Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So welcome everyone. This is a joint podcast through Alchemical Dialogues that I host. I'm Henry Kritella and Joel Lessi's podcast Unraveling Religion and Joel is co facilitating this. I want to welcome our guest. We have Bob Insel, Brian Mistler and Richard. So why don't we start with kind of a brief introduction. So just because of who's on my zoom screen, Bob, will you go first? Just briefly. Who are you? Are you. What do you do?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: I'm Bob Insel. I'm in Rochester, New York. I'm a retired psychologist at a career in both private and institutional psychology and have been studying Sufism with Henry for almost three years now.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Been fun. Can I tell him my favorite name for you?
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Certainly.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Bob is an honest to goodness Sufipelian Join the Episcopal Church and he's studying Sufi mysticism. And what better name can you have?
Thank you, Brian.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: My parents say that I was born Brian Missler. I'm a recovering psychologist and business consultant. I've studied Sufism gratefully with Wadud for many years. And because I think that perspective is well represented today, I also get to maybe talk a little bit about my interest in Vedanta and Bhagavad Gita and things like this.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: So Brian called me Wudu. That's my Sufi name. So when, if you're listening, we go by many names, right. So thank you, Richard.
[00:01:40] Speaker D: Hi Rich. Grego. Philosopher, historian, soldier of fortune. I. I'm a retired, I'm actually retired. Retired from teaching anyway. And I'm. I guess I'm still, still active publishing and stuff. So I'm guess I'm not that retired. But I work in the areas of philosophy of mind and metaphysics and comparative philosophy of religion and science and intellectual history. Those are my sort of what I do.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Great, thank you. And you're located in Florida and Brian forgot he's located in Northern California.
[00:02:17] Speaker D: Oh, okay.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: So Joel, your turn.
[00:02:19] Speaker E: Yeah. So my name is Joel Lessees and I just want to begin by saying how exciting I think that we are gathering this time and place in this way. And I'm often astounded in wonderment at the karmic affinities, how the karmas play out over the course of time, lifetimes and so the attunement in the kind of like energies mingle in ways that will be new and unique and necessary for others. Hopefully we offer something to others that is necessary and unique. I run education training center. I'm a long time have collaborated with Henry's Amber Light International and Alchemical Dialogues Podcast Education Training center is a mental health company or agency that seeks to address mental health without distinction to cause. So for whatever reasons people are in distress, we seek to alleviate that. And we, we have a host of programs and services. So the services are counseling, consultancy, community events and trainings. And the programs are Unraveling Religion Podcast, which seeks to build mental health through through a foundation, an existential foundation which helps make meaning for people. There's the Ground in Sky Poetry series which has been running for 1010 years in Buffalo and Rochester. I have Kyose Meditation, which is essentially zazen meditation on second and fourth Wednesdays and every Saturday, and Oak Tree Films which I do videos on mental health. And then mountjushri Press, which is a book publishing press where we publish books on poetry, mental health, spirituality, et cetera, psychology.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Thank you Joel. And Joel's a wonderful collaborator. It's just a pleasure to get to know him more deeply and do things together. So thank you. I'm Henry Kritella and my Sufi name is Wadud and I'm a co director with my partner Kathleen Fitzpatrick of Amber Light International. So my work I'm a retired psychiatrist, I specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry and I started to do in the latter part of my career I trained some with Jim Gordon in out of Washington D.C. in mindbody medicine and I started to incorporate that in some of my consulting work and tried to introduce mind body principles, especially in schools because by that time I wasn't doing too much psychotherapy but in schools and in some day treatment programs. And then when I retired, what I wanted to do was get more and more into spiritual guidance. So I was guiding in the Sufi tradition. I was trained in that tradition. I had also explored Buddhism, a little bit of shamanism. I grew up as a Roman Catholic but don't practice exoteric religions.
And so I did that and then the but the founder of this, of this lineage is an Ayat Khan who came from India. I decided to branch out, Kathleen and I on our own, because even that became a little too narrow. And what I'm really interested in is integrating what's meaningful to people philosophically, spiritually. And I recognize that the basket I have really is the lineage of Anat Khan and what I consider to be what he introduced to the westest Sufism. But we're integrating like I hope we do today, psychology, philosophy, science, medicine, exoteric religions like Christianity. And the goal of Amber Light is primarily education and empowering people to find meaning in their life.
So the podcast that I Do through Amber light is called Alchemical Dialogues. And the idea is it isn't so much interviewing people as sparking a dialogue, because out of a dialogue, it's amazing what emerges. And that's what I'm really interested in. Interested in. And so the title of this, the subtitle is Practical Applications of Philosophy. That's me. The major title is Theoretical Activism. That's Joel. I don't know what the hell that means, but I want to start where Bob started when we were chit chatting before we started this, which is he thinks he knows what he's doing, but he doesn't know what the heck is going on. So maybe that's. I don't know if that's a place to start or.
I picked on you, Bob, so you're it.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, as. As somebody who's retired now, I've been retired officially and formally from my psychology role for about 17 years. I'm not retired in terms of thinking psychologically, but I find myself in this day and age not being able to figure out where I am, what's going on, you know, So I will talk to people about the political situation, and they'll say, well, what would you do? And the only honest answer is, damned if I know. How do we get out of this mess? I'm constantly looking for ideas, so if.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: I interject for a second. Bob and I are studying with a couple of other people, James Hillman. So I don't know if some of you know him, so he's passed away now, but he's kind of a renegade Jungian. And one of his classical classic works that we're studying in depth is Revisioning Psychology. And. And I don't know if any of you have looked at that, but we just happened to be on a chapter, and I love this. I just love this, where he says there's this artificial distinction that we're making between ideas and action. And when Joel and I were talking about this podcast, that's kind of what I had going on in my head. Like practical applications of philosophical ideas. Right. And whenever there's a fifth Tuesday, Amber Light hosts a discussion group that I facilitate. The theme is Spirituality in Action.
What's your spirituality? How do you put it? In action? Hillman, bless his heart, says, what is this? Ideas are action. Action are ideas.
You don't have an action without an idea. And having an idea is an action.
And a little more elaborates, you have an idea. It affects your perception, how you see the world. It affects how you react. It's an Action. And I was listening to an old seminar he was giving on the myth of the family, which I also really liked. And just so you understand what he said, he's saying we have an idea in the west about what families are supposed to be like. He said, says who? We buy into the idea of what families are supposed to be like. That doesn't mean the families are like that. It doesn't mean the families should be like that. We just bought the idea and we respond to the idea. You know, it really makes me sit back and one makes me feel validated because I love ideas and I know they're changing how I view the world and how I'm reacting. But I bought this idea that you have to get out there and do something. So anyways, that has something to do with how we got together. And I think Bob is bringing that up. What do I do? Right. But he has ideas.
[00:10:06] Speaker E: So, Joel, I just want to say I'm very, actually very curious. My creative writing professor, who is a massive influence, I mean, Major Reagan from Northeast Ohio's Poetic Giant, said a phrase to me one time which is totally in alignment with what. What you're sharing, which is contemplation alters the course of rivers dovetailing on that. I have this intuitive question for Brian because I think much of the Bhagavad Gita is aligned with that idea. And I wanted to hear from, from Brian maybe some of your thoughts about that.
[00:10:41] Speaker C: I appreciate that. Chapter three, verse four. The Gita says a person does not attain freedom from action by abstaining from action. Right. And the. So much of the Gita is this dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, Krishna being God and Arjuna being each of us, about how we. I think many people, if you're like me, when I was through much of my life, were seeking to understand something and were always thinking, wouldn't I be better off in a cave somewhere than whatever I'm doing right now? But, oh, but there's all these things in the world and I would just be running away from it.
The Gita uses the word knowledge a lot rather than idea, and I think they're closely related. But it's a little bit like asking, is it better to go to university or is it better to have a degree? You can't compare the end with the means. They're different orders of reality.
[00:11:40] Speaker E: So literally, to. To relinquish the fruit of action, we act through.
[00:11:44] Speaker C: Yeah, Karma Yoga, what the Gita calls Karma yoga. Right. It's not the. The acting, it's the do I just. Am I attached to the results of my action? And so we act in the world. Gandhi said through, through service I find myself. And Raman Maharshi said the. The best service we can offer is to find ourselves.
[00:12:07] Speaker D: That reminds me, I mean when you guys are both saying these things of the, you know, the whole concept of, of this sort of non attached action in the Bhagavad Gita. Right?
[00:12:18] Speaker C: Like Karma yoga.
[00:12:20] Speaker D: Yeah, I guess Karma yoga is non attached action. And then you've got the corresponding idea of wu wei or again right. Non, non active action in Taoism. And again, one of my, one of my favorite philosophers from the modern era, Jude Krishnamurti talks about choiceless awareness as, as a guide. Right. For, for living, for acting in the world. And it sounds a lot like what you guys are saying. I mean I bet there's a concept for that in Sufism, the Sufi tradition, I would think. Right guys? I don't know.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: But I bet, yeah, it's variety which is acting with indifference and independence.
You don't get distracted by stuff that's going on. You're, you know who you are, you know what you want to do, you do it or you don't do it. You, you're independent. It's not that you don't care.
[00:13:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: You just don't get swept away by these other things or you let.
[00:13:20] Speaker D: I, I mean, I don't know if this sounds too New Agey. You let the universe do it through you or let, or let being do it through you. I guess maybe.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:29] Speaker E: I mean this is a fundamental notion of. So when we talk about is it in this, this tradition of that really it's a universal truth. And Dogen says there are many languages but one tongue. What is that one tongue? Right. And you know, a quote that came to me also Brian, from the Bhagavad Gita was this wonderful notion of another way of sharing. Wu Wei is one who sees action and inaction and inaction in action is wise among people.
[00:14:00] Speaker D: Well, that's really inspiring because I sit around doing nothing all day. So I appreciate that. Guys, I am done now. This is what you guys doing, what you guys did in therapy. It would be, it must be fantastic because I feel good.
[00:14:15] Speaker E: I mean what you're pointing to, Rich, is God.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:14:19] Speaker E: Like how do we know what, how do we cultivate inaction? But it's not really an action in action is not the correct. It's such a charged term. The notion wu wei non striving. The effortless the flow. Like when you are on your red path or when you are in accordance with your dharma, what arises naturally and intuitively for you is the Wu way. Krishnamurti talks about choiceless awareness. But we have choice. Many people are lost in a stray by their choice, by the, by the offerings that the world gives to us to pull us away from ourselves, from our true calling, which is deep and intrinsic. But we must work defined. Right. I mean, it's not so clear to us.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: So there, there is, there is spiritual direction that's out and around and, and, and my understanding of that, and I've done that a little bit in that guise as a spiritual director. People who want to address a problem by accessing a connection in their own way. So I don't like using the word God. Whatever the power is that is greater if you believe that there is such a thing. Spiritual guiding, Initiatic mystical tradition like Sufism is you make a commitment, one on one, to study with somebody, you take their guidance. But the guidance isn't like in the ancient days where the God would, the guru would tell you who to marry and where to work and what to do, and you'd all live together. But more like as you're trying to develop a connection and finding meaning in your life. And a connection not only this is very important for the Sufi tradition with all of creation, but also where creation came from, whatever you want to call that, that the, the guide helps point the way, but not like a priest, more like a mentor and can help with that. So that's one way. And I think the way people get into it, my experience is they feel a yearning. So in the Sufi tradition, you know, probably the most famous is Jalaluddin Rumi. So for a while he was the most popular poet in America.
[00:16:33] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: And the first verse in his classic Math Nawi is he talks about the reed being cut from the reed bed and being turned into a flute and yearning. The, the. The sound of the flute is yearning to go back to where it came from when people find their way. Sometimes a lot of times I'm not feeling well, I. And I want to solve this problem, but it's really a yearning to find meaning in their life and to find what Joel talked about, what am I, what am I really here for? And feeling empowered to find that in my experience personally and with the people I guide is, oh my goodness, when they find it, hopefully settles you through the ups and downs. I mean, this is. I think we're in a really tough time right now. And I Think this is a way of staying centered and remembering the light's going to get in. We just have to hold this space for that to happen.
[00:17:38] Speaker D: I mean, is this a process that has taken, that takes them years, or is it something, does it depend?
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Or everybody's different and it's supposed to be unique. And if it's like a bell shaped curve, most people, it takes a while to, to make. The way I think of it is you have to develop your yourself to be an accommodation, an opportunity for that connection to happen.
So a lot of the practices and in the Sufi tradition is prayers and breathing practices and meditations and all of that in the beginning in particular is that's creating yourself to be an opportunity for that connection with something that's greater than you to happen. When that happens, things start to change. Stick it out long enough and that's different for everybody.
[00:18:33] Speaker D: Does it come as an epiphany or is it, is it a gradual sense?
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Most people, I think it's gradual, but I'm fond of saying, especially talking to Bob since he's a superpalian. If the great power, if you want to call it God, decides to treat you like St. Paul and knock you off your horse, what are you supposed to do? Get up and say, hey, you didn't do it the right way. I'm supposed to be studying for 10 years. What are you doing? You know, it happened. And the purpose of the guide is to help you just stay on the path. So that happens. Not to get in the way, not to tell you what to do. Exactly. It's a little bit of guidance saying, well, you know, I've been down this road and usually if you keep going that way, you'll fall in a hole. So you might want to go left a little bit, but you don't have to if you don't want to.
[00:19:27] Speaker E: If I could just touch on this real quickly. Rich, is that one of the frames which we could use for your question? Which is it slow or is it sudden?
The Mahayana school of Zen Buddhism offers two schools.
The fifth patriarch of Zen had a student, the sixth patriarch of Zen. He had five masters, which became the five schools of Zen in China, which coalesce into essentially two schools which are Soto and Rinzai, the north and south schools. And so the Soto school and the Rinse I school of the full gradation of what you're talking about. Soto is a slow ripening. The San Francisco Zen Center Shinri Shinry Suzuki Roshi, a disciple many centuries later of the Zen master. Doken who was really the preeminent former of the Soto school from China to Japan.
The slow ripening school was really shaped by Dogen. There were other schools of Zen in Japan at that time, but his effort was really the gradual ripening. And then the Ridzai school is the sudden school which the sixth patriarch of Zen in China was. He was selling firewood for his mother. He passed by a window carrying firewood and heard a sutra recited and in the moment became had kensho, had awakening just from hearing the sutra. And so that's an aspect of the sudden school or sudden. And so he went on to shape the Rinsei school, Dogen, the Soto school. But those are the two gradations which, which are transferable to any religious system. That, that's the point. It can happen as an epiphany or it can happen as a slow ripening.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: And Joel, the awakening is to our non. Dual nature. Is that.
[00:21:14] Speaker E: Yeah. So the, the awakening. The awakening, I mean, you know, Roshi Bodhin of the Rochester Zen center once said something very profound, loud, lodged very deeply in me, which is that awakening, I guess it's. These terms are very problematic. Enlightenment is a very problematic term. But awakening I guess is a better term. But really it's, it's capable of endless development, endless enlargement. And Dogen would point to this where he would say all things are intrinsic. Like this was his question when I think he was 6, his mother died and he said where is, where did she go? And so his grappling is, is really if we are all originally endowed with it, all originally awakened, why do we need to sit in Zazen? Why do we need these practices to awaken? And so fundamentally the sixth patriarch of Zen said verily from the very beginning not a thing exists. That's there is your existential question. All koans, all meditation ripen around this. From the Bhagavad Gita to the Sufism to Christian mystics, to the Gnostics, to the rabbis, the Jewish mystics, to the prophets. You know, all forms are just. That's it, that's the nutshell. If nothing exists, what am I doing here?
[00:22:28] Speaker C: In a thousand year old retort, a conversation between Buddhism and Vedanta for a long time. Vedanta says I exist. If nothing, nothing is the one thing that we know doesn't exist. If there's existence, I must be there to be aware of it. I was there for and I'm thereafter it does. Like Wittgenstein who says if you can't say it, you can't say it and you can't even hum it.
[00:22:52] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: So, Rich, could you talk a little more about the, you said you were teaching metaphysics and metaphysics. Can you talk a little bit about that?
[00:23:04] Speaker E: Sure.
[00:23:04] Speaker D: I mean, just about. Well, I mean, you know, metaphysics being the, the, the branch, the area of inquiry that addresses the nature of what it is to be or what is the nature of being.
One of the things, I think that, you know, that sort of one way it speaks, I think some of the things that we've just been talking about now is that, I mean, it seems to me, right, if you have a metaphysics predicated upon something like, you know, scientific materialism, you're going to have a much different notion of what it is to be a person and to be, and to be spiritual, or if that's not completely ruled out by that, by that possibility than you would be if you adopted, say, a, an Advaita Vedanta metaphysics. Right? Of that we are all, you know, that we're inherently spiritual, we're inherently at home in the universe on a level that say, Western science by itself can never understand. And, and you can see, I mean, I, I mean it just, it seems to me in my work, things like the kind of things that I write about involve the notion that, that you guys familiar with John Varaki? He's a psychologist. That's why I know he, he wrote Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. And, and it's also a, A, a series that he has online in case you're ever interested in it. But it's about, he's very interested in the kind of things that you guys have just been, been talking about sort of spiritual modes of, of guidance for people to reorient them themselves in the world. And he thinks that our main social psychosocial issue now is lack of meaning. We really are enduring right now our culture above and beyond any other problem that we can put our fingers on. We're, we're, we're going through a meaning crisis now, which I would think is also something you guys tend to agree with. It just seems to me as though I, I, I would agree with, I agree with him. And it seems to me that the, that, that our, our just for an ex, for example, our culture, if you've got a culture that, that is sort of its institutions and its values and its general social ethos is predicated on a lot of the metaphysical assumptions that ours is predicated upon that you're, that you're just setting yourself up for a Meaning crisis, which is what we. We've gotten. I think our meaning crisis is. Is very much a result of our world view, which is essentially our metaphysics. Right. So I don't know if that. That helps at all.
[00:25:39] Speaker E: The separation of the physical and spiritual as two separate, distinct things is the problem itself because, yeah, people get lost in the physical and are divested the spiritual, and then nothing has meaning.
[00:25:49] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree completely. And, and, and we do have a, you know, I think an in. Well, I guess it's an informal one, but it sure certainly informs our. All of our institutions and certainly our popular culture and everything else that we do live in this sort of materialistic, mechanistic, purposeless, pointless universe, and that the human, you know, the human beings are nothing other than, you know, sort of mechanic biological organisms driven by. By these, these. These impersonal forces. And that we live in a meaningless, pointless world. And it just seems to be. If you start out with a. With a. With a metaphysic like that, you don't have many places to go as far as being. Finding being at home in the world in any kind of way that's satisfying to people at the most rudimentary level.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: And if I read between the lines with what Joel's saying and what you're saying, that if we then have a worldview in which spirit and matter aren't different and we're not trying to build up from parts to some whole, we're not trying to find joy in some object, but instead being. I am the joy.
And, and, And I'm not separate from everything that appears. So then I have a love for it as, as the Sufi tradition, I think maybe manifests more beautifully than just about any tradition. Then I then through service, meaning there's nothing that's not meaning. I'm. I'm. Everything that appears as myself is meaning.
[00:27:28] Speaker D: Absolutely. Yeah. You're going to treat the environment and other people in your communities much differently if you identify with them radically.
[00:27:36] Speaker C: Radically.
[00:27:37] Speaker D: Are you. Than you are. If you're. If you're just another animal in the. In the struggle for existence, trying to exploit others for your own benefit. Right.
[00:27:47] Speaker C: Identify with others radically. That's beautiful. Yeah.
[00:27:51] Speaker E: I'm just wondering. Forgive me just for a minute. I just wanted to touch base with Bob and perspectives, thoughts, reflections. Bob?
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just thinking that what Rich was saying, the meaning crisis. One of the byproducts of that is that we then find ourselves creating philosophies, systems of thinking. Not official formal philosophies perhaps, but systems of thinking that Just feed into the problem so we can't figure out where we are and what we're standing on. So let's come up with a. With a philosophy of deconstruction that's a.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: Kind of material mindset applied to the meaning problem. Like, let's just microscope it, you know?
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: And.
[00:28:38] Speaker E: And.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: And then I find myself. My reaction to that, and it's particularly strong at the moment because I read a movie review the other day that was fundamentally from that deconstructivist notion. Made me think, if I go to see that movie, I'm going to gag. I don't know how accurate that is, the. The review, how. How much it actually reflects what the movie is and says that I would have to go see and risk the gag. But it was just. That kind of thing is like, oh, spare me.
You're not helping.
[00:29:10] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: And I think that we get into that loop, you know? I mean, Henry will tell you that what brought me to Sufism was very serious feeling of what I labeled at the time detachment. But not in the positive Sufi sense of detachment. Disengagement, disinvolvement, Screw it all.
And now that's calmed down. Thank you, Henry. Thank you. Sufism.
It was that that brought me here, that sense of nothingness from a life that had been fairly full. Now, I admit that part of that probably was because I was being a good helper.
[00:30:01] Speaker E: And that when I identify, I identify. I think the sum total of my whole existence, what I aspire to be, is in just one, you know, two syllables, one word. It's just a Sherpa. I just want to carry people's stuff to where they want to go. That's it. It's not very complicated, but in talking with that, I just was wondering, have we answered this question? Because I think it's really foundational. How do we find what we're called to so that we can offer this Wu Wei. So that the theoretical activism or the philosophy and practice becomes manifest? How do we find that core? Calling the core Dharma? Have we answered that?
I'm not sure we have. Have we?
[00:30:43] Speaker A: I wanted to go back to Bob, though, because he has the answer.
So your introduction to mysticism actually came through your daughter suggesting you read Richard Rohr, and you've been teaching me about him. So Bob and I, at his suggestion, we read Universal Christ. And I tell him, as far as I'm concerned, that's a introduction to Sufism 101. And I think it applies to what we're talking about. I think Bob can Speak to it more. I just want to set the stage that we're so busy making separation. Jesus was divine, inhuman, and he was the only one in the Sufi tradition. He's an exemplar of what we can all be. He just did it. So that's massively different.
And correct me, but I'm going to turn this over to you in a second. You, you know, in his book, it's Christ isn't Jesus's last name. There's Jesus the incarnation, and there's Christ is where he came from. So I'm Henry, but I came out of what the Christians would call that power that's greater, that I think they're calling Christ, and we would call it something else. So I, I think that has something to do with what we're talking about and what Joel was getting to is that we're forcing a separation. When would we would be. What we should be seeing is we're all in this together and we can get somewhere. So I want to see which. If you can expound on that a little more, Bob.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's appropriate at this season because we're on Easter weekend here. But one of the ways I think about this, and occasionally I'm brave enough to say it is, is that Jesus died on the cross, Christ arose from the grave. Now they're one and the same.
[00:32:39] Speaker E: So.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah, but that, that. The, the figure, the.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: That.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: And, and we don't. I don't think that Christian religions in general recognize this enough.
They don't put the emphasis on the Christ who is. Which is universal. Jesus is a person, a single one person whom we can all model ourselves on to a greater or lesser extent. The universality piece gets lost. And I think that's part of what keeps us away from finding is that we're not led to. That we're caught up. So that when I sit around reading and meditating and thinking, my wife goes, cluck, cluck, cluck. What the hell are you doing with your life? And she's not alone in saying that, you know, I mean, she's the only one maybe brassy enough to say it to me, but she's not the only one thinking it, you know, because now you're taking time to just sit around and think and read and meditate.
What's wrong with you?
[00:33:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we are.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: We are not to be thinkers, we're to be doers.
[00:33:53] Speaker E: You know, when we talk about the frame of Zen Buddhism, we talk about the harmony of the relative and the absolute, the harmony of the relative and Absolute. There's a sweet spot, a moment that is non doing, where the. The absolute expresses itself through the relative. When I create a vessel, an opening, a receptivity to the absolute in my relative body, in my rice bag, in my. In the sum total of my consciousness and body, my body, mind, I make myself a worthy vessel for the absolute to express itself through me. That's the sweet spot. That's the middle way. That's the point of non doing. Because what is done doing, it's not that I am doing, non doing, is that the universe is doing through me. This is the real understanding of wu wei. It's the uncarved block. That full flow of the universal pours through me so that my actions are offered but not mine. That's the uncarved block. That's the non doing, that's the wu wei.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Only do that with preparation, correct?
[00:35:04] Speaker E: Yeah. So I'm affirming that the reading and the thinking and the meditation and the preparation and building a spiritual framework, a vast picture, a big picture backdrop of what we are doing here is necessary to inform ourselves, to act correctly. Correctly meaning like with skillful means, with. With care, with conscientiousness, with respect to the environment and others. All that requires preparation. If I just entered in an actual not good, but if I'm thoughtful about my preparation, then I cultivate myself in a way where I've skilled myself to open and receive what is meant through me. And then we're good.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: The Gita says, I am the desire which is not opposed to Dharma, that impulse that some of us have to learn.
The desire for knowledge or the desire for freedom. These impulses come from the divine. They're a manifestation of that as much as anything. And following that impulse, rather than the impulse for pleasure or security or virtue of these things, is such a beautiful thing that prepares us to act in that way, to act in that harmonious way.
On the question of seeking it, Greek tragedy, I think, teaches us that we don't have to seek it. Our karma finds us right. And the Gita says the same thing, that you know that when the. When the student is ready, the master appears.
When they ask Jesus, what is the highest commandment, he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
And so the Gita teaches again in Karma Yoga that the way we do this is not somewhere else. It's the. It's the neighbor knocking on our door. It's the. It's the thing appearing in front of us. It's The. It's who I help at a bus stop today, right? That's how I. I manifest things. And. And Joel, I think you. You know this quote well, but it's something like, when you're done eating your rice, clean your bowl. That's karma yoga, right? Moment by moment.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: There's a saying that Anaya Khan had that has been popularized.
And he says, peacemaker, before you try to make peace in the world, make peace within yourself. The theory behind it is vibration spread. That's just the way it goes. For every reaction, there's a reaction.
If your vibration is powerful enough, it spreads and entrains other vibrations to it. If you're in a situation where whatever is around you is receptive to vibrations, it's easier. So if you're a dynamite transmitter of vibrations, you can get a rock to vibrate. If you're not so spectacular, you need a receptive audience to get it, get them to vibrate. But vibrations spread. I'm becoming more and more convinced, even in our world now, as opposed to ancient times, when you had yogis in a cave somewhere all by themselves, controlling the world by the power of the vibrations, the reflecting we do, those of us that meditate, the meditations we do. I do a lot of chanting, the chanting we do there, all creating vibrations. And when they are in resonance with the note we are meant to play. Now, whether you want to define that as karmically, that's the note you're carrying when you come in, or however. But to me, it's what's. What's making you cook in life. When you find that and your vibrations are in resonance with that, and that note is in resonance with the direct. This is metaphysics for me, Richard is in resonance with the direction of the universe, towards the Sufis would say, love, harmony and beauty. You're like a rocket ship, and that's action. So the masters of ancient times in the Himalayas, sitting in their cave, they did it sitting in their cave, they. That was their action, and that's how freaking powerful it is. But nowadays, especially in this lineage, the idea for the Sufis is you resonate with that great power as best you can.
You appreciate your note, you find it, you try to have it in resonance. You also pay attention and be in the world and don't look like a dervish who wants to be in a cave in the Himalayas. That's the era that we're in right now. It may have been different centuries ago. That's probably not where we are now. And so in our tradition well, in Islam, it's often said Muhammad was the seal of the prophets.
So the way I was taught and what I believe in the Sufi tradition is that doesn't mean he was the last and the best. It meant he was the end of an era.
The era that ended was the message of how to live, how to connect with the divine. Whatever you want to call it, coming through a great prophet like Muhammad or Jesus or whatever, that era is over.
That message to be spread is coming through every one of us, not one avatar. Kind of like in this era. Beware of avatars.
It's us that are doing it. Which is why, for me, doing this and helping people find their note and find their personal meaning and let it shine and vibrate in whatever way makes sense to them, that's it. That's my metaphysics.
