[Music]
Rick Archer - Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.
My name is Rick Archer.
Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening
people.
We've done nearly 700 of them now.
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My guest today is Emily Castauter.
Emily is in Sweden and she has written a book called All the King's Horses, which I read
in its entirety and found quite fascinating.
Emily has been working since 1995 full-time with empathic communication with other species,
non-hierarchical riding and handling of horses, alternative treatments such as acupuncture,
homeopathy, and herbal medicine.
She's published three books on these subjects.
She runs a school mainly with horses and other species for empathic interbeing.
school is a farm that is a sanctuary for about 170 animals of different species, not to mention
plants and surrounding nature. And most of those animals would have been euthanized if
they hadn't ended up at Emily's school and farm. And as we go along here, some of you
might be thinking, "Well, how is this relevant to the usual BatGap theme?" But as we go along,
I think you're going to see that it's very relevant. And my impression of Emily in reading
her book is that she kind of has a foot in a couple of different dimensions.
She really is an interdimensional person, and you'll see what we mean by that again as we
go along.
And not only dimensions of consciousness, such as deep communicative abilities with animals
and some other people, but also dimensions of time, because there's a whole theme in
her book, which keeps popping up, about her dipping into the memories of some young girl
who lived a long time ago. And I found that interesting. How did this all first start
for you? How did you first start talking with animals? And what is it like to live with
this ability?
Well, for me, it started spontaneously as a kid. I grew up in a... I don't know how to
use the right phrase here, but quite a destructive family situation. So I tried to stay away
from home as much as possible and ended up in a stable, a riding school stable, and I
lived in a city, so the stable and the horses were in the outskirts of the city, which was
not a very good environment for horses. They were tied up in stalls, they were all the time
in an indoor arena, basically being forced to do what people told them to do. And the
riding lessons that you could get there was also about making the animals do as you told
them, as it often is, even today. And when horses came to this riding school, they would
gradually break down from all these limitations and become dull, apathetic, and go lame or
And then one day there was a pony, a small red chestnut pony coming to this place.
And she was so aggressive and no matter what people try to do to her, to make her, as they said, respect people.
And it's interesting how we choose to use the term respect by hitting her and making her frightened.
And she refused, she was just constantly fighting back.
And if they tried to give her sweets or treats or whatever, she would just bite people and not take it.
She had this, what I can see now, a very healthy sense of integrity, which she wasn't supposed to have because she was a horse, right?
So, she wouldn't have a voice anyway.
And something in her unbreakable spirit really fascinated me and it terrified me too, because I didn't know how to reach out to her.
I could see that if you got close to her she would bite and kick and I was afraid of that.
So I was standing outside of her stable and when I was standing outside of her stable,
just looking at her in a sense of curiosity, I guess I've been thinking about this over and over,
trying to what actually happened that day.
I think what pulled me to her was a longing, a longing outside of, I was 11 years old,
years old I wouldn't be able to phrase it
but a longing to get out of my
isolation of only being able to
experience the world from my own
perspective.
Basically being locked up inside of my own
emotions. There is
a horse here that once explained that
emotions is something we experience
inside.
Compassion is something we experience in
the opening between
individuals. So for as long as we are
locked in we are also
overwhelmed by all sorts of things and I guess I had an underlying yearning to get out of that state
and I looked at this pony and she looked at me and I would say that the way we define ourselves
would be through a knowledge of identity. I know my name, I know what I'm good at, I know where I
was born and all of that becomes true because I keep repeating it like I keep weaving this web
that becomes the story of myself and it becomes my only reality and in a way a kind of sanity
because I know where I begin and end and when the other one begin and end but in this meeting
for reasons I will probably never know this difference that this wall, this invisible wall
between us was taken off and we ended up in the same sense of self or the same, I didn't believe
that I was her, I knew that I was Emily, but we were sharing the same consciousness in that moment,
which meant that I felt what she felt immediately, there was no time difference. Because in a
conversation like we are having now, I will have to explain what I feel inside of me, because you
wouldn't know that. So I have to find it, express it and send it over to you. And hopefully you will
will be able to receive it and then you will do the same but we still have this
gap between us and it was like this gap was taken away so what she felt sensed
all of that would become one full experience that I would share in the
moment it happened to her which means that she would also share exactly what I
felt and experienced inside of her being so you could say that we become each
other but we don't lose ourselves. When I've been thinking about it later I
think it is an expansion of the self so that the idea of the self is no longer
limited to only hold me as a concept. So in that way you couldn't really call it
a conversation I guess. It's not telepathy to me because telepathy would
be the same thing as talking but with thoughts but we are not tossing anything
across this gap anymore. We are totally sharing it. Something happens with the
concept of time. Remember Star Trek? They had the concept of mind melding. Yeah, they were
onto something, right? So, when I experienced this with her, I felt this very, almost bottomless
feeling of powerlessness. Because no matter how high she would scream, nobody would ever
hear her and that sense of being
isolated, you really can't reach the
outside world because you're an object.
When you're a horse you're not an equal,
you're not valued as an equal
living being, you're an object, you're a
riding school horse, you're supposed to
deliver something and if you can't
deliver you're being switched to someone
else, there is no real value in your
essence of being and the sadness in that
that was almost unbearable and it scared me. And that sense of shame and low self-confidence
was also inside of me. So as the door opened to see her, I could also no longer escape
from facing myself. So to me it was like a swinging door that goes both ways. You can't
meet someone else unless you are totally open to be seen yourself. You can't hide behind
something, you cannot control what comes out because it's your entire being that goes into
that meeting.
And after that, reality never really became normal again.
It was like this door, it's like that with some experiences, even if you have to in spiritual
life you have to keep repeating your practice because you all the time fall out of it, right?
But still with that there are some things that happen that there's no turning back anymore,
happened and it changed you for good. Yeah, you told me before we started recording that
sometimes when you give talks people ask if you can turn this on and off.
It's fascinating and I understand from the questions that people want the answer that
you can turn it off because it would be less scary to open this door if you can go back to
hiding again but of course you can't. Either you do feel what the other one feel or you don't.
there is no turning off button, but there is the sense of integrity. It's like we can both speak
English, so we can choose to talk to each other, we could choose not to, it's an option we have.
And it's the same with this kind of a meeting. You choose to go in and out of it, but you don't
close off the ability. So if I go to places where animals or other species suffer a lot,
I have to choose for myself, what is the point in me going there? Is there a point in sharing the
suffering? Will it help? Yeah, yeah. Or will I just be dragged into the suffering to the point
of actually not being very helpful? And maybe it will prevent me to do some other things that I
could be doing? Yeah. So, I would have to make that choice rather than choosing to turn it off,
which I can't, obviously. Here's an interesting paragraph that I copied from your book. He said,
But for a herd animal, like a horse, it's an improbable thought that someone would deliberately
make a decision that is not based on the greater good of the entire herd, because that's the
way horses behave among themselves, or which would in any way be harmful to the surrounding
environment.
If people's will is limited to simply achieving personal gain, the purpose becomes impossible
to understand.
And that seems to be the reason why so many horses and other herd animals, seen from our
perspective, respond so well, quote unquote, to manipulation. They trust that what we want
is in their best interest.
Yeah, the whole idea of personal gain really becomes a question here, because we presume
that everyone has that. Because in our isolation, I had the horses here explaining just recently
that all different species experience this life differently, because we have different
senses, we have different bodies. If you take all the variety of plants, trees, animals,
it will all be very different, but we all relate to the same reality. It's like we are
showing angles of that reality. While humans, we have something extra to that, which means
that we are also an angle of that reality, but we also interpret what we experience,
means that we experience it and then we have an opinion about what we experience.
And that takes us away from the common reality and perhaps that gap that was
lifted between me and this pony is somewhere there, which means that I can
actually as a human being experience if I do something that is harmful for
someone else, perhaps I will not feel that. Perhaps I can only feel what it
does to me. If the horse jumps a fence and I enjoy that, I will immediately think that the horse
enjoys it too because that's the only feeling I get. Because I don't really share the horse's
experience. It's like if you started to cry, my mirror neurons would react to your tears and I
would feel something. But that's not the same as me feeling what you actually go through inside.
there is this difference. And if the self, like Juan Hors explained, if the self would be the
combination of body and soul, the merging of body and soul, we tend to see that like a dot.
But what if you would see it as a swelling balloon, so that the self is just what actually
harbors the world inside of you. And then if you are a herd animal, it means that you will
know yourself as a separate being with integrity, but you would also feel the others inside of
of you, meaning that if another herd member is harmed in some way, you would feel that
inside of you, which means that there would be no reason for you to harm another individual
deliberately in that way, because you would feel it inside of you and you wouldn't get
the sense of personal gain.
Are you saying that that's the way horses tend to function ordinarily?
It seems to be that way they function ordinarily.
But they fight, right?
I mean, they might bite each other, kick each other.
Yeah, they do.
But don't they feel what the other horse is feeling if they do that?
They do.
It's just if you're a horse being bitten by another horse, it doesn't feel like it does
when they bite you and me because they have a different skin and a different body.
But if you form your herds, because that was the question when I started to work with this,
and my work is to go around and meet animals and try to figure out solutions to issues
of all sorts of situations and people want to know who is the leader and I
started to try to figure out who is the leader and I never got an answer. Well I
got an answer but not to the leadership question. I got an answer describing
every individual in the herd quite detailed with focus on what they're good
at, what do they contribute with and in order to find out who you are and what
you can contribute with, you have to test yourself, and you have to test yourself quite roughly.
We know that. We know that our best friends are the ones that have really been through
the toughest times with us and they stayed there. We've tested each other, perhaps not
by pushing ourselves into walls, but we know that I know the strength of my friend because
we went through something, and it seems to be the same for them.
Yeah, here's something from your book, you say, "Horses confront one another in order
to find out which one is most suited to each particular task.
Different responsibilities horses serve in a herd might include defender, scout, caretaker,
educator, and so on."
So they kind of learn about themselves through this sort of friction or confrontation with
each other, and then they naturally serve different functions.
And there was a fascinating bit in your book where different horses would serve in the
prime leadership role depending upon what the need was.
Sometimes it would be looking for food, sometimes it would be defending the herd, you know, sometimes
it would be educating the young or whatever.
So, that was all very fascinating.
Dr. Angela: Yeah, and I think also because humans seem to be the only species that truly
relate to time as a linear experience, which means that we are comparing everything to everything
else one by one.
naturally we put them below and above each other, which means that we do add a sense of evaluation to that.
If you have a non-linear time, that would be totally different, because then it's much easier to accept, it seems,
that everything is constantly changing. So, you have someone who has a very good eyesight, perhaps, in the herd,
but then the sun goes down and darkness comes, and then there is someone else who has better vision in dark.
and so it goes on, someone dies, someone is born, someone is injured, they are constantly adapting
to the situation. While we seem to seek leadership for the sake of having a leader,
that seems to only work in a linear time frame where we experience personal gain.
If you have a non-linear time and personal gain is no longer relevant since you feel what everyone
else is feeling, then what is good for you and what is also adding to the greater good is no
longer in conflict. It's like if you are a very good scout, meaning that you embody what is
happening outside of the herd, that makes the room bigger. So the one who is a defender or whatever
you choose to call them, they can also become better at what they do because we've raised the
ceiling for that. We don't compete within the herd about the same position. And I think that is a huge
difference to how we build our societies and how we miss out on so many resources because we don't
we don't know where to put them right.
And we push each other down in order to make a career,
which is a waste of time in a way, if you think about it that way.
Horses sound like the ideal communists,
from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Yeah.
Except that there is no elite.
Right, there's no elite, which there shouldn't have been in ideal communism either,
but obviously there was, because human beings are screwed up.
But do you think that humans could ever emulate horses and actually begin to function in a
much more egalitarian way the way they do?
I think we could.
But I think the way to get there has to go through, and that's I guess where we meet,
it has to go through a spiritual self-knowledge in a way.
There is a point where it cannot only be psychological.
What happened between me and this pony was more than anything a spiritual turning point,
I think.
There was a pony here describing the human being as, there was an image, because when
I experienced this, it's an image with a full experience of it, feeling, sensation, you
name it.
So the image is of a human being standing and half of the person is black.
And black is not a negative here.
It's just black.
means it's filled. It's the physical human being. And in order to fulfill our physical
part of the self, we need to accept reality for what it is. We have to try to stop deceiving
ourselves and make all these images and identities, right? And the other side that we long for
and that we need as much as that is the invisible side, the other half that is white, and actually
perhaps not white, but rather see-through, is our longing for all of these things that
we cannot phrase, describe, the creator perhaps, the threads in between, the longing to fully
experience this life because it's all we have no matter what we think or what theories we
have.
And then she described the role of the human being in this universe would be to be exactly
in the middle between the physical and the spiritual, but we have misunderstood it so
we don't put ourselves in the middle, we put ourselves in the center.
And when we put ourselves in the center, then you have all the experience of the human ego
and then we are totally locked in ourselves.
So it seems when you follow spirituality described by animals, you all the time get to these parallel
things. The self being an opening, an emptiness that is an opening that can contain the entire
world, but we can only do that if we empty ourselves of ourselves, but not by getting
rid of the self, because then there will be no one there to receive the world.
Rick Right, so when you say not by getting rid
of the self, you mean you can't be utterly devoid of a sense of personhood or individuality
that has to be at least some remnant of that in order to…
Yes, and that personality or essence, they would describe it as when body and soul merge,
something totally unique is being created because nothing that is born is ever the same again,
not totally. Whether you're a plant coming out of a seed or a human being born or a chicken
coming out of an egg, you are unique and your interpretation of that life will only happen
once. So, the personality is a celebration of this life. It's not something we should
get rid of. But when we build an identity in that, that is something different because
then the emptiness is no longer an opening, then the emptiness actually is empty and there
is no space for anything in it. So the ego would perhaps then be the person we create
in order to fit into this world. They would describe it as the self in order for us to
really become who we are in this and
contribute in this life. We need to be
seen, we need to be met by other
individuals, we need to be mirrored by the
life we come into. But if the people who
receive us, our family, anyone around us
can't see who we really are underneath
and meet us in that true point of
ourselves, then we will start creating what
the world wants us to be because
otherwise we can't see how we would ever survive. And the person we create in order to survive
becomes the ego, who is constantly dying, because there is no connection between the ego and the soul.
So the soul has no sense of eternity and is struggling to survive by the minute and needs
constant food, which you can see we consume this planet, we eat ourselves through this planet,
like no other species does, because the need of the ego to survive is endless. While the self
only wants to get closer to life, the self is looking for a relation to life, not the confirmation.
- This is great, Emily. I love the way you speak. What you're saying just now reminds me of a quote
I lifted from your book, which is that only by living your life to the fullest is it possible
to reach beyond physical existence. The way to eternity goes through the heart, the place where
the body and consciousness meet. And what you're saying about ego, there's a lot of people in
spiritual circles talk about eradicating the ego and there being absolutely no person and
and so on and so forth and I always recoil against that. I'm more aligned with what you
are saying which is that the ego has usurped its proper role and has become bloated and exaggerated
and is thereby causing a whole lot of trouble, but you can't utterly live without it. It just has to
be relegated to its proper role, which is kind of like in the back seat in a way, while the self or
the higher consciousness drives the car. Yes, and by constant practice, I guess,
because what happens is that the ego will creep up. We will never finish in our practice. It's
every morning, every day, we will forget as we practice. I remember when I was working in Jordan
and they have different stable managers and at this particular time it was a very religious man
and very true to himself in how he followed that path. I really admired him for that and he had
everything in order all the time and I admire that too because my life tends to be very messy
and he was sitting in his office and on that day his hair was standing out and his desk was
really not looking like it usually did. So I thought there must have been some accidents. It's like,
what happened to you today? And he said, Well, Emily, you know, the ego, the ego, it's every
minute. It's every minute of every day. And it was really helpful for me to see that even this man who
was so disciplined in his practice, his struggle was just like mine. It's very refreshing in a way.
Constant vigilance is necessary. Yes, this teacher named Papa G and someone once asked him,
do you have to continue to be vigilant? And he said, "Till my dying breath."
It reminds me of an article that I just listened to and read twice recently by a fellow I interviewed
about 10 years ago named Jerry Freeman. And the article is called "Why There Are No Perfect
Teachers." And it's fresh in my mind. I think I'm going to go and I'm going to create a link to that
on Jerry Freeman's BatGap page. So if anyone would like to read that article, go to Jerry Freeman on
BatGap and you'll see a link. I'm going to put it there after this interview. But anyway, Jerry
talking a lot about this and how it's necessary to have some vestige of ego or sense of personal
self in order to function as long as we're alive, but how it gets out of whack and oversteps its
normal processes and becomes too dominant and that's what's caused us so much trouble.
But he also talks about how there can be spiritual awakening to quite a profound degree,
but a whole lot of stuff that we haven't worked out yet. And so we should never consider ourselves
to be finished, we should also always consider ourselves to be a work in progress.
Dr. Anna Deneen Yes, and also, what I find the more I work
with animals from this aspect is that they often come to describe how important it is,
and it's like you say, to be able to differentiate between what is eternal and what is tangible
and changeable.
And the only eternal thing would be basically the possibility of life, meaning the essence
of the soul, the possibility of breath coming into materia which then creates life, everything
else is basically tangible. When humans talk about that subject, again because we evaluate
things all the time, we tend to like the eternal a little bit more. It's like it has a better
value because it's lasting and the other things are not lasting so they're perhaps not as valuable.
But when you discuss this with animals, they seem to be the other way around. You have to
figure out the difference so that your starting point is in the eternal. It's like you say,
your starting point, your identification with who you are shouldn't be in the tangible because it's
very scary and very confusing because it's nothing to hold on to. If you have something to hold on to
that helps and the only thing you can hold on to is the soul basically. But apart from that,
they love the tangible because that's all we have. If you only have this short lifetime,
Why don't you just dive into it and experience it?
Another difference is people all the time look for the meaning of life and animals
and other species, they seem to almost get offended by it. It's like,
you want something outside of this? Is this not enough for you? You want another meaning outside
of that this life is even possible? What I would say animals that are completely awake,
like they've gone through spiritual awakening, like humans tend to think that only humans do,
they can also describe that forgetfulness as a gift. The fact that perhaps you are born again
and you forget all about it, or most about it anyway, it puts you into a situation that you
can rediscover life, you can rediscover God. It's this love of the physical life that I
find very refreshing because to me some spiritual practices with humans is turning away from life.
It's like we want to be finished, we want to stop the cycling.
But I meet enlightened individuals of other species that jump straight back into life.
I remember one horse, when he was dying, I was with him when he was dying,
and he was just longing to get another body.
He was hoping to get another body and he was like, "I don't care what you give me.
If it's a short or a long life, if it's hardship or easy, I just want to get in there again."
and it's this love for existence. I miss that sometimes in the human concepts.
Rick: Interesting. Since this article by Jerry Freeman is fresh in my mind, there's a point in
it that relates to what you were just saying, which is that in the Brahma Sutras it's discussed
that there's a thing called "leysa vidya," which means "faint remains of ignorance,"
and it's discussed that the ignorance which remains is actually a tool for greater enlightenment,
And even in unity consciousness, it can be broken into pieces and those pieces become
the means or the fuel through which Brahman, a greater reality, is realized.
So life is not some mistake that the whole universe has somehow fallen into and we should
just get out of and be rid of as quickly as possible.
It's a tremendous opportunity, like you say, and there's an unimaginable scope of possibility
which can be realized if we just engage in the game from the proper perspective and not
try to just escape from it, ASAP.
Yeah, and see it as something like a riddle that we are meant to solve, and then we've
solved it, and then what?
Right, keeps on going.
So there's a couple of themes here that come up again, that your whole teaching in your
book is based upon, that I want to explore with you.
One is the idea that animals can get enlightened because I have this bias going back decades
that they can't, and I'm willing and eager to re-examine that.
And another is just the sophistication of some of these animals' thought processes that you
communicate with.
In some of the passages in your book, they were saying things that I had to really put
on my thinking cap to understand what they were saying, these philosophical insights
and everything.
And I think, "Okay, wait a minute.
Now, horses and other animals don't even have a prefrontal cortex, which we're told is that
tool that enables humans to think in sophisticated ways that other animals don't have.
And so how are they thinking these thoughts?
And is it because it's the higher self of the animal that has all this wisdom and somehow
they don't have the neurophysiology to articulate it, which we do, but that doesn't mean they
don't have access to that kind of wisdom.
I've asked myself all these questions too.
I started off believing that humans are the only ones with an abstract ability to think.
And every time I think I know something, I'm being proven wrong.
So I guess that will continue also beyond this interview, of course.
But I guess it's where we put the consciousness.
And some animals describe the consciousness as the bridge between the physical existence
and the soul, the possibility for materia to become aware of itself.
If it is so, we just play with that thought.
If that is so, then perhaps everything that is alive knows that it's alive.
If being alive means that soul has entered materia, and that can only happen if there
is consciousness connecting them, that could possibly mean that everything that is alive
knows that it's alive, which means that we have a conscious expression of our experience of life
constantly, no matter what we are. But I think as humans, what we have done with our gap and
our personal gain and all of the things we discussed in the beginning, is that we are doing
what we've also done to other human beings. We take away their person, we depersonalize them,
and then we take what we want. So, if black people don't feel anything, then we can use them as
slaves, right? I mean, we believe that the children couldn't feel pain not long ago.
Yeah, sure. I think it was Descartes who popularized the notion that animals are just machines and they
don't even have consciousness and they don't feel pain and the noises they make if we caught
inflict pain upon them are just some like mechanical thing going on.
That makes it easier for us to take what we want. If our ego needs constant food,
that's a way of doing it, right? Yeah, I mean the Nazis and also like in the conflict in Rwanda,
they were referring to people as cockroaches, so you can do whatever you want because it's just
like a cockroach. Yeah, and the scary thing is that we are able to do that to ourselves. So,
I guess the way back is to again meet everyone in person. It's like, okay, this tree is a person,
this tuft of grass is a person, it's not a human, but it is someone. And perhaps that someone doesn't
have a nervous system like the tree. It doesn't mean that the tree's experience of life is limited.
The experience can be deeply philosophical, devoted, and religious, but the tree would not be able to
phrase it because the tree wouldn't have the need to phrase it because the tree constantly is in this
experience, most likely in connection to other trees and where do one tree begin and how
is the soul and consciousness in plants? That's another fascinating question. If you let a
seed down and that seed's become another tree, from which point are the two of you being
isolated? Is it different souls in these two trees? Or is it different consciousness? Or
is even the question relevant?
Well, my guess is that there would be different souls superficially and one soul fundamentally,
the way on the ocean you have different waves superficially, but it's all really the same
ocean if you go a little deeper.
Yeah.
We have this common consciousness and we have the individual and we have the individual
person that could experience all these things that are written about in this book.
I am the one putting words on it to the experience of sharing that instant now with another species.
And then of course it's like a conversation between you and me.
meet tonight because we are very
interested in spiritual philosophical
questions. Naturally, when we talk to
each other, that's what we're going to
talk about, even if it wasn't a job.
And it's the same with me and the tree
because I am so
interested in life and existence and
spiritual
matters and human and all of these
things. That will come up in the
conversation, most likely.
Of course, not every animal or plant is
interested in what I'm interested in,
but sometimes you meet a kindred
spirit and regardless of what species
that is, there will be creativity in that
meeting point. There are horses in the
herd that, for lack of a better word,
because I know that the minute you put a
word on someone's role in the herd, you've
fixated it and it's not good because you
create an identity and it's not what we
want, but I tend to call them memory
carriers. I met them at first in
Jordan where an old mare was close to pass over to the other side and she was
sharing her time with another mare and they were passing on something and I
thought that the memory carrier knowing the history of her herd and her species
kept all that in her mind and that she had to teach the other horse all of
these things so the other horse would also remember it and they tried to
explain to me that the stories only appear in the moment of sharing. It's not
that an individual continuously remembers them like a computer. They only become alive when
we truly meet each other. So who does the story belong to if I meet a tree and experience
this deep philosophical conversation? Was it in the tree before and recorded into me
or did it happen because we met? Because something happens when our consciousness are meeting
in the same point. But I think the need to put it into an explanation, that would be a human
need. That is no need for the tree. But I believe that the tree still experienced something
very valuable in the moment of sharing. Not in the explanation.
If I meet somebody that I went to high school with, we might all of a sudden start having
all these discussions about things we experienced in high school, which both of us have forgotten
about for 50 something years. Is that what you're saying? But then those memories come
up because it's relevant to our particular interaction.
Yes, I guess it could be like that. Yes, definitely. Because we cross paths and I have a pony at
home and she describes time as yarn, but not put together neatly. It's a mess, like a completely
messy, yes, a tangled, messy yarn. Because time, when we think about it as parallel,
tend to think like these neat little lines, as if we would stack books on top of each other.
So that's not how time acts. It comes and goes and it meets, it keeps meeting itself in all these
variety of angles. There is a chronological time represented by the thread itself, but the way it
meets itself is actually totally irregular. I like that thought because it means that we are not just
sort of puppets controlled by destiny, it matters what we do when we enter time and we have choices,
but it seems like all other species have it too and we're missing out because for some reason we
believe that we are the only ones that go through these developments. We seem to be the most isolated
species in the sense that we create an identity that is very clear. It's like for me as a human
being, it's very obvious when I am dead and when I am alive. There's no doubt about that.
You weren't born, but one minute later you are, and you are alive and then you're not. And for
other species, it seems to be a lot more floating. How you come and go, what your identity is. It's
like, yes, it's I identify with myself, but I also carry the herd. If I am a plant and I decay,
I die partly, perhaps, and my body turn into something else, and I am aware of that.
So, I think in our isolation, we miss out on so many dimensions of life. To me, the spiritual path
is more about being able to truly appreciate this life, more than reaching something outside of it,
really, because we are already in constant, we live inside of the Creator in a way.
Yeah, I was a student of a famous spiritual teacher and one time he said, "Every day
is life.
Don't pass over the present for some glorious future."
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So what you're saying then about plants and animals, if I've interpreted it correctly,
is that they're more tuned into the collective, first of all, of their herd, of their species,
of the forest or whatever, and also they're more tuned into that level of life which is
more fundamental than the comings and goings of individual bodies, so that the death of
the body is not as big a deal to them as it is to someone who is tightly identified with
their individuality and unaware of the more universal nature.
It seems to be like that. It seems to, for us, perhaps not our opinion of death, but
our fear of dying, is that it's a kind of extinction to us.
Yeah, people feel that, because they think, "This is what I am. I'm nothing more than
and this dies undone. Yeah, and everything is done because there is nothing that can no longer relate
to anything. So it's the end of all things in a way. But if you are aware of the cycle of the body,
because I mean, the body will incarnate as well. I mean, it's the same molecules creating another
body. We actually have molecules and atoms in our bodies that were in Jesus's body and Buddha's body
and we're very grateful for those. Yeah, but not necessarily Elvis Presley because he was too recent.
So, there hasn't been time for the molecules to circulate around. Yeah, that's a gift for someone else.
But also, it seems to me that the experience of life itself, to us, death is outside of life,
because it is outside of time. And animals seems to agree that death is outside of time. I mean,
they taught me that, it's not my idea, but it's not the end of the journey to them.
Nor is it for us, but we just don't realize it, a lot of us. Now, this thing about hierarchies,
I want to see if I can get you to agree that there are hierarchies, but there aren't hierarchies. And
let me explain what I mean by that. But let's say one of your horses has intestinal parasites,
so you give it ivermectin or whatever is used to treat intestinal parasites, and your intention is
to kill the parasites, because you consider the horse to be more valuable than the parasites
which are living in its intestines. So there's some kind of value judgment there. Horse is
more important than parasites, let's kill the parasites. Wouldn't that imply a hierarchy?
I would have thought the way you describe it a while ago. Now the horses are beginning
to teach us so much about how the grazing animals relate to grass and the ground and the microbes
underneath the soil, that we are actually not using these deworming things anymore because
we don't want to cut that cycle. We try to find other solutions.
Natural, more natural ones.
Yes, and also it becomes a problem. I mean, horses are meant to have a certain amount of
parasites to actually keep balanced, but not too many. The reason why they become too many
is actually because we are destroying the land, the way we treat the land, and the way
we put too many horses in the same paddocks or not in tuned with all the other species.
So perhaps the horses couldn't exist without the parasites. So at this point, there is
a change in me in that particular area at the moment.
Alright, well let's say another example. Okay, mosquitoes spread malaria. So we don't want
children to die of malaria, so we kill the mosquitoes as many as we can and get mosquito
nets to starve the mosquitoes if necessary so they won't suck blood out of the children
and give them malaria. So we're valuing the children above the mosquitoes. So there's again
some kind of hierarchical judgment there.
I'm not sure I would call it hierarchical, but I see what you mean. I'm thinking that
for everyone who is alive, again we speak about appreciating life and how that is also spiritual,
perhaps the center of the spiritual quest in a way because it leads us back to life.
Everything that is alive will try to survive.
A horse that would be attacked by a mountain lion will try to survive until the very, very
end.
The mountain lion will try to kill the horse in order to survive and risk its own life
to feed its own children.
We are all designed to do what we need to do in order to survive, but is that a sign of
cruelty or is there a deeper balance in the system?
So of course if a mosquito would kill my child, I would kill the mosquito to save my child
because it would be a natural instinct to preserve life.
It doesn't necessarily mean that I think my child is more valuable than the mosquito,
but it is my instinct to do so and it's the love for my child and the fear of what will
happen if I lose this child, of course, also the more selfish part. The mosquito will do
the same from the mosquito's angle because that's what we are designed to do. And if
this happens in a balance, the animals chasing the horses will make them run in a particular
way that is actually good for the grass. When we keep horses separate and we try to protect
them from everything, it changes their pattern of grazing. So they become sick and the pastures
become sick. So we had to figure out systems, how we can actually make them run and I wouldn't say
that we frighten them because we don't want to cause anything negative but we do need to get
them stressed and excited to the point of recreating how they are supposed to move because otherwise
they don't stay healthy. So I guess we are designed to meet in this play of life and death and
interaction between bodies if that becomes cruel or creates suffering in us, it will at times,
but perhaps it doesn't necessarily have to be, I don't think it's possible to live a life without
pain, but when we move towards suffering, then it's more of a question how we look at it, I suppose.
Pain, I think, is inevitable and I think it doesn't mean, I don't need to dislike the mosquito,
I don't need to hate the mosquito, I will do what I'm designed to do for my species to survive,
as would the others, but I think when we have this gap to all the other species, we are losing a
sense of value and a sense of self-respect. So we have a short-sightedness in our way of interacting
that other species obviously don't have because they are not destroying the planet the way we do.
I totally agree. There's some kind of balance point in here I'm trying to find.
Obviously we're in the midst of the sixth great mass extinction and hundreds of species go extinct
just about every day. There's just been a huge reduction in wildlife populations over the
last decades and it seems to be accelerating. And I mean, we're cutting down the rainforest
in Indonesia to plant palm trees, to get palm oil, and it's eradicating the habitat of the
orangutans and so on. So there's this human hubris and egotism and greed and sense of
superiority that makes us feel that these other species are disposable and we can dispose
of them in order to gain some economic advantage.
And obviously that is terrible and it's destroying the world.
Now holding that thought in mind, can we also think that, well, there are levels of complexity
in nervous systems and levels of sophistication of function, and I'd rather be a human being
than a mosquito because it's higher up the biological evolutionary scale and possibly
the spiritual evolutionary scale if we define that as the ability to cognize and embody
pure consciousness and express it and live it in daily life.
Dr. Debra Hixson I would see that as a circle more. It's like
if you have a herd of horses, you could see that there is one horse that none of the other
horses can move around, almost none. And then there is one that perhaps most of the horses
can shift around, but can bet on it. If the herd is big enough, the area is big enough,
and their way of expressing natural life is big enough, then the one that everyone else
is shifting around is the only one that can move, the one horse that no one else can move.
It always becomes a circle in the end.
Moving means the horse that can't be moved is just sort of stubborn and strong.
Yes, exactly.
No one can tell him what to do.
Yeah, no one can shift his place.
The other guy, everybody can push him around.
And then it makes you confused because it's like, but why can he, because we again, we
look for a line and I think a hierarchy is an expression of a line and when you bring
it into a circle, it becomes confusing.
Okay, so yes, we are definitely one of the most complex individuals on the planet.
Is that good or bad or is it just complex?
Well, the whole universe has grown from simplicity to complexity over the past 13.7 billion years.
seems to be the direction of evolution. Yes, and you can experience it as an evolution because
if life is so hungry in wanting to experience itself, it will keep creating more and more
complexity in order for more diversity. That would be natural. But do we need to put it on a scale,
or can the experience of being a mosquito be as fulfilling and spiritually fulfilling,
even if the mosquito wouldn't express it. Because I contain all these microbes. Is this a bacteria?
Is someone? I wouldn't be able to answer that question. But what am I actually containing?
Am I really just one person? I don't have an answer to that. I just like to disturb my thoughts a
little bit. Well, we're all conglomerates. I mean, we can each contain 40 to 100 trillion cells.
Most of them aren't human because the microbiome is all these non-human cells and we can't live
without it. And so, it's important, obviously.
And how does it affect the consciousness? If a tree or a plant or an insect can have,
equal to me as a human, a complex and a spiritual experience of awakening, then perhaps that
is not tied to the complexity in itself. Our ability to explain it and to share it and
to create art would be different. And I think, again, like we say that the humans have this
interpretation and it makes us isolated
and we've seen the negative effects of
that quite strongly on the planet, all
of those things you just said. But what if
there is also a positive aspect to that?
What if we can actually add things to this
creation? I still wouldn't say that it
would make us better or more evolved, it's
just a typically human thing. Perhaps we
could use that as a creativity but it
wouldn't be creative unless we have
opened the self to include the rest of
the world. It will only be creative when
we are no longer ruled by the ego or no
longer ruled by personal gain. For as
long as we are tempted by personal gain,
the gap between us and the rest of the
world will sadly, I think, be
destructive. The good thing is that it's
possible for us to open up ourselves and
and our selves to include the rest of the reality and then we would no longer be
so destructive because we wouldn't be drawn to that. I remember once in one of
the classes we had in this school that is run by horses because they give us all
the exercises and this was in early, it was about this time of the year or
beginning of April and in Sweden it's cold and we were supposed to connect
with insects. We were gathering early in the morning in a forest and it was foggy and rainy
and dull and grey and we were supposed to meet insects and I was thinking, I must have missed
something in this conversation because it's too cold, there are no insects. But I don't
want to go against the idea of the horses because I trust them to see the entirety better
than what I do. So it's like we better follow their path because we've let humans decide
and be the boss for long enough. And we've seen where that took us. So let's try another version.
So we all gathered in the forest and waiting for insects to come out. And after like about two
hours, I saw this tiny fly. I don't know what you call them in English. In Swedish,
we call them knott. They're tiny. They are like a millimeter.
- Maybe a gnat, G-N-A-T, yeah. - Yes, it would be that.
And normally they annoy you because they bite and it burns and they're in the way and you just want
to disappear, right? But now, after waiting for one, for two hours, and connecting to this tiny
flying dot, which was one of the most fascinating things I've ever done, and how an entire person
can fit into that tiny body and have a full experience of life and knowing the Creator
in doing so, I will never forget it. And then I was thinking, so if we were truly connected to
to this planet, we wouldn't need almost anything to be fascinated by life.
We really don't need to be so hungry for all these spectacular experiences.
If we truly connect to the rest of the life on this planet, in a way, that's all we need.
So we wouldn't naturally not be so destructive, because we wouldn't all the time look for
things outside of ourselves.
It's all inside of ourselves, truly.
Yeah, yeah. I guess where I'm skeptical, and I don't know if you're going to be able to
convince me in this conversation.
I have no need to convince you, so that's fine with me.
It's fun to talk about it. It's just that the idea that a gnat can have an experience
that's as rich and full as a human being can have, given the gnat's extremely limited nervous
system and sensory capabilities. I mean, obviously, there are all kinds of animals that have more
sensory perception than we do. Bats and dogs, you know, all kinds of animals can perceive things we
can't perceive. But in terms of being able to know oneself as one with God consciously, the way,
you know, an enlightened being or enlightened saint can do, I'm just a little skeptical there.
Dr. Annette: I understand that and I totally respect that. I think from the Nets' point of
view, that's the starting point. I think they never really left the Creator, which means that the
journey, we are speaking about enlightenment as a journey from being unaware to becoming aware
and to find the invisible because the invisible and the eternal and the tangible, they're
disconnected to us. So, we need to reconnect them. We need to find someone if the consciousness is the
bridge between the soul and the body, we need to find someone who can walk that distance.
And the one who walks that distance, it's quite important that he doesn't fall asleep
on the way because then we have to start all over again, which we do daily because we constantly fall
asleep, right? What if you never fell asleep? Then you wouldn't know anything else and it wouldn't
really be a journey. What if the rest of the planet is already there and the ones doing the journey
is us. So when we walk that distance, we enter into the life where everyone already is and they are
actually receiving us. And they seem to be happy, they seem to want us to come and join the party.
Even with all our destructiveness and all the suffering that we keep creating,
they seem to really welcome us and help us along the way. So if we saw them as never disconnected,
we wouldn't need to believe it to be true or not, or to be able to explain it or not.
But what if we just gave that a chance? We could learn so much from other species that we have no
idea that we could because we just presume that they would have nothing to say in the matter.
Pete Well, species certainly have a lot to say,
I mean, judging from your book.
Anna But it's just me that can't be quiet.
Pete No, no, no, you're doing great. But I believe
this is what Ken Wilber calls the pre-trans fallacy, which is that there are certain characteristics of
quote-unquote more primitive life forms like gnats that seem similar to supposed characteristics of
enlightened beings. They're completely in tune with nature, they're completely spontaneous,
they're just acting on natural instinct and doing exactly what they're supposed to do,
given their role in life, and so on. And those things could all be said of someone who's
enlightened. The messy part is unenlightened people who are in the middle who have free will,
who have lost the connection with nature and haven't regained it in a deeper sense in terms
of becoming consciously aware of the Godhead of pure consciousness and then having their life
completely in the flow of that cosmic intelligence. And so then we create all kinds of trouble. I mean
the world would be just fine if there were no humans and it were just the animals doing their
thing and the world will also be fine if there are only enlightened people and animals, but
no people to cause all the problems we cause. The problems arise when we're in this teenage
phase as a species and we're exercising our free will but without the requisite wisdom
to exercise it wisely.
Yeah, I would agree with that. But I'm also thinking that I would add then one thing to
the Gnat or anyone else who is just doing what they are designed to be doing, but perhaps
they know that that is what they're doing.
It doesn't just happen because they are designed like that and they're not just without will
being guarded around by the Creator.
Maybe they know that that is happening.
If they know that, then they can tell about that experience and that can remind us what
we are missing and it reminds me of the gap.
And when I am reminded by the gap, perhaps my longing to find the Creator yet again is
becoming more awake than it was before.
Rick Yeah.
My spin on that would be that certainly the…
Diana But the knowledge, sorry, but the knowledge
would then not be related to the brain of the gnat.
It would be the spiritual awareness of the gnat.
Is the consciousness tied to the brain or is it tied to the soul?
And then I'm thinking, well, I couldn't have had that conversation with all of these individuals
if it was to the brain, because a tree wouldn't have a brain, a tree wouldn't have an image
of the world that I could ever even relate to.
We can still meet, and in that meeting point, perhaps a tiny bit of a translation can be
passed on to me as a human.
It will always be distorted in some sense, because the minute my brain knows what I'm
experiencing, it's no longer the tree, it's me, right?
So it's basically being lost the moment it's being found.
So whatever I'm trying to put words on will always be limited, but you would still die
for that glimpse because that reality of sharing another individual's experience of life, it's
still, even if it's just a glimpse, and that's all you can pull out and try to put words
on, it will still be worth it because of the love of the creation, I suppose.
Yeah, now I know you've had fairly sophisticated conversations with chickens, but have you
ever had a meaningful conversation with a gnat or a worm or a slug or, you know, some
much more rudimentary life form?
Yes, yes, but I think the limitation is with me, because when I have a conversation with
a horse or a dog, with animals that lives with people, then we have a lot of common ground.
know what it's like to go for a walk, we know what it's like to go for a ride, we have lots to talk
about that my brain can relate to. So my brain is really happy and responds. I remember the first
time I got in connection with an insect was in a parking lot outside of a shop and I saw a parking
lot. It would look the same to me and you but for the insect this experience of the parking lot it
was completely different colors that I couldn't even relate to. It felt hilly and there was a
completely different planet and it didn't even know about me or humans. I realized that, okay,
so I'm not at all in the center of this insect's life. It's so different to me that it's very hard
for me to follow. So it becomes less of a conversation and more of an instinctive
experience. You get this sort of experience of what it's like to be that and then it's gone again.
and for a long time I thought that, this is funny, for a long time I thought that other species
communicate in this sort of tiny dots. It took me years to realize that it's no, it's my awareness.
I fall asleep all the time so all I can get is glimpses because then I fall out again and then
I struggle to get in to be able to listen again. So the limitation would be mine because I need to
stretch my abstract ability to what cannot even be compared to the human experience.
And I do that every time I experience something that is outside of my comfort zone,
if you would call it that, or what has been experienced so far. But it would take me forever.
So, in this lifetime, I'm more likely to have longer conversations with animals that I have more
that are less abstract to me. Right.
is what I believe right now, anyway.
Yeah, this is making more sense to me as I go along with you here.
Here's an insight that might help.
So, we probably both agree that there is universal consciousness, universal intelligence,
it permeates and orchestrates everything.
Are we on the same page with that?
Yeah.
Okay, so that being the case, that universal consciousness is our very essence.
yours, mine, the camera, the gnat, the worm, whatever. If they are conscious or even if
they're not conscious, that consciousness permeates them. And if they are conscious to some degree,
then they are a reflector of that consciousness in a certain way, depending upon the nature of their
nervous system. And the character of their personality, if you ask me. Yeah, which is
related to the nature of their nervous system, I suppose. So, maybe like you say with the insect,
for instance, who sees the parking lot so differently than you can barely conceive of it, you know,
and it is a conscious experience for them.
They have senses, and, you know, that universal consciousness, it's active in them as just
as it's active in us.
They wouldn't be able to function were it not.
And there's some sort of level of that consciousness, which is not just unmanifest, but is active,
engaged, creative, orchestrating things, and you're able to, you, Emily, are able to tune
into that as it relates to, or as it interfaces with, the gnat.
We're really picking on gnats in this interview.
You know, that was unexpected, wasn't it?
I know.
And therefore, there actually can be some kind of meaningful communication, because you're
not just communicating with the limited gnat consciousness, you're communicating with the
archetype or the deva, you could say. You know the word deva, right? The spirit of the
gnat kingdom. And that spirit could be quite wise and quite profound. Well, there's a great
thing in your thing here. This is from the Maori medicine woman. She said, "If you're
no longer able to communicate with the plants and instead reduced to having to read about
their knowledge, then you should not be working with medicine." So how do you communicate
with plants, you obviously communicate with the deva or the spirit of the plant in question.
Dr. Shefali: I think it is the same. It is all the same idea. To me, all of these individuals
will still be persons, individuals, as well as the common consciousness that we spoke about.
There is also an individual translating it or living it. I would say perhaps living it
is a better word.
Dave: You mean like an individual plant?
Yes, because otherwise, what would be the point of individuals?
Why would life have this urge to experience all these different angles?
Because it's becoming personalized.
Every time in that, we'll still experience it slightly different from the other one.
And that seems to be a sense of humor in life and the longing in life to keep re-experiencing
itself with such a force that we cannot grasp it because it's so much bigger than us.
But when we don't have an ego surrounding it, perhaps it goes through in a way easier.
Perhaps it's just a, I'm not saying it is so, but perhaps it is so.
And then whatever species you communicate to would be less relevant because you're still
meeting someone.
If it's a plant, if it's a tree, the difference between a plant I think and why that's never
been so popular as animal communication is that it's harder for us as humans to know
the form we are relating to. There is no nervous system, there is no head, there is no feet.
The whole concept of beginning and end is complicated because some develop because they develop
longer roots and all of a sudden there is another plant popping out of the same root.
Is it two different plants or who am I talking to? What if it's not really relevant and if
I let that go and I just open myself to receive the being of this plant and I leave my ideas
and opinions aside for a moment because otherwise there is no emptiness for the plant to come
in and then I just see what happens.
To me the experience of plants is that they often communicate gifts, what they are good
for, how they contribute and what you find when you do this, I mean I do this as a full
time job for the past almost 30 years, is that nature seems to be very generous.
We live on a planet where generosity is one of the keys.
It's like everything that is alive seems to have a natural generosity.
It always creates more than what it needs just to survive for itself.
The chickens would explain the same thing.
Not every egg is supposed to be a chicken.
There are also eggs that are supposed to be food.
We give more than what we need for ourselves.
It's just that humans, we seem to forget that we are also beings on this planet.
supposed to be generous. And when we constantly relate to what we gain from something, we trade.
We don't share, we trade. It's different. Nature doesn't do that. It constantly gives.
And with plants, I think you get really reminded of that. And that's how they also explain that
even when we destroy this planet, if we just leave it for a long enough time, it will start
healing itself. It's the generosity that makes that possible because there is already an extra
in each tuft of grass, in each tree that will give something back to the earth. If we have destroyed
it badly enough with whatever radioactive substances or chemicals or whatever, perhaps we
also need to put on some conscious acting into that. But nature in itself is healing because it's
in its nature and that's why it's not revengeful. It's like we're waiting for nature to hit back.
It's like we continue to destroy it until it hits back. But that's perhaps not likely to happen. It's
the consequence of our actions might hit back. But there is no thought in nature to be harmful
to teach you something. Nature seems to teach through compassion. The entire idea of teaching is
the more I am able to feel inside of me the effect of my actions, the more I learn.
I don't really learn as much from being punished. And that's what we see when we punish dogs and
horses to do as they're told because we believe that they live in a hierarchy where the leader
is punishing them so it's natural. But why is it then when I meet animals that are perfectly
obedient and perhaps even very good in competitions or whatever and they're totally submissive, they
they are never happy, they should naturally be happy. We are not happy in submission,
we know that, why would anyone else be? And I think that's where the idea of a hierarchy
can become harmful. Not the way you describe it from an evolutionary point of view, but
we need to recreate the circle of it, because otherwise we tend to believe that by bringing
us to the top and having a different sense of value when we look at the others, we are
losing that possibility of entering into this reality. And to me, what is the point of spiritual
awakening if it doesn't happen here, if it doesn't happen from the heart and we can't
share it with the rest of the life? It's not a career, we're not making a spiritual career,
we're not moving on to somewhere else where there is a university class for the best ones, right?
We're diving into the eternal, unconditional, compassionate love that we came from,
whether we're good or bad, we're going to end up there.
That's beautiful. You're so eloquent. I really appreciate this.
I was kind of reminded as you're speaking of a movie by Michael Moore,
I think, called "Where Shall We Invade Next?"
I don't mean to laugh, but it's very human, isn't it?
And he was talking about the prison system in, I don't know whether it was
Sweden, Denmark, Norway, one of the Scandinavian countries, and he was
saying it's almost like a country club. I mean, these people are treated so nicely
that they really rehabilitate and they have very low recidivism rates and everything
compared to the punishment mentality that we have in the US and probably other places.
There's a number of things I'd like to talk to you about. One is that you've sort of subtly alluded
to it just now and there were parts in your book which made me think of it which I think you feel
maybe in part because of your communication with horses and other animals and also just your own
insights that society is undergoing a big transition. Let's talk about that a little bit. There's
certain things, I live in Iowa, which is in the middle of the US, and there are something
like, I don't know, 22 or 3 million pigs in Iowa, and 3 million people. And those pigs
don't have very good lives. Most of them live in CAFOs, which are these confinements of 1200
hogs that you can't even turn around because it's so tightly confined. And it pollutes
the environment, it pollutes the air, Iowa has the second highest cancer rate in the country,
so all kinds of problems from it. So when I see something like that, I can't imagine an
enlightened society in which such a thing could exist. What's your vision of an ideal
world that we might hopefully come to realize, and our treatment of animals, what would it
look like in such a world? And what do we need to do to help transition to that world?
And what are we doing to retard our transitioning to that world?
I believe that a truly compassionate experience, and compassionate to me would mean the expansion
of the self to include others than me.
I believe that's the only way to really come to an insight that would change me, that would
motivate me to change.
Because I believe punishment only lasts for a short while.
watch a horrible movie or someone who's filming the reality of these pigs and for a couple of weeks no
one will eat pig meat because you just can't because it's painful for you to see that movie and
you don't want to contribute but then you forget. There are actually laws against taking movies like
that you can get arrested if you bring a camera into one of these places. Yeah brilliant so that's not
possible then but sometimes there are these brave people that do these things. Right they sneak a
camera in or something. Yeah, but we forget that and eventually we go back to our traditional culture
because that's the easiest, right? I believe we need to practice compassion from when we're small.
I think one big mistake is that we tend to believe that humans are the only ones that can feel
compassion as if that would be inbuilt and without doing anything we're just going to be in that
state. And I think we definitely have the possibility to become compassionate but we
we need to constantly practice because when we don't constantly practice an
opening it will just naturally start closing itself because that's how it
goes and the reason why I really believe in this is that I've had the experience
of animals talking about life after death and I've met people that talk
about life after death and the interesting thing is that their stories
are exactly the same. It's not just a little bit similar and if you're really
trying to look you can see some similarities. They are exactly the same, on the dot the same.
And the key in these stories, the way I see it so far, is that all of these individuals describe that
after you pass, you pass over and you leave your body here and your experiences goes back and is
planted in the soil in a way quite beautifully. You bury the body and the experience of the body
is also being transformed because we have cellular memory, right? And then the soul continues on its
journey somehow. And everyone keeps explaining the same thing and it's that at one point you meet
a being. It's never really described as a person but it's still someone and this someone is so
loving that there is no words that can describe it really. It's this complete, compassionate,
unconditional love. And with the presence of this extremely loving non-judgmental being,
you go through your entire life. And the animals will describe it as you go through every second
of it, not just the sort of main traces or big events or whatever most important conclusions,
but every single second you relive your life. And because you're outside of time, it's not relevant
how long it will take, you have all the time in the world and if you're out of time, you're actually
also outside of any form. So there's no limitation to how many individuals can go through this at the
same time because you are no longer in a place. And with this going through your entire life with
this compassionate being is that you don't only experience what you've done yourself,
but you experience how the rest of the world have experienced you. So you get the full compassionate
insight into how your life has been. And of course you could choose to see that as a punishment if
you believe in that there has to be justice because if you have killed someone and you
will truly experience how the other one experienced that, well there is an insight in that. But it's
not brought to you as a punishment because it's brought to you with this complete compassion
because there seems to be nothing else that would make you dare to become so vulnerable
that you can truly receive that experience. And with all these insights, then the people with
near-death experiences, they tend to go back to life after that. So, the story sort of ends there,
if I've understood it right. I haven't had it myself. But some animals continue this story
by saying that after this deep insight in your life as an entirety, you go into a state of
forgetfulness and no one knows what happens there. And to most of the species that describes this,
that is also where God comes into it or the Creator, whatever you choose to call it, because
that is beyond the individual awareness. There is no longer any individual that can
remember anything. There is complete nothingness. And the great mystery and why there perhaps is a
God is because no one knows what happens there. But out of this nothingness where everything
merges together in some nothing and everything at the same time, the individual is born again.
Out of that comes the individual, the seed that sprouts, the person that is born comes
out of that and that is the big mystic miracle that no one can ever explain and perhaps we
don't want to explain it because it would take something away.
But if you think about that learning and that insight, what if the only way for us to come
to a true insight in what we're doing is through compassion, then that seems somehow logic to me.
And when we bring humans into the room of having animal teachers, like we do here, there is
something about that meeting point because if the animals are what we described, they are already in
connection with a greater whatever. I would also say that there are scales there when we say the
animals can also make the journey. Because animals that are brought to our civilization,
and like the pigs you describe, like chickens in a factory, like horses that are being whipped in a
riding school, they can also lose that connection. It just seems that their way back is perhaps a bit
straighter and shorter than ours. If they get reminded, it's like they more quickly go back
into it. While with humans, and I guess that has to do with our identification and our ability to
interpret what we experience, we like habit. If you have a dog that has been abused by a man wearing
a blue sweater, that dog will, even after the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and
the entire healing process, most likely this dog will avoid men with blue sweaters for the rest of
its life because it's a survival instinct. But a human in the same situation is sadly likely to
marry the man with the blue sweater. Why do we choose habit over discretion?
- Suckers for punishment. - Yeah. We seem to feel so safe with the habit
that it's worth the risk. Even if we know we will die from the habit, we know we can die if we smoke,
but the habit is stronger. And perhaps that's why we have more twists and turns on our road. So,
Animals can get into bad habits. I mean, they've done experiments.
Oh, they definitely can.
You know, where rats are given cocaine or whatever, they get addicted.
They can, they can, definitely.
But it takes an unnatural environment for that to happen.
Right, right.
And I guess it's the same for us.
We've created an unnatural environment.
But if you have, for example, like we have in this place, we have animals that have been abused,
and most of them have had some sort of level of post-traumatic stress disorder, they heal it.
and then they meet people and I guess when we enter a room with our physical being, our stories come
with us, whether they are spoken of or not. So when you have these animals that have healed or are in a
process of healing and they have no judgmental ability because they don't build their world on
opinions, then something happens to us. Something happens to us in our courage and vulnerability to
meet ourselves when we have an animal present compared to if they were not. So I think there's
a great chance for us to dare to go one step further to practice meeting God when we leave
this body. How much of that can be done here on this planet so that we can come to these insights
and give back this love? What if this planet is a reflection of the other side outside of time?
How much can we bring back from there already when we are alive?
Like the Sufis are talking about dying while you are still alive.
And I meet animals that speak about that as well.
And one horse, he was so sick that he was really preparing to die.
And he invited me to be with him.
And me and another horse, because he said there is always a witness.
When someone is doing this, there is always a witness so that the story will be
brought back to the living.
So it was me and another horse sitting with his dying horse and he went through the whole process
of shifting his consciousness from his limited being, if you want to call it that, his personality
as a person, to a greater sense of self, a more wide sense of self. And when he did that shift,
he could see himself as a young foal and he could see how this young individual was, he was scared
of everything. He was worried about the future, he was afraid of pain, he was afraid of humans,
and he had this huge love towards himself as this tiny foal. So all he wanted to do was to tell him
that, "Please, my dear boy, you don't have to worry about anything. It's all fine. We're all going back
to God." But then, before he did that, he was like, "No, wait a minute. I will not tell him,
because I trust him so much that he will be able to find this path by himself, that I love him enough
to trust him to go through all the pain and worries and sufferings that he will go through
so we can finally meet here, because otherwise we would never have done that. So there is this
love in setting someone free to also make all the mistakes he needs to make, and it was beautiful
to follow him on this and he survived. He survived his injury, he healed after that, he lived for
another year and he had a tumor. After a year the tumor was so big that it was the end of it
and I was sitting with him in this field next to a lake and we both knew that he was dying in a few
days and he was like, "This is fine, I've already done the big death." The big death, that was a
year ago. This step outside of existence, this is just, this is the small death, the small dying
And I'm thinking perhaps it is the same for us, that actually we are so tied to the habit of our
identity that that's a bigger sense of dying than actually losing the body because of the repetition.
Perhaps it is like that, but what if we can start that journey already here?
Pete Yeah, like you say, it's die before you die.
Then we need compassion. So before we have that compassion as a natural element in our human
training, like we had a horse that described the human beings as not fully upright yet,
it's like we are not completely there yet. And there is still hope actually also,
because this is not all that we can be, but we need to do something about it. We need to have
a will to challenge ourselves I suppose. That's what I like with your questions
when you challenge me. I love this because it's there is such a respect and
curiosity in it and we need to do that to each other and dare to do it because
it's not criticism it's bringing out more of ourselves right? Yeah. So I think
sadly nothing will happen for these pigs perhaps not before compassion has become
a subject in school that is scheduled into our lives. Not something we do in the spare
time when we have a nice moment and the sun is setting and the weather is good. It has
to be part of our everyday practice.
Very good. There's several seed thoughts that I want to talk to you about in everything
that you've just said. One is how to make compassion more of a universal development
for humanity. Another is on the subject of reincarnation, I have a question or two.
And so have I.
Yeah.
It's like...
And another is about what you do there with your school, because as you speak, I mean,
you mentioned it's a school and a farm.
And as you speak, I keep visioning that, wow, this is a place where you should have like
retreats where people can come for a week or two, 40, 50 people or whatever number you
can accommodate and work with you, work with the animals and just kind of immerse themselves
in the kind of wisdom you're expressing and also just your orientation to animals. I think it could
be a lot more beneficial for people than a great many spiritual retreats that people go on these
days. So there's that. I mean, do you have anything like that when you say it's a school?
Yeah, it took a long time. I mean, it's a process and I don't know where it's going,
because it started with the animals coming here in a very bad state and they needed time to heal
and they needed a safe place. So my idea, I was 21 when I moved out here by myself with this crazy
dream that no one believed in, perhaps not even me, but the urge to do it was stronger and I had
nothing to lose basically. To create a place where you can be yourself without being judged, where you
don't have to be someone else in order to be accepted, in order to survive, in order to make
money. I wanted that for the animals, that they've been whipped, they've been
threatened to be killed because they don't give people what they think that
they deserve to get from these animals. We forget that if I buy a horse because I
want to jump with that horse, for example, well I buy that horse from another human
being. I never made a deal with that horse. It's slave trade actually. I want
a service from that animal and I pay someone else for it and then I get
disappointed when I don't get anything back from the animal, to the point where
I have these explanations that perhaps I should kill it, because I deserve better.
It's very sad when you think about it like that. So I wanted to create a place
where you can feel safe, where you're not gonna get sold. This is the end of the
road. If you come here as an animal that were close to die, in a severe state of
PTSD, most of them, then it's not that once you're better you will be sold. We
take away the concept of being sold because it's problematic. It means that you have a
limited value and animals, even if you're worth 10 million dollars, it's still very limited
value because you can count it. And all species seem to describe that no matter what you are
in this creation, the life in you is equally big. But it's not more life in you or me than
in the tree or the elephant or the mosquito or the gnat or whatever. The actual life, it's
unmeasurable and there is a value in that we need to be able to sense it in ourselves to
really, really value this creation, I guess. And therefore, we can't have animals for sale
because it would go against this idea. It would not only make the value of the animal
smaller but it would reflect back on me because that's how I would see them. But all along,
which I didn't know, was that the animals was also thinking that this is exactly the
place that human needs. So exactly what you say is where they are going. Because they say that
humans need to practice this too. It ties in with the idea of how can we develop more compassion,
because I think spending a week or two in a place like yours would definitely help to culture
people's hearts and their compassion a lot more, which would have a lot of lasting value.
Yes, and it does, which is so hopeful that it seems to work. I mean, you have to come by free
will and you have to accept the full fact that you have to do the job yourself.
You're not going to be given anything. That needs to be clear because otherwise
we are waiting to be fed with wisdom and then we will come out in the other end
as more wise people. We need to take it in and it's our own responsibility. The
horses are there, whether we can go to where they are, that's our responsibility.
We need to follow the urge. But it seems to really work. So I was creating this
place for the animals and the animals seems to all along be creating it for us.
Because they say that since we have developed this gap, we have this gap.
I mean, I guess in the end it's a gift, but without the connection to the entirety, it's
problematic.
Like you say, we are teenagers.
We really are.
But because we then all the time interpret the world, then we believe that that's what
everyone is doing to us too.
if I'm creating a world based on opinions, I believe that everyone else is doing it
too, whether I think it or not, which means that as a human being I probably
have an underlying fear of being judged all the time to some extent, which means
that I also have a protection against that and that protection is in the way
in the development of compassion. That's going to be problematic. So in order to
start practicing compassion I cannot feel judged. I think if we copy what
might be happening on the other side is that we go to a place where we are not being judged,
when we are met with full compassion and perhaps that's the only thing that can make us see
ourselves fully. Then naturally that would be what we need to create here and we need
a place that is safe enough for nature to create at least what we can with our resources,
a natural environment where life can interact with each other. It would be different if we
are cutting down the forests around, we don't own almost anything. The farm where I live is tiny,
so we are renting land all over the place, so all the animals can have a place. And now we have a
situation where land is being sold, it's complicated, and we're now trying to think that, okay, to make
this place last, because now we are in a transition step, to make this place last, perhaps in a legal
form, we need to create a foundation. Because if we create a foundation, it means that legally,
the land will actually then own itself.
And if the land own itself, then we are
moving closer to an equal meeting
between human beings and other species,
and then we are one step closer to
compassion. And also it has to get past me.
I can't be in the middle of this, that's not
the idea. Even if I started it, it
shouldn't be owned by me and die with me.
It needs to have its own landing and
sitting in this world. We're hoping for that. So that's a project that is
happening now because exactly what you say, we had a horse dying, naturally they
die, they live here all their lives and they die and it's sad of course but
there is also a beauty in it. And the last thing he saw before he died
is similar to what you said. In the first line at the end of the field where he
was standing, he saw rows of people waiting and they wanted to come in and
said that when people are really longing in their hearts to experience this, you are meant
to welcome them. You don't turn them away. And that is really important. And we're looking
for forms for that, because this is so new. The school started in 2018. And now we're on
our third class, and it's 30 students and they are chosen by the horses. So they have to send
a letter in to me because I need something that is them.
And then what, you read the letter to the horses?
Yes, I read the letter to the horses.
I don't think they are at all interested in the content.
It's like, I've done this, this is my name.
They get an image of the person when you...
They get an image of the person.
And it's fascinating because they don't seem to choose the people because you are chosen
and you are better than this one and you have this ability.
They seem to choose them because something in that person is being seen.
I remember one horse explaining that I was reading a letter and she saw a pair of hands
and she said, "Who would only show the hands?
That's interesting."
And because that connection had happened by the curiosity of the horse, that person was
then welcomed.
And it seems to be that they mainly invite people because of the timing of things, not
because of who you are and what you're good at, because there's never an explanation.
It only seems to be that the timing is, "At this moment, our paths are crossing, so you
can come. What percentage of people who apply can come? Well, for the last class we had about 200
people applying all in all and there's place for 30. Wow, interesting. And I'm thinking that
the longing inside of the people that cannot come all at the same time, because we need to be able
to focus, we cannot commercialize this, it wouldn't work. It has to be, yes, you pay,
I mean, you pay a fee because we have to pay our taxes and all that.
Oh, sure. People should pay, yeah.
Yeah, but the point is not that. I mean, that's what we need to do.
But why we have to limit the numbers is also because of time and space.
You want to have time to meet these people.
What if people watch this interview and a thousand people want to come?
You're going to have to limit the numbers.
And after one year, the ground core, the sort of basic course,
is two years and we meet on weekends.
we're outside all the time because the horses are outside all the time and I think
it's important that it's not too comfortable. I don't mean it as it has to be uncomfortable,
but I think we need to feel things. We need to experience it with the bodies. If it's rain,
we're outside and we feel the rain. Sometimes we're cold, sometimes we don't understand anything,
sometimes we're frustrated. That's important. The fascinating thing when you take a group in like
this is that normally in school, you know, you learn things and you prove to your teacher
that you've learned it. Here, you seem to get exercises from the mainly the horses and
you're not actually supposed to be able to succeed all the time because if you succeed
all the time, you're actually creating an identity around being a successful student.
So in some exercises, you get a glimpse. In some exercises, you see what is between you
and the meeting point with the other one. In some exercises nothing happens at all because
your presence is holding the space for perhaps that one student that is getting a glimpse
in that exercise. So you cannot be a successful student in this concept, but after one year
you get a mentor horse. After that first year, the horses have observed you and sometime
during that year you would have, perhaps only for a second, but some connection would have
happened that makes one horse feel particularly responsible for you. And at the end of the year,
that horse will explain something to me about that person that I write down as a letter.
So in the winter, because of the weather, it's cold in the winter. So the course is from April
to November. In December, it would be the lack of comfort would be too obvious, right? And then
the horse that becomes your mentor will give you personal exercises until we meet again in the
the spring. And to me, that is so private that when I write it down, I feel that I shouldn't
read it. So I never read it twice. I just try to get it down and put it away because
it's not for me. So it's two years like this, they meet eight times and they have these
studies in the winter. And then after the first two years, lots of the students didn't
want to finish. They wanted to come back. And I thought, well, there is nothing saying
that they can't come back. So we have some students doing follow-up years. So some did five years.
So every second year we start a new class. Because to go that deep and to be able to
write these letters, if it's a hundred, I wouldn't be able to do it. But I think this
has to happen in the physical. But there are things that we can share online. So we're
creating a platform for stories that pandemic taught us a lot about how we can share things
when we can't meet and some of that is valuable, right? So we can have a platform where people
can take part of what we're doing here and start practicing at home, even if you have
to wait for your place to come into one of the courses.
Let me ask you a couple of questions here. With all you're saying, it sounds like there's
a lot you can teach people, but can you actually help them to acquire the kind of ability that
you have?
Yes.
What percentage, again, talking percentages, are able to achieve some degree of animal communication
the way you do it?
I would say all of them to some extent, but very individually.
It's like for me it will happen a lot through vision, because I would see images and I would
get feelings and instant experiences.
Before I did this, I ran away from home when I was very young because it was complicated
and I earned my living painting portraits.
For me, it would naturally come as images, because that's the fastest way probably for
my brain to perceive something.
wouldn't necessarily be an image for
someone else but it can still be a very
deep experience of the other one and I
would say that that has happened to all
of the students in different ways, in
different degrees, but the really hopeful
thing is it's possible. It's not
something that you teach as a method but
by placing a person in an environment that
is non-judgmental and somehow safe
and we practice a compassionate being, a compassionate interaction, like in lots of exercises,
someone will be with the horse, I mean for example we can have a person sitting on a horse
with closed eyes and no bridle and saddle, you're completely vulnerable.
And we have another person just holding that space that can foresee if something happens,
that is protecting this in a way.
We need to practice holding that space for each other. The one holding the space
is as important as the one doing the exercise for that to take place. So it
seems to be more about the space that we are upholding. It's not really a
technique but it's re-entering that space. Seems to be what does it. The
exercises are probably just designed differently to fit different people from
different angles. That's why there is a variety. The real exercise seems to be around one question
or two, which is from me to the horse, "Who are you? Who are you? Or who are you?" The
longing to meet the world. And then the question, "Who am I?" Which we will never be able to
answer, but it doesn't make it less relevant.
I've seen a number of TV shows about prisoners who are allowed to work with horses or dogs
or even sometimes, I think there was one where they were able to have pet cats.
And it was tremendously, it was a wonderful service for the animals, but it was extremely
rehabilitative for the prisoners.
So we were talking earlier about criminal rehabilitation.
It would be cool if your thing could be systematized in a way to be introduced more widely in that
I think it could eventually because if it starts to, I mean it obviously lives its own life
and when you start practice this thing starts to happen.
And it's like you said, this is where we are now, we have this course and we have a children's
group that came today.
They were practicing lying down on horses that are loose in a herd so that their spine is
following the horse spine until they are just floating in the sort of similar experience
of bodies.
to go through the body really helps. And then we have a horse that started a hoof school
in how to trim the horse's feet. When we take away the relationship between the horse and
the ground, we have to replace that somehow, and we replace this technologically. But what
if we go in a compassionate way and experience this relationship between the hoof and the
ground and become part of that? And that's for farriers because it's so detailed, so
need to have some basic knowledge before. A farrier is somebody who trims horses. Yes,
exactly. And now, just recently started a course with a horse that is helping to plan the grazing,
in which fields should we move the horses in which time of the year?
Because we lock them in, right? We lock them in pens and we have harvested the grass, we have
disturbed all the functions underneath the ground. So it's a hard job for her, but she's teaching us
about it. And we get to follow her, we're
going to meet her six times this year,
and follow her connection with the ground
and how a grazing animal,
it's not only how they eat but also how
they move and how they trample on the
ground that makes a difference for the
grass and how it grows.
And I guess it's like what we find
here and what kind of concepts,
if people would come from far away it
would be complicated with a weekend,
maybe then we would need, like you say, like a retreat for a week that is more intense, for example.
I don't think there is a limited form. The form will develop as we try it out,
because we're not a university. We don't have a form that we need to,
and there's no structure. We are creating the structure. We are outside. Our classroom is
outside. I wouldn't be surprised if after this interview, people want to come from all over
the world. And if they do, if anyone does, yes, you're welcome. I did that with cows for a few
months. And what you say about shoveling manure is actually also interesting because in order to
receive something, we must give something. And we make that trade and as we know, we need to pay
bills. You also get paid for what you do and that's one system that we have. But then we have the
system of giving without thinking about what we will get back. And that part needs to be there too.
We run this as a welfare, as a sanctuary, because the animals have no obligation to contribute with
anything and we don't sell them so we don't get any money from them. And that's a sanctuary. You
pay for the teachings because that's how we can pay the bills and do it all legally correct. And
we have students that also do what you say, they come and they shovel manure. We also work with the
a theatre school, a physical theatre school, and they did a project where they come and
clean the barn for a couple of hours and after that they get an exercise from any one of the species
in how they can find different aspects of their bodies that can be used in their artwork.
And that's one of the most fascinating things I've ever done because it's something about
giving of your time and your effort and it will help in what you will gain back. You can't
do it in order to gain something, but there is something in that giving. And one of the horses
that was really teaching us this, he also said that it's part of your fee and what you take,
it has to be a gift. So I will always give a bit more than what people pay for,
and people will always give a bit more as well, but it could be in any kind of way. You can bring
coffee, you can help cleaning, but we need to feel that none of us are, it's not just a trade,
we're also meeting because we really want to meet as equals, as people.
Let me ask you that question about reincarnation.
Let's just fit in reincarnation so we sort that out too.
Someone named Petra Miskoff in London asked, "Do animals say there is reincarnation,
that they are reborn?" And before you answer her question, I just want to add one.
Have you ever met animals or horses who had been human beings and are now horses, or have you met
human beings who had been horses and are now human beings? Well, whether things can be proven or not
has to be. Let's say a horse tells you, "Yeah, I was John Shmoe. I lived in London in my last life,
and now I'm here as a horse." There is a difference. There is a difference. When we talk about
reincarnation with humans, we seem to always have some sort of scale where you become a human in
in the end and then you stay a human. It's like if you've been a human, you don't go back.
Animals, I would say, talk a lot about reincarnation, but there are two different
things there that I don't hear as much from humans, and that's complex. How private is
reincarnation? If we follow the road to this forgetfulness where everything is merging into one
and out of that we are reborn.
How can I know for sure that it's just my soul and nothing else?
Well, the Buddhists seem to have this idea that you just scoop a bucket into the ocean of karma
and come out and there's a new life for you, which may be a conglomerate of many people's karma.
As I understand it, I might be misrepresenting that.
And the Hindus have more of an idea, it seems, that our individual jiva or soul
remains discreet and moves from life to life and evolves as it goes along and accumulates experience.
And perhaps both of those can be true without contradicting each other.
If you're not too linear, I had this just beautiful, it needs to just be put in here.
Sometimes in the classes, we can ask questions to a particular horse that is interested in a subject.
And there was this questioning with an elderly mare. And somehow the questions led up to her
speaking about prayer. And you think that is purely human. But it seems like praying is a
natural state for pretty much everyone on this planet. And she described prayer, and this will
lead to reincarnation. She conveyed an image of something that looked like what the soul was made
of, like the matter of souls. And on that big sort of light mat, I would describe it like that,
like a carpet sort of thing, there were little circular, like oval things that were drawn.
And she said, "They're only drawn there. These are the individual souls. They are not cut out.
They are just drawn. So you can see them. This is the individual, but it's not taken out. It's
not separate. So we are individual, but we are never disconnected." And to her, the meaning of
pray would be- - Sure, just like waves. They're individual waves, but they're not disconnected
from the- - Yeah, exactly. And for her, the meaning of praying would be to remind yourself about that.
You wouldn't pray to get something, but the prayer would lead you back to the memory
that we are not disconnected and that would bring a sense of hope.
That's nice.
It's really beautiful and it makes a lot of sense, I think.
So, the scooping thing, like Fanny, a horse that seemed to relate to reincarnation all the time,
and she helps people by seeing those stories, say that we cannot really say which story belongs to
whom. But we can say that some stories have affected you and really affected in who you are now more
than other stories. But to whom the story belonged is perhaps less relevant. It affects you and that's
what counts. And she also had one woman saying, "What if life is too difficult? What do you do
when life is too difficult?" And she said, "Well, if your life is overwhelming and it's too difficult,
then others will come and help you. Meaning that what she basically said is like, your karma is
not only yours. You might be helping someone else in their karma. Someone else might be helping you.
Karma is not personal. It's something we do together. And I like that thought as well.
But the same horse also say that when you leave this life, you go out through,
she sent an image of a little, like a little gate, like a little door. You go out there.
when you enter again you go in through the same door. Because you go in through the same door
you actually also bring on your old clothes. So even if you're everyone and everyone is in you,
you also follow a personal story. And if you go through all of this in a couple of minutes,
perhaps both are true. We are being scooped up as a mixture but there is also a personal story.
but in the personal story we are never
disconnected and we're
continuously helping each other. So that's
one thing that comes from animals and
the other thing is that they seem to never
really make any scales of anything.
It's like whether you become a human being,
a stone, a tree,
water, I mean you can be an element,
it doesn't really seem to matter. It's
like you will enter this life
and get exactly the experience that you
precisely
need because life seemed to really wish us the best. It's like there is something kind behind all this.
We get exactly what is best for us, we just don't understand it. And this circular thing,
it seems to just be circles moving in all directions rather than a ladder and eventually
you end up with God. It's like you are never disconnected from God. So you just keep going
in and out. So then, what you do and what you give in this life is much more important than who you
are. They all seem to relate to reincarnation, but not as a ladder to reach a goal.
Interesting. I guess what you give is the proof of who you are, you know, it's the
walking of the talk, so to speak. Here's a cute little bit from your book.
Among all the animals I have been communicating with, there's one question that they repeatedly
continue to ask.
How is it that you people have forgotten where you once came from?
Yes, that's the entire story, right?
Yeah, it is.
So, there's a lot of interesting stuff in your book that we haven't had a chance to
get to.
You had some amazing experiences in New Zealand, which were far out, I mean, interesting stuff.
You have had some amazing experiences in Jordan.
Oh, definitely.
And there's this fellow Muhammad who somehow or other you actually just sort of
Merge consciousnesses with at some point and and he was treating horses through you and you were treating horses through him
And that was all very interesting
And then there's the whole time travel thing where you keep flashing back to this
time where there's a green and and a young girl and all this stuff and we don't really have time to talk about all this
Stuff right now you once saw the king of Iraq as an apparition not the current king of Iraq
with some ancient king of Iraq who actually showed up in the stable with you and was conversing
with you.
And then I thought I'd really lost it until I went back to see my, I can say that I work
for her, but she's also my great friend.
So I don't know what to call it.
She is my friend, but everything seems to be normal to her.
So when I come back from the stables and she's related to this person.
She was the daughter of King Hussein or something.
Yes, exactly.
And I said, I saw this person at the stables and he told me these things and now I've really
lost it and I don't know what to do and she's like, "What did he look like?" And I described him and
his essence and the way he looks and she brings out a photo and she says, "Is it him?" Yes. Well,
that's normal, you know, because he used to be king in Iraq and some of the horses here are
relatives to the horses he had. And to her, this linear, that we come and go and that we keep
connecting beyond time, it's everyday life for her. It's very interesting. Yeah, it's everyday
life for you too. Yes, I struggle a bit more than her, that's the only thing. So here's a good quote
that maybe we should wrap it up on. You can comment on it if you want. I can talk to you for another
two hours about all these things, but maybe we'll do another one one of these days and cover some
things we didn't. We can, I mean you're always welcome here anyway. Thanks, yeah it'd be fun to,
I mean it's a lot easier to do a Zoom call than it is to fly to Sweden. We can start like that.
It's fun to do that too, but here's a little something that an end note which you can comment,
Oh, I mean, here's another thing you said in the book that I thought would be interesting to talk
about that we didn't get to, which is that there were situations in your life where trees nearby
were being clear-cut and you ended up having a visceral reaction to it in terms of your kidneys
failing and your heart having problems and stuff like that, like you were in training with the soul
of the trees that were being killed. Alright, so here's this point that could perhaps be a
a wrap-up point. I'll try to pronounce this Arabic word but alhamdulillah.
Yeah, alhamdulillah. Whatever happens it must be for the best of everything. I may
not be able to see it at the time but I have faith in the way things are. Yeah.
That's a good thing to live by. Yeah, it is. I try to do that. Whatever God does is for
the best is another way of putting it. Yeah. So is your place in pretty good
shape? Are you in dire circumstances now of losing the thing because you don't have enough money?
What's going on there? Both. We are losing a farm that has been the center point of the
educational part because it's the best grazing paddock for the horses. It's huge.
And that's up for sale and they want us to buy it and we don't have enough money.
Announcement people, if you would like to contribute. Yeah, that would be very helpful
because... On your website I'm sure there's something about how to contribute. Yeah, there
is. And if it was only that, it would be easier, but then we're losing another huge paddock because
of a solar cell park. We're losing three more paddocks because they're being replanted with
trees instead of kept as grazing land. So when we lost all these, you come to the question,
well, is this a sign that we should just stop what we're doing? But there are no other signs of that.
The horses are not saying that. So what if this is that we need to reach out to the world and say
that we need help. Is this important enough for enough people? Then the horses always said that
this place is being kept and held by many small good deeds. So if we can collect more small good
deeds, that will then be turned into this foundation. A foundation can only be built
around something that is physical and exists. So the idea is, if we can get enough money to
buy this particular farm that is for sale, we will turn that into a foundation.
So that farm would meet your needs in terms of space and all that?
Yes, it would. And then we would turn it into a foundation and it means that we can receive
and welcome more people because we will have a more solid ground, literally. If we can't
achieve that, then we will have to trust that God wishes as well. We're not going to give up.
Then we will continue to collect things until we can buy something else. Because I truly believe
in this foundation to create this non-judgmental space that will continue past us that live now.
We have information about it in the website and anyone that contributes anything, it goes
only to that. There is no administration fees, there's nothing. It definitely will
either be this farm or something else that will show itself to be the one.
Do you know the story of the old man and the boy walking on the beach and seeing a lot of starfish?
Do you know that story?
No.
this relates to what you're talking about here. So an old man and a boy were walking along the beach
and the tide had gone out and there were just thousands of starfish as far as I could see that
were lying on the shore and drying up in the sun. And you know they're all going to die if they
didn't get back in the water but they couldn't get back in the water. So as they walked along
every few steps the old man would bend down pick up a starfish and throw it in the water.
And after a while the boy said to him, "Why bother? What difference can it possibly make?
There are thousands of them. What difference can you make? So when the boy said that, the man reaches
down, picks up another one, throws it in the water and says, "Made a difference to that one."
- Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
- So you're Peter Place. I mean, people might think, "Okay, there are millions of animals
in the world. There are 22 million pigs in Iowa. There are all this stuff. What can your little
farm with 150 animals do?" But it not only makes a difference to the animals that you actually treat
or help, but something like that is like a beacon or a transmitter that creates a quality
in collective consciousness that is sorely needed in the world and that may in fact be multiplied
if your transmitter is bright enough or strong enough or whatever, such that more things like
that will crop up and collective consciousness will change and, you know, will help to bring
about the transformation that we were talking about earlier to what society actually needs to be,
if it's to survive and flourish.
- Exactly. If we get a chance to talk again, that's what the Jordanian horses are really
speaking about. The connection between the transformation of the individual and how that
affects society and how that cannot be taken apart from each other. So I guess it counts.
It's like every glimpse counts, every intention counts.
Yeah, they say that there are yogis in the Himalayas who just live in a cave, but they radiate an influence without which humanity would be much worse off.
I truly believe that.
Yeah, something like what you're doing I see in a similar way. It creates an influence that is sorely needed and that really helps the world in a much bigger way than people might realize is possible.
A couple more questions came in, might as well ask them, they're kind of goofy and a little
out of context with this grand conclusion we just reached.
Here's one from a fellow named Srinath in Dallas, Texas.
I'm sure your answer to this is yes, can you converse with cows as you can with horses?
Yes.
They probably speak a different language, but you can converse.
It's like everything that is alive, if everything that is alive knows that it's alive, there
is always a meeting point.
Yeah, I mean you have several stories in the book of communicating with trees and those trees had a lot of interesting things to say.
Here's one from Sriram Ganesh in Chennai, India.
When you say not all eggs are meant to be chickens, certain eggs are meant to be eaten, who decides it, the egg or the eater?
Will not this concept that things are meant to be eaten justify anything?
That is a very good question.
Does the pig decide he wants to be food instead of live his life as a pig?
We need more time, that's for sure. Yeah, it's right. I wouldn't say...
When you use the phrase "meant to be", it's complicated.
I think what the chicken meant is that not every egg will be a chicken.
Some eggs will be food.
Who decides how much is free will and how much of our actions is guarded because of what we choose
and how much can we choose?
And how much of our actions is because we are unconsciously acting on the greater good?
We wouldn't know that, would we?
No.
Okay.
And how much does our awakening change one of the horses that really made the basis of
this school?
It's like, so where are we going with this then?
Well, one of the things is freedom, not freedom to do whatever we want, but freedom to truly
choose because we are not so tied to our identifications.
So we are not just pulled by forces.
Have more discernment or discrimination.
And how much will that choice change the entirety and the ability for others to do that?
I mean, all of that is in that question about the egg, right?
Yeah, it's interesting.
Alrighty, this has been great, Emily.
I really enjoyed this.
I liked your book, and I like talking to you even more than your book.
So thanks so much.
Thanks for what you're doing, and thanks to those who've been listening or watching.
I'll obviously have a page up on Backgap with a little bit more about Emily and links to
her books and links to her website and so on, so that you can go there.
There's a lot of interesting things to read on the website.
You know, hopefully people listening to this will contribute to you financially, some may
want to come for courses, and I just really hope it helps to boost everything you're doing,
because I think what you're doing is really important and beautiful.
hopefully just the inspiration that might come or just challenging the thoughts to something
that wasn't before.
And we're constantly changing.
I mean, the website is changing.
So much is happening now.
And forms of meeting and teaching, that part feels very hopeful.
That's why I believe that we're not meant to shut down.
We're meant to find the next level of ground.
Just also in this case, it's the ground literally.
Yeah, I was reminded again of my teacher who was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and very early in
his mission he was sitting in some redwood forest in California with a small group of
people and he was the only teacher at that point of Transcendental Meditation and he
was talking about these big plans of getting everybody in the world to meditate or lots
of people and someone said, "Well, how in the world can you do that?
You're just one man."
He said, "I'll replicate myself."
So I hope what you're doing can actually result in people establishing things similar to yours.
Yes, yes.
All over the world.
And that is happening.
It starts to happen, actually.
It is hopeful.
Lots of work to do, but it's also hopeful.
Great.
Okay, well thank you.
My next interview will be towards the end of the month and I'm going to be talking with
two people that I've interviewed previously, but on different topics.
topic of this one is going to be about what's going on with extraterrestrials. Are they really
visiting us? And we're not going to spend too much on that. We're going to kind of jump to
the conclusion that they are, but then we're going to get into a why. Does it have some
kind of spiritual significance? I think it's going to be an interesting conversation for me,
at least. So that's why I'm doing it. But anyway, I hope you'll join us for that. And there's an
upcoming interviews page on batgap.com where you can see what we've got scheduled coming up. All
Alright, thanks Emily.
Thank you.
We'll be in touch.
Thanks to those who've been listening or watching.
We'll see you around.
Bye bye.
Bye.