Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest today is David Ellzey. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. You’ve probably watched some of them already, many of them perhaps, but if you haven’t, if this is new to you, go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and you’ll see 325 of them at this count, archived under the past interviews menu. There’s also other things to explore, including a donate button, by virtue of which we’re able to support this whole enterprise. You may know David already from his participation in the Sophia University panel discussion that we did in October. He was the mime guy who stood up and did a little mime thing. But he’s not only a mime guy, he’s a teacher and a coach, and here’s a little blurb from the back of his book. “David Ellzey has inspired transformation through teaching and performance for over a quarter of a million people worldwide. He is a guest faculty member at the renowned Omega Institute and a contributor with Deepak Chopra and Jack Canfield to the book “Stepping Stones to Success.” So, David lives in New York City, and I have known him for quite a few years now because he comes to the Science and Non-Duality Conference every year and does some really brilliant stuff. And he did some things this year which really amazed me, and I think we’ll be talking about that and we’ll probably actually paste some clips of it into this interview later on for those who are watching later on to watch. If that makes sense. So, David, welcome and thanks for doing this.
David: Thanks, Rick. It’s great to be with you.
Rick: So, as I understand from having read your book, “The Ocean of Now,” you’ve been at this stuff for a long time, and by this stuff I mean both mime and spiritual aspiration, and you’ve blended the two together rather nicely in a fairly unique way. I don’t know too many people who have done that. So, which came first, the chicken or the egg?
David: The mime or the egg? The mimed egg came first. The reason I’m only hesitant, Rick, is because it really feels like it was integral since I was born, and when I learned what mime really is in terms of the way I learned it, I believe it’s a conceptual approach to all that’s happening in our existence. And let me be more specific because that’s a pretty broad statement. When I was born and throughout school I was always physical. I would rather be doing recess or gym or theater or music, anything that was physical, more than homework. My mom always said she doesn’t understand how I got through school, and she says basically you charm the teachers. So, I had to give that up at some point because it doesn’t actually get you grades.
Rick: Depends on the teachers.
David: Exactly, and you can’t guarantee which ones, so you’ve got to learn to actually be accountable for your homework. But the point is that I’ve always been in my body, as we all have, but it’s been my place of exploration of life. How do I master this? How do I do this with every finger without one getting caught? So, since I was a child I was performing in my front room. Even when I was three I was putting on my dad’s clothes and looked funny, but I loved how people laughed. It was just great to experience. So, the body and movement has been a part of my life since the beginning. That’s why I say this is an interesting answer to your question. And then when I was 17 I studied mime with a teacher who taught using principles of Kabbalah. And the simple ones, not numerology and astrology, but the simple ones, the most simple one, which is that in emptiness arises form that returns to emptiness. So, for the mime, this space between you or the camera and I appears to be empty, but to the artist, as I was taught, the mime, I can create anything that’s in here that wasn’t there before and then suddenly it’s not there. Or there’s a glass here, it wasn’t there, now it is. And in your mind you perceive it, but then it disappears. It’s the same as the transiency of life itself, isn’t it? So, I learned mime from that perspective and then each Hebrew letter, beautifully taught, has a universal principle in it and a vibration and a frequency to it. So, Aleph, for instance, is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and Aleph represents, literally in the way it sounds, coming from nothing, in the air. So, there’s nothing in the air and vibration of the cords and then “al” and then the tongue touches the roof. So, there’s contact between two, there’s the appearance of duality, “al” and then it goes into form, “aleph,” into the world. So, then Samuel Avital was my teacher and he taught at his school called the Centre du Silence.
Rick: Your mime teacher, yeah.
David: Yeah, my mime teacher and Kabbalah teacher. His parents, his dad, were rabbis and his grandfather, I mean, is down the lineage. And so, he continued the teaching, but he used mime to teach. And what I was going to say was that when I learned this, it made me question, at 17 years old, when I’m standing in an empty stage, how capable am I of producing the universe for others to see? Am I just a man or am I the bird and the air and the leaf and the water and the fish? And how open and unlimited can my mind be to perform?
Rick: Did you grok all that when you were 17 or are you much better able to articulate it now?
David: Yeah, “B,” of the “A” and “be” there, “B,” definitely. In fact, when he was teaching me, he thought he saw enough in me to put me in his show that summer, after one seminar, which was great. All things are perfect, right? But while I was rehearsing, I was supposed to step into a bathtub, because in the bathtub … this was something I wrote, as I’m resting, I fall underwater and I go into this whole universe of water and then I wake up again and I’m in my bathtub. But just stepping into the bathtub, I’d be doing it. He’s about this tall and he’s French with … I mean, he has a French accent with big Jewish hair and bald [head] like me. He would say, “No, David! That’s not it! You’re doing it! Don’t do it! Just do it!” You know, he was trying to teach me the concept of being a non-doer, which at 17, grokking doesn’t happen. A lot of learning back then.
Rick: I just want to throw in the point that Sanskrit has the same thing that you just mentioned that … was it Hebrew? It does. Where there’s said to be this name and form correlation between the sound of letters and words and the forms with which they correspond. So that, for instance, the name for apple, whatever that may be, would somehow, in a vibratory way, correspond with the actual vibrations of an apple. There’s this whole cosmology that’s explained where the universe actually arises out of sound and the first verses of Vedas sequentially unfolds the manifestation of the universe and all kinds of stuff. So, it’s interesting that the Jewish tradition has the same way of thinking.
David: With Sanskrit, yeah, it’s the same and it makes perfect sense. There’s a mystery to it. If everything is a vibratory frequency or a light frequency, then it makes sense. One of the things Samuel said was, “Don’t speak too much because you’ll use up your words.” Jokingly, he was saying, “Be efficient, be clear and concise with what you’re wanting to say and also what you’re wanting to perform as a performer.” So, he was teaching us, if we want to show that there’s a solid object here, this is enough. I don’t have to go …
Rick: Right, you’re doing it.
David: Right, which a lot of pantomimes would learn to do because they weren’t trained in this more centered approach. So, actually, pantomime got a bad rap after a while because there were a lot of people not mastering their body and their technique, but trying to do little things with way too much. And it’s hard to watch.
Rick: Yeah, not adhering to nature’s principle of least effort, least action.
David: Simplicity.
Rick: Yeah. You mentioned earlier that mime and spirituality were very much intertwined for you, but I have a suspicion, I may be wrong, that initially they weren’t, that you thought, “I’m going to be a mime guy,” and then somehow your spiritual aspirations began to blossom and become more clear to you. Is that true or no? Were they really intertwined from the outset?
David: Well, they were intertwined in terms of the mime work because Samuel …
Rick: He taught it that way.
David: Yeah, and he introduces and invites you to attend based on that.
Rick: I see.
David: So, you don’t really begin working with him unless you already are looking at the universe in some kind of cosmic questioning way.
Rick: So, at that stage of the game, was mime training your spiritual practice, essentially, or did you supplement it with meditation or some such thing?
David: Yeah, at 17 I didn’t really have a spiritual practice. I was just on the quest, you know, the quest of wanting to understand. This I do know since childhood was I’ve always been … I’ve always been drawn to understand what’s behind the appearance. I had an experience when I was 14 where I was standing on Texas land where my family owned some … had been involved with a ranch for a while, and it was nighttime and the Texas sky is like the Montana sky, or anywhere where there’s no lights, it’s like a blanket of stars from horizon to horizon, especially without mountains. In a moment when I was 14 and I was standing there one nighttime all alone, I felt some kind of really life-changing sense of presence looking at me from the sky. I just had a sense of some intelligence, some sentiency of the universe, and it scared me. I got really scared because I felt how tiny and insignificant I was, and then at the same time it was life-changing because I really felt the enormity of it. I felt the unlimited … I felt a felt sense of the unlimited sense of being. What scared me about it was it made me realize that I’d been helping a friend through keeping … being a friend to someone who’s wanted to commit suicide in early days of high school, and I was good as a listener, and I always felt I was a good listener and good presence, but I realized I smiled a lot, you know, kind of this artificial …
Rick: Like, “They like me.”
David: Yeah, “like me,” a lot of that, a lot of wanting approval. And when I had this experience I realized that that facade was a facade, and it made me really, really afraid, and I started crying and sobbing. So, for about an hour I was just sobbing because I had no clue about what I was without that. You know, 14 years of this little body suddenly being told, “Well, you’re not anything,” that you thought, it’s awkward.
Rick: So, this is out under the stars you started sobbing?
David: Yeah.
Rick: Wow.
David: Then I walked home, just down the hill, and my sisters didn’t know what was going on, and they sat with me by the bed, and my mom, and it was really moving because they were loving. There was just love there. I began to settle and then begin to write prose and poetry about it. The first words that came were, “Life is a puzzle. Each person to his place, but only do you fit when you show your real face. So, don’t put a mask in your place in the puzzle because it isn’t going to fit at all.” I wrote a little music to it. So, from then on, it wasn’t like I had a transformation that shifted everything. It’s just that it gave me the understanding which has stayed with me my whole life, that underneath the surface of whatever I’m experiencing, there is this background which is unshakable for me. Even though I felt human, and I felt 14 years old, and I had crushes, and I had broken hearts, and there was something in the background which has now come to the foreground more. So, that’s how I would say my journey has been. Then it became my teachings. I learned a technique called the Sedona Method, which is a way to dissolve thoughts and emotionality, to reveal their essential nature, which again is consciousness or truth. So, that technique has been an integral part of what I’ve been teaching and coaching with, in addition to self-inquiry and investigation.
Rick: That’s nice that you got so serious at such a young age. When I was 14, I was primarily worried about whether I looked cool, and how good a drummer I was, and things like that, you know, girlfriends and whatnot. But it took me a few years to get that glimpse that you just referred to.
David: Well, I was too, though. I mean, that kept going. But what was new was this groundedness behind it, which has blossomed over time.
Rick: Yeah, that’s nice. So, I thought it was real sweet, the story you told in “Ocean of Now” about … well, maybe we’re skipping ahead, so don’t let me do that if we are. But that story you told about being in the hospital with that boy who was dying. I guess you’ve done a lot of work in hospitals and stuff like that, sort of a Patch Adams kind of a guy.
David: Yeah, 15 years.
Rick: Yeah, you feel like telling that?
David: Sure, sure. Well, it’s similar to the idea of where I learned mine, because what you’re referring to is the Big Apple Circus in New York has this incredible program called the Clown Care Program, and it’s similar to Patch Adams. It was created by Michael Christensen, who knows of Patch. His son died of cancer. I mean, excuse me, Michael’s brother died of cancer, and he was torn, he was torn into bits about it. And he prayed and he said, “What do I do? I’m a clown, I’ve traveled Europe, I can do this stuff, but my brother just died. What is this all about?” The message was, “Make this easier for others.” So the Big Apple Circus was a creation of his with a partner, and he decided to create a clown program where clowns or mimes or musicians or magicians or actors, entertainers, learn to work in hospitals to make life lighter for those with life-threatening diseases or anything in a hospital. So he created the Clown Care Program, and for 15 years I was a clown doctor. We’re trained to work hand-in-hand with the staff at a hospital, but also how to work in the room, because it’s a very different world in the hospital. People are very vulnerable. Children who have tubes or whatever, when you poke your head in and you go, “Hey!” that may be too much. So we’ve learned how to be what I call “in the moment.” I put it in the book, “The Ocean of Now,” because when I peek in the door and go, “Would you like a visit?” and I have the suggestion of clown, it’s not brash.
Rick: Do you have a red nose or anything like that? Little tiny red nose, you can paint it blue, you can do whatever you want. And I have a little button. You know, you clownize your doctor’s jacket, so I have a button that said, “Yes, I’m pregnant.” It’s been a long time, it’s a long journey. So we always brought humor, but we would peek, and in that moment of peeking we had to assess and really be available to have no attachment to anything. Going in, not going in. If they said, “No, don’t come in,” that’d be fine. Maybe we’d drop our hat and spend 10 minutes trying to get our hat off the floor, you know, saying, “Sorry, I’m leaving, let me get my hat,” you know, and then we’d leave. I wasn’t attached to them liking us, so we had to really learn to listen and be inspired every second with what’s best. A joke, physical comedy, shtick. We had bedpans in the room that were clean and we’d put them on the hat and say, “Bedpan pneumonia,” you know, whatever we could. But the point was, there was one young guy who was 16 who had cancer. He was a Hasidic Jewish young teenager. A nurse came running to us and said, “We always worked in partners.” To me and my doctor, Mensch, is my partner friend, Kenny Raskin. She said, “Solomon wants to see you.” We loved Solomon for four years, and we went back and looked in the room and it was dark. His father with peyots and the beard and his mother with the scarf. They were standing by the side of the bed, his mom was crying. We walked in really slowly because Solomon had asked for us. But he was really almost unconscious, yellow skin, bones protruding, and absolutely quiet. His eyes were staring at the ceiling, his breath was barely happening. So in that moment we really had to assess, “What is being called for here?” So we were very quiet. You know, we really didn’t say much. Then we remembered he loved this song. My partner could play the flute, the plastic little flute recorders. He could play them out of his nose. And Solomon loved this. I would sing, “I’m a little teapot, short and stout. Here’s my handle, here’s my spout. When I get all steamed up, then I shout, ‘Sock it to me, baby, let it all hang out.'” He always loved that. So we thought, “Why not?” So we did that and we finished. And nothing happened. And we thought, “Okay, well, that was our gift.” But I had this intuition. And as we were turning, I looked at him. And his eyes, his eyes and his face, and his mom was crying at this point. His eyes went like this.
Rick: For those listening on audio, David just did a little gradual smile.
David: Yeah, and a little lightening of the eyes. It still touches me because I thought he was there the whole time. You know, we assume that people aren’t there, but he was absolutely present. And I thought, “Excellent, excellent.” So we left. About five minutes later, the nurse ran to us and told him that he had passed. He had died. The value of that to me was to recognize how important we are in simple ways to each other. Our mere loving presence can be transformative or end a life in a positive way before the life is over. So we take for granted this simplicity of being present. I think it’s one of the most powerful balms for the soul, powerful salves for the soul, this loving presence. It’s not trying to control. It’s not attached to outcome. When I’m working one-on-one, I honestly feel like in addition to the questions that I’ve learned that are useful, just being absolutely present is part of what the soul is yearning for, the soul that feels constricted and contracted in pain. Sometimes it just needs loving presence. So in that story, I think that was part of my recognition and my realization.
Rick: Yeah, I would surmise that all those years working in hospitals also must have had a very refining influence on your heart and your ability to attune to other people. Because even in that story, you couldn’t just barge in like a bull in a china shop and do whatever you felt like. You had to sort of tune in to the situation and do what was appropriate. It was a very delicate, tender situation. So it must have been really kind of a heart-culturing experience for you doing that.
David: That’s a good phrase, absolutely. We were trained also by Michael. He was a real angel on this planet. I mean, he’s still around. But in his teaching of us, he said, “As best you can, when you see the physical form, don’t see the physical form. See the child that’s well inside.” So you’re performing no matter how … some children were everything. Tumors … and it would be impactful. I wasn’t, to be really frank though, I wasn’t really affected by it. I don’t know why. I think it’s just been my nature. It’s like, “Oh, wow. Ooh, look at that.” It wouldn’t change me a lot. I do know that some of the clowns had children. Some of the team had children. And I know they were impacted more than I. To see that and see children go through that. But for me, I would pretty much … it’s why I’m able to work one-on-one so comfortably with people. It’s because I really don’t see what’s appearing as much as I hear what’s behind it in a deeper way. It’s just been my intuition since childhood, I guess.
Rick: That’s nice. Incidentally, did you ever see the movie “Punchline” with Tom Hanks and Sally Fields?
David: No, no I didn’t.
Rick: There’s a movie recommendation for you. There’s a really sweet scene where he was doing comedy in a hospital. Kind of one of his lesser-known but best movies, in my opinion.
David: It’s definitely an ego check. Because you can want to be funny, and if they’re going through a lot, and your energy is overriding what they’re giving you, it won’t work. Your ego will be deflated. And this is a point in the interview, Rick, where I want to say something. I have, and this has always been the case for me since childhood, everything I see on some level is a metaphor for the deeper understanding. So, when I talk about being in the hospital and this ego check, it’s the same in life to me. I can want something from you, and if I don’t get it, my egoic sense of self, wanting approval, wanting to control you, or wanting whatever, is going to be disappointed and contract even more. And so, like in the hospital, it’s the same to me. As much as I can even do this interview, or look at you and not know where this is going, and feel comfortable about it, that’s the spiritual practice as well, to me.
Rick: Yeah, well there’s a couple nice phrases from your book that I wrote down that pertain to this. You say, for instance, “There’s a life force within you that is always seeking to persevere and expand,” and then “it guides us because it is us.” And then “the key to success is to live from this cosmic intelligence.” “Spiritually, I look at this intelligence as a magnificent mystery. I am in awe of it and respect it. When I align with it or have quieted to feel its presence within me and as me, I prosper.” So, I like this theme of the presence of intelligence, and like you said a minute ago, everything is a metaphor. You know, some people say the world is your guru, but obviously if you feel things this way and understand and experience things this way, then nothing is arbitrary, merely mechanistic, material or anything else. Everything is just pulsating intelligence with something to teach us and to further our evolution. Because, as you say, there’s this evolutionary impulse of the universe. Actually, you quoted Deepak in saying that.
David: Yeah, he talked about it being the … I can’t even remember how I said it, but …
Rick: The ecstatic evolutionary impulse of the universe.
David: Right, right, I love that. And it’s happening right now even, as the cells multiply and gallons of blood is coursing through the miles of circulates. I mean, something is vitally alive, whether we think so or not. I was thinking about this the other day, because I was listening to Joe Dispenza on one of his videos about how his vertebrae got crushed in an accident where he was hit by a truck. And he, through his consciousness, chose to look at the reconstruction of his spine rather than with rods, with consciousness on some level. And in the dialogue, in his talking about that, I was listening to how he was describing similarly to Deepak, how we have gallons of blood coursing through the circulatory system and trillions of cells. And each cell has a trillion interchanges chemically within seconds. Something’s happening, right? Something that we can’t even fathom. And we limit ourselves thinking, “Oh, I’m just this father,” or, “I’m just a kid,” or, “Nobody loves me.” This thought comes in, and we actually imbue it with more intelligence than the trillion cells that just multiply. Right? It’s crazy how willing we have been, and it’s innocent. So, you know, there’s no judgment here, it’s innocent. We didn’t learn differently. But we invest in thought, which is not even really even singular. Thought is a combination of neuro-pathway events, which are a trillion of little light chemical biological boom and it’s gone. But we call it a thing, a thought, and then we invest in it. As I invest in it, if you watch physically, and this is why I love the mime work, because it’s helped me physically demonstrate principles really well. The minute I’m with you, I’m present, I’m all here, I see your eyebrows, I see the energy coming out of your eyes. But the minute a thought comes like, “Oh, does he like me?” I actually divert my attention. There’s still presence, but my attention goes to the thought, I’m not even with you anymore. I’m entertaining the thought, and the thought after it, and the thought of why, and the thought of a different color shirt would have been better, and suddenly I’m not even here. But I invest more authority in that, which really is not even substantive or locatable. It’s imagined on some level. More than my absolute love, which just explodes when I come back present with you in this moment. That’s my experience. I’m really grateful for everything you do. There’s this new relationship to you because this intelligence then comes up and surfaces to live with consciousness. See, it’s alive anyway, whether I’m focusing on thought or presence. It doesn’t stop. So then, to me, the spiritual question for all of us is, “How much are we investing in the mind more than the absolute presence of awareness?” It’s that spectrum. There’s no final event where it’s completely gone. Maybe Eckhart Tolle or Byron Katie can talk about it, but I’m not going to wait for a roach to crawl over my foot like Byron Katie.
Rick: You don’t have to wait too long. You live in New York, right?
David: No, it’s happened too many times.
Rick: It’s so ordinary that it doesn’t do it for you.
David: I should be enlightened by now.
Rick: You need a cobra crawling over your foot or something, something that wouldn’t ordinarily happen in New York.
David: Well, you bring that up and I have to laugh because down in Texas, as I progressed in my years there, we would go back every summer and I had this thought, “Okay, I’m going to be imperturbable. I’m going to be so free that a rattlesnake,” because they exist down there, “comes across my path and I don’t move.” So I’m meditating up on the top of this hill one night, and you know what’s coming. I close my eyes and I’m meditating, I open my eyes and there’s a rattlesnake about six feet in front of me, and I freak out and I roll back and I get back and I go, “Dang it, it didn’t work, you know, my dream.” So even the rattlesnake didn’t work. But what I do know now, to bring it back to our conversation, is the practice then is to notice, “Am I investing in the next thought or not?” Because there will be thought, I mean the neural pathways are built already, so there’s going to be activity in the mind, thought. But what I do know experientially and what I share with anybody that wants to work with me is that it’s not to not have thought. Like, when your mind is absolutely still, then you’re perfectly enlightened. It’s to understand that thought forms will rise and fall, but they aren’t who you are and they don’t have to have sway over your experience. And as that understanding gets deeper, it seems to be the icing on the cake or the gift or the grace of whatever or whoever that thoughts do weaken, because they see they’re not going to be entertained by you. Somehow the patterning, if you want to talk about neural pathways, the little electrical impulses, if they’re not happening, they literally atrophy and pathways change in the brain, etc. So there is a progressively quieter mind, but I think it’s a mistake to say, “I still have thought, so I’m not free or I’m not enlightened.” That’s not the point.
Rick: No, I mean, I think if you didn’t have thoughts, you’d be dead. In other words, if you’re alive, you’re going to have thoughts. I mean, I want to lift this. Although, you know, I have talked to people. There was a guy, who was it? Gary Weber, who said he hasn’t had a thought since his awakening, which was years ago. And I said, “Gary, I mean, you know, don’t you, if you’re planning to book a flight or you’re talking to somebody, you’re working on a speech or something like that, aren’t those thoughts?” Somehow, maybe it’s our terminology, but he just couldn’t relate to the idea of having thoughts anymore. It’s just sort of like everything was so spontaneous and immediate for him that there didn’t seem to be any kind of mental intermediary.
David: Yeah, that’s a really … I love this discussion. I love this, because it’s an interesting question.
Rick: It’s very mimey too. I mean, mime related, is it not?
David: How so? Tell me what you mean.
Rick: Well, just like when I see you do mime, for instance, I don’t see you as having a lot of thoughts or as thinking, “Okay, here’s my next move,” or something. I see you as being extremely spontaneous and just whatever is coming up, you do it without a lot of mental activity.
David: Yeah, well it depends on the performance. What you saw me do at the Science and Nonduality Conference was a conscious attempt to be that way. I asked Ron, who you know, the technician, to put a piece of music on and then I moved. This might be a good place for a clip. [Music]
Rick: There was the Rumi thing too, which I thought was awesome.
David: Thank you, thank you. Actually, that quote was on my Rumi page of quotes, but that specific quote, which I didn’t look for, was from Nisargadatta and I didn’t realize it. But the quote nonetheless inspired without me knowing where it was going to inspire me to create a story. So, in that case, that mime, that performance, was based on improvisation and spontaneous activity into a story. That was really joyful for me. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] A lot of times I’ve written pieces, like if you were to look on my site I have, or on YouTube, there’s pieces that I performed that I wrote, took down, and now when I’m performing them, there’ll be a moment where I go, “Oh shoot, what’s next? Oh right, boom.” But the thing that you’re talking about, that you saw at the show, I mean at the Science of Non-Duality Conference, was that. Like if right now, for instance, I move without knowing, I’m not deciding anything, but instead if I let this become a story, I have no thought, seriously, I mean even the words “I have no thought” weren’t thought beforehand, right? There’s this spontaneous, like Gary was talking about, everything’s happening, I’m not thinking before I’m saying or moving, which I think is how we do life anyway, and then the mind comes in after, that’s how I think we experience life, with the commentary, and then we turn to the commentary instead of the direct experience, and that’s why we live in what I call a dream state, we’re living the reflection upon life, rather than current moment. So if I’m doing this, then suddenly I allow a story to come and I get a sense that this is like this, like a bird. So …
Rick: Don’t shoot it, don’t shoot it.
David: Right, right, I go there for the story, right, whatever happens. But that happened without me planning, so I kind of understand what Gary’s proposing, is that the mind quiets, because there’s no habit of reflection and then recategorizing it based on our past, because that’s basically what thought is, you know, re-putting it in another file, “Oh, this movement or this reaction from Rick means to me like my father, I’ve gone back in time to a file and superimposed that in the present moment.” If all that dissolves, that identity, then really, literally, on some level, everything is happening without too much thinking. So I can understand his proposal on some level.
Rick: There’s a few themes that we’ve covered in the last few minutes that I’d like to try to tie together and perhaps extract a question from. You know, we were talking about the incredible intelligence that is all-pervading, and how even what’s happening in a single cell in our body, and there are trillions of them, is beyond our comprehension. And we might add that if we had to consciously manage what’s going on inside a single cell, that cell would die, and if we had to do it in all our cells, we’d be gone in a second. So there’s this kind of vast intelligence that’s governing and orchestrating things, right? I think we would agree, perhaps, that essentially, ultimately, we are that intelligence. And I think it’s from what science tells us about the way the world works. If you blend that with a spiritual perspective, there’s the obvious omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence of the intelligence governing the universe. Then you brought in the point about quietening the mind, and a quieter mind enables one to be more in tune with that intelligence. Although obviously we can’t know everything or do everything in the relative creation, we can be attuned to that intelligence which does. If we are, then our life flows with the same degree of perfection with which that intelligence governs the universe, even though we as an individual aren’t responsible for governing the whole universe, fortunately. But insofar as our individuality is concerned, it flows with that same degree of perfection. So that’s more of a statement than a question, but I want to just throw it out there as a grist for the mill here.
David: Yeah, I would actually reframe a little bit of it in that the vocabulary is really important, and I think it’s an essential part of the spiritual dialogue these days, because there’s a real subtle, and I don’t know if you meant this or you just were using words because we have to to function, which both would be fine, but in the normal use of the word “I need to be in,” and this is what I wrote in the books, I respect you using the vocabulary, “The more I am in tune with that intelligence, the more my life moves towards success.” Interestingly enough, for me, taking someone through, and for me just in terms of the understanding, at some point even that concept of me in alignment with the universe is still dualistic in nature on a subtle level. So what makes it happen for us to feel the omnipresence of our own being is to begin to dissolve the concept of anything that I need to do in order to, but it’s how I write in my book because there’s a progressive nature on the spiritual path. Otherwise anybody, like you know, personally I love Rupert so much because he’s so eloquent and simple and clean in his very British presentation.
Rick: Rupert Spira you’re referring to, yeah.
David: Rupert Spira, I’m sorry, yes of course. He’s very eloquent, and I remember at the Science and Nonduality Conference, Deepak Chopra was trying to interview him. It was challenging, I don’t know if you were there.
Rick: I was supposed to moderate that and Deepak said, “I think I’ll just do it,” and then later on Rupert’s wife said, “I wish you had moderated it.” Anyway, go ahead.
David: Well, I absolutely am grateful for Deepak’s presence on the planet because he’s integrating all forms of arts and sciences. I’m really grateful for that. What was challenging for him, and it was an innocent challenge, was that Rupert really isn’t very good at commenting upon truth. And Deepak was trying to take our view of the audience and say, “You know, a lot of people might wonder this, and how would you approach this?” And he’s not very good at theorizing, you know, so Rupert would say, “Well, you can’t imagine how to do that because then you’re wasting your time.” And you know, what’s absolutely true, and Deepak kept saying, “I know, I know that’s true, but I mean people …” Rupert had a hard time not just doing satsang, and for that I’m grateful on some level because he remains kind of a beacon for not sacrificing or compromising an absolute understanding. This idea of quieting the mind to be more in tune with the omnipresent universe or omnipotent universe, on some level even that has to be questioned to the point where the quieting of the mind is also the quieting of the identification with being separate from this absolute. So, it’s not once I do this I become more in touch with this. It’s more like, this is what I am anyway, and the only thing that happens as the mind quiets is the veils or the small sheaths begin to disappear to a misunderstanding of who I am. It’s subtle.
Rick: Yeah, I think that’s good. I mean, as you probably know, the Yoga Sutra’s second verse says, “Yogas chitta vritti nirodha,” which is that yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. And if we use the ocean analogy, then obviously the more chopped up the ocean is in waves, the more distinct and individuated those waves are, even though they’re really only water, the same water as the whole ocean. The more quiet the ocean, as it calms down, the less you see any individuation. So, it’s just a metaphor, an analogy, but I think there is something to, and there’s obviously a thousand spiritual references to back it up, there is something to having a less agitated, more quiet mind, which doesn’t mean you can’t be dynamically engaged in activity, you know, doing whatever, but there’s sort of an inner quietness that gets cultured.
David: Yeah, and it’s fun, isn’t it? It’s a question of two approaches. One is, “I will quiet the mind so that I know more of the truth,” and the other is, “In the recognition of the truth, the mind quiets.”
Rick: Yeah, I prefer the latter myself.
David: I do too.
Rick: I mean, the first one is like you have little waves in a pan of water, and you push on the waves trying to get them to stop, you know, create more waves.
David: Right, and at the same time, the work that I’ve been doing, the letting go work, the Sedona method is based on the principle of letting go, but before the principle and the technique was created, Lester Levinson, the creator of it, actually had 20 years of just proposing “I am” as the tool, you know, like Ramana Maharshi but he saw that the mind was too active, so he said, “Okay, I respect that the mind is active and in the way of this understanding, so let’s give the mind something to do.” So he said, “Okay, let me define the ego as this sense of lack and everything done to survive this sense of lack, and that if you let go for in a nanosecond of this perception of lack, the egoic ghost disappears, because you don’t lack, you are the all.” So, he was teaching this technique for the mind’s current state, but in the end he also said, “You have to let go of the one who’s letting go.” So, techniques can be useful on a journey.
Rick: Which is what Ramana said too, actually. I mean, I have a quote on my computer someplace where he said that the vast majority of people actually aren’t ready for just the sort of direct fruition of the “Who am I?” question. He kind of encouraged people to do whatever preparatory things they were inclined to, with the understanding that it takes a thorn to remove a thorn, and that ultimately they’re going to be dropping those things.
David: Right.
Rick: Was Lester a student of Ramana?
David: No, the irony with Lester, you know, the fun storyline with Lester is he was a scientist and an engineer living here in New York City. I think he grew up either in Brooklyn or New Jersey, I can’t remember.
Rick: Did you study with him?
David: No, I met him a few times towards the end of his life, but in 1952 he had his experience. He had a second heart attack, he had half a dozen ulcers. The doctor said, “You’re a good man, Lester, but go home. You don’t have much time left.” So, he had a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park, and he sat there in a chair saying, “What the heck happened?” And scientists, as you know, traditionally the principle of science is to study and pursue threads of understanding until there’s resolution or some new knowledge, and he’d never done that with himself. So, here he was about to die and he said, “Okay, I guess I’m the laboratory now. What am I made of?” And he saw a lot of emotions, and instead of dying in a couple of weeks, for three months he sat in self-inquiry. What’s the pain? What if I love instead of hate? What if I let this go? I’m going to die. I don’t want to take it with me. You know, he was exploring, and what he discovered was each time he actually had a little transition of that perception or his approach, or his perspective, his body began to feel energized. And at the end of three months his body was so awake that he had to walk for three days, the story goes, without stopping.
Rick: Just the burn-off energy?
David: Yeah, he had unleashed the suppressed energy and the contracted energy of all his emotionality. So, he lived another 42 more years, but on that day, at the end of those three days, he was in ecstasy on a certain level, this bliss of overflow, and he realized that that was tiring too. And so he asked himself, “What if I even let go of holding on to my happiness? Because I don’t want a piece of the pie, because this bliss wasn’t here before, so that means if it started it can end.”
Rick: In addition to bliss, there were some serious blisters.
David: There were blisters from walking too much. With bliss you can get blisters, if you’re holding on to it, right? Because anything you hold on creates blisters. So, at the end of the three days of this ecstasy and he let go of happiness, that was when he actually had the sense of disappearing egoic self, disappearance of separation. So, he lived 42 more years with this, what he called imperturbability, but it was the letting go of the perception of a little self that revealed his life for the next. So, he didn’t know Ramana, that was the answer to … sorry, it’s a long answer. But afterwards he started looking for literature on what he was experiencing, this absolute truth. So, Ramana was someone he recommended to read, and also Yogananda, Paramahansa Yogananda.
Rick: I want to talk about the Sedona method with you, but before we do that I want to pick up on a point you just made, which I’ve been discussing with a friend or two, and that I don’t totally get. And that is the cessation of a sense of personal self, or little self as you put it. And the reason I don’t totally get it, I can get how one would say, “Yeah, I’m a person, but I’m not only a person. In fact, I’m even not primarily a person. Primarily I’m this vastness, this presence, this oceanic awareness, and secondarily I’m this guy or this girl or whatever doing different things.” But I have friends who say, “Not even that. There’s just been a complete falling away of a sense of self. Seeing happens, hearing happens.” And I say, “Okay, what if you stub your toe? The pain is felt here, not by some guy in China.” So, there is still some localization, some personalization, and they talk as though there is, “Oh, I have a headache,” or “I have car trouble,” or whatever. So, maybe I just have not quite wrapped my head around what they’re saying. Do you have any insights on that?
David: Well, I think there’s a mistaken attempt to … in a lot of ways. I don’t know about who you’re referring to, but I think in this kind of conversation quite often there’s a mistaken attempt to say that when the cessation of the individual dissolves that the human experience dissolves too. I never have emotional pain, I never get upset, I never get angry.
Rick: No, they wouldn’t say that. They would just say there is actually no one having them. Emotional pain happens, upset-ness happens, anger happens, but it’s not happening to anyone.
David: Right. So, I think that that’s fine to say those words. And I actually … that’s my direct experience too. That even as I say, “That’s my direct experience too,” the understanding is that there is an infinity that’s speaking those exact words. That’s my direct … that’s how I perceive. But it doesn’t change that I live within this full functioning world. It is in a sense dream-like, because everything comes and goes. So, in that sense I equal that to a dream. But I don’t take that statement to mean that it’s a new identity that I have. It just seems to be the way things are functioning. I don’t think my mind or my identity is fast enough to own everything that’s happening in the infinite unfoldment of now. The “I” is the thought after that tries to own it. So, I can’t say, “I am this” or “I am that.” I just know that as I say “I,” I am both that, infinite, and this vibration and this finger doing this. It’s all simultaneous. There’s no “I am that” and “this.” It’s all the same thing. It’s also appearing perfectly as David interviewing with Rick. That’s all the appearance of the One. But to dialogue about it and claim it to me is, in a sense, I’m just going to use the word “useless,” because it can’t be a philosophy.
Rick: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s a philosophy for my friends who talk this way. It’s their experience, and like many other experiences, we try to understand them, we try to be able to discuss them, put words to them. You and I are doing that right now about things. Here’s this quote from your book, “If there’s no self, whose arthritis is this?” A little Jewish Yiddish Zen humor. So, I just have not totally grokked what their subjective experience is. Because my subjective experience is, if I fall off my bike, which I did the other day, my knee is very painful, “Oh yeah, there’s pain, and now I’m limping.” There’s an untouched level of my life, which is beyond pain. But there’s pain in my particular knee, not in your particular knee. And I relate to that knee more than I do to some other guy.
David: My knee.
Rick: Yeah, your knee.
David: So, that’s the actual question, my knee. I think what’s being proposed is that you fall off the bike, you hurt your knee, and that’s all happening. The question is not … I love this stuff, because it really is investigating in real detail here. It’s a subtle understanding, and this is where I think some shifts are available for us. When the pain happens, you can build, you can rebuild, I call it reassembling. You can reassemble a you that owns that pain and doesn’t like it and resists it, and reminds him of when he was six and it happened, and you lost your patella because you had an operation. And suddenly that you is reestablished, and this pain is experienced in context of this you that’s experiencing it. What I think is being implied in that conversation you’re having with your friend is that the less we do that, the easier it is to experience the pain on some level. So, the more we recreate or reassemble this little me, I call it, just because it’s not the omnipresent me, it’s this perception reassembled me that’s having the experience, that owner is what’s being questioned here. Because we can’t even find that owner, really, if I were to ask you, “Where is he? Where does he exist?”
Rick: No, of course not, you can’t find any little nugget. And the way you’re describing it sounds very volitional, like, “Oh, we assemble it, or we don’t assemble it,” or whatever. I would say, and you would, I think, agree that both in my experience and my friend’s experience, there’s no manipulation going on here, it’s just the way life is spontaneously lived. In my friend’s case, without a sense of any kind of self, personal self, or that seems to have fallen away, in my case I still feel like there is one. I never like to pretend that I’m anything that I’m not, or experiencing anything I’m not. I’m obstinate in my ignorance until it has actually dissolved.
David: Well, you know what’s fun about this is, because everything is consciousness, consciousness is even doing that, being obstinate. That’s consciousness too. So, if that’s the attempt to always fix ourselves, to be more awake, I think is a mistake. That’s how you experience things right now. So you do.
Rick: Yeah.
David: You don’t need to like your friend, but it’s an important point. We struggle so much with self-judgment, you know, “Oh, I had an emotion, therefore I’m not awake, or enlightened.” The awakening or the enlightening, to me, is simply a sense of waking up from believing in this individualized history of a “you.” I can say, “I have pain,” and absolutely not need to spiritualize that language. “I have pain, I have a cough, I had a chest cold for the last two weeks.” And that’s been my experience. So I’m using the vocabulary without having to divert it to say, “But there’s really no one here.”
Rick: Yeah. No, I’m not suggesting or advocating that. I mean, those people drive me crazy, you know. “Please pass the salt.” “Who wants the salt?” You know, that kind of thing. But I’m just saying that with regard to people who aren’t mood-making or intellectualizing or trying to spiritualize anything, there is a definite, legitimate stage of experience in which, they say, there is no sense of a personal self anymore. And I’ve been trying to wrap my head around that lately.
David: Yeah, I think that … excuse me, I have a cough.
Rick: Who has a cough?
David: Big question. Who’s on first? I actually thought about doing the Abbott and Costello bit in this question. I thought it would be real fun.
Rick: Well, you could try.
David: I know, it was so witty, it’s hard to … I don’t know, I think it’s just purely subjective in the experience. I don’t experience a lot of … I can say this, I don’t experience a lot of commentary anymore. That I can say. Everything that’s happening seems to just be happening. That seems to be my experience. When I really get suffering, it’s usually because I’m reflecting a lot on something. I don’t like it a lot, I judge it a lot, I think it’s wrong. That’s when I begin to really contract a lot. Even while I was sick in bed for about a week, there was a part of me that was grateful that my body was doing exactly what it needed to do when it was coughing. I was trying to say, “I want to get rid of you, give me a minute.” I thought, “This is hard,” but on some level I don’t reflect on it. It’s not as much pain about it. So whether there’s someone there doing that, that’s a spiritual conversation. But what I can say experientially is the mind quiets, and that’s nice, less commentary.
Rick: Yeah, I’ve heard some spiritual authorities say that Christ never suffered, to take an extreme example, because if he was who he was supposed to have been in terms of his spiritual status or attainment, his primary reality was beyond the realm of suffering, no matter what happened to his body. I don’t think many of us could live up to that, but I suppose that’s a possibility.
David: Yeah, it depends on … again, we’re creating a Him that’s beyond something. So all I know is that there was God, there was infinite existence coming into form as that experience of Christ on a cross, and there was probably really extreme pain. Whether he experienced it or not, to me that’s a theoretical conversation. There was probably pain. So pain to who?
Rick: Right, and was there this oceanic bliss that persisted despite the pain on some kind of relative level?
David: I don’t know, it feels like that kind of conversation is … always it comes back to me, like as you and I look at each other’s eyes and on these computers, and technology is happening, and people are watching and listening. This exact now is what I’m interested in.
Rick: All right, let’s get back to this now. But not just the conversation, but this is actually the only thing that’s happening. Everything else is commentary on this, or our dialogue is perfect, that’s what’s happening now. But in terms of any counsel or any work that I do with people one-on-one, this exact moment is the work that I always come back to. What is here? What’s here? Is there contraction? Is there a sense of fear that’s connected to a story? Then we dissect, until what’s revealed again is presence awareness that really doesn’t own the fear, but maybe it is unconditionally present with the fear, without judgment, and there’s a healing in that. So, I don’t get into a lot of theoretical stuff unless it returns us to this moment.
Rick: Okay, so David, you mentioned the Sedona Method in your book, and you say it was quite influential in your life, and for those watching this, you might want to listen to my interview with Hale Dwoskin, who is one of the primary teachers of the Sedona Method and a good friend of David’s. We talked about that, but funnily enough, when I interviewed Hale, he mostly seemed to want to talk about Vedanta and this experience he had had with Joan Harrigan at the Kundalini Care Institute in Tennessee. But in any case, tell us about the Sedona Method and why it’s important, why you’d like people to know about it.
David: Why I want to let people know, I’ll answer that, and also why Hale went that direction. Because Lester, before he created a technique or a method, was actually talking about absolute truth. So, it was Lester’s original teaching, and then he noticed the mind’s activity, as I said earlier in the interview, and he created some series of small questions that turn our attention to the illusory sense of lack, and from there on it dissolves and reveals truth again. So, he just created this interim series of questions. And so, the Sedona Method is really useful for me. I, at 18 years old, was driving home from a party and exploded in rage. I hit the car, the passenger seat, and was yelling “extremities.”
Rick: Arms and legs were coming out of your mouth.
David: It was terrible. It was really ugly. It was hard to see too. (Laughter) No, “extremities” … “extreme words.”
Rick: Yes. Obscenities. Obscenities.
David: Obscenities. Thank you. Thank you. And see, when the mind is quiet, it’s hard to access sometimes. It’s a problem. So, I was driving and I was just screaming and yelling and hitting, and I had been to a party where I … you know, you’re 18, you’re trying to fit in, you’re trying to say the right things and get liked and all that. I had done that, but some part of me said, “What are you doing? You’re killing yourself. You’re not saying what you want to say, and you’re saying what you don’t mean. Who the hell are you?” And I was just … it was like I was mad at myself for doing that to myself.
Rick: For being false.
David: Being false. And for like 10 years I had these explosions of rage. Our family was … you know, they were good people, so we didn’t have a lot of … I mean, they were nice. We had this tendency to be nice and caretaking. Good people, really kind souls, but we never learned about having emotions. So, a lot was pent up. At 18 it exploded. So, for 10 years I had this kind of time of explosion of anger and rage and emotionality. I never hurt anybody or put my hand through a wall and broke a hand or anything, but it was scary. The amount of emotion scared me and the energy. And so, when I was 28, somebody told me about the Sedona Method and I studied it. It was the first time in my life where I had a looking glass that I could look through at what I was afraid of. And be able to approach it in a way where I still felt empowered and not disempowered by the emotion. And so, it was really, really important to me. And I think for a lot of people where they feel overcome by emotion, to be … if, and this is an important if, if they have a yearning in their heart to be free of the emotion, not just for the sake of so they can earn more money, which is valuable, but in the end if they have a deep yearning to understand who they are, to me the technique is really even more useful for how I use it with my clients. So, it helped me and then as I continued to read Ramana Maharshi and Robert Adams and Nisargadatta and began to understand the Bhagavad Gita a little bit and some ancient teachings, it began to come in alignment with, and even if I’d never read any of that, in alignment with what happened to me when I was 14, which is, there’s something here behind all of the appearance. And so, the Sedona Method helps dissolve the appearing emotionality and resolve to a greater sense of clarity and peace and proactivity as opposed to reactivity. So, it’s very useful and there is a point where it’s pointing to even letting go of technique per se. So, it isn’t meant to be, you’re not supposed to fall in love with the technique and then be attached to something new. It’s a means towards a deeper understanding of self.
Rick: I remember when I was preparing for Hale’s interview, I was listening to a lot of recordings of him and I think I listened to some whole weekend seminar he gave and he was kind of, there was a certain standard set of questions that he would go through with every point, sort of the way Byron Katie has her four questions that she asks. Would it be useful to tell us what those questions are, how the Sedona Method would deal with a particular person in a particular circumstance?
David: Well, it’s universal. The questions, like the four questions and the turnaround, are universal as well, for Byron Katie. Essentially, there’s four approaches and I want to explain all of them. There is a video I do on YouTube, but essentially, one is letting go of the perception of lack. That can be lack of love, lack of control, lack of security, because all of these, once you let them go for a moment, because they cause the emotion, if I lack this, I get scared, if I lack this, I get angry. So, when we let go at that lower level, the waves can settle down a little bit. You know, it’s like a tsunami, tectonic plate moves, creates wave. So, you let go of the want down here and there’s a settling. So, the first is letting go of lack of control or love or security. Can you be set in a nutshell how you actually accomplish that? The letting go? Yeah. Well, first, in the teaching of it, there’s a kinesthetic aspect. You actually experience letting go of a pen or pencil. It’s kind of a kinesthetic proof that you can. Then you ask yourself, would you be open to, do you have a desire to be free of it? You know, would you be open to being free of it if you could? And then if you had this moment in time, literally this nanosecond of looking me in the eyes, would you be willing to be free of it for a second and just see what it’s like? And so, there’s a verbal exploration of it, until a person says, “I can’t,” you know, “I can’t let it go.” In my work, it’s not as necessarily the work of Lester, but in my work I actually begin to investigate the concept of a “you” that can’t let it go. And we begin to realize that that’s illusory too. And so, the letting go happens with time and you begin to realize, it’s illusory anyway what I’m holding on to. The sensation is real, the body sensation. Anger has a lot of chemicals in it. So, I’m experiencing it sensorially, but what’s causing it is a perception of “nobody loves me.” That’s illusory, that’s a history, that’s a memory. So, once that’s let go of, the emotion can settle too. So, how it’s done is just talked through until you experience it, and then when you do, you begin to know kinesthetically what it feels like.
Rick: I think you mentioned in your book that it was in a Sedona Method class, maybe with Hale, that you had some really sort of watershed breakthrough moment. Is that … do you want to talk about that?
David: I’m not sure I remember.
Rick: Some real kind of a breakthrough, where it was like your big capital “A” awakening that happened at some point. It was quite a memorable shift for you.
Rick: Are you talking about in my book? Yeah, you referred to it in your book.
David: Yeah, it wasn’t with Hale. It was with Reverend Michael Beckwith.
Rick: Oh, yeah, that was it.
David: Yeah, I studied with him for a while when I was at Agape in California, his church. With Hale, it’s been progressively watching the work over 25 years, where I would go to the retreats once a year, and watching and experiencing my own progression through that period of going to a retreat to get something, you know, I’m going to go get more awake. Then with time, the more personal work I did, the quieting of that concept of obtaining awakeness, and more my experience of what I call the great disappearance, which you’ve heard me talk of, which I think awakening is not an awakening to something, it’s a disappearance of what’s not true. And for me, that’s much more real, and that’s why the letting go or the self-inquiry, the investigation is so powerful, because we’re not moving from this state to this state. It’s a disappearance which reveals the state of non-state or whatever we want to say. But that experience with Michael, we were in meditation, I was 28 years old, and there was an experience of since 14, right, this sense of omnipresent, sentient, something in the sky looking at me. And in this meditation, there was a sense of the body just like a ghost disappearing and a trapdoor opening inside, and me falling through the body into infinity, and even the me disappeared, and I could still hear birds and, you know, sense the body. But that was a moment of a glimpse of consciousness or awareness that wasn’t identified with the physical form. It pointed towards that as a deep, deep truth.
Rick: So it was just a glimpse, it didn’t abide, it didn’t persist?
David: Well, you know, anytime we talk about an “it,” it’s really funny. Again, in this concept of disappearance, I can say that it began the unraveling of the perception of a me identified with the physical body in this material world. So it began the disintegration at a deeper level. It was another saying, there’s something behind all of this, again, from 14 years old to 14 years later, that it wasn’t out there now, it was actually also operating this.
Rick: And that was over 30 years ago, so how’s it been unfolding since?
David: I’m still trying to be awakened. No, it’s just what’s progressed since then is more joy, because I think what happens is as the perceptions of the limited, you know, little me, unworthy, not loved, never this enough, never that enough, as those begin to go quiet, it’s just more joy, there’s more relaxation, there’s more ability to be present and be of service in a sense, or at least be present in the work that I do. So that’s been the progression.
Rick: Do you ever find yourself even now kind of gripped, trapped, stuck, you know, kind of “err” or do you feel like those days are gone and there’s a kind of a perpetual sense of ease and freedom?
David: Yeah, two things I want to say, just to finish what I was saying before, so I don’t forget. Francis Lucille says something beautifully, he talks about the fragrance of the self, and I love that because it’s like the fragrance of the best gourmet kitchen of all existence or non-existence wafts up into our human experience and we follow the fragrance. What I can say when I say the word “progressive” since I was 14 and 28 is that this knowingness is not actually progressive. It’s not time and space based, so it’s not like the knowingness has gone from here to here on a linear scale, the knowingness actually feels like that in which the progressive sense of experience of it being true and beyond all other experience begins to be deeper. But the actual knowingness isn’t progressive, it’s unfathomable and unmeasurable and not based in time. So that isn’t progressive, but this human activity, knowing that’s what’s happening, you know, that can always be deeper.
Rick: So it would be fair to say that maybe the appreciation of it, the attunement to it, the clarity of it, that kind of thing is progressive, but it itself by its very nature, by definition, couldn’t be progressive.
David: Right, and that’s the celebration is progressive too. It moves me to tears quite often. I said to Francis, I was at a retreat once of his, you know, I had another disappearance while I was with him, and I said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, I had one of those with Gangaji, and I had one of those with so-and-so, and I had one of these with Michael, and I said, afterwards I took him aside because I love him, he’s like a friend to me, a buddy. I said, “Francis, this happened again, does it ever stop or like is there progression?” And he has this French accent, right, he said, “David, the thing is that while we’re in the body there is dynamic life, there’s progression, it never ends.” He was saying that there is no end to infinity. So, if we’re in this realm there’s this progressive sense, and that was a beautiful way for me to realize as much as I love this moment of realization, it can infinitely be deeper, it’s a beautiful gift.
Rick: Nice, good French accent too.
David: Thank you. Actually, I impersonate Francis at his retreats, he gives me the right, he gives me his glasses.
Rick: You get up and do a little shtick with it.
David: No shtick, it’s just … (Laughter)
Rick: Yeah, it looks like him. Incidentally, for those watching live, it looks like there’s about 70 people on. I don’t know if the question form is working or not, we’ve had trouble with it, the one on the upcoming interviews page, so if you submit a question there and I don’t ask it to David, go ahead and send it to rick@batgap.com and I’ll ask it. Okay, so you work with people, what do you do?
David: So, it’s called coaching, of course, in the vernacular. What it is basically doing is investigating and then using the Sedona Method and self-inquiry and just rational approach to what appears to be real and what’s not real and what that reveals more of a sense of calm, peace and presence. I work with people, CEOs, I work with mothers, I work with people going through divorce, raising single parenting, people in relationship, anywhere in the world. I mean, I have clients, I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of clients and done thousands of hours of this investigation where someone presents an issue, I have one, I have clients who are parents, right? So, there’s always these issues around how much control to exert, how much allowance to allow, what parameters are correct, what are based in fear. And so, when emotions are quieted, emotionality based on, again, fear of not surviving, fear of doing it wrong, wanting approval, when those quiet, you basically have a greater sense of what to say, how to say it and its impact is different, its impact is higher. Because if you’re not infusing the commentary with covert energy, the child like an animal senses the covert energy as well and can relax if you’re not subconsciously trying to control them. They can actually listen better and not be on a defense, same in adult relationships. So, my coaching is basically to help people dismantle their unconscious habitual emotionality and perceptions of who they are to reveal a greater sense. This is, you know, I want to say this here, I feel like it’s really important on this spiritual quest that there not be this preponderance on transcendence. Because if I have a client that wants spiritual transcendence, that’s fine, you can get peaceful in this moment. But if your kid is screaming and come running in, you can’t say, “I’m busy.” You got to say, “What do you want? You wanted that for the last 12 weeks, what’s up with that? Talk to me.” And they go, “No, no, no, no, no, no.” You can go into emotionality or you can stay calm and say, “Okay, I get it, I get it. Sit down for a minute, let’s talk about this.” You know, “Use words, use words, you know, talk to me.” It’s a different energy than shut up, you know, which is needed sometimes, I guess, if you need to be clear and strong. But the cleaner your energy is, the more impact you are and have in any place in your life. So, that’s what I do, I help people really dismantle unconscious emotions and unconscious thinking to become more conscious and live life from that.
Rick: Yeah, I would say there’s a place for transcendence, but it has to be integrated into active life. Then it’s no longer really transcendent, it just kind of provides a foundation upon which activity can be more successful.
David: Right, again, it’s the absence of the emotionality or the historic “you” that thinks they can’t do it. When that quiets, the “I can” is more strong. So, yeah, I agree.
Rick: In your book you have this section of “Five Keys for Unlocking Success,” “The Joy of Living,” “Choose Your Life Team,” “Find Stillness Beyond Thinking,” “Taste the Quantum Soup,” and “Live Beyond War.” Do you want to run through those a little bit?
David: Sure, I just noticed this light here.
Rick: There’s light and there’s dark.
David: My hands are enlightening right now.
Rick: Right, look at that, whoa, I’m having an experience. Okay, just watch the hand, it’s a very strong Hebrew symbol. Watch right here. Now you’re enlightened. Yeah, that’s the thing about physicality for me, is everything is material. You know, I almost disappear. I don’t know how it happens in there, but this is … oh, I love this, see, everything is a metaphor. This is why I’m so in love with this idea of everything being a metaphor. So here I am thinking, “I can’t live my life, nobody loves me,” and I’m behind this veil thinking everything out there is that same thing as I’m thinking here. But when we let go of the veil we actually come forward, literally, into light. The light shines, warmth of the sun, we can see more clearly. That’s what we’re doing, is we’re stepping out of darkness, metaphorically, into a stronger sense of light. So, sorry, I just had to throw that in because it was such a nice addition.
David: And for those listening on the audio podcast, there’s this, “If David leans forward, the sunlight hits his face, and if he leans back, it doesn’t,” and that’s what we’re referring to here. So there’s a little metaphor going on in the video.
David: Yeah, I keep forgetting the audio. Yes, so your question was about those five things. So, again, it’s perfect that you asked that right now because we can live it. Of course, who else would be more perfect than you, as conscious? So, those five elements, they are, you know, so the inner work is essential. How am I unconsciously repeating my life? How am I living from reassembled perceptions of myself since childhood? So those questions have to be asked. As I dissolve them or see through them or let them go, what’s here? Then you can make some choices about life that support the continued living at a higher level of consciousness. And those five things are ways to do that and to express higher consciousness and living. Find the things that bring you joy. For instance, I love the sun, for example, right? So, if we weren’t on TV, on video, I would just sit and feel the warmth on my skin because I could be here forever. So, that’s a joy. So, if I know it is, make sure I can have it when I can. So, it’s just a matter of supporting joy. The second one is, what’s the second one?
Rick: Choose your life, too.
David: Yeah, so be conscious if you’re surrounding yourself with people that don’t support living with more happiness, that are used to complaining and believe everyone’s to blame and the world is only bad. That energy isn’t going to support your sense of happiness. So, just be aware. Just be aware of who you’re surrounding yourself with. And if you’re thinking about changing, have honest conversations. You know, it’s part of your strengthening and grounding and standing, as some people say, standing as consciousness. You know, take your stand as consciousness, take your stand as awareness. Talking about this is really an essential part of it. Not thinking you have to be ashamed of it or hide your spiritual journey.
Rick: So, in other words, you want to be around people who are appreciative and supportive of your spiritual journey.
David: Yeah, and you of theirs. Mutuality. What’s the third one?
Rick: Find stillness beyond thinking.
David: Yeah, so there are many paths to the Sun, right? Many rays. So, meditation, letting go, different techniques that quiet the mind. Stillness is always here. It’s not like it’s not. We don’t have a choice. It’s behind and in between. All sound and vibration and it’s out of which vibration appears. So, it’s here. It’s what I would call the infinite potentiality of all. So, it’s this unformed. So, practice giving yourself moments of it because I think it’s like drinking from the well. It’s really important.
Rick: The next one is from the Soup Nazi. Taste the quantum soup.
David: Yeah, you know I never saw that episode.
Rick: Oh, he was in a lot of episodes. We’re referring to Seinfeld, there was this Soup Nazi and he would stand in line, he’d be really strict and people would come up for soup and he’d say, “No soup for you!”
David: Right, right. Yeah, so quantum soup is the idea, it’s hard to use words about it, but it’s the idea that there is no fixed entity or fixedness in all existence because everything is a continual conflagration of appearing particles out of the waveform of infinity and timeless space into atoms, subatomic particles, molecules and this appearance. But none of this is fixed. Never has been. So, even a thought is not representing a fixed reality. Even a thought is remembered or memory is remembered only on certain levels of what actually happened. So, to invest and give authority to the idea that what’s now is fixed is not being open to what’s potentially a really exciting or resolution-oriented moment. So, the quantum soup is staying open to the unfolding infinite elements of this moment without fixing a mental mindset and taking away the opportunity of it being better than it is or more resolved or more loving or whatever.
Rick: Reminds me of something that Brian Swimme said as a physicist, that the Big Bang isn’t just something that happened 13.7 billion years ago, it’s something that is continually happening. So, the universe is just sort of manifesting out of this infinite ocean of potentiality at every moment.
David: And why is this relevant in this conversation? It’s relevant because if your work at Buddha at the Gas Pump is, by the way, it’s a great title, if all of this is about exploring awakening, and I love your title of awakening people, not awakened.
Rick: I used to have it as awakened and I changed it because I realized that was not right.
David: No, and for this exact reason. There is this unfoldment continually and so, if life is considered that way, we don’t even get to hold on to fear because we’re fearing something we’re imagining, a fixed image. Let that go and everything unfolds and you align with a better unfoldment if you do so with your heart open, with less fixed mindsets and thoughts. So, this opening of awakening is awakening to the perfect unfoldment of the universe.
Rick: Nice. All right, well we’ve covered quite a bit, various things. What haven’t we covered that half an hour after we stop this interview you’re going to think, “Ah, we should have covered that.”
David: Good question. You know, as I be quiet and listen, I see sunlight pouring across the New York skyline and on my shirt beneath the camera, I think, and I’m aware that this moment is absolutely rich. And that’s where I wrote the book, “The Ocean of Now.” There’s a misnomer even in the word now because it refers to a now or then, right, or then or … and there’s actually not even an end to the now. Even that’s a mistaken understanding of the continuum or the non-space-time based existence. And in this moment right now, as people are listening or watching, I really invite you to listen to this moment without projecting onto it anything, without wanting to know what I mean, without wondering about what time it is, or if those thoughts come, let them come and let them go. And experiencing what it means really literally to simply be, not even be present, but be this unfoldment. Imagine the body unfolding, you know, the trillion cells replacing itself every second. Just imagine the reality of that, that this form that you can see on the video is actually not a fixed entity. It’s trillions of cells are disappearing and new ones are coming in. We can’t fathom it. So, the only thing that I would say Rick in answer to your question is that to me everything we’ve said in this very fun and enjoyable interview with you refers back to this unfoldment of now which can have emotions in it. There’s no picture of even what this is supposed to be like. But the acceptance of it or the unconditional place in which it’s occurring or unconditionality, that’s the celebration. Not just the thing that’s appearing, but that in which it’s appearing, that’s the celebration of any word you choose to give it. So, I think anything else that I would want to say right now is gratitude. Thank you for this opportunity to talk with you and be with others. That’s what came to mind when you asked.
Rick: Good. And I would just throw something in here, although that was a very good ending and maybe we’ll even cut this off, but edit out what I’m about to say. But we were watching an old Dustin Hoffman movie last night and he played an armed robber who had just gotten out of jail and was getting back into crime and all. And he was hanging around and interacting with these various people. I was thinking, “Golly, there are a lot of people out there whose existence is so bleak and whose appreciation of what’s going on is so, I don’t want to say stunted, dry and without any kind of fulfillment or uninspired.” Irene’s throwing in the word. And I was thinking, “Hopefully there is some kind of global awakening taking place, because it’s painful to think of the billions of people living such an unfulfilled existence.” And if you look at the statistics of the number of people in the United States who take various kinds of mood-altering drugs in order to get by and that kind of thing, and you contrast that with the joy and the fulfillment that probably you and I would both say we are living, and many of the people watching this, having pursued spiritual development for so many years. It inspires me to encourage people to give their attention to this. And we’re probably preaching to the choir here, because the people watching this already are doing that. But the more, and this is part of my motivation for doing this show, the more people can sort of turn their attention to the joy and the wonder that is so rich in every moment of living and actually begin to live that, the better it will be for them and for the world as a whole.
David: I would be in agreement, and so again, if we return to this present moment as you’re speaking, I feel a tenderness in my heart, a little bit of sadness, right? And I feel yours in a way. It would be a pity or tragedy for the human species to not be able to experience this happiness which is possible, or contentment or love. And so, you bring up a point that I’ve been thinking about the last couple of days about creating a video about or something, which is, we read and see negativity in general. That’s what the news is, for the most part. Yet, what I’m really conscious of, especially living in New York City with 8 million people, if I were really to film all of the kind acts that took place, they would explode the news. They would explode all news stations. They would explode the internet, because consciousness is still yearning, and it will always yearn to expand, right? To grow. And the amount of love that I see also, if I would love to videotape how many times a door was open for somebody, or somebody helped someone up a subway step, or they let somebody else go first, or somebody gave somebody on the street something, their last dollar. So, I just want to put out there that I’m in agreement. These are dark times in many ways. The Earth is being plundered, you know, climate and fear and greed and all those things. But I would also invite everybody that’s listening, in context of what you’re saying, Rick, to stay open to this possibility of the infinite acts of kindness right now that are happening. That humanity is not lost in that sense. It’s heartening for me to remember that. So, I hope people are on a journey of love and kindness and spirituality, but there’s also this groundswell of kindness which humanity still has towards itself. I saw a Muslim woman that went to a rally for the Republican leader. I don’t even really love saying his name, but … and she was the only one in the audience and he kicked her out. But she spoke on CNN afterwards, or some news station, and she said, “I just went because I believe they don’t know who I am and I don’t know who they are, and if we did this would all change.” And she said, “There were so many people that said, ‘I’m sorry this is happening to you,'” as she was walked out.
Rick: Was she causing a fuss or did he just kick her out because she was Muslim?
David: She stood up and she just stood up while he was speaking. That was her statement. And people around her were shaking her hand and they liked her and they … you know, people were nice. So, unfortunately in certain arenas people’s emotions are hijacked and then utilized in politics a lot. And she was beautiful and eloquent. She was a stewardess, basically. She just practiced Islam. And she stood there and people were kind to her and she said, “That’s all I wanted to know and to show is that even amidst this fear attitude, the human heart remains available.” So, I think that’s the spirituality, is the human heart, whatever path we choose to follow.
Rick: Nice. Well, let’s end it on that note because it’s a sweet note. So, let me just make a few concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with David Ellzey, as you know, and his website is DavidEllzey.com and I’ll be linking to it from his page on BatGap.com. And there also, as I said in the beginning, you’ll see all the other interviews I’ve done, archived and categorized in various ways. A place to sign up for the audio podcast, a place to sign up to be notified by email each time a new one is posted, the donate button, and a bunch of other things if you search around a little bit. So, thank you David, and thanks to those who have been listening or watching. And for those who have been watching live, David will be splicing in a few of David’s mind routines, maybe the one from SAND where he did Rumi or something. Well, David will decide what he wants to splice into the conversation, so you might want to watch this again in order to catch those. And you must have also some of that stuff on YouTube, right? And on your website?
David: You can go to YouTube or Vimeo and just put in my name and you’ll find my channel.
Rick: Yeah, I think people will enjoy watching those.
David: Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. And there’s some on my site too, if you go to watchlist and my site has some videos that are about these topics. Great. Thanks Rick, it’s really a pleasure to be with you.
Rick: Yeah, likewise. So, we’ll see you in October, if not sooner. At the October SAND conference.
David: Yeah.
Rick: All right, thanks.
David: Pleasure.
Rick: Pleasure.