SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Soul Portals, Exploring Psychospiritual Horizons with your hosts, Cedric Speier and Deanna Nagel. Cedric is a non-marin therapist who developed the interview guidance model and is a pathfinder in the psychospiritual realm. Deanna created the Essential Soul Care Model, a model suitable for therapists, coaches, and healers. The monthly episodes of Soul Portals feature guests sharing insights from their personal paths and professional practices. Thank you for tuning in for the Soul Talk with all kinds of trailblazing teachers and guides as Cedric, Deanna, and guests explore new evolutionary landscapes.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Welcome to this episode of Soul Portals. And specifically in this conversation, we're going to talk about uh individual and collective evolution. So I would like to start with an opening invocation, short one, the blessing on our session, which is may the spirit flow freely through this conversation, allowing it to be both edifying and energizing and of benefit to everyone watching or listening. And then I have a little quote. Usually we do a quote or a reading, but this this is a short one that really pertains to the theme of your book, which is evolution and consciousness. So the quote is by the the Schultz, Charles Schultz Schultz, the famous peanuts cartoonist. So he says, Life is like a 10-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use. And that's kind of how you kicked off your book. Most of us have gears we never use. So now to introduce our guests briefly, they can always read your bios. But uh we just want to know who you are, what you are, and where you are. Sure. So ladies first.

SPEAKER_05 2:18

Okay, thank you, Sadri. My name is Ameve Happen, and um I'm an Irish counseling psychologist, and uh I've also been practicing or trying to practice in Buddhism for about 15 years now. And uh Michael contributed uh the co-author of this book, Michael Del Monte, here he contributed a chapter on meditation to a previous book which I compiled on natural approaches to mental health. It's called How to Be Happy and Healthy. So it was a combination really of Eastern and Western approaches to mental health from a holistic point of view. And uh so then myself and Michael have collaborated on this later book, which um really expands a lot of the ideas in that previous book.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yes, it's it's a really fascinating book. There it is. It has a great subtitle, it says everything. I mean, it covers such a wide scope spectrum.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

So can you can you um say the name of the title and the subtitle for those that might not see us but would be listening?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Great, thank you. So evolution and consciousness revised edition from a barren rocky earth to artists, philosophers, meditators, and psychotherapists. So that's that's everybody in this everybody and anybody who's uh in the growing club, as we sometimes call it. So, Mikolo, you've done so much research that culminated in this book. So just a brief who you are, what you are, where you are. Well, you're both in Dublin.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Um I I was it it was basically at home that I learned about mindfulness and meditation and Eastern philosophies because that's what my parents talked about, and that's what they practiced. They were very much into meditation, and they started a school of philosophy and a school of meditation here at home. And um, I just went along to those things. Uh and um I suppose in reaction to that, when I went to university, I studied genetics. I kind of went the whole other way. I wanted to know about the physical world, about practical things, uh how the bodies put together. And I found I was quite interested in human genetics, but at the time they were only really interested in in bacteria and viruses, and I was a bit bored with genetics. And uh I also found it wasn't answering my questions. So I turned to psychology and I found it fascinating. I just absolutely couldn't get enough of it uh compared to genetics, which was kind of hard work and a bit dry. I found I found psychology really fascinating. And then, well, what are we going to do with psychology? So at first I began to work with school children as a school psychologist, and how that you how they could learn and how they could be educated using psychological principles. But then I became interested in psychotherapy and I studied psychotherapy. I found the work of Jung really interesting. Uh I found the work of constructivism really interesting too. And um so so later on I was trying to see how I could combine my understanding of biology, which is where I started, with my understanding of psychology, with my understanding of the more spiritual practices. And hence the book really reflects that journey. It reflects the journey from biology, the concrete, the embodiment, right up to the to the to the mind, and beyond that to the more to the transcendental. It's a long journey, it's a very long journey, and um uh and you know, I I it's it's not complete. I don't think we ever finished these journeys, but that's really where it all came from. And in that journey, at the stage when I was interested in mindfulness and interested in meditation, that's how I came and met and met Maeve. And uh, in fact, we we we wrote did some work together. Maebe was writing a book at the time, and we put our our heads together, and the cross-fertilization led to the book, basically. Uh, and that's where we are, that's where we are now.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Yeah, you do you do a great job in the book of doing the micro and the macro, like showing how individual development evolution is mirrors the humankind's evolution.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

So I was always I was always very frustrated with reductionism, be it genetic reductionism, or even be it psychological reductionism, or even actually spiritual reductionism. That sounds strange, but uh I think a single focus. Um I I I I I would get uncomfortable in any group that had too narrow a focus. I felt that they're just leaving out so much of human experience.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Uh and I you yeah, and I so and the other thing um I've always I was always interested in anthropology. That's a hobby more than anything else. Why people across the world have different cultures, different religions, think and behave differently. And um, so it's the human family. Oops, sorry, the speaking of the human family. I'm going to have to move this bird. Sorry, uh, I forgot about her. Um sorry.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

She's welcome. She's welcome.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

She doesn't want to go. Um, sorry about that. That's my pet. She's welcome. She's normally in the cage, but she doesn't. Um I'm going to have to ask Patricia to put her back in the cage. Um Maya, go away. She's sorry by that. She's very um, she's sorry. I'm going to beg your pardon. I'm going to have to move her.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

No, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

Yes, and that's what we're here for to learn about more about who you are, not just what the book is about.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

So thank you for sharing your pet. Except Michelow didn't hear that. Well, he will on the replay.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

I think parrots can live till about 90 years of age, actually. But you have to ask Michael to come. Can can parrots live to be quite old, Michael?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yes. This particular species, she she reaches about the age of 93. So uh it's more for the grandchildren. Uh well.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Okay, Mikelov.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Oh, sorry about that interruption. Don't be sorry.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Uh let me read, let me read you a Zen story about that moment, okay? The Zen master prepared to give a sermon to a group of his students. Suddenly a bird began singing, and all listened in silence. When the bird song had ceased, the master said, That is the sermon, and went his way.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Well, I think I think I think her name is Maya, you know. Maya, Maya is the veil. Uh Maya, she was uh I'm not sure whether she's objecting to what I was saying or whether she wanted to make to bring things down to earth. I think she tried to bring things down to earth. Uh get me off my high pedestal. Uh so uh right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Yes, yeah, to to fly out of the ivory tower and over the landscape.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So yeah, it's a natural segue for both of you because uh one of our soul portals is soul summons, so you know, it's a personal turning point or transition where it which changed the direction. I think you already said it, Mikolo, of your life's work. So over to Maeve, if you have a conversion story.

SPEAKER_05 10:30

Conversion might be a bit strong word, um, but my my earlier career was I studied in um Trinity and UCD, and um I did undergraduate psychology and then counseling psychology, and then I also studied women's studies, and I studied social and organizational psychology. So for me, that was like the the psychology is about the personal women's studies, it was about political, and uh organizational psychology is about the social, you know. So I found that I loved all that study, I really enjoyed it. And later then on in my 40s, I was reading discourse analysis and really enjoying that. But like I at the time there were no apps or would not many websites or anything like that, even. And uh, I had heard that learning to meditate would be helpful to deal with stress, so I just had to Google it and found myself in a little Buddhist centre that wasn't far from where I lived at the time, and uh I had I had absolutely no concept that anything religious has anything to offer me. Not that I was an atheist or anything, but like I hadn't seen anything in religion that was going to be helpful to me. So I had to continue going to these classes because it took me a really long time to learn to meditate, and I found the classes fascinating listening to other people's experience of trying to practice meditation while they were learning because people's experiences were so different, and so I continued on and I read some of the books, and then I started to do a course on uh introduction to Buddhism, and then I did the next course follow-on from that. This was with a group that at the time were called the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, and they're now called Tri Ratna, and they were set up by an English Buddhist monk called Sankarachara in the 60s in London. He lived in India for a quick time. So I was it's like I was drawn back to it all the time, even though I didn't really know what it was about at all. And like, as I stuck with it, like that whole thing just became a doorway to another universe for me. That's literally what it was. Like the practice of meditation combined with the study of the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, and the practices of mindful living and the uh ethical guidelines and so on, they all came together for me to fundamentally really allow me to experience many other levels of consciousness that nothing else had ever given me in my day-to-day life. You know, so like I think well, one way I think of it now is that the West has made incredible progress in understanding the external world with our science and technology and medicine, so on. And it's the Far East who have gone inwards and mapped the topology of the inner life, really, and given us the tools to enter there, you know. I also think of the West kind of as the world of the head and the east as the world of the heart, because uh the heart is very much emphasized in Buddhism and in Hinduism, as far as I know, and the practices of compassion, sympathetic joy, and so on are fundamental, you know, central to the practice of Buddhism. So I feel that in our globalized world now we're very lucky to have these two kind of split halves coming together. Yeah, and the people of the East, of course, want what we produce, they want new technology and new advances in medicine and all of these great things that we have, and we want what they have. And so many people, in my experience, are drawn like a magnet to Buddhism. It's not the only route, of course. I think there's probably well, I'm sure there's infinite routes to the spiritual world because everyone's is fundamentally unique, and people find their path in so many different ways, you know. Um, so I feel myself extremely lucky that I happened to stumble across it, you know, without looking at it. And then I made a Sri Lankan friend there and a um Malaysian friend, and three of us set up a Theravada Buddhist group in Dublin, the Irish Sangit Trust, because there was only one Theravada group in Dublin, and it was kind of fading, the people were aging in it. There was only a small group, so we've been running that now since 2011, and uh we invite in monks and nuns and lay teachers from abroad, and we have a regular weekly meditation sit, and that's been very nurturing to have a sang as well, so and to be able to contribute and to bring the dharma to others, you know. So obviously, all of these teachings have had a lot huge influence on um psychotherapy and counselling, you know, books like Compassionate Mind, for instance, and um there's a website called selfcompassion.org with by Christian Neff, and I'd often share these things with my clients, not to obviously proselytize, but just to give them tools that are going to help them in their journey of understanding themselves and developing what you're saying reminds me of a book by Bede Griffiths, uh, who had a a Christian ashram in India, so and his book was The Marriage of East and West. All right, okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

And also it corresponds with the left brain, right brain discoveries and research.

SPEAKER_05 16:11

Yeah, it all you can say with the male and female, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

Yes, it also speaks to um bringing that somatic piece into the therapy process, you know, it's not all in the head, it's yes, bringing your body experience into that, into that, into the room.

SPEAKER_05 16:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I often ask people, you know, how do you sleep? How's your diet? Do you get exercise? All these are very practical physical things that influence our mental health and our emotional well-being. So that's an integrated kind of approach that I would use with people as well, you know. Um, and I certainly we never touched on any of that when I was training. Maybe now they do, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 16:57

But like also to bring in a spiritual dimension, I often ask clients, you know, do you have any kind of spiritual or religious kind of thing going on? And a lot of people have, and typically it's not in any organized religion, but they have some sense of something larger. And I find that people can in therapy they can draw on that as a resource as well, and it can help them have a different kind of perspective on their suffering and their difficulties, and they can move more quickly through the therapy.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yes, yeah, all these things are have been emerging, even in the word psycho-spiritual, is now becoming part of the vocabulary, and to do a spiritual assessment with your clients is considered part of competency now. So there's there's there's a book, there's manuals like how to do a spiritual assessment, you know, it's completely non-sectarian. It is essential to people's lives, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

Well, and it's it's also being able to sort out the implicit content of a session and the explicit content. Sometimes, as you said, maybe you know, they they may not speak to it in religious terms, but they understand some sense. And so if we can help guide them in that direction so that they are comfortable talking about it, then all the better.

SPEAKER_05 18:19

And I feel the ideas that came through, like it was from Stangrachida, that English monk, that I first came across the concept of um the evolution of consciousness, he called it higher consciousness. And I remember listening to one of his talks as I was walking along the beach in Waterford, and it really hit me like a bolt from the blue because I thought, oh my god, evolution. Like it's one of the most powerful forces on the planet, like it brought us up from the oceans and down from the trees and into civilization. Like, how could it have stopped? That was what the thought that struck me. So the reality that uh we're still evolving through consciousness makes a huge amount of sense to me. And especially like apparently, children ever since IQ tests were invented, children are more intelligent, they have to keep moving the mean so that it's still 100 points in terms of the average. Um, and and like we've moved so far forward in the 20th century with human rights, equal rights, you know, um equality, democracy. Like these are all very radical changes that are very recent in human history, people be taking for granted. So, and young people are very conscious and aware and accepting and open and inclusive, all these good things. That's what I see in Ireland anyway. So I can see consciousness evolving. It's great to feel that this is a force that nobody can stop, and uh you know, and I I suspect that's why religions don't like it, you know, because they know they can't own it, they can't co-opt it, you know, they can't make money out of it. So they deny it, I suspect.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

But the forerunners have it's happened in every religion that the real mystics and the forerunners are leading or on the leading edge, and they're the ones who get excommunicated and persecuted until the rest come round. For sure, yeah, for sure. I'm wondering, uh Mikcolo, do you have like an essential spiritual practice of your own that you do regularly? Like that grounds you?

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Well, I think like when I was young, I used to meditate every day and did so for years and years. Um, I think I became more interested in mindfulness, to be honest. Um, I think that would probably be what would attract me more these days. Uh, the other thing would be that in my work, I find that um paying paying deep attention to your clients, I think that really is something that um um benefits a lot from from practicing mindfulness. I think that's really really the um the the the essence of deep listening. Um I saw a bit of research which showed that psychotherapists that have a practice of mindfulness that they tend to get better results. And I'm not surprised. I think you tune into the into what we I call the transference and the counter-transference better, um, and you learn to pay attention better. Uh I that would be really in my daily life, I would say I don't uh I do a bit of yoga. Every day I do some yoga like that. Um so there are many different things like that, but I'm the the formality of of meditation, um I not so much like I used to. I do a lot, did a lot of that over the years, and maybe um I I I think enjoy the mindfulness more. Maybe that's what happened already.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah, so it's for the You know, since there's such an overlap, but you're making a distinction. So for the benefit of people listening, could you say something about the difference between meditation and mindfulness? Because they have a lot in common.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Well, okay. Um one normally starts our practice with uh with samatha. Samata is concentration meditation. It could be on the candle flame, it can be on the far far flame, it can be on your breath, it can be on a mantra. So you learn to focus your mind, the narrow focus of samatha. And I think that's a very good grounding because you you learn to really focus and pay attention. Uh the vipassana is the kind of opening up the wide angle, and the wide angle is taking in the bigger picture. There's quite a bit of research now on this, showing that the samatha, the concentrated meditation, it's much more left hemisphere. And um, and you get actually get a shift to the left hemisphere by practicing this kind of meditation, whereas the the mindfulness, the vipastana, is more shift to the right hemisphere because it's a broad angle, inclusive look of the world. So you're actually using different hemispheres in these different techniques.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Uh the interesting thing is that the uh the right hemisphere is much more linked to empathy. So mindfulness uh tends to the practice of mindfulness and being mindful does tend to enhance empathy more than say the the the the narrow focus. The narrow focus is a discipline, it's it's uh but the mindfulness is an opening up. And um, so I I want to also talk about how this might go into my work, because I think when patients come into me, um they there are three levels. There is they come in with often childhood deficits, things they've missed in their childhood, things they have uh um not had, uh, things uh that have been done to them that shouldn't have been done to them, etc. They're deficits. And and they're the first thing I would tend to deal with in in therapy. The next thing are the conflicts, the kind of little battles you have with your siblings and with your parents. They're not so important, but they are important, but they're not deficits. And then the third stage is the growth. Uh, and that's where that's where often you're talking about the spiritual side comes in much more then, uh, where people are are are not are not just necessarily looking to the past like Freud would, or into the present conflicts, but more to the future, a more Jungian kind of approach. And I think that's the way I tend to work with people. I look for the deficits first, I look but then I look at the conflicts, and then I look at the growth. All that can take in some cases can take months or years, depending. But that's the that's so there are different levels, I think, of working.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah, that's the trajectory, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Trajectory, yes, exactly. Um each person is very different. Some people are very keen to get to the growth bit, others go there too quickly. I think that's thing you that that that bit like bypass spiritual bypass, where you try to immediately go to the growth and you neglect to look at all the the basic false deficits, you know, fault lines um and conflicts which are kind of ignored and bypassed and not dealt with. And you never get away with it because you have to go back and do the work you missed. Right. You've got to go back and do the work you've missed. And I think that that that is something uh I would have seen a lot of people do that. I think in Ireland we had quite a bit of that because we had a lot of a lot of nuns and priests, more perhaps than many other countries per per per per capita. Um and you could see the struggles they were having. Their struggles tried to just be at a very young age, engaging with the spiritual. I remember when I was young, I would see lines and lines of boys who were lined up to become priests, walking in the streets in dark uniforms. And um it had a terrible thing because I would have worked a lot with priests and nuns uh in the past, and they they they had huge, huge issues which it never dealt with. They never dealt with their sexuality, for example. That was a real problem. Um, they didn't properly deal with relationships either. Um and behind all of that, there's a there's a huge amount of anger and frustration that comes out sideways. Now, I'm not saying every they all had this problem, but many of them did. And um and I you would see it in in in other people too, uh, that that that uh sidestepping, John Main, you know that John Main of Fame sidestepping. Uh and I think meditation can be used to sidestep. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get at. I could spend a lot of time just meditating, and it was very good. A lot of things would come up during meditation, actually, that you come into your awareness. Um but the uh I like the idea of engaged Buddhism. I like the idea that that uh it's not just in your head it stays, but we are embodied, we are on this planet. Uh who knows what happens later on. But so it's it's that so the application will be very important. Application to to one's work and to one's life. Yeah, I'm not sure if I've answered your question, but yeah, yes, you have, of course.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

It's funny that you should mention John Main because I was there in the 80s when he founded the Benedictine Priory in Montreal, so I knew him and his successor, Father Lawrence. So, what's interesting is we used to go and meditate with the monks, and uh all of the monks, mostly all of them, had bad backs. Speaking of the somatic.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

If you want to go into too much about that, but uh uh psychoanalysts had a had a view of what what bad backs are all about, but uh you can you can tell us in a nutshell. Uh well it's it's it's the absence of sexual experience uh of straight sexuality. Yeah, I mean I'm not saying it is that, but they would immediately come to that conclusion. Uh but uh it's a hypothesis, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Well, and I find it interesting that maybe you meditate and make a lot of you're more into mindfulness, and what I'm seeing is people think it has to be one or the other, like one is better than or less than the other. And I think the goal would be to allow people to understand that either one just whatever fits whatever fits you. So Mikala talking about the right brain and the left brain, that that makes perfect sense. That some people are lean lean toward meditation while others don't, they lean toward mindfulness once they understand what that is.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Yeah, yeah, and it relates to what Mae was saying about East and West because it's no accident that the papassana is popular in the West, because we need the wider scope and the heart-centered and the witnessing and the being as opposed to doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression. I think meditation is really important. Um, I I love the kind of meditation where you're focusing on your breath and your posture. Uh I just maybe I started at such a young age, I was about 14 or 15. I did years and years of it, and I maybe I I was kind of more excited about the mindfulness side later on, but that's the you have to answer your question. But I think they go together. I really do think they go together. Um yeah, and I sure I mean I know maybe it's also very interesting, mindfulness, so I don't really know.

SPEAKER_05 30:14

For sure, for sure. For sure. I think everybody has to find their own way, you know. Like one person was saying to me, I'm not I'm not able to sit and meditate, but I swim like 10 lengths every morning or every second morning, and it's the rhythmic uh movement, you know, where she finds that really clears her mind, you know, or for some people it might be running, it's more physical than sitting still. So, and but they're doing it at some level, there's some uh you know, spiritual level of perspective of our experience in it for them, you know. Right, there's there's intention. It's intention, yeah, yeah. So, like I can't I don't think we can prioritize anything over anything else because people are so individual, and uh each person has to find what is going to work for them, I think, you know, and be open-minded about that. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

I mean, mindfulness can be applied to so many things. Listening to music, for example, listening to the wind, looking at nature, looking at looking at the waves. We live here by the sea, and um just looking at the waves, the skyline, the skyscape. Um, I also swim every day, by the way, and I like that in the RC, it gets pretty cold in winter. And um, I find that something very interesting about that because it is such an embodied experience, the deep cold that it completely empties your mind. Uh, go into the sea and you have some some worry or some thought or some feeling. By the time you come out, you've forgotten what it was about. It's plunging into the here and now. Uh, it's complete emptying of the mind. Um, and uh that kind of thing, or even I I think for people who go horse riding, for example, you're on the back of a horse, you haven't got time to sit to to to to to be anxious about anything except falling off, maybe. There are many, many things you can do mindfully. Uh and yoga, for example. Um yeah, and this thing about emptying your mind. Uh again, we only empty the mind in order to give it a break and to fill it again, not to stay empty. So a lot of these these uh techniques of disengagement, detachment, non-attachment. Uh I remember when I was learning about all of these, maybe I took them too literally initially, and then I I began to think, but can that be but that's something there's something prematurely wrong with that. Uh we all have to let go of the body and of the mind when we die, but we don't need to do that throughout our lives. Uh it's something we we can do momentarily, but not but not as a not as a way of living. Um so I I think these the social engagement bit, I think, is so important. And I think I I think people who who try to avoid that maybe some people are comfortable with it, but uh the people we see would not be. They they would they're mostly people living in the real world with jobs and families.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Right. Yes, that that there's a great line in your in your book about meditation should allow the ego to just be ego. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because in a lot of the uh like the the the false side of spirituality, there's a lot of violent language used to eliminate the ego, destroy it, you know, that it's good for nothing, but it like you said, has its role in like someone else said, we need the ego because to know where the car keys are.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

And like from a spiritual perspective, like the ego is uh should be shaped within uh an ethical response to the world as well, you know, and all our um religions, to be fair to them, they've all given us guidelines, you know, on how to to do that. And fundamentally, I think they're all about evolution, really. They're about moving us away from our instinctive, reactive animal uh instincts to a way where we can respond uh consciously and mindful mindfully to the world around us, like with compassion, with forgiveness, with kindness, with lack of judgment, with care towards others. And uh it's not just that we uh won't go to hell or something, you know, if we obey the commandments, that actually improves the quality of our own inner life, if we can live like that, you know. And so, like in the book we talk about the Axial Age, which was a time uh 200-600 BC when the different religions emerged in the world around the same time Greece, China, um the Middle East, and so on. And that seems to me, well, at least we have suggested in the book that that was kind of an evolutionary spurt in humanity where we evolved to be able to experience the transcendent and that people were putting a kind of um language around that at practices at the time. So I feel at the heart of religions there, uh there's something extremely important and useful and practical, actually, but obviously they keep getting turned into power and money systems, you know, and people have to refine this virtual impulse again, which they do over and over, and it's called the perennial philosophy.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Exactly. Didn't Jung say that that somebody is best to take up a practice after they're 40? He he he he used that as the age, you know, by we would hope to have a moral foundation and maturity, and because otherwise we get the phenomenon that we see a lot, which is the gurus and the teachers who are teaching enlightenment and then are exposed for basic bad behavior. Oh, yeah, yeah, like so yeah, you need to be it's it's a very good point you make. I mean, you need to be a good human being and then build on it.

SPEAKER_05 36:42

Yes, yeah, and I think an effective human being, like what Michael was talking about, there like engaging with the world and going through all the ups and downs, all the failures, the successes, the betrayals, the losses, all of these things are what forge the ego, you know. And there's the famous phrase, you know, you have to be somebody before you can be nobody. Yeah, and like we have to be able to, you know, experience transcendence but return back to a functioning ego afterwards. And what can happen with people, spiritual experiences can be extremely powerful, and when people experience them when they're young, I think the ordinary world can seem very mundane by comparison, you know, and they can clean to the spiritual life when they're still quite young and they don't really mature.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

But it takes a lot longer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

There is a a um a big malaise in the world uh these days, nevertheless. I agree that there's evolution and development, but there's also uh a kind of idea going around that we're some some some kind of accident, a kind of a fluke. We're all here, uh we're all here that this we are in our little personal lives, we are conscious, and um, and then we then we're gone, we're dead. And that's basically it. And somehow all of this was an accident that a an unintelligent, unconscious universe somehow produced us, but how? That's the big mystery. So you have the Big Bang, and then you have our solar system, we have this barren, rocky earth that I talk about in the book, that we talk about in the book, and yet out of that, out of this rocky earth, we produce this incredible complexity of technology, of philosophy, of psychology, of art, of music, all this beauty, and also all the horrible stuff we do. And that all came from a rocky inert planet. So I think a lot of people are confused. Uh the the kind of meaninglessness that life has no purpose, it's going nowhere. And of course, if you look at it from the Big Bang perspective, then it does look like it's going somewhere. It then it shows that actually that matter evolves and life evolves and consciousness evolves. And that is really what the book's about, showing that from the Big Bang, everything slowly and and evolves, but it is evolving at a at a faster and faster rate as we go along. The universe is expanding more and more rapidly, but so is our cultural evolution expanding more and more rapidly. I think in my lifetime, I've we've seen so much change. It's hard to imagine about the change we've seen. It's hard to imagine the our attitudes towards animals, towards children, towards women, uh, towards um sexuality. It's it's it's not the same. Uh when I was young, those ideas were so strange. You couldn't imagine two men getting married together, for example. It just all that stuff. Uh and so we are in a phase of rapid expansion. I'd love to be around in a hundred years' time and see what we've done with it. But I also agree with Jung, Jung's idea of the shadow. I think there's also a dangerous side to all of this. We are the book of Job. I'm not sure if anybody's familiar with the book of Job, but in the book of Job, Jung says, you know, well, this idea that God, nature, is all good, it's a bit simplistic. Uh now, of course, that's the Old Testament, but there is this idea that maybe we can be terribly mean, we can be horrible, we can be brutal, in fact, we can be destructive, we can destroy our own planet. Uh, all that's there too. There's a shadow is there. And if if one equates God with nature like Spinoza does, then we have to bear in mind that we also have the capacity to destroy that which could be so good. And I think that's another message that there is purpose. We are heading somewhere. I don't know where we're heading, but that is, but I'm sure we are heading somewhere. Uh, and uh, I think we should take charge of where we're going. I think that's the the message that we shouldn't just be passive aridis on a spacecraft, we should be directing the spacecraft. Um that is part of what I'm thinking about the book.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

That was uh, you know, Colin Wilson and his work, his hundred books. That was his theme about we can take charge of higher levels of consciousness. But yeah, you're anticipating my the the burning question, which is how do you explain devolution, especially at this time with the terrorism, the wars, the the worst of human behavior? How does you know I've always marveled, I mean, been astonished that you have extremes of evolution existing in the same time frame on the same planet? Like the most quote unquote primitive and the most enlightened, and they're we're together. So, how do you what the what's your context for that? How does devolution relate to evolution?

SPEAKER_05 42:10

Can I can I just quickly say some answer that briefly because I have to because I have to leave at five. In a sentence, like the human lifespan is maybe 80 years, and if you're watching a child growing up, every day is not necessarily in advance on the day before. Like there's lots of ups and downs in our own evolution through our own lifespan, and we go through really bad times and we can come back up again, and children trying to regress under stress, and then they can come out of that again. So it's not it's not a straight-line, linear upward movement all the time. Like over time, the direction is upwards, yeah, but not on a moment-to-moment basis. That's my thinking on it.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Yeah, that's a basis for hope. So not to go discouraged or despairing when we see the downswing.

SPEAKER_05 43:03

Yeah, it's not it's not downswing though. It's not, it's the overall push is upwards, yeah, yeah, and nothing can stop it.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 43:13

I agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean the temporary, you know, the the ups and downs, the way you said.

SPEAKER_05 43:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's ups and downs in our own lives in the same way. It's just playing out over a much longer time span.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Right.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

And with a much broader landscape, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

And the same is true for our planet. We've we've we've had periods of great coldness and heat. But the overall pattern in the big picture, we're moving somewhere. I I like the idea of Théard de Jardin, the uh French uh philosopher, Jesuit, I think, talks about the um the complexification consciousness that as we become more complex. Our consciousness also becomes more complex. So over time, you have to see it over time. Over time, things are definitely improving. But there is the possibility of a nuclear war, for example. So we shouldn't be naive. I think that's back to the spiritual thing. And people, we all do, not just priests and nuns, we all do. And so when you do that, you diminish you diminish yourself, but you also diminish your capacity to respond to your shadow, to do something with it, to integrate it. So I think evolution uh is best seen as taking the whole picture, the the not just the light, but the darkness too into account. And uh that's probably uh so well, like these days, yes, it's quite depressing with the planet and the warfares and things like that. But uh I I nevertheless, I I'm I am optimistic. I'm not a pessimist about these things. I am actually optimistic. The book is actually quite optimistic. No, that comes through it. I think you maybe some people think it's too optimistic. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Uh but no, but you put that in a good context, you know, with the shadow the shadow work and the the not a straight upward line. Yeah. Can can I ask a couple of fun questions before we wrap?

SPEAKER_05 45:42

Yep. I I definitely have to go at uh at five at six, just to let you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

We yeah, we're we're five minutes, so we can start wrapping. So when you help people, are you like a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder?

SPEAKER_05 45:58

If you had to choose are they the only three choices? No, you can bring in another metaphor. If I had to choose one of them, it would be a lamp, I think. Yeah, enlightenment.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Yes, bring in enlightenment.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

And you, Mekelo? Well, I would have said the same as Maeve, but I would have said all three. I think sometimes people jump on board because they're sinking, you know. They uh and and and and and and I think you need the enlightenment to go up the ladder. So so I I I would I would combine all three.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Good, okay. Very good. And do you guys know the book Psychotherapy East and West by Alan Watts? Yes, on your theme, that's kind of a groundbreaking book, yes, on your theme.

SPEAKER_05 46:45

Alan Watts, yeah, he was a an inspired person.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yes, um yes, Alan Watts was very much against any kind of dogmatic approach to to the religions and to the practices, yeah. And um I I would agree entirely with him on that, yeah. Anyway, and humor, he had a great sense of humor, yeah. He was pulling our legs much of the time, actually. He was uh not taken too seriously, a trickster, a trickster and a humorist, right?

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, you fulfilled the mandate to be energizing and edifying. So thank you for that. Yes, thank you. And it was a great could have could have been a week-long workshop, and we split into an hour.

SPEAKER_05 47:36

So and the link for the book, I can send you the link for the book, et cetera, so that um people can buy if they wish.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

And we'll put that out, you know, with the podcast description. And um great. In the meantime, bless the moment, trust yourselves, and expect the best.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

Well, thank you for have thank you for having us. It's really great to see you all.

SPEAKER_04 48:01

Thank you for sharing from your personal pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

I'm sorry about the Maya attacking me in the middle of the session. That was perfect, and the sound problems upstairs.

SPEAKER_05 48:13

So uh uh, but anyway, um at least people will know that we're not AI, Michael.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

No, I know it appears from the nowhere. We're making so many mistakes, we've got to be normal, yes.

SPEAKER_05 48:31

Okay, thanks so much, Cedric and D. Thank you. I appreciate that. It was really I enjoyed it. Thank you.