Maury Lee Transcript

Maury Lee interview

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. I’ve done hundreds of them now. And if this is new to you, and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to the past interviews page on bat gap calm. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers, if you appreciate it and would like to support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site. My guest today is Maury Lee. Maury got in touch with us with a rather different and interesting story than many of my guests. You know, most of my guests, I would say, are spiritual teachers, and most of them have written books and have a lot of YouTube videos up. Maury, I don’t think would consider himself a spiritual teacher, although he is a good writer, and he has an interesting blog. But his path was quite different than most of the people I interview. He’s never really done much meditation to speak of. But he went through a lot of therapy, including Primal Scream therapy, but I believe the guy’s name was Arthur Janov. Was it Maury? Yeah. And he got quite remarkable results from all that. So, we thought that’d be different, and more Maury is a well-spoken, good writer. So I think it’d be an interesting conversation. So welcome, Maury.

Maury Lee: Thanks very much for having me on.

Rick Archer: Welcome. I’m not going to read the bio that you wrote. Because I’d rather you just tell us as we go along about your life, and you know, how things unfolded for you. The kind of stuff that you were telling me in that video you sent, I think that’d be interesting, except, in this case, I’ll have the opportunity to interject a few questions as you tell it. So where would you like to start?

Maury Lee: Well, let me give a little background because I think it’s interesting. And I think it does apply to the way I’m set up. Back in the 16th century, there was a boy preacher of England, and he’s listed in the “Who’s Who,”. And he was the boy preacher of England, and ever since then, the oldest son in my family lineage became a minister, typically a Baptist minister. So all of the people in my background on both sides tend to be very religious, very spiritual type people. And it’s almost as if I was born with a genetic inclination to like, search for the truth, whatever that is. And it came down the line to me. And my father, you know, became a Baptist missionary to it was then the Belgian Congo. And so at that time, in the late 50s, early 60s, if you wanted to be a missionary to the Belgian Congo, you had to go to Belgium and learn French and stay there for a year before they would let you over there because it was a colony. So, when I was eight, I was thrown into a French-speaking school in Belgium. And that was very, very difficult for me because I was a really sensitive child and, and easily upset and disturbed and didn’t fit in. And then after that, I was taken out to the bush in the Belgian Congo, and only got like the summer there. And then I was taken to a boarding school in Kinshasa, which was the capital of the country, and is now, and so I was in boarding school and still went to French school. And in 1960, we heard on the ham radio to be at this hill at the top of the village at noon, because the Marines were coming in with choppers to take us out. And we got one suitcase per family. And so we went up on this hill and the Marines came in with their choppers and guns out and everything else, and we were evacuated from there to Kikwit, which was a city a number of miles away which Belgium paratroopers had just taken over. It was, I think it was called the Simba rebellion. They were killing anybody that was educated and killing a lot of missionaries. And so we got out just in time and the family, we went back to Appalachia, where my relatives lived. But my dad went back to Africa and, and stayed out in the bush, and got captured by Congolese soldiers and was almost executed, except that he’d been a teacher, and some soldier happened to recognize him and said, “Well, aren’t you Mr. So and so?” And he said, “Yeah,” and they said, “Ah, he’s a good guy, don’t kill him.”

But, so that’s just a little bit of the basic background. But so I, most of my relatives, they’re just all very spiritually inclined. But as a child, I could never, ever, ever buy Western theology and their interpretation of Christ, even as a little child, it’s like the idea that Christ died for my sins, was just absolutely repulsive to me. And course, being among missionaries, primarily, it was really difficult for me to express my opinion, because everybody was supposed to believe a certain way. The funny thing was, is being out in the bush a lot, I had the African culture as a counter to the Western theology. And I pretty early developed the idea that different cultures have very different ideas of what truth is or what love is, or what the best way to be is. And, and it just. So I didn’t believe anybody, I figured I’m kind of have to figure this out for myself. Because you know, the missionaries, I was around, I didn’t believe what they were saying. And the Africans thought something entirely different. And they had witch doctors, and they had their magic that if people believed that it worked. If the witch doctor told somebody, they were gonna die, they usually died. Because their belief was that strong, and I saw it. And then, of course, the Belgians think differently and see things differently. They’re mostly Catholic, but they don’t go to church or practice. So very early I, I saw that I was gonna have to find out for myself,

Rick Archer: it’s pretty neat that you were so independent-minded at such a young age, most kids aren’t. They just don’t think for themselves.

Maury Lee: Let me jump in on that. Because I think that’s a truism. But I. For example, about when the kids were all about 10, 11, 12, they all started getting baptized. And so my dad kept asking me, “Well, when are you going to get baptized?” And I said I’m not. He said, why not? I said, well, because I said, we’re all supposed to be a certain way and believe a certain way, and I said, all these kids are doing it just to please you and their parents and to fit in. And I said, as long as I’m under your household, me getting baptized won’t mean anything. I said, Now, if I’m away from home for a few years, like when I’m 21, or something, if I decide to get baptized, then it will have meaning.

Rick Archer: He said this when you were 10 or 11? That’s amazing. It’s really precocious.

Maury Lee: And, and so he couldn’t really argue with that. And he went. So I’ve never been baptized. The thing about it was that I only came to this discovery later on. But, the whole idea that Jesus died for our sins, was, like I said, always repulsive to me, because I would never ask someone to die for my sins. I just could not. It just didn’t sit within. And later on, when I started reading about Jesus, and they talked about, you know, he was the Lamb of God. It’s like the Jewish culture at the time of Jesus. What did they do for their sins? They sacrificed doves and sheep and goats and things. And, so when he died, they interpreted the death through their tradition, which was, oh, he was the Lamb of God, and God sacrificed him for our sins. Well, that was just a continuation of that culture. And I didn’t really, really understand Jesus till I studied Advaita Vedanta because all those Eastern sages, you know, it’s like, from my interpretation, Jesus is saying exactly the same thing. It’s just the West doesn’t get It.

Rick Archer: Yeah, yeah.

Maury Lee: The West just doesn’t get it. And we’re very parochial in the West, because, you know, most, most Westerners we go, Oh, those Indian gurus and stuff, they’re all pagans. They’re, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re terrible. But if you ask the Eastern sages about Jesus, they all say, Wow, he’s one of us. He got it. He understood. So, I mean, who’s, who’s got the more open mind? Once I started reading, you know, the Eastern sages, then all of a sudden, it’s like Jesus really made sense to me. And I could go, Okay, this, this is what I objected to as a child. It was the interpretation that these missionaries had.

Rick Archer: And you were saying that the missionary types didn’t get the Eastern sages, but the Eastern sages had no problem understanding Jesus.

Maury Lee: Exactly. And so I was very impressed that the Eastern sages seemed to have open minds. Like anything that pointed to the truth. Or, as they could see that that person understood the truth. They, they just brought him in and said, Yeah, he’s one of us, you know, he gets it. But we, in turn, do not give the Eastern sages that same benefit of a doubt.

Rick Archer: Well, it’s kind of a contrast between Christianity and Hinduism. You know, the Christians, one of the main pillars of the whole thing is ours is the only way. Although I think it’s gotten more liberal. The Pope’s talking more liberally. But in the east, the Christian missionaries would come in with Jesus. And the Hindus would say, Great, let’s add him to our altar along with all these guys.

Maury Lee: Exactly. And that is, that, I think that’s really, really beautiful. And anything that comes to India just seems to be included in the Pantheon. And it ends up being very inclusive. And I just really, I like that attitude.

Rick Archer: Yeah. And I think the reason that attitude is that in that tradition, it’s understood that God is vast. And even in the Gita, you know, Lord Krishna says that, whoever you are, however you sort of approach me, I’ll, you know, I’ll accept that. So it’s just very broad-minded. And, you know, there are multiple streams of spirituality. And there’s just a tendency not to be, I’m sure they’re fanatics and fundamentalists even there, but it’s, as a general rule, not so much.

Maury Lee:  Yeah. So I don’t know what you want,

Rick Archer: Okay, so, you finally got back to the States. In one piece, it sounds like. And I guess you got back into school back here, right? I don’t know if you finished high school back here, or just started college here. But.

Maury Lee: Because of, I always considered that I had a curse. And people think it’s funny because I say it, but it’s like, from early childhood, I questioned everything. And most adults around me, I didn’t believe them. It’s like, I didn’t ever feel like, a lot of them claimed to know the truth. But it was really more of a belief that they were fanatic about. And I just never felt that adults really understood what the truth was. And I couldn’t find it anywhere, and it was very painful. And so by the time I got to college, and I got out of any environment, I mean, I went to college in California, because that was as far away from any relative or anybody that I knew as I could get. Because I wanted to be free to have my own thoughts. And not have anybody say, I should think that.

And, but, so it was like being dropped into hell, because I had no basis, you know, for believing or knowing anything. And, and I was in a lot of pain and a lot of mental anguish. And I would look at all these California kids. This was like the late 60s In the middle of the drug culture. And I would see these kids playing Frisbee on the quad and they didn’t seem to have any concerns or any issues. And here I was in a lot of mental pain, trying to understand what truth was, and other people didn’t seem to have that issue. So, to me, it was like I was cursed. It’s like I had this fundamental need to know the truth that I could not escape. Good,

Rick Archer: Good curse to have in my opinion.

Maury Lee: Yeah, but, but it was, it was a drive that it didn’t feel personal as far as it wasn’t me being curious. It was like I had to know. And it was a very strong drive. And it made me just study and read everything in psychology that I could read and everything in spirituality and ask questions. And it was it was just a profound existential search that I could not escape.

Rick Archer: Where you, would you say you were suffering a lot? Because a lot of times you did mention that. Because a lot of people if they’re suffering a lot, they have a more ardent desire for Escape,

Maury Lee: Yes suffering, extreme suffering. And I had already decided that I would never get married and have kids unless I could figure this out, because I couldn’t see any reason why anybody would want to live with as much suffering as I had. So it was like, I had to find the truth that would stop my seeking or satisfy my seeking, or else really, life wasn’t worth living.

Rick Archer: And would you say that your suffering had anything to do with your itinerant upbringing moving from country to country to country? Or was it not really related to that?

Maury Lee: It contributed to it, but I think, mostly it was a spiritual angst that I needed. It was, I think, in my, I had an intuition, like, there was something that I knew but had forgotten. And some part of me knew there was something out there that I needed to find or relearn or rediscover, and it was of absolute importance. And if I didn’t find it, I was a goner. And, and that intuition was that drive that I, some part of me just knew there was something that I needed to know or rediscover. And, and, and I had to do it.

Rick Archer: That’s great.

Maury Lee: And it felt like a curse.

Rick Archer: Yeah. It isn’t. But it wasn’t in my opinion. It was a blessing because it bore fruit. It goaded you on.

Maury Lee: Oh, and you often bring up, you know, did you, with people you interviewed. Did you get into drugs or anything? Well, I had the perfect opportunity, because I was in Southern California in the late 60s, and there was drugs all around, and I had friends that did a lot of drugs like LSD, and they would never give it to me. They, all of those people were like, you’re already too far out. You’re already very, very, very intense. And, we’re not going to be around if you take anything. And so they literally wouldn’t. I don’t know for sure if I would have taken it, but they were like, No, we’re not going to give you the opportunity.

Rick Archer: Interesting that your friends were so responsible. Usually, people in that scene would just give anything to anybody. But obviously, you came across to them as intense, you know, your inner turmoil must have been evident on the outside.

Maury Lee: It, it was pretty obvious. People would often tell me that I was very, very intense. I’m not real intense now I don’t think.

Rick Archer: No, you don’t seem.

Maury Lee: Very, very, very laid back. It’s like, the me now and the me then is like, a different creature.

Rick Archer

Yeah, were you always sort of, you know, cornering people and dumping your, your whole questioning and yeah, what’s life all about? All that stuff.

Maury Lee: I would literally go and down the hall in the dorm and say, Now you got to understand I’m not normal. You know, and, but I think maybe I had a good cover or something because people would go on now you’re not, but they weren’t feeling the pain that I was feeling. It was. It was it was just extreme, extreme suffering.

Rick Archer: Interesting. So then, let’s keep moving along. So they were in college. I can kind of relate to what you’re saying. I’ve gone through periods like this myself. But sounds like it was even more extreme for you. And persistent. So how did you get out of it? I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

Maury Lee: There was a long period of time when I didn’t even want to go out and walk because my self-esteem or whatever was so low that I thought, Who am I to be walking and killing all these germs with my feet. Like everywhere I would go, where I would walk. I was very very upset that life was set up in such a way that just me walking to class or something would be killing all these microbes or maybe an insect or something.

Rick Archer: Sounds like you might have been a Jain in your past life.

Maury Lee: It was an extreme concern. So it’s like how do you not be in pain all the time if you feel like you’re killing all these innocent beings and, and it’s not your choice, but you’re doing this. I mean, so that’s just an example that it was, it was just extremely painful.

Rick Archer: Yeah. Did you put two and two together and become a vegetarian at that point?

Maury Lee:  Yeah. Yeah, I never did that.

Rick Archer: Just because of the killing, you know?

Maury Lee: I didn’t.

Rick Archer: So you made it through college, I presume?

Maury Lee: Yeah, that was, that was hard. But I made it through college.

Rick Archer: Were you kind of searching around? I mean, late 60s, there was, you know, Yogananda, there was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, there were, you know, some things one could get into. Were you checking any of those things out?

Maury Lee: No. I really didn’t. And…

Rick Archer: Did you have a sense that spirituality might be the solution to your suffering? Or did you not really grok that?

Maury Lee: I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I think at that time, I probably equated any kind of spirituality, with the same crap that I’ve been raised with.  And, and so I, I was looking at a lot of other places, but I was just always very afraid of any authority that claimed to know the truth. And this truth is what you need, and you need to have it, if you don’t, then you’re screwed. And so I just avoided all of that.

Rick Archer: So when did you first start actually doing anything such as some kind of therapy or something to try to assuage your pain?

Maury Lee: I read everything I could in psychology and self-help books and all this. And I was an extremely intellectual person. It’s like, I’ve always had a very real strong bent towards abstract thinking. And I really enjoy abstract thinking and the more abstract, the better. So I read, studied all the different kinds of psychology. And I literally determined that the only kind of therapy that I wanted was Gestalt. And I won’t talk too much about this, but I just want to make it clear that, that I studied all these kinds of psychology and said, I want to do Gestalt. And the reason was, because it was experiential. And I did not want to go to somebody and be analyzed and give me a label and say, this is what’s wrong with you. But everything I could read by Fritz Perls, and the people doing Gestalt therapy. He just worked with what’s going on with you right now. What from the past? What pain from the past, that’s repressed, is showing up right now, right here? And then Gestalt therapy, basically, they push you into whatever that pain is you’re avoiding, and, force you to experience it. So I found an ex-Presbyterian minister that had been kicked out of the church because he was too radical. And he was a very spiritual person. And he practiced Gestalt therapy in a completely radical way. Like, if you went to his group, you could risk everything. It’s like if you got into so much stuff that you went schizophrenic, and we had to lock you up, he would allow that, because he had a very strong sense that ultimately facing all the dark side, and all the dark stuff that’s in people would bring us to health. And the first time I went to his group the very first time, and we did our little introduction, to make sure that we were present in the group. The first thing that he ever said to me was that, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with you that killing a hundred  people wouldn’t cure.”

Rick Archer: What did he mean by that?

Maury Lee: The reason he said that was that basically, what he was pointing out, is that I was a very, very angry person.

Rick Archer: Oh, I see. So obviously, he wasn’t recommending it. But he was saying that you have so much stuff you need to get it out, right? I see what you mean.

Maury Lee: That it’s like I got it. I’m like this, this guy sees me. Because the level of anger that I had is not something that you want to show. And right there without, just my first time in the group, just making a short introduction. But I think at that time, my voice was really constricted. And I had a lot of twitches, and I was really nervous. And he just nailed it. And so….

Rick Archer: So you weren’t actually expressing anger, but he picked up on your kind of repressed anger.

Maury Lee: Yeah. And so I started going to his groups and I didn’t want to be analyzed and I was afraid of my own intellect. I knew my intellect was really, really strong. But I’d also known that I had been for years, since college, trying to escape the pain that I had by out-thinking it. I really tried to outthink my feelings, and that didn’t work. And his point of view was, well, you can’t escape the stuff that you’ve repressed. Because it’s always going to be interfering with your life, you’ve got to feel it to let it go. And so because I didn’t want to be analyzed, or, or come to the group and say, This is what I want to work on, I just started recording my dreams. So I would record my dreams. When I would go to the group, he would work with dreams. And so I would role play the parts in the dreams. And the dreams were usually expressing all kinds of issues that I had, and working on them brought up all this pain, and I was able to let it go.

Rick Archer: It just sort of dissipated as you work through it. Yeah. But yeah.

Maury Lee: And that was, it was very intense, but feeling it was the only way I could let it go.

Rick Archer: Were other people in the group getting similar results?

Maury Lee: Yes, it was very, very, I thought it was very good. Yeah.

Rick Archer: It’s interesting. We’ll be talking more about therapy in this interview. But it’s interesting that a number of spiritual authorities and teachers these days, really advocate it as an almost necessary adjunct to spiritual practice. And can point out examples of people who didn’t engage in any sort of therapy and advanced a lot spiritually but ended up still with a lot of unresolved stuff.

Maury Lee: Exactly. I think that’s really, really true. And I think when I wrote to you what my point was, is that I’ve watched a lot of Batgap interviews, and, and read a lot that they say the point of meditation is to, to quiet the mind. And meditation is something that I never really did. I tried it many, many times, but I never got anything out of it. But by doing the therapy that I did, it really quieted my mind, because as long as you have a lot of repressed material, that’s denied, you project that out onto the world and onto other people. And so you’re not living in reality, you’re not seeing people as they are. Like I would go into a room before I went through therapy, and I would think, well, this person thinks this because they’re dressed like this, and this person would probably react to me this way because they’re dressed in golf shoes, and a yellow shirt. And, and so I’d walk into a room with some people, and in my head, there would be all this stuff going on all about all these people. And this and that. It was just like a circus. And none of it was true. It’s just my own crap.

Rick Archer: So but, I was just gonna say some people use the metaphor of like, if you all your stuff, you know, is like a beach ball that you’re trying to hold beneath the surface of the water and it wants to keep popping up and you have to keep exerting all this effort, and it creates turbulence in the water because you’re like struggling around trying to keep the beach ball under. Yeah. Yeah, but if you can deflate the beach ball somehow, then it’s just sort of easygoing.

Maury Lee: Very good analogy. I like that. And so, just to get into the primal scream part is like I worked with this guy on and off for about 10 years.

Rick Archer: The ex-Presbyterian dude.

Maury Lee: Yeah, he was a real. For example, he never would get a license. He didn’t have any kind of therapeutic license. He’d studied Gestalt therapy. And he was known to be one of the best in this area. But he hated the idea of a medical model. And he thought, like getting a license would turn it into, some authorities would have control over what he did or what people did in his groups. And he was like completely radical. He was like, No, this is personal, this is spiritual, and it has to do with nothing medical. He just thought this we’re trying to get to a healthy mind. And this isn’t medical, this is spiritual, and so that’s what he was. But, somewhere during that time, I read the book, The Primal Scream by Arthur Janov. And when I was done with it, it’s like I was totally convinced that I was still sitting on a lot of pain. And, so when I went to the group that night, I was laying on the floor in front of a couch, and we were trying to do the introductions where you just say what happened with you that week so that people would get a feel for where you were. And when he came to me, he just said my name. I just started wailing. And, I had no expectation of what would happen, but I started wailing, and my stomach was rolling. It was just like a very loud wail. And it went on for like 45 minutes. And it was just, and the whole basis of the majority of the pain was the pain that I had never been left alone. And what that boiled down to is, as a child, I was, never felt like I was free to just have my own thoughts. And my own being. I always was taught, I had to think a certain way and feel a certain way and act a certain way. And so I felt like no one ever left me alone.

Rick Archer: Yeah, even as a child, it seems like you were quite independent. They’re wanting you to think a certain way. And you said, No, I’m not gonna think that way. But so I guess….

Maury Lee: So obviously, it was a huge conflict for me. But that was a, and after that, anytime I would see, or smell a smell, or see a scene or something that reminded me of something in my childhood that had pain related to it, I would start feeling this pressure at the back of my head, and it would start getting very intense. And I would know that I had to get back to my apartment because of some pain and some stuff was wanting to come out. So I go back to my apartment, lay on my bed, and let it come out. And I can remember sometimes I screamed for an hour or two. And I literally lost my voice. And when I went back to the therapy that next weekend, I couldn’t even talk. The therapist literally said you don’t have to go that deep into it. Or you don’t have to be that intense about it. And I was like, poof, it’s coming and I gotta let it out.

Rick Archer: Intensity was your middle name. People who are old enough may remember that John Lennon and Yoko Ono got into the primal scream. And there was a lot of screaming on some of their albums. But go ahead.

Maury Lee: It worked. It worked. It worked for me, I’m not recommending it for anybody else. I’m just, I’m just trying to say this was my experience. And after, people literally told me that I was completely different. They said you used to be a real jerk, you are always very critical. You were always arguing with everybody, questioning everybody. You were nervous all the time, your voice was high and squeaky because of the tension. And after that, I just completely relaxed.

Rick Archer: A couple thoughts came to mind when I was listening to you the video you sent us. And one is the question of, it’s sort of a cart and horse issue. It seemed like you already had a head of steam built up pretty well. And, you know, whatever you tried, like this therapy and just reading the book about the primal scream, it, you know, immediately began to be effective for you. And another thing, and it’s kind of related to the head of steam point. And related to what you just said about you’d feel at the back of your neck. And then you’d have to go back to your apartment. I kind of get the feeling you were undergoing some kind of Kundalini awakening. That, I don’t know if you understood it as such, but there was this energy kind of rising up in your body that was starting, that was clearing through things. Is there any, does that resonate with you, what I just said?

Maury Lee: Yeah, except, my feeling was that I started having a lot of Kundalini experiences later on, like much, a long time after that.

Rick Archer: Yeah, but they might still already have been percolating or starting to build up.

Maury Lee: Maybe. I think I told you that, you know, I had a heart chakra opening which….

Rick Archer: Oh yeah, but shall we talk about that now? Or you want to do some other things first before we get to it.

Maury Lee: Go ahead. Where were we?

Rick Archer: Basically you read the primal scream. You went to the therapy session? You waited for 45 minutes? I think I heard you say that, afterwards, The guy said, do you want to talk about what just happened? You said no.

Maury Lee: The thing was, is what I needed was to feel that repressed stuff, and it was so meaningful to feel it,

and put me back in touch in touch with a norm that was prior to all that pain that I was trying to escape and repress. And so that that experience was enough. I didn’t need anybody’s opinion of it. I didn’t need anybody’s comments on it. Didn’t want it, didn’t need it. And then after that, I didn’t go back to the group and do any of that primal stuff. It was just coming.

Rick Archer: Did it in your apartment. Yeah. How long did that phase go on, where you were going to your apartment and screaming.

Maury Lee: Two or three years. But the intensity, you know, got less and less and less. And eventually, it pretty much stopped. Yeah, it was a process, and what was there that needed to come out? It was, I think it was a very natural process. It’s just not something most people would get into.

Rick Archer: Yeah, it happened to you. And so, you know, take us through those two or three years you were doing this process. Were you just feeling freer and freer and freer as he went along.

Maury Lee: Yeah. And it quieted my mind. Because when there’s, when that stuff is let go of you stop projecting and you stop trying to out think it ,or maneuver, you know, yourself to not feel it. So my mind just got quieter and quieter and quieter.

Rick Archer: Yeah. Does anyone still practice Primal Scream therapy?

Maury Lee: Huh. I don’t know .

Rick Archer: I don’t know if this is something, we’ll see what you think. But is this something which you think could be applied to other people? Other people could somehow do this themselves? Or do you think it’s just something that happened to you? And it’s not like if somebody goes into their room and starts screaming? It’s good, it’s gonna happen for them, that would be kind of just a superficial imitation of what you were actually going through almost involuntarily?

Maury Lee: Boy, that’s, that’s, that’s a hard question to answer. I don’t think just going into your room and uh… My thinking about it at the time was that I had all these authority figures around me that were oppressing me and telling me no, you have to think like this, you have to feel like this, you can’t have these thoughts. You can’t have these feelings. That’s not right, blah, blah, blah. So I had all these authority figures, conditioning me. So I think that I didn’t have a strong enough will of my own to counteract that. So by going to this therapist, and giving him that authority, or him being the authority, he would push me into what I couldn’t, like, break through to. And so by him pushing on me, I mean, I take responsibility for using him. But I put myself in a vulnerable position. And he would push, and then these feelings would come out. So, I don’t, as I said, I don’t follow primal therapy. It just worked for me. And that’s all I can say is, it worked for me. And I don’t follow it. And I don’t recommend it. But, uh….

Rick Archer: It was just the channel through which you got some big release. And so as you progress through those two, three years doing this on a regular basis, was it like every day you would go and…

Maury Lee: No, no, it was a….

Rick Archer: Periodically, whenever something came up.

Maury Lee: Yeah, you know, your mind is very associative. And so I’d be in a situation or something or see something or experience something that was associated with some repressed material. And that association would immediately click in and say, oh, there’s pain related to this, and I need to experience it.

Rick Archer: So I almost sounds like it became kind of second nature for you to turn around and face any pain, which became….yes, because some people might try to blot it out or run away from it. But you kind of developed a reflex where you would face it whenever it started to come up and just work through it.

Maury Lee: I tried to escape, you know, so it’s like, but there was too much pain there for me to live. So, I don’t think I had a lot of choice once I discovered that actually feeling the pain was the way to let it go. And then I was like, Okay, this works.

Rick Archer: And so would it be fair to say that, you know, after those two, three years, the pain, not only did you not go screaming in your bedroom, but the pain had pretty much dissipated and you were more or less pain-free?

Maury Lee: It was very, very much less.

Rick Archer: And did you also feel at that point more autonomous and, you know, less put upon by what others were thinking or saying.

Maury Lee: Yeah. But that wasn’t, you know, that really lessened the suffering? And, and I think when people meditate, in my case, meditation didn’t work. But in a lot of cases, from what I see, when people meditate, stuff comes up that they didn’t know was there. So I just think it’s, the people are set up differently. And for some people, meditation will start to bring that stuff up, and they can deal with it in their way, in my case, something else worked.

Rick Archer: Yeah, and also when you say meditation didn’t work, it’s sort of like, there are different ways of meditating. I mean, I tried to meditate before I was formally instructed and didn’t work for me either. And then I was instructed, and it worked. So, people, you know sometimes a little bit of guidance or instruction might do the trick.

Maury Lee: I think you’re probably right, maybe if I’d had some TM or some instruction, it would have worked for me, but…

Rick Archer: But you found something which did, which is great. And it’s different. It’s interesting. So again, now that  you went through all this, and we’re not, we’re certainly not to the end of your story, but you  underwent a huge catharsis with this therapy and with the primal scream thing that happened. Have you contacted or been in touch with other people who had a similar path? Or are you kind of unique in that regard?

Maury Lee: No, I’ve, I’ve always been very, uh, I needed to find the truth and what works for me, you know, I never had any sense that I’m going to get this and then I’m going to go out and tell the world what I’ve discovered and, and say you need this. It was always just very personal. You know, I had a problem and I needed to solve it.

Rick Archer: Yeah, and it worked. But you really never had a teacher or anything either. Aside from this therapist, you just kind of did your thing.

Maury Lee: I have to say that because of my intellect. When I would read, I would literally have experiences from reading. For example, I got into Krishnamurti accidentally. I would go to the bookstore and I would find a book that was close to what I was believing at the time. But I would always choose a book that was a little further out or a little broader from where I was to read. And eventually, I could observe what I was doing.

I’m saying, you keep reading books to break up your mind and expand your mind. Maybe you just need to let everything go. And at that. So I went to a bookstore and I saw Krishnamurti, and I never heard of him. But I liked the title of his book because it said, “You are the world.” And that didn’t make any sense to me, because I didn’t know anything about non-duality. So I buy this Krishnamurti book, and I go home and it was it in the evening and my wife and kids had gone to bed and I’m reading this book, and I get halfway through. And all of a sudden, I started feeling this overwhelming forgiveness. And just a huge feeling of forgiveness. And it was, you know how sometimes people cry at weddings, or you cry when you feel good. So I could tell I was gonna cry. So I went to the other end of the house and the bathroom, sat on the floor. And all of a sudden I just cried and I cried for a long, long time. But it was this wonderful feeling of relief because whatever Krishnamurti was saying, I mean, he’s talking about letting go of all tradition, embracing the unknown, and all that. And I finished that book and then for about two or three years, I was read everything Krishnamurti wrote and ordered even books from India that weren’t in print in the US and read those and so, was just a real Krishnamurti fan for fa few years.

Rick Archer: It’s kind of cool how, not receptive, that’s not the word I’m looking for. Just how, how easily various influences bore fruit for you. You know, most people wouldn’t read a Krishnamurti book and go through all those experiences, and go through all those transformations, but ,seems like whatever you tried, something happened for you

Maury Lee: I can remember when I was reading Krishnamurti, my intent in reading was, I would love to be able to say what he says and think what he thinks. So what is the space that he’s in, that what he’s saying is true for him. So it was like trying to read between the lines and go, what, what’s the space? What is this this sense, this feeling spacious place that he’s coming from that he can say these things. So, but like I said, I’m a very… when I took Jungian tests early on, I came out as extremely intuitive and extremely thinking. So I would say in the Indian tradition, I would be called like a Jnana or Jnani you know, that path. Of course, I didn’t know anything about that. But when I read, like if I read Franklin Merrill Wolf, which I just reread his book, The philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, it’s like, I feel the space from which he’s coming. And it just, it affects, in other words, I read, but I have an experience.

Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s cool. You sort of entrain with the author and begin to have his experience. Yeah. That’s great. It’s an interesting point because sometimes I sort of poopoo the people who, you know, fill their heads with knowledge. And then I’ve often said that they mistake that for experience or for realization. But, you know, perhaps that’s a little unfair, because I think some, I think knowledge is, is knowledge and experience go together and are somewhat correlated. And in any case, both are necessary on the path. I think I’ve read some blog posts of yours, which said just that, that you can’t go really far on one leg without the other leg taking a step, you know, and, but it’s interesting, how well correlated they seem to be for you, like you read a book. And the knowledge elicits an experience. And I think that’s really healthy and, and desirable.

Maury Lee: Yeah, and maybe I’m just lucky to be that way. Because I’ve had a lot of mystical experiences, and, you know, experience of ecstasy that just was too intense for me to even handle. For example, I think I used to rub my daughter’s back at night, so she could go to sleep. And I would put a Krishnamurti tape on my cassette recorder to listen to Krishnamurti, and I’d be rubbing my daughters back. And one time, I just felt so much love for my daughter, and listening to Krishnamurti at the same time, that I just poof off into this ecstatic place. And the ecstasy was so intense that, you know, when my ego started to come back, it was like, You can’t stay here because there’s no you here, you know, if you stay here, you’ll just sit in the corner and stare at the wall for the next 30 years, and you won’t take care of your kids or do anything, because this is so good. And so it started to go away. But as that ecstasy left, you know, people that have had this mystical experiences and know this, that you get this knowing it’s like, a download comes to you, but it’s not verbal, it’s like it’s, It’s instantaneous. And what came to me was this, this statement, and it said, “You have always been surrounded by absolute beauty. And you always will be whether you know it or not.” And it was a very strong, so it’s like saying that this, everything around you is just absolutely beautiful. And it always has been and always will be. And the last thing was, even if you don’t know it or see it. And I just, you know, though, so I have an experiential side, but it seems to be really prompted by reading, by just reading.

Rick Archer: Yeah, it stimulates. I guess another way of looking at it is, since you have such a lively experiential base, since the, it’s like the ground is fertile, you know, seeds, which are dropped into it sprout well. So you have this experiential development, which already correlates with a lot of things you might end up reading. And so when you do read them, it resonates with something you’re already experiencing and kind of enlivens it or makes it more clear. Whereas somebody who didn’t have that experiential base could read the same book and not get as much out of it. Yeah, that’s the feeling I get that you’re kind of cooking inside, experimentally, and so all these, when you read something, it’s obviously not just flat philosophy, it’s, it’s something that resonates with your own experience.

Maury Lee: It doesn’t feel, if I read philosophy, it doesn’t feel just intellectual to me. It’s like philosophy comes from a human being, and we do it, because, you know, we have subjective meaning and we have subjective space that we’re coming from. So philosophy should, you know, if it’s good, for me, it just hasn’t… Like Franklin Merrill Wolf, people might say he’s overly intellectual. But I read him, and I get into this really sweet space.

Rick Archer: Yeah, yeah. Well, people might say Shankara is overly intellectual, but he, he was coming from a level of direct experience, and you know, then also trying to articulate it in a way that others could get. So I guess the point we’re making here is that knowledge and experience go hand in hand. And both are important components of the spiritual path. And some people may lead more with experience and knowledge will catch up, and some more may lead more with knowledge and experience will catch up, but one way or the other, you want to kind of keep them both lively as you go along. So what are some of these other mystical experiences? You mentioned you had a heart chakra opening? Would that be an interesting one to talk to it?

Maury Lee: Maybe ten years ago, I was walking with my wife and our dog, and we were taking a walk. And it was in the summer, and we were just taking a nice walk. But as we were walking, I started saying to my wife, what is this tingling? What is this electrical field that I’m feeling. And I kept telling her, I said, my fingers are tingling, when I’m feeling energy going down from my shoulders to my hands. And, and this just kept getting more and more intense. And so we turned around, and we’re walking back towards home. And I can’t explain this, but I started, I started feeling really tired. And I had this thought, you know, if you take another step, you’re dead, you know, and it kept recurring. If you take another step, you’re dead. And then all of a sudden, it was like, my, my, my whole body was being blown up from inside, it’s like somebody stuck a giant air hose in my chest and was blowing me up from the inside. And I was there was an energetic expansion, and I literally fell to the ground. And that the energy was a whole-body energy of, of expansion. And very, very scary, because the energy was so intense. And you know, those kinds of experiences, you never had them before. And so you don’t know what they are. And it was just really mind-blowing and very frightening. But, but it was like I was being blown up from the inside. And my body was expanding, you know, to include the universe or something.

And my wife tried to flag down some cars because I was laying on the grass next to the road, but nobody stopped. And so she said, Well, should I go get the car and take you to the hospital? And you know, me being a guy going to a hospital or saying there’s you know, I need to see a doctor’s The last thing I would ever do, but I was like, Yeah, I think maybe I should probably go see it. Go to the hospital. So she ran home and got the car and took me to the hospital. And one doctor after another came in and examined me and everything. And they could not figure out what it was. They pretty much all agreed though. We don’t really know if it’s a heart attack or not. But I was sort of giddy and joking around with the doctors. And it’s like, if I died, I could have cared less, but they said well, we’ll keep you overnight and test your blood to make sure there’s no heart damage. And so I spent the night in the hospital and they did their blood tests and the next day they’re like, “We have no clue what this was. We don’t know what happened. You’re not sick. You’re not ill. There’s no heart damage or whatever.

And so I go home the next day and I was still sort of dizzy like my mind had been blown up or something. It was, it was just different. And so the only thing I could do is like, you know, thank God for the internet, I started looking up my symptoms. But what kept coming up over and over again at different sites was saying, well that’s the symptoms are like… called a heart chakra opening. And I wasn’t big into chakras. I didn’t study them or anything else. But apparently, from all I can tell, it was a heart chakra opening.

Rick Archer: Yeah. Have you had many things like that, or that was the biggest, most dramatic?

Maury Lee: But there was… about twenty years ago, I would be sitting at work. And I can remember, especially one day, I’m like, Oh, my God, why is water running down my legs. You know, I was like, did I pee my pants or something. And so I’m feeling my legs and looking down. Because it felt like water, this really pleasant, you know, wonderful feeling of water. Cool water trickling all down inside my legs and around my body. And it was just circulating, and it felt very, very good. And at times breathing was like ecstatic, just like every breath. And, and there were periods of time when I would be into these experiences, and they would last for a few weeks or a month. And everything was, everything was extremely… Things were so pretty and gorgeous to me that looking at a fish in a fish tank, I would just be like in ecstasy. Or if I rode my bike in the park, everything would just be so beautiful that I would cry. And I’m not in that space now. But, but I had, I can’t even remember them all.

Rick Archer: I just wanted to make a comment about ecstatic experiences or extremely blissful experiences, and so on. I think a lot of times what happens is there’s an initial… when an experience initially dawns, there’s a contrast. And it can seem, you know, really flashy or overwhelming or dramatic or profound or something like that. And you know, maybe a year later, you’ve actually totally metabolized that experience. You’ve integrated it, stabilized it, and you haven’t lost it, but there’s no contrast anymore. So you’re not even aware of it or anything, you’ve just kind of adjusted to functioning at a different level. But it’s just that initial sort of breakthrough thing that is flashy, like maybe when you jumped into a swimming pool, and it feels cold initially and then after a few moments, you’re not even aware of the water temperature and you’re comfortable.

Maury Lee: You’re absolutely totally right on them because I think you really nailed it there because I know that now, things that people react to and people think things are terrible and … I just take it all much more in stride than I used to and things just don’t affect me the way they affect other people. And I suspect that you’re right because, the calmness that I feel most of the time and the peace that I feel all the time is not something that I see in the people around me. But to me, it feels normal. And so I get irritated with people that are always stressed out and reacting to everything because to me it’s not necessary.

Rick Archer: But they can’t help it.

Maury Lee: But they can’t help it and I just wish they had the peace that I have.

Rick Archer: Yeah. When you, so you had gone through all that therapy business and the primal scream thing and you were screaming and then that tapered off. How long ago was that roughly, would you say since you had them? Have you, have you sort of done anything intentionally by way of practice since then? Or have you just been kind of on automatic and the thing has just continued to carry you along and all unfold at its own pace.

Maury Lee: Pretty automatic and carried out at its own pace. As far as practice. It doesn’t feel like practice to me, but when I look at myself and say, “What the hell have you been doing?” I would have to say that the only thing I can come up with is contemplation. And I will take an idea and not, not trying purposely, but just the way I’m set up, I’ll take an idea, and it will just be in the back of my mind. And every situation that I’m in, I will say, a part of my mind goes, Okay, this phrase or this attitude or this intent? How does it relate to this situation? How can I embody this here? If I’ve realized something? How does that apply to my daily life? And I think that contemplation just goes on continuously for me. So I would guess that’s a practice, but it’s not something that that I have to try to do. It’s just, it’s sort of a natural…

Rick Archer: Yeah. It’s sort of like you’re chewing on something, and you just keep chewing on it until it’s all chewed, and then perhaps then you take another bite and chew on that. I mean, there are certain ideas that I get kind of fixated on, and I’ll just kind of, I’ll bring them up often. And people, you know, say, Why are you bringing up the same thing over and over, and I say, Well, just because I’m still working on that. And, you know, and you work through various levels of it, and eventually, it kind of gets resolved somehow, and then maybe take on a new one. I can relate.

There are certain ideas that I kinda get fixated on and I’ll just kind of bring them up often and people will, you know, say  “Why do you bring up the same thing over and over. Well just because I’m still working on that. And you work through various levels of it and eventually, it gets resolved somehow, and then maybe you take on a new one.

Maury Lee: Yes. I think that we, as we evolve, it’s like the stuff that was so important to us, and really let us take a step up the ladder. Once it’s resolved, and we get it, and we let it go, it’s like, you can look back and look at that attitude, or, or phrase or whatever it was, you’re thinking about, and it doesn’t even seem significant anymore. And it’s not that it wasn’t at the time, it’s just where you are now, it’s like that doesn’t even apply and seems like child’s play,

Rick Archer: Like learning to ride a bicycle probably doesn’t seem significant anymore. But it did when you were learning.

Maury Lee: About bicycle riding. Here’s a funny or something that I noticed. So I’m a bike rider, I think you are too. And so I’ll often ride my bike for an hour and a half or so at a time. But when I go out and ride and I come back, I don’t have a sense that I rode the bike. I just have a sense that there was bike riding. It doesn’t feel like it was me riding. There was just riding. It’s sort of, it didn’t use to be that way. But, but now it’s just like, I don’t have a strong sense of I do things. It’s just like things happen. And I see this person, this body doing this, but…..

Rick Archer: Yeah, I bet you get that with most things, right? Not when not just bike riding.

Maury Lee: Now, with the bike riding, because I used to feel like, Oh, I did my bike. I rode for an hour and a half I did it, you know. And now it’s just like, no bike riding just happened. Yeah,

Rick Archer: Yeah, I get that most of the time myself with most things. It’s, it’s sort of the whole authorship of action question, you know, covered a lot in the Gita and other scriptures. Yeah.

Maury Lee: And you don’t have to try. You’ve just lost the authorship. And it’s, and you get used to it. And it doesn’t seem odd to you, but you know, all kinds of motivation and stuff just is gone. You still do things, but if there just doesn’t seem a lot of personal involvement in it, you know, it’s just strange.

Rick Archer: Yeah. And regarding motivation, I don’t know, in my own experience, I find that I’m very motivated. I mean, I have all kinds of ideas and projects and things I want to do, but the doership thing is, it’s kind of light. And so it’s not like you become apathetic or you just sit around twiddling your thumbs. But just the sense of me doing this and that kind of dissipates.

Maury Lee: Yeah. And just like doing this interview, you know, it’s like, it happened and yeah, we’ll see. We’ll you know, but it’s like I’ve never been much to promote myself. And I admit, I’ve never tried to be saintly. I’ve never, you know, really wanted to be somebody or something. It was just, this is all been just a very personal pursuit that I seem to be born with and had to follow.

Rick Archer: Well, you know, the subtitle of this show is, you know, conversations with ordinary, in quotes, spiritually awakening people. So, part of the intention of the show is to convey the notion that spiritual awakening is kind of a universal thing. Everyone has as a birthright really. And there’s not necessarily anything extraordinary about someone who has had some sort of awakening, it’s shouldn’t think that they’re special and you’re not and it’ll never happen for you. That’s part of our intention in getting these interviews out there. It will give examples of people that others might be able to relate to and instill greater confidence in them too.

Maury Lee: I know in the in the tradition, especially from the east, they say that you can’t really make a lot of progress without a teacher that you sign on with and accepts you as a student and you do that thing. I can’t really say that I’ve ever done that. It’s like any teacher that has videos out there or has books out there, I’ll read and study them, but I’ve never been like to Satsangs or adopted a single teacher that I say, okay, he’s my guru. At different times, different people meant a lot to me, I can read Krishnamurti now, and I don’t even know what I got out of it.

Rick Archer: But you got something?

Maury Lee: Yeah, at the time, something incredible. And now it’s maybe somebody else rocks my boat?

Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, I think there are exceptions to every generality. And, you know, people tend to want to sort of make generalities absolute, you know, they say you need a teacher or you don’t need a teacher, or it’s the end of the Guru age, you need a guru. And you know, there’s all these conflicting statements that people make with a certain degree of adamancy. But I think there’s, there’s a lot of individual variation, and one size does not fit all, and it’s just really hard to make universal prescriptions. And you’re here a good example of that, I mean, you know, the stuff you’ve gone through in your life.

Maury Lee: Yeah. And I think it’s really good what you’re doing, especially when you just have people on like, like me, that’s not a teacher that’s just been doing this for their own spiritual development or their own peace of mind. Because I think there’s a lot of people that people don’t know about that have made tremendous, you know, personal progress and growth, and may even be realized, and nobody knows about them, because they’re not talking.

Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s very true. And again, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this show is to bring some of these people out of the woodwork. And I think probably I’ve just scratched the surface or seen the tip of the iceberg. There, are probably millions of people around the world who have had significant awakenings. In fact, I often hear from people who had had one and were really freaked out by it, because they had no idea what it was they thought there was something wrong with them. And then they start listening to these interviews, and they think, Oh, this is a good thing. And there are other people like me. I think it’s good. It helps people out to know that.

Maury Lee: Yeah, I think Batgap, has probably relieved a lot of people’s fears. You know, as you’ve mentioned, Suzanne Seagal before. You know, where consciousness was like, above her and behind her head. And that freaked her out.

Rick Archer: And she couldn’t find a sense of a personal self.

Maury Lee: Yeah, but if she had had access to what we know, she probably would have found peace and acceptance of that and not felt so out of whack. And, and luckily for me, I had read so much and studied so much that when I started having experiences, I was like, oh, I’ve read about this. I haven’t lost my mind.

Rick Archer: Well, the ironic thing about Suzanne Siegel, who wrote the book “Collision With the Infinite,” if people want to check that out. Is that she had been a TM teacher, and she had been on long courses, she’d heard all this stuff. But then she kind of drifted away from it for a few years. And so when she had this sudden awakening, she didn’t put two and two together. It was kind of like, her understanding that she’d gained, didn’t correlate with the experience she was having. Because a concept is really hard to match with an experience. Like you can gain an understanding of what a mango tastes like. I use this example often, and you know, it’s totally different than when you actually taste one. The understanding never really came close to the experience. So she was freaked out and it took her about 10 years to adjust and kind of plug in understanding, which I guess she eventually got from John Klein, that made her relax into it. Allowed her to relax into it. I just opened my laptop here, because I was reading some of your blog posts. As I was traveling home from the Sand Conference. There are a whole lot of points that you write about in your blog, that, I think could be the basis of an interesting conversation. Each one could be. But there are a few that sort of jumped out at me, and maybe I can scroll through and find a few. Here’s one thing, “some paths may be more complete,” you said. It was the title of one of your posts. You said, “people with a little spiritual knowledge, think because they had an experience, they are awake, most likely not. The experience is a pointer, like to the proverbial finger pointing at the moon. Typically a mystical experience or two will arouse curiosity. This is the beginning of the path, not the end.” So that’s a common theme of, you know, people sort of jumping to the conclusion that they’re finished. And maybe you could reflect on the whole notion of, are we ever finished? And there’s also the whole theme of seeking, seeking, seeking, and then the seeking energy relaxes. But does that mean? Is that the end of the journey? Or is that just the end of a phase?

Maury Lee: I think when someone has a mystical experience, they’re often mind-blowing, really profound, and maybe ecstatic. And they may last for a while. The problem with those experiences is that they go away. And, I think some people think because they’ve had a mystical experience are two that they’re realized, or they’re enlightened, and they put up a shingle and they’re going to go out and teach. And I don’t think in many cases, they don’t have the whole story. The only thing I would say that stopped my seeking was when I finally realized that I am that. And I know that I am that. That pretty much stopped the seeking. But I totally agree with the point that you’ve been making over the last year or so from what I gather in interviews, which is that even once you realize you are that, there’s still a lot of development that can go on after that. And it does. And it’s like, I think even the Gita, or some of the Upanishads mentioned that, once you realize that, that you don’t need to do a lot of effort after that because the knowledge does the work or the realization does the work. And my point about experiences, and we discussed this a little bit earlier. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between experience on one side and knowledge on the other. And so I think if you have a mystical experience, it’s probably not going to last. And a lot of people have a mystical experience. And then it leaves them and they think, Oh, I was enlightened, and I lost it. Well, that’s a misinterpretation, I think of the experience, because the experience, I think, is a pointer. And it’s saying that you know, everything is one, and we’re … and you can relax because everything is one and everything’s taken care of. But then the experience goes away and you think you’ve lost it? Well, I think the experience is trying to point you to gain some knowledge or extract some knowledge from the experience to realize that you are that. And for me, it’s more important to realize that you are that. And then whatever experience you have or don’t have, is somewhat irrelevant. Because you have this deep, deep sense of peace because you are that and everything’s taken care of. For example, worrying about death, you know, if you realize that, in essence, you are that and you always have been that and always will be that, then your fear of death is just much less than because it’s like, yeah, there’s going to be a change, that you were that, and you are that now, but you’re going to be that afterward. So it’s okay.

Rick Archer: Yeah.

Maury Lee: So I, and I prefer teachers that, or at least like what I try to do is, you know, not being a teacher, but at least, so I just try and be very clear about this was my path. And this is what appears to be truth for me. But I’m not going to hold up a banner and a sign and say everybody should see things the way I see it or do what I do, because I think that causes a lot of damage.

Rick Archer: Sure, there’s a line from the Gita that says something like knowledge is the greatest purifier. And I think you’re kind of an example of that. It’s, you know. How would you contrast? Just speculatively, how would you contrast your sense of I am that, or “you are that,” with the sense that you might have gotten forty years ago if you read that line, and it was mainly in your head, but not in your experience.

Maury Lee: I certainly read that years ago, but it didn’t strike home. It didn’t strike home and for many, many years, I had a lot of mystical experiences, a lot of ecstatic experiences. But for a long, long time, I thought that enlightenment would be an experience that I would have. And the experience would be such that when I had that experience, I would know that I was enlightened. I mean that, and I think a lot of people have that attitude. But I don’t, I think maybe it’s possible for somebody, that happens. But I think for the majority of people, and at least in my case, it’s like, the experience was not it. That what had to happen is that the statement from the Gita and the Upanishads that “you are that,” has to be understood in such a way, that it’s like, the best way I can say it, it drops in your heart, or your being identifies with that statement. So it’s not just a thought that you can think about and say, wouldn’t that be nice? It’s, there’s a, there’s some kind of a shift to where you read it. And you go, Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And I know it. Yeah. And that’s where I think the realization happens is when you know it, but on top of that, it’s like, somehow there’s this other aspect that says, and you know that you know,

Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s sort of like a, what we’ve been talking about knowledge and experience, this is sort of a knowing that kind of, encapsulates both. It’s not just a concept. It’s somehow in your bones, you know. It’s in your heart, as you say. And then, then there’s no question of doubt or vacillation or anything, it’s just sort of part and parcel of your orientation to life.

Maury Lee: But then you still have… your personality’s still there, the conditioning that you got is still there. So I’ve heard you talk quite a bit about embodiment lately. And people can interpret that differently. But the way I see that is like, you realize that, but then the person that you are, the jiva’s still there with all its BS and crap and things that irritate you, and whatever else? And so I think embodiment is, is well call it a practice, but or you just have to contemplate about it. It’s like, Okay, now that I realize I am that, how is that gonna affect my behavior? Am I acting in accordance with what I know or not? And I’d say a good portion of the time or most of the time, I’m not,

Rick Archer: You’re not, or other people aren’t.

Maury Lee: I’m not. You know, I’m not living up to what I know. And, and so. So, you know, I’m not saintly at all in that regard, because I’ve realized something, but do I feel like I live up to it, or that the complete effect and transformation that ultimately that could lead to, you know, am I there? Well, no,

Rick Archer: That’s a good admission. I think it’s a wise admission. And it’s a distinction that a lot of people don’t make, that, I don’t know, you’re parsing it out with a lot of clarity here. And I think that, in my perspective, there’s a vast amount of territory that can be traversed in terms of, you know, that initial realization that you are that and then really fully embodying it in all phases of your life. Because there’s just so much transformation that that can take, there’s room for so much refinement and clarification and transformation in our whole relative structure. In our whole personality structure, our nervous system, our senses. All those things. And, you know, physiologically even, those things don’t transform overnight. Neuroplasticity is a common concept these days, it does, the brain just doesn’t become a different brain in 24 hours, but it does become a different brand eventually, and they’re able to study that, but it takes a while for the physiology to transform, and I’m sure that’s also true of the subtler aspects of our makeup, you know, which are nonetheless real.

Maury Lee: Like, I find myself reacting, you know, especially to my wife, and not behaving, you know, without irritation, or whatever. And it’s like, I just see it. So I think that realization stops the seeking. But that’s just the beginning of the transformation of what you can get to, and I think the realization and the stopping of seeking is, is really sweet,

Rick Archer: A significant milestone.

Maury Lee: And it’s very, very, very significant. But that, I would say, that’s the beginning. You know, it’s like the search is over. But that’s just the beginning of saying, Okay, I realize this, I know this, and look at the behavior of this thing, you know, does it match? Well, no, it doesn’t. So, do I? Do I want to like, you know, be hard on myself or be down on myself about that? No, it’s just the way it is. But at least I have that in mind that, you know, I know this. And so when I behave certain ways I can look at it and say, well, it’s not in alignment with what I know. So,

Rick Archer: So there’s room for growth there.

Maury Lee: Just being aware of that and call it mindfulness, or just being aware that you’re not living up to what you know, is gonna, hopefully, you know, change your behavior so that you do become more in alignment with what you’ve realized. But I think you’ve talked before that there’s probably an infinite progression of development that you can have, you know, as long as you live.

Rick Archer: That’s an interesting point. I mean, you know, not everyone would necessarily agree with what you just said. But I do. And there have been, you know, I’ve seen actual posts on the internet of people insisting that there is no correlation between awakened consciousness and behavior, that it’s sort of unrealistic to expect there to be. And, but I think that maybe the correlation is loose and, and maybe awakened consciousness in and of itself, isn’t sufficient to bring about a thorough transformation of behavior. Maybe there needs to be, you know, more intentional culturing of ethics and more self-scrutiny, and, you know, just kind of being more impeccable as Carlos Castanada’s teacher would put it. He said, a warrior has time only for his impeccability. And It puzzles me sometimes that one can be, a person can be so awake, so radiating consciousness, and yet kind of oblivious to certain aspects of his or her behavior, and possibly be, possibly even be rationalizing that behavior, as you know, acceptable or legitimate because they are awake. You know, that you can’t really understand me because I am beyond human, you know, assessment. And I think people get in trouble when they start thinking that way, lacks humility, lacks self-scrutiny. And, you know.

Maury Lee: I saw your interview with Ken Wilber and I’m not sure I agree with everything that he says. But, I liked the fact that he was making a point of the fact that someone can realize they are that and their behavior can be quite different.

Rick Archer: Talks about lines of development.

Maury Lee: And that the realization may be at a very high level on that side. But say the person hasn’t ever done any therapy and hasn’t ever taken a good look at their dark side, which we all have. And if they haven’t looked at it, or don’t admit it, then their realization can, or at least they can take that as permission to behave any way they want.

Maury Lee: Or they’re in a power position, you know, being a spiritual teacher, and they don’t consider anyone to be their peer. And therefore, they don’t really take constructive criticism well. And the students sometimes can facilitate that by regarding the teacher as being beyond their ken, and, you know, not questioning the teacher or challenging the teacher because they assume that he knows something they don’t, and therefore, you know, they don’t have the authority or right to question. They kind of undermine their own discernment and discrimination.

Maury Lee: Isn’t there a famous statement of the Buddha or something, that said, don’t put any head above your own?

Rick Archer: I don’t remember that one. But I know another one from the Buddha. He said, Don’t believe something just because I say, Yeah, you gotta go by your own.

Maury Lee: Yeah. And that’s the thing for what is realization is. It’s like, Who is it that needs to feel like, oh, you know, “I am that?” How that’s realized, obviously, can be very different for different people, but no one on the outside can say you got it. You know, they might tell you that, but it’s like, somehow something has to happen in the person themselves. That’s the aha moment. That, because I don’t care what anybody else thinks about whether I’ve realized something or not. That won’t give me peace. It might like, make me feel good or boost my ego. But who is it that that needs, that needs that satisfaction, the understanding that stops the seeking? Well, it’s the person that’s seeking.

Rick Archer: Yeah, you’re the one whose doubts have to be dispelled.

Maury Lee: Exactly.

Rick Archer: The understanding has to be solid, and who’s experience has to be solid. Yeah. There’s another point you made in your blog, which is somewhat related to what we’ve just been saying. I mean you’ve made a ton of…. we could go on for days talking about the points you’ve brought up in your blog. And I’ll be linking to your blog from Batgap if people would like to read some of this stuff. But, I kind of like this one. You said, “No, everyone is not already enlightened.” And you started out by saying the crap about everyone is already enlightened causes a lot of botched progress on the path. So although everyone and everything is the self to say everyone is already enlightened is a misuse of language and a lack of understanding. So, I mean, if I say everyone is already enlightened, that includes Adolf Hitler, and all, you know, people who are suffering from mental illness and everything else in the world. So it renders the term meaningless. And yeah, I bet you could reflect on this for a little bit for a second here.

Maury Lee: Oh, yeah, I, I’m a real… because I’m a writer, and I’ve spent a lot of years writing, and I’ve done a tremendous amount of reading, words, the definition of words become really important. And there’s a lot of sloppiness in spiritual language. And so although you can say, everyone in this world, including Hitler, is awareness, you know, or it is that doesn’t mean they’re enlightened. You know, enlightenment is, like, freedom for the individual and from the individual. So it’s like, yes, we are all that because we’re all one, there’s only one reality. So we all are the essence of that. But realization is very personal in that you realize that you are that. And there’s a paradox in that because. once you realize you are that. it’s like there’s an identity shift. And it… the Gestalt means the play between foreground and background, and so before realization, the foreground is the personal I, the ego, you know. I’m doing this. I’m living my life. It’s my will. It’s my way or the highway, blah, blah, blah. But the shift is, is the person’s still there, but it realizes that they are that. And so when people say everyone is enlightened, I think what they really mean is that everybody is that awareness or whatever you want to call the absolute. You can’t get away from that. But that doesn’t mean they’re realized.

Rick Archer: No. I mean by that logic, cockroaches are enlightened, you know? But do cockroaches know that? Yeah, it’s one thing to sort of know that, you know, intellectually that, that is the ultimate reality. It’s another thing to have that be part and parcel of one’s actual living experience from moment to moment.

Maury Lee: And, and people like to equate, and interchange consciousness for awareness. And I like to make a little bit of a distinction and say, awareness is like the blank movie screen on which everything can appear. As soon as the movie starts, then there’s consciousness of what the picture is. And, but awareness isn’t affected, because it’s the screen. So I like to make that distinction, that awareness is the blank field, the that which can accept everything and become conscious of anything, but the consciousness is the content. It’s whatever object appears. And I think it’s would be helpful if more people would say, consciousnesses is the content and awareness is the absolute clear field in which everything appears. But that’s just a personal peccadillo of mine or whatever.

Rick Archer: However we want to define our terms, I think it’s a good, it’s a worthy motivation to want to standardize terms so that we’re, we know, we can communicate with each other about these things. And I think there’s a lot of progress to be made in that area. You know, because otherwise, we’re it’s like a tower of Babel thing where we’re talking and people are understanding different points. And, you know, I don’t think the spiritual territory is as well mapped out as some other territories of human experience, such as you know, I don’t know, chemistry or something. Everyone agrees on the periodic table. And all chemists, all chemists would say, Yeah, I agree on all that stuff. But all spiritual people wouldn’t necessarily agree, agree on all the tools, all the terms and terminologies, and about all the various types of spiritual experiential states of consciousness and all that. And so it’s kind of the wild, wild west, in a way in terms of our understanding as a culture of what we’re actually talking about.

Maury Lee: A thought just came to my mind. It’s like, you know, what are we using when we investigate the self, you know, when we become spiritually inclined to say, you know, answer the big question like, who am I. And I think an important point to make is that I see Advaita Vedanta as a science. And when I read it, it’s like, it is a… it’s extremely logical and very precise in examining and interpreting, you know, our experience of everyday life in such a way, that if you study it, it’s very difficult not to come to the conclusion that they’re pointing to. And I just like to say that when a scientist is in the lab, and he’s looking through the microscope, and he’s trying to prove a hypothesis, and he’s taking measurements and all that, the main instrument in the room that’s being used, is the human mind.

Rick Archer: True.

Maury Lee: And people forget that. And they think that science is this very precise measuring, you know, tool and put it up on a pedestal. And they forget the fact that all of this examination and everything in science that’s looked at and investigated, is investigated by the human mind. That’s, that’s the factor that’s the most significant. Well, when someone starts doing meditation and looking inside and examining who they are, they’re using exactly the same instrument. So if it’s done right, and precisely, I think you can call the spiritual search a very scientific thing.

Rick Archer: I’m really keen on that point. If you watched my presentation at the sand conference from 2015 I really go into that a lot. But it’s something I think about a lot. And I mean, it’s the news the point you just made that whatever instruments they may be using. Scientists are fundamentally using the human mind, the human nervous system. That’s kind of the common denominator of all instruments. They have to be using that, otherwise, they can’t use other instruments.

Maury Lee: I find it also interesting that so many realized people tend to read Quantum Physics and relate to it and find that it’s pretty much in agreement with the Advaita Vedanta. And I find the same thing you know, it’s like I quantum physics to me is saying the same thing that the Gita is saying. It seems the same to me.

Rick Archer: Well actually a lot of the founders of quantum physics, Niels Bohr, and others actually studied Vedic, some Vedic literature. Read the Upanishads, and they, you know, they made statements about the primacy of consciousness and so on. I just want to touch a little bit more on the science thing and the human mind as being fundamental to it. Because if a scientist is not developing the mind as in terms of developing consciousness, and yet, that’s the sort of fundamental tool which he must use before using any other tools, then in a way is handicapping himself. And, and preventing perhaps the full depth of understanding that would be possible if the mind, if consciousness were fully developed. And it’s interesting how petty- and narrow-minded scientists can be, and how unscientific they can be in, you know, adamantly rejecting things which are, to their understanding, outside the purview of science. And so it’s, it’s kind of resulted in this clash between science and spirituality, and the rejection of, you know,  the insistence that the physical universe is the foundation and consciousness eventually emerges from, you know, from physicality. And I think they’ve got it all backward. And I think that the future of science will necessitate switching things around and understanding consciousness is primary. But that’s not going to happen unless scientists explore that experimentally.

Maury Lee: Like the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is the fact that you can’t put science up on a pedestal as a separate thing. Because the fundamental instrument is the human mind. So that, you know, it’s like, science is often treated as a religion, like it’s this objective thing out here that we can worship because it’s objective. But all of science is only a result of the human mind. And so that elephant tends to get ignored, and say, well, science is this objective thing. And it’s got a much sounder base than spirituality. And that’s just BS, because they’re excluding the human mind, from being the one that’s making the hypothesis and determining the measurements and everything else. So I think it’s just as valid to do an investigation into yourself with your mind, as it is to do science outwardly, to the objective world, they’re both on the same footing.

Rick Archer: Yeah. And I would, I would add that I think that the reason science has gotten us into so much trouble, you know, with the created the possibility of exterminating our ourselves, is that scientists have failed to develop the full potential of the mind. So they’re like kids, you know, playing with guns or something. As science lacks the sort of wisdom to properly manage the powerful tools and technologies it has developed. And so that’s really the need of the time is to develop that wisdom on a mass scale, so that we don’t wipe ourselves out, and you know, so that all these technological blessings can truly be blessings and not mixed blessings.

Maury Lee: Yeah, our spiritual maturity and understanding that we’re all one, needs to catch up with technological development. And it’s, it’s not there, we’re pretty far behind.

Rick Archer: But hopefully, it’s happening, you know, and there does seem to be some kind of spiritual epidemic taking place in the world. And, you know, hopefully, it will sort of, you know, become solid enough in the nick of time to create greater balance in the world. Because and we’re all doing our bit as best we can.

Maury Lee: Yeah, and I think as you said, I think there’s a lot of people out there that have made a lot of progress and have pretty spiritually evolved, but they don’t talk and they don’t, like in my case, I don’t really talk a lot but I blog and…

Rick Archer: Yeah, well, your blog is really good actually. I’ve enjoyed reading as much of it as I’ve been reading. And, again, I would recommend People do it. Check it out. And that’s really basically all you have to offer. You’re not making videos on a regular basis or anything. It’s mainly your blog.

Maury Lee: No, no, I’m pretty much of a loner, you know, I really enjoy myself and I’m retired and I can be totally self-entertained all day long. Just, you know, fixing my locks or the playing with the garage door or, you know, fixing whatever I think needs to be, and just reading, contemplating, and I’m totally content doing that. Happy with just the very simple ordinary life.

Rick Archer: Great. In terms of your blog, do you have a thing on it? Where like, if people want to ask you a question, or if they would like you to write? Yeah, they could comment or they see they’d like to see you write about a particular thing or something. They can make that suggestion?

Maury Lee: I don’t think I have that. But they could if they left a comment you’d see it. Yeah. But if they left a comment and asked, then I would or if they emailed me, I’ would.

Rick Archer: Good. Do you want me to put your email on your Batgap page?

Maury Lee: Okay.

Rick Archer: I don’t think you’ll get inundated. I did that with a friend Steve Briggs recently, he only got a few emails from that. So won’t necessarily be a flood.

Maury Lee: Yeah, I mean, like doing this video, I figured, you know, if somebody resonates with what I have to say, and feel like I might be of help in some way. Then I would be glad to correspond with them. But you know, that’s the extent of my, my motivation, because I think there’s, there’s lots of really good, excellent teachers out there that teach all over the world. And there’s, they’re very good.

Rick Archer: Yeah. Although I would, you know, in my opinion, some of the things you write and say, show greater wisdom than some of the people who are pretty famous teachers. I think, in some respects, you have, I mean, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. But there’s, there’s a lot of stuff that I think you state very clearly, more so in my opinion than some other teachers who were, you know, kind of famous? So that’s good.

Maury Lee: Clarity is something that I really like. And clarity in words. And that’s why I wrote that blog, “No, Everybody Is Not Enlightened.” It’s simply, well, let’s be clear about this. What are you really talking about? What do we really mean and to try and say, when people say everyone’s enlightened. What they really mean is, everybody is that everybody is awareness. But enlightenment actually happens to an individual. The paradox is when that happens to them, then they no longer really are the individual. So it’s very paradoxical. And it’s almost impossible to write about, but I think you can have more clarity than what we see in a lot of books and statements, like, because there’s a lot of teachers even that say, everyone is enlightened. And I know what they mean. But it can be easily misinterpreted

Rick Archer: It can very confusing.  Yeah.

Maury Lee: And, and I would, I would just like to say that, you know, I’ve had my path. But, you know, if somebody really wants to know, what, say, non-duality is, or realization, it’s like, the traditional, Upanishads and the Gita. It’s all there. And it’s all there. So, if someone wants to know what to do, I’d say study that.

Rick Archer: Yeah. And I think this is a general attitude. You know, I would encourage people to do what you’ve been doing, and what I’ve been doing also, which is just, you know, if this is important to you, then keep your attention on it. You know, I mean, you know, fine, do other things, ride your bicycle and fix garage doors, and do sports, or whatever you want to do. But make this a priority in your life, because that really has an effect to do that.

Maury Lee: Not everybody has your dedication to, like, doing something every day like you meditate. And I think that’s really admirable. In my case, I didn’t, but I did contemplate something every day. Yeah. So it wasn’t really a conscious practice. But contemplation is a very… it will have an effect if you if you just take something from the Gita or some phrase that somehow resonates with you and you think I would like to experience this or understand this, and just put it in the back of your mind, and compare it to, like I mean, I worked a regular job in an office eight to five, for years, but like when I would ride the bus to work every day, I would have spiritual texts on my phone. And so I’m riding. I spent an hour every day on the bus. So for that hour, I was reading, you know, the Bhagavad Gita or some other text. And then I would also read it at night. And, but when I was at my desk at work, I would be contemplating, am I reacting or performing in a way that’s in line with what, you know, this spiritual idea is? And am I conforming to it? And if I conform to it? Does it affect my work life? And does it make my work easier? And does….

Rick Archer: Yeah. Does the rubber meet the road? Are you know, are you walking your talk?

Maury Lee: Like, hey, I think most people find out that their rubber doesn’t meet the road. But just being aware of that can, will make you see that you need to do better. Or maybe you could do better? Or how could I do better? And then apply that.

Rick Archer: Here’s a question that came in from Dan in London. People are watching live, there have been over 100 people watching most of this. Here’s what Dan wants to know, he said, “Anything that one experiences through the five senses is imbued with the consciousness from which it arises. I often notice the beautiful lightness of everything that I experienced through the senses. As an experiment, I might often look at an object and ask, What, What’s it made out of in this moment, and I notice the lightness behind it. It works with any object. What do you think about this, and what importance do the senses play in realization.”

Maury Lee: The main thing I would say about the senses is that if you look at them, and study them, all the senses are just an interpretation. You know, whatever the thing is in itself, whatever that energetic thing is that’s in this soup that we’re in, our senses are just an interpretation of it. It’s just a reality created by our senses,

Rick Archer: Like filters or something.

Maury Lee: Yeah, and, and so the thing in itself, whatever that is, is not known to us. And I know some people talk about, you know, this is just all hologram in the mind of God. And I would tend to agree with

Rick Archer: Some say it’s an alien video game.

Maury Lee: But, so I don’t know if that’s answering his question at all. But I’m very aware of that, you know, people take reality to be or the reality of objects in the world to be what their senses tell them it is. And I’d say no. That makes our form work in relationship to this energy field. But it’s all just an interpretation. And, and it’s just our reality, but it’s just, everything is just an interpretation of what’s really there.

Rick Archer: But I might say that Dan, based on his experiences, that you were saying earlier, you know, you are that, I am that, but also the Upanishad goes on to say, “all this is that.” Then, so I think Dan is experiencing, he’s beginning to experience that the objects are essentially – they’re not just the superficial appearance, but there’s, they are consciousness, having taken a form, and he’s beginning to experience them in terms of that consciousness or in terms of the self, and that’s the way unity dawns, till eventually everything is seen in terms of the self.

Maury Lee: Like, well, I think about what everything that I see is, it’s like I see everything as aware or conscious because when you think of an atom and it has electrons. How do those electrons know to stay in their particular groove, circling around the center. It’s like they’re aware because they know how to stay in a place. And if something comes close to them that has a maybe a negative charge or something and then something jumps? Well, that’s awareness or some level of consciousness. So I can’t find anything in the universe that isn’t aware on some level. So the whole thing is just aware and conscious from top, top to bottom.

Rick Archer: I agree with you. And I often think that way myself, and it’s not like the electron says, oh, something’s coming near here, I guess I’ll jump now. It’s more that the electron is behaving in perfect accordance with all-pervading intelligence and is aligned with that intelligence and just operates according to certain laws of nature that are embedded in that intelligence or that are aspects of that intelligence.

Maury Lee: Right? So whereas we may have a higher level of consciousness to where we feel like we’re making a choice, the electron isn’t making a choice, because it doesn’t have that level of subjective feeling. But you can’t say it’s not aware because it will jump, you know, under the right conditions.

Rick Archer: It’s, yeah, it’s not some random little billiard ball that’s just going to do any old thing. It’s, it has a certain… there’s a saying in the Gita, “Creatures act according to their own nature.” I think that applies to electrons as well, they, they have certain laws that they abide by, and the whole universe is orderly, because everything is acting in accordance with some more fundamental laws, or I guess laws is the best word we have here.

Maury Lee: Yeah, that brings up the idea of, you know, people have, feel like they have choices, and they make decisions. And I’ve thought about that for years. And, oh, a long, long, long time ago, I had a very distinct feeling that, that I didn’t have free will. And I can remember discussing this at lunch with people from work. Oh, my God, their response to even saying that we might not have free will, was, as one of the guys says, If I didn’t think I had free will, I’d go home and take a gun and shoot myself. And so I thought, wow, it shows how much ego is involved in this desire to feel like we have free will. And, but free will is a hard thing to define and clamp down on because, you know, where I am now, I would say, Well, I have free will because I am that and I created all this. So obviously, ultimately, I’m totally free. But as a human being, if I look at the choices that I make, I can say, Yeah, I made a choice. But when I really look deeply into choice, I’m not sure that it’s freewill, you know.

Rick Archer: So yeah, you’ve written blog posts about that. And people have written books about that. And they’ve argued endlessly about that for hundreds or thousands of years. And I don’t think you and I are going to resolve it right now. But I think it’s a matter of what level you’re operating on, or what….there’s a level at which everything is cosmically ordained, and there’s a level at which relative perspectives come into play. And on that level, you have some wiggle room, I mean, you’re not free to just go fly to the top of Mount Everest, but you are, you are free to make choices within a certain spectrum that you operate in. And then there’s another level of which the whole point is moot because nothing happens, and nothing ever happens. So it sort of matters where you take your stand.

Maury Lee: Yeah, yeah. And that brings up the idea of karma. Because what I’ve noticed in people’s lives, if people make choices that are in line with Dharma, or the universal rules, it seems like, their field of choice expands, and they get more and more choice. But if they don’t govern themselves, you know, and make choices that are counter to dharma. It seems like their future choices start to diminish, and the next thing you know, if they can’t govern themselves, they’ll be in jail where the guards govern them.

Rick Archer: Yeah, very good point. You know, you and I think along similar lines. I’ve often thought about that and said that, and whatnot. But it’s like I said a minute ago, we have wiggle room. Well, the scope of your wiggle room increases if you make the right choices and diminishes if you make the wrong choices.

Maury Lee: Yeah. Exactly.

Rick Archer: So we solved that one. Freewill is all sorted out here. I really need to write books about it anymore.

Maury Lee: Oh, and then the other thing is, is that I’ve been thinking in the last week or so about… oh God I’m gonna lose my thought here.

Rick Archer: It will probably come back. That often happens, as soon as you stop thinking about something it comes back to you, I’ll start making some wrap up points. But then as I do so, if that point that you were going to say, comes back to you… does it have anything to do with free will, or a totally different topic?

We’ll see. Okay. All right. So, you and have been talking, we’ve been going for about two hours, and I really enjoyed talking to you and could surely do it all day. But these interviews are sort of like a, you know, a taste. And so people have had a taste of your life and your perspective. And if they want to delve in more, they can go to your blog and read. Do you have a thing that on your blog, where you get notified when a new thing is posted?

Maury Lee: Yeah, I do. And I should, if somebody puts a comment on there it should get to me, or if somebody emails me.

Rick Archer: Though, I mean, do a thing where readers get notified when you post a new thing.

Maury Lee: I think they can sign up.

Rick Archer: Okay, good. Yeah, I might do that myself. Because I like reading what you have to say. And I subscribed to a couple other blogs where I always feel like I learned something when I read them. So I encourage people to do that if they want. And, as you said, they can get in touch with you if they feel like chatting. I’ll put your email address on your Batgap page. And anything else you wanna you want to say before we wrap it up.

Maury Lee: No, just the only thing I would want to say is, I hope that some people find what I’ve had to say, helpful in some way. If not, that’s okay, too. But I would also encourage people to watch Batgap. I really enjoy watching the videos. And I especially like the, a lot of them that are not spiritual teachers, like sometimes you’ll have a spiritual veterinarian. Or just some person, yeah. I like the idea of people that, ordinary people that are awakening and, and may not toot their own horn, or be making a big splash or doing a lot of videos, but those people I think sometimes have a very interesting background and path and, and we could all benefit from what they’ve discovered, and thinking about their path, because there’s so many. So that’s all I’d say is enjoy Batgap. It’s a really good service.

Rick Archer: Oh, well thanks. Well, I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I think this has been a lot of fun. And, you know, we’re kind of on a similar wavelength in many ways. So it’s real easy for me to talk to you and sort of embellish each other’s ideas. So keep on truckin’, you know. Keep on writing those blog posts. Keep on watching Batgap.

Maury Lee: Okay, I will definitely.

Rick Archer: All right, well, thanks. And so thanks to those who have been listening or watching. As you must know, this is an ongoing series. And if you’d like to be notified of future ones, subscribe to the YouTube channel and or subscribe to the little email notification thing that you’ll find on Batgap.com and check out the other menus there and see what we have to offer. So we’ll see you for the next one.