Rick Archer SAND Conference Q&A and Interview by Shakti Catarina Maggi

Rick: My name is Rick Archer and most of you probably know me from my video interview show and podcast, Buddha at the Gas Pump. Is there anyone here who has never watched that, who stumbled in here by accident somehow? Okay, good. Well anyway, it’s a thing that I conceived of, the idea popped into my head about nine years ago. I was out in the garage working out on a Bowflex machine, listening to Adyashanti. And this idea came, I want to do a spiritual interview show, I want to start interviewing awakened people. Part of my motivation was that I had been involved in a weekly satsang thing in my town for years. Didn’t have any particular teacher, a bunch of us just gathered together and had a discussion for about three hours every Wednesday night. And I live in a town, Fairfield, Iowa, where people have been meditating for many decades. And many people are having awakenings of some sort, including many of the people who were in that little discussion group that I was in, like Harry Alto, whom you probably watched on Batgap and others. And yet many of these people were reticent to mention it to their friends, because when they did, their friends would say, “Ah, you’re just Harry Alto, you’re just Joe Schmo. You don’t seem to be floating on a cloud, how could you possibly have had a spiritual awakening?” So I really wanted to connect, I really wanted to show people that this was something that is available to everybody, not just somebody special. And I thought, well if I could start interviewing people and then their peers could see that, “Oh yeah, this guy really does have something that is more than meets the eye,” then it would instill greater confidence in those people and inspire them to persevere and go for it. So initially I just thought of this as something I would do on a local radio station in my town, and the radio station didn’t want to do it, even though it’s run by meditators and all. I thought, “This is perfect, why wouldn’t you want to do it?” But anyway, after several months of haggling with them, some friends said to me, “Why are you thinking so small? Just get this out on the internet and let people everywhere start to do it.” Because by that time I had about, I don’t know, quite a few interviews in the can, that I had just been taping at a local TV station and was going to hopefully use them on the radio show. Anyway, so an old friend of mine from high school, whom I hadn’t seen since high school, has been a video professional all his life. He said, “Send them to me and I’ll put titles on them and you can start using them.” So he did that and I figured out how to create a YouTube channel and a website. I had some background in computers, so it wasn’t all impossible to me. Just one thing led to the next, and after a while I figured out how to record interviews over Skype. And, so then I was able to reach out beyond the town and really start interviewing a lot more people. And, there have always been technical glitches and challenges and everything. I’m still having them. I have them every week. But it’s been a learning curve. Anyway, these days I’ve done nearly 500 interviews and I have every intention of continuing. I never grow bored or tired of it. I love it. It’s like opening a Christmas present every week. I get to delve into some new person and listen to hours of their talks and read their book and then have a two-hour conversation with them. I just find it so enlivening and stimulating. It seems to be having a good effect on people. We get wonderful feedback. Nearly a quarter of a million people a month either watch or listen to them or at least download the podcast. I don’t know if they listen to it. So it has a pretty wide reach. My initial conception of it was to make it freely available and just grow it to the point where voluntary donations would enable me to devote my full time to it. And that finally happened. I finally quit the remnants of my day job last March. [applause] So about my talk here at the conference, I offered to let Maurizio and Zaya off the hook, you know, because they have a lot of speakers and there’s always demand for time and rooms. I said, “I don’t have to give a talk.” And they said, “Well, we’d like you to give a talk.” So I said, “All right. I think I’ll just do a Q & A.” And I jotted down some points here that I thought I could discuss if nobody has any questions or things they’d like me to discuss. I have something to fall back on here. But I’d like to just open it up right now to any kinds of questions you might have for me. And we’ll just let it roll for the next 35 minutes or so. So anyone who has a question, be sure you get the mic first because this is being recorded. I might even put it on backup. I don’t know. I have a fairly broad view of what spirituality is. I don’t think God is a one-trick pony. I think that there are innumerable channels and rivers and streams in the spiritual current. And that as diverse as nature is, as diverse as humanity is, spirituality is also that diverse. And I mean, there are 40 billion earth-like planets in our galaxy and an estimated 10 trillion galaxies. And probably many of those planets are inhabited by intelligent life. And probably there have been hundreds of religions or spiritual paths on each of those planets, many of them assuming that they’re the only true one. So I definitely don’t have that. If you take a God’s eye view of it, the universe is vast and the whole thing is one big evolution machine. And all these life forms are evolving into more and more complex vehicles for the divine to live as a living reality. And I’m going way off the beam of your question. But that’s my kind of big picture view of the whole thing. And so I try to choose people who I feel are genuine and who have some experiential foundation for what they’re saying, unless they’re a scientist or something who wants to talk about consciousness and the brain or something like that, who may not have a lot of experience but is on topic. And we don’t choose people. There are some podcasts and shows which try to choose people based on how popular they are because it grows the show. And sure, I like to interview those types of people a lot of times because they’re popular because they actually have something to say usually. But it’s great to find people who are completely unknowns, who are just driving a truck or something and they’ve had a spiritual awakening. Because again, back to the original point, it inspires people to realize that ordinary people like them can have access to these deeper realities. It’s not for the special person.

Audience member:  Yes, sir. Well, I’ve actually thought about what it would be like to interview you. I’ve thought about that would be very fascinating. The kinds of questions that come to me… is this working?

Rick: It’s working. It’s working.

Audience member:  Ok. The kind of question you just asked is the kind of question that I’ve been asking myself, which is what would I ask Rick? Well, I would want to know, hear about his impressions of some of the people that he has interviewed. So there’s an outline because 500 interviews is pretty intimidating. I’ve heard of some of them, and the few that I’ve listened to have all been very interesting. But I’m wondering, well, how would I pick and choose among most of the people who I don’t know anything about? So the kinds of questions that come to mind, well, who have been the most moving to you? What passages or things that people have said have been the most interesting to you or most provocative? And just your impressions of the different kinds of, basically your impressions of the different people you’ve heard. I mean, there’s so many questions that would sort of, I think would, if they were sort of written out, could really serve as a useful guide to us in terms of helping us say, “Well, I think based on what Rick said, this person I think I’d really like to listen to what they’ve said.” So I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist of what I’m saying.

Rick: Well, there’s two pages on the site that you might find helpful. There’s one that’s most popular, and that’s in terms of YouTube views. But I was talking to my friends who were sitting here in the audience the other night, and they’ve listened to a lot of interviews. They said, “You know, this most popular thing doesn’t necessarily correlate with how interesting they are, at least to us.” And I would agree with that, because, you know… And then the second thing is we have a categorical index page where everything is broken down by tradition and various subtopics. So if you want to zoom in on Kashmir Shaivism or something, you can see the people that have been interviewed in that. And in terms of my own impressions, most of the time when I interview somebody, I just finish and I go out into the kitchen to have lunch, Irene asks, “Well, how did you like it? On a scale of 1 to 10, what was that one?” And I usually say, “A 9.” [laughter] Because–occasionally a 10. Because I really love the process, and I really usually get off on every conversation. And it’s funny, I’m going to interview Thomas Hubl, Saturday night, and he’s going to be speaking here also, and I went back and listened to the one we did about five years ago, and I thought, “Wow, that was really an interesting conversation.” I’d completely forgotten everything we had talked about, you know, 500 interviews. I can’t possibly remember what went on in any one conversation. But I thought, “That was really interesting.” So I guess there’s a lot of things there which, to me, would be hidden gems, because I’ve forgotten about them. And as far as, I don’t like to name favorites. I mean, there are a number of people who have become good friends of mine who I’ve interviewed, some well-known, some not so much. And it’s been one of the greatest joys of this whole process to meet such wonderful people and to kind of build this network of friends from all over the world, people whom I otherwise never would have met. So I’m remaining intentionally vague because it’s really… I don’t want to name personal favorites because that’s a subjective judgment, and my personal favorite might not be yours. So you just have to sort of see who you resonate with, I guess. Is that satisfactory?

Audience member:  Well, partially, but I was thinking that if you were to specify qualities like,

Audience member:  Excuse me.

Rick: mike.

Audience member:  I’m sorry. Most intriguing or most mysterious or most brilliant or sort of break it down into…

Rick: Most likely to succeed in business or something.

Audience member:  Well, yeah, okay. Most surprising, most inscrutable. I mean, I think there’s a long list of ways you could break it down that wouldn’t be just your summary ranking.

Rick: Yeah.

Audience member:  Just as a topic, just as a list of most popular or most, by categories, I think there are ways you could create new categories in terms of just using adjectives that are variants on interesting and different kinds of ways.

Rick: Yeah. I could even theoretically build some kind of a voting system where people could all vote on. I tried that one time. I tried putting up a voting system, but it wasn’t objective. People were just voting on the most recent ones, and older ones were totally ignored. But I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Yeah, you too, Pat. Well, they just have thumbs up, thumbs down, basically. Righty.

Audience member:  Rick, first of all, I want to greatly thank you guys on the community side. What you have done is an amazing sense of service to the whole community. Thanks and gratitude from all.

Rick: Thank you.

Audience member:  In fact, we ourselves have been looking around, stumbled on your site. We’ve been finding your site. The interviews are great for all of us. We’re kind of learning more from the interviews than the books itself. Besides saying that, my question is two-folded. What is your common thread of experience you’ve gained the last 500 interviews, anything common, insights, more importantly? Has it spiritually grown your own spiritual path as well? How have you evolved listening to the 500 interviews and being part of it? That’s number one. And second, number two, is what do you see a year from now, three years from now, five years from now, BatGap.com?

Rick: Well, it has a powerful influence on me. I’ve been meditating regularly a couple hours a day at least for over 50 years, and that’s had a great effect. But this process of interviewing all these people is a whole new engine on the train. It says in various scriptures, I think, in various traditions, that if you’re really serious about this enlightenment business, it’s really good to keep your attention on it and hang around with people who are of like mind. So this is a way that allows me to keep my attention on it. I just love it and never grow tired of it. From the time I get up in the morning, I usually put earbuds in, and I start listening to something while I brush my teeth, and I’ll be listening to something while I cut the grass or while I drive to the store or whatever. And then in the evenings, and then there’s a lot of technical and administrative stuff to do during the day, hours of that. But then in the evenings, I’m usually sitting reading a book in preparation for the next thing. So just having my attention so absorbed in it day in and day out has been very beneficial. I think it’s really broadened and matured my understanding and my appreciation, as I was saying earlier, of the diversity in the spiritual world. But then the process itself is extremely enlivening in an interesting way. When I’m actually doing the interview, I kind of settle in and mind-meld in a way with the person I’m talking to, you know that term from Star Trek. And I, sometimes my body actually goes through some little conniptions as it’s adjusting to the energy of who I’m talking to and what I’m doing. I can sort of feel channels clearing or something. But then usually I kind of get in a certain groove, and it just flows. While I’m talking to the person, there’s this kind of settling back into the self and just sort of being observant of subtle impulses or intuitive impulses of you know, where to take the conversation. And they kind of just bubble around while the person is talking, and then one of them will kind of bubble to the front, and that’ll be the next question I’ll ask. So it’s sort of a discriminative practice in a way, an introspective discriminative practice to actually do the interviews. It just has a marvelous effect on me. It has a refining kind of influence and energizing and enlivening. Often I’ll come out from doing an interview, and Irene will say, “It looks like I’ve just been out jogging or something because my cheeks are all rosy, and I just feel like this flush of energy from it.” So I guess that answers the question of what effect it’s had on me. I just feel like it’s real evolutionary. And there’s another angle on that too, which is that I think many of you have experienced this, that when you put yourself in the service of the divine, however you define that and whatever the form of service, it’s almost like the gods sort of say, “Hey boys, we’ve got a live one here. Let’s give him some juice,” you know? And you kind of get, to mix metaphors, you get sort of the wind at your back, and there’s a lot of support and subtle support for what you’re doing because it serves a larger purpose. And as far as the future of BatGap is concerned, I don’t have any specific goals or plans. It just keeps rolling along. It kind of has a life of its own, and you never know what direction it’s going to grow in. And there are certain people I’d like to interview that hopefully will happen. I’ve got a couple of people who have spoken to Eckhart Tolle on my behalf directly, and he’s expressed interest. I don’t know if it’ll happen. I’ve had my sights on Sam Harris for years, and I’m a little scared of Sam Harris because he’s so brilliant, and he could wipe the floor with me in a one-on-one conversation, but I have this thought to include a quantum physicist in the conversation who has written papers about whether consciousness and the unified field are one and the same, and then to sort of let the two kind of battle it out while I sit and watch. So there’s that kind of thing where I kind of have goals of talking to this, that, or the other person. So I hope that answers your question. Yeah.

Audience member:  Hi, Rick. Thank you. I just want to thank you again, too, because as a newly awakened spiritual being, your show is such a great resource, and I’ve learned a lot. My question is, because I’m newly awakened, I’m in my 50s, I’m having a lot of problems with family.

Rick: Family?

Audience member:  Family. So what would your advice be on how to deal with people who, you know, they don’t understand the awakening thing?

Rick: Yeah. Sure. Well, Ram Dass said that if you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family. [laughter] So I don’t know. It’s like you don’t, if the family is aggressively opposed to who you are and what you’re doing and all that stuff, that could be difficult. But if they’re not, then live and let live. Everybody has their own path, and everybody has their own evolutionary destiny and journey, and, you know, just relate to them on their own level. Humility. And there’s a saying in India, when the mango tree is, when the mangoes are ripe, the branches bow down, so it’s easy for people to pick them. So you can, I think part of being a spiritual teacher, if one wants to assume that role, is being able to meet people at their own level, whatever it may be. And perhaps also to realize that there are many people who are at levels that we have not yet attained ourselves or experienced. And some people take objection to the whole notion of levels because it’s all one, and how could there be levels within oneness, but that’s a whole other conversation. But anyway, just be tolerant, be patient. Don’t be judgmental. Everybody is a remarkable, beautiful person. And, I mean, this kind of thing comes up with political differences in families and religious differences and all sorts of things. And I think families and other kinds of relationships are an evolutionary opportunity for us, and they can help to culture patience, which I think is one of the most important qualities on the spiritual path, patience.

Audience member:  Compassion. I feel like you’re speaking of compassion.

Rick: Compassion, flexibility, tolerance. Yeah, fellow in the back. Oh, fellow right here.

Audience member:  Hi. My question is about your experience, knowledge, and all you’ve interviewed and experienced about enlightenment experiences, about, you know, how they show up for different people, meaning once people have these kinds of experiences, what insight can you share for people who still have a grounding in it, but it’s not hugely, you know, just wildly showing up in their life? Talk about the nuances of what you’ve seen with people on enlightenment experiences and how that bears out for these different people.

Rick: Okay. I hope I understand your question. And if I don’t, then please clarify it. But, are you asking about how enlightenment experiences might differ from one person to the next? Is that part of it? And how it sort of pertains to their regular human life?

Audience member:  I would say more like weeks, months, a year or more later, when it isn’t profoundly there, and yet one has had these experiences.

Rick: You had glimpses or something?

Audience member:  Yeah, substantial experiences that clearly, you know,

Rick: Yeah.

Audience member:  Yeah, just sort of speaking.

Rick: Are you referring to yourself?

Audience member:  I am, yeah. And in general, but for my own curious. And it isn’t a huge thing that drives me nuts or anything, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to just…

Rick: Well, again, obviously everybody has a different path and different experiences. Is that Sean in the back? Yeah, hi. I interviewed Sean Webb yesterday, and he had a remarkable thing happen to him where he didn’t have much experience. He was a materialist and a Republican and, you know, kind of an atheist and all that stuff. Not that Republicans are necessarily atheists, but in fact, most of them say they’re not. He started this Zen practice, and within a few weeks, he suddenly had this huge awakening. He woke up the next morning, and he believed in God. He found himself aligning with the Democrats. And he had to go to work and pay the mortgage and so on. And it was this profound shift that was abiding, and he ended up just going back to work, and all the stuff that was stressing him out and making his life miserable didn’t bother him the least anymore, and he found that he was actually more effective at work. That’s a rare case, because usually a person doesn’t have a dramatic shift and then be able to function normally. I mean, Eckhart Tolle sat on a park bench for a couple of years after his awakening, you know, feeding the squirrels. And usually, most people, some people do have these radical shifts. It’s usually somewhat incapacitating if it’s really radical, and they take a long time to be able to get back to normal functioning. But most people, I would say, shift much more incrementally and gradually over many years, and that’s good. I mean, well, it’s good however it happens, I guess, but you have a chance to integrate as you go along, to stabilize, to, there’s a metaphor they used to use in India about dyeing the cloth. If you want to dye a white cloth a particular color, you dip it in the dye, and then you take it out and bleach it in the sun. And it tends to lose most of its color in the sun, but a little bit is left. And then you dip it again, and then bleach it in the sun again, and more color is left. And you keep doing that until it becomes colorfast, whether it’s in the sun or not. And so I think for most people, spiritual development is an incremental process that will continue over our life, our entire life. And will continue to grow, and will continue to become acclimated to functioning in higher and higher levels of consciousness. I think that, this is hypothetical, because it couldn’t really happen this way. But if I were to, and I’m speaking of my own experience, but probably this applies to everybody– if I were to somehow snap back to where I was 50 years ago, even though I was reasonably happy and functional 50 years ago, I would probably be in complete agony compared to how I feel now all the time. And conversely, if I were to go from where I was 50 years ago to this, I would probably, it would be probably overwhelming bliss. I probably, again, wouldn’t be able to function, because it would just be too much. But it’s been incremental over all these years. And so you just keep, and of course, you’ve all heard the term “neuroplasticity,” where the brain doesn’t transform overnight, but it actually does. It’s the most malleable organ in the body, and it does transform, sometimes very profoundly, over many years of development and practice. Does that answer your question? Okay, good. Thanks.

Audience member:  Hi, Rick.

Rick: Oh, Terry. Good to see you.

Audience member:  Yeah, good to see you. As I’ve sat here, I’ve reflected on how, in a way, you’ve been a naturalist of the process of awakening as it has shown up in ordinary and extraordinary lives in a varied way. And when I started my Beyond Awakening series…

Rick: Which I’ve listened to many of, by the way. This guy’s a great interviewer, Terry Patton.

Audience member:  I was very focused on this one question, the sense that we’re at an urgent moment, a tipping point. You know, we just look at the climate science or the ecological predicament or what people are telling us about AI this morning. The sense that we might be at a point where we have to take a leap on a cultural level, is very much before us in many ways. And my sense has been that as more people are awakening, that somehow that awakening can create something different culturally and socially. And yet the way things are actually manifesting, you as a naturalist just having conversations with the incredible variety of honest, vulnerable, authentic people speaking from their direct experience, you’re seeing just a wide, wide range. And you’re choosing to just be of service to helping that be known and seen and be of use to people in whatever way it might be. And yet this question of urgency, this question, “Hey, this has to become something that makes a cultural difference,” or this nice, natural awakening that’s happening for more and more people and gradual or sudden isn’t going to continue, that we have that urgency. How are you finding yourself relating to that issue now over time as this is refracted through this whole tour of deepening experience?

Rick: Good question. I agree with you, and of course many, many, many other people are voicing the same concern that we’re at a tipping point, many tipping points, and there are any number of things which could do us in. And then on the other hand, we have this spiritual epidemic that seems to be taking place, and we have the technology to propagate it, which we didn’t have 50 years ago or even 25 years ago. And I kind of have a feeling that this spiritual thing that’s arising is almost like the planet’s immune system kicking in in response to the dire crises that we face. And that ultimately, although obviously there need to be all kinds of practical solutions on the level of alternative energies and all kinds of things, but that ultimately the solution is, the problem and the solution are spiritual ones. And that the spiritual influx or uprising or awakening that seems to be taking place is nature’s, if we want to say nature’s response to the kind of dire situation we’re in. And as far as urgency is concerned, nature does have a sense of its own timing. I was eating breakfast with Deepak and a few others this morning, and Deepak was saying he didn’t think that, he thought it was going to take a generation or two before the entrenched scientific paradigm gave way to something better, something more along the lines that we would all appreciate. And that it was really going to be a matter… I forget who it was, but somebody said that science progresses through a series of funerals, that people are really never going to change their ways very much, and it’s just a matter of younger generations coming in and thinking in new ways. But maybe we don’t have that kind of time. And maybe there will be some kind of 11th hour, you know, solution that I’m spacing out a little bit, but I don’t know, I think that if indeed this spiritual development we’re seeing all over the planet, uprising of it, is nature’s immune system kicking in, I guess there’s no guarantee that we’re not going to die of the disease, but I like to be optimistic and think that the immune system will get the better of it, and that somehow the enlivenment of the field of consciousness through all the people who are enlivening it will, you knnow…I was having an interesting conversation with David Buckland yesterday, that’ll also be coming up on BatGap, he’s sitting here in the front row, he was describing his experience of devatas, or deeper impulses of intelligence that reside within the physiology. And remember the Buddha said when he woke up it’s like all beings woke up, and David is describing his own experience of this, and how these devatas are waking up within his own physiology as a result of his awakening, but that they’re not limited to his physiology, they’re in everyone’s physiology. Some of them are just local, but some of them are universal. And so as they wake up within us, we are instrumental in enabling them to wake up within everyone, and this might be kind of an explanation of the mechanics through which awakening can propagate, rather than just thinking of consciousness as some kind of amorphous, plain vanilla field that’s somehow getting more lively, and everyone’s going to, a rising tide is going to lift all boats. It might help to explain the mechanics of that. So I don’t know if that answers your question. Hopefully it does. Okay, good. Whoever has the mic, yes.

Sonia: Thank you. Hi, Rick, I’m Sonia. In a community of spiritual teachers, I notice that each one is so brilliantly unique, and at the same time there’s a lot of resonance, and I was wondering if across 500 interviews you’ve come across teachings that surprised you, that were sort of illuminating a missing piece in the community or in the field of teaching. Does that make sense?

Rick: Well, there are certain areas that are so outside my wheelhouse, if that’s the right phrase, that I haven’t really delved into them that much. Although I had some experiences in the ’60s, I haven’t really entered the whole psychedelic area too much in terms of interviewing people, although I have… I’m planning to try to get Michael Pollan and another fellow named Christopher Bache, who I interviewed about five years ago. And then there’s a whole shamanic area, which is a little bit alien to me. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s just not in my experience. So I try to be as kind of all-embracing as possible in terms of all kinds of traditions and teachings and everything else, but there are some with which I’m much more conversant, like if I’m talking to people with an Advaita background or something, than with others. But that’s part of the joy and challenge of it, is to expand my own boundaries and to become more conversant and familiar with other things. This fellow, could you use the microphone? He has one back there. OK, good. Yeah.

Vijay: So, my name is Vijay, and I’m from here, from Silicon Valley. I’m a tech guy, and all this stuff. I’ve been kind of traveling this whole journey, and I’ve also listened to… Four years ago, I listened to your first interview, and I actually got transformed in a way, differently. I mean, not transformed in terms of getting awakened or something, but I saw how this technology world here is so much related to the traditional world. I’m from Kashmir, and you talked about Kashmir Shaivism, and I used to, I grew up practicing stuff, rituals, that I had no clue what that means. But when I listened to some of the interviews you had with Sally Kempton and Paul Muller-Ortega.

Rick: Yeah, Ortega.

Vijay: I heard all of those, and I certainly saw the rituals and all that I was performing were so powerful. And the whole community had completely been uprooted from its original setting and scattered all over the world because of the terrorism, and we were kind of a dying race. And listening to what you guys had to say, I said, “Oh, we have relevance.” And I think I first wanted to acknowledge the power of your interviews in making an extinct culture grow again, because we spread this message about our relevance, and so we are not extinct. But, my question is, you know, now we have… I just came from this morning, and artificial intelligence and all that conference, Silicon Valley conference, and came here, and I see all of these new frontiers coming up, and you have done so many interviews with, like you said, quantum physicists and technologists and physiologists and so on, and spiritualists. So do you see this convergence happening more and more at the pace at which it is required, or are we going to be taken over by the industry 4.0 and kind of taken away from this? I mean, in all of us, our heritage, for example, mine, was kind of lying dormant and was kind of gone, and in similar cases all over the world, I’m sure there are similar traditions which are kind of dying out, and people can see the relevance of all of those, and that can help this spiritual thing as against this other tide of industry 4.0 and other things like that. Do you see anything? What is your perspective on how the balance is and how the evolution is happening?

Rick: Well, as this conference sort of demonstrates, I don’t think that there is any fundamental incompatibility between science and spirituality or technology and spirituality, but I mean, and hopefully I’ll address your question here, I don’t think that… I think that science and spirituality both need each other, and science needs spirituality because, firstly, without that foundation, it doesn’t have the sort of moral compass to be really a benign force in the world and is on the verge of destroying us in various ways. Obviously, there are many good things, but it’s due to scientific advancements in a way, or supposed advancements, that we’re capable of creating global warming which could wipe us all out. And another reason science needs spirituality is that science, by definition, wants to understand how the universe works, and it devises various instruments and tools to assist with that, you know, the Large Hadron Collider and the Hubble Telescope and all kinds of things. The human nervous system is a tool, it’s an instrument, far more sophisticated than the Large Hadron Collider. And the ancients in various cultures knew how to use this tool in such a way as to explore subtle realities of the way the universe works. And I think that, even from an academic perspective of wanting to understand how the universe works, that’s an interesting thing, that’s something that should interest science, but I think it also has practical implications, for the reason I just mentioned, about being attuned to, sort of, nature’s intelligence as opposed to just using individual human intelligence and our individual human free will in ways which can be quite blind and destructive. Spirituality needs science, on the other hand, because spirituality, in many, can get very weird, without sort of an empirical attitude. It can go way off on tangents, believing far-fetched things that have no chance of verification. Scientific approaches can even enable, it can weed things out, it can sort out what works from what doesn’t and prevent people from wasting a lot of time on things that don’t work. This fellow has been wanting to ask a question. Is this his mic?

Jeremy:  I was wondering, Rick, I’m Jeremy from Virginia Beach. Good to see you, and thank you so much for all the work you’re doing.

Rick: Yeah. Yes, indeed.

Jeremy:  Great place. I was just wondering, through all of the work you’re doing, has it helped to formulate kind of like a paradigm for yourself about where to go with.. meaning in the sense of materialist paradigm, awareness paradigm, and following that through, that therefore would we then start with the assumption that awareness is the number one kind of place to start, or consciousness, versus, again, in the materialistic paradigm, it’s going to emerge like a brain scientist would say. I mean, has your work taken… Yeah, right. Has your work then carried you to the point where you yourself end up with a conviction in that arena that has helped you in your personal practice?

Rick: Sure. Well, I’ve had that conviction most of my life, that the materialist paradigm is upside down and that consciousness is fundamental and everything arises from that. And there’s a fellow named Mark Gober or something like that who just gave a great presentation across the hall, and I hope to interview him, we want to do that, on this very topic of science has it upside down. The materialist paradigm that dominates our culture has it upside down. They go from physical matter to this, to chemistry, to biological life, to finally brains, and then consciousness. But if you flip it, just put consciousness at the bottom, and then consciousness gives… from there emerges physical matter, this, that, and the other thing up to brains, and brains are like a receiver, the way television or radio is, of a ubiquitous field. And they filter that field in various ways and often distort it, but that’s where the consciousness comes from, not from some chemical processes in the brain. So I think, and this Mark fellow pointed out, and I agree, that this is actually a pivotal question, perhaps I think his talk was the most significant one at the conference, and that so much rides on putting things aright. It’s like, remember Ptolemaic astronomy, where they thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system. With that assumption, the planetary orbits made no sense whatsoever. They went backwards, forwards, in strange loops, and it was really impossible to figure out what they were doing. But as soon as they put the sun at the center of the solar system, then you have these nice beautiful ellipses, and the whole thing made sense. So I think there’s so many anomalies, and so many things that don’t make sense, like, many things, like psi phenomenon, and reincarnation experiences, and ESP, and all this other stuff, if consciousness is merely a product of the brain, but if consciousness is fundamental, and is a field, and we’re all planted in that field, and transmitting or receiving it, then all these things completely fall into place, and it explains so much. And it also, if we have a materialistic society, which we do, based on that paradigm, then the world is dead, and nature is expendable, and disposable, and usable, and we can do whatever we want with it, and you know, we’ve been doing that much to our peril. But if consciousness is fundamental, and if all this is imbued or permeated by consciousness, then whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me. You love your neighbor as yourself, because your neighbor is yourself. So it completely shifts the perspective. And again, I’ll be happy to continue for as long as people want, as long as the video guys, but if you guys want to go to lunch, and you want me to quit, I’ll wrap it up. Yeah, I can do that too. You can shut down the camera if you want, and people can come up, and we’ll just continue to talk, if you want to shut it down, and go to lunch and stuff. Maybe the mic can stay on, so people can hear. Thank you. [Applause] The next bit of this video is an interview of me by Shakti Caterina Maggi. She was at the S.A.N.D. conference. She’s been on BatGap, and she has a history as a journalist and professional interviewer. And we really hit it off, and became good friends, even more so than we had during the interview. And she wanted to interview me, so we did that. And I thought I would just kind of tag that on to the end of this little Q & A that I did at the S.A.N.D. conference. So that’s what you’re about to see next on this video. Thanks.

Shakti: Hi. Hi, Shakti.

Rick: Hi, Rick.

Shakti: So, you are such a privileged witness of the spiritual arena. You interview, every week, beautiful beings that explore the journey of consciousness in their own way, in various, various paths. And I think there is a few people like you that can have actually a clear view on what is happening right now in spirituality, at least in the West. I would like to ask you, what is, in your feeling, the direction in which us, as consciousness, is moving? Consciousness seems to be blossoming a lot in the latest years. And there are more and more people saying that awakening has been happening, or it’s stabilizing. And so I really would like you to know in which direction you feel that consciousness is moving right now.

Rick: Well, first of all, I want people to know who you are. You are Shakti Caterina Maggi, and I’ve interviewed you on Batgap. And people watching this would probably like to go and watch that interview if they haven’t done so already. And also on BatGap, there is a page for that interview where they can link to your website. I mean, they can follow the link to your website and everything like that.

Shakti: Thank you.

Rick: And we’re out here in California at the Science of Nonduality Conference, and we’ve met in person for the first time. It’s really been delightful. We’ve had breakfast together.

Shakti: Yes.

Rick: We’ve had a chance to talk a little bit. Well, I’ve just started thinking along these lines recently, in the last week or so. I’ve been thinking along these lines of what I’m about to say for a long time, but I’ve just sort of come up with a metaphor that I think helps to explain it a little bit better. Ever since the invention of nuclear weapons, it’s been possible for humanity to wipe itself out. Before that it wasn’t possible. There was plenty of wiping out taking place, but more localized. And, but we managed not to do that for 70 years or so, so that’s good. However, now we’ve devised other ways of wiping ourselves out. And there are many Syrian scientists, and even announcements by the United Nations and all, saying that we may well be on the verge of doing that with climate change. And there will be many ramifications from climate change in terms of mass migrations, of people who are flooded out of cities, and serious problems with hunger, as crops are no longer growable due to drought and inappropriate weather, and all kinds of things like that. We can go on in the details, but I’m sure most people have heard them. So it’s as if the earth itself, if we think of it as a living being, is in a serious crisis mode. And many of us do think of it as a living being, or her as a living being, with an intelligence and an ability to adapt and respond to situations. So, in my opinion, the epidemic or upsurge of spirituality that seems to be happening around the world, is really the earth’s immune system kicking in. And people who are participating in that awakening are like white blood cells or something, that are going through them, and influences being generated, which could potentially counterbalance the situation and save us in the nick of time. Now, people don’t always survive diseases, and the earth may not survive this one. But if it has a chance of surviving, I think it’s not going to be through politics, it’s not going to be through economics, it’s not going to be merely through technology, although all those things will be involved, but it’s going to be through something that’s fundamental to all of those things and to everything, which is consciousness.

Shakti: And I completely agree with you. And I would say that it seems like that consciousness now, also in non-duality, although I would say in every ramification of spirituality, is also interested more and more, not just in the transcending of the sense of separation, but in the inclusion of life in spirituality.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: So life as the expression of the highest spiritual part of us, so life as the embodiment of this consciousness. Would you like to comment on this? Because it seems that also here in Science and Non-Duality Conference, this has been addressed as attendance. The title of this year was “The Mystery of the Human Being.” So it seems like life and nature and human development must be really included in spirituality and not something that is what we try to go away from when we go in spirituality.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: What would you like to say?

Rick: Well, I was eating breakfast this morning with Zaya Benazzo, who she and her husband Maurizio are the organizers of the Science and Non-Duality Conference. And in the opening session of the conference, the two of them gave a talk about how their orientation to the conference has evolved over the past ten years that they have been doing it. And she said that in the beginning they very much had a neti-neti kind of orientation, not this, not this, it is all non-dual, the world is an illusion, let’s just get down to the transcendent and not worry about the world, or about our humanity or anything else, because why bother about something that is an illusion. But they and many others have begun to realize that that is not non-duality. Obviously, if we are excluding something, then we are separating it from something else, and we have duality. So non-duality would have to be inclusive of everything, including our humanness, our humanity, and all sorts of interesting things which we talk about at this conference, and which we, who are talking about these kinds of things all year long, are interested in. So actually I think that consciousness, or whatever we want to call it, has relevance to every field of human endeavor, every field of knowledge, every field of experience, because it is sort of the lifeblood of everything, it is the foundation of everything. Now obviously there are people at the conference who discuss the idea that some think that consciousness is just a product of the brain and that matter is the foundation of everything, but there are many on the cutting edge who feel it is the other way around, consciousness is the foundation of everything, and then matter comes along, and then eventually brains.

Shakti: Probably this misunderstanding is coming because they intend consciousness as human consciousness.

Rick: Right.

Shakti: So I could agree that human consciousness as expression, like consciousness in the human being, comes from matter, but I would say that for people like us that know that consciousness is just openness and void, you can’t really say that consciousness comes from matter, but matter comes from emptiness, that is consciousness. So probably it is just maybe a matter of terminology of what we intend.

Rick: Yeah. Also, for someone whose whole worldview is that matter is real, and that things that can’t be touched or measured shouldn’t be taken seriously, it is very difficult for them to discuss the possibility that consciousness is more real than anything and is the foundation of everything. But it shouldn’t be that difficult, because for over a hundred years now, scientists have been talking about the quantum field and all kinds of things that are very difficult to measure. And even now, the Higgs boson was recently discovered, and certain things… well, point made. And there is an analogy I often use, I think I used it in my talk at the conference, which is that in Ptolemaic astronomy, that system of understanding where the earth was thought to be the center of the solar system, it was really difficult to understand the movements of the planets, because they seemed to be stopping and going backwards, going in little loops and doing all kinds of strange things. But once it was understood that the sun is the center of the solar system, all of a sudden the planets were moving in these nice and beautiful ellipses, and everything was a lot simpler. So there are a lot of anomalies, psi-phenomena, NDEs, and all kinds of interesting things that make no sense to a materialist who feels that matter is predominant and consciousness is just a chemical function of the brain. But if consciousness is understood as fundamental, then the whole thing is flipped on its head, and all these anomalies begin to find a place and can be understood, and can be seen not as conflicting with scientific understanding, but as being an extension of our human quest to know how the universe works. I don’t know if I’ve drifted from your original question, but this is kind of stuff interesting.

Shakti: It makes such a sense, because the thing is, once we understand, we realize that the foundation of everything is pure consciousness, is nothingness, then all the rest makes sense.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: And it’s absolutely true, because in the sense, as you said, in quantum physics since 100 years, we know that basically matter is void, is nothingness. I heard several scientists reminding this these days, so it’s not so weird to say that. I would say that what is interesting maybe is the possibility to find, as humans, to find really the foundation of our being in this transcendence, and from this transcendence that joins us all in the being, being able to approach the problems that we have on the planet as a we, and no more as a separate entity that is moving. And this is happening more and more, and I think this inclusion that the teachers do of life and human broken heartedness and vulnerability is something that is letting consciousness to know more and more the manifested aspect as something that must be included in spirituality, and not just transcended, but transformed in the heart.

Rick: Yeah, and if you ignore it, it’s not going to go away.

Shakti: No, it’s the strongest duality.

RICK: Can’t sweep it under the rug. To me, it’s the strongest duality to separate non-duality from life.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: That’s not true non-duality, so I agree with you. I would like to ask you something else. You have been spending quite some time recently in exploring what is the role of a teacher. You have been meeting many, many teachers in these years that you have been interviewing them, and of course everybody has their own style and everybody has their own way to share their experience, but it seems that sometimes there are common vices that we see, and often they are about sexuality and money and abuse of power of any sort. And with other people, you are creating a kind of movement to let the community to think about it and to see if it’s possible to set a kind of standard, of course in the freedom of everybody to be themselves. Would you like to comment on that?

Rick: Yeah. You and I were just talking to Rupert Spira at the doorstep of the hotel there for about 15 minutes, and he was talking about how he spent about 12 or 13 years with his teacher, Francis of Seel, with no thought of teaching, and he had already had non-dual realization, but he was just attending dozens and dozens of retreats and spending all this time. And at one point Francis said to him, “You didn’t know it, but you were actually becoming qualified as a teacher by doing that.” And then eventually, finally, Rupert came out and started teaching. And he was commenting that these days with the internet, so many people, often young people, have some kind of glimpse or some kind of realization, and they quit their day job and rush right into being a teacher, because it’s kind of a cool thing to do, you know, and it’s inspiring. I mean, I myself became a meditation teacher at the age of 21 and taught for 25 years, but I made no claim to any kind of realization or anything, I was just teaching a technique…

Shakti: Of course.

Rick: that I had been taught.

Rick: But unfortunately, we’ve seen that in the whole spiritual minefield of teachers and movements and organizations and all this stuff, it’s been a crazy scene many times. There have been situations in which people have been hurt, physically, emotionally, sexually, financially, and spirituality should be something beautiful, it should be about God and devotion and oneness and upliftment and even saintliness, and all those beautiful qualities that we ideally associate with it, but it’s been quite a disillusionment for many people that it hasn’t been that way very much.

Shakti: It’s interesting because in the world we spoke a lot about the #MeToo movement, and it has been quite all over the planet, and it seems like it’s involving the spiritual realm as well.

Rick: It is, yeah.

Shakti: And it’s interesting because of course a teacher is still a human being, and he has or she has his own faults or karmic residue to work on, and it doesn’t mean that he cannot teach if they are present. I would say that probably in my perception, a liberated soul is very rare on the planet, and it could be even harder for that soul to remain on the planet, because it would have no duality to be able to manifest as a body, but this is an entire story maybe we speak about another time.

Rick: Well, there have been saints like Anandamayi Ma, Ramana, who were just really out of it for a long time, and Anandamayi Ma often had to be fed and so on. Neem Karoli Baba would kind of wander off into the forest if somebody didn’t keep an eye on him.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And Ramana spent his first period sitting in a cave with insects chewing on his legs, and he was oblivious to that, and then he spent years and years and years in a cave before he began interacting with the public. So these are examples that are inspiring and interesting, but none of us are going to do that.

Shakti: No, of course.

Rick: We’re living lives in the world with all kinds of interactions and responsibilities and things that those people didn’t have to deal with.

Shakti: Yeah, and anyway, that would be an entire subject, and I would have something to comment on what you say, but I will not, because I would like to come back to speak about this. Because what I wanted to say is that, in my perspective, and I want to know what you feel about it, the guru is a function from darkness to light, and the guru function…

Rick: It literally means that, gu -ru, darkness-light.

Shakti: Yeah, exactly. So guru, so it means that this function of the guru, that is not a person, is a function of consciousness itself, can work through bodies that are not perfectly integrated in awakening. And it’s about the student then, to be able to access to that, and recognizing even these faults in the teacher, and being able not to, in a sense, stopping accessing to the energy, because the tool is not perfect, theoretically. But it’s not easy, because the student doesn’t know, he doesn’t know the difference, so he’s very open and vulnerable, and it’s not easy to distinguish what is what. Do you have any suggestion as a long-time seeker?

Rick: Well, when I became a TM teacher back in 19… my course was in 1970, Maharishi said to us, he said, “When there’s a war on, when the war is underway, there’s no time to train sharpshooters, just give them a gun and send them out.” So he was saying, “I realize you guys are a bunch of bozos, but I’m going to give you this technique and I want you to go out and teach people, because there’s a need for it.”

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And we certainly were a bunch of bozos, but we did our best.

Shakti: Of course.

Rick: And Maharishi himself, it turned out, although I didn’t see it at the time, was a work in progress and had certain flaws or shadow situations in his life. But he did a great job, he had a tremendous impact.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: I sometimes think of him as like Babe Ruth, the baseball player who swung for the fences, and a lot of times he struck out but he hit a lot of home runs.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And so I think if teachers are humble enough to acknowledge that they indeed are works in progress and are open to constructive criticism if it comes their way, and don’t try to put themselves on a pedestal or allow others to put them on a pedestal, then the whole thing can be very successful. However, if they don’t do those things, it can become dangerous for them, it can result in, the higher you get on that pedestal, the farther you are going to fall, and you are going to fall. And it can be misleading and a waste of time and money and life for students, although perhaps we learn our lessons that way sometimes. And there are people who have been through some rather serious cult-like scenes, who say, “You know, it was crazy, I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m kind of glad I did it because I learned.”

Shakti: I learned. I totally agree with you that for me the secret of any Master should be to remain a student forever.

Rick: To be what?

Shakti: To remain a student forever.

Rick: Remain a student forever, yes.

Shakti: Inside yourself and letting the teaching go through you and being humble enough to know that the only guru is life.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: And I agree with you. But what I would like to know, if you have any tips for the seekers, I mean, if a student, you know, what do you do when you are drawn to a person and you feel you can learn from that person, and you maybe see certain things that don’t really make sense in you?

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: And what do you do? In Italy we say this, “Do you throw the baby with the dirty water?”

Rick: Yes, we have the same phrase,

Shakti: Ok.

Rick: “Throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Shakti: Yeah, what do you do?

Rick: Sometimes you might want to, you know what I mean? You don’t want that baby.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: But other times, I think, and again it also depends on whether the teacher is honest about the fact that he or she is a work in progress. If they claim perfection and aren’t willing to listen to any criticism or feedback, then the whole situation could get worse and worse and crazier and crazier, as many have done. And so you might not want to stick around that scene. And some people are going to anyway. I mean, anybody can start saying anything and they will get followers. But I think if you are really sincere about spiritual development, if you really want it, and you don’t just want a sort of a daddy figure or a cool bunch of people to hang out with or something like that, but you really want liberation or realization to whatever extent it is possible for you, then you should do your best to culture discernment and discrimination and feel free to question.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And if your questions are seen as threats or attacks or something, even though you are asking them politely, then that is a warning sign. A teacher should be able to, really, in my opinion, a healthy student-teacher relationship should be one in which the student feels free to ask anything, whether it is skeptical or not, as long as it is done in a mature and respectful way. I mean, you don’t want to just be a troublemaker that is just trying to disrupt the whole scene. But if you are sincere and the teacher is sincere, then there should be that trust and honesty where you can ask anything and get some kind of a decent answer. And because a big part of realization is having your doubts dispelled. There are layers after layers after layers of doubts in us and they need to be kind of cleared away layer after layer. And a trusting relationship with a teacher is a process through which they can be cleared.

Shakti: I totally agree with you and I would say in my own experience with my teacher, like seeing vasana, you know,

Rick: Vasanas

Shakti: vasanas in him.

Rick: Which in case people don’t know means like latent impressions that sort of are lodged in the nervous system and might tend to influence your behavior.

Shakti: So it helped me to embrace my own humanity. So it didn’t shadow the light that was shining through him and actually was in a sense his most beautiful gift.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: I never saw him harming anybody, so you know, he never like intentionally harmed anybody.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: I saw unintentionally he might have like make somebody angry because the ego reacts sometimes to being destroyed. So I never saw that, but you know, some inclination. And that helped me to be very like in touch with myself and understanding that it’s not about perfection as the mind thinks of. It’s about inclusion in the heart of anything. So I’m totally with you on this. What I would like to ask you is what do you think that or what do you feel that would be in a sense like, it’s hard to say, like absolute boundaries that a teacher shouldn’t cross? I try to be more specific on this. The nondual teaching in particular is very open. There is no like let’s say an academy that says you are a non-dual teacher. No, you’re not entitled to be a non-dual teacher. And it’s all like it’s all very loose and open and is actually changing in the time. You know, like as you say before, like maybe some years ago, there was more like an inclination towards just transcending everything. Now there seems to be like also an inclination, orientation, communally in like including things. So things change all the time as I think consciousness is learning about itself through us more and more. So say this, do you feel that in this moment, at least the truth of this moment, that there are like absolute boundaries to a behavioral teacher that shouldn’t be crossed? What is?

Rick: Okay, well.

Shakti: Because I just say this more because sometimes, you know, in Sadie’s spirituality, you cannot judge an enlightened soul because even if an enlightened soul is like doing something that is apparently very bad, like sleeping with the wife of somebody else, or like behaving in a way that seems to be not nice to you, someone say you cannot judge it because it’s life force, it’s the universe acting through that to delete the image of you. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing. It’s like an open question to me and I would like to know how you feel about it.

Rick: Yeah, it is an interesting question. Because there is somebody whose interview I took down because I got a pretty reliable report that he was doing some rather disturbing things, not terrible, but along the lines of the stuff you were talking about, you know, sleeping with women behind the scenes and messing around. And it’s like when I do an interview with somebody, it’s like a referral, and I don’t feel like referring people to somebody who might take advantage of them or hurt them in any way.

Shakti: Of course.

Rick: But I ended up corresponding with the guy a little bit afterwards and one of his comments was, “Who are you to judge an awakened person?” Like, basically, “Dude, I can do whatever I want, you don’t understand the way somebody like me operates.” Now it’s funny because in the Vedic literature, you read these stories in the Puranas, in the Itihasas, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and all, and they constantly pull the rug out from under you in terms of getting too comfortable making assumptions about the way things should be and the way even enlightened teachers should behave. But having said that, at the same time, I think that there are certain standards, and they are also very beautifully illustrated in that literature and in the literature of other traditions around the world, and certain universal ethics about how we treat others, and the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, and all kinds of things like that in various traditions. And there is a reason for these things, even if you want to say a selfish reason, because unethical behavior harms you as much as it harms them. It’s like a knife that’s sharp on both ends and doesn’t have a handle. You stab somebody with it, but you also cut your hand.

Shakti: Beautifully said.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: I agree, yeah.

Rick: And so, you may need to do a comeback on that question and make sure I’ve got it.

Shakti: Yeah, I mean, I’m totally with you. In my perspective, there are boundaries. That’s what I feel. And these boundaries are not like, following necessarily the human ethics that changes anyway from country to country.

Rick: Yeah, there’s a culture. I mean, in some countries, polygamy is normal.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And even in the Vedic literature, the Pandavas, five brothers were married to one woman, and they also had other wives, and it was this whole scene that wouldn’t really work in the USA.

Shakti: Yeah, but at the same time, I feel, for instance, like I was quoting you before, that honesty is something that should not be questionable. I mean, if I sleep with your wife, I shouldn’t hide it.

Rick: That’s an interesting point.

Shakti: At least, because that brings up a question, “Who am I protecting when I’m hiding something?” And that for me is ego. So?

Shakti: I heard an interesting story. There’s a very well-respected spiritual teacher, now deceased, I won’t mention his name, but he was having private sessions with various students, and there was this one young woman who was having private sessions with him, and they would do gazing, they would gaze at each other for a couple of hours or whatever. And at one point he just said, “I’m totally in love with you, and I want to sleep with you,” and so on. And she said, “Well, maybe, but it has to be an open… you have to tell your wife, you have to tell the other students if this is going to happen.” And he was like, “No way, I can’t do that.” So, I don’t know if that somehow addresses your point.

Shakti: Yeah, I think that’s the point, because in a sense like, I mean, unavoidably, I would say that a teacher is the perfect mirror of projection. There are like, endless people that will misunderstand you, misjudge you, will project their mom and dad on you endlessly, and often they don’t have a perfect relationship with mom and dad. And so you will receive this projection, and maybe you will even end up, if you’re not still enough, without wanting to act in this projection, because you’re very open both ways. I don’t think it’s just the student that is open. I think it’s also the teacher that is very vulnerable and open.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: So, it’s like it’s working both ways. So, I would say that for me, when you hear stories about teachers, the point is, if there is a clarity and a honesty and say, “No, that actually never happened,” or, “Yes, this happened,” it stands a line very clear in which there is no idea of a personalization of the action. Because when you’re hiding something, it’s because you think you have been doing it, in my perspective. So, there is a sense of separation there. And that sense of separation in hiding creates then, illusion and more and more separation. Unavoidably, you have gossip about teachers. I’m sure there are gossips around me, and maybe I don’t even know them.

Rick: Oh, I would name big, yeah. Yeah, and then, you know, like, who cares?

Rick: You don’t want to know.

Shakti: Yeah, maybe I don’t want to know. But what I’m saying is that if you are transparent, that is at least a guarantee.

Rick: Yeah, it’s something. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all the behavior is right, even if you’re transparent about it. I mean, there were orgies around Traga Rimposche and Adi Da and so on, and everybody knew what was going on. It wasn’t a big secret, but was that really a healthy environment?

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: Was that really good?

Shakti: Yeah. So, in terms of any kind of absolute guidelines of what is or is not appropriate, I don’t know if anything is absolute, but what we’ve tried to do with this Association of Professional Spiritual Teachers is come up with a code of ethics that’s reasonable in light of our culture, in light of common sense, and in light of the motivation that people don’t get hurt or taken advantage of in any way, and that teachers should at the very least not be hurting people, they should be helping people, and so on. And it’s a work in progress. These guidelines are not cut in stone, coming down from Mount Sinai. There’s something which could always be revised or improved or clarified or something, but the feeling was just there needs to be something more…

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: in the conversation.

Shakti: At least in the field.

Rick: Yeah, it should just be more out there, so that we’re all talking about this and that we think about it and that maybe we prevent some of these train wrecks that have been happening.

Shakti: I would like to have a last question for you. Very often, especially in duality, it’s clearly said, “You either see it or you don’t.” But then you have, and it’s true, you either see it or you don’t, but then there is almost an endless variation of integration of this seeing, and there are many different teachers that express this integration on their own level. And I’m just curious about your impression on it, because there are so many new teachers and so many also already established teachers around, and sometimes, because it seems that integration is different, it seems like they are almost even contradicting each other. So, what is what?

Rick: Well, firstly, in terms of seeing it or you don’t, even the seeing of it is going to differ from person to person, aside from any question of integration.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And there’s explanations of that in terms of the constituents of one’s physiology, whether different gunas are predominant and so on. For some, there might be an emphasis on no sense of a personal self, and others, it might seem very much, “Oh, I am that,” there is a sense of “I,” but it’s universal. And others might see the world as illusory, and others might see the world as divine, and they’ve all had a realization, but they have different hardware through which that realization is being experienced, and so therefore it has different qualities. So what I’m saying is that I think even though the ultimate reality is one and the same, even the cognition of it might vary according,

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: to one’s makeup. But then, in terms of integration, I guess different people have different ways in which integration is needed. We all have different faculties and they are all developed to different degrees in different ways, and we all have different functions to serve in this life. We’re not all going to be or do or say the same thing. And so, there’s always going to be variety. In fact, what I’ve observed in awakened people, and I don’t even like the term “awakened” because it’s too static,

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: It has this kind of superlative…

Shakti: People in awakening.

Rick: final, convergent, yeah, awakening. What I’ve observed is that people become more vivid, more full of differences in a way, with that underlying energy of the self having awoken. Their personalities become more colorful, less drab. So it’s kind of like the Peruvian jungle where there’s plenty of rain and the soil is rich and there’s just this proliferation of variety, of beautiful flowers and all beautiful plants and trees and animals and all that. So I think an awakened world would be kind of like that, metaphorically speaking. There would just be, we wouldn’t all become the same or believe the same or think the same or like the same things or anything else. There would be this tremendous flourishing of creativity and individuality and difference and all, but there would be this kind of unifying harmony, underlying harmony, that would harmonize. Well, that’s what harmony does, it would harmonize all these differences so that they would coexist peacefully and coherently without all the conflict and strife and nonsense that ruins our world today.

Shakti: I ask you this, I resonate with what you say, I ask you this because I think that sometimes for a student it is hard because you find a teacher that seems to make sense and is saying one thing and then you have another teacher that seems to make sense, maybe they have the essence that is very similar, but then it seems to contradict the other. And sometimes it’s confusing, you say, who do you believe in who?

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: To who do you believe, how do you follow that? And so I was interested in your perspective in this differentiation.

Rick: Yeah. Well, you know, I talked to so many hundreds of people and they all have different perspectives, but I put it all in a bigger basket. I feel like, I mean, try to look at it with a God’s eye view. If we think of God as this sort of all-pervading intelligence that contains the whole universe within its or his or her wholeness, then all the differences of opinion and religion and philosophy and everything else all fit in there as components. They may seem to clash if you’re… well, let’s take another example, a wheel, a bicycle wheel. If you’re out on one of the spokes, it looks like you’re separate from all the other spokes, you don’t seem to be connected to them.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: But if you’re at the hub where all the spokes come out, then you see, oh yeah, this spoke comes from me and this spoke comes from me and they all serve a purpose, without them the wheel wouldn’t be a functional wheel.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: And they’re all necessary.

Shakti: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s very beautiful, thank you, as a metaphor. And this actually makes me feel like to make you the very last question, that is this. You, as a student, as a seeker, as a student, sometimes you’re told, don’t go in a spiritual supermarket and shop with various teachers. And speaking about variety, that’s why,

Rick: Right.

Shakti: it came into my mind to say…

Rick: Because you’ll be a dilettante, you’ll be a superficial dabbler.

Shakti: Yeah, and then you take, oh, I take these, this is good for me, then, oh no, that’s too dangerous, I go to another one.

Rick: Yeah.

Shakti: And say, stick with one guru, stick with one teaching, go to the very essence of it and that’s it. What’s your comment on it?

Rick: I think it depends on the stage that you’re at. And I think there could be a stage at which that is really good advice and you shouldn’t just be hopping around. But then maybe even before that stage you should be hopping around because you don’t just want to go commit to the first person you see. You might want to do a little window shopping before you decide to purchase. But then you might reach another stage at which you are kind of stable in your understanding and your practice and everything else. And you might find it enriching to get involved in learning all the different diversities and varieties of,

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: of spirituality and so on. So I think a person just has to… whatever you do, I think it’s good to dig deep and find a practice that works for you and pursue it diligently, if you’re serious about this stuff, I mean, just take it seriously. And you know, as seriously as you would need to take anything that you want to master, like playing the piano or playing tennis or anything else. You’re not just going to get it overnight.

Shakti: Yeah.

Rick: Yeah. I think I’ve answered that question.

Shakti: Yeah, it’s all about like, sincerity, I would say.

Rick: Yeah. That’s a key point. I mean, this thing that we said discernment is very important. I think sincerity, having an ardent desire, if this is what you really want, doesn’t mean you can’t have anything else, but make this a priority. There’s a saying, my teacher used to say, “Highest first.” You know, there’s all kinds of choices and you can’t choose them all at once, but take the highest and do that. And maybe you’ll be able to do a few of these other things also, but make sure the highest is given priority.

Shakti: Thank you so much. It’s been very inspiring to speak with you.

Rick: Thank you, Shakti.

Shakti: Thank you.

Rick: Glad we could do this.

Shakti: Thank you for the service you do with Buddha at the Gas Pump is an incredible opportunity for people to meet all the gems that are available. So thank you for your service. Thank you.

Rick: It’s my joy.

Shakti: And thanks everybody for listening to this.

Rick: Thank you.