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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people have done over 410 of them by now. And if this is new to you, and you’d like to watch previous ones, go to batgap.com. And look under the past interviews menu, where you’ll see the all the previous ones organized in several different ways. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and feel like supporting it, there’s a Donate button on every page of the site. Before we get started, just a quick announcement or two. One is that if you’re watching this on YouTube, and you haven’t subscribed to this channel, and you feel inclined to do so please hit the subscribe button. Because when you get more subscribers, YouTube like works with you more and helps you do various things. And so I’d like to sort of increase the number of subscribers if possible. And another thing is that quite some time ago, we shut down comments on YouTube because they were really kind of snarky. But we have a Facebook community group now where people can comment in a much more civil and controlled way. And there will be a link beneath this in every video in the description area that you can click on to go to that Facebook group. So my guest today is Gloria Tai Ji her her name is really Gloria Byram Gradius. But she goes by the nickname Gloria Ji. And her bio here is really the story that she’s going to tell during this interview. So I don’t think I will read the bio, I think I’ll just invite gorgey to start telling it. And glory Ji came highly recommended by a couple of good friends of mine. And I’ve been seeing her on Facebook for a while. And you know, she has a very interesting background, which I think can be an inspiration to a lot of people. So I’m really happy to have her on the show. Happy to have you clergy.
Gloriji: Thank you. It’s great to be here.
Rick Archer: You’re welcome. So give us all the gory details.
Gloriji: Oh, gory to glory.
Rick Archer: It’s kind of a nice synopsis right there?
Gloriji: Well, I think we have, I think all of us have a little of all of that within us. And, and so I, I’m sure so many people can relate. I grew up in rock and roll kind of house. My parents were in the swing music and my brothers started playing rock and roll music early on. And so I just we grew up doing the twist. And there are parties in the basement. So that kind of party atmosphere is something I’ve literally have known all of my life. And like so many other little boys and girls, you know, there was a time when I was being molested by a neighbor, he was actually a friend of my father’s. So you know, that set up some pretty huge insecurities. And you know, back in the early 60s, this wasn’t a common thing. Or at least people didn’t talk about it openly. And so the best advice I got was to try to forget it.
Rick Archer: I think it was probably just as common but as you say people didn’t talk about it so much.
Gloriji: So that went on for a couple of years. And my whole demeanor and everything about me, I thought a little tomboy change to a subdued, frightened kind of little girl insecure. And so at one point, I was able to find the courage after two years of that to tell my parents and the best advice I got was to try to forget it. And I believe you. Yeah, so we went to court and he ended up serving three months in jail. Turned out he was molesting several children. So by my telling a lot of other people. They were able to end that nightmare. And yeah, and so we ultimately moved to Alabama and I think a large part of that. My parents are from here originally. I was born in South Bend, Indiana. This is where all of this took place. And so when I came down Alabama and I didn’t have friends and all of that it wasn’t long until I started getting high. So by the time I was 12 years old I was smoking pot. And by the time I was 14 years old, I was tripping. And then by the time I was 17, I found myself using a needle, I can count on two hands. The amount of times I did that, but I was really seeing that things weren’t gonna turn out well for me, heroin. Morphine, de lotta, and I can’t remember what else something weird. So, so I was taking drugs early on, and was just trying to cope, you know, with the deep insecurities that were there. And so then I, my father had on several nightclubs in town, and I fell into that business and what ultimately get married and have children and Oh, no blues biker bar. And wow, so that’s kind of the that was the goal was to have my own bar. And it turned out to be a huge nightclub. And, you know, and the bikers hung out there and respected the space. They respected me
Rick Archer: and told me that it actually had a Beatles thing. You called it the cavern. And I was trying to put together bikers with Beatles. I don’t know if that was really their genre.
Gloriji: Yeah, well, they love the Beatles. But we did have a blues band, excuse me, that played on weekends. But the overall theme was based around in the name Catherine. Excuse me, where that was the first place the Beatles played in Liverpool.
Rick Archer: Okay, so you owned this bar for 25 years you bought, you’re a bartender for 25 years. So I guess in this bar,
Gloriji: I opened up i on the bar only for two years. Okay. I had bartended around town for more than two decades prior to that.
Rick Archer: And were you still like doing drugs all this time, or what?
Gloriji: You know, it’s really interesting because in my late teens, I sought help when I realized that I was on a pretty heavy road with the needle. And I put myself through a drug rehab program in New York, and garrison in New York. Through the Walter Hoving home, it was a home for women with drug and alcohol abuse. And I did the program for a year, I even went back up and taught and counseled some after that. But then I kind of got back in with all my old friends that I loved and missed them, you know, and then kind of got back in this and stuff. But not anything is heaviest that I’ve heard again. And well, as far as using the needle, I should say. And then during the soleus I like when I became pregnant with my children, I didn’t use anything. And I went to the healthy diet and the walking and so I had like these two sides of me happening, you know, and I’ll have to tell you that this is not uncommon. It’s widespread that the PTA moms are doing what they can cope at night. You know, that kind of thing. But, um, so yeah, I think I’ll just let you ask me from there. Sure. I’m not sure where you’re gonna go with it.
Rick Archer: Neither am I but here we go. So after the pregnancies, did you get back into drugs?
Gloriji: Well, I was very responsible, more responsible in that way. I did all my responsibilities, but then after I would get off work from bartending, I would go out and get pretty wasted, maybe do some coke or something while drinking. Okay, and you can get up and do the responsible thing and then do it again for many years,
Rick Archer: and so, you know, obviously, we could belabor all the details of that, but it may not be necessary. I mean, people get the picture. But um, so what finally snapped you out of it?
Gloriji: Well, while I had the blue spiker bar, in 1999, my brother died of an overdose, morphine overdose. And the people he was with stripped his body of all of this identification and clothing, and they dumped his naked body in an alley. So he was a John Doe, in the morgue. For one month to the day of finding out who he was. They were able to trace his fingerprints and find that he had been arrested in Albuquerque. And then they traced his phone call to Atlanta to his best friend. So now we’ll have a phone number and a name and they made that connection. And that friend called us and told us that he had done that way. So tragic. Horrible for us to hear how he went. And then the following day, after hearing of his death, my mother passed have a massive heart attack and a broken heart, I believe. And so, my sister was my business partner in the bar Bettina. And it was more than she could handle, either. And she left the business and I was trying to hold it all together myself in the midst of that grief, doing a lot of cocaine or a lot of heavy drinking. And I honored the lease until it was up close the bar didn’t even try to sell it. I walked away. And I went home, and I fell apart. And that’s literally what happened.
Rick Archer: What do you mean fell apart.
Gloriji: I began to feel strange, like I had extreme panic. And the doctor said it was panic attacks, extreme anxiety, and this energy rushing through my body. And the depression was incredible. I was on heavy doses of Zoloft at this time, I was no longer doing other drugs, I was still trying to drink and take these antidepressants, or whatever those are called. And so I did that. For a couple of years, it was like that I was just hoping and trying to party a little bit at night at home and all of that. But then one day, a couple of years into this, I realized that my son was in some very serious drugs. And the fear that the very thing could happen to him that happened to my brother was more than I could take. And I literally dropped to my knees and cried out for help. I didn’t know who I was crying to. I didn’t know what I was talking to. But it just came spontaneously, it didn’t even occur to me to ask, this just came out as a screen for him. And in the hat, this, all this anxiety and all of this fear began to subside as I saw light, really light in the room. And there was something in me that recognise that light. And the feeling that everything is okay, just completely all as well was here, right in the very middle of this terror. There was this piece, because just before that, when I cried out, I was feeling like I was dropping through a deep dark void, rapidly dropping without anything to hold on to I couldn’t grab on to anything. And there was just this energy of terror there. And then for that light to break through, and this column in this piece, and it felt loving, like I was love being held by itself. And that’s the closest I can come to describing that love because it’s not like anything I’ve ever known. And I just the habit to that light, that I want to dedicate the rest of my life to understanding what this is. And so the journey really began from there.
Rick Archer: I find that kind of story very moving. Because to me, it evokes a love of God or a wave of devotion to God. You know, because, as I’ve often said, On this show, you know, and many others have said, the universe is not dumb. It’s not, it’s not just the sort of little billiard balls running into each other. It’s this ocean of intelligence. And there’s a compassion and an evolutionary impulse in that intelligence that that, you know, really fits all the, the religious metaphors of God wanting to, you know, uplift people and bless people and save people, all that stuff. And so when, and, you know, I’ve heard so many stories about that of that nature, although yours is one of the more dramatic, where if people really sincerely, perhaps literally on their knees, you know, cry out for help. There’s a response
Gloriji: immediately. It felt like I had come to the very end of what I knew to be myself. And what was there was that it’s still here. It’s not like that’s gone anywhere. That that that is very much the living reality that I live at and there is a deep sense of just pure gratefulness, just the deepest gratitude and Also, just this, this, as you were speaking about the intelligence, this list doesn’t need for you to be a certain way for it to express itself. And as you’re living in this sort of dichotomy there’s a deep sense of just wanting to give yourself all to that. And for me that that pretty much defines the next decade following that awakening, because consciousness very naturally wanted to go into itself, and bring light to everything within me. It didn’t want to spiritually bypass, as a matter of fact that I tried that. And it, you know, it’s still sitting there waiting on you. So, suffer me, awakening looks like that. It’s a state awakening. And then it is the opportunity to deepen and embody in that.
Rick Archer: You know, there have been a number of famous figures throughout history who were sort of bad boys and party animals, you know, St. Francis, and St. Paul and Valmiki, who wrote the Ramayana, he was a murderer and highway robber, who’s Whose life did a turnaround? And it sort of it brings up an interesting question, which is, do you feel that the severity of the difficulties and challenges that you went through resulted in a deeper or more embodied awakening than you might otherwise have had? Had you had a smooth and easy life? In other words, do you feel like these difficulties resulted in a greater capacity for empathy and ability to relate to others who have difficult lives than you would otherwise have had?
Gloriji: I think that it makes it easier for them to relate to me, because they can they can sense it, you can sense in the person, I mean, people that don’t even know this story, are able to open up. And it’s beautiful to witness that. Because we are very intelligent and sensitive beings. And we can just sense when there’s no judgement, when there’s a heart open compassion, that’s flowing blood as a dictate from I need to be compassionate, but a natural consequence of having walked that walk.
Rick Archer: If we go back to the idea of God, being compassionate, do you sort of feel like maybe God allows us to go through these things, so that we in turn, can be more empathetic, you know, with others who might be going through them?
Gloriji: The God that we are data intelligence, we are testing universally, or however, people relate to that, whatever their understanding is, I’m perfectly comfortable with any of those terminologies. For me, I feel that at some, we’re like, all these levels. And at the highest level of ourselves. We wanted this or wouldn’t be here. And it’s a it’s a deep, knowing that comes without it being a logical understanding for me, because I’m feel very comfortable in saying that it’s so much of it predetermined. And simultaneously, it is with choice also. So it’s not one or the other. In other words, it feels like, like there’s a, like a blueprint or an outline of sorts, and that we’re somehow actively filling in some of those plates, if that makes sense,
Rick Archer: kind of does. While we’re on this theme, I want to ask a related question, and we’ll we’ll dwell on this more. This was posted by a fella named Peter on that BatGap community group that I mentioned, I’ve summarized his question. He said, Why does life have to be so cruel, so full of pain? How do I reconcile that with spiritual evolution being the ultimate purpose of the universe? Pain is unnecessary goad to Enlightenment seems a primitive teaching method. Good schools have long ago abolished hitting their pupils.
Gloriji: Peter?
Rick Archer: Peter
Gloriji: Peter, well, Peter, I would say that your question is beautiful. And it’s a deep inquiry. And I think that we really kind of betrayed ourselves when we seek those answers from someone else. That if that question can become a living, pondering for you I’m all about empowering people from within, I love to see people in power from within. I think teachers are really great. I was really impressed with Adyashanti when he when he was talking about his teacher, and he would ask her questions all the time. And she’s still I say, Well, what do you think? What do you feel? That’s a great teacher, you know? And so I think a great teaching or great support, is to support you in trusting yourself with that question. Because I can tell you that suffering now, I don’t, I don’t feel like I really, you know, there are moments where something can feel like suffering is here. But it’s accompanied by a deeper knowing, and a deeper presence, that has no issue with that has no problem with it. So it’s not like you fall into suffering. And perhaps we wouldn’t know that if we weren’t in this sort of space of opposites, where we get to toss about in those offices until we find that center of home, where they land and rest comfortably. That’s how I feel Peridots rest comfortably in this open heart. And I would love that forever.
Rick Archer: beautifully put. So after you had this epiphany, on your knees, the light came? I mean, did your life do a really quick 180 turnaround? Or did it really take you a while to work things out? And have they have the outer expressions in your life rearrange themselves?
Gloriji: Well, it was both. Again, it was all of a sudden, I had this thirst that had never been there before. This thirst for truth, for thirst to understand what I was experiencing, it didn’t like, the light didn’t stay, you know, that went but the experience remained. And I felt differently. I still had a sense of that presence, that that recognize that light. And my mind even came back in and said what the hell knew that what recognize that. So that was a kind of inquiry, and I was thirsty to understand. And at the same time, I was still trying to drink and throw darts at night, hang out and barbecue and all that stuff. And what would happen is I would I would get like really drunk, which didn’t take much anymore at that point. And then I’d find myself wanting to read the books that I got from the library. Well, I’ll back up a little bit because what initially happened prior to the screaming, I had not left my home for several months, the panic and that energy was just too much and I I was overwhelmed by sound and light. I didn’t know anything about Kundalini energy, the tone
Rick Archer: It’s Kundalini, but I think it’s also a sub symptom of cocaine use. Well, I interviewed Dan Harris of ABC News a while back and he had been doing cocaine and stuff and he had a panic attack meltdown on air during the morning news. And, you know, he explained that panic attacks are symptomatic of cocaine. He
Gloriji: But I was no longer taking or using cocaine at this period of time. I think you’re probably right. But it had been a couple of years, okay. By this time. So it was it was I was only drinking, still trying to drink.
Rick Archer: So you think your kundalini was kind of awakening?
Gloriji: Well, I think that explains very much. That was what we call panic attacks. It was like energy trying to pound its way through my body. And two nights before I actually broke down and cried out, there had been two explosions in my head. And I just started, I was studying Kundalini a little bit and was seeing some of the same symptoms. Whether it is or whether it is it doesn’t really matter to me, but it kind of helped to make sense of what that was. But I can’t remember now where we are, wherever,
Rick Archer: Well you were talking about I was asking you about, you know, whether your life did a quick 180 turnaround, or if it took, you said you were still drinking and throwing darts and stuff, but
Gloriji: I was able to finally go to the library and just check out as many books as I could on anything that wasn’t Christian because I knew a little bit about that. But I wanted to understand Eastern philosophies and things. So I brought home all these books, and I tried to read them and I didn’t understand them. But what would happen was when I would be pretty wasted on the alcohol. I’d start wanting to read those books and I can remember even putting one hand over an eye and holding the book. I didn’t even understand itself or not know what made me think I could get it while I was doing what I was trying I wanted to because I was so thirsty for it, you know, and I got frustrated with the whole thing. So I just said, That’s it, I’m not drinking anymore. I’m just gonna read all the time. And so I began to read so much prior to that, I might have read one book a year. And that’s not an exaggeration. And all of a sudden, I was devouring books left and right to the point that my eyes are killing me. And I’d have to put a wet towel over my eye and put a VHS tape in the VCR of some spiritual teacher speaking, so I could just listen, because I needed it that badly. So thirsty for. And I can’t tell you that I understood very much of what I heard or read. I felt so good to hear it. You know, Chesed, great to hear it. And I began to venture outside and I noticed how live the world was. And I was noticing butterflies and birds and the colors of flowers and trees and so much that I just thought, oh my god, I’m in a magical kingdom. And I’ve never noticed this really. And it’s just an amazing thing. And people were sensing a difference in me and my neighbor would come over and ask advice. And she even brought a friend over that was very sick. And she said, Can you heal her and I just thought, I can’t heal her or they talk about you know, I just, I’m just now learning about essential oils. I don’t know that. And I was dabbling in IRFA. And I was interested in that. And I suggested to her that she go to the doctor and find out what’s wrong. And then perhaps we can at least know what to pray for, or meditate on or whatever. And she did that. And she would ultimately find out that she had cancer. But she wanted to be around me, she wanted to be something in me, the energy was peaceful to her. And one night, I was still this is during the time when I was still drinking and trying to understand spirituality. She was sitting there with me, and she wasn’t drinking, she was just having water, but I was blind running drunk. And then I turned to her and I said, Well, you know, you are healed. I was horrified that I did that. And that’s really the real point of not drinking anymore. I woke up with such remorse, such shame. But what was interesting about that,
Rick Archer: because you felt that you had been insincere or hypocritical, or you were just blurting something out that you had no, I didn’t know authority to say I, it I don’t even know where the thought came from. I didn’t even think those words just came out of my mouth. And that’s kind of where I’m headed with this. Because when she went back to the doctor, her cancer was the tumor was shrinking. So this is something that can happen in that awakening energy, and the wisdom and her somehow recognize that. Okay, but why are we so horrified that you said that why did that really strep test I was drunk, and I didn’t mean to say it. They the words just came out of me. And when I looked at her and said that she absolutely believed me. She, it didn’t matter that I was drunk. She absolutely knew and herself that it was true. But you were horrified because you felt like a phony or what?
Gloriji: Oh, because I was horrified that I would say that. And I didn’t know she was healed. Okay. I mean, it was just horrifying to me that I could do that. How irresponsible
Rick Archer: Yeah, like you’re just shooting
Gloriji: in the dark. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So that was the end, that was the true end of the drinking and the dedication to studying as much as I could possibly understand.
Rick Archer: Did your study at some point, take on the element of practice as well, some kind of meditation in addition to just reading books,
Gloriji: but what happened naturally, as I would be reading these books, a paragraph would grab me and other find myself going into a very natural contemplation, not really knowing, not understanding, but really syncing into how it was moving me and how I felt with that. And from that, became that contemplation there was a natural lack. I’d been in meditation, I don’t know how long it be in meditation. So I would come out of it and realize I’ve been meditating. So it all came very naturally. Like, I didn’t have any instruction in that way. But I had read about it, certainly, but it just came naturally from being contemplative. If I’m naturally that way,
Rick Archer: that’s nice. And so did it become a daily thing? Almost of, yes. Four hours, kind of four hours every single morning. Wow, was dedicated to all of that. Just setting aside from like, 4am to 8am, to bask in the glory of about. Yeah. That’s why I ended up being called gorgey. My friend, David Leonard gave me that name. He. He said, sometimes when people have such a great shift the change the name, and he thought that worked really well, at first, we were trying to decide, you know, do I want to do that? And he said, a couple of names. And I said, well, that I have friends on Facebook that are from India, and they call me Gloria G. And he said, Oh, Gloria. So that’s it deserve it. It’s fun. Yeah. So after So you finally stopped drinking, what year was that?
Gloriji: This was in 2003.
Rick Archer: Okay, so almost 15 years ago. And so once you’ve finally dropped that sea anchor, did the did the ship of your life begin to sail more swiftly?
Gloriji: Well, what happened was, I thought I was going to have to go to India, or find a teacher there or something. I thought, that’s what you did. I didn’t know that there was anything especially local that could support this. And one day I was in an Indian restaurant practicing my Ayurveda diet that I had gotten into, when I first awakened, I weighed over 300 pounds, and could hardly walk or breathe. And some of this was really helping me to feel healthy. And I was doing yoga and walking and all of that now. And then. So I was, I just noticed a couple of guys in the restaurant, and I knew they were spiritual, I could tell. And I wanted to meet somebody, I didn’t know anyone that was on a path like this. And I introduced myself. And one of them turned out to be the pastor of a spiritual center, where they openly investigated every philosophy, religion and ism under the, under the sun, and just drinking from the well of truth in each one. And that was David Leonard, I met him. Oh nice. He invited me to the center and I’ve been going ever since I’m on the board there. And I just love that is a beautiful community right here in Huntsville. And that’s a secret. Not enough people know about it. Well, maybe they will now.
Rick Archer: That’s great. I have a friend who lives in Huntsville, who used to play lead guitar in a band I was in when I was like 14-15 years old. I have to tell him about it, he might enjoy that.
Gloriji: That’s great. I would love to see him.
Rick Archer: Incidentally, we might as well segue just briefly into the fact that your other brother was lead guitarist for the band Steppenwolf. That’s pretty cool.
Gloriji: In the late 60s, yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s what I was. That’s when I was listening to them. In fact, ironically, they had a song called the pusher and there was a line that said, you know, I’ve seen a lot of people walking around with tombstones in their eyes. So it sort of hits close to home in terms of what happened to your brother, your other brother.
Gloriji: Right? Yeah. Sure. They were very outspoken against, like cutting drug abuse, you know. And they were very political at the time. Steppenwolf was out there? Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And they got the name from a title of a book by Herman HESA. And I guess their most famous famous song was Born to be Wild. If anybody wants to check them out. Right. The younger generation may not remember them.
Gloriji: Yeah. Interesting.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Cool. All right. Didn’t mean to throw us off track. But I mentioned
Gloriji: a plug for Larry barroom. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So, okay, so you got involved in this spiritual group, and you’re still involved in it. And, you know, it’s interesting to trace the trajectory of a person’s life. Because people can locate their own life at various points along such a trajectory, you know, I mean, they can probably many people can locate their life along the the drug part of it or the drinking part of it. And also, it provides hope and inspiration to those who might be in a situation like that and feel like there’s no way out. I mean, that’s one of the reasons I think it’s really was one of the reasons I started BatGap. But it’s also one of the reasons I guess, like you in particular is extremely valuable. I mean, you can impact a lot of lives just by your example of a greater, greater blessing than that truly, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s interesting, Rick, because I look over it, and we’re speaking about it today, but I don’t, I don’t feel it’s interesting, I can feel some of the old feelings as we are talking. But they no longer define me in any way. And now that I can remember someone saying to me a long time ago, you know, there’s just a point where your scars become stars. And I think that’s really true. Because these things really, if, if we choose to can make us open to growing flowers in beautiful ways. And then, you know, whether you’re aware of it or not, people are touched by that. Yeah, that’s my experience. And, you know, I mean, I’m tempted to revisit the point we made a little while ago about God being merciful, and there being an evolutionary purpose to the universe, ultimately, I really feel that I don’t feel like I feel I mean, firstly, I’m, I also am not squeamish about using the word God, if we understand it, if we understand it correctly, as you know, this all pervading intelligence that orchestrates everything. But also, why is there a universe I mean, it seems to me that the universe is demonstrates that its tendency is to create more and more sophisticated expressions, which are more and more capable of embodying that intelligence which lies at its core. And so that, so that divine intelligence can just become more and more of a living reality. And that may sound a little bit philosophical. But if you have that understanding, I think it, it can really be a guiding light for one’s life, because you know, how you were saying how, after you began to awaken and clear up, you see the butterflies and the trees in the world became so and you can think about how bleak and miserable the world must appear to so many people. And if they realized that the very same world, if we just could see that the intrinsic beauty of it could be so profoundly transformed. That’s kind of something to aim for.
Gloriji: Well, it is because the beauty is in you.
Rick Archer: Yeah, exactly.
Gloriji: You’re experiencing the beauty that has flowered and awakened in you. And so you see, you’re looking with it, you know, and that’s another reason I think that consciousness naturally goes in and does some inner work, because it’s, you know, that all of this has been unconscious or suppressed, and all of this, and they need space to finally, be free to be felt…
Rick Archer: Um hm
Gloriji: …and welcomed. And otherwise, you can have some people with some really wonderful, beautiful wisdom, but there’s not so healthy container for it, you know?
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, I think that all all of us, there’s a verse in The Gita, which says something like even if you are the greatest of all sinners, you shall cross over all, all evil, or something by the raft of knowledge alone. In other words, it says, doesn’t matter how low you have sunk, there’s hope for you, you can sort of go all the way to the other extreme in this very life, if you so desire.
Gloriji: Well, it’s all it’s all the divine, and all those forms, you know. And I think that that’s the real freedom inside is that, you know, we’re able to meet each other in truth, because we’ve seen it for ourselves. So deeper than how it’s appearing deeper than how life is appearing, even that somehow has its rightful place. And it doesn’t really make sense on that outer level of understanding, but in that, in your own evolution, through your lived experience, is just a given. You know, I’ve done some really shady things in my life. And I’ve done I’ve had some very horrifying experiences, did on my own responsible irresponsibility. But all of that now is seen in a different light. Because there’s a real felt sense to, you know, some people talk about ego, and they talk about they have to kill a guy or a get rid of it. And, you know, I tried to buy into that at first because I was learning those concepts through the eastern stop. But I found very quickly that that doesn’t work for me that that kind of inner violence toward myself, because if I can’t take credit for this breakthrough, I can’t take credit for ego either. And for me, ego is none other than spirit and her own lack of understanding. And then she has whatever experience or he has whatever experience and breaks through and it’s that only the consciousness itself coming into recognition, and then the path and The purification, if you want to call it of the heart, the Sufis call it a polishing of the mirror. Eventually, even that, you know, gets kind of thing through because there’s prior to that even, there’s this very presence that remains, awareness just becomes totally aware of itself. So it so there’s just no room for judgment in it. I mean, I understand our conversations, I understand how we can say, this is isn’t healthy, and this is really beautiful. But it’s how lightly understanding that something is always serving itself. And. And that can be a real point of argument for people. Because they’re pretty sure they know how it’s supposed to be. Again, going back to that realization that, you know, you just can’t take credit. Unless you you’re so certain that there’s a doer outside of the, the purity of this. Does that make sense? I don’t know if it did.
Rick Archer: It did, yeah. Especially the line that you can’t take credit. I like that. It’s like, I don’t know, I think a nice attitude is that whatever blessings one has gained in life. Who is that there’s that saying, God helps those who help themselves. Okay, so you have to cooperate. You know, if, if you’re totally Well, this would this would relate to ego. And if you feel like I am running the show, I can handle this, I’m doing it my way to heck with anything deeper, subtler, more profound than you know, you’re going to, you’re going to face the outcome of that of that orientation. But what you exemplified at that moment, when you cried out for help, was a surrender to it was an it was an admission, that it’s not working out through your efforts. And you need to put yourself in the hands of something greater and wiser than you perceive yourself to be.
Gloriji: Yeah, I appreciate that very much. I think it’s beautiful to really undress that about because what feels true to me is that I was surrendered. Not that I surrender, but I was being surrendered into something that feels more real to my experience. So I can’t really take credit for it, I was I mean, I love inquiry. And I look very deeply into these things. And that has really helped me to break out of some of the concepts that wanted to, you know, construct themselves and make a new story or something. But in all, in all honesty, I just really can’t see that there’s some part of ourselves, that has to be done away with for some other part is that just another form of dichotomy, another kind of pull, push within, where, to me, there’s something posturing there, and we’re not so solid, Adyashanti that time. And so anytime I ever went away on a spiritual retreat, I wanted to see that he was the living embodiment of what he teaches me speaks because I really think he’s awesome. And so I told him to sit, you know, for me, it was like, when we’re not posturing for or against, it’s like, the lines of distinction that define your mind begin to dissolve. And he loved it here and repeated it. He, he, he taught me what I was saying. And then my experience, when we are allowing those opposites to meet in our open heart, in the presence we are. This might sound cheesy, because the word alchemy gets used a lot. But there is a kind of alchemy that happens there. Or we’re not trying to hold something out as lesser than something else. And we just allow it all there. When the opposites come together. That’s true, because they’ve never really been apart. There’s only one thing happening here. So the beauty of that coming together, you know, your self is space for backline Amadei for everything. And that’s very humbling. And there’s a generosity that flows from from that. A true generosity of this. It only knows itself is everything. And that’s my experience.
Rick Archer: It’s beautiful. You’re very eloquent.
Gloriji: Thank I’ve come one way or another,
Rick Archer: I know all those books have had an effect.
Gloriji: You know, I, there is something that happens to you as your heart opens. When I was teenager, I used to skip school and smoke joints and write poetry. But I never read a poetry book. I don’t even know how I knew to do that. But um, yeah, there’s something there. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And just to sort of play off something you just said about judgment. You know. I mean, the word that came up in my mind, as you’re saying, that is innocence, that there’s a, you know, I was saying to a friend this morning, that one thing that bugs me is, when people take opinions to be absolute, they don’t kind of realize it. And sometimes it’s very awakened people to do this kind of thing. I was interviewing a guy a month or two ago, and he had a very adamant attitude about teachers who charge money for their teaching, nobody should do that. Anybody who does that as a phony, yada, yada. And I said, you know, there’s so many exceptions and variations, and people have to make a living. And you know, how can you be so adamant about that, but you just wouldn’t budge? That’s just a case in point. But it’s like, I don’t know, we just, it was, it’s so helpful if we can realize that, you know, what we happen to think about things, is not necessarily the be all and end all. You know, I mean, this, this comes in with religion, and politics and economics in so many situations, if we can just hold things more lightly, and you can have your preferences and you can vote vote for this person, as opposed to that person, you know, but if you’re adamant, you, you paint yourself into a corner. You know what I mean?
it suggests that that your way isn’t appropriate for you? And how could anyone know that? You know, it’s, there’s a real, there’s to be a real freedom, I feel like for each one of us, we don’t know what we’re working out here. We don’t know how are geared to want to explore certain things. And so if somebody’s making a fortune off of spirituality, or somebody’s very humble in climbing trees and shaving off bark for medicine for their community, and in the in this diaper, I mean, those are equal, aren’t they? They’re equal, really, I mean, in a sense, but if one is boasting that the other one is wrong, then the one that appears to be humble is the one that’s like, are you crazy? Are you gonna make a lot of money in the West doing that? So I don’t know. But I just feel like when we mind our own space, and find what’s appropriate for us, and express truly from there, and we kind of let everyone off the hook of our protections, that because I’m this way, you should be that way too.
Rick Archer: Yeah, Christ said, Judge not lest you be judged.
Gloriji: But you know, the thing about judgment is everything gets to come back everything that gets seen through, like, it can be useful to have a judgment. But you know, when you’ve really gone deeply into yourself and explored how you can be judgment and fragmented and you project that on to people and you’re creating everyone in your own messed up likeness. You know, as I’ve seen in myself that I did that for so long. I wanted very much to meet all of that, so that I could free everybody of my, my creating and in that likeness, you know. And so gentleman gets to come back, every opinions get to come back, everything gets to come back. But it’s not taken as a solid thing. And absolute, it’s not as free to express and go is held lightly.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that’s what I meant by not adamant about these things. Right. I mean, we’re human beings, like you were saying before, it’s like, we don’t necessarily kill the ego. When we have a personality, we have opinions, we have preferences, we have interests. But it’s just this sort of tendency to, you know, what I think I’ve often I’ve often thought it might be that, because there is a sort of an absolute field of life, and we have an innate craving for living on that foundation, or as that foundation, maybe we we try to take our sins and if we don’t have access to that maybe we try to take relative perspectives and make them absolute as a sort of substitute for the real thing. And that’s why people get get so they’re looking for security, they’re looking for stability, and they’re trying to just they’re trying to find it in something that’s that’s limited and changing, but it’s the best they can do at the time.
Gloriji: Yeah, yeah. And when you know that it’s been standing up a screen. Yeah, it’s kind of Nice, freeing.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Good. So um, okay, so we left you back about 15 years ago. You stopped drinking? And you were, you know, you’re going into deep contemplative states for four hours every morning. And and did you? How did it do that? Still? I mean, has it continued to this day? Or did you go through other phases? And that eventually dropped off and other things?
Gloriji: Well, I mean, I, I explored different practices, really, inquiry was very natural for me. I can look back over my life and see where I’ve had asked open ended questions. So that’s very natural. So inquiry, contemplation, and natural meditation works well, for me, don’t do well with a formal sit down at this time kind of thing.
Rick Archer: Yeah. When you say inquiry, are you alluding to like self inquiry as as Ramana taught? Or what do you mean by inquiry?
Gloriji: Not as not as Ramana. And I think that’s a beautiful inquiry. I have no problem with that at all. I really, if you know, we usually have a few dead goobers, and Ramana was certainly one of them, for me, and Robert Adams. And so there’s a great appreciation for that. But my spiritual director and friend, David 100, introduced me to set some teachings and films, we used to watch Congress a video. And I began to notice that she was doing an inquiry with people that I really resonated with, because people would feel like there was an obstacle on the path, a particular issue. And she would invite them to just turn toward it, and open to, and she would to, like, guide them through that process. And it what ad is doing this along with them with my own issue, silently, and watching how she did that. And I just began to do it for herself all the time. And what I found was that the same basic energy might have called sadness, or anger or rage or anything like that, when we go into in deeply enough and allowed to be felt completely, I mean, without holding back, not just being aware, but allowing just the total freedom for the emotions and feelings to be felt 100% out until if I ever ready to become whatever, they would morph and become something else more fun, there might even be a feeling of hate. But then when hate was allowed to be huge, as big as it could get, then underneath the hat was this love. So it’s like the same energy that started out as sadness, we go through stages of feeling like different things. And then they would fall him out into the ball, or just the overwhelming sense of peace that I had recognized back during the original, or the first awakening. And so, you know, I use it all the time. And I support people with that, to this day, it’s just beautiful, because it actually, you always thought about and what you are now, and the more you do this, the more you get comfortable in recognizing that this is what I am not this passing through with feelings and emotions.
Rick Archer: Nice. One way I’ve heard it explained, and my own experience is true that, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of buried stuff, and it needs to be processed. And it kind of comes up in waves from time to time, sometimes little ripples, sometimes big waves. And as you just described, you need to feel it, you know, you need to go through it. And as you do so, it gets purified, it gets you have one less rock in your pocket that you’ve got to carry around.
Gloriji: Yeah, and you’re freeing up all that energy to come home to true nature is beautiful. It’s just, it’s a beautiful way for deepening.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and I suppose that for most people, usually these things are triggered by an external circumstance, something happens and let’s say you feel sad, or you feel jealous, or you feel some emotion. And so like, just take us through it for a second. I mean, let’s say something happens to somebody like that and they’re feeling a strong emotion. Would you would you advocate just sort of shutting your door closing your eyes, you know, just being really inward with it and just really letting your attention dwell on it or what?
Gloriji: No, for instance, if you were to tell me now that you’re experiencing Say, sadness. Or if you’re having an experience of something either even that it would be, we could do it in real time, you know. But if not, I can just say, you’re experiencing sadness. And I would invite you to let the sadness whatever story brought that, let that be here just for a moment, let the story serve you in breathing flow along the belief and the energy that’s there. And then let the story go. And bring your attention into what you feel in your body, right. And as soon as they bring their consciousness, like a pebble down into the space, I invite them to just be with that and let it expand and get as large as it needs to. And just breathe and they feel it. And then I’ll ask them what they’re experiencing. And they might say, Well, I’m not, I just feel so alone. And oftentimes, this is one that comes up, and also will just become more money is just full on just be and then they just kind of collapse do either. There’s a body expression with that there’s just letting go, and then become aloneness. And then in the freedom to feel aloneness without thinking it’s something bad that shouldn’t be there, no story just welcoming at all. Then I’ll say, Well, what’s wrapped up under this aloneness, what’s there? And then let’s say nothing. Let’s just go directly into this mappings. Let yourself just drop fourth, just full fully into become nothingness. And then they start to taste, sometimes some of the sweetness there, you know, like, oh, this, there’s peace here, you know, there’s a sense of love, you know, and I’ll take them into the peace or the love, I won’t stop there. And then they usually end up just like, everything’s okay. They always come home, get themselves, the slides and layers.
Rick Archer: Yeah, so it’s like anything you’re feeling can become a breadcrumb trail to take you back to the source,
Gloriji: you get, you’re freeing up the energy that’s kind of raveled in a knot. And once you’re there without any judgment toward it, or any aversions of any kind, it’s able to open, free itself and relax into true nature.
Rick Archer: right. And if it bubbles up again, you just go through the same process.
Gloriji: And it will, a lot of times these things want to keep coming up, and it just deepens us just incredible. It’s not like, all of that shouldn’t be here, I cannot see this beautiful, lovely.
Rick Archer: It’s interesting to contrast that with your tactic earlier in life, which was to drink or take drugs and try to block things out.
Gloriji: Suppress everything. Yeah,
Rick Archer: Yeah
Gloriji: And forget everything. But it’s all still waiting for you, when you’re ready to meet it. Even if you bypass, you know, and I hear people talk about, you know, just being aware of it isn’t enough thing down and down. In my experience, this just, you’ll even get the sense that this isn’t so personal. After a while of doing it, you realize that you’re the totality itself, releasing what’s been kind of clogging the arteries of totality. It’s a much bigger picture, it starts out feeling very, very personal. And then that becomes very, very impersonal.
Rick Archer: That’s nice. I mean, impersonal, how’s it cold connotation, but it doesn’t have to. If we think of ourselves as instruments of the Divine, then, you know, the divine wants its instrument to be well tuned. And if it’s, you know, if the flute has all kinds of dirt in the in the mechanisms, and, you know, it’s quite a nice need, that stuff needs to be cleaned out. So it can play and play a proper melody,
Gloriji: And you can feel it and it’s not comfortable. It’s, it’s more uncomfortable, to not give it space. You know, that’s my experience. You know, one day One day I was walking to the post office from my office, and I had smell in my hand and I was just walking along the sidewalk, and it’s a beautiful spring day. And all of a sudden, I went into a state, and it was very much like the first awakening. But this time, the light was so amazing that everything was sparkling and the colors were almost have another round because they were just so magnificent and different. And I think this might be what people cost from it and total bliss and I wasn’t moving at all, yet I could see feet hitting the pavement. So I was like the body was over here somewhere, doing what it’s doing, and a woman was coming toward me. And I heard voice my voice speak to her yet I didn’t speak, I was complete stillness I was, I was like I described as being in both worlds at once. And this woman as she was coming through me, it felt like she was walking right through me in this love was just so amazing. And it just went on for about a half an hour, I even went in the post office and still dropped the stuff and in the body did everything. This is how I’ve, this is one reason I said I did predetermination This is my experience. I wasn’t telling the body to do anything I was at having thoughts. And everything was happening. While nothing was happening at all, this complete emptiness. And just this dream, like Samadhi vision, light and beauty and bliss. So you know, they’re to me, they’re a perfect marriage of each other in the can’t negate any part of it. So
Rick Archer: that’s a beautiful experience of what what they call witnessing. And that everyone’s heard that term, and a lot of people don’t, I think don’t understand what it really means. It’s, they think it’s something you should try to do like to adopt some kind of attitude of being detached from your activity and, or, you know, consciously watching your activity and then thinking you’re, you know, trying to be aware that you’re not the doer is that’s a very superficial consideration. And what you experienced was a real taste of what what was really meant by that term.
Gloriji: I mean, it was interesting. I mean, I can literally see the feet hitting the pavement, you know, that wasn’t moving. Yeah. And then as I sat with that, I said to everything, and I was contemplating later in the day, and this that I am witnessed, even that somewhat, no matter how far back you go there that you can’t get to the ultimate witnessing. You see what I’m saying? Saying? In a sense, you can you can sense it, but she can’t find it.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s not some little witness her back. Yeah, back in there that you can. So here it is this little walnut as my as the real me.
Gloriji: It was just so full on and I was witnessing this bliss. And I was witnessing, moving that wasn’t happening, and I was stillness. I could see all of that.
Rick Archer: And some people live that way more or less all the time. For a while, because it’s not the final stage.
Gloriji: I don’t know. I don’t know if that final stages.
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, I don’t either. But But what people report and what the what the sort of the traditions report is that, you know, there’s that stage, but in that stage, there’s still sort of a dichotomy between that which witnesses and that which is witnessed. And that dichotomy can sort of merge together until it’s just one, homogenous wholeness. And that that would be more like what we would call Unity consciousness as opposed to a witnessing state.
Gloriji: In the actual experience of it, the two were
Rick Archer: There were merged? Nice.
Gloriji: I mean, it was a scene of the two was, was the, the equanimity.
Rick Archer: So when you saw the woman coming towards you? Was it more like that, that is me as much as this body as me?
Gloriji: No, it was just almost like she just appeared and disappeared. But the love was interesting, because there was love that she was living near me. And through wonder what appeared to be through me. I’m sure she was just passing me.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that through me bit is actually very interesting. I’ve heard it described that, you know, by that I don’t walk down the street, the street moves through me, you know, there’s this I am already everywhere. And so it’s not like I am going from point A to point B, it’s more like this whole relative world is just continuing to sort of do its thing within the context of my wholeness, which is larger than that.
Gloriji: Yeah. People refer to a hologram.
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Gloriji: that makes perfect sense to me. Because it’s like that everything’s within you. There’s really not one out there. And yet, you know, out there gets to come back home to you Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s just nothing gets left out, everything’s included. That is a very real thing. And it’s not something you set out to do is just a natural seems to be a natural evolution, that everything that was seen to be, you know, early on, and in the sorting out of things, you kind of go well, that’s not real. That’s not true. That’s, you know, that kind of thing. And then there’s a natural, everything gets it come back and be is that a loss of the mood? You said one time, it was really, really good. He said, You know, he said, When you see through your concepts, they’re free to come back, without being used by them something to that effect. Appropriate, is that was what I was experiencing at the time, like things were returning, everything’s coming back. And everything I’ve thought shouldn’t be here, all of a sudden was allowed to be here. And that continues.
Rick Archer: Yeah. The ocean has room for all the seaweed and the fish and plastic and everything, sort of I mean, we’re kind of mucking it up. But. But if the container is large enough, then there’s no it doesn’t get clogged by its contents? Well, your heart keeps breaking, if your lucky, heart keeps breaking open. Nothing wrong with that. And is that a painful experience? Or is it bittersweet? Or is it actually just sweet?
Gloriji: It’s interesting. It’s a heartbreak is like, love and recognition. So there is a sweetness there. But there’s also that, what are we doing to each other enough, and, like with the plastic, I could felt a little, you know, because everything becomes sacred, in that return. And I think that this is, I love that awakening is looking like that for people now, instead of just this absolute view, and staying gone from everything, I think it really helps the shared reality we are part of, to be back in. And having gone in a kind of a full circle manner. It’s through all of that to bring her in and reveal the spirit that is this planet. And everything upon her, you know. And so I got very curious as to who was having that conversation, because I found myself wanting to bring custom coming. I’m attracted to healing, and I work in that realm. And so I found myself reading about shamans. And on a Sunday, sir, as well. And one day I was sungazing, and was just experiencing just as beautiful unity, oneness with all that is and I was just really drawn to, to work with Gaia, the planet, no, and I was naturally attracted to shamanism, not as to take on as a new belief system, but to actually learn from the wisdom that offers in to learn some of the healing modalities. And it’s been, it’s been wonderful, because it’s really helped me to connect deeply with the planet and work in the area. The level of work that I feel that meets a lot ham, and expresses this way is I’m not the kind of person to carry a sign or me is just not me. But to work at the level of consciousness is, that’s perfect. And that’s what shamans do. They spend years investigating themselves, they meet all their angels, they meet all their demons. They find themselves as the place that knows how to sell and then they allow themselves to be a healing space for people to heal themselves. Like
Rick Archer: beautiful spirit. You in the last five minutes. You’ve mentioned Mooji and shamans. And next weekend, I’m going to be interviewing a woman who studied shamanism for 20 years and has remarkable experiences and then the next day Mooji.
Gloriji: It’s pretty interesting.
Rick Archer: Yeah. There’s something very beautiful and what you just said about how the sort of aloof, detached in personal perspective, which doesn’t really take into account the poignancy and the beauty of the world as you said that, I kind of thought, yeah, that kind of perspective is not going to heal the world. You know what, what we need is the perspective where we’ve come full circle, to know ourselves and yet to have a heartbroken open by everything that happens and to sort of like have our heart large enough to contain everything, and thereby help to heal it.
Gloriji: Because it’s done through the human heart. So down here, so it’s not gonna be out in some state far away, it’s gonna be right here, where the mechanism is kicking in. And so are our willingness to fill those things for the planet actually opens us and makes us available to what’s appropriate in the moment, it maybe you don’t have a plan, maybe not have some kind of organization you’re doing to feed the wells, or whatever that is. But if you think just be available to the wisdom out moment, that includes her, and you are the sacredness of life, witnessing herself in jeopardy, you just find yourself being moved appropriately. And I can’t think of greater work than that, when you think that it’s all within consciousness. And anything that happens in any corner of consciousness affects the totality of it. So as Tesla is very powerful, I often speak about the intimacy of perception, and how we truly are shaping this reality through the way we perceive it. And the more that we can go deep within ourselves and kind of cleanse that lens of perception, so that the true nature of our being can see itself into all of these appearances, which are deeper than just an appearance, but I just saying that is going back to the point that it’s all within us. You’re only ever serving yourself, and you’re only ever serving all of life, inserting yourself in that way, in that moment. In time, that makes sense.
Rick Archer: Great sense. I was loving it. And I was thinking as you were saying that, you know, I think one’s first priority should be to arrive at that attunement, you know, where we feel that intimacy with ourselves and with all life, and then not worry so much about what will my role be? Will I be an activist? Will I be a healer? Will I do this? Why does that, you know, the more we can sort of attune in the way you’re describing the more, the more sensitive will be to the guidance as to how to express it. That’s that’s the second consideration. The first consideration is, you know, establish that and then you’ll know what to do.
Gloriji: Yeah, and you can feel it if you’re totally inspired. And it’s not because of this or that it’s almost like he’s, you’re witnessing everything, as yourself as everything is a reflection of you, right. And then all of a sudden, you’re inspired, in a way I liked something I read, a woman named Lynn twist talked about this. She was talking about a freedom. And she was saying that all the great people that have served the planet like Gandhi and Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. These people, they were standing in the place of vision, pure vision, inspiration that made the opposites null and void in that moment. In other words, they brought something so fresh and so new, that everything else was outdated in its presence. And they made real change little people. Let’s seem not to have so much power, Mother Teresa, people like that. They they’re just doing that very thing. They answer a call of a heart to rise up to that. And they’ve been there’s a total trust, that it’ll play out the way it needs to. And you’re not looking back on anything you’re not looking at. You’re not letting yourself get sidetracked into the story of this against that. You’re literally moving in a different field of energy. And there’s grace. It’s beautiful. Yeah, I love it.
Rick Archer: And another thing that happens is that a lot of the details get worked out for you. You know, you don’t know where this is going. But you have an impulse and you start to just sort of cooperate with that impulse, and all sorts of circumstances and events and opportunities and support and all just kind of keep falling into place to help you serve that purpose. You know what I mean?
Gloriji: That is so true. And it’s exciting. I mean, it’s, it’s what fuels that vision that you may have been given are some people aren’t visual, they may just have a strong sense of gut feeling or whatever. However it plays for a person you know, And you can trust that above all else that the way it’s made for you.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Gloriji: When you’re in that flow? Yeah.
Rick Archer: It’s like one way of looking at it is to come back to the God word again, you know, God needs his footsoldiers, you know, it’s through those who are able to cooperate and align with that divine intelligence, that the blessings of the Divine get channeled into the world. And so if you put, if you’re willing to do that, then you know, the supplies come from the central supply house, that you gotta need to be an effective soldier in that army to you to use that metaphor.
Gloriji: I’m hearing in my heart, people are saying, there is no world there is no other Oh, blah, blah, we adopt all of that. And I understand that because I went through that, it’s in that for, I think about a year, I could lose track of time, but I was in that space, and it was very, like people will die. And I think, well, there’s no doubt, you know, I was just very mental rational, dry at a touch. And one of the things that I’ve been given to see is that we’re so far removed from the planet or not connected with her, that our awakening can actually make us even more disconnected. If we’re not able to recognize that whether you’ve experienced not having a body, or you are aware that you you’re, you seemingly have a body, whatever that story is, for you. It’s part of the environment. It’s part of what’s here, this part of the dream, we have awakened within the dream does that go away, which is awake with them. And now we are able to be used in incredible ways. Because we are awake within the dream. And we’re working with it in a way that makes all the dreamers welcomed in. In other words, I’m not sure where this is going. This is odd, but it’s you don’t have to take a position of denial that this is illusory, and I can’t wait to get out of this body because I’m going to go home, if you can’t find home, right here, connected with the planet, then your disconnect is limiting the awakening capacity, the potential, I feel, in my own explorations is going through, as I deepened into connecting with with the planet. That’s one of the greatest spiritual teachers around, and she has opened me to dimensions, I didn’t know we’re there. And not only my heart breaking up into life, in such a sweet way, but to be available to serve that. There’s tremendous fulfillment and joy, and
Rick Archer: it’s beautiful, I love listening to you, I love the way you express things. This is just so heartfelt. And so, so beautiful and clear, I think a way of relating to this, there is no world perspective. It, you know, I mean, I was a little bit rude, but I’m gonna go on and said, Oh, blah, blah, blah. It’s a valid perspective. It’s just not the only one. And the way I if I were asked to define Enlightenment, and a phrase or something, I would say, it’s the, the sort of the ability to incorporate multi dimensional multi multi dimensionality. Because there is a level at which there is no world there is a level at which everything is perfect and divine, and there is a world and there is a level at which there’s problems and they need to be dealt with. And, you know, it’s all a matter of scale and perspective. And, you know, one should ideally be able to incorporate all of them and to move freely among them according to the circumstances. There was one you know, who, you know, is the hugging saint, she does all this great stuff. And she’s got all these hospitals and orphanages, and schools and houses for tsunami victims and just always a million projects like that going on. And one time whatever Swamis came up, came to her and said, Alma, what more can we do for the world? And she said, What world? And so there’s this sort of just to create a balance in him. Like, it’s not only about what we do this delta, this, this level at which there is no world, but if you take refuge or sort of tried to polarize yourself into just one or the other of those dimensions, then it gets out of balance.
Gloriji: Well, I think that things are holding because it’s been learned you You know that this is the ultimate goal to not see a world and not see, you know that, that could that can be, that can be a sort that can be the result of knowledge or your brain is very powerful. Everyone’s brain is very powerful, and can give you whatever experience you’re supposed to be having. And so it’s really interesting, without inquiry to really, you know, the mind is, has a broad capacity to do all of that. And to always bring yourself back to what is realistic the ability and freedom to question everything. So that you get back to to a very truthful place.
Rick Archer: I think one issue with this is that a lot of the proponents of knowledge whose books we read and teachings we listened to, and so on, not all of them, but a lot of them were recluses, that was their nature. And so it was natural for them to emphasize more on the sort of, you know, illusory nature of the world, guys like Shankara, and others, and, but the average person is not a recluse. And it’s natural for them to have a more sort of embodied, engaged orientation. Like you were just describing,
Gloriji: well, Shankara, I believe, is the one that said, he defined the illusion, but if out which comes and goes, and what’s real, in that, which doesn’t come and go, in this beautiful and true, but something does happen. They are not. And I think that that’s where it can be misunderstood that there is this coming back. And like I keep saying, and I don’t mean to keep repeating myself, but it just seems like everything that was left behind, starts getting included again, but from a place of real freedom. And we know that even science is helped to support mystic teachings that say, that the world isn’t really up there and tangible as it seems. And if you’ve had certain spiritual experiences, you know that to be true, and so, everything is happening within you. So the person whose energy has now become more circular versus flowing in and out. So you know, inner and outer kind of, it feels to me like it’s a circular movement of steady equanimity, where everything if we can very possibly, you know, astral travel and experience other rounds, and people have experiences with Angelica and arms and all types of things. And then you have Papaji saying, Don’t get stuck in that because you are beyond all of that. But when you know, you are beyond all of that, then you ducked in, somehow includes everything at a certain point, everything gets to come home, angels get to come back. You know, everything gets everything that was seen through is false. And, you know, products of the mind. Well, it’s all the product of the mind, you don’t have a capitalization. Just feels like that’s good.
Rick Archer: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s analogy on that was capture the fort. He said, like, you know, like, life is like, life is like a territory. There’s all these diamond mines and gold mines and things you can explore. Very interesting. But then there’s a fort which commands the territory. And instead if you just go after this, this mine or that mine, it’s not your territory, you’re kind of on shaky ground. But if you capture the fort, then you can explore it all at your leisure. And it’s your territory, you can do what you want.
Gloriji: Beautiful. That’s very freeing, isn’t it? Because if you think that you’re stuck, constantly started, you have to deny things and you can inquire yourself into a corner. are we hearing that strange sound? Again,
Rick Archer: I think it must be a cuckoo clock.
Gloriji: I think it’s some kind of strange clock to scatter the garage or something. Sorry about that. That’s a good kind of entertaining. Yeah, but no, I think that’s true. We can inquire ourselves into a corner of consciousness of exclusion. And in hopefully, if that’s happening, that that you can be seen in questions.
Rick Archer: Well, that brings up a very important point, I think I consider you to be a very experiential person primarily. It’s not like you came at this intellectually. You came at it with a very visceral, genuine experience, and then you picked up the pieces later on in terms of your understanding. And I think some people go about it the other way around. And you know, they They somehow don’t enable themselves to access the experience. And they just load their head with ideas by reading a lot and studying a lot and thinking a lot and being on YouTube and arguing on Facebook, all that stuff. And it gets you very top heavy and it gets you so that you can easily mistake your understanding for the actual experience to which it relates. But it isn’t that.
Gloriji: Yeah, and that, again, the mind is very brilliant. And it can connect the dots and take what you may be sharing as true lived experience of awakening, or insight whenever. And their minds can connect the dots back to their experience. And all of a sudden, they’ve had the same experience, but it looked like this. And you can feel when that happens. So someone that’s like, that’s not it, because there’s something about capturing that for there is something about Jesus that thinks that you can tell a fruit but you can tell the tree by its fruit. Yeah. By their fruits. Yeah, that’s, that’s it. And you can sense very deeply when someone is just mentally trying to make it. So. Yeah. Yeah, it’s an unfortunate thing. But it’s not like I set out to have it any other way. It’s just that the lights went off, or came on, I should say, prior to the journey followed that. Whereas most people are trying to have that experience that came first for me. And then I was trying to understand what happened.
Rick Archer: It’s great.
Gloriji: So it’s kind of innocent, on their part,
Rick Archer: And you can’t nourish yourself by reading cookbooks.
Gloriji: Oh, that’s so good. And I get in trouble with people sometimes, because they think it’s arrogant of me to disagree with something a teacher, a well known teacher says this not that I’m disputing the teacher themselves, I can actually like and admire their work. But if something doesn’t feel true to me, I don’t feel that I have to take it on the authority of someone because they’re known or whatever. And I think that we deceive ourselves in that way. And if we, if we’re really willing to go deeper to even study, and really investigate and find ourselves, that wisdom isn’t biased in any way you have it, everyone has it. I mean, come on, if I can have this wisdom coming through here, I’m just like, blown away all the time. By that. I remember hearing, I’ll just sharply say that he couldn’t wait to have that phone to hear what he says. To hear what he’s gonna say. And I still get that, you know, it’s like, wow, really? Yeah. And what’s interesting for me, a lot of times, things would reveal themselves, and then I would somehow catch up to that later. Other times, it was something that was just slowly coming into awareness, and it would come through, but it’s, it’s beautiful, you know, and we are these living waters of wisdom. And and when we let them flow, unobstructed by knowledge, that knowledge can support that if we’re open to it, and not want to posture and try to make things happen. But rather let everything be a deep allowing, because I feel like people clogged their own drains with, you know, trying to make it happen.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I think you said about, you know, disagreeing with teachers. I think that’s an important point, too. I mean, not that we want to be gnarly and argumentative. But the Buddha said something about, you know, don’t accept something just because I said it. Yeah, figure it out for yourself and go by your own experience. And, you know, so there is a tendency, I think, to put teachers on pedestals and to think, well, if Mooji said this, or if Adi Shanti said this or, you know, something, then it must be true. Who am I to think otherwise?
Gloriji: Or to use their words to make someone else wrong us just terrible?
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Gloriji: Subtle violence.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So, you know, ultimately, all these things are pointers, and you have to experience it for yourself and
Gloriji: and it takes great parents you know, it takes them it’s courage to trust yourself. It seems like because people are so innocently in I was someone that had the deepest insecurity so may not was just a train wreck. No, no, be honest with you. There was nothing pretty in this. I mean, I really was the kind of person that believed that everyone knew better than myself. And I was kind of a wallflower. Even though I was kind of out there. I was a wallflower type personality. I was putting myself back and I remember her and I think it’s a it’s David G or David G. In in California. Yeah, I heard a video his once and he was saying, you know, this is an ego you were wanting to be out there be known be popular whatever awakening might make you more quiet and introspective and withdrawn. And vice versa. You know, and I certainly something to that, you know, I’m not sure what was going on with it. But yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s a good point. Yeah, it kind of brings you into your dharma, whatever that may be, might make you more introspective more introverted, I mean to say more extroverted, or both. Both at the same time, you just become more, you more natural.
Gloriji: Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing right there that, to me, what you just said was worth the whole video. Because if we can just get down to being who we are, really who we are, without all the overlay of trying to get it right, and trying to put on the best face or whatever that is, because that’s where I lived for nearly 50 years. I was 48 years old, before that initial shift. And I’m 62 now. And it’s just really, really nice, just to be without all that other stuff.
Rick Archer: And two years, you can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight if it’s not too dear.
Gloriji: Thank you for that.
Rick Archer: When I’m 64.
Gloriji: That always makes my day. When I’m 64.
Rick Archer: we shall scrimp and save
Gloriji: Yeah, I can’t hire a junior.
Rick Archer: So I was thinking for some reason I was thinking this. Have you ever considered going into prisons and meeting in prep, especially women’s prisons, and I think it’d be very inspiring for the ladies, there
Gloriji: is an interesting idea. I’ll sit with that.
Rick Archer: I mean, because a lot of them have been through a lot of the stuff that you went through. And I think you’d provide great hope and inspiration and guidance to people like that.
Gloriji: Thank you. You know, gone good cheated.
Rick Archer: No, no, she did a lot of that. Yeah. Kenny Johnson, whom I’ve interviewed was an inmate in a prison.
Gloriji: He’s, that’s a great story. But they’re an amazing person really acquired that.
Rick Archer: Okay, so we have a little bit more time if you’d like. And if you if more thoughts come to mind, I’m just totally temporarily in a blank, which is rare for me. But those listening, if you feel like sending in questions, there’s a form on the upcoming interviews page on batgap.com, where you can send in a question. But I guess maybe at this point, let’s talk a little bit about and maybe some questions are coming in. But let’s talk about like, you know, what you do as a quote unquote, spiritual teacher? If that’s how you define yourself, I mean, in what ways do you make yourself available? Do you do retreats? Do you do Skype conversations? You know, what do you have to offer people?
Gloriji: Well, I teach here locally, I teach here in town. And at the spiritual center that I told you, I attend and teach classes, there’s some times and I have Skyped, with people that I’ve met on Facebook, or had phone sessions with folks, and I just, you know, I still have a job, I have a day job, my husband and I own a land survey company. And I run the office during the day. And so I like to do these things in the evenings. And I’m kind of out there and in a small way, you know, and I’m accessible. There’s information on the website that you’re linking to, for those kinds of things. I’m more than open to that. And it’s, you know, anything would be just a, what we call a love offering. If someone is struggling, you can afford that and they’re welcome to contact me. It’s no problem. I hope some people do.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, one of my intentions, when I originally started BatGap, was not to just interview famous people. In fact, when you first start, you can’t do that anyway, because they’re not interested. But the subtitle of
Gloriji: Sorry for the snort,
Rick Archer: the subtitle of BatGap is, you know, conversations with our interviews with ordinary spiritually Awakening people. And I think, you know, the vast majority of people aren’t going to be big famous teachers or anything like that, but there’s a there’s sort of an awakening taking place out there that is very organic and, you know, subtle and profound. And it’s happening to all kinds of people. Some guy just contacted us the other day, who’s in his 90s. And he has had both of his feet amputated, and has all kinds of difficulties and health problems, but he said, he’s never been happier or more grateful in his life, he’s just like, he had had this profound awakening. And he’s just like, loving life, and I’m actually going to interview him. Because if you know, if you just it’s that pedestal thing, again, if we just think in terms of, you know, people sitting up on a Dyess with a glow around their head, and it’s like, Well, okay, that’s them, I’m never going to be like them. And so it sort of disempowers people, it makes them feel like, well, this will never happen to me. And I think when when you make it more you egalitarian, you know, I think it really facilitates the spread of the awakening,
Gloriji: I really admire that. And, you know, the, just the way Satsang is set up with, some of them are popular teachers, it can be intimidating, you know, and, and I think people do feel that, you know, it’s just like any like, like a television show, or, I mean, I knew if you’re into stars, or whatever it is just, you can get caught up in, they have something that you don’t, and that’s why I really love. What I call a true teacher is one that really encourages the empowerment from within you, because it can’t come from anywhere else. Because it’s not outside of you in any way, in any form or fashion. And if I can help someone just open a door to trusting themselves, and that’s a huge step in the right direction, because that’s the direction you got to go often that way. You know, yeah, you
Rick Archer: were talking about confidence and how you didn’t have any and all. I mean, it’s not like we want to encourage bravado, but there’s a certain natural confidence that comes from genuine experience. And, and it helps, I think, to, to have a little bit of encouragement, in that sense, a little bit of reassurance that yes, you know, you two are capable of this. And, and, you know, it doesn’t just happen to like, famous people, it’s for everybody.
Gloriji: You know, so beautiful. Because really, this this awake is awake, you know? And is I remember, I was just saying, you know, how do you, um, enlighten yourself. So turning toward yourself as your own path is a profound thing. That’s what I found is that I, I was the path consciousness to take. And so that is just empowering. And I think that the really wonderful teachers do support that, and encouraged to, because all too often you hear stories to where people have been taken advantage, and this is an unfortunate thing that people have been taken advantage of.
Rick Archer: Oh, you mean, like, by teachers?
Gloriji: Yeah,
Rick Archer: yeah, of course. Yeah.
Gloriji: Because when you’re if you’re kind of in a broken place, and you feel that people have more authority than you do, and you look up to that authority, and you make yourself subjective to that, then abuse can happen. And that too, can be a huge teaching, you know, everything truly can take us to a greater truth and reality. And unfortunately, it can look like that. Yeah, but, um, so there’s just a lot going on out there. And so, I think the more that natural, everyday people are out there talking about it, the more people are going to be comfortable with themselves.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that whole thing about being taken advantage of is a very key point for me. I am very sensitive to I’m gonna give a talk at the sand conference on the ethics of Enlightenment and, you know, anyway, I won’t go into that all now. But a couple of questions came in, here’s one from a good friend of ours years in mind mutually, what kind of teachings are you receiving? By opening to the wisdom of Mother Earth?
Gloriji: profound connection, the connection itself is an opening into greater dimensions of understanding. And you know, there is something very healing I mean, we’ve all heard of earthing, you know, where you take your shoes off and you get on the dirt and in bare feet, and just something as simple as that are safely sungazing there is a protocol, please don’t just go out there and do it. But anything that you’re doing or sitting with a tree consciously, inviting that wisdom, just connecting them that way, you If I can, I don’t have a forecast for how that works, but it opens you to a spontaneity and an appropriateness of the moment. And I don’t think there was a greater gift than that. As far as I’ve love ceremony, I love ritual. And it’s interesting like Nisargadatta, you know, he would, every day, put flowers on his gurus picture renewed work at the altar and do all of this. And someone asked him, Why do you do that? He said, I don’t know. That’s connection. You don’t know why you do it, but it feels appropriate and right to do it. And as we reconnect with the earth as we were meant to be, because we’ve no, we’re not separate from or in any way. We open ourselves to all kinds of healings that we’re not aware of. And that connection is not only felt within yourself, to her, but to everything. So I think that there would be a lot more people experiencing their oneness with life, if they are more deeply connected with the planet.
Rick Archer: Nice answer. And I think we wouldn’t be ravaging the planet as we are. If people were more deeply. I mean, you know, what we’re doing to the planet. If you really felt connected with the planet, you would no more damage it in the way we’re damaging it, then you would like you know, take a knife and cut your arm, you know, because it’s an intimate to you.
Gloriji: That’s it. Great question. Thank you. Yes, thank you.
Rick Archer: Here’s one from okay. This is from Mark Peters. In California. He asked, “you mentioned Adyashanti, several times and Mooji and Gangaji in passing. Can you share any other teachers that strongly resonated with you?
Gloriji: Yeah, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee?
Rick Archer: Oh, yeah. I love him.
Gloriji: Yeah, I love him. And, you know, I dabbled a lot in. Well, Robert Adams, Llewellyn, Ramana, and Gangaji, definitely Gangaji and Papaji. And I’m kind of attracted in there. Llewellyn for me was, I think, where I was really beginning to open up to the wisdom of the planet, that this wisdom is all pervading, it’s everywhere, and it’s in the dirt. It’s everywhere. I mean, look at the if you just observe nature, in action, and the wisdom and intelligence that is always functioning there. It is an incredibly mind-blowing experience. And you talk about getting out of your head, there’s nothing that’s going to take you into deep gut knowing, and that connection, and so Sufism, or as particularly with Llewellyn, really opened me to that. And I think he also opened me to shamanism, because he honest supports that. And, and his teacher, Irina Tweedie, she said to… no I believe it was just something she wrote in the book, she said, if you want to teach, you’re not ready to teach. And that hit me early on. And I knew that I wanted to deepen so, so much into my truth, that if if I found myself in that role, that I wasn’t really in it. And so I, you know, there’s just been little nuggets along the way, and they’re everywhere. And they can also come from trees, and clouds. It’s everywhere. It’s all speaking to us if we’re open to it.
Rick Archer: There, I became a meditation teacher when I was like, 21, and taught for many years. And now I don’t feel like I’m qualified to teach.
Gloriji: It’s just, this might be the time to start.
Rick Archer: Well, I guess I’m doing it in a way through what I’m doing. But I would really be reluctant. And I’d feel totally unqualified to get up on a podium and be a spiritual teacher. So I’d much rather just interview them.
Gloriji: You hold your own and I respect it, it is really nice.
Rick Archer: Thanks
Gloriji: it seriously.
Rick Archer: And incidentally, I’ve interviewed Llewellyn and also Gangaji if people want to check out those interviews.
Gloriji: Those are a couple of my favorites.
Rick Archer: Okay, well, I guess we could sort of wrap it up. We’ve pretty much covered a lot and if any other questions pop in while we’re including I’ll ask them but I’m really enjoyed my time with you gorging. I didn’t know you that well, before this interview. Just sort of seen you on Facebook a little bit and then I’m not much of a Facebook junkie. But every now and then I’d see some little thing you wrote and it looked nice, but I’m very pleasantly surprised and as I said you came very highly recommend and invite some dear friends. So, you know, I really feel your heart and your sincerity and your your authenticity. And, you know, I’m really happy to have been able to bring you to a larger audience.
Gloriji: grateful. Thank you so much.
Rick Archer: Well, let me just make a couple of concluding remarks. I’ve been speaking with Gloria GE, and I’ll be linking to her website. And maybe I’ll also link to your Facebook page if you’d like, since you’re so active on Facebook, people can find you and follow you on Facebook. And as people know, this is an ongoing series of interviews. So if you feel like being notified of future ones, just sign up for the email for that on batgap.com. There’s an audio podcast, which is working again, although it’s still having some technical difficulties with it. So in case you’d like to listen on your iPod, or your phone, and a number of other things, if you just explore the menus on batgap.com You’ll see them so it’s really, really appreciate your attention, those who have been listening or watching and it’s a great joy to do this and bring this to people and love to you all and and love to you Gloriji it’s really much left here talking with you. Maybe we’ll meet in person someday. That’d be nice. All right, thanks.
Gloriji: Thank you.
