Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually Awakening people. My guest today is Anita Moorjani. And she is number 600. So, I’ve done 600 of these now. It’s funny you were things were shuffled around, and at one point you were going to be 600. And then you’re going to be 599. But then things got shuffled again. And so you’re number 600. Congratulations. Most of you are probably aware of who indeed is. She, I did interview her nine years ago. But aside from that, you probably know of her she’s the best New York Times bestselling author of several books, I’ll read their titles here and the order she published them, ‘Dying to be me. My journey from cancer to near death to true healing’. ‘What if this is heaven? How Our Cultural Myths Prevent Us from Experiencing Heaven on Earth. And ‘Sensitive is the new strong – The power of empaths in an increasingly harsh world’. Anita is a beloved international speaker, she lives in the US with her husband, Danny, and has dedicated her life to empowering the minds and hearts of people with her story of courage and transformation. She was born in Singapore to Indian parents and grew up in Hong Kong speaking English, Cantonese, and an Indian dialect simultaneously. Prior to her near-death experience, she worked in the corporate world. So your near-death experience now, again, you know, most people will know about this, but you know, who knows, maybe 25% of the audience hasn’t heard about it. So I thought we might want to start by just a quick recap of that. And then we’ll go on to other things.
Anita Moorjani: Okay. Sure. So in February of 2006, I was facing end-stage cancer lymphoma. So it was beyond stage four, I was in the final stages, where at that point, so I had lymphoma. So I had tumors, the size of golf balls, from the base of my skull, all around my neck, under my arms, to my chest, and all the way down to my abdomen. Because the cancer had metastasized and spread throughout my body. My lungs were filled with fluid, my body stopped absorbing nutrition. So I weighed about 85 pounds, I was like a skeleton. And because my body was no longer absorbing nutrition, I couldn’t even walk. My legs didn’t even have the strength to hold up my physical body weight. So I was always either sitting down or lying down.
Rick Archer: As I recall you said your neck didn’t have the strength to hold up your head. Your head was like a bowling ball that you couldn’t hold up.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly, I couldn’t even hold up my head, it was always my head was down like that exactly. Good memory. And, and if I would lie flat on the bed, I would choke on my old own fluid because my lungs were filled with fluid. So I had to be propped up all the time. And I was in so much pain and so much discomfort. And I was in so much fear, I feared the disease, I feared the treatments, I feared death. And so life was just awful. And then my organs started to shut down, my kidneys shut down and my organs were now shutting down one by one. And on February the second 2006, I fell into a coma. And that’s when the doctors told my family that these were my final hours and that I was not going to make it through the night into the next day. And so basically, I was going through the dying process. And while my family were around me and they were distraught. What nobody realized was that I had actually left my body. When my body went into the coma, my spirit actually left my physical body and I was aware of everything that was going on around me. I was aware of everything that was going on around my physical body. My I was aware of my family members that were in the room, but I was aware of stuff that was Beyond the room that we were in.
Rick Archer: Like your brother coming from India or something, right?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, my brother was on a plane from India. So this was happening to me in a hospital in Hong Kong, my brother was on a plane in India and was trying to get on actually was trying to get on a flight to reach me, before I actually died. And I remember even feeling that I need to stay alive until he gets here, I didn’t want to be dead after before he got there. So I remember even feeling that. And I was aware of conversations that were taking place between my husband and the doctor, outside the hospital room, down the hallway, and what and what they were telling him, so I was aware of all of that, but even beyond this physical world, so even beyond being aware of my brother getting on a plane and trying to see me, I became aware that there were other beings that were around me, who were looking out for me. And these other beings were, they were, I recognized some of them. So they were spirit, I felt the presence of all these other spiritual beings. And one of them was my deceased father. Another one was my best friend who had died two years prior. But there were many other beings who I didn’t recognize. And there they all were to greet me. And all I felt from them was pure, unconditional love.
Rick Archer: When you say you recognize Anita, was there a visual component to it? So you could see your father with his mustache if he had one or whatever? Or was it more of kind of just an intuitive, non-visual thing?
Anita Moorjani: It was non-visual because we don’t have physical eyes. So even when I was aware of everything that was happening in the hospital room, and my brother or you know, flying in, it’s, you can see them but you’re not looking with physical eyes.
Rick Archer: But even with subtle eyes, was there any visual element?
Anita Moorjani: There was a visual element attached to it, but not it doesn’t, it didn’t make them physical. So like, say, with my dad, when I would recognize my dad, it was more like, if I put it into something that could be understood here, it was almost like my dad didn’t exist in, in physical in the physical sense. But it was like, I am made known that that is my dad. And the vision I get is the vision of my dad. But it’s not physically him. But it is just an essence. And yet, I knew it was him. It’s like, the way that it’s almost like their essence and your essence merges and you know, everything that they want you to know. And then you get a visual of who it is. And the vision is of how you last for me it was of how I last remembered them so that I would recognize them. So I was aware that it was my dad, it was made known to me that that was my dad. And then with my best friend. I knew that that was her. And it was like our essences merged. And I felt from all the beings that were around me. And it felt like I felt just pure, unconditional love. And the word unconditional is almost redundant. Because if love is conditional, then it’s not love. But I felt a kind of love that I’ve never felt in physical life before. Because for the first time, it felt like I didn’t have to do anything to prove myself. I was loved just because I existed. It was just the most incredible kind of love. And it felt like it was coming not just from the souls or the essences of the deceased people that were around me. But it felt like that love was coming from the whole universe. Like I was bathed in it. It was like it was from source from God from the universe. I was loved just because I existed and I was just bathed in this feeling of love.
Rick Archer: Sometimes I’ll remember experience subjective experiences, or even dreams that I had years or even decades ago and I can just tune into them and they’re very vivid again, is that kind of the way it is for you now with this experience. Can you just sort of shift your attention to it and the whole thing comes to life?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, I just have to shift my attention to it, and absolutely, the whole thing does come to life. And more than that, it’s having that experience has changed my life and changed the way that I view life or that I live my life like a lot of people say that, Oh, but as the as time goes by, does it lose its effect? Have you do you forget what it is? It’s not so much what? It’s not so much recalling what happened, then it’s how it impacts you so that you live life differently. It changes the way you view life and the way you experience life, it changes the way you interact, or the way you handle your own self, your life. So then your life changes trajectory, it just changes trajectory. So the longer time that’s passed, the more you’re actually getting a confirmation every day, that the way you are living now, because of that experience actually works. And it is true every day, it’s been confirmed to you. And so it’s actually more powerful as time goes on, not less. I hope that kind of makes sense.
Rick Archer: That makes sense. Did having had that experience kind of open up a portal or a channel or something so that even now, the experience is not so much a memory of something that happened a decade ago or whatever, but it’s something you can kind of tap into any time or you are all the time?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, yes, all the time. Because I don’t and that’s the thing, I don’t actually keep going back to that experience. I don’t even go back. Like I don’t even I try not to keep visiting the time because it’s attached to me being really sick and dying and dealing with cancer. And so I actually don’t revisit any of that as far as I can. But I just tap into the portal that opened up for me from that day onwards.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So just whatever you whatever was opened up, it just keeps flowing through and enriching your life moment to moment.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, exactly. 100% That’s exactly what it is.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Good. Okay. And so to wrap up that story, you came out of the NDE, you know, nobody expected you to live but you, there you are, you came back and tell us what happened next.
Anita Moorjani: So I came out of the coma, and my physical body healed. So while I was actually in the coma, I understood, I had this what I call the state of clarity, where I understood why my body was so sick, and how I had always forsaken myself and never loved myself and had always treated myself like a doormat and had always put myself down and put myself last. And I understood that I needed to actually really love myself and know that I am worthy and deserving of love. And, and it and there was a lot that happened on the other side, but it’ll probably be unraveled during our conversation.
Rick Archer: Plus, people can watch the first one we did, and or they can read your book. And they’ll get all that. Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly. But I was given a choice as to whether to come back here or not. And at first, I didn’t want to come back into my physical body because it was so beautiful on the other side, and my body was dying and my family was suffering, I thought there’s no reason to come back. But then when I realized I was made to understand that, now that I knew why I had got sick, that I was made to understand that my body would heal very quickly if I chose to come back. And I also became aware that we are all much more powerful than we have led been led to believe. And I realized that I hadn’t completed my purpose yet, and that my purpose was linked to my husband’s purpose Danny’s purpose. And if I didn’t come back, he wouldn’t be able to complete his purpose either. So with all of that understanding, I chose to come back. And when I made that choice, my dad said to me, now that you know this truth, and now that you made this choice, go back and live your life fearlessly. And so that’s when I started opening my eyes and coming out of the coma. And I’d been in the coma for about 36 hours. And my but after coming out of the coma, my body started to heal very, very rapidly and the doctors could not understand it, and they couldn’t figure out what was happening. But in five weeks, I was released from the hospital to go home and live my life cancer-free and that was in March of 2006.
Rick Archer: It’s fantastic. Essentially, you should mention purpose, the interview that I did previous to this one was with Steven Cope, and it was all about Dharma and how to what Dharma is and how to live your Dharma and how to find your Dharma and all that stuff. And maybe you and I could get into that as well as we go along.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay, now, would you like to also tell us a little bit about the second book before we go on to the first book, which will be the third book, which had been the main substance of our conversation? Sure. So. So my first book was, of course, about my story itself, what I just expressed, was about going through the dying process and coming out the other side and what I learned while I was there, on the other side, so the second book is called ‘What if this is heaven?’ and the reason I wrote that book, or what inspired me to write that book, is because I felt that one of the things I learned was that Heaven is not a place but a state of being. And people kind of wait until they die, or one of the things that I used to do before my NDE was I used to believe that I had to do things to build up good Karma here so that I could create the perfect afterlife, you know, have to have the Karmic, you know, the Karmic
Rick Archer: Brownie points.
Anita Moorjani: whatever bank. Yeah, brownie points and the karmic bank to call on and I felt that maybe I had done things in my past life that had caused me to get so sick and have the cancer and it was my bad karma and so on. So life was spent living trying to create the perfect afterlife. It was only when I died, that I realize we’re not supposed to worry about the afterlife, we’re supposed to create the perfect life. Because heaven and hell are right here, it’s experienced right here. And when we’re on the other side, we really want to come here. And when we come here, we come here with the intention of living fully and loving. And we come here with a purpose. But we forget that because we don’t tune in to who we truly are. And instead, we give our power away to other people and other authorities. And so we end up living a kind of a hellish life, because we try to conform, we become some of us become people-pleasers, and we try to conform and we end up living a life, that’s not our life, because we were trying to fit in we actually sacrifice our truth, in order to be able to fit in and belong. So I realized that, that people could be living heaven on earth, if they just learned to tune in to their inner voice, and tune into their soul and find out their purpose and became more authentic. And so that book is called, ‘What if this is heaven?’ and basically, the original subtitle I had for it, which my publishers didn’t use is, so it’s what if this is heaven? And the subtitle would have been, ‘Then why does it feel like hell?’ So, but anyway, they didn’t use that subtitle, but the idea behind it was exactly that, that about creating a heaven on earth. And also, what I speak about in that book, is how everything that we have been taught from the time we’re young, is the absolute opposite of what we actually need to know and learn. If we want to truly have a rich and inspired life, if we truly want to live a rich, inspired purposeful life, then we really need to flip around everything that we’ve ever learned. So as an example, when we go to school, we learn through fear, we study because we’re afraid of not getting ahead, we learn because we want to get ahead in our tests because we want to a better place. We want to place a seat in a good college and then we want to get the best job and so on and on. But all of that is training through fear of not being good enough fear of failing, fear of there not being enough to go around. And so we live our lives, making our choices from a place of fear, instead of from a place of passion of nobody asks us what makes you happy. What do you really feel like doing what lights you up? It’s more about fear of not having enough money, on there not being enough college places, so you got to get ahead of everyone. Even our medical paradigm is based on fear, fear of illness. People aren’t taught about how about supplements and how to get your body healthy and what’s good for your body, medicine, science, and our whole medical pharmaceutical paradigm, they don’t teach you any of that. They’re all about fear of illness and plowing you with pharmaceuticals. And then you have the governments also all about fear. Fear of not enough to go around, fear of poverty. So basically, we are brought up on this diet of fear. But if, and that becomes sorry, and that becomes our marinade. And that’s how we create a hellish existence. We by avoiding everything we don’t want, which is what we’re taught, it’s what we’re marinated in, it’s what we’re in, what’s ingrained in us is, everything that’s ingrained in us is what we don’t want in life. So the focus is always on what you don’t want. Do this, because you don’t want this to happen. Do this because you don’t want to be sick because you don’t want to get cancer, you don’t want to fail. So the focus is always on the thing you don’t want. And what do we all know about when you focus on what you don’t want, that’s what you get. So basically, ‘What if this is heaven?’ is a book that teaches you how to focus on what you do want and how to create heaven on earth, and how you need to shut yourself off from all the stuff that’s coming at you from the outside world and from mainstream and how you literally have to turn your life upside down or inside out in order to live heaven on earth. And I also speak a lot about how you have to take the risk of people saying to you that you’re delusional, which is what I had to go through after my near-death experience when I realized that this whole paradigm I live in, that everything I learned was completely back to front. And so I started focusing differently. And I stopped buying into all the fears, I stopped living from a place of survival mode. And a few people who I knew who were my circle of friends, they said to me that, oh, that’s unrealistic. And you’re being delusional, and you have to be realistic, and we have to put, you have to, you know, put food on the table and make money to pay the rent, and you can’t live like this. And that’s LaLa land and, you know, the usual and I said, nope, I’m not going back to being the way I was before, because the person I was before, got cancer. So I stuck to my guns. And my life panned out in quite a beautiful way with Wayne Dyer discovering my story. And then, you know, me writing books and sharing and helping people all over the world. And those same people that said, what they said back then about, you know, you’re unrealistic, and you got to be more realistic, and you’re delusional, blah, blah, blah. Those same people today, they say to me, wow, how did you do that? I want what you have. Teach me how you do that. And I’m like, Well, I guess you just got to be delusional and unrealistic. Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of so-called fairy tales like that, you know, where the delusional guy has this dream that he wants to do this or that, and everybody says, You’re crazy. But he goes, does it anyway. And, you know, kind of Joseph Campbellish kind of myth of the hero things, you just follow the calling in your heart, you know, and you end up winning Yup
Rick Archer: in the end, so to speak.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly right. And, you know, regarding
Rick Archer: Heaven and Hell, as far as I know, there may be actual heavens and hell realms or something like that the Buddhists and the Hindus and all talk about them. But however heavenly or hellish they may be, we can experience the same degree of heavenness and hellishness right here on Earth. And, and people do I mean, you could have Ramana Maharshi, and some really messed up psychotic person sitting looking in the same room looking at the same mountain, and one of them is in heaven, and one of them is in hell.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, exactly right. It’s heaven and hell are perceptions.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: Pure perceptions.
Rick Archer: states of mind, you could say.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, yeah.
Rick Archer: All right. So let’s segue into ‘Sensitive is the new strong and it’s the power of empaths in an increasingly harsh world.’ And you might as well start by defining what an empath is.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, so an empath is a person who feels what other people are feeling. So let’s say if you have a spectrum, I like to think of it as a spectrum of sensitivity. So at one end of the spectrum, you have people who are, let’s say, not that sensitive, who don’t feel what other people are feeling, who can very easily harm people without feeling any remorse.
Rick Archer: Sociopaths.
Anita Moorjani: Thankfully, sociopaths, exactly. And thankfully, you know, the world is not filled with sociopaths is probably very, very few people. At one extreme end of the spectrum. Most people are like, you know, along the spectrum, and most the majority of the population are probably at the midpoint where they have, you know, where they’re able to do things that harm people, but they also have empathy towards those they love and all. And then you have the other end of the spectrum, where you have the highly sensitive people. But you go one pip further, and you have the empaths. And here’s the difference between a highly sensitive person and an empath. So the higher up, you go on the spectrum to being sensitive, highly sensitive, the more intuitive you are, because what it means is, when you are at the bottom of the spectrum towards sociopath, it means you are unaware, you have no conscious awareness of the greater world around you. The only awareness you have is yourself and your needs. And you’re not aware of any harm that you could be causing to the planet or other people or anything. As you go up the spectrum, you are more sensitive to your impact on this planet, and your impact on other people, and how you affect other people. So as you go up the spectrum, when you get to, let’s say you get to the midpoint, then you have equal awareness of your own needs, and the impact that things are making on you, and the impact that you are making on other people and other people’s needs. So let’s say that’s at the midpoint, as you go higher up the spectrum, and you’re going towards more and more sensitivity to highly sensitive and towards more towards Empath end of the spectrum, what happens is, you start to become more aware of other people and the planet, but it can be to the detriment of yourself. So, so you see at one end of the spectrum, you know, at the sociopathic end, you only care about your own needs, but to the detriment of other people. At the other end of the spectrum, it’s other people’s needs, but to the detriment of yourself. So you literally the higher up the scale you are, the more you are the unless you’re aware of it. And unless you learn how to mitigate it, you could be someone without being aware, that is literally giving and giving of yourself to the point of being a doormat because you are so sensitive to the needs of other people. And you want everybody to be happy, and you want them to have everything, and but you neglect your own needs, you neglect taking care of yourself. And you never allow yourself to receive because you believe it’s better to give than to receive. And so you could be poor and destitute and depleted, but you’re still there giving other people. So that’s at the extreme end, the other end of the spectrum. And usually people at this end of the spectrum, the reason they are that way, is because they feel the pain of other people so deeply, to the point where they absorb the emotions of other people, that they cannot separate it from their own feelings. It’s like when somebody is in pain, they cannot shake it from their own energy and so they end up doing everything they can to relieve that person’s pain. So that’s kind of how I look at it. So an empath is somebody who literally absorbs other people’s emotions, someone who’s not an empath, but a highly sensitive person is somebody who is highly intuitive of the needs of others, who is wonderful for the you know, who is intuitive, who is very sensitive towards the needs of the planet and other people, but they don’t absorb the energies of other people. They may still to an extent, to a large extent care more for other people than they care about themselves, but they don’t absorb their energies and take it on as their own.
Rick Archer: Yeah, so you know, we could think of great saints and sages throughout history who have been acutely sensitive to others more so than the people are sensitive to themselves, you know, they’re just totally tuned in, and totally compassionate and sensitive to any form of suffering in the world and doing their all to alleviate that suffering. But they have such great inner strength and fullness that they’re like, you know, inexhaustible reservoir. And they just don’t get depleted by their efforts to help others, even if those efforts are like a 24/7 operation that seems totally exhausting. Like, I can think of Ammachi – Amritanandamayi – who, as an example just goes and goes and goes, helping others and arming people and just, you know, doing all this stuff, but never seems to be depleted in the slightest. So I think the trick is, and maybe we’ll talk about that is, you know, how can you, you don’t want to be insensitive, you want to even be more sensitive, if possible. But at the same time, you don’t want to be a drained battery, you know, you want to have your batteries continually recharged and able to give without loss.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, and that’s exactly why I wrote this book, it’s for people who find that, by their nature without even trying, they they’re always giving and giving of themselves, but they struggle with receiving. And so this book is actually to help people like that, to help them to learn how to recharge their own batteries, to help them to show them that it’s actually important that they take care of themselves, because the world needs them, the world needs empaths, the world needs more sensitive people, the world needs their light, more than ever right now. So it’s become more important than ever, for them to take care of themselves, and to learn how to take care of themselves, so that they can keep giving without being drained. But in order to keep giving without being drained, you need to learn to receive, you need to learn that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes, and to do things that are loving towards yourself. And that’s a big part of what that book is about. But another piece about what the book is about is that it’s also to make people aware that, like in today’s world, what the people that hold the most power in our world today, the people that have the loudest voices, are the most aggressive and insensitive people among us. And so this book kind of makes no bones about saying where I, where I make no bones about saying that, that, you know, we can fight against what we don’t like in this world and say, ‘hey, I don’t like what’s going on in the world, I don’t like how aggressive the world has become.’ But the reason why the most powerful positions are held by the loudest and most aggressive and most insensitive people among us, is because the empaths and the sensitive people tend to shy away from the limelight. It’s because the empaths and the sensitive people are, they shy away from power, they shy away from receiving from being out on the front lines, they shy away even from abundance from even making money, enough money to help those who are less well off than them. The many, many empaths who are in the spiritual genre of work, feel that money is unspiritual. But if you don’t have money, how are you going to help other people who are struggling? Like I truly believe I truly believe that if empaths had the courage to take on leadership positions, and if empaths had the courage to even allow themselves to be a channel for abundance to receive money, and abundance, and if empaths were able to take away the taboo from money, I think empaths and you know if they took away the taboo from money, and they allowed themselves to become to take on more leadership roles. If the world was run by empaths we would heal world hunger in a minute. In a hot minute we would heal world hunger. Because if you look at the world today, our governments spend way more money on weapons and warfare to kill each other than they do to feed each other. It’s and if you had empaths in leadership roles, the money wouldn’t be going towards warfare and weapons and all that it would be going towards something that benefits people and the planet.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s several points there. I mean, one is to get empaths, or you know, these kinds of people in leadership roles, you’re going to need a populace who appreciates them, and who is willing to vote for them. And, you know, we don’t necessarily have a majority of the people who see things that way. So there’s that. And also, I would say, let’s not generalize too much regarding leaders, because there’s definitely a scale of sensitivity and compassion among the world’s leaders. Has been throughout history, you know, some have been brutal tyrant, some have actually been sensitive people who really tried to do a lot and Gandhi was a leader. And, well, Lincoln was a, you know, a great sensitive man at a time of crisis. When the Sandy Hook shooting happened, I remember Obama going and speaking to the parents and weeping and just, you know, feeling their grief. And you can’t imagine all leaders being so sensitive. So, you know, you have to be a little bit nuanced in treating them or dealing with them.
Anita Moorjani: That’s a fair point. But I’m talking about generally, that the most of the loudest voices right now, like what I truly believe, and somehow this won’t change within me, is that I do feel that world hunger could have been helped a long time.
Rick Archer: Oh yeah
Anita Moorjani: I believe that
Rick Archer: We spent trillions on the military. I mean, just think of Afghanistan, how much we’ve spent in Afghanistan.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly
Rick Archer: Now, if all that money, maybe there needs to be some kind of military intervention. But imagine if we had spent all that money on hunger and schools and health care, and just all the positive things, how much the people would appreciate it for one thing, how much they’d like us for doing that. And what a difference it might have made in terms of the country. I mean, I’m being a little glib here, because I’m not a world leader. And I’m not sitting in their seats making these decisions. But I think we’ve got our priorities pretty screwed up most of the time.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s what I feel that, and these are, yeah, these are my, my views and my thoughts. And basically, see, I, I was on the other side, I died and came back, I know that we do not have a right to kill people. We do not have that right. As someone who’s died and come back, that is one thing, that’s a blanket statement, nobody has the right to kill another person. And if you went and killed someone, or I went and killed someone, we’d be put in jail in a minute, you won’t be caught, we’d be put in jail. It’s against the law to do it. But yet, governments have the right to actually create armies and train young people to go out and kill it just go and kill nations and countries of innocent people. And these are, and so in a way, like coming from the near death. Because everything I say, I’m coming from a near death perspective, I’m not coming from the 3d perspective of this world, I’m coming from that perspective. We so the government’s they do not have a right to do that, from the perspective I’m speaking about. And that’s what I mean, they don’t have the right and yet they’ve taken it. And they’ve taken that right. And the reason they’ve done it is because they’re able to convince us and it’s only when we don’t allow ourselves to be convinced when we realize that we can march to a different drummer, that there is a higher power. And that’s where I’m coming from. And that’s where I was coming from, when I wrote this book ‘Sensitive is the new strong.’ It is actually about following that inner guidance within you, that inner voice and following that, and stop giving your power away to this, to the to the loudest voices in this physical world. That’s how we lose our power is by giving our power to the loudest voices in this physical world, when all they have is that they’re just extremely convincing. But they don’t necessarily have hours of the world’s best interest at heart. And so the and so my point is, there are actually a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of us who are very empathic, but you don’t know that because they are because we, we tend to second guess ourselves, and we tend to give our power away to the louder voices. But we need to realize this is what we’re doing. And when we realize that, oh, I don’t need to keep listening to them. I have another voice, I have a connection with the other side, I have guides I have I am connected to source and sources communicating with me all the time. And when we start to realize that that’s when we come into our own power. And that’s when we realize that actually, most people in the world are sensitive and empathic. Most people in the world don’t want wars. Most people in the world don’t want to go out and fight and kill other people. We don’t want it. Why are we doing it? Because some of the loudest voices among us are convincing us we need to
Rick Archer: Right on. This came up in my interview last week with Steven cope, you know, we were pondering, you know, is there ever a situation in which force needs to be met with force and then we brought up Hitler and you know, what was happening in World War Two as he started overtaking other countries and so on. And, you know, Gandhi apparently wanted to do a sort of a nonviolent response to him and Neville Chamberlain was trying to, you know, negotiate peace, and oh, he’s not going to get any farther than he already has. But eventually, he had to be stopped with force. I mean, if you were Prime Minister of Great Britain at that time, what would you have done under circumstances like that? Or Roosevelt if you were president to the US?
Anita Moorjani: So the way the world is right now, or even then I wouldn’t take on any of those positions of being Prime Minister or anything. The world the way we are right now, we’re not ready for an empath president. We’re just not. That’s, and so what I like to do is bring about people’s awareness so that an evolution can start, that’s what I’m, that’s what I like to see happening is, is an evolution. Because if you’d had an empath step up into a leadership role, right now, they would be chewed up and destroyed, they really would, because the loudest voices among us won’t let that happen. And what it what needs to happen is that it needs to start at the grassroots level, it needs to start from us, the people who stop putting those people in power, it needs to stop from there.
Rick Archer: I totally agree. You know, I think it has to be grassroots
Anita Moorjani: ‘coz and I also am not for force meeting force. It, I usually don’t fight against what I don’t like to see in the world, I actually try to expand on what I want to see more of and that’s, that’s all I’m trying to do here is to say, hey, we do need more empath leaders. If one stepped up right now, though, they would be chewed up and spat out. So why don’t we start cultivating an awareness of what we want to see, and start creating it and spreading that awareness? It’s really more like creating a different revolution or an evolution because even whether you take COVID, or not, no COVID, like even the way we were before COVID, if we continued the way we were going, we were on the brink of our own extinction. Because if you look at governments, what were they doing, all they were doing was comparing the size of their nuclear weapons. And it was about who has the bigger nuclear weapons. So basically, we were on the brink of our own extinction. and so basically, anyway, that’s what that book was about. But we don’t have to talk. We don’t have to go in this direction. And I was, and I just what I was wanting to do in this particular book, in this transition of my life, is to bring about awareness of how empathy is so much more important and how we need to redefine what the word strong means. So for example, if you were to ask somebody, what does the word strong mean to you? And to most people, when you say strong, oh, it means somebody who’s competitive, determined, who’s ruthless, who’s aggressive, who has brute force, who wins at all costs, and we look to those traits for our in our leaders, and we admire those traits. We admire those traits, in people in leaders in corporate heads in sports, we admire them. But what happened is that because we admire those traits, when kids have a lot of when kids are super sensitive when they have too much empathy when kids show emotions, they’re told to they’re told don’t be so sensitive or a boy is told man up and boys don’t cry. And so the traits of empathy and sensitivity and all these are seen as weaknesses. So what I was trying to show in this book is that maybe we need to redefine the word strength, and that somebody who is empathic is actually someone who’s strong.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: Because it’s a needed trait in the world.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I want to discuss that a lot more with you today. I do want to wrap up some you just made a beautiful point previously, and that is that, you know, if an empath got into a leadership position, he’d be true that he or she would be chewed up. And so it begs the question, well, how can we kind of create a quality and collective consciousness that would actually transform things from the bottom up from the grassroots level? Such that an empath could be an appropriate representative of collective consciousness and not be chewed up? And, you know, use his or her authority to do all kinds of good things in the world? Yeah, I think at this point, you know, Jesus Christ could be made president and he would be chewed up, because the whole, you know, the whole way the government works
Anita Moorjani: He would
Rick Archer: Was so it’s so messed up. So it really, you know,
Anita Moorjani: He would and Gandhi and Gandhi would be chewed up
Rick Archer: Yeah, any of those people
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the way I would do it from a grassroots level, it would start with education.
Rick Archer: Yeah, which you are doing actually
Anita Moorjani: Start with yeah, exactly and that’s what I tried to do, I just tried to be, I guess, a spokesperson or just want to start a evolution or a revolution on this, it would start with education, it would start with parents educating the kids, it would start with schools, educating their kids, and redefining what the word strong means. It would mean teaching kids to be more compassionate, to teaching them to be more empathic, and rewarding them for being empathic, as opposed to rewarding them for being competitive and winning. It would be to really tip the scales in the favor of empathy, over winning at all costs. And it would be to tip the scales and rewarding collaboration, as opposed to competition. Right now, everything is about competition, even in schools. But imagine if in schools, it was collaboration was ingrained, and you were rewarded, not for winning and competing, but for collaborating. And it would be to teach kids even to, what I would do if it was up to me, I would have kids learn, for example, on how to be like, let’s say, I would say, for one week, you’re going to be in a wheelchair, or for a month, you’re going to learn how to get around your life and your world as a paraplegic. What does it feel like? You know, things like that
Rick Archer: yeah or blindfolded something
Anita Moorjani: Yeah or blindfolded. You know, so you’re a blind person, like, how do you navigate the world? What will happen because kids are so creative, kids who can have that experience, they will grow up creating and inventing ways to make the world an easier place for those who are suffering. If they can get to actually experience a little bit of that, as part of their education. I would definitely make empathy, a huge part of the curriculum, if it was up to me. That’s what I would do. I would be shaping future leaders. And I would be shaping future values of what it means to be strong. I would be redefining the what is actually held in high esteem. You can’t do it right now, like put an empath leader right now, because the people who are already in there are way too entrenched in the old paradigm. But if you want to change the paradigm, it starts with education, educating the young.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think one promising thing also that should be part of the mix is some kind of spiritual practice for the kids.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly
Rick Archer: Yeah, I have friends who people I’ve interviewed and other friends who are teaching meditation and other such things in schools, and very often in inner-city schools, and they see these huge transformations in terms of, you know, reduced violence and all the stuff that happens. Or in prisons, I mean, they teach meditation courses in prison sometimes and with a bunch of people gathered together who ordinarily wouldn’t close their eyes in each other’s presence because they belong to rival gangs, you know, but then, you know, it has such a transformative effect on them that they all become friends and the kids in schools, their grades are going up. So, you know, stuff like that you have to sort of. I mean, the main thing, reason that your NDE transformed you, I think was that you tapped into a deep inner reservoir that everyone has within them, but that very few people access, and you maintained a continuous contact with that reservoir. And there are obviously spiritual practices that can enable you to do that without having nearly to die, you know, without having to go through something like you went through. And then you can start it from a young age and culture it throughout your life.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, and the reason I share everything that happened in my experience, and the reason I write books and do videos and all is because I don’t want people to have to go through what I went through.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: And because I can see, like, so clearly that we could all have a different life, a different world, but I just have a different way of seeing it and all it takes is a slight shift in focus. It’s not, you know, it’s not a, it’s not something that people need to die to be able to understand. That’s, that’s what I believe that’s why I share it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And it’s not something either, where we would have to completely revamp the entire educational system or something. Or we could just introduce something in there, which would enable people to begin tapping into that inner potential. And then the changes would ripple out from that, and things would change in the curriculum, and things would change in the prison system and so on in the health care system, once that inner, inner reservoir was being contacted adequately.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, exactly. And, you know, kids, when they’re young, when they’re born, they’re so intuitive, and they’re so connected, but that gets conditioned out of them. And they’re told it’s your imagination, and don’t be so sensitive and all. So instead of doing that, it would actually be cultivated. They would actually be encouraged to use their imaginations, and they would be encouraged to stay connected to the other side and encouraged to be intuitive, and so on.
Rick Archer: Yeah. The next thought that comes to mind that it’s not a big jump from what we’re talking about is, you know, you’re talking about being super sensitive and that’s a good thing. But also having the strength so that it doesn’t overwhelm you or doesn’t adversely influence you. And so maybe we should talk a little bit more about how to, you know, get the strength kind of on a par with the sensitivity, and perhaps being able to actually become more sensitive, and yet commensurately more strong, so that, you know, we can just be a gift to the world and not the kind of victimized in the process.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, so one of the things that I ask people to do is, well, there’s many things, there’s many tools is like, ask yourself, ‘Are you someone who gives and gives of yourself? And do you have trouble receiving?’ And so a lot of people who are empaths, and who are super sensitive, they do have trouble receiving, and they tend to believe that it’s better to give than to receive. Of course, it’s great to give it is, but if you don’t allow yourself to receive, you can become completely depleted, because receiving doesn’t mean just receiving from other people. It even means receiving from source.
Rick Archer: Yeah
Anita Moorjani: Receiving from the universe.
Rick Archer: Yes. When you soon as you said receiving, I was thinking yes, ‘from source’, that’s very good, you got to make sure that’s in the process.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly. And you really do. And if it means building practices every day, where you can get replenished and rejuvenated, then you have to do it. And very often I get people arguing with me and saying, ‘Oh, but I don’t have time and I have to I have kids and I have this going on and I have my job.’ And I say Yeah, but you will get depleted if you don’t allow yourself to receive if you don’t make time to recharge your batteries. And you have to do things whether it’s like soak in a bathtub or meditate or go for a walk in nature or listen to music or, you know, do whatever it is that recharges you go watch a movie, go out with friends go laugh and have dinner with people you love. But you have to do it and you have to do it consciously do something every day. Don’t let it be something like, ‘Oh, after I have finished everything and done everything I can for everyone else, then I will take care of me.’ No, don’t do that. Because that was the mistake I made. And when people argue with me and say no, but I don’t have time and you don’t understand I have to pay the bills and I have to work so that I can put food on the table. And I say look, ‘It’ll be even worse if your body starts to tell you if your body starts to show symptoms, telling you that you need to take care of yourself, don’t wait until your body does that. So please don’t, you know, so please stop arguing for in favor of continuing to live the life that you’re not liking.’ You know, so and a lot of people do that. They’re like living this life that they don’t like, there’s, they’re struggling, they’re tired, they’re, they don’t have enough money, and then when, when people say that, that, you know, you need to take time out, you need to take care of yourself, you need to connect with your higher self, immediately, they start arguing with you and saying, ‘I can’t do that I don’t have time at all.’ And I and I always say to them, ‘You’re arguing for living that life that you don’t like.’
Rick Archer: Yeah, back, when I used to teach meditation if people said, I don’t have time, I would say that time has you.
Anita Moorjani: And the more you say you don’t have time, the more it means you need to do this. Yeah, and it doesn’t necessarily have to take half your day. I mean, you can do things that are very rejuvenating in a short amount of time, you know, little meditation, a little of some of the things you mentioned, it’s kind of like, let’s say, you’re gonna go shopping all day, and you need money, well, it only takes a few minutes to go to the bank and get a bunch of money. And then you can spend hours in the market with the money you got. So that’s just a metaphor. Yeah
Rick Archer: But you know, or you want, you want to shoot an arrow at a target, if you just kind of let go the arrow, it’ll drop on the ground, you have to pull it back on the bow, and then it gets hit, I’ll have momentum for going forward. So a little bit of preparation, you know, you come back into the field of activity for hours on end with rejuvenated, you know, your batteries are charged.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly, exactly right. So you don’t have to spend like a whole lot of time. But what happens, what I find is that when I take time out for myself, to do stuff for myself, what it does is that I slow down, you know, it’s more like, for me, it’s a ritual of either I go and make myself a nice cup of tea, and I sit down or read a book or write in my journal. And when I slow down, it feels like time slows down. And I find I actually end up having more time on my hands than I thought I did.
Rick Archer: That’s a good point. I mean, you know, if you take the time to recharge, you actually end up with more time in the day than if you hadn’t recharged. So if a person feels they don’t have time, okay, say fine, then do this. And you’ll actually get more time. And not only do you have more, I mean, you also not only have more energy, but usually tend to be to act in a more coherent, orderly fashion. So you end up doing more with less effort or doing you know, something that would ordinarily take two hours in one hour like that.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly. And you become much more efficient. When your batteries are recharged when you take the time to regroup, recharge, you also become more intuitive, when you take time out. When you’re just doing doing doing and busy just getting things done, you lose your intuition.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: Because your space your headspace is so full, the intuition, the downloads, there’s no space for them to reach you. So the more that you can take gaps of time, the more intuitive you become.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And actually, on that point, if you’ve lost your intuitive sense of the right course of action, you might spend half your day doing something that turns out to be a total waste of time. You know?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And maybe, and the thing is that if you don’t take that time out to recharge, and to connect with your intuition, you could have an amazing opportunity that is trying to knock on your door, but you’re just not seeing it because you’re so busy, busy busy, getting things done and getting things off your plate.
Rick Archer: Yeah, we are couple of pep talkers. Okay, so I just want to remind people that if you have a question about what we’re saying here, you can send it in through the form on the upcoming interviews page on batgap.com. So how do you know if you are an empath? I mean, a lot of people I hear them saying, ‘I’m an empath.’ Are they really? Or, how do you know if you are? And I imagine that there are degrees of ’empathicness’ if that’s a word, and it’s not an on-off, black and white kind of situation. ย But how do you know if you are one? And should, can you become one, if you’re not? Should you want to become one? Would it be good, would it be desirable and possible for everyone to be one if there were a way of turning that on?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah So that’s a bunch of questions in there. One is, I personally have, I’ve got a test a little questionnaire on my website, which helps people to determine if they’re an empath or not. I don’t think it’s possible to become one if you are not innately an empath. And for the people who are empaths, they are, how would you say? You know, I think it’s desirable to be an empath if everybody around you is an empath. But if everybody around you is not, and they are not even highly sensitive, but lower down on the scale, it’s then empaths struggle. Empaths struggle if they are working in an environment or living in an environment, or in a community where the people around them are not empaths. Empaths kind of are what I call six sensory beings. There’s a whole other sense that is very strong to them. That is invisible to other people. And because it’s very strong to them, it’s as strong as your sense of smell, or sight, or taste or touch. And so empaths are like six sensory beings. But the world has been designed for five sensory beings, it’s a five-sensory world. So empaths, very often struggle until they learn that they are empaths. And they learn that having that sixth sense is a gift, then, and that’s actually the crux of my book, ‘Sensitive is the new strong.’ It’s about teaching empaths that actually, what you have is a gift. Many empaths believe that they or many empaths, wish they were not empaths and wish they could get rid of that trait only because we’re living in a world that doesn’t embrace that sixth sense. So but once you learn what it is and that and you embrace it, and you know it’s a gift, then then it’s, then it becomes wonderful. I don’t think that it’s possible for somebody who is innately on the lower end of the scale to become an empath. I think it is possible for people who are anywhere in the mid-range upwards to cultivate more empathy, which is what I was alluding to with education. And the more empathy that people have, the easier it becomes even for empaths to integrate with people who have empathy.
Rick Archer: I’m thinking of some examples here. For instance, the Birdman of Alcatraz, who Burt Lancaster played in a movie. He was a murderer and serving a life sentence in Alcatraz prison. And he shifted, you know, through his love of birds, some little bird flew in his window and he became one of the world’s experts on birds. Or the guy who wrote ‘Amazing grace’ was involved in the slave trade. And some, somehow he woke up to the horror of what he had been doing and ended up sort of dedicating his life to God. Or, I don’t know Valmiki in the Ramayana, who wrote the Ramayana was a murderer and highway robber, and he had a big turnaround. So there are examples of people who were really sort of at the extreme end of cruelty and hardness, who are you know, the apostle Paul, who was previously, Saul, a persecutor of Christians became one of the greatest representatives of Christ. So people do turn around, you know, Saint Francis, he had a big turnaround.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, absolutely. And possibly they were born with, you know, with those qualities, but those qualities were varied. So I’m not because I’m not actually a psychologist or anyone, like, for example, Elaine Aaron, I’ve never actually studied whether people are born with these traits, whether it’s nature or nurture. So I don’t know that for sure. So it could be that people turn around but an empath per se going back to just purely empaths as the way that Elaine Aaron and Judith Orloff explain ’empaths’, it’s a trait where you absorb the emotions of other people. So that’s a separate thing, at least I think, from say, the people whose lives have turned around because one of the things I do believe to what you’re saying, I completely agree with you. Like for example, I believe that in every, let’s say, prison structure, there are probably a ton of people there who regret everything they did you know, even in the highest security prison filled with murderers, I bet you there are a lot of people in there with who if they received the right amount of love and nurturing would never have chosen the life they chose. And so when they get an awakening, it turns them around. I truly believe that. I believe everybody deserves a second chance. Everybody deserves a second chance. So everything you’re saying, 100%, I’m with you. And I agree with you. Everybody can turn around in that sense. But if we’re talking strictly about empaths, the way that I discovered from Elaine Aaron and Judith Orloff, it seems it’s something you’re innately either born with or not and it’s this, it’s this inclination, it’s like basically, the way they describe it is that an empath is a sponge. And as a sponge, they cannot differentiate their energy and their emotions from the other person’s energy or emotions. So I guess if I take their description, and so I related to it myself because this is why I wrote the book. It’s because when I discovered when somebody said to me, you’re an empath, because they saw I was struggling with something and they said, Oh, you, I think you’re an empath. And I went and looked it up. And I was like, Whoa, I am, oh, my God. Now I understand. So these people who have the turnaround that we’re talking about, who woke up to love, they’re not necessarily empaths, per se, they just woke up to something to Enlightenment to suddenly realizing, Oh, my God, like can be different. An Empath very specifically, is somebody who, when you’re in a room, you absorb the energies of everyone around you. So if you’re in a room of people who are feeling depressed, you can walk away feeling depressed, and not understanding why you’re feeling depressed. But it’s because you’ve just picked up the energy of everybody in the room. And that, from what I’ve read is something that you either are or you aren’t. That I know for sure that I am, but I can’t answer whether it’s something that people can cultivate or not. But I know that I have been for my entire life. But I didn’t know I was and because and because I discovered that it was a thing. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I didn’t know that was a thing as being an empath.’ And why I said it was a six sensory thing is because for an empath, the emotions, the energy of other people is real. It’s a real thing. They can actually feel it as clearly as they can see things touch things. That’s kind of so I’m glad you brought up what you did, because it allowed me to clarify this. And from my understanding, some people are wired that way, or they aren’t so and so I realized that it was because I’m wired that way, that I even got sick in the first place.
Rick Archer: That’s good. Yeah
Anita Moorjani: I was taking on stuff that I didn’t even know was mine.
Rick Archer: Well, I’m glad you clarified that because even though I read your entire book, I was still kind of thinking of an empath is just really sensitive people like all saints would fall into the category of empaths. But no, you know not. So you can have Ramana Maharshi sitting in a room full of depressed people. He’s not going to get depressed.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah
Rick Archer: Even though you might be one of the most sensitive people on the planet. But an empath is specifically refers to somebody who absorbs it like a sponge, like you just said.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, exactly. I’m so glad we clarified that. And so in the same way, it’s highly possible that Gandhi was not an empath. But yet.
Rick Archer: I bet even Jesus wasn’t an empath. You know.
Anita Moorjani: It’s possible Jesus wasn’t. But it is possible that Mother Teresa was because she couldn’t rest. And again, I’m just, I’m not sure, but I’m just saying from what little I know, is that she possibly was because she couldn’t rest until every single person individual person was fed or taken care of because it bothered her. It was like she felt she was out there in the streets of Calcutta. And she was absorbing their pain and she couldn’t rest until each one’s pain was taken care of. And she believed because she was a Christian. She believed that each of these people could only be saved through Jesus Christ. She felt this need that she had to save every single one of them, and she couldn’t rest until she did that for each person. So she could possibly be an empath again, I’m just guessing, but I just felt that that nature of her needing to rescue. Empaths are rescuers. They cannot bear to see a person suffering, because they absorb the energy of the person suffering. And then even if the person doesn’t ask for help, an empath will actually reach out and help the person, even when they don’t ask for it because they’re actually feeling the suffering of that person. It’s kind of a fine point because it’s, it’s really good to be sensitive to the suffering of others and try to alleviate it. But the distinction seems to be that, you know, on the one hand, a saint might alleviate it, but not at his own expense, whereas the empath, some something is drained or something is lost, or, you know, there’s some kind of vulnerability to them that takes a toll. Yes, if they don’t realize it correct, if they don’t, if they are an empath, and have not yet realized they are an empath, yes, it can take a toll.
Rick Archer: Okay, and if they have realized an empath, maybe we, maybe we’ve covered this some but maybe not completely, what can they do to still be an empath, since they have no choice in that, but to not have it take a toll on them.
Anita Moorjani: So there are many things they can do. And one of the things I covered earlier was that they have to allow
Rick Archer: Downtime
Anita Moorjani: to receive downtime, they have to have downtime, they have to tune in. So for an empath, it’s super important to get in touch with their own Higher Self, source, whatever you want to call it like they have to get in touch with their own soul source.
Rick Archer: Yeah
Anita Moorjani: because it’s super important, more important than for anyone else. Because if they don’t do that, they end up giving their power away to other people. And that’s what drains them.
Rick Archer: Yeah
Anita Moorjani: And empaths’ biggest drain is this constant, it’s, it’s a constant need to, to kind of alleviate other people’s pain. But what happens is that we also empaths also tend to have a tendency of not wanting to disappoint people.
Rick Archer: Right
Anita Moorjani: And so when you’re out there trying to be there, for everyone in the outside world, you neglect yourself, what you need to do is you need to spend time to listen to your ‘Higher voice’ as opposed to listening to all the voices on the outside world. So it’s very important for an empath to do that. When they do that, they can become very, very powerful. And empaths are highly intuitive. They, so they have to just learn to differentiate like if differentiate the energies of other people from their own. So if you walk into a room, you have to ask yourself, Okay, ‘How does this room feel? And you have to say to yourself, ‘This is not my energy.’ And you kind of have to say that, ‘Do I want to be here? Do I have the energy to uplift the room?’ If not, it’s best I leave, uplift my own energy, and then come back, if I wish, after I’ve uplifted my own energy.
Rick Archer: Yeah that’s good. I get the impression, you probably even sort of said it in your book that your ’empathicness’ led to your cancer, actually.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, you weren’t and I didn’t realize that at the time.
Rick Archer: Right. Is there any evidence that you’re aware of that empaths are more susceptible to disease?
Anita Moorjani: There isn’t any clinical evidence but from my own audiences from my own, just me asking people I know that, that from the people who are attracted to my work, they all relate to what I say. And so because usually, clinical evidence is very narrow because it’s usually clinical evidence is always funded by pharmaceutical but I so I asked my audiences you know, when I’m in on my videos and my online platform and my events and I’m always asking them, like, do you relate to being an empath these are the traits and then I explained to them what it means and then they show they raise their hands and then I ask them, ‘How many of you feel rundown when this and this happens? How many of you feel stressed? How many?’ So I have my own way of asking them and I do feel I find that empaths tend to be more vulnerable and sensitive to getting physical symptoms and attracting physical illnesses. So but I don’t want to say that to scare them because on the good news side, the good side is that when you are aware of this, you can also reverse it, and you can also heal. Because you’re when you start to become aware of what it is that’s causing the physical issues in your body.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I mean, I sometimes think of cigarette smoking, for instance, I did a little bit when I was a teenager. But you know, at this point, if I were to just take one puff on a cigarette, it would be horrendous. But I think, you know, how could you be so insensitive to the effect like that something like that is having on your body? And, and again, when I used to teach meditation, a lot of times people would start, and then habits like that would just drop off because they suddenly started to become aware of the influence it was having they were oblivious to it before?
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, exactly, you start to become more aware. And so really, it’s just about being aware, like sometimes when I do a talk or a video or something that is specifically targeted at empaths, then I kind of, you know, I, so first, if they’ve taken a test and determined that they are an empath, then they would be interested in, say, watching that video or coming to that seminar. And then really what I do is I speak to them about the challenges and the gifts of being an empath, and the challenges being that we have a tendency to absorb the energies and so, and then I speak to them about what it can, and you know, I ask them, like, ‘How did your body feel after that incident? How did it feel? And tell me when did your body feel good, when did it feel bad, and so on. So, I personally feel that I have seen enough evidence that people who are empaths tend to be more their bodies tend to be more sensitive to physical symptoms. Personally, I also believe, and this doesn’t exist at the moment, but I believe that empaths when they have physical symptoms, I believe that they would do better if they had a different kind of treatment, like instead of the typical pharmaceutical medical treatment, but if they went for something more, I don’t like to call it alternative but maybe more complimentary. Like, I feel that other types of treatment like whether it’s homeopathy, whether it’s a neuro-emotional technique, acupuncture, all these things, I feel are far more effective for empaths than pharmaceuticals are, but that’s my belief. And I don’t want people who, to who feel that they need medicine to not go for it. Yeah, what do you know?
Rick Archer: Yeah. And that might be more effective for empaths than they would be for non-empaths, you know, because none of us might not have this neurophysiological subtlety to be as sensitive to the effects of those things.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly. Exactly right.
Rick Archer: When I was taking when I was reading your book, and I got to the test on, you know whether or not you’re an empath, I read it out loud. And Irene and I both tried to answer the questions. And here’s a question from her. She said, ‘Taking the test in your book for empathic tendencies, I found that with some questions, I would give myself a 20 or 30, on a scale of one to 10. Well, with others, I would give myself a zero. Not all highly sensitive people have the same areas developed. In other words, some points I so strongly related to while others not at all. Can you speak about that?’
Anita Moorjani: Yes, so the test is not like a perfect test. And but I would say that if you scored a zero on several of them, like quite a few, and even if you scored a 20 on out of 10. For a few of them. I would say that you’re a highly sensitive person, but probably not an empath. Like if there were more than, you know, six or 10 that you scored a zero on, that would already mean that you’re not an empath, even if you scored as the second level, even if your result came as the second level of empath, but the fact that you were an absolute did not relate to these traits at all, but totally related to these other traits, like you would give a 20. I would say that you’re more leaning towards not being an empath. Because people who are empaths, the ones that they score a ‘No’ as a ‘No’ on, there’s usually a little bit of a tendency of, ‘Yeah, I might be No, I’m gonna give me a no on that. Yeah, I might be, but I’m gonna give me a no on that.’ There’s a little bit of that.
Rick Archer: Okay. But since I just asked you a question from someone else, I think I’ll ask you a few more that have come in, and then we’ll get back to talking about other stuff. But here’s one from Jay and Victoria, British Columbia. This is the kind of this is the one that made her laugh a minute ago. ‘My spiritual evolution seems to be growing at a glacial pace. Why do some people have spiritual growth and leaps and bounds and people like me don’t seem to be making any spiritual progress? Should I try to have a near-death experience?’
Anita Moorjani: Definitely don’t try to have a near-death experience. Do not do that. I guess everybody just has their own pace. And, you know, my sense is, you could be trying too hard, possibly. Just let it go. Don’t look for a spiritual experience. Just live life. That’s the thing when you look for something it eludes you. Just live life and live every moment the best you can, and that’s all you’re really expected to do just live. Just make the best of every moment.
Rick Archer: Yeah, but also, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and which is a kind of a corny cliche that people say too often, but, you know, we can’t kind of storm the gates of heaven, so to speak. And really, spiritual development is a lifelong process may be a liveslong process. And sometimes people try to say, Okay, well, ‘I got to take a heavy dose of LSD or something because I just want to break through.’ But you know, I don’t know, maybe slow and steady wins the race. And there are obviously there are all kinds of different techniques and practices. And if a person isn’t doing anything, and is expecting to undergo some kind of growth, growth then it may not happen. But if they do something and it doesn’t seem to be working, then maybe try something else.
Anita Moorjani: Yes Yes, exactly. Try something different. Go out for a walk in nature. You know, meditate, listen to music that really moves you but don’t do it for I think it’s because also, if we’re doing it for the purpose of a spiritual awakening, then that act in itself kind of eludes it from us. Do it just because you want to do it because it brings you pleasure because you love to do it. Just that’s really because what is spiritual awakening? Really?
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: And it’s yeah, it’s so it’s that really, it is just about living in the moment.
Rick Archer: That’s a good point. I think if something actually is leading toward an eventual spiritual awakening, then it’s going to the light is going to get brighter as you move towards the source, you know, and you’re going to sort of have positive reinforcement as you go along that the thing you’re doing is leading you in that direction. It’s not like you’re just going to be miserable and struggling and all sudden, boom, you’re enlightened.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly.
Rick Archer: Here’s a question that came in, again, from British Columbia. This from Jenny in Nanaimo. ‘After reading, ‘Sensitive is the new strong’ I wondered how you managed to form the healthy, thriving partnership you seem to have with Danny? Most of your self-awareness and course corrections came after the NDE, yet you were already married to Danny. How did you avoid the empath falling for a narcissist trap that you speak about?’ Because I guess Danny’s not a narcissist. That’s why.
Anita Moorjani: Yes. So that’s a great question. And the thing is, I had previously I had definitely attracted narcissists. I had a definitely I’m thinking of them now as we speak. But, but what happened is that when I attracted Danny, interestingly, I was at a really, really good place in my life, like a really probably the best place I’ve been in my life before the NDE, where I had decided that I was not that I was perfect being single. And that’s the irony that happens is that up until then, I was really wanting a relationship and was attracting all the wrong people. The narcissists, I was being the doormat I was doing all the stuff that doormats do but had been hurt enough. Broken up, broken up with people enough times, ran away from an arranged marriage, been through it all been ostracized by my community, and now had to build my life up again, myself. And so I had gone through a huge transition anyway and was at this place where I had this amazing job, amazing place of work. Had created, I was getting, I was being paid a really good amount of money, felt really independent, I was traveling, loving what I did, I was like, just in this great, great place in my life. And I had made a commitment to myself that I am not going to throw this away for some man. Being with a man, I had to get over the fact that I needed a man in my life, because that was part of my cultural conditioning. And I had created the life I wanted. Now, as a single person, I really was in this amazing place. And I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Danny came into my life at that time because I had been through so much heartbreak and heartache that when Danny came into my life, I kind of felt that, that oh, I’m not gonna let a man bring me down now and take this away. So in a way without trying to, and this is not normal for ‘a doormat empath.’ In a way he I kind of had set up this standard, or this bar where he had to meet this if he wanted to be in my life. And so it was the perfect timing that I met him. Prior to that, you know, when I ran away from an arranged marriage, people even have said to me, if you were such a doormat, how is it that you were had the courage or the strength to run away from an arranged marriage that you knew didn’t suit you? And that is actually a typical empath slash doormat trait, is that where I hung out. So basically, I was engaged. I had said yes to my parents for an arranged marriage, because I didn’t want to displease them. I didn’t want to say no. I went through with all these things where, you know, we went through months of this typical setting up the whole Indian wedding and relatives flying in from all over the world for the wedding. And we flew. I lived in Hong Kong, he lived in another country to protect him. I won’t say where, but we all flew to India to have the wedding. And, and so all you know, and it was at the last minute that I ran away. And, and so people said, ‘Wow, you must have had a lot of courage.’ No, it’s a typical empath thing, where you can’t say no, you can’t say no, until something builds up to becoming so big, that you’re like, ‘Oh, God, no, I can’t go through with it.’ And so that’s when you say no, and you create an even bigger mess than had you said no, right. In the beginning. It’s that inability to say no, that caused the big mess, the repercussions I then had to deal with within my culture for running away. But I knew from the onset, it wasn’t right for me. I knew from the beginning, but I couldn’t say no.
Rick Archer: Yeah, couldn’t nip it in the bud.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah.
Rick Archer: Here’s another question. This is from ‘Per’ P-E-R in Stockholm. ‘I lost my 14-year-old son to leukemia a year ago and have since found comfort in your podcast. I now believe that we have a life contract, but also that mistakes and accidents can happen, that are not according to plan. I have a hard time understanding the pain and suffering like cancer taken out on a young, sensitive, gentle soul.’
Anita Moorjani: I’m really sorry to hear that. And the key in what you said is that he’s a young, sensitive, gentle soul. It sounds to me like he was too good for this world. He really was. And there is nothing more painful than losing your own child. That is really, really awful. But he has, I know, brought with him a whole bunch of gifts that he’s left you and your family with. But his contract was probably just that. To be there for that long. And, and he has done what he needs needed to have done. And he’s fulfilled his purpose. And this is the thing our world sometimes is too harsh for beautiful, young, gentle souls. And I’m feeling that his energy was just too pure and too beautiful. My heart goes out to you and what you and your family need to do is just do whatever you need to do, to heal your own hearts, and know though that he is absolutely fine. He’s in a beautiful place. He’s in a safe space. He is with loved ones. He’s still there, he’s still watching over you. And he wants you to be happy again, he wants you to find your joy again. So I’m sending you so much love.
Rick Archer: Beautiful, thank you. Sometimes when a friend’s loved one dies, I’ll encourage them to read a few NDE books. Because for me reading those books, I’ve been reading them since the 90s. Even though I haven’t really had too many people close to me die, but somehow it just thins the veil, you know, between the side and the other side, when I read those books, I just get a more heightened feeling of the reality and the presence of those other dimensions. And it kind of enables me to take the circumstances of this life a little bit less seriously, not irresponsibly, but just sort of to see through the density of it and realize that these other dimensions are very much here. And we’re just not open to them.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, 100%. I agree with you. Exactly. And that’s a good and that’s good advice to tell somebody who’s grieving is read about NDEs.
Rick Archer: Yeah, we have a categorical index on BatGap. And there is an NDE category of some people want to listen to some of those discussions. Okay, so I have about half an hour left or so. And I actually have about three pages worth of notes left that we haven’t covered. But I want to make sure that we cover everything that ‘You’ want to cover. So rather than me digging out something from the notes right now, is there sort of anything that comes to mind that you feel we haven’t talked about yet? That we should?
Anita Moorjani: Gosh, no, we’ve been I’ve been enjoying everything that we’ve been covering so far. I would be happy for you to just ask me any of the questions. Any Absolutely. Any of the questions in your notes? Let me think what else? Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah, they’re not all questions. A lot of it is just notes from your book. But let’s see here. What have I got? Well, here’s a little quote that I kind of liked. I think this was in your book, I just wrote it down. ‘The bigger challenge isn’t in having a spiritually transcendent experience. But in integrating that experience into our earthly life once we once we return.’
Anita Moorjani: It’s a good one. Yes. And that’s so true. Because even when I had my near-death experience, and I came back into this world, I realized that it was going to be really, really hard. Shortly after I came back, that is, you know, because when I came back, I was euphoric. I wanted to share what happened with everybody. I thought people would be interested to know, I even thought the medical people would be interested to know because that my body healed. But I realized that when you share something like that, you’re not just going to get people who are interested, you’re also going to get people who are debunkers and naysayers, who are going to push back against what you’re saying or debunk what you’re saying. And so I realized that very quickly that that naysayers and debunkers, they don’t just disbelieve you and walk on, they actually engage you and almost try to take the experience or the miracle away from you. They try to convince you of why it’s not the case, why it couldn’t have happened, why it’s not true. And so I encountered a lot of people like that. And that’s when I realized, wow, if people are so convinced, they are so convinced that it’s not true and they need to go around convincing people, it’s really hard. When you live in a world of people like that, to integrate this, an experience like this, you know, and if let’s say somebody in a community like that, were to have an experience, they would not be able to talk about it. You cannot talk about it. Because when you do, you’re dealing with people who are so convinced that such a thing cannot happen, that you start to doubt yourself. And that’s when I realized that I had to be really really discerning as to not only who I shared my experience with, that was big. I couldn’t share it with everybody. So I started holding back and becoming really discerning but also I shared the way I was now living my life with its I had to be discerning who I would speak to about my new values and my new ways of viewing the world. So it was super interesting because for a few years there, I wasn’t prepared to share my story publicly, because I realized the harder part would be to integrate it if the public knew. And I would be attracting a lot more naysayers and debunkers. But then Wayne Dyer discovered my story. And I actually even told him about my hesitation of sharing my story. And he said, he said, ‘Don’t focus on the naysayers focus on the people who will be helped by hearing your story.’ And that really helped me that helped me a lot. He said, Just focus. And he said, ‘There will be naysayers, of course there will, there will be people who will debunk you, and who will try to argue with you, don’t engage with them. Just engage with the people who really value what you’re saying, and who feel like you’re helping them and keep focusing on them.’ So that’s helped me but it’s not always easy, because naysayers and debunkers they can catch you unawares, and get into your life in different ways. You know, now with social media and all of this.
Rick Archer: Yeah. A couple of quotes from Jesus comes down to mind. One is, ‘Cast you not your pearls before your pearls before swine unless they turn again and rend you,’ you know? But then on the other hand, he said, ‘Don’t hide your light under a bushel.’ So you have to let it shine, but you might be you want to be selective as to where you shine it.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, yes, exactly. And that’s the Yeah. And that’s the trick as we navigate this world is. Yeah, it’s important. And this is why I say it’s really important, it’s so important for you to connect with your higher self. Because if you don’t have that strong connection, it’s very, very easy for you to then fall into believing the naysayers and the debunkers, who say, ‘Oh, this is all woo woo,’ or ‘this is unrealistic.’ It’s very easy to fall into that. And to allow people to take away that gift of whatever it is, whether it’s the gift of awakening, or Enlightenment, or the miracle of a healing, it’s very easy to have people actually make you believe that, that it was your imagination, it didn’t really happen or whatever, you know. Yeah. So
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think one thing that motivates naysayers and also proselytizers, religious fundamentalists who want to change people to their way of thinking is that they have an inner doubt, and you challenge it by your existence, you know, by your experience. And so, you know, if they could just bust your bubble, then they would somehow not feel threatened. They’re there. And it happens a lot in the whole scientific world. There’s these guys like Rupert Sheldrake and, and others who are trying to show that consciousness is fundamental, and the material world arises from it, rather than consciousness, just being a product of the brain. And they get a lot of blowback, you know, from materialists who feel that, you know, this is a material universe, sort of meaningless and random, and all that, and we’re just kind of biological robots. And, you know, because I think those people must, on some level deeply into it, that Rupert and these other people are right. But it would totally turn their world upside down to accept it, everything they’ve spent their life doing in many cases, would be invalidated or undermined, upset. So you know.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly
Rick Archer: Yeah, go ahead.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, you’re 100% right. I’m totally with you. And, and a lot of people who, even who actually bring a broader form of science into this conversation, get debunked exactly, as you said, like Rupert Sheldrake, because the materialist view of science is very, very narrow. I deal with it on two levels. One is on this level of conscious when, when speaking about consciousness, dealing with the materialists view of science, and when I’m speaking about illness, and when I speak about how I know, I never make a blanket statement, but I know that for me, I am 100% sure that the illness for me was caused purely because of the fact that I was absorbing other people’s energies and how I didn’t value myself and all that. And I know it healed because I suddenly realized, oh, wow, I am loved I am and so I know what it was for me. But so then, when I speak about that, I deal with the, the narrow medical science view of that’s also a very narrow view of science when you when, when you’re talking about medical science, and so I am all for science. But I think that the true science is actually much broader than what’s being presented to us by the medical pharmaceutical, basically, industry and the same with the materialists.
Rick Archer: Yeah, you know, as a, as most people are aware, there’s been a big debate about health care in the United States for a long time. And people like Bernie Sanders have been saying, you know, we should have universal health care, and other people say, well, we can’t afford it, and so on. And in a way I agree with both because I don’t think we can afford it, unless people are somehow taught to be more healthy. You know, people just go on doing what they’re doing, and then we pay for it once they get sick. That’s unaffordable. You know, there needs to be kind of a two-pronged approach where, you know, people.
Anita Moorjani: Yes.
Rick Archer: yeah, go ahead, you can comment on that.
Anita Moorjani: I’m in 100% agreement with you in that. But one of the things that annoyed me during the whole pandemic is, why weren’t they telling people that you need to eat healthier, you need to take vitamin D, that’s what they should have been telling everyone instead of just making them all freak out and panic and all that stuff. But you know, everybody should have been told that you need to get sunshine, you need to exercise more. And this is what you need to do to build up your immune system. But, but no that wasn’t happening, whereas people could have helped themselves as well. It’s a, it’s a partnership, it’s a partnership. It’s not a one-way thing where you can trash your body and then go and get help from the medical pharmaceutical industry.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah. And so what we’re touching, oops, did push the wrong button, or touching on here is good. I mean, what we’re saying I think, is that don’t be black and white about it. And they’re, they’re sort of, you know, good in this area, and good in this area, and just take the best of all of it. And, you know, and you’ll, you’ll have the best result, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Yeah
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And our bodies are actually more resilient and powerful than we have been led to believe they are.
Rick Archer: Sure, I mean, look what happened to you. Are you aware of many people who, you know, have come to your seminars, or read your books, or gotten in touch with you, who consequently underwent a health transformation, as dramatic as yours was?
Anita Moorjani: I get people writing to me all the time, who say that, they believe they healed because, you know, they follow my work. And so they were inspired, and because they knew me, and it gave them hope. So I do get a lot of people writing and sharing that with me. And so people do have their miracles. And it’s helped them a lot to know that it can happen, it’s opened up their mind to know that it can happen, because I honestly believe that. And this is particularly for people who are sensitive and who are empaths, that empaths and sensitive people, we are what I call highly suggestible. And what I mean by that is that if the doctor tells you that your chances of survival are slim, then that’s what you’re going to experience, you’re going to be afraid of death, and you’re probably not going to survive. Very often doctors unknowingly, without meaning to can actually give someone a death sentence by saying you only have three months to live. Whereas I think that, you know, and I personally think that literally, that a doctor giving somebody a prognosis like that should actually be outlawed. I really think so. Because I think that is a death sentence for a sensitive person. And, and it actually shocks me that doctors can still do that. So when people tell me, I have people write to me all the time and say, say that, I’ve been told, blah, blah, blah. My doctor said what? And I always tell them that nobody can tell you when you’re going to die. Look what happened to me. I had hours to live. And so then and then I take them through some steps of how they need to start turning their life around and literally, it’s like turn it around one degree a day, one degree just improve your life by 1% each day, just 1%. Whether it’s digging out old emotional trauma and releasing it. Whether it’s changing your diet a little bit, whether it’s exercising a little bit, but very often, it really is about digging out the stress, releasing the stress. And, and they, and they do turn around and so many people have written to me and said, ‘It’s because I believed it. ‘It’s because I believed it. Whereas when I was seeing the doctor, I was in so much fear of dying.’
Rick Archer: Yeah. Referencing Jesus again. I mean, here’s a lot of cases, he said, Well, this, you know, you were healed, because you believed you could be, you know, the person’s attitude mattered.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, they have to believe it. So there’s a couple of things I tell them is that, first of all, you have to believe that your body is more powerful than you have been led to believe your body can heal. The second thing is that you need to have a will, to live a reason to live, if you have lost your will to live, like if you hate your life, if you hated the life, you were living before you got sick, then that’s the reason you got sick because you hated your life. And so your body developed the symptoms. So what you have to do is, you’re not fighting the symptoms, you’re trying to create a life that you love. If you loved your life, your body probably wouldn’t have developed these symptoms. So what you have to do your work is to now figure out how to get out of whatever situation you’re in that has caused this life that you hate and create a life you love. At the same time while you’re working on physically healing the symptoms.
Rick Archer: That’s a great point. That also references back to last week’s interview all about Dharma. You know, if you’re really in your Dharma, you love it. You don’t feel like what you’re doing is work. You know, it’s just, you know, just every day is wonderful. You can’t wait to jump out of bed in the morning.
Anita Moorjani: Yes
Rick Archer: No fatigue.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, that’s, that’s what it is. And that’s, you have to have a reason for living. Like, for example, you remember? What’s the name? Carrie Fisher.
Rick Archer: The actress?
Anita Moorjani: The actress. She died and her mother is
Rick Archer: Who’s Carrie Fisher’s mother?,
Anita Moorjani: Also a famous, famous actress.
Rick Archer: We will come to her. Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in Star Wars and hurt she and her mother died within days of each other.
Anita Moorjani: One day.
Rick Archer: Google them. I’ll google them.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, I know it. It’s on the tip of my tongue. And I’ve forgotten it.
Rick Archer: Debbie Reynolds
Anita Moorjani: Debbie Reynolds. That’s it. Debbie Reynolds literally died the next day after her daughter died. And the thing is we have you know, it. It’s like, death is not just random. Either we’ve decided before we came here we have a contract, this is when we’re going to go, or we’ve completed our purpose and that’s when we go. You know, so if Carrie Fisher lived longer, Debbie Reynolds would have lived longer.
Rick Archer: Yeah. This often happens in married couples to one dies, and then boom, the other one does shortly.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, exactly. They lose their purpose. And they will live. Somebody I know, in my back in my home country of Hong Kong, literally, just less than a week ago, last weekend, she passed away. I was really shocked. Because I saw on one of my friends Facebook page, there was a RIP, rest in peace to her. Her name is Rennie. And so I was really surprised. So I texted my friend in Hong Kong. And I said, What happened to her? And she said, Oh, you know, during COVID wiped out her business, and she still had to pay her rent, and she has kids and she just lost her will to live. She was so stressed out, she lost her will to live. And last weekend, she just passed away in her sleep. And so, so the thing is for her and during that time, while she was really stressed out, she developed a lot of physical symptoms, and she was going to the doctor all the time for these physical symptoms, whether it was rheumatoid arthritis, or eczema or whatever. But the point is, the medical doctor is only looking at her physical symptoms and helping her manager symptoms. What she needed was someone to really help talk her through everything else that was going on. Her losing her will to learn her business failing her debt, you know, she needed, she needed a path to get out of that, if she was going to regain her will to live.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And it’s well known that you know, certain things can be very effective and helping to deal with stress. Exercise is tremendous. Meditation is tremendous. And, you know, if you have those things, you know, despite the severity of your circumstances, you at least have a fighting chance of improving the circumstances. And I mean, you could you could be happy even in the midst of such circumstances if you’re in intuned enough with your inner resources and very much, you know will have the will to continue living.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that’s and that’s the thing like even things like that can happen. But yeah, if you have enough resource internal resources, you just take it as okay, this is part of the process.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Anita Moorjani: Part of the lesson.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So is one more section in your book I want to cover and also a few more quick questions have come in. So there’s a section in your book that’s interesting, it’s called turning up the dial on your ego. And you know, a lot of spiritual teachers say, ‘Kill the ego, diminish the ego, get rid of your ego.’ And, and so, this is interesting, because you said the ego needs to be dialed up as awareness as awareness is dialed up. And so what do you mean by that?
Anita Moorjani: Okay, so this applies to people, particularly sensitive people and empaths. When somebody is super sensitive, you know, as I mentioned earlier, someone who’s an empath, or someone who’s super sensitive, they have a tremendous amount of awareness of other they are very aware of the needs of your needs, and your energy and what you need and, and I said, empaths go out and rescue you, whether you ask for it or not. So they have all this awareness of other, but hardly any awareness of themselves or their own needs. So their own egos are repressed. So if they are, if they their own ego is repressed, like, you’re not going to take care of yourself, it takes a little bit of an ego, to be able to say, Okay, ‘I’m going to take care of myself. I’m going to receive, I am worthy and deserving of receiving.’ It does, you do need a bit of an ego to do that. So we have to stop demonizing the ego. And so my point is that when we say somebody is egotistical, I’m not saying be egotistical, when we say somebody’s egotistical, what it means is they only have awareness of self. They are narcissistic, they’re possibly sociopathic. And they have no conscious awareness of other or of the planet. It’s all about them that’s egotistical. But many empaths and highly sensitive people are the opposite, they have a repressed ego, and only have awareness of other and do not. And they repented and do not have any awareness of their own needs, and they put themselves last. Now, these same people and usually empaths, and sensitive people are attracted to spiritual teachings, excuse me. So these same people who already have a repressed ego, who are not taking care of themselves, are only aware of others and giving and serving, and being there for everyone except themselves. They are attending spiritual teachings that are telling them ego is bad. You have to kill the ego, you have to transcend the ego, they are then repressing their ego even more. That was me, before my NDE. I am describing myself. Yes, so basically, I repressed my ego, because I already had a repressed ego. And I was only aware of the needs of others, not my own. And then was attracted to spiritual teachings where I was told ego was bad, I repressed my ego to the point where I made myself invisible. And, and so I would, and so I was invisible to the point of being a doormat, to the point of draining myself to the point of getting cancer. And so this is why I tell people, it’s not about suppressing your ego, you can take care of your ego, you can dial up the ego, but just make sure the conscious awareness dial is also up, you need to match both. Like if you have huge awareness of the needs of other people on the planet, you need to bring up your ego dial as well so that you can take care of yourself so that you can serve the planet.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And a lot of spiritual teachers do say that, you know, you have to actually develop a healthy ego before you can transcend the ego and transcending it doesn’t necessarily mean, obviously doesn’t mean, suppressing it or anything like that. It just means sort of having a blossoming of universal awareness, where you still have the sense of, yeah, I am a person but I’m just not only a person, you know, I’m much more than just this individual entity you see here.
Anita Moorjani: Exactly. And when you have developed a healthy ego, the ego stops even being an issue.
Rick Archer: Yeah
Anita Moorjani: It just becomes a non-issue.
Rick Archer: Okay, here’s a few more questions. This is from Paul Diaz in Santa Cruz, California. How does? How does one discern another person’s negative energy from one’s own neg negative projections onto that person? What’s my stuff? And what’s their stuff?
Anita Moorjani: So that just takes a little bit of practice. It’s like, if you will, all you have to do is work on making yourself feel good. And then if you can just do things that expand your energy, whether it’s walking in nature, earthing yourself. Earthing is a really good way to expand your energy. It’s just walk on the beach barefoot or on sand, on Earth, barefoot. Hug a tree. When you Earth, yeah, when you are, I know, it’s so cliched. But when you Earth yourself, you’re in training yourself with the Earth’s energies. And the Earth energies are very, they’re very cleansing and neutral. Because, because, the Earth, you kind of start vibrating or in training with nature. So when you just focus on expanding your energy, and then let’s say you’re in with a group of people, and you feel your energy sync, you know, immediately, that’s there’s, that’s not mine. So when you are feeling down, or low, in the beginning, don’t even worry about the question that you’re asking, don’t even worry about, is it theirs? Is it mine? Whose is it and don’t even worry about that, all you have to do is just keep focusing on, on increasing your own energy. That’s all you have to do. And just, you know, I have so many tools. That’s why I paused there for a minute, I have so many tools on increasing energy. And it could be anything from journaling, it could be listening to music that really moves you. It could be your art, whatever calls you like when you will if you’re an artist, if you’re a musician, if you’re a singer, you have to spend more time doing these things that really, really make you feel connected and make you feel good about yourself inside. And also the easy one is walking in nature. And there are just a ton of things you can do like that. Go watch a sunset, eat good food, spend time with people you love. Anything like that can uplift your energy. And when you as long as you keep doing something every day that uplifts your energy, your energy, basically, it’s just your it’s your lifeforce energy, it creates an aura around you. And what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to expand your aura, if you’re depleted in energy, your aura is really tiny, and it’s like really close to your skin. And if you’re depleted in energy, and you go and be with somebody else, you are likely to absorb their energy, the bigger your energy, the less likely you are to absorb someone else’s energy. And the bigger your energy and the more positive your energy than when you are with people who are feeling down, they will entrain to you, they their energy will be uplifted by yours. Because energy entrains to the strongest energy in the room. So if you are feeling down, when you go into a room, it means your energy is weak, and you’re entraining with someone else who is feeling low or depressed. So the thing to really focus on is just to expand and increase your energy. And that’s all you have to do. And you take your energy with you wherever you go. And other people get entrained to your energy and they walk away going, ‘Oh wow, that felt really good.’ So
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s a thing called the ‘Meissner effect.’ I just looked it up where it’s if there’s a superconductor, which is, you know, super coherent, super superconductor. It generates a magnetic field which prevents the sort of incursion of outside influences and, but it’s because of the incredible coherence that the superconductor generates or contains. And I’ve heard that analogy that uses an analogy and in spiritual contexts, where a person can become like a superconductor where their internal coherence is so great, that incoherent influences can’t penetrate. So I don’t know if that’s useful or not, but it’s just sort of an example from science.
Anita Moorjani: That makes so much sense.
Rick Archer: Yeah
Anita Moorjani: Absolutely. Yeah. So it is about that where, where what aligns with you with your energy level is, is what comes into your field and anything else they can’t penetrate. But in fact, you can penetrate their energy and uplift them. But they can’t bring you down. If you are feeling up and down and you’re feeling down in the presence of other people, it’s actually a sign that your energy is weak, you need to work on just focusing your strengthening your energy and not worrying about, whose it is, whether it’s theirs or yours.
Rick Archer: And it doesn’t mean we’re going to be sort of walled off and living in some little cocoon, because I think that the nature of what we’re talking about is that you’ll still be able to absorb the good stuff. But there’ll be sort of a coherent field around you, which will prevent the bad stuff from penetrating.
Anita Moorjani: In fact, a lot of people who speak about or to empaths, they tend to say that you need strong boundaries. And that’s something I don’t teach. Because I think boundaries kind of creates the wall, what I teach empaths is, don’t worry about the boundaries. Instead, expand your energy, then you won’t need boundaries. If you expand your energy, you take yourself out in the world, you can be with people, and people are any people who can meet you where you’re at, are the ones who will gravitate towards you. And some of them who are not where you’re at, but who are attracted to it will actually have their energy raised to meet yours, they will have to meet you, to interact with you. But you are not actually pushing anyone away. You don’t even need to have boundaries. It really is about raising your own energy.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Good. Okay, there’s one more question here that might give us a good ending point. This is Matthew from Indonesia. He said, ‘When people have NDEs, they’ve said we are all one soul. And we are all part of everybody. Do you also have this feeling as a result, or of, during your NDE?’
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, absolutely. We are all connected. It feels like when we are not in our physical bodies, we are all part of one consciousness. An analogy that I use that I like to use is that of a mirror ball. You remember those disco balls from the 70s? Or the 80s?
Rick Archer: Yeah. Saturday Night Fever.
Anita Moorjani: So now imagine one of those. Exactly. Imagine one of those disco balls with the mosaic of all those little mirrors. And, and what does that mirror ball do it actually what it does is that, it deflects light. So you have all these little points of light on the wall in the room. So now imagine if each of the so imagine if this big ball is God or Source because I believe that God or Source expresses itself through each of us. So imagine it this big ball with all these little mirrors on it, that is what I call Source. Each of these mirror tiles, each one of these tiles is the soul of each person that has ever lived. And if and if it’s the soul of the person, that soul contains every lifetime that the person has ever lived. So that means each tile is one soul and contains every life lifetime that that person has lived. And now this mirror ball has every single soul that exists and then the light that is reflected onto the wall those points of light is the current lifetime that you are living right now. So your soul, your soul, as is now deflecting a light on the wall, which is now Rick Archer. So you are there as a point of light on the wall. Me as Anita Moorjani I am a point of light on the wall. And everybody here even the gentleman that asked the question is a point of light on the wall. We are all individual beings. So each of us so each of those points of light is an individual physical being. Each of those points of light thinks it is a separate being because as it as each of those points of light goes around the room. They’re not touching the other lights there they are I’ll see the other lights as separate from them. And they’re all like separate beings going about like us, we’re all separate beings going about doing what we’re doing. Now imagine if when you die when I died, I realized that oh my gosh, I am one of these mirror tiles, I am an I am part of all of these, all of these other souls, all of us souls are all connected together to create one thing that I call Source. And, and because we are all connected together, ‘my soul’ is touching all the souls around me which are touching all the souls around them. And so my soul, my tile has access to every life that I have lived. But I am also connected to every other soul. So at any point in time, I have access to information of the ‘All That Is’ that meets every lifetime of every soul that has ever lived because we’re all connected. And all of us together is God. And, and each of us Souls is living right now as a being, and we see each other as separate. And so when you see each other as separate, you think that everyone else is, you know that I have to get ahead of everyone else. I have to compete with everyone else. There isn’t enough to go around, and then you die and it’s like, oh my gosh, we’re all part of one mirror ball. We’re all part of one God, refracting as separate human beings. So you are a facet of God expressing itself as Rick Archer. I am a facet of God, expressing myself as Anita Moorjani. But we are all part of the One God.
Rick Archer: Very nice. Oh, resist the temptation to make comments, because that was perfect and I don’t think I could, you know, say anything to embellish it or enhance it. So that’s great. So thank you, Anita. It’s been a wonderful conversation.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you. It’s been a lot of fun. And thanks for your great questions.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I really enjoyed this. Do another one and nine years from now. Last one was nine years ago. Well, you were in a hotel in Dubai, as I recall, at the time.
Anita Moorjani: Oh, wow. Yeah. See, I didn’t even remember where I was. But yeah, you’re right. I thought I did it from Hong Kong.
Rick Archer: Oh, I think it was Dubai.
Anita Moorjani: Yeah, you could be right. Yeah, you could absolutely be right. Yeah.
Rick Archer: You’ve done a lot of traveling. I imagined since this happened?
Anita Moorjani: Yes, a lot.
Rick Archer: Great. Well, keep up the good work. I think that thing we were talking about earlier about how, you know, we all need to do what we can to kind of enliven the field to enliven the sort of, well, like you’re talking all these little points on the mirror ball, if each one could become brighter, if all the individuals, if every tree in the forest could be more in touch with the nourishment that it could derive from the ground of the forest, then all the trees would become greener and the whole forest would be would begin to become genuinely green. And, you know, as it is, now, the forest is kind of gray and weathering, and every now and then someone makes an attempt to spray paint it, you know, flying over it with a paint airplane. But it really needs to come from the roots. And when that happens, the society will flourish will elect you know, enlightened leaders. Everything will be transformed.
Anita Moorjani: Yes, it will. It has to come from the root. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Good.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you for a wonderful, wonderful conversation.
Rick Archer: Yeah, thank you. And thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching, we’ve had about two or 250 or 300 people on most of the time. And thanks for your wonderful questions that you sent in. I’m sorry if we didn’t get to all of them. I think we got to most of them. And next week’s interview, the next interview, which actually be this coming Saturday will be with Lawrence Freeman, who’s a Benedictine monk living in a monastery in France, who has been in dialogue for years with the Dalai Lama, and people like that and teaches meditation. And maybe he’ll even teach some form of meditation during the interview. So we’ll see you for that one. And thanks again, Anita. And thanks for all you do.
Anita Moorjani: Thank you and thank you for everything you do as well.
Rick Archer: Yeah, we’re all doing what we can as The Beatles sang. Alright, see you next time.
Anita Moorjani: Bye.
Rick Archer: Bye. Bye