Rick: 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. Today’s interview with Ivan Rados is number 400, so congratulations Ivan, you just lucked out to be number 400.
Ivan: Thank you
Rick: If anyone is discovering this for the first time and you’d like to check out some of the previous ones, go to batgap.com and look under the past interviews menu where you’ll find all the previous ones organized and categorized in four or five different ways. This show is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and feel like supporting it, there is a donate button on every page of the site. So as I just hinted, today’s guest is Ivan Rados. I’ll just read a quick bio of him and then we’ll get into it. Ivan, who also goes by the spiritual name Atma, is a meditation master who was born in the former Yugoslavia. At the age of 42, he experienced a profound inner awakening that changed his perception of himself and reality, after which he was devoted to integrating his knowing into his being, marking the beginning of a movement towards the inner point, which he calls the middle point. He started teaching meditation regularly from his healing studio in Vancouver. As a healer, Atma is a true master of both himself and his life. He asserts that he heals no one, but simply helps people heal themselves through the power of consciousness. His journey reads like a book of miracles, which he modestly labels “ordinarinesses”. We’ll be talking about that. The wisdom he shares comes from his deep roots in the one self, the source of everything. Atma has assisted thousands in reconnecting with their state of health in personal, group, and long-distance sessions. He is not associated with any particular spiritual movement, religion, or tradition. His deep and authentic rooting in the unknown provides him the insight and ability to be of great service to the evolution of consciousness in these most transformative of times. He travels extensively, taking his knowingness throughout the world, facilitating meditation classes, talks, intensives, and retreats. So welcome.
Ivan: Thank you. Thank you, welcome, for inviting me.
Rick: Did I do that? Oh, inviting you. I thought you said enlightening you. No, I didn’t do that. I invited you, I didn’t enlighten you. Yes, you’re welcome. You came recommended by a number of people. So the former Yugoslavia, what year was that that you were born?
Ivan: My body was born in former Yugoslavia.
Rick: Oh yeah, I mean that’s what we mean
Ivan: I have a relationship with my body but not with the place where my body was born.
Rick: Right.
Ivan: Okay. My body was born in, I don’t know, 53, 54, 55 years, 62, so you count?
Rick: 62, okay.
Ivan: I’m not obsessed by numbers and by the age.
Rick: That’s okay. And when did you leave Yugoslavia?
Ivan: leave Yugoslavia, I left a couple of times, but just three days before the war I just left. I just said, “That’s it, I don’t want to participate in any madness,” and I left. And since then I just cut my past totally. That’s why I said I’m not related to the place, I’m related to my body.
Rick: Yeah, and in some way you’re not even related to that I suppose. You talk about that.
Ivan: I have to live in my body in this life.
Rick: That’s true.
Ivan: I don’t know what kind of other bodies will I get when I go somewhere else, but I’m very happy with this body right now.
Rick: Good. Well, I’m glad you got out of there when you did. So you experienced at the age of 42, how old are you now, body-wise?
Ivan: Body-wise, 150.
Rick: Hey, well preserved. Well, you lost your hair, but otherwise you look pretty.
Ivan: It’s like tiring, isn’t it? Hang your body around, I’d rather fly, but you know I have a, I’m very fortunate to have my beloved Lana, who is holding me back on earth, grounding me, otherwise I’m just … you know, my main excuse is I’m an artist, so I can hide my madness behind being an artist.
Rick: Yeah, my father was a professional artist too. Just don’t go cutting off your ear, you have nice ears. So what was this profound inner waking that happened when you were 42? What happened?
Ivan: Oh …
Rick: And why did it happen? Had you been doing some kind of spiritual practice or something?
Ivan: I mean, you see, I’ve been searching all my life for something that I thought is you know , whatever enlightenment. I had an idea of what enlightenment is, I had a concept, I have an entire theory behind. And I was studying everything along the way just to find, to confirm my idea. And searching and searching and searching, but never ever finding, really. But along my search I was expressing myself through my art, I was being creative with myself, I was drawing out my consciousness. Let me go back when I was a kid.
Rick: Sure
Ivan: And that was my first recollection, my first memory when I was a kid, when I was young. It’s a..I was maybe grade 1, grade 2, and I would touch kids if they have any problems – stomachache, toothache, headache, whatever they, even when they were hurt, when they were emotionally disturbed, when they were anxious, I had a, I don’t know, empathy, compassion to come hug them, put my hand on their stomach, on their face to heal the tooth or whatever, and they would be better and they would run around. I would be a little bit tired, my body would be tired.
Rick: Drain you a little bit.
Ivan: A little bit drain. I remember those moments where I would be totally depleted, it’s like, “Oh God!” Anyway, a principal called my mom, my mom went there and whatever they were talking, my mom came home and said, “You know, you are not allowed to do that.” I said, “What?” I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. So she said, “You’ve been doing wrong, everyone was unhappy, their teachers were unhappy talking about it, you’re distracting the classes and distracting kids, and other parents are talking and it’s like, “Oh my God!” So I didn’t know what to do, so I went to my grandma and my grandma said, “Oh my son, you are, you came with that, whatever you came with that, energy, compassion, ability to heal or whatever, but you know, there are two ways you can do that. You can continue doing it or suppress it. What are you going to do?” I didn’t know what kind of suppression means, but forgetting it, don’t do that, in a way. And I said, “Is there any third option?” And my grandma said, “What do you think?” I said, “Can I change it into something else?” Because I was playing, I was playing with outside changing the positions of rocks, for example.
Rick: You could move them with your mind, you mean?
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, so you know, making rocks in certain geometrical patterns and forms. I was playing with sacred geometry.
Rick: Oh, with your hands you were doing?
Ivan: With my hands picking up pieces making something which is
Rick: You weren’t moving them around with your mind, okay. You were making patterns and things.
Ivan: I was making something that is geometrical in shape that I feel alright and I feel protected and safe, and whatever, I was playing with that while other kids were playing Tarzans and whatever football. And she said, “What do you think?” I said, “Can I channel?” She said, “Yes, you can. What do you want to do in life?” I said, “I want to be an artist.” She said, “That’s the way to channel.” So that’s where I went. So I became an artist. So that becomes my spiritual search, even though I didn’t realize that while I was searching for external confirmation and confirmation of my idea of what enlightenment is.
Rick: so
Ivan: So I couldn’t find. So I went into it and then at one point I was painting, I was studying, and I used to go for five days, no food, no drinking, maybe drinking water, but no food, no sleep, just painting, painting, and be so frustrated, so angry. I would rip up my canvases in my studio. I would, I would do crazy stuff. Even I would take the canvas outside, even though someone might pass by and say, “Wow, what a gorgeous work.” I would take it out and burn it.
Rick: wow
Ivan: And I was painting, painting you know those segments almost every month, couple of times, so five, six, seven days no food, no sleeping, just like going through until I knocked myself down and sleep for At one point I said to my beloved Lana, “I’m going.. I don’t know, I might be 10 days now. I’m going totally fasting for 23 days, but I’m not going to sleep 10 days, I’m going to paint.” And the fifth day I was painting, I was throwing canvas, you know, the raw oil on the canvas, and just I fall. I fall unconscious, and I regain consciousness immediately and I realize I’m on the floor and I’m not able to move. I’m not able even to think where I am. I’m just aware that I am. It just like happened instantaneously. It’s not like, I was there not thinking, “Oh, this is whatever the spiritual, you know, epiphany that people talk about. It is this is the realization, this is the final end of my search.” It was just a blank piece of canvas, just being aware that I am. I was I could not even say that I was blissful. There was no bliss there, there was nothing, nothing at all, just blank. It was like instant, like a popcorn. I fall down, could not move, and you know left without consciousness, regain consciousness again, and that was it. And I stayed there, I don’t know for how long. Later on people, someone tried to knock on my studio, my beloved Lana tried to call me, but people said that I’ve been three to five days, I’m not sure. So anyway, when I started thinking, the thought came on its own, after three, four, five days of just being blank, even not sleeping, not blinking, you’re just being frozen. And then my, and the thought came and the thought ran through my mind, and I could just see the thought running through, and the thought said, “You are a failure.” And I had for the first time in my life I was using my mind. I had the ability to use my mind, and I used my mind. I invited the thought in collections of all other thoughts, which are not mine, they are borrowed. All our thoughts are borrowed, by the way. So I used some thought, or other thoughts, and collected, collected some kind of idea, what I was going through and what is happening, why the thought came and left, what that thought means. It means invitation. It means the idea is invitation, inviting me to again go into that dualistic aspect of reality, where I will try to find someone who never fails and could not fail, but find the consequence of failing all the time. So it sounds like, causes and consequences. The mind is all about causes and consequences, but I was there not choosing, but using something just to contemplate, designate and create something for myself. And from that point from that point I woke up, got up, collected myself, went home and said to Lana, “I have been unconscious,” because she could not understand. I said, “I have been unconscious for some time, you see, but everything is fine.” That was the event, I mean, if I call it an event. Nothing happens really, nothing at all. It’s just blank piece of paper, just nothingness. But something changed afterwards, the perception of self, the perception of reality I live in, definition of self and definition of reality. It’s like it becomes more fluid, not strict and rigid. I mean when you define something and then you try to protect that definition, you try to save that definition, you try to invest in that definition, you try to sell that definition to someone else that someone else might adore you, you know, and then you can feel okay, your ego you know can feel blissful, not that kind of.
Rick: So let me ask you a couple questions about that. So you’re about 42 years old, you were pushing and pushing and pushing in terms of your art. You’d go days on end without sleeping or eating, just drinking water. And I’m just reiterating what you said, just to make sure I got it straight. And then at a certain point you had this collapse, it was some kind of breakthrough. And then you sat there for four or five days with no thoughts in your head, not sleeping, just sitting like a stone, and then you finally began to engage in activity again. Is that a quick synopsis of what you just said?
Ivan: That’s right.
Rick: yeah
Ivan: I mean there’s more to it, which even if I want to write a book about it
Rick: right
Ivan: it’s not going to fit in 100 books, because from the nothing, when you, if you experience nothing, I mean I don’t know whether I experienced nothing, it was just nothing is happening, if that’s the experience, so be it. But, later on, you know when you change the perception of self, obviously you change the perception of reality you live in, because you know, you change yourself, reality is changed. Don’t change the world out there, don’t bring the peace, change yourself, bring peace to yourself, find the peace within yourself, the peace is everywhere else. The way you see yourself, you create reality, because reality is a mirror of you, nothing else. Mirror will never ever blink to you, you have to blink first and the mirror reacts. That’s how powerful we are, you see, how we define ourselves, we define God, we define existence, we define the wholeness.
Rick: Someone said, I forget who said this, but it’s a lot easier to put shoes on than pave the world with leather.
Ivan: Yeah, but people, 99.99% of people are putting their stone in their shoes.
Rick: Yeah, but you know, I mean, in other words, the allegory means that easier to change yourself than to change the world, if you can put shoes on, so to speak, that’s a lot more simple than making the whole world covered with leather, you just, you know, change yourself and then you change the world.
Ivan: Yes, so what happened later was, something that I never ever, ever, ever could think about would come into my mind and I would choose whether to use that or not.
Rick: And what was that?
Ivan: It’s whatever, whatever, it’s not the choice, it’s more multiple infinite number of choices I can choose. I mean, people generally have two choices to, you know, left or right, positive or negative, that’s very dualistic, but when you come from the point where the things are coming in multiple ways, multi-dimensionally, and you have infinite number of choices, which one you want to choose? It’s not just two, it’s infinite number, it’s a like spectrum between consciousness and unconsciousness. Consciousness and unconsciousness are not separate entities, there’s only consciousness. Unconsciousness is lack of consciousness, the same as, you know, darkness is lack of light. So, in between unconsciousness and consciousness there is an entire spectrum of possibilities. So, intuitive one will be the one you are more excited.
Rick: The intuitive one.
Ivan: Exactly, so that’s what changed.
Rick: yeah
Ivan: Another thing that changed was the amount of understanding that comes, it’s like brief instant. You see, it’s just like, more like, more like intuition coming and staying for a while, and the mind forming and wanting to hitchhike the intuition and bring duality into it. You know, this is good, this is not, I don’t believe that, I believe that this is real, this is not real. That kind, those kind of conflicts inside the mind, but you know but there is that deeper, deeper knowing I’m not my mind, and the mind yields to your consciousness. You see the whole problem, the whole problem in the world is not what appears outside reality, in outside reality, in objective reality, it is the it is the attachment to the idea I am my mind. You see So, from that perspective, mind is illusion. So you can take his uh, you know, suggestions and ideas and choices, in consideration, but you are the one who is going to choose, really, and that’s how you use my mind. So in a way, after that experience I start using my mind when I need to designate, create and communicate, and when I don’t need my mind I have ability which came from maybe that experience that I could switch my mind my mind on off.
Rick: Okay, let me ask you a few questions about the things you just said. So firstly, when you went into that state for four or five days, were you aware of the surroundings or were you just sort of in a Samadhi state or something where you weren’t even aware of sensory input?
Ivan: I was aware of, I was aware of breathing,
Rick: okay I;I was aware of my blood circulating
Rick: but you were just sitting there
Ivan: I was aware of the sound of passing cars in front of my studio
Rick: okay
Ivan: I was aware of even you know the the the flipping wing of the fly around, I mean I was aware of the invitation, brush invitation to move him around, even that, you know, it’s like temptation, “Move me, you know my purpose is to move the color around the canvas, move me please.” You know that kind of thing, it is the absolutely real, absolutely attentive, absolutely tranquil and absolutely inviting to engage in all kinds of phantasmagoric dreams if I want, but you know obviously there is no reason, there is no need because that kind of state is you can’t do anything.
Rick: yeah
Ivan: It’s not that you cannot do anything, you don’t want to do anything, because it is the state where there is no pressure, there is no anxiety, there is no stress, there is no worries, there is nothing there putting you on an enormous heaviness. You see People say love and light, you say, “What’s the light?” You know, I’m bringing you light. Light is not being heavy, being light, not carrying the weight of your thoughts, not being suppressed and compressed by your thinking which is positive-negative. You see When you remove your mind, if you remove your mind, if you can remove your mind or something or someone can remove your mind, then you find nothing and that’s if that’s the place so be it.
Rick: Okay, so when you first snapped into that state you basically didn’t have motivation to paint or talk or eat.
Ivan: no
Rick: You just sat there.
Ivan: I didn’t have motivation to wake up, I didn’t have motivation to close my eyes, it was just like there was no motivation because it seems like I didn’t have mind, but I could not recollect that not having a mind because you can only recollect that when you have a mind.
Rick: right, yeah
Ivan: You see what I mean? It’s very dualistic in nature so I have to be controversial in order for people to understand what I’m talking about.
Rick: Yeah, it’s like you can’t remember sleeping because …
Ivan: I’m going to fail, I tried. And you asked a really tough question trying to explain unexplainable, really, how can I do that? How can I explain my subjective reality to you?
Rick: How can anyone? Try explaining red, what does red look like? Well, I don’t know, it looks like red, you can’t explain it.
Ivan: I tried to read my mind.
Rick: yeah
Rick: And the second question I have is like you were talking about a million choices and then you would choose just one and it kind of reminded me of an example from physics where if you take a ball and throw it, there are a million, infinite number of paths the ball could take, but it takes the path of least action, given all the forces and influences, it takes the most efficient possible path when you throw it. And so I’m kind of wondering if that would be a good descriptor of your experience where you have a million possibilities but if you follow the intuitive choice it ends up being the most sort of perfect in a way that the individual mind could never have figured out.
Ivan: Nature is balancing itself all the time.
Rick: Right, nature did it, does it for you.
Ivan: Nature. But what’s nature? Nature is part of existence, so existence is existing in itself and it’s balanced, so it does not need to balance itself, it always thrives to balance itself. You’re part of nature so naturally and existentially you are balancing yourself. If you are not balancing yourself then the balance will balance itself, so you are not necessary in that process at all.
Rick: Okay, and then the third question is, you know, you’re talking, you’re saying something which kind of reminds me of an analogy that Ramana Maharshi used to use about a fan, you know, which is spinning and then you turn off the power and it still spins for a while and gets slower and slower as it winds down. And I’m wondering if you have something like that in your own experience where this big shift happened and then since then there’s been a kind of a winding down and a playing out of tendencies and habits and conditioned responses and so on, they’ve just been sort of winding down over the years since then. Does that make any sense?
Ivan: Can you, can you a little bit explain further what’s behind your thinking?
Rick: Why I’m asking this question?
Ivan: Yeah.
Rick: Yeah, well sometimes Ramana and other teachers have used the example that, you know, when the individual is kind of the motivating force of action or thinks that he is, you know, there’s a certain momentum like a fan spinning because of its motor and then…
Ivan: I understand that.
Rick: Yeah, and then when enlightenment dawns that motivation is no longer there and yet it doesn’t just stop instantly.
Ivan: Okay. Okay.
Rick: It sort of winds down.
Ivan: I see. I see where you’re getting, where you want to go. You see, we have mind, we know the mind, you know, we talk about mind, but we talk about mind as conscious mind and you see all kinds of books and spiritual movements you know, motivational speakers, gurus, you know, masters of reality and themselves, they talk about consciousness and conscious mind. Mind and consciousness are diametrically opposite of each other.
Rick: Why don’t you define them both, well at this point, since you know, how do you use those terms?
Ivan: I’m trying my best.
Rick: Okay, yeah.
Ivan: Mind is not. Consciousness is. The mind is not. It is a social product. It is a social indoctrinated state of being. So your mind is not owned by you, it is owned by society, it is owned by the collective. The mind is illusion, a bubble. So the mind cannot exist without an energy. It needs energy, it is superficial, it is illusion, so it needs energy. Wholeness is the energy, infinite one, energy in itself. Wholeness, oneness, God, existence, the universe, whatever you want to call it, however you want to call it. So the wholeness is expressing itself as it is. Wholeness is wholeness expressing itself through infinite pieces. Every single piece of that wholeness is the wholeness in itself expressing itself through infinite pieces and every single piece of that it is expressing itself, it goes infinitely, infinitely infinite. Okay, so how the wholeness is expressing itself and what is the wholeness? First let’s ask the question what is the wholeness? Wholeness is awareness, awareness that the wholeness is, awareness that I am, without I just am-ness. Do you get it? Okay. So wholeness is the wholeness, awareness is awareness expressing itself as the consciousness because consciousness is the movement while the awareness is the moment. The moment right now is awareness while the movement of now is the consciousness. The movement is happens through experiences in objective and subjective reality. It’s like wave moving and creating the particle, creating something that is objective, that is informed, that you can include, you know that you know invites the senses, that you can have a grasp of it, you can go through it, you can define it, you can analyze it, you can see it from different perspectives. You see that’s what consciousness is, it can examine itself because everything is consciousness, it can examine itself, expand itself, understand itself from different angle of seeing. So that’s the whole point. So the consciousness is the movement, awareness is the moment. So the mind is artificial entity created in between awareness and consciousness and using the energy of consciousness. Not using because it is stealing, it is you who is voluntarily giving that to the mind by being attached to that artificial creation.
Rick: Do you have a mind?
Ivan: Do I have a mind? I don’t have a mind but I use my mind.
Rick: Okay, so it’s a tool.
Ivan: It’s a tool, it’s a machine, it’s an organic machine, it is a perfect machine.
Rick: And when you say that like society creates the mind or something like that, you know, what if a person lived in a cave and didn’t have any interaction with society, would they have a mind?
Ivan: Listen, it’s not about creation of the mind. Mind creates itself as a superficial entity, as a similar to a reality we all agree to, a reality that is common between us. It’s like society, society does not exist. Society lives in people’s minds and thoughts exist as a collective unconsciousness. So it’s not about a society creating the mind, the society is attaching your consciousness to artificial creation, attachment to the idea of who you are. Small kid, not having the mind, having the consciousness, being receptive, open, going through, having experiences, not ever holding into the experience, not ever possessing the experience or defining the experience as going through, while the society is jumping and saying, “Don’t do this, do that, this is right, this is wrong.” So the consciousness is attaching itself to one aspect of the wholeness, one aspect of duality and inevitably the other one has been rejected. So that is the separation, that’s how we create the mind or society creates the mind. It’s not like, “Oh, let’s create the mind in the small kid,” it is unconscious act of kindness, unconscious act of so-called love. We do that unconsciously, you see. That’s Jesus on the cross saying, “God forgive them because those people they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Rick: Okay, if I understand you correctly, what you’re saying is the mind is an innocent tool, I guess we need to have a mind in order to function, but the mind gets conditioned, like when you were a little kid and you were healing people and the authority said, “No, you can’t do that, that’s bad,” and so that left an impression on you. So it’s sort of like society conditions and narrows and limits and boxes us in as we go along. And so if that’s a correct response to what you’re saying, then what is the practical takeaway from what you’ve been saying for the past few minutes, if someone’s listening to this, and what can they take from what you’ve just said that would help them in some way in their life?
Ivan: First of all, you see, we have to raise a question that’s called existential question. Everyone has to raise that question, because it exists since the beginning of separation and the question is, “Who am I?”
Rick: right
Ivan: Who am I really? That’s the most important question, it’s the same question that never, ever anyone asked me, the question, “What is the meditation?” Just look at the schools of meditation everywhere, I mean everyone is teaching meditation, and never, ever did anyone ask, “What is the meditation? Who am I?” You know, “What is the mind? What is the question?”
Rick: What do you mean no one ever asked that? Haven’t people been asking that sort of question?
Ivan: Never.
Rick: Really? Never in your experience.
Ivan: What is the meditation? Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, you know.
Rick: Yeah
Ivan: What is the mind? There is no mind, only thoughts. Are the thoughts real? No, they are cause. Then what is the mind beyond thoughts? There is no mind beyond thoughts. So mind doesn’t have form, neither it is a single thought, but a constant flow of thoughts. So thoughts don’t have form, but they can create form. Form is unreal, part of illusion, the same as the mind. Everything that has a form is an illusion. To be attached to form is to be possessed by the mind and be in the separation. So imagine this, imagine the mind being on one side of the tube. Imagine the tube, hollow tube or hollow bamboo, mind on the other and the wholeness on the other side. Okay, they cannot fit together because the mind is non-existential, the wholeness is existential. So now imagine the no-mind. What is no-mind? No thoughts in it. It is hollow tube. It is the absolute creative act, kind act, grateful act from wholeness to people, to consciousness. So the consciousness can experience different realities, different densities. So it is a hollow tube. So now on one side is your consciousness, on the other side is the wholeness. The energy goes smoothly, it goes pulsating, coming and going, it is like breathing. Imagine the society clogging the mind, clogging that no-mind and creating the mind, blocking it, giving idea, giving definitions, giving beliefs, giving theories, giving hypotheses, giving assumptions, giving all that which is the question mark, giving the question mark, embedding it, stumping it into no-mind and the mind got disconnected totally. It becomes on one side of polarity and the wholeness on the other side. So it’s also like, you know, this town is too small for us. One has to go or one has to die. So the mind attempt is to deny the wholeness and exist in itself. While the wholeness is saying, “Oh, this is my lost son, he will come one day when he realizes that it’s time to come home.”
Rick: I’m following you, I hope people listening are following you, if they aren’t they should submit a question.
Ivan: I’m quite sure you’re following me.
Rick: No, I am, and what you’ve been saying for the last couple of minutes reminds me of something in the Yoga Sutra, the second verse. It says, “Yoga is the cessation” ,”Yoga” meaning union, “is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind” and then it says, “the seer rests in himself” or in itself. So it’s like you can sort of think of the mind as agitated water or something, and then the water calms down, settles down, and when it’s completely settled, there’s no waves anymore. So there, so mind is waves, settled water is no waves. And so it sounds to me like what you’re saying is, you know, the mind is this sort of, it consists of thoughts, it consists of agitation, it consists of a sort of imbalance in a way, and then if we could come into balance, step, settle down the agitation to a point of no agitation, then there would be no mind at that point and we would know the self or know reality or whatever terms you want to use.
Ivan: Okay
Rick: Go ahead
Ivan: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, understand this, I’m not against the mind. I’m not, I’m not against the society, I’m not against anything, I’m all for freedom from all mind constructs, from the attachment
Rick: Yeah
Ivan: from all mind mechanical habits and its structures.
Rick: Yeah, I gathered that. I didn’t get the impression you were against it.
Ivan: It’s the freedom, when you understand what mind is, then you will have a greater freedom, then you can use the mind or not use the mind, but at the moment your mind is using you, you cannot stop your thinking, you cannot do anything to your thinking, you cannot eliminate thoughts, you cannot do anything, and that’s where the frustration is, and that’s where the suffering is, because that’s the feeling of being powerless. You can’t stop anxiety, you cannot stop pain, you cannot stop worrying, you cannot stop fear, how can you do that? But the consciousness can go through and that’s what I’m advising, go through. How to go through everything you are experiencing, not seeing everything that you are experiencing as real and as you. Everything that passes by is not real and it’s not you. You are the observer of things that are moving, that are transforming, that are moving from one place to another, one thought from positive to negative and negative to positive, you are just witnessing, you are just moving and you are not participating and you are not attaching yourself or identifying with it, not identifying with the process of that.
Rick: Yeah, I think that’s the key point right there, you’re not saying there’s anything wrong with the mind or anything wrong with activity or anything else, you’re just saying there’s something wrong with attachment or identification.
Ivan: That’s right.
Rick: Yeah, we become sort of, we have blinders on if we’re attached and identified, we sort of lose the forest for the trees, so to speak.
Ivan: Yeah, because you know people have to remember that they cannot use the mind before they know how to be without the mind.
Rick: yeah
Ivan: You see when someone says to you, you know, get lost, you know, you know, you know, get out of your mind, it’s not a negative statement, say thank you to those people, you know, that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to get out of my mind, because when I’m out of my mind there is no anxiety. So what’s wrong with that? Love that.
Rick: I guess it’s a question of how you get out of your mind, you know.
Ivan: It’s just like when I’m talking to you I’m using my mind, when I don’t talk to you why why should I use my mind? To torture myself with the same thoughts? Because thoughts are repetitive, they are moving in a circular way, you know, from positive to negative. It’s not like jumping from positive to negative, there is an entire like pendulum, entire spectrum, while moving from the positive you are building the momentum of negative and you reach the end of negative, then you move to the positive and it goes like a swing. You see that’s what 24 hours a day activity is in your mind. So how to get out of it? You cannot get rid of it. You cannot do anything to your mind, you can only be a witness to your mind and through the witnessing the mind will drop itself.
Rick: Yes
Ivan: That’s how you become the mind, with no attempt to get rid of your mind. If you have attempt to get rid of mind then the mind will really give you a hard time.
Rick: Okay, so one thing that occurred to me a lot as I was reading your book is you were describing things like being a witness to your mind, for instance, that phrase you just used and it kind of reminded me of a kind of a perennial issue that comes up in spiritual circles and in these interviews and that is that, are we taking a description as a prescription? And let me just give an example to clarify it. Let’s say someone is standing on a mountaintop and he is shouting out an explanation of the view, what he sees from the mountaintop and people are halfway down the mountain and they are hearing that explanation and they are thinking, “Wow, that sounds really great, that sounds really inspiring.” What they really need is instructions on how to climb from where they are up to where that guy is and then they will see the same view he sees and they won’t need his explanation, they’ll have their own view. But what often happens is that people mistake a description of the view, so to speak, as a prescription for what to do. So a person, let’s say, hears the term “witnessing” and in a certain state of awareness, witnessing is natural, it’s spontaneous, one is not attached to one’s thoughts or perceptions or overshadowed by them, the clear light of the self prevails no matter what you’re engaged in, but if you, if that, it’s a sort of a natural condition. But if you try to witness, if you make an effort of it, it’s almost like the person halfway down the mountain kind of imagining what the guy is describing who is speaking from the top of the mountain and maybe even convincing themself that they’re having the same experience, but in fact they’re not having the same experience, it’s an imagination, it’s a mood, it’s not the actual state of being on the mountaintop. So do you get the metaphor and what do you say to that whole statement?
Ivan: Yeah, you know this is natural way of the mind that is trained to submit itself to higher authority, whatever that authority is, it could be political, it could be religious, submit yourself to God, adore God, give yourself to God, you are not God is, that kind of concept you can find validity in it, but it’s mainly mind concept, it is concept. So anyway…
Rick: Yeah, and a concept of God doesn’t really satisfy anymore than a concept of food is going to fill your belly.
Ivan: Yes, of course, someone from the top yelling at people, “Look what I could do,” it’s just nothing else than the ego, “Why do you need to declare that? Why do you need to announce that? Why do you need to invite anyone?”
Rick: Well, it’s just an analogy though, that illustrates a certain point.
Ivan: I’m going somewhere, so there is no need, but even that perception of the guy is very limited because he is addressing someone and asking, “Experience what I want to experience,” and people might be tempted to, they might say, “Okay, but this is really good,” you know, just a slight, slight urge to get out of your comfort zone is the end result, is enlightenment, just a glimpse. It’s just matter of, matter of process, how it unfolds. It could be a year, it could be 20, it could be a million years, it doesn’t really matter, time is infinite and it’s always now. So it’s not the time of past and future, but real time, which is the moment of now. So anyway, in order, in order to really reach your destination, whatever your destination, desire is good if you have only one desire which is essential, the desire to be. Every other desire is not to be, and then it’s projection, it’s illusion, you are somewhere else, so desire to be. But the desire cannot be kept alive in your mind, otherwise that desire will be the mind and the mind will give you the idea of what desire is, you know, what enlightenment is, what being is, but at one point you will get out of your sleep and realize that you’ve been dreaming and you will start from the beginning. So it’s good to have a desire, to have an urge and to be motivated to push the energy, you know, but you have to give up on pushing, you have to give up on searching, you have to give up on being motivated, allow the process to unfold. So you push yourself into the spiritual quest, into the journey, but do not conclude anything along the way and do not try to ignite that at all. Just remember that you already did intent, that’s the desire. One desire to be is the pure intent to be, not intention, there’s no tension there. It is still part of the tension, intent is still part of the tension, by just once and then you go through. If you repeat the intent then it becomes intention, then you are in your mind locked in your concept of enlightenment. Then instead of climbing the mountain and reaching the top, seeing your own perspective, having your own perception, then you are going around the mountain believing that you are climbing the mountain.
Rick: Right
Ivan: Even though it’s a little bit hilly around the mountain and you are climbing, but you are going in the circle and that’s the way of the mind.
Rick: Yeah, okay. So a little while ago you said that people don’t ask what meditation is or something like that and you teach meditation and I’m always interested in practical means for people to experience for themselves, not sort of just entertain themselves with philosophies or notions or concepts, but have it be a genuine experience. So what do you teach and how is it that, what do you do to help people move from just sort of reading concepts in one of your books to actually living the reality of what those concepts represent?
Ivan: It’s really difficult to define my work, you see, because I don’t teach anything. If I teach…
Rick: But you have a whole chapter in your book on meditation, so…
Ivan: That’s right, you know, but I’m answering, you know, so it’s I don’t teach, but I cannot go away from teaching because anytime you open your mouth you teach, you teach either yourself or you teach others, but there is an inner witness who is saying, “I am not a teacher, I’m not my mind, I’m not my body, I’m not my soul, you know, I am not, only the Wholeness is.” So from the Wholeness perspective there is no teaching, there is sharing, sharing my own self. If that’s a teaching so be it.
Rick: Well we can say that about anything, I mean I could ask you what you had for lunch and you say, “I don’t eat lunch, you know, I am the pure self, the body eats.”
Ivan: Yeah, but this is really crucial because if you see me as a teacher then you don’t know, I know. You see, I’m giving you my knowledge, but you know, but not being a teacher, I’m not giving you my knowledge, I’m giving you my experience. What you’re going to do with that, it’s up to you. You get it?
Rick: Yeah, so how do you give or how do you, how do you, how does…go ahead. I’m sorry.
Ivan: I don’t talk about meditation, I don’t teach meditation.
Rick: Okay, what happens?
Ivan: What I teach, I teach an obstacle to meditation.
Rick: Which is?
Ivan: Which is the mind.
Rick: You teach that the mind is an obstacle.
Ivan: That’s what I teach.
Rick: Okay.
Ivan: You see, you cannot teach meditation. How can I teach you to be yourself? I cannot do that. I can only guide you that you can teach yourself how to be yourself. No, you cannot teach yourself how to be yourself. You can only learn everything that you know about yourself then you will be yourself. So I can only guide you in that process that you can realize it yourself and that’s not teaching, that’s just guiding. But even to guide someone, you know, you cannot guide blind man to see the sun. And so you can describe the sun for him but he’s not going to see it anyway. He’s going to assume what sun is according to your description. So it’s not a teaching, it’s a guiding, but it’s not guiding at all. It’s just having fun there and whoever is hooked to that teaching, whatever that guiding, fine, good, someone is going to benefit from it.
Rick: Okay. So…
Ivan: So I don’t teach meditation. What I teach people is how to be absolutely attentive while they are meditating.
Rick: How do you teach that?
Ivan: How do I teach that. I teach you to really accept yourself the way you are and you know when you try to accept yourself the way you are, you are meditating.
Rick: So if I were to come to one of your classes and what do you do? What actually happens in those classes?
Ivan: I don’t know what happens. It happens something that even I’m surprised in watching it. You cannot teach masses anything. You can only teach individuals because individual, you can understand the individual, you can penetrate the individual, his soul, his mind, his consciousness, you can see where he is stuck with, you know, what kind of obstacles are there, what kind of barriers, what kind of worries, what kind of things are preventing him to be himself. And then you try everything possible in your power to guide that people or whatever, teach that people how to be attentive to those moments, not to overpower the consciousness of that person. And then inevitably if you remove the stone preventing spring to flow, you know, obviously the spring will flow somewhere else or it will not flow at all. Remove the stone, the spring goes. Fresh water filling the ponds.
Rick: So do you do a lot of work with individuals?
Ivan: Yeah, I do lots of work with individuals. You see, when you read all those books which are transcripts from our meditation classes, lots of people are saying they have a really hard time to understand. I mean it’s not for popular masses. It’s not like for everyone to read about, like, you know, let’s explain the now from the Eckhart Tolle’s perspective and it becomes popular. Everyone reading Tolle, you know, you cannot read my books if you have never, ever been in meditation and being stuck to a particular aspect of meditation where you cannot go further. And then you go there, I can help you with that. I mean it’s not like I’m helping you from the plane of enlightenment. I’m helping you because I experienced that. I experienced my mind putting obstacles to me, being me, you know, so many times, infinite times, and I always beat myself. I always felt guilty and trying to find a reason to torture myself through the mind by, you know, trust, denial, you know, doubt, acceptance, you know, hate, this and that.
Rick: Even now or it used to happen?
Ivan: No
Rick: Not anymore?
Ivan: Yesterday does not exist at all. It’s only in your mind.
Rick: So, you don’t get into these self-beating up phases anymore. You’re just referring to the way you used to be?
Ivan: I don’t know, maybe I’m beating myself, but I’m not aware of that. What I know is that everything is the way it should be. It’s not according to my idea how things should be, but according to the feel of it, you know, and the feeling is much closer to now than your thinking.
Rick: That makes sense to me too. I don’t know if … do you think that someone hearing a statement like that, “everything as it should be and the feeling is closer than thinking,” do you think that just hearing a statement like that can help a person begin to see life that way, or what more can be offered to help a person see and live life that way?
Ivan: You see, it’s..Every word is a vibration affecting you, you know, so whether the word is coming from the mechanical aspect of your mind or from the consciousness using the mind to express it in a very kind and gentle way to enhance and help the person, that’s all. So you can damage the person with the thought or you can enhance the person with the thought, but imagine the thought being used in a more meditative way, and I’m passing that little jewel, it’s called mantra, you see, that’s mantra. I’m giving you the seed of the wholeness through in this in that in that word. So it’s not about you analyzing the word, it’s not about you trying to figure out what he is thinking, it’s about feeling the energy embedded in that thought, feeling the consciousness embedded intent. Intent is always good, you see, and then self-realizing it through the understanding, but not from your mind but from your heart, so you should feel the person beyond his thought, feel the consciousness beyond the thought, you know, and that’s inevitable transformation will happen and then transcendence will happen on its own.
Rick: So you’re saying that, I think you’re not saying that you literally give mantras for people to meditate with, you’re saying that everything you say is a mantra.
Ivan: It is a mantra, why not?
Rick: I think that’s what you’re saying.
Ivan: Everything you say is a mantra, you see. As I said, giving is act is not an act of kindness but an act of compassion. You are not giving because I want to give, I’m giving because there’s no other way, you see. When you are loved, when you are loved, what do you do? You just give around, you share with them. It’s not like I’m very proud of my love, I’m going to give a certain amount to this person, a certain amount to that. It’s not exclusive, it is all inclusive and when you realize yourself, when you understand yourself, when you know yourself, when you being yourself, you don’t know how you know but you know that you know, then you share it compassionately with everyone, with existence. I used to teach my kid how to, you know, approaching the tree and picking up the leaf, you know, please say thank you before picking the leaf. Do not say sorry because sorry is going to be very apologetic and then it’s the mind say thank you, you see, because there is a reason why you’re picking it, you see, because you recognize yourself in that leaf and you are saying thank you, thank you for that recognition, you see. So when you recognize yourself in everything you do, everything you are, everything you experience, what’s left? Nothing than you, you recognize yourself and when you recognize yourself, when you see yourself and the kid sees himself in the mirror, it smiles, it’s very joyful, “Whoa, Harvey, hello!” That kind of thing. Yeah, I recognize myself, I’m very happy because I am the one, because there is only one.
Rick: Yeah, the question is how to do that. You say when you…
Ivan: But there’s no..Listen, it’s not about how to do that. What is stopping the process of realizing that you are already that?
Rick: Yeah, you tell me.
Ivan: Not how, because when you say how, there is a distance.
Rick: What is?
Ivan: How is the problem. You know, how to do the meditation. It’s not how to do the meditation, what is the meditation? And when you understand the meditation, meditation is every day living with the consciousness, that’s what meditation is, being aware in every aspect of your life. It’s not about object-related. It’s not like I’m going to meditate on this, I’m going to meditate about. It’s not about, it’s not a distance, it’s as close as you can. It is realizing that you are the source of all that is and you are the source of all that isn’t. You are fully, fully present in the moment and when you are fully present in the moment there is no need to go anywhere else than stay in that moment. You see. And then everything that comes from that moment will come using certain tools to designate, create and accommodate someone if there is need. That’s the mind as a tool between all other realities and this reality. The mind is a tool, but mind has to be no mind in order to be used as a mind. Consciousness has to be present.
Rick: So no..
Ivan: Without consciousness everything is futile, everything is going to be totally, you know, it’s going to be robot-like without consciousness. That’s the reason why certain forces are not allowing people to wake up, but people are waking up. People are being more and more themselves because they realize what’s the obstacle for not being themselves. They realize the lies and cheats and conspiracy, not against them, not against the world or God or whatever, against their consciousness and they start waking up. Waking up means removing the ignorance, removing something that is stopping you to realize that you are the one with full power, you are the consciousness and you are the awareness.
Rick: So in the bio that I read you said that authentic rooting in the unknown provides you with the insight and ability to be of great service to the evolution of consciousness in these most transformative of times. So I agree that these are transformative times. I think there’s a lot of change happening and it’s actually for good.
Ivan: Every time is transformational, but this is more intense one.
Rick: This is accelerating.
Ivan: It’s like putting things on the right perspective.
Rick: Yeah, and so how is it that you are of great service? How do you serve? What do you actually, when presumably there are some people who have been like interacting with you for years maybe. If I were to talk to one of those people and ask them, “Well, what is it that Ivan does, even does, that you find of value? Why have you been going back to him for years? How is he serving your transformation?” What do you think those people would say to me?
Ivan: I would say, “First of all, I didn’t write that.”
Rick: Oh, somebody else wrote it.
Ivan: “I will not say I’m serving, because to serve someone is to be less than that one you are serving.” It’s not about that. It’s more about being pivotal in the process of removing the final shadow from the earth that has been in existence for so many, so many, so many, so many years.
Rick: Long time.
Ivan: It’s just the time to really say enough is enough. We are moving into another layer of existence, much more subtle, much more, because we, human consciousness evolved from, not from the primitive to the advanced one, but from not knowing to more knowing, or forgetting the knowledge and remembering, that kind of thing. Everything moves in a way. Even the previous civilization used to be in the state of tranquility, while someone might come with some other polluted mind and pollute everything else and it degrades and destroys itself. But there is always that kind of transformational aspect of it. So we are at the top where either we will totally collapse as earth or we are going to evolve into another parallel reality where everything will be alright. But all that depends on the individuals. It’s like a time where we are … it’s very, it’s very absolutely incredible time we live in where the person inside consciousness is deciding whether to be attached to the mind or whether to be detached from the mind. That’s the battle between evil and good, you know, dragon and Russian dragon and whatever, the eagle and the dragon. So that’s the fight. So we are going to choose. Everyone has to choose and already I see people choosing. Even elections are designed in a way that you can choose whether to have cholera or whether you have cancer. Everywhere around the world there is no real choice. The choice is always one-sided. But individually, whether you are going to accept the reality that someone is imposing on you or whether you will create the reality you want to live in. And when you want to live in that reality, obviously you are creating parallel reality and going forward and everyone who feels that’s the reality they want or they would like to live, they’re going to join in formulating and manifesting that reality as parallel reality somewhere that the life will continue on.
Rick: So you know, you’re my 400th interview and if I were to ask all the 400 people I’ve interviewed about this idea of a big transformation taking place in the world, probably almost all of them would say, “Yeah, I think it’s really happening.” And if I were to ask them about, “How do you feel like you’re contributing to it? You’re an instrument, there are many, many different instruments, but you’re one instrument. What is your particular function as an instrument in helping bring about this transformation on individual and collective levels?” Most of them would probably have some sort of answer. So if I were to ask you that question, I’m asking you now, what would be your answer?
Ivan: My answer is, “What’s my contribution?” Everyone is contributing. Even a small kid playing with stones at the lake, throwing a stone in the lake is affecting the entire universe.
Rick: Yeah, and people dropping bombs on Syria are having an effect too, but that’s not necessarily the effect we want.
Ivan: You know, you’re right, because duality is not in conflict, they are complementaries. Whatever is happening, negative in the world, is not really negative, it is the perception of negative, but it is helping someone else to get out of the prison. So my contribution, I don’t have an idea of any contribution, I’m contributing by being myself and having an urge to share what I know. I don’t know anything, but I know that I am and I share whatever comes along, whatever pops in, because something will always pop in. Nothing, nothing can pop out, because when something pops out it becomes different, there is a distance, it’s called separation, popping in. That’s what the process is. If I help, I mean that’s the idea behind, which is not my idea, but let’s contemplate about that, the idea if I change one person’s perception of himself, it’s going to influence his immediate surroundings and then those influences will surround. It’s like a wave when you throw a stone, like a little kid, you see, that kind of effect around the earth. I mean I’m still receiving so many letters and emails, it’s like daily, I mean people thanking me because I said something along the way, talking about whether something which for me was okay, we are chit-chatting and that person saying thank you, you said something, whatever, that changed my life. I was not intending to change, but you know, it is the idea in people’s mind whether I hold the knowledge or not, whether someone holds the knowledge or not, whether the person one is on the top of the mountain claiming, “I know, I see, you know, guys down there you don’t see what I can see, climb up and you can see what I can see,” that kind of thing.
Rick: So you’re an artist, do you still do art?
Ivan: I’m not an artist, I just do art.
Rick: Okay, so you do art and you’re making yantras or something, aren’t you?
Ivan: Yeah, it’s my love.
Rick: Explain what a yantra is.
Ivan: Yantra is a device, it’s a machine, it’s a machinery, it’s a portal to higher level of consciousness. I mean there is no higher, there is no lower, but there is more and more and more of consciousness, that’s the idea behind higher consciousness, more and more because everything is moving to be more and more and more and more, that’s the infinity expanding in itself, infinitely. So yantra serves as a machine because it contains the seed in its center and the seed is the dot and the dot is the consciousness and if you look at the dot then you are looking at yourself. All other forms in that yantra are helping you to move your attention into the center where the dot is, called bindu, called sperm, called the point, the middle point. The trouble between observer and what is being observed is called witnessing. You are witnessing yourself, it’s the, it’s the tool to really reunite with your consciousness on a very, very existential level.
Rick: And so you create these yantras, I guess some people buy them and some people might just look at pictures of them on your website or something. How would a person use a yantra as a tool to bring about some kind of effect?
Ivan: Just look at the center.
Rick: Just looking at it and for like five minutes, one hour, whatever?
Ivan: Ten minutes, as long as you can stand. I mean, I mean there is no pattern, there’s no pattern in how you are going to meditate and what kind of meditation you imply in your life. Everything can be used as meditation, washing dishes can be meditation, walking can be meditation, just talking can be meditation. Everything can be used as meditation if you include the observer, if you include the witness, if you include yourself in that process. But 99.99% of people are locked in their thinking, not including themselves in that process, thinking about this, thinking about that, always going into the future and the past. To be present in the moment is to include yourself. You are aware that you are. You are aware of someone else, you are aware of the object, you are aware of this and that, but you are at the same time aware that you are. That’s the process, that’s the meditation. So it’s not closing your eyes. Yes, it can help you to go deeper into meditation, but with open eyes, walking, talking, even this is meditation, you see, because there is just aspect of being there. We are not collecting and hoarding anything, we are just moving, we are experiencing. So when you look at a dot, only the dot, and looking at this 10 minutes, you are not engaged in anything outside, you are not engaged in your mind, within your mind, your mind is focused on one dot and your awareness is looking at the dot, meaning looking at the mind, because mind is looking at the dot. Now you are looking, including yourself, you are looking at the dot by looking at the mind. After 10 minutes you close your eyes. You are not concerned about peripheral vision, it’s going to remember everything, every single line, every single pointer, every single color, every single because colors bring feelings, you see, while lines are very conceptual, it’s like working on images. So when you close your eyes after 10 minutes, what do you see? You see the image, yantra, embedded in your blackness of your mind and you look at it. Now this is the first glimpse of you looking at bloody mind and you don’t have any clue what you are looking at, you just see the pressure moving and running. All those lines, all those colors are melting and moving, it depends on what kind of yantra is spinning this way, spinning that way, contracting, it’s just moving in your mind in one line. And then you are there present looking at that movement and then it just disappears. What you are left with is the presence of being yourself. You are just aware that you are in that blackness, in that nothingness, nothing else exists and you can stay there forever if you want. Now, maybe the mind might invite you and say, “That’s it, bullshit, come out.”
Rick: Time for lunch.
Ivan: Time to go on, time to engage in this reality. We have so many things to accomplish, you know, you are just wasting your time here.
Rick: That’s an interesting description that you just gave, it reminds me of something in Kashmir Shaivism, I forget the name of the scripture, it’s complicated, but there’s this thing where it itemizes 112 ways to transcend and I bet you I wouldn’t be surprised if yantras is one of them, but the basic idea with sound for instance, you can take a sound, start with an audible sound, have it go quieter, quieter, quieter, quieter, and then just on the thought level then it just disappears altogether and you’ve transcended. But what you just described is the very same process with a visual thing, you know, you start with eyes open, you’re staring at the dot, after 10 minutes close the eyes, you still see it, then it becomes more and more and more subtle, disappears and you’re left with the self. Nice.
Ivan: That’s right.Yeah, but yantra is based on sacred geometry principles, I mean there are five archetypal shapes there, you know, the dot, the line, the triangle, circle and the square, you know, all other geometrical forms are formed from those five basic principles, you know, linked with the five aspects of humans, five stars, you know, five aspects of stars, you know, five is really the number that is almost at the end of the cycle, that’s called the cycle, where the three and three are uniting in six and six is the flower of life, you see, three is the male aspect, another three is the female aspect, where they reunite together with two triangles come together, blue and red together, hemaphrodite state, you know, mercabi and all of those things, that’s the number six. So five is the final moment before the melting, it’s like a sexual act where the first spark of light will be born, you know, so it’s like a sperm and an egg meeting and creating another form, another extension of two is the third which multiplies into the many. That’s how your body was born.
Rick: Yeah.
Ivan: So depending on the yantra, depending on the yantra what kind of image will be there, whether that image will calm you or really, you know, make you dizzy or make you in fear or you know, whatever, but you know, I’m allowing people to choose intuitively what they feel safe with. There are certain images if I present them, you know, yantras and give them and say meditate on that, might really give the nightmare, you see. Try to watch yourself in the mirror, your face with a candle on the side and see what happens. I mean some people got really crazy
Rick: Gets all weird and distorted
Ivan: some people got schizophrenic, because face is changing, so imagine the reality and the signs and forms we all are faced with that we have to digest, you know, imagine the amount of information we have to, you know, on TV channels where those yantras which are destructive yantras are bombarding us and you are watching and being hypnotized, you see, and then being zombies, you see, and then being worker warriors and slaves, you see, but that’s why the yantras are there as the aspect of or attempt or the tool for the people to reunite with themselves if they want or if they have urge to. It’s a counteract from those who are putting signs of, you know, don’t do this, do that, you know, control of thoughts, control of body, control of your freedom and total like that. So this is my contribution as well, you see, I have some contribution
Rick: yeah, there you go
Ivan: you know, in a way, I don’t know, it’s been forever that kind of meditation practice but no one ever talked about it. I used to meditate on yantras when I was a 10 year old kid, I mean draw the yantra, draw the triangle and the dot in the middle and I would hold the paper while, you know, math teacher is talking equations, I would watch the dot in the middle go into my tranquil state of not being, not listening to what she’s talking about, that kind of thing. So in a way, inevitably, that I had to present this as my contribution to this yantra meditation
Rick: Yeah amongst all other things.
Rick: That’s great and just in case people don’t know it, it’s an ancient traditional thing that goes back thousands of years. You can find it in the art of, you know, Vedic India and things like that and carved in stones and whatnot. So, are you saying that there’s different yantras have different effects on different people? Is that what you were just saying?
Ivan: That’s right, you know, the line can affect you tremendously, it can bring the fear, just draw the black line on the pavement, you know, and see what happens when people pass by and see that line on the pavement with the chalk, black chalk and see what happens. Some people will pass, those who notice, you know, you will see the result is going to be like, “Oh, I recognize something ancient in me, maybe a snake, maybe a stick, maybe a laser light, maybe a line of laser.” That kind of shock is there, it’s ancient, it is archetypal, you see. So it’s affecting us in so many ways. Triangle is affecting us at the moment because the triangle, when you’re driving through the streets, it’s saying, “Stop!” Warning, danger, some kind of danger, you see. Some kind of things you have to do, you have to make an effort really to save yourself because driving becomes an issue of safety, not actually issue of pleasure. It becomes like, “I have to fight now to come to my destination and I have to be warned what to do.” It’s like a society controlling you in a way, subconsciously controlling your mind.
Rick: Well, if we didn’t have stop signs and stop lights and things like that, we’d
Ivan: Well of course all be crashing into each other.
Ivan: Of course, but I’m just explaining the way which is to control, which I’m not saying is good or bad, but it is the fact that it is controlling while you can use the same triangle to enhance yourself, enlighten yourself, you see? Not controlled in any way. I mean, it is good because so many crashes will happen, people are unconscious, okay, but you can use it.
Rick: Well, this brings up an interesting point, which is that perhaps there can be freedom within constraints. In other words, taking traffic as an example, there has to be control or else there would be chaos and there would be people…
Ivan: You see, I am absolutely thrilled that Donald Trump is the President. You know why?
Rick: Why?
Ivan: Because it’s not that I love him and I support him in any way, because he his actions and his thoughts and his selfish act is just all about him. It’s all about him and can ignite consciousness to awake around the world.
Rick: Yeah, I’ve heard people say that, it’s kind of having that effect, all kinds of people who are complacent are getting out in the streets and holding signs. And you know
Ivan: Exactly, when someone comes to you and slaps you in the face, what are you going to do?
Rick: I don’t know, I’d have to see what I would do at the time, but I wouldn’t just say slap me again. You’d react.
Ivan: But if you are conscious enough and say, “Thank you for slapping me, I wanted to slap myself for a long, long time, thank you, I’m really grateful that you’re slapping me,” then you know, absolutely transformation will happen inside of you. See but usually the reaction will be either hitting back or arguing or suing or going into the process or whatever.
Rick: Maybe that’s why Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek.”
Ivan: Turn the other cheek. I mean, that’s the declaration by Jesus saying, “I’m not my body, you can hit my body as much as you want, you can torture my body, I’m not my body.” You see, that kind, that kind of idea is behind that cheek. But you know, interpret however you want to interpret because you have your own mind thinking you have unique thinking, you know, that’s the idea behind everyone, every person in the world. My thinking is very unique, my thoughts are very unique, I, I created the thought but actually thoughts cannot be created, thoughts cannot really come up, you know, you cannot invite them, you see, they are just randomly popping, you know, randomly popping, they are popping either from the intention or they are popping out of intent. Being either being used by your mind or using your mind by being consciousness.
Rick: I was reading your … oh, let me think. Just one more thing about yantras before we move on from that. So I think you’re saying that a yantra is not something that has any intellectual meaning, it’s not something to be understood or analyzed or written about in terms of an explanation, but it has more of a kind of a vibrational significance, just like a mantra does. I mean a mantra doesn’t really, isn’t really supposed to have a specific meaning but as a sound it has a certain influence. Would you say the same of yantras?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah, mantra is similar to yantra.
Rick: Right.
Ivan: One is the sound.
Rick: One is a sound, one is a visual.
Ivan: A visual. So what’s..So you will understand the yantra when I explain what mantra is. Mantra is a trick, simple a trick. The master, the guru being in relation to you, but in order to be in relation to you he has to be in relation to himself. There is no relationship, there is no ship traveling between master and student, there is a relation. So the master recognize, recognizes itself in the disciple. So anyway, and understanding the moment, building the moment, building the fire, building the temperature, you know, master is building, understanding, reacting, influencing, moving energy, this and that, triggering, challenging, removing, all kinds of things is happening there. It’s a huge, big relationship while from the perspective of the master it is a relation. I’m helping myself to be myself through that person in a way. So at one point there will be absolutely need to absolutely push the person into the abyss and say, “Now you realize.” And that’s the mantra, giving and whispering the mantra, whispering something that is absolutely significant for that person, just individual. If I say that mantra to someone else that person might be damaged or might be not really be, it’s just like push. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a spice that the food can be tasting. But the problem is that those who didn’t understand the point of mantra, they become obsessed by the idea of practicing mantra and the mantra becomes subjective, it becomes repetitive. So you are repeating mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, mantra, until you hypnotize your mind thinking that you are enlightened or you are on spiritual journey but it’s not, it’s just repetitive, very boring, you know, mind exercise.
Rick: It would be, yeah.
Ivan: I say the yantra is the same, you just sit, stay there and that’s it.
Rick: Yeah, I think a yantra or a mantra is like a boat in the sense that you’re crossing a river in a boat, the idea is not to always stay in the boat, it’s to get to the other side of the river and then get out of the boat. So you know, a mantra fades away, disappears and the self is realized, or a yantra like you were saying, fades away, disappears, self is realized, it’s just a different channel for the same thing.
Ivan: That’s right. I love certain sects in India where they don’t have statues of God or Buddha or whatever, they will build one when they are in festivity, when they want to celebrate, for three days they will build a statue of Buddha, they will light a fire, adore it, kiss it, polish it, bring food and celebrate.
Rick: Yeah
Ivan: And then after three days the monsoon will come and wash those little monuments, whatever, it comes and goes, you know, it’s very transitional.
Rick: Like the Tibetan sand paintings, similar idea.
Ivan: Yes, sand paintings and the same with yantra, you can draw your yantra. That’s why I was drawn into making yantras, even though I didn’t realize that I was drawing yantras, it was like my way of escaping from consensus reality, you know, in a way that was a rebellion act. When I was a kid while everyone was studying and playing football and basketball, I was drawing something on the street and being called weirdo. I’m very glad that I’ve been called weirdo, otherwise, you know, I rebelled more.
Rick: Yeah, it’s good to be a weirdo. Sometimes my wife says to me, I do something and she says, “Nobody does that”, and I said, “That’s why I do it”, you know, it’s like I don’t want to do what everybody else does. So you wrote a book called The Middle Point, I’ve been reading that. What is The Middle Point?
Ivan: It’s you.
Rick: Oh yeah, you wrote a book about me? Oh, thank you.
Ivan: It’s you, it’s you in the middle. Middle Point, you are the point and you are always in the middle, but you are not aware of it. Bring awareness to yourself, then you will be in the middle. You will be the now, you see, and you will be the point. Because you see, Copernicus said that, you know, said that Earth is not the center of the universe, it is the sun, and he was persecuted. What I’m going to say is that it’s not the sun, it’s not the center of the sun, there is nothing out there, you are the center of the universe. It’s all about you, you are the oneness. I mean, you can think that way and then be egotistic and think that you are Donald Trump, okay, or you can use that and be alright with that, like God being almighty but not using his power just enjoying himself in the creation creating itself. God is not creating the world, creation is creating itself. God is just aware that God is. Awareness is, that’s all. You see. So when you are aware and I am aware, what’s the difference between me and you? There is no difference, there is just one. You are aware, I am aware. Aware of what? Of nothing. I am aware of nothing as well, so it’s awareness. In that nothingness you are present, that’s what awareness is. There’s no objects of other things that you can be witnessing and being aware of, being conscious of, it’s just you. So you are the center of the universe. There is nothing out there, it’s just illusion, a mirage, coming and going, moving and transforming. You are there, present in witnessing, your witness and my witness is the same witness. We express the witness through the mind differently, that’s the differentiation, that’s the fragmentation of the augmentations, but in existential level, on the existential level you and I are different, there is no difference. You are me, me and you are, you know, I am you and you are me.
Rick: Light that is one, though the lamps be many.
Ivan: Exactly, it’s consciousness, it’s the movement, you know, it’s the wave, nothing else. Waves are the same waves.
Rick: Yeah, so I wrote down actually copied and pasted all the little chapter headings from your book and all the little section headings as as main points, and there’s many, many things we could talk about here, but what comes to your mind? Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about in this interview that you think would be interesting for people or that’s interesting for you, you know, that really sort of inspires you that you want to discuss a little bit?
Ivan: Not that I want to discuss. I don’t want to discuss anything, you just ask me a question and I answer.
Rick: So I say, is there anything I’m missing here?
Ivan: It is difficult it is difficult to ignite something and say this is really important for me, because if I want to choose something that is really important then then how to choose amongst infinite possibilities what’s so important? Maybe what I’m more excited about, you see. I’m excited about talking what I’m talking, so let’s just talk and see what happens. You see. I mean it could be could be enlightening, it could be just nonsense, it doesn’t really matter. So …
Rick: That’s good, that’s an interesting … go ahead, I’m sorry, continue.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, tell me.
Rick: What were you going to say?
Ivan: You said that is something I want you to finish.
Rick: Oh, so that was an interesting answer in itself, you know, because what you’re saying I think is that you, in a way you go with the flow, you know, you respond to the impetus or to the impulse and if there is or to the catalyst, and if there is no impulse then why respond? So you kind of you bring out whatever is drawn from you, kind of like a reservoir, a reservoir just sits there and the water doesn’t flow unless somebody puts a pipe up to it,
Ivan: Exactly.
Rick: and then depending upon the size of the pipe and the kind of pipe and so on, the water flows in different amounts.
Ivan: Just couple of weeks ago I was just sitting and enjoying, enjoyment is all that is, you know, you’re not driving your car, you’re enjoying your car, you’re not writing a letter, you’re enjoying the process of writing a letter, it’s all about enjoyment, this life is enjoyment. You can make it hell when you use your mind, but when you’re out of your mind then there is just enjoyment. And someone came and said, “I’ve been watching you for 15 minutes, are you alive?”
Rick: Were you just sitting on a park bench or something?
Ivan: Are you a sculpture? Are you pretending to be someone like, you know, whatever, on the street, you know, entertainment, like frozen person?
Rick: Right, they have that, that’s a fad these days.
Ivan: I don’t have that trickle, I said, “Wow, that’s crazy, yes I’m dead.” Anyway, when that was 2005 I think, I published the book, Create Yourself, Forsake Your Geometry. Right now we changed the title to Create Yourself because you cannot create yourself, but anyway that’s the title 17 years ago, more than that, I’m not sure. But anyway, it does matter, and Banyan Books, which is the biggest spiritual bookstore in Vancouver, British Columbia, organized the event in public library and they booked small room that can fit five, six, seven people. Like thinking, okay, he’s a known, you know, wrote a little book, very cute book, and people start coming and coming and coming and they had to move, you know, they went to a bigger room and bigger room until whatever the biggest room they had and 200 people came. And uh and I was just like, almost being frozen, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, you know, one thing is to talk to an individual, another one is to talk to 10 people, another one is to talk to 200 people. I mean I didn’t prepare myself, but it’s kind of being nervous before the act, you see. Anyway, and my son, he was very small, my son Kai, he came to me and said, “Dad, what’s happening?” I said, “Kai, I think there is anxiety there, but it’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just like there, it’s a mechanism, survival mechanism, I mean, it’s nature, I cannot fight my nature, but it’s there.” So, I didn’t know what to do, Kai, 200 people came, I mean, I was expecting two, three, four at least, but 200. I don’t know where to start from, Kai. And you know what he did? Say it to me.
Rick: What?
Ivan: He said, “Start from the beginning, Dad.”
Rick: Very good.
Ivan: I said, “Wow, thank you very much, son. I really appreciate it, you’re my great teacher. Thank you. I’m going to start from the beginning.” So, I’m going to start from the beginning about this, what I want to discuss. It’s not about wanting, I just came out from nowhere. It’s about Big Bang Theory, which is when you examine the theory, it’s the theory of explosion, a violent and destructive shattering, a blast, a boom. The theory of explosion is the theory of the beginning of who we are, you know, the beginning of life, the beginning of creation, existence itself. So, that theory, you know, just if you can pay real attention to what I’m going to point here, the theory cannot exist in people’s mind without another theory that the Universe will explode. But that explosion will be implosion in their description. So explosion, implosion. What’s happening in between those two explosions? Disturbance, chaos. That’s why there is that idea of order out of chaos, you know, like dictatorial, you know, illuminati mindset, you know, let’s create order now. It’s not because the Universe is in disorder, but because of mind being in disorder, mind accepting the idea that the Universe was born out of explosion and it’s going to die out of explosion. What’s in between is another set of anxiety. When you compare that to your life, you were born anxious, you’re going to die anxious. In between you are anxious. You see. We are trying to understand why we are anxious. We are trying to get rid of anxiety, trying to get rid of pressure and stress and problems and difficulties and, you know, unfairness and violence and injustice, terrorism and this and that, we are in fight to create the peace. The peace is already here. Remove the concept, remove the idea of the Universe being out of born out of explosion. And there is another confirmation from the from the religious point of view that, you know, the Universe was born out of, let’s be the light.
Rick: Let there be light.
Ivan: Let there be light.
Rick: Let there be light. So it’s another explosion, stellar firework and the Universe was born and the darkness performed and all of that, it’s a story of duality. And that’s the that’s the main reason why we are so disconnected from who we are. It is deeply engraved in our, not subconsciousness, but in our unconsciousness and it operates there. It is suppressed deep down through indoctrination, through repetition, through introduction, through talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, until you form the mind. You see. So this is the idea. So how to get rid of this idea? You cannot get rid of idea. You can only witness the mind and the idea will be dropped. When you compare to your life, you are born, you die. What’s after that? We don’t know. You are born from nothing, you die to nothing. But nothing from that perspective of Big Bang is very fearful and there is nothing really. There is no life after that. There is just oblivion. It’s just like nothing. But you know, it’s not because nothing is the whole, because everything that is cannot exist without nothing. Everything that exists cannot exist without nothing. Nothing is the course of all of that and nothing equals awareness. Awareness that I am. So the story is very much is very much about destruction and violence and the story about our separation from consciousness. It is the story of our attachment to duality, our attachment to the social indoctrinated illusionary mind. And you know what? There is something else more stupid than that. It is the confirmation of that dualistic approach and imprisonment of human consciousness into the reality of consensus. And that’s the stupidity that according to certain scientific research and that’s been introduced into the school system now, embedded into the school system like Newton’s law or Aristotelian law, all of that law which are indoctrinating us into believing that separation is real. No, it’s not. It’s an illusion. It’s you being attached to something that is not. So according to their research and the conclusion, the universe is approximately 13.7, 8, 9, whatever, billion years old. You know. You know that fact. But the problem is if it becomes fact then it becomes …
Rick: It’s a theory. They don’t know for sure.
Ivan: Even if it’s theory it becomes … but how did they conduct that system of investigation? How did they study material resources in order to establish that fact? You know the universe is infinite, infinite is infinite, expressing itself in infinite ways and in infinite directions, always right, now, infinitely, so how how could they know? So that kind of indoctrination, so when you really deny, when you remove your attachment to your knowledge, when you remove your attachment to your thinking, then you will come to know, but that knowing will not be mathematical and you cannot measure that knowing. That knowing will be self-evident that you are the way you are. You’ll see.
Rick: Okay, there’s a lot in what you just said. I got an email from a friend of mine yesterday who has a PhD in physics which is somewhat related to what you were just saying. He said that, “I believe that matter acts according to the second law of thermodynamics and decreases order over time, increases entropy.” That’s what the second law of thermodynamics means. “However, I think there is a mirror law for consciousness that acts in reverse, a law of ‘syntropy’ he likes to call it, opposing the law of entropy. Consciousness naturally and effortlessly increases order. Matter naturally and effortlessly decreases order. The higher the consciousness, individual, planet, galaxy, universe, the more the law of ‘syntropy’ or order prevails over the law of entropy or disorder.” Anyway, what do you think about that?
Ivan: The universe did not explode 13.8 billion years ago and it is not going to implode in some distant future. The explosion and the implosion is happening right now. It is happening in this moment.
Rick: Both can be true.
Ivan: the universe It is absolutely incredibly happening right now. But the point is, are you aware? Can you see? Can you know it? The universe is expanding and contracting all the time this moment right now. It is breathing up and down. Just study ancient whatever writing and you will see for example that Brahma has three aspects and Brahma is breathing in and breathing out. One is creating, another one is destroying, while in the middle one, the Holy Trinity, one is maintaining, meaning there is Yin and there is Yang and there is you maintaining you know, and that’s what triangle is. So the birth of the universe is still happening right now and the death of the universe is still happening right now. But scientists cannot comprehend that at the moment because they are locked in certain idea how things function. For example, just I read this morning that 30 scientists including that scientist from London,
Rick: Stephen Hawking
Ivan: Stephen Hawkings wrote a letter
Rick: Steven Hawking
Ivan: Yeah that condemned the idea that the universe is not according to certain standards and principles they are fighting for and they are trying to prove for ages. I mean someone is really trying to knock them down and say, “Guys, expand, include something else. This is not the way the universe works.” But it is the same like one-pointed blinded people who are investing so much into their theory that someone tried to destroy their theory. What are you going to do naturally? You are going to say, “Get lost, keep me here.” That’s why there is a fight. So existence expressing itself as life through the explosion and imploding life back to the existence right now. That’s what life is. So the universe was not born long time ago. The universe will not end sometime in the future. The universe is infinite. It was not born, it never dies.
Rick: It sounds like you’re expressing
Ivan: Our comprehension and our level of thinking cannot really grasp that at all. I mean it’s just like, how can I explain? How can you explain infinite? There is no way. Everything is connected. Everything is complementary, appreciative to every aspect of the wholeness of existence. Everything is pulsating, moving, transforming, coming and going. The whole point is, are you aware of that happening or not? That’s the whole point.
Rick: Well, you just said something a minute ago about not being too certain of your ideas and yet you’re speaking now in a very sort of adamant, certain tone. I would say that there’s all kinds of possibilities. One is that the universe is emerging from moment to moment continuously and also that it actually started 3.7 billion years ago and both can be true simultaneously. So there’s all kinds of…
Ivan: And it’s true. I’m saying it’s true, but it’s not entirely true because there is a truth and there is ultimate truth. What’s the ultimate truth? I don’t know how I know, but I know. Someone might not agree with me, that’s all right. You can agree, disagree, it’s up to you. You’re free to express yourself the way you are.
Rick: Well, I don’t think anything we can express is going to be the final truth or absolute or complete truth. There’s always more.
Ivan: In my knowing, it is right now.
Rick: Oh, yeah.
Ivan: And right now can express itself in infinite ways and infinite levels and densities. So the idea that the universe was born, it’s true in a way, but it’s not entirely true, it’s not ultimately true. But when you stick to the aspect of the truth, then it becomes a lie. Don’t get stuck to the aspect. That’s the you know those guys, 30 scientists sending letter to one article in American science about questioning their idea about the universe, it’s that attempt. You see, let it go. Allow that guy to enter into your field of knowledge. It’s going to complement, you just keep moving on. That’s the consciousness moving, expanding and becoming more and more of itself.
Rick: Yeah, this is an old pattern. If you read Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he talks about paradigms as being certain packages of understanding and how they tend to be resistant to change, but that as more and more anomalies, things that contradict the paradigm, begin to accumulate, at a certain point the paradigm has to eventually collapse and give rise to a new paradigm. So there’s always some resistance to change, but then there’s always which is good because as you’re saying, with Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, there’s there’s some stability that is necessary for everything not to be complete chaos and that applies to …
Ivan: Exactly.
Rick: That applies
Ivan: So what’s the main ingredient in that stability?
Rick: um
Ivan: It’s you. It’s your consciousness, being conscious that you are, that’s the stability. That’s why I like … I mean, it’s not like liking or disliking, it’s more like being drawn into the perspective of holographic reality. You see. The hologram is a photographic process that uses laser-coherent light of the same wavelength
Rick: right to produce dimensional images in space. So every single aspect of of of that space, every aspect, every point is the whole. You know, a complete three-dimensional image can be cut into many pieces and each piece will still be capable of reproducing an image of the whole. So the holographic perspective is a complete multi-dimensional frame of references as opposed to linear perspective of reality. Changing a single component of the holographic simultaneously changes the other aspect. You know, other components within it. So the world and everything in it is the projections from the level of reality beyond the horizon of comprehension. So God is a hologram, the universe is a hologram, the wholeness is a hologram, a projection of nothingness from where everything else comes. So the holographic universe is just awareness within an infinite number of simultaneously coexisting ways to experience it. How do we experience the infinite number of holographic projections? Through the perception of the consciousness. What radio channel you are on determines what kind of music you get, you know? So on the air where there are other channels but you hear only the one you are tuned in, you have intent to or you have intention to, we are capable of experiencing many angles, many different points of view, many perspective realities, many parallel realities, everything different, different aspect of the one reality because the reality is holographic.
Rick: yeah
Ivan: But interestingly enough, in the book of Genesis, God created the world in six days, then on the seventh he went on vacation.
Rick: Went to Florida, yeah.
Ivan: Went to Florida, yeah. But Christians believe that God’s creation happens only once. From the point of awareness, the creation is continuously happening in this moment of now, forming an unbrokenable whole without interruptions, eternally right now in infinite directions. Every new moment of now destroys the previous moment of now. Every new moment is the creation of the moment. You see, if you can remain conscious within the moment of now and not move away from it with your thinking, then you are in continuity of your awareness, you become God yourself, witnessing the infinite creative process of now. You are witnessing your own self expanding, not choosing, not guiding, not shovelling, just being. Being is God. That’s what awareness is, that’s what holographic universe is.
Rick: Yeah, and you know this thing about this continuously emerging universe, to the credit of physicists, they actually do have an understanding about that. I think they call it sequential spontaneous symmetry breaking, and what they mean by that is that there is, at all times, a unified field, a completely synchronous, whole, complete, non-fragmented level of creation. And from that, greater and greater complexity and diversification arises, but this isn’t something that happened 3.7 billion years ago, it’s something that happens continuously, as you know, every moment, as you say. Hey, a question just came in from someone named Sri in Stanford, Connecticut. Sri asks, “What is it that’s not moving in us?”
Ivan: What is it that’s not moving?
Ivan: Yeah, what is it in us that’s not moving?
Ivan: If I say what’s not moving, then actually it starts moving.
Rick: Would it?
Ivan: It’s going to start. If I say what’s not moving, that is inviting that non-movement to move.
Rick: Can it? Is there something which can actually remain non-moving despite all the movement and despite all the diversity and change and that can’t be moved no matter what?
Ivan: There is a little mantra you can use, I mean meditation technique. It’s using your mind in very practical way, using one thought only. That thought is illusion. So you can use that thought, that’s called in Buddhism, you know Buddha used to say, you know, “Remember, remember, remember that you are.” But when you remember that you are, you have a thought that you are, but at one point the thought is going to be useless because the thought is going to say, “Who is that, you know, who is that who is thinking one thought?” And then consciousness returning to itself and then realize the awareness, attain the awareness and that’s the trick of Buddha, using that it’s a trickery anyway. So what is in the moment? What is the moment? What is the stillness? What is the peace? What is the tranquility? What is that thing that never ever moves?
Rick: You’re asking me?
Ivan: Yeah, I’m just like talking, it’s like building a pressure until the popcorn pop. It’s awareness.
Rick: That’s what I would have answered, yeah, consciousness.
Ivan: Awareness, you know, you cannot be aware of awareness. You can be conscious of consciousness, but when the consciousness is conscious of itself then it becomes awareness. Awareness simply is aware. There is nothing else to be aware of apart from being aware, and even there is no awareness of self, there is only awareness. That’s called bliss, that’s called nirvana, that’s called enlightenment, when there is only awareness. It’s not like you have special power and you are walking like enlightened Buddha around with a big smile on your face, it is like just a state of being, state of state of ..
Rick: Pure awareness.
Ivan: That’s what pure light is. Pure light means no heaviness, means that you are pure light, you are lighter than the air, lighter than the vacuum, lighter than anything you can imagine and you can think about. You are totally free, that’s you are not suppressed, you are not compressed, you are not locked in your thinking, you are free from your thinking. You feel, “I’m relaxed, oh, I’m aware that I am, but I’m conscious that I am conscious, but I cannot be aware that I am, I’m just aware.” That’s what stillness is.
Rick: good
Ivan: Eckhart Tolle is talking about stillness being the now. No now is not stillness, now is always transformational, transitional, it always moves, it is the movement, it is the consciousness. Real now is not consciousness, real now is awareness.
Rick: So, I learned something this week. I learned
Ivan: You did.
Rick: I did. In fact, I think it was just …
Ivan: I want you to unlearn, I don’t want you to learn.
Rick: I learned something useful just yesterday. I learned that YouTube will auto-transcribe now any video that’s under two hours, so I’m determined to keep my interviews under two hours so YouTube will auto-transcribe them. So we’re just about at that point and I need to wrap it up. I also learned another thing, which is that once you reach 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, they give you all kinds of special treatment and advice and support and whatnot. I’m only at 28,000 subscribers, so anyone who’s made it this far in the interview, subscribe on YouTube, just hit the little subscribe button to the channel. And I’d like to build it up to 100,000. But in any case, to keep under the two-hour mark, I need to conclude. So I would like to thank you for coming on the show and for this lively discussion. I will be obviously linking to your website and to your books, as I always do when I interview somebody, and people can go there, take a look at your art. Maybe we’ll even paste a couple of yantras into the video, so when we mention yantras, I’ll get some from you that we can paste into the video so people can see what we’re talking about.
Ivan: You’re free to use anything.
Rick: I can pull them off the website or you can even give me higher resolution ones that will go into the video.
Ivan: Of course.
Rick: Yeah, we’ll do that. And anyway, so people can get in touch with you and if they go to your website, they’ll see what you have to offer, as is the case with everyone I interview. So I appreciate having you on.
Ivan: I’m very grateful that you invite me and I really am grateful for this opportunity to just engage in joyfulness.
Rick: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. So thanks to those who’ve been listening or watching. This is a weekly show, as you may know, and if you go to www.BatGap.com you’ll see all the previous ones, you can sign up to be notified of future ones, and a lot of other stuff if you just explore around on the site there. We appreciate your attention and interest and support and we’ll keep it going. So see you next week. Thank you, Ivan.
Ivan: Thank you very much.