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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people. I’ve done about 395 of them now. And if this happens to be new to you go to batgap.com Bat gap, and look under the past interviews menu where you’ll find them all categorized in several different ways. This show is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. And if you appreciate it, and feel like supporting it, there are donate buttons on the site. So thank you for that. And thanks to those who have been supporting it. My guest today is Pamela Wilson. I’ve interviewed her before about six years ago. And I’ve always wanted to do another one with her. So here we are. Pamela celebrates 20 years of being on the road worldwide sharing truth, clarity, love and the joy of being her new book, The Golden Retrievers guide to joy is a distillation of everything she has noticed within, regarding the Book of Life, within stillness, she delights in getting to the heart of the matter, literally finding the intelligent presence within all forms and functions, and then showing it its true nature. So that emotions sensation, the body and the mind can also return and stabilize as balanced routed spaciousness. Join the fun life is simple within its complexity. So thank you, Pamela. So I have a feeling I may be wrong, but you kind of had it in mind to write a book for quite some time and you weren’t getting around to it. And finally thought, finally, just let the dawn write it.
Pamela Wilson: There you go. Yes, it’s sort of like the Lazy Girls Guide to publishing and writing.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I need to earn their keep. Yeah. Keep it so sort of the opposite of the dog ate the homework. It’s the dog did the homework.
Pamela Wilson: I love. I wish she could carry some groceries.
Rick Archer: Do you buy into the notion we’ll talk more about the book and as we go along? But do you resonate with the idea that there’s really no end to spiritual evolution, that there’s no sort of Terminus point we just keep on keeping on keeping on? Keep on evolving?
Pamela Wilson: I thought you were gonna say we just keep on trucking.
Rick Archer: We do that too, yeah.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah,
Rick Archer: Mr. Natural
Pamela Wilson: Well as far as I can tell, since the nature of everything is infinite, there is an infinite amount to notice about reality. So it’s, I find it still very stimulating and very thrilling. And if I miss something, then somebody in one of the groups has noticed something. And when they speak of it, then it I go, Oh, that resonates.
Rick Archer: So this may be a tough question to answer. But since we spoke about six years ago, would it be possible that if you could contrast what your experience was six years ago with what it is now, would you be able to say anything about that? How have you grown in six years?
Pamela Wilson: Um, I could say that, you know, it’s apparently life keeps weaning us off of subtle identifications. So when I first had the shift, almost 20 years ago, I was living as awareness or the joyous heart and I still the embodiment was still shakable and then that sort of subtle identification is of I am or I am awareness fell away, and then there was just this rooted spaciousness, that was a lot less shakable so I’m very happy to be living that
Rick Archer: so in other words, you aside from certain traffic situations you know, you don’t get perturbed easily.
Pamela Wilson: Well, sometimes it’s the little things isn’t that weird? I don’t know if you notice that. Yeah. And then um, you know, one of if somebody was to ask me, what is one of my remaining sorrows? It would be the non love in the human conditioning so that sometimes can really affect and come sit with the heart and devastated sometimes.
Rick Archer: And you don’t only mean your own personal human can you mean humanity? Right? Well,
Pamela Wilson: yeah, exactly
Rick Archer: what goes on in the world
Pamela Wilson: as just open the news?
Rick Archer: Yeah. What’s it I want to talk to you about that as we go along? Because I heard you make some comments in some of your other interviews that I thought were insightful about sort of the world situation and all. And speaking of other interviews, in preparing for this one, I listened to several you did one with somebody named Lucia or the Shia or something like that.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. Lucia Renee. She’s lovely.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I thought that was very good. And our previous one was, was an interesting conversation like six years ago, and you also did a nice one with Renata McNay. So you know, people enjoy this and want to hear some other ones. They’ll find on your website links. Links to those other interviews are good. Yeah, about embodiment. You. You said, I think it might have been your interview with Lucia, Lucia Renee, you said, after awakening, you felt angelic and not human for about 10 years, then you came back down to earth, something like that.
Pamela Wilson: I think I crashed.
Rick Archer: Yeah.
Pamela Wilson: It’s the classic sort of the classic fall to Earth.
Rick Archer: Too close to the sun. Yeah.
Pamela Wilson: Well, no, it wasn’t about that. It was more that I think life winds us off of the felt sense of divinity. And there was a little bit of whining with that.
Rick Archer: What’s wrong? Why would life want to do that? What’s wrong with the felt sense of divinity?
Pamela Wilson: Well, as far as I can tell, there’s something deeper, which is elemental being. And that is more stable. Because I think for me, human humanness and divinity, they’re a polarity. So anytime I find a polarity, I like to look behind or underneath or in between, or
Rick Archer: What that triggers in my understanding is that, you know, the divine or the celestial realm is wonderful and subtle and beautiful, but it’s not necessarily the bedrock. It’s not the ultimate,
Pamela Wilson: exactly. It’s not the substratum. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I mean, even in the Vedic literature, they say, Well, you know, you the denizens of heaven, aren’t necessarily enlightened. They just enjoy that.
Pamela Wilson: They’re having a lot of fun, though.
Rick Archer: Yeah, they are. They earned some good karma or something, they go and they live it and but they eventually have to come back and, and for final liberation. But that’s interesting, because very often, people have some kind of shift into an impersonal, abstract absolute kind of thing. And, but and then maybe later on, or maybe not, but maybe later on, they develop some kind of more appreciation of divinity and celestial qualities and so on with you. It almost sounds like you’re saying it happened the other way around?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, was is I was just kind of living the Big Love and noticing the love within everything. And so there was just joy.
Rick Archer: Nice. That sounds good. Well, you know,
Pamela Wilson: now I could say I’m living a sober joy. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Was anything lost? Or do you feel like the container just got bigger and the joy thing is still there, but it’s in a larger context?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, it is. But and now it’s very informed. It’s before it was like Blythe spirit, you know, that phrase. And now it’s it’s kind of wiser.
Rick Archer: Maybe because you’re getting older?
Pamela Wilson: Yes, definitely.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I’m kind of reminded of what our friend Adyashanti often says about awakening and the head, heart and gut and he probably didn’t think that up probably others have said it, but it’s not they don’t always necessarily go in any particular order I find among people and with you, maybe it sounds like heart first and then.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, heart first. Then the head. It was very funny. One day, I talked to stillness occasionally. Not that I’m not that but I asked it, hey, you know, I’m present with the mind. I gaze at it. I’m compassionate with it. Why hasn’t it come to rest? because it’ll come to rest and open and be quiet, but then it’ll, you know, wind itself all up. And it said, Oh, you didn’t show it it’s true nature. And so then I, you know, I just honored consciousness within, you know, the pure intelligence within the mind, and it relaxed open. And then I invited it just to root and stabilize is that so that was a nice clue from stillness, that it’s not just being with or gazing or watching thought, like waves come and go. You really out of compassion, you have to show its true nature.
Rick Archer: And you did that, how?
Pamela Wilson: Just by honoring it, and then inviting it to look behind its files and forms and functions and ideas.
Rick Archer: I’ve heard you say a lot of things like that, in interviews, like using a lot of verbs with regard to things like fear, or jealousy or the mind or, you know, this and that you use words like honor, or bow or invite, and all sorts of things like that. And, you know, I don’t know, personally, I don’t quite get how to put that into practice.
Pamela Wilson: It’s heart bowing, and noticing the restlessness or the remaining suffering in some of these crystallizations of consciousness. So the universal language, other than stillness is respect. And this I got from Papaji, somebody asked him to sum up his teachings. And he said, look within, approach everything with devotion, and gratitude, and then stay as heart. So I tried that approaching everything with devotion and gratitude, and we already are that, but when you add a little extra warms, it really allows the embodiment to self liberate.
Rick Archer: So would you describe what you’re saying is a sort of a subtle, intentional shift, like just sort of, rather than being oblivious to some inner workings rather just sort of gently put the attention here have this little bit of subtle recognition and so on, and then that kind of enlivens things?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, it’s like a treating everything as the inner Sangha inside the inner gathering, because any restlessness is just looking for rest. And anything that suffering is looking for the ultimate resolution, which is true nature.
Rick Archer: So let me press you on this a little bit more. So let’s say a person is angry or restless or depressed or something like that, rather than just sort of taking that for granted? I’m angry because of, you know, are you suggesting a little bit more of an introspective thing like, Okay, now, why is this arising? What’s the root of this depression and so on?
Pamela Wilson: No, it’s It’s not Why are looking at the root, it’s looking into the essence. Because we can get really caught, as you’ve noticed, as humanity has gotten really caught in the whys. Why is this happening to me? And there’s a lot of, you know, beautiful invitations in psychology and many things. But this is simple looking into the heart of the matter, looking into the essence of anger, what’s the essence of anger? And then honoring that, because it’s essence of everything. You know, it’s qualities of life or stillness, or.
Rick Archer: And I’m asking dumb questions, because I’m dumb. And I want to make sure everybody gets this. So let’s say okay, I’m all going through my day, and something gets stirred up. And I think, oh, Pamela said, look into the essence of this. How do I do that? Do I sit down and close my eyes? Do I? What do I do?
Pamela Wilson: Well, it’s nice, you can do it on the fly, too. You can, you know, once again, noticing the felt sense, you know, say if it’s reactivity or some irritation, just just feeling into that. And then noticing for me the second movement is to notice, usually there’s too much of it to be personal. It’s like anger isn’t personal or reactivity or the felt sense of separation. These are all lately, I’m calling them apps but they’re that’s kind of rude. It’s it’s really the colors of consciousness in that moment. There’s a water color wash of fiery anger through this stillness or through the openness. getting curious, wow. That means that
Rick Archer: rather than just taking it for granted or assuming it’s justifiable or whatever, there’s just a little bit of a questioning of it.
Pamela Wilson: doesn’t, it’s coming at this point not to offer roleplay services. Because before as actors or we really needed that kind of backup that those points of view those kind of like, righteous opinions, and then we’re convincing. But now it’s coming. It’s all coming for freedom.
Rick Archer: Yeah, for some reason, something Nisargadatta said, just popped into my mind, he talks about the the ability to appreciate paradox and ambiguity being kind of characteristic of spiritual maturity. And that that, to me means not just assuming that, you know, my way or the highway that my viewpoint is, right, and everybody else any, anyone that differs with it is wrong. But just sort of taking the broader view and recognizing that, you know, we’re all we’ve all just got a fraction or a fragment of the pic the total picture?
Pamela Wilson: Yes, yes. And then it’s then, you know, this is curiosities, own pleasure, you know, to look into the nature of everything to to notice the formlessness, and all forms and functions and be curious. And that’s how it informs itself, as we’ve all noticed this your curiosity?
Rick Archer: Yeah. One thing, I guess, I don’t know if any survey has ever been done to be interesting. Of all the people who are in this world that you and I travel, and, you know, all the spiritual seekers and the teachers and the satsangs, and all this stuff around the world. But I wonder if you see a breakdown of how many people actually practice something, how many mainly just read books or just listen to teachers? And and, yeah, I know that you’ve done a lot of practice in various ways, TM for years, the Sedona Method, Lester Levinson, and working with Robert Adams, and so on. And one thing that I worry about sometimes is that people who, and there are teachers who explicitly discourage practice of any kind, you know, they say it’s a waste of time, or it’s, it just reinforces the practice, or a lot of times when I hear a lot of times, I’m concerned that people are just sort of picking up a lot of words listening to things and, and they mistake that for the actual realization, what’s your emphasis or orientation on this issue?
Pamela Wilson: Well, to me that the field of presence, you know, is the body in, you know, so if we live above the nose, you know, maybe our recognition can be conceptual, but if it if presence and naturalness or life permeates its own embodiment, down to its toes, and it’s the living truth, and I like to honor everyone’s inclinations. Yeah. Because they’re following their resonance. It’s usually genuine passion. Even a good Dharma debate can have genuine passion in it. So, I mean, I really try not to mess with anybody’s.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And one thing tends to lead to the next. Yeah, they may be doing something now, but after a while, they might think, hey, you know, I think I’ll try that or whatever.
Pamela Wilson: That’s it. We’re all really just following our feet. You know,
Rick Archer: that’s a good point. I heard you quote Robert Adams, and perhaps others in emphasizing the value of being able to sit with someone who is really grounded or whatever word he used, you know, really established. And that that could be, you know, orders of magnitude more powerful than than other options. If you have that opportunity. Maybe good to address that for a moment. Yeah,
Pamela Wilson: that was my experience. So I had, as you know, done the TM, and then 12 years of the Sedona Method and Lester passed away and Laura Lucille who’s Francis’s wife now Francis the seals way. She told me about Robert and I just walked into this gathering in Los Angeles area and it was like hitting a wall of peace, but soft welcoming, and I just sat down and it was the first time I hadn’t Mantra or released or done any practice. It was such a relief, like it just rest and savor and be permeated and soothe it was like heaven.
Rick Archer: Right. Could be that all your monitoring and Sedona ng had had actually made you more.
Pamela Wilson: Oh, definitely, definitely open it really clarified, you know, the mind the tendencies, the, you know, emotional habits, just very beautiful. I’m very grateful for all of it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I feel that way too. It’s sort of like each thing we do. It’s like, I’m grateful for second grade. You know, I didn’t stay there. But I had a really good teacher in second grade. You know, and a really good teacher in sixth grade. And each each thing was a step of progress. So, yeah, I think everybody gets the metaphor. So let’s talk about your book a little bit. You mentioned that you ran into Eckhart Tolle up in Vancouver, and you had your dog with you. And he said, Do you know your dog is enlightened? And you said, Yes. She woke up before me.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, Neelam actually did the beautiful touching of the right hand on the right side of the chest and the left hand on the head that Ramona had gifted his mother and a few people with, and drawing the eye thought out of the head, back into the heart. So that was a few, few months before I woke up. So honey, my dog was the living embodiment of love and peace and stillness and strength.
Rick Archer: Okay, now, you don’t have a video of me holding our dog Shanti, who has since passed away, and coming up and hugging and kissing and blessing and, you know, doing all this wonderful stuff with Shanti. But I don’t mean to sound like a curmudgeon. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Shanti became enlightened in the sense that, you know, human beings become enlightened. I mean, she’s still like to roll and cat poop or eat it or stuff like that she was still a dog, you know, it kind of begs the question, can we being kind of just poetical here or could
Pamela Wilson: have a week could also say that there’s many sages that have had their shift and everything and still have strange tendencies? Now, in this case, I have to say, I wouldn’t say that about my current dog, but I would definitely say it about honey. There is something and it makes sense because all beings have true nature, the great suitor and Buddhism is all beings have Buddha nature.
Rick Archer: Yeah, including mosquitoes and amoebas. And everything. Just a question where we want to draw the line, you know, I don’t want to get too academic. I mean, who knows? But it’s interesting to ponder because there’s a thing that Ken Wilber talks about, called the pre trans fallacy where we, you know, look at babies or animals and they seem like they have a lot of qualities that we would associate with Enlightenment, but they have to go through a whole minefield of, of development before they kind of get to the other side and then regain those qualities but have something so much more.
Pamela Wilson: I would say it’s not a mind field, it’s a mind field. We all have to go through, you know, kind of like the mind and encumbers itself and then gets clarified back to its original, pure intelligence. Yeah. Yeah, no, I’m all for all beings knowing their true nature. That would be great. Yeah, living it.
Rick Archer: It would be a different world I mean, in a way, the whole spiritual evolution thing kind of recapitulates human maturation, you know, we were all innocent and cute and everything, and then we become teenagers. And, you know, we get wild and crazy and do dangerous things. And, but we sort of have to go through that because we’re gaining our independence, you know, and our freedom and our autonomy. And then if we make it through that, then hopefully we we become, you know, come out the other side, more mature, more whole more established. Ah, okay. Enough of that
Pamela Wilson: What a long strange trip. It’s been
Rick Archer: Yeah. Grateful Dead. And continues to be so let’s thanks Some points from your book here. There’s a bunch of interesting things. So let’s, let’s take I just going to take some chapter titles and let you talk about them. Okay. And I’ll try not to talk as much. I’m talking too much. One is, who are you? Really?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, that’s the final teachings in all traditions is to look into our essence, rather than our persona or role or projections from others who they think we are, who our mind thinks we are. And just looking, just turning around inside this natural, aware presence looks within. And sometimes we have to soothe the body mind enough, so that we can look kind of behind the waves or the movements into this still innocent, intelligent presence, that, oddly enough, has not been harmed, or that it’s whole and complete and still present. And then just inviting it to uncontained itself, because part of the play of life in the natural world and in the human tribe is to protect, defend veil that which is precious and a treasure. So that to me is the most important thing, knowing noticing that we’re not just our body, we’re not our thoughts. We’re not the movements of the emotions were not our personal history. And in that moment, there’s just oh just there’s beautiful moments that we all can remember. But there was a lot of pressure and harshness and confusion and longing to return back to something simpler and tighter.
Rick Archer: And I think most people intuitively know that that’s there. And, you know, the polls have shown that majority of people have had some sort of mystical experience or insight or something. We all have this intuitive knowing. Yeah.
Pamela Wilson: So it’s a very specific guided meditation so that it’s kinesthetic, stabilized knowing in the body in that chapter.
Rick Archer: Yeah, right. And I should add that your your book isn’t yet for sale, but there’s going to be a thing on your website where people can just sign up to be notified when it becomes available, right? Yes, yes. Okay, good. And it’s not a long book. You can read it in less than an hour. It has some real nice illustrations of honey. On
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, by my friend Cataline, who’s a very talented water colorist.
Rick Archer: Yeah, nice. Okay, I’m just gonna throw some chapter titles at you and let you talk. Let them stimulate discussion. So another one is liberating the mind.
Pamela Wilson: Oh, yes, this is probably the greatest gift we can give humanity because when we all went to school, we just had sky mind we had this open field, bright shiny intelligence in the head that was curious. And it had it loved what it loves. still does. doesn’t like what it doesn’t like. And it you know, loves learning. It loves being curious. So, but in school, it was taught to concentrate and focus and that’s a gorgeous capacity. That’s our zoom lens, really. But it then it forgot its wide angle. naturalness. So in that chapter is just a very simple way to show it. And for it to stabilize back into wide angle pure intelligence, practical creative.
Rick Archer: Yeah, this theme comes up a lot actually, in various interviews, there’s, there’s a sort of trade off or tug of war between needing to be focused to drive a car, doing, you know, do heart surgery, or fly an airplane or whatever one does in life. And, you know, wanting to maintain broad comprehension and unbounded awareness. And it’s, it’s something it’s not an either or situation. It’s something that can be integrated. So you
Pamela Wilson: get both. Yeah, it’s actually what already is. So we’re just inviting the mind just to relax some of the tightness in it. Because that was just born up pressure and you know, performance and all that stuff.
Rick Archer: Yeah. But we do tend to be conditioned by repetitive experiences, you know, and also by intense experiences, something comes out. Let’s say you have a fender bender at a certain intersection. Every time you go by that intersection, you like flinch a little bit like, whoo, you know, because you have that association. So. So maybe there’s, you know, could you speak to how to unwind the conditioning?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, that the conditioning. Lately, you might notice I’m sort of irreverent. But that conditioning has a sort of post note function, which is, it’ll maintain history in the body, just to remind us that we never want that to happen again. So I sort of went around within and found all those sorts of like, contracted post notes and said, Okay, I totally agree. We never want that to happen again, in you don’t have to hold that in, in the field of presence, because we’re in total accord.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Now, there’s another one of those things where you’re kind of speaking to something in your body, or you’re like addressing some tendency, well, stillness
Pamela Wilson: is talking to crystallize stillness, in the form of conditioning. So it’s the unconditioned talking to the condition going, Hey, do we have to do this? Could we get a second opinion from the heart?
Rick Archer: And did that work? And was was was once enough? Or is it some kind of thing? You have to kind of wait when you’re, you’re looking at the post it note again?
Pamela Wilson: Well, usually, if you stay with it more than, you know, five seconds, it usually gets it because everything is intelligent. And everything actually has a heart every you know, conditioning is actually devotional, it just got weird.
Rick Archer: It’s also physiological. I mean, I’ve had times when I’m meditating, for instance, and all of a sudden, my body will jump in, they’ll be this huge release of something. And afterwards, they’ll just feel like, ah, you know, like, something that was really tight, had just dissolved.
Pamela Wilson: Yes, yes. And that’s what they call spontaneous self liberation. And that’s the body’s talent. Because just as it recorded data, it also can just record. Yeah, yeah. Doesn’t need to hold it. Now once were functioning as an informed, routed awareness, and then most of that backup can just rest.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And gets cleared out. I mean, you know, they talked, you’ve heard, you’ve heard the word most everyone listening has heard the word Vasanas, which are like these impressions. And they’re, they’re, they’re physiological, and they’re both in the physical body, and perhaps the subtle body. And the unbounded awareness is like a solvent, you know, which loosens them up. Yeah, but letters as they come out. Right.
Pamela Wilson: Right. And they don’t want to be Vasanas. What a drag.
Rick Archer: Yeah,
Pamela Wilson: it’s, you know, okay, I get to do this another repetitive movement for another 35 million years.
Rick Archer: 35 million. Now, you mentioned Papaji, as having mentioned 35 million years, and I was wondering what that meant, was he saying that our individual existence goes back 35 million years through reincarnation. So what did he mean by that?
Pamela Wilson: I don’t think he meant just reincarnation just as human.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it might be dogs.
Pamela Wilson: This element, the five elements having come into form and been subject to the laws of Ooh, the laws of gravity, the laws of the opposites, all sorts of things.
Rick Archer: But the universe is much older than that. So I was just wondering what he meant was, yeah, so maybe it was the human tribe. Maybe we’re all skulking around. Who knows. Somebody teased him once and he said, Why do you always say 35 million years? Why not 16 million years and Papaji just gave him such a look. Like? Yeah.
Pamela Wilson: Keep quiet.
Rick Archer: Lighten up dude.
Pamela Wilson: Exactly. No smartass remarks.
Rick Archer: Yeah. In other words long long time.
Pamela Wilson: Sounds great. 35 million years. It’s such an eternal Wow. To me.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Okay. Good one. So here’s another little teaser for you. The body is not what it appears to be.
Pamela Wilson: But yeah, yes, thank God. Once again, it’s an invitation to look a little deeper. My joke used to be I used to treat my body as a third world donkey. Really, it was more than mind was treating the body like that hurting it through time and space, pressuring it, you know, if it didn’t function well or didn’t obey there to be liked means judging thoughts to harass it into movement. So it’s so lovely to look into the field that we call the body, setting aside all the ideas about it. And as we’ve all noticed, in moments of relaxation, it doesn’t feel like it has, you know, containment or it’s more just a field of stillness, intelligence, responsive sensitivity and resilience. So it’s pretty mysterious. I’m such a lover of looking deeper. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah, this no, I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Pamela Wilson: No, so there’s also a guided meditation in that one, which is just an invitation to be curious.
Rick Archer: Yeah, on this body point in your book, it’s funny you say humans are funny, they love their bodies and treat them badly. Okay. Bunch of chapter titles. But I also had some other little notes that I took as I was going through your book. I’ll read you some of these because they’re things that jumped out at me as being interesting. If we think there is something to do in order to just be then it starts all over again. The cycle of unrest?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, so in school, we were we were trained very beautifully to be high functioning. And the mind has brought that mild to medium to strong pressured intent on the great quest for freedom. So actually, the mind contracts to look for something that’s relaxed and open. So it’s just you know, once again, we get back to just honoring all these innocent misunderstandings, so that they can relax, open, and then notice what is
Rick Archer: on the theme of rest and relaxation. This is a quote from honey, the dog, give yourself lots of space to rest. And there’s a picture in the book of funny sleeping. The secret to my boundless energy and enjoyment is I know how to rest.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, so rest isn’t absence of movement. One can be in high functioning during the day or on a long hike and still have that felt sense of rest, because rest within the word is the Latin beingness already. Our true nature is already at rest. I’m looking out the window at the trees. There experts are
Rick Archer: at rest. Yeah, this we can say rest is the basis of activity.
Pamela Wilson: Lovely. Yeah. And it animates all activity. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And especially the notice that a lot of sages and saints and so on, who on doubted they were in a very natural rested state, subjectively. And I bet even physiologically, if you hooked them up, you’d find that there wasn’t a lot of extraneous inefficiency in the way their bodies were working, have boundless energy, you know, they can go and go and go and go and apparently not get tired.
Pamela Wilson: I love that. Um, I’m happy to get some extra transmission for that. I’m sure that my friends would say that about me. But sometimes the felt sense is more like clunk.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that too. I mean, you know, we have our limitations. But um, yeah, you know, they I’ve read studies about this where kind of a body that’s full of all sorts of pent up stress and impressions. And so it just operates very inefficiently it’s kind of like a car that has all kinds of rust and stuff in the motor, it has to really work hard to get anywhere. Whereas a really nicely finely tuned engine, it burns it has better fuel mileage, and it just runs more smoothly, you know?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. So So Just you know, that’s another lovely thing about inviting the unconditioned to liberate the conditioning, because it eats up a lot of the ROM of the biocomputer. So just to maintain a contraction in a field of deep relaxation requires a little extra juice. So, yeah.
Rick Archer: And again, the word naturalness. We’re kind of throwing that around a little bit here. I think maybe you would say that naturalness. And I think what you’re alluding to here is learning to function in a state of naturalness, which is what your whole book is about, really, I mean, dogs are naturally they, they’re not neurotic. Most of them. I wouldn’t say they can do, they can be really neurotic. But a dog that hasn’t been eroticized by its owners tends to be just very natural. And that’s why we love them, you know, that there’s an innocence.
Pamela Wilson: That’s it, and a natural joy. They’re like, following their feet and their nose and you know, their whole body is is moving. Following its interest. I love it.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think that’s why children are so charming, and saints and sages. I mean, they sometimes are just so charismatic, you know, just so you can sit and watch them for hours, just their facial expressions, because just because of a certain naturalness that you don’t ordinarily find freedom.
Pamela Wilson: That’s it, you know, cuz life, that’s the arc of life. And it’s not just an arc, it’s probably two arcs that make a circle, where life just, you know, it can apparently and encumber itself, and then it’s great delight is to an encounter itself. So it’s a great journey.
Rick Archer: One thing I like a lot about what you say, and I think it was in your introduction that I read also, is your appreciation of the intelligence of life. I think I’ll just let you talk about that a little bit, rather than asking a big long question.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, that was the first time I noticed that it probably wasn’t the first time but it was with my dog, honey. And we were on a mountain trail that was very narrow, and we were above a cliff. And I’m, you know, really noticing where my feet are being naturally cautious, in a healthy way, and she is just galloping down this path. And my body contracted out of worried love. And I’m going oh, no, my dog. And then I noticed that every part of her being and body was intelligent. That was the first. Like her her paws were intelligent air for all the muscles, you know, her eyes, her balance, everything. It was completely the movement of relaxed intelligence, just galloping down this path. And it allowed the word love and meat and relax. And then I started noticing Wow, everything is intelligent.
Rick Archer: Not just animate things. Not Yeah, logical life. But
Pamela Wilson: I know the road I’m driving on is intelligent. It’s been engineered to have these curves, you know, the cars intelligent My glasses are? My body is yeah, that was very relaxing.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I mean, people tired of hearing me say this, because I’ve said it many times. But if we think about what science has told us about the way things are working, I mean, a single grain of salt has like a billion billion atoms in it. And every single one of those little atoms is a marvel that we don’t fully understand. And but somehow, it’s humming away, you know, and along with its billion billion brothers and sisters, and you know, in a single grain of salt, and it just it goes out from there to the whole universe, where you’ll never find a spot that isn’t like that with all this amazing, intelligent complexity in it. So yeah, it boggles the mind, you know, it’s all inspiring.
Pamela Wilson: Now, I think that’s the great invitation from life. If we slow down enough, just for a moment, not forever, to notice that life is just always saying, hey, you know, a you are me and B, I have your back. Yeah. And I’m always carrying you, and I’m looking out of your eyes and every cell of your body is humming away doing its thing. And what that was another fun noticing many moons ago is that I’m not doing anything. I’m not breathing. I’m not digesting I’m not thinking I’m not. Do you know I’m basically just along for Right life is doing everything. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Let’s talk about that a little bit. I wanted to talk to you about this. You know, obviously there’s certain functions, I guess they call them autonomic or something that are that happen without even knowing it, the way our liver is working the way our heart is beating, where our stomach is digesting. And if we had to actually run all that stuff consciously, we die immediately.
Pamela Wilson: In one day, we would fall over
Rick Archer: In one second, we would fall over, if we had to add to run that stuff, like keep your heartbeat the way my liver, I forgot my liver. But then, but then then sometimes people use that as an example of how everything is running on automatic. But then there are all the other things that we do seem to have a choice over at least most people do seem to, you know, I can raise my arm and not raise my arm. I can throw baseball, I can cook lunch, right. You know, there’s all this sort of willful conscious, intentional stuff.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, but the cool.
Rick Archer: Irene mentioned I can’t cook lunch. He’s right about that.
Pamela Wilson: That’s good to have discernment in the background,
Rick Archer: grilled cheese sandwiches maybe?
Pamela Wilson: Well, as far as I can tell, the impulse to play baseball or the impulse to go for a walk or arises from stillness presents itself to its own embodiment or awareness. And then there is a yay or nay, there’s resonance or not, and then off you go to play baseball or not. So even that even that impulse, and that apparent willfulness is not ours. It’s like a menu inside. How about this?
Rick Archer: Yeah. I remember hearing Timothy not Timothy, I’m about to mention him in a second. I remember hearing Nisargatta say that, you know, he was speaking to his audience and you’re saying, you know, for you things like digestion and heartbeat and stuff breathing are automatic. Said for me, everything is that way, this whole issue of freewill versus spontaneous nature running the show, you know? And, you know, from the outside, it looks like okay, well, this guy has a compulsion to smoke cigarettes. There’s an individual desire for those. And yet he has all this wonderful wisdom. And at a certain point, he decided to stop smoking them. And Timothy Conway said they clear the path and Joshua and Hall, then he would pace up and down between all the people up and down that path because he was so Rhett’s restlessness from the nicotine withdrawal. And so I’m just sort of wondering about I mean, people say there’s no sense of personal self, for instance, that’s fallen away. And but I don’t I’m not quite there in terms of my
Pamela Wilson: No, it’s It’s more that the body was restless, because it wasn’t getting it some nicotine. Nicotine. Yeah. So that that’s why for me, it’s it’s very practical to include the body. Because, you know, the body has habits and it has habits of how it sedated itself in the past. And true nature, this naturalness that we are, you know, will start to notice, wow, there’s a some habit or contraction or something that doesn’t serve, that’s no longer required.
Rick Archer: But um, I mean, in your I heard one interview in which you were talking about the sense of Pamela having fallen away or the sense of personal self. Do you mean that sort of, absolutely, ultimately, thoroughly or is there did it more like take a back seat and there is still some sense of personal self, but it really is nowhere near as predominant as it used to be.
Pamela Wilson: Hmm, she, I speak about it differently. So the apparent role of Pamela fell away and it was very abrupt in a beautiful Satsang with Neelam and then. Ah, then pure Being was just enjoying itself. It wasn’t terribly informed or rooted yet, but it was a delight. I would say that the persona falls away. The essence of the persona is uniqueness. So the uniqueness and the genuine interests remain. I think, the reference to the restlessness of Nisargadatta having quit smoking is a reference to his body, not him. It was his body that smoked and somehow true nature was enjoying until it wasn’t, yeah, decided to quit. Yeah.
Rick Archer: But so you’re saying there’s a uniqueness and that’s Pambula some kind of individual expression that is unique to you unique to me and so on.
Pamela Wilson: I would say it’s actually not, I would say it’s the uniqueness of life. Pretty much anything life comes into form is a unique expression. Yeah. So you know, because if I track backwards when I was young, I would notice awareness being drawn course, I didn’t have the words for it, it was just I could have been crawling on the floor and awareness was moving the body towards something that intrigued it. So same, that’s actually always what’s happened. We’re just following resonance and interest. Unfortunately, for most of us, the mind was co opted that and then started to script and direct and insist.
Rick Archer: Well, let me just persist a little bit more the risk of okay and past. But I’m, like, if I see you at the sand conference, and I say, hey, Pamela, you’ll turn around and say hi. And somehow rather, you know, you realized there’s a there was some individuation that realized I wasn’t calling somebody else was calling you. Or if you, you know, stubbed your toe. It’s like, there, there’s some kind of localized recognition of Yeah, which is not, you know, the tree outside isn’t feeling it. Pamela, the thing we look at and call Pamela seems to be feeling it. So I’m,
Pamela Wilson: and I’m happy for that, thank God,
Rick Archer: we’d probably kill ourselves if we didn’t have that. So just kind of getting at whether there can really be a complete obliteration of all sense of personal self or whether it really can be just diminishes and we identify more primarily with something more universal.
Pamela Wilson: Hmm, I think, you know, the impersonal is animating the personal. Yeah, just as it’s animating everything, and it’s as far as I can tell, it, edits. What it no longer needs. So consciousness clarifies its own instrument. Because it’s no longer its genuine interest to do roleplay or feel separate, or whatever it’s was playing before now it’s genuine interest is what Robert Adams said, pervading everything routine, everything, clarifying everything, returning back for anything that suffering. So that’s how I see it.
Rick Archer: Like, you’re I think that makes sense. So other words, consciousness is calling the shots. And how
Pamela Wilson: Oh yeah, it’s doing everything.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And and I liked that phrase, you said it’s, I forget exactly how it said it’s purifying or its refining its own instrument, it’s, it’s, it’s continuing to evolve the instrument through which it can enjoy as a living, it can enjoy life as a living reality, rather than just some abstract absolute thing.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. And we actually all have that experience. It’s not about awake, asleep. Oddly enough, it’s based on how relaxed the embodiment is. So in those moments, if we, you know, have our feet in the warm sand on the beach, and you’re gazing at an ocean and nothing is required of you, the entire body relaxes and opens and the mind relaxes and opens. And there’s just true nature. So what we talked about, and probably in all the interviews is just about a relaxed field of presence. Yeah. And, and it doesn’t matter if it comes home through golfing or long distance running, or I call it the grace of exhaustion.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think that’s one of those, if perhaps the most fundamental innate human drive is for that to return back to that restful, relaxed natural state, you know, yeah. And there are all kinds of things which the lewd people into thinking that they might provide it such as, you know, opioids, which are now epidemic and various things like that, which kind of cheat you don’t really do it. Yeah.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, they sedate the body temporarily, but they don’t liberate anything.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah. There’s an interesting quote for your book. Related to this. You say what agitates the mind is not circumstances but being contained the mind Mind is vast, and it is in too small space, your head,
Pamela Wilson: your head.
Rick Archer: It’s like, you know, you see those animals at the zoo, they’re in a cage. And they’re just all sort of pacing and restless because it’s they’re constricted, they’re contained. It’s not natural.
Pamela Wilson: Nice, say that a tiger can wear a sort of channel into the cement of his cage of foot deep, well just paste in the cement just from pacing is and that’s true for all of us. I mean, life is has such a high vibratory rate, and we see it in kids. I mean, they can’t stop dancing or moving or exploring or running or jumping. And then it it as we get older, it gets contained. And that’s where the frustration comes. It’s not so much with circumstance, because when we’re relaxed sometimes, okay, I don’t really like that circumstance. But it’s not such a big deal. But when the body is like, there’s no room.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s something in the Upanishad or someplace that says there’s there’s no joy and smallness. Oh, beautiful. Yeah. That’s precisely the way it’s expressed. But that’s the idea that, you know, we’re meant to be unbounded and anything which constricts us is we’re not gonna be happy with it.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. So when we were teenagers, maybe we were unbounded without discernment.
Rick Archer: Now, but it made it a little constrained.
Pamela Wilson: Now, we can be unbounded because we’re street smart. And we have discernment. Yeah.
Rick Archer: There was in one of your interviews, I think it was Lucia, you were talking about the number of neurons in the heart and, and, and the gut as well as the brain. And I got curious and look that up. There are about 100 billion in the brain, about 100 million in the gut and at least 40,000 around the heart. And I quoted or typed out a thing here, printed out a thing it says it turns out that butterflies and that sinking feeling in the stomach have a neurological basis. Neurons lining the stomach are filled with neurotransmitters, chemicals that help nerve cells communicate with one another. When key neurotransmitters serotonin, which plays a major role in mood regulation, while serotonin is also found in the brain, 95% of the body supply is in the stomach. Yes, yeah. This abundance explains why drugs like Prozac, known as SSRIs help elevate mood by increasing serotonin levels, but also cause stomach disturbances. That was interesting.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, and I think the newest research is that there’s actually more neurons in the heart
Rick Archer: than the 40,000 foot, it doesn’t seem like very many.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. So we’ll see. We all have listened to that, you know, gut intuition. And at least in my case, I overrode it. Regularly, I used to tell the still small voice, hey, you better speak up, kids are not listening. So now I’m now I’m listening.
Rick Archer: Listen, good. Yeah. Jay, there’s something you talked about, in one of your interviews, you got into this thing of talking about the elementals and gods, and how they thrive on devotion. And that was kind of interesting. It was, you know, talking basically about subtle realms and the beings who reside there. I mean, is that just was that just sort of little sidelight? Or is that something that actually interests you? And do you think that’s significant?
Pamela Wilson: Well, now when I think of elemental beingness, I think of one of the ways to speak of it is the five elements. So we have earth and water and fire and air, but that in space, but see, it’s the space element, Robert Adams called it spaceless space. So to me, it is the one that is holding all the other elements and of course, all of existence and non existence and whatever you want to call it. So to me, when I feel into what resonates for me as a word, its elemental beingness or, or I’m this warm, warm space spaceless space. So to me, that’s what I talk about when I speak of elemental beingness Okay, not so much gods and mystery mischievous, mischievous nature spirits, but the, the building blocks of life itself
Rick Archer: which According to some teachings, our intelligence, their impulses of intelligence, they’re not just, they’re not just laws of physics or something that they’re actually
Pamela Wilson: I have a supreme intelligence Yeah.
Rick Archer: And obviously, they have names for him, like, you know, when they talk about the Hindus, and they have a name for the god of fire and the God of air by you and so on. But, you know, they’re actually pointing to intelligence conducting these various phenomena in nature. Yeah, and
Pamela Wilson: it’s animating everything very benevolently. And without any effort. I mean, I’m just struck by formless lift formlessness, that’s holding all the planets up. It’s not efforting. It’s not like scrunching its shoulders like Atlas, it’s just totally relaxed.
Rick Archer: Thinking about the least action,
Pamela Wilson: there you go. If I mean, if you’re the Supreme, you’re the omnipotence of the universe, absolute strength, then then you can be absolutely relaxed.
Rick Archer: Like if you throw a tennis ball, there are a million different paths it could take but it actually takes the most efficient path, it takes the path of absolute least action. And, you know, the parabola follows is, you know, you can calculate that in terms of its being the I the most efficient parabola that could it could possibly take.
Pamela Wilson: I’m sure my dog knew that.
Rick Archer: Oh, yeah. That’s how he catches them.
Pamela Wilson: That’s right. The same intelligence.
Rick Archer: Yeah. She just says this little algebra thing in her head and runs over there.
Pamela Wilson: How lovely.
Rick Archer: Here’s a phrase I like from the book. The Divine often moves at the speed of molasses.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, no rush. No time or space. Yeah. And it also I mean, we look at our dogs if there’s a rabbit or a squirrel. Wow, that’s impressive. They move pretty fast. Yeah, I once saw stag in the forest go from absolute alert stillness to a bound that I couldn’t quite figure out how far away it was. But it was almost like there was just a little contraction like it had springs and its legs. We went from stillness to a breathtaking bound in a heartbeat. And there was no thought it was just going Yeah. So that’s our friend life. It’s gorgeous.
Rick Archer: Yeah, you mentioned the word benevolence a minute ago. And, you know, some people wouldn’t regard. Well, some people don’t regard the word destruction of the universe as having any intelligence to it. They think it’s mechanistic. In fact, that’s the predominant scientific paradigm. Yeah, but in spiritual circles, we tend to say, well, it’s benevolence, there’s a kind of an evolutionary purpose to thing, things kind of a cosmic motivation or intention, and so on. But then a lot of people have a hard time reconciling that with things that we see happening in the world, both on individual levels and societal levels. So and that kind of ties in with the phrase, the divine often moves at the speed of molasses. I mean, do you have a kind of a sense that there is a, an evolutionary trajectory trajectory? And that there’s the whole thing is sort of, although it may seem unkind at times, there’s there’s a benign or beneficial evolutionary purpose to the course of events?
Pamela Wilson: Hmm. I don’t know. I mean, I’d have to speak of it, the way that resonates for me, if we set aside the human tribe for a second, because there’s a noticing of benevolence and malevolence. But just in nature, if we think of nature, nature can be as extreme and giving and gorgeous and frightening. Because everything is eternal. There is no death. So so that’s why a lot of sages invite folks to sit with the illusion of death and for one’s friends that have sat with loved ones. Like I got to sit with my grandfather as he passed. It’s very convincing death. And yet, we want to look at what dies. So II Even as you know, a volcano can explode or village can get covered by the, the lava. Even though it appears that Beloved’s lost their lives, you know this that we are as eternal. It’s not subject to birth or death or existence or non existence. So that to me is why I can say life is benevolent. Yeah, it is. Its original gift was eternal life. Which is why it can play hard and be extreme and thunder and lightning and also soft summer days.
Rick Archer: Yeah, water cannot wet it, fire cannot burn it. Weapons cannot cleave it and all that.
Pamela Wilson: That’s it, Death cannot touch it. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And we’re not I think we’re not, at least I would say we’re not just talking about death cannot touch the absolute pure consciousness. But there’s something there’s that essence we were talking about earlier. There’s something indestructible about that, too. Yeah, not just the absolute essence. But the essence of Pamela, the essence of Rick something which if this body does, gets carried on, and the,
Pamela Wilson: to me the the way, I was curious about that, because like my dogs, I have a dog curiosity is I was looking into, you know, the individuality of myself and other friends. And when that word fell away, I noticed that what I appreciate in my friends and in nature, and everything is the uniqueness. And of course, we all also love the sameness, the oneness, because it’s just sublime. And then when I was looking into the nature of uniqueness, all of a sudden I saw Oh, so one, this is animating uniqueness. And then I was curious is does uniqueness fall away? When you die? So persona and belief systems and all that sort of thing? Do because the mind is resting. But natural interests, and resonance. I think they’re eternal, because their life’s pleasure. Now I’ve had it little Dharma debate with a very strict Hindu Swami. And he goes, if you think that you are confused, but what did he say? He well, he thought I was confused.
Rick Archer: I mean, what does he think was different than that?
Pamela Wilson: Oh, you know, I think it was more he wanted to celebrate the absence of the persona. And, you know, I, I agree with him, because the persona is role play. So it’s after a while, it’s like a shredded garment. And it’s such a blessing when it relaxes.
Rick Archer: But then, to reincarnation, I mean, that’s like second nature for them.
Pamela Wilson: Oh, yeah. But we didn’t even touch that. Because, you know, that’s one of the taboo subjects and Advaita. But it was more like, you know, it’s life’s on pleasure. It’s my some pleasure. You know, it’s it’s interest. So I don’t think that subsides. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And I don’t think it should be a taboo subject and advice. I mean, sorry. Sorry, data, but I think he actually at one point in his teaching said it didn’t work that way. And another point he said it did Ramana certainly referred to it, you know, yeah. My car was the reincarnation of so and so. And
Pamela Wilson: yeah, when Robert went to sit with Ramona, Ramona confirm they had known each other the earlier round. Yeah, or life.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And if you read, or listen to David Godman stories about things, Ramona said, and property, for that matter, they’re all talking about this. It’s like,
Pamela Wilson: it’s really, if we call it eternal life, nobody can quibble. Yeah. But you know, that the human mind, it likes to quibble.
Rick Archer: I was interviewing a Buddhist fellow last week, who was very charming, but we had this quibble a little bit between us about this topic. But somehow I think these kinds of understandings really shape one’s worldview. And they are significant. I mean, you can think whatever you want, but I kind of like to know how things actually work. And I don’t think yeah, I don’t think the universe rearranges itself according to our whims. It’s really incumbent upon us to figure out how it works not for the universe to jump around and say, Oh, you think do you think the earth is flat? Okay, boom, there it is.
Pamela Wilson: Kevin’s Yeah, no, it’s to me, it’s just often that the quibble is about the words, not the essence of what the conversation is about. And no one. Everyone in their heart knows. They’re eternal. And that’s why people are surprised when they hear they’re dying. But I’m eternal. How can I be dying? Anyhow, I think
Rick Archer: they may know that in their heart of hearts, but I think a lot of people that that knowing is very much occluded by doubts and, and misunderstandings. And, you know, some people really feel like when this body does, that’s it lights out.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. I don’t know. But just scary.
Rick Archer: I mean, you know, if I know people who have thought that way, and they’re kind of scared of either that, or they’re looking forward to it, because they feel like that’s it. I’m out of here and I won’t have to suffer anymore. There’ll be no okay. No. Timeout. Oh, my. Here’s a good latchmere book. Well, we dogs rely on lots of awareness. And some barking, humans rely on lots of barking and some awareness.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, yeah, I have a lot of compassion for the, for humanity. And just because we didn’t get any of the defense’s animals got, we didn’t get the size of the elephant, we didn’t get the claws and the tiger or the night vision, we didn’t get any of the camouflage. So you’re sort of like this soft little instrument that, you know, if something dangerous happens, you can maybe jump up and down or run away. But that’s about it. So they all that barking that’s the defense is, so I like honoring them. Because they’ve been on duty for ever
Rick Archer: honoring the barking.
Pamela Wilson: The defenses, right? Yeah, yeah. Kids, their essence is pure strength. So I don’t want them to go away. I want him to root down and be unshakable strength. And then lots of agitated reactive barking.
Rick Archer: That’s an interesting point. Because some people talk about vulnerability just being open. And you know, letting it all wash through you. And I think that that has to go hand in hand with the establishment of strength, invincible strength, because otherwise you can just get kind of ripped to shreds by stuff if you haven’t established a foundation.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, and everybody has that, you know, because we overlook our resilience and only notice the sensitivity. But if you really feel into behind sensitivity or the shake ability, there is this unshakable resilient mountain strength.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s there. But you know, it has to be has to be cultured. I mean, it has, it’s there. It’s like water in a well, it’s there. But you have to kind of send down the bucket and
Pamela Wilson: say, hello, hello, I need you.
Rick Archer: Because we have to think of people who, you know, it doesn’t help them to say, you know, you’ve got this great strength because they feel very vulnerable. They feel very weak. And somehow that they have to tap into that strength and integrate it into their experience in order for it to be a practical consideration. Yeah. I mean, look at the soldier who goes to Iraq, and he’s big and strong and, and, you know, ready to fight and he comes back, you know, basket case with PTSD. The nervous system, the mind had been so assaulted by the experience that the inner strength has been, has been totally lost, and it needs to be rediscovered.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah. And that’s the gift of nature. There’s a beautiful story or even so many of the new trauma work that’s out but there was a story of elephants that had been in a circus, and some innocent billionaire decided to liberate them back to Africa. And they weren’t ready. Well, you know, he had them flown over. I think there were three of them. There’s a mother and then two younger ones, and they were in a holding area for a little bit just to recover from jetlag get the lay of the land. And then the first thing she did the big mother, female elephant is she took them into the woods and So they basically went on a forest retreat for two years to recover from being around humans stressed humans. And then at the end of two years, she came back down with her two friends, and literally said, Thank you, and then went back to the forest. So it’s so beautiful. That’s what we do need. We need these natural retreats. For some of us, it might be just a quiet weekend at home or going for a walk in the woods or just being with our dog or we do need those natural retreats. They’re healthy.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And there can be cycles of retreats to like, Yeah, little daily retreats, half an hour and half an hour here and half an hour. There are weekend retreats, and week long retreats and you know, whatever we can arrange. Yeah. Well, even going to bed at night, that’s the sort of retreat.
Pamela Wilson: Oh, it is deep sleep. Yummy.
Rick Archer: Here’s a nice little phrase for the book. And incidentally, those listening, we got about 170 people listening. If you feel like asking a question, go to the upcoming interviews page on batgap.com. And scroll down at the bottom there’s a form. So here’s a nice little phrase, I just clipped little bits from the book that kind of I liked that jumped out at me that was a nice little stimuli for conversation. But everyone blooms with respectful, spacious attention, and contract with disapproval, disinterest, and disrespect. These are all things that you’re quoting your dog is saying or the dog.
Pamela Wilson: Dog says Don’t diss the divine. So all beings are divine. Robert Adams used to start his songs with you are not who you appear to be, you are divine. And the first time I heard that my whole body relaxed. So yeah, we’re all the same really animals, humans nature. We like feeling honored and respected and seen or listened to. We bloom that way. And then we’ve all remember those moments where we’ve encountered disrespect or harshness, and there’s an instant contraction in our body and in the heart, and because it’s unnatural. It’s unnatural.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I’m sure we can think of examples of the way children are treated, you know, for good or bad. And, you know, scenes in grocery stores and so on, where children are treated one way or another way and the reaction it gets from the children. But you know, I think there’s a saying that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar or something. Sweet sweetness and love and so on. That are effect well, it’s
Pamela Wilson: just genuine respect. It’s no different than it’s nothing over the top. It’s like walking down the street and seeing a stranger and just like a little nod out of their head, I see you. Hello, it’s it’s, I think part of the human tribe because of the separation app, which is a protective app. You know, a lot of the human tribe is so cut off from healthy community and, you know, natural respect, and that’s one of the irritants.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So it’s a nice sentiment, I guess, that it always comes back to the question of well, how is there there seems to be a paucity of love in the world you know, is that song What the world needs now is love sweet love, that’s the only thing there’s just too little of. And we all kind of know intuitively and philosophically that there that God is love, and there’s a vast reservoir of love. And it’s a question of why why is there such a drought? You know, and how can we, what can how can we maximize our contribution to eliminating the drought?
Pamela Wilson: I would say that probably in maybe half of humanity, love is under house arrest. Meaning the love is there. But the defense is no it’s a treasure and have contracted around it. And then the mind is saying things and wanting to push so called others away to keep that love safe. So it’s kind of in a we do need a little some ray of sunlight somehow to break that habit and it’s not breaking it. It’s softening it. And a lot of sages, I met a sage in India. And he said that’s all he did all day was when he wasn’t in Satsang was pray for humanity. So he was in that prayer honoring the innocent naturalness, the healthiness of humanity. So that it would rise up. And because when that Naturalness is fed somehow, through music, or art, or dance, or golfing, or following what it loves, it starts to open. And as it opens, its vibratory rate starts to liberate the conditioning and the defenses and the contractions. So
Rick Archer: that’s another story on the news the other night about these kids in some inner city school, and somebody had funded the music program, you know, there’s so much attempt these days to cut music and art and things like that out of school curricula. And but somebody had funded this music program, and all the kids were learning how to drum and play clarinets and all this stuff, and, and it just had a huge effect on their behavior, truancy and behavioral problems, and even academics, it was, you know, really enriching. So, I mentioned that because that’s, you know, music is kind of a language of the heart. And
Pamela Wilson: it’s so important.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s like, there’s certain factions that feel like all we need is mind education. We don’t need hard education.
Pamela Wilson: Yikes. No, thank you to that.
Rick Archer: Speaking of love, in the chapter on love, you say in the book, we noticed, the heart is omnipresent, and permeates and soothes all realms of existence. It is compassion and holds all beings, it is the mystic.
Pamela Wilson: So that’s within everyone’s heart, no matter what role they’ve played. Yeah. So it’s there, it’s the great treasure, of course, so it will be defended. So one of the great fast ways to liberate the heart is to notice if there’s any tension in front of it, or around it or behind it. And to go inside and just a little respect to the protection, the tightness. Because the defense is they actually relaxed with respect rather than, you know, with the Wisdom Teachings. And then we can look at what is of such great value in the chest area that it’s under house arrest are protected. And then the more you honor that, and it can be in your absolute own unique way. And then it starts to uncontained itself. And notice its vastness. Because if the heart feels, and it’s the minds view of the heart, that it’s a small, fragile instrument, then it’ll stay small and protected. But when we honor it, it starts to stretch out and open and can even route and then we’re going yes, that’s the gift we can give humanity because then it it actually touches all hearts everywhere, and invites the heart to say, Hey, you’re huge, you don’t want to play small.
Rick Archer: So I have a question about whether defensiveness is ever really desirable. You know, it’s like taking examples from nature. So many different animals have Protective Shells, for instance, and they would die without them. So, you know, perhaps if all of us have built up Protective Shells around our hearts to some extent, maybe that’s the way it was meant to be. And, you know, it doesn’t mean we have to be encased in them forever, but maybe they’re there for a purpose and there’s a certain art to being freed from them. Perhaps it’s requires, we wouldn’t want to be freed instantly. That could be catastrophic. But there’s a we want to say, yeah, maybe or not or, but maybe there’s some art to dismantling them as quickly as possible. What do you think?
Pamela Wilson: Well, I love what you’re saying because you’re basically honoring inviting us to notice that healthy natural caution. It is wise. It’s wise, it’s discerning. Yeah, I think life protects itself. Until it knows its big strength and inst until the discernment is really unveiled, and then the defenses can fall away. And then there’s just a healthy natural caution that remains. And that’s part of discernment. And it’s part of understanding you know, the body and life and yeah.
Rick Archer: So if I could summarize a point out of that it might be don’t be so concerned about removing the defenses be more concerned about increasing the strength? Hey, yeah, and as the strength increases, the defenses will naturally fall away kind of like, you know, shake a snake shedding its skin or something.
Pamela Wilson: Yes, exactly. They’re just there until we know our rooted strength. I don’t know if you confirm that
Rick Archer: you’re the snake wouldn’t want to lose it skin until it’s ready to shed Yeah. Thanks. Let’s, uh, you know, I’ve often been asked, and I’ve often wondered, there seems to be a lot of spiritual teachers whom I respect a lot and who who really go through some health stuff. You know, ADIA has his his issues with Bell’s Palsy and various things and various other people. Neelam has her issues with chemical sensitivity and EMF rays and all that stuff. What do you think about the whole thing of waking up to whatever degree of Enlightenment we have woken up to, and having to deal with all kinds of health issues as a consequence?
Pamela Wilson: Well, it would be unique for everyone, but we don’t want to turn it into a belief
Rick Archer: that does seem to be a syndrome or tendency or pattern.
Pamela Wilson: But it’s not true. I mean, bodies are sensitive. And they’re resilient. And I don’t think it has anything to do with wakefulness or a lack of wakefulness.
Rick Archer: So you don’t think that awakened people are a little bit more inclined to have that kind of thing going on? Like their body is really channeling a lot of voltage and it takes its toll anything like that?
Pamela Wilson: No, I think that’s a belief. Okay, yeah, so I was saying I don’t think it was any accident that the throat started tickling. And the body started coughing when we’re talking about defenses because the body was confirming I have natural defenses and they’re natural. So the human extra conditioning or worry and tension and replaying and reviewing and all that stuff. That’s just backup. And it’s not needed as soon as we return to that you know, clear seeing and street smarts.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So I guess you could say when the battle is over, you can take off your armor.
Pamela Wilson: Nicely said yeah, it’s awfully heavy.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it is clanky and heavy and hot. Here’s a nice little section. This will give your voice the rest. I’ll read this. Take me a minute. It’s Honey’s detecting pointers on divine qualities. Honey, again, for those watching is Pamela’s dog. Sorrow when uncontained is compassion. Desire when uncontained is satisfaction and interrupt me Pamela if you want to comment on any of these anger when liberated is big strength. Fatigue when dived into is deep peace. Judgment when honored is discernment. On worthiness, when met is humility, fear when soothed is natural courage. Frustration is the invitation to return to the unlimited pride to the unlimited Excuse me. Pride when that is dignity. Seriousness is your gravitas. Now you’ve taken naivete unveils itself as innocence, which unveils itself as majesty. Not knowing even confusion when met reveals itself as wisdom in its potentiality pure intelligence.
Pamela Wilson: Such a relief, you know, because for so many of us, we thought there was something wrong with us that we had all those you know, uncomfortable feeling things inside. And just to realize they’re actually natural or divine qualities that under pressure, go to their opposite. So a lovely young Indian woman came to Satsang in London a few months back. And she told me because, oh, you’re you’re expressing the Anjali Mudra. And I’d never heard of that. And I said, What’s the Anjali Mudra. She says, it’s where you consciously bring the opposites together. So they balanced each other and can rest in stillness. And it was something that innocence here just discovered within and how beautiful that it’s celebrated in India is the thing. Yeah. Confirmation. Yay.
Rick Archer: That’s great. I’ll read a few more little passages from your thing. And if you want to comment you can and we’ll wrap it up, I want to I’m concerned about your voice. So here’s a nice one. The Golden Retriever motto is bow first and ask questions later. Nothing is what it appears to be. It may be the divine in disguise. There’s some cool stories in the Vedic literature about the divine in the in the disguise of dogs, you might have read some of them. There’s one where Yudhishthira, who was one of the five pundits or brothers or Jnana, being the most famous one was the end of the Mahabharata. He was climbing this mountain, and symbolically he was going to go into heaven by climbing this mountain and the other brothers had already died. And he was just him and some dogs started following him. And so he was walking along with this dog, and they’re climbing the mountain and they finally get to the top and I guess it’s like the gates of heaven, said the Hindu equivalent of St. Peter says, Hey, I’m sorry, you can’t bring that dog in here. And so Yudhishthira said, Well, I’m sorry that I’m not going to come in, you know, the dog has taken refuge in Me and I would never abandon anyone or anything that’s taking refuge in Me. So I’ll go elsewhere. Thank you. And at that point, the dog kind of I think it revealed itself as Lord Shiva or something who’s taken the guise of a dog to test your dish there to see if he was really worthy of entering heaven
Pamela Wilson: And to test the gatekeeper.
Rick Archer: Yeah. That was another story like I was showing her away was on some road and some dogs showed up and Shankara treated the dog rudely or something and then it turned out it was Lord Shiva in disguise testing Shankara. So watch what you do with dogs.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, that’s right.
Rick Archer: And cats, and worms.
Pamela Wilson: and yeah, all beings
Rick Archer: yeah,
Pamela Wilson: yeah, we all love to be honored and respected and we’re not fond of disrespect.
Rick Archer: Okay, I’m gonna read a final little passage here which is almost like a little prayer or something and then we can wrap it up. This is from again from from the book that your dog wrote. May you may you know, you are precious. May you know your essential innocence is ever pure. May you notice you are not the sum of your past but a mystery ever knew and always supported, held and loved. Know that death cannot touch you as you are indestructible spirit. So that’s nice.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, that is life’s confirmation. That everything it creates as absolute value. Yeah.
Rick Archer: The world is my family. Well, it’s a beautiful sentiment. And I hope hopefully, as we go along that it will become more and more universally appreciated. Because you know what a world we would have if everyone recognized that everything has absolute value. Yeah.
Pamela Wilson: Well, I’m trusting that in this noticing that we’ve all shared that things often will flare up within before they rest and route, that that’s also true in what we’re perceiving outside in all these flare ups. Hopefully they’re flaring up to return back to balance and natural, healthy, loving kindness.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Charles Eisenstein said that a couple of weeks ago when I interviewed him, he’s written a book about sacred air economics and another book called The the something like the beautiful world our hearts know as possible. And he was just saying that there are all sorts of examples throughout history of things really seeming to fall apart before they really came together. You know that The old story no longer works. And therefore the old story is collapsing in order to make room for a new story.
Pamela Wilson: Yeah, so be it. So be it.
Rick Archer: Actually a question finally just came in from a listener, I want to give her the opportunity to ask it ask it to you. This is Laura from Oregon. And she asks, Hi. Experiencing you is like experiencing such open fluidity around awakening, I realized that my mind has contracted somewhat around head heart, gut. And that idea, and my awakening kept looking to that as an expected path. Oh, I said she was expecting some head heart got progression or some. But so much of my beingness experiences an unbelievable journey when I watch and arrest and awareness. Oh, yeah. Can you please speak more on how best to be in quotes, and invite this awakening journey as you did with the heart? I’m sorry, it’s very difficult to know how to ask this question about how to assist intelligence to awaken you. Thank you.
Pamela Wilson: Oh, just bowing to you, Laura, oh, my goodness, what a beautiful report, and how wise you are just to notice where awareness is drawn. Because that’s how it reveals everything to itself. So that’s pretty much what we could just play with during the day is noticing where awareness is drawn and where its gaze rests, and what intrigues it. So as unique sages, and especially as modern sages, no outer authority is needed, other than your inner resonance. So I invite you also to just notice what resonates and don’t touch with doesn’t resonate. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I mean, if I could just chime in on that, it seems like it we can maps can be useful, but we can get too hung up on him. You know, I mean, we can get all sort of expecting things that well. Ramana said this, and Papaji said that Ganga Ji said that, Byron, Katie said this, and it’s like we’re kind of losing the innocent reference to our own experience. And, you know,
Pamela Wilson: yeah. And your body is backup, discernment and resonance services, because we know body doesn’t lie.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Beautiful. Okay. Well, thank you very much for hanging in there, Pamela.
Pamela Wilson: Oh, thank you. What an honor to be with you, Rick, and Irene and your dog, and also the Sangha that’s listening. Hello. Hello. I love you.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s about 150-60 people, which is a good number. So you’re popular, popular lady. Yeah. So I’ll just make a couple of concluding remarks that I always make. I’ve been speaking with Pamela Wilson. Pamela, that. Tell us just a bit about what you do and what you offer. I mean, online Skype sessions and travel around and you know, what? Can people interact with you?
Pamela Wilson: Through open circles center in East Bay of Northern California, we do two online Satsang once a month, generally. And they’re just on the telephone. And there’s, if you go to my webpage, Pamela salts on.com. There’s so many offerings there. And I love to do one on one sessions, because it’s so fun to unveil the divine together. And
Rick Archer: that’s about it. You do most of those over Skype, I presume?
Pamela Wilson: And Skype and also just telephone
Rick Archer: And telephone, right?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah.
Rick Archer: And if in person, I suppose if someone has to live in the vicinity?
Pamela Wilson: Yeah.
Rick Archer: Okay, good. Yeah. So I’ve been to Pamela’s site, and you can get in touch with her through that and, you know, sign up to be notified of things, including getting notified of when your book comes out. Because who knows? What do you think that’ll be?
Pamela Wilson: Well, it’s, it was turned down by most of the publishers spiritual imprints in the US.
Rick Archer: Have you tried New Harbinger?
Pamela Wilson: No, I haven’t tried them. But it’s now with Rider in the UK in the UK. They’re passionate about dogs. So we’re hopeful that they’ll get it.
Rick Archer: Good. I hope they did. And that was to try new Harbinger. They’re publishing a lot of my friends’ books.
Pamela Wilson: Sweet.
Rick Archer: They want me to publish one but I can’t get around to writing it. Okay, well, thanks. Thanks, Pamela. And thanks to all those who’ve been listening or watching go to batgap.com and check out the there’s an add a glance menu that gives you a summary of everything that’s on this sight and, you know, see who’s scheduled if you look under upcoming interviews and check out all the old ones and there’s an audio podcast of this if you’d like to listen to things while you’re cutting the grass or something like I do, and the donate button which we appreciate people clicking enables, I read and I do put so much time into this as we do. So thank you very much. Next week I’ll be speaking with Jacqueline Maria Longstaff, who is in Denmark and spends half a year in in India and an ashram in Arunachala or Giovanna malai. And she looks interesting. I’m just reading her stuff now. So Thanks, Pamela. Well, I hope you get over that cough.
Pamela Wilson: I know I’m already much better. Thanks. Thanks, Irene.
Rick Archer: Take your doggy for a walk.
Pamela Wilson: Yes. All right. Much love to all.
Rick Archer: Love to you. We’all be in touch.
Pamela Wilson: Okay. Bye bye.
