I I don't even understand the body at all just because I can do this stuff doesn't mean I understand getting spiritual lessons from my body I didn't when he told me that when I got the Roger yoga training
(16:04) and I'm reading the sutras and so each path is sufficient well how do I get my spiritual lessons from this until I did but at that time I did not understand that process as people were calling me this oh great ho Yogi so I rejected that appalation and I thought I was more Roga because I was always interested in meditation first but I knew that there was the Box because I I like ritual I wanted to be a preacher I wanted I mean not a preacher but a pujari which I ultimately got freedom to do in this organization I you
(16:40) know sought out training in India so yeah what not being I only just said that so I'm not quite sure I'm finished with that thought what I'm looking for yeah yeah it means I want that experience you know and I've had it I wonder how much you can have of it and still say stay sane or still say operational in the world you know so that's where I've been able to balance pretty well I think is that I really enjoy life I'm I'm like Krishna I'm a supreme enjoyer I mean deot choer
(17:21) said that to me he I came up and he goes oh you why are you in this line to have your book Sign he knew I knew that he didn't he didn't really like that job and I brought in a book one time and he was like why are you you and he said you really know how to enjoy life don't you he was talking about external things which is what people see and that's also true but I also know how to enjoy my life because I decided to you know I decided to find happiness at the point when Terry go Wier said you can choose
(17:58) emotions to you know entertain or think about or explore or be so is there a a fear that potentially you would not be able to operate on that kind of level anymore if you have so many experiences of you know great depth then something would shift something would change well we've seen examples of that I'm not afraid of that uh uh I still enjoy operating and doing like the work that I'm doing with Robin in San Francisco is too enjoyable being here right now all these ways of serving when I was trying to be
(18:43) served you know for my whole life I was seeking some answers that I eventually got and the yoga Sutra helped Shore up the end of that process in that first basic training was when I really felt like okay that explains reincar ation and Karma and that made all the rest of it make sense to me that I hadn't yet figured out like why the bad things happen to good people or you know people that do good things Karma and reincarnation explains everything else and that's connected to humility as [Music] well what well to me Karma kind of opens up
(19:30) this door and it's like my logical mind can't understand why these things are happening like it doesn't make sense but on the level of karma you have a feeling that there is a sense to it it's just beyond what I can see and may include many lifetimes to me that's humility it's not having to figure it out right like the Yan Yogi that I saw in my sister she was at the same conference with the AR choba we went on that together and I'm sitting on the floor next to her in pmas cuz I want to be the
(20:06) good Yogi and I was brand new to it you know I actually had been taking classes was before I found my way to interal yoga I had declared over there that I wanted to find a new career and I was propelled into coming to integral yoga that's a whole another part of it but at that conference I'm sitting there and she's taking these copious notes and I'm looking at her going wow you know can't you just sit for a moment and not have to know everything and I appreciate now that conundrum because it does look in her case and in
(20:41) some it does look like control and not humility yeah I have to have an answer I'm not safe that I think what you just said though is an important aspect of it is to because maybe that opens the door to compassion it's safety that's what's going on here always really is it dissolved my relationship yeah was not feeling safe and I I told him over and over again you know we just need to feel safe we need to work on this and it wasn't going to happen Karma right and I had to go through that disillusion as all the things Stripped
(21:15) Away what allows you to feel safe and okay so what level is that question being answered on ask because you know if I if it's like Monday D what really makes people feel safe and I would probably feel safer is if I had a whole lot of money in the society than you feel like you have some choices and you have sort of a little more command and agency over yourself in your life and the ones that you love and all that that's why we all are doing this thing uh happiness what was it safety yeah what makes me feel
(22:03) safe uh if I feel that I am on purpose like with the Dharma and if my SAA is being well received like I'm still at a point now where I need feedback and that may be getting ready to be over I hope so uh because I'm not I'm an elder but I'm not a Swami you know so it's like there's a difference and there's an automatic and uh you know I I just if I feel like my contribution is worthy and being received I don't have to be told that I'm the best yoga teacher I've seen great yoga teachers and been in their
(22:55) classes you know and I've taught a pretty good class but I don't feel responsible for that I've always said let the teachings flow through me and let my ego melt with the divine plan move aside for now that's my son kalpa before every class but saying it is also one thing experiencing it is another repeating it over and over and over and over again I think so much is Sun Kaa yeah that's why the teachings repeat it having a sunala repeating it applying it to your soda that's why I ask students to make a
(23:39) sanala consider your sopa for your practice right now consider what you want to remember what you need to remember how Yeah you mentioned uh having you know growing up having a very advantaged life and that potentially gives giving you perspectives oh that might be different from uh many people and also related to the safety maybe you've you've learned the limits of that level of safety oh yeah that's that illusion so while I said that on a mundane level from the other spiritual level that's not going
(24:17) to bring me any safety I mean my brother told me that a long time ago I said you know I'd like to have a little more Financial Security in my future as he start stop paying me uh anyway that's part of that story all right so and I hope this has value and purpose for somebody my uh grandfather was a very successful chemical engineer who invented a process in New York and I'm pretty sure they were Jewish by the way my grandfather who moved here and took the Berg off of the last name and just said borne because
(25:02) they were changing because his he looked and his my great uncles they all they moved to Miami they all look they had the sense of humor I'm sorry I tried to bring it up once they weren't having it because they were turning into a different thing and they moved out of New York to the middle of the country and reinvented themselves as he had invented a process for refining crude oil as Tulsa was the oil boom town of the world at that time before it moved to Houston and uh it was a new way of manufacturing heaters to do the
(25:40) catalytic cracking converting I think it's called to its various components and uh that's what constitutes a ref the major part of a Refinery yes that is by karma from my family and my grandfather invented it was very clever and it got very successful and are sold all over the world so when I used to go down to that little office in Tulsa which grew um there was a conference room with a big world map on it and there were like stick pins it was heav stuff for a little kid and um yeah I just um I was afforded every opportunity to
(26:26) pretty much have whatever I wanted and there are two results to that either you become really blinded to other people and very insensitive and selfish or you know my reaction was I don't deserve this what did I do I used to ask Terry I said well how can I I never did she goes you did something in a past life it's karma you know but I didn't know understand Karma yet until I got it from the sutras she was trying to tell me they did try to tell me you know whatever these all this benefit that people saw
(27:11) me living uh I traveled a lot I had all this Advantage so the point is that at an early age in my 20s I remember riding a motorcycle and driving the Mercedes and thinking this one cost this much and this one cost this much and this one's like more fun in a way but at least as much fun as this and everybody's killing themselves to get this when you can ride a bike for a convertible you know I just it was an Awakening to me and also people would react on this stuff and I would go but wait this is flesh and blood this is a
(27:57) car metal people would say I'd be in the driver's seat you know and my mom would tell me you're buying these cars I think that you know I'm just worried about the the the reaction or what you might attract and I'm very lucky because I was very young and I never got uh too bad of things happen too much stolen yeah so there was a certain dissatisfaction with a accumulation of wealth but I was interested in Beauty and A lot of times things that are beautiful cost too so I started Living with beauty and traveling to see beauty
(28:40) and I studied Beauty in college in the form of art history and got a degree just because my dad wanted me to do a degree so I got one and then I sold antiques for a while I moved to New York and then I became an actor for a while and worked on soaps for a while and and then I Wasing for something else to do and I I knew how to cook so I was a self-taught cook so I went to culinary school and learned everything else about food which still serves me to this day but turned to me vegetarian my first jobs in New York
(29:12) City turned me vegetarian right away and uh we were on a a path to find Ultimate Health and that led me eventually to yoga classes and they were like oh you're so good you should become a teacher and that's when I went to India with my sister and made this Proclamation over there that when I go back to New York I'm going to change my career from cooking to uh something that will actually be beneficial more beneficial to people and kind of a healing way I'm not sure and in front of 500 people I got up on stage and said
(29:49) something like that uh and then that happened and I came to integral yoga and stepping through those doors which is in my neighborhood in greenish Village in New York I kind of knew I didn't really go pursue much else I had been told a couple other places which I was familiar with and I still exposed yoga went to expose myself to yoga elsewhere but I was very interested in what I came to know as what the heart of integral yoga might be from what I understood it was very inclusive I'm looking at the yantra may not be on
(30:31) camera um and that meant everybody yeah so there are gurus who are for wealthy people and there are for gurus that are for the you know the bad people the outcasts you know there are and then there are the to me there's for everybody so then I had a place here and that meant something to you knowing that that's what integral yoga stands for well that's what you know all along every time I heard Terry Co Whitaker speak or gurudev speak because they were the two that spoke the best in my opinion and every time I heard them
(31:15) speak I would think that's it that's what I always do that but I could never say that now it's been spoken eloquently to me I can start to express what I believe or know or felt all along about these topics because I came in this way looking for the truth and it wasn't until I learned about capital T you know there's this agess Timeless te truth you can call it whatever you want yeah conscience again conscience I thought I thought about it recently it's like is this the great game that human
(31:56) beings are playing is searching for the truth yeah it takes so long takes so long I want to see you my Lord but oh does it take so long thank you George Harris yeah yeah yeah and it's not as if we're not seeing the Lord all the time that's why I don't think we even realize how obsessed we are with the truth I mean it's behind everything everything has that I'm just talking to somebody today about boredom like uh life is a series of of of boredom moments and you look back at whatever the point was being made and I looked at
(32:37) very my very good close teacher friend and said I don't believe in boredom anymore because of my advantage background I know what all that having that stuff is and it's not yeah it actually does provide a certain amount of Happiness so when they say it doesn't come from external it does it just passes it comes and goes so if you have the addiction to that you fulfill that happiness cycle over and over and over again OD infinum and then you learn that it's ultimately not actually that satisfying if you have brains to get to
(33:11) that you may just end up being unsatisfied and like drink yourself away wondering should we also be aware of that in terms of some spiritual practices right like can that also be the case if it's during meditation or Puja where I experience something I get a high from that uh and then when I'm you know cleaning or doing the remedial things that I have to do then that's the low and I'm looking for that is that still a cycle yeah no yeah no I mean yeah I wasn't sorry I was in New York when one
(33:47) of our swammies that's here now came and said you know um you're not washing the dishes properly and gave me a lesson in washing the dishes and I had to humbly receive that and then think about wow so it is now I mean we heard gura say it's all going to turn into soda and so I remember putting a picture outside my bathroom door so that in the morning when I was on the toilet I would always look over and see guruda because it's always it's always good it's always part of our experience here none of this
(34:39) what's natural is bad I think I'm you know extreme in this like I have no problem with people's bodies and and everything that goes with that you know they talk about the their their Dawns a certain disgust for the body because it is a lot of impurity and stuff lives on it and that's really gross but it's also natural so I don't have a problem with it and death too like I've been contemplating death for a very very very long time and uh I I just don't think I have a whole lot of fear there was once when
(35:18) I was incapacitated with an injury and on that medication that that Dopey kind of medication that they put people on they gets you what opioids yeah for a long period of time and uh I remember having nightmares that made me think I was clutching for life in these nightmares I had nightmares of clutching for life and it's it could be visual like a cliffhanger thing and I wake up going oh that is the worst feeling I thought I was done with that because I've been working on it for a very long time to not be fearful and
(35:57) grasping for death life at death you know I I I looked into aor all that stuff to see the interest in it the associating yourself with it the lessons that are there the smash shantara you know the the crematoriums and crematorial grounds in India all that uh I exposed myself to to a degree and I met people that did to a much greater degree to learn stuff from what now I have is pain like I just I have so much pain all the time I don't want a whole bunch of pain on my way out you know and I'm told that that's not always the case in
(36:44) fact it's not always often the case I worked in hospice for a while I talk to people and uh I I finally had someone say no the preponderance of people go in a kind of a you know well they just go yeah usually at night and you get incapacitated you're ill enough then yeah that waking up again and the the thing that needs to happen in your heart doesn't happen so people go and then I look at what they promised us about Guru so if you self-realize and you practice yoga you can uh manipulate at the uh nervous system and your your
(37:34) autonomic self things that you're not supposed to have access to we learn to have access to and then it looks to me like if your body is in capacitated in decrepitude and you're nearing the end of your life if you're a guru and you start to realize that it's like okay I'm going to drop this down you just slow the heart down and let it rest and stay there that looks good I like [Laughter] that so you mentioned you know your experience of of meeting Guru do and a little bit of the the impact that it had
(38:18) um and based on what you're what you're saying it seems that you know this external showed up yeah the ex back to the external internal you know showed up and that allowed you to reach new levels internally is that right yeah for sure I mean you know it it's a guru disciple relationship and and it's and you experience the power I wasn't gonna do it yeah I wasn't looking anymore yeah and then I had these things happen metaphysic I which I'll tell you but I don't talk about it a lot and maybe not
(39:02) because we hold those things but you know uh all right I'll just say he showed up once in the corner of my room in Lotus chanting I pray that your meditations can be as mine I pray that your meditations can be as mine so of course he's saying that so I can hear it in my dream awakes state in that room in India but this is what I experienced and I interpreted that is first of all you showed up in my room in a vision there were multiple ones on that trip and uh yeah it meant that now is the time and this is the person and you don't
(39:59) really have to be afraid I didn't want to leave the Mantra like you know why am I changing my Mantra and Mai could who initiated me in India on that trip had the uh the interviews with me where I was curious about it but I wasn't sold because I told her you know I have a mantra I've been using it and so why am I giving that up and she said I often wonder if this was just grudev working through her because to me it didn't really sound like her I heard oh well if you after receiving the Mantra from gurev if you go through this
(40:45) you know if you decide to go through this and if you're accepted and we go through with this then after receiving the Mantra from gurev then you know see how that resonates and and you can see and if the other one you want to go back to then you could just consider that as having been blessed by gurev and again it's like smack okay that's the last thing you need to hear go ahead Co and sometimes it's like that like moved to Hawaii was that too when I moved from New York to Hawaii I had to get signs
(41:17) over and over again until they were like you've asked this before why do you keep asking us yes now is the time for you to move guides do you think you've always looked for those signs in your life see through the veil so you've never been more one to like figure it all out in your mind it's always been more of like allow the universe to tell me what to do yeah I have a visual and an oral you know uh yeah I think that things can be seen that aren't there and I think things can be heard that aren't
(41:55) there yeah in the form of lessons or experience for example okay since I'm a child of that era I didn't have a whole lot of experience with it but when I took lysergic diethylene acid whatever that's called LSD in high school it gave me experiences that I didn't know know the mind was capable of so when I started seeing things like that in hallucination or when I started feeling things like that it was really seeing and feeling uh an altered state I came back from that experience going not like oh I want more of that
(42:49) you know or how not particularly how great that was it was super powerful so but what I came away from it with was oh the mind's capable of that isn't that interesting the mind is capable of that and as I learned later from Deep Chopra the body has the chemical chemicals in it already to make your Pharmacy if you knew how to concoct within your own body you could remedy yourself that's a scientific thing he was trying to purport you know we don't have the conscience Consciousness yet to be able to
(43:26) manipulate what we could potentially it's there our own systems and yoga is teaching us you know Expanding Horizons with that isn't it youever consider that um uh that maybe it's important to remember how much better it is now than it used to be like how much better it's gotten yeah because I get Negative you may not see that in me but I I I have such a Negative bent from just being in my brain and seeing like you know really gosh do you have to treat these black people you have to treat these Indians
(44:08) in my class like that like I'm going to be your friend because that's not right and I'm five years old so yeah I've been disappointed by my species for a very long time and I have to love my species I'm that there's no difference it's not like I'm not participating in the same ills and evils but it's it's been hard to stay positive what you just said and that's why when I heard gurudev at the end of all this trying to talk about 911 or what the all the stuff that's
(44:37) going on nuclear you know the fears that we live through with him helping us he would say I think things are getting better in the end it would be but I see a future that you know and look to SAA Yuga if you want I don't see that it's getting better right now except that in a lot of ways it is yeah how can how can our minds even know that right like it's what's better yeah and what's better exact think what's supposed to be like what I of feel like are because our minds are capable of so
(45:23) much and they're so amazing uh the delusion often is that they can understand it everything and anything and the question like that is it's so like to make these assessments of like it's getting better or worse yeah exactly thank you that's my answer to your question is I'm confounded as to what that means Better or Worse well the level of better I guess I meant it back to the internal external right we kind of get caught especially external like I can't know that but internally based on
(45:53) the Yoga practices at least for me I I mean very objectively speaking I could say that the experiences I have day-to-day now are um much more peaceful much more relaxed talking about yeah than the way like the anxiety and the stress that I used to experience was my life was saved yeah absolutely I mean yeah I was not finding that the health we were looking for it but you know I was living in New York and and it was the 90 ' 880s and '90s please I was having a whole lot of fun and uh I would have to uh restore and recuperate from that
(46:40) kind of fun and um I just was wondering why I had to put myself through so much to try to find this temporary satisfaction that occurred to me in New York a lot like I just saw how much energy I was putting into oh getting myself ready and getting out the door and going somewhere and then spending time there and not wanting to really be there anyway because it's that kind of environment to try to meet somebody and and which was ultimately unsatisfying and oh I I just judge that whole experience yeah not satisfying
(47:18) still looking for it outside yeah but also being ruled by natural function of the human mortal coil that we bound into that you know I can speak to an unsatiable lust that was so unsatisfying and thank God I didn't have that many opportunities I had lots of rejection which was a whole another experience but uh yeah I could have been easily dead like everybody else I know from AIDS at that time that was a whole another lesson as everybody my generation dropped off especially the you know brighter ones that were out there the you know kind of
(48:08) stars of that era the people the movers and Sher the ones that were making things happen that made Miami happen those investment people from my gay community in New York moved there I saw it it was in complete disarray and they said we're going to do this now Miami okay I don't know how I got off on that tension but yeah we were talking about external and internal and better and worse uh I would say yes I would like to speak just a second which is that in my personality story line yes the reactivity the catching the mind and
(48:49) then wanting this is what we're working on like talk let's talk about what we're inspired by now what we've been working on in San Francisco go through rananda spearheading US among other things is uh compassionate communication and dealing with each other in the house because we're tight you know we we have all of your community is beautifully spread out and we are in this with the tight little rooms and on top of each other in literally in each other's bathrooms well you'd have that here um
(49:28) but I had never lived in that before and he told me oh you're going to have all this additional rubbing and scrubbing I said' no it's going to be good for me I know that it's all fine and then it happened and it was very very very hard and I found myself saying things to people that you know I I would be driven to something and and they'd be shocked by what I'd say to them i' say yeah I've tried everything else now does that get your attention I'm coming to that level to try to see if I can make you stop
(49:54) talking or or me I'd like to stop yeah I was ready so that kind of confrontational thing now was what I'm interested through his spearheading so as we were talking about compassionate communication how we deal with each other because primarily I was having major difficulties with certain people uh and not feeling like it was just all about me I'm sorry but I don't take full responsibility for all that but it was very uncomfortable and I wanted to find a way and it has to do with that staying in
(50:30) the heart too because I would go up to my room I would practice soda in the form of the Chalisa with another group of people and I would immediately drop from my head into my heart and I would feel so much love in my room for everything because I had just had communion with Hanan Aram it was amazing and it was real it was absolutely real for me and I would come down the stairs and somebody would say something that indicated that the world doesn't necessarily want to receive your rosy Outlook heart open heart right now
(51:06) and and usually that's going to be the case almost you know people say they want that but yeah when you see it you don't believe it like that so I had to find a way to stay in there and that coincided with non-reactive mind taking hold in more serious deep regular sodna and this questioning of how to deal with people when it comes up so my insight is everybody wants to go away and when you're ready we'll talk about it but when you're ready never happens so I want to talk about it actually as it's
(51:44) happening because people aren't aware that it's even happening until somebody is what is happening uh these egos are battling it's just an ego Battle Competition yeah so can I get outside that and see and that's easy for me like I said I can see it so from that spiritual eye I'm seeing oh snon poor thing you're not being heard you need to do you better defend yourself I mean that may not be my spiritual self but you know you got to you don't need to be treated like this because of my background all that my
(52:21) little buttons are being pushed here and then the other person is doing the same thing but that doesn't help for me to have that other than help me it helps me disassociate have a moment of Grace the more I can connect to that the more I can actually see and then choose we these are basic you know yoga teachings then we choose what I want to choose now is to stay in the heart why so it's the sun calpa I'm choosing now to come down out of my room and see as I'm challenged I'm going to still stay here regardless of
(52:56) you don't want to it I won't show it to you but I'm going to stay here because when the other comes up and I come back up here and get critical it doesn't feel nearly as good compare the two feelings like the choice is easy for me so it's not easy to do or affect but it's easy to make I want that so now I have a sunala to stay in my heart now how am I going to do that am going to start watching when the challenges come and the big ones are big you know instead of reacting here can I find a way and we worked on
(53:38) this I heard ramanand talk about it and I worked on it I mean I've done it with him I had some my biggest lessons with him finding a way to be in centure and allow that to be correct actually what you're saying about me is completely incorrect In My storyline but it is correct in your storyline so let that be correct can I authenticate that that's correct for you in my essence of not being resistance but allowing you to be correct in your assessment of me now let me see if I can explain to you why I have another assessment of me
(54:25) usually people don't want to hear it but you're already started the process of I'm open to hearing about what you're talking about me you know and and I I I want to hear that so I'm listening to you now can you elucidate that to me can you say that again so you give the person a chance to have non-resistance that opens a door and usually they'll come down there with you to the heart and you're able to hear them but once they're done professing often they're gone and thank you and bye but
(55:02) oh wait wait I didn't get a chance to so can I still stay in my heart for the one that leaves instead of commanding wait you didn't listen which I used to do I probably won't do that next time why do I have to prove I'm right I'm not right who's right you know that's not so strong proving that you're right oh my God for everybody yes including me but I'm watching it now because I know this holistic view you know the apple is beautiful Apple sitting here it looks edible to you but it looks rotten to me
(55:43) you can't see the rotten part but I do who's right for fighting about reality yeah or or or what this country means or religions you know fighting about what this country means I don't know the answer to that by the way and uh I didn't understand the essence of boundaries for a long time I'm like that hippie era like we don't have to have police we don't have to have government we don't have to have countries like can't we all just live people are the same and I went to Russia
(56:25) and saw people are the same in many ways the essential like you know the lower nature ways you have to have these things taken care of but then these Egos and are smarter than we have the capacity for brains that's our problem is our Technologies are way over our capacity to healthily deal with them it's been this way for a while so as whatever Gods may be watching us play this out careful kids what a trip yeah thank you so much for sharing so openly I can feel the the depth of the experience that you've had in this life
(57:17) thank you is there anything else you'd like to share I was just wondering if we were about done so I feel so grateful and honored truly apart from whoever else might ever hear this I am not even thinking about that it's been a great little conversation with you I hope I haven't overstepped anybody's bounds I hope anything that I said that offended anybody I'm sorry that's not the intent and uh yeah I'm I'm receiving a so much more love than ever and I was I have been such a needy
(58:03) vessel that it's interesting to see it really starting to [Music] overflow more more and more more yeah I'm so happy to hear that J sh thank you okay Om Shanti thank you a thanks for listening if you've enjoyed this content and think others might as well please feel free to share and subscribe