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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people have done hundreds of them now. And if this is new to you and you’d like to watch previous ones, please go to batgap.com and look under the past interviews menu. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, which sounds a lot like what NPR says but that’s basically it no advertising, and we do this as our full time thing now. So if you feel like supporting it and appreciate it and feel like supporting it, there’s a Pay Pal button on every page of the site. My guest today is Lynn Marie Lumiere. MFT was the MFT stands for Lin,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Marriage Family Therapist,
Rick Archer: okay. And Lynne is a non dual psychotherapist and author who is dedicated to awakening consciousness and meeting life’s challenges as doorways to greater freedom. Her work is sourced in over 40 years of dedicated spiritual and psychological exploration, as well as almost 30 years of marriage and practicing psychotherapy. This experience has led her to the understanding that no matter what the problem is, healing and freedom from suffering are possible. When we tap into our infinite and ever present true nature. She has been especially interested in applying this understanding to healing relationships and trauma. Lynn Marie is one of the pioneers in the exploration of non dual wisdom and psychotherapy, and as a contributing author to the sacred mirror non dual wisdom and psychotherapy 2003. She’s also the author of awakened relating a guide to embodied embodying undivided love and intimate relationship to be published on July 1 2018, which I’ve been reading her primary spiritual teachers, Adi Shanti, has been on BatGap a number of times. And she has studied with many teachers from non dual Buddhist and Hindu traditions. She lives in Grass Valley, California. So we had this power outage this morning and had to delay the start of this interview by a couple of hours. And so I went up to a coffee shop where I could use their Wi Fi, because I have anything at home and to get on my iPad and try to contact you then and various other people that needed to be notified of what was going on. And, you know, friend sat down was talking to me while all this was going on, I explained to her that I was going to be interviewing a someone who specializes in, you know, using non duality to enhance relationships. And she said, Well, that’s a bit of an oxymoron. I mean, non duality, the word Advaita itself means not to, but relationships imply at least to and so I’m sure you’ve been confronted with that. Yes, that before. So how do you respond when people ask you that question?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, that’s a living paradox. You know, the, the truth of this existence is, is entirely a paradox. You know, there, there is no two, and you were all the same one being. And yet it’s expressing itself in all of these different forms. And we relate to each other in these different forms, even though with the same one being. So both are true. It’s a paradox.
Rick Archer: Yeah, a friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day said, for God’s sake, please don’t ever use the ocean and wave analogy again, because he’s so sick of hearing it. But it’s a handy analogy. I mean, it’s one ocean, but there are individual waves, and he can’t say the right individual ways, but it’s all the same water.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s right. Yeah. That’s right. And it changes the experience of relationship as we come into that understanding more, you know, because the more we experience, the other as separate and having something we don’t have and so on that, that’s where it causes a lot of discord in relationship.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Another thing my friend said, When I mentioned what we’re going to be talking about, she she’s, I’m kind of skeptical of that. She says, I know people who’ve been meditating for decades, some of whom actually claimed to have had profound awakenings. And they’re still jerks. They still act like a holes, you know, you know, maybe they mistreat their wives or they do this or they do that. And she said, you know, how do you reconcile that paradox?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, they have they claim to have awakenings and they’re still, you know, being jerks in relationship. That means they don’t have a relation On maturity, or haven’t healed, their relational wounding or so on, which awakening itself doesn’t do awakening alone will not do that. So the whole embodiment piece includes bringing that awakening into our, into our being into our wounding into our humaneness, and then into relationship. So some people, maybe they have an opening, but they don’t they don’t work with themselves, you know, on the level of the psychological emotional level or develop relational maturity.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I’ve heard several different angles on that whole thought. One is that, I mean, some people go to they take refuge in the absolute view, so to speak, and say things like, well, you know, the world is an illusion. And so forget about it doesn’t matter what you are on a relative level, there is no relative. Others say, awakening has nothing to do with behavior, and there’s no correlation whatsoever. And and, you know, you’re just gonna be whatever you are, when you wake up to your true nature. And others say, well, there is a correlation. And awakening is going to inevitably percolate into your relative personality and transform it for the better, hopefully, for the better. And others say, it’s not going to happen automatically, you’re actually going to have to do something. And if you don’t intentionally do something to integrate, or awakening into your relative life, it may not happen. So there’s like four different viewpoints that what do you have to say?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: I think I think I go along, mostly with the fourth one, you know, I do think it well, the third and fourth, I think there is a correlation there, that it’s all inseparable to me, and in my process, and you also do have to make some kind of intentional effort, you know, to embody this awakening, it doesn’t just happen automatically.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I know, in my own case, you know, I think spiritual practice definitely softened me made me more sensitive, gradually, over the years. I mean, you know, it’s been a lifelong process, made me less made me more averse to inflicting any kind of harm on anyone else. Made me more tender hearted, I would say. And also, but it wasn’t just the spiritual practice, I also think it was life being married, just interacting with people growing up. I mean, some would say that to that’s a fifth perspective, that, that, you know, spiritual practice doesn’t really change your personality, you just mature. And you can think of all kinds of people who were wild and crazy in their teens and early 20s, who are now very well adjusted in their 50s or 60s.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, you know, spiritual practice is a part of that, you know, that adjustment, you know, that happens if they do it, you know, it’s all it’s all a part of it, you know, the, what we call real relative reality, we engage with that every day. And that’s part of what wakes us up and helps us embody. It’s an illusion in this in the sense that it doesn’t have any independent existence. What that to the relative reality. You could say, it’s an illusion in that sense, but to me, it’s not irrelevant. You know, it’s, it’s a, an expression of our consciousness playing out, like a mirror reflection of that. So it’s giving us feedback all the time, about where we are, just like our inner experience is giving us feedback all the time. If we’re feeling unrest or pain inside, then it shows that we’re out of alignment. So we’re constantly being worked with, you know, with our, our experience.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I would go so far as to say that taking you know, that thought that what happens in our lives, even events that we seemingly have no control over is not random, and is not coincidental or arbitrary, that that the whole universe is pervaded with intelligence, we are that intelligence, that there is nothing but that intelligence is trying to wake up to itself in this or that embodied expression, namely, this human being or that human being, and it will orchestrate orchestrate things so as to wake us up, and sometimes those things might be a little harsh because we need a bit of a slap to you know, come out of our slumber
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, that seems to be true to me. Yeah, you know that it is that it’s all has some kind of infinite wisdom that is pervade it there is that’s the only thing that’s happening. And so it is it is trying to wake itself up. Everything is about waking, waking up in my in my senses, that that’s what everything is about.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And of course not everyone don’t agree with that. And it might just seem like a philosophical perspective. But I think you might agree that, you know, there’s some kind of experiential verification of it that becomes clearer and clearer as you go along.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Oh, yes. I mean, we suffer less, you know, we feel feel more peace, you know, feel more stabilized in the resting in our bein, you know, more joy, more love. You know, those are all experiential indications that we’re on the right track.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And if we’re on the wrong track, you know, there can be a few hard knocks to kind of like, alert us to the fact that we are,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: that seems to be true for most people, it has been true for me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems like we, you know, we’re so asleep. Most people, you know, we do need some hard knocks sometimes,
Rick Archer: right. And that one can be taken too far too, because sometimes people will say things like, oh, so and so got cancer, it must be his karma, you must be doing something wrong or something like that, which I think can be quite heartless, and, and is saying in the Gita that karma karma is beyond the range of human intellect, the intricacies of it, and you can’t just make these glib pronouncements about why there’s a that happened to somebody.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, I agree with that. You know, it’s, ultimately it’s beyond our understanding. So I think the best answer is to be in not knowing. And, and then what’s important, isn’t like, trying to make some sense out of this is happening, because this or that, but how we meet it, you know, whatever it is, that comes, what’s important is how we meet it. We don’t really know what’s going on.
Rick Archer: No, and you’re not going to figure it out.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: No, it wouldn’t help even if we could,
Rick Archer: yeah, true. I mean, you might figure it out and still not meet it properly. So how we made it is probably the most important thing.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s right. It’s that is the most important thing. And that gets back to my my point about awakened relating, and how we need some awakened consciousness to be able to meet life, you know, the hard knocks, especially but all of it really, without some awakened consciousness, then we actually don’t fully need it. Because if we’re operating out of the egoic structure, then all of that knows is resistance to what is in some form or another right in reacting to it, resisting it, in getting caught up in it, avoiding that, that the entire repertoire of the ego structure is to avoid or in some way, get caught up in in what’s going on. So it’s, it’s incapable. It’s just a function for survival. It’s incapable of meeting what it is. So it’s really necessary for us to have some sense of our own awakened consciousness to be able to meet life.
Rick Archer: Jesus said, Forgive them Father, for they know, not what they do. And I would add, they knew not what they did, because what they were doing because they knew not what they were, what they are, you know? Yeah,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: that’s true. If you don’t know you don’t know. And so you do the best you can with what you have, and you just stumble along with the ego structure and all of the defense’s, that has to offer which don’t really go anywhere. But if you don’t know anything else, that’s all you have,
Rick Archer: ya know, in many traditions, and perhaps to some degree in the public consciousness, or at least the consciousness of spiritual seekers, it’s often assumed or taught that awakening is really a long term project. And, you know, could take decades could take lifetimes. And here in your notes to me, which I’m going to be going through to various points of discussion, you say, awakening is immediately available. Now, what keeps most people from it is a belief that it is out of reach, as well as beliefs about it needing to be a big spectacular experience. So let’s dig into that one a little bit.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, let me explain that, you know, that when I’m talking when I refer to of, of what is immediately available, that is just an initial glimpse or recognition of this non dual awareness that is present all the time, you know, this looking out of our eyes, I feel that that that is immediately available, and just have a glimpse of recognition of that, to just become aware of being aware, is, to me, the very, very beginning of awakening, the whole process of ultimately stabilizing in that, realizing that that’s what you are realizing that that’s what everything is that that’s what can take what appears to be time for most people. For most people. That’s a gradual process, but what I feel is me Literally available is just that simple recognition of what we are more than the thinking mind. And many people don’t, you know, just put awakening as something, you know, out of their reach or far away in the future. And, you know, without even that simple beginning, yeah,
Rick Archer: that’s helpful. I mean, you could maybe make a metaphor of just as the dawn begins to break, and the birds begin to sing, you can see a glow on the horizon, and that’s the sun, you know, you’re seeing it, but it’s gonna be a lot brighter at noon.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s true. But once we have the recognition, then we have an opportunity to return to it. Yeah. And to me, then that becomes the practice. You know, once we know that, then paying attention to that, by resting is that it becomes the practice. And the more we rest as that the stronger it gets, the more it grows, and into our in our consciousness,
Rick Archer: would you say that you you can rest as that both? In a meditative way, eyes closed or whatever, just sitting quietly? Or even in the midst of dynamic activity? Is it possible to rest is that to some extent? And would you want to, or would that would that kind of divide your mind if you’re trying to play tennis and rest is that at the same time,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: now that can be done at any time, at any time, and the more the more consciousness awareness to come becomes, the more weight to itself, it becomes, then the more accessible it is, you know, no matter what we’re doing is like the background that’s always here, but you’re awake to it. Yeah. And so it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you don’t have to sit down and close your eyes or, or stop anything, you know, it just becomes this the background that just becomes more in the foreground, yeah, and can be experienced at any time,
Rick Archer: and is experienced perpetually, really, as it as it grows, and without having to think about it like breathing. Right? I mean, because people shouldn’t have the sense, I don’t think that they need to sort of keep checking in all day long and doing something to maintain awareness. It’s like having taken a shower, you maintain a certain cleanliness throughout the day, or whatever, or I don’t know, breathing is an example or, you know, just being awake in the ordinary sense. You don’t have to keep reminding yourself that you’re awake, you are awake. Do you agree with that? I feel like there should be something more that one should
Lynn Marie Lumiere: do? Well, I think it depends on where people are at. I think in the very beginning. First of all, you know, they if there’s no recognition of awareness, all they have is thoughts. Yeah. All they are as identified as the thoughts as the egoic mechanism. And then when there’s a direct knowing or experience of the non dual awareness that holds all that and pervades all that, then they have a chance of being somewhere else. Yeah. And, and yet, it depends on the person, they may need to check back and check back. The practice that I put it in my book that helped me a great deal is a practice of short moments of resting many times over time, that makes it more continuous. So you might have to do many short moments, repeatedly until it becomes more pervasive naturally.
Rick Archer: I think Eckhart Tolle might recommend something like that to that recall. Okay. And, you know, I mean, so as we discussed that in the last few minutes is that, you know, the very first glimpse of of one’s true nature, might be rather dim by comparison to what’s possible. And if you if you want to sort of put that on one end of the scale on Ramana, Maharshi, on the other end of the scale, there could be a pretty wide spectrum in between, but that anybody can begin can have that first glimpse, and they can from wherever they start, they can take it from there and begin to culture it and stabilize it. That’d be a faster
Lynn Marie Lumiere: way. Yes, I think so. I mean, several things I want to emphasize is the accessibility of that. Yeah, you know, it’s something that’s just always here very ordinary. In many ways. It’s, it’s, it’s immediately available. So that’s one thing I want to emphasize. Because there’s so many ideas and beliefs about awakening being hard to get too far away. Yeah. And and then, yes, it needs to be given attention, it needs to be valued. You know, sometimes I’ve pointed this out to people and they go, Yeah, I’m aware, you know, it’s kind of like so, and you know, and it doesn’t feel like anything special, and then they kind of toss it aside. So it’s also important to know how important that is. That little initial glimpse of awareness, which can seem like just kind of you just awareness, you know, you don’t yet feel the qualities of it. Like, deep silence or deep peace of love. And that you don’t just to know that that is the doorway into infinite amounts of love, and peace and wisdom. So having some understanding, even mix intellectual of the value of that. So you will commit to it, because it’s a devotion really becoming devoted to it, it takes a deep commitment to keep returning to that and resting as that, rather than the habituated state of being in the in the constantly moving mind.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah, I think that the point you just made about an understanding is an important one, that’s part of the reason I do this show is that, you know, understanding can go a long way to inspiring people to do some to commit themselves to some sort of practice or process. Because it gives you a vision of possibilities. And it also can kind of instill confidence that you are capable of us, you know. And, and that was one of my initial motivations. Also, it’s like, I would run into people who had been even people who have been married a long time, who felt like Awakening was never gonna happen to them, because they conceived of it as something so extraordinary. And they felt like they were an ordinary person. And so I started interviewing people who claimed to have had some awakening, who are just people around town here. And just to sort of show their peers that, hey, you know, this guy, and this person and this woman are having this and you can have it too. And then it just kind of branched out into into this.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: I think that’s very important for people to get you know, that, that it’s available to them. You know, last week, I was on retreat with Adi Shanti. And he said that in the 22 years that he’s been teaching, he has seen that the biggest obstacle to awakening for most people is believing that it’s not available to them somehow. It’s out of their reach, it has to be some big thing of, you know, you know, all the beliefs and the ideas about somehow it’s unavailable. Yeah, he says, that’s the biggest obstacle.
Rick Archer: There’s that old example of a fish in water being thirsty, you know, and think, Oh, the water is unavailable. Where’s the water?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: When am I gonna get to the water? It’s really like that it is literally like that. Yeah. Yes. Because we’re just surrounded and pervaded, and, you know, there’s nothing but that. But, you know, it’s just right here, but it is more of a inward focus. You know, it’s we’re always looking out, even thoughts are looking out, we’re looking to something other than that most of the time.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And that’s because the senses are, are designed to direct the attention outwards. That’s what they that’s their job, you know. And so there’s that verse that quote the Gita a lot, because there’s a lot of handy verses in it. But there’s, it’s that verse about, it’s like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs within its shell, you can turn the senses 180 degrees, go inward, and, you know, find the source of the senses and the source of everything. Which is your, your true nature. Yes. And just one more verse to throw out yeah, there’s a verse which says, a pardon me, pardon me, to those who have heard me quote, This can’t think too many times, but says, no effort is lost, and no obstacle exists. Even a little of this Dharma removes great fear. So
Lynn Marie Lumiere: even a little of the Dharma, what does that mean to you a little,
Rick Archer: you know, little a little turning your attention to this putting your, you know, some kind of step in the right direction, or whatever, however you choose to do that. Even a little of it can make a big difference.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s the most important thing. So whatever ever we have we make, that can go a long ways, you know, just to be looking for something, something that’s beyond, you know, this sense of a separate self that we feel we’re trapped in.
Rick Archer: And one thing I’ve experienced in talking to all these people is on the show, and hearing their stories, is that there’s a real potency and just having the sincere intention or desire for this, once you once you sort of, you know, seek and you shall find once you have that intention, all kinds of opportunities and possibilities begin to present themselves.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, I think so. I think that’s one of the most important things is a sincere desire for this. And you know, in many ways, that’s that’s the ticket, you know, home is to just have the sincere intention and desire. And we don’t know what creates that or why some people have that, and other people don’t, you know, we really don’t know but at some point in life, their lifetimes, you know, people develop a real sincere interest in this And I know that that happened for me, and nothing could stop it. You know, it just took over.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah, me too. I’ve been a fanatic most of my life. All right, so we’re going to be talking about relationships. And we were talking a minute ago about, you know, the senses sort of being outward directed. And we know that it’s typical of many relationships, to be looking for something from somebody looking for someone to love us looking for some satisfaction and gratification or whatever, from other people. And, you know, one of your points, I think, is that we are, we already are the love, the peace, the happiness or whatever that we’re seeking. We’re just out of touch with that, when we externalize the source of that love.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s right. Yes. And that’s so common, you know, that it in many ways has never even been questioned, you know, that the love is found outside of ourselves, you know, we live our lives. And I know, most of my life, I live with that understanding, I was seeking love outside of myself, in another. And the problem with that is, it’s just not true. You know, the actual truth is that we are the love that we’re seeking. And so we’re looking out there towards the other, and missing, you know, what’s here. And even if we find, you know, something opens up with another person in relationship, you know, when we fall in love, there is a magical experience that does open up. And in many ways, it opens up a experience of that deeper love that we are the same, it opens up Yeah, and we get to share that with each other, and there doesn’t feel like there’s any separation, and there’s deep, unconditional acceptance, rubber, long that magical state lasts. And then it eventually gets it gets pinned on the other person, you know, as the being the source. And that’s where the division and problems start. So what I’m talking about is just bringing that understanding. So I’m in there, seeing what opened up there opened up something that’s within us already, it wasn’t coming from the other person. And as we find that love that we actually are more than we can share it with each other and with with everyone, and we have more love, if we just let that go. But it said, this is a tough one. You know, I decided to take that on in my book. And it’s like, I don’t know anybody else that’s really done that at least not to that, to that extent, it’s, it’s new in human evolution, you know, for all of us to even explore what I’m talking about here.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, maybe it’s no, let’s talk about that. I mean, there have been, you know, two spiritual traditions which have honored the paradox and, and the value of relative experience as well. triggers for awakening as catalysts. For instance, the whole tantric tradition, and tantra dozen, sex is only a small part of tantra for those who don’t usually hear that aspect of it. And but another question is, I mean, sometimes if, if you if the kind of thing I just said that we’re already the love that we seek, so a person might conclude, well, why do you need another person? Why, if you are the love you seek, why bother with trying to interact with another person? Can’t you just find that love directly? And be content with that?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes. And that kind of thinking is, you know, kind of classic dualistic thinking because you know, that the mind can only think in terms of either or, you know, you’re doing this or you’re doing that that’s the way the mind thinks, yeah, but that it’s like, we find that we are the love. And we experience that within our being, we move towards we still move towards relationship, but it’s not out of need in the same way, as it is when we believe we’re in separation. We’re human beings. You know, no matter how awake we are, we’re human beings. And human beings are social creatures. And and we do best in relationship. And we naturally move in relationship. When there’s love there. We love to share it. And we love to share it with somebody intimately, in addition to all other kinds of relationships. So there’s a natural movement in human beings towards that no much no matter how much we realize this.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I also think that, you know, the right kind of relationship can serve as a catalyst to open the heart and and enliven things that really wouldn’t happen automatically so easily on your own. You know, you agree with that bit.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That’s also one of the main points I was making in my writing is that the relationship is probably the biggest Catalyst. We have, you know, and we’re In relationship with everything at all times, you know, so my book was focused primarily on intimate relationship, you know, because I feel that that’s where people have the most trouble, you know, because that’s, that brings up usually, the more deeper vulnerable parts of ourselves and relational wounding if we have it will and you know, deepest fears, of abandonment and so on, come up more in the closest relationships, and that they then in ways that Yeah, absolutely, they would not, you know, without being in relationship being really in relationship, whether it’s close human relationship or with everything is what wakes us up. Yes. What shows us all these parts of ourselves. I was
Rick Archer: on a monastic program for about 15 years from ages of about 22 or 23, up till 37. And you know, sometimes living in ashrams and, and, boy, I mean, people could get so idiosyncratic in that lifestyle, so, so kooky because they didn’t really have the kind of checks and balances that you had in a close relationship. And, and, you know, if somebody started to rub you the wrong way, you could just gravitate to somebody else, or just hang out with other people, and you were never really called on your stuff. And I Exactly,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: yeah, yes, that’s true. Yeah, we can’t get away from our stuff. In close relationship, right. And many, you know, we just can’t, and many monks, maybe they’ve been in a monastery all their life, if you put them in a in a marriage, it’d be a whole different story, you know, because that’s, yeah, that brings it all up, it’s a mirror. And then it matters, you know, how we meet it? And it can we meet it in a way that brings about deeper awakening and deeper embodiment of that awakening. And I think that relationship is, you know, one of the ways that that happens, most, potentially,
Rick Archer: my wife and I, she was on the woman’s core counterpart to the program I was on. And we we went from those programs, cold turkey into marriage without any sort of real ordinary courtship periods or anything, period. And, you know, it was sort of intense.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: I mean, I bet it was a good experience, but I just talked about,
Rick Archer: yeah. It was intense for both of us. I mean, I was a piece of work, and all kinds of obsessions and whatnot. But anyway, now, you know, to shift the topic a little bit, but not too much. You know, there are people like Mickey Rooney or Elizabeth Taylor, who are married seven or eight times and or Donald Trump three times, Natalie counts the marriages. And so there’s this syndrome of falling in love. And it’s all hunky dory. And then it starts getting difficult. And then you think, Well, this one isn’t working out. And so if your attention gets caught by somebody else, and you say, Well, this one seems like the real deal here, I started to feel that feeling again, you know, and some in some people’s lives that that syndrome repeats itself many times. And yet they say, statistically, that second marriages don’t last as long as first marriages generally, or they have a worst track record. And perhaps the perhaps the track record continues to decline, as the, as the marriage count increases. So, you know, how would you? How would you explain the mechanics of that pattern? And what can people do to sort of not not let not be caught in that pattern?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, some of it is what I already mentioned about that falling in love. And this is magical experience, I had mentioned that and that they will, we don’t understand that it’s opening up something that’s already there. So remember, I said it gets pinned on the other person. So that’s where the trouble starts, you start to feel separate, you start to feel, you know, judging the person, you get more and more separate, there’s more and more conflict. And so this isn’t right, then you go on to the next one. And maybe that’ll work. And then you’re seeking that high. Again, two people are seeking that high. And then the same thing happens. And well, this isn’t right. And so they, instead of taking a look at what they missed in what opened up, you know, they blame it on there wasn’t the right person, you know, and then if you’re a little bit more evolved, you say, Well, maybe it’s something in me, and I have to go to therapy and, you know, work on it. And usually, you know, oftentimes people come to therapy, after they’ve repeated this pattern enough times over and over again that they start to think well, I need to take a look at myself. I’m repeating a pattern here. Yeah. And you also see that it’s similar types of people, similar similar patterns, you know, that repeats himself. So people we’ll finally get it if they’re lucky that they need to look inside, and start examining what’s going on on a psychological emotional level. And if they’re even luckier, they’ll look deeper to see, you know, what’s actually here? already?
Rick Archer: Yeah, and of course, most marriage therapists in the world and there probably many 1000s of them, don’t have this non dual perspective, I suppose, you know, given the, the growth of interest in spirituality and non duality and all that, then it must be seeping into various people’s practices and methodologies. But it’s probably you’re probably in the extreme minority still. So what advantages would you say that you have, as a therapist over someone who is using more conventional means?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, it’s a, it’s a pretty significant advantage. Because you know, how that the same that’s attributed to Einstein, we can’t solve a problem on the level at which it was created, you know, so the root cause of all the problems that people experience in relationship or anywhere else is the belief in separation, you know, that’s where it starts. And then out of that, you know, we grow up in a world of separation, that causes a lot of wounding and trauma and disturbance, and, you know, people struggle like crazy, you know, with relationship. So a conventional therapist will work with the trauma, or with the wounded, and so on. And then they that can be opened up, that can be made more conscious, that can be relaxed to some, but in terms of really, truly being free of the struggles that we have, you’re living in separation and duality, that can’t happen, you know, without a non dual understanding. And so if the, without direct experience, actually of our non dual beam, so if the therapist has some direct experience and is sitting as that, then that in itself, can potentially open that up, there’s a resonance there, that ever everybody can feel whether they’re conscious of it or not, and it provides a deep safety, you know, for for them to open up and take a look at what they need to look at. And if they’re ready, then the therapist can point directly to this in them. And then if they recognize it within them, and it’s conscious within them, and awaken them, and it’s awaken the therapist, then real magic and transformation can happen in a way that it cannot, you know, without that, yeah, it’s very limited how far you can go without that.
Rick Archer: I sometimes like to think of one’s true nature, pure awareness, if you want to call it that unbounded awareness, as being like a solvent, that you know, can dissolve a lot of stuff. Or to use in a metaphor, you know, without recourse to that it’s as if your, your awareness were like, a cup of water, and you want to dissolve some mud, say, put mud in a cup of water, the water doesn’t really the cup doesn’t really have the capacity to dissolve that mud. Whereas if the awareness can become like an ocean, then, you know, it can easily dissolve quite large loads of mud.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Right? The the awareness is the is the solvent, it’s universal solvent, it’s the only solvent. And and that’s one of the understandings that is been growing in my own process, is there really isn’t any alternative, you know, that. And the more you understand that, then the more committed you become, to turn into this mystery, you know, which is ego doesn’t really like, you know, in many ways resting in that because there’s no sense of a self there, that’s really defined. But I see that I don’t really have any choice. There’s, there’s no, there’s getting to be more and more immediate suffering, if I go into separation, and there’s no solution there to anything.
Rick Archer: So nice work has been done and is being done using meditation of various kinds in inner city schools and in, you know, with veterans suffering from PTSD and stuff, and they’re very often finding that, you know, serious trauma can be healed, which seemed kind of like intractable otherwise.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, it can be and in the work that I do, my speak about the importance of bringing in this awareness to have something that is already free of the trauma that was never touched by the trauma that has the power to dissolve Have it, if it’s strong enough in us if it’s awake enough enough, and I feel that it was most people, they also need to do some trauma work, you know, with the nervous system, because trauma can dis regulate the nervous system and make it very difficult to be present in the moment, you know, it causes you to is, you know, Peter Levine, who I studied with, you know, one of the leading trauma therapists or teachers said, that define trauma as the inability to be present with what is, and we know that that’s required to be awake, right? Being awake, is about being present with what is. So I wrote an article in the sacred mirror, I think it was 2003. About that, you know, because in my own experience, it was difficult, having a dysregulated nervous system early on, and having spiritual teachers say, Just be present with it. When I couldn’t be, you know, my nervous system didn’t have the capacity to do that, you know, so I needed to work both ways, you know, really work with the trauma and really work with the awakening. And they were inseparable for me.
Rick Archer: I’m glad you said that. Because, you know, thanks. Spiritual development is a neuro physiological process, as well as being a more subjective one. And sometimes that’s not taken into consideration. But you know, but those who do consider it can tell us that there’s all kinds of physiological change taking place. And you can do fMRI scans that see that the brain is really actually being restructured, and there are all sorts of things that can be measured, that change profoundly over time.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, and it’s, it’s really the awakening, as we rest more deeply in it, it brings the nervous system into more of a rest. And I think that’s where we’re all longing for. And we’re traumatic, it’d be helpful to actually use methods and skills and so on to facilitate that.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there was one study, I recall where they measured meditators, the ready the speed, or the ease with which they habituated to stressful stimuli. Whereas you know, someone who didn’t meditate, which continue reacting rather markedly to repeated stressful stimuli, the meditators, habituated rather quickly, they certainly reacted initially, but then the reaction just kind of dropped off. So there wasn’t this sort of habit pattern that was compelling the nervous system to keep responding unnecessarily and inappropriately to something.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s true. And if somebody has significant enough trauma in their nervous system, even with meditation, it might keep pulling them into repetitive reactions, and they don’t work through that trauma.
Rick Archer: Sure, I’m not, I’m not intending to say that meditation alone is the panacea here, but it’s just sort of an example of some research that was done. And I’m sure that the work you do is an important adjunct to meditation and important in and of itself. Okay, going through our notes here a little bit more. So we’ve kind of covered this one, I think the ego mind cannot ever provide for our deepest needs only our being can, right. I mean, is there anything more you would say about that?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, when we go back to relationship, you know, most of the human race is looking for getting needs met with from other people, you know, and most of us had deficits in our childhood, we didn’t get all of our emotional needs met. And we’re looking for those needs to be met through another person. And that’s really problematic, because there isn’t really another person separate from those that have something to give us that we don’t have. That’s all an imaginary thing. So it can’t work. And it causes a great deal of suffering for people and points them back to themselves, you know, where those needs can get met. We need to find that deeper ground of stability and love that’s always here, that never moves. And no human being even in the best of relationships is always here. It’s always available. As always, you know, attending to you. That’s just not possible. Yet we long for that. Right? We long for that security and that stability and that never ending love. And that’s only found in our own pain.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And if people don’t believe that this is the way it is, then just listen to pretty much 95% Of all the pop songs ever written.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: All about that. Yeah, about
Rick Archer: that. Oh, baby, I can’t live without blah, blah, blah.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: You don’t know what they’d write about it. People wake up out of that. Yeah. What would they sing about? It’d be different.
Rick Archer: Okay, so going through some notes and triggers conversation. We cannot fully transform ourselves or our world without addressing issues at the root, which is the belief in separation and duality. Relationships will always be challenged within that belief. i Yeah, both parts of that point I really like I mean, you can’t solve problems on level of problem, which I guess just paraphrase is the Einstein quote, you can’t help a tree much by watering its leaves, you have to water the root. And so palliative care and treatment is superficial doesn’t really get to the cause. Picking weeds, I mean, you can’t really get a weed out unless you get the root out. So maybe coming in on that one first. And we’ll we’ll discuss the second part of belief and separation and duality.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, you have to what addressing pulling it out at the root? Yeah, you’re getting to the
Rick Archer: root of things, rather than paying me painting the roses red, you know,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: you pull weeds out on the tops, they just go right back, right. And, and so I feel like there’s there’s an evolutionary imperative, there’s an evolutionary imperative, that’s a big deal that you that the human race is facing right now to wake up out of separation and duality. And unless they get to that root cause of all the insanity that we’re seeing an increasing amounts in our world, it is not ultimately going to shift if we keep going to superficial resolutions. And it is just, you know, cutting back a little bit, then it goes into its, it’s not turning it around. And now we’re at a point where the survival of the species in the planet itself is being threatened. And in generally, through the evolution of life on this planet, it seems that when it gets faced with an evolutionary imperative, something happens. So that’s what I’m hoping for is that something will happen that the human race will start to look deeper into what’s going on here. Because as I said, is consciousness playing out a reflection, we look at the world, it’s it’s a movie playing out of our individual and collective consciousness. And it’s, it’s a mirror being held up, you know, to us is like, are you going to look at this, look what’s happening here. And people still look at it, blame it on external things, politicians or situations, and think we need to change this, in order for it to be better. And when we do that, in relationship, we do that all the time, instead of going to the root of it. And that’s going to be necessary if we’re going to even survive, ultimately,
Rick Archer: yeah, I think we get the politicians that reflect the collective consciousness of the people and that collective consciousness is, you know, the conglomerate sum total of all the individual consciousnesses. There was a nice section in your book, you’re interviewing somebody, and he was saying that he was kind of taking off some of the many problems that that that alone could wipe out the human race, and there are quite a few of these, which we all have the potential to do so. And in I’ve talked to people who only see that side of it, and are pretty glum, you know, I’m pretty pessimistic about the prospects for our long term survival or even past the end of this century. But then your your interviewing here, in the book, was very nicely, I forget how he put it, but he expressed very nicely how there seems to be this counterbalancing force arising in terms of this mass awakening taking place. And which you don’t see much on the news, but which is nonetheless real and significant, and hopefully, potent?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes. And I think that that that is coming out of that evolutionary imperative, you know, it was a movement and it is it keeps the consciousness keeps increasing and moving and accelerating, and it can get intense for all of us, because this needs to happen right now. And it’s still it’s just a race to, you know, like somebody else said in the book, you know, beat the clock against mass extinction, you know, this race, and we don’t know if we’re going to enough is going to wake up and enough time to turn this around.
Rick Archer: No, we don’t. I’m glad you said that. Because I don’t think we should be complacent and sort of like, take solace in New Age. platitudes about the Golden Age coming and all that stuff.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: sand or going to a sand.
Rick Archer: Yeah, actually, that’s what some of the Christians think that they’re gonna get pulled up, you know, to heaven. Everybody else is gonna just sort of I live in flames. But um, it takes diligence, I think and attention and sincerity and for everyone who, who is in a position to do so and is aware of what we’re talking about here to do as much as they can with their life to help shepherd this thing along.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Oh, absolutely. And I know for myself, you know, the, the more my process evolves, it is naturally evolved from, in the beginning, even the spiritual process was very self absorbed, you know, like me and my spiritual experience and my meditation and my therapeutic work, and you know, my process, and it’s nothing wrong with that it needed to be that way, for a while, it was pretty consuming. And now it’s like, opened up to include more of the whole, in a concern for the hole, and a very deep knowing and experiencing that. I’m not separate from the person sleeping on the cold sidewalk, or whatever, I see the many countless horrors in the world, these are my own self, and I’m experiencing it that way. So not only I can’t dismiss it as an illusion, you know, in a way it is in another way, my heart just breaks, you know, for what’s happening in the world. And there’s a, there’s a natural movement to do whatever I can, you know, to facilitate the alleviate the suffering in others. Yeah. And that’s where I got into what I called awakened activism, which I spoke about at the sand conference last year. Because I have a political activist in me, I used to be one when I was younger, and then I just kind of gave up and went into spirituality. And I thought, Okay, I’ll find, you know, freedom that way, it is like, politics is was just too hopelessly corrupt. But I came back to it, I got inspired by Bernie Sanders trying to move towards a revolution. And because I saw one was desperately needed, unfortunately, that didn’t follow through. And, and so I just sat with for quite a while I sat with what strong opinions I have, when you when it gets to politics, everybody has a really, really strong points of view, you know, even silver really awake, people are very conscious people, you know, you can get a group of people and I’ve experienced this together in a room that have a lot of awakeness. And they’re still like fighting on these different different points that when it comes to politics, and I saw that we needed a more awakened, less divisive way of approaching the great problems that we’re facing on the planet. And somehow I needed to wake up out of my points, my fixed points of view, and they were very strong, and you know, I’d fight people on them. And it took, it took quite a while of sitting with them, and feeling the reactions and resting in the reactions and feeling the reactions and resting in the reactions. Before I finally move beyond that and feel like I’m holding them lightly, I have a real understanding that we ultimately don’t know what’s going on, on, you know, even political levels, let alone you know, cut you cosmic levels. And that opens the way to how allow a movement of a deeper wisdom, again, not solving the problem, on the level it was created, we need to move from an infinite wisdom, our little egoic conditioned mind can’t even begin to solve the problems in the world. And it’s only going to approach them from a place of opposition, and fighting against and, you know, whatever it is, we’re fighting against anti war, you know, when I was in the anti war movement, in my early 20s, I stopped because at one point, I was in a massive demonstration, and there was tear gas being thrown and yelling, cops hitting people, and I just stood there and I realized that I was protesting war in a war, ya know, that we created a war between us and the police. And, you know, we have to get beyond all of that, to be able to move into a kind of activism that sometimes called spiritual activism or sacred activism. And what I’ve called awakened activism, too, so a little bit different in that I’m just adding awakened non dual understanding to that, you know, coming from a more undivided place beyond our points of view. Yeah, my mind. That’s a lot that’s asking a lot of people to do that, but I think that’s what’s required.
Rick Archer: I think so. I’m reminded of that Buffalo Springfield song, you know? 1000 People in the street singing songs and carrying signs mostly say hurray for our side. Yes.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Right. And they’re right. And even the, you know, the people fighting for peace and anti war, you know, and even though it sounds like you know what they’re doing is right, it’s still, you know, they’re taking a stance and they’re fighting against something in there back in duality. Yeah, and there’s no solution there,
Rick Archer: there have been some nice initiatives where people have gotten together, physically, in a hall or something, you know, from polar opposite ends of the political spectrum, and have kind of like, managed to sort of learn to see each other’s points of view and to find common ground. And there’s some interesting movements and initiatives in that direction. But I definitely think, you know, getting back to the non duality thing that that really can be a tremendous asset or aid to doing what we’re just what we’re saying here.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, because that’s the common ground. Yeah, 90 well being is the common ground. And when we start seeing, we’re one being the one planet, you know, and stop all of this division and fighting against, you know, that then, whether it’s the blacks or the Muslims, or the immigrants, there’s always a damn, you know, one being we have to get into the more that understanding.
Rick Archer: Yeah, Nisargadatta said that the ability to appreciate paradox and ambiguity is a sign of spiritual maturity. I know, in my own case, I’ve been to quite a few different countries. I spent three months in Iran one time, and Philippines, nine months, India a couple times. And wherever you go, even, you know, country that you might consider to be antithetical to your perspective or belief system, like Iran, many people might feel you meet these gems, you know, these wonderful people. And they’re everywhere. And, you know, there’s another guy who I saw recently who is a black man, who may, who makes it his mission to convert Ku Klux Klan members. And having done so he collects their robe as sort of a Toki token of his success. And he’s got quite a few robes that he’s collected, and he just kind of sits down with them, man to man human being to human being, and begins to communicate and eventually wins them over, you know, just through that. Yes, that directness and yeah,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: yeah, and I think that that’s a part of our, you know, what I call awakened activism and also of our embodiment of awakening, as we evolve. And we want we were more attending to the whole and not just me, me, me, we each have a gift to offer, you know, we each have some special gift that we are an offering to the whole, you know, we are this one being expressing itself in such, you know, seven point whatever billion ways. But, but as that opens up in us, there’s something we have to offer like this person, maybe that’s his piece, you know, converting Ku Klux Klan members, you know, we each have something in it. And it’s only the ego that says, well, they’re, their, their gift looks bigger than mine. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s your particular gift that you’re here to offer, it’s the best thing you can give.
Rick Archer: Very true. And, you know, we all have different talents and different gifts. And, and also, I mean, look at nature itself, how diverse it is, how much variety, you know, look at the tropical rainforest, how much diversity and then go to Siberia and the animals there and the kind of plants there and just like wherever you go, if we want to speak of God or the divine, it just is like this explosive, creative force that just keeps churning out, you know, diversity.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes. Yes. Explosive, creative force really is what it is.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t think you sometimes hear people speaking of more enlightened world as being less diverse in a way, you know, all believe the same thing or, you know, there won’t be any individual governments or who knows. But it seems to me that variety is the spice of life and that variety and diversity can be harmonized, and it’s it’s clashing parts can be reconciled or lubricated by this solvent, again of duality.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, absolutely. That all comes together, you know, in in that solvent, and you know, where each we can be actually, I think more of the individual expression, that’s my experience, is that, you know, the more I wake up, the more fully the lynmarie expression gets to be. You know, she’s not so inhibited by all insecurities and self doubts and so on. And she gets to be more fully her expression.
Rick Archer: Yep. I agree. I mean, all the, quote unquote, enlightened people that I’ve hung around with, have these vivid personalities, you know, just just full of life full of uniqueness and joy and expressiveness. And there’s no sameness among them on that level.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: No, not on that level, just on the beam level. Yeah, you know, the deeper beam level. But yeah, they get to be more the bull in a unique expression. And at the same time, you know, there’s there’s the sameness This is the paradox.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I mean, I mentioned the rainforest a minute ago, the reason there’s so much diversity there is that it’s such a fertile place for plants to grow. You know, so there’s more diversity, because the ground is nutritious for the plants. So the, you know, the ground of being is nutritious for us. And, you know, tapping into that isn’t going to make us all the same. It’s going to make us different, more in a way more different, more unique. Yes. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, harmonized with one another.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes. Yes, harmonized? Because we see what the same thing where we’re on. The other is our own cell. So that naturally harmonizes? Everybody, I mean, that’s the solution. We don’t know, like we said, how, how many people are going to really wake up net to that in time, you know, to really change this planet. But you know, that is the solution. I don’t think it’ll take
Rick Archer: a majority, in fact, could be in the single digits, percentage, because it’s so potent.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s right. Just a few people. Yeah, really established in that changes that changes. Everything.
Rick Archer: Yeah. 1% of the cells in the heart are called pacemaker cells, and they regulate the synchronized beating of the entire heart. And in a laser, the square root of 1% of the photons have to align coherently with before all the rest of the phones are photons and trained with them. And the whole thing behaves as one coherent beam of light. It’s true. Yes, examples. Yeah,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: nature. That’s right. That’s right. So it’s no, it’s not going to take a majority. That’s good news.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I suppose one, another way of explaining that is that the more fundamental level you operate from, the more leverage you have, you know, the more influential you can be. Part, again, apologies to those who for me use this metaphor many times. But if you, if you were to try to change the course of river down near the mouth of it, where it enters the ocean, you could do it, it’s already run its course, and there’s too much force. But if you could get back to the source in the mountains, or wherever, where it starts out, maybe just with some little diversion, you could change the course of the river. So if you can kind of get back to the source of your thought to the source of your, all your behavior, and just function consciously from there, with very little, you know, effort, you can change the whole,
Lynn Marie Lumiere: because you’re operating from, from the infinite power of our being, and then that’s what has the power to change things, to influence things. So we need the rest back in that plug into that be that and let that move as each of us and that, let that do what it knows to do.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and this will get us back to the relationship thing, again, which we’ll keep coming back to, which is that, you know, if you don’t function from there, then by the time you’re ready to speak, or act, you know, there’s such a sort of a, you’ve become gripped, or identified with whatever you’re about to say or do. Whereas if you do function from more from the source, there isn’t that gripping. And so there’s a sort of a greater freedom to be kind of spontaneously in accord with whatever is the right thing to say or do.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, it gives you the space to do that. Yeah, you know, because it’s, it’s resting in a big open space of allowing and accepting. And even if something comes up and does review, then you can always access that again, you know, to open up that grip, you know, whatever is happening. You know, that is the solution.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I found in my own experience that, you know, I mean, if something comes up with my wife, and there’s, there’s a, I could say something. But if I were to say that particular thing with there might be three days of bad feelings, you know, or I could just say, Hold on now and just okay, and then five minutes later, whole thing’s gone.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, I find that in my experience. Um, that, you know, oftentimes, whatever comes up in relationship that can be resolved or solved, solved in the awareness, without ever needing to take it to the partner. Yeah, most things don’t need to be even taken to the partner. And if if they do, and you allow it to resolve in awareness, you rested in awareness. That, then you have the clarity and the wisdom to know how to do that, and you’re gonna say it in a way that won’t create bad feelings for three days. You know, so it gives you a way to be more awake, in our in, in your relating, you know, have a place to go, so to speak, not know how to say it to rest that does provide, you know, a, a wisdom and a space in a love to allow whatever is happening, even the intense charged things that come up in relationship and to allow them to unfold in a way that doesn’t end up being reactive into the other person and causing harm. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I mean, think how many people are in prison because they behaved reactively or impulsively, you know, and if they had a little bit more discernment, you know, they would never have done that thing.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: No, no most majority of murders I read, you know, have to do with that just, you know, emotional reactivity. Yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Incidentally, you know, those who are listening to this live, we got about 150 people on, if you have a question and would like to ask it, you can go to the upcoming interviews page on batgap.com. And then there’s a forum at the bottom of that page through which you can submit a question. Okay, so as we go along, then, you know, we’re going back and forth having this conversation, if there’s anything that comes to mind that I’m not bringing up, feel free to just jump in, and you know, we’ll talk about it. Okay. Okay, anything at the moment?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, maybe I can talk about what I call the three R’s, sure, of awakened relating, because that applies to everything that applies to all of life that, you know, might be useful for people, it’s just kind of a little map that came out of my consciousness, you know, a no map is absolute truth. But, you know, I just tried to break it down, in simplistic terms, that could hopefully reach a larger number of people than just maybe the non dual crowd. You know, so people could understand, first of all, the first star is is recognize, you know, that it’s possible to recognize, as I spoke about earlier, this ever present, aware space, that’s always here, that’s behind all thoughts, that’s always looking out of our eyes, that pervades everything. And that it can, there’s simple ways like stopping thinking for a moment. And just seeing, you know, most people can stop thinking for two seconds, and then see that they’re still here, what’s still here, and it’s not something that you can define or grab a hold up that you, you can experience, that there’s still something that an energy, a presence, something that’s, that’s aware, that’s still here. And we don’t have to stop that forever. But for a moment, is necessary just to see was here behind the constant stream of thought that obscures this awareness that we actually are. So that’s one simple way of being able to get a glimpse of that. And if we get a glimpse of that, we see, oh, yeah, there’s an awareness here, in that gap. That’s awakening, that’s the very first step of awakening, you get that glimpse you’re awake, then you have a chance of returning to that again, and resting as that. So even if it’s for a couple of seconds at a time, and for most people, people need to know this with that, in the beginning, it’s usually only a couple of seconds that people can be with direct pain, you know, before the mind comes flooding back in and pulls us out. So it’s just returning to it again, even very short moments, again, and again and again. So first, it’s recognized and it’s rested in and that needs to happen as often as we can. Remember to do it. As much as we’re committed to doing that as much as we recognize the importance of doing that. That by going there we’re going directly to infinite being, you know, we bypass the mind and we go directly to that where it has everything we’ve ever needed or wanted. We start to understand that we go to there, even if it’s for a couple of seconds, and then you You know, we learn to rely on that. We rely on it, you know, something happens in relationship or in our life, you know, where do we go, it’s good to take a look at where we go. Usually, it’s like to our conditioned mind, right, that just has a bunch of conditioned thoughts, or we go to other people, and they’re, they’re conditioned thoughts, you know, nothing that really goes anywhere. Or do we go back to that, that direct experience of being, even in Israel, a few moments of the power of that can change the whole situation, even just a few moments, people think they have to, like, be there all the time, or have some deep realization, they’re never moving from it, I’m trying to break it down. So people can start to see that they can access this, and bring it into their life. And so we start to rely on that, that goes, that becomes our go to, that becomes a place where we turn for everything that we need, security, comfort, answers. And there’s a there’s a fourth our that didn’t make it into the book, which is I thought of after it was too late to make changes, which is realize, you know, ultimately, we realize that we are that, that we’re resting in, and we’re relying on we are that, and and the more deeply we understand we are that we start to see everything is that, and to me, that is what you could call Enlightenment, or you know, being awake, and starting with the first glimpse up to that. So that’s my little map that I thought would, you know, can be helpful to break it down people and give them practical way to move in towards that.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I guess I have two things to say to that. One is that, if it seems appropriate, if it fits your lifestyle, or whatever, if you can find some kind of practice that you actually devote your attention to exclusively for a certain period of time, every day, some kind of meditation thing or something, or sit for 20 minutes, half an hour or whatever. I think that is a valuable engine on the train, as well as this thing you’re talking about, that you might do throughout the day.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: But it enhances it Because oftentimes, you know, the, the cutting through the mind to the direct awareness is challenging. If you’ve never done any meditation, if you’ve never done any mind training, where you’re really taught your mind to be more concentrated, and quiet. You know, in in Tibetan Buddhism Dzogchen, I would I have been influenced by that a lot, those teachings, and they would only give these direct instructions, a direct pointing out of awareness itself to monks that have been meditating, I don’t know, 20 years more, you know, really got had concentrated quiet minds, then they would tell them, so we don’t have time for that now. So people are being given this direct instruction without having done mind training. So it can be helpful to do that. Even though that’s not taking you necessarily directly to the awareness, it helps you to be able to see it and stabilize in it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I would say find a practice that is enjoyable to you. This shouldn’t be a chore. You know, the guest I had on last week Dean slider teaches meditation, and he was talking about naturalness a lot. And, you know, if you if it’s unpleasant, to sit and meditate, you’re not going to do it. You know, I mean, so there are types of meditation, one can learn, which are which you look forward to doing and which are refreshing and enjoyable and even blissful. So find something like that if you can, if that appeals to you.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Right? Yeah, and we live in this tech techno age where no, I hear from a lot of my clients, they’ve got apps with all kinds of intentions on them and you know, guided meditations and they go to the apps and that works for
Rick Archer: you. Personally, I would like prefer not to be reliant upon any external contraption. But you know, whatever floats your boat, you know, whatever works. Another thing about you’re saying realize you are that awareness and so is everything. And you said earlier, something about I don’t know something about belief in a belief in that or something. I just wanted to, to add, add that what we’re really talking about here is not a belief. You can stand on a sidewalk and read the menu and believe that the food in there is really the menu of a restaurant and believe that the food in there is really delicious. You can starve to death doing that you have to have the actual experience and there is a distinction between believing and experiencing.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Oh, absolutely. And like most you know, many people’s that aren’t religions, they rely on belief rather than in the belief, they’re taught that they just need to have faith in the belief. And then it keeps them from direct experience. And then even in the non dual spiritual world, which I’ve been in like 25 years, you know, people have developed its own religion, right. And its own concepts and dogma that people start believing in instead of going to direct experience. And I know for myself, in many, many ways, it’s been a blessing and a curse that I just had, you know, I feel things strongly. I was, you know, as I started on this path, I was in way too much pain, to rely on a belief, or a concept, I needed real experience. And, you know, that absolutely was necessary for me.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, you know, I mean, that’s actually the scientific method, if you think about it, is, you know, scientist wants to do an experiment on something, he has a certain amount of belief that his hypothesis might pan out. And so he states the hypothesis, and at that point, it’s only a belief, maybe this is true. And then he starts doing some experiments to actually ascertain experientially, whether it’s true or not, and maybe it will turn out not to be or maybe it will turn out to be. But he’s not content with mere belief when wouldn’t get anywhere? I think spirituality should have that kind of scientific emphasis.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, might be helpful.
Rick Archer: You know, one shouldn’t be satisfied with belief.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: No, well, it’s not satisfying. So that’s the like I said, for me, it didn’t, it didn’t resolve my pain. So that wasn’t going to do it. Yeah. It can’t rely on a brick belief when the going gets rough. It doesn’t hold up.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Another problem there is that if you try to make the belief, absolute, than every other belief, clashes with it, and so you see everybody else as the other as the enemy, and as extreme cases as deserving of death, because they don’t ascribe to your belief. That’s right. And that creates a lot of trouble in the world.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, that’s causing, you know, most of our wars. Yeah. It’s crazy that that yeah, that’s how crazy it can get.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Okay, back to these wonderful notes you sent me this is good, good fodder to chew on. Well, actually, the funny that the one, my eyes just fell on springs right off of what you just said, our world is showing us daily that living in an imagined duality causes massive suffering, our world is a reflection of our consciousness, it is consciousness, we need to look in the mirror of that reflection and take responsibility for what we’re all creating.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, I had mentioned that before. So I’ll just emphasize what I didn’t, what I didn’t emphasize, which is to taking responsibility. That’s something that’s very difficult for the ego egoic, imaginary separate self doesn’t like taking any responsibility, you know, it’s always somebody else’s fault. So there need to have some a little bit of a consciousness, whether it’s awakened consciousness, or just be more aware, conscious person to be able to start taking responsibility. And that’s absolutely necessary to see for our behavior or in our personal lives, our behavior, how we are in relationship, what comes back to us, what feedback do we get from life? It’s telling us, it’s a reflection of what’s going on inside of us. But the tendency is to make it about the other. Right? Yeah. And a tendency is to always make it about somebody out there. And like you said earlier, our politicians are reflections of our collective consciousness. And that is so true with our current administration, you know, it’s a reflection of this kind of culture that’s been developed out of, you know, reality TV and whatever. And it’s reflective of it, of our where our culture is devolving into, but people, you know, blame them, you know, or blame the the current president. It’s all about him. And it’s, it’s really, can we take responsibility we created that, you know, and same with the troubles we, we have in our life, we always have some responsibility for that. And so a willingness to take responsibility comes from having, you know, more living from a space bigger than the ego because ego just doesn’t do that.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I also think that kind of like in relate relation to this point that a love of truth is valuable. I mean, politicians, for instance, say all kinds of things that might please their base or might please their donors or whatever, but have no relationship whatsoever to what’s actually true. And you know, there are sites like PolitiFact which analyze the things that different politicians say and they have ratings For me really true to pants on fire, you know, it’s so untrue. And I don’t know, you can’t make everyone wish for that. But in one’s own life, it’s it’s nice to sort of have a desire to really know what’s true. And not only about political issues or things Politicians might speak about, but about anything about what your guru says, if you have one, you know, is it true just because the guru says it? And I mean, there’s that great quote from the Buddha, where he says, Don’t believe something just because I said it, you know, test it to your own in your own experience and your own understanding and see if it’s really true or not.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, that’s good. Because, you know, aside from taking responsibility, being committed to truth is another quality that’s needed in order to awaken and embody awakening. And this is something that my teacher, I just Shanti has always emphasized. And I learned from him over the past 20 years as he’s he’s really emphasized a lot about being honest and truthful. First of all, being honest with yourself, and kind of a rigorous honesty, there is so ways, so many ways we can delude ourselves, and not be honest with what we’re actually experiencing, and what’s actually going on, and being committed to truth, both on a relative human level speaking truth to each other, and being committed to the deepest truth. We know, in any given moment.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I don’t think that means sort of in your face, honestly, necessarily. Like, my wife was at the dentist yesterday, and they always have this sort of 60s, you know, all these play an intercom there. And then the dental assistant was singing some song and my wife said to her, you know, you really can’t carry a tune. And I thought, that sounded kind of harsh. And, you know, I mean, you don’t necessarily you need to tell somebody, they’re tired or ugly, or, you know, they don’t like their face. or some such story about Winston Churchill, where he went up to a woman at a party and said, Madam, you are the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. And she said, Mr. Churchill, you are drunk. And he said, Yes, madam. But in the morning, I’ll be so sober yet, you’ll still be the ugliest
Lynn Marie Lumiere: person to pretty himself? No,
Rick Archer: he was actually saying in Sanskrit of speak the truth, which is sweet.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, yeah, that’s it. You know, I’m glad you brought that up. Because to clarify that, that that’s not what’s meant by speaking the truth, just, you know, downloading all of your negative judgments about somebody? Because the negative judgments are not the truth. Yeah, you know, you know, so if we have some kind of reaction to somebody, mostly, it’s always something reflecting back to us, some part of us that we’ve disowned in ourselves, and therefore we’re judging in somebody else. So we be honest about that in ourselves. And then also, nothing needs to be said to the other person. If we say we get through to the other person, it’s usually something like, you know, instead of getting angry that they weren’t there for you in certain ways, saying, you know, I really needed your support, and I’m scared, you know, or I, you know, that kind of thing, that kind of truth. Yeah. You know, instead of saying something that’s not really true about them, when really what it is that you’re scared? Yeah. That’s what I mean, you know, by being truthful in relationship.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, the question came in from someone whom I think you may know, John Lumiere wins from the California. I think I know, yeah. John asks, could you share some stories of using shared awakeness in working with trauma and or relational wounding?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Share, share stories,
Rick Archer: stories, of using shared awakeness in working with trauma, and or relational wounding?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, I have some, you know, I have a lot of experience with that myself, John, and I have a lot of experience with that together. And in my book, I describe, you know, experiences I have with clients. And sometimes I just use everything that there is, you know, if I have a client who has some awakened awareness, then they can be with even very strong traumatic experience, which is the hardest thing to be present with, you know, it pulls us out of the present moment very strongly. So we, I resource the body in different ways, you know, through various work I can do and we can just gaze together, just lock eyes and go into that awareness together, where there’s a field that opens up a presence, you know, between us, that just holds the space for that experience to be had and to allow it to unfold, and we’re there together. There’s the other so they’re not alone. That’s the resource of being in relationship. You know, and There’s a resource of maybe guiding them to feel their body in certain ways, and ground in that and that massive resource of the shared presence of our OB being there together. And allowing that intense experience to dissolve, and open up into some kind of deep connected presence is very, very beautiful, powerful process. So give us a call,
Rick Archer: if you can, in terms of people you’ve actually worked with, like you have in your book, you have specific stories about people who did this work with you and the kinds of changes they underwent?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, I just described it, but you want me to describe the actual symptoms that they were going
Rick Archer: to like, say, you know, what happened to Mary and Mary did this. And, you know, this is the way she used to be. And then she became like that. And, you know, I think it gave give us just a couple of concrete examples of actual cases.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Well, there’s, there’s cases like what I just described, where they, we came together, they were there with in the shared presence together. And,
Rick Archer: like, you have a woman in your book, who had been mute who had been sexually molested by her grandfather. Oh, yes. And yeah, and that definitely had an influence on her behavior and her relationships. And then she went through this whole process with you. And then her behavior, and her relationships changed quite a bit. So examples.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Right? Yes, that’s I was just starting to say those examples where they, that got resolved more with me in the shared presence together. And in that case, that person actually had a depth of awakening to such an extent that she was able to be with some of the deeper wounding on her own, that it wasn’t in my office that some of that happened. So I use that even though that’s not common. As an example of what can happen with awakened awareness, you know, that even on your own, was something terrifying, like learning to sleep alone, with the with the light off for the first time in her life, and being the terror of that, in the presence of her own awakened being. And having that resolved within a week.
Rick Archer: Yeah, because your grandfather used to come in into a room and come in at night, and the siblings or the sisters would sort of trade off staying awake to stand guard or something like that, but it didn’t always work out. So it built this huge trauma.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s right. And so she had a great fear of sleeping alone. Yeah, you know, and so you had to overcome that, and that she did on her own with her own presence. But, you know, in the other cases, you know, they worked without with me, you know, so we have both of our presence there together. Yeah. And that would be true for for most people.
Rick Archer: Well, a burning log can get another log burning, but once the other log is burning, it can maybe burn on its own, if
Lynn Marie Lumiere: that is burning strong enough, that can even even get through something that powerful. And I wanted to give that amazing example, so people could see that that was possible. Yeah, sure.
Rick Archer: John, also, as also, what about being awakened relationship in relationship in the world? I think a nice example of that was your chapter about Adi Shanti. And mukti, his wife, and how, you know, they feel that sort of an awakened relationship based upon to an awakened individuals enables them to interact in the world differently than might ordinarily be the case.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Right? Yes, and it also grows the relationship with the, there’s no longer this need to get something from each other, you can just in more or less enjoy each other and, and share this love together and it spills out over to wanting to give beyond the relationship. You know, that’s the the fruition of awakened relating it, it develops beyond that. So in the case of Ida, and mukti, you know, they they actually spend, those spend a lot of time together on the retreat last week, Mukti was there for the seven day retreat. I just said it was because so they could spend some time together, because they spent so little time together with their mutual travels. So they’re really just giving, you know, of, of what they have been given. They’re giving it out, both of them fully beyond the relationship and you know, that becomes more important than the relationship. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I was thinking before when you were talking about how earlier on you were sort of self absorbed and your spiritual quest, you know, and then at a certain point, you began to sort of have a more giving orientation. And it’s like, it reminds you that, you know, 23rd Psalm of my cup runneth over. So they can tell the cup is full, if you’re going to be busy filling the cup, but at a certain point in time, it’s gonna run over once it’s, and it’s gonna continue to overflow.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, that’s just a natural movement of our evolution, I think is where we’re more the more ego identified we are the more we’re just totally self absorbed, and it’s all about me to, to actually insane degrees, you know, with what’s happening in the planet where, you know, people try to get more for them, like corporations, you know, denying other people a lot, you know, in order to get more money for them.
Rick Archer: I mean, possibly extinguishing the human rights just
Lynn Marie Lumiere: goes better, right? So that so that the heads of coal and oil industry can get more money. So it goes from that extreme to slowly opening and opening to more of a sense of, of the one bein that we are and the taking into consideration everyone, and taking care of everyone. And, you know, in general, this world’s not organized that way. But like you said, there’s gems, everywhere you go, you find these beautiful, open hearted people. I think this is just my personal opinion. So it’s just an opinion that you know, what’s really wrong with this planet is more the leadership than the people, you know. And if it’s got a leadership that people with the most money in the most power, tend to be on the greedy side. But there’s a lot of beautiful open hearted people in the world.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Bernie Sanders sent out an email yesterday to about Disney, you may have gotten it and how the head of Disney got like $400 million, or something last year, but there’s a tent city outside Disneyland, where a lot of the employees live because they can’t afford to live in ordinary houses. And, and Bernie’s email was about giving them at least $15 an hour, which is still still barely a living wage. So there’s this huge inequity in the world. And
Lynn Marie Lumiere: yeah, and that’s and that’s growing more and more, isn’t it is we’ve seen the tent cities. And, you know, I just moved here to Grass Valley three months ago, I lived in the bay area for over half my life and living in seeing Oakland and San Francisco is oh my god, yeah, it’s just in it just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And nothing’s being done about it. They just keep pushing them away somewhere. And so this shows how far we’ve gotten from our, our true nature and our basic command humanity and our, our, our inherent sense of compassion and caring for each other, how far away you know, it’s gone from that. And the people who have you know, they’re worth $500 billion, and they, they still don’t want to pay taxes, or they want to give their employees $15 an hour. It’s insane. It’s literally insane levels of of greed. And that’s where it goes when we don’t wake up.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And there’s historical evidence to suggest that, you know, extreme disparities of wealth and privilege like that lead to the toppling of civilizations.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, they’ve all talked about all of the the empires have toppled. For that reason, they always end up there, everything goes to the top, and they ignore the masses leave the masses with nothing. And then it collapses in on itself. So particularly the American Empire is right on the verge of that or it’s heading towards that,
Rick Archer: yeah. And, you know, left the people listening to this thing, that they’re now listening to a couple of socialists. Heaven forbid, you know, I think this is germane to the whole issue of spirituality, and to the whole to, you know, profound points, such as we are all one, essentially. I mean, if you really, really think in terms of your body, you wouldn’t want to just, like, put a mitten on your hand in the wintertime and run around naked otherwise, you know, you’d want to somehow protect the whole body. And so if we really, if we are all one, and I think most people listening to this will realize that, essentially, we are, then you know, it’s not good enough to just know that on a sort of a transcendent level, it really has to manifest it has to be appreciated in terms of its full range of manifestation. You know, Whatsoever you do unto the least of these you do unto me, quote, yes, Jesus again. And I don’t know, it’s, it’s like, hopefully, if if spiritual awakening is really dawning in the world, we’re going to somehow rather see things being shuffled around. So it becomes a practical application of this perspective. And you know, that so much suffering? I mean, starvation is completely unnecessary. Now, there’s enough food in the world to feed everybody. But things just aren’t distributed properly. All right. That’s true. An example of one thing?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, it’s it’s like taking into account first of all the wholeness of ourselves, just being with the truth. That’s it, it’s just being with the truth that doesn’t work to live away from the truth within in separation and duality, we just come into alignment with what’s actually true, which we are the source of everything we’re looking for, and we are when being so it’s not nothing’s going to work till we come into alignment with what’s actually true. And include all of ourselves, including all of the hurt and wounded and abandoned parts of ourselves, in our whole being, then we can work towards healing the planet, in taking, you know, everybody into account and how can everybody have, you know, what they need? We take care of each other. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I mean, there’s actually almost a stereotype of spiritual people as being selfish, you see that sometimes it’s like, like, you’re saying, Oh, me, me, me, you know, it’s like, my, my evolution, my meditation, my diet, you know. And it can get kind of neurotic. But you know, maybe that’s a phase and people grow out of it if their growth is genuine. And
Lynn Marie Lumiere: it was a phase for me, and it was necessary at the time, because it was so all consuming working through everything I had to work through. I didn’t have much space for anything else. And so it was necessary at the time, but I did evolve through it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So we don’t want to sound judgmental toward people who might still be functioning that way. But, you know, we do live in precarious times. I mean, you know, many people might deny it, especially if it has some relevance to their income. But, you know, there’s a very real possibility that billions of people could die unnecessarily in the coming decades, if, for a number of different reasons. And you know, you can’t evolve spiritually if you’re dead.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: It’s just interesting what it takes. We were talking in the beginning about needing Hard Knocks to wake us up. Yeah, it’s sort of like I’m bigger, harder, not can you get than that kind of evolutionary imperative. And still, you know, people are sleepy. So it’s like, I don’t know what it’s gonna take. But, you know, they are waking up more they are for sure.
Rick Archer: I think part of the problem is it’s a slow moving train, you know, I mean, climate change, for instance, take that example. It doesn’t seem like it’s happening very quickly. And, and you know, then there’ll be a snowstorm in Washington, DC, and some, then some Senator opening a snowball into the, into the chamber and say, how hard global warming, you know, because people aren’t statisticians, and they don’t understand science, and they’re not looking at major trends, and they’re not interested in truth. You know, they’re interested in pleasing their donors.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: That’s exactly right. And I think it’s 90 some percent of the scientists are saying that it’s pretty dire.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So it’s funny that we’re meandering like this, from this near relationships to consciousness to like I
Lynn Marie Lumiere: said, at all. Everything. It’s all intertwined. It is it’s all intertwined. And the truth of what is applies to all of it? Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: It’s kind of neat that we’re both talking this way. Because and I think not just us, but a lot of people do these days, you got people like Andrew Harvey, and others talking about sacred activism, very to Shaolin. There are many others. And I interviewed those people, Kimberly, in Foster Gamble, who did the Thrive. Oh, yeah. And we were talking about how back in the late 60s, you know, the meditators were sitting on their butts, the activists were shouting in the streets. And both camps thought that the other word in lala land, and nothing was good. Now, the meditators are sort of, in terms of thinking in terms of sacred activism, and the activists are thinking in terms of spirituality, and there’s this kind of this marriage is taking place?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes. And I think like Andrew says, you know, you have to do something, you know, he gets so intense about it, you know, you have to get off the cushion and do something. And so I want to make that point to that. I know, in the non dual world, it’s been common to think of Do you know, do nothing, and there’s nobody to do anything. And for many, many years, I was, I did not meditate because there was that influence of, you know, you’re not supposed to do anything. It’s all a matter of, you know, just being or just accepting what is or, and, you know, I eventually realized that there is a kind of doing that needs to happen. You could call it an effortless effort. The resting is kind of an effortless effort. But I also had to do I had to backtrack and do some real mind trading for a while, you know, to learn to have my mind become more trained and quieted, not everybody has to do that. But I chose to do that. it Yeah. And there’s a constant kind of non effort, effort, intentionality that it that’s involved in this. It’s a giving everything, all of your attention, your devotion to this, this is a misunderstanding that there’s nothing to do or you’re not supposed to do anything. And that’s also true with what’s going on in the world. I hear people say, Well, I’m waking up, and that’s enough or what not what what is there to do? It’s all an illusion, or these are all concepts, you know, that we hold on to? That there is something to do?
Rick Archer: Yeah. No, it is concepts. And it’s also a confusion of levels. That’s one way of putting it, there is a level at which you don’t do anything, and you’ve never done anything, and nothing’s ever happened. And there is no universe and all that jazz.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: But unless you’re there, that concept doesn’t do any good, right? And even
Rick Archer: if you are there, you might be to all appearances dynamically engaged in activity, you know, try going back to the Gita again, you know, the Krishna says, what would happen to the universe if I did not continually engage in activity, and yet, there’s other verses which say that, you know, the, the awakened person that even you know, sitting and standing and doing this and doing that he does not act at all, and yet, he’s doing stuff. So it’s like, just a matter of under appreciating their different levels of reality. And we can kind of grow to incorporate them all. And then we resolve these paradoxes, you won’t be doing anything, and yet you will be doing everything.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Right. That’s another paradox. Yes, yes. And there is plenty to do in the world as we’re moved to, but it’s important where it’s coming from.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, we’re on this point, actually, you know, it’s many people like maybe yourself and your old days got burned out on activism because they didn’t have recourse to that silent level. And they were, you know, like you said, you know, kind of, there’s a there’s a whole group in the 60s called the fogs and they had a song called kill for peace. And look at the weathermen and groups like that they’re trying to change society. They’re killing people. What kind of
Lynn Marie Lumiere: government? Yeah, they’re fighting for peace. They’re creating wars for peace, you know? Yeah. Great. That’s Orwellian, you know.
Rick Archer: All right, well, we got a couple of old radicals here. So we’ve gone, almost going two hours here. So and we’re a little bit retracing our steps. But it’s kind of fun, because we’re kind of going round and round. And back to the point, a new point. And
Lynn Marie Lumiere: like you said, they’re all interconnected.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So hopefully, people find this useful, but I do. So and in any case, before we wrap it up, as maybe we should do a wrap up that sort of gives us synopsis and kind of action steps kind of thing that people can take to, you know, get something practical out of our conversation. How would you like to approach that?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: I think the most important thing would be to have that basic recognition, to either find a way to, to have that recognition, whether it’s pausing the thoughts for a few moments and noticing what’s there. Or as Rupert Spira says, you know, asking people are you aware, and just, you know, just kind of getting aware of awareness. And if you already are aware of awareness, to rest is that to dedicate to devote yourself to that, all we really have to give is our attention, you know, to really rest attention in that, to know that that’s the most important thing that we can be doing. And out of that, we awaken more and out of that we become more the fullness of our expression, and that we’re able to give to the world in a way that only we can, but it’s not going to happen unless we go directly to our own being. And so to me, that’s a very, like practical way, recognize this, it’s immediately available, but then devote yourself to it. And, and rely on it until it becomes more and more stable and obvious. And eventually takes over, you know, is allowed to consciously take over, it’s already doing this life. But that’s how we awaken. We really recognize it, and then we devote ourselves to it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I would say it’s a lifelong project, but the fruits of it are immediate. And so you’re gonna wait a lifetime for something good to have. That’s
Lynn Marie Lumiere: right. Yes, there’s fruits of that right away. You know, it’s just a moment of more peace or rest, but there’s benefit right away. That’s true. And then that can motivate us. And then we can learn that when things get difficult within our life or within ours. thought that we have that to rest in, we have something to so called turn to, you know, to hold us and inform us and provide for us with everything that we need. It’s not out there and the others, or even a spiritual teacher, or, or a partner or anybody. It’s that Venus within ourself.
Rick Archer: It really does develop in one a reservoir that can be drawn upon, you know, in times of difficulty. I was talking to a friend, and she’s saying her father has a sort of a kind of dementia that makes him really nasty and, and how trying that is and everything, but there’s this some kind of buffer that’s been developed through years of spiritual practices makes it easier to deal with a thing like that.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes. And it’s important not to talking for a while not to wait till things get really difficult, right, you know, to turn to it, you know, then that takes a deepening of understanding of the value and importance of this.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I was trying to think of a biblical parable. But there’s even the story of the ant, and the grasshopper or something, what was what was the one thing where the ant, the animals accumulating all the all the what it needs for the winter, and the other animals are just fooling around, and then the winter comes? And there’s, it’s too late?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yes, yes. And we do have to deepen our presence. So it’s, like strong and stable enough consciously, to hold us in the really difficult stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, and when the difficult stuff comes, if you haven’t been doing that, it’s too late to do it. You got to sort of do it as you go along. So you ready? There’s a saying in the yoga sutras? Heyam Dukham, Anagatam, which means avert the danger, which has not yet come. And, you know, anyway. So you know, you’re in California, you have a book, people can read that wherever they are. Hold it up, but you sent me the E version. So I imagine
Lynn Marie Lumiere: that’s available for preorder on Amazon right now. Yeah, I’ll link to it. I think the books will start to be shipped within a few weeks later in June. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I’ll link to it from your page on BatGap. And is there any other way? Aside from the book? Is there any other way people can engage with you? Do you do any kind of sessions from over Skype or anything like that?
Lynn Marie Lumiere: I’m actually doing more and more sessions over Skype. Because I’m transitioning from the Bay Area to here. And so yes, I’m doing a lot of sessions over Skype. So that’s available. Okay. And connect with me through my website. Is my name.com.
Rick Archer: Good. I’ll be linking to that from your page on BatGap Also, so people can get in touch already. Well, thanks. This has been a lively conversation.
Lynn Marie Lumiere: Yeah, covered a lot of territory.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Thanks for listening or watching and thank you again, Lynn. Thank you, Rick. Ally.
