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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest this week is Bill Bauman, PhD. He doesn’t usually add that on the end, but it’s there. And Bill is a delightful fellow whom I’ve gotten the opportunity to know over the past week listening to his recordings and reading his book, Soul vision, which I’m really enjoying. It’s a very nice book with a lot of in addition to its main content, there’s all these great quotes in the margins, so that you want to read as you go through it. So we’ll be talking about some points in this book and about Bill’s whole story and everything. But first of all, welcome, Bill, thank you for coming and doing this. Rick,
Bill Bauman: it’s a total pleasure, total joy, I’m delighted to be here with you. And to be having the privilege of talking to all these pressures, people who are watching and listening,
Rick Archer: good. You may experience what we call the BatGap Bump, which is do an interview with somebody and all sudden their phone rings, and they get a lot of inquiries. And
Bill Bauman: that’s sort of like the Stephen Colbert bump, I guess, if anybody knows what that is,
Rick Archer: I don’t know what that is. But I love there’s a great quote from him, which is, the truth has a liberal bias.
Bill Bauman: I’ve never heard that that’s a wonderful quote.
Rick Archer: To all my conservative friends. Here’s a little bio of bill that’s on the back of his book cover. Bill Bowman, PhD is a modern mystic and spiritual teacher, as co founder with his wife Donna of the Center for soulful living. He leads, seminars, retreats, mentoring groups and other spiritual experiences to help participants become soulfully centered, and infinitely attuned. Bill is a master of interdimensional living a gifted healer, a powerful motivator and an inspirational speaker. He currently lives peacefully and expensively amid the beautiful red rocks of the American Southwest, more specifically, Las Vegas, in a high rise, condo, but there’s red rocks out there
Bill Bauman: they are there.
Rick Archer: So Bill, what I like to do in these interviews, and what people have requested that I do, actually, is to kind of cover two main bases. You know, one is just the person’s life story, you know, their spiritual Odyssey, the whole all they’ve been through which leading up to and then subsequent to, in many cases, usually some watershed moment of awakening. And also, you know, and sometimes in the context of that, people, usually, if they’re a teacher of some kind, they usually have a teaching, you know, things they like to routinely say to people. So let’s cover all those bases. And I’ll interject questions as we go along.
Bill Bauman: Okay, sounds perfect, Rick.
Rick Archer: Good. So shall we start with a life story?
Bill Bauman: That sounds good. I’m never great at listening to myself talking about myself. But hey, I’m willing to give it a big shot here. Okay. And I’ll know what oh, do every now and then with a question. Okay, that sounds great. And you want me to talk about my life more in terms of awakening? Yeah, your whole everything, Senator? Not
Rick Archer: necessarily. I was a boy scout. And then I you know, and then I did this, but in terms of, you know, what you consider germane to your whole spiritual path?
Bill Bauman: Yes. Okay. That’s great. Actually, the pain of that is I never was a Boy Scout. I always wanted to be a boy scout. So let me cry and sob right here about that. But other than that, just briefly, I started out as a Catholic priest, not when I was born, but actually, you know, in my mid 20s, and, and through all that training, the main thing that happened to me was I fell into my heart, everything became about love, which I felt was the center of Christian teaching. But beyond that, I began to see it as the center of human living. And, and so everything to me was about heart. It was about love, I began to see that and feel and experience and relate to all of life and people in terms of our interconnectedness, our Inter woven pneus the way we support each other care about each other, even if we’re yelling at each other, that there’s some underlying thread of, of a way we’re trying to support each other and come together, unify in some way. So so that was really there. So I was a Catholic priest for a very brief amount of time.
Rick Archer: I had heard you say that you At one point, you heard the Moses voice saying, Bill, I want you to be my priest. If it’s a
Bill Bauman: yeah, those Moses voices you, you don’t ignore without great pain, actually. So it was actually at a very young age, I heard that voice inside and and it was a loud booming internal voice it spoke with great authority. So I did follow that, not that I ever really personally wanted to. It’s one of those things, you know, when, when the voice calls you, you do it. Yeah, and so so there really was that Moses voice that really is one never ignores and so I absolutely followed it. Even though there wasn’t a lot in me that said, I really wanted to be a Catholic priest. But anyway, I became the priest. And to me, the big part of that was about love. It was like my initiation into 2000 years not of establishment, not an organization, out of all the political history, but I’ve just the pure essence of it, which is love so, so I, when it got to the point where it was, it was just time to leave that I took love with me love somehow got ingrained as a solid core center of my beating, if you will. So I entered the field of psychology got my doctorate, and through all the years of psychological practice, and I specialized a lot in deep, deep psychotherapy, just driven to go to the depths of human living. Love was always there. And it was a beautiful, beautiful experience, I loved my psychological time with people, because it was a very loving way of kind of massaging their depths and helping them grow in lots of ways. Then after a lot of years of that, the the next big thing that happened is I got I got cut off at the pass. And that next big Moses voice came you know, I, I learned to not really appreciate Moses a lot, it was an interesting thing. And it basically said, Said, Okay, you’re done with psychology, that’s after my identity was pretty well wrapped up and my fulfillment wrapped up in psychology, and it’s time for spirituality. And so in the within just a couple of years, all these gifts, healing gifts, visionary gifts, energy gifts, et cetera, just just like dumped into me, which was a major learning curve. But but the learning curve was that what it was also sense of identity, it was that that was the curve is like, oh, virtual being Oh, big time spiritual being,
Rick Archer: you know, yeah, we use the word Moses voice somewhat jokingly, we think of that, of course, as the big booming Charlton Heston thing that you know, but but do you really mean Was it really that overt or gross? Or was it more still silent whisper just this sort of gentle impulse that you had learned to recognize and that moved you in a slightly different direction?
Bill Bauman: No, I wish it had been that still small voice when it was quite booming, okay. And whenever it spoke to me now I’ve had those others as well. In fact, I’ve had a lot more of those but, but the major turning points of my life seem to have been driven by a force, shall we say? Much, much bigger than this cute little adorable presence this visible right here. So So what was what was fascinating about all that is, is I always had this, this mystical side to me, but it was in the background and and so my identity was very human. And so all of a sudden, my regular human identity started slipping to the backburner, backburner, and then gradually off the stove, as quite quickly. My whole sense of self became more expansive. So from there I just quickly with some odd set of circumstances, became a religious science minister for a while, still doing a lot of spiritually oriented sessions, healing sessions on the side, and did that for a few years. But then, because
Rick Archer: let’s zoom in on what you just said a little bit more before we go on. I mean, there’s that popular saying, and it’s in your book, actually, that, you know, we think of ourselves as human beings having a spiritual experience, but we’re really spiritual beings having a human experience. Yeah. And of course, most people in the world would identify with the first part of that sentence, where they, you know, I’m Joe Smith, and I’m not this is my job. And this is my wife, and these are my kids, and oh, every now and then I pick up a spiritual book and have a glimpse. But when you really talk about your identity shifting, I’m sure. Can you dwell, can you elaborate a bit on the actual experiential process of going through that and what it was like kind of coming out on the other side of it?
Bill Bauman: I could try actually, the process, ironically, was torture. I went through about three years, where and it was a self created torture, we’re all we’re always better at torturing ourselves than anybody else’s. At least for me, I mastered that quite well. But the torture for me was, I really liked being a human being, I really wanted to be a regular human being grant a regular loving human being that was a, an identity that I felt like was a perfect niche. I liked all the regular human perks and fulfillments that came from that I’m married to this exquisite, exquisite woman who is a nun when I was a priest. And as we left, we exited together,
Rick Archer: I did the same thing. Incidentally, I was on the Purusha program and the TM movement, which is like the monastic thing, and my wife was on Mother Divine, which is the latest ladies equivalent. And we kind of plotted for several months and then just left at the same time.
Bill Bauman: It’s really, so we have a lot of income I looked at you for at first I thought, you know, we’re twins separated at birth. And now this confirms it right there. So, so, for me, it was, it was very well, let me go back to it. So I’ve been married for 44 years to this beautiful, beautiful woman. And we had just and we still have, in fact, we have more than ever, but had this one back to the point, this wonderful relationship. And we have this one child who we were raising at the time. Every everything human was like as from a law of attraction point of view, it was about as good as it gets. And, and especially after I left being a priest, I felt pretty allergic to anything, specifically spiritual. So I threw out the, as much as I could throw out the baby with the bathwater. So what I did is I fought this internally, I everything in me kept saying no, no, no, while this bigger force just kept dumping more gifts, bringing me more there. And so I was living this dual life, which is the real thing that was happening was I was literally quickly becoming this spiritual being without a human base. And and so I was drastically trying to hold on to that we could call it as the as the death of the ego was happening. I was I kept pumping air into the ego.
Rick Archer: Is that what you mean by without a human base? You mean death of the ego? Yeah. Because I mean, you had a life. Yeah, you were you were a psychiatrist, or psychologist, and you had a wife and a wife and a kid and you know, car and a house and all that jazz. But somehow or other. That was all Krump? Well, you weren’t losing those things.
Bill Bauman: No, I wasn’t losing any of it. But I was losing an identity in it, the way I identified with it, I was losing a whole sense of self concept, I was losing a whole sense of how I was related to the world. So a lot of external things didn’t change, except my psychological practice did very quickly. Within about a year, I, I shut it down, we moved to a whole new city. And instead of doing a psychological practice, I did a sort of a blended psychological spiritual, what they call transpersonal psychology practice, then did the religious science Minister thing about halftime in this in this city. And, and so so the back to your question, the learning curve, or the growing curve, was horrendous. And it truly was, for those few years, it was a painful death of the ego. Until in steps, but at one point after a few years, somehow, everything just came clear to me like the great Aha. Which was oh, oh, you know what? I’m down on my knees. Face facts, Bill, this is the way it is.
Rick Archer: So what was the nature of that pain? Why was it painful? And like, can you give us a specific example of something that was painful?
Bill Bauman: Okay, well, let me say something general first. I think after with that whole Catholic priest experience, which was the best of times, worst of times, if the best of times was all the love and the relationship with and helping people in a great servant mode, I just love that. The tough part was the organizational part of it was very heavy for me very restrictive, very, very punitive, if you will, because I was sort of always getting in trouble by saying and doing and so I felt I think I felt subconsciously betrayed by God, like, yeah, you call me with the Moses voice? I say yes. And then it’s just all pain. Okay, so then I think I just said, okay, good Gods up on the shelf. I’m free to be me. And so what this represented to me and this was the painful part is, oh, I’m not in charge. I’m not in control here. This is I thought this was my life. If, oh, it’s not my life. And so what I noticed from that point on is any number of things happened over the years, that if I, Little Billy cobalamin, if I wanted something, it didn’t happen. If I didn’t want it, it happened. And then of course, in hindsight, the great gift of that is, oh, oh, it’s not about I don’t, I don’t live here in a way that lets this be fulfilling in the regular human way. I live. You can’t see my my arms here. But I live in this bigger spiritual space. And everything about me is guided, moved, directed, supported from a much, much bigger field, if you will.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So little bill didn’t know what was good for him. He kept wanting things that were ultimately what he was supposed to have that so you’re like swimming against the current, you know,
Bill Bauman: my two year old stomping my feet. And convinced that if I kept stomping hard enough, it would surely work.
Rick Archer: And so it sounds like you finally got that pounded out of you after about three years.
Bill Bauman: That’s the perfect verb. Yes, exactly. pounded and beat out of me. And it was there was that moment when Oh, I get it. You know, like in The Wizard of Oz, surrender Dorothy written in the sky. Yeah, well scratched Dorothy put bill so. So I, so I really got it, like, oh, then I just launched into I let go, let go the whole human thing. And I launched into the spiritual and I just opened myself with, with a strong abandon, actually, I realized I really got at some deep level. How critically central being spiritual is in my life. And I think just as a little mentoring, kind of a expression to anybody who’s watching and listening, I think one of the values of rebellion, one of the values of resistance, is that once we get to the end of it, no matter how painful it is, and, and really get the picture, then we’ve really got it. Whereas if we’re just kind of conforming ly going along, the whole of us doesn’t necessarily show up. So that was the value in that resistance to me. Either that, or I’m making up a nice story about what a great value was. So So, so then all of a sudden, oneness came in, and I got, like, almost obsessed with on this, what is oneness? So I read books on it, and I, and I never had a mentor, a spiritual mentor, I never was allowed a spiritual guru teacher system, if you will, it was all internal.
Rick Archer: I was gonna ask, you know, because you never had a mentor. And it also kind of kind of got the impression that you actually weren’t doing spiritual practices, you were just sort of being driven along by this force, irrespective of what you did. And that kind of fascinates me, because I’ve always been a practice kind of guy. And it always interests me when I see people who’ve just, you know, they’re just given a shove, and then it keeps on shoving almost without their, against their will almost,
Bill Bauman: yes, yeah, I actually tried to do a detour a couple of times and get a spiritual teacher, it was not sweet. It’s again, it’s that same thing where it’s like, if you go outside of, you know, how life is moving you and you try to do it a different way, it doesn’t work. Well, the, it was a fascinating thing. In fact, I had a lot of friends along the way who belong to different spiritual Movements, organizations follow different teachers, gurus, etc. And for a little while I was, I was kind of jealous of them, because it’s like, oh, they, they have these nice, neat systems, philosophical systems, spiritual systems practice systems. And I used to think, well, that’s a plus, they had a nice sense of belonging, belonging to that community, that mindset, that spiritual system. And, and, and, and, and yet, what I noticed is over the years, as I and I don’t say, this judgmentally at all, but as I kept growing, I watched, many of them sort of stay right at the same place, they were just kind of still that same sense of belonging, which was just fine and write and probably perfect. But for me, I think the maybe the reason I wasn’t allowed to fit in somewhere, is because it was just important for me to keep growing and keep growing and keep growing. And that became my, my path was just to, to kind of blossom like a flower at into one level of experience, and be there for a while and then just keep moving to the next. So So a very astute
Rick Archer: observation, actually. I mean, I’ve seen that with spiritual groups where people get kind of calcified in a particular niche, you know, and then sometimes you’ll see that they leave the group, and very shortly thereafter, there’s some big awakening. It’s almost like or maybe, you know, maybe they have the bigger way Getting and then they leave the group but it’s almost like the chick, the chick, it’s time for the chick to leave the incubator. Yeah, it’s better and longer. It’s not helpful for the chick, nor that his fellow chicks, it’s good to get out of there.
Bill Bauman: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s really well said, I think. And I think just in fairness to it’s, there’s some people who, just in terms of their spiritual path, or their spiritual calling that they’re there that niches a perfect niche for them maybe the rest of their life. And for others like me, who are just called to keep moving. It’s not
Rick Archer: so I would go so far as to say even if they are fundamentalists, you know, or something, that it’s fine. If that’s where they’re at, you know, that’s, that’s what they need. That’s right for them at that time.
Bill Bauman: Exactly. Yeah, no, I that that fits perfectly. So if I, if I go back to oneness, like, I hung out, I even started doing workshops on on oneness. And, and I noticed duality kind of shrinking into oneness in an often on way. And then, one time, I had this remarkable, unexpected experience. It wasn’t the Moses voice, but it was even stronger than that. Where I was, right at the end of giving a weekend workshop, spiritual growth workshop. And, and with about an hour or so to go, all of a sudden, I’m up on the stage, and I don’t know, 5060 people out there in the, in the, in the group, and, and I just got really weak and I went, you know, just kind of collapsed onto the floor. And it became momentarily which lasted about three hours paralyzed, like, like, just nothing would move. And I we’ve been called
Rick Archer: an ambulance or anything. I
Bill Bauman: don’t know. No, I don’t. I don’t even know if they thought about that.
Rick Archer: Though behaving normally. Yes, exactly. Yeah, by that time.
Bill Bauman: Oh, Phil’s doing something. So so what I noticed is something about me something left it just like he got sucked out. And later and I course i My mind was not able to really think I could just witness a little bit. And, and later I recognize that oh, that’s the last part of the human me, left part of the dualistic knee if you will. And then after some unknown amount of time, I don’t know whether it was 10 seconds, five minutes or whatever. Something else just just came in. And in again, later in hindsight, I discovered it was a common call it a unified consciousness, unity consciousness in a TM focused, or just my unified self. And, and that changed me forever. So I went from love being very loving as a central identity to being a, I’ll just call it a unified being being part of the unified field of life. And, and so everything that I saw from that point on, was, was seen through the through a unified perception. And specifically what that means is, and this is a terrible thing, terrible thing. I couldn’t judge anything anymore. It was awful. It was like, oh, one just was, but oh, gee, look at that. It’s just beautiful how it is. And so there was no judgment. There was no growling inside there was, you know, none of the feeling sorry, for so the things that an ego would do, if you will.
Rick Archer: There was no I imagined preferences and discrimination and all but just not sort of ego laden judgment. Like if you went into a restaurant, you would say, Well, I’d rather have the, you know, the enchilada than the case of D or something. But so there were there were still choices, right? But
Bill Bauman: yeah, there were choices about those practical things, but more and more the choices about other things like, you know, whether I want life to go this way for me or that way, right? They just not even gradually, pretty quickly, they all kind of went into, Oh, I’m just one with whatever it is. And so, so part of it for me to say it another way was I was just kind of floating along. Not in a passive way at all, but floating along with, let me just call it the movement of life. So I became one with life and life’s movements and life’s flow and life design. And I stopped thinking in terms of an individual design.
Rick Archer: Did you ever find yourself saying if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. You know, or were you were you completely okay with whatever happened? Well,
Bill Bauman: by golly, that’s a great question. I had a grand initiation of not that that led me to not do that again. let this cup pass for me. Not long after that whole initiation and process on the stage of becoming one. I discovered that there was this enormous enormous pain, it’s like a psychic pain on a screen in my in my gut, that just wouldn’t quit. And the long story short is, that was the primal scream of humanity’s pain. So I was one with humanity and, and the set up was not by my design, my personal design, the setup was, okay, well, you’re one with all life, you’re one with infinity one with the universe one with the Divine, let’s be one with humanity. And specifically, let’s be one down at that existential unconscious, primal level, let’s be one with where it really hurts for the collective human being. And so for a number of years, I went through that screen. And at first I went through the first several months, basically, let this cup pass from me let basically saying, because I’ve, by that time, I’ve been a healer for quite a while. And I have in my, my great little toolbox of healing tools. You know, I could find myself I up to then I could heal about anything. So I was trying to heal this, it wouldn’t budge. So then prayer, let this pass for me, wouldn’t budge. And I started to realize, and after I’ll say several months, I’m guessing. It became really clear to me again, I’m slow, but I do catch on. It became clear to me, Oh, this is not about healing. This is not about getting rid of this is about oneness. So if I’m really here to be one, I’m here to be one with everything, including call it the dark side, the downside, the pain side. And so in all those years, what I did is, I just loved it, and I became one with it, I just sort of sank into it sank into it. And in that, not only did I let go of let this pass from me as a style, but I find may use the the verb I mastered, or there was mastered in me, this, this capacity to just be one with anything no matter what. So even from a healing point of view later or through and after that. It’s like, if someone presents anything to me a cancer a, an insanity, the terrible level of whatever, I just become totally one with it.
Rick Archer: Go ahead. Yeah, I want to interject two points there. Maybe I’ll interject on the first point. And then you can comment, and then I’ll come back on the second point. The The first one is, it’s interesting, because what you seem to spontaneously experience this, you know, complete surrender, going with the flow, letting things unfold as they, as they are, that’s often offered as a prescription to people. But in your case, it just became a description of what happened to you pretty much unwillingly. I mean, automatically. But you read all these teachers who tell people to do that, and I’m not sure if that works so well, sometimes. So any comments on that before I go on to the next point? I
Bill Bauman: know, having watched myself tell people that a lot I get it doesn’t. Sometimes it takes but most of the time is like Yeah, sounds right. Yeah, I should do that. That’s right. I’ll try to do that.
Rick Archer: So some great tennis players say, here’s how I do it. You go like this, you go like that, and then somebody like me watching and listening. And it’s like, I understand what you’re talking about, but I can’t do it.
Bill Bauman: That’s right. Yeah. And you try it a little bit. And maybe you make a 1% leap into that. No, that’s really true. And that’s where I’ve come to think, Rick, a fair amount that a lot is about our timing. It’s like when it’s time it’s time and when it’s not, it’s not. And then a lot also is about and this is the other big thing I’ve discovered over the years. A lot is about my or one’s willingness to just let go.
Rick Archer: ability just let go or ability because some people say, hey, I want to let go, but it’s not happening. You know? Yeah,
Bill Bauman: exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And for me, again, as you said, it was like there was this big force or presence or whatever, that we could call divine that that was in charge of the whole thing. And and so it really for me, I got those lessons like surrender. I got them in the process of a ritual that was done to and through me, as opposed to my saying, Okay, now I’m ready for this and, and everybody’s got their different style, of course, but
Rick Archer: sometimes when I hear stories like this, I kind of get the impression that for Have the person had really built up a head of steam in previous lives or something? And, you know, when they come into this life? It’s like, they don’t have to do anything. There’s a momentum, and it’s just going to carry them along. Like it or not.
Bill Bauman: Yeah, yeah. Let me let me add to that from another angle, I have no proof for what I’m about to say. But I have for so long have the sense and the deep, solid sense that whether for example, what you said about past lives is true for me or not, I don’t know. But the deep sense I’ve had is that I am a, an example or a model of somebody who’s just plain bill, just ordinary. That’s why my name is perfect, just plain bill. And I’m just an ordinary regular human being, to whom and through whom, and in whom all these things happened, and then happened again, and bigger and bigger and bigger, I think to to either exemplify or model or demonstrate how Grace let me just use that word, how grace can transform even the simplest little ordinary character into a budding flower that somehow is allowed to find the richness of the human experience in a way that is, that’s got all the spiritual juice, and love to it, and just can live in all dimensions at the same time. So like going going from zero to 100? If Yeah,
Rick Archer: well, it kind of fits in with the theme of the show the subtitle being, you know, conversations with ordinary spiritually awakened people. And there’s an historical precedent for I mean, you know, Christ Church, recruited a bunch of fishermen to be His disciples. And Shankar has made disciple was just this little guy that would be washing the clothes and stuff, while the while the other disciples were sitting around having these philosophical discourses, and he was considered to be too simple minded to engage in those. But he’s, but then through his kind of devotion, and whatever, he had this profound awakening and became the principal, teacher and chakras lineage, you know, just woke to the full potential just through his simplicity. Yes, he was his name was Trotec Acharya. But um, Alright, so now, how about this point about the pain? It seems like, there’s no end to it? And somehow, you seem to have resolved that, but certainly, one man can’t dissolve the pain of the world in his heart, because it’s, there’s no end to how much needs to be dissolved. Yeah.
Bill Bauman: What, from a linear point of view, that’s right. There’s no end to it. It’s, it’s a bottomless pit, if you will, from a grace point of view, there absolutely can be either an end to it, or an entry into a whole different kind of relationship with. And that’s what happened to me. So I, I hung out with his pain for actually nine years, it was an interesting kind of thing. And it and it just screamed and screamed. It was it was the most painful kind of thing. Sometimes I would just double over in the not the physical pain, but the psychic pain. No, no. I’m just saying that. So everybody will feel sorry for me, I thrive on pity. Put
Rick Archer: your address at the end so they can send flowers. Perfect. Thank you.
Bill Bauman: Thank you. No, that’s a good idea. So so what what happened after nine years, and I felt it starting to move almost a year before the end is, is apparently I had just become one with it become one with it. And, and let that let myself move into that place where there was just no distinction that was like that was pain, and it just was. And just in oneness. The magic of oneness, I think is that all of a sudden the pain stops being in a dualistic relationship with me. And we enter into a unified relationship. So from that point on, and that’s been a lot of years now. I’m guessing 1718 20 years, whatever. From that point on, I’ve never felt that kind of pain before. But I am in an intimate relationship with the pain of humanity in a way that that doesn’t scream, do holistically, but in a way that so appreciates the love so appreciates the unity that it literally becomes a partner for me in healing others, and just in my relationship to the planet and to the human race in general. So that, for example, when I watch wars, and I watch, you know, rapes and I watch, watch injustices. Let’s say there’s a terrible pain that we have in humaneness. I don’t go to Oh, what a terrible pain because that’s more of a dualistic kind of thing. I go, I just go to this embrace of oneness and And then just in that embrace, I just kind of watched blessing, kind of ooze into the situation. And it’s very sweet. So, so being in oneness for me, and for many other people I’ve helped be there, but for me is, is just this most sweet God like loving of this human race. And, and one of the side effects is I just have stopped thinking there’s anything wrong. And so even when I look at something that stereotypically do holistically, we would say, oh, that’s wrong. Instead of bad. Again, I just, I just let myself merge with it. And, and with in my consciousness or the consciousness that’s here. It, it has its own transformation. And I’m sure that generalizes in some way. So it’s just a sweet, sweet kind of thing.
Rick Archer: So what was your reaction, for instance, on 911?
Bill Bauman: Well, it was a fascinating reaction fascinating. Because at that point, I was kind of in my next step, which was my essence, or beingness, or divinity step, which is Oh, everything just is. So I watched 911 happen. I watched the reaction, of course of 99.9% of people to it, which was a very sort of gut level, primal fight or flight, fear based, security oriented, survival directed kind of response. And I kept looking in myself for response, like, what, what is this, and none of that was there. Actually, ironically, no judgment of anybody was there, I felt the same thing is like, I just went to all the victims, I went to all the perpetrators in the exact same way. And I just, I just sort of let my beingness wrap around them. And, and I just felt for them, I felt deep compassion, I felt deep love, I felt deep honoring. And, and I feel like that’s sort of my calling to light. Maybe one of the gifts I give to our humaneness is just no matter what those stereotypical judgment might be about anybody, but I just, I just let myself totally unite with who they are, how they are, what they are, and, and let the magic of that do whatever, whatever it does. So so my response was a non judgmental, love based, deeply inner peace based connection. And then from there, what that allowed is it allowed me pretty instantaneously a vision, because there wasn’t anything to stop me from a clear vision. And the vision was, Oh, I think we have just witnessed a major initiation, a global initiation into the beginnings of a new, a new humanity. And of course, out of that has come the whole 2012 Myth based kind of a thing and moving from the Piscean age to the Aquarian Age, just all the labels we want to put to that, and everything that’s come from that, where we’re still going through this, this major turning point, if you will, into this, this remarkable new time. And so if there was an eye if anybody’s got judgment about 911 2001, I apologize for this remark. But, but it it, it felt to me like that was in some way a real gift. Because it It invited us all to get out of our comfort zone and show up in a different way.
Rick Archer: So that was sort of my reaction to I mean, when I saw that happen, I thought whoa, it’s happening, you know, things are really changing here. But this pain thing I can relate to too and I find it very interesting I find myself kind of contemplating situations where people are subjected to extreme suffering and like torture and and things like that and you know, kind of wondering kind of just Firstly, I’m coming at it from a number of angles, wondering, you know, how I would hold up under such a thing, whether any degree of awakening I’ve achieved would actually be sustained. And also you know, why such things happen? Why, you know, what, what can what could help where would I personally have to be out to inflict that on somebody else? And then kind of taking it out to the god level of oh, okay, well, it’s all God and He’s the torture he’s the torture worry. And somehow this is entertaining on a cosmic level. And that’s just part of the, the whole grand Lila you know, yes. But for some reason, I find myself processing this stuff. I’ll be out cutting the grass going through this scenario and feeling like I’m working through some thing.
Bill Bauman: Yes, yeah, try to help Help Help them on catch up to the bigger picture of the whole thing.
Rick Archer: For what it’s worth, you know, apropos of this point about pain, it seems like we all develop a kind of shell, like a clam or a snail and the shell. It both isolates us, but it protects us, you know, so it’s, it’s kind of necessary. And it almost seems like awakening into oneness is a process of dissolving the shell and, and becoming more vulnerable but somehow not having that be lethal. You want to elaborate on that a bit.
Bill Bauman: Wow. I loved your words. I I could just sit with those words. I think you said it beautifully. No, it’s really true. Some somebody just I just this morning in this morning’s mail, I got this book as a gift from somebody in the mail called undefended love. And so I’ve not had a chance to look at it. But I love the title. It’s like, there’s some books I haven’t read. But the title grabs me, you know. And so undefended. Love, I think is what you’re talking about. It’s like, like, you have the the beauty of, of oneness. And if I may say saying yes to oneness, and just just letting go into into being one is, is bit by bit, usually, we let go of that shell that defense that self protection, we let go of the ways we try to keep ourselves from being hurt, or keep ourselves from being in pain, from the seeming terribleness, or danger or whatever of life or of other people. And for me, at least as we, as we do that, we just keep letting go letting go letting go. What I found for me, is the power of love, the power of oneness, the power of, of a willingness to, to dance more intimately with all facets of life, not just human beings, but but the stuff of life itself. The power of that is amazing, and just somehow softening the blows, in somehow establishing the power of spirit, or the power of soul or the power of the Divine, or the power of one’s God Self. And any other label we want to put inside the human self inside the human core. And somehow then the mighty human and my divine, if I can say it that way, are so merged that it is it that I become a much more powerful presence, not our in the usual stereotypical dualistic sense of the term, where it’s about win lose, but power in terms of Win Win and power in terms of wow, I can really be here. And I can really be the fullness of who I am called to be here in any given moment. And, and it’s okay, because the power takes over. So to say that another way, I feel like what we do is we move from self protection, that’s the show you talked about, to openness, where what as the doors open as the gates open, have deeper, fuller power comes to do a much better job than the self protection did in terms of allowing us to be present in a way that ultimately can be just about downright 100%. Non vulnerable, it’s a and it’s a it’s a powerful thing, as you
Rick Archer: were saying that the image came to mind of the aikido masters, you know, who rather than taking a sort of a obstinate oppositional sort of approach to an attacker would just somehow do this little thing, and the attackers force would be used against them, and they just be blown off and the master would just hardly have done anything.
Bill Bauman: Exactly. Yes, yes. Yeah, that’s a power. Exactly.
Rick Archer: So do you feel though that at a certain stage of a person’s development, it’s, it’s necessary and appropriate for them to have a shell and to be protective, perhaps they don’t have the inner wear with all the inner strength to, or the attunement to this sort of cosmic intelligence to operate as you’re, as you’re describing, and that it can’t be that shell can’t be shed? Instantly, it has to sort of be a process that might take years.
Bill Bauman: I love your point, Rick, I so agree with that. I, you know, I’ve spent so many decades now, because I’m so old. I’ve spent so many decades, really helping people at various various places of color development. And I think, especially when we’ve experienced some kind of trauma, especially if it’s early in life, there’s a part of us that just freezes and it’s a gut level and it’s way, way, way down deep, even at unconscious levels. We just freeze we partially paralyzed we, we, the rest of us keeps going on and grow. Saying something in there says I’m too scared. And so, and it’s often a really painful, painful kind of thing. So for people like that, they deeply subconsciously are convinced that they have to protect that. And if they don’t protect that they’re going to die. And so for them, self protection is not only important, and it’s pretty imperative. And so I noticed for myself, I will never invite someone to take away a self protection. unless or until I really see that there’s something else some deeper spiritual power, for example, or some deeper psychological power that can take the place of that pain. And then that pain usually needs to be nurtured in a certain way. And then once it is, as you say, over time, ah, then it can heal, it can be done. And then I watch people just take enormously quick strides in their in their growth in their expansion in, in being everything that they came here to be. But But you’re right, that’s a very sensitive point, not just for healers, if you will a various ILX. But for the person himself herself in relation to that, that and if I had a what you word paradigm for that, it would be that I think the first thing is to just go and connect with it, just be with it. Because most of us we run from it, we block it, we deny it, we ignore it, we numb it, with all sorts of things. But just to go to it and show up to it and then second, love it. As opposed to rejected, I want to I want it gone. Just love it. Love it, love it. And when we do that, it starts talking to us in different ways. It starts inviting us in in different ways. It’s there’s a relationship. And then from there, the magic can start happening. And it’s a bit it’s a very fragile, sensitive kind of thing. And it’s just very precious. I know for me when I’m when I’m feeling called to really be present to someone in that circumstance. What a joy it is for me just to go and be passionately, quietly in love with that pain, and the power of love. In healing even the most violent, vehement, tragic, explosive, kind of pain or suffering that’s there is just enormous. It’s, it’s just a, it’s to me, it’s a delight to watch, love. Do what all of our theories about love say it will do. And to me I can almost intertwine the words love and oneness.
Rick Archer: I was in an encounter group back in like about 1969 When such things were in vogue. And I saw this process where people’s sort of defenses would be hammered down and shattered, but without there being given any kind of counter balancing strength or inner resources to be defenseless, and it would really be shattering for people very crude and inappropriate way of knowing.
Bill Bauman: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You and I are twins. I had those experiences too. And
Rick Archer: one thing you mentioned in the recordings I was listening to were, and maybe, maybe this is, you know, dovetails with the processing pain phase you went through. But you said several years of deconstructing beliefs and concepts. I found that kind of interesting.
Bill Bauman: Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, I forgot to mention that. This was back probably in the mid 1980s. It was another voices voice. It was really cute. And the Moses voice said, Bill, I don’t know why wouldn’t call me Moses all these times. It’s always Bill. Bill, it’s time to unlearn everything you’ve ever learned. And I thought, well, that’s fascinating, because by that time, I had degrees up the wazoo, and I, I wasn’t overly attached to everything I knew, but I think I was attached to it. And so I ignored it. It came back, I ignored it again. And I don’t know, after the fourth or fifth time, I decided, you know, resistance is futile. So and it felt right. All of a sudden it felt right. So I decided I was going to just every judgment, I had every thought I had every theory I had every interpretation, every value every principle on all those words, every assumption I have, every idea I had. I was just going to take it and just put it on some invisible table next to me. So just to empty out my mind to unlearn everything I ever learned. Well, I had no clue when I started that what kind of a project I took on. This took me about three years. And, and I and I did it. It was a it was a practice. It was a practice that that felt sacred felt important. Like I had to do this. And it was amazing. I If I had no idea how many 1000s of layers of thoughts we have, and it’s felt like there was a, there was a bottomless pit, and there wasn’t but, but I noticed after a few months, I had just gotten rid of gotten rid of gotten rid of enough that I started to feel unexpectedly scared. What’s that? And I realized, Oh, my whole sense of safety and security in relation to the world not pull sense, but was was in some way related to oh, I can think it away. I can categorize it, I can, I can have a theory about it. I know something about it. So that I noticed was a was a shield I had protecting me from life. So So I went through the few few months of, of fear a little bit of terror. And, and after a while, somehow I started feeling okay, it’s like, oh, okay, I got through that. I’ve lived, it’s okay, I’m still shedding all those. And so I went on. And after about two years, I noticed myself starting to think well, gee, you know, this is the I can tell the barrels getting emptier. I wonder what it’ll be like. And right. At that point, I started to experience people not so much in terms of thoughts, interpretations, theories, ideologies, principles, but more in terms of their energies, their emotions, their feelings. I did that with nature, there’s like a, you know, there, there was all of a sudden a tree hugger. It was awful. No, and just just their feeling, feeling. That’s it. So feeling nature feeling people feeling their hearts, feeling their pain, feeling, feeling their beauty, feeling, the air I breathe, it was like, Oh, I can feel that prana that chi like I’ve ever felt before. So when I was less in the mind, and let me know, let me change that. When I was less in the constructs of the mind. I started noticing this was the strangest thing, strangest discovery for me. Oh, my mind. And my thoughts have feelings. So and I you know, we have most of us, we think of the mind like a computer. You know, it’s the logical misters Spock quality of his, if you will, well, that was good. And, and yet, for me, I discovered all of this is my mind is as feeling and sensitive, a part of me as anything. So after three years, boom, I hit I hit bottom, it was like, oh, all of a sudden, I looked and there was there was in relation to everything. There was no more. There was no more thought about it. And everything just was it was really strange. Now, that can be humanly embarrassing. And it was from time to time, like somebody’s talking to you. And all of a sudden, you know, the conversation is there. And they’re looking at you, because it’s your turn to say something
Rick Archer: you’re spacing out.
Bill Bauman: And, and so and there was nothing to say because, wow, it just is Hmm. internally. It’s wonderful. But yeah, so there were a few or several embarrassing moments on the outside. But what it did for me, oh my gosh, what it did for me is, and this was the point right at the end, boom, it was emptied out, my mind almost instantly looked for its new job definition. And what it did all on its own. It just hooked into my heart. It bonded and merged and unified with my heart. And then I watched over the next few weeks, my mind again, all on its own decided, okay, my new job is to take the wisdom of the heart, the truth of the soul, and figure out which is what a mind is good at, figure out how to manifest that, how to how to express that, how to put that into gear, how to how to put that into a three dimensional world. And my mind was so happy. I never never thought about a happy mind. But all of a sudden my mind was feeling fulfilled was like, Ah, I’m unified. I’m, I found my dharma. I found my niche. And and it’s been living happily ever after. Since then. It’s really just, it was it was it was amazing. Just amazing. So again, if I
Rick Archer: let’s unpack this a little bit. So it sounds like another one of these things that you know, you just hung on for dear life and this this thing happened to you. You weren’t sort of the mote prime motivator of it. But it does sound a little bit more practice like than some of the things you went through. It’s like you went through layer after layer after layer. And was it sort of were things just kind of bubbling up and You know, concept when you find yourself making a judgement about something? And then you think, Wait a minute, is that really true? Almost a Byron Katie kind of process? Do I absolutely know. That’s true, you know? And was was there sort of a little habit that developed in which you learn to kind of play devil’s advocate with yourself on all of your concepts and judgments?
Bill Bauman: Yeah, that there was a, there was a distinct habit, but I wasn’t bright enough to take it the Byron Katie direction. The habit was, oh, there’s a thought or there’s a judgment, or there’s a theory or there’s a belief, and I just took it, and I wouldn’t even look at it and ask the question, because it for me, at least in that practice, if I asked the question, I was engaging the mind again, like, if I would say, is that true? I was using the mind to solve the mind. And, and that wasn’t the calling. I mean, I have great respect for Cadis, etc. But, but, but for me, it wasn’t that that would have for me defeated the purpose. So for me, it was, oh, there’s a thought. Put it to the side. Just just like in TM, as you’re doing the meditation. Oh, there’s a thought I just kind of gently let it go and move from there. Is that was it but it was a practice? And and if there’s I noticed over the years, what if there’s one thing consistent in what my path has been? And it’s only my path? The the thing that’s been consistent is saying, yes, it’s like, oh, boom, this is what’s important to show up to. Yes. And and as you know, from a couple of things I’ve described, I came to saying, yes, the hard way, I I was a big no guy for for quite a while. The power of No, as we say, and somebody put a W at the end of that. I don’t know what that
Rick Archer: was about. That was the key. He got rich doing that.
Bill Bauman: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. See, I stopped it. No. And I mean, I shouldn’t have learned something anyway. So so. So for me, it was very much about oh, say yes to it, go with it. Even if I don’t understand it, you know, it’s the whole mind thing. It just felt like, yes, it’s really important for me to do this. And so I did, and personally an element of love, yes, and an element of discipline, because
Rick Archer: let’s take a couple of specific examples. So let’s say, you know, we believe in God, we have a particular political orientation, we, we might have, you know, philosophical attitude toward, I don’t know whether reincarnation exists, or these are, and they’re all kinds of assumptions, you know, we assumed, we assume things about everybody we run into, you know, someone speaks a certain way, we assume they’re that kind of person, which might be pretty far off the mark in terms of what they actually are. So, in terms of all these assumptions and beliefs, and how did you go about this, deconstructing them, let’s say the God thing, I mean, you were a priest, you must have grown up believing in God did did at any point, you reexamine that whole thing, and, and kind of shed a certain adamant certainty about it, or what?
Bill Bauman: Well, actually, for that particular question, probably the first 10 years after I left the priesthood and left the Catholic Church, in throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I was rather an avowed, agnostic and probably pretty close to an atheist. So, so I’ve kind of done that one before. But but but all of them all of those questions, I’d love your examples. And for be add to those because I was doing a lot of psychotherapy, and just helping people a lot. When people would say things. And of course, in that role, I noticed that my typical response was, oh, that means this, oh, that symbolizes that. Oh, that that. So I would explain it to myself in different ways. So anytime I noticed in any way, which was, you know, five times a minute. Like, oh, there’s an interpretation, there’s an assumption wherever, again, simple thing, I just kind of, without using my hands, just set it aside and went back to focusing on whatever it was, oop, there’s another thought set it aside. Go back to whatever it was in the moment. There’s an assumption set it aside. It was it was very, very simple. Ironically, it didn’t get boring. You would think do that. Yeah. And and again, funniness
Rick Archer: be prescribed, I mean, can you sort of say, Hey, everybody, here’s how you do it. Actually, it really
Bill Bauman: can be I. I don’t usually advocate that to people because, again, like the other things we talked about, there are very few people who feel called to that. Or if they do, they kind of don’t like the idea of it. Plus, it’s seems to them like a lot of work. But for those that I’ve talked about it, and they’ve said, Oh, that feels like a calling, and I’ve supported them and help them in doing that, it’s, it’s made a huge difference, it’s made more than a huge, huge difference. It’s like dissolve so much of what we would spiritually tend to call ego or small s, self. And it and it just kind of opens them to it, like opens doors to infinity. Just because that one little ways, the way that we use the mind is out of the way. And, and I’ve watched, for example, some people from various spiritual traditions who tend to find me so I can help them with their awakening, or their Enlightenment or their realization. I, I’ve watched a number of them do this just as a practice. And it’s not as again, it’s not one I had ever imposed on anybody but, but I’ve watched them do this. And, and they just soared from an Enlightenment realization awakening point of view, it just, it just was, maybe one of the things that that was tough. And I find that and again, I just say this, just as an observation, that in so many spiritual traditions, Eastern and Western, there’s so much that’s about the philosophy of it, there’s so much that’s about the belief of it. I remember, you know, my training in Catholic theology, it was so much about the dog of it, if you will. And that never spoke to me for some reason. Like the love part of it did. But But to the degree, I’m going to make a generalization to the degree that we we wind or marry the philosophical dogma, teaching aspects of it, to the spirit of it, there’s a good chance that those teachings will subtly help in certain ways, like, oh, wow, look at that. But really limit us in other ways, simply because we wind up kind of holding on to those kinds of things.
Rick Archer: Oh, yeah, it’s like two hungry guys standing outside a restaurant looking at the menu, I believe that the chicken is going to be better. Well, I believe that you know, that the fish is going to be better, and they can stand there and starve to death arguing about beliefs, you know, as opposed to going in and actually having the experience.
Bill Bauman: I like that, can I use that? Sure. It’s
Rick Archer: all yours. And so it’s interesting, you said that when you had somehow worked through this whole process, you actually did get to the bottom of it, you have a good way of getting to the bottom of things. Yeah, he seemed to go the pain of humanity, and then all of your assumptions are kind of like, yeah, there is a light at the end of
Bill Bauman: the tunnel. If I stick with it long enough, somehow, it resolves itself. And that, to me is the beauty of spirituality is is a to me, old, ultimate spirituality, if that’s even a term is much more about just sort of letting go into the mystery, the the grace, the love, the Divinity, the magic, of, of what it is, and, and just by totally letting go into it as almost the only tool or practice somehow and it may take time. Somehow it the magic happens. Again, like for all that pain, that was that was a nine year cycle. That was that was not an overnight deal. But it’s there’s so much magic in
Rick Archer: so the magic that happened when you got to the end of this questioning assumptions phase was you said, the mind kind of took a backseat and you became centered in your feelings in the mind became more of a tool to manifest the feeling level into practical reality.
Bill Bauman: Yes. And, and the mind my mind, felt, excuse me, felt like it was an intimate part of it. It was a team player. And my mind felt like it was a spiritual or is a spiritual as is my heart as is my soul. And, and was just delighted to have a whole new way of being in relation to everything.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I mean, some people in spiritual circles, talk about getting rid of some of these things. You get rid of your ego, you get rid of your mind and all and I always thought of them as just tools that have kind of taken two predominant role and it’s not that you get rid of them, but you just everything gets more proportionately balanced. So things take their rightful place and serve their rightful function.
Bill Bauman: Yes, yeah. Yes, absolutely. Beautifully said.
Rick Archer: And so when you entered into this phase of feeling things more intimately, more subtly, the trees the people you encountered, I presume me me in ordinary circumstances, like you’re in the supermarket, you tune into the checkout girl and just as a subtle, subtle kind of affinity or feeling there that you wouldn’t have had in the past. So maybe you could describe Maybe your life a little bit at that phase, you know what’s like what it was like to be Bill operating in that condition. And I’m sure you’re still operating that way. But it was new to you at that point.
Bill Bauman: It was new. And it was, it was basically a whole new relationship to life, the nature of the planet started feeling different to me, not not as a philosophical concept. Right off the bat, though, the mind catches up and organizes it after. But more as Oh, it went from now, if you knew my childhood, I was born ultra sensitive. I felt everything. The world felt like a terribly hostile, dangerous place. To me. It was so much the earlier part of my life was not very sweet that way. So I’m using that as a contrast. So after this, I started noticing the sweetness of creation, the sweetness of human beings, even even if somebody was yelling at me, I noticed, I noticed, while I was really dealing with whatever the person was yelling at me about, I noticed the sweetness of the person. And all of a sudden, it was like, Oh, this, this person and I are loving each other. He’s serving me, I’m serving him in some way, whatever that is. But but not making it a mind thing. But just feeling the heart connection. And, and, and so everything no matter what, as I said before, if I look at wars, for about 10 years through the 90s, my precious life made an eye, Donna started and ran, what we call World Peace Institute, a nonprofit organization in Washington, DC. And as you can see, we were terribly successful. There’s now a world full of people, simply because of us. Oh, yeah, you guys rock. Thank you. No, no, don’t think. But
Rick Archer: what did you actually do to facilitate not to get you off the track? But what did you do to actually help facilitate world peace when you ran that thing?
Bill Bauman: Well, we’ll see if the word help fits. But actually, we first of all, we built it on what we called for a more mentally oriented Washington DC community, a consciousness of oneness. So it was not so much about conflict negotiation, if you will, which is sort of a prevailing model of how you bring about peace, it was more about helping people and systems. Learn how to walk a mile in the shoes of the other person, step into another opening open their hearts, creating circumstances and, and rituals and programs, through which people met each other in deeply more heart centered ways. Human ways got to know each other, not not just around the conflict areas, but then tried to, we never tried to put oneness into a set of principles, if you will, somehow it just didn’t work for us. But experientially just just to invite people to the experience. And so we did that, you know, all the way from the global to the societal, to the racial, to the, to the community, to the to relationships, intimate personal relationships, and marriages, if you will, people living together, the people in relation to themselves is like, the theme is, oh, if I can become one with another person, even though I may hate that person, or if I in relation to myself, I’m gonna become one with my body, even if I hate a facet of my body, it’s the same principle, I can become one, then the magic of oneness starts to enter in and, and calls us in a bigger way, I noticed that almost all those conflict negotiation treaties that they would come up with, that they would sign just, they usually lasted a few years. And then what they did is they died, that they, you know, they didn’t get followed through with. And, and so I was looking for something that would touch us and bond us at a deeper level. So so that’s a lot of what we did. And of course, my big joke about that is once once we created world peace, we shut it down. So
Rick Archer: it was just like back in the 70s 80s, something like that.
Bill Bauman: No, this was through the 90s actually through the 90s. Okay, from about 90 to 99.
Rick Archer: So, we were talking about the reason I brought this up as a reason you brought it up was they were talking about that, even though people may appear antagonistic to one another. On a subtler level, there’s some kind of heart connection going on. I mean, would you say that that’s the case in every situation? I mean, is there a heart connection going on between Assad and the people that are trying to get him from power and there he’s bombing the heck out of them. There’s some kind of love thing going on some deep level,
Bill Bauman: actually, ironically, through the eyes of oneness. That’s really true. I’ll share with you an example I share with different groups from time to time. Back when I was a psychologist and I used to I used to try to do relationship counseling, marriage therapy, I would, I would watch people at a conscious left brain verbal level, like yelling and screaming at each other to a couple to people, you know, if you would only change, then I’d be happy and you know, you sign up or whatever, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then I would watch because I could see energies back in those days, too, I would watch their hearts. And I watched this, and a love communication going on from heart to heart. And if I would, if I would tune into the love the heart communication, the heart communication would be saying something like, look, I’m really sorry, I’m beating up on you out here. It’s the only way at a conscious level, I know how to how to do this. But I really love you, you, you did thank you for for walking through this with me. And when I first started noticing that again, I I thought, yeah. And then then I would watch the sort of the solar plexus communication, which is more about energy and need, then I’d watch the soul connection, if you will. And, and I watched the bond in this. So I know, we’re always relating on all these levels. And There literally is, even though it looks like if I’m bombing you, if I’m killing you, if I’m doing something horrible to you, ironically, and in the deep at the deepest level of soul, there is this deep bond in us this huge love that, while not visible out here, because we can only see that that captures our attention is, is so genuine, so real. So for me, what I tend to do is I tend to just joined that just go there. And then however I show up at the at the other levels, I just I just become one with how they’re one. And then take my cues from that oneness because the as we all know that huge wisdom at that soul level, huge wisdom in the ways we are one that can can make such a huge, huge, huge difference.
Rick Archer: So there are there any exceptions to this? Or can you say categorically that, you know, the Nazis and the Jews, the slave masters and the traders and the slaves, any horrific situation we want to look at, on a deep level, there was some kind of, from a much broader perspective, a much subtler perspective, there was some sort of mutually beneficial love kind of thing going on there.
Bill Bauman: In my experience, there’s no exception to this. And I, I don’t want to call myself a great master of this necessarily, but I, there’s so many ways in which even when I’m talking to people, I’m I’m like so present to pretty much everything that goes on in the in the human dynamic, if you will, I feel myself totally one with the human family, in the ups and the downs in the joys and the sufferings. And so I keep an eye on what goes on around the world. And so just as I look at it, there are no exceptions to that. We are deeply in love with one another. Even though we’ve lost conscious touch with that we’ve not lost touch, unconsciously or subconsciously or super consciously. It’s only at the conscious level that we we forget, and where we struggle, and it’s all about fight or flight and self survival, survival of the fittest etc. So, so to me, because that conscious is one part of a much bigger system. To me what’s what’s what’s a cool definition of spirituality is that I just become one within show up to everything, every part of me my conscious, my subconscious, my unconscious, my energy, my primal self, my spiritual self, my mystical self, my divine, so, and we’re all of that. And so so if this is this is my philosophical chewing about it. So if, as the Eastern spirituality say, creation is really about the divine or Gods slash goddess, creating a playground so that the divine can experience all that the Divine is in myriad ways, then then what a cool way to be human to simply experience everything that humaneness is the upside the downside, the light, the dark, and, and for me, as I’ve done all of that, again, just because it’s been done to me, it just starts being shown to me over and over and over again. Wow, this is all divine. This is so anything dark. It’s amazing. So just I’ll say that one of the way I Again, I mentioned I did a lot of depth psychotherapy and, and even spiritually, whether it’s in the context of healing or just supporting someone’s growth, I’m, I’m always really, really present to every facet of a person, including that dark side including, or that seeming dark side and including any pain. And, and what I’ve just discovered, because it’s been shown to me over and over that no matter how excruciatingly awful something feels, if we go there, spend enough time with it, massage it in a different in enough different ways. Love it cared for it. At some point, we go deeper into and deeper into it down into the core of it down into the soul of the symptom, if you will. And we find God, we find the divine we find, we find love, we find perfection, we find beauty, and then I watch it kind of crack open just like a like a shell of a nut just cracks open, and all that love or divinity just comes out. And that’s what the healing is about, I think is finding the divine within the seeming problem. So
Rick Archer: yeah, some of these esoteric philosophers are guys like Michael Newton, who wrote this book about having hypnotically regressing people to the period between lives and exploring what went on there. You know, they talk about how we pretty much sign up for whatever we end up doing here. Even Even things that we wouldn’t consciously from this perspective want to take on, but there’s a kind of a bigger reason for our taking them on to work out karma or learn lessons or, or whatever. And so, you know, it helps to kind of put take that perspective. Because otherwise, we talked about the Nazis loving the Jews and vice versa. It can be very offensive to some people.
Bill Bauman: But yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what if we do that just at that left brain level? It’s yeah, it does. We can be totally offensive, as well as perplexing. Yeah, for sure.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And there’s something else I was gonna say, but I forget what it was, but doesn’t matter.
Bill Bauman: Well, I could jump in here if I go ahead. Sure. Okay, I want to since this is all about me. How often do you get the chance of making something all about you was too cool.
Rick Archer: Yeah, this joke, you know, that goes like, alright, me, me, me Enough about me? What do you think about me?
Bill Bauman: I love that. So once, I feel moved to say, just because of those of you who are watching, and listening, it might be helpful. So I went through everything I’ve described. And then a couple more expressions of that, where I just was really one with the infinite and and it just felt and then one with all the many dimensions of life, you know, like in string theory, they talk about all the dimensions that are there. So I’ve become an intimate residence in residence in all of those places. And again, it was it was like the Moses voice once again. Said, Okay, wonderful, beautiful. Now it’s time to take all of that all of that transcendent life. And bring it totally totally totally into humaneness into your humaneness into the humaneness. And, and the instant picture I had with that was oh, so often, especially in eastern approaches to awakening Enlightenment, is really very much about transcending is very much about kind of not totally leaving the human behind, but leaving the human behind. It’s like so so human doesn’t get a lot of great press. It’s really much more about being in the divine in the Spirit, in the light in the oneness, if you will. So all of a sudden, it was time to do the seeming reverse of that. So that felt right to me, in a way I couldn’t explain. So I watched over the next years, I just watched all of that. Come into and play out in my humaneness. And, and to make the long story short, I noticed that everything that’s out there spiritually, in the in the infinity of light, is in here is reflected in every chakra is reflected in every cell and atom is reflected in every physiological system is reflected in every energy. My whole aura is filled with infinity. And, and my even in my in my brain and mind, there’s a whole what do I want to call that dimension of life that’s being played out? And so every human being is in a way that’s accessible internally in the human. Every human being is all of the Divine and all that It emanates from the Divine. And, and so I, I witness that watch that again said yes, showed up to it, and was in quite a bit of all about, oh, it’s all here. So a lot of what I try to do these days is I try to help people who, who maybe don’t necessarily feel called to a traditional Enlightenment path awakening path to, to find the equivalent thereof, within themselves. And so there’s a way in which when it’s all about me, it can be all about life as well. So I tend to use the human as a laboratory setting for discovering how amazing life is just in this being called self. And then in that experience, this being becomes every being and becomes all of life, a slightly different approach. But, but it’s magical, to, to to what’s the American Express commercial, don’t leave home without it, to, to not even have to leave home and find not American Express necessarily, but find divinity and infinity, just just in this in this space. So it’s, to me, coming from that one of the side effects is, wow, every human being is an exact replica, in a completely unique sense, each person being unique, exact replica of the Divine, and all that is there. It’s just the most exquisite kind of thing. And so, so that’s a lot of what I hang out with people.
Rick Archer: Yeah, man is made in the image of God.
Bill Bauman: That’s exactly it. Yes, great,
Rick Archer: great stuff. There’s this whole thing going on the TM movement, and I can’t really do justice to it. But there’s a whole books are being written about it, analyzing how, just what you said in great detail how the whole cosmos is within the physiology and in the Veda is within the physiology. And there’s actually this amazing correspondences between the number of suitors or verses and Rig Veda and the number of nodes on the central nervous system and this part of the brain and this, you know, part of the Vedic literature and so on. And as I said, I really have a very layman’s understanding of it. But it’s the attempt is to show that there’s a correspondence between the structure of human physiology and the sort of governing principles of the universe, which the Vedas are purported to represent. So fascinating stuff that people might want to look into if it strikes a chord with them. Yeah. So and harkening back to the pain issue, just wanted to wrap up one point about that. I’m sure that you know, you wouldn’t have your appendix out without anesthesia. So there although I did interview a guy who actually has root canals and stuff without anesthesia, he says that, you know, he just gets into this detached state and and there’s no suffering so he doesn’t bother with the anesthesia. Personally, I wouldn’t make that choice. But um, I suppose would you agree that, you know, at least for most of us, there’s a valid reason for blotting out pain under certain circumstances.
Bill Bauman: For numbness? Absolutely. You know, what is ironic? In my psychological days for several years, I specialize in hypnosis and hypnotherapy. And, and I literally witnessed a lot of people going through surgeries without anesthesia. Under hypnosis, yes, exactly. No, not not without hypnosis. But so the hypnosis was the the the modality if you will, so it is absolutely possible. I don’t feel called to it. That’s That’s it? I mean, I could do it. You could do we could all do it. If I think a, we felt called to it. And be we responded to that call by saying, Yeah, I’m willing to specialize in finding that whether it’s a hypnotic state or an out of body experience or whatever altered state it may be. But for me, it’s just not a calling. So if I go through surgery, I’m delighted to be drugged. knock me out. Yeah. Well, I respect those people who, yeah, do what you described
Rick Archer: more power to them. Now that brings up an interesting point, you know, a lot of in some spiritual traditions, and actually the guy I interviewed last week affirmed this in his own experience. You don’t lose pure awareness. If it’s really established, even if you’re under anesthesia, even if you’re snoring like a sailor in the middle of the night, pure awareness is shining inwardly is that your experience?
Bill Bauman: It is my experience, and and, in fact, is very, very, very strongly my experience for me, you It’s I guess the word established, it’s like, it’s boom, it’s there, it’s got roots, it is it’s an intimate part of me, it’s the central part of the whatever me is here. And, and so it’s so it’s, it’s here to stay. But when I noticed with, with a number of people who are there, in beginning stages of that, they still have that old mentality of, Oh, I could lose it. And it’s just like, you know, if we’re afraid of something, sure enough, that’s what’s going to show up. So ooh, I could lose it. I want to make sure I don’t lose it. Like how many people have all of you heard I, like I’ve heard from people, I want to make sure it’s permanent. And just just whatever unsureness is in that will tend to create the illusion of it’s gone. It creates a space where Oh, it’s not there.
Rick Archer: It’s like a doubt sort of undermines it.
Bill Bauman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so so it’s often a calling at those points to to help that person just just not question whether it’s there, but kind of go to where the doubt is, and help that out a little bit. Okay.
Rick Archer: Again, the TM movement, which was my background, marshy kind of outline these stages of development, he talked about, you know, establishing pure awareness. And then he talked about having perception refined so that you begin to see the celestial light value of everything. And then he talked about the Unity phase, and you’ve described all these things, both in this interview, and in your writings and other lectures and stuff that I heard. Is there any? Was there any of that sort of, I mean, I think his his outline was necessarily like a roadmap didn’t necessarily correspond precisely to the actual territory it represents. But it was a rough idea of how things may unfold. It’s, it was quite a while ago that you had that unity experience, and then you went where you lay down on the stage. And then you went through some other processes after that, are you? Do you still feel like you’re going through processes of further unfoldment? And, and refinement and deepening and so on? And what might those be?
Bill Bauman: You know, the cool thing, because you asked really good questions. Yeah, I don’t do that. No, don’t
Rick Archer: just come to mind.
Bill Bauman: Um, it’s, first of all, there’s a, there’s a real distinction that, at least for me, I think is important. And it may be helpful. I think, in this sort of awakening, deal, one gets to a certain point where we move from linear and quantitative, to qualitative, and experiential. So I don’t feel like I’m expanding anymore. Expanding implying linear movements from point A to point B to point C. So I don’t feel like I’m growing anymore. In the, in the traditional sense of getting from here to there, I feel like I’m, what a cute term, like I’m in the ballpark, if you will, of being and we could use all those other words for it too. And, and then from there, moving from quantity to quality. From there, it’s like an and you use this word, it’s like, Ah, it’s just experiencing the, the different flavors of that, or fully, it’s, it’s being in that more deeply. It’s, there is a fine tuning, but it doesn’t have the feel of growth. In the ways we talk about growth. It has much more the feeling of oh, I’m here and, and I’m, and then here’s the point for me. There’s a whole way in which while if you listen to my words, in this, this chat, we’re having my words very much dualistic Lee and individually oriented, because that’s our language, I talk about AI and me, but truly out there. And I say this with respect to anybody’s sense of individuality. I don’t feel like I exist as a person. And so, so while I can, I can use the language. In truth, I feel like I am life. And so, I think at the point at which we start really becoming, one with all of life, all of creation, etc. We start, we start just being that, and then at a certain point or series of points, it becomes just the movement of life and and we stop thinking in terms of self. And what happens instead is life just subsumes us into its own. Its own beauty, its own journey, its own expansiveness. And, and whatever seeming really individualized consciousness there is in that it’s just in awe at the bigger and bigger dimensionality, the deeper and pure truth, the, the, just the exquisite, divine nature of everything. And so it’s more like, I feel like I’ve just gotten subsumed into celebration. So the word for me and it could be different for other people. So as I pull that back into an individualized consciousness or awareness, it’s like, wow, and then second is about who celebrate, it’s like, if there’s a calling in, and it’s like to be in awe, if you will, of every aspect of creation, even stuff that looks awful on the on the human realm or on the human planet. And, and just be like, have this individuality, be like, the divine, which is, oh, I just love it, no matter what, I have no judgment, no condemnation of it. All I have is this grace filled desire to just keep being drastically in love with everything. And that’s, that’s kind of the summary from this part of the ranch, if you will, and it’s speaking of
Rick Archer: ranch, I was going to use a metaphor to kind of summarize what you just summarized, which was, you know, like, you’ve captured the fort, which commands the territory. So now the territory belongs to you. And you’re at leisure liberty to explore around and you know, the territory isn’t gonna get any bigger you own the territory, but there’s so much to be explored within the territory and to become more familiar with and so you’re able to play about and do that. And to shift the metaphor slightly, you know, you’re able to kind of be an instrument, to totally a man in that metaphor, you’re able to be an instrument to, you know, choose the divine into the world to serve the world in in whatever way you are equipped to do.
Bill Bauman: Yes, right. Yes. Beautifully said. Gorgeous summary. I love it. Cool.
Rick Archer: Dylan, I had more we wanted to say, but he has to go. And we’ve just had some computer problems for the past 10 minutes. Otherwise, we would have continued this discussion. But we’ll have another visit sometime. And cover cover more material. But for the time being. I want to thank Bill for this interview, I think it’s been a lot of fun. And those of you who have been listening or watching will be able to get in touch with Bill, I’ll link to his website from mine batgap.com. And if you go there, you will see all the other interviews I’ve been doing and and will do, you can sign up for an email newsletter to be notified of them. You will also see a little discussion group that springs up around each interview. And you will see a link to an audio podcast, you can subscribe to this. And iTunes as a podcast if you’d like. Also, if you’re listening to this on YouTube, you can just subscribe to the channel and YouTube will notify you every time there’s a new video. So thanks, Bill. It’s been a joy. Thanks for bearing with all these technical glitches we’ve been dealing with. Oh, that’s no
Bill Bauman: problem at all. Rick, I want to thank you. And I want to thank everybody who now and forever is watching this. And viewing this. It’s a joy. I really like you, which is strange, because you can tell I don’t like hardly any. But But no, it’s a pleasure. I love the service you do to life and to those who are on this path. It’s an exquisite one. So on behalf of all of us, thank you, and just a message to everybody who’s listening, viewing, watching experiencing this. Thank you. It’s been a joy sharing my heart with you, my soul with you and my love with you. I just kind of wrap myself around you and just support you for the rest of your life and do that with the the gentlest, most exquisite divine love possible. It’s been a total privilege to spend this time with you. So thank you.
Rick Archer: Thank you, Bill, stay in touch.
Bill Bauman: I will thank you Rick. Bye
Rick Archer: bye
