Jim Grove Interview

Summary:

Full transcript:

Jim: and, I don’t know, seeing ghosts and maybe meeting extraterrestrials or whatever. As remarkable as those things appear to our human consciousness, we need to remember that there is something far more substantial behind all of those phenomena. And we ourselves are merely one expression of phenomena.

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is a long-running series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. This is our 16^th season. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site. And speaking of the site, it is batgap.com, B A T G A P. If you are just watching this on YouTube or listening to the audio podcast, you might want to check it out because there are things there that you won’t find on YouTube.

My guest today is Jim Grove. Jim is a lifelong practitioner of yogic meditation who grew up in a small logging town on the west coast of Canada. At age 13, he was introduced to a teacher who was one of the few ministers directly ordained by Paramahansa Yogananda during his lifetime. That was Mother Yogacharya M. Hamilton of Seattle. A series of early transcendental experiences convinced him to commit himself to continued yogic practice under her tutelage. His recent memoir, “A Curious Spiritual Journey” recounts some of the prominent experiences that have arisen from his practice over four decades, starting from early adolescence. He likes to speak plainly about spiritual experience and practice, avoiding the vague, abstract, and sometimes inflated language used in much spiritual and New Age writing.

Yeah, that is what I gathered from your book. The subtitle of this interview is “Conversations with Ordinary Spiritually Awakening People,” and the reason we chose that, and the reason that was a motivation for starting this show, is that many people have a fantastical notion of what awakening or spiritual development might be, and therefore they could have actually been spiritual practitioners for quite some time, but feel as if the hope of them ever attaining anything significant is rather slim, because they are not yet able to float two feet off the ground, and they do not glow in the dark. So, one of my motivations in starting this was to interview people, ordinary, spiritually awakening people, so people could see that people like them were having some significant breakthroughs.

You really made that part of your practice. You said in your book and in your life, “Hey, I want to just be a regular guy and work on my spiritual development, but I am still going to go out drinking with my buddies and do this and do that and be a normal human being in addition to being a spiritual aspirant.” Obviously, those types of things can be taken to extremes, and once in a while you probably indulge them more than you were happy to have done the next morning. But you have nonetheless continued to have profound breakthroughs and experiential realizations as you have gone along.

Jim: Yeah, so thanks for that synopsis. I feel as if you articulated better than I likely would have.

Rick: Oh, I don’t know. You have a better education than I do, and you have been a professional writer at times. So, the book was very readable. It was really entertaining. Sometimes I read or listen to spiritual books and I get a little bored, but yours really held my interest.

Jim: Oh, great. A lot of effort went into that, in terms of editing. For anyone out there who is interested in writing, the original manuscript was about 80,000 words, because there was a lot of stuff I had in there.  I just went back and mercilessly edited and took stuff out that I felt was not necessarily contributing to the central thesis, the narrative of things. There were little things that maybe delighted me personally, but they did not necessarily contribute to a story that would help anyone who was reading it. So, the manuscript went from about 80,000 words down to 55,000 words.

Rick: Mark Twain once said to somebody, “I’m sorry to have sent you such a long letter. I was too busy to write a short one.”

Jim: Yes, he is a big inspiration for me, him and I dare say Hemingway. I know Hemingway gets a bad rap.

Rick: His stuff was really pithy. He could spend a whole afternoon on a paragraph.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

Rick: Okay. So, Jim, shall we do this somewhat chronologically? You mentioned that you first got bitten by the spiritual bug when you were thirteen. How did that happen?

Jim: Well, yeah. I would say I had a good grounding. As I explain in the book, I had a good grounding prior to that in the Anglican Church of Canada, which is the Canadian equivalent of the Episcopalian Church in the United States.

Rick: So, kind of liberal, open-minded?

Jim: Yeah. There is such a thing as high Anglican, which is almost like the Catholic church, and then there is low Anglican. The little country parish I went to was very much low Anglican. It is of the people, for the people.

Rick: Similar to Unitarian?

Jim: Yeah, I have always been really grateful for that grounding that I had. And the way I put it, at age twelve, of my own recognizance, as is the tradition within the church, you are encouraged to take first communion. You are taking up the mantle from baptism. Your parents baptized you and said they would raise you in the Christian church. And then at age twelve, you say, “yes, I hereby take up the mantle and I’m going to continue in the faith.” I did that and I was very enthused about it. And that was coming from me. It was not coming from my parents. Within a year though, I was already starting to find that I was feeling there was something missing for me. I always had a, we can say a sensibility or a sensitivity to that stillness, that sense of presence, that sense of something bigger. And the church was not quite touching that for me, in terms of the weekly sermons and what have you. Then my brother Peter came to visit. He is fifteen years older than I am, so, at this time he would have been twenty-seven. He started talking about this teacher he and his wife had met in Seattle, Mother Yogacharya Hamilton. And I got interested. At that point I had no idea what a guru was. He used the word guru and that was confusing to me, but I just paid attention and I listened to understand. Then, as he described what she was about and some of the things she was teaching, something lit up for me. Some part of me knew that this is interesting to me. And he said it happened to be that she was visiting Victoria the following week to give a lecture and that she frequently came up to Victoria. She had a group there, a center in Victoria. So, I went and it was an “aha” kind of moment, listening to her speak and then meeting her afterwards and talking with her. Looking back now, I can say in hindsight that what I was feeling was very much her aura, her energy field and it was incredibly powerful. I could not possibly say enough about that.

Rick: She was a contemporary of Yogananda.

Jim: She was one of his original disciples. Yogananda first traveled in the United States in 1925. On his grand tour, he stopped in Seattle and my guru met him. She was twenty-one years old when she went to see him speak. And the same kind of thing, she was immediately converted, as it were, and became his disciple. Within, about fifteen to twenty years she had become a leader, a center leader in Seattle. And then subsequent to that, shortly prior to his death in nineteen-fifty-two, he gave her the title of Yogacharya, which means master of yoga. As I mention in the book, she was one of, I think one of the fourteen or so that he ordained during his lifetime. But more than that, she was actually one of the first five or six people in his ministry. So, I feel very, very privileged to have been able to have her as my teacher.

Rick: Yeah, and she was quite remarkable. I mean, I don’t know whether you want to mention anything now or if it will come out during the rest of this interview, but there were a number of occasions where she could clearly read what you were thinking and things like that, without making a show about it.

Jim: Yeah, there was never any show, there was never any flash, and that is something I really liked about her. That may come from the fact that she herself was born in Duluth, I think. I know she was from Minnesota, I think she was from Duluth originally, and came from a working class, very much a working-class family.

Rick: Yeah, there was a funny story where you and your brother went down to see her, from Victoria down to Seattle, and she was getting pretty old at this point, and you wanted to take her out to lunch, but you didn’t have any money, and you could certainly not afford a very expensive place and you didn’t think she would want to eat at a place like Denny’s. Somehow or other she says, “let’s go to Denny’s.” So, you all go to Denny’s and she buys you lunch, I think the story went like that. But there were some other things too, where she would pick up on some thought you had, again without being a show-off about it, but just to make it very clear that she understood what you were thinking and could respond accordingly.

Jim: Yes, I would like to add that particularly that on that occasion when we went to Seattle and my brother and I were driving to her apartment, we were aware that it was a Sunday and at that time we could not get any American currency and we thought, “Well, what are we going to do? You know, you are supposed to honor the guru by taking them out for a nice meal or doing something for them. And the one thing we knew is that Denny’s in the United States at that time would accept Canadian currency.

Rick: Oh, I see.

Jim: And so, we said, well we looked at each other as we were driving along, “Well maybe we can take her to Denny’s,” and we both started laughing, as if, yeah right, that is never gonna happen. And in this junky old car we were driving, it my mother’s, a really beat up car, we just felt like the most disheveled devotees in history. But we just brushed all that off. When we got there, we sat down in the living room, we started chit-chatting and she, being polite, was just asking us how we were doing, whatnot. I want to say that she was toying with us, it was as if she was playing with us a bit. Then she just looked at us. She just went quiet for a minute and then she looked at us each in turn and said “Have you guys eaten lunch yet?” And she just let it hang for a minute and Peter and I looked at each other and said, “uh, no” and she said “What do you say we go to Denny’s? I’ll buy.”

Rick: That’s great. Nice.

Jim: Yeah, she was like that. I would like to emphasize that she had such a great sense of humor.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: But at the same time, she could be so very, very strict with devotees when the moment required it, in a way that was never about asserting her authority. That is not what it was about. I took it as the ultimate mark of respect towards the devotee. It is as if, “I am taking you at your word that you are serious about being here and that you are serious about learning and, and progressing. So therefore, I am going to give it to you straight with both barrels.” I always appreciated that very much. But I know there were certainly some people who did not like having that kind of truth presented to them, so it was not everybody’s cup of tea.

Rick: Yeah. So, as Jesus said, “Be in the world, but not of it.” He also said, “Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves.” And that has been one of your mottos, not the second one, but the first one, “Be in the world, but not of it.” How would you define that, and how have you lived that out so far?

Jim: Huh. “Being in the world, not of it.” Yeah, definitely my motto. It is basically, bringing my practice and the realizations, that knowledge, into some kind of actual… the word isn’t practice, bring it into some kind of work. It is basically that simple in the world. But always maintaining that balance, there is that sense of being here and yet knowing that I come from somewhere else, that I am part of something infinite, something larger. So even though I am here, represented in this finite body that we choose to call Jim, it is about always maintaining that essential contact with that greater source and allowing that source to basically emerge and speak through this channel, if I dare say that.

Rick: Yeah, and would you say also that doing that does not necessitate any kind of conceptualization? Is it really more of an experiential thing?

Jim: Oh yeah, yeah, very much.

Rick: It is not as if you are running around philosophizing all day about how you are not really in this world and you are doing things in the world. No, it is more of the kind of the nitty-gritty reality of your daily experience, right?

Jim: Yes, very much, and I am actually very cautious about talking about it. As years go by, I am less inclined to talk about it, unless people ask and unless people have specific questions and are interested in what that practice looks like. But I am also very guarded or cautious against letting my intellect interfere with things. And when it gets into too much talking about it and conceptualizing about it, I just find that it becomes an impediment to allowing that source, that channel, that presence to come through. And yeah, I do not feel the need to label everything.

Rick: Yeah, I saw a YouTube video yesterday which was entitled something like, “I had a spiritual awakening and now I’ve lost all motivation.” The guy went on to explain that he doesn’t really have any initiative to do anything. He has lost all interest in the world as a result of his spiritual awakening. And I made a comment in the comment section under the video, saying that is not the final awakening. Awakened people can be very motivated, it is just that there is a different intelligence driving the motivation. It has shifted from just individual intelligence to divine will or cosmic intelligence.

Jim: Absolutely, absolutely. And that is what I feel driving me. That is what I feel my experience to be. And it is easy to get excited about all of the things that “I” would like to accomplish. But in this particular human vehicle, I am also able to reflect that it is going to be whatever it is going to be. Whatever that infinite source has intended, whatever is going to be coming through, it is going to be whatever it is going to be. Like some people, I am interested in the physiological side of everything. A very large part of yogic practice is maintaining your body, taking care of your body, because this is the vehicle, including your nervous system and everything else, that is going to be transmitting all of this energy and doing the work. Well, some people are very fortunate and blessed to be born in this world with a very healthy, strong body. We know that people are born with different cognitive potentialities. We know that. Some people develop their potentiality, some people have great potentiality, but do not develop it, for whatever number of reasons. The same applies with our physical body. So, we just have to make do with whatever we are given, if that makes sense. And I am just grateful, I feel fortunate that I have been given a pretty healthy body, a healthy mind and the opportunity to be exposed to a set of teachings that help to develop all the potentialities that this channel can be.

Rick: Yeah, it is a blessing for sure, and a precious opportunity, I would say. And another quote would be, “The body is the temple of the soul.” So, it is the instrument through which the soul, if you will, functions. That was one of my early realizations toward the end of my teenage drug phase. I was thinking, I am stuck in this body and if I damage it, I am going to be stuck in a damaged body all of my probably short life. So, I better clean up my act, and start taking care of it.

Jim: Yeah, well, it’s great that you had the presence of mind to recognize that. Again, well, maybe there was some intervention there, maybe some spark of the divine was intervening to say, “Well, this was not part of the plan for you, Rick.”

Rick: Yeah, I think so. I often ponder that and it was not obvious to me at the time, but in retrospect, you can see the hand of the divine over the course of your life.

Jim: Yes. Gosh, when you say that it conjures up all sorts of memories for me.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: There were close calls and near misses and things.

Rick: Oh yeah, I drove my guardian angels crazy during those days, as if, “Oh my god, what are we gonna do with this guy?” They all had nervous breakdowns. Okay, so going along, as this unfolds, we are talking about being guided by the divine and having it bless our lives or protect us from dangers or shift us in more wholesome directions and so on. And I imagine you would agree, it is obvious that this could mean different things for different people. Not everybody is meant to do the same thing. And so, what would you say to the thought that being in an enlightened state or awakened state and being guided by divine intelligence, having Brahman be the charioteer, to quote the Katha Upanishad, does not mean you are going to be doing earth-shaking spiritual things, or be standing up on stage in front of thousands of people. You could be working an ordinary job, raising kids, doing all that ordinary stuff, and yet, well, take it from there.

Jim: Well, yeah. And I always imagine the ripples. I always think about the ripple effect of every little effort that we make. This is really important to me and has been for years, but it becomes increasingly important to me with each passing year. I become even more aware of each little thing that I am putting out in terms of my thoughts, in terms of little actions during the day. But I can tell you one prominent aspect of this chosen work in my life, apart from being a father of three children and having really relished raising my children to the best of my ability. I was not a perfect father. But I think they would probably tell you that I mostly did a good job. And they are all very beautiful people, so I am very proud of them. Proud is not the right word, but…

Rick: No, it’s a good word.

Jim: Yeah. But one of the things I like to share, for just about 25 years, I was a community soccer coach. I am really into soccer, and have been since I was a little boy. I got into coaching and I have coached all sorts of kids who were not my own. My own kids only briefly played soccer then got interested in other sports and whatnot, which was fine by me. But in coaching soccer, I always saw it as spiritual work. Let me just say that I never said it to any of the kids or any of the parents, so if any of them are watching now, they might be scratching their heads. But for me, it was always about, how can we say, this operates on so many different levels. You must be familiar with writings of Robert Bly.

Rick: Yeah, I never read them, but I’m aware of him.

Jim: Yeah, and one of the themes that comes across certainly in Iron John is about how boys need male figures who are positive. I saw that need in my community. And the same thing for girls, they need positive models who are male and what have you. I coached a lot of girls’ teams. But beyond all the soccer and teaching how to pass and kick and shoot and tactical play and all that kind of stuff, for me, it was always about infusing all of it with a sense of kindness and joy and, quite frankly, love. Everything for me was an expression of love. It was about seeing the inherent divinity in each of those people. I just would not hesitate to say that. I think it even surprised me, perhaps my ability to be able to see the inherent divinity in each of those individuals, even a couple of the characters who were misbehaving and disruptive and whatnot, and they know who they are. One of these guys came back to me years later and we went out for beer. The team called me up, or somehow it happened, and we went out to the pub a few years ago. These guys are all in their mid to late 30s now, and at one point they were all sharing anecdotes and stories. But it was really pleasing to me that one of these guys suddenly sort of dropped his head and he had this sense of shame. He said, “You know I was a real jerk. I was a real a-hole.” I just laughed and I said, “Yeah, but that was where you were at at that time and that was what was going on and I understood that, and it’s ok…” Anyways, that’s me reminiscing.

Rick: That’s nice. You might like to check out this thing that a friend of mine is doing who has been on BatGap a couple times. Her name is Mariana Caplan. She and her son have been traveling all over the world handing out soccer balls to kids who might be using, I don’t know, just something to serve as a soccer ball that is not really a soccer ball. Places in Africa and Indonesia and places where kids cannot afford soccer balls. So, it is this mission to use soccer, but that is not all they are handing out. It is as if this mission is to somehow propagate goodwill and positivity and spirituality through the avenue of soccer. You can Google it, you will find it.

Jim: Marianne Cox?

Rick: Mariana Caplan. She is a psychotherapist and lives in Maine now. She has written some really cool books like Halfway Up the Mountain, The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment. That is one, and Do You Need a Guru? That is another. There are some others.

Jim: Oh, I am already interested.

Rick: Yeah, yeah. You can see her interviews on Batgap. Anyway, it’s a good thing you were not a boxing coach, it might have been harder to instill love in your trainees. Okay, love this guy. Now, knock his lights out. Okay, so I am going by some notes you sent me, but we can meander away from those at any time, and we already have. This is a good one.

Jim: Meander is good. I like to meander.

Rick: So: The importance of not obsessing over dogma at the expense of losing touch with or becoming blind to intuitive learning and perception. You got your start in a Christian church. Presumably, it was not a very dogmatic one, but dogma is not limited to Christianity or religions or anything. There are people who are politically dogmatic, there are people who are perhaps even dogmatic about their soccer team. But also in the so-called spiritual world, new age or contemporary spirituality, people can be very fixated on particular ideas and dismissive of those who think differently.

Jim: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that is why, for the most part, I have shied away from being part of any spiritual community. I really enjoy the encounters that I have with other spiritual people, people who are engaged in some form of practice and who are very devoted to their practice. But I have the utmost faith that God, that infinite source, Brahman, whatever name we give to it, is always the charioteer, is always taking me where I need to be going, whether it is in work, in my family life, or in these relationships. And the word I like to use about that phenomenon, as it were, is emergence. But sorry, I’m meandering prematurely already. Going back to dogma, suffice it to say, I rail against dogma in all forms. I embrace knowledge. I embrace truth. I embrace questioning. But even the buddha talked about how you have to doubt, you have to question things. I am suspicious even of myself if I become a little too attached to what I believe to be an absolute certainty.

Rick: Yeah, there is a great quote from the Buddha. I could pull it up if I took a few seconds, but he basically said, do not believe anything just because the scriptures say it, because some authority says it, do not even believe anything just because I say it, but really think about it on your own and ponder it deeply. And then if it seems to be conducive to the well-being of everyone and so on and so forth, then put it into practice or abide by it. There is one more quote I want to throw out, relevant to something you said a couple minutes ago, which I have said in many lectures, but I think it always bears repeating. This was from Padmasambhava, and it was, “Although my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour.” Tell me why you like that quote, because I think you probably do.

Jim: Can you run me through the quote?

Rick: “Although my awareness is as vast as the sky, my attention to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour.” Well, so as not to put you on the spot, I will just say, the reason I like that quote is that he is just saying that you can really be cosmic, really an awakened dude, but it does not grant you a pass to do whatever the heck you please. You have to be quite meticulous or impeccable in your behavior and not deviate from the Tao or the Dharma, which bears saying, because there are some people who take the opposite conclusion. They think, “Okay, well, now I’m enlightened so I can do whatever I want, and I’d like to sleep with these various women who are coming to me. And after all, I’m not doing it, God is doing it, so it must be okay.” I helped to start an organization called the Association for Spiritual Integrity because there has been so much hanky-panky in spiritual communities and it has caused so much harm. So, we got together with some friends and started this organization and it is really doing well. It seems to be striking a much-needed chord.

Jim: Do you have a website for that?

Rick: Yeah, it is called spiritual-integrity.org. And we have nearly eight hundred members now and over fifty member organizations. We have given presentations at Harvard Divinity School and so on. But it is an important thing. I am a student of Swami Sarvapriyananda, among others. It is not as if he is my guru, but I like his classes. And he always emphasizes that ethical development is actually foundational. That is the first step. And then you build everything else on top of that. And I emphasize that, again, because of the harm that has been done by people who do not recognize that, even some very well-known spiritual teachers. There was one at a conference in Denver a few months ago, who said, “If you think that ethics has anything to do with awakening, you do not understand awakening.”

Jim: Yeah. Well, I want to go back to that quote. I like that very much, and the explanation you offered, as “my attention to karma is as fine as a grain of barley flour.”

Rick: Barley flour, yeah.

Jim: I feel that.

Rick: And he is saying, “Even though my awareness is as vast as the sky.” So, he is saying, “Okay, I’m awakened,” whatever that meant in those days. But you must be careful. You do not just coast after that.

Jim: Absolutely. And part of what I take from that, or what resonates for me, is that because your awareness has expanded to be as vast as the sky, it is incumbent upon one, all the more, to act with the utmost integrity. I really believe in that. I do believe that there is a distinction made. This is something that just comes from my intuition, I suppose, but I do suspect or believe there is a distinction to be made in terms of karma. If I go out and crash up a car and I do not know any better, that is one thing. But if you go out and crash up a car, although you knew better, that is a different thing. I think in Islam they talk about that, the intention, what was the intention behind it.

Rick: Yeah, if an uneducated person commits a certain crime, okay, there would be some consequences. What if the judge does the same crime? The judge really should know better. Of course, in this day and age, the judge probably gets off and the other guy goes to jail.

Jim: Right. And yeah, actually, I have some experience with that, but we won’t go into detail, but this goes on all around the world. I think that is a really good analogy or example. Because what happens ultimately, is that break in trust, that break in integrity ends up trickling down through the entire system and it affects the whole organism. And this is why it is absolutely essential, as in your organization, to be maintaining integrity, to develop integrity. In my case, I think that probably goes back to a lot of things, past lives and what have you. But I certainly attribute a lot of it to my early upbringing in that Anglican country parish, where I was surrounded by really good people, just really good, simple people who were very involved in the community. For example, my mother was always involved in Meals on Wheels, helping people. There was just this overriding sense of your responsibility to the community and to the people around you. Take care of people, and of course, part and parcel of that is, that you have to act with integrity.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: Sure.

Rick: And imagine, well you can see what has happened in the Catholic Church, and probably some other denominations, where priests end up molesting children. It is such a violation of trust and so shattering of people’s faith and so traumatizing. I mean this is kind of a crude example, but imagine if Yogacharya Hamilton had said, “All right guys, give me all your money or take off your clothes,” or whatever. Imagine the effect that would have had on your life.

Jim: Right.

Rick: At that young age.

Jim: Yeah. And that was one of the things, she never asked for money, not once.

Rick: No, right.

Jim: Ever. And, yeah, that has always stuck with me. She just transmitted it. Again, she was just the living example of integrity. And again, I am so blessed and fortunate to have been able to have that kind of a teacher.

Rick: Yeah. Anyway, I don’t want to sound preachy, and we don’t need to dwell on this too long, but in my position of being so interconnected with so many different people around the world in the spiritual communities and also through my involvement in the ASI, I just encounter so many examples of misbehavior which is extremely traumatizing and disillusioning to people. I place such value on spiritual development, for individuals and for the world, that it just seems like a tragedy when these things happen. So, at the risk of sounding like a nagging prude, I would like to just emphasize this pretty often in interviews.

Jim: Well, I’m right there with you on that. And at the risk of sounding like a nagging prude, I often have to check myself depending on who the audience is and who I am talking with. I don’t know why it should be such a big concept for some people, but it is. I think it is because our whole notion of integrity and honesty at large has become so diluted. I will give you one brief example. I do not want to inadvertently reveal the person’s identity, so I will have to leave out all the most salient details, but basically…

Rick: Unfortunately, I’m not psychic like your teacher was, so I won’t be able to guess.

Jim: But the essence was this, a colleague for whom I have high respect, very high regard, a wonderful person and an intrinsically good person. But they grew up in a certain region and in a certain culture and there, despite their education and everything else, I made a comment about somebody who had demonstrated a lack of integrity in deceit. And this person said to me, “Well, oh, but everybody does that.” As in, it is normalized, so that kind of behavior is not necessarily even seen, and we are talking of minor deceits and whatnot. But this notion was very casually expressed, “Oh, well that is just normal, that is normal.”

Rick: Yeah, that is an interesting thing. It brings up the point: are our ethics a cultural phenomenon, or do they have some universal value? Because you might grow up in a culture where everybody thinks that way, or you might have grown up in a culture 150 years ago in the States where everybody thought that it was okay to own black people. Or in 1930s Germany where Jews are all the horrible things that people were saying about Jews. And look at little kids. I was just reading something the other day where somebody was so shocked, because this little kid started saying these horrible things about Jews that he had heard from his friends. So just because everybody does something does not mean it should be accepted. I think some of our most inspiring people throughout history like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King or others were inspiring because they bucked the trend. They did not do what everybody else did. They said, “Wait a minute, this is wrong and I am going to speak out.”

Jim: Right, and both of them were probably channeling a lot of Kundalini or something because they had the power, not only the awareness, that sort of awakened mindset. But they also had the power, the strength, and the confidence to be able to transmit that against the overwhelming odds that were against them.

Rick: Yeah. Was it Margaret Mead who said something like, “don’t think that great changes cannot be affected by a small group of dedicated people. In fact, that is the only thing that has ever brought about great changes.” Something like that.

Jim: Yeah.

Rick: I was misquoting her, but you have probably heard the quote.

Jim: Yeah, that was a pretty reasonable, close paraphrase.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. I was gonna say, I like to quote from scripture, whether it’s the Upanishads or the Bible, and when we were talking about integrity, I want to tell one of my favorites. We already passed this topic, I suppose, but still, I always remember this one from Jesus. Now I’m gonna paraphrase really badly, He said, “For any of those who would ever harm a child, it would be better that a millstone was hung around their neck and they were dropped into the ocean.”

Rick: Wow. I think a lot of priests somehow missed that verse.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, pretty heavy. Heavy karma, in other words. Heavy karma.

Rick: Yeah, interesting. Okay, so with everything we are saying here, it would not be an abrupt segue to read your next point, which is: the importance of simple humility and kindness. Let’s dwell on that for a little bit.

Jim: Yeah, for me, one of the happy discoveries in my life, having heard this said by a lot, especially a lot of the great Buddhist teachers, but Yogananda talked about it a lot, is just a simple practice, making it a habit of being kind. Making it a habit of demonstrating compassion. And then, of course, there is research around this now too, in terms of the neurofeedback that comes back to us. And just witnessing the beauty that emerges from that. As you make it more and more of your habit, it just becomes such a natural part of who we are and it is like compounding interest on a really good investment portfolio. It just grows.

Rick: It grows and it refines your nervous system, actually. You were talking earlier about the nervous system. Crude behavior coarsens the nervous system. Compassion, humility, kindness, that kind of stuff refines the nervous system, and a more refined nervous system is more suitable, if that is the best word, more capable of reflecting pure consciousness and spiritual, divine values.

Jim: Yes, absolutely. And I am always aware of that, increasingly aware of how everything contributes. It is a constant feedback loop, as we practice these things we are also refining the body, refining the mind, refining the spirit, that whole experience.

Rick: Yeah. I am involved with this marvelous fellow named Nipun Mehta, who leads an organization called Service Space, servicespace.org, and he is behind this whole AI chatbot project that I have been involved with for a couple years. I have something called the BatGapBot. But in any case, Service Space has a motto, “Small Acts of Kindness.” And he just started out, I don’t know, 25, 30 years ago with this, I think it was the first project, this thing called Karma Kitchen. They opened in the restaurant and anybody could come to eat and afterwards you pay what you thought it was worth, or you just walk out, if you do not want to pay. But it worked, people did it. They supported it and then they have gone on to do all kinds of things and now millions of people are involved all around the world, doing wonderful things just through this motto of small acts of kindness.

Jim: And it is interesting to witness, beautiful to witness how a project like that, when it is coming from a good place and it carries this initial vibration and this intention, then it is subsequently building that energy and that intention and transmitting it to others. It catches fire and expands and grows if it is rooted in truth.

Rick: Yeah, interesting. I am reminded, at this point in our political scene, of the importance of leaders reflecting these qualities of kindness and humility and so on. Unfortunately, the pendulum seems to have swung in a direction where that is not so much the case, but it really makes a difference. Imagine yourself, as if you were bullied as a kid. You talk about it in your book, and you can kind of imagine the playground scene where there is a bully, and then a certain mindset gravitates around the bully, and they become little mini-bullies, following the big bully with whatever he does. And conversely, there might be someone who is just really kind and helpful to other kids and all that stuff, and probably he would attract a certain type of person. But the predominance of one or the other can shift in any circumstance, such as a playground or a nation or the world, and it has a huge effect. I do not know, it’s funny, it is interesting to consider which is the cart and which is the horse. Is there something in collective consciousness which would give rise to despotic leaders, or do despotic leaders bring out something in collective consciousness and enliven that tendency in the populace? I think it is the first, that there are certain elements or ingredients in collective consciousness that give rise to different types of leaders at different times, give expression to those qualities in the person of this or that leader.

Jim: I would agree. Yeah, I would agree. I have often thought about that same question and that is what emerged for me, it is what I have observed. And you can observe this in different corporate cultures and different places where I have worked, for example. I come in from the outside and we have a good leader. I joined a really wonderful culture, I was attracted to that culture from the outset. And then say there is a leadership change and lots of people who work in big organizations report this, of course. And then, “Oh my God, terrible news that our leader left and this new manager came in.” And the people who were already there enjoying a happy culture, if they really are representative of that culture in terms of their own intrinsic values and virtues, they will leave. They will find ways to leave and at the very least they are probably gonna stop being productive, because they are not in a happy place. And then, by the same token the people who will come in to replace those who have departed will be much more in the mold, somebody that does not mind that kind of a leader and they find that kind of person really appealing, so that is coming from those individuals, as far as I am concerned. And yeah, I would agree, I think it emerges from that collective unconsciousness. And, yeah.

Rick: I think you mentioned before we started recording, that a lot of Americans are moving to Canada these days.

Jim: Yeah, well, and it’s funny, I am going to make a prediction. I think it is going to start to become controversial in Canada, because the Americans who are moving here for the most part, are those who have substantial resources to do so. And they are coming up and buying substantial properties and…

Rick: Driving up the real estate prices and so on.

Jim: Yeah.

Rick: Perhaps you should build a wall. It would have to be a long wall.

Jim: Well, you know what, if there are enough tariffs put up against our softwood exports, that means we would have a surplus of softwood. So, we could build a wall out of, I don’t know, spruce. I don’t know how effective that is going to be.

Rick: It might not be. People would drill holes in it. Okay, next point. You mentioned the importance and relevance at times of suffering in awakening. Now, there have been some spiritual aspirants who have intentionally inflicted suffering upon themselves through all kinds of austerities, and it’s sometimes called tapas. Sometimes it is quite extreme, and we can picture yogis on beds of nails and so on, and others who have not done that intentionally. I had this wonderful experience where I was up in Iowa City because Irene had to go to the hospital for something. I was walking down the aisle of a little food store where we had stopped to pick up something and this young Buddhist nun, fairly young, started walking toward me and we both just stopped in our tracks. I reacted, “Whoa, are you from Fairfield?” which is where I live. She said, “No, but you are.” I said, “Do I know you? Are you from Fairfield?” She said, “No, but I know you. You are from Fairfield.” So, she had been watching Batgap. But she has a terrible case of cancer. I won’t go into the details, but she has gone through horrendous suffering, and she said that she has just maintained this Buddhist attitude of, “I’m taking on this suffering for humanity.” It is not like, “Oh, poor me.” It is more like, “Okay, I am just going to go through this, and hopefully in doing so I will relieve the suffering of others.” So, what would your take be? Why do we suffer? And, if God wants everybody to evolve and grow spiritually, why does suffering sometimes have to be part of it?

Jim: I can only speak from my own experience, but I know for myself, in the periods when I have suffered greatly, and there have been those times. Just for example, there have been a few things in the last 10 years, but I had a strange mishap with my back about two years ago and I was in such excruciating pain. I have had lots of back problems over the years. It is as if, “Ow, my back hurts,” and “I can’t sleep very well,” and “It’s really uncomfortable,” and “It’s not pleasant.” This was next level. It was off the charts. It was a major pinched nerve down at the base of my spine and I lost feeling in my left leg, which still has not fully returned. But my walking is good and I can still run and play soccer, which makes me happy.

Rick: Bad boy. Bend it like Beckham.

Jim: Yeah, but the pain was so bad that I just slept on the hardwood floor of our living room for about 10 days. I did not dare try to sleep even on a thin foamy or anything, because anything that would not support my back, it would just introduce that the slightest movement was just like agonizing pain that would go straight to the top of my crown. And it was, when they talk about blinding pain, that is the kind of pain this was. It was absolutely blinding. After a few days, I got to the point where I was seriously wishing for death. And because you get to a point where it is just intolerable, as if I just cannot sustain this any longer. And at that point, that is when you touch something deeply. So, circling back here after my long narrative, the pain, the suffering, we really must sit with it and be with it, and I did, I was doing my best, I was practicing my breathing and everything else. But really, it forces us to touch bottom in a way that takes us to that source. There is no other place to go. The only place to go is that source. And that has been my experience. As I say, all I can do is describe my experience. Having said that, and having described that particular anecdote, the big difference between back pain and being in a conflict zone, in the world where there are bombs falling and what have you. There are different kinds of suffering and I suspect, it must be a terrible thing for a parent to lose their child, I can’t imagine the pain in that. But I suspect that in that, there is a kind of a deeper learning, probably around non-attachment. One of the things that my guru used to say, this is her sense of humor, but it was also dead serious too. She said, “One thing we need to remember, no one gets out of here alive.”

Rick: Yeah, that’s an old one. She didn’t make that up.

Jim: No one gets out of here alive. And so, that might provide cold comfort, but I do think it is a reference point we need to look to. I had occasion to travel to China 10 years ago, and it is a long story, but there I just happened to meet with a group of Tibetan Buddhists. These are, interesting enough, ethnic Chinese who practice Tibetan Buddhism. I was suspicious and skeptical, but when I actually talked with them at length about their practices, I was impressed. As best as I can tell, they are practicing the real deal. But anyways, they are very, very sincere aspirants. And one of the things that comes out of Tibetan Buddhism is this notion of always having an awareness of death, always having an awareness of our mortality. And I know that is a current that I guess runs through all of Buddhism, but in Tibet in particular, it is a very strong current. If I understand correctly, traditionally a lot of Buddhist families would have a skull on a mantelpiece somewhere. As a child, growing up with this skull sitting there, “Happy Halloween,” sitting on the mantelpiece, but just simply as a means of reminding people that, “Hey, you’re not going to be here forever.” People in the developing world know this well. You could get sick tomorrow and good luck. You could be dead by the end of the week. And that happens all too often, enough that people live with this awareness. I do not think we have so much of that in the developed world. And I am really meandering. I hope that is okay.

Rick: It is okay. I mean, it depends. There are places in the so-called developed world where there is a good chance your child is going to get shot on the way home from school or something, as in the South Side of Chicago or whatever. But it is a theme in most spiritual traditions, to contemplate your mortality. There is a famous portrait, maybe it was by Rembrandt, of this monk contemplating a skull, just looking at it.

Jim: Yeah.

Rick: I forget who the artist was, but…

Jim: A German artist.

Rick: Was it German? Okay.

Jim: Yeah, I forget his name now.

Rick: But in any case, that is the reality of the situation. In the cosmic time scale of things, we only live for a snap of the fingers. So, “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die,” is not necessarily the best strategy, because when you do, will eating, drinking, and having merriment have actually fulfilled your purpose for being here?

Jim: No, not likely. In that regard, we just always have to turn our attention to doing as much good as we can. And I use the word “good” very loosely. Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking only makes it so. Hamlet.

Rick: Was it? Oh, Hamlet. I was thinking it was Shakespeare. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah, Hamlet. Act two, scene two, maybe.

Rick: Okay, so we might have covered that one. In any of these points, we could have talked for the whole time about it, and maybe we will get together sometime and just shoot the breeze, but it is good to skip along. If people want to hear more about any particular thing we are raising, they could send in a question. At least one question has come in so far, but I will wait for Irene to send it over to me. Okay, the importance of different traditions and teachers. You have mentioned you have lived with a prominent leader who spoke with you about traditional shamanic practices, contact with sky people, forest spirits, lucid dreams. You live five houses away from a Tibetan Lama, and you discussed the nature of perception with him, and you mentioned we can deepen our understanding of our own experience and traditions by talking with people of other traditions and comparing notes. I very much agree with that. I used to be much more monochromatic in my spiritual pursuit when I was heavily into the TM movement. I would read things. I read Carlos Castaneda and various books, but I had the attitude that, “Oh, the thing I’m doing is the best thing,” which a lot of spiritual people feel, because if they thought theirs was second best, they would probably leave it and do what they thought was the best. But in any case, I have found it very enriching now, especially doing what I do, to expose myself deeply to so many different perspectives. It really broadens my perspective and enriches it a lot.

Jim: Yeah, and what interests me is the points of intersection between different faiths in particular. Because ultimately, I think all religions, including the yogic traditions, there is this great trap that over time they fall into systems of religiosity.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: Which is to say dogma, and which by its nature leads to a certain closed-mindedness. And also, it leads to creating layers upon layers of rules and beliefs and God knows what, concepts, that take us further and further away from the elemental truth of things. The elemental truth is something that is nameless and cannot be spoken in words, for starters. And that elemental truth has appeared in all of these great faiths, in all of these great traditions, certainly including the Indigenous traditions and Aboriginal traditions in Australia. And so, I always encourage people to look at those things and acknowledge those things, because it is a beautiful testament to the fact that there is this universal element and truth to everything that lives beyond the dogma and all of the religiosity.

Rick: Yeah. There is a story where God and the devil are walking down the road and God sees something shiny on the ground, picks it up, puts it in his pocket, and the devil says, “Oh, what did you find? What is that?” And God said, “Oh, it’s just the truth.” And the devil says, “Oh, give it to me. I will organize it for you.”

Jim: Oh, that is good. Oh, I like that.

Rick: Yeah, I was thinking of this earlier, about half an hour ago. It reminds me, I was chatting with somebody the other day who spent a lot of time in Thich Nhat Hanh’s community. And Thich Nhat Hanh is a totally sweet, saintly man. And she said-

Jim: I love Thich Nhat Hanh.

Rick: Yeah, she said she had to leave there because of all the power trips that people were on. It could happen with anybody, but anybody. This even happened around Jesus. There are always going to be administrative types who are going to want to wriggle in there and start amassing power and pushing people around. Anybody who has been in any spiritual organization can relate to what I am saying.

Jim: Oh, I have witnessed that. Oh, yes, I have witnessed that. And I am a big fan of Thich Nhat Hanh. I love Thich Nhat Hanh. Anytime I see anything from him, wow! For me, everything that comes out of him is just this pure fountain of truth. It is interesting, you talk about organizing. Somebody who I really appreciated in that regard was Joel Goldsmith. Have you ever read much of Joel Goldsmith?

Rick: Not much. I have heard of him and I know you mentioned him. I might have read a little bit or heard a little bit of some audio file or something, but I never really got into him. What was he all about?

Jim: I will briefly give a bio for anybody who is not familiar with Joel Goldsmith. I noticed recently that, on the back of a republished book of Goldsmith, Eckhart Tolle had a quote of how much he appreciated Joel Goldsmith. So, Goldsmith was a contemporary of Yogananda, as it would happen. Born in eighteen-ninety-two, died in nineteen-sixty-four. And he was raised as a non-practicing Jew in New York City. His dad had some kind of textile importation business, and they would make frequent business trips to Europe. And he was agnostic. On one business trip there, on a transatlantic voyage, he witnessed someone get a hands-on, laying-on of hands healing. And he was just curious. And he says, “Well, what was that about? “What did I just witness?” And he found out that these people were Christian Scientists. And he went, “Oh, that’s interesting. “I might like to know a little bit more about that.” And there again, the spark of the divine, perhaps was prompting him and leading him. So, he subsequently joined the Christian Science community and started practicing healing. Very quickly, he became the best healer in the community. And at some point, the story went something like this. So, again, this is another example of what happens within spiritual communities and around dogma and whatnot. They were having some discussion about, “Well, you know, when you lay on the hands, it is like this and it is like that, and this is how it works.” And Goldsmith just put his head down, then said, “Well, actually, no. That is not precisely what is going on. What is really happening is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” [laughter] And they probably excommunicated him, basically. Which was ultimately all for the betterment of the world, I think. I’m a big fan of Goldsmith. Goldsmith subsequently went on to open his own healing practice, but he started having all sorts of mystical experiences. I think, it has never been made clear to me in everything I have read about him, but he obviously started to read about other traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, and he was versed in it. He certainly started reading the Bible. And so, his books can be kind of dense. He liked to quote from the Bible and he liked to quote from the Old Testament, and so his writing style can sometimes be a bit heavy, a bit impenetrable almost. But it always is based in the primacy of experience, direct experience, and this notion of the presence that is with us at all times and of which we are a part. I think he wrote 15 books, and my favorite book of his is called Practicing the Presence. And I would highly recommend that to anybody who feels directed towards that kind of thing, that kind of writing. But where was I going with all of that?

Rick: Why don’t you just tell us about Joel Goldsmith?

Jim: Yeah, singing praises of Joel Goldsmith. Here is an anecdote I really like. It is somewhat apocryphal and uncertain as to the truth of it. But you are familiar with Robert Adams.

Rick: Oh yeah.

Jim: Yeah. So, Robert Adams—

Rick: He turned out to be a bit of a fraud, but go ahead.

Rick: Oh, yeah? Well, and this is why I think there is some question as to the veracity behind this story. But as he told the story of how he found Ramana Maharshi—

Rick: Which he didn’t, but go ahead.

Jim: Oh, there you go!

Rick: He never went to India.

Jim: Really?

Rick: Yeah, there is a whole story about this. Yeah, but he wrote a nice book. Okay.

Jim: Well then maybe we could just unpack it as a good story then.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: Because obviously he was a good storyteller, because he had me convinced. No, that’s me. I tend to take people at face value.

Rick: Here is one of my main slogans. I take people at face value, I give them the benefit of the doubt, but I also take everybody with a grain of salt, and proportions vary. You want to tell me the earth is flat? Okay, that is like 99.99% salt. You know, have aliens visited the earth? Yeah, probably, maybe, 75% probability. There is a great quote from Aldous Huxley. He said the greatest innovation of the scientific revolution was the scientific method itself and particularly the working hypothesis. And if you think of it, any spiritual idea that people have killed each other over or believed in, have been told they are going to hell if they do not believe even, anything can be taken as a working hypothesis. Let us see if there is evidence for it. And maybe it is true, even if you cannot actually prove it in your lifetime. Because how can you prove, for example, that you go to heaven after you die? Well, there is some evidence for that, because people have near-death experiences, they remember past lives and so on. But we were talking about dogma earlier, and we do not have to hold rigidly to any particular idea, treat it as a working hypothesis and see if you can substantiate it through your own experience or not. Or maybe somebody else’s experience seems credible and they have substantiated it. But everything is subject to revision, to reinforcement through more evidence, or through diminishment, through refutation of apparent evidence, and so on.

Jim: Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that. That means we start, work with a hypothesis and test it, and do not be afraid to test it. And all too often, we are discouraged from doing that. I think of a saying, and I am not sure quite where this comes from in the scientific community, but you have heard that expression, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Rick: Yeah, that’s good. So, in other words, let’s take an example. So, we do not know if there are other universes. Some people have this multiverse theory that we are only one of billions of universes. There is no evidence for it, and there could never be any evidence that we know of, because of the limitations of the speed of light and all that. But it does not mean there are no other universes. There is no evidence of there not being other universes, there might be, but we probably will never have any evidence to prove it one way or the other.

Jim: Yeah, really good example, and there are so many others where basically we do not have, and we will never have the technology available to us where we can take those kinds of measurements. In many cases, we are stuck within this three-dimensional physical plane. The multiverse, obviously by its very nature, is existing in other dimensional planes and we do not have access to them. I do not know how we ever will, other than through out of body experiences and travel.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. Soul travel.

Rick: Yeah. Okay. So, what are we doing? You said, “First and foremost, I’m interested in all the various subjects that were listed in our online information form.” Yeah, we have all these categories and people can check which one they fit into. You and I are kind of alike, in this sense. Everything from Advaita Vedanta to reincarnation, ghosts. I have had experience with basically everything that appeared on that master list, including ghosts and visitors. I feel like all those things are meaningful in our awakening as we can make sense of it all. Yeah, one thing I would say is, and we will see what you have to say about this, even though there might be a million different things which actually exist in some way, shape, or form, we do not know. There is not time in life to investigate them all. We cannot all be ghostbusters or whatever. But that is not to say they do not exist. And sometimes you can check out something for just an afternoon, read an article or something, and then, okay, got it. I do not need to know more about that. But I am open to the possibility that it exists.

Jim: Yeah, I would say my approach to all of that is just, take it as it comes, but not to get overly distracted by it. I started meeting the Tibetan Buddhist Lama down the road from me for tea on occasions, and we had a couple of good discussions. One of the conversations was around the whole notion of phenomenological experience. You know that so much of this stuff is just plain old phenomena. It is interesting phenomena, and seeing ghosts and maybe meeting extraterrestrials or whatever, as remarkable as those things appear to our human consciousness, we need to remember that there is something far more substantial behind all of those phenomena. And we ourselves are merely one expression of phenomena in this universe. So, to the same degree that we wouldn’t take ourselves all that seriously in terms of, “this vessel is called Jim, and I’ve had that experience.” Of course, I live with that experience and that awareness that I look at the mirror and I go, “Who is that guy?” That is not the real essence of what this being is. And so, to the same measure that I am not going to take this phenomenon all that seriously, I am not going to get too obsessed about these other phenomena either. Now having said that though, I do think it is important to acknowledge these phenomena, because what I have experienced and what I have witnessed in others is: as you are traveling along your merry way through life, on some occasion you will have one of these experiences of these other phenomena. And it can be quite disorienting and it can shake people up and be confusing. I will go back to my guru and what she said about these things. She said, “Yeah, there are all sorts of signposts and things that you are going to see along the road as you are traveling, but just acknowledge them and do not get hung up on them, just keep on trucking,” kind of thing.

Rick: Yeah, that is good advice. Now, of course, one might wish to specialize in something. For instance, there is a guy named Jim Tucker who took over the work of Ian Stevenson on reincarnation. I have interviewed Jim. He devoted many years of his life to studying reincarnation. So, it is nice, it is good to have specialists. There are people who devote their lives to studying the UFO phenomena. But so, it is not to say that you cannot be a seeker of enlightenment, which is the ultimate realization, and not have an interest in one of these particular branches. But if you lose sight of the forest for the tree, if you lose the sight of the whole because you have gotten so obsessed with a particular part, then perhaps you have missed the boat.

Jim: Yeah, thank you, that you, again, articulated it better. That is what I was reaching for, precisely that. Because there are certainly things, niche interests and topics that I am interested in, that I find really interesting and amusing, and have explored. But as I say, we should not let that become all-consuming.

Rick: Yeah. One thought that has been kicking around my head as we have been talking is, at times, we have talked about different traditions and how they all have their value and significance. I do not like to limit it to the earth. I am reminded of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot photo, if you have ever seen that? It is a picture of the Earth taken from the rings of Saturn or someplace, and he comments on all the wars and territory grabs and power struggles and everything that has happened on this little pale blue dot and how absurd that seems. But if you consider the number of inhabited planets that probably exist in our universe, then each of them probably has numerous spiritual traditions going back throughout their history, most of which probably claim that theirs is the only one or the best one or so on. It helps to zoom out to that extent, I think.

Jim: I never thought of it that way. I have certainly thought about how there have to be a lot of planets in a universe that is full of, as Carl Sagan said, “Billions upon billions of stars.” The universe is very full of planets. But I never thought of it that way. Each of them would have their own religion, and each of them would think they…

Rick: Multiple religions, yeah.

Jim: Yeah. Oh yeah, the one and only truth.

Rick: Yeah. Even if there is only one advanced civilization in each galaxy, there are trillions of advanced civilizations in the universe. And undoubtedly, there are a lot more. With our modern telescopes now, we can see that almost every star has planets around it.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah, that is fascinating. And I think it is useful for people to remember that, for any of the skeptics out there, there definitely has to be life out there.

Rick: Yeah. Here is a question from Marie in Colorado. If the mind or consciousness is the rider of the physical body “horse,” then the rider needs to control the horse, but also take good care of a horse you can’t dismount. That is a good way of putting it. It kind of relates to what we said, you are not going to get off this horse, so you better take good care of it and also be a skillful rider.

Jim: Yeah, well said. I am very fond of making analogies and creating metaphors, and I like that one.

Rick: Yeah, okay, good. So, Jim, as we go along here, if any thoughts come to your mind that I am not bringing up, feel free to bring them up. You do not have to wait for me. We have talked a bit about living in the world, but not of it. We have talked about reincarnation. You have had a bunch of past life regressions, right? And you actually remembered a bunch of stuff.

Jim: Oh yeah, and I was glad that you mentioned Ian Stevenson, and I make reference to him in my book, and my interest in that whole topic.

Rick: Yeah, you also mentioned Michael Newton, who is a good one to read.

Jim: Yeah. And so, I started off by doing, probably 15 years ago I used an audio cassette with a script from Brian Weiss, who of course is a big, big figure in that space. And I did some regressions at home and they were very short, the introduction where you are relaxing, meditating is maybe 15-20 minutes, and then the actual guided meditation where you’re sort of prompted with little questions as to, “Okay, where are you? What do you see? What’s happening?” The images spontaneously come to your mind, quite clearly in this case. I suppose from years of meditating, the visual comes up quite easily, the visual aspect of it. Anyways, I have had all kinds of experiences that I felt very deeply were showing me, well, they touched me. It definitely goes beyond intellect. Each of these experiences, I felt they showed me something, but at a much deeper level something clicked. That is all I can say and a healing took place, either a healing of some aspect of this present character or a new understanding came to light and the test of time has shown that. And these things have stayed with me, so they have survived the test of time. Now more recently in 2021, I had something that had been bothering me for quite a while, basically a blockage in my heart chakra. That is how I could describe it, and I knew it was there and it was something that I was not getting past and it occurred to me, having read all kinds of Michael Newton and Brian Weiss and whatnot, “huh, I’m not getting any sort of conscious awareness of this for my current lifetime of what this could be.” And I thought, “I wonder if this could be something from a past life and that is why I’m having a hard time shaking it?” So anyways, on that suspicion, I went to the Michael Newton Institute website online. They have a page there, where you can type in the name of your state or your province, if it would be in Canada, and your city and it provides a list of counsellors who were trained in his methodology. And it happened that there was a woman just up the road from me. I mean, look at this, she was only a mile away from me, just up the road. And so, I gave her a call and we had a nice chat and she said, “Yeah, sounds like this could be it.” And so I went and did a couple of sessions with her and that healing took place. It was remarkable what happened. I do not know if I need to go into the details of what the past life was. Well maybe…

Rick: If you want.

Jim: Yeah, it would probably be interesting to people. For anyone who hasn’t experienced this, I will just share it detail by detail. It is just so remarkable. Now she took me through a one-hour induction process that is, deep relaxation, deep meditation, there was gentle music playing and you’re lying down on the sofa. And I want to emphasize at no point in this process did I forget that my name is Jim and that I live in Victoria. You do not start thinking you are a chicken or anything like that. There is nothing like that. But then, as she starts to provide prompts, you get past the induction process and she says, “okay you’re walking down the stairs, you step through the doors into the light. Now look down at your feet and what do you see?” So, here is what I saw. And I have been through this before with the Brian Weiss tapes, a sort of similar process, and I look and I have had bare feet in the past or sandals. Yeah. But I looked down at my feet on this occasion and I was wearing these furry boots and the conscious Jim was still there as a participant as an observer and she warned me about this. She said, “Look, your critical intellect is going to want to jump in at different moments and start trying to analyze or understand. She said, “look at that, try not to do that, just try to hold that at bay and just take in what you are seeing.

Rick: Depending on what you’re seeing, don’t let your intellect get in the way.

Jim: Yeah, and so, what do I see? I see these furry boots. Yeah, they are made of fur and the toes are drawn up like little curly toes. But they are definitely made of fur. It looks like muskrat or something.

Rick: I think in Lapland, don’t they have boots like that with the toes curled up?

Jim: Uh-ha. Yes, “my dear Watson.” But that is not what came to me. I just think, “what the heck are these boots,” and then we are moving along. And so, “now look at your hands” and I’ve got these big, powerful working hands. And are you a man or a woman? And it is that everything just comes like this when you are in this deep state. Yeah, “oh, a man.” “And how old are you?” “Thirty-six.” “What’s your name?” “Lars.” I always laugh with my brother and, you see, we grew up in a logging town and there are a lot of Norwegians in our logging town. There is a certain character, and apologies to all the people of Norwegian heritage out there, but we always have certain comments to make about Norwegian people. Basically, they are dour, pretty serious, hard-working, really hard working. And this experience that I had was, again, another testament to that. So, I’m Lars, and I’m standing in a pasture, “where are you?” “It’s kind of dark, it’s twilight.” “Is your house nearby?” And I go, “Yeah, I think so.” And it is as if my vision turns right around and I am looking the other way, and I see this house and it is in the distance, about a hundred yards away. And it is a log house, but it is red, it’s got white windows and the roof is bright, bright green, Kelly green. And again, my critical intellect is looking at this going, “What?” I’ve done roofing. Years ago, I worked in construction and a green roof doesn’t compute. This does not make any damn sense. So, anyways, I went through the whole experience, you get led through the regression and eventually I died and what have you and I had a hard time transitioning to the light and it all had to do with this deep, deep grief that my parents basically did not really love me, didn’t show me any tender care. But they used me, because this is back around the year eighteen-hundred. And as we know, in those days, we were subsistence farmers. Sorry, I’m not providing all the details here. And as there is no such thing as old age care homes. So, the son or the children are expected to take care of the parents as they get old. And that was me. That was my role. I never married, never had kids, never had family, had a miserable life. It was awful. And on top of that, my parents did not love me. They more or less, actually, almost despised me. There is this sense that they thought I was stupid, but I was useful…

Rick: A useful idiot, yeah.

Jim: Yeah, a useful workhorse for them. And anyway, so subsequent to this, I went on Google. I got home and I cleared all this stuff, by the way, and there was all kinds of crying and sobbing and powerful stuff as I transitioned to the light. And this very, very skilled counselor took me through that. And so, it’s all, all good. There is a happy ending to the story. So, I went to Google later, though. It did come to light that this was, where am I? “Where are you?” And the answer came, that was Scandinavia. And it is Norway, I think, and anyway, so later I did a Google and I start looking at images, searched for log cabin, Norway and Scandinavia. Red. And then all these images start coming up and lo and behold, never, completely unbeknownst to me. That is a standard architectural form that dates back to something like the 1300s and the sod roof.

Rick: I was thinking it was plants of some kind yeah.

Jim: Yeah, so that was a – my wife tells me I take too long in telling stories.

Rick: That’s okay sometimes you need the details.

Jim: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah well, so here was a case where past life regression actually healed something.

Rick: And did you notice a change in your heart chakra after that?

Jim: Oh yeah, very, very big and it was really interesting because, in this, the Michael Newton methodology, at least you can summon the guides, right?

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: So, she said to me, “If you like, you can summon your guides to help you,” because I was convulsing on the table and at some point, I thought I was going to have a heart attack almost. But I decided I was going to stay the course, because I could just sense I wanted this to be done with. And the guide comes and it is a presence that you feel and the counselor through this process. Again, if you have never been through it, she started prompting and said, “Okay, now Jim, I’m going to talk to your guide if that is okay.” “Yeah, that’s okay.” And as soon as you give that consent, then she starts asking questions to the guide and lo and behold, I was speaking whatever it is that the guide had to say. And again, the conscious “Jim” of the 21st century was just observing this, going, “Wow, this is interesting.” I am not making this up. This is just coming from some place. I am sharing this because what the guide had to say was fascinating. It said that my heart was, what did it say? My heart was upside down. And later I took that to mean that basically, if we think according to yogic theory, the chakras, of course, are spinning, right? And they are supposed to spin in a particular direction. But mine, I take it to mean that, I think mine was inverted. And this comes from the pain of deep trauma and from not being loved and all that kind of stuff. But basically, at that point, the guides reached into my chest and took hold. I actually felt, I swear to God, I felt as if somebody was doing live surgery on me. I felt hands reach into my chest, grab my heart, and turn it around. And in that process, it was as painful as you could imagine if someone was to take your heart and turn it around. And I was in agony. I don’t want to scare anybody by sharing this, but I was in physical agony as this was taking place. But again, when I came through it at the other side, I am really grateful for the experience, and it has just absolutely been a life changer for me.

Rick: Yeah, it is interesting to consider how deep certain traumas might be that we carry around with us, and how it influences or restricts our behavior or our experience. And it is interesting to consider what it might take to actually unravel those or heal those.

Jim: Yeah, I am very interested in that, and for the sake of so many people who need deep healing. And through my own experiences, I’ve been convinced of the value of that kind of somatic healing and somatic processes. I’ve done other stuff prior to that, too. Years ago, I did a weekend workshop in Vancouver that involved holotropic breathing. It is not something I would advise for a lot of people. I’m not a big fan of that. I think it has gotten a little bit too popular. I think there are risks associated with it. But again, in my case, I was following my higher guidance. I felt directed to pursue that, and it had a really positive effect on me. But again, that was probably my first real powerful experience in a somatic healing experience.

Rick: Well, this brings up an interesting question. You have tried a lot of things. How do you balance an open-minded, exploratory attitude where you are willing to try a whole lot of things without becoming a dilettante, a superficial dabbler? Can you go both deep and broad at the same time? Or just to finish my question, some say you should dig one deep well rather than ten shallow wells, but I would say, “Well, how about if you could use ten different tools to dig the one deep well?” Maybe a jackhammer and a pickaxe and a shovel. So anyway, how do you reconcile that?

Jim: Oh, I really like what you just said. Let’s use ten different tools to dig the one deep well. Absolutely, I like your version better. The first thing I went to was, “no, I’m working on one deep well, but along the way I pick up little tidbits here and there, other things. Because, if I were to give a percentage value to my practice, my yogic practice, I feel it encompasses 90% of what I need in my life. But, well, I should say it encompasses 100% of what I need. However, there have been some moments and some things that were, I always like to describe it as a log jam. And you know, you can meditate all you want on this, you can do all the breathing, and you can have Samadhi experiences, you can have all these things, but there are some things that are really hard to dislodge. And I do not think there is anything wrong with using whatever tool you have to get that junk, that debris out of the way. But I would agree, I don’t believe in being a dilettante at all. I would discourage people from that, don’t just sort of jump around like, “This year I’m a Buddhist, last year I was a yogi, the year before, I was a Muslim.” There are people who do that and, no, that is not a good way.

Rick: That brought up an interesting thought, which is, I often discuss this with a friend of mine, which is: there have been so many really impressive spiritual teachers, many of them world famous, who had great gifts, but really had some personal hangups or problems, either with sexuality or with anger or various other things, and really were quite hypocritical in their behavior and quite harmful to people. What you were saying is: you can have all these samadhis and so on, but it doesn’t necessarily crack these or heal or change these deep grooves, these deep patterns. So, I’m wondering, some people say that perhaps we need a blend of the ancient Eastern spirituality with modern psychology and that some of these gurus would have done well to have been in therapy. They might not have gone off the track, off the rails as they did. Have you ever given any thought to that notion?

Jim: Oh yeah, very much. Yeah, and I’m wholly in agreement with that. I have had various conversations with a good friend of mine here about precisely that. In our own observations, the need to deal with some of those fundamental psychological pieces of debris, prior to, well not necessarily prior to engaging in your practice, but certainly alongside it. There are certain things that have to be healed. I think it sort of goes back to something you said earlier, about your awareness being as broad as the sky and your attention to karma.

Rick: Right.

Jim: And the grain of barley flour. But you know, people want to have that blissful experience, that transcendental experience all the time. I want to be soaring through the sky and embracing the all. But, “you got some hang ups, man.” There is some stuff there that needs to be dealt with. I think a lot of that stuff gets worked out through the activation and the channeling of Kundalini, right? As it rises through the Sushumna and it is clearing stuff out, it is clearing out debris along the way. But it does not mean to say, going back to the well with the many tools, there is no reason why you could not also use a few other tools to clear out some of that debris. It would help you a great deal in those instances where your kundalini is activating your second chakra. (laughter)

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: And it is encountering some debris. Maybe there is too much debris there, and if you had cleared it out ahead of time, it would be a much easier time.

Rick: Yeah. So, perhaps if I could summarize this point, it would be to say that a person can apparently have achieved enlightenment and really have powerful Shakti and radiant presence and Siddhis and all kinds of other things, and yet still have flaws that they, themselves might not even be aware of. And so, somehow or other, I think, in this world, we need to evolve into an even more mature spirituality, where we understand that perhaps we are always going to be a work in progress and that we always have to be vigilant and that there will never be a time when we can just rest on our laurels and proclaim ourselves finished. I’m not sure. What are your thoughts on that?

Jim: Oh, yeah, we cannot rest on our laurels. In my view, this is one of the things I like about Joel Goldsmith. For better or for worse, he called his path the infinite way. In his opinion, it was this constant unfoldment, and we could probably see that in relation to this notion of the ever-expanding universe, the ever-expanding creation around us. We are obviously part of that, part and parcel of that. And so, there is always something new. There is always new growth. There are always new levels of awakening and what have you. One of the things that Goldsmith said that I really liked, and I think is germane to what we’re discussing here, he said, “Every day you must receive new manna from heaven.” He speaks in all these literary metaphors and what have you, and of course, that is an allusion to the Old Testament, when the Israelites were in the desert and they were starving. But God sent them manna from heaven. And it is this notion of receiving the spiritual food and being fed. Well, a lot of people who are “halfway up the mountain,” as in the Marianna Caplan book, I guess, would say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve had these experiences. I’m already there. I’m just gonna sit back, I’m the guru now” and I say, “not!” There is always more and there is that risk, you have the hazard of cutting off from that source of manna from heaven, that manna has to be replenished every day. And Goldsmith says, it is no good to rely on yesterday’s newspapers. Yeah, who needs yesterday’s papers? You cannot rely on yesterday’s manna. It was wonderful, but it was intended for that moment. And today is a new day, and every day has to be renewed, new manna from heaven. So somewhere in there, I guess what I am getting at is that this is a trap a lot of people fall into, a lot of very awakened people who have had a lot of awakening experiences. They basically stop questioning, they stop seeking, they are resting on their laurels, as you say. And as a consequence, they are not necessarily rooting out those little things, those little unresolved issues and ideas.

Rick: Big things, as the case may be, yeah.

Jim: Oh, yeah.

Rick: That’s great. Have you ever read the Lord of the Rings books or seen the movies at least?

Jim: I have seen the movies. I tried to read them years ago, and I have a hard time with fantasy. I just find it is not my vibe.

Rick: Well, the reason they came to mind is about the ring itself, of course, it had this incredibly addictive quality, and you had to be really humble and simple to be the bearer of the ring, or else it would go to your head and you would be in big trouble. But towards the end of the book, as Frodo gets to the Mount Doom or whatever it is called, where he has to throw the ring in to destroy it, the closer he gets to that point, the more magnified his ego becomes. It is the ultimate test as you get close to the final realization. And the only reason he managed to achieve his purpose was that Gollum, who had coveted the ring, lunges at him in the last minute and bites off his finger to get the ring. Then Gollum and the ring fall into the fire and the ring gets destroyed. As soon as that happens, Frodo is freed from the egomania that had afflicted him as he got so close to the final achievement. But anyway, that whole thing is metaphorically appropriate to what we are talking about.

Jim: Oh, it is spot on. It is funny, I had forgotten that. And of course, yeah, that is such an incredible piece of storytelling or metaphor from Tolkien!

Rick: It really was, yeah.

Jim: I think that is precisely how it is. Certainly, my guru used to talk about that. She talked about the danger as you ascend in consciousness. She said the ego grows in equal measure. And it is not that the ego grows, but there is always that element there. There is always that potentiality for the ego to usurp all of that progress and take over.

Rick: Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think in Christian terms, in Christian tradition, it is considered that the devil was the highest angel, but he got too big for his britches. And so, because he was so high, he crashed all the way down. The moral of the story, I think, what is that line from the Beatles song, the higher we fly, that everyone has something to hide from, except for me and my monkey, it is from that song.

Jim: Yes, yeah. The higher you fly, the lower you go? No, no.

Rick: Something. In any case, you need to be all the more careful and you need even more to counterbalance whatever it is you are experiencing with simplicity and humility, harking back to a point we made an hour ago.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, that word humility, I think that is the first, well, maybe not the first time we mentioned it, but I wanted to say that I meditate on that word, on that concept a lot, particularly for myself. I’m going to say, because in this lifetime I’ve been, again, blessed with a good physical body and mind and stuff. So, during my lifetime I have actually been awarded all kinds of accolades for my academics and for even athletics, at one time. All of these things have the potential to feed the ego, right? And certainly, they have fed my ego at times. But so, just bearing that in mind and always being aware that whatever comes to me, again in the words of my guru, I should “give it back to God.” Whatever comes to us is for us to recognize that if it is an authentic appreciation of something truly beautiful that has emanated or come forth from us, give that back to God, because that is where it comes from. I want to emphasize I don’t say that as if it is coming from some sort of a statement of dogma or, quote-unquote “belief.” It is something that I feel very, very deeply. And very much like Frodo and the Ring, it is in the moment when I give it back to God, there is actually a weight that comes off my shoulders. And it is a beautiful thing. If I can keep that going on a regular basis, I feel that is reconditioning the nervous system as we were talking about. But it is reconditioning the heart, our whole spiritual being, all the various bodies, all the koshas.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: You know?

Rick: “Thy gifts, my Lord, I surrender to thee.” That is from some Vedic scripture. I do not know which one. Yeah, you have to constantly give it back rather than appropriate it, or rather than take possession or ownership or authorship of it.

Jim: Yeah.

Rick: Which reminds me of another nice phrase. You mentioned humility. I’ve heard humility defined as “the quality of not insisting that things happen in a particular way.” And if you think about that, if you insist that things happen in a particular way, then your individuality is concretizing itself and trying to run the show. Whereas, and I’ll couple this with another nice quote I heard, which is to “turn your desires into preferences.” A desire is like, “this has got to happen for me.” A preference is like, “if it be thy will, if thou willst it, Lord, then this would be nice. But hey, you are in charge, you run the show, so whatever.”

Jim: Yes, and that infinite intelligence knows very much better than we do most of the time, as to what we need. But yeah, that is part of humility for sure. And also, I was going to say that not needing to be recognized, and that is probably one of the hardest things for human beings: we all want some degree of affirmation. We all want some degree of recognition. We want some form of validation. When that is taken to megalomaniacal measures, we know certain people in the world at the present who are, that is where they are really coming from, this rabid need that has grown out of control. This need to be recognized, this need to be acknowledged, now that is one extreme, of course. But traveling in China, I met all sorts of people who were just absolutely of the most sincerely humble manner. And also, in Latin America. I have traveled a lot in Latin America.

Rick: And your wife is Chilean, right?

Jim: That is right.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: And meeting those people and being with those people, including the Latin American community here where I live, it has been transformative for me. Again, it is another element of the big picture for me. And it is just something that inspires me to emulate as much as possible.

Rick: Yeah, there is a point you brought up a couple times in your notes about an essential experience of deep shame or anguish as the false self is recognized. Do you feel as if it is also an essential part of our growth, something we must pass through in order to come to full realization of our true being, which is pure joy? So, do you feel as if everyone has this intrinsic core wound of shame or anguish that they carry around with them and there is some kind of a threshold that they have to pass through in order to arrive at their true nature?

Jim: I do not think that people are carrying it around with them all the time, at least not all people. Some people are, some people by virtue of their childhood upbringing, God knows, they have been through all sorts of trauma, they carry all kinds of unfounded shame and whatnot. And I realized after I wrote that note that maybe shame is not the best word. Maybe the word I am looking for is grief or grieving. It is something, if there was an intersection between those two words of shame and grief. And what I was getting at and what I have experienced is this notion that as you awaken, there is a moment where you are not there, you are not fully ascended as it were, and you are looking. You suddenly get this full vision of yourself, your humanness and where you have been. And it is like that wincing Homer Simpson kind of, “Don’t!” But in the deepest, deepest sense. And I think in the Bible this is represented by the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal son is the son who leaves home and goes away and does all kinds of mischief, gets drunk and carouses and does terrible things. And then, he eventually comes back and the father loves him just as much as the other son who was the good boy all the while. And of course, the good boy is really upset, as if, “Hold on a second, that guy is a jerk, he has been misbehaving all this time. How can you possibly love him as much as you love me?” And the beauty of that story is that we are never separate from God, that source, that spirit. Never. That is just our true identity. But we are living in this illusion, of course, in separateness. I think it is just part of that transition. It is part of that. That is what I was reaching for when I wrote that note. And I still stand by that. Maybe there is something in my comprehension that is still lacking, but I think it is also represented in the story of Christ on the cross. When he cries out, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” There is this moment of doubt, as if, “Oh God, maybe I’m really not worthy.” “Maybe I’m really not the person I thought I was, or the being, this being that I thought I was.” There’s a moment and at least for me, it is very, very acute, very, very painful. And it also has a deep sense of, maybe it is not exactly shame, it has a deep sense of grief. But then coming through that, it is as if it is all good now. This feeling, this, glorious feeling that as much as I am not perfect in my humanhood, I know where my true source lies, and I will continue to endeavor to live with the utmost integrity, and I will become a follower of your website.

Rick: My website?

Jim: Well, the integrity website.

Rick: Oh yeah, the ASI website, right.

Jim: Yeah. I like to laugh, as you can see, now where was I going with that? But yeah, that’s what I was reaching for.

Rick: Yeah. I mean, one theme that has gone throughout our conversation, that popped up at various times, is that in your reincarnation story when you had that therapy and what you just said and a few other times, is that whatever its qualities, there is some kind of, as Samuel Bonder likes to call it “core wound.” Or Eckhart Tolle speaks of the pain body, or the Upanishad says, “Certainly all fear is born of duality.” So, there is some kind of core fear at the very junction point of our universal and individual natures, but there is some gunk down there. And the theme that we have come back to several times is that one way or another, we have to deal with it. We cannot bypass it, because if we skip around it and think we have landed in Shangri-La, it is going to rear its ugly head again and cause problems in our behavior. Somehow, we have to transcend it and yet purify and neutralize it in the course of our spiritual progress.

Jim: Yeah, I wholly agree. Yeah.

Rick: And you can elaborate, but that was my attempt to summarize that theme which has come up several times here.

Jim: Oh, I wish I could elaborate, but I cannot. I thought you expressed it so well.

Rick: Okay. So, you still have a full-time job, or are you retired?

Jim: I still have a full-time job.

Rick: What do you do?

Jim: I work in communications. So, I was in the private sector for 25 years and then two years ago I took a job with our provincial government.

Rick: Okay.

Jim: Actually, sorry.

Rick: No, go ahead.

Jim: I have a good story to share around how that happened. Oh gosh, I don’t know if I want to get into the details. I will, again, probably over promise here and under-deliver with my storytelling on this occasion. But anyways, it was during that period when I was lying on the floor with my back in pain for 10 days and I was still working in the private sector. And something clicked with me mentally and I realized I needed to leave my job and make a transition. I was talking with a good friend of mine in San Francisco. By the way, this is germane to my brother, my dear brother, who introduced me to our guru. He is a chiropractor now, and he does all kinds of energy work. Anyways, here is what happened. In the moment when I had the realization, the real clear understanding that I needed to quit this job and move on, my back went click and the pain disappeared.

Rick: That is very interesting.

Jim: Yeah, and then the next thing that happened was an exercise in faith and trust in the universe. I made myself a cup of coffee, wandered out into the garden and I sat there and stared up at the sky and clouds. Then I thought, “Well, what is gonna happen now? And I thought, well gosh I don’t know, I do not have really any irons in the fire at this moment. Let’s see what happens. But I have to trust.” And so, by the way, I had just sent the email to my old employer saying that, “It’s been wonderful but here is my two-weeks’ notice,” right? And so, I go out and make my coffee. What happens now? And I wandered back into the house finally an hour later, or an hour and a half maybe, at most, and I checked my email. There was one from this job I had applied for 18 months prior and it said, “Hi Jim, I don’t know if you remember, but you applied for this job and we interviewed you and you were the second candidate at the time. This other candidate is gone now, they have moved on and we would like to hire you. Are you interested in the job?” So, I said, “Yeah, I am.” Because it was actually a job that I was very interested in. And that is where I am today. And every day that I go into the office I am just as pleased as punch. I am just so happy. I am just in my happy place. But part of the lesson in that story, too, was the fact that my back was out for 10 days. Actually, the fact that my back was out in the first place was emblematic of the resistance I had put up against leaving my old work, right? Because I had actually had strong inklings prior to that, but I was resisting that and resisting that out of fear, right? So, there you go.

Rick: That is really interesting. I mean, I get a lot of synchronicities like that myself. So far, they have not had to involve severe back pain or something, but just things like having some thought and then having some amazing coincidence happen to fulfill that thought. But it is funny, it is nice that you enjoy your job now, and I don’t know how you felt about your old job. Maybe it was as if, “I’m tired of going into this office.”

Jim: I loved my old work for a very long period of time. There was a good 10 years there, but I had just gotten to the point where my soul knew that it was time to move on. And again, the key point in all of this is: I was resisting. Why was I resisting? For me, it is pretty clear: that was my Protestant upbringing. And maybe it goes all the way back to Lars the Norwegian as well. I think I have had many, many generations as if I have always had this attitude of “you should never quit a job,” right? Unless you have another job already somewhere else, but just the idea of quitting a job, you just don’t do that. That is just not done. And so, I feel as if this was the universe laying it out for me. As if, “you know, Jim, it’s time for you to really learn some real trust.” The Protestant work ethic is really nice and for the most part, it is a good thing. However, when it gets to the degree that it blocks your awareness that God is taking care of you, the universe is taking care of you, “I think it’s time for us to show you, to set you straight on this.” And this was done to me in a very compelling manner.

Rick: Yeah, it is interesting that you had to go through 10 days of agony to get the message. Maybe next time you will just get it and you won’t have to go through that. I was wondering, what was so cosmic about this new job that he had to go through all that suffering to get, to make up his mind to shift to the new thing. But maybe that is not the point. Maybe there is not that dramatic a difference between your old job and your new, but it was just the principle of learning to go with the flow a little bit more and not to impose your own will on it.

Jim: That was certainly a huge part of it. Go with the flow, go as you are directed. You are being directed, pay attention, listen, and trust. Have faith. What value is all this, all your talk about faith and spirit if you do not actually practice it? But I will say this, it was also the case that I had gone as far as I could go in terms of what I had to offer in that old employment, and in terms of those relationships, which continue to this day. It is wonderful and great, but it had simply run its course. And where I am now, I really feel as if, again, on the surface level, I do my work, and I am very proud of the work I do. I like what I do on a daily basis, but it is about the relationships. And actually, this is a big theme for me, that we have not touched upon today. For me, one of the most glorious things in this life is relationships. And for me, it is a truism that as mammals and humans we are social creatures, but it is a deeply spiritual experience. Our relationships are how we grow and how we help others to grow. And I am just in my new place of employment. I have all these relationships that I just really value, that I consider beautiful. Relationships with interesting people where I feel I am able to see the infinite indwelling in each individual. And yeah, hopefully they see something of that in me.

Rick: That is interesting. And of course, you never know what might yet come of the fact that you were in that circumstance rather than the other. Have you ever seen that movie with Gwyneth Paltrow called Sliding Doors?

Jim: Yes.

Rick: Yeah. It’s kind of cool, showing totally different trajectories of her life, depending upon whether she managed to get on the subway or not, on a particular occasion. But you never know what might happen. There is a quote from a British mountaineer, I forget the guy’s name, but it was sometimes attributed to Goethe. The quote is about how once we begin to take action or initiative, all kinds of events and circumstances and synchronicities and things happen to support us, which wouldn’t happen if we did not take that first step. In other words, you have to move and then, when the train is moving, everybody jumps on and comes to your assistance. I am totally slaughtering the quote, but you know the one I am talking about?

Jim: Yeah, and that has always been one of my favorite quotes. And here I thought it was Goethe, but it is not Goethe.

Rick: Everybody always attributes it to him, but it is actually another guy.

Jim: Oh, okay. Very good. But I have certainly seen that in my life and I have often quoted that to my children, in encouraging them to pursue their innermost direction. That is something that is so important to me as a father. If there is one thing I would like to be able to get right in raising my children, I would like to know that I have helped to instill that knowledge and that practice in their habits. That they feel confidence in themselves and ultimately in their desire to establish that contact with their innermost guidance, to thereafter have the courage to follow it.

Rick: Yeah, good. Well, that is a good ending point. I was waiting for you to say something really gemmy that we can end on. So, you do have a website. What do you offer on your website? Is it just your book or do you have some kind of sessions with people or anything like that?

Jim: No, at this point, no. I have just been too busy with working and other things going on. I will probably start doing a blog. I will probably add a blog. At present, it is really just promoting the book, but yeah, we will see where it goes. I am waiting to see what emerges.

Rick: Yeah, good. Well, as I said, it’s an enjoyable book. I think it is a nice little autobiography. It took me about five hours and something to listen to it. I always convert things to audiobooks, but it is not a big long read. I think people will enjoy it. And I found there were a lot of little things you went through that I found edifying, educational for myself. They made me reflect in certain ways that I found useful.

Jim: Yeah, I am so glad to hear that. It is interesting to hear the reader responses from different people. People of all different ages will draw something different from it, which is what I would have hoped for, frankly. I think there are a lot of different lessons and opportunities in that. And it is just appealing, it is pleasing to me that the people are taking value from it. But first and foremost, my motivation was to write a story that would demonstrate principles rather than elucidate on concepts.

Rick: Nice. That was good, and you did a good job of it. Okay, well, thanks, Jim. I have enjoyed getting to know you and having this conversation. Thanks to those who have been listening or watching. My next interview is going to be with Diane Hennessey Powell, whose name you will recognize if you have listened to the Telepathy Tapes, which briefly became the most popular podcast in the world, and is still, I’m sure, quite popular. It is about autistic children who cannot speak, so they use a letter board to communicate, but who, for whatever reason – and the whole podcast explores this – are uncannily psychic, telepathic. And it is a fascinating podcast, anybody who listens to it gets really drawn into it. And Diane Hennessy Powell is the chief scientist in the project and has been studying these kids, so we are going to talk about that. And it goes way beyond autistic kids who cannot speak, who are telepathic. There are all these implications as the podcast unfolds about what is going on in the world in terms of its spiritual awakening and what role these kids are playing and so on, and what humanity might eventually end up like, once we go through all of our transitions. So, stay tuned for that. It is the next one. All right, thanks, Jim.

Jim: Oh, thanks, Rick. Thank you.

Rick: Yeah.

Jim: So, sometime it would be a pleasure to talk again.