This rough draft generated by Otter.ai contains errors. If you would like to correct them, or join our team of volunteer proofreaders, please contact me.
Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest today is Chris Beckett. Chris is in Bristol in the UK. In case you haven’t watched one of these Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awake or Awakening people. There have been about 290 of them done so far. So if you’d like to check out the previous ones go to batgap.com, archived and categorized in various ways. And there’s also a donate button there, which we appreciate people clicking to help support the whole project. So Chris, got in touch a while back. And he sounded interesting. And I forwarded it over to Irene, my wife who does the scheduling and choosing of guests. And she was fascinated because Chris said, Here’s his words, said my good friend, Mike reminded me recently that a couple of years ago, my comment on spirituality was F Enlightenment. Like, you know, for whatever reason, I just didn’t care. And so I really was kind of fascinated with the fact that somebody who really didn’t give a hoot would undergo some rather profound awakenings. And that does happen sometimes. But usually, it’s people who are really keen on it. So we scheduled Chris, and we’re going to have conversation, Chris is a professional musician, we’ll be talking about that, and about spirituality and music a little bit later in the interview. So Chris, you’ve, you know, sent me your bio here, it’s quite long, and I won’t just read the whole thing, but we’ll kind of go through it because people like to hear people’s story. And you said that until this year, you’re only interested in spirituality was in making you happier, you weren’t looking to be changed only to make your experience better. But that to me sounds like change. I mean, if you if you become happier, or if your experience becomes better, that’s a kind of a change, isn’t it?
Chris Beckett: I think what I really meant was, I wasn’t interested in finding out about anything to do with truth or anything like that.
Rick Archer: So you weren’t seeking some ultimate reality or wisdom? You just wanted to feel better and be happier. Yeah. And I guess you mentioned that your your pursuits had been along, kind of in the self improvement realm for for some time. So what kind of stuff did you do in that area?
Chris Beckett: So probably from the age of like, early 20s, to late 20s. I was kind of got into things like creative visualization was a big thing. I got into kind of using internal worlds to kind of, sort of make myself feel better. What else did I kind of
Rick Archer: told, are you now 39? Okay.
Chris Beckett: So I was doing that. And I was just, I just kind of just wasn’t interested in finding out anything more than than what I already knew. Basically, I just wanted to live better in the world, which I knew basically, yeah. But then that did all change about five years ago. What happened? Well, I broke up with my partner, my girlfriend at the time. And that kind of created a sort of shift where, before that point, I felt that I was kind of chasing life and I was manipulating life. And then I suddenly felt the energy change very dramatically. And I suddenly felt that life was chasing after me. It’s very, it was very palpable. First, I can’t even remember the moment when it happened. I was going for a walk. And I used to get so much support, grounding from nature. And suddenly the energy changed. And I felt that if I went into nature, somehow I’d be transformed in a deeper way. So I just just became like fire or something of this sort of fire Enos to it, which I sort of just avoided nature in some way.
Rick Archer: So you were kind of afraid of being transformed in a deeper way. You’re saying? Yeah, avoiding it.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I was completely avoiding it, because I knew I was being chased. And I knew if I let go into even slightly, then basically, this kind of point of energy would just break me open. And that’s exactly what happened. And it did happen. It kind of started the reaction started a few times before.
Rick Archer: What was it like? I mean, I can’t I get the image of a volcano about to erupt or something. And there’s some smoke and there’s some bulging of the mountainside and whatnot,
Chris Beckett: like a new nuclear reaction. Yeah. Catalytic fuel to it. And what happened previous few times, like it almost happened a year before happened for real. And it was like a catalytic reaction. But somehow the energy you got changed at the last moment, and I got pushed into something else.
Rick Archer: So you’re trying to keep a lid on it? In other words, because you were afraid of what might happen if you just let it happen.
Chris Beckett: I wouldn’t say so consciously is that I wouldn’t say I was consciously sort of keeping a lid on it. I mean, I wouldn’t say that I was an accepting of life before this kind of awakening in the shift happened. It’s just that it just didn’t happen. It just it just didn’t happen. The energy just changed. I did try and get out of it. I guess I kind of felt I wanted to be out of this situation, which is happening this energy, which is building up.
Rick Archer: So aside from avoiding nature, which you know, you felt was conducive to this energy building up, where you’re doing anything else to suppress it. I really like drinking or something and to try to keep it
Chris Beckett: No, no, I gave up drinking and all that kind of stuff in my mid 20s, mid to late 20s. By the time this kind of new energy was coming in the last. I guess that’s from the age of 32 to 37, or whatever. There’s a kind of new energy, I did feel very good about life as well, it wasn’t like I was, it’s really hard to it’s very paradoxical. I was getting more open at the same time. So I was getting more open about the same time there was this sort of feeling that there was this energy, which I knew that kind of if I went into it, it would just kind of break me open.
Rick Archer: And Alright, so that seemed to seems to have gone on for a while. But then you finally went into it, or allowed it to take you over, right?
Chris Beckett: There’s no allowing. It just happened just was. Yeah, there was absolutely no choice. And it was just completely like life was because I never would have gone there myself. And just live basically kind of got to the point where I sort of said, There’s no more time. Sorry. You’re just you’re just ready.
Rick Archer: And so what was it was it like what was experienced?
Chris Beckett: While it started, we started the week before. So it started from just energy entering my body basically a certain point. And for the first few days, I kind of felt that things were going to be manageable is going to be okay. I just felt a bit kind of disconcerted, but by sort of happened on a Sunday, by Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, there was just this feeling that this nuclear catalytic kind of thing had just got to a certain point where it was gonna do its thing. It was It wasn’t going to stop.
Rick Archer: Okay. Can you be more explicit aside from nuclear and catalytic? I mean, what was the actual subjective visceral experience you were going through?
Chris Beckett: It was just a feeling of my life falling apart completely.
Rick Archer: Was that evident to external observers? I mean, were you losing your job and stuff was No, it wasn’t functional, or it was more of a subjective thing. It was,
Chris Beckett: you know, will happen so quickly, it will happen in a few days. Literally, in a few days, I went from my life’s really okay, too. I can’t live anymore with the way I’m living basically, it was only it was, yes, three days, four days, or how
Rick Archer: had you been living? And what was it about the way you had been living that was no longer livable?
Chris Beckett: I really can’t say just everything just, I just you’re
Rick Archer: doing music and probably a lot of the stuff you’re doing now. So what actually changed?
Chris Beckett: It was just everything just a mind was my whole sort of sense of who I was completely just started to unravel, basically. And the only thing I knew for sure was I was dying. That’s all. That’s I said to my friends. I just the friends I met up with, I just said I’m dying. And that was the only thing I didn’t know if this was going to happen or anything. I just knew I was going to die in some way.
Rick Archer: And they said, What are you talking about? You’re dying, you have cancer or something? What do you mean you’re dying?
Chris Beckett: They I think they the people I talked to kind of quite spiritual. So I think they they had an insight into what was going on. They realize it was I didn’t Yeah, right.
Rick Archer: Okay, so there was this cathartic moment kind of bubbling up for you and you felt you felt it coming? You must have you had had some
Chris Beckett: kind of kind of kind of knew that was gonna happen unconsciously because I said to myself, And Mike, who is the guy who? I asked him to borrow the end of your world book by Adyashanti? Which I have read on the shelf back here. Yeah, which had read a bit of a year before and thought it was complete rubbish. But I was, he said to me, I was very insistent. He came around for dinner on Friday night. And he said, You need to bring this book with you. So it was it was all very, as a no, no, there was just no sort of conscious choice. At that point. It was just completely like, life was just completely pressing down on my entire life. Just didn’t have no sense of any kind of personal at that point.
Rick Archer: And you weren’t doing any spiritual practices or anything this just happening.
Chris Beckett: No, I was avoiding. I was avoiding meditating as well.
Rick Archer: Right. But you had meditated in the past?
Chris Beckett: A little bit? Yeah, not much. But
Rick Archer: yeah. That’s interesting. So to the I think, to the spiritual insider, so to speak, someone who has been doing spiritual practices and reading spiritual books, they have a sense of what you’re talking about, you know, because the books talk about this kind of thing. And they may have had experiences like this. And, but to the person, like you said a minute ago about the Adyashanti book, he thought it was complete Bs, Bs or something, because it didn’t relate to your experience. So there could be people listening, who might have the same reaction to what we’ve been saying so far, because you’ve been kind of vague. And, you know, there’s this thing life was trying to take you over and your whole life was gonna fall apart, and you thought you were gonna die. And try to try to, like, try to like, put yourself in the shoes of the kind of person you had been when you were first exposed to the Ashanti book and thought it was BS. Yeah. And try to help that person understand what was really happening in a way that they might be able to relate to.
Chris Beckett: What you mean, from the point of view now what I know?
Rick Archer: Yeah, try to make it clear what you’re talking about. Because this can sound like a lot of gobbledygook can sound very unclear to someone who hasn’t had that experience. Yeah. It can sound like nonsense to somebody you know. So try to give a sense of what it was you’re you actually going through and what your actual experience was day to day and moment to moment.
Chris Beckett: So my experience was, I did feel that I was going in some kind of process. But I didn’t have a sense that when this process would happen, and how it would kind of culminate. So I didn’t consciously think, Oh, I’m having a spiritual awakening or anything like that. There was no, there was no conscious recognition of that. There was just this recognition that I was in this somehow deep process, which is going to transform me in some way. And that was tied in with this sense that I was dying in some way. But I didn’t have a sense of how I was dying. But paradoxically, I must have unconsciously or some some very deep level realize what was happening because I borrowed this book from Mike. And I was quite, quite insistent on borrowing that book, basically. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So Roger, the old Dylan line, something’s going on here. But you don’t know what it is.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, it was exactly that. Yeah. Something was happening. But I didn’t quite piece it together in my mind.
Rick Archer: So it sounds like it happened over the course of a week or so though. And by the, by the end of that week, you did have a sense of what, what was what had been happening, and you kind of landed on the other side of it. So what was that like?
Chris Beckett: So basically, on Sunday night, I was reading the book. And I’ve read quite a lot of it already. I was probably halfway through, and I just read this line, and it said something like, I can’t remember the line. So but it said something like you’re not your thoughts. And then something some something physically changed within me. It’s like a kind of just a connection in my brain, which kind of link something together, which wasn’t there. And there was just so much energy going through my body. And I just realized that my thoughts weren’t true. But it wasn’t a kind of, oh, my thoughts weren’t true. It was kind of like saying it. As this process was happening, this just energetic change, which just started happening.
Rick Archer: So do you feel like prior to that you had always assumed that you were your thoughts or you had identify with your thoughts? And yeah, and then somehow that identification was brokenness.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I’d never for a second. Like, I just for some reason, I’ve never actually thought, what am I who am I? Who’s this person? It just never ever occurred to me? Yeah. And that was the first time which I I kind of looked, I didn’t even look it was. It all happened in one moment, just just that sudden connection was I just knew it wasn’t true. And then the next question, because I just kept saying to myself, because there was so much energy going on and so much chaos, in a way, it was very chaotic. It wasn’t kind of a, it wasn’t a calm sort of thing. And then after a while of sort of jumping on my bed going, Oh, my God, I’m not my thoughts. I then sort of started to ask the question, well, what am I what am I and then over the next sort of few days, I started to realize that somehow I was everything. And I started to look at pictures on the wall. And I started to realize that that picture and the looking at the picture, and me were all the same thing. Or the same movement.
Rick Archer: It’s interesting, because people, some people go through years of, you know, trying to do Ramana Maharshi self inquiry, and you know, who am I and what am I, and I’m not my thoughts and all this stuff. And you can still feel kind of frustrated with that, even after years of doing it. And here, you just kind of just happen to
Chris Beckett: know, I’m aware of that. You have have have a friend, you have friends like that, who have been long term, but it’s you know, and they’ve spent their whole life sort of trying to find out who they are, you know, look, look behind. Yeah, it was just ready to happen. There’s, I’ve always been quite an honest person. I’ve always been honest about how I’ve been living in some kind of way. I did have a sense beforehand, that I knew I was kind of kidding myself. And I just and I’ve had very sort of conscious moments of sort of diving back into that sort of, you know, I remember having memories of okay, I’m gonna dive back into this sort of pretend world where I’m pretending to be a person and everything.
Rick Archer: Were you able to?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: But perhaps.
Chris Beckett: This is a long time ago, this was in my early 20s
Rick Archer: Oh early 20s. Yeah. So even in your 20s, before this thing happened, there was already kind of a sense of, I am not just this person that everybody sees, and that most people think they are.
Chris Beckett: Not consciously No. It wasn’t a conscious thing. It was I don’t know
Rick Archer: it was, but it was something that some subliminal thing that was growing
Chris Beckett: something subliminal I kind of knew that I never thought that the world was concrete ever. And I always thought the world was endless in some kind of way. I never really understood how people thought the world was a thing. It just didn’t make sense. But at the same time, I had no kind of questioning, there was not there wasn’t the energy of questioning around that. You just took it for granted. You weren’t thinking about it much. I just took it for granted. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So how long ago was this? eventful week?
Chris Beckett: Two and a bit years ago.
Rick Archer: Okay. And so how has your life changed since then? Quite a lot. Really? In what ways?
Chris Beckett: Oh? Well, the first thing really had to happen. And I became completely honest with myself. And the Adyashanti books really helped with that, and the Adyashanti videos and his general teaching. So how to really sort of become really so deeply honest with myself, and really open as well. And so allow life to be kind of as it is, and allow life to be messy as well. That was the big thing I learned from the Adyashanti teaching was,
Rick Archer: so could you give us an example of how you might have not been honest, prior to this and how you were different.
Chris Beckett: I was kind of just I just lost the ability to bullshit myself. Before I could kind of keep myself but that just evaporated. And I had this real sense that if I wasn’t honest with myself, it was what happened to me was so powerful, there was so much energy and there was so much physical change going on. It would rip me apart. If I if I resisted. I had this real sense that I’d either go crazy or my body would just not be able to take it.
Rick Archer: Interesting. What kind of physical change were you experiencing?
Chris Beckett: Well, I had a massive Kundalini awakening a few weeks after that.
Rick Archer: Well
Chris Beckett: that was a pretty crazy day. It kind of the whole day was strange. I kind of stopped thinking for two hours I went for a massive walk And then I came back and I lay on my bed and I just knew I had to focus on this energy in my body. And then my body went into a massive spasm. Basically, it was a huge spasm going all the way up my spine and my spine was doing this and my head was moving. There was nobody there, but it would have been very, very frightening to look, there was my head
Rick Archer: was spinning, you’re off to the ER. Yeah.
Chris Beckett: Well, I think somebody would have touched me, they would have been flown across the room kind of thing, because my head wasn’t moving like this. It was moving at like 100 times a second. Wow. It really, I mean, I thought I was gonna die. I wasn’t sure what I was gonna die. I mean, it was terrifying. But my my body relaxed. Within that relaxation. I was like, absolutely terrified.
Rick Archer: You probably had a sense of what was going on, though, right? I mean,
Chris Beckett: yeah, I, I kind of did I mean, I guess I hadn’t read about I read about the energetic stuff and stuff. But yeah, I kind of knew what was happening on son’s body level.
Rick Archer: So how long would you worry
Chris Beckett: that that episode, 10 minutes or something?
Rick Archer: How would you feel afterwards?
Chris Beckett: Different. I felt like I didn’t feel particularly different. But I felt it would kind of lead to kind of a big change within my body or something like that. I kind of sensed that it was it opened the doorway, which is kind of what’s happened. And then I had loads of crazy stuff with breathing and that I was stopping breathing. And there was lots of really crazy stuff going on with that as your
Rick Archer: breathing also maybe stopping and fast and different. Yeah. And,
Chris Beckett: and then the world went black as well for a few minutes.
Rick Archer: You mean? You mean your eyes were open, but you couldn’t see anything?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah. My eyes were closed and they weren’t black. And then I opened my eyes and there was nothing.
Rick Archer: Yeah, as you’re probably aware, by now, a lot of this stuff is, in the literature, you know, people have been people had experiences like this for eons. And so something good was happening. But you know, this kind of thing happens to, to a person who has no inkling of what it is, it can be pretty scary.
Chris Beckett: Well, yeah, that’s it. I was ready. I was hard enough. I would have happily died.
Rick Archer: The interview I did two weeks ago was with a woman who specializes in Kundalini stuff. People are interested in that might want to watch that. Yeah, so. So keep telling us the story. I mean, this, this is a big thing. And
Chris Beckett: yeah, I mean, before that, it was very before those few weeks, a few weeks before that it had been very chaotic. I’ve been through myself back into my teaching. I mean, it was, there was just so much energy and so much it was it was really hard going really, really hard getting. It felt like I was in the middle of a hurricane.
Rick Archer: Do you feel like you’re kind of more acclimated or integrated?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I mean, a lot has happened since and that was the first few months that was the first three months within those chaotic and then it’s definitely changed. Yeah, I know, it tends to be kind of periods of sort of acclamation and then I have sort of another surge, you energy opening out and then
Rick Archer: yeah, yeah.
Chris Beckett: What was the other? So yeah, the the Kundalini thing was the next big highlight. And then I there’s been over those few weeks and months, there was more of a conscious kind of unity sense that that sense of unity grew. And so the sense of no separation I never got this kind of you are consciousness thing that just didn’t sort of happen. For me it kind of just, I don’t know, I mean, maybe I just don’t understand what people mean by it. Because for me the whole he just kind of went from being me to, to somehow being everything. So I’ve never got the kind of the consciousness thing, because it was so obvious to me that my body was part of this whole thing and my body and there was more to change and more to transform it was it was just so obvious. I just felt it within myself. I just knew I just knew there was more it was it was kind of self evident.
Rick Archer: Well, I think the your consciousness thing is you probably have have that experience and but you kind of not seeing it or understanding it the same way that people describe it. I know of cases where people had had been very deeply versed in spiritual literature and teachings and then had an awakening, which totally freaked them out because their their preconceptions about what it would be based on reading that literature differed so much from what it actually turned out to be that they didn’t put two and two together and realize that, oh, this was what I was looking for. They thought there was something wrong with them or something. But when you say that, you know, you look at the refrigerator, or you look at the picture on the wall or something, and there’s a oneness with it. What you know, what is that oneness? It’s not that the refrigerator is part is flesh, like your body is flesh? On what level? Is that oneness? What’s the common denominator that would cause you to say that there’s a sense of oneness with the picture with the with the refrigerator?
Chris Beckett: I guess it’s just the words more than anything, I just never identified with that word consciousness, like, love or unity, those words, which kind of do it for me? unities of one which it because it includes everything somehow. Yeah, it’s like the kind of you’re not your body thing I never. To me, it was I’m part of this whole thing. Sure. And my, my transformation as well is part of the whole thing. And my living my life is part of the whole thing. Just yeah.
Rick Archer: So what I hear you saying is that there’s a kind of a sense of wholeness, that seems to unite the parts, it seems to contain the parts. So the parts don’t seem to be utterly dissimilar from one another, they’re somehow essentially, United are the same. Yeah, even though even though superficially they may appear to be different,
Chris Beckett: it all kind of move more and more towards just feeling like everything’s an expression of the same things, right? I’m an expression of this whole thing. The microphones the expression of the whole thing, my friends, the expression of the whole thing, this meeting with this person that’s difficult is an expression of the whole thing, this difficult thing, this difficult energy, this nice energy, it all seems to be expression expression.
Rick Archer: Yeah, kind of like waves on the ocean or something. They’re all expressions of the same thing. Yeah, yeah. So I was suggested this mysterious consciousness thing is actually this is actually the whole thing to which you’re referring of which all these things are expressions. And, and the point is that consciousness is not an object. So you’re not going to identify consciousness, the way you would identify a chair, or a dog, or something like that consciousness is is kind of the knower, the seer. It doesn’t see itself, just as the eyeball doesn’t see itself, but it’s that by which everything is seen. So maybe that’s where the confusion is that there’s some expectation, when where’s this consciousness thing that everybody’s talking about? But you’re actually having that experience of? Yeah, the unity of things,
Chris Beckett: is because it doesn’t kind of capture the intimacy, because it’s, there’s this such massive intimacy with everything and everything’s just pregnant with intimacy in the Word. For me, in my mind, consciousness feels like soup or something. Yeah, I don’t know. You know, something. It just doesn’t it just doesn’t
Rick Archer: get the right connotations for you doesn’t get a sense of it. Yeah. And maybe it has an objective kind of connotation that doesn’t seem appropriate. But I mean, if there’s an intimacy if I am infinite, infinite, intimate, intimate with someone or with something, there, there must be some common thread or common bond or common denominator between us that unites us, basically, or fundamentally, even though superficially we appear to be disunited. Yeah. And so I guess the question is, what is that common denominator through which everything feels intimate to you? And this is kind of an unfair question, because I don’t know if you can verbalize it. But you know, that’s just something food for thought.
Chris Beckett: It all seems to be the same movement as the best way to describe it all seems to be that seems like a paradox, but it’s not a paradox. And I experienced that more and more, you know, talking to somebody somehow We’re separate somehow. You’re not? We’re not? Yeah. Yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s perfect. Yeah. That’s the way it
Chris Beckett: is. Yeah. And it’s living. It’s living a deeper and deeper from that and allowing that to go deeper and deeper into the body, which has been really what the last two years has been about. Going into the heart and and then going into the belly, you know that kind of deeper? Yeah. That’s really what it’s been about living, living. Living, not living from moment to moment.
Rick Archer: Yeah. You probably kind of got that head heart belly thing from Adyashanti. He talks in that way. And
Chris Beckett: it’s not been my experience as well.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So can you can you talk about that a little bit more can
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah
Rick Archer: Can you
Chris Beckett: absolutely
Rick Archer: personalize what is it like to have an awakening in the head and then have it go to the heart and then have it go to the belly, and what’s the actual living experience of that?
Chris Beckett: Well, the head thing kind of started in my head, for the first few months, and the rest of my body kind of tends to tense up kind of stopped the energy. So it was kind of very much a head thing. And then as the kind of unity sense, and the intimacy grew, then after a few months of kind of a heart opening started, and this sense of love and compassion for everything in a sort of deep reverence for everything started to deepen. And that’s got deeper and deeper over the last two years. And then recently, the last sort of few months, it started to go more into my gut, and I started to breathe deeper. And that’s been the most difficult things which have come up. Because the identification is beyond painful. Now, it’s just unbelievably painful, and the energy as well going through me, and then a lot of things like that. And it’s kind of brought up my core beliefs and the kind of the root, I can, I can, I can see the root and I can see the, the the strands going right into my gut and going right down into the bottom of my belly kind of thing.
Rick Archer: So in order for me to better understand what you just said, so you just got to reiterate and ask a question as I go through it. So you’re saying there was awakening in the head? And yeah, but the body was resisting it as if it was sort of in crusted or something it just closed down and it wasn’t resisting it. I would say it was just just that receptive to it or just simply had to shut down for a while. Like it wasn’t ready to deal with it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then, and then it’s somehow perhaps after some time, relaxed and, and it began to go into the heart and you said, greater appreciation for everything. Oh,
Chris Beckett: massive appreciation. Yeah. Even little things. Like just spontaneous crying and seeing somebody on the street say hello, and, or not saying hello, or something just crying. I’m kind of
Rick Archer: feeling waves of love. Yeah. Yeah, that’s very nice.
Chris Beckett: Lots of ways. But I mean, a lot of energetic things. Because Kundalini things started to go, you know, started to go deeper and deeper as well. So yeah, a lot more energy in my body feeling I had 10 times more energy.
Rick Archer: Did that actually even translate into being able to do more and I make it you could work harder and stuff because you had so much that kind of energy.
Chris Beckett: I’ve taken it easy on the whole I’m not most work related person. But I do feel I always have enough energy, even when I’m tired. I don’t feel drained.
Rick Archer: So when they have when you say have 10 times more energy in the body, how did that manifest?
Chris Beckett: It’s not kind of energy of doing energy. It’s not kind of Oh, I feel like I can do
Rick Archer: so it’s not like you’d take 20 mile hikes or something that
Chris Beckett: would be Yeah, it’s not it’s just this kind of well, I mean, when it’s coming in, it feels like that it feels like kind of a battery sort of doing that but when it settles it’s much more sort of in the background.
Rick Archer: But is it more like a sense of enlivenment in the body like your whole body is just full of electricity almost? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Like it’s the love that yeah, like it’s alive like It’s waking up where it might have been asleep but now you feel like the whole body is just sort of Yeah,
Chris Beckett: but not not just my body as well my energy body and also everything around me as well. My somehow the world seems more alive as well or Yeah, somehow there’s this recognition or somehow there’s this is just you Yeah, more than likely.
Rick Archer: There’s a line from the Bible someplace the incredible String Band put it into one of their songs, but it’s, you know, my your, your is single and you’re Your whole body is full of light. Yeah, remember that phrase? No. Yeah. Anyway, there’s a beautiful song by the incredible String Band whom you may not know of, and you should, okay, because they are great. They’re from Scotland or something, in any case. So then when it settled more into the gut, I got the impression you were saying that there were a lot of attachments associated with that, which then began to be uprooted. They’re starting to be starting to be just now they’re starting to be.
Chris Beckett: Well, the, they’re conscious, and they’re sort of being brought into the light. But there’s this, I don’t know, maybe there’s this sense that I need to be easy with myself, I think, because this new stuff coming from the gut is really, really powerful. And can send my body into, really saw that bad energetic pain and kind of a lot of energy. So the big thing is, I’ve sort of one of my friends, I’m sort of talking to her, she’s a psychotherapist. So I’m sort of that’s been quite an important development over the last few months. But there’s just a central core core core strand that somehow there’s something wrong with me. And that essentially feels like, if that was taken away, then I basically wouldn’t have a clue who I was without it. So it feels like everything’s wrapped around that kind of somehow, even the positive stuff.
Rick Archer: Let me understand that better. So you’re saying that there’s some kind of deep rooted sense of there being something wrong with you? Yeah. And then
Chris Beckett: it’s kind of universal and personal at the same time.
Rick Archer: Right. I think maybe that’s what the waking down people call the core wound. Yeah. And Charaka Samhita, which is a text of aerial vehicles, the pragyaparadh, or mistake of the intellect? Because it’s said to be the sort of fundamental misalignment or something, I guess, yeah, say, That’s exactly how it feels. Yeah. And so what you’re saying now is that since this awakening kind of sank into the gut, that that’s being worked on.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I didn’t realize I was, until a few months ago, when I had a massive energetic difficulty. And huge waves of shame coming up, shall never be never really experienced much shame, particularly
Rick Archer: interesting, even
Chris Beckett: then, that that whole sort of an act to see the whole system, it was of great relief, actually, for it to all come out. And I felt just, ah, I just started to completely understand how, why I did everything and do everything, how, why I go about everything in a certain way. Why else goes about I think, in a certain way, it’s just obvious.
Rick Archer: And interesting. So I mean, the implication of what you’re saying is that, you know, obviously, this doesn’t apply just to you, but that everybody is carrying around a lot of stuff. And awakening can be a kind of a solvent, which begins does dissolve that stuff and be smart against the process it
Chris Beckett: my sense from the start was everything would come out. Yeah. I didn’t get the sense that I could get to a point and just sort of, there’s just so much energy, I just feel not so much effortful now, but I feel I’m being sort of pushed forward still. Whereas the forward is definitely feeling I was being pushed.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I don’t think there’s any end to it. In fact, speaking of Om Shanti, I was just listening to a nice interview he did with Tammy Simon of sounds true. She’s got this series out about interviewing 34 different people about what waking up means. And it was just saying that, you know, his his major awakenings took place 20 years ago, but it’s just still this never ending process that’s going on, you know, deeper clarity, deeper, deeper appreciation and so on.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I guess. My sense is that somehow that carries on with the relationship to it changes at some point that somehow I’ve had sort of glimpses of that somehow. i Everything was still there, but it was somehow not divided anymore. So I don’t know I I’ve had that sense from the start that somehow I feel there’s this energy that needs to work itself out within my system. And that, yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always had that sense that somehow that kind of non division is, is is part of the process, but I don’t think the process ends at that point. I think you just your relationship with it changes. I think that’s the difference. There’s not like an endpoint where it’s just. Yeah. So now the relationship changes. I don’t know, it’s quite vague, but in a way, I’ve had that kind of deep sense. Yeah. From the start.
Rick Archer: I think that one, one confusion that comes in is that, you know, consciousness itself or the the absolute, if we want to call it the absolute doesn’t change. And so when people get, get kind of grounded in that, there is the sense of, Well, this can’t be improved upon you know, this because it doesn’t change. So there can’t actually be a sense of I’m done. You know, what, what more could there be? Because this isn’t going to change. But the, you know, as Adyashanti was saying, in that interview with Tammy was saying this is sort of an egotistic hiding out in in the transcendent, and that there’s actually, you know, no end of possible transformation in terms of one’s embodiment of that, or living of that, and the refining of the instrument, we might say, through which that is lived. Yeah.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. Got to carry on, everything carries on. Until he doesn’t carry on. Yeah. This is just another thing which we’ll carry on.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Which is, which is good. It’s like, you know, who would? Why would you want it to end?
Chris Beckett: It’s, it’s sometimes difficult, but mostly, really good. Yeah. And even the difficult stuff is kind of good in a way, kind of somehow very alive. And some I feel deeply kind of love in the unity even though it’s ridiculously difficult. I can’t say two things are going on. But there’s a real it’s almost comical, sometimes sense of feeling like I’m being torn apart. But at the same time, there’s this real sense of unity.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, getting born can be difficult. But you know, if you were not to get born, that would be even more difficult after a while. I mean, get kind of cramped in there, you know. So I need to go through that. Yeah. difficult transition.
Chris Beckett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And my kind of commitment to it somehow has deepened as well, over the last few months, I had a point where I kind of completely let go in a much deeper way. So I just had so much energy, I just felt, you know, being pulled apart, which I’ve been felt by that loads of times, I’ve had different experiences of that. But I got to the point where I just saw a deeper part of me let go, it was kind of a deeper, kind of probably in the gut, actually. Some, so I allowed the energy to go into the girls, something like that. And then then the energy started to open up deeper into the
Rick Archer: gut. So that’s what you mean by a commitment to it that there was a greater allowing?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Got commitment. If you call it, it wasn’t a kind of a conscious commitment. It wasn’t. Yeah, I’m gonna be more committed to it. It was just this sense of for the falling in love with life more. It falling even deeper, in love into life kind of sense. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So obviously, what you’re going through is, we could have an interview two years from now, 10 years from now. And you’d probably be saying, yeah, it’s still going on. And you’d have more things to say about what’s going on, you know, because it would, it would be continuing to unfold. I think people do reach a point many people where they really feel settled, and they feel like the main, you know, fuss and bother and cooking has pretty much subsided.
Chris Beckett: That’s That’s my sense that somehow
Rick Archer: that will happen. Or has happened?
Chris Beckett: No, I wouldn’t say I say no, I wouldn’t say it’s happened. I would say there’s been a lot of deep sort of change happen, but I definitely feel myself energetically to be a person still. I don’t mean, I mean, I still feel divided in some way in certain situations. So yeah, my sense is that somehow that that stuff gets worked through more and then somehow it’s less of a bother and yeah, you’re kind of just happier to live life, I guess. Yeah. I feel like that already. I don’t know really.
Rick Archer: Well, it’s a matter of degree, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But uh, no, no, that we ever totally rest on our laurels. I mean, you know, a lot of the great sages and saints of this world have been faced with a serious chance oranges. Yeah. I mean, Jesus Christ, for instance. And, you know, so it’s not like we kind of just get the kickback. And no, I’ve
Chris Beckett: had some pretty bad health challenges since the awakening. tumor in my leg I had to have removed and Oh, my T shirt wasn’t fun. I had to go home and live with my parents for six months. So that was quite interesting as well.
Rick Archer: As that was a real sell, if you think you’re enlightened, go spend with your parents. Absolutely. Or six months?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it was really. It was really humbling experience. Actually, I really opened up more appreciation and kind of the people in difficulty as well, just that kind of connection of people going through difficult things. More and more, I had this real sense of that, that that’s me or that could be me. Notes. He’s got a real sort of, I read something in the paper. And I really saw a real sense of intimacy with what those people are going through some kind of way, not not experiencing it, that sense of reaching out their heart reaching out to that situation, or something like that.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think that’s nice. I mean, there’s a lot of people who read the paper and they think, Oh, those crazy Muslims, are those crazy, you know, this, and that and all those gay people are, you know, there’s just a lot of judgmental stuff. And and I personally, I think that spiritual maturity brings with it a greater sort of compassion, and yeah, and acceptance of whatever anybody is going through, you know, just to sort of like, there but the but for the grace of God go I you know,
Chris Beckett: yeah. Yeah. And that was a situation where I answer really small, accept more and more. After the situation was fine. I got really good health care and had the operation had it removed. There was a benign tumor as well. So I kind of jog everyone that way. Ever. That isn’t, there’s hardly any cartilage left.
Rick Archer: Maybe you can bicycle,
Chris Beckett: I can bicycle
Rick Archer: Yeah. You said in your notes here, he said, I sense it will take a while to get integrated or cook. What has happened in some way? I’m left mystified by why it happened this way to me. Yeah, it has been like I’ve been pushed through this process. And the pusher is saying, no time now you can catch up later. And who’s know and who knows where it ends.
Chris Beckett: There’s less of that sense now. But that was definitely the sense of the start. It felt like a going being pushed through a fast track or something.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Chris Beckett: You know, the first few weeks, there was something big happening every day. And there was, you know, as well as all the Kundalini stuff, there were other realizations as well, there was this big realization that everything actually wasn’t one That one was a concept. And that wasn’t an intellectual thing. That was a kind of felt sense. And I got to this point where I sense that it wasn’t one, it was undescribable. And then suddenly, the energy change, and I felt the sort of world shift. And, you know, I had that sense, just before my awakening, as well, the kind of the walls moved kind of thing that I felt, I felt the energy shift or something. And then I had that sense, then as well. That I guess it was essentially a kind of deep realization that everything is undescribable everything is yeah, it was very palpable, but it’s very hard to put into words,
Rick Archer: I have a sense, maybe it’s just a philosophical rationalization, but I kind of, just as we were just talking a few minutes ago about the never ending quality of evolution, how it just goes on and on and on. You know, I kind of look at it from the big picture in terms of, you know, multiple lifetimes, I just feel like, you know, our, our little time, if you took your, if you took your arms and stretched them out wide, and let that represent the history of the earth, then one swipe of a nail file on your fingernail would pretty much wipe out all of human history. So So you know, human lifespan is a tiny thing. And yet, you know, there are all these scriptural references to the fact that we really are eternal. And I don’t think they’re the those are just referring to the absolute being eternal is referring to some our existence as a Jeeva as a soul, being eternal and continuing to evolve over time. So when I meet someone like you, I kind of have a sense that well Who knows what you’ve done in the past, you know, to ready, ready yourself for what you’re experiencing now, you could have, you know, spent 100 lifetimes in monasteries or whatever, I don’t know. But I don’t think this stuff just happens accidentally, to some people not to others. It’s, it’s sort of just appropriate to the level of evolution that you came in with in this life. And it was more or less inevitable that this kind of thing would begin to blossom in your experience. When it did.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, definitely my sense. I always have this sense that somehow they put the wrong head on the wrong body or something like that. Because I’ve never been interested or curious at all, but yet, it didn’t have to be. I didn’t have to be Yeah, that was his rightness, he was ready. But more than anything, I think it was the honesty, always, there’s always been a sense, like, I couldn’t sort of contain myself, even, even in my 20s, or teens had this sense of, I don’t know, I just couldn’t put on a show or something. I just couldn’t sort of batten all the hatches down. And if I tried to do that everything just would spill out. So kind of forced me to be somehow honest with myself. Well, that
Rick Archer: sounds really good. I think we could all use more of that.
Chris Beckett: Honest is, yeah, it’s the roots, the rudeness, it’s kind of the root in in the way I think, you know, the more honest you can be with yourself, the more and it’s more kind of the, the energy of being honest. It’s just it’s more kind of the gesture of being honest with yourself, that makes the difference. It’s not actually, you don’t have to actually do anything. It’s just just, it’s just the way that you kind of the way you sort of touch upon life somehow, sort of,
Rick Archer: we’ll certainly consider this to be such an important point. Honestly, let’s, let’s dwell on it for a minute and try to get a better sense of what you’re talking about. So I mean, by example, we could I mean, have there been times can you think of an example where you weren’t quite so honest with yourself as you would like to be? And, and then contrast that with the way you prefer to function?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I mean, I guess, sort of, in my early 20s, I was, even though there was this sense that I couldn’t sort of pretend had to be in some level honest. There was in some way, this sense at the same time that I was putting on this show that the two things were sort of happening at the same time, something false
Rick Archer: about the way you’re living.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah. But for me, I have to be honest, at that time, it didn’t feel like it didn’t feel oh, my God, I’m being dishonest with myself. I never. I never really thought of it not until my sort of 30s had a kind of visceral problem with, with honesty, that kind of started to take over in my sort of 30s I think my early 30s Yeah, my 20s I was kind of happy to sort of pretend I kind of liked it.
Rick Archer: Well, how would you pretend? I mean, what were you doing just sort of putting on
Chris Beckett: putting on a show
Rick Archer: persona assuming a persona that wasn’t really you.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, for me, it was being an artistic person. So persona, I mean, it’d be a way of defending myself. And a be a way of sort of excusing things away and glossing over certain things in my life and certain experiences, not just a way of hiding from from things.
Rick Archer: Well, you’re an artistic person. Now you’re a musician, we’ll be talking about that. So how is the way in which you are an artistic person now? And presumably an honest one different from the way in which you were one in your 20s. And you’re, and it was some kind of facade for you?
Chris Beckett: I guess it’s happened by degrees, that kind of the transition from being a kind of musician where I was believing I had to put on some kind of act, because who I was wouldn’t cut the mustard. That kind of transition has happened over the last 13 years. I’ve been 14 years I’ve been doing music, and playing music and teaching music. So the teaching the music has been probably one of the main things where my kind of honesty is cultivated.
Rick Archer: Well, I don’t know if that’s what you’re talking about. But I mean, I can think of examples of musician musicians who were very much into their image or who are very much into their image and projecting a certain you know, in Ah, which you probably wouldn’t see if you saw them backstage, and others who, you know, they come on stage and and what you see is what you get, you know, maybe like James Taylor or something he just seems to be, you know, not putting on any airs or trying to be anything other than who he is. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?
Chris Beckett: I’m not. So I’ve never been the kind of, I’ve never been an extroverted person. So what I’m kind of talking about would be probably quite subtle things. And just subtle things within an interaction. So kind of very sort of low level stuff, not kind of, you know, inventing a sort of stage persona, or anything like that. And that would just feel uncomfortable, would have always felt uncomfortable as well as it’s not my personality. My personality is, I guess, most, you know, quite quiet. Not particularly. It depends. I mean, sometimes maybe a little bit more outgoing, but mostly Quiet, quiet. But you know, that persona was definitely still there, just quietly there.
Rick Archer: When you see other people and interact with other people, do you kind of get a sense of the degree to which they are being honest or not in the in the in the way that you’re describing? Yeah. to varying degrees, like some people seem like really, very important on the honesty scale? Yeah,
Chris Beckett: it’s just, it’s really obvious when somebody’s honest, the energy changes, you can just see it. I mean, I don’t physically see the energy. But I sense that the change in the energy of the person changing the energy within me as well changes, just something like that within both people. When there’s honesty going on, but there’s different degrees of that it’s not you know, people are honest, in different ways. And people can be not forthcoming in some way in an interaction but know, quite open and free. Another aspect.
Rick Archer: Yeah. You mentioned that you broke up with your relationship before this awakening happened. Have you gotten into a new one now?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I’ve got a boyfriend now.
Rick Archer: How’s that going?
Chris Beckett: Really good. I’ve been going out for about six months, seven months.
Rick Archer: Great. And it’s he also into spirituality much or?
Chris Beckett: Yeah,
Rick Archer: yeah.
Chris Beckett: It’s very important to him.
Rick Archer: Great. And has he has he had any sort of awakening himself?
Chris Beckett: I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, who knows? Yeah, he hasn’t talked about anything explicitly. I wouldn’t like to assume.
Rick Archer: Learning, but I suppose the more interesting question would be, how…
Chris Beckett: He’s very open, genuine, kind, loving person.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and I was gonna say, I think the more interesting or relevant question would be, you know, post awakening, not that you’re finished finished awakening, there’s more to it. But you know, having gone through this transition, what has that done to just your ability to be in a relationship, the quality of the way you interact? The? I don’t know. You know, it’s like, if people don’t know who they are, then how can two people actually have a relationship? You know, they’re just, I don’t know, I know who I am. I know who I am. And it’s like, the two fools will just kind of bash heads. But if both people have a sense of who they are, then there seems to me there can be a foundation for a relationship
Chris Beckett: with one there’s this. There’s that definite feeling within the relationship, somehow there’s this sense of
Rick Archer: greater smoothness or harmony or residence or affinity or, yeah,
Chris Beckett: a resonance kind of harmony. We’re very similar. We are very well suited. We do fit well together.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I think that’s important to bring up because, I mean, everybody’s interested in relationships, unless they’re a monk or something. But, you know, everybody has them. And they are always almost always challenging for people.
Chris Beckett: Life is just relationship really, it is really, I mean, tons of you’re either in relationship with yourself or your relationship with somebody else. Yeah, I mean, we’re doing you wake up in the morning you’re in relationship, relationship with the room. In a way there’s nothing but relationship but within the nothing but relationship. There’s also that kind of unity as well within that relationship,
Rick Archer: or that kind of substantiates. The point I was just making is that if your relationship with yourself is good, then you actually have a chance of a relationship with others being good but if relationship with yourself isn’t then how can your relationship with others possibly work
Chris Beckett: out? Yeah, the more you the more you know yourself and the more You understand yourself and the more you’re aware of yourself, the easier the the more fruitful relationship is not necessarily easy, but you’re kind of more aware of what’s going on and you’re more sort of, it just flows easier.
Rick Archer: I think you also have much more of a buffer, you know, you’re you’re much less likely to be reactive, you know, somebody says something, and it’s not like, your ego is so invested that you have to just defend yourself or attack the other person or, you know, you’re hurt. All that stuff. It’s more like, you can just be an ocean, take it in stride. And
Chris Beckett: as you said, yeah, there’s a sense that, that wouldn’t want to be verbalized. But even if then, if that’s felt, and that’s noticed, and felt and saw, given us space, yeah. It’s important to feel that kind of stuff deeply. I think that’s really the stuff which is unwinding.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and what would you say, this is just a thought that comes to mind, but well, you know, on the one hand, we’re talking about honesty, and people, two people talk about, well, you really should express your feelings and not suppress things at all. But obviously, there are situations in which you can just be totally blatantly honest, and all circumstances and express things, which, you know, might be very hurtful, and which might cause bad feelings for a period of days. Whereas if you just kind of, you know, not suppress, but somehow just hold your tongue in a way, and just kind of be more within yourself and on the self, or whatever, then, you know, the whole thing can simmer down and you know, five minutes later, you’re grateful, you didn’t say the thing you might have said, and the whole thing is finished.
Chris Beckett: I think he’s being in tune with yourself. That’s the important thing. When you’re in relationship with any, you know, when you’re talking to somebody or meeting somebody or anything, is if you have more awareness of what’s going on with you, then that kind of honesty won’t come about, because you’ll realize it’s, it’s not actually honesty is something else, it’s a reactive thing. And you’re just reacting alone. And me sometimes that may may happen, but you know, 90% of it is sort of being aware of it. And then the energy doesn’t just sort of jump by itself kind of thing.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. I think it’s really important. I one way of looking at it is, you know, this is pretend that our we’re an ocean, you know, and things bubble up from deep in the ocean. And ordinarily, we don’t become aware of them until they pop out on the surface. And, but if you could sort of be aware of the full range of the ocean, not just the surface level of waves, then you catch things just as they begin to emerge as they begin to bubble from the bottom. And you can kind of like, deal with them there so to speak, rather than have them become fully explosive, exploding bubbles. Does that make any sense?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, there’s a lot of truth in that. Yeah. It feels like there’s a lot of truth. Yeah, kind of. There’s more of a sense of you’re seeing a whole process. Yeah, exactly. I can feel, you know, I can feel this energetic. core, core contraction. I can feel when that’s triggered.
Rick Archer: That’s what I’m trying to say. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good phrase, feeling the
Chris Beckett: sense it would be, it would still be triggered. But there’d be this confusion, I guess. Yeah. It’s like, where did that come from? Yeah. Now there’s like, it’s come from man.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Cuz you’re aware of the wherever the deeper mechanics of what’s going on? I can see
Chris Beckett: it being pinged and being so like, Yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s great. I mean, you know, that phrase on Christ is being crucified forgive them Father, for they know, not what they do. It’s like, I think, to pretty much everybody, but to varying degrees, has all kinds of stuff going on that they don’t know, they’re not aware of. And it only because it only sort of becomes evident. And when it bursts out in some sort of speech or action about what you’re saying, I think is that there’s a sensitivity and an attunement to the deeper mechanics of what makes you tick. And so things don’t take you by surprise. They don’t sort of take you on a where’s that you’re kind of able to tune into those mechanics, much subtler levels before they become manifest. Is that correct?
Chris Beckett: Yeah. It’s kind of the intimacy. Yeah. So fast. Is that
Rick Archer: intimacy with your own experience? Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Beckett: So the intimacy with my own experience is, in itself a kind of hazard light or tsunami. hazard light
Rick Archer: water hazard, like, like warning blinkers.
Chris Beckett: Yeah. Warning, like I say, right. It’s kind of Yeah. It just, it’s just almost self apparent when, when I’m sort of not coming from that point. He said truth in that place of openness and honesty. Yeah. And it hurts more than more deeply
Rick Archer: when you’re not being honest. Right? So so it’s like, well, I guess maybe that’s the way in which you met has realized it’s like, kind of like, well, we have like carbon monoxide detectors in our home, you know. And if there’s just a few molecules of carbon monoxide, they would go off, because whereas I wouldn’t notice it, I’d be dead before I noticed that. So, what you’re saying is, you’re more finely attuned to what’s going on. And so you can, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but I’m trying to flesh out this, this thought that we’re having it. It’s almost like your behavior can become aligned, in an honest way, because you’re sensitively attuned to the, the kind of deeper impulses from which it arises, as you say, like warning lights. Whereas if you’re, if you’re oblivious to those deeper mechanics, then you know what I’m trying to say? I’m having a hard time expressing it, you know, I’m trying to say, I think so. Yeah. Okay. Now, there was one more self referral to put it in a phrase. Where, yeah,
Chris Beckett: it’s the small kind of, it’s just this reverence for everything, I guess. You don’t just don’t want to, you know, going to Tesco and being at the checkout, as a kind of reverent acts, you know, there’s a reverence there’s, and there’s this wanting to honor that as well and be open to 20 interactions. So not just people I know, you know, walking down the street or strangers, yeah, total strangers, I’ll be open to them. visceral sense of openness, or openness,
Rick Archer: seems to be that sensitivity would be a good word to throw in here, too. You know, just to kind of, you know, you feel you see, like a little insect that has these real sensitive antennae and it just sort of are like a cat with its whiskers. And it just feels every little thing and is is attuned and doesn’t go bumbling into something. Whereas maybe a puppy dog would just go crashing and so we just become more attuned and tread more lightly through life.
Chris Beckett: Yeah. Yeah. definite sense of Yeah. Not wanting to leave big. Big footprints.
Rick Archer: Yeah, bull in a china shop kind of thing. Nice. Okay. Let’s talk about music a bit. So you have a website sound from silence.com, which is a real nice phrase, sound from silence. And we could go into a whole thing about how sound arises from silence. Maybe we will, but the subtitle being spiritual discovery through music. So, you know, you haven’t been a spiritual teacher in the ordinary sense. But you have been a musician. And now you’ve had this spiritual awakening. And you’re, you’re kind of bringing the two together in order to help in order to use spiritual awakening to be a better musician, or, and also to use music to facilitate spiritual discovery, right works both ways.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I was kind of doing it before. I mean, I’ve been practicing kind of the emphasis has changed within my teaching, I guess the first five years is about the content and about the kind of is this person understanding it and that kind of thing. And it’s moving more towards how am I going, I’m actually teaching the person I’ve come to realize, and seeing again, and again, that how I am, when I teach is the most important factor, if I’m open, then it gives space for the other person to be open. And so they’re more, they’ll tend to learn easier, things tend to flow more. Whereas if I’m not open, then that doesn’t happen as much. So I’ve kind of cultivated that over quite quite a lot of years, I guess, over the last sort of seven or eight years of my teaching, but then that’s become it’s become more explicit since having this awakening. Yeah. And I’ve got, you know, I’ve had a few students who are having lessons more explicitly for that kind of reason. You know, they’re kind of it’s a spirituality and music lesson at the same time. So, yeah, there’s this real desire of wanting to be there for people if I can really, really feel that very deeply, very strongly. And yeah, this just kind of feels like the way that I can sort of offer offer support to people because in the music teaching, I’ve done that a lot. I’ve done it for 1314 years, so I can kind of do that quite easily, quite fluidly.
Rick Archer: So you play certain instruments, right? Yeah, guitar and what do you play?
Chris Beckett: I play guitar voice ukulele, a piano by And then.
Rick Archer: Okay, so if someone came to you who played the trumpet or the drums, would you still be able to help them because you’re not just, you’re not just teaching technique on a particular resume, and you’re talking about a deeper principle,
Chris Beckett: yeah, we’re really always about is giving person space and pointers to start to sink down into their body when they’re playing. Because their reaction for people almost always, when they start playing an instrument is they get the instrument and everything just goes straight into the head, and there’s just everything’s in their head, and they’re looking out, you can see it in there looking at from their head almost. It creates a really sort of dry loop. And it’s very unsatisfying. It’s getting people, it’s giving people space to allow them to sink deeper and deeper into their body. And then there’s more of a trust in what’s happening and things flow more. And things like mistakes tend to tend to ruffle them less and that kind of,
Rick Archer: so I used to be a drummer, when I was a teenager, I used to play in bands. So how if I came to you, what sort of things would you do with me, to help me be a better drummer?
Chris Beckett: Well, I mean that we’d actually learned stuff. I mean, we actually learned sort of that if I was teaching guitar, I’d actually teach somebody some songs or whatever. And stuff, which they were, they wanted to learn and stuff, which they were inspired by. But more than anything, is just being with the person and you’re just allowing people to, you’re just you’re just giving people the space for, for them, to allow their body to relax more,
Rick Archer: it’s as simple are you talking about a transmission kind of thing, we’re just sitting with him in your presence, because you’re kind of settled in the cell for in.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, but there’s also you know, ways of getting people to, I mean, the big thing is getting people to keep going, because a big thing that happens is people get looped into mistakes, they have a mistake, and it brings up within them some kind of real sort of stuff. And then they go into the mistake again, again, and they get drawn into the energy of it. And they you know, they get they get stuck on doing D or something on the guitar or G and they go I hate G, I can’t do it, you know, and they get drawn into it again, and again. And part of my job is to keep them going to keep keep, so they can see the bigger picture. So they’re not constantly getting drawn into that. Because what’s happening is they’re getting the energy is going back into their head. And they’re
Rick Archer: so you said on your website that you deal with people with all different levels of expertise and experience. So you know, what if Paul McCartney would ring you up and say, hey, guess you know, can you do something for me? What would you say? Would you say that your weight your way out of my league? Or would you feel like yeah, let’s get together, I could actually perhaps, help help you take it a step further. But believe it or not,
Chris Beckett: I have no idea if I’m honest. I have no idea. If you rang up and said, I think there’s always room for more and more honesty, within music, there’s always more and more room for more, more the communication more of the open last, you can’t sort of have a limit on that. Yeah, you know, that’s my experience, as well as deepening honesty, with the music I create and the music, I play that kind of thing. And you’d
Rick Archer: feel confident, even with somebody like that, that you could help to facilitate a little bit another kind of honesty, or I’m just taking him as an extreme example.
Chris Beckett: I have no idea what I would do in that instance. I mean, I’d definitely be curious. Yeah. But I would say most of the people I teach, it does tend to be the typical people I teach, they just tend to just, they just want to learn music to to express themselves more. That’s kind of why people come to me really, they want to kind of express themselves more somehow, they somehow feel that my teaching will help that. Yeah. So I tend to attract I tend to attract students like that anyway. And I just want to expand on that. So whereas in my normal teaching, I can’t start sort of talking about openness and presence and unity. And you know, I can’t really sort of start talking about these things with most of my students, some of them like, so I’d like to develop that more, developing more, sort of more explicitly.
Rick Archer: Do you have some students who have been with you for quite a while?
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my friend Mark. He’s been with me for seven years, six years.
Rick Archer: So using mark as a case in point, have you seen him progress more from Head to Heart to belly and as a musician, and how has that manifested in his art
Chris Beckett: he’s become he’s become more expressive in his voice. And he’s kind of the way that we’re teaching has changed, actually, because now we’re kind of recording his songs as well on my laptop, and we’re putting them together in a different kind of way. But he’s here, he’s, he’s a, he’s a Buddhist practitioner. And he really helped me actually when good friend, he really helped me with kind of awakening thing, because he recognized what it was right? Kind of said to this crazy things happened to me. And he was like, oh, yeah, this is what’s happened to you. So that’s been really useful. It’s been as useful for me as I hope they’ve been useful for him. Because definitely, there’s more expression coming out. And he finds it easier to go into his body.
Rick Archer: Can you think of well known musicians who listeners would be familiar with? Who would exemplify the different stages that you’re talking about? Like, can you think of, can you think of musicians who are seem to be stuck in their head? Or who are really kind of heart oriented or who have progressed to the belly level?
Chris Beckett: Okay, so the hard one, I would say, you have been either,
Rick Archer: but you have to take me back to the 60s. But so, okay. We’ll probably be going over that as I wouldn’t. But
Chris Beckett: okay, well, so similar from the 60s. In a way, I would say, Bob Dylan was both the head and the heart. He sort of, well, maybe all three, actually,
Rick Archer: How about Donovan. You ever listened to much Donovan?
Chris Beckett: Donovan? I would say
Rick Archer: very. Yeah. And just interesting.
Chris Beckett: Nina Simone would be good.
Rick Archer: How about Mick Jagger. He’s kind of more the groin.
Chris Beckett: Mostly head, maybe a bit of heart. So Jimi Hendrix definitely heart.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Chris Beckett: The band as well. Definitely heart.
Rick Archer: Interesting. So when you look at different musicians, or different concerts, and so on, I mean, you must look at them slightly differently than the average person would, because you’re kind of looking at them in this context of what they’re, what they’re where they’re coming from, what their orientation is.
Chris Beckett: I guess somewhat, I mean, my sense is always been, you know, is this person being honest, that’s always important to me. Is this person saying something? Is this person communicating something? Yeah.
Rick Archer: So here’s some other things you say about what you’re dealing with students. Your embodied practice versus head practice, we’ve kind of talked about that. Giving open and honest support, the student has space to contain whatever happens.
Chris Beckett: Yeah. Because, I mean, when you start sort of going in a deeper way, then stuff definitely comes up. The more open space that you give to that, then the more person can contain that, and they’re less likely to sort of jump on it. That’s quite important as well. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I know that, you know, great musicians. Obviously, there’s a lot of training involved, but there’s also a lot of spontaneity. Seems to me that if you’re stuck in the head to a great extent, then that would restrict spontaneity, you know, that would prevent you from playing from a level of intuition and feeling
Chris Beckett: I think, I mean, especially when you’re learning you’re actually learning as well. So you are using your cognition to learn as well you know, if you say to somebody, you need to put your fingers here, here and here then, but the kind of head I’m talking about is the Okay, how are we doing? Is this going well? am I sounding rubbish? am I sounding good? That kind of energy so I guess yeah, you need to separate the two out that you’ve got this. You’ve got the kind of had learning things, learning new technique, which is important, but at the same time, there needs to be this embodiment there needs to be Taking what taking what’s being learned and embodying into the body. And that’s really what good practice is about is you’re taking new new things, children, I, quite a few of my students and children. And they’re quite good at that. Some of them, you can sort of see the more embodiment when you give them something to learn. And they kind of take that and they somehow, but it’s somehow encoded into the body more, and then it’s easier for them. Just it flows easier.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I know, in sports, they have a thing called muscle memory where like, a great a great skier, for instance, who’s practiced in practice in practice, Will. It’s not in the head at all, it’s like, the body just knows what to do.
Chris Beckett: And, you know, that can happen to anybody, somebody has been learning for six months, because the first thing they play, they now find very easy to do. So there’s opportunity for that kind of just complete, letting go quite soon.
Rick Archer: Seems to me that confidence would be a big issue. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, if you’re, if you have stage fright, or something like that, why? And you know, and I mean, I’ve heard of even well known performers who would have to vomit backstage before their performance performance, because they were so you know, they had this chronic stage fright. But it seems to me that if a person is really sort of grounded in a deeper spiritual reality, then that would no longer be an issue.
Chris Beckett: I think, yeah, it depends. I mean, they’ve might physically get nervous, but there’d be a kind of wider openness, definitely there. The confidence thing is very, very important, because it comes up so much from people. And a big part of teaching is kind of fostering that confidence, bringing confidence out. There’s a lot of confidence. Well, just being there for that person and not not judging what they’re doing or at all. praising them as well. Yeah. Because so many people come to music, and the first thing that they say is, I was terrible at school music, you know, they had this past memory, feeling, they weren’t very good at music. And so that can kind of be something to go into.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s not really now relates to that. Helping students to get not to get drawn into the energy of mistake supporting a wider sense of being when frustration appears. Yeah.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, going from di G to D or something, they get frustrated. Seeing that so many times, and I see people get drawn into it. So it’s important to get people to keep playing constantly say to people keep going, keep going, keep going, because that is real tendency to, for them to go, oh, it’s not perfect, or, oh, there’s a mistake happening here. And they get drawn in. And it’s just not. Most minds don’t want to kind of just keep going. So you have to keep pushing people out of that and get them to keep going because that’s where the flow is. When you keep going, then the flow happens. And then if you keep stopping and starting for mistakes, and you’re just constantly reinforcing this, this, oh, I’ve stopped Oh, there’s a mistake. I’ve started again, you just can’t do it. So many people do that when they learn. You have to keep going. Even if you don’t feel like you can keep going. It’s kind of important.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Do you in addition to teaching do you perform professionally and record and stuff like that?
Chris Beckett: No, I just, I do record music. Because electronic music. So record, sort of modern classical composed, electronic music.
Rick Archer: Do you have any up on YouTube or anything?
Chris Beckett: I’ve got a SoundCloud page.
Rick Archer: Well send me a link to that. They’ll put it up if you haven’t already. And I’ll put it up on Okay, on your thing. People can listen to some. And
Chris Beckett: I paid as well.
Rick Archer: You should send a link to some of that too. Oh, yeah, you have it’s an MK brd.co.uk.
Chris Beckett: Right. I don’t know if that websites. Oh, maybe I don’t know you sent me that link a long time ago.
Rick Archer: So knowing when to give guidance when to sit back. That was your that was your final point just sounds like you’re more you’re as much a psychologist as you are a music teacher. Well,
Chris Beckett: I’ve got become more and more hands off with, with the teaching, because I’ve done so much. And it’s so second nature that I don’t have to do much when I’m teaching, I don’t have to kind of jump in, and it just tends to be a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit there. So that just gives me a lot of space to, to, to be with a person. You know, sometimes that’s just allowing the person to have a period where they sort of going into doing something, and you just feel that okay, I’m not not gonna
Rick Archer: do this. And what percentage of your teaching is in person there in the UK? And what percentage of it is over Skype?
Chris Beckett: I’ve got, actually, I’ve only got one Skype student at the moment.
Rick Archer: Visit very easy to do over Skype.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah, I’ve had quite a few Skype students, the only thing you can’t do is play at the same time, right? Because of the delay, right. But that in itself is quite good, because it forces the other person to be more reliant on themselves in a way. Whereas much more less so now. But there will be this tendency, maybe in the past, where it’d be very easy for me to jam along. Right. And they feel better, they feel supported. But at the same time, they’re not. They’re not sort of tackling what’s coming up as much. So Skype is quite good for that. I mean, you can do call an answer. She’s quite good. Yeah. Okay, good. As long as you can as the connections are okay. Yeah. It’s frustrating. You
Rick Archer: have a good camera, you have a good microphone and everything. Yeah. So, obviously, as you’re still work in progress, like most people, and, you know, there’s, you’ve been going through a lot in the last few years, and you’ll probably continue to go through a lot, but at least you know, something good is happening. And, you know, it’s kind of like an interesting ride that you’re on now.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, I mean, my life. I mean, the change is profound, really. I’m not very good at expressing the depths of
Rick Archer: Do you feel like a deep peace, peace that passes on passeth understanding, so to speak?
Chris Beckett: Absolutely.
Rick Archer: Yeah. That comes across. It’s like, feeling I hear you kind of very deeply rooted or grounded and peaceful state
Chris Beckett: says, yeah. There is that sense. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been Yeah, I’ve been slightly nervous for this interview, because I’ve never done anything like this before. But at the same time, there was this deep sense of, at ease, ease and openness
Rick Archer: that has been coming through. Yeah, I mean, I. So a lot of times I interview people who lecture as an hour teach as a profession, they’re there, they’ve done hundreds of interviews and stuff. And so that naturally, you get good at doing that sort of thing. And that’s, that hasn’t been your thing. But there, there’s definitely been a sense of deep, I would say ease is the best word that’s come that’s been coming through with you.
Chris Beckett: Thank you. And yeah, that’s the yeah, there’s, yeah, the depths of the reverences is deep. Yeah. Sure, will only get deeper,
Rick Archer: it will. And I also feel like, you know, just as you weren’t really striving for this, and it just came along. I think I see that happening more and more. And, you know, I think we can it’s a nice harbinger of what might happen to on a larger scale and to the whole society, that they’ll just be as sort of a greater harmony and peace and, and smooth smoothness among the human race than there has been in recent history as people like yourself become more and more common.
Chris Beckett: Yeah. Yeah, my sense is definitely just be honest, if you really do feel you’re seeking and you really do want for something to happen, then to be honest with that, that’s really important as well. Because I guess you could kind of look at what’s happened to me and just kind of use that as a kind of a sort of way of being around it. And I would say, it’s really important to just be honest with yourself, you know, if you really genuinely do want to just really honor that.
Rick Archer: Are you saying that someone might look at you and say, well, he didn’t really do much he wasn’t really pursuing this and it happened to him. So Screw it. I’m not gonna do anything and something like that happens to me. It’ll happen to me. But yeah, but what you’re saying is if you’ve if you feel the motivation, I mean, to get back to our friend Adyashanti, he, he said he was like, you know, such an ardent seeker that, you know, he was like, fanatic. I mean, he just he had just built up this head of steam through about six years of intense striving, that when he finally did relax a bit, and and just sort of ease off, it exploded, you know, there was this pressure had built up, and there was this dramatic shift and awakening. But, you know, he would encourage people, you know, to, in this interview, he was encouraging people not not to strain the way he had strained but to be to be honest about your ardency if you’re, if you’re feeling ardent about this, just, you know, give it your all. Focus on it, you know, spend time with it. And you know, that to which your attention, give your attention will grow stronger in your life.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s the really important thing. Because I think if you, the more honest you are, the more leads you more to this point, really where this kind of thing happens, this shift happens, the honesty, sort of, you know, I was being honest with myself, I didn’t care. That’s, that’s also being honest as well, which, you know, led to, whereas if I’d had sort of mixed feelings about it, then it would have changed the whole dynamic of it, I guess. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Well, you didn’t care in the sense that you weren’t like, looking for some philosophical wisdom or something, but you want it to be happy. And I think that’s the most basic human desire is to be happy. And, and, you know, spirituality is sometimes not framed in that context. But ultimately, that’s the fruit of it.
Chris Beckett: Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, the, the, the kind of, yeah, the deep, the deep the depth of it, and the depth of the connection, and the depths of the depths of living your life as deeply as you can. And kind of you know, the beauty of the just the simple, simple, simply living a life and how, how amazing it is.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Which, you know, might sound like a simple statement, but it’s profound, because a lot of people are living their lives in a way that they’re not really happy with, you know, they’re, they’re struggling, they’re suffering, they’re going through all kinds of trials and tribulations. And it may sound simple to just talk about the depth of living life in a simple way. But it’s, it’s, it’s kind of rare, and it’s a blessing.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, it is a blessing. I definitely feel very blessed. I still feel mystified. But why make blessed as well? Yeah,
Rick Archer: it’s great. Well, good. Is there anything else you want to just throw in before we wrap it up?
Chris Beckett: I can’t think of anything.
Rick Archer: Okay, well, this has been good that there will be. You know, as usual, I’ll be linking to you from the linkage website from your page, and
Chris Beckett: you’re gonna say, Oh, yes, a website is quite new. So it’s not. It’s not on Google yet. So if you search for it, you have to search sound from silence.com.
Rick Archer: Right
Chris Beckett: Because he won’t come up in the search if you don’t put that.com.
Rick Archer: Well it will help when I link to it. Because, you know, once you get start getting some links from other people’s websites, then your website starts coming up. Yeah. And Google. So people can go there, and they get in touch with you and you know, maybe get some music lessons if they want to, and you’re writing anything, like any kind of like your life story or anything like that.
Chris Beckett: Just painting the modelmaking and the music. Yeah. Teaching.
Rick Archer: Okay, good. Well, thanks, Chris.
Chris Beckett: Yeah, thank you very much. I mean, we like to say that the website has been really helpful to me as well, Buddha at the Gas Pump. Yeah, because when the whole thing happened, I kind of a few months later found the website and it was just so helpful to hear people have been through similar experiences.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that’s kind of my motivation is just, you know, give people a resource where they can find other people that have been through similar experiences, or perhaps, who have gone a little bit farther than they have from whom they can get some, some guidance or some inspiration. But I’ve gotten a lot of reports like that from people saying that boy, you know, I didn’t know what was going on. And then I found this and I saw these people and it really put me at ease or inspired me or whatever. So it’s really fun to be able to provide that kind of service. So I’ve been speaking with Chris Beckett. And this, again is an ongoing series, go to batgap.com to check out all the old ones. And there’s some things you can do there, like sign up for the email newsletter to be notified each time a new one is posted. Or you can subscribe on YouTube and YouTube will notify you. They’re about 15,000 subscribers on YouTube now. And there’s also an audio podcast of this. A lot of people and almost as many people listen to that as watch the videos because I think a lot of people just don’t want to sit in front of their computer for a couple of hours. And rather than just listen while they’re doing other things. So you’ll see a link on BatGap for signing up for the audio podcast on various devices and platforms. the donate button there, as I mentioned the beginning. Appreciate that. That’s about it. So thank you all for listening or watching. Thank you, Chris. And next week, I will have Stuart Schwartz, who is a spiritual teacher in the US down in Florida these days. I’ve been hearing good things about him over the years and I’m looking forward to having that conversation.