Emeline: Breaking news everyone, you are it. There is nothing outside of you, right here, right now, that will add onto the realization of your true nature that you are seeking. You are it. There is nothing outside of you that will fill any illusionary void within. Nothing needs to be added to the absolute being that you are, for you to realize your true nature. What needs to be done is actually things need to be removed. The onion needs to be peeled off. The layers need to be removed.
Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump, if you’ve never seen it, is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people. Done well over 700 of them now. And, if this is new to you, and you would like to check out the previous ones, please go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and look under the past interviews menu, where you’ll find them all organized in various ways. You’ll find other things on the site that you might find interesting, such as a spiritual AI chatbot which has hundreds of thousands of documents loaded into its data corpus, including 1700 of the world’s sacred texts, and you can ask it all kinds of spiritual questions and get detailed answers. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, please go to batgap.com and there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site and also a page that explains alternatives to PayPal. My guest today is Emeline Lambert. I’m going to have her pretty much introduce herself, but she was an actress. She was in something called House of the Dragon, which was a prequel to Game of Thrones, and something called Django, another thing called Invasion. But then she had a series of profound spiritual experiences and her life path kind of diverged to a different direction. So I’ll let you elaborate, Emeline. Well, let me ask you some questions to make it easier for you to get started. So, first of all, as a child, did you have some kind of unusual experiences? I often find that with people who’ve had spiritual awakenings a little bit later, like children who, as children, they maybe saw auras or angels or felt a sense of unity or things like that. And then usually during their teenage years, it all kind of fell away and then came back. Did you have anything like that?
Emeline: hmmm… um…
Rick: You don’t necessarily have to say yes, but…
Emeline: It’s… no, I’m… I’m letting the answer come in the most authentic way. I… so, when I was born, I didn’t want to open my eyes. Not because there was anything wrong with me medically. I just, you know, had them shut angrily.
Rick: You remember that?
Emeline: No, my mom told me.
Rick: Oh, okay.
Emeline: I don’t remember that. That would be pretty extraordinary. No.
Rick: That would be impressive, yeah.
Emeline: Yeah, no. So my mom told me that, you know, she took me to the doctor and he said she just needs a bit more time. And it seems like that became…
Rick: You were like a kitten. You know, they don’t open their eyes for a couple of weeks.
Emeline: Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. What I do remember, though, and that was quite a pretty early memory, was this feeling of, “What the F am I doing here?” And I would tell my parents, with absolute certitude, “I’m not your child.” Like we can pretend for the cameras, you know, Truman show, hidden up in the corners. That’s fine, I can play along, but I know I’m not your child. I come from Mars. I know that, my brother.
Rick: Mars?
Emeline: Yeah, I would say Mars. I don’t know why.
Rick: Very interesting.
Emeline: Just different planets. And I would say, listen, I’m not angry at you. Like we can all pretend, you’re lovely. That’s fine. But I know I’m not meant to be here. I know I’m not part of this family. And that is something I remember vividly. My mother had to show me that, you know, the pregnancy pictures and all of that, but it still wouldn’t ring true. And I think what became the meaning of my life from a pretty early age what was this sort of uh profoundly painful realization that, well, i’m not going back home anytime soon. I’m stuck here. All right. What do we do then? And I think that the defense mechanism set in place very, very early on was, okay, well, if I’m stuck here, I’m gonna have to be anyone but me. Because me, the real true me, is this entity that knows that, this essence that understands, on some strange level, that this isn’t home. This isn’t the main event. This is the waiting room and I don’t know why people are pretending this is the main event. I’m not buying it. And so, um, very early on, the quest, or rather the escape, became um, a constant search for identity. Who am I? Who can I become, if not me? And that translated into performance art. I discovered ballet. I had quite a lot of attraction, so, you know, my mother felt like I had this energy to sort of like spend physically. And so it started with ballet, which I end up doing professionally in France. I was born outside of Paris. I’m half French, half Swedish. And so I grew up doing ballet, trained at Paris Opera Ballet School, which is quite a reputable school, which is really, really hard, with all the cliches and stereotypes that you can imagine around the ballet world. But it was fantastic because I found myself an identity. So I could be the ballerina. But obviously that’s not the truth, right? So at some point, life came in the way. I got injured so I had to stop pretty much before transitioning professionally to the company. And so again, for the first time in a very long time, I was faced with this thing of, “Okay, I’m not the ballerina anymore, I’m not the dancer.” That’s fine. Who else then? Who’s next? Who can I become? Not what can I do, but who can I be? And so my 20s became pretty much an attempt, followed by constant failure, to just be anyone but me. And that sort of, the paroxysm of that was with acting, which you know, you then become everyone but you. And it was really interesting because it’s obviously still very, very hard, performance-based. And I remember, like it was yesterday, it was in fact a year and a half ago, my agent’s assistant had called me regarding the tape. You know, you’re asked to do American, different various sorts of accents, and for this one they didn’t really know so they asked me to do American accent, British, different ones. And the assistant called me and said, “You know, good work on the tape. By the way, just flagging, we can hear you. We can hear you in the tape.” I said, “Oh, okay, sorry. You can hear the Britishness coming out in the American.” They’re, “No, no, not really.” “No.” I said, “Do you mean French and British?” “No, no, it’s not French, it’s not British, it’s you, we can hear you.” And it’s such a mundane thing to say to an actor, I mean you know you work on accents, it’s just part of the toolbox, right? But there was just an exactitude in what she said, and there was something about time and space that froze at that second, where I just sort of thought, “Okay, I spent 30 years running away from myself and I thought I’d become so skilled at it and we can still hear you in the tape. Oh, well, I give up.” And there was just a sort of collapse in that moment where I realized what kind of undercurrent of intention had driven every single one of my choices my entire life, which was just a pull outside of me, running away from whatever “me” was. And in that moment, which could have been nothing, I had millions of conversations like this one before, but there was something about just the energetic signature of that moment where I thought, “Oh, I give up. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. I can’t spend my life pretending to be someone I’m not and I don’t want to be me, so what do I do?” And it’s interesting because now, retrospectively, I see it as the crumbling down that needed to happen so that truth could come through the cracks. But I just gave up. And so I thought, okay, every single choice I’ve made my entire life has been out of fear and lack rather than love and abundance, and has been in order to run away from me. And I’m skipping the to go into these because it happens to so many people, but there was a real sort of thing going on that just came to a halt recently. And from that point of complete stillness and absorption of why I had done everything I had done up until now, I just decided to stop, to stand still in the discomfort of it. And I don’t really know why, but that became the work. And then I had always been spiritually curious, obviously, having felt a sense of complete discomfort for the world from early on. And then things started to happen and I went to a few retreats. One of them was very intense and something tangible happened there and the sort of death that had started carried on in that moment. And the long story, which is not that short, is that, yes, I’ve had a strange experience recently which left me with nothing of the past life and of the past self. And this mental construct of me was just replaced with a sense of peace, and complete acceptance and just bliss. And I’ve been trying to make sense of it ever since. And somehow I’m here, which I don’t think I know why, but I’m happy to be here. But yeah, that’s it.
Rick: So I have some questions, based on what you just said. The first is, I found it remarkable that you felt like you were from Mars, because I interviewed a guy, the interview before the previous one, two interviews ago, who is some leader in something called the Aetherius Society, which was inspired by a guy named George King, who who lived in the UK. And one of their main contentions is that there are advanced civilizations on all the planets, and they particularly focus on Mars and Venus, which, you know, at first glance seems absurd because those places are uninhabitable because of the environmental conditions, but they say it’s subtle life, a subtle form of life. And that they are communicating with certain people on Earth and inspiring, and they say Jesus and Buddha came from Venus, but one of their main sources of wisdom and information was this guy from Mars, or this entity or being of some sort from Mars, which they claim has a very advanced civilization living in a subtler dimension. So I just thought that was kind of coincidental in an interesting way that you felt like you were from Mars. Maybe you’re one of them. Second thing I was wondering as you were unfolding all that, well you did answer my first question very well, which is something that I, maybe a lot of people have this, but the kind of people I interview very often have realizations like that when they were very young. They just feel like they don’t belong here, where did they come from, who are these weirdos that they live with, you know. And I think there might be something to that because, you know, I think a lot of us come from – if we’re on a spiritual path, we’re accustomed to a deeper reality or we feel like we belong in a deeper reality than is the norm we’re born into. There was a guy I interviewed named Christian Sundberg, who at one point began to remember not only his past life, but his before-birth life. And he remembered kind of signing up to be born on Earth and then chickening out when he was in the womb and aborting himself, and then getting a second opportunity eventually and being born. But it was a real shock and a real challenge to be in this world compared to the world he had dwelt in before. Anyway, now we’ll skip ahead here. I know you don’t want to dwell on all the details of your depressing twenties, but you did mention in a previous interview that I listened to that you, and you mentioned just now, that you suffered from a lot of depression during your 20s and were on medication and you had suicidal impulses and things like that. But it wasn’t clear from that interview what snapped you out of it. You mentioned some retreat and what happened? I mean, who was there? Would you care to describe what the retreat was about or who was teaching it or what kind of experiences you had that turned the corner for you?
Emeline: Yes, I think I’m purposely going to answer this by focusing only partially on the retreat, meaning the event, because I think we tend to glamorize these types of moments of meeting some sort of higher truth, and I don’t think that’s necessarily needed to come out of suffering. And so for me it was twofold. The first part was the experiential realization of why I had done everything I had done up until that point in order to escape myself. And that realization was very much both on an intellectual and lived level. And what I mean by that is that life sends you… I do believe that the universe speaks a different language, right? And it is our duty to listen. And if we don’t listen the first time, it’ll be a little nod that’ll be missed, and then maybe a little tap on the shoulder, and maybe something a bit stronger last. And so, I spent my life not listening, because listening would have meant admitting the truth and therefore what I was running away from. There was a concordance of events which led to me being forced to listen and to accept the reality of why I had made the decisions I had made. It just so happened that for me it just happened to me on my own. These things can be sometimes discussed in therapy. There is no blueprint for how you receive the truth that you’re running away from, right? And the reason why I mentioned that part is because that part forced me to stop. It forced me to, if not run towards my true self, at least not run away from it. And so, for the first time in 30 years, I had to accept the truth of standing still and the discomfort of the realization that every single thing I did, thought, felt, was, and incarnated were products for me to be as far removed from myself. And it’s that stillness that allowed me to, out of that stillness, came in a very organic way, a sense of “Okay, well, what’s next?” We’ve been trying to turn left your entire life left as a cul-de-sac, where are we going now? And it’s in the standing still that something arose within me. And again, a series of circumstances. I signed up to a mindfulness program, had no idea why, and that mindfulness program sent me to a Vipassana retreat within the first few weeks. I didn’t even Google Vipassana, I had no idea what that was. I didn’t know that, in the Goenka style, you meditate 10 hours a day. I was just completely–it just sort of all happened. And then something very strange and profound and pinpointable happened during that retreat where I–it’s only now after speaking to people that I can sort of make sense of it, although I don’t understand it intellectually, but there was just, there was a death. I feel like I peeked behind a curtain and everything became crystal clear, and in that understanding of the truth of our real nature, something fundamental that I thought was nearly just dissolved in an instant, like velcro being pulled apart. It was extremely painful and it was extremely unexpected because I was just trying to get through a retreat, frankly. I thought, it’s the difference between a state and a trait. I very incredulously thought that it was going to last a few days. I had a bit of an episode, I don’t know, and I was going to go back to my life and it would have been what it would have been, but then things would have gotten back to normal. I was the first one surprised when things didn’t get back to normal and the states didn’t go away and very organically turned into, well, all there is, frankly. It’s been strange and a bit challenging to make sense of it because people around you are very uncomfortable and it’s not something that my family or friends have… I mean, you know, why would they understand, frankly? But I’ve been trying to understand it and make sense of it ever since. Without intellectualizing it, there’s no point. But yes, that’s, I guess, I guess no one asked for my opinion, but that I’m now on a different riverside or something, you know, if that makes sense.
Rick: Yeah it does. I question the wisdom of throwing new meditators into a retreat where they’re doing 10 hours of meditation a day. It seems to have worked out for you, but you hear stories of psychosis and whatnot, you know, people, it’s too much too soon, I think, for some people. So I would just throw that out as a general caution to people.
Emeline: And I would say, quite a few people left.
Rick: Yeah.
Emeline: And I think that’s great. I think that’s fantastic to have the distance to feel that you can leave and you should leave.
Rick: Yeah. There are people like Willoughby Britton who runs something called Cheetah House in Rhode Island, who specialize in helping train wrecks from spiritual practice. People who have just had quite the opposite of their hoped for result. It usually has to do with doing too much of it or someone who is kind of mentally unstable. Was there any kind of screening when you went to the retreat, like whether you were psychologically healthy before they admitted you?
Emeline: Yeah, in the application, they asked me quite a few questions.
Rick: Okay, so you mentioned a lot of pain on that retreat. Was that the physical pain of just having to sit and meditate for 10 hours or was it also more of a psychological or psychic pain, which I think you alluded to in your previous answer?
Emeline: Yeah, both, absolutely. I had actually pulled a muscle in my back a few days prior to starting the retreat, so that was an interesting one.
Rick: Then you had to sit for all those hours.
Emeline: Yeah, it was, I mean it was a gift really, because again it was a masterclass in sensations, but yeah, of course, I mean you’re faced with the discomfort of nowhere to run and to just absorb the present moment, and the mind, just the constant inner commentary that the mind creates around any given what is, any given moment, absolutely. So that’s incalculable.
Rick: Yeah, and was the awakening on the retreat sort of a night and day difference in a moment, or did it just sort of dawn on you over the course of the retreat that things had shifted?
Emeline: The experience itself was pretty instantaneous and pretty black and white brutal, before and after, and there was sort of an inner knowing within me that had a sense that something really strange and profound had happened but I could absolutely not verbalize. I would say that it was leaving the retreat where I sensed, “Oh, this is not going away. This is deepening, what is going on?” So I think the change of environment made it clear that something profound had taken place and I was millions of miles away from being able to explain it. Yeah.
Rick: Yeah. Did it take you well? I mean, did you find yourself a little unable to function in normal circumstances at first? Like you were from Mars and you’re just getting used to Earth? And did people notice that, if that were the case? Did they say, “Oh, what happened to her?”
Emeline: Yes, yes. Some of my friends texted my family, saying, “We’re worried about her. There’s something strange going on.” My family were very confused as well, at first. There was a real sense of huge distance between this thing, this persona, and the rest of the world. And also why wouldn’t it be? They just witnessed the result of something, they didn’t go through the process with me. So they were just left with a very strange sort of um version of their daughter or friend or sister that they did not recognize. And I think it took me, I think that there was, I would say for some people, almost anger because I had ruptured the contract of the quality of our friendship, which is to complain together. And so, you know, all the architectural pillars upon which certain friendships and relationships are built, when they are fundamentally unhealthy or not stable, when one of the people breaks that sort of dynamic of these pillars, then the thing crumbles, right? And so some friendships were challenged and scattered and yes, it was not the easiest sort of transition, but I didn’t really choose any of it. So it was… I think time is just accepting that the the process of integration was going to take the time it takes, and if some things have to be um left by the side of the road, then so be it. That’s it. That’s also okay.
Rick: There’s an old Bengali saying which is, “If no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone.” I know in my case, back in the 60s, I had been taking full advantage of everything the 60s had to offer, and when I learned to meditate in ’68, I pretty much immediately dropped all my friends, because they were just continuing to do the stuff I had been doing, which had been very destructive. And I thought, “Okay, I’ll just walk the dog every day, and go down to the beach, and not have friends for a while.” And then, you know, after a few months, I started to meet new people who were living healthier lifestyles. Of course, I’m not implying that your friends were like my friends had been, but I needed to upgrade my whole life. I couldn’t keep doing the same things or hanging out with the same people anymore. It just didn’t work.
Emeline: Yeah, yeah, and I think it’s something that happens quite naturally as well if you let it. And what I mean by that is just, you know, the sort of overarching experience of not having any personal preferences. If your friendships remain, wonderful, they remain. If they don’t, that’s okay, too. The state of pure acceptance of what is, when it presents itself, whether it’s pleasant or not, to have the freedom to navigate any given moment without the fundamental clinging to strong personal preferences, makes it fundamentally easier and more truthful to walk life with integrity that way.
Rick: Yeah, and of course that’s a core teaching of many traditions such as Buddhism and so on. So maybe we’ll talk more about that as we go along. Did you maintain a regular practice of some kind after the retreat? Some regular meditation or something?
Emeline: Yeah, so I… we didn’t speak about this. I’ve been meditating for quite a while. I tried various styles of meditation and, you know, processes and I had never tried Vipassana. It’s not necessarily what I practice now. It was wonderful learning about it, but it’s not what I responded to in terms of daily practice. But yes, I mean I live a pretty monastic lifestyle. I’m on my own in my meditation. I’m often silent. So yeah, meditation is… Although I’ve come to challenge the sort of concept of meditation, the mind hangs on to very, very powerfully, especially when you sort of make spirituality at the forefront of your existence. And I now invite different versions of what we think meditation is. I don’t think it’s that important. I think it’s incredibly enriching to sit down and close your eyes and sit still, but I think you can meditate eyes open, walking the dog, doing the dishes. The level of mindfulness that you bring to any given present moment is really truly what matters on the central level.
Rick: Yeah, I mean one size does not fit all, as they say, and, you know, whatever works for you. And like you say it’s meditation, I mean I meditate, you know, eyes closed, but then also everything that happens throughout the day is a kind of a meditation in that it can be done mindlessly and impulsively, or it can be done with sort of a certain, you know, one eye in, one eye out, a certain introspection or scrutiny of one’s behavior, one’s thoughts, one’s state, which can make life much more smooth, if you attend to such things and not blunder about speaking or acting thoughtlessly. Yeah.
Emeline: Not be trapped in the mind. Yeah. Mindful of what is, yeah.
Rick: Were there ever any periods of nostalgia or doubt or wanting to return to your old life or was it a clean break?
Emeline: No. No.
Rick: Clean break.
Emeline: Clean break. Yes.
Rick: Yeah. Good. And you mentioned you’re you’re kind of a recluse, I heard you say in your other interview that you live on a farm, so you’re out in the country someplace, you’re just by yourself out there, you and the sheep? Or is it, you know, you have like some…
Emeline: I am surrounded by sheep, yeah. It is, so after almost 10 years in London, I went, I moved back home at a time where the acting industry was such a disarray, there were strikes in Hollywood that impacted greatly at the UK and so I didn’t have, I just simply didn’t have the money to stay in London and pay rent and so I moved back home here to this which used to be a horse stable, I think, a hundred years ago and then was abandoned and now it’s a house.
Rick: Is this where you grew up?
Emeline: Yes.
Rick: Okay, are your parents still there living or?
Emeline: No, they come quite often but they have their own thing outside of Paris. And so it became a sort of like family house.
Rick: It must be very bucolic and peaceful.
Emeline: Yeah, it’s wonderful. I’m very lucky.
Rick: What do you do with your time? Do you do any actual farming stuff, like milk the cows? Or are you just kind of… what do you do?
Emeline: No, I wish. I do work part-time. I work remote. I have, you know, I mean I have to keep on. I think that’s the sort of strange in between, where it feels that you’ve glimpsed at the true nature of reality and who you are your essential truth beyond the mind beyond the body and then you still have to pay the bills and you still have to work and you still have to, of course, like anybody else and so I’m welcoming the period of transition where right now what I do is not necessarily, you know, a career that I want to have. I’m not really interested in having any sort of career, to be honest. I work because I have to, but I do believe that if I stay long enough with a sort of spaciousness within, I think there is such power in not knowing, and in remaining with a question, and remaining with a doubt, and not letting the mind jump to the sort of organization, planning, controlling that the mind has, and the structure and power of the mind is that. And to remain in the sort of ethereal unknown, and be okay with that, then something will come out of that element, something will come out of that stillness within. That will not be my choice, it will be something offered to me as a completely logical and seamless next step. And so I don’t know what’s next for me, but what I do know is, that if I honor that stillness within, it will show up. And in the meantime, I do the work that I can, to be able to, you know, buy groceries and be okay. But yeah.
Rick: It’s not any kind of spiritual work. It’s just some sort of job that you do online. Yeah, okay Yeah, I mean when I was your age, which is what about 30 or so, I couldn’t possibly have imagined, you know, what I would be doing now. I thought maybe I’d be a monk in the Himalayas by now. But you know, I don’t think that was what I was supposed to do. I have friends who were thinking the same thing, who are actually doing that now, and I don’t envy them in the least. I feel like what I’m doing is much more in line with… it is what I’m supposed to be doing. But I spent years being a computer consultant, climbing around under people’s desks, hooking up wires and taking their computers apart. I did search engine optimization for years, helping people sell widgets, and stuff which had no intrinsic profound value, but like you say, I had to pay the bills. And then the idea to do this came along, and the idea wouldn’t let go. It was like, “This is one thing I absolutely need to do.” And then one thing led to the next, and it just got all kinds of support. So I’m sure your life will go similarly, in which all kinds of support will come when it’s supposed to come.
Emeline: Yes, and I mean, you touch on something that I find fascinating which is that I profoundly believe that there is, we share an inner purpose which is to awaken and I think that’s connected, that is not just you or a few selected people. I think that the purpose of humanity on this earth is to awaken on an individual and collective level. That is an inner purpose and I think whatever you do outside in the world will be an expression and a manifestation of the fulfillment and the curiosity given to that inner purpose and that will be different for everyone, but it will come from a place of wholeness and unity around the devotion to that inner purpose, which is to awaken. However that manifests for each of us is the lottery, that’s what’s so fascinating. Maybe some people just remain silent and that is their gift to the world on a very local level and some people become incredible, you know… But I don’t think that matters as much as to get in touch with the true nature of who you are, meaning the true nature of your inner purpose, which is to awaken to who you are.
Rick: Yeah, well, you know, Jesus’s saying, “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else should be added unto thee.” And there are many other sayings like that in different traditions. There’s a verse in the Gita which goes, “Because one can perform it, one’s own dharma, though lesser in merit, is better than the dharma of another. Better is death in one’s own dharma. The dharma of another brings danger.” And you know, dharma, for those who don’t know the term, in this context means that course of action which is most conducive to evolution. And it’s not necessarily being a monk in the Himalayas or some such thing, or a girl living on a farm. It’s what, for you, is the most evolutionary thing, and that might be raising a child or doing this kind of a job or all kinds of things, but I think what you just said is very important. If you have a deep inner intention and desire for evolution, then nature kind of organizes your life accordingly and presents you with opportunities to go in that direction.
Emeline: Yes Absolutely, and then it’s our job to listen.
Rick: Yeah
Emeline: And to honor what’s served to us, which is not necessarily the comfortable thing. In fact, it’s never the comfortable thing, because we don’t awaken in the comfort zone.
Rick: Right.
Emeline: It takes it takes challenge. Life is in some way here to challenge us in order to awaken us. Yeah.
Rick: You mentioned that you you go hours sometimes without thinking. Um. Did that experience just come upon you spontaneously? Naturally? Or is it something that you in some way intentionally settle into because you enjoy it?
Emeline: Um. So I would say that one of the most immediate and powerful byproducts or consequences of this strange thing that happened to me during this retreat was, again, twofold. First of all, becoming so incredibly aware that there is a thinking machine in the mind that is constantly operating, that it becomes impossible to ignore anything that streams through the process of the mind. And so, I think that, in this sort of death that I felt in that moment, something of a separation took place. And so, within that internal distance and space within, it became so clear who was the witness and who was the thinking being thought. And from that greater distance, it became impossible to avoid anything that came to thinking. And very naturally, whilst that distance sort of amplifies internally, and that spaciousness lingered, what happened, without me realizing it, was just a slowing down of thinking. I think, yeah, I just very naturally, without even choosing to, started thinking way less, very little. Of course, I still think, on some days more than others, that’s normal, but the sort of white noise, the broken radio at the corner of a room, that sort of constant sports radio presenter commentator commenting on absolutely everything, that subsided to an extent that was quite drastic and became a a new sort of normal but yes, yeah.
Rick: That’s really nice, yeah, most people’s minds are like you say, several radios playing at the same time, and a lot of energy is wasted with all those superfluous, extraneous, irrelevant thoughts. And I’ve often read and heard it described that, in a more enlightened state of functioning, you don’t stop thinking, but you have thoughts that are worth having, that are relevant, that are pertinent to the situation. And when the situation doesn’t call for any thoughts, you may not have any. Same with dreams. I think I heard you say that you don’t dream very much anymore.
Emeline: No, I don’t think I do. I mean, although it’s hard, because sometimes you don’t remember your dream, too. So it’s a harder one to sort of pinpoint, but… No, I don’t dream a lot, no.
Rick: Yeah.
Emeline: And I think, when it comes to thought, it’s also marking the clear difference between what is your thought, a thought incarnated by an individual impulse, and you know, what Krishnamurti says, when he says you think you’re thinking your thoughts, but you’re not, you’re thinking society’s thoughts. There’s this process of data flashing through you, that the mind grabs and holds on to and try tries to make sense of, and meaning of, then create patterns around. But they’re not your thoughts. They’re just, they’re just sort of like connecting, being thought through you. And that quality of thinking subsides greatly. Yes. Of course, when a situation arises where you need thinking then thinking becomes an incredible tool, but, you know, as everyone says, great servant, not great master. So obviously that shift is, becomes clearer with time, yes.
Rick: Yeah. It’s said that a lot of thinking is just the action-impression-desire cycle playing itself out, which is kind of an habituation, or an addiction, really. We have a desire, we act on it, it creates an impression, that plants the seeds for another desire. And many people are just bound up, most people are bound up with layer upon layer of this conditioning. And what you have experienced is a shift out of a conditioned way of functioning. And so I would say, I would presume that most of your thoughts are not just habitual impulses due to that cycle. They’re just coming from a deeper, more intuitive place. I mean, someone like the Buddha, let’s say, had probably just really cleaned out the whole conditioning process of action, impression, desire. But he still had thoughts, and he taught, and he wrote things, and so on, but those thoughts were not… they’re from a completely different mechanism than habitual, conditioned thoughts. And the same is true with dreams. Dreams are just the release of impressions during deep sleep that cause mental experiences, which we experience as dreams, but if most of the impressions have been dissolved, then there’s no impetus for having as many dreams. You might still have some, but also a lot of dreams can be more, you know, astral traveling or some kind of intuitive, other realm experience.
Emeline: Yeah, and it’s, I mean, I find it fascinating and it’s what you point to, which is, anything pertaining to the illusion of self, when you come to the visceral realization that it is an illusion, that it is not real, that there is no self, there is no thing, and all of that dissolves, and then come to see how much of your thinking pattern and habit and addiction was revolving around the protection, the solidification, the sort of confirmation of this self, this separate self, moving through space and time, and how much of thinking was spent enhancing that entity through designs, through aversion, through the future planning, through remembering the past, you know through people, through relationships, it’s just about solidifying this illusionary self that wants to dissolve, but there’s nothing to protect anymore. It’s what Meister Eckhart says, when he says, you know, “There’s a place in the soul that cannot be rendered.” That the formless part of who we are, that the real oneness of being, is untouchable and does not need protection through the mind and through the construct of these thoughts. So I’m thinking less, and I’m not saying by any mean that I’m an enlightened Buddha, let’s just make that very, very clear. It just becomes so clear, it just becomes so transparent when somehow there is a moment in time that shows you the truth behind the curtain. Like a flash of truth, it just becomes so embodied within, that there is no hiding behind thoughts anymore.
Rick: Yeah, I was just talking to a friend yesterday and we both we compared notes on a similar experience which we both had, which was falling flat on our faces on the cement. He by tripping over a curb in New York City and me by tripping over something on the pickleball court, but it was like, wham! Right in the face! And we both ended up with big black eyes and bloody noses and stuff. But the reason we were talking about it was that we both experienced that, at the moment of impact, there was just this pure silence where, you know, this traumatic experience is happening, but you kind of, it throws into contrast the deep silence that is always there, to which injury cannot happen, or pain, or suffering, or anything. It’s just this shining inner silence that, you know, you take for granted, but when something like that happens, it becomes more obvious.
Emeline: That’s incredible that you were capable of picking up that depth within in such a moment of quote-unquote survival there. I think that’s really interesting.
Rick: Yeah, that’s not something you could try to do. I mean it all happens too fast. It’s just something that is there, you know, and it’s there all the time, but usually there’s nothing so contrasting as to, you know, notice it so clearly.
Emeline: And it happens in the… I mean, you can test it out again. It’s not something you can control but, for instance, when, you know, you’re in a room and someone opens the door quite abruptly and you turn around and there is a moment where you don’t know who’s going to come through the door. And so you’re just in state of complete… again, complete stillness, complete waiting, or, you know, the cat waiting by the mousetrap, you know this sort of alert awareness that doesn’t judge, that just is in the background constantly, and that is that the container, operating this container where the content is taking place, but it’s very, it’s in certain moments of the day is very potent. We just realize that there is a… there’s a still alertness operating in the background constantly. Yeah, no, it’s fascinating.
Rick: Yeah. On the same note, when you were describing the detachment between the thought process and the self or the pure consciousness or whatever you want to call it, have you found, do you find, that because of that detachment, because you’re not overshadowed and identified and absorbed in all your thought processes, that sometimes a thought can arise and you see that that’s not a thought I want to entertain, and you can just nip it in the bud.
Emeline: Yes, it’s something I was talking about with someone a few days ago, as to how… I don’t know, I can only speak from personal experience, but I do believe there are various ways of interacting with a quality of a thought you don’t want to experience in the moment. To some people it is turning away, nipping in the bud, “No, thank you, bye.” What I have found seems more natural for me and to me is to witness the arising of that thought and to say, “Yes.” “Yes” to the thought, whatever it is. There’s rather sort of open openness where I welcome it fully, because I do believe thoughts have energetic cycles and so it ought to pass through me quicker if I say “yes” to it, whatever it is. And so, instead of seeing it happen and being like, “No thank you, not interested,” I turn myself towards the thought, whatever that is, and say “yes” to it. In welcoming the trajectory of the thought, it becomes clear that it only passes through me in order to go and bother someone else after. So the “yes,” the sort of openness of the “yes,” is again this idea of, you know, the only thing that’s real is now. You only have the present moment, right? And so you can either contract in the face of the present moment, if the present moment is not something you find pleasant, or you accept the present moment fully. You might not rejoice about the present moment, but it has to start with acceptance. That knows that the scale of resistance within, and to me that acceptance starts with, “Yes, absolutely, alright.” Knowing that it doesn’t belong to me, knowing that these thoughts are not the truth, knowing that they’re not real, knowing that they have no weight, no gravitas, and no impact upon my life, but that the openness of “yes” I find more conducive to this constant vibration of acceptance that I believe is needed to live in accordance with the truth of the present moment.
Rick: Yeah, that’s good. It’s good you said that, because I didn’t want to give the impression that one should be like always on guard of and then just fighting against some negative thought that comes up or something. It’s more like a little subtle adjustment of the steering wheel as you’re driving, where you don’t have to like fight the steering wheel, you just tweak it a little bit and it keeps you in your lane. And the reason you can do that is that you actually are residing in a place that is prior to the emergence of thought. And it’s kind of like, let’s say, bubbles in an ocean. They come up from the bottom and they get bigger and bigger and pop on the surface. So for most people, they don’t see the bubbles until they pop on the surface, and there’s nothing much you can do about them at that point. They’ve already bubbled up. But if you were like a diver at the bottom of the ocean, maybe you could just sort of… from there the bubble is the tiny little thing and it might be easier to change its direction, or prevent it from bubbling, or whatever. Okay, so let’s talk about relationships and connections and stuff like that for a while. We mentioned friendships changing. Have you acquired a new set of friends if you’re not so much with your old ones, or you’re pretty much like a recluse out there?
Emeline: Being alone is what feels the most natural in the world to me, at least for now. It has always been, though. I have wonderful friendships and wonderful friends with whom I remain close and who understand and appreciate and accept the sort of transition they’ve witnessed. Same with my family. But there is a constant sort of intuitive knowing, that alone but never alone state, you know, just being with the self and the sort of expansion needed when you’re on your own to sort of be in this contemplative space is what fits me best. So I don’t have many relationships in that way. I would rather sort of make sure that the ones I do have remain healthy and aligned and pure. But love is not possessive so all of these things are cycles. Um. But now yes, there is a real sense of embodied peace when I find myself on my own.
Rick: Sounds great. Quality over quantity. And, you know, I mean, some of my best friends are people I’ve never in person, face to face, because I met them through this show, but I have beautiful, long, philosophical conversations with them while I’m walking in the woods and that kind of thing. So doing this show has put me in an interesting position for meeting all kinds of fascinating people that I would never otherwise have met. But one thing I’ve found, and you’ve probably found this, too, traveling around, is wherever you go, there are real gems of people everywhere in the world. I mean, I’ve lived in Iran, Philippines, and all kinds of places, and they are very deeply spiritual people in every culture. Some of them very much, you know, a fish out of water in a culture that is not at all in alignment with their nature, but they’re there nonetheless and… yeah.
Emeline: And again, I think these people attract each other on some level. We only operate at the level of consciousness we’re at, so when you encounter someone who exists at a similar level of consciousness, that recognition becomes extremely clear.
Rick: Yeah.
Emeline: And it has this sort of retroactive boomerang effect, I find. So, yes, in some way I found myself self encountering people with similar interests and a similar sort of yearning for an internal life to be explored more than maybe an external one, more recently.
Rick: Yeah. Nice. And how about relationships, let’s say that you have to, well I don’t want to put you on the spot, but you know, we all have that crazy uncle that we have to meet at Thanksgiving or something, or Christmas and stuff. Have you found yourself more artful in your behavior with people who are totally not on your wavelength?
Emeline: It’s interesting that you say that. Again, it’s something I spoke about with a friend not so long ago. I don’t want to sound like any of this is something that I have control over in some way, because I don’t. I find myself realizing things, ways of operating, ways of enacting certain truths on the spot. It’s not something that I control or iterate. And what became increasingly obvious and immediate after all these things happened was that it seems only logical, right, that one of the most immediate consequences of understanding that there is no self, not capital Self, but there is no Jiva, right, there is no tiny self, there is no persona, no mask. Well then, if I don’t exist and this illusion of separation is only an illusion, there is no separation between you and I, and if there is no separation between you and I and other people, then when I hurt you, I hurt myself. So then why would the fuel of every interaction, the fuel of every single instance shared with someone not be absolute love and compassion? How is it possible for someone to understand the truth of your own nature and true nature of who you are without accommodating new space for this absolute love and compassion that oneness invites you to incarnate. So what I see now is just some people are in pain more than others, and that suffering creates like a domino effect, a series of unhealthy toxic behaviors or choices or ways of expressing themselves in the world and navigating it. But it is a suffering. It is suffering, it is the illusion of separation, it is the illusion of lack and it is this complete veil put on who they think they are versus their true nature, their real essence, the formless divine within them. And so there is just compassion really, truly, and love. And that doesn’t mean, you know, “I’m open, cut me like a vegetable.” You need sense of boundaries and sometimes saying “yes” to the present moment means saying “no” to someone, but the ego doesn’t have to come into that. “No” doesn’t have to be “no, because you don’t respect me.” It’s just “no,” just a skillful “no.” A “no” that comes from place of love, rather than a place of lack, so um Yes, I do have… I am surrounded by quite…
Rick: Earthy
Emeline: Complicated, earthy. Yes… uh… people and their love. Absolute love and compassion. And so if that needs to be at a distance sometimes, then so be it. It doesn’t mean that I can’t impact by sending love, metta loving kindness, to this person. I don’t need to aggrandize myself by judging and thinking i’m superior and you know, it’s yeah, it’s just acceptance.
Rick: There’s a verse in the Gita, which is something like, “the enlightened being,” … and not that I’m calling you enlightened because I know you don’t want to be called that… “The enlightened being perceives all beings in the self, and the self in all beings.” By self, we mean obviously not individual self. And so do you have a sense that, you know, encountering various people, that you sort of tune into their true nature even though they may not be doing so? I mean, I heard you in a previous interview say you do that with trees, so why not people? Maybe trees are easier to tune into.
Emeline: What I find absolutely blissful and divine on so many levels is to sort of, whether it’s for observing someone, whether it’s for being in nature or in stillness, you know, if you have the opportunity of observing someone without looking like a weirdo, that’s up to any sort of single situation but to find yourself in a place of pure observation where it’s like looking into a mirror, right? That your state of still observation allows you to, yes, sneak a peek at what’s going on behind the curtain of the persona of the other person. So there is… the same way that there is within you an innate aliveness, there is within them an innate aliveness. And to get in touch with that aliveness that is always there, because it is their true nature, whether they realize it or not, is absolutely wonderful as a practice, almost. And that can happen when… I love… I mean I’m going to sound like a… I love looking at people in the bus, you know, when they’re on the bus, on their phone, looking out by the window, when they’re not talking, when they’re not necessarily interacting with the outside world, and there is a sense of stillness. They might be thinking, feeling and ruminating on what’s been happening and what they need to prepare for dinner and what’s going to happen in the future, but there is a sense of stillness because they’re sat there. When you allow yourself to tune into the recognition of the inner alignments of the other person, it becomes so clear that we share the same fabric, the same tapestry of being. And it obviously is, I do believe it is mostly the reason why people enjoy being in nature, because that recognition becomes ten times clearer in nature. This aliveness is sort of unfiltered, unveiled by mechanisms of the mind of the person, of the habits, of the patterns, of the, you know, the behaviors that personalizes the self. There is an inner aliveness that filtrates through every single being and thing in nature and becomes, it sort of becomes transparent in nature. So I think that’s one of the reasons why we do feel so connected when we are in a place of, you know, a place with nature. Yeah, I don’t know if that answered your question.
Rick: No, it does. And it also reminds me of why we love animals so much and little babies, you know, because they’re not all covered up with layers and layers of crud. Yeah, you can look into a dog’s eyes and you kind of like looking right into their soul, or a baby.
Emeline: That’s exactly it, and it’s fascinating with this. I was listening to Rupert Spira a few days ago, and he was talking exactly about that, since he’s specialized in non-duality and all these things and, you know, the nature of consciousness and he was taking this example of a birth. If you’ve just been born, and you don’t have any notion of self, any notion of you, any notion of the world, any notion of separation, any thoughts, any emotions, you have just been brought into the world, just been born. What is that state if not pure being? Right? And that is the state that you recognize in a baby, because you recognize it in yourself, as well. We only recognize what we experience. I can look at my dog and know that it’s breathing because I know what breathing is. I recognize it in the dog because I know it in myself. This oneness that you mentioned that you see in animals and babies and nature, we recognize it as such, maybe without naming it, because it exists within us. And that is, it’s the moment of sort of encounter within that makes it so clear as well.
Rick: Yeah, nice. Of course, I you know, I mean there are different philosophical attitudes about this. I I don’t think that babies are tabula rasa. They don’t come in as a blank slate. They come in with a load of karma, but at least they haven’t gotten all encumbered in this life yet, you know by the stuff that comes at us. And on a similar note, for the sake of philosophical discussion, not argument, you know, you mentioned a few minutes ago that there isn’t a Jiva. And this gets into a sort of Hinduism versus Buddhism thing where, you know, the Buddhists, as I understand it, feel that there is no discrete entity such as a Jiva that goes from life to life, even though they believe in reincarnation. And I don’t completely understand this because they feel like the Dalai Lama has been the the Dalai Lama in many lives, and when they choose a new one, the kid has to try to recognize things that belonged to the previous one, and so on. But in the Hindu worldview, it’s more like the Jiva or Sukshma Sharira, as it’s sometimes called, which is the subtle body, does actually go from one gross body to the next, and progresses as it does so. And there is some kind of integrity to it. Even though you might be a tennis player in one life, an invalid in another life, and all kinds of different roles that you take on to work out different kinds of karma and gain different kinds of experiences, there is some essential entity that evolves through these lives. So I think you kind of stand along on the Buddhist line of thinking more from what I’ve heard you say so far, but I just thought I’d throw that out there because I think I like to take things as interesting hypotheses and ponder all the possibilities.
Emeline: Yes, absolutely. I don’t know where I stand. I don’t feel affiliated to any spiritual, philosophical, religious discourse. I do think, and you know, maybe probably, most likely, many people will disagree with me on this, but I do think that to some extent they are all pointing to the same truth. The arrows are different, the paths you might be taking to encountering that truth are varied and different, but in my opinion, the way I perceive it is that they are pointing towards the same truth. Whether you call it the Buddha nature, whether you call it Atman, the kingdom of heaven, it is Dao. These are pointers, they’re not the true, they are pointers towards the truth. The truth is ineffable, right? It cannot be put into words. And I do believe that they are all pointing towards the same direction.
Rick: Yeah. Sure. And not only different religions, but even within the same, even within Advaita Vedanta, there are about six different schools that have been arguing with each other for centuries. And, you know, it’s the old blind man and the elephant thing. They’re all right. The elephant is kind of like a tree trunk and kind of like a snake and kind of like a spear, but you know, nobody tends to see the whole elephant. A question came in, this is from Tanya Green in Zurich, Switzerland. “What is the sense,” and this is related to what we’re saying, kind of, “What is the sense of awakening in human life if we were already awake before incarnating?”
Emeline: That’s a great question. I’m not sure I have an answer.
Rick: I could take a stab, which is that we weren’t already awake before incarnating. That’s why we incarnated.
Emeline: Yes, I think there is a difference between knowledge and experience. That’s the primordial difference. This formless dimension of who we are, whether you call it the divine, the soul, it doesn’t matter. The untouchable part, the pure being, the truth, our true nature, who we really are, separates itself into matter, not in order to know, because it is all known, but because it is everything first and foremost. I do believe it separates itself into matter, into the illusion of separation. You can go left, I can go right, we can live in America, I can live in Paris, not in order to know more, but in order to experience that knowledge through the infinite multiplicity of experiences. So there is a fundamental difference between knowledge and and experience and being sent here on that plane in order not to discover but to remember, to remember what we know as the formless within, happens through experience. Experience is only of the earthly plane. And so yes, we awaken to the truth that we already are, but we awaken to that truth through the filter, through the momentum of experience in the 3D. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Rick: No, that’s good. I think that’s part of it. And again, various traditions say that the pre-birth or between-birth state is a realm, it’s a loka, but you generally don’t awaken there. It’s kind of like a resting place or, you know, you kind of recalibrate before you take on another another lifetime, but that the actual awakening has to take place in an embodied state. And there are some provisos that, you know, in some cases one can awaken even from a higher loka and never come back to the earthly plane. But, according to these traditions, for what it’s worth, they say that human birth is a great opportunity, an enviable one, an envied one, the angels are jealous, because it’s an opportunity for great evolution, howsoever challenging it may be, or perhaps because it’s challenging.
Emeline: Yes, we go back to what we said at the beginning, there is no… life is not here to make us happy. It is not here to accommodate us. We need to look at the trajectory of evolution of the past, I don’t know, how many millions of years. It is here to challenge us, because it is here to awaken us in the earthly plane. And awakening happens through the challenges, the friction, the illusion of separation.
Rick: Here’s another question that came in from Gregory Hartzler Miller in the U.S. “What is your sense of the word ‘love’ at present?”
Emeline: It’s the language the universe speaks. It really is the glue that holds everything together, at every single level. Love is order. Love is knowing, knowing yourself and knowing another. Love is… There is a reason. It is our true nature. I think, you know, we use words such as awakening and enlightenment. I think if we just kept on speaking about our true nature, it might feel closer and not so exotic and sophisticated, and one might call it love, someone else might call happiness, joy, bliss. Love is the return home. It is it is the recognition of one’s true nature. And it is, in my opinion, what the universe is made of.
Rick: Beautiful answer, very good Have you found, you know, you mentioned you have some kind of job that you support yourself with. Have you found that, post-awakening, and we were talking also about the efficiency of thought not being cluttered with a million extraneous thoughts, have you found that your your action in practical circumstances, such as doing your job, has become more skillful or efficient, or something, as a result of your current inner state.
Emeline: Yes, this is an interesting one because, for anyone who knows me personally, I have this sort of, how can I put it in a politically correct way, I am very organized. I am. And I think it comes as, you know, I don’t know why, it’s just part of the persona’s toolbox, really. The organizational skill obviously is sort of a ramification that comes from what was before need to control, a need to control, a need to oversee, a need to plan, a need to foresee, to forecast, to curate. So control was the origin of my organization and what sort of happened recently is, how does a sense of inner discipline and organization remain without the control? How does that manifest when the the root has been cut and the skill still exists, but doesn’t come from the same place, the same intention. And so, I am slower than I used to be. I think I was very much wired, quite hyper, before. I’m definitely slower, but what I found incredibly efficient and skillful, not just at work and life always, is to just welcome the task that needs to be done with full intent. I don’t let the inner commentary… there is so much waste, so much energy wasted on menial tasks that we don’t want to perform, especially at work. That slows us down. So it is just to welcome the absolute necessity of here and now, what needs to be done, and to find, if not a sense of joy in it, or purpose, just a sense of pure acceptance. And that is, I think, in a strange way, a recipe for efficiency, to just accept what needs to be done here and now. It probably doesn’t answer the question.
Rick: No, it does. That’s a very good answer. I think, as you were saying it, I thought that perhaps there are many qualities which might be considered neurotic or something, ordinarily, which actually, if freed from their neurotic qualities, could still exist, but in a wholesome and useful way. So you just talked about, you know, you’re kind of obsessive-compulsive or something about getting everything organized. Now you’re organized, but without all the obsessiveness and compulsion. And we can probably think of a dozen other qualities like that, which have a dark side and a light side, depending upon whether they’re encumbered by conditioning or not.
Emeline: The nature of the intention behind them.
Rick: Yeah.
Emeline: And it’s quite interesting actually, because I was serving at a meditation center in the UK recently, where they do work retreats, where you volunteer and you’re there every day and then they lodge you. And so I was there for three weeks, and they had put me into the kitchen, which is quite, know, high stakes, high intensity space. And so I was forced into a rhythm that was not my own. I was forced into walking quickly, carrying heavy plates, putting things on the table super quickly when a hundred people were waiting in line and, you know, forced into a pace of existing that is not my natural pace. And what I found wonderful to witness was that there is, again, from the outside people can See, “Oh my God, she’s so stressed,” and, you know, she’s walking quickly, but actually you do enter a state of flow, and it just so happens that that state of flow is carried at a quicker pace. But it is meeting the moment with what the moment requires of you, even if it’s not your natural predisposition, and honoring that without any mental commentary. So, just incarnating the rhythm that the moment demands of you, but not adding the layer of the mind that says, “Okay, that needs to happen and then don’t forget that and not quick enough and look at all these people, oh my goodness, they’re waiting, they’re slowing down,” to just meet the moment with what the moment means of you to be that vessel. Sometimes it requires a high speed and it’s really interesting to see how that can happen without feeling overwhelmed by that speed which then becomes stress. To just be in flow with the rhythm of the situation, if that makes sense.
Rick: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that being spiritual means talking slowly, moving slowly, and you know, just acting kind of like a happy zombie. I think you can be very dynamically active and, you know, like you were just describing and be in a very still state within. You could be a professional tennis player, or actress, for that matter…
Emeline: Yeah
Rick: Although actress is a little weird because you have to take on all these other personalities and do stuff that you’re not inclined to do, you know, sometimes. I imagine that’s probably why you got away from it.
Emeline: Although I would say with any any sports, any art forms, you know, they describe it as flow. You enter a state of acute awareness and profound consciousness, where the mind has dissipated. There is no… you’re just absolutely enthralled in the act of it, as an extension of the self, as an extension of being. And there is, in fact, there is a quality of being that infuses the doing so much that one really becomes the sort of manifested and incarnated version of the other. And so, when you do enter that state of flow, then wonderful. You’re free of the mind, you’re liberated, you’re just one with the present moment. That’s a wrap, I guess.
Rick: Yeah, that sounds interesting. I know there are some actors and actresses who are very spiritual people. They practice meditation and stuff. I wonder if acting could be conducive to evolution, certainly if it’s your dharma to do it, but also just by virtue of the fact that you do have to take on all these different personas. I wonder if that can make you somehow more flexible or less attached to the persona with which you were born, kind of enhance the witnessing quality?
Emeline: It’s a fascinating conversation. We speak about it quite a lot with an actor friend of mine, and I mention him because the approach is acting from a place of absolute love and abundance. I know that he was meant to be an artist, storyteller, whether it’s actor or something else. He is meant to use his being in this way, in this lifetime. I approached it from, as we’ve determined, a running away from myself, don’t want to be myself, so I’ll be anybody else. I approached it from the intention of lack and fear and the profound disillusion and disbelief that I am not good enough just being me. So I think it really depends on on the platform upon which you build your house, you know, is the foundation sturdy and is the foundation authentic and just love, you know. And if that’s the case, then wonderful, because that means that, by incarnating other beings, by allowing that then the boundaries of yourself to become more flexible, because less identified with you and your story, the story of me, what you do is that you let compassion in, in a beautifully experiential and in this whole way, you quite literally allow yourself to become someone else, and live in their shoes, with their set of fears, releases then habitual patterns and, if done right, and if honored, you cultivate a tremendous amount of compassion for the other person. Because you can’t be a good actor if you’re judging your character, that’s just not possible. So it invites a deep sense of loving kindness in the presence of embodying someone else.
Rick: Hmm. Could you imagine yourself ever going back to it with this whole new orientation?
Emeline: I don’t know. Who knows? I feel no desire.
Rick: Yeah, no, that’s it. That’s totally natural, appropriate. Yeah, I mean, perhaps you have friends or family who are urging you to do so, but I totally respect your, whatever moves you, you know? I think you’ll make the right choices.
Emeline: I think it’s hard to unlearn what you’ve learned and to unlearn what you know and to sort of, it would feel for now like squeezing myself into a box that’s very tiny and narrow, in which I could barely breathe. I think it would… it does cost you a bit of peace to be an actor. I mean, you know, on an energetic level it is draining to perform, with your body as a tool. And when you are given the opportunity to perform nitty gritty roles, you know, the complex drama, highly psychological ones that everyone sort of craves for, then it’s painful because you exist in a in a nervous state of vibration of whatever the world requires of you, which is pain, anger, grief. I mean, you’re not in a state of homeostasis, you’re not in a state of inner peace and balance, because you have to embody the truth of that lived moment for that character and that is painful.
Rick: Yeah, I’m thinking that movie with Glenn Close and Michael Douglas, what was it called? I forget. But anyway, she had to play this really horrific, you know, crazy person. I should think that having to act that way, hours on end, would enliven those qualities in you to some extent.
Emeline: I think if you don’t take care of yourself during, before, after, it can damage. I mean, I’ve heard quite a few stories of people who really have been damaged, short-term and long-term, by certain rules, because you just give everything of you in it. So yeah, it requires experience and wisdom to play with the boundary between what is real and what isn’t, and recognize that.
Rick: Yeah, interesting. Another question came in, this one is from Brent Elkholm in Australia. “Do you have any thoughts on dealing with the shadow self if you are not in a fully awakened state every moment of the day?”
Emeline: I think calling it “shadow self” makes it so heightened and scary. Okay. In my view, which is very personal, there is no “shadow self.” There is no separate entity that lives within you that is causing your suffering. People do treat the mind and thoughts as a separate entity rather than a process, and I don’t think that’s helpful. I think what is causing most people suffering is their relationship with the mind, is their relationship with thinking. It… Maybe not for everyone, but I do believe that it can be boiled down to that. What is the relationship that you entertain with your mind, with thinking? If you observe the quality of your thoughts on a day-to-day basis, if you really become the observer of what is happening in your mind, it will become very clear what the mind does and how the mind identifies with certain traits. How the mind identifies with the past, with a future, what happened to you, the story of me. How I can’t get through the story of me, the story of me is defining me. It was my past that I’m bringing into the present. It will define my future, then. The mind, our relationship to the mind, is what causes our suffering. In other words, there is a huge difference between an event and our mind’s commentary in relationship to the event. An event, what the mind makes of the event, is what sticks, is what creates unpleasant memories and traumas and all these things. The process of identifying with the truth that the mind builds, the story of me, is what causes suffering. There is nothing to do, to actively pursue, in order to kill the mind. There’s no point in trying to achieve that. It would be a mistake. The first step is to recognize the mind for what it is, is to invite spaciousness within, like we spoke about earlier, is to realize that there is, within you, bits of data circulating all the time that the mind makes personal, that thinks about the past, about the future, about me, about identity, where you come from, and what’s painful, and reliving what’s painful, and this reinforcing your sense of self constantly, the mind, the mind, thoughts, thoughts. And if you can create spaciousness within, if you can start, just through pure observation, not by doing anything, to recognize that you are not the mind. You are the witness, observing the mind. You are not the mind, you are not the thoughts, you are not the emotions attached to the thoughts. Emotions just being thoughts incarnated into the body, really. There is a sense of spaciousness between who you really are, and the mind. I find that going about it this way makes it less personal. There is not a separate self that is on a vendetta against you, called the “shadow self,” that is trying to ruin your life. It is just a process that we are addicted to, that is causing us suffering. And that process is not who you are. You’re the person witnessing that process and observing it from a place of distance. And it is inviting that spaciousness within, between that process, thinking, dysfunctional addictive patterns of thinking, and who you really are, that is going to alleviate the anxiety that comes with just being human, living your life. And that is not something that requires any doing, per se, it is just a state of pure observation. If you can start observing your thoughts and observing the rhythm of your mind, it will become so clear that you are not the mind. It will become so clear that you are the instance, ever silent, ever non-judging, never commenting, always just observing, purely and still-ly, the mind. You’re the thing observing it. And the more distance is invited within, the more you carry focusing on that stillness and that spaciousness within, the less weight, the less importance, the less gravitas, you will give to the space that mind and thoughts occupy. You will see it for what it is. It is actually impersonal bits of data moving through you, and the mind holds on to it, and grabs it, and tries to make it personal, because the mind pattern-making, meaning-making machine, but it certainly feels personal, I know it does, but you’re not the story of me that the mind is trying to paint of you. You are the truth witnessing it. And to invite that spaciousness within is the first step towards a sense of stillness, because of separation between who you really are and this constant and permanent change happening. If you can see that who you really are cannot be wounded by the impact of your thoughts and feelings, then you will come to realize that there is an innate peace that was always there but it was just veiled by the movements and the addiction of the mind, and the the suffering it causes, then there is no peace to find. You are that peace. It is just veiled. It’s been veiled by layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of conditioning created by the mind. I hope that made sense.
Rick: It did. And there’s a kind of a prescription/description thing going on here, where in your own case, you didn’t really try to inculcate the state from which you now function, you went on a retreat and, you know, you did this long meditation and something flipped and your whole orientation shifted quite spontaneously and stayed shifted. You didn’t try to maintain the shifted state, it just kind of stuck. But a lot of people listening won’t have that experience and they will be governed by those layers and layers of conditioning you just described. So, what can we prescribe for them that will enable them to eventually get to the point, get to the state you’ve just described? And they shouldn’t expect to get to it overnight or next weekend or something. It might take a while to develop. What would you have them do?
Emeline: Literally what I just said. So, if you can take five minutes out of your busy day to sit, close your eyes and focus on breath, and realize that there is something that will not let you focus on just breathing. You will not be able to move through two, three, four, five breaths without the mind interacting, without the mind commenting on the present moment, without the mind having an opinion about what’s going on, “this sucks, this doesn’t work, this is stupid, breath, who cares?” or “I can’t do it, I’m not good enough, look at me, I’ll never be able to this, this and that.” The mind commenting on the present moment. If you can get to a stage where it becomes crystal clear that what is causing you pain is not the present moment. 99.9% of the time it is not the present moment, it is what the mind has to say about the present moment. The commentary associated to the event, that is what’s causing you pain. If you can get to a state where this becomes evident, this becomes just incarnated in your being, becomes so clear, then 70% of the work is done. I’m inventing a percentage here, but you know what I mean. That is the biggest leap. The biggest leap is just the lived truth of experiencing the separation between, which by the way is always there, we just don’t see it, but the mid separation between who you truly are and the motions of the mind. If you can, on an experiential level, understand that what is causing suffering is not the event, but what the mind has to say about the event, then you have won. That is it. Because that is, in itself, a shift in paradigm. That is you shifting the model of your reality. And by doing so you are inviting a new logic, a new way of approaching the present moment every single time, and then it just becomes a habit. It becomes reinforcing that experience and making it second nature which is just a matter of repetition, but you have created a new model of understanding the present moment for yourself. If you’re at a bus stop waiting for the bus and you just missed it, and the sun is shining or it’s raining, it doesn’t matter, you’re wearing a blazer or you’re not, you’re cold or you’re warm, it doesn’t matter. These are just neutral events, sensations, fleeting temporarily through your body. If the mind tells you, “Of course you missed the bus because it’s you, because you’re so unlucky, and you missed the bus, and it’s Monday, and I’m going to be late…” what is causing unhappiness? The commentary of the mind. And so, if you train yourself, I don’t like train because it implies resistance, if you invite that truth back again and again and again and again on a daily basis, you will invite a new way of looking at reality in yourself. And you will see reality for what it is, not for the mind would like you to see it for. Not the reality you wanted to be, the reality that is. And if you do that repeatedly, without scolding yourself, without being impatient, without thinking that this is cheap and it takes too much time. Just seeing things and seeing what the mind has to say about things. Always going back to that truth. Things, or what the mind has to say about it, which one is causing suffering? The event, the commentary. The event, the commentary. What is causing the pain? How am I experiencing this pain? What am I hearing? What are the thoughts that come back and forth all the time, that come back on a circle? If you do that, you will enter a new dimension of being, because if you do that you will realize that the only thing that is real is your experience of the present moment beyond the mind, above or deeper, it doesn’t matter, than the mind. It is a mindless, in a way, experience of the self in the present moment and that’s why I didn’t want to linger too much on that thing that happened because, again, I think we tend to crystallize these events and sort of, you know, “stamp of approval,” something amazing happened, yay, I’ve got it. It’s simply not true. Yes, something happened and maybe it deeply accelerated an understanding that would have taken longer, but I do believe that, whether it’s fast-tracked or not, the understanding of reality is the same. It is that the coming home journey starts with understanding what you are not. You’re not the mind, you’re not the thoughts, you’re not the feelings, you’re not the body. Yes.
Rick: Good. One key word in everything you just said, and it was all good stuff, but one key word is “repetition.” Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called “Outliers,” in which he talked about several different people, like the Beatles and Bill Gates and some others, who spent 10,000 hours honing their craft. And that made them as good as they were. And that is true of an athlete or an actress or a mathematician or any other thing that people do in life. And the same, in a sense, could be true of spirituality. People meditate for years and decades, or practice some kind of spiritual thing, and as they do so, the neurophysiology actually restructures itself. They’ve done studies in which, you know, they find long-term meditators have thicker prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus is this way and all kinds of things like that, the brain actually changes. And it doesn’t change instantly, it takes time. In the case of somebody like you, you might have had predisposition or proclivity for a sudden shift, but most people don’t have sudden and abiding shifts. They just kind of… some people are “oozers,” as a friend of mine says. They ooze slowly into whatever they develop. But nonetheless, I think that slow and steady wins the race, so to speak. If you find some kind of, like what you just said, the five-minute thing, or some form of meditation, or something that seems to work for you, and then just do it regularly. It says that in the Yoga Sutras, also. It says, you know, through persistent practice over a long time, samadhi is attained. I don’t know exactly how the verse goes, but something like that. So, as with everything in life, you know, the way eating healthy, exercising, learning a skill, you know, make spiritual development a priority and a part of your daily routine, whatever else your daily routine might involve, and it will bear fruit.
Emeline: Can I just add to that as well? I absolutely agree with everything you said. Thank you. I also think it’s, again, it’s very personal. It does tend to rub me the wrong way when I hear, you know, and I think the intention is pure, but people talk of a spiritual path, a spiritual journey, and that implies time and space and a distance between where you are now and what you’re trying to accomplish, or achieve, or discover, or unfold. I really don’t think that’s helpful. At least, in the spiritual realm, you start with the destination. The destination is the journey and you have already arrived. Breaking news everyone – you are it. There is nothing outside of you, right here, right now, that will add on to the the realization of your true nature that you are seeking. You are it. So then, wonderful, let’s go on a journey but with the premise and remembrance that you are the destination. There is nothing outside of you that will fill any illusionary void within, that is not true. Nothing needs to be added to the absolute being that you are, for you to realize your true nature. What needs to be done is, actually, things need to be removed. The onion needs to be peeled off, the layers need to be removed, slowly and gently. For some people, layers are removed at once and it’s brutal. For some people, layers are removed slowly and gently. That doesn’t matter. The truth is, the diamond is within, behind the layers. Whether we remove them slowly or rapidly, they’ll be removed by the work of inner awareness, the spiritual curiosity that you infuse in your daily life. but you are the destination. There is no, you know, which is why yes, enlightenment, awakening, great. It doesn’t matter ultimately, I don’t know. We’re here to remember our true nature. That’s it.
Rick: That’s what it is. I mean, that’s what that word is supposed to represent.
Emeline: And I think, and then who is excluded then from their true nature?
Rick: Nobody.
Emeline: Exactly.
Rick: That includes the psychotic and Adolf Hitler and all kinds of baddies.
Emeline: Absolutely.
Rick: Everyone has the same true nature, a tiger, a turtle, whatever. But, you know, as you’ve said, as we’ve discussed, there are many degrees of occlusion or obscuration that have to be removed. Sometimes people have quick breakthroughs, sometimes it takes decades. But I had a teacher who used to say, “The goal is all along the path.” Which is what you just said. So it’s there, but then we don’t want to make the mistake of, like some of these neo-Advaita people, who say, “You’re already enlightened. Don’t do anything. You just accept that and you’re done. Don’t do practices because it will only reinforce the notion of a practicer.” I think that kind of advice is not useful. But, on the other hand, we don’t want to just sort of moan and groan and long for some glorious future while passing over the present, because again, what we are is here now. And it’s just a matter of perhaps realizing it more and more fully. There’s already water in the well, but you just have to draw it up to take advantage of it. Okay, so incidentally, at any point during this conversation, if you have some thought to talk about something and I’m not asking you a question, then just bring it up. Have you ever experienced, since your awakening, have you ever had outbursts of anger or depression or, you know, kind of things like that, that you might once have experienced years ago, but do they ever kind of bubble up and, if so, what do you do?
Emeline: No.
Rick: Good. They just don’t bubble up?
Emeline: No, I’ve not. I’ve experienced sadness, I’ve experienced grief, you know, but anger…
Rick: I remember hearing you talk about experiencing profound sadness about world suffering, so it’s not like you’re sad about yourself, you’re sad about the world.
Emeline: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I can experience and witness, you know, moments of weeping and seeing the destruction that we inflict upon ourselves but then then the sadness is not personalized and therefore doesn’t become a different quality of, you know, anger or something, it’s just the observation of us running into the wall, essentially, and the sadness that comes with it. You know, losing my dog, my grandmother, in the space of a few days, these things that create sadness. But there is a sort of a… there is constantly… The container is peace and within that container is experienced, you know, thought formations, objects of perceptions, more or less pleasant, but it doesn’t remove the container of peace that has never left. So yeah, everything is experienced in the background of abilities.
Rick: Nice very nice. So there’s this thing called City Voices and I understand you’re affiliated with that in some way, you participate, you help people who come to you through City Voices. Is that correct?
Emeline: Yes, I met the wonderful Dan Frey, who is the Director of City Voices. I I don’t remember when, before I went to my retreat. And he has created spirituality groups on Saturdays, where I co-facilitate with him. And then something called Friendship Squad, which is a sort of initiative that helps people who deal with loneliness, mental health issues, sadness, grief, depression, and all these things, to just have a shoulder to cry on, or a friend to go back to when they are experiencing distress on their own. And it’s been wonderful.
Rick: So people have Zoom conversations with you or something through that?
Emeline: Yeah, texts or phone, rather. And then on Saturdays we do the spirituality groups with either a person who’s been interviewed, someone who was invited to join, or just us, where we hold meditation spaces and discussions on pretty much everything you and I talk about.
Rick: Yeah, well it may sound like I’m concluding this interview, but I’m not. But anyway, if someone wants to get in touch with you, is that the best way to do it, through City Voices?
Emeline: All right. I guess, yeah, I guess so.
Rick: Any other way? You probably don’t want to put your email address out there or something, you’d just get a ton of emails.
Emeline: Maybe not.
Rick: You don’t have a website or anything, right?
Emeline: I don’t, no. I don’t have social media and I don’t have a website but maybe… well, yeah, Dan Frey/City Voices would be a good way.
Rick: Okay, I’ll put a link to that on your batgap page.
Emeline: Yes, good.
Rick: Okay. But as I say, I want to keep talking to you, so we won’t finish. Um. Do you… Are most of the people who come through City Voices troubled in some way, like you were saying, lonely or suicidal or whatever? Or sometimes they’re just real spiritual seekers and have they ever had a shift or an awakening working with you?
Emeline: I think both, yes. I’ve experienced people suffering in some way or another. Yes, absolutely, because Dan has created a container of absolute safety and care, so people feel free to join, knowing that they are not the only ones in pain, suffering, and there is a collective sort of output of compassion. Um… I… My goodness, would I not claim anyone that’s awakened through me?!!! No one can awaken through anyone else’s…! You know, I mean…!
Rick: You’ve been a catalyst somehow, talking to somebody like, you know
Emeline: Here’s the thing, I think we have so much more impact than we think we do. In general, I think. A friend used to tell me that, when I was doing acting, and complaining, being upset about, “We don’t have any auditions and nothing’s happening,” and he told me something I will never forget which is, 90% of progress, of growth, of impact, is invisible. It is all happening behind the curtain. So, you by holding this space, me by choosing to be here, in sharing the space with you, people by answering and asking questions. I’ll just add that what I… Again, going back to the sense of… without going into Neo whatever… the truth, the absolute truth, that you are the destination, you’ve arrived. You’re it.
Rick: Yes
Emeline: It is always wonderfully mind-blowing how little it takes for someone to…
Rick: Recognize that…
Emeline: Yeah… Because that’s what it is. The truth is not new, the truth is ancient. It’s a recognition. It’s a remembering. And so, because it lives within them, it takes very, very little to sort of um somehow trigger or invite that realization. And it’s different for every person. Everyone carries very individual baggage, and more or less resistance, more or less inclined to um something different and new that will challenge them and their worldview. And sometimes there is such a thing as divine timing. Sometimes someone will just not have it, they were just not interested. And it also very much sort of has to do somehow with the quality of their suffering, you know. But I’m always incredibly humbled and aware of how little it takes for someone to remember the truth of who they are, and how to get there. And then again, it’s a matter of showing up again and again and again to that truth, to water the seed with something pure and honest, because if it took you a bit more than two weeks to reverse all of that momentum, right, that sort of energetic karma that’s been set into place. But it takes very little, and whether it’s me or somebody else, it really it doesn’t matter. It’s them. It’s the return home, their remembrance and sometimes the pieces are set in the perfect way and everything is sort of orchestrated in a way that is ideal for someone to remember that truth within, and sometimes it takes a bit more discussion, conversing, back and forth. But it’s them. It’s them. Yeah.
Rick: Yeah, there’s an encouraging verse in the Gita that says, “No effort is lost and no obstacle exists. Even a little of this Dharma removes great fear.” Yeah. Do you think you’ll ever step into the role of a teacher, you know, aside from what you’re doing on City Voices. Can you imagine yourself, you know, sitting up there, talking to a group of people, that kind of thing? You’re good at it. I mean, you speak very well and you’re deeply insightful.
Emeline: That’s all I did. I truly don’t know, okay, I don’t think I want to know. I think I’m still in the… I want to be of service. There’s one thing that has sort of shaped itself and that is an absolute extension of the truth I feel within, is that I want to be of service. And I think, when you live it, the law becomes so clear. You give first, you receive after. To me, that’s the law. You give and then you receive. You give, not out of selfless martyrdoms. You give because that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to give, whatever that looks like. I do want to be of service in some way. I also don’t want to have any personal preference because I don’t believe that I know what’s best for me. I believe it’s… whatever… you know? Consciousness, incarnating through me, does. I don’t believe I do, the little self. So it will come from a place of stillness within, whenever it’s ready to be born into the world, but I don’t know.
Rick: That’s a good answer. And I think that’s the right motivation. You know, I mean I’ve heard of people, you know, being overheard at spiritual retreats, “Yeah, I can’t wait to get awakened so I can quit my day job and become a spiritual teacher,” you know. Wrong motivation.
Emeline: I also think that is running in the opposite direction of awakening, so… It’s ego-based.
Rick: Yeah. No, I totally, I love that answer that, you know, we want to be of service “God make me an instrument of thy peace,” to quote Saint Francis. You know, “Where there is…” You know that prayer of Saint Francis, all those lovely things. “Where there is anger, let me sow peace,” and all that stuff. Because really that’s what a spiritual teacher is. It’s not you giving people stuff, you’re just a conduit. You know, you’re just a channel or a…
Emeline: A vessel.
Rick: A conduit, that’s a good word, for some higher wisdom that we couldn’t possibly own.
Emeline: Absolutely.
Rick: Yeah. I loved what you said about birds. I like birds, too. I feed them and I give them bath water, you know, bird baths, and stuff like that. And animals in general. And I think what you said about birds in your interview with Dan is that there’s no leader. You see a flock of birds and no leader. It made me think of geese in which there seems to be a leader because there’s one goose out in front. But actually they take turns because it’s hard to be the lead goose. He has to sort of break the wind resistance and the others take advantage of that by forming this V formation, but they trade off so that they can all have it a little bit easier. So even with a… And then there’s that whole fascinating thing about murmurations of starlings. You’ve probably seen videos of those. Each starling can only see seven birds around it at most, but the whole thing moves in these beautiful patterns. I don’t know. What do you make of that?
Emeline: It’s a quasi-perfect illustration for what the movement of collective awakening should be. Whether it’s a school of fish, whether it’s a herd of sheep, whether it’s a flock of birds, it’s a bottom-up phenomenon. There is no leader.
Rick: Yeah.
Emeline: There is just a unifying field of conscious movement that inhabits all of these, you know, this collective momentum. And I do profoundly believe that we’ve reached a stage in evolution where, and that’s a personal opinion so take it or leave it, it’s not worth much, but we can’t get by with one Jesus, one Buddha. We need more. We can’t get by with one awakened leader anymore. We have reached a state of urgency in the process of our evolution collectively where we need to awaken together. It needs to happen together collectively and we need to utilize, with skillful authenticity and integrity, the movement of emotion and the power of waking up together. It happens together or it just doesn’t happen. And so I think that’s why what you do and other people do is so skillful and so beautiful because it is inviting this this energetic sort of signature and vibration to heighten, to elevate, you know. It’s not meant to be an individual phenomenon, it’s not meant to be an individual process, an event. It is the awakening, true awakening has to be collective. Yeah.
Rick: Yeah I’m sure you’re familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh’s saying, “The next Buddha may be the sangha.”
Emeline: Oh yeah.
Rick: Not like there’s going to be some individual savior but it’s like it’s a collective phenomenon now. Yeah. And that was one of my motivations actually for starting this was that, you know. I was talking with people who had been meditating for ages and and some people were getting awakened but the rest of the people were skeptical of that because they kind of envisioned awakening as some supernatural or super normal or, you know, kind of like Jesus or Superman or something like that, and they thought, well, this this guy thinks he’s had an awakening. He must be deluded. Couldn’t happen to him, couldn’t happen to me. And I thought, no! It’s happening! And I wanted to show people that it’s happening to people like them, so that the whole theme of Batgap from the beginning has been “conversations with ordinary spiritually awakening people.” Buddha at the Gas Pump, you know? Some guy pumping gas next to you.
Emeline: Yeah, and that’s what I like about it. That’s what I like about what you’re doing. Awakening, not awakened. It is a process. It is a continuation. It is not something… It is open-ended. It is not something that has an end. Because it lives beyond space and time. It is a state of absolute being. It doesn’t respond to the law of space and time, so there is no end in space and time of, “I declare freely today that I am enlightened,” you know, and from then on there will be no furthering of the enlightenment. No. It is a continuing process of deepening constantly. And I think, again, that is a way of looking at it that might be a bit more… first of all, I believe honest and skillful in how people relate to this strange, seemingly exotic, although it’s not, process that awakening is, to wake up to your true nature. That is right here, right now. Which layers are we going to unpeel for you to realize who you truly are? But when you realize who you truly are, the work, I believe, carries on, although it’s not painful, but the momentum of awakening carries on and takes different shapes throughout the cycles of life, for different people.
Rick: Yeah. The tagline of Batgap used to be “interviews with spiritually awakened people” and we changed it to “awakening” for that very reason. And I often quote St. Teresa of Avila who said, “It appears that God himself is on the journey.”
Emeline: Wow, that’s beautiful.
Rick: Yeah. And there was this wonderful woman named Peace Pilgrim. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Peace Pilgrim, but there’s a little book about her. She just walked around the United States for years with no possessions, nothing but the shirt on her back, which said “Peace Pilgrim” on it, and people would just take care of her, and she was just at the mercy of nature. But she had this little chart in her book, which was that the pace of evolution is kind of maybe gradual for a while, but once evolution, once awakening has happened, it kind of goes like a hockey stick and accelerates, goes up much more quickly, which would stand to reason because you’re not interfering with it anymore, you know? You’re not throwing monkey wrenches in the works. You’re allowing nature to do it and nature is much more powerful than our individuality.
Emeline: Which is something we didn’t touch upon but is absolutely huge, for another time. But surrender, the role of surrender in that process/destination of coming home to yourself, to your true nature.
Rick: Yeah, very good.
Emeline: And what I wanted to add as well, in terms of awakening and these things, is I’m always, I don’t have the answer, it’s a rhetorical question, but how many people in a group of a million, let’s say, how many people actually do need to awaken for the dynamic of the entire group to change, you know? What is the percentage? And that is, and I do think it’s way less than you think. So we’re what, seven, eight billion of us now? How many would it actually take to change the course of our civilization, to steer it in a different direction through awakened minds, through love and compassion and everything that comes from that state? I do think it’s way less than we think it is.
Rick: In the heart, one percent of the cells are called pacemaker cells and they emit electrical signals that regulate the beating of the other 99% of the heart. And in a laser, if the square root of 1% of the photons align with each other and become coherent, the rest of the photons entrain with them and the whole thing becomes as if one coherent beam of light. So there are examples from nature about small percentages having a big effect on the whole.
Emeline: One percent it is.
Rick: Or even the square root of one percent. Who knows? Okay, final question. If you could talk to Emeline from ten years ago, who was depressed and suicidal and all that stuff, what would you like to tell her? [Silence]
Emeline: I would tell her that it’s perfectly safe just to be herself.
Rick: Perfectly safe just to be herself.
Emeline: Yes.
Rick: And do you think that would have shifted her experience a lot, to have heard that from her future self? herself?
Emeline: No, she, I, she, needed to go through… Suffering is still at the level of consciousness where it was the catalyst for awakening. So it’s one thing to understand something intellectually, it’s different to inhabit that truth experientially. And I, you know, I heard people say that in past and I was just like, “Oh, my goodness, ridiculous.” But I am grateful would be reductive. I see, it’s not that I’m grateful for my suffering, that implies a sort of binary system with good and bad. I see suffering as an absolutely necessary and, paradoxically, even if it isn’t divine, chapter of coming home to myself. I see now the absolute necessity of suffering the way I did. I wish maybe I would have understood the nature of surrender earlier on, because I maybe would have needed to suffer a bit less. But it just happened the way it happened. That’s it. And I responded to what happened at the level of consciousness I was at. I didn’t know any better. But there’s a quote by, it’s one of my favorite plays, by Edward Albee, in The Zoo Story. nothing, but it’s absolutely beautiful. And one of the characters, Jerry, says something, he has a long monologue, and he starts by saying, “I’m going to tell you the story of how sometimes it’s necessary to travel a long distance out of your own way in order to come back a short distance correctly.” And that’s it. It’s the movement of expansion and coming home. And one can only happen if the other… if the prior one took place. um Yeah, so a long distance, but then you come back a short distance correctly.
Rick: Very nice All right. Well, thank you so much, Emeline. I really enjoyed getting to know you a little bit and having this conversation. I’m sure the people who watch this will really enjoy it. And, as I mentioned in the beginning, currently, if they want to get in touch with you, they can do that through City Voices, and I’ll provide a link to that. And if new things open up in the future, like if you get a website or anything, just let me know and I’ll add that to your page on batgap.com.
Emeline: Thank you.
Rick: Yeah, and take care and stay in touch. And thank you for letting me interview you, and thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching, for doing so.
Emeline: Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
YouTube
