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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest today is Florian Schlosser. I’ve hopefully I pronounced that right. Was that right? Good, great. Richard Miller put an L at the end of it instead of slash learn about the way it’s spelled. And Florian is speaking to me from my orca Spain beautiful island where I once spent a happy month doing long meditations in 1971 72. Yeah, it was delightful place. They do all their construction in the wintertime. So we usually meditated to the sound of jackhammers outside the window.
Florian Schlosser: They’re not allowed to construct anything.
Rick Archer: Oh, good. And Florian will explain what he teaches and all in the process of this interview, and who he is, and his background and so on. But, um, I wanted to just start by asking you, perhaps trivial question. I was listening to a talk you gave a couple of years ago with the science and non duality conference. And you use the last name, Tata Gotha, or something like that. I was wondering what that is, and why you don’t use it anymore?
Florian Schlosser: Yeah. Well, I mean, this might be in the spiritual world, many people have spiritual names. So that
Rick Archer: was like your spiritual name. It was one I had a bunch. Okay, there was like
Florian Schlosser: the last one, which comes actually from the Buddhist tradition, okay. And its meaning is, as far as I know, it means he walks on the right path. But somehow, over the last few years, I just could really resonate with me too, to expose the name. It has a meaning inside in a way. Yeah, so I’m carrying it internally, but there’s no need for me to first of all, show it to the outside. And second, I have been noticing that when I started to share meetings, I still call them Satsang. And then there was Satsang, and Tagata and Satsang. With Tata gotta in only three words, two words. Most people didn’t understand what I’m talking about. So so much need to explain myself all the time. Just created obstacle. Yeah, why should I make it more complicated than it actually is? So I removed Satsang call it meetings, remove the name, Tata gotta calm my name. Florian. Makes it very easy. People understand what I’m talking about. So, you know, I love to simplify and bring it down to scratch. And so basically, that’s the reason why I’m not using that name. I was actually quite surprised that they put it on the DVD of the sand. Oh, compilation. Yeah, but I think I asked him this year not to do it.
Rick Archer: Okay, good. I got a spiritual name one time to from ALMA, the hugging saint, but I can’t, I couldn’t imagine myself running around town here calling myself a mesh. So I noticed on the wall behind you, you have pictures of Ramana, Maharshi, and Papaji and Muktananda, where they all teachers of yours, or at least, you know, Ramana you probably your lives didn’t overlap. But
Florian Schlosser: But I spent quite a bit of time around mukta Ananda, I lived in India in the ashram for quite a while. So it mukta another was a kind of my like, sort of my my real Indian guru, you know. And I also would say that the way he was expressing and teaching in a way, has has a particular impact on the way I’m sharing what I need to share. So it’s a it’s an interesting combination of what Rama is representing to me. And on the other hand, what mukta Nanda represents, and maybe we can close off our conversation, we’re going to maybe clarify a little bit what I mean, exactly. So
Rick Archer: yeah, I’d like to do that. I mean, some people, when you ask questions about this sort of thing, they say, oh, that’s just a story. That’s just my past and all but you know, that’s the people we studied with, it has an influence on us. And it has an influence on the way we express ourselves. And so so it’s kind of interesting to know what a person’s background is.
Florian Schlosser: I mean, on an intellectual level, it’s true, you know, all this has passed. And it is a memory in our brains, including the experience with mukta Nanda and then with isiaka was with Puppet gene or this is basically intellectual memory. But there’s another aspect that I very much like to include in this, that there are different other levels of memory and different other other levels of how our system accumulates experience. Yeah, and I would call it more that the body also records energetic. impact. So if you have been around a person for a while, the mind may forget about the pictures and the actual experiences, but the body and the nervous system and the cells that still keep on remembering. So depending on the intensity of the experience, or how close we have been with something, we almost become that experience on a cellular level. And to get rid of this, I mean, we can say it’s all a story in our head, this is easy to forgotten, but the body remembers pretty much everything we ever went through. And if we want to go further than this, we our body has memory of millions of years of human history in us. So it’s a it’s a very complex arrangement that we’re dealing with. So just putting on, it’s only a story sounds a bit superficial to me, actually.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it does. And it’s interesting, because some people say that it’s if you’re with a teacher, it’s not so much what the teacher says, but just the sort of the presence or the transmission of the teacher, is the thing that really affects some sort of significant development. And you know, perhaps that takes place on a cellular level,
Florian Schlosser: I would even go further, I would say the teachers impact is not so much the teacher or what the teacher has to offer, it’s more about how your system is capable to absorb that information. Yeah. So I mean, you can talk to me, and if I’m not open, if there’s no interest in me to what you offer, what you speak, and it doesn’t matter if it is spiritual, or worldly, or mundane, or whatever, to the degree, there’s interest in the system, the system will automatically, like drink it, it will absorb it on pretty much every level of experience. And if that openness or that interest is in there, you can offer whatever you want, there will be no connection happening in which this transmission, let’s say or this dynamic, it’s more from it’s not so much from transmission, because transmission normally would imply that there’s one source transmitting something to another to somebody else. But for me, it’s more like an exchange, like when two systems connect this and like a chemistry, there’s a dynamic happening. And to the degree, we can be close to each other and trust each other in that chemistry and that dynamic information starts to exchange. And that’s, in my experience more accurate than one transmitting something to somebody else.
Rick Archer: Now, very good point.
Florian Schlosser: So is it what it what it what it, what it actually points at is that there is always an IT, there’s always a connection. And to the degree we are able to give ourselves to that connection, okay, or to honor that connection, to that very degree exchange is happening and doesn’t end again, and that is not spiritual or limited down to spiritual experiences, but it is basically, I mean, if I look into my marriage, or to my friendships, I mean, to the very degree, my system is capable, to be intimate to be close and inviting the other person to that same closeness. It’s a very, very deep connection and a very transcendental experience, independently of the state of consciousness of somebody isn’t Yeah, I don’t know. I think
Rick Archer: it’s true, you know, to whatever extent we’re receptive to whatever extent we attune to the person we’re with whether it’s a guru or our spouse or exact person at the checkout line in the supermarket. There’s a communion. And there’s a sharing.
Florian Schlosser: Yeah, absolutely. And that is not that’s not a personal sharing. It’s not like a personality Florian connects with a personality Rick or whoever, let’s call it like this, but it is, if we really take a moment and tuning into what’s happening, we can, in that, in that kind of presence, we can literally feel a how our nervous systems, our energies, our body connect, even though you are 1000s of kilometers away, right now in America, and I’m in Europe, we, we, we reach start to connect, it’s like not not consciously it’s not something we do. Or there’s something that we need to do for it’s like, we just feel uncomfortable with each other, we get to know each other is a bit smooth, and suddenly we can relax and in that relaxing into the bodies, our let’s say the energy or whatever you call it, it’s just words I’m using now starts to dance underneath the level of our conversation. I don’t know if you’re up to stuff like this, but I’m very, really experiencing our conversation on multi levels, not only on the intellectual level, but what’s happening energetically at the same time while we’re talking. That’s right. But cool. Actually,
Rick Archer: it kind of reminds me of that poem. I think it was by John Donne, where he said no man is an island, you know, very famous line. And you know, we appear to be these discrete, separate isolated islands, so to speak, but we’re really all kind of the underlying ocean. The islands are just sort of apparent outcroppings.
Florian Schlosser: But if you’re looking at separation, it’s interesting. Would you say Rick? Because, I mean it’s a it’s a cool Imagine a common saying in the spiritual world that scaleable separation and non separation non oneness one is non duality duality. But let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s take a moment and clarify what we’re talking about because I think there’s a lot of mysticism around this whole thing of separation. And it’s in my experience and as far as I have been exploring, which is not finished yet, there’s, there’s an interesting aspect that is so simple, that we very easily can overlook the fact. So if we, if just for one, just instant, okay, we’re here now, you’re over there, wherever that is, I’m here. And so, they are different. When we are looking at how separation functions, then we have to take a look into how attention functions how the movement of our focus, okay, focus function. So normally, focusing attention for me is one so we can look at attention we can focus attention on to something like Om to Java or something inside or to an object outside. And we can vary that we can we can play with the different focuses so we can have a narrow focus. On the moment we’re focusing like, on our heads, like on the on the sound of our voices in the eyes that look at each other, there will be a pretty, pretty much exclusion of the rest of our system, we just naturally so it’s like a zoom. Okay, so we zoom in, and then we’re meeting here. And in that moment, it feels like something’s missing. Okay? I mean, we’re having a connection on that level, but where’s the rest? So we should start to just relax the focus a moment. Like, like this and including the whole body? Okay, well, let’s let’s start with including only the upper upper part of the body until the belly button.
Rick Archer: Sure people listening can do this too, even though it’s not like you know, they can do this. So take a
Florian Schlosser: moment now. Just relax the focus of it like a muscle. Okay, not holding a tight like concentrating or trying to figure out what we’re talking about. Just relaxing from Yes, exactly. And then being aware of we already sensing more we have more we are made aware of more simply we could say no, it’s not even somebody sensing suddenly, there’s more showing up on the screen of our consciousness. Only because like in the theater, when we zoom out like from the spotlight to the floodlight, suddenly, we see not only the protagonist on the on the stage, but suddenly we see a little more of the stage. And if we keep on doing this, we just relaxed, the focus even more. Our body will appear in it. Okay, this body that’s called Florin body that calls Reiko whoever listens to this, suddenly, when we start to be aware of what oh, there was more happening simultaneously while we’re talking. And funnily enough, as we’re letting the focus, relax, it’s like we’re, let’s say, let’s zoom, let let let the focus zoom out infinitely to the ultimate opening, which would be dropping back into consciousness. Okay. Which in India, they would call maybe the drop returns to the ocean? Okay. The limited focus returns to the wide focus. Okay, we seeing that in that wider focus? There’s a we include the system like fully, or at least a little bit more than before, and just noticing what effect that has on the sense of separation? Does it feel exactly as separated as before? Or does it feel less abraded? What What would you say? It’s interesting? Yeah, I
Rick Archer: would say less? Sure.
Florian Schlosser: Yeah. Okay. So separation has nothing to do with separating from the outside, right, we just like, but it is how the focus separates itself from the totality of the experience of now, which is happening in this nervous system. It’s happening, you know,
Rick Archer: yeah. Now, you’re not saying that focus is a bad thing, or, you know, because it’s necessary. I mean, if you’re an airline pilot landing a 747, and a snowstorm, or you’re a brain surgeon in the midst of a 10 hour operation, you have to really focus our lives are going to be lost, you know. And so focus is necessary. What you’re saying, though, is that it can become overbearing, or if that if all our life consists of is one is a sequence of focuses without recourse to unboundedness, then we’re, then we’ve got a problem. Is that what you’re saying?
Florian Schlosser: We have to, there are a few distinctions that that I think, are very useful for everyone to play with this. So first of all, it’s totally clear. It’s not about a wrong focus or good focus. Okay. So basically, what we’re talking about, including the whole product, so called incident or process of awakening is nothing else but a different quality of focus. It’s a different it’s a shift of focus, okay, right. Okay. So but let’s, let’s have have a few distinctions that I think are very useful. So number one, it’s very useful to be able to focus when we have to perform something like I say At the pilot, or when we cut vegetables, you know, if we’re not focused, we’re going to cut our fingers off. Okay, so that’s pretty much practical. And isn’t this not bothering us? Because I would say it’s called totally natural. You know, it’s like a capacity that our system has naturally to perform action to, to make sure that the system survives. Yeah, basically, that’s it’s a survival mechanism on a very healthy rudimentary organization, in our in our organ in our nervous system. But then what happens that, in the course of our life, for most of us, we are undergoing experiences where this natural capacity to focus when needed and to relax again, when there’s no need to focus gets lost. Yeah. Okay. So that’s very, very important, because there’s a lot of confusion around this, that’s gonna show up much later, including the hospital research. Okay. Yeah. So we could call those experiences experiences of overwhelm, okay? What doesn’t overwhelm too much information comes in, and the system cannot cope with that information anymore. So imagining your child, and you’ll see your your parents fighting, okay, loud and yelling, all the rest of it. And, and your nervous system just has a tremendous impact of aggression, sadness, sound, energy, and the system has no way to differentiate to distinguish and to cope with it, that energy will be experienced as an overwhelm as an invasion.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and if we want to talk a fight flight, we can’t do either of those under that circumstance, we just have to sort of internalize it.
Florian Schlosser: Okay, so So what happens in this moment of overwhelm that the system moves from, like a kind of aliveness relaxed state into survival mode? What is survival, very strong tightening up in the system, and a very strong tightening of the focus, trying to identify where the threat is, and trying to protect yourself. Okay, because it’s too much, it’s simply there is just too much. So it’s an automatic biological reaction of the system that pulls the system tight, including it tightens up the focus. So what happens in these moments if if this, let’s call them traumatic experience, I don’t like that word very much, because it is so psychologically charged, but I would call it let’s call them overwhelming experience experiences that, okay, it’s simply like this
Rick Archer: even traumatic. I mean, you think of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan these days, all coming home with PTSD, exactly. But post traumatic
Florian Schlosser: when, when these experiences are not completed, when in the moment that happening, it’s like, the experience is like, it’s relaxed, there’s a threat, there’s an overwhelm, which is a high level of energy in the system, trying to cope with that experience. And if this experience would just be completed, naturally, it would just relax again. And like to move on smoothly, but many of us, I would say, pretty much every human being has underwent experience where this normal amplitude of the experience has been able to interrupt it, that means smooth. And suddenly, in that high peak of energy of defense and shock and fear, the system doesn’t know what to do, it doesn’t it doesn’t discharge that energy anymore. And it freezes in, it freezes in into a kind of unnatural alert state, which he alertness means an unnatural state of focusing.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and the stuff you’re saying is actually, you know, there are physiologists who talk about this, you know, very detailed terms, and they work out the biochemistry of it and everything the system stays in this sort of unnatural and inappropriate agitation. agitation. Yeah.
Florian Schlosser: agitation, that is an unnatural vigilance, that that makes the system alert. Right? It feels alert, but it is fear driven. It is actually panic driven. Yeah. So now, what happens is that the system freezes in into a very high level of energy, and doesn’t know how to relax anymore. So what happens now is if this is happening, habituates it habituates It perpetuates all the time. And later on it, it feels awake, the difficulty is it feels awake, it feels even more awake than others. But what is it is comes from a pushed dynamic in the nervous system, that when the system constantly looks for threat, it starts to observe, like an animal that has been hunted, maybe I’ve seen this on on Discovery Channel, you know, when like a deer was hunted, and like, it’s like it’s like driven. So what happens later on that under the circumstances, that it’s possible that through additional impact the system activates that hyper alertness and can have experiences awakening of awakening It’s like, because the system just like doesn’t know how to cope with this anymore. So there is a high tendency to disembodied.
Rick Archer: So you’re saying that these traumatic experiences can actually be triggers for awakening, or they can catalysts
Florian Schlosser: that can be be triggers for a confused understanding of awakening, let’s call it like this because it feels awake. The physicality is there, it’s
Rick Archer: not awakening in a spiritual sense. It’s more just hyper activity, kind of a, you know, too much adrenaline or something kind of
Florian Schlosser: the system is, let’s say, let’s return to that to the basics. Okay. So once the system hasn’t discharged that stress energy, the system is locked in into a state of hyper vigilance, okay, of unnatural alertness, which is showing up as stress, speed. Lots of thinking, right? Yet a very high capacity to observe. Because it’s the fear is like the deer under threat, observes its environment and inside outside inside, like a relay, like in out in out in a very, very, very high frequency. And it feels like conscious. The difficulty is that this consciousness is quite narrow. Yeah. And the system cannot relax in that, because the system is so is still suggesting that there is a threat going on. So what happens is in the state of alertness, and wakefulness, all the defenses in the system are still activated, right? The defenses means means fight, attack, flight, when it’s when there’s too much information coming in, or freezing in into a kind of numb state, which is still conscious, but it doesn’t feel much. In my language, we would call it psychologists that would maybe call it a dissociated state. Okay, so now, when we walking down the road of spirituality, you and we start to learn meditations, for example, which is like in the beginning that you observe yourself, for people who have been traumatized, this practices are relatively easy, because they’re observing themselves all the time anyway. So now, when there’s a spirit layer of explanation on top of it, what remains unconscious is all this disintegrated layers of dysfunctionality in our system that drives the system to three states. What happens is, the more that we are going down that road, the system disconnects from its own origin, from the from the valley, where it comes from, including the pain and the traumatization of the thing. And claims transcend potential trends that transcended the difficulty and and what happens is, in that moment, we disconnect from our bodies, we disconnect from the nervous system, I call it we disembodied. So there is there is a state of awakening that is a state of wakefulness of consciousness, but it has no link to the actuality of what’s happening in the, in the human system. It is dissociated. And I’ve seen over the last 10 years, a lot of people with with profound experiences have seen, okay, of like opening up, right? The difficulty that I that I’ve been noticing is that only a very limited amount of nervous system have the capacity to, to handle this to, to hold it, because it slips through to to embody it, right? Because what means embodiment body means means that your consciousness returns into your body does that support embodiment consciousness drops into the body includes the body again, the difficulty is that once this is happening on that descent of consciousness into the body, that we are starting to notice and realize all these things that have been driving the system out of the body, trying to get away trying to transcend the experience because it’s too painful. And for many people, this is so shocking, that after this, like opening up and say, How is that possible that everything that was underneath suddenly showed up? Like like a like a volcano on the screen of consciousness, we’re talking about all the things that have been disintegrated, let’s say traumatization, the stress the fears, the defenses, and there’s a very high tendency in this, let’s say called non duality business. To deny that
Rick Archer: to keep pushing it away or excuse to use
Florian Schlosser: the teaching is not real. This is not this is not true or this is not experience is not real, as the ultimate promise as the ultimate exit to never again dealing with what’s what happened and what has been disintegrated what is still dissociated in the system. So it’s a bit of a tragedy. But it is also ruining the bliss game I call. Because I mean hanging out in that space and nadis and body. And it’s it’s very beautiful not to cope with this, the difficulties the moment we are touching life on a very normal basis like in our relationships, in our jobs, where we relate with other people in business where life happens in that moment, all these little things that are still unconscious in that there are decisions that are touched all the time. Yeah, all the time, that triggered bam, brown, brown, brown. And if we don’t know about this, and if we don’t know what what is triggered, it is not the personality, it’s not the ego that is triggered, that is absolute garbage. It is this integrated organization and our nervous system where the system hasn’t, has lost its capacity to, to breathe in and breathe out in a natural way in connecting with life and disconnecting again, from live like sleeping, being awake, breathing in and breathing out. So that’s why I’ve been noticing that many spiritual seekers or people who have been even finding whatever they have found, the way their system is in life is is confused.
Rick Archer: Yeah, interesting. I’d like to make a couple of comments on that and then get your response. Well, as you may know, in many cases, meditation techniques of various sorts have been used to sort of deal with soldiers that have PTSD or with it’s taught in prisons and things like that people under stressful circumstances, often with very great benefit. So, you know, there’s that, but I have seen the same phenomenon you describe, which is where, you know, awakening is used as a sort of a hiding place, or a refuge, to the neglect of the physical. And there’s an interesting thing you brought up, which is, I think that, you know, what you were saying is, people will have this awakening, and then all of a sudden, all this stuff that they didn’t realize was there starts to percolate starts to be, you know, starts to be up, they start to become aware of it. And I think that, too, is a natural process, it’s like nature wants to do housecleaning, when we have the capacity to do it. In other words, once the once the broader awareness has been established, then it’s a natural function of the bodies in that, you know, with recourse to that, to begin to resolve stuff that needs resolving, but what what you further said was that people often recoil from that, and use an intellectual sort of game of oh, this is not really this is just an illusion, or this is just a story, to try to avoid the natural process that is attempting to take place. And there are people out there, in fact, I spoke with one last night, I did an interview with a guy who’s in this group called waking down and mutuality, who were very aware of this process and have the Express intention of coming into the body. And you know, and so waking down as they call it, and dealing with the stuff that they have this thing they call the Wake down Shakedown, which is that very often when an awakening takes place, then you know, the shit starts to hit the fan. And then it must
Florian Schlosser: happen like this. I mean, ultimately, we have to understand how that whole process functions to learn the moment. What is the awakening, awakening is a shift of attention. From one instant, the focus of attention is withdrawn from objects and experience call, what’s that, which is aware of the experience, all that in that moment of this is awakening, there’s nothing else but this is a recognition of that which sees the experience instead of being focused on the experience itself. So it’s 180 degree shift of focus. That’s all what awakening is, everything else is blah, blah. So we have to make that really clear. Yeah, the thing is that naturally, that shift of focus is like, it’s like, how it says like, breathing in and breathing out. Okay? So as long as there is stuff incomplete in our system, okay, as long as there are in this integrated or dissociated color, whatever you let’s call it incomplete, okay, things that we are not in peace with, right? What happens?
Rick Archer: Just and I might say also, physiological correlates to those things. In other words, at the cellular level, and the chemistry and yeah, all that stuff.
Florian Schlosser: The psyche itself is a product of disintegrated stuff in the nervous system, right? So I could construct a correlated, it’s correlated, okay, so and so as long as they’re an incompleteness in our system, even though that shift had happened. It doesn’t establish Yeah, Okay, so something pulls it back. And instead of people saying, well, it’s your ego, just keep on focusing on awareness and all the rest of it. I mean, I know, people who are suggesting this on a on a serious level. So just keep on, just focusing on on awareness and the rest that’s going to be solved. First of all, it’s a doing, because as long as the focus is not establishing itself in in consciousness, you have to do it all the time. If you have to take the focus will shift it willingly. And play with that whole Ramona stuff, you know, who’s aware of this questions? You know, it’s all tricks. I call them tricks. Yeah, they have effect. The problem is they only have an effect as long as we play with that stuff. Right? So I’m suggesting, for one instant, stop using any trick, don’t even use Ramana and Papaji. And all the questions and who am I just remove that tricks from your library for a moment? And just be aware of what the focus is doing naturally? does it return? Because it wants to deal with stuff? Or does it naturally abide? Yeah. And there will be moments, where will it be abiding, because it’s nothing to do because it’s feels complete, it feels in peace. But in the moment you’re relating, for example, you will very quickly see if there’s anything for example, in your marriage. And if you now allow the focus to jump out and take notice of what is triggered, and you’re not using a trick to return it back to to awareness, you start to see things that you have never ever seen in your life before about yourself. Yeah. And that is so shocking. And that is so it’s natural. It is non invasive, it is a non doing because you allow the focus to move naturally instead of using tricks. Exactly. But then you will also see all the places where the system will still respond habitually automatically, which is basically based on this integrated overwhelm. Let’s call it like, this doesn’t make sense what I’m saying.
Rick Archer: Yeah, absolutely. Rahm das famously said that if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your parents. Or be paranoid be a parent. Exactly. Yeah.
Florian Schlosser: Like on a daily basis. Yeah. How how much resting there is really, if you focus can abide there if you can rest. Or if it is, just takes an instant, and it’s triggered. And it’s not that you are triggered, we have to dis again distinguish this, no one is triggered. It is that the focus swaps out back to the experience, not because it is wrong, it is because there is something to get there something to explore. And if you if you’re using a trick to prohibit this, or to say, hey, well, I just am consciousness, I’m not dealing with this anymore, you gotta use your willpower for this, and that is you.
Rick Archer: And it’s unnatural. I would like to suggest that, based on what you just said that, you know, genuine awakening, if we want to get if I can use those terms, is not something you have to be vigilant about all day long. Once it’s really established, its natural, and you don’t have to play little mind games to kind of retain it. In fact, there’s this verse in The Gita, it says, creatures act according to their own nature, what can restraint accomplish? And then, you know, there’s a sort of a, you know, and you see that, I think, in really awakened people, if you’ve hung around them, you know, if you hung around mukta, and under Papaji, or whatever, they’re not like, you know, wrestling with inside their heads all day long to maintain some state of awareness, they don’t care. Now, it’s a complete, natural, spontaneous, they’re established in that state, they don’t have to do things to
Florian Schlosser: the whole, the whole, in my own experience, the whole pressure, the whole idea of, of needing to remain conscious drops from the system. Yeah. So it’s like, it includes moments where it feels like the system is unconscious. It’s like, there is no involvement even in that process. So because there is not such a thing when unconscious, it’s It’s garbage. Unconscious means that the focus of attention is not abiding in consciousness anymore, but has naturally returned to an experience where there is exploration happening. Because there’s interest. I mean, if you’re not interested to learn to live, let’s say, a happy life or to have a happy relationship, then you won’t be interested to explore what makes you unhappy in a relationship. Right? No problem. But for me, I feel interested because for me life is like there’s so many aspects of life and as long as I feel like I am not really comfortable in a certain field, I don’t have to experience everything, but it will feel like it’s not it’s like a kind of relax there. It’s always naturally that my attention moves there and starts to explain what’s going on there. Okay. So in that moment, we are giving that space or we are the space even for that interest that that exploration without any concept in between, not the teaching no Rama, no Krishna Murthy, not nothing. There will be naturally there will be an exploration happening when it’s happening. And when it’s finished. It’s like a cat. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that come home. Yeah, what the thing at the end, and the focus returns and abides against the work done. It’s not your working, it’s like attention works in for you. It’s like it works for you.
Rick Archer: You may have heard that story that Eckhart Tolle tells about where he was watching some ducks on a pond of the ducks got into a fight, there was all this excitement. And then after a few moments, the Ducks just swam off a little bit, shook their feathers, and then that was the end of it.
Florian Schlosser: And then whatever has been seen, and explored and failed and somehow allowed to be there, we could call it psychologically in western terms, we would call it leave integrates itself or it finds its place in our nervous system where it can just rest. Okay, that’s, that’s more language like we drink it, we can instead of needing to defend and push away. So even those tricks using this, I mean, that sounds really lovely, those questions and just focus on awareness. But ultimately, if you really look to have a seat of not wanting to deal with life,
Rick Archer: I like the fact that you refer the nervous system a lot, because it’s my understanding that you know, all these these words, we use Enlightenment, awakening, and all that stuff, very much has a physiological component or counterpart. And, in fact, one thing I haven’t heard, I’ve listened to quite a few hours of view in preparation for this interview. And one thing I haven’t heard you say too much, and maybe you can discuss it is that ultimately, I believe a physiological state can be cultured over time, in which this sort of broad awareness or whatever we want to call it, is spontaneously maintained in the midst of sharp focus. So that so that it’s not a seesaw kind of situation, either or situation. But even while focusing sharply broad awareness is without trying to do anything, it’s spontaneously maintained by virtue of a style of physiology that has developed to enable that to occur. And then then the focus doesn’t have the same kind of yes overshadowing grip that it used to. Yeah,
Florian Schlosser: beautiful. And I just recently discovered something that I like to share with you. So it’s like, latest research,
Rick Archer: breaking news, breaking
Florian Schlosser: news, just revealed in the last couple of weeks, and that’s why maybe I’ve never really talked about it. Okay. And it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating, actually. So, we have to, maybe we can approach this whole that what you was the question or that issue, or that whole subject, by the whole through connecting what mean, what does it mean to connect? And how does connection function and connect with what other people with everything, just connection? So being connected? Okay, you know, this feeling to be Connect? Yeah, so we have this feeling to be like a, like an island, then we know this feeling of being connected, not with somebody I see. But it’s like, we feel like wow, this. Like, it’s like a feeling of connection, and I don’t want to put too much spiritual stuff on top of
Rick Archer: it, I get what you’re saying. Okay, so like a
Florian Schlosser: belly connection, or you have something in common with you, I have something in common with life and maybe, like, like a dance. Right? Okay, so Okay. So, and we have to, again, go back to this kind of disintegrate question, because in that moment of overwhelm, what happens is that the system disconnects, it disconnects internally, right? And what happens on the neuron, the level of the nervous system that normal structures rudimentary, you don’t have
Rick Archer: to worry about that wire, by the way, just let it hang. Okay. So it’s not hurting anything.
Florian Schlosser: So. So there are two ways. So first of all, we have to go back to the very early experiences of our life. For example, I believe the body of our moms. And the way we grew up, I was born in the 60s, it was very uncommon, what people used to call mother child bonding.
Rick Archer: Is this, you know what, take the kid away and put them in an incubator
Florian Schlosser: before or for 30 minutes, clean it up, wrap it up and give it back to the mother and those 30 minutes. There was no connection, you know, yeah. And they found out only in the late 70s, about this whole impact that child mother bonding has in the first two to three minutes of the body not being in the body of the mother anymore, the body that in these rudimentary minutes of life. Essential existential neural pathways are established in the system of how this Some experience connection or disconnection, they don’t they it’s it’s fragments of, of time spent like minutes. And that’s why they’re taking care these days that that the child was put on the chest of the mother, even before they’re doing anything so that the nervous system middlee bonds connects again, with the with the warmth and the vibration of the energy of the mother. Yeah, so it has an effect on how the neural pathways in the brain in the nervous system established. So the way we were all but most people grew up, especially when you look into the generations of spiritual seekers, we grew up in a way where birth was completely different, and actually quite brutal and cruel, the way they we have been, our mothers gave birth, because for my case, for about 30 minutes, there was no connection. So what happens that the system internally on the level of the nervous system has no blueprint, it has not learned to connect, it is navigating, like it wants to connect, because it’s natural, but it doesn’t know how to connect. So there’s a lot of confusion around this. So that’s one part aspects. So then, through the experiences that we talked about later, it builds up a kind of connection with life based on its capacity. But then when these overwhelm, experiences come in, this doesn’t mean much from the perspective of a child, even these very fragile and rudimentary connections can easily be disconnected again, it’s like the system moves from its rudimentary association to dissociation, what means normal connections are destroyed through energetic impact
Rick Archer: people so they don’t have the strength that they would have if the kid were allowed to be with the mother, immediately.
Florian Schlosser: So now we have two factors. And now imagining these systems start to go out now and trying to connect. So if we look for spirit, that first I mean, most spiritual people begin with trying to find connection with a partner with sexuality, doing a job, and when they see that’s not bringing happiness, then they hear about Enlightenment and think, oh, let’s go for this. It’s going to unify me again, it’s going to bring me oneness. Oneness is I feel connected. That’s what it is. Yeah, for one I feel connected is just another word for it. The thing is that that’s not happening, because inside the system doesn’t know how to connect with itself. So it constantly looks for its own reconnection, or let’s say, reintegration. So, the spirituality that we are drawn to is very often a disembodied spirit reality. So when you when we look into the Indian culture, for example, I was living in India for many, many years. And again, and again, I returned only very, very, very many later, many, many years later, I realized how disembodied the spiritual reality is, that comes from India. So most of our contemporary spirituality, including Advaita, is originated in India. But India is a very disembodied country. That’s why the India looks like a dead body. Because the body is considered dirty to be avoided sexuality, sensuality, it’s something that is really like, I mean, you hardly can touch people in India.
Rick Archer: Yeah, if somebody accidentally touches you, they do all this apologetic stuff. And, and also, I mean, there’s the actual scriptures, which go on and on about how the body is all full of worms and feces and urine and all the rest of the parts, they try to make it as disgusting as possible to disassociate you.
Florian Schlosser: It’s a it’s a cultural perspective on the human body. So now the spirituality that has been promoted and developed better and it is in its seed in its origin, Indian, we have to understand this, we, we have imported this into the West. And the promise is that we just don’t have to deal with that stuff, but we had functioning first of all, we were functioning completely different. And second, if we don’t include all the levels that I have been talking about, and also our understanding, because we have been developed in the West, we have been evolving as a species, we have found out about the nervous system, we have found out how impact the birth has and how the relationship between the parents and the child built determines how our system how healthy our system develops, all this knowledge is I understand understand very often excluded from this kind of non dual teachings and and we return to some stuff that is basically Indian and it in India, it means it completely neglects the body as as part of the experience. And that’s why I understand that so many people are confused because we live here, we deal with this every day. And then we have that concept in our head that somehow tells us something different so we don’t get this together. So it’s a it’s a very, very, very serious or let’s say a very useful distinction that we cannot just take this philosophy or this perspective and important into the West and say, that’s the way it works. Because there are layers and levels in our nervous system that doesn’t understand that, you know, there is no comprehension for this embodiment because we don’t live there we come from another culture background, I think it’s very important to take this into the big picture of what we’re talking about, makes perhaps
Rick Archer: a lot. Yeah, sure, I think perhaps a lot of that talk of, you know, the disgusting nature of the body and all in India was intended to break the sort of initial infatuation with the body with its beauty, and, you know, with its pleasures, and all that as for people for whom all of that was the predominant reality, but I don’t know, if it was meant as a sort of an end teaching that one should always hang on to you know, because as you say, you have to, you may have an a disembodied awakening, but you have to come back into the body after that. And
Florian Schlosser: if that is clear, if I mean, for me, it’s totally clear that that if you have an understanding of this, if you are prepared, and if you’re after you have your honeymoon, your I call it the honeymoon with consciousness, and you have the honeymoon, I had my honeymoon to reality knocks on the door. Yeah. And it knocks on the door with the very basics of life, you know, you have to earn your money, and you have your marriage or relationship, your family. And if you if you’re not using all this as a concept to get away from it, you start to instead of coping with life, you you let life in, you integrate life. But it’s not that you integrate something external, you start to integrate all the places where the system has lost its capacity to be in life to be with life to drink life. So,
Rick Archer: you know, and I bet you, when you do this, you could speak from your own experience, you find that you have a lot more energy, because a lot of energy is sort of consumed and trying to keep life at arm’s length. And once you don’t do that anymore, that energy can be freed up for
Florian Schlosser: a passive. So there’s an interesting, intermediate step in this, which is, also people don’t know much about it. So. So when you have an understanding of consciousness and who you are, then like we said, life doesn’t get you away normally with this. So it will it is behind you, and will keep reminding you that there’s still there’s more, there’s more to deepening, it’s wants to happen. Deepening, deepening integration, call it like this deepening. Okay, so and in the beginning, because you’re just in so much in love with that bliss, you just tried to get rid of it at any cost. You just push everything, or is a no, I don’t want to deal with that stuff. Because I’m done. Okay, which is the mind claiming a state. But which is not a state. So now, this, like you said, this costs energy, that costs you a lot of energy to keep life out, because you have to You’re defending, you’re defending a state. By the sense, what happens is that the mind now identifies with nothingness. It says I’m nothing. But that is the identification with nothingness. And it protects itself from everything and say, I’m nothing and I don’t want to deal with everything, which is life, okay. And that costs energy. And if you’re very lucky, there will be a moment coming where you will be very, very exhausted. And I have been noticing in traveling around the world, including my own experience, if you live like this and holding on to that kind of state or in that into that quality, let’s call it for me, it’s not a state, but a quality, the system gets drained, you can’t there’s a moment when you get really exhausted, underneath the bliss underneath the claim and the nice the teachings and underneath all that stuff. You know, even people prostrating in front of you, and I’ll tell you this from, from, from, from what I do in life, so to say, underneath is accumulating exhaustion, because the system is still defense, and it uses even this teaching, and being a teacher, and all that stuff as a subtle way to keep life away from yourself because there is still no rest. So before the full impact of life can come in, like you said, like energy in a sweet way, like not in an overwhelmed way. But as like as a
Rick Archer: kiss natural,
Florian Schlosser: like a natural flow. We have to allow the system to come to this place of exhaustion. It almost feels a little bit like a collapse.
Rick Archer: Do we have to go that route? Or that’s just one way it could happen?
Florian Schlosser: I mean, I don’t know if we have to go this way. Maybe people can avoid I can say, look, I think it’s a little bit a few days ago, I read an interesting passage in a book I’m not reading much but just open that book because I had a little how Have issue and I said, Hey, let’s let’s check this out and, and I read something interesting and related to myself. And what it said that our that in our life span up to the middle of our life around the mid 40s. Our system our body and energy system is equipped with a natural amount of adrenaline which masculine energy is, which is an energy that pushes the system to survive. It pushes the system to make something out of your life to get a training to get a job to establish a career, if you need will, you need that adrenaline. But that amount of adrenaline of male energy slows down and empties itself. It’s like it’s only I mean, what do you mean testosterone or you mean adrenaline? No
Rick Archer: adrenaline, it’s like, cuz women have adrenal glands too.
Florian Schlosser: But it’s a hormonal cocktail. And women have that same Yes, but it’s a certain amount we have. And obviously, that comes to an end that resource around the middle of our life, which is actually good, because normally when life moves normally, in the middle of our life, we have established ourselves, we have the job, we have found our place in the world, let’s say normal, just basically no matter what you do, so you don’t need that energy anymore. And suddenly, the life offers different other qualities. For example, instead of fighting yourself through and using your willpower, you can rest and you let life in your drink, which is more like a feminine energy is like receiving life. Okay? And it was very interesting. When I read this, that it again, we were talking about biology, that the body is equipped with a certain amount which is necessary to to cope with life, it’s incredible intelligence, but it is not there forever. So in the middle of our life, you know, that’s why elderly people start to relax a little more. So now, if you look at the different generations of non dual teachers out there, there are some, let’s say, very young ones. And they are very enthusiastic, they have that full power of adrenaline, you know,
Rick Archer: for example, okay.
Florian Schlosser: I mean, it’s just like energy. There’s so much power, we have
Rick Archer: quite a bit of energy yourself. You must be young.
Florian Schlosser: No, I’m not so young I’m. So when this. So you see that energy still plays. But I can notice, when over the last few years, and especially in the last few months, I could notice that this exhaustion underneath is like the system’s reorganizing. It is literally transforming itself from do it to pushing from from not resting even this to a kind of natural quality of rest. But in I’ve been talking to many, many hundreds of people in the last two, three years, and I’ve been, I was wondering, so many people are exhausted. And I could notice that they come with the same thing, that underneath the whole blissed stuff, take the whole philosophy away, there’s tiredness in the system. It’s like, hey, and it’s not because they’re doing wrong, it’s just because the system is still hadn’t, has fully has not fully integrated and learn the capacity to drink life to to enjoy, let’s call it to enjoy, not enjoy with a smile and jumping around. It’s like I’m not this kind of enjoyment. It’s like an inner, it’s like drinking a nice sweet, good wine, you know, it’s like, you sit down and you just enjoy because there is a sense of knowing that you already are connected. Because this adrenaline has to do with connection, the system tries to connect. And there’s unfunny assumption in the system, that it is not connected yet. There is a place in our system where we already know that we are connected and it’s something we can feel in our belly, I would say, if I would locate it, it’s like in the lower part of my body. It’s like if we just honor that place, the system can just hang out in that place of connectedness even now we come to the question. In moments when discomfort happens when focus is demanded. when conflict arises and all the rest, we don’t have to leave that place of connection, let’s call it and it’s an I tried a lot, I mean really, Reiki and you cannot do this. And no philosophy can provide this this is literally a natural maturing process. That is is that you cannot speed up my really
Rick Archer: so years. So your experiences that you just have to wait till you get older. Now, what about you know, a meditation practice where you might be in your 20s But you have cultured the practice of meditation and you can sit for an hour in a deeply restful state. I mean Wouldn’t that sort of inculcate the kind of more settled style of functioning that you’re
Florian Schlosser: talking about? How long? How long does it last? Well, if
Rick Archer: it’s a good type of practice, I would imagine that it doesn’t just stay there while you’re meditating. But it has lingering effects. If you’re doing it regularly, it lasts 24 hours a day. And
Florian Schlosser: are we talking? Are we talking about lingering effects? Are we talking about the natural state?
Rick Archer: Natural State? I, of course, personally, yeah,
Florian Schlosser: that’s a little distinction. I’m not I’m not. I’m not making jokes, or making fun of you. It’s just like, I understand what you’re saying. You’re saying, and I understand that sincere meditation practices and are have it have an effect? And they have, depending on on how serious they are and how clean they are.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And it’s not just a psychological, it alters the physiology in a way in a permanent way. Which runs 24/7.
Florian Schlosser: Yeah. I mean, I have been meditating many years way ahead. But I’ve been noticing that
Rick Archer: the natural maturity, that’s going to be an element to no matter what I mean, is
Florian Schlosser: not to be accomplished by any means.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s certain a certain dimension of our, of the changes we go through only has to do with age and not.
Florian Schlosser: And again, it’s depending on what our culture I mean, look, even, it’s funny enough, we live in a culture where winners, you know, so a young man who has woken up and now teaches he’s a winner. And he has a lot of energy, people seeing his energy and people who have maybe 5060 years and say, Wow, look at this energy. So they get a little bit of his energy, but it’s all bored. And it is, it’s still part of our culture. And I think we have lost this beauty, of ordinariness of allowing to be tired to be not great to not to be glory not to be the winner. And don’t say that we’re losers, but it’s like, you know, it’s so easy to be blinded by by even this, you know, and if the guy is looking good and having a good sense of humor, I mean, we’re just like, we like this, but it pulls our attention
Rick Archer: out there. Yeah.
Florian Schlosser: Instead of noticing sweetly and beautifully unconsciously what’s happening inside because it’s so it’s like, if you watch George Clooney on the on the on the on the catwalk, I mean, it’s like, wow, even He’s so charming. And then you see one of those young, lovely awakened guys, you know, I mean, they’re just like, wow, it’s like Superman. Okay, I’m Superman. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is not reality. This is, this is there’s so much still is still to happen in life. And we don’t we don’t know this. So it’s just like, I don’t know how you are, you’re also a little older than I am probably on 72. Yeah. So I don’t know. It’s like, when you look at this stuff, it’s sweet. I enjoy it. I’m so happy for it for everyone. But also like inside say, okay, don’t take it too serious. You know, just take that to the series, you know, it’s gonna change life is going to change that whole play. It’s, this takes a couple of years and another crisis and a little thing, here. And then we’re gonna see how hard the whole thing is gonna be. But people are so the love the love the winners.
Rick Archer: Sure, look at our culture. I mean, we all get, we get all excited about what these movie stars are doing and everything. And so
Florian Schlosser: we have a new, a new, a new species of winners, we call them the spiritual winners, they made it, they got it, but that didn’t get anything they that all that happened was a shift of focus, or realization, and a way of ahead of front of all of us of integration of things that our system is carrying in the cells.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I like to think we’re all in the same boat. Yeah, maybe sometimes people wander to the front of the boat. And sometimes people are in the back of the boat, but basically, they’re all in the same spot in the ocean, you know, just kind of moving along together. And also an A, I mean, different strokes for different folks. I noticed you’re a musician there you got some guitars? That’s an old line from Sly and the Family Stone but uh, but um, you know, if someone is attracted to one of these charismatic young teachers and wants to sit with them, and yeah, great in as you say, life goes through phases, we’ll see what they’re doing 20 years from now, but it’s, yeah, it’s, you know,
Florian Schlosser: nothing wrong. And I please forgive me because I’m, you know, I, it’s lovely to see, I can see this, there’s a there’s a potential for, for seduction.
Rick Archer: And there’s a potential for guru worship and you know, just, you know, and then it can work both ways. I mean, that can not only this,
Florian Schlosser: and we all have to make, make our learnings and, and it’s not about right or wrong. For me, it’s like it’s about honoring reality and we have as in reality of consciousness, this is the ultimate reality this consciousness here, and that is that which ceases and includes everything. And then there’s a human reality we’d call it the Embodied Reality, the nervous system, it’s by the biology, the biology, the biological reality, which is complex. And, and it has an effect on how our thinking functions and has an effect on the psyche is organized, it has an effect of how healthy we are dealing with life. And that can for my, in my experience cannot be denied. If they’re working hand in hand. I would say life is like a rhythm between knowing like what Ramana says, I know that, um, nothing. Okay, that is like the ultimate reality that Ramana represents. It’s like, there’s consciousness as the ultimate reality and nothing is real, right? And then there was the invitation of Muktananda if I just take my own journey, and he said, I’m everything. All of this, the whole universe is an experience in my own system. Yeah. And I can sense this, and somehow, they are the same. So So for me, in my nervous system, I It’s like, there’s this reality that Ramana represents. And then there’s this drinking of life, this drinking of energy that mukta Nanda was representing like, both at the same time now and they’re walking, it’s not even say they’re working hand in hand. They are not to be separated from each other. Yeah, one. And so it’s just for me, I need to do effort to separate one from the other to say either to only play with energy, then I would lose myself, I wouldn’t be no rest. And if I would only be resting without drinking, there would be God would not be recognized in all of existence. So So I think this is kind of
Rick Archer: it’s a dead I get you. Yes, it’s a it’s paradoxical. But that’s the way life is it’s both. And there’s in Vedic physiology, actually, there’s this thing about there being two nervous systems or two aspects of the nervous system. And, you know, it can develop to the software, one aspect of the nervous system is maintaining that sort of am nothing state. Well, the other aspect of the nervous system is simultaneously maintaining the eye on everything state and the engagement in life state. And then these two things kind of go on simultaneously by virtue of those two functions. I don’t think it’s a type of physiology that Western Western physiologists would acknowledge. But But
Florian Schlosser: I mean, if you if you look in how Western neurologists they would call it, they would call it the parison particles and the sympathetic nervous system, maybe so yeah, so the parasympathetic nervous system is that organization of the system, where the system abides and rests naturally, it’s like when we sleep, the system moves from activation into rest. And the sympathetic nervous system is that nervous system that makes the system move, active, that allows us to be in life and do the things that we need to do. And it ideally, the system has found its rhythm, or has never lost its rhythm. So that these two organizations to the nervous system can swing like a pendulum. So pretty much what you say, Yeah, but like, based on what we were talking before, that natural self regulation or call it self balancing this capacity we most of us lost. So we need to use tricks, techniques, methods, teachers energies, to try to return to that balance. The difficulty is that the system can only return naturally to that balance. Because if not, it has that capacity already. So you know, as a matter of fact, we have to sooner or later, it’s disappointing to remove the tricks all of them, including non duality. It’s beautiful, but it is often used as a trick.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Although I would suggest that a good teacher could offer you I don’t know if he we would use the word tricks, but could offer you methods or something that would be natural that you wouldn’t say we’re unnatural, but that can help to inculcate this sort of style of functioning you’re you’re alluding to. So it’s not like I would toss all the teachers out the window.
Florian Schlosser: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it’s not the teacher. It is what the system does with the teacher. Yeah, teacher can be a trick or it can be a point or, or an invitation. It’s, it’s nothing needs to be thrown out the window. It’s to be honest to oneself and to see how am I using all this?
Rick Archer: Yeah, it because you can let me ask you, please, let me ask you a question. That would bring us to the practical application of everything you’re saying. Let’s say that you were hired by the US Army to come over to Afghanistan, and to deal with soldiers who are under tremendous amount of stress, and they’re, you know, they’re traumatized by the fighting they’ve been involved in. And the army says, you know, this is this is a problem. These guys are committing suicide. They’re killing each other. They’re going home and beating up their families and becoming alcoholics. We want you to To help these guys, you know, de stress and, you know, decondition from the the intense situation they’ve been through, what would you do for people like that?
Florian Schlosser: Very simple. I mean, the first thing I would I would introduce, and it’s very simple, you know, just making them realize that prior to all the experiences, they undergoing the fear, the stress, the disintegration, the panic, there’s no awareness
Rick Archer: of all of this, and how would you make them realize that
Florian Schlosser: we’re just asking a bunch of questions, you know, is it possible that you see their thinking, would say, of course I can, I’m conscious of my thinking, are you? Are you conscious of the panic in your system? Yes, I’m conscious, because otherwise, how could they tell me? Are you conscious of the vibrations in your nervous system, because stress is a high level of agitation of activation in the nervous system that would normally ask, of course, and very simple, because if they would not be aware of it, they wouldn’t be able to talk to me about it. Okay. So that’s simple fact that they can tell me about it must, is a proof that there is something aware of it prior to their capacity to talk to me. So and then there’s the Oh, so that awareness is who we are. So that we’re just prior to integration and disintegration, it is prior to stress and relaxation. So because these are states of activation in 80, millions of cells, that’s what we’re dealing with, we’re dealing with a biology, we’re dealing with the physical experience with a or call it a somatic experience, I think it’s a better word. Okay, so now, when you when you as we hear now, okay, just imagine you’re one of those soldiers, I am one of those soldiers, okay? So take a moment. So there’s awareness here, and see if we can just been conscious of the different qualities that are in our nervous systems right now. Okay, some of them are relaxed. feet on the ground, we can feel a little tension in the shoulders and some energy flowing through the arms. And it is quite moving. But there’s a connection with the belly.
Rick Archer: Far and I just had a brief interruption computer glitch, and I had to restart my computer took a moment to feed the cat and go to the bathroom. And now we’re back. And I’m gonna just ask Florian to resume where he left off.
Florian Schlosser: So we’re playing with that idea of that we meet somebody when I say, soldier of the US Army being highly stressed. And what would that tell him? Okay, that was the question.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And you are leading through a procedure that you would take him through, you know,
Florian Schlosser: yeah, I would, I would just Yeah, starting with the, with inviting the person to realize that there’s awareness here, and that this awareness that is prior to even the stress and the excitement, and the activation in the system, is the ultimate reality is who he is consciousness, which is very simple. It’s a very easy distinction. People making a huge fuss out of this, but with a bunch of interesting simple questions. If people realize this, in a glance, it’s nothing big.
Rick Archer: And have you actually done this with people who are really tightly wound, you know, who are on the verge of suicide, on a daily basis, deep depression, that kind of sharing? Yes,
Florian Schlosser: I’m sharing my I mean, also, like, when I’m not traveling, I’m sharing, sharing Skype sessions with people around the world, people with a lot of symptoms or with with different levels of disintegration, including people who have been on the spiritual journey for many, many years. I’m privileged to meet them and, and play with them and explore this together, some of them have realized this awareness as the ultimate reality already, which is not necessarily causing, like, like, stars showing up for some of this very exciting experience. For others. It’s a very calm, very smooth, very natural realization that doesn’t have a lot of impact. What’s much, and I don’t want to underestimate that realization, but I also don’t want to give it too much significance. Because that’s not the end of the story. So when I would now meet those people, or whoever, with the same symptoms, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a soldier because a lot of people have that symptoms. I would, I would invite them to step number one, simple to take a moment. Now, as we hear, there’s awareness here. And just taking a moment just slowing down the time, because there’s a capacity in us to literally slow down inside because there’s so much speed and being aware of the speed and the activation And if you can do like I would talk to you now as if you were to be that person, we’re just allowing the focus of our attention to relax for a moment, like a muscle that we were holding tight for years for 20 3040 years, because we were so scared. We give it a moment of letting the focus relax, like, you know, you’re tired to come home and say, What a day. Enough for today, okay, then you just let the focus hang, hey, Helen hang loose, like this. And noticing just the invitation has an effect on the how the stream of energy starts to flow differently. You can feel like there’s a little tingling in the legs. And it’s like, Ah, okay, like, and in that moment, you can feel the underlying tiredness, can you feel it, like it’s behind the eyes, it lives there. Because we, and we just give it space, okay, we allow it, we fully give that space because this is the most precious we have now to slow down. Because what we used to, to push over to kick it, and to keep going. Because this is like, it feels like if I would let go now if I would really surrender to the exhaustion, my everything we’re going to break down, it’s like, it’s like, it scares the the worst out of us. But interesting wise, when we honor this, that this is an underlying reality in most of us. And don’t underestimate that, Rick, it don’t matter how shiny and bright we are on the surface. And I include myself into this. This is not the actual reality in most of us, and I would say 99% of all cases, and I have seen teachers, students on various levels, when I meet them like this, and we just take a moment, this is failed. Because the system there still are we as a species, we all are still running more or less on a survival mode. We could call it even a spiritual survival mode. So this Advaita non duality stuff is very often another loop in our survival, machinery, we trying to survive, literally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, but many people also surviving like, worldly like, I mean, this is a survival mechanism.
Rick Archer: Okay, so when you say 99% of the people, what you’re referring to, is that 99% have this sort of inner agitation or this disruption or upheaval or something going on beneath the surface, is that what you’re referring to? Yes. Okay, to varying degrees, obviously, some people various degrees, some people huge, some people are minimal, but you’re saying there’s always some
Florian Schlosser: and, and tremendous capacity to compensate. So I mean, the tricks and the ways our system compensates not to deal with this, are on believable. And I’ll tell you this, from a perspective of what people call a teacher, I’m not referring to myself as this. This is a super high developed compensation, because it can be used for this if you’re not taking care of what’s actually happening inside of you. You Me being a teacher is a super example. It’s the ultimate compensation not because you’re because you know you’re exposed people come to there’s a lot of energy playing with you. Yeah, giving energy people give you a lot of energy. So it builds up a certain, let’s say, an artificial reality in your own nervous system. That creates a feeling of aliveness. Yeah, that probably is not your own aliveness.
Rick Archer: I taught meditation for 25 years, and when you’re up, no one have a crowd of 100 people and they’re asking you questions, and you’re really on the stage. And you really wake up. Yeah.
Florian Schlosser: And you wake up and you wake up together. Because I mean, there’s so much playful energy happening that I mean, you have to have 100 people in the retreat and people for five days they give you attention because that’s what they’re coming for. But that’s a real high. It’s a high but it’s it’s suggest to your system, aliveness, which probably are in my experience, and I’m just speaking very openly because I’m from time to time just taking breaks and I want to see what the actual reality is. And it’s interesting to see that there’s a lot of board aliveness. Yeah. And underneath the system is still trying to survive even that energetic impact because you’re imagining it comes with its own experience. Now there’s so much energy coming in from the outside now it has to cope with that energy too. And the system just is just breaking down regularly in a way. So to be able to as we’re speaking it’s interesting our the way we are sensing now it’s quite amazing. We talking but there’s a different quality of how aware we are inside. Do you notice in this way, there’s like we’re we’re taking care of that subtle It’s like, like tiredness, and I’m using words now. But it has an effect that we are more gentle. Can you notice it’s like it slows down. We give more breaks. And we can track more. Like we’re connecting deeper with, with what’s actually true in us. And I’m talking about the ultimate truth that we awareness, we have had this before. But there’s an inner reality of this organism called Rick, in our organization of the nervous system called Florian. And this is so often denied. And not because we’re weird, because nobody has invited us. I mean, nobody has introduced to us a way to meet this to, let’s say, to welcome it to, to drink it, what we actually dealing with on a daily basis. And interesting wise, I’ve been meeting some colleagues and teachers, and have been had the luck to meet them privately. And it’s quite interesting when they’re not in stage like me, or having an interview. It’s very different. And so I’m happy to also not to promote this now that because you said before, you also have a lot of energy. On the one hand, it’s true, but it’s it’s only one part of the game. Yeah, this, how, how’s that now? So if we were talking about this people, can we can we invite this kind of receptive, gentle quality, or it’s called like a kind of non pushed energy, it’s less energetic, it feels less bright, maybe feels awful, maybe even less enlightened, or whatever you call this. But how can we describe this? How would you say, are we talking?
Rick Archer: You mean, right now? How would we describe it?
Florian Schlosser: Yeah. How do we connect? What’s the what effect doesn’t have one hour of the energy field that we’re creating right now? Together? You and me?
Rick Archer: Well, I’m not completely sure I completely understand your question. But when I when I do an interview like this, I find that it’s sort of like the old teaching days in terms of a real high of energy, but it’s also it’s very refining, and it has, it’s sort of like, your, your whole system kind of becomes more finely attuned or more subtle, in its functioning. And
Florian Schlosser: it’s it for me, it’s, it’s interesting, there’s, it creates space. Yeah. And suddenly, there’s a space between over there and here in which life can happen in live exploration, maybe even the people who who are listening, or who will see the interview, they will feel like, Oh, there’s more space now to to be to rest. That’s how I feel it right now.
Rick Archer: It’s simple, your whole thing that you started out talking about about, you know, shifting from the tight focus to the sort of more relaxed broad, you know, I think when you have your attention on something like this, it has that effect, it’s sort of like, you know, loosens the grip of the type focus and and sort of relaxes you into a broader kind of state.
Florian Schlosser: But can you notice what it has an effect, this widening of the focus has an effect of how the body reorganize?
Rick Archer: Yeah, definitely, the body follows the focus, it becomes as if more coherent, and its functioning are so important, transparent,
Florian Schlosser: or Yeah, like, almost like, it expands a little bit as if the cells or the system would have space to breathe to be. And it’s interesting that the experience we’re having is following the focus, obviously,
Rick Archer: one doubt that I have that I want to raise is, I wonder about the potency of what you’re doing, or what you’re saying. Because, you know, like, as we’ve discussed earlier, there are many, many layers of conditioning, some of which started in our infancy. And some of these people I’ve been talking about who are highly stressed, you know, like, if you went over to Afghanistan to do this counseling, would you really be able to, you know, relax them through very many layers? Or would you just be kind of scratching the surface since it’s built out so powerfully, and then they’ve got to go out and fight again, you know, so what? How can this help them not get stressed the next time they have to go out and fight?
Florian Schlosser: I mean, I mean, first of all, it’s true. This is we’re not talking about the quick fix, right? Okay. Not at all. Okay, so I have to be honest, I mean, I’m, I mean, that feel for 25 years now, in the last 11 years, it was more inviting people from here from consciousness instead of from fixing but anyway, there is a lot of potential for integration or healing still there, which could go on for years. In my experience, it is a lifetime never ending, right, right. The deepening or the healing or the integration or the DIS the embodiment. I don’t see an end to this. If people claim it’s done, okay. It’s a it’s a it’s a valuable perspective, but the It’s not my experience, I would I would not sign this.
Rick Archer: So it’s good to be clear about that. Because otherwise people have false expectations, you know, or either they kind of fool themselves into thinking they are done, or they, they feel bad because they feel like, Hey, I’m not done and I should be or something. But if you if you realize that it’s an ongoing process, I’m
Florian Schlosser: this have done this is so confusing. Because having a lot of energy doesn’t mean that you’re integrated. Being bright and smart, doesn’t mean you’re integrated, even being awakened, doesn’t mean that you’re integrated. Yeah, it has nothing to do with each other. I mean, these are completely two different free arms, to be grounded or integrated is another way to say, to be able to be connected without doing connection without doing actively connecting is something that is completely different than knowing that your consciousness, I mean, these are two different worlds. Yeah, and I think it’s very, very clear to let people know that there’s a long journey, depending on the history of that body, of, of meeting things in the system, that once you have seen them, you you will very clearly know who has ruled out the energy in your house, you know, even the the drive to teach, or the drive to share or to be bright and to let people know what you have found. I mean, there’s so many things in the background that I still like the remote control. So to be honest, if I would meet those guys in Afghanistan, that would take time. Yeah, so a very huge factor on that journey is time.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, obviously, you’re just one man, and you can’t sit and meet with, you know, millions of people in the world. But so do you have something that you say to people that would just enable them to do this on their own without you, you know,
Florian Schlosser: I mean, the main thing is that people learning to,
Rick Archer: to listen to the nervous system, to tune in, sort of,
Florian Schlosser: to listen to it, we have not learned to listen to, to the body, to the intelligence of the nervous system, the intelligence of the body, to all the things, you know, every to all the tightening, to really listen what what the system tells us, you know, there’s such a high intelligence in our system that communicates with us, but we have not learned to receive this information because we are tending to interpret that information. It can be either psychologically, but it could also be spirituality, like one interpretation is, it’s just not real. Why should I deal with this? It’s an interpretation. Yeah, is that it is an interpretation, as if I say, just focus on it all the time and try to fix it. It’s an in psychological interpretation. But can we really listen to and receive the information of what our system tells us, like, without a filter, and that so the pre the preoccupation for all this is that you know that there’s awareness, and only that enables you to finally at least beginning to listen. And, I mean, there are meditation practices who promote this like vipassana, the thing is that they do it with a particular focus. And I would suggest to receive the information without a focus without doing anything with it is like literally learned to become passive. So I can imagine if I tell those guys in Afghanistan, Hey, guys, just receiving what your body tells most of the people that would never return to the battlefield,
Rick Archer: because then everybody says, it’s pure
Florian Schlosser: violence. I mean, what they’re doing to themselves is pure violence. So then they have the concept of duty and right and all the stuff, okay, that makes them maybe going back to the battlefield, but if they would just learn to listen, nobody would ever go back on a battlefield. Yeah, it’s because it’s pure violence against your own being, no matter what, what philosophy you’re using to justify this or whatever prolonged politics you’re using for this, that that is it’s not case. So I mean, it’s easier said than done. Yeah. Easier said then then then it say, played with in daily life.
Rick Archer: And let’s say a person says, Okay, this sounds good. You know, I want to learn to listen to what’s my body and so on. And I’ll devote whatever time you recommend 15 minutes, half an hour, or a little moments throughout the day or whatever, you know, what specifically, practically would you prescribe to such a persons who could just start doing this on a daily basis,
Florian Schlosser: very simple. Every time you you’re noticing that you’re disembodied, which means that you’re losing ground, simply that you’re losing ground contact that you stop feeling yourself properly. Take a moment, take 234 or five seconds, that’s enough. And bring your attention back to your nervous system. Just feel it feel the vibration, feel where it’s comfortable, where it’s not comfortable, feel your feet on the ground, take a breath, and then move on. And it may be only lasting for 60 seconds until you feel like you’re disembodied again and start again. And it’s like you’re
Rick Archer: learning to walk becomes a habit after a while, maybe
Florian Schlosser: you have to. Because this embodying not paying attention, jumping over denying is a habit. Yeah, it is even a spiritually justified habit, it became a spiritually justified habit. So in another way through repetition, this habit becomes like your reality. And all what I’m introducing is giving that habit little interruptions and double check with your system. I’m actually really here am I’m in touch with, I mean, I normally spoken, do I have my feet on the ground? Basically? I mean, that’s where it all begins? Do I really have my feet on the ground? Am I just flying high. And when I fly, I don’t feel much so and then take a moment. And this is like an ongoing little, let’s call it a play again, like, you start to pay attention to yourself, which is, for me, the practical aspect of giving love or attention to yourself like, not here, not with your head. And I love myself not as a suggestion or like an affirmation. But can you really take a break? And say, how, how is the system right now? Is it? I mean, is it well, or am I claiming that it is? Well?
Rick Archer: Yeah, so in other words, a little bit more self aware, on a physical level, just be sort of tune, just tune in periodic, listen, periodically. Yeah,
Florian Schlosser: it’s not so much observing. It’s not observing yourself. It’s also not being aware of self. And we’d say it’s like, the the awareness, the focus of awareness, or the focus of attention just includes the body and receives information that in my experience is essential. To live a healthy life or an integrated life, a spiritual life is not necessarily an integrated life.
Rick Archer: Well, ideally, it should be, but often it isn’t.
Florian Schlosser: Yeah, and integration doesn’t mean like, it’s not a big, big, big super word. It’s for me, like, I mean, basically, that you know how to make your living, that you have somehow intact relationships, if you’re lucky, you have a partner, you can explore with mean these basics, that you’re feel comfortable that you feel like safe, without being completely neurotic, and spiritualizing, your own dis detachment, because you don’t know how to live I mean, this is simple signs of an integrated human being. It’s not that you have to be Superman, or go out and teach all kinds of stuff. That’s bullshit. Sorry to say that this has nothing to do with integration. It’s just like really, very ordinary, and I’m just taking care of this in my own life as good as I can. And I’m noticing when my wife and we bump into each other, there’s always an invitation to have a closer look what what’s what’s there, and, and all that stuff, then then life becomes very simple and very easy. You’re not, there’s no need to use anything to, to move away from that, you know, it’s, it’s this is it’s not necessary. You don’t even talk about it, actually. You drink life, just the way it comes in to the wet to the degree you can. And that’s important to the degree your nervous system already allows that. That’s, that’s a, that’s a key for me, because I was trying, I was so frustrated sometimes that that I wanted to really let it all in. But the system said I can’t. Because there was still so much overwhelming me that even certain experiences were just too much. So it was like a battlefield inside of me of my heart telling me Of course, I like to open up, I like to be one and I like to drink all of it and the nervous system say, baby, slow down. This is too fast for me. And to bring this into an alignment in a way that really works cool. As a year long process.
Rick Archer: And have you found though, that over the years, your capacity to take it all in has continued to increase? Yeah.
Florian Schlosser: It’s like it’s like a humbling process of knowing that your energy is not unlimited. Your adrenaline is not there forever, that you’re somehow from a perspective of a man I would say that you’re starting to honor more female, virtuous, it’s like the it’s like more receptivity like not like, like, like this kind of style. And I like the what the Dalai Lama said on a on a beautiful speech, I think last year, and I it’s not that and I really liked that. He said what the world needs the most is female. moderation. Moderation. Female moderation.
Rick Archer: Uh huh. Yeah. And I think
Florian Schlosser: we’re on a journey there that including us as men not becoming women not becoming whims, but We learned to pay attention to life in a way that a woman or a mother would always do because she’s dealing with life in a different way with the body. And so I think we are in a journey from from this kind of masculine approach more to feminine qualities. And even our spirituality, I think we’ve got to change because if you look at Advaita, it’s a pretty male dominant philosophy field. And that’s why I think that the whole issue of integrating giving time tuning in is a lot of headroom for let’s say, maturity, even around this. And I think Advaita is not the end of the line. It is it is a suggestion. It is 2000 5000 years old, and it is still evolving. Yeah, I mean, consciousness of it is not a fixed position, which is claimed, unfortunately, often it is it isn’t movement, it is an ongoing revealing that is happening through us as we’re talking right now. Advaita discovers itself in its deeper truth. And I think if we see it like this, then we really start to explore instead of claiming and exchanging opinions about what’s right and wrong. I mean, that’s my point.
Rick Archer: I don’t know. Yeah, that’s a good point. Let’s touch on one more theme. If we have a moment that I heard you discuss a bit in your talks with Richard, never not here. You talked quite a bit about beliefs and belief systems, and the impact that I suppose harboring certain unexamined assumptions has on a person’s life, you know what I’m talking about that? Yes. Yeah. You want to just kind of address that for a minute?
Florian Schlosser: Yeah. I mean, if we talk about belief systems, we they are basically compensation organizations that make us not dealing with experiences that are incredibly painful in our nervous system, and we don’t know how to meet them. So, when the system is has been under an impact of a painful experience or an invasion, the system which is mostly connected with a life threatening moment, what happens is that the system needs to survive that situation. And it starts in that in that energetic impact what happens that the system builds up rudimentary beliefs around life, for example, I can never trust like for example, when your mother was invade invasive, the systems learns, I cannot trust closeness, I cannot trust intimacy I cannot trust a woman because it is because that belief is connected with an embedded in base of experience Okay, so later so the system builds up a belief it’s very, very simple, I cannot trust a woman for example, I have just as a as a right and that belief protects you from the repetition of another painful experience. So beliefs are subtle protection mechanisms that prevent the system of re experiencing something that it didn’t know how to cope with. Very simple how they manifest in the body is through contractions. So every contraction we have is an unconscious belief that the body holds tight to it’s like I can’t or I must or it’s impossible, or I know it’s true you know, these are like like beliefs and all these rigid positions another way to say make the system pull the focus tight and rigid in it too rigid focus and and the body follows the focus as we found out that tightens up so we feel these unconscious beliefs or rigid positions as all kinds of tension in the somatic in the somatic organization like in the tissue in the muscles, and not solving it on the mental tried to find that belief doesn’t actually make a big difference. I mean, psychology has tried a lot of stuff like this and I mean Byron Katie, she’s doing a lot of stuff with this kind of turnarounds, changing belief systems, I mean, it has beautiful value, but only when we give the body time to drink that to to see the correlation between the muscular structure the tissue, the cells, and how the psyche, I believe, is a psychological organization, how they’re correlating all the time. And so, through changing belief system is not necessarily that the cell starts relax, it has an effect but it’s like, like a dynamic I would say it’s like a like an information exchange from the cells to the to the mental rearm to the psyche and back to the cells. So it what’s what’s very useful for me is to understand that these beliefs or positions are protection mechanisms. They are survival mechanisms of the system in order to cope with certain experience when it doesn’t know how to cope with naturally like, in an appropriate way, for example,
Rick Archer: it makes sense. Yeah, in fact, funny when you were saying that I was reminded the lyrics of I am a rock by Simon and Garfunkel, you know, a rock feels no pain and the island never dies, I touched no one and no one touches me, you know, very appropriate song. So how did you, you know, with this understanding, how did that enable you to kind of unravel beliefs that you were using as protective mechanisms, or somehow relaxed them or so,
Florian Schlosser: I mean, it’s like, again, a very practical example, you know, like, I’m a married man, I love my wife. And from time to time, we’re getting into trouble, like everybody, okay, so there’s a dynamic happening. And in the moment, what everybody can notice that the trouble begins that my system loses its sense of ease and rest, and it becomes activated. I call it an activation and a slight leap. Like, I’m not resting in my body, I become like a speed in the system, okay, like fear, all kinds of stuff. We don’t have to label that all stuff. Yeah. And, and, and with that, with that sense of losing rest. There are interesting movements happening defensive movements, protective movements, like Fight, fight, flight and freeze, and we were talking about this, okay, and just to realize this, and to take a moment to really see how the system has moved from ease to an
Rick Archer: habit to agitation. Yeah,
Florian Schlosser: activation, like it’s an activation, right, in that moment when you’re not moving with psychology because normally when the energy starts to disembodied, what happens it pushes the energy up into your head and the head and the mind starts to be activated to you start to think more than you before because when you’re resting, there’s not much thinking. So the mind starts to try to find the cause of the difficulty now, is it she? No, it’s me. Now. There’s something what has happened, you know, and in this, when you take time to examine that to really see without following anything, not the sensations, not the thinking, you will see that there are a few I mean, funnily enough, it’s a few musts don’t have to know, knows absolute absolutes, right, that show up and all this stuff. I mean, all I’m doing is just I’m asking myself, is it necessary? Yeah. I mean, it’s all okay, I can protect and it’s nothing wrong to protect, and there’s nothing wrong to defend. But is it useful? Is it necessary in this moment, to, to meet or to solve? And funnily enough, it’s, I never found it necessary. So in that moment, it’s not necessary. It’s again, it’s not No, it’s not pushing it away or suppressing it. It’s just, I can do this now. I can keep going. But is it necessary? What’s the what’s the function of it? You know, it’s a recognizing
Rick Archer: that you can kind of relax out of it and not yell because it’s
Florian Schlosser: exactly not moving with the, with the with the with the with the fight flight and freeze defense, kind of step back? And it’s like, yeah, it’s you, you give it space, it’s not so much detaching yourself, because it’s not so much withdrawing or stepping back, it’s more suddenly there are options. That there were not there before. Because if this is remains unconscious, and not it, like not seen, there is no option, there’s nothing we can do. The habit kicks in and it moves us no matter how conscious we are, we even seeing that we’re moving with a habit, we’re even conscious of this. But there is no other option the system just moves habitually. Yeah. So that’s, that’s important to notice that we can be fully conscious of an habitual functioning, we are conscious of it. But as the system has no other option, there is only one option, which means keep on repeating pain patterns, or, or, or destructive patterns that we know they’re not working. And we can even say I’m fully aware of this, but that doesn’t change anything. And to not justify this and not using anything. There is an interest, at least in my system to see, okay, what is is there an option? Or Is there freedom of choice? Because as long as then we have to also clarify this. As long as unconscious habits are playing out, there’s absolutely no option for us. Like, we cannot do anything in the moment you’re aware of. And the system has taken a moment. Like to really tune in and to see what is happening. Options arise. There’s, it’s like it’s like a space like a gap in which a moment of freedom is like it’s like space and in that space, options arise, alternatives. And for me, freedom is nothing else, but having options to my habitual functioning. That’s freedom. Free yeah, that’s all what it is. That I have options that I can experiment at doesn’t, it’s not a guarantee it’s going to move on nicely. It’s not a guarantee that is moving perfectly in the next step. But at least I’m not going down the old Highway, which is this repeating and establishing beliefs into deeper truths. So to say, Okay. And, and that’s very practical for me and my relationship or my, or the things that are a perfect playground for me to exactly play with that stuff. Is there an option?
Rick Archer: That sounds great. So this is
Florian Schlosser: options when we’re conscious, as long as we’re unconscious. And we even using a philosophy to, to cover that up. It’s true, there’s nothing we can do. But then the moment we are conscious, there are options
Rick Archer: that I’m reminded of what Christ said as they were about to crucify him and said, Forgive them Father, for they know, not what they do. They know their unconscious,
Florian Schlosser: the unconscious, but so we have to see it from we can look at reality and it live through two different perspectives from the perspective of unconscious patterns that play out, which means unconscious means we don’t see them. We don’t even know that they are operating. And from that, of course, we cannot do anything, right. So it’s even true when people say, there’s nothing you can do, but only from the perspective of an unconscious happens playing out. And I would not claim that even in this moment, there might not might not be even some unconscious patterns playing out. But as long as I don’t see them, there’s nothing I can do. But in the moment, I’m conscious of them, no matter how it come along. options show up. Hey, I can experiment with this. I can try it another way I can play I can dance, you know, it’s like suddenly you have two steps. Before you had one step. Now you have like three to four steps and say, hey, wow, that’s cool. That is smooth, isn’t it?
Rick Archer: Yeah. That’s good. And I think I guess whatever everything you’ve said today, it seems to me it boils down to culturing the habit of self referral or self refer, you know, tuning in to your, to your body,
Florian Schlosser: not to not just simply not denying anything, not denying
Rick Archer: and culturing the habit of sort of just stopping the habitual drive outward. And just to turn within for a moment and
Florian Schlosser: second moment, see what’s going on. Yes, just taking a moment, two or 345 seconds, tuning into the nervous system into the habit habits, because you know yourself already, you’d have lived with yourself for 6062 years, you know, all your habits. And, and it’s just takes one moment to say, Okay, wait a second. I know this. Now I know the whole story. And what happens when I give a moment of gentle, gentle, gentle, gentle quality of attention to, to some maybe valuable information that my body wants to give me an I just couldn’t hear it uptown. I could just no ways. Oh, that’s why we mostly I don’t, don’t talk to me like this. It’s fun. It’s I mean, so funny how we functioning?
Rick Archer: Yeah. It’s like the old saying, Don’t confuse me with the facts. I’ve made up my mind.
Florian Schlosser: Yes, exactly. Because the body tells you some facts that may interfere with the truth of your mind. And to bring them together. I would describe it as, like an integrated human being or the capacity to enjoy. Even when life comes in, and life is not always pleasant. It’s it cannot be right. It’s a lollipop fantasy. Yeah, lovely.
Rick Archer: Great. Well, thank you very much for this. I think this gives people a lot to chew on. Imagine, yeah. And if they want to chew more, I’ll be linking to your website. And they can read things and listen to things and even talk to you in person over Skype, if they’d like to do that. So I’m sure that’s
Florian Schlosser: coming. I’d be coming. If nothing happens. Unexpectedly, I’ll be back in the States. It’s soon for like, starting in Seattle, and then on sand begin on that conference in San Rafael and then just traveling around in the US and having a final luck in finalizing retreat in Florida and I think round mid November. So I can imagine that quite a few people in the States. Listen to your programs.
Rick Archer: Yeah, quite a few all over the world, actually. And, and you’ll have a schedule of all that on your website. I presume.
Florian Schlosser: There will be a new website coming out in the next few weeks. So it’s still the old website, but it provides all the new redesigned and all Yeah, it’s a whole relaunch of the whole thing and I wouldn’t be lovely to also link that video once you put it on your website. Maybe? Yeah, absolutely. Put it on my website. So
Rick Archer: it’s easy to do your webmaster will know how to do it, you embed the code and? Well, thanks. Let me just make some points. In summary, I’ve been speaking with Florian Schlosser. And this is, I don’t know, number 87, or 88, or something and a series of interviews that I’ve been doing on a show called Buddha at the Gas Pump, I do a new one each week. And if you go to batgap.com, bat gap, you’ll see the whole collection, you can subscribe to an email newsletter to be notified when new ones are posted. And you can subscribe to your podcast if you’d like to listen while you’re commuting or something like that. There’s discussion groups that pop up with each new interview. There’s, it’s like a place to leave comments. And people often get into lively discussions. And sometimes I’ll even call the author in or the the person I’ve interviewed to comment on questions people have asked, and so on. So batgap.com, please visit there. My next interview will be with Karen Richards, who’s in the UK. And you’ll notice that she’ll be wearing the same headset as Florian. I have several of them out in the field and people send them one to the next. So thanks for watching or listening. And we’ll see you next week.
Florian Schlosser: Okay, thank you, Rick, for inviting me and love and hugs to you and to everyone who was who’s going to listen to this.
Rick Archer: Thanks. And I look forward to meeting you in California.
Florian Schlosser: I was data you’ll be on the conference, you said yeah. Very good. I’m happy to I’m happy I’ll be having a pre conference workshop. And then like all the like the other people like a presentation. I don’t know exactly. But it’s a fun, it’s a fun happening a lot of information. Last year was interesting because I felt like people didn’t really take a lot of time to integrate what came into them. So after the end of the the end of the day, the people were so in their heads, so much information coming in. And they didn’t there was no reason of rushing from one event to the other. So this time, I took myself also two more days to good to slow down and not to rush through the whole thing. Yeah,
Rick Archer: and I accidentally if people are interested in that conference, there’s a link on my website to it. There’s an icon that on the right hand side, dog is getting excited. There’s a link on the right hand side, which is science and non duality. If you click on that, it’ll take you to the site where you can see more about that if you want.
Florian Schlosser: And I recommend also that people come because it’s a great event. Lots of different voices, lots of different energies and tastes that people can play with. So I’m looking forward to be back. So a website to and my own Facebook to
Rick Archer: a lot of people I’ve been interviewing will be there. In fact, that’s part of the reason I want to go I mean, Benito Massaro and Pamela Wilson and all kinds of people, and also people I’m going to be interviewing like Rupert Spira and others. So anyway, I guess we’ve plugged that conference enough. So thanks, Florian. Rick, really appreciate it. Talk to you. Yeah, I’ll see you soon.