Laurie Moore interview

Summary:

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Dr. Laurie Moore. Welcome, Laurie.

Laurie: Hi, good to be here.

Rick: Laurie, among other things, is an animal communicator, and so we’re going to be talking about that a bit. And it’s funny, in the last week I’ve had these serendipitous animal communicator type experiences, because I was thinking about this interview, and I was thinking, well, does this really fit into the theme of this show? And having sort of skeptical thoughts. And then last Sunday I was at a potluck dinner, and I was sitting talking to a good friend of mine who’s been a friend for a dozen years, and she told me she was an animal communicator. I didn’t know, I had no idea. And we talked for about an hour, and I asked her all sorts of questions, and it really kind of deepened my understanding of the whole thing. And then just yesterday, I opened up an email from a friend who happens to live in an ashram in the Himalayas, who actually gets down to civilization once in a while and sends me emails. And he sent me this mail about this guy in Africa who rescued traumatized elephants that were otherwise going to have to be shot, and he managed to communicate with them in such a way as to convince them that they were going to be safer just staying in this protective area that they had set up, and they shouldn’t try to escape, and he formed this real bond with them. And then he died unexpectedly last March of a heart attack in the middle of the night, and all these elephants came from miles and miles away to be near where he had died, and everyone was amazed because how did the elephants know he had died? And then there was one other email this guy sent me about this Indian fellow named Balraj Maharshi who was able to talk to plants, and he became this incredible herbal expert where he would walk through the forest and he would see some plant, and the plant would actually tell him what it was good for, what its medicinal uses were, and so on. So it was sort of like nature was organizing to educate me a little bit more during the past week by bringing these things to my attention.

Laurie: Beautiful how that happens so synchronistically, and the animals and the plants and the people who are more tuned in to the language of the universal heart will find that that’s a natural kind of flow, that we’re communicating with each other all the time, and the way humans have been limited to our intellect to think that we can separate what our mind says is happening from the whole reality of what is happening is really just a trick. It’s a device of the mind that separates us from this oneness, and to speak to an animal or a plant it’s necessary that one drops into the heart and drops into the arena in which really there is no separation between me and the cat I’m speaking to.

Rick: I just want to introduce you to animal number one here. There’s three of them around here but he happens to be handy.

Laurie: And who is this?

Rick: This is Nikos.

Laurie: Hi Nikos.

Rick: He was left in a roadside recycling bin covered with fleas, and we ended up getting him, and getting rid of the fleas. Well, he still has some, but it’s an ongoing battle. I’m sorry, I sort of interrupted you, but you were actually doing what I was going to ask you to do at the beginning of this interview, which is to put this in a context of spirituality, because I know that some people who watch this show are going to say, “All right, fine, animal communicating, but what does that have to do with awakening or realization and all?” which is the main theme of your show. So let’s talk about that just a little bit more, okay?

Laurie: Yeah, like what does the Bible have to do with Jesus, and what does what everyone thinks Jesus and Buddha said have to do with anything? But along those lines, what I’m saying by that statement is that when we drop more deeply into the reality of our hearts, we begin to communicate with the universe beyond the dogma of what is spiritual and what is not spiritual, and we begin to really experience that which people like to discuss as a mental exercise, and it’s completely lost then, you know? So what do animals have to do with the plants, and what do plants have to do with the oneness, and what does that have to do with nothing? What it has to do with nothing, which is everything, truly, is that when we drop deep into the silence, deep into the stillness, and the mind can keep going. Words can float around that. It’s an illusion that all words will forever go. Words are a tool. They come to serve in this instance. I use words to deliver water. I use words to connect with you. But there’s something else deeper than that that gives rise to all this, and the animals are in touch with that, that complete space, that complete silence. Out of that they speak. Out of that they feel. Someone has died. Elephants go miles to visit their loved one. Oh, a tsunami is hitting. We all know they go up above the tsunami and are saved. Why didn’t the humans know? When we tune deeper into what really is here, what we are a vessel for, we find there’s just one source, one something. To me it’s a light that propels everything. It’s not separate from me or you. It’s coming right through my heart. My experience of the animals, all species of animals, is that it’s just an inherent awareness they live in. When people call me to speak to an animal, what they’re really calling me about is to go deeper first into some quality the animal calls forth in them, maybe it’s compassion or laughter or joy, and then with some nudging to go a little deeper into what is propelling that, what is at the base of that, what is here, out of which all this gets created. Yeah, when you speak of oneness and a deeper reality, that’s what all the spiritual people these days are talking about. They just don’t usually bring animals into the picture, but what you’re saying, I suppose, is that the animals can be both an example and perhaps even a technique for tuning into that more deeply.

Laurie: I would say the animals are our partners in community, the animals are our partners in society, and when we approach them with love, it’s not so much they’re a tool or a technique for us, but what we approach with love can bring us back to this, oneness has become a very abstract term, but when we fall into that oneness, it’s a deep falling into love, and it’s a falling into love with all the waves that are moving through me now, emotions move through me, physical sensations move through me, and you and everyone else, and yours move through mine, and mine move through yours, and thoughts move through, but in the center of all that is just this, I can’t even give it a word, and in order to speak to animals, our brothers and sisters, we have to drop into that. I remember at a seminar, some people were swimming, chasing dolphins. Well, of course, dolphins can swim much faster than people. Dolphins have free will, they get to the side because they swim it. And so I took everyone out of the water and I said, “Let’s do an exercise with a horse first.” And we went back on land, we met a horse named Dekor there, who we had been in communication with, and I asked people to communicate with this horse. And a woman was telling the horse all of her psychological, new age problems, in a kind of a theoretical basis, which I think is valuable. My background is as a psychotherapist, my PhD is in psychology, and I value that as a system, as an outward way of connecting, but it doesn’t get to the heart of things. So, of course, she spoke to the horse, and it’s on film, it’s in my video, “Land of Miracles”, the horse is going, “Krrrk, krrk”, like that, and running away. And finally, she got it, finally, I just kept asking her, “What’s really in your heart?” Finally, she spoke to the horse from her heart, with just a few, only a few words were needed. And then the horse came up, and was loving, and kissing, and just reaffirming this simplicity, this place where this abstract oneness is. I promise you, people think it’s just a term, or it’s a mind game, but there is a place in your heart that knows an experience where all is one, connected. And when you start to live your life from that, you respond to that. It’s very, very different, it’s fulfilling, it’s full of joy, it’s not based on circumstantial. Your experience is rising up, like a wave, over and over and over, and you fall in love with that, but that’s just the experience, something deeper is what carries you. So, it’s a great creative experience to put into words something that’s so vast and so full, and really can’t be fully explained with words, but we’re human, and so that’s what we’re doing here, we’re using articulation playfully, to bring this awareness. The energy hopefully comes through, and the words assist with people that like to think, like myself.

Rick: Sure. Well, there’s plenty of things in life that can’t be explained by words. I mean, try explaining the color red. Anybody who’s not colorblind knows what red is, but only because we have an agreed-upon thing. You can’t actually describe it, unless you want to get into the number of cycles per second of that particular part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and so blah, blah, blah. But basically, there are a million things, the taste of an orange, so many things, most of the things we experience can’t really be described in words. We’ve just got these agreed-upon symbols that we all say, “Okay, this symbol is going to correlate with that,” and so on.

Laurie: What a great analogy, because of course we can’t really know red other than our experience of it, and yet we have many ways to describe it; scientifically, poetically, artistically. What a perfect analogy. I do feel strongly by stepping into the realities of different animals and people, and that’s how I speak to the animals. I just give my heart to theirs, so for that moment, I feel their feelings, I see their pictures, I hear their thoughts. I was trained to do that by people, because I sat with people for so many years as a psychotherapist. They would come in and give me long intellectual stories, and when I listened much deeper and learned to really help them, it was listening way deeper than what they were claiming was true. So what I’m getting at here is that each of us has experienced the universe very differently, and my guess is if you or I got to sit in the eyes of 10 different people, even the color red would be slightly different.

Rick: Yeah, and not only fairly non-emotionally charged things like red, but you sit in different people’s eyes and look at how politics looks, or gun control, or abortion, or these other issues that we’re all so crazy about.

Laurie: All reality is created around difference, not just one person’s system, but we live in a world where everywhere you go there is another dream, another reality, group dreams, individual dreams.

Rick: Yeah. I don’t know if you know this, but in the third chapter of the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, which is an ancient book all about yoga, he itemizes a number of siddhis, or perfections, which are said to develop at a certain stage of one’s spiritual growth, and understanding the language of the animals is one of them.

Laurie: Understanding creation and understanding surrender are two very important layers of spiritual growth, if we systematize it. Some people just live their life and experience, but some people like to put things into categories, and I’m for either way. Every being is different, but when we look at the level of creation and surrender, animals are very involved in that. So hearing them, feeling them, and seeing them is an indication that we are more involved in surrender, that surrender when we give ourselves to what is occurring beyond a desire to manage it, control it, create it, or change it is very fast. The mysterious beauty and just the love that comes through that, just letting the heart merge into all is quite glorious. And then the act of creation, because we live on a planet that gives us opportunity every day to participate in the artistry of what’s happening here. We’re not victims, we’re all artists. And so the animals of all species, air animals, land animals, all animals, sea animals, are very skilled at that, so stepping into either of those layers would pretty much open up an ability to communicate with animals.

Rick: Yeah. I suppose the key question is, how does one step into those layers? And of course there are many techniques and practices and meditation and teachers, and there’s ancient traditions all around the world of even various kinds of drugs. I mean, people have been trying to step into those layers, as you put it, throughout history, and some approaches are quite systematic, some seem to be quite spontaneous. There’ll be somebody who’s never been interested in such things, and they’re walking across the street and all of a sudden some deep, profound realization opens up for them. But I think for the average person, when they hear talks like this, or begin to acquire an interest in spiritual development, they want to know, “Well, what can I actually do? Because I’m busy, I’m stressed out.”

Laurie: “How can I be here now?”

Rick: Yeah, “how can this shift from just being a lot of talk to an actual experience?”

Laurie: Yes, “I’m busy, I can’t be here now, and I need to visualize where I’m going to be later.” But how you can be here now, thank you Ram Dass, long ago, for what I’m talking about. Yes, I’m for every single technique, if that’s what draws you, I’m for every single teacher, if that’s what draws you, everyone go where you need to go. And I invite you to step so fully into the experience your heart is providing right now, as your individual self is also providing experience. It’s giving you an emotion, a sensation, and a thought. And if you can step fully, if you can let your cells, your muscles, the blood in your body, be completely relaxed into that right here, it becomes so simple. It really does. It becomes so simple that spontaneous little awakenings, or a big experience, it doesn’t matter, it will happen in your way. And see, your way isn’t going to happen how Buddha happened, how Jesus happened, how Mary happened, how anyone else happened. Or even how the techniques unfolded. When you step in, all kinds of things will happen. I’ve experienced where all of a sudden my body was dancing and I understood Gates, finally, who couldn’t tell the dancer from the dance, because there was no will. And all that will happen in your way, the way the animals let that happen. I promise you, if you step into your heart right now, so deeply, and anything you experience that doesn’t allow that, a thought, a feeling, a sensation, if you completely merge into the feeling, experience of that, these doors will open. It’s grace, they’re available for everyone. And if that’s too simple and people require complexity, that’s fine. Complexity is just a great entryway to simplicity. It’s all welcome on a playful planet.

Rick: Do you think it’s completely volitional? Can anyone do what you just said? Can anyone step right in? Or are there some blocks or impediments for some people? Might it be more difficult for some people than others?

Laurie: That’s a good question. I don’t know if it’s something anyone can do. It’s more of something that happens, and why this happens to some people at certain times, or in this lifetime, or not this lifetime, is way beyond anything that I think we can explain as a human race. It seems to have to do with some mysterious force that cannot be explained, and it seems to have a lot to do with grace. However, I do believe that anyone whose heart calls them to accept an invitation that was just offered, I didn’t offer it. The universe has offered it forever. I just spoke it on behalf of the universe. I gave myself that opportunity because it’s here. And it will receive grace. We’ll begin to awaken into a realm of perception coming from a very, very deep love that is available to all humans in the same way all animals know it is available as a basis to them.

Rick: I think there’s something to that. Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.” I think if a person actually has the sincere desire for a deeper awakening, it sets the wheels in motion to eventually bring that about. It may not be immediate, but one should be patient. As you were saying earlier, if you feel called to do a particular thing, to practice a particular technique, see a particular teacher, go with that. One thing will lead to the next. You may not be doing that thing or seeing that teacher for the rest of your life, but just keep following your nose. I got an email just this week from some woman who said that she was feeling kind of hopeless and depressed because all these people I interviewed seemed to have been graced with this awakening and she can’t see it happening to her. I just encouraged her to do what I just said, to just pick out something, the next obvious thing that appeals to you that might be a step in that direction and then take the first step. There is an analogy they use in India, where a man wants to come out of a mud puddle. It is a great big mud puddle and he is standing in the middle of it. There is some guy who is outside the mud puddle at the edge and he says, “How do I get out of this mud puddle?” And the guy says, “Well, take a step.” And he says, “Well, you are asking me to take a step into the mud.” And he says, “Yeah, but just take that step and then take another step, and eventually you will be out of the mud puddle.”

Laurie: Longing and seeking are very beautiful qualities. They are really qualities of right before falling in love. They really are kind of falling in love. And so this disappointment this woman is feeling is so sweet and so genuine and so beautiful. And if she could just completely, perhaps, identify where is this disappointment she is feeling, right underneath that thought. Her mind has told her that she is not experiencing the grace that others are. Maybe that is true, maybe that is not. If she could identify where that disappointment is, right in her physical body and then give her consciousness so fully to that place in her body where that is vibrating and just give herself so fully, fully, fully, maybe the disappointment is right in her heart. Just be with that completely until there is nothing left but that sensation. She might just suddenly breathe and drop in to the fulfillment she is seeking. It could be that simple. A lot of what I do with people when they call me from around the world or come into my office or when I am teaching the seminars is just give them some witnessing and nudging and assistance to do that. So, okay, there is something we can do. You asked what can we do.

Rick: Yeah. I think that is really valuable advice. I am a big believer in the correlation of the body with everything else. I mean, with the state of enlightenment itself or any sort of experience you are having. There is something going on in your brain, in your nervous system, and that goes for feelings of frustration and depression and all that other stuff as well, which is why certain drugs help to deal with depression. But the attention has a healing influence, and if you can identify the physical location of the thing as just being hung up in the emotional level of it, you can actually get to the root of it and resolve it.

Laurie: Yes, yes. As a therapist, of course, I was trained to assist people to make great stories up about their emotional states. It is a tradition of fable, and it just came into modern times in that way. And, like you said, there is another way to approach emotions, where we fully embody them. So, I have learned really from the animals, from stepping into their reality, and especially from cats who are very skilled at this, that we take away the judgment first. So frustration isn’t bad or good, sadness isn’t bad or good, jealousy isn’t bad or good, ecstasy isn’t bad or good, etc., etc. Generosity just is all these qualities or emotions. If I take away my mental construct and concepts about what those are and simply step into the vibration, they reveal themselves to be a creation very different than what I conceived them to be through my conditioning, through my years as a human in different cultures. And stepping into those vibrations creates vast fullness, vast connectedness with all, until there is this dissolving. The “I” starts to dissolve. It’s just not there. And so, these wonderful vibrations that we’ve categorized into things we have to fix and medicate, might, and I’m not making a statement whether medication is good or bad, it’s not even my business, it’s a personal decision, but might offer, not might, do offer another doorway into awakening. And so, many spiritual traditions and religious traditions, all in very good intention, have given people the idea. And since people made those, we have given ourselves the idea that certain feelings are bad, and if we can just stop ourselves as though we’re separate from those feelings, we’ll solve things. Of course, that just can cause us contraction, and contraction causes explosion in time. And that can be a world war or it can be a personal disease. And again, I’m not saying those things aren’t going to happen on a planet of life and death. They do. What I am saying is there’s an invitation here, when you’re feeling something that you think is wrong or not spiritual, or not religious, or not enlightening, instead, just let that go and step into its gift. It’s just a vibration, and it will start to vibrate you into a whole new awareness. And that’s what people are seeking. They’re seeking to be here in this bounty of creation.

Rick: Of course, we do have preferences. We’d rather be happy than sad. We’d rather be friendly than angry, all these things. I guess what you’re saying is that since we’re human beings, the whole range is going to present itself, and we should find the gift or the opportunity in the so-called bad stuff. It has potential to help us if we approach it right, right?

Laurie: Yes, we should find the experience in it, is what I’m saying. And, of course, mentally, we all have preferences. I would like to be in bliss, joy, success, etc., like everyone else. But when I’m really truthful, and I deeply sit in all the experiences, that’s kind of baloney. It’s true on one level, and I’m very human, and I will create my life to be successful and joyful. I will do all that myself. I’m not saying I rise above that. But many times, in the quietness, day and day again, it becomes more evident to me that that construct has validity. And yet, deep in my soul, the soul is very satisfied beyond any of these constructs the identity takes to define itself. The identity is just fleeting through us. We’re consciousness. We’re love. And we play with identities, “Oh, my identity wants to be joyful and happy.” It’s funny, and it takes a lot of energy, and it has a lot to do with what humans do.

Rick: Do you think that there are situations in which you absolutely do need some medication or something, or do you feel like there could actually be a natural, holistic kind of approach to almost any mental or psychological difficulty?

Laurie: No, I think that Eastern and Western approaches, or any other approach for rebalancing a body that has gone out of balance, or a mind that’s gone out of balance, are all needed and all valid. That’s why they got created. So, at different times, different people, myself included very much, will require different mechanisms for rebalancing. That’s something personal each person has to decide for themselves. So, I’m not prescribing waking up into a deeper consciousness as a substitute for medicine, nor am I saying Eastern against Western, or any of that. It’s all here. It’s all valid. It all got created. It can all be used well, and it can all be used not well.

Rick: Yeah, and I would also add that spiritual maturity or evolution isn’t necessarily a foolproof antidote against difficult times, such as depression and so on. I have one friend who’s been meditating for 40 years, and she happens to be in a mental hospital at the moment. And sometimes, intense spiritual practice can precipitate psychological breakdowns and so on, perhaps if it’s not guided properly. But it’s not as simple and clear-cut a situation as one might think.

Laurie: No, I know for myself that there are periods I go through where I’m experiencing a lot of unconditional joy and peace and bliss and laughter. And I remember when I was out there giving lots of talks and telling people about my seminars from that space, that state I was naturally in. Other times, I realized I was really overemphasizing the joy and bliss, because I realized, wait a minute, this peace is carrying me now. And that’s melting into it, and disappointment and disillusionment is coming now, and that’s melting into it. That’s melting into it. So, my invitation really is to drop in to what is holding all those experiences. It’s not a prescription that we’re always happy or blissful or healthy or mentally well, or whatever. All that comes and goes, and of course, we have to address it. If you’re out of balance, you want to seek help to get balanced. You don’t use awakening to rebalance. Awakening is awakening itself; we’re just part of its way.

Rick: Okay, we’ll probably come back to points related to this, but I want to come back to the animals a little bit more. I live in Iowa and there are more pigs than people in Iowa, literally.

Laurie: Great place, sounds fun. I would like to go there.

Rick: Well, you wouldn’t like to go here because if you saw the conditions under which those pigs live, it would break your heart. Most of them are in CAFOs, which are confined animal things, where there are 1200 or 2400 hogs in a single building with barely enough room to turn around, in fact, literally not enough room to turn around. It’s really horrendous and they literally go insane under those conditions. But the mindset that has created such things appears to be that these are not sentient beings, these are commodities. These are things which are here for our consumption, and they don’t have any sensitivity or significant intelligence themselves. Personally, I think that is both symptomatic of our culture and it’s also suicidal for our culture. That attitude toward animals and toward various other aspects of nature is a tremendously serious threat to our own existence. So, I just wanted to bring that. I think it coarsens the people who work in these places. I don’t know what it does to their hearts. It must be like working as a guard in Auschwitz or something. You couldn’t retain any degree of sensitivity under those circumstances. So anyway, any comments on that?

Laurie: My mind was going the same place, having Jewish blood in me. I’m so sad that humanity has misunderstood at times so deeply that we’ve hurt people because of their skin color, that we’ve hurt people because of their gender.

Rick: Wait a minute, I have to introduce this one.

Laurie: Who is this?

Rick: This is Lila.

Laurie: Hi Lila.

Rick: She’s 17 years old and we’re making her come in for the day because it’s too hot out there. Here we go. It’s like 100 degrees or getting up there.

Laurie: If you want to call me sometime, I’d love to just offer a gratuitous animal reading for all your animals.

Rick: Sure.

Laurie: I’m not wanting to interrupt the interview for that.

Rick: Yeah, no, I just have to introduce them as they come in.

Laurie: I love it. I love it.

Rick: I’m sorry I interrupted your train of thought. Keep going on that.

Laurie: I’m sorry that humanity’s heartbreak is so deep and so covered up that we’ve mistreated our brothers and sisters in these ways. When you first told me about the pigs, I wasn’t thinking. I just flashed to Hawaii where I met pigs who are wild and really enjoying their life.

Rick: Yeah.

Laurie: This morning, right before the interview, Jesse the cat and I went outside and there were two baby deer and a mama to greet us. Just enjoying their life. I’m so sorry that humanity has become so desensitized that when we hurt ourselves, when we hurt life, when we hurt our brothers and our sisters in horrible ways, we don’t notice. As you said, that takes a lot of numbing. So my invitation is for people to sit in the places inside themselves that are numb. I’m not interested in getting in a polarization fight against anyone who is myself, who is doing that on a planet, whose gotten that lost and crazy. I’d like to step myself into whatever that consciousness is somewhere inside me, even though I’m not there in Iowa trapping these pigs. I will step into that trapped feeling so deeply that I find what is that in me. I can’t control what anyone else as an individual does and where they are in their development. What I invite people to do when we’re feeling upset about what we think others are doing, rather than polarize from them in the same way they polarized from the pigs and now think the pigs are separate from them, is what does that bring up in you? What I find is each time I step into something that I once thought was unbearable, such as deep hatred or jealousy, things I ran from the most, I said, “That’s out there.” I grew up learning not to be prejudiced. I’m part of this whole existence. What if I sat in consciousness where prejudice exists, whether it’s mine or not? In that, a deeper compassion occurs, and a deeper love and peace. Then, we generate more of those interactions. I feel the more we generate from there, the more hope there is of more beings being treated well. There’s no guarantee, and that’s not the primary reason to do it. Because then it becomes something separate from us. I invite people to experiment and step into what is brought up for you when you witness this kind of cruelty. And then out of that, some people will take action, some people will make life changes, some people will just be the space holders quietly of peace in their own home, no one knows, but they’re vibrating that out.

Rick: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in what you just said. And I’m reminded of Jesus, who as He was being nailed to the cross, didn’t say, “You guys are evil.” He said, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” He was saying that essentially, His executioners were, I’m obviously elaborating here, but were the same kind of radiant soul that we all are, but that light was occluded, so they had gotten so lost, so overshadowed that they could actually do such a thing.

Laurie: Yes, and I really ask the universe not to bring any more of that, but some of my deepest teachers, I’m just surrounded by wonderful people that I love in this life. And because of my work, I’ve met incredible people from all over the world, and they’re my teachers. But some of my greatest teachers have been people that have been very cruel and mean, who don’t even know me, who just lash out, because I spent a lot of time in public for a while. pretty big public, and so my heart got very hurt in those situations. I found myself to be a kind of sensitive person. I didn’t choose that, it’s just how I am, physically and emotionally. And so I had to step into a lot of heartbreak. Things would come toward me that felt very abrasive and mean, and when I stepped into the sorrow of that, I found that it was my heartbreak and the heartbreak of the person delivering some kind of communication. And when I stepped deeper into that, eventually I just felt it gave much more space. Space took me, instead of a reaction, eventually, to that. So, when we’re approached by beings who may treat us in a way that doesn’t feel good, then there is an opportunity to go into the heart and find a love that can even hold that. It’s not that we tell anyone it’s okay to treat us improperly, or anything like that. But when those things happen, when there’s a personal or big planetary war, if we step into the experience we’re personally having of it, it takes us through layers. It takes us through emotional layers, and those take us into inspired layers. And then, at the base of it, there’s this deep love, just trying to get through everyone and everything, and in any way it will be let through.

Rick: Did you ever read Carlos Castaneda’s books?

Laurie: Yeah.

Rick: Remember the petty tyrant? Don Juan talks about how valuable it could be to come under the jurisdiction of a petty tyrant, who will really make your life hell. But it has tremendous value in working out your ego or something like that.

Laurie: Yeah, but in every spiritual tradition or religion you find something like a fast, or giving up of something, but I tell you, go live life. Give your heart to the universe and all of that happens naturally. You’ll be put in cages and you’ll be put in bountiful experiences. And bless all the religious structures, I think they’re awesome, but I just want to say they happen very naturally, if you just give your heart and soul to where the universe is propelling you.

Rick: Yeah. That’s a good point too. I mean that there’s a very profound, unbounded intelligence orchestrating everything, and that things aren’t happening in some dumb, mechanical way. Every little thing that happens is happening for … It’s funny if you say “for a reason” because then it invites you to intellectualize, “Oh, why did this happen? Why did that happen?” But it’s more innocent than that, it’s more like there’s this evolutionary machine and we’re all part of it, and every little thing is ultimately in our own interest, although it may not appear to be.

Laurie: Yes, it really is in our interest of evolution from a deep, universal heart that’s holding all of us. I find my mind comes up with many creations and willful ways it wants to participate, and when I just stop that, and not because it’s bad or wrong, it’s just there’s a greater opportunity, and I step into where the heart is, it takes me into this depth. And that takes me into a universal creation, a flow out of which amazing synchronicities and all kinds of experiences occur. And then if I don’t run off into the experience, but just stop that and go deeper into that flow, there’s this just melting into the amazingness of what is creating us, instead of what we think we need to create. Yes, physical survival is important and balance is important, but often it comes back to some kind of identity. And of course, I’m speaking from a very privileged place, because I live in the United States and I’ve never starved. I’ve never gone to a food bank or shelter, and I realize I’m talking from that place, and I’m so thankful to have that experience. And I’ve been in some very harsh experiences this lifetime, and very challenging experiences, and even in those experiences, when I could stop from getting caught up in what I thought I willfully had to do about it, and just breathe into creation, and love fulfilled everything, and the steps needed to be taken flowed gracefully, they became evident, even if some sorrow was deeply involved in the experience.

Rick: Interesting. So, what I hear you saying is that if you can just relax a bit, and not swim against the stream, but realize that what’s happening is ultimately in your own best interest, you can settle into the lesson inherent in it, or the lesson being offered. Because you see there’s some people who just fight against life constantly. There’s always this sort of grinding of gears or resistance to what is. And of course it’s very California to say, “Oh, just go with the flow,” and all that. And that almost implies a complete lack of volition, where you just “whatever happens, is cool.” But there’s a kind of a balance point that can be reached in which God helps those who help themselves, and you’re purposeful, you’re volitional, and at the same time you’re completely open to not insisting that things happen any particular way. There’s a kind of a balance which is a little bit paradoxical.

Laurie: There’s a balance of manifesting and surrendering, of creating and surrendering.

Rick: That’s what I’m trying to say.

Laurie: Yes. And from the surrendered place, there’s no absence of action or participation. It’s a participation of a different fabric. It’s not a passive, “Oh, it doesn’t matter”. A lot of that, “I’m going with the flow,” is, “I’m not here, and I don’t know what I’m really feeling, and I’m not going to find out because I don’t want to deal with life.” But you’re talking about a real surrender into just breathing, relaxing into what is, what this universal creation is. And from there, personality is beautiful, and it does. It creates Rick Archer, who interviews people, and it creates Laurie Moore, who talks to animals and people. It has its own will, and it’s all prepared to have a lot of participation in all kinds of ways.

Rick: Yeah. I often refer to the Gita, which either may be a literal account of something that happened, or it might just be metaphorical. But at first Arjuna is saying, “I’m going to do this. I’m going to fight this battle,” and then Krishna kind of turns him around to the point where he sits down and he says, “I can’t do anything. I’m just going to live on alms in this world.” But then Krishna brings him to the point where he says, “Okay, now, you’re going to fight the battle, but you’re going to do it established in evenness, established in yoga. You’re going to do this, and then there will be equanimity, and there will be spontaneous right action. You won’t just be acting out of ego, but you won’t have relinquished all incentive or motivation to action either.”

Laurie: Yes. I want to invite people in whatever stance you are called to, because humans are humans, and animals are animals. We’re the same. We will have emotions, and we will have times when what is called for is a hard fight from a balanced place, or maybe not from a balanced place, or what is called for is a complete release and walking through the streets and living a life of poverty. They’re both extremes, and they’re a perfect starting point for this conversation, but what I’m getting at is that there’s no right or wrong. Just be yourself. It’s so simple, everyone. Just be who you are, and the invitation I’m offering is if you can breathe for a moment and just feel what your heart is vibrating. What the universal heart is vibrating right now in all of us is just this light. It’s an emanation. It’s beyond us. If you can feel that, and then anything around that, thoughts, emotions, sensations, if you can kind of step in to where that physical feeling has you, and just move your consciousness into that, something opens you up, and what actions or passive responses you will take, it’s almost like you feel your body and your mind are part of this big stream that has you. You asked earlier, what can we do? I think when we give ourselves in love, when you follow your love, and you see your heart, how your heart wishes to contribute, or give, or receive, or participate, or sit in silence, those answers start to come. They just do. Somehow, it’s in the blueprint that you give yourself, and all answers are brought forth. This is my personal experience. This, I truly believe, is a possibility for everyone right now. You don’t need to do anything else but be who you are and find out who that is by sitting and experiencing it.

Rick: So would you suggest a literal sitting, where a person just goes into a meditative state and really dives into this and gives it their full attention? Or are you saying that it’s something that one can do on the fly, while driving your car or dealing with the kids, or whatever? Or are you saying maybe both? Or it might be good to have an active practice that one learns to tune in to what’s going on, and at the same time take some bits of time where you can just be free of the hubbub and focus on that?

Laurie: I think it’s so valuable to have plenty of time for whatever one’s practice is, even if it’s simply sitting in the quiet, or any practice. That’s our place where we deepen into what is reality, and we access surrender and creation. Then we go out into the world stage, in our family, or our job, or the grocery store, or wherever. Then we get to be part of the whole experiment, the artistic experiment of humanity. Then we get to find out how does that go into creation? Our philosophy and ethics are sure tested there, but also it’s just an artistic balance of the inner and the outer that is forever available. I don’t think, personally, anyone could just be running around in this outer world all the time and fall into a depth of profound stillness and experiencing of all this as one, without solitude time. Maybe it happens, but for most, I would think time in some kind of quiet, or if that quiet requires a practice, practice isn’t needed, and for some it is perfect, seems very necessary and valuable. If someone doesn’t fit into that, awesome.

Rick: I would agree with you. I think it is, for the vast majority, there are exceptions to every generality, but I think it would be valuable for most persons to have that opportunity. And you know what? People tend to get habituated to stimulation and excitation. So the first thing they are going to find when they take some quiet time is that their mind is just going a mile a minute. They may not feel like sitting there. There are all these impulses and inner tendencies to stand up and get up and go do something. But if you can recognize that for what it is and allow yourself the opportunity to de-excite, it will be time well spent.

Laurie: Yes, if you can even just step into the experience of that excitement, that vibration, that will naturally re-stabilize or re-create what the vibration is.

Rick: And like you were saying earlier, feel the physical correlate to that. If the mind is going a mile a minute thinking about everything you have to do, feel what is happening in your heart, feel what is happening in your solar plexus, corresponding to all that mental noise.

Laurie: Yes, that will take you right back into yourself, into a silent experience. Eventually, it might be in layers or it might be like that.

Rick: So let’s talk a little bit more about you. And we still have plenty to talk about in terms of the animal communication thing. I have a lot of questions about that. But I know you spent some time with Gangaji and I don’t know what else you’ve done, but did you become a spiritual aspirant at a young age and how did you pursue that aspiration?

Laurie: Privately. I grew up in Washington, D.C. I grew up among a family of lawyers, doctors. I grew up among friends in politics. My father worked down at DuPont Circle. He worked for Chief Justice Earl Warren. That’s how he started out. It’s a different world. Maybe it’s changed now. It was nothing like what I encountered when I came out west.

Rick: It’s worse now.

Laurie: I’m so thankful for my very grounded and practical roots, I can’t tell you. I bless that every day and the intellectual articulation that went with that. I’m so thankful. I didn’t live a life where people could do the California, “I knew you in a past life” and “that’s what this poem is about.” You had to work, you had to do life. You couldn’t get by like that. I guess you could, but the environment didn’t support it. So very quietly and privately, I felt I was in love with the universe. Sometimes I would talk to the universe and we’d have conversations. I didn’t have anyone I thought I would be able to express that in that kind of language. Although I feel my mother is a very mystical, unconditionally loving guide and teacher for me, she would never speak any of the spiritual terminology I use. She didn’t have any familiarity with psychological terms or anything I became part of in another time in my life. But I very quietly was in love with the universe and I had my cat, Tiger, who was a great teacher. So, when I was a lot older I lived in communes and ashrams and had all kinds of experiences.

Rick: So by that time you were reading spiritual books and doing spiritual practices and all that, right?

Laurie: Well, the funny thing is, I’d end up without even meaning to, I’d keep finding myself in these spiritual communities and places where I didn’t even know that’s where I was going. Someone said, “Go check this out,” or “There’s a summer camp over here.” A lot of times I’d meet people there and they’d tell me, “Oh, yes, you’re one of this group,” or whatever. I never felt I was part of any group. I felt I loved the people I met in each group. I had good relationships and challenging relationships wherever I went, like everyone else. But I didn’t feel I was part of a system. It never felt real to me. Eventually, I just kind of trusted myself. I’d been inspired by many, many beautiful teachers by then. A Sufi teacher named Sheik Ahmed, a teacher named Anandi Ma. This was before I met Gangaji, who’s just been a complete turning point for me. I’ll get to that in a moment. The teachers that finally got a hold of me came not so long ago. I think it’s only been maybe ten years now. I first prayed to return to Heaven on Earth. I don’t know why I prayed that. I didn’t plan to pray that. Seriously, something took my whole soul and heart and just prayed that through me. Then there were a number of years where all these unconditional joy and bliss experiences came. My connection to the animals was primary. I’d meet animals everywhere. I’d go for a walk and a salamander would be on my back. I’d call out to the ocean and Molokai. “If you’re all really talking to me and I’m not insane, give me a sign.” A whale jumped up and went like that for half an hour. Dogs were in the seminars and birds would come into our seminars. I’d say, “Does this dog or goat come with anyone?” “No, the dogs come on time and leave on time.” It was magical. Now, I take that stuff for granted because I’m so integrated into it. But my cat reincarnated. After I made this prayer, my cat soon left his body. A coyote ate him. I was so in love with my cat, Jesse. I was deeply in love with this cat. I was completely devastated. And he came back in another body. He made it so evident. He took me into space where there was no time and there was no space. There was only oneness. That was my first full experience of that, this lifetime. Now, it’s more of something that’s like the basis.

Rick: How did you know it was the same cat?

Laurie: I knew it was Jesse because when he got back, he looked into my eyes for an hour and took me into this space. He walked around the house and showed me his habits. He had a little quirk where he’d scratch my neck and I’d scratch his. He did a little thing in the kitchen where, until I figured out the right food, I’d get a very gentle little nip on the ankle. If I’m overworking, the computer plug would be pulled out. In his new body, he wasn’t big enough to do it. But he made it clear that he was trying to do it. People came over and he’d greet them. It’s like he flipped the switch. There was this oneness experience that was going on since childhood. There was all this conditioning telling me, “You’re imaginative, you’re crazy, don’t believe that,” and the switch was flipped.

Rick: Can you elaborate a bit on the oneness experience?

Laurie: Yes. The best way I can say it, experiencing it in this moment now, is that a profound love has given birth to all of us here, now. We’re in a particular formation where I’m speaking to you, and Jesse’s up there, and there are some birds over there, and friends are near. There’s not a separateness that my mind got. I literally remember conditionings coming in in early childhood to try to convince me. I don’t know where those energies came from, but energies tried to make me think that I was separate from you.

Rick: It happens to everybody.

Laurie: Yes.

Rick: It’s a human condition.

Laurie: But the heart was feeling something very different. When I came back around to embracing the communication with the animals, there was no need to pretend anymore. I discarded all the pretending. The pretending got me through college and graduate school without people thinking I was insane. If I’d gone out and said all this stuff, people would’ve thought I was nuts. So, I learned to articulate a bunch of different languages that are socially acceptable in different circles. Some people, I’m sure, still think I’m nuts, and that’s fine. But the animals gave me the trust to speak what I experienced as the truth of this universe. Everything’s form, coming in and out, born and dying every second. This is just part of that. It’s like the color red. There’s no lines. There’s just waves among this beautiful creation. I feel like I’m on the outer edge of creation. A person, myself, is just way out on the edge, like a toenail, a little reflection of something creation is dreaming up. I’m a mask for a dream that’s not even mine. I’m a costume that was given, and my mind still thinks I’m wearing it. And my heart can see even that’s not true.

Rick: That’s nice. Speaking of crazy, my mother used to say, “Everyone is crazy except I and thou, and sometimes I think thou art.” One of her little pet phrases. No, that’s beautiful. I think what you’re expressing is, you’re expressing that within your experience, people often talk this way, but it sounds like it is your experience, that we are multidimensional beings. On one level, we’re these physical bodies with our personal tendencies and hang-ups and whatnot. And on a deeper level, which for some people is just sort of conceptual or perhaps vaguely intuitive, there is a more unified state or a more unified, subtle level of being or of awareness. And the whole enlightenment game, as I understand it, is to broaden the spectrum of one’s conscious experience, so it incorporates the whole range. And I think you just gave a nice expression to that. And it sounds to me as though, for you in particular, animals were like a spiritual practice. They were a technique which enabled you to kind of tune in through their innocence and simplicity to that deeper level. Would that be correct to say?

Laurie: I would say they were my teachers who I loved, and their beautiful, unconditional love called forth such trust in me that I could hear and see what my heart was always hearing and seeing, louder than what my mind had been trained to tell me.

Rick: Did you ever find yourself working in the capacity of an animal shelter or animal rescue kind of thing, or anything like that?

Laurie: No, I just spend a lot of time with wildlife who became my friends – hawks, ravens, all kinds of animals. And day in and day out, I work with my teacher and guide, Jesse just enjoyed the cat, he truly is my teacher, one of my teachers. So now I work with everyone again, but I had to go through an incubation period where I had to call myself out, or something called me out of manifestations around suffering. And suffering is a very important part of the planet. I’ve assisted people who are suffering for years, but I had to call myself out of that for three or four years and be immersed in unconditional blisses and joys, and look at manifestation that’s only coming from a highest positive place. And at a certain point, then I prayed with all my heart. Once again, I didn’t know where it came from, I didn’t have a choice. It prayed itself through me to remove all my false identities. Oh my god, that was a crash course. I went from these years of bliss into hell. You wouldn’t believe the things that would happen, I won’t even say it on the internet. It doesn’t even come out true in the movies. Every terrible thing that could happen started happening before I could keep up with it, until I literally almost died. I was so burned on every single level of my life, and I’d never experienced much betrayal. I was betrayed, personally, professionally. I was heartbroken. Oh god, the things that happened were crazy. But I had prayed for that, something in me had. And so then there had to be an expansion into not just the bliss phase, which I hear is a phase. And now that’s accessible anytime. I can access bliss. I can sit here and say, “Okay, I’m purchasing with bliss and joy,” and it comes. But there had to be something deeper called me. That’s around the time I met Gangaji. I recognized her really deeply. She was so familiar to me. She and I just connected very deeply. I didn’t quite know what was going on. Someone said, “You have to go meet her.” I said, “I don’t need to meet anyone.” People were coming from around the world to receive spiritual seminars and satsangs from me. I said, “I don’t need to meet any teacher.” But my partner went to meet her, and when he came home, I saw light all around him. I’m not a seer, I’m a feeler. But I couldn’t miss it. There was all this white, bright light. And I just said, “I have to go see this person.” I had met her husband on the radio. We had an interview together, and we clashed. So that was another, “I’m not going to meet this person.” I watched, and I saw people were telling her some problems and questions. I just felt she was my friend. I ran up, and it’s on YouTube actually. I saw it. I listened to it. We connected, and I felt her invitation so deeply to embrace the dark as well as light. Not to embrace the dark, to ever act out on it, or be it, or do something unethical. But to accept it all, to merge so deeply into my heart that I stopped making, “Well, this feeling is okay, and this isn’t.” For three years after I met her, I sat in everything I always didn’t want to feel, inwardly. Outwardly, it was all happening around me anyway. Inwardly, like I said before, prejudice, jealousy, hatred, everything I said, “No, no, I’m above that.” And spaciousness came and came and came, and life just became a very different existence from that.

Rick: Interesting. In the traditional Vedic scriptures, bliss is not considered to be the final destination.

Laurie: No, it’s not.

Rick: In fact, they say that we’re encased in a number of sheaths, or koshas, they call them. And the deepest one is anandamaya-kosha, which is the bliss sheath, but that still is an encasement. And then there’s obviously a breakthrough beyond that into something more fundamental. So, are you kind of saying that you marinated for about three years, and you probably withdrew from a lot of the activities you had been engaging in, and you just kind of spent a lot of time dealing with wave after wave of yucky stuff that had been perhaps unknown to you, but was buried there? And then with each clearing away of some of the yuck, you experienced some more expansion?

Laurie: Yes, and I didn’t remove myself from society at that time. I was still very active in teaching a lot. I was just going through a very different kind of experience. And yes, being inward space began to open and open and through all those different layers of quality and feeling experience. And eventually, the openings became like a lighter fabric, and I saw, “Oh, light is getting lighter. It has very little to do with me. Light is getting lighter. Love is becoming deeper love. I’m not here.” But I wasn’t saying I’m not here.” When you pop out, you say, “I’m not here,” but then you’re here. So, it’s like an experience of the vehicle of life utilizing its creation, and it’s endless. And there’s so many energies in the world that then things can shift in a day. I can tell you that, and the next day I could be caught up in something that really has my ego. It’s forever. I hear over and over in spiritual and religious circles, “That was the point,” and then they were awakened. “If only I could reach that.” Life is endless. It doesn’t work like that. That’s the opposite of what is being spoken about.

Rick: Yeah, I resonate with that. Just yesterday I was reading something by Nisargadatta, in which he was really insisting that for him there was no shred of individuality left, no shred of personal identity. Of course, he was addicted to cigarettes and he died of lung cancer, but I suppose he would have said that’s just the body-mind mechanism with its habits, but that there’s no personal identity driving that; it’s just carrying on with its own momentum. I don’t know.

Laurie: I don’t know. That’s his experience. It could be true, and I’m not there. I have plenty of ego. And I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t. I mean, let’s face it, when someone is giving satsang, what is their job? It is to step fully into that creation for all that surround them. And then, 24 hours a day, follow someone around, when they’re with their kids, when they’re with their grandkids, when they’re teaching, when they’re private and they think nobody is looking.

Rick: When they’re cheating on their wife.

Laurie: People are human.

Rick: Yeah, right.

Laurie: And let’s love ourselves, because that’s what we are, and not give ourselves the message we’re supposed to be more than that.

Rick: That’s my experience. There’s one person I’m thinking of, who will know who she is, who’s listening to this show, who says that for her, like Nisargadatta, there is no individuality left. For me, like you just said, there is very much a sense still of individuality. I can’t say where that might go eventually, but at the very same time, there is a dimension which is not that, which is pure silent, non-individual, universal stuff. And the two get along quite nicely. When you think about it, they seem to be ultimately, paradoxically dissimilar, but there is no discernible demarcation between them. You know what I mean?

Laurie: Yes. I notice that when we’re in states of deeper dissolving, a flavor appears, an essence, that each individual is, as long as they’re incarnate. And a most humbling experience I had, when I was doing lots and lots of seminars, the satsangs in Hawaii, and more and more of this was dissolving, the mind reported something like that, like there is very little identity here. And then, thank God, this super-ego said, “Well, good, if that’s the truth, you have a little ego trip going on.” And I wish that for everyone, instead of great reports about their extreme enlightened states, but whatever.

Rick: Yeah, it’s an interesting topic to me, because I interview people every week, and I’m just kind of always trying to fit it into the context of my understanding, while at the same time allowing my understanding to expand, and not just insisting that things fit into my conceptual box, which may be limited. But I do hear people all the time saying, “Well, there is no individual, there is no personal self, there is no actual doer.” And I just kind of wonder to what extent that is really their experience, or to what extent that might be an intellectual understanding, which perhaps is buttressed by an intuitive flavor of it, which they have taken to be the reality, or taken to actually be complete realization, but which might still be very much conceptual, without their knowing it.

Laurie: I think it’s a great idea for everyone to assume that they have an ego, until the day they die, and then what happens next. I have my ideas, other people have different ideas, but let’s just stay on this way for now. I think it’s a really good assumption to make that gratitude and humility might go a little further than reports about who we think we are. That is a very real state, that state where all is happening and little ‘I’ is not creating it. It is true, it’s real, it’s happening. And then, little ‘I’ who is being interviewed, whoever is being interviewed, some ‘I’ showed up for that.

Rick: Yeah, it would seem, or if you drop a brick on your toe, there is some ‘I’ which would really rather the brick had fallen on another brick rather than on the toe, it seems to me.

Laurie: And if the invitation someone is offering by saying, “There is no ‘I’,” is, “Here, here is a hand, find this where you aren’t and only grace is,” that’s beautiful and that’s true, and we also function with ego.

Rick: My original teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, gave a number of lectures about something he called “leisha vidya,” which translates as “faint remains of ignorance.” And he said, “As long as you are functioning as a human being, as long as you are breathing, there has got to be some leisha vidya or you wouldn’t be able to function.” And by ignorance he meant some sense of individuation, which in the final ultimate analysis is – you could call it ignorance, it’s sort of not the ultimate reality. But if you are going to function, if you are going to be a biological entity, breathing and eating and pooping and everything else, there has got to be some remnant of that to make functioning possible. So anyway, that’s the way he presented it.

Laurie: Yes, I always bring it back to, as long as I am alive, I will have a mind and an ego that will want to report things to me about my identity or others’ identities. Even if it stops for long periods, it will most likely start up again. And so I always create a remembrance, or a remembrance is already there, that awakening is awakening itself. I’m positive about this. I’m positive that right now, awakening is awakening itself, and it’s really not about “I,” but I am responsible for “I.”

Rick: What do you mean by that, “awakening is awakening itself”?

Laurie: I don’t have any experience consistently. I have experience that changes, and then fundamentally something is the same. But my experience is that evolution is in a creative place of opening itself up to its own oneness, to its own beingness, including all. And in that state, this “I” does dissolve, and when this “I” comes back, in my conceptual understanding, that’s experiencing awakening. When I’m reporting on my awakening, it’s about me again, it’s about “I,” it’s about my identity, and so I’m in the opposite of that experience I was setting out to describe.

Rick: I think I know what you mean. It’s reminiscent of what Andrew Cohen was saying when I interviewed him last week, his whole evolutionary enlightenment thing, that we are instruments through which the evolutionary force which gave rise to the universe 14 billion years ago is pushing the envelope to new levels of exploration, new levels of expression. And I suppose we could say that that evolutionary consciousness or awareness or force is in and of itself awake, it doesn’t need anyone or anything, but if it wants to play in the waves of expression, play in the waves of manifestation, then it does need manifest instruments such as cats and fleas and human beings, and so on, in order to experience all the variety of possibilities that that implies.

Laurie: Yes, and somehow when we give our love to that, if that’s where we feel our love going, the wave takes us into this fulfilling, generating creation.

Rick: Very true. I almost get the feeling that if a person consciously volunteers to go faster and further, it’s like the intelligence of the universe says, “Okay, we got a live one here, let’s give him some juice,” and there’s a quickening, there’s an acceleration that takes place. It’s like if you consciously volunteer to participate in the experiment of evolution, then God helps those who help themselves. You’re kind of given, that intelligence comes to your aid.

Laurie: I fully agree with that, and I would also say that whatever is in the way of that shows up more blatantly to be seen, experienced, and responded to, at least melted into something.

Rick: Because it needs to, because those things need to be cleared away if you’re really going to do this, right?

Laurie: Yeah.

Rick: I mean you can’t say you’re going to do it and then be oblivious to all the things that are blocking it. Somehow those things have to be confronted.

Laurie: My experience is that the more I give myself to this love, the more ego I have to see. The more little trips I have to take responsibility for in my own mind and make a choice to release or merge so much into that something different happens that can only happen from grace. Willpower doesn’t seem to shift it. Because I went through years of that. I was really in a therapeutic community and got trained to be a therapist. A lot of creative will is a great thing for a while. It really goes so deep.

Rick: Yeah, I think the significance of willpower in this point is making the willful choice to get out of the way.

Laurie: Yeah.

Rick: Which is not to say, continue to exert the will, but just sort of cooperate.

Laurie: Yeah.

Rick: The surgeon can’t operate if you’re squirming all around.

Laurie: No, and sometimes cooperating means saying yes to things that don’t rationally seem to make sense to one’s personal individuality, but trusting that that’s being propelled from someplace deeper.

Rick: Yeah, that’s good. All right, now let’s talk about the animals a little bit more. It’s like sometimes when I hear you and even my friend whom I spoke with talk about the kind of communication she gets from animals, that communication seems much more sophisticated than you would expect an animal to be able to convey. I mean, our dogs, as much as we love them, they like to eat cat poop and they would like nothing better than to kill the mailman. So if you hear some kind of wise, eloquent message coming from a dog, you think, “Well, is that being embellished by the person who’s the animal communicator? Are they just adding their own kind of human interpretation to it, or is that really what the animal is saying?”

Laurie: That’s a really important question, and I want to address two aspects of that. First of all, as a species, biologically, each animal, including the human animals, is programmed for some purpose. So of course we know dogs are protectors, they’re loyal, and so this programming, regardless of what soul comes in, in my experience too, a dog’s body usually has a programming to protect, because I’ve met some very kind dogs who have absolutely insisted to me they have to bite people if people are going too close to their person, and the person’s mortified. “How could the dog do a mean thing?” and the dog just doesn’t get it. “I’m not doing a mean thing; this is my job.”

Rick: Instinct.

Laurie: Yeah, but what we don’t always admit as humans is we’re doing that much rigid, instinctual behavior as well.

Rick: In our own way.

Laurie: Yes, and we don’t call that a lack of intelligence. So, first of all, yes, as soon as you’re born, your soul is married to a body, the incarnation, and they’re two different entities, and they’re trying to orchestrate something that seems to be part of the experiment, for animals as well as people. But the other point you mentioned is, “Can the animal communicator be just ‘Well, this is what I think, so I’ll say that’s what the dog thought’.” That’s a beautiful question, because it’s very complex. It has to do with what’s subjective and what’s objective. And all conversations are a co-creation between all involved. So, if you send a client to 10 different therapists, and the client tells all 10 therapists the same life struggle, ask the 10 therapists, and you’ll hear something very in common about what each therapist says, And then you’ll hear something different. And it’s the same with the animal communicator and the animal. That’s the beauty of life. Through synchronicity, hopefully, that person will end up with a therapist who has just a little bit of something in their essence and perspective that will assist a balance in that client. So, now it depends also on the animal communicator, because I always tell people if they ask me how to better hear, feel and see what someone else, an animal or a person, is expressing, to notice, “Are you hearing, feeling, or seeing something coming in a different flow than your own? Are you hearing some words that you don’t usually use? Are you seeing some images that aren’t the way you dream at night? Are you feeling some feelings that have a different flavor than what you’re used to?” Okay, that’s a clue that it’s more likely that you are in communication with this other being. Now you have to do a test and find out to alleviate your doubts. Ask the animals to give some assurance, and if the animals are connected with people, that’s what I did in the beginning. Ask the people, “I think your animal might be saying this to me. Does this have any truth in your life, or am I making this up?”

Rick: Yeah, one experience this friend of mine told me about was she did a reading on this cockatiel that belonged to some mutual friends of ours, actually, and she just kept getting this image of dark and chemical smells. And she didn’t know what it meant or anything else, but she talked to the people, and it turned out this bird had previously lived with some people who had a lot of animals, some of whom were the enemies of cockatiels, and so the cockatiel hid under the kitchen sink in the cupboard to stay away from these predators. And obviously there were chemicals and bleach and stuff stored under there, and it was dark. So there’s an example of something that wasn’t at all embellished by her personal interpretation; she didn’t know what it meant. But then there are other things where you hear people sometimes going into these long spiels that sound like a philosopher is giving them, and you wonder, “Can that really come out of a hamster or whatever the animal is?”

Laurie: It can, because I’ve talked to animals who are just so simple and just think with a few words. And people think more in visual images, and I’ve talked to animals who have exquisite philosophy and inspirational language, and they’re all so different, just like people.

Rick: Do you think that in general, the souls that inhabit animals’ bodies are sort of lesser-evolved souls, which will eventually evolve into human bodies? So, in general, and there could be exceptions to that generality, do you think that it’s really impossible to say that there might be as many evolved souls among the animals as there are among the humans?

Laurie: Well, I’ll answer in two ways. From a rational, practical view, because I try to maintain some balance, my logic would tell me that all souls are equal. But what I truly believe in my heart, having spoken to many, many animals, hundreds of different species passed over on earth, and wildlife, is in general, most, I would say if not a hundred, 99% of souls that are blessed to incarnate into the animal life are far, far, far ahead of humans, insects included, and plants, definitely. Yeah, I have no doubt anymore.

Rick: I find that hard to believe.

Laurie: That’s cool.

Rick: But it might just be my bias or my habitual way of thinking for decades, because it makes sense to me that there is a kind of a hierarchy in creation, and that we kind of evolve up the hierarchy through different forms as we go along, and that human beings are by no means the top of the hierarchy, but they’re a pretty evolved stage, and certainly more evolved than a mosquito. And that there could be a possibility, I suppose, where a human soul is reincarnated as a mosquito. But in general, a mosquito’s nervous system is really not going to be able to accommodate a soul which has evolved to the point where it is more at home in a human body.

Laurie: Well, as the Mayans said, perhaps, or as the Mayans believed, the hierarchy might go in the opposite direction, so that by the time you get to a real state of oneness, you can be a tree, you don’t need so many tools to learn the lessons of your illusions as the human, and the animals would come in between human and plant. But what I want to say about that is what’s going to happen if we’re able to keep this planet alive. The humans are starting to think in terms of permaculture, but it’s the animals who are already the real livers of permaculture, unless they’re domesticated, but they still do a pretty good job, cat spay themselves, etc. But where I’m going with this is that the humans are finally waking up to the complex intelligence. “Murder of the Crows” is just the beginning. I think it was PBS, I think it was actually on public TV. It’s easy to find through Netflix. It’s the beginning wake-up call to the fact that, oh my god, the animals’ language is so complex. We know so much more about what’s going on than we realize, and just like people in the United States, you can easily think, “Oh, well that culture is behind,” because we have no idea about that culture. We didn’t live in that culture, we didn’t ask them questions. I mean, now the United States has really changed, cross-cultural education is required, but it’s a complete cultural misunderstanding.

Rick: Yeah, like we think the Bushmen are primitive or something, and yet when you really learn about their culture, you learn that there are many things which we would do well to understand that they take for granted, and so on.

Laurie: Even their body language and linguistics, like cats have so many different meows. Those elephants knew exactly where to go when their friend died. So I think that in terms of personality biology, humans just are very clueless. Here’s an experiment I give to everyone. Just ask that the animals come and educate you. They started to teach me so many things. The deer have a game where they get in a circle, and they play this tag game where one stands up. It’s like a complicated game, but you don’t usually see this because people’s eyes aren’t open to it. When I was in Mexico teaching a seminar, I ran into a turkey vulture who had just landed dead. I don’t know how, wings spread, surrendered up to the sky, and the soul was just leaving the body, and we sat together for a long time. I mean, the body was finished, but the energy was still moving out. We sat together, and then I went on a walk, and the other turkey vultures let me come and just hunch with them in their circle. They circled around me in communication, in respect.

Rick: Wait a minute. You have to meet the final member of the family.

Laurie: This is a very adorable member. I love this.

Rick: This is Shanti.

Laurie: Hi, Shanti.

Rick: She also has a story of rescue from dire circumstances. Anyway, that was Shanti. I’m sorry. Turkey vulture.

Laurie: Anyway, I told everyone. I said, “Those are my friends. I sat with them yesterday.” People were like, “Okay, Dr. Laurie is a little far out.” They flew over, and they waved to us. Hawks and ravens come over here and wave to us, and we move 20 miles, and my raven friends found us. That’s smart. If they moved 20 miles, I don’t know that I’d find them.

Rick: Oh, I’ll grant you that. I mean, there are things that animals do which are amazing. I mean, the monarch butterflies, how do they migrate to such and such a place, and how is it that they’re actually able to be attuned to the earth’s magnetic field? And obviously, bloodhounds can smell a hundred times better than humans. So, there are all kinds of things which animals are capable of doing and seeing and even knowing, which humans aren’t. But if you look at the actual complexity of the animal’s nervous system and the complexity of their brain, the human brain is by far a more large and sophisticated instrument.

Laurie: It’s thinking very complicated things that are destroying the planet and taking us away from the awakening of which we speak. I don’t know that that’s more evolved.

Rick: Yeah, but some would say that that’s kind of a necessary no-man’s land that we have to walk through to get to the other side. In other words, at a certain level of evolution, we’ve been granted free will, and we’ve been granted this much more sophisticated way of functioning, which makes us little gods in a sense, but gods that don’t really know how to play the game properly. But it’s a necessary minefield that we have to walk through to get to the other side, which would be complete liberation. And animals, both in terms of their soul evolution and sophistication of physiology, are just not equipped to have that sort of spiritual illumination that humans are.

Laurie: People don’t believe that. Yeah, that’s not my experience. That’s an experience, or it’s a belief people have.

Rick: So you think animals can attain Self-realization in the sense that we would say humans do?

Laurie: If it weren’t for teachings and friendship from the animals, I would not be on this interview with you today, and everything I speak about would not be my reality; it would be some theory.

Rick: So when you say that animals have taught you, you don’t just mean as sort of innocent expressions of nature, that you align to their sweetness and their simplicity, and so on. You mean that they are actually beings of a higher order, or of higher wisdom, such as comparable to gurus, whose function is to enlighten you, or enlighten human beings.

Laurie: I would say in some cases there is a spontaneity of mutual experience, so that synchronistically, I and animals ended up together in a state of innocence and simplicity that gave birth to an awakening through universal grace. Other times I met with animals who had a message to deliver to me, just as I might have a message to deliver to another person, and not know it, simply by me being myself, someone else grows and learns. Particular animals came to me, and I came to them, so that there is mutual benefit. Other times, like in the case with Justin Joy, my cat, he was deliberately insistent that I learn certain things and give up some old concepts. He did consider that to be one of his jobs on this planet. Some animals I speak to, who go with people, tell me “my job in their life is to teach them this”. But some people feel their job is to be a teacher, and that’s just how they came in. Other people and animals are being themselves in whatever way that they are, and by that in itself becomes inspiration to others in particular ways.

Rick: All right. Well, I’m not sure we totally nailed the point.

Laurie: Let’s keep going. Can we keep going until we nail it?

Rick: Yeah, yeah. Let’s try to nail it. So maybe it will take a little bit of reiteration, maybe, on both our parts, to attempt to nail it.

Laurie: I’m ready.

Rick: So, at the risk of being redundant, I guess I just have a bias, which may or may not be a bias. It might be an actual understanding of the way things are, or it might be a personal bias that I’ve kind of been cultured in over the years.

Laurie: Likewise. Except mine’s the opposite of yours.

Rick: Yeah, which is that there is a sort of a progression of complexity and of evolution of souls, from maybe, we could say, start with rocks on the one end of the spectrum, and are there enlightened rocks? Are there rocks which are as conscious as a human being can be? You could ask questions like that. And then moving along to amoebas and more complex systems, and going to frogs and amphibians and mammals, and moving up to the spectrum to the human species. And I would say, and I’ve said this in other interviews, that it certainly wouldn’t stop there. We might have only traversed half the spectrum when we get to the most highly evolved humans, and it could go on there to celestial beings and gods and devas and angels and God knows what. But it’s not judgmental to say this, it’s just that there is this natural structure in creation, and it moves from the simple to the complex in terms of physical structure, and it moves from pretty much unaware, with very little capacity for awareness on the level of rocks, to extremely aware. And not only aware in terms of particular sensory capabilities, such as being able to smell like a bloodhound or hear like a bat, but in terms of the ability to embody and reflect pure awareness. That is the evolutionary spectrum, and as we move along through it, there’s greater and greater ability to do that. And it’s not arrogant necessarily to say that humans in general, although there’s notable exceptions perhaps, have a greater capacity for embodying pure awareness and realizing it in its pure state than do simpler forms of life, such as insects and what not, and even cats or even cows, although Ramana Maharshi said his cow was enlightened. So anyway, that’s a reiteration, but perhaps with some elaboration of the way I’ve come to understand it. Again, it’stotally just a theory that I’ve taken for granted, but may not be true.

Laurie: Yes, and I’m not here really to dispute that theory necessarily, because ultimately, who knows what is true? I mean, a lot of people seem to, but at the end of the day, I do not know a thing, and I promise you, I really don’t. But like you, I have a bias, and I have a preference, and I have a framework which I tend to believe. So, let’s put this into simple terms. What species are more complex, and what species can be aware of their awareness? That’s what we’re really looking at. We’re saying, can beings be enlightened? Well, enlightened is a state beyond making tabulations and organization about its existence. So of course, animals can be in that state, but can they, like humans, have an outside witness and awareness of that? And different people will argue that very differently. So my experience is yes, animals, many animals are awakened, many more so than humans, but awakened is an endless state.

Rick: Yeah, and you have to really define clearly what we mean by awakened, or else we might be talking about two different things.

Laurie: Yes, yes.

Rick: I mean, can animals be awakened as Ramana Maharshi was awakened, or is that a particular use of the word awakening, which you don’t really mean when you say animals are awakened?

Laurie: So what are we really asking? Can animals be aware of their awareness? What are we asking? What are we asking? What are you asking me?

Rick: I would say, and incidentally, if you hold the Vedic literature in any regard, there are stories like in the Yoga Vasistha of Kakabhashundi, who was an enlightened crow, who supposedly lived for eons of time and so on. But that’s an aside. But I think what we’re asking is, let’s say, how do we define awakening, or how do we define enlightenment? And to the best of my ability to explain it, we would define that as having gained conscious access to the ground state of all existence, having realized that one is not merely this sort of individual expression, which the vast majority of people take themselves to be, but that one actually is that universal field of consciousness, of energy and intelligence and creativity, which underlies and gives rise to the whole universe. Everything is plugged into that, everything is grounded in that, just as all light bulbs are plugged into the electric field, but not everything is equally aware of that connection, or of that ultimate reality of one’s existence. The vast majority are not. And it seems to me that it’s rather rare, or perhaps becoming less so these days, for any being, and generally we speak of human beings, to have that level of consciousness, that degree of awareness. It’s usually considered to have been something that only a handful in any generation has been privy to, but these days it seems to be becoming more common. So anyway, that would be my nutshell definition of what we mean by awakening or enlightenment. And can we really say that my dog has that level of awakening or is capable of it? There’s where I get skeptical. But my dog is a beautiful being and is ultimately functioning from that same level of intelligence, that same level of awareness, but is the dog conscious of it?

Laurie: Is the dog conscious of their existence?

Rick: Yeah, that’s the crux of the question.

Laurie: Yes, thank you. My experience is that how I will define awakening in this moment now, which might have nothing to do with yesterday or one minute from now, truly, is that there is awareness in the universe permeating through beings. And in that awareness there’s a completeness of all beings that are vibrating and each one is a microphone of each of the others with consciousness of each of the others floating through the being. So I’m one being speaking. My experience is that animals are fully aware of the universal consciousness that they are, of the personal consciousness that they are, or the animal consciousness that they are, in this moment now, that so many persons come seeking. There’s nothing to seek, it is right here. This complete connectedness among all beings is speaking through each of us. It’s permeating in every cell and every animal I meet is fully aware of that. And humans, many humans are seeking to remember this.

Rick: Okay, so you’re saying essentially that every animal is aware of that pure awareness that permeates everything and that we’re all like fish in the ocean of that swimming around. So animals are fish which realize that they are in this ocean, whereas human beings have somehow lost that awareness and are looking for the ocean.

Laurie: Yes, and animals seem to have a built-in humility to recognize their independent role within that as given rather than something the mind constructs. So an animal’s heart knows for this particular time, “My role is compassion,” or “My role is joy,” whereas a human can get very busy constructing a title or an identity to appear to be something that isn’t naturally what’s trying to birth forth through them.

Rick: So would you say this is true of all animals or just certain animals? Do you kind of draw the line at a certain point where that might no longer be true?

Laurie: This is a good question I ask myself many times because I wonder, “Am I just getting clients as animals because they were attracted to each other and were speaking a similar language or what’s the whole story?” My guess is that a much larger percentage of animals live in a more awake state than people. Rarely do I meet an animal that’s been hurt or wounded enough to retreat from that, but occasionally I do. Often I meet a human that’s been completely removed from that, for now, until something shifts within them.

Rick: Yeah, so let’s keep playing with this. We could go down the so-called evolutionary scale and see if there’s a point at which you would say, “Let’s cut it off here. I mean, are frogs aware of the pure?” Or are snails or paramecia, whatever the plural of that is, and is there a certain section of the animal kingdom spectrum which would fit the description you’ve offered? Or would you not draw the line anyplace?

Laurie: Well, bees taught me that I could turn pain into ecstasy. Don’t misunderstand, because I’m not into masochism or anything like that at all. But I did get taught by the bees because I would let the bees crawl in my hand and we’d hang out. They wouldn’t sting me. One day, I walked up the hill and I was just disconnected from myself, complaining to myself. I got a little sting and I asked, “What’s up? That hasn’t been the way we’ve been cooperating. We’ve been hanging out each morning”. The bees helped me understand that I was so deeply attuned to the pain that I felt, that the vibration turned into ecstasy. Please don’t misconstrue this. I’m not saying to put yourself in pain. This isn’t my thing. But I learned that I could be in a creative process through surrender with vibration, so that what I thought was bad wasn’t, and what I thought was pain wasn’t. Pain was really resistance. It changed my understanding of the universe. I have a lot of relationships with insects. I have all kinds of stories to tell you about insects. Lucy the beetle knocks on the door. She has taken her body and we hear a knock. She bangs her body on the door and we open it. She comes in and hangs out with us. We have photographs. She likes to spend time with us and she tends to come around when there’s about to be a big birth. I feel that the insects are very intelligent. They’ve taught me so much about manifestation in terms of vibration. They’ve helped me to come into much different states of vibration, of light vibration, from their awareness. They come over and they talk. I’m trying to remember the book that was written by someone who had a relationship with a fly. He was the trainer for a famous dog on TV. He shocked people. This was an old book, many decades back. Someone listening will know the title of it. It got really well-known. But no, I wouldn’t divide beings up among species. You can go to the bus stop and you might have an enlightened person and someone who’s a criminal about to kill people. Those are just two people. It’s the same with animals. You can have animals in very different experiences. What’s very humbling is what the animals have taught me. I was recently speaking to a family with a bunch of dogs and cats. And I noticed a judgment come up in my mind when they told me that this animal’s purpose is to be loved and have everyone else like him. This one is holding a space of Divine Mother. The hierarchy of reasoning emerged in my mind. I watched it and thought, “That one’s more evolved.” The animals told me, “No, we’re just doing our role. Can you see it in another way?” I thought, “Wow, can I see all humans in another way?” That each one and each animal is just doing their role. There is no judgment. You said no judgment. I heard that. The hierarchy you’re speaking of has to do with what intelligence can do with different vehicles and beings. It’s not worse or better. We don’t know because we don’t even know who we are, let alone who the animals are. We just know we use a small percentage of who we are. We don’t know that the animals are only using a small percentage because we barely know animals. We’re only starting to discover the intelligence and awareness of animals. So I would say let’s keep it as a question.

Rick: Okay, but I want to come back at you one more time.

Laurie: I love it. So I think we would all agree, or at least both agree, that animals are obviously very much attuned to nature, to nature’s intelligence. They’re just innocent expressions of that. I mean, we’re all sense organs of the infinite, but human beings are rather rebellious sense organs. Animals don’t go into movie theaters and shoot people up. Animals don’t kill for the fun of it. In fact, I’ve seen pictures of leopards or some big cats just nuzzling and playing with a little deer because they weren’t hungry, although our cat would take exception to that. She goes and kills mice that she doesn’t want to eat. But in any case, animals don’t have this perverse cruelty that the human race has displayed. And so it’s very easy to think of animals as enlightened. But I would say, and in a similar sense, it’s very easy to think of little babies as enlightened. We see a little baby and they’re just so pure and innocent and present, and what you see is what you get. Oh, there you go. This is Jessie.

Rick: Nice one. So, it’s very easy to interpret that innocence – Hi, Jessie – that innocence as being an enlightened state, because innocence and spontaneity and attunement with nature are actually characteristics of the enlightened state. But I would say that there is another dimension to the enlightened state, as traditionally defined, which is not shared by animals and babies, which is this complete self-referral quality, where the consciousness, which is the ultimate substance of the universe, has fully woken up to its own nature. When that happens, there is an animal-like or baby-like simplicity. Christ says, “Be ye as little children.” But it’s the other shore. And on this shore, you have animals displaying innocence, displaying spontaneity, not doing all the perverse things that people do. But I don’t think, and this is where we fundamentally differ, that their physical structure, their nervous system, or their soul maturity is going to support that complete self-referral awareness that is defined as enlightenment, the sort of the universe finally waking up to itself, at least in that particular expression. You know what I’m saying?

Laurie: I hear you, and I think you keep getting at a part of the human brain which is witnessing itself. Is that correct?

Rick: What I’m saying, I think, is that the human brain has the capacity to allow the intelligence which created it, and which created the whole universe, to finally know itself in fullness.

Laurie: Within a human.

Rick: Within a human, for that to become a living reality.

Laurie: Yeah, I don’t see any reason why that can’t be the case with an animal, or an insect, or a tree, and I’m assuming with many of them it already is. So we just disagree, and that’s totally fine because we really don’t know, nobody knows. But we each have a belief.

Rick: Yeah, I don’t think it’s something we could prove one way or the other.

Laurie: Yeah.

Rick: Right, well I think we’ve chewed on that enough and given people plenty to think about. I’m not sure we could – maybe if we revisited this a couple of years from now.

Laurie: That would be fascinating.

Rick: Yeah, we’d be able to see where we had gotten with this.

Laurie: Or visit the cats at the press and find out what they were like.

Rick: Yeah, not a bad idea.

Laurie: Who knows what will happen next?

Rick: Yeah, and I’ll grant you that the ability to send men to the moon or smash the atom, and all that, are not necessarily correlates of any kind of enlightened consciousness, but they do signify a much more complete expression.

Laurie: Or an expression that within the context of what humanity is trying to create. Once again, we don’t know the complexity and the fullness of the expression that the animal tribes, the animals who have lasted on the planet for a long time. The ants, they come up with ways that by working together in community, they can survive longer. That takes a lot of intelligence.

Rick: Yeah, I know. And actually, one more thing that comes to mind, which is, when you say “intelligence,” I’m just always thrilled. I love watching things on the Discovery Channel and things like that, where you see animals doing stuff, or you look at some documentary on what’s going on inside of a cell. And the reason I love it is that it’s just like God on display. There’s this profound intelligence that is so obviously functioning in all those things. Who could say that it’s dumb billiard balls running into each other? I mean, it’s just brimming with intelligence.

Laurie: I think that’s such an important point that we’re coming back around to, because we’re speaking of intelligence and consciousness and capacities of different species, but of course, where it all comes from, it comes from one energy that has orchestrated and designed and continues to evolve all of this.

Rick: Key point, to evolve. And so, what is the purpose of this evolution? What is this intelligence trying to accomplish, if we can think of it in anthropomorphic terms, that it’s actually trying to accomplish something? It seems that what it’s trying to do is to evolve more and more sophisticated expressions. We started out with, let’s say, the Big Bang, and at that point, very few elements even. There couldn’t be animals, there couldn’t be humans, because there weren’t the building blocks to make them. And so eventually we had stars, and then within stars, heavier elements were produced from, I guess it was hydrogen, and our bodies are actually made up of the by-products of stars. That’s where all the elements that enable life to exist have come from. And so there seems to be this direction or purpose that has been going on for billions and billions of years, and it seems to be going somewhere. And so, is a mosquito or a sand crab the final destination, or is it just a fairly rudimentary expression of this intelligence, and we can see even more sophisticated expressions coexisting on our planet now? And there may be other planets where expressions far beyond anything we can imagine here exist. So I’m getting a little long-winded here, but I’m kind of saying that if we think of not only biological evolution as the purpose of creation ultimately, but that the purpose of biological evolution is the ability for the intelligence which created the universe to express itself and to experience through these sense organs that we call animals and human beings, then the more sophisticated the instrument, the more interesting that expression can be, the more complete that expression can be, and that ultimately, maybe ultimately is too final a word, but this whole thing of enlightenment or spiritual awakening is very significant in that when it occurs for the first time in the billions of years of evolution, that consciousness comes to know itself. There’s a T.S. Eliot poem about coming back to where we started from and knowing the place for the first time.

Laurie: My experience in this moment now is that there is a beautiful, benevolent love light out of which we are speaking and all is being born, and there is a free will, there is an agreement that if something sophisticated wishes to replicate itself into more and more sophistication, for a certain time period that will be allowed. All is fleeting and each form will be born and die, but for a certain period, that will be allowed. If something simple wishes to replicate itself, whether that’s a life form or an idea or a society, that too will be given permission for a time period. All comes and goes to replicate itself. My experience is awakening and enlightenment would have little to do with how complex it is or how simple it is, and an awareness of love will birth itself forward in a full awakening in many different perspectives, through many different glasses, in many different ways throughout time.

Rick: So you are saying that awakening or enlightenment does not require a sophisticated expression, a sophisticated nervous system, as certain things do require it. I mean speech and conceptual thinking, the ability to do mathematics and so on, those things require a sophisticated nervous system, a sophisticated brain, but you are saying that enlightenment or awakening do not necessarily require one.

Laurie: Yes, and also we have made assumptions that physical size in the brain, and I didn’t hear you say this, I’m just bringing it up, would be an indication of the sophistication of a brain, and now it’s being proven that’s actually not true, that certain species are considered to have higher IQs, with smaller brains, and I think as time goes on and more and more scientists and anthropologists are stepping forward to study different species of animals, it will be shown that the IQ of animals is far greater than what we have thought.

Rick: So you are saying that elephants and chimps and dolphins and whales who have the larger brains don’t necessarily have higher IQs than animals with smaller brains?

Laurie: I would say I wouldn’t make that assumption. I would be as much open as a question as possible. So if we ask the question, how can awakening occur, any being asking that question most likely delves deeper into that possibility. Like you said, if we ask for something or we seek for something, there is a chance that grace will come and assist us with that, or if we avail ourselves, give ourselves to something. So if we give ourselves to the question, how can love take over all that is, the answer might come, and within that, the answer to the full enlightened state into which the mind categorizes enlightenment, which to me isn’t necessarily a requirement for anything, will assist. So that’s my reply.

Rick: Okay. I’m laughing because I could go on all day doing this, it’s just the way my mind works. Each thing that someone says brings up a new question, and the new question here would be, can we even ask that question without a sophisticated nervous system?

Laurie: We can ask, and what I invite people listening to ask is, what is their experience here now? What are you experiencing? And can you give your love so fully to that, so that it answers something, that it becomes something, or that you find out what happens? I’m inviting people to give themselves so fully to what is in their heart in this moment now, that wherever that wishes to take them occurs.

Rick: Good, and that’s a good point to end on. All this intellectual ping-pong is interesting, but I think it really comes down to what you just said.

Laurie: I’m so happy I got to talk to you, it was really fun.

Rick: Yeah, this is a lot of fun.

Laurie: And I love your very smart and lively mind, and that you would engage with me in that kind of a dialogue. I really enjoyed it, and I thank you so much. And to be able to share this with people out there is a great blessing, so thank you very much.

Rick: Thank you. Let me make just a couple of concluding remarks. You have been listening to or watching an interview with Dr. Laurie Moore, and you probably know that by now if you’ve gotten this far in the interview, but just to say it in conclusion. This interview is one of an ongoing series. I believe it’s number 131 in the series, and there’s a new one each week. So if you’d like to listen to more of them, go to www.BATGAP.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and there you’ll see them all archived. Or if you’re watching this on YouTube, you could go to the YouTube channel, and you’ll see them all archived. And on the YouTube channel, if you subscribe to the channel, you get notified every time a new one gets posted. Or if you’re at www.BATGAP.com, there’s a little tab at the top where you can click and sign up to be notified by email every time a new one is posted. There’s also a link on www.BATGAP.com to the podcast, in case you’d prefer to listen to this as an audio podcast rather than watch it as a video. So you’ll see that there. Also, there you’ll see a bio of Laurie and a link to her website, through which you can contact her if you wish. There’s also a little discussion group that crops up around each interview. I have a feeling that this one will be a lively one. Some of them have had as many as 500 posts, but they’re all so divisive. I would request, but not demand, but humbly request that you try to keep the discussion relevant to what is being discussed in each particular interview. And there’s a general comments tab that you can click if you just want to make general comments or post cute YouTube videos of your favorite musician or whatever. Also, there’s a “Donate” button, and I haven’t mentioned this in quite a while, but perhaps that’s the reason why donations have slowed up a little bit. So if you feel like making a donation to help support this, click on the button and it takes you to a PayPal thing. So thanks for listening or watching. Thank you again, Laurie.

Laurie: Thank you.

Rick: And next week I’ll be speaking to Francis Bennett, who spent a good part of his adult life in Trappist monasteries and had a very profound awakening not too long ago. And I’m really looking forward to that conversation as well. So thanks again, and we’ll see you next week.