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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest this week is Anatta Campbell. Welcome.
Anatta Campbell: Hi, Rick.
Rick Archer: Hi,
Anatta Campbell: It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve been seeing your face on lots of interviews and love everything you say.
Rick Archer: Oh great, thanks. And you’ve written a book called The ordinary Buddha, which is based upon or motivated by, I would say, to some extent, the same thing that motivated me to do this show, which is to highlight or, you know, sketch out, present different ordinary people who’ve had a spiritual awakening. And you go from the well known, such as Adyashanti and Byron Katie to a lot of people whom no one has ever heard of. But it’s very enjoyable book, I read most of it.
Anatta Campbell: Oh, I’m so happy. I, you know, they weren’t well known when I interviewed them.
Rick Archer: That’s why you’re able to get ’em.
Anatta Campbell: a long time coming. That’s why I was able to get them.
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Anatta Campbell: I was spending time with Byron Katie a lot and hanging out in Barstow where she was at the time. And I did two interviews with her. And then Adyashanti, had just started. He had been doing it for a little while, but he was so kind to let me come and my friend came and him and his wife, it was it was beautiful.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and they’re good interviews. I mean, I interviewed Adyashanti. And I’ve listened to a lot of his stuff. And I learned all kinds of things about them in your interview that about him in your interview that I hadn’t known.
Anatta Campbell: That’s what I’m hoping,
Rick Archer: yeah,
Anatta Campbell: personal.
Rick Archer: And Katie, too. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff in there that I hadn’t known about are so enjoyable to read. So after all this interviewing and, you know, decades of spiritual pursuit, what have you concluded?
Anatta Campbell: Ah, there is a conclusion. And they only recently came to that, you know, I’ve been writing this book since 1995. And my experience was in 93. So it’s a long time coming. And I felt compelled to do this. So just recently, I got it. What it’s telling me is that there is no path, there’s no one way, right, there might be a path for you. Or they may not be a path. So it’s just very unique to each individual. And also that every awakening is yours alone and unique. Because nobody experiences awakening in the same way. From what I’ve seen, and read and heard, and since then, too.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I would agree with both of those conclusions myself. I mean, there are some common elements, obviously. But everybody has slightly different flavor of it.
Anatta Campbell: Slightly.
Rick Archer: Sometimes radically,
Anatta Campbell: yes. And it’s like, you know, I had, my thing was one angle, somebody else had another angle or side of it. And, you know, like, I’ve heard it said, like, the diamond, where there’s many facets and, you know, I had this facet of seeing clearly truth, and reality, and somebody else had this facet. And, and so to me, it’s, it’s fascinating. That’s really interesting. More facets and fascinating. The each one is so unique. But the bottom line is, there’s a bottom line for me what awakening is, which is the realization that you are not who you thought you were, yeah, you’re something else, that you had no idea. And there was no way you could ever see it until you did. So. So there’s that commonality, and then the complete, you know, and then the differences subtle or, or huge or whatever.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I’ve heard it said that, you know, we’re all kind of like different reflectors and according to our makeup, which could be discussed in terms of Ayurveda, for instance, or in terms of other models, one or another, quality of life, the absolute might be predominant. So, for one person, it might be more bliss and for another person, more vastness and for another more of a knowingness and, and you know, obviously, all those elements are there, but there could be different balances of them according to one’s constitution. And even in the whole Vedic thing that the different Rishis was said to cognize different aspects of the Veda according to their particular lineage of their chakra their for their particular makeup. I imagine it could even be sort of analyzed in terms of genetics. But we’re all like these little filters, which are kind of, you know, lenses or something which are all kind of seeing the same thing, but putting a different flavor on it according to our own constitution.
Anatta Campbell: Exactly the I don’t have to talk. I really feel like when I hear you speaking and answering and discussing with people that I go, Yes, yours is the one that I have the biggest Yes, for. So that’s exactly the my conclusion without knowing these books and ideas, or truth. Is that Yeah, it has to do with, you know, like, I’m not, you know, I’m not Ganga Ji. I like her colors. But because I’m not one to sit in front of people. I don’t have that eloquence. I don’t have you know, I was listening to trips. Over overall interview. Yeah, who’s a friend of mine. He’s awesome. But it was it was great watching. But His thing was, I am as awake as, as anybody, you know. And, and I agree with that. And then you had your, your side. I’m like the as awake as the awakening where you just lose yourself, or know you’re not there. You know, if that’s clear, and that’s the same. But as far as me sitting in front of a group of people, and just emanating what these people emanate, that’s not my personality. That’s where I see the difference.
Rick Archer: Oh, we all have different roles to play. You know. I mean, Kabir was a weaver. He just sat and spun his loom or whatever it was, and wrote this beautiful poetry and maybe it wasn’t his thing to get in front of hundreds of people.
Anatta Campbell: I’m a hairdresser.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there you go.
Anatta Campbell: I love it.
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Anatta Campbell: and it’s Satsang all day long.
Rick Archer: I mean, I just shot he was a bicycle mechanic before he got into being, you know, a teacher. So and we go through different phases to I mean, five years from now, who knows, you might be sitting up in front of a crowd, you never know.
Anatta Campbell: I’m willing, wherever it takes me.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anatta Campbell: The other thing about what you were saying about the different aspects of awakening based on personality, and then there’s, like you say, there’s, there’s the blissful, there’s the vastness, there’s the emptiness, there’s oneness. There’s all of these aspects to it. And what I’m finding now, and things have been happening still, you know, it’s ongoing. It’s 20 years since my awakening it 20 years until my awakening and 20 years since. So it’s interesting, because new things are coming to me.
Rick Archer: Some people might conclude from that, that you’re only 40 years old, I’ll let them
Anatta Campbell: I’m 42. I’m 68. So yeah, yeah, a long time on this path. And there’s so many aspects. Now I already
Rick Archer: you were saying, I interrupted you, you’re saying it was 20 years in the making, and then 20 years since
Anatta Campbell: so what’s happening there, there is this deepening. And the deepening what happened to me just recently was through dreams and this and that happened and different experiences, I realized that my thing was emptiness, no self. That’s what not to mean. And Papaji says, that means I don’t exist. And I said, you understand? That’s exactly it. That I would just didn’t exist. And so there’s so much freedom. You know, when you’re not there to worry about what anybody thinks of you, or you can’t worry about anything. This is nothing to worry about. So there’s that. But then, recently, I realized through the things that happened that I was attached to my emptiness. So another identification, like obvious Shanti said in the book and probably read, you become attached to your own awakening, or your identity as an awakened person. And at that time when I interviewed him, I think it was 99 or something. I was getting that. Oh, yeah, I can see, but even now, now I’m attached to the printer then nobody. So what I was missing, it started coming in is presence. And that’s like new. So here 20 years later, here comes a new facet of the, um, the diamond.
Rick Archer: Well, you know, there were several quotes from your book that I wrote down because they, I feel so kind of strongly about this perspective and the importance of it, and then several of your interviewees stated it very beautifully. For instance, here’s one from Adyashanti. He said, even now with me The mystery is just beginning, always still beginning. And then Jeff said, lately I have been having this feeling that it’s just beginning. That my experience is just an opening a start a door opening, yet it’s a long process to bring that into day to day life. It’s like this thing wants to transform my life. So it goes slowly into different aspects of the personality. And then Ronnie said, although it has been three or four years, I still feel like a baby. And, personally, you know, I think this is such an important point, because there’s a tendency for people to hang up their hat at so many different stages of the process and conclude that it’s done, it’s finished, you know, game is over. And I personally have the attitude that, like I just found, he said, it’s always still beginning. And we don’t know how much wonder and, you know, richness there is yet to unfold, you know, on the big scale of things, you know, they’re, you know, Ramana Maharshi was just beginning and who knows what he could grow into. So, so that’s why I took issue with trip a little bit when he said, You know, there’s not an inch of daylight between me and Ramana Maharshi? I’d say, on the one hand, yes, there’s a level on which that’s true. On the other hand, there is a vast range of possibilities for embodiment and unfoldment. And infusion of, you know, that absolute value into relative life.
Anatta Campbell: That’s it. And that’s exactly my See, this is why I knew this was going to be a difficult interview, because I have nothing to disagree with you. I think we’re just on the same understanding. And maybe it’s a maturity, because when I first had my experiences, which were a couple of them. I thought I was done. I was so done, you know, because 20 years of looking for something, and then you find it, and here’s you open this gift box. It’s right there. Why do you don’t need anything else? Right. And so I literally walked around in that for about eight months. And then I went home to visit my parents. And I crashed.
Rick Archer: You know that saying by Ram Das don’t you, “if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your parents”.
Anatta Campbell: I know. And, yeah, and then trying to what, what brought me down wasn’t my family, actually, my dad had passed, but my mom and my siblings, I brought Gandhiji videos, because I thought now I’m gonna bring this to them. They’re gonna wake up, it’s gonna be awesome. And they didn’t even they didn’t get it. They watch the video. That was that was generous. But they didn’t get it now at Oh, no, you know, I can’t, I can’t share this with the people I really want to share it with. But now here’s 20 years later, and I had a conversation with my sister on the phone from New York. And who’s a Christian, although now she does yoga, and she’s you know, broaden. But we had a soft song on the phone. And I was amazed. It was just amazing. She was ready to hear it. So it’s still ongoing. I don’t even know where I started with this point. But
Rick Archer: Well we were talking about, you know that it’s always still beginning and
Anatta Campbell: It’s all still beginning.
Rick Archer: And there’s a kind of an innate human tendency to sort of want to latch on, you said you’re talking earlier about attachment is there’s a tendency to want to sort of attach to whatever realization has happened and consider that to be final. I don’t know why. I mean, there’s even a strong tendency for people to attach just to the initial understanding of oneness I read this article in What is Enlightenment magazine the other day by this guy that he was talking about how he was an incorrigible Neo Advaita fundamentalist during high school, because, you know, he had just hypnotized himself with this notion that it’s all an illusion. And so everything can be brushed off by that notion, you know, global warming bah, you know, and famine, ha it’s all an illusion. And he nearly flunked out of high school. And that was his wake up call, because he was just so disconnected from the quote unquote, real world because he didn’t consider it real. And then, you know, he matured out of that, but there’s a, there’s a tendency to get hung up at that level. So, and I think there’s a ten, there’s a possibility, and it’s not uncommon for people to have had a profound, abiding awakening, and yet, for some reason, to just rest there and perhaps for the rest of this lifetime, and not move on. And yet, moving on is possible. And
Anatta Campbell: yeah,
Rick Archer: maybe next lifetime, whatever.
Anatta Campbell: I think that’s where life comes in and pushes you off, you know, back into reality, quote, unquote, reality that we know isn’t, but I was, I was on that, you know, where it’s nothing matters. It’s all perfect. And, you know, it’s kind of a nice place to be. And then you kind of, then there’s a, there’s a maturing, and it’s like, and I think the maturing is, and then when I say you know, I said I was enlightened because I was, to me, that’s what I was looking for. Thing Is it? And then now I call it an awakening, you know, because Enlightenment is a word that means maybe more than that. And then the deepening happens. And the deepening is the real thing for me, is bringing that, you know, huge understanding, which is almost like naive. It’s huge. And it’s the truth. It’s reality. It’s the reality. But now it brings it into, well, why am I on this planet? Yeah, I’m here for something. So I think it’s, it’s bringing it, having that knowing is incredible. And then bringing it into daily life, like in alignment. And so when you bring that in, that’s the fullness, you know, of awakening, or whatever you want to call it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I’m always hesitant to use the E word myself, because it has this sort of static superlative connotation. And, you know, so like, you’re used to just say, an awakening, you know, I mean, and there are many awakenings. And some of them are very significant. And, you know, certain ones are perhaps irrevocable, although you never know, but if I go
Anatta Campbell: For me the irrevocable is that I know I don’t exist. Even though a lot of times I think I do. In this, it was my second experience. And I was talking to Jeff on the phone, who you mentioned earlier, at late at night. And so I’ll just tell you about this one, because it was the second one. I was completely, I was gone. But I didn’t go anywhere. Because I never had been there. So it was the recognition that I never was there. And even though I thought I was I knew it just there was nobody there, there was an energy moving through my body that I saw, literally. And the body was there. But there was no me. No personality, no, you know, structure like that. And then I knew immediately that if I ever thought that I was there, it wouldn’t be true. So that’s how I live my life. I think I’m there. But I know it’s not it’s just not true. So it’s, it’s so interesting. So, you know, like, we’re talking about the continuing and it goes on and on and on. So now 20 years later, I’m getting this presence thing, which I didn’t even know what it was. And I talked to I have a I go to a Buddhist hermitage. And I talked to him and I said, I don’t know what’s going on. But this thing keeps coming in. And he says, Well, do you want to talk more? Or do you want to talk less? And I said, Well, less. So he said, Okay, that’s good. But I didn’t know what it was. And then other things. I had a dream I started realizing it’s it’s the, the, the opposite of the emptiness, which is what I love so much the emptiness I love the desert, I love empty, you know, and now it’s this other things coming in and knocking on the door. And its presence, which I have other friends who a friend is running a book on presence, and you know, and that’s what it’s just I don’t know if it’s more joyful, because I can’t you know, you can’t compare children who you love more. But it’s it’s more joy coming in. Yeah. Filling me it’s like filling the emptiness with no thingness it’s nothing either but it’s it’s more there’s a richness that’s coming in now and and I just my whole expression, I can feel it change. It’s like what what is this? What is this? So like? Even I remember Adi Shanti saying what what is this that? What is it that I’m looking for? What is it that keeps wanting me to find it? You know, what is this move?
Rick Archer: In Sanskrit they’re these two phrases which are juxtaposed Shunyavada and Purnavada. And Shunyavada is fullness of emptiness, Purnavada is fullness of fullness. And they talk and you know that there’s that saying, you know, How’s it go? I forget the Sanskrit but you know, that is full, this is full taking fullness from fullness, fullness remains. Geez, remember, the Sanskrit lady is a real famous one. But in any case. I think these are representative of probably in you and it seems to be in your experience of phases or stages. Yeah. First one tastes the emptiness quality and then it begins to get full, you know,
Anatta Campbell: Shunyavada, as that what you said?
Rick Archer: Shunyavada, v a d a
Anatta Campbell: Shunyavada
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Anatta Campbell: I like that. I’m going to use that.
Rick Archer: Yeah except you’re, you’re moving into the Purnavada phase, which means full
Anatta Campbell: But fullness of emptiness is more what I would I would describe as my, you know, me that’s my angle on it. You know, like you say, well, however, You come into the planet with whatever you have that’s feels like my, my bag. Because it’s it’s full. It’s a full emptiness. Yeah. Love it. Shunyavada vada.
Rick Archer: one thing I thought of while you were talking that I find helpful is to sort of think of ourselves as multi dimensional. You know, you said, Okay, you were having this conversation with Jeff and you realize you were nobody or nothing. They were, you know, there was nobody there no personality. And yet, you know, we could argue that on some level, you still are somebody, you know, you were there was a, there’s somebody talking to Jeff or that person, there was certain personality characteristics that were different than Jeff’s, and so on. And I kind of find that in, I don’t mean to sound pedantic, but there’s this, there’s this another Sanskrit word called Nithya, which is dependent reality, and they use the example of a pot. So you have a pot, and there really is no pot, it’s only clay, you know, but there’s the appearance of a pot and the appearance of a pot does pot things, you know, you can put stuff in it, or use it as a drum or something. So, you know, we have and, you know, physics comes to the rescue, they’ll tell you that, you know, there is actually no gravity at a certain level of nature’s functioning, all the forces and laws and whatnot that we see governing the universe, sort of are not to be found, if you go deep enough. And yet, you know, at various strata, apparent levels of reality, they’re very much real, if you don’t think they are gonna try jumping off a building, you know, so it’s kind of like a both end way of looking at it where, you know, I have no trouble saying, You’re absolutely there is no one there. And yet, at the same time, there is and as paradoxical as those two things may be, they can get along quite well.
Anatta Campbell: Well, that’s true. And for me now, yeah. That’s what I haven’t had that experience. I know that’s true. Absolutely. It’s the biggest truth. And then I also know this is true. And I’m here like to play and to do whatever. But in that moment, I really, there was nothing. In that moment. It was nothing, even though it was talking. There was nobody talking. And I said to Jeff on the phone, I said, Well, you’re not here, your electrical impulses on the phone. You don’t exist. I don’t exist. And literally, I didn’t know if I would be dead in the morning. I just lay back down. But already before I even lay down, I brought myself back. I did that on purpose. Katie says because I said what was that? She said, and you didn’t have to she said, I didn’t have to think myself. Because I was raising a child. How am I going to do that? Yeah. But now it’s now you know, the knowings that I have, this is the thing that never goes away. That’s never changes. The self I thought I was, in my first experience, I understood that. Just not true. And the second experience, even that isn’t, there’s nothing you know. But I live a really full, full, full, full life. I am so busy, I do so many things. And and I’m raising, I raised two extra children after mine are grown, who I’m not related to. And that’s it just came to me. And it’s what I had to do, and not even what I had to do. But it was my privilege. And you know, I think I live a much bigger life. I am more expanded and free and fearless than I ever would have been if I thought I was a self. So I live I live more looks like bigger life. You know? There’s there’s less inside and that’s what’s been happening lately more, there’s a more even lately again, or Yeah, it’s like again, because I think maybe it’s waves because I kind of Yeah, it was pretty much a personality there for a while and you know, I went through a lot of stuff and But lately, it’s just feels more spacious. And there’s just this little piece of an Anita is you know, and I had this dream and I didn’t know I was saying earlier I had a dream. And I couldn’t remember my name. What am I called now? I was Karima Osho gave me the name Gary Mo. And then before that I was Patricia. And in my dream I remember those two, but I couldn’t remember what I’ve been called for the last 15 years and could not remember and I woke up I still couldn’t remember I was awake. I couldn’t remember what I’m called. And and that was coming out of some experiences that I had been having about an attachment to this Nata, which means I don’t exist. No. So I was attached to that, like as an identity. So I think it was a gift. And and in the end, I tried to remember trying to remember and I thought I think it starts with an S I couldn’t remember Shinya. So then somebody homie shouldn’t be zero. I said, I think I just need a big zero. And he said, Surely I went, Oh, there’s my s. So how I remembered my name was to visualize, I said, Okay, I have a sign at work. I know it’s my hair salon, and it has my name on it. Let me see what it says. So in my mind’s eye, and it says, not to Hair Studio. So I went, that’s the only way I can remember my name. This was fully awake. So I love that experience, because now I feel like there’s just more of a, you know, when I look inside, I don’t see that in there. Now, as an identity. It’s weird. I mean, and it’s like, almost like esoteric, and it’s a story and all of that. But it’s, it’s a good one. And it’s fun for me, you know. So I just look inside. Now I feel much more of a space, which actually connects me more with the moment. Because there’s not so much filter in the way there’s not so much veil. And, you know, I just recently spent a weekend with my mom and my niece and her three kids and the cat. And it was it was blissful. It was just blissful, going shopping, or being with the kids, and there’s just less need to be in the way to want something else. I think there’s nothing to want anything other than the perfection.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s so many, so many interesting thoughts that that stimulates. I was just talking with a friend yesterday. And he was saying, we’re kind of agreeing that we have both gone through a period of years where you just felt like, you know, get me out of here. I don’t, you know, I want to get liberated. I don’t want to reincarnate, I just you know, life is suffering, and then somehow read the whole thing turned around at a certain point. And now it’s like, I don’t care how long this goes on. This is fun.
Anatta Campbell: I think there’s something from the Course in Miracles, that somebody’s always posting these things, which I love, because they’re really true in what they say, but it’s like, being there, you know, dead floating with God, or being fully enlightened, and none in the world isn’t better than being present. It’s like we’re here. It’s not better, to be dead and in heaven with God, you know, it’s an you know, and I read a lot of stories of people who have died and have gone and it’s incredibly blissful. But this is heaven, you know, when you’re present to it, and you’re not trying to get away. Yeah, so they’re both good, it’s where you are, is the best place to be.
Rick Archer: Also, when we speak of, you know, people who have died and gone to heaven and all that we’re speaking from an individual perspective, I mean, if we, if we zoom back a little bit, you know, and kind of remember that we are that cosmic intelligence, which in which the whole universe is contained, and of which this individual expression that we somehow identify with is just one little tiny tendril among trillions of tendrils that are, you know, kind of experiencing, then, you know, and that’s really who we are. I mean, we’re not just emptiness, or silence or nothingness, we are kind of an ocean of intelligence, that is self referral, and that, you know, by interacting with itself creates this wondrous universe, you know, then it kind of puts things in perspective for me, and it sort of also gives you a sense of how profound the journey can continue to become, you know, growing into the experiential living of that rather than just the kind of conceptual entertainment of it.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah, that’s what it feels like is happening. And, you know, I like what you said before, who knows where it’s going, you know, this, this whole thing of this, this President’s knocking, you know, it’s like, what is that? You know, it’s just new. It’s, yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s not not ordinary, it’s, I don’t know, it’s who knows what’s gonna come up. But it’s not even to look for that. It’s not even to I want bigger and better. You know, this is pretty great. I mean, I look out there and I have, you know, white squirrels out there, because we live in an area that have a squirrel hanging off my bird feeder right now. It just doesn’t get better than this. And yet, we’ll see. Yeah, I’m open to whatever is that thing but in openness,
Rick Archer: there’s that beer ad where two guys are sitting in a boat fishing, and one of them is drinking beer. And one of them says, It doesn’t get any better than this.
Anatta Campbell: You were saying before, we were talking about near death experiences, and I do read that because they’re similar to awakening. They’re very similar. There’s the same understanding. When they come back from that and we come back from our awakening experience. We, it’s you live life differently. You’re changed. And yeah, somebody asked, Well, what do you get out of this? My sister when I was talking to her in New York, what what good is it to be awake? Well, there’s a list. And actually, there’s a list and I had this book that I, this is from, like 99, I gave this to my daughter, the ordinary Buddha. This is like an early manuscript. Yeah. And December 20 1999, and Adyashanti, wasn’t even in it yet. So I interviewed him after that. Here’s a good little poem on the cover, though, these are some things that are not in my book now that I want to put back in. John has some poems in my book, and just goes by John. And, and at first, on the first page, I put, I am just a container, empty inside. And a suspicion is dawning that only the space is truly alive. I thought that
Rick Archer: you know, how you’re talking a few minutes ago about how full your life is, and how busy you are, and how much you’re doing and all that stuff. I was kind of reminded of an analogy, and maybe you can tell this to your sister and answer to the question, you know, what good is it to be away. And that is that, you know, a shallow pond can only rise up in little ripples, it can’t really rise up in very big waves. But an ocean deep ocean can rise up in huge tidal waves. So, so awakening is kind of like recognizing one’s ocean hood, and it bestows the capacity to, you know, live life with much greater sort of richness and fullness and, and even enthusiasm than then if we’re constricted to narrow awareness.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah, I used to before awakening, and then after awakening, I still had this tendency a little bit after, but I would get very depressed at times. And I would just not clinical because it would go away, you know, but I would go to bed and pull the cover over my head and not want to move and just, you know, disappear. And, you know, it’s kind of good, because I did disappear, you know, in a way. But I used to really have that a lot. And then afterwards, you know, that was, you know, it would creep in a little bit, but it would just, it would just leave because it wasn’t sort of needed. But you know, the thing about releasing my book now, after all these years, I wasn’t ready. I think, you know, I was trying to get it released and wasn’t happening and all this stuff. But I think that my ego was still present, you know, sort of too much. I didn’t want to be exposed. So it’s really interesting about the bigness and fullness and deepness and all of that, that allows you to be and do, because now, I don’t care if you think I’m an egoist, because I’m saying that I had an awakening, or I’m telling you my experiences, because I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. There’s not enough there to care. What you think, even if you think you know, and so I just think there was that was part of the maturing, you know, that’s finally this book came out now it’s like, it’s it is what it is, this is just what happened. But there are a whole bunch of things that I that I have in this old book that I don’t have now, the first response is tremendous relief, the search is over, that was huge, for me was just like, celebration, you know, we have discovered our true nature, I’m gonna read it all but freedom from the small self, the detachment from the ego. It’s just this freedom of not worrying about what that’s doing as much. And I used to want to in the beginning, I used to want that to go away. You know, because I had this other it was a Buddha is what I saw my first experience, it was the Buddha, me the Buddha. And what I got from that was your the Buddha and there isn’t anybody that isn’t. So I recognize that the energy of the Buddha, the peace and contentment and the freedom, the beauty that everybody so that’s what everybody gets when they get awake, they get that, you know, that download, like on a Sunday set of insights. But I still then there with this personality, it’s like, let’s get away from it, you know, just annoying. But now it’s like, oh, well, I don’t even care about it. It’s still there. You know, we’ll just love it. Yeah, and then there’s the search is over. So there’s a freedom there a sense of peace, a sense of trust, tendency to act spontaneously. So that’s huge. It’s like whatever comes to me, like Adyashanti said, what somebody said, what, how do I know what to do? He said, the next obvious thing.
Rick Archer: You know, I love that too. In fact, there’s a book I was gonna mention earlier by Suzanne Siegel, called collision with the infinite.
Anatta Campbell: I read that.
Rick Archer: Have you? Yeah, so that’s one of her catchphrases. And, and the reason I was gonna mention it is you’re talking about sort of the realization of emptiness. And in her case, it was so sudden and unexpected that it induced great fear because she kept looking for a self.
Anatta Campbell: I was afraid too
Rick Archer: Yeah, couldn’t find one.
Anatta Campbell: When I disappeared. I didn’t know if I was gonna die. It was like you said, Yeah, Right, but after what it was, when you adjust a bit, yeah, after we were like, oh, freedom. Scary. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And in her case, she went on for 10 years until she got with John Klein, John Klein, and he kind of who was Francis, Lucille’s teacher, and he sort of made her realize that, hey, this is a good thing. Just relax.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah, yeah,
Rick Archer: stop looking for a self, you know?
Anatta Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s clinical. I mean, it’s a psychosis to not know who you are. And you know, people go to mental hospitals for that when they just connect with, you know, but that’s not why we’re really talking about, there’s a couple of acceptance of all life’s good and bad. Gratitude, enjoyment, and love. Those are, those are things and what I don’t see in here is creativity. You open up to so much more creativity. I didn’t, I wasn’t creative before this. And then afterwards, I was,
Rick Archer: yeah, well, look at the universe again, you know, look at look at a single cell, and look at how much intelligence and creativity and in our plant or bird or anything, is, goes into forming that expression. And if that’s the if that if that source of all all wife and all, you know, creation is also what we are, you know, which I think intuitively we know, it is, then think how much creativity is there think how much intelligence is there? You know, and to what extent can we be channel for that a reflector of that, the possibilities are endless. And when you mentioned bliss, you know, that’s another, you know, stop Chetananda That’s one of the characteristics of that. And so if a person is feeling depressed, maybe there’s just some blockage, that’s preventing the bliss from flowing, because if the, you know, there should be no room for depression, if the bliss is obstructed, the flow of it,
Anatta Campbell: yeah, and these are all things that, you know, have, like, with a maturing or deepening process have grown and become more and more,
Rick Archer: and will continue to grow
Anatta Campbell: Will continue. But I went through a really difficult time I have, like I said, these two children, they’re the grandchildren of the man I was living with. And, but that relationship wasn’t going well. Even, you know, and, and it was really hard. You know, and, and we ended it, which was a good thing. But you know, there was, I remember just being so down, you know, and I still the bliss is heaven, I know it. And this is years later, after all these experiences that, you know, there’s an alignment, this is Adi Shanti. I did a group with him early on, which was called embodiment, embodiment group he did early on. So people who came already had had these experiences, and now you want to embody it. And that’s what really goes on. And that’s why I think life, you know, kicks your butt and throws these things in, like this relationship, which was, it was good. And I got these two children to raise. So it was perfect for karma for me. And then and, you know, it was good, but it’s interesting that I could still be in, you know, this is hard, you know, that was hard. But I never lost myself, you know, you know, it’s always there. But you have to, so getting rid of that relationship was a way to bring me back into alignment. You know, that was off. And I knew it was off and I did it anyway. So it’s like, you kind of know, I mean, I think after you wake up or even probably before, you know, we all know what’s right. And when we don’t do it, it’s we’re off off center off kilter. And we don’t feel good. So even now, I went to So Brian, who just you interviewed, starts with a P, paragraph C? I don’t know Brian, fair. Grossie. Yeah, Eric Grossie. I picked up the equipment from him because he’s in Nashville. last interview, which was really fun, and I had wanted to go to one of his meetings. But one of the persons there it was a beautiful meeting with him and young people, just beautiful young people and some older but here’s these kids that I was in India with in 1980. Here they are, again, you know, the same kids they look like and they’re saying they’re just they’re just beautiful, but one of them was talking about addiction. And how you can be awake but if you’re in your addiction, you know you’re not going to be vetting him use the word awake, but you can be really good and all this wonderful stuff happening. But then you have this addiction, which is taking you away. And I I relate to that because even for me it’s food. So it’s sugar, and you know, the white stuff and and all of that and if I’m wrong Really let myself be in that I lose my alignment. So it’s interesting. So we can still be as awake. And like Tripp says not not a breath of air between me and anybody. But at the same time if I’m in my addiction, I sure don’t feel that way.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well Nisargadatta was apparently addicted to nicotine, you know, and it killed him.
Anatta Campbell: And Papaji and I was with Osho. And with Papaji. They’re both diabetic sugar. They said that Osho I heard could eat 20 apples a day, they had to keep him from eating 20 apples today. And I know a lot of your Santee, I mean, poverty, a candy, because he fed us candy, which I ate, when I was there, if you’ve given me candy, I’m gonna eat it. But you know, they still have that. But for me, it’s like I have to, if I want to stay really free, and stay awake. I have to watch how I live, what I put into my body who I associated with even and, you know, and bring your alignment back into the wholeness and happiness that you know. And like I said, I think whether you’re had an awakening experience or not, you know what’s right for you. And it’s important to live what you know, is right and have the courage to do that.
Rick Archer: Well, I think if you listen to it, that, you know, the kind of the inner barometer, or whatever, it becomes more and more sensitive, and you get more intuitive, and that there’s a, you know, the discriminating faculty is not alien to Enlightenment. In fact, it’s, I think, instrumental in bringing it about, and, you know, you can, you can begin to trust your intuitions more. And, in fact, there’s, there’s a Sanskrit phrase called Ritam, Bhara Pragya. And it’s that, that level of intellect, which knows only truth, and it said that if you’re kind of operating from that level, then you can, you know, clearly discriminate between anything and record recognize, you know, and even to note to experience something, I mean, you can sort of take the thought of an apple on, you know, the mental level and experience the apple and its fullness, even though there is no actual Apple, although perhaps, you know, extrapolating, you know, beyond that could be instrumental in how people can manifest apples or, you know, Loaves and Fishes or whatever, if they’ve got that developed to a great enough extent,
Anatta Campbell: I believe in miracles. I mean, I think there’s some things about this awakening, and all of that, where Osho used to call it esoteric, both it because he couldn’t say sh, esoteric books. And, and so I, you know, wasn’t, I’m not, I’m not a new age, kind of person, because I’m not into all of that. And yet, you know, and yet, I’ve had experiences that that are those that people talk about, so I don’t discount anything. Everything is possible
Rick Archer: jet planes are miracles, you know, go back, go back 150 years, and then have a jet plane fly over and see how people would react
Anatta Campbell: How am I talking to you right now. And
Rick Archer: yeah, right. Exactly.
Anatta Campbell: Radio was a miracle. I mean, I was walking around one day, years and years ago, and, and I just went, Oh, my God, television, how is that I all of a sudden was like in the 1800s. And I was looking at it from that perspective, and looking at the world, and just how this is all a miracle,
Rick Archer: so called miracles, and they’re just utilization of laws of nature, which are not very well known. So we call them miracles. If it’s possible to walk on water, then there must be certain laws of nature, which if one can master them would enable one to do that? And, you know, we’ll see. But, you know, obviously, it’s something very rare. And so we call it a miracle. If we lived in a society in which everyone met had that kind of mastery, then it’d be like, oh, yeah, so what you know.
Anatta Campbell: Exactly. But, you know, for me, I was talking to a lady who had, you know, when I said, when I’m doing hair, it’s like, Satsang, often, because somebody will ask something, and I’ll say something, and then they’ll answer and then it’s like, I say, there’s a new, there’s a new coming out, coming out of the closet thing. It used to be, well, if you’re gay, you know, you didn’t let people know now you come out of the closet, and you can be a little proud of that and whatever. But now, it’s like, Oh, I’ve had those experiences. Don’t tell anybody. You know, but I’m gonna just tell you, so it’s like they’re coming out with these amazing things that have happened. That’s just hasn’t been discussed. It’s a whole new coming out of the closet. But this lady was talking about her dog died. And she came back to her at a time when she needed her and she was there and there was the golden for her and, and it was a beautiful experience for her and she helped her With another dog that was sick, that she couldn’t get to take his eardrums. So, and she just couldn’t it was 150 pound dog and all of this stuff and, and then she said, then the dog said, I’ll help you, you know, came to her. That’s what helped you. And she’s like, Okay, so the next time she went to do dog dog lay down on the floor, and I thought to myself, the dog was sitting on him. And that’s what she said, I get chills. That’s what she said. She said, I asked her if she said I was sitting on him. So that’s why he lay down, like the cheek with the drug. But, you know, that’s just one thing that she doesn’t tell anybody but me, you know, nobody’s gonna
Rick Archer: because he’s just people are gonna think they’re weird.
Anatta Campbell: For me, so I was. So my experience was one of, you know, a woowoo kind of experience of seeing my dad had died when he was 54. And I went into a meditation because somebody else because like I say, I’m not New Agey, but I went to this meditation, and she was looking at who’s what are the spirits are around us? And I said, Okay, that’s interesting. So I went home, and I started looking, and I looked for Osho. And he was there, you know, I could feel it. But then my dad came in, and it was him. It was truly him. Because for one thing, there was a fragrance that I realized I always knew was his. But when we’re on this plane, we have, we have an actual smell vision, and all these things get in the way of the essence. So there was like a flavor of fragrance as I knew it was him. And then I said, Well, now you’re going to be sorry. Now you’re going to apologize for all the times you smacked me, or did you know he’s Italian, you know, and he never beat me or anything, but just all the things I was mad at, you know? And he said, No, I’ve never I’ve said he didn’t say it in words. It’s like, so it’s like, you know, it’s the thing, because it’s not words. It’s not imagination, if there’s a fragrance there, and then instead of apologizing, like I said, now he’s with God, he’s going to apologize, because he knows he’s on the other side. He knows what he did wrong. He said, I did it perfectly. I played my role perfectly. And I was shocked. I couldn’t have made that up. You know, how would I? I don’t believe that, you know, so that was so huge for me, because number one, it showed me there are other things other than you know, what, what is that? Shakespearean?
Rick Archer: There’s more in this heaven, right than then is contained in all your philosophies.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah. Or imagination or anything. So yeah, that one that came to me, but so now I knew there was more and I don’t know if he’s there or what that was, but I know that I got a message. And, and it was his fragrance. That was huge. But the other thing is, I can’t do it wrong. Now, I can’t do it wrong. And I’ve done a lot of things that I shouldn’t have done. I don’t think you know, or acted as, but now I just from that, I just felt like well, none of us can do it wrong. So I mean, I was thinking about this interview, it’s like, well, people don’t go there, you know, with these things. In this thing. Yeah. But but there’s also there’s just more things in heaven and earth.
Rick Archer: Oh, a lot of my interviews have been pretty Ogopogo. Anita Moorjani for one thing, I mean, she’s a well known near death experience person, so that there’s that. And there have been a number of others just because, you know, I kind of have this attitude that it’s, you know, like you say they’re, they’re more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are contained in all your philosophies. There’s, I mean, and I think the reason you and I both probably are a little leery of the New Age scene is, which seems a little passe. Now, I mean, it’s been a while since that, but yeah, well, it’s maybe especially in Nashville is is that if that becomes one’s predominant focus, one can get lost and, and all this kind of, you know, extraneous stuff, which is ultimately not, you know, the, the ground state that we’re looking for. And so, you know, but if, if that ground state has been established, then perhaps there’s a little bit of freedom to explore some of these things without getting lost in them. And you know, marshy always used to use the analogy of capturing a fort so that it’s like a territory and there’s all these mines around the territory, gold and silver and diamond. And if you go after exploring those mines, but you haven’t first captured the fort, then the territory doesn’t belong to you, and you’re just going to be wasting your time going after one little thing, as opposed to owning the whole territory and you could also just get lost endlessly in this that the other thing without really, you know, getting to the goal,
Anatta Campbell: that’s that’s a great analogy. I love that. But I actually did I did a few talks on my bike, I just hit it about my book. And, you know, I really wanted to get into awakening, you know, what is it for you and that you are the ordinary Buddha and how to discover that and, and but there were some people who were just in, you know, in the new agey realm, and really took it off topic, you know, for me, and took it into, well, we’re going to go and we’re going to do this thing, and then we’re going to change the weather because there’s a storm coming, you know, and it’s like, no, we’re not. You know, the point for me is, there’s a storm coming. Yay. Get out the skis. And I, I’m with Katie, who says, I don’t argue with God. Right? You know, because I’m always gonna lose that she says that, haven’t you noticed? Right? Or we’re gonna lose? Haven’t you noticed? And I have noticed? And I don’t argue with God, I don’t want to argue with God, I don’t want to make it different. You know, I want to celebrate this. And, you know, right here right now.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, you know, there’s that alcoholics pledge of that saying, you know, changing things you can change, not not changing the things you can’t and having the wisdom to know the difference. So, you know, I’ll get down to the real nitty gritty, and we are God, we are that we are. So we have a certain latitude to certain freedom to exercise influence, but only to a certain extent, you know,
Anatta Campbell: that’s my favorite prayer. Yeah, I grant me the serenity, to accept the things that cannot change, and change the things I can and that’s, that’s where it you know, what, that’s such a great prayer, because it brings the absolute and the relative together, and it brings it into alignment. Because on this planet, you know, raising the kids I’m raising, I can change something there. I can do something, you know, and not to say, Oh, well, it’s all nothing and Dell, you know, it’s all in God’s hands. It’s it’s not. Yeah, we we’ve seen people go to either extreme weather, I disliked why, you know? Yeah,
Rick Archer: yeah, neither. Either poll, you can see, you know, some people, I have to control everything. And they’re like, you know, practically, their heads exploding, they’re trying so hard to control everything. And the other extreme, you see people, like you just said, you can’t do anything, there’s no one to do it, everything happens always. There’s, there’s a kind of a balance point between those things.
Anatta Campbell: I think I’m pretty balanced now. Because I’ve had both of those voted, I was trying to control everything in my head explodes, you can ask my friends and family, you know, I have really done that. And then and the other just completely, you know, surrendered. So, but that’s the balance. And that’s the alignment. And that’s, I think the you know, that’s the play. Somebody said, we’re here to play this, you know, we’re here to play and to celebrate rediscovering that regard and, and you know, and then and being on the earth as well and fully present here.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, and as God having, you know, rediscovered that to whatever extent we have, you know, God obviously, is orchestrating things. And in a certain small sphere, he can orchestrate things through us, you know, within our within our capacities, we just have to know what we can orchestrate and what is not meant for us to orchestrate?
Anatta Campbell: Well, I think that’s the, you know, the Adyashanti thing, the next obvious things. Yeah. Is it to say yes. And that’s what what I’ve done, you know, the last bunch of years, it’s just I just say yes. And it leads you somewhere. And you are creating and you know, you are doing but you’re saying yes to what’s obvious to do? Yeah, it’s not fighting anymore. There’s no, I don’t really have a fight in me which way to go, or how to do anything. It’s just It’s obvious. But I’m sure
Rick Archer: you can be decisive. You know, if this was one of these kids, you’re raising says, Hey, I think I’ll become a meth addict. You know, you’re probably gonna intervene in some way.
Anatta Campbell: Believe me I can be loudly decisive. Very loudly. Yeah. They’ve heard it. But you know, what’s nice is, yeah, it’s come around, I mean, lately to just a nice place where I have to be. But no, no, it’s being fully in the world doing everything we do. I mean, if you’re, you know, I asked Gandhiji about my daughter at the time, I was raising a teenager then as well. And I said, How do I now what do I do you know, because now that I know it’s all perfect, and I’m all awake and all that and, and she, she said maybe it was even answered somebody else. She said, you’ll you’ll hugger or you’ll shake her. You’ll know what to do. You’ll hug her or you’ll shake her and that really hit me. I don’t know if I would shake her but I don’t know. But for words, I use bad words. then that really gets their attention when it’s up to here, and I was like you’re pushing it. But yeah, and then she said and the rest, and I said, you know, but she’s growing her ego now how does that work? And the girl amazing, now, she’s growing her ego, you have to get that fully developed. And I noticed, I know, when my ego was grown enough to let it go, I remember things that happened to me that I needed to feel full and, and whole and, like, accomplished, you know, in the world first. So, but she said in the rest she’ll get from you. And when she said the rest she’ll get from you. That was my acknowledgement, because I had had my experience, like the day before. I saw her and I knew, Okay, I have it to give, to share. And that was the implanting in me and and yeah, this is that.
Rick Archer: Yeah, this interesting theme about growing the ego versus diminishing it. I remember talking to somebody recently in one of the interviews about, you know, how gurus might serve, sometimes the role of humbling you. Yeah, and other times the role of emboldening you, you know, giving you confidence. And so it’s, it’s funny, I can’t make a simplistic analysis of it, but it seems that both things are needed, perhaps at different times, perhaps even at the same time, in certain ways.
Anatta Campbell: That was Osho for me.
Rick Archer: Oh, humbling.
Anatta Campbell: Both involved.
Rick Archer: Okay. Yeah.
Anatta Campbell: The humbling was one day when I was walking around living at the ranch in Oregon, and, and he had just given a talk on motherhood and how it’s just bullshit, basically. And it was like, this, you know, that’s my identity. So that wiped that one out. And I remember going around there just just in a daze, you know, you’re just throwing me off this motherhood thing. And, and, you know, after that identity, I could let that go, I was a much better mother, you know, a much better mother than having an identity, I’m the mother. But then so that was a, you know, some of those things, there were other things too, he would just flop you, you know, but then when I said this thing about lifting me was when I worked in the, in the ashram in India as a massage therapist, and you wore black robes, and everybody else were Maroon. And, and so the black robe, people were the, you know, the, the higher ups kind of, you know, the more higher sorta, I kind of needed that. So when I did that, and I was more respected, it kind of gave me a respect I needed since childhood, when I didn’t feel respected. I think I needed that, that wholeness. So whatever you accomplish in your career, whatever, and I was a good massage therapist. And, you know, I got acknowledged and that I really felt like that was like, okay, you know, that was the thing that I needed to fill a hole that was, you know, missing that. So I got both of those. He was a good, he was a good guru for me. Good Master.
Rick Archer: Hey, on that note, let’s, let’s retrace your steps a little bit. People like to hear the story of what a person has gone through, in addition to hearing whatever philosophical insights they may have to offer. Yeah. And yeah, I get feedback from people if I don’t include that in interviews. So let’s kind of start at the beginning. And take us through what you consider the significant and interesting phases of your journey.
Anatta Campbell: It’s been a lot of them. I was like a Jesus freak in the Catholic Church. And I was married to a man that I shouldn’t have been, after the years that it just wasn’t working. And,
Rick Archer: of course, it was perfect. But
Anatta Campbell: a lot, I’ll just say that. But I’ve been single for years and years and years now. But I was a Jesus freak. I was in church, like, like in tears over my love for for Jesus, who I see it was just my first group, then. And yet, I knew I needed to get divorced. So then that took me out of the church. But then I was reading a book by Osho. And it said, You have missed in many lifetimes. And the vision I had was of being with Jesus in a lifetime and being in the back of the crowd. And he said, Follow me and I didn’t. And I said, I’m not going to miss. I’m not going to miss in this lifetime.
Rick Archer: So Jesus freak ended up reading a no show book because he had been ostracized from the church.
Anatta Campbell: No, no. I was sicker since I was a teenager. I used to want to be a nun and then I found out boys were more fun. So I didn’t become a nun. I was always looking for God. I really feel that from young men. Young I was in love with the saints who have children and all of that. And
Rick Archer: so when you say you are Jesus freak, do you mean you were fundamentalist and everybody’s going to hell except
Anatta Campbell: for oh no, oh my gosh, no,
Rick Archer: not that they you just are an ardent devotee of Jesus.
Anatta Campbell: I was in love with with his awaken, you know, self, right? And oh, none of that. And when I was eight years old, and they told me, you, you can’t associate with literally, somebody said from the church you can’t associate with divorce people. I had an aunt who was divorced, I said, Oh, no, I was like, eight years old or seven? Said No, that’s wrong. I never bought into anything. I always had an open heart, I think and I kind of got what was real and true. So I was looking for real truth. So anyway, then I found Osho. Because I was seeker. I was looking, I was reading about Easter Island, I was reading the books I was doing. I had a yoga teacher from India that would come and you know, and I would go to I would do all these things seeking. And I was married and I had children. And I was still I was like a hippie in but in a in a kind of a more. I didn’t do drugs, you know, that gun. Not that way. But anyway, I found this book that said, you know, you’ve missed and I said I’m not going to miss I’m going to follow this man. So I did. And I wound up I saw meetings with remarkable men one time, that wonderful movie about Gorjuss and I said have to go to India. And that was it. I went to India and me you know housewife with kids. What am I going to India for? I had to go I was so compelled this this path has been dragging me you know, like, I there’s no way I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t I went to India. I had kids, I shouldn’t have left my kids and I did. And I was with Osho there I went many times with him. And he knocked off like I said, knocked off attachments and identifications, you know, right and left it was it was a great experience. It was a lot of fun. And no I didn’t have orgies. I didn’t see that happening. It wasn’t I didn’t do those groups or else. That wasn’t my thing. You know, I wasn’t interested in that. And so then from there, before we
Rick Archer: move on from Osho no looking back on your whole Osho period. What do you make of all the Rolls Royces and the laughing gas addiction and the Howard Hughes like phobias and, and all that stuff that he’s reputed to have had? I mean, do you see it as just sort of a man who kind of got got older and even as enlightened as he may have been? Got a little wacky as he got older or the care? It has benefited from it.
Anatta Campbell: I don’t even care because the Rolls Royces were fun. Who cares? It’s cars. I mean, it was an investment. He didn’t own them. They were owned by the community. They were in a so called investment, whether they were good one or not. It was just fun. And yeah, wacky. I, you know, I read also, after the, what is it after the
Rick Archer: after the ecstasy of the launch? Jack Kornfield.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah, after the ecstasy, the laundry, these people there, he was as awake as anybody can be. And he was human. Because this is the thing, you know, if I eat too much sugar, I go off, you know, it’s like I have to watch out. And the laughing gas, he you know, he was having worked on in his teeth, and he liked it. So I don’t know that that is a part that I don’t I don’t know about I wasn’t there. I know him, you know, from his speaking. And he would say a lot of contradictory things. And what I love about that is he would say one thing that was absolutely true. And another thing that was absolutely true. Like you’ve said, I’ve heard you say, and that’s my understanding. Now, they’re both true.
Rick Archer: You don’t, even though they can contradict one another. Yeah.
Anatta Campbell: And I could see then what he was giving me was not a black and white. But around this, you know, I could see I got so much from him. He was really my master. I’ve never had another master. I’ve had a lot of teachers and I still have a lot of teachers. But he was incredible. Yeah. And he, you know, I don’t know about the laughing gas. Somebody sent me a friend Morgan sent me this thing, and I’m like a book on it. And I read it. And I was like, Well, it’s kind of fun. It just didn’t seem like that big of a deal. He wasn’t killing anybody. He wasn’t raising children. You know, it wasn’t right. And I have had that in my life and around me and I know that that happens. So terrible things happen. But he didn’t do anything, you know, that I would ever consider terrible. He was amazing.
Rick Archer: The way I’ve come to terms of it. Actually, I haven’t completely but not only him, but so many groups. So many stories and you know, which seems to have some substance to them, is you know, first of all, take what you need and leave the rest Exactly. That And secondly, you know, don’t try to idealize people to the highest heaven. You know, you got to realize that, you know, we’ve all got our warts.
Anatta Campbell: And what is your ideal? I mean, maybe that’s your opinion could be a very human one on a judgement. Yeah, whether he’s he’s doing laughing as well, how does that affect me? Why do I care? If he’s not hurting somebody? I mean, I, you know, I think it’s a little weird. Yeah, you know, I could say, I don’t want to do it. But yeah, I think we judge, you know, who are we to judge, you don’t know what’s going on inside of somebody. So that I think this judgment thing, one of the things about what happens after awakening is, you know, a decreased ability to judge others a decreased ability, you can’t even do it so much. So I mean, I just don’t go there so much. But, uh, but yeah, I mean, if there’s something that’s really doesn’t feel right to you, and you’re with a teacher, leave,
Rick Archer: yeah. And another thing that, you know, I find helpful is just to sort of realize that a lot of these Indian teachers are, were raised in a certain cultural context, and may not have kind of had the, you know, it may not have ever completely adjusted to the west, and when they came there, and to understand the cultural differences, and so on. So, and perhaps had actually been able to retain blind spots, or, you know, Shadow stuff in their Indian culture, which didn’t come to light until they were transported to a western culture. And then these things kind of tripped them up a little bit. But you know, which is, again, not to say that they didn’t make a tremendous contribution and an impact on people’s lives, it’s just that cuz it’s worth considering these things. Because a lot of people when that kind of stuff comes to light, they just wash their hands of the whole thing. Yeah. And that’s, that’s sort of too extreme. For my taste. It’s more like, again, take what you need, and leave the rest and appreciate the good in it.
Anatta Campbell: These are human beings. Exactly. And I think that’s the great thing about my book. It’s the ordinary Buddha, right, you know, you are as much a Buddha as anybody else. And this is where I agree with chip on that. And yet, there’s so much more, and I don’t put me in a category with, you know, Ramana, Maharshi, or something, but, but still, he’s understanding when I read what he says, That’s my understanding, fully. You know, I don’t have any argument. I don’t have any wonder at what he says, I don’t I don’t. It’s like, yeah, that’s what we know.
Rick Archer: And if you hadn’t had the opportunity to, to live with Ramana, Maharshi, day and night and observe everything he did. Yeah, that might have been played on it. I’m sure it would have been marvelous. But even then, you might have said, there might have been certain things we said, Yeah, I don’t agree with that, you know, I think he’s, he’s, he shouldn’t enter into that. He doesn’t know anything about it. You know, because being enlightened doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna know all everything about everything.
Anatta Campbell: It doesn’t make you smarter, I’ve noticed maybe be a little wiser. But I don’t think I’m book learning smarter. But then, so there was Osho. And he was wonderful for me, and very controversial. And people have so much to say about it. And, and I lived there and I you know, lived on the ranch for three and a half months at one point. And it was just pure love. And yet, there was Sheila and stuff was going on with her that I could see. She’s going off. I could see she was losing it. In my experience with her literal experience. But Oh, she’ll start one day, just a little story to my beautiful daughter was there she was four years old at the time. And he stopped to give her something he would stop for the children use beautiful and and he didn’t have any more candy, couldn’t find anything in the car. So didn’t didn’t have anything for her that day. And so we had to. So a couple of days later, they call me and we had a meet at a certain place. And he tried to give her a bottle of wine because he still had no candy. You know what’s interesting? Well, that’s I won’t go there. But anyway, she said no kids don’t drink. So he gave it to me. But what was interesting about this whole human thing was he had his hand on the dashboard. I gave him a little gift. Somebody had given me a little little shoes that walked and he put it on his dashboard. He was cute and all that it was a sweet, very sweet moment because you didn’t get to be close to him, you know, so that was wonderful. But he had his hand on the, on the window, you know? And, and it was a little brown hand. Now when we see him, he’s up on a stage and now he’s just in a big screen. So he looks like a big guru and white or whatever gold he’s wearing and amazing stuff. I have other stories I’ve lot of stories about him but ways I saw him that I shouldn’t have seen him that with connections. But that little brown hand blew my mind. I thought oh no, you know, Oh no, it’s like finding out your parents have sex and you’re you’re 15 was older 12 or something. And it just blew my mind. I wanted to leave the ranch. Well, I thought this is ridiculous. He’s just the man. Interesting, you know. And then I did one of his meditations, Dynamic Meditation, and I just that just blew away. And I knew, it’s just an idea, my idea of how I thought he ought to be more special. Don’t have a small brown hand.
Rick Archer: Well, there’s a certain showmanship around such people. Yeah, almost, almost intentionally. Yeah. Is that impression of specialness and big you know what
Anatta Campbell: it got me there? You know, what really got me there, the book thing you’ve missed, and I didn’t want to miss because I’ve missed with Jesus. I really felt that. And his eyes. It wasn’t the showmanship, it was his eyes. I thought, what’s going on there? I never knew what Enlightenment was. I didn’t wasn’t even curious about it. I was looking for God. You know, like I said, I was a seeker. But I didn’t know what Enlightenment was that you could have something here in this life. And I saw his eyes and I said, What’s something’s cooking there. And I’ve seen that with other gurus too. Like there’s a woman I forget her name. But a beautiful woman with the same eyes, I saw a photograph and I went, Ah, she has Osho eyes. This was before I had my own, you know, thing. But there’s something there’s something more there. So all of this stuff about cars and all of this stuff. It’s something else, it’s way deeper. And who cares about the outside? You know, that’s why that’s why my book and I say, it’s not some guy with a beard in a white robe. It’s you. It’s the little guy down the corner. You know, you don’t even know. I mean, it’s it’s ordinary.
Rick Archer: I’ll tell you a little story. My mother tried to commit suicide three times. And she was in not a mental hospitals for most of my adolescence. And so when I learned to meditate, and all when I was 18, I was really keen on getting her to learn so that she would come out of all that and I was not too successful. I was very heavy handed about it. But finally, at one point, I was over in Switzerland with Marie, she and she, unbeknownst to me, had learned to meditate. She had already learned but she had started doing it on her own and had undergone this big transformation. And then she got in touch with me and said, I’d like to come to Switzerland. So she came over. I asked Marsha, he said, Yes, she can come. And so the first night when she got there, he walked into the hall and from a distance, she saw him coming down this line of people and she said, He’s so small. So about five feet tall, that he got up to us. And you know, she handed him a flower, and he handed her a flower. And he told me to keep her happy. And then he moved on. And she turned to me and her face was like flushed. And she looked at me, she said, he looks right into your soul. So your story reminded me of that. Oh, she stayed there for nine months and really went underwent a lot of transformation.
Anatta Campbell: Oh, hallelujah. Really. That’s what I was wishing for when I had my light come down from my my high initially hoping for that for my family. But I had to come down from that high. So yeah, so then there’s our show. And then he passed away. And I wound up with Papaji. But but my, my awakening experience was standing in the room of my little house, OSHA was gone. I wasn’t with anybody. Don’t think I had been unseen Papaji yet, because that was after. And within this little I have the little tiny house by the beach in Encinitas. And I was in the middle of my living room. And I said, I’m sick of this. I’m, I was demanding. And they say, you know, surrender. But I was aggressive. And I was saying, Tell me now, what is reality. It wasn’t even give me God give me peace, truth, what’s real, what’s real. And literally, I didn’t know if real was anything good. Or if it was going to be horrible. I didn’t know if I was gonna die. And I was absolutely willing. I just had to know what was real. I couldn’t stand it anymore. 20 years. Gandhiji was coming the next day. And I said, I’m just sick of this. And I’d never met her before, but I it’s kind of big. But it was like, kill me right now. Or tell me the truth. You know, and I didn’t say kill me, but kill my life, everything in my life that I have. You can take it all away everything. And I have to know it’s real. I’m not going to move. And literally, and I knew I wasn’t going to move my foot until I knew. And then it was just right there. And, and because I because I you know, looking back, it’s like I didn’t know why what but I had surrendered, you know, everything that I thought I was. So what’s left is who you really are. When you take this everything you thought you were and you just are willing to let that disappear. The real is just there. And I saw it as a Buddha right here was right here. It was a little Buddha. And it told me everything interesting. It wasn’t a female it was, you know, a Buddha. Like we all looked at the male, she actually had a little visual, I had a visual because I’m a visual, these are my paintings behind me. That’s a nice do I did since I had more my creativity opened up. I didn’t do that before. But it was a visual, it was a Buddha, and it was total peace, you know, total presence. You know, like, nobody home who wanted anything else, then, you know, then what was but with that came like the Ashanti said, downloads, you know, and I had mentioned before, then I knew that you were also that, and, and I would call it that to me to myself, I’m that, oh, I’m that, you know, that’s what I got. I’m that. I’m not this and my personality literally just kind of went boom, you know, I could see it. And it just went to the side. And that was my big one. Because it was something I wanted for all these years since I was a kid. And this was me, I could cry right now. You can cry if you want, okay. I do I cry easy. I cry really easy. My daughter just told me a story about something. And I just, I didn’t even know the person and I’m all ready to burst into tears. But
Rick Archer: maybe you can become speaker of the house. You know, we’ll get rid of John Boehner.
Anatta Campbell: We would be interesting speakers of the house. I’ll tell you one of us. Yeah. But so all the downloads of of everything that that is true. I mean, I can’t even tell you. But love, you know, is the primary thing. I literally thought if it is if it’s a monster if it’s an ugly, horrible monster, and it’s going to eat me up because I used to be afraid to meditate because I was afraid things would come in. And so I forced myself to sit on a rug in my living room when I was married still and just sit there, don’t meditate. And then I I was afraid, you know, the ego was terrified, because it was gonna get eaten. What happened? Actually, now they think about it. But it wasn’t a monster. It was this, this pure peace. And so that was the first experience and then
Rick Archer: just just this fear thing of the ego getting it number. One observation I’ve noticed is that, you know, some people, it’s like, just nibbled that you know, and just sort of gets nibbled away to nothing rather gradually, and there’s never any big drama, others, it’s so abrupt and sudden that they’re just abject ly terrified. And, you know, so it can be different for different folks like that,
Anatta Campbell: Oh, I love my book. And that’s why that’s why I was compelled to compelled to do these interviews and write this I was compelled, because I was so fascinated about all the different ways and like my friend, Denise, who’s in the book, she, hers was very gradual, very soft, but she’d had she’d had experiences as a child, which isn’t in the book, though, which is interesting. She’s had, she had a near death thing and out of the body thing, and you know, so this kind of led up. But they’re so completely different. And some of them say, you can’t go demanding, but that’s what I did. So that’s why I thought, but it’s interesting. So anyway, that was that. So I was able able to move my foot because I found it. And it was a celebration, you know, I was like, Oh my God, no, here it is I just this thing I’ve been looking for. And then then, you know, as I’m saying that I’m thinking of Troy in my book, and he says, this thing I’ve been looking for for eons. And there you are, I looked in the mirror and I looked in my eye, and there you are, all the time God. So So these things are all have something in it triggers, you know, we’ve all had. But then the thing of Jeff, which I told you, you know, just lying in bed at night and seeing this energy because I had said Why am I having these psychic experiences, I was having these experiences having dreams that were telling me things that I should know, but they would be absolutely true and and I asked a friend of mine, Dean, actually very wise man, what’s going on? He said what I was actually having meditations in my home at that time. And he said, Well, you’re just giving out so much energy that it’s coming back and saying this to Jeff That’s what we’re triggered saying Dean says, I’m just giving out this and then all of a sudden I saw the energy, you know, moving through my body. And that’s all there was and then the personality was literally seen to not didn’t exist. So anyway, those are my those are my main things and then the deepening you know, which is then I went to see Papaji and the interesting thing about the note wrath of difference that that trip says, when I went to was getting ready to go see Papaji with my friend, new district and stuff, but I knew that if he didn’t recognize me, then he wasn’t the real deal. I just knew it. Because the knowing is there. It’s not even an understanding. It’s not an intellectual. You know, it like, this is a table. I mean, that’s, you know, more than that. And, and if, of course, he did recognize it. And he said something to me too, which is interesting. So when I met Papaji, that was a whole, I’m gonna write a book on all my teachers, because it’s so much fun there. I have a lot of little stuff about them. But when he when I talked with him, I spoke with him in the in the main group, and he said, Oh, you know, your own beauty. said, Oh, I didn’t know that. But yeah, that’s what it is. I didn’t know I didn’t have those words for it. I knew that I was that I was Fouda. Yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s what he meant. Yes, that’s just his way of saying
Anatta Campbell: word, you know, was another facet. Oh, I know, my own beauty. Because I mean, I don’t think I had that at growing up. You know, I didn’t have I was kind of a person who wasn’t a child and wasn’t very confident who was you know, you know, had inferiority complex. I labeled myself at 14, you know, and so to know, my own beauty was another beautiful, you know, aspect that, that other people have said, and I said, Yeah, that’s what he said to me, you know, so, and that’s an end, it just goes on and on from there.
Rick Archer: Nice. So those are really the main chapters on the the OSHA chapter, the Catholic chapter, the OSHA Chapter, The Awakening chapter, and then it just goes on and on from there.
Anatta Campbell: And then writing the book and writing the book. Yeah. That’s been my meditation for all these years.
Rick Archer: The book a work in progress. I mean, you continue to revise it. And
Anatta Campbell: when it’s done, okay, no, it’s done. It says everything that I ever wanted to say in there. As far as that I have that really, I’m writing mine on. Nobody in India, walking the inner path, which is about being in Arunachala. And, you know, sitting in front in Arunachala, sitting in front of enrollment, his ashram in front of the big wall that has his awakening experience, I would just sit there, and I would start to read it, and I would go, boom, I couldn’t read anymore. And I would like, drag myself back and read it. You know, so it’s still even though I have those experiences, it’s something else kept coming in. So and then like you said, What is that my conclusion now? So now the conclusion is, there is no one way I can’t tell somebody how to get away. Don’t do it my way. Unless that’s where you’re compelled. You know, you can’t follow Troy, who was a drug addict alcoholic? That was his way. Don’t make me do that. Or unless you feel like that’s, you know, he his was spontaneous, and Byron. Katie’s was spontaneous out of out of nothing, you know, out of not knowing the word Enlightenment. He didn’t know what meditation was Troy. And I love that I love you gotta read that part in the book. If you haven’t you guys out there reach Roy, because it was his inner voice that said, sit down. So he sat, he said, So I sat, and then it said, breathe. So I breathed. And then I noticed that there was some nervousness in the breath. So then he worked at calming his breath. And he was, you know, moving into meditation moving into yoga, and he didn’t know it. Now. He’s like a fabulous yoga teacher in Encinitas. He’s just a beautiful guy. And coming from nothing. And here, I was a Seeker for 20 years, and I was like, I’m sick of this, I’m gonna find out. And they say, that’s not the way you can go for it.
Rick Archer: You know, that you can go for it. You did go.
Anatta Campbell: So there’s no one way there’s no right. There’s no wrong. And so I think that’s, I think that’s my mission is to just know, if I have one is to just say, live your life fully. And do you know follow that voice that Byron Katie talks about? And go where you’re compelled to go? And and if and then I also heard somebody say, maybe I want to have your interviews because I’ve been watching them. If you have an open heart, and you’re interested, you want to know what truth is. You want to wake up are, you want to know reality, like with my word for it, whatever it is, if you want that and you have an open heart, just follow your life and move into it.
Rick Archer: Beautiful. Yeah, I share again, as you said in the beginning, we concur on things pretty seamlessly.
Anatta Campbell: That’s why when I when I first saw your site, that you were doing this, I went, Oh my God, that’s what I’m doing. Yeah, I didn’t know anybody else who was doing that from an ordinary perspective. I have a beautiful book as I wish I knew the title, which I don’t. But it’s a book about people who followed it, followed Papaji. That’s another beautiful book about kind of ordinary people, but it’s still based on a master, based on one way to go, and mine is like, there’s no one way to go. And I hear you say, so anyway, I saw what you were doing. And then then I started watching, I wonder why you really, were kind of, you know, it’s accepting its acceptance of so many things that look contradictory. And like I said, I kind of learned from Osho early on, but it’s not non dual. It’s not dual. It’s just not you can’t put you can’t put, you know, you know, I, when I read, John Troy was having this group, and it was a non dual group. And I started reading what people were saying, when Oh, those are my people. But I wasn’t coming from that background. And so I went, and I met them and, you know, went to some of their things, which I adore, and they’re wonderful people, but I can’t put a box around it, you know. And, and then they get into all these philosophical things. And it’s, it’s just bigger, bigger, can’t bring it down to that.
Rick Archer: There’s a, you may have noticed on my Skype, little Skype identity, it says, Whatever you think it’s more than that. And there you go, that’s a quote from the incredible String Band. But there’s just yesterday, I posted by the latest interview that I posted, which is with a guy who has been very involved with Ayahuasca, and even had a profound awakening when he took ecstasy. And, you know, I kind of had a pretty strong anti drug by us over the years having having indulged in them in the 60s, and then kind of I spent a long time repairing the damage they did, despite the fact that they opened me up to a lot of things. But you know, now, I’m kind of, I find it hard to judge, like you say, it’s like, this guy was very intelligent, creative. And it although I would approach such things with a cautionary note, and you know, and things can be done recklessly and frivolously, without proper seriousness, and be and get one get one into trouble. Who am I to say that that’s not exactly what he should be doing? And that it’s not producing? You know, very genuine evolutionary influence for him, which apparently it is. So
Anatta Campbell: the way that he’s compelled to go, Yeah, that’s the follow that he can follow your way of not doing drugs, they won’t work for him. And will he
Rick Archer: be doing that 20 years from now, who knows, you know, maybe not, maybe I’ll be doing Ayahuasca 20 years from still around?
Anatta Campbell: In my book, in ayahuasca and he called it the death drug. They call it the death vine. And, and because if you don’t use it, right, and he did it in a ritualistic context with, with Shamans in South America. So, you know, that was one way for him. Yeah. I don’t argue with it. argue with God. One thing I
Rick Archer: want to suggest to kind of zoom out again, I like I like to play cosmic zoom lens. In my mind, I’m always kind of zooming out to the kind of galactic level and zooming down to the Planck scale and just in my imagination, but it helps me to kind of keep things in perspective. That’s truth. Yeah. Both of those perspectives are
Anatta Campbell: the universe. And I wrote a little poem called this. That’s that and it’s this. It’s a cell on the tip of my nose. It’s that intimate. Yep. So I like that.
Rick Archer: Here’s another Sanskrit phrase for you. It goes on no Renea Maha toma here on which means smaller than the smallest bigger than the biggest.
Anatta Campbell: You know what, I love to interrupt you and we’ll get back but that the things that you say the Sanskrit phrases that are from eons are my experience, my direct experience, and when I hear that, that’s why I know when somebody says something, I recognize that they’re there because they go Oh, yeah, you know, and that you’re telling me stuff I already knew in a more beautiful way. I love hearing, hearing all of that.
Rick Archer: Great. Yeah, I do too. And I you know, I’m pretty much
Anatta Campbell: truth is just truth, whether it’s from eons ago, or it’s from today. Yeah, it’s only one
Rick Archer: and there are people who are much more qualified to do this kind of thing than than I am. I mean, there are people I have friends who are like encyclopedias of this kind of stuff and who could really come up with all kinds of gems but I’m just gonna
Anatta Campbell: I think you do really really really well.
Rick Archer: I’m doing my best one thought I’ve been having lately I wanted to bounce it off you and see what kind of discussion it stimulates. I’ve been sort of thinking that this kind of abstract but it’s like what what oneness needs duality in order to know itself. Does that make sense? And and in a different because if it were just oneness then it wouldn’t. Who would know what, and there’s a different Another flavor to that, which is that, it seems, and I’ve heard this set, I’m not making this up that you know, pure existence has a self referral quality inherent in it, such that it, you know, it kind of looks at itself and in that process in its like, pure existence has a self referral quality inherent in it, and it, it knows itself by that quality. And in doing so, immediately. The knower, the process of knowing and the known are set up in Sanskrit they actually call this Rishi De Vita and Chanda, there’s this sort of diversification that takes place by virtue of that self referral, quality. And that, you know, then the whole, you know, bifurcation and diversification continues, and we ended up with the universe, but, but we have this kind of that, that, that is contained within our nature as well, we have the seeds of that and our makeup. And that’s why we go, we’re at a certain point, there’s this yearning to, to wake up, you know, we are the, the, you know, we are oneness having diversified, so that it could, you know, eventually know itself as a living reality, as a breathing, loving, eating, living reality, which, which ends up being more than just flat oneness, without any sort of diversification, it’s somehow the whole become, becomes more than the sum of its parts. You know, Brahman is sometimes referred to that way and as being more than the sum of all the parts. So anyway, that’s just kind of something I’ve been toying with lately. And I just wanted to see what you thought of that, and any kind of insights you might have or anything.
Anatta Campbell: You know, it’s like, what I’ve heard people say, Yeah, I agree. What he said, Yeah. I think that, that’s the whole point. And, you know, when you when you talked about, it’s like, what is this longing? You know, what is this intense longing, like, just kill me? Or tell me through, you know, I have to know what it is. And what you know, is, oh, I’m god, I’m that, you know, huge thing. But I’m in here. So. Yeah, I mean, that’s what I hear people say, and that sounds right to me. You know, it’s like, an it feels, you know, it’s what is this longing to know, itself? That’s, yeah, that’s what it is. Why, why else are we here? I mean, that’s, I think the whole point. And yet, it’s probably more than that, because it’s also to live. Like you say, bifurcating, you know, it’s like, to create a lot of different stuff here. You know, we’re creators, and like, you were saying before, well, if God’s creator of all of that, and the cells and and the birds and the beauty, then and we’re part of God’s so then we’re here to, to create that. That’s what I think we really are here for, to discover ourselves. And to create out of that, and you know, almost all poetry and paintings, the really depth stuff is like describing that experience. So this, that’s what you’re saying. But yeah,
Rick Archer: I think it is, it’s just something I find myself pondering a lot. And I’ve heard it discussed before, but much people much more articulate than I but I’m just coming to own it more, kind of chewing on it, you know, yeah. But the piece that
Anatta Campbell: really hits me is, is that longing for God to know itself, that longing for the immensity to know itself as all the diversity and this one, you know? And this one is unique, and is real, you know, I mean, on the planet, I mean, I’m here, and you’re there. And we the other exciting thing is, you know, there’s the oneness that we know, we’re all ocean, but then the diversity of each individual is how does that happen? That there is nobody like you There’s nobody like me. Exactly. And, you know, even if somebody looks a little like, you are a lot like you, it’s not you. It can’t be so How To me that’s as much a miracle as the oneness. Yeah, the diversity of each individual that your unique So play it, you know, do it as best you can. And, you know, we’re here to Yeah, to, to create when I’m happy is when I’m creating, and that’s why I like doing hair. I’m making people beautiful. I’m literally making them as pretty as they can be, or you know, good water. It’s a man but I Love that it’s like creating the paintings on people. It’s creation. And if I didn’t have that, I’d have to do something else that was I would be painting more.
Rick Archer: I find that to, like, go hiking on vacations. And I find myself writing books in my mind. I had to do something creative.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah, or drawing a leaf or Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: But the thing you said about longing. I think everything in creation is imbued with that longing. Rocks, stars, frogs, every everything has that sort of, we could call it forces of evolution, permeating them, and kind of moving them along in the direction of fuller and fuller manifestation or embodiment of source of being of pure consciousness. And it’s fascinating to ponder that even I mean, our bodies are made of stardust is you know, Joni Mitchell sang. You know, we’re startups were 14 billion year old carbon.
Anatta Campbell: I just put that on Facebook. Oh, cool. Yeah, it’s gonna be a golden and we have to get back to the garden. Right, exactly. I said, Oh, yeah, we are here. Yeah, we’re already in the garden.
Rick Archer: And so think of that process and think of the patience as well. It’s that that intelligence doing it all is beyond time anyway. So I guess patience doesn’t come into it. But there had to be stars. And how long did it take for stars to form and then to, to live out their lives and to explode and to form of scattered heavy elements throughout the universe that could eventually become bodies that could eventually evolve to the point where they could no that garden, know that essence as themselves. So it’s this marvelous? Yeah, this whole marvelous dance that’s, that’s going on. It’s just fascinating.
Anatta Campbell: And then the other thing, that’s that painting, it’s like, light, you know, for me. It’s that everything is coming out of this, like, dark. That’s like a star like, like a,
Rick Archer: like a supernova. Yeah.
Anatta Campbell: But you know, the thing about animals, everything evolving. This is another like, woowoo thing that that I was talking to this lady about yesterday, but about being inside of animals heads and knowing what they were thinking. So I’ve had that, too.
Rick Archer: So what are the Yoga Sutras is one of the cities of Patanjali is no, no, in the minds. Yeah, knowing the minds of all beings. You know, I’ve had several friends told me that they were, you know, all of a sudden, you know, picking up on the thoughts of a squirrel or something.
Anatta Campbell: Yeah, exactly. I had it with my dog that I had in California, and he was a standard poodle when he was about nine months old, and, or maybe a little younger, but he was pretty big. But he was still a puppy. And I was on the leash behind him on the sidewalk. And I was talking to him, and he wasn’t paying any attention to me. And all of a sudden, I was in his head. And I was experiencing his thoughts, or his awareness. And because it wasn’t like thoughts, but it was like, whoa, whoa, so much going on here. The trees, the birds, the cars, you know, me talking behind him. And so and visual, you know, there was so much to see and to hear and the smell height and the smells and yeah, I didn’t tune in on smells now that I think about it, but but the visual and the sound and everything, but it was so much. And he was just on the corner, just wow. And I’m trying to talk them, whatever, at all. So, so it was really I was in there. And so I came in and I got it. Oh, I get it. So I then I came in front of him. And I went Elvis, which is his name. You know, we need to wait here, whatever I needed to say. And then we’re gonna call center, you know, he’s like, Oh, okay. And then I knew that I wasn’t in his head anymore. But I knew he was I could get how to talk to a dog, you know, get down to his level. Because he didn’t differentiate me from anything else. He didn’t have that ability at that age. So then, and I have a dog now that’s amazing. And, and it’s like watching her become human. Just get it. I mean, I say I’m sorry. We can’t I can’t take you today. So she backs up and sits down. I don’t say sit stay. Right. Sorry. All right, whatever. So she sits down here she backs up to inches and sits down so funny. They’re so wise and they aren’t growing. They grow with us, you know? And then I had a cockroach. I put that on Facebook.
Rick Archer: So you had your own cockroach.
Anatta Campbell: I had a cockroach. I was I was literally sitting on the John and California and the little cockroach ran across the wall and I just got I just got him. I just got it. He just wants to live. Yeah, he wants to live. Exactly. He just wants to live life he wants to be You live and find some food and some safety. It was like I was, but I, you know, it was a smaller awareness than the dogs. So now that you talk about evolving, now that I didn’t think about that before, but it was like a smaller word. And yet it was very full. I mean, it was really like, it was as big as me wanting to live in Asia fine, same impulse,
Rick Archer: same impulse and same consciousness, it’s the same consciousness in the cockroaches in you and I, it’s just a different reflector. You know,
Anatta Campbell: I think I told you all my woowoo stuff, I think
Rick Archer: Well, you’ll have to, you’ll have to cook up some more,
Anatta Campbell: Some will be happening.
Rick Archer: But it’s so true. I mean, and it’s the complexity of the nervous system that enables it to be more that really characterizes what we mean by evolution. I mean, a human nervous system is so much more complex than a cockroach, and the brain is so much more complex, and so on. And it’s just that that more sophisticated instrument is just capable of embodying divine intelligence so much more fully. And, and who knows, I mean, you know, we might be cockroaches, by comparison with some nervous systems that are out there in the universe that, you know, in terms of what they can know, and do and be.
Anatta Campbell: I think what that gave me, you know, was, you know, a more of a respectful life. Yeah, kind of life. Beautiful. Yeah. Cool. Well,
Rick Archer: we’re sort of reaching that magic moment, I suppose when we can begin to think about wrapping it up. It I mean, this is the kind of thing where we could just get cups of coffee and sit around all day and keep shooting the breeze. But
Anatta Campbell: I, you know, there’s a Suzanne Murray, who I’m booked Facebook friends with, a, you might be finding her, I recommend you interview her. I don’t even remember her background. But we went and met for coffee after meeting on Facebook and like, whoa, who are you, you know, because we were writing the same alignment, and she’s just beautiful. But it was two hours, two and a half hours over coffee. And then like now maybe I should go now, you know. Because, you know, this is the most exciting thing there is to talk about is your own reality, you know, the essence of who you are. So I do want to say like I had said during a little break i My book is an ebook. It’s, it’s available through Barnes and Noble. And so Amazon, and Kindle and whatever, I think mostly Amazon is where it’s really being sold. But I am looking for a hardcover publisher publisher. So I would love to have that happen. And I have like three other books one is almost done, and others spinning around here that I would love to get done. But I think that getting a publisher for this one is going to, you know, encourage me to finish.
Rick Archer: Good. Yeah. So if any hardcover publishers are listening to this interview, get, get in touch. And also all the linking to your book on face on BatGap on Buddha at the Gas Pump, so read through it read directly to the Amazon page where it can be bought. So people,
Anatta Campbell: $4.99, such a deal,
Rick Archer: Such a deal. So people can follow that link. And I also wanted to say, you know, just unrelated to this interview, but I get requests and recommendations every day, new several a day for various people to interview. And I always say, Okay, we’ll put you on the list, but I’m only doing one a week. And I don’t know when we’re going to be able to schedule it. So I really apologize to people who have, you know, sent in recommendations or requests and I haven’t gotten to them yet. I’m hoping to gradually get to the point where I can do even more of these you know, more than once a week as my as this becomes more my day job than my day job is theirs, hopefully signs of that day job. I do search engine optimization, bringing more traffic to people’s websites.
Anatta Campbell: I could use you Yeah, you need a haircut
Rick Archer: went up to come to North Carolina to get my search summit.com Is My Business website. And so I spend most of my time doing that. And this is, you know, part time thing, obviously, but
Anatta Campbell: that’s a gift to everybody who sees it is I just love your show. And I get a lot from you know, I’m up in the middle of the night, you know, two hours interviews. You know what I’m like it’s I woke up at three now I’m up till five because I have to hear the ending and wow, I’m really enjoying them.
Rick Archer: That’s That’s great. I appreciate it. You know you can also get it on if you have an i pod. You can get it on that as a podcast and just you know, go take a walk in the woods and listen to it or something so you don’t have to sit in front of your computer. I need to get hooked up. Yeah. Have your Have your daughter. Yeah, one of those people. It’s very handy. I mean, I spend at least an hour a day, you know, I’ll go out this afternoon cross country skiing, and I’ll be listening to something as I’m going through the woods. So let me make some wrap up points. So I’ve been speaking with Annika Campbell. Hopefully I pronounced that right. Tom Campbell. And she lives in Nashville, as you’ve gleaned from this interview has written
Anatta Campbell: here, Asheville, Hendersonville in the woods, beautiful.
Rick Archer: I once spent five weeks meditating in a cabin down there in Boone, North Carolina. Nice area. I was where I was with some friends, we were high as a kite. After five weeks of meditating, we went out for this Fourth of July kind of thing at this place called The Hound ears lodging club. And we felt like we were from outer space and felt like totally like space aliens. And all the people said, Hi, here, you
Anatta Campbell: There are beautiful people here.
Rick Archer: Yeah, the ordinary Buddha stories of awakening will link to that from my site. And if you want to get in touch with on, I’ll be linking to our website. And so I didn’t get in touch with that friend or on Facebook or whatever. So this show, as you most of you probably know, is ongoing series, and I do a new one each week. Hopefully, before too long, we’ll be able to do more than one a week, we’ll see how that goes. And if you’d like to check out the others go to batgap.com Vat gap, you can find this alphabetical list on the right hand side of the page. If you scroll down a little, you’ll see all all the interviews available, you can sign up to be notified by email whenever a new one is posted. Oh yeah, notice that come in. And then there’s also a chat group that springs up around every interview that gets quite lively sometimes. So feel free to participate in that. There this is also as we were saying a minute ago available as a podcast, there’s a link to the podcasts on every interview. So you can go there and and subscribe to it. And in case you don’t know the way a podcast works is if you have an iPad, you use you. You subscribe to your podcast and it brings it into iTunes, which is a free Apple software that runs on Macs or PCs. And every time a new thing shows up, like when I post this interview, for instance, and you open up iTunes, it automatically downloads. And then as soon as you plug in your i pod, it automatically transfers it to your iPod if you you know set it up to do that. And then you can unplug your iPod and listen to it while I do other things. So it’s very handy. And in case those are unfamiliar with with podcasting works, that’s the way that works. So I’m kind of getting to the point where I’m getting long winded. I get energized in these in these interviews and I get it’s like coffee, I get really talkative.
Anatta Campbell: I feel like that way too. Like buzzing? Yeah. At certain points.
Rick Archer: Good. So donate button is there won’t elaborate on that. But the implications are clear. And that should just about do it. Right anymore.
Anatta Campbell: Thank you so much. And thank you Wi Fi rain for emails and you know, support back there because I know she’s a good support for you and and the other people who are supporting you. It’s it’s just a wonderful show. Is it such a pleasure to talk with you.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I read helps with the schedule scheduling these days. And I have a friend up in Canada who helps Salza with keeping track of a lot of things in a very good friend who was my best friend in high school who is actually from the Asheville area, although Currently he’s living on the coast in South Carolina, who does all the post production and he spent hundreds of hours. His name is Ralph Preston of Snow Hill video. And totally grateful to him for everything he’s been doing all these several years. Couldn’t have done it without him. So thanks to everyone. And thank you and Artha and thanks to all who’ve been listening or watching and we’ll see you next week. I think next week is gonna be me actually, some guy wants to interview me. And so in case you haven’t heard enough of the talking, you’ll have opportunity to hear more next week.
Anatta Campbell: You know what one more little thing I was just remembering. Yukio Ramana was supposed to be the next week. Brian was the week before me so I’m like bookended by people who I know. But you kill Ramana is a good friend of mine. And who’s coming down down the list a few weeks down? And yes, is yeah, he’s he’s in my book. And he his his way of going about it was very sort of scientific. So it’s just another completely different avenue. And his talks are wonderful. And at the end of his article, is his story is when I wrote this thing called this where I just got it in a group with him that I’m just so it’s so intimate as well as
Rick Archer: cool.
Anatta Campbell: Thank you so much.
Rick Archer: Oh, thank you Anatta. We’ll see you later.
