SPEAKER_00 0:01

And what kind of modeling cycle spiritual remote and the NFL and develop the NFL model and a set of health finder and a cycle virtual model? The NF created the central software model, the model to the other scroll model features.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Hence the relevance to our theme. I always it looks frozen. Okay. I always do an opening invocation which goes like this May the spirit flow freely through our conversation and gathering, allowing it to be both uh energizing and edifying. Amen. And I and the opening quote is from Larry's book, The Psychology of Spirituality. Very comprehensive book covers the ground of the interface between the two. So to set the stage I'm gonna read a bit from the beginning of the book and then a quote from towards the end. Um because uh spiritual growth is developmental like everything else. Uh the spontaneous awakenings and the conversions on the road to Damascus, like St. Paul, that they get a lot of attention, but for most of us, spiritual growth is developmental, and Larry will tell us more about that. Um so Fowler has these six stages of faith that Larry you know nutshelled as the uh uh egocentric stage, the conditioned one, the conformist, the individuated or individual integration, and then teaching and healing uh stage. So we can delve into those and answer.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

I I I went on to call that change that the universal stage, the last one.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Okay. Okay, so this this was a bit outdated. So the the quote in that context is with maturity, which is very important, uh you know, because uh spiritual people aren't always mature, mature people aren't necessarily spiritual, with maturity passing through the six stages of faith, aspects of the false self, the everyday ego gradually diminish to reveal and release from domination the true spiritual self, the soul, seamlessly linked and attuned to the divine hearts, heads and hands, free of the encumbrances of attachment and aversion, are no longer in inhibited or in conflict. The caring and cared for need and depend on each other. This is a goal to envision a poetic vision of human togetherness with self, others, nature, and the totality of existence. So that's the grand vision, Larry.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Well, that's that's how it is, actually. We are into beings, as Tignat Han used to say.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

And you and you you uh your own faith is Christian, but you you studied and integrated a lot from other traditions.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Yes. Um I think of myself as a wisdom seeker, so I haven't got a fixed position. But it's undeniable that Christianity has been the main theme of my spiritual journey. Uh Buddhism has been also very powerfully an influence since I was fortunate enough to sit at the feet of a Tibetan Lama in the early 1980s and also to learn about um Tibet the what you might call Tibetan psychology, which is a spiritual psychology. Um at that time, it was uh marvelous to encounter such a thing. Um yeah, I don't know how much detail you want me to go into about about what I was being taught at that time, the work of Shantideva and another text called uh Advice from a Spiritual Friend, about more than about loving your enemies, but about making your making people who you found difficult, making them your teachers. So that so that whenever you were, oh my word, I'm I don't like this, you then you then you kind of oh yeah, but now I can learn something. You know, this is not going well. I what can I learn from this? So there is no negative ever. You know, you're always in a situation where you can grow and gain.

SPEAKER_05 6:19

So was there was there a particular um moment in your youth or young adulthood that that set you on your path to be a psychiatrist and then a spiritual teacher?

SPEAKER_04 6:32

Um well um, you know, I I've just I'm just editing my autobiography. There's an awful lot in it, and I don't think we're gonna get anywhere near uh all of it today. But um, but yes, um I probably think that you know I I I don't know about reincarnation. I don't know about whether you know we are reborn, uh, but I do think I came into this world knowing something, knowing stuff. Uh I was reading by the age of three. I was taught by the an uh a neighbor lady who was a wonderful woman whose name, incidentally, her last name was Christian, Roma Christian. And then I went to uh my family were not particularly religious, you know. I was christened, baptized, given the name Larry, not Lawrence, and uh uh all that, but no nobody um in the family was religious, if anything, a bit against. Um my father's religion was golf, actually, which which is still a bit of an obsession of mine, or a an addiction, you could say. I see Martin is there. Uh you'll remember a nice game we had a year or so ago. Um so yeah, so um, so yeah, so I had these wonderful teachers at school, various teachers at school, some of whom uh were immensely influential. And one of the the what we call scripture, the scripture teacher, Miss Elizabeth Waddy at my uh prep school, she was just wonderful. She she loved Jesus, you know, she was in love with Jesus, and she helped us love him too. You know, it was she she just went through from the be it was four years I was with taught by her over that at that school, and uh she started with Genesis and she went through the Old Testament story by story, and then into the New Testament, and she told us each time each class, she told us a story, and she told them beautifully, and she and she unpacked them, you know, what were their significance, and um and how they actually flowed together, you know, they made sense not just independently but as a as a continuing narrative, and uh how in the New Testament uh the uh followed on from the old testament and so on. And I have to say she was she was a great influence uh on me. Um so that I was quite a religious young fellow uh in those early days. We had chapel, we had a beautiful little chapel and uh at the school, and uh it was just part of everyday life. It wasn't like separate, it wasn't like you did it on Sundays and you didn't think about it for the rest of the week. It was just part of of everything. So then but then of course later on uh uh I I sort of in my adolescent years, I sort of fell away a bit. So I was back I was uh confirmed uh at the age of 14. But by the time I went to university to medical school, I was not uh church going at all. Um now I reminded that your question is about influences, so uh uh uh I've gone and you have a whole chapter on childhood spirituality in the book. Yes, I do, yes. Well that is uh extraordinary. I I mean I I I've got a limited amount of personal experience of working with I don't I've never worked with children, you know, professionally. So that chapter is based on the writings of of other people mostly. But childhood spirituality, well I mean what it seems to be is that children are intrinsically spiritual or spiritually aware, and then something happens and they become worldly and and it go goes underground, it doesn't go it goes dormant, it doesn't go dead. Well it might in a few, but and then so you know it's a question of whether it gets reawakened somehow uh later life. In my case, let me think about you there were lots of important moments um that I can tell you about epiphanies if you like. Um let's see which ones I'm gonna tell. I I I kind of got in in well, let's just tell you a little bit more. Uh so I went to uh Cambridge. Um I got knocked off my bike in the first week. I was a terrible student. Um I nearly failed the the exam the first year exams and they kept me in on. Um and eventually, after three years, there was no clinical school there at that time. I went to London to Guy's Hospital. And I got to the end of nearly six years of medical training, and I hadn't really done the classes, and I failed the first set of exams. Um and then I got into, then I suddenly sort of looked myself in the mirror and said, Ashley, you better pull your socks up because you know you need you need to you need to do this. And I I I worked really hard for six months and I did uh two or three clinical jobs. I was able as a even as a student, you can go and be a kinda what they call a student locum and work in the teaching hospital uh as a house surgeon or a house physician. And I did two or three of those, and I suddenly suddenly awoke to the idea, oh, I need to know this stuff, not to pass the exam, but to be a doctor, you know. I mean, it's it's obvious, isn't it? But I didn't cotton onto it. And once I got that, I just got my head down, passed all the exams second time, and um and then I started my um you have to do a year of six months each of medicine and surgery, and I did all that, and I then I hadn't got a clue what to do because I didn't really know what kind of doctor I wanted to be. So I thought, well, I I'll travel, you know, why not? I'll go and get I'll get a job overseas somewhere, you know, and it'll be good and be enjoyable. And uh I went to New Zealand and I had a one-year visa and a one and a job and uh six six months surgical job in the North Island. And when I was looking to go in the second half to s to the South Island, the only job available was psychiatry. So I thought, well, that'll be useful, you know, whatever doctoring I do, it'll be useful. So I went and did that, but it was a training post, and it was uh you know, uh just the most marvelous training. Um and from there, when my visa ran out, I had I got an Australian visa, went and lived, had a resident permit for Australia, went and lived in Australia. I the first job I did I took I took over for two months a single-handed general practice in Tasmania, age of 26, you know, kind of to took on a bit of responsibility. Um then I went up to Sydney where I knew some people, and I worked as a GP all over Sydney for about a year. Uh, and then again I had a sort of moment of, oh, what am I doing? You know, I'm having a wonderful life enjoying myself, but this is not a career. What am I going to do? And to cut a long story short, I went to Adelaide and started or continued training as a psychiatrist.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Can you give us an update on how spirituality is being received in psychiatry these days? Like, right.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

Okay, right. So back in um, so you mentioned earlier that I had been one of the six co-founders of the spirituality and psychiatry special interest group. Well, at that time we were rather furtive. We were we we actually had no uh under no we were actually quite what nervous really about uh popping our heads up above the parapet and even calling ourselves you know the spirituality group. Um and it you had to get 120 signatures of members of the college signing up for the group before you could become a group. And we were astonished to get those signatures within less than a week. And within quite a short space of time we had uh uh several thousand members. We I think it now has four or five, I don't even know exactly, but uh four or five thousand psychiatrist members, and we started putting on events, day conferences, and uh so on, and then we started getting asked to write papers. I wrote the first couple, one on just uh you know spirituality in psychiatry, and then one on how to take a spiritual history, which is actually that's in the air. Yes, isn't it? Yeah, that's a great about the training training program I I set up in Brighton when they opened a medical school in Brighton, I started teaching young people about uh spirituality in healthcare, not just in psychiatry, but in healthcare with two questions. You know, are you spiritual or religious in any way? Please tell me about that. One question, one. And whether it's yes or no, the second question uh when life is tough, where do you go for strength, inner strength, courage, hope? Uh and some people have nowhere to go, and therefore you've identified an aspect of the problem. But many people are surprising, you know. My family um might be one uh common thing, or my faith, you know, or whatever. But you know, you're right in there at what gives their life meaning and purpose, and and I think that's so vital in terms of understanding people, in terms of trying to help them live healthier, uh physically and psychologically healthier, and socially healthier and spiritually healthier lives. Um so you know, I I I gave that uh little um course uh to some medical students. They chose it, they came along half a day a week for six or eight weeks, uh just gave it for a few years. But um, it was very, you know, I felt very good about that.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

The um the ex you're talking about like explicit and implicit, the explicit being the more religious implicit being the values and the qualities, and not necessarily explicit.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

Well, uh I think you're sort of taught touching on a perennial uh issue, uh, you know, religion and spirituality, how are they related? Are they the same thing or not? Well, of course, when when we were talking starting, um, this is in the late 90s when we started that group, everybody is immediately thought we were talking about spirituality, that you were talking about religion. But we we were uh me in particular, I was very keen in everything I wrote about to distinguish those two. Um and uh and suggest that you know whether a person is or isn't religious, they there was a spiritual dimension that they could uh to their lives that they could access, if you like. Yeah, it's a small spiritual yeah. There is an un and a spiritual dimension to human experience and understanding. Now that that that's a kind of a dodge to avoid avoid people who accuse you of of you know saying that there's a there's that spirituality is a reality. Well, it may be a reality, yeah. As far as I'm concerned, it probably is a reality, but it's undeniably part of some people's experience and understanding of their lives, and you that therefore I was kind of evading difficult questions.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

We say it's as important as the cultural assessment or any of the other assessments.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

Oh yes. Well, well, it is. Uh well, it's more important because it's so helpful. It gets you, it gets you with the patient, it gets you with the other human being at a level of equality, at a level of understanding, at a level of uh a sort of intuitive level of trust as well, um, all of the things that you want in a therapeutic relationship. Right. And and you're a mit ignorance, you're you don't know. Uh you know, I don't know how to help, I don't know what to say, I don't know what that's uh in you're not you don't have to pretend to be uh an expert, you know. You could and uh and you can learn from the patient, you know, uh you're here to help me as much as I'm here to help you.

SPEAKER_05 20:42

Well, yes, it can be it can be a collaborative process.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

Well, it is a collaborative process. Jung said that, you know, he said that you know the the the the therapeutic process involves a dyad. That's two people who become one thing, and when the process is done, they go separately and they are both changed, right? Hopefully for the better.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Okay, so there's a third question that's a can opener for what we're talking about, which would be what uplifts your spirit and allows you to lose track of time, yeah. Which is generic, right? So somebody can say praying, but somebody can say you know, swimming, like or or the beauty of a sunset, yeah. Yeah, or playing golf, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Oh, yeah, so so many making love. I mean, you know, there's lots of things, there's absolutely lots of things. Gardening. My mother, I used to tell think think my mother's garden was like her temple, you know, it was where she went, her happy place. She just went and hours would go by and she wouldn't notice the time passing, you know. I I I think uh experiences of not. Not just joy and timelessness, but awe and wonder and mystery, spiritual experiences. People do well to seek them out, you know, to recognize them, to take note. You know, if you keep a journal, what make a note of anything, just a butterfly, you know, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Um synchronicities. Yeah, I have a journal of sacred synchronicities, uh-huh. So I won't forget them. Some are astonishing, so I have a journal where I enter them as they happen. Yeah. Well, tell me of one. Oh yeah, there's a lot to choose from, but one like related to our common ground, the the Benedictine contemplative path. Um so in Montreal, the Benedictine Priory uh introduced Christian meditation. So even in mass, the the point after communion, you know, where people in church sit for a few minutes, well, everyone would have been meditating on the cushions during that time. Anyway, I had an apartment, a rented apartment just down the hill from the priory, and it uh like on purpose and for the location. And then when I moved in, like you know, the normal procedure of the tenant moving all his stuff out, me moving in. There was one there was one thing that he left. Like, I had no idea who the previous tenant was. He left a plaque on the wall, which was be still and know that I'm God, and that is the motto of the Benedictine Priory. Okay, so that was there when I moved into the apartment. So these are these are like no doubters for synchronistic events, like you can still say coincidence, but yeah, I I don't expect one okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

Because uh because Diana was asking about yeah uh sort of epiphany or moments with so when I uh came back from Australia to live back in England, uh I was working uh uh in and around uh St George's Hospital Medical School, which is in southwest London, and I uh eventually bought a house in a place called Sutton, and I noticed that the house was uh literally a two-minute walk from a great big church. And um I hadn't been going to church for ages, you know, years. But I thought, you know what, I'm I'm I think I'll go into the I think I'll go to a service one of these days. And uh then one Sunday I woke up and it was a sunny day, and I thought, well, I'm going to church today. And I got up, and uh the service began at say 10, so I set off at five of 5 to 10, and I got to the church and it was full, huge big church, and it was absolutely full. I had to squeeze in at the back row, in the back row, there was a little space. And I thought that was a bit strange because you know I'd been in a lot of churches that were mostly nearly empty in earlier parts of my life. Anyway, as soon as I got sat down, I had to stand up because the the um the music started and the the choir came in a procession from behind me, very close to me, down the passageway, the aisle, and at the back of the procession was a bishop. And you know, a bishop has a cross, a crozier, which is designed to like a shepherd's crook, bring sheep back into the fold. And of course, I'm Larry the Lamb, you know, Larry the Lamb being brought back in by the shepherd's crook. I thought, oh, that's uh he was actually there. The church roof had been hit by lightning and been repaired, and he was there, the bishop too, um, you know, rededicated or bless the place. I didn't know that, but um at the time. But uh I it just uh shivers went through me, you know. Oh, I'm I'm back in I'm back in this uh religion business, you know, kind of thing. And uh although I didn't continue visiting that church, uh moved away to where I live now, um, and started attending the church here, of course. And that's been a big part of my life since then.

SPEAKER_05 26:27

So but there I was the comment I'm a big fan of synchronicity, and we have somebody in the chat that says, love this talk of synchronicity. One thing I like to think when people use the word coincidence to dispel the magic is that coincidence only means to coincide, two incidents occurring at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

Yes, you know, yeah. Well, um I I tried to I I read Jung on synchronicity, and it's absolutely not clear yet still clear to me what he meant by that term, but uh but what I mean by it, uh what I understand by it is what you've been talking about, you know, something uh that um is is uh appears to be uh providential, you could say, yeah, meant to happen.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

The simplest definition would be a meaningful coincidence, yeah. Yeah, and then that there's a subjective aspect to it to how many dots that's connecting for you. Yeah. And the more the more dots, the less of a coincidence, then in my view.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

And and if you uh I I I can tell you some some more. I tell you one or two more. Okay. Okay, so um so between going between going to from New Zealand to Australia, I came back to England uh for a visit. And shortly before I was due to fly back again, I was uh playing golf with my father, and uh, one of his friends uh said indicated that he wanted to speak to me and after the game was over and back in the clubhouse. He said, I hear you're going to Australia. Yes. He said, Well, look this fellow up, and he wrote a name on a piece of paper and it put underneath Royal Melbourne Hospital. He said, This chap is one of my oldest and best friends, and he works as a surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. I'm sure you'll he'll give you a great time. Just tell him you're my friend, you see. Well, I I put the piece of paper in my pocket, in my wallet, rather, and I wasn't going to Melbourne, so what I wasn't planning to go to Melbourne. Uh I went to uh Tasmania, as I mentioned, then up to Sydney. So when I was in Sydney, I met somebody and we became uh romantically involved, you could say. We became very close friends, and um uh she'd been married before, so the name she had wasn't her family name. And one day she told me about she told me what her family uh no, one day she told me about her brother, who was a surgeon in Melbourne at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and his first name was the same as the name on the piece of paper. And I said, What was your family name? And she told me her family name, and that was it. I got my piece of paper out of my wallet and showed it to her. So I was having a relationship with the sister of this fellow who was a friend of my dad's friend.

SPEAKER_05 29:36

So, you know, that is that qualifies You can't make that up.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Right.

SPEAKER_05 29:45

Well, and I was gonna say that it if you have many coincidences in a row or or during a period in your life that aren't necessarily big things, like little synchronicities, to me that's just a sign that you're on your path. That you're tracking them and you're paying attention.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Yes, okay. Okay, yeah, I go with that. Well, I I've very often had this sense that I'm on the right path. Uh I'll tell you another story. Um so when I came back from Australia before I had started going back to church, uh I had in Australia been uh spent some time with these wonderful Tibetan teachers, and I decided to go to a Tibetan Buddhist uh center in northwest England. Uh and I didn't know at that stage I had left my work in Australia. I had had to take for reasons too complex to explain, but I had well, I had a house to sell, I I did I couldn't get out of Australia immediately. Uh, and then I went to South Africa and Egypt, and then I went to uh the USA. Um, and you'll have to read my autobiography when it's published to find out what all that was about. But eventually um I got back to England and I wasn't that keen of resuming psychiatry. I had done enough training overseas in Australia and New Zealand to sit the UK exams and qualify, but I I I wasn't comfortable with the British system, and I thought, well, maybe I could do something else. Maybe I could become a novelist, or maybe I could even become a religious person in some way. So I was sitting in this uh Buddhist center uh meditating, and um I thought, well, I can't become a Buddhist monk because I the the Lord's prayer kept running through my head and hymns from you know my childhood and all that. I thought, well, I you know, you're much more of a Christian. And I didn't know anything about Christian monasticism at that stage, and I thought, well, if I'm not gonna be a monk and I can't, and I'd I'd been unsuccessful, I had written a novel that hadn't gone got anywhere. So what am I gonna do? So I went down um to the uh it was on the banks of Morcam Bay, a rather lovely spot, and there was a a bench there, and I sat in meditation and I disappeared, you know. I went into that state of meditation where you kind of lose track of yourself and time and everything else. But when I came out of it, there I was being spoken to uh silently, but uh aloud, you know, well, I don't know, inside my head, outside my head. It was a it was as if a voice still a mystery, but uh because I was being addressed, it wasn't me. And prescribe yourself out all. A boy said this you are a psychiatrist, Larry. That's what you have trained to be. Go and do that, and so that's what I went and did. You know, it was oh, thank you, you know, thank you, God, or thank you, the universe, for uh uh making it so clear. And I I drove back to London, I looked up the job vacancies, and there I knew was the one I was going to get, because it was a training job, and I needed to do six months of training in the British system to sit the and pass the British uh psychiatry qualifications, and and that's that's what I did. And you know, I still can't tell you what happened, and I certainly, you know, if I had gone and told anyone about it, they might have you know you're nuts going and take some of this medication. But um uh happily it uh it all worked out.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Yeah, you mentioned since you mentioned meditation, and in the book there's a section on skills and practices.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Could you talk a little more about yes?

SPEAKER_04 34:08

Yes, yes, yes. I've got I've got I've got a I set up a website a few years ago with a couple of others, but they've dropped back now. But it's called the World Wide Wave of Wisdom, www.ow.net, and it uh in as simple uh terms tell uh makes recommendations about how to make progress on the you know on the spiritual path, if you like, uh or or on the path to mental health and well-being, however you might, spiritual maturity and wisdom, whatever. So it suggests five wisdom exercises or spiritual practices. So the first is quiet time each day for reflection, meditation, or prayer. Uh second, regular study of wisdom material such as scripture, philosophy, science, literature, and poetry. Thirdly, fellowship, establishing and maintaining multiple goodwill relationships. Fourth, frequent acts of kindness and service to others, and fifth, engaging with nature on a regular and meaningful basis. And probably sixth would be looking after your physical health as well. I think if you if you put together I mean most people do uh if it well, let's say this it's advisable to take an inventory of what you're already doing, because most people are doing something to develop the spiritual uh element of aspect of their lives, and possibly even without ident recognizing it. Like I say, you know, my mum was doing her gardening in her temple, but she probably wouldn't have you know particularly wanted to think of it as doing a spiritual exercise or spiritual practice, but you know, but anyway, so many people you know walking the dog, jogging, um, singing in a choir. There are so many ways in which people um benefit their spirit, their souls. Uh uh, but there are ways you can consciously choose to develop that and add to that by adding in something that maybe you haven't done, you know, start volunteering or or um learning to play a musical instrument. I start I started learning to play the classical guitar at the age of 65. I have to tell you, it's very difficult. But it's also very rewarding and hopefully keep my little gray cells active. So, yeah, so so I I I talk about a personal development plan or a per or a um uh uh some form of spiritual program, development program, uh involving ideally all five of those that I've read out there.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Could you say something about the meditation contemplative practice?

SPEAKER_04 37:15

It's you know, it's what you do and what I do, what I do now and have done for two or three years is to sit for 30 minutes in uh silence, in silence stillness. Uh I use a you could call it a mantra. So a mantra is um a short phrase or prayer or part of a prayer, say some sacred something to focus you on some on the sacred. Uh I I uh I just use the the beginning of the Lord's Prayer. I just repeat silently, our Father, our Father, and at the end of my city I say the Lord's Prayer. So that's my butt but there's also uh you know, I was trained in the by the Buddha Tibetans in mindfulness of breathing, but in-breath and the outbreath is but just anything that gives you a focus for your mind to allow it to still, to become still. And of course, you know uh when you do it every day and you've done it every day, you've done it well. I haven't done it every day for 40 years, but I've been doing it regularly for over 40 years, then it becomes an automatic, uh not an automatic, but uh I don't want to suggest that it's but it becomes uh an uh uh uh familiar practice, and I only have to sit and you know, I'm there, I'm with it, um and take a breath, and you know, I'm just like that. And it's calming, you know, and it's and then what happens? Well, all kinds of thoughts, emotions, impulses arise, and you know, I sometimes think, oh, that's a good idea. Uh I'm just trying to remember that, or something, you know, especially if I'm busy with like a book chapter or something, you know, I get some uh good ideas, and sometimes I but you just let them go because you can be confident that if they are that good, they'll come back again.

SPEAKER_05 39:37

Right. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 39:43

But uh it's it doesn't uh it doesn't, you know. I was uh last week I was a guest on a radio program called the Voice of Islam Radio, their breakfast show. And I've been on that program a few times, and the the topic last week was the Muslims' practice of praying five times a day. And um, you know, they were kind of asking about the psychology, etc. So but it it strikes me that praying five times a day is a wonderful thing to do, and just doing anything to stop you know worldly activity and pay attention to the sacred, even for a very short period of time, must be beneficial, and not only to you, but to everyone else around you. Um but one of the other people on the program made a very valid point, which is that you you can't just do it in a perfunctory way, you've got to really be present, you've got to, you know, you as I understand it, that you prostrate yourself and therefore you take up a humble posture. Humility being one of the um what I would call spiritual values that uh uh seems to be rather neglected uh uh in our contemporary Western go-getting society. So you hum you you take up an a w uh attitude of humility and uh presence. You know, you're there in the here, which is of course also what the Buddhists teach about meditation. It's learning to dwell in the present moment, in the here and now. The the the um the sacrament of the present moment is a phrase I've heard rather like.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

Where would you be on the scale like speaking as a psychiatrist between medication and meditation?

SPEAKER_04 41:45

Well, both really. I mean, you know, they're not either or. Right. You know, uh, but I haven't been a psychiatrist, I haven't been practicing as a psychiatrist for an awfully long time, over 15 years. So I haven't I haven't been licensed to prescribe medication for a long time, and I don't have to think about it.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

I don't even recognize some of the new medications, so fortunately, but you wouldn't you would prescribe meditation to there's uh there's a bit of a controversy. You've heard of the bypass operation. How do you think there's any age where it's too young or developmentally not at a not having enough ego strength to start meditating?

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Would you you know what you know what I uh I don't know the answer? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know enough young tiny young people, but um I I and also if you take what I was saying much earlier about the um uh you know some people may have been born wise and others were you know not, you know, if if there is some truth in the idea of Buddhist reincarnation and so on, well, you know, some uh very, very, very young people will be very good at uh and suitable for meditation, and others not. Um, and and there are you know many people who find it exceptionally difficult and basically can't just still themselves down, so they have to do other uh uh practices, you know. I mean, you could do walking meditation uh or you can do jogging, you know, whatever, whatever it is. But um the the the from a neurobiological uh perspective, what you're actually doing, or what people say you're doing, uh uh is balancing your two the two halves of your brain, the two hemispheres of your brain, which operate rather differently. And you're aware of that, but that I find that that that work, the work that uh particularly Ian McGillchrist, another psychiatrist, has has written extensively about in two really marvelous books. Um Um is that the bicameral mind book? Uh I don't know if you I don't know, it's not called the bicameral mind. His book is called The Master and His Emissaries: The Dividing Ukraine and the Making of the Western World. That's the first book. And his second book, which is in two volumes, is called The Matter with Things. Uh and I mean they're quite hard work to read, but and you'll be happy to know that I've simplified them here in a chapter in my uh one of my books, recent more recent books, the The Big Book of Wisdom, which as you can see is not that big, but it is big in scope. And it's also called Big in contrast to the Little Book of Wisdom, which I also have published. Um so um so there's a chapter in here on um it's called One Brain, Two Ways of Thinking. And um it might be too much to try and summarize that in uh in this podcast, but uh but I I that is so compelling uh as a way of explaining a little bit in a sort of you could say rational way to people who are averse to the idea of spirituality, that actually the you know what happens in your brain uh uh this balancing of these two sides of your brain through meditation practice and other spiritual exercises, um it's it's very valuable.

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Yeah, I I was speaking to the notion of needing a strong developed ego before you transcend it.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

Yeah, yeah. I think I think that's uh you know the ego is not it's not a it's not a baddie, it's it's uh it's what we have, it's what we have to um make use of. Uh yes I I I and I I I mean I've remember this is a I'm going back in my mind a long time now, but I used to go to there's a a Tiravada monastery, a Tiruvada Buddhist monastery at Chithhurst, which is not that very far. Well, it's about a 45-minute drive from where I live, and I used to go there quite frequently um get got to know some of the the monks, mostly westerners, who uh who found themselves uh they're they're a branch of this Thai group, and some of them had spent time in the monastery in Thailand. Um so um I remember having this conversation about how they you know there were some crazy people came to the monastery. Uh well I would call we would call them mentally ill or mentally unstable, but they they would it they were people who did who they would we could say didn't have strong enough egos to cope with um the spiritual lifestyle, including the meditation practice that uh because um it catches up with you in the sense that if you do skipping developmental skipping, you don't get away with it.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

Yeah, meditating you know 10 hours a day, you'll still run into situations where you develop the functional ego string.

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Yeah, as years ago, and I read or used to read the um the academic literature about meditation. I remember reading about something called meditation sickness that people would get if they did that, they did too much meditation, and it and they would it's a bit like people who smoke too much pot all day long and they never get on with life, you know. They just have a they're happy they're in their happy place, you can argue with that, but uh they're not doing any harm, but they're not really um contributing, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:59

Well, and there is um I read years ago about the yogananda tradition of meditation, which is to, and they they use the chakra system, and they image when meditating light and source coming down through the crown chakra.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:17

And the statement was that that can be very overwhelming for some people, especially in the beginning if they've never experienced it.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:24

And so young Yogananda would say then image that that light source is coming in from the back of your neck into your third eye, not directly into your crown.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

Right.

SPEAKER_05 48:34

So I think the idea that meditation can be overwhelming um is universal.

SPEAKER_04 48:40

That's sort of it's certainly a good idea to have a teacher who knows what they're doing. And of course, there are a lot of people teaching meditation who are not teaching meditation practice from they're talking in mindfulness and so on. And their their goal is what they call well-being, which is perfectly wonderful, and I'm very happy about it, but it doesn't have the spiritual depth that the kind of Tibetan teachers, the lamas and so on that I was lucky enough to have, or the or the other monash I was talking about, or people from the world community for Christian meditation and so on. There doesn't they don't link make a link to a spiritual dimension, and I think that's um uh well it is it's regrettable because it's sort of it's like you're putting your bucket down the well and you and you start winding it up before you've reached the water. Yeah, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_05 49:39

So I have a question based on particularly your chapter, and you just said the five steps, the chapter on spiritual practices. When you when you come across somebody, and you you alluded to this, but you come across somebody who's actually doing all of that, but they don't necessarily frame it in any sort of spiritual sense, right? Do you guide them along the spiritual path or do you it's very difficult, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 50:13

Uh I had a conversation with a friend of mine this morning. Synchronistically. Yeah, synchronistically, yeah. Um well not entirely. I did tell him I was doing this this podcast this evening, so he did yeah, so did open up the topic, but uh um uh and then he's he he tried to put me on the spot. We were actually playing golf, so you know it's quite hard to have a uh a linear conversation on the golf course because you you you know you golf in different directions, etc. But anyway, he said something like, um, do you think I'm doing the right thing or making satisfactory progress or something like that? And I just said, Well, I'm trying my hardest, you know, indicating that I've known him for a long time, and I I've probably been giving little nudges, you know, here and there. But unless somebody I'm I don't uh I don't formally teach, you know, I don't have pupils or I don't mentor people, I just write stuff and talk about it. Uh and they're happy to do that, and I'm happy to have any kind of conversation with anybody, but I don't pretend that I've got answers. Uh if I say something that somebody finds helpful, that's great, that's absolutely wonderful. But you know, I can't uh so um I've forgotten what your question was.

SPEAKER_05 51:41

Well, well, so for for example, I've I've come across clients, students um over the years that don't necessarily name what they're doing as spiritual, though I might name it that way, but they may be coming from an existential or a philosophical you know, I I am very respectful of where people think they are, how they frame it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

Uh but most people will know that I talk about and write about spirituality and wisdom and so on. So it might come up, but I I wouldn't wish to say to somebody uh particularly you see, uh uh I I think God does it. I don't have to tell people stuff, you know. I mean it's everything happen. This is the wonderful thing about about the um the the the right side of our the silent right side of our brain, it's intuitive and it fits in with the notion of Kairos as against Kronos. Kronos is clock time, Kairos is God's time. To everything there is a season, things happen when they must. Synchronicity is all part of that. And I don't know whether this person, uh you know, this hypothetical person is actually ripe and ready to pop, or they've still got a mountain to climb. I don't know that. All I can say is, well, you know, that's go that way, you know. If you if you want my advice, that's that might be quite helpful if you do that, or but um but you know, they're in God's hands, not mine, really. Or or if they don't like me saying things like that, okay, the universe will talk to you, you know, that you you know, because wonderfully, scientists now, scientists of the so-called Galileo Commission in particular, uh, and there is a report. If you go to the Galileo Commission website, they have a report on the idea that um our brains do not uh cause consciousness. They our brains can our receivers, processors and transmitters of information, but the universe itself is the source of consciousness or is conscious. And that's really a relief actually, because um it's like when I'm sitting in meditation, it's like oh my antennae are open, you know. Well, what's the universe going to transmit to me today that I wasn't expecting? You know, some intuition might come through. Sometimes it doesn't, and you just sit there and it's been boring for half an hour, but or if not boring, then at least uneventful. Um, but sometimes, you know important changes happen, epiphanies happen, and this I assume can happen to everybody. And you just need to sort of help uh uh uh uh stimulate uh the opportunity to to open up to be open.

SPEAKER_05 55:15

We have we have about four minutes, so I just want to flag if anybody has a question, they can put it in the chat. Um so that we don't miss any.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

Yeah, it's important. That was a beautiful description of your attitude, which is very you know, it's basic humility. And I recall the expression don't infringe on somebody's evolution by thinking you know what's good for them, which applies both to therapy and to spiritual guidance, and to parenting, and to parenting if you have to have kids, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

Find out who they are, you know, let them flower, don't you know try and mold them too much. I I I I had to get out of my my father was very um controlling, and luckily I went away at the age of eight to boarding school where other influences could could take uh root.

SPEAKER_05 56:15

And well they did.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Well so far. Yes, yes. Okay, well, we've stunned everybody into silence by the look of it. They're meditating. No, no, Martin's got his hand up. Yes, yes, Martin. I've got new clubs and I played really well, if that's the question. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Thanks for this evening. Um nice to see you again, Larry. Um as as you know, I've been in psychiatry for many years as well, and um and with an interest in mindfulness and spirituality. One thing that strikes me about psychiatry, and I'd be interested to hear what you think, is that we're we're overly inclined to treat what's going on as an individual problem. Uh to my mind, and I feel strongly about this, this is what we see in psychiatry are symptoms of a culture that's lost its way. The level of alcoholism and depression and suicide.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

You have two minutes to speak to that.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Uh well, yeah, you're gonna have to read my my uh I put I put something about that in here. Oh great. I have to read my autobiography because I put some more into that. But and also um gave a talk not long ago in Lisbon, which I'm happy to publish, which addresses that. Yes, there's an epidemic of anxiety, depression, addictions, and not just alcohol, but I mean uh some of the internet-based addictions, pornography, shopping, gaming, etc. So, yeah, and we're trying, aren't we, as psychiatrists, to treat everything on a one-by-one basis was hopeless, really. Um so yeah, there needs to be a whole culture. There's a sort of spiritual crisis throughout the world. It is a big picture, and that's what I like to address, that's where I'm coming from, is to look at the big picture of what um you know, war and and terrible atrocities in in those wars. Uh uh yeah, this we're at a crossroads. And I I've written a novel in which the only people who survive, uh, this novel um uh after the flood, it's called, um the only people who survive are the uh are the native peoples, the aboriginal peoples. You know, they they have the the ability to live together and cooperate with each other and get on with things in a and and and and to take note of nature and to nurture nature, if you like. So um yeah, I I I don't like to predict uh doom and gloom, but um the the title of my lecture was what to teach young people in the face of impending global catastrophe. You know, it could happen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:32

Thank you. Somebody had asked in the chat what are some good books to read? And I said, of course, any of Larry's books, and I also recommend Cedric's book. Um, and all of those, all of that information is in the bios of this podcast workshop.

SPEAKER_04 59:48

Um my website, my other website, my personal website, www.ldc52.co.uk. All my books are there, visible, you know, stuff about them.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

Right. Okay, so the here's your custom-made closing lesson, Larry. May we look forward in hope. Especially the that note we just landed on. May we look forward in hope, backward in gratitude, upward in prayer, and downward in resourcefulness. Amen.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:26

Amen. Yeah. Bless you. Great fun. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Thank you. Thank you.