Lisa Carrillo Interview

Summary:

Full transcript:

Lisa: And it is wild. It is not tame. We’re not a pristine French garden. We are a wild forest. –

Rick: A jungle. –

Lisa: Yes, exactly. When you turn over a log, that life proliferating in that dark, wet space, that’s what we are. And cultivating the ability to enjoy the wildness makes the whole thing much more fun.

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump, if you have never seen it before, is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people.

Rick: We’ve done about seven hundred and twenty-five of them now, and If you would like to watch previous ones, go to batgap.com, and you’ll see them organized in various ways. And you’ll also see a link to an audio podcast thing where you can subscribe on iTunes or Spotify or any of those things. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site and a page that explains alternatives to PayPal. My guest today is Lisa Carrillo, and I’m going to have her introduce herself, rather than me read a little canned bio. So Lisa, tell us about yourself for starters.

Lisa: Well, thank you so much, Rick. It’s really great to be here. And I actually had a chemical engineering degree and was working in engineering and product management. But spirituality was always, since I was a child, the most important thing to me. And there came a point when somebody told me, “Enlightenment is real.” And I had no idea what that meant, but to me, it meant something very intimate and alive with the Infinite. And I wanted it.

Rick: It rang a bell.

Lisa: Yes. So I started listening to many teachers, some of whom you’ve interviewed. And at a silent retreat in 2009, my thoughts of an individual person just completely dropped away. I saw the mechanism in my mind that had created the sense that I was choosing, that I was making things happen. And there were a lot of machinations that my mind had to go through to create that individual identity. So once that was gone, and it stayed gone for three weeks or so, I could just see so clearly this singleness that is erupting as everything. And then those thoughts came back, but they no longer seemed real. Instead, they just seemed like a curiosity to explore. And so in that process, I started being able to understand even better what we do to make ourselves suffer, what we do to make ourselves feel independent, separate, and I ended up having all these tools for helping them unravel. And I put them down in one book. And then as I saw people playing with them, I noticed that there’s a lot of really fundamental ideas that we also have to let go of if we want to be able to really fully experience this that we already are. And so my second book was driven by helping really tease out some of those fundamental things that, it turns out, aren’t even true. And now it’s just this ongoing joy, lightness of being, moving in the flow, and finding conditionings that still get to be let go of and dropped away.

Rick: Yeah, you not only have a chemical engineering degree you have like about five lifetimes worth of education. You’ve got an MBA and all these other degrees and various other things. I don’t know how you found the time and were able to sustain the student loan debt to do all that, but it was impressive.

Lisa: School has come easily, and some of my employers helped pay for it, and my some of my fields that I worked in made enough money where I could pay for it.

Rick: Good. So I seem to recall– I read all of your second book and most of your first book– and I seem to recall that even as a young child, like three years old, you had certain insights that perhaps were precursors of the fact that you ended up on a rather spiritual path. You want to tell us about those a little bit?

Lisa: Yeah, sure. Well, I remember the moment that an identity formed, that it kind of solidified. My parents had brought me next door to say goodbye to some friends who were moving away. I wanted to go play in the back room. They said no, and they said we didn’t have time. And, after however many minutes, I decided, “Oh, there was enough time,” and that they weren’t looking out for me. And so in that moment I started developing strategies to look out for myself. And it was like this decision, and out of that came this sense that I am something here. Then it was less than a year later, after we also had moved, that at night a big pressure would come on top of me, and I’d feel like I was about to suffocate. And I would close my eyes and hope that I would live through it. And then it’d go away, and I’d forget about it. Then it would happen again at night. And one time I decided, “I’ve got to open my eyes, and see what this thing is.” And when I opened my eyes, I saw it was invisible. And then I knew no adult could help me. So I started thinking, “Okay, I have to handle this by myself.” And what I realized is I wasn’t stronger than this thing, but I questioned, “Well, was I actually being hurt?” And I noticed every time I survived. So I thought, “Well, maybe I’ll always live through it.” So the next time I just let the pressure come and waited. I noticed “I’m still getting enough air, …  I’m still getting enough air,” and then it went away. And shortly after that, it stopped coming. And one other time I picked up a picture of Jesus and the children, and I looked at the picture, and I knew that it was describing this place I remembered being. I thought to myself, “It doesn’t quite look like that, but I know where they’re getting at,” and I brought it to my mom and said, “How can I get here?” And she said something about church or something. And I thought, “Oh, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Because I knew it was a real place. It wasn’t something you had to do all this other stuff to get there.

Rick: Huh. So, what was this pressure?

Lisa: I have no idea what it actually was.

Rick: What did it feel like?

Lisa: It felt like I was going to suffocate. It felt like something very heavy on top of me. I don’t remember feeling particularly hot, but it wasn’t cold either. It was more on the warm side, but it felt like something all over my whole body on top of me.

Rick: Could it have been the presence of being kind of pushing up into your awareness, or am I misinterpreting that?

Lisa: I have wondered. Could it be something like that? Or could it be it was my astral body finally deciding to take full residence in my body. I don’t know, but I can say that it felt threatening at first.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: Then once I stopped being afraid of it, it no longer felt threatening.

Rick: It could have been something like the astral body because they say that when kids are really young, they really aren’t in their body yet. They’re just out there. And then there’s this kind of coming down to earth, so to speak, and getting more and more embodied. And maybe that’s what the terrible twos are all about. We’re like really pissed that we’re getting so localized. Who knows? I don’t know.

Lisa: Who knows? Yeah, exactly. The thing I can say is it feels like a gift. Now that I have had that experience, there’s a certain amount of fear I could never have after that because I just know that what is right now is what you have. You can’t be afraid of what isn’t here.

Rick: Right. Yeah. And what was the second thing you said? There was the pressure, and then your parents–

Lisa: Yeah, the picture of Jesus.

Rick: Oh, the picture of Jesus. Are you suggesting that you were perhaps having some kind of past life memory? Or what are you suggesting there?

Lisa: Yeah, in between lives.

Rick: In between lives. So you’re not saying that you were one of those children that hung out with Jesus. You’re just saying it was reminiscent of some kind of higher realm that you could still vaguely remember.

Lisa: Yes. Yes, exactly

Rick: Okay. Yeah, you’ve probably heard about these children that remember past lives. And of course, the people Michael Newton used to hypnotize into remembering the period between lives, if you’ve ever read his books. And, of course, young children are much more likely to remember this stuff than older people because they’re more open.

Lisa: Right, exactly. I love Michael Newton’s books. They have definitely brought back memories for me.

Rick: Yeah. Okay.

Lisa: You know, one thing about that, even the soul is still not as real as what we are. So it feels to me like there’s these levels of awareness. Like the physical realm is the least real. It’s the most transient, the most like a play. But even the spirit realm, the soul realm, is still somewhat of a projection. And what we are, that’s the Absolute. So, while certainly I feel the strong draw to the soul realm, the what-we-are doesn’t require any of that. It’s here and what we are.

Rick: Do you know about the Pancha-Kosha model in Vedanta?

Lisa: No.

Rick: Pancha means five and kosha means sheath. And, they’re five–I’ll go through it very quickly. So the grossest one is called the Annamaya Kosha. Anna means food, and it’s the physical body, which is made of food. And then subtler is Pranayama Kosha, breath. Subtler than that, Manomaya Kosha, mind. Subtler than that, Vijnanamaya Kosha, intellect. And subtler than that, Anandamaya Kosha, Ananda means bliss. But you’ll note that in every one of those koshas, or sheaths, and you can think of Russian dolls perhaps, we have the word Maya, which means that it’s not ultimately real. And so beyond all that is Atman. But the subtle body, which is made up of the four subtler sheaths, discounting the grossest one (the physical body), the subtle body is that which continues after the gross body dies, and has the kinds of experiences you alluded to, some kind of subtle realm that you occupied in some previous state.

Lisa: Yes, that resonates.

Rick: Yeah. So, like you just said, “Well, all these subtle levels are cool, but ultimately, I know there’s something more fundamental than that.” And that’s what this model is meant to describe.

Lisa: Yes, exactly. And there’s nothing we have to do to be that. It’s what we’ve always been, and we can’t get out of it.

Rick: True. But there could be something we might want to do or could do to realize we are that. Because there’s a difference between realizing and being.

Lisa: Right, exactly, and that realization does nothing for the Absolute. It’s purely for our own enjoyment. It’s no achievement. It’s something that just helps us enjoy ourselves more. That’s it.

Rick: Sure, I mean an asteroid could hit the earth, and we’d all be blown to bits. It won’t affect the Absolute one way or the other. It couldn’t care. It doesn’t have feelings or anything. But it might make a difference to us. It was a bad day for the dinosaurs. It could be a bad day for us.

Lisa: Right.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: And ultimately for me the discovery is that, because that is what I really am, there is not a bad day, right? Because each thing that gets challenged is either taking away something I didn’t need or showing me something that I thought was important to me. And it turns out that it’s not (important).

Rick: Yeah, and when I hear statements like that–and I agree with it, and my life pretty much flows in the same way–but I think, “Would that perspective hold up if I were being tortured to death?” Take it to some horrible extreme, or would the intensity of that experience overshadow that realization?

Lisa: So, yes, this is a common question. And for me, I actually can say it with confidence, because I was in the hospital, and there were three days that it felt like my body was being ripped apart. I’d been given less than 50% chance of living, my body was not doing well, I could only take a certain amount of medication, and part of the treatment was extremely painful. And I just remember there was no awfulizing possible. It was just pure pain now, and then pure pain now. And this idea of suffering–there just wasn’t enough mental energy to suffer. It was just pure physical pain, but there really wasn’t suffering. It was just a very present moment. And what was amazing is there was strength that was sufficient for each moment. Like somehow the surviving, the strength just kept showing up. And I really feel like there’s an inner strength we don’t know until there’s a time when we actually get to experience how much it (the strength) really is.

Rick: Yeah. And if you think of some of the horrific things people have been through, concentration camps and the situation in Gaza and many other situations, you wonder, “there but for the grace of God go I,” but you can’t help but think, “how would I hold up under such a circumstance? Would I have the resources to somehow manage?” And I don’t know. If you interviewed everybody who survived Auschwitz, I wonder what kind of – and I’m sure people have done this – I wonder what kind of answers you would get.

Lisa: Right. We can try to project and try to figure out the different categories of suffering, But for me, I keep it mostly personal, and I go back to everything that looked negative in my life. And really, it’s been a very deliberate practice of checking every single one until I decided, that I wouldn’t trade any one (of the experiences). There has been more good that came out of each one. And part of it did require a shift in values. If my values (priorities) were being recognized or expressing my creativity or whatever, well then maybe I wouldn’t have come to that conclusion. But for me, the thing more important than anything is knowing what’s true. More important than anything. And every single one helped me get to the point where I knew more and more what’s true. And I wouldn’t trade that. I would not trade that.

Rick: Yeah. If we see the universe as ultimately benign–if we could zoom out far enough—and as this big evolution machine that helps everyone progress as best they can, then from that perspective you really can’t dismiss anything as just capricious or arbitrary. Some people use these kinds of examples to dismiss the possibility that there could be anything resembling God, or however we want to define God, because how could God allow such things? But, you know, if we think of God as all-pervading intelligence, which has this, I don’t want to say agenda, but which has this evolutionary force or imperative that guides the universe or governs the universe to evolve more and more and all the souls within it to do so, then as difficult as it may seem, from that perspective, you have to accept that everything that happens is in the interest of evolution.

Lisa: Right.

Rick: And if anybody wants to send in questions objecting to that, that’s fine with us, but… Because I wouldn’t blame you.

Lisa: It feels like we are it. I mean, we aren’t separate from that. And in fact, it is love driving us out to an experience of separation to bring back these experiences. I mean, it is love that motivates this. But as a concept, I don’t know that it’s at all helpful. But what seems to be much more helpful is really getting to know this that we are. And, I know you have intimate experiences too. As we feel this Infinite, we feel its benevolence, we feel its creativity, we feel its harmony. There’s just an opening and relaxation that happens, a letting go, a willingness to savor, just a sweetness that starts to pervade life. And my gosh, what more could you ask for?

Rick: You may know that TS Eliot line about coming back to the place from which we started and knowing it for the first time. If we could get all philosophical here for a second, although we already have, what would you say is the– this is kind of an unfair question– but what would you say is the purpose of the whole rigmarole? I mean, this whole kind of going out, as you said, and then bringing things back, and losing– the pure intelligence losing itself, as it were, apparently, supposedly, and then rediscovering itself. I mean, what do you think is the purpose of that game?

Lisa: When I sit in that point of the Absolute and the manifestation and just feel right in that vortex, that fulcrum, what I feel is something like a precursor to joy. It’s like that is the rush of joy expressing itself. It’s right before joy and then as joy erupts, it decides how do I express this joy, and it comes into manifestation.

Rick: Good answer. A teacher of mine who was very influential in my life used to say that the purpose of creation is the expansion of happiness, which is what you just said.

Lisa: Right. Yes.

Rick: Okay, so you said initially you were on some retreat or course, and there was a shift where you kind of lost your sense of personal identity, and then it kind of reassembled a few weeks later. I often ponder this question because a lot of people bring it up. And perhaps you could define what you mean by personal identity because I imagine during those three weeks when you were in that phase, if someone had said, “Hey, Lisa”, you would have turned your head. Or if you had stubbed your toe, there would have been pain that some guy in New Zealand wouldn’t have felt. It was felt there, in the Lisa body, which suggests some kind of personal identity, even though at the same time you felt like it had been lost. So what do you say to that?

Lisa: Well, the main thing that was so absent was any construct required to make it feel like there’s a local choice being made. It takes so much work. I could see how in every moment my mind was projecting oodles of possibilities of what the mind-body might do, and then when the choice came through, which was coming from somewhere much deeper, then all those other options would fall away, and the one that actually happened would crystallize, and then it would feel like I had chosen it because I had pre-thought it. Except, I had pre-thought every other thing too. I just was forgetting that. So all-there-is is just this one harmonious movement like a giant choreographer. That’s all there ever is. So there never can be a mistake. And this harmonious movement just erupts in and through each mind-body. It’s kind of like when you’re trying to make a decision, and you don’t know what to do. You can’t make yourself make a decision. Like I would, and I guess kind of can still do this, feel into, “Okay, what if I did that?” And then, “What if I did that (other option)?” And we just feel which one feels like there’s an avenue inside (us) for it. Because what’s going to happen is where the avenue is coming out of the Absolute. So that’s the biggest way where I would say there’s not a personal being here.

Rick: So it almost sounds like there is and there isn’t. So there’s your mind, which does mind things, like, you know, what about this? What about that? An individual mind having thoughts. But then when it comes right down to it, when push comes to shove, the action tends to be a spontaneous expression of some intuitive thing that is beyond all that mind chatter. Sounds like that’s what you’re saying.

Lisa: Yeah, exactly. I would say the mind is almost like another sense organ. It senses ideas and organizes the ideas, but it can’t really make anything happen. It’s kind of like the tongue–it tastes food. If it tastes something bad, it’ll spit it out just automatically. But, it can’t make another flavor come into its experience. The mind can’t create anything. It can just receive. So, it doesn’t feel like the mind is anything more than an organizer.

Rick: Yeah. The other day I re-watched a little video that I love, about three minutes long, by Carl Sagan called Pale Blue Dot. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched that, but it’s a picture of the Earth taken from somewhere out around the rings of Saturn. And you can see this little pale blue dot. And Carl Sagan–you know who he was, right? He was a famous astronomer–goes into this explanation of, “It’s on this little dot that all these wars have been fought over little tiny bits of the dot. And people have considered themselves to be so important because they are the ruler of that little tiny bit of the dot.” And it all seems so absurd from that perspective. So the reason I thought of that is, on the theme we were just discussing, that the mind can only comprehend so much, a human mind, right? It’s very limited in its comprehension. We have little snippets of this information, and that information, and that experience, and that learning, and so on. But what it sounds like you’re saying is that when the action actually arises, it’s arising from something that is not constrained by mental limitations. We could think of there being a kind of a field of all knowledge that underlies everything. And that can somehow motivate individual life. There’s a saying– I think I told you this on the phone the other day– Brahman is the charioteer, so that there’s that vastness that can actually guide the reins of our life, despite what our individual mind might conjure up.

Lisa: Right, which is always guiding the reins of our life, and for me, it feels like this perfect harmonious web that is spontaneously intelligent. So as different things shift, it doesn’t have to pre-plan. It just brings all the shifts into the next perfect moment. One thing that I can say that seems helpful in being able to feel this is, “What part of us can sense space or resonates with space?” We don’t have any sense organ that can feel space, but most of us can actually be in space, be in silence, and there’s something that resonates with it.

Rick: Yeah, I’d say that, and correct me if I didn’t quite understand what you just said, but I’d say that different people have different capacities for being in silence. Of course, everyone has silence at their core, but people have varying degrees of mental chatter going on. And in some, it’s such a cacophony that the silence is pretty much obliterated. And so, they’re just kind of bounced around by the cacophony and often make very unwise decisions. And what you’re getting at, I think, is, and many spiritual teachings advise, to somehow quieten the chatter so it doesn’t obscure the silence so much. And then the silence can, as we attune ourselves better to that silence, it can kind of be in the driver’s seat more. Yes?

Lisa: The meditation that I kind of have as my home ground meditation is feeling the aliveness erupting here. So just sense where is that core beingness, and then it doesn’t so much require having to silence the brain because the brain does what the brain does. But it’s directing attention towards something that is really interesting. It really has its own life. It is this very vibrant, necessary, essential aspect of what we are.

Rick: And when you do that, how would you describe it again? Feeling…

Lisa: Feeling where the aliveness is emerging into this being.

Rick: And so when you actually practice that, I presume it’s a practice that you might also teach, you just close your eyes and feel the…, let your mind settle down? Or, you explain it. What is it exactly that you do?

Lisa: So I close my eyes and just feel that there’s something that says “I am.” There’s a “what is?” And then there’s a knowing of being. And then, where is that point of eruption that the being is sprouting from? It’s that root of aliveness. Where is that, where being sprouts from?

Rick: Is that immediately obvious or does it sometimes take 10-15 minutes to settle down to the point where you cognize that level of sprouting?

Lisa: Well, for me, it’s pretty obvious. But I think…

Rick: You’ve been doing it for a long time.

Lisa: Right, I think it can take several minutes –all you notice is breath and heartbeat. But then you kind of feel that they’re generated out of something and you just keep going a little more core, a little deeper into the gut. And it’s just this sense– “Oh, yeah, right. There’s being.” Being is before emotions and thoughts and sensations, and before being is this root of aliveness.

Rick: – Yeah. And I imagine you find it to be a charming experience, enjoyable, right?

Lisa: Yeah. Definitely enjoyable.

Rick: And do you kind of feel like your attention follows the charm? In other words, there’s two ways of keeping a dog at the door, right? One would be to chain it up, and another is to put some nice food there, and the dog thinks, “Oh, I’ll stay there.” So there’s some kind of charm that leads your attention inward, would you say?

Lisa: Absolutely. I really am not a fan of any method of control for spiritual practice. I think the ego is control, right?

Rick: Yeah. I agree. That’s always been my orientation. So I presume you actually do– I mean, aside from the fact you have a normal job and stuff–you do some spiritual teaching, right? You work with some people and all. And you teach them this. And not that there’s a whole lot to teach. It’s kind of a natural thing, right? And the people pretty much take to it like ducks to water? Or do some people say, “I don’t get it. I can’t settle down. I’m having a problem.”

Lisa: Right. And then there’s no place to get to. So in that case, I just look at life. What is it right now? I feel like life is an endless workshop, always offering me exactly what I need as the doorway in. And whatever it is in my life where I’m trying to wrestle control is exactly the place where, if I let go, I’ll discover this natural harmony already there. So I just ask people, “What is it that you’re chasing in life?” Or, “What is it that you’re struggling with in life?” And “What’s the identity that holds you to doing that?” So, it could be, “I have to be responsible,” or “I can’t be bored,” or “My time is my own,” or “I need to be understood or respected.” Whatever it is, there’s a need that is driving that point of conflict in our lives. And if we just look and question, “Is that need true?” And that’s what the whole first book is, all these different ways of getting to the point of realizing that it’s not (true). In fact, I share in that first book this dream I had where I arrived to this place where you could go on a tour. It was paradise. And when you went out anywhere in this place, everything constantly shifted to give you the best experience. So, for example, I went to a restaurant, and they shut down the restaurant and moved me to a different restaurant.

Rick: In your dream or in real life?

Lisa: In my dream.

Rick: Okay, yeah.

Lisa: And it was because this other restaurant had food that I would like even better. And then I went into a store that was something like a drugstore, a dime store kind of thing. And then it changed into a floating carpet ride.

Rick: Oh, nice.

Lisa: Yeah. And so I thought, “Wow, this place is terrific.” And you could stay if you wanted. You could change residence and live there forever for free. I was all about that. And so I went back, and in the very center was the hotel, and I was getting my stuff and leaving, and most people were not. And in fact, in the hotel, they tried not to follow the rules of the place and tried to give you only what you asked for. So if you ordered something at a restaurant, they actually tried to make sure that’s what you ended up getting. And everybody else was treating Paradise like just a fun thing to taste, that they didn’t like the constant uncertainty of it. So they were going home, and I was just shocked. But that’s what our life is. We are in paradise, but if we are trying to find certainty by what we think our preferences are, then it’s not going to feel like paradise.

Rick: Yeah, I forget who said it, but some famous person said, “Certainty is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I think it was certainty.

Lisa: Right. And Osho said something like, “It’s a love affair with the unknown.” That is what we actually are.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: And that applies also to awakening. You know, people have an idea sometimes that awakening is going to be suddenly in this safe place of permanent peace. And wow, there is this amazing underlying peace, and I guess it’s safety, but it’s nothing like that static idea. There’s no permanent anything. It’s constant impermanence, and it’s this welcoming of the impermanence, the welcoming of the dynamism, the constant now, now, now that is always different, rather than a stabilized box of any sort.

Rick: Yeah, I forget what spiritual teacher said it, but somebody said that you’re in freefall forever, but don’t worry because there’s no bottom, you’re not going to go splat.

Lisa: Yes, yes. It’s really what has gotten us this far. Originally, I would have thought, “Well, it was all my efforting that got me this far, and now I’m turning over to something else, and how can I trust that?” But it turns out my efforting never did anything but put labels on everything. So if there’s anything good in my life right now, I owe it to this-that-we-are. And if I think I’ve got something pretty good, then, well, there we go–it’s going to continue being pretty good.

Rick: So let’s talk about efforting a little bit. So let’s say you’re a college student, and you need to study for exams, and that’s going to take some effort, and you need to apply yourself throughout the semester and so on to get good enough grades to stay in college, to go on to graduate school, or whatever you want to do. You can’t just spend your time going out to parties and bars. Or you can, but you’re going to flunk out. So maybe you could contrast for us the notion of just following your whims wherever they may lead, or disciplining yourself a little bit, and making choices, even though you feel like going to the party. “Well, I have an exam tomorrow. I don’t want to be hung over. I better study” –making actual decisions that perhaps make your life turn out a little bit more successfully?

Lisa: I love this question. So I went back to school in 2015 and I was very curious, “How is this going to work?” So I realized right away I couldn’t even be certain I was going to graduate. There’s just not a knowing of that. But there also is not an attachment to my life looking any particular way. So as it arose that, “Oh, it turns out this test is going to require more intense time than I thought,” there was also the motivation that arrived. Now, I don’t own that motivation. I don’t own any interest. I don’t own any desire to participate or improve or give. None of that is local. But I just checked, “Okay, I did poorly on a test,” and, lo and behold, the motivation to cut back on my social life and spend more time studying just showed up. So, I saw, “Okay, there’s the motivation and there’s the interest. Seems like we’re going forward.” And so I just kept doing that until I graduated. And the same thing with taxes. I thought, “Okay, what if I truly, truly don’t even pretend I’m going to effort? Let’s just see what happens with my taxes.” And lo and behold, there was this thought, “Okay, taxes are going to be happening.” And after a few weeks there was, “And here’s some time,” and “Here’s the things to do.” And there was no resistance. That’s the thing that is really gone. Once there’s no resistance, there’s no preference that things have to look a certain way. Then when something comes up that needs to be done, there’s just willingness. And taxes always get done well in advance.

Rick: Two quotes come to mind. One is, “humility is the quality of not insisting that things happen any particular way.” That’s one quote. And another is, “Turn your desires into preferences.” And I hope people get the drift of those. So I mean, desires can sometimes be very adamant and rigid and insistent. “I got to have this.” But it’s more like you can think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, “If it is possible, let this cup pass for me.” And then after all, “Let thy will be done.” And there’s a difference between– And desire implies individual insistence and concretization, if that’s the right word to say, where you think, “It’s got to be this way, my way or the highway.” Whereas preference is, “OK, this would be nice, but let’s see what nature has in store for me.” And you want to comment on that?

Lisa: Absolutely. I mean, my whole second book, or a lot of my second book, is devoted to that. So there’s so many subtle things we think are absolutely true. “I need to be treated with respect by my boss.” No, it turns out. And so, it turned out I just started teasing with him (my boss) and it became this really playful relationship. And lo and behold, because he wasn’t respectful, it turned into this new avenue. Or “Somebody needs to show up for me like they said they would. They need to keep their commitments.” No, they don’t. I learn a whole new way of resilience within myself or whatever it turns out to be. “I need to stay loyal to my friends.” No. It turns out sometimes it’s time to move on, time to say no.” And then when I watch later, I see things, benefits they have, because they’re not spending time with me. I mean, there’s, “I can’t be angry with my husband.” No, it turns out. There’s a belief “I can’t be angry.”

Rick: I see

Lisa: But it turned out that I was angry with my husband, and then I went and apologized, and he was so loving, so forgiving that it was this reminder of how much I’m loved. And if I hadn’t done that little tantrum, I wouldn’t have seen that his love is that big. so being the receiver– of whatever it is– “Now it’s my time to be forgiven,” or “Now it’s my time to be helped,” or “Now it’s my time to be weak.” Whatever it is, all these things we think are the bad things to be–the receiver of somebody else’s anger and frustration–are always just opportunities to see this amazing dance play out in a new way that brings us love in a new avenue. So there’s no absolute rule. There’s no reason to hold any preference. We can just stay in discovery.

Rick: Well, I would agree with the word “absolute,” but I would question the word “preference.” I prefer if it’s zero degrees out to have a warm coat on. That example just came to mind. Or I prefer if I am really, really hungry to have some food available. But if I don’t have a warm coat or I don’t have the food or whatever, then my insistence that I have some isn’t going to help me. I think it’s natural to have desires and preferences and motivations and initiatives and so on. There’s nothing wrong with that. That kind of provides impetus to our life, don’t you think? It’s just about being adamant about those things that gets us into trouble.

Lisa: Right, right. Thank you for clarifying that. I meant there’s no need to hold on to those preferences. If life is showing up in a different way, then we might as well explore that. But yes, it’s funny, so many people will say something along the lines of, “Well, you know, why is this terrible thing happening?” And they’re somebody who’s helping that (terrible thing). And well, obviously, the universe is making that thing improve, because it has made you (the speaker) interested and motivated to do something about it. And so, somehow we’ll try to put ourselves outside–“Well, I’m fixing it because the universe did it.” But we are the universe fixing it. We are the hands, we are the heart. So, there’s no position outside to evaluate from.

Rick: Yeah, I think that what this gets down to, the degree to which one is attuned to cosmic intelligence– or whatever you want to call it, so choose your synonym, just the subtle all-pervading intelligence that governs the universe– or not. And if one is not, if one is sort of isolated in very individual boundaries, then there is a tendency to sort of hammer against the way things roll and try to insist that they go this way or that when the universe might have other ideas. But if you’re more, if your orientation is perhaps more with the unboundedness than with the individuality, although you have both, then the individuality is more of a willing participant in the plans of the universality.

Lisa: Yes, yes. And, this is always a difficult conversation because even that is not absolute. So,

Rick: and the words are inadequate, but yeah.

Lisa: Right. If our experience right now is that we have to be adamant, that we just can’t be any other way, then that is what the universe wants to experience through us. And adamance, go at it.

Rick: And there may be situations which call for that.

Lisa: Right. And adamance, it will eventually run its course and generally, fluidity starts to arise. But, there’s no thing that isn’t right for a reason at some point.

Rick: Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen videos of somebody trying to kidnap a child who’s walking home from school, and somebody intervenes and said, “No, you are not going to do that.” They are adamant and they make it, they make the situation stop and bravo for them. It’s not a situation that calls for easy peasy, “whatever happens.”

Lisa: Exactly, this-that-we-are is not passive.

Rick: Right.

Lisa: It’s so dynamic, we are so alive. It is all that, in fact, I would say it’s more dynamic than what our egoic idea is because there’s no more second guessing and there’s no more, “Well, what if they don’t like it?” or “what if it doesn’t succeed?” None of that. There’s just a willingness to just move forward and move forward and move forward.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a Gita verse which keeps coming to mind so I might as well just say it and let you comment on it. We can discuss it. And that is that it says, “You have control over action alone, never over its fruits.” And the way I relate to that is if something has already happened or if it’s happening now, that’s the fruits of some previous action, and I have no control over it. I can’t say “Well, this shouldn’t have happened.” “My father shouldn’t have done that” or whatever. It’s cut in stone already. You can’t change that, but right now, I feel like I have some volition, some wiggle room, and that will have an impact on tomorrow’s fruits and the next year’s fruits and so on. Do you concur with that or would you see it differently?

Lisa: I would say–I’m just slightly tuning the language, that’s it–that what I am is a constant participation. Right. So, of course I’m going to participate. This is what I am. This is, everything else is, is what I am. And of course, there’s going to be constant participation. There’s no need to be passive and resigned or accepting in a way that’s not engaged. It’s just natural engagement.

Rick: Yeah. Do you have any children?

Lisa: No, I don’t actually.

Rick: All right. So let’s say you had a little child. It might have been 20 years ago, but you had a child. And the kid was like Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. You ever read those? And Calvin’s favorite breakfast cereal was chocolate-frosted sugar bombs, and he used to like to dump a lot of sugar on top of it in addition to the sugar that was already in it. And so then naturally Calvin would have a huge sugar rush, and then crash later on. So, if you’re a mother, and your kid wanted chocolate-frosted sugar bombs every morning for breakfast and donuts for dinner, I imagine you would put your foot down, you would be decisive, you would be disciplining to some extent, kindly, wouldn’t you say?

Lisa: Right. I would want to help the child develop, cultivate a taste for what actually made them feel good.

Rick: Right.

Lisa: That’s something, any time that we’re suffering, we’ve abandoned what makes us feel good. We’ve attached to an idea, and that idea is very painful. And it feels like letting go of that idea is going to be more painful. “What if I just let these people not understand me?” “What if I just let these people think I’m a bad person” or whatever it is, “not show up for me?” “What if I just let that happen?” “That’s going to be even worse.” “I’m going to sit here and think about how they mistreated me,” or “I’m going to sit here and think about all the mistakes I made so I won’t make them in the future.” I’ve definitely done that one. All of those things are attached to a particular idea that actually is making it worse. We layer suffering upon suffering upon suffering, and there’s a lightness when we realize we’re already whole, we’re already complete. We don’t have to be anything else, everything we need is actually within this being within us. It’s so light. That to me is a hallmark– when you’re light, now the truth is starting to filter through more and more.

Rick: Yeah, I want to respond to that, but first I’m chuckling at another Calvin and Hobbes. There was a scene where Calvin is pounding nails into the coffee table, and his mother comes in and says, “Calvin! What are you doing?” and Calvin looks up at her and says, “Is this a trick question?” It’s obvious what he’s doing.

Lisa: Yes, that’s exactly it! All day long, it’s just that simple. All anybody’s ever doing is pounding nails into the coffee table. That’s all they’re ever doing, and we’re making it mean, “They like me,” “They don’t like me.” “I’m going to get money,” “I’m not going to get money.” “My house is going to fall apart.” “My house isn’t going to fall apart.”

Rick: Yeah. All right. What would you say– let’s say you went to Los Angeles and decided to counsel the people whose homes have burned down, who are living in shelters if they’re lucky enough to find one. What would you say to such people that would actually connect to them if possible? And it wouldn’t seem like a lot of spiritual bypassing.

Lisa: Right, right. Acknowledging this sense of loss, obviously. They’re feeling this sense of loss. And then most of them, once you actually hear enough of the loss, on their own– people can only talk about loss so much– on their own, they’ll mention, “but at least I’m alive.” “At least I’ve still got my dog” or “at least…” it’s like this natural thing we’ve got.

Rick: Yeah,

Lisa: and so, nurturing that: “Wow, that’s true. That’s really true.” “I kind of have been wanting to move out of LA for a while. I think now it’s time,” you know.

Rick: Oh, they have (been wanting to move)– yeah, I see.

Lisa: Right– that will often happen…

Rick: They might be saying that, yeah.

Lisa: …In a horrific situation– and then you find out that they actually were planning to do what they’re about to have to do anyways.

Rick: Yeah, of course they weren’t all planning to move out. But yeah. I use examples like that because you know these spiritual principles that we discuss sound fine, they sound lovely. But they kind of have to meet the nitty-gritty of life and be interpretable in the most dire of circumstances if they are really solid, if they’re really valid, I think. And even though you and I aren’t experiencing the most dire of circumstances, it’s worth kind of conjecturing as to how they might be useful or apply in such circumstances. At least that’s what I go through in my thought experiments.

Lisa: Yeah, in the middle of the catastrophe, usually there’s very little of the extra storytelling, there’s a lot of just, “Okay, well, what do we have to do next? What do we have to do next? How are we going to get our dinner tonight?” That kind of thing. And it’s a little bit later when you can look back, and then is the choice point. Am I going to re-traumatize myself by adding on all this, “Oh, I was so bad. I should have done this,” or, “Now this is going to happen, and I’m never going to get that.” We awfulize. Just gently noticing, helping people notice, “Wow, I’m actually making myself feel worse. I’m rehearsing all the mistakes I made that led to this, or all the future things that won’t happen now,” but really that’s not the truth. We don’t know what’s the future. For me it just keeps turning out that good things always come. And all those things I thought were mistakes were essential. So the interpretation just adds so much pain and just helping people step back from the interpretation, notice the good that is being provided, and really being focused on, “Okay, how– just like when I was being crushed as a child– am I okay right now? What’s the next thing I’ve got to do? Is there support around me to help that happen?”

Rick: Yeah. Okay. If anybody who is listening to this wants to send in questions that are good cases in point about the things we’re talking about, feel free to do so. I was just thinking about a webinar that I participated in yesterday, and there was a woman who had worked a lot for the Kamala Harris campaign, and she said she’s been in a state of deep depression ever since the election, and I kind of chimed in with the story of the Chinese farmer, you know that one?

Lisa: Yes.

Rick: Yeah, who keeps just saying, “Well, we’ll see.” Every time something happens that either seems catastrophic or wonderful, he just says, “We’ll see.” I think things go in cycles, and nature goes in cycles naturally. The whole universe goes in cycles, and it’s inevitable. And I think night or winter, let’s say, isn’t a bad thing. If we didn’t have winters, we wouldn’t have summers. I mean, at least in temperate climates, you need those cycles of rest and activity. So I don’t know. That’s just how I come to terms with things like that. It’s not the end of my world if my particular political candidate doesn’t win or something. Because I feel like, all right, then I guess we’ve got to go through this for a while, and we’ll learn something. And it might appear that damage is done, but somehow that’s how humanity progresses through fits and starts, you know? Wars and peace.

Lisa: We really don’t know if something’s going to turn out for good or for not good. Actually, if we could just look at how everything has happened up till now, it’s going to turn out for good. But that’s okay. We don’t have to know even that. It’s very easy to get obsessed with these projections. But, humans are so good. When I walk down the street, if I fall, there’s four people who will help me up. And the amount of people who are wanting to stand for someone else, or want to help out the people who are hurting or chronically ill or diseased or whatever it is, whatever group you’d like to see helped, the number of people stepping forward to help them. And this spiritual awakening that’s happening! I just feel so much goodness bursting through humanity because I’m focusing on the people I meet every day. And I work in a hospital. I meet all kinds of people. I mean, really, from every kind of spectrum you want to go on, I meet all kinds of people. It’s a trauma hospital where people get flown in. And there’s a goodness that is just erupting in all of humans. And when I’m focusing on this person that I’m interacting with, and this person, and this person, I just feel like we are in such a positive time.

Rick: Yeah, you must be a wonderful person to encounter in a hospital when you’re in dire straits. I mean, you’re just so cheerful and uplifting. You must have a very nice effect on people, aside from what your job requires you to do for them.

Lisa: Yeah. It really is nice to be a calm presence. And, some people, some people that’s all they can receive is just the calm presence. And some people are open to seeing opportunities for where they can feel more hopeful or where they can have a new perspective on themselves. As a trauma hospital—there was this guy, he was telling me he had had this weird tractor situation where he ended up underneath the tractor, and there wasn’t any good reason for that to have happened. And then he told me, well, actually, blah, blah, blah, he went through five other weird accidents that happened to him. And you know, at first, he was getting down about it, like, “what is happening? Somebody’s out for him.” And then I just said to him, “wow, it’s a miracle, you’re alive. Somebody really, really wants you to be alive.”

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: So there’s so many different ways you can just stop and see, “Am I using my thoughts to make this worse or to make it better?”

Rick: Yeah. I would say, “Somebody really wants you to stop getting run over by tractors.” Like, “Wise up, what are you doing?”

Lisa: Yeah. Some situations, like from the book by Michael Newton.

Rick: Michael Newton, yeah.

Lisa: Yes, there are souls…

Rick: Journey of Souls and Life Between Lives, I think that’s what the name of his books were.

Lisa:  And Destiny of Souls.

Rick: Destiny of Souls, right.

Lisa: Yeah, both of them, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls.

Rick: That’s right.

Lisa: …There are some souls who specifically choose very challenging lifetimes because they want to get something positive out of them. They want to learn a wisdom about suffering. I can remember a lifetime when I had four kids. It was kind of like a tenement period of time, and I could not provide well enough for them, and they all died from disease and starvation, low nutrition. And I came into this life with this guilt that I was going to end up causing somebody to die. I was a man in that life. And when I finally went to the place of that guilt and, realizing I still felt guilty about these four kids, I just paused and went and asked their souls, “I messed up. I wasn’t there for you. Are you okay?” And every single one of them said to me, “We didn’t want a long life in that life. It was perfect.” And there’s just this lightness that came over me, an, “Oh, wow, I didn’t mess up at all.” And that’s really when you hit truth. That’s what happens. It’s like, “Oh, it’s even better than I thought it could be.” I was hoping they’d say something like “I forgive you, you did a good job.” No, they said “No, that’s exactly what we wanted.” That’s the lightness when you hit truth. That’s the lightness that’s available in any situation.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a story like that at the beginning of the Mahabharata where these celestial beings are cursed to live a human life. And they’re saying, “Oh no, don’t…” And then whoever is cursing them says, “Okay, it’ll be a real short one. But you, you’re the main guy who made the mistake. You have to live a full life.” So the rest of them died right after they were born, and the other guy had to live a long time. But, from the human perspective, it might seem like a tragedy. And I’m not being glib here. I’m not suggesting that it’s okay for babies to be blown up with bombs or whatever, all the horrible things that happen. Who knows? I mean, anything we can do to prevent such things from happening, we should do. But nobody dies, ultimately. And if we live a short life, is it a mistake? Or is it our– do we have a contract, so to speak, that designates that this will be a short life? And then we fulfilled our contract.

Lisa: Right, right. It’s just gift after gift after gift. And so the mind lots of times needs these concepts to relax. So the concept that, “Wow, I’m a healer soul over many, many lifetimes, and I wanted to have this horrible body for this lifetime to help me develop my capacities,” or “I wanted to have this mental illness to help me develop my capacities.” It helps our mind relax. And then fundamentally, more and more, the mind just knows, “Okay, well, maybe there’s good here that I don’t know.” And so then the mind starts to just automatically relax, because fundamentally, we’re more in touch with this goodness that is so deep, that is what we are. So you know, we play with the mind to help it get these other perspectives that aren’t also true. There’s no true theology or dogma. They’re just means to help the mind relax so that eventually we can get more and more grounded in this infinite benevolence, this pure love that we are, this pure joy that we are.

Rick: Do you have many experiences like that where you remember past lives?

Lisa: Yes. I remember one that was almost pure suffering. I was some kind of a slave in this place where they were using humans in a place where it wasn’t good for humans. Like, it was way too hot because they were doing something with very hot fire, but they needed, you know, a human body. So, they just worked them until they died. Nobody lived past 30. We were just worked until we died. But that developed this sense of strength in me. It developed a sense that, “Okay, I’m unharmable. Look what I survived.” You know, that lifetime was so invaluable. Yeah, I had another one where I was coming out west, somewhere out in the Redwoods or northern California or Oregon, Washington kind of area, and I had my young bride. I was bringing her. I was so excited. You know, we had all this potential. I had worked hard to have some money to establish us. We were going, and she died.

Rick: Hmm,

Lisa: None of my dreams happened, and I felt so lonely, and I became a very contributing person in my community. But I just thought of her my whole life, and I had this deep melancholy while I was participating in that life. Then when I came back to that because I was tuning into that life and resolving it, I checked to see, “Was I ever really alone?” I felt alone, but was I alone? And when I asked that part of me that question, “No,” was the answer. I had always held her memory as an inspiration for the rest of my life. I had all these people I interacted with; it was actually a very rich life even those few years with her. She was such a vibrant person! Those few years were a gift. I mean, they really propelled me through the rest of my life. So, no, I had never been alone.

Rick: How do you remember such lives in such detail? Do they just come to you spontaneously, in visions, in meditation, in dreams, or what?

Lisa: So I took a course with the IAC, International Academy of Consciousness, to learn how to do astral travel. And the vibrational state is where I seem to have most access. So I’ll have a feeling in this life, and it just doesn’t seem quite in proportion to this situation. I can just feel there’s another element present. So then I’ll step back and go into the vibrational state–which is just that same state we’re in when we’re first waking up. Sometimes we’ll even feel like we’re buzzing–And so I’ll just go into that, and then check and see, “Okay, let’s feel where does this feeling come from.” And as I sit there listening for where this feeling has come from, then the rest of the life comes forward. And then I work with that.

Rick: Quite vividly, it seems.

Lisa: Yes. Oh, yes.

Rick: Picture the whole thing.

Lisa: Right. Especially the emotions. The emotions are the most vivid part of it.

Rick: Yeah. Some people say not to try to remember past lives because the past is always a lesser developed state, but it sounds to me that you remembering them has helped you to resolve things and learn things from them.

Lisa: Right, right. And it makes weight in this life lighter, because somehow some weight from back then is still being carried now.

Rick: Yeah, and you kind of realize, “Oh,” like you just said, “Okay, that’s where this is coming from. So I can just sort of understand it, and not worry about it too much.”

Lisa: Right, right. And resolve it and realize, “Yeah, I don’t need to be guilty.” Or feel alone.

Rick: Interesting. For those people who don’t believe in past lives, what can we do? For me, it’s a piece of the puzzle without which the whole puzzle would fall apart. And a lot of things wouldn’t make sense. So I kind of take it for granted. But, if people don’t believe in it, no problem, you don’t need to. Right?

Lisa: You don’t have to believe in past lives. Some people believe that there is something from our ancestors that we carry. Okay, well, maybe I’m resolving something from that. Or some people could say, well, it’s just something in your unconscious. Okay, great. I’m tapping into something in my unconscious that’s getting resolved. It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from. It’s always only a model. Because none of this is real. Even the soul life isn’t really real.

Rick: And some people say that our sense of time being linear is erroneous, and in fact, it’s taking place simultaneously. Perhaps a thousand lifetimes that we’re all living, we’re living them all simultaneously and they just seem sequential.

Lisa: Right, I would say the model I would use is that it depends upon what dimension you’re at. In this dimension, things happen sequentially. Then you can go to the next dimension and you can jump into the sequence wherever you want. But you can go to the next dimension and everything’s happening simultaneously, and everything possible is happening simultaneously.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: And you keep going. So, it just depends upon how much limitation you’re holding as far as how much you can perceive.

Rick: Yeah. And all those things you just said might be simultaneously true. It’s just that they’re filtered differently in different dimensions.

Lisa: Right.

Rick: Just the way like a tree is a tree, but a bird sees it one way, and a frog sees it another way, and a person sees it another way, and so on.

Lisa: Right.

Rick: Okay, so I listened to your books mostly while driving or walking in the woods, and I didn’t take notes although I have in front of me printouts of the tables of contents, but do you feel like there are some key elements in your two books, or even that you didn’t put in your books, that would be fun for us to discuss and helpful for people?

Lisa: Yeah, I think as we’re learning to let go, there’s – I can’t remember what I called it in my book–it’s this sense of basic goodness that enables the letting go to happen. Because I kind of see it as two things– here’s a side note: we’ve got the deepening that knows more and more what we are and then we’ve got the unraveling that’s dropping conditioning. It seems like both are important– But the unraveling will be easier done if we tap into the basic goodness. And some people come into this life with so little experience of love that there’s so much constriction that that letting go is a very, very slow process. So how can we build up the sense of goodness so that the constriction can start to relax? And gratitude is one way, just checking to see what good thing has happened, what good thing has happened. Setting positive intention, you know, just because what we fill our minds with filters in everywhere, right? So if we’re setting a positive intention for the day, and then we see that some of it happens, it’s like, “Oh wow, yes, there is some goodness here.” So there’s a lot of practices we can do to build that sense of, “Oh, there is a goodness here I can relax into.” And I’m sure I’m not the first person who has said that. You may know some other ways that people can tap into this, “Oh yeah, right, there is a holding.” And “With every mistake I’ve made, but yet, look, my life didn’t go down the drain.”

Rick: Yeah or what if it did seem to go down the drain–what if one ends up a drug addict or in prison or something like that like. Again I’m using the dire example technique where you test an assumption or a teaching against the darkest example you can think of and see if it holds up. Like there are a couple of kids in this town who murdered their Spanish teacher because she was giving them a failing grade, and now they’re in prison for 30 to 35 years. And I don’t know if you could talk to those kids. I don’t know if it’s fair to ask you this, but if you could talk to those kids, what would you say to them?

Lisa: I would love to talk to those kids because I 100% know that they wouldn’t say their life is 100% misery. They wouldn’t.

Rick: Yeah, they’ll probably say, “Well, I really screwed up, but I learned something. And, I’m going to try to…” In fact, I watched the trial of one of the kids, or parts of it, and he was saying, “I hope I can make something good out of this. I hope I can be an example to other kids to not do such a thing. And perhaps I can learn something when I’m in prison and better myself in some way.” That kind of thing.

Lisa: Right. They could be going through school, they could be meeting other prisoners that they end up being a light for. I mean, you just cannot try to be in somebody else’s shoes. You have to ask them, “So has any good shown up?” And, nine times out of ten, people are already seeing the good that has showed up. And if they aren’t yet, there’s no need yet for them to see it. You can allow their misery, that’s okay, but probably it’s not going to stay in misery because it just turns out good shows up. You have to ask them, you can’t… But I am 100% sure that if I asked every prisoner, nine times out of ten, they would say that there has been some good that has shown up in prison.

Rick: Yeah, maybe nine times out of ten, maybe eight, I don’t know. Because some people are pretty hardened and pretty psychotic and they… it might not be easy for them to see it. But again, zooming out, I do think that ultimately everything is in the interest of evolution, whether you like it or not. You are on the evolution train, and you can kick and scream, but you can’t jump off the train.

Lisa: Right. And again, that concept is just a way of relaxing the mind. The more enduring support is just tuning into what we are. It turns out we are timeless. We are unharmable. Everything that seemed to harm us was just harming our interpretations, our reputation, our image of ourselves. Nothing ever hurt our real self. In fact, it only made our real self shine out more clearly. So, as we tap into this that is real, we discover that. And the willingness to tap into this that is real, it’s a gradual willingness, you know? The more that we think we have to have our own time or be respected or whatever it is, the less the willingness will be there. But you know, there’s probably– anybody who’s listening to this has already a willingness and probably way more than that—a knowing of this that we are. And it is wild. It is not tame. We’re not a pristine French garden. When you turn over a log, that life proliferating in that dark, wet space, that’s what we are. And cultivating the ability to enjoy the wildness, makes the whole thing much more fun.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: There’s something I have in my first book, and I kind of alluded to it earlier, that we can have these boxes, a box that looks like confusion or a box that looks like I’m getting what I want. But either one of them, the happiness of getting what I thought I wanted and the unhappiness of getting something different, they’re still just a box. When we’re tuned into what we are, it’s a totally different experience. It’s not that box of getting what I want. It’s a discovery and a discovery and a discovery. So anytime we’re not getting what we want, it’s just an invitation into the mystery, to live from mystery, live in discovery. That’s where this life force is more obvious.

Rick: Yeah, you know the Rolling Stones song, right? You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.

Lisa: Exactly, exactly.

Rick: Yeah. Okay, what are some other little tidbits from your book? You have all kinds of chapters on relationships and the length of relationships and friendships and reliability and psychological health and all kinds of different things. So what are some other little things that you think might be nice for people to hear about?

Lisa: There’s no should.

Rick: There’s no should, right?

Lisa: Right.

Rick: I thought you said no shit. No should.

Lisa: No should. So “my relationship should last; it’s better if it lasts longer.” Nope, that’s not a should. “My financial state will make me happier if I have more money.” Nope, that’s not a should. There is no should. There’s nothing we have to do. “My mental health means I’m more evolved.” Nope, that’s not a should. Really, there is no should. So everything that we think we have to live up to, we don’t. We’re already complete and we’re discovering it. So here’s an image that I got in a sort of vision. And you know, no image is 100% true, but it gives–in fact, I’ll tell two, neither of them are 100% true–but they give a sense of this mystery. So, one of them, there’s the Infinite, and from its glowing ball, it picks out a recipe of 30 different things, puts the conglomerate together, makes a soul, and throws it up and says, “I wonder what this recipe will do.”

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: You can’t fail. All you’re doing is showing, “Oh, well, this is what that recipe does.” That’s it. You can’t fail but be your own recipe. Just like a cat can’t be a bad cat. A cat is a cat. Whatever it’s doing, it’s being a cat. And then the other vision I had was on a Ferris wheel. When you’re on earth, you’re in the bottom of the Ferris wheel, and other realms you’re in the top of the Ferris wheel. Well the people on the top of the Ferris wheel always want to have more than a Ferris wheel experience. They’d like it to feel a little bit more like a roller coaster. So, the job of the people on the bottom is to make a big ruckus so that the Ferris wheel will rock a little bit, and then when you’re on the top, you get to feel like a roller coaster. So, it turned out that the most mature souls, when they were on Earth, were making the biggest ruckus because the people on the top were getting the best ride. So, we don’t know who is the mature soul. We don’t wonder whether we’re living our purpose. We’re always living our purpose. You can’t do it wrong.

Rick: So, to translate that vision into a concrete example, Adolf Hitler made a big ruckus. And in fact, Byron Katie said in her book, Losing the Moon, that Hitler brought more people to God or might’ve brought more people to God than Jesus, and she ended up taking that book out of publication because it was causing so much of a ruckus.

Lisa: We really don’t know, that’s what I’m saying.

Rick: We don’t know for sure.

Lisa: Neither of these things are true, like I said, they’re just models, but they’re opening us up to letting go of our concepts and being in the mystery. That’s the purpose here, is to be in the mystery and not be so certain that we know that so-and-so shouldn’t be doing that. We don’t know what Trump is supposed to be doing. It turns out that he’s doing what he

Rick: Well, he’s doing what he naturally does. And I don’t know. Again, that doesn’t mean passivity or not opposing the situation. For example, Hitler was progressively taking over more and more of Europe and killing more and more people as he did so. And Neville Chamberlain, who was some kind of diplomat in England, was saying, “Well, I think we can appease Hitler.” Chamberlain said, “He (Hitler) won’t do such and such.” And all basically Chamberlain did was give Hitler more time to get ready to cause even more damage. And finally, Britain and eventually the US and the various allies said, “We’ve got to stop this guy. We can’t just sort of be all philosophical about it. He needs to be clobbered militarily in order to be stopped or it’s going to be even worse.” So yeah. Yeah, I mean…

Lisa: So that’s the Infinite too!

Rick: Right, it is.

Lisa: The Infinite is the force stopping and the force initiating, and that’s what our human brains go nuts over. We say, “Well, the Infinite has to be on one side.” The Infinite is on both sides. Just like hammering the nails, we want to say, “That is a war, and that is bad.” That (war) is an adventure.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: It really is. And we can feel it in ourselves in little moments. I mean, have you ever, when you were a kid, built a tower of blocks and crashed them to the ground?

Rick: Sure.

Lisa: It was exuberant!

Rick: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: You know?

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: So, we have that within ourselves. The more I own all the parts of myself, the more I feel the friendliness of the universe because I recognize, “Oh yeah, I have that in myself, and yet I know that there’s a fundamental goodness to me.” So how did the fundamental goodness knock all the blocks down? And as I explore that in myself, when we try to explore things philosophically, the mind is just not adequate. But when we feel within ourselves, “Oh, that movement is within me, and that movement is within me, and somehow they coexist. In fact, they create this dynamic exchange that I wouldn’t trade.” Then we’re starting to understand more and more of what we are. I feel like, for me, looking inward and feeling what I am demonstrates way more about the universe than any philosophy ever could.

Rick: Yeah. When you think about it, if God is the ultimate reality, or let’s call it God for the time being, there’s some all-encompassing, all-consuming ultimate reality that is, that pervades and contains everything. Everything means everything. You know, the dark and the light, the violent and the peaceful, the hot and the cold, the good and the bad, or whatever. If those polarities, we could say perhaps they don’t ultimately have any reality either, but insofar as they exist relatively, the totality contains them all. So I guess the question is– Is there a preference? Is this divine intelligence just as content with good as with evil as we understand it? Or is there a trajectory of the universe to move to greater and greater evolution? Which would mean greater happiness for all beings, which seems to be what all great religious leaders espoused and tried to achieve. But, are the bad guys, Attila the Hun and Adolf Hitler and all the rest, are they equally valid participants in the game of life as Jesus and Buddha and Krishna– oh, Krishna, he was advocating a war– but as all these sort of religious figures, these saintly figures? Obviously, they play a necessary role, but does the universe have a preference for the good guys to win over the bad guys in the final analysis?

Lisa: You know, like I said, I could philosophize on that. But, when I feel inside, the expression of movement that we seem to be on seems to be moving towards less slavery, more freedom, more connection, more understanding. That seems to be the trajectory that this timeline is moving on. Are there other timelines doing another adventure? There could be, but this timeline, when I feel into what the game is that we’re playing here, that seems to be the ultimate moving motivation where the life force tends to be proliferating the most.

Rick: Yeah, and you actually alluded earlier to a mass awakening or a global awakening or whatever, which I also feel is happening or it seems to be happening from my perspective. And that actually gives me a lot of optimism, which some people don’t have because they just watch the news and they don’t realize that this other stuff is percolating up. But,

Lisa: Yeah, I actually had a vision because I asked, “Why are there so many negative powers and positions of authority in our world?” And I was shown this vision where I was in this other dimension, and I had no wisdom. We all did everything right, but we had no wisdom. So, for example, this guy was stealing, a friend of mine was stealing from me, and I went and confronted him and said, “Why are you stealing from me?” And then I looked, and he had taken all the shoes I never wore, and he probably didn’t know, but he was going to be giving them to other people who could use them. So he was stealing, but it was all for good. But there was no wisdom in that place. There was perfect harmony, but there was no wisdom. Here, we get to have the experience of wisdom. So we get to play in that.

Rick: What place are you referring to where there’s no wisdom?

Lisa: This is a vision that I had.

Rick: Some other realm or something you say?

Lisa: Yes, it was another realm I went to. For example, I was getting ready for work, and then all of a sudden I found myself distracted, and I end up going to work three hours late. And I couldn’t believe it. I had been getting ready for work and then where was I? And then all of a sudden, I was going to work, and when I got to work, nobody was upset because they knew, “If she’s not here, It’s supposed to be that way,” and lo and behold, I didn’t have any patients for those first three hours. So, here we go.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: So, everybody knew there that everything happens right. So nobody questioned anything, they just kind of did stuff.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: But as a result, they just knew everything was right. But like I said, they didn’t have a sense of wisdom. Here, we get to have something that feels like wisdom, because it looks to us like there’s alternatives and different possibilities, and like we can effort to make things happen. And that gives us more of a sense of participation, and we get to have the experience of wisdom. And then I was shown that we have, as humanity, we’ve had a tendency to look to higher authorities instead of tune in to inner authority. And by looking to higher authorities, we created a gap where some beings came in who are on different timeline, a timeline of merging together through experiences of power. We’re merging through experiences of love and connection, but they’re merging in an experience of power. And it’s kind of weird to have the people who are merging through power and the people who are merging through love in the same place. And what I was shown is the moment that we no longer are looking outside for authority as a collective, once we’re tuning in to our inner authority, then there will be no space for them, and it (the timelines) will separate. And so the people who are on the power timeline, or beings or whatever, will move on, and we will be listening to our inner authority. And those apparent authorities are going to fall off like an old scab. We don’t have to fight to get them to go away. We don’t. The moment that we’re all tuned into our inner authority, or enough of us or something, once we reach that stage, then there will be no space. It will be like an old scab falling off. Just plop.

Rick: That’s very interesting. I find that fascinating because around the world, not only in this country, but around the world, right-wing authoritarian governments are in the ascendant and fascists or totalitarian leaders are gaining prominence. There’s even a resurgence of a sort of a Nazism in Germany, which is illegal, but it’s happening anyway. And, one thinks, “Oh, this has to be stopped, this has to be opposed.” But those movements gain their oxygen from people who adulate authoritarian figures, who invest, who abdicate their own authority and apply it to some external figure and whom they follow as a cult leader. But if one could become more self-referral and take recourse to one’s own authority, then those people would lose their support, very concretely. People would just follow the beat of their own drum and wouldn’t be giving these leaders the adulation that they crave, most of them being malignant narcissists anyway.

Lisa: Right, I mean, I see ways that they are giving gifts, and I find everybody in the world giving me gifts. But yes, wherever there are authorities that appear to be out of control, we don’t have to resist them. If it’s a calling, if somebody came into this life, and they wanted to get to be a warrior, fabulous. Go for it. If you don’t want to be a warrior, you don’t have to be a warrior. Just tuning into the inner wisdom is all it takes, and everything moves on to its next stage.

Rick: Perhaps that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Resist not evil.” Yeah?

Lisa: Exactly. Yeah, even people who are considered narcissists, I learned something from them. There’s a certain– I want to say self-love, but it’s not really self-love– it’s an enjoyment of their self that we can all learn from. Why not just totally enjoy what I am? It doesn’t have to be putting it on to other people, but just enjoy exactly my particular recipe. So, I can’t see anybody that I would say is pure evil. I can just say

Rick: Oh I would agree. Nothing is pure anything. I mean in the relative field, everything is a mixed bag with varying proportions.

Lisa: Yeah. So, I feel this-that-we-are is unharmed, and this-that-we-are is moving us in what we consider positive (directions). I think it’s probably the opposite, that wherever a particular group is moving, they’re going to feel like that’s positive. So, if we happened to be on some other timeline where it was going to totally dissolve into chaos, to us, that would feel like positive, because wherever we’re being pulled to, whatever draws us at the deepest level, whatever is served by our deepest creativity and connection, that is what’s going to feel positive. And that is what we’re all being moved towards, is this birthing of life and love and a more manifest connection.

Rick: Yeah, and that reminds me of a thought that I was having while listening to your books, which is that– and this is kind of a cliché but– people say, “well, everybody does the best they can.” And is that really true? And when I think about it, I think, yeah, it is, actually. Even if they appear to be doing something really creepy, it’s the best they can do, given their particular state of development and wisdom and evolution and so on. Does that relate to what you were just saying?

Lisa: Yeah, I would say better than that, because that includes a little resignation, like, “Well, that’s the best they can do.” I’m saying, “No, they’re doing exactly what they’re designed to do so that I can be confronted in the things that I need to let go of.” They could be a very advanced soul that’s doing that for me, to bring grace to my life so I can let go of some way that I’m stuck, some way I’ve become ossified in some area. Everybody’s doing exactly what they’re supposed to do, what they’re designed to do, what they’re destined to do. This harmony, this fabric, it can’t go wrong.

Rick: Yeah, sounds good. And I agree with you. I mean, I can see your perspective and agree with it from part of me. But then when I think of Dylann Roof shooting up all the people in that church in Charleston, or the kid who went in and shot all the kids in the Sandy Hook Elementary School, it’s tough to say, “That’s what they’re supposed to do,” but I can see the perspective from which you’re saying that.

Lisa: Right, because there’s levels of awareness, right? So, there’s a part of us that jumps in and says, “What can we do to make that not happen again?” And that’s the goodness in us, that’s the truth in us, of course.

Rick: Yeah, “Thoughts and prayers, that’s all we need, just thoughts and prayers, it’ll go away.”

Lisa: No, right, we are very dynamic because we are the Infinite moving in, moving in constantly. So, of course there’s going to be this response, and that’s the universe too. But at the same time, we don’t have to regret what has already happened if we look at it from the highest or deepest (perspective), whatever you want to say, because at that point we are unharmable. And that is not a philosophy. I have zero belief, pretty much about anything. I mean, if I find a belief, I kill the belief, basically. I don’t have any belief. It’s just been a discovery that everything that looked like hurt in my life worked for good. And I just test that with other people. It’s just that is the fundamental. And it can only be an experience. It cannot be a theory. It’s a horrible theory because it gets misused. So no, you cannot have it as a theory. It has to be a lived experience that is dynamic with all of the creativity that is also what we are.

Rick: Yeah. I just discovered that my wife, Irene, who is in the hospital, has been doing her job of fielding questions that have come in because she has a laptop up there. So, she sent me a couple of questions, which I’m going to ask you from people. This one is from Eamon Kelly in Dublin, Ireland. He said, “I would like to know what Lisa thinks about how this spiritual awareness applies the climate change?”

Lisa: Well, I did ask specifically about that, and I was shown in a vision two dead branches, and what-we-are, the energy of the universe, put them together and immediately turned them into a tree. So what it looks like we’ve done to the earth is just our interpretation. Obviously, there’s a movement within us to be kinder to the earth. That is what we are called to do. That is what this dynamic universe is doing through us. And there’s no need to be hopeless. No need to be hopeless. What-we-are has the possibility to flip everything in any moment that it becomes necessary. So, all there is is the opportunity to just let the creativity and connection, the love of nature, have more and more fruitful expression. We don’t have to fight anything– Unless, that’s what’s calling you, to be a warrior, great– but there’s no ‘have to,’ nothing that we have to fight. It’s thriving, actually, in going towards where we are supposed to go.

Rick: Yeah, I mean, different people have different roles to play. Trump is doing everything he can to stop wind and solar now and has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord. And there are people who have legal skills and various other types of authority who will hopefully counteract that because that’s going to have severe consequences. But how much can I do? Or you? Go ahead.

Lisa: So you know I’m a chemical engineer. I’m not going to go into any of the details, but I will just say that some of the things that have been done in the idea that we were helping the climate have not (helped). They’ve actually made things worse. So, whenever we’re sticking our fingers in from that kind of a place (indignant or outraged), we’re often not doing as well as we think. So, to trust that you know that so-and-so definitely has the solution and so-and-so definitely doesn’t, I would even hold that lightly and just be in love with nature, do the best that you know, but any dogma about what’s the best for the earth has to be held lightly.

Rick: I hear that. Obviously, certain solutions are mixed blessings, because, for instance, making batteries for electric cars requires extracting precious metals. And some African nations– and other places–they’re having their environments devastated by the mining. And it’s a lousy job to have be mining this stuff on $3 a day or whatever. So, a lot of these things are– but maybe as we evolve, maybe we’ll come up with more and more benign solutions that aren’t so mixed. And maybe we’ll find ways of creating energy sources that aren’t deleterious in their manufacture to the environment that they’re hoping to help.

Lisa: Right, well, supposedly if we had followed the models that were created in the ’70s and then totally revamped in the ’90s and revamped again in the early 2000s, we’re living in an earth that shouldn’t exist. I mean, it shouldn’t look like this. It was supposed to look totally different. So, I would not trust any of the models. I would trust just loving the earth.

Rick: Yeah. Okay. Well, I won’t hammer on that one too much. I mean, loving the earth, but also taking practical steps with as little harm as possible to ensure its well-being and nature’s well-being.

Lisa: Right, because that’s our nature.

Rick: Yeah.

Lisa: That’s what we’re called to. It doesn’t have to be a should or a dogma. It’s what we are. It’s what we can do.

Rick: Doing the best we can.

Lisa: Yes. It’s what we are.

Rick: Yeah. But not “drill-baby-drill-because-there’s-no-tomorrow,” in my opinion. Because there is a tomorrow, and the temperature is rising, and the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is losing its foothold on the continent and could go into the ocean and raise sea levels by 10 meters.

Lisa: Okay, all of that was just a bunch of beliefs. There are people who have evidence to other types of interpretations.

Rick: Yeah, although there is such a thing as science as you know. You’re a scientist of sorts. And there is data. And some of the data have very strong consensus–what’s the plural of consensus? Consensi– supporting it. The whole thing of “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion” is all well and good, but we came up with the scientific method. I heard a great quote. I like this one. It’s from Aldous Huxley. He said that the greatest contribution of the scientific revolution was the development of the scientific method itself and the concept of the working hypothesis because it got us away from believing things without any substantiation. If we’re going to form a belief, we have to be able to pony up and provide evidence supporting it. And science works by virtue of consensus. And, go ahead.

Lisa: Okay, so, that is a dogma where I see there are elements that are true and there are elements even in that that I couldn’t say resonate with what we are.

Rick: Like what?

Lisa: So there was a time– the Taoists for example— when they were able to map on the face different spots that correlated with areas in the body. Now, modern medicine is discovering the same thing. They can do thermographic analysis of the face and, lo and behold, it’s there. Now how did the Taoists find that? It was not by the scientific method. They found it because they were listening very intently, internally to their system and discovering the innate wisdom of their system, and they discovered it. Now when you stop that kind of listening, and you go to the scientific method, the scientific method is really good at finding generalities, and it’s terrible at finding the specifics of individual uniqueness. So then you end saying, “Okay, well let’s use the scientific method differently. We’re going to narrow down our populations, and we’re going to try to include more and more causes because if we just focus on 10, that’s not enough. It turns out we have to focus on 200.” So the scientific method might eventually get us there but the listening got us there already. So I would say I’m not against the scientific method but I’m just saying it has some limitations. We’re trying to hone it, and get it to be better but this inner listening got us there pretty fast so I’m not going to discard that either. And some people really do have a way of listening to their body, and their body will tell them, “I need this substance, I don’t need this substance,” and later the scientific method will eventually prove it. But I’m not going to tell them, “No,” because if they have learned to listen to their body, they got there faster than the scientific method. So I can’t tell them the scientific method says you need this substance in your body, because maybe they don’t, and maybe the scientific method will validate that far into the future.

Rick: I agree with everything you just said. As I said, my wife is in the hospital right now, and I was there the other day, and this pharmacist Nazi came in and said, “I want to know everything you brought with you here.” And so I said, “Oh, here we have some vitamin C, we have some vitamin D, these few things.” And she was just taking notes. I thought, “Oh, that’s nice. She wants to know what Irene is taking.” And she said, “Well, we’re going to have to either lock all those up, or you’re going to have to take them home with you, because we can’t let you take anything that you have brought yourself.” And so– I’m sure no hospital authorities are watching this–so after she left the room, we just hid the stuff. So obviously, science gave us the atomic bomb. Science has given us all kinds of things that have destroyed the environment, petroleum refinement, and many other things. But science was a necessary corrective to the Middle Ages in which you could be burned at the stake for suggesting that the stars might be other suns like our own and might even have planets around them. Someone was burned at the stake for suggesting that. And all kinds of nutty ideas were propagated and enforced. And so the whole idea of the working hypothesis, where you really have to show a consensus of evidence for your hypotheses has been a pretty good system. But as you say, the whole thing of objective means of gaining knowledge has predominated because we have, for the most part, lost the subjective means of gaining knowledge– intuitive, inner vision kind of knowledge. And that’s, I think, why science has been such a mixed blessing and has done so much harm and the technologies that science has spawned. So, I think what we don’t want to throw that out, but we need to counterbalance it with a commensurate degree of inner development. And so then, the powerful tools of science will no longer be like guns in the hands of children. They’ll be able to be used wisely in conjunction with inner wisdom.

Lisa: Yeah. And this was a lot of mind stuff. And I just want to bring it back to the present moment. There’s an inner wisdom, and I trust each person for their path. And I don’t want any outside authority that–but as they are, they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do–And the idea that there’s an outside authority who has figured it out, I feel like this (unfolding) is moving towards the end of that. But even if I’m wrong–I could be totally wrong—what we are is unharmable. And what we are is going to thrive through each of these stages. So there’s not a need to figure it out. There’s just going to be discovery and discovery and discovery.

Rick: Yeah. Well, sure, what we are is unharmable. I mean, as the Gita puts it, “Know that to be indeed indestructible by which all this is pervaded. None can work the destruction of this immutable being.” And that’s fine for being, but individual beings have varying degrees of wisdom. And as Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching and other such traditional teachings say, the degree to which you need laws and societal controls like that is proportional to the degree to which people are in tune with the Tao or not so. And in a society in which being in tune with the Tao were the norm, people wouldn’t hardly need any laws or much government. Everything would just be hunky-dory, spontaneously. But a society which is very much out of tune with that, needs some laws. Because otherwise you have people who are way out of tune with the Tao doing whatever the heck they please and creating problems for everyone.

Lisa: And, you know, as in my book, An Unprincipled Life, every principle can be held lightly, even that one. I mean, maybe it’s going to be the opposite, that you don’t wait for the attunement to show up and then release the laws. It could end up that we release the laws and then that catalyzes the attunement to flourish. I don’t even know. I can’t hold any particular concept as a definite.

Rick: So, we can get rid of all the speed limits and the stop lights and all that stuff and let people just kind of work it out and drive however they want.

Lisa: It might happen that way. I really don’t know how it’s going to happen. I’m just saying that I’m not attached to it happening in one order or the other order. It feels like the Life moving in us is orchestrating this dance that we’re going through, and it’s the pendulum swinging, and the letting go and the tightening in and letting go and tightening in. It feels like this dance is perfect, really. Yeah. I’m not taking sides on that.

Rick: Okay, next question. This is from Jamie Mac in the US. “I’m curious what your thoughts are about the role or selection of ‘content’ in your life. For example, are you able to watch our current political situation unfold without angst, and what are your thoughts about the impact TV, movies, news have on our lives?” We might also throw social media in there.

Lisa: Yes, that’s a great question. I am totally at peace with everything happening politically, everything. It just feels like What-we-are is not being harmed, and like I said, I know everything negative that’s happened to me has brought forth an opportunity to discover. “Oh my gosh. I’m stronger than I knew.” “I’m more self-sufficient than I knew.” “I have more support than I knew.” “I’m more courageous than I knew.” It doesn’t matter what it was. So, I don’t have any angst for anybody going through anything. That doesn’t mean that I don’t participate in the things that I think are helping– I have a lot of participation– but I don’t have any angst about it. I don’t have any resistance about it. It does feel like it’s a dance. It’s perfectly choreographed because I have explored every single one of those in myself, and I’m not afraid of anything I see in myself. You know, any time that I become more selfish or any time that I become more manipulative or anything, somehow the universe works even that out. Now, what amount of time do I give to that (politics)? That’s something totally different. I try to get just a little bit of information, so I can know approximately what’s happening. I mean, no information comes that says what is happening. It always comes through an interpretation and a filter of story and a filter of what would be better. So, all of that is just extra weight. I don’t see any reason for it for me. I mean, obviously people need it, but for me, I don’t see any need to carry that weight. So, I don’t spend a lot of time following updates and getting–because to me, it’s the deepest move, the ultimate trajectory–the day-by-day-by-day updates. I mean, I don’t see how that’s furthering anything for me. I’m very busy in connected, creative ways every day with the people I’m with. So that, to me, just feels like where my energy is drawn. Other people could be totally different. Interestingly–this is really a far sidebar–but just interestingly, a friend of mine who was testing the pH of her urine, (who knows that everybody would validate that), but she was finding that the healthy things, like eating more fruits and vegetables and blah, blah, blah, caused improvements, but what actually caused much greater improvement was not watching the scary movies that she liked to watch.

Rick: Yeah, I would agree with that.

Lisa: So, you know, I really have let go of being concerned and stressed. So, we have a leak in our house right now, and a couple months ago my husband did something that resulted in this leak of this gummy fluid in our camper that can never be fully dried. And until there’s the motivation to do anything about either one of those, I’ve decided, well, I can live with leaks. I’m not going to stress. I can live with somebody not showing up at the time they said they were going to show up because I don’t need the stress. I know there’s an ultimate benevolence. So, I don’t find that news furthers that for me.

Rick: You discussed urine and leaks in consecutive paragraphs. Yeah, so that’s interesting. The thing about not watching scary movies, I mean. There is some biblical quote on this, but I forget what it is, but it’s not only what we eat in terms of food, but what we take into all of our senses that has a whole effect on our mind-body system. And you could eat the purest diet and–well probably you wouldn’t find too many people who ate really pure diets but that loved watching slasher movies all the time–but nonetheless, in principle, we can be very pure in one channel, but if we’re loading ourselves up with impurities in other channels, it’s going to counteract what we’re doing with our pure diet or whatever.

Lisa: Yeah. Oh, one more thing about politics. I have good friends on both sides of the spectrum. All ends of the spectrum, actually. And I like to get emails from them, and see what they’re concerned about and what they see as positives from what they would like to see improved in the world. And I actually do see positives coming on every front. So really, I’m not upset by whoever takes position because I can see, “Oh, okay, well, sounds like this group might bring in this, and I would like that. Oh, sounds like this group might bring in that, I would like that.” So really, I’m without care.

Rick: I like Bill Maher and Sam Harris and people like that who do something very similar. just speak their mind. And if it happens to be a right-wing thing, they’ll say it, and even if they get a lot of flack and lose some viewers. If it’s a left-wing thing, they’ll say it, and they just– because nothing is perfect even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.

Lisa: That’s right yes.

Rick: Just out of curiosity I’m not going to ask you who you vote for, but do you vote?

Lisa: I vote if I think that it’s going to be a positive difference making the vote. For the US, I would like to see a third party eventually. That seems like it might be helpful, so if I can do things that help that happen, that tends to be where I move.

Rick: Yeah, okay.

Lisa: You know, it can change.

Rick: Yeah, Jill Stein gave us George W. Bush and Donald Trump, but anyway, it would be good to have a different… there are political systems in places like Australia, I forget what they call it, but they have some whole system that is much more sensible than just the either/or choice that we have here.

Lisa: But again…

Rick: Ranked choice voting or something it’s called.

Lisa: Yeah, I’ve heard of other methods. Yeah, but really, really to me politics feels like a very thin veneer. It really feels like the biggest movement is what’s not covered by the media.

Rick: Oh, you’re right of course.

Lisa: Yes. This movement of consciousness has so much momentum, and it is a tidal wave. It’s Irresistible. And all the other stuff is just like splashes coming off of this wave.

Rick: Yeah. “Poli” means many and “ticks” are blood-sucking insects, and as Mark Twain put it, “Politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason.”

Lisa: And I love the politicians. They’re not doing a role I would like. They’re holding a position where they get so much hate sent towards them, both sides. I mean, what a courageous position!

Rick: it’s a tough job. Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah, I just try to be a loving force towards them. They’ve got waves of hate they’re constantly dealing with.

Rick: Yeah, you got to have a bit of a thick skin, I guess. Okey dokey, so that probably wraps it up, more or less. Is there anything you feel like you would like to say that we haven’t said, or anything you want to say in closing?

Lisa: The thing I just want to constantly marinate in is this-that-we-are is unharmable, and it’s benevolent. And there’s just only exuberance and delight to experience each thing. And if we’re not experiencing that, that’s fine. That’s our gift back. Our gift back is, “This is what sorrow tastes like.” Our gift back is…and when we’re tired of giving that gift back, there’s an avenue where we can tap back into the joy and the delight. So, it doesn’t matter which one we’re doing, but if we want to give back the joy and the delight, it’s available. And that’s the processes I discuss in both my books. Just really letting go of the ideas we believe regarding what we should be or what the world should be, and noticing what we are. The richness that we are is so much bigger than what we’re usually noticing.

Rick: Great. Okay, well I’ll leave it at that. That’s very profound and beautiful, and I appreciate it. It’s been nice spending time with you.

Lisa: Yeah, you too, Rick. Thank you so much. You’ve been quite generous with your attention and your interest and your wisdom. Thank you.

Rick: Yeah, and I hope people don’t feel like I was giving you a hard time or something like that. Because like I said to you before we even started recording, I like to make these like a conversation. And if you’re having a conversation with somebody in your living room, you might say, “Well, I don’t agree with that.” Or, “What do you think about this?” And you might kind of get a little bit animated without being disrespectful or disapproving of your friend.

Lisa: Right. Exactly. I feel completely honored. And I love the opportunity to be able to challenge every single sacred cow. Really, every single sacred cow. I think the more that we don’t hold ideas and we just tune into what we are, the more we discover, at least for me, the more I discover that there’s an unharmability and delight and benevolence.

Rick: Yeah. Challenge good. Yeah. Everything should be susceptible to challenge. But that doesn’t mean that everything is equally valid or invalid. Things stand on their own merit or fall for lack of it. And you just have to kind of be discerning and discriminating about many things, including spiritual teachers, for that matter, who are not all equally meritorious or ethical.

Lisa: Right. But I can only make that choice for myself.

Rick: Exactly, right. I’m not saying there should be some universal standard. Okay, so good. Well, thank you very much. And thanks for those who’ve been listening or watching, and we’ll see you for the next one.

Lisa: Yeah, big hug.

Rick: Big hugs to everybody.