Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. We’ve done over 560 of them now, I think and if this is new to you and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and go to the past interviews menu. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there is a PayPal button on every page of the site. And if you have a PayPal version, there is also a page that explains other ways to donate. My guest today is Andrew Hewson. Welcome, Andrew.
Andrew: Hey, Rick. Thanks for having me.
Rick: You’re welcome. Andrew is, I’m just going to read part of his bio that he sent me and then I’m going to have him flesh it out a bit. Andrew is a contemporary spiritual teacher whose focus is on the realization of the presence of divinity as one’s fundamental source and self, emphasizing transcendence as a process that cannot only be undergone in the midst of daily living but even facilitated by it. Andrew speaks from the experiential reality of having been carried by the grace of total transformation in the context of daily life. Growing up in the southeastern United States, North Carolina, Andrew’s childhood was characterized by a state of lightness, freedom, and underlying connection. This effortless way of being was taken as an unspoken given until an intense qualitative shift took place in his early teens. The condition which once prevailed, in other words the lightness, freedom, and underlying connection, progressively became replaced by an acute sense of separation, limitation, and lack, leaving little room for functional participation in the common activities of human life. With this radical drop into apparent fragmentation, Andrew began to seek relief wherever possible. This seeking eventually led to the discovery of altered states of consciousness through the use of alcohol and drugs, which quickly spiraled into the pits of despair. After years of unsuccessfully attempting to live from such a constricted sense of identity, Andrew found himself in a medical isolation jail cell facing 30 years in prison. It was there, in the midst of absolute hopelessness and despair, that the grace of surrender shone forth, bringing about a profound shift in consciousness. This transformation revealed a still, silent presence or field, divine in its nature, and ignited a fire for spiritual evolution. Alright, so I’ll stop right there and ask you some questions. So, what did you do to get yourself in prison? Were you dealing drugs or something?
Andrew: No, actually it was a car wreck.
Rick: Ah, you were drunk and ran into somebody?
Andrew: No, not drunk. It was another drug.
Rick: Uh-huh, okay. And so, the drug caused you to wreck the car?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s what seemed to be going on.
Rick: I’m only laughing because of the roundabout way of saying it. And did someone actually die in that wreck?
Andrew: No, no. Badly injured, all three of the bodies involved, this one and the other two. And one of them ended up having a leg amputated.
Rick: Wow. Had you gotten into, you know, opiates? Was it heroin or something? Usually people get pretty out of it on that sort of drug.
Andrew: Well, the drugs that weren’t used would be easier to list than the ones that were. So, I don’t want to get into all of that. But basically, addiction is for many things. And drugs and alcohol just happen to be one of the outlets for addiction.
Andrew: Sure. Okay, well I went through a phase like that myself, as did many people. And actually spent a couple of nights in jail. But nothing quite so serious as that. So, somehow you beat the potential prison rap. So, talk about this shift that happened. I guess it happened in the jail cell. What woke you up, do you think? Or what was the nature of the waking up?
Andrew: Well, one thing that I like to point out to everyone is that a shift in identity is not an event. It’s not an experience. So, to select something out and to say this is where this happened is really arbitrary and inaccurate. We have to have a fuller perspective. It’s like this interview, for instance. If I say this interview starts five minutes ago and then it’s going to end at five o’clock Eastern Standard Time. That really cuts out the rest of creation and the rest of the universe. And everything is connected. Everything is the expression of one field of intelligence interacting with itself. So, if we isolate out Andrew’s apparent event, we’re really dealing in the illusion of separation, which there is no separation. So, I understand that in the convenience of language we have discussions like this. But I also think that it’s important that we have a very fundamental perspective when we examine areas of our own life and what seems to be going on in the world.
Rick: Yeah, and I’ve heard you talk, you sent me 23 hours of things to listen to and I only got through nine hours, including your conversations with David Buckland, which were interesting. And I’ve heard you talk about that things are not as linear as they seem or perhaps not at all linear and that it’s sort of erroneous to speak of causes and effects. However, there is such a thing as conditional or transactional reality. I think they call it vyavaharika or something like that in Sanskrit, which has its own level of significance even though it may not be the ultimate reality.
Andrew: Well, for those that are stuck in the dominance of that sense of transactional or causal relationship, it is supportive for the evolution of the conscious experiencing to bring in the understanding that that is not actually what it seems to be. Because what that is reinforcing is the sense that there’s a separate independent “I” that is fragmented from the whole that is either the cause or the effect of what seems to be going on in the world. And as long as that is in place, we do not know the truth of the light that we are and we feel limited, we feel lacking, and we feel incomplete. So my primary intention we might say is for those that are seeking to return to a sense of completion to discover that within themselves. And so I offer that which I feel is most supportive of that recognition and realization.
Rick: Yeah, that’s great. However, you know, I’ve run into many people over the years who kind of understand intellectually what you’re saying here and what others have said along these lines, but it’s not actually their experience. And yet they try to make the intellectual understanding an experience. They mistake an intellectual understanding for realization and that can result in some very strange ways of dealing with the world. For instance, I heard recently a story about a well-known spiritual teacher who advised some guy to drink two gallons of water, which I guess must have been some kind of purification thing. So the guy drank the two gallons of water within about a five-minute period. I don’t know whether that was what the other fellow had really intended. And it threw his sodium balance or something so far out of whack that he died. And then his wife, who was also on this course with him, just took it very philosophically, “Oh, there is no one to die and, you know, there’s actually no death and no body and this and that.” Which to me is like screaming spiritual bypassing. It’s like, no, you don’t drink two gallons of water and if you do it’s a stupid thing to do and it’s going to kill your body. And that has its level of relevance.
Andrew: Yes, of course. We’re all accountable to the recognition of reality that we are currently in. And this experience here, this case, in my own case, I was accountable to that level of spirituality and paid the dues that were necessary and went through everything that could be done by Andrew in reference to the reparation of what seemed to need reparation. And if we examine this teaching a little bit further, you’ll see that spiritual bypassing just simply isn’t an option because one of the largest parts of it is temptation and contemplative supplication, which is an investigation into unresolved content on a daily basis.
Rick: Mm hmm. So, just to push this a little further, so if you had been on that course knowing what you know, saying the kind of things you say, and the guy had died and you were talking to his wife and she was saying things like that, what would you have said to her, do you think?
Andrew: Hmm, it’s an interesting question.
Rick: It’s hypothetical, but you know.
Andrew: If anyone is out of alignment with what their recognition of truth is, then I would tell them that they are attempting to apply something that is not applicable to their experience within their experience and that it’s a limitation and that they’re hiding behind spiritual concepts as an attempt to not deal with something that needs to be dealt with.
Rick: That’s good, very well put. Yeah, the thing about not applicable, a teacher of mine always used to say, you know, you can’t, this is kind of, I don’t like this example in a way because I wouldn’t want to shoot a tiger, but he said you can’t use the gun of the waking state to shoot the tiger of the dream state. You know, different realities apply in different states of consciousness.
Andrew: Beautiful, yeah.
Rick: Yeah. Okay, and the whole thing again about causality, cause and effect and so on. I know if we refer to physics for instance, you know, there’s a level of, we could say, Newtonian physics where cause and effect is very well worked out and the mathematics of it is understood and all kinds of things. And then there, when you get down to quantum mechanics and you know, subtler levels of more modern physics, those concepts become meaningless because on those levels of creation, it just doesn’t work that way. You know, but it still works that way on the level of Newtonian physics, on the sort of gross material level and you need to take that kind of thing into account if you’re going to build a bridge or an airplane or you know a building or something like that.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s something that is very selective and contextual, you know. I don’t tell my grandparents that there’s no such thing as causality. And you know, I live in the world just like everyone else does, but when it comes to those that are coming here for guidance, we look at things a little bit more deeply and we do that with an understanding that there are different paradigms and that there is a more complete picture. And it’s never something that is attempting to wiggle out of something or to get out of something, but something that is moving in the direction of a more inclusive, comprehensive picture of what it is that our truth actually is.
Rick: Good, I like that. I like the words inclusive and comprehensive. So, by those words do you mean that, you know, you’re kind of expanding the spectrum of, you know, that which your life experience includes such that it, you know, it may still include the mundane considerations that it has always included, but that it’s taking into account other levels of reality that might be radically different from those mundane considerations and that the two are not incompatible, they’re just sort of different realities within a larger whole. Could you say it that way?
Andrew: Well, essentially it has to do with dominance. And so, what we’re concerned with is shifting from a paradigm of existence which seems to be dominated by content and form and mechanistically interacting presentations of measurability into a larger, broader context of a recognition of reality which we see to be our self, which is the field of conscious awareness. So, the whole movement then is for this field, which is right here, speaking to itself, to realize itself, to recognize its reality through a given nervous system. And in that supports the entirety of mankind.
Rick: That’s great. I like that. Yeah, dominance. Not either/or, but both ends. I think Nisargadatta said something along the lines of that the ability to appreciate paradox and ambiguity is a sign of spiritual maturity.
Andrew: Beautiful.
Rick: So, let’s just see here. Well, I think I’ll ask you this first which comes to mind, which is, so, before you lose the trail of your personal story, which I know you’re going to try to wriggle out of, but what was your, I mean, what was, you must have had some prior, well, maybe not. I mean, did you have some kind of prior interest in the kinds of things we’re now discussing such that when you were in that jail cell, you know, you could refer back to that and, you know, start to, you know, undergo the shift you underwent? Or did it all just come completely spontaneously with no background?
Andrew: No. Well, first, I don’t have any problem talking about my personal story. I often tell personal anecdotes in our groups and retreats and things like that. So, that would be an early phase of shifting into a higher recognition of reality, which would still be adolescent from a later stage of development, meaning that to get stuck in this no-person kind of a situation where we run away from the personal side of life is really unhelpful and a sign that things still need to develop more fully.
Andrew: Did you go through that kind of phase? The no-person phase?
Andrew: Yes, but it was short-lived by grace, yeah, because devotion was already in place at that point. So, yes, throughout the lifetime, there were several things that were spiritually significant. One of the interesting things that takes place when we do shift into recognizing our reality as this field and the sense of separate autonomy sort of resolves and is first as transcended and then resolves the remnants of it at least, is that we do not feel anymore like we have lived a life and that we’ve grown up or been in time in the same way. So, everything is contained within this field of conscious awareness, which is timeless and formless, yet is appearing as the emergence of form. So, what I recognize to be spiritually significant would be just moments in childhood where the sense of that personal separate experiencer would just disappear, and this would be in nature oftentimes, and there would just be just pure experiencing, just seeing the trees and the snow and all of the beauty and a deep silence and peace. And oftentimes, Andrew would then try to get back there, try to go back to that same spot in nature because the mind was equating that with that tasting of something deeper. And when the sense of separation solidified, living in what seemed to be this sort of meat suit that was really uncomfortable was in a way unbearable because there was such a deep sense of fragmentation. And in early childhood, there was a great sense of expansiveness and lightness and freedom and deep connection, even though it wasn’t labeled that because it was just the natural status. And I feel like for many human beings, this is the case. Then we come into this place where we do drop into that sense of fragmentation, and in this case and in other cases, it was very extreme and it demanded attention. It wasn’t something that could just be lived with. And so, that limited sense of identity started to seek outside of itself to try to find ways to fix this sense of fragmentation, to make this go away. And it tried lots of different things, being funny at school, watching TV, eating too much, even went through a period where there was a small eating disorder. And then finally, it turned into alcohol and then drugs. And from that point, it was always something that had a life of its own. It really had little to do with decision or choice, and that’s not an excuse for what took place during those years as what has appeared to take place during those years has been addressed and will be addressed if it needs to in whatever way. That’s one of the first things we learn on the spiritual path when we’re coming out of addiction is that we have to really apply spiritual principles to our life in a way that perhaps other human beings that are not addicted do not, and this is in the typical recovery, spiritual recovery setting. So, in the jail cell, these sort of timeless moments and expressions of knowingness that had been there throughout the incarnation all of a sudden came forth and made sense in a new way along with some of the teachings of Jesus Christ that I had been exposed to and different things like that. But it was as if the perfection of the whole presentation of those years of addiction and everything that seemed to go on during that period was revealed and there was this deep understanding that this is exactly how it was supposed to be and had to be. And I found what I was looking for finally. I didn’t know that I was looking for the presence of God, but that’s what I was always looking for. And innocently, Andrew was just mistaken about where to find that and looking at all the wrong places.
Rick: Yep, as the song says. And I think that’s what everybody in the world is doing. You know, they’re all looking for the presence of God and not too many of them looking in places that will reveal that presence directly. But eventually, we get there.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rick: Yeah.
Andrew: By grace.
Rick: Sometimes I have the feeling, and I’ve heard people say, that a lot of times someone who’s destined to be a teacher has to go through, you know, certain experiences, sometimes very rough ones, in order to be an effective teacher for others who are going through experiences like that.
Andrew: Yes, I’ve often had that sense, or there’s a direct understanding of kind of the function of the incarnation, we might say, and the way in which things have unfolded. And this was known at a very early age, actually I remember being at the beach as a young boy, and there was this knowingness of a certain purpose or a certain function, but there was no language to articulate it and it was very abstract and field-like, right?
Rick: Yeah.
Andrew: So, in the jail cell, there wasn’t a direct shift in identity. That’s why I don’t like to speak about it as an event or an experience, but what took place is that there was field recognition, what I call field recognition, meaning that the field of conscious awareness in particular, the aspect which I refer to as the conscious presence aspect, revealed itself. And so, still with the sense of being Andrew as an experiencer, there was an awareness of what Andrew, or what I refer to as the presence of God at that point. The field had not yet recognized that it was itself through this nervous system, and so there still seemed to be an experiencer of the field.
Rick: I see.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rick: You might have said at the time, you might have said, yeah, I, Andrew, am experiencing or sensing or intuiting this field, but you wouldn’t have said, I am the field.
Andrew: Yes, correct. And actually, there was direct visual perception of the field as well, which is almost like heat coming off the top of a grill.
Rick: Yeah.
Andrew: And from that point, it has just intensified and has never gone away. And that moves through the various stages that I talk about in the teaching as well.
Rick: Interesting. Do you ever, without getting too esoteric, do you ever sort of have any sense of past life development, you know, culminate or resulting in whatever stage that you’ve come into this one at?
Andrew: Well, yes. It goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning about having a broad perspective and a full picture and not fragmenting off events. So, we can look at the lifetime almost like this interview, right? It’s an event, it’s a very small piece of something much larger.
Rick: Sure.
Andrew: And then there’s, you know, there’s contexts within context as far as that’s concerned. So, yeah, there has been some very specific knowingness and remembrance of certain things, but I don’t know if it’s best to go into all of that right now.
Rick: No, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can if you want, but I wouldn’t press you on it. But I think as a general principle, I get the sense that, well, it’s sort of my philosophy of things and certainly not mine, I didn’t make it up, that, you know, spiritual development is a vast spectrum, vast continuum and any one lifetime is just a little band on that spectrum and that, you know, we basically pick up where we left off. You know, as the Gita says, just as a man casts off worn off garments and takes on others that are new, so do we cast off worn off bodies and take up other new ones. Which is a good perspective for people to have, I think, because it can create a great deal of reassurance or peace of mind. You know, like you said, if you feel like I am this meat body, I think you used that phrase, and that’s all I am, then what happens to the meat body is of really great significance as compared to I am this field.
Andrew: Yes, exactly. One thing that I just would want everyone to know is that we are our own limitation, you know. This truth of the self that we are appears to limit itself and that is what we know is the human condition. So when I see those that assume that they’re so far behind or, you know, missing the mark so greatly, I just feel moved to remind them that things are not what they appear to be. And to know that if you’re listening to material like this, if you’re even drawn towards something like this, there is a larger portion of the picture that’s not being seen. And to start to put some trust in that and to intuit that and to move in the direction of the possibility that grace can reveal aspects of our own identity which seem to be concealed at a current moment.
Rick: Yeah, that’s very nicely put. Yeah, people should never feel frustrated or depressed or something because they feel like they’re some kind of spiritual schmuck. I mean, just like you say, the very fact that one would be interested in this kind of conversation is pretty significant, you know, if you consider the whole human population and how many people are actually interested in this stuff. I mean, not to sort of toot our horns as being special or anything, but it’s still a very small percentage of the population.
Andrew: It is, yeah. And I see it all as an expression of grace. The story of Andrew is one of failure, so it’s pretty obvious for anyone that does their research that Andrew hasn’t done anything to get into a certain space or to realize something or recognize something. It was not by Andrew’s power or authority that anything has been revealed. It is by the grace of the one divinity that we are all our expressions of.
Rick: Yeah, but you know, as I think Jesus or somewhere in the Bible it says, “God helps those who help themselves.” So, you know, you can’t, I mean, we can, who is that, some Zen teacher, I’ve quoted this one often, said, “Enlightenment may be an accident, but spiritual practice makes you accident-prone.” So, you know, there are certain things we can do to set up the conditions in which grace is better able to operate.
Andrew: Rick, this is true and I do prescribe things that I feel are in alignment with the recognition of reality and the status of infinity and these are things that are applied on a daily basis, but at the same time, Andrew couldn’t help himself. So, if it was only true that God helps those who can help themselves, then Andrew wouldn’t be sitting here right now.
Rick: Yeah, well, you know, that’s a big theme in AA. You may have gone to AA meetings. I mean, have you gone to AA meetings?
Andrew: I have been to a few, yeah.
Rick: Yeah, you know, that certain point you realize, you know, I can’t do this on my own and you kind of submit to a higher power as your only hope.
Andrew: That’s actually a theme that’s been around in great traditions from the East as well.
Rick: Sure.
Andrew: It’s a movement of natural recognition where there is the grace of seeing that in and of myself, I am nothing. And it is the Father that does the works. It is the one power that has this capacity to awaken to itself through this body.
Rick: Yeah. Let’s get into that for a minute. I have some other things here I could ask you, but you’re pretty good at articulating this. All the hours I’ve listened to you. And I’ll just give you a little hint of what I’m getting at and then let you elaborate. But if we really think in terms of oneness or unity and non-fragmentation as being the ultimate reality of things, then who is doing what and to whom, or by whom? There really is only the oneness. And so, it must somehow, this whole play and display of the universe must be the oneness or the unity interacting with itself. And so, this whole talk of Rick interviewing Andrew or having this conversation or anything else, it’s really just the oneness sort of self-interacting and yet creating this sort of marvelous appearance of diversity and variety and so on. You want to riff on that for a bit?
Andrew: Sure. Well, this is where the word “appearance” becomes very useful and helpful. The word “seeming,” these kinds of things. Essentially, pure divinity is the only reality and that’s actually even the source of conscious awareness. So, conscious awareness is the light of divinity. And within this light, we see the process of experiencing appear to arise, which is essentially the light becoming conscious of itself as self-aware. And in that, the process of experiencing then presents the patterning of form, which is much more complex than this, but I’m sort of simplifying. And the patterning of form, it’s all simultaneous, so I’m speaking about it descriptively from a linear perspective so that we hear it one word after the other, but actually it’s all done and then we just witness that or explore it from within that already-done-ness, you might say. So, that process of experiencing then shows up as the patterning of conscious awareness in such a way that it seems to progressively condensate within itself, condensate into the forms and phenomena that we perceive, that it perceives as the world, which is essentially just a projection of its own potential as actualized formation within itself. And right now, this conversation is an expression of that intelligence, which some are able to recognize as being governed by laws of nature or aspects of creativity, creative aspects of intelligence.
Rick: And so, what you’re saying here, it’s possible to actually trace, you know, talk about the Big Bang and how creation emerges and gets increasingly complex and diversified in that process, but what you’re saying, as I understand it, pertains to a continuous thing that’s happening all the time right now.
Andrew: Yes.
Rick: There’s this sort of sequential, spontaneous symmetry breaking from the unmanifest unified wholeness into greater and greater apparent diversity.
Andrew: Yes, so this interview is an expression of creation, so right now these words are emerging. This is creation expressing itself as these words.
Rick: Yeah.
Andrew: And what you referred to before about who’s doing what and to whom, within this presentation of self-experiencing conscious awareness, we see the apparent dominance of content and form arise. That’s where a limited self-definition within the conscious awareness shows up, and from the basis of that limited self-definition there seems to be personal autonomy. There seems to be a sense of fragmentation, and then that point of apparent fragmentation, feeling that it is the doer of actions and the thinker of thoughts, begins to accrue impressions. The accruement of these impressions is what we know as karma, and then these impressions continually sort of play out on a loop and are either seeking to re-impress or to resolve, depending on the status of the point.
Rick: Good. And so, I like your use of the word “non-dual devotion” and the use of the word “divine” and so on, because sometimes when teachers talk about non-duality and stuff, it has this sort of dry, plain, vanilla connotation to it. And there’s no sort of appreciation or recognition of the intelligence that is so obviously involved in this whole process. And I know you have kind of a devotional background in terms of things you’ve done in your life, and I think, you know, the greatest spiritual teachers throughout history have had a similar orientation. Shankara, and Nisargadatta, Ramana, and so on, they don’t just hammer away at – you know, there’s nothing, nothing ever happened. They may say that, but in the next breath they may talk about the sort of infinite creative intelligence that is orchestrating the whole universe.
Andrew: Yes.
Rick: And there’s no contradiction between those two ways of looking at it.
Andrew: Correct, yeah. This has a lot to do with the recognition of reality, which there are degrees of realization we could say, or stages of enlightenment. And depending upon the stage, whether it’s more predominantly masculine in its nature or feminine in its nature, which just refers to the subjectivity and not to the human form, then we’re going to see some qualitative variation in the way in which it shows up. And on the masculine side of things, the tendency is to deal within the realm of negation and talking about things being unreal, appearances, seeing them as being unreal. The emphasis is on the changeless, silent background reality of pure awareness, and sometimes the source of awareness as the attributeless thatness.
Rick: Shunyavada, they call it.
Andrew: Beautiful. &&&Surya-vada. So this side of things is very valid, and it’s beautiful, but at the same time it’s only half the story. So we have to have a recognition of a full spectrum of development in order for one side of things to be properly understood. And if we feel that that side is all there is, which it’s natural to feel that way because each subjective recognition of the field of subjectivity feels subjectively absolute, including egoic dominance. For many human beings, if you said, “Do you know that you’re not actually what you take yourself to be?” They’re like, “Ha, yeah, right, you’re a joke.” So that’s just the way subjectivity is, and I feel that one thing that I would love to explore more in the coming months and years is the opportunity for a post-liberation devotion and those that are in those more masculine statuses of the recognition of reality to start to move into a flow of grace which allows for a more comprehensive unfoldment.
Rick: Yeah, that’s nice. And there isn’t any reason, is there, why one couldn’t have, I mean, you talked a bit about the masculine, the nothing ever happened perspective on it, but then you didn’t really elaborate as much on the feminine, but there isn’t any reason why one couldn’t have both in fullness in a balanced way, is there?
Andrew: No, of course not. Actually…
Rick: That’d be the ideal.
Andrew: ne of the, yes, the ideal, one of the major concepts I work with is something I call the sacred marriage. So essentially there’s two aspects of the self, I refer to them as pure awareness and conscious presence. So pure awareness is this changeless, silent, dimensionless seeing that is right here, but at the same time it is non-local, yeah? And the other aspect is this full, vibrant, conscious presence which is the dynamic flow that is appearing as the emergence of these words. And so initially there appears to be a distinction between these two, and this is what I call the primary distinction, and that’s the distinction between the masculine and the feminine aspects of the self. So essentially when one is in the midst of this graced unfoldment of recognizing their reality as infinity, there is going to be something I call aspectual dominance, meaning that we’re going to either see a dominance of the feminine aspect or dominance of the masculine aspect. This doesn’t mean that both cannot be recognized simultaneously, oftentimes in an initial shift in identity or in just basic field recognition, but that one of them is going to be the primary point of reference we might say, even though it’s a field, yes, this field right here.
Rick: So just to elaborate a bit more as part of this what you’re saying, you explained in some detail the orientation of the masculine dominance which I think is probably the more common thing in today’s spiritual milieu. How would you describe someone who has predominantly feminine orientation?
Andrew: The feminine aspect is characterized by vibrancy, fullness, and dynamism. It is the aliveness that we see expressing as the intelligence patterning as the forms of the world. The silent seeing of the masculine is the contrast which allows for the dimensionality of the feminine to be perceived from the dimensionless. So there’s this very, very subtle inseparable contrast that is present. When we look at three dimensions we see that it is the dimensionless that’s able to see these three dimensions, that it’s not the three-dimensional that sees the three-dimensional, but that which does not have dimensions. And so this is the masculine aspect. The feminine aspect oftentimes as well is characterized by the heart, but I do kind of look at devotion as more of a binding principle and there’s levels of that as well. So there can be feminine dominance without a large flow of devotion. It just depends on the case, but the feminine aspect has a lot to do with healing, what I refer to as transmutation, which is essentially the resolution of unresolved energetic condensation that has arisen through the illusion of separation. So as that energy is attentively allowed, what we see is sort of a conversion from an apparently fragmented state into a more expanded, awakened, enlivened status of fluffy, vibrant fullness as the field. And that is also blissful. So the feminine is characterized by bliss and the masculine by peace, I would say.
Rick: So would you say that perhaps examples of the feminine in contemporary spirituality might be sacred dance and relationship work and ceremonial stuff and that whole kind of thing but without a lot of emphasis or recognition of this sort of unmanifest value?
Andrew: Well, it just depends because these words like manifest and unmanifest sort of shift as we move through the stages. So initially like form can be said to be manifest, but then actually when we move into a source condition, the light of conscious awareness is manifest and then the source is unmanifest. So we move from looking at field form in the realm of manifest/unmanifest to looking at field/field in unmanifest/manifest, but that’s a whole different subject. What you’re referring to is as far as these various areas of spiritual expression, I would say yes, they do have more of a feminine quality to them, but at the same time it doesn’t necessarily point to the recognition of the feminine aspect of this field. So I am always speaking about this field and pointing to the truth of this underlying light that is experiencing itself because that is what took place here and that is what feels most relevant for everyone. And the various practices and expressions of that are of course included, but at the same time the direct resonance with this aspect of the self is what I feel to be most important.
Rick: you keep tying everything back to the source, the self. You would say that that has to be the foundation of everything else, right?
Andrew: I would say that yes, that is a foundational recognition and realization and then upon that foundation, well let me perhaps backtrack there and say that devotion can be the foundation and then on the foundation of devotion, self-realization will in a way express itself in alignment with that foundation, express itself in alignment with that flow of devotion.
Rick: that’s interesting. In your discussion, I think this may have come up in your discussions with David Buckland which are on your website, on your YouTube channel, but from his background and mine also, the teaching was always that self-realization tends to precede any significant degree of devotional development because it’s a sort of foundational requirement for deep appreciation. Unless you know who you are, you can’t really know what anything else is, so once you’ve sort of known what you are, then you begin to naturally appreciate the relative creation more and more and then that begins to stir up waves of devotion. But you just said devotion could actually be, could actually precede self-realization and be an impetus to it.
Andrew: That’s true, yes. What you’re referring to as far as Maharishi’s teaching is also accurate because it’s just describing a new level of devotion or a higher, deeper expression of devotion, but devotion is very, very pure and I consider it to be a gift of our divinity to itself. And so, when that seed of devotion sprouts and begins to grow, it really takes over every fiber of what the human being is. And as long as it doesn’t become a new identity that’s used to set up separation, it is something that is drawing a recognition of reality to itself. So, it naturally disassembles the illusion of separation by virtue of the flow of the heart.
Rick: And give us, let’s talk about devotion some more while we’re at it. And actually, we’re going to talk a lot more because you have a whole thing about the four pillars of non-dual devotion, different, we can talk about those. But give us some examples of devotion. You’re talking about devotion to God, devotion to a guru, devotion to a partner, you know, and what would be the subjective nature of that devotion, the subjective experience of it, or perhaps there could be a great many of them, but so go with that.
Andrew: Okay, beautiful, yeah. So, the way in which it initially showed up here was actually devotion to the formless, which was aided by the recognition of the field or the presence of God as it was referred to at that time. But at the same time, there still seemed to be a separate experiencer of that named Andrew that was in place. And so, from the perspective of Andrew, essentially Andrew was just being brought to his knees with this intense love for the grace of divinity and everything that had shown forth. And so, oftentimes Andrew would be on bathroom floors in restaurants and at different jobs just praying and thanking divinity for everything that was being revealed. And this was from a space of egoic dominance, like I said, there was field recognition, but it was still egoic dominance. So, devotion to God can mean lots of different things. And it can be the God that we see reflected back through something, like you said, a teacher or a partner. But it can also be to the own immediacy of our subjectivity, to recognize that this existence that is right here is much more than it appears to be. And to turn into that existence with a sincere and full heart is very powerful. And so, that’s what I typically point those that are coming to our meetings towards, is that level of devotional recognition, the self to itself.
Rick: So, when you say there was devotion to the field, was there the sense that there’s this all-pervading field? And you said at that point it was still Andrew being devoted to the field, not necessarily recognizing that he is the field, but you know, this sort of, you felt like there was this all-pervading, all-permeating field of intelligence or something that just inspired waves of devotion in you. Is that a fair synopsis?
Andrew: Well, the devotion wasn’t so strategic or directed in that sense. It’s very spontaneous and sort of like an overflowing of fullness. And it wasn’t –
Rick: Was it felt as actual love? I mean, did you feel it in the heart?
Andrew: It was a deep sense of love, and that love just kept becoming so intense, more and more intense, more and more intense, and it began to include all of the various forms of life, like the trees and the flowers and other human beings, just the expression of divinity as creation.
Rick: I was going to ask, because it’s a little hard to be devoted to an abstract field, and I was going to ask, did you find yourself wanting to or spontaneously feeling devotion for forms of some sort, as expressions of the field?
Andrew: One thing that I often speak about is devotion to truth. So, I would say that really the most accurate description was devotion to truth, which is synonymous with divinity. And from the perspective of Andrew, who seemed to live most of his life in self-delusion and lies, truth became more important than breathing. So, expression of that grace brought this immense devotion to truth, and that was truth on the practical level, but it also included truth on the level of reality, truth on the level of divinity. And as that began to become fuller and fuller, and really just take over and in a way replace what Andrew previously had seemed to be, then the recognition of that which was flowing in love towards itself began to shine through the various forms and phenomena. So, the light began to reveal itself as permeative and emanating from all of the various forms and phenomena of this plane of existence.
Rick: Nice. So, in other words, everything is a conduit for the light.
Andrew: Yes.
Rick: Everything is a transmitter/receiver sort of the field.
Andrew: Yeah, when we start to see the light of ourself, we’ll start to see it everywhere because it is everywhere. It’s not that it’s here and not there, it’s all-inclusive.
Rick: Yeah. The term “divinity” of course is closely related to the word “God.” What is your sense of what God is?
Andrew: Well, it would be accurate to say that God is this, you know? It would be accurate. The source and essence of this expression of experiencing. And the truth of “I,” the truth of your “I,” my “I,” the one “I” that shows up in each and every human being.
Rick: Good, nice description, definition. And then you say that everything began to shine with the light of the self, I think you put it something like that. Was there an appreciation, is there? I mean, there must be. Just an appreciation of the, I mean, the self again can have kind of a non-qualitative connotation, just like pure light or something. But then there’s also this incredible display of intelligence. I mean, a single cell in your finger is more complex than the city of Tokyo and it’s able to repair and replicate itself. So, the whole universe is just chock-a-block with similar displays of intelligence in every tiny little iota.
Andrew: Beautiful point, Rick. And this just brings us back to those two aspects I was talking about earlier. The self has two aspects, both the masculine and the feminine. And the fullness of the self includes what I refer to as the marriage of these two aspects. So, I call it the sacred marriage, which is poetic, but it also is accurate in the sense that the distinction between the masculine and the feminine is resolved. So, that sense of there being this changeless, silent seeing and then there being this fluffy, full, vibrant knowing or self-observing, self-consciousness, the sense of those things being distinct is resolved. So, that’s where the terminology I use conscious awareness comes into play because it’s not just awareness and it’s not just conscious presence, but it’s conscious awareness, conscious awareness.
Rick: Yeah. My friend Tim Freke, who’s been on BatGap a few times, is always asking, when he does his podcasts, “What is this?” You know? It’s like, what is this thing we’re living? And another, I think a related question we could ask is, “Why is this?” So, we’ve dwelt a bit on what it is in terms of the play of divinity. Would you have an answer to the “why” question?
Andrew: Well, I don’t typically answer “why” questions.
Rick: Okay.
Andrew: But…
Rick: It’s like, why did the creation emerge in the first place?
Andrew: Well, we could say accurately that it hasn’t emerged in the first place.
Rick: You could say that.
Andrew: And that is actually a direct, subjective recognition of reality when we move into a source condition. We realize that there is no creation and there never has been, and that actually even the self is apparent. That’s a certain recognition of reality. But, if we look at it from the same perspective of a play, I think that that is a beautiful way of understanding it. I like to look at it as a dream of divinity or a whim, a musing of the divine, and this has been spoken about in some of the great traditions as well. And this whim or this musing is the dream within the mind of God, within the mind of divinity, which is your mind, actually. So, why silence? Yeah? And then…
Rick: Expansion of happiness, maybe.
Andrew: Yeah, maybe. That is one perspective, and I think that that’s a very healthy perspective to have. I think one way that we could contextualize it is for the sake of the perfection of love. Even though love is already perfected, it projects this apparent absence within its own mind and then progressively appears to return into the recognition of that perfection which has always been the case, and then express that within the apparent absence.
Rick: Yeah, you know if you’re lying in the bathtub, you’ve been lying there for a while, you may not notice the warmth of the water, but if you slosh around a little bit, then it starts to feel warm. So, you know, perhaps the universe is God sloshing around in order to enjoy the warmth and the joy and the play.
Andrew: Beautiful.
Rick: A couple of questions came in, let me hit you with these. Here’s one on the, okay, this is from Andrea in Louisiana asking, “What do you suggest for people that are stuck with their addictions and facing their own awakening? How does one step out of that state and become the person they are meant to be without having to hit bottom or end up in jail to break those chains?”
Andrew: Hmm. There are many people that go to jail and have all kinds of tragic things happen and they never hit bottom. So, bottom does not mean some apparent happening in the experience. These can be just externalized representations of what is taking place on a deeply internal level. To be asking a question like this already reveals some level of willingness and some drawing towards a new way of being and a new way of seeing. So, I feel that the application of basic spiritual principles and the cultivation of an environment which is conducive to those is the first step to be taken. And once that is in place, it’s very important that we examine the areas of our experience which have not been examined. This could be areas of anger, mistrust, a sense of abuse or things that we felt that we have done wrong, so on and so forth. All of those areas of human experience which are typically overlooked or brushed to the side, not really delved into, to look at that which has been considered dark within our life. And this can be something that is challenging for many, so I do suggest having some level of support and guidance there as this process is taking place.
Rick: Like a teacher or therapist or something?
Andrew: Something along those lines. I haven’t seen too much success with therapy in the experience which I’ve had. I’ve seen a lot of therapeutic interactions appear to take place in family and perhaps in some friends as well. And I haven’t seen a lot of success when it is a spiritual craving or a spiritual calling, meaning that nothing short of tasting spiritual reality is going to satiate the hunger that is present within the individual. And whatever seems to be going on in the level of struggle or addiction is really not going to stop, it’s not going to be quelled until we taste that living water of this field on some level.
Rick: Yeah, I’ve interviewed a bunch of therapists who are also appreciative of the deeper spiritual dimensions and I think that’s the kind of therapist one might need if one wants to overcome addictions and yet appreciates spirituality. Otherwise, if the therapist is an atheist or a materialist or something, they just don’t think there is any spiritual dimension, how can they help you?
Andrew: Yeah.
Rick: Yeah. There’s a categorical index on Batgap where you can look up therapists and find a bunch. Another question came in from Rajiv in India who asks, “Can spirituality be seen as an integrated shift in the inner attitude of a person from having many beliefs to having no beliefs?”
Andrew: I would say that that could be a part of it or a certain phase, but that’s not the complete picture. If we are bound to limited beliefs, then it’s often helpful to witness the resolution of those limited beliefs and not necessarily to pick up new ones. But we step into a realm of subjective experiential recognition which is certain and undoubtable and that is really what it’s all about, is stepping into that certainty of the recognition of what our own conscious awareness actually is, the truth that we are divine.
Rick: Yeah, that’s good. I always say that it’s good to take beliefs as hypotheses and take a scientific attitude. They give you a framework for investigation, but a scientist doesn’t believe his hypothesis in some adamant way. He thinks, “Okay, this has potential, I’ll explore it and maybe I’ll be wrong or maybe it’ll pan out.” But the whole idea is not just to cling to a belief of it, the idea is to get to experiential verification of it and that applies for spirituality as well.
Andrew: Yes.
Rick: Yeah. Okay, so here’s something you said on your website which kind of jumped out at me. You said, “Today we see what appears to be a stirring within conscious awareness, the rising of an evolutionary wave which promises opportunity and transcendence for an ever-increasing portion of the population. However, with this promising progression, we also see an increase in error and limited understanding being presented in the spiritual marketplace. An expansive array of choices and options leaves the sincere spiritual aspirant with a growing need for wisdom and discernment when treading the path of spiritual evolution.” And of course, I’m guilty of contributing to this having interviewed 560 something people and given people a lot of choices.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Rick: But you know, my attitude is different people resonate with different people and so you kind of plug into what resonates for you. So, what do you see in terms of this stirring that seems to be taking place and say a little bit more about the increase in error and limited understanding that you referred to.
Andrew: Yeah, the stirring is essentially the blossoming forth of a potential that has just been lying dormant waiting, ripening we might say. And it is comprised of this field realizing itself through what appears to be a greater number of nervous systems than is present in our typically recorded, what we refer to as our recorded history typically. And with that taking place, we also see an increase in error and limited understanding because oftentimes what does appear to arise is that there are certain recognitions of reality which are not fully developed that then begin speaking about themselves from that space and saying that this is the way and this is really the true way and that other ways perhaps are inaccurate. And this can be, we see it a lot on the masculine side of things particularly when within the circles of so-called non-duality. But we also can see it on the side of channeling and different interactions with aliens and things like all those different things. There’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t suggest it for anyone, but it’s important that we have some ground in recognizing that what has been at the core of all of the great traditions is still here and that’s what’s blossoming forth. It’s not, we’re not rewriting spiritual history or making something, you know, creating something new and I see that sometimes as well. It’s like some of the more negation-based approaches which are really not true negation, they’re more of a naive form of negation that are overly focused on the dismissal of the person. There’s an attempt basically to say that all of the great wisdom traditions are nonsense. That’s what it sounds like to me sometimes and I think that that is a huge error, but it’s also very seductive because there are those that are looking for a quick fix and it becomes a way of not being accountable. So, many human beings have a deep unconscious fear of God, a punishing God or something, what’s going to happen after death, what’s going to happen to me or even karma and this presentation of non-duality as being just simply this ‘nobody here kind of a thing’ becomes a way to not be accountable for one’s life and what has unfolded and because there is no life and there is no one and those kinds of things. So, you know I had a little bit of a spiritual warrior kind of thing with this at one point and it was, but by grace that’s been resolved. So, I see where it’s coming from and it’s a part of the broader context like we were talking about earlier, but I do feel that it’s important that we’re able to discuss these things openly and see that it’s, and then we also see, I’ll go ahead and say this as well, sometimes there’s an anger towards enlightenment or the idea of enlightenment because it’s not what we were told it was going to be, right? And basically what this points to is that we feel like just recognizing that there isn’t a separate individual as enlightenment and it’s not. And then when we feel that way, there may not even be any field recognition which is what I refer to as the initial shift into context is where the field clearly recognizes itself, it’s not an experience, it’s not in time, it does not have a beginning and it does not have an ending. The waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states appear to cyclically unfold within the timeless field that you’ve recognized yourself to be, and this is what we call authentic shift in identity, yeah? But when we’re just basing everything on that recognition of there not being someone here, it can become very confusing and there can be some anger that’s present there because it’s like, oh, this enlightenment thing’s a lie, you know, bliss is a lie, love is a lie or whatever. And it’s just not the case, bliss is not a lie, bliss is very much here and it becomes very intense and progressively so, as we move through this – my experience has been an ascending trend since the apparent beginning which is not a beginning. So, maybe I’ll stop there. I didn’t really say too much.
Rick: Yeah, you said a lot. That was a really good wrap. And I could name names as you were speaking of people whom I’ve interviewed who speak that way about there’s no one here and therefore they kind of extrapolate from that assumption to all kinds of conclusions which I would say are erroneous. And like you said, they would probably discount bliss as being something irrelevant. Some of them will discount the very possibility of reincarnation because if there’s no one here then who’s going to reincarnate? There’s a tendency to dismiss spiritual traditions like you said and that can also include a tendency to dismiss any kind of ethical considerations because obviously if there’s no one doing anything then this body can do whatever it wants and there’s no consequences and really I’m not doing it and there’s no free will and it’s all sort of conditioning and who knows what. I mean you can get yourself really tangled up in what I would consider to be sidetracks when you think that way and people have been thinking about this stuff for thousands of years and actually they might have figured some things out. So it might not be a bad idea to refer back to some of those traditional understandings. We can put them in new terminology and try to integrate them with modern science and more modern culture and all that, but some of these old dudes have actually come up with some pretty good stuff. (
Andrew: Laughter) Yeah. And I think it’s important because I mean I don’t know about you but I definitely have a feeling of compassion for everybody out there who is seeking and you know they can stumble into this meeting or get hooked up with that teacher and next thing you know they’ve lost all their money or they’re getting sexually mistreated or all kinds of nasty stuff has happened in contemporary spirituality which in many cases they then become completely disillusioned and lose all interest in it which I think is a real shame.
Andrew: Yeah, one thing I often talk about is moving from seeking to devotion and it’s just a simple shift from a lack-based perspective where we’re looking, looking, looking for Something, to having already found it with that commitment, with that devotion, with that sincere love of truth. And now we’re coming from a space that’s full yet it’s always hungry, it’s always hungry for more, yet it’s always full within itself and it’s such a beautiful way of being that oftentimes in some of the ancient traditions arising from the Indian subcontinent we saw that even those that were in very advanced stages oftentimes took up devotion as a form of lilic play and this is a whole different subject which…
Rick: We’ll get into it. But before we do I just want to ask you, does one have a choice to switch from that seeking mode to the kind of, you know, hungry fullness? Or does it just sort of happen once enough fullness has blossomed in one’s heart and one’s awareness that you might even in retrospect realize, well, you know, I’m not kind of craving and seeking like I used to and yet I’m still exploring and interested and, you know, continuing to develop?
Andrew: Yeah, I like to feel and see that everyone has that seed in their heart which is really just the one heart appearing individuated within itself and that when that seed is placed in moist soil and is given the proper sunlight and the right amount of water then it will sprout. So oftentimes what that means is just being exposed to another option. You know, so many feel that this is the option, you know, and just having the grace of being able to hear that there is another possibility, there is another way, can begin to cultivate the sprouting of that seed and once it sprouts, it’s going to grow and once it grows it’s going to take over and once it takes over then we become devotion. It’s not like I as so and so am devoted, that’s just what we are, we are that. We are the flow of devotion.
Rick: Yeah, but you’re a little bit remarkable in a way. I mean, your story is a little bit remarkable having this shift in a jail cell, but you know, a lot of people have been on the path for years or decades and they probably, there are probably people listening to this who feel this way and they don’t feel like it has been as, it has fructified to the extent that it has for you. They might be thinking, “Oh, I’ve been meditating so long,” or “I’ve been seeking and reading and going to all these teachers and yet I just sort of still feel like a lack or a frustration or something.” You know, so what would you say to those people?
Andrew: Well, I would say that today is a new day. You know, if we can let go of that spiritual history, I know it’s tough sometimes when we, you know, we walk around with all of the years of meditation and the books and the teachers and whatever it is, but when we’re able to become like children, you know, and become like spiritual children, that’s really the key. And we can actually ask for that. We can ask to be made like a child again and to see through those fresh eyes and to have that fresh open heart. And you know, nothing is lost. There are no accidents. It’s not a matter of earning something through perseverance. It’s a matter of receiving a gift that is readily available to any human being who hears the call. And that gift is right here. It’s right here. It’s ready to be opened.
Rick: Yeah. “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.” I really think there’s something to that. It’s like just the initial, I mean, just the initial sort of intention that there must be something more. Help me. Help me find it. What is it? I know it’s, things start to happen, you know?
Andrew: Yes, yes. Beautiful.
Rick: Yeah. So, how do you actually work with people? We have a couple of your graphics that you sent me and we have this four pillars of non-dual devotion, and so let’s say somebody starts working with you, what do they do? Do they practice things? Do they just listen to you talk? I mean, what happens?
Andrew: Well, there’s essentially two styles of teaching or speaking. One style is what I refer to as leading, and this is where the self speaks to itself directly. And there is a direct resonance within the field, so the intellect becomes rather useless. It’s not within the realm of application, it’s not within the realm of mental understanding. It’s a direct resting in that throb that is arising and expressing itself as the self speaking to itself, as the field directly pointing to itself within its own infinity. So that’s one aspect of the…
Andrew: So, you’re saying that people get on a webinar with you and they just kind of relax and settle in and listen to you speak, and then that’s what is happening, what you just described.
Andrew: Yes, yes. That’s one part of a webinar. Typically, nowadays we’re starting to delineate where that is and where the rest is. The other side of it is more of an explanatory side of teaching, where a certain theme or topic is explored and explained, and it has a little bit more of a practical flavor to it. And there we see the intellect can begin to serve devotion and understanding, and also we see application of certain spiritual expressions begin to become relevant, and that’s where the four pillars comes into play. That’s what I speak of as observation, contemplative supplication, transmutation and service. Now observation is a given, so it’s not something that we do, we don’t start observing better or do something to observe. It’s more of a matter of noticing that observing is what we know of experience, even from a space of egoic dominance, that what we know of human life or human experience is that it’s being observed, whether it’s by me or by an infinite Field, it’s still being observed. Now I would say that during this wave that is appearing in conscious awareness that you mentioned earlier, right now…
Rick: The wave around the world of all the people waking up, yeah.
Andrew: Yes, yes, and just the stirring, the stirring that many more have access to simply recognizing that there’s an aspect of their experience which is observing the part of their experience which feels like it’s listening to these words. So, there’s the listening, there’s the listening to these words, but then there’s also an aspect of our experience which is able to observe the sense of the listener, yeah. And that is online for many human beings right now, whether… for many human beings who don’t have any kind of spiritual background, don’t have any kind of spiritual understanding. It can be as simple as just pointing out that this is here. Now that doesn’t mean that there’s a shift in identity, doesn’t mean that we start to… we recognize that that’s an infinite field and that’s ourself. That of course may come later, but having the basic willingness to stop looking out there at everything and start turning back towards the point of experiencing, the point value of experiencing. So now, I’m observing Andrew going to school, I’m observing Andrew eating, I’m observing Andrew talking with someone, I’m observing the attractions that arise in Andrew, I’m observing the aversions that arise in Andrew, I’m observing the mental activity that’s arising.
Rick: Are you alluding to the idea of witnessing? Some people use that word.
Andrew: There’s a little distinction. I use it differently than is typically used. So I classify observing and witnessing differently. I refer to observing as the dynamic feminine aspect and then witnessing as the changeless masculine aspect. So oftentimes you’ll hear someone talking about a witness to the witness and what they’re referring to is basically this primary distinction that I spoke about earlier, which is the distinction between conscious presence and pure awareness. I refer to the conscious presence aspect as this level of more dynamically operative observation and the pure awareness aspect as the static witnessing, or silent seer of actually even the field of self-observing.
Rick: So in other words, conscious presence is more along the lines of something that you would consciously intend to do, whereas witnessing is not something you do but something you are. It’s more like just a condition of deep silence that continues, that abides regardless of whatever’s going on in the active fields of life.
Andrew: Yes, I would say that is accurate, that there’s more of a dynamic, intentional, devotional presence of observation that can begin to take place in the midst of activity or as that sort of, what appears at first to be a second party during the activity of Andrew or whoever it might be, you know, I’m just speaking from a limited understanding there. And then there’s also the silent seeing or the pure changeless awareness or witnessing of that dynamically flowing observing. So we often see with long-term meditators like those that come from the Transcendental Meditation movement, there is a natural shift into that more silent masculine aspect of witnessing first. Here I tend to emphasize more of a transmutative approach which involves the conversion of those latent energetic condensations into a full, lively, blissful presence through attentively allowing them as they arise, and a devotional approach. And in the midst of that devotional transmutative flow, this level of observation is often what comes online first. And this also is relevant in the context of whether or not a shift into the recognition of reality and infinity takes place with either a masculine dominance or a feminine dominance. So if we culture the silent changeless aspect more, then we’re going to see typically that that’s the aspect where the shift predominantly falls into or the shift takes place into that aspect of the self. But here, and the students that I’ve been working with, actually we’ve seen predominantly feminine aspect shifts, which means that the vibrant fullness of the field of conscious presence is recognizing itself and then after that, the silent seeing or the pure dimensionless awareness, which could be seen as like the nectar of that vibrant, full presence is recognizing itself.
Rick: Hmm. Let me bounce it back to you and see if I’ve got this right. So, in my own experience there’s, you know, this kind of unperturbable silence that just pervades or abides no matter what’s going on, no matter how crazy things may get. And then one thing I’ve found over the years is that there’s a great value in a sort of a gentle self-scrutiny so that one is not just sort of doing whatever comes to mind, but sort of applying a real kind of subtle form of discrimination in each moment without getting all manipulative about it, but just as sort of picking up as it were on the most delicate impulses of thought and just sort of, you know, either checking them or allowing them or slightly redirecting them or something, just kind of steering the ship from that quiet level. And if one neglects to do that, then one can sort of go off the beam quite a bit, even if there’s that silent witness and that can cause all kinds of problems in one’s relative life. So, yeah, anyway, that’s how I would express it. Is that what you were saying?
Andrew: Yes, yes, of course. And actually, just to kind of piggyback off what you were just pointing to, if we fail to really milk or extract all of that material that’s arising, We’re basically just walking over a field that’s full of gold and letting it stay there. We’re not harvesting the nutritional value out of all of the content and form that’s arising. And within each and every appearance of the residue of the illusion of separation, there is contained a potential and an opportunity for resolution. Resolution means more fullness, at least experientially, and it means greater clarity. It means greater discernment. It means less obscuration within our capacity to intelligently operate in the world and to express, or for that fullness to express through us. That’s actually the way that it is. We don’t express anything as individuals necessarily. But for that one reality that we are to express through us, that capacity becomes clearer and clearer and fuller and fuller and more enlivened through the resolution of all that seems to be unresolved. And that includes all of the hurts, habits, hang-ups, tendencies, everything within our experience that is a residue of taking ourself to be only the functioning of the body and the mind has within it a hidden potential to serve, to become an offering on the Puja tray, you might say, at the feet of God.
Rick: Nice. Were you an English major? You have a way with words.
Andrew: Actually, I only have a GED, so I didn’t even graduate from high school.
Rick: Yeah, neither did I, and then I got a GED, but then I got some college on top of that and ended up with a…
Andrew: I did go to college, actually. It was interesting because I was in dynamic subjectivity at the time, which is a certain recognition of reality, so it was really blissful. But I had better grades even though the linear processing was sort of disabled, you might say, to a certain degree. There were better grades than I had since the sixth grade, and yeah, it was pretty wow.
Rick: Yeah, it’s great. I sometimes think in my next life, I would like to go through High school in my current state of consciousness rather than the one I was in then.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rick: Because that was sort of a joke. But anyway, I sidetracked this because you said something beautiful there and I wanted to comment on it. Oh, yeah, so were you kind of saying that because it’s all divinity and every little grain of sand and blade of grass and Mack truck and everything that happens in the world is the play of divinity, that there is evolutionary potential in every single experience. And like you said, walking across the field of gold but being oblivious to it, if we don’t recognize that then we just blunder through life and perhaps think that everything is stacked against us. But if we do appreciate that, then every little thing, you get into the habit of, alright, what’s the lesson here? What’s the evolutionary potential in this? You know, there’s sort of like, the world as your guru is talking to you constantly.
Andrew: Exactly, yes. This is the reflective intelligence of the self. This one field just reflects back consistently this immense amount of evolutionary potential and opportunity. And all those things within our experience that we have deemed to be unspiritual through conditioning actually are gems just waiting to be uncovered and polished and really seen for what they are. Not that the content itself somehow is romanticized or glorified and then declared to be spiritual as some sort of attempt to reconcile an inner dichotomy, but that we actually are able to discern something as it is and not as it appears to be. And through discerning it as it is, through attentively allowing the energy that appears to be behind all that mental activity, the emotional fluctuations or reflections, then what we’re doing is we’re witnessing the resurrection of life from taking itself to be this physical, dead, material, chunky, blocky kind of whatever into a fluid flowing field of bliss that is just experiencing itself. And this is something that we live in everyday life. We are an infinite field in everyday life. It’s not an experience that goes, like it stays here. It is what you are. It’s what we are.
Rick: Huh. There was a famous article by a guy named Thomas Nagel entitled, “What is it like to be a bat?” And I was reminded of that when you said that we experience things as they are rather than what we think they are, some such thing. But then again, you know, I mean human perception, even in terms of visual perception, I’ve said this before on this show but it’s a good example. If you took the entire electromagnetic spectrum, which includes x-rays and gamma rays and all kinds of things in addition to visible light, and made it the length of the Mississippi River, then the human visual perception would be some little few centimeters somewhere around Hannibal, Missouri.
Andrew: Yeah.
Rick: You know, so, and that’s just visual perception. So, there’s so many dimensions and realities and so on and so forth that we don’t ordinarily experience and would not want to experience them all. It would be too overwhelming. So, when you say we experience things as they are rather than what we believe them to be or something, what do you mean exactly, given the limitations of our perceptual ability?
Andrew: Well, what I mean is that we taste directly the essential nature, the essential value and then also on the level of the appearance, we understand how that appearance has come to be and we also understand its role or place within the evolutionary spectrum. And so therefore, it moves out of the realm of being right or wrong, good or bad, and we see it from the larger, broader perspective that is actually our own infinite field of divine vision.
Rick: Ah, so in other words, we rather than experience every little molecule and atom and, you know, bacteria or whatever in something, which would be too much information, we experience the essential nature of things and, you know, leave the details to God, but we experience the ult… we see things as the self, which is our essential nature and their essential nature. So that’s what you’re saying.
Andrew: Yes, first we see things as the self, or actually more accurately, the self sees everything as itself. Then there’s the realization that actually it is pure divinity, so that the self is the light of divinity and this light is non-different from its source. The light of the sun is not different from the sun and all of the formations and the appearances that are arising within this light are actually expressions of that divinity. So what we see and directly recognize and realize as an experiential or rather non-experiential reality, I guess, from a certain perspective, it just depends,is that this is all divinity appearing expressed in measurement, yeah? And cognizing itself within the realm of sensory perception.
Rick: Good, okay. Here’s a question. This one is a little bit speculative, in fact that’s what the questioner says. See what you can do with this one. This is Wesley from Fairfield, must be Fairfield, Iowa which is where I am. Wesley asks, “Another speculative why question. Of all possible universes, of all possible configurations, why this one? In other words, why ears? Why houses? Why machine guns? Grass? Football? And most important, why zebras? I find it amazing to compare the infinite unmanifest potential to the actual appearance of forms in this dimension. It seems none of this had to be and yet amazingly here it is.” Field of all possibilities.
Andrew: Yes, it’s something that must be, it’s a question that must be answered through realization, yeah? The why question will disappear when we see clearly, and things will make sense, not in the intellectual, linear understanding of the term, but they will make sense through our own recognition that this is all apparent, and at the same time apparently apparent, meaning that what we’re talking about when we refer to the perceptual presentation of formation isn’t actually here in the way that it seems to be, and that’s not really something that we can comprehend until we are that.
Rick: Good. I would suggest to Wesley, in fact, the other day I started building a Quotes Section on Batgap because I keep getting all these great quotes from people and then I forget them, so I’m starting to put them online. So, if you go into the resources menu on Batgap and down to quotes, and then you’ll see a list pop out of quotes, it’s just, I’m just beginning it, it’s a work in progress, but go down to something called the Kybalion in that list of quotes and you’ll see a really cool description of the universe from the perspective of this ancient tradition or some kind of, I don’t know, mystical, ancient mystical Greek tradition or something. It gives you, kind of mind-blowing in terms of, you know, all the different levels of creation and all the different worlds of possibility that exist. Who was it, Einstein said something like, you know, creation is not only more marvelous than we can imagine, than we imagine, but it’s more marvelous than we can imagine. So, there’s just such, I mean, think of all your favorite science fiction movies and so on and imagine what there might be out there in this vast universe in terms of all the possibilities and even on this earth, you know, you can kind of see God’s handiwork in terms of loving variety and even humor. Some animals are so funny the way they’re designed and life just sort of springing up in even the most inhospitable places like thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, you know, which are spewing sulfuric acid and yet there’s some kind of life living there. So, you know, extrapolate out to all the trillions of galaxies and the gazillion stars within all those galaxies and imagine the diversity of this creation that we live in. It’s really mind-boggling.
Andrew: Yeah, it is, yeah, and that’s just one universe, one multiverse and there’s an infinite number of those as well.
Rick: I wouldn’t be surprised. Like bubbles in ginger ale, I heard a physicist say. It’s bubbling up.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s accurate.
Rick: Yeah. Alright, let’s steer it back to what you do, what you’re offering. You sent me a couple of charts, we can go through those if you want, but I want people to get as good an idea as possible of, you know, what working with you would entail so they can get a good sense of whether it’s something that would appeal to them.
Andrew: Okay, yeah. As far as the four pillars is concerned, the moving, you know, the basis is observation as far as an intention and a willingness and the spontaneous expression of that in the flow of daily living. And then with that, there’s a pillar I call contemplative supplication which is essentially a prayerful, supplicative attitude, life to itself, which is willing to receive truth in a childlike way and also willing to turn towards truth so it doesn’t rely on one’s own personal faculties but turns towards the reservoir of all intelligence consistently on a daily basis in alignment with what is being observed. So that would include perhaps the supplication for what has been seen to be resolved which could be just a silent offering or whatever the case may be. It varies for each one. But the general devotional attitude is in place. And with that, there’s something that I refer to as daily writing which is pretty self-explanatory, which is included in the pillar of contemplative supplication. This is a daily process of written investigation where all of the content and form that’s been registered in the observation is then, through supplication, investigated and broken down in such a way that the unseen is being seen and the unresolved is being resolved by grace. There’s a willingness to look at all of those things within our own experience which we previously were unconscious of, yeah?
Rick: The word humility comes in there too, you know, in terms of not insisting that things happen any particular way and being willing to, you know.
Andrew: Beautiful.
Rick: Yeah.
Andrew: Exactly, yes. It is very much a position of humility, openness, willingness, receptivity, and a recognition that grace is the supreme worker in all of this. And on that basis, we’re simply just really witnessing a flower blossom and in a certain sense providing the conditions which are conducive to the flower blossoming, but recognizing that it’s by the grace of the sunlight of the divinity that we are that the flower does blossom.
Rick: Yeah. You know, this term non-dual devotion kind of says it, but what you’re really saying is this is sort of a heart-based approach to non-duality.
Andrew: Correct.
Rick: Which I find very sweet and nourishing as compared to the sometimes more dry approaches to it, but it sort of has a greater richness to it, fuzziness as you would say.
Andrew: Beautiful. Yeah, and then in that is transmutation which I’ve already gone over so I won’t spend too much time on it. It’s essentially the attentive allowing of unresolved emotion and the energy that’s behind the emotion. And this can include psychological impressions, meaning that we have certain thoughts or images that are associated with stored energy or unresolved emotion. They oftentimes will surface with those unresolved energetic condensations and emotional reflections, and we also want to be able to give some attentive allowing to all of these three layers that includes the psychological impressions, the emotional reflection and the underlying energetic condensation. And as this takes place, what we’ll begin to witness is as more resolution is shining forth, there’s a greater sense of lightness, a greater sense of freedom, a greater sense of expansiveness and it carries on through all of the stages of enlightenment or all of the different contextual modalities or recognitions of reality and infinity. This means that it is applicable right here in a stage of pure divinity just as much if not more as it was in the initial stages, yeah? So it also begins to include collective material when we get into the higher stages. I like to look at this as impersonal cases. I know it sounds sort of like sterile or something, I don’t know, but it’s helpful to recognize that these are cases of contextual conditions which are blossoming forth on our planet and it is such a grace to have these recognitions of reality actually being expressed in daily life through more and more human beings.
Rick: So, when you say cases you mean like you’re a case, I’m a case?
Andrew: Sure.
Rick: Ellie, your wife Ellie is a case, people you’re saying essentially are kind of being the blossoming conduits for divinity throughout the planet.
Andrew: Exactly, exactly.
Rick: Okay.
Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew: So in that transmute-
Rick: I’ve often been called a case, usually a basket case.
Andrew: Yeah, me too, I understand. So in that sense, it’s important that we’re really giving attention to that which has not been given attention, that’s basically what it boils down to, and we’re willing to allow that which has not been allowed. Oftentimes when someone is interested in spirituality, there’s the development of a sort of a spiritual level of identity, like a spiritual ego, and the ego itself is not the identity, so it’s like a spiritual ego identification, identification as being a spiritual separate person. This is a natural part of development and it’s beautiful, but at the same time it has the potential to be very limiting in the sense that oftentimes there’s a lot of things that are deemed to be unspiritual in that complex. And so we end up with this inner split, there’s one side of ourself that we aren’t really allowing to resolve, or one side of our experience, not ourself, but one side of our experience that we’re not allowing to resolve, or that someone appears to not be allowing to resolve. It’s not really going on like that, but there’s essentially a set of a duality within the conscious experiencing. And it’s important that we’re allowing those things that have been deemed to be unspiritual to naturally resolve without them being expressed behaviorally, and also without them being pushed away. So there’s a very, very fine line there with the natural grace of attention, which is just allowing unresolved bits and pieces of the unconscious, both on an individuated and collective level to surface into the conscious awareness, to be given space to just attentively resolve and complete, and then in that, there’s a greater sense of fullness, bliss, and then an invitation for more material to come up.
Rick: So let’s, to repeat what you said in my own words, to make sure I understand it, so let’s say something which is not conducive to spiritual development, let’s say drinking, if that’s been a habit. It’s not that you strain against it and force, because you might rubber band back, you know, and then go off the deep end. But on the other hand, you don’t indulge in it, but there’s just this sort of gentle recognition of the impulse or the desire as it comes up, and then a kind of a dissolving of that, hopefully without having to actually act on the desire, and that attenuates the conditioning so that the desire loses its steam over time. So is that the kind of example of what you’re saying?
Andrew: Well, I think that the drinking example is a little different, I would say, because in the case of addiction, it’s going to be approached differently. It’s not as simple as just a basic transmutative perspective or understanding.
Rick: So give us an example then of a non-addictive…
Andrew: Well, let’s say if someone was drinking, but now they’re not, they might have all of the residue of the things that they did when they were drinking, and there’s guilt about that, there’s shame about that, there’s pictures and images.
Rick: The way they treated people.
Andrew: Yes, all of those different things.
Rick: What they did with their finances, anything.
Andrew: There’s this layering of baggage, and I mean, this can be for anyone, it doesn’t have to be for someone that was an alcoholic, but just for things in our experience that have been more animally expressed, we might say, and then we witness the expression, but it’s already done, and oftentimes we aren’t really giving it the attention, the energy of that, the attention that is needed to resolve, so we hold ourself accountable, we condemn an aspect of our experience, an aspect of our humanness, and it’s sitting there waiting to complete, it’s sitting there waiting to resolve. So in this process of transmutation, what’s taking place is that all of that unresolved material is bubbling up to the surface, the field of attention. As it comes into the field of attention, then the natural, spontaneous intelligence of transmutation begins to come online so it can be attentively allowed to resolve into the field or to resolve into this sense of pure existence that is present already when it arises.
Rick: So, do you feel that the field, when it gets more lively, becomes like a solvent and which begins to loosen up entrenched tendencies or impressions, and as it loosens them, it can also dissolve them? And obviously there has to be a certain pace to it, you can’t handle them all at once, but is there that kind of mechanics going on?
Andrew: Yeah, actually we’re talking about one of the charts right now, could we pull it up?
Andrew: Sure, which one?
Andrew: It’s the Divine Displacement Chart.
Rick: Okay, here we go, we’re there.
Andrew: Just a simple PowerPoint presentation, nobody gets too excited, but I can’t see it.
Rick: No, you won’t be able to see it, but I’m showing it now.
Andrew: Alright, so if you see at the top I have the different layers of contextual reality which is pure divinity, the appearance of the void or supreme nothingness, and then that void, supreme nothingness, there’s a dormant inactive awareness. It’s not awareness in the sense that it’s not self-conscious, self-aware, so divinity activates that dormant inactive aware nothingness and that activation shows up as the primary Distinction – conscious presence, pure awareness, the masculine, feminine aspects. Then there’s a whole bunch that goes on, but basically we see the emergence of the patterning of form in this planetary system through the elemental, mineral, vegetable, animal and then into the human being. What I show there is levels of egoic dominance. So we have low egoic dominance, middle egoic dominance, high egoic dominance. This basically just denotes whether or not there is a balancing out of context. So in low egoic dominance is very close to the animal level, this is what we consider egocentricity, self-centeredness, disregard for life other than the continuation of one’s own organism, those kinds of things, and then we see that dissipate and sort of balance out with a sense of connection towards the top. But if on the chart, this is something I call divine displacement, what I’m basically pointing out is that as the field becomes brighter with the light of divinity and that begins to shine into these layers of egoic residue which you see on the bottom of the chart as the low, middle and high ego conditions. So, each of these levels of egoic dominance has residual impressions that are present within the experiencing, and as the brightness and the brilliancy and the shimmering divinity of that which we are, becomes brighter and brighter, then that shines into those layers of darkness and basically displaces them. So it’s like someone placing their hand in a cup full of water, the water gets displaced and the same thing takes place when the reality of our divinity begins to shine into the conscious experiencing, all of the impressions are displaced and so those impressions being displaced, they bubble up to the surface and they come into the field of attention, the field of activity and that’s where the four pillars come into play. Those are the tools that I highly suggest; they’re not requirements of course, but they’re highly suggested for anyone and they are supportive through all of the recognitions of reality, meaning that through each and every status of infinity, no matter how blissful, no matter how exquisitely amazing, these levels of expression are valuable.
Rick: And four pillars again are observation, contemplative supplication, transmutation and service that we were discussing earlier.
Andrew: Yes, that’s correct, yes. And so yeah, that’s divine displacement which I thought was pretty cool because it is actually how it works. We actually witness that light shine into the darkness and displace all of those impressions that were based in the apparent dominance of darkness.
Rick: Yeah, kind of like illumining a room and then seeing all the cobwebs and dirt and stuff like that.
Andrew: Exactly, exactly.
Rick: You can’t really clean it up until you have enough light shining on it to see it.
Andrew: Exactly, and this explains what happens with some of the cases of spiritual teachers where we see some activity that seems to be incongruent with what it is that they’re expressing, yeah? is that this level of surfacing is taking place and perhaps there’s the sense of having arrived or not needing to continue to look at things or to have this level of investigative, transmutative understanding, or perhaps it’s just innocently that they have not been exposed to the possibility that perhaps that is supportive, yeah? And then naively they get caught in the self-light trap of not continuing with a vigilant –
Rick: Vigilant.
Andrew: Vigilant, excuse me, thank you. What’s the other one mean? I think that’s like –
Rick: Well, that’s like a village. It takes a village.
Andrew: Oh, okay, yeah, whatever it is. Maintaining that sense of alert, attentive, allowing, which is inherently non-controlling in its nature, that’s also very important to understand. What I’m describing has nothing to do with control. All control mechanisms are based in the residue of egoic dominance. So, it’s about allowing, receiving, observing, resolving. It’s not about controlling, doing, trying, yeah.
Rick: Yeah, there’s a couple of quotes I’ve said many times on the show but they’re worth saying in this context. One is from Padma Sambhava, ancient Jewish, I mean, Jewish, Buddhist teacher. He said, “Although my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention to karma or action is as fine as a grain of barley flour.” And another is Carlos Castaneda’s teacher, he said, “A warrior has time only for his impeccability.” So, there’s a great emphasis on, you know, minding your Ps and Qs and not letting your guard down because you think you’re so evolved or something.
Andrew: Beautiful, beautiful.
Rick: A couple of questions came in. Were you about to say something?
Andrew: Well, I was just going to say one more thing. Those four pillars are all contained under the umbrella of devotion. Without devotion, they’re not going to express and actualize in that way.
Rick: Yeah, okay, good. This is a good one. I was going to ask you earlier about, you know, it’s all well and good for you to be saying this stuff. You seem to be like, you know, you take to it like a duck to water and you’ve had these openings and whatnot quite spontaneously it would seem, but you know, I wonder how much it translates into the experience of the people that you teach or talk to. And a question came in from Catherine in San Diego that reminded me of that, which is she said, “How can I feel fullness and clarity when I feel like a failure?” You’re not a failure, Catherine, because that was a really good question.
Andrew: That was a great question, yeah.
Andrew: So the sense of being a failure is what seems to be obscuring the fullness and clarity, yeah? So through giving attention, intelligent attention to the sense of being a failure and allowing it to be there without necessarily becoming it, then what begins to take place is the natural intelligence of this field spontaneously begins to fold that into itself. So you already are what you are, you already are this infinite reality. And all of these layers of impressions that are based in the apparent unawareness of yourself have the capacity to be resolved, they are resolvable, and through grace that is what is going to take place. To ask the question already shows that there is some creative tension present, and that tension can express as this level of resolution, but as long as we are unwilling to let go of these definitions of ourself and of our experience, they’re going to stay there. So another key foundation is willingness. We have to be willing to perhaps recognize that we don’t have ourself figured out. We don’t really know what we are, we don’t really know who we are, and we don’t really know whether what we seem to have done should or shouldn’t have been. And that comes back to the childlike simplicity, which becomes a childlike maturity, yeah?
Rick: Yeah, and you know, we’ve all failed at things, you know, we’ve failed at jobs or relationships or failed at becoming famous rock stars.
Andrew: Failure is a…
Rick: Whatever we wanted to do.
Andrew: Yeah, failure is a blessing in disguise. And it’s a gift that’s poorly wrapped, but don’t mistake the wrapping for the gift.
Rick: Yeah, sometimes it’s God’s way of, you know, separating the wheat from the chaff and kind of making us more pliable and more receptive to, you know, higher wisdom. Another good one here from Susan in the United Kingdom, “Christianity puts great emphasis on the idea of forgiving other people. Could Andrew please explain why this is so important and does he have any specific advice on what to do when forgiveness is difficult?”
Andrew: Well, forgiveness is based in the structure of the ego which spontaneously and innocently is consistently attempting to set up the illusion of separation. This limited self-definition of conscious awareness feels that the sense of being separate is life, it is existence. Without this sense of being a separate individual, ‘me here’, then life would end, existence would come to an end. So therefore it naturally, out of a survival-oriented intelligence, constantly seeks to set up separation and a part of that is holding grudges or judgment, criticism, being angry about things. There’s so many different ways in which this survival-oriented intelligence expresses itself. Forgiveness is a tool of divine intelligence which is basically moving in the direction of undoing those false borders and boundaries that have innocently been put into place through the survival-oriented intelligence of the limited identification with the human ego. When it feels like it’s difficult to forgive, recognize that forgiving is not something that we do as someone, but something that we allow to take place through us. We allow to take place in this heart and that moves it out of the realm of being a personal project and moves it into the realm of being a divine project, which is what this really is all about. This is a divine project and to the degree that we’re aligned with the divine project is to the degree that we will see fruits blossom forth out of that.
Rick: Hmm, I’m reminded of that Bible verse, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord I shall repay.” So, if condemnation is a divine act and not really for us to do, then by the same token forgiveness is a divine act and we can just sort of be again conduits or channels for that.
Andrew: Yeah, actually I have a little saying here that goes sort of in line with that. It’s from the Rig Veda actually and it’s from the Rishika Vak, who’s speaking from identification with the Divine Mother. She says, “I am the power which makes one eat the food to see, to breathe, and to hear what I am saying. They who do not believe me perish and I am telling you the truth here with attention. I am myself telling this, which man and deities should try to understand. The one whom I love I make mighty, I make him Brahman, I make him the sage, I make him wise.” And of course that applies for women as well.
Rick: Oh yeah.
Andrew: So this just expresses that it’s the power of divinity that reveals itself through these nervous systems.
Rick: Good. Okay, so we’ve been going about two hours, very delightful way to spend a couple of hours. So your website then is just andrewhewson.com is it?
Andrew: It’s nondual-devotion.com, we just recently changed it.
Rick: Okay, there we go, I’m just showing it on the screen here. And I’ll put a link to it on your page on BatGap. And you know, people can find out what you do and what you have to offer and everything when they go there, but do you want to just summarize it briefly?
Andrew: Yeah, essentially we have weekly webinars. Some of them are more casual, you might say, during the week. We have a nondual prayer group and those kinds of things which we’re just experimenting with really but it’s been beautiful. And then we also have once-monthly retreats which are online as well. And I’m available for one-on-one sessions, but I do highly suggest or request that someone attend at least three of something before requesting a session, just because it’s important that we’re sure that there’s a direct resonance.
Rick: Okay, probably this interview could count as the first of those somethings. And then they could do a couple of other ones. And you get to know who you are and what you’re at before having a private conversation. Good, well is there anything else you feel like saying in conclusion or have we pretty much covered it?
Andrew: No, I feel like everything has been said. I just want to thank you again for having me.
Rick: Oh, you’re welcome Andrew. It’s really been enjoyable. These conversations always have a nice effect on me, slightly different with different people but this one has really gotten me feeling nicely attuned to your energy.
Andrew: Beautiful.
Rick: Yeah. Alright, so thanks to those who have been listening or watching. Next week I’ll be interviewing James Finley who is a Christian mystic we could say, associated with Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault. And if you go to the upcoming interviews page on batgap.com you’ll see what we have scheduled. You can sign up on the website to be notified by email whenever a new interview is posted. And you can also subscribe on YouTube, you know how to hit the subscribe button. But one thing I learned just a few months ago was that after you hit the subscribe button you see a little bell next to it and then if you click that bell then YouTube just notifies you every time a new thing is posted, which in our case is once a week. So if you’d like that notification, click the bell as well as the subscribe button. So, thanks a lot, thanks for listening or watching. Thanks again, Andrew.
Andrew: Thank you, Rick.
Rick: It’s been a joy.
Andrew: Thank you.
Rick: Thank you.